codependent self-styled nightmare
1. Before I went to bed last night I went to re-tuck Nora’s blankets, kiss her head, and turn off the lava-lamp nightlight, just as usual. The difference was that she woke up a little and said, quite clearly but with her eyes closed, “If a remote control car bumped into a turtle, the turtle would be irritated.” I froze, not sure how awake she really was, and just murmured my assent. Yes. The turtle sure would be irritated. Now let me check you for fever. (I think it was just sleep-talking, of an unusually coherent sort.)
2. It’s no irritated turtle, but a coyote ran across the street a half-block ahead of our morning bus, at around California and Bryn Mawr. Our bus is normally crowded with high school kids, at least until we get past the two different high schools on the route to Nora’s grade school, but they have report card pickup today. Nora was engrossed in a book, a few other commuters were sleeping, so it was only I and presumably the driver who saw the coyote. I feel like I got my own private coyote.
3. Shopping for new running socks: why the preponderance of “no show” socks? I don’t care if my socks show. Is it shameful to wear socks now?
4. Here was the scene on today’s El train:
A homeless man with a facial deformity was panhandling. His words were slurred and he was hard to understand, but apparently he has some kind of head/neck cancer, is terminally ill, and has lost his place to live, an eye, a jawbone, a cheekbone and so forth. Very sad but also the kind of safety-net problem that will probably not be fixed by this version of health-care reform, because I can’t picture this guy leaping at the chance to purchase insurance no matter how low the cost.
Anyway, so he was telling his story and asking for money, all loud and garbled-like, and some guy with baseball cap and cell phone yelled, “Can you shut up, please? I am trying to hear this.” Meaning his cell phone conversation. Dick move, dude. I don’t like enclosed-space panhandling either, but the Urban Code Of Conduct demands that we all either give him some money or stare into space and ignore the guy, and that goes double for dramatically disabled panhandlers.
Suddenly some OTHER person started yelling, it was a woman and she was barely three words in before I got out my notebook because I could tell right away this was going to be good. Here is more or less what she said:
Excuse me sir, we need to give this man a chance. Excuse me! A chance! I am a former medical student and now I work in IT. I was persecuted by Dean Bradley and had to leave. We need to listen to a human voice! My sister is a radiation tech at Northwestern University and people die of cancer, sir. GIVE THIS MAN A CHANCE! Vote for Obama again! Please, people! Thank god for Obama. I am a US citizen with a secret clearance. I have worked at IBM and HP, I know what corruption goes on!
At this point Cellphone Douchebag tells her to shut the fuck up before she gets arrested.
I am not afraid! I have a secret clearance! I am a born-again and a Pentecostal, and if you use the f-word against me you will see fire rain down upon your head. This man is DYING of CANCER! Obama! I am not afraid, sir!
There was more, about Jesus and Obama and the secret clearance and the reasons she was kicked out of medical school (could the “batshit crazy” have been a factor? hmmm?) Simultaneously, Mr. Half-A-Face-And-Homeless still droned on, half-intelligibly, and the whole train was in an utter uproar, and then it was my stop and I escaped to a more rational location. The end.
Coyote and transit loonies in one day! I live a charmed fucking life.
—mimi smartypants has a secret clearance.