Too Many Bags?

Despite being late to an appointment with a new dentist and despite the sideways downpour, I pulled into a Walgreens lot so that I could buy toothpaste, a toothbrush, and some floss. I won’t go to the dentist without a quick clean up first – like my mother who used to pick up the house before the cleaning lady came over. I flossed in the car, my gums getting grumpy with me and my driving focus thoroughly compromised. When I finally parked I looked at my workout bag, my clothes give-away bag, my work bag, my trash bag, my cloth grocery bags, and then that bag that’s just…just always in my car…what is that bag? And I settled on my backpack.
I think it was the faint sound of the radio as my car door latched that made me realize my keys were still in the ignition – and the door was locked. It was a slow motion moment for sure.

“Hello,” I said to the receptionist, “I have locked my keys in my car.”
“Oh! Just now?”
“Mmhm.”
Calm. It happens too often not to be calm anymore.

I then proceeded to unknowingly give her the wrong insurance card and watch her scramble to figure it out while I called Triple A. Once I realized what I had done, I searched my purse – wherein I found the ATM card that I thought I lost over a month ago – and which I had since replaced. Luckily the receptionist was understanding and the correct insurance card was processed easily. After the appointment and a long wait for the guy to come open my car… I went home to relax.
The next morning I was headed down the stairs to work when I passed a small pile of clothes strewn out over the staircase two floors down. My workout clothes. From my workout bag. Not just a sock or a tank top – but the CONTENTS of my workout bag. Including, but not limited to, a small pair of green underwear that I had accidentally dyed in the wash once when I made the mistake of washing it with a new pink sweatshirt. So. Not just ANY pair of underwear – but the kind that looks a little sad…not quite green and not quite pink. And all balled up and suspicious looking because I had done nothing but sweat in them for a good forty minutes.  Was I drunk the day before? I mean, am I just a drunk and don’t know it?
I have to say I laughed out loud. I mean, I picked them up. But. It was pretty funny.

FIG

I came to call Amy by the nickname Fig – both because she was a great baker whose fig filled croissants made everyone in the office cry, and because there was something about the color and scent of figs that reminded me (like Amy did) that there are good real things that grow right out of the earth. She took to the nickname easily and often met it with a quick, full smile.

I wonder, sometimes, if I was the only one who thought there was something cruel about the way Suzanne helped Fig by initiating a “great make over.” It was a Friday and the end of a long week when Suzanne  stood on her toes and called over all of the cubes, beckoning us over to the bathrooms with a wave of her arm. When Fig finally emerged, triumph just under her folded hands and newly arched eyebrows, everyone tried to make a sound of success and surprise. There was so much hope in everyone to push through what was in front of them and to see Hollywood and magic… to see her transformed. But when they let their shoulders down, everyone knew that Fig was still Fig, in her permanent way. I don’t know why we all wanted her to change. Or if it was something else we wanted. Maybe for Fig to come out and change all of us.

Despite my long history with Suzanne – the sleepovers, the beer smuggling, the homework copying, the late night phone confessions, the venting and crying and laughing – after all these years I still felt there was some part of her I just couldn’t find. It was as though she was constantly crawling under a fence and far away from me, just escaping me – just. In an effort to understand, I tried to decide that it was out of  personal habit that she had put up Fig’s hair exactly as she fixed her own. She shadowed Fig’s eyes the same, loaned her a just-too-small favorite dress. I don’t believe Suzanne lacked the imagination to find a Fig who was new in the world. At the very least, she was capable of settling on some small but clever physical improvement on the sweatshirt clad, earnest, crazy haired, coworker we were all smart enough to adore (and a lot of us weren’t very smart). Even if it was just to perk Fig up a bit. We were all game for that.

But maybe it was something in the suggested lack of vision that smelled more like malice. The hairstyle, the eyes, the clothes – all drawing a sharp contrast between Suzanne and Fig. Fig was frizz where Suzanne was smooth and silky, thick where Suzanne was thin… And on Fig: there were open and declarative nostrils where on Suzanne, there was only the smallest sniff of a nose. Despite my long standing fondness for Suzanne and all of her considerable charm, I knew that  her heels and pantyhose and fuschia decked office cube didn’t add up to Fig’s laugh, her concern, the hand she put on your arm. But did Suzanne know? Could she know and not know? In remaking Fig – did she lose her way and commit to nothing but tell us everything? Suzanne, I thought for the first time, Be careful. Be more careful. Everyone can see you.

A Monologue?

You know when I was a kid they used to teach the Palmer method. It was making the circle and …you look at Patty Kronke’s penmanship and it’s just all (she makes lines straight up and down in the air with her finger while sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth). Course back in the Civil War days you know, that’s why all the letters look the same and they all have that great penmanship because they used to teach them how to write in school except maybe for the kids who lived out in the fields. These days they don’t teach kids any kind of penmanship. I see them grabbing pens with their pointer and their pinky and then, I’ve even seen this! (she closes her whole hand around a pen and twists her wrist, pretending to write.) Terrible! Illegible!