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So-o-o this woman went all psycho on me in the parking lot outside Dutchess County Literacy Connections yesterday. It was like 90 degrees out and horribly humid, so picking my way through Poughkeepsie’s back lots with their broken cement and strange skitterish mutant animal life was already traumatic enough.
I’d missed the turn-off for the actual parking lot, so was forced to pull into the one next door. The victims of every random serial killer in the Hudson Valley over the last half century are buried under that concrete, I can tell you that much.
“You took my stuff!” screamed this woman. Strong Jamaican accent and not dressed in rags.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I saw you! You went to my stuff and took my food! You put it in your car!”
“Ma’am, I didn’t take anything from anyone.”
“I saw you! I saw you take my things and put them in your car –“
“No, you didn’t see me because it didn’t happen. Now get away from me –“
“I will call the police. Give them back! You are a thief! Thief! Thief!”
I ignored her, headed for the back door of Dutchess County Literacy Connections, a squalid little building that the nonprofit shares with some fly-by-night called the Queen City Literary Agency – Queen City being a most improbable nickname that Poughkeepsie acquired at some point in its history. I amuse myself while the Jamaican woman trails behind me, screaming, “Thief! Thief! Thief!”, trying to imagine the Queen City backlist – Bruce Jenner’s Acrylic Nail Tips! The Autobiography of Summer Clearance!
I duck into the building, slam the door.
“There is a woman harassing me in your parking lot,” I tell one of the administrators.
Now. The administrators who staff Dutchess County Literacy Connections are exactly as useless as the staff at any other nonprofit – which is to say, exactly one underpaid assistant handles all the work that goes on coordinating work with actual clients while the rest of them sit around at their desks trying to figure ways to extort money from donors and feuding among themselves. Max Weber’s observation that the primary mission of any bureaucratic organization is to perpetuate itself is one of those great immutable truisms.
These women can hardly be bothered to say Hello to me when I come in weekly to tutor Summer. I can’t imagine how they ended up here. English majors in college, I suppose.
So the administrator clucks and frowns, and her clucking and frowning is some kind of administrative bird language signaling the need for the cohort to congregate.
Then the Jamaican woman bursts into the building. “She is a thief!” she screams, pointing at me. “She took my stuff! Give it back, thief!”
At this point, I’m starting to wonder what it is about me that is signaling to this woman that she can actually victimize me in this way. Do I look weak in some way? Do I have an invisible Kick Me sign on my back?
I’m also wondering why the administrators aren’t taking more forceful action to get this woman away from me. One of them actually turns to me and asks, “Did you take her things? Can I see your car?”
I’m beyond outraged.
Summer shows up a few minutes late, and I announce, “Summer, henceforth we will be doing our tutoring sessions at the Adriance library. Let’s go.”
I’m actually shaking, I’m so mad. Summer is really good in these kinds of situations, gives me a big non-officious hug. “She is – how do you pronounce it? – schizophrenic, no?”
But actually, the weird thing is that I didn’t think the woman was schizophrenic. I think she was new in town, fresh off the boat, may not have known that the customs here were very different from the place where she used to live, where it might well be that you could leave possessions in a tidy heap in a parking lot in full expectation that they’d be there when you returned. Under other circumstances, I might actually have felt sympathetic toward her.
In other news, Robin destroyed yet another expensive phone yesterday.
This time, we were prepared for it. The phone was insured.
Still. I’m getting awfully tired of Robin’s complete disregard for the fact that his possessions cost money and that there’s no actual shame or embarrassment involved in taking care of things that cost money.
“Don’t get him another one!” I snapped at Ben over the phone.
Ben sighed. “He’s leaving for California tomorrow. He’s got to have a phone.”
“Buy him a cheap Walmart trackphone.”
Ben sighed again. “But that’s exactly why we got the insurance. Because he’s constantly breaking phones –“
“All I know is that we’re not doing him any favors to be around constantly picking him up when he breaks stuff. And he always insists on having expensive stuff to break.”
I was in a bad mood.
RTT’s presence in California while I’m in California is kind of a coincidence – there’s a big concert in Monterey over Memorial Day weekend that he wanted to go to, some cousin to Trumansburg’s Grass Roots, and Ben bought him a plane ticket. This means, of course, in the War for the Heart of the Child of Divorced Parents, I had to pony up $$$$ for him to enjoy his time in California.
Max, RTT, and I are all supposed to meet up in Berkeley after the weekend of Rik’s memorial for Family Togetherness. (Max can’t accompany me to Rik’s memorial because he’s a groomsman at the oh-so-tony society wedding of Josh the Vineyard Heir to the scion of some California billionaire dynasty – this was set up before the Rik memorial.)
I’m actually chaffing at the Family Togetherness since I have tons and tons of friends in the Bay Area whom I’ve made plans to see. In fact, I will be ducking out with a cheerful, “I think you two brothers should spend some quality bonding time together – you know, to discuss my funeral arrangements,” on Monday night since I just got hold of Jean-Luc and definitely want to see him.
Thank God, it's cooler today.
I’d missed the turn-off for the actual parking lot, so was forced to pull into the one next door. The victims of every random serial killer in the Hudson Valley over the last half century are buried under that concrete, I can tell you that much.
“You took my stuff!” screamed this woman. Strong Jamaican accent and not dressed in rags.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I saw you! You went to my stuff and took my food! You put it in your car!”
“Ma’am, I didn’t take anything from anyone.”
“I saw you! I saw you take my things and put them in your car –“
“No, you didn’t see me because it didn’t happen. Now get away from me –“
“I will call the police. Give them back! You are a thief! Thief! Thief!”
I ignored her, headed for the back door of Dutchess County Literacy Connections, a squalid little building that the nonprofit shares with some fly-by-night called the Queen City Literary Agency – Queen City being a most improbable nickname that Poughkeepsie acquired at some point in its history. I amuse myself while the Jamaican woman trails behind me, screaming, “Thief! Thief! Thief!”, trying to imagine the Queen City backlist – Bruce Jenner’s Acrylic Nail Tips! The Autobiography of Summer Clearance!
I duck into the building, slam the door.
“There is a woman harassing me in your parking lot,” I tell one of the administrators.
Now. The administrators who staff Dutchess County Literacy Connections are exactly as useless as the staff at any other nonprofit – which is to say, exactly one underpaid assistant handles all the work that goes on coordinating work with actual clients while the rest of them sit around at their desks trying to figure ways to extort money from donors and feuding among themselves. Max Weber’s observation that the primary mission of any bureaucratic organization is to perpetuate itself is one of those great immutable truisms.
These women can hardly be bothered to say Hello to me when I come in weekly to tutor Summer. I can’t imagine how they ended up here. English majors in college, I suppose.
So the administrator clucks and frowns, and her clucking and frowning is some kind of administrative bird language signaling the need for the cohort to congregate.
Then the Jamaican woman bursts into the building. “She is a thief!” she screams, pointing at me. “She took my stuff! Give it back, thief!”
At this point, I’m starting to wonder what it is about me that is signaling to this woman that she can actually victimize me in this way. Do I look weak in some way? Do I have an invisible Kick Me sign on my back?
I’m also wondering why the administrators aren’t taking more forceful action to get this woman away from me. One of them actually turns to me and asks, “Did you take her things? Can I see your car?”
I’m beyond outraged.
Summer shows up a few minutes late, and I announce, “Summer, henceforth we will be doing our tutoring sessions at the Adriance library. Let’s go.”
I’m actually shaking, I’m so mad. Summer is really good in these kinds of situations, gives me a big non-officious hug. “She is – how do you pronounce it? – schizophrenic, no?”
But actually, the weird thing is that I didn’t think the woman was schizophrenic. I think she was new in town, fresh off the boat, may not have known that the customs here were very different from the place where she used to live, where it might well be that you could leave possessions in a tidy heap in a parking lot in full expectation that they’d be there when you returned. Under other circumstances, I might actually have felt sympathetic toward her.
In other news, Robin destroyed yet another expensive phone yesterday.
This time, we were prepared for it. The phone was insured.
Still. I’m getting awfully tired of Robin’s complete disregard for the fact that his possessions cost money and that there’s no actual shame or embarrassment involved in taking care of things that cost money.
“Don’t get him another one!” I snapped at Ben over the phone.
Ben sighed. “He’s leaving for California tomorrow. He’s got to have a phone.”
“Buy him a cheap Walmart trackphone.”
Ben sighed again. “But that’s exactly why we got the insurance. Because he’s constantly breaking phones –“
“All I know is that we’re not doing him any favors to be around constantly picking him up when he breaks stuff. And he always insists on having expensive stuff to break.”
I was in a bad mood.
RTT’s presence in California while I’m in California is kind of a coincidence – there’s a big concert in Monterey over Memorial Day weekend that he wanted to go to, some cousin to Trumansburg’s Grass Roots, and Ben bought him a plane ticket. This means, of course, in the War for the Heart of the Child of Divorced Parents, I had to pony up $$$$ for him to enjoy his time in California.
Max, RTT, and I are all supposed to meet up in Berkeley after the weekend of Rik’s memorial for Family Togetherness. (Max can’t accompany me to Rik’s memorial because he’s a groomsman at the oh-so-tony society wedding of Josh the Vineyard Heir to the scion of some California billionaire dynasty – this was set up before the Rik memorial.)
I’m actually chaffing at the Family Togetherness since I have tons and tons of friends in the Bay Area whom I’ve made plans to see. In fact, I will be ducking out with a cheerful, “I think you two brothers should spend some quality bonding time together – you know, to discuss my funeral arrangements,” on Monday night since I just got hold of Jean-Luc and definitely want to see him.
Thank God, it's cooler today.
