throwing the banana
Day 61 of my 100-day essayette adventure
I was spent, tired to the bone, adrift, and slightly traumatized by my phone most of the day, which at any moment could ding signaling a request from a buyer for a house “showing.” As I sat waiting for the alarm (also known as the sound of a text) to sound, I contemplated creating a home-selling support group for people with small children and pets. And then slumped into the deep sorrow of knowing no one could actually help me shine my faucets, catch my cats, or fluff my curtains the way I could.
The secondary issue was that my house was finally clean, quite the feat, so I felt afraid to touch anything, or else I’d have to start over…which felt possibly devastating. I was afraid to even make toast because that would mean lugging the toaster out from under the cabinet where I had hidden it to make the kitchen feel “larger.” I felt frozen by all this and thought perhaps I should just remain on the couch and watch When Harry Met Sally. Oddly, this week I have started to miss Billy Crystal. But this was a dream doomed to die at the feet of my copped-up children.
The kids were antsy, and for my five-year-old old that looked like her putting her hands on the sliding glass door (which I had just windexed for the fifth time in 24 hours), as well as her mouth (because she likes to blow pretty circles on the glass), and then for some reason, as she walked through the kitchen, she flipped one of her feet onto the lower cabinet leaving an actual footprint — there are no words (well there are, but I can’t say them). Basically, I needed to get them out of the house, but I also had no ability to plan anything imaginative or further than a twenty-minute radius from our home. We couldn’t commit to anything because at any moment, we might have a showing request and need to return home to catch all of the animals and lurk on our street. So after an hour of staring at the wall, I decided the best I could do was take them to Lake Harriet (again).
As background information, I’d like to reveal that it had rained and thundered all night, the kind of thunder that makes your dishes rattle and your five-year-old wake up in tears, afraid that the “house is going to burn down.” So I had been up with her, leading my usual frightened child guided meditation, “repeat after me, I. am. safe….I. am. safe….good, now imagine a soft white magical rainbow light surrounding you, it is warm, and soft, and it is protecting you…” and so on and so forth, you get the idea. I was tired, to put it mildly. So I did not notice when Lorelei jumped into the car with her two sizes-too-big rain boots on, which wouldn’t have been a problem except that she wanted to ride her bike alongside Esme and me as we walked. We took the bike out of the car, crossed the street to the lake, and I saw the boots. I knew they wouldn’t work, but I let her give it a try for a few pedals. But she quickly hung her head and jumped off; it definitely wasn’t going to work.
So I grabbed the bike and her helmet, and started to cross the road to return it to our trunk, and that’s when I noticed a car coming a good ways away, far enough that I went ahead and started crossing. But as I started crossing, it seemed to speed up, or perhaps I was just starting to realize how unusually fast it was going for this road next to the bandstand, bike trails, and playground. I slowed counterintuitively and stared a little concerned that the woman didn’t see me at all. She did, she was looking at me, but she made no sign of slowing down. I gave her a little hand pump up and down, the universal signal for “slow down,” and a smile, but my eyes were a little wide with a hey, there you’re freaking me out, as I mouthed the words “slow down”, and safely crossed to the other side.
That’s when I received a Diane Keaton-level freak out in response. The woman, maybe in her late sixties, with really great glasses and gorgeous curly gray white hair, took both hands off the wheel, waved her hands wildly, shook her head back and forth, and primal screamed “ohhhhhh, go fuuuuuck yourself!!!” and then…kept right on driving…fast.
I didn’t see that coming. It might have been funny if it hadn’t quite so surprising, but also half expected? It was as if I had been secretly feeling like any encounter I might have with another person in the world had the potential to end this way. The whole walk, I thought about the woman. I wondered what kind of day she’d had. I wondered if I had pushed her over the edge, or if she was always on edge. I went through an array of my own emotions and a playback of the scenario, which involved me throwing the banana I had been carrying (I always forget my kids hate bananas because they’re so easy to pack), along with the bike and the helmet, right at her windshield, resulting in me getting shot in front of my children. Or/Also, returning from our walk to find our car keyed.
All the way around the lake, it nagged at me. I kept looking at all the different people out walking, and I wondered if perhaps asking any one of them to slow down might have had a similar response. Have we come to a place where we can’t ask anything of anyone without aggression? Or are we all just so on edge, with Russians and Alaska, and Redistricting, and Aligator Alcatraz, that the response to anyone saying anything to us is, the response to all of it, is just “goooo fuuuuck yourself.” I hope not.
Maybe a small part of me was jealous; a primal scream at a total stranger sounded wild and kind of amazing. But also uncalled for, and totally unlike myself. So I came home and decided to throw an imaginary banana at my day. I’m going to watch When Harry Met Sally, make myself some toast (crumbs be damned), and start over tomorrow, Windex in hand.
This is Day 61 of my 100-day essayette adventure!
We made it past the halfway mark!
I could not have made it this far without the warmth, accountability, and encouragement from all of you! Thank you! Thank you! Onward we go, my friends!
What the hell was that lady on about????
Keep hanging in there, friend. You’re doing great.
Yeah, who yells that at strangers?? Especially pedestrians with kids? That is so bizarre. I’m curious about her too. Speaking of Billy Crystal, I’ve been wanting to rewatch City Slickers.