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mallorys_cameraHard to imagine this now but once upon a time, I was fiscally responsible. I was such an excellent loan candidate, in fact, that at any given time I could have decamped to Italy for six months to live a life of modest luxury off my American Express credit line.
All that ended in 2007 when the business began to crash.
These days, I’m the human equivalent of Greece. Very few individuals and businesses have exposure to me, so domino effects do not apply – making it unlikely that I will be bailed out by anyone though I suppose divine intervention is always a possibility.
I am utterly terrified by my financial situation. I scotch tape it together as best I can.
But I am always playing wack-a-mole with my various bills.
So yesterday my phone service gets shut off which is ridiculous since that’s actually a bill I pay before I pay my rent even.
And I just went into a complete panic.
I couldn’t even call AT&T because my phone was off! And I had volunteered to table at IthacaFest for both the resident 16 year old’s flakey high school and Tompkins Learning Partners, which meant I couldn’t drive home and rectify the situation with the Trac Phone I keep for emergencies.
“Do you think I could possibly borrow your phone for a few minutes?” I ask the beautiful girl sitting at the Johnson Museum table who kind of looks at me with genuine fear in her eyes – O-kay! She doesn’t know me from Adam! I am this elderly woman who looks completely deranged, like she’s about to start talking to herself at any moment.
Plus my hands were shaking –
I’ve had that ever since I can remember. If I get even the slightest bit anxious about something, my hands start to flutter. I have no control over it whatsoever.
And I don’t have phone service either!
Eventually B wanders over by prearrangement – I wanted to physically hand him RTT’s ticket for the SAT he’s taking this morning. “I have an emergency. Can I borrow your phone for like 10 minutes? I’ll pay you for the minutes I use –“
“You don’t have to pay me,” he says dismissively. And this actually makes me suspicious – in the past, phone minutes were a big deal to Ben: he would get really mad if I used the telephone for anything more than the most pragmatic exchanges of information. He must be making more money than he’s telling me about, I think. Keeping it from me because he doesn’t want to pay me more child support. Bought me the bike because he feels guilty –
Meanwhile my hands were shaking so badly I could have been conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ben has one of those android phones with the most miniscule of keypads. “Can you please dial the number for me?” I asked him. “I can’t –“
He glanced at my hands. “Sure,” he said in a neutral tone of voice.
“Can I ask you a question? How repulsive am I when my hands shake like this?”
He shrugged. “You’ve been like that ever since I’ve known you.”
“You mean my hands shake all the time?”
“Pretty much. It’s worse when you’re nervous –“
“They don’t shake all the time!” I cried.
“Pretty much they do,” he repeated.
“So how repulsive is it?”
He shook his head, held his hands palm up: What the fuck kind of a question is that?
Dealt with the phone people. Their mistake.
Handed Ben his phone back. Felt like telling him, I never fucking want to see you again in my entire life, asshole!
But I didn't understand at all where that was coming from. Not at all. The guy had just loaned me his phone in an emergency, the guy just bought me a really cool bicycle. Both these things bore testimony to his essentially benign intentions towards me. But my parasympathetic nervous system was in overdrive. Enemy! it screamed. Defend! Defend! Defend!
I would have slapped him across the face if my hands weren’t shaking so hard.
They were getting better though.
“Maybe I have early onset Parkinson’s disease,” I said.
“Your mother used to do the same thing,” he said.
"My mother?"
"The hand shaking thing, I mean."
That really made me want to kick him in the balls. “Okay. Well. Thanks. I guess.”
“All taken care of?”
“Yep.”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know. I'd told AT&T I’d pay the bill on the 9th after I get my next paycheck and for some reason they didn’t make a note of that.”
“Ah!” he said. He was remote, detached.
We talked Robin. “So I’ll drop RTT off at your house around 8:30 –“
“Okay, thanks. I don’t know whether Jayne will be there or not but Robin knows where the spare key is –“
“Where will Jayne be?”
Ben frowned at me. “Well, she goes to the gym in the evenings a lot. Since she works during the day. Or sometimes she’ll go shopping –“
“Shopping?”
“For groceries, for food –” His expression made it very obvious that it was none of my fucking business what Jayne LeGro did with her evenings, and of course he was absolutely right. Plus it wasn’t as though I actually really cared what Jayne LeGro did with her evenings – stupid humorless bitch! Who sews fucking buttons! Whose job entails trying to talk people who are desperate to find some kind of a job into taking out $20,000 student loans so they can go to the Fingerlakes Massage School and still not be able to find a job! She helps rip people off! But of course she volunteers with fucking food pantries so that’s okay –
I was filled with boiling hot rage.
But I didn’t understand why.
I still don’t.
All I could do was back away with vague smiles, telling myself, It’s a type of mental illness on your part. Ignore it. You will not act on this! You will not act on this! You will not act on this.
I suppose by Monday when we meet to work on the book again, I’ll be over it.
I was very, very charming and charismatic for the rest of the afternoon. Everyone remarked on it. And no, my hands didn’t shake at all. Not in the slightest.
All that ended in 2007 when the business began to crash.
These days, I’m the human equivalent of Greece. Very few individuals and businesses have exposure to me, so domino effects do not apply – making it unlikely that I will be bailed out by anyone though I suppose divine intervention is always a possibility.
I am utterly terrified by my financial situation. I scotch tape it together as best I can.
But I am always playing wack-a-mole with my various bills.
So yesterday my phone service gets shut off which is ridiculous since that’s actually a bill I pay before I pay my rent even.
And I just went into a complete panic.
I couldn’t even call AT&T because my phone was off! And I had volunteered to table at IthacaFest for both the resident 16 year old’s flakey high school and Tompkins Learning Partners, which meant I couldn’t drive home and rectify the situation with the Trac Phone I keep for emergencies.
“Do you think I could possibly borrow your phone for a few minutes?” I ask the beautiful girl sitting at the Johnson Museum table who kind of looks at me with genuine fear in her eyes – O-kay! She doesn’t know me from Adam! I am this elderly woman who looks completely deranged, like she’s about to start talking to herself at any moment.
Plus my hands were shaking –
I’ve had that ever since I can remember. If I get even the slightest bit anxious about something, my hands start to flutter. I have no control over it whatsoever.
And I don’t have phone service either!
Eventually B wanders over by prearrangement – I wanted to physically hand him RTT’s ticket for the SAT he’s taking this morning. “I have an emergency. Can I borrow your phone for like 10 minutes? I’ll pay you for the minutes I use –“
“You don’t have to pay me,” he says dismissively. And this actually makes me suspicious – in the past, phone minutes were a big deal to Ben: he would get really mad if I used the telephone for anything more than the most pragmatic exchanges of information. He must be making more money than he’s telling me about, I think. Keeping it from me because he doesn’t want to pay me more child support. Bought me the bike because he feels guilty –
Meanwhile my hands were shaking so badly I could have been conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ben has one of those android phones with the most miniscule of keypads. “Can you please dial the number for me?” I asked him. “I can’t –“
He glanced at my hands. “Sure,” he said in a neutral tone of voice.
“Can I ask you a question? How repulsive am I when my hands shake like this?”
He shrugged. “You’ve been like that ever since I’ve known you.”
“You mean my hands shake all the time?”
“Pretty much. It’s worse when you’re nervous –“
“They don’t shake all the time!” I cried.
“Pretty much they do,” he repeated.
“So how repulsive is it?”
He shook his head, held his hands palm up: What the fuck kind of a question is that?
Dealt with the phone people. Their mistake.
Handed Ben his phone back. Felt like telling him, I never fucking want to see you again in my entire life, asshole!
But I didn't understand at all where that was coming from. Not at all. The guy had just loaned me his phone in an emergency, the guy just bought me a really cool bicycle. Both these things bore testimony to his essentially benign intentions towards me. But my parasympathetic nervous system was in overdrive. Enemy! it screamed. Defend! Defend! Defend!
I would have slapped him across the face if my hands weren’t shaking so hard.
They were getting better though.
“Maybe I have early onset Parkinson’s disease,” I said.
“Your mother used to do the same thing,” he said.
"My mother?"
"The hand shaking thing, I mean."
That really made me want to kick him in the balls. “Okay. Well. Thanks. I guess.”
“All taken care of?”
“Yep.”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know. I'd told AT&T I’d pay the bill on the 9th after I get my next paycheck and for some reason they didn’t make a note of that.”
“Ah!” he said. He was remote, detached.
We talked Robin. “So I’ll drop RTT off at your house around 8:30 –“
“Okay, thanks. I don’t know whether Jayne will be there or not but Robin knows where the spare key is –“
“Where will Jayne be?”
Ben frowned at me. “Well, she goes to the gym in the evenings a lot. Since she works during the day. Or sometimes she’ll go shopping –“
“Shopping?”
“For groceries, for food –” His expression made it very obvious that it was none of my fucking business what Jayne LeGro did with her evenings, and of course he was absolutely right. Plus it wasn’t as though I actually really cared what Jayne LeGro did with her evenings – stupid humorless bitch! Who sews fucking buttons! Whose job entails trying to talk people who are desperate to find some kind of a job into taking out $20,000 student loans so they can go to the Fingerlakes Massage School and still not be able to find a job! She helps rip people off! But of course she volunteers with fucking food pantries so that’s okay –
I was filled with boiling hot rage.
But I didn’t understand why.
I still don’t.
All I could do was back away with vague smiles, telling myself, It’s a type of mental illness on your part. Ignore it. You will not act on this! You will not act on this! You will not act on this.
I suppose by Monday when we meet to work on the book again, I’ll be over it.
I was very, very charming and charismatic for the rest of the afternoon. Everyone remarked on it. And no, my hands didn’t shake at all. Not in the slightest.
