9:32 a.m. - 2004-09-13
emergencies
Oh my...(see guestbook)I did love that conversation we had at least twice at the Stevens street house and others like it, such as the one about bowel movement consistency. The shower question is a really good one to have. The shower is running, and your (married, opposite sex) friend is in there. 15 minutes go by. 20, 30. You start to worry. You call out ARE YOU OK? No answer. At what time limit do you bust down the door??? Remember, you are either about to bust in on the person naked, and alive and well, doing normal shower activities, or you are about to happen upon their lifeless, perhaps bloody and most certainly naked body. If they are injured, of course, it's way worth the psychological trauma...not even a question. But if they are fine, and you're overreacting by breaking down the door and disturbing them in their nakeddy nakedness... Either way, it's going to be unforgettable. You should probably think about this. See, this is what I spend a lot of my alone, non activity time doing...thinking of all the horrible things that could happen and how I will respond when they do. Which is why I just love those books "The Worst Case Scenario." It's a control thing...I feel more in control if I've already thought of it. I loved that conversation. It's so much more fun to do it out loud.
And then of course there was the toilet paper usage conversation...You know you're REALLY friends when you can talk about that stuff. I, too, had a code phrase. I guess there must have been some urgent public service announcement by someone like Don Johnson or Betty White when we were little that scared our parents to death and made them come up with a code word. Ours was Black Beauty. I distinctly recall coming up with it myself. Kelly, I also feel a little weird about revealing it...but I am 26 years old...The strange thing about that whole system is that it seems obvious that it was designed to help a kid figure out if a person who was posing as a helpful social worker was actually trying to kidnap them. However, in the case that your parents really WERE in a horrible accident, chances are, they would be unconscious and obviously unable to tell anyone the code word. And oh yeah...when I was little, I always pictured this happening in some situation where I was like alone on some deserted playground....some stranger approaches. I mean, when was I EVER alone until I was like 14? I still had a baby sitter when I was 13. Hey, I was an only child. Anyway, the point is that I bet no one has ever successfully used the code word. I wonder if anyone has ever avoided being kidnapped because of the code word. I also wonder if any well meaning social worker who didn't get the code word from the unconscious parents has ever had to chase a freaked out kid down and dragged them to the hospital against their will, to say goodbye to their dying mom and dad.
Well, anyway, the reason I chose Jack Bauer is because it sounds...normal. You would probaby be having to say this right in front of the bad guys. If you could get alone for a second, you would just say "Hey, I'm being kidnapped! Help!" With Jack Bauer as the code, you could probably figure out a way to say it in front of the kidnappers without them knowing what you were doing. How could you casually work "Humpty Dumpty" into the conversation?
This feels somewhat like the day me and Kelly and Diana all somewhat sheepishly gave each other our parents' phone numbers, in case something happened to one of us and we had to call the unfortunate person's parents. Ugh. I hope I NEVER have to make such a phone call. Everyone, PLEASE wear your seat belts and don't drink and drive and don't buy the meat that has the orange sticker on it that says REDUCED! For quick sale.
Still no patrons at the EMBLEMS shop. Maybe I should send over a doughnut to whoever works there. And lastly, while on the topic of emergencies...ok, I can hardly write this, I'm so mad. Bono is speaking at a convention type thing in Portland Oregon, a mere several hundred miles from lovely Seattle, open to the public, at a reasonable price mind you, TWENTY TWO DAYS AFTER I LEAVE THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. You have got to be kidding me.
