Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner (33 page)

I imagine all the cool projects he’ll undertake, like constructing a lighted hutch where I can display my Carnival and Depression
glass pieces. [
If you’re doing any birthday shopping, I’m all about orange Carnival bowls/vases and the pink Jeanette Floral Poinsettia pattern in Depression glass. But, really, only if it’s my birthday.
] A few years ago he’d have insisted on storing his Airsoft rifles in our kitchen gun cabinet [
No, I’m not kidding about the cabinet or his proclivities.
] but now he’ll have the tools to turn it into a shelving unit where I can show off my teapot collection.

I assess the scope of the project and determine it should take no longer than a week. I tell him, “We’ve got leftover paint from the cabinets and a couple of brushes, so we should be all set.”

Oh, if it were only that easy.

What I always forget is that Fletch doesn’t share my compulsion for half-assery when it comes to home improvement projects. He’s never once hemmed curtains with a steak knife, nor used a wad of gum to make a framed picture hang straight.

Before he can even begin to envision slapping a few coats on the dresser, he has to ready his workshop. Clearly the basement is too dusty for paint to properly adhere, which necessitates the purchase of an enormous, expensive shop vac.

After his work space is sterile enough to perform your garden-variety tracheotomy, he realizes he doesn’t have enough places to set things down. I suggest perhaps he use the now-immaculate floor. He laughs, but I’m not sure why that’s funny.

Instead, he invests in a hammer drill to hang studs on the cement basement walls. Then he mounts Peg-Boards on the studs and loads them up with tools artfully displayed by make, size, and shape. Dissatisfied with his handiwork, he takes all the tools down to paint the Peg-Boards. My suggestion of, “Why not hit the dresser while you’ve got the brushes out?” falls on deaf ears.

Workshop complete, Fletch disassembles the dresser and begins to sand. He doesn’t care for the job the finish sander is doing, so he declares the need for a random orbit sander.

“How much does that cost?” I ask, growing more and more annoyed.

“You can’t put a price on a job well done,” he replies. [
Um… when it’s a fifty-dollar dresser you can.
]

But the random orbit sander works well. In fact, it works so well that Fletch accidentally smoothes out some parts meant to stay pointy, which requires the purchase of a table saw.

“You need a saw? To
paint
?” I demand.

“All part of the process,” he assures me, while lovingly assembling a machine costing roughly the same amount as my first year of college tuition.

“Wait a minute,” I say, recalling the dismemberment stories he’d shared about his father, uncles, and maternal
and
paternal grandfathers. “Don’t you come from a long line of nine-fingered Fletchers?”

“Everyone gets ten—that way you have some extras.”

To date, he’s forked out hundreds of dollars on this project and that’s without factoring in the cost of three weeks’ labor. For a dresser that’s still in a dozen pieces and has yet to see a single drop of primer.

Next time? I’m just going to paint over the spiders myself.

As weeks pass, the dresser becomes my Godot. Every time I think there’s progress, something else happens—e.g., the primer isn’t setting properly—and he has to take one step back.

Mind you, I have plenty to occupy myself, especially now that I’ve found the official online version of the police blotter, but I am
not a patient woman and the process is slowly driving me to distraction.

Six weeks into the project—SIX WEEKS—Fletch bounds up the stairs to my office. “Small problem.”

“No shit.” He’s been “small problem”-ing me for weeks now, from rebuilding missing drawers, to reimagining an entirely new base. This dresser has taken me through all the stages of grief, although getting past the anger and bargaining point was touch and go there for a while, and I’m finally at the point of acceptance. I didn’t need the damn thing in the first place and the only reason I wanted it was so we could use up the extra Tiffany-box-blue paint. But it’s fine. I don’t care. I’m okay with living in world without an Easter egg–colored dresser.

“There’s a missing hinge and because it’s so old, Home Depot doesn’t carry anything that size, nor does Lowe’s or the woodworking shop. It’s on the outside, so it really needs to coordinate with the other hinges.”

I simply shrug and say, “Who is John Galt?”

“Of course, I could order one on the Internet. It won’t be an exact match, but it’d be close. They’re kind of pricey, though.”

“How pricey?” If it’s less than the scrillion dollars we’ve already put towards this, I’m willing to negotiate.

“Fourteen dollars.”

Fourteen dollars. The man who happily invested in six different types of handheld drills really believes I care about fourteen dollars at this point?

“What’s fourteen dollars compared to what you’ve already spent?” With every purchase, he’s justified the expense saying that he’d use all the tools over and over again. Yeah, pal, I’ve got a closetful of bridesmaid dresses telling me the same story.

I continue. “My concern is not the price. My concern is that in receiving the hinge and finishing the project, you’ll have accidentally opened the portal to Hell. This dresser was never meant to be finished and if somehow you manage to do it anyway, you’re going to unleash some Pandora’s box–level of plagues on this world. Buy the hinge and finish the project or leave it off and save the world. Either way, I’m not picky.”

A week later I’m in my office reveling in a particularly dishy story. There’s some batty old socialite on the lakefront who hates when people walk on her part of the beach, so she’s always turning her enormous dogs on trespassers. While everyone else is up in arms about the situation, I’m trying to figure out how to make friends with her.

Fletch wears an odd expression as he walks into my office carrying a couple of packages. “You’ll be pleased to hear that you were right.”

“How so?”

He shakes one of the big mailer envelopes at me. “I got the hinge today so I should have your dresser done in a few minutes.”

“YAY! That’s fantastic!” The piece has been hanging out in the guest room for a couple of weeks, finished save for the missing door. To Fletch’s credit, he did such a professional job with the reconstruction and the paint that it almost doesn’t need the door. Almost. “Wait, how was I right?” Not that it matters, but it’s nice to force him to say it. [
That’s what keeps our love alive.
]

He hands me the other package. “The portal to Hell has been unlocked.”

“Beg pardon?” Then I take a good look at the package’s return address. “Motherfucker.”

I realize that I write tell-all memoirs, but that doesn’t always mean I share the whole story. [
For example, I have seen Fletch naked. More than once, even.
] Sometimes things happen in my life that are so stupid and frustrating and unnecessary [
Not referring to the naked part.
] that it’s not appropriate to share those stories, satisfying though it may be.

Particularly when I’m in the right.

In this case, I’ve moved twice without giving the person who sent the package—now referred to as My Mailer—a forwarding address, so you’d think that would be a heavy clue that we’ve reached an impasse in our relationship.

You’d think, anyway.

I’m a big fan of Dr. Laura [
She calls people “whores” on the air. I can’t not get behind that.
] and recently she discussed the best description of my situation. She explained how when a one-celled organism senses trouble, even though it doesn’t have a brain, it instinctively swims away. That’s what I finally had to do—I swam away. I’m not an unreasonable person and I have an unmitigating sense of loyalty. But there’s only so much I’m willing to take before I call it quits. My Mailer and I reached that point long ago.

“How’d she get my address?”

He shrugs and then sits down across from me. “You need me here while you open it?”

“No, because I’m not going to open it.”

“I appreciate your liberal use of denial.”

I shove the envelope into a file drawer and make shooing motions. “Thanks. Now please go finish my dresser.”

Turns out I’m not so skilled in denial and I end up opening the package.

The more I cogitate, the angrier I am, because her tracking down my mailing address feels like an invasion of my privacy. I never shared my address not because I was trying to hide; rather, I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to be bothered.

Yet here I sit with a big old envelope of Bothered.

It would be one thing if being Bothered just impacted me, but it actually affects my readers, and that’s unacceptable. The fact is, in order to avoid confrontation, there are entire cities I won’t visit after having previously been ambushed by My Mailer. [
I swear it’s not just me. I’ve heard horror stories from other authors about the exact same thing.
] I’m angry that My Mailer’s inability to behave has kept me from connecting with those who love my books.

You know what? I’m going to take action because this isn’t right. We’re in the process of booking my tour and I want it to go down without incident.

We used a real estate attorney for our closing and to handle a couple of business matters related to corporate filings for our LLC. At our last meeting, I mentioned the issues with My Mailer and asked if there was a legal way to keep her away from me and my events. He told me all I had to do was file an Order of No Contact. That way, My Mailer couldn’t come to my events, couldn’t call or
e-mail, and wouldn’t be allowed to have others act as an agent for her. I simply needed to fill out a form on the Internet and drop it off at the county courthouse. Easy-peasy!

I find the forms, complete them, and tell Fletch we need to swing by the courthouse in the morning. Plus, I want to check out the antiques stores north of here, so this little road trip will dovetail nicely into my quest for a full set of Depression glass.

I’ve never been to Waukegan, but it’s not too far from here and it borders the lake, so I picture it filled with darling antiques shops and cute lunch places overlooking the water.

What I find is a smaller version of Gary, Indiana, minus the charm. The town is basically nothing but criminal law offices, a massive courthouse next to an even larger jail, and the only people here are either visiting relatives in lockup or having their day in court.

I clutch my purse and my husband as we make our way to the main building and I’m pretty sure I hear the woo-hoo-hoo, chh-chh-chh, hah-hah-hah that plays right before Michael Myers pops out in a hockey mask wielding a machete.

As it turns out, the only asshole with a knife is
me
.

Whenever I’m not traveling, I like to carry my good stabbin’ blade and I often forget I have it on me. As I stand in line with all the criminals—whom I’m totally judging, by the way—
I’m
the only dirtbag attempting to [
Again, inadvertently.
] smuggle in a weapon.

Perhaps hardened criminals don’t wear loafers and slouchy socks with their boyfriend jeans cuffed to Capri length, so the lady
running the metal detector allows me to keep my knife. She doesn’t confiscate it, but we have to go all the way back to the car to check my weapon.

In my novel
If You Were Here
the character Mia is obsessed with omens, both good and bad. She believes that our paths are predetermined by the universe and that all we need to do to live our best life is to follow the signs. Mia would say that the knife thing was the universe’s way of telling me to GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT, WE’VE TRACED THE CALL AND IT’S COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE, but I’m not a huge proponent of that kind of hooey so I proceed blithely on.

Fletch and I take my stack of paperwork to the clerk and I tell her I want to file an Order of No Contact.

“You don’t do that here,” the clerk tells me. “You’ve got to go upstairs.”

We head upstairs and file in line behind a bunch of haggard ladies. The line moves interminably slow and we find out that’s because only one woman’s doing the intakes. After an hour, I say to Fletch, “Do you want to go? Maybe I’m overreacting and this is probably just silly, so we should go.”