MERRY MOTS

Here are some feel-good items for your holiday:


• We have a story in today's paper about road rage. A woman in it says: “I think we’re particularly prone to project our feeling of anger or stress on strangers at this time of year." That made me think of something that happened last week. I was up at my campus office, and the professor across the hall had a brash young woman standing in the doorway yacking at him. She spoke authoritatively, rapidly and nonstop on any number of subjects: how she hated long lines at Wal-Mart, how people with big-screen TV's are tacky "when you think about it," how she couldn't stand doing laundry — especially folding it, how she couldn't figure out retroactive graduation requirements, how she was allergic to lipstick but felt naked without it, etc. The professor, a very genteel and spiffily dressed gentleman, said nary a word the whole time. Occasionally he would let out an "uh-huh" or "I know"; otherwise, I would have thought the woman was talking her own leg off. I couldn't close my door because I was waiting for people to come by, and her voice was so loud that the mere thickness of the door wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Plus, I was beginning to develop a freak-show type interest in what she would say next. Her main topic of conversation was how she might have to miss some schoolwork on account of a bogus report to child welfare services; seems there was some dispute about whether an "accident" with her son happened at home or at the daycare. Not the sort of thing I would be yammering about for all and sundry to hear, but that's just me. I was dying to see the look on the dapper professor's face. Was he suppressing a scream? Was he offering silent prayers of "shut up, shut up, please God, shut up"? Was he doing his best to look sympathetic? Should I help him out by interrupting and saying I needed to talk to him? How long before he cuts her off with oh my gosh, look at the time? Finally the woman concludes her child-welfare tale by saying, "So if I don't show up for the final, you know I'm in jail!" Then — boom! — without pause she moves on to another subject: driving. Apparently one of her "major, major all-time pet peeves" is people who are timid about making left turns. She can't stand it. "I've had to give so many people the finger lately because they can't drive. I had to flip off my neighbor earlier this week right after she backed out of the driveway, and the week before I had to flip off the superintendent of schools on 23rd Street." That's when the gentle professor finally breaks through his polite facade and says, "Oh my gosh, I know what you mean. I had to flip off an idiot yesterday in the Target parking lot."


• I saw a "sold" sign in a co-worker's yard. I drive by her lovely turn-of-the-century home often on my way to the grocery store. My co-worker and her husband have fully refurbished it, inside and out, in a very tasteful and pleasing way — an obvious labor of love. I was shocked that they were selling it. Having dealt with my own fixer-upper — in a similar neighborhood on the older, east side of town — I know a little bit about the financial and emotional investment, and I can't imagine selling my house. Ever. Even if I move to another state, I would do everything in my power to keep it. It means that much to me. So I was very eager when I ran into my co-worker last week to see what the story was. Since she just had a baby, I had a vague and disappointing suspicion that she was packing up and making a soccer-mom-to-be pilgrimage to the newer, "nicer," beiger side of town. Another one bites the dust. I say, "Hey, what's with the sold sign?" And sure enough, she tells me that they bought a bigger place on the west side. She says it's "safer" for the baby because there's not a creek in the backyard. She starts describing how neat the house is, but I find it hard to pay attention over my deafening thoughts of "traitor! sell-out! suburban Philistine!" And then I'm drawn out of my head by a question. She asks, "Didn't you used to live on Forrest?" I answer yes. Forrest is a street by her old, beautiful home. She says, "We were walking there the other night, and there were these three black guys standing around smoking weed." I think, "Oh no, here we go." But then she says: "I'm really going to miss that. Friendly neighbors who hang on the porch. Ella's just not going to get that diversity in the new neighborhood, and it's really a shame."