Conclusion of United Flight 6960 from Chicago to Columbia, South Carolina.  Parts 1 and 2 immediately precede this tale of unusual punishment.  

Whoa.  Finishing up my tale of woe is going to be a bit more difficult than I’d planned.  I’m now in my Hilton branch office the next day.  I have the television on the History Channel…and, right there, splattered all over the big flat screen is a re-enactment of the Battle of Valley Forge.  At the moment, three emaciated soldiers, their frozen bare feet wrapped in rags, their eyes blank from pain and starvation…are sitting against a tree.  “Only the bravest, most loyal men stayed the winter,” the kind-voiced narrator explains.  “The weaker men long ago ran away in the night.  Those with wounds died horrible deaths, gangrene taking over their legs, inch by inch. The rest…too weak to break the frozen ground, can do no more than drag their comrades’ bodies a few yards into the woods to be devoured by animals in the night.”

Even the boney scavenger wolves competing over the gangrene ridden dead soldiers are starving.  This makes it really hard to complain about the meal I finally secured once I reached Columbia, South Carolina.  Really hard, but not impossible. I hesitate to continue….Much can be said for ignorance. …and whining is so unattractive…BUT, as I was saying…

Eventually, a guy in a blue jumpsuit delivered paperwork to United 696o on the tarmac at Chicago O’Hare  Airport.  Our plane is backing away from the gate–which you’d be thinking is a good thing. But aha!  Leaving the gate is only a delaying ploy…sort of a decoy move to keep passengers in the delusion that something is happening.  I glance over my shoulder to soak in Army Arnold’s admiration at how I’d called the situation perfectly.  How the guy in the jumpsuit delivered the needed paperwork.  In sort of in a long JIFF.  My Army pals and I sigh with relief.  It’s been fun getting to know each other…but all that was over…time to get back to our separate lives….Army Arnold and pal land cots at Ft. Jackson and I slide between cool sheets at the branch Hilton.

Army Arnold, hanging on to our relationship, punches the back of my seat asking if it is safe to fly in a blizzard such as the one outside his window?   Further flaunting my extensive flying experience and all-around travelling cool, I related several air travel stories for Arnold’s amusement.  He said he envied how I was so relaxed, so able to go with the flow.  “Oh, I dunno,” I say, “I’ve learned to take these little changes in stride.”

Once we’re in line for take-off, Arnold remarks at the number of planes ahead of us and I throw out some random number that I claim is the number of planes O’Hare handles every day. …Now our plane initiates a slow left turn out of line.  “I knew it!  Something’s wrong with the plane!” says Arnold.

Denial Danny, designated flight attendant, is already digging in his bag of fabulous free treats.  This is not good.  Pilot Positive Pete comes on the intercom:  “Well, folks, because we had to wait for the paperwork…well, enough time passed for ice to collect on the plane.  (Arnold gasps and punches the back of my seat.)  So, ladies and gentlemen, we’re now returning to the gate to have the wings de-iced.”

The plane goes a few yards and stops in a cross track.  Positive Pete amends his promise: “Actually, we cannot head into a gate to get in the line to be de-iced….We cannot locate an open gate, so we are now in in line to get a gate,  where we will get in line to be de-iced, then will return to get in line to take off.

Tick…tick.  We begin hour three on the plane.  

My Emotional Guidance System is going berserk, screaming:  This is horrible!  I can’t take this!  However, since I have Army Arnold behind me saying out loud what I am thinking, I must not crack, I must continue to feign sophistication and self-control.  Next to Army Arnold’s genuine terror of flying…if I were to unleash my relentless bitching over my inconvenience….Well, I’d look a bit petty.

Thus, I am repeating to myself: “While the changes in my plans… are unfortunate, uncomfortable, and inconvenient ….this is not a disaster unless I decide to make it one….While the changes in my plans are unfortunate, uncomfortable, and incon….”

Okay.  We’re in a gate, in line for de-icing. Denial Danny unleashes the beverage cart.  Not good. We aren’t going to be airborne in any hurry.  Army Arnold is asking his buddy if it’s true that if you’re in the military you can order alcohol on planes?  As Danny hands Arnold his Coke (full can, definite bad sign), Arnold asks Denial Dan if the pilot has ever flown in a snowstorm before.  After beverage service is complete, Danny is back to pushing ‘free’ pretzels.

6960 is now almost four hours old.  The Army boys aren’t going to make Ft. Jackson by midnight, but I should be under those comfy covers by then.  Because now the craned de-icer equipment is spraying us down.  The plane swaying like a baloon as the de-icer pressure spaxxrer sweeps along, ArmyArnold is starting to babble about how maybe he should have gone to college first, but he needs the Army money to go, but maybe college isn’t that important…..

“Alright!” Positive Pete exclaims as if we’d just safely swung across the Grand Canyon on a rope.  “De-icing is complete. We are ON OUR WAY, ladies and gentleman.”

You’d think the words…ON OUR WAY would indicate imminent movement.  But no.  We sit, tray tables in upright and locked positions. Denial Danny pops into the aisle with his plastic goody bag informing us that silly old Positive Pete meant that we were now waiting for a runway assignment. As he passes my row, D. Danny warns he only has two ‘free’ granola bars left.  I pretend I can’t hear him.  A move I shall deeply regret.  (Note eventual menu for the evening.)

Snow swirls outside.  Army Arnold pushes his knee into the now familiar dent in the back of my seat.  I turn around.  Nothing to worry about, time-wise, I say. Because we’re already late, traffic control is probably waiting to give us a good spot, I said, because I’m so cool and know everything.  Arnold squints at me.  “It’s snowing,” he says. “We never had snow in California…I should have taken the bus the whole way.”  He drains his Coke.

Tick…tick…tick…an hour passes since Pete’s jolly send-off. “While the changes in my plans….are unfortunate, inconvenient…”  Denial Danny comes by and asks me if I need anything.  From his expression I’m pretty sure that uncontrollable, self-destructive part of me that takes over when I’m pulled over for a speeding ticket…has now taken charge of my relationship with D. Danny.  Now that my true self had slipped out, like the many lawmen before him, Danny isn’t going to be cutting me a break.

Tick…tick…tick… Then Petey said, “Oops! Sorry about this ladies and gentlemen, but we’ve waited so long here in line to get in line that we’ve iced up again. We’re going back to get in line for the de-icer.”  He keeps making statements like the one above as if we were supposed to be thrilled.  An hour later the de-icer returns.  Tick…tick.  “Oh happy Day!” the de-icer runs out of anti-freeze.  We get de-iced.  We wait to get in line for take off. We are into hour six.  Six. Army Arnold is asking me stories about my childhood the way people do in movies where the players all know they are going to die. 

Tick…tick.  Take-offs currently suspended due to visibility. Denial Dan doesn’t come around much any more. He did take a bathroom break in the rear luxury spa, but he blew by me so fast I wasn’t able to stick my foot out in the aisle.

But, get this…this is the best part….It is now 3:15 in the morning.  We take off….and here it is…wait for it….Denial Danny picks up his mike and ACTUALLY SAYS…”We at United want to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing United Airlines and PERSONALLY extend an invitation for you to join the United Frequent Flyer Program….Just fill out the brochure you can find in the seat pocket in front of you….

 Oh, and the final menu on reaching my destination….to be revealed in next post.  Not a picture post.  No one should have to see what I stuck my plastic fork into that early morn…with dreams of granola bars in my head.

Living Now:  the Power Hose Incident Revisited

What would it take to get you to relax…Now?  What if…this is as good as it gets?

Dateline:  Second story veranda in Texas.  I am in my underwear power-hosing the doggie run…to be sure you have the full picture …see “How to Ruin a Relationship, the Power Hose Incident.”

In my right hand is the power hose.  In my left is a broom.  I am alternating hose spraying and broom pushing water off the edge and I soap and rinse the outdoor carpet.  I am doing my best to hurry, to get the job over.  This isn’t fun.  My arms ache.  Water keeps oozing back toward the wall.  I’m a bit peeved at the whole concept of spending a piece of my life hosing and sweeping…hosing and sweeping…hosing and sweeping.

Which is when a dangerous thought occurred to me….a thought which will change your life…if you ‘get’ it.  It’s a biggie…a toughie…but we can try this together.  In several sections.

What occurred to me was this question:  “Would I be ‘doing’ the job of hosing and sweeping differently if I were being paid for the job?”

Which led to the thought:  “How would my experience of hosing and sweeping be different if I were being paid by the HOUR to do the job?”   That is, I had to out on the veranda hosing and sweeping for a preset number of hours.  How would my internal experience be different if I wasn’t trying so hard to ‘get finished’?

I slowed down.  I stopped pushing the broom as hard and fast.  I danced in long, sweeping movements.  I slipped into a few stanzas of Delta Dawn….I noticed the beyond the balcony.  Corny, I know.  But, that’s what happened.  “Del-ta-uh Dawn…What’s that flower you have on?…”

Which is when I asked myself, “How would my life experience be different… if when my lifetime was assigned to me, God had looked at me and said, “You do realize you have been given an hourly job…that there’s nothing you need to finish?”

“People round Brownsville says she’s crazy…”

If you’re not up to speed on the ‘Power Hose’ incident, review ‘How to Ruin a Relationship’, Part 1.

At the close of Part 1, I am standing in my underwear, soaked, and holding a power hose packing enough force to blow asphault off the interstate.  This is not the pretty picture you may be imagining.

Having completed washing the ‘doggie pad’, I now need my special person to do the ONE THING I have asked that he do in the process…I need him to go downstairs and turn off the water at the spigot.  That’s it.  All I ask.  I will do the scrubbing and rinsing (picture a bent woman, gasping for air, working so hard and going unappreciated)….The trip downstairs and what….a couple of twists of the spigot is ALL I ASK.   Twenty minutes earlier my special person had stuck his head out the French doors announcing he was going to run an errand….

At which point I sighed deeply…hoping to remind him of the burdens I bear…then I’d said something gentle, such as:  ”Fine.  Just leave me up here in my underwear to run back and forth …barefoot and soaking wet…through a tile-floored house, slamming into furniture, slipping and crashing into walls, breaking my neck going end-over-endo on the stairs….then sliding out the kitchen door the veranda, where, if I’m lucky I can watch the power hose explode instead of having my face blown off when it detonates in my hand.

….Something sweet like that… 

He said:  “Oops.  Sorry, I forgot.”

I said something (on the inside) straight from the sickest part of my Emotional Guidance System ….Something like, “Perfect.  Just what I needed.  Another reminder of how important I am in your life.”

Back to what’s really happening.  I’ve finished the task.  I open the French doors and call for help with this  just one lee-tle bit of help I’m needing.  “Honey, I’m  ready for your to turn off the hose….Honey?….Honey, I need your help here!  Hey!  Need a little help here!  Help!”

Hmmmm….My special person does not seem to be home.  At this point, I could survey my circumstances and pay attention to the facts….my Thinking Guidance System…but this entry is about how TO RUIN a relationship.  Consulting my Emotional Guidance System, these are the words tripping through my head:  It appears I have been forgotten…standing on the upstairs terrace with a power hose going full blast in my hand…. “OBVIOUSLY, in spite of the years showing me otherwise, my special person does not love me….In spite of years of evidence proving otherwise….in spite of what I would have said about him thirty minutes ago…I now realize he must get a kick out of torturing me.”

I recall our earlier interaction when he mentioned the errand during which I’d been a bit snippy. Using the ‘logic’ of my Emotional Guidance System….and ignoring all facts to the contrary…I conclude that he’s mad at me and his leaving is some kind of punishment.

I know.  Pathetic, but I’m hoping my brutal confession can help someone else….

And then….my tiny, struggling Thinking Guidance System managed to be heard over the noise….Pointing out that my ‘conclusions’ about my special person made NO SENSE given everything I knew about the man.  He is a kind person who goes out of his way often to make my life easier… and, I like to think he does so, not just because I can be really unpleasant when uncomfortable, but because he is a good person and he cares about me and takes our marriage seriously.  Those are the proven facts.

How can you ruin a relationship?  Always expect the worst of the other person.   Always jump to the worst possible conclusion.  Always assume he has no good reason for disappointing you.  Always assume he doesn’t care.  Always assume he doesn’t care if you’re uncomfortable.  Always assume he’s selfish. 

And, after a while, your special person will start to wonder….”Why do I feel like a good person everywhere else in my life…everywhere except when I’m with you?”

When you find yourself in your undies on the second story verandah with a power hose in your hand.  Just maybe he didn’t leave you hanging on purpose. :  Practice words “Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you had a good reason….I have confidence in you….You have good judgment….Everyone has a lapse now and then, I have plenty…”

 And, if you learn that he did leave you hanging on purpose….Well, you still have the power hose.

 

 

 

Let’s say there’s a continuum of Emotional Maturity….a continuum where ‘0’ represents a person who employs her Emotional Guidance System at all times, in all situations….without any interference from her Thinking Guidance System whats-so-ever…

In other words, ‘0’ represents a person whose momentary feelings determine all decisions in her life….Let’s say…the Octamom.

And ‘100’ represents the person who confers with the Thinking Guidance System, a human who considers the long term results, when making decisions….Let’s say….Gandi.

Remember, feelings are not bad….feelings make life rich and deep.  But if you use transient feelings to decide long term issues for you….Your life will not turn out so well.  Which brings us back to our continuum. 

Where the ‘0’ end is headed up by the Octamom.  And the ‘100’ end, is represented by Gandi.

Notice, particularly, to what degree each person takes the welfare of others into account.  One person draws attention to herself by sacrificing eight (14 children in all)… The other person sacrifices himself to call attention to the plight of his people.

Now, if you’re still thinking, uh, FEELING, there’s a new miracle diet out there….You should know that the Octamom is coming out with a book on….Yep….on the special weight-loss secrets she employed to take off that extra baby (X8) weight.

Personally, I can do without her advice.  Just hand me a couple more of those Hollywood Cookie Diet goodies, would you please?

One hot day a man is walking along a narrow mountain trail with steep sides dropping off hundreds of feet into the canyon below.  At one point, the man steps into some loose gravel at the edge of the trail and slips off the path.  (Work with me here.  Think of Nepal…fog.) 

The poor man is destined to plummet to his death.  And, yet, just as he begins his descent, several yards from the top surface…the man notices a thin branch sticking out from the wall of rock.  He grabs hold of the branch and ‘whew’ holds on for his life.  But all is not well for long.  The branch has only weak, spiny roots, which are quickly loosening from the wall. 

His time on earth is definitely brief.  For a moment, the blather of his panicked Emotional Guidance System dominates his life experience screaming:  “This is horrible!  This is terrible!  I can’t stand this!”

Then, at the moment of his greatest soul-gripping horror, the man notices a wild strawberry plant growing out of the wall next to the slipping roots of his lifeline branch.  The strawberry plant offers nothing in terms of a hold.  So what possible use is a stupid plant?  The man’s brain is going wild.  “This is horrible!  This is terrible!  I can’t stand this!  What good is a stupid plant if it won’t help me in my life?  What good is a strawberry plant if it can’t help me live longer?” 

The man’s mind clearsfor a fraction of a second.  He iss able to set aside his desperate demand to live forever or even longer.  The man realizes all any man or woman has is the present moment.  He becomes accutely aware that, though he is clinging to a brief …and getting briefer…lifeline, his life now…is no different from the life possessed by any man or woman.

His mind quiets and with his sudden clarity, the man notices that…on the strawberry plant are several plump red berries.  He glanced up at the branch which is now barely a sputtering string.  He glances down.  No question, within minutes, maybe seconds, he will be a lifeless body on the canyon floor.  Above him is the past he so longs to continue and improve upon.  Below him is the sure future he feared and dreaded.

Then, he noticed how red, and full, and perfectly ripe the berries were on the plant in front of his face.  Okay, then…he decided.  He CHOSE then to focus on the strawberry plant.  The man dared to loosen his grip on the branch long enough to pluck one of the fruits.  He popped the strawberry in his mouth.  The flavor took over his mind…his life experience. The strawberry was sweet and tart and wonderful.  Wonderful.

If your Christmas late evening was marred by a relative knocking over the Christmas tree (again) after too much eggnog…if or you ended up dodging flying turkey bones as one of those always charming inter-family political debates blew up….you likely looked out the bay window at the stars thinking….”Next year, I’m jetting out of the country as soon as the presents are opened.”

Ahh….not so fast.  You were only able to imagine the bliss of escape on a jet to faraway, because you’d not yet heard of the Rude Lady in Seat 20B, American Airlines 875, Dallas-Ft.Worth to Cabo San Lucas.  Prior to experiencing RL20B, I’d been considering working on being less judgmental as my New Year’s Resolution.  By the time we were over Juarez, RL20B had proven ”being less judgmental” was too big a reach for a weenie like me in 2010.

Everything started out okay.  My special one and I are seated in 21 E&F, middle and window, exit row.  The exit rows (20 and 21) are much prized for the extended leg-room.  The exit rows can only be pre-reserved…by very frequent fliers (sort of a hazard pay) and only by signing up very early for the flight.  Which is to say…a passenger goes to a lot of trouble to reserve an exit row seat…like say…Seat 20B…Aisle, Exit Row.  The plane is fairly empty on the ground in DFW until the last five minutes when crowds came aboard.  The flight attendants immediately started in prompting people to quickly take their seats to try and make an on-time take-off.

In front of us a nice older couple has taken their months-ago reserved exit row seats–Seats 20 D and E (Aisle and Middle).  Across the aisle, a young blonde woman travelling solo, has taken her long ago reserved Exit Row seat, Seat 20A against the window.  Thus, Row 20 is full except for the 20B on the aisle and 20F, across the aisle.   (Now you can forget Row 21, since all of the outrageousness has to do with Row 20.)

Move 1:  A loud young man and his wife roar up the aisle.  The man stops at Row 20, starts waving his hand over the couple in front of us as says, “Hey!  You guys don’t mind moving over to the window and middle do you?  I’d like to have this aisle seat so I can (this is a quote) “Holler up to my friends up there?…And, this way I can sit with my wife.”  Not knowing what was to come, the sweet couple said, “Sure. We’d prefer the aisle and middle, but if it’s important to you, we’ll move over.”  Which they did…thinking the Rude Guy was through messing with them. 

But, they’d be wrong.  Once settled across from each other on the aisle, Row 20, the husband turns to the nice couple to his right who’d accommodated him by switching from their preferred aisle and middle, to a middle and window on Row 20.  Now, this guy makes a fresh proposal: “Say, you guys wouldn’t mind getting up and switching with my friends up in Seat 14E (center) and 12E (center), would you guys? Me and my friends, we’d like to talk on the trip.”  (I’m taking down the quotes as we fly).

The sweet man in 20E answers in an admirable tone,  “But sir, you’re asking us to give up extra leg-room Exit Row seats for middle seats…” he said, thinking that would be enough.

But no.  The Rude Guy says, “Come on, now.  Me and my friends, we just want to sit together.  See we’re traveling with our friends.”

Nice guy points out, “But, sir, the seats you want us to switch to are not even close to each other. My wife and I would like to sit together.”

“Gee, Mister,” says Rude Guy, “I thought you’d want to help out.”

At this point, particularly if you’re not a frequent flier, you may be thinking….this doesn’t sound like all that big of a deal. 

But then, of course…. You are assuming what the rest of us on the plane (and this party of six had by this point buried all other conversations with their ‘hollering’ back and forth from the front to the back of the plane)….we, like you, are assuming that the Rude Woman who plunked down in 20B across the aisle from her Rude Guy husband….we’re assuming that the Rude Woman had actually been assigned Seat 20B…that she had pre-reserved the premium seat.  But we…like you….like the flight attendant would be wrong.  And when the woman who had the assignment of 20B, who’d been given a temporary seat by a flight attendant who’d been in a hurry to get the plane off and who had assumed she’d been mistaken about her seat….when this woman shows up to claim her seat 20B….that’s when the fun starts.

Tune in for Part Two: Rumble in the Skies Over Mexico.

 

Resolution for 2010:  Start Living Now

Resolution for 2010 in two parts:

1)     Live in the Present.

2)     Take RESPONSIBILITY for the quality of the present moment. 

The plan is to report steps… forward and back…hoping others can learn from my frailties.

Inspiration: A non-so-good French movie set in Monaco.  The female lead has her one room apartment decorated wall-to-wall with Princess Diana memorabilia.

The male lead asks, “Why the overwhelming adoration? Did you love Princess Di that much?”

She says: (paraphrasing) “Yes.  Princess Di had it all…and I have nothing. She was beautiful. She was wealthy beyond anything I can even imagine.  She was loved by everyone.  She was famous.  I think she’s the luckiest woman who ever lived.   I loved her so much my life was nothing but a poor immitation. I didn’t know how to be alive as just me.  When Princess Diana was alive, I lived through her. I spent my simple, unfamous life, wishing I was her.”

He asks: “Why do you keep all these pictures?”

She says: “To remind myself I have something Princess Di does not have.  I am alive.  I can plan things.  I can meet new people.” 

He asked: “So?”

She said: “I keep all these pictures and stories to remind myself I am alive. That one day I won’t have the chance to enjoy the day….but unlike Princess Di…I’m not there yet.  That one day when it’s over …is not TODAY.”

Thus, following these words from a bad French movie, my Resolution for 2010 is to live in the present…instead of ruing the past and worrying about the future.  And to make an honest effort, moment by moment, to take responsibility for the quality of my experience.

Want to come along?  Actually, the present being the way it is…None of us have a choice….as long as we are alive…we can change…we can do better…. Let’s have some fun. 

Next:  The Joy of Strawberries.

Jellybeans….Jellybeans were everywhere…and I didn’t have time or energy for the clumsy interruption. Who does have the time for messy interuptions?

Trudging my computer case across the tiled floor of my office and out to my car, I bent over to pick up a Coke can I’d earlier set by a chair…

When the opened box of Ike and Mike’s (tube-shaped jellybeans for those into adult foods) tucked into one of the case’s pockets splattered everywhere… I snarled, I cursed, I bent over to pick up the flying pieces….Of course, in the process, I spilled more as, in my hurry and misery, I hadn’t secured the box. I snarled and cursed some more.

Always ready to take control, my Emotional Guidance System, (search site, if unfamiliar) SAID: “Great! Just what I needed!  I’ve had it!  This is too much. My knees are alreadykilling me, I’m late for an appointment…. Crazy dog will be in here hogging these jellies down any second…and I’ll have multi-colored poop to deal with for days!

This is terrible, horrible, and unbelievable! I drop my computer case…on my foot… “%#@&”… This is just great.
That’s when “the moment” happened without any warning. After years of training in psychology, Eastern meditation, libraries of books, and many hours instructing others in emotional life….

The moment occurred without effort on my part.

Some little creature inside my brain hit me square between my squinty eyes. “What keeps you…from enjoying this moment just as much as you enjoyed playing fetch with Crazy Dog last night?”
What? Is it possible that all those psychologists saying each person is in charge or his or her own happiness…actually have something? And, if they (we) have…why is it so difficult If being alive is being in each and every second?

What is keeping me…you… from enjoying this moment….the one NOW… as much as the favorite moment you are planning this holiday?

I don’t have an answer.  When the ‘moment’ occurred, I felt something loosen.  And I smiled, just a little.
I know, this is heady stuff.   To think all this could come from splattered jellybeans.

There I was in Vegas… with a surly waitress and some crummy little shrimp and… I was as disappointed as a four-year-old staring out the window at the rain.  See the “Surly Waitress” incident. 

What to do?  What to do? sought direction.  I called on my two guidance systems.  

The Emotional Guidance System said:  You are being a brat here.  This meal costs twenty-five dollars, you CANNOT just leave an expensive meal.  You’re making too much of this!  You are too picky.  Hundreds of thousands, no, millions of people around the world, are going to bed hungry, and you, you are turning away from an expensive meal of shrimp.  There was a time when you and the special person travelled with a steno pad and wrote down every penny spent, staying in ratty motels and able to get lunch for a dollar (loaf of bread and a can of bean dip).  What’s happened that you are now such a brat?  It’s your fault for ordering seafood in the middle of the desert. These shrimp were flown in over many miles.  Think of it, woman.  These shrimp have given you their lives!

The Thinking Guidance System said:  Okay, probably life would be easier if you were a bit more adaptable, but the FACTS ARE…you can afford to walk this joint and find a cozier place with a happier staff. While there was a time when you would have to do without something else that day if you spent five dollars extra on a meal…but that was then.  This is now. You can afford to escape. The reality is, no one but you will be inconvenienced by your changing restaurants.  No one. 

I decided to split.  I asked for a to-go box and packed up the shrimp. (Which I dumped in the trash on my way to the next restaurant, as intended…but I thought taking the shrimp to-go and faking a mild emergency made me look less foolish….Okay, I know…I didn’t say I escaped the waitress from the frowny side of the street and her tiny shrimp without some concessions to my Emotional Guidance System.)

I left the waitress a ten dollar tip and a smile, hoping her day might pick up and headed for the buffet and a really perfect booth where I computed and piddled for hours. (Did you know the buffets in Las Vegas now have all day passes for tourists wanted to have it all and often?  I ask you, could this be a good thing?)

The Point:  Sometimes you can escape.  Remember the people who grew up in the depression and couldn’t spend money in accord with current circumstances?  Of course, many people attempt to spend themselves out of anxious situations when they cannot afford the cost … and end up causing all sorts of long-term problems.

An important contribution of the Thinking Guidance System is in avoiding generalizations.  The Emotional Guidance System lumps situations together saying, “If you allow yourself to switch restaurants and end up paying for two meals, what’s going to keep you from buying a bunch of timeshares in Tahiti you can’t use?”

What?

The way I see it, each of us has plenty of uncomfortable situations we cannot, and actually, do not want to avoid.  Situations and relationships that our BEST THINKING tells us we’d better grow up and manage ourselves, if we are to have a long and positive life.

The situations requiring us to “get over it” and manage our anxiety are many, including physical illness and discomfort (yep, we all get sick)…aging (yep, that, too, even if hours at the gym and a little help from the surgeon delays reality)…friends who are not at their best, anxious family members, the anxiety that comes with learning new skills or meeting new people, war, elections, colonoscopies, dental work…the give and take that makes for a solid long-term marriage…

These situations require us to grow rather than run.  And there are plenty of them.

But, then, there’s the occasional uncomfortable situation when we can simply escape rather than grow up.  Now, of course, I’d like to be the Buddha, I’d like to say I am now, or think I could at some point in the future be, completely in charge of my anxiety…that I can or hypothetically could…respond to discomfort, criticism, and all the hard parts of reality without experiencing painful anxiety…but that’s not going to happen… it’s a journey…

Given the non-Buddha probability, a little skill in figuring out when you can afford to duck…that is, when ‘ducking’ has no significant long-term downside….and when ‘ducking’ an unpleasant situation is going to come back to bite you…or peck you.

Which situations can you afford to ‘escape’ or ‘make go away’ with money or a little extra slippery effort?

Example:  When you are on a full flight and an unusually tall or expansive person is assigned the seat next to you…this is one of those situations you’re best off to call on your skills of managing anxiety. 

However, if you are seated in an uncrowded movie theater and an unusually tall person sits down in front of you, all that’s necessary to relieve your discomfort is a little extra effort on your part. 

Of course, your move could still tie you in a knot if you’re not at the theater alone and the other person disagrees with your decision to move… or takes the moment to recite all the ways you are too demanding.  In this situation your decision to escape has sparked an anxiety in your movie-going pal.  If you and your movie-going pal had an argument on the way to the movie, or if your movie-going pal is hungry, the counter-move, sometimes called a ‘change back’ move can be more intense.

Last night I had one of those ‘tall guy sits in front of you at the movies’ events occurred.  And a chance for an example was born. 

Right there in the glitz of Las Vegas.  Yes, even Vegas is no more than fodder for the struggle between the Emotional Guidance System and the Thinking Guidance System….Maybe Las Vegas was the place the Emotional Guidance System was born.

Next Las Vegas, the Playground of the rich and anxious….and the just anxious.

Dateline:  Las Vegas, Pyramid Restaurant in the Luxor Hotel.  And, yes, if  you are in the group of four sitting with your backs to me…still in your evening-out garb from last night…  First, let me say, you look lovely…and, ‘yes’, I am eavesdropping.

The Self Designed Life: The effort to have more and more of your decisions based on the FACTS as you know them…and to have your decisions determined less and less by EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or from within yourself (your own fears and anxieties).

What’s better than a clear physical example of making a decision based on keeping the other person calm?  We return now to the ‘GO ALONG LADY’. (see Friendly Persuasion…)

Go Along Lady has four children, a husband, a sister who’s a Congresswoman, a mother-in-law who is disappointed that her son married a girl from a working class family, and an extra forty pounds haunting her every second. Why are these details important?

Because the less comfortable we are with the people around us, or more correctly stated…the  less comfortable we are managing the judgments of others… the more unlikely it is that we will do whatever is needed to keep from  rocking the boat.

Mysteryshrink  Quick Shot:  Once in a land close by, very close…a slightly overweight woman in my office was describing stress she was experiencing, teaching school and keeping up the house.  I asked, “What happens if you let the house go for awhile?” ….She explained, “I can’t.  It’s okay to be messy and thin, but it’s not okay to be messy and fat.”

Now, back to Go Along Lady. On the Sunday morning she describes to me, the family has arrived late to church, again.  (Hey, four kids and a crabby mother-in-law and she still tries?…I’d be hearing services through a prison public address system.)  Go Along Lady and her husband distribute the children in their respective  Sunday school classrooms and reconnect in the hall to head for the Cathedral.

Which is when Go Along betrayed herself.  “I have to make a pit stop at the bathroom,” she says.  “I can join you inside, or if you want to wait, I’ll just be a sec.”

“I think it’s important for us to go in together and not be late,” her husband countered.  Go Along Lady didn’t THINK walking in together was important and didn’t THINK being late would be a true problem. Go Along tried again, “Thirty seconds…I can be out…I don’t mind coming in and looking for you…or sitting in the back and meeting you after the service.”

He said: “It’s important to be a part of the church service as a couple. It’s embarrassing to have you in the Cathedral poking around looking for me.”

NOTE:  Which person is ‘right’ or ‘more right’ is not the issue.  Maybe at this particular church couples who do not come in together are assessed large fines.  Maybe when one spouse has to look for the other inside the church, the choir bursts into chastising West Side Story music.  You can argue these points endlessly and the answers DO NOT MATTER. What matters is the person’s ability to THINK through the scenario and make a decision in line with their BEST THINKING….which is often a BEST GUESS.

In the case of Go Along Lady, she chose to pass up the pit stop in order to keep her husband calmed down.  Suffering a full bladder would be easier than going through an hour of pouting.  Midway through the service, her bladder screaming…Go Along Lady…decided that NEXT TIME she would  make the choice that made the most sense for  her.

And she had a new goal…now she was interested in learning how to manage her anxiety when her husband was displeased with her choice.  NOTE!   Nowhere did she decide he was wrong and she was right… and she should either MAKE HIM UNDERSTAND or GET HIM TO CHANGE his preferences.

The ‘Woman Who Didn’t Stop at the Bathroom’ Incident–

Dateline:  Willie’s Place, I-35 between Dallas and Austin.  If I can’t get a grip at Willie’s Place, I might as well just jerk that license off the wall and give up the pretense. 

Hail to those of you tagging along on this rickety journey toward growing up just a wee little bit.  Now, friends, we begin an examination of  HOW MUCH of WHO WE ARE is  the result of CHOICE and how much is no more than our automatically acting and re-acting in TO KEEP OTHER PEOPLE CALMED DOWN.

Figuring out when we are using our BEST THINKING and when we are doing the please CALM DOWN JIG is not an easy task.  Because the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is not just a big fat liar, the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is tricky.                                                                                                                                            U                                                           

Sometimes we make a choice against what we think…we say “Yes” when we mean “No”  (this usually involves some sort of volunteering) or “No” when we mean “Yes” (This often involves FEAR).

We  react automatically …because we pick up on the choice an important other person wants us to make….and the relief of going along FEELS like we’ve made a thoughtful choice.  Example:  a woman says to her husband, “I have decided to take up mountain biking.”  The husband says, “What?”and proceeds to outline the costs, dangers, and generally  neglect of others…should the woman persist with the mountain biking idea. 

For a while she struggles.  Then she gives up the idea.  The tension in the couple goes down.  The woman eats a pie and criticizes the man next door for leaving the lid off his trashcan.  The whole neighborhood is ruined!

The relief experienced when ‘going along’  FEELS  like we’ve made an actual choice.  This sort of capitulating may look noble, but there’s nothing brave  about deciding that the best way to stay calm yourself is by doing whatever will keep the other person calm. 

Of course, after studying the costs, dangers, and time required the woman could have opted out of mountain biking following her own BEST THINKING.  I’m just saying the glory of ‘relief’ makes it hard to tell ‘why’ a particular decision is made.

Now, about the woman who thought she needed to make a bathroom stop and over-ruled herself .  Oops, here’s my chicken-fried steak.  Tune in tomorrow to hear the exciting adventure of ‘Go-Along-Woman.’

One way you can tell you are making decisions based on baloney from your Emotional Guidance System is…when…with each step of the process, the bleeding gets worse.

One of the features of being crazy humans is that we do not always…maybe even ‘usually’ do what makes sense.   Instead we do something familiar or handy.  I’ve been particularly amazed at our consistency in thinking negative or fearful thoughts… and  when the first negative doesn’t destroy us…we repeat the procedure…until we’re somewhere below the dumps.

We also have this need to tell other people negative things (opinions) about them or people they care about…and when the first piece of information isn’t convincing…we lay on another…and another.  (This is particularly true when talking politics.)

So, as you read about the man below…think of your negative thoughts or statements as big ole long construcktion nails. 

Okay, now I’m not absolutely sure of the exact story, but I did hear this one on the radio (which means it’s true, right?).  The man in the story gives us an excellent lesson on one way to know when we are making a decision using our Emotional Guidance System. 

The story stars a construction worker who was having a pretty good day… until he slipped with the band saw and cut his hand off at the wrist.  Seeing the horror of his stump spraying blood in all directions…our construction worker could see no way to go on with life and decided to kill himself …now…He looked around and spotted a nail gun.  Two inch nails driven into the body in essential places could do it…He picked up the nail gun and fired one into his forehead…but he didn’t die.  He fired a second nail into his forehead.  Damn.  That shot didn’t end his consciousness.  What to do?  What to do? 

What else?  If at first you don’t succeed….He fired a nail into the side of his head…and then two.  Then one on the other side of his head…then two.  Our hero fired a total of twelve nails into his head before he lost conciousness.  But he didn’t die.  He woke up after surgery, his hand sewed on, his head nails removed.  I suspect his family will never let him forget…oh, the cruel nicknames…

Talk about the Emotional Guidance System running the show…Did it not occur to the man after, say, the eighth nail….that, just maybe, his chosen method of suicide had shortcomings?

Think of focusing on fears and reminding others of their weak suits…as you with the nail gun in your hand…the method doesn’t work…and is really messy.

A while back– before the results of being tossed on my head too many times started to become obvious– a friend and I took to the road following up a tip on a horse who just might turn out to be the next state Green Hunter Champion.  For those engaged in more meaningful pursuits, in the horse world, ‘green’ means ‘new’ and ‘hunter’ means…’horse who jumps over fake gates, walls, and streams, and other obstacles of the sort you’d find on an old English estate’.

My friend and I parked the truck on the edge of a huge pasture and set out to find the five-year-old bay thoroughbred with the official track name of Parker Poker. Parker turned out to be a less-than-stunning boy, as far as I could see under the mud, the snarls, and the choppy mane.  Still, having driven forty miles and walked a couple more through high grass, we led him back to the trailer, loaded him up, and gave him a ride to one of the finest show barns in the Southwest…or at least that’s the label I’ve used for many years to explain away the bizarre proportion on my income I deposited at that location.

Once Parker Poker was out of the trailer and cross-tied in the main barn, he looked more forlorn and out-of-place than ever.  Always ready to absorb the fears of others and queen of the Don’t Expect Much and You Won’t Be Disappointed gang…I plunked down with my own forlorn look, a Coke and a long, knowing sigh.

Not my friend.  Let’s call her N.  N dragged out her best box of grooming tools and went to work.  Heavier equipment was needed for Parker’s matted tail mud-caked hooves.  N dug out shoeing tools, show day yarns, rubber bands, and oils.  While N frittered away her time, energy, and equipment on the lost cause horse…I watched her through the dust, slightly bored, sipping my second Coke, and commenting on N’s commitment… in that way that passes for a compliment, but is really a thinly veiled crack about the other person’s judgment.

My remarks not having the intended effect of discouraging my busy friend, I finally stood and proclaimed, “I have no idea why you’re going to all this trouble.”

And N said, ‘I can’t say what will happen to this horse or if he’ll ever win a prize.  But I have learned that if you want a horse to be a show horse, you have to treat him like a showhorse first.’

“Oh…” the future psychologistsaid, brilliantly.  Thinking…hmm…maybe N has something with this ‘treat a horse like a show horse business’…Maybe N’s theory has something to say about marriage?  What would happen if I treated my special person like a show horse…not the oats and hoof clippers…but with the good faith?

“Anyway, no matter how this horse turns out…I know I’m having a happy afternoon,” N said.

“Oh…” the therapist said.  “Oh,” she said again, thinking…Maybe I’ll write about N and her showhorse theory someday.

Mysteryshrink’s You-Get-What-You-Pay-For Psychological Tip:  Comparing yourself to wildlife can provide excellent excuses for your bizarre behavior.  In general people feel possitively about the creatures of the forests and the trees…here’s how you can cash in.

Now, the wildlife comparison technique works best if you have already informed people, that, indeed you are nuts.  As a refresher, the rest of your life will go much more pleasantly if you will cease and desist from further defending yourself as a sane person.  Let it go.

When someone says–

What’s wrong wrong with you?  Why do you do it that way?  How could you think like that?  How could you possibly have made the same mistake eight times?

Squench your face into a ‘very puzzled’ expression and answer:  “Because…I think I’ve figured it out…it’s because I’m crazy and I’m getting worse!”

Comparing yourself to wildlife works in all sorts of situations.  When you show up late to an event, you can say:  At least I’m not a middle-aged Schnauzer.  Did you know they sleep twenty hous  a day?  At least I’m not sea slug.  Did you know they can impreganate themselves?  At least I’m not river rat. Did you know they can get up to twenty pounds? 

Now, about the chipmunks.  (This part about chipmunks is factual, the above is just wild guesses, but facts matter so little when you’re defending yourself.)  Chipmunks bury nuts all the time in all sorts of places. However, their memories are only good for three days.  Lucky for the chipmunks, many tend to live in the same areas.  Thus, many of the nuts the chipmunk finds and eats were left by other chipmunks who’d forgotten where they’d buried them… just as  the feasting chipmunk’’s poorly remembered efforts were providing forgotten nuts for others.  Pretty neat system, eh?

Now to the most recent opportunigy for comparing self to wildlife to distract from bizarre behavior.  I’ve been traveling a lot lately (this is my human-based excuse).  Last week, I was returning to town on a Wednesday, thus scheduled a slate of appointments for Thursday.  Groggy and achey, I woke up Thursday and steeled my body with an Excedrin triple-shot.  My special person wished me well as he left for his regular Wednesday bridge game.  After he left, I showered and dressed in what would have to pass for professional togs.

Then I realized that my special person had just left for his WEDNESDAY bridge game.  And, pow!  Right there in front of me was one of those bonus…I didn’t hide it…nuts!  I didn’t put the day aside, I didn’t sacrifice, I didn’t trade a nut for a nut.  I just stumbled on a free nut!

What I didn’t expect was the direction the discussion took.  The trim fellow across from me, who’d grilled the waiter for ten minutes regarding the no-fat preparation of his vegan pasta…leaned over the table to ask me, “You’re a psychologist, don’t you agree that drug laws will never be effective in this Hollywood-adoring, lazy society?”

“Hollywood?” I asked.

“Surely you agree that drug addicts, fat people, and slobs spending weekends on their cans watching football…they’re all simply morally weak people?

I pushed my fries to outer edges of my plate.  “I beg your pardon?” I asked. I think. Could be I didn’t say anything out loud.  Anyway, I didn’t want to get in a long discussion the Texas-Oklahoma game started in fifteen minutes.

“Sugar’s an addiction, too,” the lady with the herbal tea suggestion added. “Along with caffeine.  I don’t know what makes all these people drinking diet drinks think they’ve kicked their addictions.”

“Sugar?” I asked, weakly.

“I know how we can fix the health care crisis.  If you’re overweight and don’t do anything about it—no free health care for you.  If you drink, no liver transplants and no insurance covered medications.  If you smoked, you pay cash for every oxygen cost, and no insurance supported home health care or lung transplants.”

“Wow,” I said.  “I think habits are a little more complicated…maybe…”

“I agree with him,” herbal tea lady said. “Why should I have to pay because someone else doesn’t take care of their body?  I take care of myself.  I make good decisions.  I shouldn’t have to kick in because some fat slob with a weak character gets diabetes.”

“Oh,” I managed.

“If psychologists like you would stand up and admit that smoking, drinking, drugs, and food addiction are moral failures, instead of making excuses, the country would be a much better place to live in.”

“I know, we shrinks are a stubborn lot,” I said, standing up to go.  “I’m going outside for a smoke.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you used cigarettes,” the thin man said, popping the cap down on his water bottle.

“I don’t,” I said, heading out. “Who smokes tobacco since crack’s been around?”

P.S. Since then I’ve thought of a response……Next….

Dateline: American Airlines flight from DFW to Indianapolis.
Emotional Status: Low. Emotional Guidance System in complete control. I feel like…think that…I don’t want to go to Indianapolis for six days. Slipping into an emotional swimming pool of exaggeration…I’m quite sure every moment of the trip will be a pain and I likely will never recover from the experience. So that’ the back story. Now. The challenge. I’m thinking about ‘decisions’ as I’m writing on decision making…
The flight is late. I lurk around the ticket counter trying to decide if I want to spring for an upgrade. And why would I cough up an extra hundred dollars for a two hour flight? Why because I’m on the edge and I’m hungry.
I ask and learn there is one seat left in first class if I want to upgrade…I wonder down the concourse, my stomach twisting with the decision. I find a Blue Mesa Fast Taco. I have three.
The urge to upgrade is gone. As I board the plane, I pass the empty first class seat. The ajacent seat is occupied with one of the largest men I’ve ever seen. He has two scotch minis on his tray.

I settle into my seat in the exit row. The middle next to me remains empty.
I am a WINNER! I guessed right. I have superpowers!
How pathetic is that? When your Emotional Guidance System is in charge…life is really scary. If the plane had been on time, I would have upgraded, and been a wreck because I guessed wrong. Life isn’t easy when you live it as a weenie.

How much trouble can a person get into by speaking ‘off the top of his head’ to a televsion reporter?

Doesn’t talking  ’off the top of your head’  boil down to simply blithering random words as they pop into consciousness?  Yes, ‘off the top of your head’ can, and often does mean, talking without using your head at all.  Using the Thinking Guidance System,you recall, means taking into acount the LONG TERM effects of your actions.

Which brings us to the ’Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’

A few weeks ago, a husband, obviously in the grip of his Emotional Guidance System…shot and killed his wife while she was packing up to leave him.  Now, the actions of the murderer guy aren’t even the actions we’re talking about, but admittedly a good example of not taking LONG TERM effects into consideration. 

But, jump ahead, if you will, to the reporter for a local television station who travelled to the small town outside Austin where the murder happened to provide that ‘on the spot’ illusion for the five o’clock story.

The little town hosting the murder is a rural haven left over from when the railroad first came through that part of Texas, though a few Austinites have moved to Red Rock to fulfill dreams of pastoral peace and to ride their bike instead of burning fossil fuels like the lesser forms of humanity. But, mostly Red Rock is a ranching and agricultural enclave.  Our lively television reporter arrives in Red Rock ready to take the pulse of the townspeople. 

Most of the town’s residents were busy with target practice, baking pies, and herding longhorns, but our reporter did find one unoccupied Red Rock resident who happened to be one of the Austin-transplants, a spry fellow riding his bike.  Somehow the reporter didn’t notice that Red Rock regular residents don’t ride ten-speeds and they certainly don’t wear flashy bicycle pants and bodysuit tops…or red and green banana helmets or earrings, or scraggly beards.  

Our reporter has the camera going and needed just the one clip to go with his story of the murder.  Thus, his brief interview of the guy in bicycle shorts (GIBS)  would come and go in his life without causing undo harm.  The guy in the bicycle shorts, I fear, was not so lucky.

Because, you see, when the reporter asked the GIBS, “Do you find it hard to believe that a murder like this could happen in such a pleasant little town?”

The grinning GIBS looks right into the camera and says,  “Not really.  This town is full of POT-BELLIED, KNUCKLE-DRAGGING REDNECKS.”

Did I mention he LIVED in amongst the people he just so colorfully described?  Or, at least he did.

A few years ago a man was murdered by a stranger on the shoulder of Interstate 35 in downtown Austin in the wee hours of the morning.  Why? 

Because the stranger beating the victim didn’t know when to ‘let it go.’    You see, the soon-to-be-dead guy had rear-ended the soon-to-be-a-murderer guy causing minor damage.  The beater guy couldn’t get his head around how someone could not avoid his vehicle on the more or less deserted highway.  He just couldn’t accept his world being invaded that way.  The fellow who was rear-ended jumped the rear-ender once he stepped out of his car.  He hit him about the face and head until the man collapsed. 

Now here’s the kicker, so to speak.  Realizing he’d truly hurt the guilty driver, the beater (who considered himself the victim) went into a 24 gas station and called 9-1-1.  Then he returned to the fallen man and kicked the fallen man until he was dead.

The Point:  You gotta know when to quit.  And then quit.

How do you know when to quit?  Just possibly, the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM could be a help. 

CLASSIC SENTENCE:  Put some facts around the situation.  Factually- what are you really giving up by letting go of a grudge or injustice—real or imagined?

The EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is feeding us all sorts of malarkey:

              Exaggerations on the degree to which we have been inconvenienced by an event or another person.  (Everything I’ve worked for up to this point in my life is ruined!)

              Exaggerations of physical and emotional harm. (I can’t take this, not on top of all the other unfairness I’m already suffering!)

              Exaggerations of the other person’s motives (He didn’t even try to stop) and his or her overall character (You know the type.)

Challenge:  Notice an irritation today…traffic, a co-worker doing what she always does, a spouse forgets to ___, a newspaper article that usually ticks you off,…and let it go.

Part Two follows…The Madwoman with the Elementary School View…How to Give Away Your Power…the war of little feet…

HOW WE THINK about a PROBLEM directs our TIME, ENERGY, MONEY, and WORRY

Okay…Dangerous water here, I know.  Weight loss is definitely the preoccupation of the nation and, while before we only drove ourselves nuts…the facts are childhood obesity has jumped into ugly focus.  Before a word reaches your eyes…keep in mind… Pledge One:  “I, Barbara DeShong, am as nutty and emotionally driven as anyone on the planet.”  No preaching or “expert” psycho-babbling here.  One of my irresistible Texas favorites is Mexican food which I just enjoyed in Denver, so my “failings” are interstate.

How we think about a symptom directs how we spend our time, energy, money, and heartfelt worry, attempting to make a difference.

Option A:  Childhood obesity is on the rise because of EVENTS and the ENVIRONMENT.

If we believe this, we launch programs to change the events and the environment.  We take soft drink machines out of schools, we force the convenience stores across from schools out of business, we applaud fast food franchises for offering apple slices instead of french fries.  We serve angel food cake at birthday parties. We buy exercise equipment. We IGNORE the fact that soft drink machines and convenience stores across from schools were in place long before the current dilemma. 

Option B:  Childhood obesity is on the rise because of a LACK OF INFORMATION.

If we believe lack of information to be the problem…that is, we believe we are overweight because we just can’t figure out how it happens– we will teach the food pyramid and how calories are used in the body.  We will petition school boards to buy more bulletin board materials on healthy eating. We will buy books on dieting and weight loss.  Since obesity is a highly complicated and cutting edge science, we will buy every new book that promises to have discovered “the secret.”  We will buy magazines with a new diet on the cover and filled with pages models in clothes no one we know could wear.  We IGNORE the fact that, logically, if more information on diet and exercise made a difference…all of us would be thinner and in better shape…since we have way more information (If you count saying the same thing a thousand different ways as information) now that we did in the 1950’s.

Option C:  Childhood obesity, like other “symptoms,” is on the rise due to ANXIETY and DIFFICULTIES in managing ANXIETY …difficulty making choices based on long-term benefit over getting rid of anxiety NOW. 

No blame here.  We got into this shape honestly responding to the emotional systems of which we are a part.  If we believe individual difficulties in managing anxiety…in the parents and the children…is resulting in an increasing pattern of over-eating and under-exercising—we realize we could invest time, energy, and sometimes money into strenthening the child’s, and our own, ability to think and manage anxiety. Remember the migration of the wildebeest (found by searching wildebeest on this site)…We’re just trying to get a little more toward the center of the herd.  Since we as parents know the problem…

Don’t worry, I ducked when you threw that plate at me.  I don’t like it either…focusing on events and information…is so comforting.  Plus, I must go to the vending machines and find some Tums.