dropsinthewell

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I am about to confess something to you that probably my nearest family and friends already know: I am a certifiable Star Trek nerd. From the original series, through Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager and on, I have adored every Star Fleet Mission, weird and hostile alien and Red Alert moment that any of the series has ever produced.

So, if you have never seen any of the episodes, the rest of this probably won’t make a whole lot of sense, and I apologize for digressing on one of my favorite fixations. And seriously, if you have not seen these shows, I have to tell you that you are missing one of the greatest fantasy adventures and social satires of all times.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most has been the unbelievable number of catch phrases that the program has produced. Spock, with his fingers raised in a weird victory signal as he bids you, “Live long and prosper” or Captain Picard with his precise mannerisms directing you to “Make it so,” add color and life to every episode.

All of the characters are engaging, but I in particular like some of the medical officers. I love the holographic doctor on Voyager, and the alien Dr. Phlox and his love of animal medicine on Enterprise. My favorite, though, has always been the original doctor, Leonard “Bones” McCoy who joined his great friend, Captain James T. Kirk on his space adventures, but never did quite adjust to the unique challenges of the great unknown.

He was quirky, talented, emotional and loyal to his friends and his profession. Growing up, I always thought how cool it would be to be Nurse Chapel, working alongside the great man. (At the time, it didn’t occur to me to want to be HIM instead, but I have evolved since then.) Best of all, I loved his standard response to any mammoth request that came from Captain Kirk: Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a magician, mind-reader, engineer, babysitter, etc. Whatever the situation, Dr. McCoy reminded his captain of his “limitations,” always prefacing it with, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor…”

Because of this fixation, my children have bowed to the inevitable and started gifting me with Star Trek memorabilia. I have a Christmas tree ornament shaped like Voyager, a snow globe containing the original Enterprise, and a set of Pez dispensers for every character in The Next Generation. One of my favorites has to be my Dr. McCoy t-shirt. Emblazoned on the front are pictures of all the various professions he pointed out that he wasn’t (the engineer, the magician, the athlete, etc.) Each picture has a line drawn through it, indicating this is what he is not, while the picture of a doctor’s stethoscope is left unmarred, as he is a doctor. Emblazoned across the top are the words, “Dammit, Jim…”

Now, I think the shirt is hysterical, but it has caused its share of uncomfortable moments. For one thing, I have learned there are certain places you might not want to wear it—teaching school, to church, and so on. While it immediately picks out the Star Trek nerds of your world, it also presents a startled moment for those who don’t know why I would wear a shirt that says, “Dammit Jim” across the front, especially those who know my husband’s name is Roy, not Jim.

I keep on wearing the shirt, though, because it is kind of like a secret handshake, revealing all of the others out there who are a part of the Star Trek mystic. They laugh, and I know, we have made a connection.

And for the rest of them? Well, it can be awkward. I was wearing the shirt at a restaurant recently and the manager had come forward to seat us. Taking one look at the shirt which I had sincerely forgotten I was wearing he said, “Uh, about your shirt. My name is Jim?”

“Star Trek,” I replied, and he either got it or pretended that he did. Such are the hazards for us Star Trek fans.

For my next custom designed t-shirt, I’m going to have the words, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a writer, not a doctor!” printed on it and see how many Star Trek fans get that. In the meantime, all of you, Trek fans or not, live long and prosper.

Jackie Wells-Fauth

This morning while eating my breakfast in a small café in town, I happened to look up in time to see an extraordinary young lady come in, wearing a biking suit and helmet. I am aware of that stigma we small towners have where we tend to stare at anyone who is new, but I will admit to observing her from a distance.

She answered the questions of the friendly people who greeted her and she let them know where she’d been and where she was going. I will admit, I’m very jealous: the question is, am I jealous enough to get back on a bike myself? I tend to think no.

Now, I’m not crazy (at least, that’s my opinion); I would never attempt, as this young lady was, to ride a bike all through the United States, coast to coast. However, I have frequently thought in these last years that getting back on a bike for me holds some real benefits.

I learned to ride a bike late in life. While all of my other friends and relatives were wheeling along, I, at 8 years old, still hadn’t conquered two-wheel transportation. One of the neighbor boys became impatient with this situation and finally terrified me into riding the bike by running along beside me as I wobbled along, shouting, “Don’t you stop, don’t you dare put your feet down or else!” Later, he admitted that he didn’t know what the “or else” was going to be, but since I chose to believe the threat, I almost inadvertently, finally learned to ride the bike.

I kept it up sporadically through my young adulthood and my first years of motherhood. It was handy to put my non-napper child in the car seat and just keep riding until I could feel her sleep-heavy body slumped up against me. When my children became too old to use the bike as a mechanical sedative, I put it away.

Several times later, always in a fever-induced moment, I would decide it was in my best interest to ride a bike again. I needed the exercise and fresh air. Bike riding had always been fun; why not? After I had gotten the bike out, dusted it off, filled the tires with air (twice) and got a couple of feet down the road, I would remember why not. Bike riding is hard work!

I know I should be ashamed to say that, having encountered the young lady this morning who is riding across country, but honestly, I wouldn’t get from Miller to St. Lawrence (all of 1 mile) before I’d be praying for a five-star restaurant to appear before me—attached to a luxury hotel and casino.

I have never envied those biking enthusiasts who ride cross country on their cycles. We pass them frequently in the car, bent over their bikes in the rain, hot sun and high wind and when I see them trudging uphill, I want to volunteer to tie them to the bumper of my car—not that they would probably appreciate that! My youngest grandson (who learned it from his older brothers) thinks a good mountain bike ride is taking his little trike to the top of the driveway, shoving off with his feet and then holding them up to allow the downward curve of the drive to propel him to the bottom. I am with him in this regard!

So, while travel by bicycle may have its good points (I am at a loss for the moment about what  those are) I still think I will find some other way to be an active member of society and my knees and back concur with me on this decision.

Nonetheless, the young lady this morning did give me pause. In her cross-country trip, she said that there was no real plan, just wherever they wanted to go. I have always liked the spontaneity of that. In addition, and perhaps an even bigger draw, was that this biker was reed slim and sat down to the biggest and best breakfast I had ever seen.

While she was enjoying the meal and exchanging pleasant conversation with some of the other diners, I once again thought, “Perhaps I need to get the bike out and go for at least a short ride. What could it hurt?”

And my subconscious answered, “Your back, your knees, your ankles, your disposition and your relationship with those who have to deal with you after you have fallen off a few times. Besides, you sold that bike ten years ago.”

So, to all those bikers out there who are diligently on the road, getting exercise and experience, I say:  I’ll be watching you… from my deck…with a large glass of iced tea…and a great deal of admiration!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I admit it, I am a small-town girl who is used to small-town roads. And when I say small-town roads, I mean roads maybe wide enough for two lanes and maybe paved with oil rather than gravel, or maybe not. This is my idea of a road; where the worst thing you are likely to face is a large piece of farm machinery in a no passing zone.

That is why attempting to drive in large cities has always been difficult for me. Imagine small town girl meets 8-lanes of fast-moving traffic and little idea of where she is going and you will be imagining me, trying to drive in Minneapolis this past month.

Possibly the worst part of the experience is the fact that my lack of preparation for such a driving adventure is really pathetic. It would be like trying to send a blind baby with one arm into the ring against Rocky Balboa and expecting a win for the babe in the woods!

I never pull out onto a two-lane highway unless all traffic is off the road and has been parked in their own driveways for ten minutes. In Minneapolis, there is never such a thing as a “break in traffic.” What they do have is, “now is the time, take your life in your hands and pull out like all the demons of hell are after you.” Even at that, if you don’t have at least three cars swerve around you with horns blaring, you have done something wrong.

When I am driving at home, I always pick a lane and remain there, even if that lane is the gravelly hump on the side of a gravel path, which forces you to drive in the ditch part of the way. You never move to the center of a road and once you have picked your lane, you stick with it like you are a cow coming down a chute with no chance to veer to right or left.

In Minneapolis, while I was driving the speed limit and fearing to move even a touch to my right or left, I was several times witness to what I like to call the “side scramble.” A driver on my left would cut in front of my car and then veer a little further over, into the next lane, then slice in front of a speeding truck to the lane after that, and on and on until they had somehow, at breakneck speed and in impossible traffic, cut their way diagonally across all five or six lanes of traffic, just so they could exit! Now, if I were to execute that maneuver, I would definitely have to take the nearest exit so I could clean out my underwear and lie down until my heart had stopped pounding into my mouth. It was terrifying to watch and it occurred over and over!

My tactic for getting through the heavy traffic was to do what I do when I am traveling on the two-lane US highway at home: I pick a lane and then never leave it. The problem with this procedure in a major city? Well, the lane you are in can be going along fine and then, while you are clinging to it like a monkey to its mother swinging through trees, suddenly, a sign will appear out of the corner of your eye that says something like: “Get out of this lane, unless you are planning to exit to a new road.” Or “Right lane closed ahead, get out of it a mile ago!” or,  “Hey, Mario Andretti, this is the east bound lane and you are supposed to be going west!”

Suddenly, that lane which had been your friend for several miles, has pulled the rug out from underneath you and now, instead of heading east, towards Stillwater, you find yourself in the northbound lane on the way for a fun-filled week in Duluth. And when you look around at the traffic to get to the exit, you know you will be spending the week in Duluth because there is no way you are going to be capable of performing the “side scramble” to get to the exit.

I am home again from my fun-filled week on the highway to hell, so that means I am once again driving under the speed limit, stopping at every stop sign until the whole road looks like a deserted apocalyptic byway and waving happily at all of the machinery I encounter in my path. I do not miss all of those cars in such a hurry to get to so many places and furthermore, I will have everyone know that I am very happy that there are crossroads and not exits on my super highway. Happy driving, everyone!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

King Charles III of England had better watch out because I think his throne might be in peril. He is about to be usurped by Socks, king of all the cats.

Socks is the elder statesman of my daughter’s two cats. He has been around for quite a few years and has established himself with the whole family as a very stable and dependable animal. He came to the family from a shelter and has survived the addition of a dog, a baby and another cat with aplomb. So his reputation as a good cat is well-established and I never doubted it.

And then, I got the opportunity to spend a little over a week in his company. That is when I discovered that Socks has truly begun to believe his own legend and has established himself as ruler of the household.

From the moment I stepped into his house, Socks has let me know that he is in charge. When I set a cup of coffee beside the chair I intended to sit in, Socks casually walked over and sat down himself, giving me the look you reserve only for things so far beneath you, they aren’t worthy of your attention.

From then on, he went about the work of establishing his rule. King Socks can let himself in and out of the house, without waiting for permission. He sits wherever he wishes, including on your lap uninvited, sitting on whatever book or paper you might have been using. Socks can also claim the back of the chair, so that he can majestically stare down on the peasants who are merely sitting on the seat.

One of His Majesty’s favorite places is in the bay window containing all the house plants. He will move between the plants like it is the royal forest and then lie down in front of them as if to guard against intruders. I came in with the watering can to take care of the thirsty foliage and waited for the cat to move. He simply looked at me.

“Okay, Your Majesty, but if you stay there, you might get wet,” I warned. He turned away from me,  to look out of the window, letting me know just how important my threats were.

So I admit it, I might have been careless with the watering can, just to get back at him. I managed to “accidentally” spill some water on his back end. “Oh, sorry,” I said as sincerely as I am able, when apologizing to a cat. With a sidewise glance out of his arrogant eyes, the king flicked his tail and sprayed the water right back at me. Score one for the feline royalty.

Socks is a hardy sized cat and so he is especially fussy about his meal times. When his regular owners are there and caring for him, he is fed regularly and deigns to be content with the cat food he gets. When the babysitters are there, he is less regularly sitting down to dine, not because I’m trying to starve him, but because I am not used to it, so sometimes he must fend for himself. Since he is also an agile king, he can get himself onto a kitchen counter, to check out the dining possibilities.

I had some pieces of chicken lying on the counter, and I came into the room as he was carefully making his selection from the buffet that he, of course, assumed was there for his enjoyment.

“Socks!” I snapped, “you get away from there.” He looked up, the chicken dangling from his teeth and his eyes determined slits. “Get down, I say!” At that, he casually leapt to the floor, dropping the chicken as he went.

I assumed it was over, so I delayed picking up the chicken piece. With that, King Socks turned back, retrieved his noon repast and disappeared downstairs, where I presume he enjoyed his picnic in private.

Despite it all, he is a pretty good and mellow cat, but I have to say he is also the most self-assured and complacent animal I have ever met. And I am pretty sure he will have a lot of tales to tell about his adventures with the sub-par humans he had to deal with while his owners were away for a week.

All hail Socks, King of the Cats!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

It was a typical evening, nothing special to warn me of what was about to happen. Nonetheless, the quiet, typical night turned harrowing when my husband uttered three special little words.“What’s that smell?” he asked, sniffing the air.

“How should I know?” I replied, my defenses up. “I don’t smell anything.”

I used to think this was just a phenomenon in my household, but it seems there are a lot of married people and mere roommates who tend to make up two distinct groups: those whose noses are so sensitive that every shift in odor catches their attention and the other group, whose noses are dead to all
smells… and they are better off that way. I am in the second group; my husband is in the first. It makes for some interesting marital moments.

I may be insensitive to smells, but I am hypersensitive to worrying about whether I smell. So, when my husband says, “What’s that smell?”, my first instinct is always to sniff the various parts of my own body
that commercials tell me smell offensive, (but with their product, would smell like roses). The longer he sniffs, the more paranoid I become.

“What does it smell like?” I ask.

“I can’t really say; it’s just a not-very-pleasant odor,” is his very unhelpful answer. I immediately take a shower and change everything, even my hairpins.

An hour later, as I’m still basking in that fresh shower feeling, he begins sniffing the air again.

“Still an odor?” I ask, not troubling to mask my irritation.

He gives a long-suffering nod and walks around the room, inhaling deeply. “I think it’s
coming from the kitchen. Maybe it’s something in all of those dirty dishes in
the sink.”

Now, I recognized this ploy. He doesn’t like dirty dishes in the sink, but neither does he like to do them. If he could make me feel self-conscious enough about a smell, he could get me to do the dishes. Well,
that wasn’t going to work.

Until he actually went into the kitchen and ran his face at a safe distance, across the dishes, sniffing and nodding his head gravely and regretfully. Okay, so at 10:30 at night, I am loading and running the
dishwasher for half a load, scouring out the sinks and pouring vinegar down the
drain.

“That’s all I can do, if you still smell something–which I never did, by the way–then I can’t help you.” I tried to sound very stern and forceful, using the same voice I had used all those years ago to make our
children back down and quit arguing. That voice never worked on our daughters, and it didn’t work on him, either.

“It might not be in the kitchen, because I still smell something,” he insisted. I took out the garbage and cleaned the container.

“Maybe it’s in the bedroom,” he speculated. I washed all the laundry in the hamper.

“Could it be the bathroom,” he wondered aloud—loud enough to be heard.

“I just cleaned the bathroom today, so unless you used the corner instead of the toilet, no it’s not the bathroom.”

We never did track down that phantom smell, because he quit making suggestions, mostly because he could now smell the smoke coming out of his impatient wife’s ears. Peace reigned once more…except for his occasional sniffing of the air around him.

Thanks to this, one of our most long-standing marital activities, the house is very clean and so am I for that matter. However, I am not fooled. I know that sometime in the not-too-distant future, I am going to
be relaxing on a peaceful summer’s evening and he’s going to utter those three little words again…and I don’t mean, “I Love You!” May your home smell like roses and your nose always be too stuffed up to smell it or anything else!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

The seasons have rotated at our house, as they do every year. Oh, I don’t mean we’ve moved from winter to spring; no, no. At our house, we rotate from tax season to marriage reality season. And sometimes the adjustment to having the other partner around much more can be tough on us both.

Being married to an accountant, I have always known that tax season can be rough. It is Roy’s season to shine, but it requires quite as many hours in the day as a farmer at the height of harvest. And since it lasts for several months, I have a tendency to slip into a somewhat slip-shod, self-centered, single mode of living.

During tax season, laundry only has to be kept up so there is a reasonable amount of underwear and clean dress clothes available. No need to wash all those pesky everyday clothes, since they are not likely to be used right now. They accumulate in a pile behind the washer and Roy is too busy wearing business clothes to the office to notice.

 And during tax season, it is possible to be very lax on what passes for a meal—it’s consumed so fast and in such a state of distraction, that I believe I could serve peanut butter sandwiches and Milk of Magnesia and it wouldn’t cause comment—at least until the Milk of Magnesia kicked in!

I get very used to my television during tax season as well. I adore my re-runs of Monk and Murder, She Wrote and every feel good, snot-inducing, sentimental overload movie there is. And there is no one in the house (who is awake) to make gagging noises and rudely mock the main characters (Roy does an imitation of Jessica Fletcher which would be amusing if it weren’t so annoying). But during tax season, Jessica finds the killers without the running, derisive commentary from the accountant.

Tax season, however, has faded into the season, which I like to call marriage reality season. This is where we remember that there are two of us in the house and our views on living with another human being don’t always jive. Take the other night; I really wish someone would!

Roy came home all excited. “I’m going to fix that water head in the toilet and hang the new curtain in the kitchen, but before that, I’m going to go out and mow and fertilize the lawn.”

“Maybe you should pace yourself,” I respond. “You don’t want to run out of fun too quickly.”

“I am ready for something besides taxes,” he says, rubbing his hands together as he stands before the dresser, searching through the clothes. “Where is my green plaid shirt? You know, the one I wore when I spackled the basement? I want to use that to work in the bathroom.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s clean,” I remark, kicking it further into the pile behind the washer.

“But I spackled the basement last fall,” he protests.

“Exactly, what was the rush? And while we’re at it, the kitchen and the bathroom are none too clean right now. I was meaning to get at that this month, but I was distracted.”

“By the frozen pizza we’re having for supper?” he said, checking the oven.  I think he was trying to make some point there, but I refused to get it. So, he became more direct. “There’s a lot of hamburger in the refrigerator, maybe you should use that up first?”

“I had a busy day,” is my excuse. “And I don’t need you to be a back-seat driver when I’m cooking.”

“Jessica Fletcher and Monk too busy repeating their accomplishments finding the criminals?” he asked, adding sarcastically, “Or maybe you spent the day using up kleenix over the Hallmark channel. By the way, the timer’s going off on the pizza. Looks like a gourmet meal tonight.”

When I next went into the living room, he was not watching Murder, She Wrote, or Columbo. No sir, he was flipping the television back and forth between the Timberwolves, who are just getting ready to wrap up their basketball season and the Twins, who are just getting started on the baseball grind. Nothing in anything he was watching made me think, “Aww, what a fun evening of television we have ahead!”

Yes, indeed, the seasons march forward. And when I am in the midst of marriage reality season, cooking actual meals and washing all of the clothes every week, to the background sounds of a Twins game gone wrong, I always wonder, “What was it about tax season I didn’t like, again?”

Jackie Wells-Fauth

In the springtime of my marriage, I allowed things to happen that wouldn’t happen today in that same marriage. Mostly I am thinking of the fact that I used to take warm showers and my very young husband thought it was funny to throw a cup of cold water over the top of the door just to listen to me squeal. I didn’t appreciate it and it finally stopped after I explained the particular set of skills I possess that could make his death look like an accident.

It is somewhat ironic then that 40 years into the marriage I am looking at a fad that reminds me a great deal of those very early days of wedded bliss. Now, it has never been a habit of mine to chase after every fad that comes out in this life. I have not made a tic toc video or dyed my hair some unique shade of purple or tried the latest food craze in sushi. In fact, I am probably the person least likely to hear about a new exercise and jump right in to try it.

That’s why my obsession with cold showers (not provided by Roy) surprises even me. I first heard about it on my way home from work when a fellow on the radio was going on and on:

“So, if you want to really feel good and get rid of all of your minor aches and pains, just turn the shower to cold for the last 30 seconds to two minutes. Doctors recommend it and so do I. It will make a new man out of you.”

Now, I have no desire to be a new man and I had no intention of trying the cold rain treatment until I came home and discovered that neurologists were actually recommending it. Well? Was I brave enough to try it? I was pretty sure not.

Then came the night my leg was paining so badly that I finally decided, “What have I got to lose? It’s either do this or cut it off!” I was to remember that choice with fondness later.

My shower was not even enjoyable because of what I intended to do at the end. It’s a little like trying to enjoy your last meal, even when you know the electric chair awaits. I just couldn’t relax and have a nice shower. But, the throbbing leg kept taunting me, “I’m here with you for always. We both know you’re not going to hit me with a cold shower!”

Holding my breath and forcing myself with both hands, I cranked the shower to cold. I started screaming like a banshee…and that was only when a cold spray hit me. Gritting my teeth and stepping forward, I let the cold water hit my nice clean, warm skin and I directed the full wrath of that artic rain on the leg causing me troubles! That would teach it to complain!

The man who described this water torture on the radio said the recommended time was 30 seconds to two minutes, but “if you can stand it for 30 seconds, you can make it to two minutes, no problem!”

I beg to differ. If I could stand it for 30 seconds, that would be the end. I kept sticking a body part under the spray and then jerking back out. That was the coldest of all cold rains! I have read that some people – athletes in particular—take ice baths on purpose. Good for them. I spent 30 bone chilling seconds under that blast and I was a freezing, teeth-chattering, ice queen and I had no plans to go back for more. That was it, I promised myself as I stood by the bathroom heater in mid-July. Two minutes under that icy waterfall and I would have been a popsicle. Let me out of here!

And then an odd thing happened: my leg started to feel better. How could that be in the thirty seconds I had spent in the Alaskan tundra? At first, I was sure I was imagining it, but no—that leg actually felt better.

This was not good news! If it really worked, then I was going to have to do it some more and I had planned to retire my cold shower routine after its maiden voyage. Now, I might have to seriously use the method?

Thus has begun what I like to call my shower screaming years. Roy was upset. He was more than willing to throw the cold water on me if that’s all that was needed. And he wanted credit for trying to “help” me with cold water sprays years ago.

My showers are never quiet and sweet. I take a reasonable shower for the majority of the time, but when I hit that two minute mark at the end, on comes the cold water and out slips some of the foulest language I ever learned in a bar down by the river. Is it for everyone? Definitely not, but if you have a partner who thinks throwing cold water into your shower is funny, you might want to stop and assess the results before you offer to waterboard them with their own towel!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have always felt as though I was a voice crying in the wilderness (or whining in the computer store) when it comes to my inability with technology. But, much to my joy, my friend has heard my voice and she sent me an article written by a fellow anti-technology soul that puts a whole new light on this technological world of ours.

David Brooks wrote the article “Why is Technology so Mean to Me?” This man gets me. He understands my struggles and he has put forward a very interesting theory on our computer world: Technology is the devil.

Of course! Why didn’t this occur to me before! All my struggles and all my failures to operate “basic computer programs,” explained away in the simplest of terms. Technology is the creation of the underworld and that is why a good, clean-living Christian like myself can’t handle it. Evil forces have been against me from the start!

My life has been one long list of battles lost to technology. What some people can do with a swipe of their thumb on a phone, I can’t manage if I am  sitting before a computer as big as a room. I finally figured out e-mails, but forget attachments. On-line banking? Might as well be an off-shore account in the Caymans because it is just as inaccessible to me.

I stopped taking classes online when I discovered that I wasn’t even able to sign up, let alone operate the so-called “Blackboards” which manage the classes instead of a teacher these days. Obviously, there was a demonic force at work against me or I would have figured out how to “click here to prove I’m not a robot.” Perhaps I would have had better luck getting into the classes if I had just held a simple exorcism beforehand.

And of course, the only explanation for my inability to place an order, trace an order or return an order in online shopping has to be because Satan doesn’t wish me to stay at home. He wants me to drive to the store and do everything in person…as the only one there.

Technology has always been very rough on me. Every time I learn how to use an on-line program, a special flag goes up somewhere in Hell. “Yeah, she’s figured that one out; time to change it—not a lot, just enough to foul her up again.”

Attempting to reason with computers also does not work. When I was still teaching, I named my computer Priscilla and tried everything from begging, praying, reasoning and screaming, to compel Priscilla to do my bidding. If Priscilla was the mistress of Beelzebub, that would explain why nothing I could threaten her with scared her at all.

I thought it might be worthwhile to put this little demon-possessed theory to the test. I sat down at my computer and pulled up something really complicated—my on-line blog account; that would make a good test. I wore a cross and said three prayers before I started, hoping to cleanse the motherboard, or whatever.

I typed in the address of my account. “You have signed out of this account, please close all browsers,” the servants of evil and misrule intoned.

“I did not sign out, I have all the information right here, you daughter of darkness. Now, in the name of all that is holy and good, open my account!” For good measure, I grabbed the metal plaque off the wall in my office that says, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you, oh lord.” As I was bringing it across my work area, it hooked on a corner of the desk and landed on my keyboard, breaking three keys and cutting my finger.

Yup, Mr. Brooks, technology is the devil…and it’s really kind of mean too!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have always avoided doctors when possible, especially when they wanted to cut into me. This has been a strict policy which has been harder to stick to the older I get. It seems like every time I consult with the doctor these days, they want to pull out the knives (they call them scalpels, just to throw you off) and correct issues, many of which have been long neglected.

I encountered this recently when a skin growth turned out to have some cancer on it. After that was removed, it was decided that all of my skin should be checked. If you have ever had this done, then you know any remaining mystery on your body is over; there are no secrets left once this examination is complete. This is both a relief and a discomfort.

It was determined that I had two places where I had the beginnings of skin cancer and therefore, they needed to be removed. One was beside my eye and the other on my chest bone. The doctor informed me that these are due to a lack of coverage from the sun.

Now, this was hard for me, because most of my life, I have fought diligently to keep myself covered. The reason, of course, is because I am a redhead and redheads do not tan. We either remain as white as Dracula in candlelight or we burn like a lobster in boiling water!

Covering up in the sun presents problems. Large, shady hats are really very helpful or perhaps even an umbrella would be nice. In South Dakota, however, the fate of most large, shady hats and umbrellas is annihilation with the first gentle “breeze” that comes along. I have been slapped in the face by many a hat brim and had many an umbrella lose its life to a gust of enthusiastic wind. In every case, it failed to protect my face.

As for my chest, I admit, light shirts in the summer are usually scoop-necked and not inclined to remind me that my chest skin is then exposed to the unforgiving rays of the sun—until it’s too late and I have fried like a fish in hot oil. The fact that these two areas are where the skin cancer is tells me that all those years of covering up in the summer like a Ninja on assassination assignment probably helped the rest of me, but I still have my Achilles heel—or two!

That leads to going “under the knife” to get rid of the offending spots. To make it more fun, I have to do them on two separate occasions, but this week, I finally got the chest infection removed. It reminded me of the dentist’s office in that you sit in a chair and they are working over you. The difference, I found, was that I was able to respond to conversation on this occasion because the equipment was on my chest, not in my mouth.

They worked up close, which made me regret the garlic I had with lunch and made me wish I could stop the burping and gurgling noises my stomach was making. I waited, fatalistically, for someone to say, “Oops” and while I never heard that, I heard, “Boy, you bleed well,” a couple of times. I gave them my standard reply: “Everyone has to have a hobby.”

Once she was done, she put a bandage on it, announcing, “This bandage is way more bad-ass than it needs to be.” Upon reflection, however, I decided I liked bad ass. So, for the rest of the day, every time I noticed someone looking at my bandage, I volunteered, “I was in a knife fight in a bar downtown. I won.”

Since the doctor tells me that anything beyond a 30 in sunscreen is just showing off and not worth it, I suppose I’ll be back to buying wide-brimmed hats and umbrellas and praying for calm days in South Dakota. In the meantime, I go back under the knife for the second spot on my face—wonder what story I can come up with for that!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

In my defense, what I’m about to tell you is something that many people have experienced. I just seem to manage to mess it up more than other people would. I’m speaking of course, of my wild flirt with going to jail for car theft.

I blame the manufacturers of today’s cars. It would be so much better if they didn’t make them all look alike and then stir up a giant vat of paint and paint them all the same color!

I have always had difficulty with finding my car in a parking lot. I comforted myself with the idea that  this was only true if we were in a large parking lot, but this past week, I discovered that I would probably be able to lose my car if it was parked on the street outside my house!

I was in a hurry and I stopped at a small local store for several items. Coming out of the store, I registered that there were only two cars in the small lot, looking very similar. That was okay, mine was the nearer one. I whipped open the back door and arranged my packages on the back seat, having to move over a box on the seat to make room. Then I started to climb in the front. Just as I was arranging myself, it suddenly occurred to me: Box? I didn’t have a box in the back seat! I also didn’t have a hairbrush and a magazine on the front seat beside me, but there they were.

Moving as fast as my old legs would carry me,  I hauled my butt out of the front seat and then snatched my bags out of the back, trying to rearrange the box in the best approximation I could of what it was before I tried to steal the car.

I was then considering whether to wipe my fingerprints off the car and trying to remember where the one place is that crooks never wipe down (according to Monk, Columbo and Jessica Fletcher) when out of the corner of my eye, I saw another person coming out of the store. Assuming all the panache of a water buffalo leaving the mudhole, I jumped to the other car. As I was throwing myself, packages and all, into that one, it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked to make certain that one was mine, but the odds were in my favor: It was the only other one there and it was certainly dirty enough to be mine.

This brush with car theft is a common theme in my life anymore. I was once in a large parking lot and I had been wandering for a few minutes, searching for my steel-grey car in a sea of steel-gray cars, when to my relief, I found it. I went to the driver’s door and discovered to my astonishment that I had locked it. I know I should always do that, but since I don’t usually, I was standing there, using my best cuss words and digging for my keys in my purse.

I finally located them and then, as I was about to insert the key in the car door lock, I saw the reflection of a man standing right behind me. Whirling around, prepared to defend my honor, I was horrified to hear him say, “Sorry lady, but that’s my car.”

I eventually found my car, but I have often wondered how many times I can do that without ending up behind bars for inadvertent vehicle pinching.

I find it happens more at night, of course, when no matter what the vehicle, they all look alike. Modern conveniences have taken pity on me, however, with the invention of the keyless fob. Now, in addition to starting the car, your fob will actually find it for you. Just press the little button and your vehicle will light up and holler, “Over here, dummy!” You have to be paying attention, though. After a school event one night, I went up to my car and pressed the button to unlock (cause I had actually locked it that time). Nothing happened. I was flabbergasted. I had done everything right, and now my fob wasn’t working. Frantically, I pressed it again and again with the same results.

It finally dawned on me that every time I pressed the fob, and it wasn’t working, a car several more down the line was beeping and lighting up. With the quick wit of Einstein, I concluded I had done it again, but this time, the person pointing out that I was at the wrong car was the car itself. I’m not sure if this is a step forward, or not. All I know is that if I get locked up for car theft, I’m going to need someone to bail me out!