Mentally Unhygienic

One day last week, I left for work super early because I was craving a scone from certain Bed-Stuy cafe I will not refer to here by name.

The scones are amazing.  I mean, they must be; I have been known to wait in line for one for ten minutes on my way to work.  And by "wait in line" I mean, wait behind the ONE  other customer ordering something at the moment.  I mean, waiting patiently while the same person I've seen at the cash register for YEARS now (possibly the owner, I'd always thought), squints at the computer screen, moves the mouse around, clicking and clicking -- and then messes up and starts all over.  About 6 times.  Same woman, every time I'm there, for years, and yet she somehow doesn't seem to know how her own cash register works.  Almost every time I'm there (always to order nothing more than one scone to go), people in the line behind me eventually sigh and storm out because they can't take it any more.

Well, last night I walked past the cafe on my way home...to discover that the doors and windows had all been plastered over with yellow signs reading, "Closed by order of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene."  I guess someone finally lost their mind trying to get a scone there, and the city said, enough already!

Which could probably happen almost anywhere in the neighborhood, to be honest.  I mean -- just to give one other example -- after no longer being able to take the idiocy of a small local pharmacy, I gave up and finally had my prescriptions transferred to the local Duane Reade, a huge NYC chain.  Bad move.  Chain or no chain, it doesn't matter.  Apparently people are pre-screened for idiocy before they are allowed to work customer service in Bed-Stuy.  Every single time I went to this particular Duane Reade, the line would be at least 5 people long, and 4 out of 5 people (I always being one of them, unfortunately) would find ourselves saying things like, "but I got a phonecall saying the prescription was ready" or "you said come back in an hour; that was three hours ago" or "I picked these up yesterday, but one of my prescriptions wasn't in the bag; the label says PLEASE REFRIGERATE.  Could you please go check in your fridge?"

And these people are responsible for dispensing life saving/life-threatening pharmaceuticals? Surely you cannot be serious.  Within a few months, I joined a once-a-week Meetup group that gathers on the Upper West Side, over an hour from where I live, so I had my prescriptions all transferred there.  How sad is that? The thing is, I've had prescriptions filled before at other Duane Reades -- ones that just happened to be down the street from the determatologist or whomever I'd just seen -- and they pretty much would have your order done right there on the spot, in something like ten minutes.

Oh, Bed-Stuy! Surely this cannot be good for property values.

The Nose Knows All Suffering

In the continued spirit of being melodramatic and tragical, I wish to share another story about my lifetime of suffering.

Last week I had an appointment with an ear, nose, and throat specialist who deals with sleep apnea.  I have no recollection of ever having been one to sleep on my back until some time in the past year when, on occasion, I started to wake myself up with my own snoring.

First, I want to say how glad I am that I had no idea how the logistics of this nose/throat examination would work; granted, it was completely painless, but only because of the use of a local anesthetic.  I will say no more on this topic except to tell you that once I had been nasally violated in the required fashion, the doctor informed me that yes, my suspicion of having at some point broken my nose at a very young age (I remember something about hitting it really hard on the bedpost and how it really, really hurt afterwards) could be confirmed:  to say that my septum was deviated would be the understatement of the century; my right nostril is, in fact, completely blocked -- and thus useless for breathing.

"It is obvious," he said to me in his slight Russian accent, "that this happened when you were very young -- because you do not even notice."

I told him that I had also discovered, as an adult,  for that matter -- after a lifetime of having cats for family pets -- that I was allergic to them.  I'd had no idea, I told him, that this kind of itching and sniffling was abnormal.  By the time I found out, it was too late; I had already given away the children because the cats were allergic (as my favorite bumper sticker proclaims).

He was fascinated.  "Do you exercise?" he asked me.  I told him yes, I'm a runner.  "But how?" he asked.  I shrugged.  "I've been doing it for 20 years."

He told me that a deviated septum, in his professional opinion, rarely causes sleep apnea.  However, he said, in my case there might be an exception.  The Sleep Institute would be calling me soon about setting up a study.  I could see that he was trying to contain his excitement, resisting the urge to rub his hands together like a mad scientist and say, "INNNteresting..."

I admitted that I'd always felt that I suffered a lot whenever I had a cold -- but assumed that maybe I was just being a whimp.

"Let me tell you something," he said.  "There are people -- when they fall down, they just stand back up.  There are other people, however -- when they fall, they demand the assistance of twelve orthopedic surgeons.  You are not the second type," he said.  "This is a good thing."

I thanked the kind doctor and closed the door behind me, sighing heavily through my one good nostril, and began my daily voyage out into the sea of suffering.

The Smell

"Burned Mattress & Debris in the Woods," http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/2060779511/in/faves-29879040@N03/

A friend once said to me, "I love the scent of pine cleaner! It makes everything smell so clean."  I think we were in our twenties, and she was living by herself, in one of her first apartments -- still a smoker at the time, her apartment cluttered here and there with ashtrays and textbooks and laundry baskets.  Maybe we were splitting a gallon of ice cream, talking about boys while she mopped.

But I've never liked the smell.  I want to say, "because it doesn't really smell like pine" -- but actually I have no idea if it does.  I did eventually know what a pine tree smelled like, sure --  but by then it was too late.  I know that I learned at some point, for example, that there was a particular lip balm that was red-- and that it was supposed to smell like cherries.

Does it? To this day, I don't really know.  And if it weren't for the "grape flavor" label -- the purple color -- I wonder:  in our natural habitat, would we know to be reminded, when we smelled it, when we tasted it,  of that dark, sweet fruit?

Pine cleaner didn't remind me of the smell the plastic Christmas tree that came apart every January and sat in the basement for another year.  Pine cleaner smelled like my mother's efforts to keep us from being upset when the no-name brand roach motels didn't seem to be working that well.  Pine cleaner smelled like moving to a smaller, dirtier house, in a dirtier, less sunny neighborhood.

It smelled like the family that, for all we knew, was getting evicted that day when, the landlord told us, come and have a look.

It smelled like the house of the family that was leaving this place that would soon become ours -- though never really ours -- for a smaller, dirtier house, on an even dirtier, even less sunny street.

Newsflash! You Can't Get Bedbugs from Toilet Seats, but You CAN Get Them from Stuff that's Been in Someone's Infested Studio Apartment! Gasp!

Anderson Cooper is hot even when he says, "Cooties!"

I don't read stuff on Bedbugger.com much anymore; I get too irritated by the whole landlord/tenant blame game that goes on there, along with the mass hysteria they seem to inspire.  (As you may have guessed, I've spent way too much of my life reading anything and everything ever published on the web about bedbugs -- including all kinds of discussions of scientific research -- and  that site is the only place that's ever led me to think that people in the middle of a bedbug crisis need to protect the rest of the world from their nastiness by basically either developing obsessive-compulsive disorder or never leaving the house; they don't say it like that, of course, but that's the message.  To be fair, it's obvious that they don't mean to make people feel that way.  They are indeed an advocacy site --  but people there are obviously so shell-shocked by what they've been through that they seem to think you can get bedbugs from someone just by looking at them -- and that this is a risk that one must not take).

So, my Google Reader alerted me to the fact that Bedbugger.com had recently commented on a Slate article called "How Contagious are Bedbugs, Really?", and I couldn't wait to read it.  I read both the original article and the commentary, which...well...irritated me.  Namely, the following quotation:

“The poor often live in housing where bed bug infestations are neglected or poorly managed.”

To which I replied with the following rant, which I wanted to share:

Let’s not forget that the quotation above is only ONE point that that Slate article — which deals more with how the whole problem starts to begin with — is making. We wouldn’t even need to talk about how to “manage” infestations if people would just get a clue and stop thinking that thrift store/vintage shopping, etc. is okay in this day and age. (Here’s my OWN emphasis):

“The poor are at risk because THEY OFTEN CAN’T AFFORD EXTERMINATORS and may have unresponsive landlords—factors that increase the duration of infection. THEY ALSO FREQUENTLY RELY ON DONATED OR SECOND-HAND FURNITURE, INCREASING THEIR CHANCES OF CATCHING BUGS IN THE FIRST PLACE.”

Don’t forget that 1/3 of Brooklyn residents rely on small-time landlords who rent out part of their homes as a means of being able to pay their mortgages and not face foreclosure; they, too, “often can’t afford exterminators.”

While a corporation may be able to spend $10,000 here and there just because a tenant brings home furniture that has been discarded FOR A REASON — having no personal financial stake in being informed or careful — ordinary people who are already struggling to stay employed (and stay in their homes) can’t.

I know that I personally can’t afford to buy furniture — and rarely can even afford to buy clothing, even at Kmart! But what do I do about that? I deal with what I already have and let my stuff fall apart; the same way I’ve never bought a flat screen T.V. or a microwave or an iPhone/Pod/Pad or even a DVD player, I go without a couch too. It hasn’t killed me or anything; you’d be surprised.

If bedbugs are just an inevitable part of city living, then the city should be involved in getting rid of them, the same way it’s involved in putting out fires. But if it’s true, on the other hand, as the Slate article implies, that bedbugs pretty much arrive in infested “stuff” — not just because people ride the subway or work in an office or have children in school or just sort of live their lives — then I can see why the city shouldn’t bear the responsibility. But then neither should landlords.

I realize that this whole thing is a complex issue, but if “‘the movement of stuff’ carrying lots of bed bugs, rather than contact with individual people who might be toting a hitchhiker, is what puts us most at risk of getting bed bugs,” can we please stop putting our emphasis on blaming landlords and concentrate on real prevention education — by which I mean and not this whole voodoo of “oh, if you have bedbugs, then it’s irresponsible of you, you filthy pariah, to even leave your house without having just taken a shower and changed your clothes”?

I for one am glad that the Slate article makes an effort to dispel this kind of hysteria, along with the idea that there’s nothing you can do to keep from making your landlord go broke, short of never going to work or taking public transportation and just keeping your luggage in the bathtub and your fingers crossed when you travel. Please.

Scarlet Fever

I am eight the autumn when my skin
blooms along the wrists, a patch of red that spreads
like the glow beneath hot coals.  The teachers,
concerned, swoop in, moving closer

and also away.  Who ever fails
the third grade? But I almost do.
One minute, sitting Indian-
style (we'd actually called it that),

in Cranbrook Elementary's multipurpose room --
for some reason I won't remember -- and then
escorted away, through rows of other Natives
and to the school nurse, who will sentence me to five

hours of waiting.  That, and bloodletting
in the E.R., through the smallest of openings
in a finger that refuses to betray me.
My neck has stiffened and will swell.  I know

I am going to die because my father
has appeared in my life; I need to be driven there --
yesterday -- and he drives.  And then:  home
for a month -- feverish, asleep, consumed

suddenly with citrus fruit and a type of cheese
my mother has bought on a whim; it's on sale --
and I read Little House on the Prairie and am alive
in the wrong century, fading in and out

of eighteen eighty something.  Of all things,
also, that I will never remember, there, on television,
is Laura Ingalls in braids, in calico bonnets,
her body like mine straining past hemlines --

she and I each swelling in anticipation
of winter, of hunger, of Almanzo
Wilder.  We are both waiting for the one
where her sister goes blind.

Oh no they DIDN'T...

 Okay, so...I will let you guess who is responding, below, under the name of "OverEducatedUnderPaid," to these anti-99%ers/ anti-Occupy Wallstreeters.

Then, if you'll pardon me, I might have to go vomit.

****

c3033 on Oct 4, 12:35 PM said:

Get a life, get a life, get a life....these people need to get a life. Why are we paying attention to any of them.

Why does society need to be responsible for these people and the choices they have made???

 

...

The "builder" put "out of business" twice...really...you would have thought that you might have saved some money after the first time...

It is about time people start taking responsibility for their own actions...

Reply

9 4

Flag as Offensive

c3033 on Oct 4, 12:38 PM said:

@c3033:

Oh and cry me a river for the adjunct whiner, I mean professor....you work 4 hours a day max and get paid 70k+.....really!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reply 0 0

Flag as Offensive

 

 

OverEducatedUnderPaid on Oct 10, 2:05 PM said:

@c3033: 

 

Since when does an adjunct only work 4 hrs a day? And since when does he or she earn $70K? Actually, one of the biggest scams in the corporation that is higher ed (don't be fooled into thinking someone's not making big money off of this part of the American dream racket) is that, as much as possible, colleges and universities try to ONLY hire adjuncts (along with some graduate students, who, as if it were humanly possible, earn even less) to teach the most "important" classes that everyone has to take -- like freshman composition. And most of the people who teach those classes do it as their sole livelihood by teaching at 3 or 4 different institutions at once. It's estimated that writing instructors spend something like 25 min. per student paper they read. If they teach 3 classes a semester (a.k.a. 60 students -- considered a heavy load by full time tenured people earning 2 or 3 times their salary, which isn't even always saying that much), they are lucky to make $39, 150 per year -- and that's ONLY IF they're lucky enough to a) be able to also get a full class load during the summer (unlikely) and IF they're lucky enough to live in pricey SoCal, which pays substantially more than elsewhere. (If they live in pricey NYC and meet all the above conditions, make that a whopping $26,100 annually. Now, let's face it: you can't even wipe your a** in NYC on $26,100, and, mind you, these are people who generally need to be paying off graduate school loans). Oh -- and did I mention that these jobs usually offer no health insurance or any other benefits. But no, these folks occupying Wall Street just need to stop crying and go to school ("oh, young people are the future!" "Education is the key!" yada yada yada) and get a job...so they can aspire to...what, exactly?