HURRICANES & HYSTERECTOMIES

Hurricanes & Hysterectomies

“The Day My Uterus Died” 

by Linda Carter

August 29, 2005

Ken holds my hand softly as we both focus on the TV in the corner of the pre-op room. Hurricane Katrina is headed for New Orleans, but no one is sounding alarms. It’s just another story.

As we watch the coverage of the storm, I feel a slow warmth move through my body. Only those who have experienced the wonderful world of pre-op drugs can picture what happens next.

You kiss your husband and say I love you, just in case.

Then the bed moves slowly down the hall to surgery, the overhead lights at times blinding you as you drift into a state of nirvana fueled by pharmaceuticals. It’s like God is giving you a naughty pass.

My uterus had always been mean to me, starting with horrendous cramps at age 13. The doctor my mother consulted said this, “Well, she’ll just have to wait until she has children and the pain should ease up.”

I found another route. I started taking the Pill in college and my life changed dramatically. A lot of pain, fear and hassle simply disappeared. Prescription Ibuprofen rounded out my happiness.

Now, years later, I was facing a hysterectomy. You see, those kids never materialized to “ease my pain.” Fibroid after fibroid had cut my quality of life into ribbons. I found a talented female surgeon with a good sense of humor and put myself in her hands.

I was drifting further away now, the rolling bed turning a corner and leading me into a room filled with huge lights. Visions of water and wind mix with a last glimpse of my man’s blue eyes.

August 30, 2005

I blink slowly, adjusting my eyes to the room around me. A sweet nurse brings me toast and something to drink. I ask for the remote control, the news reporter in me refusing to rest.

The world has changed overnight and I am watching a part of America face destruction as the levees fail to hold and New Orleans turns into a quagmire of water, mud, floating houses and dead bodies. I drift back into a drugged sleep, crying softly.

When I wake again, the nice nurse is back, telling me I have been her best patient all night.

I beam with pride that I was able to curl up around three nicely stuffed pillows under a warm blanket and not cause any trouble. I felt so safe, cared for and comfortable, something New Orleans residents wouldn’t feel for a long time.

At home, I recuperate in my bed with two warm kitties close by.  I watch hours of news coverage of Hurricane Katrina and as God is my witness, I think this is when I fell out of love with TV News.

Where was my country? Why had alarm bells not sounded sooner? Why were there children without food in one of the richest countries in the world? How did this happen?

I finally exhausted my ability to consume any more news coverage and picked of all things “The Grapes of Wrath” as a DVD distraction. I was quickly drawn into another time when America was slow to respond to the needs of its people.

During the Depression, families’ lost property, but the real cost to this country was much larger. People lost a sense of place, pride, tradition and most of all, a sense of dignity.

Here is the scene that brings it all home for me, whether I am watching the movie or reading the book.

Outside the Joad tent, a number of children gather to smell the stew cooking over an open fire.

Ma Joad feeds her family first, then instructs the kids to go find a stick so she can share this feast with them. You see in her eyes the incredible sadness she feels in not being able to do more. And you know in your heart, she is the one who went hungry that night.

Linda Carter © 2015

Working Class Hero

A Conversation

 by Linda Carter

“I don’t really get the liberal, conservative thing,” my sister remarked.

“I have always been pretty conservative in the way I dress, talk, raise my kids and live my life. But, because I could care less whether two people of the same sex get married I am considered a “liberal.” She shook her head.

Ten years older than I am, my sister Kathy has always shown caution. She passed on pot and rarely drank. She did tell me she got drunk on gin her first year in college and passed out in somebody’s bathtub. It’s one of the reasons I still speak to her. Without that story, our histories look like a comparison between Mother Teresa and Charlie Sheen.

When it comes to politics, we never talked about it much. We were raised in a working class family of Democrats who benefited from the work of unions and believed in education.

My parents dropped out of high school to go to work, but they made sure all five of their kids got their high school diplomas.

My father loved to read. I remember devouring Louis L'Amour books, True Detective magazines and of course the bible of the lower class, the Reader’s Digest.

My mother loved to play with language and would often mispronounce words to see if I was paying attention. She loved music and the radio and we listened together.

Most families I knew were living paycheck to paycheck. A few doctors, lawyers and business owners had it better, but the discrepancy in wealth wasn’t as enormous as it is today.

Here’s the bottom line. Labels confine us and separate us.

And death collects us all.

Linda Carter

© 2015

All Those Stairs to Grandma’s Apartment

by Linda Carter © 2015

It blew my mind that a little old lady marched up and down this lengthy staircase day after day, sometimes many times a day.  The stairs towered above me as I looked up, toward my Grandmother’s apartment above a plumbing store.

At the top of this lengthy climb lies a long hallway with worn hardwood floors.  My Grandmother’s apartment is the first on the left and I remember seeing that frosted glass door swinging open to a room with high ceilings, an old white gas oven and a double porcelain sink on the right wall.  There are so many surfaces in the room, but they are covered, overflowing with old calendars, daily newspapers, bills, recipes, letters, Green Stamps… I swear she never threw anything away.

Linoleum covers every floor in the apartment and it squeaks under my feet. In the early days of this building, these rooms probably housed a dentist or a doctor’s office. The long narrow living room with high, high ceilings would have made a great waiting area.

At one end of this cavernous room sits a huge stuffed blue couch with sparkling silver threads, a velvet souvenir pillow perched on the cushions. Overhead, a glass etching of the Statue of Liberty in a gold oval frame hangs next to my grandparent’s ornate wedding portrait.

At one end of the room sits my Uncle Cliff, holding court around an antique round dining table with claw feet, a western shirt and blue jeans his wardrobe of choice.

As a child, I sat here quietly, absorbing stories.

Uncle Cliff lights one cigarette after another, crumpling the short filters into the ashtray in front of him. He drinks whiskey and sometimes Christian Brothers Brandy. Uncle Cliff tells fascinating stories and I’m not sure how many are true.

Let’s just say he had to run from cops who caught him in someone else’s pasture and he partied so hearty one time he had to drop trough on the side of the road and change his drawers, literally.

Others dropped in from time to time, my Uncle Herb bringing pop from the gas station and store he owned a few towns away. I didn’t know it at the time, but all these characters and their stories played a large part in who I was to become. 

I was intrigued by words and the tales my family told.

I can still hear the booming, friendly laugh of my Great Aunt Pearl, her white teeth perfectly framed behind the reddest lipstick I have ever seen. She towered above me, a tall woman with a solid frame, but I never feared a moment spent in her shadow. I thought she was colorful, just like this apartment.

The biggest mystery to my child’s brain lay behind a wide doorway that led to the bedroom right off the kitchen. A makeshift curtain droops down the right hand side of the doorway, creating a cave like quality that invites exploration.

A brass bed sits to the right, covered with a fringed bedspread. An old free standing wardrobe takes up much of the left side of the room, filled with clothes and shoes. Beyond the bed, a huge overstuffed closet holds a mountain of clothing and pictures and who knows what. To this day, I wish I could have been allowed to wallow in that mess, finding old stories and souvenirs of days gone by.

The most cluttered room in my Grandma’s apartment was the tiniest. Right off the kitchen stood a narrow door that opened to the bathroom. Just inside sits an ancient claw foot tub, almost invisible with the slips, underwear and other clothing hanging from laundry lines stretched across the room. A red hot water bottle hangs over the end of the tub, a splash of color in a tiny dark space.

I worried about how she bathed and then I remembered how she lived when my Dad was little, settled in an old farmhouse with a pump sink, dust settling into every crevice of home and field, winds destroying dreams as the Great Depression swept over the land and cancer stole her husband.

She lived on Social Security, played cards late into the night and took bus trips around the country to explore history and visit far flung relatives.

She lived a messy life, clutter all around her. And maybe that is her greatest legacy. She knew life didn’t come with any guarantees. She taught me through experience that you can’t always predict or control what happens to you. But you can make do.

THE END

THE ALARM

Story by Linda Carter ©

I’m making a sandwich in the kitchen in my underwear. I had just dragged myself out of bed on a Sunday morning, after a late night “pitty party” that involved a little too much alcohol.

My husband Ken had been in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for over

two months, at the bedside of his terminally ill mother. I was grateful he could be where he should be, but every once in awhile, I was lonely.

And I wasn’t the only one. Our two cats, brothers named Scout and Skylar, were used to Dad being home all day, running his home based business and stopping by occasionally to play.

The two kitties had started eyeing me suspiciously, as if I had created their father’s absence.

Standing at the kitchen counter, I suddenly hear an ominous warning from our alarm system, the speaker blaring right above my head.

“Sensor 81, Help, Help! Sensor 81 Help!” Over and over again.

I was sure I had turned off the alarm when I got up and opened a bedroom window for the boys to get some air. All I could picture was an injured cat trapped by a window or an intruder trying to break into the house.

I bolt for the bedroom and this is the picture I see before me.

Two angelic, furry faces stare innocently up at me, as if to say, WHAT?

I ran for that keypad, frantically trying to remember our code and a little afraid the neighbors would see me a little naked.

Thankfully, silence fills the air, but I knew my journey through Alarm Country was far from over.

As I wait for the call from security central, I slowly put the whole picture together. I surmised that the alarm had been “triggered” by one of eight little paws and I am not completely convinced the little shits didn’t know what they were doing.

The person from the alarm company informs me that Sensor 81 is a “holdup” key, designed to be activated during many scenarios, including a home invasion.

So, let me be clear about this. If someone bursts in and holds

my family at gunpoint, I am to push this button, unleashing a cacophony of sound that could very easily prompt the invaders to shoot ME.

I inform the security system employee that I had actually been held up at “pawpoint” and that I would place the keypad safely in a drawer from now on. 

As I hang up the phone, I reflect on what has happened here.

Two very sad little cats, reaching out with the only desperate plea they can think of… “Help, help, sensor 81… help, help!”

I picture this scenario as police officers arrive and interrogate the two little culprits. Of course one of the cops happens to speak fluent feline and the boys outline their list of complaints.

“She hasn’t played with us in three days!”

“She beats us, yeah she beats us!”

“Our father is missing, we think she did away with him.”

“Check the basement man, it smells down there.”

“Don’t leave us, she’s boring!”

As the police car pulls away, I look down at these two little helpless creatures and sigh, “He’s coming back, I promise.”

THE END

The Obedience Express

The Obedience Express

by Linda Carter

 

I wasn’t scheduled to work that night at my liquor store cashier job, but I received a phone call early in the day from Priscilla, Assistant Manager.

 

One of my co-workers had called in sick and Priscilla asked me if I could work the night shift. Sure, why not.

 

Now that I look back on all this, I remember a scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where Judge Reinhold took over for a kid at the front counter and ended up losing his job.

 

When I got to work, a co-worker told me what needed to be done that night. It was so unorthodox I insisted we confirm our orders with Priscilla.

 

“That’s right,” she said, she wanted us to stock as much wine as possible on store shelves, without writing it on “pull sheets,” the most time consuming and frustrating part of stocking the store.

 

So I went to town and had a blast.

 

Over the course of the night, I loaded 15 shopping carts full of wine out of the back stockroom onto store shelves, carefully organizing them according to brand, varietal and country of origin.

 

I could fit about 12-15 bottles on each layer in the cart and I stacked them four high. I put big bottles under the cart. 60 bottles a trip x 15 trips= 900 bottles

 

At the end of the evening, my co-worker lauded my efforts and told me to write “15 carts of wine” on the daily task list employees are required to check. 

 

Apparently, managers are not required to check this list.

 

Shortly before leaving for work the next day, I read this email from Assistant Manager Priscilla.

 

“Hey guys! When you have some spare time would you mind going over what was completed last night? I still found garbage in displays, an open case of Mikes Hard 6nr on the floor and inventory was not flooded as far as I could tell. I could be missing key things that you guys accomplished. Thank you and I look forward to speaking with you!”

 

I was a mystified and I must say disappointed to learn that moving nearly a thousand bottles of wine in one evening is not significant enough to be noticed by those in charge.

 

On the way to the store, my mind burned.

 

I confronted Priscilla almost immediately, in front of wine reps, the store owner, customers and according to an irate Priscilla, “members of my own staff!”

 

I told her I was pissed, so pissed that I was trying to decide whether to clock in for my 5-10 shift.

 

She looked at me wide eyed, “Pissed, pissed at me?”

I yanked the task list off the wall, pointing to the note I left about moving 15 carts of wine the night before.

 

And then, I unleashed. I lambasted her for sending an accusatory e-mail, a nasty missive with underlying tones of disapproval and condescension.

 

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Byron, the store owner, trying to wave me outside. I follow him, seething.

 

This wasn’t completely their fault. I had taken a job that was far beneath my talents, pay grade and knowledge. I could handle anything but mind games.

 

Priscilla wanted power, she wanted to exert authority and she was too stupid to realize that 9 dollars an hour does not buy that kind of obedience in some people.

 

My first words to Priscilla when she emerged from the building were, “Am I fired?”

 

She replied, “No, but you will be written up.”

 

I reached out my hand and said, “It’s been nice knowing you.”

 

Some days are too short to ride the obedience express.

 

Linda Carter/Copyright 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Girl Scout

by Linda Carter

 

I reach down as the waves lap against my tennis shoes and touch an ocean for the very first time. I am 30 on this blustery, sunny March day.  

We stay right on Capitol Hill in a two-story row house owned by my husband’s friend Bill. Just across the street sits Bullfeathers, the Capitol Hill restaurant and bar rumored to be the inspiration for the gathering place on the sitcom “Murphy Brown.”

Bill gives us the most incredible high-speed tour of the top visits for tourists right after we arrive. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, then the Vietnam Memorial just as the sun is setting. My husband looks up a name, a kid he knew who got killed in Vietnam.

We shop for seafood at the Fish Market, grilling it over a small barbecue in the tiny courtyard in front of Bill’s place. We drink beers and sleep in the big warm waterbed, while Bill bunks in the guest room.

Bullfeathers beckons us on the second day. I don’t remember all of the liquor, but I do remember beers before dinner, wine with dinner, after dinner drinks.

We devour steak, lobster, potatoes and dessert. We talk and laugh and I get to know Bill. What a cool guy.

Things start to soften as I finish my Irish Coffee. I don’t have a big recollection of what happened after that, but I was with two trustworthy guys and I never worried.

I wake suddenly around 2 in the morning, the waterbed writhing beneath me. I bolt for the bathroom. After, I try to crawl back into bed, but another violent episode wracks my body.

Hours later, my husband finds me huddled on the floor at the end of the waterbed. I am covering myself with anything I can find, shivering without blankets.

It takes most of the day for me to get my sea legs under me, but I am on vacation and my man has some of the best newspapers in the country at his disposal.

Bill lends us his car so Ken and I can travel to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware to celebrate my birthday by the ocean.

Right before we leave, Bill casually places a plastic baggie on the mantle and says with a sly smile, “Happy Birthday Linda.”

I will never forget as long as I live that incredible vista from the hotel room balcony. I see huge ships on the horizon and wonder at the vastness of it all.

The sound captures me. Wave after wave slowly crashing against the beach, wind blowing softly through our balcony window and raindrops starting.

I reach for the baggie Bill so graciously gave us and realize we have no way to smoke this precious gift.

I think of the devices I have seen over the years, apple cores turned into fruit pipes, bongs made out of almost anything, the toilet paper roll—hello!

I use my fingernail clipper to tear a starting point on a roll of toilet paper, making sure to stack the soft folds on the back of the toilet.

Cutting into the cardboard tube isn’t easy with the tools I have at hand, but I manage. You know those little packets of coffee they put in hotels? The insides are foil.

I stretch the foil over the opening in the toilet paper roll and punch tiny little holes in it with one of my earrings.

Within minutes, my man and I are standing on our hotel balcony, stoned.

I am 30 years old.  I am looking at an ocean for the very first time, mystified that any body of water could hold those giant ships with their lights blinking so tall in the night.

I am in love with adventure, with the simplicity of just one evening and the belief that anywhere I go from here, I will always make things work.

Story by Linda Carter 2015