Andrew and I were wandering through the clearance section in men’s clothing at Macy’s when we spotted them. A row of corduroy pants in vivid orange and royal blue.
“No one wants the whistle britches,” Andrew commented.
“Do you think they have my size?” I asked. I love a bargain.
“Please, no.”
Andrew does not like to draw attention, and it’s hard to be discreet when you’re dressed in colors loud as caution flags. Plus, everyone would hear the swish-swish of your legs, making it impossible to sneak up on anyone.
I had an entire corduroy outfit in Ninth Grade. The brown pants and matching tunic were hand sewn by a seamstress my mother worked for, cleaning her house. They worked out an exchange, my mother scrubbed and in return the seamstress fashioned my freshman year wardrobe. I don’t remember the rest of the clothing from that year, but the brown corduroy set was extraordinary. I must have resembled a large teddy bear swooshing down the hallways of my high school. Either that, or a giant, rustling paper bag.
I bought a purse at the mall, from one of those pop-up kiosks. An unusual transaction for me, as I usually race-walk past those shops before I’m attacked with a salt scrub or an offer to clean my glasses.
The purses, however, caught my eye with their loveliness. Handwoven by women of the Wayuu tribe in Columbia, each bag resembled more a work of art than a place to stash your lip balm and that paperback you’ve been carrying around for six months. Dazzled by the dozens of bags, I pulled out my credit card (not an easy task as it was buried in the IKEA backpack I tote when I visit the mall).
The saleswoman couldn’t get her payment processing software to work with the mall’s lousy internet service. She tried standing in the doorway of a nearby shop and leeching off their connection, while I wondered if dozens of strange purchases would pop up on my Capital One account. I offered to scoot down to the ATM and bring back cash. At the last minute I remembered the purse, wrapped and tucked in my IKEA backpack. I handed it back to the saleswoman with a teary-eyed promise to return, like Odysseus at the start of his journey to Troy.
You can find out more about the purses here, and even buy one if you have a good internet connection.
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“We should visit Enchanted Rock,” Andrew suggested one evening, not long after we started dating.
I pictured a place shrouded in a sparkling mist and peopled with tiny fairies peeking from behind evergreens. I worried whether the rock, enchanted or not, would provide shade. I’m a great fan of shade, especially when the temperature gets above eighty degrees. When I hike in the summer, I stuff my hydration pack full of ice. I’d carry an electric fan if I could, and string out a bright orange extension cord behind me as I tramp along the trail. Our visit to the Enchanted Rock Natural Area in the Hill Country of Texas was to take place in the unseasonably warm month of May.
I had discovered that Andrew got along quite well outdoors. He always carried one of those multi-function pocketknives and a small, intense flashlight, in case he needed to defend himself against orcs or cut up an apple in the dark.
“What’s enchanted about the rock? Are there trees?” I asked.
“The rock makes noise at night, as the granite cools off, and there are a few trees,” Andrew assured me. “We can climb to the top!”
“Climb?”
I wondered about those rock noises. I pictured myself strapped into a leather harness and dangling from the side of a cliff. I was willing to explore exciting experiences with Andrew, but I didn’t think plunging to my death would make a good impression.
“Oh, it’s really more like hiking. It’s not that steep.”
I was not reassured. Andrew’s legs were shorter than mine, so his center of gravity was closer to the ground. His sturdy legs were built for inclines.
I searched the internet for a picture of the place and found an image on the state park website. It showed a dull pinkish grey, rounded hill of granite set against a backdrop of bright blue sky. Stunted mesquite trees in sparse blotches of green dotted the bottom of the hill. The sides and top of the rock, however, resembled the balding head of a middle-aged man who declined the comb over but wasn’t ready to give up all his hair. Another website suggested the area might once have been the location for human sacrifices. As I wondered aloud if we might still see bloodstains on the granite, Andrew made our camping reservations.
When arrived at the Enchanted Rock Natural Area, we stopped to check in at the ranger station and pick up a map of the area. The helpful ranger, a rosy complexioned, blond young man in a pressed tan uniform shirt and a hat like Smoky the Bear might wear, pointed out the camping spots on the map. Off we went to explore before hiking to our campground. Beyond the parking area the focus of the state park, the Enchanted Rock itself, rose into the sky. Clouds hovered some distance above the summit of the hill, and the pink granite sides shimmered in the afternoon sun. Boulders the size of small sheds clung to the surface. I didn’t see many trees on the slope, or places that looked to afford either shade or an easy stroll to the top.
“We could hike up the Little Hill this afternoon and save the larger one for tomorrow.”
Andrew pointed across from the Enchanted Rock. The Little Hill was shorter than the larger granite hill that gave the park its name. There were however, a few small trees clinging to the granite slopes. The guidebook, “On Your Way Up, a Guide to the Top of Enchanted Rock” cautioned “if you are unsteady on your feet or have trouble with your footing, please consider your physical condition before attempting the climb.” I have trouble keeping my footing when I step in and out of my bathtub, so I agreed with Andrew that we should postpone our adventure on the Enchanted Rock, and warm up with a climb up the Little Hill.
We walked past the brave hikers headed up the main path toward the Enchanted Rock. They were an interesting assortment of age and ability. Many of them had on sneakers instead of hiking boots. I noticed several people leading dogs. A tiny brown Chihuahua scrambled alongside an older woman with white hair held back in a visor. When I pointed out the little dog to Andrew, he reminded me he had once climbed to the summit while accompanied by a Chihuahua. The dog belonged to an old friend, a girl he knew before we met. I had seen a photo of Andrew posed on a barren, rocky, landscape, holding a tiny tan and white dog with a pink jeweled collar, but I hadn’t realized the picture captured the top of the granite mountain.
“Did the dog enjoy the climb?” I wanted to know.
“Yes, she did!” Andrew replied as we started up the side of the Little Hill.
As I shuffled over piles of loose pebbles and searched for the path with the least slope, I thought about that picture of Andrew and the little dog. He posted it on his online dating profile, where I saw it when we first chatted. The dog’s owner was absent from the picture, but in my imagination, she looked something like Scarlett Johansen, Andrew’s favorite movie star.
We had trudged about halfway up the incline when I realized the slope was getting steeper. The outcroppings where I might gain a handhold were getting further apart. I squinted into the sun and wiped the sweat from my face, trying to gauge how much farther along we had to go. I regretted leaving my ice filled water bottle behind in the car.
“Let’s stop here for a minute.” I panted and clung to a large rock the size of a Volkswagen, poised to slide down the side of the granite slope, with or without me still clinging to it.
“Are you tired?” Andrew asked as he stepped closer to the edge of an outcropping, where he would have a good view of my body as it tumbled unhindered down the hard, rocky ground.
I thought Andrew and I had reached the point in our relationship where I should disclose one of my shortcomings.
“No,” I replied. “I’m afraid of heights.”
“Oh! Are you okay? Should we go back down?”
Andrew walked toward me, sending a shower of loose rocks cascading past my feet and bouncing along to the concrete parking lot below. I risked a glance behind. The gentle incline we had traveled transformed into a forty-five-degree slant covered with sharp bits of gravel.
“No, let’s keep moving.” As I said this, a dark shadow floated across the rock. I glanced up to spot a turkey buzzard, circling in for a closer view.
“How about we aim for that rock up there?” Andrew gestured up the hill, toward a grouping of boulders the size of cattle cars. They did not appear to have anything holding them onto the side of the mountain.
“There are a lot of rocks up there, which one are you talking about?” I leaned out past the boulder to get a better glimpse up the hill.
“The penis shaped one,” Andrew answered.
“That doesn’t look like a penis.”
No matter how much I squinted the rock did not seem the least bit phallic shaped. Maybe he meant a different rock, and I had a moment of panic, picturing Andrew wandering up and out of view while I trekked from one tall pointy rock to another.
“You can do it! Let’s get a little closer.” Andrew marched up toward the summit, and out of view around yet another large boulder.
I realized the mysterious noises heard at night were most likely not ghosts, or some reasonably explained natural phenomenon. They must be instead the cries of abandoned hikers, afraid to venture away from the rocks they anchored behind.
We worked our way to the top, with Andrew stopping now and then to wait for me to scrabble along behind. We made our way from one vaguely penile column of granite to the next. I resisted the urge to crawl, afraid even that might prove too frightening, and I would be forced to push myself up the slope on my belly like a snake.
When we reached the top of the hill, I found a patch of green moss growing in a weathered depression in the rock. This was not the Enchanted Rock, but it looked as though we might find fairies. Birds chirped and flitted about a stunted oak tree as though they were down at ground level. I hurried over to the tree, eager to take hold in case it was a heat induced mirage. If I clung to the tree, I hoped I could convince myself I wasn’t on top of a hill I would have to climb back down. I should plant a flag, if only the surface beneath me weren’t solid granite.
I posed on the summit of the Little Hill and loosened my hold on the scrubby tree. To a casual observer, including the boyfriend I wanted to impress, I would appear to be leaning my hand against the bark, and not clinging for dear life to the nearest object that didn’t move when I touched it.
Andrew positioned himself at the edge of a drop-off and gazed off toward the Main Dome next to us while he snapped pictures with his camera. The pink granite of the Enchanted Rock glowed in the late afternoon sun. If I squinted a little, I might make out a small, determined form on the top of that neighboring rock. I closed my eyes and I could see her clearly, her little snout raised up to smell the fresh wind off the moss, and her four feet planted firmly in triumph on that solid ground.
We arrived at the zoo in a car loaded with boxes of books and mismatched towels, two tennis rackets, and some stereo equipment. I’d been lured into the trip by Andrew, my boyfriend back then. I love the opportunity to view any animal secured behind a fence where there is little chance of it being able to bite me, sting me, or pee on my leg. When Andrew mentioned an overnight trip to Waco to the Cameron Park Zoo, I packed my toothbrush.
“We’ll stop by the zoo on our way home, after we pick up things I have stored in Austin,” he said.
“Wait, there’s labor involved?”
“The zoo has an entire exhibit devoted to lemurs,” he said. “You won’t want to miss that.”
I agreed to a couple of hours rummaging through the boxes stashed in Andrew’s storage unit. We had been dating awhile by then, and there’s no better way to get to know someone than snooping among their possessions.
When we arrived at the zoo, I wanted to go see the lemurs right off, but Andrew suggested we save them for last.
“We’ll walk a big circle through the park, and end up at Lemur Island,” he promised.
After we meandered past the sloths hanging like hammocks in their enclosure, somewhere around the middle of the zoo, we came across a playground. It had a slide, a climbing wall, and a giant concrete snake painted in bright stripes of black, red, and yellow.
“Oh! A snake!” Andrew took out his camera. “We need to get a picture of you with that snake.”
I agreed immediately. Before my divorce I rarely posed for photographs. There are hundreds of pictures of my children growing up. They are almost always alone in the portraits, as though they had no parents and were raised by wolves. I remember a time before the invention of smart phones, when all you had to do to prevent your own picture being snapped was to keep a firm grip on the camera.
Things changed the year after my divorce. I signed up for an account with OK Cupid and realized I’d need to post photos of myself. The pictures I selected tended toward the silly side. For Halloween, I posed in front of a Christmas tree decorated with plastic bats and skulls. I’d rather be judged for my sense of humor than my appearance, plus I reasoned — who doesn’t love a clown?
When I spotted the shot of Andrew wearing a giant mushroom hat, I knew we would be a good match. It turned out he loved taking silly photographs as much as I loved posing for them. If a compromising picture of me ever surfaces, it will be one in which I am clothed, wearing a funny hat or a tiara, and posed on top of a mechanical bull.
On the playground, I looked at the snake and tried to imagine the best angle.
“What if I climb on top?” I offered.
“No, no — you should get inside, in his mouth, like he’s swallowing you.”
I weaved through the noisy children running around on the playground as though this site belonged to them alone. Eventually, enough tired of this exercise I had a clear path to the snake, and I rushed over and ducked into the mouth. The snake was constructed to accommodate a small to medium sized child, and not a grown, inflexible woman.
“No, turn around.” Andrew motioned circles with his hand.
He lowered the camera as I tried to swing my feet over and onto the slick painted surface of the snake’s mouth. I slid around face down, with most of my body hanging out as I tried to get some purchase on the slippery concrete.
“No! No! The other way!”
Andrew continued to wave his hands about, while I ignored the toddler standing in front of me with a puzzled look on his face. The child, a little boy, frowned and stuck a grimy finger in his mouth. A line of sticky purple that looked like grape jelly trailed down the front of his t-shirt.
“Lay down,” Andrew directed.
I dropped my face toward the mulch cushioning the playground and tried not to think about germs in the wood chips.
“No! Not that way!” Andrew motioned again with his arm, waving it in a helicopter pattern over his head.
Several sets of parents shuffled their children away from the crazy lady rolling around inside the giant cement cobra.
“Lie down on your back and throw your arms out. He’s eating you alive!”
The toddler who had been watching me burst into tears and ran over to hide behind his mother. I flipped over and stuck my arms out past the snake’s mouth, banging my elbow in the maneuver. I hoped the resulting pained expression on my face would add a touch of realism to the photo.
Later, while we were snapping pictures of a giraffe, Andrew discovered the exposure on the camera was set a little too light for his taste. He fussed with the adjustments and then announced, “I’m afraid we’ll have to go back and take that snake picture again.”
“Can we see the lemurs first?”
Maybe on the way over to Lemur Island Andrew would find something more promising than a large cement snake for me to pose on- hopefully a big, soft, stuffed bear.
“It won’t take but a minute, it’s not like the lemurs are taking appointments.”
When we arrived back at the playground, we discovered it covered with children. There were at least five or six of them claiming the snake as a good place to stand and shout out to their parents. I passed the time while we waited staring longingly at the icon for Lemur Island on the zoo map.
The last child left her perch on the snake for the chance to go push her brother off the climbing wall, and I seized the opportunity to dash over and slide myself feet first into the snake. I bumped my elbow again. Andrew snapped off a couple of quick pictures and we left to make our way at last to Lemur Island.
When we got to the habitat, I discovered the exhibit was a lovely place, complete with artfully constructed cliffs and ledges, tall trees, and a thirty-foot moat encircling the land area. The only thing lacking, as far as I could tell, was lemurs. I made out a lone greyish-brown animal sunning on a ledge fifty feet away. Andrew offered me his binoculars, and I watched the lemur scratch behind his ear and then lumber over to another section of the cliff to settle in for a good nap.
“Where are all the lemurs?” I asked.
“I don’t know, maybe they’re sleeping.”
Andrew took out his camera and zoomed in for a photo. We sat at a table at the observation area across from Lemur Island and took turns looking through the binoculars until it was time to leave.
The next day Andrew emailed the pictures he took at the zoo, including the photo of me and the snake. It was the first one, the overexposed photo. Andrew sent it with a little note — “Turns out I liked this photo better.”
As I read the email, I had to admit the picture was a good one, and worth the trouble it took staging it. There I was, arms flung out, the map of the zoo and other assorted brochures tossed just out of reach of my hands. I had a terrified look on my face, as though I knew we would have to stage the whole thing again.
The photo of Lemur Island showed the beautiful landscape and a small dot amongst the rocks. If I squinted just right and put my nose on the computer screen, I might imagine the dot was a lemur. There he was, snoozing alone on the rock ledge. He might not have been lonely, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, with no one to snap his picture should he have the urge to put on a funny hat and dance along the edge of the cliff.
Lemur Island at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas — Photo by Terrye Turpin
The truest test of whether someone will stick by you ‘in sickness and in health’ comes from the ordinary ills — the soggy discomfort of the common cold or the excess body fluids that accompany the flu. You’d have to be a complete troll to abandon the loved one who had cancer or needed one of your kidneys, but it takes a strong commitment to pass the Kleenex to someone who just sneezed on you. Show me someone who can listen as you complain about an ingrown toenail, and I’ll show you someone who loves you.
I am not a good patient, I don’t like to rest when I’m ill and I resent having to use up a day off just to stay home in bed. Because I have a hard time remembering to take prescribed medications, I’ve resorted to one of those plastic boxes with compartments for each day of the week. The box is the size of a wooden ruler, like one I used in elementary school. It’s filled with vitamins. I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever get stricken with a serious illness.
Last year I gave in and scheduled the dental implant surgery I’d been avoiding for twenty years. The first step would involve a bone graft. I opted for sedation after my periodontist, a sincere young man who resembled Ron Howard and who might have just stepped off the set of Mayberry RFD himself, described the surgery involved. I volunteered my husband, Andrew, to accompany me.
Every time I visit the dentist my mind replays that scene from the movie Marathon Man where they torture the hero by drilling into his teeth without anesthetic. I had my surgery at the dental college. Not only did they remember the anesthetic, they gave me two little blue Halcion beforehand. The last thing I remember of the surgery is resting my head on Andrew’s shoulder while we sat in the waiting room.
When I came around, I sat in our living room while Andrew steeped a tea bag for me to place on my gums. My mouth was numb, a dark purple bruise bloomed on my cheek, and there was a trail of blood and drool in the corner of my lips. I looked like an extra from The Walking Dead. Over the next few days my diet comprised blended food, an antibiotic pill the size of a small grape, a steroid, and pain relievers. For dessert I enjoyed a prescription mouthwash with a name I couldn’t pronounce and a taste like something used to exterminate wasps. I spent most of my time reclined in a chair in front of the television, with an ice pack made from frozen peas pressed to my jaw.
To prepare for the surgery, we stocked up on soup and ice cream, but by day three I was glaring at Andrew every time he tried to open a bag of crunchy chips. He hopped up and down so many times fetching my ice pack he wore a trail in the carpet. If only I could have unhinged my jaw like a snake and swallowed a fried chicken wing.
I developed a craving for mashed potatoes with cream gravy and convinced Andrew I was well enough to go out to dinner. After applying a layer of concealer I considered the purple and green bruise hidden, and we headed over to a diner near our home. On the way I imagined how wonderful the mashed potatoes would taste. Hopefully they would be made with a generous amount of artery clogging butter and drowned with cream gravy so thick with dairy products they resembled pudding.
When we got there Andrew ordered the all-day breakfast special with scrambled eggs and biscuits, and I had a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy. When our food arrived I was dismayed to see the potatoes came, not with the delicious smooth cream gravy I had been dreaming of, but a watery, lumpy brown gravy. I noticed that Andrew’s eggs were runny, which he hates, but he ate them anyway.
“How are your potatoes?” he asked.
“Fine,” I replied. I didn’t mention brown gravy on potatoes should only be served north of the Mason Dixon line.
As soon as we returned from dinner, I took a pain pill, and hoped the throbbing in my jaw would ease. It hurt too much to talk, so I tried my best to send an “I love you” telepathically as I gave Andrew’s shoulder a little pat. He sighed and got up from the couch to go into the kitchen. He came back with my bag of frozen peas, which I accepted, certain he understood.
Despite the crying during our last visit, we took our grandson, Will, back to the Heard Museum to see the robotic dinosaur display. When you are shorter than three feet tall anything larger than a cat is intimidating, especially if it has sharp teeth and looks like it might eat you.
“He’s had a whole year, surely he’s recovered by now,” I remarked to my husband, Andrew.
Soon after Andrew and I began dating I warned him that, although we were past the risk of producing children, if he stuck around he would be in danger of exposure to grandchildren. I have been preparing for grandmother status half my life. I picked out my grandma name, “Mimi”, right after my son and his girlfriend announced their engagement.
Andrew’s grandpa name is “Hoppy”, the unfortunate result of letting a toddler select the name. I warned Andrew, but he began by trying out grand-père. A French accent proved too difficult for an 18-month-old who wasn’t born in France, so it left us with Hoppy and Mimi.
My grandmother was old before I was born. We visited her on holidays where I sat in her living room long enough to absorb the smell of mothballs and mentholated back rub into my clothes. Her third or fourth husband, Mac, was my step-grandfather. He wore striped overalls and had a glass eye he popped out to frighten children. I was determined we would be a different sort of grandparents.
That afternoon at the museum we began with a brisk walk through the lobby crowded with young parents and knee high children and wove our way in a quick jog past the toys in the gift shop. As I pushed open the glass door that led outside, I held onto Will’s hand as I explained, “The dinosaurs on the outdoor trail aren’t alive, they’re just robots.”
This was not as reassuring as I intended. I realized with some irony we expect our young ones to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but then discourage their fear of evil robotic monsters.
We stopped at the first dinosaur on the trail. It appeared to be strolling out of the wooded area behind it, brandishing sharp claws and grinning at us with impressive rows of teeth in its gaping mouth. Bright purple and blue vinyl covered the dinosaur in a pattern that would look smashing on a pair of boots. A nearby sign announced the design was chosen by children. Will stood just above waist high beside me and gripped my hand. “I’m just small,” he announced.
“Yes,” I agreed, “but you are also brave.” Will squinted at the robotic animal and then looked back up at me as though he were about to question my judgement.
“Was it this color last year?” I asked Andrew.
“I don’t think so, and I seem to remember it was carrying a Halloween pumpkin.”
“I’m getting bigger, but right now I’m small,” Will repeated as we stood there. The dinosaur roared and nodded his head up and down as though he agreed that Will was indeed, bite-sized.
We trudged on to the next display, a Triceratops. It was the size of a small car, but I felt encouraged, as this specimen was a plant eater. However, this particular herbivore roared just like the meat eaters. It also shook its giant horned head from side to side and moved its mouth as though chewing a tasty, boy-shaped morsel.
Photo by Terrye Turpin
“Why can’t they have at least one dinosaur that chirps, or sings a little song?” I complained to Andrew as Will huddled behind me.
We continued our stroll down the trail, stopping for a moment to enjoy each exhibit, at least until the roaring started up. Will hiked along bravely. When Hoppy pointed out a huge, ancient oak tree, Will said “That’s a scary tree,” but he roared back at some of the dinosaurs.
We approached the final dinosaur, a forty-six foot tall T-Rex, and Will stopped and held up his arms. “Carry me Mimi! I’m small!” I scooped him up, and he watched over my shoulder as we marched past the overgrown lizard.
Will wrapped his arms about my neck and we followed along behind Hoppy down the trail and past the T-Rex. From the moment your children are born, they are just looking for some way to prove you wrong, but to your grandchildren you are infallible. There are people who never experience this level of unconditional love unless they own a dog.
Once we were past the dinosaurs Will spotted a play area of child-sized wooden houses meant to resemble a pioneer village. Andrew and I settled in and watched him pour rocks into a metal bucket. I tried to snap Will’s picture, but freed from the pressing danger of robotic dinosaurs, he spent his playtime rushing off to explore the little houses at the frontier town. Every shot I took was of his back as he ran away from us.
I won’t always be able to pick him up, but he won’t always need to be carried. How reassuring it must be, however, to know there will always be someone who trails behind, watching over us, and ready with strong arms to lift us when we can’t go on. When we turn to them and plead, “Please carry me, for I am just small.”
Distrustful Cat wonders who is at the door — Photo by Terrye Turpin
I’ve legally changed my name one time. When I married my first husband, I took his last name, and it has stuck through a divorce and a second marriage. Turpin is unusual enough, but my first name is the one that strikes fear in the heart of coffee shop baristas and medical office receptionists.
“Is that with an ‘I’ or a ‘Y’? they ask.
“Just spell it like a normal person would and then add a crazy ‘e’ on the end.”
I’ve heard them try to pronounce my name as two separate words — ’Ter’ and ‘Rye’, like the disembodied electronic voice that calls out directions on my phone. After I correct their spelling or pronunciation, the person asking will remark something like, “Oh! How did you come up with that?”
“You can blame my mother,” I’ll reply.
She’s the one who tagged me with that name, and it never occurred to me I could change it.
Besides confusing grocery store cashiers, fast food clerks, and telemarketers, my name kept me from purchasing a variety of mass-produced personalized mugs, pens, pencils, bracelets, and plastic souvenir license plates. They mocked me with every alternative spelling of my name — there were Terri’s and Terry’s galore, but not a single one ever spelled my name like my mother had. If every parent had been like her, a whole generation of Chinese factory workers would have been out of work, with no one to buy all the cheap plastic goods emblazoned with names that ended without unnecessary letters.
I was in junior high school when I asked my mom how she came up with the spelling. She got a smug look on her face as she explained.
“Back before you were born, I told your Aunt Judy I would name you Terrye, and she told me that was a boy’s name. But I spelled your name with an ‘e’ on the end, and that’s a girl’s name.”
I pointed out to my mother there were four others in my school, three girls and a boy, with my name. None of them ended with ‘e’, two of the girls ended their name with an ‘I’ and the boy and one girl were Terrys.
“Exactly,” my mother answered as though I’d proven her point. “Then when Judy had her youngest boy, she named your cousin Terry without the ‘e’!”
“Wait, who are you talking about?”
Until that moment I hadn’t known my cousin and I shared the same name. My cousin Bun had the misfortune to have two older sisters, who spoiled their baby brother and awarded him the nickname Honey Bun. They shortened that to Bun before his second birthday. No one in our family called him anything else. He even went through the Marine Corps as Bun.
Disappointed Self Portrait of the Author
The day I finalized my divorce I decided to pick up a copy of my birth certificate while I was at the courthouse. I wanted a passport, in case I might need to flee the country or take a cruise. I filled out the form to request the copy and handed it to the clerk behind the counter. She glanced at me over the top of her gold framed bifocals and asked if I had identification. I handed her my driver’s license, and she glanced up at me and said, “Oh, that’s an unusual spelling, how do you say your name?”
“It’s just Terrye,” I answered. She turned and tapped on her computer keyboard, then turned with a frown.
“I found a birth certificate with your parents’ names, and on your birth date, but the child’s name is different.”
Did I have a twin somewhere that I didn’t know about? Had they switched me at birth with some other child?
“Do you still want the birth certificate?” The clerk waited for my answer.
“What name is on it?” I found my voice to ask.
The clerk paused as she squinted at her computer screen. “The name is the same as yours, but there’s no ‘e’ on the end.”
I stood there dazed as I handed the clerk my payment and waited while she printed out an official copy of the birth certificate for this unknown person, this girl child who had not been burdened with an extra ‘e’. Visions of long lines of personalized gadgets and doodads marched through my vision when she placed the document in my hands. There, on the first line — my name, Terry, with no ‘e’. Where had it gone? Had some misguided or careless clerk dropped it? I looked further on the form, and there was the missing ‘e’, stuck on the end of my middle name! Renee with two ‘e’s!
I haven’t finished the passport application. I’m afraid to show up with a birth certificate with my name misspelled. They’ll shuffle me off to some bare room to be questioned by a branch of the secret service dedicated to grilling people who misuse the alphabet. I picture men in suits with square, solid names like Mark and Fred who would glare down at me and ask how I wound up with someone else’s birth certificate.
“Blame my mother!” I will cry out in vain while I hope they don’t notice the extra ‘e’ on the end of my middle name.
I didn’t miss having a dryer until I bought my washing machine. For the two years after my divorce I made do with the community laundry room at the apartment complex where I lived. It seemed a little self-indulgent to complain about the lack of a washer and dryer when there were women dodging land mines instead of worrying whether they would lose a sock to one of their neighbors. Carrying my laundry up and down the stairs and back and forth the fifty yards to the laundry room was good exercise. If it was a cold and rainy day, at least I didn’t have to carry my clothes down to the river to beat them on a rock.
In the middle of my life, when I thought my laundry future set, divorce thrust me back to a college dorm room status. I left a bad marriage with what I could carry in my arms, plus the futon from the upstairs game room. Possibly the last person over 50 to sleep on a futon, I tried to keep my material possessions down to the bare minimum, in case I ever needed to make another quick escape. Back then, I envied the homeless people standing on the corner, tied down to nothing but a backpack and a small, brown paper bag of booze.
“You need a dryer,” my boyfriend, Andrew, said one Sunday morning. We lounged in bed, by this time I had replaced the futon with a full-sized mattress supported on a wooden frame. When Andrew spent the night, we would wake tangled in the middle of the covers, each of us fighting for our share of the space.
Andrew and I met online, matched up by a mutual affection for cheese, Scrabble, and hiking. On our second date I asked him to assemble an IKEA dresser for me, and to my surprise he returned for a third date after that.
“I’ll get a dryer soon,” I replied. The new washer was less than one week old, and I was still adjusting to the idea that my belongings would no longer fit in the back of my car.
“Look, here’s one on Craig’s list, and it has a picture,” Andrew persisted as he held out his phone toward me. “You deserve clean, dry laundry,” he said. He seemed earnest, but I wondered if he’d grown tired of dodging the damp clothes slung over the shower rod.
The dryer in the picture looked functional, and the price was right. Andrew read the phone number off, and I called about the dryer. A man answered the phone in a drowsy Sunday morning voice, accepted my offer of $50 for the dryer, and gave me directions to his house.
When we arrived at the address, I noticed a large storage pod, the size and shape of a railroad boxcar, stacked on the drive way. I wondered if the dryer came from some abandoned unit. Were the people in the house divorcing and dividing up their possessions? I hoped not. I didn’t want to wind up with a vengeful dryer, one that would burst into flames from spite, or chew up my underwear and spit them out like a cat hacking up hairballs.
We made our way past several rusty metal filing cabinets lined up on the sidewalk and toward the open garage door. As Andrew texted that we had arrived, a tall man in flip flops walked out to meet us. A barefoot woman I guessed to be his wife, stepped up behind him.
“Sorry about the mess, we’re moving,” the man said. He motioned at stacks of boxes in the garage. “The dryer’s right in here, if you want to look at it.”
I followed the woman inside to the laundry room. “I can turn it on,” she said as she moved towels to a laundry basket on the floor. She turned the dial on the top of the machine and the dryer responded with a quiet hum and a little quiver as the drum inside tumbled around. I smiled and nodded that she could turn off the machine. As I counted out the money, and her husband and Andrew got ready to load up the dryer, a young girl with the same brown hair as the woman strolled over to us. A small black cat huddled in her arms, a cast on one of its legs.
“What happened?” I said, as I reached out and touched the kitty.
“We don’t know. My husband found her one night on his way home from work. Someone had run over her, or thrown her out of a car I guess.”
“Does she have a name?” I asked.
“That’s Maybe,” the woman told me. “As in, ‘Maybe we can afford the vet bills!’”
This must be a happy dryer, taking care of the clothing for a family that took in and cared for stray cats with broken legs. I imagined the machine tossing my clothes in its warm embrace as Andrew shut the hatch on my SUV, and dryer loaded, we headed back to my apartment.
Later that night I washed a load of clothes, put the wet items in the dryer, and went to the living room. I settled down on my futon with the book I had been reading and listened to the gentle thump of the dryer. The scent of lavender fabric softener drifted through the apartment, a reminder this was what we all deserve- a comfortable place to sit, clean, dry clothes, and someone to help us carry it all upstairs.
I’d been sick with a cold, and in case I didn’t recover in time for the weekend, Andrew and I cancelled the camping trip we had planned. Back then we were still in the early stages of dating when broken plans required a spectacular replacement. He asked me what I wanted to do instead of spending the night shivering in the woods, and I offered up a polka band.
“Brave Combo!” I said, as I hooked my thumbs in my armpits and flapped my arms up and down.
“What is that?” he asked. “Do you still have a fever?”
“Chicken dance!” I said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never done the chicken dance?”
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a dancer,” he answered.
I explained that the famous polka band Brave Combo would be performing in a nearby town, Grand Prairie, during the street festival that weekend. When I added “You can sit out the dancing if you want,” Andrew agreed the festival would be a fine alternative.
We arrived at the main street and located the stage where the band would perform later that evening. Drawn by the drowsily rotating Ferris Wheel and the sugar scent of cotton candy we ambled over to the carnival games. We stopped at one game that offered the chance to win a goldfish or a hermit crab. Dozens of glass bowls and cups sparkled on a plywood tabletop while the game operator, a grandmotherly looking woman wearing a canvas apron, bounced a white ping pong ball on the railing surrounding the playing area. Occasionally she flipped the ball over the table where it bounced through the bowls until, with a last jitter, it came to rest like a round egg in a crystal nest.
“Hermit crabs!” Andrew leaned over the tank on display at the front of the game booth where dozens of the crustaceans, housed in neon bright painted shells, crawled over each other. Several of them seemed to be waving at us, their tiny claws raised in a happy salute, so I put down five dollars for a basket of ping pong balls and we went to work. Five dollars later we had landed one ball in a glass bowl, earning us a coupon we could redeem for a plastic baggie of water with a live goldfish.
“If you want to keep trying, you can trade four goldfish for a hermit crab,” the helpful operator of this game suggested.
“Should we try for a hermit crab?” Andrew asked.
“I should probably tell you about my history with hermit crabs,” I replied.
Photo by Andrew Shaw
When I was twelve years old, my family spent a long summer weekend in Corpus Christi. The three of us, my mom, my dad, and me — spent those lazy days strolling the beach, picking up shells and storing them in a five-gallon bucket, the sort you could pick up at the hardware store and might have once held paint. At the end of the weekend we snapped on the lid and the five-gallon bucket rode home to Dallas in the trunk of the car where it stayed throughout the four hundred and fifty-mile, seven hour drive in hot summer heat. At home at the end of our journey my dad opened the trunk, and we discovered the shells were inhabited by hermit crabs. Once alive, they were now well steamed.
We had to air out the trunk of that car for weeks, and it took me ten years to be able to look at a plate of seafood. I still feel a twinge of guilt whenever I walk past the lobster tank at Central Market.
When I finished the story, Andrew sighed, and we gave our goldfish coupon to an excited child and her not so enthusiastic mother. As we walked away, I hummed my own version of the chicken dance song–“I don’t wanna be a chicken, I don’t wanna be a duck. Please don’t lock me in the trunk, nana nana nana na.”
We shared a snack of popcorn and made our way toward a booth with rows of multi-colored balloons arranged as a backdrop behind a low wooden counter.
“Darts!” I stepped up, eager to play. I love a game where there might be a risk of physical injury in exchange for the chance to win something.
“A guaranteed prize every time!” The man behind the counter shouted as we arrived. One of his eyes tilted downward, and I wondered if this could be a dart related injury. But he held out to us soft vinyl balls, not sharp pointy darts.
“No darts?” I asked.
“No,” the man replied, “But we got this nail behind the balloon, so all’s you got to do is hit it.”
He stepped over and slapped the nearest balloon, which obligingly popped and revealed the sharp, rusty nail behind it. Rusty nails made a fine trade-off for darts, so I nudged Andrew and he offered up a five-dollar bill to the operator.
“Oh! You don’t pay until you win.” The man shook his head and stepped back as though Andrew were handing him a snake. Two throws later we had popped one balloon and scored a toy stuffed goldfish the size of my palm. I shrugged and turned to walk away.
“Wait!” The operator held out another three balls to Andrew. “Keep throwing, and if you don’t hit anything you don’t have to pay.” The man shrugged, his wayward eye winking. “You only pay if you win.”
While I counted on my fingers the cost of the balls so far, Andrew tossed and hit two more balloons. The carnival operator held up his hand. He looked around as though about to impart a government secret.
“Okay, you hit one more balloon and you win the medium sized prize.”
I clapped until the man continued, “And you’ll owe me twenty dollars.”
I tried to decide whether to take my stuffed goldfish and run, and while I hesitated Andrew threw the last ball, popped a balloon, and earned himself the prize of handing over a $20 bill for a stuffed toy made by third world child labor.
Andrew, a good sport, just looked slightly pained while he paid the man and I picked out my prize. The giant fluorescent yellow bananas required a forty-dollar commitment. I wavered between the glittery cobra with jiggly eyes, and the stuffed toy lemurs with bright, fuzzy tails.
“I’ll take the white lemur with the orange striped tail,” I said.
Over the calliope of carnival music, I could hear the strums and toots that signaled the band warming up, so I suggested we go by the car and put the lemur up for safe keeping. His little stuffed paws seemed to grasp my hand in trust and the black stitching making up his mouth smiled up at me like Mona Lisa. I patted his soft fluffy tail and settled him onto the back seat of the car. The glimmer of carnival lights reflected in his big orange plastic eyes as they twinkled back at me.
“I really like this lemur,” I told Andrew.
“I should hope so,” he replied.
“You think he’ll be okay here in the car?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’d hate for someone to see him and break a window to get in. Better put him down on the floorboard.”
“But not in the trunk,” I replied.
“Oh no, never in the trunk.”
I moved the overpriced but not undervalued lemur to the floorboard. Andrew and I held hands as we joined the revelry near the stage. The saxophone called, and the trumpets joined in while Andrew took a seat at the picnic tables set up around one edge of the parking lot. I smiled and waved as I joined a ring of strangers and danced the chicken dance under the lights from the Ferris wheel.
I’d been thinking about adopting a cat. I wanted a soft, purring companion, one that wouldn’t demand I hand over the remote as they snuggled up next to me on the couch. My vision didn’t include dumping out the litter box. Despite numerous calculations, my bank accounts refused to yield the proper amounts for the large pet deposit required. Was I even ready to share my 650 square feet of space with another living being, one that wouldn’t get its own dinner or tend to its own toilet needs?
I mentioned to my boyfriend, Andrew, “Maybe we should get a fish.”
“Oh! Let’s pick up some pill bugs,” he said, “they can live up to three years in captivity!”
I doubted this, as I used to collect them as a child. I called them “Roly Polys”. They tended to last about two weeks, or until my mother spotted the jar I kept them in and made me dump them out.
At least the pill bugs would not require a big investment in dollars. I knew they wouldn’t be cuddly, but I expected them at least to be entertaining.
“What do you feed them?” I wondered.
“They eat their own poop,” Andrew informed me. “And fish flakes,” he added.
We set off to Petco to get a suitable habitat and other supplies. When we got there, I stopped to admire the cats and kittens up for adoption at the front of the store. I sighed over a particularly sweet gray tabby as a store employee came up to me.
“Are you thinking of adopting a cat?” she asked.
“Oh no, I’m just looking at them,” I quickly replied, before I could include “Cat” on my list of impulse purchases.
“What kind of pet do you have?” she continued, a pleasant smile on her face. I froze, looking at this nice gray-haired lady in a Petco t-shirt. I realized if I answered “pill bugs” this might result in a longer conversation than I wanted to have at that moment.
“We have a fish,” I blurted out and then rushed over to join Andrew by the aquarium supplies.
“You denied the pill bugs!” he accused.
“Well, yes, but technically I wasn’t too far off, you remember you told me they were crustaceans.”
Supplies in hand, we managed to check out. Once we got back to the apartment, we assembled our purchases — a medium sized glass terrarium, sand, a small water dish, and a container of fish food. I insisted on putting two plastic plants in the habitat. Andrew tried to talk me out of the tan resin statue of Mount Rushmore, but I wanted to watch a pill bug climbing up the sides like a tiny Cary Grant.
Later that night we went for a walk in the park next to our apartment complex, and gathered up a nice variety of pill bugs. They looked like little armored tanks with antennae. When we set them loose in the terrarium, they scurried around for a few minutes on the plants, but none of them were inclined to scale Mount Rushmore. When we touched them, they rolled up into little balls. They seemed to enjoy the fish flakes and after they ate, they burrowed under the sand and disappeared.
Over the next few days we looked for the pill bugs, but they remained stubbornly out of sight. Apparently pill bugs do not live exciting lives. They are perfectly happy to stay covered in dirt all day and night, venturing out briefly to nibble some fish flakes and possibly some of their own poop before returning to the soil.
Eventually we noticed that the only thing moving in the terrarium was a large colony of gnats. Every time I spritzed some water in for the hibernating pill bugs the gnats rose up in a small dark cloud and zipped toward my nose and ears like kamikaze pilots. Andrew tried vacuuming them up, and he did manage to eliminate some of them, along with one of the plastic plants. He insisted this was not intentional, and swore that he saw pill bugs scrambling for safety after the poor plant was dislodged. By the time I came over to look they were out of sight again.
We had company over, and my friend Susan swatted at the gnats circling her head and suggested we set up a trap for them.
“Use a plastic bottle and some apple cider vinegar as bait,” she said.
Andrew rigged up a device, and before I could protest, he poured in some of my gourmet pomegranate vinegar. They deserved, I allowed, to drown in the best.
I monitored the vinegar trap, but the gnats preferred the warm, moist terrarium and the fish flakes. The pill bugs continued to hide, offering neither amusement nor companionship. Those little crustaceans were poor pets after all.
The gnats ventured out whenever I sat down in front of the television or my computer, drawn by the warm glow of the electronic light. I heard them buzzing around my ears, as though they were whispering secrets. Maybe they wanted to tell me what those pill bugs were up to all night. When I finally gave up swatting away the gnats, several of them settled on my arms and nuzzled against my neck. We sat there in the dark together, their wings light as whiskers and their feet soft as kitten paws.
A trail suitable for walking — Photo by Terrye Turpin
Until I met Andrew, the man who would eventually become my husband, I was blissfully unaware that there were socks designed for specific activities. I purchased my socks in bulk and in solid colors that eliminated the need to make sure I had on a matching pair.
When I started dating Andrew, we spent weekends hiking along the shady trails near our home. I used to call this activity ‘taking a walk’ and it didn’t require specialized equipment. Andrew suggested that my feet would feel better if I were wearing a pair of socks with extra cushioning, and I agreed while we were limping to the car after a five-mile hike over terrain so scattered with sharp rocks and tree roots it resembled a trek through Mordor.
I didn’t realize that there were special socks for hiking, but a trip to REI (Recreational Equipment Insanity) set me straight on that right away. While I puzzled over the price tag on a pair woven from tan and green striped wool, Andrew handed me a flimsy bit of white cloth I held up and realized was actually a pair of socks.
“You should get liners. They’ll help to prevent blisters,” he said.
“You’re telling me my socks need socks?”
I left the store without purchasing anything when Andrew mentioned that REI had an outlet and if I weren’t picky on style, I could find suitable socks at a discount online. I ordered one set in a lovely shade of hot pink, just shy of rose and a little darker than blush, and I figured the color must be what landed them on the clearance section. Surely hiking socks would tend toward more solid, understated colors, like beige or olive green. I imagined that in a pinch I could take them off and use them as an emergency signal since the color could be seen by passing planes.
When the socks arrived, I opened the package to discover they came with instructions in five different languages and a 30 day no risk trial. They were made from a material called Thorlon, which sounded like a character from a fantasy novel.
“By the shield of Thorlon I command you!” I told Andrew.
The packaging described how this material magically prevented blisters. No liners required. A disclaimer on the tag mentioned the socks should not be ironed or dry-cleaned. While I pondered the type of person who would iron their socks and wondered just how this could be accomplished, I was relieved to notice the instructions included illustrations, captioned in English, of how the socks were fitted and cushioned. I worried I would have to learn German to get dressed for hiking.
The colorful tag also mentioned the socks protected against shock, impact, and shear. For a moment I thought I had mistakenly ordered a parachute. I reassured myself by trying them on and walking around my apartment. Although they seemed to have a nice amount of cushioning I didn’t think I would jump out of an airplane wearing them.
I wore the socks the next evening to walk down to the local library with Andrew to return some books. It was a chilly evening, so I put on the bright pink socks with a pair of matronly sandals that had elastic bands at the back, to hold them on my feet.
“My feet are cold,” I explained as I put on the socks and slipped into my sandals.
“Those socks should help.”
“If we get separated, just look for the pink glow,” I told him.
We made our way to and from the library, and Andrew not only walked beside me he carried my books and held my hand for most of the trip. It was dark out, which made it difficult for anyone to spot us I suppose, but the Thorlon material seemed to reflect the streetlights in a rosy glow around my feet. It occurred to me the packaging for these socks ought to include the disclaimer you shouldn’t judge someone until you had walked a mile in their socks. And while they are often found together, a warm heart doesn’t have to be accompanied by cold feet.
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