Author: Xenia Rutherford

 

I sat judging the man from my seat at the bar. And a bar stool, as many know, is a perfect spot from which to judge.

The man looked out of place in this crowded old west style saloon as he clung tightly to the straps of his fancy backpack. Made of quilted black leather, the Prada backpack boasted a large silver logo tag and many fat shiny silver zippers. The man spun in circles, looking confused. I imagined the man thinking, “Did I take the wrong exit? This can’t be Vail.”

Under the warm light of a gigantic wagon wheel chandelier, the backpack glittered as the man spun, like a disco ball prop on the wrong movie set.

***

Silverthorne, Colorado is not Vail, Colorado. It is a mountain town, but not the tourist attracting charming kind. Given its proximity to the charming kind, there are signs of “transition,” but for now, Silverthorne is something of a utilitarian community. The town is an exit off Interstate 70, where in the summer, drivers in pursuit of scenic vistas stop for gas and bug spray, and where in the winter, skiers (in attempt to cut their losses) pull off for more affordable accommodations. The skiers plan of course being to get back on the I-70 early the next day, heading to world famous resorts and “score first tracks.”

 

On this stormy winter night, that became our plan too. Done with staring at four lanes of solid red taillights, my husband Mark and I pulled off and checked into the Luxury Inn and Suites. It was our last option as the Quality Inn and Suites and the Comfort Inn and Suites didn’t have any rooms left, or suites. Given the promise indicated in any of these names, one couldn’t go wrong. In our case, “luxury“ meant a room with damp carpet and a missing thermostat that looked like it had been ripped out the wall.

 

“Hope you’re good with 79 degrees,” I told Mark as, using only my thumb and forefinger, I dragged the bedspread off the bed and stood it in the corner.  And it did stand. Resistant to gravity, and with stories to tell, the bedspread became an unnerving presence in my periphery.

***

Deciding to stay in Silverthorne is how we ended up at the Mint Steakhouse. A place where you pick your cut of meat from a glass display case, and then grill it yourself. A clever concept not only in keeping with the tough cowboy vibes, but, if you don’t like how it is prepared, you only have yourself to blame. Holding on to a tray weighted with metal tongs and two raw, prime-cut filets, Mark strode to the men’s only grill room (not really, but pretty much) with purpose and swagger. God speed, I thought, as I went in the opposite direction to get a drink, and people watch.

 

And that is when I spotted the man. He stood like a bolder in a river of oversized plaid flannel and ski jackets making their way around him. Eventually loosened him from his stupefied position, the man began to shuffle backwards in my direction. With no natural instinct to check behind him, the man kept shuffling backwards, heading directly toward the server station where three opened bottles of Coors Light awaited pick-up. His backpack was getting dangerously close to the row of beer bottles, closer, and then closer still. Of course, I should reach out to stop him. Of course, I should. Normally, I would. Of course, I normally would, but, don’t we want to see whether or not a Prada backpack can roll a strike? The backpack took out two of the three bottles. Not bad.

 

“Hey buddy!” called out the age 60-something bartender, clearly a seasoned pro. His periphery vision kept him abreast of all the goings-on at his bar, and he immediately ran over with a rag, “Watch your backpack! Hey buddy!”

The man turned and blinked at the bartender.

“Your backpack.”

Another blink.

“It’s okay buddy, I got you.”

As the bartender cleaned up, and opened new bottles of Coors, he started to sing one of the theme songs to Dora the Explorer.

“Backpack, backpack! Backpack, backpack!” He set out new bottles for pick-up. “Backpack, backpack.” He kept singing until the man blinked himself backward and disappeared into the crowd.

It was perhaps because I had appreciated the Dora song, and that I wasn’t talking to anyone, that the bartender noticed me, and I became his singular audience member for the following jokes. In between fielding the many drink orders for both the patrons at the bar, as well as the dining room, the bartender would stop in front of me to deliver another joke.

Three in total, and in this order.

Joke #1:

“Did you hear about the blind prostitute?”

I shook my head.

“You gotta hand it to hand it to her.”

I nodded my approval.

The bartender raced off to mix a few drinks, but it wasn’t long before he was back. He leaned in conspiratorially.  I leaned in too.

Joke #2:

“How do you spot a blind man on a nudist beach.”

I shook my head.

“It isn’t hard.”

Without waiting to see how it landed the bartender hurried off to take a couple’s order at the opposite end of the bar, quickly stopping to top off a sitting draft beer on the way.

I leaned back. I get it, but I don’t know. I just don’t think of a nudist beach as a place where one goes to be aroused. I think of it as a place where one goes when one is over being constricted by social norms and elastic waistbands. Maybe the blind man was at the Playboy mansion pool…but wait, he needs to be naked too. A naked party at the Playboy mansion?

Before I could finish workshopping it, my bartender was back.

Joke #3:

“So, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are in the middle of a divorce trial…”

He paused for a moment.

“Wait, you’re not easily offended, are you?”

I shook my head.

“So, they are in court and the judge says, “Sorry Mickey, saying that Minnie is crazy is not grounds for a divorce. And then Mickey says, “No judge, you don’t get it. I didn’t say Minnie is crazy. I said she is fucking Goofy!””

And then he was off again.

Across from where I sat, encased in the vintage oak of the western bar, was a large etched mirror. I stared at my reflection, a new person to judge. I had to ask myself the most obvious question for someone in my position; what was it about my face that made me look like someone who’d laugh at a Minnie fucking Goofy joke?

If a focus group was asked to look through a stack of headshots and pick out the face most likely to love a Minnie fucking Goofy joke, would my photograph end up with the most fingerprints on it?

“Her,” one unpaid participant would say, holding up my photo, “can’t you just see her throwing back her head and screaming with laughter at that?”

(By the way, I say “unpaid” because I suspect this survey would have a tight budget, but you never know.)

“Yeah, definitely,” another unpaid participant would agree, wanting to earn his keep via free cubed cheese, “she totally looks like someone who would dig a Minnie fucking Goofy joke. Or, like, any joke that involves blind people.”

 

***

“I don’t get it,” Mark said, after we had found a booth and sat down with our overcooked steaks, “what does someone who would laugh at this Mickey joke even look like?”

I wasn’t sure, I had to admit. But I suspected it was someone with chapped lips and deep nasal folds.

Mark studied the steaks he had grilled, he looked concerned.

“Do you think I need face filler?” I ask.

Mark put his first forkful of steak in his mouth, then sat back and began to chew. It was going to be a while before I got my answer. For the millionth time that day, I was forced to control my inherited irrational impatience.

I couldn’t do it.

“Mark!”

With some effort, Mark swallowed, “Xenia, I have to say, I’m just not following you. Do you think this steak is overcooked? I think it might be overcooked.”

Mark forked the entire steak and held it up for scrutiny.

Of course, the steak was overcooked. If the kitchen had prepared it, I would have sent it straight back, and with some words to go with, because I have more inner Prada backpack in me than what people are seeing.

***

Later that night, while Mark brushed his teeth in bathroom, I laid in bed under the sole sheet.

In one corner of the room hot air blew through a damaged ceiling vent. It looked like someone had pulled a chair over, stood on it, and punched the vent. Likely the same person who had ripped out the thermostat.

And in the opposite corner of the room, sidelit by slivers of outside light that snuck by curtain security, the bedspread still stood tall. A bad ass. If it were alive, I bet it would have a raunchy sense of humor, but who knows, with bedspreads it is sometimes hard to tell.

It occurred to me that I’m bad at memorizing jokes. Up until now, I had only known two, so if I were in a situation where I’d be killed unless I told three, I’d be dead. I memorized the two jokes I know when I was 7 years old. They both came from the back of a 1980s McDonald’s Happy Meal box.

Joke #1

What did the ocean say to the shore?

Answer: Nothing it just waved.

Joke#2

What kind of pet plays music?

Answer: A trumpet.

These two jokes, always in this order, were a one-two punch in my elementary school days. The jokes–and my mom’s open-door policy to gum and Fig Newtons (we lived directly across the street from school)–got me an in with the popular crowd. And then, as an adult, I returned to these jokes to win over a new friend’s young kids. Worked every time, and always, the mother would smile and look relieved, as if my effort to make her kids laugh settled a concern that I was someone who didn’t like children. It wasn’t enough, apparently, that I had two little kids of my own…but fair enough.

 

Maybe, as with my ‘80s Happy Meal box jokes, these just happened to be the only jokes the bartender remembered, and it really had nothing to do with my face. I doubt it, but maybe. If I had sat at the bar any longer (I was pulled away by Mark who wanted me to come and watch him overcook prime filets), would he have come back to deliver more? When he turned and saw my empty stool, was he possibly relieved?

 

All I know is that since I have written down and possibly overthought his jokes, I’ll remember them. This makes me a little nervous. The upside is I now have five jokes at the ready, a number that could possibly save my life someday. I just hope I don’t get some kind of joke telling Tourette’s syndrome and blurt out the wrong joke to the wrong audience. Unfortunately, I suspect I will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our townhouse in Denver overlooks a beautiful park. On the edge of the park, there is a public outdoor fitness course which one man in the entire Denver Metro area uses.

On that morning, he was there, hitting every station in earnest, making the city planner who had fought for the balance board proud. “Installing this course without a round balance board on a spring would be an unforgiveable disservice to the community!” I imagine the planner had yelled, banging a fist on the table so hard he lost sleep that night wondering if he had gone too far. Or chosen the right battle.

If the man in the park had looked up mid pull-up he would have spotted me, a woman standing at a large 2^nd floor window across the street, watching him. Only I wasn’t watching him. Or, I had been for a second, but then something caused me to adjust my focus to the windowpane inches in front of me. There, at the height of my forehead, was a hole that could have only been made by one thing, a bullet.

***

“It’s a good thing you weren’t standing at the window when the gun was fired,” my husband Mark said later that afternoon as we studied both the hole in the window, and then the one in the living room wall opposite the window. I had assumed the gun had been fired from right across the street, in which case the bullet should have ended up in the ceiling. I picked a piece of dry wall up off the floor and shoved it into the hole.

“Don’t you think?” asked Mark.

“Think what?”

“Don’t you think that it was a good thing you weren’t standing at the window when the gun was fired?”

I turned and stared at him.

“I sure do,” I said.

Mark nodded, relieved to have found something we could agree on.

***

I wasn’t looking for open shelving, open shelving found me. We bought the townhouse because of the windows with park views, and not for the two, prominent wall mounted open shelving units inside the main level living area. I am more of closed cabinet/junk drawer person, but I took on the challenge of decorating these shelves, and it quickly became an obsession. I shaved hours off my sleep schedule to watch every YouTube video on how to style open shelves. There are a lot, and I thumb-up’d them all.

***

In the first days of my obsession, Mark didn’t understand. “What are you doing?” He’d ask, watching me move a decorative item from one end of a shelf a little more towards the middle, or more daringly, to another shelf altogether (a move I would not recommend trying if you’re prone to vertigo.)

“I’m elevating our space,” I’d say. And this would shut him up because who doesn’t want an elevated space?

Mark became used to me flying off the couch in the middle of a movie to start the rearranging.

“There she goes!” he’d say, watching me turn a wooden box a quarter inch clockwise. “That made all the difference.”

The funny thing is, it really did.

Sometimes, as I’m moving a photo frame to sit more at a casual angle or turning a hand carved bowl to feature its best side, I wonder if I shouldn’t be doing something more useful with my time. This always turns out to be a fleeting thought though, as there are frames to adjust and bowls to turn and they aren’t going to do it themselves.

***

The bullet had embedded itself inches from a carefully curated selection of books. Books I choose simply because the jacket covers pulled in colors from the rug and wall art to create a cohesive look. It is one of many professional decorator tips and tricks I now have in my arsenal.

Several books I choose because they were inspirational along with being the right color.  One should surround oneself with inspirational items to not only elevate the space, but elevate the soul, one decorator with a more holistic approach had advised.

I found myself buying books titled, “The Bucket List, 1000 Adventures Big & Small” and “Epic Journeys, 245 Life-Changing  Adventures,” and “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.”

These how to live your best life before it’s too late books now felt especially poignant sitting just inches from the new bullet hole in the wall.

We aren’t going to dig the bullet out. And likely we aren’t going to patch it until we sell the townhouse as a bullet hole is not a great selling point.

For now, I have decided the hole is part of the story my shelves are trying to tell. A reminder to hit that bucket list as time could be more limited than you think.

***

“Based on the trajectory, the gun was shot as far as a mile away,” the officer told us when we made our police report. “Where the bullet entered is almost parallel to where it ended up in the wall.”

The officer spotted Mark’s hospital badge on the kitchen island.

Another reason we bought the townhouse was its proximity to the hospital where Mark works. It is just a two-minute drive when he gets called in the middle of the night to help victims most often related to incidents involving drunk drivers, and, of course, guns. And there is a surprising number of people getting hit by the city’s quiet, stealth-like electric commuter train.

“You work at Denver Health?” The officer asked.

“Yes.”

“Thank you for all you do.”

“No, thank you for all you do.”

The two exchanged nods of mutual admiration then looked over at me. It was all I could do to stop myself from gesturing to my shelves.

“I will get back to you if we hear of anything.” The officer told Mark. To me he said, “don’t worry. Obviously, no one was targeting you.”

The officer shook his head and almost chuckled at the thought that I could be a victim of anything other than a totally random act of violence.

***

The next day I spotted my neighbors, the balcony girls, who were splitting a bottle of wine. I talked to them from my own matching balcony. I told them about the bullet hole in our window and they told me that the same thing had happened to the neighbor on the other side of me about a year ago.

“So…I guess I just army crawl around my place from now on?” I suggested.

“It is good for the core,” Mia replied.

The balcony girls are really balcony women. Diane is around my age. Her wife is Mia is maybe 7-10 years younger. In the two years we have had this place my interaction with them has only ever been balcony to balcony or balcony to sidewalk, me being the one on the sidewalk.

Only once I saw Mia on street level. It was last summer. I had opened my garage and there she was, idling in her own garage. If I took five steps and crossed the narrow alley I could touch her. She wore a polo and baggy shorts and had leg sleeve tattoos I hadn’t noticed from afar.

Seeing Mia off balcony was like catching Santa Claus off duty. I remember a day years ago when after sitting on Santa’s lap at a fancy holiday brunch, my kids and I spotted Santa later in the restaurant’s parking lot. The kids watched him with wide eyes as he yelled into his cell, (at an insolent elf, I told the kids) before tossing an old gym bag in the back of his car and slamming the door shut.

On this hot afternoon, Mia became a kind of Santa.

“Do you want a popsicle?” she asked, “I have a popsicle fridge.”

“You have a popsicle fridge?”

She waved me over to see. I stood next to her as she opened the door to one of two full sized fridges, only this one was a freezer, and it was indeed full of popsicles. Popsicle sticks of the alcohol variety. It was like the opening of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. The glow from inside. My expression of awe.

Mia grabbed a few sticks and held them up, “Margarita, Strawberry Daiquiri, or Pina Colada? I also have other kinds.”

“Margarita, please.”

She handed it to me, then reached in the popsicle fridge for another margarita pop.

“Do you want a second one?”

“Okay” I said. “Just in case.”

***

Back on the balcony Diane was sympathetic, “sorry, that happened, hope the window won’t be too expensive to replace.”

“I think it is some idiot shooting his gun off from his porch on the other side of the park.” Mia said, “don’t worry, you obviously weren’t targeted.”

“Oh my god, for sure you weren’t the target!” Diane agreed.

I had never thought I was the target. But the fact that this was the third time someone assured me that I wasn’t was starting to feel offensive.

***

As I waited for the new windowpane to arrive, I kept a careful eye on the glass surrounding the bullet hole; a sunburst of cracks that I hoped wouldn’t spider.

But mostly I returned to my life as a benign entity. A shadow passing back and forth behind a row of large windows. A tender of decorative displays. An extra playing the role of “woman hit by stray bullet” in a box office thriller. The director would be sure to shoot my bit scene at an angle so as not to see too much of my face, otherwise they would have to pay me more than an extra’s day rate.

***

As Mark had noted, it was a good thing I hadn’t been at the window when the gun was fired. Also, it was a good thing I hadn’t been across the room, standing by the shelves, doing my thing. If I had, I wondered how long it would take for me to realize I had been shot.

Shelf-styling isn’t known to be dangerous. That I could be shot doing it, and while home alone, would be unexpected. It probably would have taken me noting the hole in the window to figure it out.

The shelving units are sturdy as they are mounted to the wall. I imagine I would have clung to them to slow the fall. A chance to review my curated collection of “favorite finds” on the way down. One final time.

The Bucket List book lists “1000 adventures Big & Small.” That is a lot, but many of my items on my shelves were collected from trips. I’d be pleased seeing that I had checked off more than a few adventures in the book.

A set of gold camels I bought in the ancient city of Petra, #555. Photos scuba diving in Belize, #700, and skiing in Chamonix, France #129. A box of silver Baoding Balls I bought just outside the Forbidden City in Beijing  #455. A pair of wood carved penguins I got in Antartica. Antartica happens to be #1000 on the book’s proposed list. Which may make sense. I was on a ship with many elderly passengers. When I asked them why they chose a trip to the white continent many would say because it was the only continent they had yet to explore. The last box to check on their bad-ass bucket list.

***

I would eventually find myself on the floor. My balcony girls not realizing my need. My husband busy working on another person’s gun wound, a person who was likely targeted.

I would scan the items on the lowest shelf which was now at eye level. Normally not one of the more visible shelves, I had given this shelf the least attention, and in that moment I’d realize in horror that it showed.

There were three items on the shelf, a potted succulent, a colorful Peruvian vase, and a framed photo. The photo was taken in the driveway of my brother’s house when he hosted our sister’s wedding. It is of my daughter and four of my nieces in matching pink bridesmaids dresses shooting hoops as they waited for my sister to get ready. Not in the Bucket List book, but frame-worthy all the same. All three items were placed side by side and too much so. It felt flat. The items needed to be more staggered. And then, I’d make my final decorative adjustment while bleeding out. A multi-tasker till the very end.

The framed photo and vase I’d be afraid to touch, too easy to knock down and not have the strength to pick up. The succulent was my best bet. I’d reach out and push it back just a little, and then a little more. And that would be enough. This new position would be more pleasing to the eye because staggering items on a shelf adds dimension, and dimension adds interest.

And creating moments of interest is the secret to an elevated space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every so often, just when you think you’re going to make good time on knocking out the day’s “to do” list, you have an encounter that grinds time to a halt.

Such was an encounter recently when I brought my son Anders to a retro looking barber shop before a trip to L.A. (As evidence in the cover photo, when the person next to you is barely visible due to your hair, it might be time for a trim.)

“I’m sorry, I don’t see an appointment for Anders Hammerberg,” the stylist at the front desk said. She was in her thirties, her dyed red hair piled high in a messy bun. “We are all booked, but I can schedule him for another day.”

I pulled up a text on my phone.

“I have a text here confirming his appointment for 2:00 pm today.”

But the stylist wasn’t interested in looking at my text, just the computer screen which she checked again, and then shook her head.

“No. I do not see an Anders Hammerberg on the schedule at all today. And I can’t cut his hair now because I have someone else at two….”

I’m about to give up when she continued, “I’m waiting for an Anders Sanders.”

“Oh!” I said, “well, that’s probably my son.”

“No, it’s Anders Sanders,” she repeated.

“I know, but what are the odds that you happen to have an appointment for a different Anders at 2:00 today?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she replied, “the universe creates like-mindedness all the time. Like, yesterday morning, I only had clients named Chris.”

A part of me wanted to ask how many clients she had yesterday morning. If she had had eight, that would be impressive if they were all named Chris. If she only had two, then not so much.

But I didn’t want to get off topic.

“But Anders isn’t that common of a name,” I said.

“Oh, I know a ton of Anders!’” she replied, rolling her head back like I wouldn’t even be able to fathom the number.

Once again, I wanted to ask more questions, like, “a ton?” But, this had become a delicate enough interchange as it was. And one that had me stumped. My lack of movement prompted her to look at the computer again, and she read out loud the phone number next to Anders Sanders’s name. It was my phone number, and I relaxed as surely this was the proof she needed. That’s why she thought to check it.

“Yes, that’s me. That’s my phone number,” I said. “I think the woman I talked to on the phone when I made the appointment just put in the wrong last name, or maybe I didn’t give her a last name and she needed to type in something.”

“Or, she put in the wrong phone number,” the stylist countered, looking up at me with a one-eyebrow raised in a look that said, “bet you didn’t think of that, did you?”

She paused and thought for a moment. I held my breath, hoping that inside her brain she was putting together the pieces to a 2-piece puzzle.

It did seem like she had solved something.

“Wait a minute is your last name different from your son’s?”

“It is,” I answered slowly, and now in my own brain I quickly tried to figure out how things might play out if I told her my last name was Sanders. She would see that it wasn’t my name on my credit card. But maybe she wouldn’t notice? Or maybe if she did I could just shrug and be a bad ass about it. I’m not a bad ass. Did I have enough cash in my car? I think I might have enough cash in my car…

She looked at me, excited, “what is your last name?”

Just say it. Say your last name is Sanders.

“It’s Rutherford,” I answered.

Boo.

“Oh, because I thought for a moment that maybe it had just been put under your last name…”the stylist looks genuinely disappointed. I could relate, I was disappointed too.

“I know, and that was a good idea.”

I looked at Anders. At some point he went from being age 3 and three feet tall with stick straight light blond hair to age 16 and 6ft 3” tall with brown super curly hair.

“I want to grow it out as big as possible,” Anders will announce, and with his dad’s enthusiastic support.

“The bigger the better!” Mark will say.

It had taken a lot to finally convince Anders to trim it, just a little.

“Okay, how about this,” I said, “can I leave my son here and if Anders Sanders doesn’t show up, then can you cut his hair?”

“Of course!” the stylist answered cheerfully, “let’s give it five to ten minutes.”

“Great.”

I walked with Anders over to a chair in the waiting area and slipped him my credit card.

“I mean, what are the odds there is another Anders booked at 2:00 with the exact same phone number?” I whispered to him.

“No, let’s start here,” my son whispered back, “what are the odds of anyone naming their kid Anders Sanders?”

What were the odds of someone naming their child Anders Saunders? I wondered.

Finding out the answer to this went on the top of my “to-do” list. Of course.

On Facebook I found 10 people named Anders Sanders. Out of a world population of 7.8 billion, that’s ten more than I expected. Most live in Europe. Looks like one in Japan. In any case, if my calculations are correct, the odds of anyone naming their child Anders Sanders are one in 780 million.

 

 

 

 

I couldn’t believe it, I had run out of gas. After 15 years I knew my Toyota well. I knew that the needle on the gas gauge could hover in the red zone for miles and miles till it became bored by its own bluff. So, when my car shuddered to a stop in the middle of heavy, downtown traffic, a part of me was impressed. “Good for you,” I thought, “finally following through on a threat.”

I turned on the hazards and called my husband Mark for help. Then I took in my situation. After years of being just a benign driver used to merging in relative peace, I was now that driver. The jackass everyone will want to get a good long look at as they maneuvered past.

The way I saw it, after turning on the hazards and making the call for help there were only 2 options:

1. I could stay in my car and take it like a woman (meaning one who plans to avoid eye contact by playing Words With Friends on her phone.)

2. I could get out of the car and go get Thai food.

Turns out it is easy to avoid eye contact with angry drivers when you are a block away at a strip mall Thai restaurant. As my Toyota flashed apologies on my behalf, I debated my spice preference on a level from 1 to 5 chilies. I used to be a solid 4, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. The idea that I might drop to 3 made me nervous I was having an identity crisis.

Later, holding a paper bag containing an order of pad thai and chicken curry, spice level 3 chilies, I found Mark, holding a bright red gas can next to my car. And he was talking to a police officer.

“Here she is,” Mark nodded to me, relieved.

The female officer was young, her long dark hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail.

“You’re the driver of this vehicle?” she asked me.

“Yes.”

She looked down at my bag of Thai food, then back up at me.

“Did you leave your vehicle unattended?” she asked, incredulous.

On top of the food bag, a hot and crispy eggroll peeked out from its paper sleeve, but I decided now wasn’t the time to eat it.

“Was I not supposed to?” I said finally..

“You never leave your vehicle unattended!” And now she looked pissed. “I was about to have you ticketed and towed!”

She motioned to the tow truck parked nearby. Behind the wheel the driver was taking an open-eyed nap.

“Get your vehicle off the road now, or I’m having you ticketed and towed!”

“I’ll fill it up,” Mark said, and scurried to over to the side of the car.

“You just can’t run out of gas like this!” said the officer. I nodded to show her I agreed, that one just can’t run out of gas like this. Its is not a good idea. Why would someone do this? It occurred to me that this was the first time I got scolded by someone old enough to be my daughter and it felt very Freaky Friday-ish. I didn’t want my young cop mom to be mad at me, and so I said…

“It was his fault,” I pointed at Mark, “he left me with an empty tank.”

“She’s right,” Mark said quickly, looking up from the gas can, “it was my fault.”

“I don’t care whose fault it is, get your vehicle off the road or I’m going to have you ticketed and towed!”

“I can’t figure out this cap, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Mark, fiddling with the cap, “I wonder what this little lever thing is for…”

At the top of the bag, the egg roll was getting cold.

“We’re almost out of here,” I promised the officer. Then, stalling for time, I started babbling like we were buddies about how bad game day traffic has become, and how there should be more gas stations near the CU campus when she interrupted me.

“You’re a menace,” she blurted.

I’m a what?

“You’re a menace to the community!”

I was not expecting such…strong language. I must have looked as startled as I felt, because glancing at me she seemed to feel a need to explain.

“Look at all this mayhem you’ve created,” she gestured to the traffic around us.

Menace? Mayhem? I was tempted to move close enough to her to whisper, “mom? Is that you?”

“Okay, I got the cap off!” Mark called out as if he just solved all the sides of a Rubix Cube.

The officer sighed, realizing he hadn’t even started filling the car with gas yet.

“You need to move your car now or….”

I knew what she was going to say next. I was tempted to cut her off by singing the rest of the sentence.

“…I’m going to have you ticketed and towed!” I’d belt out, “Ticketed and towed, ticketed and towed, high ho, ticketed and towed!”

My instinct was that this would be in character for a menace.

As I surveyed my handiwork – the honking, the drivers calculating how late they are going to be to wherever they’re going, I began to think of ways I could show up more as the resident community menace. Something more inspired than just running out of gas. One thing I knew for sure, I would need to change the direction on Thai food spice level. Next time, 5 chilies.

“…I’m going to have you ticketed and towed,” the officer finished.

But by then I was on to her. She was not going to have us ticketed or towed. I reached in the bag for the egg roll. She was not going to because she knew that having us fill the tank and drive off on our own was the quickest way of extracting her life from mine. I know a bluff when I see it.