The Private World of the Idle Rich

The rich, it's said, are different. Perhaps, but the reality of the idle rich is flat out useless. For one thing, they don't understand the word "no". For another, they demand and expect to receive instant attention and will create a scene if denied it. The woman on the telephone believed that she had been overcharged and was demanding to speak to the "girl who had waited on her". She refused to accept the fact that "the girl" was gone, that I didn't have a copy of her itemized receipt to go over with her (line by line), or that anything could be more important than her complaint. She was being whiny, petulant and obstinate. I apologized, I assured her that we would correct any mistake, I offered to have a manager return her call - all to no avail. Is there no one there who can talk to me about this? she asked repeatedly as if enough repetition would alter the facts. After ten minutes of this useless conversation, she finally agreed to let me call her back but rather than waiting, she returned to the store with a screaming infant in arms and shouldered her way through a line of customers to confront me. I was charged for these Vintage Montrachet glasses, she announced grimly, and I got Chardonnay. Are they the same price? The infant's howling was hurting my ears and other customers were glaring. And, she added with unmistakable contempt, you didn't return the glass I brought from home so you'd better start looking for it.

Having not the faintest idea what she was talking about, I stalled and explained that the manager was on her way back. She shifted the squirming, sobbing child to one hip and gave out a loud and arrogant sigh before asking again, Is there NO ONE here who can help me? I raised my voice to be heard over the infant and the grumblings of the waiting customers and told her clearly, The manager is on her way back. She'll be here any minute and I need you to wait. She actually stamped her foot at that and stubbornly insisted I start looking for her wine glass. The longer you wait, she informed me, the harder it will be to find. I left it right here on the counter. Beginning to feel like I was lost in a wilderness with dogs on my trail, my patience finally gave way. I spoke slowly, meeting her eyes and returning her tone. This is a wine shop and a restaurant that specializes in wines. We are in the middle of a sale on wine glasses and I don't have the first idea of where to begin looking for a single wine glass. I didn't wait on you and the person who did will be here any minute. I. NEED. YOU. TO. WAIT.

The manager returned and remembered that she had found a single wine glass on the counter and thinking it was part of a set that was on sale had re-boxed it. The glass was located, the customer pacified, the issue of price was resolved - no overcharge - and I got to leave, only mildly the worse for wear and gratified by the fact that there was no way I could've known any of that. In the private world of the idle rich, they don't teach manners, courtesy, respect for others or how to wait. Give me the unemployed impoverished anytime - if only because they have no one to look down upon.

Corn and Grain

Tis the season for pumpkins and pinestraw.

On this cool and almost crisp October morning, the sky is a brilliant blue and the leaves are falling and drifting onto the grass like oversized colored paper snowflakes. The air has changed and smells of autumn somehow - morning light filters through the trees in hazy streaks and there is the promise of early dark in the breeze. The change of seasons is almost upon us, coming gently and in small steps, as if testing the waters before diving in, as if not wanting to get caught. Tis the season of sweaters and hot cider, state fairs and Halloween, apple picking, hay bales in neat rows and baskets of Indian corn set on doorsteps. Tis the season of jack'o'lanterns and gremlins, trick or treaters, witches and broomsticks, evenings of 5 o'clock darkness and glowing streetlights at dusk.

For me, October has traditionally been a month of free floating melancholy and sweet sadness. There's no good reason for it, but it's my least favorite month and it brings associations of goodbyes and endings. It's an orphan month, too old to be August and too young to be November - a stepchild no one really wants, caught in the middle of a custody war between summer and winter, resentful and sullen and determined not to care. Even it's colors are angry - fiery reds and disagreeable oranges, yellows for cowardice and a whole range of dull, neutered browns, simmering with hostility and envy. It's an unwanted month, tempermental and indecisive, with all the passion of the dead leaves it produces. It's a month having an identity crisis and not handling it well.

The late afternoon light is gone now and the mornings arrive with a shattering brightness that hurts my eyes and offends my senses. By afternoon the clouds gather and it begins to rain - it's suddenly muggy and unpleasantly warm although the rain is cold and gray. October turns this way and that, unsure of which direction it's supposed to go and whining about it's confusion, lost in the turmoil of months that clearly have their place in time. Spring and summer are bright, winter brings a cold and clear definition of the season, but October is muddy and uncertain, not a month to make choices or changes and impossible to dress for. On my route to work each morning, I pass a homeless man carrying a duffel bag and a broom and wearing a maroon parka, hooded and fur lined. He shuffles down the sidewalks of one of the better sections of the city, slightly bent over and face hidden from the traffic. I think he knows what October is all about.

The day ends as it began with a brilliant sky and blinding, early autumn sunshine and against my will, I'm forced to wonder if I've misjudged this changeling month with it's dead leaves and unpredictable mood swings.

Corn and grain,
corn and grain,
all that falls will rise again.

Dry Toast

To be considered legitimately sick enough to miss school required a verifiable symptom.

Mumps, measles, chicken pox all passed muster. Vomiting - which in my mother's eyes could be easily enough self induced - did not. Fevers were highly suspect and had better be 101 or better. Headaches were seen as the worst form of malingering, stomach ailments were in second place, and short of a broken or fractured bone or free flowing arterial bleeding, all pain was instantly dismissed as "in your head". A cold - no matter it's severity - was a nuisance to be treated with two aspirin and a box of kleenex and she wrote off each and every so called flu as a medical hoax designed to put money in the pockets of over eager doctors selling useless flu shots. A child at home sick was an inconvenience to her - it meant she would have to make dry toast and overdone eggs served with lukewarm apple juice and trudge a tray upstairs to the sick room morning, night and noon, a form of pampering that was clearly undeserved and might set a dangerous precedent. I thought of this yesterday morning as the doctor administered a shot to my hip and gave me instructions for lots of water and a couple of days rest. The cold was in it's very early stages - congestion, coughing, and a scratchy throat - and we were jump starting treatment in hopes of avoiding the worst. Not surprisingly, it worked.

My mother's regimen left some lasting effects though. I still believe that there are miles between "sick" and "too sick to work". I suspect no one will believe me if I say I have a headache or am nauseous. I still want to present verifiable symptoms - a wound, a raging fever, a cast. More distressing, I find myself looking for it in others, more or less expecting that a claim of illness is probably a cover story and that if you can't see it, it's not really there.
It's an unreasonable outlook, I know, cynical, suspicious, and uncharitable, just as my mother intended.

Faith, Fear, and Repair Bills

Sometime during the night, the air conditioning began to make whistling noises. It came on with a loud whoosh I'd never noticed before and seemed to be running with a mild roar instead of the usual quiet hum. By morning, it was still cooling but was was also vibrating half the house and rattling the other half. I didn't even want to think about what might be wrong and fearing the worst, I shut it down.

In a series of unforeseen events, it's often difficult not to imagine that the entire world has targeted in on you personally. The air conditioning breaks down, followed by the car breaking down, followed by an intestinal virus, followed by the air conditioning breaking down a second time, all in the course of two weeks. I want to scream at the heavens to cut me some slack but instead I reach for the credit card and sigh, thinking there's no end. God has bigger issues and likely doesn't care much about my credit problems and as the entire world seems to be jumping from one crisis to another, cosmically speaking, my debt is hardly a priority. I'm reconciled to the fact that it will outlive me and am comforted by the thought that it will not follow me to my grave. So I take a breath, remember that it could always be worse, pick myself up and keep going.

You can't run away from trouble, ain't no place that far, as Uncle Remus said. Living is a matter of overcoming adversity one day at a time and finding peaceful moments in between. Faith is faith - without substance or proof, without even evidence, yet it's sometimes all we have to go on. If you could hold it in your hand, then everyone would believe.

The Up and Down Side of Change

You may not like him sober, my aftercare counselor warned me, without the alcohol he's not going to be the same person. I naively laughed this off - as if things could be any worse.

The man who went into his third alcohol rehab was a happy, sloppy, juvenile drunk who lied about everything and passed out by nine at night. He saw no reason not to drink while working or driving and didn't mind the regular hangovers or black outs. After a couple of six packs, his needs were minimal and he had adjusted to sleeping alone. The man who came out, although sober, was angry, bitter, resentful and bad tempered. He went to his meetings but refused to get involved, just sat on the sidelines and barely listened. He became impatient and demanding, more silent and secretive than ever, emotionally locked down and physically abusive. The counselor had been right, I didn't like him and I wasn't sure I even loved him. Day after day I watched him sink further into rage, depression and isolation, walling himself off from anyone that might've helped and denying that there was anything wrong. It was a sad and painful process of self destruction and demolition. He made no friends, joined in no activities, and talked to no one, dismissing those who attended meetings as "do gooders" and "nosy". He refused to get a sponsor, turned his back at all offers of help, and began to condemn the world for "not minding their own business". Slowly but surely, he became an island unto himself, shut off from everything and everyone.
Inevitably, he began to drink again - hiding the evidence and lying about it.

I saw it first in his eyes, a tiny spark that had been gone was back by the time he arrived home at night. His mood improved, his humor returned, he began being more patient with the animals. He began to cook again and after supper would disappear into his workshop for hours. His walk was a little unsteady, his smile a little too crooked, his speech off just a bit. All the signs were there - he whistled or hummed to himself and once he tripped on the stairs and laughed it off. Bit by bit, the man who had gone into rehab came back - one or two beers led to six and six led to a couple or three sixpacks a day. He hid the beer cans in a paper bag in his truck, in the washing machine downstairs, in the trash in the workshop, in paint cans on the back deck, in the bag of dogfood on the front porch, hid them and waited for me to find them.

It took me some time to admit to myself what was happening and we slipped back into old routines with precious little effort. I spent more and more time at work, putting off the inevitable as long as possible and trying to fit my own denial to my life. When it finally came, the explosion was loud, frightening and violent. He called me a cold, controlling bitch and I called him a broken down, useless, impotent, drunken parasite. As if words, no matter how ugly, would make any difference.

In the end, words were all we had.

A Word from Hallmark

A woman is like a tea bag, the card read, you never know how strong she is until she's up to her ass in hot water. It was a nice gesture from a friend who knew the kind of week I was having but I had my doubts. With all due respect to Hallmark, a woman pushed to and then past her wits end is not a pretty sight. My inner strength was ebbing fast and the thought of one more day of coping with a world of trouble was nearly unbearable. I could feel Ol' Man River closing in over my head and realized that such times demand drastic measures. I decided to go to the zoo.

When in doubt, the zoo is a good place to be. It was a sunny, warm day and becoming one with the animals was as natural as taking a breath. I walked the paths slowly, uphill and down, around the corners, enjoying the children enjoying the animals. There were the big cats - lazing in the October sunshine without a care, looking mildly curious about their visitors but unconcerned. One white tiger paced steadily while his mate slept, oblivious to the stream of onlookers and cameras. The elephants took dust baths and the giraffes fed peacefully and watched them. The alligators slept in the stream, unmoving and unblinking, their deadly jaws locked as if dead. Monkeys swung from treetops, chattering up a storm in answer to the hundreds of birds just down the way. The rhino lumbered to the fence and glared at the crowd. There were owls and eagles, cheetahs and foxes, okapi and bison, flamingos, turtles, parrots, all minding their business and coexisting without human strife. In the petting zoo, delighted children fed lambs and goats and shrieked at the touch of the friendly barnyard animals. The donkeys brayed for treats, nosing into the hands and pockets of the little ones so bravely holding out a handful of hay. Ducks and swans and geese swam together in harmony. In this small, protected community, life is good and without struggle. Ol' Man River receded as I walked among the animals.

When in doubt, go to the zoo and talk to the animals. They've heard it all before but will listen anyway and will help you find your way back.

Sisters and Daughters

Funny how mismatched people can seem.

Aunt Zelma, Nana's younger sister, was a tiny slip of a thing, barely 4'6 while her husband stood well over 6' and could've easily slung her over one shoulder and carried her off if he'd had a mind to. They were married over 60 years and produced only one child, my cousin Elaine, who in many ways resembled my own mother physically. They were close in age and got along well most of the time - both came from domineering mothers and both were driven half crazy by their children and husbands. Both smoked and loved card playing, were married to men their complete opposites, had never worked and were hopeless gossips and only children. By the time they were in their late 50's, they were both white haired, considerably heavier, and often mistaken for sisters.

Elaine lived in upstate New York in an immaculately kept almost sterile, newly built house on a dead end street.The home was clean lines and no clutter - hardwood floors which she kept to a brilliant shine, contemporary furnishings and huge, flowing plants in ceramic vases for accents. A piano sat squarely in the center of the living room, a shiny new upright that she dusted and polished daily. She recycled religiously, newspapers and magazines, rinsed out aluminum cans, plastic ware and glass bottles. Once a month she took down all the cream colored mini blinds and washed them in bleach, dried them with a hair dryer and rehung them. Long before it was fashionable or even easily available, she had solar panels installed in the roof to offset the cost of winter heating oil. Her two adopted children were well behaved, respectful and neat and her only concession to chaos was a small chihuahua with the unfortunate name of Tinkle.

Still, each summer, she and her family joined us on the island where life flowed gently and at a different pace. There were many hands to make light the chores and Elaine spent her time reading and walking along the rocky coast, collecting shells and watching tidepools. In the evenings she and my mother played cards or dominos or scrabble, sitting on the sunporch and laughing to themselves while their mothers sat inside with knitting or books. She was a good influence on my mother, my grandmother used to say, a grown up influence with common sense and good judgement, raised well. My Aunt Zelma would smile and nod and say nothing - she recognized dangerous ground and avoided it whenever possible.

These four women, for all their differences, were remarkable alike and could form an unbreakable alliance when necessary. My mother was calmer and more relaxed with them than at any other time, more comfortable than at home, more predictable and good natured. When their month on the island was up, she said a teary goodbye and I thought it might've been genuine regret to see them go. Nana was saddened but practical - she would miss them but was glad to have her house back as she had never been able to abide the saucy little chihuahua. She and my mother went to their separate corners and life resumed.

As I grew up, I watched this foursome come together and then drift apart summer after summer. We would be at war in June, followed by a July at peace, then back to war in August. In one form or another, the strange and often volatile dynamics of mothers and daughters played out all summer long.