Under Pressure

After a long, drawn out conversation, some tears, some fighting words, some debating and some pleading on both parts, Billy and I finally agreed to get married in fourteen years. It was a compromise between our two very different views on the subject: Me, wanting to get married STAT, and him wanting to get married never. He chose the time frame, not me. I don't know that he based it on anything specific, only that it seemed to be pretty fair middle ground between "Now" and "Never."

Since our agreement, since the day he sighed, slouched in defeat and said, "If it will make you happy, we can get married...In fourteen years," things on the marriage front have been quiet. I know it's going to happen, and I know I needn't bother myself with questions of when or how he will propose until roughly 12 and half years from now. It relaxed my tightly-wound neuroses of "he loves me, he loves me not," knowing that a man who never bends went ahead and got flexible enough to keep our relationship alive. It's all about compromise. I give up being a young bride, he gives up indefinite bachelorhood. It's fair.

It also makes discussing the future easier. I feared that, in finding yet another man who never wanted to enter a state of Holy Matrimony, I gave up the ability to wish, out loud, for my wedding. To be called a missus. To use "When we get married" in conversation. But now that it's out there, now that an agreement has been reached, I can use it whenever I want.

"Thirteen and a half years left!" I say whenever the subject of marriage comes up. He rolls his eyes and laughs, then does the math in his head.

"I believe it's thirteen years and EIGHT MONTHS," he'll say in a know-it-all-voice. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves." And then he laughs and kisses my forehead and I feel at ease. I know where we're headed, and how long it's going to take to get there. He may never have been on the freeway of love this long, but damnit if he hasn't gone ahead and put it on cruise control. Because we ain't stoppin. Whether he likes it or not.

Yet the time remaining until our nuptials is always up for debate. It's a constant source of mock-debate and mock-anger, the perfect segue into a wrasslin' match that finds us worn out after too much time trying to pin each other down while giggling profusely. And, while I'm satisfied with where we are and where we're going, I still like to bring it up. And I'll always say the time remaining is a little shorter than it is, he'll maintain it's a bit longer. It's become a little joke between us, the constant disparity between his timeline and mine.

And so, to settle any dispute, I found a countdown clock online that could be customized to whatever date, whatever event you wish. While Billy sat in the living room watching some bird documentary, I went ahead and made a little countdown clock of my own. Big bold letters on a bright pink background read "You are cordially invited to the wedding of Laurie and Billy in..." And below that title, time ticked away. Five thousand days, fourteen hours, thirty-two minutes and 10, 9, 8, 7... seconds until we were pronounced Man and Wife. I laughed diabolically as I created it, pleased with myself and how hilarious it was.

"Biiiillllyyyy," I sang through the house. "Cooomeee hheeeeerreee..."

And, oblivious to what I was doing on the computer, he lumbered into the room and sat down next to me. "Look!" I commanded, smiling from ear to ear.

He started to look a little pale as he took it in, then looked at me with are you serious knitted into his eyebrows. I kept giggling. "Isn't it wonderful?" I said, bringing my clasped hands up to the side of my titled face, my tone and demeanor hyper-romantic and dreamy, like a character from some 1950s romance movie.

"Five thousand days?" He said, shaking his head. He sucked in air through his teeth. "That's pretty close. We'd better push it back."

I stopped laughing, and gave him my pseudo-angry face. He laughed at my reaction, and I resumed laughing to myself as he meandered back into the living room to continue his television watching.

My giggles slowed to a stop as I closed out the page and, with it, the countdown to our wedding.

A few days later, getting ready for work together, we were listening to a radio show in which the DJs were discussing people who date forever and then get married, and how those marriages never work because, and I quote, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Billy shot me a knowing look, and I shot him back a "Whatever. Don't think these douchebags are going to convince me that we shouldn't get married. You have to come up with something better than that" look.

While he brushed his teeth, the DJs took a call from a man who declared that he proposed to his wife after ten years only because he felt pressured; that he wouldn't have gotten married if not for her constant pressure. So he broke down and did it. Against his will.

I looked at Billy in the mirror, under the wand I was using to apply mascara. "I don't pressure you," I said matter-of-factly. I finished my mascara application and screwed the tube closed. "You're lucky."

He spit his toothpaste into the sink and looked at me, a look of shock and disgust on his face. "Countdown clock," was all he said.

I laughed as I tossed all of my makeup into its bag. "That was a joke, not pressure. If it were pressure, I'd have made it so that it popped up every time you turned on the computer or something. But I didn't. I just made it, showed you, and deleted it. See? I'm awesome."

"Riiight," he said, eyeing me suspiciously.

"Oh trust me, babe. Make no mistake, when I start pressuring you, you'll know it. You've got about 4,000 days until I really kick it into high gear."

I think he started to argue, but he passed out. All that marriage talk was just too much for him.

But, no matter. He's got five thousand days to get used to the idea.

My Life is a Country-Western Song

"I don't want to have to tell you this," my mom said, her voiced cracked and broken over the phone. I could hear the tears in her throat, the softness of her voice. And I knew what she had to tell me. "Smokey died this morning."

I cried instantly. Grief hit me suddenly, like a land mine, which is unusual. Give me bad news, and I'm usually fine for at least a few hours. But later, in the middle of some random task, I'll break down, finally realizing that someone is gone. This, though, was different. My throat closed and tears formed, and I couldn't talk.

"Honey?" Mom was crying, too. "Are you okay?"

Smokey, the cat I've had since third grade, had been sick for a while. And even though he'd gone deaf and skinny, even though he wasn't quite as vibrant and active as he had been before, I figured he'd just always be around. Twenty years is a long time to live for any animal, and, for some reason, the part of me that's still the kid who found him thought we'd get a good thirty out of him.

It was about six months ago when we noticed how thin he'd become. You couldn't tell by looking at him, his thick mane of gray and white fur covering any sign of weight loss. Only when I picked him up did I feel his delicate little ribs, feel the bones of his spine, sharp and defined, through his thick coat. Slowly, he went downhill. His breathing was difficult, but we figured it was because he was wearing what amounted to a fur coat in hundred degree weather. An indoor/outdoor cat, my parents just kept him inside more often than usual and hoped his breathing would return to normal.

It didn't. He sat with his mouth open many times, his little lungs expanding and contracting visibly, his fur moving in and out with each breath. We'd never noticed him breathing before. He'd zone out for a while, catching his breath, then climb onto someone's lap and sleep. Like breathing had exhausted him.

His legs betrayed him next. His back legs wouldn't cooperate with the front, dragging him down and limiting his ability to jump. Some days, he'd be fine, like nothing was wrong. But others? We thought the end was minutes away.

About a month ago, on one of his bad days, I picked him up and held him. I couldn't help but cry, amazed at how little he weighed, how hard it was for him to breathe. "Do you think we should take him into the vet?" I said to my mom through my tears.

"We've done that already. There's nothing wrong with him."

I looked at him, felt his spine beneath my fingers as I ran my hand over his little body. His big green eyes were closed in a long purr, and he lifted his tiny face for me to scratch under his chin. "He's old, I guess," I said, more to myself than my mom. "Twenty is old for a cat."

"That's all it is, honey. Age."

"I just don't want him to die," I said, my voice sounding more each minute like the six year old who found him and was begging to keep him. "I just can't take that right now, too." I was battling with my own body, worried about losing vital pieces of me. I couldn't take losing him.

"He won't," my mom said, her voice sweet with sympathy. "I asked him to hold on through your surgery."

I laughed and kissed his fragile skull. "You better," I said to his sleeping face.

I was just worried that he'd pass on when he was outside, and he'd never find him. "Where was he?" I asked my mom yesterday, tears streaming down my face. I clutched the covers in bed. I felt so weird.

"He was in our bedroom," her voice shook. "He came in last night and slept with all of us - Me and daddy and Sam." Our golden retriever always sleeps with my parents, but Smokey, independent and stubborn, usually sleeps in one of the vacant bedrooms upstairs. "And when we woke up this morning," she paused. "When we woke up this morning, he was...gone."

I just couldn't believe it. He'd been around since I was kid. He was a stray, wandering our neighborhood for days. All of the kids wanted him, because he was so damn cute, with his soft gray and white fur, his tiny little body. Everyone kept trying to take him home, but he'd never stick around. And suddenly, he chose us, taking up residence on our front porch for days. A tiny ball of gray and white with the sweetest little mew I'd ever heard. "Can we keep him?" I begged my mom.

"No. I hate cats," she'd reply. But she put a blanket out on our porch for him. And tuna and water for him. He wasn't going anywhere. She relented, we could keep him. But he was to stay outside.

A week later, he was sleeping in bed with me, crawling on our furniture. We had purchased a food bowl, but didn't know he was a he and bought him pink by mistake. Soon, he ruled our house. I was excited to get home every day and see him. My mom made him a collar that said he belonged to me. I loved him to pieces.

"Wasn't he sweet, though?" Mom said, crying out loud now. "He held on through your surgeries, just like I hoped."

I drove right over. Daddy was in the garage, making a little coffin for him. My mom was out front with Sam, and walked to my car when I pulled up. "Where is he?" I said into her shoulder through our hug.

"He's in the garage with Daddy."

I walked to him, all tiny and frail, laying on the blankets my parents put him on. I sat on the floor, my dad's saw whirring behind me as he pushed wood through. My chest heaved as I petted his little body for the last time. His eyes were open and fixed, but I swear I saw him breathe. Wishful thinking, I guess. I kissed him between his soft little ears and said goodbye.

The three of us, my mom, daddy and I, took turns digging in the rocky soil by the house. We laid him to rest in the root-ridden patch of earth he loved to roll around in. We were all so sad, putting his little box in the ground, covering it with fistfulls of dirt, kind words and tears.

We laid rocks on top of his little grave. I've never buried a pet before, and it struck me that I'd never see him again, save for pictures. Through move after move, through everything, he's been there. And now he's just gone. Except, not really; he's laying in our yard, under a mound of stones and a makeshift headstone, "Smokey" crudely scratched on it in my handwriting.

I put the headstone into the ground, stood back and looked at our little mausoleum. "My God," I said. "My life is a country song. All this tragedy and worry, capped off by the death of a pet."

My mom smiled, wrapped her arm around me. "He knew we loved him. He had a great life."

It seems silly, almost, to be so broken over the death of a pet. But it's as if something I'd always assumed was definite has now changed. A little piece of me went with him.

My hands and arms ache today from the digging. As does my head, from the crying. It hurts more - and less - than I thought it would. I'm sorry he's gone, but I'm glad he went like he did. In the house, peacefully. We didn't have to put him down, and though we watched him get older, he just slowed to a stop. He didn't get sick and become an animal we didn't know. He was ours until the end.

But I was wrong about one thing; no one writes country songs about cats. But I would. I'll miss him something terrible.

We All Make Mistakes, Right? Right?

At five-thirty in the afternoon yesterday, I left my house in a mad rush and sped down the road in an attempt to beat the clock. A week ago, I had dropped off three pairs of shoes at our local cobbler’s place and it was time to pick them up. But if I missed picking them up yesterday, I’d have to wait another week to get them – Having cornered the market on shoe repair in our area, the German man who oh-so-carefully replaces the torn up soles and broken spikes of my heels and boots needs only to open three days a week. My window of reaching him his very narrow, less than an hour on Thursdays and Fridays. Additionally, he is roughly a half hour from my house. He closes at six. Hence my speeding.

I turned up my music and pressed the pedal to the floor, navigating the all too familiar curves and twists of my neighborhood’s roads with practiced ease and grace. The turns, however, are sharp and steep, as it seems that each turn occurs when going up or down a handsome hill. One hand on my gear shift, one hand on the wheel, I down-shifted my way up hills to get power, coasting and braking on the way back down.

I reached the most notorious hill in my development, one that is particularly steep, its seemingly ninety degree angle difficult to navigate as you descend. The yellow-lined road cradles a rocky cliff of sorts, the pavement complimenting the natural landscape of the Poconos. In the passenger seat going down the hill, I always watch as Northeastern Pennsylvania rocks come dangerously close to the window. But it is a turn I have mastered in all kinds of weather, both up and down; one that, upon reaching it, I instinctually downshift, whether I’m about to climb it or descend it.

But I was going faster than I normally would, and I hugged my side of the road tightly, so as to avoid the cars coming up the hill in the opposite direction. And that’s when I heard the thud, felt the jarring in my car; I gripped the wheel and steered into the shimmying my wheels were doing. “Great,” I thought. “Just great.”

I checked my side view mirror, and it was still there, but I was certain that I’d clipped the jutting rocks with my bumper. Too lazy and helpless to stop (because, what would it do besides make me sadder?), I pictured my poor car, the majestic Lady Gwenivere, her bumper all mashed and bent, perhaps the shattered plastic of my parking lights clinging to the wires that were sure to be dangling from her mutilated front.

“Just great,” I said again, to no one in particular. “This is just what I need.”

Undaunted, I continued to speed to the shoe shop, making a mental note of the things I may as well get done while Gwen’s in the shop: Oil change, brakes, tune up, maybe even the front shocks while I’m at it. I started doing the math in my head, how much of my bi-weekly paycheck I’ve been putting away, how much it totaled so far in my savings, how much I could afford to do without. That money was supposed to be waiting to be put toward a new car, but that would just have to wait, I reasoned. Gwen’s not going anywhere, and we can’t have her looking all mangled.

I pulled into the parking lot just minutes before the six o’clock deadline. I rushed in, my claim ticket already in my hand, eager to pick up my shoes. The Cobbler went over what he’d done for my precious footwear, how he’d resurrected a pair I thought was a gonner, how he saved another from almost certain death. “You’re an artist,” I gushed, handing over the remaining 20 of my forty dollar balance. “Thank you so much.”

“Now you can get back to dancing,” he said, smiling.

“You’ve got that right,” I said with a giggle. “How did you know those are my dancin’ shoes? That’s how I busted that pair! Dancing!” I pointed to my knee-high, pointy-toed pleather boots, caressing the fresh repair of its four inch stiletto heel and the sewing he’d done on the back seam. Suddenly, it occurred to me that maybe he thought I was a stripper. “You know,” I corrected quickly, “like when I’m out with my friends, just dancing with the girls…” Uh, not much better. “…and guys. And whoever else goes out. You know, just dancing with friends…”

“Vat’s your favorite dance to do?” he asked, his accent reminding of my grandfather’s, and making me feel all the more guilty for even the possibility of even mistaken for a stripper.

“Salsa.”

I’ve never truly salsa-danced in my life. I mean, I’ve tried. Don’t get me wrong. And on certain occasions, when I’m dancing with a particularly good partner or when I’ve had enough drinks, I can even convince myself that I’m a pro at it. Who needs lessons and expertise when you have vodka?

“Okay, well, thank you so much for fixing my shoes,” I said, backing out of the ancient store. “Have a great weekend.”

“You too!” I heard him call as I ran out of the store and across the parking lot.

A row of diagonally-parked cars confronted me, and I walked passed their bumpers on the way to my own, shaking my head and wondering if the shoe guy really thinks that tall brunette who comes in about once every two months with the boots and the high pointy heels and the belly-baring shirts really is a stripper. I shook my head. It doesn’t matter, I said to myself. Take it as a compliment. I’ve had people, in clubs, ask me if I’m a dancer before. And from the tone in their voice, and the way they eye-balled my cleavage, I knew they didn’t mean a ballerina. I was flattered. Clearly, I can move it. But something about the shoe guy’s hunched-over little body, his silver rimmed glasses, his sweet brown eyes, his delicate baby-duck fluff of gray hair made me wish I could just run back there and tell him “I just wanted to clarify: I’m not a stripper; I'm an office manager. Have a good weekend.”

And just as I was fantasizing about clearing up what may not even be an issue, I saw it: The scratched paint along the passenger side of the bumper; primer gray showing through champagne paint in deep wounds. Oh God, I thought, I really did bruise my baby. I hunkered down, fingering the gash, feeling the deep ridges. I moaned, my eyebrows knitted with worry.

“Excuse me,” said an older lady, trying to get by with her cart.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Sorry,” I muttered, standing up straight and backing up to let her pass.

Only then did I notice that nothing was hanging from the rear-view mirror inside. And I don’t have rain guards on my windows. And why aren’t there any running boards on this ca–

Oh. My. God.

It wasn’t my car. My car, two spaces away, was fine.

I actually, for the first time in my life, mistook someone else’s 4Runner for my own.

And I don’t know if that means I need a drink, or if I need to lay off the sauce for a little while.

CSI: Milford

"This is Laurie, can I help you?"

"Laurie? Hi. This is Lori from the State Police Barracks."

My eyes went wide. Did I miss the arraignment? No, it was only 1:00, and the arraignment wasn't until 1:30. And besides, I'm not the homeowner, I don't need to be there.

I was just the one who got home Monday of last week to find the front door unlocked. Doors open that are never open. Clothing and unmentionables hanging out of drawers when I know I left things neat and tidy this morning. Boxes overturned and empty on our bed. My makeup scattered all over the floor.

I was just the one who took a pair of jeans and a shirt from the closet quickly, with shaking hands, and ran back out of the house on wobbly legs, sure that whomever had been in our house was still there. I jumped in my car, my breathing shallow and panicked and headed to my parents' house.

I was just the one who called Billy, who cut off his affectionate hello with "Did you go through your boxes this morning, empty them, and leave them on the bed?"

"Nnnnnooo. Why?"

"Babe. We were robbed."

I was just the one who waited for the State Police to show up, after Billy called them. I was just the one who had to give my statement a hundred times, over and over, about what condition I'd found the house in, how I realized that we had been robbed, what was missing. "No, nothing of mine," I said to the Officer. "I even had a pair of big fake diamond earrings on the sink, and even though I know someone was going through the bathroom, they didn't take the earrings. And, I'm thinking, if I were a thief, and I saw earrings that might or might not be fake, I'm going to take them and hope they're real, right?"

"It does seem odd," he said, scribbling on his notepad.

I'm just the person who, four hours later, followed those same State Troopers downtown, stood on one of the main streets in town, and watched the cops lead the handcuffed perpetrator out of the rusty doors of the rundown hotel the kid was apparently calling home.

But I'm not the person on the deed. And I don't own anything that was taken. The doorknob that was pried open doesn't belong to me. It wasn't me who had to identify the items taken by the 20 year old who rifled through our belongings.

But it was me who was flooded with relief to see the kid sitting in the backseat of a cruiser, having already admitted to committing the crime. And it was me who praised the benefits of living in a small town, where local cops may not know who you are, but they certainly know who you're not, and you're not the William on that credit card in your hand. And was me who, despite the fact that the criminal was arrested and taken to jail that very night, was still afraid to go home, and more frightened by knowing I'd have to be there alone eventually.

Specifically, three days later, when I was in bed recovering from surgery. Where Billy left me for work, but made sure I was able to protect myself should the same thing happen again. "You know," he said, his voice crackly over his cell phone as he drove into work, "I think you should have your mom come over and just hang out with you. So you don't have to be alone."

Suffice it to say that I've been pretty willing to admit that I haven't had much luck these days, considering that I went in for a surgery and couldn't get it, my house was robbed, and then I went back in for the surgery to remove those cysts, to be stuck in bed, pained and miserable for three days, the whole time worried over every sound that drifted its way upstairs.

So it wouldn't shock me to find that I might've missed the arraignment today. Because that would make sense. Luck would have it that way.

"Are you okay?" Lori from the Barracks asked.

My face contorted in confusion. Wasn't this about the arraignment? "Yeah," I said, still unsure of why she was asking.

"Are you alone?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, except for my coworker."

"So no one else is in your establishment?"

"Nnnnooo?" I still didn't know where this was headed.

"Okay. Good. Can you lock your door? I think you should lock your door."

"Huh?"

"There's a large man, in a trench coat and a hat who is walking in your direction. He was just in the business next door to you, and scared the hell out of those girls. We have a trooper on our way to you now, but just make sure you lock your door, and keep an eye out for this guy. You can't miss him - Tall, yellow track suit, coat, hat. Call me if you see him, okay?"

It's a hundred degrees outside today, and humid. Clearly, anyone who is walking around in that much clothing on day like this is either just plain crazy, or hiding something. I worried he was already in the building, that he'd slipped in while my coworker and I ate lunch.

"Okay, I'm doing it now," I breathed. I hung up the phone and ran to the door. The reassuring thump of the deadbolt was delicious.

"Lisa," I said, calling through the office. "I'm locking the door because that was the cops on the phone and they said there's a threatening guy walking around out there."

We stood at the glass doors and stared in opposite directions to see if we could see the guy.

Twenty minutes later, after we'd chatted with the trooper who showed up and after he'd parked in the lot of the business across the street from us, we watched as another police vehicle pulled in behind the first, and the crazy man in question made his way up the street. And we watched as the cops talked to him, and as their gestures became more stern, and until, finally, the State Trooper made his way behind the crazy man and cuffed him.

That makes the second time in ten days that I've watched someone duck into a police car, their hands pinned behind their backs. I don't know if I find it disturbing or comforting that this is happening in my teeny town. On one hand, you just don't expect it. Crime and craziness is everywhere, but when most people around here have known each other since birth, you think that the delinquents would be easy to weed out. But, on the other hand, both instances were wrapped up within hours, if not minutes. And there's something to be said for that.

Of course, I'd rather not have to know that my local and state police have surprisingly quick reaction times. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.

I need a drink.

Operation: Not Just a Game Anymore - Part Two

I'm not sure what kind of surgery, exactly, I thought I was getting. I guess I assumed, after I got all my worrying and whining out of the way, that it was as minor as everyone kept telling me. I thought I'd be in some pain, but that my incisions would miraculously heal by Sunday, and it would all be a distant memory by the time I returned to work on Monday.

I guess I thought that, though I'd be under general anesthesia, that I'd only be out for a few minutes. That my ovaries rested right under the skin of my belly. That it was no more invasive than my annual gynecological checkup. (Because, let's face it, as far as invasive goes, the speculum on its own sort of maxes out the invasive scale.)

I was wrong.

And I realized how wrong I was on Thursday, laying in bed on my first day of recovery.

Apparently, they did a lot while I was under the influence of whatever miraculous drug they pumped through my veins while I laid there on that tiny operating room table. They moved my IV from its uncomfortable spot in my left forearm to just below my right wrist. They outfitted me with a catheter; That's why it was imperative that I pee before I left the hospital and headed home, to make sure my bladder remembered how to go on its own. I was also the lucky recipient of a breathing tube. Additionally, they filled my abdomen with air, in order to move around my organs and reach my ovaries more easily. This gas would stay in my body for a number of days, settling in my right shoulder from time to time, producing a pain greater than the incisions themselves. The only way to rid myself of this pent-up gas was to pass it naturally, or to stand and walk around to break up the pocket of air in my right shoulder.

My incisions were another thing altogether, bigger and more frightening than I thought they would be. They are not huge by any means, just huge to me, the person who had to stare at the thick bandages and miles of medical tape that covered them for two days, a thick and unforgiving reminder of the procedure I'd just endured. I removed the gauze and tape on Friday afternoon, with the help of my mother, to reveal the bloodied tape that was stuck, with glue, to the incisions above each hip and the one inside of my belly button. Upon removing the outer bandages, and seeing, for the first time, the sticky wounds that hid beneath, the room began to spin and I had to sit down. They weren't horrible, just shocking. In my head, they would be tiny, flesh colored slits in my sides, my button, that would be hardly noticeable from the moment they were revealed. That was not the case. Removing the outer covering revealed the skin around the cuts, bruised and puffy, from the trauma of the instruments being shoved inside of me, from the moving of the laparoscope, from the cutting itself.

The cuts are glued shut to stave off the scarring that comes with incisions in general, but covered by thin strips of vertical gauze, that will fall off on their own. This makes for a more disturbing belly. And the adhesive from the many, many, strips of tape used to hold the bandages in place was still clinging to the skin on my stomach until yesterday, creating of roadmap of the tape that was. It's nothing terrible, and it went away with mere hours spent with cotton balls, rubbing alcohol and baby oil. But it was just something that made me want to cry a little bit every time I looked down and saw it.

But what is more disturbing than my vanity, is what the doctor told my family and boyfriend. The surgery went very smoothly and was ultimately completely successful; a nugget of information that - according to my father - made my mom cry with relief. But there was another issue at hand. The cysts - all of them - were bigger than we thought. Dangerously big, in fact. So big, that one was beginning a slow twist around my Fallopian tube. The surgery was just in time. Waiting much longer would've resulted in the loss of the tube and an ovary.

And, though the timing could've been worse, it also could've been better. I thought the severe and constant cramping in my abdomen, coupled with the sharp stabs of pain that would come and go every so often all of last week, were just psychosomatic. I only hurt, I thought, because I knew those cysts were there. The horrible and painful tension in my neck and back was, I reasoned, just the stress of how badly I wanted to get the surgery over with. And while that all made perfectly good sense, it was wrong. The pain in my abdomen, and in the rest of my body, was not self imposed, or stress. It was leakage. The biggest cyst, the aggressive one, the one that was threatening to smother my ovary, was leaking toxins through my body. It didn't rupture, as I've had in my past, just sort of doled out an extreme amount of pain for the last week. And, still, after leaking, it was large. My doctor couldn't even venture to guess how big it had been.

The good news, though, was that it was all fluid. There is no need for a biopsy, or more worry.

But, stretched out in bed for three days after my surgery, I realized that Percoset didn't offer me the giddy reprieve I'd hoped for following my surgery. It didn't make me feel full of love and free of pain like whatever they gave me in the hospital had. In fact, it just made me feel like crap. It made me shaky and nauseous, worn out and tired. Lazy. And it didn't help the sharp pain that came every time I had to sit up or lie down. It calmed the tremors in my belly, helped alleviate the expected cramping that comes with messing around with the ovaries, but, other than that, just made me feel generally horrible.

"How do people get hooked on this stuff?" I said to my mom from my spot in bed. I turned the brown bottle over in my quivering hands. "It just makes me feel shitty." I put the bottle back on my night stand, next to my bottles of water and snacks.

"I didn't like it when I had to take it either," she said, eyeing me for signs of pain.

But I took it. One and half pills every four hours, without fail. Because even a slight lapse in my schedule would make me suffer. "And why suffer," Billy said, after waking me up at four in the morning to tell me it was time for my pill. "I just don't want you to be in pain."

Neither did I. So I swallowed my pill and a half as instructed.

And while I wasn't in pain, I still wasn't comfortable. That's what happens when your stomach muscles are cut to get to your insides. Even sitting up poses a problem, and you find yourself turning and bending, trying to find a way to hoist or prop yourself up without ripping open your glued-shut incisions and spilling your insides out all over the place.

There is no dignity in recovery.

More times than I care to admit, Billy stood and straddled my limp body, steeling his legs against the give of the mattress beneath me, and offered me his hands. "Let me help you sit up," he said from above me, his head grazing the light fixture on the ceiling.

"This is humiliating," I whined, extending my arms and letting him pull me upright.

"No it's not. You need help, and I'm giving it to you. There's nothing humiliating about that."

Oh, Billy. You're so naive.

When you have to literally roll over before you can get out of bed, because failing to do so is likely to make you not only wince, by cry, in pain, you start to feel silly, weak, helpless. And handling helpless or in need of help at all has never been my specialty.

I'm the kind of girl who stops people mid-instruction to say "I know," even if I don't. Because I don't like feeling like I need someone's helping hand. I hate, especially, to be told something I already know. And so I have to announce that I knew that already. Because not correcting someone who is instructing me on something with which I am already familiar fuels the assumption that I didn't know, and I needed help. Which I didn't, thank you very much. And asking someone, even the boyfriend that I love so much, to help me sit up just seems ridiculous.

"I hate this," I cried to Billy. "I hate that I still hurt. I hate feeling like this, I hate that I need help. I hate feeling like an invalid. I just want to be able to do things on my own."

"Do you know what I would give to be able to spend three days in bed?" He said, frustrated with my whining.

I pride myself on being independent, on handling on my own what I watch other women ask their husbands and boyfriends for. But, in my current state, I couldn't sit up on my own, let alone drive and pick myself up something to eat. It's one thing to spend three days in bed because it's something you've chosen to do. It's quite another to be forced to do so.

"It's not that great," I said, blotting at my teary eyes. "I feel like an annoyance, and inconvenience. It's horrible."

It was. All of that sympathy-wrangling I talked about doing never materialized. I just couldn't. I called my mom to come hang out with me, but I refused to admit that I wanted anything, much less that I needed anything. Because she would've made the trip all the way downtown for a milkshake if I wanted it. And I didn't want her to have to go out of her way. Billy's offer to pick me up something on the way home was always met with "I don't need anything." Even if I did. Because he wasn't leaving work until ten at night, and I'm sure the last thing he wanted to do was pick up some Sprite for his lame girlfriend.

Between the sitting up, and the Percoset-induced laziness, I had just about had enough of Recovery.

Percoset finally wore me down and made me sick on Saturday. I hovered over the toilet and gave up the small breakfast I'd had that morning - an apple and some ginger ale - with my hands around my belly to keep my insides inside. It was the most painful thing I can remember experiencing. You can't keep your compromised stomach muscles from contracting, and you can't do anything to alleviate the sharp sting that comes with your belly going tight, then slack. I washed my face and sat with my mom, where I decided that Percoset and I were just going to have to break up.

The pain made me surly, though. "I liked you better on your drugs," Billy said. "You were sweeter."

"I was whiny and annoying."

"Yes, but it was sweet."

"Well, now I'm back to normal, I guess. You know, not sweet."

Monday was my first day back at work. And it felt good, to be out of my bedroom. Even though I'd had the air conditioning on full blast since Wednesday, and enough pillows and snacks within arm's reach to never have to leave, I was ready. Driving felt good, as did getting up and walking around. When the end of my workday came and I still felt good, I drove to Wal Mart. I was jumping head first into my regular schedule. Shopping, laundry, cleaning, taking out the trash. I did it all.

"Way to take it easy on your first day back in the world, Laurie," my mom said sarcastically over the phone, while I bent over to pick up a pair of Billy's pants that had made their way onto the floor.

"Oh, I'm fine," I laughed. "I took my Tylenol. I feel good."

Ah, but I paid for it later. Feeling good for a few hours is deceiving. Because you forget to favor your sensitive areas. You forget to use your back and legs when lifting, and suddenly your wound reminds you that it's there. And, three hours later, I was in bed, pain in my stomach and pain in my back rendering me completely still.

"I think I overdid it today," I said to Billy as he walked in the door from work. "Everything hurts. I think my back hurts from using it more than normal. My knees are bothering me. And my stomach feels crampy."

After I detailed what I had done during the day, he shook his head. "You have to take it easy, babe. You had surgery, you need to recover."

"I know," I said, turning up the volume on the TV.

Today, I'm feeling the overactivity from yesterday. My entire midsection feels like it has been twisted, and like my muscles shrank to the size of toothpicks and standing up straight would only serve to sever them. I'm all hunched over, walking like a little, old, arthritic lady. My incisions itch ("a good sign," Billy said this morning, slapping my hand away from my belly, where I threatened to scratch) and I'm still uncomfortable. But my doctor and I have a date this afternoon, where we'll follow up on my surgery and chart my progress.

I'm certain she'll show me pictures of my cysts, both before and after removal. And she'll probably tell me to take it easy and to keep my incisions dry and clean. And I'll probably just nod and say "I know." Because, with the added pizazz of a few wounds, bruises, some pain and medical tape, I'm back to being me.

Operation: Not Just a Game Anymore - Part One

I went to the hospital on Wednesday at noon, advised by the head nurse that my doctor was running behind schedule and it would be futile for me to come in at ten, as I was originally instructed. Three and a half hours later, I was finally given a bed and wheeled from the same-day-surgery unit to the OR waiting unit. Billy was kind enough to capture the moment on his camera phone, catching an oh-so-flattering shot of me in the uncomfortable bed as I was wheeled around. But thankfully he snapped the photo before they had a chance to outfit me with the fashionable blue hairnet I would be required to wear in surgery.

I was asked by every nurse, doctor and aide what my birthday was and what I was there for, a sort of pop-quiz for the future patient. After rattling off my birthday, military style, I said "Laparoscopic Bilateral Ovarian Cystectomy," in the whiny sort of tone that comes with telling people the same thing over and over.

"Possible Open," the nurses added.

"Yeah. Possible open." Did they have to remind me?

Each uniformed hospital employee that visited my bedside, inserted an IV or asked me questions, also seized the opportunity to jab at me about my Surgery That Wasn't the week before. "Ah, so you're the girl who left us last week," said the tall anesthesiologist as he made his way to my pre-op bed.

"Not my fault," I said, adjusting my hairnet and trying to maintain some semblance of dignity. "You guys held me up. I couldn't eat for over 12 hours. That, my friend, was torture."

"We're glad you didn't wait," he said, checking my currently installed IV. "We didn't get out of here till after midnight as it was. And, this time, don't worry. We'll get it done."

"I hope so. I don't want to be wearing this fancy hospital gown for nothing." I covered my exposed ass cheek and smiled.

They wheeled me then into the OR, where a blast freezing air hit me like a gunshot as we rolled through the door. They suited me up with inflatable leg warmers and what looked like swimmies that wrapped around my arms to prevent blood clots during surgery. They talked to me, keeping me calm in the face of my procedure. "You're so calm," said the masked nurse to my right. "Most people are freaking out right about now." I couldn't see her mouth behind her hospital-blue surgical mask, but I could see the kind smile in her eyes.

"Well, I'm just ready to get it over with."

It was true. I was ready. I didn't even think about crying or worrying in all my time in the waiting room, in the bed, alone, or as they wheeled me from place to place. I just felt like I was one step closer to being done. Thankfully.

The pace around me wasn't hurried and urgent, just purposeful. They made me feel that I was in capable, calm hands. They spoke to me as they prepared my bed, my gown, my drugs. "The medicine is going in," I heard the anesthesiologist say from behind me. I felt the burn of it as it flowed into my arm, then I looked up at the OR lights. I watched them go from sitting perfectly still right over my face, to dancing pirouettes and figure eights above my head. One eye closed, then the other.

I woke up hours later to the sweet faces of the recovery nurses. "Did they have to cut me open?" was my first groggy question to them.

"No sweetie," replied the nurse closest to me. "Just three little incisions. That's it. Everything went really well." She smiled and brushed my hair back from my face.

I was so happy, I cried.

After I spent roughly a half hour giggling, crying tears of joy, and telling the nurses that they were the best nurses ever, they rolled me through the narrow corridor that led to the elevator that would take me to where I began, same-day-surgery. We picked up Billy and my mom on the way, and they rode with me on the elevator.

"The doctor said everything went really, really well," my mom said from the foot of my bed. Billy held my hand as we scaled the floors of the hospital, until we heard the ding that released us into my final recovery locale.

"The nurses here are the best," I said. "I'm going to write a letter."

"I just wish all of the patients could be like her," giggled the nurse as she pushed me out into the unit.

I disregarded her comment and forged ahead. "I'm hungry. When can I eat?"

"You're hungry already? That's great," the nurse chirped, heaving my bed through a hall. "We'll get you something, don't worry."

I felt absolutely no pain, sitting there in that bed as one nurse released me to another. The new nurse came over to me, glass of water in hand. "So I hear you're hungry already?" She set the Styrofoam cup on the half-table reaching over my bed, my body. "Well, I took the liberty of ordering you a little dinner already, so you and I are on the same page. Drink this water, I'll bring you some food, and as soon as you pee, you're free to go."

I couldn't drink the water fast enough. Though the pain was non-existent and the nurses were incredible, I wanted nothing more than to get home. To get in my own bed and sleep. I ate the salty turkey sandwich she gave me, drank all the water that my mom and Billy could bring, and finally decided that I should go to the bathroom.

I went to get up, forgetting the openness of my gown and the absence of underwear. "Maybe," Janet, the nurse said, rushing in front of my exposed nether regions, "we should get these two to give us some privacy." She nodded at my mom and Billy.

"Who are we kidding?" I said, motioning to Billy to grab my underwear from the bag I brought. "They've both seen it."

And Billy, I think, helped me into my underpants. Or it could've been my mom. Or the nurse. Or the janitor. I'm not sure exactly. All I know is, they somehow made it on to my body, and allowed me to walk to the restroom. I didn't care that the back of my gown fluttered open with every step I took. I didn't care about the way I looked, the way I walked. I just cared about getting out. But I couldn't pee yet.

For the next two hours I took frequent, hopeful trips to the unisex bathroom. I exited to the rush of the toilet flushing, calling out as I opened the door: "Don't get excited. Still nothing." The nurse wanted to go home just as badly as Billy, my mom and I did. She was waiting for me and one other patient to go. And rather than admitting us, she stuck around, crossing her fingers for us, hoping we'd all be able to go home soon.

"I have your discharge papers all ready," she said as she strolled to my bedside. "When you pee, you can go. So just let me go over this with you quickly. No driving for 24 hours. No working out for at least a week. No sex." She looked at Billy, then back to me. "Okay? No sex. For a week. Okay?"

"Got it," I said.

"Nothing inside you for a week. No tampons, no toys..."

"OKAY," I said, letting out a nervous laugh. It was one thing to be naked in front of my mom and boyfriend at the same time. It was quite another to discuss the use of toys in front of them. I thanked God that my father and brother had left the hospital when my doctor told them everything was fine.

"No lifting," she continued, undaunted. "Stairs are okay, and it's better if you try to get up and walk from time to time. Drink a lot of water, and leave your bandages alone till Friday. Keep them clean and dry till then..."

"You mean," I interrupted, "that I can't shower till Friday?"

"Yes. That's what I mean."

I crinkled my nose. Great, I though. I get to be bandaged and stinky. Awesome.

She went through a litany of things I should and should not do, then capped off her speech with the good news. "We've got some drugs for you, too."

"Will they be as good as the ones I'm on now?"

"No. That's the really good stuff. But we've got some other good stuff for you to take home."

We sent Billy out to pick up the controlled substance that would get me through the next few days. We hoped that I'd pee by the time he got back. I didn't.

They moved me to another room, Billy brought me more water, we waited.

Finally, I rushed from the bathroom, elated. "Does just a little bit count?" I excitedly asked the nurse.

"Yes it does! You're free!"

We dressed me and declined the use of a wheelchair. We got me out to the car. "Can we stop somewhere and get me something to eat?"

"Of course we can, baby," Billy said from the driver's seat. "Anywhere you want."

We settled on Arby's. I ate my Beef 'n' Cheddar like it was my first meal in a month. We headed home.

Sorry I Can't Write More, I'm Busy Being CUT OPEN

It's my last day of work before my surgery. Which means that all the time I've been using to blog, which I should've been using to work, must be made up now. Which means that I am going to be a very busy girl today. I have bills to enter, bills to pay, money to appropriate, a desk to clean, letters to mail, and general tidying up to do. Because I'll be out for three or four days, and I don't want someone sitting here and finding that I'm a slob. Because I am, I just don't want it to be that obvious.

Anyway, today is pretty hairy. Because it's the day before my surgery and all sorts of worst-case-scenarios are running through my head. And because I need to get everything in order here before I go. And because I am under instructions to not smoke or drink alcohol today. So I have not had a cigarette since roughly 11:40pm last night.* And this is a horrible feeling. Actually, I really feel bad for my boyfriend and coworkers, because I am really crabby. And when I say "crabby," I mean "a raging bitch from hell."

Because not only am I on the eve of my operation, but my car, my beloved Gwen, is giving me problems. A phone call from my friend Chuck informed me that she's leaking an inappropriate amount of oil. And what does a girl of 25 do when there's a problem with her car? She goes straight to Daddy. Who lets her know that there is probably NO OIL IN HER CAR, according to the dipstick reading. Allow me to add that I am usually very good about this sort of thing. Because when you drive a '96 car with, oh, 140,000 miles on it, you have to kind of stay on top of stuff like that. But, somehow, I sprung a leak. Four quarts to fill it, and five extra quarts, just in case, and I'm up and running. Naturally, Billy is also on the case, calling me when he thinks I've made it to whatever destination I was headed, to make sure I got there and my motor didn't explode. Now I have to make an appointment to get my CAR's insides fixed, scheduling it to coincide with MY insides being fixed. Awesome.

So I won't be updating for a while, a few days at least. I'm going to the hospital this afternoon (after I check my oil and fill accordingly) to donate some blood to myself, should I need it during surgery. Then tomorrow, bright and early, I get to head to the OR with no makeup and no nail polish on and get my ovaries tinkered with. I'm scared, but I just want to get this over with. Wish me luck.

I'll be back soon.


*Please refrain from leaving "Why don't you quit smoking now?!" comments. I know. I've thought of that, too. We'll see, okay?

"HE PERMED ME!"*

"I hate doing these, by the way," my hairdresser, Jill, said as she spiraled another thin lock of my hair around a fat purple roller.

"Oh, sure, now you tell me." I looked in the mirror, my head of hair rapidly disappearing into rolls of purple secured by elastic. "I'm nervous as it is. My hair is virginal, and I was skittish doing anything, and now you tell me you hate doing them."

She laughed, deep and throaty. "Yeah, well, it's just that I'm so good at them. Besides, I talked you into it, so I can't exactly say much, can I?" She popped the rod closed and reached for another.

What I was doing to myself this morning was something I haven't tried since I was roughly eight years old. A perm. The very notion of which sends me into a mild anxiety attack. Because when I think perm I think of my father's mother, with her tight, tight, tight white curls in a smallish 'fro around her head. I think of little old ladies and beauty parlors and Aquanet and women who wrap their entire head in toilet paper at night to keep their hairdos in place. So when I told my beautician, jokingly, that I was considering a perm, she said, in all seriousness, "You should do it. It would be great for you." And she went on to describe how it would be wash and wear and so much easier than my sort-of-straight, sort-of-curly current hair. She'd use big rollers, she said, to make it look like the natural curl in my hair, just all over instead of the sporadic curls I have now. I agreed.

So that's what I did today. Because, for my trip, it would be no-fuss hair. She painstakingly rolled my hair up, lined my head with cotton and dumped the most foul-smelling chemical I've ever encountered in my life all over said rollers, then covered it with a plastic bag and told me I'd have to sit like that for 20 minutes. I felt geriatric. All I needed was a walker.

It was not pleasant. Not only because it was humiliating, but because that horrible chemical was not contained by the cotton. And it rolled in toxic droplets down onto my face where it stung and burned until I blotted it with the wet towel she provided. "I guess there's no turning back now," I said to her via the mirror, my head wrapped up like last night's leftovers.

Her smoker's laugh echoed in the salon. "Nope there isn't. But stop worrying so much. Your hair is so strong."

"Thanks. I've been working out."

She giggled and clipped the plastic baggie closed at the tippy-top of my forehead. "It's going to look great."

"I hope you're right," I said, smoothing my cape over my lap. "Because if I had to sit here in this degrading headdress, drowning in chemicals, in danger of asphyxiating for nothing, I'm totally not tipping you."

She laughed. And invited me to join her for a cigarette. Despite the fact that I was pretty sure I was highly flammable, I accepted. Because I, sir, have an addiction.

Twenty minutes later, she peeled the cotton from my moist head and rinsed the rollers of the offensive product. But this was not the end of my journey. She blotted my head with a paper towel ("This just gets more humiliating at every turn," I said, my head covered with three sheets of Bounty.) and directed me back to her chair.

She followed me over with a tube of Hydrocortisone cream, for the red patch blossoming on my forehead. "This'll help with that irritation."

I surveyed the splotch in the mirror. It started at my temple and crept its way up to the middle of my forehead. Red and angry, it scolded me: This is what you get when you just can't appreciate the hair you have. You know your skin is sensitive. What? Did you think a chemical that permanently curls your hair wasn't going to irritate you? What were you thinking?

"Hey, Jill?" I said, fingering the mark, surveying it for premature peeling and/or bubbling, "Do I have to pay extra for the mild chemical burn, or is it included in the price?"

She spun me away from the mirror. "We throw that in for free. Consider it a gift from me to you." She then mummified my hairline once more with cotton and applied the "neutralizer." "This only has to stay on for five minutes," she told me as she squirted each roller individually. "So your added-bonus-chemical-burn should be pretty much contained."

"Awesome."

As promised, five minutes later, she stripped my head of the cotton and began to unroll all of her careful work. She washed my hair and began to give me instructions for the care of my new do. No washing it for 48 hours. "You can wet it," she said, "just don't use shampoo." Gross. Not only because I am an avid hair-washer (once, sometimes twice, a day), but also because my head smells like shit from all those chemicals. I'm so sure Billy will love it when he gets home, cuddles up to me, and notices that my head smells like a toxic dump. For forty-eight hours.

She sent me from the hair-washing chair to her chair and let me look at my new curly hair.

Drowned-rat came to mind.

But a drowned rat with some pretty curly fur.

I'd been moist about the head area for almost two hours. My hair was pretty limp. It was tired from all that rolling and burning and general activity.

She put some "curling creme" in my hair and told me my blow-dryer days were over. "Blow drying tends to make perms frizzy." She worked the product through my hair, scrunching handfuls of it in her hands. It was so relaxing. I wanted to fall asleep. "If you do what you used to do to make your hair curly, you'll have an afro." Which, by the way, to me, is awesome. The bigger the hair, the better. "And you can blow-dry it straight whenever you want to. It's pretty easy. When you're on vacation, just put some gel in it and let it air-dry." She picked up her blow dryer. "But I'm gonna diffuse your hair now, to get some of the dampness out."

"Thank god," I said. "I'm sick of being wet." Also, I was hoping that I'd like it better dry. Because I wasn't really feeling the limp look. Plus, it wasn't exactly the natural wave she'd promised. It was pretty...Permed.

Sensing my dissatisfaction, she spoke: "Now, remember, it's the tightest it will ever be right now. In a few days it'll be loose and natural."

I examined the results in the mirror. Okay. Still wet, so just okay. I hoped that, once it dried I'd like it better.

And, as it turns out, I do. It looks almost exactly how I wanted it to: Like my natural curl, only no longer intermittent; more consistent. And not as crunchy from a gallon of gel/ mousse/ hairspray/ hairdryer/ hairspray. (Yes, I know "hairspray" is in there twice. I use a lot.)

But I'm still looking forward to a few days from now, though, when it's a little more "natural wave" and a little less "HEY, I JUST GOT A PERM!!"

Me, five minutes ago, in all my permed glory.

Sorry for the ghetto "Camera Phone Self Portrait Through the Looking Glass;" I know you can't really tell what my perm looks like here...But its the fastest way for me to get a photo taken and uploaded. I have pictures on my actual camera from Christmas that have yet to be seen on anything but that tiny little screen on the camera. Whoops.


*The title is an allusion/direct quote from one of my favorite '80s movies: Troop Beverly Hills. I had to give a shout-out to Mrs. Nefler's horror story about Christophe's Salon. "He said, 'I'll streak your hair, and I'll give you a body wave.'... And when he turned me around to face the mirror, I saw it, HE PERMED ME!!!!! [screams from Mrs. Nefler AND the troop]" Oh, how that made me laugh. And I thought about it today.

In the Bag

On Friday, February 16, 2001, I was twenty years old and working as a teller at a Milford bank. I had been working there for almost two years, I knew all of my customers and I knew my job inside and out. But that day is one I'll never forget. That day, I was robbed.

A hulk of a man wearing dirty overalls and a flannel shirt came into the full lobby that morning and asked my coworker for a job application. When she handed over the crisp white paper, the man mumbled thank you and sat in the lobby to fill it out. He stayed for about fifteen minutes, then left the bank after promising to return with the application. We chuckled as soon as he left the branch, wondering why anyone in their right minds would pick up an application looking so dirty.

As promised, he returned later that morning. He came to my window and told me he'd messed up the first application and needed another one. We joked back and forth as I searched for and located a new application. I handed it over to him, and again, he promised to return with the completed application. I told him that, in that case, I'd see him later. He shuffled out of the lobby, the application clutched in his fat fist.

When he returned a third time, I was alone in the lobby. The boss of my short-staffed branch was fixing the fax machine in another room, one teller was out to lunch and the other was letting a woman into her safe deposit box. The man came back and walked directly to my station, job application in hand.

"Did you mess it up again?" I said, already reaching for another replacement.

"No...Uh...I have this..." he replied, unsure. He passed the application to me.

"Oh. Well..." I turned over the paper, and there, scribbled on the back of the blank application was his nervous handwriting: Put you cash in the bag.

Time stopped for a second. My first instinct was that it wasn't really happening. This is a trick, I thought. We had just gone through a robbery training the night before. They're testing me to see if I do the right thing. I looked up at the man, his eyes shifting nervously from one lobby door to another. His huge frame curved over my station, imposing.

This isn't a trick.

I read the note again, my hands shaking. But I didn't think Reach in the drawer, Laurie. I thought My God. I can't believe he wrote "you" instead of "your." I wanted to pass it back to him and say "When you can figure out the error in this note, I'll give you the money."

Of course, the fear caught in my throat would allow me to say no such thing.

"I'm just reaching for my keys, okay? My drawer is locked. I have to unlock it, okay?" I spoke slowly and softly, barely moving until I had his approval.

"Yeah. Whatever. Just don't try any funny shit." He pulled a Grand Union bag from the pocket of his dust-covered overalls and slapped it on the counter. His actions implied threat, but his voice fell short.

My hands shook as I reached for the keys I kept in my pocket. I steered clear of the alarm button under the counter. Don't be a hero, the trainer's voice from the night before reminded me. Don't hit the alarm if you think it's risky. Worry about that later. I unlocked the drawer, and pulled it open, the screech of metal-on-metal as it opened startled us both. His eyes met mine for a second, deep brown irises surrounded by yellowy whites.

"Hurry the fuck up," he said, pushing the bag at me again.

I opened my drawer halfway, as he leaned over the counter to see. I could smell him, unwashed and sour. He invaded my space, craning his neck to see what I had in my drawer. I reached for the large stack of ones, hoping to get away with giving him as little as possible.

"Cut that shit out. Don't worry about the ones. Start with the fives." My hand recoiled from the singles and skimmed to the fives, my quivering fingers grabbing the whole bunch and carrying it to the yellow plastic bag resting before me. I watched my hand moved, but it didn't seem like I was attached to it. It seemed to move independently, like I was watching someone else's hand. If at all possible, push the note out of the way so that the robber forgets about it and leaves it as evidence. The training video replayed in my head. When I brought my hand back to collect the tens, I pushed his note onto the floor. My movements were slow, deliberate.

I filled his bag with the tens, and part of my stack of twenties. I hid my left hand so that he wouldn't see my engagement ring and want to steal it, too. I was scared, but I could tell that he was, too.

His threats were small and mumbled, like he didn't want to be delivering them at all. He reeked of desperation, not violence.

Before I could finish giving him all of my money, he grew impatient. "That's enough," he spat. He lifted the bag, bloated with cash, from the counter and stuffed it into the same oversized pocket it came out of, and did a slow jog out of the building.

"Karen," I whispered. She was in the vault to my left, still chatting with the customer at the safe deposit boxes. "Karen," I was shouting and whispering at the same time.

She stopped her conversation and looked at me. "Yeah?" she said, still smiling at something the customer had said.

"I was robbed." My arms were extended, palms up, perhaps to show that the money wasn't in my hands.

"Someone took the money from the counter?" She said, her smile gone.

"Where the hell do you get that from what I just said? NO! I was robbed!"

"Oh. My. God." She ushered the customer out of the vault and went to get the manager, while I stood in the exact same position I'd been in when I told her. Shock had set in.

My boss, Laura, ran out of the back room, her hands covered in fax toner. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," my palms were still out. "I was robbed."

The safe deposit box customer left and Laura locked the door behind her. She was in crisis mode. "Call the police," she said to me from across the room. I looked at the phone, but all I saw were a bunch of buttons. I didn't know which ones to press.

My hands fell to my sides as I stared at the keypad, the tears welling up in my eyes. I was frozen. Helpless. I looked at her, my face saying What do I do?

Without me having to say it aloud, she knew. "Pick up the phone, and dial nine, one, one." And so I did.

I told the operator what bank I was calling from that I'd just been robbed. I gave her a brief description of the thief and she promised to send someone right over. Not a minute later a local cop showed up at the glass doors, pale and worried. He knew all of us, and feared that someone was hurt.

My coworker, Caryn, who'd been out to lunch came up from the basement when she heard the sirens. "What's going on?" she asked, her words frantic and scared.

"We were robbed," Karen said, busying herself with her assigned post-robbery tasks. She suggested Caryn do the same.

Because they'd been at the training the night before, my coworkers' minds were fresh with the steps to take in the event of a robbery. They blocked off all the areas where he'd been standing. They left the note alone. They started to fill out the description sheets. We didn't speak; we weren't supposed to, for fear that we would discuss the robbery or the thief himself and not remember things as they actually were. But I sat motionless on my chair, watching everything happen around me, but feeling like I wasn't really there at all.

FBI agents, State Troopers and officers of the Bank flooded the building. They blocked off our entrances and exits, they shooed away the local reporters who came to cover the news. They started reviewing the tapes, separating us and asking questions. Fingerprint dust covered the lobby; from the giant columns in the middle of the large and airy room to the podiums in the center, to the entire length of our counters, the black powder stared at us, reminding us of the whole ordeal.

We were allowed to call our families, to tell them they might hear we'd been robbed. We couldn't give them any details, only that we were all okay. After I called my family, my mom rushed to the bank. The police posted at the door couldn't keep her from coming in and making sure her daughter was alright. She burst through the doors and wrapped me in her arms. "You're okay, right?" she asked, her voice filled with fear, her cheeks covered in tears. Her face was red, her breath short and choppy. She was terrified.

"I'm fine, Mom. I promise." And I was, but it felt good to be in the safety of her arms.

No one but me was really shaken up before she got there, but seeing her all worked up and scared for her child got everyone emotional.

After I was questioned by the state and local police, the FBI agents took me downstairs to get my description of the perpetrator. They asked me to describe what he looked like, how tall he was, his weight. But I didn't know how to say it. I've never been good at describing the whole picture of a person. I don't know what two hundred pounds looks like. I can't distinguish six-foot-three from six-foot-seven. So I focused on his eyes, on his hands, the blister on his thumb. His ears. His mustache. His kinky hair. His smell. His clothes. And while it could've made for an interesting description in a novel, it wasn't what they needed.

"Do you think you'd be able to recognize him in a lineup?" The bearded agent asked me.

"Absolutely," I responded. And then the fear set in. "Will I have to, you know, identify him?"

"Yes. And you may have to testify." He said it so matter-of-factly, his eyes on the paper he was filling out in front of him.

Testify? I began to panic. And worry.

I shouldn't have told anyone I'd been robbed, I thought. What if he comes after me for telling the police? What if he finds me? What if he wants to hurt me? He said "No funny shit," maybe that meant "Don't tell the police."

I was released from questioning, but paranoia had taken hold of me. I thought I saw him out of the bank window. I was allowed to leave, but I was scared of being alone. I thought he might be in my car, or waiting to follow me home. So my boss drove me home, before driving me to our favorite restaurant - the one that didn't care to card me - to allow me to drink away my woes.

I was given the next day off - but I didn't spend it doing anything fun. I spent it, and the rest of the weekend, worrying. Worrying about what he'd do when he found out I'd told on him. Worrying about whether or not he could find me if he wanted to. Worrying that his family would come after me if I testified against him.

I didn't want to go to work on Monday, but I had to. I had to get back in the swing of things, I had to try to associate work with work instead of robbery. But there was no changing me from that point out. My whole attitude changed that day.

That day, every person who came into the bank was a potential thief. I began to make mental notes of what people were wearing, the shape of their faces, how much taller they were than me, the color of their eyes, skin and hair. I made note of everyone walking into and out of the bank, sure that if I was ever again asked what a thief looked like, I'd be able to give a clear answer.

And to this day, I continue to take stock of everyone in the bank. I pay attention to people who come in, look around and leave. I remember their faces, their voices, their accents, their posture. Sometimes, I pay too much attention, and worry that I'm bordering on paranoia.

But, really, the robbery made me aware: It made me aware of my customers, and aware of my surroundings. It made me aware of what good women I worked with then. It made me aware of being a victim of a small crime will do to a mother. It made me keenly aware of everything: I know immediately upon setting foot in my house that someone's been here. If it's a door that's closed that was open before, I'll see it. If it's the morning's paper moved from where I left it, I'll notice. And I like being so acutely observant to my surroundings, even if it did take a robbery to do it.