Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development

by Jen Lancaster

  “How much does that cost?” I ask, growing more and more annoyed.

  “You can’t put a price on a job well done,” he replies. [Um… when it’s a fifty-dollar dresser you can.]

  But the random orbit sander works well. In fact, it works so well that Fletch accidentally smoothes out some parts meant to stay pointy, which requires the purchase of a table saw.

  “You need a saw? To paint?” I demand.

  “All part of the process,” he assures me, while lovingly assembling a machine costing roughly the same amount as my first year of college tuition.

  “Wait a minute,” I say, recalling the dismemberment stories he’d shared about his father, uncles, and maternal and paternal grandfathers. “Don’t you come from a long line of nine-fingered Fletchers?”

  “Everyone gets ten—that way you have some extras.”

  To date, he’s forked out hundreds of dollars on this project and that’s without factoring in the cost of three weeks’ labor. For a dresser that’s still in a dozen pieces and has yet to see a single drop of primer.

  Next time? I’m just going to paint over the spiders myself.

  As weeks pass, the dresser becomes my Godot. Every time I think there’s progress, something else happens—e.g., the primer isn’t setting properly—and he has to take one step back.

  Mind you, I have plenty to occupy myself, especially now that I’ve found the official online version of the police blotter, but I am not a patient woman and the process is slowly driving me to distraction.

  Six weeks into the project—SIX WEEKS—Fletch bounds up the stairs to my office. “Small problem.”

  “No shit.” He’s been “small problem”-ing me for weeks now, from rebuilding missing drawers, to reimagining an entirely new base. This dresser has taken me through all the stages of grief, although getting past the anger and bargaining point was touch and go there for a while, and I’m finally at the point of acceptance. I didn’t need the damn thing in the first place and the only reason I wanted it was so we could use up the extra Tiffany-box-blue paint. But it’s fine. I don’t care. I’m okay with living in world without an Easter egg–colored dresser.

  “There’s a missing hinge and because it’s so old, Home Depot doesn’t carry anything that size, nor does Lowe’s or the woodworking shop. It’s on the outside, so it really needs to coordinate with the other hinges.”

  I simply shrug and say, “Who is John Galt?”

  “Of course, I could order one on the Internet. It won’t be an exact match, but it’d be close. They’re kind of pricey, though.”

  “How pricey?” If it’s less than the scrillion dollars we’ve already put towards this, I’m willing to negotiate.

  “Fourteen dollars.”

  Fourteen dollars. The man who happily invested in six different types of handheld drills really believes I care about fourteen dollars at this point?

  “What’s fourteen dollars compared to what you’ve already spent?” With every purchase, he’s justified the expense saying that he’d use all the tools over and over again. Yeah, pal, I’ve got a closetful of bridesmaid dresses telling me the same story.

  I continue. “My concern is not the price. My concern is that in receiving the hinge and finishing the project, you’ll have accidentally opened the portal to Hell. This dresser was never meant to be finished and if somehow you manage to do it anyway, you’re going to unleash some Pandora’s box–level of plagues on this world. Buy the hinge and finish the project or leave it off and save the world. Either way, I’m not picky.”

  A week later I’m in my office reveling in a particularly dishy story. There’s some batty old socialite on the lakefront who hates when people walk on her part of the beach, so she’s always turning her enormous dogs on trespassers. While everyone else is up in arms about the situation, I’m trying to figure out how to make friends with her.

  Fletch wears an odd expression as he walks into my office carrying a couple of packages. “You’ll be pleased to hear that you were right.”

  “How so?”

  He shakes one of the big mailer envelopes at me. “I got the hinge today so I should have your dresser done in a few minutes.”

  “YAY! That’s fantastic!” The piece has been hanging out in the guest room for a couple of weeks, finished save for the missing door. To Fletch’s credit, he did such a professional job with the reconstruction and the paint that it almost doesn’t need the door. Almost. “Wait, how was I right?” Not that it matters, but it’s nice to force him to say it. [That’s what keeps our love alive.]

  He hands me the other package. “The portal to Hell has been unlocked.”

  “Beg pardon?” Then I take a good look at the package’s return address. “Motherfucker.”

  I realize that I write tell-all memoirs, but that doesn’t always mean I share the whole story. [For example, I have seen Fletch naked. More than once, even.] Sometimes things happen in my life that are so stupid and frustrating and unnecessary [Not referring to the naked part.] that it’s not appropriate to share those stories, satisfying though it may be.

  Particularly when I’m in the right.

  In this case, I’ve moved twice without giving the person who sent the package—now referred to as My Mailer—a forwarding address, so you’d think that would be a heavy clue that we’ve reached an impasse in our relationship.

  You’d think, anyway.

  I’m a big fan of Dr. Laura [She calls people “whores” on the air. I can’t not get behind that.] and recently she discussed the best description of my situation. She explained how when a one-celled organism senses trouble, even though it doesn’t have a brain, it instinctively swims away. That’s what I finally had to do—I swam away. I’m not an unreasonable person and I have an unmitigating sense of loyalty. But there’s only so much I’m willing to take before I call it quits. My Mailer and I reached that point long ago.

  “How’d she get my address?”

  He shrugs and then sits down across from me. “You need me here while you open it?”

  “No, because I’m not going to open it.”

  “I appreciate your liberal use of denial.”

  I shove the envelope into a file drawer and make shooing motions. “Thanks. Now please go finish my dresser.”

  Turns out I’m not so skilled in denial and I end up opening the package.

  The more I cogitate, the angrier I am, because her tracking down my mailing address feels like an invasion of my privacy. I never shared my address not because I was trying to hide; rather, I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to be bothered.

  Yet here I sit with a big old envelope of Bothered.

  It would be one thing if being Bothered just impacted me, but it actually affects my readers, and that’s unacceptable. The fact is, in order to avoid confrontation, there are entire cities I won’t visit after having previously been ambushed by My Mailer. [I swear it’s not just me. I’ve heard horror stories from other authors about the exact same thing.] I’m angry that My Mailer’s inability to behave has kept me from connecting with those who love my books.

  You know what? I’m going to take action because this isn’t right. We’re in the process of booking my tour and I want it to go down without incident.

  We used a real estate attorney for our closing and to handle a couple of business matters related to corporate filings for our LLC. At our last meeting, I mentioned the issues with My Mailer and asked if there was a legal way to keep her away from me and my events. He told me all I had to do was file an Order of No Contact. That way, My Mailer couldn’t come to my events, couldn’t call or e-mail, and wouldn’t be allowed to have others act as an agent for her. I simply needed to fill out a form on the Internet and drop it off at the county courthouse. Easy-peasy!

  I find the forms, complete them, and tell Fletch we need to swing by the courthouse in the morning. Plus, I want to check out the antiques stores north of here, so this little road trip will dovetail nicely into my quest for
a full set of Depression glass.

  I’ve never been to Waukegan, but it’s not too far from here and it borders the lake, so I picture it filled with darling antiques shops and cute lunch places overlooking the water.

  What I find is a smaller version of Gary, Indiana, minus the charm. The town is basically nothing but criminal law offices, a massive courthouse next to an even larger jail, and the only people here are either visiting relatives in lockup or having their day in court.

  I clutch my purse and my husband as we make our way to the main building and I’m pretty sure I hear the woo-hoo-hoo, chh-chh-chh, hah-hah-hah that plays right before Michael Myers pops out in a hockey mask wielding a machete.

  As it turns out, the only asshole with a knife is me.

  Whenever I’m not traveling, I like to carry my good stabbin’ blade and I often forget I have it on me. As I stand in line with all the criminals—whom I’m totally judging, by the way—I’m the only dirtbag attempting to [Again, inadvertently.] smuggle in a weapon.

  Perhaps hardened criminals don’t wear loafers and slouchy socks with their boyfriend jeans cuffed to Capri length, so the lady running the metal detector allows me to keep my knife. She doesn’t confiscate it, but we have to go all the way back to the car to check my weapon.

  In my novel If You Were Here the character Mia is obsessed with omens, both good and bad. She believes that our paths are predetermined by the universe and that all we need to do to live our best life is to follow the signs. Mia would say that the knife thing was the universe’s way of telling me to GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT, WE’VE TRACED THE CALL AND IT’S COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE, but I’m not a huge proponent of that kind of hooey so I proceed blithely on.

  Fletch and I take my stack of paperwork to the clerk and I tell her I want to file an Order of No Contact.

  “You don’t do that here,” the clerk tells me. “You’ve got to go upstairs.”

  We head upstairs and file in line behind a bunch of haggard ladies. The line moves interminably slow and we find out that’s because only one woman’s doing the intakes. After an hour, I say to Fletch, “Do you want to go? Maybe I’m overreacting and this is probably just silly, so we should go.”

  “Up to you,” he replies. “You’ve waited this long and you want a resolution, so maybe we should stay. Besides, I don’t have anything else on the docket [Sign. SIGN. BIG FAT LANGUAGE USE SIGN.] for the afternoon.”

  “Reason enough,” I agree.

  Not long after this, another woman comes out, takes one look at the line, and immediately jumps in to help. “Hi, please come in. I’m Lana, and I’m a volunteer victim’s advocate.”

  At no point yet does it occur to me that the court might consider me a “victim” and not just Bothered.

  I brief Lana on the situation while Fletch wanders over to help himself to coffee. When I show her my paperwork, she says, “You don’t want an Order of No Contact—you need an Order of Protection.”

  “I disagree. I’m in no danger; I need to be very clear on that. I’m just annoyed and I need to protect myself against having my events disrupted,” I explain.

  From the other desk, the woman who’s employed by the courthouse barks, “Order of Protection!”

  Fletch meanders back over, blowing on his hot Styrofoam cup. “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “Order of Protection!” she calls again.

  The whole staff seems to agree that this could affect my business, so I begin detailing various annoyances for my Protection Order and I have to fill in all kinds of paperwork. I don’t understand why they can’t use the forms I already filled in, but whatever.

  SIGN.

  I’m trying to pay attention to what Lana’s saying, but there’s a woman next to me who keeps talking about safe houses and being thrown down the stairs and, frankly, it’s hard to concentrate. All my instincts say to grab this woman and bring her home to live in my guest room.

  After we finish, Lana tells me, “We’ll get you your court date now, so follow me.”

  Um… what?

  Fletch and I flash each other confused looks while we pass down a long hallway. We enter a room that looks a lot like a courtroom.

  That’s because it IS a courtroom.

  I’m placed in a row with a number of women, many of whom seem to be bruised or missing teeth. Fletch is ferried off to the seats in the back and I notice that he’s the only man in the room who isn’t the judge, the bailiff, or the defendant.

  Woo-hoo-hoo, chh-chh-chh, hah-hah-hah.

  I don’t understand what’s happening with the pregnant lady with the black eye currently standing in front of the judge because everything she’s saying is going through an interpreter. However, I get the gist of it when her esposo comes shuffling out in an orange jumpsuit, shackled at the hands and feet.

  Oh, dear.

  I’m now fully convinced that my victim’s advocate had absolutely no idea what she was doing and that I should not be here. Yet I have no idea how to extricate myself.

  The judge confers with the translator and then bangs his gavel, saying that a two-year order of protection has been granted. The translator tells the woman this, but instead of being happy, she starts to cry slow, fat tears down her face and all I want to do is hug her. I feel sick about this poor woman being stuck in a country where she can’t speak the language, watching her only form of support being hauled back off in chains because he’s a fisty douche bag.

  Kind of puts that whole Bothered thing into perspective. The minute I get out of here, I’m finding a battered women’s shelter and writing them a check.

  While this is happening, the woman who’d been in the other room with me sits down next to me. In her lap she holds five sheets of paper, each line filled with details on how her husband beat her and threatened her life.

  Suddenly Fletch’s expensive woodworking habit seems charming and endearing, not annoying.

  Okay, universe, message received.

  I’ve gotten plenty of perspective. Now please get me out of here.

  The next case is called and a woman approaches the judge and says she’s mad at her husband because, “He be drinking all the time.”

  “Has he physically harmed you in any way? Does he threaten you? Has he threatened to harm your children?” the judge prompts.

  She considers this for a moment. “No. But he be drinking all the time and I don’t like.”

  Her husband interjects, “I don’t be drinking all the time. I go to work all day, six days a week. When I get off work, I like to drink because I be working all the time.”

  The expression on the judge’s face hovers somewhere between aggravation and resignation. If the past five minutes is any indication of what he has to listen to on a daily basis, then I’m totally voting for judges to get a pay raise during the next election. “So what you’re telling me is you’re not in any physical danger and there have been no threats. Ma’am, I have to ask—what is it you’d like for me to do?”

  The wife replies, “Make him stop drinking all the time.”

  And that’s when Fletch lets out a bark of laughter that’s so loud that every single person in the courtroom turns around to look at him. He tries to cover it up with a coughing fit, but no one’s fooled. [Hey, Bravo? Bet you wished you’d approached me for a reality show right about now, eh?]

  The judge decrees a two-week Order of Protection, yet when they’re done, the couple walks out holding hands.

  I weep for their children.

  Then, it’s my turn. Lana accompanies me to the bench and gives me a couple of reassuring pats on the arm, sensing that I’d like to die right now, but probably not for the reasons she thinks.

  The first words out of my mouth are, “I’m in the wrong place.” I explain how I’m here only upon the advice of counsel and that maybe I should have consulted someone other than a real estate attorney.

  The judge assures me I’m in the right place, but it seems more like a technicality he’s obligated to h
onor, rather than any sort of tacit approval. I briefly touch on My Mailer and why I’m exasperated, stressing again and again that I’m not in any danger, except possibly from having a stress-induced stroke, and, really, it’s not like my butter and heavy cream intake are helping my whole artery situation.

  The judge removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. I can’t say for sure, but I’d guess if it were allowed that he’d like to punch me in the face even more than Mr. and Mrs. Be Drinking All the Time.

  “Ms. Lancaster, I’m not going to grant your order and I’m not going to deny it. What I will do is give you a court date so that you and Your Mailer can give your sides of the story.”

  Um, wait, no.

  I want to AVOID her. I want to be NOT NEAR HER. I want to SWIM THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER. I do not want to have a day in court with her.

  Crap, crap, crap. How do I get out of this?

  The judge pages through his calendar. “I’m going to have you back here on April eighth.”

  I shift in my loafers and twist my pearls and I start making statements in the form of questions. “Ooh, that’s kind of a problem? You see, Your Honor, there’s a banquet for me that day? My alma mater has named me one of their Distinguished Alumni for 2011, so I’ve got to be there? I’m the keynote speaker?”

  That’s when the judge basically kicks me in the ’nads with his eyes. He says, “Well. Congratulations on your award. Might there be another date that would work when you’re not being honored?”

  And then I die.

  We figure out a time and I pretty much run out of the courtroom once I receive my paperwork.

  “What THE HELL was THAT?” Fletch shout-whispers as soon as we’re out the door.

  I turn to Lana, who’s still next to me, rubbing my arm.

  REALLY NOT USEFUL RIGHT NOW, LANA.

  I blurt, “This needs to not happen. How do we make this not happen? Can we withdraw the complaint?”

  Cheerily, Lana replies, “Gosh, no. Now that you’ve seen the judge, it’s an official action of the court and a public record.” When she realizes I’m kicking her in the ’nads with my eyes, she adds, “If you choose not to pursue the matter, just don’t show up for your court date. Your case won’t be heard and the case will be dropped.”