Essential

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the mess in D.C. and the looming government shutdown. Not just because the whole situation is ludicrous, but also because I was there the last time it happened. I was working on the House side then, for a wee little wisp of a congressman who tried to make up with his lack of stature by acting as if he were quite the lady killer; a travel-sized Good Time Charlie Wilson. Very handsy, only called me "Valentine" and liked to try to impress us with stories of the time he valiantly and against all odds co-sponsored legislation to establish a National Postal Service Workers Day. In spite of the very satisfying electric letter opener and the nice lady who worked in the Longworth carry-out and tried to find me boyfriends, I wasn't keen on the House side; it was too big, unorganized and uncivil, and there really isn't a lot of payout in sleeping your way to becoming Mrs. Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife. I loathed my job. I distinctly remember getting ready for work one morning and hearing that someone had been stabbed in Old Town but that they were in the hospital and expected to recover fully; I was actually jealous - what's a a little hole in the gut, he didn't have to go to work. Imagine how thrilled I was to hear that when the shutdown came, all nonessential personnel would be furloughed. Surely I was nothing if not completely nonessential, yes? My boss didn't even know my real name! My chief responsibilities were operating the aforementioned letter opener and tormenting our press secretary; I was pretty sure someone could come up with a way to open the mail in my absence, and since the press secretary was (and is) one of my closest friends, I could do as I do now and torment her electronically. Sadly, I was proven wrong; I was somehow deemed essential. In the end, the shutdown was a bit of a tempest in a teapot. My workload was actually considerably lightened due to the fact that so many other agencies were closed, so the only serious inconvenience turned out to be that Willie Ann wasn't around to further my romantic efforts.

I am therefore owed a furlough. Sadly, I think these days I am actually considered essential to my current short bosses because lately I am convinced they don't have the sense to come in out of the rain. I am truly amazed at some of the things I have to tell these two; I can't count how many times I've thought to myself "how is it possible I have to be verbalizing this? Surely this is the first time in history this particular combination of words has been strung together." A few things I've had to mandate in the last week or so:

stop putting your tongue on the toilet
you may not sleep in the herbie curbie
you may not sleep in the dryer
stop putting your tongue on the dog
do not try to write with your buttcheeks
I will not sleep in the herbie curbie, or the dryer
you may not put your toenails in the deli slicer at Publix
ice does not count as dinner
stop putting your tongue in the air vent
you may not shave your eyebrows
stop trying to eat through your belly button
stop putting your tongue in the pencil sharpener
we will not change your sister's name to Roy Alabama, Hotdog Hotdog or Crispick
getting really sweaty does not count the same as taking a shower
you may not live in the garden shed at Home Depot (Ed. note: unfortunately)

I have a headache in my eyeball. Then on top of it all, I had to go to Kinko's this afternoon and the RM wouldn't stop manhandling the Hello Kittae

Hello Kitty, honey, please point to the spot on the doll where the bad girl touched you

 

so in accordance with my new parenting policy, I was forced to disciplinarily sing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" almost in it's entirety, both Babs' and Neil's parts (which I don't mind telling you I NAILED) until she knocked it off. "Nooooow after lovin' me late at niiiiight/when it's GOOD FOR YOU, babe, and you're feelin' alriiiight/weh-heelll you juuuust turn over and turn out the light...." At least I was able to bring a little joy into the world; everybody except my severely put-upon kids clapped, and the guy at the jumbo printer asked if I did weddings. Unfortunately, the dubious behavior picked right on up again once we got home - AD threw the Candyland box top at her sister's head, who retreated to her room in tears. I finally got her calmed down and playing with her bristle blocks, but then she built this

 

and immediately started sobbing, yelling "I DON'T LIKE THIS IT SCARES ME LOOK IT'S RUNNING TO GET ME." Obviously! I don't know what to do with this. I'm done shepherding them through the painfully obvious for today.

It's both good and bad that the girls actually come by this quality honestly - JHP has been known to make some very questionable, hilarious and completely clueless observations that I've greatly enjoyed mocking him for. One of my favorites is in regards to a photograph Cslos gave me of a random guy walking into Sun Studios in Memphis.

it's haunted by the ghost of a stunningly beautiful woman with a cell phone camera

 

I love this picture. I love it even more since JHP recently asked me "so, do you think that was taken the very first time Elvis visited Sun Studios?" I let that hang in the air for a bit and then said "Probably. Good call." Didn't even have the energy for that one. Just don't try to stick your tongue on it.

 

I am at the mercy of the ignorant. Shit, aren't we all.



 



Customer Service

For some weeks there's been an audio clip going around on the internet. I've tried to link to it below but since I am clearly pretty inept when it comes to computers I'm certain it won't work

http://gawker.com/youve-never-heard-a-customer-service-call-meltdown-qui-1299857467

so I'll just tell you that it's a really pissed off guy calling a customer service line. It's been on several different websites and is usually accompanied with a title like "WORST call EVER!" or "You've never heard ANYTHING like this!". I beg to differ. The first job I had out of college was answering phones for one of Tennessee's finest, U.S. Senator Jim Sasser, and I can tell you I've heard this shit plenty. One other girl and I were responsible for greeting visitors in the front office as well as answering six phone lines, which on the surface doesn't exactly sound like challenging stuff but I assure you it was hell on earth. Even all these years later I'm still amazed at the things people would call us about "the trailer can't get a cable connection? This is a job for Jim Sasser!" "I'd like to move my mailbox...better call Congress.", and how vicious they'd be when we couldn't magically solve their issues right there on the spot. Throw in the fact that he was the Chairman of the Budget Committee which was handling Bill Clinton's new (and wildly unpopular in Tennessee) budget, and there were days when I'd be covered in flop sweat by 10:00am. I couldn't expect any collegial support either, as the other receptionist - who insisted on calling herself the Senior Receptionist because she started a full month before I did - was a complete twat. She apparently thought her impressive tenure entitled her to hop up from her desk whenever she wanted and go flirt with the hot guy in Sen. Bryan's office across the hall. I get it, but still, what a bitch. Good thing for her shitinabox.com folded.

The official rule for the phones was that you had to be as cordial and receptive as possible, no matter what the issue; we were to take the caller's name and address, document their issue and assure them that the senator or an appropriate staff member would get back to them right away. However, if the caller either threatened the life of the president (a felony!) or used profanity (an art form!), then we were told to end the call. The beauty of this rule is that we weren't specifically told HOW to end the call. The presidential threat one was easy - we would just tell the caller that we were under a legal obligation to report them to the FBI, which always got a good response. I suppose it was just assumed that we'd just hang up if the profanity thing arose, but I generally chose to take that as an opportunity to work on a few issues on behalf of these folks. "You do realize," I would say, as pitifully as possible, "that you're speaking to someone's daughter. I have absolutely zero influence or power here and yet you treat me so shamefully. I can only assume you'd be horrified for someone to talk to your child in such a manner." That would usually elicit an immediate apology, but the real assholes would double down and throw out a "you listen here, I pay your salary you work for ME." which would get them back an "I make $18,000 a year. If I refund your teeny-tiny cut up piece of a penny, will you promise to NEVER FUCKING CALL BACK AGAIN?" The most satisfying outcome was when it turned out that you actually KNEW the person. I'll never forget sitting through an especially rude tirade about how that perverted hillbilly Clinton and his lesbian wife were going to drive this country straight to hell and how could I look in the mirror knowing my heathen hand was right there on the steering wheel with theirs, I should just be ashamed of myself; when the woman finally finished her spiel, I got her name and realized immediately it was the mother of a friend of mine from high school. "Oh, Mrs. X! It's you! This is Elise! Dennis and Joanna's daughter!" Mortified silence on her end. To this day she can't run into my mother without apologizing. Excellent.

While 99% of the calls were just angry and mean, we did have a couple of people I really looked forward to hearing from. One was an older guy named John Wayne Boyd who lived in (no kidding) Finger, TN and thought that Jim Sasser was the finest person to ever walk the earth. John Wayne never really gave me any specifics, he just wanted us to know that if he had his way then Jim Sasser would be the Vice President of the United States. Our governor, Ned Ray McWherter, would be at the top of the ticket but ONLY because he was older, not because he was in any way superior to Sasser, "I don't have to like it, but it's only fair.". I appreciated John Wayne's enthusiasm but slightly doubted his mental state because he also had a habit of mailing me letters written on paper Burger King tray liners. He was a paragon of the community compared to my other favorite frequent flier, Mr. Ray Martinez of the Atascadero Forensic State Hospital of California. He would call every Monday and Wednesday at 3:00pm, like clockwork (during what I can only assume was the hour or so he was allowed out of his cell) and demand we make public the list of the "TOP TEN MAFIA BANKERS!" Initially I made the mistake of correcting him, no, sir, we actually don't have that list and to be honest I'm not certain one actually exists, but pretty soon I learned it was so much better just to let him go. If you got Ray on a good day and asked the right questions not only would he fill you in on the bankers, but he'd explain exactly how Jay Rockefeller, Anita Bryant and Amtrak were conspiring to control all American firearms production. That one didn't make a lot of sense at first, but I have to hand it to him because he brought it home strong and sold it well. Ray made conspiracy nuts look rational - he once told me that he knew exactly what happened to President Kennedy, because he was the grassy knoll. Not was at the grassy knoll, no, Ray was the actual hill. I told him that must make it difficult to find pants that fit well, or to travel, and after a moment or two of silence he said "why, yes. Yes it does."

looking good, Ray Ray

 



His first love, however, was always the mafia bankers. He called every member of the Budget Committee about them and we'd compare stories. Every now and then, for some reason, Ray would try to call under a fake name, disguise his voice and speak super-rationally, but we always knew it was him and it was so easy to flush him out "....ok, so I'll send you a copy of SR-380. While I have you on the phone, Mr. Smith, do you have any banking questions? Or concerns about the mafia, by chance?" and off he'd go. I miss that man.

As awful as that job was, I've always been glad I did it. For one thing I am exceedingly polite to people who are in customer or public service of any kind; it was a great lesson, and one I hope my children understand as well. It also taught me the deep satisfaction of fucking with my other friends who worked on the Hill or in reception; I can't count how many times I would transfer some pissed-off redneck to the direct line of Phil Gramm's legislative director, or call Don Reigle's press secretary and ask about the rumors concerning the 12 year old in the crawl space. It was the most fun to crank call Cslos, though. While she didn't work on the Hill, she worked in the medical records department of a hospital and had to answer the phone "Discharges". I would call at least once a day and request a quart of lymph, or some semen. I'm certain my efforts at entertainment were not at all appreciated, but I enjoyed it. I hope anyone who's ever suffered the indignity of taking abuse from a faceless stranger gets to turn it around with as much satisfaction as I've had. I'm going to call Saxby Chambliss now and let him know that my tires are low.

Crime and Punishment

One of the best things about having the girls back in school is that I get to offload discipline somewhat. Sure, I have to put up with their shit during civilian hours, but for a solid block of time during the day they are not on my watch; should I wish I can choose to believe that they are all "yes ma'am"s and sunshine at school instead of acting like the surly guerilla pre-teens who live here. JHP and I suspect that they may be violating the laws of both evolution and common sense because they seem impervious to all our efforts towards getting them to behave. AD talks back like she gets paid by the word, and the Red Menace feels that it is her personal responsibility to daily remove every single article of clothing from her person and dresser and throw it around her room. Nothing we've done as of yet has broken either of them of these unsavory habits. The Red M treats any whiff of criticism with the greatest of offense and most dramatic protest - she's not allowed to sleep with a knife and a bar of soap? She'll trot out the nomination footage for "Best Performance By A Homeless Three Year Old Whose Puppy Has Just Been Slaughtered Before Her Very Eyes" for you. It's always Emmy season with that one. AD, on the other hand, quietly seethes. Skulks away to her room and closes the door, no doubt planning my imminent disappearance if not death.

It's not as if I'm not really good at punishment. At the risk of sounding immodest, let me say that I am probably one of the more gifted people you'll ever meet when it comes to that sort of thing. I forget nothing; I don't carry a grudge as much as I nurture, feed and groom it until the time comes to let it unfurl its little black wings and take a giant dump on your head. I do have an exceptionally long fuse when it comes to people I didn't build so rarely do I feel called to action, but things may or may not have been known to happen in the past. On a wildly unrelated note, you should know that many farm supply stores will deliver a bale of hay almost anywhere for $50. And college magazines seem to be notoriously lax when checking the veracity of updates that alums send in; they don't even verify "your" identity before printing the news that "you've" taken the job of Assistant Fluffer on the latest Peter North film. Also, there used to be a fantastically efficient website called shitinabox.com that would generate and handle specific deliveries; sadly that was shut down for reasons that are probably obvious. In its absence, I'm told that there's nothing at all wrong with anonymously mailing someone an actual douchebag

 not this guy. But wouldn't that fuck a brother up having him show up on their doorstep

 

preferably from outside your normal postal code. These are just things I've heard.

I've not - yet - been driven to such drastic measures with my children. So far we've done the traditional non-spanking stuff - timeouts, taking away privileges, etc. We briefly did the no television thing but that really punished us more than them, so we've quietly forgotten that one. The No-No Shelf still works somewhat with AD; just today I had to confiscate her favorite pillow, a horrible hairy turquoise peace sign thing that I think dates from her days as a Vietnam conscientious objector.

 speaking of punishment...that white piece of paper on the refrigerator are - honest to God - directions that JHP wrote out when he was teaching himself the Spiderman gif dance for no reason. We all suffered mightily.

 

The RM gives the No-No Shelf the finger - if I put anything of hers up there she just climbs up and grabs it. We've also tried making AD write sentences a la Bart Simpson when she does something wrong, but I suspect she has Teutonic tendencies because she seems to actually enjoy that.

 

this is a list of lies

 

Lately I've had some success with public humiliation. I discovered quite by accident that the girls absolutely hate it when I draw attention to myself. I realized this when we went to a football game and I started dancing with the marching band at the tailgate beforehand - you would have thought I'd run down the street nude shooting b-b's out of my behind from the way they acted. Since I, obviously, have no sense of pride I have been able to turn this to my advantage. For example, we were in Publix last week and AD started mouthing off to me so I immediately burst into "Mandy" by Barry Manilow; that shut her up, but good. Then yesterday the RM tried to palm a packet of gum at the gas station while I was getting my emissions checked - that called for an operatic reinterpretation of Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing". I'm thinking of making a list of their offenses and then taking them public through song. So if you're in the grocery store and suddenly hear "noooooow HERE'S a little story I gots to TELL about three bad brothers you know so well..." in a bad soprano, please do not be alarmed - my kid just probably threw a pickle jar or spit on the grapes. I'm molding young minds, people.

 

If that doesn't work they better watch their backs. And mailbox.

Smell My Bottom

School is back in full swing, and I am happily adjusting to having both girls at the same place, every day. It's basically glorious having a small sliver of my pre-motherhood life back, minus a flat stomach. To be honest, I'm still pretty shocked that a certain short houseguest of ours was let in school in the first place; the admissions process was dicey, to say the very least. Since the RM's only 3 (that's dog years. She has actually aged all of us by 21, easily.) there wasn't an interview per se - the school instead has professional evaluators check the itty ones out and see if they'd be a good fit. As a parent, your job is to take the kid to school and hang back. Don't introduce yourself to the evaluator, don't talk to them, don't do anything to acknowledge their existence - the whole point is to see how the kid interacts with them and separates from you. I get this, I've done it before. So I give the RM a good scrubdown, slap some church clothes on her and head over.

 

objects in the mirror are stranger than they appear

 



Things went fine. Initially. She's been there so often with her sister and me she thinks she owns the place, so when we walked in the front office she threw her hands up and yelled "I AM HERE!" as if everyone had been tapping their fingers waiting on her to show up and buy the next round of Jager shots. She immediately showed herself back to the Head of School's office to check on Miss Gennie and swipe a few paper clips, then headed to reception to help Miss Emily buzz people inside and get some scribbling under her belt. We don't worry about her comfort level here. She was playing with blocks in the front lobby when the evaluator came out to introduce herself, "Hi! Would you like to come back to my classroom with me and play some games?" The RM looks at her, smiles ever so sweetly and says "Well hello. My name is Shantay Squanto and I'm funky fresh. I have my own gorilla and hot dog cart!" Zero percent of this is true and I have no idea where she got any of it; I didn't see this coming, not at all. I start to sweat. "Oh." says the evaluator. Unsatisfied with the lack of enthusiasm from the audience, the RM then turns around, pulls her dress up and says "smell my bottom. I don't go potty in my panties." At this point I realize breaking the parent rules are probably pretty far down on my list of concerns so I say "ah. Sorry, no. Um. No. All of it." thereby dazzling her with my own verbal skills. I told the woman that perhaps the RM and I should just go sit in the car and let her find a better way to fill the next half hour because clearly this wasn't going to work. Somehow she took pity on us and led the RM away for the evaluation; I sat in the lobby and began researching boarding elementary school programs.

30 minutes later they're done, with nary a glance my way from the evaluator as she walks the RM out. We get in the car and head home. I asked the RM how it had gone, was it fun, what did they do? She told me they'd played and read stories - all good. I'm starting to feel like perhaps it hadn't been a complete train wreck when she tells me she also sang a song. "Oh, that's nice, what song, sweetheart?" "WeeeeeeEEEEEEE are NEVER EVER EVER getting BACK TOGETHER!" Aces. Because a little "Jesus Loves Me" would have killed her.

So, yes, we were pretty shocked to get her letter of acceptance a couple of months later. The only explanation I can come up with is that the school's running an affirmative action program for budding sociopaths, because it sure wasn't that new library we didn't donate. And by the way, lest you judge us for putting a three-year-old in private school just reread that second paragraph and tell me that kid doesn't need some specialized attention. Someone has to teach her how to run that hot dog cart.






9/11

 

I was not drunk when I took this picture

Twelve years ago I was working for Tom Daschle in the Senate Democratic Leader's Office, room S-221 of the U.S. Capitol. It's a beautiful office suite directly across from the Senate floor with gorgeous hand-painted ceilings and antique Minton tile floors. The best part of the office, though, is easily the view - even though only eight of us worked there (including the senator), we had the entire balcony on the right Mall-side of the building.

do you see me? I'm on the left waving. I'm sorry to tell you this, but those jeans look awful on you.

For years I looked out on some variation of this

and weather permitting, ate lunch or got some work done out here

 

I don't know how to quit you, Taco Salad Tuesday

 

As much as a pain in the ass that job could be, there was never a day that I wasn't truly awestruck by my surroundings; as trite as it is to say, it was simply a privilege to be there. The view on the morning of September 11, 2001 was exceptionally lovely although we were almost too busy to enjoy it. We were getting ready for the weekly Democratic Leadership meeting with our whip and committee chairs and also visiting with one of my all-time favorite people in the Senate, John Glenn. He'd been retired for a few years but stopped by fairly often and was always indulgent when we asked him to tell us stories of his time with NASA. As we were talking, our floor leader, Marty, came in the office to tell us that a pilot had flown into a skyscraper in New York. Marty didn't seem too freaked out, but Senator Glenn (who's rather unimpeachable when it comes to planes) told him, flatly,  "pilots don't fly into skyscrapers". We all huddled around one of our office TV's and tried to figure out what happened. As we were watching footage of the World Trade Center, another plane banked around towards the second tower, and Sen. Glenn said "oh, that's on purpose." The plane hit. We were stunned. Contrary to popular belief, we didn't have any sort of batphone or top-secret source of information so we didn't really know what to do; as stupid as it seems in hindsight, we decided to press on with the meeting. Not too far into it, CNN started reporting news of a fire at the Pentagon, just as Patty Murray pointed out the conference room window and yelled "SMOKE!". There was a huge black finger of smoke and soot rising up to the left of the Capitol; I remember not being alarmed as much as absently thinking "so THAT'S where the Pentagon is. I thought it was a little more west..." Somehow it hadn't really sunk in that perhaps this particular building isn't where you'd want to be if your country is under attack, so we all just kind of milled around, lemming-like, waiting for who knows what. I called my then-fiancée JHP (who was in Memphis for work) to let him know what was going on and he told me to get the hell out of the building. I assured him that wasn't necessary, everything was fine and that I'd call him later; almost immediately after I hung up we started getting phone calls that the White House and Gephardt's office were both evacuating. Just as Tom was telling us it might be a good idea for us to split, too, the Capitol police came busting in, yelling "GET OUT GET OUT A PLANE IS HEADED FOR THE BUILDING". Well, that threw cold water on us pretty quickly and we all ran like hell. I'm sure there probably is some protocol to get the senators out before the expendables, but I didn't care, I was gone. I bolted down the hard marble staircase and was waved down the hall by dozens of screaming cops, some in combat gear. One of my police buddies, Blonde Dave, said "Elise, get the FUCK out of here NOW!" and all I could think about was ooooh all those senators heard Blonde Dave use the F word! And why did I pick today of all days to wear these really uncomfortable high heels?

 

Once we got outside we reconvened on the south lawn, again not really sure what to do, yelling at each other over the din of sirens. We saw our security team hustle Tom away in his bitchin' Navigator, but the rest of us just stood around. My colleague Mark Childress remarked (presciently) that if someone really wanted to get us they'd flush us out of the building and hit us with a bomb, or maybe anthrax; the police must have been thinking something along those same lines because they told us to move to safe quarters. Done. I went to the 7-11, bought a case of beer, 3 pints of ice cream, a pack of Marlboro Lights and went home to make some progress on them. Cslos was out of town for work so I was home alone, completely wigged out and glued to the television. I was stunned when our chief of staff called (from a still undisclosed location) and said we were to head back to work the next day; it was to be business as usual. Driving in the following morning under a sky full of F-15s and helicopters, I thought the low-grade panic that held me would probably never leave, not for the rest of my life. A lot of people have talked about how collegial things were after 9/11 - how people were more kind and less petty, buying coffee for strangers and putting small differences aside - but I just remember being scared, especially once we found out that flight 93 had more than likely been headed our way. I could no longer enjoy our amazing view without imagining a passenger plane hurtling towards us; the Mall had become a potential runway, pointing right towards our office. I was especially heartbroken to discover that a brother of one of Cslos's close friends - the father of a newborn daughter, no less -  had been on the plane and engineered the revolt. It's beyond jarring to imagine what would have happened had service out of Newark not been so shitty, and those passengers less brave. Everyone I know who was in the Capitol that day thinks about that a lot. I think of that now twelve-year-old girl a lot.

 

Things slowly got back to normalish. We started fighting with the Republicans and the White House again, I got less twitchy and (a little) less bitchy. And then we got this

 

so we threw some Cipro in the mix, which we were told can lead to schizophrenia or ruptured hamstrings or a host of other things that suck but not as bad as dying except on top of it all you have to give up caffeine and alcohol and that probably violates the Geneva Conventions. Thanks, you 4th grade Greendale School assholes.

Then we lost the Wellstones, and I no longer had a sense of humor about any of it. It was time to think about moving on.

Damn if I don't still miss those taco salads, though. I miss my colleagues, too. Boatloads. Even, and in some cases, especially, those on the other side of the aisle. To this day I count some of the opposition as my favorite people. In spite of what you may think of politicians and their henchmen, the ones I was fortunate enough to work with were, and are, (for the most part) fine people who are truly doing the Lord's work, or at least trying to. They work crap hours for crap pay and horrid poll ratings and love almost every minute of it. I did, anyway. Thank you to the immeasurably brave folks on that airplane who very well may have saved all our lives that day, and to the first responders and members of the military who put their lives ahead of ours every day. We really won't ever forget.

thanks for letting these two happen



We will now return to our previously scheduled judgementalness, cynicism and general asshattery.