The Art of War

WAR GAMES

My older sister lives on a military base outside of Salt Lake City with her husband and two little boys (ages two and four). They moved out there from Washington D.C. about four months ago and are still adjusting to the whole military life concept. Prior to moving, she was an eighth grade teacher, but she’s decided to take a year or two off to spend time with the kids until they start kindergarten. Here they are…

















description: Don’t be deceived. The one on the right may look sweet, but this kid is in actuality an evil genius. He is constantly tricking me into doing his bidding, which is inevitably naughty/nefarious things ninety-five percent of the time. I’ve also watched him eat an entire family-size package of Oreo cookies without puking. I assure you that miraculous abilities such as those could not be attained without entering into some sort of a pact with the devil. I am afraid of him. The one on the left is my godson.

There’s a playground near my sister’s house on the base where all the kids gather to frolic during the summer months. One day, they’re all in a huddle defining the rules for a game of war. During this process, the largest point of contention is who is on whose side. I’m sad to say that the Geneva Convention wasn't mentioned even once. After forty-five minutes of intense discussion, they come to an agreement and break to run off to their respective teams. As this is occurring a little boy around the age of eight suddenly screams:

“Every man for himself!”

In response to this impulsive declaration, every kid immediately halts his or her orderly migration and scatters to a safe distance away from everybody else. In less than two seconds, forty-five minutes of careful planning has degenerated to Lord of the Flies type savagery.

My mother thought this story was pretty funny and told my sister that she should send it in to Reader’s Digest. My point of telling you all of this is to provide a context under which I could ask the following question: Does Reader’s Digest still exist? Have I, in my selfish, single, twenty-something, Chicago lifestyle become that out of touch with the things of my childhood? Am I so self involved these days that I think that just because I haven’t bothered to seek out something so previously enjoyed that it’s ceased to exist for everybody?

Turns out the answer is yes. Who knew?

Hang on a second while I read the Drama in Real Life.

HAVE A NICE TRIP?

I was bleeding during the Cubs vs. Brewers game last Tuesday. From my knee. Seriously, sitting in the stands shedding blood* and the Cubs didn’t even win. You may think me naïve, but for some reason, I believed in all of my beer-induced madness that they would somehow prevail. They were playing well until the end of the seventh inning when things went horribly awry. For some reason, they suddenly began to behave as if they were playing against the Harlem Globe Trotters and started committing an endless series of comedic foibles that were NOT FUNNY.

*Not enough to be dangerous.

You know, balls bouncing off of feet, tripping over each other, haplessly watching the Brewer’s spin the baseball on their fingertips in a jaunty manner right after tossing a bucket full of confetti into the crowd, etc. I was disgruntled.

Prior to the game I had fallen down, which was primarily why I was bleeding from my knee. And, no, I didn't fall down because I was drunk! I wasn’t drunk until hours later. It was because I was running at various intervals during my commute home so that I wouldn’t be late for the game.

Here is a brief process map depicting my evening commute:

Start --> Shuttle --> Metra --> El --> End

My commute is obscene. It takes a long time and because of the multiple variables involved, if the timing is messed up at all, I’m screwed. Normally, I don’t really mind when this happens because I’m used to it.**

** In essence, my spirit’s been broken and I’m leading a sham existence by merely going through the motions in a sad mechanical, machine-like, robotic way. Just kidding. I usually just don’t have much going on during work nights and am as happy reading at the train station as I would be at home.

On Tuesday, though, it was important that I get downtown by six. You see, I was taking a family friend to the Cubs game and he’s a huge baseball fan. It was also his first time visiting Chicago. The tickets were bleacher seats and were waiting for me under my name in will-call. I planned to catch the early shuttle that evening from work hoping to make it onto the four-thirty train downtown, but, in accordance with Murphy’s Law, the shuttle was running ten minutes late so it didn’t look like we were going to make it. About three blocks from the train station, I could see the gates at the track intersection begin to flash and descend. That’s when I thought to myself, “I can’t miss this train. No wait! Not just 'can’t.' Won’t! I won’t miss this train!”

At that point I walked resolutely up to the front of the shuttle and asked to be let off. The driver opened the door and off I hopped leaving all the other work drones behind me. Suckers! That’s when I started running. Not jogging. I’ll often go for the occasional light jog to stay in shape, but this was different. I don’t think I’ve ever attempted to run this fast in my life. It felt good. Racing along like a sort of speed cheetah. Completely unaware of my briefcase banging against my kidneys and my sensible knee length work skirt fluttering around my thighs in a frenzied rhythm. I felt graceful and was reminded of that Easy Spirit commercial where the women play basketball in their high heels.

Speeding down the block, past the braking cars, toward the flashing gate. I barely slowed when I crossed the tracks and turned a sharp left to run alongside the parked train. The conductor on the first car was still hanging out the open doorway and began to encourage me when I came into view. It was exciting and I made it. And I felt great.

And a little out of breath.

About forty minutes later, the train was pulling into Evanston and it was time to transfer to the el. The el tracks run parallel to the Metra tracks beginning in Evanston and I could see the el coming. At this point, I began to think that if I ran. Not even as fast as before, but pretty fast, I could make it. In the back of my mind, I knew that another one would be coming along in fifteen minutes, but my previous victory had gone straight to my head. I was feeling cocky.

I was the first one off the Metra and thus was able to jog unhindered down the steps off of the platform. Once on the sidewalk, I began running and noted to myself that my knee felt a little weird. Like it was out of joint or something. I kept going, though. Trucking smoothly along. Things were going well and it looked as if I was going to make it with no problem until, all of the sudden, I hit a mud slick. A freaking mud slick. I’d kind of cheated taking the corner of the sidewalk and stepped on what I’d thought to be solid dirt. Not fresh, wet mud.

For a moment I just lay there twitching on the ground. From my perspective, it was as if the world had abruptly stopped and then done a slow three hundred and sixty degree pan shot. Afterwards, when reality set in, I noticed how unpleasantly cool the mud felt underneath me and had a blurred view of the contents of my commuter bag scattered across the sidewalk at a level even with my eyes. Above me, I could hear the screech of the el train as it rounded the final corner on its way into the station. The screech was what brought my thoughts into focus. I said to myself, “If I get up right now, I might still be able to make it.” As inspiration, I thought about Sea Biscuit and about how he’d been hurt once during a race. And how he’d sucked it up, gotten right back onto the proverbial horse, and eventually gone on to be one of the most successful racers in the history of sports.*** So that’s what I did. I sat up, threw all my belongings back into my commuter bag and continued running the last few feet to the station. This time I ran with a pronounced limp, but I didn't care.

***Note that I haven’t yet read Sea Biscuit, but I’m pretty sure that’s how the story goes.

As I was racing along, I heard someone shouting something at me in Spanish. I didn’t want to turn around, but by the tone, I could tell it was important. So I looked behind me and saw a lady shouting things that I didn’t understand and holding up my cardigan. I hesitated for a second not knowing what to do. Do I continue running towards the train station, or do I turn around and go back for my sweater? At that moment, however, she decided for me. She picked up speed and gained on me until she was running beside me and could hand me my sweater. “Thank you! Gracias!” I shouted over my shoulder as I ran the rest of the way into the station.

Inside, I hurriedly scanned my ticket and raced up the stairs. At the top, though, I was suddenly forced to come to a halt and watch as the train began its laborious, rattling departure from the station. I'd missed it.

Afterwards, I slumped down on the nearest bench in order to more comfortably experience all of the low feelings that go along with a moment like that.

When I was finished feeling sorry for myself, I looked down to check out the extent of my injuries and that’s when I noticed for the first time that they hurt. It wasn’t all that bad. Mostly just a big scrape on my knee and some bruising. It was bleeding, though, and there was mud everywhere. On my skirt, my legs, my right elbow and all down my arm. I spent the next several minutes forlornly wiping the mud off with my cardigan while people began arriving to catch the next train. They stared at me from their various positions on the platform.

When the train finally came, I got on and tried to stand in a way that would conceal my knee using my muddied cardigan as a shield, but I suddenly felt too tired to be very diligent about it. People continued to stare during the train ride. Not with pity or really any sort of interest. It was that distant, unapproachable sort of look that people who’ve lived in an urban environment tend to adopt after awhile.*** It’s the unwavering, disinterested gaze they direct at the homeless man screaming things about Jesus on the el or the bicyclist that was just almost hit by a car or the guy that just got pooped on by a pigeon. For the first time in my career as an urbanite, I was the recipient of that stare and it made me feel lousy. And, even worse, vulnerable. “How can they be so mean?” I thought as I stood there, “I’m not a freak. I didn’t choose to invite this sort of attention.” I started concocting a good story in my mind in case somebody asked me what happened. I thought maybe I could say something that would make them feel like a jerk like, “I fell down while I was chasing a mugger or I was hit by a drunk driver while I was crossing the street on my way to visit my terminally ill puppy.” I was disappointed when nobody asked, but thinking about it made me feel better. As the el barreled down the track on its way downtown, the sky overhead suddenly became glum and it started to rain.

***I’d perfected it within a year.

On my walk from the el, I pulled my umbrella out from my bag and pressed the open button while holding it over my head. Several large clumps of mud suddenly fell out of it and dropped into my hair as it sprang into position. I shook my head a little and started limping home.

Later that night after I’d taken a quick shower, bandaged my leg, picked up the will call tickets and made it into the bleachers, I took a sip of my beer and looked up at the sky. It was still cloudy, but in that picturesque dramatic sort of way. See below:

















description: Northwest view from the bleacher seats at Wrigley Field. I took it with my cell phone, so it's a little blurry.

And it didn’t rain once during the entire game. But the Cubbies lost. And my knee bled. And everybody was disappointed. Again.

I guess I could draw some sort of a parallel between my knee healing and the Cubs recovering from their loss, but that seems too obvious.

So I won’t.

DATE NIGHT

I have a first date coming up tomorrow night. His name is Matt and we’re going out for sushi at Tank. I met him last Friday at Moe’s Cantina. I was at the bar talking to some friends and he’d walked up to order a drink. As he stood there, his hand was sort of resting on my purse, which I’d set on the bar next to me. I thought he was cute, so I accused him of trying to rob me. Long story short, he’s a mechanical engineer. Prefers the Simpsons to Seinfeld.**** And is aware of the fact that the die used to play Dungeons and Dragons is twelve sided.***** I’ll let you know how it goes.

****Just barely.

*****I brought this up as a test, which he promptly failed. NERD!

- the Endlessly Elegant Klutz