My Mother Thinks I'm a Lesbian: July 2007

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

My bad form

When I woke this morning, forty-five minutes after my alarm should have and probably did go off, I had the briefest notion to just call in and tell The Man I wasn’t coming. I should have done it. I’ve been about an hour behind all day long. I missed a meeting. I realized I didn’t have access to not one, but two databases to which I’ll need immediate access. And I got a parking ticket because I forgot that I parked in the two hour parking zone – because of my tardiness – and not in the deck where I usually park. Don’t even get me started on the parking ticket.

But in those few moments of eye-fluttering, what-the-hell-time-is-it, rising to consciousness, when I considered not coming in at all, I convinced myself that work was a necessity. Why? For one, I have only been at the new job a couple of months and I don’t want get a reputation as a slacker. And second, if I don’t go to the daytime job, I can’t in good conscience go to the night time job either. It would just be bad form.

And I need the money.

I hate money.

Yet I need it so.

I am money’s bitch.

See, I’m between homes at the moment. I’m not homeless, just staying with friends until I find suitable habitation. And by suitable, I mean something I can afford located within a decent school district. The kid will be back in a few weeks and he will need to be in school. Apparently there’s a law.

You would think that finding such habitation in such a school district would not be that difficult. But no.

Virginians were the last to practice Massive Resistance. What is Massive Resistance, you ask? Basically, it was the good ol’ boy way of giving the finger to those liberal nut jobs in Washington who desegregated the school systems. The short version is that instead of integrating, local governments were allowed to shut down public schools and grant money so families could send their kids to all-white, private academies. The practice ended sometime in the mid 1960’s. Sort of. It still pretty much happens in Richmond. The only difference is, they’ve left the public schools open.

Here’s how: The city is spread over the county line between Chesterfield and Henrico Counties. Each of these counties have excellent schools, for the most part. The problem is, the “city” of Richmond (ie the poorest part) is not a part of either county. Richmond city has its own public school system. Richmond city’s school system is not on par with the counties. It gets better at the high school level, but many of the schools aren’t fully accredited (not enough of the students meet the minimum Standards of Learning as set forth by the state of Virginia – thank you, GW and No Child Left Behind), are generally under-funded, and are in physical disrepair (an understatement). And because the Richmond City School System is so bad, most of the (white) people who can afford it send their kids to private schools.

So what happens is that in very lovely, racially and socially mixed neighborhoods, only the poorest kids go to the public schools. And generally, because of institutional failures, and yes, racism, there are few if any white kids in Richmond City schools.

And, yes, I am part of this racist behavior. And I hate it.

The first year my son was in Richmond, for fourth grade, I lived in Oregon Hill, a basically all-white neighborhood near campus and I sent the kid to the neighborhood elementary. I knew when I enrolled him that he was it – the one white kid in fourth grade. But I didn’t care. He didn’t either.

But with kids, anyone who sticks out, anyone different is the object of bullying. I made him stick it out for the rest of the year, but that summer I sent him back to his father. Partially because even the best schools in the county don’t compare to those back in Iowa, and partially because I was having my own difficulties and thought it was best for the kid to be with his dad at the time. It wasn’t. But lesson learned.

When I decided to bring him back to Virginia last year, we moved out to the middle of nowhere with a friend, in an excellent school district. But that didn’t work out either. So now I am between domiciles, looking for a place I can afford, that isn’t in a school district where only half the kids are passing the state’s Standards of Learning.

This is why I had to jump out of bed and endure the day instead of rolling over and going back to sleep.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Do it at Ten

As I am forced to hold down a regular job because of my need to eat and desire not to sleep on a park bench, I am similarly forced to participate in the morning commute, a task which I am sure most find as distasteful as I do. In order to ease tension and make the travel to and arrival at the workplace as comfortable as possible, I offer the following:

It is morning. It is rush hour. It is called rush hour for a reason. The other people traveling with you? They are rushing to work. They do not want to go to work. They do not even like work. But they must go. Be courteous to them. And by courteous I mean get out of their way. If you are not going to work, if you are, say, wandering around looking for garage sales, slowing down at every intersection because it might be the street you are looking for, you are in the way. Other people’s crap will still be for sale at ten. Search for 1125 Sycamore at ten.

Under no circumstance should you buy lottery tickets during the morning commute hours. For those of you who don’t know, these hours are between 6:30 and 9:00 each morning, Monday through Friday. Do you see the long line of people behind you? Yes, those people with bloodshot eyes who keep looking at their watches and sighing extra loud. See how they look like they want to tackle you? Those people are trying to get to work. Those people are tired. This is why they are buying energy drinks and coffee in Styrofoam cups. Some of them are even waiting to buy cigarettes because they have not had their morning fix yet. They did not get up an extra fifteen minutes early so they could stop by the CONVENIENCE store and stand in line behind some asshole (you) who is holding up the line to gamble. The drawing will not be held until evening. Buy your tickets on your way home. Or on your break at ten. Better yet, hand your two dollars to the guy begging outside the store. He probably needs it more than the state does. Just get out of line so the rest of us can get to work.

The toll booth is not like a pop quiz. No one has sprung it on you. The toll booth is in the same place. Every single morning. It costs the same amount of change. Every morning. With this in mind, please have your money ready before you get to the gate. Better yet, get your toll money ready when you leave your house. Keys? Check. Purse? Check. Toll money? CHECK. You know you are going to take the tollway. I know it. You know it. Do not stop at the gate and fumble through your wallet searching for money. Do not engage in long conversations with the toll attendant. Yes, I know the lane says “Full Service” but this is not an invitation to hang out all morning. Hand the woman your money, get your change, and get out of the way.

Learn to merge. This one seems so easy. Accelerate. Signal. Move seamlessly between the other cars on the road. Some of you seem caught up on the first part. Again, first step – Accelerate. This means drive faster. A lot faster. If the cars already on the interstate are going 65, you will not be able to merge at 45. It is for this reason that an on-ramp usually ends in something called an “acceleration lane.” It is not called the “stop, hold up all other traffic, and wait for a mythical opening lane.” It should not be used as such.

Do not ever – and I mean ever – greet someone on the first morning back for the week with the phrase, “Looks like someone has a case of the Mondays.” If you are ever going to quote a line from a movie, do not quote the most blatantly annoying line from the most blatantly annoying character in an otherwise cool movie. Such irresponsible quoting will surely earn you a punch in the face. Even from the feminist.

And yes, I am cranky this morning. I already know.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Patience and the wedding

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine went to a wedding. This may sound like an every day occurrence, especially during the month of June, and really it is, but this friend hates weddings and believes marriage to be the single greatest tragedy of these, our modern times. What I mean to say is, whenever we’re at parties or out to dinner or anywhere in the general vicinity of people, and two of said people have expressed their desire to become one, my friend immediately asks them what on earth would possess them to do such a thing. And for the next forty-five minutes, while the rest of us are wriggling uncomfortably in our chairs, she interrogates said formerly happy couple until the point at which one of them gets on the phone and fires the caterer.

We’ll call this friend Patience because it is not her name, it does not describe her demeanor, and it calls to mind a young, wealthy, overpriveleged white woman, which in no way describes my friend.

My friend’s views on marriage may partially be attributed to the fact that she is a lesbian, and because of her disgust at the sight of a naked man, is denied the legal right to marry whomever she chooses. But even if Patience were allowed such a right, she wouldn’t use it. And she usually makes some very valid anti-marriage arguments.

Nevertheless, friends of hers managed to survive the inquisition and got hitched a few weeks ago in a lovely ceremony somewhere in the backwoods of Virginia.

Outdoors.

In the woods.

In June.

In Virginia.

Did I mention it was outdoors?

So I made the mistake of asking Patience how the wedding went. She unloaded. First of all, it was hot. And it being hot, she perspired through the new suit she had purchased to wear to an outdoor, formal affair in the middle of the woods, natch. Second, the ceremony lasted longer than the reception (this may have been an exaggeration). Third, in addition to being in the woods, the ceremony was actually in the middle of nowhere, two hours from Richmond, where the happy couple, Patience, and nearly all of their friends and family reside. Fourth, there were place cards on the tables, but dinner was served buffet style, and there was only one trip per person to the buffet. Patience was particularly offended by this, seeing that she had driven two hours, rented a room, bought and sweated all over a new suit, and purchased a gift for a couple who now refused to feed her. She was also befuddled by the need for place cards in light of the buffet. Fifth, the bride and groom left the reception shortly after their first dance, leaving Patience and all their friends to dance amongst themselves. And finally, there was no liquor. Had there been liquor, all previous complaints may have been compensated for – nay, may have been actually forgotten because of said liquor.

This is by no means the worst wedding horror story I have heard. It is not even the worst wedding story I have actually experienced myself. Thanks to my mother’s side of the family, to whom I lovingly refer as the Hillbillies, I’ve been to some pretty white trash weddings. I always looked forward to them with some sort of twisted excitement as something I would later have to write about.

But it raises several questions:

First, why is it people insist on holding ceremonies in places they do not live? Is this a way of weeding out the guests you really don’t want in attendance but feel obligated to invite anyway?

Second, why outdoors? An outdoor ceremony is one thing. The ceremony is relatively short, the backdrop makes for lovely pictures – the ceremony is fine. In April. When it’s cool. But when you want to whoop it up and celebrate your new coupledom with your friends, why not do it indoors? With air conditioning. And liquor.

Third, why bring all your friends together to celebrate your new life together and then ditch them, in the woods, for the comfort of your hotel room? This isn’t 1942. We all know you’ve already made the sex. What’s the rush to leave?

Anyone have answers to these questions? Anyone have your own horror to share?

Thursday, July 26, 2007

All the Kool kids are doing it

I didn’t start smoking until I got to graduate school. Okay, that’s not true. I smoked while I was at Basic Training. And yes, I was in the military for eight years. I smoked at Basic because smokers sometimes got a three minute patio break while non-smokers had to stand in formation. I quickly took up the habit. But it only lasted those six weeks and then I gave it up. Easy as that.

My parents household was for the most part smoke-free. Mostly because any members of my extended family who lit up in the house were quickly chased out by the cloud of Lysol my father let loose in the room. But most of my mother’s family did smoke, including my grandfather who, upon being diagnosed with emphysema, switched from Camel no-filters to Kool Milds.

I always found it to be a disgusting habit. Elementary school health classes had filled my mind with images of diseased lungs and voice boxes inserted into people’s tracheae. Plus, any time I entered a smoky room, my eyes would burn and start to water and I’d have a sneezing fit. So in high school, when many of my friends picked up the habit, I passed. And even though I smoked for those six weeks at training, I found it nothing to stop. I maybe had one here or there, at a bar after way too many drinks, but I always woke up feeling extra hung over and vowed never to do that again.

Then came graduate school.

Here’s how it happened. Back when I was in the military, and I worked for the human resource officer, I found out that all the really good stuff, all the really important decisions, were made on the back loading dock where the smokers hung out. Remember that episode of Friends where Rachel takes up smoking because her boss is becoming all chummy with another co-worker on smoke breaks? It was exactly like that. Lucky for me then, I was already in with the smokers, and they found me charming enough to allow me to hang out while they smoked, and I never had to take a puff.

When I got to grad school, I found the situation was pretty much the same. No important decisions were being made, but all the best discussions about writing, all the funniest stories, all the invitations to the coolest parties were occurring on smoke breaks. And I was missing out. The thing was, they were cool enough to let me tag along, but since we were all working in different parts of the building, doing different things, I never knew when they would be going outside unless I happened to be in the vicinity at the time.

Until one weekend, when at the bar across the street, we all got to drinking and I eventually bummed a cigarette. And then a few more. The next Monday, when everyone went out to smoke, somebody came to get me.

I was officially cool.

And apparently, emotionally, still in junior high.

So how did I get from the occasional drunk-smoke and cigarette break to full-blown pack a day addict? It could be that over the next couple of years, with my son (at the time) still living with his father, I had a lot more time to spend at the bar, where I sat, with my laptop, writing and drinking and smoking until my friends showed up and I would drink and smoke some more. It could be that in the years following my (in)completion of grad school, I struggled financially and emotionally, and cigarettes, despite their expense, were my only comfort, the only thing over which I had any control. Or it could be that smoking is a very slow, relatively painless, deliberate act of suicide on my part.

All I know is that the thought of giving it up now fills me with dread. Not because of the withdrawal period that I know comes with quitting (they have drugs for that now - wonderful drugs). And not because I think that I will substitute food for nicotine and ruin my body-by-Hostess physique.

The truth is, and I am not afraid to say it, I love to smoke.

That's right. I love smoking. I love the way a cigarette feels in my hand. I love how the smoke calms me down when I'm stressed (this may be purely psychological). I love that I always have a built in break time. I don't love that I always have to carry mints and body spray and the unconscionable amount of money I spend on fabric refresher, but I find these things a small price to pay for something so dependably wonderful.

Haters, feel free to comment by clicking the link below.

I have to go light up.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

You're new here, aren't you?

So, not to make this blog all about the trials and tribulations of a chain-restaurant worker, BUT . . .

We have this new server, we’ll call him Matt (because that’s his name), and I hate him.

I save the venom most of the time, and hating isn’t really my thing. Ask my friends, they’ll tell you I put up with a lot of bullshit. A lot of bullshit (I give it too. Another story). But I do not like Matt one bit. Matt has been around the chain for awhile: he has three little stars on his apron (figured out where I work yet?) and he has recently moved from whatever the hell location he used to work before he came to ours.

Our particular link in the chain opened last February. We are a new store. And as a new store, the corporate folks sent a crack team of red-apron servers, cooks, cashiers and hostesses to set up the new store and train all us brand-spanking new to the company employees in the ways of the restaurant. For two weeks before we opened, we spent five hours a night studying the corporate handbook, learning our table numbers (there are a lot of tables), practicing on the Micro ordering machines, and role-playing our new positions. It was a mini server boot camp. Very exciting. After we opened, they stayed on for another three weeks to continue training us, helping us out with tables, keeping after us about pre-bussing and tray running, etc. Then, when they felt we were ready to operate the joint on our own, they dispersed back to their own stores and left us to our own.

Most of the people who trained with me are gone now. Quit, fired, walked out on a shift – gone – but those of us who are left have been tasked with training new employees in the ways of the server as passed down to us by the Red-Aprons. Subsequently, the most any of us has on our little aprons is two stars. There are one or two exceptions, employees who have come over from another location because we are closer to their home or whatever, but for the most part, two stars is it.

Matt is one of those exceptions. And because Matt is an entire star ahead of the rest of us, and despite the fact that last night was only his third working with us, Matt has taken it upon himself to tell us how much we suck.

I do not like Matt.

Perhaps I mentioned this.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think when a person’s a stranger, they should act a little strange. In other words, you’re new around here, Matt, so back it the hell up.

But does Matt heed Mother Brice’s advice? No. At every turn for the past three nights, starting with the very first hour of his employment with us, Matt has consistently pointed out all the things that we do wrong. And by wrong, I mean different from how “we did things at our store.” And by different, I mean who the hell cares?

According to Matt, we do not ring our orders in correctly. According to Matt, our side-work chart is inefficient. According to Matt, we do not greet our guests properly. According to Matt, our kitchen is set up backwards. According to Matt, we are all a bunch of incompetents who are damned lucky he showed up to save us from tarnishing the corporate name and running the place into the ground.

I do not know how we managed to stay open for the six months before Matt arrived, but hallelujah, he is here to rescue us now!

And it isn’t just that he insists on pointing out our “faults” that makes me loathe Matt so. No, it’s that he also insists on telling us how much better his other store was. To hear Matt tell it, his store was some sort of freaking Shangri-la and ours is the seventh level of hell. Which leads me to this question:

Why did Matt leave Paradise for the Trailer Park?

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

A little venting . . .

Now that I’ve been waiting tables a little while, I’ve found that you can pretty much tell what your tip will be like the moment you walk up to the table. Some people are super friendly from the moment you say hello. They joke around a little, they are polite, they ask for things as opposed to ordering you to bring them. Generally, with decent ticket times, these people don’t overtip, but they tip well. Others are busy talking to each other, or on their cellphones chatting, and seem annoyed that you have interrupted them to ask for their order. I can usually recover enough to earn a respectable tip as long as I wow them and take care of their needs without making my presence known.

Then there are the tables like I had last night. I hate to admit this, but the guests (that’s what we call them – guests – even though I would invite very few of these people to join me anywhere) are generally women. Before I even open my mouth to greet them, they are eyeing me up and down, scowling, and letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that I will not be able to meet their ridiculous expectations. Their drinks will have too much ice (or not enough), their silverware will be too spotty, they will not have enough napkins, the mashed potatoes with steam rolling off them will be too cold, they will need extra butter, etc.

The worst part about these guests is that they seem to make sport of it, of trying to knock me down. They do not want to tip, do not believe in tipping, and will go out of their way to justify tipping very little or not at all.

They start with the order.

As happened last night: two women were seated in my section while I was waiting on a large party. I refilled drinks for the party, and then I walked to the two-top to greet them. I could tell how it was going to go before I even said hello. They complained that it was too cold in the restaurant. I said I could ask them manager to turn off the ceiling fans. The first woman said, No, don’t bother. Then they complained the table was too small. I offered to have the hostess move them to another table since it was late and the restaurant was fairly empty.

No, we’re fine.

Then why complain?

Then the order – two pancake combos, both with substitutions (which we don’t do, but whatever), both with specific instructions (make the bacon extra crispy, but not burnt or I’ll send it back). Then they want biscuits and cornbread (these don’t come with pancakes, and technically I’m supposed to charge them, but again, whatever) and extra butter and jelly. I ask what kind – they don’t care.

In less than five minutes, I put in their special orders, fix them drinks and bring them their bread and an assortment of jelly. Plus extra napkins.

They need more lemons. Which I bring.

And some water. Which I bring.

And they wanted strawberry jelly. Which I bring (Can't they just ask for this all at once?).

I even bring them, within ten minutes of their order, extra syrup with their pancakes and crispy bacon with hashbrowns instead of eggs and a side of grits instead of bacon.

Woman #1 puts a fork into her pancakes as I ask them if there is anything else I can bring them, and before I can even step away, she shoves the plate back at me.

These are like rubber! I won’t eat them. And she takes Woman #2’s plate and shoves it at me too.

I tell her to shove them –

Okay, I apologize and tell them I’ll have more cooked and out to them immediately. I do not argue. I do not ask her if she’s sure they’re not okay. I do not ask her friend to try them and see what she thinks. I do not even point out to her that she has yet to take a bite of the pancakes, that she hasn’t even put syrup on them, that she hasn’t done anything more than put her goddamned fork in them!

But she says it anyway.

I want to speak to a manager.

For the record, this is the point at which I, as a server, no longer care about her as a customer. I no longer care about refilling her drinks. I no longer care if she has a pleasant dining experience; I just want her to eat her damned food and drink her damned drinks and get the hell up from my table so I can get some new guests and earn more than the two dollars an hour the restaurant is paying me to put up with her bullshit. But as I posted yesterday, my mother taught me better than that. Damn my mother.

Absolutely, I tell her. And I rush into the kitchen, send a manager to the table, and get the pancakes recooked and back to her table within three minutes.

She doesn’t even thank me when I bring them back. Or when I come back to ask if this stack of pancakes (identical to the previous stack) is to her liking. Or when I bring them extra biscuits. Or drink refills. Or to go boxes. All without being asked.

And when they leave, for all my trouble, they leave no tip.

Which is what I expected when I got to the table.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Work 101. Instructor: dhf's mother. Credits: 0. Day/Time: MTWTFSS 12:01am - 12:00am

Things my mother taught me:

1. There is work to be done. Someone has to do it. You can’t count on anyone else to do it right, or at all, so you might as well do it yourself.

2. If the work is not done, it will only create more work down the road, and since #1 almost always holds true, you will be the one doing more work.

3. At any given task your co-workers will be one or all of the following:
a. Lazy
b. Incompetent
c. Absent
Therefore, it is in your best interest to help them out (ie do all the work) to avoid # 2.

4. Work that is not done will bring shame and condemnation on you and your entire family.

5. Once the work is done, there is more time for fun, and the fun will be made even more fun by the fact that you don’t have the thought of undone work hanging over your head.

Things most of my co-workers’ mothers apparently taught them:

1. Life is not about work. It is about joy, and sunshine, and gossiping about the little people, who are working. Don’t waste your time doing something someone else can do better.

2. Tasks left unfinished will be completed by the next person, who let’s face it, is probably beneath you anyway, so who cares?

3. If someone else is willing to help you out or do it for you, let them. They likely:
a. Enjoy it
b. Have nothing better to do
c. Are too stupid to know any better or do anything else
If not, they would stop.

4. You are a special person, with special gifts; do not squander your time on details and menial tasks (See #2).

5. Have fun! There will be plenty of time for work later.

Friday, July 20, 2007

He may not be a morning person

The three of you who have are actually suffering through reading this blog (all three previous posts) already know this, but it has been several years since my mother asked me if I was living an alternative lifestyle. But in the unlikely event that anyone else ever ends up reading this garbage, I thought perhaps I should let them in on the origins of the title, so I thought I should post that one. And yes, I wrote in present tense. And yes, I have reasons for that, but I would have to get up on my literary high horse to tell you about them and if you aren’t one of my literary friends you would probably get bored and click on the “next blog” button and end up reading about some cool kid puking in the subway in Manhattan after a night of seven dollar Coronas.

So here in the present day, I am finished with grad school (and by finished I mean, I still have one class to take and a thesis to turn in, but as my thesis and laptop were stolen and I still owe the university for a semester of tuition and can’t register for any new classes and thus will not be able to take classes until I pay that shit off, I am finished), I am working at the university from which I failed to graduate, and I am no longer living with my friend, but still reside in the former seat of the Confederacy. With my son. Who is now fourteen.

Which brings me to the point of today’s post:

I woke this morning at four to put the wunderkind on a 6:45 flight to the Midwest, where his father will be picking him up so they can spend the rest of the summer hanging out in their underwear, eating day-old pizza from cardboard boxes left on the floor, and watching reruns of Viva la Bam and all the R-rated movies the kid’s horrible mother would not let him see while he was here. Despite his father’s promise to me that they will watch no such films.

And upon his return, it will take me another nine months to de-program him, just enough time for him to go back to his father’s again.

But still not my point.

While I was working yesterday, and still while I was doing laundry and getting the kid’s things together to be packed, he was at a theme park with some family friends. Last night was my night off from the restaurant – one of two nights per week I am not working – a night I usually spend napping, hanging out with and feeding the kid, and then going to bed early. It’s an exciting life, I know. But last night, as the kid had to be prepared for his father’s house, I skipped the going to bed early part (I did manage to get a short nap in – ahhh, napping!).

He showed up sometime after nine and immediately launched into a plea to be taken to the mall, and after the mall had definitely closed, to wal-mart in order to purchase a new video game for his long (six hour) trek to see his father. From my son’s lips came phrases such as, “I love you, Mommy” and “You’re the best” said so saccharinely that he could have had naked pancakes and they still would have rotted his teeth. He finally gave up sometime after eleven, and I sent us both to bed, though I didn’t make it there until about midnight.

So, on an entire four hours of sleep, with me having to work until after twelve tonight, I shoved the kid toward the shower, threw his bags in the car and we headed to the airport. For the next thirty minutes, me without nicotine or caffeine because we were running late, this was the conversation:

Kid: Why do we have to leave so early? This is stupid.

Me: Your father bought the ticket. I guess this worked out best. Ask him.

Kid: Why couldn’t I just take the train?

Me: Once again, ask your father.

Kid: I’m going to be on a plane all day. This is bullshit.

Me: Watch your mouth.

Kid: I can’t watch my mouth. That’s just stupid.

Me: I love how pleasant you are in the morning.

Kid: Well maybe if you didn't make me get up so early.

Me: It’s too early to argue. Just don’t speak.

Kid: Your car smells.

Me: Crank the window.

Kid (rolling down the window):It's the outside that smells.

Me: I can't help you there.

Kid: Now I’m going to smell. I can’t even take body spray on the plane.

Me:

Kid: This is stupid. Like I’m going to take down a plane with my can of Axe. Airline people are stupid.

Me:

Kid (once arriving in the parking garage and unloading his bags): Why do I have to bring so much crap? Now I have to carry all this (as I unload and roll his bags down toward the terminal).

Kid (in the terminal, seeing the two people ahead of us in line at the ticket counter; upon being asked to put luggage tags on his skateboard and carry-on bag; upon seeing the line for the security checkpoint; upon being asked to remove his belt before going through the metal detector; and upon having to put his shoes back on after the security checkpoint): Oh my god!

Me (at 6:55; upon lighting my first cigarette of the morning, after handing him over to the airline employee in charge of the unaccompanied minor): Oh . . . my . . . god . . .

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Why my mother thinks I am a lesbian

My mother thinks I'm a lesbian. She tells me this in a letter in which she has asked me if I am depressed and also included two dollars for my son to buy an ice cream cone. She took his cousin for an ice cream several days earlier and does not want my son to miss the chance for an ice cream outing he probably didn’t even know had occurred anyway. My mother is all about fairness, even though I must have heard the words, “Life isn’t fair, so get over it” fly from her lips at least seven hundred and fifty thousand times. Maybe I’m exaggerating. Maybe the words just glide.

And maybe she doesn’t tell me that she thinks I’m homosexual. Maybe she just asks me if I’m living “an alternative lifestyle,” but the words are still there, gliding around the page of looseleaf paper. There is no judgement. Just the question and then the next line about taking my niece to the Dairy Queen on Thursday. But I am not surprised.

My mother has bipolar disorder, and though she is at the time, as far as I can tell, perfectly lucid, she can at times wildly misconstrue a situation. I am not denying what it looks like to her: I have moved 1200 miles east to go to graduate school, left my young son in the care of his father, and through a series of circumstances moved in with another graduate student, a woman, who is in a committed relationship with another woman.

A year earlier, my mother had made the drive with me to Virginia, her car crammed with as many of my belongings as we could fit - my computer, some clothes, a portable tv, and my journals. I was to start graduate school that month and I'd secured a teaching assistantship, starting on the 16th, but the apartment I'd leased wouldn't be available for a few more weeks. The plan was for my son to join me when I'd settled in, for my things to be moved when I was in the apartment.

For the time, I'd rented a hotel room and my mother stayed on with me for a few days. We explored Richmond together - visited the campus, toured the sites, took pictures of the monuments. In the evenings, we played cards and talked about the past, the future, about how three years wasn't that long to be away, how it would just fly by. We talked more than we ever had. And in the dark hours of the night, over hands of cribbage, she finally opened up to me about her illness, about where she had been for days on end, in the throes of mania, about her stints in hospitals, about the patient who stole her food from her, about how much she missed us, how all she wanted was to go home. She told me how thankful she was, now, that we hadn't let her.

I didn't reciprocate. I didn't tell her how hard it was for us. I didn't tell her how it felt while we were searched for her for days on end, not knowing if she was even alive. I didn't tell her how it felt when she showed up at my house at two in the morning, asking to borrow a pair of shoes because her size eight pumps were on the size ten feet of the homeless man she had dragged along with her. And I didn't tell her what it was like to have to hold everything together while my marriage was falling apart.

The day she left Richmond and headed back to the Midwest, we were able to see the apartment I would be living in, and then she drove me to school and I said goodbye to her through the open car door. As she pulled away from the curb, I knew what she didn't want to know, that I could never return.

By the end of the first semester, I had decided to let my son spend a year with his father, and to save money had moved in with another grad student to whom I'd grown very close. And when I left the apartment my mother thought I would be living in, the one she had approved of, the one she could picture my life in, I neglected to tell her that my new roommate was gay. And the next summer, when my son moved out to live with me again, when my roommate and I decided to keep sharing the rent, I still said nothing.

I can't say why I didn't tell her. Maybe because I didn't think my roommate's sexual orientation was any of my mother's business. Maybe because it didn't matter to me, and I thought it would matter to her, and I didn't want to find out my mother was bigoted. Whatever the reason, I just never brought it up.

It was my son who spilled the beans. And prompted the letter.

So now she knows. And thinks she knows more.

I am not gay, I say to her. Yes, my roommate is. No, really. I’m not. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything before.

She tells me she is disappointed that I didn't tell her. Not because we are from the Midwest, where people are not lesbians, where people who are lesbians do not tell other people they are lesbians because girl on girl action is not something one discusses in polite company and now she has found out I am secretly living with a lesbian. No, my mother tells me, she is disappointed because I was silent when I didn’t need to be.

She has opened the door, allowed me the opportunity to come clean, to tell her, to tell her everything, to say what I have wanted to tell her for years. She is asking me to come in, to sit and talk, to get to know her and allow her to know me. But I don’t go through, I stand there, doorknob in my hand, waiting for her to turn away, so I can close it again.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

That'll be five packing peanuts, please . . .

In first grade, we were given packing peanuts as incentive for completing certain tasks. One styrofoam nut for being able to write the alphabet, two for being able to name all seven continents, and a few more to count and write the numbers up to 100. Every Friday, Ms. Crook would open up the Peanut Store, at which we could exchange our packing peanuts for goods. For 1 pp, you could get one of Ms. Crook's home-baked sugar cookies or a plastic spider ring. Five pp would get you a candy bar, a Dukes of Hazzard pencil, or a superball. And in exchange for a mere 10 pp, one could choose either a green or blue plastic motorcycle. I wanted that motorcycle.

There were other, more valuable goods to be had, but I was never much for saving and Ms. Crook made a mean sugar cookie.

There were only a few caveats. One, the Peanut Store was open on a first-come, first-serve basis. There was no layaway program and they didn't accept credit, so if you wanted something, you had to be the first to save enough to get it. Late-comers ended up with the Mounds bars or the Chunky with raisins. Your pp could also be confiscated at any time, say if you were caught cheating or stealing someone else's. And finally, partial packing peanuts were not accepted (Billy Tighe liked to chew on his - like I said, I preferred the sugar cookies).

The point of Ms. Crook's little incentive program was not only to get us to do our lessons, but was itself a lesson about money and exchange.

Ms. Crook was a genius.

Okay, so it took me several years to stop getting excited when the UPS man left a large, non-heavy box on the doorstep (two hundred and forty-seven packing peanuts! Imagine the Hershey bars I could get for that!). And the peanuts were hard to keep in a wallet.

But I thought back to that Peanut Store years later, in high school economics, when we learned about barter and monetary systems, about how 'currency' is really just what the people of any given society have deemed valuable. In come cultures, cattle are the thing of value. Or chickens. Or turquoise beads. For us, the mighty fine people of these United States, our thing of value isn't a thing at all - it's just digits. Points.

Whoa! you say. Hold on a minute! We have money, and that money says right on it "Federal Reserve Note" and there is theoretical gold and silver somewhere in some vault that guarantees that piece of paper. Our money is backed by the strength of the American economy!

(Excuse me while I laugh)

(Okay. I'm good now)

But really, how often do you even handle those pieces of paper anymore? I work full-time in an office, and the only compensation I've received for my time has come in the form of a few points being added to a bank account in my name. When it comes time to pay my bills, I go online and transfer a few points into another account at some cell phone company or utility provider. I even pay my rent this way. And when I go to the grocery store? I swipe a card, linked to my bank account, that deducts a couple of points from my account and puts a couple in theirs.

Most of our exchange is done this way. If we actually want cash, most of us go to a machine where we can purchase a few bills (for a small atm fee) by deducting points from the total number of points we have on record at a bank that may or may not have the actual cash to back up all the points all their members reportedly have.

So our barter system is one of points which represent paper currency that represents theoretical precious metal but really only represents the notion that it will continue to maintain its own value because of the "strength" of the American economy (Can anyone say 'Confederate bills'?).

I miss the packing peanuts.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Ignoring Ignorance

In the evenings, because I have nothing better to do than earn money to pay the man, after my full-time job, I wait tables at a certain nationally-known family restaurant, one you'd find along most interstates. Last night while on a smoke break, I was chatting it up with a couple of the grill cooks and a manager who were also playing a game of catch with a package of napkins. Why napkins? Why not, I guess. Anyway, the manager admonished one of the grill cooks for throwing "like a girl."

I could have let it go.

I didn't. I let a lot of things go - but that's just one of those comments that really irks me. Partially because it's sexist. But more so because I am a girl, and I can throw harder and farther than most of the men I know. Granted, I hang out with non-athletic, intellectual types, but this just further proves my point - athletic ability is not tied to gender.

I digress.

My objection to the remark and subsequent demonstration of how this girl throws, led to more discussion, my use of the word misogynist (in jest), my necessary explanation of the word misogynist, and half-hearted protest from the twenty-something grill cook who claimed that he "loves women" and could not possibly be sexist, followed by more discussion. And another cigarette (because, well, it was slow in the restaurant last night and I'd already earned my $2.16 an hour making sweet tea for the bastards).

At this point a third grill cook stepped into the break area - I have no idea who was actually making the food at this point, but not my concern - and upon hearing the discussion going on said to the woman-lover that he should keep it down because "isn't someone here a . . . feminist?" The best part is that he whispered the F-word.

No wait, the best part is that the woman-lover, who was standing slightly behind me as I ashed my cigarette, shiftily pointed to me and this caused the whisperer to blush a little. Or maybe it was fear that colored his cheeks.

I am not a doormat. I am ferocious. Hear me roar.

As I said before, I hold my tongue most of the time. Especially at the restaurant, one famous for recent lawsuits involving discriminatory behavior. On one hand this makes me a bad feminist, but on the other hand, I have a fourteen year old to feed and since I don't own a farm, not even one cow, I need the extra cash. So I try my best to ignore the ignorance. I've only discussed the F-word with one or two other servers, but apparently that is enough to have it spread through the place like porn on the internet.

"See that waitress over there? She's one of those damned, hippie feminists! Can you believe it?!"

As if I am a Satanist. Or a pedophile.

I think to them, those choices are less frightening.