RUNNING ON EMPTY: A Christmas Tale (revisted 2018)

I’m not one to believe in signs or omens or whatever someone might call them, but I should have known. Yes, I should have known and I should have taken action. I could have locked myself in my house—Christmas be damned (yes, that’s probably heresy)—and spent the day alone with my dog. I could have faked an illness. I could have gotten myself arrested. Anything. ANYTHING would have been better than living with the humiliation that will now follow me for the rest of my life.

The night before Christmas, the signs began to arrive. I missed those signs, because they really only visible in hindsight. Like Medusa’s face, you can only look at them in reflection.

My little brother had an accident which sent all of us to the Emergency Room. I use the world little because he is younger than me. By all rights, when someone is six feet four inches tall and two hundred fifty founds, the world “little” should never be used as a description. That’s the probably sometimes with being a writer. Accuracy is all based on perception. This is mine. My brother is my little brother, he’ll always be my little brother—the one who hasn’t had my life experience, who doesn’t quite know, who sometimes needs protection and who sometimes needs a kick in the ass. This ER visit was probably one of the latter times.

His accident was quite a horrible thing, a trauma which I’m sure he still relives in his mind to this day. Did he have a car accident? A nasty fall from heights? A slip on the ice? No. No, nothing like that. Nothing that normal would do for my family. On Christmas Eve, 1995, my little brother got one of his not-so-dainty, linebacker sized hands—the right hand to be specific—stuck in a Pringle’s can.

If it were his left hand, I suppose we wouldn’t have ended up in the emergency room. But, my brother is right-handed and he wasn’t doing so well in college even with the ability to take notes and tap a keg. In times of stress, I am often the one to whom everyone looks for support and solutions. I suggested we saw the can off.

My father and my brother both thought this was a good idea. This isn’t because they are stupid so much as it is because all men seem afflicted with the innate urge to use any excuse to break into a tool box and do “manly things” or solve problems without the assistance of professions. My father was halfway to the garage when my mother put the breaks on the plan which would have made this story considerably shorter.

My mother, with her proper European manners, unjustly fell in love with an American heathen. She came to this country and birthed two barbarian children. She announced that she didn’t think my idea was such a good one. She may have come to this conclusion because I was laughing. She’s deeply suspicious of my laughing—it’s a European mother thing, I think.

I then suggested—because I tend to get carried away when people start taking my advice—that we use the chainsaw. Because, hell, the chainsaw gets used only once a year anyway. It’s sole purpose in a house of bankers is to cut the bottom off of the live Christmas tree. But now, it could be used to rescue my brother from his dilemma. It was perfect!

The problem was then discussed. We had a moment of holiday togetherness and family unity which still brings a tear to my eye as I remember it. We didn’t argue because no one paid any more attention to my increasingly dramatic solutions. We all—well, they—decided that, since a Pringle’s can isn’t transparent and we couldn’t quite be sure where Tony’s fingers were, sawing might be difficult.  My brother, still salivating over the idea of a trip to the tool box, tried one last time. “I can tell you where my fingers are,” he offered. “I can feel the top chip. I can almost get it.”

“Are you sweating on them?” I asked him. “You know, the rest of us might have wanted one or two.”

He hit me with the can. Possibly this was a vain attempt to dislodge the thing. “I’m the one with the can stuck on my hand!” He’s the baby in the family; the victim card belongs to him always.

It was my mother’s idea to head to the emergency room when all the tugging failed. She usually wins our family discussions.

So, we went to the emergency room—all of us. It was Christmas Eve and my mother insists we all be together on Christmas Eve. My father insists that my mother gets what she asks for. After two hours in the waiting room, listening to children cry and watching them wipe snot off their dirty faces onto their dirty pajama sleeves, the can came off. Apparently vegetable oil from the hospital kitchen did the trick. Huh, never considered that.

On my way home, while my brother munched happily on the leftover Pringles, I figured the worst was over.

I was wrong.

Presents came. And these were omens as well.

My parents got me a few CDs. Remember this was 1995, no downloads available, kids, no iPods or MPS3s. CDs were the thing. My parents had bought themselves a CD player that year and had been frequenting the music stores in the mall. Once upon a time, there’d been music stores in malls instead of iTunes Top 40 lists. I eagerly unwrapped my gifts. My Christmas gifts were Abba’s Greatest Hits, Barry Manilow, Air Supply and the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever. If the Bee Gees aren’t an evil omen, I don’t know what is, frankly.

“What’s wrong?” my father asked. “You really wanted that Saturday Night Fever album.”

“That was fifteen years ago!!” I exclaimed. “When I was young and stupid. I gave you a list. How could you mess this up? Where’s Pearl Jam? Green Day? Bush? Nine Inch Nails?” This was the hayday of my music. As far as I’m concerned, grunge never died; unfortunately, Barry Manilow hasn’t either. “These aren’t even in the same place in the store!”

My parents mumbled something which sounded like “ungrateful” under their breaths.

Hideous as all this sounds, I didn’t see them as omens. Horrible omens for the true horror which would scar me psychologically until this day and probably until the day I die. There’s no therapy for this kind of thing. There’s no safe place to run to. There just is this. It’s amazing I escaped without undiagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Christmas day would bring the true horrors, delivered by some creepy, soot-covered, imaginary dude straight to my already disturbed psyche.

Each and every Christmas, we pack up for the drive to my aunt’s house in New Bremen, Ohio. New Bremen is about three hours away, three hours of cornfields dotted with the occasional one-street no-stoplight town.

We packed up our things: presents for my cousins which I refrained from opening to search for Pearl Jam or better yet replace their gifts with ABBA or Barry, a six pack of Pepsi, a box of King Dongs, books to read on the trip for my mother and brother, a notepad and five pens for me. I once ran out of ink during one of these family trips and nearly had a nervous breakdown because my dad refused to stop to buy new ones. WE DON’T STOP FOR ANYTHING, is his mantra. Ever since that day, I’ve become paranoid about writing utensils and bring along spares. These days I have my trusty surface and a charging cord so if I die in a snow pile, I’ll be able to drain the battery of my vehicle with my last few words—which will probably not be words of kindness to snow plow drivers, by the way. Sorry.

Off we went. A cold, snowy 1995 Christmas morning spent in a car on the way to what might be described as a convention of over-indulgence preceded by disagreements and complaints.

Just past Fremont, about 30 minutes into the trip, my mother announced to my father, “When you find some place to stop, I have to use the bathroom.”

Not only would a similar request from my brother or me have been met with ridicule, but it would have been completely ignored. WE DON’T STOP. We certainly don’t make good time when we stop “every five damn minutes.” My brother and I exchanged a look. Then we looked out at the flat, empty fields waiting for farmers to revive them in the spring; at the scraggly bare trees that broke up the wasteland of tundra around us; at the swirling whirlwinds of snow racing across the emptiness in mockery of nuclear winter.

We drove through tiny towns with closed gas stations, closed stores, everything closed for Christmas! We drove past fields without a tree on them for miles. The worst were the houses along the way, knowing there inside each one was a bathroom, maybe even two, and knowing instinctively that those toilets were hopelessly unreachable, unapproachable, unwelcoming.

But still, nothing compares to the agony of sitting in a car with someone who is squeezing her eyes shut, bouncing up and down in the seat, sucking her breath, whipping her head back and forth in a wild frenzy to maintain control. You sit quietly. Afraid to laugh. Afraid to look at the suffering party. Afraid to make eye contact with anyone else. You fight the almost over-powering urge to open up one of those ice-cold Pepsi’s just because you want to hear the sound of the pressure inside being released.

Then, between Bettsville and Fostoria, facing miles of more closed gas stations and open farmland, my father pulled off the main road onto a little dirt road near a hedge which made a pathetic shelter. Thankfully, the snow had picked up and provided a little more camouflage. “You can squat in front of the car,” he told my mother. “None of us will look.”

Proper manners be damned!! My mother flings open the door and hurries into the negative temperatures in her high heels and brand new sparkling Christmas dress.

We all look at our feet and wait.

But, I can’t resist.

I’m always the one.

I look up.

I see a head above the hood of the Buick. Everything else is hidden. Snow sticks to my mother’s lipstick. Her dangling pearl earrings bounce in the wind. The expression of relief on her face is so profound, I imagine the Rapture.

I start to giggle.

My brother starts in.

My father covers his smirking with a well-paced cough.

My mother’s look of relief disappears as she returns to the vehicle yanking up her silk pantyhose. She stares at her barbarian children rolling in the back seat with tears rolling down their faces.

The Buick pulls carefully back onto the main road.

“It’s not funny!” she yells at us.

“Don’t laugh at your mother,” Dad threatens, but his voice is cracking and his usual authority is absent.

“Anyone thirsty?” I ask.

My brother’s Pepsi comes out his nose.

“It’s not funny!” my mother growls again.

The adventure becomes taboo. A family secret, unspeakable and best left forgotten. But family secrets aren’t so sacred in the home where a writer lives. It germinates in my mind all day until on the way back, I asked, “Dad, what’s the name of that street we pulled off on. I need the detail. It’s called local color.”

“You are NOT writing about this,” my mother warns.

I found the place where it happened.

Now, I have an image in my mind. An older couple stands hand-in-hand by a lit-up Christmas tree. Children and grandchildren fill their cozy home. A fireplace crackles and warms the room. Presents wrapped in shiny paper and bows glitter under the tree. All of them are blissfully unaware of how fortunate they are to have a bathroom they can use between Bettsville and Fostoria.

And then, the patriarch of this brood looks up and out the big front bay window. Through the big flakes of gently falling snow blanketing his yard in fluffy whiteness, like God’s grace bringing purity to those who accept love, the man sees something. “HEY! That lady is peeing on our driveway!!”

CLEAN MY FLAPS!! A foodie's guide to weight loss

Once upon a time, I was a skinny girl. Then some things happened. I hit 12 and I moved to a town I hated, a neighborhood filled with people where I didn’t fit in. How did I fill my loneliness and my time? Food. It was the year of the microwave and cheese-filled hot dogs. I was stuck in a neighborhood with kids who lived different lives than I did—dance lessons, designer clothing, and foreign nannies.  My foreign nanny was my mother who I could aggravate into cussing at me in Dutch (that’s how you learn all the good words when you’re bilingual). It was the year I discovered an obsession for writing too—a nice solitary and stationary activity that called to my soul more than those cheese dogs ever would.

This isn’t an excuse or a pity party. This is a statement of fact. This is where it began.

I struggled through junior high, high school, college. I couldn’t make friends easily. I don’t party. I am not a drinker. I’ll have a drink or two. I can talk a good game. But truth be told I don’t much care for it, I don’t like to lose control.

Which is ironic, because I can’t control my eating. Some say it’s a failure of character. Most will tell you that no one stuffed food into my face for me. But it’s an addiction. It’s mental. It’s a craving. Carbs whisper memories to me: the smell of a bakery, the smell of foods in Holland where I spent time visiting my grandparents. I can tell you love stories about having Dutch pancakes on the beach in Holland: big, thin crepe like things covered in powdered sugar and rolled into a tube. Dutch croquettes, the smell of hot chicken fried and put on a sweet roll from venders on the streets. Happiness and food.

I dealt with all this.

Then came a point in my life where I started to figure it out. I started to walk. I got into shape. I got thinner. I started to gain confidence and I didn’t feel the need for that barrier between myself and the rest of the world. Don’t let anyone fool you. Most fat people are soft inside and that layer of blubber is a barrier because it’s easier to be hated for that or called names for that than it is for someone to completely reject what’s really inside, that core that’s buried underneath. Fat is insulation. But I was losing it. I would walk every day. I would watch what I was eating. I lost a lot of weight. I fit into clothing that I hadn’t fit into since Junior High.

Then I met the man who would be my husband. I stopped walking,

I started eating again. To escape. To hide. To insulate.

It’s a habit. It’s an addiction. Your brain knows it’s wrong, but you do it anyway. Then you hate yourself for doing it and you eat some more to make yourself feel better about doing it. 

It’s a habit and even though I am at a point in my life where I don’t really care what people think about me, the habit continues. I’m happy. I don’t need to insulate. I’m pretty sure I’m strong enough to take whatever hatred comes my way. I know who I am. I am comfortable with who I am. Say what you want, I look myself in the mirror and I know things. I know I’m a good person. I know I have a good heart. I know all my sarcasm isn’t really mean spirited. I know that I need to remove myself from toxic people because they just aren’t healthy for me and I recognize that I’m not a person who can or wants to deal with that kind of drama.

The husband is gone. I love a new man, the right man, and he loves me back. He loves me, not what he sees or what others perceive. He’s seen what is behind all the walls and he didn’t run away.

But when I look in the mirror, I see someone who is an addict. A person who overeats because there’s some trigger inside that is convinced that insulation is needed.

I need to share great news. I’ve found something that works on my head, on my addiction. I have tried dieting. But let’s face it, I like food and I’m really not prepared at this point in my life to stand in front of everyone and swear off chocolate and ice cream for the rest of my life. I like the memories, I like trying new foods. I’m not going to become a vegan or a rabbit.

But I need to find a better way. I think I found it.

I watched the show Hoarders a few times. It has an effect on me. Usually what happens after I see that show and all their piles of filth, I’m up until two in the morning scrubbing the corners of my kitchen floor with a toothbrush.

I discovered this show My 600­-lb Life. It’s a show about people so insanely obese that they can’t function. I mean they can’t walk, they can’t get out of bed. They live for nothing other than food.

When I watch it, the thought of food is nauseating.

Seriously, try to eat some ice cream while watching a 700 woman who can’t fit in a shower so she’s got to go out on the porch and be hosed down by her boyfriend. I mean, these people. They’re young, they’re housebound. They can’t do anything for themselves. They get out of breath walking five feet. They think of nothing but their next meal.

And when they eat…..they spill food all over, it runs down from the corners of their mouths and to their double chins. Their clothing is covered in stains. 

They can’t put on their own clothes. One woman had to call her neighbor to come help her pull up her pants…and there comes her neighbor while she’s sitting there in all her bloated glory to help out.

There are other things which kill the appetite. They have these folds of flesh that don’t get clean and down get dry and they need help cleaning their folds and getting some baby powder in them. 

They have open sores on their legs or pustules of infection which are caused by lack of circulation from the excessive weight. They make excuses which sound a lot like me making an excuse for an extra serving of Chinese.

How does this work for me other than the obvious revulsion that I can’t possibly allow myself to come to that?

Well, I’ve started doing things to counter life like that.  I park far 

away from store exits, I only eat when I’m hungry, I try not to snack between meals, I need more vegetables…Blah, blah, blah…all that crap I’ve told myself for most of my life.

HERE’S THE SHIT THAT REALLY WORKS:

1] I told my cousin about my plan. She told me a story about a woman who decided to put bread in those folds to absorb all the moisture and then she forgot about them. Moldy, yeasty infection.  The green fuzzy nightmares I’ve had….and then Doug chimes in “Maybe she wanted to hold onto the sandwich for later in case she got hungry.” Which was barf-inducing enough to pretty much make me less carb addicted.

2] All those people can’t get into cars. They’re way too close to the steering wheel—I moved my seat closer so I can’t help but be a little uncomfortable and be reminded of those people who aren’t going to ever be ejected in case of an accident because they’re squeezed in so tight they can barely breathe.

3] I have a fat dog. I make her watch the show with me and I tell her that we’re going to have to do this together.

4] I bought a bunch of mandarin oranges. Whenever I have the urge to snack, I eat one of those instead of anything else. I’m pretty sure I now have enough vitamin C in my system to stave off the Bubonic plague.

5] The other day, when Doug got home from work, I laid on the bed all starfish like while he was in the bedroom talking off all the tools of his job and I yelled, “Clean my flaps! Clean my flaps!”  The look of sheer horror on his face was awesome motivation for continuing on this path for another day. I’ll probably try it again when I’m feeling the need for motivation. That one works best.

6] In secret, I lie on the floor and roll around like my arms and legs won’t come in to my body. Think Violet in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. And then I yell “Help me! Help me!!”  and when no one comes, I know that if this happens to me, I’m going to die—or at least lay there until Doug gets home and can call EMS—he’s got a bad rotator cuff, this wouldn’t be good for him. Hopefully the dogs and the cat don’t eat me alive before he could get to that—they seem really a little too happy to jump around on me and bite me and bark at me while I do this.

I think I got this.