Bleep

I could feel my blood pressure rising.

There I was, on Christmas Eve, standing in line at the local pharmacy, haphazardly balancing two armloads worth of last-minute sock stuffers I hadn't intended on buying when I sidestepped through the sliding glass doors twenty minutes earlier on a quest for aspirin. Still, nary a soul was behind the checkout counter.

The lone clerk in the entire store -- whose set tasks include cashing out, printing photos, restocking the beer cooler, and ensuring that the register is filled with enough tape to supply every customer with an impossibly long receipt for even the simplest of purchases -- was elsewhere possibly paving the driveway. The handy little plunge bell that ordinarily summoned him has also disappeared.

Instead, a slim robot kiosk with a touch screen and a revolving light winking from its top beckoned us toward it as welcomingly as a machine can manage.

The line stood silently still. As if we were lambs heading to slaughter.

The lady in front of me - grayer in the hair than I - hesitated and then demurred: "You go ahead, dear," she said good-naturedly. "I think I forgot something."

I knew she was stalling.

The fact that she moved closer to me as I approached the checker bot was all the evidence I needed to understand I was the guinea pig.

I could barely hear her breathing as I bleeped each item past its digital crosshairs. I kept up my poker face until the end when the machine slurped up my wrinkled tender and barfed back my change. 

We both audibly exhaled.

"That was easier than I thought," I said, giving away my ultimate bluff: I am a novice at the Do-It-Yourself checkouts.

I prefer dealing with humans, even if they never smile or sound like robots when they order me to have a nice day.

This is probably why I didn't dash off the moment my mile-long sales receipt finally finished printing.

The lady who'd let me jump the line looked like she was now standing at the edge of a cliff.

The least I could do was talk her through it.

The first two items cleared the scanner with satisfying beeps. A package of candy took two tries, but the remainder of her purchases went through the process with no trouble. It wasn't until the payment section of the transaction that the whole thing came to a screeching halt.

The machine wouldn't read her credit card. No matter how she inserted it … chip or swipe … it just blurted out an ear-piercing buzz.

"That doesn't sound right," said the store clerk, who had appeared out of thin air, presumably summoned by the less-than-magical sound.

For the next few minutes, he waved his hands and pressed some buttons. He tried every trick in the book, starting with wiping the card's magnetic strip between two sides of thin plastic bags that won't be at his disposal in a few months' time. He did everything but kick the kiosk until luck and technology finally gave in and took the lady's money.

We all sighed in relief.

And for the first time, I saw the human connection to be made through automation: All of the humans in the room we're sharing a moment trying to solve its puzzlement.

"I'm so glad that worked," laughed the clerk. "I was afraid I'd have to go back and visit the blood pressure machine."

Sweet and salty sixteen

This year her birthday will be on a Wednesday. Just like any old day. Except that on this particular Wednesday, at the exact time of 7:14 p.m., she will be celebrating her 16th year with her high school chorus and probably about two hours of homework, just like any other Wednesday in December, with the exception of Christmas.

She doesn't want to turn 16. Not like that.

She wants it to turn her. Like magic.

Hollywood probably has some role to play in this understanding of the significance of a sweet sixteen. 

Why was hers so sour?

I understood. How could I not?

Sixteen is supposed to be magical.

It's supposed to bring about big changes.

But she doesn't feel any different.

And to add insult to injury, she'll have to share her big moment with her high school winter concert and her little brother's second-ever Modified wrestling match about an hour away.

Not even her clothes will be special, as the scheduled arrival of hearts' desired attire has been incrementally pushed from on time to some time into the New Year. She can thank her Christmas birthday for the shipping delays, but I can see from her expression that she is really trying hard not to blame me.

For her, the dash to maturity is taking forever. Everything about it requires perseverance akin to waiting patiently for slow-drying paint.

It is a perspective that will eventually turn around in a whirlwind.

Like my estimation of time, which determines that her growing up has happened in the blink of an eye.

I don't want her to turn 16 either, though it's more a belief than desire.

It's hard to believe that much time has already passed.

In the greatest cliche of parental understandings, I can't imagine ever feeling that she wasn't just born yesterday.

The memories of her "newness" don't seem to spring from any distance at all.

I can still feel the contractions. I can picture the rush of snow against the car's windshield on the drive to the hospital. I can still hear the jangle of alarm sounds on the heart rate monitor that brought a flurry of nurses to my bedside to jostle us back into a normal rhythm.

Even then, she didn't want to make a simple "entrance."

Who would if given a choice?

Not her. 

She's the child who practically stood up upon arrival in this world.

She was the child who made herself known whenever she made an entrance… especially on her birthday.

When else will a person be able to wear a princess gown if not on their birthday?

That truth should be self-evident even when styles change.

But it's not about the clothes. It's not even about reality as much as it about recalibrating expectations. It's really not just any old day.

I can't imagine those feelings will ever recede, no matter how old we get.

I can only assume all these things I remember can only be made more unforgettable by time.

Well, this is awkward

Walking dogs is awkward. 

There's no way around it. When a human walks dogs in the multiples, things get awkward.

Leashes get tangled. Unmentionable bodily functions get bagged and juggled. And the weather is anybody's guess.

On this day I didn't bother with my umbrella. The rain -- which my friendly, neighborhood weather predictor hadn't predicted -- had disappeared anyway.

Dogs don't mind the rain.

As a regular walker of dogs, I've noticed a tiny miracle of weather. Big fat drops may splash down on my car as I drive from dog house to dog house, and, just as suddenly as they had materialized, they dry up the moment I park.

Of course it could be just my unusually sunny outlook. I am always ready for inclemency. I have a hat, and a coat, and footwear for every season.

Truth be told, this particular dog owner had entrusted me with perhaps the most valuable thing in the world besides her four-legged friend: her garage door opener.

(That sound you may have heard upon reading those last four words was the sound of angels taking flight amid a celestial chorus.)

I did NOT hear that sound, however, because in my hundreds of years on this planet I have neither owned nor operated a garage door opener.

Honestly, when she first suggested I park in her garage during these super sloppy, slushy days of winter, I had no idea how convenient such a luxury would be.

I took the opener and the instructions of how to use it - a simple, one-button toggle - and clipped it to the visor. I wasn't sure I'd ever use it.

Silly.

Of course, I wouldn't just USE it. I would study it; examine its range and speed. I'd press the button at various houses in the neighborhood as I approached to determine which house would prove the furthest away I could start the process of opening the door so that it reached its apex as I crested the driveway.

It turns out the third house from the corner is the charm.

And I would become just a little bit envious as well. Not that I'm not content with my carport, but I'm also not beyond wishing we had a garage door to open with such a miraculous device automatically. It's just that electronics seems to make everything better.

Until you rely on them.

Like how I breezily pull my car into the garage, release my hounds into the backyard through the back door and proceed to spend the next few minutes waiting with my furry friends as they release some pent up energy before our more sedate walk.

Which we do just as soon as I go back into the house and get the leashes ...

Which I left ...

Along with the keys ...

In. The. Car.

Hmm... why is this door locked?

I try the other doors — all locked.

My mind races through my super-sleuth deductions: The handle locks must have some quirky mechanism wherein they turn easily on the inside but remained locked to the outside. A feature that becomes null and void when opened from the outside with a key.

My new reality lit up my thoughts like the lightbulb activated by the garage door opener:

I had locked myself out of the house and my car inside it.

Well, this is awkward.

Snow day

I love the first snow day of the season. Besides the momentary halting of set plans, it cleans the slate for new possibilities.

Our kids delight at an unscheduled day of freedom. They no longer bundle up or trundle outside. They don't make snowmen or snow forts or hound me to go sledding. They've happily outgrown last season's snow pants.

But even though they may squander the time holed up in their winter darkened bedrooms, the mood around us will be filled with light.

Celebration is in order on this rare day when snow accumulates, but their homework does not. They've already plowed through it.

I'm amazed by how fast their childhood has chugged along.


I've stopped worrying about this march of time in the same way I've stopped worrying about to-do lists being left undone.

Of course, as adults, we know that the probability of happenstance will focus on withdrawing our cars from their snowbanks and clearing off steps and sidewalks.

On the upside, our yard's imperfections are temporarily covered by a thick and glittery layer of frosting. From the warmth of my house, the coating looks light airy, though I know from its depth (and the occasional thud from a rooftop slide) that it is weighty and dense.

Whatever it covers may stay that way until spring.

I'd been waiting for the leaves of the dogwood to give up their ghosts. A yearly ritual that usually lasts beyond the window of time, our town allots for its convenient vacuum extraction.

The maples in the neighborhood have already shed their leaves in a timely, if not orderly fashion. My dogwood likes to be unfashionably late, clinging as it does to its dry and curling foliage for as long as vegetatively possible.

I don't mind. Its leaves are small, and when they finally make their descent, they will land in a tidy circle around the tree. No small part of me wants to kill the grass. In fact, the more significant portions: my arms, my legs, and my patience are in full agreement.

As they seem now, brownish-red flakes intermittently dotting the snow cover, the leaves punctuate my admiration for their unwillingness to quicken their demise.

But the leaves are the least of my worries today.


This, oddly, gives me a rare and fleeting chance to be neighborly; wherein I haphazardly try to identify neighbors by their proximity to a particular house, despite not being able to glimpse more than a few square inches of skin between scarf and beanie.

Asking if they need help breaking ice is a better ice breaker than one could imagine.

I'm surprised by how much I look forward to the work of removing the snow. How gratifying it is to shovel far enough to relieve the neighbor of some after-the-workday drudgery. How little it matters that the kids – forced into the light and a winter coat (maybe even long pants) – just lean on their shovels as they take turns lobbing snowballs at each other.

How it takes less time than I imagined but probably more muscles than I've developed in the off-season. The next-day ache will be my trophy.

Another weird day in the neighborhood

Dear NeighborTM,

I don't know you. In fact, we've never met.

I'm not the overtly nosy sort, though I do have one of those fisheye cameras that records my front door and all the way out to the sidewalk ... for security purposes - and the possibility of viral stardom.

A person can't be too careful these days or too exposed.

But we'll get to that later.

I probably wouldn't recognize you if I bumped into you at the Post Office.

Not that I have any reason to go to a post office, what with the internet being so darn convenient that I can download and print all necessary postage on my home computer.

I love the clean lines of its modern architecture, but I despise waiting in any line that meanders or stands still for too long. It's not as if I were just any old member of the great unwashed society at large.

I'm very busy.

But I am relatively new to the community, which is why I joined NeighborhoodTM when an ad popped up on my Instagram, which - fun fact - is also where I acquired my almost circular security camera.

Anyhoo...

I was happily posting photos from my garden, which you might have noticed looks a thousand percent better than one tended by the poor soul who had previously inhabited our not-so-humble abode, when I noticed the package on MY front porch -- the one the Big-Name-Shipping-Dude delivered to me by mistake, and that I had planned to call about, giving whoever answered the phone an earful about their terrible sense of direction -- was missing.

My heart palpitated.

This violation was worse than the fact that no one in the vicinity had made any effort to congratulate me on my award-winning blooms.

But I digress.

I was so shocked by the disappearance that I spent the next three hours reviewing video footage from my security camera, looking for grainy evidence of the culprit.

To my horror, I discovered the trespasser inviting herself up onto my own private patio and having the audacity to peruse the parcel's shipping label before whisking it away into the back of her soccer-mom van and driving off.

The nerve. In broad daylight, too.

Of course, dear NeighborsTM, I plan on notifying the proper authorities in due time, though I feel it only fitting I should pop in here post-haste and alert the culprit directly by inviting all the other VillagersTM to sharpen their pitchforks. There's no telling where such a porch pirate will pounce next.

'Tis open season, so to speak.

Oh sure, the address on the label suggested the recipient lived somewhere on my street, but who in their right mind would just walk such a package to its intended destination?

Of course, I am being rhetorical. Someone paid good money to have the item delivered correctly and professionally. I would not presume to deny anyone a refund for incomplete or negligent service.

Nor do I want anyone traipsing up to my door looking for misdelivered packages without leaving a note, or a kind word about my hostas. How am I supposed to verify their authenticity and their good taste?

The brown-shorted delivery dude went to the wrong house, and he will come back and do his job if it takes four calls and two days of emotional labor here in my virtual NeighborhoodTM.

Also, I'd like to bask in the glow of your righteous indignation on my behalf. I also enjoy how you swarm to my defense when I politely and jokingly tell that one critic who suggests I have been unneighborly, to stay in their lane or go back to Canada.

They assure me that no one is afraid of Canadians so I can't be xenophobic.

It's so nice to have Good NeighborsTM. I can't wait to invite them to my Block Party.