She looked up yet again when Burch asked her if she wanted him to clean out the microwave in the corner of her office. The month's end inventory numbers where important, but the old janitor had been trying to engage her in conversation for the past half hour while he swamped out the office. She put on her far away glasses and turned away from the computer screen.
"Burch. How's your diabetes doing?"
That's all it took for the offender to stop pretending to be cleaning and lean against his broom.
Burch has spent his life more in than out of the correctional system. And he knew every one and how the system worked. But he was a newly diagnosed diabetic and he had no clue how to manage his disease.
"Not good Munkay. Not good."
Most staff would be upset if addressed by an offender by a first name with out a title before it.
The girl did not care, she knows respect does not come from a title. Burch could be her father, if her father was a black man from the south. To her the real problem she has is not lack of respect for a title, but for age.
"Your eating desserts, aren't you?"
Burch regarded her from behind hooded eyes as he propped his old body against the brooms wooden handle.
"Munkay. I can't resist free food." They both laugh.
Everyone in the prison is hungry. All have a void to fill. The food we serve inside is plenty. It just never is what they crave.
The meals are heavy on the simple carbs that are cheap and cause the offenders to gain weight and develop type two diabetes. Unfortunately the doctors are quick with the meds, but education on nutrition non existent. The leftover desserts we cannot reuse I let the kitchen workers eat up as a perk for working in my kitchen. Burch is always first in line.
"I got ya Burch, your human. Try staying away from the rice and potatoes instead."
Burch knows she knows about such things. Tell one person behind the walls any information and the whole place hears. Men like Burch have no family left to spend their time with. Gossip is his life. He had even filled the girl in on everything about her new boss before her old boss was gone, and the owner of her company. Burch has been in every facility and took his gossip with him.
"What is that a picture of there Munkay?" he asked veering the conversation away from him self.
The pictures behind her desk are limited. No photo's of family, at least not their faces.
"That's a Scottish Highlander."
"Really whats that?"
"That's a cow Burch."
"Wasn't sure there Munkay. Thought it might be a musk ox or something. We didn't have them in Mississippi."
"Course not Burch. The south is for the weak. Scottish Highlanders are a hardy breed."
"Ahhhhh -You got other animals?"
"Yup. Got just about everything."
"You got chickens?" he asks moving closer and squinting at her desk, scoping it for any juicy details left out for his sharp eyes.
Burch knows she does. Why else would a woman carry in eggs to a prison that other staff carry out. She wouldn't put it past him to somehow know the son's name that sells them.
"So many kinds I do not know what they are."
"I worked on a farm once. Back when I was a kid, Mom sent me to a farm work house. The man there raised chickens."
Burch lowered himself into the empty chair across from her, smiling as he reminisced. She knew at that point it didn't matter if she was there or not. Burch was back on that farm.
"I'd get up early before breakfast and feed the birds. That was my job. Then I'd gather the eggs. But mostly I'd watch the birds. Birds were fun to watch, how they would get along together, interact. Sometimes I would just break the eggs. Break the eggs and the hens would come running. Oh those mama's would be mad. But they would eat those broken eggs. Eat their very on eggs..."
"Burch" she said after a pregnant moment. As long as you are sitting here you want to do my numbers and I'll clean the office?"
"I wanted to talk to you Munkay."
"You are."
"What happened to your hands?"
She stiffened. Leave it to Burch to sucker her in like this to extort the facts on why her hands were raw and cut. She knew everyone would ask, but did not want any to know of her own clumsiness. So she let people think she had been in a fight. Kicking ass is better than falling over. Respect behind bars can be earned in different ways.
"I had to take care of someone who asked too many questions."
"No one can do that to you, one of our own."
"Burch", she said meaning, "Stop."
"If someone is doing this. We have people out there.."
The girl grins and shoves her chair back away from his scrutinizing gaze hard enough to cause it to roll to a stop some distance back.
Burch had chose his words very carefully as not to self incriminate.
"You just need to worry about taking care of yourself. Leave the pie alone."
The girl chose her words very carefully as to keep either of them from harm.
Burch may have been offering her protection. More likely he was setting her up. But was probley the most fatherly thing the man had done. Ever.
Burch was released and returned in ninety days. Just in time to settle in for the winter.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Across my desk
She hears the knock and looks across the office at the wall of windows. There is Olson from the dish room. The large man does not look directly at her as he waits unlike the rudely impatient ones, but stares off across the kitchen.
Most offenders who are upset will knock repeatedly and stare in at her, expecting her to drop her work immediately to answer their trivial questions. Some try to yell from the door. The more demanding ones do not know the rules, or do not bother to play by them and they try to tell her what they want. You do not tell this lady anything if you are a prisoner, you ask. Often they will make up any question they can think up to get her attention and a minuet of her time alone. Some of these men only encounter a handful of women on a daily basis.
Olson stands, the glass of her door window only reaching up to his temple, swinging his flexed right arm in a wild circle as he holds his shoulder, his face red.
The lady smiles and gladly drops her pen. She thinks she knows what this is about. She has heard through the prison grape vine.
"C'mon in Olson", she chirps throwing open the door for the giant.
Majority of the men are screened at her door and she does not allow into her office.
Being Native Olson's face turn redder as he fills her office, still swinging his clenched fist in a circular motion.
"You gonna work for me for free today?" she teases. A part of her knows this man would do anything she asked of him. One of the only times the man worked up his courage to speak with the lady was when he came to her to apologise after he tipped the silver ware cart nervously when she walked by.
"Think nothing of it ", she had told him to stop his stammering, "I do that move myself just for fun sometimes."
"Umm about that Miss Munkay" he starts the rehearsed speech he came to her office door to deliver.
The week before he had managed to maneuver his big self past the security at break time when everyone was ushered out of the kitchen into the dining room to get counted and surprised her by the cooler when she had reached in for her daily yogurt.
"Miss Munkay?" he had startled her appearing out of nowhere from behind the stainless steel door.
"Hey", she replied not remembering his name then, and not really caring because she was hungry and just wanted to eat, knowing the camera were pointed on them and rolling just in case his intent bad.
"I need to ask you a favor."
"Mmm." she grunted non committal.
"I am scheduled to work on Labor Day and I am wondering if I can have it off?" Olson was holding the cooler door open for her with a dinner plate sized hand that draped over the top of the door as he held it from his hidding spot behind and his huge face peered around the side. The shy behemoth never looked directly at her, but stared at the little plastic container in her hands. The lady knew with the facility serving only two meals on a holiday she would have plenty of workers, but her curiosity got her and he had to ask.
"Why?"
"My unit has it's play off softball game and I need to pitch it."
She was glad that was his reason. She did not want to be lied to again. Every one's mothers die, lawyers call, or cousin visit on the week end.
"Sure. You can have Labor day off."
"Miss Munkay?"
"Your keeping my from my food," she tells Olson and looks pointedly towards the kitchen door. They both knew the security officers would burst through it once they realize a kitchen offender is unaccounted for.
"Can Tabor, Baker, and Ellis from my team have it off too?"
This game must mean a lot for this man who was too shy to approach her in front of the others to her to ask for his more boisterous team mates.
"Mmmm" she stringed him along for effect. "Ok. But you guys have to win. You lose, you work for me for free."
"Thank you, Miss Munkay. For you, we'll win."
"No Miss Munkay, we won. I wanted to thank you on behalf of my unit. It was the first time ever K4 has won the championship."
"Did you mean mug them for me then? Who did you play?"
Olsen sneaks a look from the floor up to her face. "We played the south unit, (sexual predator unit) so I had to torment them, ma'am. Every time I wound up..", Olson pantomimes a pitcher pose swinging his long tree trunk of an arm, "I would say, this is for the babies and the women you rapers."
Laughter pealed out of the lady who was not supposed to comment on any one's past or crime as not to show favoritism or distaste even though the residents of the south unit disgust her and if it were her call she would torture them herself.
"Bad enough I have to work along side them..." Olson stopped then, hesitant he may have crossed the line by criticizing his co workers and his job.
Most of the sexual predators are good employees in her kitchen. They have to be. On the outside world most hold down real job, they try their hardest to blend into society. They try not to stand out in prison, for fear of a beating. And on the most part in front of authority they portray a submissive personality. But it doesn't make up for who they are. Everyone knows the men from the south unit are the most hatted perverts in the place.
The lady walks around Olson still laughing at the image of the strong man whipping balls at the deviants and holds the door open for him, "Careful now Olson. That could be taken as inappropriate."
Most offenders who are upset will knock repeatedly and stare in at her, expecting her to drop her work immediately to answer their trivial questions. Some try to yell from the door. The more demanding ones do not know the rules, or do not bother to play by them and they try to tell her what they want. You do not tell this lady anything if you are a prisoner, you ask. Often they will make up any question they can think up to get her attention and a minuet of her time alone. Some of these men only encounter a handful of women on a daily basis.
Olson stands, the glass of her door window only reaching up to his temple, swinging his flexed right arm in a wild circle as he holds his shoulder, his face red.
The lady smiles and gladly drops her pen. She thinks she knows what this is about. She has heard through the prison grape vine.
"C'mon in Olson", she chirps throwing open the door for the giant.
Majority of the men are screened at her door and she does not allow into her office.
Being Native Olson's face turn redder as he fills her office, still swinging his clenched fist in a circular motion.
"You gonna work for me for free today?" she teases. A part of her knows this man would do anything she asked of him. One of the only times the man worked up his courage to speak with the lady was when he came to her to apologise after he tipped the silver ware cart nervously when she walked by.
"Think nothing of it ", she had told him to stop his stammering, "I do that move myself just for fun sometimes."
"Umm about that Miss Munkay" he starts the rehearsed speech he came to her office door to deliver.
The week before he had managed to maneuver his big self past the security at break time when everyone was ushered out of the kitchen into the dining room to get counted and surprised her by the cooler when she had reached in for her daily yogurt.
"Miss Munkay?" he had startled her appearing out of nowhere from behind the stainless steel door.
"Hey", she replied not remembering his name then, and not really caring because she was hungry and just wanted to eat, knowing the camera were pointed on them and rolling just in case his intent bad.
"I need to ask you a favor."
"Mmm." she grunted non committal.
"I am scheduled to work on Labor Day and I am wondering if I can have it off?" Olson was holding the cooler door open for her with a dinner plate sized hand that draped over the top of the door as he held it from his hidding spot behind and his huge face peered around the side. The shy behemoth never looked directly at her, but stared at the little plastic container in her hands. The lady knew with the facility serving only two meals on a holiday she would have plenty of workers, but her curiosity got her and he had to ask.
"Why?"
"My unit has it's play off softball game and I need to pitch it."
She was glad that was his reason. She did not want to be lied to again. Every one's mothers die, lawyers call, or cousin visit on the week end.
"Sure. You can have Labor day off."
"Miss Munkay?"
"Your keeping my from my food," she tells Olson and looks pointedly towards the kitchen door. They both knew the security officers would burst through it once they realize a kitchen offender is unaccounted for.
"Can Tabor, Baker, and Ellis from my team have it off too?"
This game must mean a lot for this man who was too shy to approach her in front of the others to her to ask for his more boisterous team mates.
"Mmmm" she stringed him along for effect. "Ok. But you guys have to win. You lose, you work for me for free."
"Thank you, Miss Munkay. For you, we'll win."
"No Miss Munkay, we won. I wanted to thank you on behalf of my unit. It was the first time ever K4 has won the championship."
"Did you mean mug them for me then? Who did you play?"
Olsen sneaks a look from the floor up to her face. "We played the south unit, (sexual predator unit) so I had to torment them, ma'am. Every time I wound up..", Olson pantomimes a pitcher pose swinging his long tree trunk of an arm, "I would say, this is for the babies and the women you rapers."
Laughter pealed out of the lady who was not supposed to comment on any one's past or crime as not to show favoritism or distaste even though the residents of the south unit disgust her and if it were her call she would torture them herself.
"Bad enough I have to work along side them..." Olson stopped then, hesitant he may have crossed the line by criticizing his co workers and his job.
Most of the sexual predators are good employees in her kitchen. They have to be. On the outside world most hold down real job, they try their hardest to blend into society. They try not to stand out in prison, for fear of a beating. And on the most part in front of authority they portray a submissive personality. But it doesn't make up for who they are. Everyone knows the men from the south unit are the most hatted perverts in the place.
The lady walks around Olson still laughing at the image of the strong man whipping balls at the deviants and holds the door open for him, "Careful now Olson. That could be taken as inappropriate."
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Across my desk
"I heard there is an offender down at Fairbault that is also gluten intolerant. I thought if I was moved down there, I would have a support system", the man with intelligent eyes asked.
"I do not know what kind of special diets are at which facility", the woman replied shortly.
"I appreciate all the kitchen has done for me, but I am having a real problem with this." He sits straight in his chair, his posture excellent from the tartaric yoga he practices in his cell. She wishes she did not know this about him. She has spent too much of her time talking to this needy man. She wishes this guy did not exist in her mind or anywhere.
The woman just sighed and looked at the waste sitting across from her. He was in her office building up for his next tirade, his next appeal. The lifer had wore through every last nerve of her staff who catered to his diet, the dietitian who block him from directly contacting her anymore, and anyone else who would listen.
"Those Rice Checks you ordered for me, they give me panic attracts. I dream I'm eating a bowl covered in the milk that makes me sick, and I wake up filled with anxiety. I do not even want to come down here for meals. It's hard on me."
"I eat cereal dry. How do you think the diabetics handle it when they see sugar?" She did not want to sit there and reason with man who looked healthier than anyone in the joint, staff or not. But if he took that as empathy to his imaginary plight, and left her alone so be it. Walbergs eyes and skin are clear, his bone structure chiseled. He is one of the few residents without scares or tattoos. He wore his long thick hair in parted in the middle tied in a pony tail that would have reached his belt, if he were allowed one. He was a man her own age and he would have made a very attractive one had prison not prematurely aged him.
"I just get ravenously hungry after I have been so horribly ill, and I feel as I am starving. I have to beg and barter food from the other inmates."
Starving. That is the one word that can get to the woman. She cannot let anyone starve. She jerks her head at that word and Walberg perceives it as his signal that he has reached her.
She has seen him trade his special diet food she orders in for him with the other inmates in the dinning hall for cream of broccoli soup and saltines. Milk and wheat. Let him shit blood she thinks.
"Again, I appreciate all the effort you go to for me but I do not know who to turn to..."
Walberg has threatened her staff with law suits. She knows he wants to contact another offender who will collaborate his story.
"So anything you could do..." he fishes.
She had considered hiring Walberg to work in the kitchen just to try to shut him. Maybe work the piss out of him so he had something to really complain about. But Walberg, scoring higher on his intelligence tests than any of his teachers combined and probley the warden, got a job over in education as a tutor. Until he hacked into the state website and was sent to treatment for selling porn.
"Walberg. I am not going to ask for you to get moved. The only reason I would have your meals sent to your unit is so you stop bugging me and my staff. But that is more work for them."
She is relieved at last when he leaves her office muttering and wonders when he ate his best friends fingers if it gave him diarrhea.
"I do not know what kind of special diets are at which facility", the woman replied shortly.
"I appreciate all the kitchen has done for me, but I am having a real problem with this." He sits straight in his chair, his posture excellent from the tartaric yoga he practices in his cell. She wishes she did not know this about him. She has spent too much of her time talking to this needy man. She wishes this guy did not exist in her mind or anywhere.
The woman just sighed and looked at the waste sitting across from her. He was in her office building up for his next tirade, his next appeal. The lifer had wore through every last nerve of her staff who catered to his diet, the dietitian who block him from directly contacting her anymore, and anyone else who would listen.
"Those Rice Checks you ordered for me, they give me panic attracts. I dream I'm eating a bowl covered in the milk that makes me sick, and I wake up filled with anxiety. I do not even want to come down here for meals. It's hard on me."
"I eat cereal dry. How do you think the diabetics handle it when they see sugar?" She did not want to sit there and reason with man who looked healthier than anyone in the joint, staff or not. But if he took that as empathy to his imaginary plight, and left her alone so be it. Walbergs eyes and skin are clear, his bone structure chiseled. He is one of the few residents without scares or tattoos. He wore his long thick hair in parted in the middle tied in a pony tail that would have reached his belt, if he were allowed one. He was a man her own age and he would have made a very attractive one had prison not prematurely aged him.
"I just get ravenously hungry after I have been so horribly ill, and I feel as I am starving. I have to beg and barter food from the other inmates."
Starving. That is the one word that can get to the woman. She cannot let anyone starve. She jerks her head at that word and Walberg perceives it as his signal that he has reached her.
She has seen him trade his special diet food she orders in for him with the other inmates in the dinning hall for cream of broccoli soup and saltines. Milk and wheat. Let him shit blood she thinks.
"Again, I appreciate all the effort you go to for me but I do not know who to turn to..."
Walberg has threatened her staff with law suits. She knows he wants to contact another offender who will collaborate his story.
"So anything you could do..." he fishes.
She had considered hiring Walberg to work in the kitchen just to try to shut him. Maybe work the piss out of him so he had something to really complain about. But Walberg, scoring higher on his intelligence tests than any of his teachers combined and probley the warden, got a job over in education as a tutor. Until he hacked into the state website and was sent to treatment for selling porn.
"Walberg. I am not going to ask for you to get moved. The only reason I would have your meals sent to your unit is so you stop bugging me and my staff. But that is more work for them."
She is relieved at last when he leaves her office muttering and wonders when he ate his best friends fingers if it gave him diarrhea.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Across my desk
He sits back and smiles a comfortable smile. She could tell this is not the first time he has told anyone of his secret. But it is the first he has shared his colorful past with her.
"I wasn't your typical..." and his voice fades away as if you could not admit aloud the name of what he had been before the girl had met him.
The well groomed man cleared his throat to buy time in place of unspoken words. She recognizes his habit and raises an eye brown and cocks her head smiling most encouragingly as she continued to grip the state issued radio.
"I always drove the speed limit and kept my car in good repair. I made sure my tail lights were working. I gave the cops no excuse to pull me over."
"Ralph. You surprise me."
"Depending on where the drugs would come from, I would drive for hours. Days if I had to go all the way to the coast."
She nods, exterminating his profile, knowing all criminals exaggerate and glorify their crimes. No one wants to be a two bit convict busted for doing something stupid. His silvery hair gives him a distinguished appearance that she admires. Unlike the others histories, she wants to hear his.
"At first I would just supply my boss. Buying for him, I could afford my own. Then I used the opportunity to make a little money. "
His blue eyes glisten with his memory and his soliloquy stops. He wants to be high right then, she can tell.
Ralph clears his throat and continues. The security check on her as inconspicuous as they can. They themselves a nosey lot, always looking to stir the pot and cause some excitement. She has long since stopped pretending anything else matters. Her computer chirps with incoming mail, the phone ignored.
"I worked down town then at the Hilton."
Most of the offenders claim to have job experience at fine restaurants. Closest the majority of them had was eating out of the dumpsters in back of the upscale establishments. But she believed Ralph. He had no reason to lie to her.
"I could really produce when I was tripping. That was the only way I could work so hard so fast and for so long."
"I drink a lot of coffee", the blushing girl injected trying to relate but unsure of the tone the conversation was heading.
"Until one night I was working a buffet and Donald Duck walked up to my station and I almost lost it in public."
"Donald Duck?"
"Yes. I saw Donald Duck but knew it could not be Donald Duck. He started out with a mans body and Donald's face and kept turning more duck like. But I saw him in a crowded people filled banquet and knew I had to keep my head straight and not freak out. I got through that night and driving to my friends house after work the city lights seamed wrong, way to bright. The city too big. I curled into a ball under the table at my friends and he helped me through it. I knew I couldn't drop acid anymore. I stopped the coke and weed after that."
"The girl took a drink from the Styrofoam cup and the man resembling Bill Clinton mimicked her action. The sound of the offender workers outside her office seamed farther away then. The curious faces that would peer in at them occasionally more distant.
"I would drive all the way home up north after I came down so my wife would not know. Mary would have left me had she known."
The girl knew it was against all policy to be drawn to a person of his standing, but she was a little disappointed he had a wife to share this intimacy with.
"But that was a long time ago. A lifetime." Ralph smiles and nods, ending his account, his eyes twinkling.
"Ralph. You do realize we are in a prison and I used to work in a rehab?" she teases.
"Yes, he replies standing and gathering his things. "Just be ready on Monday when I stop by in the morning and pick you up before we head out to train the Rush City facility.
"Can we light one up on the way over boss?" she asks the mans Stefano Ricci clad back.
"I wasn't your typical..." and his voice fades away as if you could not admit aloud the name of what he had been before the girl had met him.
The well groomed man cleared his throat to buy time in place of unspoken words. She recognizes his habit and raises an eye brown and cocks her head smiling most encouragingly as she continued to grip the state issued radio.
"I always drove the speed limit and kept my car in good repair. I made sure my tail lights were working. I gave the cops no excuse to pull me over."
"Ralph. You surprise me."
"Depending on where the drugs would come from, I would drive for hours. Days if I had to go all the way to the coast."
She nods, exterminating his profile, knowing all criminals exaggerate and glorify their crimes. No one wants to be a two bit convict busted for doing something stupid. His silvery hair gives him a distinguished appearance that she admires. Unlike the others histories, she wants to hear his.
"At first I would just supply my boss. Buying for him, I could afford my own. Then I used the opportunity to make a little money. "
His blue eyes glisten with his memory and his soliloquy stops. He wants to be high right then, she can tell.
Ralph clears his throat and continues. The security check on her as inconspicuous as they can. They themselves a nosey lot, always looking to stir the pot and cause some excitement. She has long since stopped pretending anything else matters. Her computer chirps with incoming mail, the phone ignored.
"I worked down town then at the Hilton."
Most of the offenders claim to have job experience at fine restaurants. Closest the majority of them had was eating out of the dumpsters in back of the upscale establishments. But she believed Ralph. He had no reason to lie to her.
"I could really produce when I was tripping. That was the only way I could work so hard so fast and for so long."
"I drink a lot of coffee", the blushing girl injected trying to relate but unsure of the tone the conversation was heading.
"Until one night I was working a buffet and Donald Duck walked up to my station and I almost lost it in public."
"Donald Duck?"
"Yes. I saw Donald Duck but knew it could not be Donald Duck. He started out with a mans body and Donald's face and kept turning more duck like. But I saw him in a crowded people filled banquet and knew I had to keep my head straight and not freak out. I got through that night and driving to my friends house after work the city lights seamed wrong, way to bright. The city too big. I curled into a ball under the table at my friends and he helped me through it. I knew I couldn't drop acid anymore. I stopped the coke and weed after that."
"The girl took a drink from the Styrofoam cup and the man resembling Bill Clinton mimicked her action. The sound of the offender workers outside her office seamed farther away then. The curious faces that would peer in at them occasionally more distant.
"I would drive all the way home up north after I came down so my wife would not know. Mary would have left me had she known."
The girl knew it was against all policy to be drawn to a person of his standing, but she was a little disappointed he had a wife to share this intimacy with.
"But that was a long time ago. A lifetime." Ralph smiles and nods, ending his account, his eyes twinkling.
"Ralph. You do realize we are in a prison and I used to work in a rehab?" she teases.
"Yes, he replies standing and gathering his things. "Just be ready on Monday when I stop by in the morning and pick you up before we head out to train the Rush City facility.
"Can we light one up on the way over boss?" she asks the mans Stefano Ricci clad back.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Excuse me.
Top ten excuses I have used to get out of work:
10- "I have to go shoot my porn video now".
9-"My brother in law is laying on my porch roof with a broken ankle".
8-"I have a job interview I gotta sober up for."
7- "My alien baby is giving me the vapors."
6-"I can't tell you what happened this weekend. But I gotta be in court on Thursday."
5-"I broke my eye glasses and have to wait for a ride in to the optometrist. His office is in Green Bay,"
4-"Today is my kids concert. I am the one who video records it for all the poor parents who miss their children's concerts. I gotta leave early cuse I do not know how to run the camcorder."
3- "The bar down the road is having happy hour prices all day long. I can fill my purse with cheap chicken wings and not rely on the pittance you pay me for showing up here. "
2- "I left 'Dude looks like a lady' on repeated when I left the house. I don't want my cat suffering gender confusion.
1-"Zombies took over my town. You are welcome to barricade yourself in my house with me now, or this is good bye."
10- "I have to go shoot my porn video now".
9-"My brother in law is laying on my porch roof with a broken ankle".
8-"I have a job interview I gotta sober up for."
7- "My alien baby is giving me the vapors."
6-"I can't tell you what happened this weekend. But I gotta be in court on Thursday."
5-"I broke my eye glasses and have to wait for a ride in to the optometrist. His office is in Green Bay,"
4-"Today is my kids concert. I am the one who video records it for all the poor parents who miss their children's concerts. I gotta leave early cuse I do not know how to run the camcorder."
3- "The bar down the road is having happy hour prices all day long. I can fill my purse with cheap chicken wings and not rely on the pittance you pay me for showing up here. "
2- "I left 'Dude looks like a lady' on repeated when I left the house. I don't want my cat suffering gender confusion.
1-"Zombies took over my town. You are welcome to barricade yourself in my house with me now, or this is good bye."
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Depression has it's signs.
When two burglars jimmy your lock and come creeping into your house today, they won’t know that you’re home at first. All the lights will be off and the shades drawn, and it will be so musty and dank inside that they’ll assume the place has been left empty for a while. They’ll go about burgling without even worrying about the noise they make. They’ll even turn on the HDTV and check out the picture before they decide to unhook it.
It’s only after they’ve finished gathering all the electronics that they’ll make their way into the bedroom for the jewelry and find you stretched out face down across the wifth of your bed. They’ll freeze, unsure of whether you’re awake or asleep.
They’ll shine a flashlight on your back and watch it shiver as you release your peel of muffled sobs.
“Hey lady,” one will say.
“Just go away!” you’ll shout, without rolling over.
“We don’t wanna hurt you,” the other will say.
“Go ahead! Everyone else has!” you’ll shout back.
The burglars will be thrown. They’ll argue in whispers about what to do with you. Until you interrupt them.
“I said get out! Leave me alone!” you’ll shout, still not rolling over to face them.
They won’t say anything at first. Then:“We’re stealing all your stuff,” one will say.
"Yeah,” the other will add. “Don’t you wanna stop us?”
This will send you over the top. You’ll spring to a half-sitting position, place your reddened, tear-stained face directly in the beam of their flashlight and you’ll scream, “I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”
The scream will make each of them remember their own big sisters as teenagers. They’ll remember being concerned, listening at the bedroom door to the rejection tears coming from inside, then they’d get up the courage to shuffle in and ask what’s wrong, only to be commanded to leave with the most blood-curdling screech they’d ever heard.
You’ll fall back on the bed and the burglars will back-step out of your room, pulling the door part-way closed behind them.
They’ll argue in louder whispers in the living room, then they’ll gather up their loot and get ready to leave. Before they go, one will lean back into your bedroom.
“Hey,” the man who is about to take off with all of your valuables will say. “It’s gonna get better.”
It’s only after they’ve finished gathering all the electronics that they’ll make their way into the bedroom for the jewelry and find you stretched out face down across the wifth of your bed. They’ll freeze, unsure of whether you’re awake or asleep.
They’ll shine a flashlight on your back and watch it shiver as you release your peel of muffled sobs.
“Hey lady,” one will say.
“Just go away!” you’ll shout, without rolling over.
“We don’t wanna hurt you,” the other will say.
“Go ahead! Everyone else has!” you’ll shout back.
The burglars will be thrown. They’ll argue in whispers about what to do with you. Until you interrupt them.
“I said get out! Leave me alone!” you’ll shout, still not rolling over to face them.
They won’t say anything at first. Then:“We’re stealing all your stuff,” one will say.
"Yeah,” the other will add. “Don’t you wanna stop us?”
This will send you over the top. You’ll spring to a half-sitting position, place your reddened, tear-stained face directly in the beam of their flashlight and you’ll scream, “I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”
The scream will make each of them remember their own big sisters as teenagers. They’ll remember being concerned, listening at the bedroom door to the rejection tears coming from inside, then they’d get up the courage to shuffle in and ask what’s wrong, only to be commanded to leave with the most blood-curdling screech they’d ever heard.
You’ll fall back on the bed and the burglars will back-step out of your room, pulling the door part-way closed behind them.
They’ll argue in louder whispers in the living room, then they’ll gather up their loot and get ready to leave. Before they go, one will lean back into your bedroom.
“Hey,” the man who is about to take off with all of your valuables will say. “It’s gonna get better.”
Friday, September 18, 2009
Goiter Fear
I have always had a horror of goiters and been troubled by bad dreams of getting one. I have nothing against the goitered, so if you happen to have one and are reading this, I don’t mean to be insulting; I’m sorry for your troubles and that being said, I just have an unholy fear of them, and this is why:
One day, when I was a little girl, I was at Curtis Drug with my mum. It was still an old-fashioned chemists soda-shop at that time. Curtis's store had huge apothecary jars, a great big marble counter, two spinning slushy machines and a bizarre collection of various stuffed or pickled albino animals on display behind the cash register along the back wall. If you were lucky you could sit on one of the shiny silver and red vinyl stools, as you waited on your medicine, with a rootbeer float in hand and divide your time by staring at the colorful twirling frozen drink machines or the freaky menagerie of dead animals as the comforting smell of menthol eucalyptus and floor wax filled the air.
I was pretty darn new then, maybe five or six on that day when I had mustered up the guile to walk around the end of the counter to the corner shelf to peer closer at the small oddities like the snow white weasel as I nursed my float and tried to ward off the impending brain freeze that was sure to follow.
Then I spied the old peanut butter jar labeled "albino dung" and ventured timidly closer.
I was busy coveting this treasure of critter poo that looked surprisingly similar to marshmallows floating in water when my mum concluded her business at the counter, said goodbye to Mabel Sweetock and turned to go.
I looked at the bizarre turds a fraction longer and then, turning to catch up with her, bumped right into the stomach of a purple old man. Not even purplish. Purple. With a pitted, veiny drinker’s nose and whorl wind teeth. And right there on his neck was a huge and shiny goiter. I froze in utter terror. I had never seen anything like it, even in a book. What horrible, terrible thing did this man have on his neck? And his nose! He must be very wicked indeed.
Then I ran to my mum's skirt and hid my face. I was all of a sudden ashamed of myself because I knew I must have hurt the old man’s feelings, but it was the most vivid moment of raw, bulbous terror I’d ever had in my short life.
My mum flapped me out of the shop and, as it was obvious I’d taken a real fright about something, she left me be once we got home and I had put my older brother Butch's insulin in our old Frigidaire.
The handle had broken clean off our refrigerator's solid door so dad had wielded a big heavy rebar triangle onto the latch forming a new handle. To open the door I had to brace my feet wide and tug with both hands repeatedly with all my weight. Maybe dad had that planned when he designed the new opener, as us kids really had to be hungry to open that metal Behemoth. I'm sure in the long run it had saved our family a tidy sum in grocery money.
I hid for the rest of the waning afternoon under the willow tree at the edge of our yard as the root beer churned in my belly and I lost myself in thought about that grotesque monster cleaving to that man's throat. Glimpses of the Jethro Tull Aqualung album hidden away from my tender eyes in the back closet filtered through the slim green leaves, mixed with images of my new nameless fear and caused me to clutch Goldie the Tom cat too hard for his comfort until he wrangled out of my arms.
I was straddling Goldie probing his neck with my finger tips when Butch's GTO crawled into our dirt drive.
Butch always drove slow on the gravel so as not to chip The Judge's glossy silver paint, even though he washed his pride every day.
Knowing I had a better chance staying safe and finding answers with my big brother than alone with an uncooperative cat, I scampered over to the side of the house where Butch was filling a soapy bucket from a hose and sat on my haunches pointing out spots as Butch scrubbed.
"Butch?"
"What Squirt?"
"You know Mr. Dallahyde?"
I had heard the clerk address the deformed man as Mr. Dallahyde before mum brusquely ushered me from the drug store.
My brother knew everyone. After all he worked in the big window factory twenty four miles east in the next town over. The next county even.
He tried to reassure me that Mr Dallahyde, the owner of the goiter, was a very nice old man who’d lost his wife (where?); that it was not anything very terrible at all; and that it wain’t a separate, living demon latched on to the poor man’s throat.
But I wasn’t listening because I’d heard, for the first time, the name of the swelling. Goiter. The ugliness of the word made me shudder. Goiter-goiter. Goiter!
Butch handed me the little wire brush when he finish the body of The Judge and my slim fingers worked the bristles around the hub cap spokes as my mind worked around my brothers explanation.
I was not sure I believed him.
When mum had caught me flipping off our sister she had asked Butch to have a talk with me.
"You do not show your middle finger to your sister", he had said in his I mean business voice."
Why? Can I show it to mum?"
"You do not show your middle finger to anyone."
"Can I show it to Goldie?"
"Little girls do not show it to anyone!"
"Can I show this finger?" I asked holding up my pointer.
"Yes. That finger you can show."
"Can I show this finger?" I asked holding up my pinky.
I then proceeded to ask after each of my digits before I changed my venue after I flipped off my mum who was scowling across the kitchen at me in the next room.
"Why?"
"It means something bad" Butch said in a serious whisper.
"What does it mean?" I whispered back holding up my middle finger at my big brother but cupping my other hand around it just to be safe.
"Eagle."
"Eagle?"
"Stopping flipping people the eagle ok?"
Butch left at that point having done his duty but not explaining any further why a bird that was on money was such a bad thing I could not show anyone.
But on that traumatizing day Butch had yet to apply the turtle wax and buff his prize Pontiac so I had his time.
"But why do people get a gggoiter?" When I had to say that repulsive word, I cleared my throat with it, as if by doing so I would expel any beginning of unsightly tumors.
"Lack of iodine, little one. People need iodine in their food or they grow bumpy. Now clean The Judge faster or I'll give you some bumps to worry about.
"I had never noticed any iodine in mums kitchen cupboards.
I had considered telling Butch we hadn't picked up his insulin so he would let me ride The Judge with him all the way back into town where he would buy me goiter repellent at Curtis's, but I didn't.
At the dinner table that night I scrutinized my family's Adam's apples as I rubbed my tingling neck. They all appeared normal. None of the garden vegetables or the venison tasted like the dark foul smelling medicine mum would dab from the little glass bottle on the scrapes from that I would bleed when I crashed the rattle trap bike dad had made for me from various pieces of others rides and junk yard finds. I had meant to ask dad if my brothers iodine theory was right, but he had asked me to get the milk out, which led to a quarter hour tug of war with the fridge door so I missed my opportunity.
I would have asked my sister in the big bed we shared later that night but but she was the sort who smugly knew everything and hold it over me so I would have to flip her the sign of money to set her right. In the darkness she might miss my slam.
So I sat on the toilet with my peddle pushers pooled around my ankles swinging my legs before bed while I studied the skull and cross bones on the side of the iodine bottle mum kept in the chipboard cubby dad had built into the corner of my bedroom he had turned into the family bathroom after he had been paid by the Gillie family with their out cast stained porcelain fixtures for fixing their potato harvester.
Knowing I had to do something that would keep me from frightening my self and cause strangers to hide their eyes from my countenance I threw open the door that led from the bathroom straight into our bedroom and snapped on lights. That was easy to do, as the switch for our bed room was still in the bathroom.
"Read this ", I demanded of my literate sister who probley was just laying there solving math problems and practicing next years spelling words in her head instead of worrying about the impending doom of all our pie holes.
"Do not take internally."
Not knowing the difference between internal and eternity, I vowed to myself to stop drinking iodine tincture as soon as I felt safe from the evil of goiters.
I have never suffered from any physical malformations before of after that night I threw up all the bathroom sink, and then later on my sister tucked snug in our bed - aside from a hive or too, and that one thing the good doctor's caustic acid made disappear. But now and then when my husband is on the road and I know not where, those dreams come back.
One day, when I was a little girl, I was at Curtis Drug with my mum. It was still an old-fashioned chemists soda-shop at that time. Curtis's store had huge apothecary jars, a great big marble counter, two spinning slushy machines and a bizarre collection of various stuffed or pickled albino animals on display behind the cash register along the back wall. If you were lucky you could sit on one of the shiny silver and red vinyl stools, as you waited on your medicine, with a rootbeer float in hand and divide your time by staring at the colorful twirling frozen drink machines or the freaky menagerie of dead animals as the comforting smell of menthol eucalyptus and floor wax filled the air.
I was pretty darn new then, maybe five or six on that day when I had mustered up the guile to walk around the end of the counter to the corner shelf to peer closer at the small oddities like the snow white weasel as I nursed my float and tried to ward off the impending brain freeze that was sure to follow.
Then I spied the old peanut butter jar labeled "albino dung" and ventured timidly closer.
I was busy coveting this treasure of critter poo that looked surprisingly similar to marshmallows floating in water when my mum concluded her business at the counter, said goodbye to Mabel Sweetock and turned to go.
I looked at the bizarre turds a fraction longer and then, turning to catch up with her, bumped right into the stomach of a purple old man. Not even purplish. Purple. With a pitted, veiny drinker’s nose and whorl wind teeth. And right there on his neck was a huge and shiny goiter. I froze in utter terror. I had never seen anything like it, even in a book. What horrible, terrible thing did this man have on his neck? And his nose! He must be very wicked indeed.
Then I ran to my mum's skirt and hid my face. I was all of a sudden ashamed of myself because I knew I must have hurt the old man’s feelings, but it was the most vivid moment of raw, bulbous terror I’d ever had in my short life.
My mum flapped me out of the shop and, as it was obvious I’d taken a real fright about something, she left me be once we got home and I had put my older brother Butch's insulin in our old Frigidaire.
The handle had broken clean off our refrigerator's solid door so dad had wielded a big heavy rebar triangle onto the latch forming a new handle. To open the door I had to brace my feet wide and tug with both hands repeatedly with all my weight. Maybe dad had that planned when he designed the new opener, as us kids really had to be hungry to open that metal Behemoth. I'm sure in the long run it had saved our family a tidy sum in grocery money.
I hid for the rest of the waning afternoon under the willow tree at the edge of our yard as the root beer churned in my belly and I lost myself in thought about that grotesque monster cleaving to that man's throat. Glimpses of the Jethro Tull Aqualung album hidden away from my tender eyes in the back closet filtered through the slim green leaves, mixed with images of my new nameless fear and caused me to clutch Goldie the Tom cat too hard for his comfort until he wrangled out of my arms.
I was straddling Goldie probing his neck with my finger tips when Butch's GTO crawled into our dirt drive.
Butch always drove slow on the gravel so as not to chip The Judge's glossy silver paint, even though he washed his pride every day.
Knowing I had a better chance staying safe and finding answers with my big brother than alone with an uncooperative cat, I scampered over to the side of the house where Butch was filling a soapy bucket from a hose and sat on my haunches pointing out spots as Butch scrubbed.
"Butch?"
"What Squirt?"
"You know Mr. Dallahyde?"
I had heard the clerk address the deformed man as Mr. Dallahyde before mum brusquely ushered me from the drug store.
My brother knew everyone. After all he worked in the big window factory twenty four miles east in the next town over. The next county even.
He tried to reassure me that Mr Dallahyde, the owner of the goiter, was a very nice old man who’d lost his wife (where?); that it was not anything very terrible at all; and that it wain’t a separate, living demon latched on to the poor man’s throat.
But I wasn’t listening because I’d heard, for the first time, the name of the swelling. Goiter. The ugliness of the word made me shudder. Goiter-goiter. Goiter!
Butch handed me the little wire brush when he finish the body of The Judge and my slim fingers worked the bristles around the hub cap spokes as my mind worked around my brothers explanation.
I was not sure I believed him.
When mum had caught me flipping off our sister she had asked Butch to have a talk with me.
"You do not show your middle finger to your sister", he had said in his I mean business voice."
Why? Can I show it to mum?"
"You do not show your middle finger to anyone."
"Can I show it to Goldie?"
"Little girls do not show it to anyone!"
"Can I show this finger?" I asked holding up my pointer.
"Yes. That finger you can show."
"Can I show this finger?" I asked holding up my pinky.
I then proceeded to ask after each of my digits before I changed my venue after I flipped off my mum who was scowling across the kitchen at me in the next room.
"Why?"
"It means something bad" Butch said in a serious whisper.
"What does it mean?" I whispered back holding up my middle finger at my big brother but cupping my other hand around it just to be safe.
"Eagle."
"Eagle?"
"Stopping flipping people the eagle ok?"
Butch left at that point having done his duty but not explaining any further why a bird that was on money was such a bad thing I could not show anyone.
But on that traumatizing day Butch had yet to apply the turtle wax and buff his prize Pontiac so I had his time.
"But why do people get a gggoiter?" When I had to say that repulsive word, I cleared my throat with it, as if by doing so I would expel any beginning of unsightly tumors.
"Lack of iodine, little one. People need iodine in their food or they grow bumpy. Now clean The Judge faster or I'll give you some bumps to worry about.
"I had never noticed any iodine in mums kitchen cupboards.
I had considered telling Butch we hadn't picked up his insulin so he would let me ride The Judge with him all the way back into town where he would buy me goiter repellent at Curtis's, but I didn't.
At the dinner table that night I scrutinized my family's Adam's apples as I rubbed my tingling neck. They all appeared normal. None of the garden vegetables or the venison tasted like the dark foul smelling medicine mum would dab from the little glass bottle on the scrapes from that I would bleed when I crashed the rattle trap bike dad had made for me from various pieces of others rides and junk yard finds. I had meant to ask dad if my brothers iodine theory was right, but he had asked me to get the milk out, which led to a quarter hour tug of war with the fridge door so I missed my opportunity.
I would have asked my sister in the big bed we shared later that night but but she was the sort who smugly knew everything and hold it over me so I would have to flip her the sign of money to set her right. In the darkness she might miss my slam.
So I sat on the toilet with my peddle pushers pooled around my ankles swinging my legs before bed while I studied the skull and cross bones on the side of the iodine bottle mum kept in the chipboard cubby dad had built into the corner of my bedroom he had turned into the family bathroom after he had been paid by the Gillie family with their out cast stained porcelain fixtures for fixing their potato harvester.
Knowing I had to do something that would keep me from frightening my self and cause strangers to hide their eyes from my countenance I threw open the door that led from the bathroom straight into our bedroom and snapped on lights. That was easy to do, as the switch for our bed room was still in the bathroom.
"Read this ", I demanded of my literate sister who probley was just laying there solving math problems and practicing next years spelling words in her head instead of worrying about the impending doom of all our pie holes.
"Do not take internally."
Not knowing the difference between internal and eternity, I vowed to myself to stop drinking iodine tincture as soon as I felt safe from the evil of goiters.
I have never suffered from any physical malformations before of after that night I threw up all the bathroom sink, and then later on my sister tucked snug in our bed - aside from a hive or too, and that one thing the good doctor's caustic acid made disappear. But now and then when my husband is on the road and I know not where, those dreams come back.
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