The irony was, I was running late because I was reading. Late to a Literary Festival because I had my nose buried in a book. Not even an approved good book. Just some mindless blip. I finished The Stand Friday. That’s right. I read it in less than two weeks, with another book knocked out in two days for book club. I would like my medal now. Please make the ribbon red for victory. If you can find me a riser and podium I’ll be glad to make a speech of encouragement to the rest of you lackadaisical commoners. I might need a crown, too. My current one isn’t quite ostentatious enough.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual. The Sevierville Chamber of Commerce puts on a Literary Festival once a year called Rose Glen. I’m not qualified to tell you about the history, but I found these two videos enlightening. They’re each about ten minutes long. Rose Glen Videos <—-If you think they’re not worth your time, or you’re just lazy (hey, I’m not here to judge, I have a hard time committing to anything over 30 seconds), let me just tell you so you’ll know-Rose Glen is that old house next to the Walter State Campus in Sevierville. You know, I always thought it was part of Johnny King’s property, because he kept cattle there, but evidently not. Anyway, so now you know. But the videos truly are fascinating, you really should watch them. I have wanted to attend this particular shindig for many years, but I used to always work on Saturdays so I wouldn’t have been able to attend, anyhow. Somehow it slipped by me last year and I had to hear about what a great time was had by all about a week after the fact at the board meeting. Which is disappointing. I mean, does anybody love Southern Literature more than me? I think not. I should be the Chair on this! Or at least a consultant. The chair would be too big of a headache. I’m not that organized. And I hate asking for donations.
Once I arrived and located my good friend (and, shall I mention, Director of the Sevier County Public Library System) just where she said she would be, we made our way to the festivities. We stopped many times as we made our way past tables fronting local authors and their wares. We were stopped by friends of Rhonda’s, contacts of mine, and many mutual acquaintances. I was lit up like a Christmas tree and beaming stupidly at everyone and everything. It was enthralling. I had agonized over how dressy an affair this was, but decided since it was in the middle of the day and was hosting a bunch of local flavor, I decided I could get by with jeans. Let’s face it-writers are eccentric and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find more than one in clothes they’d had on for three days, with facial hair to match. I did refrain from wearing my honeybee shoes, though. I didn’t want to embarrass Rhonda. I should have worn a tank top, shorts, and flip flops because it was one hundred and twenty-six degrees in the convention center, but too late. People kept hugging me and all I could think about was how damp I must feel. Ew.
When we sat down for the luncheon, I noticed how many of us were sporting glasses. Lots of glasses. I don’t know if my fellow readers didn’t approve of contacts or if they just didn’t like the trouble of taking care of something else. It’s pretty easy just to grab your glasses and go. Or maybe they’re like me and can’t bear the thought of touching their eyeballs. I get it. Spectacles till the end of my days. It’s nice to be in the company of others who share similar interests, whether it be just the love of reading or fashion. Not that anyone would accuse voracious readers as having much of a fashion sense. But there was an author there sporting a fox around her neck. She was perfectly fabulous. I wanted to buy her book: here it is, The Gatekeeper but I waited too long and she had a cluster of women around her so no book, and no picture of me with an author wearing a fox stole. Too bad.
But I’ve drifted. Back to lunch. Everything was going swimmingly, two children’s authors had joined us and I was trying to be cool and act like I dined with celebrities all of my living days when this couple from New Jersey joined us. Sigh. I immediately lost interest in them as the husband began griping about tolls up there, and how the state government charged him $6,000 to move and how he could have gotten out of it had he known ahead of time and yada yada yada. Yankees ruin everything. He should have followed the lot of them on down to Florida. Finally, the presentation began and we directed our attention to the speaker. Wiley Cash was eventually introduced, and he made some quip about how we were locals, but we weren’t really from here, though, right? I tried not to take offense, but I felt the steam build in my ears. I knew of a handful of folks in attendance that yes, we sure were. But turns out, he was looking at the bigger picture, from six and seven generations back. Ok. Wiley was a terrific speaker, and it was obvious he had done his research for his latest book. I was a little disappointed that I had purchased it a month prior on my Kindle. And I didn’t want to plunk down thirty bones on an older work that I could get for five on Abebooks. I listened to his clear voice reading a passage of his novel and I could see the landscape. I knew about poor. I saw it every day. On my way in, I had flown along the back roads, from the Boyds Creek valley, cutting through the hollers of Indian Gap and not taking much time to note the houses that were one step away from being condemned. Probably already would be, if the county officials would take a closer look. And where would you put them? These people don’t want to be in government subsidized housing, living right on top of people they don’t know. No, better to scrape by out here in the boon docks, carrying wood in to feed to the stove, and recycling worn out shirts into han’kerchiefs and sheets into curtains. Better to hang your clothes on a line than go to the laundry mat. Better to shoot a few squirrels and fry them with last spring’s crappie than to use the EBT card. Better to plant by the signs than by the weatherman. Better to read the Bible than surf the web.
I write of the old whitewashed shacks that lean just a hair too far to the left, with warped steps coming up from a worn path through the scruffy yard. The cinderblock houses with chickens pecking out front, mingling with dogs on chains. The trailers that were old in the ’80s, out by the lake, with three styles of bicycles in the yard, abandoned where the children outgrew them. I’m talking about the cabins tucked up in the wood line, letting all the vegetation to encroach-the better to hide behind and keep nosy people out. Air conditioning would be nice, but a fan does the trick, it’s not so bad of the evening when you can open all the windows and let the breeze come through. These places have gravel driveways, pockmarked with ruts that catch water, or maybe there’s just a wide spot by the road to pull into. There’s wildflowers and clover, no zoysia grass here. If there’s a fence, it’s barbed wire, and rusted, and the tree closest to the road has a No Trespassing sign nailed to it. And they mean it.
Some of the homesteads are proud; they’re small, but neat. They have sweet tea brewing on the sun drenched step and a porch with a swing. Most will have a garden off to the side, brimming with tomatoes, crowded with corn, and decorated with a scarecrow in holey overalls. Daffodils provide a cheery welcome near the mailbox.
And one more thing: they don’t think they’re poor. I guess because they have what matters: peace of mind.
And some are trash, people with no respect for their home, their lives, or their family. These dwellings have rubbish piled high, fifteen cars that don’t run scattered about in waist high weeds. You can almost see the snakes crawling.
These places aren’t far off the main road. Five minutes from any spot on Highway 66 I could show you three dozen.
I drifted back.
The keynote speaker was mentioning the mill ladies, and his grandmother who carpooled to get there. And I remembered my own great-grandmother, who carpooled with her sister and another lady to get to her mill, Bike Athletic Company. And when I have her story wrote, I’ll add a link here.
So yeah, Wiley Cash, I know what you’re talking about. And I absolutely could not wait to read his book. {Things didn’t turn out the way I expected, read my public amazon review RIGHT HERE.}Ok, I shared the link to my blog review, because the Amazon review will move around as he gets newer ones.}
After the question and answer portion, we were dismissed, and my partner in crime wanted to see about wrangling him for a book signing and speaking engagement at the library. She bought the book as a means to pave the way (read: suck up) and we stood in a mercifully short line to get it autographed. Faced with Mr. Cash, all I could think to say was, “I love your name,” like a starstruck idiot. “I’m pretty jealous.” Then I began to worry that make me sound like I wanted to be Mrs. Wiley Cash, but it was too late. He pushed his glasses up endearingly and told me he heard that pretty frequently. Whew. I mean, but really. Wiley CASH? #awesome
So, to recap, it was a great day, spent in the company of a good friend and piles of books. Although I didn’t buy a single one. That’s self restraint right there. I rarely venture out from my hermit life on the weekends. This was so worth it.
And as I headed home, winding my way in my old pickup, I took note of the many tin roof homesteads, tucked away from prying eyes and flashy neighbors. You’d have to pay them a sight more than $6,000 to move. And I smiled. I know where I come from. And dang right I’m proud.
I always do the best I can. It doesn’t always live up to my momma’s standards, or my boss’s, or heaven forbid, society’s, but I AM doing my best.
My hair is a perfect example. Believe it or not, I color it, I use expensive shampoo and product, and have even had a keratin treatment. But most days it still looks like a mockingbird nest after a tornado. My best is not good enough.
I use an expensive skincare regimen daily, but my skin is still far from perfect. I still get acne, and there’s nothing to be done about these forehead wrinkles. Let’s call them laugh lines. I buy the expensive makeup and apply it carefully. More likely than not, I’m going to look like a raccoon because I have yet to conquer the smoky eye. And I’ll probably forget my lipstick. And although I spend $50 a month on pedicures, my nails are still an uneven, raggety mess. I have accepted the fact that I will never be thin, partly because I’m lazy, and the rest is because I like food better than exercise. I won’t lie and tell you I don’t have time, because I could make time. But I’d rather read and pin recipes for fattening, delicious food. And make lists of places I would like to eat and what I will order once I get there. Short of having Botox and Lipo, this is the best I’m going to look.
I could sweep and mop my bathroom floors everyday but guess what? They still look gross. The linoleum is old, and my husband tracks mud and leaves and yard detritus in every single day, thirty times a day. My best is not good enough.
I had been riding horses for many years before I got a formal lesson. I had a good seat for Western, an excellent one for English, and was about the worst ever saddleseat rider. It did not agree with me. I was used to having my legs tucked up. Now they were all but dangling freely. There was no swell on the saddle before me, there was hardly any saddle at all. There was no gentle curve cupping my rear and giving me just the slightest sense of security, it was flat and I found every inch of it as I slid around, praying for purchase.
I hated riding saddleseat.
But it prepared me for a new kind of riding I did for a few years, almost a decade after I’d gotten rid of my last horse. One of my customers had been encouraging me to come out to his place and meet his horses, check out his arena, try his discipline of equitation. It wasn’t a proposition for romance, nothing like that. He genuinely wanted me to just come ride. So one day, I did. I took my momma just in case he turned out to be a well disguised serial killer. I think I made maybe three circuits around the ring at a walk, trot, canter, respectfully, before he stopped me.
He ran my stirrups up.
I gulped.
He unsnapped my reins.
I wanted to throw up.
He grinned. “Canter, switch diagonals at E.”
I cued, and off we sped. I had no hope of being on the right lead without aid of my reins…or so I thought. My main concern was not crashing into the panels on the far side. I didn’t know this horse, and he didn’t know me. I put faith in his name, which was Bueno. It should have been Hero, because he made me look good that day. After it was over, and I didn’t require an eye patch or crutches, we were leaning up against the stalls. Scott was making conversation with my mom while I fed Bueno and thanked him for not killing me. Scott was saying that he had met a lot of riders in his time and that it was extremely rare they were able to ride as well as they boasted. “As a matter of fact,” he went on. “I’ve only met two. One is your daughter.”
I beamed. I had excelled again. I had made myself proud, even if I didn’t have anybody to impress.
When I was a child, I would memorize mine and everybody else’s lines in the school plays. I always knew what was going on at all times. I did my best and was labeled a nerd. I was rarely reprimanded at school or at home. Even though I had to take remedial math in college, and enlist a tutor for calculus, I was a nerd. Because I was doing my best. And it wasn’t cool to do your best. I knew I was a good kid, and that wasn’t just by comparing myself to other students. I ran with some of the “elite” girls, and all of us knew to keep our legs together and our heads turned when it came to boys and drugs. I was never offered anything stronger than marijuana (which I did not take, believe it or not), and I still couldn’t begin to tell you where to find or buy anything today. I simply do not know how it is done.
I excelled at my first job that I started right out of high school, quickly moving up to a keyholder. At Co-op, I was right at home after I learned about layer pellets. I was sought after at the Co-op. I don’t have to tell y’all-you were the ones seeking me out! Customers appreciated my honesty. When I didn’t know, I would tell them so, then I would try to find out. People trusted me, I had responsibility. I had to get them the right answer, even if they didn’t like it. I had to help them. I had to help their pets, their livestock, their crops. I occasionally even had to help their machinery (heaven help you if you needed more than bolts, plowshares, or rake teeth, though!). When I moved on to dispatch, the director likened me to a fish in water, although at most times I felt like a fish out of water. I could talk to people in distress, no problem, but when it came to toning out the correct agency or ambulance, I frequently faltered. I once toned out a crew that was already on a call. It was embarrassing, to say the least. I couldn’t claim I didn’t know what I was doing, I’d been given the same training as everyone else. I just forgot what I was doing there for a minute. It had been a busy Saturday, and I hadn’t kept up with my sheet. This mistake wasn’t life threatening, we just moved on past it. And speaking of doing my best, even when everything was perfect, when everybody was doing the best they could, the fastest they could, people still died. We still ran out of ambulances. Ambulances broke down. Ambulances had to be taken out of service for clean up from the previous call. Fire trucks had to refuel at inopportune times. Lifestar wasn’t always availiable, no matter how bad you needed them. Sometimes there was fog, sometimes there were other emergencies that trumped ours. In short, shit happened. But even though it was an emergency situation, we realized certain things would always be out of control and we just worked through it. Even though people would die and families would grieve. These were BIG things. But it was out of our hands. We did the best we could do, and sometimes it wasn’t enough.
When I made my switch from salesman to secretary, I couldn’t have been further from my comfort zone. In my new life, I call 811. It is a world away from 911, before you get all excited and draw conclusions. After the wildfires, I frequently heard an intake of breath after I gave them the county and city. Then a hushed, almost reverent, “Are you alright?” It was so touching. It made me compare again my old life to my new one. Sure, there are fencing emergencies. People pay hard earned money for a quality fence. They expect it completed in a timely fashion. But sometimes shit happens and we can’t help it. At least nobody dies. I still try to do my best, and keep track of everything going on with all of our crews. There are some things I will never understand because I’m not an installer, just like there were things that happened at dispatch that I couldn’t grasp, because I’d never been on scene at a medical call. I told a lady on the phone the other day that she wasn’t ringing any bells, but that didn’t mean anything because I didn’t have a whole lot of bells left to ring. I like to make jokes when the customer seems receptive to them. I think that’s part of the reason I was so popular at Co-op with many clients. I still make mistakes, even when I’m doing my best.
But with my husband, he makes me feel that I am adequate. More than adequate, I am enough. Even when I drive him crazy, I don’t question whether he’s going to leave me. I don’t have to wonder if he still loves me. On the extremely rare occasion he speaks sharply to me, generally when he’s exasperated with whatever he’s working on and has been tormented all day at work, I know that it’s not anything he will lord over me in the coming months and years. It’s over before the hour is out. My husband makes me believe there is hope for nerds.
Making biscuits this morning, I was reminded of all the times I struggled and cussed baking batches before. It took a long time to get them to come out to suit me, even though I was following recipes to the T. It didn’t help that everyone has a different one, and no matter how detailed they were, there was always something, some little specification that was always left out. They’re still not perfect, but they’re better than they used to be, and I no longer agonize over them. Imperfect homemade biscuits are still better than no biscuits at all.
When I am berated, especially for something out of my control, I shrink and wish that I was an oyster or a box turtle. I want to shut out the injustice and drama and retreat. I want to disappear until it’s all over. I want to continue being the golden child, the one who always did my best and was rewarded for it. Nothing comes easy, but it’s hard to be happy and want to excel when what you do is criticized, even though you’re doing your level best. It hurts my feelings and it stays with me pert near forever. I can’t forget. That’s why I’m so selective and a perfectionist in certain criterion of my life. I remember what it was like when I messed up before. I don’t want a repeat performance. I will do nearly anything to avoid it. But when what you told me was right yesterday, and I do that exactly, but today it’s wrong, I find it difficult to roll with the changes. It’s hard to keep up. I won’t agree with something someone says, even if they are an authority figure, unless I have all the information to make an informed decision. I don’t consider myself to have a competitive nature, but I want to do things well. I don’t want to give anyone a reason to get onto me. My nerves can’t take it. I have led a life of relatively low drama, and I intend to keep it that way. That’s why I don’t get out much. I have high expectation of others too, even if it’s just driving down the highway. I expect the speed limit. I expect turn signals. I expect you to stay in your lane and maintain concentration on those around you. When I go out to eat, I expect the wait staff to be friendly. I expect my glass to stay above the 1/4 mark. I expect you to ask if I need anything after my food comes. However, if I see that you are asshole deep in alligators with half the restaurant under your service, I don’t expect it as efficiently. I’m not without a heart! I don’t wish to say I am hard to please, but if you don’t please me, you probably don’t have anything to worry about because I will not initiate interaction.
Guess what happens when you do your best? You still have fender benders and bounced checks and relationships with the wrong people. You still make bad decisions and stay too long and voice unpopular opinions and have awkward silences.
Do your best, and if they don’t appreciate it, find someone who does.
Every time I said “Happy Valentine’s!” to someone today, Joey would grunt, “Pea Plantin’ Day.”
Now, I worked at the Co-op a long time, and I don’t remember this particular day in February being marked as that designated time to plant legimes, but it sounds about right. Although I doubt anybody was planting peas or anything else in this flood of biblical proportions.
So, in honor of Joey’s- and evidently Southwest Virginia’s-pea planting roots, we’re having sugar snap peas with pork chops, taters, and onions tonight. I’m using a paste that I bought off our computer guru who still plays Grand Theft Auto with his other grown men friends. That’s right, computers and cooking condiments. He calls himself a nerd so the rest of us don’t have to.
The lovely Tracy baked some cookies to perfection and delivered them in their little baggie tied with a wee bit of string to my place of employment this morning. Were they picture worthy? You betcha. Did I pause long enough to take a picture before gobbling them down? Not hardly. In my defense, I did share, though.
There was a BOGO sale at the library today (speaking of nerds, right?) so naturally I stopped by.
And found this lying in the parking lot.
It kinda broke my heart.
I could clearly picture some little pimply faced boy, using the five dollars he coerced from his dad to buy the prettiest girl in his grade a rose. Or maybe he was feeling bold and she was older than him. And she crushed his rose, and along with it his hopes for a kiss stolen behind the bleachers at the basketball game.
Or maybe it fell out of a car door and nobody noticed. Maybe she saw it and thought it couldn’t possibly be for her, there must be some mistake.
Or maybe some good ole boy gave it to his ol’ lady and she disdainfully shoved it back at him, saying if he couldn’t do no better than a single puny rose, she didn’t want any at all. And he thought, “I could have bought a six pack for what that thing cost.”
Or heck, some girl could have given to her girl crush and embarrassed the ever living crap out of her and she threw it down in a fury of confusion and humiliation.
I don’t know.
I just saw a sad long stemmed rose, doomed from the day it was separated and wrapped in cellophane to be sold in a plastic bucket on a gas station counter. Because either this rose had either had a really hard time in its short life already, or it had been laying out here longer than just today. It wasn’t an official Valentine’s Day rose from the local boutiques and florists that serve the school. Nope. It was too far gone for that.
I sighed, stepped over it, and headed towards my own happiness on the third floor.
I spent two dollars and got four hardcovers, two for Johnny, two for me. Happy Valentine’s, indeed.
Shug is hard to buy books for. He’s not like his counterpart, who will read pretty much anything that isn’t about…well…I can’t think of anything right this very minute that I won’t read. Maybe underwater basket weaving. But anyhoot, I did a good job today, he liked both selections. I preened, smug in my knowledge that I know his genre well. And, as an added bonus, he didn’t already own them. Wonder of wonders!
While perusing the shelves, I found one with a delightful inscription.
I love nicknames. I guess because I’ve always had a bunch. Some people just encourage them, I suppose. The finance manager at Co-op once mused that he’d never had a nickname. “I’m just a vanilla kind of guy,” he remarked. I didn’t disagree, but only because I like vanilla. You can make it fun and different every time. Vanilla is trustworthy and honest. Sometimes surprises are bad news, disguised.
So happy Pea Plantin’ Day, whether you had a big fancy Valentines with dozens of roses and German chocolate or just pork chops on Corelle ware. Or maybe you’ve had better weather and you spent it in the pea patch or even the lettuce bed.
Shot one.
Collective intake of breath, shuddering.
Shot two.
Sobs break out.
Shot three.
The men weep.
The widow exhales and raises her chin, defiant and courageous. She is presented the flag from the honor guard as the hollow notes weave through the crowd behind her. She is elegant in her good jewelry and navy blue dress, poised on her sharp heels.
I can see our breath on the air. The rain continues to fall, indifferent to our tears.
The service is over. I can still detect the acrid odor of gunsmoke, silent and invisible now.
He brought many of us together today, back in his hometown after so many years spent scattered the four directions the winds blow. Family from all over the world, friends he knew, some he never met through simpletractors.com. I knew one, a former supervisor at the Co-op. He said he’d never met Kent, but wanted to pay his respects. He’d never imagined seeing me there. You never know where I might pop up.
Friends from his graduating class and mine, there with our aging parents. People I haven’t seen in many years, old neighbors and people with babies that I remember as babies themselves.
There were pictures and his plaques commemorating a job well done for 27 years. A patriot, proud to serve. There were plenty of mourners and lots of handshakes and hugs. There were many tears in remembrance of a battle fought, but ultimately lost.
There weren’t a lot of flowers, per his request. We are to donate to our favorite church or charity. I feel useful. It’ll go to the sea turtles, via Ocean Conservancy.
His eldest spoke, because he didn’t want soothing words exhalted by a stranger for his dad. He wanted to tell it himself. And that’s a harder job than I care to think about. When I bowed my head, tears plopped onto my hands.
We had one common denominator = Kent is gone and we are sad.
But there are lives to be led, jobs to return to, food to be eaten, and love to be shared. So these funerals are somber occasions but they’re also a reminder to keep going and keep laughing, and to love and cherish the people you have now. Because all too soon we’ll just have memories.
Please continue to hold the Thomas family in your prayers. And my Uncle Dale and Aunt Brenda too.
I will remind my regular readers this website is thanks to him and his unrelenting dedication to get me Out There.
I’m at the beauty shop today (there’s no such thing as natural beauty) and as usual, there was another client there expressing views and sharing gossip. I quickly learned what she did for a living, how long she’d done it, what she used to do for a living, and also gleaned what her son did for a living in the time it took for my hair to be foiled. While I was processing, I was also privy to what all was happening on her Facebook feed and what she didn’t comment on, although she would like to, but her kids would croak. Also, she would have filled us in on the plot line of This is Us, but it was way too complicated for her to get into. You really just had to watch it and focus. She implied we weren’t intelligent enough for it, but all I heard was she still didn’t have a good grasp of it, herself.
Of course, our President came up in conversation by way of healthcare. I tried to tune out and concentrate on my book, which, ironically, is Ruby Ridge. Get it here.
I gritted my teeth as the one-sided tirade wore on. Once she switched to capital punishment, I could hold it no longer. She was saying if you asked most people, they would support the death penalty, but if it was their own child, they’d feel differently.
And that, to me, sums up a lot of our problems in America today. The fact that your children can do no wrong, and if they do, they don’t have to face the consequences.
“I’ve been sittin’ over here, minding my very own business, trying not to get involved, but I’ve found I can’t any longer. As usual.”
My beautician smiled thinly, knowing what was coming and the inevitable fallout that is always in the wake of my Julia Sugarbaker channeling.
“That’s all fine and good until it’s your child that’s the victim. And I know, as Christians, we’re called to pray for people who’ve slipped. But if it was your child, raped, murdered, set on fire, you’d be wantin’ some retribution. So if you want to finance your little felon for the remainder of his life in prison, be my guest. ‘Cause it ain’t cheap to waste away a lifetime sentence in America’s finest institutions. I’m for letting them get off the taxpayers meal ticket as soon as possible.”
Intelligently, she agreed with me.
I know I voice unpopular opinions regularly. But I can’t help but think what if I was someone who had lost a sister, or a husband, or a best friend, or a child to some senseless crime and here’s this stranger touting for the other side? Holding up for a person who did evil to someone who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
People make me want to scream and create my own crime.
Betcha my mom wouldn’t be in the courtroom pleading for a lesser sentence. She’d be there, madder than dammit, slapping my face, shooting poison darts with her eyes, hissing venomously, “how could you be so stupid?”
And that’s just fine.
Let me begin by saying I detest the cable company with every cell of my being.
And now I will tell you why. If this was a power point demonstration, rest assured my laser would be blazing.
First and foremost, as you AAALLLL know, I don’t watch TV. Any shows or movies worth seeing are bought and reside, commercial free, in the TV cabinet and neighboring bookcase. So I was loathe to have it installed here at the Plantation. However, when I thought I wanted to write for that magazine, it required me to submit articles via Microsoft Word and not Google documents. Therefore, I had to have a WiFi signal and laptop. Since my husband is a sports junkie and all things TV fan, and he had been deprived during the last five years with me, he coerced me into adding cable. At that time, their big promotion was the “bundle” and $29.99 per service with a free DVR for 12 months. What happened at the end of twelve months was anybody’s guess, but I had a pretty good idea. So I gave him plenty of warning: “This is your job. I do not deal with the cable company. I will pay the bill, with money you provide, but I am not dealing with the hassle of those people.” Those people, of course, being low-life, fast talking, cretins whose every intent is to confuse and upset me with their trickery. I’m sure most of them are ex-cons and carnies.
He readily agreed.
I called the cable company. Well, one cable company. Xfinity. And I got a super nice feller who was almost as sad as me that they don’t offer service out here in the boondocks of KnoxVegas. He looked up my options.
“Looks like you’ve got……Charter.”
“And???” I prompted, stomach dropping, because everyone is united in their hate for them.
“That’s it,” he said remorsefully.
So I called Charter. And it was every bit as big of an aggravation as I feared it would be.
See, I spend my life on the phone. I always have. I deal with people nonstop. I hate talking to ANYBODY on the phone, even ordering pizza. I much prefer doing everything online. The invention of text was my saving grace. People can’t understand me through my accent, and I think they mumble or talk too fast. They rattle all this contract stuff off (even though it’s not a contract) and you have no idea what you’ve agreed to, but you know you want the service, so you just say yes in order to expedite the process. I remember trying to only get internet and cable, but he wasn’t having that, because I was getting a free DVR by buying the bundle, plus it was set up to be “cheaper” to just do all three. By the time it was said and done, my bill was $121.00, because, of course, nothing is free. We had to pay monthly for the cable boxes. That was after he asked me about home security, and I was like, “Buddy, I live in Tennessee. We have a fence, two mean-ass pitbulls {when in truth, only one is mean, but he didn’t need to know that}, and plenty of ammo. We do not need a home security system.”
There was a startled pause and then he transferred me to the survey.
After the initial set-up call, a visit for installation was arranged, and as I stated, I wasn’t going to go out of my way to take off work to meet the cable guy for hookup and orientation. Johnny was here for all that.
The twelve months go by without incident. Then the next month’s bill came, without precedent. It had gone up $30.00. Of course, I wasn’t surprised…maybe slightly impressed that it hadn’t gone up more and they hadn’t called or emailed about wanting to come get our “free” DVR. I showed it to Johnny, who was somewhat astounded that basic cable was that much. “Feel free to call them,” I told him, oh-so-helpfully directing them to their 24/7 service line.
He declined.
So, for three months I have paid the higher bill.
Then on Monday, we get a “SPECIAL OFFER” in the mail. It’s addressed to “Resident of” and our address. It states in bold, blue letters that many of our neighbors have discovered that Spectrum delivers the best TV & Internet services. And it’s my turn.
It’s HALF of what our bill is.
Well, well, well. It’s only for TV & Internet, but like I told the guy to begin with, I didn’t need the phone line. And it got FREE DVR service for two years.
Johnny’s all about me calling and seeing what’s up. Obviously, I am not. This is exactly what I did NOT sign on for. And I remind him of that fact. So he says he’ll call, but they probably won’t talk to him because the bill is in my name. He’s probably right, but I don’t want to admit it. I go next door while he calls.
Sure enough, they won’t give him the time of day, but his super friendly American operator tells him helpfully that I can just call and add him. That was Wednesday.
He’s mentioned it every day since.
I am a professional procrastinator, but I could see that he wasn’t going to stop hounding me (I should employ these tactics when I need him to do something for me) so tonight I called.
And it went every bit the way I had imagined it would.
You begin with the automated service, selecting whether you are a (hopeless) new customer or a (disgruntled) existing one. Those are my descriptions, but they should really utilize them in the menu because it’s true. Then you choose whether you’re wanting to add a service or ask a question. I select add. Moments later, I am connected with a lady who is pleasant enough, and doesn’t make me repeat myself. We are off to a good start. I tell her I got an offer in the mail I want to take advantage of. She asks for my address. I recite it to her, and tell her I have my account number if that will help. Johnny is behind me, helpfully whispering to tell her I already have service with them. I shoo him away. I got this.
“Oh, you’re already a customer?” She’s genuinely surprised.
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on the way phone lines work, but it’s my understanding that the automated system was developed for ease and to facilitate phone calls.
But clearly, I am incorrect. Because I wasn’t patched through to a person who fields calls from current customers. I was thrown into the sea with all the other peasants in their misery.
And I can’t resist my first opportunity. I strike.
“Yes, I hit all the corresponding digits on the automated system.”
She ignores my punch and asks for my account number. I provide it, she taps away, then I can hear her gear up to convincing me how I’m getting a good deal already. “Before we go any further, can you please add my husband? I hate making these calls, and he’s better at them and doesn’t mind.”
She giggles and asks his name. I tell her and think, “I warned you….”
She wastes no more time and immediately launches into the spill about how I’ve already taken advantage of a promotional offer, and in fact, am still enjoying this perk, saving almost $40 per month, and she can’t help me. Her voice has changed dramatically since our initial banter.
Is that right? Well. “So, what you’re telling me is that if I want to decrease my bill by half every month, I will have to unsubscribe from your services, then re-sign up.”
“Well, yes, but you don’t want to do that, because you’ll experience a 30- to 60- day wait period between services.”
“I don’t care. This is too much of a price difference.”
Johnny, at this point, is pacing and nearly in tears at my words and the thought of losing his never-ending Viking shows, Alien documentaries, and slew of football and basketball games. “It’s okay,” he’s hissing frantically, having overheard enough. I wave him off, my blood pressure on the rise. Even though I know that Charter will never let us go. I will get the best price. Even though I have to play their game of cable communism. See, the dumbasses bring it on themselves. They want this contention. They’ve sent this exact same propaganda to every house in the state, banking on people too lazy to look at the junk mail, and the ones like me that do don’t want to make these phone calls.
I hear her sigh, like this is directly affecting her will to live, and she starts in again about how I’m actually getting a good deal and blah blah blah.
“I’ve done told you I don’t care, come and cut this shit off.”
“Hold please. And there’s no reason to curse.”
Yeah, because I’m sure she’s never uttered the first obscenity in her life and is as pure as the driven snow.
Johnny retreats downstairs, certain he has lost one of his main sources of happiness.
After about two minutes, I am connected with a woman who sounds older, or perhaps she’s just smoked more. Or maybe she’s just worn down and knows she has to keep this job until she finds another one not spent tethered to a console with a headset attached to her skull while first world country consumers bicker with her over the cost of an unnecessary (dare we call it extravagant?) service. The rat race.
She says a whole bunch of crap about how she’s going to resolve any issues, but could we begin with a survey on my current experience with Charter? I recognize this as a ploy. If I show my ass, they won’t be as accommodating. Must. Play. The. Game.
So I answer the same stock questions she’s asked other people for the last six hours. What do we watch on TV, what do we predominantly use the internet for, and is the home phone utilized regularly or for backup emergency use only?
I am patient and civil though this, and, as always, brutally honest.
Although I feel it would have been funnier if I had said porn, porn, and phone sex.
Anyway. I’m not always a heathen.
Of course she runs through how I’m still on a promotion, and again with the rules about it’s one promotion per customer, blah blah blah. When I remain silent, she goes on to say how I didn’t seem to have a problem paying the introductory offer and vows to reinstate me at our former price for 12 months. So in a year I’ll probably be writing this exact blog again.
But hold on. I’m not gonna let her off the hook that easily. “But how much is it if I were to go through with cutting service off and then starting it back? You mentioned I have to buy equipment. What equipment, exactly?”
“Well, I see you have two cable boxes, so those, plus your installation fee, so that would put you at $111.00 per month, plus taxes.”
See? They get you any way you can. Dirty, dirty, dastardly deeds.
I hate cable.
Ironically enough, I’m using my 60 mph whatever WiFi to pound out this status. But let the record show that I’m using them against my will. Someday, Xfinity will come through here and all my dreams will come true. Nevermind Charter is the company I stuck up for a few months ago when the pushy punk AT&T solicitors came by.
After hanging up, I carefully inspected the leaflets. Nowhere does it state that you can only take advantage of the one promotion during your relationship with Charter. I can’t get a close up of it because it spans the whole bottom of the page in microscopic print, but it says only “Valid to qualified residential customers who have not subscribed to any services within the previous 30 days and have no outstanding obligation to Charter.” They kept repeating how I don’t have a contract. Contract= obligation, am I right? But it doesn’t mater. It’s a $100 no matter how you slice it if you want cable and internet. But I don’t have to like it.
I’m off to leave a scathing review for Long John Silvers. We sat in the drive-thru, the ONLY customer, might I add, for 13 minutes before receiving our grease and synthesized fish and chicken. We could have had faster service at Ye Olde! Geez.
Anybody wanna fight? I’m all fluffed up like a bantam rooster.
And thank you in advance for not telling me about how I can just pay for internet and stream pretty much whatever through my Smart TV (I don’t know if ours is compatible) or subscribe to Netflix for $9.99/month. I’m also not ready to learn about the Amazon Firestick. Any communication of this variety can go directly to the man of the house. I. Am. DONE.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if he had been suffering for ages.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if our last meeting hadn’t ended so abruptly.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if he had lived a good long life, if he had been as old as Methuselah. He just had so much left to do.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if he had lived to see the grandbabies.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if she had gone unexpectedly quick, like the wind blowing out a flame.
It wouldn’t have hurt so bad if she had known us at the end.
It wouldn’t be so hard if we could have said goodbye.
It wouldn’t hurt so bad if…if…if, if, if.
If.
But the truth is, the only way it wouldn’t hurt so bad is if we hadn’t loved them. And if they hadn’t loved us back.
But yet we tell ourselves these lies, attempting to masquerade our grief, and make excuses for why we sob as they slipped from this life into the next one.
Isn’t this true for anybody you lose? Anyone you cared for?
Eight years ago, Colonel Thomas made me a promise via Facebook messenger.
“Please don’t die,” I wrote, somewhat beseechingly. I was at KFC with Uncle Dale, immediately following the funeral of Joe Irwin. Joe had been a second father figure to Uncle Dale since Pap had passed back in’87. It was evident what he meant to him. They could frequently be found telling lies at The Round Table at Bob’s Mountaineer Restaurant, or maybe coaxing fish in the boat on the Clinch. Joe was generally around when some sort of repair or general work was being performed. He served as “The Pointer”. Anyway, I knew burying him would take a toll on Uncle Dale. He had just lost a good hunting buddy not too long before. Sometimes, people get gone before you’ve settled your mind to it. I didn’t want him to lose any more for a good long time.
“I’ll do my best not to,” Kent promised from Massachusetts.
Kent was one of my very first friends on Facebook. He was pretty techie for a man his age. But, given his career, it wasn’t any wonder. I was still learning the ins and outs of my Blackberry. That thing was complicated! I still believe if you could use one of them, you can fly the space shuttle.
Anyway. Kent kept his promise for over eight years. During that time, my uncle lost another dear friend to cancer and countless neighbors, former coworkers, friends, and family. But Kent was the closest thing he had to a brother. He came over and helped me set out tomato plants when Uncle Dale was in the hospital with his hip surgery. He loaned him a cool little machine, I would liken it to a miniature skid steer to clean out the pine thicket. He was always around, even when he lived all over the country, because they stayed in touch via phone calls and email. And I guess even snail mail back in the early days.
Please be in prayer for the family of Colonel Kent Thomas and my Uncle Dale who isn’t afraid to say he’s going to miss him so, so much.
It’s rained at the Plantation all day. I don’t mind. As I’ve said before, it gives me justification for staying home and doing nothing. Not that I’ve done nothing. I fixed breakfast (the biscuits were of the frozen variety, but the from-scratch ones are time consuming and we never can eat them all), washed a load of laundry, fixed hot dogs on white bread (how can I remember to buy cole slaw, macaroni salad, and chili but not buns?!), finished one book and started another (The Nightingale & The Winter People, if you’re interested), and updated my Goodreads. Six books so far this year. Goal is 75. Staying off social media helps, and I’ve discovered I’m not hardly missing a thing.
I baked sugar cookies and iced them then added hot pink crystal sprinkles, because sprinkles help everything. I’ve certainly needed my allocation of sprinkles lately.
Johnny put together my step stool yesterday. It’s pretty cool, very retro, and also very red. I’m short, and since we don’t have chairs in the dining room anymore, just those benches for the table; I had to have something. I had been using a cube of Mountain Dew, but as much as I weigh I decided that wasn’t a sound idea. Plus it looks cute at the counter. My great grandmother had one just like it, hers was a dark tan color, with mushroom stickers stuck on, and chipping paint revealed a black base. I’m fairly certain everybody in my extended family fell from it at least once. I don’t know what happened to it.
I fell asleep crying last night. Most women wouldn’t admit this, not even to their best friend over wine spritzers, but I’m not typical. I don’t save my tears for the shower. They fall as they may. It’s Johnny’s fault. He got to talking about me needing to think about a new vehicle, which got me feeling all sentimental about Patsy. She was supposed to be our old beater truck, around forever and ever, and then he went and bought that old rattletrap rusty Ford. He’s like, “Hold on, don’t be upset, I didn’t say you had to get rid of her!” And it wasn’t about her. It was about decisions that have to be made. When you’re married, you (hopefully) make them as a unit. Then someone dies and you have to make them alone and you’re not even sure how to do it anymore, without looking towards someone else for their opinion, their assurance or disapproval. So I was thinking about that last night, his weight heavy beside me in bed, his low snores. How many more nights would I have him? How many more decisions will we make together? How will I go on without him? I can’t even put a step stool together, when all it supposedly required was a screwdriver? And then I’m reading this book, The Nightingale, and all the men have gone to fight in the war and the women are doing it all- working all day, splitting firewood, mending clothes, standing in lines with their ration cards only to be turned away because there’s nothing left…and it’s the same thing. How would I make it in wartime? I wouldn’t. I’d be better off just slitting my own throat. That’s with indoor plumbing and electricity to get me through. And I realize that plenty of women do it already, and men too, and maybe you don’t realize how strong you are alone until you have to be. But I know I’m not a plumber, or a roofer, or a ditch digger. Or even a stool putter-togetherer.
I guess my emotions are just on the very surface, like a blister ready to pop. Kent is not doing well. Every update his wife posts sends an arrow straight to my heart. And if it’s affecting me this strongly, how is she able to even stand to type out a message to us? How is my Uncle able to hear it?
You just go on because you have to.
And so it was a normal day and I was thankful for it.
Anybody who has ever read a single post on here can thank Kent. All credit is due to him. He was the one who forced me to start it. He came over and we learned together, pecking buttons over Uncle Dale’s dining room table, and then mine. Please pray for him. He is fighting. He just wants another uneventful day.
Usually by the time you find out you’re dying there’s no time to complete your bucket list.
Hopefully by the time you are dying you almost welcome it, because you’re tired, or you’ve been sick so long it’s almost a relief.
If you’re of the few who have the supreme misfortune of being in your right mind in a semi decent state of health beyond the disease that is killing you quick, all you can think of are the normal plans you had: spending time with your grandkids, where you were gonna plant what in the garden this year, and what car shows you planned to attend with your recently acquired dream machine. But you can’t even do the simple things, let alone the amazing fun things because you’re too damn sick to move. No Alaskan cruise, no trip to Greece, no skydiving. No more trips to your favorite restaurant and no last chance to see your favorite band perform one last time.
I would like to write more but my tears will not allow it.
While it would be a blessing to have the few days or weeks left with your family and friends… and to know, to be able to prepare and say your goodbyes…it is still a hardship filled with heartbreak.
Death touches us all eventually. Please don’t shield your children from it, it is a normal part of life and maybe it won’t hurt so intensely if they learn about it early on.
Don’t wait to travel. Don’t wait to remodel. Don’t worry about the cost you’ll pay in interest because by the time you’re able to afford the better life you might be almost gone and unable to enjoy it.
I’m not dying but a friend is. A very BEST friend of one of the dearest people in my life. It will touch us all and I don’t know who’s the most scared.
I feel like all I write about lately is death but it’s winter, the season for it, I suppose. It doesn’t make it any easier to cope.
Please lift the Thomas family up in prayer. And my family too. Miracles happen every day.
