February, 2020!
Ok, so we have been on and off of doing this through January. We are going to keep the current method of assigning a method. We’ll try a different for next month. To be fair, there has been a lot of work-related time hang-ups and all that jazz….so we can give some space…it’s our first month, dammit!
So let’s start…
Sunday, Feb. 2: Emma, your next assignment is “Write a conversation two people are having at a cafe”
Lady on her cell phone (LOHCP): ……..
Dude on his cell phone (DOHCP): ………
LOHCP: ……………
DOHCP: …………….
LOHCP: Looks up. Looks around. Looks at coffee.
DOHCP: Side eyes LOHCP.
LOHCP: grabs coffee. Drinks coffee. goes back to her cell phone.
DOHCP: ……
LOHCP: ………
DOHCP: “I think that was my coffee”
LOHCP: …….
DOHCP: ……
LOHCP: “Oh.”
Mom, Your next topic is: Write a letter to the spider that you just ran into.
Dear Mrs. Wolf Spider, or may I take the liberty of friendship by calling you by your more familiar name, Itsy),
After running into you recently and rekindling our friendship, I feel compelled to write this heartfelt letter of apology because of the guilt and pain I still feel for a poor and fateful decision I made many years ago, and one, which I can never undo.
We have been friends over the years, but I still regret causing such wrong to your family by harming your great grandmother who made herself, and then her family, a loving home in a nice dark box in the garage. I regret that my ignorance led to shock and fear, which then caused me to impulsively execute a horrific act that ended her life. This cruel response has caused me much grief over the years. Once an impulsive action takes place, nothing can change the course of its destructive finality. I sorrowfully regret my actions that day.
I feel it a great honor that in spite of my unintentional cruelness you choose not to condemn me but have your daughter, Mab, accept my invitation to move into the corner of my back porch and help decorate it with her very beautiful and intricate layered web. I doubt many of us in the human world could duplicate its magnificence.
I also am very grateful that even though you have many children, you encourage them to drift on the wind when they are of age to find their own way in life. I wish upon wish that, like your daughter, they found safe and fruitful haven in this world we share.
Thank you for being a wonderful, kind friend.
Irene
EMMIE, Your topic is: Write about the last time you felt indispensable
Usually, I feel indispensable when with a team and we are knee deep in work. A part of my job has always been the glue to keep teams together and the grease to keep them going. I am on the same level as the team, they do not work FOR me. We work WITH each other.
That being said, teams tend to be in an office or company environment. These are generally not owned by one person (I know, some are….but those are actually quite rare) as there are investors and other decision-making groups at hand. As much as I feel indispensable in the group, I am VERY well aware that I am replaceable. Every single team member is replaceable. My boss is replaceable. My boss’ boss and upward are replaceable. Many times, it is not our choice to be replaceable and that can make you feel dispensable. However, I will say that just the simple understanding (not just knowing…..but UNDERSTANDING*) that to a company I, and everyone else is dispensable, makes me MUCH more resilient and indispensable to myself, because I DO have control over that. I may not have control to what happens outside to me, but I am ultimately responsible to how I act and react. It allows me to be able to negotiate better for myself. I am in a place where I am comfortable in doing so. There are absolutely times when I have sad and down times, but I do not live there. I allow them to be and let them pass.
The best place to be is feeling indispensable to yourself. Because if you rely on a company or an individual to validate your value or “indispensability” you will always be living for that person and their ever-changing opinions. You will never get to know yourself, because you are too busy being someone you are not.
*”Knowing” is passive while “Understanding” is more active. For instance, you can know the universe is expanding, but can you truly understand it?
Mom, your next assignment is: What you really wanted to say to the customer service representative when you called about your broken appliance.
My first house. I am so excited. Everything is perfect. Apart from a few minor things like a leak in the roof, and a medicine cabinet which light that was grounded to the metal sink below and made it come alive every time the bathroom light was turned on (obviously the work of a very stupid know-it-all previous homeowner fiddling around with something he knew nothing about, which nearly made my extremely young children orphans before their life had even gotten underway)…but this was my own home. Albeit my palace was in the middle of no where and I had no car. But it was mine, oh and my (at the time) husband’s, and our wonderful children.
One of the things I had to get was a new refrigerator. My own. It was a nice new Whirlpool that kept cool everything we needed to keep cold. The milk, eggs and sauces fit very nicely on the shelves in the door, and meat nicely stacked in the freezer—all was good in my world.
But then my nice shiny world began to fall apart, and it started with the refrigerator. We had had it only for a few months when I noticed cracks in the shelves of the door. It began to crack so badly that I couldn’t keep anything on the shelves. Because it was under a year old, I called the Whirlpool company service line. A young woman answered the phone and I told her about the door and how I would like it replaced.
She asked me a few questions, which I thought were a little on the personal side and definitely out of the ordinary. The last question was, “Do you have children?” “Yes”, I answered curiously, “What does that have to do with it.” She replied, “How old are they?” And I stupidly answered, “My oldest is two years and the other six months. Why?” “Well that’s the problem.” she said. “What is?” I answered. “Your children have broken the shelves on the door by climbing up them. We do not cover appliances that have been abused by the owners” and promptly hung up. I was outraged. My son had never climbed the shelves, which would have been impossible, and also dangerous, and my daughter couldn’t even walk.
Unfortunately these were the days before the internet and computers were useful tools of defense. I was also young, so I didn’t really know how life worked and what rights I had, but I felt sure having a door that cracked immediately after purchase was not cricket! The weight of the shelves coming off the door caused it not to shut properly, so we had to hold up the shelves with great big pieces of silver duct tape. The shelves were useless and unsightly. I was so heart-broken at what was happening to my home, and money was very tight, so we couldn’t afford another new one.
I am now older and wiser, and I have the internet and phone numbers at my disposal. I am not exactly powerless over these tyrannical, apathetic, uncivil, surly, disgusting, lower-than-a-snakes-belly-in-a-wagon-rut, minuscule addled-minded dip pans, who think they have the last laugh…..well I remember things for a very, very long time you smirking little Whirlpool stud muffin. I may not have had a voice back then, but I do now you rat infestesed piece of rhino poo-faced nit-wit. The customer dis-service person may have thought she got out of work that day, but I would like to think she is now a prune-faced old obfuscated incantation of a deceased pig’s uterus (and my sincere apologies to the pig). There I have gone and said it…something that have harbored for many years…Phew, glad that’s over!
^^ Jesus, mom. Fuck Whirlpool.