The Coffee that Broke the Camel's Back

I was knee-deep in one of those mornings.

The day before, a colleague asked for my help covering her class the next morning at the new Design Studio. The Design Studio sat about 100 yards away from the main campus, and it was so brand new that it wasn't connected by phone or intercom system yet. The students needed someone out there with them in order to work on their projects using the equipment; if I couldn't be there, she would need to reserve classroom space for them somewhere else and come up with a different assignment. I told her I had it covered, no problem.

Which of course meant that it turned out to be a problem after all. In spite of leaving early for work, traffic snarled along the southbound side of the Merritt Parkway, and no amount of rerouting through country back roads could undo the time wasted creeping along between Norwalk and Stamford behind the car with the "COEXIST" bumper sticker. Once I could no longer pretend I might be able to make up the time somehow, I sighed as I fished my cell phone out of my purse to text my boss. I told him I would be late, and someone needed to go retrieve the students and find somewhere for them to be until I could get there. He said he would move them to the library, no worries.

There are a handful of things that raise my blood pressure. Being late is one of them. My stomach churns, I fidget, my heart rate increases, and I take fast, shallow breaths until I notice and try to slow things down. This reaction to being late increases exponentially when I know that the person (or in this case, people) on the other end depends on me to do something. Letting people down--even in small ways--makes me question everything about my life and my value as a human being. I sat there and fretted and stewed, imagining catastrophic scenarios unfolding with the students or a disgruntled colleague slipping and falling on the ice after being dispatched to the Design Studio to move the girls inside to the library.

Just as traffic should have started to open up, though, it came to a complete stop. I groaned and swore under my breath when I saw the wreck in front of me. Two lanes and no exit in sight meant waiting out the arrival of highway patrol, emergency vehicles, and a tow truck to move the cars out of the way, and suddenly I went from being a little behind schedule to cover my friend's class to being seriously at risk of not getting there in time to teach my own. I texted my boss again, with a bit more colorful language this time. He told me to calm down, everything was going to be fine.

When I finally got to school, I ran to my office, threw my purse in a corner, and grabbed my laptop and the folder with my students' work to hand back. I balanced my coffee cup on top of the stack and went blazing towards the glass doors leading from the library to the classrooms, moving as fast as I could without actually running. I have no idea exactly what happened next, but as I walked through the doors, something slipped one way while something else tilted the other way, and the next thing I knew, I had coffee cascading from my computer onto my clothes, soaking the papers and creating a huge slipping hazard on the floor in the process. I came to an abrupt stop, gave a silent scream, sucked in a deep breath, and barely managed to suppress a string of expletives.

At that precise moment I looked down the hall and caught my boss's eye as he watched the scene unfold from the doorway of his office. We looked at each other for a few seconds, me in shock and outraged surprise, him trying desperately to keep it together, and all of a sudden he lost his internal battle for composure and started to laugh.

He laughed so hard tears ran down his cheeks within seconds. He laughed so hard he turned several shades of red and gasped for air. He laughed so hard and so long and showed no signs of stopping as he stood bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees.

Finally I'd had enough. "I'm glad you're enjoying this, but are you just going to stand there and laugh or are you going to help me clean up this mess?" I demanded with all the impudence of a five year old. I might as well have stomped my foot.

He laughed harder. His secretary came away from her desk to see what in the world was going on. The college counselor and her assistant poked their heads into the hallway to assess the situation, but when they saw me staring him down while coffee puddled around my feet, they quickly ducked back into their office. We stood there like that until the Head of School's assistant came up the stairs with a candidate for an opening in the History Department, and my boss finally had to get himself together enough to conduct an interview. He gestured for the young man to wait in his office, went into the bathroom for some paper towels, and helped me mop up the mess on the floor, all without looking me in the eye lest he start laughing again.

He tried to explain later why he found it so hilarious, but I think it was one of those things you had to witness to really understand. It had something to do with knowing what a crap morning I'd had and the comedy of errors when the only thing that could have redeemed at least part of it--making it to class and handing back papers with some semblance of dignity--went completely out the window.

He hired the guy for the history job, though.

Here are this week's prompts from 642 Things:

• That relationship that ended: when did it really end?

• Your worst enemy writes his/her memoir. There's a whole chapter devoted to you. How does it begin?

• When did you not realize you were being hilarious? What was everyone laughing about?

Parking Violations

Trumbull, Connecticut takes great pride in its parks, for good reason: they are beautiful and inviting, and the residents love everything about them . . . except when people from other towns try to use them. Hence Draconian parking restrictions (I used to joke that you had to submit DNA along with soil samples from your backyard to qualify for a town parking pass) enforced to the letter, and woe be unto you if you dared challenge the $25 parking ticket.

Parking and taking guests to the pool created all kinds of community stress, and one summer I happened to notice a post on the Moms of Trumbull (MOTS) Facebook group from a woman whose brother was visiting from out of town. He was disabled and needed to drive his van to the pool, but when they went to the Recreation Department to get a guest pass (for the pool--there was no such thing as a guest pass for parking), the woman working the counter told him he wouldn't be able to park his van in the parking lot without getting a ticket. His sister turned to the Facebook group to figure out what to do; she just wanted to be able to take him and her nieces to the pool.

I thought of my brother and his wheelchairs and modified vans with their mechanical lifts and other equipment; I thought of my old boss who signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law. Reading that post made me really, really mad--mad enough to look up the specific rules about parking in the ADA and post a link to that section in a comment on the Facebook thread, along with my own commentary: he can park that van pretty much wherever he damn well pleases. Tell the park ranger to call me if he has any questions.

Later in the weekend, she posted a photo of her brother in his wheelchair watching his girls splash in the pool and said they didn't have a single issue with parking. That still makes me smile.

Here are this week's prompts from 642 Things:

Think of a time you stood up for a stranger. Write a 10-line story about what happened and why you intervened.

Describe the first time someone relied on you, and how you felt.

Describe a place you've been to that's least like your hometown and explain why.

Le Baiser

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3188/3030277206_6cbf71826f_z.jpg?zz=1

This is my favorite poster I had on my wall in my high school bedroom. I wasn't yet a photographer when I fell in love with the photograph, but I remember catching my breath when I stumbled across it on a postcard in a bookstore. I think I bought the card or maybe showed it to my mother, and I must have mentioned wishing I could have it as a poster, too. Or maybe Mom just decided I needed to have a larger version and surprised me. Either way, it showed up under the Christmas tree--this exact version by Éditions du Désastre--in a metal frame with glare-free glass, and I wasted no time putting it up on the wall. I borrowed my stepfather's hammer, but I can't remember if I used a picture hanger (most likely) or a simple nail. I do remember standing on my bed and lowering it into position, then flopping down onto the mattress to admire it.

Over the next couple of years, I studied that photo at least a thousand times during reading breaks or while sitting in the floor listening to music or talking on the phone. Doisneau's combination of the intimacy of the kissing couple, the motion and hubbub of the street, and the range of detachment and suspicion from the passersby shaped my love of street photography before I ever picked up a camera with artistic intention. On a more subconscious level, the photograph predisposed me to like cities where people move past one another and around cafe tables on sidewalks between office buildings and busy streets. I will always love this photo, and this writing exercise convinced me I need to go find another one to hang somewhere in my home. I wrote a love letter about this photo once. It takes up a lot of space in my mind, still.

I took the poster to my college dorm as a freshman, and it kept me company during all the transitions of that year. When I packed my car to move home that summer, though, I dropped it and shattered the glass. The poster itself ripped in a couple places, and after a few minutes of trying to talk myself into believing I could salvage it, I gave up and carried it to the dumpster where all the other broken stuff from people's dorm rooms had started to accumulate. I added it to the pile, turned on my heel, and walked back toward my car with the flashers blinking and a whole lot of stuff left to load.

Here are this week's prompts from 642 Things:

• What's the largest block of time you've ever had to kill? How did you go about it?

• Recount the day you put your favorite poster up on your bedroom wall. Then write about the day you took it down.

• Describe the supernatural experience you had (or never had but wish you did).