Category Archives: Personal

Avoidance, Part Two

02/02/2020 X Teri Leave a comment

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As with the post two days ago, this is personal. Don’t gatekeep me or question my motives. It’s my story to tell. Although it happens with less frequency now, I remind anyone with gatekeeping tendencies that such criticism reflects on those doing it rather than those accused by them. (Gatekeeping arises either from silencing behavior or apparent superiority, neither of which reflects well on those doing it.)

I wrote a post about my personal take on struggling with someone prone to alcoholism. Anticipating tsk-tsking, I expected a bit of passive-aggressive blowback, along with a few people surprising me by sharing something personal. It surprised me to see that several people shared their own personal stories in the ways they did. Some wrote in the comments, while some shared with me in other ways. Those who commented on the post itself would be astonished to read the range and emotion of those who wrote me privately. Alcoholism and addiction have ruined a lot of lives, most families, and destroyed the possibility of relationships among those around them. Alcoholics and addicts are ghosts who haunt us, whether they are dead or alive.

We’re wasting a lot of our time with this issue. Time wasted on those who won’t help themselves or each other is time we can’t recoup. In an ideal world, this is easy: if you need help, you get it until you’re better. Anything else tells us you’re not in control of your mind or life. Any of us can succumb to addiction. No matter who we are, we all need to get help, whether we are the addict or the person standing next to them. In my ideal world, society gives such help freely and for as long as needed.

No one escapes this. You can fool yourself if you want to. It’s your right. But the lingering effects of addiction stay inside those around the addict.

Conversely, it’s why we are so joyous when someone gets help and leaves addiction in the past. It reminds us of our frailty and also of our ability to live better lives. I could have easily drowned in addiction. No good person turns their nose up at someone who had the ability to rise above.

For every such post I write, I’m amazed at the depth of things all of us seem to share. One person surprised me with the depth of what she told me. Though I wasn’t seeking affirmation, she gave it to me and reciprocated by telling me that what I wrote needed to be written. The pathology of secrecy seems to have angered her as much as anything else. She identified with the crazy-making of being expected to pretend that her life wasn’t affected by a deep undercurrent of pathology. She’s like me; she needs to understand it and talk about it. Not everyone in her orbit sees it that way. That disparity angers her. We can talk about the weather if we need to fill the minutes of our lives. Doing so to exclude the more important and difficult conversations leaves only damaged people in its wake.

Another person who reached out failed to engage meaningfully with the gist of the post. It’s easy for me to judge why that happened. I’d probably be wrong. It’s not wrong for me to admit it disappointed me and rang a broken gong in me to have it sidestepped. She has the power to reach out and heal herself and many people. It’s her story to tell – or not, though. I don’t know how she manages. I would have lost my mind already. I’m hypocritical about my opinions on this. It’s not cut-and-dry.

Most people interacting with me, especially those who did so privately, insist that the only way to live a good life in the shadow of angry alcoholism is to save oneself when they angrily fight the world to continue their addiction. All universally insist that the pathology of such alcoholism ruins everyone who tries to mitigate the effects instead of fleeing it. One woman compared it to domestic abuse and with the same consequences. Most males who are angry alcoholics are guilty of abuse. It’s no secret.

Interestingly, I think most saw the difference between an angry alcoholic and a garden-variety alcoholic or addict. While it might not be easy to put in words, it’s easy to recognize when you’re dealing with one.

A couple of people told me that they had to abandon everyone around the alcoholic too, even when they were close to them. They said that the enablers felt cornered and inevitably lashed out, too, in defense of their choices and their allegiance to the alcoholic, whether based on love, secrecy, shame, or necessity. One person told me she had to learn a new set of skills to deal with the manipulations, accusations, and fallout. Only talking to a therapist made her realize that she couldn’t rescue the alcoholic or those around him – and that she’d lose everything positive in her life and herself if she tried. She still misses someone she once shared much of her life with. Her old friend is still alive. She’s ruined and bitter, but still alive. She blames the world for her choices.

I’m hard-wired to cut out the danger of staying in the sphere of people who have demons they refuse to address. It’s a dance I’ve done several times, in large, looping cycles with different family members during my life. It took me most of my life to hit the wall with my mom. I’ve dealt with the backlash of other family members telling me the same tired “it’s your family” nonsense for my entire life. There’s no obligation to allow biology to demand allegiance that strangles me. It’s possible for everyone to live their own lives if they can release the pathological need to require obedience to family. (The same family that damaged you.)

When I was younger, I was fooled often by the demands toward family allegiance. I fought it. It is that very kind of groupthink, though, that enables families poisoned by shame or secrecy to perpetuate it. If we demanded authenticity and open discussion of everyone in our lives, family included, none of this nonsense would survive very long. Our excuses would be outed immediately. Those who needed both intervention and accusation to get help would be forced into the sunlight quickly. We don’t do that. We whisper in the shadows and tolerate otherwise unacceptable abuse.

I’ve read hundreds of stories of people who’ve successfully burned their bridges. All of them say that the only way to succeed is to burn the bridge and stop looking at its remnants once it is gone. People will judge you in the best of circumstances.

I’m guilty of ignoring the necessity of consistency. As we get older, our lives become narrower and the number of people we’ve shared our lives with shrinks. I don’t know how others deal with knowing they’ve chosen to reduce their lives when people show they can’t behave like we need them to. It’s hard to excise a family member, no matter how other people might characterize your decision.

Until someone can be honest and bridge the gap between reality and fiction for me and I can stop being forced to roleplay, I will stay away again. I’ll work on my guilt. I’m not abandoning the alcoholic. Rather, it stops me from lashing out in anger because of the crazy-making. People had the ability to bridge the gap but chose not to. They’re just dealing with their lives in their own way. Those are their choices. I wish they chose otherwise. To me, it seems as if the alcoholic is still controlling all of us who don’t put our foot down, abandon secrecy, and live for those who aren’t reducing us.

I don’t want to be reduced anymore, or dreading a phone call or random, strange texts at all hours. That’s not joy. That’s disability. I’m messed up enough without feeling obligated to do this dance.

If I can’t tell reality from fiction, I’m out.

Continuing to let the shadow steal the minutes from my life is pure absurdity.

Biographical, Personal, Social Media, Social Rules

Avoidance

01/28/2020 X Teri 2 Comments

This is a personal post. It’s not designed to anger or offend. These are just words, written imperfectly by me without a great deal of redaction, except to protect people’s privacy, even when such protection isn’t warranted. For the gatekeepers who inevitably say, “Don’t put that on social media,” it’s likely that you’ll continue reading, anyway. We’re all voyeurs. Surprisingly, our lives are amazingly similar, no matter what veneer we cast to cover our craziness.

On another note, I’m writing this as myself. It’s my story and one that is mine to tell. Anyone who feels they have the right to question the content or motive of what I share should probably put on a life jacket and then go find a lake to jump into.

It isn’t easy to engage meaningfully with someone if you can’t determine if they are connected to reality or not. With addicts and alcoholics, it can be an exhausting exercise in futility to invest your time and energy communicating with them. I’ve dealt with angry alcoholism all my life. I’m still terrible being myself around it – if that makes sense. It’s one of my most profound faults. I know that the only rational choice is to jump away from this type of addiction due to the short length of time we each have to live. Knowing and doing are opposite sides of the canyon for me. I get irritated with myself when I forget the lesson I’ve learned at least a dozen times.

Like most people, I happily find that my phone rings less often. When it does ring, I find myself dreading to know the identity of the caller. If there’s a voicemail, I don’t even listen to it, all due to one caller. The stupidity of it all is disheartening. I don’t want to dread the call.

While it might be an excuse I differentiate between garden variety alcoholism and angry alcoholism. The impacts of the two kinds yield staggeringly different results. I’ve struggled with an abnormal number of angry alcoholics and rarely had issues with the boring ones. I suspect that most people know exactly what I mean, even if they can’t put it into sensible words.

The truth? I can’t stand angry alcoholics. They give regular alcoholics a bad name. Am I kidding? No, not really. I owe it all to the angry alcoholics of my youth. Each subsequent angry alcoholic stupidly things he or she has magically figured out something new or that he or she has everyone fooled.

If you don’t have a daily connection to the world around an alcoholic, as is the case with many of our friends or relatives who are elsewhere, it’s especially difficult to navigate the pitfalls of maintaining a real connection. We all recognize that we lose touch with the essential part of someone’s life and personality in the best of circumstances. Illness or addiction further erodes our connections. You can forget the idea that you can peacefully navigate someone’s alcoholism AND discuss and address their addiction out in the open. You’re going to get burned.

I’ve learned that anyone who can openly discuss their addiction, previous or current, is probably going to do well in life. Those who demand silence are the worst kind of addict. They’ll ruin your life to avoid dealing with their issue.

The very nature of addiction demands secrecy. Once you see past the curtain that addiction demands, everything you see is infected by that peek.

I’ve found myself in that position. I can’t get past the inability to know if I’m dealing with someone communicating with me authentically.

An alcoholic put me in this position last year. Only by accident did I discover that he’d fabricated an elaborate and false narrative around almost all of his life. He’d lost his job, his health, and his ability to be rational. By accidentally comparing facts with a family member of his, the complex web of falsehoods collapsed. It was a confirmation and revelation, one which still makes me feel guilty; initially, it brought up the anger from a few years ago, when the same alcoholic almost caused me to have a literal nervous breakdown.

Those of us with self-doubt don’t respond well when guilt is thrown into the equation. Because of the malignancy of the alcoholic’s need to maintain the façade of normalcy, I even doubted what was plain to me – and my instincts, which have been honed by a lifetime of exposure to such behavior.

The revelations that erupted from the mess changed the way I looked at the last twenty years. It corrupted my memories of anything that happened since I was a child.

When I tried to force a confrontation to get past it, it went to a very dark place. It’s one that I haven’t pulled myself out of in regard to the alcoholic. I spoke in anger – and righteous anger at that. It sounds unfair to say it, but righteous anger in the face of that kind of behavior is the most human response possible.

After a while, another family member of the alcoholic who was my touchstone for the alcoholic’s reality told me that there was no upside to keeping me informed. While I understood the family member’s fatigue of the melodrama that resulted from the collision between reality and fiction, it robbed me of my ability to distinguish the truth. They stopped bridging the connection between us. The alcoholic used deceit and misdirection to avoid real conversations about the consequences of his addiction.

The result of this, however, is that it’s been almost insurmountable for me to talk to the alcoholic, which makes me feel even guiltier.

My upbringing has damaged my patience in dealing with such behavior. It’s easier to stay sane and balanced by avoiding the spectacle of addiction consequences.

If I talk to the alcoholic, I’ve no way to know which parts aren’t true. Given the huge disparity between this,truth and fiction that I discovered last year, I’m convinced I’m still being “had.” While I can talk to the alcoholic, it almost feels like roleplay – and I’m an actor forced to adopt the role that I’m crazy and that the alcoholic is normal.

It pisses me off.

My guilt with the recognition of the abhorrence I feel toward having fake conversations makes me immobile. I can’t call – and I can’t answer calls from the person.

I would love to write the person in question and have him write in return. That option, though, is not available for reasons that don’t make sense. The alcoholic can read and write as an incident involving my blog proved.

So, I can superficially engage while struggling with my guilt and distress, or I can continue avoiding contact. Given that the family member of the alcoholic probably doesn’t want to expose old wounds again, I’m left with terrible options. All of them diminish me and diminish the alcoholic.

Many people, like me, have lesser lives because we’re forced to exorcise people from our lives to live with any joy in our hearts.

It’s an imperfect world.

I sit. I wait. I dread.
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P.S. “Agreeing to things just to keep the peace is actually a trauma response. When you’re doing this you’re disrespecting your boundaries. No more making yourself uncomfortable for others to feel comfortable. You have control now. Use your voice. Take up space and use your voice.” – I close with these words because someone posted it on their social media around the time I was having the most difficulty with this issue. There’s no doubt that these words would evoke an anger response, for reasons that are complicated to explain.
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Biographical, Personal

A Personal Story

11/04/2019 X Teri Leave a comment

This is a personal story. It explains a sensation that infrequently overcomes me. Maybe you’ll find something interesting in it.

I’m re-watching “Breaking Bad.” When the episode “ABQ” came around, it hit me like an anvil, exactly as it had during the first watch. Not only is the episode one of the best television episodes ever made, but it also resonates with me like a gong. It’s not just the contrasting complexity of circumstances in the show; it’s the familiarity I feel when I observe people around me as they incorrectly calculate risk and probability. On a long enough timeline or with sufficiently strange variables, darn near anything is likely to happen to any of us on a given day.

On Saturday, Sept. 28th, 1991, around 11:30 a.m., a plane crashed on the trailer I lived in. I was inside, watching a movie, and attempting to forget the fact that I had called in for the first time from work that Saturday. Like Walter White, I was deep inside my own head until the pilot crashed. I too looked up toward a crisp blue sky, seeing a jacket and parachute slowly descending toward the ground. It was surreal, unnatural, and moments passed before I saw the plane, followed by the pilot dead at my feet.

Every time I mention the story of pilot Joe Frasca crashing and dying, someone new comes forward with a crazy tidbit to demonstrate how intertwined we all are.

Because I watched “ABQ” again, I now find myself looking up like an OCD sufferer. It happens every time that something drags me back 29 years ago. The urge will pass, as it always does.

The concentric, albeit hidden, circles that surround us also bind us.

One lingering effect of the plane crash back in 1991 reminds me of the bewildering complexity of probabilities. It’s why I look at lotteries a little differently than most people.

We’re all on the timeline. Sooner or later, it’s going to happen.

Whatever ‘it’ is, it is coming.

Ready or not, the anvil awaits.

North Little Rock, Personal

Parking Lot Oscar Goes To…

10/18/2019 X Teri Leave a comment

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We stopped at Conway to eat. Interestingly, I had an interaction with a homeless man wrapped in a large, dirty blanket. He spoke with such a soft voice that I could barely hear him. I gave him $5. He reminded me so much of Omar from “The Wire.” As I waited for my wife to go to the restroom again, I watched the cashier take the bill from the young man and hold it aloft with the very tips of her fingers of her left hand. She didn’t realize that she was also making a very disgusted face as she did so. I’m not judging her. The young man didn’t either. He was laser-focused on getting something to eat. Whatever else was going on, his hunger was real.

After departing Conway, my wife and I had another conversation about being careful around people. Being a hypocrite, I ignored my advice several times already. I used to joke that someone beating me up might accidentally render me better looking.

I don’t worry about getting killed by a stranger, either. It’s obvious to everyone that pepperoni and Mexican food will be my assassins.

As my wife and I arrived at the hotel, we heard a car horn beep a few times. I didn’t see anyone. My wife thought it might have been directed toward us. In general, I ignore all horns until I have reason to believe they’re directed at me, such as the case when the hood of another car suddenly comes through my windshield. This behavior will serve me well, provided I survive to an older age.

On the third trip back to the car, I heard someone shouting. “Hey, you from Arkansas?” I heard a deep male voice shout but couldn’t discern from where it emanated.

I heard it again. As I walked toward the exterior of the hotel, a large man exited his car. Jokingly, I said, “Yes, can you tell by how dumb I sound?” He responded by saying he was from Arkansas, too, and proud of it. He couldn’t be a hog fan. It seemed odd. We were both in Arkansas.

The man had tears running down the right side of his face. He held out his right hand. In it, his driver’s license. My alarm bells rang like they might at a fancy wedding. He began to weave a tale about where he was from, his brother, a pastor, and his mom in a hospice home somewhere in what seemed to be at least two different places.

It’s important to note that in general, I’m a softie. There is an element of danger in these encounters. There are unicorns – cases in which the person truly needs a hand. Honestly, almost all of them are scams.

I gave no sign that I was aware of the long con unfolding in front of me.

As he talked, I already imagined his turn at the podium as he accepted his Oscar for Best Actor. He made Jennifer Love Hewitt look like an amateur as he spun his verbal gold to me.

I love a great scam if it’s creative and intricate. I consider it to be performance art.

He proceeded to tell me about his mom in hospice. He turned and said, “____, give me that envelope.” I didn’t catch his wife’s name. Until he said her name, I didn’t realize anyone was seated in the front passenger seat, despite it being fully light outside. I didn’t need to see proof of anything. His license had blown up the facade of his performance for me. I would have been a fool to cut his act short, however.

Nevertheless, his wife made an angry face and fished an envelope out of the console. The man reached inside the car to retrieve it. He opened it and then pulled out a letter that had seen much use. Across the top, it read “Hospice” something. He then mentioned his daughter in the car. I didn’t see her. His speech then went up three gears, and he recapped his initial spiel and fluffed it up with an additional fifty details. It was impeccable. It’s the best such rehearsed plea I’ve heard.

I got out my wallet and handed him a $20 bill. On a whim, I stepped toward him, very close, and reached out to him with my left hand. As his hand came up, I crossed my right hand over to shake his hand and gave him the bill. It’s difficult to describe, but the veneer of desperation he had on his face disappeared for a split second. I was watching his wife from the corner of my left eye. As I stepped toward her purported husband, her head swiveled rapidly toward me; her disinterest vanished as she seemed to go on high alert. In her defense, with my head freshly-cut, I do look like a skinhead weirdo. The reactions of them both convinced me they thought their scam was successful.

“I just wanted food, sir,” he said, even as the bill expertly vanished into his right front pocket.

I shook his hand and nodded. “Good luck on wherever you’re going and whatever you’re doing,” I told him. “I mean that.”

Before I even got back to my car, I looked back. Their vehicle was already disappearing around the backside of the hotel parking lot.

I don’t know how they’ll find him to let him know about his Oscar nomination.
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P.S. I hope his mom stops violating the laws of physics by being in multiple places simultaneously. Had it not been dangerous to bring up, I would have gladly critiqued his story for him so that he could adjust from the errors I caught and improve his act. Practice makes perfect.
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Humor, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Personal

Cursed Crossed Crosswalk

10/17/2019 X Teri Leave a comment

Due to a medical condition known as laziness, I didn’t take a bona fide pre-dawn walk this morning, as is my custom when I’m out of town.

I did take one later. It was coolly fresh and the riverwalk was mostly devoid of the pests otherwise identified as “other people.” It was divine. I listened to music and noted a few clever hiding places that homeless people had managed to find and use in the chilly weather.

Having miscalculated how far down I walked, I traversed an expanse of wet grass and exited onto a busy arterial street. Due to construction on the right, the entire swath of the sidewalk was gone.

Given that the road was marked with substantial 4-foot white letters, a series of bright white perpendicular lines, as well as signs on all sides indicating “Crosswalk” for both sides of traffic, I thought it would work like I’m accustomed to. The Indy 500 roar of engines proved me wrong. I waited. I waited some more. Because I’m brilliant, it dawned on me that I might have to dash to the middle and then proceed the remainder of the way if traffic abated. It was obvious no one was going to stop, despite the multitude of indicators they were supposed to.

I waited for a couple of minutes. As a considerable gap appeared ahead, I waited and stepped from the curb. Just as my foot hit the pavement, a car miraculously zoomed out of a parking lot on the left and took the right turn onto the arterial street, going at least 30 mph. It was very close when it popped out. The driver of the compact and ornately decorated Honda hit the horn and brakes. He came to a complete stop, a little inside both lanes.

As expected, his morning cup was filled with angst and cow manure. He opened the driver’s door and stepped out. He looked like his car if you can imagine what I mean. His hat was on backward. He, of course, wore a bright blue sports jersey advertising an unknown athlete.

“What the f you doing, man? This ain’t a crosswalk!” He seemed excited to see me – except for all the wrong reasons.

I pointed at the markings literally at my feet and then the diamond-shaped “Crosswalk” sign.

“Whatever. I got places to be. Get the f out of the road!” He started to get back in the car.

As he did, my mouth did what it does best: it overpowered me. I’m proud of it, though, if only because it didn’t get me killed this time.

“Jesus loves you!” I shouted.

“Yeah. And?” He asked. It was perfection.

“And everyone else thinks you’re an asshole!” I shouted as he stood there, shocked I had one-upped him.

Behind him, a driver honked his horn, which ratcheted up the man’s obvious anger issues. I hot-footed it across to the median as the Honda driver slammed his door and hit the gas, screeching away.

I’m going to miss him. Jesus misses him, too.

But really.

Everyone else assuredly thinks he’s an asshole.
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P.S. I’m glad this happened because it resulted in a great story. Plus, the Honda jerk will live forever on the internet. I sure hope he figures out what those strange lines on the pavement mean, though, if not those weird signs dotted along all the roads. It’ll save him some trouble.

Business, Customer Service, Humor, Opinion, Personal, Product Review, Review / Critique

Robin Hood of the Retailers, Version Aldi

10/15/2019 X Teri Leave a comment

I’m not going to share the ‘why’ of my previous oath to avoid Aldi grocery stores. Suffice it to say that they earned my dislike. Unfortunately, I carried the prejudice forward for years. Once bitten, twice shy, at least for this guy. It’s for the same reason I don’t buy meat products at a Dollar General. Russian Roulette is a game I like to watch in action movies – not participate in when my gastronomical choices are at play.

Aldi has many fans. People like blood sausage, too, as well as watching baseball on television, so popularity doesn’t equate to sensible. The store chain does have a few things going for it. It’s like the “Frugal Hoosiers” made famous in the tv show “The Middle.” The chain does have the “Twice As Nice Guarantee.” I’ll take the expectation of a safe, quality product or my money back. You don’t have to sing and dance for me – just meet expectations. Anything else strikes me as a means to acknowledge that you’re cutting corners on a square house.

“There’s a sense of discovery at Aldi that you don’t find in a traditional grocery store,” say many fans.

Yeah, like discovering the off-brand version of the mustard I had to buy tastes like a chicken fart.

I don’t mind that an Aldi store doesn’t have staff answer the phone. I don’t need to talk to a head of lettuce before I shop. It’s stupid, though. Just my opinion. Any corporation which reduces a customer’s ability to interact isn’t customer-focused, no matter how prettily they paint such an arrangement.

Location quality varies, as is the case for many retailers. Even I often forget that it’s unwise to compare one location of a business with another. There’s too much volatility between managers, cleanliness, and adherence to quality standards. Sometimes, a great manager can rescue an otherwise failed store. The Kroger Superstore in Hot Springs, for example, is spectacular, while the Kroger in my original hometown is… not. One of the Springdale Neighborhood markets is operated as if it’s a psychological experiment geared to determine how much people hate themselves. Harps Foods is so inconsistent in quality that I’m still incredulous that the individual stores are operated by the same system. I dare anyone who visits the Gutensohn and Lowell locations to challenge me to a pie-eating contest to decide the truth of my opinion.

On a whim, I stopped at a local Aldi earlier in the year. I went home a different way, and Aldi was locationally convenient. It didn’t hurt that I had recently suffered blunt-force head trauma. I don’t know what came over me, but the urge to eat a bowl of fish aquarium pebbles and stop at Aldi penetrated my reptilian brainstem.

The smaller footprint of the stores and parking lots of an Aldi store make a trip less invasive than a similar trip to the airfields found at Walmart. The smaller footprint of the stores means you might not find everything you need, either. Like your sanity.

I didn’t have a quarter, so I did the hands-full shuffle. I found some interesting items. One of the items I bought was inedible. (No, I didn’t attempt to return it.) On the next visit, I had a quarter. I stuck it in the slot for the cart, and it literally stuck. None of the carts would come out. I went inside and waited a couple of minutes for an employee to make eye contact. I told them the cart corral was needing attention, and I couldn’t get a cart. Eye roll. “There’s no one to deal with it.” Back to checking. Aldi’s employees often must do multiple jobs simultaneously. It’s not their fault: it’s corporate’s fault. Like Walmart, they ‘save’ money by eliminating jobs. Many of those jobs lost would have allowed for attentive customer service and real-time listening when things go awry. I didn’t get irritated at the cashier.

I can only hope that this attitude of cost-cutting doesn’t one day find me in the O.R. needing a suture to sew up my own abdomen.

For my next trip to Aldi, I withdrew $20 from an ATM and then stopped by the car wash and made change for quarters. I drove back to Aldi and parked on the outer perimeter of the parking lot.

I then went to the cart corral nine times. Each time, I inserted a quarter and ‘rented’ a cart. I took each cart to the edge of the parking lot and used the nine carts to make a large arrow facing the store. I’m no Banksy, but I did feel a twinge of stupid pride when I finished my artwork with the shopping carts.

I then went back to the cart corral and took out ten more carts, one at a time, by paying a quarter. I left them loose to the left side of the return corral. Because I always carry white index cards, I left a card on the first few indicating, “Free Cart. Please leave loose.” People observed me doing all this but didn’t comment.

Was it petty? Yes. Worth it? Yes. I was also paying it forward, though, even as I entertained myself.

One of the women shopping exited the store and told me she had watched me assemble the arrow on the other end of the parking lot. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? Just hire a person and keep the store tidy.” Due to her appearance, I was sure she was going to scold me. Her face was pulled back so tight I could hear her ears yelling in pain. She was nice, in any case.

People saw the loose carts with the cards on them, and each smiled and grabbed their free cart.

I felt like Robin Hood of the Retailers.

Imagine. Free carts, with each of us leaving them for the next person. Like a typical store not corraling us into doing their jobs for them.

If I can enter a store and not worry about expired food or being unable to shop easily, I’ll pay for the entirely reasonable expectation of a normal shopping experience.

When people ask me, “What do you like best about Aldi,” the only thing I can tell them is, “I don’t have to go there.” The second-best thing is, of course, the feeling of walking out of one of them.

If I have to choose between Aldi and Walmart, I’ll choose a lobotomy.

If I make the mistake of going to Aldi again, I plan to take 500 quarters with me. I’ll let you imagine what I might do with such a quantity of quarters.
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P.S. If you’re a fan of Aldi, I’m not worried about you reading all of this. It’s a lot of words.
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Humor, Personal

Almost Love

10/12/2019 X Teri Leave a comment

clean version

At least she loves somebody? 🙂

Personal, Uncategorized

Regarding Bathrooms and Other Trickery

10/01/2019 X Teri Leave a comment

Because I have entered the wrong restroom many more times than I’d care to admit, I present this proof that I’m still an idiot.

My wife and I went to Crystal Bridges with people who’d never seen its mysteries. I worked hard to avoid tripping over the displays or falling on top of babies in strollers. I’m not a great driver and I’m equally prone to stupidity merely walking around. Whether it is symptomatic of Imposter Syndrome or merely an indication of my self-awareness of my own ability to do stupid things, nice venues like the museum sometimes trigger my survival instincts.

I’d rather not be on the nightly news for falling through a famous art display.

It’s going to happen, though. Seriously. I know it is. I’m going to be one of those dolts who walk into a fountain or back up over a railing into the Grand Canyon. Or hit the gas and hurl myself through a store window. It’s a question of when.

I waited a bit too long to use the restroom. The coffee, soda, water, and other beverages I’d downed sat in my gullet like a gallon of water.

I went around the corner and just as I was about to hit the magical “door open” square on the wall, I heard water inside. I froze. Was it one of those segregated restrooms with floor-to-ceiling stalls, or was it a devilish trick? The family restroom was on the opposite side of the vestibule inset, so I knew that I was going to run into some weirdness regardless of my choice. Because of my uncertainty, I stood, immobile, proving my idiocy to the stream of people passing by. My friend took a second to capture my indecision in the picture. My wife finally told me to go inside. I did. Luckily, there were no unprepared victims inside as I entered. Even so, I found myself to be in a huge hurry as if the door was about to burst inward with a swarm of chatting ladies.

My restroom visit was otherwise without surprise.

Yes, I know the emblem on the bathroom door is simple.

The problem? I’m simple, too.

Biographical, Personal, Uncategorized

Alcoholic: Episode 1,378

09/25/2019 X Teri Leave a comment

Do not read this post if you are easily triggered or don’t want to inhale a topic not customarily laid out in plain view on social media.

Because I’m hoping that one of the people I know will one day get the courage to write a book of the insanity she’s lived with, I’m writing this public service announcement. She will discover that sharing what once was taboo will liberate her. She is not responsible for what happened to her. It’s a lesson I know better than most. You would think my exposure to alcoholics who refuse help would make me callous to the evil they spew into the world. To my surprise, I’m still surprised, though. Alcoholism only thrives in secrecy; everyone who has dealt with addiction knows this. Our most common reaction, though, tends to be protective until it is too late.

Our silence makes us traitors to ourselves on a long enough timeline.

Everyone deserves a chance, a helping hand, and a fresh start. Or two. Or three. Not twenty-three, though. And not at the literal expense of the friends and family around you.

If you’ve ever driven so erratically through a high school parking lot that students use their phones to record you, you’re probably an alcoholic. This is doubly true if you have no children in school, anywhere, especially on a random (and early) Wednesday morning. Triply true if you’re retired. It doesn’t help to throw all your alcoholic beverage containers out the window while you’re being filmed, either. If you top all that off by nearly killing several people, Betty Ford needs to see you. If a group of police comes to your door and you lie to them, even after they show the video that high school teenagers took of you, in your car, as you endangered the lives of several people, you definitely have a drinking problem – and not the kind popularized in the movie “Airplane!” By all means, though, keep lying and insisting that the world is against you. I hope that the students who were endangered upload the video of you careening through the parking area around them to YouTube.

If I sound a bit angry, it’s because I know someone whose career should have made it impossible for him to fight tooth and nail to keep drinking, even after it cost him his career, his health, and the sanity of those around him. His background was similar to mine. His childhood was filled with sociopathic, violent, and angry alcoholics. He continues to get into vehicles to drive, even though he is drunk. As far as anyone knows, he hasn’t killed or injured anyone yet. (Unlike both my parents, who killed and severely maimed people because their love of alcohol made them less than human. Their combined DWI tally is simply too high to be believable.)

As for the person in question, I fought hard to get him the help he needed years ago, even as my sanity slipped. His job protected him from consequences; in part, they are as responsible for his worsening addiction as he is. His career is filled with a markedly high concentration of addicts and alcoholics. Some of the bureaucracy that protected him from consequences suffer from the same addiction. It is ironic that these protectors failed to protect anyone and in fact worsened the addiction by being the ultimate enablers. Not surprisingly, I’ve found this type of concealing behavior to be universal.

I sit and wait for the final word. It will be an inelegant death, and hopefully, one not bordered by the tragedy of others continuing to suffer for his poisonous choices. Since nothing has convinced the addict that he must change, I now hope that those around him pull away and let him find the bottom that he has insisted upon. It’s impossible to swim to shore and save yourself with dead weight on your shoulders. Love both expands and constricts us into choices.

I have no sympathy in my heart for the addict and it is a painful admission. He used his career and his intelligence to assault and beat down anyone who called into question his misbehavior. Literally, anyone.

Recently, I again risked my sanity and tried to convince the alcoholic to get help. He has great insurance, a great retirement plan, and people who have supported him even through years of grievous indignation. He lashed out with some of the angriest, vilest, most personal hatred a human could possibly dish out.

98% of my sympathy lies with the people whose lives this addict has ruined. Their daily struggles, their failed optimism, and hopes, and their inability to live full lives. They are in a holding pattern, waiting for the worst, to testify and witness against a life that is imploding around them. They are victims without an expiration date.

I sit. I wait. I hope that those infected by those with addictions choose freedom over loyalty. Life is too short.

Now, whether you want to or not, you know a little more about me. There’s a good chance that you will recognize people you know in this story. It’s not a new story.
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