Instant Karma

Despite the fact that Da Law is an area fraught with ethical uncertainty, I have faced surprisingly little of it during my career with Dewey Billem Fivehundredbucksperhour & Howe. This may be due to the fact that my area of expertise, computers, tends to be as black-and-white as a skunk farm. By way of example, here is an issue which might be faced by a technician, as well as several possible solutions. Try to pick the ethical choice!

Mr. Partnerstein calls from a conference room on the 187th floor. "I have a meeting with some VERY IMPORTANT CLIENTS in half an hour," he barks, "And your stupid 'fire-wall' thing won't let me get to a website I need!" "Which website would that be, sir?", you inquire. "Dirrrty Swifferin' Housewives!", he replies. "Oh... really?", you murmur. "Shit, yeah!", says Mr. Partnerstein, who has been known to put away more than a few little plastic cups of white zinfandel at the annual Mergers/Acquisitions/Rapes/Pillages Departmental retreat, "Gotta do SOMETHING to take the edge off before I meet with these dipshits."

Do you... :

A. Unblock the website immediately. If the fate of a fifty-million dollar merger rests upon Mr. Partnerstein tossing one off before meeting with opposing counsel, so be it. You can only hope he washes his hands before raiding the ever-present bagel platter.

B. Ask your manager whether or not the site should be unblocked. This is complicated decision, and you feel it would be prudent to seek the wisdom of your superior. Also, ew.

C. Advise Mr. Partnerstein that you cannot unblock the site in question, as it is both unrelated to the practice of law and hilariously bad. I mean, c'mon... Misti Fjords didn't even look like she MEANT it in that scene with Chad Studlington and the coffee grinder!

D. Advise Mr. Partnerstein that you cannot unblock the site in question, as it is both unrelated to the practice of law and an abomination, and by the way, being jabbed in the rebuttal by Lucifer's razor-pronged pitchfork for all eternity will make disbarment and humiliation look like a relaxing jaunt to the Hamptons.

Correct Answer: none of the above! See, this is why I am a technician, garnering such lavish perks as "cubicle with three and a HALF walls" and "free soft pretzels every third Friday"! The correct choice must be calculated by a sophisticated equation which takes into account the following factors:

S - the likelihood that Mr. Partnerstein will descend into hysterics, ala "I DID NOT SPEND THE EQUIVALENT OF A MODEST SUBURBAN HOME ON THREE YEARS OF FANCY-PANTS LAW SCHOOL FOR THIS CRAAAAAAAP!"

F - the probability that you will be able to steal a snack from the bagel platter in Mr. Partnerstein's conference room without being discovered. Increase this factor by 20% if said snack includes cream cheese or sprinkles.

D - the inevitability of your humorless supervisor taking you aside and forcing you to have a lengthy, awkward conversation about the boundaries of excellent customer service as they relate to the collected oeuvre of Misti Fjords.

Okay, so perhaps the IT field is not as ethically cut-and-dried as I thought. However, I was seven years into my career before I faced a genuine moral conundrum.

---

The Time: late last week.
The Place: Jul's resplendent, three-and-a-half-walled cubicle.
The Setup: my sole female coworker (let's call her Betty) rushes over to my desk, wide-eyed, and hisses, "YOU NEED TO SEE THIS RIGHT NOW! C'MON!" and scurries away.

"Huh," thought I, "Maybe she found some leftover danishes or something!" (Technicians are terrifying in their pursuit of free food. Every now and again, an unsuspecting new coworker will bring in homemade cookies; the aftermath is usually a lot like that scene in "Jurassic Park" where the velociraptors enjoy a hearty dinner of Bleating Goat Tartare.)

"What's up?", I said, ambling over to Betty's desk.

"Okay, okay, so...", she began, clearly uncomfortable, "Y'know that folder out on the network where all of the documents that secretaries send through the scanner are supposed to go?"

"Yeah," I said, "What about it?"

"Someone was scanning documents, but they weren't showing up there. So I was poking around, trying to see what was up, when I found... um... this." She looked around to see that no one was watching, then opened a window on her screen.

"HOLY SHIT!", I said.

"Yeah, that's what I said," said Betty.

"That's... that's...," I stammered.

"That's a big black ass," Betty said.

"Yes. Yes, it is," I said.

"And there's MORE, too," said Betty.

"Dude, that sure looks like all of it to me," I said.

The firm's communal scanned-documents folder is usually a mishmash of copyright-violating "Koko-Kola" logos and lengthy documents with titles like "OPPOSING COUNSEL RESPONSE TO STATEMENT OF INTENT RE: PANTS, FIRM'S MOTION TO SUE THEM RIGHT OFF OF DEFENDANT".

On the day in question, however, the folder was host to Big Black Ass-travaganza '06. There were no fewer than ten photos of the B.B.A., every bulge, dip and dimple highlighted in harshly-lit glory.

"There's one with a face, too," said Betty.

I gasped. "Do NOT TELL ME...", I began.

"Yeah," she said, "It's Mabel."

"Oh, damn it to hell," I sighed as Betty opened the last photo. Mabel was a very sweet, middle-aged administrative assistant who worked in another department. We saw her from time to time around the office, scooting to the copier in comfy, oversized dresses, clutching massive sheaves of paper. Unlike many of the harried law-tomatons in our office, she always stopped to smile and ask how we were doing.

The Mabel of the last photo wore a very different smile than any we'd ever seen. "I am SEXY, goddamn it," she seemed to be saying as she hiked up her skirt to display a pair of roomy cotton panties, "You KNOW you want some of this!"

I myself had not one iota of desire to get into Mabel's faded pink Hanes Her Ways. However, there was something so sweet, so earnest about the expression on her face in that last photo. This wasn't a picture of a stiletto-heeled vixen... this was gentle, good-humored Mabel, only removed from the office and spiced up with a stiff shot of freakiness.

"I, uh... I guess she didn't know that they'd wind up in the group folder, huh?", I said.

"Gee, d'ya THINK?", said Betty.

We sat silently for a moment. I thought about the various routes we could take... telling HR, telling her boss, telling our boss, posting the pics on Great-Big-Black-Ass.com.

---

I also thought about how cruel and cutthroat our culture can be, and the delight we take in eviscerating others for their mistakes. The papers were still having journalistic multiple-orgasms over the Mel Gibson fiasco (incidentally, the headline "Mel's Meltdown" made me vow that, if I ever attain notoriety, I shall change my name to "Psychotica McLapsington"). Mel's behavior was obnoxious, dangerous and ridiculous, and the public ass-reaming it merited didn't seem entirely unwarranted. However, what about Monica Lewinsky? Developed a crush on an inappropriate man, acted on it in a very inappropriate way... and will be punished for it until the day she dies. What about Britney?

I've forgotten to strap J.Q. into his car seat, I've arrived on the scene too late to prevent him from ingesting Kibbles and/or Bits, I've fed him more than a few sips of diet Coke... but there weren't cameras hovering three feet from my head the entire time. It's not just celebrities, either. It's the "Star Wars Kid", it's the entire summer camp knowing exactly which fifth-grader still wets the bed. The average American can sniff out the opportunity to humiliate someone else as keenly as a shark detecting a single drop of blood in all that frothing saltwater. The ability to fuck up (and clean up the mess) in relative privacy has become something of a luxury.

---

"Okay, okay," I said, "You ready for your good deed of the day?"

"What's that?", said Betty.

"Delete them. For good. Then forget you ever saw them."

"You sure? Maybe we should tell Ms. Boss."

"No, no way. Mabel's friendly with you, too. You want to wipe that smile right off her face? Maybe get her fired?"

"No, 'course not," said Betty, deftly tapping the Delete key, "They ever show up AGAIN, we'll have a talk. That would be stupid. This was just, I dunno, a horrible mistake."

"Damn," I said, staring at the empty folder, "That was a big black ass."

"It sure was," said Betty.

---

The next day (during which Betty and I frequently turned to one another and whispered, "It was SO BIG!"), I got a call from an attorney I'm friendly with. She told me she was leaving the firm in a few weeks and needed to have some of her documents backed up. "I'll be sorry to see you go," I said. Then, in a flurry of inspiration, "Say... are you taking your chair?"

While visiting her office several years ago, I discovered that Ms. Attorney had a Steelcase LEAP chair. Unlike the ever-present Herman Miller Aeron (looks like Darth Vader's patio furniture and is roughly as comfortable), the LEAP chair is $1,250 worth of precision-crafted, vertebrae-aligning bliss.

"Actually, I'm not," said Ms. Attorney, "It's not even really mine. I found it in a conference room when I first started with the firm. Do you want it?"

"YA-FUCKING-HOO!" shrieked my spine. "YES! Thank you, thank you, thank you!", I said.

Despite being a heathen, I do hold a few wobbly spiritual beliefs. As Jonatha Brooke so nicely put it, "I feel / the steady pull of things that I can't see / and I like it."

I saved someone else's ass from humiliation, degradation and possible termination. Soon, my OWN ass will be parked on a chair which cost more than my first two cars combined.

Me and Mabel... both of our asses will shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun.

GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY INSPECTION STICKER, MOTHHHHHERFUCKKKKKAH!

Note: title inspired by this Darkness song, to which Junket introduced me with her usual head-banging hyperbole: "Ooooh, MAN, this song rocks! It rocks so hard! You wouldn't BELIEVE the rocking this song does!"

As is usually the case, she was absolutely correct. It is impossible to listen to "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" without tapping your feet, banging your head and looking around to see if Justin Hawkins' ultrasonic screech has managed to drive any nearby poodles to permanent yippy insanity.

---

I haven't cried all week.

That's saying something, considering the unholy ration of crap which I've been dealt over the past seven days.

Credit card information? Stolen. Car? Defiled, ravaged, possibly destroyed. Bathroom sink of my marital home? Still harbors the toothbrush of the Other Woman - whom, I hasten to add, did NOT help select and install the fucking thing. Screw my husband all you want, but for the love of god, don't dis a sistah's remodeling job with your adulterous Oral-B.

Y'know what, though? I'm... happy. Remarkably so. This is the first time in nearly a decade that I haven't been subject to the will and whim of a live-in male, and quel surprise, it's fabulous.

I'm taking J.Q. for long walks around the city, buying overpriced, malformed local produce at various farmer's markets (what can I say? I have a weakness for phallic fruit; I feel sorry that everyone else will do a double-take and then purchase a less-abjectly sexual specimen. Not me! I'll give you a good home, Mr. Bartlett. No, not THAT one, you sick bastards).

I'm decking out the Bachelorette Pad, and it's hilariously girly... We're talking scented candles, shoji screens, a refrigerator full of Buffalo-fu (new favorite lazy single-person recipe: shred one block extra-firm tofu, toss with equal parts bleu cheese dressing and Frank's Red Hot... which adds flavor AND sorely needed yang) and a personal-sized water cooler full of pink lemonade Crystal Lite. I might as well dub it Metformin Mansion, because anyone who enters its IKEA-bedecked confines may very well spontaneously ovulate.

I feel brighter, sexier, freer and more confident than I ever have. I don't want a damned person telling me they're "sorry" when they hear my tale of infidelity/weeping/therapy/separation... this may very well be the hackneyed Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.

Without further ado: Surely, Next Week Will Be Better:

---

The time: Saturday evening.

The place: The Bachelorette Pad.

The event: Deedle-dee-dee doo-doodle-doo-doo! (That'd be the ubiquitous Cingular ring... as opposed to "Don't Fear the Reaper" [Deedle-DOO-DOO, DOO-DOO-DOO, DOO-DOO-DOO!] or, even BETTER, the BREAK of "D.F.T.R." [DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE -MWOOOOOOW! MWWWOW! MWOOOW!, etc.])

Jul: "Hello?"

Woman on the other line: "Hi, this is BigAss CreditCardCo's Early Warning Department... we were just wondering if you were having problems using your card lately?

Jul: "Um, no... why?"

Woman: "So you didn't use it to... let's see... try to spend $1,738 at Famous-Designer's online store?"

Jul: [to self... does my purchase history indicate that I'd ever purchase a Famous-Designer product in my LIFE? Oooh, yes... and AFTERWARDS, let's ring up some Manolo Freaking Blahniks, cream-based cocktails and self-help books with titles like "Chisel His Reluctant Heart Free From the Cold, Cold Confines of His Chest Cavity in Thirty Days or Less!"] "I can assure you, that was NOT me."

Woman: "Oh! I see!"

[Ten fairly terrifying minutes later...]

Woman: "Okay, we'll send you a new card by overnight mail, and we'll begin investigating the unauthorized use of your old card."

Me: "Um, I'm not going to be liable for ten pairs of itty-bitty pointy shoes, am I?"

Woman: "No, you're not responsible for any unauthorized charges."

Me: "Because I'm a size 10, and - hello?"

---

The time: Sunday evening.

The place: two blocks from the Bachelorette Pad, the section of town in which the average type of house has begun to shift from "charming Trinity lovingly restored with $30,000 worth of Corian, including the toilet seat" to "burned-out husk harboring belligerent vagrants".

The event: Jul, cradling J.Q. in arms: "Wow, mommy was lucky to find that parking spot last night, huh, buddy? And there's mommy's car right over there! Um... say... didn't it used to have... um... more windows than that?"

Now, I've not always been the best at keeping my car strictly (or even minimally) legal. Several weeks earlier, tired of being pulled over more often than a member of Wu-Tang, I'd finally bitten the bullet and gotten the DecrepiCivic inspected.

I will give you ONE GUESS as to the only item taken... or "scraped off via razorblade", as it were.

I parked the car in the same spot the next evening (on the grounds that, hey, what's the worst they can do - STEAL it?). The vandals returned, this time taking a stepladder and a 12-pack of Jones Green Apple Diet Soda. This leads me to believe that my car was violated by a roving pack of sorority sisters. They apparently CONSIDERED taking my tent and sleeping bag, had second thoughts (possibly concerning the fact that the woods are YUCKY and full of BUGS; better to drink purloined diet soda and, shit, I don't know, stand two feet higher than one usually does?) and left them sitting behind the car. I considered hanging up a sign which read "STEAL ALL YOU WANT, BUT TAKE ALL YOU STEAL!"

---

The time: 6:00 this morning.

The place: Crap Highway, NJ, frequent guest star on local shows such as "MASSIVE MULTI-CAR PILE-UP MONDAY" and "OVERTURNED LIQUID NITROGEN TRUCK - CARS FROZEN TO ROAD NORTHBOUND, EXPLODING VIOLENTLY SOUTHBOUND. EXPECT DELAYS".

The event:

Jul: "LEMME GO OOOOOOOOOOOOOON, LIKE I'D BLISTER IN THE SUN! LEMME GO OOOOOOOOOON... hey, why am I slowing down? What's with all these lights? Cut it out! STOP LIGHTING UP!"

[Jul and J.Q. coast gently to a stop on the shoulder]

Jul: "Well, shit. I'm sure this is IN NO WAY related to that weird rattle which I've been ignoring for weeks."

The Jul/Caer/Junket Bond of Sisterhood is more close-knit than the finest sheet in the swankiest hotel (sounds like good fodder for a rap battle, huh?: "Call me the philatelist, what with all the ladies I MOUNT / 'cause I'm SMOOTH and I'm SOFT, with the highest THREAD-COUNT!"); within minutes, Caer and her van had come to my rescue. While waiting, J.Q. and I stood on an embankment and shot the breeze.

J.Q. : "Cah! Cah! Cah cah cah cah!"
Jul : "Yep, that's a car. You tend to see a lot of them when you're broken down by the side of the highway."
J.Q. : "HA HA HA!" [yanks frantically at Jul's shirt]
Jul : "Dude, this is neither the time NOR the place. C'mon, cut it out. Well... okay. Just a sip, though."

¿Qué Haces?

I received the item below as an e-mail forward. While I don’t generally do current-events commentary, this one struck a nerve.

Let's Say I Break Into Your House

Recently large demonstrations have taken place across the country protesting the fact that Congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration.

Certain people are angry that the US might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely.

Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests.

Let's say I break into your house. Let's say that when you discover me in your house, you insist that I leave.

But I say, "I've made all the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the floors; I've done all the things you don't like to do. I'm hard-working and honest (except for when I broke into your house).

According to the protesters, not only must you let me stay, you must add me to your family's insurance plan, educate my kids, and provide other benefits to me and to my family (my husband will do your yard work because he too is hard-working and honest, except for that breaking in part).

If you try to call the police or force me out, I will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that proclaim my right to be there.

It's only fair, after all, because you have a nicer house than I do, and I'm just trying to better myself.

And what a deal it is for me!! I live in your house, contributing only a fraction of the cost of my keep, and there is nothing you can do about it without being accused of selfishness, prejudice and being anti-housebreaker.

Oh yeah, and I want you to learn my language so you can communicate with me.

Why can't people see how ridiculous this is?! Only in America....if you agree, pass it on (in English).

Jul’s Rebuttal:

Like many hot-button issues, this one isn't as clear-cut as those whose feet are firmly planted on either side of the fence would have you believe.

It's fine and well to be pro-life... until your beautiful fifteen year-old sister tearfully blurts out that she tried to tell her boyfriend to stop, he just wouldn't listen, and now she's several weeks late. It's right and righteous to be anti-gun... until a group of drug-fueled teenagers breaks into your home at 3:00 AM, terrifies your children and steals your television for a day's worth of powdered gratification.

It's a-okay to favor capital punishment until you befriend a bright young black man who was in the wrong place at a catastrophically wrong time. Or until you're his mother.

It's also okay to oppose it, until you see local news coverage of a sex offender's arraignment, see that coarse, bloated face, the weak, wet mouth, the incessantly-fidgeting hands capable of snapping the swan-thin neck of a sobbing five year-old girl.

The human experience is all-too willing to thrust horrific, agonizing experiences at everyone who climbs aboard for the ride... which is to say all of us, from you and I, to Indians, to Asians, to Germans, to small, loincloth-clad men building fires with their bare hands in the stillness of the jungle, the same way we all punctuated our eked-out days so very long ago.

To reduce an issue involving another human's suffering to a black/white, yes/no, chicken-or-fish level of simplicity is to attempt to forcibly extract yourself from the vast, sticky web of emotion and experience which defines us as a species. It's not impossible (see: Ted Kaczynski, serial killers, the recent Paris Hilton-helmed battalion of "celebutantes"), but if you're that eager to abandon the fleeting traces of empathy and goodness which separate us from the groundhogs, then this strange, bipedal, toilet paper-employing state of being has been wasted on you. You might as well have lived your life blissfully non-self-aware, snuffling out nice crunchy bugs from the undergrowth with the rest of your pack.

Immigration is an issue which very directly involves the suffering of others. It's not easy for most people to see this; the average suburbanite's expose to immigration consists of glaring at the young men lounging in front of Tienda Mexicano, sipping Malta Goya and chattering in a language which is unintelligible but no doubt capable of expressing "Check out that angry-looking dork in the Land Rover."

For every nineteen year-old Oaxacan who border-hopped in order to suck a life of leisure from Lady Liberty's already-overburdened bosom (and I don't believe that all immigrants/illegals can be pigeonholed as such any more than suburbanites can be universally deemed Land Rover-leasing dorks), there is another, harsher and more complicated story of immigration.

---

As the analogy concept worked so well for the original "Housebreaking" piece, let's use it again here.

---

There are some new faces in the neighborhood. They are smaller, darker, less-scrubbed and more obscure than the other residents. They stick together fiercely, eating their own odiferous, unfamiliar foods, practicing their strange, incense-intensive variant of Christianity, yammering away in their own rapid-fire dialect. They are widely loathed for their sectarian ways, not to mention their willingness to debase themselves by accepting the toughest, dirtiest and most demeaning jobs in order to earn a living. Have they no pride? They are the butt of neighborhood derision and mockery, the target of local teenager's half-empty milkshake cups as they walk along the side of the highway, returning home from another day of shoveling shit in paradise.

One morning, when you walk into the den, rubbing sleep out of your eyes, one of them is sitting on your couch.

"EEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!" you comment, stumbling backwards and tripping over little Jeremy's Mighty Dump truck.

She appears to be in her thirties (she is actually much younger). She wears a button-down cotton dress with the distinctive, washed-'n-worn-several-million-times look of an item from Goodwill. Her deep brown eyes blaze with emotion - fear, defiance, pride, desperation, hope, pleading.

"Get out! Get out, get out, get OUT of here!" you shriek reflexively. She stares at you, comprehending the intent if not the actual words. Yet she makes no move to leave the couch.

"EDWARD, GET IN HERE!" you scream. Several minutes later, your boxer-clad husband appears by your side, bleary-eyed. He does a double-take when he sees your new houseguest. "What's going on here?" he asks, "Do you... KNOW this person?" "No, of course I don't!" you say, "She just... showed up, and now she won't leave!" Your visitor averts her eyes from the party hat-clad penguins protecting Edward's modesty, focusing fiercely on his face. "Ma'am," he says, "I don't want this to get ugly, but you're going to have to leave now." She doesn't respond.

By 10 o'clock AM, Edward has exhausted his entire repertoire of "COPS"-derived persuasion techniques (from, "Ma'am, please leave" all the way to, "Ma'am, I am TELLING YOU that you need to LEAVE RIGHT NOW"). Your dusky-skinned visitor has retreated to the kitchen (Edward's attempts to divert her path with his pale, lithe body both proving unsuccessful and temporarily diminishing your confidence in his masculinity). While Edward calls the local police chief, she prepares eggs. "No, don't... STOP TOUCHING OUR THINGS! Please… this is OUR house!" you plead as she silently peels the plastic from slices of American cheese.

"I am NOT. Eating. THAT," you declare when, after much cabinet-rummaging, she hands you a scratched Tupperware bowl filled with orange-streaked eggs. In a betrayal more onerous than impacted wisdom teeth or appendicitis, your body emphatically disagrees; your mouth waters and your stomach emits a hopeful rumble at the warm, rich smell wafting from the Tupperware. You refuse to look at it. Or at her. You turn back to Edward, who is replacing the cordless phone in its cradle with a curious, deflated look on his face.

"Yeah, that's... that's something," he says to himself as much as to you.

"What? What did the police say? Are they coming? They're coming, aren't they?" you say, knowing full well what the look on your husband’s face indicates.

"Um, I'm not... really sure how Donny KNEW this stuff, but...," Edward begins.

"What?", you say.

"Her name's Conchita. She's from ______."

You draw in your breath. "______? Really?" News footage of wild-eyed street gangs pouring forth into into the capital city like the Orcs from Mordor in Edward's beloved "Lord of the Rings" movies. Mothers clutching filthy children while being prodded by government rifles. Rioting and flame crushing endless miles of miserable, inhospitable little shacks.

"Got two kids," says Edward blankly, "Back with her mother in ______. Guess she's hoping to bring them all here, someday."

Two kids? That far away? You don't suppose she'll be making it back terribly often for weekend strolls in the park. Even if she could, you don't suppose downtown ______ is quite as hospitable as Buzz Aldrin Memorial Recreation Area.

You try to imagine being away from Tim and Jeremy indefinitely; you find that you can't. They're always just... there. “There” in the sweetest possible way, of course, even if their perpetual toy-strewing makes the house look like the aftermath of an earthquake at the Mattel factory. The longest you've been away from them was during a business trip to Toronto. You were gone for four days and spent each night alternating between getting pleasantly soused at the hotel bar and glumly watching HBO in your room, periodically remembering the way Jeremy's hair smelled or how Tim's fourth-grade art class project was a decoupage salute to Bonn Scott, original singer of AC/DC.

You can't really imagine a world without HBO and hotel bars, you realize with a slight prickle of shame.

"Let's go out on the deck and talk," you say. Conchita sits in the breakfast nook, happily reading the copy of Latino "People" which was delivered accidentally a few weeks ago. "¿Dónde Es El Bebé Suri?" asks the cover.

"What the HELL are we going to do?" asks Edward.

"She can't stay here," you blurt, and even before the words leave your mouth, you realize how awful they must sound. "We have our OWN lives, Edward... I'm so, so sorry she had to live in that awful place, and to leave her KIDS there, I can't even imagine... but even though that's a big problem, I'm sorry, but it's not OUR problem."

Edward stares at you bleakly. "Yeah, I know, I absolutely do," he says, "I just wish..."

---

You sit silently. You remember when your cousin Dawn's daughter Lily was going through a rough spell as a teenager, smoking pot, staying out all night, screaming that her mother and father were, "FUCKING FASCIST TOOLS OF OPPRESSION!" at family gatherings. Always a smart one, Lily.

After a particularly ugly battle with Dawn, Lily showed up on your doorstep one Saturday night, looking all of four years old even with purple glittery eyeshadow and a t-shirt bearing the cheery message "I AM THE GOD OF FUCK" ("Hell, I thought that was Ron Jeremy!" said Edward, his desperate attempt at counterculture credibility rewarded with an eye-roll and a scowl). She stayed on the sleeper sofa in your basement for six months, at first refusing to make eye contact or reciprocate Tim and Jeremy's hesitant hugs. In time (and when it became apparent that her hosts weren't the type to pronounce Nietzche as "Um, Nizz-itch?"), she lowered her armor plating enough to smile, occasionally vacuum and help Tim make a pentagram symbol out of Mega Blox.

You never grew close enough to Lily to assume that you'd played a pivotal role in her life (even after one giggly evening of sharing joints and backseat experiences on the deck). However, after moving back in with Dawn, she enrolled in hairdressing school, stopped decorating her room as though it were Anton LaVey's personal boudoir and decreased by 60-70% the number of screaming fights instigated with her mother. "I'm not gonna say she's a TOTALLY different kid," Dawn confided over Olive Garden white zin one day, "But I don't hafta fight the urge to KILL her every single day, so that's a start."

Did we make a difference, you wonder? Was our half-year of love and willingness to allow our children to be exposed to Marilyn Manson lyrics all that it took to shift Lily away from a slippery, dangerous path? Is it possible to alter someone's direction with a single soft tap on the shoulder, so long as there is sufficient kindness behind it?

---

You and Edward walk quietly over to the sliding glass back door. Conchita is eating maraschino cherries out of the jar, dripping red juice on the table, mopping it up with a napkin. The table will still be sticky. Although the plastic container of eggs still sits on the counter, the rest of the breakfast dishes have been washed and laid glistening on the countertop. "Guess she didn't know we had a dishwasher?" whispers Edward.

You think of how you're going to be late for work, how the kids are probably playing GameCube in the den even though they've been expressly forbidden from doing so in the morning. You think about soccer practice after work, about how the chicken in the fridge went bad so you'll probably be ordering a pizza for dinner.

You think about living in a society where you can not only purchase several pounds of choice segments of chicken for less than an hours' pay, but afford to let it rot.

You think of the laughable impossibility of harboring an uncommunicative illegal immigrant, the sitcom-ish quality of the situation as well as the ways in which it would wreack havoc on your already-overburdened lives. Edward always believed in buying the worst house in the best neighborhood, so you're living in a three-bedroom closet, tripping over the Mega Dump at every turn, waiting in line to pee.

What do you do?

What do you do?

Tales Out of Camp - Pt. II

I have all sorts of notes compiled for a post about moving to Philadelphia, including such gems as "LIGHTBULBS, 10 PM: WHO DO I HAVE TO BLOW TO GET ONE IN THIS TOWN?", "GAS STATION MINI-MART: HAS HIBACHIS AND TEN DIFFERENT KINDS OF ROLLING PAPERS BUT NO LIGHTBULBS? WHAT UP W/THAT? IF YOU'RE STONED AND EATING A HOT DOG, YOU WON'T CARE THAT YOU'RE DOING IT IN THE DARK?!" and the delightful "NOT ONLY IS THIS NOT MY STREET, BUT THIS NEIGHBORHOOD SEEMS TO HAVE AN AWFUL LOT OF BAIL BONDSMEN!"

However.

Ever since my last post, it's been nothing but, "But what about the SWINGERS?", "Tell us about the swingers RIGHT NOW!", etc. I had no idea that my heavily-domesticated audience would be so enraptured by tales of debauchery. I may have found the most lucrative crossover market since Spanglish pop ("If you don't give me todo su amor, I'll kick your culo right out that door!"): gonzo journalism for the PB&J set. You're not quite ready for German scheisse porn, but you're going to poke your own eyeball out with a rubber-tipped spoon if you don't find a form of entertainment more titillating than "Goodnight Moon" (which I generally finish reading to my short-attention-spanned infant thusly: "Goodnight to the following: bears, chairs, bowl of gruel, disturbing anthropomorphic rabbits. Goodnight noises everywhere, including the ones YOU'RE going to make when mommy unceremoniously dumps you in your crib").

On with the show!

When we last left our intrepid ("intrepid" being a kind euphemism for "drunk") heroine, she was trekking across a darkened field in search of a rumored swingers' party. Her flagrantly silly imagination ran wild during her brief stroll... Jenna Jameson-esque nymphs being lashed to logs with vines, nudes prancing around a moonlit pond, pine cones being employed in ways the original tree definitely wouldn't condone. Upon reaching the campground's pool, however, those naughty-Narnian fantasies (perfect title, should any adult-movie producers wish to whiz on C.S. Lewis' grave: "The Layin', the Bitch and the Whore-Probe") were laid to waste even faster than her present use of the clunky third-person tense.

It was... professional. Slick. Completely, consummately competent.

There was a bar! A DJ! Inflatable pool sharks! Women in Gap bikinis sipping Cosmos!

At that moment, a part of my soul left my body, dissolved into the layer of steam blanketing the pool and floated lazily into the night.

For me, grown-up activities have always been the antithesis of diamonds: best when unpolished.

The first time Junket and I tried pot, we weren't aware of the availability of commercial rolling papers. As a result, our first-ever shared joint was approximately 8" long and bright orange as a result of being rolled on... origami paper. It's one of my favorite memories, and it's largely because of - rather than despite - the coughing, sputtering, and combustion of enough orange dye to mutate the next-door neighbors' DNA.

One of the best kisses of my life occurred mere moments after my co-osculator had consumed a Big Mac. I may be the last person in America who has never tried one of those delightfully caloric concoctions. I always figured there wasn't really any point; by the time I was done customizing it, I'd be left with nothing but a forlorn sesame-seed bun. When it comes to burgers, I'm a purist... no stupid lettuce, no briny-ass pickles, no reeking onions, no baptism by sauce, no matter how purportedly "special".

I remember that kiss, though - fast-food lights reflected in my boyfriend's glasses, his fingers hesitantly twining through my hair, the deep, gas-slurping thrum of the Ford Granada in which we were parked - better than any of the thousands of more ideal lip-locks I've experienced since.

Clearly, not everyone shares this view... hence the popularity of lab-created babes such as Pamela Anderson-Lee-Lee-Rock. But again, personally, the perfection's in the imperfections. And watching women with better hair than I'll ever have aquatically gyrate to "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" sucked all the eroticism out of that scene faster than a flotilla of expensive penis pumps.

"So... is this your first Eros Adventures event?" asked Raoul (note: all names and identifying details changed to protect the... um, not-so-innocent?). "Um... I guess?" I said. I was huddled in the shallow end, sipping the remnants of my rum 'n Gatorade and doing what I do best: no, not THAT, smart ass... observing. During the event's first hour, my observations were limited to the following:

- If these are enlightened, adventurous grown-ups, then why are they all standing on opposite sides of the pool like kids at a junior-high dance?

- Attention, women confronting post-childbirth "spread": while I'm truly happy if you can embrace your body's new contours, objectively speaking, you MIGHT not want to descend a waterslide nude at this point in your life. I'm just sayin'.

"So... whaddya think?" said Raoul. An older, less-intolerably-hammy version of Cuba Gooding Jr., he and his taciturn blonde girlfriend were frequent Eros Adventures attendees. "Uh... I kinda thought there'd be... y'know... more HAPPENING," I stammered. Apart from the occasional al fresco waterslider, the event was surprisingly tame. Couples clung together, rarely venturing apart to chat up their fellow attendees. "It's still early," said Raoul, "Things'll heat up!" "Say," he said, eyes lowered, "Those are some NICE breasts you have there. Mind if I... touch them?"

If my libido had been wounded by the earlier Ethel-Merman-meets-Kylie-Minogue acrobatics, Raoul's eerily polite request for a handful of tit flat-out killed it. It was the spirit of adventure (coupled with the unavoidable fact that my boobs are like the town bicycle's horn - everyone's had a squeeze!), however, which led me to say, "Sure, knock yourself out."

It was then, my mammary suspended in Raoul's respectful grip, that I had an epiphany.

"Actually, I have a confession to make," I said, more literate than I'd been all evening ("Um... waterslide... naked... chafing?"). "I'm a writer, and I'm here to learn more about your lifestyle."

"Really?" said Raoul, dropping my boob like an ignited potato. "Well, what do you want to know?"

As it turns out, rather than being disappointed that they wouldn't get to feast on my supple (um... jiggly? Squish-tastic?) young flesh, the swingers were delighted to discuss their lives, loves and pervy peccadilloes. It also turns out that - unlike casual group sex - I have a natural affinity for the writer's role. Never was I more comfortable than sitting back, watching the action (Raoul was right... while no slippery orgies broke out amongst the FunNoodles, I did get the dubious pleasure of seeing a man orally serviced to the Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun"... something tells me Gordon Gano would approve) and interrogating the participants about the interesting twists and lubed-up turns which their lives had taken to bring them to that particular moment. About that, I have to say this:

- While each of the people with whom I spoke had a fascinating back story, I have a feeling that any given individual off the street would’ve been just as interesting. In this culture, in these crazy, topsy-turvy, CrunchWrap-fueled times (note: I've got nothing against the CrunchWrap. It's got more angles than any other fast-foodstuff, so it's a-okay by me. I'm actually looking forward to the development of the CrunchDodecahedron in a decade or so), people rarely open up to one another. We miss this shared dialogue with our fellow humans... hence the popularity of alcohol (KY Jelly for the consciousness) and reality TV.

- Despite their free-lovin', self-confident ways, the swingers were some of the most uptight individuals I've ever met in terms of their raw hunger for acceptance. To a person, everyone with whom I spoke wanted nothing more than for popular society to stop ridiculing, lambasting and persecuting the polyamorous populace. Now, forgive me if I'm being insensitive, but I was unaware of any widespread malice towards those of the swingin’ persuasion. At very least, they don't face the daily challenges of, say [gays, Jews, blacks, the handicapped, immigrants]. I doubt very much that members of any truly marginalized population would take kindly to the swinger's heartfelt pleas for understanding.

Like all good (or at least perversely fascinating) things, my stint as pseudo-interviewer to the rurally wanton had to come to an end. While I was chatting with the adorable female bartender about her current husband, her former husband and the impossibility of utter honesty, a shirtless, Kris Kristofferson-ish man strode up to me.

"So... you're the writer?" he said in a not-entirely-friendly tone.

"Yup!", I chirped, oblivious.

"Well, GREAT!" snarled his companion, a stringy, Crypt Keeper-ish blonde. "Although I don't suppose it matters NOW... party's already over!"

True to her words, lip- (and other appendage) locked groups had begun drifting away from the pool, presumably for adventures of a differently-steamy nature.

"See, we're a little SENSITIVE to the media's portrayal of our way of life," said AngrySwinger, "Ever since our last meeting spot got shut down because a story in the local paper made everyone all hysterical."

"Why can't you people just leave us alone?" spat FuriousWife.

Not having the heart (or humility) to 'fess up that I only "wrote" for an audience of dozens and $4.79 a month in AdSense revenue, I sputtered, "Um... trust me, y'all don't have to worry about anything from me."

"Yeah, whatever," said FuriousWife, "Like I said, the party's OVER."

"My wife's just a little worried about what happened last time," said AngrySwinger apologetically, "We'd appreciate it if you didn't use any names or identifying details (note: I didn't... please don't kill me, swingers!)... maybe just say something positive about alternative lifestyles?"

"I think I can do that," I said, not wanting to be found dead in the woods with a Hitachi Magic Wand-shaped divot in the back of my skull. "You were all really nice, interesting people" (which is true, the fact that I found their gathering roughly as erotic as Sunday mass notwithstanding).

"Thanks," said AngrySwinger, "Time for us to get going now."

I took that as my queue to vacate the premises, which I did rapidly but happily, bounding across rocks and logs with giddy glee.

"Where the hell WERE you?" marveled my companions when I strolled back into camp. "You were gone for, like, THREE HOURS!"

"DUDE!" I yelled, "I... I... PISSED OFF A BUNCH OF SWINGERS! AND I NEED TO WRITE ABOUT IT, NOW!"

"It's four in the morning... you're INSANE," they said as I rolled up my sleeping bag and busted down my tent, intent on heading towards a keyboard as quickly as possible (which, after minor detours such as "caring for short-tempered short person" and "moving to Philadelphia", I did).

I s'pose, in addition to lovers and fighters, there is a third group in which people can be pigeonholed... writers. And while I may not have discovered how to have repeated, Mt. Vesuvius-caliber orgasms or vogue to "Get Down Tonight", I was rather happy to learn that I'm a minor, nonprofessional member of the Scribe Tribe. Swing THAT, suckers.

Tales Out of Camp - Pt. I

There are many lessons to be learned while immersed in nature. This goes a long way towards explaining the popularity of Tevas, s'mores and college students embarking upon Carlos Casteneda-ish psychedelic journeys, during which they attain an understanding that God and Nature are but two halves of the same golden entity, arcing eternally across space-time, only to later determine that, shit, they must've wandered away from the campsite and into the parking lot of the local McDonald's again.

It was armed with this knowledge (but neither peyote buttons nor hacky-sack) that I recently ventured into the forest primeval for a restorative camping trip.

Oh, who am I kidding? I pitched a tent on a field within walking distance of a 7-11 with the express purpose of running around in a wet bathing suit and eating Pop Tarts and rum for breakfast. The only mystical insights gleaned during the trip were along the lines of, "Is there any way to make floating in the pool even LESS strenuous?" (answer: suspend your Pop Tart-bloated frame upon enough foam pool toys to re-buoy the Titanic!) and "How can I avoid contracting salmonella while cooking chicken in an area without running water?" (after wiping hands on grass, tree, rocks, pants and unsuspecting co-camper's rain fly, abandon conventional food-safety measures and just slosh high-test beverages on hands often enough to hopefully eliminate any pathogens).

The trip was ostensibly centered around an Irish folk-music festival. While this fostered a gentle, communal atmosphere not present at, say, the Warped Tour, most attendees were more interested in arboreal alcoholism than music. The Gaelic theme mainly served as a not-unpleasant background note, somewhat like eating at Bennigan's, only with less melted cheese and chipotle-ranch sauce. Occasionally, we were roused from our midday naps and semi-cooked chicken-consumption by a particularly boisterous tune. I will now attempt to recall a representative sample in the most patently offensive manner possible:

"Laddies 'n lassies, please welcome the O'Blarnigans with their hit single, "Begorrah!"

[frantic fiddling]

"Begorrah! Begorrah! Begorrah! Begorrah!
Blimey, cor and crikey! Blood pudding, leprechauns!
Guinness, "The Commitments" and now 'n then car bombs!"

It's a good thing the whole IRA cease-fire occurred, otherwise I'd be a LITTLE hesitant to start up the Civic tomorrow.

After the sun had set and the last accordion had ceased bleating, we sprawled around a glowing lantern, smacking at mosquitoes, sipping truly horrendous drinks (including the perennial favorite, "Diet Coke and... y'know, something. Heavy on the something!") and shooting the breeze. As is typical with this oh-so-effete crowd, the discussion soon turned to sex... who was having it, where they were having it, were any kitchen implements involved? "Really? A POTATO masher?" Earlier in the day, rumors had surfaced that a group of swingers would be meeting in the vicinity later that evening. "Y'know... for SWINGING!" went the gleefully-repeated refrain (as opposed to swingers who congregate in order to analyze one another's investment portfolios, I suppose). "Dude, we TOTALLY need to go check it out!", said one excited fellow camper, "There's no single guys allowed, so I'll hafta find a chick to pretend to marry. Wouldn't THAT be a hell of a honeymoon?" Despite our shared juvenile titillation, no one could muster sufficient nerve to set down their drink and venture off in search of Alternative Lifestyles of the Rural 'n Shameless.

Except... me (att'n, family: feel free to continue reading. Only OTHER people's cottage-cheesy asses are featured in this tale).

I'm generally quite shy, the quintessential observer, what I like to refer to in my more purple-prose moments as a "social moth": at any given gathering, I cling to the wall and soak it all in.

Perhaps it was this interest in amateur sociology which led to what happened next. Perhaps it was an abundance of "something"-heavy libations.

I prefer, as always, to blame indie rock.

Earlier that week, I'd heard Pavement's "Spit on a Stranger" for the first time; to say I liked it would be a laughable understatement. It had lodged itself in my brain more firmly than the mutant offspring of "Don't Fear the Reaper" and the Kit-Kat jingle. I especially loved the lyric, "I see the sunshine in your eyes... I'll try the things you'll never try", delivered by Stephen Malkmus in a lilt so breathy, so god-awful PRETTY as to be capable of making a woman's panties disintegrate from ninety yards away.

I'll try the things you'll never try.

"That's IT, I'm goin' in," I proclaimed, pulling a skirt over my soggy bathing suit and setting out across the field.

TO BE CONTINUED...