Dan Rather, Dr. King and Me.

Posted on by row20blog

In case you’ve missed it, Dan Rather is having himself a bit of a moment. The veteran newsman, whose storied career was all but ended in 2006 by a reporting scandal that would barely register in today’s media maelstrom, is doing big things on social media. His Facebook page has more than a million followers, and his was one of the most measured, thoughtful, and compelling journalistic voices during the 2016 presidential campaign and in the days since the election.

Yesterday he posted about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the manner in which Dr. King is often portrayed in today’s culture. Here is an excerpt from that post:

“…I worry that this universal acclaim has deadened the radicalism of Dr. King’s message. We must remember that he was a deeply contentious person at the time of his death. The clarity of the morality of his message about racial prejudice and social justice was not welcome in many corridors of power…If he had survived the assassin’s bullet and continued on his life path, I am convinced that he would have remained a divisive figure. I fear that many who now pay homage to his legacy with florid paeans would be singing different tunes if he was still actively rallying civil disobedience toward the twin causes of racial and economic fairness for the marginal and dispossessed.”

I believe there is truth in what he said. I’ve actually believed that for some time, as it was brought to my attention more than 15 years ago. I was in my early twenties, and working at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Mo. The museum is located in the Historic 18th and Vine District, which was the heart of the African American community in deeply segregated Kansas City in the first half of the 20th century. I was the museum’s public relations specialist. It was a hard job, for many reasons, but it was one of the most worthwhile experiences of my life.

I was, as one might expect, one of very few white people on staff. An ad rep from a local newspaper took me to lunch one day, leaned conspiratorially across the table, and asked why I thought they hired a white person to do their PR. Taken aback, I replied, “I like to think it was because I was the most qualified person who applied for the job.”

So, yes, I found myself in the racial minority for the first time in my life. Our director was a hard-ass (I doubt she will ever read this, but if she does, I don’t think she’ll object to the characterization), shrewd, intellectual, accomplished, and so very driven.

It was often a tense working environment. There was never enough money. The staff was small and overworked. The museum was young and still getting on its feet. This was somewhat lost on me at the time, but I now understand the tremendous pressure on our director as an African American woman to keep the museum in the best possible light at all times. This pressure was passed on to the staff. Our director was keenly aware of stereotypes about African Americans, and she wasn’t about to have her staff giving credence to a single one.

Colleagues who were generous of spirit, intellect and insight surrounded me. They saw me for who I was: A young, idealistic, child of the Sesame Street generation who naively believed we lived in post-racial society because it wasn’t socially acceptable to use the N-word anymore. I was raised by progressive, socially-conscious parents, but I grew up in schools that were overwhelmingly white. In those schools, I learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. I was taught that he was a great man and a hero who preached non-violent civil disobedience. I was taught the “I Have a Dream” speech. Or, rather, I was taught the pretty, poetic parts.

As we were preparing for the museum’s annual Martin Luther King Day celebration, one of my colleagues asked me if I was familiar with the whole speech. I had to admit I was not. She said Dr. King often spoke in terms of economics. He told hard truths. He said uncomfortable things. She said there was a lot more to the speech than the soaring rhetoric of the end. She was right.

We focus on the pretty, feel-good parts. The real meat is in the rest of the speech. Dr. King is rightfully remembered by history as a hero for justice, but in our remembrance, we seem to have forgotten he was a radical, an instigator, a pot-stirrer, unwilling to fall in line and wait for justice. As he said, “Freedom is never given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

At that MLK Day celebration, there was a photographer from a local African American newspaper who kept photographing the stage, blinding the performers with his flash. I approached him, an elderly African American man, and asked him to stop. It was my job. He was incensed and called me a “ten-cent cracker.” It was the first time I’d ever been on the receiving end of a racial insult. As a forty-year-old woman, I look back and I understand the dynamic. Here I was, this young white girl, telling an African American man of a certain generation what he could and could not photograph at a Martin Luther King Day program.

It hardly seems like much of an affront now, but at the time, my precious little feelings were hurt, and big tears welled up in my eyes. The museum director saw me and demanded to know what happened. As soon as the words started tumbling out of my mouth, I wished like anything I hadn’t been such a baby, because I was suddenly and acutely aware that “ten-cent cracker” was nothing compared to the insults – spoken and unspoken – she and every single one of my African American colleagues had endured throughout their lives.

The director gave the photographer a real ass-chewing. She let him know in no uncertain terms that everyone on her staff was to be treated with respect, regardless of color or anything else. In that regard, she’s surely a better person than I, because I really wish I could go back and tell my younger self to get it together, remember where I was, with whom and in whose honor I was there.

One of these days, I hope to write more about my time at the Jazz Museum. There’s so much more to talk about. But if I never write another word about it, the most important lesson I took from my time there was the inestimable value of leaving one’s comfort zone.

As much as “we” might want to believe it, we don’t live in a post-racial society. Surely the last several years have shown there is still a deep, painful divide. If we truly want real equality, it means turning a mirror on ourselves. It means setting aside the idea that everything is fine and “people” should stop making trouble. It means reading. It means listening. It does not mean expecting our black friends to provide an education on the African American experience. It took me way too long to figure out it’s not my friends’ responsibility to teach me about racial injustice. I can read. I can listen. I can “Like” Facebook pages like The Root and others. So I do. I often see things that challenge my view of the world. I resist the urge to jump in with my two cents in those forums. Open heart, open mind, closed mouth, still fingers.

My own Facebook page is a different story. I’m sure I’ve been “Unfriended” and “Hidden” because I persist in talking about politics and social issues. Some of my friends and family would be amused (and likely relieved) to know I only post a fraction of what I want to post. I understand why people get annoyed with me. I really do. I don’t like fights and confrontations, and I actually have anxiety about some of the things I post. I’m growing more comfortable with the idea of being an agitator, though, because I do believe with all my heart that complacency and saying nothing contributes to oppression and injustice.

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Tips

Posted on by row20blog

Everyone should have to work retail or wait tables at some point in their lives. I’ve done both.

Every shift was chock-full of lessons in how to treat others, how you want to be treated, how to handle a pride-swallowing situation while keeping your dignity and your job. Restaurant work also teaches that people are super weird about their food.

My senior year in high school, I worked as a hostess in a restaurant that was part of a huge national chain. After graduation, I went to a state university that was an easy 45-minute drive from home. Once I got a taste of college life without a job, I called my manager and asked him to hire me as a server. When you’re a broke college student, a job in which you walk away with cash in hand at the end of the shift does not suck.

My freshman year in college was a disaster. I went back home after spring semester and enrolled in community college to pull myself (and my GPA) together. I continued to work as a server.

I was sort of really good at being a server. I was great at the people side. I genuinely loved the interaction with the customers, unless they were assholes*. I was not stellar at the organizational side of waiting tables (yes, I know, this is a real revelation for those of you who have been following along). Serving requires being able to triage and remember a rapidly-changing variety of requests and tasks. I was frequently “in the weeds” (overwhelmed) and I was regularly admonished for spending too much time in the front of the house while relying too heavily on food expediters and runners to bring my food out from the kitchen. In that regard, I was not a great co-worker. I was good to my colleagues in other ways, though. For example, I was an easy target for people who needed someone to pick up a shift or stay late.

In most restaurants, the staff is sent home toward the end of a shift on a rolling basis depending on how busy the restaurant is or is expected to get. We had one manager who lived in mortal fear of an “after-movie rush” that, to the best of my knowledge, never once materialized. We stood around, cooling our heels at $2.13** an hour with no tips, inwardly seething. When a server was “cut” (their station of assigned tables is closed for the shift), they did their “backwork” (a list of housekeeping tasks), checked out with the manager on duty, tipped out other staff members as appropriate, and beat it the hell out of there.

One night, I was doing my backwork when two middle-aged men came in shortly before closing. The server who had the closing station was not happy to see them. There is an ongoing point of contention between restaurant workers and the dining public. If you ask anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant, they will tell you it’s a jerk move to walk in less than 15 minutes before closing time. Most patrons will point to the sign on the door that posts the restaurant’s hours of operations. Both sides are right.

My co-worker, who was eager to get home because she had small children, asked me if I would trade into the closing station. I didn’t mind picking up the table, and greeted the men cheerfully. They ordered double fajitas to split, and a couple of non-alcoholic beverages. I knew it wasn’t going to be a big tip, but they were nice and it was no big deal. They were my only customers, and I’m chatty by nature, so it didn’t bother me when one of the men struck up a friendly conversation. He asked about my studies and my life. I’ve always had solid creeper radar, and I didn’t get that vibe from him at all. His questions were direct and unusually specific, but benign.

When they finished eating, I dropped their check for $28 and some change. The man with the questions handed me a $100 bill. I turned to go get his change and he stopped me. He said he wanted me to keep all the change. I distinctly remember saying I couldn’t do that, it was too much. It would still be a big tip now, but this was twenty years ago and it was huge. We were in Overland Park, Kansas, not Vegas. Tips like that just didn’t really happen. With sincerity and certainty in his voice, he told me he wanted me to have it. He encouraged me to keep going. It was a broad statement, imbued with meaning. He wanted me to keep going with school. Keep going with work. Keep going with life.

I was in a difficult place. I was ashamed by my ignominious return home from college. Things were rocky at home, as they are apt to be when everyone in the house has struggles of their own and you’re supposed to be off doing the college girl thing. I was getting my first taste of what it’s like not to have enough money. I was starting to gain weight. I was depressed but didn’t know it. It felt like my world was spinning out of control, and I was spinning right along with it. I had totally lost my bearings.

I don’t even remember what I used the money for. But I remember how I felt in that moment, and I’ve carried that with me all these years.

It didn’t take me long to understand the man had an inkling of what he wanted to do early in the meal, and asked me all those questions to confirm his instincts about me. I don’t even mind that he was, in effect, judging whether I was worthy of the gesture. That $71 and some change meant so much more than the monetary amount at the time, and it still does. At one of my lowest points, a stranger reminded me of my value. Sometimes, when I feel the world start to spin out of control, I remember that night and am reassured that all I have to do is keep going. One foot in front of the other.

I have no idea who that man was. To the best of my knowledge, our paths never crossed again. He’s always with me, though.

Good things happen when you are generous of spirit. Sometimes the rewards are obvious, like you help out a co-worker who just wants to get home to her kids and half an hour later someone hands you a 70+ percent tip. It’s rarely so clear, but we shouldn’t let that stop us. As often as I can, I try to be to others who that man was to me. Gestures small and large. Some monetary, some not. Every time I do it, I hope it says keep going.

* Assholes go out to eat a lot. Another time, I’ll tell you about the God Squad, the HUPs, and other colorful characters I encountered in my days as a server. However, I will take this opportunity to share just one example, over which I still do a slow burn lo these many years later: A man and a woman came in early every Friday evening and requested the same table. They ordered a carafe of house Chablis and little else. They sat for hours, taking up a valuable four-person booth on a busy Friday night, costing the server several more parties’ worth of tips. When they were finally ready to leave, they stood up and each put down one dollar. A single dollar. That’s not even the worst part. Like clockwork, the woman waited for the man to turn and walk out. The second his back was to her, the woman slid the dollar back into her purse. Every time. Assholes.

**In twenty years, this has not changed. The minimum wage for tipped employees is still $2.13 per hour.

 

 

He Is Never Going to Say It’s Okay

Posted on by row20blog

Last week, we traveled to Kansas City and Chicago to see some baseball and visit family. On Day Three of the trip, the plan was to catch a day game, then fly from KC to Chicago.

At the game, his third in as many days, my son had a meltdown that may or may not have been nationally televised. I took him out of the seats to a spot where he could “get in a calm body.” (That is what I said, because no matter how much I might have thought it, telling an exhausted four-year-old to get his shit together so I can watch the baseball game would have been very poor parenting.)

We were just starting to get in our calm bodies when I received an expletive-laced text from my husband. It seems he’d gotten a text alert from the airline that our flight was scheduled to leave in 90 minutes. Odd, since it was 2:30pm and the flight he booked departed at 7:30pm.

He came flying out of the stands, most definitely not in his calm body, and the three of us rushed out to our rental car. Actually, rental car is a misnomer here. It was more of a rental behemoth. This thing was a beast, a fact that will soon become relevant. I drove the getaway tank while my husband tried to figure out what was going on with our flight.

As it turned out, the airline canceled our 7:30 pm flight and rebooked us on a 4:00 pm flight. When my husband inquired as to why no one notified him, he was told “We sent you an email.” Evidently, American Airlines is completely unfamiliar with the concept of firewalls, spam filters, etc. Email is a wholly inadequate method of conveying important changes to travel itineraries, but I digress.

It was clear we weren’t going to make the 4:00 flight. We had to return the rental, check bags, wrestle a four-year-old, and get me through security at KCI without an ID (I lost it during the trip).

For the uninitiated, security at Kansas City International Airport is no fucking joke. We log considerable travel miles in our extended family, and we are unanimously agreed that KCI has the most hard-assed security operation of any airport we’ve ever flown out of. This is probably the only issue on which my family can achieve consensus. Getting through a regular airport without an ID would be hard enough. Despite assurances from the delightfully friendly people running both the KCI and the TSA Twitter accounts, I knew it would be damned difficult to get through security in Kansas City with no ID.

(Some of you frequent fliers – you know who you are – may be reading this and smugly thinking, “The abbreviation for Kansas City International Airport is MCI, not KCI.” You are correct. But no one who is actually from the KC area calls it MCI – we call it KCI, period.)

We pulled into a gas station to fill up the rental freighter. I then decided to park in one of the station’s spaces while my husband utilized his considerable technology arsenal to find a means of escape from KC to Chicago.

Because I was driving an absurdly enormous SUV, and I was sitting up higher than I’m used to, I failed to see a cone in the parking spot. In my defense, one could not accurately describe the cone as orange. The cone was past its glorious, conspicuous prime and was now a faded peach color. That said, I still should have seen it, and I didn’t, and I ran that fucker over. Just mowed it down. I tried to back up in a vain effort to free the sad cone, but that just made matters worse.

About the time I realized the cone was wedged up under the suburban attack vehicle, an employee came flying out of the service station. He lit into me about running over the cone.

I’m a Midwesterner. I am deeply uncomfortable with causing any sort of distress or damage to others or their property. Instinctively, I began to apologize, profusely and sincerely. The man was unmoved. He kept yelling at me about the cone. The incredulous, disgusted expression on his face said what little he left unspoken regarding his estimation of my intelligence.

I continued to apologize.

Then my four-year-old piped up from the back seat.

“Mommy, he is never going to say it’s okay.”

I sat back in my seat, caught off guard by the truth that just came out of my son’s mouth.

You know what, kid? You’re right. This man is never, ever going to accept my apologies and say, “It’s okay.” This is a lost cause.

By this time, the man had retrieved his cone. Seeing that it was still intact, I drove away, catching one final glimpse of him shaking his head at me in the rear-view mirror.

I’ve been replaying this incident in my head since it happened. I’ve come to the conclusion that my son was on to something. Sometimes, the other person is never going to say it’s okay. There are some situations, big and small, in which we never get closure.

I’m a big believer in the importance of apologies. If I’ve wronged someone, I believe it’s incumbent upon me to try and fix it. I can’t undo what’s already done, but I can learn and, with a little grace and luck, move on stronger and better than I was before. The same is true if the tables are turned, and I’m the “injured party,” for lack of a better term.

There are times, however, when a thing is so broken it can’t be fixed. Or the other person can’t meet me where I am, even if where I am is far beyond the halfway mark. How do I “get right” with myself and in my spirit when there is no closure? How do I know with certainty the other person is never going to say “It’s okay,” or that I am never going to be able to say “It’s okay” to someone else, and give myself permission to move forward when it means moving away?

I don’t know.

Maybe I’ll ask my kid.

A Good Place to Start

Posted on by row20blog

It was my fault we were rushed. My four-year-old son was on Spring Break from preschool and, not being on our regular schedule, I lost track of time. Suddenly, I realized we had minutes to get out the door for an appointment.

Was my son still in his pajamas? At 3:15 in the afternoon? Yes. Yes he was. We do Spring Break right in our house. Except when don’t, because we fail to give ourselves enough time to prepare for a timely departure. By “we,” I mean me. And by “ourselves,” I mean myself. I am the designated adult in this scenario.

I unceremoniously switched off PJ Masks (if you don’t know what that is, count your blessings and move on) and started barking out orders to put down toys and put on clothes. As all parents know, this is a highly effective strategy for managing small children. They respond beautifully to this approach. They care deeply about punctuality, and frantic rushing always produces the desired result.

Parent: “Get dressed right now! We are LATE!”

Child: “Oh, I understand. Let me put down this fun toy and focus on the task at hand. Anything you choose for me to wear will be perfectly acceptable. Let me be as cooperative as possible to compensate for your lack of time management skills.”

If only. I expected my son to care that we were late, which was totally irrational because he doesn’t actually comprehend the meaning of the word “late.” I know this, because I’ve asked him.

It was, of course, a shitshow. I struggled to control my frustration. The more I tried to impose my will and wrestle him into his clothes, the more he resisted.

Finally, he was dressed and we left the house.

In the car, I talked to him about what had just transpired. I was on a roll, being all kinds of parental. Laying down the law. “When I tell you to do something, you do it.” And so on. He started to say something. I cut him off.

“I am talking. You can talk when I’m finished.”

When I was done talking, I said “Okay, what did you have to say about not getting dressed?”

I was feeling a little smug and magnanimous. Such a progressive parent I am, giving the child an opportunity to express himself. This is, after all a benevolent dictatorship.

“Well, Mommy, what I had to say is…you didn’t say ‘please.’”

“What?”

“You didn’t say ‘please.’”

Dammit. I went over the scene in my head. He was right. Not once did I say “please.” We were late – my own fault – and I started issuing orders.

There is merit to the argument that he’s the child and I’m the parent and he should do what I say, when I say, period. But he’s also a person. And I’m a person. I don’t want someone to abruptly insist I stop doing the fun thing I’m doing, immediately switch gears, and do a not fun thing, just because they can’t tell time. If I want to raise him to be a considerate person, isn’t it incumbent upon me to treat him with consideration?

I said, “You’re right. I didn’t say ‘please.’ If I had said ‘please,’ would you have gotten dressed?”

His response was clear and firm: “Yes.”

I said okay and let it go. I was skeptical, but it was time to move on.

The next day, I had an opportunity to test the hypothesis. I said ‘please.’ He looked at me with an obvious flash of recognition, and quickly complied with my request. It was clear he knew I’d heard him.

I know saying “please” won’t always work. I seriously doubt it will even work most of the time. Still, it seems to me that, as a general life rule, “please” is a good place to start.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in the intensity or stress of a moment that we forget the basics.

Ask instead of tell.

Listen.

Say “please.”

Things Get Different

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I have done a thing.

I quit my job.

It sure would fit the narrative of this blog nicely if, on the heels of the “Square Peg” posts, I was leaving my job to go on some great quest to find my true calling, wouldn’t it? Real life rarely works like that, though, and that’s not what’s happening here. I’m leaving for the most mundane, but also the most compelling, of reasons. I left my job because it’s the right thing for our family.

For four years, we slogged it out with my full-time job and my husband’s grueling work and travel schedule. We thought, as new parents naively do, that things would get easier as our son got older. As it turns out, things don’t get easier. Things just get different.

They stop being babies and become real people with their own personalities and needs. Like most children, our son needs structure and routine. He was born into campaign life, though, which allows for neither of those things.

We did the best we could for four years, cobbling together care with daycare, then full-time preschool, and the assistance of a nanny service. Many of my friends said, “I don’t know how you do it.” Well, here’s the thing…I couldn’t do it anymore. We needed a course correction.

I didn’t hate my job at all – far from it. I was growing listless because I’d been doing the same thing for a long time, but I had fantastic bosses. It was a nice place to work. I’ll probably write more about the experience later, but not yet. I’m still sorting all that out, in a good way. Leaving was hard, even though I was confident in my decision.

I am three days into my stay-at-home-mom gig, and it’s clear I will lose my shit if I don’t find something to do with myself. Oh, I have plenty to do. I’ve got closets that haven’t been cleaned out since the first wave of morning sickness hit in June 2011. (I did start cleaning out my closet today, thinking it would only take a couple of hours. I was so wrong. So very, very wrong. I got overly ambitious and emptied the entire closet onto my bed before I realized this endeavor would require days, rather than hours, to complete.) But I need something that is my own, independent of parenting and domestic obligations. I’m not sure exactly what that’s going to be yet. I keep going back to the movie Say Anything, and the immortal words of Lloyd Dobler:

“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.”

I am seriously thinking of trying to make something of my party-favor and gift-giving obsession. And I’m going to keep writing. I see this time in my life as an opportunity to, as Elizabeth Gilbert says, follow my curiosity. We’ll see where it leads me.

In the meantime, I’ve got to shove the contents of my closet over to my out-of-town husband’s side of the bed so I can get some sleep. If you need me, you can find me under a pile of too old to be stylish, but not old enough to be vintage, handbags.

 

The Sun Still Rises

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This week, I learned something: If you put your crazy on the Internet, people will read it. And it will be okay. No. I take that back. It will be so much more than okay.

It was difficult to dredge all those memories up in order to write both parts of “A Square Peg in a Black Hole,” and to then shove down my anxiety enough to actually post them. But the sun still rose. The people who loved me before still love me. I am so happy I did it.

For such a long time, even though the rational part of my brain had processed everything that happened, I still felt shame. No more. I am done with that.

I’ve received so many messages of love, support and just plain kindness. I know this is a cliché phrase, but I truly am overwhelmed with gratitude. I can’t think of a better way to say it. That’s how I feel.

I received messages from people who struggle with depression or who love someone struggling with depression. We’re doing so much better, but we still have a great deal of work to do on the way we talk about or, more to the point, don’t talk about mental health in our culture. I’m not saying everyone should do what I did and put their private business on the Internet (Oh, my God, I really did that, didn’t I?) but let’s have more conversation and less stigma.

There is light in the darkness. It may be just the faintest glimmer, but it is there. Hope is the most powerful weapon in life’s arsenal.

Finally, no good comes of shoving square pegs in round holes. Be who you are, not who you think you are supposed to be.

A Square Peg in a Black Hole, Part 2

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I sat in the emergency room waiting area, holding my blue plastic box of pills in my lap, along with a list of all my medications scrawled on a ripped-out page of lined notebook paper. My mom, nurse that she is, had me bring everything and write down all my dosages before we left the house.

I don’t remember the check-in process, or how long we waited. After what could have been hours or mere minutes, we were taken back to a curtained exam “room,” and I took my place on the bed, flanked by my husband and my mom in chairs. I’m sure I was seen first by a nurse, but I have no memory of it.

I do remember very clearly the exact moment the psychiatrist on call strode in. He was tall, and wore a dark, fine-gauge sweater with well-tailored trousers and smart shoes. My previous “psychiatrist” was schlumpy and unkempt. This guy was that guy’s polar opposite in far more than just the sartorial sense, as it turned out. He inspired confidence, but wasn’t arrogant or condescending as doctors can be. He seemed like someone with a low tolerance for bullshit and a huge capacity for compassion. In that instant, I just knew. He was the guy. The one who was going to clean up this mess. From several feet away, I felt my mom relax just the tiniest bit. She knew it, too.

I dutifully handed over the lengthy list of medications. I watched the doctor’s face as he scanned the list, but his face revealed nothing. He pronounced the list “impressive.” Later, once he was more familiar with me and my circumstances, he told me what he was really thinking – that he’d seen patients experience psychotic breaks on far less. He said the staff couldn’t believe the combination of medications I was taking.

I remember being annoyed because the doctor didn’t want to hear what I had to say. He tactfully, but firmly, told me he was more interested in my mom’s and husband’s observations because he was trying to establish a baseline. In retrospect, I can see why he thought I might be a less-than-reliable source of information and I appreciate that he didn’t wave the list in my face to prove the point.

He admitted me to the hospital’s “behavioral health unit.” In addition to my debilitating depression, it wasn’t safe for me to go off all those drugs cold turkey on my own. The process had to be managed in an in-patient setting.

I don’t think my mom and my husband were allowed to come up to the unit with me. I think I had to part ways with them in the emergency room, while I was transported upstairs alone. I’m honestly not sure.

The unit was dark, illuminated only by an old TV screen and a dimly-lit nurses station. I was shown the kitchen area, where I could get something to drink. There were also crackers. So many crackers. Drawers full of crackers. Grahams, saltines…all the crackers.

I was then guided to my room. It was a private room and even though it was January, it was sweltering. I later learned the temperature problem was unique to that side of the hallway. I asked about a fan, and was told no because the cord was dangerous. I could hang myself or electrocute myself. Surprisingly, I was allowed to have my phone (the nurses kept the charger and cord in a locked cabinet), which I used the next day to track down a battery-operated fan (again, it was January – no small feat) only to have that idea shot down, too. They weren’t sure what I could do to myself with a battery-operated fan, but they weren’t taking any chances. The whole thing reminded me of Officer Obie in Alice’s Restaurant. I made what I felt was a solid case that I was more likely to be done in by the heat than a fan, and that they should take my quest for climate control as a sign of my will to live, but they held firm.

My first morning in the hospital, I was awoken by the god-awful bleating of a nurse trying to cajole an elderly man in the room next to me out of bed. She sounded like fucking Edith Bunker, full of forced cheer, shrilly urging this poor man to “Stand up straight, like a sooooldjuuuurrrr.” Never in my life have I wanted to yell “Shut the FUCK up!” so bad, but I knew I needed these people and was in no position to alienate them.

The hospital was much like my formal education. I have always been an unfortunate combination of insolent and people-pleaser. A psych unit is an absurd, surreal place. I coped with it by making fun of it, but only to a point. I understood I needed to be there and wouldn’t do myself any favors by totally pissing off the staff.

I recall a moment when I knew I’d gone too far with my mini-rebellions and acerbic comments. There was another woman there, about my age, and we became friendly. This was not her first hospitalization, and she showed me the ropes, so to speak. No real ropes. No battery-operated fans, either. It seems I haven’t quite gotten over that yet. Anyway, most of us were gathered in the common room and this girl started making smart-ass comments, and I could see her looking at me for approval. That was when I pulled back and got serious. I wasn’t so self-involved that I didn’t see my influence could interfere with her progress.

When I wasn’t sleeping or trying to convince the nurses to let me sleep, I mostly hung out in the unit’s common area. Windows lined the full length of the back wall, but it still felt dark and dingy. The shelves held old books and stacks of donated board games and puzzles with worn, tattered boxes. The whole room smelled old.

I often sat in a coveted recliner in a corner, sorting old postage stamps out of a gallon Ziploc bag. I concentrated on putting them into stock pages categorized by subject and geography. Sorting stamps is done with tongs, like these, and my request to use them caused much consternation among the staff. There was a lengthy discussion about whether and how I could use them to harm myself or someone else. Eventually, they acquiesced and I was allowed to sort to my heart’s content. It was a very therapeutic diversion.

There was a TV in the center of the room that was almost always tuned to the news. That’s how I knew when Heath Ledger died. I tend not to romanticize celebrity deaths, but Heath Ledger’s death distressed me because it forced on me an awareness that I could have died from all those prescription drugs. There was a bright spot; I wasn’t addicted to any of them. There was one pill I sort of missed. I later saw a prescription bottle full of them sitting on an elderly relative’s table and thought, “Oh man…I sure do miss those,” but I wasn’t tempted to take any. So in that regard, I was very lucky.

We were allowed daily visiting hours. My husband came every day. After I was deemed not a suicide risk, I was permitted to leave the unit and go outside with him. Once, he pulled the car up close to the building. Our cocker spaniel, Jake, was waiting inside. I climbed into the back seat, and blissfully held and petted my sweet, sweet dog until I had to return to confinement.

One of the strangest dynamics of psych hospital life was how desperately we awaited our doctors’ daily rounds. Some of the patients would go up to the nurses station and badger them about when the doctor would arrive. If it got late in the evening, panic ensued. Is the doctor coming? What if he’s not coming? Are you sure he’s coming? Oh, my God, he’s not coming. I was looked upon with envy because of who my doctor was. Everyone wanted my doctor. He was the rock star of the psychiatrists. I’d done nothing other than walk into the emergency department at the right day and time, but being one of his patients was akin to sitting at the cool kids’ table in middle school. It was a little creepy, if we’re being honest.

I spent a week in the hospital. I was in a huge hurry to be “fixed” and get the hell out of there and on with my life. I was ashamed by the whole ugly ordeal and just wanted to put my life back together and pretend all of this had never happened. That had always been my M.O. – acting like nothing was wrong. It hadn’t yet dawned on me that perhaps that approach contributed heavily to the circumstances in which I found myself.

I pleaded with my doctor to let me go home. He relented, but not without an admonishment: “You’ll be back.”

Yeah, yeah. I’m good. I’ll see you at my follow-up appointments on the outside.

I went back home. Nothing had changed. I was still jobless. My husband still didn’t know what the hell to do with me. I was still depressed. I’ve heard depression described dozens of ways. I think it’s different for everyone. For me, I’d say it was similar to the muscular symptoms of the flu, when you’re fatigued all the way down deep into your bones and you can barely move. I rarely got out of bed, slipping in and out of consciousness all day and all night. I had no regular pattern or routine.

I remember trying to walk half a block to the corner and back to my house once. It felt like I was walking through thick, dense sand up to my neck. By the time I made it back to my house, my lower back burned because those muscles hadn’t been used. It hurt to try and raise my arms over my head to shampoo my hair. I have a vivid memory of sobbing in the bath because my arms weren’t strong enough to lift me out of the tub.

I went to visit my great aunt in Texas a couple of weeks after I got out of the hospital. Some day I will devote a post just to her. She is something else. She is a healing force. Being at her house was a balm on my raw, broken soul. No one expected anything of me. I just had to be. There was enough structure for me to sort of function – I had to get up, get dressed, come to the table for meals, and be sociable. The first day I was there, I was called to the table at 3:30 for a meal. I had no idea what meal we were eating. Second lunch? Was I staying with Hobbits? This couldn’t possibly be dinner, could it? But it was dinner. And everyone was in bed by 8:00. It was heaven. I just had to make it to 8:00, when it was socially acceptable to crawl in bed. That hour between 7:00 and 8:00 was brutal, but I pulled it off. I spent the days listening to family stories I’d never heard before and looking at old family photos. We went shopping. I even went to a Red Hat Society luncheon. She never made me feel judged or even a little bit defective.

My best friend from childhood lived between my aunt’s home and the airport, so I stayed with her for a night. There is no friend like a friend who has been with you through everything. I didn’t have to explain anything. I played dress up with her little girl. It was taco night. We stayed up too late talking, especially since she was super pregnant and really needed to rest. The next morning, I watched her fix her daughter’s hair for school, reminded that we weren’t much older than her daughter when we met, and I felt profoundly grateful for this enduring friendship.

The trip was just a Band-Aid, though. When I got home, my problems were waiting for me. The reality of my employment situation, coupled with feeling absolutely powerless, caused me to despair even further. Within a very short time, I was suicidal. I didn’t want to commit the actual act of killing myself. I wanted to disappear into darkness, and emerge when everything was better. (As a side note, the cryogenics people should really figure out something for depressed people. I’m pretty sure there’s a market there.) I wanted to rejoin the world…eventually. When I didn’t hurt so much. When I could walk to the end of my street and back without having to stop and rest on a neighbor’s step. I was utterly bereft of hope. I couldn’t see a way out of the wretchedness.

So, as it turned out, my psychiatrist was right. I went back to the hospital.

The second time was both better and worse. This time, I was a veteran. I knew to ask for a room on the other side of the hall. I was better behaved. I still refused to get out of bed for group. I fucking hated group therapy. But I threw myself into art therapy. I can’t draw or paint for shit, but they had magazines and I liked collaging. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to get any scissors (even though they were safety scissors) out of the locked art supply cabinet and had to wait for times when the art therapist could monitor me, but that was tolerable. I didn’t function well in the group therapy setting, but art therapy was different. I was able to encourage my peers and give of myself in art therapy in a way I really couldn’t the rest of the time.

The difference between the second hospital stay and the first was this: The second stay was all about actively choosing to live. That included a decision to take a drug called Depakote to help stabilize my moods. A notorious side effect of Depakote is substantial weight gain. I’d struggled with my weight since college, and the tonnage of amphetamines I’d been taking kept my weight artificially low. Going off the amphetamines, combined with the sedentary life of depression, meant that I’d already experienced a stunning weight gain. My doctor sat me down before he prescribed Depakote. He was concerned that I was, as he put it, “The ‘Oh, fuck it,’ type.” He wasn’t worried that I’d make a plan to commit suicide and methodically carry out that plan. He was worried I’d get pissed off, be impulsive, say “Oh, fuck it,” and kill myself. I saw myself in what he was saying. It was a significant insight, really. He felt I needed to be on mood stabilizing medication to prevent an “Oh, fuck it” scenario. We had a very candid conversation in which I had to choose whether I wanted to die or be overweight. I’m still here and I’m still overweight. I’m not sorry for that choice, although I can’t say I’ve at all resigned myself to a lifetime of fat. But that, my friends, is another post.

During that second stay, three of my friends came to see me. One came by herself, and two came together. Both visits were awkward and uncomfortable as all hell, but they came. They know who they are, and I hope they know I have never, ever forgotten and never will. The one who came by herself brought a plant in a cachepot. That cachepot sits next to the sink in my kitchen, a handy vessel for sponges and sink stoppers, and a constant reminder of abiding friendship. A group of former colleagues sent me flowers, which touched and bewildered me. In my drug-induced dysfunction, I’d made their professional lives so much harder. I was awed that they still cared about me and wanted to be my friends.

While I recovered, people in my life showed up. They worried about me. They forgave me. They pushed me. They gave me grace.

My mom called me every single day at noon. Every day, without fail. She lives on the West Coast, and now that I am a mother myself, I have an inkling of how terrifying it must have been for her and how powerless she must have felt from a continent away.

I recently had the opportunity to see Cheryl Strayed, one of my literary idols, give a talk. Something she said resonated with me so deeply that I whipped out my phone and typed it to myself. In talking about her own struggles, she said “I was young enough to think I’d actually ruined my life…and then I remembered how much my mother had loved me…I was her destiny and I couldn’t waste it…There is always glimmer in the dark place…and my glimmer was my mother’s love.”

I, too, was young enough to think I’d actually ruined my life. My mother’s love was a glimmer in the dark place. And then there was my husband. His love was less glimmer and more glaring spotlight. My mom gave me assignments and had expectations, but she was gentle with me. My husband held my feet to the fire. They both knew I needed accountability, but they approached it very differently.

Together, they saved me until I could save myself.

It was a long, slow recovery. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I became “well,” but it did happen. My mom and my husband wouldn’t let me get away with sleeping all day. My husband expected to see “proof of life.” I developed a habit of watching HGTV all day. In the late afternoon, when the show came on where people stay overnight in a house in order to decide if they want to buy it, I would make myself get up and start all the appliances in the house so they would be running when he got home. That way, it would look like I’d been busy and productive instead of laying on the sofa yelling “You can change the paint, you idiot!” at House Hunters.

A few months after my second hospital stay, I began working part-time. First it was ten hours a week, then 15, then 20, then full-time.

Almost exactly four years after my hospital admissions, I was admitted to the same hospital for the birth of my son. That was, in so many ways, a triumph. I have avoided another depressive episode since. I am frequently asked by people familiar with my history whether I experienced post-partum depression; I didn’t.

This is a story without an ending, thank God. I don’t know how it will turn out. I guard my mental health closely. I have an obligation to my family and friends – my son, most especially – to stay well.

I resist the temptation to get mired down in regret. Objectively speaking, my life is so much better now than it was before that pivotal dinner with my college friend’s (now ex) wife. I know what my marriage can withstand. I am anchored by the security that comes from receiving tremendous love from many people. I am both softer and tougher.

I am not sorry. I am grateful.

The Grilled Cheese Story

Posted on by row20blog

This is my mom’s story, not mine. I’m sharing it with her permission, because she and I share a belief that the most important truths often present themselves when we are not at our best.

My stepdad recently had knee surgery in the hospital where my mom works. She’d worked a stretch right up until his surgery, and after so many days in a row at the hospital working and then caring for my stepdad, she was physically and emotionally spent.

At some point, she had an opportunity to go grab a bite to eat, and had in mind exactly what she wanted: a warm, gooey grilled cheese sandwich with onion and tomato. She went down to the hospital café and placed her order. When her sandwich was ready, there was no tomato or onion. Upon inquiry, she was told “We don’t do that.” She replied that she regularly ordered the sandwich with tomato and onion on the evening shift. The man behind the counter was unmoved. He motioned over to the cold salad bar and told her to get a tomato there.

You know those times in life when everything feels out of control, and you’re just weary and overwhelmed, and so you control the things you can? This was one of those times. She walked away from the sandwich and headed to the diner across the street.

She was stopped on her way into the diner by a man who asked her to give him money for something to eat. Tired, hungry and frustrated, she said tightly, “You’ve caught me at the wrong time. I am not filled with human kindness right now,” and walked on.

When she got to the door, she encountered an elderly woman with a walker. It took a painfully long time for the woman to get through the door, and there were several opportunities for my mom to politely skirt around the woman and her walker, but she continued to stand there, holding the door open.

As she waited, she was hit hard by a powerful thought. “Who am I? Am I the person who snaps at an obviously hungry man, or am I the person who holds the door for an old lady with a walker?” There she was, pissed off that a cold tomato would congeal the cheese on her sandwich, rendering it unacceptable. And there was this man, who just wanted to eat something…anything.

After the elderly woman was safely through the door, my mom turned around and called to the man who asked her for money. She approached him and apologized humbly for her behavior. She then said, “I am going inside to get some lunch. If you’d like, I would be happy to buy you lunch, too.”

Together, they entered the restaurant. Wanting to minimize the man’s discomfort, she quickly explained to the restaurant host that both lunches would be on her.

If this were a scene in a movie, perhaps the two of them would sit together in a booth, swap stories and have some sort of meaningful exchange to move the plot forward. That’s not how it played out in real life; they sat separately. You might be wondering why they didn’t sit together. I didn’t ask her, but knowing my mom as I do, I am sure she felt letting him eat without the awkwardness of her presence offered him more dignity. He was entitled to eat in privacy and keep his own counsel. This man didn’t owe my mom his company or conversation. It wasn’t his responsibility to make my mom feel all warm and self-satisfied at doing a good deed. All she wanted was for him to eat a good meal, and for her to feel right in her own spirit.

This isn’t a movie. They aren’t best friends now. It’s likely their paths will never cross again. But she will never forget him.

As she told me the story, she said there were two big “takeaways.”

First, it was necessary for the café worker to be rude. If he had done her the kindness of making the sandwich as requested, she would not have crossed paths with the hungry man and the elderly woman. Sometimes, unpleasantness – in the form of people or circumstances – comes into our lives for a purpose.

The second takeaway was the importance of trying to maintain perspective. I think it’s even bigger than that. Every moment of every day of our lives, we choose who we are. We are only human; we will fail ourselves and we will fail others. Sometimes, though, life offers us a do-over.

If you get a chance at a do-over, take it.

A Square Peg in a Black Hole, Part 1

Posted on by row20blog

This is the first part of a story I have long known I needed to write, but was – and still am – afraid to put “out there.” When I started this blog, though, I said I would be more fearless. I also said I’d talk about my fuck-ups and my victories, and this is a whole lot of both.

I meant to write one post and get it over with, like ripping off a Band-Aid, but writing it all at once was too much. I have to think reading it all at once would also be too much.

It doesn’t help that I don’t quite know exactly how to best tell this story. A quote from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland keeps coming to mind. It was posted on a wall in my high school journalism classroom, and our teacher often pointed to it in response to adolescent whining about writer’s block.

“The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. ‘Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?’ he asked.

‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’”

For our purposes, I suppose the beginning was dinner with the wife of a college friend. She was in DC for work, and we met at a brewpub near my office. She told me her husband had recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and was doing remarkably well since starting medication. I listened, and pummeled her with questions, excited and encouraged by what I heard. Hope! There was hope for me! Her husband and I had classes together in college, and we had much in common. We were both smart and motivated to do well, but seemed to “lack discipline.” If it worked for him, surely it would work for me.

I was desperate for a silver bullet that would help me finally “realize my potential.” I went through life heavy with the weight of self-blame, never more so than at that particular point in my life. I’d been in the professional world long enough to recognize I had some natural talent but, yet again, I couldn’t harness it consistently. I was in way over my head at my job, and I didn’t have the confidence or discernment to either deal with the circumstances or find the exit. I had enough success to want more success. I was certain all my problems would be solved if only I could learn to focus and manage my time.

Probably the biggest factor in my “gifted underachievement” is that I have never been able to function well in a traditional school or work environment. I’m very easily distracted, both visually and auditorily. I don’t lack motivation, but I do lack the ability to channel it. I have such good intentions, but you know what they say about those.

There is nothing I will fail more abysmally than a long-term deadline for which I have plenty of lead time. I am a master of procrastination, derailed by the slightest distraction. As long as I can remember, I’ve felt like a square peg being shoved in a round hole. I sat through countless time management seminars. I bought shelves’ worth of books on the subject, too. Only touch a piece of paper one time…Never check email or voice mail first thing in the morning…Do the hardest task first…And so on. I wanted to do better, really I did. I so desperately wanted to be what I thought I was supposed to be. I completely dismissed the fact that I was forcing myself to be someone I was not. I kept shoving the square peg in the round hole, determined to make it fit.

After that dinner, I logged on to my insurance company’s website, looking for psychiatrists who specialized in Adult ADHD. I found one, and made an appointment. I went to his office, where I completed a raft of forms and questionnaires.

When an ADHD diagnosis was bestowed upon me, I was relieved. Buoyant, even. I called my mom and with great elation announced “I have ADHD!” like I was calling to tell her I’d won the freaking Nobel Prize. I was giddy at the prospect of a diagnosis. It provided a concrete definition of what was wrong with me. It was a hook on which to hang my failures. My mom was deeply, carefully skeptical. She tried to caution me, but I would have none of it. I had a prescription, and all my problems were about to magically go away.

Spoiler alert: That is not what happened.

I remember, shortly after I started medication, going to happy hour with some friends from work. One of them said with uncharacteristic bluntness, “I don’t like medicated you. I miss unmedicated you.” I blew her off, because she just didn’t get it. For the first time in my life, I was getting shit done. What did she know?

The particular ADHD medication I was on caused serious side effects, and instead of trying a different ADHD medication, the doctor prescribed more medications for the side effects. Those medications caused side effects, and he wrote more prescriptions for the new side effects. I am trying to be very careful about what I say here and am deliberately not offering many specifics, but it would be reasonable to conclude I was not in the hands of a responsible physician. When a medical doctor says to you, “I would really like to see more liberal use of the Xanax,” that is a big fucking red flag. Run. Run fast and run far and don’t look back. No respectable physician is going to chastise a patient for not being “more liberal” in her use of benzodiazepines.

There was so much experimentation, trying different dosages and combinations of so many medications. Every single one of those medications affected brain chemistry. Down the rabbit hole I went. My judgment became seriously impaired. By the summer of 2007, I was severely depressed and not functional. I was oversleeping and missing work. I missed my flight to a conference not once but twice, before finally making the third flight. On that trip, I barely made it to the actual conference because I literally could not make myself wake up. I was taking a staggering amount of amphetamines, yet all I could do was sleep.

This continued into the fall. In December, my husband and I took a semi-disastrous vacation to Italy. The highlight of that trip was me, in an irrational stupor, calling hotel security on my husband for being a jerk. In retrospect, perhaps he was acting like a jerk because he was dealing with a drugged-out insane person who looked exactly like his wife? Hindsight is 20/20 – especially when one is no longer drug-addled. But, hey, if you ever want a recommendation for beautiful luxury accommodations in Rome where they know how to deal with bat-shit fucking crazy Americans, let me know. I’ve got just the place for you.

Shortly after we got back from Italy, the inevitable happened. I lost my job. I was devastated. I descended further into the black hole of depression. I’d been depressed twice before – my freshman year in college and again a few years later – and this was nothing like that. I was just occupying space. Nothing else. My husband started bringing me meals in our room upstairs. He did an experiment in which he didn’t bring me any food, just to see if eventually I would go downstairs to get my own food. I didn’t. My mom recalls being on the phone with me while I vacillated over going downstairs to get a bowl of raisin bran.

The raisin bran conversation was a catalyst. My mom got on a plane to DC. My husband had to go out of the country, and he was relieved my mom was coming because he was afraid to leave me by myself. I had to get out of bed and leave the house to pick her up from the airport. She later told me I was slurring my words and obviously hadn’t washed my hair in days. I thought I was putting on a pretty good show.

That afternoon, I took her with me to meet my psychiatrist. We sat there, horrified, as he blatantly, shamelessly popped prescription pills out of the various Altoids tins strewn about his office. Until then, I thought those tins were just a quirky collection. He was practically falling asleep, and my hand to God, he looked at us and asked which one of us was the patient, like he had no awareness that he’d been experimenting on my brain for nearly two years. I swore to my mom that I’d never seen him like that, which was true. I was shattered and embarrassed. How could I have made such a huge mistake? How could I have put my faith and my life in the hands of someone so dangerous? I’d lost my job and my health, and was damned close to losing my marriage.

As I understand the story, when my husband got home from the airport, my mom said “There is a pot roast in the kitchen. After you’ve had a chance to eat, we need to decide what to do about your wife.” He just nodded and said simply, “Okay.”

I’ve never asked him about that moment – don’t ask a question if you don’t want to hear the answer – but I imagine, among other things, he was relieved someone else saw I was wrecked and in desperate need of help.

In my mind, I can still see them together in his office, him seated in front of the computer and her standing over his shoulder, both looking at the screen, figuring out what my insurance would cover and discussing which hospital to take me to. After they had a plan, my mom came to me. My mom is a nurse, and has a gift for explaining things. It’s an impressive skill. She can give you information that is serious and scary in the most clear and comforting way. She told me the hospital would probably want to admit me, and went over the reasons why. After she was done, she asked if I would agree to admission. I said I would.

The three of us got in the car and set off into the night, driving through the darkness until we reached the glaring fluorescent lights of the emergency room.

International Incidents

Posted on by row20blog

A few years ago for our anniversary, my husband and I went to Munich, Prague and Budapest. Munich and Prague were relatively uneventful, except that I accidentally spent $75 for three bottles of OPI nail polish, which is readily available here in the United States and retails for about $8 per bottle. Pro tip: If you can’t do enough math in your head to convert the Czech koruna to the American dollar, the conversion app is your friend. As is the calculator. Or maybe you don’t really need the nail polish. But I digress.

We almost made it out of the Czech Republic without further mishap. Almost. We were taking a train from Prague to Budapest, and decided to stock up on provisions at the train station because we weren’t sure what the food situation would be on the train. I went to a shop while my husband waited with our (considerable) luggage some distance away. This was pre-motherhood, when vanity still trumped efficiency and I (over) packed for every possible contingency.

I took my items up to the check-out counter, and the man behind the register rang me up. I handed him my credit card, and he started shaking his head and saying something to me in Czech. I had no idea what he was trying to tell me, but whatever it was, he felt strongly about it. At this point, my husband was waving at me and motioning that we needed to go or we were going to miss our train. I gave him a signal that I hoped meant “Hang on a second, I’m trying to avert an international incident.”

After much gesticulating on both of our parts, I put it together that the man’s credit card machine was not working. So I started to put the food back. I had no interest in going to an ATM and withdrawing more Czech money, because I was going to be in the Czech Republic for another fifteen minutes, max. All I wanted to do was put the items back and be on my way.

My husband didn’t quite know what was going on, but he could see I was in a bit of a jam. Unfortunately, he was encumbered by a multitude of suitcases holding every piece of winter apparel I own, not to mention the toiletries, shoes, guidebooks and souvenirs.

He looked around and did what any rational person would do when one’s wife is being held against her will by an angry merchant in a Czech train station…he started hollering for the police. In Spanish. “Policia! Policia!” he yelled. Note: the word for police in Czech is “Policie.” File that away. You might need it someday.

He needn’t have hollered, because that shopkeeper was way ahead of him. The police were already en route to deal with me. The police arrived. Fortunately, they spoke English. They explained to me that the man rang up the sale, his credit card machine was not working, and his register wouldn’t allow him to cancel the sale. I tried calmly explaining to the police that I just wanted to put the items back on the shelf, get on the train, and get out of their country. I expected that last part to appeal to them enough to advocate for me with the angry shopkeeper, but it did not. They suggested I go to the ATM. I explained I had no need of more Czech korunas. And, if we’re being honest, even if that had not been the case, I wouldn’t have given this shopkeeper my money for anything in the world. As my three-year-old would say, he was not nice.

I continued to emphasize the point to the policemen that I was not trying to steal. This was not a criminal situation. It wasn’t my fault that his credit card machine was broken, nor was it my responsibility that his register wouldn’t allow him to void a sale. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably more like five minutes, the police acquiesced to my logic and let me go. I thanked them politely and got the hell out of there before anyone changed their minds.

Without a minute to spare, we boarded the train to Hungary, hungry and with no food. We’d been right about the food options on board – pickings were slim and overpriced, and credit cards were not accepted. We emptied every pocket between us. I hunted through my purse. We came up with about 10 Euros, and my husband went forth to forage. He returned with our paltry rations, and all was well. By then, we were just grateful not to be in custody.

The train was a sleeper train. This was, of course, my idea. I’d read Murder on the Orient Express and expected it to be like that minus, you know, the murder part.

The reality was this:

Train

(This isn’t my photo. It’s one I found on Google, but it’s almost exactly the same as our bunks.)

I climbed up to upper bunk to check things out, and then proceeded to climb back down instead of using the ladder because…me. On my way down, I got my rib cage stuck on the blue bar you see in the photos. My legs dangling in his face, my husband – unaware of my predicament – started trying to help by pulling on my feet, which caused the bar to dig deeper up under my rib cage. I was in excruciating pain, but also completely helpless with silent laughter. Clueless, my husband continued to pull on my legs, driving the bar ever further into my person. Making matters worse, he picked this moment in our marriage to try using words of encouragement.

So there I was, tears of pain and laughter streaming down my face, legs swinging wildly, gasping for breath, while he loudly cheered “Keep coming! Keep coming! Come on honey! You can do it! Keep coming!” And I was rendered even more helpless with laughter and the fervent hope that no one on the other side of our door spoke English well enough to…well, you know.

I did eventually make it down from the top bunk without serious bodily injury, and I used the ladder for all subsequent trips up and down from the bunk. We arrived in Budapest without further incident.

And with that, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving and leave you with a parting thought: The key to surviving this life is being able to see the absurdity in any situation. That, and knowing what language to use when calling for police.

P.S. – This was also the trip during which my husband took a 10-hour bus tour of Bavarian castles with me. That is love.