Jerry and I have spent a good portion of our married lives in the car together.  Since we both work on the Peninsula at companies that are 5 miles apart we carpool daily.  It would seem wrong for us not to since we are both going in the same direction anyway and more importantly, it gets us over the San Mateo bridge cheap.  I guess it’s an opportunity to be together as well.  Sometimes we talk to each other.  We banter, rant about work or even have an actual discussion.  But mostly we listen to the radio. 

Jerry was clear about his car radio rule early on in the  relationship:  the driver chooses the station.  Since Jerry does 90% of the driving when we are together (it’s safer that way) the majority of my radio listening is up to him. 

If it sounds like I live in a radio dictatorship, that would be correct.  But aside from the occasional rebel uprisings wherein Jerry exercises his mighty power by changing the station just as I was getting into Come Sail Away by Styx or Long Time by Boston, or he turns the volume up when I make an attempt at conversation, it’s not that bad of a life.  We share a special attachment to our local talk station, KGO and just last night shared the return of one of our favorite hosts, Karel.  We also love to listen to Howard Stern on Sirius Satellite radio.  I’ll admit that I wasn’t a Howard Stern fan pre-Jerry but I am now.  Yes, sometimes the show can get gross and most of the phony phone calls make me cringe, but overall I’m glad I was introduced to the King of All Media.  Howard Stern is actually pretty insightful and he can do one helluva interview.  A few months ago when he interviewed Billy Joel I felt like they were all there in the car with me, piano and all. 

And overall I like living in a radio dictatorship.  As long as he doesn’t take my blogging privileges away we’re good. 

I was about to take the deep route on this one.  I was going to reflect on some of the more difficult times in my life and reveal that the person who actually made my life a real living hell during all those various times was in fact…myself.  It’s true of course, but then I remembered someone better and maybe more interesting to talk about.  Two people actually, who qualify as making a portion of my life miserable: Charlene and Cornelia. 

Charlene and Cornelia were two legal secretaries who worked at my first law firm.  Highly qualified and well seasoned they supported only the firm partners and the most valuable associates.  They were good at what they did and I considered them authorities on all things pertaining to court filings, WordPerfect (awww, remember Word Perfect? Damn I miss reveal codes!), indexing pleadings, proofs of service…basically anything that related to my work as support staff.  Charlene and Cornelia were always really supportive of my work and enjoyed sharing their wisdom with me.  Which made their treatment of their treatment of me in the firm lunch room all that more confusing.  Because once lunch started, Charlene and Cornelia would turn into total mean girls. 

The firm lunchroom was typical for a 30 person office.  There was a refrigerator and microwave and a table big enough to sit 6 people.  Located in downtown San Francisco, there were plenty of great food options so it was rarely used except by those of us on limited budgets or thrifty at heart.  ie: me, Charlene and Cornelia. 

I was in my mid-20s at the time, naively in love and could eat whatever I wanted without gaining a pound.  They were a good 10-15 years older, divorced and, um, how can I say this?  Well, let’s just say I get now why they may have acted like they hated me.  At the time though, I was completely devastated.  They criticized what I ate, they made fun of the books I read, they cackled and exchanged glances at every little thing I said.  And while specific examples have long left my mind, proof that really what was going on was probably not that big of a deal in the big picture, at the time I felt ganged up on and victimized. 

Now that I look back I realize I probably said some pretty dumb things.  I know I had some pretty dumb ideas back then.  That was when I assumed I would be married before I was 30, and the mother of two perfect children before I was 35.  That was when I thought life was easy and my biggest decision each day was which pair of shoes looked best with my outfit.  So yeah, I probably deserved the cackling and knowing glances from two ladies who had tasted a lot more life than me. 

Which brings me back to my original idea.  Maybe the person who actually made my time in that lunchroom so miserable was in fact….myself. 

Who remembers the Chowchilla kidnapping back in the 70s?  Apparently the judge, prosecutors and investigators who worked on the case support release of the kidnappers on parole.  When I first read the article about it a few weeks ago I thought, are they crazy?  Those three guys kidnapped a bus full of children and buried them alive in a rock quarry.  They are not only heartless and cruel but they struck fear in children all over California. 

I was 10 years old when the kidnapping happened.  I remember the night the children were found.  We were having dinner at the home of our family friends, “Lisa and Lynda’s” I used to say because Lisa and Lynda were my best friends.  All us kids were watching TV when the news broke.  At first it was just boring news.  We heard strange and disturbing sounding words like Chowchilla and kidnapping.  But then we heard words we recognized like children, school bus and Livermore and suddenly the news wasn’t so boring.  The news was scary and it was telling us that kidnappers were loose in Livermore. 

Since it was the middle of July my first concern was obvious: What were these kids doing on a school bus in the middle of summer vacation?  Lisa suggested that perhaps the Chowchilla kids were going to summer school and she confirmed this possibility by pointing out that she and her sister Lynda rode a school bus to summer camp.  I silently thanked God that my mother did not send us to summer camp and 35 years later I still wonder if Lisa and Lynda got on the summer camp bus the next day.  I know I sure as hell wouldn’t. 

The rock quarry the children were found in was in Livermore less than a mile from our house.  On warm summer nights when I had my bedroom window open I could hear the trucks and machinery and the sounds of rocks dumping at the quarry.  That night when we got home from Lisa and Lynda’s my dad walked through our dark house, turning on all the lights and peaking in our bedrooms.  Even as a kid I knew the possibility of kidnappers hiding in our house was slim but the fact that my father double checked still feels comforting today.  And for the rest of that Livermore summer I kept my bedroom window sealed shut. 

Oh yes I can type.  And I’m taking over this blog right now to set the record straight.  My mom, the Lady Jessop, loves to exploit my cat-like ways in a desperate attempt to get a smile out of people.  Ha!  Funny!  Let’s see how much you smile when I fill you in on the rest of the story.  

Let’s start with that post about the vacuum cleaner a few weeks ago.  You all know that cats are the vacuum cleaner’s main prey don’t you?  Sucking up our fur, which we carefully place throughout our homes in a most tediously expressive manner in order to mark our territory (I personally take my fur placement practice very seriously and do it with some frequency), is only one level of the damage that screaming beast does on the delicate cat psyche.  It also sucks up essential bits of dry food which we could very well need for future use if our owners neglect to keep our dishes adequately filled (you never know).  And of course there’s the obvious fact that they can also consume an entire cat.  No one ever talks about that but it’s a known fact among the cat community and if pressed I could site specific case studies on this taboo subject. 

So despite having full knowledge of the known evils of this destructive appliance my mom, the cruel Lady Jessop, insists on owning one and actually let  it loose a few weeks ago during a very important time of day.  A time of day that is very sacred and precious to me and cats worldwide: canned food time.  Everyone knows how important canned food is to cats.  It’s an important biological right that we are all entitled to. 

So there during my very important canned food ritual which involves an incredible amount of work – loud purring, constant rubbing, strategic claw usage, all while on the brink of death due to starvation — the vacuum cleaner suddenly starts screaming towards me forcing me suddenly out of my ritual and sending me to seek protection.  I spent the next half hour hiding behind the couch and had anxiety attacks for the rest of the evening.  And then she wonders why I spent the next three days puking?