Empathy 101

I know how it will go before I even pick up my cell phone.

I will tell him that I have no internet or landline. Again.

He will fumble, mumble and scratch around until he finds his script, then will ask me all the questions I've alrady answered. Twice.

A little more fumbling and mumbling and scratching around and then he will tell me - as they always tell me - that the problem is in my equipment.

It goes exactly as I anticipate.

I ask if he's sure there's no outage and am postively assured not.

I tell him - sweetly - that he's full of shit, that in all the time I've had this sorry exuse for service that the problem has never once been in my equipment.

Oh, he wants to know, you've had issues in the past?

I've had issues since day one, I tell him, as you would well know if you'd bothered to look it up.

He makes the usual responsibility-evading excuses which I know by heart and then offers to schedule a technician visit.

It's pointless to argue so I agree. Based on prior experience, the odds are excellent that whatever outtage he doesn't seem to know about will be fixed by the time the technician arrives anyway and it's gotten to the point where I enjoy wasting as much of their time as I possibly can. We go over it one last time – I believe in giving morons every opportunity to hang themselves – and he confirms a technician visit between 1:00 and 4:00 that afternoon.

No chance he won't show? I persist.

Absolutely not, he assures me, Thank you for choosing.......

I hang up before he can finish the inflammatory thought.

At 4:30 when there has been not the first sign of a technician, I gather what wits I have left and make a final call, fully prepared to cancel every shred of this wretched service. Dispatch has put the service call on hold, I'm informed apologetically, it seems there's an outage in my area and they fully expect service to be restored by the end of the day or first thing in the morning. They are so sorry I've been inconvenienced.

It's so exactly what I've come to expect from them, that I don't even lose my temper. I calmly tell him that the service is a disagrace, that they lied from the start when they promised fibre optics in an area that has no fibre optics – some folks might see it as bait and switch, I point out – that the speed they promised has never materialized and that the reliable service is a joke.

And is it policy to cancel service calls without informing your customers? I demand, Are you really that inept or do you just not give a damn? Because those are the only two options.

He retreats to Empathy 101, assuring me he completely understands my anger and frustration, that the situation has been mishandled. He's sorrier than he can say that I was given bad information, he realizes how unfair it was, he promises me service will be restored as soon as humanly possible and he offers me credit for the outage and the missed call. It's all straight out of the “How To Handle an Angry Customer” playbook, designed to disarm, pacify and not further alienate me. And it doesn't work.

Nice try, I tell him, but none of that gives me my internet back or a single reason why I should stay with you.

He agrees and to his credit he's the only one who has the good grace not to thank me for choosing AT and T.

A pox on them all.

The Ransom of Ezra Pyne

One of the first stories I remember my grandmother telling me was how Ezra Pyne had been so small when he was born, that he fit into a shoebox.

I knew he'd been a frail child, slightly built and breakable looking with pale, translucent skin and deep set, hollow-ish dark eyes. While the rest of us raised havoc with our childhoods, Ezra watched from the sidelines, never far from his mother's watchful eyes and worried admonitions.

Ezra, stay out of the sun, she would remind him endlessly, Ezra, don't run, don't go near that dog, don't cut through the strawberry patch. Ezra, don't pick up those shells, you'll cut yourself.

Don't play in the ditch, Ezra, don't forget your nap, stay where I can see you. Be careful you don't get a splinter, Ezra, watch where you're walking. Don't handle that cat, how did you get this bruise, don't go barefoot, let someone else bait your hook, time to go, Ezra, come away from the water, it's time to go.

Sheltered and overprotected to the point of being suffocated, Ezra fought back as best he could, wavering between resistance and retreat. As often as he shook off his mother's well meant hovering, he snatched it back.

Boy don't know whether he's comin' or goin', Nana sighed, Ain't no wonder he's taken to drink.

Likely come to a bad end if'n he don't cut them apron strings, Aunt Pearl said sadly, Cain't drink that away.

I notice it don't keep him from tryin', Miz Clara remarked dryly, Makes me want to shake some sense into him.

Independence is a hard enough fought battle for a happy, healthy child, the women all agreed, but for a sickly one living in the shadows, it's all uphill and a treacherous climb. Defeated and reeled back in at every turn, the frail child had grown into an angry young man and the angry young man into a dark and solitary figure who spent his days alone and brooding in a booth in the canteen. How and where he spent his nights, no one knew. He was thin to the point of emaciated, silent as a grave, grimly unapproachable. He shunned company and people had learned to let him be but he hadn't counted upon Miss Hilda and her friendship with his mother.

I find myself in need of assistance, young man, she announced with a sharp rap of her riding crop that rattled his glass right off the table and sent the cracked plastic ashtray flying, And you appear to have considerable time at your disposal.  Come with me, if you please, Mr. Pyne.  We shall soon put you to rights.

Ezra, bleary-eyed and confused at this unexpected assault, gave her a wary look but didn't move except to draw circles in his spilled Molson's.  Hilda cleared her throat impatiently and none too gently lifted his chin with her crop until he was forced to look at her.

Come, come, Mr. Pyne, she snapped, Midday drunkenness is hardly a virtue in one so young!  I have need of a groundskeeper and you have significent need of gainful employment.  A fair day's wages for a fair day's work, I always say.

When he still made no effort to move, she leaned in closer, wrinkled her nose at the fumes, and firmly took hold of his shirt collar.

Perhaps, Mr. Pyne, we all heard her say with an iron-like coldness, I have failed to make myself clear.  I do not approve of soddeness and sloth and self-pity.  They are not enviable qualities and will not be rewarded here or in the afterlife.  You will accompany me of your own accord or rest assured, I will not hesitate to drag you out by your whiskey drenched heels!

Ezra blinked, shook his head, tried to focus.

Silence, Mr. Pyne, Hilda said briskly, implies consent.  On your feet or on the floor, young man.  I leave it to you.

Miz Elliott, one of the Albright boys called cautiously, Miz Elliott, ma'am, he's been here since yesterday mornin', I ain't sure he kin stand never mind walk.

That being the case, sir, then please have the goodness to convey him to my automobile, Hilda ordered, if he protests, you may restrain him and if he protests further, you may confine him to the boot for the journey.

Whatever you say, Miz Elliott, someone snickered, He ain't likely to notice nohow.

It wasn't, needless to say, something that could be kept quiet and the entire village knew about it by sundown, including my grandmother who paled when she heard.  

You were there? she demanded, roughly shaking me as if the truth would fly out from between my shoulder blades, You saw it happen?  Hilda kidnapped the boy?

Now, Alice, my Uncle Shad said mildly, kidnapping is a harsh word, it was more like.......

An abduction?? my grandmother howled, A hostage taking?? What exactly was it more like, Shadrach??

It were more like a relocation, Uncle Willie assured her, For the boy's own good.

Wild eyed and alarmingly red in the face, Nana threw up her hands in disbelief.  Well, now, she shouted at the calmly defiant old men, don't that jist make all the difference!!  

Alice, mind your blood pressure, Uncle Shad said helpfully and she snatched the nearest thing she could lay hands on - a fringed "We Love Digby, N.S." throw pillow - and pitched it at him violently.  Shad ducked and the pillow hit the shelf behind him with such force that it rocked the old ship's clock mechanism into a premature chiming which, in turn, startled the dogs who began a chorus of protest with Lady running frantic figure eights around Shad and Willie and Fritz trotting off to the sunporch with the pillow securely between his teeth.  Between the shouting, chiming, barking and general mayhem, no one heard the knocking on the back door and no one noticed that Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi had arrived, bearing sponge cake and sun brewed lemonade for the Ladies Sewing Circle.  At first, the two women froze, then Fritz appeared, generously lathered in stuffing with pillow fringe draped in and around his muzzle.  Pearl and Vi began to laugh, Shad and Willie followed suit, and finally my grandmother - outmanned and outgunned, so it seemed - joined in.

Ezra Pyne woke up two days later in the small room next to the stable, hungover and smelling hay and horse manure, but more clear headed than he'd been in years.  He spent the remainder of the summer planting, mulching, weeding, seeding, and flower tending for Miz Hilda and became so proficient at gardening that in September, Miz Clara took him on to help with the maintenance of the cemetery.  It wasn't enough to turn his life around but it did give him one good season of dignity and a little peace of mind.

Done

That there's evil in the world is not new. That so much of it is currently concentrated in this country might be.

Once we decided, as a society, a government, and a country, that killing kids was ok, there really was no going back.

We're anxious and willing enough to protect the banks, the pedophiles, the pharmaceutical companies, the NRA and other hate groups, the churches and the serial killers. We don't really mind so much that our justice system is broken beyond repair, that lack of health care is killing people, that all politicians care about is increasing their profit and maintaining their power. We've chosen the kind of country we want. We don't mind that politicians are sold like penny candy, that right wing religion is poisoning us or that sheer hypocrisy has run the fabric of this country ragged. We don't just embrace that some lives matter less than others, we celebrate it.

Worse, we act on it.  And the very politicians and pastors and people who publicly despair, smile smugly and cheer us on.

So spare me your thoughts and prayers for the victims, your peace and love platitudes, your rainbow coalitions, your ideas that good will overcome evil and love triumph over hate. Spare me your public moments of silence and candlelight vigils on courthouse lawns.

Get off your ass and do something or shut the fuck up.

We're better than this, I hear you say, with every horrific scandal and each new mass murder.

No. We're not. Not anymore.

If you want a moment of silence, have one for this country and what it used to be.  Buy the gun, sell the vote.  It's too late to go back.  As for me, I'm done.

A Mouse, A Mixmaster, A Mess

It began with a wayward mouse and a bowl of pancake batter.

In a moment of domesticity, my mother - possibly as a result of going to bed sober and waking clear eyed and clear headed - decided to make pancakes for breakfast. My grandmother, in her defense, a little under the weather from a summer cold, reluctantly agreed but still felt the need to remind her how to crack the eggs and measure the milk properly.

My mother sighed heavily but it was just routine sparring and I didn't think much about it. I didn't know that not too far in the future I'd come to understand exactly how she felt. At times I wonder if it might've made me a little more charitable.

Indulge me, Mother, she said in a voice that fairly dripped with sarcasm, It's pancakes. I hardly think I need an instruction manual to make pancakes.

Use the mixmaster else there'll be lumps in the batter, my grandmother replied as if she hadn't heard, and don't forget to grease the skillet or it'll stick.

It's a reflex, my Cousin Elaine observed when it was all over, I'm forty-two and she still doesn't approve of how I make a bed.

Nana was in the pantry slicing bacon and I was curled up beside the stove with the dogs when the  mixmaster - a double barreled and oft times temperamental old monster - roared to life. Both dogs tensed with alarm and I remember thinking it was as loud as an outboard motor and only a little less bulky.

Jan, Cousin Elaine, who had poured herself a cup of coffee and gone outside to admire the day, called, Do you need kindling for the stove?

My mother didn't answer and for one or two pre-mayhem seconds, I thought she hadn't heard.

That was when the mouse appeared in the doorway to the living room and suddenly darted across the linoleum floor. The dogs panicked and went scrabbling after the poor creature and my mother, screaming bloody murder and flailing desperately to avoid him, jarred the whirring mixmaster with an elbow or maybe a knee as she tried her best to climb into the sink. Pancake batter was flying like fall out - gobs of it striking the walls, the ceiling, the stove, the windows -

and my unfortunate grandmother as she emerged from the pantry. She skidded on a patch of it, lost her footing and went down like the proverbial ton of bricks, all the while cursing a blue streak.

Turn it off! she was shouting, Jeanette! Turn it off! Unplug the cussed thing!

It was Cousin Elaine who saved the day. My terrorized mother was still shrieking and Nana was still cursing when she came through the screen door, arms raised to shield herself from the still flying batter. She ducked and took a tumble but managed to haul herself up to the counter and wrench the plug from the socket. The mixmaster fell blessedly silent. There was no sign of the mouse or the dogs. I looked from my grandmother, still on the floor and furiously snatching at the pancake batter in her hair and on her glasses, to my mother, cowering half in and half out of the kitchen sink and spattered from head to toe, and finally to Cousin Elaine, calmly sitting on the floor and brushing batter from her blue jeans and denim shirt.

Well, ladies, she announced, Guess we'll have to re-think breakfast. Then she winked at me and fell out laughing.

By then the entire house was stirring and I could hear the dull but frantic thumps of footsteps on the staircase. Nana's sister and her husband, two other cousins, my daddy, and last but not least, both of the dogs all poured into the kitchen, looking concerned, relieved, amused and mystfied. I think we all knew better than to laugh but it was a sight and while Cousin Elaine had gotten hold of herself for the moment, one look at my grandmother set her off again and it was contaigious. It seemed nobody except Nana and my mother could not laugh.

For Christ's sake, Guy, my grandmother snapped, Quit yer gawking and help me up! Jeanette, will you stop that godawful caterwauling! And somebody put those damn dogs out!

My daddy got her to her feet and after she checked for and found no broken bones, she slapped his hands away, reached for a new apron, and glared at us.

Jeanette, she said in a voice that would've frozen hell, Git down. Fetch a mop and a bucket of water. And for the love of God, will you shut up! The rest of you clear outta my kitchen and be quick about it. You want breakfast, it ain't gon' be served here but the canteen's open. You kin jist carry your sorry selves down to it.

The wrath of God was in her eyes and we obediently filed out. The last I saw of my mother that morning, she was climbing awlwardly out of the sink and off the counter, smears of pancake batter clinging to her hair and chubby cheeks and hanging on her housedress like caterpillars. The last I heard from my grandmother - right after she banned my mother from the kitchen for a week - was that there was nothing funny about pancake jokes, she considered the matter closed and expected no future mention of it, and heaven help us all if there was as much as a whisper of it from or to anyone on the outside. No one doubted for a moment that she meant what she said but when Cousin Elaine ordered pancakes at the canteen and then suggested we take some home for Nana, we laughed until we cried.

Turns out pancake jokes can be funny after all.

Wagon Train

It's kind of like the story of David and Goliath meeting an episode of Wagon Train.

The old pit meanders outside and finds a patch of warm grass. He lays down and rolls onto his back, luxuriating in the sunshine and fresh air and then out of nowhere, the puppy rushes him like a freight train, madly running in circles around him, ferociously nipping at each and every moving part and barking loud enough to wake the dead. When the pit's had enough, he lumbers awkwardly to his feet and joins in the game by snapping his considerable jaws, producing deep,

operatic bass growls and loping around the yard, chasing and then being chased. The rules seem to be whoever gets distracted first wins so it's no surprise it's so often a draw.

From the side porch steps, the cur dog (too insecure to join in), the little chihuahua (far too bad tempered) and I (secretly rooting for the pit) watch and wait. An unsuspecting pedestrian coming innocently down the sidewalk provides the distraction. All four dogs bolt for the fence, each desperately trying to outbark the other. They paw at the bars, spray saliva and leapfrog over and under one another. Bodies collide with startling force, the noise is ear splitting and the poor passerby wastes no time scurrying for the opposite side of the street.  Once he's out of sight, a relative calm descends.

Handicapped by weight, age and a sometimes stiff hip that throws his gait off, the pit makes his way back to the steps. He gives me an unasked for (and mostly unintentional) body slam together with a sloppy kiss and goes inside. The puppy turns his attention to the cur dog but their encounter is brief and almost immediately the cur turns and comes racing toward me with the puppy snatching at his hind legs and tail. My part of the game is to dodge at the last second and shush the now visibly upset chihuahua as best I can without risking losing a finger or two. Once her three housemates are back inside, she deems it safe to climb off my lap and take her morning stroll. I close the door behind me so she can mill about by herself, taking her time and keeping a wary eye on me in case the hounds should make an unexpected return.

You never know when the rules may change.

Girls Like Winnie

It was said that on the night Winifred Eugenia Tibert came into this world, her mother's screams were heard clear across Petite Passage to Westport.

Nonie had birthed four boys by then and had thought a daughter would be the simplest of all matters but after thirty hours of intense and non-productive labor - Wilfred had like to walked the soles of his workboots through with worry and even the midwife was looking grim - Nonie was nearing hysteria. Even after Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi arrived, it was another five hours before the reluctant baby finally emerged from her exhausted, over 40 mother.

Had the baby been another boy, his looks would've been unremarkable but in a girl child, it was seen as unfortunate. She was slightly disproportioned and long faced, doomed to be a homely infant, a horsey looking child, and a depressingly unattractive young woman. Wilfred and Nonie loved her dearly but they were realists and could plainly see that the odds of this extra blessing child ever marrying or leaving home were dismally slim. She was, however, bright as a new penny and almost tragically kind hearted, so they decided to send her to the mainland to complete her grade 12 and then to a technical college in St. John where they hoped she would learn a trade and become self-sufficent. It hurt their hearts to see their shy, dreamy-eyed, solitary little girl leave but they were sure it was for the best.

Girls like Winnie need to depend on themselves, Nonie told my grandmother, She can't just skip stones and watch sunsets and collect shells.

She'll be fine, Nana said encouragingly, You'll see.

'Course she will, Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi agreed, Child's smart as a whip, mebbe just a little too sheltered and shy is all.

And she'll be home summers, Miz Clara added practically, Why, it'll be like she never left.

Privately though, they were as my daddy sometimes liked to say, singing another song.

My Lord, Nana said ruefully, I cain't remember knowin' a more ill favored child.

She ain't sought after, that's for sure, Aunt Pearl sighed.

Girl's homely as sin, Clara said a little impatiently, Took after her daddy and that ain't pretty in a girl.

Ain't no need to be cruel, Clara, Aunt Vi said without a trace of her usual timidity, Why, that child's smarter than all them boys put together and a harder worker! 'Pears to me she could use a little more kindness and a little less criticizin'! You ain't askin' me but if you was I reckon I'd say pretty ain't everythin' in this life!

This was so near to a speech for my Aunt Vi that all three women stared at her slackjawed. She blushed to the roots of her hair and nervously dropped her eyes back to her embroidery.

I declare, Vi, Clara finally said, Ain't no call to get huffy about it!

I ain't getting' huffy, Clara Haines, and you surely know it, my Aunt Vi - my sweet, shy as a churchmouse and always tentative Aunt Vi - shot back, color still high and not backing down an inch, I'm jist sayin' they's more important things than bein' pretty!

Girls! my grandmother admonished, rattling her china cup in its saucer and clearing her throat louder than necessary, Pearl, shut yer mouth, dear, you'll catch flies. And Clara, mind your manners. I 'spect Vi's right. Wouldn't hurt us none if'n we was to be a bit kinder.

My Aunt Vi gave her a grateful if trembling glance and picked up her stitching as if it were a shield. It was then I understood she wasn't going to run for a dark corner, that strength can come from the most unexpected places and that timid or not, even the most unsure of us have limits.

Come along, Vi, Aunt Pearl said briskly as she gathered up the tea things, It's getting' on to supper time.

As Vi packed her embroidery, my grandmother cleared her throat again - strange that such a sound could be so meaningful - and with one well placed swing of her foot delivered a sharp jab to Clara's ankle.

Reckon I spoke outta turn, Viola, Clara said grudgingly, Didn't mean no harm.

It was as much of an apology as any of the women were likely to give and my Aunt Vi accepted it.

Never you mind, Clara, she said, I reckon sometimes we all speak 'fore we think.

And just like that the skies cleared.

Let that be a lesson to you, child, Nana said and winked at me, Keep a weather eye on the shy ones.  Quiet ain't always weak and loud ain't always strong.