In Which We Learn Why Laurel Fears School Yards
I can’t remember having a lot of dreams about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Before the age of 10, I accepted many Oscars in the privacy of my bedroom, considered life as a high-powered lawyer and said I wanted to be a nurse just because the girl sitting next to me in kindergarten wanted to be one, too, but clearly none of that stuck.
It was around third or fourth grade that the notion of “writer” started to percolate in my brain, but it really was more of a slow burn than an overwhelming “aha!” The "aha" came later.
As I grew up, so much of my attention was focused on getting in to college that I don’t think I did a very good job of thinking about what was going to happen after that. Once I finally did consider that I would have to do something after the age of 22, a master’s degree and Ph.D. sounded nice. For awhile, I thought I could live a life devoted to scholarship.
The closest proximity of what I wanted my life to be was something like that of the mom in The Family Stone (spoiler alert: only hopefully without the cancer and dying part). I could see myself in a small college town with an old house full of books and kids. I, of course, would be one of the most popular professors, and I would always dress impeccably despite the rigors of academia (that’s probably the part I messed up on most, see freelance pants). There was me in straight skirts, sweater sets and heels, arms full of papers to grade, running across campus while my adoring students waved and wanted to stop for engaging and thoughtful discussions about writings, theories and treatises.
Then, I became a substitute teacher at 22. I had left my job at the Justice Department in D.C., moved home and needed some cash flow while I figured out my next step. (I didn’t get in to graduate school on my first go-round of applications, so I was right back in that “what to do now that college is over” place.)
Now, I realize substitute teaching isn’t quite the same as full-time teaching. As one HR rep said to me during a job interview, “I mean that’s really more glorified babysitting than teaching. I don’t even know why it’s on your resume.”
He was a charmer.
It didn’t matter though. I couldn’t stand a single moment of it. While I like children, I really do, I prefer them in groups no greater than five. (I kind of like all people that way, really.) I often found the children disobedient, loud and at least in my case, deaf to the sound of my voice.
“I will send you to the principal’s office!” and “You’re giving me a headache” came out of my mouth more often than anything else. Only, I never sent anyone to the principal’s office. (The headaches were real.) I watched the clock and prayed for 3:00.
Even when I transferred to the elementary school from the junior high – as we all know adolescence is such a dark time – it didn’t improve.
And then there were the mornings. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7:45 a.m. just isn’t for me.
I decided I’d be so much better when I was teaching college students. After all, they were at least 18. Surely, they were mature, eager-to-learn and respectful.
During my second year of graduate school, I began my teaching practicum. I couldn’t wait to share my love of writing with my class. This is when my dream would begin to materialize, I thought.
While my first semester wasn’t so bad, the winter was a dark, dark time. Another teacher visited my class once and said it was one of the worst classes she’d ever seen. I’m pretty sure she compared them to “a wolf pack.” (There were a few lovely students, but overall, it was not good.)
In addition to the not listening, I now had outright defiance and even a student who called me a bitch after seeing his grade. Every day felt like it was Lord of the Rings, and I was Piggy.
I chose silent grammar exercises for them and more clock staring for myself.
In my last semester, which happened to be the summer, I was thrilled about the shorter term. I was not as thrilled when one of my students approached me after the first class and said, “Just so you know, if I don’t pass your class, I’m going to file a complaint with the English department and the dean. Your attendance policy doesn’t work for me.”
(I always thought I wouldn’t care if my students cut class or not. They were going to love learning so much; I’d never have to worry about it. They were adults. Then I learned that it really pissed me off to spend hours preparing a lesson and only have half the class show up. Hence, the attendance policy.)
At 26, I was officially done with teaching and the cute little dream that involved a quaint college town and a wrap-around porch.
Two years later, I went back to teaching, but this time it was in a continuing education program. (There was a lot of arm-twisting.) Once my students realized I was the teacher and not another student, the discussions seemed to go pretty smoothly. To my complete surprise, I found that I loved teaching. These students did want to be there. I didn’t care when anyone skipped, and there were genuine moments when I knew I had actually imparted some knowledge.
And as cheesy (and selfish) as it sounds, I learned as much from my students as they hopefully learned from me. I remembered what I loved about writing. I remembered why I did it. I was inspired to go home and tell my own stories.
It seems the median age for all of my students should be 40.
(I’m going to take a brief moment here to challenge that whole “people who can’t do, teach” sentiment. Teaching is really hard. Taking something that is instinctual and habit to you and breaking it down to its basic elements for others is damn hard. When you throw in that not every student learns the same way, so you often have to break a concept down anywhere from one to fifteen different ways, it is even harder. Teachers most definitely deserve our respect, and I give a special shout-out to the ones in junior highs across the country.)
This last week, I was thrown back into a room with over 20 nine and ten-year-olds. I tried, but it was rough, and sometimes it’s rougher when I know how much better other people are at it. (Even though we can’t all be good at everything, I’d prefer it if I was.)
Once my 45-minute class was over (I can spend two and a half hours with adults, and I needed 10 minutes of filler with the kids) and my voice was hoarse and my pride hurt, I pulled one of the counselors who had been at the back of the class aside.
“Can you tell that I don’t normally work with children?”
At least she laughed.
Is There Any Chance This One Is Multiple Choice?
We all get asked a lot of hard questions in life:
“Was someone roller skating in the house?”
“Are there going to be parents there?”
“What do you want to major in?”
“What is 17 squared?”
Most of us figure out the answers -- or pretend we do. (Except for that 17 thing – that’s what calculators are for.) Even when we’re plagued with doubt, there’s usually an answer somewhere, or an answer we lean towards.
Last week, while I was visiting my doctor (aka therapist), she asked me a question that absolutely left me floundering: Where does your self-worth come from?
(I like to think of mental health professionals and animals as the animate team that keeps me sane. The inanimate team includes Diet Coke, red wine, Spanx and my newly-acquired Bissell Spot Bot – because there’s nothing like a vacuum that cleans pet stains itself to give a girl a break when she needs it.)
I feel like this question should have been easy – family, friends, education, job, relationship. Anything really, from my knitting prowess to my hair (which when I try, is pretty awesome) would have been an OK start. Instead, I just stared straight ahead for about 20-30 seconds.
(For those of you who haven’t been in therapy, that’s like eons in mental health time. After all, there’s just you and one other person in the office, and the other person is constantly evaluating whether or not you might be about to lose it.)
I don’t bring up this subject because I need lots of comments about what my self-worth should be or how nice/awful I am, I mention it because I don’t think it’s a question I’ve ever really considered, and I was shocked that when it was put to me point blank, I didn’t have anything to say. Eventually, I could provide some answers, but its still been rattling around up there.
“Where does your self-worth come from?”
If it came from a job, 2009 sure put a big dent there. Relationships? For me, that’s a constant learning process and it gives too much power over to others. Family, friends, home improvement projects – none of that is ever going to be perfect, and you can’t control anyone else. So, in theory, self-worth should always come from within, but how does anyone really do that? Maybe I’m not well-adjusted enough, but it’s hard for me to imagine a sense of self-worth that couldn’t be shaken by a bad hair day, a fight with my sister or screwing up a task at work.
I suppose the point is to not only trust yourself, but to like yourself, and when self-doubt creeps in, to cut yourself a break and do the best you can to bounce back. Maybe there is no such thing as rock-solid self-esteem. Maybe if I had it, I wouldn’t be a writer. Who knows? I think I’ll be working on the answer to this one for a bit longer.
Two hundred eighty-nine seems so much easier in comparison.
Kids These Days And Some Women's History
In my 9th grade history class, I ended up on a group project with some other girls that was to be a mural entitled “A Century of Women: 1890-1990,” or something like that.
Now, since we weren’t actually painting on a wall – the whole thing was down on a long roll of butcher block paper – and I can’t draw to save my life, I’m not sure why this was our chosen medium of expression (or why we called it a “mural” instead of a “painting”), but there you have it. I can be pretty sure that the women’s history part was my idea since studying is something I was good at.
I had the early years, 1890-1920, and what stuck with me the most after all of that research is how the invention of the washing machine, and later the vacuum, blender, and every other appliance a man should never buy a woman on a romantic holiday, affected women’s lives. While everyone claimed that these products would make women's lives easier, it was the exact opposite that occurred. Instead of being free from the kitchen and laundry for other pursuits, women were just expected to get more done in a day.
Even then, it seemed like a raw deal.
Twenty years later or so, I feel the same way about technology. Only, whereas my industrious forebearers kept house and tended to families, I use the Internet and Netflix to watch every episode of every random television series I’ve ever liked and play way too much spider solitaire. I haven’t created more free time, but I have created more wasted time.
And even though it might seem frivolous, I do think children of this generation are completely missing out on the struggle it used to take to watch your favorite show. Without DVR or TV on DVD or the beloved live-streaming Netflix, you actually had to be home when your show was on. And, if heaven forbid you weren’t home, you had to trust a crazy contraption called the VCR to record if for you. That was a 50/50 shot at best. How many times did you rush home only to find that you had snow on tape instead of The Cosby Show?
I’m going to guess it happened more than once.
To this day, the only episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer I haven’t seen has to do with a drive from D.C. to Birmingham and an ill-timed VCR. (I plan to correct this shortly thanks to Netflix, but it was still rough. It was the one where Buffy and Spike finally did it for God’s sake. It left my friend Margaret and I with nothing to discuss for most of that Thanksgiving break.)
Perhaps sadder yet (on many levels, this is a dork story if there ever was one), around the time I was 14, I decided to make it my mission to watch every episode of Quantum Leap. (Again, I know I was weird.) Quantum Leap played in reruns twice a day between 10:00 and 12:00 p.m. So, not only did I have to record the shows, but I had to find the time to watch them somewhere between soccer practice, homework and dinner with the fam.
The episodes were also played in order, so if you missed one, you had to wait for the next go-round for a chance to see it again.
Oh, the struggles of my youth.
I remember when I was only one episode away from completing my goal, when I learned that that one episode was actually called “Trilogy,” so what I thought was one episode was really three.
(I know, it’s hard to believe one adolescent could endure so much.)
"Trilogy" played the week I had soccer camp, so being summer, I could watch it when it was on. I had gotten through the first two episodes just fine. I was finally down to the third episode, and last episode of my saga, which also happened to be a murder trial when, I kid you not, this happened:
Scott Bakula was standing in the courtroom, “I’ll tell you who the murderer is here!”
And my power went out -- one minute from knowing the outcome of a salacious plot line and five minutes from achieving a dream.
The next day at soccer camp was a long one.
Of course, I eventually saw all the episodes of Quantum Leap (and learned that sometimes the worst thing is for a wish to come true – oh, life without new episodes of the greatest time-traveling show the world has ever known can be rough), but it took time and patience.
These days, I don’t need either of those. Can’t recall where you’ve seen an actor before? Imdb.com. Forgot it was Modern Family night? DVR. Don’t like to talk to pizza delivery guys? Order online.
Not only are kids not learning about the potential disappointment of missing a favorite show, they live in a world where everything rests at your fingertips 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Yes, it’s my love/hate relationship with the Internet on display for the world yet again. But, it really does make me wonder where we’ll go from here, and whether or not, like the generations before us, we’re still trading “convenience” for stress, worry and longer and longer work days.
Not Where You Want Your Hand To Go
As I’ve mentioned before, my stress level really tends to show itself at the gas station. Apart from typos I normally wouldn’t miss, an occasional tendency to flip out over what the dogs should or shouldn’t be doing (God help my children if I ever have any) and a mild conviction online shopping can fix my problems, it really takes the service station to bring out my state of mind.
One of my latest trips to fill-up was no exception. Despite my successful efforts to pay at the pump, start the gas flow and even clean out my car, when it was time to leave, I found myself without car keys.
As a pro at losing my car keys, even I was flabbergasted as to how I could have lost what some of my friends refer to as a “janitor key ring” in such a small space and window of time.
After going through the entire car and walking the convenience store, it began to dawn on me that there might only be one place to look. And that one place was also the last place anyone would want to look – the trash can at the pump.
More scared than I’ve been since the last freakish horror movie the SO asked me to watch, I approached the plastic waste bin. Peering over the edge, all I saw at first was the lack of a trash bag and the dark, dirty sides of the trashcan. Within a few seconds, empty Mountain Dew cans and gum came into focus. Then, without fail, I saw the edges of what looked like both my keychain library card and my CVS rewards nob.
There was no denying that if I ever wanted to leave the BP station, I was going to have to go in – barehanded.
As someone with more disinfectant in my purse than cash, it was not a proud moment. Next to dumpster diving and the bins of disposed needles in the doctor’s office, I can imagine few garbage receptacles less appealing than the one at the gas station where they sell porn.
There was lots and lots of hand-washing – surgery-prep style – as soon as I got home.
What might be even worse is that this isn’t the first time I’ve done this. I had to rescue my keys from the trashcan at Goo Goo car wash a few months ago.
So, I leave you with this:
1. Keys are special. Don’t only learn to appreciate them once you’ve had to dig past the accumulated waste of all your fellow road companions.
2. The woman shoulder-deep in the gas station trash bin isn’t always crazy. Sometimes, she’s just really, really tired and should have had caffeine before pumping gas rather than waiting to buy her Diet Coke at the station.
It Feels Like Burning
In evolutionary terms, I’m not sure I was really meant for life in the South. By the standards of nurture, thanks to manners classes, ballroom dancing and some great stationary, I’ve done just fine here. However, if we have to look at nature, I’m not sure this pale, WASP-y body was meant for Alabama.
It’s not just the heat. You see, what comes with or causes the heat is the sun (I told you I never really paid attention in science class), and this fair skin and the sun don’t mix well.
(I’d like to thank my Scottish ancestors for the dark body hair and bushy eyebrows that come with my porcelain complexion. I’m sure if my forefathers had settled in Minnesota, I’d be more than prepared for the winters. Instead, I swelter and invest a lot of money in good tweezers. I guess the Scots never figured that they’d put all the distilleries in the South. (This really is the best reason I can figure for previous generations of my family to pick this region of the U.S.) In my family, you don’t follow the money; you follow the line to the bar.)
Luckily, I’ve had 30+ years to adapt, and I spend good money keeping the sunscreen companies in business, too. Still, every so often, I fail.
A few weeks ago, I didn’t just fail to protect my skin. I think I almost melted it.
I fell asleep reading on the beach, and when I woke up, I felt like I could be a little pink, but I wasn’t too worried.
“Why don’t you toss me some more of that Banana Boat, and I’ll reapply?”
Later that afternoon, I figured out that I was more than a little pink. While my shoulders and thighs could be described as pink/red, my stomach looked like the color of a tomato set on fire and felt about the same.
I dosed myself with Advil, slathered on the aloe and went to bed with a cold Miller Lite – not for drinking, but so I could hold it against my stomach in the night. Even the sheets were unbearable to touch.
For the next five days, I climbed out of chairs like I was eight months pregnant so as not to in any way agitate the skin on my torso and slept clutching either bags of frozen vegetables or frozen bottles of water for some sense of relief.
By day six, I thought I might need to turn to more than Internet forums for help.
In case you’re wondering, this is the advice I shouldn’t have taken:
1. The Vinegar Soak: Despite what the masterminds of the World Wide Web might say, vinegar does not “pull out the burn.” All that really happens is that you have to hope your friends always secretly wanted to know what it was like to spend time with a giant pickle.
2. A Baking Soda Bath: It’s not as stinky, but it’s equally as un-helpful.
3. No store-bought aloe is really better than any other aloe. Just make sure you buy the one with some kind of painkiller in it. I think the effect can be at least mildly psychosomatic.
I headed to my local pharmacy.
“What do y’all have for sunburn?” I said.
“Have you got aloe?” the clerk said.
“We’re a little bit past that,” I said.
“Let’s wait for the pharmacist to get off the phone then.”
While we waited on the pharmacist, the clerk and I discussed a number of different options for my sunburn, and she told me about some of her bad burns. (If nothing else, in a land where tanning beds are still prevalent, I didn’t feel judged for the potentially-hazardous-to-my-future-health slip-up.)
When the pharmacist did come over, I explained the problem.
“We have x, y, z and even a to treat sunburns,” she said. It was a litany of products with names I don’t remember. “How long have you had the sunburn?”
It was then that I decided the only good explanation would be to flash the pharmacist, so in front of her and the clerk, I pulled up my shirt to show them what we were dealing with.
“Foille,” she said. “It has to be Foille.”
It’s amazing how a little visual can take your list of potential saviors from 10 to 1 in a split second.
She was absolutely right about the Foille. If you’re ever in any kind of burn trouble, I highly recommend it. (Plus, it only costs about $4/tube.)
I know that normally one should only flash one’s doctor with skin abnormalities followed by awkward questions, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Nearly a week of burning tomato-colored flesh was my desperate time.
I’m a little embarrassed to go into the pharmacy again this month, considering how I’ve exposed myself to the staff and all, but a girl’s neighborhood pharmacy is a girl’s neighborhood pharmacy.
I’d like to pretend that they’ve forgotten about me, but I have a sinking feeling that the girl without shame and siren red stomach might have made more of an impression than I’d like.
Hot Times In The City
I have a knack for getting myself in trouble in the heat.
When I was 16, I had a mild heat stroke at my parents’ country club on July 4th weekend. I had gone with them to work out when I got slightly overheated. (It’s possible that my failure to exert myself physically in the previous two months might have had something to do with it, too.)
After sitting in front of a fan for 15 minutes or so, I decided to go to the snack bar for something to drink. That’s when I proceeded to faint and start vomiting -- in front of about 30 kids and their parents enjoying the pool over their holiday weekend. Oddly enough, if you know me, throwing up doesn’t bother me, but throwing up in public upsets me immensely. My legs were wobbly, and I was covered in some throw-up and shame. It was every teenager’s dream.
My father found me, scooped me up like a child and carried me to the car, so we could go home.
At 18, as a freshman in college, some friends and I were on our way to the first football game of the season when someone started complaining about the heat.
“You can’t think this is bad,” I said. “You should try living in Alabama.”
Well, I might as well have shot myself in the foot because it wasn’t even 30 minutes later that I had an EMT student checking my vitals and recommending that I get back to my dorm before I had a real heat stroke.
Here comes the weird part of this story: A friend of mine decided to help me back to the dorm, and to do so, she had her arm under me for support. We were ambling along when a frat boy on his way into the stadium yelled, “Lesbians!”
It’s not that I was offended; I just think it’s really strange. It was almost like he thought he was on a road trip and should point out interesting specimens on route to his friends. “Oh my gosh, did you see that deer by the side of the road?” Only this time, his fascinating find was lesbians?
Surely a college male has seen women and women that are close to one another before in his life. Also, everyone else was already in the stadium. There was one, count it, one, person, to hear him, and if he really wanted to be offensive, I’m sure you can imagine the terms we would have expected to hear.
My friend thought his behavior was very rude and would have liked to tell him so, but since I was having a little health issue, we tried to turn it around. We agreed that we would make an incredibly attractive lesbian couple, took it as a compliment and moved on.
However, the hottest I can ever remember being is in the summer of 2003. My friend Annie and I had purchased around the world plane tickets and were on the last leg of our global tour in Italy. There was an infamous heat wave in Europe during the summer of 2003 – to the point that the train was often delayed by melted sections of track.
We were in Venice, and we checked ourselves into the hotel we’d found in our guidebook. Being 23, we thought we’d save money by staying in a hotel without central air.
This was not a good idea.
As Annie later said, “The next time we see a woman lose consciousness in the lobby of a hotel as we check in, it’s probably a sign that we shouldn’t stay there.”
After dinner and some drinks, I feel fairly confident in saying that I then spent the most uncomfortable night of my life trying to fall asleep in that sauna they called a hotel. At one point, I even got up in the middle of the night convinced that a cold shower might save my sanity.
I stepped into the icy cold water only to have it switch to burning hot water within three minutes. I stepped back out of the shower and waited. A few minutes later, there was more cold water, and I climbed back in. Then the hot water came back.
I couldn’t even find cold sink water to save myself. By the time the morning came, I was an angry and nearly insane person.
“We said we’d stay here for two nights,” Annie said.
“I don’t care,” I said, when I decided to speak. I was so angry with Mother Nature or the world or our guidebook – you can pick one --- I didn’t even want to talk. “I don’t care what we have to pay. I can’t spend another night in this misery.”
“But they have our passports.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Believe it or not, I am normally a nice, non-confrontational person. Most of my bad thoughts are just that, thoughts, and when I recount long strings of crazy, confrontational statements, it’s what I wish I’d said, not what I actually did.
This was a different day.
After we had packed, I walked into the hotelier’s office. I had money to pay her for one night in cash and was hell bent on a passport for cash trade. “We’ll be leaving now,” I said. “I’d like our passports back, please.”
“You made reservations for two nights,” she said.
“We changed our mind.”
“But you said you would stay for two nights.”
“Your shower runs boiling hot on the coldest setting.”
“That happens sometimes.”
“That happens sometimes?” My voice was rising at this point, and I thought I might lose it. I wanted to ask where this happens. I thought most of the Western world had conquered plumbing and faucet settings, but we were in a very delicate place in our negotiations. I’d also seen her turn towards the cabinet where our travel documents were, and I wanted to keep what little of my wits I had left since I was pretty sure I was going to get what I wanted.
“In the summer. It is hot here in the summer.”
The idea of a physical attack briefly crossed my mind. As if I didn’t know that summer was the hottest month of the year? Instead, I nodded.
She brought the passports over; I basically snatched them out of her hand, gave her cash with my other hand and was at the door before she could say anything else.
Annie said a little “Thank you,” while I told her to book it out the door before the conversation could go any further.
Still angry – heat makes you crazy, there’s a reason the South has so many more crimes of passion than other areas of the country – we went to find lunch, and half a pizza and some white wine later, I finally felt human again.
Annie found us a great hotel for that night. It was more expensive, but you have no idea what I would have paid for a bucket of ice, let alone an air-conditioned room at that point. When we opened the door to our new room, and I saw a thermostat I could control on the wall, I think I cried tears of joy.
My advice to fellow travelers is to pay attention to those hotel ratings in travel books. Two stars are not enough, three is cutting it close and you will pay in so many non-financial ways if you’re not careful.
Also, if you ever really need an enforcer, deprive me of some AC for a few hours, and it’s like having a hive of angry hornets at your disposal.
When You're Not Out In The Club
Weekend before last, I went up North to hang out with my friend Jane* and meet her new four-month old baby. Our friend Rita joined us, and we had a great time together. On the Saturday afternoon of our weekend, we decided (or really the one of us who is actually a mom decided) to hire a babysitter so that we could go see Bridesmaids (loved it, wish I could be Kristen Wiig, must move on now).
When we got back from the movie, Rita and I decided that it was wine time. This set us off on a slew of questions:
Was the babysitter 21? The answer: yes.
Should we offer the babysitter a glass of wine? I mean, we’re Southern, so it feels rude not to ask, but she is the babysitter and has to drive. We went with “no” on that one.
Is the babysitter going to judge us for drinking at five? Does she think we’re the lush friends of our suburban mom friend? The answer to that one is probably a sad yes.
I could have sworn that yesterday I was babysitting to supplement my income (and due to the Great Recession, “yesterday” is probably closer than you’d think), and suddenly I was on the other side of the babysitter scenario. I do not know when this happened. (In my head, I’m 17. Seriously. I just wish my face would stop giving me away.)
The next day, the babysitter came back so that Jane could drive Rita and I to the train station and the airport, respectively. While I was trying to hide just how much wine S and I actually drank the night before, we struck up another conversation with the babysitter.
“So, did you go out last night?” Rita said.
“Not really,” the babysitter said, “I was pretty tired.”
I decided to ask my own questions about where she liked to go and what there was to do around town.
And then it happened. I should have seen it coming, but it was a little like a freight train – not really welcome, but unstoppable. Within five minutes of what should have been a very innocuous conversation, I started to relive my “glory days” that were, if you know me well, not really so glorious. (I thank the magazine writer who put a piece in something I read about how she spent most of her early ‘20s in a bar bathroom stall crying about some dude or other before getting her act together. It gave me far more hope than any older adult or mental health professional at the time.)
Before I knew it, Rita and I were on a little bit of a roll. These are the kinds of phrases that came out of my mouth:
“I actually had a fake id that said I was 30 for awhile. It came complete with a social security card. Can you believe that?”
“Hey Rita, remember when I used to have a beer or two while I wrote my summer school papers? Did I really think Latin American economic policy and Bud Lite were a good mix?”
“What was that guy’s name we met in Adams Morgan over Spring Break? Didn’t somebody make out with him?”
And my favorite, which I believe I threw in there as I was walking out the door (a parting gift if you will):
“Don’t worry about having a gay ex-boyfriend or two. It happens to all of us.”
?!?!?!
In a way, my hope is that the babysitter got bored and stopped listening to us pretty quickly. Otherwise, I have a sinking suspicion she went home that night hopeful not to turn into the older crazy lady that was disposing of wine bottles and reminiscing about her borderline-indecent going out wardrobe from college.
*Names have been changed.
In The Event Of The End Of The World
I realize that some people think the world might end tomorrow. I’m not actually one of those people, and honestly, I don’t even know what the theory is based on, but I do pay attention to the four stories that pop up on my Yahoo! home page, and May 21 has been getting a lot of attention lately.
I mean, if the world is going to end, it’s not like there’s a lot I can do about it. (Not that this is an excuse to stop recycling or pursuing green initiatives in case there are still any conservatives left in my blog audience.) As I was discussing with a friend over the weekend, I think most generations would almost like to think that the end of the world would come within their lifetimes. It’s a good way to put off the unnerving truth/realization that, most likely, life will go on without us, for generations and generations, and possibly even eons. An ongoing world means we’re all a little more forgettable, and no one wants to be forgettable. (Sorry to get a little dark there.)
I also know some people are freaked out by the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012. Anxiety disorder and all, I think this is one of the least upsetting signs of a possible impending apocalypse. Let’s be real. For a group of people that went out around 1450, I think it’s pretty impressive they even bothered taking the calendar to 2012. How far out front are you supposed to get with those? I doubt anyone is working on day planners with New Yorker cartoons in them for 2415 right now, and I hardly take it as a sign that the world will end whenever the people down at the warehouse decide to stop making kitten calendars.
However, since we never know what can happen, I might need to get a few things off my chest before tomorrow – just in case.
1. I cheated on my menu tests at both La Paz and Calypso Joe’s. I have never cheated on any other tests in my life, but those menus presented some problems. At La Paz, I was a hostess, so I didn’t really see a need to learn the menu. They were going to make me take the test until I passed, so I used the menu as the hard surface on which to take my paper test. (I did learn a little though. That job is the only reason that I know the difference between an enchilada and a burrito is that a burrito is made with a flour tortilla while an enchilada is made with a corn one.) As for Calypso Joe’s, well, that one was just pride. The manager liked to post scores at the end of the day, and I refused to come in behind a bunch of perfect scores because I couldn’t have cared less about what dipping sauce came with the conch fritters.
2. I didn't like Titanic -- or Sex and the City.
3. From the ages of 21-25, I gave out my fake phone number to boys far too many times. It wasn’t very nice, but that’s kind of what happens when you’re a slightly cowardly people pleaser. It’s probably a little late, but I’d like to say I’m sorry anyway.
4. I don’t like the symphony, ballet or opera. I find them boring, and they always remind me of being forced to do educational stuff when I was a kid. (And this is coming from a girl who likes learning new vocabulary words.) If I nod when these topics of conversation come up, I’m only pretending to be cultured (or listening).
5. In the third grade, I stole my classmate's square dancing partner. I had a crush on the tallest boy in class, and square dancing partners were assigned by height. As the shortest girl in class, I was screwed -- and stuck with the boy who got very, very angry every time we played dodge ball in gym. When my classmate was out for a couple of days with a stomach bug, I saw my chance to move up, and we she came back to school, I pretty much implied that our teacher thought the new dance partner relationship was better. (Although, I hardly think our teacher had an opinion about the dancing partners.) Oh, the things we do for love ... And again, sorry about that one.
6. I prefer my dog to a lot of people. I can’t help it. She’s adorable, snuggly and completely non-critical. I should probably have some more love and compassion for humanity, but in general, a lot of my affection goes towards the dog. And that whole thing about there not actually being dogs in heaven if you go by strict theology? (I told you Sunday school was quite upsetting for me.) I’m not pleased.
7. For a few years now, my chest has actually been known as “the rapture.” It was a name that a female friend came up with for my boobs while we were drinking one night. I kind of thought it was awesome (especially since my late-blooming meant I didn't have a chest until the age of 18), and the name stuck. I hope this will not be considered blasphemous during the actual rapture, but clearly I can’t be sure. Even in the end of days, we can all appreciate a good joke, right? Maybe?
Anyway, I look forward to our continued interactions next week when I will most likely be experiencing some shame for what I hope are a few very premature confessions.
A Sunday School Drop-Out Spared
My parents tend to worry – a lot. Kidnapping, hostage-taking, teen pregnancy, drugs, drunk driving – you name a problem; my parents have considered how to keep it from happening to their kids.
There’s only one thing my parents never worried about when it came to me and that had to do with joining a cult. Their theory? “You had so much trouble with conventional religion; we never really figured you’d fall for some extreme splinter group.”
I guess there’s at least one plus to raising a natural skeptic.
My parents both taught Sunday school when I was growing up. My father taught kindergarten, and my mother usually taught sixth grade.
Through what I will claim is no fault of my own, I tended to be a troublemaker in Sunday school class. It’s not that I ever meant to get in trouble; I just like to ask a lot of questions. (Outside of Sunday school, my mother and I spent many hours in the library researching my various topics of interest from why ostriches liked to stick their heads in the sand, how an egg develops and the growth of asparagus.) Curiosity, neurotic-ism or annoyance? You decide.
Wikipedia and IMDB have been Godsends in my adult life.
Long before I knew the difference between evolution and creationism, when one of my Sunday school teachers went over Genesis, I had to ask why she seemed to be in direct conflict with my science teacher. “If the Earth was created in six days, what about the dinosaurs?” I said.
Mrs. Johnson, my science teacher at the time, had explained that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with no humans, and I really didn’t see where Adam and Eve fit in on this time frame.
Then, there was the day our Sunday school teacher came in to explain that “We were all adopted because we were all God’s children, and He had given us to our parents on loan.” (The “on loan” might not be a direct quote, but I promise that that Sunday school teacher was not particularly eloquent.)
I think I started the crying that day, but I know a lot of other kids eventually joined in. I think adoption is lovely, but as a kid who feared learning she was one day adopted, breaking the news this way seemed insensitive to say the least.
I also did not know how much I would upset my first grade Sunday school teacher when I answered the question, “What’s the last movie you all saw?” with “Aliens.” My mom had been out of town, and it was true. I’m sorry she only wanted Disney answers.
Eventually, my Sunday school teachers seemed really tired of my questions, and it could be hard to get them to notice my raised hand, but I’m not one to give up easily.
“Would King Herod really have cut the baby in half? What if none of the moms said anything?”
“How could you really have all of your power in your hair?”
“Wouldn’t the whale’s stomach acid be a problem for Jonah?”
“Just going from Saul to Paul doesn’t seem like a real earth-shattering name change. Wouldn’t Joe or Sam have been more dramatic?”
Apart from making my class the Bible Trivia champion of 1980-something, I was not an asset to most Sunday school classes. (I actually had to share that title with another Sunday school class, a decision I contested and still consider to be an unfair ruling, but the journey to move on continues.)
I don’t know whether or not it was discussed during some sort of Sunday school teacher conference, but from fourth grade on, I spent three years in my mother’s Sunday school class. She was used to my questions, and I imagine my departure from the regular course of Methodist teachings was a relief to many.
So, this Mother’s Day, I’d like to thank my mom for putting up with a lot – from the struggle to define infinity for me to typing up the school newspaper my third grade class dreamed up one day. But, I suppose that most of all, I’d like to thank her for taking me in when no one else was eager to, listening to and trying to find answers to my questions and never making me feel like I was the weird one for going against the flow.
Happy Mother’s Day Mama! I love you!
The Beach, Perfection And Big Wheels
This past weekend I went to the beach, and I was reminded how important it was for me when I was little to create a “perfect” last day vacation memory. Basically, if we were leaving the beach the next morning, I thought that the last time I stepped off the beach the day before needed to be postcard-worthy ideal. (Can we say obsessive much? This is even before that obligatory age when you have to read Our Town, after which I tried desperately to notice life in the moment. I found it exhausting and only made it about two weeks.)
In particular, I remember a time that we were staying at one of those condo units where you had to use a raised bridge to safely cross the street from the beach to your hotel.
On our last day of the trip, I walked up the center of the stairs at sunset (because no perfect memory happens without symmetry or when you’re too close to the hand rail), turned around to face the ocean, took in a deep breath of sea air, and then turned to walk down the center of the bridge – without looking back – towards our condo.
At the time, I thought, “This is a perfect moment.”
Since then, it’s been my experience that trying for perfect moments is more likely to ruin an experience than enhance it. Putting too much pressure on anything other than a bleeding wound usually tends to backfire, and it’s pretty hard to manufacture perfection outside of a movie set. I find imperfection much funnier (usually) as well as a good indicator of whom you should and should not be dating. (I mean, if you’re going to be stuck in the airport for added hours, wouldn’t you far rather it be with someone who can find some fun in the situation rather than the person who yells at every flight crew member they spot?)
Also, being quite flawed myself, a life that didn’t involve embracing imperfection would be pretty darn frustrating. And I just don’t think Thornton Wilder wants that for any of us.
Moving back to what was going to be my core topic, I also remembered some other awesome ideas/beliefs/misconceptions I had as a child. Here are a few of the “brilliant” ideas from my youth:
1. Doctors should use magnets on gunshot wounds. If a bullet is metal, why wouldn’t the magnet just pull it out of the skin?
2. Unicorns – real. Everyone else – confused and unwilling to believe.
3. Drinking and driving applied to any beverage. Therefore, I would not take a coke or water with me before a bicycle or Big Wheel ride.
4. There’s no such thing as infinity. Space may be vast, but it has an ending or borders. It just fit inside a really, really big box.
5. Policemen were mind readers. If you had done anything wrong and were anywhere within their vicinity, they would know – whether it was sneaking cookies or robbing banks.
Truthfully, I’m still holding out hope on #2, and every policeman makes me nervous to this day, but at least I’ve given up on the idea of patenting #1. As for those perfect vacation memories? They have a much broader definition as well. As long as I don’t drown in the ocean, I tend to call it a good day.
R-Rated Souvenirs
I’m not always up to date on the latest lingo and certain slang terms. If you text me any short hand other than LOL or OMG, I’m completely lost. I have recently added IDK (I don’t know) and IRL (in real life) to my vocabulary, but for the longest time I thought an IDK just meant someone had probably been drinking and was having trouble spelling.
Despite my wide range of friends, sub-sets of society with their own terms also tend to be beyond me. (It took me two years, and extensive questioning, to grasp “emo.”)
When I was living in Chicago for the summer, I lived a few blocks north of Wrigley Field and not far from Boystown, a well-known area for gay men. (According to Wikipedia, it was the first recognized gay village in the United States. I’ve learned something new today.) One day, there was a street fair in Boystown, and a friend and I were off to enjoy the festivities. The primary highlight of the day had been a Menudo/Spice Girls style group singing in matching white outfits with different colored sash belts (to represent all the colors of the gay rainbow) until I spotted a carnival game.
A couple of men were standing next to rows of plastic pigs. For a dollar, you could purchase rings to toss around the pigs, and if you rung one, you could choose between some prizes. Condoms were free just for participating, but what I really wanted was this adorable little pig keychain. The booth was sponsored by Steamworks, which I assumed was some kind of gym.
“Can I please borrow a couple of dollars?” I begged of my friend since I never carry cash.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he said.
“Of course I’m sure,” I said. “Look how adorable those pigs are.”
I think it took more than a couple of dollars, but I finally got one of those rings around a pig and got my keychain. I was also decked out in some free beads and condoms for my patronage.
Wearing my beads proudly, my friend and I continued our walk through the street festival, until my friend couldn’t hold his laughter in anymore.
“Did you know what Steamworks is, Laurel?”
“Something fitness-related?” I said.
“It’s a bathhouse.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, I was not so sure about the logo stamped on the keychain I adored so much.
“And did you happen to notice the name of the game?”
“The game had a name?”
“It was written in big letters,” he said. “Give a pig a pearl necklace?”
“Uh-huh.” This meant nothing to me. I knew the “pearl necklace” part did not reference jewelry thanks to having gone to high school, but it still wasn’t clicking for me.
Then, my friend leaned in and whispered what it all meant.
“Oh,” I said again.
“I just thought you should know,” he said, before feeling free to really laugh out loud.
I looked down at my beads that had a medallion reading, “I gave a pig a pearl necklace at Steamworks.”
“I think I’ll take these off now,” I said.
“I thought that might be the case.”
I still have the beads and keychain because, let’s be honest, it’s not like I’ll have another chance to get such unique mementos, but I don’t wear them out and about. And if clueless-ness provides you with endless entertainment, I’m clearly your gal for all sorts of adventures.
The Things I Think But Do Not Tweet
No offense, but it seems like psychic Alison Dubois really should have called Camille Grammer's divorce at some point on Real Housewives.
Why don't I tweet it? Because after that particular episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, I'm kind of terrified of Alison Dubois. (I'm really glad I've already enjoyed my years of Medium viewing.) Seriously, I'm afraid. She brags about knowing when people are going to die?!?! This is no good for someone with an anxiety disorder and people-pleasing issues. I really hope she doesn't get into the double-digit pages of Googling herself.
And I know we all miss things, but just from context, Kelsey had already run off to New York for two months without his wife. It seems like this one could have taken more "educated guess" than "psychic prediction."
My Sordid Past And New Relationships
I’m not sure how common this is in the rest of the country, but there are many Southern homes that still love their portraiture.
(If you are imagining English royals sitting on velvet tufts while petting King Charles Spaniels as you read “portraiture,” you wouldn’t be that far off the mark. Though, personally, I and no one I know have ever been painted on a velvet tuft, I can’t say for sure that it hasn’t occurred in the 21st century. The dog is also not out of the question. In my part of the country, it’s just more likely to be a lab in an outdoor scene than a lap dog.)
Olan Mills doesn’t count here. I’m talking about honest-to-goodness, calls-for-a-sitting, put-forever-in-oil portrait.
I believe portraits of children are most common – the kind with girls in smocked and French hand sewn dresses (you’ll have to Google it) and boys in, well, similar smocked and French hand sewn outfits. (In the South, we really don’t have issues with dressing boys much like girls until at least the age of two. Usually their smocked outfits are jumpers or shorts, but there are no guarantees.)
Some homes have portraits of adults, and there are even some people known to have nude portraits of themselves. The former are often rather wealthy. The latter are usually discussed in whispers at cocktail parties.
Personally, I have three portraits hanging in my parents’ house. One is actually in pastels, so I’m not sure I have to count it, but I’m in smocked dress, and I’m two. The second portrait is of my mother, my sisters and me. Again, my sisters and I are in very delicate dresses. I think I was six. The last, and final portrait, is of me at 17 in the dress from my junior cotillion. (Some day I will subtitle my memoir “Tales of an Irreverent Debutante.” Until then, I’ll leave the topic of cotillions alone.)
Now, portraits are hardly likely to come up in day-to-day conversation. Most of the time, I forget they even exist. I also tend to forget all of the other pictures from childhood to adolescence that my mom and dad still have. That is, until, a boyfriend is invited to the house to meet the parents. In the living room, the two following questions always ensue:
1. Is that you on a five and half foot canvas hung in a gold frame in the living room?
2. When was your hair red?
The answers are:
1. Yes. My mom likes portraits. Wouldn’t you rather check out the one of my sister in her bowl cut years? (Sorry to throw you under the bus, Sis.)
2. Off and on between the ages of 15 and 20. I was also blond at 22. If there’s a hair color, I’ve had it.
In my father’s study, we get into even more trouble:
"Why are you in a hoop skirt?"
It’s that one that takes a little longer to explain. (Note to reader: the hoop skirt is in a photo and not a portrait, just like the Birmingham Belle ceremony is separate from the junior cotillion. I wore the hoop skirt twice – once as a Belle and once for Halloween. For the sake of family peace, I’ll just say that I wasn’t too excited about joining that organization.)
For the uninitiated, the Birmingham Belles are a group of girls chosen to represent Arlington, Birmingham’s only remaining antebellum home. Arlington is also open for tours and home to a museum. Originally, Belles had all sorts of civic duties, like going to community functions and giving tours of the house. Then, thank heavens, Birmingham finally caught on to the fact that sending girls in hoop skirts, hats and white gloves to the airport to pick up visitors was a) incredibly embarrassing and b) not exactly doing a lot for the image of “The New South.” They also realized that self-guided tours were sufficient for a home with 7 rooms.
My friend and I attended one volunteer event as Birmingham Belles, and it was a bake sale where we wore jeans. I think I was still embarrassed even though we didn’t have our bloomers on.
In short, the visual artifacts of my adolescence can be quite fascinating – especially if you’re not from here. You also have some frightening insight into the kinds of information a Mills boyfriend is bound to discover.
* I apologize that the hoop skirt photo is not available at this time.
Cat Update
For anyone still keeping track of the cat's name changes, here are the latest developments in Kitty Cat Jones' life.
1. We started calling Kitty Cat Jones by his initials, so we've been calling him KKJ for a few months now. Then, one day, while yelling "KKJ" across the yard, we realized some of the neighbors might think we're racists if they misheard us or didn't listen too carefully.
2. I was asking a friend of mine whether or not she thought our neighbors might think we were extremely prejudiced when she paused.
"You know that Kitty Cat Jones' initials would actually be KCJ, right?"
So, not only might we be considered the white supremacists in the neighborhood, but we can't spell either.
3. I went home and told the SO about our mistake, and he responded, "No, that cat is KKJ. End of story. I don't care what his actual initials are."
4. Despite Coco, Cocoa, Toonces, Kitty Cat Jones, KKJ and KCJ, we've actually just been referring to the fluffy little dude as "the stationary cat" because he does not move from the spot in the picture for days. And I mean days. Other than raising his head occasionally, I don't think he leaves the dog's bed for hours (in the multiples of 24 variety) on end.
5. Meet the stationary cat! (Sure to be TSC or some other bizarre incarnation by Spring.)
D.C. Trip Part One: In Which We Barely Make It Out Of The Airport
This past weekend, Volvo graciously sponsored a trip for me to return to my Alma mater, Georgetown, and watch one of the biggest games of the season, Georgetown v. Syracuse.
Our trip began with a two-hour delay due to winds in Baltimore ... [Read more]
My Trinity And Good Intentions (With Video)
I fully believe the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Of course, I’ve also always hoped the adage wasn’t referring to a literal hell. I just figured it was pretty obvious that we all get more than we bargain for when we try a little too hard ... [Read more]
911
A few years ago, the SO and I were in the car coming back from Atlanta when we saw a dog wandering down the median of the highway.
“Call 911,” he said. “We need to report this.”
“Report the dog?”
“Yes, report the dog. Call 911.”
Now, clearly I love dogs as much as the next person. If we could have stopped without causing an accident, I would have insisted on pulling over to rescue the poor thing. But call 911? I wasn’t so sure about that.
“Why aren’t you calling 911?”
“Are you sure we should call?”
“Yes, I’m sure we should call.”
“Really sure?”
“Really sure. Would you feel better if I called?” he said. “Even though I’m the one driving?”
“Yes,” I said, “I do think that would be better.”
The SO called 911 to report the dog, and then we had an extended conversation about why I wouldn’t call 911 and how I didn’t recognize that the dog could have caused a car crash at any second, etc., etc. (Sometimes I envy people who lived before the invention of motor vehicles because there was no such thing as being trapped in a car with someone – no matter how much you love and adore them. Not that I'm sure covered wagons going across the plains were all that much better, but at least you had buffalo, raids and other more pressing concerns to occupy your time. Incidentally, the car is also where my mother always chose to try and talk to me about sex, drugs and other teen issues.)
The problem I have is that ever since I can remember, I’ve had a terrible fear of calling 911.
In high school, I called 911 twice. Once because a woman in the store where I was working had a stroke and once because a friend and I drove by someone slumped over in his car. Both incidents required lots of cajoling.
In the first, an older man I worked with had to grab the phone from me and explain what was actually happening to the 911 operator. In the second, my friend and I agreed that if we drove by the same car twice, and the guy still hadn’t moved, we’d call 911.
On our second drive by, I made the call. “Yeah,” my 16-year-old self said, “there’s this guy in his car, and he’s like not moving or anything. He could be asleep or he could be, like, dead.”
“We’ll send someone to check it out.”
Then, I gave the female operator the address, and my friend and I went home.
It’s not that I was worried about the circumstances that could lead to such an awful call, or that I was afraid of accidents, it’s that I felt like the 911 operator would judge me if the reason I called wasn’t urgent enough or “emergency worthy.” I fear the judgment of a stranger on the other end of a phone line. Where this comes from, I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s related to my feelings about pizza orders and utility customer service.
“But it’s their job to take your calls,” the SO said. “And it’s their job to decide what to do in the situation?”
“Really?” I said.
“Really.”
Well, this little conversation was like being freed from a lifetime of 911 fear. I called 911 when I heard really loud noises outside my house at night. I reported a fighting couple outside of a housing project. I felt like justice was my mission and 911 was my weapon. I was on a tear.
Of course, like all good or bad things, this bent of mine eventually came to an end. This time it was after a particularly confusing conversation with a 911 operator.
I was driving home one night, when I saw a car pulled over in the parking area of a fire station that was being built. A man was laid out on the ground, and a woman was bending over him. (Now before you judge me for not acting in these kinds of situations, know that I don’t get out of my car for anything – especially after dark. It’d be lovely if we lived in a world where everyone could be trusted and no one used your desire to help someone in distress as a weakness, but we don’t. I’ll make a call for you, but I won’t unlock my door, at home or on the road.)
“911.”
“Hi,” I said, “I think there’s someone in trouble on 5th Avenue South.”
“What makes you think that?”
I described the scene.
“Where on 5th Avenue South did you see this?”
“Near 45th Street,” I said. “Across from that building …”
“What building?”
“Oh, it’s where’s 3rd Avenue and 5th Avenue split,” I said. “You know, where the new fire station is going to be.”
“Are you saying this man is going to be at this address?”
“No, the man is there. It’s the fire station that isn’t there yet.”
“When will this man be at the address?”
I had gone from savior to suspect because of what I’m hoping was a bad cell phone connection. In my best case scenario, she thought I was a drug user who was going to dump a friend having a bad trip. In my worst case scenario, she thought I was a murderer/mob king pin with a body to get rid of.
“The man is already there,” I said. “He’s there right now.”
“And where are you?”
That’s when I hung up, my fear of 911 returned and fully-realized yet again. I won't be rising to the title of the Savior of Avondale anytime soon.
Most Awkward First Dates
In my dating life, there have been a number of unfortunate moments. And I may or may not have once inadvertently forced some wait staff to stay long past their shifts were over because no one wanted to tell the crying girl at table 7 the restaurant was closed, but since I decided to limit this post to first dates, here you have it:
1. The World’s Shortest Date
Shortly after I graduated college, I met a man who was out with some guy friends of mine. He was in D.C. to interview for a job on the Hill. He asked for my number so he could call me when he moved to town. I gave it to him thinking, “I’m sure I’ll hear from this one.”
But, strangely enough, three weeks later while I was shopping in the Safeway, my phone rang. “Laurel, it’s Joe.”
Luckily, he was kind enough to give me some context clues because I had no idea who Joe was by then.
“Anyway, I got that job,” he said, “so I was thinking I could take you to dinner once I got up there.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, and we made plans for an upcoming Thursday.
Joe came to pick me up, and we decided to walk to a restaurant in my neighborhood for dinner. We ate, talked about what might have happened to Chandra Levy, and he walked me home. From doorstep to doorstep, it took all of 45 minutes.
“How about I give you a call this weekend when I know what I’m up to?”
“Sure,” I said, knowing full well that phone call would never come.
Maybe the real me didn’t match up to the memory, but I’m not sure what I did to warrant holding onto my phone number for three weeks only to end up being someone Joe didn’t even want to spend an hour with.
2. We Shouldn’t Have Talked About Music
Date #2, who we’ll call Dan, was an office fix-up. Now, in my opinion there is little more awkward than the office fix-up. It’s pretty hard to say “no” when Sue from HR or Tammy from accounting wants you to go out with their adorable nephew or wonderful son when they know you’re single. There’s never a good excuse (especially if you did not create a pretend boyfriend on day 1 of the job), and you usually just have to go. Also, if it goes wrong, as it usually will, you quickly go from being the cutest girl in the office to the evil heart breaker who thinks she’s too good for everyone.
While Dan was watching me eat nachos on our date (he couldn’t have so much food because of a recent surgery), I turned to the gold standard of dating small talk – music. Since “With or Without You” happened to be playing overhead, I said, “I really like U2.”
“What?” he said.
“I really like U2.” I even pointed upwards thinking he would somehow catch the music playing in the background even though he couldn’t hear me, and I was sitting right next to him.
There was a long pause.
“Oh, uh, I like you, too,” he said.
Then an even longer silence set in – partly because I was embarrassed and partly because I really didn’t know where to go from there. I also didn't like him that much, so half an hour into our "relationship," it was already based on a lie.
When he walked me to my car after I made up an excuse to go home before 10, I literally said, “Good luck with everything” and gave him the double pistol shoot with my hands to make sure there was plenty of space between us as I got into the car.
If there’s ever a biopic of my life, I’m hoping that moment of social genius doesn’t make the cut.
3. There is little shame like the shame of being judged at the Olive Garden
My first date was a double date with another couple. While I’m sure the other couple was brought along to make the situation less uncomfortable and awkward for me and my date, well, we all know what they say about the best-laid plans.
The couple my date and I were doubling with had recently gone through a break up due to some cheating but had gotten back together.
After our 45-minute wait at the Olive Garden, we were seated. We ordered our meals. Things seemed to be going well. Then, the trouble began.
I’m not sure how the cheating came back up, but as the waitress was delivering our food, my friend said, “You know Mike, if you aren’t happy with what you had, you’re welcome to send it back for something else.”
“No, I’m perfectly happy with what I have,” he said.
“Well, you certainly don’t act like it. Maybe you’d like something newer and more interesting.”
“No, no. I like what I have.”
This conversation went on much longer, but my date and I were able to finally signal to the bewildered waitress that she could deliver the food and walk away. (The metaphor was not nearly as clear to her, and she kept offering to ask for changes in the kitchen.)
The fight culminated when my friend slapped her date. In the middle of Olive Garden.
You’d think it’s impossible to bring everyone to a dead halt in a chain restaurant, but just like that, you learn that it isn’t all that hard after all. Everyone was looking at our table. The room was silent.
My date and I spent the rest of our meal staring into our plates of spaghetti. On the ride home, my friend and her date “made up” in the back seat for most of the trip. Needless to say, we didn't go out again.
Not to point any fingers, but this may be one of the reasons it took me about 15 years to get a better handle on the dating thing.