Tag Archives: Manners

Operation: It’s All About ME

14 Replies

 A few years ago I wrote an essay about my trip to South Africa and it was published in the Kansas City Star.  Shortly after that, I received a call from the South African Consulate telling me how much they liked the story and asking me if my husband and I would attend their Freedom Day party.

“OF COURSE I WILL!” I shouted.

I may have been over excited, but it was because the night would be All About ME.  My husband is a politician, so I’ve spent years being “the spouse” at hundreds of events.  Some of the perks that come with being The Spouse are:

  • We arrive at a function and pick up our name-tags.  His will be printed in bold even letters, mine will be hastily hand-written.
  • People speak to me as if I’m in grade school – pasting a big smile on their faces and over-enunciating their patronizing words.  “I’ll bet you had a wonderful day of shopping while your husband was working, didn’t you?”
  • Or, I’m the one pasting the giant smile on my face while the two of them speak in some foreign language.  “I’m concerned about SB121.  Blah, blah, blah, motion to amend, blah, blah, blah, above the line, blah, blah, blah.”

But not this time.  This time, my husband would be the one standing around with nothing to say or do, a plastic smile plastered on his face.  The joy of Freedom Day increased with every thought I had about how miserable he would be.

We arrive at the event and the elevator doors open onto the first phase of Operation: It’s All About ME.  The name-tag table.  I’m embarrassed to tell you how giddy I was at the thought of having an actual printed name-tag and secretly hoping that his would be the one that was handwritten.  Yes, I’m dreadful.  I admit it.  Let’s just move on, shall we?

We walk up, and the assistant sitting behind the table jumps up.  “Oh!  Senator Vratil.  How nice to see you.  I have your name-tag right here.”  She hands it to him – neatly printed in Times New Roman.  As my eyes rake the table, searching for mine, I hear her dreaded question…  “And who’s this with you?”

All the color drains from my face and like a fish gasping for air my mouth opens and closes several times.  As hot, angry tears threatened to spill over my lashes,  I run to the bathroom where I pace back and forth, humiliated and enraged.  Sure, I’ve killed a mouse, I sputter.  Maybe even a few cockroaches, but I mean really, Karma?  Did I deserve this?

Pulling myself together, I finally return to my husband, who holds the vile hand-written name-tag in his hand.  I snatch the paper from him and rip it to shreds.

“Uh, are you okay?” he asks.

“Perfectly fine,”  I say, grabbing his arm and with my head held high, marching into the reception.

Since It’s All About ME, at first my brain only registered the humiliation I had just suffered by not receiving the golden award of a computer printed name-tag.  But eventually, even my ego had to shut up long enough to listen to the speakers.   They shared their stories of abuse and emotional struggles during apartheid and the joy they felt when democracy came to their country.

Sigh. I wish I could tell you that I had a complete change in attitude after those speeches.  I mean… it wasn’t like I was totally callous.  I did actually realize that in the big scheme of things, a sticky piece of paper with my name printed on it, is truly unimportant.

But at the end of the speeches, when they called my name and talked about the article I’d written, I have to admit that all I thought was… YES!  It’s All About ME!

—————————

Guess what?  I’ve been writing this blog for a year!  Amazing.  If this post made you smile, share me on your Facebook page and if you’re feeling really generous, click LIKE on my author’s page.  Then again, maybe it’s not such a good idea to  reinforce OPERATION:  IT’S ALL ABOUT ME.

Of Mice and Friends.

10 Replies

Too Late for Sorry

There’s nothing like a couple of close friends to smack you down off your high horse.

Kerry, Bob and I were sitting around, sharing our dislike of household pests.  Kerry and I agreed that spiders are evil incarnate and deserve all of our screeching and terror.  Over the years I’ve mellowed enough to understand they have just as much right to the world as I do, they just don’t have a right to cross my threshold.

I don’t have a particular problem with mice.  Growing up on a farm we had our fair share of them.  I learned to enter the kitchen at night by first stomping my feet loudly and then turning on the light.  Occasionally I’d see a little shadow darting away but I never climbed up on a table screaming in terror.

I’ve even had some close encounters with a snake or two.  We once found one snoozing comfortably behind the encyclopedias in the bookcase.  And, in fact, the other day I stopped my car in the road so a snake could safely travel to the other side.

And then, Kerry attempted to top my stories of Earth Mother by telling us that her Zen-like husband had recently corralled a spider the size of a toaster that was living inside the drain of their bathroom sink.  He carefully carried it to the window and released it outside.

Not to be outdone in the Zen-like story department, I shared the following anecdote.

A few years ago my younger brother, Larry, and I rented a vacation home together.  As we sat at the table eating breakfast, a disturbing rustling sound came from under the sink.  We tiptoed over and with a long wooden spoon opened the cabinet door.  There we saw a very live mouse fighting to free his feet from a sticky trap.

“Poor thing.  He’ll starve to death,” I said.   We stood staring at the struggling creature and then I said, “We’ll have to drown him.”

I continued sharing my heroic story with my friends by explaining that we got a trash can and filled it with water and then picked up the little mouse and dropped him in. Unfortunately he landed in such a way that the sticky trap acted like a raft and he bobbed around on top of the water while Larry and I squealed stood quietly assessing the situation.  “We’re going to have to hold him under water,” I said.  And we did.

This is where I looked around the room expecting praise from my friends for my strength of character to put this poor little mouse out of its misery.  Instead they shouted their horror at my cruel behavior.  “But, what would you have done?” I asked.

“Step on him,” Bob said.

Step on him?  How is that better than drowning him?

“Peel him off the sticky trap,” Kerry suggested.

The whole point of the sticky trap is that you can’t peel them off.  I guess I could have cut the trap up, leaving little flip-flops for his feet, but unfortunately I didn’t think of that at the time.

So, here I sit.  Ready for your judgment.  Hero or Villain?  You decide.

——————–

If you liked this post – help me out and click SHARE  Otherwise, Kerry and Bob might, like George did Lennie, put me out of my misery.