I tend to attract certain types of people. These types include the elderly, young children, and guys who are total weirdos. I don't mean that these are the only people who like me. I simply mean that members from these populations have a unique way of finding me and clinging. This has been the case my entire life, especially as far as the last group goes, and I've never quite been able to shake them.
I love that children take to me easily, so I don't feel the need to expand much on that. It has made my job as a teacher and perpetual babysitter much easier. I like to think it is some irresistible, pure-hearted character trait that draws children to me, but many times I think that children simply recognize me as someone who probably keeps twizzlers nearby.
Elderly people find me in public spaces like airports, coffee shops, and libraries. "Ah, went with the Americano I see. heh. Never did take to the taste of expresso myself. What's your name, little lady?" And so begins a conversation with LeRoy. I find that old men are a unique combination of confidence and oblivion, and this allows them to talk to anyone without reservation. They are for the most part totally harmless, so I don't mind the LeRoys of the world. They are just lonely and looking for someone to listen to them for a few minutes. I can do that. What gets exhausting is when an elderly person starts a conversation and then expects audience participation.
A perfect example of this is a situation with a neighbor I had growing up. He lived several houses down and was known for his meticulous yard and terrifying disposition. Since children categorize adults based on how the adult treats them, the kids in our hood designated this man to a category for which the word 'butt' was used in several creative ways. As I got older and more well read, I internally referred to him as Mr. Bumble from Oliver Twist. I made a habit of running really quickly past his house because I knew he sat and waited for vulnerable children to skip by. Should I be so unlucky to lose a sandal or stop for a quick cartwheel, he would immediately come outside to accuse me of stealing his newspaper.
One unfortunate day I was passing by alone, and as usual, I geared up to make a run for it. However I was also eating Fun Dip, and as usual, food won out in the end. Running caused the colored sugar to bounce out of the packet, so I adjusted by holding the packet out in front of me while taking lunge-like steps past Bumble's house. A solitary lunging sugar addict was an easy target, and I wasn't even to his mailbox before I saw his robe in my peripheral.
B: "Stop! Stop, young lady. STOP. Do you have mah newspaper? Kids are out here ever'day taking mah newspaper. Is it you?"
T: "No sir. I don't read the newspaper."
B: "That don't mean you didn't steal it! Kids steal ever'thing. Runnin' round here in shorts and taking mah newspaper. What's in your mouth?"
T: "A sugar stick. It dips into this sugar. [quick demo] And then you eat it. I don't have your paper."
B: "Who the hell gave you sugar? The same person who took mah paper?"
It was at this point that I realized Bumble and I had crossed the line into actual conversation. I didn't know how it happened, and I didn't appreciate it, but there we were nonetheless.
T: "No sir. I don't know who took your newspaper, but maybe you need to renew your subscription. My dad-"
B: "Nah nah nah, don't get smart. My subscription's fine. It's you and your friends, I know. Listen, girl. I need you to find out who's takin' mah paper. Can you do that for me? Can you keep watch ever'day and get to the bottom of this?"
Sigh. I desperately wanted to get away from Bumble in his bathrobe. I was running late for a Babysitters Club meeting at Rachel P.'s house, and frankly I didn't want anyone seeing me getting chatty with our neighborhood's Mr. Wilson. I already had a reputation for being too amicable with adults, and I was anxious to spend that summer exploring my rebellious side by emulating Gia, Stephanie's bad-girl friend on Full House.
T: [nod] "Sure. I'll keep a lookout." [backing away]
B: "Well, now wait, see." [pulls me closer by the shoulder] "I really need your help. Ever' mornin' I need you out here watchin' my yard. I'll look from inside, and you look from out. Then you report to me ever'day about what you see. You understand? Startin' tomorrow."
The word unstable passed through my mind, and I was prepared to do anything to remove myself from his property. How did I get to this place? Bumble hated children. And now he had me by the shoulder, and we were co-conspiring against my friends. I never wanted to talk to this man let alone formulate a plan that involved work on my end. "He's probably just looking for a friend," Rachel P.'s mom said to us that day. "You girls should do the right thing and spend a little time with the man."
I nodded respectfully, but I certainly did not share her Tuesdays with Morrie sentiment. Bumble outmatched me in every way: height, weight, speaking volume, eyebrow thickness. It seemed much more reasonable that an adult spend time with a mean elderly neighbor, but even Mrs. P. had referred to him as "the man." She didn't know his name, and therefore we as kids knew that we couldn't really be held responsible for continuing to avoid him.
I did watch his yard the following two mornings. As I suspected, I never saw a newspaper, and no funny business occurred during my shifts. I spent the better part of those mornings memorizing the lyrics to En Vogue's "Free Your Mind" and practicing block letters with sidewalk chalk. After day two I simply waited until my parents finished reading the newspaper and would then sprint to his front door and drop it on the porch. I knew he watched me do this, but he never came out to yell at me, and I considered this a great success. I don't know if it was my use of the word "sir," my obvious fear, or my stupidity for lunging past his house alone that led Bumble to trust me, but our exchange that summer sealed my fate as a magnet for old people for years to come.
The final and most problematic group of people who find and approach me are the male weirdos. The unbalanced. The socially inept. The crazies. The odd birds. The misfits. The outsiders. Choose any name you like! A rose by any other name still stalks you from ages twelve to fifteen. At this point you may be thinking I sound insensitive. But that is where you are wrong. I am too sensitive, and that is precisely why socially awkward guys from all walks of life continue to seek out my company. I know this is not a romantic example, but think back to the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie and his younger brother, Randy, are standing in line to see Santa.
Kid in aviation goggles: "I like the Wizard of Oz."
Ralphie: "Yeah."
Goggles: "I like the tin man."
Ralphie: "Uh huh." [takes a step away from Goggles, pulling his brother with him]
Ralphie = me. Goggles = every boy who has liked me, ever.
Let's begin in seventh grade with Mike. Seventh grade was our first year of junior high, and several elementary schools fed into Bedford Junior High, home of the Broncos. Mike came from a different elementary school but found me during our first day at BJH because we had the same homeroom teacher and math teacher - a occurrence that AMAZED Mike, as he reminded me daily. I learned early on that Mike didn't trust anyone, and he was especially wary of lockers. He carried everything with him at all times. All of his books were stacked on top of each other with a pencil holder at the top. He was a little thing, and I immediately felt sorry for him. "Wow, that looks heavy" I told him on the first day. I don't know what Mike heard me say, but he would spend the next two years running after me in the hallway to show me photos of his cat.
In eighth grade, Brian entered my life quickly and unassuming, like acne. One day he was just...there - standing by my locker and convinced that I needed a daily update on how large his biceps were getting. I spent fourth period as a library aide, which essentially meant that for all three lunch periods, I sat as a receptionist to all of the kids who wandered into the library instead of having a place to sit at lunch. So many awkward, gangly boys giggling around the science section, fighting over a book on female anatomy. Brian followed me each day as I made the rounds and put books away, and I had to pause frequently to raise my eyebrows in awe of his arm muscles. He did most of the talking, and the fact that he spit frequently only made me more apt to let him near me. This is probably the only time he ever gets to talk. Just deal with it. And don't forget to tell him not to yell out your name in front of everyone during the pep rally tomorrow. "Watch when I flex like this."
Also in eighth grade (clearly a big year for me), Chris got my number. Chris spent the majority of his academic career in ISS: In School Suspension. (my first bad boy!) ISS was an alternative school that housed kids who received detention more than three times in a semester. I always feared it, but after several conversations with Chris, it honestly sounded amazing. Kids in ISS got their work done in silence during the morning. In the afternoon, they could read, write, or sleep until it was time to go home. What the hell? Working in a quiet environment without distraction and the constant fear of judgement over not having any new jeans from the Gap? At first I tried to avoid his phone calls, but he called so frequently and was so polite to my mom that she eventually forced me to talk to him regularly. "He's in ISS, I'll have you know. AND I think he has a tattoo," I would whisper-yell at my mom as she handed me the cordless.
A turning point for Chris and me came when he "officially" asked me out. He spent the first part of the conversation telling me about his pets.
C: "My gerbil died two days ago."
T: "I'm very sorry; that's sad."
C: "Nah. S'alright. I fed it some rat poison stuff I found in my uncle's shed the other day. So I kinda knew the thing would die. It was pretty badass."
T: "....."
C: "So I was thinking you would probably go out with me."
T: "No thanks, but thank you though. Thanks a lot for asking, but no."
[pause]
C: "It's because I'm black, isn't it? You're so racist."
Here is where I took offense. He murdered his gerbil, and he thought my main take-away from our conversation was his race? His being black had nothing to do with it, and I thought about writing a note explaining my feelings. Something like:
Dear Chris,
I don't want to go out with you, but not because you're black. Don't take it personally because I tend to shy away from any guy with sociopathic leanings.
Your friend,
Tracey
In the end, I gently stopped taking his calls altogether and hoped he would meet a nice girl at his alternative school. The following summer I received several letters in the mail from Mike. Yes, seventh grade Mike. Enclosed in each letter was a short update (I'm writing to you from the campsite I set up in my Grandma's backyard) and pages from a 1993 calendar with pictures of kittens. (This is what my cat looked like when I first got him - now he's bigger).
Fast forward to high school when a member of the wrestling team took to me in a sufficiently creepy way. This guy would drive past my house several times each night, sometimes stopping to leave a note on my windshield.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Dr. Pepper is sweet
and so are you
He lived in a duplex behind a nearby strip mall, and one night as I left the bookstore, he caught me on my way to the car. "Come with me real quick to my backyard." (red flag #1) "It's real close, come on." I followed him through an opening in his fence and for the first time noticed how dark it was getting. "I better get back home soon," I said nervously as he got out a flashlight. (red flag #2) "I just wanna show you somethin." He shined the light on a large piece of wood where he had pasted Dr. Pepper labels from old bottles in a seemingly random fashion. Upon further inspection, I saw that the labels actually formed the silhouette of a female. "That's you in your cheerleading uniform. Cool, huh?"
Okay, shit was getting real now. I nodded and all but sprinted from his backyard and back to my car.
I'll stop there because I think you get the picture. If there was a guy who was weird, borderline psychotic, prone to spitting, or inordinately attached to animals within twenty miles, he found me.
What brought on this long-winded remembrance of things past? There are two reasons, and the first is that I need to point out that nothing has changed. I'm consistently surprised that it does not matter how old I get or in which city I live; this is simply the way it is. A few days ago when walking up the stairs of the subway exit near my apartment, a man in a lab coat walked right up to me. "You heading home?" Caught off guard, I nodded and then cringed. You idiot, I thought to myself. Every after school special in the history of forever taught you to say that you are walking to the police station. To pick up your boyfriend and four older brothers. You're supposed to say they work there and also teach karate to new members of the force. But it was too late. Lab Coat walked with me for two long blocks with the simple explanation of: "I knew you would want me to hang out with you for awhile."
I'm always interested to know what is it that leads all these people to this conclusion. And to the conclusion that I really want to see your arm muscles and your cats. That I'm into Dr. Pepper and your lab coat.
Lastly, I need every reader out there to know that when I inevitably turn up missing, there are several explanations you can weed out. If I am off the grid for more than three days, please know that I am not backpacking through Europe or on the Vaudeville circuit. I am not off having a fabulous affair with a coffee distributor from Bogota. I'm not even stalking Tom Waits. While these are all things I would love to be doing, I assure you that you can mark these items off the list. In reality, I will probably be tied up in a basement somewhere. Another male weirdo will have brought out my compassionate side with his speech problem. He will have talked me into coming to see his three-legged puppy, and he's now driving me to a desolate ranch in Arizona.
While there is also the smaller chance that I am holed up with LeRoy talking about The Great War, more than likely you will find me in or around Chris's uncle's shed in Fort Worth, Texas. As a matter of fact, check there first.
I love that children take to me easily, so I don't feel the need to expand much on that. It has made my job as a teacher and perpetual babysitter much easier. I like to think it is some irresistible, pure-hearted character trait that draws children to me, but many times I think that children simply recognize me as someone who probably keeps twizzlers nearby.
Elderly people find me in public spaces like airports, coffee shops, and libraries. "Ah, went with the Americano I see. heh. Never did take to the taste of expresso myself. What's your name, little lady?" And so begins a conversation with LeRoy. I find that old men are a unique combination of confidence and oblivion, and this allows them to talk to anyone without reservation. They are for the most part totally harmless, so I don't mind the LeRoys of the world. They are just lonely and looking for someone to listen to them for a few minutes. I can do that. What gets exhausting is when an elderly person starts a conversation and then expects audience participation.
A perfect example of this is a situation with a neighbor I had growing up. He lived several houses down and was known for his meticulous yard and terrifying disposition. Since children categorize adults based on how the adult treats them, the kids in our hood designated this man to a category for which the word 'butt' was used in several creative ways. As I got older and more well read, I internally referred to him as Mr. Bumble from Oliver Twist. I made a habit of running really quickly past his house because I knew he sat and waited for vulnerable children to skip by. Should I be so unlucky to lose a sandal or stop for a quick cartwheel, he would immediately come outside to accuse me of stealing his newspaper.
One unfortunate day I was passing by alone, and as usual, I geared up to make a run for it. However I was also eating Fun Dip, and as usual, food won out in the end. Running caused the colored sugar to bounce out of the packet, so I adjusted by holding the packet out in front of me while taking lunge-like steps past Bumble's house. A solitary lunging sugar addict was an easy target, and I wasn't even to his mailbox before I saw his robe in my peripheral.
B: "Stop! Stop, young lady. STOP. Do you have mah newspaper? Kids are out here ever'day taking mah newspaper. Is it you?"
T: "No sir. I don't read the newspaper."
B: "That don't mean you didn't steal it! Kids steal ever'thing. Runnin' round here in shorts and taking mah newspaper. What's in your mouth?"
T: "A sugar stick. It dips into this sugar. [quick demo] And then you eat it. I don't have your paper."
B: "Who the hell gave you sugar? The same person who took mah paper?"
It was at this point that I realized Bumble and I had crossed the line into actual conversation. I didn't know how it happened, and I didn't appreciate it, but there we were nonetheless.
T: "No sir. I don't know who took your newspaper, but maybe you need to renew your subscription. My dad-"
B: "Nah nah nah, don't get smart. My subscription's fine. It's you and your friends, I know. Listen, girl. I need you to find out who's takin' mah paper. Can you do that for me? Can you keep watch ever'day and get to the bottom of this?"
Sigh. I desperately wanted to get away from Bumble in his bathrobe. I was running late for a Babysitters Club meeting at Rachel P.'s house, and frankly I didn't want anyone seeing me getting chatty with our neighborhood's Mr. Wilson. I already had a reputation for being too amicable with adults, and I was anxious to spend that summer exploring my rebellious side by emulating Gia, Stephanie's bad-girl friend on Full House.
T: [nod] "Sure. I'll keep a lookout." [backing away]
B: "Well, now wait, see." [pulls me closer by the shoulder] "I really need your help. Ever' mornin' I need you out here watchin' my yard. I'll look from inside, and you look from out. Then you report to me ever'day about what you see. You understand? Startin' tomorrow."
The word unstable passed through my mind, and I was prepared to do anything to remove myself from his property. How did I get to this place? Bumble hated children. And now he had me by the shoulder, and we were co-conspiring against my friends. I never wanted to talk to this man let alone formulate a plan that involved work on my end. "He's probably just looking for a friend," Rachel P.'s mom said to us that day. "You girls should do the right thing and spend a little time with the man."
I nodded respectfully, but I certainly did not share her Tuesdays with Morrie sentiment. Bumble outmatched me in every way: height, weight, speaking volume, eyebrow thickness. It seemed much more reasonable that an adult spend time with a mean elderly neighbor, but even Mrs. P. had referred to him as "the man." She didn't know his name, and therefore we as kids knew that we couldn't really be held responsible for continuing to avoid him.
I did watch his yard the following two mornings. As I suspected, I never saw a newspaper, and no funny business occurred during my shifts. I spent the better part of those mornings memorizing the lyrics to En Vogue's "Free Your Mind" and practicing block letters with sidewalk chalk. After day two I simply waited until my parents finished reading the newspaper and would then sprint to his front door and drop it on the porch. I knew he watched me do this, but he never came out to yell at me, and I considered this a great success. I don't know if it was my use of the word "sir," my obvious fear, or my stupidity for lunging past his house alone that led Bumble to trust me, but our exchange that summer sealed my fate as a magnet for old people for years to come.
The final and most problematic group of people who find and approach me are the male weirdos. The unbalanced. The socially inept. The crazies. The odd birds. The misfits. The outsiders. Choose any name you like! A rose by any other name still stalks you from ages twelve to fifteen. At this point you may be thinking I sound insensitive. But that is where you are wrong. I am too sensitive, and that is precisely why socially awkward guys from all walks of life continue to seek out my company. I know this is not a romantic example, but think back to the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie and his younger brother, Randy, are standing in line to see Santa.
Kid in aviation goggles: "I like the Wizard of Oz."
Ralphie: "Yeah."
Goggles: "I like the tin man."
Ralphie: "Uh huh." [takes a step away from Goggles, pulling his brother with him]
Ralphie = me. Goggles = every boy who has liked me, ever.
Let's begin in seventh grade with Mike. Seventh grade was our first year of junior high, and several elementary schools fed into Bedford Junior High, home of the Broncos. Mike came from a different elementary school but found me during our first day at BJH because we had the same homeroom teacher and math teacher - a occurrence that AMAZED Mike, as he reminded me daily. I learned early on that Mike didn't trust anyone, and he was especially wary of lockers. He carried everything with him at all times. All of his books were stacked on top of each other with a pencil holder at the top. He was a little thing, and I immediately felt sorry for him. "Wow, that looks heavy" I told him on the first day. I don't know what Mike heard me say, but he would spend the next two years running after me in the hallway to show me photos of his cat.
In eighth grade, Brian entered my life quickly and unassuming, like acne. One day he was just...there - standing by my locker and convinced that I needed a daily update on how large his biceps were getting. I spent fourth period as a library aide, which essentially meant that for all three lunch periods, I sat as a receptionist to all of the kids who wandered into the library instead of having a place to sit at lunch. So many awkward, gangly boys giggling around the science section, fighting over a book on female anatomy. Brian followed me each day as I made the rounds and put books away, and I had to pause frequently to raise my eyebrows in awe of his arm muscles. He did most of the talking, and the fact that he spit frequently only made me more apt to let him near me. This is probably the only time he ever gets to talk. Just deal with it. And don't forget to tell him not to yell out your name in front of everyone during the pep rally tomorrow. "Watch when I flex like this."
Also in eighth grade (clearly a big year for me), Chris got my number. Chris spent the majority of his academic career in ISS: In School Suspension. (my first bad boy!) ISS was an alternative school that housed kids who received detention more than three times in a semester. I always feared it, but after several conversations with Chris, it honestly sounded amazing. Kids in ISS got their work done in silence during the morning. In the afternoon, they could read, write, or sleep until it was time to go home. What the hell? Working in a quiet environment without distraction and the constant fear of judgement over not having any new jeans from the Gap? At first I tried to avoid his phone calls, but he called so frequently and was so polite to my mom that she eventually forced me to talk to him regularly. "He's in ISS, I'll have you know. AND I think he has a tattoo," I would whisper-yell at my mom as she handed me the cordless.
A turning point for Chris and me came when he "officially" asked me out. He spent the first part of the conversation telling me about his pets.
C: "My gerbil died two days ago."
T: "I'm very sorry; that's sad."
C: "Nah. S'alright. I fed it some rat poison stuff I found in my uncle's shed the other day. So I kinda knew the thing would die. It was pretty badass."
T: "....."
C: "So I was thinking you would probably go out with me."
T: "No thanks, but thank you though. Thanks a lot for asking, but no."
[pause]
C: "It's because I'm black, isn't it? You're so racist."
Here is where I took offense. He murdered his gerbil, and he thought my main take-away from our conversation was his race? His being black had nothing to do with it, and I thought about writing a note explaining my feelings. Something like:
Dear Chris,
I don't want to go out with you, but not because you're black. Don't take it personally because I tend to shy away from any guy with sociopathic leanings.
Your friend,
Tracey
In the end, I gently stopped taking his calls altogether and hoped he would meet a nice girl at his alternative school. The following summer I received several letters in the mail from Mike. Yes, seventh grade Mike. Enclosed in each letter was a short update (I'm writing to you from the campsite I set up in my Grandma's backyard) and pages from a 1993 calendar with pictures of kittens. (This is what my cat looked like when I first got him - now he's bigger).
Fast forward to high school when a member of the wrestling team took to me in a sufficiently creepy way. This guy would drive past my house several times each night, sometimes stopping to leave a note on my windshield.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Dr. Pepper is sweet
and so are you
He lived in a duplex behind a nearby strip mall, and one night as I left the bookstore, he caught me on my way to the car. "Come with me real quick to my backyard." (red flag #1) "It's real close, come on." I followed him through an opening in his fence and for the first time noticed how dark it was getting. "I better get back home soon," I said nervously as he got out a flashlight. (red flag #2) "I just wanna show you somethin." He shined the light on a large piece of wood where he had pasted Dr. Pepper labels from old bottles in a seemingly random fashion. Upon further inspection, I saw that the labels actually formed the silhouette of a female. "That's you in your cheerleading uniform. Cool, huh?"
Okay, shit was getting real now. I nodded and all but sprinted from his backyard and back to my car.
I'll stop there because I think you get the picture. If there was a guy who was weird, borderline psychotic, prone to spitting, or inordinately attached to animals within twenty miles, he found me.
What brought on this long-winded remembrance of things past? There are two reasons, and the first is that I need to point out that nothing has changed. I'm consistently surprised that it does not matter how old I get or in which city I live; this is simply the way it is. A few days ago when walking up the stairs of the subway exit near my apartment, a man in a lab coat walked right up to me. "You heading home?" Caught off guard, I nodded and then cringed. You idiot, I thought to myself. Every after school special in the history of forever taught you to say that you are walking to the police station. To pick up your boyfriend and four older brothers. You're supposed to say they work there and also teach karate to new members of the force. But it was too late. Lab Coat walked with me for two long blocks with the simple explanation of: "I knew you would want me to hang out with you for awhile."
I'm always interested to know what is it that leads all these people to this conclusion. And to the conclusion that I really want to see your arm muscles and your cats. That I'm into Dr. Pepper and your lab coat.
Lastly, I need every reader out there to know that when I inevitably turn up missing, there are several explanations you can weed out. If I am off the grid for more than three days, please know that I am not backpacking through Europe or on the Vaudeville circuit. I am not off having a fabulous affair with a coffee distributor from Bogota. I'm not even stalking Tom Waits. While these are all things I would love to be doing, I assure you that you can mark these items off the list. In reality, I will probably be tied up in a basement somewhere. Another male weirdo will have brought out my compassionate side with his speech problem. He will have talked me into coming to see his three-legged puppy, and he's now driving me to a desolate ranch in Arizona.
While there is also the smaller chance that I am holed up with LeRoy talking about The Great War, more than likely you will find me in or around Chris's uncle's shed in Fort Worth, Texas. As a matter of fact, check there first.
As ever, your wit astounds. I so wish I your ability to describe my very own miasma of strange people that hover about, convinced that I'll love their drawings of dismembered women and jars of fetal pigs. On another note, though - if you ever DO want to drop off the grid and stalk Tom Waits - I'm totally in.
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