Juice Box and Other Fails
It was the mid 80’s and grand opening night soiree for a new hotel in Corpus Christi. Whenever any big name brand chose my hometown to plunk down an outpost in, the whole city would get giddy. Who little us? And we all turn out like we’ve never had a free burrito before. Tickets to this grand opening shenanigans were coveted like the last ibuprofen on January 1. A co-worker and I snagged two. Cindy, a single mom of a four year old, was jazzed for a rare, free night out. Me, hometown girl freshly back from six years away at college and work, had my best Dillard’s on and was stepping out.
Cindy drove and as we pulled through the portico, valet dudes opened our doors and offered hands to un-wedge us femme fatale wannabes from her compact car — — mall bangs, puffy sleeves, high heels and all. The name tag on my chest should have read Hot Shit instead of Mary Pat because that’s how I felt. I sashayed through the lobby, feeling tres special, nodding, throwing out big toothy greetings like Mardi Gras beads from my personal float. There was something a little off with my walk, but I chalked that up to my unfamiliarity with stiletto heels. I was about 10 minutes into my hot shitness, deep in the crowd when the valet caught up with me. “Ma’am,” he said. “I’ve been trying to find you.” He was trying hard to suppress a smile as he pointed down to my shoes. There, causing that slight drag on my left foot, perfectly pierced by my heel, was a child’s juice box, my plus one.
Choices on the fly run through your head: A) be embarrassed and slink off into the corner shadows and extricate sticky box in the dark. B) Throw your lacquered big hair head back and laugh riotously while sharing how you usually go for the grape flavor and not the fruit punch. Declaw from shoe and hand to valet with a tip.
There are lots of things that happen to us as we sashay through life. Some can suck the life out of our strut, threaten to permanently erase what it feels like to feel light, pull the plug on future joy. This is no frickin’ journey — — it’s a roller coaster that runs in a continuous loop, inciting both nausea and glee. Choices on the fly: A) Hold on tight, close your eyes and scream B) Arms up over your head and laugh, reminding yourself that this particular ride is only three minutes and seven seconds and the terror will end.
What goes up does come down. In physics as in life, good and bad are both impermanent states. What if the things that tug at our heels and threaten to trip us up are really something else? The universe grabbing our attention, and slapping us around to get us to course correct?
Sixty years in, there are many things I didn’t want to be an expert in. Many of us have personal intermissions thrust upon us. We look up from the program and say “Whoa, I don’t recognize this script. There’s been some mistake — -rewrite!”
The picket fence may be splintered, the home sweet home needs mold rehab, and we find ourselves members of those acronym clubs that are not so exclusive anymore: D-I-V-O-R-C-E, STD and PTSD. You don’t want to know the secret handshakes. And, still, we queue up for more. Not because we are bullet proof. We have inner honing devices that are pre-programmed to nudge us ahead when our hands hover over the eject button.
