We Didn't Die

I think, now that it’s behind us, if you’re gonna drive eleven-hundred-miles from Tucson to Waco by way of Amarillo (to pick up the third member of your girl gang), you should always do it with a crazy friend in her shiny red Cadillac.

“Wackos Do Waco!” Pam cried, toasting our road trip to Magnolia Market with her hardboiled egg and a thermos of coffee. By the time we got home a week later from our adventure in her new Caddy, we needed a mantra just a tiny bit stronger. We settled on one we picked up along the way.

We Didn’t Die.

The three of us—Pam, me, and my sister, Lynette—spent the last six months planning our girls’ trip. My sister booked our rooms, I took up space, and Pam provided the transportation. We split the cost and left our husbands in charge of the dogs and the remotes. It was gonna be awesome.

“My mom drove a Caddy,” Pam told me as she settled into her comfy leather seat, clicked the number “1” on the driver’s door which was code for adjust my everything so I have a personalized driving experience meant for only me, set the cruise control to a secret number somewhat higher than the DOT recommended on I-10 east, and told her onboard Siri to cycle through her favorite songs. “She always said, when you drive a Cadillac, you can make the rules.”

The maverick in me liked that. I hate following other people’s rules. I also hate getting in trouble when my version of rebellion goes unappreciated, but I’ve gotten used to living in a state of internal conflict as long as it doesn’t involve time in the Big House.

We packed up our ride with plenty of luggage and eggs and Luna bars, told our husbands “Hasta la vista, babies,” and hit the road at five a.m. Look out, Waco, here we come! I don’t have the luxury of a number “1” to tap when I cruise around in my aging Tahoe, but when it was my turn to drive her car, Pam let me set the “2” to my specs. Just for me. Nobody else. Yeah. There’s probably nothing cooler than having a Cadillac adjust your seat and steering wheel because it knows who you are. Um hmm, I was important. Second in charge. Pam’s shadow.

Big mistake.

According to my husband—who usually drives across country while I navigate—if I keep up with traffic when I’m driving, I won’t have to worry about getting pulled over for speeding or getting shot by a road-rager for going too slow. It’s worked so far. It works every single week while I commute into Phoenix’s east side for hair appointments and coffee dates and grocery shopping. It worked when we loaded up our Tahoe last fall and drove it nine thousand miles to Nova Scotia and back. And it worked for Pam and me all morning as we drove east away from Tucson last week. In fact, it worked all the way to the New Mexico border.

And then it stopped working. Halfway to Amarillo, halfway through The Land of Enchantment, halfway to the next Starbucks, all that advice stopped working. I think even Siri must have bailed on us. Why else didn’t this super dooper, computerized-everything/please-do-my-thinking-for-me vehicle fail to warn us that a weary highway patrolman was about to shut down the joyride we were having in Pam’s car?

“Great,” she said under her breath as she slowed to a stop on the side of the highway. The officer walked up to the front passenger window and spoke to us on my side of the car.
  
“Ladies,” he said politely, “you’re probably wondering why I stopped you. You were doing fifteen over the limit. You’re on a bypass now—the limit is 55. Slow it down and drive safe,” he finished, looking like he hadn’t had a cup of coffee since he woke up at four that morning and was weary of pulling over red Caddies on road trips to Waco. As he headed back to his patrol car, Pam and I looked at each other wide-eyed.

“That’s it?” we asked ourselves. Then we texted our husbands. 

Just got pulled over in Alamagordo for speeding.
Slow down.
It was an accident.
Was anybody hurt?
I mean, we were accidently speeding.
Oh brother.

“I’m so glad you were driving and not me!” I gushed, relieved I wasn’t the one behind the wheel. It would have been awful to get pulled over in her beautiful car after she let me program its number “2” with my personalized specs. I would have felt so guilty. I’d have been so embarrassed to be the one driving when flashing lights blew up in her rear-view mirror.

I was right. It was awful.

We picked up my sister in Amarillo and hit the road again the next morning. Less than an hour later, we switched drivers. Now Lynette sat in the navigator’s seat up front while I pushed my little “2” on the driver’s door. “So, what’s a safe number to go above the limit here in Texas?” I asked her casually. She’s practically a Texas native, which made her an expert.

“Five over is probably fine,” she told me while Pam curled up in the back seat behind me with a red blanket thrown over her head. In the end, and in my defense, I think that’s actually why the Texas version of Smoky the Bear flipped his light switch in Clarendon, Texas, twelve minutes after I took over as driver and Pam sat snoring in a happy little REM cycle under that blanket.

“Crap!” I said with gusto, or some less acceptable version of the word, as I noticed blue and white lights in the rearview mirror. My exclamation woke up the owner of the red Caddy and she came out of hibernation while I came to a stop in a church parking lot. Appropriate, since I was pretty sure our guardian angels were having a laugh at my expense and I needed a lot of prayer on the double. New Mexico may have sensible, weary patrolmen who know when a girl just wants to have fun, but Texas has never been accused of producing cops who can smile. They’re pretty good at intimidation, though.

“M’am,” the serious man’s voice said while I stared at the gun in its holster conveniently located at my exact eye level. “You were doing 81 . . .” – my heart skipped a beat! – “. . . in a 75 zone.”

Wait. What? I got pulled over for going six over while Felony Melanie in the back seat zipped through New Mexico’s speedway fifteen above the limit?

“Is this a rental car?” asked the man who told us he’d followed us for two miles while I created an extra six miles per hour of chaos in the car sporting personalized stickers on its back window.

“No, sir,” I said with my best penitent manners.

“Are you the owner?”

“No, sir, the hostage—er, lady in the backseat owns it.” Okay, I’m not that stupid. But later I wondered if he’d followed us for two miles because he thought we were transporting either a dead body or an illegal alien under that clever blanket disguise behind me.

He turned his attention to Pam who had by now rolled down her window. “What year is this vehicle?” he asked. Hmmm. Since when do policemen want to know the year of a car they’ve been inspecting for two miles unless they want a closer look at the model their wife wants for Christmas?

“It’s a 2017,” she told him. Finished with my license, his curiosity satisfied about the car’s age, the officer announced this would only be a warning and to sign here. Then he and his partner followed us for half a mile and ditched us to make a lunch stop at the local café.

“Well,” my sister said, as we passed the hungry patrolmen, “we didn’t die.”

“You said five above would be fine,” I accused.

“Hey, I wasn’t driving,” she shot back.

“You’re fired,” I said.

Whether or not the cop in New Mexico sent out an all-points bulletin to his brothers in Texas warning them about the return of Thelma and Louise to Texan highways, we’ll never know. But I’m suspicious. And Pam and I were both paranoid for the next four days until we safely crossed the border back into Arizona where it’s too hot for patrolmen to bother with women who drive six miles above the limit and sport Fire Department stickers on their back windows.

We obeyed every speed limit after that. And nearly every traffic signal. Most of the time. While my sister chuckled happily to herself that, even though bad luck travels in three’s, she didn’t get pulled over for speeding a single time on our girls’ trip to Waco. Of course, it’s hard to get pulled over when you’re the navigator. But it’s easy to get pushed out of the car if you gloat about it too much.

Lynette was right. She never got caught for speeding like Pam and me. But she probably regrets buying those ballcaps we wore for most of the trip.

Pam’s bragged, “I’ll Bring The Bad Ideas,” while Lynette’s boasted, “I’ll Bring The Alibi.” The one she gave me rounded out our weekend trip. “I’ll Bring The Bail Money,” it read, certain we were going to need some. It was all in fun. Right up to the point where a nervous checker announced over a loudspeaker at that Love’s gas station in south Texas that a suspicious-looking woman stood near the front exit.

“What?!” my sister asked in annoyance once we got back in the car. “Do I look like my face belongs on a wanted poster?” It took her a while to see the humor in the situation.

“Well, I didn’t get accused of being a criminal in a gas station,” I said, rubbing it in.

“Nobody sent a security guard over to check me out,” Pam added.

Lynette bit her tongue.

“Ah, come on,” I said, trying to sweet talk her into laughing. “Look at the bright side. We didn’t die!”

“Yet.”

What can I say? If she didn’t want to bring the alibi, she shouldn’t have worn that hat.

Zombie Apocalypse

It was that boy’s fault.

The one with the warm, brown eyes and the Colgate smile who pushed a strand of hair out of her face one night while they sat in a private corner in their favorite Starbucks and suddenly the fireworks went off. Well, it was New Year’s Eve. But still, fireworks went off and hormones went wild and the next thing she knew she was writing “Mrs. Warm Brown Eyes” all over her notebooks, waiting for the magical day when he would get a job. As soon as possible. And pop the question. She’d thought of everything. The flowers. The dress. The groom. Now he needed to connect the dots. As soon as possible.

Finally, it was possible. He proposed, they got married, they moved into the garage apartment behind her grandparents’ house, and the next afternoon she was pregnant. Ta dah. She’d thought of everything except birth control.

Still, they were off and running. Grownups. On their own. Behind her grandparents’ house. They had everything they needed. A place setting for four, towels for two, six cans of tuna and a Costco supply of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese in the pantry. She also had morning sickness. He spent ten-hour days at the pretty good job he landed. She spent all day every day throwing up in their tiny bathroom. Nine months later, their healthy little bundle of joy arrived, and the garage apartment was suddenly too small.

So, they moved.

Into a two-bedroom, one bath apartment duplex in town and close to shopping so she could push the baby in the BOB baby jogging stroller on her daily grocery store trips because Mr. Warm Brown Eyes had their only car. They celebrated their first anniversary at Chick Fil-A while her mother kept the baby. They split a chicken sandwich and watched all the children climb through the play area’s gym, dreaming about the day their baby would be old enough to join in on the laughing and squealing. Then they went home and took a three-hour nap and the next afternoon she was pregnant again. Maybe it was a two-hour nap.

Nine months later, another healthy baby was born and the two-bedroom one bath didn’t make the cut anymore. Her parents co-signed for a mortgage and Mr. and Mrs. Warm Brown Eyes moved into their three-bedroom two bath home in the ‘burbs. Then they splurged on a ’98 Honda beater so she could load the kiddos into two baby seats, store the BOB in the trunk, and head to the store—outnumbered two to one. The babies were good about riding, though, and showed their approval by littering the floorboards with tiny, soggy Cheerios doused in fragrant baby formula from fallen sippy cups. In self-defense, she bought a three pack of those little vanilla scented cardboard trees and hung all of them from the rearview mirror. Nobody wanted to ride with her and the babies after that, but she didn’t mind—she needed the passenger seat for the groceries anyway.

They celebrated their second anniversary at the park with Subway sandwiches and a blanket on the grass where the three-month-old lay screaming for half an hour and the fifteen-month-old dropped her peanut butter sandwich in the mud, then picked it up and ate it anyway. Too tired from morning sickness to investigate, she thought she’d read somewhere that a little dirt everyday was good for kids.

Seven months later, another healthy baby was born, and they decided not to move. So far, every time they relocated to a bigger place the universe responded by giving them more babies. “Let’s make it clear we don’t have room for any more kids so the universe will find somebody else to pick on,” they agreed over a third anniversary dinner of Spaghettios and clearance bin salad at their wobbly kitchen table surrounded by its trio of high chairs.

She didn’t have the heart to tell Mr. Warm Brown Eyes the following afternoon that she was too nauseous to cook dinner, but he wasn’t born yesterday. He just moved his shaving kit into the kids’ bathroom with the tiny potty seat and Big Bird shower curtain and let his wife keep the master bath to herself. “Maybe if we stop celebrating anniversaries,” they each thought from their respective bathrooms, “we’d stop needing more high chairs.”

When baby number four arrived, four years to the day after they’d promised in front of the town clerk and their two best friends to love and honor each other through thick and thin, they wheeled two shopping carts carrying two children each through the greeting card aisle at Walmart, picked out cards they would have given each other if there was any extra money to spend, kissed each other while the babies cried, and put the cards back on the rack.

“Happy Anniversary, honey,” he told her gently.

“Don’t jinx it!” she hissed. “You know what happens every time we celebrate.”

But it was too late. The universe was listening.

By the time their fifth anniversary arrived wearily on their front porch, a fifth baby slept in the cradle in the master bedroom and Mr. Warm Brown Eyes recuperated on the living room sofa with a bag of frozen peas on his crotch. She wandered out of the bedroom in the worn-out robe she’d bought for their honeymoon, her long hair tied up in a messy knot, and fuzzy slippers covered in baby spit-up on her feet. She didn’t say anything as he caught her eyes. She just gave him the thumbs up and went back to doing laundry. It was enough. He knew she still loved him and they were in this together. And now that they didn’t need to worry about any more babies, he was already making plans for their sixth anniversary.

The next day he bought her a pretty new nightie for the occasion still a year away that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since he signed the authorization papers in the surgeon’s office. Later he wished he’d read the fine print while he did that. Who knew that practicing birth control was still important for the first six weeks after a procedure like his?

Her friends threw her a “Happy Half Dozen Babies” shower right after Baby Oops arrived. Years later, she had to admit she barely remembered any of it. Still, it was a nice enough gesture. They filled up the corner of their fourteen hundred square foot house with a tower of newborn baby diapers, eight plastic boxes of baby wipes, and a new baby swing. Somebody gave her a gift card to Babies ‘R Us that they got on clearance right before the store closed its doors.

“What do I do with this?” she asked in confusion.

“It’s a joke!” her friends laughed. “We thought you could frame it and hang it in the nursery! Get it? Babies Are Us?”

That’s when the twitch began. Her eyebrows furrowed as she stared into the faces of all her friends who still sported perky boobs. The eleven above the bridge of her nose stood out so much her eyes disappeared into numerology. The color drained from her face, and her voice, once as melodic as windchimes on a breezy day, suddenly sounded as gravelly as an old woman who’d spent her life smoking like a chimney.

“Funny,” she said, deadpan, and stood up. She walked out the front door and up the street, the sleeve of her dress torn where the four-year-old grabbed it in a temper tantrum earlier that morning when she’d silenced “Sofia The First” on the TV. Her flip-flopping shoes trudged along the empty sidewalk and she dropped the plastic red cup filled with Pink Cloud Punch in the hyacinth bushes in front of the Johnson house.

“Hi, Mrs. Warm Brown Eyes,” her neighbor called while she watered the geraniums on her front porch. There was no response from the young mother. “Are you all right, honey?” Mrs. Johnson yelled after the comatose woman. “Harry,” she said, turning to her husband who sat on the porch reading a newspaper. “Does she seem all right to you?”

“Who?” he asked, distracted.

She had no idea where she was headed. It didn’t matter. She had no idea where she was. Or even who she was. Not anymore. Not since the house was overrun with babies and rattles and bottles and teething biscuits and Tickle Me Elmos and coloring books and chicken nuggets and applesauce. Applesauce. She hated applesauce. Whoever came up with runny, tasteless jars of smashed apples should be handcuffed and hauled away like the Anti-Christ he was. In a perfect world, she’d never ever smell another smashed green pea, either, or find a week-old bottle of coddled formula behind a baby crib or walk around with hands that always smelled like baby puke or dirty diapers.

She had to find that perfect world. It was out there, some place far away from the shattered dream of motherhood and marriage that had all melted into one giant apocalypse of hopelessness. It existed. Somewhere. She could feel it. Her instinctive drive to live again kept her feet moving, slowly, one after the other, block after block, looking at nothing, staring straight ahead, her arms hanging limply at her side as though paralyzed. Maybe they’d all forget about her by supper time. Probably they hadn’t even missed her yet. By the time she walked to the edge of the earth, they’d have replaced her with a Roomba and a new microwave anyway. Jerks. She’d always wanted a Roomba.

A familiar noise, like slowly bursting bubbles in a tar pit, suddenly demanded her attention. Her thoughts foggy yet threatening mutiny, she fought a losing battle against recognition. What was that? A lawn mower? Her dying washing machine? A ’98 Honda beater?

“Ohhhh, noooo,” she moaned in a slow, deep-throated growl. Turning like the cursed heroine in “Bride of the Undead,” she stopped walking and looked through the smudged window of the car which now pulled up beside her three short blocks from her house.

“Honey,” Mr. Warm Brown Eyes said, his arm draped over the steering wheel as he leaned down low to see through the crank window that hadn’t cranked shut in two years. “Honey,” he said again, “it’s time to come home.”

“Are they gone?” she growled.

“Your friends? Yes, they all left an hour ago.”

“Not . . . them,” she said, haltingly. “The children. Are they gone?”

He blinked and tilted his head to the side. “Our babies? Our six beautiful babies? No, of course not. Your mother said she'll take care of them tonight. She said for us to go get a room somewhere to celebrate.”

She looked at him like she’d never seen him before. What was he talking about? “Cel-e-brate?” she asked quizzically.

“Of course, darling,” he gushed with those warm, brown eyes and Colgate smile. “It’s our anniversary. Don’t you remember?”

And that’s when she snapped. Out of it. She snapped out of it.

Well, after all, she was Mrs. Warm Brown Eyes, a sweet girl who didn’t know where she was going anyway. Sometimes when you’re covered in baby spit up and haven’t bought yourself a new dress in six years and the best thing you can say about your ’98 Honda beater with the broken window is that the engine still works, you just need to rip off the mask of perpetual sacrifice that’s glued to your face and let the world know you are one of the walking dead who desperately deserves a nap. And a shower. And some new fuzzy slippers.

With a sigh of acceptance, she opened the rusty door and climbed inside. It wasn’t exactly a perfect world she’d found, but it was her world. And she was surprisingly alive—shabby and smelly, for sure, but alive. She looked at her handsome husband with those warm, brown eyes and sparkling smile made up of perfect teeth. The guy who had the freedom to escape to his pretty good job five days a week for ten hours a day while she stayed home and suffered the inevitable effects of celebrating six anniversaries. And she remembered that boy who once pushed a strand of hair out of her face on a long-ago New Year’s Eve in a private corner in their favorite Starbucks.

She had no idea what to give him for their anniversary. Nothing as predictable as a romantic dinner alone or a sexy new negligée, that was for sure. Nor was it a dozen new golf balls or a t-shirt that read, “Best Dad On Earth.” It had to be something that represented how she felt about everything they’d gone through in the last six years.

“I want to get going,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “I’ll keep the car running while you grab a few things for yourself and the babies. I’d give you a hand but you’re so good at taking care of them and I never know where anything is. Hurry now—we want to have as much time together as possible!”

Suddenly she knew what she wanted to give him. She smiled at him sweetly, looked into those warm, brown eyes, and hauled off and slapped him across his surprised face.

 It was the best anniversary she’d ever had.












With thanks to Darron Birgenheier for the use of the hangry bird photo used here. You can view the original at the following link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darronb/9305462056/in/photolist-fbhVEY-UByPCq-274JyjY-8kD7mY-26VUTQS-bCRmnG-Vyv5fJ-79SGhy-mJQE3i-9X1j4-8p1gzz-HRXrTe-mJQEbV-9LufWX-QUs9v-6dwBuG-4VmPXS-TkjFPm-PwvMu-2pkdNg-nyGkLz-HqawCW-6p3TC-nM8245-6LZxLm-TkiHpC-54SrWP-8QjMHF-6szjY4-4CwmQV-6rM9Jy-9M3dyj-4TpqhC-Bv8a6-t133Us-6ABv7B-UeaaCj-eGBevw-8mcR8b-9J83qH-51gWMg-2do9Xm-47MWkV-Xxwvvn-9SLCkB-6zWgNL-25isoQQ-6pDSGD-SUDZnU-PFGML

A Christmas Story

She loved coffee shops, especially in December. The cheerful red cups. The holiday music. And on rare occasion when a square table and wooden chair were available, it felt like Christmas came early.

“Why did they take out all the comfy seating and put in high tables with skinny-butt stools?” she once complained to a friend. “Nobody likes those seats—they’re always empty.”

“I like them,” her skinny butt friend grinned.

Today she arrived alone. “Lucky me,” she said to herself, quickly claiming a corner spot by the window. Settling in, she took a sip of iced mocha, and closed her eyes. She wasn’t really a coffee drinker—she just loved the aroma of roasted coffee beans infused into the air around her. Once she’d tried to be a grownup and join the java club, but it was a brief love affair that ended badly. It didn’t matter. As much as she enjoyed her low octane drink, what she was really paying for in her favorite franchised coffee shop was the atmosphere.

No one else seemed to understand that. Especially skinny butt people.

Beginning to relax, she stared off across the room, mocha in hand, lost in thought. Absentmindedly, she swirled the contents of her drink while she wondered whatever had happened to Christmas. She missed the decorations that used to fill this place, back when wishing someone a Merry Christmas wasn’t offensive, insensitive or politically incorrect. Once upon a time.

It was such a reflection of her own life. The disillusionment she often felt at the way the world looked now was nothing compared to the disappointment she felt in those around her who had let her down. How long had it been since she first realized she could only count on herself? People were flesh and blood, after all, and true love was only a lyric in a song. She’d never seen it displayed without strings and never believed she was worthy of the real thing, if it even existed.

Brooding into her brew, she didn’t notice the old man who walked past her table, his computer bag slipping off his shoulder while he reached for the door beside her. But as his heavy satchel did a freefall, it banged into her arm and knocked her cup of contemplation to the ground.

“Oh, my goodness,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

She grabbed the few napkins from off the table and wiped up drops of chocolate that splashed on her shoes. “No worries,” she told him in thinly veiled irritation. “I was almost finished with it anyway.”

“Let me buy you another one,” he offered, retrieving the crestfallen cup from the cement floor.

“That’s really not necessary . . .” she began, but he wasn’t listening. Turning to the barista who arrived with a bucket and mop, the stranger gave him the marked cup. “I’ll pay for its replacement,” he said.

“Seriously,” she told the old man. “It was just an accident.” Now she felt irritated and guilty. Why wouldn’t this guy just go away and let her feelings alone?

“I insist,” he said. “Mind if I sit here while we wait for your new drink?”

“Would it matter if I did?” she wanted to say but motioned weakly to the chair he was already claiming. She didn’t know this man, and she wasn’t in the mood to make small talk. As he settled in, she sized him up with full-on radar. She never shared a table with strangers, but what could she do? Hopefully this would be all right. It was broad daylight, after all. In a public place. Where nobody knew her and probably wouldn’t care if she was victimized anyway. She sighed. Nope. She was on her own here.

Maybe it was as innocent as it looked. But what if it wasn’t? What if this was some kind of old-guy scam where he bumped into distracted women in coffee shops, aimed at their decaf with the precision of a big-league pitcher, and knocked their drinks on the ground?  That didn’t explain what he was after though. If he was trying to rob her, shouldn’t he have knocked her purse on the floor instead?

She could feel her pulse amp up. If only she could shoot off a text message to somebody. Help, it might read, I’m being held hostage at the corner coffee shop by a man who bought me an iced mocha. Nobody would believe that. They’d all know what a sucker she was for a bargain.

“I’m Josh,” the stranger said, extending his hand across the table.

“I’m not,” she was tempted to respond. Aware it was her turn to answer, she ignored the gesture and wiped some liquid off the table. “Nice to meet you. Josh,” she said, with emphasis if not sincerity.

He didn’t press the issue of her unoffered name. She didn’t revise her comment. She just crossed her arms, waiting for the barista to call her drink and the stranger to get back to wherever it was he was going.

“You looked a million miles away there—just before we met by accident,” the man said with a smile.

Aha, she thought, narrowing her eyes as she analyzed his words. So, you were watching me. Stalking me. I knew it—you ruined my mocha on purpose.

Hands clasped, he leaned on the table and stared out the window. “Well, it’s a good place to come and think your thoughts.”

Rolling her eyes, she tapped on her phone to check the time and let out a sigh. Come on, you traitor, she accused it in silence. Ring, so I can get away from here.

“I come here every day,” he went on, “just to sit.”

“And think your thoughts?”

He smiled. “That’s right. Sometimes I even write them down,” he added, tapping his computer bag. The holiday track in the background had changed to a rock rhythm, its resonating bass shattering whatever peace was left to her in the once-reclusive corner where she’d tried to be invisible for the last half hour.

“Do you like this song?” Josh asked, as if reading her mind.

“Not exactly.”

“I like Country & Western myself,” he offered.

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re in the wrong place. They don’t play much of that here.”

Tilting his head, he grinned. “I suppose not. Somebody might get offended if they had to listen to Loretta Lynn do that one song of hers.”

“Which one? She had quite a few.”

“You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly.”

Forgetting herself, she laughed out loud. “I must have missed that one.”

He grinned. “Yeah, well, I don’t think it was a huge hit.”

“Too insensitive?”

It was the man’s turn to laugh. “Among other things.” The music track changed again as piano and violin swelled in duet with the haunting strains of a familiar Christmas carol.

“What Child Is This,” she said. “One of my favorites.”

“Or Greensleeves,” the man offered. “One of my favorites.”

“Well, that way no one is offended, are they?” she said. “I can hear the Christmas story in the strains of the violin while you can imagine a lover’s lament.”

“Maybe it’s the same story.”

She looked confused. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

He leaned back against his chair. “Well, Greensleeves is about a wealthy lover who falls desperately in love with a beautiful woman who spurns his advances. He offers her everything she could possibly want, but she turns it all down. She doesn’t want him.”

Her replacement mocha materialized in front of her and she reached for it, absentmindedly taking a sip while she considered what he said. Forgetting her desire to see the stranger leave, she leaned back against her chair. “Sounds like he was lucky to be rid of her,” she commented.

“He didn’t think so.”

“Then maybe she was lucky to be rid of him. Stalkers are scary,” she said pointedly.

Josh laughed. “She was definitely a hard sell. No, he offered her his heart and all he possessed, and waited.”

“Well, why wouldn’t she want someone like that? She’d be a fool to walk away from such a generous love.”

“People are often fools.”

“So, he decides to cut her off, I suppose?”

“Just the opposite. He gave her the freedom to choose, even though he knew she’d reject him.”

She stared at him, frowning. “That’s so strange. I guess I never paid attention to the lyrics before.”

He looked at her intently. “Most people don’t.”

She had to admit she felt confused. “You said both songs tell the same story. Are you saying Christmas is about God loving fools?”

“There’s an interesting thought.”

“Wouldn’t that make God foolish, too?”

“Would it?”

She expected him to laugh at her point of view or try to reframe it for the sake of conformity. That’s what most people did. But he wasn’t laughing. He was looking at her with . . . kindness? Gentleness? Blinking, she shifted her gaze away from his. This conversation had become . . . uncomfortable.

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” he said.

“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked, meeting his eyes as she searched his expression again.

“Why do I make you feel uncomfortable?” 

“No, I mean, well, it’s . . . it’s like you can read my thoughts.”

His smile was natural. “Oh. Well, they’re not hard to read.”

There was something very unusual about Josh. He seemed so young to be walking around in an old man’s body. And conversation with him was, well, mostly it was startling. She tried to remember if she’d seen him somewhere before.

“Remind me of some of the lyrics,” she said, steering the conversation back to safer ground.

“Oh, let’s see,” he answered, looking at the ceiling like the words were written there. “Your vows you’ve broken, like my heart, Oh, why did you so enrapture me, Now I remain in a world apart but my heart remains in captivity.”

“That’s so sad,” she murmured. “A lover in captivity.” This was heaven’s story?

“Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but my lady Greensleeves.”

His delight, she thought, pausing on the word. A wealthy lover who delights in someone because of who they are. Well, that doesn’t happen every day, now does it, she thought with cynicism. She didn’t know if anyone had ever seen her as delightful. Maybe the lady, Greensleeves, didn’t know what to do with genuine affection either.

Caught up in the stanzas, Josh broke into a velvety baritone as he finished, singing the last verse.

“Greensleeves, now farewell, adieu, to God I pray to prosper thee, For I am still thy lover true, come once again and love me.”

She was spellbound. Was it her imagination, or had the entire coffee shop gone silent, too? The words almost echoed in the cavernous room. “Come once again and love me.”

“That’s all any of us really wants, isn’t it?” she posed, more to herself than to the stranger. Josh smiled but said nothing.

“He never stopped loving her then?”

He shook his head slowly.

“And he wasn’t bitter at her rejection. He just kept hoping she’d return his love one day?”

His eyes twinkled but this time he didn’t answer. Her misty eyes betrayed her, and she blinked hard to hide the evidence. “Well, if someone loved me like that, it would be so irresistible it wouldn’t matter if they had money or not.”

He tilted his head to the side before speaking again. “Irresistible,” he repeated. “I like that. But it’s not really love if the other person isn’t free to reject it, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that would be coercion. Nobody wants to be loved out of obligation, do they?”

She had the sense that everyone else in the room had blurred into the periphery while a spotlight shone on their little table and this unexpected conversation. She thought she should have felt pressured by the stranger’s questions, but instead she felt illuminated by them.

“You mean God wants to be loved by us?”

“What do you think?” he asked, his expression warm.

She thought about words he’d quoted, reframing them as though dictated by God to some ancient scribe. For I Am still thy lover true, come once again and love Me.

It was simple. Honest. Earth shattering.

“That’s the Gospel?” she asked, as though the old man with the young eyes was an expert on the heart of God.

“I’d say that’s love. And if God is love, then that’s the Gospel.”

It wasn’t the message she’d been used to hearing in church—usually one of grace smeared thinly between thick layers of judgment, like a condemnation sandwich. How many times had she visited houses of worship and been met with commands, demands, and reprimands? She took a deep breath. If the stranger was right, if this was really what love looked like, this changed everything.

“It changes everything, doesn’t it?” he asked, his eyes laughing again at her look of surprise.

Smiling, she said, “Well, it helps me understand why the people of Bethlehem asked, what child is this?”

He seemed pleased with her answer and stood up to gather his computer bag and push in his chair. “Time for me to go,” he said, holding out his hand to her. As she returned the gesture, he held her hand warmly and said, “Merry Christmas, my friend.” Then he opened the door and disappeared.

She sat at the table for a few more minutes, her forehead wrinkled while she drummed her fingers against the side of her mocha. She wanted to discuss this with him some more. Hadn’t he said he stopped in here every day? She picked up her purse and started for the door where a barista stood beside a large, metallic trash can.

“Have a nice day,” he said as she dropped her empty red cup into the trash bag he held open for her.

“I already did,” she told him. “That man at my table was so interesting.”

The barista looked puzzled and glanced at the corner by the window. “I guess I didn’t see him.”

“Oh, he was an old guy with a computer. He comes here all the time.”

“No kidding,” the young man said. “Well, I’m the manager and pretty much know all our regulars. I didn’t see anyone sitting with you.”

Her eyebrows gathered in confusion. “But you cleaned up my mocha when it fell on the floor over there. He even bought me another one!”

The barista shook his head. “I’m sorry. I guess we’ve been busy this morning.”

“But you did see me sitting there for the last hour, right?”

“Sure,” he answered, tying off the large plastic bag. Smiling, his eyes full of a kindness unusual for one so young, he told her, “I’ve got to get this outside. Enjoy your day.”

She stepped out of his way, shaken as she recognized a now familiar gentleness in the barista’s expression. That’s impossible, she thought. I’m sure I’m mistaken. Suddenly, she didn’t know what to think. Maybe she should text someone after all. Help, it might read, there was something weird in my decaf and now I’m hallucinating.  Nobody would believe that. They knew she was much too cautious to be delusional.

She’d never be able to explain this to anyone. She didn’t even understand it herself. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she fell asleep in the corner and dreamed the whole thing. Or maybe she’d been the victim of a beautiful visitation and it wouldn’t matter whether anyone believed it or not.

 Just as long as she did.

A faint melody floated up from the recesses of her heart, a sweet accompaniment to the freedom sweeping across her soul. “Greensleeves was all My joy, Greensleeves was My delight.” Suddenly she saw it. The Christmas story. It wasn’t something that could be contained by red cups or expressed in seasonal greetings. It wasn’t restricted to one month a year or limited to the pages of an ancient book. The story of Christmas was as unrestrained and shocking as a love that gives without taking.
As scandalous as a peasant girl two millennium earlier who became the lead character in an immaculate drama. As miraculous as when the young girl’s sweat-drenched face looked into the eyes of that newborn in her arms while she questioned, what child is this?

The answer then was the same as the answer today. It saturated the air around her like the aroma in the coffee shop. Love was always there. Ready when she was. Patiently waiting. For her.

“I am still thy Lover true,” the lyrics echoed in her heart as the café’s door closed silently behind her, “come once again and love Me.”














With appreciation to Mike Chaput for permission to use the photo above. The original photo can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/427/2142255029/in/photolist-4giBMx-qjh92R-q9PNU6-iz82zZ-iuytNn-2aDCnqL-92urD6-q8GceX-vDD5L-dV7ArB-dBy9m6-iuAPX5-5SHesX-dASwJH-5LtWXx-iG19E3-7nhqGp-qE2zNK-9uwwiK-qf3jGF-939Y1M-dp2qfg-7pwbND-pBbnRe-BtQfX1-rgKQix-izz4ej-9dzX5U-iCqkrk-2TWLWf-qBBup4-ppKWQB-pWn73N-7sLKY9-aZAevv-4cDKwh-dHQuAz-r97oE9-iyYAqM-jder13-qnSvKi-izDSqW-7pPH6E-vEaDf-7ku1CK-8UYbT9-7rNLdi-dwAXVr-8XgKgm-iz8gjH

Bucket Lists

I never heard of bucket lists until Hollywood made a movie about two old men with a death wish. Okay, they were already dying, so it was more like a what-do-I-have-to-lose wish, but still. Some of their ideas were pretty gutsy (drive a motorcycle on the Great Wall of China), while other challenges only required them to step out of their box a little. Like helping a stranger. Laughing til they cried. And skydiving. Freefalling from fourteen thousand feet is way out of the box for somebody like me, but those two old guys were up for it. It would have been a good idea to combine some stuff on their lists. You know, try a little multi-tasking, like helping a stranger out of the airplane while they laughed til they cried. It would have sped things up a little bit—they didn’t have a lot of time.

I don’t really have what I’d call a bucket list, but there are a couple of little things I’ve always wanted to do. I’d like to see a tornado. In person. I don’t want to see a funnel cloud tear up a town or a farm or threaten anyone’s life, especially mine. I just want to see a colossal, concise, dark twister far enough away that nobody’s in danger while it does a little floor show for me. It’s kind of a huge request when I put it like that—a dangerous cyclone that fizzles out before it can make history. It’s almost so big it needs its very own bucket. Don’t be a hater, now. I’m not the only person on the planet who’s fascinated by nature and secretly wishes they’d spent their life as a storm chaser. And I know if I’d grown up on the plains of Kansas I’d have seen more than enough tornados—probably so many I’d never want to see one again. But I grew up in the desert where the closest thing we have to a tornado are dust devils that filthy up my freshly washed truck. That’s not very satisfying.

I’d also like to see the Emerald Isle for myself to find out if it’s as green as everyone says it is. Now that I know the name of the county where my family ancestry was uprooted, a visit to Ireland is the one overseas trip that would be worth the hassle of dealing with the TSA.

That’s about it. Maybe buy a trailer with a king size bed in it so we could drag our own hotel around with us while we travel across America visiting relatives. That’s all. It’s a pretty short list. Something a little dangerous.  Something a little green. And the fifth-wheel thing. Come to think of it, it’s so short it’s more like a thimble list.

There was something else I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a kid. I’d even say it had the number two spot after Dorothy’s spin on a windstorm. But today, I crossed it off my list. Lightened my dream sheet. Cleared my agenda. Not because I accomplished that item, though. It’s more like there was a hole in my bucket, Eliza, Eliza, and the item fell out the bottom, never to be seen again. It was a sad day around here for a while afterwards. Losing something you once longed for is hard.

I really enjoy parades. And until today, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been my favorite thing to do on Thanksgiving morning. My dream was to spend this holiday in New York one day, blow a wad of money on those front row seats right outside Macy’s where VIPs—and hopefully tourists with enough cash—sit to watch the Rockettes do high kicks and Broadway dancers perform clips from their big shows, and cheer in person when Santa shows up.

But I live too far away to casually drive over to the Big Apple at two in the morning and wait in sub-zero wind child temperatures for eight hours for the parade to start. I’ve had to settle for a front row seat in my favorite chair in our living room and watch it broadcast in between commercials and cheesy announcer banter. It hasn’t been all bad. At least I wasn’t cold, and the bathroom was nearby. Today I had the whole event carefully planned out. I was organized. I was rested. I was prepared. If I played my cards right, I might even get to watch the whole thing before it was time to heat up the oven and get the big meal ready.

With the DVR set up, the turkey pre-cooked and carved the night before, the fridge filled with potatoes and stuffing and cranberry relish, we made a yummy breakfast and settled in to watch as much of the spectacle as I wanted. Truer words were never spoken.

About twenty minutes into the big event, Broadway and Macy’s and NBC made a calculated move that no one but the announcers and dancers knew anything about. Calling the moment historic, the television giant and department store linked arms with the platform of the LGBT agenda and took it upon themselves to destroy another piece of innocence in homes across America.

That is nothing anyone should be thankful for.

In my daughter’s living room, her three young children sat watching the Pillsbury Doughboy balloon float at eye level while bands warmed up, waiting enthusiastically while the rest of the procession gathered momentum for the morning they’d anticipated for weeks. They’d even invited my husband and me to come over and join in the pajama-clad event and watch the parade together, but I had to reluctantly pass. I was in charge of the meal this Turkey Day and couldn’t fit it in. No one knew what a spectacle it would turn out to be, though, as suddenly, without their parents’ consent, our young grandchildren were exposed to the first lesbian kiss ever on Macy’s televised Thanksgiving Day Parade. A kiss that the network and the department store’s CEOs were thrilled to call “historic.”

Yes, it was. But it was so much more than that. It was tragic.

While the announcers did provide a brief description of the story of the new musical, The Prom, they gave no warning that an act that once earned movies an R rating would be the whole point of promoting the show. Let me be very clear in case I haven’t been so far. This is not about tolerance. This is about respecting the rights of parents to protect the innocence of their children, especially in their own homes.

Under no circumstances should any child sitting in their living room have been subjected to a confusing scene like watching two lesbian women engage in a prolonged kiss when they were supposed to have been treated to clowns leading the Snoopy balloon. Instead, their naivete was stolen, their safety hijacked, all by a shocking disregard for the right of all families to decide when the time is right to explain to their children values they may not be mature enough to handle.

I don’t know if this even qualifies as a bucket list debacle. I think my bucket was just blown to smithereens and, while it happened on home soil, I’m not sure it qualifies as friendly fire. I think it was a massive betrayal.

So, thanks a lot, Macy’s, for shortening my bucket list. Thanks for making it clear to parents that they can’t even trust a parade anymore. You just made their jobs even harder. There’s not a chance in Manhattan that I’ll ever again watch your Thanksgiving Day Parade, let alone make any effort to come see it in person. I guess that’s not so bad, come to think of it. I just saved a bucket load of money for a dream you destroyed just as carelessly as the innocence of my grandchildren.

Come to think of it, you pretty much wiped out my whole list in less than twenty minutes. Way to multi-task. You set loose a tornado with no warning to observers, swallowed up all my illusions of how green was my valley, and made me wish I lived in a fifth wheel right now somewhere so far off the grid that neither myself or anyone else in my family will ever have your political agenda shoved down our throats again on Turkey Day.

You certainly outdid yourself today. I guess even corporations have a list, though this one wound up in the wrong container. Next time, aim for the circular file.

This idea should have kicked the bucket.

Thanks to Chris Drackett for permission to use the above photo in this piece. The original photo can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/drackett/188553809/in/photolist-hEotK-i8URL-bk3wkW-4nsMFs-bjPtN9-2kUovq-75xSUQ-spHN6-8nDyzy-cwnj6o-9nFan2-MiH5w-C5Aqyi-CSwix-kQqSUH-4PaFqX-pMJLox-yv4N-P8b3z8-gBMqwt-WcPLvT-W5dqTk-oXFfou-8MBttz-6cWiQo-X7qP1R-2kPnCA-dbonqc-2NbbND-81Ta8C-9bkZZR-qwDoES-3g5pZ8-fQKg1m-5omaRb-dTJS6s-8nH4CG-dQ6JNV-97ikLR-oFp5aA-pqzsg2-brYQSd-95xMzb-29c3qN9-9RNamA-7uttDg-fLDZX-dshhi6-4m3gpP-4icemi

Traditional Zoo

It was a zoo. Not a very well supplied one, though. I’d even say, as zoos go, it was pretty embarrassing. The animals were there in mass—hungry hippos, roaring lions, and plenty of vultures—all of them hangry. The zoo keepers looked haggard, working since the crack of dawn without appreciation. Stalls were crowded, the place was out of water, the meat surplus was missing. I don’t know when I’ve seen worse conditions.

Oh. Now I remember. It was last Christmas. Honestly, grocery shopping during the holidays is a bear. And there’s still another week until Thanksgiving.

There’s so much to be thankful for that the celebration shouldn’t be eclipsed by its preparation. But expectations run high. Every tradition we cherish hangs in the balance while we run ourselves ragged so our families can make another memory together. I see you cringing—it’s like fingernails on chalkboard, isn’t it?

Well, there are so many things to consider. Will one turkey suffice, or should we buy two? Is it worth learning how to brine it Food Network style, or should I call State Farm to see if there’s a fire insurance rider for turkey fryers? Do I want help with the food this year? I’m pretty picky about my mashed potatoes. And stuffing. And cranberry relish. And pie. Especially the pie. It’s really no trouble if I do it all myself—that way, everything will taste the way I want it to and nobody will be disappointed. In the food. I think.

Every year, after the meal is finished and I'm left standing in the middle of the catastrophe I used to call my kitchen, I wonder why we do this to ourselves. I don't have to wait long for the answer.    

Tradition.

And a mild case of masochism.

But mostly, tradition. 

Sometimes I wonder if we should take a step back and reconsider our long-standing customs. Hey, I’m just like every other hangry hippo in that grocery store. This meal represents going over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house, bringing comforting memories along with it. And it’s not like we do this every day, so it’s worth all the exhaustion and stress, right? Hmmm. When I think about how frantic that store was today, it makes me wonder. And it makes my grown children wonder. Some of them have thrown out the turkey with the brining solution and opted instead to eat street tacos on Turkey Day so everyone including the woman of the house can relax and enjoy the day and being together.

It’s not traditional, but it’s so easy it leaves everyone feeling thankful.

I don’t think I’ve really touched on the most stressful part of our family holidays, though. It’s not the shopping or the cooking or the cleaning or the menu. It’s the family. As much as we love them, gathering everyone together for a much-cherished tradition like Thanksgiving has a tendency to bring out the worst in us. I don’t know of any other event in life that can so easily result in a terminal case of hives as this one. There’s always at least one relative in the bunch who can sink our carefully constructed ship and leave us worrying that family dynamics might blow the house apart faster than that turkey fryer.

If not for Hallmark movies and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I might lose my mind worrying about all the things that could go wrong while I try to make every celebration the Best Holiday Pageant Ever.

But, oh, honey, there’s more. Step away from the turkey and pour yourself some eggnog. This is just the warm-up to the main event—our very own Holly, Jolly Christmas. The worksheet for that one is longer than Santa’s naughty list. Buy the Christmas cards. Check. Stock up on wrapping paper. Check. Real tree or x-mas tree this year? Lights on the roof, candles on the mantle, presents all purchased, equity loan on the house applied for. Check, double check.

There is nothing simple about the holidays. Come to think of it, there’s not much that’s simple about anything in our lives anymore. All the conveniences that were supposed to make our lives better have, instead, complicated them. Smart phones are a good example. Did you know they keep our heads down so much chiropractors report a new injury they’ve dubbed Text Neck? Not only are we making less eye contact with other human beings, we’re picking up our portable internet devices on average fifteen hundred times a week and spending three and a quarter hours daily scrolling through Facebook, emails, text messages, and Words With Friends.

That hardly leaves any time for learning to brine a turkey.

And there’s something else. I really hate to admit this, but every year I start worrying about Christmas demands beginning in July. (Hard to believe I’d stress about a winter holiday when it’s a hundred and fifteen degrees outside.) There are all those presents to buy and wrap and mail—what if I fall behind? Why didn’t I figure out a better way to organize all the decorations when I stashed them all in the garage last year? Are the lights in the box on the bottom of the stack? Did I pack the stockings with the creche or are they on that shelf in my closet with all the other things I didn’t want to cook during our Arizona summers? Can we make that artificial tree last one more year or do we bring home a real one with its nostalgic scent and risk of a house fire?

The biggest stressor of all is that I’m not willing to scale down one single thing in order to simplify either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I want all the tradition. I want the cozy feelings. I want to make more memories. But once I pull all that Christmas stuff out of the garage and let it explode all over my house for the month of December, another countdown begins. In four weeks, I’ll have to gather it all back up and rearrange the house again so the neighbors don’t point and laugh at the last home on the block with the tree in the window. That’s when I want to convert to Catholicism and celebrate Epiphany along with Jesus’ birthday—the Christmas season doesn’t end for those guys until the middle of January.

Which one of you Protestants out there decided to cut Jesus out of His visit with the Magi just so you could get all those pine needles out of the carpet sooner?

Still, it’s worth the trouble. All it takes is time. A lot of time. It takes me a solid week to put all that stuff back in our garage again—the tree, the decorations, the lights, the stockings, the paintings on the wall, the manger scene on the front lawn, the Rudolph figurines on the piano, and the nativity set in the living room. Seriously. A solid week. And another two weeks after that to find and reassemble all the stuff I usually have around the house. When you throw in seven full days of turning my family room into our version of a Winter Wonderland, and another three weeks of baking and wrapping and buying and mailing, the amount of time I spend pulling off Christmas winds up at a grand total of about six weeks plus Thanksgiving, another ten pounds I’ll probably never lose, and a pinky promise I make to myself every January and break every November that I’m going to simplify my life and scale back.  

It’s so sad. I could have spent all those hours earning my very own Text Neck.

So, this afternoon I stood in line at the sixty-seven thousand square foot zoo where I buy groceries, and settled for the full-price frozen turkey instead of the free one they would have given me if I’d agree to buy an overpriced ham, too. I couldn’t do that, of course, because the vultures had already snatched up all the free poultry. There was no distilled water anywhere on the shelves because, I assume, one must stock up on the stuff to put out flames from exploding turkey fryers. It wasn't all failure, though. I beat out a little old lady for the last two bags of cranberries. But in the end I was lost among the menagerie for so long, as I waited in line I nearly had a panic attack trying to remember where I parked my car.

I unloaded my cart onto the conveyor belt and looked at the weary clerk behind the counter who began to ring and bag it all up.

“How’s it going?” I asked her. “It seems pretty crazy around here.”

She smiled and ran my bags of sugar across the scanner. “I’m tired just like everybody else,” she answered. Then she leaned in conspiratorially. “But as long as we each keep our sense of humor, we might survive it all.” I smiled back, but she knew I wasn’t fooled for a minute by her little attempt at humor.

There’s a reason there are always monkeys in the zoo. They’re comic relief to the hangry hippos.











Thanks to Paris Buttfield-Addison for permission to use the photo above. The original can be viewed by following this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/parisba/