There are days when I feel like an extra in the grand production of life. Non-speaking talent slaving away for scale without so much as a mention in the ending credits. The only evidence of my existence is a meager line identifying me as “50-something Mom #1.”
Submitted to Skywatch Friday, Season 6: Episode 45
*Photo venue: shot from Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
In 1991, then Tennessee Sen. Al “I invented the Internet” Gore was in town to commemorate an Air Force Base anniversary. Being the seasoned local newspaper reporter, I got the interview. Our only opportunity to speak was in his limo on its way to the airport. Afterward, I was unceremoniously dumped on the side of the road.
Prompt #16: Share a celebrity encounter
I worked for a time at a thrice-weekly newspaper in rural Middle Tennessee. The paper served an area that included Arnold Engineering Development Center, Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma.
Gore and Sen. Jim Sasser were special guests at a 40th anniversary commemorating the opening of the base. I was to interview Gore for an article about the event. He was traveling to Chattanooga immediately after the ceremony, so I had a very small window of opportunity.
I knew he was headed to the airport, but had not been told how I was supposed to get back to the base. To say I was distracted during the interview, would be an understatement.
Just before the interstate on-ramp, the limo driver pulled onto the gravel shoulder, turned around and just looked at me. Gore also sat there simply staring at me, not saying a word. I was expected to know this was my stop. Dumbstruck, I got out of the car, all alone in the middle of nowhere, and watched as the car drove off.
This was before cell phones, so I had no way of calling anyone to tell them where to pick me up. Just when I was about to start walking the five miles back to the base, in a dress, in heels, another car pulled up. A Gore staffer got out and opened the back passenger door of car for me to get in. I didn’t say much on the drive back, but my poor husband, who was waiting for me at the base with our two-year-old daughter, certainly got an earful.
So, this just happened. So recently in fact, that I am still laughing about it.
I got up early this morning to run errands. I had a hair cut, then I did a little shopping, had a little lunch, was having an all around nice day. I’m on my way home when IT happened.
The road I was driving has three lanes. At the outskirts of town, the three lanes merge down to two, with the outer right lane becoming a turn only. Inevitably, someone will freak out not realizing it’s now a turn lane, or will go all asshat-ish and race ahead, cutting people off to get into the through lane.
That’s what happened to me today… the asshattery part. Someone in a new model Dodge Charger blew past me and did a forced merge. Now, I was having a great day, and didn’t want to let this guy be a buzz kill. I didn’t start swearing or rudely gesturing, and I didn’t even use my horn… that’s a big deal right there. (Okay, I did call him an asshat, but in the nicest possible way.)
Not 50 yards down the road, this asshat in the Charger, the guy who just had to get in front of me, is rolling along, when a second asshat in the left lane wants to be where the first asshat is, and proceeds to change lanes. Not a cut-him-off-like-he did-me lane change, but a run-him-off-the-road-onto-the-gravel-shoulder lane change. The Charger was throwing stones, fish-tailing, swerving all sideways, before finally correcting and getting back on the highway… scary stuff.
This is going on right in front of me. I’m braking hard, checking left and right to find the best probably escape route should the Charger go airborne. But, I am also laughing so hard I’m crying, while simultaneously breathlessly muttering “ohshitohshitohshitohshit.”
I certainly didn’t wish anyone harm, but the karmic irony of the situation was priceless, and hilarious.
*Editorial note: No asshats, or muscle cars, were harmed in the making of this post.
Each of my peeps have their own cell phone. Have had since each of our kids reached middle school age and became active in after-school activities.
Most of my family and friends, and business contacts, call my cell phone if they need to reach me. Even my Luddite mother, who shuns the Internet but finally got her own cell phone, only calls my cell phone.
Still I keep our landline at home. Well, it’s a cell phone too, but we maintain the same number we had when it was tethered to the wall.
I’ve registered all our phone numbers (including the home phone) several times with the Do Not Call telemarketing registry. Apparently, simply registering doesn’t guarantee avoiding robo-calls.
That’s where caller ID has been so handy. I estimate that of the few calls I receive on our house phone, 95% are telemarketers. If I don’t recognize the number, or at least the area code, I won’t answer. Anyone who really wants to talk to me can leave a voice message, and I’ll call them back. Otherwise, I ignore the call.
Sometimes though, just for giggles, I do a reverse lookup on the listed caller. I’ve yet to connect an unknown number to a legitimate business or an actual person. Typically, I find links to rant forums complaining about receiving calls from the same number I did.
I love some of the comments:
406-577-1215: One commenter called the telemarketer “…Robot Human Vultures circling you to pick your bones and wallet clean.”
215-383-3357: Alleged to be a home security company. Seriously? Blind calling people about installing alarm systems, seems, well… ironic.
618-551-5665: A pre-recorded message about suing credit card companies. Again, ironic, since contacting someone on the DNC Registry is supposed to be a criminal offense.
412-532-0136: Another home security scam. One forum member is keeping track of how often he’s contacted, hoping to successfully sue for the potential $1,500 in damages per call.
222-555-7777: I thought 555 numbers were only used on TV and the movies. The area code is Mauritania, a country in West Africa. The caller, according to the forums, attempts to get victims to allow access to home computers for a virus check. Turning down the offer, IT specialist Warren quipped, “… didn’t drink a glass of stupid this morning.”
Until I disconnect my landline, I’ll keep checking caller IDs and ignoring telemarketers. How to you handle unwanted phone calls?
Why do you constantly do that? Every time I say anything, you always take it in the worst possible way.
What? I never do that. You’re totally overreacting, as usual.
You are impossible!
The Trifextra, weekend challenge is to include some hyperbole in our 33 words.
*Photo venue: The Landing, city park in Fort Walton Beach, FL
I typically don’t engage trolls. It seems like such a nugatory endeavor. These bots have no real intention of having a rational discussion. Their only purpose is spreading vitriol, hoping to provoke a response.
To dwell on the rantings of mad dogs is an exercise in futility. There’s no expectation for normal conversation, their arguments only get more personal and belligerent. There’s no history, or prior interaction. It’s guerrilla warfare, ambushing with words. I don’t get it. It’s really sad and pathetic to think that this is all they do, or all they live for.
It’s the pointlessness that confounds me. Why would someone spend their time cruising the Internet, usually without knowing anything other than what is read in a single entry, dropping turds of hate in the backyards of total strangers? And, it’s exactly that. They are full of shit and are dropping steaming piles of turds everywhere.
Their words, their comments, their arguments are no more compelling than what the neighbor’s mutt leaves on my lawn. While more annoyed than offended at having to clean up the filth, it’s simply a matter of tossing the muck in my trash.
There’s no point in trying to dissuade further deposits, inconsiderate trolls, like inconsiderate neighbors, can’t be reasoned with, there is that sense of entitlement to do as they please. Childish and boorish, both unworthy of my energy and attention.
I’m fortunate in that I rarely get trollish comments. (I’ve probably jinxed that now.) Since the majority of my blog features photography and fiction, there’s little to contradict.
I’m not a Comment Purist. I have absolutely no problem trashing any comment that is a personal attack on me or another commenter. My unwritten rule is, “play nice, or go home.” You can disagree, offer a different view, but keep it civil, or you get deleted and “blacklisted.”
The Trifecta challenge this week is: Dwell [intransitive verb \ˈdwel\] 3a: to keep the attention directed — used with on or upon
I’m not sure what it is about me, but I often feel that I am some sort of confessional magnet. Maybe it’s my perceived zen-esque attitude, or how I talk about my family, or… who knows what, but people tend to tell me things like I’m an Internet bartender.
Deep things, ‘this shit is getting real’ things, things where I want to put my fingers in my ears and sing “lalalalalalala lalala lalala,” until they stop talking, but I can’t seem to do that.
I can’t just say, “sorry, can’t help you,” even if I should, even if I know I’m getting sucked into a wormhole of crazy.
And let me tell ya, I know crazy – from everyday crazy, to highly medicated crazy, to “she should be wrapped in a net and put in a padded room” crazy. It could be that because I am intimately familiar with many levels of dysfunction, that I can listen to these confessions and honestly say “I’m not judging.”
Unless I have first-hand knowledge of continuing abuse – physical, sexual, emotional, psychological – I also know there are always two sides to every story, and I may only hear one side. I may be told a crock of shit, I don’t know, so I can’t, won’t judge anyone coming to me for help.
Take a situation like Rihanna and Chris Brown. The majority of what is known about their relationship has played out through the media. It’s pretty much a given that Brown did beat her, and now four years later, they appear to be together again. What we can’t know is what was said and done between them in private. We don’t know and most likely never will.
I know a woman who reconciled with a man who abused her as a child. If you were looking at this relationship from the outside and knew their history, how would you judge it? What we can’t know are the conversations they had that lead to their reunion.
After one rather onerous confession, I consulted my son. You may think that odd, but the confession involved someone who was having an extramarital affair, and who was also coping with a serious mental illness. While he doesn’t have the same illness, my son deals with his own thought disorders. I thought he could offer some valuable insight.
The person having the affair blamed his illness for his carnal straying. I asked The Boy his opinion… without giving him all the sordid details.
His answer was perfect – “Having (a thought disorder) doesn’t give you a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, you still know what you’re doing.”
In essence, you can’t blame your crazy for doing stupid things, especially if you have your sort of crazy in check.
Numerous other friends have confessed affairs to me. I don’t know if they sought my blessing to cheat on their spouses, if they wanted me to absolve them of their sin, or if they merely felt a need to unburden themselves, but I’m left with this secret that I don’t know what to do with.
I won’t stop being friends with a person just because of an affair, but I try very hard to not get involved. I’ve gotten invested in that sort of drama before and it came back to bite me on the ass. I’m done with that. I won’t take sides, I won’t be a go-between, and I don’t feel it’s my place to tell the other spouse about the affair.
Okay, I may judge you for being a douche(tte) if you try denying culpability in an affair. I will taunt you for your sophistry, just ‘man-up’ and accept your full share of the blame.
It comes down to this… none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes and hope for redemption, but we need to own those mistakes. I won’t judge you for being human, I have far too much garbage in my life to criticize someone else. I simply don’t have a stone small enough to throw at anyone.
