I have a short conversation in my office this afternoon about a colleague that died recently.  “How did it happen? Why did he die?”  We are past the sobbing and wallowing, so these are more direct factual questions and not the dramatic versions heard closer to the event itself.  Really, we ask, how did he die?  And why, exactly?   It’s an odd conversation spreading essentially useless information to curious persons. 

My day moves on and later that afternoon I am driving home from work and the sun shines from behind my drivers seat, over my shoulders and onto my dashboard as I head eastbound toward home and family.  This  circumstance of sun on dash suddenly lights up all of the dashboard lights normally hidden in darkness until such time as a mechanical warning or crisis is imminent.  The once-every-now-and-then Check Oil light has now been outclassed bya full court press of every idiot light on the panel, all illuminated at once by the stray ray of sunshine.  Oil pressure, Oil service, Temperature, Brakes, ABS, Charging system, Check engine, Air bag, EMISSIONS, Fuel filter water trap, Fuel cutout, Door ajar, Maintenance required, LOW tire.  All at once I am crudely shocked out of my safety zone and into the potentially dangerous  region of  potential dangers.  Things  I had forgotten were even critical parts of my automobile are now ready to leak, stick, jam, dry up, under-inflate, overheat, cutout or stop.  Or in the case of brakes, stop stopping.  My heart races at all of the possibilities I hadn’t considered in my driving, filling-up, cruising around contentment.  So many ways my good old car could just…go kaput.

Then I remember the conversation about our friend dying, and realize this is so similar.  My friend died of a rare genetic narrowing of an artery to the brain.  He had a hemmorage.  Certainly THAT light had never lit up the dash before.  It starts the dialogue that begs the question, What else is on our dash?   What are our idiot lights?  That is why we ask the hard cold questions after a death.  Was she sick?  Is it genetic?  (Could I get it, too?)  Were there any symptoms?  (Did her warning light stay on, ignored, for another thousand miles, because she wasn’t quite sure what it meant, and the “car” was running pretty good despite it?”)

ABS!!?  I didn’t know I have Antilock Brake Systems, and if they fail, then what?  There is so much more to worry about now that this is illuminated.  So much can go wrong.

Narrowing arteries?  I never thought a day in my life about them narrowing or fattening.  If they fail, then what?  There is so much more to worry about now that this is illuminated.  So much can go wrong.

Sleep tight!
Kim

I know what my life is missing.  According to the (too) many hours of quite dramatic television viewing I have succumbed to of late, it seems that my needs are few and readily met.  If I could have a hand-held camera crew, a rockin’ theme song, a few catch phrases to put meaning to my daily tasks, and, of course, a narrator, my day-to-day goings on would go from drab to fab in the time it takes to say, “One woman, one To-Do list, no survivors.”  Here are some ideas I’ve culled (lifted) from various shows:

- Henceforth my trips to the bank will be referred to as the “Dash For the Cash”.
- When I vacuum I will pop the veins in my neck and forehead and yell, “Suck it up!”
- I will begin every activity with the phrase, “Let’s rock ‘n roll, ” except for rock ‘n roll band practice, which I will preface with “Let’s dance, ladies.”
- My office hours will be treated as covert operations, all my co-workers and clients treated as if they were idiots, with particularly ominous music played during all trips to the copy room and kitchen areas.  (I won’t be able to truly swear at work, so I will request that I be bleeped every time I actually say “funding”, in order to nurture my bad-ass-take-no-prisoners-or-messages image.)
- There will be emotional outpourings in my home-away-from-home (the mini-van) and the intimate camera work will capture the true dichotomy of my inner-turmoil, outer…outer-turmoil, the swaying parking permit on the rearview mirror, the kleenex box and baby wipes at easy arms’ reach, NPR in the background, the angst of Garrison Keillor underscoring my inner snark.

Soon my life will be romanticized, glamorized and imitated.  All over the country mini-vans will go about their daily business with a full crew packed in the back, and if you listen carefully at the next stoplight you will hear, “Helen thinks long and hard about pick-up time at Happy Acres pre-school.  She’s got seven minutes to land the short one, hit the bank and head back west, into the setting sun and home to the dog, not yet house trained.  Will Helen’s gamble pay off?” (cue theme music…)

“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.   Oh yeah, and let’s rock and roll!”

Well, it doesn’t help that one of my seventeen kids (okay, four) was “removed” from summer camp today for continually breaking rules.  I’m sure he will enjoy sitting quietly in an office with me seven hours a day instead of swimming, playing and…breaking rules with reckless abandon.  It also doesn’t help that I am multi-tasking on a uni-tasking salary.  I keep meaning to drink more, to relax, but can’t seem to fit it into my schedule.  What a lousy drunk.  Oh, and I’ve discovered GarageBand, so my spare time is now spent like a nineteen year old single boy locked in his room with a guitar and delusions of grandeur (note to the casual stranger:  my days of actual grandeur are formally behind me, and were quite nice at the time).  Last Thursday I exhaled after twenty three days of short sharp inhales.  Stress management is apparently not my forte.