Foolish Pride

*Got a break from the kid and the Hobbled One. Quick post!*

A friend of mine posted a status on Facebook talking about how she hates to ask someone for help, especially when there's a possibility of the person throwing it back in her face. She concluded by saying that pride is her own worst enemy. I feel ya, sista. I feel ya. Reminds me of one of my favorite Jay-Z verses from The Black Album...

I don't ask for nothin I don't demand of myself:
Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth
Death before dishonor
and I'll tell you what else...
I'll tighten my belt before I beg for help
Foolish pride is what held me together through the years I wasn't felt
Which is why I aint never played myself
I just play the hand I'm dealt
I can't say I never knelt before God
and asked for better cards
sometimes to no avail
But I never sat back feeling sorry for myself
If you don't give me heaven
I'll raise hell... til it's heaven.

My pride has toned down drastically over the years, but back in the day...Whew!

When I was little, my grandmother used to share her Yoda-like views on life. "Trust them new niggas over there, don't you!" "Hold things over your head, they will." I grew up afraid to take rides home from school from my friends' parents because my grandmother basically likened it to accepting a vial of crack from the dope man.

Over the years I tested her theory and 90% of the time she was right. Sometimes foolish pride is fueled by jackasses who use your moment of vulnerability to see if they can break you. Case in point: Remember the story about me almost winning the track race only to end up on crutches? If you don't here it is: Click Me. At the end of that story I needed a way home because I was in an insane amount of pain and needed a ride either to the emergency room or home so that someone there could take me to the emergency room. None of the coaches would take me home. The only reason given was that I lived too far away and they didn't want to get stuck in traffic.

I remember losing my bus token and the metrobus driver putting me off. I walked back to the school to see if a teacher would loan me a dollar and the sea urchin who ran the office wouldn't even let me back in the building despite me telling her what happened. So I ended up walking the four miles to my house. Then there was the time I found myself actually accepting a ride that a friend's mom offered. Immediately it turned into a 15 minute lecture on me inconveniencing her and her only offering the ride because it was late. "Where are your parents? Why didn't they come pick you up?"

Eventually you get to the point where you don't even bother to ask for help. You assume the worst of people and even when someone nice comes along, you just assume they're gonna turn out to be an asshole too. So when I was 16 and found myself stuck at Pentagon City Mall one night because I couldn't find my money or my farecard, I didn't even bother asking a stranger for help. I considered it, I won't lie. I stood outside the gate at the subway station for a good ten minutes trying to coax myself to explain my situation to the station manager with the hope that he'd see I was a minor and let me in for free. I even considered asking a passerby to loan me one dollar, but every crackhead in DC uses the "I lost my money and need to get home" excuse.

There was one woman who looked like she might believe me. She looked like a Sunday School teacher, but as soon as she laid eyes on me, she clutched her purse and that was it for me. I felt so bad to be helpless in the first place and I didn't think I could keep it together if someone cursed me out of accused me of lying or something, so I walked up the escalator, went down the street and didn't stop until I got to the 6th Street Exit.

Yep, I walked across 395 at 11:30 at night by my 16 year old self. People threw stuff at me, people swerved over onto the shoulder like they were gonna hit me and surprisingly about 5 different cops passed me without so much as slowing down. I could've gotten off as soon as I got to the DC side, but I was so pissed that I became defiant and said, "I'm gonna walk all the way to my exit." 5.2 miles later, I was off the highway and another hour or so after that I was home.

Foolish Pride, but pride nonetheless. Still beats low self esteem.

Stick the Landing

There won't be a post today. The lady that I married fell and sprained her ankle, so I'm Stay at Home Dad and Stay at Home Husband today. There's no hour of solitude (escape from the baby) because a hobbled woman is no match for my daughter. She had her leg elevated on the ottoman and my daughter began the first wave of her attack by picking up the bag of frozen peas on her ankle and dropping it back down from various heights. Wave Two was the old "climb up on mommy, starting with her ankle" routine. Finally, she just stopped being discreet and picked up one of the crutches and started banging her in the ankle with it (Tonya Harding in the making).

I won't lie and say that I'm not worn out and completely spent, but I'm gonna do for her what I wish had been done for me. I already wrote about my family's views on illness and injury: Unless it's something that won't grow back or heal before you die...keep it movin! I'm trying to get away from the old Allen remedies of baking soda, epsom salt and green menthol alcohol. Instead, I'm trying some of this fancy 21st century stuff like icing, bandaging, elevating and staying off the injured ankle. If that means that I have to wait on her hand and foot then so be it.

I was telling her how I sprained my ankle about a mile away from my house in high school and still had to go to the Safeway to pick up some stuff for my grandmother. I used the fences along the way to support my weight (and the two bags I was carrying) as I hopped all the way home. So please understand that when Kerri Strugg landed on one foot during the vault, I didn't see the big deal. My grandmother would've made her go do a floor exercise right after.

So, no post...Hopefully we'll resume tomorrow.

 

Threats

Okay so there was the shooting in Colorado last week and then today the cops raided a guy's house in MD who threatened to shoot up his office. They found 20 guns including a few rifles and assault weapons. This really makes me rethink those phone conversations back as a customer service rep.

No one ever calls a health insurance company when they're happy. In training they'd play calls but it was always to show us how fast we needed to be in locating information on the computer. Even when they played a "problem" call it was someone who sounded slightly annoyed. "Well gosh darn it, I just think this is unacceptable." I sat in training like, "I got this in the bag."

I quit after just three hours on the phone. My first call was that "gosh darn it" call and that was the nicest person I talked to the entire time I worked there. Every call after that was, "You stupid sons of b*tches!" After about 30 of those, I grabbed my coat, took my lunch out the drawer, logged out the computer and left my badge on the desk. I went outside and got in my car and just as I was about to pull off I thought about the fact that our fridge was empty and my wife was unemployed. I hung my head, grabbed my keys out of the ignition and went back inside.

I didn't get my first death threat until maybe day 4 or 5. The guy was mad because his policy was canceled after 4 months of nonpayment. He "ordered" me to reinstate his policy and when I told I couldn't he told me he was on his way up with a gun and was gonna blow my brains out. It was my first non-hood death threat, so I was a little nervous. I asked my cubemate if I should notify someone and she shrugged it off with, "They always say that." Just in case, I developed an exit strategy of tossing the computer monitor and chair out the picture window next to me and jumping into the tree outside the window. I even started parking my car underneath so that I could land on/fall through the roof.

By the end of my three years I probably got about a hundred subsequent death threats. As much as I wanted to, I never said, "You do know that we record these calls right? You also should know that all of the information that you put on your file is on my screen right now. So, John Smith of 123 Paper Street with wife Jane Smith who works at 111 Main street and has a daughter Jill who goes to ABC University are you really threatening me when all you know is my first name?" I never said it because I like having a job. Considering what I've seen on the news lately, I think I might have taken the people a little more seriously.

 

Temper Temper

It's getting harder and harder to go a full week without a gap in posts. I urge you guys to send complaints to the person in charge of programming:

The Child
4228 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016

Some of you may have met her. If you've been in Giant, Safeway, Wheaton Mall, The Smithsonian or Wholefoods and you heard a child screaming at the top of their lungs and saw a handsome chocolatey short guy pushing a stroller with a twinkle of hope in his eye slowly fading away then that was her. She says Hi!

I've heard about terrible twos but goddamn. This girl has literally changed overnight. I wrote a post a long time ago about her having a meltdown in Nordstrom and me being confronted by the expectations of black and white individuals to pull a pot of soil out of the diaper bag, plant a tree, wait for it to grow, grab a switch from it and then beat the hell out of her. The black ones were cheering me on like the background people on the Streetfighter II game. The white ones had child protective services on speed dial. All were disappointed, because I used my Sesame Street voice to feign concern for her temper tantrum. Well that's become an everyday occurrence now.

Her: Apple?
Me: You want an apple? Here you go!
Her: F@#% you son of a b$&# I'll kill you!!!
Me: ...?

Surprisingly, she's still alive. I'm trying to give these parenting books the benefit of the doubt. She has my wife to thank for that. It's only because I had to live with the warlock that my wife became during pregnancy that I'm able to tolerate my daughter during these trying times. Back then I'd just draw a pentacle on the floor, encircle it with some candles and sit in the middle to protect myself from her. I got a lot of reading done in those circles and the parenting books would tell me that my wife was hormonal and unable to control her desire for blood sacrifices. Maybe the same is going on with my daughter.

[caption id="attachment_2558" align="alignnone" width="225"] What to expect when you're expecting[/caption]

She's freaking out for no reason because the hormones of her growth spurt are screwing up her wiring. Beating her with a tree trunk would only jostle that wiring even more. And if you think I'm wrong or have some science to prove that it's not hormones then just keep that to yourself. If there's anything I've learned from watching Batman it's this: Sometimes people deserve better than the truth. They deserve to have their faith rewarded. I'm the Daddy that she needs right now, but not the one that she deserves. I'm a silent partner, a watchful guardian...a Dark Knight.

The Young and the Restless

I just put my daughter down for a nap and judging by the condition of the house and how tired I am, you would think I just finished the Battle for Middle Earth. She doesn't do that heavy-eyed blink that normal kids do when they're tired. She's like a candle whose flame burns brightest near the end. You'll know that she's tired when she starts doing wind sprints in the living room while spinning in a circle like the Tazmanian Devil.

Maybe I'm getting payback from when I was a kid. When I look back at Head Start and Pre-School I realize that my teacher probably hated my ass. She didn't show it then, but, when I think about how my ONE child drives me up a wall, I can imagine that the thirty minutes that the 15-20 of us were supposed to sleep was like oxygen to that woman. My not going to sleep and constantly getting up to ask her what she was doing was my way of asphyxiating that poor woman. Just lie there and pretend you're sleep!

My kindergarten teacher, Ms Foushee (Foo-shay), didn't take any shit off us. This was back in the 80s when teachers used to beat kids in the classroom. Ms Foushee was quick to open up her drawer and look for an imaginary piece of paper as she said,  And Ordale, your grandmother gave me written permission to beat your behind if you act up! That's all it took. We'd all sit there with the lights off and our heads on our desks as she pulled her little portable TV out of her cabinet. Then as the piano intro started to The Young and the Restless we knew we were supposed to stay still until the saxophone came on for the intro to The Bold and the Beautiful.

Of course, being the mastermind that I am, I came up with a new plan. Now this goes to show just how engulfed she was in that show, because she didn't notice that me and the other four kids at my table would slip down to the floor and crawl to the coatroom where our backpacks were. We started bringing toys for the exact purpose of playing during that hour. I brought a flashlight from home and we'd sit in the dark playing with our stuff like we were running some kind of underground casino.

Then one day in the midst of us playing with the new Muppet Babies Happy Meal toys, that coatroom door flung open. As the light flickered on the first thing I noticed was that brownish yellow yard stick in her hand. In a raspy, church bulletin reading, old woman voice she said, I-I-I know y'all haven't lost your everlasting minds! The look on her face was what you'd expect if you caught teenage boys and girls in a closet together. We were five and innocently playing Muppet Babies. I was Gonzo. It didn't matter though. She beat the hell outta us, enough to the point that for the rest of the year I just kept my head on the table and tried to picture Victor telling Nicky he loved her, Cricket talking to Nina about Danny and Ms Chancellor being a wench. Then I'd go home and tell my mother what she missed on the stories while she was at work.

Join us again for The Young and the Restless

Roommates

Yesterday's post reminded me of something...I've been on my own for almost ten years now. I got my first apartment on August 2, 2002. I was twenty years old and realized that under no circumstances would I roll the dice again at a North Carolina Central University dorm. Part of my decision (but not all of it) was based on my luck with roommates.

I had four roommates in two years. Two weren't that bad, we just had lifestyle differences. One was just a blunt away from full glaucoma immunity. He smoked weed 12 hours a day in the closet by himself. Too many close calls with campus police forced me to move on. The other guy was like The Odd Couple. I sneezed and he'd scorch the earth with Lysol. He offered to teach me how to make up my bed because my corners aren't sharp. We split amicably to keep from killing each other. But...

I had a crazy roommate freshman year who was probably the sweetest and kindest guy in the world, and that made him public enemy number one as far as I'm concerned. When you're in the trenches of war the last person you want covering your back is a bright eyed bushy tailed pacifist. In his mind, our dorm was the Hamptons. In my mind we were in The Bronx. You don't leave your dorm room unlocked to go to the cafeteria in The Bronx. You don't fall for the "Your roommate said I could borrow his VCR" in The Bronx. He had to go. We can still be friends (Hell, in the future you're gonna be the best man at my wedding), but  I'm getting a different roommate.

Sophomore year I had a roommate who started off okay for about a week. Then I woke up one morning and he was sitting half naked at his desk sweating up a storm and chanting something like Rafiki from The Lion King. He had put a red light bulb in his lamp and was bopping up and down holding a cross. I'd been around plenty of crackheads in DC, but this was new. I grabbed a pair of those sharp metal scissors off my desk and put them under my pillow. He didn't seem violent, but just in case his God had a plan that involved me, I had a sharp metal object that involved him.

Things kinda went south after that. I guess during one of his seances to bring The Mummy back to life he was given a vision that girls shouldn't be in our room. It wasn't like I was running a brothel or anything. To be fair, I offered to keep them out when he was there, but he felt that it tainted the sanctity of our room to have them there at all. I countered with a very effective Last Dragon Sho 'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, 'NIG-GA PLEASE' stare. We made it a whole semester.

Finally, I got my own place. The roommates didn't scare me away. It was something else. I'll talk about that tomorrow.

 

College Bound

In an effort to depress myself I just googled tuition at random colleges. I was trying to get an idea of how much my rates should be when I prostitute myself to send my daughter to college. It depressed me, but for the wrong reasons. I was looking at the dorm rooms and the meal plans and I really wished I could drop out of this adult thing for a bit and go back to school.

I don't mean to finish my degree. I mean go back just to live there. I went to a small underfunded HBCU and my college experience sucked. I moved off campus my junior year, not because I wanted to join the exciting and fast growing field of paying bills, but because I got fed up with campus life. The funny thing is that my school wasn't bad per se, but I just had a string of bad luck that went on and on and on.

I have college stories that still give me night terrors. I could talk about the time someone went around peeing in the dryers or the time I got burned because the plumbing got screwed up and boiling hot water was flowing to the toilets. I could talk about how I had a crazy roommate who was borderline narcoleptic and used to fall asleep mid-sentence, drool like a heroine addict for twenty minutes and then wake up and keep talking. The next year I thought I'd do better and ended up with a roommate who used to get up at 5 in the morning, screw a red light bulb into his lamp and then start chanting and convulsing at his desk with a cross in his hand.

Those are the light stories, the ones that aren't worthy of a full blog post. I've seen some things man. I just wonder what it'd be like to go back to college now with the wisdom and pain that comes from paying bills for the last ten years. Also, I'd know not to pick a dorm on Skid Row. It's too late for me. My daughter is up to bat and while I want to be happy knowing that she'll get to have a better college experience than I did because she'll have two parents who actually went to college, I also remember some other things that happened in those dorm rooms. She may just be living at home...forever.