This morning I discovered a wonderful and deadly secret, Burger King now carries Cinnabons. I love Cinnabons! Until this morning, I could only get them at the airport. Usually, I could resist them, too worried about making my flight or having oozing cinnamon sauce dripping down my chin and shirt.
Now, I can go less then a mile from my home, sit in my car and indulge in cinnamon-sugar ecstasy. Burger King has Cinnabons!
Like a cocaine addict, there I sat. Could have ordered the bacon, egg sandwich or better still, the oatmeal with fruit. No, I ordered Cinnabons, two of them. I deserved them, I told myself. Reasons why, I have no clue.
I ordered, paid and planned to sit in the parking lot eating them. My napkins in hand for the dribble mess that only a Cinnabon can produce. I opened the box. Two scrumptious, twisted, doughy circles dripping in brown cinnamon syrup and decadent white icing stared at me. Oh my!
My cell phone clock buzzed. I looked at the dash clock. It’s later then I thought. if I sat in the parking lot, I’d be late for my class on spiritual discipline. You know, learn not to over indulge. Keep an even-keel, that sort of thing. So, I have to eat the Cinnabons on the go. What could go wrong?
I turn out of the Burger King parking lot and the first gob of icing hits my jeans. It’ll wait. I can’t turn, hold a Cinnabon and grab a napkin at the same time. I’m not that coordinated. Not a problem. For the three miles it takes me to get to my class on discipline, I gorge myself on these overly-large, incredibly addictive, way-more-than-I-can-eat rolls. Pleased, that I only have that one glob of icing on my jeans to contend with.
At my destination, I pulled into the parking lot and found a spot. The rolls are eaten. Not something to be proud of, but next time, I’ll order the oatmeal. No one has to know I slipped up and once again found myself in a sugary stupor. I’d gotten away with it! Ha, ha, indulge today, disciple tomorrow!
I garb a napkin to remove the incriminating evidence from my jeans only to find… it is joined by five other considerable larger globs all down my shirt and jeans. Crap! Good thing they gave me many napkins.
Did you know napkins adhere to Cinnabon icing globs like flies on flypaper? Napkins ripped, shredding all over my shirt and jeans. I look like a kid just learning how to shave, ending up with toilet paper wads all over their face!
I should be in class several minutes ago! How in the hell am I going to clean this up and look dignified? No one is supposed to know I fell off the band-wagon! I wonder if I can lick some of it off. I don’t have any water and drowning myself in caramel-mocha coffee doesn’t seem like the answer!
There is a knock on my car passenger window. It’s a friend of mine also going to this class. Her gleeful expression quickly turns to confusion. I’d be confused too if I wandered up to her car only to find her sitting there with napkin shreds hanging off globs of icing all over her shirt, hands and pants.
There is really nothing to say here except, “Burger King now has CInnabons.” She still looks confused.
“I’m not really sure how to help you with this one,” she says. Her head cocks sideways the way my dog does when I’m trying to explain the concepts of karma to him.
“That’s okay, I don’t’ know either.” I wonder if I can claim this as a new grunge/bohemian look.
So, I’m going to class wearing shredded napkins and not-strategically placed globs of syrup and icing. A smile on my face. I’m taking responsibility for my actions. I’ll take the consequences, the tisk-tisks, the smirks, and the malaise when this sugar rush crashes.
I get out of the car and straighten out my newly decorated shirt and strategically hug my friend who says, “Wow, you smell like a bakery, like Christmas cookies! That’s not too bad. It could be much worse.”
And this is why I have her as my friend. Everyone should have friends like this.
Hello, my name is Deborah Sickle Hill, Burger King has Cinnabons, and I have a problem. Damn good thing I’m taking a class on spiritual discipline. I think I have a stomachache.
Suzie Worley hated liver. That included liver sausage. She was standing in the back room of her grandparents’ one-hundred and thirty-year-old meat market. It was now her market, handed down through the generations.
Almost daily she thought about closing the doors and selling the antiquated market despite continued faithful patronage. She had hoped Karly, her eighteen-year-old daughter, would become her apprentice and then take over the business when Suzie was no longer able to physically manage. Her daughter showed no interest in the family business and refused to help in the shop.
Times have changed, Suzie thought. She always knew she would fall in line with the family business. Suzie, like her own mother, understood the importance of family pride, responsibilities and tradition. That was why weekly, despite hating liver sausage, Suzie found herself in the back of the meat market pumping out and stuffing fifty-two pounds of liver sausage.
“Eat your liver sausage,” Suzie remembered her mother mumbling through lips that didn’t move. Her mother didn’t like liver sausage either. They were seated around the silver and red Formica kitchen table for another day of liver sausage and eggs over-easy with toast just shy of black, along with her father and maternal grandmother. It was 1965.
“Just place it in the center of your tongue,” her mother continued, “and you’ll hardly taste it.” Her mother’s eyes widened and darted from Suzie to her grandmother. It was face language for, your grandmother is watching; eat your sausage.
Her grandmother wasn’t looking. She never was. She was too busy nodding her head in approval while slurping liver sausage juice back into her toothless mouth.
“Oh dear, Oh dear, I’ve ruined another lovely blouse,” Her grandmother commented after dribbles landed on the cleavage area of her blouse. She grabbed her napkin and failed in her attempt to remedy the situation. All Suzie’s grandmother’s blouses where stained in liver sausage dribbles.
“My mother had the same problem when she ate liver sausage.” Her grandmother chuckled. “Well, it was worth it. Jesus himself couldn’t have…” Suzie mouthed the remainder of the sentence as her grandmother spoke. “… made liver sausage this good even if he used a miracle.”
No one had the heart to tell her grandmother that the pork in liver sausage is an abomination to God based on the Jewish tradition. Her beloved Jesus was a Jew and would be appalled if Mary and Martha served him liver sausage.
“Smother it in the fried onions and ketchup,” her father mumbled. Suzie estimated her father ate enough fried onions and ketchup to keep migrant, onion pickers and the Heinz ketchup company going single handedly.
She didn’t bother. It wouldn’t help. Once again Suzie slid the sausage under the table to her basset hound, Speedy. He liked liver sausage and ate a lot of it. This probably had more do to with his early death from heart failure than anything else, Suzie always thought.
1973 was the year Suzie graduated from Kemper Senior High School. She was going to drive her father’s old, mint-green, ’62 Dodge Dart with the big steering wheel and very un-cool side fins, to California. Since his stroke, it collected dust in the garage.
For months she secretly sent resumes to cruise ships berthed on the west coast for waitress positions. She was going to get as far away from the meat market as she could. She hated liver sausage and the family business. There was no way she was staying to rot and die like her grandparents and now parents. There was a world to see and it didn’t include liver sausage.
“California!” Suzie’s mother yelled. “When were you going to tell me this grand plan of yours?”
Suzie pulled her headband further back on her head so her elbow-length, brown hair stayed behind her ears. It was a nervous habit. They were standing next to the old extruder, caked in oil and cooked pate remnants. A sausage casing hung from the nozzle.
“I can’t stay here, Mom!” She pleaded, crossed her arms over her chest and flopped down on a worn, wooden bench against the wall. She hoped her mother would understand.
Her mother hated liver sausage and the meat shop too. Suzie was well aware of this. Thanks to her grandmother. Grandma had no difficulty reminding Suzie’s mother in front of Suzie about the squabbles they had over family business vs running away to nursing school. The family business had won.
In Suzie’s eyes, the store had been her grandparent’s and no one alive wanted it. No one dead cared. Suzie could feel the tears welling in her eyes. She couldn’t believe her mother wasn’t getting it.
“Your grandparents saved their money to come to this country and buy this shop,” her mother said with a catch in her throat. “Hell, that liver sausage recipe goes back generations before them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got it from Jesus!”
“Mom, Jesus is a Jew!” Suzie sprang to her feet, twisting her ankle in her hot pink, high healed clogs.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Her mother turned away and wrung her hands on an apron she was wearing. It was floral with ruffles at the shoulders and once belonged to Suzie’s grandmother.
“I need you here,” said her mother. There was a moment of silence between them. “We need to get five pounds of chicken and beef livers, two pounds pork hearts and some pork belly trimmings from the refrigerator.”
Suzie felt her world come to an end. She thought, why did I bother to go to school, play the clarinet or get good grades? If my whole life is going to be this stupid meat shop, there is no sense in living anymore.
She had watched her grandparents slave over the machines, pumping out liver sausages. Watched her parents, who hated liver sausage, do the very same thing. It wasn’t a business. To her, it was a curse.
Karly, Suzie’s daughter, bust into the back of the meat market letting the door slam closed behind her. Suzie was startled from her reminiscing.
“I hate this crap, Mom!” Karly declared. She flopped herself down, arms crossed, onto a worn, wooden bench against the wall. Just like Suzie had done so many years ago.
Suzie realized she had become her mother, a thought that nearly paralyzed her. Maybe, times had not changed so much after all. “Then why are you here?” She asked her daughter. She opened up the refrigerator to pull out five pounds of chicken and beef livers, two pounds pork hearts and some pork belly trimmings.
“If I didn’t come help you, I’d feel guilty as hell. That’s why. I hate when you put me on a guilt trip.” She fidgeted causing the wooden bench to wobble. “Why are you here, Mom? You hate this stuff and this market too.”
Suzie paused inside the refrigerator door. The smell of raw meat once again caused queasiness. Her mother and grandmother were long dead. She remembered her own thoughts when having this conversation with her mother. No one alive wants it. No one dead cares. She shut the refrigerator door.
She wondered how many Worley women needed to devote their lives to ideas and traditions because the generation before had done so. Maybe, it wasn’t about tradition, pride or responsibility. Perhaps it was time to allow independent thinking in the family.
Suzie took off her apron and quietly hung it on the rusted nail that had held it for many decades. She ripped off a piece of cardboard from an empty, pickle jar box. “Do you have a marker?”
Karly looked at Suzie confused. She shrugged her shoulders, grabbed her back-pack set at her feet and pulled out a black marker. She stood and gave it to Suzie.
Suzie wrote on the cardboard in big, bold letters, CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. She pulled some meat-packing tape and walked out into the market front with Karley at her side. She tapped the sign to the front door and turned to her daughter.
“I think we’re overdue for a meeting of the minds over coffee. What do you think?”
Setting out to find a life partner is like fishing. Fishermen have to know what kind of fish they are fishing for and where that type of fish is likely to be found. If they are after tuna, hopefully, you wouldn’t see them fishing in a river. They have to know what kind of bait to use to entice the fish. They have to know their own abilities and have good skills in fishing. Knowing all this, they go to their favorite fishing place and throw in their line and wait. If they are lucky a fish shows interest. Skill is in the length of time and reel play needed to keep the fish interested and not bored. Hopefully, the fisherman gets his fish.
Okay, dating is not quite like fishing. There are some differences but the basics are the same. The person looking needs to know the type of person that holds their interest. Next, they have to know where to best find that type of person. The fisher of a life partner has to assess if they have the correct personal characteristics to attract this type of person. They have to be confident that what they have to legitimately offer and be sincere in offering. This is where the analogy stops.
People are not fish and the idea of baiting someone sounds horrid. However, I find using this fishing analogy works well in getting people to realize some of the behaviors they chose to find a mate are as wacky as fishing for tuna in a river. Two reasons for dating disasters and the destruction of the beginning relationships are: One or both people have minimal ideas on what they really want in a relationship. One or both people don’t know what their needs are and the ways they have learned to get those needs met. One or both parties do not realize that everyone in the world processes and sees the world somewhat differently. When you add the hormonal component involved with sexual attraction and the chemical reaction we call falling in love, is it any wonder new relationships have a high turn-over rate?
To be a fisherman in good form and help prevent fishing disasters, it is best for the fisherman to know his/herself before those hormones kick in. I’m going to review some ideas then look at an example.
Review: All choices in life revolve around the same basic questions and concerns. What is it I really want and need? What am I doing to get it?Is it working? If not, reassess what you are doing?
Our choices must also include two very important pieces of information: ALL BEHAVIOR IS PURPOSEFUL (Everything you think, feel and do is for a purpose – always). THE ONLY PERSON YOU CAN CHANGE IS YOU.
All our behaviors are based on our needs. Everyone has the same needs, only in different degrees. Universal needs are: Love and belonging (feeling connected to a bigger whole), Power, Freedom, Fun, Survival, Purpose in life (spiritual).
How we get these needs met depends on several factors: Our total knowledge (learning and experience), Our values. Our perceptions (how we choose to see the world around us).
OUR EXAMPLE:
Let’s look at Joe (not a real person) for an example of this in action.
Joe has a high NEED for LOVE and a low need for POWER. His goal (WANT) is to find someone to marry who will love him unconditionally the way he wants to love them.
Joe’s TOTAL KNOWLEDGE comes from:
His divorced parents:
Mom said. “Your father never loved me. I know this because he never helped me with the chores.”
Joe heard: to show a woman you love them, help with the chores.
Dad said. “We loved one another but she let herself go and well I have needs. Your mom turned out to be a total dog. Son, marry a younger beautiful woman and you will always be content.”
Joe heard: Stay in shape, dress sharp and marry a younger, beautiful woman to keep love alive.
Joe has read all about love and relationships in books and magazines and has learned:
Love takes a lot of work
There are stages of love in a relationship
Couples who make it, communicate well and have date nights
Money is the number one reason couples split up
Joe loves to listen to country music, watch TV and go to the movies. He has learned:
Relationships break up all the time
No matter what men do in a relationship, it’s usually wrong
Men have a very hard time staying with one woman
If you work hard enough you can get someone to fall in love with you
If someone steals your girl, you can work hard and win her back
Women want a tender man who is good in bed, has a good job, makes good money, is handsome, maybe a bit quirky and can take care of them
Romance and love hit fast and hard. Go with it.
Joe has friends. All of them are divorced and some remarried. He hears them say things like:
She left me for her tennis instructor.
My secretary is better in the sack.
She just doesn’t get me.
We grew apart.
She was a nagging bitch anyway.
Joe hears:
Stay in shape or you’ll lose her to some athletic guy.
Don’t look at other women, it’s too tempting.
Keep an open communication so you don’t grow apart.
Remember there are stages of love, stick with it.
There are reasons people complain. Find out and correct problems if needed.
Now Joe is ready to find the girl of his dreams. He is at an art gallery opening and spots the young and beautiful Sally. He knows she is the one and there is no turning back. He can feel it. The fact he does not know her is of no consequence. He had everything he needs to make this work. So he thinks.
PROBLEM
Joe has not looked at the most important piece of information needed to make this relationship work. Sally has her own TOTAL KNOWLEDGE independent of Joe! Because Joe decided, based on his knowledge, values and perceptions that they were destined to be together, he inadvertently placed his heart on the line. He fell romantically in love and it ended up looking like this.
Joe: Tries to be attentive. Sally: Thinks he is smothering.
Joe: Brings her flowers and writes her romantic poetry. Sally: Thinks flowers are a waste of money and only for funerals or for saying I’m sorry. She hates poetry.
Joe: Wants to spend intimate evenings at home watching TV together. Sally: Wants to belong to various up and coming professional and social groups. These keep her out of the house most nights.
Joe: Reminds her of his good, high paying job and income. But he doesn’t stop there. He also reminds her that he is there to take care of her. Hinting she can stay home and take care of the kids when they come along.
Sally: Thinks he is a male chauvinist. There is no way in hell she would consider staying home. She is one of the up and coming, not trying to gain a homemaker of the year award.
Who is in the wrong? Neither! Joe has a strong need for love and a low power need. Sally has a low need for love and a strong need for power. The relationship fails and Joe is devastated. He has no clue why it did not work.
Because of Joe’s total knowledge and values, he chose to only see the things in his world that agreed with them. Those were his perceptions. It all went together and it never occurred to him Sally saw things differently. Joe had TUNNEL VISION.
Joe’s tunnel vision prevented him from seeing Kelly at the gallery the night he fell in love with Sally. Kelly had introduced herself to Joe but he hadn’t really seen her after seeing Sally. She was not as stunning in his eyes.
Kelly was looking for someone just like Joe to fall in love and get married. She would have been thrilled with poetry, romance, nights home together and a long committed relationship with family.
Joe missed it! This was probably not the first or the last time Joe’s tunnel vision would blind him to getting his needs and wants met.
FISHING LESSON FOR THE DAY
Know your needs and wants (the real ones, not the superficial ones).
Have a handle on how you are thinking, feeling, behaving and how you are screening your reality to get those needs and wants met.
When you met someone REMEMBER – they have their own needs and wants. They have their own ways of thinking, feeling, behaving and screening their reality.
Slow down and reassess yourself and the situation often. If needed, make changes in your thinking, feeling or behaving.
** Now I know someone is going to ask, why would Sally continue to go out with Joe?
Let’s look at Sally a little closer.
Sally has a strong power need. Her goal (want) is to find a man with enough money, connections and good looks to wine/dine and help elevate her and her career. She wants to live the way her parents did without the commitment to marriage.
Sally’s parents are married.
Mom says. “Your father and I love one another, I suppose. But he’s a lawyer. I’ve got the country club. Marry someone rich, someone who will get you into the upper crust of society.” Sally heard: Men are your ticket to the rich and powerful of society. Love is not important, prestige is.
Dad says. “I’m a powerful attorney. I don’t have time for trivialities of marriage. I got married because it is what I was supposed to. It looks good for politics and moving ahead in life.” Sally heard: Marriage if anything is for convenience and if you don’t have to, don’t do it.
Sally does not like to read books on relationships. Occasionally she reads magazines on high fashion and celebrities. She has learned:
The more men you have experience with the better
Men are a great spring board for a woman to succeed
Men can be thrown away when a better opportunity arises
Men’s feelings are not as deep or important as a woman’s
Women have been oppressed too long. It’s your turn, baby.
Sally does not watch TV. She listens to Indie and World music but never notices any relationship issues implied in them. If she goes to a movie, it is only to see an Indie film specific about world concerns and oppressed people getting ahead. She has learned:
You have to be tough in this world
You are truly on your own
Make sacrifices to better yourself
Think global not home based
Sally’s friends have never married nor do they want to. They have all gone through many men all propelling them further in their own pursuits. They all think their moms were naive and or dumb.
Sally hears:
Don’t get married
Date only men with money who can help propel your career
It’s all for me to help me so I can help the world
I’m not going to be a pasty fool like my mom.
Sally meets Joe. His money and continuous attempts to convince her of his great and powerful job tell her he meets her criteria. She can use this even if the rest of him is old fashioned and a bit of a bore. Only his old fashioned ways and smothering behaviors make him too much of a liability for her needs and wants. She dumps him for Kevin who has more of a power need similar to her own.
Sometimes the Joe’s do find the Kelly’s in the world and there are still problems that arise. Why would this happen?
Remember Joe gives flowers and poetry to show love? It could be as easy as Kelly was raised that a man shows love by doing more family events and activities with kids and extended family. Only she never told him. Joe thinks he is doing everything right to show his love. In Kelly’s mind, she loves the flowers and poetry. But they are not demonstrating the deep love she needs from him. Kelly needs for Joe to volunteer to do things with the family.
If both of them know what their needs and wants are AND WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE (What behaviors a person would see as testimony of meeting that need or desire. i.e. flowers mean I love you vs. time spent with family means I love you). The next step is to TALK about it. Neither of these people is more right or wrong, only different!
Once they each have more information they can chose to change their behaviors or keep things the way they are accepting the possible unhappy or disastrous results.
So, if you are having relationship issues or are fishing for that special someone –
GIVE YOURSELF A GIFT
Know your real true wants and needs
Know what they look like in action
Remember everyone is different
Give yourself time to explore and grow
Get more information if things are not making sense or you feel out of balance
Self evaluate often
Communicate always
Remember you can only change you. You are ultimately responsible for you, your feelings, thinking and behaviors. Happy fishing!
The driveway to our house was a mile-long tunnel, hand-cut by men long forgotten. In daylight, sunlight danced like fairies through the trees. But at night, shadows twisted into monsters that chased our old ’66 Chevy. I was five years old, safest tucked on the car floor before seat belts were a thing.
The first time I saw him, it was a warm afternoon. I was wandering the woods around our house when I spotted an old man mowing a lawn I hadn’t seen before. He wore baggy grey pants, suspenders, and an off-white t-shirt. His hair was short and grey, his face clean-shaven. The lawnmower made no sound. Neither did the birds. The air chilled, and my skin tingled.
He felt different, but I didn’t understand how.
I returned often that summer. Sometimes, only trees and rubble remained. Other times, I saw him pushing that silent mower again, a small stone house behind him—only visible on certain days. When the air thickened and sounds warped, I knew I was close.
I decided to talk to him.
One day, I pushed through the invisible wall of static, stepped onto his lawn—and he stopped mowing. He looked at me, smiled, and in that moment my head throbbed, my breath caught, and I fell backward. He—and the world he came from—vanished.
Later, he began appearing closer to home, sitting silently in one of our colorful metal lawn chairs. I’d tell him about my dog. He’d never speak, but I could feel his presence. I wanted him to acknowledge me. One day at lunch, he arrived. I jumped and danced in front of him. He smiled—then faded away.
When I told my grandmother, she became angry. She called me a liar. “That man is dead. That house was torn down long before you were born.” My mother tried to explain it away as an “imaginary friend.”
Desperate, I led them through the woods. But the house was gone.
I was no longer allowed to wander alone, and he never came back.
Years later, as an adult with a child of my own, I returned. Our old house was decaying—windows broken, graffiti on the walls, squatters likely nearby. The air felt wrong. We left.
Even more years passed, and I returned again. The land was gone, replaced by townhouses. But I found what remained of our swing set and doghouse in the woods, took home a rusted piece of the past.
Still haunted, I dug through property records. There it was: our home and his, built in the 1870s by a man named S. Disney (I’ll keep his full name private). His house sat exactly where I remembered.
I never found a photo. But I found enough.
Was he a ghost? My imaginary friend? A child’s dream or something more? I don’t know. All I know is I met a man who mowed a lawn that doesn’t exist anymore.
Listening to the Sounds of Nothing ~ Approx. 4–5 min read
Monument Valley
Monument Valley National Park spans the corners of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado, and rests within the Navajo Nation. I’d never been, but something about that red earth called to me. I wasn’t interested in the usual dirt drive tourists take. I needed more. I needed connection.
My husband and I hired a Navajo (Diné) guide and climbed into his jeep. He took us to parts of the valley off the beaten path. About two-thirds through our tour, nearly axle-deep in rich orange sand, he stopped the engine.
“What do you hear?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. I had never heard nothing before. My heart beat faster.
“Exactly.”
He grinned, turned the key, and we continued through the quiet, swerving toward a towering sandstone alcove. Once parked, he motioned for us to follow.
Inside the alcove, the temperature dropped twenty degrees. He told us to lean against the stone wall, and we did. The rock was smooth, cool, grounding. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to leave.
Again, he asked, “What do you hear?”
This time, I heard our breathing echoing in the stillness. Then he began to sing. Words I didn’t understand in a rhythm that seeped deep into my bones. His voice reverberated across the alcove in a way that felt like a secret between the rock and my soul.
He stopped. “Isn’t that something?”
I couldn’t answer. My body felt full and hollow at the same time. He nodded, understanding.
“We have to go back,” he said.
I didn’t want to. This encounter changed me, inspired me, and saddened me as well. What did it mean?
The Gift
Later,we detoured to a cliffside overlook where you can view ancient dwellings carved into the stone. As I walked the path, an elderly Native woman and a teenage girl approached me. The woman held a necklace—glass beads and juniper berries with a wire dreamcatcher pendant.
She said something I didn’t understand. The girl smiled. “It’s a gift,” she said. “From my grandmother.”
I hesitated. Was this a tourist trap? A silent exchange of expectation?
Maybe I looked wary because they grew more insistent. So, I took the necklace and said thank you. They both smiled, then disappeared up the path.
After taking my photos, I returned to find a tin can on a folded blanket with a few bills and coins inside. I dropped in a twenty, unsure if I’d just honored or violated something sacred.
And that’s the word that felt right–sacred. I felt at one with the universe, hearing something most people will never hear—nothing. And it was powerful.
The necklace hangs on my wall, a quiet reminder that in stillness, we touch the sacred.
What do you get when you mix a lime green Datsun with floor portholes, a trunk full of Twinkies, and an angry mob of monkeys? A safari detour gone spectacularly wrong—and a car barely held together by granite and hope. Hang on tight for this laugh-out-loud road trip through chaos, feathers, and fur. (Reading time about 8 minutes)
It was a two door, 1971, lime green Datsun B-210 with a black vinyl roof. Custom detailed with dual, on-the-floor, port holes for your road viewing pleasure. An additional emergency pull-rope release added onto the driver-side door for times when it’s not cool to use a handle. And a specially designed hood bent into the majestic shape of a steep mountain. Perfect for quick engine checks and radiator ventilation without having to fool with antiquated, interior, hood releases. The five pound Massachusetts’ granite, air-filter and cover-attachment-system fit perfectly under the shape of the hood.
Roach clips, never used, with hot pink feathers are swinging to the riffs of Keith Richards’ bass guitar and Mick Jagger’s edgy vocals. It’s Sue’s car. To the world, I am a Lennon/McCartney girl. Behind closed doors, I’m a Richards/Jagger mistress. I have a Sweet Pollyanna Purebred reputation to uphold.
We’re in New Jersey on a sweltering hot, July morning after a heavy rain. The smell of evaporating water on asphalt whiffs through my passenger side, floor porthole. I watch the macadam and occasional puddle fly by my feet straddling the hole.
“Let’s go see the monkeys at the drive-thru safari,” I suggest. I’d seen a sign just outside of New York City. “We’re only twenty miles away.”
“Sure, why not.” Sue replies. Sue is a tomboy. Something she readily embraces. This is evidenced by her grungy rock band tee-shirts, faded jeans, cowboy boots, and hat, slightly greasy dirty blonde hair, and automotive grease under her fingernails. She was always tinkering with the car.
I used to be a tomboy but exchanged it for grace, poise and the showmanship my performance persona demanded. I envy Susan’s grunge while I sit here in a crisp white pair of shorts, turquoise and white spaghetti strap tank top, with appropriately and pain staking matched jewelry. My white Jack Purcells are as spotless as my fingernails which have never touched motor oil.
The car wheel hits a puddle, splashing muddy water into my floor porthole. My crisp, clean whiteness is now a muddy, drenched mess. Water is running off the end of my pampered, Maybelline, light beige covered nose. It took me fifteen minutes trying to find my reflection in a campground mirror this morning to get this nose well blended!
Susan looks over at me and asks. “What the hell? How did you get all wet and muddy?”
“Oh I don’t know. Something about a hole in the floor that needs fixed.” At least my Nikon camera and accessories didn’t get wet. I look around for something to use as a towel but only find our mildewed tent, sleeping bags, duffle bags, firewood, a half empty bag of potato chips and an unopened box of Twinkies.
“Serve’s you right for wearing white!” She laughs, pulls the 8 track tape out of the dashboard, shakes it and puts it back in. I have no idea what this ritual does but this will be the sixth time I’ll hear the song, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, in the past two days.
A kid with pimples greets us at the safari gate. He announces to no one, “Twenty dollars, stay in your car, the windows can be down except in the monkey enclosure, don’t feed the animals, the animals have the right a way, don’t stop in the monkey enclosure, take all the pictures you want, have a nice day.” He takes a breath. We drive on to join a long line of slow moving vehicles.
Our windows are down so I can take pictures without a glare. I tend to see everything through a camera lens. I go almost everywhere with my gear ready for that opportune moment. Several cars ahead, I see two mammoth gray ostriches weaving between them. Occasionally they case a car, seemingly looking for trouble. This could be that moment.
“Hey look.” Susan says as she points to the birds. “They’re getting really close. You might actually get a good picture.”
The birds are now several car lengths away. I look at my camera and realize I don’t need the telephoto lens so I bend down to get the 50 mm.
“Um,” Sue says. Her voice sounds a bit distressed but not enough for me to sit up. “Um, don’t, okay, just don’t get, um, I think we might have a problem.” I cock my head toward her to figure out why she suddenly forgot how to formulate sentences. Her face is oddly drained of color. “Right now,” she continues in a near whisper. “Don’t move, Debbie. We have a serious problem happening.”
I slowly turn my head to face the largest beak I’ve ever seen followed by two, large, black eyes on a face covered by prickly hairs. I definitely remember the animals have the right of way.
The beak, eyes and prickly hairs jolt past me heading for the back seat. It’s followed by an incredibly powerful, prickly haired, neck and a body of varying shades of musky smelling, gray plumage that completely covers my window opening. I’m pretty sure the 50 mm lens is the wrong one. What I really need is an extreme wide angle lens. But that‘s okay because I don’t think the ostrich is in the mood.
The gray plumage and powerful, prickly haired neck whip back out my window with the half-eaten bag of potato chips covering its eyes and beak. It’s really very stunning. The red and white of the family size, chip bag, against the increasingly frantic varying shades of musky smelling, gray plumage now in full regalia is so avant-garde. I can’t decide what strength and angle of flash to use on all this gray plumage with the very overcast, gray sky in the background. This would be a great shot in subtle shades of grays, blacks and white in the style of Ansel Adams.
“Put the window up!” Susan yells. “You’re gonna get in so much trouble for feeding the animals!” I really didn’t need to get into anymore trouble. I nervously try to push strands of my honey blonde hair behind my ear without success. It’s cut too short.
I look over at Sue’s white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel. Her breathing is labored but is curiously in rhythm with her head shaking left to right and back again. It’s not my fault the damn bird likes chips. Not that it matters. I glance around the back seat for damages. Except for a few remaining terrified chips scattered hither and dither, all seems normal. The chips were destined for consumption anyway. What’s the problem?
“Well,” I tell her, “at least they didn’t get the Twinkies.” I can see from Sue’s expression there are no words to express her feelings on the topic. We start moving forward again.
The monkey enclosure looms ahead with its two-story cement walls topped in high voltage wire. Cars are only allowed through the massive wood and steal double doors at select intervals. Two armed animal control wardens monitor the opening diligently.
“They did say this is a monkey enclosure, right?” I ask. Sue nods yes and pulls the car up to the stop line before the immense, fortified doors. I recheck the settings on my camera.
A warden steps up to Sue’s window and says, “Door’s locked, windows up, don’t stop, no exceptions – got it?”
The massive doors open wide enough to swallow us and no wider. We pull through and they close quickly behind us. I look around expecting to see a cross between Godzilla and King Kong. I see nothing but the road we’re on and a well manicured lawn with lots of low shrubby trees. There is a red car about three hundred feet ahead of us moving slowly..
A large, gray-brown male macaque steps out from behind a tree onto the road ahead of us and sits down. Sue stops the car. His steal, green eyes watch us, the animals in the cage. He’s in no hurry to move. Peripherally, I see movement and turn to my right to see macaque mother’s with their babies.
“Check it out!” I tell Sue. “ Aren’t they cute?” I want to shoot a picture but my window has animal slobber all over the exterior. “What does it look like out your window?” She doesn’t answer and I turn to find out why.
On her side of the car, the one with the convenient, emergency, pull-rope door release, a line of fidgety, gray-brown fury bodies with green eyes watch us.
“This can’t be good,” Sue says. She turns the tape player off and we wait in silence.
The large, gray-brown, male macaque responsible for stopping the car jumps onto our mountain shaped car hood. He yawns, shakes his head and urinates all over the window.
“That’s something you don’t see every day,” I say and take a picture.
“This isn’t gonna to be good. I think we might have a problem,” Sue whispers.
Urine-monkey stands, flaps his arms, and opens his mouth displaying sharp incisors and screeches like a banshee. Suddenly, al I see out any window is a gray-brown, fury, moving carpet. The car shakes and bounces reminding me of an amusement park ride. I struggle to turn and look out the back window and see black ash rain.
“Sue, is that your black vinyl roof?” I ask. Thousands of pieces of black vinyl roof slide down the back window. I brace the camera against the rocking car seat and shoot a couple shots of the storm.
“Oh hell! No!” Sue yells. I spin around, jostled off balance as I go. “ They’ve got the rope!”
I lean over to assess the situation. Five monkeys are in a line pulling on the convenient, emergency, pull-rope release. It’s the exterior part with the knot we untie to release the door. Sue has the other shorter, interior end in hand. It’s obvious they have more leverage then we do. I can’t grab the rope. Sue is in the way. So, I move back to my side of the car. Counter balance, I figure.
My side of the window is now void of fur and I have a clear, abet smudged shot of the baby monkeys with their mothers. What the hell? I shoot a couple shots at different focal lengths and apertures, trying to adjust for the rocking motion of the tug of war occurring on the driver side of the car.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sue yells at me. I spin and look at her.
“I’m taking pictures.” I say and notice her eyes. Their size and her panic enhance their green and brown color making them look wickedly, earthy in this light. I shoot a picture.
“They’re going to kill us, you know.” She struggles to wrap the small section of rope around her arm like she was wrapping a garden hose.
“I suppose this is not a good time to tell you I think disassembling and reassembling the car door last night was a bad idea on your part?”
A blue mini-van filled with kids passes. My window is once again covered in fur but I see camera flashes. I realize the mini-van has a better point-of-view then I do. What good is expensive camera equipment if your point of view is wrong?
I’m distracted by the sensation that my shoe is moving on its own accord. I look down. Little hominid fingers have hold of my muddy, Jack Purcell shoe laces. Crap, I forgot the porthole. I yank my foot up but quickly halt. There is an arm and a shoulder attached to the hand and I’m pulling them inside the porthole. This would make one hell of a short video if I had a camcorder with me.
“Do something!” Susan yells. “Now! Put the damn camera down and kick that beast back to hell! I listen and obey.
The car stops rocking and the windows are fur free. The porthole is empty and the rope release on the door is limp. It’s no longer raining black ash. I take a picture of the empty, now larger porthole between my feet. I look up to see a warden in a bright yellow jeep beside us. He looks perturbed. The monkeys act aloof and I don’t know what I look like, but Susan looks like hell. He motions for us to follow him and we do.
“Go to the clerk,” he says. “She’ll take care of the damages.”
We park the car; examine all the thin, side, metal trim now jutting out at odd angles, the driver’s side door no longer sitting flush with the frame and the hole in the black vinyl roof.
“My poor car,” Susan says.
I look at the misshaped hood, the remains of the rope hanging off the broken door and my muddy Jack Purcells, complimentary of the floor porthole. “Yeah, it’s a shame.”
“There is no way the clerk is going to believe this,” Susan says. “Well, we might as well find out.”
We walk over to an office and I proceed to gingerly, almost embarrassingly explain our situation. I know they are going to look at Sue’s car and think we’re idiots.
“Damn monkeys,” the clerk says. “I bet your car is green. There is something about green cars. Take your car over to the park police. They have to make a report and photograph the evidence.”
We drive the car over to the police station. A pudgy, black officer steps out with an antiquated Polaroid camera in hand. “The monkeys did all this?” He asks while circling the car, stopping to look at the Massachusetts’ granite under the bent hood and the missing car floor from my open window. He looks directly at me.
I’m horrible at lying. Ever since I can remember people have told me, don’t play poker! “No.” I tell him.
“So, what damage did they do?” He’s still looking at me. I shoot a look over at Susan who’s shuffling her feet nervously.
“The roof and the metal, jutting out thingies,” I say.
“Thought so,” he says. He takes a couple Polaroid shots and waits for them to develop. “Are you two far from home?”
“Five hours, maybe,” I reply. Not sure why this is important.
“This car is a death trap. You know that?” He’s still looking at me. It’s not my car. I keep quiet.
He comes over to my side and shows me a very tiny, poorly exposed picture of Sue’s car. “This doesn’t quite do the car justice, does it? I bet if you used your camera, we could really see the damage.” He pauses, looks at me, Sue and then the car. He sighs, pulls out a pocket knife and slashes the monkey made hole in the roof and pulls it back exposing the metal. He snaps another picture and looks at me. “I think this might get the point across.” What am I supposed to say?
He takes Susan into the station to fill out paperwork while I stand guard over the car. I’m not sure how we’re going to get the car home with all that metal hanging off the sides. Sue comes out with a smile on her face. They paid her twice the amount of money she originally paid for the car – six hundred dollars.
“Ready to go home?” She asks.
I look over at the metal protrusions. “What about these?”
“That’s not a problem.” She pulls the metal completely off each side of the car and shoves them in the back seat with the moldy tent and Twinkies.
We drive back to Maryland in silence. I know my pictures will all be blurry and I’m bummed. We pull into the driveway, and as we unload the car, it hits me, and I stop moving.
“What?” Sue asks.
I turn and look at her. “I should have put the camera on automatic instead of manual.” I can see from her expression there are no words to express her feelings on the topic.
Deborah Sickle Hill 