Book of Failures

by Amy Lyle

  Wax museum Rosa Parks sat for her presentation as a symbol of her 1965 refusal to give up her bus seat for a white man. She beautifully explained “I had been denied the right to education and how she was not in a struggle of black versus white but a struggle of right versus wrong.”{70}

  I heard several young ladies quoting Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony regarding the importance of women’s suffrage. My favorite by far was the passionate rendition of Abigail Adams. “Remember the ladies,” a colonial-dressed little girl scolded, “and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.” She was rewarded with applause by many parents.

  I then headed to the “Important Men in History” section, which featured many as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere. As I listened to the fourth and fifth graders recite what they viewed as the most important aspects of our country’s great men, I noticed a theme. It went something like this …

  “I’m a Founding Father of the United States, commander in chief, the republic’s first president. I am George Washington. My father was a tobacco farmer but my mother had no occupation. I had six siblings.”

  Or …

  “I, Benjamin Franklin, was a Founding Father of the United States, a printer, and the inventor of bifocals, the lightning rod, and carriage odometer. My mother did not work. I was one of eight children. My father was a soap maker.”

  And …

  “I, Paul Revere, was famous for alerting the colonial militia that THE BRITISH ARE COMING! I was a patriot and industrialist. My father was a blacksmith. My mother had twelve children, but she did not have a job.”

  Ninety percent of the kids probably just cut and pasted from Wikipedia and that is how the site describes women but the comments about women surprised everyone.

  The parents and the teachers started asking the boys, “Twelve children and you said she didn’t work, really?” and “The woman was on a farm and had eight kids. Tell me how that is not work. Do you understand how difficult that would be? They didn’t even have washing machines. She may have had to kill her own chicken for dinner. How dare you … do you think I don’t work? Who made your lunch? Who takes you to ball practice? Who?”

  I suppose in textbook language this would be labeled as

  Progressing the Perception of Women. It takes a village.

  I WOULD JUST DIE

  When Savannah started middle school, she was pretty confident until the fourth day. Running late from the locker room to get to gym class, she turned and slammed the corner of her shirt into her locker. As she headed to the gym, she snapped back like a rubber band, crashing herself into her locker. She flopped to the floor. After several minutes of yelling for help, another student came to her rescue, opening the combination lock to free her.

  I asked Savannah, “Why didn’t you just slide out of your shirt and undo your locker yourself?”

  Her eyes lit up in horror. “Mom! That would be too embarrassing.”

  WE NEED PROFESSIONAL HELP

  When Peter and I got married, we had no idea how difficult it would be to blend families. Although we bought several “how to blend’” books, we didn’t believe that WE would have any of the issues the books listed:

  Sibling rivalry

  Scheduling issues

  Ex-spouse issues or

  Being able to tolerate each other’s children

  Peter and I returned from our honeymoon and within two weeks we were having issues with:

  Sibling rivalry

  Scheduling issues

  Ex-spouse issues and

  Being able to tolerate each other’s children

  We went to counseling. Counselor number one would bat her eyelashes fifteen times and then close her eyes while she listened. When Peter and I finished talking, her eyes remained closed for so long; we never knew if she was in deep contemplation or asleep. Unfortunately, regardless what our issues were regarding the children, her response was always the same: “Why is that important to you?” It didn’t matter if we were talking about the kids’ grades, making curfew, or being responsible for doing chores. She would take a huge breath, close her eyes and say, “Why is that important to you?”

  I respect the field of psychology, and “Why is that important to you?” might have been a legitimate question if we were having issues with someone over spending or drinking too much, but having kids make their beds? It’s important to us because we want the kids to learn responsibility and respect. I wanted to say “It’s important that the kids do a few chores now, so they won’t be complete a**holes as adults. Finally, I told Peter that we were not paying someone $150 an hour to question “why” we want what we want. I need more advice on “how” to get what we want.

  Peter and I selected our own counselors for the second round. Peter went to someone he used to know and I went to a female therapist that a friend had recommended. Counselor number two did provide me with some invaluable advice: “You cannot control other people; you can only control yourself.” This is very true but hard to remember when you are running a household with so many people.

  I stopped going to counselor number two because she kept projecting NEW and WORSE issues onto me and the kids.

  Session One

  Counselor: Tell me about your father.

  Me: I’m here to talk about my new marriage and blended family.

  Counselor: What was your father’s personality like?

  Me: Um … he was controlling but we have a good relationship now.

  Counselor: Are you depressed? Me: No.

  Counselor: Depression isn’t sadness- do you lack energy or the will to do things? getting out of bed or spending time with other people?

  Me: No, I’m not depressed.

  Counselor: Would you be ashamed to admit you were depressed? I have issues with depression and it was very hard for me to admit it.

  Me: Ten years ago, when I got divorced, I was very depressed. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m not here because I’m depressed and would like to spend our time talking about the new marriage and the …

  Counselor: Many people tell themselves that they’re not depressed, because they think it is a weakness.

  Me: I don’t think having depression is a weakness. I have a lot of issues, depression is just not one of them. My issue, right now, is how I can better deal with a blended family.

  Counselor: Hmm. Session five

  Me: I would like to improve communication with the children. Counselor: The children are disobedient?

  Me: Yes, they are normal kids, but we are having some issues with the kids being disobedient and not being respectful. We’d like to improve our relationship with them.

  Counselor: Are the children depressed? Me: What?

  Counselor: The children, do they avoid social interaction, have low energy or say they have violent thoughts?

  Me: No.

  Counselor: How do you know?

  Me: They are very social and have never said anything about being depressed.

  Counselor: Maybe they are scared to tell you. I felt depressed and was scared to tell anyone until my 20’s.

  Me: I know, you shared that with me a couple of times now, and I’m so sorry that you struggle with that. Did you want to talk more about your depression?

  Counselor talks about various medications and which ones worked for her.

  Me: I’m glad that helped.

  Counselor: Do you think medication would help you or your kids?

  Me: I’m not sure about that, I think we just need to work on understanding one another.

  Counselor: Do you want me to evaluate them for depression? Me: Exhales loudly.

  The counselor scribbles into her notebook.

  Millions of people benefit from counseling and I’m sure I would benefit from counseling if I could find the right counselor.{71}

  Until then, I’ll just keep writing these weird stories.

  CRUSHING YOUR PARENTS />
  When my sister and I were taking swimming lessons at the YMCA, we caught the eye of swim coach Bill Bauer. My parents liked the idea of us exerting our energy in the pool, instead of at each other. Swimming instills discipline, confidence, and as my father said, “it will substantially reduce your chances of drowning.” We were enrolled to join the Marietta Marlins.

  Swim meets are long affairs that drag on from eight in the morning until oftentimes late into the evening, for entire weekends. There’s a lot of waiting around at swim meets as there may be an hour between events.

  I quit swimming altogether at the most inopportune time, when I was a senior in high school and the swim coaches were introducing me to college coaches.

  An average daily swim workout is over two thousand yards.

  2,000 yards five days a week = 10,000 yards every week = 480,000 yards annually x 12 years =

  FIVE MILLION, SEVEN HUNDRED SIXTY THOUSAND YARDS

  Five million yards was enough swimming. My parents handled it well considering that they had also put in twelve years. “You are wasting your talent,” was my father’s only comment.

  SQUIRREL SLAYER

  My friend Katie,{72} an art director and magazine columnist, ranks in the top five of my favorite friends. When you think of Katie, you think “lovely.” She has an amazing eye for design, is funny and looks like a supermodel. With all of this in mind, I was surprised to learn that Katie had shot a caged squirrel in her attic.

  Katie and her husband had been trying to evict the squirrels for months, cutting down branches close to the house, using scent repellents and installing the Ultrasonic Rodent Repeller that gives off a high-frequency sound squirrels detest. The squirrels would not relocate. They were making nests, eating the wood and shorting out electrical wires.

  The night Katie’s husband left for a work trip, she was awakened by a horrific racket. When she pulled down the attic stairs and climbed high enough to grab the single light bulb string that was dangling from the ceiling, she spotted a squirrel, hurling itself against a metal trap, yipping and snarling.

  Over lunch we discussed the assassination:

  Me: I thought you said it was a catch-and-release cage. Why didn’t you put it outside?

  Katie: It was growling and throwing itself against the cage. I’m pretty sure it was rabid.

  Me: At what moment did you decide to execute it? Katie: The second I saw its beady eyeballs.

  Me: You shot him?

  Katie: Yes. You know how much I need my f****** sleep. Me: With a shotgun?

  Katie: That would go through our house, Amy. I shot him with my son’s Daisy Red Ryder BB gun.

  Me: From what range?

  Katie: At least fifteen feet, I was trying to stay balanced on the attic ladder and fire at the same time.

  Me: Are you a good shot?

  Katie: No. It took about forty-five minutes. I had to take a break to reload to finish him off.

  Me: Then you put the cage outside?

  Katie: No, I went to bed. In morning, I called Varmint Guard and they removed the corpse and applied an antimicrobial treatment to the attic.

  Me: Hmm. I find the whole series of events fascinating. Katie: I hate f****** squirrels.

  FREUDIAN SLIP

  I signed up for a ten-week improv class. Seth, our hilariously gifted instructor, lectured the new improv troop (Team Monday!) that the goal of improv was to get to the “iceberg level.” Seth explained Freud’s theory of how our minds have three different levels:

  The conscious mind – the rational part of our brains; the top of the iceberg

  The preconscious mind – the part of our brain that holds our memories that we pull into consciousness when we need to; the part of the iceberg that you can still see, just below the water surface

  The unconscious mind – the part of the brain that is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories outside our conscious awareness; the part of the iceberg that is hidden, deep below the surface

  Every week we learned different strategies to hone our performances: accepting and advancing, mirror versus foil, raising the stakes, tagging out, etc. We applied these to a gamut of pretend situations, such as visiting the doctor, vacation- pictures slideshow, conducting circus/stripper/fast-food job interviews, getting arrested, a breakup, criminals on the run, waking up with amnesia, giving a eulogy at the wrong funeral, and strange-foods cooking show.

  After ten weeks, I was still the worse improviser of our group. I would completely freeze in the moment. I knew my issues stemmed from trying to plan a funny scene—the kiss of death in improv. As Seth says, you must clear your mind and let your UNCONSCIOUS mind loose.

  Only a few times did I ever get to the coveted “unconscious zone,” and I never want to go back. I kept having a theme of the same thoughts, words and physical outbursts. Regardless of whether the scene was a pretend cooking show or two people on an airplane, I would start babbling about midgets, listing sexually transmitted diseases and pretending to punch my teammates in the throat.

  What does that say about me as a person? Why would my mind go to such an awful place? It is a total coincidence that midgets, STDs and mock punching people in the throat worked fairly well in improv and was appreciated by the audience but I was mortified by exposing what I suppose is my dark side.

  DO NOT MOVE MY CHEESE

  An ironic result of being raised in a completely chaotic and unstable environment is that as an adult I have developed the need for complete control and stability. No evidence proves that parenting styles cause obsessive-compulsive disorder, but no studies prove they don’t.

  If you are wondering Do I have OCD? and keep wondering about it for over an hour, you have OCD. Welcome to the club! OCD impacts everybody differently. Like all my issues, I try to see the advantages of the condition and add a positive spin: I’m thorough and tidy!

  I am overly concerned about the following:

  The symmetry of all things: bushes, lamps, Roman shades

  Routines: bedtime, working out, reading magazines back to front—there’s a process.

  Appliance checks: Our poor neighbors get calls, Will you make sure the dryer, straightening irons and oven are turned off?

  Trash in the indoor trash cans: Where should the trash be? you may ask. It goes to the outside trash cans, frequently.

  The sink: Seeing dirty dishes in the sink makes my mind race. Why are those in the sink? Why aren’t they in the dishwasher? Wait a minute, I bet the dishwasher is full and the kids forgot to unload it. They are trying to drive me mad!

  Everything needs to be counted: nails in a deck, squares on the ceiling, the pores on my nose

  I’m not a good counter: If there is something of volume, I’ll count it 10 times and still not be confident that I have the right number.

  Rug tassels: They need to be perfectly straight. I cut the tassels off our rugs because both my husband and I suffer from the twisted-tassel issue.

  Cleaning: Overzealous would be an understatement.

  Items need their own sections: Sports bras, pretty bras, strapless bras, ugly bras, racerback bras and sticky boobs are in separate drawers.

  Dream closet

  Clutter: No. Never.

  Having OCD: Do people think I’m crazy? Do they? Do they? Do they?

  If you suffer from a severe case, you have options: drugs and/or therapy. When my mind starts obsessing, I stop and try to recite (in my head) my Sunday actor gig scripts, which seems to get me back on track.

  If you want to give a person with OCD joy, send them a photo from @OCDthings on Twitter. It offers thousands of photographs of impeccably arranged, ordered and stacked items, like this giant box of crayons where each crayon is facing the same direction in their own section, light to dark.

  In this chaotic world … it is perfect.

  DOG DAYS

  Cooper and I walk every day in our neighborhood. As we made our morning loop, we spotted our new neighbor’s dog, Jimmy Chews. He’s a labradood
le and was head to tail in mud playing by the lake. Jimmy Chews’ muddy state panicked the family getting Christmas pictures taken (all dressed up) near the lake.

  Trying to be helpful, I grabbed Jimmy Chews by the collar and dragged him toward his yard. Meanwhile, Cooper, who is not fixed because my husband declares he “would never be responsible for cutting the balls off another male,” is shamelessly attempting to hump Jimmy Chews.

  As I schlepped Jimmy Chews to his yard Cooper still vigorously gyrating, I heard “What the f*** are you doing? Let go of my dog!” I turned to see Jimmy Chews’ owner, enraged by what looked to her to be the forced breeding of her animal.