The Day I Got a Black Eye

Whoa, it's Monday, and I totally didn't have a blog prepared.  So here's a short story from my youth.  Hopefully Sweet D will stay asleep long enough for me to get it typed out.

I've always been a considerate person.  I was the middle child, with brothers on either side, and I think that, combined with my anxiety disorder, has made me very sensitive to other people.  It also made me terrified of conflict.  Mostly because "conflict" with my older brother usually meant fist fights - which weren't so bad in and of themselves (I knew how to stick up for myself, at least), but my parents' solution to our fighting was to lock us together in the tiny half bath in the hallway until we could hug for twenty seconds (the arbitrary time limit necessary to reflect forgiveness, love, and a willingness to get along in the future).  It was awful.  We'd sit there and stew for upwards of 30 minutes, filling the bathroom with an excessive air of loathing until we could finally agree to endure the "hug of freedom" without biting or pulling each other's hair.

So I (nervously) started Kindergarten.  My teacher was Mrs. Sturm.  I'll remember her name forever (and not because, when we moved back to South Dakota, I ended up going to high school with her daughter), but because of this incident.  There is no warmth in my heart for this woman.

I was in afternoon Kindergarten, so we got to school right when the older kids were finishing lunch.  Everyone was out at recess when we'd get dropped off, and if we got there early, we could run around the school yard for a bit, too, until the bell rang.

One of my first days of Kindergarten (or maybe it was in the middle or the end; I honestly can't remember, but it feels to me like my entire year of Mrs. Sturm was tainted by this moment, so my impression is that it happened early in the year), I got to school early and was playing in the school yard for a few minutes when the bell rang.  I knew we weren't supposed to run, so I was walking quickly to get in line (the rest of my class seemed like they were already lined up, and I was terrified I would get in trouble if I didn't get there soon).  I remember seeing them all lined up against the brick wall, waiting to walk inside in single file, with Mrs. Sturm at the head of the line.

All my little Kindergarten daily hopes were swirling around in my head.  It was going to be such a good day. We were going to make macaroni necklaces or paper bag shoes or some other kind of magic Kindergarten craft.  And mine was going to be perfect.  Just the right shapes.  In all the right colors.

Life was an amazing box of crafts, waiting for me to get in that line.

Then out of no where - everything went black.

I opened my eyes again to find myself on the ground, next to a big kid.  A 5th grader.  She was easily twice my size.  And she was bawling hysterically, holding her knee.

My whole body ached slightly, the wind had been knocked out of me, but after a quick self-check, I seemed mostly fine.  Except my head.  It really hurt.

But this big, huge, athletic, strong, brave 5th grader next to me was sobbing.  The tiny scratch on her knee was starting to bead little red drops of blood.  Since I seemed to be okay, and she was clearly not, I did the only thing I could think of to help.

"Are you okay?"  I asked her meekly.

She looked right in my face - and let loose another wail of wildly over-exaggerated pain.  Then a teacher swooped in to help her stand up.  Odd that no one was helping me up, seeing as how I was only the size of this girl's leg, but I was tough.  I stood up, rubbed my head where it ached, and walked over to my Kindergarten line.

Oh yeah!  Crafts were waiting for me in that line!  It was going to be a good day, in spite of this little set back.  So a gigantic person tried to run me over.  I can get over that!  I was clearly more polite (and tougher) than her.  I could just shake it off and get on with my life. And back to my fantasies of Kindergarten crafts.

I got in the back of the line and waited for us to start walking in.

Then a shadow crossed my face.

I looked up to see a scowling Mrs. Sturm standing in front of me with her arms on her hips.

"Are you hurt?" she asked in a voice that clearly implied she was only asking out of a sense of obligation as my teacher.

"My head -" I started.

"You know the rules.  You're not supposed to run in the school yard.

That's what happens when you run."

Those words have haunted me my entire life.  "That's what happens when you run."

But I wasn't running!  I was walking quickly!  The monstrous, Nordic beast of a 5th grader had been running!  I was just trying to get in line when she came out of nowhere and knocked me out flat!  Why didn't Mrs. Sturm see the truth?!  I would NEVER do something that was against the rules!!

I tried to protest, but she just ignored me and walked to the front of the line to lead us inside for the day.

The daily crafts were tainted by my shame.  I couldn't believe I'd let Mrs. Sturm down like that.  She must have been so disappointed in me.  Even though I didn't run, she thought I had.  My life was essentially over; a teacher was disappointed in me.  I would never be able to outlive this shame.

As the day wore on, my head began to hurt more and more.  I could feel a lump rising right above my eyebrow (hidden conveniently under my stylish bangs), but I didn't dare bring it to Mrs. Sturm's attention - it was my punishment - my cross to bear.

"That's what happens when you run."

After an hour or two, we had a routine bathroom break.  I got a drink of water from the water fountain, wiped my mouth, and with the excess water, I wiped my forehead, which was throbbing by this point.  I must have moved my bangs out of the way right as I walked back into the classroom, because Mrs. Sturm's face contorted as she watched me.

"Oh no..." the breath escaped her.  "Let me see your head."

I lifted up my bangs, showing that the tiny scratch on my cheek was not the only injury I'd sustained in our head-on collision.

"Go straight to the nurse's office.  Now."

I ran down the hall to the nurse, where she examined me quickly, handed me an ice pack and said, "well, that's going to be a black eye.  You should have come in right away so I could have gotten ice on it sooner."

More disappointment.  More shame.  How could I be letting so many people down today?  All the macaroni necklaces in the world couldn't get the foul taste of shame and self-loathing out of the back of my throat.

My eye did turn black, but it wasn't too bad.  It healed, as did the Amazon 5th grader's knee, I assume.  But the sense of failure at letting my teacher down never did.

In high school, Mrs. Sturm would often come to sporting events, because her daughter was a cheerleader.  I remember watching all my other friends from Kindergarten (who'd gone to the same schools with each other since then - where as I moved away for seven years - to Maryland) rush up to her to say hi.  They had such fond memories of her.

But not me.  "That's what happens when you run."  You disappoint your teachers.  You bring down a great 5th grade Viking of a girl.  You get an emotional black eye on your soul that you must bear for all time.

THAT is what happens when you run.

The Day I Was Left Out

As hard as it may be to believe, I used to be a shy kid. It was probably a combination of the anxiety disorder and our family move from South Dakota to Maryland when I was seven years old. I went from a small Catholic school with about 20 kids in each grade to a massive public school with several hundred kids in each grade. It was somewhat overwhelming, and I basically just shut down. Thinking back on second and third grades, I honestly can't remember having friends. My brain, which is clearly trying to shield my fragile third-grade psyche from the devastation of reality is telling me, "of course you had friends!" but I can't, for the life of me, actually name a single one. Looks like that protective wall of false memories has done its job!

As a side note, I would like to mention that I "won" the Good Citizenship Award (like the consolation prize of boring, polite children - "Congratulations, you are the least disagreeable person in our class!") every year from Kindergarten through 5th grade. So I might not have had friends for a couple years, but at least they didn't all completely hate me. Right? (Shh, it's okay, Third-Grade Laura. Of course they liked you! How could they not like you? You ... had such long, straight hair! And ... you smiled quietly a lot! *Stifles self-esteem with false memories*)

Regardless, the point is that I did not have good friends in my third grade class. One incident in particular stands out as evidence that I was, in fact, an outcast (albeit, a friendly, polite, possibly easily forgettable one).

Although the school itself was large, we were assigned a "homeroom," which was our actual class, and in third grade, as far as I remember, no one switched for any classes (advanced math and language arts classes didn't start till 4th grade, I believe). So I'd been in the same "portable" classroom with the same 30 or so kids for at least 6 months at the time of this incident (our student body size had outgrown the actual school, so they set up about a dozen portable, temporary buildings outside the main building, on school grounds, to accommodate the excess children. We were only supposed to be there for a few months, but we ended up staying there the entire year.)

One Spring day, one of the "popular" (used as liberally as possible to refer to a third-grader) girls passed out invitations to her birthday party to every girl in class, except three of us. I don't know if her mom didn't make her invite all the girls, or if she chose not to give three of us invitations, but the selection process was as cruel as it was swift. One moment, we were returning from recess and settling in our seats, and the next, the Chosen Girls were tittering excitedly, as the rejects tried to not only discover what we were missing out on, but how we could have possibly fallen from the good graces of the beautiful, popular, Jessica.

I've always assumed I wasn't invited because I was shy and quiet. Boring people don't make the best party guests. One of the other girls not invited, Rachel, was also incredibly shy and boring. However, Rachel had a twin sister, Alexis, who was also in our class. And Alexis was invited. Rachel was, understandably, much more devastated about her exclusion than I was. We must learn at a young age the cruelty of other women.

It was the third uninvited girl, though, that made the true sting of the shunning felt. Katie. Poor Katie. Literally, Katie was from a lower-class family. I always felt very sorry for her, as all her clothes were old and worn, she often smelled funky, and the other kids were heartless in their teasing of her. Then again, she didn't help her case much by being one of those strange kids. You know the type. The awkward, weird ones who run up to the popular kids and start talking gibberish at them, because they're oblivious to the social hierarchy of school-aged cliques. They're the type who make the other nerd kids cringe, since we know we'll be associated with them, vicariously, simply for being nerds ourselves, even though we don't want anything to do with their type, either. They're giving us all a bad name.

But then Katie committed the single worst-imaginable in-school offense. She pooped her pants. In class. I don't know the circumstances, except that I was sitting next to her and can confirm that, in spite of her denials of the other children's harsh accusations, she did, in fact, poop in her pants. (Bizarrely, I was also sitting next to a boy in 4th grade who peed his pants. Maybe I have some terrible affect on people in my immediate vicinity, causing them to lose control of their bodily functions. But he had asked the teacher for permission to go to the bathroom, and she denied it. After several minutes, he asked again more urgently, and she again denied it. I, personally, think she should have gotten in serious trouble for making the poor guy sit there till he peed his pants, but, as far as I know, nothing ever happened to her.)

So here we were, lumped in the same group of social-rejects with a girl who pooped her pants. In the unrelentingly cruel world of elementary school social politics, evidently, being shy is just as critical a faux pas as defecating on oneself.

The party was on a Saturday, and the following Monday, I showed up for school, relieved because this traumatic exclusion was now behind us. Oh, how naive was I.

As the other girls in class filtered in and took their seats, not only were they excitedly talking about what an incredible time they'd had at Jessica's Birthday Party (or, as it became known, JBP; it was the social event of the YEAR), but each of them seemed to have donned a new necklace, and they were giddily comparing and showing them off to each other. How could it be that they all coincidentally bought strikingly similar necklaces over the weekend without any form of retail coordination?

I sat perfectly still in my desk, trying to eavesdrop to catch some sort of idea as to the origin of these necklaces. Then I began to notice - each necklace had a set of perfectly adorable beads in the shape of birds. All different colors, strung together amid classic, small necklace beads that brought out the shine and ideal form of each avian creation. Never had I longed for something more than to have my own bird-bead necklace. The minuteness of their beaks struck a chord in my third-grade being, calling out to me with undying desire.

All at once, the glistening birds and the snippets of eager over-the-weekend gossip combined in my brain and it dawned on me: the girls had all made these wearable works of art at JBP. And I also deduced that they had made a vow to wear them every day for the duration of the school year.

I could feel my will to live shattering about me as I looked down at my desk, pretending to go over my completed homework from the weekend in an attempt to hide my devastation. My life would never be complete. My soul felt crushed inside my bare-necked body.

Over the next few weeks, fewer and fewer girls still wore their bird necklaces every day, but envy continued to flutter in my heart every time I caught a glimpse of one. Eventually, third grade drew to a close, I was awarded my certificate of "Good Citizenshipness," and I spent the summer recovering from the painful social blows I'd been dealt.

Then fourth grade started. And who was in my class (besides the guy next to me who peed in his pants on the first day)? None other than Jessica. THE Jessica, of JBP infamy.

So I adopted a new life-approach to friends and being social. I got loud. I tried talking to people and laughing and various other tactics of basic human interaction (besides polite smiling, which I, clearly, had a monopoly on). Lo and behold, my new plan worked. As luck (or intricate planning and methodical social-ladder-climbing) would have it, after just a few weeks of fourth grade, I had befriended the one and only Jessica.

After playing together at nearly every recess, eventually the time came when she was obligated to invite me over to play at her house (although, I have to admit, I doubt I would have even tried to be friends with her if I didn't think there was a possibility that I could wriggle my way into her confidences, be invited to her house, and somehow manage to acquire my own bird necklace). My mom dropped me off, and we played normal fourth-grade girl things. After Barbies in her room, we walked around the neighborhood to spy on a boy in our grade who lived down the street. Then we came back to her house, had a snack, and she asked what else I wanted to do.

Ever aware of the rules of etiquette, I politely said, "I don't know, what do you want to do?" while skirting the obvious: make bird necklaces.

She suggested we play Twister.

Obligingly, I went downstairs with her to get out the Twister game, in spite of the cloud of anxiety closing in around me. I hate games of all kinds. It's not a fear of losing; it's more terror that I'll do something wrong. I'm not sure why it flares up so strongly when it comes to games, but I've always hated every single kind of game there is. They all fill me with overpowering anxiety (I actually can't play or even watch most video games; I get too anxious). Not exactly a two-player game, I was relieved when we found a small plastic bin sitting next to the Twister box.

"What's this?" I said, pointing to the box, already knowing in my heart what it was.

"Oh, those are my beads," she said casually. Then, with a stroke of psychic ingenuity, "do you want to make necklaces?"

Yes.

"Oh, sure, I guess." I could barely contain the excitement that tried to burst through face. Play cool, Laura. She'll suspect something if you start screaming about bird beads!

We opened the bin to discover small squares of neatly separated beads. Reds, yellows, blues, greens, some little dice beads... but no birds. No. F---ing. Birds.

I started stringing together random colors in no particular order. What's the point, if not to tie down a bird bead through the little hole that ran through its heart to forever tether it to my neck (and soul)?

Jessica was rambling about something. I couldn't concentrate on her tedium. I was too consumed with the twice-dashed hopes of a young, recently socially-revived fourth-grade girl.

I dug my fingers into the red beads again and stopped suddenly. There she was. Hidden among the scarlets, maroon, and fire engine reds. My very own bird bead. Left over, abandoned for nearly a year after the great fete that was JBP, the one remaining, glorious bird bead.

"You've come to me, Sasha," I whispered under my breath.

"Did you say something?"

"Uh, no," I contemplated stealing Sasha and sliding her secretively into my pocket. But what would Jessica think when I wore the necklace to school and she recognized the rogue, rosey bird, fluttering gently between my collarbones, perfectly flattering my non-existent bust-line?

"Hey, I found this little bird bead. Could I use it?"

"Haha, sure!" Jessica said, barely acknowledging the significance of this forever flightless symbol of my restoration of hope in humanity. "I got those last year for my Birthday Party, haha. I thought we'd used them all. We all made bird necklaces, haha. But I guess you can make one now, too! Haha!"

Laugh it up, Bitch.

I didn't stay friends with Jessica after fourth grade (we were in different fifth grade homerooms, which is practically the same thing as moving to different countries, learning different languages, and being forbidden by our parents to associate with one another, or else). But I believe the bird necklace is still in my closet at my dad's house. I'll have to remember to get it the next time I visit him. I guess the old saying holds true: Make new friends, but keep the old (except Jessica); some are silver, and some... are birds.

The Day I Flew Air France

After the harrowing experience of flying Air India, I'm fairly sure the only way I convinced myself to ever step foot on a plane again was the simple fact that I needed to, eventually, go home. Countless very drunken nights in Berlin over the course of nearly a year of living and "studying" there probably didn't hurt to numb my memories of how awful cramped plane cabins can be when full of the scent of Indian airplane food, disgruntled Chinese stewardesses in saris, and gigantic Nigerian princes. But regardless, the time had come for me to once again brave air travel to return to my homeland.

Because this was the second half of our round-trip flight for the study abroad year, it was also booked through Air France. After saying many tearful good-byes to my absolutely wonderful German family (the ones who lived in the communist block housing), and the German guy I was dating at the time, I sadly made my way to the boarding area, only to discover that one of my classmates from the study abroad program would be flying home with me. Not just with me, but in the seat next to me. We hadn't exactly gotten along; he was part of the group of students who thought studying and learning German was for nerds, and I was most certainly the teacher's adoring pet (it's not like it was my fault I spent most nights out getting drunk with Germans and practicing my language so I could speak it significantly better than other people in our group). We gave each other courteous nods, and I sat down on the other side of the waiting area, trying to pretend like I wasn't crying.

After what seemed like an agonizingly long time, we finally got to board the plane. My classmate (whose name I've honestly forgotten - let's call him Nick, because I'm fairly sure it was some variant of a generic male nickname) boarded a few minutes after me and slowly made his way to his seat, immediately next to mine. Courteous nods again as I stifled back more tears. We both put on our headphones and continued to ignore each other while the cabin slowly filled with other passengers and the plane took to the air.

About an hour and a half into the flight, after they had started whatever in-flight movie we were effectively forced to watch in the small screens in the back of every seat, the flight dramatically left the realm of "standard, boring over-seas flight" and decided to try a different angle for our in-flight experience: terror.

The seat-belt signs had been turned off, and flight attendants and various passengers were "free to walk around the cabin," but, like the obedient passengers we'd all be trained to be, the majority of us were still in our seats with our belts fastened.

Out of no where, we hear an incredibly loud boom, then deafening quiet, and the plane seemed to fall. It didn't start to nose-dive, like one would expect if it were going to crash, but instead, it felt as if it suddenly dropped about 100 ft straight down. And then it just simply kept flying.

Then the "fasten seat-belt" light dinged back on.

To this day, I'm still fairly impressed at how well the passengers reacted. Most of us stayed frozen, clutching our arm rests and gazing around wide-eyed at each other. A few people let out startled screams when the plane dropped, but, overall, no one, at least no one near me, panicked.

Except the flight attendants.

They were all prim and extremely proper, perfectly skinny, meticulously manicured French women and gay French men. And suddenly, after the plane stabilized, they seemed to turn into bolts of white shirt, navy pants, and styled hair, zipping up and down the aisles, rapidly shooting out bursts of urgent sounding French to each other. They looked like a panicked flock of odd, yet proper birds - like doves with a crocodile thrown into their nest.

The sight of the clearly distressed stewardesses began to unnerve the majority of the passengers (over half of whom were American, and, based on future events, didn't speak a word of French, like me), but the fear didn't really set in until the pilot spoke to us over the loud speaker:

"Uhhhh.... jemapanesajumouisxtjeaux. Uhhhh.... letimejioux. Uhhh... siseauis."

Those of us who didn't speak French held our breath, waiting for the translation.

The seconds ticked by. Then, the audible 'click' of the speaker turning off.

Nothing else.

I turned to Nick, who had also turned off his ipod and taken off his headphones, and I simply said, "what the hell was that?"

He shrugged, looking about as terrified as I felt, and daringly stuck his hand into the aisle to stop one of the stewardess-doves in might squawk. He asked her what the pilot just said, and what that loud explosion was. She fluttered his hand away with her wing, trilled something in French, and flew away, down the aisle.

Looking around, I noticed other passengers trying to catch the stewardess-doves, also to no avail. Evidently, in a crisis situation, Air France had trained its employees to revert to only speaking French, to sprout wings, and to flitter about, so as to ensure any non-French speaking passengers will be the first to die, from lack of instruction or situational understanding.

After what seemed like an agonizing eternity of confusion, trapped in a small, possibly unstable plane cabin with a bunch of worthless, panicking birds, someone finally managed to gain control of the loud-speaker and explain what had happened in English. It was not, however, the pilot (who had previously used the loud-speaker to greet the passengers in English at the beginning of the flight).

The voice told us simply that, "one of the engines has exploded," and we would be returning to Paris.

Our in-flight movie had been stopped, and instead, the flight map, with the little airplane and red line showing the completed route, had taken its place. Based on the map, we were somewhere over the UK - we could have easily landed in Glasgow or London and been safely on the ground and out of this potential death-trap in a matter of no more than 30 minutes.

But instead, we watched in confusion as the plane flew past all of these possible savior airports, and made its way back toward the English Channel. Where it continued to fly in circles for approximately an hour and a half. If we hadn't been so terrified, the red line showing the path of our plane on the flight map would have been rather comical - it tracked all the circles we were making in a big squiggle, right over the water.

The stewardess-birds continued to ignore our pleas to speak English, and they refused people's pleas for beverages - even water. If someone tried to get up to go to the bathroom, they would swarm the poor passenger, squawking wildly and flapping their wings until the passenger gave up and retreated back to his seat.

Finally, we heard through other passengers that the plane had to waste fuel before it could land. Being a large airplane on the beginning of an over-seas flight, the tanks were still very full of fuel, and, evidently, it was risky to try and land the plane with that much flammable gas and only three engines. So we remained trapped in plane, making slow squiggles over the English Channel, for nearly two hours before we could safely land back in Paris.

Once we landed (with no further incident), we were ushered into a waiting area of the Charles De Gaulle and told a new plane was being prepared for us, and we would be able to re-board soon. Nearly four hours later, the plane was finally ready. This one managed to fly us all the way to Cincinnati without incident.

Along the way, through this whole ordeal, Nick and I actually began to talk and discovered that we didn't actually hate each other. At least not enough to not be able to put our differences aside and both entertain and joke with each other through the terror of getting on another plane.

By the time we landed in Cincinnati, it was well after 1am. The second leg of our flight, from Cincinnati to Omaha, had left around 8pm. Together, Nick and I made our way through Customs and to the desk the airport had set up specifically for our flight - because the delay was mechanical, Air France was footing the bill to put every single passenger up in a hotel overnight. Nick and I took a shuttle to the hotel we were assigned and planned to meet each other in the lobby to get some food together, after checking in to our rooms. However, the hotel restaurant had long since closed, and the only thing open was the hotel bar and dance club (don't all hotels have a bar and dance club? In northern Kentucky, they do).

Since we had both turned 21 in Germany, this was our first time to legally buy alcohol in the States. We decided to make a celebration of it, and used all our meal vouchers on alcohol. We had to ask the bartender to ID us. Other patrons of the bar (surprisingly, not people staying in the hotel - this bar was so "popular," the locals actually frequented it) soon caught on to our "delayed 21st birthday party," and several of them bought us drinks. Nick and I even tore up the classy dance floor a little.

Early the next morning (after having retired to our separate quarters - no "hanky panky" was involved, despite what Husband may think), we met in the lobby again, took the shuttle to the airport, and caught our flight to Omaha, laughing and joking with each other the entire time. We landed in Omaha and walked off the plane together. Nothing like a near-death experience to bond two people together.

That is, until we walked past the security check point and saw our friends and family again. We both turned our own ways and never spoke another word to each other.

But no matter what happens in this life, we'll always have Air France, Nick. Or John. Or Tom. Or whatever your name was...

I Am the Real Life Lois Lane

Intended in the most modest, strictly observational of ways, I used to be a fairly attractive person, and I frequently had men attempt to hit on me. Not only have I had my fair share of free drinks at bars, but for a while during my attractive phase (thank you, child-production for abruptly booting me out of that era), it was often common for men to strike up conversations with me practically anywhere. I'm not trying to brag or gloat, but this is important to know as background for this story. Really, I promise. But I was pretty hot...

So one day, about halfway through my senior year of high school, my dad was returning from a business trip, and he'd asked me to pick him up at the airport. I was probably wearing some tight-fitting, revealing outfit (I was 18, after all), and while I stood in the terminal waiting (this was pre-9/11, when we could go up to the gates, still), I noticed several men trying to sneak looks at me as they passed. I didn't think anything of it, because, like I said, I was fairly used to getting the attentions of gentlemen. I looked away casually, not trying to actively draw anyone's attention (believe it or not, I actually had really low self-esteem, and it made me nervous for men to approach me and talk to me - thank you, anxiety disorder).

My dad's flight finally landed, and people started to make their way past me, out of the gate. I kept glancing down the jetway, scanning the faces for my dad. Suddenly, a middle-aged man caught my eye. I didn't know him, so I looked away quickly, embarrassed to have made eye contact with him. After a few seconds, I looked back down the jetway, searching for my dad, again. The man was closer now, and still staring right at me. Smiling. I awkwardly turned my head away again quickly. He wasn't unattractive, at first glance, but it was making me feel slightly uncomfortable. I wished my dad would hurry up.

As the man got closer and closer to me, I kept my head turned away, so as to not encourage his attention. I tried to briefly scan the crowd in the hopes my dad would be in view and save me from any interaction with this man who was still smiling, still staring right at me, and almost close enough to engage in conversation. I mentally willed my dad to appear immediately in front of me.

Before I knew it, the man was right next to me. I looked past him, down the jetway, feeling the panic starting to set in, and my dad was still nowhere in sight. I refused to turn my head to face the inevitable - the man had stopped right next to me.

"Hi, Laura," he said.

How could he possibly know me?! I'd never seen this man before in my life. My heart was beating through my chest. I took one last pleading glance down the jetway, swallowed hard, and turned to face my evident stalker.

"Oh... hi, Dad." The strange man, the one I'd never seen before, was, in fact, my father. The man who had given me life and lived with me for the entire 18 years of my life. But I didn't recognize him as he got off the plane, simply because he'd shaved off his beard.

Now I know what you're thinking: a beard can be a very identifying characteristic. It's not entirely unreasonable to not recognize someone, even a familiar someone, without the beard they'd had for as long as you've known them. And while that may be true, it should also be noted that my dad had shaved his beard off several weeks before, and I'd lived with him for at least two full beardless weeks.

Why wasn't I able to recognize my own dad?

Have you ever watched or read any Superman movies, shows, or comic books and wondered how it was possible that Lois Lane didn't realize that Clark Kent was, in fact, none other than Superman? Other than the glasses and the suit, he looks exactly the same. But she was fooled every time. How could it be that removing a simple pair of glasses made it impossible for Lois to recognize the love of her life?

Simple. She suffered from a bizarre disorder, known as prosopagnosia, or "face blindness." In this regard, I also believe I have a strong commonality with Lois, aside from our insatiable lust for men in skin-tight blue spandex, in that I, evidently, also suffer from a mild case of prosopagnosia.

For the most part, this doesn't disrupt my life too greatly, except in a few key aspects.

Meeting people in public places. In combination with my anxiety disorder, this incredibly simple act of human interaction is practically a nightmare for me. I dread meeting people for fear I won't recognize them. Consequently, I try to plan the meeting down to the most specific details, so that I'll be able to find the person, based solely on the exact location (three steps to the left of the due north side of the fountain) and time (precisely 7:34pm). If I'm still unsure, I resort to my fool-proof method of smiling in an inviting, friendly manner at everyone, in the hopes that the person I'm meeting will think I recognized them and approach me first. So far, this method hasn't let me down.

If I've ever met you in a public place, and you're now concerned that I wouldn't have known who you were (in spite of our being friends for many years), rest assured that, after the successful meeting, I've always felt confident that I would, in fact, have recognized you, after all.

Watching movies. This hasn't proven to be overly frustrating for me, but, unfortunately, I can't say the same for my poor husband. He, more often than not, has to pause the movie to explain who main characters are, even 3/4ths of the way through the movie (especially if they, God forbid, change clothes). If there are two blond, white women in a film, even if they look nothing alike and are over 30 years apart, I have no hope of distinguishing them. This has made watching WWII movies extremely difficult. Put all the characters in uniforms with short, dark hair, and I can't help but wonder why that one German guy keeps getting killed, coming back to life, and shooting at himself in an American uniform. It just doesn't seem like a very well-written movie, in my opinion...

Meeting my husband in a public place after he gets finished with work. This is basically a combination of the first two situations. Mix the dreaded fear of meeting people in public with the inability to distinguish men in uniform (Husband is in the Army), and I'm hopeless. I rely on two characteristics to get me through this (assuming he's too far away to read his name tape). First is his individual gait. Luckily, I learned early in our relationship that my husband has a somewhat particular gait. I've gotten quite good at distinguishing it from all other men in uniforms'. The second telling trait is his mustache. Thankfully, not too many soldiers have small, black mustaches. However, if you put my husband next to five other soldiers in uniform, all with black mustaches, I might have a serious problem.

"Hi, honey! So good to see you. Hey, when did you become a Staff Sergeant? ...And why did you change your last name to 'Thompson?' Oh well, I know it must be you because you're in an Army uniform and you have a small, black mustache. Give me a big kiss, and let's go home."

My Brother Doesn't Keep His Promises

I am about five years older than my younger brother. Because of the age difference, we never really fought, but we also didn't have much in common. He, like my older brother, is a very intelligent person, but he has a few social quirks. I'm not sure if it's a result of being so much younger than Brian and I, or if maybe something we did contributed to it (we used to like to throw a blanket over his head and pretend to hold it down over him. Evidently, he was claustrophobic, so we wouldn't actually have to hold it down, and he would just lie in a lump under it and scream. In retrospect, I think we were terrible older siblings), but for whatever reason, he's always been a very independent, relatively quiet person.

He, much like me, suffers from being a "stupid smart person." I once asked him what month was the 8th month (he was at least in junior high at this point), and he not only couldn't tell me off the top of his head, but he had no idea that months had corresponding numbers with which to identify them. He was, however, currently reading Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time." After talking on the phone to someone, if asked what they said immediately upon hanging up, he couldn't tell you if his life depended on it. But he can build a computer from scratch.

He's also always been a very contemplative person. When he was just two years old, he would sit quietly in a chair in a room by himself and think. If you asked what he was doing, he'd calmly reply, "just thinking of something."

Because of his known thoughtful demeanor, it was especially disconcerting one day when he was three years old, sitting calmly and thinking by himself, and turned to me and said, "When I'm 21, I'm going to get an ax and cut your head off."

We hadn't been arguing or fighting (and I don't think we'd started the blanket-torture game yet), and he had stated his intentions so matter-of-factly, I got chills. I remember running to my mom and screaming, "Brett said he's going to cut my head off with an ax!!"

My poor mother sighed. "Where is he going to get an ax? Does he have one now? If not, you're probably safe." I explained that he said he would do it when he was 21 (most likely, he figured he'd have to be 21 - a legal adult - before he could purchase his own head-cutting-off ax; he really had put a lot of thought into this) and she brushed off my urgency, "Well then, you've got a few years left."

My mother might not have been concerned about the future of her children, but she hadn't seen the completely calm, sane, rational look in his eyes when he made his fateful promise. He'd thought out the logistics, and his plan had been set in place. At the innocent young age of three, he set our destinies in stone.

Over the years, I thought on and off about this incident (more off than on), and occasionally counted down the years I had left to live. I didn't really believe he was going to get an ax and cut my head off, but the thought did frequently resurface, just to remind me of its existence.

A year and a half ago, when I was planning a gigantic Thanksgiving feast at our house, a terrifying realization dawned on me. Brett would not only be attending our festivities, but he would be celebrating his 21st birthday just six days prior. I tried to push the thought out of my mind, reassuring myself that he had not only not meant what he said, but surely he'd forgotten it nearly 17 years later. But I hadn't.

I told Husband about my fears. He laughed at me (in retrospect, the logical reaction to have), and told me I was being ridiculous. Of course Brett had forgotten. Such a sympathetic man I married.

We had 17 adults and two kids at our Thanksgiving-fest-o-rama. I figured this was the best protection possible. Even if Brett had remembered, and had been serious, it would be hard to get me alone to cut my head off. He clearly wasn't insane enough to cut my head off in front of 15 other people. Plus, he'd had to fly into town - an ax was blatantly not going to make it through TSA security (he'd only brought carry-on luggage). I made sure we didn't have a ax lying anywhere around our house, and double checked to ensure the neighbors' garages were all closed, in the unlucky scenario that they had axes stowed away.

Thanksgiving evening, after everyone was full of delicious food and drink, and we were sitting around playing Mexican Train Dominoes, my fearless protector thought it would be an appropriate time to reminisce.

"Hey Brett!" Husband called out. "Do you remember telling Laura you were going to get an ax and cut her head off when you were 21?" Brett, maintaining his composure, laughed and simply said, "no."

After recollecting for him the story of his calm 3-year old coolness as he swore to be the purveyor of my demise, we all had a good laugh. Brett claimed not to remember the incident and found it especially humorous that I'd been mildly concerned about his threat for the past 17 years. A good performance, for sure.

The weekend ended without head-chopping-off incident. I saw Brett again once during that year, but didn't bring up the ax-promise, and managed to keep my head secured to my neck through the visit.

When his birthday rolled around again last November, I breathed a sigh of relief. Brett was no longer 21. I was free! He hadn't cut my head off with an ax (not that I ever really thought he would, right?). In my state of jubilation, I excitedly told Husband the good news - my life was no longer at risk!!

Husband greeted my enthusiasm with his infuriating logic, "Yeah, unless he just meant at least 21 years old. Since he didn't specify that it would happen 'during his 21st year,' he feasibly could have meant any time after he turned 21. Guess you're not safe after all."

The Day I Realized My Boss Was a Serial Killer

I used to work for a wireless company's network. As part of my job requirements, I had to make sure all the individual buildings underneath each cell phone tower were up to the company's safety and environmental codes, as well as conduct inventory on every piece of equipment at every site. This probably would have been a terrible job in a lot of places in the country, but we were based out of El Paso, with our region extending through western Texas and the southern half of New Mexico - so many of our towers were on top of big, gorgeous desert mountains with absolutely amazing views. However, this meant that, for many of the sites, I had to get a ride with my boss, as my company vehicle was just a small SUV, not capable of going up the very steep, rocky mountain sides like the big trucks could.

I got along with my boss fairly well. We had drastically different life views, but as long as we didn't talk about the big three (well, two, really, as money was never a very interesting topic of discussion, anyway - he had quite a bit of it, and I didn't, and beyond that, it was pretty boring to discuss), we usually passed the hours in the truck, driving across the southwestern desert, rather enjoyably.

My boss, I'll call him Jim for this story's sake, was one of the most unlucky people I've ever met. He had a terrible habit of being in the wrong place at the exact wrong time. When he was younger, he had been a police officer in several different states, so he had a decent amount of medical emergency training and was good at handling crisis situations - which was a good skill to have, considering his terrible luck.

Shortly after I started working for him, Jim was the first person to come across a terrible accident just outside the city limits. If you've ever been to El Paso, you know that the city kind of ends abruptly and the desert takes over - and there are few, if any, street lights or marked street signs once you leave town. He was driving home one night (he lived in suburb of El Paso, but knew shortcuts across desert roads, because our towers were everywhere, and we probably knew the layout of the city and desert roads better than anyone in the town), and he was the first person to arrive at the accident. A drunk driver had hit a car full of local college students and then fled the scene. Jim jumped out to start assessing the situation while they waited for the police and emergency services to arrive. One girl was very badly injured, and he recognized this. He sat down in the dirt and tried to talk calmly to her, reassuring her that she would be okay, and knowing that she wouldn't.

He didn't talk much about the accident after it happened, except to say how much it had disturbed him. Even after the years of being a cop, a gruesome car accident could still get to him.

And that was just the beginning. Over the months that I knew and worked with him, more and more terrible things kept happening around him. His best friend from high school (who lived in another state) was diagnosed with cancer, and had a freak allergic reaction to one of the medications they gave her, and she ended up dying. He accidentally ran over and killed two dogs on the busy street right outside his neighborhood. His truck was stolen from a parking lot, but was fortunately recovered right before the thieves could get it over the border into Mexico. He walked into a gas station just moments after it had been held up, only to find a man having a heart attack. He quickly jumped into action, and managed to keep the man breathing until paramedics arrived. He later went to visit the man as he was recovering in the hospital, only for the man to have a stroke minutes before he got to the room to visit him.

At first, I was skeptical of the truth of all these things. It seemed so crazy that he was so often the first person at the scene of the accident. But, because I spent a decent amount of time driving in the company vehicle with him, I became witness to his terrible luck first hand.

One day, as we were driving to a cell site in a town north of El Paso, we came across a terrible accident in the middle of the highway, just south of the town. As was Jim's luck, we were one of the first cars at the scene. A drunken man in a motorized wheelchair had been trying to cross the highway - and a young 17 year old girl, driving her boyfriend's mother's car, had accidentally hit him, going about 50 miles an hour. Somehow, the man was still alive. Jim jumped out right away and began trying to stabilize the man until the paramedics arrived. I stood back and watched in horror. It was truly a terrible scene, and I'm not sure whether or not the man ended up living or dying (he was taken away in the ambulance alive, though).

Another day, while driving on the interstate through El Paso, an SUV full of drunk young men hit us. They tore off the driver's side mirror, but, fortunately, caused little other damage. We watched the SUV play pin ball through the traffic in front of us, hitting nearly every car it tried to pass. We called the police, and they informed us that they had too many other things going on at the moment and couldn't send a single one of their 30 on-duty patrol cars to stop the drunk driver flying down the city's interstate. Thankfully, they managed not to kill anyone.

But Jim's bad luck streak just wouldn't quit. He had previously been a youth pastor at his church in the suburb of town, but had recently quit for personal reasons. However, he kept in contact with many of his students, as he had developed caring relationships with them. One day, one of the girls from his youth group (who was only 16) was hospitalized after her boyfriend brutally beat and raped her when she refused consensual sex. Later, he informed me that she had died due to the extensive trauma to her brain.

On top of everything else, he was in the middle of a very ugly divorce. His wife made a claim to the police that he had hit her, and she got a restraining order against him. Then she proceeded to torture him with it, repeatedly calling the police to say he'd violated the restraining order, or making anonymous calls at 3am that he was throwing loud parties and giving underage kids alcohol, or that he had weapons in the home (a violation of the restraining order), which gave them the right to repeatedly search his house.

I listened in horror to all these terrible things that happened to and around him. Although some of them were hard to believe (or too terrible to believe), knowing that these sorts of things did have a habit of happening to him, and that he really did just have terrible luck, I took him at his word and oftentimes felt sorry for him.

One morning, he had a court appointment first thing, and would be coming in to work a few hours late. We had a tour of the office scheduled for a group of the company's sales associates who wanted to learn more about the network side of things, and he had promised he'd be in to the office on time, so I wouldn't have to stumble my way awkwardly through the tour. Fifteen minutes before they were scheduled to be there, I started to get a little nervous, so I sent him a text, asking if he was still planning on being there on time.

"Got pulled over. Think I can still make it," he replied.

I sat at my desk, anxiously tapping my foot and hoping the group wouldn't arrive early. I had no idea how to entertain them, and my limited knowledge of how things worked (inventory, mostly) was surely not the exciting network tour they were anticipating.

Unfortunately, the group beat Jim to the office by about two minutes. I asked them if they could take a seat in the conference room and wait a moment for him to get there. I assured them the tour would be much more enjoyable with him as a tour guide, instead of me.

I rushed back to my desk and was about to text Jim again, to let him know they had arrived, when he burst through the warehouse door, wiping his arm with a towel. But not just any towel. This towel looked like it had blood on it.

He came over to me and said, "Get me a roll of paper towels and bring it out to my car." "But the tour group -" I started. His icy glare told me to drop it and just get the paper towels.

I met him back out as his car, handed him the paper towels, and as I watched him clean up what looked like blood splatters from the door frame of his car, I noticed that his arms didn't have any cuts. Using my extensive powers of deductive reasoning, I realized, this was likely not his blood.

"What happened?!" I asked, but he ignored the question, walked past me, and went into the building to give the tour, as if it were nothing usual at all.

After the tour group left, he sat me down in the conference room to explain. He said he had been pulled over by the cop, right in front of a school zone near the office. While the cop had his truck pulled over on the shoulder, a teenager from the school had darted out in front of his truck, clearly without looking both ways first, and had run into the street, only to be hit by a passing car that hadn't been able to see around the pulled over cop car and big truck. Because of his training, Jim stepped right in with the cop to give emergency attention to the young boy as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. He said the boy wasn't hurt too badly, and the cop was so thankful for the extra set of hands, he let Jim go with just a verbal warning.

A few days later, we were back in Jim's truck, driving across the desert to another cell site. Things were going along pleasantly enough, when he asked me to reach into the back seat and get a binder of papers we needed to do the inventory. I lifted up the binder, and underneath it, there was a big red stain on the seat cushion - right next to a mostly empty bottle of red food coloring.

My mind froze. I literally went cold all over as the truth spread down my body and into my appendages. I could feel the cold, tingly dread of realization as it leaked into every inch of my being. If your heart really can stand still, mine surely did in that moment.

"What are you doing?" Jim's calm, normal-person voice cut through me. I must have still been leaning back into the seat behind me, too frozen in my realization-terror to move.

"You spilled red food coloring on the seat!" I blurted out before I could stop myself.

For a split second, I saw the dark cloud cross Jim's eyes. But he regained his sane-person persona and calmly explained, "oh yeah, I bought some cake supplies to help some of my kids [youth group students] bake a cake the other day. I forgot to make sure the cap was on that one all the way before I threw it back there! There's a green one back there, too, somewhere." As if that made his story believable. I looked back, and, sure enough, there was a green bottle of food coloring, too. Except that it was in a cup holder, and it had never been opened.

"Oh! That's awfully nice of you." I said, too easily. Surely real me, the belligerent me he's known all these months wouldn't have just accepted such a weak story at face-value. He HAD to know I suspected something. I quickly tried to change the subject, just to show him how believable his story was. "So, another hot day in the desert, huh?" I joked.

After I feebly convinced him of my lack of suspicion and he got talking about something or other, I had a moment to think. Convinced he could see through my weak agreeableness, I just knew he was going to drive us further out into the desert (even though we were pretty far into deserted isolation as it was) and murder me. This must be what he does with all his victims. And really, the area couldn't be more perfect for it. With endless miles upon miles of uninhabitable desert, with a truck big enough to off-road through it, the southwestern desert really does provide a perfect, hidden-in-clear-sight graveyard.

But some how, miraculously, he didn't murder me. Not then, and, so far, not yet. When we got back to civilization, and I got back to the comfort and security of my own home, I began to think back on all his stories of bad luck. I didn't get a newspaper in El Paso, but they still have newspaper archives online. I quickly set out on a massive search to find evidence of any of his past claims of disaster. If the high school boy was made up, were the others, as well?

The more I thought about it, the more of an idiot I felt like. Surely, if four local college students had been in a drunk driving accident and one of them died, it would have made local, if not national news. And yet, no word anywhere. If an underage girl was raped and murdered by her of-age boyfriend, that would have obviously made the news. In a town where someone's apartment catching on fire makes the nightly news, logically, I would have heard about a gas station being held up at gun-point, resulting in a man having a heart attack and ultimately dying of a stroke in the hospital, wouldn't I? I didn't get the local paper, but I wasn't living isolated in a cave, either.

I didn't sleep that entire night. I was too terrified to go into work the next day. But maybe he really did believe that I believed his feeble story about cake decorating? He did think I was kind of an idiot, after all. Whenever he started talking about something that I either didn't care about or really disagreed with but didn't have the energy to argue, I simply agreed and said, "oh, that's interesting." (I've found that to be a very useful survival technique in many situations, actually - there are probably a lot of people who think I'm either very naive or very gullible and kind of stupid, simply because I don't have the energy to argue reality most of the time.) Maybe I had somehow managed to win back his trust! Maybe I wasn't going to be murdered and have my body left for the coyotes in the middle of the desert! Nevertheless, I told Husband (who was deployed in Iraq through all of this), that if I suddenly disappeared, Jim had murdered me, and my body was somewhere in the desert. Husband didn't think this was overly funny, but I didn't really think it was entirely a joke, either.

To this day, I'm still a little frightened of Jim. I actually have occasional nightmares about him just showing up at the house. Although once I got over all the lies and just accepted that he was most likely a habitual liar, I still really rather liked him and got along with him pretty well. It also made being sympathetic toward him much easier - I no longer had to exert any actual energy into feeling bad about the terrible situations he wasn't really ever in. But just in case he reads this and realizes I knew all along and just pretended to go along with his lies, if I suddenly disappear, you'll all know who to investigate first.

The Day I Forgot My Library Book

As I've told you before, I have an anxiety disorder. Most people I meet and even know fairly well have no idea, though, because I've had it my entire life, and I've learned how to cope with it very well, and, consequently, hide it from most people. To all but my closest friends and family, I probably come across as a normal, healthy, functional adult. If they could only glimpse into my brain for about five minutes, I think I would have significantly fewer friends.

I think most people who do not suffer from anxiety disorders have a naive understanding of the reality of them (and mind you, I wouldn't say mine is severe, as it has rarely actually affected my life - yes, I avoid many things because of it, but I can't recall a time I couldn't do something I had to because of anxiety. Although I do spend an inordinate amount of time vomiting or pacing, which one could feasibly consider disruptive to a normal life...). For the longest time, Husband would try to rationalize out my anxieties.

"Why are you nervous about going to the vet? You've taken the dogs to the vet multiple times and never had any problems. Is it because it's a new vet?"

"It's partially because it's a new vet. And I've never been to the location before. So I don't know exactly how long it will take me to get there, and since I have a scheduled appointment, it's paramount that I get there in a timely fashion."

"Well, you know it's about 10 minutes away, even with bad traffic. And even if you're late, it's not a big deal. What would happen?"

"They'd yell at me. I'd get in trouble." Ahh, the root of my anxiety - GETTING IN TROUBLE. As I've said before, my biggest fear in life is GETTING IN TROUBLE. This wouldn't be so bad if I weren't convinced that I could get in trouble with any authority figure - and most everyone in my world is an authority figure - parents, teachers, policemen, the vet, doctors, repairmen, truck drivers, drive-thru window order takers, anyone who works at a register in any capacity, motorcyclists, lawyers, park rangers, adults, soldiers, rent-a-cops, waitresses, some children. Did I forget anyone? If I did, you could probably safely put them on the list, too. More than likely, I consider YOU an authority figure in some capacity. Go get yourself a gold star badge and wear it proudly.

Husband has tried repeatedly to tell me that people won't, in fact, yell at me, and, more than likely, they won't even say anything, even on the very rare chance that I WOULD ever be late to anything. But that's just not a risk I'm willing to take.

"Also, the dogs are late on their shots. They're going to yell at me that they're overdue."

He again tries to explain that they won't yell at me. "And if they DO, just leave. You're the customer; they want YOUR money." Besides that fact that most vets would just be glad you're finally taking pet-ownership responsibility and bringing the dogs in, instead of letting them go even longer without getting their shots.

About 30 minutes before I have to leave to get somewhere on time, the real anxiety starts. I can usually put it off for hours or even days beforehand, but at the 30 minute mark, things usually start to get bad. I have to pee every 3 minutes. I can't sit still or concentrate on anything. I start nervously twitching and pacing around the house, checking the clock, literally, every minute to see if it's time to go yet. Sometimes I have to throw up. Unfortunately, I'm not exaggerating for hilarity's sake. I imagine I spend a lot more time throwing up than the average person (with the exception of people with certain eating disorders and most college freshman).

I'm literally nervous about EVERYTHING. Walking makes me nervous. Especially if there are curbs or other objects involved. I have to think ahead and plan my footsteps to make sure I can step up on the curb at the right time and not trip or look otherwise uncoordinated (the irony there is that I'm also a very clumsy person). Calling to order a pizza makes me incredibly nervous. I'll do it if I can't make anyone else around me do it, but if I'm alone, I'd rather go without than make the phone call (I love online ordering, by the way!). My dogs barking makes me nervous. I'm terrified they're going to bother someone else and I'll get in trouble with a neighbor. Going to classes makes me nervous. Not just the first day, or the first week, or for some normal grace period. But every single class, every single time. I'm nervous about getting there on time, remembering which classroom, remembering to have done my homework. Out of four years of college classes, I never once forgot to do my homework, I never once forgot which classroom it was, and I was never late.

And pretty much every other thing you could imagine makes me nervous.

If I gave in to my anxieties, I would have died a long time ago, because I wouldn't have been able to go to the store and get more food, much less work to earn money to get food.

Husband asks me all the time why I can't just get over some of it. Like the college classes. If repetition has taught me anything, it's that I will make it to class on time and be prepared. So why should I continue to be terrified of it?

And that's why it's called an anxiety disorder. If logic could make it go away, it wouldn't be much of a disorder.

I've always been nervous, as long as I can remember. My mom used to joke that I came out of the womb neurotic, because my first baby picture is me with terrible red scratches on my face, one hand digging my nails into my cheeks, the other hand coming into the bottom frame of the picture, ready to scratch the corresponding cheek. I was nervous about being alive.

My mom, who also has an anxiety disorder, though not as bad as mine, recognized this in me from a very young age. And she wanted to discourage it so that I could grow up having a peaceful, normal, not-vomit-filled life.

In first grade, we started weekly class trips to the school library. We'd get to check out a book, take it home for a week, and bring it back the following Wednesday. Things went smoothly for several months, until one dreaded Wednesday morning on the drive to school, while I was checking and re-checking my backpack to make sure I had everything I needed for the day, I realized I had forgotten my library book.

Thrust into a state of absolute, inconsolable panic, I alerted my mom to the situation.

"MOMIFORGOTMYLIBRARYBOOKWEHAVETOGOBACK!!!"

She rationally explained that we couldn't go back to get it, or I'd be late for school.

Oh. Dear. Lord. Two giant rivals - forgetting the library book vs being late. Both would get me in trouble. But which would be worse??

"WEHAVETOWEHAVETOWEHAVETO!!!" I could handle being late. Other people had been late before. Plus, that's really more my mom's fault, anyway. But I'd never seen anyone forget a library book before (in retrospect, I'm sure they had, it was just not a big enough deal for anyone else to have taken notice).

My anxiety-stricken mom saw this as the perfect situation in which to teach me a lesson early in life so I could avoid a similar fate to her own. If she forced me to go to school without my library book, surely I would see that it really wasn't that big of a deal, and I would be able to lose some of the anxiety.

Wrong.

She calmly explained to me that I forgot it, and I would see that it wasn't a big deal. The librarian might tell me I need to be more responsible and remember it next week, but nothing bad would happen. I could simply bring it back next week.

I could see my mom's point, and as I opened my mouth to agree (or protest, it really doesn't matter which), I suddenly realized words were not what was about to escape past my lips.

"PULLOVERI'MGONNABARF!!"

And thus began the vomiting-from-nervousness. The librarian did, in fact, tell me I needed to be more responsible (why, God, why?? I try so hard! How could I have screwed up on such a massive level?!), and that I could simply bring my library book in next week.

Instead of learning my mom's lesson that it really wasn't a big deal, and I wouldn't get in trouble (but to me, it felt like I did get in trouble - disappointment is a form of trouble), I chose the other path - and I never again forgot a library book on library day. To this day, I can't even handle returning movies late. I love Netflix.

The Day a Dog-Monster Ate My Childhood

I've always had a knack for picking just the right name for things. Not only do I have an affinity for naming everything I own, but I've always been good at choosing just the right, most fitting name.

For example, my favorite childhood stuffed animal was a little sherbet-orange colored teddy bear with the most perfect, shiny, jelly-bean-esque nose. I thought long and hard for the ideal name for him. He was such a loyal friend. Always there for me, in the basement, in my room, we'd even go outside together. After much consideration, I decided the perfect name for him would be simple. Catchy. One that really spoke to his true nature both as a bear and as my life-long friend.

I named him Orange Bear.

Oh, how I loved Orange Bear. I even loved him after his perfect, shiny, jelly-bean-esque nose fell off and rolled under the water heater, never to be seen again. He was disfigured, and I still loved him. Now that is a true testament to our lasting relationship.

One day, my parents decided to have a picnic for us in our backyard. I'm not entirely sure why, or what purpose it served, but there we were, sitting on a quilt in the middle of our wide-open yard, enjoying the sunny day and each other's company.

At the time, we were living in South Dakota, just outside the city limits of Sioux Falls. We lived in a small development, but right past our street there were huge, loping grassy hills with a vast expanse of nothing but raceway for the terrible South Dakota winds. You could see these plains from our backyard, and it gave the feeling of really being out in the country, not immediately on the other side of a busy highway (like we actually were).

So there we were, minding our own business, in our own backyard, having a joyful picnic. Just my parents, my older brother, me, and, of course, Orange Bear. Suddenly, my dad looked up just in time to see a monstrously-sized black dog bounding toward us. Its hand towel-sized pink tongue lolling sloppily out the side of its mouth between sparkling white, dagger teeth. Its gigantic paws hit the ground with each running step like horse's hooves, pounding the dirt and sending chills down our spines with each deep vibration of the Earth's crust. The bottomless blackness of its murderous eyes cut through our very souls. It was headed directly for us.

In a panic, my mom tried to get us children into the house. "RUUUUUN!!" she'd screamed, convinced this clearly rabid buffalo-sized dog was about to consume her children in one gulp.

But we were frozen on our spots. Minds entirely blank from awe and the impending, undeniable black death that was closing in on us.

Closer and closer the black demon dog from Hell came. In a matter of seconds, he was upon us. I could hear nothing but the deafening pounding from my own heart making my ears throb, and the bone-chilling panting breaths of the dog-monster as it closed in on me.

And in the blink of an eye, it was over. The black dog-monster was past us, running back in the direction he had come from. The direction of Hell.

We all looked at each other as nervous laughter escaped. What a close call! And to think, we were scared of the dog! It just wanted to say hi! And here we were. Everyone was fine and dandy. As good as new! Mom and Dad smiled knowingly at each other - they'd successfully averted a disaster. What good parents they were! Brian and I shared in their joy - what obedient and well-behaved children we must be to have escaped the clutches of such a terrible dog-monster from Hell! I turned to share my joyous relief with Orange Bear. But to my absolute horror, Orange Bear was missing. His spot on the quilt was entirely and infinitely empty.

I started screaming for him, "ORANGE BEAR! ORANGEBEAAAAAR!!" Once again, my dad's keen eyes served us well - he caught a glimpse of orange hanging out of the dog-monsters mouth, just as he turned the corner and was gone from our sights for good.

Devastated and frantic, I screamed at my parents that we had to get Orange Bear back. My life would never be complete again without him. What kind of a life was worth living in an Orange Bear-less world, anyway?

Once again, my parents sprang into action. They calmly and rationally told me that we could go around and ask the neighbors if they know who the black dog belongs to. Clearly, this was not a satisfactory answer to me, as that black demon monster from Hell couldn't belong to a HUMAN. It's from HELL, you guys.

After picking up our picnic paraphernalia, we headed out as a family to track down the dog-monster's owner (or his demonic master of torture and all things death). Fortunately, the first house we stopped at believed they knew where the black dog lived (duh, Hell). We headed over to the house she had pointed to and continued our search and rescue efforts.

A kindly-looking older man opened the door and welcomed us inside. He was pleasant enough (for a Dark Overlord from the Pits of Hell). He told us that he did, in fact own a black dog (Warrior of Satan). But unfortunately, he hadn't seen any stuffed orange bear. The dog had come home not too long ago, and he hadn't noticed that he'd been carrying anything.

The man offered us a drink, and my parents sat down to chat with him pleasantly enough. I, on the other hand, was dying inside. While we were sitting here chatting up this stranger (a possible Dark Overlord), Orange Bear was out there somewhere. Probably being tortured by Satan's minions to reveal all his deepest secrets. The devastation at the realization that I might never see Orange Bear again began to wash over me.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that made my heart stop and my blood run cold. A tuft of sherbet-orange colored hair. Sticking out from under the bench of a seat in the next room.

The realization came rushing to me all at once. This man. Was. LYING. He HAD Orange Bear! He was being held prisoner in a wooden bench!! His mouth was probably covered in duct tape, or he'd have screamed for us so we knew he was there. The man was trying to fool us into believing his feeble story by offering my parents coffee. His plan was flawless. Except for Orange Bear's sly attempt at communication. The man must have not seen how Orange Bear squeezed just his one tuft of fur under the cover at the last second. Genius, Orange Bear, simply genius!

I hurriedly whispered to my mom, "There's Orange Bear! I see him!! IN THE BENCH!!" At first she tried to hush me; after all, she was trying to enjoy her bribery coffee and misleading chitchat. But my urgency got through to her. She looked over and recognized Orange Bear's fuzzy butt flare of desperation.

"Um, excuse me," she peeped in quietly, "I hate to be nosy, but my daughter" (thanks for the betrayal, Mom) "thinks she sees her teddy bear over in that bench there. Do you mind if we look?"

Embarrassed, the man stands up and rushes to the bench (all his evil plots unfurling at his feet), throws open the lid, and there, in all his nose-less glory, is Orange Bear. In tact. It looks like we got there just in time to save him before the rigorous torture sessions began.

"Oh dear. My wife must have gotten this from the dog and put it in here without telling me! I'm terribly sorry." A likely story, Mr. Blown-Cover Overlord!! Where is this convenient "wife" of which you speak now?! Oh, she just HAPPENED to run to the store after locking Orange Bear in a dungeon and "forgetting" to tell you? The coincidences are stacking up against you, sir!

As he handed Orange Bear back to me (seemingly reluctantly), I thought I could almost hear his Dark Overlord thoughts drilling through me, "this isn't over yet, girlie. My black Dog-Monster of Doom knows where you live - and we know how to get the answers we want!"

I clutched Orange Bear to me and held him tight. I'd never let him out of my grasp again. At least not till the next best friend stuffed animal came along. But who could possibly replace Orange Bear in the ranks of loyalty and trust? He hadn't even spilled our secrets to the Dark Overlord or his Dog-Monster of Doom. And yet... Blue Panda and Brownie Dog have their good qualities, too... and they both still have their noses.

An Ode to BS

In honor of today being my big brother's 29th birthday, I decided it would be apropos to write about him. Oh, brother...

I believe we had a typical childhood relationship. We're 21 months apart, so close enough to play together all the time and fight like riled up roosters in a cock fight, but far apart in age enough to have some of our own interests. I didn't realize it at the time, but in retrospect, I think I wanted to be just like him. I did everything he did - soccer, swim team, piano lessons, playing in the school band, then marching band (yes, we were dorks), and tech crew in high school (a small disclaimer here: at our school, tech crew was not the thing super dorky kids did - evidently, that's how it is at other schools, but for us, tech and drama seemed to be the cool kids - even the football team captains and cheerleaders tried to get into the drama scene, and all the techies were best friends with the drama kids, etc - or maybe I'm just projecting to try and feel like less of a total loser...).

But my brother was a genius. He never tried at school and always got perfect scores on everything. He had to start taking college-level math outside of our high school by the time he was a sophomore, because he'd already finished all the math our school could provide. I, on the other hand, did every assignment, studied for hours every night (in retrospect I wonder how I even found things to study for hours every night in high school), and made close to perfect grades, but just not quite as good as his. He could play any instrument without learning - just picked it up, messed around on it, and suddenly, he knew how to play the trumpet. Or the saxophone. Or guitar. (Although, he was also known as "the cancer of the band," because he had a terrible work ethic (I later learned it was due to an injustice committed by the director and a resulting lack of desire to try) and would "infect" those who sat in a growing radius around him) I, however, struggled through 14 years of flute lessons and never got above a mediocre skill level. In our parents' eyes, he was flawless - the perfect kid. He'd go out on weekends and get drunk, but they were oblivious to that. I stayed home on weekends and lamely attempted to practice my flute or study more for that up-coming physics test. But to them, he could do no wrong.

Clearly, this made me hate him.

In an irrationally thought out plan to make us get along, my parents decided that, when he got his first car (a beat-up '92 Pontiac LeMans, fondly known as the "LePimp"), he would drive me to school every day. This wouldn't have been too much of an issue if we were normal kids, but, of course, we weren't.

Remember, I have the anxiety disorder. Part of that is a physical inability to be tardy. I am ALWAYS at least 15 min early to everything. Even arbitrarily established timelines for myself - like grocery shopping. I'm always 15 min early to the grocery store. So every morning in high school, I was up 3 hours before school started, with plenty of time to get ready, eat breakfast, study some more, and... wait. Anxiously, I'd sit at the bar in the kitchen, on the verge of vomiting, as the minute hand ticked closer and closer to 7:55 (the time the first bell rang). I'd BEG my mom to go make sure he was awake. By 7:45, I'd be running in and out of the bathroom, dry heaving, while she casually made her way downstairs to try and get him out of bed. FINALLY, he'd come upstairs. At 7:53. AND THEN HE'D WANT TO EAT BREAKFAST.

At this point, I would be having a complete mental and physical breakdown, holding back tears, hyperventilating, shaking uncontrollably, sometimes even throwing up. By the time he got into the car and drove us to school, we inevitably ended up pulling up right as the second bell (the TARDY bell) rang. I'd run frantically to my classroom, choking back sobs and apologizing profusely to my teachers, trying to explain that it wasn't my fault. He, on the other hand, would saunter in casually, likely getting high-fives and pleasant greetings from his teachers, who all also thought he was the greatest thing on Earth.

After about six months of this, every single day, my mom finally agreed that the 20 lbs I'd lost through these daily panic attacks was enough. She demanded that he get up earlier and get me to school on time. He seemed willing enough to cooperate.

Little did I know, he had a revenge plan.

As if it wasn't bad enough to be carted around in the LePimp. He had used duct tape to write out "Le PIMP" across the back windshield. He'd torn out the floorboards to re-wire the car so he could string Christmas lights along the doors, windows, hood, and trunk. He built a gigantic sub-woofer box that took up the entire backseat. The key was broken off in the ignition. The passenger side window didn't roll down. The back hatch didn't really close all the way. Everyone in town knew the car. He was proud of it (wearing his "picnic tablecloth" shirts - the most God-awful bright plaid shirts imaginable - the school had a dress code and you had to wear a button up collared shirt - no color requirements, though, unfortunately - to school every day). I was just mortified.

But no. His revenge came swiftly one morning. We got in the car (at 7:40!!), and he pulled out a tape to stick into the tape deck. He had the hint of an evil grimace on his face, as if to say, "she thinks she won. Little does she know." The tape started.

INFORMER! YaknowsaydaddymeSnowmeagonnablame
A LICKY BOOM BOOM DOWN...

Okay, I thought, I can handle a mixed-tape. Is this all he's got??

Snow's Informer came to an end, and I was excitedly curious to hear what came on next. That's really not a bad song. Kind of annoying, and it has a way of getting stuck in your head (an ear worm, as the Germans so graphically describe it) for days on end, but the next song might be catchy enough to prevent it from sticking.

INFORMER! YaknowsaydaddymeSnowmeagonnablame
A LICKY BOOM BOOM DOWN...

Oh no. What's going on? Okay, surely he just made a mistake and put it on there twice. He's not very technology-savvy (a clear attempt at denial, since he is, in fact, the most technology-savvy person I know).

INFORMER! YaknowsaydaddymeSnowmeagonnablame
A LICKY BOOM BOOM DOWN...

Oh dear Lord. Somebody just kill me now.

Yes, he'd done it. He'd made an ENTIRE mixed tape with ONLY Snow's Informer on it. Both sides. So we could listen to it non-stop on the way to and from school, every single day. And as if that weren't bad enough, thanks to the catchy rhythm and my inability to understand any of the words, every second of every day NOT spent in the car was still spent mentally stumbling through the song. A LICKY BOOM BOOM DOWN!!

This went on for months. At least three months. The only song I heard while in a car was Snow's Informer. His revenge had been exacted, and it was sweet indeed.

At some point, we came to an understanding. He woke up a little earlier and got me to school before I was late. And I didn't whine to Mom every day about him. Although we never spoke a single word to each other in the car, we didn't try to kill each other, either.

And finally, for my 16th birthday, my parents got me my own car. Well, technically, they got my mom a car and gave me the old '93 Nissan Altima. My brother was beyond angry about this (the Altima WAS a pretty awesome car, after all), but once again, he came out on top. He got a brand new '00 Jeep Cherokee, exactly how he wanted it, when he graduated from high school, because he was such a genius and dozens of colleges were literally throwing money at him to go to their school. I drove that Altima over 80,000 miles, in spite of it being totaled twice, until 2008. As soon as I had my own car and was able to drive myself to school (on time, no less!), we instantly became friends. It was like there was no reason to hate each other anymore. That was probably the best birthday present I ever got - not because it was a car for my 16th birthday, which is clearly an awesome present, but because it meant the beginning of a real, healthy, adult-like friendship with my brother.

Here we are, years later, still getting along. So Brian, on your birthday, I just have one thing to say to you:

INFORMER! YaknowsaydaddymeSnowmeagonnablame
A LICKY BOOM BOOM DOWN!!!