A strange combination of events triggered the deep, dark, Joan Crawford part of me yesterday. So dark, in fact, that at 8:30 pm I text-messaged Tim calling the kids "douchebags" and "fuckers." The exact quotes are:
The kids are being douchebags, they don't understand the danger out there!
I told them to hurry up, so we can turn all the lights out, fucking dillydallying.
They don't know what fear is, the Fuckers.
I know, that sounds totally crazy, but let me tell you the context!
First of all, Tim's workplace is having a team-building retreat in Vegas. I'm guessing in lieu of the traditional Trust Falls (I forget the real term, when you close your eyes and toss yourself backwards and your teammate has to catch you), they get really drunk and try to top each other on Guitar Hero and start betting at the Roulette table with stock options.
Anyway, Tim is away until Saturday. Then around noon, all hell breaks loose in my neighborhood. It started out as four armed and dangerous robbery suspects scattering and hiding themselves in my exact part of Long Beach. Neighborhood schools (all except for Isaac's, strangely) were being placed on lockdown, people were warned to stay inside their homes with the doors locked, etc. I am usually not one to panic, but being alone in the house, separated from my kids (who were in much better positions than I was, which is why I didn't go out to get them immediately), with nothing to defend myself with other than a hammer and some hella halitosis, I will admit now that I got scared.
They ended up catching one guy, who didn't run far, just into some brush by the side of the freeway. And then they downgraded the number of suspects to three. But a couple houses in the neighborhood had some sightings and/or break-ins, so two people were still on the run. They're still out there, in fact.
We ate dinner at an eerily empty Denny's, then shopped at the most depressing K-Mart in existence, also frighteningly devoid of both products and patrons. I have a strange relationship with K-Mart that I will save describing for a later post, but even with that in mind, the experience was unsettling to say the least. It was like shopping along Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Gangs of marauders could have jumped us at every aisle.
Night fell and the paranoia really started kicking in. At 7:45 I tell the kids to hurry up, get dressed, brush their teeth, etc. and congregate in the master bedroom so I can turn all the lights off. Commence rebellion. Isaac was whining, even pretending to forget how to put pajamas on, and Emi was actually scream-crying, to which I hissed "Do you want the robbers to hear you? Do you want them to find us?" Which of course had no impact at all, because how the hell do they know what bank robbers are capable of? So I told them. "If they find us and decide to come into our house, they will KILL US. We will be DEAD." Isaac actually giggled, the jerk, and Emi didn't care and said as much.
This went on for more than half an hour. Me running around hissing while the kids complained and procrastinated, me compulsively turning off the lights and the kids turning them back on, saying they need the light, etc. etc. That's when I texted Tim. It makes sense now, right? No? Fuck you! I eventually cracked and roared at them to get into my bed right now, or else I would leave them outside for the robbers to take them, if they even would take such naughty children. Isaac eyed me up and down to see if I was serious, and at a snail's pace, obeyed. I locked everything, closed all the curtains, grabbed all the phones, the flashlight, and the hammer, and finally was able to lock the bedroom down, propping 2 weeks' worth of dirty laundry and a broken chair against the door for good measure.
"Mom, can we read a book?"
"SHHHHHH!!!!"
"Mommy, I want Clifford juice."
"Shush! No juice! Mommy has to listen for robbers."
"I want JUUUUUUUUUUUUICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Be quiet! Don't you know what happens to the crying baby in The Diary of Anne Frank?"
"Diawy? No, juice."
"Ssssh! Go to sleep!"
And miraculously, they did. I did not, however. I was filled with waves of self-hatred and shame, but mostly shame. What the hell happened to me, invoking the freaking Holocaust? I let my irrational side get to me. I decided to calm myself down by reading a book. Big mistake.
The book I read was The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee. By the end of it, I was filled with such disgust, despair, and hopelessness that it was a good thing I only had a hammer. Anything more lethal, I wouldn't be here to write this blog post. Oh my god, the horribleness of humanity, all of us capable of every atrocity given the right set of circumstances and motives. I lay awake for hours, thinking about war, famine, the oil spilling into the Gulf, Arizona, whale-hunters, the impending fight for water rights, nuclear proliferation, the assassination of John Lennon, and the debauchery that must have still been unfolding in Las Vegas.
I eventually fell asleep, and woke up to a lovely morning, feeling mostly silly. The kids greeted me with smiles, all forgiven. I think I'm going to take them out somewhere delicious today, unless of course there's another news blast, this time that zombies have taken over East Long Beach. Then I will spend the evening barking at the kids to keep sharpening the stakes.