Never Eat Soggy Wheaties

For all of my life, I have been directionally challenged. When I was a kid, my dad would take me on the front porch and turn my shoulders this way and that to point out north, south, east, and west. When he was finished he’d turn my shoulders again and say, “Okay, which way are you facing?” Despite all his efforts, I would fail miserably at the quiz. The office I worked at in Chicago was on Michigan Avenue, so when I got lost on my lunch break I knew to head towards the lake and I’d be able to figure it out. I haven’t been able to figure out how to exit the doctor’s office I’ve been going to for ten years. I make the wrong turn every single time, bypassing the lab, and ending up in the day surgery section by mistake.

Thankfully, I married Mark who could read a map, a compass, the sky, and the sun to figure his way over the river and through the woods. He loved looking at an atlas, and many years ago when I got him a new one for his birthday, he spent hours with it on the kitchen table. He’d look at states he’d been to and states he hadn’t, he looked at mountain elevations, big cities, small towns. He counted the lakes in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He studied the atlas.

On our many road trips, he’d pass the atlas to me to figure out where we should go. This was a ridiculous act of faith, but he had the false confidence to believe that I could pull us through. He would tell me when he was about to come to a *panic point*, where a decision had to be made on which way to go. This made me panic and I’d get nervous and flustered. When we drove to Florida and were crossing Missouri into Arkansas, he had one of his Driving Panic Point Attacks and was yelling at me to “TELL ME WHERE THE FUCK I AM SUPPOSED TO GO!!!” I shouted back THAT I WAS TRYING and he looked over at me and said, “You aren’t even on the right state. You’re in Alabama. Give. Me. The. Atlas.” Then he propped it on the steering wheel while driving 80 mph and I said, “You’re going to kill all of us with your multitasking,” and he looked at me and said, “If you could not talk right now that would be really helpful.”

Fun times.

Last summer we were supporting a candidate for the U.S. House in our district. At one of our neighborhood gatherings after Trump had won, I pulled out my liberal soapbox and said that we all had to do more than just vote when it came to democracy. “We’ve got to work for a candidate,” I said, “really work.” The candidate we were backing was in our neighborhood twice, and on the second visit someone working on his campaign asked me if I would want to canvas for him. I didn’t even know what canvassing meant but I knew I wanted nothing to do with it. But all the neighbors were there and I couldn’t refuse the opportunity to work for democracy with their judgey ears listening in.

“It’s no big deal,” she said, “We have targeted homes where both spouses voted democrat so those are the ones where we want to leave information. We give you an app to download and all the addresses and a map are on it. You leave the info, check off the house, and go to the next.”

Easy peasey.

And a week went by and another, and then another and I did nothing. Finally, I asked Mark if he could help me, because whenever I got in over my head I’d drag him into my cesspool of things-I-shouldn’t-have-said-yes-to-but-did-so-now-you-need-to-help-me-figure-this-out. He agreed thinking this was a necessary civic duty as a voter and we started on a Thursday night. Before long it got dark and I couldn’t see anything as we went up and down unlit street after unlit street. “It’s a good thing we’re not an ambulance saving somebody from a heart attack,” I said, “because not only has America lost its mind it no longer believes in putting addresses on its houses.” Mark ignored me, would shout with gusto when he found a house on our list, and run the information onto their doorstep. “Good way to get your steps in,” he said while he whistled from stop to stop.

On Saturday afternoon we started up again. I was wearing some skinny jeans, a cute top, and a Maybelline lipstick called Rebel, which in my mind was the perfect outfit for candidate canvassing. We were one town over from ours and it didn’t take long for things to go due south. I was in charge of reading the map on the phone which wasn’t working out so well, my Rebel was smearing, and Mark suddenly got dyslexia. I would say, “Next stop 9419 Aberdeen,” and he would say “Got it. 9491 Aberdeen” and I’d have to check the app again. Was it 9419 or 9491? I’d get so confused and he’d be driving and saying, “9407, 9411, 9415, 9419, 9423….” I’d screech back, “9419, MARK!! It’s 9419!! You passed it.” It went on like this for three hours. It was so hot and humid and we were in and out of the car so much that I could never cool off. My skinny jeans were plastered to my sweaty thighs, I hated this democracy work, and Mark was whistling and getting his steps in and life was just so grand for him. I’d comment on people’s landscaping and front door colors and ask the philosophical question of our times. “Why do you think people need such big houses? Like what do they do in those houses that they need them so big? Do you think a big house makes you happier than a small house? Mark, look but don’t look at that guy mowing his lawn. You can tell he’s got a media room, can’t you? Everything about him says media room. He probably goes to work on Monday and when somebody asks him how his weekend was he says, “Great, me and the wife stayed in and watched movies in our media room.” He probably calls her the wife all the time instead of her name, don’t you think? I bet she’s got a craft room. Have ever seen those, Mark? People build houses that have rooms FOR THEIR CRAFTS.”

Finally Mark said, “What in the hell is wrong with you?” I said everything.

At our halfway point we entered a neighborhood that was nothing but one cul de sac after another. We were in and out of those things forever, dropping off information at one, driving to the next, maybe dropping off two in that one. Our pile of pamphlets never went down. “I have to go home,” I said to Mark. “I cannot do this for another minute.” “Yes you can,” he said, “you’re just bored.” This was true. I had found myself in a suburban tour of half circles of hell with no way out and making up stories about people I had never seen before.

I was slipping away.

The day only got hotter and muggier, and when we’d done nearly all of our houses and I’d told Mark my delicate Irish skin could not take one more minute of this heat, he finally agreed we should call it a day. When we got home I took a shower and then took to my bed with the vapors while Mark mowed the grass. Our candidate didn’t win which I took as a crushing defeat FOR ALL OF MY HARD HALF ASS WORK. Mark said that’s how things go sometimes and he moved on. It took me longer than him to come to terms with it but that day was the perfect example of nearly our entire marriage. A memorable shitstorm that we would tell the kids about, and Mark would imitate me until we were all laughing so hard we were crying.