Mommy's First Near-Arrest, THE PREQUEL

 After my friend Astrid finished reading about my felonious speeding ticket, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of convincing her it was true.

 “No, really, Astrid. Each part!”

“Even the costume you wore for your school’s Crazy Outfit Day?”

“Um … no.  Let me put it this way:  did you read the reviews for the film, Cloud Atlas?  ‘Visually stunning! You won’t be able to tear your eyes from the panorama. A triumph!’  My costume was more triumphant.  It induced seizures in multiple disabled students when I walked past their classrooms.”

 “And the part where you said that twenty years ago, you let your Subaru roll into a police car?”

“Technically it was 24 years ago.  And it was a police van.”

Astrid begged me to share this story with her.  But for me this exercise felt redundant.  Not only is it exactly like my charter school speeding-ticket saga:  it is plus’d up on every count.

It included a similarly disheveled appearance, only worse since this was how I dressed in real life.

The inspection sticker had not simply expired:  it was missing.

Instead of leaving my driver’s license in another purse, I did not, technically, have one. (Nor could I produce the vehicle’s registration.)

This story, indeed, ends with my unattended vehicle rolling backward of its own accord into the fender of the police van whilst the officer inside was checking my criminal history.

“I hear VERY blog-able differences,” stated Astrid flatly.

It took SIX FULL MINUTES for me to agree.  I recognized that being a redundant criminal is synonymous with being a ‘Repeat Offender’ and this was scintillating.  Blogging publicly about it was … the Clyde to my Bonnie.

But I considered that if the law enforcement industry got hold of my blog, they’d forever be on the look-out for me.  “I’ll be pulled over all the time, Astrid. It’s like being audited by the IRS.  Or eating pistachios.”

“Don’t be silly.  No one reads your blog.”

It's a pretty compelling story.  I drove off on an early Saturday morning in 1989 to help my mother move my Great Grand Aunt Harriet from her gorgeous antique home in Duxbury, to the assisted living complex located on the land she and my Great Grand Uncle once owned. 

My Mom and Harriet literally walked boxes and bags and clothing-on-hangers from her back porch ... through a path ... to her new home.

I only had three kids at the time: Nick was 8, Jake 6, Zach 4. They were all involved in weekend activities and no one was big enough to help with the moving process. Though we were strapped by kid / car / mortgage expenses, a road-trip could be handily covered by my new part-time job! 

Moreover, I was so happy being back in Massachusetts, after nine years as a military spouse living in Italy, Virginia and Fort Knox, that I was thrilled to volunteer to be ‘part of the family again.’ Driving from my town, deep in the Blackstone Valley, up and over to Duxbury, was the least I could do. 

Turns out, I did the least.

It had been more than a decade since I’d driven solo to Duxbury.  In that time, it seems that they had changed the terrain.  Some roads vanished completely. This was before the GPS. And dead reckoning.  LONG before the time I was medically diagnosed as Sense-Of-Direction Impaired.

When I say that I got tragically lost trying to get from Worcester county to Duxbury, it is an understatement.

I left my house at 7 AM and returned to it by 2 PM.  In between I managed to visit the majority of the entire Bay State, occasionally dipping into New Hampshire and one corner of New York.

This was also before the advent of cell phones, so I’d had to pull over at gas stations and diners and McDonalds to find pay phones and call my husband and my aunt.

No one answered their landlines.

So hopelessly lost was I that I finally bought a breakfast sandwich at one of the stops off some nameless highway -- perhaps the autobahn for Munich -- and after my pancake/ham rollup, I looked up at the McClock noting it was 11:15 AM.

I'd been driving for four hours -- although it was possible I was in a new time zone.

I asked the McWait-Staff if they knew how to get to Duxbury. 

“That’s an ocean town, right?”

“It IS!” I shouted hopefully.

“If you continue North on Route 2, you’re bound to hit the ocean.”

In retrospect, I’m fairly certain I was close to where my daughter now goes to college: Salem State on the North Shore.  Somehow, continuing ‘north’ did not feel right. Even to me.

I ordered some coffee to go, then tried to phone everyone one last time, and this time I got my mother.  She was befuddled.  Where was I?  Was I injured?  They'd already done all the heavy lifting ...

When I told her what 'route' I was on she gasped.  “How did you get on ROUTE TWO?"

"I do not know."

"Carolyn, you’ve been coming to this house your entire life!” then she launched into directions that mainly would get me from her house to Duxbury.

"Mom, I live on the border of Connecticut and Rhode Island.  Duxbury for me is North.  I guess I just … kept going.  But I think I’m close to Salem!” 

 “In which state, Carolyn?  New Hampshire?”

“Very funny, Mother.   Oh, shit.  I don’t actually know.”

Finally, I sobbed a little into the receiver and told her I was getting directions to just go home.  We said ‘I love you’ to each other.  I hung up with renewed hope.

I was almost certain I could easily describe the town I lived in, some famous historical landmarks (Fat Man's Misery at Purgatory Chasm, Worcester County Jail.)  If needed I could recite my own address... from memory.

So I drove back home with directions rendered by smiling McWait-staff who saw my McStress. She was so sweet.  She wrote everything down on paper for me. It was the most compassion I would receive all day.

It was 12:55 PM when I rolled back into my hometown, eyes puffy from sobbing, no make-up because I intended to move powerfully dusty objects from one place to another during ragweed season. Mascara  would 'itch/scratch' off.  In fact, to my right on the driver's seat was my bottle of prescription antihistamines designed to preempt impending hives without fanfare.

After seven hours driving on every New England interstate and scenic road, gravel and dirt, frost-heaved and freshly paved, plus one historic cobblestone path, I was finally... FINALLY ... pulled over by the police, back in my very own hometown.

I was less than a mile from my house.  The one on which we had thus far made just sixteen mortgage payments.

I had literally driven the equivalent of a cross-country road trip. In all that time and on all of those roadways, I had passed or been passed by countless state and local law enforcement staff, of every ilk:  biohazard containment officers, sheriffs, county court officials, animal control, the FBI, secret service, campus police.

 Only the Intrepid Five-0 in my town noticed that my Subaru’s right-front windshield-space, reserved for an Inspection Sticker, was vacant.

My Subaru was not sporting an expired sticker.

There was no sticker there.

Five days earlier I had just bought this vehicle, and it was some oversight at the dealership.  Probably mine.  In nearly eleven years of marriage this was our first new car and it even came with monthly payments extended out to 2001!  I was apparently too excited to drive it…to get it … you know … ‘inspected.’

It seems ridiculous I could be in this pickle twice:  once in ’89 and again in 2009, but there are noteworthy differences:

This time, my car was so new I had NO idea where the registration was.

This time... there was no computer-search to validate that I possessed a driver’s license.  Not only did this police van not come equipped with a computer as they weren't invented, I did not have a driver’s license.  I'd failed to renew it.  But only because I believed I still had "Army Wife Time." 

Traveling from country to country, state to state, for military families means you continue driving on a MILITARY driver's license.  Renewals are waived as a courtesy to those who serve our country.

I'd been driving on a 'waived' license for years, and once we exited the military, I had twelve months to acquire a civilian license. 

All twelve had lapsed that spring.

When the officer asked for my registration, and it wasn’t in my glove compartment, he huffed off to his van to run a radio check back with dispatch on both me AND my ‘alleged vehicle.’

That’s when I began running the metrics in my mind:  Carolyn Given:  no valid photo ID, no driver’s license, no vehicle registration for a brand new Subaru wagon without an inspection sticker.  I was either a spook like Jason Bourne, or a fugitive from justice.

Either way, it sounded bad.

With renewed vigor I began rooting through the vehicle to locate the registration. Fortunately, the car was in my name so I knew I’d be home free if I found it.  Instead of hunting for the soiled, flimsy tissue I was accustomed to calling a registration, I started looking for something clean.  Perhaps in a CASE.

That is how I found it:  I looked inside the Subaru Car Manual where the registration was neatly ensconced in a pleather side pocket, adorned with business cards.

SO euphoric to escape arrest and put this unpleasantness behind me, I leaped out of my vehicle waving my registration in the air and raced to the police van, with the officer still inside talking to Dispatch on his radio and--WHAM.

My brand new Subaru – of its own accord – smashed into the cop’s front fender.

Manual transmissions were new to me.  I’d left it in neutral.  Without the emergency brake.  On a slight ‘grade.’

I still recall the officer’s surprise.

His hand went directly to his unholstered weapon and his lips formed the directive – at first without sound -- "Get back in your vehicle.”

Then with full voice:  “Do it NOW.  Place BOTH hands on the wheel and DO NOT  MOVE.”

 He radio'd for two backup cruisers.  They were on-the-scene in seconds.

They all scrutinized me closely.  My eyes were red and blurry, I had an open prescription bottle leaking pills onto the passenger seat, my shirt and pants (carefully chosen Work Togs) were ragged and askew.  I was sweating and nervous.

It was clear what was happening.  I had to prove I was not a tweaking crack whore who'd just boosted a soccer mom’s wagon.

Nothin to do but use my BRAIN to find a way to avoid arrest in the town I'd come to love. A town so quaintly Rockwell-esque, I'd managed to wave at ninety per cent of its residents motoring by in the hour I was detained.

The spokesperson for the new troupe of officers at my driver’s side engaged me.  He asked for my name and my address. 

"Good afternoon, Officer.  I KNOW I failed to engage my emergency brake. I've owned this car less than a week and haven't figured out the Manual Transmission.  Plus, my dealership failed to get the inspection taken care of -- I'll be phoning them shortly. I couldn't INSTANTLY find the registration because the car is so new, no one told me it was located inside the Manual.  And yes, my Military Officer’s Driver's License expired since the medical-retirement. Time flies.

"I apologize for my appearance.  I just returned from Duxbury where I helped my mother move my 90 year-old aunt from her home to Assisted Living.  And by the way, I tried to tell the nice officer -- whose vehicle mine just 'kissed' -- that I have lived on this street for 17 months, number 92:  I am the Douglas Council On Aging Senior Center Director.  Carolyn Given.  Selectman Cheseborough can vouch for me, as can your Chief of Police.  Fred’s office, in fact, is located in the Municipal Center two doors down from my own.  Sorry about the fuss today. EXHAUSTED from moving those boxes.”

They offered, all three, to escort me back to my home less than 1,000 meters away, to ensure my safety. 

Not even a verbal warning.  For any of it.

You know, I see where Astrid was going with this:  the Subaru story’s way different.

Holiday School-Spirit Week Brings Felonious Speeding-Charge

Christmas shopping and attending holiday gatherings bring out the vehicular felon in me.  In the days leading up to Our Savior’s Jour de Naissance, I am typically pulled over at least once per Holy Season, for speeding.

Mostly through the mid 2000’s, until about 2010.

Perhaps working at all those charter schools made me spiritually accelerate toward religion-inspired days-off.  I do know that my first charter school was indirectly involved in my worst criminal ‘pull-over’ back in 2009, definitely a holiday-season. 

Moreover, it was a time of fiscal crisis for our state. 

Frankly, I believe our governor had it in for charter school teachers. His left-wing policies purposefully dispatched state police to my own personal Mass-Pike exit, on missions to increase revenue by pulling over and giving citations to stressed, accelerated civil-servants-of-education, en route to collect their little disabled daughter, abandoned at her public school which I supported with my tax dollars, even though there was no after-school late bus (due to local deficits) to cart her home after her mandatory senior project (okay, she wasn’t little … or disabled: she had a speech disorder in third grade) where she was teaching improvisation in order to graduate due to right-wing conservatives’ graduation requirements which conspired to stress me out more than left-wing governors.

One Hundred And Eighty Dollars.

For going 73 in a 55. 

Or maybe 50.  

Who can think with things moving that fast?

All I did … was attempt to safely glide into the mandatory left lane on 146, after the Off-Then-On-Ramp from the Mass Pike.  This is where things tend to bottleneck, so the entering folks accelerate to avoid death from swift-moving side-swipers.

73 in a 55.  

Pffft.

I’d been doing 90 in a 65 each day without incident for years.

But this was the Holy Season.

And for the record? 

No one can survive this Off-Again On-Again Ramp without merging with adequate speed, because a mandatory right lane exit-only-law delivers motorists to 65 MPH traffic less than 200 meters ahead.

In my case, I'd prudently applied pedal-to-the-metal so as not to be rear-ended by vehicular terrorists.

That is the precise spot the state cop held religious vigil  -- with radar guns, not candles.  And a wicked mean face.

It was traumatic.  I car-pooled to work the next four months.

In fairness, I had noticed up ahead this clot of car-metal off to the right that looked state-cop suspicious. But I didn’t hit the brakes as I normally do when I spot police.  This clot looked like a big accident.

But I SLOWED DOWN anyway.  

It was too late.  The speed trap I believe was illegal had already ensnared me.  As well as three other innocent vehicularists.  They were the ones ‘parked’ there, off to the right, in that  ‘clot.’

In fact, all of those pulled-over vehicles made it dangerous for me to join the tangle and avoid striking state cop personnel, now standing in the actual highway, while at the same time not forcing said personnel to walk more than a mile to get to my pulled-over car.

I meant to slow down more efficiently.  But the moment I saw the car-clot, my cell phone rang.  It was my teaching colleague ‘M’ and as a professional educator, I had to take the call.

Now I am usually an expert multi-tasker.  But I somehow did not engage the brake as I normally would (by using my foot) because I had to reach into my filthy purse amongst vermin and contaminants to root around for my sticky cell phone.

By the time I opened the phone to answer, the state cop had thrown his body into oncoming traffic, aimed his radar gun at me with deadly force, and screamed, “PULL OVAH!”

Even 'M' heard him and shouted from the other end, “HANG UP, QUICK.”

I was a rag when he ambled toward my passenger window.  This was a non-pull-over area:  far too small to allow egress for his ten gallon hat and riding boots and weapon-slinging jodhpurs to approach the driver’s side safely.

“License and registration,” he growled from the comfort of his pussy-passenger locale.

My face flushed and I could hardly think with all the adrenaline molecules infecting my brain.  “Licorice and Regurgitation? What?”

Meanwhile my right hand robotically rooted amongst the botulism that is my purse to find my wallet.

Which wasn’t there.

I discovered this at the exact time I noted my state police personnel was studying my windshield and the floor of that passenger side … which was filled with dozens of Public Speaking Rubrics and mostly-clean tissues and fifteen empty Polar Seltzer cans.

That is when I began praying.

 “Oh, For the Love of Lord God Jesus, Amen, do NOT let this cop make me get out of my vehicle on my charter school’s Crazy Outfit Day.”

To count down to the winter holiday, our school enjoyed a Festive Spirit Week and that day was Crazy Outfit Day, which, typically, for me, was every day.

But on Crazy Outfit Day, I made an effort.

I’d purposefully matted my hair to arrange it into glue’d tangles, contained by a Santa Cap defiled by a fake CSI pin.  Below my head was a Hawaiian moo moo sucked in by a plaid belt, above polka-dot Capri pants rolled up to different heights on each leg, both of which were adorned by red tights bespeckled in butterflies.  My right foot was enshrouded by a soccer sock I'd stenciled with blue balloons, all ending in a Birkenstock Sandal. My left foot was ensconced in a knee sock with Christmas mice peering from a stocking, which no one saw due to the Black Army Boot. (I'd wrapped it like a gift … tied off with a jingle bell.)

 “Is there a problem, Ma'am?”

SO many, I thought.

“Well, sir.  The problem seems to be that my wallet with my license . . . is in my other purse.”

“I see. Well.  Do you HAVE a legal and current license?”

“Oh, I DO, yes, yes. I have that.”

“Could you produce the vehicle’s registration?”

“I am almost sure I can.”

I had no idea if I could.

My glove box is like a Jack-In-The-Box.

POP goes the weasel and out pops a dead weasel, and there I am, on my car hood, legs splayed, hands cuffed, in my Charter School Crazy Outfit … off to Death Row.

Guess what popped out of my Jack-In-The-Glove-Box?

My current registration.

Rocky Horror Police: “Do you own this vehicle?”

Horrified Me In Crazy Outfit: “I do. I really do, it's mine. I don’t even make payments because of the year that—“

He was gone to run a check on the vehicle.

He returned moments later asking, “Ma'am.  Are you aware that this vehicle has an expired inspection sticker, from April?  Of 2008?”

I looked at the sticker and peed right there in the driver’s seat.  It was 20 months overdue.

“I certainly was NOT.  I don’t know how that happened but I am ASHAMED and all I can think is—“

“Having a vehicle with an expired inspection sticker and not being in possession of your driver’s license are serious violations, Ma'am, are you aware of that?”

“I am… I am SO very aware of this, Sir, and GAWD how sorry I am becau—“

“Where are you coming from?”

“Teaching.  I teach.  At a school.  It’s in Marlborough where I teach.  We get out late. We’re a charter.  We get out at—“

“Where were you going TO?”

“Picking up my daughter where I was late picking her up … cuz of the lateness and Crazy OUTFIT Day which I’m sure you must have … --anyway, I was late and she had just called to tell me HOW late and JUST THEN you appeared with your gun and that voice and—“

“I saw you were on your cell phone.”

“Yes, my little girl –– the baby of four – I was assuring her she wouldn’t have to wait much longer since she’d been wai—“

“Ma'am.  What I’m going to do now. . .”

I am wiping sweat from my face and pee from the Sebring’s lumbar support.

“. . . is explain to you the multiple violations and potential citations you’ve warranted here today.  Do you KNOW the consequences for not possessing your driver’s license AND for driving a vehicle with an expired inspection sticker for MORE than one full YEAR?”

I was certain it was death, but he did not wait for an answer.  

(Meanwhile my silent prayer droned on, “Lord, seriously, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE let me exit this vehicle. Let him assassinate me.  But do not let me exit this vehicle in what I am wearing.”)

 “Let's just say," he continued, "the consequences are ... significant. But I am willing to give you a verbal warning for failure to have in your possession your valid driver’s license, and a verbal warning for failure to have a valid inspection sticker … and driving a vehicle without a valid inspection sticker … for more than ONE YEAR.”

“And also a warning for SPEEDING,” I offered helpfully.

“Do you even KNOW how fast you were going?”

“I do not know how fast I was going.”

“SEVENTY…THREE… MILES…PER…HOUR.”

“Oh... My…GAWD.”

“Do you know what the speed limit is?”

“I dare not venture a gue—“

“Fifty-FIVE.”

“No way. I am SO, SO sorry, Sir.  I’ve been driving on this road for NINETEEN YEA-“

“So I am giving you a citation for speeding.  Here you go.”

“Oh, THANK YOU… but especially for not making me get out of this car since I am dressed for our school’s CRAZY OUTFIT DAY.  Just LOOK at my plaid belt.  PHEW, right?”

“Ma'am.  There was no need to have you leave your vehicle.  You can appeal this citation and request a hearing or pay the fine within twenty days.  Be careful as you merge with oncoming traffic.”

Oh I was careful.

“Merging” is what got me that ticket in the first place.

 I sat there for two hours until rush hour was over.  A neighbor picked up my daughter.

It was stunning sitting there reading the number next to my fine.  One Hundred Eighty Dollars.  Part of it was a $50 Head Injury Surcharge. 

Whose bright idea was that?  (Yeah-yeah, someone with a head injury.) 

It was a bad year, 2009.   The economy tanked, trashing our retirement portfolio and we were weirdly in a new tax bracket from some promotion my spouse received.   $180 was not in that year’s Christmas budget.  Plus I hadn't received a moving violation I couldn't talk my way out of in eighteen years.  

Even twenty years ago I’d managed to get just a warning when I failed to engage the emergency brake in my manual Subaru, unwittingly causing my unmanned vehicle to roll backward into a police van.

Having just received this jolly 146 On/Off/On Ramp ticket, I fondled it, then whipped out my calculator to see how much my new insurance premiums and ticket and lost time at school due to appearing at a hearing might be. 

Once I saw the total, I decided to host a charter school Dress Like A Ho Day as a fundraiser and declare myself the cause.  (Bake sales had been banned that year by the state’s left-wing nutrition guidelines.)

Well, that is all behind me. 

Fortunately, Christmas of 2012 will be Pull-Over Free because, as you know, I have nowhere to rush to, or from.  These days, I can roll with leisure from my unemployed bed then dress like a vagabond or Santa’s Sassy Slattern, and putter about in my Sebring, fearlessly, joyfully, well under the speed-limit … like other retirees.  Ho Ho Ho.

[Happy Holidays, Linda!  xoxo  C]

Sewing Up Tangential Family E-Threads

Stardate:  December 11, 2012

FROM MOM:  Dear Nick, Jake, Zach, Abby, Dad, blah blah blah etc.,

Guess what!!??  Abby, Dad and I loved our December 7^th UMass Lowell Tsongas Center event, A Conversation with Stephen King, also touted as the “First Annual Chancellor’s Speaker Series.” 

I especially loved how UMass did not employ some oxymoronic redundancy: “Our Premier Very-First Yearly Inaugural Annual Chancellor’s Speaker Series-Debut.” 

Of course, the event was sponsored by the English Department.

In fact, it was moderated by an actual UMass Lowell English Professor, the famous Andre Dubus III, who was additionally three important things (unrelated to the III after his name, which was coincidence):

1.    Dubus III is the son of his famous father and author, Dubus II, who was friends with Stephen King, leading to Dubus III’s current Kingian friendship; 2. Dubus III is the author of many NY Times bestsellers including House of Sand and Fog made into the Academy-Award nominated film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly; and 3. He is a native of Massachusetts with a cool local accent rivaled only by King’s more downeast diction, making Andre and Steve’s conversation through the evening MAH-KID-LY entertaining.

Speaking of English Departments, King donated more than $100,00 from ticket sales to scholarships for UMass Lowell’s English students (listen to my heart sing! which is personification).

We also got to hear Stephen read aloud a just-penned short story: what a treat live, with King’s inflection on key phrases and a magical donning of protagonist and antagonist-voice.

Well.  So inspired were we from our full-on two hours of Stephen King Live, I recklessly baked over the weekend. Scary stuff without a recipe.

Abby and I worked fluently using raw adrenaline from King’s horror to test-drive a Christmas Cranberry Pie, with crust built from scratch -- kneaded with filthy hands.

We took mutantly giant cranberries clearly infused with testosterone by the ocean spraying folks, and cut them into quarters barely small enough to fit a human mouth.

We added cranberry juice, sugar, some flour to thicken.

 Voila.

A red, runny fuck mess. 

The perfect tribute to Stephen King.  He not only used the F-word a lot in his conversations with Andre Dubus III, but the pie was a culinary homage. Remember his novel, Thinner? Great fun, but the film version was pretty horrific, and not in the way Stephen intended.

In the end, a red pie is involved and it resembled our cranberry pie. The special effects folks didn’t need to lift a finger as long as they used our recipe.  It’s supposed to contain human blood, disguised by the red, fruity runoff.

At one point someone cuts into the pie with a horror-movie knife that makes a sword sound ‘shwing’ and –

Well.  My pie’s liquidy center was exactly like the blood pie in Stephen’s movie. 

Mmmm… blood pie. 

Sort of thematic for Christmas. 

Or maybe Easter. 

Nativity scenes, crucifix … it’s all religious to me. 

Speaking of which, can't wait to see you all at Christmas! 

Love, Mom

ABBY:  I feel like we're either going straight to hell... or the top notch of heaven.... depending what branch of Christianity we're on.

DAD: We’re on the Low Hanging branch. Or on one of Dante’s rings.  That horror pie was delicious!  BTW, I am going to re-kindle the neighborhood rumors and wear a yarmulke at Christmas.

JAKE:  "Now nobody gets to go to Heaven."

ZACH:  Alright, Jake!  Aqua Teen Hunger Force reference!

DAD:  “Who wants a latte? Oh I'm sorry was that me who knocked that right out of your hand?”  *We may have to plug in ATHF for the holidays!

ABBY:  I'm sitting in Dunk’s... face in my palm... We are all scorned by God ...

MOM:  ANYWAY … Stephen King was awesome and--

FAMILY:    -- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz --

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle at Christmas (dedicated to Jace)

I was picking through some mail this morning (the kind that your hands can touch), enjoying a Christmas card or two, and discovered a strange Christmas Catalogue.  It was from the makers of the original orthopedic foam-rubber memory-mattress.

The catalogue was printed in Super-Gloss Hi-Def paper.

This fascinated me. 

Not just the glossy paper, but because these guys have a 'catalogue.'  What could the mattress folks possibly be selling, I wondered.  So I opened the catalogue to find page after page ... of footwear.

The space-age mattress industry has gone mad.  Why, I puzzled, have they made plushy slippers out of astronautical sleep foam? 

Then it struck me:  recycling.

When the space-age sleep foam industry first began, I took the company up on its original sleep-guarantee:  “Sleep on our mattress for 90 days for FREE and if you don’t agree you’ve acquired super powers including X-ray vision and the ability to Tango, return the mattress and—"

I returned the mattress.  Not only did I not acquire super powers, I did acquire muscle spasms from waking up in a space-age Memory Pit in the precise shape of my scoliosis.

Perhaps the company started putting to use decades of returned mattresses from spinal patients, for whom space-age foam meant each torqued disc and bone spur was frozen in its mis-alignment for a full eight hours of beauty-rest.

Finally! Returned mattresses have been reincarnated as footwear “in time for Christmas! Our line of winter slippers will put a spring in Grammy’s step. See page 2-7."  

Six pages of footwear.

And not just for sale.  For sale on credit:  the front page sported the sub-heading, “0% with 40 months to pay!”

I even spotted way down at the bottom, in a holly-berry font, the sentence fragment, "Christmas special on toys and accessories!”

Accessories? Had they fashioned purses and earrings from foam byproduct?

No, but I found exercise mats, teddy bears and a travel mattress in its own carrying case so holiday travelers can place a sheet of byproduct onto a guest-bed like a rubber sheath for bed wetters.

There were fluffy faux-fur sleep masks, neck rolls, lumbar supports, designer curtains and animal beds.  

"Fit for Fluffy, our feline loungers offer two styles:  the Uber-Deep-Dish-Decadance Resort and the Ecstasy Squirrel-Chaser, comfy enough to enduce the most pleasant dreams in your favorite pussy (available in tweed, brown-tweed, sage-tweed and squirrel-tweed).  *TODAY ONLY: personalize your lounger for only $9.99 -- up to 25 letters -- for FREE Christmas delivery!” 

They also performed hybrid experiments by splicing a toddler’s plushy with a neck roll:  “Use as sleep pillow or keep your blood wintry-warm with handy vampiric pull-tabs located near your jugulars to create an Arterial Teddy Wrap!”

Well, I guess someone had to be the guinea pig to wear the first mink stole.

Speaking of which, congrats again to Alexsandra on her job that recreates Green Space from the Post Big Dig Debacle.

And if any of my offspring are reading this, Mommy does not need plushy hello-kitty slippers that likely supported incontinent spinal patients back in 1992.

Although the yoga mats? 

Get me two:  for Katie-Ophelia and Juliet II.  The cats are weirdly zen these days.

Weaving My Death Shroud ... Call me Penelope

I just finished doing one of my favorite things:  giving a beautiful recommendation for a favorite teacher I’d hired a couple of years ago.  Looks like he landed his dream job! He and I taught together at a classical charter school I’d had the privilege to help ‘found.’

After the administrator and I hung up today, I was chuckling to myself about one of her questions:  “What would you say your title is right now?” 

“Unemployed,” and we both laughed. 

But doing the whole industry-Iingo chatter for a glorious near-hour made me feel, when we hung up, like a teacher again, home playing hooky! This reminded me of my first classical charter school experience, when – after going in to teach with a variety of minor ailments and forgoing family events in our inaugural year (we had no substitutes) -- I finally missed my first work-day that spring.  I had a leg injury.

Working at schools with classical humanities curricula does nothing if not provide Ancient metaphors and dramatic literary excerpts for every occasion.

I insisted everyone “call me Penelope...  as I weave my death shroud

. . .  for I have a venomous thigh-'festation -- black and murderous -- filled with INCALCULABLE Mini-Medusa heads -- which must by order of Hera be TORN from their ROOT and cast down before the Assembly --  and left to rot as feasts for dogs and birds, as Zeus's will is done -- C.Givelope”

At first no one knew what the problem was: possibly a toxic spider bite our School Nurse became alarmed over, as did the Registrar, Guidance, and our World Language Department named Jan. (I wanted several second opinions that it looked horrific, since, technically, I could not see it. This injury was located on my ‘dorsal’ thigh and at the time I didn’t own a periscope.)

It was baffling, how fast it came on.

The previous evening, it felt like a sore muscle, but since I had forgotten to do my 3-hour Pilates/Spin Class and 30-K Run that day, I decided to find a mirror to see what the problem was.

After repairing to my bedroom, I hoisted my leg atop the mirror’d bureau to catch a glimpse.

I instantly self-diagnosed flesh eating bacteria or religious stigmata …and while I was almost correct, the point is … I lost my balance, toppled backwards into the ironing board along with the actual iron, which after it hit the floor lost its bottom panel along with electrical wires and a large pool of iron-water, all of which I was lying in … waiting for electrocution.

(Luckily the iron had not been plugged in since 2004)

Meanwhile, the sepsis due to spider venom coursed through my femoral artery where it jetison’d to my heart, which was now palpitating. 

That’s when Abigail came in.

“Whatcha doin down there? Jake just brought CHINESE FOOD!”

Later that evening I caused four available family members to view and describe for me the heinous blight afflicting my thigh. 

My son, a WPI graduate of Biotechnology, rolled his eyes, cracked two fortune cookies then announced, “Looks fine,” and sped back to Boston.

Everyone else went to bed. 

Abby:  "Take a Tylenol.  'NIGHT!!"

By the time I arrived at school the next morning, I had to limp to prevent the artifact... of horror... from touching my other thigh or my own skirt or air molecules... so I hobbled off dragging my dead right leg behind me and presented it to our School Nurse.

She was very cool-headed.

”No Pass? No Nurse,”  she said, typing away at her keyboard.

So I revealed the visage...

School Nurse: "Oh MY.  Let's lock the door."

(First she closed it.)  "I'm getting a ruler to measure this."

"Really?  Well, while you're doing that could you get me a mirror? I've not exactly seen this... horrific entity... exactly."

School Nurse perking up. "You HAVEN'T!? GREAT!" 

She passed me an Industrial Strength Whale-Thigh-Viewing Mirror the size of Nebraska. My hand developed apoplectic neural spasms from trying to hold it aloft.

Then she rolled forward on titanium casters a mechanical contraption sporting a twelve-million watt surgical lamp from hell.

It gave me gamma-style radiation burns and the glare off the angry red entity blinded me.  I could hardly drive home in the rain later in the morning.

But before the Blinding, I gasped.    It was exquisite.

Picture a Mars-Red Football -- or blood-colored basketball.

My entity was twenty times larger.  The School Nurse measured it.  It was 70 mm by 40 mm. 

In case you are unfamiliar with the metric system, "mm" means "miles / mountain" -- and wild algorithms using the Richter Scale help medical personnel convert the 'mm's ... to "cubits."  [Oh, in ancient Russia, during the winter solstice, they used "vershoks."  These involved electricity.]

So I apparently had... a "cubit." 

A cubit is a three-dimensional elliptical 'cube' sporting 'bits' of red inflammation in the pattern of a football. A cubit is found on thigh-parts so remote, the victim may never view it, according to Zeus, and will be rendered blind if they try.

And so it was. Call me Oedipus-'elope.

The School Nurse insisted that all cubits must by Oath of Hippocrates and liability be swiftly assessed by physicians...(these originated in Ancient Greece, too.)

When it was evident I was not dashing instantly to an ancient physician, the School Nurse noted that cubits, if caused by the Wily Brown Recluse spider, could cause tissue to break down much like flesh-eating bacteria!

This was exciting!  I’d come to this conclusion, myself!

So after getting requisite second opinions from at least three easily-alarmed friends, I decided I would go see a physician. (Our Registrar was appalled I didn't summon a National Guard Medical Helicopter to spirit me to a nearby field-surgical unit... that I, instead, was showing her a Final Exam asking permission to use the office photocopier because the one in the FACULTY lounge is too painful to walk to cuz I---     "I'LL DO IT, CAROLYN!  25 COPIES? GREAT. GO.")

Once I was satisfied my departure would cause as much chaos as possible, I decided to leave.

Departure trauma unfolded.

The History Department appeared, herding an array of children to my now-empty classroom to finish their history exams – whereupon the Latin Department appeared announcing he was covering for Chemistry who was GOING to cover for ME but couldn't due to an emergency parent meeting.

Next a Classroom-Aide arrived with Chemistry students for the Latin Department to teach – and suddenly, several sets of children were bottlenecked in the mini-hall in front of my class.

Unaware of the unfolding mayhem, the history department began dragging a few extra chairs from Detention to my classroom for the History Final Remainders, with Chemistry students now scaling and leaping over the chairs while they were in motion.

I was transfixed. 

Thankfully, our principal arrived with a clipboard.

She and her clipboard squeezed past the children and the musical chairs and the Chemistry Kids A-Leaping and –

 -- I found myself in the hallway pinned to a glass wall overlooking the staircase with my throbbing entity and briefcases and satchels ALL unwittingly injuring children and staff as they smeared past me.

Most Cubit Victims get appointments by Healers from their work station telephones, then tarry off at the appointed hour.

But due to my classroom phone being ensconced in chaos, and my documented disability where I cannot drive anywhere I haven't already been driven to thrice -- and since my cell phone was buried in my sofa -- I drove home in sudden horizontal, ark-esque driving downpours.

To use my home phone. 

I called my spouse to see if he wouldn't love taking half a day to drive me since it IS my favorite driving leg that will be incapacitated from toxins and spores and bacilli long before I get to any healers -- during the apocalyptic floods. He answered his cell swiftly, saying, "I'm talking to Iraq. I'll call you back."  - click -

I could feel venom tentacling throughout my spinal column while I waited a half hour for him to call me back.

He said he would LOVE to drive and speak to Iraq on his cell-phone in the rain to resolve all of these festive crises in his work and home-life.

He added he is sticking to his entity-diagnosis that it is "nothing." He noted that this morning it was "already healing. It looked much better." (Same morning newly erupting yards of flaming, seething tissue hung off my femur and careened into walls.)

I told him the nurse was alarmed, the Registrar gasped, the Receptionist  and World Language Department both needed emergency chocolate.

My spouse fell silent -- then said, "These are civilians. They have never been to Iraq."

My primary was off that day, but the covering-doctor who had seen me once before took one look at me and said, "I've seen you once before."

"Mayhaps, but I bet you never saw one of THESE."

And my glorious entity occupied the entire exam room once I unleashed it.

It was resplendent.

After she diagnosed it as something she could never diagnose not knowing what may or may not have bitten me...   she wrote prescriptions and told me to ice it a skillion times per day and keep it exposed, and lie down so I don't further irritate it, and take a whole lot of Benadryl and Cephelaxen and Advil and Dioxicyline in case of Lyme Disease... with food.

And she sent me to Phlebotomy (born in Ancient Greece where they invented the 'vein' but called it a 'phleb'.  This is due to them using veins to string lyres, but they hadn't invented a method of 'tuning the lyre' so the vein-strings just sort of "phlebb'd" from flaccidity.  The 'phleb' is onomatopoeia).

There in Phlebotomy, I had a Lyme disease test.

Then I left with all of my instructions for the care and feeding of a cubit, which clearly prevented me from being in the presence of middle school children. Exposed cubits mean virtual... commando - ness... and I couldn't very well teach commando with ice duct-taped to my upper inner-thigh lying down with Benadryl and high dose anti-inflammatories coursing through my phlebs, causing spontaneous diarrhea. 

(Although, the next day, while I was unconscious and sofa-bound from Benadryl, lying commando with my entity duct taped to frozen peas, the Tile People sashayed into the house to finally finish that last bathroom corner.)

My doctor also added that, of course, if it gets worse,,, to call.

Why do they feel the need to state this? And why do they not define "worse"?

If giant pustules leaking spiders spray from your leg and frighten your students, call us.

If you spike a fever of 115 degrees and hallucinate and vomit lung-parts and small woodland creatures, call us.

I'll do that. After I call SWAT teams and CSI investigators and multiple television stations.

It did end up being Lyme Disease, so one of the medicines kicked in nicely.  I was able to return to school late that week to help with a going away party for little Christina Papandrea (who is now a college freshman!  AND on the Dean’s List! Although not necessarily due to my Lyme Disease.)

But before the drugs kicked in, I had to endure one last insult:  I had to phone my principal late at night to alert her that my colleagues needed to sub for me for a couple of days.

If there was something that delighted me more than feeling ill and delivering stressful news at night to my boss on her cell phone, I could not think of it.

Then I remembered: it would be teaching prone on my classroom carpet wearing nothing but a blazer, drooling from antihistamines and holding a bag of frozen kale to toxic thigh tissue. 

Thank heaven for early intervention with Lyme Disease medications.