Online Dating Tips for Senior Citizens

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A Guide for the Out of Practice Romantic

Photo by Terrye Turpin

After my divorce, I decided to try online dating. Any sane person would not take back up an activity they hadn’t pursued in over 30 years. I was caught up on all the past seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and I needed something to do in the evenings. My friends warned me that the internet was filled with people who wanted to murder me and/or steal all my money. Despite this I gave OK Cupid a try, and eventually met my fiance. I am still alive and I have most of the money I started with, so I consider my experience a success.

If, like me, your last real date occurred when shoulder pads and parachute pants were a thing, these tips are for you.

1. Chose Your Platform

While there are a great number of programs available, I advise you to pass on Tinder. You don’t want to take the chance of one of your grandkids swiping right on your profile.

Try out one of the free sites first, then if you decide to spend some money on a subscription, talk it over with your kids. With a little bit of persuasion you should be able to get them to kick in on the cost. Tell them you’re afraid of dying alone. If that doesn’t work, mention that you plan on moving in with them so they can support you in your golden years.

2. Create a Snazzy Profile

Here I am meeting new friends in Ennis, Texas

Pick out some flattering photos, preferably ones that show you participating in interesting activities.

Guys, don’t send pictures of yourself shirtless. Unless you’re planning on spending the first date at a sauna, she can wait to see you naked.

Fourth of July — I love a good celebration!

The turtle is not real

Include photos of your pets, always good for a conversation starter.

Leave off the pictures of your car, motorcycle, vacation home, or boat. You aren’t creating a For Sale ad on Craigslist.

If you post photos of yourself wearing a hat, put at least one in there without the hat. Potential dates want to know you aren’t hiding a third eye or evil alien twin under there. They really don’t care about your bald spot.

3. Communicate

A magic candle won’t hurt your chances

The initial conversation after you match with someone is important. There are only so many times you can message someone “Hi! How are you?” before you should move on to chatting about the weather.

Ask questions to get to know the other person. “Do you have a job?” is a good icebreaker. Try and sort out the difference between “retired” and “unemployed.” Either way they will have plenty of free time to spend with you.

Decide on an acceptable age difference. For example, I felt that the person I dated should be closer in age to me than he was to the age of my oldest child. This requires some math, but it’s good to keep your brain active. Try and sort out the age thing ahead of time, that way you aren’t at the first date crunching numbers on your phone’s calculator and pretending that you’re checking the weather.

Be cautious if your match asks if you like children. We all know we’re past reproduction age. If you say “yes” chances are you’ll wind up babysitting their grandkids.

4. Meeting Your Match in Real Life!

Maybe not the best place for a stroll

The first time you meet your match in real life is exciting, but try not to get carried away. Literally, I mean. Until you’re sure that person isn’t a serial killer, don’t get in the car on the first date. Take their picture and their fingerprints and text them to everyone on your contacts list.

I have a friend who got in the car on the first date, and it didn’t end well. She wasn’t killed, but the car broke down and her date texted his ex-wife to come pick them up. They all wound up at his ex-mother-in-laws house and she spent the rest of the evening watching Matlock while they waited for a tow truck.

Meeting up to do volunteer work can be fun, but make sure you’re actually doing the work for Habitat for Humanity and not just painting his or her apartment.

Turn on those location services!

For our first date my fiance met me at a local park. It was more of a nature preserve, with lots of brush and ground cover. I made sure the location services on my phone were turned on, in case the police needed to locate my body later.

He seemed all right after that first meeting, so for our second date I invited him to my place to assemble some IKEA furniture. When he stuck around after that I knew we were a good match.

In conclusion, don’t be afraid to get out there, you probably won’t be murdered.

Smoke Rings Like Halos

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My mother, Christine, as a teenager

Sometimes I’ll strike a match, and the sulfur scent brings back that sweet tobacco taste from the first draw on a fresh cigarette. I remember the blue-white smoke curling in tendrils and the hot orange glow of embers illuminating a dark room like secrets shared. Cigarettes were a secret I kept hidden from my mother.

I picked up smoking in college. Away from home on the first lap toward adulthood, I embraced every bad habit I had once railed against. My mother didn’t smoke, but my father did. He wasn’t allowed to smoke in the house, and during my childhood, before their divorce, he sat in a metal glider in the backyard while I lectured him on the evils of nicotine. I accepted, however, the little brown and cream colored coupons from the packs of his Raleigh smokes. You could exchange them for prizes in a catalog, and I was saving up for a transistor radio.

My cigarettes were Benson and Hedges Deluxe Ultra Lights — menthol. Inhaling one of those was like smoking a breath mint. My path through higher education started while the legal drinking age was eighteen. Cigarettes were cheaper than alcohol back then so I exchanged my bottle thick glasses for contact lens and imagined myself in an old black and white movie. I played at cool and sophisticated while I tried and failed to produce a perfect smoke ring.

I balanced painful shyness with a desire to separate from my mother and went away to school a mere 52 miles from what I left behind. When I gazed at the view from my dorm room balcony, I saw the highway that led back to my hometown, a straight asphalt line like an arrow over the horizon.

College was an escape from my mother’s obsessive compulsive disorder. In my mother’s house each daily routine magnified into a complex ritual. Simple tasks like dusting became chores that lasted half a day because every ceramic bird or glass vase had to be removed then placed back in the same position. If they were moved even one quarter of an inch I would have to start the whole task over again.

Home on weekends and holidays it was easy to hide the smoke odor on my clothes. Each time I entered the house I had to stop, strip naked in the laundry room, and drop my clothes in the washer. I walked naked to the bathroom where I showered and scrubbed off the outside world. The whole process would have come in handy at a nuclear power plant.

One weekend my mother announced that she would come visit me on campus. I broke the news the day before her arrival to Ann, my best friend since elementary school, and now, roommate. Ann glanced around our dorm and asked, “Does this mean we need to dust?”

“No,” I replied, then suggested we open the windows and turn off the lights. Books, papers, food wrappers, and discarded clothing covered the surfaces in our room. There was a noticeable coating of dust on our bookcase, which held not books but an assortment of empty liquor bottles.

My mother showed up wearing a light blue polyester pant suit she’d had at least six years. That pantsuit, with easy to wash material and elastic waist pants, was her uniform of choice whenever she left the house. She had other clothes, but she chose the comfort of the familiar over style. I led my mom on a speedy tour of the campus, avoiding any place where I might be recognized. We picked up a pizza to share with Ann back at the dorm.

After we ate we all leaned back, drowsy the way you are after a large meal. The room smelled of pepperoni and as I pushed aside the empty cardboard pizza box, I thought about how much I would like a cigarette. My mother opened her bag, the size and shape of a small black leather suitcase, and bent over to fish around inside it. She set things aside, not looking at them as she searched through her purse. Out came a lipstick, a coin purse, her wallet, and right before she found the tissue she was searching for, she pulled out and set down a pack of cigarettes.

“When did you start smoking?” I asked. I wondered how she got around washing the packs before she opened them.

“Oh, it’s a bad habit I used to have, I’ll quit again soon.”

I wouldn’t have been more surprised if she had confessed to being a serial killer. I laughed and brought out my own pack, then asked if she wanted to step out onto the balcony.

From left to right — my father, mother and my Uncle Buddy

Years later I would discover old photographs, tucked away in albums and stashed hidden in a desk drawer, and in them my mother posed in high heels and dresses. It was hard for me to reconcile the woman she had become, the one who had to wash every grocery item before she stored it away in the pantry, with the smiling woman in the sepia tinted photos.

My mom eloped and got married at fifteen, worked as a cook on a farm cooperative, had seven children, and divorced my dad when I was thirteen. Back then I feared that I would become my mother. As though genetics would dictate I inherit not only her nose and her eyes, but her personality, her failings, her mental illness.

My mother

We drew on our cigarettes and stared out over the silent courtyard below. The lights from passing cars flashed along the stretch of dark highway that led back toward my hometown. I glanced over at my mother, dressed in her familiar pant suit as she stood beside me, the smoke from our cigarettes curling over our heads like wispy halos.

Don’t Fence Me In Wichita Falls

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My fiance, Andrew, loves Wichita Falls. We drove up there this weekend and he pitched an earnest plea for us to buy his childhood home.

Childhood home

Besides the lack of a down payment, I was not swayed by the quaint architecture or the quiet neighborhood.

“They had Fox News playing in the hotel dining room,” I said.

The hotel featured full length mirrors at the end of every hallway. Every time I passed one it startled me, as though I were encountering myself in some other dimension. They also served to remind me that I didn’t need that cinnamon bun from the breakfast buffet. The atmosphere was somewhere between The Shining and The Biggest Loser.

Full Length Mirror

“Oh that’s just the hotel,” Andrew replied. “The only public liberal arts school in Texas is here.”

The oil boom and bust left Wichita Falls stranded like a second string prom date. The city is filled with empty high rise buildings, evacuated like the set of a dystopian movie. Something with zombies or plague. But it’s also lovely and stocked with my favorite sort of shops – cheap antique stores and artsy coffee shops.

Wichita Tower

old building

Coca Cola old building
I took this photo standing in the middle of the street while Andrew was distracted by a window display.

Wichita Falls is home to the World’s Smallest Skyscraper, the Newby – McMahon building. A con artist collected money from investors in 1919 and proposed to construct a high rise office building, but the oil men he conned didn’t notice that the blueprints listed the size in inches, not feet.

Little Skyscraper front
World’s Smallest Skyscraper
Forever and a Day
There are also several breweries in downtown Wichita Falls

Fuzzy Hat

We’re getting married in October, and I found this floofy hat that I thought I might wear, but Andrew made the same sort of face I made when he suggested moving to Wichita Falls.

I’ve been thinking about wedding vows, and I don’t think I will include Ruth 1:16 “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people.”

Poodle Wichita Falls

I had to kneel down to get this shot. When I tried to stand up my knees locked and I waved at Andrew to try and get his attention, but he was looking at real estate listings on his phone and didn’t see me. I grabbed his arm and managed to pull myself up as I decided all future photography would be taken at eye level.

Cat on a chair
I don’t know if this was an actual cat before it was stuffed.

As we drove around Wichita Falls I noticed an interesting art display near a large, spooky building that turned out to be a grain elevator.

Attebury Grain

Don't Fence Me In

I convinced Andrew to pull over so I could take some pictures.

More fencesFences and Attebury

Andrew standing at fence
Here’s Andrew, peeking out to see if I had finished taking pictures.

As we strolled past a construction worker spray painting a store front, Andrew remarked on how well they were doing, renovating the downtown area.

“I still don’t want to move here though,” I said. “And don’t think the 6,000 liberal arts students will sway me either.”

In the last place we stopped I wandered away from Andrew, drawn to a display of vintage clothing. Nothing fit, the folks were all much smaller back then. You never see that in time travel movies, but really us future folk would be giants. I turned a corner, looking for Andrew, and ran into this guy.

Lion Guy

I don’t know what’s more startling, the lion head or the bare feet.

I weaved through aisles of antique glassware, stacks of crumbling books, and bins filled with old records in cardboard jackets. I couldn’t find Andrew and just as I stopped to take a deep breath, he popped up from behind an antique wardrobe.

“I’d know that sigh anywhere,” he said.

I was glad to see him, and glad to load up the car with our purchases and head home. Maybe I could change that verse a bit, make it “Where you will go I will go, as long as it’s convenient to a nice shopping area and has a hospital with a good reputation. Along with reasonable real estate prices and a decent commute to work and a theater.”

Rooster 1

The Care of Cast Iron

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My mother on the far left, cooking over an open fire.

I cannot find my mother’s frying pan. The one she gave me before she moved into the nursing home, before she died, and after she stopped cooking for herself.

Her hands were rough, large and knotted with arthritis. They shook as she held out the frying pan. “You want this?” she asked as she picked up the heavy skillet from the inside of the oven where she stored her pots and pans. I took it because it was one of the few things in her apartment that didn’t smell like pine cleaner.

Other people hold on to things. They remember birthdays and anniversaries, and know exactly who inherited their grandmother’s silver. I misplace my scissors and the remote to the television but you would think something large and useful like a frying pan wouldn’t just float off out of sight.

My parents started their married life as farmworkers. My father drove a combine, and my mother cooked for the field hands in the 1930’s. She didn’t speak of it much. I am left to picture her aproned and bending to tend to a wood fired stove and stooping to wipe the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. After the farm job she cooked for her husband and children and then just for herself and me, the last in the line of seven offspring.

Her cast iron skillet had a surface polished mirror smooth and jet black from years of fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, pork chops, and scratch made pancakes with golden brown circles dotted with pale spots where the butter melted. I was in high school when my parents divorced and our meals changed to things barely recognizable as food.

My mom, with her eighth grade education, found work as a housekeeper. She spent long days cleaning and cooking for other people, so at home we had frozen pizzas, chili and soup from a can. Evenings we settled in front of the television and suffered through boil-in-bag meals, little plastic packets pulled from the freezer and dunked into boiling water to cook. We dumped the contents out and spooned up Chicken a la King or Salisbury steak over instant potatoes. The boil-in-bag meals had an unpleasant aftertaste, like you had licked a plastic bucket and decided to melt it and serve it for dinner.

Married with two children, I had a frying pan when my mother gave me hers. My cast iron skillet was new and not well seasoned, the surface still pitted with small imperfections.

I didn’t notice when my mother stopped eating. She didn’t trust food prepared by others. She quit attending holiday meals, refusing even the plates brought to her by family. She liked hamburgers from Wendy’s so I often picked up a burger and fries to drop off on my way home. I have worked in fast food restaurants, but I never mentioned that her meal had most likely been prepared by someone with tattoos and a nose ring.

The microwave confused her, and she never learned how to use the one in her apartment. On our weekly trips to the grocery store she bought whatever frozen meal she could cook in her toaster oven. I carried her groceries in and stood in the entryway while she took off her shoes. One by one she ferried the items to the kitchen counter where she washed each box and bottle in harsh cleaner before putting them away.

My mother’s mental illness went untreated for most of her life. The obsessive compulsive disorder that locked her into rituals of cleaning didn’t appear until most of my brothers and sisters had grown up and left her house. I guess it might have been worse for me, growing up in a home with easy to mop vinyl floors in every room. At least she wasn’t a hoarder. I had to strip my clothes off and toss them into the washer before I walked through the living room but I didn’t have to wonder if there was a dead cat hidden under the couch.

She lived alone, in an apartment complex for senior citizens. They had a concierge to carry off the trash, so I didn’t notice the empty peanut butter jars that stuffed the bags of garbage while unused dinners filled the freezer. She began phoning 911, certain she was having a heart attack. I made the twenty minute drive from my house, arriving in time to find her sitting up and flirting with the young, attractive emergency medical technicians. When I mentioned the dizziness and confusion to her doctor, he suggested that it might be caused by malnutrition.

My mother’s frying pan stayed stashed in the cupboard. I don’t remember packing it up when I moved out of our house after my divorce, but I must have. There’s a vague memory of giving it to one of my grown children, but when I asked they both could not remember anything about it.

“I have a skillet, but it’s not that old,” said one.

“I think I got mine at Goodwill,” the other replied to my text.

To properly season a new cast iron skillet you must first scrub it with hot, soapy water to remove the grime from manufacturing. You dry the pan, rub the surface with oil and bake it for one hour at 375 degrees. I wish I remembered what I did with my mother’s frying pan. If I made a gift of it, I wish I had given it with the ceremony and pomp it deserved. Perhaps then one of us would recollect where they’d last seen it. A seasoned cast iron skillet will last a lifetime, and heat and use will wear the surface smooth and brilliant and precious.

Why is Facebook Trying to Sell Me Funeral Potatoes?

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img_1820

This showed up in my Facebook feed the other night. Of course I clicked on the link and checked them out on the Walmart website. The back of the package states “Potatoes to die for” but I hope they don’t mean that literally.

You can buy a casket online from Walmart and opt for overnight delivery. I clicked and sorted them from low to high price and Walmart helpfully produced this sponsored product:

Remington 169 Qt. Plastic Storage Tote with Handle and Wheels, Green

It looks sturdy but I think I’ll go for cremation. I wanted to donate my body to science but Andrew worries that he’ll encounter me somewhere as an exhibit.

“I don’t want to see you encased in plastic and displayed at the State Fair,” he said.

The funeral potatoes are listed as emergency supplies and they have an 18 month shelf life. They might be useful for camping but I’m a little on the frugal side. I’m afraid I’d start counting down friends and family as the package gets closer to the expiration date.

I’m grateful for the Southern tradition of bringing food to comfort loss.

My own memories of grief are soothed by recalling those offerings carried in heavy Pyrex dishes, wrapped in aluminum foil and often still warm from the oven. What meals those lovely church ladies brought – pork chops marinated and baked in mushroom soup, banana pudding with soft vanilla wafers, fried chicken with a crispy golden crust only a cast iron skillet and love can deliver.

One thing I know for sure, no self respecting Southern Baptist would bring reconstituted potato casserole to a funeral.

You Don’t Have to Step on My Feet

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As part of a pledge to try new things, I signed up for a night of dance lessons, and for good measure I talked my friend Kristy into accompanying me. Kristy was in her early 30’s, and still young enough to be excused for a lapse in judgement, but I was old enough to know better. The lesson was supposed to last three hours, from 8:00 pm until 11:00 pm, and I thought it a good value for the ten dollar admission charge. I filled in the online registration form and pictured myself back in junior high school, lined up in a gymnasium while I listened to a scratchy record player broadcasting the hokey pokey.

The night of the class Kristy and I were greeted at the door by a woman wearing a floor length, strapless black dress and high heels. This did not look like an outfit you would wear to dance the hokey pokey. Her hair was piled on top of her head in the sort of style that I could never manage without using buckets of gel and pins that insert directly into my scalp.

She held out a perfectly manicured hand as she introduced herself, “I’ll be your instructor tonight, you can call me Miss Cindy.”

I glanced past her at the dance floor. The dim lights reflected off the polished surface, and there were full length mirrors along three of the walls, the better to magnify your embarrassment. Miss Cindy took our money for the class, and told us to fill out name badges. I looked over the lesson plan for the evening. It turned out we had enrolled in a ballroom dancing class, and I regretted my clothing choice of comfortable blue jeans and flat soled loafers.

As I peeled off the paper backing and stuck the name tag to my t-shirt, Miss Cindy pointed out that I had my name tag on the wrong side, and she told me to move it over to my right shoulder. She mentioned she had an etiquette book we could look at if we wanted. I glanced at Karen. She quickly switched her name tag to the correct shoulder. I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t even manage to attach a sticky paper name tag without violating some rule of proper conduct, how would I ever navigate a dance floor?

We headed over to a safe spot at a table pushed against the far wall and near the exit. The bright red exit sign would be a handy landmark in case there was a disaster like a fire or someone asking me to dance. Several couples twirled along effortlessly on the floor, smiling as they watched their reflections.

I pointed out the happy couples to Kristy. “Do you think smiling is a requirement in ballroom dancing?” I asked.

“You better practice a pleasant expression,” she replied.

Miss Cindy had the women line up on one side of the room, as though we were preparing for a firing squad. She matched each of us up to an unattached man. My partner was an older gentlemen with a military haircut and sharply pressed pants. He must have wandered into the dance class by mistake, and thought he would be leading boot camp exercises. Our first conflict came when he informed me that dancing the waltz involved more than just stepping in place. You are expected to move around the dance floor, without forging through the other dancers like a snow plow. Apparently I am not a good follower. I tend to lose focus and wander off on my own.

The lesson ended and Miss Cindy ordered us back to the main ballroom. I was glad to leave my drill instructor behind. I haven’t heard the words “No, no, no” so many times since I was the one saying them to my son, who was trying to eat a cricket at the time.

I found my familiar seat against the wall and beneath the exit sign. Just as Kristy joined me, Miss Cindy announced that she wanted to show us something new, and told the group that we would learn the “Merengue.” This sounded suspiciously to me like “Meringue”, a complicated pie thingy that I have never been able to make. I looked wistfully at the exit sign.

“What if we left early?” I asked Kristy.

“No! I paid ten dollars for this class, I’m not missing any of it,” she answered.

My next dance partner’s cologne arrived thirty seconds before he did. It wasn’t bad once my nose became numb. He held me so close during the dance that I felt he at least owed me a cigarette afterwards. The steps to the Merengue were complicated and Miss Cindy had to break the lesson down into sections. We went back to the beginning and repeated each section once we learned the next one. This resulted in a never ending dance circle of hell. My partner was more intent on getting my phone number than he was in learning the steps to the dance, and I wound up twirling off into the other dancers as I tried to both count and distract him with idle conversation. Maybe he thought my phone number started with “1, 2, 3…”

Finally Miss Cindy paused to take a breath, and I took that opportunity to escape. I raced across the floor to gather up Kristy, who was dancing with a man who had more in common with her grandmother. He had a weak grip, and she was able to detach herself quickly. Once we were safely outside I mentioned that maybe next time we should try something less exciting, perhaps skydiving.

I Can’t See You Because the Light is On

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Source

Dear Gables Residential Services:

Thank you for installing the security light across the courtyard from my apartment. I feel so much more safe now, especially when I get up in the night to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. The 1 million candle watt bulb you placed in the device illuminates my apartment so well that not only do I not have to turn on a lamp when I get up, I have to be sure to apply sunscreen before I go to bed.

I tried installing black out curtains in my bedroom, and they mostly work, except when the fabric gets pushed to the side. Then I’m awakened by a bright shaft of light hitting me square on the face, usually about the same time the late night freight train comes wailing past our complex.

When the light was first installed, I had a moment of disorientation when the timer kicked it on around 2:00 a.m. I woke up and thought I was somehow in the middle of a prison break, and expected to hear the clanging of alarm bells. I swear I saw my downstairs neighbor hop over the fence around the pool and take cover in the landscaping.

But I can rest assured that no one scaling the wall outside my apartment will go unnoticed, since the light shines directly vertical onto my building, leaving the ground below in comforting darkness.

If anyone did manage to break into my living room, the light is bright enough that they will see how to disconnect my television without a flashlight; which I won’t notice anyway, since I have taken to sleeping in my closet.

The Glue That Binds Us

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When my boyfriend, Andrew, told me he had ordered something special for my birthday, I didn’t know what to expect. We started dating in October, and for Christmas he gave me a television. He won it in a drawing at his company holiday party so it didn’t cost him anything, but still, it was a brand new flat screen TV.

My birthday was in February, just before Valentine’s Day, and after intense questioning Andrew finally admitted that he purchased my gift on eBay. This didn’t narrow the field much, but at least gave me comfort that the gift was not a puppy.

“Is it bigger than a breadbox?” I asked Andrew.

“That depends,” he answered, “how much bread are you planning on storing?”

The box arrived just before my birthday, and it was slightly larger than a box that might hold a loaf of bread. We sliced open the tape that held it together and looked inside. I pulled back the wrapping paper that cushioned the object and saw a flash of bright yellow and orange. Looking up at me from the box was a duck’s head.

“It’s a cookie jar,” Andrew said.

“Oh,” I said, as I looked the ceramic duck in its beady little eyes. Whoever painted this duck had an unsteady hand. The eyes were wide and startled but the orange bill appeared expressionless, giving the impression that this particular duck didn’t care much about anything. I reached into the box to pick up the lid of the cookie jar, and discovered that the head was detached. Tiny shards of ceramic littered the inside of the box.

“What a shame, it’s broken,” I said with what I hoped was a proper amount of sadness.

“Oh no! We’ll have to fix it!”

I got up and stepped into the kitchen to rummage around in the drawer where I kept spare packets of ketchup, loose toothpicks, and those little twist tie things.

“I’ve got some super glue in here somewhere,” I said.

“That won’t do. We’ve got to pick up some epoxy,” Andrew replied. He went on to explain in detail the importance of bonding strength and application style. “Epoxy will fill in the small cracks and create a smooth surface. It will bond better with the ceramic surface.” A trip to the home improvement store was required, to get the special two part epoxy that would mend the duck.

Andrew and I met online. I marked the days off on the calendar until we could meet in person, thinking all the time that I wasn’t getting any younger. Starting over after a divorce in my 50’s was challenging and I never expected that I would find anyone I could tolerate for more than a few hours. I liked Andrew well enough to step up and give him a kiss at the start of our second date. And now we had progressed to shopping together for hardware.

We purchased the epoxy and Andrew spent nights at the kitchen table with newspaper spread out under the broken cookie jar. He picked up bits of ceramic duck with tweezers and slowly fit the pieces together. He mixed epoxy until we were giddy with the fumes, and filled in the cracks on the surface.

When Andrew finished the mending I announced that the duck should retire to a life of leisure and give up the work of holding cookies. There was a brownish faded photograph included in the package with the cookie jar. The snapshot shows the jar cradled by slender feminine hands, the woman’s face cut off from the frame. The date 1977 is printed in ink on the back of the picture. I wondered how the duck wound up at auction, bought and shipped to end up shattered but then restored.

“Well, it’s not perfect but I guess it’s okay,” Andrew said. We placed the duck on a shelf and we were pleased with the repair. The cracks were noticeable only if you peered closely, and even the original owners might overlook the imperfections.

“It’s wonderful,” I said, “just the right birthday present.”

If love is the glue that binds us, then patience is what sets the bound and fills the missing bits from our damage, smoothing the surface to make us good as new.

Just Where We Belong

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Drive in
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

 

I hesitated when I saw the invitation in my email because I am not a fan of scary movies. I tolerate them because they are one of Andrew’s favorite genres. When he watches Alien Death Camp Holiday or Haunted Mental Institution Massacre, I sit beside him on the couch and mutter comments.

“Did they go in the basement? Is that a hatchet?” I’ll say, my voice muffled by the blanket covering my face.

I clicked on the link in the email and signed up for two free passes for a screening of Strangers: Prey at Night. The summary I read said the film is a sequel to the first movie, Strangers. There were enough survivors for part two, this one to take place in an abandoned mobile home park, where the victims were threatened with murderous psychopaths instead of tornadoes.

I was sure Andrew would enjoy the movie, and I was willing to go along because the screening was to take place at our local drive in theater. I have fond memories of going to the drive in with my parents in the 1960s. There was a playground at the front, and I swung from monkey bars and climbed to the top of the rocket shaped slide to look up to the giant characters on the screen. When I was older, I went to the drive in on dates, but those times I stayed in the car.
We arrived early the night of the screening. I handed over my pass to the cashier in the little booth at the entrance and he told us, “Just follow the drive around to the back. It’s the last screen.”

“That one?” I asked, pointing to our left.

“There’ll be someone there to help you park,” he replied.

We swung around past the concession stand and drove to the last screen where Andrew spotted a young man dressed in fluorescent yellow, waving cars over into compact rows on the gravel lot. We settled in where he directed us.

After a trip to the concession stand for popcorn and a soft drink, we walked back in the dark to our parked car. I glanced over to the screen next to ours where a large group of people arranged themselves in chairs in front of the screen.

“What are those people doing over there?” I asked as I pointed to two men wearing suits, which seemed strange attire for an evening at the drive in.

“I don’t know,” Andrew replied, “but I think the movie is about to start.”

Andrew tuned in the car radio to the channel that would broadcast sound for our movie, and we watched the screen light up with previews for coming attractions. The first preview was a Claymation Cartoon.

“This is an odd preview for a horror movie,” I said. I swiveled around in the car seat and peered over at the lot next to ours. The screen there had a static display that said “Strangers.”

“I think we are at the wrong screen.”

Andrew turned to look behind us. “Oh well, at least we get to watch a free movie.”

I pulled up the drive in website on my phone as the next preview, an animated cartoon featuring a talking baby, started.

“The movies tonight are Death Wish, Black Panther, and…” I paused. “Peter Rabbit.”

Andrew does not appreciate children’s movies like I do. As a parent, I learned to be grateful for any entertainment that will encourage small children to sit still for an hour and a half. I looked around at the rows of cars that surrounded us. There were no lights marking the exit, and the only illumination came from the movie playing in front of us. A chorus of singing animals appeared on the screen. Andrew does not care for musicals either.

“Do you want to leave?” I asked.

“I don’t see how we can get out,” Andrew replied. After some discussion about the all-terrain capabilities of our Honda SUV, we decided to stay.

“At least it won’t last long,” Andrew said. This philosophy could apply equally to root canals, but I agreed and then complained about the size of the screen.

“Just pretend we are sitting on our couch at home, watching the movie on your phone, from across the room.”
The plot of the movie developed as we expected. There was action and romance between a female character named “Bea” and the handsome nephew of Farmer McGregor.

“I think this is based on true events,” I remarked, as a hedgehog wearing an apron ambled through the McGregor’s garden.

I flipped up my armrest and leaned over the center console so I could take Andrew’s hand and he grabbed the popcorn box just as it was about to spill onto the floorboards. What strange circumstances brought us here, to a place neither one imagined they would ever go, but both somehow certain that this is where they belong.

 

Peter Rabbit

Lost Not Missing

~ mstturpin ~ 1 Comment

Photo by Sandis Helvigs on Unsplash

When my younger son, Andy, was 19 years old he was so thin the vertebrae in his back looked like rungs on a knobby ladder. Our nights were interrupted by Andy stumbling through the dark into the bathroom to throw up. His primary care doctor pronounced him “a little underweight.” This was like calling the Donner Party a little hungry. He gave us a referral to a gastrointestinal specialist and handed me a sample pack of antacids.

When Andy went for his checkup, his dentist suggested that he might be diabetic. The dentist took one look inside Andy’s parched mouth and then took a second glance at the 20 ounce bottle of water my son had at his side. When we met the next day with the specialist, I mentioned the dentist’s suggestion and Dr. P. ordered fasting lab work.

When the lab results came back, Dr. P. called me and told me to go find my son. The rest of the story included a trip to the emergency room where a nurse who wasn’t much older than Andy met us at the door with a wheelchair. I jogged along behind her bouncing pony tail as she pushed my son down a tiled hallway that echoed with the moans coming from the curtained rooms we passed. We did not stop to fill out paperwork or answer billing questions.

When Andy was three years old, I lost him while Christmas shopping. One moment I had his damp, sticky hand clenched in mine, the next I let him go so I could flip through a display of clearance sale clothing. It was enough time for him to slip from the store and vanish, swept along by the current of holiday shoppers. I grabbed my older son, Robert, and demanded, “Where’s Andy?” as though he had stashed him away like a toy he didn’t want to share.

Just as I found a security guard, we spotted two older women walking toward us. Grey haired bookends in sensible shoes, they each had a firm grip on my son. Andy did not look concerned at all. I thanked them over and over, and despite their quiet reassurances, I felt I should explain that I was a good mother, and I had at least managed to keep one child in sight.

During his hospital stay Andy mastered the art of insulin injections and glucose level testing. Soon after his release, he found a job at the local ice cream distribution center. He came home at night and told us “You can eat all the ice cream you want!”

“That doesn’t seem like the best job for a diabetic,” I remarked.

He worked in a refrigerated warehouse, tossing pallets of ice cream into the back of a waiting truck, an activity that required a heavy parka and protective gloves to guard against frostbite.

His career at the ice cream warehouse came to an unfortunate end after the plant manager locked him in the company parking lot one evening. Andy called to let me know he would be late for dinner, and might spend the night in his truck. I made the twenty minute drive to rescue him in less than fifteen minutes, and managed not to damage any property, run over any animals, or become the focus of a helicopter police chase.

As I pulled up to the padlocked gate at the parking lot, I saw Andy leaning against his bright red truck on the other side of the ten foot tall, wrought iron fence. We met at the padlocked gate and discussed options.

“I could throw a rock through the office window and set off the alarm,” he offered.

“I believe a more reasonable alternative is calling 911,” I replied. When the dispatcher answered I asked her to call the emergency contact person listed for the ice cream company. While my voice shook as I mentioned that Andy was diabetic, hers remained quiet and calm, and she assured me she would keep trying the contact number until someone answered.

I left Andy abandoned at the junior high school one night after band practice. My work schedule changed, and I thought my mother-in-law would pick him up, but she forgot I had asked. By the time I arrived home from work the street lights were clicking on in the dusk. I realized that Andy had been waiting for a ride home since four that afternoon. When I got to the school and pulled into the parking lot, there was enough light left to see Andy waiting outside the band hall, sitting on the ground and leaning against the brick building. When I asked him why he didn’t call someone to come get him, he replied, “I knew you’d miss me and come get me.”

While we were waiting for the 911 operator to call back with good news, a patrol car arrived. The policeman, a young man with perfectly clipped dark hair, rolled down his window as he pulled up behind my car. At first I wondered if his appearance had something to do with my 911 call, but when I asked the officer he said no. We must have made a curious pair of vandals, a middle aged woman in baggy shorts and house shoes, and a skinny, long haired boy in faded jeans loitering on the other side of the fence.

“How did you get in there?” The police officer strolled up to stand beside me at the gate.

“I stopped to check my oil and everybody left,” Andy replied.

I noticed the officer kept his hand near the cuffs on his belt, and I mentally went through the list of people who might provide bail money.

“My son is diabetic,” I said. I hoped the policeman would look at us less like criminals he might need to arrest.

The officer squinted in at Andy.

“Are you okay in there?” the cop asked, and glanced back toward his idling patrol car, outfitted with a crash bar. I imagined scenes from action movies where the hero busts through the gates and escapes. The officer seemed disappointed when Andy replied he was okay, but he was a little thirsty.

When the plant manager arrived he rushed up to the gate with his keys in hand and asked my son, “How did you get in there?”

Andy rolled his eyes and replied, “You locked me in,” and I realized that his future in ice cream distribution was over.

We headed home and I followed along down the highway behind Andy’s bright red truck. He changed lanes and passed cars and vanished over the crest of a rise in the road. I knew we would eventually arrive at the same destination, so I lifted my foot some from the gas pedal and sang along with the car radio. My son went on without me, lost from sight, but not missing.