Checked (3 page)

Okay, so cleaning products and forks were nightmares, but they couldn’t even compete with the treacherous mouse droppings.

More words of wisdom from my father. “Wash your hands after you play in the garage. There is probably mouse crap out there.”  Hmm…sounded pretty bad if this actually merited a warning from my father. (He never really gave random warnings or advice.) What could these mouse droppings do?

It wasn’t like there was a bottle I could use to check out warnings for this feces product. This was also obviously before the Internet was really in swing so I had no help there. Instead, I had to leave the potential dangers to my imagination. Smart move, I know—just brilliant.

That mouse crap was almost paranormal—it could paralyze or even blind a person quite easily. All someone would have to do was walk out to the laundry room (in the garage) in bare feet, come inside, and walk on the living room carpet—and the house was suddenly infested.

If I accidentally picked something up from the carpet after an infestation, I would immediately wash my hands, my feet, the thing that I had picked up—all contaminated objects. It was an endless cycle. We are lucky we had no fatalities.

I did my part. I wore shoes if I had to go out to the laundry room, and I refused to use anything that had ever resided in the garage. My other family members didn’t do their part though. They still don’t. I’ve seen them countless times doing laundry in bare feet, using tools they’ve found in the garage, and coming inside without washing their hands. I constantly fear a call from the hospital. One of them is bound to end up there.

I finish my shift pretty pleased with my completed assignment so I grab an envelope and fold it so it fits inside. If I just drop this in the mailbox on the way home, I don’t even have to think about it for the next couple of days. I do just that.

I BEGIN MY NIGHT PREPARATIONS shortly after returning home. Thermostat: 70 degrees. Stove: off. Doors: locked. Blinds: closed. Alarm: set. Teeth: brushed. Pictures: straightened. Clothes for tomorrow: out. Mandy’s room: cleaned. Nails: painted. Email inbox: empty. Laundry: away. Entire house: dusted. Kitchen: scrubbed. My bathroom: sanitized. Evening shower: taken. Body lotion: applied. Pajamas: on. Hair: dried. Prayers: said. TV: on.

Eventually, I fall asleep while a skinny woman on the television goes through the steps for making ravioli.

Chapter 3

the next day

WHEN MY ALARM RINGS AT 6:00 in the morning, I hear a different female chef preparing some sort of egg soufflé. Sounds wonderful. Like five thousand calories of delicious.

I opt instead for a 175-calorie breakfast of some granola and yogurt before I complete my morning routine and follow it up directly with my leaving-the-house checks.

THE GROCERY STORE IS DESERTED as usual when I get there at 10:00 a.m. Kids aren’t screaming. Vested workers aren’t stocking shelves. It’s nice. I know this tranquil atmosphere will only last until 10:50 a.m. so I pull out my list and get to work right away.

10:42 A.M. SAFE WITHIN MY CAR, I see three disheveled kids get out of a van parked beside me. They are everywhere—beside my car, behind the van, in the aisle of the parking lot. To avoid accidentally harming one of them, I wait to even turn on my car until their mom (or babysitter?) herds all three into the store.

Before I can back out, another car pulls in on the other side of me.
Seriously?
Perhaps I should start coming fifteen minutes earlier.

A scummy looking guy and a short-haired girl step out of the car. They quickly join hands and head toward the store. As I am pulling my foot off the brake, I look again in my rearview mirror and see lover boy drop his girl’s hand and head back to the car.
AHH
…brake pedal back down. Guess he forgot something in the car.

While he is searching in the back seat, the girl calls something to him, and he looks up over the car for a moment, smiling.
{Mental picture of Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey lip-synching
“Love is Strange”
in Dirty Dancing.}
He has now gone to the other side of the backseat to look.
{Swayze and Grey are now crawling across the floor to each other as the song starts blaring.}
He found it! He found…his…hat?
Seriously?
I’ve been sitting here for three extra minutes for a baseball cap? Maybe I should’ve backed out and taken my chances on not hitting—

NO. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean that.
As I cautiously back out, I make a silent plea to not hit him, or his girl, or anyone else for that matter.

MANDY IS ALREADY GONE FOR the day when I get back home. I see her colorful note on the table as I bring the groceries into the kitchen.

Three classes today. Thirsty Thursday tonight. Fifty cent drinks. Wanna come?

She asks every Thursday. I guess she maintains hope that somewhere down the line a Thursday will come along when I won’t mind the sticky floors and tables, the sweaty dancing people, the appallingly disgusting bathrooms…and so on and so forth in her favorite college bar.

She asks every Thursday, but she really never expects an answer. Nor do I need to give her one. The offer is just always on the table, literally so today.

AFTER SPENDING THE AFTERNOON IN our quiet house, I complete my leaving checks and head to my 6:00 p.m. class. Tonight’s published presenter writes movie reviews. I half listen and half jot down ideas for my lit analysis paper on the poetry of Pablo Neruda. I also pick off half of my nail polish. Mr. Speaker talks about the process of watching a movie, engaging with it, and capturing it in writing…or something. He lectures for over two hours. I can’t even recall his last name—I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anything close to Ebert though…

WHEN I GET HOME, I take a nice long bath with my notes about Pablo Neruda’s poetry. 9:30 p.m. Mandy knocks on my bathroom door to tell me that she is heading out.

“Okay. Have fun. Be careful!” I yell over the running water.

“I will. I guess you are working on a paper,” she half asks, half states. That is her simple way of acknowledging that I will pass on her offer to go out tonight.

“Yep. Pablo Neruda tonight. Wild and crazy evening ahead.”

“Okay. Good luck. Night!”

“Good night. Careful, Mandy.”

I get out of the tub when I hear the door click shut. I run in my towel to the thermostat and then to the stove so I can go see if the door is acceptably locked while still maintaining my night preparation schedule. If I get out of order, I have to go back and retrace, and I’ll never get to bed.

The bar lock on the door is in the correct vertical position. I twist the door handle three times to make sure it’s adequately locked. Then I move on to the blinds.

When it is time to check my email, I flip open my laptop. Sometimes there is a quick note from Mom or Melanie. There are always a few junk emails that somehow made it through the filter. I guess the filter gets confused over whether or not I would be interested in giving my bank account information to a stranger in Nigeria. Terribly puzzling for even the most intelligent of filters, I’m sure.

I quickly respond to a question sent from a fellow student in my nonfiction class and then take a second to review Dr. Gabriel’s email about tomorrow’s lesson plan. At the end of his email, he says he has to run because he has a date. He writes something like that at the end of every email. I guess he’s just letting me know that his schedule is still pretty full even though I refused to go out with him. Letting me know that he’s still dating a bunch of other girls. And probably sleeping with them. Little does he know, that’s the exact reason I refused to go out with him. Pretty ironic.

Under Dr. Gabriel’s email, I see a brand new email address: [email protected]. DA Blake, eh?
{The pounding beat of 50 Cent’s
“In Da Club”
overtakes my thou—}

Okay. Enough, Calista.

Why is he writing to me already? Did he really already get my letter? Freakishly fast campus mail must have a late pick-up time.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so anxious to drop it off last night.

All right. Time to rip off this hot strip of wax. Silent, brooding, angry wax. Here goes. One. Two. Three.

Click.

Calista,

This isn’t a writing composition assignment. Please try not to make it one. I’m going to send you a few lists of topics over the next few days. Consider each topic briefly, and then quickly type your feelings on the subject. No more letters. No more crafted sentences or sarcastic side notes. Just your feelings and fears. Quick and uncensored. If you need to respond to the prompts in sets of two, or five, or whatever, that is fine.

Respectfully,

Dr. Blake

Respectfully?
You respectfully found the fears I told you about to not be worth your time? You respectfully want to know every uncensored thought that runs through my mind?

He wouldn’t even look at me for most of my appointment, yet he sends me this.
Bastard. Is that uncensored enough for you?

After a (very) prolonged stare at my computer screen, I finally start putting laundry away at 11:15 p.m.

Much later, as I turn on the television and climb into bed, I try to stop thinking about the email so I can get some sleep. It doesn’t work. I am able to move past his interpretation of “respect,” but I can’t stop thinking about his last sentence.
If you need to respond to the prompts in sets of two, or five, or whatever, that is fine.
A teeny tiny dab of ointment after his monstrous bite of an email.

First the tissues, now the counting. This harshly blunt man somehow seems to have an uncanny knowledge of the way my mind works. Well—almost. He did say sets of two or five. He didn’t mention three.

Thoughts run through my mind for quite some time. Almost a full course meal is prepared on television before I finally drift off. The last thing I remember hearing has something to do with preparing a workspace to make pumpkin cheesecake.

Chapter 4

lists

FRIDAY MORNING. AS I WAKE up, I have the odd sensation that I’m about to set off on an unprecedented suicide mission. I know I cannot wait until night preparations to see if he has sent me a list so I decide to check my email now.

As I open my laptop and click on the little email icon, I can’t really decide whether or not I want a list to be in my inbox. I’ll probably waste a lot of time thinking about it either way.

My inbox appears on the screen. DA Blake has written. The subject line says, “First List.” I wonder how many more lists he will send.

Guess I better attack the first list before I worry about future ones. I spend a few minutes picking at my nail polish and then take the plunge. One. Two. Three.

CLICK.

Calista,

Here is your first list of topics. Remember, give me your initial reactions and feelings. Do not overthink this.

1.) Dirty

2.) Family

3.) Television

4.) Church

5.) Dating

The email is signed the same way as the last one. “Respectfully.” Yuck.

Okay. The list is not terrible. Especially since I’ve been granted permission to only answer three items for now. Don’t have to touch number five just yet.

It’s funny. Now that I’ve opened the email, I realize that I can’t NOT respond to it right away. It has somehow become a to-do list in itself, and to-do lists must be completed swiftly and efficiently (as Mandy says when she is making fun of me). I warily recognize that I will just have to move promptly to my morning preparation routine AFTER the list is completed.

One. Two. Three. I type.

1.) Dirty

• Public bathrooms
  
• Needles
  
• Syrup
  
• Public transportation
  
• Hotels
  

• People
  
• Gas pumps
  
• Hospitals/Doctors’ offices
  
• Movie theatres
  
• Bars
  
• Doorknobs
  
• Spit, blood (all solids/liquids coming from a human, animal, or bug)
  

I consider mentioning mouse droppings specifically, but I don’t want to get too writery on him.