What if Trump Held a Press Conference and Nobody Came?

Caricature by Euan Mactavish 

For the first time in my adult life, I am ashamed to be an American.  Yes, that is a parody of the First Lady’s earth-shaking comment made during the Obama Presidential campaign, so sue me.  Just as she was being honest and sincere when she said what she said, I am stone cold serious. 

America’s so-called liberal press has fostered a level of racism that has shocked my sensibilities to the core.  In their shameless effort to sensationalize and tantalize a brain-dead, morally bankrupt audience, the press successfully elevated His Ignorance Donald Trump to a political power-broker.  And all Trump had to do was tell blatant lies with the precision of a conniving racist strategist.
 
Donald Trump has had more free air-time in the past few weeks than all the others in the vastly boring fib-fest masquerading as the hunt for the Republican Presidential nomination put together. Not once, as far as I know, has he made one coherent statement about what he would do should the morons of America gather enough racist Lemming-Americans to put him in the White House.
 
Trump is crazy like a fox, though.  On the face of it all, he seems to be running around making insane accusations without benefit of supporting evidence; i.e., “Obama is the worst President in the history of the country.”  Asked why he says that, Trump says something profound like “because he IS!”  Oh.

But this latest tactic is the clearest proof to date of Trump’s underlying rancid racism.  By pointing out that Obama was a “lousy student” and “nobody even remembers him from kindergarten,” and going on to wonder how Obama was able to be admitted to Harvard, Trump is implying it was the politically-loaded affirmative action programs of the last century that allowed it.  He stops short of saying “how else would this common, not-so-bright black man penetrate those hallowed halls?”

Trump is an idiot and that is not news.  What has me ashamed this morning is the absolute knowledge that there are ordinary people in this ailing country who are eating up his evil lies with a spoon.  There are those among us who will make a hero out of Trump for forcing the President to produce his birth certificate (which, by the way, gives not one bit of additional information about the religion his parents.)

So, sure, the *birthers* can now shut the hell up about Obama’s citizenship and birthright; but now we are going to be treated to a litany of testimonials about how stupid that Barry kid was in the third grade and how patently unworthy he is to be a graduate of that bastion of whiteness in Cambridge, Mass.  And yet, The Donald whines on about how bad we look to the people of the world.  I hope somebody sneaks into his golden penthouse and shaves off all his alleged hair!

Royal Wedding? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

I was just over on Politico.com reading Friday’s daily debate thread which discusses whether or not the upcoming royal wedding is a waste of money.  Opinions from political pundits ranged from calling the wedding a welcome diversion from the barrage of negative news (Former New Mexico governor (D), energy secretary, UN ambassador and House member) to declaring it’s none of our damned business how the Brits choose to spend their money.

I have a different question.  Why does the American press believe we in the United States are so interested in every minute detail of the spectacle scheduled for April 29 in London?  Last night when I returned from dinner with a high school pal I hadn’t seen in almost 50 years, I was curious to see what news I might have missed.  On every cable news channel I tried, there was a special program about some aspect of royal weddings, past and future.

I have heard estimates as high as $33 million as the dollar equivalent of the cost for this wedding.  That sounds a bit much to me, to say the least, but it’s not my money.  Even if I were the Queen of England, I would be a little embarrassed about that kind of excess, but hey, live and let live.  However, when I saw this morning that NBC’s Today Show is planning to send every one of its anchors across the pond for the big event, I couldn’t help but wonder: why?!

Yes, I will be curious to see Kate Middleton’s frock, because that’s the way I roll.  I watch all the entertainment award shows for the sole purpose of seeing the women’s gowns and/or the freakish getups on Lady Gaga, the new Cher.  But I most definitely will not be among those who arise at 4 a.m. to do so.  By the time I wake up that morning, I will be able to view that dress from every angle imaginable simply by turning on my laptop.  An hour or so later, I’ll be able to order a cheap knockoff of the damned thing on the internet.   Big deal.

I guess older age takes all the romance out of a girl, but I just don’t get the hype.  The few thoughts I do have about Prince William’s marriage are more likely to be about my fear for the future of that seemingly lovely young woman, Kate.  Will she be hounded, sliced and diced the way her prince’s late mother was?  Will she be able to withstand the stifling isolation of palace life?  I know how beguiling true love can get, but I honestly think the girl is out of her freaking mind for signing up for life in a fishbowl.

Oh well, to each his own.  Fairy tales have their place in American culture.  Little American girls still fantasize about meeting a prince (where?  In Topeka?) Or being a princess.  Even I still believe I can afford to buy a tank of gas for my car without selling my car first!

The Light Switch

I call it the light-bulb moment.   That split second when someone I am teaching or training suddenly moves from confusion to oh-I-get-it.  The brow unfurrows.  The eyes twinkle with the light of understanding.  The smile lights up the room.

The middle-school student I have been tutoring this semester came to me after the winter holidays with a truckload of excuses for his uncharacteristic series of failures in the classroom.  The Social Studies teacher disliked him because of his dark skin, he said.  The detention he got for goofing off in math class was unfair because the teacher only saw the spitball after he had thrown it back to the guy next to him who had thrown it at him first. 

It wasn’t long before I knew exactly what was going on with Jordan.  A perfect storm of things totally out of his control gathered at once to send him spinning off into a pre-adolescent twilight zone.  He woke up one morning someone completely different from the boy he was when he fell asleep.  A hormonal haze had addled his brain.  His priorities shifted, putting concerns about his appearance and the quality of his breath far ahead of whatever the teacher was droning on about.  He was willing to do almost anything to keep the girl of his dreams from thinking he is *lame,* a term that refers to everything from an ugly face to the wrong swoosh on his sneakers.

One day we were having one of our heart-to-hearts before we dove into the lesson for the afternoon. 

“I have to read eight chapter books longer than 150 pages before the end of the semester,” he whined.

To me, that sounded like a sentence to heaven. 

 “So what’s the problem?”   I asked this with the most innocent look on my face I could muster, but I already knew the answer.

“I’m not much of a reader.  I don’t enjoy it at all.”

I taught him to read when he was only four.  He went to his first day of school knowing how to read at almost a second grade level, because his mother paid me to prepare him for school.  He was a natural.

“Well, that’s only because you haven’t been selecting the right books, Jordan.  With a little effort and an assist from the librarian at school, I believe you could find books you will find hard to put down.”
The look on his face is one I see often, the one that translates “Yeah, right.”

Parents, if you are new at this business of dragging your once darling little son or daughter through the bog known as puberty, I have a news flash.  You will say something as profound as the above statement I made to Jordan and in return receive the blankest stare you have ever witnessed.  You will be convinced your child has morphed into Charlie Brown or Lucy enduring the wah-wah-wah of adultspeak. Do not despair.  They heard you; in all likelihood, they heard you. 

This past Tuesday Jordan’s assignment was to read his library book for an hour.  Expecting to have a battle on my hands, I suggested it might be fun if he read it aloud to me.  To my utter amazement, he said okay…with enthusiasm!

The book he had just checked out is by Richard Lewis, an American ex-patriot living in Bali, Indonesia who has written four books for young adults.  Jordan chose The Killing Sea, a story about young characters who survived the 2004 tsunami created by a 9.0 earthquake in the Indian Ocean.  Based on the three chapters Jordan has read to me so far, Lewis writes with the voice of a mature 12-year-old.

Jordan has been mesmerized by this story.  When he got to a part where a young girl finds her mother tangled in fishing net, drowned, his eyes glistened and his voice quivered.  Jordan was on that beach with Sarah!

And there was my moment.  There was the instant for which every good teacher lives.  Jordan was enjoying a book.  He was seeing the movie version of the story in his mind’s eye.  He was feeling the terror, the despair and the fear of those fictional characters.  

Life is good.

What's On Your List?

Life can get pretty mundane for a retired single woman with little or no life.  When walking the dog is the highlight of my day, as it will be today, something as insignificant as finding somebody’s shopping list lying face-up on an Atlanta sidewalk can be inspiring!

I can learn a lot about a person from his or her dropped reminders-to-self.  Look at the memo paper. It either had a frightfully long flight from San Diego to Atlanta, more than likely catching a tailwind from the most recent storm system, or it came along in the moving van with the family that owns it. 

La Jolla Country Day School is a dead giveaway to the general background of the original owner of that memo pad.  Anybody who has access to that school, whether it’s being the headmaster or being the homeless guy who rifles through the school’s trash dumpster, is used to living a bit larger than their more average American counterparts.   Just being from San Diego, California sets this careless shopper apart from the average Joe or Joanne.

Then take a look at what’s on the grocery list.  Could it get any healthier?   I suppose this person could be preparing a nice snack for the Easter Bunny, but it is far more likely the author of this brief but healthy list of vittles is a card-carrying health nut who fits right into this hippy-dippy neighborhood of mine.   Don’t be thrown by the cake at the bottom of the list.  I would bet my next Social Security check it was going to be a carrot cake with carob chips and yogurt frosting.

I can even make some educated guesses about the person who wrote this list.  It’s a younger person who didn’t learn cursive writing in school, as we of a certain age did.  Many of the letter “a”s in the words are left unclosed, indicating a person who is always in a hurry, but not enough to resort to the use of shorthand or word abbreviations.  The writer is probably left-handed, given the slant of the printed words.   And, for reasons I cannot explain, I believe this was written by a male.

Pathetic as it may seem, this fortuitous find got my creative juices flowing.  I started mentally constructing the typical shopping lists of certain well-known individuals who would rather be caught dead than found wandering around my chic but profoundly urban neighborhood clutching a shopping list.




What I see:
Egomaniac
Megalomaniac
Jerk of the highest order
Greedy dirtbag









What I see:
Space cadet
Barbie without the rack

Loose cannon

Nouveau riche biche
Dumber than a box of rocks


 

 
What I see:
Sick puppy
Delusional wannabe
Hopeless addict
Wasted talent

Why Women Carry Handbags

Many's the man who has been relegated to holding his woman's purse on his lap while she tries on clothes.  They have no doubt wondered why women can’t just carry their shit in their pockets like men do.   Wouldn’t life be a lot simpler for her if she did?

Sure, probably.  But that would be just one more attempt at trying to bring women into behavioral compliance with their far less complicated male counterparts.  Even if it were possible, which is a joke; there is neither way nor reason for women to participate in that exercise in folly.

Now that I live in the Deep South, the thing I have always called a purse is usually called a pocketbook by everyone but other displaced Northerners.  I have always been curious about the origin of that word.  The object is not a book and it clearly doesn’t fit in any pocket I’ve ever owned.

Way back in 1993 William Safire wrote in a New York Times article:

That's easy; in 1617, the word first surfaced to denote a small book, now called a notebook; it was a book of addresses, or notes that fitted in a pocket. By 1816, women were carrying a book-like case with compartments for papers and knickknacks, and they called it a purse, handbag or -- extending the old term -- pocketbook.

Apparently, the snap closure typical of the bags in the 17^th century reminded the owners of the closure on books.  Hmmph.

I have carried a handbag since I was old enough to ask for one.   Since my tendency to prattle started when I was less than a year old, I probably exchanged my pacifier for a nice little ladybug purse.  My choices remained small and dainty over the years, probably because that’s all they made for children back then.  In high school I chose the handle-less clutch style so that it would fit neatly on the right side of my carefully stacked textbooks, which were carried according to style in both arms.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that my purses became major productions.  Aged crones like me will remember when man-tailored office workers wore sneakers and socks with their Brooks- Brother-esque ensembles to walk from their transportation destination to their offices.  Floppy ties flapping in the breeze, we would carry not one, but two very large handbags.  One would be called a tote, though.  That would lug our stiletto heels, which would only be worn on carpet or hallway tile.  I loved that time.  No more heels getting stuck in the cracks of the sidewalks or the holes in the sidewalk grates.  No more pump bumps on the backs of my heels.  No more blisters.

 

I was never all that into the logo craze that hit us middle class poseurs in the 70s and 80s.  A close friend arrived at the office one day sporting her new Louis Vuitton satchel, the Speedy .  She was beside herself with glee, having waited for years to con some guy into buying the expensive status symbol for her.  I was happy for her.  I really was.  However, I lost control of my mouth and said the following:

“I have never understood the appeal of that bag.  It is canvas covered with plastic and it has somebody else’s initials all over it.  It’s like paying $300 for the *privilege* of being a human billboard.”
Ooops.  She didn’t speak to me for days and I never knew why until I asked her.  Fortunately, I have learned to be at least slightly more diplomatic since then.


 

Women and their purses are serious business.  Men and women who couldn’t care less about fashion and current style probably think the purpose of the purse is to carry essentials, things that cannot fit into the pockets that most women don’t even have in their clothing.   I say that is the least sexy reason on the list:
Carrying stuff:  Yes, there’s that
Collecting:  After the four shoe closets are full…
Security: Something to hold onto when out and about
Status:  “I’m somebody and you’re not” or, more likely, “I am pretending to be somebody and you’re not.”
Weapons:  A woman in Florida cold-cocked a courtroom gunman last December.

 But recent times have pandered primarily to:
Fashion: Next to shoes, they are the biggest fashion-statement opportunity 

 Some handbag designers must do their designing while doing ecstasy or some other modern hallucinogenic.  Take a look at these strange examples of twenty-first century *pocketbooks.*

 

 

Maybe the person who carries this model has a need for fresh eggs during the day?  Hope her mate isn't too...henpecked.







 

This one feeds two addictions with one purchase!  I wonder where the sneakers go.

 

This is your brain…on the runway!

 









It looks like Louis Vuitton has taken up taxidermy! 

 

 

 

 

 

YIKES!

 



 

This one must have been designed in some European slammer!

Now you’re talkin’!

 

Asphalt Facial--No Appointment Needed

Originally written on April 7, 2011

Being an introvert and all, I don’t get bored often.  Months can go by without me once feeling lonely or starved for attention.  That’s what my fluff-ball dog Coqui is for.  Last night was no exception. I had no need to call attention to myself. 

Speaking of Coqui, she was involved the last time this happened.  And the time before that.  And the time before that.

American Idol was especially good last night.  This season’s crop of young pop star hopefuls is a bushel full of talent.  I was so engrossed, tapping my feet, bobbing my head and applauding each performance, I suddenly realized I had forgotten to take the Herbie Curbie to the street for this morning’s garbage collection.

There is nothing worse than a garbage can spilling over with two full weeks worth of tilapia trays and rotting nectarines that didn’t pass my discerning taste test on the first bite.  At about 9 p.m. Coqui and I went out to the dumpster area and rolled it down the long incline that is our townhome complex driveway.

The stars were dazzling in the crisp evening air.  There was no snow or rain, black ice, no wind.  The only distraction besides the hoot owl’s plaintive call was the intoxicating aroma of night-blooming jasmine.

Half-way back up the slope of the driveway I felt the rubber toe cap of my left sneaker catch on the pebbly surface of the asphalt.  Immediately the projector in my mind shifted to slow motion.  My right foot never even got the message that it was needed – STAT!  I felt my body glide through the progressive angles.  80 degrees.  50 degrees.  15 degrees.

In my young, athletic days I would have righted myself before touchdown.  Failing that, I would have at least had the presence of mind to twist my body in order to land on the least vulnerable portion of my anatomy – my ass.  That was then.  This is now.  My doctor explains it as part of the aging process.  Nothing happens the way it used to happen.

I didn’t feel my right hip strike the pavement.  I was too distracted by the sight of that hard surface speeding toward my face.  My chin struck first, slamming my teeth into a clench.  Next my upper and lower lips kissed the roughness with an explosion of sensation not too unlike that of my first kiss back in junior high.  By this time I was skidding forward, scraping the skin off my right hand and lower abdomen.  Oh yeah, and the right side of my face, the part of my cheekbone beside my eye and just above my eyebrow.

The crunching sound of my head kissing the asphalt was alarming.  A loud oooomph pierced the silence of the night.  The click click click of Coqui’s claws punctuated the ringing in my head as she did a “Bichon Buzz,” running in circles around my prone body, mistaking this calamity for play.

My mouth filling with blood, I rose to my knees to see if I was conscious.  Someone or something was shoving a long-bladed dagger through my right hip, but I was able to get to my feet, spit out the blood that was now dribbling down the front of my sweater and stagger toward my front door.
Fearful of passing out from the concussion I was afraid I might have suffered, I called my neighbor. 

“We’re going to the doctor -- now!”  The look on her face caused me to peek into my hall mirror.  Whoa!

Now it was time to go through my I’m-tough-I’m- embarrassed-I-don’t-need-no-steenkin’-doctor routine.  Then I remembered that actress – Natasha Richardson? -- who died after hitting her head in a skiing accident, I believe it was.

When my loyal friend and I returned from the ER at 1 a.m., I had been given a CAT scan on my face and head and x-rays of my hip and hand.  The hip pain was frightening.  I could barely walk.  But eventually I was released with instructions to rest (not a problem!) and take Tylenol with codeine tablets.

I got off easy this time.  Sure, I have exfoliated the right side of my face without having to see an aesthetician, but at least this time no bones were broken.  In the nine years I have owned Coqui, I have fractured my wrist, broken two ribs, fallen on my face twice and broken my foot.  This time I’m hoping to avoid the black eye.  People talk, you know?

Who knew talking out the garbage could be hazardous duty?

A Smothers Brothers Childhood

There are so many stories chronicling severe, even heinous, mistreatment of children at the hands of parents.  There are horrific tales of incest, child molestation, emotional abuse, physical abuse and child murder. 
Examples of monster parents seem to be everywhere, at least to hear their children tell it: 

• Fathers who belittled their daughters and laid the foundation for a lifetime of self-doubt and struggle to find a little pocket of society in which to fit;
• Mothers who compete with their daughters for the affection and attention of their husbands;
• Mean, hateful parents who take out all their disappointments on the children issued to them, either by Nature or by adoption or by default.

There is one kind of parental pitfall that doesn’t often find its way to the discussion: alienation of siblings. 


The typical Smothers Brothers story of a slighted sibling lamenting his or her parents’ preference for a Golden-Child sister or brother is all-too-familiar.  Seldom, though, is the story written from the Golden Child’s point of view.

My mother was only 17 when she married my father in 1941.  Her mother had married at 16, so there was little opposition to the marriage from her parents, in spite of her young age.  Not long after she became pregnant with me early in 1944 my father, a champion swimmer, was headed for the U. S. Coast Guard to fight in World War II.

On November 4, 1944, with my father somewhere off the coast of Japan, my maternal grandfather loaded his laboring daughter into the family car and drove to the hospital where I, his first-born granddaughter, would be born.  He was the one who paced the floor in the “father’s” waiting room.  At only 43, he fit right in with the other nervous fathers to be.

Because we were back to living with them, my grandparents provided all the care and support to their over-indulged new mother and her infant.  Colic kicked in early.  It was Grandpa who got up in the middle of the night to walk the floor with me or put me in the car and drive around the block until I fell asleep.  I became “his baby” over whom he doted shamelessly.  He became the major and forever father figure in my life, the man who set the standard of what a man should be in my eyes.

When my sister came along on April 1, 1947, so many complications had entered the picture the occasion was far less joyous.  For one thing, she wasn’t due until sometime in May.  My parents had divorced during the pregnancy after heartbreak over infidelity.  And later, the delivery of the baby became so dangerous; my grandparents were asked to choose which life to save – the baby or the mother.  By the time my sister fought her way into the world and survived in spite of the fact that the decision had been to save my mother, all involved were emotionally and physically exhausted.

The dramatic differences between the circumstances surrounding our births set the stage for the way the rest of our lives would unfold.  I loved school.  She hated it.  I was precocious and outgoing.  She was quiet and reserved.  I would not be satisfied being in the middle of any pack instead of at the lead.  She sought the anonymity and cover of the pack.

When I was 17, I went off to college.  When she was 17, she eloped with her Viet-Nam-bound high school sweetheart. 

All during these years between birth and leaving the nest, my sister’s resentment of me steadily grew.  All the while, year after year, grandchild after grandchild, my alcoholic and often unthinking grandfather would tell anyone who would listen that I was his favorite grandchild.  No one could get him to stop.

I was much too self-absorbed and focused on my own ambition and drive to achieve everything within my grasp to even notice my sister was being neglected, she felt, and freezing in the shadow of “everyone’s favorite,” as she called me later in life.  She seemed to go out of her way to remain average in most things, with one major exception.

We both learned to twirl a baton when enrolled in summer classes while in elementary school.  I am 2 ½ years older than she, so I was the one who became the first African American girl to become a drum majorette at our high school.  She tried out when she was a freshman and made it.  I had never heard her so excited about anything before the day she called me at college to announce she had been elected Captain of the majorette squad.  She was obviously gloating; I could hear it even on the phone.  I had never made Captain.  I was so proud of her.  I felt nothing but happiness for her achievement.

Another teen milestone became a matter of competition between us, unbeknownst to me.  When I failed my driver’s license test because I screwed up the three-point or “Y” turn on my road test, I was too crushed to go back and try again.  I didn’t get my license until I was 18.  My sister was successful on her first try.  A few years ago, when I was driving and she was a passenger, her tendency to be a Back Seat Driver irritated me and I snapped “I have been driving just as long as you have.  I know.”

I glanced sideways to see her wearing a smirk.  “What?” I said.

“Technically, I have been driving longer than you because I got my license before you did.”  The smirk broadened.  Enough said?

Although I never shared my sister’s belief that she was being ignored while everyone in the family ooohed and aaaahed over my accomplishments, I knew she did believe it. In spite of her periodic episodes of rage at my expense,  I loved her with all my heart and did everything I could to let her know that.

Then one day – I’m not exactly sure which day – my sister stopped speaking to me.  When she got married for the second time in the 1970s, I wasn’t invited to the wedding.  She also stopped speaking to our mother and stepfather.  For ten years, this went on and I couldn’t figure out why.  My calls were left unanswered and my letters, too.

It wasn’t until my sister went to a therapist in Florida, where she had lived during this non-speaking period of years, that I received a call.  She was in crisis and she needed me. She was wrong to have cut me out of her life the way she did, she said.  It was unfair and cruel and now she realized that she was taking her resentments out on the wrong person.

I was thrilled to get my sister back.  We are now close friends and confidantes, always there for one another.  I wish I could say the one-sided rivalry has been put behind us.  It hasn’t.  Every so often, she will remind me how brilliant her son is (and he is!)  Just about every time we get together she tells stories about how she unofficially runs the store she serves as office manager, and how much she is loved by the young people who work there.  She is a much better cook than I’ll ever be and that’s fine with me.  I never was a good cook, so now she does all the holiday meals.  Poor me,  huh?

Parents get blamed for making so many mistakes raising their children.  God knows my mother made many.  But I’ve always felt my mother was completely unaware of the impression she was giving to my sister.  I was the squeaky wheel, a whirlwind of extracurricular activity which required endless sewing of costumes and performances to attend.  By supporting whatever I chose to do that was enriching and character-building, my mother and grandparents inadvertently neglected the unspoken needs of my less flamboyant sibling. 

I believe this unfortunate turn of events is the real reason my sister and I each had only one child.  She says so, quite candidly.  She didn’t want to ever take the chance of doing to a child what was done to her.  I always say my decision to have only one child was made for me by circumstances, but I wonder how true that is.  I feel so much guilt about being that Golden Child, I’m pretty sure my reason is the same as my sister’s.

Could this dynamic have been avoided?  There is a chance it would have happened, even if my grandfather and my mother had been more sophisticated in the art of child-rearing.  Sibling rivalry crops up in just about every family with more than one child.  But I believe parents must ask themselves very tough questions as their children arrive and the family expands.  Do I have a favorite?  If so, is it obvious to my other children?  Do I give each child the kind and amount of attention he or she needs?  Have I allowed one child's interests to usurp too much of my time and attention?

A lot of pain and sorrow might be avoided by paying closer attention to the answers to those questions.

SHATTERED CRYSTAL

The classroom was atwitter with the chatter of children from 6 to 12 years old.  It was an experiment in education, that classroom.  Each child was receiving individualized instruction, based entirely on their progress, not their age.

I looked over my animated charges and smiled.  I had never worked harder, but I had never been prouder of my work.  These kids were lapping up their lessons like a kitten at a saucer full of milk.

“Ms. Lezlie, please come to the principal’s office immediately.”  The antiquated PA system in that rickety old Catholic school building crackled loudly above the din.


I was startled.  This had never happened before.  Sister Agnes preferred to wait until recess breaks or lunchtime so as not to cause the teachers to leave their classrooms unattended.

“Jason, as the oldest student in the room, I am going to ask you to be in charge while I run down the hall.  Everyone else is to respect my appointment of Jason and treat him as you would treat me.  I’ll be right back, so carry on with whatever you are working on.  Try to keep it down to a dull roar, please Jason.”  Giggles from all corners tickled my ears.

As I rushed through the door of the Principal’s Office, the look on Sister Agnes’ beautiful face was telling.  Something was very wrong.  At 26, I still felt sudden fear the way a child does.  I held my breath.
“Your 7-year-old, Crystal, is in the hospital, Lezlie.  That’s why she’s absent today.”

“What happened?!”  I almost shrieked this.  Crystal was among my secret favorites, something I dared not admit to my boss.

“Sit down.”  Sister folded her hands on her desk and stared at her soap-scrubbed hands as I pulled the chair closer to the desk.

“Crystal was raped last night.”

“Raped?” I shouted in a hushed whisper.

“Her injuries are so severe she required extensive surgery to repair her vagina and anus.”

I began to sob.  I felt unspeakable horror and disbelief.  Who would do such harm to anyone, much less a 7-year-old little girl?  My stomach lurched in forewarning of its intended upheaval.

Sister Agnes anticipated my unspoken question.  She sighed deeply.

“Her mother has decided not to press charges.”

I leaped out of my chair, deserting decorum.

“You have got to be kidding me, Sister!  Why the h… ? In the name of God, what is she thinking?

“He was drunk.”

“Who was drunk?  Who is this monster? Since when is being drunk an excuse to rape a child?”  I was screaming with righteous indignation, pacing the floor.

Sister Agnes swiveled her chair around and stared out the window overlooking the playground where a group of kindergarten children played Simon Says.

“Her father.”

Regrettably, this is a true story.