On that walk, I came across the following scene:
Has this ever happened to you, either figuratively or literally? This has happened to me. I had two bikes in college, one of which was stripped similar to this poor bastard, and the other of which simply vanished, leaving nothing but a shattered Kryptonite (R) lock on the ground in its place.
While my home has never been robbed, my car was stolen in law school. I'll never forget stumbling towards the driveway in an effort after a late night to make it to class, and seeing nothng but pavement where my beloved car used to be. I remember wailing into the gray morning sky: "Who the hell steals a Peugeot? Did they get tired of boosting le Cars and Yugos today? Now how am I going to get around?"
Luckily for me, my mother gave me her car, which I fondly referred to as the Oldsmobuick (attribution to Chevy Chase in "Fletch," which is, by the way, one of the finest films ever made). This gave my friends at the school something even better to laugh about, because whereas before they gave me grief for driving a car built in France (apparently, this made me somewhat of an elitist), now they could flip me shit for driving a car that their grandmother would drive. By this I mean no offense to my mother, and I point out quite accurately that she obtained the car from her grandmother, so technically they could have come at me for driving a car their GREAT grandmother would drive. I'm glad I never divulged that little detail about the car's provenance.
This has also happened to me figuratively. I met a woman some time back who I made an effort to get to know because of a common interest we shared. The problem was, after each time I socialized with this woman, I felt like the bike in the picture above. I felt as if my conversations with her were so draining that at the end, I was missing valuable parts of me.
She was a classic Complainer. Do you have one in your life? She was always moaning about her financial situation, despite how good it was and how lucky she was that money was provided to her via a successful and generous husband. She was always feuding with the contractors working on her home (and there were always contractors working on her home) and threatening to sue them. She was obsessed with a gentleman in the neighborhood with whom she served on a board, and ranted for hours about how much she hated him. The funny part was, all the characteristics she claimed he had (but didn't) were her most prominent ones: arrogance, pettiness, and a unique ability to take the majority of credit when credit was either not due or due to a large effort on the part of many people.
She rarely smiled. She rarely laughed, unless it was one of those scary laughs, that tells you a person is on the verge of shrieking. And then there were her favorite comments that she whipped out on a very regular basis with much the same talent as a criminal would brandish a weapon:
Her:" bitch bitch bitch bitch I can't believe I have to take Timmy to practice and Sally to piano and you'd think my husband would help but does he ever no and I have to sue the floor guy and my sister is a whore and Portland sucks it's not at all sophisticated like the east coast and of course I'm from New York and I don't mean a bridge and tunnel girl and do you think my ass looks fat because I am pretty sure my ass is fat..."
Me: "Look on the bright side, _______________, everyone in your family is healthy and you have a beautiful home in a lovely neighborhood plus your husband is great! He's pretty busy with all those surgeries he's been doing lately!" This is said in my best polly-anna voice, which I hate to use but on occassion it is simply required.
Her: "Look, no offense Robin, but you really have no idea how hard my life is. I have two kids, you have one, and you only have to have him half time."
Some of you are reading this right now and saying to yourselves, "Robin's kidding. She's employing exaggeration as a literary device to increase the impact of the story. Nobody can be that much of an insensitive asshole, right?"
Wrong. After I picked my jaw back up off the floor, I asked her what she meant.
"Well, you are basically just a part-time mother, and for only one kid. I just don't think you can really relate to my problems." So said the woman who belonged on the cover of Pampered Bitch magazine.
"Look," I said, still trying to recover from my shock, "you must know that both Jake's dad and I wish we could have him all the time. Our lives just didn't work out that way, and it still hurts to this day. I don't think either one of us consider ourselves part-time parents. And you know I work, so it isn't as if I don't have things going on in my life too. I can relate."
She sniffed and began plucking imaginary lint off her $350 cashmere hoodie. I had not convinced her that my life as a divorced mom was not foot-loose and fancy free, filled with chocolate and sex and long nights lingering over champagne at Fenouil. What was even more interesting was that this became one of her favorite things to say. I let it go for a long, long, LONG time. Finally, during an outing at the zoo and after listening to another diatribe about the trials and tribulations of her life being a West Hills Kept Woman versus my carefree existance as a "part time mom," I decided it was time for a gently worded confrontation.
"You know, ________, when you say that, it really hurts my feelings. As I have told you, I wish things had worked out differently for my family. But I am glad that Patrick and I figured things out and divorced, instead of living a sham of a marriage and bringing up our son to think his parents were a fraud. So if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you stop referring to me as a part-time mother."
She didn't say anything. I wondered at the time if she had heard me. "Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?" I wanted to say. Regardless, I told both Tom and Patrick that if she ever said another word in that vein again, I was pulling the disconnect on her.
About two weeks later, Patrick and his fiance Crista and Tom, Jake and I met up at a book fair at Jake's school. The woman in question found us all standing together, and said hello. She then immediately said, "Have you seen my children? Good God, you guys all have it so easy, since you only have one child and you only have him part-time."
Patrick, Tom and Crista eyed me nervously. I think they thought I was going to go nucular, in the words of our esteemed former president George W. Bush. I just walked away, and kept walking. Sometimes, that's the only answer.
Behold, the view yesterday from my office. Now that is something to be thankful for.
3 comments:
Were you, perchance, referring to "LeBaron?" I know it was a crappy car, but it was better than no car? Still, I can't blame your friends. I was embarrased to drive it myself:)
I tried to hide her identity but you have exposed her - yes, the LeBaron. And yes, it was definitely better than no car at all.
As you know, I'm not really a car person, though when I learned yesterday that I can start collecting full SS benefits NOW with no reduction in earnings, my first thoughts went to a nice red Prius, before I remembered the goal of the bathroom(s) remodel.
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