Monday, Monday—can’t trust that day….not now that Jack Bauer isn’t here to make my day. I’ve looked forward to Monday nights for eight television seasons of “24”—truth be told my husband and I were strong-armed into watching it by our daughter. We subsequently crunched the videos from seasons one through five into a manic marathon one Montana winter while renting a small townhouse during the construction of our retirement home. Necessarily we cut ourselves off by 10:00PM; otherwise we were too keyed up to sleep.
In the span of a 24-hour real time day (which lasted an entire season) no character nibbled a granola bar, sipped from a water bottle, or visited a rest room (except to escape through its window). No one slept, laughed, or smiled. Why need we be concerned about losing a little sleep?
It didn’t matter that what our hero accomplished was virtually unachievable; it was that fine borderline between implausible and just a wee bit workable that had us clinging to the edge at every episode’s end. As fictional as any mystery thriller, when you’ve lived as long as we have, you know this: stranger things have happened. Would President Palmer (who now sells Allstate Car Insurance) prevail? And how could he allow that nightmarish first lady back into his oval office? Of course, no one, not even Richard Nixon and his sagging jowls could top President Logan whose eyeballs crossed and bulged every time his lizard-like neck elongated in evil. You half expected his tongue to flick.
Chloe, the inimitable assistant at our government’s Counter Terrorist Unit verbalized what all of us have fantasized we could voice to co-workers and superiors but never had the nerve to. She, above all others, was every woman’s heroine. After guffawing throughout the final episode—“That would never happen” and “They would have so checked her cell phone for that sim card”—Brad and I collapsed into a crying jag at the final scene. “What was that?” we asked each other, incredulous over our sudden surprising emotion. Perhaps because Jack and Chloe, both of whom have trouble emoting finally let it all hang out, so did we. Well, Brad didn’t actually cry as hard as I did—there’s a little of Jack in any male.
“I didn’t even cry!” my daughter’s telephone voice was laced with annoyance. “I was so dissatisfied with that ending!” She was one of no doubt many who wanted to see their boy Bauer reunited with his family or falling in love with someone who for once didn’t die while on duty. At the very least, he deserved a ticker tape parade for being, as always, right. About everything, despite the advice of the President’s entire staff.
But no, I explained to her. Jack had to leave unheralded and unsung. He must exit stripped of identity, community, and country—an exiled animal, bleeding. Sob.
Terrorism will never feel the same. The lights have been extinguished at CTU; the uplinks of every street and every room of every American city building are no longer being zapped to Bauer’s cell. As Chloe ordered to her staff, unable to look at Jack’s tortured visage one moment longer as he gazed up into the eyes of the satellite at her in gratitude and undying comradeship, “Shut down.”
Jack readily rescued without a spider suit or a batman cape; a slight figure whose voice rasped into nearly indistinguishable words, he was no Incredible Hulk. He was everyman who could do what no man can—not even close. So here we sit on Monday night, remote control in hand, searching for another deliverer from entertainment ennui.
Oh Monday, Monday—Jack, how could you leave and not take me?
Friday, June 4, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Steer clear of my Sjambok
Back in the 1970’s when it first became a popular form of protection and I worked in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, I pocketed a small measure of mace. I casually closed my hand around the canister buried in the bowels of my purse every evening after dark when I walked to my parked car in an open lot across the street from my office.
Self-defense had never been my thing. Growing up in what was during my childhood the sheltered suburb of Pasadena, I’d never felt threatened. As a little girl, my mother had exerted her permanent vice grip around my wrist whenever we ventured out and about, and so I carried the comfort of denial rather than any sort of weapon with which to defend myself. I enrolled in no karate classes, as did many of my companions. I’d read in a fashion magazine that if you feared rape at the hands of a perpetrator, just empty your bowels or your bladder—that would dissuade the evildoer. No problem; under such circumstances, I was certain to do both.
The mace was all but mandated by my employer after several unsolved crimes had occurred when women were crossing the street. So I took the course on how to use it and fortunately for both my victim and me, I never required it; the canister expired and I discarded it along with a dusty package of spearmint gum. The only occasions for its implementation had come when I whipped it out of my bag and tried to spray it as breath freshener in the darkness of a cocktail bar. Thank goodness for the small favor of a safety latch.
Now, decades later I’ve retired to the wild of Western Montana to discover that bearing a barrier to beasts is the issue. When your hood is woods, your criminal will likely be a black bear or an angry elk, and so bear spray, along with the holster to carry it in, lines the counter display at local sporting goods stores. My husband purchased one for each of our cars and another to tote while walking the dogs. Again, the safety latch is my favorite part.
“You have to have it in your hand and be ready to shoot,” friends advise. “If you’re trying to reach for it when a bear attacks, you’ll be out of luck.”
The synergy of serenity and a sylvan stroll was sabotaged while I concentrated on perfectly positioning the pepper pistol. As with most resolves, I vigilantly carried and aimed during a few strolls and then neglected to bring it with me. As with most pre-planning for fire, flood, or invasion, I soon forgot where I put it. Did it have an expiration date? Oh well; I’d subscribe to the adage that bears run from dogs. Gus would be my safeguard.
But my husband wasn’t comfortable with such cavalier indifference.
“You need something,” he admonished. I was touched by such unabashed show of chivalry. Pray, perchance did my hero care to accompany me and carry that “something?”
“This is better,” he affirmed, although (apologies to hard-core feminists) there is nothing quite so reassuring as the companionship of a 6’2” male with broad shoulders wearing a holster and pocketing a hunting license. “And you can manage it easily; It’s a Sjambok,” he proudly announced, pulled it out of the box, and performed.
“The what?” I asked while primed for yet another burdensome security scheme and stunned by his deft wield of this new weapon.
As innocuous as a walking stick or a riding crop, pronounced Sham-bawk, it is actually a replica of an African armament once carved from Hippopotamus hide and has the reputation for successfully dealing with deadly snakes. The one I now hold in my grip is a synthetic version, since Hippo hide is scarce. The handle is comfortable and it is lightweight enough for me to carry on a five-mile walk without wishing I could toss it into the bushes and abandon it. I can’t break it, crack it, and, best of all I don’t need to be Zorro to use it—“No skill required,” its advertising slogan boasts. At $14.99 it’s affordable; an attractive accessory in basic black.
This is just the thing to ward off attack to either me or to my dog. One crack of my whip and some ferocious Fido charging us off leash will think twice before its final approach. Bears will cower; yesterday even birds fled a nearby tree when I practiced it’s potential against nothing but thin air.
Now that I possess the perfect protector, chances are I will never have to use it—at least not for its intended purpose. This morning I wasted a wicked spider web.
Self-defense had never been my thing. Growing up in what was during my childhood the sheltered suburb of Pasadena, I’d never felt threatened. As a little girl, my mother had exerted her permanent vice grip around my wrist whenever we ventured out and about, and so I carried the comfort of denial rather than any sort of weapon with which to defend myself. I enrolled in no karate classes, as did many of my companions. I’d read in a fashion magazine that if you feared rape at the hands of a perpetrator, just empty your bowels or your bladder—that would dissuade the evildoer. No problem; under such circumstances, I was certain to do both.
The mace was all but mandated by my employer after several unsolved crimes had occurred when women were crossing the street. So I took the course on how to use it and fortunately for both my victim and me, I never required it; the canister expired and I discarded it along with a dusty package of spearmint gum. The only occasions for its implementation had come when I whipped it out of my bag and tried to spray it as breath freshener in the darkness of a cocktail bar. Thank goodness for the small favor of a safety latch.
Now, decades later I’ve retired to the wild of Western Montana to discover that bearing a barrier to beasts is the issue. When your hood is woods, your criminal will likely be a black bear or an angry elk, and so bear spray, along with the holster to carry it in, lines the counter display at local sporting goods stores. My husband purchased one for each of our cars and another to tote while walking the dogs. Again, the safety latch is my favorite part.
“You have to have it in your hand and be ready to shoot,” friends advise. “If you’re trying to reach for it when a bear attacks, you’ll be out of luck.”
The synergy of serenity and a sylvan stroll was sabotaged while I concentrated on perfectly positioning the pepper pistol. As with most resolves, I vigilantly carried and aimed during a few strolls and then neglected to bring it with me. As with most pre-planning for fire, flood, or invasion, I soon forgot where I put it. Did it have an expiration date? Oh well; I’d subscribe to the adage that bears run from dogs. Gus would be my safeguard.
But my husband wasn’t comfortable with such cavalier indifference.
“You need something,” he admonished. I was touched by such unabashed show of chivalry. Pray, perchance did my hero care to accompany me and carry that “something?”
“This is better,” he affirmed, although (apologies to hard-core feminists) there is nothing quite so reassuring as the companionship of a 6’2” male with broad shoulders wearing a holster and pocketing a hunting license. “And you can manage it easily; It’s a Sjambok,” he proudly announced, pulled it out of the box, and performed.
“The what?” I asked while primed for yet another burdensome security scheme and stunned by his deft wield of this new weapon.
As innocuous as a walking stick or a riding crop, pronounced Sham-bawk, it is actually a replica of an African armament once carved from Hippopotamus hide and has the reputation for successfully dealing with deadly snakes. The one I now hold in my grip is a synthetic version, since Hippo hide is scarce. The handle is comfortable and it is lightweight enough for me to carry on a five-mile walk without wishing I could toss it into the bushes and abandon it. I can’t break it, crack it, and, best of all I don’t need to be Zorro to use it—“No skill required,” its advertising slogan boasts. At $14.99 it’s affordable; an attractive accessory in basic black.
This is just the thing to ward off attack to either me or to my dog. One crack of my whip and some ferocious Fido charging us off leash will think twice before its final approach. Bears will cower; yesterday even birds fled a nearby tree when I practiced it’s potential against nothing but thin air.
Now that I possess the perfect protector, chances are I will never have to use it—at least not for its intended purpose. This morning I wasted a wicked spider web.
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