Category: Blog

My nightmare starts with me glancing up at a huge clock on the wall; it’s six o’clock, the second hand ticking. I’m sitting, bent forward–my head ready to drop into my lap–on a hard-wooden chair, exhausted. I’d snuck into my house—about an hour ago—and am in need sleep, bad. I’m about to be grilled by the FBI, CIA, and my wife—all now hovering over me, wife pissed, cops stern-faced. The room is dark except for a bright bare light shining in my face, so hot I can feel the heat.

I take a deep breath, knowing I have to figure a way to get out of this, unscathed, or at least with minimal damage. I wonder if the past two years of witnessing the chicanery of the present US president will benefit me. It’s my only hope.

Ok, I’m ready. I can do this, I tell myself. I start building my confidence by convincing myself that I’m a very, very, extremely intelligent person; in fact, the very smartest person in the universe–in spite of my college transcripts–and that I know more than anyone else about everything.

Now, I attend to my body language by folding my arms tightly across my chest, tuck my hands under my arm pits, press my lips firmly shut. I glimpse down and see that I’m wearing a long red tie—power tie. Due to my rather short stature, it dangles to the floor and puddles there. All right! I’m ready for the onslaught of questions—fake investigation, clearly a hoax!

Wow, I’m really starting to feel my power, now, the red tie has clinched it.  My wife is the first to speak:                                                                                            

Wife: “I heard you sneak in the back door.”

Me: “What?” I wrinkle my nose, tip my head, appear confused–like a dog not understanding what is being asked.

Wife: “Where did you go, last night? I’ve been worried.” She has her hands on her hips.

She doesn’t look worried to me, she looks pissed.

FBI man: “When,” he interrupts before I can answer my wife, “did you leave the house?” He has piercing eyes and is the spitting image of Robert Mueller.

Me: “I didn’t go anywhere. I was here all night.” My eyes wide with innocence, while I give them a solid alternative fact. 

My denial is very strong and powerful—therefore it’s so.

Wife: “Yes you did. You weren’t in bed with me when I woke up around five a.m. You were not in the house. I looked everywhere for you…And,” she now has the I-got-you smirk on her face to go along with her anger, “I heard the door close when you came in this morning.”

FBI’s Robert Mueller look-alike: “How do you know it was five a.m., ma’am?”

Wife: “I always pee at that time. It’s my second pee of the night.”

CIA man: “And your first pee, ma’am?” He blushes, lowers his eyes to his shoes. 

Wife: “Around 2, 2:30, 3-ish. Depends on my water intake that day.”

“Was she,” FBI Mueller-man says to my wife, pointing at me, “in bed when you executed your, uh, first trip to the bathroom?”

“Umm,” my wife’s brow furrows, “I’m not certain…really, couldn’t say for sure.”  

I knew she wouldn’t know, she never remembers much of anything when she pees the first time, she’s barely awake.

FBI Mueller-man: “But, you know for sure she wasn’t in bed at five a.m. Right?”

Wife: “Right. I searched the house, no Jody.”

Me: “Fake memory! Fake memory!”

FBI Mueller-man: Glares at me. “Your wife didn’t remember, so it’s not a memory at all.”

Me: “Well then, fake no-memory. No collusion. Alternative facts. It’s a disgrace, I was home all night…” I ramble on and on, covering a lot of ground, unrelated, tangling their minds. FBI man ponders, confused by my incoherent word salad. By the time I finished, Mueller guy doesn’t seem to have a comeback. My wife and CIA man are slack-jawed. 

Me: “Did you check in the downstairs bedroom? Huh?” I stare into her eyes, straight on, and continue, “Because that’s where I was and that’s where I just came up from when you mistakenly thought I’d come in the back door.”

Wife: “Uh, no…why would you go down there? You don’t like the basement anymore than I do. You told me you’d never sleep down there.” 

Me: “I’ve never said that, fake memory, fake accusation!” I lower my voice, sweeten my tone, “I mean, honey, are you having one of those times?” I shake my head, like I’m living with the woman I love, watching her losing her marbles.

I realized I needed to settle down, look innocent, become the victim. I give my wife a look of pity, one that implies she’s often misconstruing things, in other words, losing it. I hope to convey to the cops that although I lost it for a moment–given my weariness in caring for her, I’m generally a compassionate and loving person when it comes to her frequent misunderstanding of reality…Luckily, I was right in assuming my wife wouldn’t check out the basement bedroom if she were to go looking for me. She doesn’t like going down the the basement, and she wouldn’t suspect I’d go there, either. We both hate spiders… 

I notice the FBI and CIA gazing at each other with puzzling expressions on their faces. Then Mueller man finally turns to me and says, “So you claim you were  in the basement bedroom and just came up from there this morning, and you never left the house last night. Is that right?” He rubs his chin as though he had a goatee.

Me: “Yes, to the best of my memory.” I say in a very firm, strong, and powerful, very powerful manner. “I woke up, couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to bother my wife with my tossing and turning, so I went down to the basement bedroom.”

CIA man: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes, to the best of my memory, I slept downstairs last night.”

I can tell my wife is trying to sift through her memory but I’ve successfully confused her with my strength and powerful denial and alternative facts. Studying the two cops, I believe I’ve successfully established that I could have been in the bedroom below–since my wife didn’t look there–and not have left the house at all. 

Me: “I didn’t leave the house, honey. You know how much I hate the cold and fear the dark.” I lean forward, gently pat her leg, staying on my subtle message that she’s not quite the woman I married, mentally; and yet, how concerned and loving I am with her. 

Wife: “Are you sure?” she says.

She’s almost where I want her but not quite. I’ve learned that repetition will help make it so.

Me: “Would I lie to you?” Before she can think about her response, I offer her the answer, “Of course, I wouldn’t. I didn’t leave the house last night. I was in the downstairs’ bedroom. I was right here in this house.” That was a powerful declaration, emphatic, heartfelt. I repeat it several times.

I realize I‘ll have to pay some hush money as well as threaten the person I know who saw me last night. However, I’ll distance myself from the payment by finding a thug who specializes in such things to take care of that.

I glance around at FBI man, CIA man, and my wife. The men seem to be starting to question my wife’s reality; I’m not sure about my wife, but she’s almost where I want her but needs to be reminded—and the cops need to hear another example of how she misremembers things.

Me: “Remember, you thought I ate your ice cream chocolate cookie the other day? Then you finally realized that you must have eaten it yourself and had just forgotten about it.”  

I’d actually eaten it, it was hers, but I didn’t want to appear greedy so I convinced her she’d snacked on it the night before.

Wife: “I’m not fully awake,” she says, her voice thin and ragged “without my morning coffee and my mind must be fuzzy, maybe Jody was here all night.” She fidgets with the tie on her yellow terrycloth bathrobe.

“Why are you here, anyway,” I ask the FBI man, feeling empowered and ready to throw a little trash at them. “You’re wasting precious time, you could be going after crooks. And you’re wasting taxpayer money on a fake investigation, fake charges, a fishing investigation! Surely my wife’s being confused as to where I was isn’t a case for the authorities. You’re harassing me.”

I glance over at my wife who is brushing her fingers around the sides of her lips, gazing at me, like when we are at a restaurant and something is on my face and needs to be wiped off. An automatic response of hers to my frequent messy mouth.

Damn.            

FBI man: “I’m here because the Dreamy Ice Cream & Cookie Parlor was broken into last night, and we followed the tracks from there straight back to this house.”

I glance down at my shoes, muddy. I lower my head so the men can’t see me stick out my tongue and lick all around my mouth.

Shit, they must have seen it too. Now, I’m going to have to change my alibi, come up with new alternative facts, a new defense that creates another plausible deniability to my having been out last night.

“Well,” I say, still tasting the remnants of the wonderful chocolate flavor, “to the best of my memory—unless I was sleep walking—I was in the downstairs bedroom…”

I haven’t really lied, more like I misspoke, and misspeaking is a common, acceptable and a forgivable thing…

 

Everyone is looking at me, making me worry, so I add an addendum to my account: “Oh, I’ve just thought of something else. Before I came upstairs, I remembered my shoes were outside where I left them when I came in the house yesterday. This morning I fetched them and put them on. That must be why my wife thought that I had just come in this morning because she heard me open and close the door on my way upstairs. So,” I continue, “it must have been that someone stole my shoes, last night, went to the ice cream parlor, took the ice cream cookies, and then walked back here and left the shoes where they found them.” I glance around, checking how my new version is going over.

Are they buying my revision? Damn, I don’t like the expressions on their faces.  Not only that, I just realize that I’ve majorly fucked up by mentioning that the ice cream cookies  were what was taken from the store. The problem for me is, neither the FBI nor the CIA man had stated what was missing from the parlor…But I just did! Damn. Damn. Damn.  I wonder if they’ll buy that I misspoke, again…Can’t chance it. I need to shift gears, again, and fast…

“Do you recall, honey,” I say to my wife in my most loving tone, “when I was sleep walking last month and I ate the ice cream cookie? I was fully asleep, not knowing what I was doing,” I emphasize the, “not knowing what I was doing.”

I’m trying to establish that though I might have taken ice cream cookies from the Dreamy Ice Cream & Cookie parlor last night, since I was sleep walking, I didn’t have criminal intent.

I don’t sleep walk but surely my wife won’t rat on me. I’ve let my wife hear my story so she can parrot it back to the cops. I don’t tell her directly she’s to say that, but she knows me and she knows what I want her to say–so it’s not like I’m trying to influence her answers. Then again, she probably knows that if she goes along with my sleepwalking defense, she becomes a coconspirator. That would put her in jail, too…Hmm, unless of course, she thinks only of herself and cooperates, rats me out, so she’ll won’t get prison time…

Let me think, I wonder if I can turn this whole thing around and accuse her, imply that she was probably the person who was wearing my shoes while she broke into the ice cream place…

Before I can spin my new version, she says, wrinkling her brow, “So, you did eat my ice cream cookie last month, after all.”

Leave it to my wife to still be stuck on that minor misdeed. I’ve told her before that hanging on to anger isn’t good for her.

Me: “Forget about that, right now, tell them that I sleep walk, honey, remember.” I say, desperately.

My wife: “You know me, dear, I can’t count on my memory of anything,” my vengeful wife says.                                    

I’m sweating…I’m going to jail.

The FBI man walks over to the freezer, opens it, pulls out the evidence, turns and nods to the CIA guy.

“Oh no, oh no…” I’m yelling, “I don’t even like ice cream cookies, those aren’t my cookies, someone else had to have put them there. I’ve been set up. Fake charges! Fake charges! Fake charges! A witch-hunt! You’re conducting a witch-hunt!…no one to pardon me…”

The CIA man taps me and then grabs me by my shoulder.

This isn’t how this is supposed to go…

Or is it!

——————————————————————————————————————–

“Wake up, honey… Jody, wake up, you’re yelling, you’re having a horrible nightmare!” My wife is shaking my shoulder…

I find waking up from my night terror only sends me into my day terror, the one that started with the moment I woke up to trump being elected President.   

PS: I know a surname is capitalized, I just can’t bring myself to do it for this president.

 

Visit me on Facebook at: JodyValley/Author 

For More, scroll down to: “Stories Are Us.”

As I watch my granddaughters at play, I notice that so much of children’s play is involved in creating stories; stories they enact through dress up, manipulating playthings, or lying on green grass or in their beds dreaming of being superheroes or mothers or scientists or veterinarians or wildlife adventurers, or…

I believe they create story to learn about, explain, and deal with life by practicing what it is to be in existence. They practice the practical, like setting a table, steering a toy truck, caring for their dolls. They manipulate toy people and animals all the while dealing with more abstract skills, like how to make a friend, how to be assertive or aggressive. Their stories are created by imitating the life they observe, as presented by adults in their environment.

For myself, I’ve never grown out of wanting to make up and tell stories, in fiction, essay, or poetry. It’s been my way to attempt to record or deal with emotions or make sense of life–sometimes all three. But it was in watching my granddaughters and contemplating my own story-addiction that got me thinking about the whole idea of story, itself, and I ended up coming to the conclusion that story is omnipresent throughout our lives, like the air we breathe…

Stories envelop us…

We walk through life in story, embedded in our own individual tale, one that we create the very moment we begin to live, and then leave memory fragments of it for others when our visit to Earth is over.

Not only that, we crave a good yarn outside our life’s bubble. We read stories, watch them unfold on TV or in the movies, listen in on the life stories of other’s via newspapers and magazines, hear tidbits of other’s stories from our friends–gossip.

Even most advertising is done in the narrative form, like how the new fantastic medication makes it so grandma is able to get out of her sick bed and cook Thanksgiving dinner. (Couldn’t someone else have done it, even if she did get out of bed!) Or the new medical miracle that allows Uncle Albert to walk his daughter down the aisle–all the while we watch these ads and listen to a fast-paced, rap-like beat of all the side effects that could harm or kill grandma or our dear uncle–a possible nightmare story right there.

From our own story bubble, we peek out and are diverted from the here and now of our own lives by these stories. Sometimes they penetrate us as we travel vicariously through the emotional drama of the characters, sometimes to educate, sometimes to make us feel grateful, sometimes to excite us out of our boredom, sometimes to scare the shit out of us.

With all the influences in and around us, we are constantly at work creating our own stories. What we do or don’t do with what’s thrown at us or what we stumble into or knowingly create. How we handle it all is the stuffing of our individual tales.

It’s not just individuals who have their narratives, couples create a common story as well (albeit through different viewpoints), like the how we met, our first date, and you remember when…?

Families produce their accounts of the generations that came before. How great, great grandparents came over from the old country, or were brought over as slaves, or how their land was stolen. How grandpa fought in the war and never returned, or came back home with a war bride and got a job as an autoworker, or a farmer, or became a bank robber. How one of their kids turned out to be a doctor or a mechanic, or bareback rider in the circus, or…

Community’s legends can often be seen on placards in significant places or heard on Pioneer Days when local leaders give speeches recounting the history of the area and its people. Who settled the area, who was there before that, why a certain kind of industry came into being in that location, how the land played a role in the settlement. How it’s changed over the years, or how it has barely changed at all…

Of course, all countries chronicle, as well. The story of their beginnings, who invaded, who won, who lost, what groups prospered–most likely leaving out or altering who did not…Another story…

Whether it’s the individual, the couple, the community, or countries, there exist numerous sub-stories within their stories, and variations of sub-stories within the sub-stories–like a universe of endless individual bubbles walking inside of couple bubbles, inside of family bubbles, inside of…and I didn’t even include the story of existence beyond Earth…

Wow! Now there’s a story inside of a huge bubble(s)…

It’s all mind boggling for me to think about life in this way, in an endless all-pervasive story of stories in a sort multi-dimensional Russian stacking bubbles occupying infinity…

Wow, again!

Returning to something I can get my mind around, I’ve concluded that our very existence is contained in story; it’s nothing we can escape from, and if we were to try…well, we’d merely be pivoting our direction, while still encased in our bubble because…

Stories Are Us.

 

For more SaturdayScribbles, scroll down to: “High Noon…or All’s Well that Ends”

 

 

Maybe it was the on-going, entrenched, toxic political climate affecting me, or maybe I was weary and having a bad day, or maybe it was merely indigestion. But, truthfully, I don’t think I can blame it on any of these grab-bag excuses. More likely it was just that badass part of me that doesn’t usually show itself, at least not in such a raw undeveloped manner…

It happened this way, last August:

Elaine and I and our two dogs are coming home in our truck camper from a crime writer’s workshop, traveling a long stretch of two-lane highway (one lane in each direction) in the U.P. of Michigan. My wife and I haven’t had breakfast and it’s almost noon with few restaurants in sight. There are no grab-and-go places to eat for those of us who are traveling with our dogs and don’t want to leave them in a dangerously hot environment. Though, when we have our truck camper, it’s not as dire a situation as with our auto because we can put our pups in the camper while we eat. The larger camper space stays much cooler than in the small confines of a car. But even so, we need some shade to park under. Not easy at high noon.

So, when we finally come upon a restaurant where a treed shady spot is available, though it be across from a nearby motel, we stop and walk back to the restaurant. So far, so good. That is, until we return…

Elaine climbs into the back camper to get the dogs so we can move on. Meanwhile, I’m busily kick the tires and do what I see men do, pretending to perform some vital function on the vehicle. My fallacious concern for the safety of the tires is soon interrupted by an aproned woman, in her fifties, who is crossing the highway, yelling at me:

“You can’t park there, that’s for guests of the motel,” she howls. She comes at me like a crusader on a God-given mission.

“Okay,” I say, “Sorry. We’re on our way out.”

“Didn’t you see the sign,” she bellows back at me? Her words are obviously not a question; it’s an admonishment.

“No, I didn’t see a sign,” I lie. The place is empty as is the motel parking lot across the street and I can’t see the big problem. I figure that she’ll be content that we are now leaving and will have successfully shooed us out of this place. We did see a sign, but technically speaking, it said that the beach was private and only for motel guests’ use. We are merely located in a parking area, aside the road by the coastline—no other vehicles—and hadn’t gone to the beach.

“I can’t believe you didn’t see that sign,” she screams, vexed, and throws out her arm and pointy finger toward the sign that doesn’t happen to be, at the moment, in my view.

“I told you,” I insist, perturbed, pausing between words, so she can get what I’m claiming: “We. Didn’t. See. The. sign.” I wonder what’s wrong with this mad woman. She’s not listening and we are clearly in the process of leaving. Her job is done, here.

“How can you not see the sign?” She’s getting closer; her snarl lets me know that she’s not finished with me. “The sign is right there!” She repeats, as though we haven’t been addressed this point before, several times. She’s back using her pointy figure, her other hand on her hip.

I’m feeling like I’ve time-travelled to my childhood self, and…

I’m in front of the principal,

as well as  my mother,

and God is watching.

I’m in big trouble.

I decide to plead my case, once more, “I told you I didn’t see the sign. And anyway, we’re leaving.” I can’t believe this woman. Geez Us! I just want out of here and away from this bulldogish woman, bent on chewing my ass to shreds.

“Can’t you read!” Another snottily posed question that really isn’t one.

“How can I read a sign,” I snap back at her, “that I didn’t see?” Surely, I figure, she can understand the logic of my comeback.

At this point in our encounter, I’m not about to go into the fact that the sign didn’t say we couldn’t park here, just that we couldn’t use the damned beach—and no one else is even around. I’m now convinced than any further logic would be lost on this screaming predator.

I was correct.

“I asked you, can’t you read!” Now, her eyeballs are threatening to pop out of their sockets, along with her vocal cords. Her hands on her hips and she’s moving in closer to me.

I’m incredulous. Really, I just want out of this place and back on the road. But this situation has just crossed my line and has stepped into the territory of a playground showdown–at High Noon. Which is beckoning the mentality of my two-year-old self who is up to the task.

“I can read, you fucking bitch, I have a goddamned master’s degree, but I didn’t see the fucking sign.” My throat is raw from my shriek. My eyeballs must be bulging, too.

I’m out of control.    

I’ve played my Trump card, a fine education—though admittedly not from an Ivy League school. Still, ashamedly, I’m aware that pulling out my master’s degree is a bit of an overkill display of my qualifications, given the particulars of this situation. (This isn’t a job interview.)

She slaps both hands against her chest, as in sudden heart pain, then sucks in air and manages to utter from the debts of her being, “You cursed at me!” It’s a hard blow for her and she pushed back by it.

I am grateful for her retreat.

But geez-us, it wasn’t my master’s that impress her; it was my cursing that performed the trick! Regardless, I can’t believe that this woman is taken aback by my pissed-off— vulgar, perhaps—but understandable response to her agression. I would have guessed she’s been “cursed” at many times before, given her proclivity to “beat a dead horse.” Whatever,  I’m relieved to find something that has made her back off.

However, the woman recovers from my blasphemy and slaps her credentials on the table, “I have a degree too!”

Touché

But I’m not done with her, I throw down: “Not in public relations, I bet!” Then, I take a step forward. I want her to be aware I’m not on the run anymore.

About then, my wife and the dogs emerge from the camper, drawing the heart stricken, rule enforcer’s attention, and Elaine asks, “What’s going on out here?”

The woman lifts a hand off her chest, points at me and exclaims, “She cursed at me!” She waits for a horrified reaction from Elaine.

Elaine glances my way and finds me, well, smirking from self-satisfaction. She’s used to my cursing. It’s  an everyday event since 45 stepped into the presidency–mostly at the TV set.

“I’m calling the police.” The woman huffs and pulls out her cell phone, obviously needing someone to care, maybe someone who’ll put us in jail.

For one thing, we are not in a town; we are on a sparsely travelled road in the U.P. Phone reception is iffy, at best. There are no cops, unless a state Trooper happens by—which I’ve seen few of. Secondly, we have not exactly committed a murder or a robbery. Shit, we are not even littering. There are no warnings about trespassing  around, just a sign about a private beach, which we are not on. And furthermore, we are in the process of leaving. Surely this situation will not be considered a high-priority.

Elaine shakes her head, calmly puts the dogs in the backseat of the truck, motions for me to join her. We drive out with the woman standing, now, by the road, phone to her ear.

We smile, sarcastically, and wave good-bye,

She affects a smile, as well, and waves…

Elaine’s and my eyes meet, non-verbally questioning: What the hell was that all about?

 

 

For more SaturdayScribbles, scroll down to: “All I said was…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I don’t want a baked potato,” I tell her. Little did I know where it would all lead me. My wife and I are having our coffee in bed, as we make our grocery list for our upcoming camping trip.

“Why? We need a potato with our steak dinner,” my wife says. 

“I just don’t want a baked potato,” I reinterate.” Geez, I’m thinking that we’re going camping, who eats a baked potato on a camping trip. Besides, there’s so many better ways to consume a potato.

She’s incredulous, scowling, her eyes examining me, like for a defect.

“I’ve never liked them all that well,” I confess.

“Yes you did.” She’s thoughtful for a moment, then says, “Have you noticed that the older you get the more stubborn you are about what you will eat? You’ve regressed.”

“I have not! You say that just because I don’t want a damned baked potato.”

“Chinese food,” she blurts out, “you used to be happy to go out for Chinese food. Now, when I say let’s have Chinese, you wrinkle your nose. Even though, on the few occasions you do give in it, you think it tastes good.”

“I have never been big on Chinese food. I just eat it to please you.”

“So now you don’t want to please me by eating a baked potato with your steak?”

“Uh.” I realize I’ve sunk into the marriage muck up to my hips. How to extract myself? She’s staring at me, waiting. “I will concede,” I tell her, “that as I get older, I realize time is limited, and I am less likely to do eat something or do something I don’t like or want to do.”

“Exactly,” she says, triumphant. “A kid turns her nose up when asked to eat something that’s good for her and digs her heels in when she doesn’t feel like doing something. Another sign that you’re regressing.”

“I’m just being more selective. That’s a sign of maturity, not childlikeness.”

“Do you notice you’ve lost your censor, you just about say anything that comes into your head, like a little kid before she learns what she shouldn’t mention?”

“I’ve always been like that.”

“I guess you right. Your censor has always been…well, set on low. But I think it’s getting worse, like ready to shut off.

“Speaking my mind keeps me from getting an ulcer.”

“And I suppose not doing or going to places that bore you keeps you from stomach ailments as well? Like, for instance, when I want to take in a botanical garden.”

“What? I always go…when you can’t find someone else to go with you.”

“Yes, when I have no one else to go with me, and after I remind you that I watch football with you even though I’m not interested in football.”

“This isn’t a situational equivalency, because when you watch football with me, you play games on your computer, or draw. And when I’m at a garden, there’s nothing else for me to do. I—”

“You never used to complain.”

“I have done a lot of things I could have complained about but I didn’t because I’m not a complainer, I say.”

“You are now, about a potato!”
And that’s another thing that confirms my belief. As you get older, you regress and become a complainer about what you eat or what you do.”

I’m frowning at her and her hypothesis that I’m regressing, year-by-year, back to my childhood. When in fact, I know that I’m merely selective and wiser in my life selections—again, it’s the time-limited concept I’m in touch with.

“Another thing that confirms my observations of your regression, you don’t care if your socks are matched.”

“I simply don’t find that important, and besides I don’t have to match them, you insist on my socks finding their rightful mates—a little persnickety if you ask me.” I don’t say anal, that would really piss her off.

“But do you notice how many little kids don’t match their socks.”

“I didn’t put my shoes on the wrong feet, did I?” I’m referring to her wearing her flip-flops on the wrong feet for several hours before she noticed—and she claims to have sensitive feet that can’t bear to have seams in her socks.

“That’s what I mean, I’m getting older too. You’re just older than me and are more regressed.”

“Humph, I wonder who’s going to monitor you?” I say, and apparently I won’t because I’m too childlike already, and who knows how bad I’ll be in a few years.” I grab our grocery list and head off to the grocery store to get our food for our trip.

The first morning in our camper:

“I have a new way of looking at your regression,” my wife informs, again over coffee, this time in our camper bed.

“Really?” God, here we go again.
“Yes, now I see it in a more spiritual way.”

“I’m all ears.”

“It’s the cycle of life,” she says, like a returnee from a spiritual quest with the Dali Lama. “Before you are born, you’re an essence that goes into a newborn’s body and grows into maturity, and then begins to sink…”

I don’t like the word, “sink.” I can’t see this new enlightenment regarding my regression getting any better for me.

“…back into a childhood state, and then eventually the essence leaves the body.”

“So now that I’m an essence, you’re feeling better about me, right?” I think her grief cycle has moved to acceptance.

She smiles and nods. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve become more stubborn…and more and more regressed.

I can’t wait until she realizes I bought hash browns, yesterday, and not baked potatoes for our dinner tonight.

 

(For more: Scroll down to: “Night Visitors and Un-kept promises.”)

They stare at me, others hide under my bed, night after night, wondering when I’ll move them along, let them complete the present chapter in their lives. As it is, their agitation and plaintiff faces and disgruntled voices cast anxiety over my day and into the night, making restful sleep difficult, fitful, unlikely. A few of the players in my story have been with me in my first two novels of my mystery trilogy.  They’ve experienced me halt their progression before in  A Venomous Cocktail and then again in Twisted Minds, but never for this long. I’m certain the old timers have told the new actors that this is not normal.

There’s a screeching, a cacophony of:  What the hell? What’s up?

I hear their fear that I’ll never return, never keep my promise to them.

There are recriminations.

It’s painful…

And worrisome.

Each cast member—except maybe a few of my walk-ons—knows that I have the script in my head as to where he or she is headed in my current tale–which I do, mostly; however, I’ve not shared the plot. I’ve kept them in the dark, and it’s a good thing, because lately I’ve been hearing their chatter, along with the word-on-the-street which is: they are considering taking off without me, settling their own issues, plotting their personal destinies—maybe, even, taking a dip in someone else’s novel.

Defection.

A full-on renegade.

Who could blame them?

Not me, but…

I do have a reason for my desertion from their lives, their destiny. My justification for my inattention lies in my distress. Something my characters wouldn’t understand, since they live back in 2014, before the November 2016, USA election.

I hope the players in my novel aren’t listening right now—being I’m far away from my night’s sleep—but most often these days, the conjured characters of my imagination seem inconsequential, irrelevant…and frankly, frivolous.

When I try to escape into their lives to keep my promise to bring their dilemmas to a conclusion, I feel like I’m wasting my time. So I stay away from them in the day, even though I know that I’ll end up enduring their nightly hauntings.

These days I’m invested in the reality of this country, compelled to engage in playing my part to combat the immorality, the criminality, the false sense of righteousness, and the greediness displayed in too many members of our country’s leadership; these supposed public servants who betray a commitment to our nation’s core values; these leaders who plot—in real time, in real life—to take away, instead of enhance; these leaders who fill their own pockets and egos  with money and power at the expense of those with little of either; and I’m especially disgusted with the the leaders who turn their heads to it all, out of cowardliness or out of personal job related preservation.

For now, my book’s characters are stuck in my head. I have considered the possibility that I may never be able to keep my promise to them, as I spend my time writing letters and emails, signing petitions, calling politicians, educating myself and others to what’s going on, and planning and hanging out at protests.

How long will all this last? It seems already a lifetime.

For certain, this is not the country I want to live in.

It’s not the country I, as a future ancestor, want to leave to my family, or the families of my friends, or the families of this country.

So for now, I neglect my writing and promises to my fictional characters and their world, so I can keep  an inherent promise, as a citizen, to preserve a democracy–albeit imperfect. At this point, I need to do whatever I can to help write a good ending to the reality of the country my grandchildren
and their grandchildren and their grandchildren…will live in.

 

And I’ll put up with the hauntings under and around my bed. 

 

 

(To learn about the Wind Walker, scroll down.)

It was my day to pick up my granddaughter, Eowyn, after her school let out. Being I was engaged with my current novel, I gave only a casual glance, now and then, to the media warnings about disabled traffic lights, trash cans taking flight, uprooted trees, and downed power lines all over our area.

Before I left to get Eowyn, a friend called and warned me to be careful when I left, as she nearly lost her car door when she got out to go into the grocery store. That picture snapped me into the day and the hazards of being out in the strong wind, and it got me thinking about the block-and-a-half walk from my car to the school door, the one my granddaughter uses.

Eowyn is an eight years-old, slight-of-build, fifty-pound second-grader. She didn’t inherit my low center of gravity that holds me firmly to the earth in high wind. I feared my little one could be blown away or tossed into a tree and maybe, even uprooting the damned thing—okay, I hyperbolize, my mind tends to venture off into cartoons… Suffice it to say, I was concerned.

When I pick her up, we walk a block and a half to the crosswalk that leads to the parking lot and my vehicle. Eowyn is one of those kids who makes a person tired and dizzy just watching her energy and rambunctiousness. Anytime. But when she blasts out that school door, she tears around, circles the area, finding friends with a similar need to blow off the school day’s confinement.

In other words, she most likely would not be up for having her grannie hang on to her for-dear-life. Also, I figured, it might seem humiliating to her, especially in front of her friends, to be tethered, causing her to fear others might see her as less than a second grader.

Believe me, I had an experience with her to back up my concern:

Once, taking her to school in the morning, I tried to get her to enter the building through a door other than the usual one close to her room. This entrance was close to the kindergarten rooms. She baulked, vehemently protested, complaining that that particular door was for the little kids. And even though, as I carefully laid out to her shaking little body, we’d escape of the freezing cold faster and still get to her class by taking that route, the horror on her face convinced me to let her have her way.

When she came out of the school door that windy day, I explained to her that perhaps we could hold hands so we wouldn’t land up in Oz. I didn’t want to scare the crap out of her with all the damage the wind was causing, consequently being responsible for creating a wind phobic child, sending her a therapist’s couch, but I did mention that I had a difficult time trudging up to get her.

“Don’t worry,” she said in a firm tone of confidence, “when I was out for recess this morning, I learned to walk through the wind.” She took hold of my outstretched hand and we set off for the parking lot.

Whew!

But I wondered, why would the school ever let the children out for recess in these weather conditions—then I thought of our three adult kids, all of whom are now teachers, and I get it. Beside, I consoled myself,  quite possibly during the morning recess, the weather wasn’t so bad as it was then. After all, how would I know, I was deep into the other world of my mystery novel trying to determine who lives and who dies.

As Eowyn and I started out into the wind, I became aware of her gripping my hand and tugging my arm in a downward fashion. It was a bit uncomfortable, but I didn’t mention it to her as she was holding on tight and that was what I wanted, but I didn’t understand why she was pulling down on my arm so hard as we moved along, until we turned a corner and got caught in the blast of a humongous gust, halting us in our tracks.

Eowyn held me even tighter and said, “Come on, grammie, don’t worry,  I’ll get you to the car. Remember, I can walk through the wind.”

My little Wind Walker kept a firm tug down on me, anchoring me to the earth, and she pulled me on.

 

(For more of my adventures, scroll down.)

The tumble into my new life happened last November when I opened my eyes from sleep and realized I was in another universe, ruled by an orange-faced crazy hare.

It seems I fell into an alternate world peppered with curious mind-twisting explanations for bizarre ideas, actions, and utterances—all from the Holy Book of Trumpery.

This Harebrained Wonderland was created by the slight-of-hand of a wild hare, known as, The Mad Hare. His utterances, more like rantings, are explained to me in a nonsensical, circular manner, by a blonde, longhaired Cheshire cat, who skillfully flits from topic to topic in a stream-of-consciousness, mind-altering drone that paralyzes my thought processes.

She dizzies me.

He scares me.

He’s a magician. He’s a showman. He pulls things out of his rabid mind. I watch his performance on stage, along with an auditorium filled with his followers and parasites, as well as his three adult offspring, all of them perch in the first row.

“You want your jobs saved,” says the wily Hare “see the jobs that were going overseas or to Mexico? Well, watch me now.” He takes off his top hat, reaches in and comes out with a handful of glitter and blows it into the air and says, “abracadabra! Look behind the black curtain. No, wait, don’t look for yourself, I’ll tell you what’s there: Ta Da! It’s the jobs you would have lost.”

Applause.

The Mad Hare bows.

A sign in the back row pops up: “The company was paid off to keep those jobs here.” The message is

grabbed and smashed by angry followers. The sign holder is pushed out a door.

I squeeze my eyes, tight. I can’t stand to watch this. I can’t deal. Where can I hide?

The Mad Hare smiles, points his baton at the audience, shaking it like an angry finger and says, “Fake news, fake news, you can’t trust the media.” He takes a breath. “And protesters are paid big bucks. Bad hombres! Maybe they’re brought in from Mexico, who knows? Could be China. Could be from anywhere”

Stage-left: a bank-sized safe is rolled out. The furtive rabbit rubs his finger together and dials the combination that cracks open the door.

The crowd oohs and ahs as never-ending bags of Wonderland currency are pulled out by his helpers.

The intense Mad Hare asks the crowd, “Aren’t you tired of handing over your money to those who’d squander it on things of…” he scratches his head, barely disturbing his flaxen glued fur. “of…I don’t what, but it’s bad, really, really bad. Shame! Shameful!”

The crowd chants: “Shameful. Shameful. Shameful. “

“We can do better.” The Mad Hare gestures the crowd to stop the chant. “We can make your Wonderland wonderfully wonderful, again. You’ll be rich, like me. You’ll get everything you dreamed of.”

A small voice from the crowd squeaks out, “Things were going fine until you emerged from your dark hole.”

I’m somewhat comforted, realizing there are others who fell into this world, too. I’m glad they’re showing up and trying to set things right. I’m counting on them speaking out.

“Get him out of here!” says the irritated hare and he signals the critters in brown uniforms and points to the exits. “I was summoned here, fair and square–though it was a rigged.” He furrows his brow, “I got more votes than any other leader ever received in all the history of whatever and whenever.” His face is flashing red, like a cob car bubble light.

Another voice of opposition is detected from the crowd. I watch as she’s escorted out of the theatre. Dare I have any confidence in those who resist? Will they get me back home to my world?

The Mad Hare smirks and says, “thank you, thank you,” and then goes back to his bags of money and opens one. He scoops up a fistful of coins and tosses them out into the crowd.

As his followers scramble from their seats to gathered the strewn money, tripping over each other. Handful after handful, he tosses coins into the air until the sack is empty. The delight in his face would make a devil proud. While the crowd is distracted, his aides hand out bags of cash to his parasites and kids.

What’s next, I wonder. I’m slouched in my seat, holding my heart inside my body and covering my Hillary T-shirt. I could be thrown out next, to where, I don’t know. I’m certain it’s frightening out there.

The eye-glowing Hare soft-shoes his way over to a table on which two fish bowls have been placed, one has more paper ballots slips than the other. The one with more papers is labeled, “Crooked Her”; the almost empty bowl is labeled: “The Mad Hare”

The Hare scowls and taps his lips with a finger, befuddled, “Oh my, oh my,” he tilts his head reviewing the bowls. “This is all wrong,”something is fishy here, he says in a singsong voice, then cackles as he gestures to the fish bowls. But his internal emotional state busts through his seemingly calm facade. “We can’t have illegal aliens, trader ballot-stuffers, bad guys doing bad things to our land.” His eyes squint and his lips curls up on the sides. His smile drops and he bellows: “Fraud, lots of fraud. Fraud like you’ve never, ever, ever seen before! As I said earlier in my campaign, if I didn’t win, it would be because of fraud. What’d I tell you! I know things.” His words now fly out in a torrent. “I’m smart, smarter than any other creature around, and smarter than any creature there ever was, or ever will be. I promise.” He stops his runaway barrage. Takes a breath and calmly states, “No matter, no matter, I’ll take care of this as I did the other.”

He signals an aide who hands him a black, folded, large cloth. He shakes it out and billows it over the table.

The crowd is hushed.

He yells out, “abracadabra,” and then snaps the cloth back, exposing the two fish bowls. It takes the crowd a moment to realize that, now, the Mad Hare’s fish bowl is the one stuffed with ballots, and just a few votes are left in Crooked Hers.

“See, this is the real results of my election.” Delight spreads across the Mad Hare’s face. His kids and his parasites, in the first row, smile nervously, but need not have worried as cheers belch out from the crowd and are followed by a rousing applause.

I figure that this is my time to head for the exit, and not be noticed. I can’t take it any longer. Sitting here and hoping to be saved from this horror show isn’t making it happen. And it’s causing me to feel despondent and guilty for wanting others to save me.

So I sneak out and join the Resistance.

 

 

 

And I feel better. A lot better!

 

(For more of my adventures, scroll down.)

We are at a gas station somewhere—seems more like nowhere—in South Carolina. It’s late November and f-ing cold outside—something their chamber of commerce doesn’t talk about. We are on a journey, mode of travel: our truck camper—named Artemis, after the Greek goddess of hunting, wilderness, and wild animals. (Perhaps we hyperbolize our camper’s mission, as well as suggest our knack as co-captains of the rig, but it gives us the pluck we require to travel the countryside in a 2003 truck with a heavy load on her back.)

Speaking of our on-the-road prowess, we’ve just inadvertently pumped regular gas into our diesel-engine truck. To turn the motor on would ruin the engine, immediately. We can’t move an inch until every drop of liquid has been drained from the tank.

The voice from our roadside service plan says they’ll have to have it taken to a dealership that’s fifty-five minutes away—which, given the late hour, is closed for the day. We are assured by the voice that we can sleep in their lot, overnight, in the camper. In the morning, they will drain the tank and we’ll be on our way. (Well, I console myself, we’ve parked for the night in worse places.)

“Oooh Nooo,” the tow truck driver in his southern-accented voice groans into our cell after my wife describes the disaster our rig has endured. Apparently our roadside service hasn’t accurately conveyed our situation to him. He’s in route to rescue us.

“How high?” The driver’s long “i” stretches on as he heads toward our calamity. His prolonged vowel doesn’t stop until his breath runs out. His tone reveals his disbelief, and he can’t help repeating, “How high, did you say?”

My wife had already told him, but he doubts her. He apparently needs a visual, so she says, “With our camper on the back,” my wife explains in a measured tone, “it’s as high as the semis on the road.”

The fact is, by the time you put a camper—a mini home that you can standup in, shower, cook a meal, the works—on the bed of a Silverado truck, you are one of the tall boys out there on the highway. We’re thinking that he’s been thinking that we have one of those trucks with a bubble-like lid where you spend the night by tossing in a sleeping bag and slide in horizontally—and when nature calls, pee in the woods.

“Oooh, Nooo.” He repeats. (I shutter, imagining myself being rolled in on a gurney into an emergency room. The doc comes up to my barely-hanging on to life body, hovers over me and says, “Ooooh Nooo!” Okay, I realize this isn’t a medical emergency, but we’re distressed and need a tone of confidence.)

“All, I have is a flatbed truck to put your vehicle on.”

“You can’t do that, “ my wife says. “If you put our rig up on your flatbed, it will be even higher than the semis.” (I’m imagining the crash scene as our truck proudly sits atop the flatbed, and then slams into the first encountered overpass. I shutter again.)

“I cain’t…” He drones, once again. (Someone needs to teach this guy comforting skills. Didn’t his mother read him, “The Little Engine that Could?”) I can almost hear him putting his foot on his brakes and turning around. “I cain’t do that…” “But, I suppose,” his voice finally breaks through the long silence. “I can haul her along behind.”

At least he’s got the correct pronoun for Artie (short for Artemis).

At this point, I’m wondering how anyone in the South gets things done in a timely fashion, drawing out their vowels. Furthermore, we’re not dressed for a southern freeze, having to stand outside in order to get cell phone service.

“No,” my wife says, “You can’t tow our truck camper; it’s a 4 wheel drive vehicle. And it’s top heavy” (I’m imagining our rig connected on a slant to the back of his flatbed truck—Artie dragging behind, scraping the road, sparks flying…She’s screaming.)

“How high is she?” He drones again, like he has indigestion. This guy has a visualization disability.

By this time, we realize the only answer is to lift the camper off the truck—which means leaving it at the gas pump and hoisting the Silverado onto the flatbed. But the problem with that solution is, no one will be able to use that pump and we’re thinking the gas station owner will not be pleased. But what else can we do?

Until…

A female employee at the Subway restaurant comes out and tells us about two locals who, she’s noticed, have just pulled into the gas station across the street. She explains that they do odd jobs—when they can find them—and thinks they might be able to help us out. She goes on to warn us that they look “scruffy and don’t smell too good, but they’re harmless.”

The woman says that they know how to siphon gas. I glance over at them getting out of their aged truck, Ford 150, dents, rust and loose fittings. I’m thinking, I bet they do possess that skill, and my flash evaluation of them adds, and probably others.

Elaine and are aware that the world sees us as two women traveling, alone–in other words, without men. Some even notice we’re lesbians…that gives us what I consider to be a healthy paranoia. I know we’re both thinking the same thing: Is this woman part of a scheme for travelers in trouble? Are these guys really ‘harmless’?

Maybe.

Do we leave the camper at the pump or do we call off the tow truck guy and trust these people?

Sometimes you have to let your gut make the decision; and in this case, two guts agreed.

We give a nod to the restaurant worker and she runs across the street and fetches the guys, Michael and Ricky, brothers, both somewhere in their fifties. Michael is a huge, bearded man, not that tall, just supersized. The rips in his dirty blue work pants are not fashion statements. He moves like someone should follow behind him with a chair, just in case. Ricky, on the other hand, could use an extra meal or two. He wears a tattered faux-leather and cloth spring jacket, oil stained pants. He vibrates, up and down, and blows on his ungloved hands for warmth.

After they’ve evaluated the situation. Michael’s gesture to us and indicates they have a plan—they’re not big talkers. Then off they go in their vehicle, promising to return, and do so with their truck bed full of empty five-gallon barrels. They spend the next five hours draining Artie of the fluid that’s threatens to poison her system.

We fill two empty barrels with diesel and Ricky and Michael carry them from the station across the street to our truck. Michael is unable help lift the filled container to pour the diesel into our tank because he is weakened by a kidney problem, which requires dialysis. So, the burden of lifting the diesel to the tank is left to Ricky. He grunts as he hoists the gas can and tips it to pour.

“Shit,” he belches out, a minute later, when the gas barrel slips hard to the ground. The steel rod in Michael’s leg is painful and his knee buckles under the weight. He apologizes for having sworn in the company of women. I tell him I say far worse. He looks sheepish and says he sometimes does, too. We high-five and he goes back to putting the 10 gallons of diesel into our tank.

Before they’d started their work, we’d asked them how much they’d charge to empty our tank. Michael assured us that it would be reasonable. (I’ve heard that before from plumbers. But what can we do?) So when our engine is purring, I ask the guys what we owe them. Michael looks thoughtful, rubs his chin and finally says, “Is fifty dollars too much?”

GEEZ!

We gather all the money we have on us and are able give them twice that much—they could only deal in cash—knowing it still doesn’t begin to compensate the two guys for their five hours of hard work in jackets that didn’t keep them warm.

All we can do is add hugs…warm and grateful hugs to the best guys, albeit oily and smelly, at a crossroads somewhere in South Carolina.

I open my eyes to meet my wife’s gaze. For how long Elaine has been waiting for my first moment of consciousness I couldn’t say, or even why she’s there, but it’s clear that I’m soon to find out.

“Do you know,” she asks, “why bird’s knees are backwards?” Her eyes bare down at me demanding my attention.

Any voice at this moment is jarring and unwelcomed, but being smacked with a question is unforgiveable. Surely she, knowing my limitations, wouldn’t be asking me something the moment I begin to claw my way out of sleep. I’m barely functional in the morning, let alone able to discuss the subject of animal knees. So, I figure I must still be dreaming.

“Well, do you know?” There’s her voice again

“Why are you asking me this?” I’m incredulous.

“I want to know if you know,” she says. “I recently read about it.”

“Why don’t you just tell me why, instead of ask me?” Not that I really care at this moment.

“Because when I tell you something, you always say that you already know it, so I thought I’d first check out whether you had this information or not. And if you said that you knew, I wouldn’t end up telling you something you already know.”

“There’s lots of shit I don’t know. What do you mean, I always say, I know it?”

“Whatever,” she says. “So, do you know why birds’ knees are backwards?”

“At this very moment, I don’t give a rat’s ass why bees’ knees are on backwards—.”

“Birds knees, not bees.”

“Whatever,” I mimic back at her. She’s hovering over me, the elbow propping her arm up, head resting on fisted hand. She’s here to stay until I deal with this–morning fog or not. She finds interest in these kinds of facts. I might too, if it were sometime after four mugs of coffee when the part of my brain that still works has kicked in.

Resigned, I say, “I don’t know, why do birds have their knees on backwards?”

“Because, she says, triumphantly, they’re not knees, there ankles!” She’s gloating.

I can’t get into her bizarre fact for the morning, instead I say, “Your response wasn’t an answer to the question you posed.” I’m aware I can be a pain in the ass.

“Yes it is.” She insists.

“No it isn’t,” I maintain. “You asked about the bees’ knees—“

“Birds knees,” she, once again, corrects.

“Okay, Birds’ knees.” I’m desperately trying to hang on to the frayed thread of my point, not having a drop of caffeine to fuel my brain. “But the question should have been: ‘what is that visible joint located on the legs of birds?” I explain, “Then, I would have figured the seemingly obvious answer, knees, is not correct, so I’d have said, ‘I don’t know, tell me.’” And you could have said, ‘they’re not knees, they’re ankles.’ Then, I would have been impressed and asked you, where are their knees?”

“Their knees are inside the body.” She says, ignoring the fact that I’ve pointed out how she’d worded the question incorrectly and have just dispelled an erroneous belief of hers that I always know everything.

Finally it hits me…”Wow, knees inside a bird. It must be incredible uncomfortable.”

“Well,” she revises, “They’re not exactly in the body, they’re up close to the body, obscured by feathers.” She looks at me innocently.

“Still weird.”

“It works for them,” she says. “Now, I’ll get your coffee.

 

(To read about what can happen when you don’t eat your veggies, scroll down.)

SaturdayScribbles

Fact: I was born tall.

Twenty-four inches of tallness. I should have stayed in the womb where it was warm and fertile. Had I been able to linger there, I might have had the boost I needed to become a basketball player. But birth stunted my growth, dramatically, limiting me to five feet, one and a half inches, almost.

Fact: My life has been about figuring out how to compensate, living in the world of talls.

Growing up short—an oxymoron? —has had a few—two I can think of, compensatory advantages, such as, I can’t see what’s going on with all the talls blocking my view, but, I can wend my way (sneak) through the crowd and squirm to the front without anyone noticing or caring. And when playing hide-go-seek, I’m able to squeeze into places where no one ever suspects a person could fit. Okay, that’s all the advantages I can think of…

But, I figure, isn’t that what we all have to do? Find out how to deal with our shortcomings—so to speak. That’s why I have a stepstool where cabinets and shelves exist; that’s why I make friends of tall people in the aisles of stores; and that’s why I use booster pillows.

Fact: It’s assumed I can’t do something that’s physically challenging.

As a kid, I was given what I used to refer to as–and not in a good way–“Joey Jobs.” (I was called Joey, then.) I felt my jobs lacked importance and significance. These tasks were the ones that were in low places and took little skill, like after grocery shopping, I got to put away the hand soap and toilet paper under the bathroom sink.

Fact: I was stereotyped.

When I first set foot on the softball field, guess what position I was steered to? Yup, catcher. My coach said that it wouldn’t take much bend in my knees to keep my head below the swing of the bat. And I should be able to get on base by just standing there, never having to take the bat off my shoulder, since a pitcher would have to have an incredibly good aim to get a ball through my strike zone. I would be walked, a lot. That was his batting strategy for me.

Fact: I can hit a ball hard enough to get into the outfield.

Luckily, I was born a natural athlete and I could do well, so my size was often, “overlooked”—it’s hard to find words that don’t refer to something undersized. Sometimes it wasn’t that my stature was unnoticed, but viewed as, “look what she just did and she’s so tiny, like when I hit a homerun, stole second base, or carried the equipment bag over my shoulder. That remark always started a fire in the pit of my stomach and smoke would billow out of the top of my head. 

Fact: I like shorter people, a lot.

Standing next to a shorter person, makes me feel good. In school, I was next to the shortest kid in my class. After all these years, I still remember the name of the shortest person, that’s how significant it felt to me to not to be the smallest. To this day, when I see a short person who, from a distance, is probably shorter than I am, I make my way over and find a reason to stand close, so I can feel, well, taller. (I know—I’ve been told—that’s sick.)

Fact: The shortest person in my class was Linda Sheppard. (If you are out there, Linda, I’m sorry for calling you out, like that.)

Another fact: I don’t think “short.”

I walk around not thinking I’m less than average in height. Maybe it’s because I’ve learned to move really fast. My legs, most likely, appear a blur as I hustle along side someone with long legs. I will not ask them to slow down. I will not complain about my soaring heart rate; I will not sweat or at least I won’t let them see me become moisten—that’s why I carry tissues in my pocket.

Fact: It’s assumed that I’m not big enough to have a substantial thought.

I found, early on, that I had to come up with strategies to be seen and heard. That meant, as a short person, I had to search and develop my strengths; such as, my capability to learn big words to put with my burgeoning philosophical thoughts, political leaning, and other ideas of a curious and unfiltered mind. However, my mother mostly viewed my ranting as insolence when I questioned adults or authority. But I got attention.

Fact: Because I’m short, it’s further assumed I will always settle for the smallest piece of cake.

Why would anyone assume that? Geez!

Fact: Being taller than my granddaughter will last just so long.

Several years ago when my five-year-old granddaughter, Eowyn, wanted to bypass the vegetables and proceed directly to the chocolate ice cream dessert. Her father told her that if she didn’t start gobbling down her veggies, she’d end up being short like her Grammie Joey—as my granddaughter calls me—who didn’t eat her vegetables before dessert.

For Eowyn, I’ve been set up as the poster person for what happens to kids who eat sweets and won’t consume their greens. See my dilemma! If I claim I ate them, she has no incentive to eat her veggies…I’ve been held up to her as being a good example of a bad role model for growth.

She’s seven now and when I picked her up from school the other day, she introduced me to her friend. And for no apparent reason, she went on to explain that I was short because of my lack of vegetable intake. The kid to whom she was explaining my condition shook her head, her  eyes bugged out in disbelief and horror. Frankly, I wanted to run and hide. It’s one thing that I take-one-for-the-team in my own family; it’s quite another that this rumor is likely to spread around the school grounds, and who knows where it might migrate from there. But, I quickly defended myself to this wide-eyed kid-friend of Eowyn’s by explaining, “But I eat them now.”

“Oh Grammie,” my granddaughter said, “ you had to eat them when you were a kid. It’s too late for you now.”

After dropping her off at her house, I went home and comforted myself with a serving of chocolate cake, a big effing piece.

(For more SaturdayScribbles, scroll down to “What’s Not To Love.”)