Accountability Chapter 5

5

The bacon I was ignoring while yelling at Palin was the reason the kitchen caught on fire. We were lucky enough the fire department was able to come over quickly and get it under control. It still left a huge black stain on the wall behind the stove. There was a little bit of damage done to the drywall, and the electricity had to be turned off in the kitchen because a couple of wires connected to the stove were damaged as well. It meant my domain was off limits for a couple of days while repair men came in and fixed the damage left by the fire. It was going to cost us somewhere in the range of two-thousand dollars, but the real damage created by the accident was between Robert and me. He was extremely mad at me and I knew I would have to be extra nice to him until things blew over.

It didn’t help that Robert had to take the day off from work because we had to wait around the house until the fire department could make a report on the damages. We needed this report if we wanted to file a claim with the insurance company. Robert grumbled all morning about how we wouldn’t get any money from the claim and how our insurance would go up due to the fact the accident was preventable in the first place. It was his belief it had been my incompetency that caused the accident and he kept on reminding me insurance companies did not want to make a habit for paying off insurance claims for incompetency.

The kids were really happy because they got to spend the day at home. I wasn’t going to be able to rush them off to school because I had to explain to the fire chief about what had happened in the kitchen that morning. He had a hard time understanding how things could have gotten so out of control in such a short time. He wondered how I could have forgotten all about the bacon in the frying pan. He remembered seeing my profile in the Elbert County Gazette. It didn’t make any sense to him how such a highly acclaimed mother could make such a big mistake. He, of course, didn’t see the bane of my existence because Palin had gone back to bed the moment she found out she didn’t need to go to school. What he saw instead was my perfect children behaving themselves, sitting in front of the television and watching The Buddy Bears all day.

After the fire department left and the contractor came in to give us an estimate, the whole day had disappeared. It was late in the afternoon when things started to return to normal. That was when Palin reappeared from Robert’s office. She complained about being hungry and wondered why we didn’t have anything in the house to eat. It was almost as if she hadn’t been present for the chaos of the morning. I wanted to jump over to where she was complaining, knock her to the ground, and strangle her until that smug expression she always carried with her melted from her face. But Robert saved me from these criminal tendencies by saying that he was hungry as well. Because the kitchen was unusable, the only thing left for us to do was to get our things together and go out to eat. Robert suggested we do just that. My husband was great at bringing up all of our spirits. He pointed out it had been a long time since we had been out to dinner together, and thought it would be nice to celebrate the good things in life while forgetting about the bad ones. He told me later he would, of course, have to take the night’s meal out of my allowance, but it would be his pleasure to make sure the family could enjoy a nice dinner that night. He even knew the perfect place to take us, The Old Stone Church in nearby Castle Rock.

I had heard about this place, and I had been begging Robert to take me out there to eat for the last couple of months. So far, my only contact with the place was driving by and looking at it from the outside. There was always a collection of highly sophisticated people milling around outside the restaurant. It was the oldest building in Castle Rock. It was a church built during the pioneer days. They had gathered all the stones from a nearby quarry, and were able to create a beautiful stone church to withstand the trials of time. As the town of Castle Rock grew, the church became too small to hold the congregation coming for their spiritual guidance every Sunday. They built a new church with more modern conveniences on the hilltop where everybody in town could see it and praise its glory. The Old Stone Church went into disrepair and was forgotten by the people of the town. Recently, a chef from New York who had studied southwestern cuisine came into Castle Rock. He noticed the church was up for sale. After a tour of the inside, he decided it would be the perfect place to convert into a restaurant. With all of the new décor, and the wonderful food this chef was making, The Old Stone Church was becoming the talk of the town. Everybody who was anybody wanted to get a table to enjoy a meal there. It was almost impossible to get into and I had no idea how Robert was going to manage this with a family of five, but he assured me it wouldn’t be a problem. He would go down there to make sure everything was set up for our wonderful family night out, while I got the family together and down to the restaurant.

He left right away and I knew he would secure us a table. I quickly took Zach and Lindsey upstairs to pick out more appropriate clothes for a fancy dinner. I asked Palin if she could find something in her wardrobe but she told me she would have to go shopping to find something fancy enough. I looked her up and down. Even though I was a little bit taller than her, our builds were very similar. I told her to go look in my closet for something to wear while I went and found some clothes for the little ones.

I had Zach put on his Sunday slacks, and a nice white collared shirt. I picked out his red clip tie because it was very similar to Robert’s red tie I loved so much. It made him look a little bit like his father. Lindsey was a little more difficult because of the incident the night before. I was able to piece enough clothes together to create a nice outfit for her. It was a little casual but with her only being three years old I was sure the restaurant would forgive us as long as she behaved herself. I never had an opportunity to make myself presentable during the day with all of the people that were coming and going. I sat Zach and Lindsey down in front of the television while I went back up to my bedroom to try and find something I could wear.

When I got upstairs, Palin was locked in our bathroom. I knocked on the door and asked if she had found something to wear. She informed me she had and she was getting ready at the moment. I went to the closet and picked out a nice conservative black dress. It highlighted my figure nicely while giving me a slimming look. I had been battling my weight ever since I had my children, but I believed I still knew how to turn my husband’s head. He had always told me he had fallen in love with me the moment he saw my auburn hair and dark green eyes. He was always able to lose himself in both of these features. It didn’t mean I could let myself go though. I still needed to keep a girlish figure, or all of the auburn hair and come hither eyes wouldn’t excite my husband. I thought I had achieved this effect until I saw Palin come out of the bathroom.

She had picked a dress I wasn’t able to wear ever since I had Zach. It was a red dress with a flower pattern dancing humbly all through the skirt. It was sleeveless and strapless. When I used to be able to wear it, Robert always exclaimed about how beautiful he thought it made me look. I used to wear it simply without many accessories. I would wear a simple necklace, not much make-up, and a small purse to carry just what I needed for the evening. I was sad I could no longer fit into the slim waist of the dress. I was stunned to see it out of the closet and on another human being.

Palin was also fashion savvy enough to understand the power of the dress lay in its simplicity. She had taken the poof out of her hair. She let it cascade down from her forehead and land lightly on her shoulders. She also removed all the make-up hiding her face. She let her natural side show and it made her look five years younger. I noticed how beautiful her eyes were for the first time. They were an exotic grey blue found naturally only in chilly winter morning skies. The color begged a person to curl up next to a fire and a cup of hot chocolate. Her eyes felt uncomfortable not being able to hide behind a thick layer of mascara. They darted around looking for some place where they would not have to stare at the thing demanding her attention. I stood and gaped at her in her natural beauty.

After feeling uncomfortable for a little bit, she quit darting her eyes all around the room and the Palin I knew came back out. “What?”

“I’m sorry. I just never realized how beautiful you are.”

Compliments seemed to embarrass her even more because she immediately pointed her eyes to the ground. “I’m not really that pretty.”

I went over to her and grabbed her by her hands and pulled them from where she was crushing them into the side of the dress. When she was free of her embarrassment, I lifted her face up to stare at me. Looking directly into those eyes stole my heart. “You are absolutely gorgeous. Robert is going to be able to see his little daughter is growing up to be a fine young lady.”

She smiled at the compliment. I started to think there might be hope with this girl. It would just take some time and some love to get her to stop thinking of herself as an object needing to act out in order to be noticed. It would take some real mothering in order to help this child. I thought for a second, and I knew exactly what to do to make the moment perfect.

“Wait right there,” I said. I ran off to the bathroom and my jewelry box. I shuffled through it until I found what I was looking for. When it was in my hand, I ran back into the room. Palin was standing in front of the full length mirror, wondering if there was some truth in what I had told her earlier. I came up from behind her and draped around her neck the necklace I knew would be the perfect complement to her ensemble. It was a piece of Murano glass dangling from a simple silver chain. The glass was blown by expert glass blowers on an island off the shore of Venice. They would add various precious metals, such as silver, platinum, or gold, to the glass they blew in order to create amazing colors. The piece I was giving to Palin to wear for the night was a smoky light blue that matched the color of her eyes. It was formed in the shape of a teardrop. The decoration was the simple accent creating the complete picture of what a beautiful young lady had been hiding in Palin.

“This was given to me by your father on our first anniversary. It is not worth a lot of money, but it has a lot of sentimental value, so please don’t lose it.”

Tears started to well up in Palin’s eyes. She turned to me and hugged me. “Thank you, Rachael. This is the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me.”

I felt emotions start to well up inside of me as well. I was starting to think maybe it was a good thing this girl had been sent to me to be raised properly. There must have been something wrong with her biological mother if she wasn’t able to raise this sweet, innocent girl right. My mind raced with images of poverty, drug abuse, and neglect contributing to her biological mother being sent away for re-education a second time. If Palin started to have some love given to her, she might turn out alright. I was the perfect mother to take on this challenge because of the wonderful way I had raised Zach and Lindsey. I was starting to get really proud of myself for making such progress in only one night with Palin. Maybe if I changed my attitude about her, I would really be able to help her. But first thing was first, we needed to go meet Robert for dinner before he started to wonder what had happened to us.

I patted Palin on the back and told her, “It is alright, honey. We can’t stay in here worrying about this for too long because I have two kids waiting for us downstairs, and my husband, your father, waiting for us at a restaurant downtown. Come on. Let’s get going.”

She wiped away her tears, smiled at me, and then walked out of the bedroom. I looked at myself in the mirror one last time, feeling a little pang of jealousy because I wasn’t able to fit into that dress anymore. It passed quickly because of the pride I had felt with my ability to be a mother. I turned off the lights and loaded the kids up to head down to the Old Stone Church.

Robert was able to get us a table at the restaurant, and it wasn’t a bad table either. The table Robert was able to get for us was directly in the center of the restaurant. It was like we were on display. I thought of us as being the model for every other table to live up to. Here we were, the perfect American family, and if they achieved what we could then they would be placed on display like us.

When we entered the restaurant, Robert was sitting at the table keeping an eye on the door. When he saw us, he came over and directed us to the table. He came up to me gruffly and asked me, “What took you so long? I was about to call the house to see if you were on your way or not?”

I turned and gestured to the children and said, “Well, we had to look presentable.”

He looked at the children and an expression came over his face I hadn’t seen since the birth of Zach. It was of pure joy and love. It was like he was looking at his children for the first time. He walked past Lindsey who was holding Zach’s hand and walked up to Palin. He held her hands out from her side so he would be able to get a better look at her.

“Palin, you look fantastic. I’ve never noticed how much you look like your mother until now.”

She smiled a bashful smile and said, “Thanks, daddy.”

He noticed the necklace and scooped it up gently in his fingers. “And where did you get this piece of jewelry? It is stunning.” I was a little confused when I heard this because it had been a gift to me from him. I thought he would definitely remember giving me something as beautiful as this. I always remembered receiving it. He had given it to me during dinner the night of our anniversary. It was wrapped perfectly. Usually Robert did a terrible job of wrapping things, so he must have had somebody else do it for him, but when I opened it up, I broke down into feelings of love and admiration. Robert told me he thought I would like it. I even remember putting it on as we ate the steak dinner over a nice bottle of wine. I also wore it on special occasions. Almost every anniversary I wore it. I also wore it on my birthdays and some holidays. Surely, he had seen it before.

Palin brought me from my thoughts. “What? This? Oh, it was a gift.” Even though that was accurate, it bugged me that she took the credit for having been given the gift.

“Well, it brings out the beauty of your eyes.”

“Thanks.”

Robert led Palin past his two other children and me to the table. He pulled out the chair for her and she sat down at his right hand side. He looked over at me and said, “Can you help the rest of the kids in their seats, Rachael?”

As I got Lindsey in her high chair and Zach in his seat, occupied with his new stuffed Billy Bob Bear, I sat down in the only remaining seat on the left hand side of Robert. By the time I was seated, our waitress was already at our table taking our order. The younger kids had chocolate milk each and Palin ordered a virgin strawberry daiquiri. Robert ordered a glass of Pinot Noir for himself and a glass of ice tea for me. I really wanted a gin and tonic, but after last night’s episode, it was probably better I had something non-alcoholic instead.

Robert was also able to order for me as I distracted the younger ones trying to keep them from being a loud disturbance for the rest of the patrons of the restaurant. Palin kept him company while I was busy. They were talking about what she had been up to in the last couple of months and the logistics of what had happened with her mother. I caught little bits and pieces of the conversation, but I needed to make sure Lindsey was under control. I put on an episode of Buddy Bears on the iPad. Zach was also a little loud because he was having a conversation with his Billy Bob Bear. I convinced him to have the conversation in whispered voices so the rest of the people in the building wouldn’t hear what he was saying. By the time I was able to return to the conversation, Palin had left and Robert was impatiently looking at his watch.

“What happened to Palin?” I asked him.

“Oh, she had to go to the bathroom.”

I looked over at my husband and saw a concern in his eyes. I knew I needed to do something in order to make up for my behavior. I knew this was a great opportunity, so I told him, “I’m sorry about everything that’s happened in the last couple of days. I guess I felt threatened at first when Palin showed up at the door and I didn’t know how to properly handle it.”

He grunted an agreement, and looked back towards the restrooms and then back at his watch.

“I know my behavior was inappropriate, but I think Palin and I will be really good friends after we get over this period of culture shock we are going through. I think we were able to bond a little bit tonight while we were getting ready. She really warmed up to me when I was able to give her some honest, loving compliments. I wonder if that is something she has been missing her whole life. Maybe she can grow as a person if I am able to give her the love she needs.”

“That’s nice honey,” he said as he looked at his watch again. “Hey, I am a little worried about Palin.”

“I am too, but I think if we give her some time, she’ll find her place in our household.”

Robert looked at me quizzically for a second before saying, “No honey, I meant I am worried about her in the bathroom. She’s been gone for a long time. Could you go check on her?”

“Oh,” I said. I looked over at Lindsey and Zach and saw they were occupied with what they had in front of them. I looked back to the hallway towards the bathroom and thought the kids would be alright while I went to go check on her. “I’ll go see what the delay is, Robert.” I got up from my seat and walked to a sign indicating where the bathrooms were.

The bathrooms were situated in a hallway connecting the restaurant to another part of the building holding the bar. I could hear lots of people laughing from this area, and I wondered what type of crowd would be making such a ruckus on a Wednesday night. I blew it off and went into the ladies room. The bathroom was just as warm and inviting as the rest of the restaurant. There was a comfy sofa in there for women to sit down on, and three large mirrors for fixing make-up. There were three stalls, but all of them were open and there was no one in any of them. In fact, I was alone in the ladies room. I called out Palin’s name but this just confirmed what my eyes had already ascertained; she was not in the bathroom.

I stepped out of the room and peered back into the restaurant. She wasn’t there but I saw the back of Robert’s head sitting at the table where Lindsey and Zach were entertaining themselves. He was staring over the restaurant, impatiently tapping his fingers on the side of the table. I was starting to wonder where Palin could be, and the only place left to look was the bar. I turned around to head to the bar and almost ran into her as she was backing her way into the restaurant and laughing at something going on behind her.

“Palin, where have you been?”

She turned around with her virgin daiquiri in her hand. She abruptly stopped laughing and looked at me. I could see her mind working at what would be the correct answer to give in this situation. “I was going to the bathroom,” she told me.

The smell of tobacco invaded my senses. I leaned closer to see if the smell was coming from her, but she slithered quickly away from me and back into the restaurant. Before she headed too far into the room, my voice stopped her, “But Palin, I was just in the bathroom and you weren’t in there.”

She stalled for a second, turned to face me and said, “Oh, I must have gone in the men’s room. You know I was wondering why there were stalls in there. I feel stupid now. I guess I’m lucky no men came in while I was in there. Boy, that would have been embarrassing.” She turned around and walked back to the table. I looked back at the two doors to both of the bathrooms. I was about to dismiss it as a simple mistake, when the door to the men’s room opened and a well dressed man walked out and headed towards the bar. I looked back at the table and saw Robert once again engaged in a conversation with Palin. My suspicions grew, but I held them in check as I made my way back to the table and sat in my seat.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. When we first got to the restaurant, Palin was quiet and reserved, but as the evening progressed, she was starting to become more and more comfortable. She was really engaged in the conversation she was having with Robert. She would laugh loudly at his jokes while waving her virgin strawberry daiquiri around the room. A couple of times she came close to having the icy drink slosh over the side of the glass and splotch the tablecloth in front of her. Somehow, she managed to keep the liquid in the glass. Robert and Palin hadn’t caught on yet, but people in the restaurant were starting to notice what was going on at our table. The image of what the perfect American family should look like was slowly deteriorating and I looked desperately for something to help me regain control of the situation.

The waitress appeared at our table with our food, and I thought this might help bring everything under control again. The weird thing was I wasn’t worried Zach and Lindsey this time. It was Palin and Robert. The waitress was a good one because she knew that she needed to serve the young children first in order to keep them entertained, so Zach and Lindsey got their food first, while Palin directed her attention over to the large tray holding her meal. The waitress then delivered Palin’s meal next and Palin asked if she could have another daiquiri. I looked across the table and noticed that something else was out of place. I didn’t want to cause any alarm until after the waitress left, so I didn’t say anything until after Robert and I were both served.

Palin had already begun to dig into her steak, while I took the linen napkin next to my Caesar salad and placed it in my lap. “Palin?” I asked.

She gave a smirk as she chewed on a large piece of filet mignon, “Yeah?”

“Did you do something with the necklace? I don’t see it anymore.”

She stopped chewing and looked at me across the table. Robert looked over at where the necklace should have been and said, “Where is your necklace, Palin? I hope you didn’t lose it.”

She put her knife and fork down and reached up to her neck. She felt around as if the necklace would appear out of nowhere. When it didn’t, she looked back at me, “I don’t know what happened to it.”

The waitress returned at that moment to the table and placed the new daiquiri in front of Palin. Palin grabbed it quickly after it was placed down and sucked a huge gulp out of the drink. This behavior made me even more curious. I needed someone to confirm what I thought, and since Robert had been in his own world that day, I looked up at the waitress. She was staring down at Robert’s daughter as Palin slurped her drink through the straw. That is when I saw the necklace. It was dangling from the neck of the waitress.

“My necklace,” I said pointing at the waitress.

“Your necklace?” Robert said looking over at me.

The waitress’s hand went reflexively up to where the necklace was.

Palin sucked down another huge portion of her drink and then she pointed and accusing finger at the waitress, “She stole my necklace.”

The waitress stood there stunned with her mouth opening and closing as if she didn’t know what to say.

Robert stood up at the table and looked at the waitress. “How dare you steal my daughter’s necklace?”

I could see a manager over at the hostess stand look over at the commotion going on over at our table. The waitress looked over at Robert and said, “I didn’t steal your daughter’s necklace.”

Robert tried to grab the necklace from the waitress’s neck, but her hand went up to protect it. He pointed a finger at where it was hidden and accused her, “Oh, please, I am sure that’s your necklace. You just happen to have one exactly like my daughter’s. This tear shape is a common one everybody has. Is that what you’re telling me? It’s all the rage now?”

The waitress stood there and stammered.

Robert continued his interrogation, “If you didn’t steal this then where did you get it from?”

The waitress looked over at Palin and said, “She gave it to me.”

“I did not,” was Palin’s response as she went back to her drink.

The manager came over to the table and patted his tie on his chest before asking, “What seems to be the problem here?”

Palin pointed the accusing finger at the waitress again, “She stole my necklace.”

The waitress looked at Palin and said, “You little bitch. You gave me this necklace if I would put rum in your drink.”

The manager quickly turned his attention to the waitress. She quickly realized the faux pas she had made.

Palin had the straw of the drink in her mouth again and was sucking down the last drop in the glass. She slammed the glass down on the table, and shouted back, “That is ridiculous. Give me back my necklace, you little thief.”

The manager was at a loss of words. He looked in between the waitress and Palin. All he could get out was, “Now, Amy.”

The waitress ripped the necklace off of her neck and threw it at Palin. It bounced off of Palin’s hands and hit the table. The teardrop shattered and a blue grey dust gathered on the table like frozen flakes of dry snow. I looked at this symbol of the love between my husband and me and I felt a part of me being torn from my heart.

The waitress turned on her heels and tore her apron off. She threw it on the ground in front of the manager. “I don’t have to listen to these accusations. I quit.” She stormed out the door. The manager followed her. Robert followed both of them asking who was going to pay for the replacement of the necklace. Palin followed after him defending her actions as justifiable. Lindsey and Zach continued to play with their toys. The patrons of the restaurant turned their heads away from what used to be the perfect American family. I picked up Palin’s empty glass on the table and sniffed it to see if I could smell any rum.

 

Lessons from Angkor Wat

There are many reason people go on vacation. They want to experience a new culture and learn about a different part of the world. They want to try new foods from the places that invented them. They want to go on an adventure. They want to relax. Sometimes, they are trying to pack all of these things in together, and Siem Reap, Cambodia is the perfect place to do just that.

Cambodia has seen its fair share of problems over the last century. It has experienced war, dictators, genocide, and economic devastation. Through all of this, it has been able to keep itself together as it worked through all of these problems, and the people of this small country in Southeast Asia still have a sense of identity and where they come from. Most of this is due to the incredible temples that lie in its backyard, the biggest of them being Angkor Wat.

These temples are not small little structures either. They are the remnants of what used to be a thriving metropolis of over a million people. It can be found in a forested area outside of Siem Reap, covering over 1,000 square kilometers, and demonstrating the height of the Khmer empire. The most impressive of the temples is Angkor Wat itself which was built in the early 12th century by King Suryavaman II to demonstrate the world what he was capable of and show his appreciation of the Hindu god, Vishnu.  These massive marvels of architecture were built as the same time as some of the more impressive cathedrals in Europe, and those Catholic churches can not come close to the size and scope that these temples present.

It is not just the size of these great temples that draws millions of people to this corner of the world. It is also the intricate carvings and designs that can be found all over them. One of the more impressive temples, Bayon, has about 200 massive faces of Lokesvara looking down at the people wandering around the crumbling walls. Wherever you look, his smiling face smiles down upon you reminding you of the greatness of this once thriving society.

But the statues and carving don’t only come in sizes larger than man. They range from medium to even small. Whole walls have carvings of individual people depicting what life would have looked like during this age. It would have taken a group of workers a long time to create these images because no two of the people carved into the wall look alike, showing the productivity of this incredible society. You can’t help but be amazed as you walk around the grounds.

But there is another story one can’t help to wonder about while looking at the once majestic landscape. How did this place go from one of the greatest, and strongest societies in the world to this place trying to pull itself out of the abject poverty it is experiencing now? Where did it misstep? How can its story tell us about some of the other nations in the world? Should the United States take note on the fate of Angkor Wat?

There is one thing history tells us time and time again and that is its greatest societies eventually fall apart and crumble. And even though during the height of these empires they were able to create amazing things that the world would marvel at for centuries to come, it will only stand as  a tourist attraction and no longer the greatness that once was the civilization’s golden age. We are only left with the wonder of what life would have really been like to have lived in this period. The true greatness of the place eventually returns to the earth from which it originally came.

It makes you start to wonder what your place in history will be. Where will the great civilizations of today be when technology had improved so much to make what we have today obsolete? Does it lessen the pompous attitudes of so many of the world leaders who strut upon their stages thinking that they are mightier than time itself? Will their impact truly be lasting or will it be reserved for the curiosity of the historians in the future? What monuments will they leave behind and will we only marvel at them for the way they have been returned to the humility that they once belonged to and not the effort extended to make them what they were during the height of when they were built?

I look at Cambodia today and realize that they were once one of the major players in the world. They used to matter as a military, economic, and cultural powerhouse, but people today just regard the society as a place trying to crawl out of the poverty that now grips its citizens. The sad thing is they do not realize that this is the fate of all great cultures, and we should look upon its fate with humility because it is also our future. It might not happen in the recent future, but there will be a time when tourists will take trips out to the sites of the United States to marvel at what had once been and ponder why things could not have been different if the society had chosen to listen to the lessons of history instead of their pride.

But do not feel that there is no hope in Cambodia. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed the marvels of Angkor Wat, it was not the thing that most impressed me about the place. That would have to be the people. Here is a society that has seen pain, and destruction. Here is a group of people who sometimes wonder where their next meal is going to come from. Here is a land that suffered through years of drought only to be rewarded with flooding on an epic scale. Through all of this, the people still find a way to make the best of the situation. It is one of the world’s fastest growing economies, and the people of this country are not looking for a free handout or expecting to have jobs handed to them because they are Cambodian. They do it through programs that they know will help them grow as a country and a society mainly focusing on education. Granted, they still have a long way to go before they can grow back into the force they once were so many centuries ago, but looking at those towering monuments they left behind, it makes me realize that maybe some day they will once again be one of the more significant countries in the world. A lot of it has to do with their drive and the knowledge that they are doing it the right way by building up a lasting economy based on the strength and intelligence of its people. It shows me that the flux of power is a fickle thing, and those who have it should recognize that fact with humility instead of flaunting it.

This post is brought to you by Tag: A Cautionary Tale by John Collings, available at http://www.amazon.com/Tag-Cautionary-Tale-John-Collings/dp/1533623902

When Tommy knocks Franklin over and cries “You’s it!” he starts a game of Tag to end all games of Tag. Before long, boys gathering to play on Arabella Hill are consumed with the game, picking sides, forging allegiances and waging all-out war. In the process of the game, rules evolve, constitutions form, and lives are lost. From the mind of John Collings comes a satirical allegory about the clash of ideologies and what happens if this confrontation is never resolved. In the battle of the playground, there is only one question that matters–which team will emerge victorious?

Accountability Chapter 4

I’m still working on putting together my thoughts about my recent trip to Cambodia. Look for it soon, but in the meantime, enjoy the next installment from Accountability.

4

Robert’s alarm woke me up. I jumped in bed as if I was rushing towards the stove to get breakfast ready for my family, but was even more shocked to find myself still in bed instead of in the kitchen like I usually was. When I saw I was still in bed, my heart jumped. I looked over at Robert who was turning off the alarm. He rolled over in bed and jumped back as well.

“Honey, what are you still doing in bed?” he asked.

It had been years since I had slept until Robert’s alarm went off. I had created one of the world’s best internal clocks. It would wake me up at exactly 5:45 every morning. It was almost as if somewhere in my head every morning there would be the electronic click of my clock telling me it was time to get up. My internal clock would always allow me to get out of bed early enough to stare down the stove and get myself ready to take on the challenges of the day. The last time I had slept through my internal alarm clock was when I was running a temperature and had a sore throat. I had taken some cold medicine the night before and it really knocked me out. Robert had been late for work that day and the kids were all out of pace because of the delay. After that morning, I swore I would never allow that to happen again, yet here I sat in bed with Robert’s alarm clock blaring fifteen minutes after my internal alarm clock should have warned me to get up.

“Honey, are you going to make me breakfast?” Robert asked. I’m glad he did because it shook me out of my daze.

“Yes, honey, sorry. I’ll get right on that.” I tried to get out of bed, but my brain swam around in my head. I looked over the edge of the bed to see only one pink fuzzy bunny slipper staring back up at me. I had no idea where the other one was, but I didn’t have time to concern myself with that because I needed to get breakfast ready for my family; otherwise their day would be off kilter. I shook the cobwebs off my brain and left the lone bunny where it sat looking for its partner. I slipped on my pink bathrobe to get breakfast ready.

At first I couldn’t understand why I had slept in so late, but as the events of the night before were starting to sift through the sleepy fog of my mind, I was able to start to piece things together. Palin had been a demanding girl all afternoon long. She kept on asking me to do this or that for her. Any time I didn’t respond to her request, she would remind me of one of the standards. When she started to make a drink and I took offense to that, she reminded me of Standard Number Two: A child should never be denied the experiences that life has to offer. When I picked up her purse to move it someplace where it wouldn’t be in the way, she pulled out Standard Number Five: A mother should trust their child’s judgment to do the right thing in any situation and should never violate this trust. When she talked loudly on the phone about finding something she called a score, and I asked her if I could use the phone so I could call Robert, she started quoting Standard Number One: A mother should ensure the popularity of their children to make sure that they have a healthy amount of self-esteem. It didn’t matter what the situation was, she had some answer passed down by the government which would counteract anything I believed would be the right thing to do.

Lindsey didn’t help much either. When she learned that Palin was her sister, she instantly fell in love with her. She started hanging around her wherever she went.  I don’t think Palin felt the same way Lindsey did, but when I told her I needed to go pick up Zach from school, she offered to stay behind and take care of Lindsey. Allowing that request was my first big mistake of the evening.

In the short time I was gone to pick up Zach and come back home, Palin had taught her about the exciting game of dress-up. Instead of making it an innocent game of dressing up like a princess, Palin decided to show her the latest in teenage fashion. She had poofed out Lindsey’s hair so it looked like a blonde palm tree sitting on top of her head. She had painted her face in dark eyeliner and bright red lipstick. She even added just the right amount of rouge to highlight the apples of her baby cheeks. This, together with the choice of clothes, only made me question if this was a joke or if Palin had such terrible fashion sense she would think this made Lindsey look good. For a shirt, Palin had selected Lindsey’s bikini top. She also made sure that the Lindsey was able to show off how sexy her chubby legs were by taking her nicest skirt and cutting it so short it hung to the edge of her thigh. For a topper, she took a pair of my high heels and had her walking around the hardwood floors in them. The scratches, I’m sure, are still on those floors. I couldn’t decide if she looked more like a whore or a clown. Lindsey, on the other hand, thought she looked pretty and started to throw a temper tantrum when I demanded she take off the clothes she was wearing.

While I was trying to avert a disaster with Lindsey, Palin thought it was a perfect time to take on my other child, Zach. She showed him how to unlock channels on the cable box while feeding him large amounts of espresso she had made in the kitchen (she didn’t clean up after making that mess either). By the time I made it back to the family room, Zach was running around crazy and screaming all the fun new words he learned from the exciting new channels he discovered. He even went as far as to tell me to, “Take it like a bitch, Mommy.”

By the time I was able to catch Zach to try to calm him down, Lindsey was strutting through the house in nothing but her birthday suit. I tried to tell Lindsey to put on some clothes before her father came home, and she told me she couldn’t because she didn’t have any more clothes. It was partly true because she had thrown them all out the window of her room and they were now being ravaged by neighborhood dogs collecting them as new chew toys.

I held on to Zach who was trying to squirm out of my grip while chasing after my naked daughter. Palin sat on the couch laughing at all the mayhem while smoking a cigarette and ashing it on the Persian rug in the family room.

This is when Robert walked inside from a hard day at work. I was so happy he was home. He was able to help me bring control back to the madness taking over my life. We were able to collect enough clothes from the front lawn to dress Lindsey. For the rest of the evening, she was wearing a frilly skirt I had bought for her to wear on Easter Sunday and a t-shirt with a picture of Mama Buddy on it saying, “Isn’t she cute?” Robert placed Zach on a tread mill and told him to keep on running until he ran out of the excess energy from the espresso. I was given enough time to clean up the kitchen and prepare a quick dinner while Robert visited with his other daughter in his office.

While they were visiting, I made my second mistake. I made myself a cocktail. In fact in the course of the evening, I made myself quite a few cocktails. I knew drinking was against the standards but I knew they were lenient if a mother didn’t drink to excess. Plus, I needed a little something to help take the edge off the experiences I had from that day. The thing I found that worked the best was a gin and tonic, and by the time dinner had been served, I had a little bit of a buzz going on. The rest of the night was a blur. Palin kept on demanding things from me, and every time I went back into the kitchen, I would add a little splash of Tangueray and a bit more tonic to my never-ending drink. Robert was cordial with our new guest and I don’t even remember putting the kids to bed before I crashed in my own bed. It was probably best I couldn’t remember everything that happened afterwards, but what I did remember helped explain the way I felt this morning. It was also the reason why I was running so late.

While I was collecting my thoughts from the previous day, I rushed to the staircase, but was forced to stop when I saw Lindsey. She had her back to me and was standing at the top of the staircase looking downstairs and holding her blanket in one hand with her two favorite fingers in her mouth. I suddenly realized something new about my child I had never realized before. She was on as much a schedule as I was. I could not think of a day I had not come around from the beginning of my cooking routine to see her standing at the top of the staircase waiting for me to tell her to go wake up her brother. It reminded me how lucky I was to have such a wonderful child and it pained my heart that I was going to have to break her routine by showing her I was off my schedule. She was going to be disturbed because I was actually behind her instead of downstairs making breakfast as I should have been.

She turned around when she realized I was behind her. She took her fingers out of her mouth and said, “Do you want me to wake up Zach?”

“Yes, honey,” I said as I ran past her on the stairs, and stopped before I got half way down. I looked back up the stairs and called after Lindsey. She stopped and popped her head back down the stairs. “Can you make sure that Palin gets up too? She needs to get to school also.”

“Okay, mommy,” was her reply, and she ran off to accomplish the tasks I had sent her off to do. I went back to trying to get things on track.

I ran into the kitchen, grabbed two frying pans and a large griddle and placed them on the stove. I turned the burner on under one of the frying pans. I opened the fridge and grabbed a package of bacon, a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, and the orange juice.  I slammed the fridge door shut, and didn’t realize my bathrobe had been caught in the door. I was moving so quickly to the counter next to the stove I forgot about not having the traction offered by my bunny slippers. I slipped and fell hard on my back. Luckily the only thing damaged in the fall, besides my pride, was the gallon of milk which had cracked on the hardwood floor. It was creating a big puddle on the floor.

I threw the rest of the food on the floor, and grabbed the container of leaking milk and tried to stand up. It took a little effort because of the way my bathrobe was caught in the fridge door, but I managed to do it. Milk continued to spill on the floor as I released myself from the fridge trap, and rushed over to the kitchen sink to put what was left of the gallon of milk in there. So far a quarter of a gallon of milk was lying on the floor, another quarter was soaked into my pajama bottoms, and the other half was slowly leaking out into the sink. I knew I needed to save some in order to salvage breakfast this morning, so I went back across the kitchen to get a container to pour the rest of the milk into. I didn’t make it all the way over before slipping on the milk in the middle of the room and landed face first on the floor.

I moaned as I crawled my way over to the cabinet to grab a pitcher. Luckily, we kept them in one of the lower cabinets, so I didn’t need to pick myself off the floor in order to obtain one. Of course my pajamas gathered more milk as I shuffled my way across the puddle. I tried to look at the positive of what was happening. My pajamas were helping me clean up the mess, so I wouldn’t have to get further behind by spending so much time mopping up the mess. I got the pitcher and poured the last quarter of a gallon of milk into it, hoping it would be enough to make breakfast. I also grabbed the towel from the sink and threw it down on the puddle. I pushed it around with my foot, hoping to mop up as much milk as I could, and with the help my pajamas offered, it did a decent job of picking it up.

I picked up the wet towel and threw it into the kitchen sink next to the broken, empty milk jug. I walked over to the package of bacon and grabbed a knife from the magnet on the wall. I cut open the package and ripped the bacon out. The first piece of bacon started to sizzle by the time I put down the second one. I looked at the temperature of the burner and realized I had it on high. I turned it down a bit and continued to put bacon in the pan. I had gotten to the last piece of bacon, when I heard a scream, rattling nerves even more, “Where is my orange juice?”

Zach was sitting at the kitchen table. He was pounding the surface with his fists and demanding his orange juice. I gave one second of thought to where Lindsey was, but realized I needed to put out one fire at a time. “I want my orange juice!” Zach continued to shout as he stared at the kitchen wall opposite from where he sat.

“I’m sorry, honey,” I said as I walked over to the table with two glasses and the orange juice. I poured him a glass and he picked it up with both hands and started to drink. I figured, since I was close to the front door, this was a good time as any to go and get the paper. I went outside and picked up the paper. I was hurrying back inside when I heard Shelia exclaim over my shoulder, “My lord, Rachael, are you okay? You look awful this morning.”

I turned, and smiled back. “I’m okay. I just had a little accident this morning, and I’m running a little behind.”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“No,” I said as I continued to run back in the house, “just a little spill. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

She was such a busy body.

I ran into the house and closed the door behind me. A sight I was not expecting threw off my morning even more. Lindsey was standing in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the door, and holding a shred of her blankee. Her bottom lip was quivering, and when she saw me, she skipped all the stages of temper tantrum and went straight to stage four. Her howl banged off the walls and reverberated throughout the whole house.

I threw the paper on the floor, and ran over to pick her up. It might not have been the wisest of decisions because her howl went straight into my ear. I started bouncing her up and down to calm her down when Robert came to the railing from our room and looked down at me. He was only wearing only a towel around his waist and he was still wet from his shower. “What is all of that racket down there?”

I looked up at him. “Something happened to Lindsey’s blankee. I’m trying to calm her down.”

“Well, do your job and hurry it up.” He turned to go back into the room and stopped himself before he went back. He looked at me over the rail with some concern. “Are you okay? You look terrible.”

I kept on bouncing Lindsey to calm her down and said, “Yeah, I just had an accident. I’m okay. I’ll clean up in a bit.”

He gave me a look with one eyebrow raised. “You are off this morning, Rachael. Let’s not make this a regular occurrence.”

My heart sank. I was letting my family down. I had gotten so drunk the night before I didn’t even remember going to bed. I woke up late this morning. Breakfast was going to be late. Zach wouldn’t get to school on time and I would be scolded again by the teachers at the school. Lindsey was crying loudly in my ear. I couldn’t think what had gone wrong, but my own daughter gave me some insight as to where the true source of my problem began.

“Palin ripped my blankee,” she screamed in-between sobs.

Of course, it all started to go downhill the moment that girl showed up on my doorstep. I couldn’t figure out why I was put in charge of this girl. She didn’t even come from my genes. She was some accident from my husband’s past and now, for some godforsaken reason, it was my responsibility to take care of all of her problems. Not only that, but she, herself, was becoming a ripple in the smooth fabric of my family’s life. She disrupted the normal flow of everything and now she had made my daughter cry by destroying the one thing she cared more about in this world than anything else.

I looked down at the distraught child in my arms and said, “Well, Lindsey, mommy is going to take care of this right now.” I placed her on the ground and told her to stay there as I marched up the stairs to Robert’s office. It had been converted the night before to accommodate our guest.

When I got to the door, it was slammed shut and the other half of Lindsey’s blanket was dangling from the doorjamb. I tried to open the door, but Palin had locked it. I banged on the door and shouted so she could hear me, “Palin, open up this door. Right now!”

I got no response.

I tried again and met with the same result. I was once told it was a sign of insanity to try to same thing again and again while expecting different results. I knew banging on the door wouldn’t open it up, so I tried to think of how I could get in. I saw there was a tiny hole in the doorknob and I knew what I had to do.

I marched back into the kitchen past my child screaming in the hallway and the other one sitting at the kitchen table trying to pour more orange juice into his glass.

“Mommy, I want more…”

“Not now, honey, I have some other things I need to attend to.” I had to stop Zach because my mind was set on accomplishing the task at hand.

I went to the junk drawer and yanked it open. I shuffled through it looking for one of the long wooden skewers I knew was in there. I found two in the back and I grabbed them. I marched my way back up the stairs past the one child pouring orange juice into his overflowing glass, and the other one still screaming in the hallway. I marched right up to the door of my family’s office, and banged on it one last time.

“Palin, this is your last opportunity. Open this door now, or suffer the consequences.”

Once again I got no response. I gave her three opportunities to do the right thing and now it was my turn to take control of the situation. I stuck the skewer into the tiny hole in the knob and wiggled it around until I heard the mechanism for the lock click. I opened the door. The ripped part of Lindsey’s blankee fell to the ground. What I saw as I stood in the entryway to the room took me by surprise. A teenage boy, who I never saw before, was pulling up his jeans over his bare butt. Palin, not taking any notice of the show going on in her room, stood on the bed trying to unlatch the screen to the window.

“What in the world…”

Palin turned away from her task. She quickly hopped off the bed and rushed over to where I stood in the doorway of Robert’s office. She started waving her finger in my face and yelling at me, “Goddamnit, can’t people get some privacy in this house? You had better start listening to my needs, Rachael, or we are going to have a difficult time getting along with each other. You better keep that in mind because I think your assessment is coming around soon.”

I was too stunned to hear what she was saying. I pointed at the other guest in my house that was walking over to me while tucking his shirt into the jeans he just put on. I pointed at him and asked, “Who is this?”

He grabbed my hand I was using to point at him and started to shake it. “Hi, I’m Dustin. It is very nice to meet you, Rachael.”

Palin smacked him on the shoulder, “Don’t talk her, Dustin. Get out of here.”

He let go of my hand and walked out of my family’s office. He waved at Palin as he walked down the stairs to where the orange juice mess and my screaming child were. “Bye, Palin, I’ll see you later, at school.”

“Bye, Dustin. Remember you need to buy condoms before tonight.”

I stood there pointing between her and the teenage boy who just exited my house while trying to articulate words to say about what I had just seen.

Palin looked at me like nothing had happened and said, “What the hell happened to you? You look like shit.”

Her disrespect helped me find the courage to put this little girl in her place, “Listen here, young lady. I don’t know who that was or who you think you are, but this is my house and you will live by my rules.”

She turned her back from me and walked over to her suitcase. She pulled off her shirt exposing the dark red push-up bra. She took out a new shirt from her suitcase and put it on. “Oh well then, just leave me a copy of them and I’ll go over them in the next couple weeks.”

“What?”

She slipped on her shirt which was tighter than the one she wore yesterday and had a picture of a mushroom on it. “Hello, Rachael. I just moved in here. How am I supposed to know all of the rules of your place after one night? I mean, am I just supposed to guess it is against your wishes for one of my boyfriends to come over here and spend the night? Also, I don’t appreciate you barging into my room anytime you like. I deserve my privacy. Remember Standard Number Five: A mother should trust their child’s judgment to do the right thing in any situation, and should never violate this trust. We might have to look over your list of rules and make sure they conform to the intent of the law. Right now, I don’t have time for that because I have to get ready for school. What’s for breakfast by the way?”

I could feel my blood surge through my veins and pump hard in my temples. My breathing became heavy and haggard as I took a step into Robert’s office, but before I could place my barefoot onto the carpet, I felt a tug on my pajama bottoms. I turned around to see Zach tugging on my leg.

“Mommy, there is…”

I lifted Zach up by his shoulders and placed him outside in the hallway and told him through clenched teeth, “Not right now, Zach, I have to have a talk with your step-sister.”

“But, mommy, there is a…”

I ignored him as I turned back to the girl in Robert’s office who was looking in a mirror I didn’t remember being in the room before. She was spraying healthy amounts of hairspray into her hair to create the poof effect she had worn ever since we met.

“Listen here, young lady. I didn’t ask for you to move into this house, and I am sure you didn’t ask to be here, but I want you to know your behavior is totally unacceptable. You are not my child. You are a mistake my husband had at a very early age, and if you continue to act this way, I will make sure you and all your poor attitude are out on the curb before nightfall. Do you understand me?”

She rolled her eyes at me and snorted out a little laugh. “You can’t do that.”

“Mommy,” said Zach from outside the room.

“Why not?” I asked her.

“Standard Number Four: Proper, loving shelter shall be supplied to everyone under the legal care of the mother. You need me to stay here under the law, and you need to make sure it is a loving way, mother dearest. So I suggest you watch what you say before I report you to the proper authorities.”

“Mommy,” Zach said again.

I pointed my finger directly into Palin’s chest and said, “Why you little b…”

“MOMMY!”

I turned to face Zach, and yelled at him, “WHAT ZACH?!”

“The kitchen is on fire, Mommy.”

The fire alarm started to blare from downstairs. I quickly grabbed Zach and Lindsey and ran out of the house as smoke started to billow from the kitchen.

Accountability Chapter 3

I’m sorry that this installment in the story is a little late, but I was on vacation in Seim Reap looking at the amazing ruins of Angkor Wat. It was quite the trip and had given me a great perspective on the way things are working in the world right now. Look for that story in the next couple of weeks with some spectacular pictures as well. But until then, here is the third chapter of Accountability.

3

When I opened up the front door, there was a teenage girl standing next to a postman. She had dark black mascara under each eye about an inch thick. She wore bright red lipstick that glittered when the light hit it just right. Her jet black hair was puffed out so it created the look of licorice cotton candy sprouting from the top of her head and cascading down to hide her face in a dark shadow. She wore a red push-up bra peeking through the top of her tight fitting white tank top. It pushed up what little she had of breasts to turn them into pale oranges. She also wore tight black jeans showing off every muscle in her legs except for her calves which were hidden behind black knee-length high-heeled boots. In her left hand, she dangled a little black purse with a picture of Hello Kitty on it. She looked like she had just been pulled off the street from her night job, and the postman looked like the one required to drag her to stand at my front door. He held a clipboard in his hand and looked down at the name on it.

“Is there a Robert Young here?” he said as he looked over my shoulder to see if I was hiding him somewhere in the house. The girl snapped her gum loudly behind him.

“He’s at work right now, but I am Rachael Young, his wife. Can I help you?”

He looked down at the clipboard again and growled. He looked over his shoulder at the girl rolling her eyes at him and he turned back around to me. “I guess you are close enough. Can I get you to sign here?”

He held out the clipboard and removed a pen from behind his ear for me to use. I looked down at it and saw Robert’s name written on a certified mail slip with a big X next to the place asking for a signature.

“Can I ask what this is for?”

“I’m delivering a piece of certified mail and I need you to sign for it in order to get it off my hands. You are his wife, so you can sign for him.”

I started to hear Lindsey crying upstairs in her room, so I bent down to quickly sign the piece of paper. Everything was piling up on itself really quickly, and I wanted the man to give me the piece of mail so I could go attend to Lindsey’s needs. I looked up at him after I had finished signing and said, “Thank you very much, and if I co…”

“She’s all yours lady,” he said and turned from my front door and ran back to his mail truck.

The girl strolled in like she owned the place. The tips of her high heeled boots clacked upon the linoleum as she sashayed her way over to the big couch and plopped down, dangling her boot heels over the edge of the arm. While she was waiting for my response, she dug through her purse until she was able to extract a small compact mirror from it. She popped it open so she could look at herself and make sure her hair was still poofy and proper. I was lost as what to do because Lindsey was starting to move from a gentle cry to a full blown-out scream. She had never been forced to wait this long for me to attend to her needs.

The girl looked up at me and asked, “Are you going to take care of that? It’s really annoying.”

It was as if I needed her words to give me leave to go run upstairs to make sure Lindsey was alright and that’s just what I did. Lindsey was standing up in her bed. Her mouth was opened wide like a bottomless cave unleashing the howl from down below. Her eyes were creating streams of water flowing into that dark cave decorated with five stalagmites and three stalactites dangling from its edge. Her new Baby Bear was lying on the ground five feet from her bed. I picked it up and handed it to her.

“Don’t cry honey. I have your Baby Buddy right here,” She grabbed the bear from me.

She threw Baby Buddy across the room and started to scream louder, “I want my blankee!”

It was stupid of me to give her the newest toy when the one that traditionally comforted her would have been the one she wanted. I quickly scanned the room for her blankee, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. “Honey, where is your blankee?”

This put her into a stage three temper tantrum. This wasn’t the worst stage, but it was still devastating to see. Lindsey would scream while crying and lay down on her stomach to bang her fists into whatever object she was laying on. “You lost my blankee!”

I knew I had to stop this temper tantrum before it hit stage four or it would take me forever to calm her back down. I knew the only way to prevent this disaster would be to find her blankee and quickly. My mind raced to think where I had seen it last. We had it with us when we went to drop off Zach at school and I remembered seeing it in the car next to Lindsey’s car seat when we were done at the post office. In fact, I remembered seeing it there when I took her out of the car seat because she cared more about her new stuffed Baby Buddy then she did about her blankee. I remember thinking it was a nice improvement to have her care more about her new toy than the one she usually dragged around all over the place.

“I know exactly where your blankee is. I’ll be back with it in just a second.”

She calmed down a little bit. The tragedy was reverting back to stage two. She was starting to sit up, but the tears and the howl still continued. The blankee would help return her back to normal within a matter of seconds. When I thought she was in control of her senses enough, I ran down the stairs to the garage. I would have been able to get her blanket and be back in less than a minute, but as I ran into the living room, I had to stop because I realized there was one more thing I had to deal with, the young lady checking her make-up in the compact mirror as she lounged on my couch.

I moved closer to the girl. I had my index finger ready to point and was about to say something when she snapped her compact closed. The stranger looked up at me with blue eyes hidden away behind too much black eyeliner.

“So, where is Robert?” she said. She made sure to enunciate the “b” in his name so I could see her bright red lipstick make the condescending sound.

“Who are you?” I asked her.

She rolled back her eyes and let out an exaggerated annoyed sigh. “Robert didn’t tell you about me?” She made sure to make that condescending “b” sound again.

My mind raced

Was Robert having an affair? He had been a little more aloof lately. Why would he be having an affair with somebody so young? She was old enough to be his daughter. Had he been going to the Mother Mall to find a younger model to replace me? If this were true, why would he have told me about her? Why wouldn’t he just go to the Mother Mall and pick one up instead of taking his chances by ordering one by mail. I looked back at her and stammered out a, “N-n-no?”

She puffed out another annoyed sigh as she got up from the couch. She reached down her shirt and pulled out a tattered envelope from her bra. She handed it to me, “That should explain everything.”

I looked at the unopened piece of mail. It was addressed to a Palin Young and it had come from the Department of Motherhood. What did the Department of Motherhood have to do with my husband and this girl who shared his same last name? I looked up from the envelope to see this girl get up from the couch and bend over to unzip her boots.

“BLANKEE!!!!” screamed from upstairs, and my thoughts returned to the other crisis going on in my house.

“I’ll be back in a second to deal with you young lady,” I told the stranger who had invaded my humble home.

She rolled her eyes at me and worked to pull off the tight fitting boots. “Whatever.”

I didn’t have time to deal with her at the present moment, so I let her pick up the remote to the television. She started to flip through the channels as I ran to the car to grab Lindsey’s blankee from the back seat. When I had it, I ran back upstairs. As I was passing through the living room, I noticed the girl had done something with the television and a smaller box appeared on the screen saying something about locked channels. I knew I had to prioritize and I would figure out what she was doing after I had calmed down Lindsey.

I came back into Lindsey’s room and her meltdown had moved from level two to borderline level four. A river of snot had joined the river of tears covering her face in a wet, messy goo. She had quit pounding her bed and was now rolling on her back instead. Her mouth blared out decibels not meant for human ears to hear. I grabbed the box of Kleenex on the dresser in hopes to clean her up a little bit after I calmed her down.

“Honey, mommy has your blankee,” I said as I handed her the prized possession. She opened her eyes a little bit to see the thing she most desired. She reached up with one hand to grab the blankee and took the index finger and middle finger from her other hand to stick into her mouth. The crying and screaming had stopped, but a huffing gasp of air continued through the small spaces created by her lips wrapping themselves around her fingers. She laid down on the bed and continued to whimper. I took out a couple of Kleenexes and used them to wipe away her tears and the snot spreading itself across her face.

After I had cleaned her up to the best of my ability, I asked her, “Are you doing better now?”

She nodded back her answer. That was when I started to hear the strangest noises coming from the family room. It was the combination of a woman moaning and a man grunting. I looked out Lindsey’s door wondering exactly what was going on downstairs. Lindsey stopped whimpering long enough to sit up in bed and look out the door herself. With one crisis diverted, it was now my time to turn my attention to the other one.

“Lindsey, there is something that mommy has to do downstairs. Can you stay up here until I tell you it is okay to come down?”

The noises got louder and faster, and Lindsey looked out the door like she was terrified of what she would find downstairs. She looked back at me and nodded more enthusiastically this time. I left Lindsey’s bedroom and went downstairs to talk to the invader.

When I got downstairs, she had herself sprawled out on the couch, and she was watching television. This was the source of the sounds I was hearing. On the screen was a naked woman on her hands and knees moaning loudly as her breasts swung back and forth like over-bloated udders underneath her. Behind her was a naked man grunting rhythmically as he banged his pelvis into her rear.

The girl sitting on my couch looked up at me and said, “Hey, look, I was able to unlock the Playboy channel for you.”

I picked up the remote and quickly turned off the television.

“Hey, I was watching that. You are, right now, breaking Standard Number Three: A mother should not impede the learning and exploration process of her children.”

I threw the remote back down on the coffee table. “That would be great if I was your mother, but I am not. I don’t even know who you are.”

The girl sat up on the couch and said, “Didn’t you read that letter that I gave you, yet?”

I had completely forgotten about the letter. It was in the back pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out and opened it up. The girl on my couch rolled her eyes as she picked up the remote and said, “That letter should explain everything.” I stood in the middle of my living room feeling like a stranger in my own home as I read:

“Dear Palin Young,

I am sorry to report to you that your mother has failed her assessment for the third year running. Because of this, she is required by law to be sent to the Capital Limited Re-education Center. Since this is the second time she has been sent to be re-educated, and because she is an only mother, you will be relocated to another mother who can be a better role model for you.

Our records indicate that you have a father, a Robert Young, who is living on the opposite side of town. He is married to a mother who has performed exceptionally well on her last three assessments. We at the Department of Motherhood believe that this is the perfect environment for you to achieve your full potential. Her name is Rachael Young and she will now be your new mother. You’ll be delivered to her through certified mail by the United States Postal Office and the mothering will officially begin the moment someone in the household signs for you.

Due to the circumstances, if you encounter any difficulty making adjustments to your new environment, please contact us at 1-800-555-LOVE. Ask for your case manager, Miss Allison Torpedojager, to help you through any tough times.

Thank you and enjoy your new mother,

Allison Torpedojager”

I looked down at the letter and said, “Robert has another child?”

Palin flopped herself down on the couch. “Oh, didn’t daddy tell you about me?”

“No.”

I thought I knew everything about my husband. He was a great provider for this family, but I had no idea he had a past, especially one including this stranger now invading my home.

“Well, he should have. It seems my biological mother and he were quite the item back in high school. They were voted prom queen and king and that was the night good old daddy knocked up mommy dearest. Nine months later here I come as their bundle of joy. Of course Robert tried to do good by mom by marrying her right out of high school, but they just weren’t meant to be together. Robert eventually divorced my…”

“Wait a minute, Robert has been married before,” I said as I slouched down in the seat behind me.

Palin gave me a look of genuine surprise. “Wow, there is a lot old Robert hasn’t told you. Don’t worry it didn’t last long. Robert and my mom fight all the time. It was over by the time I was five years old.”

A lot of questions raced through my mind, “What do you mean ‘fight all the time’? Does he still see your mom? When was the last time you saw him?”

“Oh, he comes over about once every other month to see how I’m doing, but for the most part he makes himself pretty scarce. Most of the time he comes over, gives my mom a little money, they fight some, he talks to me for a bit, and then comes back here to the family he apparently really loves.”

I was in complete shock. How could he do this to me? How could I have lived with him for the last seven years and not have known about his other family? If he was keeping this a secret from me, what other things about my husband were out there I didn’t know about? It made me feel like I had been living with a stranger for the last seven years. I started to wonder what I really did know about my husband. We courted for such a short time, and quickly had Zach right away because of my love for children. He never took me to his work; I never met any of his co-workers; I didn’t even really know what he did for a living. I knew nothing about this man, and his past had just knocked on my door, waltzed into my living room, and blessed us with free porn for all eternity.

Palin continued on with her story, “So when my mom failed her assessment again due to some minor glitch about boyfriends, she was sent to The Capital Limited Re-education Center and I was left to my lonesome again. Grandma died a couple of years ago. That’s who took care of me last time, so all that’s left is Robert. He’s my closet living relative. So, because of some freaky new rule, I am the newest edition to your family.”

I looked over at this teenager lounging on the couch in my family room and muttered out the only thing that I could think of, “I guess that makes me your mother.”

Palin fluffed the pillow behind her head. “Yep, that’s right. Now let’s get things started off right. You can go get me a soda, mother.”

Accountability Chapter 2

The serial continues, and I am amazed at how some of the characters I created five years ago are still around today leaving their mark on America’s education system. I hope this story gets people to wake up to the real problem so they can start to make the appropriate changes to this field before it becomes too late. It is already getting hard to find good teachers, and that is because they are treated so poorly in the United States that they go overseas to find more respect and as a side bonus, more money.

2

The easy transition into my son’s school day didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped it would. A commercial for the newest Buddy Bear appeared after the episode of the cartoon was over. The newest Buddy Bear was Billy Bob Bear. Billy Bob Bear had grown up in a broken household and was eventually left on his own because his real parents didn’t care enough about him. He was lucky enough to stumble upon the Buddy Bear family. Mama Buddy felt sorry for Billy Bob Bear and knew he needed a strong mother figure in his life, so she adopted him. Even though Billy Bob Bear was a little rough around the edges, he thrived under the caring love of Mama Buddy. He started to learn how he too could be a wonderful influence on the people in his life. I used to look at stories like this as a real inspiration and wished I had the opportunity to be like Mama Buddy sometime in my life.

Anyway, Billy Bob Bear wasn’t the problem. It was the fact he was being introduced in doll form that very morning. Zach had all the rest of the Buddy Bear collection and after he saw the commercial, he felt he needed to get the newest edition. He jumped up and down and begged me to buy Billy Bob Bear. I knew these toys were expensive. If I spent the money I was given as an allowance by my husband on this new toy for Zach then I wouldn’t have enough left over to get the haircut I desperately needed at the time. I knew it was a painful decision and my hair would need to wait for a couple more weeks, but my children came first in my life. I knew how important it was for Zach’s happiness, so we went out and got him Billy Bob Bear that day.

We didn’t have enough time to get one this morning and make it to school on time, so I told him we would pick it up later in the day. But Zach stressed how important it was he had one for school that day. He screamed and shouted and refused to get in the car unless we went to the toy store that morning. There was no way he could show up at school without the latest edition of the Buddy Bear family to display for his class. This seemed reasonable to me because it complied with the Department of Motherhood’s Standard Number One: A mother should insure the popularity of their children so they would have a healthy amount of self-esteem. Because of this, we set off to the nearest toy store to get a Billy Bob Bear before I dropped him off at school. We got to the store and of course it wasn’t open until 9:00, but I could see the display for Billy Bob Bear inside. It took awhile for Zach understand we couldn’t buy one until they opened the store. I showed him the display and we spent the hour staring at it in order to appease him.

Lindsey, on the other hand, was being the angel I always hoped for with my children. She quietly sat on the sidewalk and sucked her two fingers while I pointed out all of the exciting things the toy store had to offer to Zach. I felt so bad she wasn’t getting something for herself, so when the store finally opened, I bought her a new stuffed Baby Buddy. She played with it in the back seat as we dropped off Zach at school. I had to sign him in at the front office and I was scolded by my son’s teacher who was on her break at the time, but what did she know about being held to such high standards. Teachers didn’t have to deal with the threat of their reason for living being taken away from them if they couldn’t perform up to the required standards. I know I had done the right thing with my son and I gently took her scolding with a grain of salt, because when she was held accountable like I was then she would have room to talk.

I also stopped by the post office to see about the certified letter Robert had asked me to pick up, but the lady behind the counter told me they had sent it to my house already, special delivery. She said that I could expect it sometime in the afternoon and she didn’t even have to go in the back and check. I should’ve known something was up when they had the rest of my mail for me. I thought it was weird they would send the certified letter ahead of my regular mail, but I took the rest of the mail because it helped to validate my trip to the post office. Lindsey was once again the perfect angel while we were at the post office. It seemed purchasing the Baby Buddy for her was a great idea because it was the new toy that kept her occupied while I talked to the lady behind the counter. The postal employee even commented on how well behaved Lindsey was, and how I must be the greatest mother to have such a wonderful child. It always made me feel like I was doing the right thing when other people recognized what a great job I was doing.

By the time we got back home and ate lunch, Lindsey was wiped out from all of the running around we had already done. I tucked her in her bed to take a nap and she still had the new bear tucked under her arms when I snuck downstairs to read the newspaper and the mail.

I loved the house we lived in. It was a larger version of the dollhouse I used to play with as a child, except now I lived in it. Each room was designed for a specific purpose with comfort in mind. It was also a stimulating environment just as required by the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act. Every room in the house had a large flat screen television that could be viewed from any of the comfortable chairs surrounding them. Bookcases were in every room with various knick knacks and the occasional novel made into a movie.

One of the rooms was made into a library which housed our large collection of DVDs. They were arranged in alphabetical order by title in the various genres: children’s, horror, science fiction, action, romance, comedy, and Brad Pitt movies. If one couldn’t find a movie that they would find entertaining, they just weren’t looking hard enough.

The basement was turned into a game room with another large screen television. All of the video game consoles were there from the Wii, the PS4 and the Xbox with Connect. There was also a collection of all the newest, as well as classic video games. The couch in the room was the most comfortable one ever made. Anyone who sat in it felt like they were sinking into oblivion. There were many times I had to convince Lindsey and Zach to leave the confines of this couch in order to join Robert and me for dinner.

They were never required to join us for dinner, of course, but there were many nights we spent that meal together as a family, at least once a week. When we shared dinner together it was at the table in the kitchen. I would serve all of the kids’ favorites as long as they had some nutritional value, such as hamburgers, pizza, tacos, vegetables (as long as they were deep fried for taste), or omelets. Every night for desert we would enjoy some frozen delight served from our soft serve ice cream machine. The children were so good at using it they were able to make their own deserts any time they wanted to during the day.

The kids’ rooms were a joy for me as well as them. It was the perfect environment for them to stimulate their minds while enjoying the privacy of their own space. They each had a 3-D television big enough to enjoy, but not big enough to spoil them, 42 inches. They would often have many of the 3-D movie selections in their rooms during the course of the week, and I would have to remind them that they needed to be returned to our video library. Then I would return them to our video library. They each had their own gaming system as well. I tried to find the most educational games for them, such as Baseball and Football so they would get their sports, Medal of Honor so they could learn their history, and the Zelda and Final Fantasy games for literature. We also made sure that they had some of the fun games as well like Grand Theft Auto and Silent Hill, but we encouraged them to play the more educational ones.

Robert had his office upstairs next to the children’s rooms where he was able to finish his work. It was actually an extra bedroom we had converted into an office, and we put our guests there when they came in from out of town. I also had my special spot, and that was, as I’ve already said, the kitchen. This is where I would prepare the meals, pay the bills and watch over the kids if they happened to be in the family room playing. The kitchen table was the place where I would be able to wind down, look the mail over and read the newspaper every once in awhile. On the day my life changed, I had put Lindsey down for a nap, made myself comfortable in the kitchen and read a front page headline that caught my attention.

Secretary of Motherhood Avoids Assassination Attempt

Dr. Nancy Ann Blur, the nation’s first ever Secretary of Motherhood, was attacked by a crazed individual wielding a frying pan Monday afternoon at a speaking engagement at the Angelina Jolie Auditorium. She was talking about how important it was for mothers to follow the standards laid out by the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act. The attacker was a Miss Beverly Robinson who had made it up to the stage where Dr. Blur was giving her speech. She was stopped short by security. When Miss Robinson was detained, she threw the large frying pan she was carrying at the Secretary of Motherhood, coming very close to hitting her in the head. If it wasn’t for Dr. Blur’s athletic ability the outcome might have been completely different than it was.

Witnesses who were attending the event and were sitting next to Beverly Robinson stated they, “…noticed something strange about her behavior. Before Dr. Blur took the stage she was clutching on to her large purse and muttering something about ‘Wanting her to give them back.’”

Security guards who stopped Beverly Robison from reaching her goal said she had shouted, “I want them back b#&ch!” right before she threw the frying pan at the beloved secretary. They believe the frying pan was being concealed in the large purse and that is the reason why nobody noticed the deadly weapon when the Miss Robinson entered the Angelina Jolie Auditorium.

Beverly Robinson had just been released from the Capital Limited Re-Education Center near La Junta, Colorado two weeks prior to the incident with high marks. She was going to be reintroduced into the motherhood program when Thomas Stannish had offered her a job taking care of his two children. They had recently been left without a mother due to the inability to live up to the expectations of her duties. Beverly Robinson had found herself in a similar situation one year earlier when she was unable to have the children in her care pass the Motherhood Assessment Program (MAP) test for three years running. According to the rules of the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act, this violation is what led to her being placed in the re-education program.

Dr. Blur, whose approval rating is at an all time high of 78%, said about the incident, “It is sad indeed when things like this happen, but this is the reason I worked so hard to make sure the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act was passed in the first place. There were too many mothers out there who just weren’t being held accountable for the way they were raising their children. It is vitally important for our youth we weed out these bad mothers and replace them with ones better equipped to handle the job.”

I remember sitting there and staring at the paper. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to attack this wonderful woman who had done so much to make sure mothers got the attention they deserved. At the time, it was clear to me that Beverly Robinson was insane and there wasn’t any amount of re-education that could be made possible to turn her into the perfect mother the act intended. I was sure Dr. Blur had done everything in her power to help this woman and she was just beyond help. I thought it was sad that not all women could be great mothers like I was, but I was sure that was why the government created the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act, to make sure these mothers, like Beverly Robinson, stayed away from children before real damage was done. I used to believe this act was making sure every child had a wonderful mother and it was all due to that amazing woman who wrote her historic report.

Dr. Nancy Ann Blur used to be my idol. She had grown up from small roots to take control of her life and be one of the most respected women of the United States. She grew up in the small town of Jeffery City, Wyoming where her dad was a science teacher and her mom was a school secretary for the elementary school in town. She was the only girl growing up with four brothers and in her teenage years she spent her afternoons with her mother at the school helping out in the after school program. It was there she found her love for children and discovered how important it was for parents to raise their children correctly. If kids weren’t given this opportunity, they would be led down the wrong path of life. Her brothers taught her that the stronger gender was actually the woman and it was what the mother did with her child that was more important in life than the father.

After she graduated from high school, she went to college. She attended five different colleges before she was able to graduate from the prestigious Eastern Wyoming Christian College in Casper, Wyoming with a degree in journalism. It took her six years to earn the degree. Part of the reason was because she couldn’t find a college that fit with her moral beliefs, and secondly because she grew up in a large family with such a low income. She was forced to raise her own money in order to make it through school. Luckily, she was blessed with charisma and she was able to earn a scholarship by winning a couple of beauty pageants. It was her talent with the trumpet that really impressed the judges the most. She even went as far as to come in second place in the Miss Wyoming pageant of 2007.

After she graduated from college, she earned a job broadcasting sports at the local Fox affiliate in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She pushed hard for the station to cover the local sports instead of focusing on the larger teams coming out of nearby Denver, Colorado. She earned their respect and spent most of the broadcast focusing on rodeos, beauty pageants, and high school sports. It was on one of her trips to cover a sporting event in her hometown of Jeffery City when she became aware of the corruption taking place in that town. She learned that Sam Hogston, the mayor, was fiddling around with the finances of the town. She vowed to resolve this problem. She quit her job in Cheyenne and ran for mayor of Jeffery City.

She won the election 635 to 211 by running under the campaign of making sure the children received the funds denied under Mayor Hogston. I didn’t watch the debates for the elections when they originally happened, but as I learned more and more about Dr. Blur I went back and watched them on YouTube. Dr. Blur was able to make Mayor Hogston look like a fool through the debate. He was not an attractive or imposing man to begin with, but when the debate was underway she made the short, fat, bald man look like a fumbling, bumbling idiot. After the election, she lived up to her promise by raising $14 million dollars through grants and donations to create a rodeo fairground for the local high school. She would have been able to finish the fairgrounds in a record amount of time if it wasn’t for the fact that the media, the People’s Network, had dug up some useless dirt about the mishandling of finances.

With all of the good she did for the children of Jeffery City, the President of the United States took notice. She continued to climb the political ladder when she wrote her report and soon afterwards was nominated for the newly appointed position under the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act, the Secretary of Motherhood, which she proudly accepted. She quickly laid out her philosophy of how the department should be run by writing the national bestselling book, Mama Grizzly. I had a signed copy of the book and at one time, it was the greatest treasure that I owned. I used to keep it safe on the bedside table and I had even gone so far as to sit down and read the first three chapters of the book. This is where I learned so much about Dr. Nancy Ann Blur’s life.

I used to believe the awful thing about Dr. Blur I had read in the paper that fateful day just helped prove my point about how some people did not take what she asked them to do seriously. Beverly Robinson, Dr. Blur’s attacker, probably didn’t understand that if she just took the time to live up to the standards presented in the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act, she would see that they are wonderful guidelines to help raise her children. There was no reason to fight the standards, but by accepting them she would become a better mother, the children would live in a secure household, they would grow up to be responsible adults, and the United States of America would thrive as a country.

I, on the other hand, was not afraid to show what a wonderful mother I was. I had always been ready to show the Department of Motherhood my skills every year and my two children shined with every assessment given in my household. The next assessment really excited me. It would be the fourth in a row with excellent marks. I was just waiting for the date to be announced when one of the assessors would come over to my house and observe what a wonderful environment it was to nurture children. This was why my hands started to shake when I saw the letter tucked away in the pile of mail I brought home from the post office. It was from the Department of Motherhood. Before opening it up, I looked around me like a sinner who was about to do something that would send her to hell for all eternity. When I knew I was alone, I focused back on the letter in my hand.

My index finger wiggled its way under the flap and I ripped the envelope open. I slid out the single piece of paper and closed my eyes before I read it. When I found the courage to open them up, I read the following words:

Dear Mrs. Rachael Young,

It is my pleasure to inform you the assessment period is once again upon us. We have diligently gone through our records and they show you have exceeded expectations for the last three years. Because of this, we will be scheduling you early in the process with one of our elite assessors. Please, be ready at the time indicated, as we know you will be. The assessment will be taking place on April 2nd at 10:00 AM and your assessor will be Dr. Nancy Ann Blur.

Thank you and have a nice day,

Department of Motherhood

I stared at the letter and had to look again after reading the name of my assessor this year. I couldn’t believe the Secretary of Motherhood would be coming to my house to be my assessor, but there her name stood out on the sheet of paper in front of me. I could tell that it was even her signature because it was exactly like the signature I had in the copy of Mama Grizzly that sat on my bedside table. She would be in my house and would see what a wonderful job I did raising my children. I was so happy. I believed this was the most amazing honor ever bestowed on me. I looked up at the calendar to see how far away the date was. It was only two weeks, but I knew I would shine because I had been following the standards all year long. I knew my children were ready to prove to the world what a wonderful mother I was. The excitement that rushed over me was so great I wanted to scream, but I knew if I did I would wake Lindsey from her nap, so I held it in.

Instead, the doorbell ringing two seconds later was what woke her up.

Accountability Chapter 1

Education had been on my mind a lot lately, especially when I think about the way it is heading in the United States. It reminds me of my first novel that I wrote that was never published. I finished writing it four years ago, but it seems more timely now. I have since become a better writer, and there are flaws in this piece that I have not gotten around to fixing due to the fact that I am finishing up my next novel, the first part in a horror serial, and am in the process of writing my next, a satirical look at the educational system of Korea as it compare to that of America. In the meantime, I thought I would release my first novel as a serial over my blog with a new chapter coming out each week. Please excuse the typos and silly mistakes, but enjoy the story while thinking about the current state of education in America. I hope you enjoy Accountability.

 

PART 1

ASSESSMENT

1

Did I dream of this?

When I was young, is this what I hoped for?

Did I dream of ending up in this dead end job or did I have greater ambitions?

Can I mark the exact moment that my dreams got taken away from me and I was sent down the path to this pitiful end?

Now I can. I know looking back I can pinpoint the exact moment my life changed. As a teenage girl just graduating from high school and embarking on a new life I looked at the moment differently than I do now. But of course, I was distracted at the time. The most handsome man in the world, Robert Young, had just proposed to me, and even though my parents didn’t approve of our match, I didn’t care because I was eighteen and I was in love. So what if we had only been dating for two months? When it is true love, you know in a matter of seconds and no length of time will tell you differently. And I looked at him and I saw he could give me everything my heart desired: a beautiful home, a loving husband, and a prospect for children on the way. So what if he was ten years older than me? Love could conquer that age difference.

But this wasn’t the moment that changed my life. It happened later in the summer during the wedding planning and the moving into his house. I saw it unfold on the national news. I used to love watching the People’s Network for news. Robert would get angry at me if he caught me watching, but he wasn’t around the day the news broke. I was picking out the music for our wedding and I wasn’t really paying attention anyway. I had the TV on more for background noise, not planning to be influenced by the propaganda Robert believed it portrayed. But there she stood on that big screen television, the woman who would eventually change my life, Dr. Nancy Ann Blur. She was taking about the report she had just written and filed with the United States government. That was the exact moment my dreams had officially been taken away from me.

It was 2014 when Dr. Nancy Ann Blur came out with her famous report, A Family at Risk. It pointed out that the central core of the family unit was at risk because too many mothers were becoming too busy to take care of their children anymore. They were always working on their careers or making sure they were moving up the social ladder. Their families often took a back seat. It was because of this that children were growing up to be disrespectful of their elders and unfit to become productive members of society. Dr. Blur was debating another woman on the television show who claimed what the good doctor was suggesting was absurd. I got to know that woman really well. When she was debating the good doctor, the People’s Network placed her name under her face so we would all know that she was Mrs. Karen Shatney-Moore. That lady was the CEO of the greatest company of that time, Homewide Inc.  Every mother in the world had at one time used a product created by Homewide Inc. Most of the mothers could even tell you which products they used were created by Homewide Inc. The company made quality products that were able to make life easier for mothers no matter what stage of development their children were in. They made nursing blankets and breast pumps for the time when the children were still babies. For the children in the pre-school age, they created fun games that taught the children about their colors and counting, all the while engaging enough not to bore the mothers silly while they played the games. They had a collection of authors they employed that were some of the most skilled authors out there. The writers told stories that were fun to read and easy enough for the children to read, yet were able to connect with every generation. The company also created equipment for outdoor use that was fun for children of all ages. The best part of this equipment was the children enjoyed it so much they would want to get outside to grab what the day had to offer. I remembered growing up with Homewide Inc. products and memories of the times I used them were some of my fondest.

The CEO of this company claimed that the problem was societal. The raising of the next generation should be the concern of everybody and shouldn’t be placed squarely on the shoulders of one group of people. It was an interesting debate, and at the time, I thought Dr. Blur gave the stronger argument with quick one-liners and witty retorts. Her argument stated that something should be done in order for the significant framework of the American culture to not get lost in the wake of these terrible mothers that were infiltrating the families of this great nation. She demanded that mothers be held accountable for the way they were raising their children, and the great men of Congress agreed with her. Within only a short year, they drafted and passed the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act to make sure the youth of America were no longer subjected to this atrocity. It was a bi-partisan bill that only garnered six “No” votes, most notably Congresswoman Shelly Perkins and Senator Sarah Hathaway. The American people took care of those dissenters by not voting for them in the next election. It forced them to go home to become the housewives as the stipulations of the National Caring and Loving Behavior Act said they should have been in the first place.

When time moved on and it came down to people losing their jobs and other people speaking about my future, I started paying more attention. I had felt pride in a nation that was starting to take the profession I would be going into more seriously. I was proud to be one of the trailblazers helping to bring this new piece of legislation into reality. I was still not a mother yet, but as I licked the envelopes of my wedding invitations, I knew Robert and I would be trying to have children soon afterwards. It would be during the birth of my first child, Zachary Noel Young, a year later that I excitedly started to uphold the standards of this now famous bill.

The National Caring and Loving Behavior Act was a simple bill. It established a new department of the national branch of the government, the Department of Motherhood. This department would be headed by the Secretary of Motherhood, and during the birth of my second child, Lindsey Ann Young, they had found the perfect person to take on this prestigious role, the woman who worked long and hard to make this law a reality, Dr. Nancy Ann Blur. She had established a series of standards every mother needed to live up to when raising her children. Each year a representative of the Department of Motherhood would visit the home of every mother in the United States and test the children to see if the mother was living up to the standards laid out by the act. If the mother passed the examination, her name would be posted on the National Accountability Website and the ones who had exceptional scores would be profiled in the newspapers. I had been featured in The Elbert County Gazette for three years in a row before my life took a dramatic turn. The mothers who did not earn proficient marks were taken from their children and sent to re-education centers. These centers supplied the mothers with the proper training so they could be more like the exceptional mothers making this country great. Each center was built by the leading economic force in America, the Capital Limited Corporation. Capital Limited’s goal was to make sure that every American, no matter their age, was given the opportunity to become a productive consumer within our society and these re-education centers would help to achieve this goal. They claimed it was not a perfect system, but they were tweaking it every year to make sure the standards were strong enough to reestablish America as the leader of motherhood it had always been.

I never complained about the act because I believed it was making this country a better place to live. It wasn’t yet living up to the standards laid out but that was not because of mothers like me. It was because of all of the other mothers. They spent all of their time fighting against the wonderful ideals this act could accomplish. I believed if the dissenting mothers would just take responsibility for their jobs in life and quit nick-picking over the little things this act doesn’t do, they might find it was a fair and honest way of raising their children. I thought they would see that everyone benefited because of it. Mothers had better relationships with their children. Children got to know their mothers better and they learned all of the skills they needed in order to make it in this difficult world or become caring mothers themselves.

I still mull over these thoughts. I constantly wonder if there was a moment when I could’ve done something differently or if I was a victim of fate from the exact moment A Family at Risk was presented before a confused nation. It doesn’t matter for me anymore, but if some other mother out there could learn something from my experiences, then my telling this story will be worth it.

The moment I can really pinpoint as the time when I should have realized my fate was decided for me, was a couple of weeks before my second to last assessment. It had started off as many mornings had before that day, in the kitchen.

The kitchen was, and still is, the place where I feel most comfortable. Nobody had ever outdone me in that arena, especially when breakfast had to be served, and people needed to be prepared for their responsibilities for the rest of their day. It was all about the timing to make sure everything was perfect and all I needed to hear to get going was what I considered my starting gun, my husband’s alarm clock. It was the sound I waited for every morning, but until I heard it, I stood in the ready position. My fingers stretched out from my sides making sure they were limber enough to take on the challenge. My mind ran through the list of all the things needing to be done and the order in which they needed to be accomplished. I always made sure my lips were moist. It was a superstition of mine. My legs would tense up as I got ready to spring. My eyes would narrow down upon my opponent, the stove, and I would wait.

On the day my life changed, I stood in the kitchen like a gunfighter at 12:00 noon, ready to do battle with the man in the black hat. The only difference was the gunfighter was dressed in chaps, a dirty shirt and vest, and I was dressed in pajamas with red hearts all over them, a pink bathrobe and fuzzy bunny slippers. The other difference was that the man in black was actually an inanimate object that I had complete control over, the stove.

Robert’s alarm started to screech from upstairs.

I sprung into action.

I leaped to the drawer underneath the stove and pulled it open. I gathered two frying pans and a large, square, flat griddle. I placed the griddle on the back two burners of the stove and the frying pans on the remaining two front burners as I kicked the drawer shut. I turned the right front burner on with my left hand while opening the fridge with my right. I pulled out a new package of bacon, a dozen eggs, a tub of butter, and a gallon of milk and placed them on the counter beside the stove. I grabbed a knife from the magnet on the back wall, sliced open the package of bacon with it, placed it back on the magnet pointy end up, grabbed the plastic from the package and ripped it down to expose the uncooked meat. I peeled the bacon off one at a time to place it on the heating-up frying pan. The first piece of bacon started to sizzle as I put the fifth piece down. I went through the whole package until the pan was full. This was like any other morning, and things were running smoothly. The routine was a machine and I had perfected it.

I listened upstairs to make sure that part of the machine was running smoothly also. I heard the water running in the shower in our bathroom. That meant Robert was at the appropriate place that morning, but I hadn’t heard from the children yet. I grabbed the gallon of orange juice and the maple syrup and plopped them down on the kitchen table before I ran to the edge of the stairs. I looked up to see Lindsey, my four year old daughter, standing on the top of the stairs. She still had her pajamas on. Her index and middle finger of her right hand were being sucked gently in her mouth, and her left hand clutched her pink blankee.

“Lindsey, is Zach up yet?”

She shook her head no.

“Well, go wake up your brother, and tell him I said so.”

Lindsey turned to run off towards her brother’s room as I headed over to the coffee pot. I put the pot under the running faucet as I prepared a new filter with the morning coffee in it. I put the filter into the coffee machine, and then I poured the water in. I turned it on and started to hear the coffee percolate through as I checked on the bacon. The bottom side hadn’t cooked enough yet for me to flip it over, but the sizzling sound told me things were going according to schedule.

I opened the cabinet to the left of the oven and pulled out two large mixing bowls. I cracked four eggs into one of the mixing bowls. I poured in some milk, added just the right amount of sugar and flour from the canisters that were on the countertop, and grabbed a whisk hanging from a small hook underneath the cabinets. As I turned on the two burners underneath the griddle, I threw the whisk in the bowl. I popped open the butter, grabbed a spoon from the silverware drawer, took a healthy scoop out of the tub and threw it on the griddle to let it slowly melt down into a brown liquid glaze. I threw some more butter in the other frying pan, and turned the burner under that one on. I checked on the bacon and saw that it was starting to shrink but noticed it was still not ready to flip over.

With the other mixing bowl, I cracked open six more eggs and poured in just a splash of milk. I grabbed the first mixing bowl and started to whisk quickly in order to create a fluid, even batter.

The shower had just turned off. Two kids stumbled into the room and took their seats at the kitchen table; one of them still had her fingers in her mouth. The bowl got placed on the counter so I could pour the orange juice sitting on the table into two juice glasses. I placed one in front of Lindsey and the other in front of Zach. Lindsey took her hand out of her mouth so she could pick up the glass with two hands and drink it down. Her blankee fell to the ground. Zach just sat there and stared at the glass of orange juice.

I quickly picked up the blankee and draped it over Lindsey’s shoulder.

I remember this happening because she looked up at me and smiled, “Thank you, mommy.” Back then I thought I needed more, but now I see all I needed were those little thank yous in order to validate how great a mother I actually was.

I picked up the mixing bowl and started whisking again, I looked over at Zach and gave him the jumpstart he was looking for, “Zach, honey, drink your orange juice. You need to get ready for school.” It seemed to wake him up from his slumber and he picked up his glass to drink it down.

I made my way over to the griddle where the butter had melted evenly. I poured the now perfect batter onto the griddle making eight perfectly round pancakes. I quickly flipped over the bacon at just the right time and grabbed a new whisk from where it hung on its little hook underneath the cabinets. I started to whisk the eggs in the other mixing bowl until they turned into a perfectly smooth yellow liquid. I looked down at the other frying pan and saw the butter had melted as well. I poured the egg mixture into the frying pan and let it sit for a moment.

The pancakes were cooking nicely, the bacon was cooking nicely, the coffee was almost done, and once again I was right on schedule. I grabbed two coffee mugs and placed them at the two open spots on the kitchen table. I worked my way over to the front door, opened it, walked outside, picked up the paper, waved to Sheila, our neighbor across the street, and walked back inside. I pulled the paper out of its plastic wrapper, pulled out the Sports page, placed it on top, and put it on the table in front of Robert’s spot.

I walked over to the paper towels. I pulled off two and folded them in half. I pulled a plate out of the cabinet, and placed the paper towels on top of it. I flipped over the pancakes, and scraped up the eggs so they made fluffy delicious nuggets. I pulled the bacon out of the frying pan and placed it on the plate with the paper towels on them. The paper towels started to soak up the hot grease as the smell of bacon wafted over the kitchen. I poured the excess grease into an empty coffee can I kept under the kitchen sink and placed the hot pan in the sink.

I grabbed the coffee pot filled with coffee and the bottle of French vanilla creamer from the refrigerator. I poured a little splash of the creamer into both of the coffee mugs. I gave myself a little more because I like things sweet, and poured the hot coffee in after it. As soon as I was finished, Robert came down the stairs. He was in the process of tying his red tie I loved so much. It was a good color on him. He was always more of a spring, and the color gave him a sense of flair to his strong jaw and broad shoulders. He came over to where I was standing by his chair. He gave me a quick kiss on my cheek.

“It smells wonderful. You’ve really outdone yourself again, Rachael.”

“Well, I will have it plated up for you in just a second. Why don’t you sit down, get started on the paper, and have a sip of your coffee.”

“You’re too good to me honey,” he said as he sat down and unfolded the Sports page.

“That’s what love is all about,” I replied as I headed back to the stove and pulled out four plates.

The exchange was part of our routine. We had said the same words to each other every morning for the last two years with only slight variations.

Looking back at that moment, I should have been mad about the exchange, but I was so lost in my morning I hadn’t noticed how insulting it actually was. I placed the food on each plate in a formation. Two pancakes at the two o’clock position, four slices of bacon at the ten o’clock position, and a healthy amount of scrambled eggs at the six o’clock position. I usually gave Zach and Robert a few more eggs than Lindsey and me because I believed, as I still do now, it is important for us ladies to keep our girlish figures. That day was no exception. I brought over the boys’ plates first and they dug in right away. By the time I had turned off the stove, placed the dishes in the sink, put the milk back in the fridge, and brought over Lindsey’s and my plates, the boys were already half done eating.

I sat down, unfolded the napkin and placed it gently in my lap. I remember looking over my perfect family and smiling. That morning Robert looked up from his paper to notice the odd expression on my face. “Is everything alright, honey?” he asked me.

I was shaken from my thoughts about how lucky I was to have such a wonderful family and looked back at him. “Yes, everything is perfect. Just enjoy your breakfast honey, or you’ll be late for work.”

“Oh that reminds me,” he said as he shoveled more eggs into his mouth, “I got a weird notification yesterday at work. It said something about a certified letter they were trying to deliver to me yesterday. The post office actually tried to deliver it to me at work. They were having a hard time finding me even though they shouldn’t have tried to deliver it to me there in the first place. Anyway, I was wondering if you had a little extra time today, maybe you could swing by the post office and see if you could pick it up for me.”

“I would love to. I can do it after I drop Zach off at school.”

Robert finished his meal and quickly got up from his seat. He grabbed his briefcase while he was on his way over to where I was sitting. He kissed me on the other cheek this time and I could smell the coffee on his breath as he did so. “Thank you, honey. I knew there was a reason I married you.” And he was off. Behind was left a dirty plate and a pile of crumpled up newspapers. Zach was also finishing up, and he seemed a bit more awake now that he had some food in his stomach. Lindsey continued to try to shovel more of her breakfast into her mouth, but more than half of it landed on her lap. The responsibilities of the day were coming at me with full force and if I wanted to make sure Zach got to school on time I would have to get started, but I was enjoying the feeling the morning had left with me. It was one of those moments when you are truly happy. I had everything I ever wanted: a beautiful house, a wonderful husband, and two amazing children. I let out a sigh of joy and then got up grabbing the dirty plates as I went.

“Come on, Zach. Why don’t you go get dressed? We’ll need to leave for school in just a couple of seconds.”

Zach got up from his seat and looked over at me, “Okay mommy.” He pushed in his chair and ran up the stairs to get ready for school. Lindsey looked longingly after Zach as he ran up the stairs and then she looked back at me.

“Do you want to get ready too?”

She nodded her head up and down.

“Go ahead and get ready like a big girl.”

She smiled at me. She lay down on the seat of her chair and slithered off on her stomach. When her feet touched the ground, she turned around, grabbed her blanket, and then ran up the stairs to get ready like her older brother. My perfect family had left me, and all I had left to remember from it was the remains of a served breakfast. I grabbed the last dirty plate off the table and took it to the sink. I started to wash the dishes as I thought about how truly blessed I was. A lot of my friends would constantly complain about their families when we met for coffee every Tuesday afternoon. Back then I couldn’t understand why they would complain because I was living in the perfect household thanks to my ability as a mother. The government kept assuring us we were living in the age of the mother and they did everything in their power to make sure the good mothers were recognized for what the government believed was the proper way to raise a child.

Other mothers would always complain about how the government was intruding in their houses. They would also complain about the way the system was set up. They thought it was an unfair system that would eventually ensure that all mothers would fail. This way the government could come in and take over the official duties of motherhood.

Usually when the conversation reached this point, I would start to laugh. Why would the government want to take over the duties of motherhood? What could they possibly gain from watching over the youth of America? Where would they find the money needed to make this a reality? It was so preposterous I had to sit back and laugh.

The other mothers didn’t like my laughter. They believed I hadn’t reached the point with my kids yet where this act would cause the same problems they were having with their children. It was only a matter of time when I would start to feel the same pain they were feeling.

I still dismissed it as a just a bunch of whiny ladies who regretted the mistakes they made with their children and were looking for an easy target to blame. The government is always the first one in cases like theirs.

These thoughts raced through my mind as I washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen from the morning’s meal. Right about the time I finished up, Zach and Lindsey had made their way downstairs. They were in the living room watching television before we had to pack up and go to school. I walked into the living room and saw them happily staring into the wonderful world of The Buddy Bears. It is the cartoon brainchild of the Capital Limited Corporation. They constantly show it on the kid’s channel. It is a family of bears called the Buddys. Each ten minute episode has a family problem resolved by the mother using the standards laid out by the Department of Motherhood. Capital Limited claims they work with the Department of Motherhood to produce this show as a way of teaching kids what they need to know when they grow up.

When I went downstairs, they were in the middle of an episode and I knew it would be foolish for me to turn off the television before the episode was over. I had tried doing this once before when Zach was younger and had just started school. He had become so mad he threw a temper tantrum. My actions were a direct violation of Standard Number Two: a child should never be denied the experiences that life has to offer.

I knew by waiting for the commercials to come on, I would have a better chance of not disturbing the natural happiness of my child’s life and I would be able to get him to school easier as well. He might be a little bit late, but really education wasn’t nearly as important as my child’s happiness. So I sat and waited for the antics of my son’s favorite cartoon to end before I rustled him up from the couch and drove him off to school.

Overcoming Adversity

Think back to that first moment when you first found out you could ride a bike. Your dad had let go of holding up the seat and you had balanced yourself enough so you could just let the wheels guide you to where you wanted to go. The wind whistled through your hair, and you grinned so big because you realized at that moment your whole life changed. You were no longer required to stay home. There was a whole neighborhood for you to explore, and all you had to do was hop on that bike so you could see every nook and cranny of it. For the first time in your life, you truly understood the meaning of the word, freedom.

But this sense of freedom did not come easily. A lot of heartbreak occurred along the way to you learning how to take that chance and become a proficient bike rider. You had to overcome the embarrassment of riding around the neighborhood with training wheels bolted on to your back tire, allowing your already bike-riding friends the opportunity to point and laugh at you. The arguments you had with your dad were equally frustrating as he would yell at you about the need to pedal and you would claim that you were pedaling, but deep down in your heart you knew you had too many other things on your mind to worry about his suggestion. The bruises and scrapes you collected during the process was a constant reminder of every time you failed. But the great thing was you never gave up. You persisted because you knew that the reward would be worth the struggle, and now you can no longer understand what it meant being unable to ride a bike. We forget about the process of what it took to get us where we are with our bike-riding ability today.

We eventually take for granted these important milestones in our life, and more importantly, as we get older, we rarely look for other opportunities that allow us to grow. We grow complacent in our daily routine, and sink into those comfortable moments. I find myself falling into this sinkhole from time to time, and it is when I start to see a danger of my life no longer being relevant. It is part of the reason that I love the fact that the school I work for, Korea International School, has a strong experiential education program.

I have been a big part of this program for the last three years as I have taken an active role in designing the trip that the sophomore class takes to Boramwon camp in the mountains a little southeast from Seoul. It has taken a couple of years to tweak the program to get it exactly where we want it, but it has now reached the level that the students will get a lot out of the experience. It centers around the hero’s journey, and just like that journey, the students are required to take their fears and worries on a series of trials and challenges that will allow them to overcome those things they struggle with. They have to take on low ropes, and high ropes challenges, biking, archery, rafting, hiking, and many other little adventures designed specifically to take them out of their comfort level.

It is a transformative experience. These kids come into the trip timid and shy, not knowing what to expect. But after each little challenge, they gain a little more confidence in themselves, and gain the willingness to try new, and scary things. In a world that is constantly changing, where we do not know what tomorrow will look like or what challenges will be presented to the human race, this kind of mentality is a really important to instill in students. Plus they have a great time in the process.

The challenge of experiential education is not only something for the students. Each trip challenges me as well. There is a certain amount of risk that is involved when you take inexperienced students out into the wilderness to test their wills and their athleticism. You can get the students lost on a mountain, or they may slip off of that bike and hurt themselves, but each of those setbacks are more important for the development of these kids than if they were able to breeze through each of the challenges. If they get lost on the mountain, they have to come together and think about the best course of action to get themselves safely down. As long as they keep their calm and think things through logically, they will be able to make it back to safety. When they come back to school and look at the next essay they have to write for their English classroom, it won’t look so daunting because they have already overcome something worse than that.

And if you think back to those days when you were first learning how to ride a bike, when you fell off, you quickly got back on. If you did not, then you would never have learned how to ride that bike, and enjoy the freedom that was gained from going through those troubled times learning how to ride. The reward was worth the pain that they suffered along the way.

When you learn how to ride that bike, or climb to the top of that mountain, you gain the greatest thing you can ever get in this lifetime, a story to tell, a memory to cherish, an accomplishment that no one can ever take away. These are the things that can never be learned in a classroom. They can only be obtained through the trial that was experienced. This is the importance of an experiential education program, and it is the reason that I can always be happy to be a part of this moment with my students, every year.

Seeing Home for the First Time

There is something strange that happens to the place you grew up in when you return to it after you have been away from it for awhile. You start to see it for the first time. You start to understand why the place you grew up in helped to define the person you have become today.

For example, I grew up with mountains always staring down on me from the west. They were such a part of who I was that I started to not notice them. Relatives of mine who grew up in the Midwest would come out to visit and would be amazed at their beauty and majesty. We would wind our way through the peaks, and they would stare out the windows with their mouths hanging open hoping to take it all in.

I would look up out of my window and say, “Yep, that’s a mountain.” They were something that was always there, and I did not need to think about it beyond that. Whenever I wanted to see them I would look west, and whenever I wanted to find west I would look for them. That was how I defined my life on the Front Range, and couldn’t understand why people would be so amazed by the thing that I took for granted.

It wasn’t until later in life when I voyaged to the ocean for the first time that I started to understand what people experienced when they visited the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Here was the complete opposite of the landscape that I had grown up with. Here was this body of water that stretched out as far as the eye could see and was constantly undulating and changing. It wasn’t the steady rock that always hung to the west for me. Instead, it possessed a personality that could change from day to day. One day, it could offer a pleasant respite in the sun.

The next day, the clouds could come in and encase the coast with a dark blanket, giving rise to the waves crashing against the shore. People run to the safety of their warm homes and watch the weather from behind windows designed to frame the beach. The sense of solitude it offers is completely different than anything I felt while driving through the mountains, but I finally understood what others felt while they looked at those peaks jutting from the ground.

But then I moved out of the country for a couple of years, and I started to miss those things I had always taken for granted and those things that I never knew how much I loved. The mountains were the first things I longed for. I could no longer figure out which direction I was pointing, and because of that I always felt lost even though I knew where I was. But it felt as if a part of me was ripped away and I wished desperately to have them back.

When I got back to the states, the beauty and majesty of the peaks just stunned me as if it was the first time I ever saw them. I could start to appreciate them for the way they were meant to be enjoyed. I could feel that isolation that other felt as they were absorbed by the power of these giants. One of the days while I was out in Colorado, I got to enjoy the sunrise from above timberline as it inspired me and melted away the morning chill.

I was also able to complete a goal that I always wanted to achieve but never have been able to because of various reasons. In a span of one day, I summited not just one, but two of Colorado’s 14ers.

Thousands of people flock to these specific mountains every year as they visit the state. They have become one of Colorado’s biggest tourist attractions. Depending on who you talk to, there are 53 or 55 of these peaks that rise 14,000 feet over sea level. The distinction comes from how a person defines what constitutes a peak depending on how much of a rise in elevation occurs between one peak and the next.

Greys Peak and Torreys Peak are two of the more popular ones. There is a clear trail that runs up to the top of both of these mountains, and if you plan for a whole day of hiking you can make it to the summit of both mountains without much trouble because they are close enough to each other. The nice thing about them is there are couple more difficult routes that give the more experienced hikers a challenge if that is what they are looking for, and it is a long enough trail to give the less experienced hikers the challenge they are looking for.

My major concern with the mountains was the altitude. Even though I am a very active individual, I was coming from sea level and once you get above timberline, the altitude can become a serious problem. I remember starting the hike at 9,000 feet above sea level and thinking this would be easy as I talked to my companions on the hill. But my attitude suddenly changed as I was gasping for any air that I could stuff into my lungs and still not getting enough. I was worried that I would fail in my attempt of summiting another 14er.

Altitude sickness can be a very dangerous thing. Basically you are not getting enough oxygen for your body to function properly. First, you will start to feel a little dizzy. Then you will start to get a headache. The worst thing that could happen if you don’t treat your altitude sickness is that you could become so disoriented that you could get lost in the wilderness of Colorado. There is only one thing that you can do when you start to feel this way, head back down the hill, missing your chance of reaching the summit. Of course, you are still alive and well, so I guess that is worth the exchange of not achieving your goal. I was able to get my breathing under control so I could finally do this for the first time in my life.

Luckily, the feeling of dizziness never returned, but that did not mean that dangers disappeared. Many different things can go wrong on a mountain. It is part of the reason I have never been able to complete a 14er even though I grew up with them in my backyard. I have had to cut my expeditions short because of weather numerous times. When you get that high, storms can blow in quickly. If it is a blizzard you find yourself in, you lose visibility as biting snow blow into your face, making the path a slippery slide that could send you plummeting off the peak at any moment.  These storms don’t hold the same danger as a thunderstorm. When you get above timberline, there is no place for you to go find cover if lightning starts to strike, and you are the only thing it is most attracted to because you are the highest point around for miles. There have been many times I have made a fast scramble down a mountain as one of these storms started to blow in. Throw in scree fields with bowling ball sizes boulders willing to slip out for under your feet or come crashing down on you from above, and the random behavior of animals from mountain goats to the occasional bear, and you have the trappings for a spectacular adventure.

The mountains offered me many adventures during my voyage home. Even though the Greys and Torreys hike was the pinnacle of the hikes I took, there were various others I went on that were not as grueling, yet still fun. Growing up on the Front Range gave me thousands of opportunities to look down on the sprawling city. I never took advantage of it very often, and I regret that. But going back I was able to go on a few of these closer and shorter treks.

I had the pleasure of enjoying them with another aspect from home I missed a lot, a canine companion. I have written on a couple of occasions how my voyages overseas started with the passing of my dog, Bear, and even though I will never regret the experience I have had the last couple of years, the one thing I really miss is having that happy friend come to greet me every time I come walking through my front door. I miss the silly things a dog will do in order to get your attention. I miss that unconditional love that can only come from being a dog owner. While I was in the Denver metropolitan area, I had the pleasure of house sitting, and it came with the care of my brother’s malamute, Sakari.

Your perspective on life changes in the presence of a dog. All of a sudden there is another being that needs me in order to survive. And there is a companion there who gets really excited to even go on a simple walk around the neighborhood, getting even more excited when they know that they are going on a longer hike. It made being home that much more enjoyable knowing I was going to get to spend time with this happy individual.

Of course, it was a pleasure to spend time with my family as well. It is the main reason I go home every year. I enjoy watching how much my nieces and nephews have grown over the year. When I was living in the same town as them, I did not notice the change as much. It comes in subtle surges when I got to see them every other month. But when I do not get to hang out with them but once a year, they grow not only in height but in maturity as well. I can start have conversations with a couple of the older ones that are intelligent and go beyond them just agreeing with me. They formulate their own opinions, supporting them with things they have read or viewed on television. It is refreshing to see them grow into young adults.

Of course I get to reconnect with my parents and my siblings as well. It is always a pleasure to see them, but it is a greater experience to enjoy their company on a summer evening as the day cools down and the memories heat up. At this time in my life, these moments are not only about catching up with the experiences throughout the year, but also reminiscing about the moments we have shared in the past. I get to relive a whole lifetime whenever we gather together for an evening.

Of course, it is also about creating new memories as well. This is the best part of going back home. I went to many of the touristy places in Denver that I might make it to if I was living there, but since I was only in town for a short period of time, I made sure that I made it to some of my more favorite ones.

Coors Field in downtown Denver was definitely one of the places that I really wanted to go back to. I have attended a couple of baseball games in Korea and they are fun, but it is nothing like going to a MLB game. The level of play is crisper and more intense when I get to see one of these games. It was an added bonus to be able to see the game as well during one of the Rockies’ better runs for a pennant. The night I went, they had just come off of two games where they came back in the ninth inning from a Nolan Arenado hit late in the ninth inning. The Rockies had the best record in MLB. Expectations were very high that they would be able to continue on this streak. Of course, the night I went, they lost 16-7, and started a losing slide that had them go to the fifth place in the National League. I know there are going to be a lot of Rockies’ fans that will believe that it is my fault for the slide, but I was only there to enjoy time with my family and hopefully see a win. I didn’t get to see a win, but I did get to enjoy time with my family.

And the beer was pretty good too.

This is another thing that I really appreciate when I come back to the states. Certain types of food and beverages cannot be found in Korea. In fact, Seoul is just starting to experience their first ever craft beer revolution. Little pockets are springing up all over Seoul where you can find good beer, but it is nothing like Denver. There are craft beer locations all over the place and many of them make some excellent beers. It is getting to the point where they have to do crazy things in order to compete for the business of the average beer drinker.

One of these places is Dry Dock Brewery. They are a big hit in Colorado, and they have been expanding to other places in the country, so if you live in the U.S.A. and have not tried their beer yet, give it some time and you will soon be able to see it in your liquor stores. It started off as a homebrew kit place where they would experiment with their own beers. Their patrons enjoyed the beer so much that they expanded their operations and soon had a tasting room in Aurora that you could go and enjoy their beer. Recently, they expanded even more to include a place where they could mass produce their beer and can it to send it out to various places in the nation. The new place has a tasting room, but it also expanded beyond the borders of its building to include a nine hole Frisbee golf course behind its building. It is awesome. You grab a beer, play nine holes, and go back in for another beer. I enjoyed the course twice while I was out there.

The only problem with the course was the snakes that slithered around it. You had to be careful while you went out to hunt for your disc because you could have been bitten by one of them. While I was playing, we did come across a big bull snake, and we did the typical thing that all Coloradoans do when they come across a bull snake; we captured it.

And then we took it to scare other people who were playing the course. It was just a flavor of Colorado that I missed while I was living across the ocean, but was happy I got to enjoy it while I was back home.  It was fun to revisit old haunts like the Denver Zoo.

The difference this time around, I got to look at all of the sights through the eyes of a visitor and not as a resident.

It meant that every time I looked around I saw something that I usually would not see even though it was always there to begin with.

All of a sudden, the trees took on a new shape, and a new meaning.

The columbine flower was now worthy of my time to stop and enjoy. Colorado came to life for me in a way it had not for many years. It was as if I became like one of my relatives from the plain states of the U.S.A. driving through the mountains for the first time and being awestruck by its beauty.

But there was a time where I had to say goodbye to the Rocky Mountains and make my way further west. I still stopped at the ocean to stop and enjoy some time in the state of Oregon. When I eventually made it back to Korea and told my friends what I did over the summer, they all explained to me how jealous they were that everywhere I got to go was considered the more beautiful parts of the nation. I am lucky that I do get to spend a considerable amount of time in these parts of the world, and I have always been fascinated by Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in general.

The problem comes with the fact that I have been there so many times that the true beauty of the place starts to get hidden among all of the trees the state boasts of. And if you have never been to Oregon before, there are a lot of trees there.

But once you emerge from that forest, there is a lot to see. And it seems to get better every time I go. I have caught an Oregon sunset over the ocean a couple of times and it is a very rare event because the coast is usually covered in a thick haze from the clouds that roll in. To get a cloudless night is a rare treat, and you should take advantage of it if you are given the opportunity because the sunsets are spectacular.

I also got to spend more time on the beach then I normally would. We stayed two nights in the same location in a house right on the beach which added to the experience of going out there. Pretty much every other time I went out to enjoy the Oregon coast, I took a day’s drive from Portland and made it back before midnight on the same day. Because of this, I rushed through the time I had there hoping I could suck the most out of it. This time I was able to relax in the morning while enjoying the crashing waves, and go out in the afternoon to take part in many of the activities that the coast has to offer.

One day, my wife and I went down to Cannon Beach to take advantage of the breeze constantly blowing by buying a kite. There are many kite shops in town because this is something many people do while visiting this iconic spot. The water is not something people experience as much because it is colder than you would find in warmer climates. So people go down to the beach to enjoy the salt air and warm sand. The place where we bought our kite was on the edge of town run by a man who was clearly enjoying the new laws about marijuana. He had a Grateful Dead concert jamming in the background and was happy to show all of the kids that came into his shop how to assemble their kites and fly them. They usually bought the beginner kites, but my wife is an expert kite flyer and she went with the trick kite instead. It was the perfect purchase for the place because it allowed us to have many hours of enjoyment not only on Cannon Beach but also the beach that our house overlooked.

The next day, we went out to Manzanita, the next town further south from Cannon Beach. It is not as big of a tourist destination that the other place is, but some of the things that draw people to come down here are the salmon fishing and the kayaking on the Nehalem River. There are many places along the river where you can find a guide or rent a boat. If you time it perfectly, like we did, you can travel up the river during high tide and turn around when the tide switches so you can easily float on back down the river. It is also a great place to watch the wildlife. Many herons fly up and down the river in search of the salmon swimming upstream to their breeding ground, and we were followed by a bay seal that liked to pop its head out of the water far enough away where we could see him but not take a really good picture of him.

The beaches of Oregon offer many sights to see. When the tide goes out, you can observe tiny microcosms of sea life in the tide pools. I feel educated every time I stare at one of these natural aquariums from the ocean. I know the elementary schools of Portland bring their students to the beach at least once a year to give them this education, but considering I grew up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, it is a fascinating sight for me.

In fact, when I see sea life, I get really excited. Oregonians will look at a tub full of crab and think about how tasty they would be with a little bit of butter. I look at a tub full of crabs and wonder what it would be like to live that way. How did this creation ever evolve into the beings that they are now? Why do they need to walk sideways? But that is just because they are not something that I grew up with allowing me to take them for granted. I grew up seeing them in plastic containers after they had been processed and no longer looked like the creature they used to be.

It is this way for everything that exists in the town that you grew up in. You never really see it until you move away. But as soon as you come back from that long time away things start to emerge in a new light.

You can start to see the weirdness of the city because it is no longer the everyday you’ve become accustomed to.

It might be overwhelming at first, and the slightest changes might throw you off. It might disturb you that the band that was always promoted on your favorite music store is no longer painted on the wall. The company needed to make changes in order to keep up with the times, and you wish it was still the nineties. But change needs to happen, and the best way to embrace it is to enjoy it as if you are looking upon it for the first time.

And don’t worry because there are some things that never change. It is the combination of the old with the new that make the places you visit and the places you return to the great dynamic expression of humanity. Try to look on as if you have never seen it before, and the world will always remain magical.

This post brought to you by Tag: A Cautionary Tale, available at https://www.amazon.com/Tag-Cautionary-Tale-John-Collings/dp/1533623902/

Cabbie Logic

I must be growing up because I went on my first ever business trip. Through my years in education, I have been out many times with my students on Experiential Education trips, but I never really considered them business trips. Those kinds of trips require me to get all dressed up to meet colleagues so we discuss the matters important to our profession. I didn’t have to put on a tie and present myself in a professional manner on the EE trips, nor did I have to network with people and do the all important dinners afterwards. My most recent trip was my first time to have this kind of experience and I was lucky enough to have Singapore be my first stop in the land of adults.

I attended the reThinking Literacy conference held on the UCW Southeast Asia campus. It was a refreshing look at the way people view different forms of media and how it is being used to influence the masses. During this day and age, it was a particularly relevant topic especially when the keynote speakers discussed the ways producers of media have gotten selective with their audiences in order to deliver the messages they know their consumers want to hear. Of course, we have heard this message before and we believe that we are not a person that can be so easily influenced by this type of propaganda. We are more intelligent than that. And if that is true, then let me ask when the last time you spent some time watching or reading the media that you disagree with? If you can’t think of a time when you did, then the information you consume might be influencing your thinking and you might not even know that it is doing this.

Don’t worry you are not alone. I used to believe that I was above the influence of the news I watched and read. I believed that I could make up my own mind, and I was not being told what to think all the time. I believed that I could watch it with a critical eye. It was my choice to believe the same kind of things that they were telling me to believe. That was until I learned a little from the cabbies in Singapore.

Yes, there is a certain kind of wisdom that can be found from a conversation from the people that drive other people around town. They really know the place where they live better than anybody else. They are in touch with the pulse of what makes the place tick, and they are not afraid to tell you what they think. I got into a conversation about various world leaders with a cabbie on my third day in town. We started off by discussing one of the most recently elected to office presidents, Moon Jae-In, and how he impressed the cabbie by the way he was willing to come to the table to talk with Kim Jong-un.

The driver also told me about his opinion of other presidents, and prime ministers. This list of the ones he admired included Lee Hsien Loong and Donald Trump. This surprised me a little bit because I have not run into many people on my extensive travels through southeast Asia that admire the current president of the United States. In fact, most jokes I hear from people from various nations include the punch of Donald Trump. In the past, I would have made an instant judgment because this person did not agree with my way of looking at the world, but this time I held my tongue and listened to what he had to say.

I learned a lot by just listening.

The cabbie liked both of these men because of their abilities to grow the economy. They were also able to keep the people of their nations safe from the terrorists coming from the Muslim communities. It was really hard for me to not correct this individual that terrorism do not only come from Muslims, and not all Muslims are terrorists, but I was getting an education at this time, and it was important that I listened. The language barrier between us caused poor communication, and he was never going to listen to the opinion of a foreigner; whereas, by listening to his beliefs, I was able to see what issues were important to him.

I might not have agreed with his perspective and the handling of these issues has been done well by the current President of the United States, but I couldn’t deny that this was an issue that kept this cabbie up at night. Maybe if other politicians listened to this base instead of ignoring it, then maybe they could come up with a solution that would be something I would be more comfortable with and would avoid the racist, single-minded attitude spreading all over the world.

It was really interesting to hear that these same concerns were also taking place in this small city/state. It is one of the economic powerhouses in the world, and because of the British colonialism this community is a collection of a variety of people from all over the world. Where were these ideas coming from? It probably had something to do with the media being pushed out to the community, and if I spent some more time watching it I might have gained a new perspective on their thinking. But I only had cabbies to talk to instead.

The next cabbie took the crew I was with down to Arab Street. This is one of the bigger tourist spots in Singapore. It has a lot of great shops and a variety of restaurants that reminded me of a cleaner version of the Sojo district in Hong Kong. The journey to get there was just as eye opening as the one I had taken earlier in the evening. This time the revelation came from a conversation I was having that excluded the cabbie.

I was talking about past relationships with a colleague of mine, and he had mentioned something about his ex-husband. The cabbie had picked up on this. As I sat in the front seat, I had the prefect view to watch his eyes grow really big.

“Ex-Husband?” he questioned.

Once again this reaffirmation that Singapore was not the most progressive thinking country presented itself. The difference between this type of discrimination and the other was we couldn’t ignore it this time around. At first, my friend tried to correct himself by stating that he meant to say ex-wife, but this line correction was not really working. He finally just admitted who he was and answered any questions that the cabbie had about him and his life. On the other hand, we asked about the laws in Singapore and the attitude of people towards gay rights. It was an educational experience for all involved, and I do think that a new respect for both sides was reached during that cab ride, but the only way for that to happen was by first engaging in conversation.

I don’t know if it was the type of education that the reThinking Literacy conference was speaking about, but an important nugget was still there. My education on this trip was about digging through the onslaught of what we receive daily to digest and how we discover the truth of the matter through all of that noise. It really begs the question if we should be consuming all of that media in the first place. Instead, should we take the time every once and awhile to sit down with that stranger who sit across from us at the bar and have a conversation with them? What will we learn from those conversations? What will they learn? How will the world grow from having a healthy discussion? Is this what we are missing in our societies today?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Maybe, you could tell me.

This post brought to you by Tag: A Cautionary Tale by John Collings available at Amazon.com. Now on sale in the Kindle store for only $3.29.