SCDMV The New Whinery

I walked into the DMV last week and looked in disbelief at the line that circled the two walls. Couldn't put my business off any longer so I took my place in the procession  #15.  
Several more people rounded the corner and filed in behind me. We exchanged the sympathetic ~What are you going to do smile and shrug ~ as they came in. The woman right behind me decided to use her time to phone a friend, oblivious to the large ~Please silence cell phones~  signs on the wall. And to boot, she is talking loudly. I tried to tune her out, but she was grating.
After listening to her whine session about her suffering for ten minutes,  I pulled out my phone to text Don. ~14 people in front of me, line's not moving, ugh~
I slip my phone back into purse. The lady is still going on and on. It started with DMV, then their employees, onto the state of SC, Immigration laws and then the Mexican people standing in line taking up her American space.
Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, her phone a friend bowed out of the convo. So...what does she do? Yup..dials another friend and starts the same garb over. I was considering trading places with people behind her just to get out of earshot.
Is complaining contagious?  Why did I send a text to Don?  To let him know I was suffering? Lord help me if my weak mind and body think standing in line is suffering.
I am alive, I am not standing in line in a third world country for a potato or handful of rice. I am standing in line to turn in tags on a vehicle that died..so that I could have another vehicle that wouldn't die and when I left this line, I was going to go to  Chick Fil A to get an ice cream cone.
What else have I complained about? Traffic, grocery store clerks, food at restaurant?  I looked around at the pinched faces in line. Does everyone feel the same. Is complaining pervasive?  Another lady has sympathized with the lady behind me and they are edging to the window to glare at the counter workers. Others are rolling their eyes. Are we all angry?
Can I find an oasis in the pity desert? Ahh..there's one. A mother with a son going to get his driving test. His face shows anticipation as he jingles car keys. Mom is nervously beaming.
Another lady is reading a book in line, yet another goes through her coupons.
I can go with that, make use of my time. Once it's gone it's gone, whether I am standing in a line at DMV or a concert. I know several people who would give a pinky finger to trade their real woes for my mundane suffering right now.
As if an answer to my resolve and dissipation of angst. A triage DMV employee came out to the front and started working the line. She takes my tag and tells me to leave. I heard a hmmphhh behind me from mad DMV #16,  too bitter to see that she is now #15.  
When I walked out of the door of the DMV, I felt somewhat lighter. Changing my outlook on the situation put a little spring in my step.
I climbed into the car, cut the A/C on, cranked the radio and picked up my list to cross off DMV.
Next on list... call cable company...Awww hell, that was short lived.  But, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Moving Day: When 140% Humidity Was the Least of My Problems... | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Moving Day: When 140% Humidity Was the Least of My Problems... | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Moving Day and She/it Happens

There are always issues with moving aren't there?  I filled myself with coffee, encouragement and positive attitudes in the mornings, but between the torrential rain pours and forty minute calls to service technicians to cut this on or this off.. all my goodness and mercy oozed out by lunchtime.
 The clamor of the week had me leaving notes everywhere and I still missed two friends birthdays. I perpetually felt like I was forgetting to do something.
The data usage on our phones was almost over limit, so Don and I were conversing as speed talkers. We had no internet and limited phone service. The earliest install date for internet was 12 days out.
Then.... the car decided to die. There's a point in a cars' life when I feel they are not worthy of further servicing. Mine reached that a year ago. It was truly a fair weather car, moody as all get out. The wiper motor on the passenger side quit working months ago. It failed slowy causing the timing of the sweep to be off, which had the blades literally fighting in mid air during a torrential rain while I was crossing the Daniel Island bridge. Wiper motors $200.00!  So, I quit driving in the rain.
Shortly afterwards, it would only change gear speeds on cool days. Car menopause. Finally  at any given moment..it would max out in first gear at a top speed of 20 mph.
At this point, let's just say that I didn't affectionately call her the "Old girl" anymore. As if she/it sensed it, she gave up the ghost on the hottest day of the year, humidity levels were at 140%.  I have a carload of things to take to new place in the move. It was the beginning of evening traffic on 17 North.  She/it hiccupped... her way of saying she wasn't going to drive. I pulled into the Laser car wash and let it cool off. I decided to use the oval car wash drive as a speed test before pulling out, like a seasoned short tract driver I punched it and took a few left turns.  After a few laps, it caught second gear and I pulled out onto the highway and then with a slew of traffic behind me and in the middle lane of Hwy 17..nothing.  She/it and I limped into a retail parking lot. I waited for a tow truck with my leg stuck out the door, fanning myself with an unopened bill.
I kept feeling like I forgot to do something else.  I pondered my various list while I pulled the under wire out of my bra that has decided to poke through at this inopportune moment as well.
Don picked me up before the tow truck came.  I was just about ripe by this time. Hotter than Hannah, if you will.  I could hardly wait for a shower. When we walked in, Don cut on the faucet to rinse out something.  I heard the spit of air..and I remembered what I hadn't done! Transfer the water to our name when we moved.  I made a few desperate calls at 5 P.M. to see what I cold do..Nothing. Wait until tomorrow. Unless we have a plumbers tool. Hell we didn't know what that was , but we were outside on the ground removing a man hole cover to see if we had anything to resemble it. Nope.
Resolve settled in. I had two back tanks of clean toilet water that I could boil for a bird bath, and ice cubes for tomorrow mornings coffee. I was feeling a little cocky about my survival skills and learned a fast lesson on what not to do when your water is cut off....Don't eat a soft ripened SC peach. Another bird bath.
Up at the crack of dawn, I melted the ice cubes for coffee and watched the clock tick until the water utility office opened. I get Eric on the line, same guy from last night. What are the odds? "Eric, what's the ETA on the field worker this morning?"  Eric told me that it could be anytime between 8 and 5 today.  I called back at lunch and got Eric again. Really?????
“Mrs. Brabham, we will have someone there as soon as they are in the area."  he says kindly.  "Thanks Eric." I reply sheepishly.
2 o'clock I called back. Yes..that's right. Eric again!!  I tried to disguise my voice, obviously a fail because Eric says "Hello Mrs. Brabham."  while laughing.
"Eric, all of my ice has melted. I know..I know...but, I'm just saying.....don't you have a CB radio.. (Lord help me, CB radio? I can't take it back now) so you could call him?" I plead.
He laughs again. "It won't be long now. Hold on." he says. One hour later..all the faucets spit and hiss and I am counting minutes to a shower and ready to cook.  With a clean kitchen, shower and full stomach I pull the cork from a bottle of wine.
There are days when I allow the wine to breathe, and there are days that I consider the pop of the cork breath enough.

Is Freedom Really This Complicated? | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Is Freedom Really This Complicated? | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

This Freedom Thing, It's Complicated

I think they just said we couldn't join the boy scouts.

It was Tuesday the week of July 4th, I was downtown on Cannon Street sitting under a brilliant unfurled USA flag. As I watched the stripes snapping in the southern breeze, I thought of the significance of Old Glory and all that was on it.  I imagined it with holes ripped from artillery fire, stained in blood.  Are we any closer to the freedom it represented when crafted over 300 years ago? The news headlines of the week suggest not. Travon trial, Paula Deen and a ruling on gay rights.
I realized I didn't know where our flag was. What if I don't find it? Am I perceived as unpatriotic?
Is silence an opinion? Quite possibly the loudest and most misunderstood. What do I personally feel about Paula, Travon, Gay marriage? I wave a freedom flag with a closed mouth. It's complicated, I'm  confused with the conflicting double speak of most issues.
I watch the world tilt slowy..uber crawling toward some embryonic beginning that I wouldn't classify as change yet.
Confused parents give "reveal" parties to let family and friends know what sex their unborn child is. 18 years later they may "reveal" they were wrong. Gay parents hurt when their sons and daughters are ostracized by society and subjected to hate, gay children hurt because they don't want to disappoint their family.
Families still wring their hands in angst at reunions and weddings knowing the contemptuous views of their matriarch and patriarchs concerning interracial marriages. Do we excuse their archaic views by claiming them to be pre-determined by their formulative years? Do we silently pray that our children choose the route of less pain? Did the slave mother hold her newborn baby girl and pray that would be so beautiful that the plantation owner would fall in love with her and move her to the big house or does she pray that her baby girl is so ugly that she won't be looked upon and taken from her?  And which is right? Who am i to say, a white southern girl? It's ludicrous for me to state that I understand the plight of the African American, the gay man or woman.
So, let's say that we could wipe the slate clean and start over. Could the remedy be as simple as teaching and practicing unprejudiced love to our children from the beginning. Emphatically.. Yes!  Simple?  No!  Complicated because another family will NOT teach their children those values and it will be their hate that kills goodness.  i.e,  Jesus, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, John Lennon, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

 So, do I sit quietly on the porch and watch the parade go by? Is it safer to keep my opinion to myself, to silence the strike of these keys right now? Oh... Yes!   Ole black water keep on rolling, Mississippi moon wont you keep on shining on me.

But, the world doesn't change with safe. I think of John Mayer's song "Waiting on the world to change." Maybe we shouldn't wait, maybe the hope of change isn't in drawing lines in the sand, maybe it's by erasing them. Maybe it's by allowing each grain of sand to fall where it's creator destined it should be.
We will never be truly free until we unilaterally accept the rights of each other to choose our own freedoms without imposing them on others. I don't have to march in a parade, hold a protest sign or buy a bumper sticker. I simply treat you as I would any member of our human race. Silence is not weakness. Speeches, parades, concerts are all aftermath of what should begin in the quiet recesses of the heart. Usually beginning with truth.

A Bug's Life-Lesson for Today | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

A Bug's Life-Lesson for Today | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

A Bug's Life...Lesson

It's safe to say that I have a love/hate relationship with bugs, I hate them, they love me. Unrequited love if you will.
I walked out of my door to find a pre-historic era bug upturned on the concrete path to my door. My first thought was "Omg, what the hell kind of bug is that?"  My second thought was that I would literally rip my own skin off if that thing had landed on me. I eased up on it only because of it's precarious condition. Not the dreaded Palmetto Bug, this bug was huge, thick, dark brown with a shell that looked crunchy and hard.  It was two inches long with antennas as long as it's body. Beetles on Botox?
Bugs make me do weird things, temporary turrets syndrome at church picnics, erratic driving and to the horror of my kids... pulling my shirt over my head at a baseball game when a June beetle flew into my neckline.
Too big to smash, I walked away. I had a brief tug of guilt for not up righting it. But, as the world turns... I swear the same bug I save will be the one that causes me to wreck on the interstate by coming out from under a seat. So, on with my day. I will let nature take care of itself. I mean it wasn't like I turned it over. It would eventually die of it's weird predicament.
I swear I couldn't get that bug out of my head. When I got home six hours later, I could see that the bug was still there as I walked up the path. It was still, it's antennas not moving.
Ok, I will just go inside now and surely a bird will swoop down soon and this drama will be over. Another pang of guilt, now I wanted it to be gone, because it reminded me that I did nothing to help it, I let it die.
I peeked out the door about an hour later. Still there. Ok, I will sweep it into the yard where the birds can see their dinner. I whisked it with the broom, it landed upright and it's antennas started twitching! I felt a small leap of joy. I guess 7+ hours on it's back left him a little wobbly, but it started inching it's way to the edge of the concrete. I shut the door quickly before that bird that I had been silently beckoning all day would swoop down and change the moral of this story.
I felt weirdly happy that the bug didn't die and that somehow I could change the course of nature and myself by simply offering a hand/broom out to a struggling bug.