The Pure Electricity Of A Snit

The day started with 7 dead electrical outlets, one broken toilet, three cereal bowls full of popcorn and a snit. 

As I mopped, ran back and forth to the breaker box and started the unanticipated load of toilet-water laundry, I could have done it all without a word letting him finish readying for work to head out the door to a hopefully better day…but I did not.

It seems the electrical outlets were not the only ones burned out by the overload of activity in the sum total of 30 minutes my feet had been on the floor. The friction of my frustration at our manic morning electrified my emotions as I amped up the voltage and hit him with one of those live wires that starts, “Why didn’t you just…”

ZAP!

I was in a snit. Not a full-blown fit where everything overheats and melts down. A snit. Not a fight where sparks fly and you lash out at the other person with malintent and heat seeking precision. Just a snit, my own personal huff where I should phrase my questions better or not ask them at all because the answers are really no longer relevant. Just a snit where if someone had not been grounded enough to know better than to engage, they might have gotten quite a jolt.

My husband and I are wired very differently. Differently than most outsiders anticipate. Many a mechanic has been shocked to find I am the one they need to direct their diagnosis to. I am the spatial-relations-assemble-the-furniture-fix-the-vacuum-with-a-butter-knife-call-the-plumber-can-always-find-true-north-fix-the-immediate-problem partner in our nuptial pact. But I still love nail polish, Vogue and huge glitzy holiday parties filled with friends.

He is the way-with-words-master-communicator-buy-quality-so-it-doesn’t-break-always-book-a-reservation-let-someone-else-drive-make-sure-everyone-is-heard-resolve-the-issue-to-the-best-resolution-for-all component to our cohabitation. And he still loves boxing, hoagies and EA PlayStation marathons with his brothers at Christmas.

AC and DC, two very different types of current, both powering the same household. AC changes directions quickly, plugs right in and rolls with it. She gets her energy from outside connections and is great at keeping the daily things running. But she shuts down when the wires get crossed or the squall becomes incessant.

DC weathers the storm, is self-sufficient, great for portability and keeps the lights on when the darkness is closing in. He supplies a direct, focused, steady flow of current. However, the batteries drain and he needs time out from all of the activity to recharge.

And, for the most part, we ebb and flow as needed according to our individual talents. However, this particular morning, the current chaos had all landed directly in my wheelhouse and I had revved up my resentment over our existing electrical grid.

Zap! Snit! Zing! I was short-circuiting. And once my husband walked out the door, I satiated my stress with three full cereal bowls of salty satisfaction popped to perfection for breakfast. Crunching the kernels as I bit my tongue and swallowed down all of the unhelpful utterances which sought to escape my now fully galvanized disposition directly into my empty kitchen.

Then I fixed the toilet, dried the clothes and called the electrician.

I waited for his prognosis, prepared for some massive problem that required immediate maintenance. An underlying error so monumental it was placing us all in peril and required a complete dismantling of the current system…but no.

Turns out, the breaker box was fine. All of the outlets were fine. All of the connections were solid. It was the wiring that was a little wacky. It had been laid long ago and all routed in a very unconventional way. Which worked for the most part, but on occasion, with just the right configuration of demands, overburdened the circuit. It happens in most households from time to time. So he put in a reset button.

According to him, no matter how screwy the wiring, if everything’s good overall and there’s no chance of getting burned, unless it’s driving you to drink, just go with it. Take a moment, unplug for a bit, then press reset.

Sound advice.

So, after he left. I took a moment and unplugged for a bit. Then I picked up my phone, called my husband and pressed reset.


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The Great White Hope

Few fictions have fueled more foolhardy quests and beguiled the hopeful hearts of full-grown women more frequently than the legend of those ever elusive, so-called “essentials of summer" -- white jeans.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of white jeans, it’s their reality I have yet to encounter. Oh, sure I’ve seen them tagged in captivity, dangling from racks of department stores as bait lying in wait to ensnare those still naïve enough to believe in alabaster denim. Yet, once purchased and worn outside of the confines of the dressing room, this fabled fabric has been the foil to many an aspiring fashionista.

White jeans are a hoax greater than Big Foot, El Dorado and Santa Claus all rolled into one. And just like any great con, every single spring, it starts with proof. Supposed irrefutable evidence of their existence. Photographs.

The bamboozle begins between the bound covers of publications promising the inside scoop on this season’s most sought after styles. But no blurry backwoods beasts or grainy lochs in Scotland here. These are carefully crafted shots of emaciated females in digitally brightened brilliance so pure it practically pops from the page. Or supposed action shots of carefully coiffed celebrities in the wilds of Los Angeles snapped by paparazzi of the occasional white jean at preschool pickup or baggage claim…but always at a distance and of course after publicists’ approval.

The myth is perpetuated in movies. And no greater disservice was ever done to the damsel

on her crusade for cloud-colored cotton than the film DIRTY DANCING. Sure, nobody puts Baby in the corner, they just put her in immaculate white jeans so superb, any female who matriculated in the late 80’s/early 90’s will forever pine for a pair so perfect! She was able to waltz through the woods, lay on logs and leap from lakes without so much as a dark mark on her delicate denim.

Ideal? Yes. Realistic? No.

And don’t tell me that white jeans exist in the real world, if only I cared for them properly. It is suggested that to keep white jeans white one must: wear them no more than two hours at a time, treat stains immediately, use specialty laundry soap, wash them separately, Scotchguard them, use bleach, don’t use bleach, rinse with vinegar, air dry, sun dry, tumble dry on low and my favorite…SHOWER WITH THEM. That is not the real world. That is white jeans fantasyland.

And yet…

Hanging in my closet, this very minute is one pair with the tag still on. Knowing all of this, still, I was hooked. They have been there all summer, I suppose as to not shatter the illusion. 

I have promised myself I will pull them out before Labor Day. Because despite all that I know, the little girl in me still wants to believe in Santa Claus, at least a little bit. I suppose she still wants to believe in white jeans too.


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Blinded

“Piece of sh*t!” I growled, giving the cord one last yank before the blinds came crashing down. I was late for church and did not have time for this…well, like I said before.

The morning had started with the best of intentions, as Sundays usually do. I showered and shaved and tweezed and tugged, ridding myself of any conspicuous unpleasantries. I put on my best face, the smudge-proof one that came in a tube. I stroked and smoothed and scorched and sprayed my wild waves into submission. I deodorized to cover any latent offence and misted myself in a cloud of perfume to perpetuate the premise that I naturally smelled akin to the well-tended bed of roses my life purported to be.

I brewed coffee, cooked breakfast, and cleared off the bathroom counter all while shoveling the contents of my disheveled life haphazardly into a neat little clutch tucking it all away unseen…along with my growing sense of discontent at having to walk out the door in the next ten minutes when all I really wanted to do was stay home and read the paper in my pajamas. Where had the time gone?

I rushed into the bedroom pulling off my pj’s with not a moment to spare, when I suddenly realized the blinds were open. And not just open, but pulled up all of the way to the very top, giving anyone who dared to gander, a good look at the real me!

I bent down and raced to the window giving the cord a tug. Nothing, but that awful sound of a terrible tangle. I muttered under my breath and jerked again. Nothing. I yanked and huffed and cursed and cajoled until finally...

“Piece of sh*t!” and it all came crashing down. I was sweaty and smeared and disheveled and late with nowhere left to hide. I had every excuse to stay home, but every reason to go.

I took a deep breath. I got dressed, drank a cup of coffee, collected myself and my car keys. And I walked in, very late and very imperfect and very real, hiding none of it from anyone.


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Another One Bites the Dusty

My first boyfriend and I lasted exactly five days.

I was in homeroom my second week of middle school when Jeff came up and asked if I would "go with" Dusty.

"Sure." 

He was sweet and cute and even though he was really shy, had turned around once and said, “Here,” while passing me a mimeo when my row ran out.

Wow! A boyfriend! I had a boyfriend! None of my other friends had a boyfriend…that I knew of. I mean none of the old ones did. And the new ones I had only known a week and a day. That’s how long it had been since all five elementary schools converged together to start sixth grade. I barely knew their names, let alone if any of them had a boyfriend.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, all passed and Dusty looked at me a couple times, but never spoke to me again.

Finally, on Friday, Jeff came up and asked if I was going to the football game that night.

No, of course not. I didn't like football. Why would I go to some stupid…Oh, but wait, I did kinda like boys…maybe. Yes. Yes. I did like boys. And yes. Yes. They would be at the football game. And if I wanted to be where boys were, then I would be at the football game. Yes.

"Yes."

Then he ran to another locker, whispered to a boy I didn't recognize AT ALL and came back.

"Dusty wants to know if you'll hold his hand."

WRONG DUSTY! There was more than one? What were the odds?

I didn't want to hurt his feelings so I said, "I'll think about it."

Then right after reading class, I sent my new friend Denise to tell Tara to tell Dusty that we had to break up. “Because things were getting too serious.”


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