The department I work for at the university is just wrapping up a candidate search for a new faculty member. Though I am not involved in the hiring or selection process, this search has been the major reason I've been posting so sporadically lately. Because we are a state university, we're subject to a myriad of rules and regulations governing the hiring process and most of them have to do with EEO laws. Consequently, every applicant has to be logged and responded to within a pretty stringent timeframe.
And because I'm an idiot this way, I volunteered to help my co-worker out by building her a database which she could then use to run a mail merge each day and streamline the whole log/letter process (we have a lot of applicants). Of course, once the bosses found out I could do this, they asked if I could add fields to the database for one thing and then another until it finally grew to a point where each logged entry includes enough information that the search committe could basically make preliminary cuts without even having to open an applicant's file. Easy for them, not so much for me because, oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I also ended up being the one in charge of applications.
One of the lessons my mother tried to teach me: Hard work is always rewarded. With more work.
Anyway, this morning my co-worker came to me to get a list of all applicants who were interviewed (which thanks to Access, was a breeze to print out), so she could fill out the required paperwork for our HR department. Five minutes later, we were on speaker phone as I was going through files, reading CV's and recommendation letters, trying to find any clues about each applicant's gender and/or race. It seems that, in order to comply with federal reporting standards which monitor our EEO compliance, these things must be recorded.
Gender wasn't so difficult. Someone named "William" for instance, seemed pretty simple. But there were a few names like "Chris" or "Sam" or "Xiangjan" where it wasn't so obvious. But most recommendations are full of gender specific pronouns, so as long as we had received rec letters for an applicant, we were fine. For those without recommendations, we went to the members of the search committee and asked.
For race/ethnicity, there was just no way to report it. We started out asking the committee members. All they could tell us though were the people who were white, at least based on their appearance. But my coworker pointed out, that wasn't necessarily accurate either, and she pulled up a picture of her cousin from her flickr account - her blonde, very light-skinned African American cousin. And the cousin's brother, as she showed us, appears to be of Middle Eastern descent. So we were pretty much at a loss as to how to fill out this federally mandated report.
Leave it to the government to require answers to questions they prohibit us from asking.
Anyway, I was talking about this with a friend over lunch, and it occurred to me that our first assumption was wrong as well. First of all, we can't just assume that "William" is male. Probably is, but not certainly. But more importantly, even the search committee members' observations aren't really enough for us to accurately report gender.
My last job at the university was in the women's studies department. Once a week, one of my bosses met up with another professor to do work on a paper they were writing together. Sometimes my boss was late and the professor waited for her at my desk and we would chat until my boss showed up. One day my boss and I were talking about the work of Leslie Feinburg and in the course of the conversation, she brought up the professor.
She'd been coming to the office for eight or nine weeks by that point and, despite the topic of the paper they were working on (transexuality in the university), I'd had no clue that the professor was transitioning from male to female. Okay, so maybe I'd had a clue. Or a few. But I hadn't really considered it - the professor presented herself as a female, so I accepted her as female. I guess 'accepted' isn't the right word here, that makes me sound judgmental.
Let me phrase it this way - this particular professor is in a department near the building where I currently work and I see her and we chat sometimes when I'm out for a smoke break. The other day she was crossing the street at the opposite corner from where I was and I called out her name but she didn't turn and I thought to myself, "I guess she didn't hear me."
She didn't hear me. A lot of people have made this argument more eloquently and convincingly than I would be able to, so I won't even try, but the point is that gender isn't a binary category in which the only options are male or female. And even if those were the options, how would you decide which label is applicable? And how exactly are the labels to be applied? Is gender an anatomical basis or a perception?
The same questions apply to race: is my coworker's "white" African American cousin black because of ancestry and genetics, or is she white because that is what a person passing her on the street would perceive?
The big-picture purpose of the report we had to fill out this morning is to ensure that state and federal instutions are complying with equal opportunity laws. If we interviewed a diverse group of people and chose too many white dudes for second interviews, for instance, this would seem to show a pattern of discrimination on our part. And there would (and should) be consequences. No argument there. But the government wants us to fill in the boxes in order to prove that we're not discriminating by putting people in boxes. But what about the people who don't fit?
The categories, the boxes, seem so arbitrary - useless and at the same time proof of discrimination. There's no way around it. We categorize. Everything. It's what we do. And by defining those categories, we give them merit. We name our discrimination.
I can't really find the words for what I'm trying to get at here, but I think the big picture is blurry. Or maybe part of what they're trying to take a picture of has been obscured. A flare in the lens, perhaps.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
This is why your server hates you
Friday night my last table just before cuts went up was a four top – an old white dude, his wife, their daughter, and the daughter’s teenage son who wanted nothing but water and biscuits (hooray, please let me refill this glass for you seven times while I run back and forth fetching you free bread and jellies. No, really. Nothing would make me happier). After being informed that junior would not be paying for a meal, I proceeded to take orders for the rest of the table, starting with junior’s mama.
She ordered breakfast, and when I asked her how she would like her eggs cooked, she thought about it for a minute and finally settled on scrambled. I smiled and turned my attention to her mother in the next seat, but before giving me her order, the older woman told her daughter, in a very snotty tone, “Do you want cheese on them? Because if you don’t want cheese on them, you have to tell them, or they’ll just put cheese on your eggs!”
Her daughter looked up at me, non verbally checking the accuracy of her mother’s outburst. I simply shook my head and said, “No.”
Right then and there my tip went down by ten percent.
“Well, they always put cheese on your father’s eggs and he doesn’t want it,” the older woman said to her daughter, as if exposing a global conspiracy between restaurants and the dairy industry.
“We will definitely not put cheese in the eggs,” I said, then, “What can I get for you today?”
She ordered, without looking up from her menu, obviously steaming about oeufs avec cheese, and when she was finished, she pushed her menu toward me, letting it hover in the air in front of her husband’s face. I very slowly finished writing down her order before taking it from her.
When the husband finally ordered his breakfast, I figured out why the old dude is always getting cheese in his scrambled eggs. “I’d like the pancake breakfast with bacon,” he mumbled, “and I’d like the eggs scrambled without cheese.”
So there it is, I thought, the reason dude is always getting what he thinks he didn’t ask for. If my old dude’s wife hadn’t raised such a stink about it, I probably would have served him and charged him for the dreaded cheese in his eggs, just as psychic bitch predicted.
Why? Because guests don’t know how to fucking order and because they don’t speak up. At full capacity, our restaurant seats over 200 people. Add to that the crowd of non-seated, waiting for a table people. And add to that ten to fifteen servers, two hostesses, maybe a couple of busboys, five grill cooks, two managers, two backup cooks, one prep cook, and whoever manages to show up in dish – all engaged in conversation. Add to that the clank of dishes being set on tables, thrown into bus tubs, and dropped on the floor. Add to that the phone ringing and cash registers slamming shut. And add to that three children running and giggling through the restaurant and one screaming baby. Always one screaming baby.
And I, the server, am standing at the end of your table, focusing intently on your every word as you stare into your menu and whisper your order to me as if we’re in hiding and raising your voice too much would let the serial killer outside the door know we’re in here. Even when I ask guests to speak up, using the pretense that I’m just deaf, most only raise their volume a fraction of a decibel.
So when you say to me, in your tiny voice, “Bring me a Coke with no lemon,” all I catch is “Coke” and “lemon.” And because a Coke is not served with lemon, has not ever been served with lemon, and is not listed on the printed menu you are holding in front of your mouth as you try to communicate with me as including a lemon, it can be assumed that the only reason you would mention a lemon is because you want a fucking lemon. Difficult concept to grasp, I know.
She ordered breakfast, and when I asked her how she would like her eggs cooked, she thought about it for a minute and finally settled on scrambled. I smiled and turned my attention to her mother in the next seat, but before giving me her order, the older woman told her daughter, in a very snotty tone, “Do you want cheese on them? Because if you don’t want cheese on them, you have to tell them, or they’ll just put cheese on your eggs!”
Her daughter looked up at me, non verbally checking the accuracy of her mother’s outburst. I simply shook my head and said, “No.”
Right then and there my tip went down by ten percent.
“Well, they always put cheese on your father’s eggs and he doesn’t want it,” the older woman said to her daughter, as if exposing a global conspiracy between restaurants and the dairy industry.
“We will definitely not put cheese in the eggs,” I said, then, “What can I get for you today?”
She ordered, without looking up from her menu, obviously steaming about oeufs avec cheese, and when she was finished, she pushed her menu toward me, letting it hover in the air in front of her husband’s face. I very slowly finished writing down her order before taking it from her.
When the husband finally ordered his breakfast, I figured out why the old dude is always getting cheese in his scrambled eggs. “I’d like the pancake breakfast with bacon,” he mumbled, “and I’d like the eggs scrambled without cheese.”
So there it is, I thought, the reason dude is always getting what he thinks he didn’t ask for. If my old dude’s wife hadn’t raised such a stink about it, I probably would have served him and charged him for the dreaded cheese in his eggs, just as psychic bitch predicted.
Why? Because guests don’t know how to fucking order and because they don’t speak up. At full capacity, our restaurant seats over 200 people. Add to that the crowd of non-seated, waiting for a table people. And add to that ten to fifteen servers, two hostesses, maybe a couple of busboys, five grill cooks, two managers, two backup cooks, one prep cook, and whoever manages to show up in dish – all engaged in conversation. Add to that the clank of dishes being set on tables, thrown into bus tubs, and dropped on the floor. Add to that the phone ringing and cash registers slamming shut. And add to that three children running and giggling through the restaurant and one screaming baby. Always one screaming baby.
And I, the server, am standing at the end of your table, focusing intently on your every word as you stare into your menu and whisper your order to me as if we’re in hiding and raising your voice too much would let the serial killer outside the door know we’re in here. Even when I ask guests to speak up, using the pretense that I’m just deaf, most only raise their volume a fraction of a decibel.
So when you say to me, in your tiny voice, “Bring me a Coke with no lemon,” all I catch is “Coke” and “lemon.” And because a Coke is not served with lemon, has not ever been served with lemon, and is not listed on the printed menu you are holding in front of your mouth as you try to communicate with me as including a lemon, it can be assumed that the only reason you would mention a lemon is because you want a fucking lemon. Difficult concept to grasp, I know.
Friday, January 25, 2008
DHF and the little sisters
I have two sisters. One is three years younger than me and the other is the same three younger than her, and because my parents weren’t paying attention and gave my middle sister a name with the same initials as mine, they ended up continuing the initials with my youngest sister. This worked to their advantage in the mid-eighties when monogrammed sweaters were the thing to have, and all my clothes were passed down. Of course, by the time my youngest sister grew into my old hand-me-downs, she was, shall we say, less than thrilled to be sporting a bright yellow, puffy shouldered v-neck with two of her initials emblazoned above one breast (the first initial had fallen off in the wash some time earlier).
Despite the fact that we were neither triplets nor members of the Osmond family, my mother found it somehow necessary to dress us alike for family portraits and trips to the grocery store. She was quite the seamstress, my mother, and she was continually whipping up matching jumpers or terry-cloth jogging suits. And though she did allow us the slightest bit of dignity by sometimes altering the colors of our matching outfits, I still remember the resentment over the fact that my sisters had to be dressed like me and the uneasiness over whether or not we were going to be expected to break out a song and choreographed dance routine whenever we were taken out in public.
We never were, but the fear was there.
Despite the fact that we were neither triplets nor members of the Osmond family, my mother found it somehow necessary to dress us alike for family portraits and trips to the grocery store. She was quite the seamstress, my mother, and she was continually whipping up matching jumpers or terry-cloth jogging suits. And though she did allow us the slightest bit of dignity by sometimes altering the colors of our matching outfits, I still remember the resentment over the fact that my sisters had to be dressed like me and the uneasiness over whether or not we were going to be expected to break out a song and choreographed dance routine whenever we were taken out in public.We never were, but the fear was there.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Oh, it's just you . . .
Here’s the thing: As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t get back to Iowa much anymore, and I’m not a big fan of talking on the phone, so I don’t really speak to my family as often as I (and I’m sure they) would like either. This doesn’t mean I don’t miss them terribly (I do), and I know they miss me too. So when I manage to make it home for a visit, I expect them to make a big deal about it. I’m self-centered that way.
They make plenty of plans. The moment I arrive someone is going over the itinerary with me: Tomorrow we’re having dinner and opening gifts with Mom, and she wants us to come over early so we can all cook together and then she thought maybe we could go out to the diner and see (our cousin). Sunday night we’re getting together with Dad and his wife and her kids. But before that, you’re supposed to go with Dad to help him finish his shopping for the kid. Oh and Wednesday, Mom wants you to go to see Grandma, and . . .
Yeah, they all want to see me and spend time with me. I get it. Hooray.
But that’s not the big deal I’m talking about. It’s all well and good to visit and catch up with everyone, and I guess this might be considered a good thing, but when we finally see each other after months and months apart, we just fall back into the same old routine as if no time at all has passed since I left.
What the hell is that about?
I mean, I walk into my younger sister’s house and my mom is sitting in a chair reading to my nephew and they both just look up and say, “Merry Christmas.” Okay, so my mom said, “Merry Christmas, Baby Girl.”
But this is just not acceptable. How about some enthusiasm? How about a hug? How about jumping up and down and squealing about how they just can’t believe they’re actually getting to spend time with me?
Am I not a rock star?
I mean, I haven’t seen these people in over a year, and they haven’t had the privilege of spending Christmas with me in several years. I expect them to show me an appropriate amount of excitement. In other words, there should be so much fawning and applause that even I’m embarrassed and have to ask them to settle down lest they pee their pants (my family members have incredibly small bladders).
When I walk into a room after such a long absence, I want to feel like I just won a damned Academy Award. And one for best actress, not for something no one cares about like “best sound editing – short film.” I mean, I’d prepared a speech and everything, but then they were all like “Oh, hey, Merry Christmas” and giving a speech just seemed silly.
Stupid family.
They make plenty of plans. The moment I arrive someone is going over the itinerary with me: Tomorrow we’re having dinner and opening gifts with Mom, and she wants us to come over early so we can all cook together and then she thought maybe we could go out to the diner and see (our cousin). Sunday night we’re getting together with Dad and his wife and her kids. But before that, you’re supposed to go with Dad to help him finish his shopping for the kid. Oh and Wednesday, Mom wants you to go to see Grandma, and . . .
Yeah, they all want to see me and spend time with me. I get it. Hooray.
But that’s not the big deal I’m talking about. It’s all well and good to visit and catch up with everyone, and I guess this might be considered a good thing, but when we finally see each other after months and months apart, we just fall back into the same old routine as if no time at all has passed since I left.
What the hell is that about?
I mean, I walk into my younger sister’s house and my mom is sitting in a chair reading to my nephew and they both just look up and say, “Merry Christmas.” Okay, so my mom said, “Merry Christmas, Baby Girl.”
But this is just not acceptable. How about some enthusiasm? How about a hug? How about jumping up and down and squealing about how they just can’t believe they’re actually getting to spend time with me?
Am I not a rock star?
I mean, I haven’t seen these people in over a year, and they haven’t had the privilege of spending Christmas with me in several years. I expect them to show me an appropriate amount of excitement. In other words, there should be so much fawning and applause that even I’m embarrassed and have to ask them to settle down lest they pee their pants (my family members have incredibly small bladders).
When I walk into a room after such a long absence, I want to feel like I just won a damned Academy Award. And one for best actress, not for something no one cares about like “best sound editing – short film.” I mean, I’d prepared a speech and everything, but then they were all like “Oh, hey, Merry Christmas” and giving a speech just seemed silly.
Stupid family.
Friday, January 11, 2008
How my son survived a brush with death in the mountains of West Virginia: A holiday tale
I’ve decided to write about my trip to Iowa in several posts. I know you are excited. I’m certain you’ve been checking back here every day, just waiting to find out the details of my winter vacation to blizzard country and cursing me for not posting. So I’ll start with the trip itself. And by that I mean the travel. The twelve and a half billion hours I spent in a small car with a smelly, growly, bitchy fifteen year old boy.
I was foolish enough to be excited about the prospect of a road trip. After all, I love road trips. And some fool suggested that it would be fun – a nice time to catch up with my son, who I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with because it seems I’m always at work or at work or sleeping. Okay, so this fool was me, but never mind that.
We had the opportunity to fly – my sister found us some fairly inexpensive tickets and my mother was paying – but we would have been flying out on Christmas Eve, and since I’ve never flown into or out of Des Moines without being delayed by weather and overcrowded flights, I wasn’t particularly fond of this idea. It sometimes ended up taking two days to get there (or home) and required sleeping on an airport floor or waiting to be shuttled to a hotel where I would get three hours of sleep before having to catch the shuttle back to the airport to be told that my new flight had also been delayed. Besides, when I offered the option of flying (or the train) to the kid, he responded that he too was really excited about the road trip. Driving it was.
It wasn’t so bad at first. We’d gotten a much later start than I planned since I am terrible at managing my time outside of work and thought I could accomplish twelve hours worth of errands and tasks in only three, but we adjusted, and instead of leaving at two in the morning we left shortly after noon. That meant I would be doing a lot of mountain driving in the dark, but it was bright and sunny for the first part of the trip and the weather maps I’d consulted only mentioned brief periods of chances of rain over southern Indiana. Of course, I was about twelve hours behind the maps I’d checked the day before.
It started raining as soon as we hit West Virginia. Not so bad though – a light rain, not even a cause for the windshield wipers. Then as we hit the turnpike, it started to pour. And it was rush hour. And when we came to a rest stop, I thought I’d pull over and nap and let the rush hour traffic and maybe a little of the rain pass on by. The kid thought this would be a good opportunity to move from the front seat to the back, and since the car was loaded down with Christmas presents and luggage and anything from my son’s room that he thought he might need during our trip, this meant rearranging the car.
I refused to help him. I did this out of love. First of all, it was a teaching moment. He needs to learn to take responsibility for himself: if he wants something, he needs to take the necessary steps to get it. I provided him with a perfectly comfortable seat in the front of the car. He chose not to sit there. His responsibility to do something about it. Also, I think it’s time he learned how to properly overpack an automobile. He’s fifteen now. He’ll be driving next year. But mostly, I did this because I was getting tired and needed a few moments to close my eyes before we headed into the dark hours of the night when I would likely a) fall asleep and drive us off a mountain pass or b) become so tired and uncomfortable driving that each and every complaint from the kid about how uncomfortable he was would add to my irritation until finally escalating into a shouting match at a rest stop somewhere in Indiana at four in the morning. See, out of love.
But, despite refusing to help, I didn’t get much rest. Apparently, the kid didn’t realize that I was trying to get in a nap, what with the cold mountain breeze blowing in through the open doors and all the things being tossed about, not to mention all the whining and grumbling and inappropriate language coming out of his mouth (see, he learned how to properly overpack a car. Score one for Mom). So I stepped out and smoked a couple of cigarettes and as soon as he was finished, we got back on the interstate and drove all through the mountains of WV and KY in moderate to heavy rain and darkness.
Good times.
The moderate to heavy bitching that began shortly after we left Richmond (“I can’t see the screen on my DS! This is why we should have left at night!”) continued all the way through WV and KY as well. First it was too hot in the car. Then it was too stuffy. Then cold. Then his ears were popping because he couldn’t find the gum I’d put in his stocking for exactly this purpose. He was hungry. He was thirsty. His DS was running out of juice. I solved each and every one of these problems as they arrived (I’d also stuffed a bunch of junk food in his stocking so he’d have plenty to munch on during the trip).
Then he started to complain about my choice in music. No problem. I plugged in the iPod on which I had strategically compiled a playlist of songs we both enjoyed. Score another for Mom. For about an hour. It seems that despite my reminding him and his promise that yes, he charged it before we left, he had not charged the iPod, but had instead listened to it the entire day before when he was off school and I was at work and then running around town picking up the car and last minute Christmas gifts and junk food. So without the iPod and compromise music, we listened to the new cd’s I’d bought him for Christmas not knowing that I would have to listen to them in the car. Score one for the kid.
Somewhere in Kentucky, he fell asleep in the back seat. I pulled over to a rest stop, smoked a few cigarettes under the overhang of the building, checked the weather maps, delighted in the knowledge that the rain was supposed to taper off in Indiana. I figured if it was going to continue raining, I'd go ahead and check us into a motel for the night instead of driving straight through like I usually do. But the radar showed the rain moving east and since we were heading west and out of the rain, and I was feeling pretty alert and the kid was finally quiet, I would just keep going. I found a station playing Christmas music and for a couple of hours, drove on a mostly empty interstate, checking out the occasional display of lights on some house or business along the route while the kid snored in the back seat.
The rain did start to subside once we made it to Indiana and by the time I stopped for gas just outside Indianapolis, it had stopped completely. I again considered pulling over for a nap, but the next rest area was just under a hundred miles and I felt good about being able to drive that far without getting too tired. Idiot.
Another ten miles down the road we ran into fog. Thick fog. Twenty yard visibility fog. I kept hitching my wagon to the taillights of various semi trucks that passed me, keeping up with them as long as I could and then slowing down until I could catch the next passing truck. Years later we reached the next rest area and I pulled over, used the little girls room, smoked a cigarette, and settled into my seat with a blanket for a nap.
I have discovered that there isn’t much difference between a teenage boy and an infant. Both require copious amounts of sleep. Both require constant feeding. And both wake up cranky once the moving car they had been so soundly lulled to sleep in stops moving for too long.
The first time he woke me up (ten minutes after I closed my eyes) was when he opened the door to go to the bathroom. Not a problem. Necessary bodily functions are acceptable. The second time he woke me up was when he opened the door again, this time to get something to drink. A little more annoying since he could have bought something when he got out the first time. Whatever, I just wanted sleep. The third time he woke me up (a mere twenty-five minutes after I first closed my eyes) he was playing his video game and apparently didn’t know where to plug in the headphones. The fourth time he woke me up was when he decided to call his father in the middle of the night and apparently didn’t realize that it wasn’t necessary to shout into the phone in order for his father to hear him all the way in Iowa.
At this point, I stepped outside of the car, smoked another cigarette to calm down, then got back in, explained to the man-child the importance of my getting at least a little nap since we had opted to drive straight through instead of spending a night in a hotel and tried to close my eyes for an hour or so.
I thought we were good.
Fifteen minutes later, the deep sighing began. This was followed by occasional mumbling. Then rocking of the car as he tried to get more comfortable. Then grunting. More rocking. More mumbling. Louder mumbling. And finally, “Mom . . . Mom . . . Can we go yet, Mom?”
Because of my psychic abilities (see paragraph 5), I had already foreseen the completely avoidable explosion that followed and done my very best to stop it. But, as is the case with most psychic visions (at least the fictional kind I write about in blog posts), the events seen in such a vision are unalterable.
This was the first of my son’s near-death experiences as his very tired, very agitated mother unleashed her fury upon him with a screaming tirade. I’m sure I woke up all the other travelers trying to catch a few minutes of shuteye at the rest area and am surprised the police were not summoned to deal with the uncorked mother about to discharge her only child.
With twenty minutes of sporadic sleep behind me and daylight approaching, we got back on the interstate and traveled in silence (the radio had been turned off after the kid had the nerve to complain about his homicidal mother’s choice of music) for the next five hundred miles through fog and increasing cold. By the time we arrived in Des Moines later that afternoon, I threw him out at his father’s house, helped him lug his stuff inside, and headed to my sister’s where I was informed that everyone in the city had been calling her asking if I’d arrived yet (I forgot to mention that my cell phone was also drained of juice by the kid who, besides the rest area call, phoned his father every half an hour to give him an update on our progress and complain about his horrible mother who was keeping him captive in the back seat of a cramped automobile - I realize that I need to invest in car chargers, but they require money and unless you are new here . . . ).
I called my family to let them all know I had arrived, handed my sister some cash to go get dinner from Taco John’s (oh, how I miss the craptastic Mexi-merican fast food of Taco John’s), and indulged in a little recreational activity that made the previous twenty-eight hours seem slightly more humorous.
Next time on My Mother Thinks I’m a Lesbian: How everyone in Des Moines thinks I’m the crazy one and why each and every one of those psych ward escapees is just plain wrong.
I was foolish enough to be excited about the prospect of a road trip. After all, I love road trips. And some fool suggested that it would be fun – a nice time to catch up with my son, who I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with because it seems I’m always at work or at work or sleeping. Okay, so this fool was me, but never mind that.
We had the opportunity to fly – my sister found us some fairly inexpensive tickets and my mother was paying – but we would have been flying out on Christmas Eve, and since I’ve never flown into or out of Des Moines without being delayed by weather and overcrowded flights, I wasn’t particularly fond of this idea. It sometimes ended up taking two days to get there (or home) and required sleeping on an airport floor or waiting to be shuttled to a hotel where I would get three hours of sleep before having to catch the shuttle back to the airport to be told that my new flight had also been delayed. Besides, when I offered the option of flying (or the train) to the kid, he responded that he too was really excited about the road trip. Driving it was.
It wasn’t so bad at first. We’d gotten a much later start than I planned since I am terrible at managing my time outside of work and thought I could accomplish twelve hours worth of errands and tasks in only three, but we adjusted, and instead of leaving at two in the morning we left shortly after noon. That meant I would be doing a lot of mountain driving in the dark, but it was bright and sunny for the first part of the trip and the weather maps I’d consulted only mentioned brief periods of chances of rain over southern Indiana. Of course, I was about twelve hours behind the maps I’d checked the day before.
It started raining as soon as we hit West Virginia. Not so bad though – a light rain, not even a cause for the windshield wipers. Then as we hit the turnpike, it started to pour. And it was rush hour. And when we came to a rest stop, I thought I’d pull over and nap and let the rush hour traffic and maybe a little of the rain pass on by. The kid thought this would be a good opportunity to move from the front seat to the back, and since the car was loaded down with Christmas presents and luggage and anything from my son’s room that he thought he might need during our trip, this meant rearranging the car.
I refused to help him. I did this out of love. First of all, it was a teaching moment. He needs to learn to take responsibility for himself: if he wants something, he needs to take the necessary steps to get it. I provided him with a perfectly comfortable seat in the front of the car. He chose not to sit there. His responsibility to do something about it. Also, I think it’s time he learned how to properly overpack an automobile. He’s fifteen now. He’ll be driving next year. But mostly, I did this because I was getting tired and needed a few moments to close my eyes before we headed into the dark hours of the night when I would likely a) fall asleep and drive us off a mountain pass or b) become so tired and uncomfortable driving that each and every complaint from the kid about how uncomfortable he was would add to my irritation until finally escalating into a shouting match at a rest stop somewhere in Indiana at four in the morning. See, out of love.
But, despite refusing to help, I didn’t get much rest. Apparently, the kid didn’t realize that I was trying to get in a nap, what with the cold mountain breeze blowing in through the open doors and all the things being tossed about, not to mention all the whining and grumbling and inappropriate language coming out of his mouth (see, he learned how to properly overpack a car. Score one for Mom). So I stepped out and smoked a couple of cigarettes and as soon as he was finished, we got back on the interstate and drove all through the mountains of WV and KY in moderate to heavy rain and darkness.
Good times.
The moderate to heavy bitching that began shortly after we left Richmond (“I can’t see the screen on my DS! This is why we should have left at night!”) continued all the way through WV and KY as well. First it was too hot in the car. Then it was too stuffy. Then cold. Then his ears were popping because he couldn’t find the gum I’d put in his stocking for exactly this purpose. He was hungry. He was thirsty. His DS was running out of juice. I solved each and every one of these problems as they arrived (I’d also stuffed a bunch of junk food in his stocking so he’d have plenty to munch on during the trip).
Then he started to complain about my choice in music. No problem. I plugged in the iPod on which I had strategically compiled a playlist of songs we both enjoyed. Score another for Mom. For about an hour. It seems that despite my reminding him and his promise that yes, he charged it before we left, he had not charged the iPod, but had instead listened to it the entire day before when he was off school and I was at work and then running around town picking up the car and last minute Christmas gifts and junk food. So without the iPod and compromise music, we listened to the new cd’s I’d bought him for Christmas not knowing that I would have to listen to them in the car. Score one for the kid.
Somewhere in Kentucky, he fell asleep in the back seat. I pulled over to a rest stop, smoked a few cigarettes under the overhang of the building, checked the weather maps, delighted in the knowledge that the rain was supposed to taper off in Indiana. I figured if it was going to continue raining, I'd go ahead and check us into a motel for the night instead of driving straight through like I usually do. But the radar showed the rain moving east and since we were heading west and out of the rain, and I was feeling pretty alert and the kid was finally quiet, I would just keep going. I found a station playing Christmas music and for a couple of hours, drove on a mostly empty interstate, checking out the occasional display of lights on some house or business along the route while the kid snored in the back seat.
The rain did start to subside once we made it to Indiana and by the time I stopped for gas just outside Indianapolis, it had stopped completely. I again considered pulling over for a nap, but the next rest area was just under a hundred miles and I felt good about being able to drive that far without getting too tired. Idiot.
Another ten miles down the road we ran into fog. Thick fog. Twenty yard visibility fog. I kept hitching my wagon to the taillights of various semi trucks that passed me, keeping up with them as long as I could and then slowing down until I could catch the next passing truck. Years later we reached the next rest area and I pulled over, used the little girls room, smoked a cigarette, and settled into my seat with a blanket for a nap.
I have discovered that there isn’t much difference between a teenage boy and an infant. Both require copious amounts of sleep. Both require constant feeding. And both wake up cranky once the moving car they had been so soundly lulled to sleep in stops moving for too long.
The first time he woke me up (ten minutes after I closed my eyes) was when he opened the door to go to the bathroom. Not a problem. Necessary bodily functions are acceptable. The second time he woke me up was when he opened the door again, this time to get something to drink. A little more annoying since he could have bought something when he got out the first time. Whatever, I just wanted sleep. The third time he woke me up (a mere twenty-five minutes after I first closed my eyes) he was playing his video game and apparently didn’t know where to plug in the headphones. The fourth time he woke me up was when he decided to call his father in the middle of the night and apparently didn’t realize that it wasn’t necessary to shout into the phone in order for his father to hear him all the way in Iowa.
At this point, I stepped outside of the car, smoked another cigarette to calm down, then got back in, explained to the man-child the importance of my getting at least a little nap since we had opted to drive straight through instead of spending a night in a hotel and tried to close my eyes for an hour or so.
I thought we were good.
Fifteen minutes later, the deep sighing began. This was followed by occasional mumbling. Then rocking of the car as he tried to get more comfortable. Then grunting. More rocking. More mumbling. Louder mumbling. And finally, “Mom . . . Mom . . . Can we go yet, Mom?”
Because of my psychic abilities (see paragraph 5), I had already foreseen the completely avoidable explosion that followed and done my very best to stop it. But, as is the case with most psychic visions (at least the fictional kind I write about in blog posts), the events seen in such a vision are unalterable.
This was the first of my son’s near-death experiences as his very tired, very agitated mother unleashed her fury upon him with a screaming tirade. I’m sure I woke up all the other travelers trying to catch a few minutes of shuteye at the rest area and am surprised the police were not summoned to deal with the uncorked mother about to discharge her only child.
With twenty minutes of sporadic sleep behind me and daylight approaching, we got back on the interstate and traveled in silence (the radio had been turned off after the kid had the nerve to complain about his homicidal mother’s choice of music) for the next five hundred miles through fog and increasing cold. By the time we arrived in Des Moines later that afternoon, I threw him out at his father’s house, helped him lug his stuff inside, and headed to my sister’s where I was informed that everyone in the city had been calling her asking if I’d arrived yet (I forgot to mention that my cell phone was also drained of juice by the kid who, besides the rest area call, phoned his father every half an hour to give him an update on our progress and complain about his horrible mother who was keeping him captive in the back seat of a cramped automobile - I realize that I need to invest in car chargers, but they require money and unless you are new here . . . ).
I called my family to let them all know I had arrived, handed my sister some cash to go get dinner from Taco John’s (oh, how I miss the craptastic Mexi-merican fast food of Taco John’s), and indulged in a little recreational activity that made the previous twenty-eight hours seem slightly more humorous.
Next time on My Mother Thinks I’m a Lesbian: How everyone in Des Moines thinks I’m the crazy one and why each and every one of those psych ward escapees is just plain wrong.
Monday, January 07, 2008
I'm back. Happy New Year.
Okay, so it’s 4:20 (always a good time) and I’ve been back at work all day, yet I have not posted a thing and now I have to leave for the restaurant (first day back there too) in ten minutes so this will either be short and brilliant or short and stupid. Let’s try for brilliant.
So now I’m realizing why I have waited all day to try to post anything, despite the fact that I have been at my desk all day long, with very limited interruptions: I don’t know where to start.
Since nothing that happened in my little world over the last two weeks was exceptionally exciting and I don’t know which un-exciting episode to recount first and I now only have three minutes left to write this post (yes, it really took me seven minutes to write three and a half run-on sentences) I will concede that this post is short and stupid and leave it here.
To look forward to in upcoming posts:
How I offended my step-mother
How my son survived two near-death experiences during our road trip
How I offended my father’s side of the family
How I survived a psychotic break which may or may not have been due to sleep deprivation (and related to my son’s near-death experiences
How I offended my sister
How I offended my other sister
How I don’t care that people in my family are easily offended
So now I’m realizing why I have waited all day to try to post anything, despite the fact that I have been at my desk all day long, with very limited interruptions: I don’t know where to start.
Since nothing that happened in my little world over the last two weeks was exceptionally exciting and I don’t know which un-exciting episode to recount first and I now only have three minutes left to write this post (yes, it really took me seven minutes to write three and a half run-on sentences) I will concede that this post is short and stupid and leave it here.
To look forward to in upcoming posts:
How I offended my step-mother
How my son survived two near-death experiences during our road trip
How I offended my father’s side of the family
How I survived a psychotic break which may or may not have been due to sleep deprivation (and related to my son’s near-death experiences
How I offended my sister
How I offended my other sister
How I don’t care that people in my family are easily offended
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