An Hour at the DMV

His name was Tyrone. I know his name because his mother shouted it at him at least thirty times while the rest of us at the DMV looked on. I suppose she didn’t shout his name as much as she whimpered it, pleading with her three year old boy to please behave, please be good, please stop screaming, and on and on... and on.

As his mom conducted her business at the counter, Tyrone played with his sister who looked to be about five years old. Tyrone yanked, with all his might, on a pen attached by a chain to the counter, while his sister looked into the vision testing machine. When Tyrone decided it was his turn to look into the machine he started screaming, “SEE! SEE! SEE!” Mom tilted the machine down, away from her daughter, and told her to lift up her little brother so he could play with it. Once Tyrone realized the machine was not a View-Master he got mad, and with his little fists clenched at his sides, he let out a scream to rival all screams in the history of screaming. The man in the chair next to me muttered something under his breath, got up, and moved as far away from the family as he could get. Other people subtly tried to plug their ears. I think a window may have shattered, I know my ear drums did.

Tyrone’s mom said, “Please be good and stop screaming. If you’re good I’ll give you a snack when we get to the car. I’ll even take you to McDonalds for an ice cream.” Tyrone replied by screaming, “NO! NO! NO!” He ran to the testing area plopping himself in front of a computer that sat right below a sign requesting patrons be quiet because testing was in progress. He banged on the keyboard and yelled until a woman came out of her office, walked over to Tyrone, and said to him with a firm but gentle voice, “computer time is over,” and made him stop. Which he did. Until Mom came over. Then he started screaming, “NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOO!” Mom took him by the hand and said, “I'm gonna buy you a treat, okay?” He screamed all the way to the vending machine.

Tyrone got to pick the treat while his perfectly behaved sister stood quietly in the background. As the candy dropped from its place, Tyrone screamed, “MINE! MINE! MINE!” and Mom gave him the first serving.  When Tyrone’s name was finally called, the struggle to take his picture ensued. Tyrone tried to climb the blue curtain that was suspended from the ceiling. After two employees asked him to stop, and two more told Mom that he can’t hang on the curtain, they were able to take his picture. But not before he hit Mom in the face and let out a blood-curdling scream. 

“Ah, that little shit. He needs a good spanking is what he needs,” said the man sitting behind me. I heard a lot of chuckles from like-minded people. When Tyrone left with Mom and sister trailing behind him, my attention shifted to another family.

Her name was Mildred and she was 99 years old. (I know this because as three employees helped her sign her name on an electronic signature pad, one of them announced, “She’ll be 100 in January.”)

Mildred looked ancient as she sat in her wheel chair. She wore brown polyester slacks pulled up farther than looked comfortable, a white turtle neck sweater, and hot pink socks with colorful flowers printed on them. And black Crocs. She was pushed to the counter by her elderly daughter. Mildred’s daughter propped her up against the counter and the employee asked, “What’s your name?”

“What?” Mildred replied.

“What’s your name?” 

“What?” She asked again.

“HE’S ASKING WHAT YOUR NAME IS!” Mildred's daughter yelled in her ear.

This continued for a while. And then the next question came.

“How long have you lived in Washington?”

“What?”

“How long have you lived in Washington?”

“What?”

“HE WANTS TO KNOW HOW LONG YOU’VE LIVED IN WASHINGTON!”

“I don’t know,” Mildred answered, as if he’d just asked her the circumference of Jupiter.

“I hope she’s not getting her license renewed,” I whispered in my daughter's ear, instantly feeling guilty for being judgmental, yet secretly proud of my comedic timing.

There were ten people (my daughter among them) waiting to be photographed, but Mildred was ushered to the front of the line. Her daughter pushed the wheelchair right up to the blue curtain and yelled, “YOU’RE GETTING YOUR PICTURE TAKEN, YOU NEED SOME COLOR IN YOUR CHEEKS. PINCH YOUR CHEEKS LIKE THIS!” That message took a long time to convey, as you can imagine. Mildred began pinching her cheeks and I watched, worried that her thin skin might tear.

It took a while to get the picture taken because Mildred had trouble keeping her eyes open. But they finally managed to get an acceptable photo and Mildred was wheeled out of the DMV. As the doors closed behind them I heard her ask in a bewildered tone, “What are we doing?”

My daughter's name was called next and as I watched her get her driver’s permit I thought about Tyrone and Mildred. I imagined Mildred, seventy five years ago, as a young mother with Tyrone as her son:

The two of them stand in line at the Horse and Carriage Licensing Department, Tyrone screams and misbehaves. Mildred lovingly and patiently gives him a warning, Tyrone refuses to listen. There is not a second warning. She doesn’t offer him a Sarsparilla or a bit of horehound if he behaves, Mildred simply scoops him up, lays him across her lap, and spanks his butt. He cries. She hugs Tyrone and tells him she loves him, but that kind of behavior won’t be tolerated. She holds him until he stops crying, then plops in him a chair with a slate and a piece of chalk to keep him busy. The men remove their stovepipe hats and the women fan themselves as they all rise and give Mildred a standing ovation. She nods shyly and dabs her eyes with her kerchief, patting Tyrone on the knee….

My daydreaming ended abruptly when my daughter approached, holding her new driver’s permit. Tyrone and Mildred vanished from my mind and were replaced by visions of my family and me, trapped, hanging upside down in our mini-van, dangling precariously over shark-infested waters, secured only by our seat belts, after our new driver accidentally drove us off a bridge. These thoughts should keep me occupied for a while.

Some People Never Change

This year has been a year of change for my family and me. And change is good, right? Self-help books and bumper stickers tell me so all the time (unless the “change” we’re talking about has to do with the climate. Then it’s bad. Bumper stickers tell me that, too.) But this week I have had a rough time dealing with all this change. A few days ago, I registered my first baby girl for Driver’s Ed, then my baby boy turned fourteen, and then recently I noticed it’s time for my last baby girl to get a training bra. Add that to the evening I spent watching home movies of “the good ol’ days,” and I've pretty much been crying since last Friday. Everything and everyone is changing. How do I make it stop?

So I was grateful for the phone call I received this morning reminding me that not everything changes—some things, some people, stay the same.

First, let’s go back to another phone call I received in 2006:

“Hello, Mrs. Niemeyer? I’m calling about Jackson,” the school secretary said.

“Is he okay?” I asked, the panic already in full effect because I was raised to worry about anything and everything.

“Oh, he’s fine. He just thought he would be a magician today and make a bead disappear... By sticking it in his ear. And now the school nurse can’t get it out,” she replied, and I could hear her stifling a giggle.

“I’ll be right there,” I said.

But first, I called our pediatrician: “Hi, this is Rachel Niemeyer, I’m calling about Jackson,” I said when Ms. Becky answered the phone.

“Uh oh, what did he shove up his nose this time?” Ms. Becky said.

“Actually, he stuck a bead in his ear. Because he was performing a magic trick,” I threw in the last part thinking it might add a bit of mystique and prestige to the story.

She laughed and told me to come right in. Jackson was infamous at Dr. T’s office for an incident that occurred right before his fourth birthday. During an appointment for an ingrown toe nail, the doctor found a toy cell phone button (the # sign, if you’re curious) lodged securely in his nasal passage. Removing it was quite an ordeal, and to this day, Dr. T still teases Jackson about it. 

When I picked up my six year old boy from school, he was more concerned with telling me how his friends thought he was really magic than he was about the trapped bead that was already causing hearing loss.

“Which ear is it, sweetie?” The nurse asked Jackson when he was on the exam table.

“2006,” said my beautiful, smart boy.

Now let’s get back to the phone call I received this morning. Chad called to tell me that while he was at work, Jackson called him from school. After nearly eighteen years of marriage, I have trained Chad to always immediately assume the worst in all situations, so he went into high alert. But Jackson was laughing.

“We had a bit of an adventure today, Dad,” he said.

Instantly, Chad’s mind went to the same place all minds of parents with teenage boys would go: He skipped school. He went out to the woods and did something bad. He’s drunk—he sounds drunk, why is he laughing?

Jackson delivered the bomb: “My friends and I ate packing peanuts."

"What?"

"Ms. Sweet told us we were knuckleheads and made us call you in case we get stomachaches and stuff,” Jackson said.

As Chad told me the story this morning, I envisioned getting a phone call from Jackson’s wife in twenty years. “Mom!” she’ll say, (she’ll call me mom because we’ll be best friends and hang out all the time) “Do you know what your son did?” And she’ll proceed to tell me that my grown boy, in an effort to impress his wife, swallowed/stuck/shoved something somewhere and they were on their way to the hospital.

And I will tell her, “You know, Emily, some people never change.”

Man, I Feel Like a Woman

Josh and Me - 1986
(I'll let you figure out which one I am)

I was nine years old when it first happened—when I learned people didn't always see me quite the same way I saw myself.  It was the summer of 1986 and I was at Lakefair with my family. I was devouring an elephant ear, wishing I was old enough to hang out by the Gravitron where all the teenagers stood, defiantly pitying fools in their Mr. Rags t-shirts and jean jackets. I was standing on the sidewalk, planning my ride itinerary, when I heard a woman say to her daughter, “Watch out for that boy,” just as the girl bumped into me. The two of them continued on and there I stood, with an over-sized chunk of elephant ear hanging out of my mouth, wondering if I heard her correctly.

Boy?! I thought.

I'm not a boy! Okay, maybe my short hair and 3-inch rattail made it unclear that I’m a girl, but surely my Michael Jackson t-shirt and black parachute pants… oh, wait…. oh, yeah, okay… I see it.

And that, my friends, was the first time I heard someone call me a boy. But it certainly wasn’t the last. 

I played He-Man vs. Skeletor and wished I could trade in the My Little Pony Dream Castle someone gave me for Castle Grayskull. I rode bikes at the dirt hills and spent every recess playing two-hand touch football with the boys. My hero was (and still is) Rocky Balboa and my cousin Josh and I carefully choreographed our pre-boxing match workouts to “Eye of the Tiger.” At times I felt confused because I had a crush on, yet wanted to actually BE, Daniel Russo.

None of these things were even remotely abnormal to me. What was strange, however, was sitting on the floor in a scratchy dress, playing with dolls (unless the dolls were Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, and I was re-creating what was, to my 9 year-old-self, the most profound scene that ever came out of Hollywood). I didn't understand the appeal of painting fingernails and styling hair. I was completely content to live the rest of my life wrestling boys and having butt-buster contests with them off the high dive.

I suppose I never fully outgrew my tomboy side; I still prefer hanging out with the guys, and I’m about as socially awkward in a group of women as Rocky was while he taped the Beast Aftershave commercial in Rocky II. Eventually though, people stopped calling me a boy (well, Chad still does) and I grew into the delicate, feminine lady you have come to know and love.

I could go on, but I need to go work on my motorcycle and spit.

They're All Gonna Laugh At You

My last semester of college-level Spanish was coming to an end. I had spent four years studying, practicing, and mastering this beautiful language, and, finally, the time had come for me to say adios to Spanish class. I was confident that I could now travel to any Latin community, summon the waiter at a restaurant, and successfully order two Coca-colas, please. I could tell him that my eyes are brown (they’re actually hazel, but no one knows how to say THAT in Spanish), that I like to go to the beach, and that the librarian is very skinny.

As I walked into the classroom one last time, my amigo Lee (amigo means friend in case you’re not bilingual like I am) was sitting at our table holding what appeared to be a flash card. I sat down, ready to practice our new words for the day, and in my best Spanish accent I read the two words written on the flash card to the other students at the table:

“Grah-day esteh-mah-tay. Weird, I have no clue what that means.” I said, a little nervous because after 4 years I was pretty sure I knew all the Spanish words.

“Uh, Rachel? It says 'Grade Estimate,' Lee said, turning over his card and revealing the letter A written in red ink. I was suddenly concerned that my grah-day esteh-mah-tay wouldn't be quite as high as Lee's.

Sometimes in life we say really stupid things. Every now and then, our brains short circuit, our common sense abandons us, or we might have added a little too much bourbon to our morning coffee. Some of us are just giant klutzes fumbling through life. My point is, why do we pretend like we aren’t all 5 seconds away from the most embarrassing moment of our lives?

Oh, you don’t think my Spanish story qualifies as the mother of all humiliation? How about this one:

I decided to attend a women’s breakfast at church because someone told me I really needed to make friends (thanks, Mom). I went to the breakfast by myself and found an empty seat at a table with seven older women who all knew each other. I tried to participate in the conversation, but none of the women seemed interested in my comments, which shocked me because I thought I was on a roll. Twenty minutes in, I heard someone say the word, “Disneyland," and I knew that this was my moment. I was about to make a new friend.

“I’m taking David to Disneyland; he’s ten and this will be our first time,” said one of the ladies.

“Oh my gosh! You’re taking your grandson to Disneyland!” I said, ready to offer any helpful tips and answer the multitude of questions I was sure she would have.

“David is my son,” she said, as laser beams shot at me from her bifocals. Her face reddened, complimenting her freshly permed salt-and-pepper hair.

I could go on and on regaling you with stories of my utter humiliation. Like when I was twelve years old and a teenage boy (who I had a huge crush on) tickled me so hard that I tooted while sitting on a countertop made of very thick, very hard wood. (In case you're unaware, solid wood countertops make incredible amplifiers.) I saw him six years later and the first thing he said to me was, "remember when you farted?"

I just want you to know that your incredibly embarrassing, most mortifying moments—the ones from which you think you’ll never recover—will one day be a source of great amusement. Especially for your family. And for those who were there to witness your disgrace. And for your children. And probably your grandchildren.

It’s alright. Go ahead and laugh at yourself. Everyone else is.

A Lesson From My Cats

When we moved from Tacoma to Olympia it was a big change. But mostly for our cats. We decided to introduce Kitty Cross-Eyed and Jake Jammies to their new home one at a time, so they could each have a chance to adjust to their new life. Kitty Cross-Eyed was first. He was such a good boy—lazy, clumsy, and unintentionally hilarious—he was a perfect fit for our family. We brought him in his cat carrier to our backyard, opened the door for him, and he sauntered out.  He slowly walked the perimeter of the yard, sniffing every shrub, and every blade of grass, deciding which spot was best for napping, and which was best for… well, napping. He took his time getting used to his new home, and when he was finished, he lay down in the grass and looked contently off into the middle distance (or straight into my eyes. It was hard to tell with him).

Jake Jammies, on the other hand, was a bastard. That’s the only word I have in my vocabulary that adequately describes him. Once I found him in my closet, pooping on a shirt that had slid off the hanger onto the floor. And he just looked up at me like a defiant kid looks at his parents while touching something he’s not supposed to, with that “What are you gonna do?” expression. While Jake Jammies was waiting his turn in the cat carrier, he was screaming like someone was lighting him on fire. When we opened the door of the carrier for him he ran out ready to attack someone. He looked left, then looked right, and then running at full speed, Jake Jammies jumped our five-foot fence and we never saw him again.

Life changes for all of us. How do we  react? How do we adapt? I suggest that we learn a lesson from my cat. From both of my cats, actually. If we can learn how to avoid starting forest fires from a bear wearing jeans, and how to give a hoot about not polluting from a Peter-Pan hat-wearing owl, then we can certainly learn a lesson about how to handle change from an obese cross-eyed cat. And how not to handle it from a demonic one. 

When you are faced with a life change that you didn’t ask for, or that you didn’t expect, the best thing for you and everyone around you, is to examine every aspect slowly and carefully. And when you’re done, and you realize this is just the way it's going to be now, go ahead and lie down and make yourself at home. Don’t be a bastard. Don’t poop on other people’s things, and don’t run away leaving a bunch of crying kids behind.  Your life won't get better if you run away. You'll probably be picked up by the pound and euthanized because you're a jerk.

Why I Laugh

My sister and I received a sweet e-mail from our mom recently. (I didn’t ask my mom's permission to share it because I’m the baby in the family and we get away with these kinds of things.)

Mom wrote: "I love you guys! I just feel like I need to tell you all that today for some reason.  I'm being emotional.  But I love my family so much and you girls and your husbands are so great, I just want you to know how much I love you!”

Here’s my reply:

“Leah and Mom, This e-mail was very timely. I wanted to tell you both something. I got some test results from my doctor yesterday and they aren’t good. I mean really not good.

Just kidding. I love you, too.”

Humor is a very complicated and wonderful enigma. It brings some people together and divides others, it relieves tension or causes it, it makes most people laugh but there are always the few who end up confused or upset. But above all, humor makes an incredible shield and a fun coping strategy.

How do you cope with the hard things in life? Do you drink too much? Self-medicate with illegal or prescription drugs? Impulsively shop? Compulsively clean? Compulsively hoard? Do you play a cute little game of make-believe with your life? Work out like Jane Fonda on crack? (I’m sure there is a more relevant illustration of a fitness guru, but I’m a stranger to the culture of “exercise.”) We all have some way of coping. Every single one of us.  Now, there are many people who are perfectly stable, knowing how to deal with the stresses of life in a healthy, normal way.

Just kidding. There aren’t.

One of the things that annoy me more than anything else in this world is having to explain myself. So please, let me explain myself: I make jokes. It’s just what I do. I instinctively find humor in everything because of the heart-breaking despair in most things.

I am about to compare myself to Steve Martin. I know, I know—it’s like Kim Kardashian comparing herself to Mother Theresa, but just hear me out. In his autobiography, “Born Standing Up,” he describes a brutal beating his dad inflicted on him when he was 9 years old. And how it ruined their relationship for the next 30 years. Steve (I pretend we’re on a first-name basis) writes, "I have heard it said that a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts. I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know… I am qualified to be a comedian." 

If you look, you will find a hundred examples of comedians with similar stories. Bob Newhart said, “I think there’s some trauma, probably, in a comedian’s background, or upbringing that this is the way we compensate for it.” The funnier the comedian, the more painful the past. Please know I am not calling myself a comedian, but merely saying that I relate to their methods.

There is a reason people spend their lives being funny.

I have reasons for making jokes. And I don't need to explain them. 

If I don’t laugh about life, I will spend large portions of my day sobbing hysterically. Who wants to see that? Who wants to do that? And so I joke. The security-blanket-like protection it offers is just a cool bonus.

When my second step-mother swallowed a bottle of Xanax and hurled us into the horrific aftermath of suicide, humor (what little I could find) is what made the whole disaster manageable. And my sisters allowed me to make jokes when most people would’ve labeled me insensitive. The fact is, I am so overly-sensitive I don’t know how to deal with that much emotion.

You can sympathetically shake your head, and say “you poor thing, I’m glad I don’t do that.” And I will reply, “You probably don’t. But you do something.”

Speaking of replies…Here’s Leah’s response to my e-mail:

“You are an ass.  I mean really an ass!” 

A few minutes later I received a follow-up e-mail from her:

“...I cannot believe it.  I almost ran out the door and down Martin Way.  That was so scary.  I just knew it was cancer and you were gonna be gone by your birthday.”

I still haven’t heard from my mom.

Life is Beautiful

Have you ever noticed that it takes an adult to explain to a child that dandelions are not pretty flowers?  A child looks at dandelions and sees these magnificent beauties that would look perfect in a jar on mommy’s kitchen table. Apparently, a grown-up’s duty is to inform these little people that dandelions are ugly.  That they are unwelcome, bothersome weeds that should be destroyed—poisoned, cut down, dug up, and permanently disposed of—so we can be free to enjoy our yards the way they are meant to be: plain and green, with no trace of those hideous yellow intruders.  A child would never come to this conclusion alone.  A child must be taught the strange ways of the adult world. 

A few years ago, I was faced with the task of explaining to my 11-year-old daughter what abortion is. I knew the burden I was about to place on my innocent girl, and I knew I was chipping away a little more of that protective covering she had enjoyed all these years. As I began to speak, I struggled to find my voice as though it were the first time I had ever formed a sentence.  Inside, I fumbled and choked on my words but on the outside, I managed to appear composed and articulate. Each utterance was carefully considered before it left my mouth and entered my daughter’s ears, mind, and heart, where it would permanently settle for the rest of her life. I was looking at my first born child and telling her that sometimes, for reasons I cannot understand, a mother thinks of that tiny life growing inside her as nothing more than a dandelion.

Alison’s reaction should come as no surprise to anyone - she was utterly speechless. I watched the confusion and disbelief appear in her eyes, and we sat in deafening silence. Not once did she nod slowly, absorbing the information, and then thoughtfully say, “Well, I suppose a lady has a right to do what she wants to her own body.”  There was never a moment where Alison assumed that unborn babies aren’t really babies at all but simply unviable masses of tissue.  My daughter, at only 11 years old, understood exactly what abortion is.  And she was properly horrified.

As I taught my own baby girl about abortion, we discussed the beauty of life and the precious gift that it is. We considered the unbearable pain for both the mother and unborn child. As we talked about the more than 50 million babies that have been cut down and destroyed as though they were common weeds, we imagined them as beautiful babies made whole, and we grieved for all of them.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…” Jeremiah 1:5