SUZANNE RUDD HAMILTON

Interruptions

It started just like another other day in the life of a mother with three babies, one wife and one dog. Six am brought in the new day with the immediate chaos of three one-year old boys greeting the morning with the usual gusto, screaming at each other and running around chasing each other and the dog. Meg began the series of diaper changes and feeding rituals, the three kids, the dog, wife than finally herself.

She barely took a bite when the first call came in. Meg didn’t get many calls during the day, but her sister was at the end of a difficult pregnancy, so she picked it up without looking at the caller id.

“You just won a wonderful trip to Cancun, absolutely free,” the caller said.

“Robocall,” Meg said as she hung up the phone.

She blocked the number on her cell phone, bid goodbye to Laura, her wife and partner in life for ten years, and went on to clean the boys up and get them dressed.

Watching her three little ones play and mess with the dog, Meg thought briefly about how her life has drastically changed. Only one year ago, Meg was a surgical heart nurse and Laura was an airline pilot. After years of unsuccessful invitro with both of them, finally Laura got pregnant and eventually gave birth to triplets.

Since she was a nurse and felt she should stay home for the first five years of the boys lives. Then Laura was going to take over. Laura got a steady flight schedule with a daily shuttle from Chicago to New York, so she could be home every night to help.

After a couple of hours of vigorous playing, the boys finally settled into their morning nap and Meg could go online to see if she had any questions from her online nurse consultant gig. It was the perfect job for a busy mom. She was a live nurse consultant who gave people advice on their symptoms in a live chat. She barely got to the computer, when her phone rang again. She didn’t recognize the caller id, but it looked like her sister’s work number.

“This is your chance. Your seat in the kingdom of heaven awaits you, but three tests will be given to you in the next 24 hours,” the call said.

Frustrated, Meg hung up again. “I am so sick of these robocalls,” she barked. “I keep blocking the numbers, but they just use another number. Can’t somebody do something about these?”

Two hours later, she heard the boys awake and now it was diaper time again. Diapering three boys in succession was a combination of herding cattle, keeping the strays at bay and changing tires in the pits of the Indy 500. You needed to be really quick and need to know how to shuffle and duck to avoid the pee fountain. Meg was a pro with nearly one year and four thousand three hundred and eighty diaper changes under her belt.

But just as she was almost finished with her third change, she got another call.

“This is an important call about your health insurance,” the voice on the other line said. And just then, Meg got a face full of pee. She often wondered if they just waited for her to let down her guard and then fired. The phone dropped on the floor and ended the call.

Mumbling what would have been curse words under her breath, she finished the diapering, cleaned herself up and bundled up all three kids to them run and play with the dog outside.

Although she was grateful for their blessings, at certain times, it taxed anyone’s patience.

She played with the kids in the snow, but as they tried to make a snowman out of the dog, she had to intervene. Just then, she got another call.

“That’s it,” she grimaced determined. “I am putting an end to this once and for all.”

“Good afternoon. This is your credit card company,” the real voice on the phone said. “We wanted to discuss activity on your account.”

“Ok,” Meg said calming and feeling stupid that she jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“With Citicard any activity on your account will be protected with our patented securecard system and you will not be charged for fraudulent use.”

“Really?” Meg smiled devilishly. “So, when my deadbeat husband uses it to buy crack cocaine, I won’t be charged?”

“Uh, well…”, the voice said.

“What about when he goes to the atm at the strip club and takes out our rent money so he can get lap dances and other happy ending favors from the whores there. Now we could get evicted,” she asks, stifling a laugh.

“Um, I am not sure,” the voice said.

“Well, I would like a card that does that,” Meg said smiling. “Last month, I couldn’t even feed our kids because he maxed out the card buying a gun and shovel, he used to kill his brother and bury him in the woods. How do I apply?”

Meg heard a click on the line and burst out in laughter.

The “Right” Box

“We are sending out a detailed marketing survey specifically targeting certain age groups to pinpoint the listening habits of our audiences in the following categories 18-24, 25-31, 32-40, 41-46, 47-54 and 55 plus,” Bee Boss, Sirius radio executive, explained to her team. “We want to ensure we are meeting the needs of all our demographic groups based on their exact generation’s music and preferences.”

A few weeks later, 80-year-old, I.M. Vinyl opened up his mailed survey, completed the personal information, name, address, etc. and checked the 55 plus box on the survey in response to the demographic age group category. The next question asked what kind of music he liked. After a brief perusal, he quickly checked the boxes labeled 40’s music and 50’s music. The next question asked which Sirius radio stations he listened to. Mr. Vinyl paused for a few minutes.

“Claire, what radio channels do I like on that Sirius thing,” he asked.

“How would l know,” she replied curtly. “They just come up on the radio.”

Survey in hand, he went into his garage. He opened the door to his brown Cadillac Eldorado, put the keys in the ignition and turned on the radio, scrolling through his programmed channels. Putting the survey on the steering wheel, he marked the boxes next to Siriusly Sinatra, 40s Junction, ’50s on 5, and Radio Show Classics.

About the same time, 67-year-old Cassette Track was looking at her survey. She and her husband Eight love all the options on Sirius radio and both listen to their music on the long trips they take in their RV, exploring the US. She completes the survey music question checking the boxes for 60’s and 70’s musical preferences. She then scrolls through the nearly 100 box choices for their stations and checks the boxes for ’60s on 6, ’70s on 7, The Beatles Channel, Grateful Dead Channel, Elvis Radio, Oldies Party, and Love 70s Hits.

“Cassi, you forgot to fill out the demographic information,” said her husband Eight while looking over her shoulder. “Looks like the 55 plus box is the one that fits us.”

“Yeah, funny, remember when we didn’t trust anyone over 30,” Cassette laughed. “Now we are marking boxes that are nearly 2x that and still younger than us.”

In a state far far away, 55-year old Working Salesperson C.D. Rox listens to Sirius constantly as she spends a lot of time working in her car traveling to and from client appointments.

She received her survey in the mail several weeks before, but it accidentally fell in between her seat and the console in her silver BMW sport convertible. Sitting in the parking lot of her next appointment, she was quickly eating a salad and dropped a cherry tomato. Reaching under the seat to retrieve it, she saw the survey poking out from between the seats.

“Ok, for the chance to win a free year of Sirius, I guess I can spend a few minutes filling this out,” she said.

She checked the musical preferences boxes as 80’s music and classic rock. She quickly glanced through channel boxes and checked ’80s on 8, Classic Rewind, Hair Band Nation, Classic Rock Party and 80s Dance Party.

“Ugh, I guess I am in the last box now,” she grimaced and then drew a line through the 55 and up box and grabbed a piece of paper out of her briefcase.

“Dear Sirius,” she wrote. “I like your station but strongly object to being square-pegged in the round box that could fill my mother and 96-year old grandmother for that matter. She can’t hear so doesn’t listen to radio, but if she did, she and I like completely different music. The same with my mom. Your other boxes give age gaps of five to eight years, but the last box has a possible 40 to 50-year age gap. I am amending your error by completing this survey with the right box of my 55-64 year-old age group, which will serve your marketing purposes better than 55 to infinity or death.”

Meanwhile back at Sirius headquarters, the marketing team meet on the results of the surveys. “Based on the survey, looks like we are right on track and can confirm our channel lineup,” Bee Boss reported. “We have all the right generational groups covered with their specific musical preferences. Good job everyone.”

Hump Day Bar

Alicia was having the worst day. Coming from a terrible work meeting, she hastily retreated from her unhappy client’s office, breaking her shoe heel and hurting her ankle. Then after hobbling and walking for blocks in an unfamiliar part of town, she couldn’t find her car.

Frustrated, upset and very overwhelmed, she stopped abruptly when she encountered a rainbow of “NO PARKING” signs mounted on a streetlamp. Strangely, the signs said there was no parking allowed on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

“Only Wednesday and Thursdays?” she smiled, laughing at the peculiar timing of the notices. She could see no parking on the weekend, but a weekend that extended most of the week did not make sense, she thought.

Just as she was contemplating the unusual rules and again looked around for her parked car, she heard music and loud noises coming from the adjacent building. She looked at the sign on the window which read “Hump Day Bar.”

Curious, Alicia opened the door and stopped cold, propping the door open. She couldn’t believe what she saw. It was a completely overwhelming cornucopia for the senses. There were lively flashing lights everywhere of all different hues. There was a stage where people were singing Karaoke. On another stage at the opposite side of the building, there was a band playing and people dancing.

Unconsciously, she walked a few steps in and the door closed behind her, without making a sound.

She was mesmerized. Everywhere she turned, there was a feast for her eyes. One area was covered with tarps and canvasses, where people were drawing and painting everything in wonderful spectrums of color.

She drifted further in toward a loud and erratic array of odd beeping noises coming from the back corner. There she found an arcade of old video games she remembered from her youth, next to a room with trampolines and big blow-up slides.

Then she came upon a brightly-colored bar with a huge marquee-lite sign over the top. It said they served ice cream, Boston crème pie, crème puffs, sour cream and onion potato chips, whipped cream cakes, crème cheese and bagels, marshmallow cream fudge, strawberries and creme fraiche, and a variety of drinks made with Irish cream, Crème de menthe, Cream de cacao and cream soda.

“Apparently they think people like cream,” she laughed aloud, when suddenly a tall man in a ringmaster costume with a tall black hat appeared in front of her out of nowhere, startling her.

“Welcome to the Hump Day Bar,” he announced smiling and throwing his arms open. “It is a wonderland for adults where worries and troubles of the week melt away for forty-eight hours of unadulterated fun.”

Snapped out of her blinding trance, Alicia wrinkled her brow with a look of confusion. “I-I am not sure what to make of this,” she stuttered, trying to form coherent sentences.

“Of course you are,” laughed the man with a bounding chuckle. “Everyone is a little stunned when they get here. It is a lot to take in all at once. Most people find it easier just to jump in and start one thing. It’s all wonderful.”

She turned around and back again to ask him another question and he eerily disappeared as quickly as he appeared before.

Still puzzled, Alicia slowly walked around, opening door after door to find no end to the amusements all around. As she stood observing the people in each room, she noticed they were all completely happy and carefree. There were no scowls, no fighting, and no shouting; just smiles and laughter.

They must be on a strange trip, she concluded.

She walked up to the bartender, dressed like a prima ballerina, with a sparkling white leotard and tutu and a beautiful feather cap on the side of her head.

“Tell me, is this place for real? Alicia wondered. “These people all stoned, right?”.

The ballerina just smiled and gave Alicia a handbill.

It said…”Hump Day Bar. A wonderland for adults to shed their worries and troubles and just play, recharging for the coming week. No drugs allowed, just happiness. Open Wednesdays and Thursdays only.”

Could such a place exist? Alicia pondered. A pure eutopia of fun and laughter. No problems, no consequences, just enjoyment?

“No wonder you can only park here in the middle of the week,” she laughed and ordered an ice cream cone and a crème puff and began planning what she would do next.

Shopping Cart Crimes

This short story received an Honorable Mention for Creativity by the Fort Myers Weekly Press writing competition, September 2019.

t looks like a crime scene. Yellow caution tape, orange cones, this place is a mess. But it’s really not my fault. I was an unwitting accomplice, even a victim. And I have the dents to prove it.

Every day I sit in this parking lot. Sometimes, I get to move from the parking lot to inside the store, then back to the parking lot. There is an “up” system with the other carts. We all take turns, like natural selection. I get bored, sometimes. It’s the life of a shopping cart.

But today will go down in the annals of shopping cart lore. I think they call it… a domino effect.

It was a busy day at the store and a lot of us got to go inside. I helped a very weary mom with two kids. The smaller one had arms like a monkey. He sat in my front seat and kept reaching to pick up anything on the shelf within his grasp. In every aisle, he grabbed cans, plastic bottles and boxes and just dropped them to the floor and laughed. Luckily, there was no glass. The poor mom had to go along picking things up.

Then, the big one, who was in my main basket, kept randomly throwing things out. He kept whining that he had no room. Duh kid, the main basket is for items, not kids. Where did he think the groceries would go? Ever hear of walking? It’s good for your health.

The poor mom was so busy picking up all the items both kids dropped, I don’t know how she got any shopping done. Finally, she checked out and parked me in back of her minivan. She looked frazzled and tired. While she took the small one into the car, the big one was at it again and threw several cans out of the cart, so he had more room. She went back to the cart to get him and didn’t even notice.

I saw the whole thing. The cans rolled in every direction. One lady was rolling her cart and accidentally tripped over the can and lost control of the cart. That cart ran into a car that was backing out of a parking space and pushed the cart into another car.

At least the man saw the cans coming his way. He swerved out of the way just in time, but didn’t see the gaggle of abandoned carts scattered in parking spaces. They hit like a pinball machine….one, two, three, all now rolling different directions. One crashed into an adjacent car.

The second runaway cart hit a car that was stopped in the aisle by the other cars who were backing up and hit by carts. And the last fugitive cart? It picked up downhill speed and careened into a palm tree head on. Boom, crack, and one of the limbs fell on the handicapped car parked two stalls away. It was a massacre. Cans, carts, groceries, cars, and angry people all standing around looking for someone to blame.

But the mom was so preoccupied getting the kids and groceries into the car, she didn’t even see the chaos and carnage. And then, she left me in the adjacent stall right next to the handicapped car.

The store manager was called and the police came to fill out insurance damage reports. And who did they see next to the car – me. The cart that hit the tree bounced off the tree and moved into another space. I was left innocently closest to the tree.

Now I’m just waiting for the store manager to inspect the damage. And everyone is looking at me.

I would love to say…It was her and her and him and mostly the kid, but I can’t speak for myself. No one sticks up for us shopping carts. They use us, abuse us and knock into everything, and then just leave us abandoned to get hit by cars and wait until someone takes us or the clerk puts us home to our corral. Why don’t people just put their carts away? And better yet, why can’t they control their kids?

Snow Test

The snowstorms in Northwestern Illinois are legendary. There are tons of corn fields and very few large buildings, so the snow just blows everywhere and drifts accumulate.

Needless to say, I did not know this when I chose Northern Illinois University in DeKalb for my collegiate studies.

My first year, the snowstorm reputation proved less legend and more reality. They started in the first week of November. Inches of snow fell and drifts abound to various heights, accompanied by shivering cold temperatures. Not happy, I trudged on to classes every day. Luckily the school had great bus transportation.

That all changed in December, two days before winter break. Overnight an epic record snowstorm hit the area. Asleep, I was unaware and woke early to get to my 8am final exam. It was a Saturday, so the bus system did not run, but I had a car, so I could drive the mile to campus.

I went to the exit of my apartment building, but the door would not move. I pushed and pushed with all my might, but it wouldn’t budge. Puzzled, I walked to the other side of the building to try another exit. It wouldn’t budge either. Using my college educated analytical mind, I could not conceive that both doors could merely be stuck. However, before giving up, I employed the patented cartoon method of running into the door at full speed. The door still did not budge.

I went back to my third-floor apartment to call a friend for help. When I got to my phone, I saw the parking lot out of my window. The cars were completely covered in snow. They all looked like little snow mounds, as you could not see they were cars. I looked down to see the snow drifts at 6-8 feet high below my window. I wondered if a snow drift had blocked the doors.

I called a few friends, to no avail. They were all snowed in too. But I had a final exam I had to get to. I tried to call my professor, but no answer.

I went back to the door and found a couple neighbors having the same trouble. Working together, we were able to prop open the door and successfully exit.

Now I had to deal with my snow-buried car. It was a light fluffy snow, so I used my arms, gloves and scarf until I got into the trunk and retrieved my snow brush. Working quickly, I was able to uncover my car. Tired, but satisfied I would make the test, I got in the car and turned the key. Nothing. No sound. No turnover. Panicking I tried again and again a few times. No use, it was dead. And now, all my neighbors were gone too.

As a Freshman, I didn’t know the penalty for not taking an exam. So, I thought of no other alternative. Late or not, I had to show up before the exam was over. So, I decided to walk the 1 mile to campus.

I was not exactly dressed for a hike in the frozen tundra, but I was dressed for winter. The first part of the journey was a field. It was cold. I kept thinking of Jack London’s Call of the Wild and how he crossed the frozen tundra. That occupied my mind for a while. But soon my outerwear began to crisp from the cold and provide little protection from the howling frigid wind. I was freezing, but knew I needed to persevere.

I remembered a lecture in my psychology class regarding the power of the brain….mind over matter. I desperately decided to try this method. I wondered if I could trick my mind into thinking I was not cold. The warmest place I could think of was the beach. And what made me think of the beach? The Beach Boys. So, I romped along in my crispy winter wear singing Beach Boys songs, imagining myself at the beach under the warm sun.

I am not going to say it worked, but it did help. It occupied my mind for the hour it took to walk to campus and to my exam. I was very pleased with myself. I came, I saw and I conquered the snow and cold all by myself.

Unfortunately, I was the only one. When I got to the classroom, there was a note on the door that the exam was rescheduled due to the weather. Independence only goes so far. I may have beaten the cold once, but I didn’t want to try again. Luckily, I found someone with a car to take me home. I will live to learn another day. I was tested enough today.

Minutes In Time

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.

Barbara was a typical working soccer mom. With her college sweetheart Matt, she had three young kids who ran her around day in and day out. Not to mention she her nursing career she had to fit it too. She spent most sleep-deprived nights counting all the things she had to do.

This time of year, Christmas, was especially busy. There were presents to buy and wrap, cards to send out, holiday parties to shop for, cookies to bake, school plays to attend, and decorations to put up to make the house a Christmas wonderland for the kids. Matt helped where he could, but it seemed like one task for him turned into twenty long questions for her. It was usually just easier to do it on her own.

Every year, she held her breathe from Thanksgiving to New Years, constantly anxious at the dwindling time clock to get everything done.

After a ten to ten midnight shift just one week away from Christmas, she needed to stop by the mall after a to get a few things she could not find on Amazon this year. Luckily the hospital had a parking garage, so she didn’t have to chisel the overnight ice and snow off her car, like the many she saw when pulled out of the parking lot.

As she drove, bopping her head along to the Christmas music on the radio, she went through her mental shopping list. At Apostrophe, she needed to buy those teen jeans the girls wanted, she thought. And Sam asked for those static magnet things we saw when we stood in line for two hours to see Santa a few weeks ago. And that special perfume Matt’s mother likes is at Macy’s. Oh, and don’t forget to go by the personalization store to pick up the matching Christmas t-shirts. I hope I ordered the right sizes, she thought. “And I hope they are in, there just is not a lot of time if they are delayed,” she muttered aloud.

Just as the radio played Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer, a deer popped in her right path without notice as if in time with the music. In a quick jolt of the steering wheel, she sighed in relief, just missing him. She bumped along the side of the road with the plow’s packed snow drifts and looked for a way back onto the road. When she turned back onto the pavement, she hit a big patch of black ice and started to spin.

“What do they say again, turn into the spin, right?” she panicked a little and turned the wheel.

But the car just kept spinning and spinning. Suddenly time slowed as her head whirled and swooned with each rapid rotation.

What would happen to Matt and the kids? He wouldn’t be able to take care of them by himself, her mind drifted. How would the girls grow up without a mother? She would miss their proms, weddings, grandkids.

Then she began to get dizzy and flashes of her life played in her mind like a movie. Her first kiss, their wedding, the birth of her kids, last summer at the lake with her mom and dad. They all seemed to be smiling at her as she saw each of their faces in her imagined state.

Then in a minute, it all abruptly stopped, pulling her forward into the steering wheel. She looked up in a daze. Her car had careened across the road into a snow bank. The car was a stuck and a little banged up, but she was ok. And she had only gone about 20 ft.

It was only minutes, she sighed in relief. It seemed like forever.

She composed herself, found her cell phone, and called the insurance company towing service. They said they would be there in 20 minutes. Glad that the car was still running, so she did have heat, Barbara surveyed her short and perilous journey through the car window. She saw her snowy tire tracks of circles go across the road and sighed again in relief.

Still a little shocked, she couldn’t stop thinking about what she saw. Her kids, her family, her life, all passing by in just a few minutes. The life she lived and had yet to live.

“Wow lady,” the tow truck driver said looking at her car in the steepled snow bank. “You were really lucky the snow stopped you. A few minutes more and you would have been off the road completely.”

Barbara looked over at the sharp drop-off of wooded embankment he was pointing too and tried to catch her breathe.

On the truck ride to the body shop, Barbara was rifling through her purse and found her Christmas to do list.

“Why did I spend so much time on all this fussing?” she wondered as she crumbled up the list. “I need to spend more time with my family and less time on all of this stuff.”