What I learned from Avatar

Avatar…what a beautiful movie.  I didn’t spend a lot of time analyzing the perfectly structured and cliche plotline that a few critics warned about; the plotline didn’t need to be anything more than it was.  I’ve never seen a 3D movie before, and while I enjoyed every second, I left the theater with a dizzy vertigo and didn’t feel right again for about an hour.  There are a few things I have noted about the future (The movie is set in 2154, or something like that)

- Words I am surprised are still in use in 2154: “Daisy Cutter”

- Words I am not surprised are still in use in 2154: “Shit” , “Crap”

- Marines are particularly pissy in the future

- I could really use a flying dragon right about now

Don’t disappoint Kiki

Starbucks drive through in Butte, Montana.  The shop is relatively new…I think it just opened this year.  I notive that the baristas here are more bubbly and talkative than any other SBUX I have ever been to (and I’ve been to a lot!).  This moment took the cake.  I have to wonder if they have some weird management chain that is making the Butte store be more bubbly than others.  Have you been to a SBUX recently?  Are they acting over the top?  Here is what happened as I pulled up to the drive through…

(Voice): “Hi, this is Kiki, welcome to Starbucks!  Can I interest you in a creme brulee latte?  Foamy and delicious!  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!”

Me:  “No, thanks.  I’d like a Venti triple latte, please.”

Kiki:  “Okay, a triple Venti latte….how about a fresh slice of buttery delicious pound cake to go with that?  Perhaps a wedge of our pumpkin spice bread?  DELISH!”

Me:  “No, I’ll just take the coffee.  Thank you though.”

Kiki:  “Awwwwwwwwwwwww.  You disappoint Kiki.”

Songs I’ve been listening to lately

Instead of the “crazy hammering mess” I usually prefer, I’ve slowed things down for December…

Fugitive – David Gray.  I’m not a huge DG fan but I do like a few of his tunes.  On this one there is a simple piano in the background, and that is what gets stuck in my head for hours and hours and days and days.

21 Guns – Green Day.  I can’t stand Green Day.  I’ve seen them in concert 3 times but I hate them.  I do like this little gem though. 

The Lightning Strike – Snow Patrol – I think I like this sixteen minute wonder due to the buildup.  Love it.

Fair – Remy Zero – I’ve loved this song ever since Garden State but for some reason I keep replaying in.  Must be something in the water.

Gifts

Dave and Bryan sent me organic coffee beans and a Krups grinder.  What a fantastic surprise, and could not have been more on the mark as to things that make me happy.  Denise sent me ORANGES!  I can’t wait until they get here.  I have been wanting a real orange something terrible.  Sharon sent me The Daring Book for Girls and wrote me a message inside.  I love books with handwritten message inside.  Carli sent me two neat wall decorations that were NOT shaped like tiki heads. 

2010

I have 2010 built up in my mind.  I just feel it.  Something tremendous awaits.

Good grief.  I have so many STORIES to tell.  Unfortunately I haven’t managed to completely overcome the boundaries that I need to overcome to tell funny stories about people still alive.  I am about 50% there, but many times I find that I write a hilarious piece about which I know you would say No way did that really happen…but I can’t hit “publish” because the humor is at someone else’s expense.  That was okay when five people a year read my blog, and three of those hits were from my own computer.  It’s not okay now because I hear about it, and feel guilty.  And I hate feeling guilty.

I desperately want to tell you the story about The Treasure Map.

Instead, I am going to go sit in the corner, rock back and forth for a while and debate my future as a writer…a lame future to be sure if I can’t be brave enough to trash anything and everything in words, for all the world to read.  Surely this is why writers are loners, drug addicts and alcoholics…it’s the only way they can tell the truth?  Or the only way they can cope with everyone being perpetually angry at them? 

What I will do is re-post a blog-interview that I stole from Crisitunity’s pages.  I like this one because I can share one of my OCD quirks in question #4. 

1. How do you flush the toilet in public?
With my foot, of course. 

2. Do you wear your seat belt in the car?
Yes, why thank you for caring about my well-being!

3. Do you have a crush on someone?
Ludwig van Beethoven

4. Name one thing you worry about running out of.
KIDNEY BEANS.  Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe my obsession with canned beans.  It’s like I’m traveling cross country with the Joads and someone put me in charge of the food list.  I cannot walk by the following types of beans without throwing at least two cans into my cart:  Kidney, Pinto, Black, Great Northern.  When I take the groceries home, I stack the newly purchased beans in their section in the pantry.  I am scared shitless to run out of kidney beans.  What if someone needed chili?

5. What famous person do you (or other people) think you resemble?
When I picture myself, I envision the little depressed matzo ball that bounces around in the antidepressant commercial.  I have no idea how to answer crap like this.

6. What is your favorite pizza topping?
Feta cheese and red peppers

7. Do you crack your knuckles?
No, but you should hear my spine when I move…it’s like popcorn

8. Peppermint or spearmint?
Spearmint if it’s gum.  Peppermint if we’re talking about Listerine.

9. Where are your car keys?
In the same place they always are, don’t even THINK about moving them, or I will never find them again.

10. Last song you listened to?
“Helena” – Nickel Creek

11. What’s your most annoying habit?
This is the kind of thing YOU should be telling ME.  Personally I would like to be able to shut the hell up in group settings, rather than being full of outbursts.  But I’m outbursty. 

12. What is your best physical feature?
Ugh.  Whatever.  My scars are cooler than your scars.  (I do have self-esteem…I just don’t want to write about it)

13. What 3 things can always be found in your refrigerator?
Lemon juice, expired tortillas, expired sour cream

14. What superstition do you believe/practice?
none

15. Would you rather be a fish or a bird?
bird, yo

16. What are you having to eat tonight?
I made salmon

17. What colour shirt are you wearing?
blue.

18. Do you talk to yourself?
Like a fiend!  I listen to myself too, and occasionally I ignore myself.

19. Have you ever adopted or purchased a pet?
Yes.  I hope to acquire a kitty cat soon.

It dawned on me that we spend 1/12 of your life “experiencing” Christmas.  Experiencing = actively or passively participating.  I arrived at this very scientific fact based on the assumption that the average American puts up the ol’ tree just after Thanksgiving, and takes it down around the New Year.  I could skew the facts higher by basing my numbers on when the holiday crap goes on sale at the big box stores, but I figured that wasn’t fair.  After all, I have seen Christmas trees up next to the Halloween costumes. 

In summary, if we agree that you spend one month a year devoted to Christmas, then if you live to be eighty, you have spent over six and a half years with a tree in your living room.  That’s longer than most folks spend in college or the military.  It’s a lot longer than many marriages last.  And it’s nearly fifty in dog years.  FIFTY!

***

It’s cold here in Montana.  Colder than the inside of your freezer.  We are looking at -20 easy tonight, and possibly -45 below tomorrow night here in the Gallatin valley.  Down the road where I grew up, they may see -50.   I love it here.  No, really I do.  The cold unites us all and gives us something to talk about.  We talk about our boots and socks…to wool, or not to wool?  We compare pipe-bursting war stories.  We get to share tips and tricks for starting your car in this sort of weather.  My mom insists on putting a heavy blanket on the hood of her car.  She received this tip from a snowplow driver, so it must be true. 

She also plugs her car in every evening in the winter.  I realize there will be people who read this and think “oh, you have electric cars in Montana?” because I have been asked this a million times.  You can buy a “block heater” that sits near your engine, and you essentially plug the block heater in and it keeps your engine warm enough to start in extreme cold.  These used to be mandatory here in Montana but cars have gotten a lot better so lots of folks don’t have them anymore.  I don’t have one.  However, I am on “E” and should have filled up my gas tank the other day when it would have been tolerable.  I really don’t feel like pumping gas when it’s 45 below.  Not to mention my car may not get to the gas station. 

I could have a winter home in California or something.  Arizona?  But the summers here somehow make it all worth it. 

***

The GAP commercials with the insane dancing and contorting and chanting about holidays are really irritating me.  Can you imagine wearing that sweater and pulling off those moves?  Wouldn’t you be all crazy-sweaty?  Are your nutso high kicks and leaps over your sweater-clad partner supposed to make those look appealing?  All I can think about is needing to buy clinical-strength deodorant.  Also, I have a friend that recently took part in the “Buy One Get One Free” sweater campaign at GAP and she said that the sweater “pills.”  So there. Don’t get one.

***

I can’t believe it’s December.  December of 2009, no less.  2010 is nearly here and we are not even close to landing on Jupiter.  Speaking of Jupiter, my son is obsessed with drawing pictures of it because of the “red spot.”  I believe I had this same planetary obsession as a child.  I believe I used to think the red spot was a big ass resort of some kind and the red spot was a magnificent raspberry pool; but AJ knows it’s a storm.  Kids are so smart these days.

***

I miss my cat Renegade.

For as much as I cook, it took me until 2009 (A.D.) to own a set of good knives.  I owe this pointy acquisition to Black Friday.  For years I have ignored the siren call of the housewares department, as the neatly boxed sets of three and four hundred dollar knives seemed ridiculous.  I was content to purchase and re-purchase cheapo knives from Target or Wally World whenever my last steak knife fell apart. 

For the past couple of years, my knives had been the marriage of two separate cheap-o sets that had moved into the same block.  Some were wooden handled, some were black plastic handled.  The wooden ones were better.  The ones with the black handles had a bad habit of breaking at the pressure point whenever I attempted to slice into a block of Tillamook Colby Jack.  Yet, I kept the floppy knives instead of throwing them away, and used “just the blade” to be frugal.

But a recent Thursday full of sales changed all that.  I walked by a set of knives that I had admired for years.  This set’s price never dipped below the $300 mark.  But on this day, this magical day, they were On Sale for $50.  I decided it was time.  The box of knives went into the cart and came home with me.  I felt guilty for hours, I felt guilty for such an unplanned purchase until…

I COOKED DINNER.

The knives cut a hard winter squash as if it was a stick of butter in the sun.  Meats were no match for the sharp steel.  The handles were comfortable…they fit in my hand as if to say thank you for finally bringing us home. 

I freakin’ love my knives. 

Did I mention they have a lifetime warranty?

So here in America, you get cool points for being the biggest, the fastest, the most dramatic, most likely to succeed, most likely to become a mass murderer…things like that.  I had a memory pop into my mind earlier today and that is the basis for this blog.  I would love to hear comments on the goofiest places in the US that you have been.  Here are three that I have had the pleasure to visit in person.

1.  World’s Largest Holstein Cow – New Salem, North Dakota

I haven’t done the cross North Dakota drive since I was 17, but prior to that I had been in the car many many times as my family crossed the vast expanse on the way to Wisconsin.  There aren’t many landmarks in North Dakota, but if you ever do the drive, pay attention.  There will be a moment when you see a blip on the horizon.  The blip slowly, sloooooowly increases in size.  You think to yourself, “Self, what is that blip on the horizon?”  But you have no idea.  Soon though, you will get close enough to see that it’s a giant cow. 

2.  World’s Largest Prairie Dog – Oakley, Kansas

Because you love prairie dogs.  And because when you are traveling across Kansas and all you have to read are the four hundred signs pointing you to the rattlesnakes, six-legged mammals, and the world’s largest prairie dog…you will feel compelled to stop.

3.  The House of Mystery – Hungry House, MT

No one ventures to the House of Mystery on purpose.  However, many people venture to Glacier National Park.  The House of Mystery happens to be on the way to GNP and that is why people go there.  They stop to see if there is a bathroom, but they are quickly mesmerized by the signs and the marbles.  The marbles, you see, come with the price of admission to the H.o.M…you need them to see the true power of the Vortex. 

I did venture in to the H.o.M. and it was worth the five or six bucks to get in.

What are the weird places that took your dollars as you traveled from here to there?  Do share.  This is a friendly place.

I am a failure at volunteering.  A total, absolute failure.  Not because I want to be, but because that is just the way the cookie is crumbling.  Let me count the ways.

1.  In 2000 I got out of the Marines and then I attempted to volunteer for the Peace Corps.  At that time, nothing seemed better than building huts in some foreign land, helping the locals manage gardens, hell…there were countless things I wanted to do.  So I began the application process and went through a few weeks of paperwork before finding out that I was ineligible to join the Peace Corps due to my occupational specialty in the US Marine Corps.  My job in the Marines has close ties to lots of dark spooky acronyms.  Since the Peace Corps has frequently been accused of being a front for spies and the like, I was immediately disqualified.  I didn’t even get a balloon.

        !=         

I decided that I could become a volunteer with the VSO, a “Peace Corps” like entity out of Canada.  For those of you who don’t know much about Canada, just watch some South Park and that will catch you right up.  As it turns out, Canada had no problem shipping me all over the globe into harms way, and I was all about signing up.  I sent in my paperwork and got accepted.  Alas, that same week my grandmother passed away and I decided to go to the funeral instead of to my interview in Canada.  My big plan was to reschedule the interview.

2.  In the meantime, I decided to join the Red Cross as a disaster relief volunteer.  This entailed showing up at things like house fires, floods, etc.  I loved the feeling of being there when people needed someone to be there.  A few months into my Red Cross foray, 9/11 happened and I got a front row seat to the flaming, smoking Pentagon.  I went on autopilot and helped.  I decided now, more than ever, I needed to do something outside of the country. 

 I checked up on that paperwork for the VSO to find out the date of my new interview.  It was scheduled for late October.  However, in early October 2001 the USA started to bomb the everlivin’ soul out of Afghanistan and most of the places I had planned to go through the VSO were now in limbo until the outcome of the newly developing war.  Everything went on hold.

<Intermission 1:  >

<Cue back surgery #3!  Cue child #2!  Cue depression!  Cue the attack on depression, and subsequent born-again motivation!>

3.  2008 – I decided to become a Reading Helper at my son’s Montessori preschool.  All the moms who didn’t work got first dibs on reading times, but I had to donate my lunch break.  This was fine, until I realized that when they say you “need one hour” you actually “need two hours.”  Didn’t have this option, couldn’t do it.  I was judged by other moms…moms with more time to give, moms with trust funds and better baking skills.  I guess I’m not the PTA, school volunteering type.  I suspected that was the case, but this experience really solidified it. 

4.  2009 – I decided that I would start a CSA farm.  I love this.  I plan to do it forever.  I do find immense satisfaction in providing people with tasty, local, and organic (but not certified organic, USDA!) food.  The best compliment I got is that a woman was able to get her son and husband to eat a carrot thanks to my food.  It’s that good.  It’s real, and it didn’t have to get shipped from the BFE.  I only wish I could expand this program to meet the demand.  Working on it. 

<Intermission 2:  >

<Cue major upheaval on the home front!>

5.  Now I’m in the dumps.  I found something to get me out of the dumps!  I want to donate organs.  Why wait to die?  You can donate crap RIGHT NOW.  Well, not crap, per se, no one wants that.  I mean, you can sign up to donate kidneys and livers RIGHT NOW.  You really can!  Brilliant minds have started planning this stuff out so well that living donor organ donations have led to major organ donation chains which end up benefiting not one, but several people.  How it works is this:  Bob wants to donate an organ to Greg but he is a bad match.  So Sally’s volunteer  donor, Megan, is a perfect match for Greg but not Sally.  So Bob gets tested and it turns out he is a perfect match for Sally.  So the organs start getting moved around like this:  Bob -> Sally -> Megan -> Greg.  Everyone gets an organ or the chance to help, rather than everyone sitting around dying on the table.  I decided that this was freaking awesome, and immediately signed up on the registry to hand over livers, kidneys, whatever anyone needs.  I have had my share of surgeries and that part doesn’t scare me one bit. 

So, I apply and get a fucking rejection letter. 

Sorry, your history of back surgery means that you may be at a higher risk of infections or complications during a voluntary organ donation, therefore you are disqualified.  But you can send a check to us at the following address…

Sigh. 

I need to do something big and important or I may shrivel up and die, meaning that those organs will go to waste anyway.  Suggestions are welcome.  The bigger the better.  I have lots of ideas brewing, but I want to hear what you all think about this.

Today was the second time in my life I ever Black Friday’d it.  I hate the term “black Friday.”  I get the reasoning behind the name, but it still reminds me of Black Plague.  I decided to go just to get out of the house kid free.  Time to myself.  I didn’t have to actually purchase anything.

Black Friday conjures up many feelings, the top three being:

• “I hate consumerism in America.  I would never leave my house on Black Friday because I refuse to participate in rampant overindulgence on a nationwide scale.”
• “I’m not leaving my house because I am afraid someone will beat me with a plastic Rock Band guitar.”
• “The alarm is set…coffee is on…prepare the credit cards to MELT!”

I’ve decided that it doesn’t really matter what your or my opinion is…Black Friday is going to happen and chances are someone in a surburb on the East Coast is going to get trampled to death over a Bratz doll.  Whatever.  Black Friday is pretty tame here in Montana, at least from what I can see most people retain their sanity.  Here is what I did.

1.  Avoided Wal Mart (which is what I like to strive to do always).  Drove to the local clothing/department store that is famous for its sales.  Inside the store, moderately controlled chaos filled the room.  The “Home” department was a little out of control…there were not carts left so people had comforters, sheets, pillows, and towel sets stacked in their arms, preventing them from seeing where they were going. That was kind of funny.

2.  As per usual, there were lots of questions about prices.  Things weren’t labeled, and things were mis-racked.  The $40 purses were next to the $10 purses, and this was the cause of much dissent.  The little old ladies in line took their time and much more as they haggled and asked questions, sorted coupons (oh, the coupons!  The rules!  Coupons can’t be used with doorbusters, but doorbusters are different from ‘incredible value’ items, etc.  Basically since everything was on sale, coupons couldn’t be used at all because the fact an item was on sale made it ineligible for couponability).

3.  After finding a few small items that I couldn’t resist, I left the store and headed for Starbucks.  I went inside the shop and got a nice coffee.  I talked to some folks in line, that was pretty fun.  The baristas were really behind and stressed and because of that, I got a coupon for a free drink later.  I didn’t really need one, but they were being really cool about the delay.  So far, so good.

4.  Drove by another store, but the parking lot looked like a mega-dealership, so I went to visit my mom at the restaurant, where she bought me breakfast.  Score! 

5.  Decided to brave a few more stores.  Tried on lots of shoes.  Did not purchase any shoes.  Instead, went next door and bought 100 pounds of scratch grains for my chickens.  Chickens need love too.

6.  Went to Staples.  Staples was the same ol’ same ol’, but they had a cool “assemble your own” area where you could fill a bin with fun paper clips, push pins, and other fun office things.  A bulk office supply option!  I also found a good deal on a stack of DVD-Rs. 

7.  Went to JoAnn Fabrics.  It was here that I decided I needed to make a quilt.  So I got some quilting supplies at 5o% off.  Yes!  Now I just have to learn to sew a straight line! 

All I want to do lately is write, sew, paint, create.  I feel that a shell that has been placed over my head for some time is finally wearing off.  I need to take back my creativity, as I let it get away and I have been suffering without it.  I’m starting with my quilt project.

I was hoping to be able to report at least one fight between grandmas at WalMart, but it sounds as if most people have wisened up over the last year.  No one really cares if you get the last Blu-Ray.  No one really cares if they have to pass on the latest toy for their kids.  Which is great, because those of you with kids know that when a kid opens a Christmas present, they tear open the package, remove the toy inside, toss the toy into the corner, and play with the simply amazing box that it came in.  If we parents had any brains at all, we would wrap the following into a box and give it to our kids:

• String
• Rubber Bands
• Paper Towel rolls (empty)
• Aluminum Foil
• Sharpies
• Duct Tape
• Scissors
• A cape

Presto – the perfect gift, and no cart jousting required! 

Some years I like to do a Thankful Post here on Binary Trash.  Writing a Thankful Post would be the right thing to do.  After all, it’s Thanksgiving weekend and this is the one week where we are publicly encouraged to be thankful.  Wave flags on the Fourth.  Hug veterans on Veteran’s Day.  Be thankful on Thanksgiving. 

I’m not feeling thankful about anything in particular.  I don’t want you to think that means I am ungrateful.  This is kind of hard to explain, but if you have ever been low, or down, or had the blues, you know what I’m saying.  I’m grateful for lots of things but I can’t seem to quantify anything in list fashion at the moment.  I just know that if you asked me a decade ago where I would be in 2009, I wouldn’t have had an answer for you.  Not even a wild-ass guess.  So I am grateful (read: thankful) for all of the surprises and adventures thus far.  I just can’t put them in writing because the very act of doing so seems to negate their importance to me, as if me writing them down would make it all disappear.

So instead of writing a Thankful Post, just know that deep down it’s all good here in Montana and instead of being warm and fuzzy and covered with bluebirds, I am going to tell you about the time the doorknob came right off.

***

I was seventeen and my boyfriend was nineteen and I was going to eat dinner at his parent’s house for Thanksgiving.  It was a big deal because this day was the day that I would meet the whole family.  I had already met his parents and sister “Mel”, but they were a tight-knit extended family and I knew I had to make a good impression.  This evening would consist of folded napkins, proper manners, me resisting my primal urge to reach across the table to grab things.  There would be favorite aunts, grandparents, cousins, uncles, and I would get to meet them all.  If only you all knew how I had held a fork back in those days…you would understand my concerns.  But I was ready for the night.  I had my game face on. 

I dressed up (most likely in a sweater).  I imagine that he picked me up (I don’t really remember the logistics) and when I entered the house, two tables had been pushed together and disguised as one with fancy tablecloth positioning strategery.  Candles! were set up everywhere.  There may have even been nice music playing.  The home was filled with a mesmerizing combination of olfactory delights; roasting turkey, pumpkin pie, Old Spice.

I started to meet the family.  I got lots of the usual questions…where did you get a name like that?  What do your parents do?  Where are you going to college?  I had answers for all of the questions!  I even got a few polite laughs!  I think a grandparent leaned over to my boyfriend and said something like What a nice girl you found. 

Finally dinner was ready and the twenty-plus guests started to wrap up the conversation.  I had just a few minutes to go to the bathroom.  I zipped in, bathroom-ed, and the flushed. 

The toilet wouldn’t flush.  Awkward.  Sure, there was just a big wad of TP in there spinning around with nowhere to go, but you know how it goes when the toilet doesn’t flush?  You just know someone is coming in right behind you, and they are going to see you were the last one in there, and think you are some degenerate born in a barn type who forgets to flush.  Or worse, is just too lazy to flush.  This could not happen.  Not at the Thanksgiving dinner.  So I attempted to get the TP to go down.  It was an older house, but surely there was a little life left in this potty!  I flushed again.  I took the tank cover off and experimented with the various floats and levers inside.  I found myself rolling up the sleeves of my sweater.  In the distance, I could hear that people were still milling about. 

After several failed attempts at flushing, I washed my hands and decided that the TP was just never going to go down.  I would find my BF immediately, and tell him that I tried.  I dried my hands on a towel and focused on turkey.  Here we go, turkey!

The bathroom doorknob came right off in my hand.  I was still inside the locked bathroom, now holding the doorknob.  I heard the jovial banter floating in from the dining room.  The music was still playing. 

I squatted and poked my finger in the doorknob-hole.  I tried to grab the bottom of the door but my fingers got squished between the door and the carpet.  There was nothing to grab.  Surely there was a way out.  I looked at the window.  It was screened in and there was no way I was getting out of it due to the height.  I searched the medicine cabinet for tweezers, nail clippers, anything I could use to MacGyver my way out.  Nothing. 

It seemed like ten minutes went by.  I could yell and shout, but then the whole party would know I was locked in the bathroom, and no seventeen year old girl wants the whole party to know she is locked in the bathroom.  More time went by.  People started quieting down.  Surely someone would come look for me.  Anyone?

I probably cried a little. 

Finally I heard my BF’s sister Mel.  Her voice seemed closer than the others.  She must be nearing the general vicinity of the bathroom.

“MEL!” I whispered loudly.

She didn’t hear me. 

“MEL!  MEL!! ” I said a bit louder.

“What?  Who’s calling me?” she said.  Then she asked loudly, “Where’s Maleesha?”

“I’m IN HERE!” I said, even louder. 

“Where?  Where are you!?”  She was getting closer.

“I’m in the bathroom!  I’m stuck in the bathroom!” I was yelling now.

Mel was now right outside the door.  “Just open it,” she said.  “Turn the knob!”

“I CAN’T TURN THE KNOB!” I yelled.

“Why can’t you turn the knob?” she asked.

“Because I’m holding the knob!”

“What!?”

“The knob fell off the door!”

“The knob fell off the door?  HEY DAD!  MALEESHA IS STUCK IN OUR BATHROOM!  THE KNOB CAME OFF IN HER HAND!!”

Oh crap.

Suddenly I could hear the party nearing.  The music stopped playing.  There were now at least a dozen voices nearby.  I backed away from the door.  BF’s dad was knocking now.  “You stuck?”

“Yes.  I am stuck,” I said.

He asked me to try a few things, but nothing worked. 

“I have to go get my tools,” he said. 

***

And there you have it. 

I got locked in the bathroom during an important Thanksgiving dinner, and the dinner was postponed for about forty-five minutes, because my boyfriend’s dad ended up having to remove the whole damn door, hinges and all, in order for me to get out.  And the rest of the guests had to use a bathroom with a blanket nailed over the entrance because there wasn’t time to repair the door when the turkey was getting cold. 

The laughter was frequent that evening, and the jokes lasted for years. 

Come to think of it, this story reminds me that I am thankful for a sense of humor.

They executed the DC sniper today.

I’m not against the death penalty.  I also don’t stand up and cheer with poster-paint signs outside of the prison when the lights flicker.  In the case of John Allen Muhammad I just feel numb. 

There were three reasons I longed to leave the DC area and this dude was one of them.  In the space of a few short months, 9/11 happened and a plane crashed into the Pentagon.  Soon we were receiving anthrax tainted mail, and people were wrapping their homes in black plastic and duct tape in fear of “dirty bombs.” 

Then the sniper happened.  This was a whole new kind of terror.  I remember quite vividly grocery shopping trips turned into a “should I or shouldn’t I” prospect.  For three weeks, getting gas from the gas station involved some contortion and prayers, hoping that whoever he was, was picking a different gas station that day.  No one knew when and where it would happen, but people were truly afraid.

I’ve never been one to follow the stories of serial killers or crazed psychopaths…those just don’t interest me.  Since I was living there at the time, I have followed this story from the beginning.  After all, I got stuck in plenty of Beltway closures as they searched for the “white box truck” that ended up to be a false lead. 

So today they executed the remorseless maniac who ruined and stole so many lives.  Instead of being relieved, I feel nothing.  I don’t feel any inner “yays” or “you deserve its”.  I just feel a strange combination of numbness and disappointment.  I don’t believe that Muhammad cared that he was going to die.  Giving him the death penalty was a bit like slapping a masochist with a leather whip.  Take that, bitch!  

But what would have been a better punishment?  I honestly can’t think of one.  Torture isn’t the humane answer, though I imagine many families spent long hours dreaming up what they would do to this monster if only they could get him in a room alone with some power tools.  Isolation?  Probably not a bad choice, but who wants to pay to feed this guy until he dies of old age?  No one can argue that removing him from society was necessary.  I’m sad for the families.  I’m sad because I will never forget the beautiful blond who was shot at the Home Depot.  Her smiling picture on the news is forever in my head.  Gone in an instant, and not by accident.  Accidents are tragedies, but accidents are part of life and therefore we tend to process them easier.  This kind of death is unfair and unacceptable. 

Not every situation has a solution though.  Some things we are just forced to accept, the way the families and friends of the sniper’s victims were forced to accept their tragic losses.  People tend to want to find a solution…to tie up things with a bow and call it finished.  There is no bow to tie on Muhammad’s execution.  His death isn’t just because death isn’t a punishment to him.  There’s no justice in a case like this, and it’s something we have to accept.  If we do find it in ourselves to strive for a solution, the only bow we can tie on is to ensure this doesn’t happen again by raising our children the absolute best way we know how.