Archive for June, 2015
The Bubble Gum Incident
In Catholic grade school in the early ’70s, things ran mostly on fear and the ringing of bells.
Most nuns still wore full habits. All teachers were allowed to employ paddles. And discipline was both strictly and creatively enforced.
One teacher used to throw chalkboard erasers at children who weren’t paying attention. Another teacher once stuffed a noisy child into a trashcan. Another, who caught a kid nibbling on his lunch tickets, was so enraged that she placed her in-box on the child’s desk and instructed every other child in the class to walk by, single file, and place a piece of paper in the box. She then instructed the nibbler that, if he was going to destroy his lunch tickets, he could eat every piece of paper in that basket for his lunch instead.
I swear on a bible these stories are true. I saw them happen. And they all happened to one classmate: the indomitable Paul Scott.
Zealously hurled erasers bounced right off him. He sat in that trashcan like a rag doll and made a funny sad face until the teacher put her head down on her desk and shook with laughter. In the paper-nibbling incident, he smiled at each of us as we — sorry, terrified, miserable weaklings — brought him our offerings. Then, he calmly, happily, hungrily began to eat that paper, piece by piece, until the teacher caved in and took it all back.
No tears, no flinching, no smart-ass-ery. He was fearless. A peaceful rebel and a natural comic, he just took things in stride and kept right on smiling. How someone so young knew how to do these things, I cannot fathom. They don’t track that type of brilliant on report cards.
I wish I could say that I was even one-gazillionth as brilliant when Sister Mary Grace caught me chewing gum in her 5th grade English class.
“Are you chewing gum?!” she demanded. I had seen what happens to gum chewers. They had to stick the gum on their nose and walk to the Principal’s office. I panicked. I swallowed the gum and said, “No.”
Merciful heavens! Unlawful gum chewing was bad enough. But lying? To a nun?
I was told to stand up. I stood. She asked me again. And I lied again. She knew it, too. Calmly, confidently furious, she said, “Well. Tell me then what it was that I saw you chewing on.” And I said something ridiculous, like, “I was chewing on the inside of my cheek.”
As that big fat whopper hung in the air, I knew: I was bad. I was wicked. I was doomed.
And then. Something happened, which, although it has yet to pass the scrutiny of beatification or canonization, I am going to call a miracle.
“She wasn’t chewing gum!” Paul Scott blurted (without even raising his hand or getting permission to speak). “I sit right here next to her,” he continued, “And she wasn’t chewing gum. She does that thing she said. She chews on her cheek. I’ve seen her do it.”
I was flabbergasted. And I was saved.
I doubt that she bought it, but I had a witness. And she wasn’t going to find my gum any time soon. And, in a wonderful moment of solidarity, no one else in the class said a word. I was told to sit. I sat. And it was all I could do to not turn and stare at Paul in gaping adoration for the rest of the class.
Perhaps I am even more in awe now. Such bravado is more audacious and delightful seen through the lenses of time and experience. This guy knew things at 10 years old that take the rest of us at least 30 years, maybe a lifetime, to figure out. Things like:
- Don’t take it all too seriously.
- A sense of humor can soften the edges of pretty much anything.
- A good friend has your back no matter what.
- Don’t be afraid of nuns; they probably are not allowed to kill you.
Cheers, Paul Scott, wherever you are.
Work. Not Work.
Spring was late this year; the garden’s not going to have time to fill in properly, I told myself. The instructions to plant things 10 inches apart can’t possibly take into consideration this heavy, clay soil, I told myself.
She really just wanted to play in the dirt, you’re saying to yourself.
Yep.
Last Sunday, I decided my place needed a few more flowers. And so, like an indulgent granny, I slipped myself a 20 and drove back to the local nursery for the third (maybe fourth?) time this year. Returned home and spent the entire day outside. Planting, weeding, fertilizing, moving this plant here and that plant there, wheeling around the wheel barrow, and generally just futzing around in a state of dippy bliss.
Smiles relax every worry line. I hum involuntarily. I stop and smell roses, literally. When I’m out there in the garden, it’s like someone turns on the auto focus. Or turns down the gravity. Or gives me a peek behind stage. And in that little glimpse of Real, I am as certain as Mary Poppins, as graceful as Ginger Rogers, as wise as Obi-Wan, as content as Baloo.
All is well.
I was finishing up with the watering as one of my neighbors was bringing his garbage to the opposite curb. “You’re working too hard,” he called out.
What went through my mind was, Work?! This isn’t work! Sitting at a desk is work. Editing a novel is work. An old dog learning the tricks of publishing is work. Drying dishes is work. Folding laundry is work. Raising cage-free dust bunnies is work. Grocery shopping is work. Driving in the South Hills of Pittsburgh is work. Scooping the litter box is work. But this? This is lovely. This is playtime.
This is filthy, sweaty, smelly, sunburnt, life-preserving awesome!
Ginger Rogers wanted to do a rousing number with lots of brass and some Busby Berkeley chorus girl flower arrangements. But I just smile-chuckle-nod-waved because that’s how you communicate in a brief, holler-across-the-street sort of way. And he was already heading back inside anyway.
And now, I’m back in the midst of the work week. As I look over my to-do list here at my desk, which faces the window, which overlooks the front garden, I . . . uh . . . you know? I think I see some weeds. Maybe I should get out there and check on that.
Growing Older but Not Up
Today, I took this T-shirt out of the dryer and realized it was ready for the rag pile. Overdue. Long overdue.
Frayed edges. Holes. Paint stains. Discoloration. Fading. So worn in places that it’s practically see-through. No self-respecting person would keep this shirt. No sane person would think twice about this shirt. No normal person would write a blog about this shirt.
But then.
I bought this shirt for five bucks at a Jimmy Buffett concert. Got it from one of those wily parking lot guys. Yeah, I buy unlicensed apparel while keeping an eye out for security. Do you think me a scallywag? Yo ho!
As it turns out, this five-buck shirt was an exceptional bargain. Before shoving this tattered bit of cotton into the rag pile, I checked the date.
1998. Seventeen years ago. Jinkies!
1998 was the Don’t Stop the Carnival tour. Day before the concert, I got to shake Jimmy Buffett’s hand on 6th Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. (But that’s another story.)
Nine. Teen. Nine. Tee. Eight. I was in my 30s. My favorite decade. Every happy possibility lay ahead. The 9 to 5 was a temporary gig. Working in advertising seemed fun. Happy Hours lasted as long as the work day. I played volleyball three or four times a week and could dive and roll across a volleyball court with less effort than it now takes me to stand up when it’s my turn to bowl. I drove a Mustang. I had a great hair cut and a closet full of high heeled shoes. I went sleeveless.
{Now, I’m not saying the present isn’t fun. But, kiddos, there ain’t no fun like being in your 20s and 30s fun. Never has been. Never will be. Live it up.}
In 1998, Buffett tickets were cheap, and it didn’t take 14 hours to drive the last 50 feet into (or out of) Star Lake. The eccentric tradition of a Buffett concert had not yet attracted mainstream attention. Hawaiian shirts, mini beaches, and brilliantly rigged blenders had not yet been replaced with a guy in a thong doing keg stands, busloads of one-up-man-ship, and teenage boys saying, “Show us your tits.” People didn’t steal other people’s party decorations. And drunken shenanigans had not transmuted into people throwing up and even urinating amidst the lawn seating. (Directly behind us. On a hillside sloping down.)
If I could snap my fingers and be there again (with a shade tree, a bottle of Captain Morgan, a bottle of idiot repellant, and a private driveway) I’d be there in a snap. Otherwise, these days, I don’t much feel like going to see Buffett in anything less than a time machine.
But I have been there. And I have done that. I haven’t always been a middle-aged fuddy duddy. The shirt is proof.
Oh, ratty old shirt. You’re a raggedy old life preserver. Threadbare as my dreams. As worn as an over-dramatic analogy. I should have put you in the rag pile. But, I have, apparently, folded you with care and carried you upstairs in the laundry basket.
So I guess I’ll put you in the drawer and keep you a bit longer. Who knows? Tomorrow, I might even show you my tits.
Life Preservers 
How to Get Rid of an Old Refrigerator
Option 1
Step 1: The people you buy your home from ask if you would like them to leave the second, old refrigerator in the basement.
Step 2: You say, “No thank you.”
Option 2 (Significantly Abridged)
Step 1: Use refrigerator twice. Eighteen years later, call a service to pick up old refrigerator.
Step 2: Knowing that it will be cheaper to get the refrigerator to the curb (and thinking, at Step 2, that it is worth saving a couple of bucks), make an attempt to see if you will be able to move it yourself. Bump, wiggle, pull, push, grunt, cuss, rock, bump, grunt-grunt-grunt, and move it about 10 feet. Think, “That wasn’t so bad. I can do this.”
Step 3: Realize that it is not going to fit through Door #1. Also realize that your screw driver and the hinges to the door are in the next room. Bump, wiggle, pull, grunt, drag refrigerator back into the room. Go find screw driver. Remove door.
Step 4: Push refrigerator through Door #1, including conquering the unexpected mountainous peaks of the threshold.
Step 5: Push-pull it across cement floor; wiggle, grunt, rock it, wonder about death by refrigerator, and get it up over the edge of the carpeted area. Bump, wiggle, push, grunt it to Door #2, the door to the garage, the really big, really heavy door.
Step 6: Consider measuring but think to self, “Well, they had to have gotten it in this way” and “I don’t feel like running upstairs for the measuring tape.” Eyeball it and think, “Yeah, I can do this.”
Step 7: Standing on garage side of refrigerator, wiggle, grunt, and (using freezer handle and condenser coils as handles) pull like a maniac. Keep pulling until refrigerator is solidly, completely, totally, dagnabbittly wedged in the doorway.
Step 8: Figure that you could probably do better pushing from the inside. Realize that the only (unlocked) door to gain entrance to your home has a refrigerator in it.
Step 9: Get step ladder off garage wall. Climb up, belly flop onto top of refrigerator, and shimmy through the top of doorway. Once inside the basement again, realize just how far the top of a refrigerator is from the floor.
Step 10: Dangle feet, wrangle body, stretch legs, pull back. Consider job as Elf on a Shelf.
Step 11: Jump.
Step 11b: Land and roll like James Bond (if he were still being played by Sean Connery).
Step 11c: Lie on floor giggling in a very un-Connery-like manner.
Step 12: Re-examine refrigerator in doorway and realize (1) pushing is no help and (2) you’re going to have to remove the really big, really heavy door after all and (3) the hinges are on the garage side.
Step 13: Pull, wiggle, grunt in an attempt to get the refrigerator unstuck from doorway. Run up the stairs, unlock the back door, go out, run down back steps, run down front steps, open garage door, get back into garage.
Step 14: Wiggle-push refrigerator back into the basement. Remove really big, really heavy door. Wonder about death by door.
Step 15: Push refrigerator back into the doorway until it is solidly, completely, totally, dagnabbittly wedged.
Step 16: Run up stairs, out back door, down steps, down more steps, back into the garage. Push refrigerator back into basement.
Step 17: Remove bumper thingamajigs from condenser coils on back of refrigerator. Put pressure on coils until the side brace whatchamacallits collapse and the coils are (sort of) flat against the back of the refrigerator.
Step 18: Push refrigerator back into doorway. Get it nearly there and realize the legs are stuck on the threshold, and the only way it’s going to go is if you just let it tip over into the garage. Figure, Why not? Let go and brace for terrifying, satisfying bang.
Step 19: Marvel at the silence and gaze at refrigerator, which is now standing at a 45-degree angle in the doorway, half in, half out. Run up stairs, out back door, down steps and more steps, into garage and see that the 250-pound refrigerator is resting on a rickety little wooden ladder, which has only one leg on the ground.
Step 20: Stare at that crazy tableau for a moment. Wonder about death by tableau.
Step 21: Push refrigerator back upright (i.e., dagnabbittly wedged).
Step 22: Move ladder, leave garage, go up steps, go in back door, go downstairs, and push that thing like a mother saving a baby, like a Grinch saving a sleigh, like a woman saving her sanity.
Step 23: Feel it going. Let go. BOOM!
Step 24: Curtsy and clap lightly. (Or let out a yell and stride around the room as if you are the person who moves appliances for Vince McMahon.)
Voila! That is how to get rid of an old refrigerator.
NOTES:
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June 25, 2015 at 11:23 am Leave a comment