Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Scene from an Interview
Whitney, an excited prospective employee, waits in the office for her interviewer, Ms. Principal, to arrive. Due to construction, summertime projects, and many transitions, the office is in a state of disarray. Boxes and books and computers are piled up around her. She smiles at the promising clutter and breathes in the delicious school-y smell.
Ms. Principal enters the scene. Whitney rises to shake her hand and offer a winning smile. They both seat themselves.
Whitney's foot rests atop an unknown object. She is, however, busy chatting and does not bother to look down until five minutes into the interview.
She looks down. Her foot is resting upon not a book, nor a stuffed bear, nor an empty Sonic cup, but...
...a mouse.
A dead mouse. But definitely a mouse.
Whitney's eyes open wide. She does not scream. Perhaps this is a stress-test that all potential teachers go through? She smiles her winning smile again.
Whitney: Um, excuse me? There is a mouse on your floor?
Ms. Principal (shocked): WHAT?! Did it get you?
Whitney: No, I think it's dead.
Ms. Principal: Oh, my.
Ms. Principal exits the room, then returns donning rubber gloves and holding a wad of paper towels. She disposes of the mouse.
Ms. Principal: Well, that was embarrassing.
EPILOGUE
Whitney goes home and googles "Is a dead mouse an omen?"
Results are inconclusive.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Nancy
Nancy stands up from the table to get the sugar from the kitchen. The chair scrapes across the floor as a giant hiney rises in the east. Her gray sweatpants are hiked, ambitiously, halfway up her spine -- but never higher than the waistband of the Depends that peek out on top.
My coworker, the staff member in charge of neighborhood associations, has banned Nancy from running for office. “She can come to all the meetings she wants,” she told me once in private, “but I refuse to have a president who tucks her shirt into her Depends.”
Nancy is an ungainly, looming woman with short, slicked-back gray hair, flattened ears, and googly eyes made googlier by thick glasses. She steadfastly pairs her gray sweatpants with a rotation of XXXL tee-shirts featuring cartoon animals, crude phrases, or both. Nancy has a sputtering Sylvester-the-cat lisp and the loudest damn voice I have ever heard in my life.
Someone once told me that Nancy had had a stroke somewhere along the line, contributing to her bizarre speech patterns. Sometimes her pregnant pauses are so long and so painful that you can almost hear the words building up inside of her, finally escaping in an impossibly loud grunt of a word. “UM!” she will shout, finally, breaking the silence. “WELL!”
Nancy arrives at 9:30 every Wednesday morning to make coffee for the 10:00 counseling session. “Good morning!” she squawks, making her way toward the kitchen. Once the coffee is brewing, she sits down at the table to chat with her best friend and neighbor, Donna.
Donna’s low, androgynous voice and Nancy’s screech clatter about like a Jerry Springer soundtrack. They talk about Nancy’s cats, about other neighbors, about the pile of leaves amassing in Donna’s yard that Maintenance refuses to take care of. They talk about former lovers, estranged children, and wild days of yore. Donna does not mind much when Nancy gets stuck on a word. She usually just finishes the sentence for her.
It is almost four months before I notice Nancy’s hands. The discussion topic for the day is the importance of having a support system—family, friends, neighbors, someone, anyone. As sometimes happens, however, conversation has gotten off track. One resident is in tears in the corner. Donna, already on pancakes number five and six, is eating her feelings. And Nancy, having momentarily overcome her speech impediment, is delivering a hair-raising diatribe about her traumatic childhood. She cannot seem to stop. Her wild-eyed description of her negligent mother is equal parts horrifying and histrionic. But somehow, it is her hands that catch my attention as she waves her fork about, spraying half-chewed pancake into the air, and condemns her mother’s soul to hell.
The rest of Nancy’s body shows seven decades of poverty and misuse: slabs of extra flesh and fat, missing and gray teeth, sunken eyes, a stiff shuffle. But the backs of her hands are as smooth as wax. She has long, tapered fingers with delicate fingernails; every morning she slips on a still-shiny gold band. Even though she is nearing seventy, there are no liver spots, no swollen veins, no yellowed nails or bony knuckles.
Towards the end of the meal, Nancy has made real progress with the counselor. Things have quieted down significantly. I take the quiet moment to compliment her on her hands. She blinks her googly eyes open and shut rapidly as her mouth tries to catch up to her brain. Seconds pass; Donna drowns her seventh and eighth pancakes in syrup. Finally Nancy’s words come to a head. “WELL!” she hollers, scooting back her chair to put the coffeepot in the sink. “Thank you! My mother did always have nice hands.”
My coworker, the staff member in charge of neighborhood associations, has banned Nancy from running for office. “She can come to all the meetings she wants,” she told me once in private, “but I refuse to have a president who tucks her shirt into her Depends.”
Nancy is an ungainly, looming woman with short, slicked-back gray hair, flattened ears, and googly eyes made googlier by thick glasses. She steadfastly pairs her gray sweatpants with a rotation of XXXL tee-shirts featuring cartoon animals, crude phrases, or both. Nancy has a sputtering Sylvester-the-cat lisp and the loudest damn voice I have ever heard in my life.
Someone once told me that Nancy had had a stroke somewhere along the line, contributing to her bizarre speech patterns. Sometimes her pregnant pauses are so long and so painful that you can almost hear the words building up inside of her, finally escaping in an impossibly loud grunt of a word. “UM!” she will shout, finally, breaking the silence. “WELL!”
Nancy arrives at 9:30 every Wednesday morning to make coffee for the 10:00 counseling session. “Good morning!” she squawks, making her way toward the kitchen. Once the coffee is brewing, she sits down at the table to chat with her best friend and neighbor, Donna.
Donna’s low, androgynous voice and Nancy’s screech clatter about like a Jerry Springer soundtrack. They talk about Nancy’s cats, about other neighbors, about the pile of leaves amassing in Donna’s yard that Maintenance refuses to take care of. They talk about former lovers, estranged children, and wild days of yore. Donna does not mind much when Nancy gets stuck on a word. She usually just finishes the sentence for her.
It is almost four months before I notice Nancy’s hands. The discussion topic for the day is the importance of having a support system—family, friends, neighbors, someone, anyone. As sometimes happens, however, conversation has gotten off track. One resident is in tears in the corner. Donna, already on pancakes number five and six, is eating her feelings. And Nancy, having momentarily overcome her speech impediment, is delivering a hair-raising diatribe about her traumatic childhood. She cannot seem to stop. Her wild-eyed description of her negligent mother is equal parts horrifying and histrionic. But somehow, it is her hands that catch my attention as she waves her fork about, spraying half-chewed pancake into the air, and condemns her mother’s soul to hell.
The rest of Nancy’s body shows seven decades of poverty and misuse: slabs of extra flesh and fat, missing and gray teeth, sunken eyes, a stiff shuffle. But the backs of her hands are as smooth as wax. She has long, tapered fingers with delicate fingernails; every morning she slips on a still-shiny gold band. Even though she is nearing seventy, there are no liver spots, no swollen veins, no yellowed nails or bony knuckles.
Towards the end of the meal, Nancy has made real progress with the counselor. Things have quieted down significantly. I take the quiet moment to compliment her on her hands. She blinks her googly eyes open and shut rapidly as her mouth tries to catch up to her brain. Seconds pass; Donna drowns her seventh and eighth pancakes in syrup. Finally Nancy’s words come to a head. “WELL!” she hollers, scooting back her chair to put the coffeepot in the sink. “Thank you! My mother did always have nice hands.”
Monday, January 16, 2012
Hang On To Your Hat
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society—things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man's curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
(E.B. White-- in a letter, via Letters of Note)
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Stories from the Census: Southern Hospitality
I hope my mother does not read this blog.
That is to say: I have to admit that sometimes, during the Summer of the Census, the heat just did me in. It addled my brains. It made me make decisions that I would now classify as "poor."
But it was 102 degrees outside all summer, and I was carrying that stupid polyester messenger bag the whole time, and no one ever answered their door, and I was just so damn hot I could have cried.
I knocked on door after door after door. Night came, and morning followed. The fortieth day of enumerating. With a slight delirium settling upon me one afternoon, I banged on one more apartment door and pressed my forehead against a nearby post.
The door swung open, and my eyes met a navel. I gazed upward: a swath of dark skin stretched over a protruding ribcage. Upward again, to crying eagles and Gothic lettering and barbed wire tattooed across a skinny chest and collarbone. Upwards further, to a toothless grin.
"Hey, lady!" said a mildly creepy and very tall man.
I smiled. I showed my badge.
"Census lady!" he said. "Come on in."
Here are things I did not do:
I blinked my eyes, adjusting to the dim room. I took in my surroundings, both admiring the decor and formulating an exit strategy should things turn out poorly. Having staked out a secondary exit, I then made a comprehensive mental list of items in the apartment (you know, in case I needed a weapon).
Zebra print rug. Check. Inflatable mattress. Check. Five-foot-tall pyramid built entirely from Red Stripe bottles. Check.
Aaaaand... we're done. That was pretty much it. My new friend, the minimalist, lived a life few could imagine. He also, judging from the delicious smell wafting from the kitchen, was a hell of a cook.
"It smells amazing in here!" I said, peeking over the island into the kitchen. "What are you making?"
"I'm making jambalaya, Miss Lady!" he said. "You want some?" My stomach rumbled.
"There is no way she's saying yes," you may be saying to yourself.
"Yes," I said.
I know! I know. I don't know what I was thinking. I almost never do something my mother would disapprove of. I have watched plenty of terrifying, children-snatching episodes of 20/20 and 48 Hours. I have completed all of the Stranger Danger puzzles in the McGruff workbooks. I have no excuse!
There is no moral to this story except that, when heat-addled and hungry, I make questionable decisions. "Yes, I will take a bite of your potentially-poisoned, delicious-smelling jambalaya, O Half-Naked Red-Stripe-Drinking Stranger," I said. And then I took a bite. Heck, I ate an entire bowlful. It was delicious.
That is to say: I have to admit that sometimes, during the Summer of the Census, the heat just did me in. It addled my brains. It made me make decisions that I would now classify as "poor."
But it was 102 degrees outside all summer, and I was carrying that stupid polyester messenger bag the whole time, and no one ever answered their door, and I was just so damn hot I could have cried.
I knocked on door after door after door. Night came, and morning followed. The fortieth day of enumerating. With a slight delirium settling upon me one afternoon, I banged on one more apartment door and pressed my forehead against a nearby post.
The door swung open, and my eyes met a navel. I gazed upward: a swath of dark skin stretched over a protruding ribcage. Upward again, to crying eagles and Gothic lettering and barbed wire tattooed across a skinny chest and collarbone. Upwards further, to a toothless grin.
"Hey, lady!" said a mildly creepy and very tall man.
I smiled. I showed my badge.
"Census lady!" he said. "Come on in."
Here are things I did not do:
- Peek my head inside with trepidation
- Smile and decline sweetly
- Accept, but then remain safely just inside the doorway
- Pass GO
- Collect $200
I blinked my eyes, adjusting to the dim room. I took in my surroundings, both admiring the decor and formulating an exit strategy should things turn out poorly. Having staked out a secondary exit, I then made a comprehensive mental list of items in the apartment (you know, in case I needed a weapon).
Zebra print rug. Check. Inflatable mattress. Check. Five-foot-tall pyramid built entirely from Red Stripe bottles. Check.
Aaaaand... we're done. That was pretty much it. My new friend, the minimalist, lived a life few could imagine. He also, judging from the delicious smell wafting from the kitchen, was a hell of a cook.
"It smells amazing in here!" I said, peeking over the island into the kitchen. "What are you making?"
"I'm making jambalaya, Miss Lady!" he said. "You want some?" My stomach rumbled.
"There is no way she's saying yes," you may be saying to yourself.
"Yes," I said.
I know! I know. I don't know what I was thinking. I almost never do something my mother would disapprove of. I have watched plenty of terrifying, children-snatching episodes of 20/20 and 48 Hours. I have completed all of the Stranger Danger puzzles in the McGruff workbooks. I have no excuse!
There is no moral to this story except that, when heat-addled and hungry, I make questionable decisions. "Yes, I will take a bite of your potentially-poisoned, delicious-smelling jambalaya, O Half-Naked Red-Stripe-Drinking Stranger," I said. And then I took a bite. Heck, I ate an entire bowlful. It was delicious.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Stories from the Census: Knocking on Heaven's Door
Despite my official U.S. Census Bureau messenger bag and awesome clipboard, not everyone knew exactly what I was doing walking their neighborhoods and knocking on their doors. The following is a list of people that folks mistook me for during my time as an enumerator:
1. Police Officer
2. Apartment Staff Member
3. IRS Agent
4. Washing Machine Mechanic
5. Jehovah’s Witness
6. Resident’s Girlfriend
7. Resident’s Baby Mama
8. FBI Agent
9. Plumber
10. Girl Scout
11. Doctor
12. Salesperson
13. Pool Repair
14. Mormon
Can’t make this stuff up, folks.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Stories from the Census: Orange You Glad You Came In?
I had only been enumerating for a couple of days when I had to make my first Maybe-I’ll-Die, Maybe-I-Won’t judgment call.
I had been assigned to the Yacht Club, an apartment complex I can assure you is (nearly as) sophisticated and swanky as it sounds. The clubhouse is cleverly decorated with buoys and portholes; the sign on the property manager’s office reads “Captain’s Quarters.” In the hundred-degree June heat, I crossed bridges over frothy green ponds and festering streams. I broke through clouds of gnats and mosquitoes. This place was the real deal.
I reached an apartment and took a moment to compose myself. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and humidity was trickling down my back. The nylon strap of my stupid itchy official messenger bag dug into my shoulder. I sighed and swatted the air. It was barely noon and already miserable. I rapped smartly on the door. “U.S. Census Bureau!” A few moments, and it opened.
“Helloooo,” chirped a little woman with Richard Simmons hair. Her big brown eyes—one looking straight at me, the other resting vaguely on something in the distance—peered out at me from the cool dark of the apartment. “It ees so hot. Will you like to come inside?”
I paused. This is how government workers die, right? One second, an innocent lady is smiling and nodding her curly head at you; the next, her paranoid anarchist brother is leaping out from behind the couch with an ice pick and a psychotic grudge against his former mailman.
Another bead of sweat slid into my eye and blurred my field of vision. I still did not move, but my good eye met hers. Humankind is good, right, at the core? “Sure,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
The apartment was cool, dark, and damp. “Will you like to sit down, please?” she said, gesturing towards the couch. A mustached man nodded toward me and muted the television.
She scurried to the kitchen and pried the lid off of a shiny blue tin. Tissue papers rustled as she fished out tiny tea cookies and put them on a plate. Ice clinked in a glass. A can of orange soda cracked open and fizzled. She scurried back with a little feast and set it on the coffee table. “For you,” she said.
Going through the interview questions as usual, I nibbled on cookies and learned that her accent was Salvadorian. That she lived in the apartment with her father. That she was thirty-five. Finally, I turned to the back page and asked the standard wrap-up questions. “Can you verify your name? Is this the address at which you were living as of April 1, 2010? Is there anyone else who lives here who has not been counted on this survey?”
She stopped. She looked from her mustached father to me to the muted television to the orange soda, back to me. She smiled sheepishly.
“Well, yes.” She blushed. “My boyfriend, he lives here too, usually.”
My business pants were on, of course, and cohabitation is not exactly shocking (thanks, MTV/Friends/sexual revolution/Census questionnaire that offers “Unmarried Partner” as an option). “Okay, we’ll put him on the survey, too.” We started to go through the questions again.
Then, Question 2b. “What is his date of birth?” She giggled. “Well, he’s… 21.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I like younger men,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
I asked the wrap-up questions again. Yes, her name was right. Yes, she was living here on April 1. No, no one else besides the three of them lived here. “Okay, thank you so much for your time,” I said, “and for the cookies!”
She jumped up again, scurrying into the kitchen one more. I heard drawers opening and tissue papers rustling. As I stood to leave, she came back around the bar into the living room. We walked to the door and I turned to say goodbye.
“Here,” she said, pressing a plastic baggie full of tea cookies into my hands. She smiled and nodded enthusiastically, her Richard Simmons curls shaking like little fronds as I walked out of the dark of the apartment and into the blinding, gnatty heat of the afternoon.
I had been assigned to the Yacht Club, an apartment complex I can assure you is (nearly as) sophisticated and swanky as it sounds. The clubhouse is cleverly decorated with buoys and portholes; the sign on the property manager’s office reads “Captain’s Quarters.” In the hundred-degree June heat, I crossed bridges over frothy green ponds and festering streams. I broke through clouds of gnats and mosquitoes. This place was the real deal.
I reached an apartment and took a moment to compose myself. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and humidity was trickling down my back. The nylon strap of my stupid itchy official messenger bag dug into my shoulder. I sighed and swatted the air. It was barely noon and already miserable. I rapped smartly on the door. “U.S. Census Bureau!” A few moments, and it opened.
“Helloooo,” chirped a little woman with Richard Simmons hair. Her big brown eyes—one looking straight at me, the other resting vaguely on something in the distance—peered out at me from the cool dark of the apartment. “It ees so hot. Will you like to come inside?”
I paused. This is how government workers die, right? One second, an innocent lady is smiling and nodding her curly head at you; the next, her paranoid anarchist brother is leaping out from behind the couch with an ice pick and a psychotic grudge against his former mailman.
Another bead of sweat slid into my eye and blurred my field of vision. I still did not move, but my good eye met hers. Humankind is good, right, at the core? “Sure,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
The apartment was cool, dark, and damp. “Will you like to sit down, please?” she said, gesturing towards the couch. A mustached man nodded toward me and muted the television.
She scurried to the kitchen and pried the lid off of a shiny blue tin. Tissue papers rustled as she fished out tiny tea cookies and put them on a plate. Ice clinked in a glass. A can of orange soda cracked open and fizzled. She scurried back with a little feast and set it on the coffee table. “For you,” she said.
Going through the interview questions as usual, I nibbled on cookies and learned that her accent was Salvadorian. That she lived in the apartment with her father. That she was thirty-five. Finally, I turned to the back page and asked the standard wrap-up questions. “Can you verify your name? Is this the address at which you were living as of April 1, 2010? Is there anyone else who lives here who has not been counted on this survey?”
She stopped. She looked from her mustached father to me to the muted television to the orange soda, back to me. She smiled sheepishly.
“Well, yes.” She blushed. “My boyfriend, he lives here too, usually.”
My business pants were on, of course, and cohabitation is not exactly shocking (thanks, MTV/Friends/sexual revolution/Census questionnaire that offers “Unmarried Partner” as an option). “Okay, we’ll put him on the survey, too.” We started to go through the questions again.
Then, Question 2b. “What is his date of birth?” She giggled. “Well, he’s… 21.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I like younger men,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
I asked the wrap-up questions again. Yes, her name was right. Yes, she was living here on April 1. No, no one else besides the three of them lived here. “Okay, thank you so much for your time,” I said, “and for the cookies!”
She jumped up again, scurrying into the kitchen one more. I heard drawers opening and tissue papers rustling. As I stood to leave, she came back around the bar into the living room. We walked to the door and I turned to say goodbye.
“Here,” she said, pressing a plastic baggie full of tea cookies into my hands. She smiled and nodded enthusiastically, her Richard Simmons curls shaking like little fronds as I walked out of the dark of the apartment and into the blinding, gnatty heat of the afternoon.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Stories from the Census
The thing is, I haven’t always been a grown-up with a full-time job and insurance.
First, I was a baby. And then for a long time, I was a student. I was very good at being a student, and I loved it, and I never wanted to stop, because what if I wasn’t good at anything else? But then the University of Tulsa ejected me from its warm nurturing bosom, and I had to start figuring out how to be a grown-up.
It was what I like to call a “process.”
But if there’s one thing I know about being a grown-up, it’s that it’s very expensive. Money is a must. And as my parents failed to teach me any practical skills for participating in the underground economy (carjacking, drug-dealing, etc.), I had to find some legitimate way of getting my hands on some cash.
Luckily, the year was 2010: the year of the Olympics, an oil spill, a lunar eclipse, and Dwayne Johnson’s breakout role as the tooth fairy in… Tooth Fairy. It was also the year of the 2010 Census.
In short: desperate for work, I passed the Census test (“How would you put the following names in alphabetical order?”) with flying colors and was offered a job as an enumerator (yes, a door-knocker) for the summer.
I soon learned that when you knock on strangers’ doors, strange things can happen. That’s why they’re called strangers. I would like to share a few of those stories with the World Wide Web in the coming weeks. I hope you're ready!
First, I was a baby. And then for a long time, I was a student. I was very good at being a student, and I loved it, and I never wanted to stop, because what if I wasn’t good at anything else? But then the University of Tulsa ejected me from its warm nurturing bosom, and I had to start figuring out how to be a grown-up.
It was what I like to call a “process.”
But if there’s one thing I know about being a grown-up, it’s that it’s very expensive. Money is a must. And as my parents failed to teach me any practical skills for participating in the underground economy (carjacking, drug-dealing, etc.), I had to find some legitimate way of getting my hands on some cash.
Luckily, the year was 2010: the year of the Olympics, an oil spill, a lunar eclipse, and Dwayne Johnson’s breakout role as the tooth fairy in… Tooth Fairy. It was also the year of the 2010 Census.
In short: desperate for work, I passed the Census test (“How would you put the following names in alphabetical order?”) with flying colors and was offered a job as an enumerator (yes, a door-knocker) for the summer.
I soon learned that when you knock on strangers’ doors, strange things can happen. That’s why they’re called strangers. I would like to share a few of those stories with the World Wide Web in the coming weeks. I hope you're ready!
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