I had a dream... that alarmed the ever-loving snot out of me.
I avoided the word “scare” for a reason. I seldom have good dreams, but I seldom have real wake-up-screaming-soak-the-sheets-with-sweat nightmares. I describe my nightly run-of-the-mill dreams as unnerving, uneasy, unreal, uncomfortable, uncanny. If you catch the point, they are best described by what they are not.
This one, at its core, was no different. I remembered it for more than my usual minute or two beyond waking because of how it unfolded in my mind. Usually my dreams are fragmented, plotless, non-linear; a mere collection of images melting together and oozing apart. Occasionally, my dreams will have a storyline, some linear sequence of events that I can name and follow; this one was one of those.
My first memory of the dream was of a supermarket. Garrett and Ann and I were shopping for food for a summer grill-party to celebrate Ann’s birthday. Garrett was showing less than his usual puppyish cheer. I figured he’d just turned inward and gotten quiet like he sometimes does, but I watched him carefully anyway. The further we walked through the labyrinthine aisles of the store, the less healthy Garrett looked.
Let me take a brief hiatus to mention that my M.O. in any kind of shopping excursion is and has always been “Let me get my shit and get out”. I make a detailed list beforehand so I do not have to wander and search for the items I need. Garrett, on the opposite end of the bell-curve, likes to enter a grocery store with only a vague idea of what he needs; he follows his nose and his stomach around and around the store with a contented smile on his face, enjoying the good smells and the endless choices. If left to himself, he would spend upwards of two hours wandering the food-stocked labyrinth.
In my dream, however, he did not so much as stray from the side of the buggy as we shopped. Outside in the parking lot, I asked him what was wrong. He mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I turned his face toward mine and realized, with dawning alarm, that he literally looked green around the edges. “You’re sick. We need to get you to the doctor,” I said. I told Ann to drive us to the hospital while I sat in the backseat trying my best to comfort Garrett, whose fever was ratcheting up by the minute.
By the time we got to the hospital (Motown General, the sign said, and I wish I was kidding), Garrett was drifting in and out of consciousness. Ann and I had to carry him in like a dead log. The receptionist, who looked and sounded exactly like Miss Hattie, the owner of the orphanage in the film Despicable Me, said to take him up to the top floor to room 1020, where a doctor was waiting. Oh and by the way, the elevator was broken.
I am not sure how my sister and I managed to carry my unconscious fiancé up nine flights of stairs, but we did, and now he rested as comfortably has he could have in room 1020, attended by nurses with dirt-stained uniforms and bug-like antennae. I knew that the uniforms were smeared with dirt because these nurses had climbed out of their graves for the express purpose of tending to my fiancé. While it made me uncomfortable, I accepted it with the uneasy resignation I only seem to find in dreams. The doctor, a hulking brown-furred thing with bat-like ears and a squidgy gorilla nose, came in and introduced himself in an alien language made even stranger by his voice, which sounded like a wolverine’s bark rendered verbal.
He told me (though the translator in my mind that, again, is only present in dreams) that Garrett had caught an extremely rare virus that causes little physical harm to a body but ruins the mind. If Garrett ever recovered consciousness, the doctor said around two sets of hippo-like tusks, he would be in a constant state of hallucination. To him, I may appear one minute as former President Gerald Ford, the next, a horrible manifestation of all his childhood fears and angers.
Struck numb, I thanked the doctor perfunctorily and he left. I told Ann to go home and tell our mother what had happened. She took the hint that I wanted to be alone with Garrett and so graciously left. I closed the door behind her and crawled into bed with my deathly-still fiancé. The first tear I shed hadn’t even hit the pillow when a nurse burst into the room, her filmy white eyes bug-wide and her mouth a pale blue O of surprise.
“The hospital is under attack,” she croaked in a dirt-choked voice. “There are zombies! Get out now!”
“But you’re a zombie,” I said, my own voice choked with tears.
“No, I’m an alien zombie; there’s a difference,” she said, pointing to her antennae. “You have to get out, miss, the zombies will kill you.”
“I’m not leaving Garrett,” I said simply and firmly.
“Then die like the rest of us,” she said with a sigh of resignation and went out, leaving the door open.
My cell phone rang; the caller ID said “Garrett Cooperman”. What? I held the phone to my ear and felt cold wet rat feet skitter up and down my spine.
“This is Garrett,” said the voice, which was not Garrett’s. It was as deep as the doctor’s, but behind it was a wheezing quality, like wind over the eaves of an old old house. “Well, at least the only part of him that’s still him. Listen carefully, Kate. The disease can’t touch me. Abandon the body you’re next to right now. There is nothing left of Garrett in there; I’m the last bit of him. If you listen to me and do what I say, you can get out of this safely. The zombies are not the real problem. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the things out there now are just like the slow, brainless things you’ve seen in movies. Do not be afraid of them. Be afraid of what’s down on the first floor.”
“What’s on the first floor?” I asked, my eyes riveted on Garrett’s pale, still face, knowing more fully with each passing second that the voice on the phone was him, was the thing on the first floor.
“Something you can’t possibly beat,” said the voice.
“Then how will I escape?”
A split second before the voice said it, I glanced at the room’s single window, looking out over more buildings and city streets. “The window. Open it and climb down.”
“Are you kidding? There are no handholds. I’m ten stories up. I’d fall and die.”
“That death is eminently preferable to the one you’d suffer if you met the thing on the first floor. Trust me.”
“Okay, I know you’re not Garrett. Garrett uses big words, but not that big, and not at a time like this.”
“Kate, you have to understand. I’m not wholly Garrett; I’m only a part of him. I guess I’m just the part who uses big words all the time.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe me or not, you will die anyway if you don’t get out of his hospital. Now.”
The line went dead. I slowly got up from the bed and went over to the window and looked down. While I had lain next to Garrett in the middle of this hospital gone to hell, the sun had disappeared behind clouds and it had begun to rain fat, no-nonsense drops. The water ran down the side of the building in thick rivulets; there was absolutely no way I could have climbed down even one story without slipping and falling to my death. So I turned around and faced the open doorway, Garrett lying white and still in the bed to my left. As I walked toward the door, I brushed his covered feet with my hand, transferring to him the promise I had just made to come back for him as soon as I found a wheelchair or gurney.
In the hall, I realized that my promise would be difficult to keep. Not only were there no wheelchairs or stretchers or anything in the hall, there were no doors either. The door I’d just come out of was the only door for miles and miles either direction. Yes, miles. The hallway went on forever, and I could have sworn it bent a little with the curve of the earth. I stood frozen with indecision and fear that perhaps Garrett’s door would disappear as soon as I closed it. The trill of my cell phone, painfully, drillingly loud in the choking stillness of the hallway, broke my paralysis.
“Ann?” I asked, prepared to hear yet another strange voice.
“Where are you? Did you leave the hospital?”
It was Ann all right, her voice edged with concern. “N-no, I’m... I’m still here in Garrett’s room.”
“Uh... no you’re not. I’m in Garrett’s room. And you’re definitely not here.”
“What? No... wait. I’m standing right outside room ten-twenty right now.”
“I don’t see you. Are you sure you’re not by one-twenty?”
The edges of my mind began to fuzz grey; a queer twinning began to split my vision. I closed my eyes and shook my head to clear it, but the cottony feeling still advanced and the doubleness in my sight got worse.
“No. Ten-twenty. Ann, get out of this place now. Something bad’s happening. Please get out.”
“What? You’re mumbling. I can’t understand you.”
“Get out!” I screamed as loud as I could, trying to drive the haze away. “Get out! There are zombies and bad things! Leave now, Ann!”
“I guess the connection’s bad. If you can hear me, I’m gonna go down to the first floor for a snack. If you’re there I’ll find you.”
“No! Not the first floor! Stay away from the first floor! Stay away from the first
blink
floor!”
And suddenly, I was there, back on the first floor, in front of the reception desk. And I looked out onto the scene with eyes that saw two completely different things, like chameleon eyes. The desk looked the same, the floor and the ceiling, but there were things that moved, things that crawled, only shadows when both my eyes were open. But when I closed my right eye, another world, an under-world, was thrown into such lurid detail that I stumbled back and fell flat on my butt.
Unable to open my right eye and close the left, I watched as the doctor, his formerly kind apelike face now twisted in a black-lipped snarl that cut his black eyes down to slits in his wrinkled face, shoved the fat, be-pinked secretary over the desk and began unceremoniously raping her from behind, eliciting piggish squeals of delight/horror from her.
Alien bugs crawled along the walls and the ceiling, some sleek, sinister black, some still a horribly human shade of pink, their bald flesh still dripping the green goop of birth. I crab-walked backward, still with my right eye screwed shut, the muscles ringing the closed eye beginning to ache.
I hit something hard and metal, whirled around. It was a rolling stretcher. I hauled myself upright, using its cold steel struts as support. A nest of misbegotten caterpillars squirmed on top of it. I swept my arm across the surface, spilling the bugs onto the floor. They burst on impact like sick water balloons, spraying my jeans and shirt with hot yellow-grey guts and a stench like roadkill boiled to near-liquidity in the summer sun. I grabbed the gurney and bolted for where I remembered the stairs being; if I had to haul this gurney up nine flights to get to Garrett, then goddamn it I would. I found the door, slammed myself against it, through it, and right into Pennywise the clown, complete with a bunch of loudly colored balloons gripped in one white-gloved hand.
“Oh fuck,” I said. “Are you the bad thing on the first floor?”
“None other,” he said in the gravelly, wheezy voice that had called itself “Garrett” on my phone. “Want a balloon?”
“NO I DO NOT WANT A FUCKING BALLOON! I WANT TO GET TO MY FUCKING FIANCÉ AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
“They float,” Pennywise continued in a lilt, heedless of the epic echoing scream I’d just let loose in the stairwell. “Garrett’s floating now too. Everybody floats down here on the first floor.”
“Yes yes, I know your spiel, dude. I’ve read the book. Floating and death and dismemberment, et cetera. Look. Compared to that back there,” I pointed to the reception area, where Doctor Gorilla and Miss Hattie were still going at it surrounded by bugs, “You are actually pretty tame. So actually yes, I’ll take a balloon. And I’ll tie it to this gurney so it’ll float all the way up to the tenth floor so I don’t have to drag it up.”
“Didn’t you listen to me? I said Garrett’s floating. Since you read my book, you know what that means.”
“Bullshit.”
“Open your other eye and see for yourself.”
I realized my right eye was still closed. With effort, I opened it, experienced a twinning in my vision that nearly unhinged what was left of my mind, then quickly shut my left eye.
Now I was standing in front of room 1020, in a normal hospital hallway of normal length and with its normal set of doors every few feet. Inside the room, Ann had curled herself into a chair, her knees to her chest, her eyes wide open and glassy, staring at nothing. Two nurses, sans-antennae, hovered over Garrett’s hospital bed. I couldn’t see his face. His feet twitched spasmodically. I rushed into the room screaming his name. The nurses turned and stared at me, which gave me a shock. For some reason, I had not expected them to see me. I shoved the closest one aside, nothing but boobs and butt between a head and drumstick legs, and leaned over Garrett’s face. He looked paler, greyer. My heart lunged for my throat, pushing a sob in front of it.
“Garrett Garrett Garrett Garrett Garrett,” I breathed, willing him to stop twitching, stop looking so grey, stop dying goddammit.
My cell phone rang again. I knew who it was, from the icy coldness of the phone to my touch, from the low insane buzzing that began in my head when I brought it to my ear, but I couldn’t not answer it.
“Is he floating yet?”
“He won’t. Not for a long time. Not until he’s old and grey.”
“He’s grey right now, sure enough.”
“Fuck off, you stupid clown.”
A grating, dirty, bubbling chuckle reached my ear, as if a tar pit had found something mildly amusing. Then the line went dead. I threw my phone across the room and opened my left eye at the same time.
The room spun violently; I felt the phone come back like a boomerang and clip my left cheek so hard that my eye watered. I fell in the middle of an indoors tornado and curled up to just wait it out.
It stopped; I opened both eyes. Harsh white light drilled into my head and made it pound in time with my thudding heart. I smelled the soft, tangy smell of milk gone sour, which, after the sick death-smell of the hospital, was positively wonderful.
I sat up in front of the milk coolers in the grocery store. My cell phone rang.
“Mom?”
“I forgot to ask you to pick up dog food while you were out. You know what kind, right? The Alpo...”
“Where’s Ann?”
“Who?”
“Ann... my sister.”
“You mean my sister? I guess she’s still in Nashville. Why?”
“N-no reason. Bye.”
I sat there for a minute, my mind blank. I closed my right eye. Nothing happened.
6/24/10
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's Twitter War
If you don’t know what’s going on, watch or read Tom Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”. Now.
Also, try to guess which of us played which character. It should be relatively easy.
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Why did the chicken cross the road? via Tweetdeck at 2:13PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Why do you want to know? #questions #imwinning via Twitteriffic 2:13PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Weren’t you watching the feather-coated bird as it trekked across the paved road? via Tweetdeck at 2:15PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Was it something to watch? #questions #imstillwinning via Twitteriffic 2:16PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Are you blind? #questions #guildysucks via Tweetdeck at 2:16PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz What is blindness? #questions #Rosysux via Twitteriffic at 2:17PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Have you a dictionary or encyclopedia? via Tweetdeck at 2:18PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Will you lend me yours? #questions #FU via Twitteriffic at 2:19PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Didn’t I lend it to you last time, you ninny? via Tweetdeck at 2:19PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz When was last time? #questions #imstillwinning via Twitteriffic at 2:19PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Wasn’t it around the same time you last tweeted without a hashtag? via Tweetdeck at 2:19PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Oh is that what they’re called? #questions #nowiknow via Twitteriffic at 2:20PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Did you not hear our bosom buddy Hamlet call them that, Gentle Guildy? via Tweetdeck at 2:22PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Wasn’t that yesternight while we supped? #questions #grrrrrrrrr via Twitteriffic at 2:24PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged You mean you’ve figured out when and where we are?! via Tweetdeck at 2:24PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz You mean you haven’t?! #questions #SOCONFUSED via Twitteriffic at 2:25PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Should I have? #questions #shortnsweet via Tweetdeck at 2:25PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz What kept you from figuring it out? #questions #iwillfuckingwin via Twitteriffic at 2:25PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Is it not, if you think about it, still keeping me from figuring it out? #questions #guildysucks via Tweetdeck at 2:26PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz I…ye…oh fuck this. #FINEYOUWIN #youbastard #Rosysux #ohandBTWitsheads via Twitteriffic at 2:27PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged So that’s three-love, isn’t it? #IPwnAtQuestions via Tweetdeck at 2:27PM
Also, try to guess which of us played which character. It should be relatively easy.
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Why did the chicken cross the road? via Tweetdeck at 2:13PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Why do you want to know? #questions #imwinning via Twitteriffic 2:13PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Weren’t you watching the feather-coated bird as it trekked across the paved road? via Tweetdeck at 2:15PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Was it something to watch? #questions #imstillwinning via Twitteriffic 2:16PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Are you blind? #questions #guildysucks via Tweetdeck at 2:16PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz What is blindness? #questions #Rosysux via Twitteriffic at 2:17PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Have you a dictionary or encyclopedia? via Tweetdeck at 2:18PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Will you lend me yours? #questions #FU via Twitteriffic at 2:19PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Didn’t I lend it to you last time, you ninny? via Tweetdeck at 2:19PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz When was last time? #questions #imstillwinning via Twitteriffic at 2:19PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Wasn’t it around the same time you last tweeted without a hashtag? via Tweetdeck at 2:19PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Oh is that what they’re called? #questions #nowiknow via Twitteriffic at 2:20PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Did you not hear our bosom buddy Hamlet call them that, Gentle Guildy? via Tweetdeck at 2:22PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz Wasn’t that yesternight while we supped? #questions #grrrrrrrrr via Twitteriffic at 2:24PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged You mean you’ve figured out when and where we are?! via Tweetdeck at 2:24PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz You mean you haven’t?! #questions #SOCONFUSED via Twitteriffic at 2:25PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Should I have? #questions #shortnsweet via Tweetdeck at 2:25PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz What kept you from figuring it out? #questions #iwillfuckingwin via Twitteriffic at 2:25PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged Is it not, if you think about it, still keeping me from figuring it out? #questions #guildysucks via Tweetdeck at 2:26PM
@Guildyascharged @Questioncrantz I…ye…oh fuck this. #FINEYOUWIN #youbastard #Rosysux #ohandBTWitsheads via Twitteriffic at 2:27PM
@Questioncrantz @Guildyascharged So that’s three-love, isn’t it? #IPwnAtQuestions via Tweetdeck at 2:27PM
More fictional character tweets
Garrett started helping.
Mine:
Gregor Samsa:
@Bugaboo As long as I’m stuck here on my bed, I might as well introduce myself to the internet. Hello, internet. I am getting good at typing with my antennae. #madskillz
Dorian Grey:
@BeautyEterne Got me a pretty picture. Of me. It’s so pretty. I’m so pretty. I’m really too pretty for this picture, but I’ll keep it anyway. Gonna go have sex with eight girls now.
Lemuel Gulliver:
@LiliputnGiant These Houyhnhnms are a hoot, and very smart. But don’t try to ride them. Ever. Ever. Everrrr. #owie #gutcheck
Garrett’s (@licensedpoet on Tumblr):
Macbeth, Macbeth
@ThaneofGlamis My wife is insane. Really. I tell her I had a dream about breakfast waffles and she demands that I kill the king and raid his cupboard or no sex. #WTF #FML
Voldemort, Harry Potter series
@DkLrdKillPtr4TW @LusciousLucius You’re late with my prophecy. If you’re not back here by midnight I’m turning your wife into a whorecrux. That goes for all of you. #DeathEatrz
Slim, Of Mice and Men
@SlimButPowerful @KillBigFellas Thought u oughtta kno ur wife was hangin round Candy’s bunk last nite. She lookd a lil flustred when I came in. Mayb u should get lojack 4her. XD
Roland Deschain, The Dark Tower series
@LastGunslingr Made it past the edge of the forest without killing Eddie. He kept telling his so-called “dead baby jokes”. Tomorrow he shall build the fire. With his teeth.
Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
@C4tcht3hRy3now Walking in the park. These ppl are all fakes. Fake smiles & fake jeans. Phonies. If you read this you’re probably phony, too. #peoplewatching #existntlangst
Mine:
Gregor Samsa:
@Bugaboo As long as I’m stuck here on my bed, I might as well introduce myself to the internet. Hello, internet. I am getting good at typing with my antennae. #madskillz
Dorian Grey:
@BeautyEterne Got me a pretty picture. Of me. It’s so pretty. I’m so pretty. I’m really too pretty for this picture, but I’ll keep it anyway. Gonna go have sex with eight girls now.
Lemuel Gulliver:
@LiliputnGiant These Houyhnhnms are a hoot, and very smart. But don’t try to ride them. Ever. Ever. Everrrr. #owie #gutcheck
Garrett’s (@licensedpoet on Tumblr):
Macbeth, Macbeth
@ThaneofGlamis My wife is insane. Really. I tell her I had a dream about breakfast waffles and she demands that I kill the king and raid his cupboard or no sex. #WTF #FML
Voldemort, Harry Potter series
@DkLrdKillPtr4TW @LusciousLucius You’re late with my prophecy. If you’re not back here by midnight I’m turning your wife into a whorecrux. That goes for all of you. #DeathEatrz
Slim, Of Mice and Men
@SlimButPowerful @KillBigFellas Thought u oughtta kno ur wife was hangin round Candy’s bunk last nite. She lookd a lil flustred when I came in. Mayb u should get lojack 4her. XD
Roland Deschain, The Dark Tower series
@LastGunslingr Made it past the edge of the forest without killing Eddie. He kept telling his so-called “dead baby jokes”. Tomorrow he shall build the fire. With his teeth.
Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
@C4tcht3hRy3now Walking in the park. These ppl are all fakes. Fake smiles & fake jeans. Phonies. If you read this you’re probably phony, too. #peoplewatching #existntlangst
15 Famous Literary Characters and Their Tweets
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6/1/10
No Child Left Behind Strikes Again
Those of you on Facebook have probably already read this before, but I'm going to repost it here.
November 2009
Recently I found a family of cats living on the edge of the woods that border my apartment complex. Being who I am, I started feeding them and earning their trust.
It has been almost two weeks and Mama and the babies are relatively comfortable around me.
Tonight I brought them their food as usual, but instead of waiting for me to call to them, they met me at the edge of the parking lot, meowing and being, as kittens are, rampantly cute.
I sat down with them, which is part of the trust-gaining process. Occasionally I'd reach out and pet a kitten to acclimate them to my touch, but otherwise I sat peacefully and kept watch.
I heard a soft cooing voice, a human voice, off to my right. A girl, younger than me but not by much, was creeping out between two cars, trying her best to be quiet. I smiled at her.
"Aww, little cats!" she said. "I've never seem them so little!"
By that I thought she meant she'd never seen young kittens before. Which I chalked up to not having been around animals much. I made conversation.
"Aren't they cute? I found them a couple weeks ago. I'm trying to get them to trust me so I can take them to a shelter to find homes. The mama cat's all right, but the kittens are still wary."
"Kittens?" she asked.
"Yeah. All six."
"Is that what they're called?"
I was slightly confused. Did she think I named all the kittens "Kitten"? I asked, "What do you mean?"
"Little cats. Baby cats. Do you call them kittens?"
"Y-yes." Did she really not know what baby cats were called?
"Where's the daddy cat? Doesn't he take care of the kittens too?"
Confusion bloomed into bewilderment, but I kept it off my face. "Well, no. The dad doesn't have much to do with them anymore."
She clicked her tongue. "He's a sucky dad then."
This girl caught me completely off guard. I was too flabbergasted to be alarmed when she suddenly reached into the cluster of bodies around the food bowl, which of course provoked all seven into near-teleportation out of there. She jumped back and looked hurt, but only momentarily. Once the newness of the heretofore-unnamed kittens was gone, she lost interest and wandered away, leaving me alone with wet cat kibble, fur on my shirt and a whirlwind in my mind.
Had this girl never, until just an hour ago, encountered even the word "kitten"? Was she never taught that not all animals raise their young like humans do? I thought that was something you learned in primary school. Surely she'd come across a kitten somewhere, at least in an "A is For Aardvark" book...
To the parents and teachers of this child:
Where the hell are you??
November 2009
Recently I found a family of cats living on the edge of the woods that border my apartment complex. Being who I am, I started feeding them and earning their trust.
It has been almost two weeks and Mama and the babies are relatively comfortable around me.
Tonight I brought them their food as usual, but instead of waiting for me to call to them, they met me at the edge of the parking lot, meowing and being, as kittens are, rampantly cute.
I sat down with them, which is part of the trust-gaining process. Occasionally I'd reach out and pet a kitten to acclimate them to my touch, but otherwise I sat peacefully and kept watch.
I heard a soft cooing voice, a human voice, off to my right. A girl, younger than me but not by much, was creeping out between two cars, trying her best to be quiet. I smiled at her.
"Aww, little cats!" she said. "I've never seem them so little!"
By that I thought she meant she'd never seen young kittens before. Which I chalked up to not having been around animals much. I made conversation.
"Aren't they cute? I found them a couple weeks ago. I'm trying to get them to trust me so I can take them to a shelter to find homes. The mama cat's all right, but the kittens are still wary."
"Kittens?" she asked.
"Yeah. All six."
"Is that what they're called?"
I was slightly confused. Did she think I named all the kittens "Kitten"? I asked, "What do you mean?"
"Little cats. Baby cats. Do you call them kittens?"
"Y-yes." Did she really not know what baby cats were called?
"Where's the daddy cat? Doesn't he take care of the kittens too?"
Confusion bloomed into bewilderment, but I kept it off my face. "Well, no. The dad doesn't have much to do with them anymore."
She clicked her tongue. "He's a sucky dad then."
This girl caught me completely off guard. I was too flabbergasted to be alarmed when she suddenly reached into the cluster of bodies around the food bowl, which of course provoked all seven into near-teleportation out of there. She jumped back and looked hurt, but only momentarily. Once the newness of the heretofore-unnamed kittens was gone, she lost interest and wandered away, leaving me alone with wet cat kibble, fur on my shirt and a whirlwind in my mind.
Had this girl never, until just an hour ago, encountered even the word "kitten"? Was she never taught that not all animals raise their young like humans do? I thought that was something you learned in primary school. Surely she'd come across a kitten somewhere, at least in an "A is For Aardvark" book...
To the parents and teachers of this child:
Where the hell are you??
5/27/10
I'll buy the YMCA some rat traps
In my ongoing quest to prove my younger self wrong (when I was in elementary school I’d sort of assumed I’d be dead by age 35 or so), I go to the YMCA every weekday and exercise. Thankfully, the Y is free of that annoying stereotype of the musclebound asshole whose workout routine consists solely of pounding back four protein shakes while adjusting his biker shorts to show off his steroid-shrunken package to the gym bunnies he’s unsuccessfully hitting on. Oh, and the gym bunny, who never comes there to work out, but to show off her $400 pink Nike shoes, her $150 pink athletic ensemble, her makeup, nails, hair, and of course, her silicone-riddled “gym body” to the musclemen who want to hit on her.
But when I talk about the YMCA henceforth, I will have to amend the second sentence in the previous paragraph to read “Thankfully, the Y is mostly free...” because I was proven wrong today. But as things that happen to me often are, it was funny, and I am now going to tell you about it.
I had finished the cardio section of my workout and was midway through my circuit in the weight room. I choose a slow time of day to go, because I like to have the place to myself. But today it wasn’t completely barren. At the start of my circuit, a youngish man with bulging gym-grown muscles had been futzing around with the free weights for a while. I didn’t realize he was One Of Them until I saw his face. He even looked at the weights as if they were beneath him. Then a young woman wandered in. Most of the women who use the Y’s fitness center are either older or are making an honest effort to lose weight. This one, however, looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine. Already fit and trim, she wore skin-hugging clothes (honest workout clothes, not strips of cloth held together with bobbypins and prayer), had long blonde hair and a pretty face sans-makeup. Not a gym bunny.
But, ladies and gentlemen, what do you get when you put an incredibly cocky (pun not intended– see above for why) musclebound gym-rat and a pretty young woman in the same weight room?
To answer your question, if you really need it answered, I will tell you that if this were a cartoon and there were sound-effects to accompany people’s actions, I’d have heard him come to a screeching halt, seen his eyes pop comically out of his head (boioioioioinnnnnggggg) and his face take on a decidedly wolfish cast. Let’s not forget that triangle-toothed grin.
At first, I settled for chuckling to myself and letting the tableau spread out before me. She looked like she had enough presence of mind to fend for herself; I knew for a fact she’d been hit on before. Any woman with a body like that in a town like Oswego’s bound to have gotten ogled, catcalled, pinched, panted at, drooled on, plied with alcohol, groped, licked, what have you.
I kept one earbud out so I could hear Mr Muscleface get shut down. But he didn’t. I listened, he talked at her. About... wait for it... about his muscles. I’ve encountered gym rats before at Gold’s Gym, at Planet Fitness, and at that one sleazy gym I went to once out in Carrboro (if you know about Carrboro you know why I never went back). But all the gym rats I’ve known never actually talk about their muscles. It’s always about themselves, sure, but it’s usually about what they do for a living, how much money they make, what kind of car they drive, how cute their new puppy is (yes really), etc. Most of the experienced gym rats know that talking about their muscles is about as interesting to women as when women talk about their periods to men. So they pick topics they think women would be interested in, and some of the shallowest women are.
But Miss Magazine Cover was not shallow. Nor did she apparently have the stones I thought she’d had. She just sat there, twiddling her thumbs on one of the machines, as Mr Biceps stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, putting himself on display. And talking. And talking.
About technique, about tone, about core muscles, about absolutely everything Miss Magazine Cover did not want to hear. She tried her best to tune him out, bless her, but he followed her around the gym, running his mouth and waggling his arms as if to say...well... what he was already saying.
This went on and on and began to make even ME uncomfortable. He was not giving up, and she was not shutting him down. Normally, I don’t interfere. Normally I just let these things work themselves out, because, well, it’s not my business and I’m not a people person. But this was just not working itself out.
So I did something I have never done before, and may never do again. Now that I look back on it, it wasn’t the wisest move, but it’s one of those things you do without much thinking. Because if you thought at all before doing it, you wouldn’t have done it.
I walked up to the pair and said, loudly and plainly, staring the woman in the face, “Hey. I’m new here. Can you show me how the cardio machines work?”
The instant of confusion in the woman’s face bloomed into the most sublime expression of gratitude I have ever seen in a human being.
“Oh, I’d be happy to,” she almost shouted and teleported across the room to the stairs that led up to the cardio area. I followed her, daring not to look back at Mr Musclehead, but figuring he either hated me passionately or was just confused.
Or maybe he was still talking to himself about his muscles. I will never know.
Miss Magazine Cover made a show of explaining the elliptical trainer to me, then went to a treadmill on the farthest end of the room, away from the doorway. Then she let out a huge sigh and said, “Oh my god, thank you. You have no idea how awkward that was. Thank you so much.”
I said my welcomes and I let her talk Mr. Muscleface’s assault out of her system. Then we formally introduced ourselves. She glanced back into the weight room. Mr Muscles remained, so we decided to hop on the treadmills until he left.
Those next 15 or so minutes were enjoyable; I found out she had moved to Oswego from Vermont, that she was here for a job, and that she wanted to get the hell out of this podunk town (her words) as soon as she could. I laughed and agreed. Mr Muscles finally left; Miss Magazine and I went our separate ways. But I have a feeling that if I ever see her again, I’ll have a workout buddy for life.
But when I talk about the YMCA henceforth, I will have to amend the second sentence in the previous paragraph to read “Thankfully, the Y is mostly free...” because I was proven wrong today. But as things that happen to me often are, it was funny, and I am now going to tell you about it.
I had finished the cardio section of my workout and was midway through my circuit in the weight room. I choose a slow time of day to go, because I like to have the place to myself. But today it wasn’t completely barren. At the start of my circuit, a youngish man with bulging gym-grown muscles had been futzing around with the free weights for a while. I didn’t realize he was One Of Them until I saw his face. He even looked at the weights as if they were beneath him. Then a young woman wandered in. Most of the women who use the Y’s fitness center are either older or are making an honest effort to lose weight. This one, however, looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine. Already fit and trim, she wore skin-hugging clothes (honest workout clothes, not strips of cloth held together with bobbypins and prayer), had long blonde hair and a pretty face sans-makeup. Not a gym bunny.
But, ladies and gentlemen, what do you get when you put an incredibly cocky (pun not intended– see above for why) musclebound gym-rat and a pretty young woman in the same weight room?
To answer your question, if you really need it answered, I will tell you that if this were a cartoon and there were sound-effects to accompany people’s actions, I’d have heard him come to a screeching halt, seen his eyes pop comically out of his head (boioioioioinnnnnggggg) and his face take on a decidedly wolfish cast. Let’s not forget that triangle-toothed grin.
At first, I settled for chuckling to myself and letting the tableau spread out before me. She looked like she had enough presence of mind to fend for herself; I knew for a fact she’d been hit on before. Any woman with a body like that in a town like Oswego’s bound to have gotten ogled, catcalled, pinched, panted at, drooled on, plied with alcohol, groped, licked, what have you.
I kept one earbud out so I could hear Mr Muscleface get shut down. But he didn’t. I listened, he talked at her. About... wait for it... about his muscles. I’ve encountered gym rats before at Gold’s Gym, at Planet Fitness, and at that one sleazy gym I went to once out in Carrboro (if you know about Carrboro you know why I never went back). But all the gym rats I’ve known never actually talk about their muscles. It’s always about themselves, sure, but it’s usually about what they do for a living, how much money they make, what kind of car they drive, how cute their new puppy is (yes really), etc. Most of the experienced gym rats know that talking about their muscles is about as interesting to women as when women talk about their periods to men. So they pick topics they think women would be interested in, and some of the shallowest women are.
But Miss Magazine Cover was not shallow. Nor did she apparently have the stones I thought she’d had. She just sat there, twiddling her thumbs on one of the machines, as Mr Biceps stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, putting himself on display. And talking. And talking.
About technique, about tone, about core muscles, about absolutely everything Miss Magazine Cover did not want to hear. She tried her best to tune him out, bless her, but he followed her around the gym, running his mouth and waggling his arms as if to say...well... what he was already saying.
This went on and on and began to make even ME uncomfortable. He was not giving up, and she was not shutting him down. Normally, I don’t interfere. Normally I just let these things work themselves out, because, well, it’s not my business and I’m not a people person. But this was just not working itself out.
So I did something I have never done before, and may never do again. Now that I look back on it, it wasn’t the wisest move, but it’s one of those things you do without much thinking. Because if you thought at all before doing it, you wouldn’t have done it.
I walked up to the pair and said, loudly and plainly, staring the woman in the face, “Hey. I’m new here. Can you show me how the cardio machines work?”
The instant of confusion in the woman’s face bloomed into the most sublime expression of gratitude I have ever seen in a human being.
“Oh, I’d be happy to,” she almost shouted and teleported across the room to the stairs that led up to the cardio area. I followed her, daring not to look back at Mr Musclehead, but figuring he either hated me passionately or was just confused.
Or maybe he was still talking to himself about his muscles. I will never know.
Miss Magazine Cover made a show of explaining the elliptical trainer to me, then went to a treadmill on the farthest end of the room, away from the doorway. Then she let out a huge sigh and said, “Oh my god, thank you. You have no idea how awkward that was. Thank you so much.”
I said my welcomes and I let her talk Mr. Muscleface’s assault out of her system. Then we formally introduced ourselves. She glanced back into the weight room. Mr Muscles remained, so we decided to hop on the treadmills until he left.
Those next 15 or so minutes were enjoyable; I found out she had moved to Oswego from Vermont, that she was here for a job, and that she wanted to get the hell out of this podunk town (her words) as soon as she could. I laughed and agreed. Mr Muscles finally left; Miss Magazine and I went our separate ways. But I have a feeling that if I ever see her again, I’ll have a workout buddy for life.
5/19/10
In which the writer is made to feel quite awkward, actually
While I never quite relish my job at Childwatch, I can’t bring myself to hate it. Nothing ever happens twice, and the writer in me comes at every day just hunting for story opportunities. Like this one. Again, names are changed to protect the almost innocent.
I often have the dubious pleasure of bringing children into any one of the three racquetball courts at the Y to play. If you’ve ever played this whopper of a game, you know that a racquetball court is an indoor affair, just four high, sturdy walls and a shellacked wooden floor. Needless to say, sound echoes tremendously in the courts. So while I’m able to relax a bit and interject only when there’s a problem, I have to deal with... let’s do some complicated math here...
7 children(10 rubber balls+ 4 hula hoops+2 corn poppers)
divided by my patience
times some figure or formula involving the loudness of a sound, how many decibels are added when echoes are involved, and how much louder all of it is when enclosed in a cube with glass and drywall sides
And all that equals a combined decibel level on par with a jet engine at 100 feet. Okay, I’m exaggerating. Maybe it’s a little less.
Until everybody thinks it’s a wonderful idea to scream at the top of their lungs at the same time.
I digest. Today it wasn’t as bad because there were only three kids in the gym with me: Tommy, Sarah, and her little brother Max. “Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” does not begin to describe Tommy. He reminds me physically of a hummingbird: tiny, wiry, bright red hair. If you manage to catch him, you won’t be able to hold him for long. The apocalyptic amount of energy contained in that tiny body will vibrate him right out of your hands. So what I’m really trying to say is that Tommy didn’t spend very long in the racquetball court. Then it was just Sarah, five going on a bratty fifteen, and her long-suffering and gentle little brother of three.
For a while they were content thwacking racquetballs back and forth in that awkwardly adorable way that only children with undeveloped fine motor skills are. Then Sarah pranced over to me and (literally) flung herself into my lap. She didn’t like me; I didn’t like her; we both knew it. But Sarah liked being under the seasoned and veteran eye of the Childwatch Overlord even less. So to me she would cleave, as long as Max found entertainment in striking at a ball, missing, and hitting himself in the face with a racquet. Which was, bless his heart, a lot longer than I’d have thought.
Sarah, using me as her personal lounge pillow, immediately began regaling me with stories (how true they were only she knows) about herself, her friends, herself, her family, herself, her dog, oh and did I mention herself. Usually I can get away with only pretending to be attentive, but Sarah must’ve had some sort of radar installed that went off whenever she detected any flicker in my attention. She’d yank on my shirt and bleat “Are you listening to me?”, then ask me to repeat back to her what she’d just said.
Sarah’s mom, pay attention to what your child is learning from you.
In this way we passed the next several minutes. In a moment of weakness, I raised my hands to my face and rubbed my eyes. I expected to hear another shrill reprimand from Sarah, but instead she seized my left pointer finger and shoved it in my face.
“What happened there?”
A band-aid decorated the tip of the finger in Sarah’s grip. To be honest, I don’t know how I’d gotten the bloodless but incredibly painful laceration on the pad of my finger, but I offered the best explanation I could to Sarah, otherwise I’d be fielding questions thrown at me from further and further out of left field.
“I got a cut. It must have been when I was using a knife to cut up chicken for supper last night.”
“Are you a mom?”
Left field; am I right?
“Wh–what? No. What warped and twisted path of logic dropped you at that gem of a conclusion?” This level of vocabulary and abstract idea-making may have been a bit above Sarah, but she has special ways of making one’s life miserable who dares to talk beneath her. So I err on the side of caution. She seems to grasp the gist of it anyway; for all her snottiness, she’s a bright kid.
“Yes you are. You were making dinner.”
“Just because I make my own food doesn’t mean I’m a mom. Your logic is faulty.”
“You make food for you and your kids. Duh.”
Brilliant volley by Sarah. Let’s see if Kate can return the hit.
“Do I honestly look like a mom to you?”
“Ye--”
“Don’t answer that.” I clapped my hand over her mouth.
Ooh, a point for Sarah.
Sarah laughed and shoved my hand away. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Hah! You’re old! You must have like six kids!”
“Yes, no, and you’re very mean.”
Game, set, match, Sarah.
It’s kids like Sarah who keep her own mistaken judgment about me from ever being accurate.
I often have the dubious pleasure of bringing children into any one of the three racquetball courts at the Y to play. If you’ve ever played this whopper of a game, you know that a racquetball court is an indoor affair, just four high, sturdy walls and a shellacked wooden floor. Needless to say, sound echoes tremendously in the courts. So while I’m able to relax a bit and interject only when there’s a problem, I have to deal with... let’s do some complicated math here...
7 children(10 rubber balls+ 4 hula hoops+2 corn poppers)
divided by my patience
times some figure or formula involving the loudness of a sound, how many decibels are added when echoes are involved, and how much louder all of it is when enclosed in a cube with glass and drywall sides
And all that equals a combined decibel level on par with a jet engine at 100 feet. Okay, I’m exaggerating. Maybe it’s a little less.
Until everybody thinks it’s a wonderful idea to scream at the top of their lungs at the same time.
I digest. Today it wasn’t as bad because there were only three kids in the gym with me: Tommy, Sarah, and her little brother Max. “Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” does not begin to describe Tommy. He reminds me physically of a hummingbird: tiny, wiry, bright red hair. If you manage to catch him, you won’t be able to hold him for long. The apocalyptic amount of energy contained in that tiny body will vibrate him right out of your hands. So what I’m really trying to say is that Tommy didn’t spend very long in the racquetball court. Then it was just Sarah, five going on a bratty fifteen, and her long-suffering and gentle little brother of three.
For a while they were content thwacking racquetballs back and forth in that awkwardly adorable way that only children with undeveloped fine motor skills are. Then Sarah pranced over to me and (literally) flung herself into my lap. She didn’t like me; I didn’t like her; we both knew it. But Sarah liked being under the seasoned and veteran eye of the Childwatch Overlord even less. So to me she would cleave, as long as Max found entertainment in striking at a ball, missing, and hitting himself in the face with a racquet. Which was, bless his heart, a lot longer than I’d have thought.
Sarah, using me as her personal lounge pillow, immediately began regaling me with stories (how true they were only she knows) about herself, her friends, herself, her family, herself, her dog, oh and did I mention herself. Usually I can get away with only pretending to be attentive, but Sarah must’ve had some sort of radar installed that went off whenever she detected any flicker in my attention. She’d yank on my shirt and bleat “Are you listening to me?”, then ask me to repeat back to her what she’d just said.
Sarah’s mom, pay attention to what your child is learning from you.
In this way we passed the next several minutes. In a moment of weakness, I raised my hands to my face and rubbed my eyes. I expected to hear another shrill reprimand from Sarah, but instead she seized my left pointer finger and shoved it in my face.
“What happened there?”
A band-aid decorated the tip of the finger in Sarah’s grip. To be honest, I don’t know how I’d gotten the bloodless but incredibly painful laceration on the pad of my finger, but I offered the best explanation I could to Sarah, otherwise I’d be fielding questions thrown at me from further and further out of left field.
“I got a cut. It must have been when I was using a knife to cut up chicken for supper last night.”
“Are you a mom?”
Left field; am I right?
“Wh–what? No. What warped and twisted path of logic dropped you at that gem of a conclusion?” This level of vocabulary and abstract idea-making may have been a bit above Sarah, but she has special ways of making one’s life miserable who dares to talk beneath her. So I err on the side of caution. She seems to grasp the gist of it anyway; for all her snottiness, she’s a bright kid.
“Yes you are. You were making dinner.”
“Just because I make my own food doesn’t mean I’m a mom. Your logic is faulty.”
“You make food for you and your kids. Duh.”
Brilliant volley by Sarah. Let’s see if Kate can return the hit.
“Do I honestly look like a mom to you?”
“Ye--”
“Don’t answer that.” I clapped my hand over her mouth.
Ooh, a point for Sarah.
Sarah laughed and shoved my hand away. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Hah! You’re old! You must have like six kids!”
“Yes, no, and you’re very mean.”
Game, set, match, Sarah.
It’s kids like Sarah who keep her own mistaken judgment about me from ever being accurate.
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