I know that someday you'll find better things.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A Perfect Cure

The journey is over, friends. I have found the cure for being a perfectionist.

Remember when I checked out every book in the Plano library system about perfectionism, read each one three times to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and took all those detailed notes along the way?

That did not cure me.

Neither did yoga, meditation, hypnosis, prayer, magnesium supplements, or quitting caffeine. And don’t even get me started about “letting go”.

As it turns out, the cure was upstairs in my closet the whole time. One little box was all it took.

If you or someone you know is a recovering perfectionist, one purchase and four hellacious afternoons should do the trick. The cure is closer than you could have ever imagined!

Are you on the edge of your seat?
Are you ready to finally care less?

Get out there and find a 1961 Hubley ‘Model A Town Sedan’ metal model car kit.

Counter-intuitive, right? A task requiring such precision should be a perfectionist’s dream come true. 

Well, perhaps in order for this to be truly effective, you will also need these factors:

  • No previous experience with any kind of model kit
  • No previous experience with any kind of metal
  • No access to any tools that could possibly help ease the tedium of the provided file
  • One incredibly ambitious and talkative six-year-old helper (I will loan you mine if you’d like.)

This adventure started in the usual way, with the thought of ‘How hard could it be?’

And in fact, opening the box wasn’t very hard at all. It was also not hard for my enthusiastic helper to pop open all the other little baggies within the box, effectively treating our family room to one very brief hail storm of itty bitty screws and other little pieces.

It was hard to find all those little pieces, though. Eventually, we just had to give up and move on.

We also discovered it was quite hard to do step one of the instructions, which involved putting real rubber tires onto tiny plastic thingamabobs. There’s a chance that it would have been a challenging task in 1961 when the kit was new, but now that the tires had been sitting around for 52 years, it was darn near impossible. We got two of them in place and accidentally snapped the other three to bits.

“I’m sure we can get some replacements at Hobby Lobby,” said my helper.
“I think I’m going to need some wine,” I replied.

Step two and step three were not impossible. Several times we turned to one another and said, “We’re doing this! I can’t believe we’re really doing this!"

The second day was not as exciting. It was tough to discern what was part of the car and what was part of the excess kit-frame. The tip snapped off the file. Although we own ten trillion screw drivers, none of them seemed to be small enough to fit in in the miniscule slots on the heads of the tiny screws.

The third day was downright painful. More pieces got lost. No matter how hard we tried to be neat, there were metal bits everywhere. Our fingers were covered in bruises, scrapes, and slivers. We finally found the Dremel tool in the garage, but all of the accessories were lost. A visit to Hobby Lobby was entirely futile. They had neither replacement parts nor Dremel tips. In fact, they had nothing useful. Mia pointed to a display in the science section and argued that the astronaut icecream could be useful, but this situation could not be solved with a dose of over-priced dehydrated dessert.

That night, we went to bed discouraged.

When I woke up on the fourth morning, something inside me had changed. I no longer cared if the edges were filed or if all the flashing was properly removed. I no longer cared if we had all the tires, or only two tires, or no tires at all.

I no longer cared if we ever finished the stupid thing. Ever.

I think this means I’m cured, don’t you?

Monday, July 29, 2013

Integrity

Sometimes keeping your mouth shut is not the best advice. After all, silence implies consent.

“So-and-so’s aunt used to be an instructor, and she mailed him a copy of the life-guarding exam. We’ll memorize the key, and then we’ll party. The ice luge is already on the way and everything. Come over; it’ll be great!”

This didn’t seem great.
This was very not-great.
I needed to buy time to think.

“Maybe,” I stalled. “Hey, there’s some stuff that I need to take care of. Can I call you back?”

It seems appropriate to mention here that for years I have been mistaken for someone of above-average intellect. This is not accurate. I do not think quickly. I think hard. It is not gifted intelligence, it is diligence and tenacity. My ‘gifts’ are effort and obsession.

If all my classmates cheated on this test, they’d receive their certifications. People would hire them because they were certified to save lives, but they might not be able to do that. They’d get a perfect score on the exam, but who knows if they’d have the skills to back it up?

Then again, if everyone really was there except for me, and I told the authorities what was happening, and there were consequences, it would be obvious that I’d been the rat.

If I went to the party and avoided the answer key, but somehow someone did find out about the situation, I’d be an accessory to the crime. Or at least guilty by association.

If I didn’t go to the party, I wouldn’t have proof that the cheating had even happened, so trying to alert someone would be futile.

Hearsay.

Was anyone else from the class having this internal debate at that moment? I hoped so.

I couldn’t be a part of it, so I made up some lame excuse as to why I couldn’t attend the festivities. I don’t remember what it was, but I’m sure it was awful—I’m an atrocious liar. It’s the whole lack-of-thinking-quickly thing.

After the exam the next day, they all high-fived their way out of the classroom in record time. I was the last one to finish, and I left alone.

They probably got 100s. I didn’t. I earned an 88.

The injustice stung, but the pain was temporary. The burn was soothed by the reassurance that if I had to save a life, I could do it. It was the first time that I really started to question the validity of numerical grades.

Despite the certification and the confidence that I could save a life, I never sought a lifeguarding position. I didn’t want to cross paths with any of those people ever again. We could never be teammates—my trust in them could never be restored.

Not participating in the cheating ring was the honest decision. It was not the honorable decision, though. The honorable decision would have been to speak up and tell someone. I have no idea to whom I should have revealed this knowledge. The instructor? The dean?

To this day, I don’t know.

I say ‘to this day’ because I’ve thought about it many, many times since it happened. Guilt stains my heart, for silence implies consent, and my reluctance to speak up endorsed the choice of the cheaters.

Sometimes my mind runs wild, and I wonder if any lives were ever lost because I didn’t have the courage to speak out.

For years and years I've confessed this personal indiscretion to my students, and not just to illustrate that guilt can have such a profound impact on one’s conscience.

I’ve told them because I want them to understand the way that integrity protects honor and cheating compromises it.

Cheating steals away pieces of a person’s life-long honor. No assignment, no project, no evaluation—NOTHING I could ever ask of my students could ever be worth losing even a tiny piece of their honor.

People sometimes forget (or overlook) that cheating is not a symptom of apathy. The apathetic don’t have the desire to cheat. Cheating comes about when there is a reward for proficient performance and the person being measured doesn’t have the knowledge and/or skills (or confidence in the knowledge and/or skills) to perform independently.

The greatest external danger in cheating is the way that it misrepresents a person’s capability. 

In a purely academic setting, misleading an instructor removes the opportunity to remediate, forfeiting long-term understanding.

When the stakes are higher—professional exams and certifications—cheating could be the catalyst for a life-or-death crisis. 

If It's a Girl

“How was your Christmas break?” Phillis asked, and she leaned in for a post-holiday long-time-no-see hug.
“Stay back! Germs!” I’d yelped as I’d leaped away.
Then I’d explained, “It was good, mostly, until a few days ago. I’ve got a bug that I just can’t seem to shake—exhaustion, nausea, the works.”
“Do you think it’s the flu?”
“Probably. I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus,” I lowered my voice to a whisper, “and my boobs feel like they’re on fire!”

Phillis looked at me intently for a few seconds, and then her solemn expression transformed into a grin. “You don’t have the flu; you’re pregnant!” she proclaimed knowingly.

“That’s not… likely,” I stammered.

We’d been trying for at least six months, no luck. Nobody knew that, of course. (Too intimate!) Frustrated, we’d suspended hope for the holidays, and on New Year’s Eve, I’d partied hard.

I’d sucked down practically a fifth of vodka.
I’d smoked half a dozen cigarettes and a fat cigar.
I’d even had eggnog that was made with real eggs.

Phillis’s diagnosis remained on my mind throughout the day, so the next morning before leaving for work, I grabbed a test from my stockpile.

I waited for the results to develop and contemplated the irony—for the first time since we’d decided to start a family, I was praying that I wasn’t pregnant. I’d already done everything wrong!

The lines appeared. Could I trust that verdict?

I opened another test kit.
Then another, just to be sure.
Positive, positive, positive.

Feeling justified for buying pregnancy test kits in bulk and absolutely terrified, I called out to the shape in the darkened bedroom, “Hey! We’re going to have a baby!”

He rolled over, propped himself up on an elbow, and said sleepily,

“If it’s a girl, can we name her Mia?”

***

Coincidentally, Russ learned of my pregnancy about a month later, but he found out in a dramatically different way.

Remember, this was when we were colleagues and friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

He stopped by my classroom during my planning time to ask about an upcoming lesson, not honoring the unwritten rule that if the door is closed, company is probably not welcome.

Here is how the conversation went:

“Jeez! Ever heard of knocking?” I chastized.
“Oops, sorry” he said, crossing the room. “Do you know where the text-structure samples—“
“Get back! Get back!
“What?”
“Stop! Don’t take another step!” He continued moving toward me. “What are you doing? I said stop!”
“My word! What is with you lately?” he said as he started edging back toward the door.
“Okay, fine. I’m—“ confession time, deep breath “—pregnant, and—“
“Oh! Wait, and?”
“And I’m extremely gassy. Okay? There you have it. Now go away and if you have any other questions, use the phone!”

He blushed, cheeks absolutely crimson as he reached the doorway.

 “And for the love of God and all that is holy, close that door behind you!” I called after him.


Sunday, July 28, 2013

The Camel in the Bathtub

Mia watched Let's Make a Deal for the first time--and probably the last time--this morning.

"Why is the lady so disappointed? Why is the audience saying 'Awwwww!'?"

"Remember how she had to choose between three thousand dollars or whatever was behind the curtain? She chose the curtain."

"Right. And she won that camel in the bathtub!"

Maybe she did understand the game after all.

"Exactly. So everybody is bummed out because she should have kept the money."

"Is it a real camel or a stuffed one? If it's real, can she ride the camel? Will she keep it in her yard? How will she get it home? And what about the bathtub, will she be able to keep that, too?"

"I really don't know, Mia."

"Well, I don't know what their problem is. Who would want the money when you could have a camel in the bathtub?"



Friday, July 26, 2013

Near-Death in Mexico City, Part 6

If you've missed any of the previous installments, you can view the entire tale (including this conclusion) by clicking here.

***
His side, at last:

We were hopefully nearing the end of an evening that I remember as a weird combination of late-night cable reruns. Our adventure began as Airport 1978, next transitioned abruptly into The Amazing Race, and then The Twilight Zone.  I was numb enough from our harrowing experience to not get aggravated by the huge crowd at the hotel front desk. We had survived; we were safely out of the airport. I could wait in line with my hands tied behind my back.

Even though we had led this rag-tag group of travelers to the Promised Land, the duty-free debacle caused our arrival to be a good 30 minutes after everyone else.  I don’t recall seeing my Bob in the lobby (with any luck he was mugged and stripped of his double-triple platinum card). I did see reformed loud and angry Bob and the jerk-lady that scolded me about the tequila among the rest of the passengers. I tried my best to talk to the folks that I didn’t hate and to avoid eye contact with those that I did.  My main goal at the time was to keep my eye on the prize: the very well-stocked bar adjacent to the check-in desk.

The only thing now between me and total bar bliss was getting the key and dropping our bags in the room. I shouldn’t have been surprised that this seemingly easy step would be a difficult one. The first problem was that Courtney was absolutely adamant about not flying Mexicana Air ever again.  She managed to have a total breakdown on the short trip from the lobby to the second floor room. “There was something wrong with that plane! They were lying to us about customs!”  Both were very good points, but I worked extremely hard toward getting those tickets, and they wouldn’t cost me another $500 in cancellation and re-booking fees. Who did she think I was, Big-Time Bob?  I lucked out and somehow got her to agree to sleep on it and discuss it in the morning. 

When we entered the room, the second problem came up. “The room smells like smoke. It’s disgusting,” my beautiful, sensitive new fiancée announced.   

Without the energy for my usual polite demeanor, I mumbled, “You can call to get a new room if you would like. I’ll be at the bar.” 

As I sat on the stool, I noticed she had followed me down. I caught my second break-- maybe I could buy her enough alcohol to forget about the dangerous airline and crappy hotel room. 

We spent the next few hours spending a fortune on overcooked Mexican food and overpriced tequila. Apparently, Courtney could only feel okay about ordering from the dingy little bar if we exclusively drank Patron.  I'm guessing her reasoning was that the staff would have more respect for the top-shelf spirit by not using a dirty glass and washing their hands thoroughly before pouring it.  

After a while, the warm glow of the drinks had lightened our disposition significantly.  On the trip back up to the room, Courtney resumed her rant about conspiracy theories and emergency vehicles, but at least she said nothing about the room that awaited us.  I managed to side-step the rebooking of the flight again as we re-entered the room by using my standard, “I understand your concern, and I think we should sleep on it” line. 

I took a shower to wash away the day’s events while Courtney was still stewing about the smell and cleanliness.  I began to believe that I had gotten away with the thoughtless comment about the gross room until I stepped out of the bathroom and realized that Courtney had fallen asleep with all of her clothes on atop the sheets and all.

The next morning, I somehow talked Courtney into dropping the idea of cancelling and rebooking the flight. I began to hope that I didn’t live (or not live) to regret it. The beginning of the day unfolded as almost an apology for the events that had transpired the day before.  The hotel treated us to a full breakfast, the layout of the airport magically became clear to us, we instantly found where our tequila was, and got to our gate in plenty of time.

Unfortunately, we were both so nervous about the impending flight we did not enjoy the luxury of everything lining up in this way until weeks after the incident. 

At our gate, we saw many of the familiar faces from the first flight.  Today, the relationship with our fellow passengers was different.  There was a kinship.  We were more like comrades who had just finished fighting a battle together instead of weary travelers fighting each other for the last few vouchers.

Most of us were abuzz about why the plane turned around and the reason for all of the emergency vehicles.  There were a few interesting theories like radar trouble, mechanical malfunctions, and suspicious passengers (I could have helped the authorities out with that one). I wanted to add my thoughts about Big-Time Bob calling his an airline and his wife in the middle of our descent, but the anger was still too fresh to revisit.  There were many great ideas, yet none of us could come up with a definitive explanation for the mysterious event.

The flight finally boarded.  Both of us were on edge.  It was too late to cancel now. Even though I had done a great job convincing myself that we had made the right decision in taking the voucher with Mexicana, that it would be okay, I just couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom. 

The lump in my throat became larger and more painful as the flight took off and stabilized at the correct altitude. This first step to a safe flight did not quiet my fears.  My pulse was racing, my palms were sweating, and my mind kept wandering down terrible paths.  I was just starting to contemplate whether or not Courtney would say “I do” in marriage before she said “I told you so” in a fiery plane crash when something caught my eye.

The morning sun shining through the tiny airplane windows illuminated a beautiful and familiar liquid on the flight attendant’s cart. The lovely clink of the large liquor bottles as the cart rolled towards us (unlike those pathetic mini bottles on U.S. flights) was like church bells before Sunday service.  The best part was it seemed to be complementary.

It was only 9 a.m.! Paying for alcohol at this hour would be crazy, but taking a little free lubricant to ease our fears sounded almost responsible.  Without much thought, we both said in unison, “Tequila, please!”  It was obvious that we were making the drink lady uncomfortable.  In her broken English and hand motions, she went through a variety of mixers to accompany our breakfast drink. 

“Margarita mix?”
“No.”
“Juice?”
“No.”
“Soda?”
“No.”

I’m not sure if it was the gleam in our eyes, our refusal of all of her offerings, or our nervous demeanor that caused it, but she was definitely becoming frightened.  We decided that we would say yes to ice, her final offering, just to keep the peace.

The free alcohol began flowing; the rest of the flight was lovely.  They even served a real meal on the flight, with real silverware!  It was ironic that this flight from the same airline was so classy and comfortable when the one the night before was so horrific. The landing went off without a hitch.  We had finally made it out of Mexico City alive!

The final step in getting this nightmare behind us was U.S. customs. It was hot, the line was long and slow, and German shepherds weaved in and out of the cattle pen that we were all stuck in. It’s odd considering what I had just been through, but I began to become increasingly nervous about my Cuban cigars that I had in my luggage. The dogs sniffed me a few times and moved on. Whew! We finally got to the desk. 

The customs guy looked suspiciously at our bags then at our passports.  I was not in the clear yet. My heart stopped when he said I would have to go to the special line down in the basement. It's all over, I thought.  I survived certain death over Mexico just to rot in customs prison in Texas for the rest of my life because of some stupid contraband stemming from some stupid law that was created because we didn’t like Fidel Castro in the early 60s.  There were only two people ahead of us in the “special” line, but it was the longest wait that I can remember since we left for Puerto Vallarta.

When we finally got to the desk, I prepared myself for the feeling of handcuffs around my wrists while I practiced my most innocent, indignant face for my impending performance.  Then, a sort of happy surprise occurred.  It wasn’t the cigars that I was here for; it was the alcohol. 

Again!

In one more Three Stooges-style eye-poke, my great bargain on alcohol at the duty-free caused me yet another delay.  Apparently, the Mexicans who'd told us that we could have two liters per person didn’t know about the great state of Texas’s law about only one liter per person.

The customs officer must have seen how much that I needed to keep the cheap spirits which had already cost so much, because he claimed that he didn’t care about the one-liter law. He didn’t work for the state; he worked for the federal government. He told us to take all of the bottles and just keep the law in mind in the future.

During the entire customs experience, the running joke among our group had become giving the customs officials a hard time for leaving at 11 pm and getting us stuck in Mexico. No one let on the fear and confusion they felt when the officials answered, “I’m not sure what you mean; I clocked out at 3 a.m.!”

No one believed the customs story told by the airline, but the official denial would mean that we would never get what we all craved.  Many of us managed to get home with cheap liquor, Cuban cigars, and even some pretty fantastic memories.  Unfortunately, all of us from the doomed flight would have to leave the airport without answers for why we almost died in Mexico City.



Thursday, July 25, 2013

Near-Death in Mexico City, Part 5

Click here to go back to Part 4


***
Her side, still:

It was my turn to lose my cool, which almost never happens.

“It happened! We were there. The power--and, and-- emergency exits!  And-- and-- The Bobs! The Bobs were there! There were at least thirteen emergency vehicles when we arrived. I counted!” I was now pointing frantically toward the wall of glass windows that looked out to the tarmac and speaking to the whole line of agents at their desks.

Things were getting very sci-fi, very quickly.

I had seen the previews for a movie where something similar had happened. Pieces of this lady’s life were just disappearing as if they’d never happened. People were vanishing from the framed photos on her end-table left and right. The movie had looked too eerie to watch, and now the premise was my reality.

“I don’t know anything about this, do you?” the agent asked the others. They shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

“Could you please check again? Call someone, maybe?” Russ asked calmly. How could he be so composed? This was much more upsetting than the mean lady in the customs line.

After a few minutes, she placed the phone receiver back in the cradle and printed out two tickets for an early morning flight the following day.

We set off in search of the skybridge to the hotel.

The lobby was packed with people from our flight. Even the Bobs were still there, waiting. After an eternity, they gave us our room key and we went upstairs.

The room was disgusting and smoky.  It seemed futile to request a change since we would only be there for six hours, anyway.

We went down to the lobby and bar area. I can’t remember if we ate or drank our dinner. Some of the people from our flight were still in line, waiting for a room. I wanted to offer them ours.  

Russ told me to hush and he ordered us another round.

We didn’t drink enough, though, because I was still thoroughly grossed-out when we returned to our room a few hours later.

My plan was to position myself on top of the still-made bed with my sweatshirt draped over the pillow as a barrier to the germs.  When I remembered what Rebecca had once told me about sheets being washed nightly compared to comforters being washed less frequently, I changed my mind and decided to sleep on top of the bare sheets.

Fully-clothed. 
Shoes, too.

Russ said I was overreacting. Can you believe it?
After the way he’d behaved in the customs line?

Me. Overreacting.


***

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Near-Death in Mexico City, Part 4

Click here to go back to Part 3


***

Her side, continued:

I closed my eyes and clenched Russ’s hand across the aisle and waited.

When we bumped—not crashed--against the ground, a collective exhale of relief and a slightly strangled cheer erupted in the cabin. The pilot’s voice came back over the intercom, but I was too busy looking at all the emergency vehicles, red and blue lights blazing, that flanked each side of the plane as we taxied toward the building to listen to what he was saying. There were ambulances, fire trucks, and police cruisers as far as the eye could see. Even with my limited view of the window, I counted at least thirteen of them.

“I bet it was a terrorist,” Russ’s Bob said knowingly.
I thought Russ was going lean over and punch him in the face, I really did.

The airport helpers wheeled a staircase over to the plane. Many passengers abandoned the tradition of politely waiting for the people ahead of them to leave and instead, they stampeded toward the exits. I’m pretty sure that The Bobs were the first two off the plane.

We were quite a distance from the actual airport building, and the rest of us scurried across the tarmac like a line of little ants, eager to put distance between ourselves and that plane. We entered through an unmarked door to a very unofficial section of the airport that also seemed to be under construction.

Accustomed to leading crowds of people from our years of experience during fire-drills, Russ and I went into action. “Does anyone here speak Spanish?” we asked, and a large fellow bearing a striking resemblance to Mr. Bean raised his hand.

“Follow him!” we said, and everyone sort of fell into line behind us.

The airline had arranged for rooms at an adjacent hotel attached to the airport by a skybridge, but in order to get there, we’d have to pass back through the customs area to properly exit the airport. This task involved navigating through a maze-like series of corridors that would have made BF Skinner proud.

Our herd was becoming anxious and irritable, and it was contagious. Every minute that passed heightened the sense of urgency and desperation. We descended on the customs checkpoint like a herd of something exotic and ferocious. Hyenas? Madagascar hissing cockroaches?

The customs agents wouldn’t let Russ and me exit. “Please. I just want to go home,” Russ pleaded with them, and I was surprised and uncomfortable. I’d never seen him beg before.

The lady who was standing behind me, whom I already disliked for her violation of my personal space, interjected.

“Get out of the way so the rest of us can go. The pilot said if you had duty-free items you needed to return them before you could leave,” she said in a snotty, know-it-all way. "Weren’t you listening?”

Oh-so-slowly, Russ turned to face her.
WASN'T I LISTENING?” he roared.

Now that’s more familiar. Thank goodness.

“Calm down. Don’t let her get to you,” I soothed. “Just ignore her. Stressful situations can turn people into intolerable bitches,” I added, purposely loud enough for her to hear. It was the first time—and possibly the only time—I’ve ever name-called to someone’s face, and it was to a stranger! In public! And profane!

Russ's jaw dropped open, for this was a side of me that neither one of us had ever seen. With his anger toward the meanie-pants sufficiently replaced by shock, I took this opportunity to lead him away from the line and back toward the airport. How on earth were we going to find the exact duty-free shop where we’d purchased the tequila?

We wandered back through the maze and somehow into the main concourse. Duty-free shops lined every hall, and everything took on a surreal fun-house mirror quality.

I don’t know how we found the store, but we did.

Since we were back inside the airport proper, and since we were surrounded by Mexicana booking desks, we realized we should probably try to secure a flight for the following day.

Weary from the evening’s adventures, we approached an agent and asked if she spoke English.

“Hi. We were on the plane that just returned to the airport, so we need to reschedule and book tickets for a flight to Dallas tomorrow, please.”
“No problem. Why did you miss your flight?”

What?
We tried again.

“We didn’t miss the flight. We were on the flight. We were half-way to Dallas. The plane turned around came back.”
“We don’t show a record of that,” she said.

WHAT?!


***


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Near-Death in Mexico City, Part 3

For Part 2, click here.

Her side, continued:

We were seated in an emergency exit row, so I prepared for our impending responsibilities. I grabbed the comic-book style pamphlet from the seat-pocket in front of me and started memorizing the procedure for popping open the hatch and inflating the slide.

I wondered if the flight attendants would stop by for one last cram session, but they were nowhere to be seen. I craned my neck and spotted them settling into those funny flimsy-looking little jump seats and strapping themselves to the wall, seatbelts criss-crossing their chests.

Okay! This is really happening. Get your game face on, I thought calmly.

Surprisingly, I am reliably rock-solid in life-or-death emergencies. It’s only the everyday life-or-death situations, like raw chicken on the counter, that really rattle me.

The power (and exit signs) flickered on and off intermittently, and the turbulent trembling of the plane continued. Confident that I could satisfy my civic duties when it came time to open the emergency exit, I tried to get a sense of the craft. 

We were descending, but not gradually. The plane would make a steep drop, and then plateau for a bit. Drop, plateau. Drop, plateau.

It seemed to me that a crash would be less controlled. Maybe we weren’t going to die.

When we were low enough to see the orangey-haze radiating from the city, the plane’s behavior changed again. First we’d bank steeply to one side and then the other. One side window would reveal exclusively ground while the other showed only sky. Moments later, we’d roll in the opposite direction and the scenery would exchange.

We were careening through the air while swinging like a pendulum.
I started to feel seasick.

My Bob looked as though he was auditioning for a job as an ice-sculpture. He sat absolutely rigid and silent. I tried to reassure him with my limited knowledge of pilot training. (See? That semester of Air Force ROTC wasn’t a complete waste, Mom and Dad!)

What was Russ’s Bob up to? To my absolute horror and fascination, he wiggled his cell phone from his pocket and started dialing.

Within a few moments, it was clear that he had not called to bid his loved ones his final goodbyes. His terse, one-word sentences were the hallmark of a conversation with an automated menu.

“Yes! No! Yes! Customer Service!” he shouted.

I couldn’t believe it. He was calling to lodge a complaint before we even met our fate?!

Nope. He’d called another airline and was trying to arrange for a flight, and it wasn’t going well. “Don’t you know I’m a double-triple platinum member?” he hollered into the phone. Either he lost reception or the airline hung up on him.

He grumbled and started dialing again.

“Listen, babe. I’m on this Mexicana flight and we’re headed back to Mexico City because of stupid US customs. I need you to book me the first available flight on American Airlines for tomorrow morning. Tell them I’m a double-triple platinum member,” and then he rattled off his twenty-digit member number.

Suddenly, I realized we were very close to the ground. I hoped we were near the airport or at least somewhere relatively flat and uncrowded.

This was it. 
Showtime.


***

If you really, really hate cliff hangers and you really, really don't want to wait until tomorrow, I have the next part mostly ready. Caution, PG 13 for violence, language, intense scenes, and drug references. Still interested? You can get a sneak peek at Part 4 if you click here.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Near-Death in Mexico City, Part 2

For Part 1 of this harrowing tale, click here.

Her side:

Russ's account of the events thus far are fairly accurate, but there are some fundamental things that he left out.

For our Puerto Vallarta adventure, we were traveling Russ-Style, which meant all-inclusive, ocean-front, and excessive luggage. 

Who needs cowboy boots in Puerto Vallarta?

(To be fair, traveling Courtney-style is equally extreme: public transportation, sharing one small backpack of belongings, and walking five miles across town in flip-flops for supposedly-famous BBQ.)

Here is what I remember about the vacation itself: I was overwhelmed by food (especially Brazilian churrascaria meat-a-palooza night) underprepared for UV rays (last time ever!) and extremely surprised by Russ’s marriage proposal.

It’s a shame that the voyage home overshadowed the diamond ring.

There were two legs of our return journey.  Puerto Vallarta to Mexico City was unremarkable. Mexico City to Dallas was horrific.

The real action started during layover.

The layover was supposed to be short—so short that we wouldn’t have time to do much more than use the restroom and maybe buy gummi bears and a box of Good and Plenty pink-and-whites. The airport waiting room was huge—it seemed that six or seven planes’ worth of passengers were in similar predicaments. 

When the flight was delayed, I think Russ was actually happy about it. He'd been wanting to go to the duty-free stores to stock up on good tequila, and now he finally had his chance. We returned to the gate just in time to hear that the flight had been delayed again.

The waiting area was packed with people and luggage and lights and sounds and chaos. Sensory overload was imminent. Even with all the stimulation, I could distinctly hear big booming voices behind us big-timing away and that was pushing me to my limit.

“I really hope they’re not on our flight,” I whispered to Russ, as the voices continued bellowing and blaring about American-Airlines-executive-club this and I-told-him-a-thing-or-two that.

I think the twisted little version of Would-You-Rather was Russ's idea, maybe to get my mind off the sensory ledge. There was no shortage of candidates we'd preferred not to share elbow space with, but in the end, we both identified The Bobs as the least desirable seat-mates. 


“You better hope we didn’t jinx it, because the way fate works, well, you know,” I hissed at Russ.  Murphy’s Law and whatnot.

Fortunately, we were filled with immediate and immense relief when passengers in rows 20- 30 were invited to board and The Bobs proceeded toward the gate. 

"See?" Russ said. "I don't know why you are always so superstitious."

Moments later, rows 10-20 were invited, and we joined the giant customs line.

Russ sailed through his station while I tried to pantomime the purpose of my hair-straightening iron to the customs official. Meanwhile, The Bobs were delayed due to something about a 300-foot drop cord.

Upon boarding the plane, Russ and I were dismayed to discover that our seats, although in the same row, were separated by the aisle. Especially since we’d only brought one ipod and a jack-splitter so we could listen to the same songs together. The King of Romance had prepared several special playlists for this express purpose. Maybe our seatmates would have mercy on our newly-engaged souls. 

The plane began to fill up, but nobody had arrived in our row yet. Would we even have seatmates? Maybe we’d each have three seats to ourselves! To heck with the playlist, I wanted bonus leg room. (I did not mention this to the King of Romance.)

And then, at the last possible second, guess who came down the aisle and impatiently demanded entry to our section?

Bob and Bob and their respective lady-friends.
Really.

"Can you believe those jerks? They stole my drop cord! Do you know how much I paid for that drop cord?! Lousy thieves," hollered Angry Bob to everybody and nobody as he plunked himself down beside me. The other Bob muscled past Russ and convinced his lady-friend that he was more deserving of the window seat.

You cannot un-jinx yourself from Murphy's Law, friends. Because of our careless words and actions earlier, we had become a Bob sandwich.

Russ and I exchanged looks of shock and horror, but I was the first to regain my wits. I narrowed my eyes at him and telepathically channeled this message:  

My Bob is more obnoxious than your Bob. I claim the ipod

He forked it over. Moments later, his Bob started singing, “ROX-anne! You don’t have to put on the red light!” in falsetto at about a zillion decibels and I felt a twinge of guilt. Not enough to make me return the ipod, though.

My Bob, who’d seemed so angry and loud in the airport, turned out to be pretty mellow once he was separated from Russ’s Bob. He sat calmly, eyes and mouth closed.

Russ’s Bob, however, was just getting warmed up. He kept on boasting and big-timing, and now the subject had changed to how skilled he was at landing planes. Eventually, the lady-friend skillfully weaseled it out of him: Bob hadn’t flown planes, he’d played video games about flying planes.

I wanted to make eye contact with Russ so that we could raise our eyebrows and suppress our giggles, but he had his hands over his face and his thumbs against his ears, trying to block out his Bob.

We’d been in the air for about forty minutes and both Bobs appeared to have fallen asleep. There was a cozy and comfortable darkness throughout the plane’s cabin, illuminated only by glow of personal overhead lights from passengers reading.

The captain made an announcement, and those who were awake sat up straighter. Murmurs filled the air, the tones increasingly alarmed, as strangers turned to one another and asked for clarification.

Did he just say we were turning around and heading back to Mexico City?

The captain’s voice returned through the intercom. “Because of our delayed departure, US customs will be closed by the time we’re scheduled to arrive in Dallas. We’ve been instructed to return to Mexico City for the night.”

That doesn’t seem right, everyone murmured. Then, the plane shook violently, the cabin went completely dark, and the emergency lights of the exit signs and aisle-runway flickered to life.

Not one passenger said a word.
The silence was deafening.



***

You can continue to Part 3 if you click here.

Near-Death in Mexico City, Part 1

We are fairly evenly matched. Generally speaking, he’s funnier, and I’m nicer. He’s the more natural wordsmith, but I have more time to finesse. He’s more direct, but I am more precise—especially when it comes to typing skills. He’s smarter, but I work harder. You’ll have to decide for yourself which of us is more accurate as we collaborate in the telling of the time we almost died in Mexico City.


His Side:

Things could not have gone better in Puerto Vallarta.  The weather was beautiful, we saw a whale, and Courtney proposed to me. (That last part may have been the other way around; my memory fails me sometimes.)

Needless to say, it was a trip to paradise.

But, like many major events in my life, every time something is going so well, it is just a matter of time before it bursts into flames, causing me to lament my perfect event by channeling Don Adams in Get Smart and declaring, “Missed it by that much!” The perfection peak in which the week rose to should have tipped me off that something was about to go terribly wrong.  Instead, I blindly and happily strolled hand-in-hand with my new fiancée into the day that I almost died in Mexico City.

I’ve always been curious about Mexico City.  It is one of the places we talk about in sixth grade social studies and I have always wanted to experience the rich history and culture of the crowning jewel of the entire country.  I was a little bummed that we were only able to see the airport this time, especially since we learned pretty early on after arrival that we had a fairly significant delay for our flight.  We were so close to a great day trip in the city and yet so far.  

We decided to make the best of it and do some shopping right there in the airport.

Naturally, since we were in Mexico, we ended up at a duty-free shop.  I got a great deal on some very nice tequila, but unfortunately because of some weird policy thing we had to cut our visit short to make our purchases in time to get them delivered to our flight.  The good news was that it appeared that our flight delay was proceeding as previously promised, or so I thought.

We rushed over to the waiting area of our gate and quickly realized that our delay was not in fact over.  We sat there for at least another hour or two, maybe more.  While we were waiting, we began to notice that our flight was going to be packed.  Before long our waiting area was full, as was the surrounding area. How could we tell they were all going to be on our flight? The Cowboys apparel, mostly. 

To keep our sanity, Courtney and I created a game called “Least Desirable Seatmate”. 

The first few rounds went as one would expect.  The usual XXXL guys, smelly people or those who seemed like they might be, mothers with screaming kids. There was no true front-runner until The Bob Show arrived.

I don’t know anything about The Bob Show, but every one of the rather large party had it written on their matching black shirts. We forgot about the game for a while and tried to figure out what this was all about.  Most members of the group were teenagers.  From all the large black boxes they had with them, it appeared to be some kind of tv show or video thing, possibly a youth group, maybe religious.

We never got to the bottom of the mystery because when we saw what appeared to be the chaperones of the group, we snapped back into “who’s the most annoying” mode. We knew instantly that we were staring at the clear winners of our new favorite airport pastime.

Courtney chose her winner first. Her choice made total sense because of her sensitivity to sound. This “Bob” was loud. Very loud.  He spent the countless minutes waiting for the plane complaining about everything and talking about several people he had recently gotten into fights with, including all the details, like the choice names that he called these people both to their faces and behind their backs, and all this was shared at decibels that we did not know could come out of a human body. From this point forward, we referred to her pick for the person she would least want to sit next to as Loud Angry Bob.  

It also did not take long for me to find my pick; conveniently, he was also a Bob and was Loud Angry Bob’s partner in conversation.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

The Photography Class: Act IV

Here is the long-awaited and chilling conclusion to a most unusual evening. Make sure you've already read about the peculiarities leading up to this finale.
The Photography Class: Act I can be found if you click here.
The Photography Class: Act II can be found if you click here.

***
The final portion focused on the Adobe Lightroom software in a show-and-tell format. Now this was the part I’d most eagerly anticipated, because so many of the pictures I've taken have resulted in glowing red eyes and shadowy backlit figures. I would finally learn how to correct for these problems so that my pictures would capture what my eyes had seen.

The conversation began with a discussion of things that are raw, specifically files. Apparently this is desirable, because you can do more things if your files are raw and less things if your files are jpg. None of this concerned me because my camera doesn't do anything raw, but it was entertaining to observe the expressions on the other class members' faces.

Next, the instructor used someone's raw flower image to demonstrate simple things like sharpening and blurring, intensifying colors here, illuminating there.

Landscape (raw) and waterfall (raw) were united with a decidedly un-flimsy "Watch how we will make this pop!"

The bricks of the bridge became brighter as the shadow was lifted. The trees and grass got greener; the blue of the sky took on an ethereal intensity. Something happened to the waterfall (which was a basic fountain variety) along the way, and now it looked odd. Shiny and gritty, like sugar or sandpaper. The small decorative man-made pond surrounding it began to look-- there is no other way to say this-- crunchy.

Beautiful? 
I guess so. 

But I'd witnessed the original scene first-hand, and this was not it. This amped-up ramped-up image was posing--and imposing-- as the lasting memory of the day. 

It didn't seem right to force beauty and authenticity to compete.

I felt extra-sorry for the subject of the portrait, although you could tell that the picture wasn't a sneak-attack because she was scowling directly into the camera. By the time the instructor finished the photo-makeover, Sourpuss Sally had highlights in her hair, several blemishes and a birthmark removed, few (if any) crow's feet, whiter teeth, and...  enhanced eye-color to match her teal scarf.

The woman on the screen looked like a distant relative of the woman in seat four of row three, and I felt the familiar queasiness that comes from moral conflict starting to rise within me.

"Virtual genetic engineering," I whispered to the lady beside me, who may have nodded in agreement. Or she may have craned her neck to see the screen at that exact moment. One of those two things happened, though.

It seemed irresponsible to do all that re-touching. The Art of Photography had become more art than photography. Anyone who saw those photos would surely be disheartened by reality. After seeing how much work needed to be done to make her 'pop', how could Sourpuss Sally ever look in the mirror and feel pretty again? 

I'm not sure what happened from that point forward because I stopped looking and listening. My focus fell into the deep cave of my brain where all the most intense wonderings echo and collide and part ways again.

Everyone was packing up their coolers. Egress ensued. I thanked the instructor as I left, because that is the gracious thing to do, and I offered my condolences about the dog because that is the compassionate thing to do. I wasn't sure I'd really learned anything, though. If I did learn something, I don't think it was the kind of learning that the instructor had intended.

Somehow I left with more questions than I'd had when I'd arrived. How much should we edit photography? Is there a line that can be crossed? Why was I okay with some aspects of editing and horrified by others? How much of what we see has been distorted by someone else's perception of art or beauty?

I would never look at the photos in National Geographic the same way.

"I don't want to talk about it," I said when I arrived home. I needed time to think because all the thoughts in my mind were just so blurry. Then I realized that maybe blurriness is not the enemy. Blurriness tends to occur when things are in motion or when there's not enough light. Blurriness is a part of life-- things that are too clear too quickly can be surreal or suspicious and are often not authentic.

I've decided to accept the blurry images for their reality, and those few clear shots when everything slows down and the truth is illuminated will serve as my own definition for the art of photography.


Saturday, July 20, 2013

A Perfect Cure

The journey is over, friends. I have found the cure for being a perfectionist.

Remember when I checked out every book in the Plano library system about perfectionism, read each one three times to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and took all those detailed notes along the way?

That did not cure me.

Neither did yoga, meditation, hypnosis, prayer, magnesium supplements, or quitting caffeine. And don’t even get me started about “letting go”.

As it turns out, the cure was upstairs in my closet the whole time. One little box was all it took.

If you or someone you know is a recovering perfectionist, one purchase and four hellacious afternoons should do the trick. The cure is closer than you could have ever imagined!

Are you on the edge of your seat?
Are you ready to finally care less?

Get out there and find a 1961 Hubley ‘Model A Town Sedan’ metal model car kit.

Counter-intuitive, right? A task requiring such precision should be a perfectionist’s dream come true. 

Well, perhaps in order for this to be truly effective, you will also need these factors:

  • No previous experience with any kind of model kit
  • No previous experience with any kind of metal
  • No access to any tools that could possibly help ease the tedium of the provided file
  • One incredibly ambitious and talkative six-year-old helper (I will loan you mine if you’d like.)

This adventure started in the usual way, with the thought of ‘How hard could it be?’

And in fact, opening the box wasn’t very hard at all. It was also not hard for my enthusiastic helper to pop open all the other little baggies within the box, effectively treating our family room to one very brief hail storm of itty bitty screws and other little pieces.

It was hard to find all those little pieces, though. Eventually, we just had to give up and move on.

We also discovered it was quite hard to do step one of the instructions, which involved putting real rubber tires onto tiny plastic thingamabobs. There’s a chance that it would have been a challenging task in 1961 when the kit was new, but now that the tires had been sitting around for 52 years, it was darn near impossible. We got two of them in place, and accidentally snapped the other three to bits.

“I’m sure we can get some replacements at Hobby Lobby,” said my helper.
“I think I’m going to need some wine,” I replied.

Step two and step three were not impossible. Several times we turned to one another and said, “We’re doing this! I can’t believe we’re really doing this!"

The second day was not as exciting. It was tough to discern what was part of the car and what was part of the excess kit-frame. The tip snapped off the file. Although we own ten trillion screw drivers, none of them seemed to be small enough to fit in in the miniscule slots on the heads of the tiny screws.

The third day was downright painful. More pieces got lost. No matter how hard we tried to be neat, there were metal bits everywhere. Our fingers were covered in bruises, scrapes, and slivers. We finally found the Dremel tool in the garage, but all of the accessories were lost. A visit to Hobby Lobby was entirely futile. They had neither replacement parts nor Dremel tips. In fact, they had nothing useful. Mia pointed to a display in the science section and argued that the astronaut icecream could be useful, but this situation could not be solved with a dose of over-priced dehydrated dessert.

That night, we went to bed discouraged.

When I woke up on the fourth morning, something inside me had changed. I no longer cared if the edges were filed or if all the flashing was properly removed. I no longer cared if we had all the tires, or only two tires, or no tires at all.

I no longer cared if we ever finished the stupid thing. Ever.

I think this means I’m cured, don’t you?