Dad's progress

Mom took dad to his first doctor's appointment after being discharged from the hospital today and it's all good. Dad is doing well and he's even going to be allowed to use the recumbent bike (very low resistence and speeds). He even had a glass of red wine with dinner today (it was pasta from Heifer, with whole-wheat bread and salad).

He's still on about 8,000 pills and doing his breathing exercises with the blowing machine.

Things I have learned from the TV at the folks' house:

- Inspector Lynley's girlfriend is such a pain in the neck. When will he realize he and Havers are meant for each other???

- Chuck Dovish no longer does "Travelin' Arkansas." Well, he does, but for public TV.

- Some chick named "Susan" or something has local news ratings all wrapped up, and there's nothing Ann Jansen can do about it, nor her partner in anchordom Andy Richter (not his actual name, but what he looks like).

- Arkansas Mid-day news has hired a little gay Asian man — and I didn't think Ark. was ready for that!

- Norman Lear is still funny for the "Celebrex" ad crowd. Until you find out it's the one where Edith was raped, and then it's time to change the channel.

- CMT proves that just because Loretta Lynn is cool don't mean she has to surround herself with cool people in her "Country in my Genes" video. Also that there is a group of ugly, over-groomed men trying to look cool and hetero (their obvious non-heterocicity is not tied to their ugliness — I fully believe they recognize they are not hot and made a marketing decision to go for the only music scene that accepts conventionally ugly men as stars) and people are, apparently, buying it.

- No matter what you're age, that 1 1/2-minute Hillary Duff video demands you watch it if you stumble across it. Is it her new veneers?

- Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church needs to up its lighting for its TV ministry.

- Antiques Roadshow NEVER gets old. And mom knows the theme song for "History Detectives." Or she made one up, which is a scary thought.

Dad is almost done with his Hamilton bio. Mom compared his obsessive reading of it to her students who read Harry Potter or "Red Wall," whatever that is. Mom is working on school stuff. Shelby just wants a place to lay his little head, that poor old leprous dog.

Dad on the town

Today dad's busy schedule of sitting around was interrupted by a trip to Barnes and Noble. Armed with the knowledge that Target is not a bastion of well-spaced seats, we also knew B&N is. So he spent some time sitting in their armchairs looking at "French for Dummies," then took a turn around the store, sat down in the travel section and looked at a few cookbooks for heart-healthy foods.

He ended up with a biography of Alexander Hamilton.

He took a couple of naps and read his P.G. Wodehouse — I mean, really, he's obsessed, and that's not necessarily a good thing because Wodehouse wrote something like 200 books — and Jennifer Pierce from Heifer dropped by. Although they talked about work the most stressful moment for dad was when I refused to make a left on Shackelford because I couldn't see traffic coming from the right. He got all cussy and het up and I reminded him it wasn't like he had anywhere to be. Also, I gave him a little GMR driving philosophy — I don't turn until I'm psychologically ready. And that is why I don't have accidents (knock on wood and never mind that time I scraped dad's car against that other car while parking).

Although we watched the news, and that was pretty much it for TV today, mom walked in on us rubber-necking "Being Bobby Brown." Dad was horrified at the rudeness and flat-out appallingly cracked-out behaviour of the Brown family (which includes Miss Whitney Houston). At least Ozzy Osbourne isn't the only example of why you should stay away from drugs on the TV.

Mom's ordering Chinese, and I'm getting ready to go to the pool with Hannah and Suzy. It's 103 with the heat index outside, so this will be fun.

Back from Etowah

Well, Grandma had a nice funeral, and people were commenting how much she would have enjoyed being there for it. But then, isn't that kind of a standard comment for funerals? There was an indoor part (including the hymn Unclouded Day, which has been removed from the current Baptist Hymnal, which prompted mom to prompt me to grab her Methodist Hymnal and make 150 copies of the song at 11 p.m. the night before the funeral) and an outdoor commendation. Although it was at about 11 a.m. it was not terribly hot and there was a good stiff breeze.

I was one of Grandma's pallbearers, along with all the other big cousins and Harry Jr., and that was a heavy coffin. It was weird to be a part of carrying Grandma to her final resting place. It didn't hit me until later what an honor it was; she's in Garden Point Cemetery now, next to the other Wilmoths, next to where Pa will be someday, and I helped get her there. I'm sorry I had to do the girl thing and put my hip into it, but I know she wouldn't care in the least.

The church ladies made up a big buffet for the family and guests and it was good country eating. All the foods that these past couple of weeks have been shown to be poison to my family. I packed myself full of chicken and dumplings, candied yams, green beans cooked with ham, chicken casserole with those crispy onions on top, coconut cream pie, peach cobbler, whipped potatoes, cheese grits and chicken and dressing, promising to get back on the healthy skim milk-frosted mini wheats-strawberry train when possible. I know that when I'm on my own I'm a pretty healthy eater; and I know that from the mypyramidtracker.gov site. I also know that the site seems pretty silly to a lot of people, but I am now all too aware of the consequences of what goes in my mouth and how much time I'm on my butt. Seriously, get your cholesterol checked, look into your day-to-day eating routines, rethink the source of your tiredness.

Dad is doing well enough to say that he's going to help with cleaning. However, I haven't seen him start in on it. That's okay; I don't particularly care if he cleans or not. The only thing I care about is how much he says "please." We watched four whole hours of "Gilmore Girls" Saturday and an episode last night. I think he thinks it's better than he says it is.

I hate slipcovers and think they are the tackiest things unless you never sit on them.

Dad's chest wound has been bugging him today and yesterday. Well, I imagine it's a real humdinger to heal that kind of a cut. He went to Target last night with mom for a walk and was worn out when it was over. Partly, I think, because mom was into the shopping thing and dad, well, dad is a recuperating quadruple bypass patient. Also, he reported back that Target is not a great place to walk because there are not a bunch of seats all over the place. He managed to get halfway across the store pushing a cart and got desperate for a place to sit down and found where they were selling some cheap chairs and used those, then spent some time later leaning on a dog food bag and then managed to get to the snack bar, where he put his head down and got a glare from security. He did not have his special heart pillow to show and say, "Hey! I'm a heart patient! Don't rough me up!" And one of his prescriptions is to keep his heart pillow with him 24/7.

Well, that's the news for now. I need to get to the racquet club and be put on Suzy's membership so I can use the workout equipment and lounge around by the pool. That will be a much-appreciated distraction from the inside of Chez White.

More bad news

Dad is doing fine except in one area: Saying "please." He's pretty good about saying "thank you" when I bring him something to eat, massage the horrible scar that runs down his calf (it goes higher, but he's in charge of above-the-knee scar therapy), put his bandages on or take them off, etc. He told me today that both he and my mom have trouble remembering to say "please."

But dad's okay. It's grandma that's not.

My mom's mother died yesterday. This completes a trifecta of stressors on my mom — husband having a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery, the car getting stolen and now this. She's not really that stressed about the car, but getting a rental to go up to Etowah and figuring out how to keep dad with a caretaker through Monday (when Grandma's funeral is being held, and Doug and I are going to go for the day) is the sort of thing that she doesn't need but has to deal with anyway.

Grandma has been really sick for a long, long time, so this wasn't a shock or anything. Grandma even wanted to die for months — if not longer. But it's depressing and sad nonetheless, and I keep thinking about Pa. He just lived for her for so long. She died at home and with two of her daughters and Pa around her, which is probably more than most people with her kind of health problems and age can be assured of.

Grandma was really cool. She was just a super grandma to me and all the other cousins. She loved her family unreservedly. She liked to keep up with the news of Lepanto/Marked Tree/Etowah, but not the world so much. Before she got real sick she had to have her morning coffee and smoke. The last time I talked to her I said, "I love you," and she said, "Who's ugly? Who's ugly?" and I repeated myself and we ended up agreeing that everybody we knew was pretty. And that's really how she felt.

Anyway, that's the report from Loretta Lane.

Maybe we've turned a corner, though. The insurance company is willing to write off the stolen car (recovered, banged-up, from a ditch) as a total loss and the folks are getting some cash money for it.

Back in the recliner, again

Dad got kicked out of the hospital about noon today; he came home and plopped into his recliner, where he's been spending most of his time. He did his exercises and took his first shower in about two weeks. He's so happy to have clean hair. He also cut his beard and nails, thus transforming from Grizzly Adams to Grizzly Adams with a trim.

He's not that bad. He also got to eat his first bunch of fresh and ripe (at the same time) veggies in a salad.

Perhaps the highlight of dad's return (besides being at home with his family and all that) was having a clicker that goes up and down the channels instead of up only.

Another day of improvement

Dad got his chest drainage tube taken out today. He got extra drugs for that, even though Dr. Adam did a better-than-serviceable job in gently removing it (ha ha. During rounds he had told dad he was going to "yank" it out, provoking what dad said was a withering reproach from the cardiologist). Without the tube, dad can get around a little easier. He took a walk with his nurse, Jing, and did two laps around the cardio wing. His occupational and physical therapists came by and showed him some exercises — they are pretty basic, but seemed to wear him out pretty easily — and were impressed that he is very good about not pulling himself up with his arms. He can't push or pull anything over a couple of ounces of force for 6 weeks. He can't drive, either. He will be expected to walk, working himself up to 30-45 minutes per day.

Dad took two walks, and I accompanied him on his second. He pushed a wheelchair around and I spotted him. He said I should have gotten a picture of him doing *that* but I forgot the camera. I didn't expect today would top yesterday after the wagon.

At any rate, it seems like dad will be able to leave tomorrow and come home. He has been fully prepped with horror stories about people who felt fine and did something stupid and ended up at square one. If he's not totally paranoid, I sure am after hearing about the guy who decided to mow his lawn, whacked his bean on a tree limb, got knocked out, woke up with a split sternum and now will suffer kidney-stone like pain down the front of his chest for the rest of his everlovin' life.

So, bypass surgery recovery makes for serious paranoia.

Dad got a private room!

Dad on how he feels when he has to share a room. (He was moved out of his shared room last night)

Just kidding! This is Dad showing how big a baddy he can be while wearing a hat that says "Support Your Local Bandido," the motorcycle group his friend Lori's huband belongs to. It was one of about a million gifts she and Christine:



brought to dad. There were some magazines, madlibs, logic puzzles, a stuffed rabbit, a SpongeBob lap blanket, blackjack electronic game and a fake World Ark, magazine of the Heifer Project, with the title "Rendezvous in Chengdu" with the infamous picture of dad smoking with the local Chinese officials with their hats all tilted funny. Oh yeah, and the R. Kelly/Jay Z collaboration CD. Because dad and the rap, like peanut butter and chocolate, milk and cookies and Stephen and G.I. Joe, just go together really well.

They got dad's spirits up pretty good — Christine is from Dallas and she was in town for a Heifer press conference (the Keller family donated $3 million smackaroonies) because she does PR — and got him laughing. Which kind of hurts him a little in the chest, what with the split sternum. And Reader's Digest thinks laughter is the best medicine indeed.

Dad's bosses, Tom and Mike, also came by and I brought up the ill-made promise Tom made to cut the grass. He seemed repentent but willing. It was really sweet of him to offer. But that doesn't mean I won't tease.

Also Terry and Judy from Heifer dropped by and brought a bag of food for whoever was taking care of dad. Which was me. Those pretzels, blueberries, carrots, cheese sticks and tomatoes bought dad a few more hours of my company, because I was starving. I gave him a few blueberries — I figure that's kosher on a no-salt diet — and he said it was the best thing he'd tasted since he got in the hospital. I've seen his meals and I don't know how he could so easily dismiss his limp iceberg lettuce salad with a slice of whitish tomato.

But Heifer people weren't the only ones to drop by. Pati had a workshop in Conway and swung through to see her big brother after it was over.



They had a good visit and a good talk. It's so good to see her. She and dad were talking about the exercises he's supposed to and they're basically the same ones Grandmommy had to do. One of them is described in his handout as "lifting hubcap burger to eat," which I think is a particularly cruel descriptor because eating one of Cotham's hubcap-sized burgers isn't something these patients are working up to (in fact, it may be a bygone pasttime of some). Imagine lifting a big burger up from your lap to your mouth. Or holding your arms out straight for a second. This is what dad will be doing for six weeks, along with "walking around the Wal-Mart," though since we're too klassy a set of people for that Target will probably be our destination until the Fair Trade Big Box Store opens a branch in Little Rock.

Here's another exercise dad does:



This is the blowing machine and dad is almost consistently hitting 2,000 somethings. Which is where he needs to be. It makes the air sacs in his lungs get used to working on their own. He also accidently sat around without the oxygen tubes stuck up his nose for hours (I couldn't tell because he was sitting in the chair and I was on the bed where I didn't have a face-on look) but didn't have a problem.

Dad is able to get up and around and we walked down the hall about 30 feet and back to his room. He was whipped. I was nervous because I had to hold the chest tube wound sucker as we walked and I didn't want to get too far away and rip it out of his chest. Which they are talking about doing tomorrow.

Dr. Ozdimer also talked about sending dad home tomorrow, but that is only a possibility. There is a security in being in the hospital — all the stuff to stop things from going wrong is right there. Nobody is more aware of that than dad. Still, this demonstrates dad's good progress.

The depressing thing about this surgery is the prognosis says if he does well, he'll get to sit through this again in 10 years. Of course, by then they may be able to put something in his chest that lasts longer than his own veins. And he'll do fine since all those other people in the cardio wing are that age and getting hacked open.

Dad had the exotically-named Exzeria for his tech today. She was so sweet to him. And the food services guy fetched TWO diet french salad dressings (yum!) for dad when his was left off his food tray. That was really nice of him.

Doug should be in the hospital watching The Daily Show with dad about now. They probably watched Reno 911. Yeah, dad says it hurts to laugh but can he stay away from the two funniest shows on TV? I seriously doubt it.

Heart-ailment hilarity

Yes, dear readers, heart hilarity ensued today as dad was moved from his big private, cardio intensive care unit room into a regular, smaller recuperation room with roommate.

I went to the hospital at about 8:30 a.m. to find dad sitting up in a chair washing himself (though not too exposed). He had to use some kind of funky shampoo foam in his hair then "rinse" it with the soapy water in the spongebath bin and then towel it off (I did most of the hair stuff, it's hard for him to keep his arms up like that). But he was cleaner. We read the paper (I read some of the more hilarious ADG letters to the editor and obituary names, plus an article on a redneck with five pit bulls whose home has become like a homing beacon for dozens of copperheads — mom is very grossed out by that story, I'm waiting for the crazy Bible-thumper letter about how it's a sign of the end times) and talked a bit.

A little before noon, Monique and Kali — pronounced "Callie" — got dad into a wheelchair, put all his junk in a couple of plastic bags and we were in the not-so-posh recuperation room. But now dad gets to have his cellphone with him so there are *some* benefits. And you all can call him.

Well, dad got visits from Harriet Farley, a friend from college, Brett, a guy from church, George and Peggy Ackerman, from his reading group and, I think, church, and I think that's it. He's a popular guy.

So dad and I tried to do the Sunday NYT crossword (what's a word for light orange that isn't melon or apricot?) and we played a game of Phase 10 (not all the way through). And as we were kind of starting up our game dad got a roommate. Dad has been assured that he's at the top of the list for a private room, but not yet apparently.

Dad's roommate is an older guy who was a real vinegary old codger. He came in with his wife but she left for lunch (dad and codger got salisbury steak, whipped potatoes and fruit cocktail). After he ate a psychiatric doctor came in with a couple of residents (who looked WAY young, BTW) and started asking him some questions. Here's a brief transcript from memory of the exchange:

"Do you know where you are?"

"Well, I'm here, aren't I? You got me trapped in this place!"

"Do you know where here is?"

"I'm not a damn fool, this is a hospital!"

"Do you know why you're here?"

(big pause — he must've been looking at his chest and making a connection) "My ... my breast."

"Yes, your *chest.* You had an operation on your chest."

"Well I don't know why I needed that."

"Do you know what year it is?"

(big pause) "O .... oh-five?"

"Yes it is! And do you know what town you're in?"

"Why are you asking me something like that? I've been in the Navy, I've seen the world and a lot of towns. Do you think I'm crazy? I saw you before, you're a shrink! You bothered me earlier and you're bothering me now. I'm not crazy!"

"I know! I'm here because you seemed a little confused earlier, and I thought I would check on you and see if you were still confused."

"I'm not confused, you're confused. I just need to go home and I won't be confused at all."

And so on. Codger was a real treat, lemme tell you. Dad and I were like, choking back giggles.

So the shrink and shrinkitos leave, and we're still playing Phase 10 when I hear:

(conspiratorial whisper shout) "Young lady! Young lady!"

Dad and I exchange a look.

"Yes?"

"What town are we in?"

"Huh, well it occurs to me we're in Yokohama."

"What? No we're not!"

"No, of course we're not. I heard someone speaking Spanish. I think we may be in Mexico City."

"Oh, shit." (pause) "I don't know why you can't tell me what town we're in."

"Where's your home town?"

"CABOT ARKANSAS!!"

"Okay, well, if you're from Cabot and you're in a hospital, what town are you probably in?"

"I don't know these towns around here ... I don't know."

"Where are all the hospitals in Central Arkansas?"

"I don't know."

"If I give you a hint you think you can figure it out?"

"I don't see why you just don't tell me, you're as bad as that other girl."

"We're in a big town near Cabot."

Later he moaned out loud, possibly because he wanted to make some sort of connection: "I really made an ass of myself. I really did it. I made an ass of myself."

Well, he didn't figure it out and when his wife came back he asked what town they were in but as far as I could tell, and dad, too, we were both shameless nosy nellies, she didn't know either. He told her he'd made an ass of himself.

Anyway, this old dude had got me involved, I'm sorry to say. And when the shrink came back I was getting a nurse to — pardon the details here — come measure and dispose of dad's pee from this little bedside tupperware thing so he could go again — but codger totally bogarted her as she came in with his bad attitude and she was all futzing with his stuff and getting him as sorted as he would allow himself to be. And dad really needed to go, and I was all het up at codger, so I kind of butted in to get the nurse to take care of the non-complainer and he pulled me in with some question and, in front of all these nice, understanding, liable-skeered professionals, I kind of let this man have it.

"Do you talk to waiters this way?"

"What?"

"I said, do you talk to other people who are trying to help you this way?"

"What? Uh..."

"All they want to do is help you, and you're giving them a hard time." (at this point I have totally usurped the authority of the professionals in the room, who are probably appalled that I'm allowing myself to be dragged in, but I have recognized codger's personality type from years of writing for and about seniors, and he's the kind who likes to be disciplined a little and hates to be patronized).

"Well, they keep asking me questions."

"I know. It's not fun. But is it because you're in pain?" (I'm wondering if he's truly a codger or if pain is getting in his way of being polite. Also I'm thinking let's shut this dude up and give him a little naptime. I'm not a very nice person, I guess, but he actually kind of settled down from being agitated and irritating a little.) "Do you need something to cut back on some pain?"

"I'm not in pain! I feel fine!"

"Well then I am out of ideas to help you. Maybe they can. Nurse? My dad really needs to go potty, can you please measure his pee so he can go again?"

And she did.

Mom has been telling people dad's got a psychiatric patient, but he's just got a scared old man in there with him that the doctors don't know how to talk to. Not, really, that I did, either. Not to make myself out to be anything other than a teed-off daughter who didn't want her pops to wet himself.

Dad and I played up until we both hit phase 8? 7? Then he got tired and I needed to check on Shelby. Dad's got the TV remote and the window, so he's going to be okay. Doug and Mom are going to visit tonight.

Heartbroke hotel

As some of you know, my dad had a heart attack on Monday morning and bypass surgery on Friday. It ended up being a quadruple bypass instead of a quintuple, but that doesn't really make the recovery that much easier. After all, the doctors crack your sternum open and pretty much take your heart out of your chest before they stitch the leg veins into your normal blood pathways. Big ouch. That pillow is so he doesn't put too much pressure on any particular part of his chest, because with the pectorals having been through all that pain, it's hard to do much with your arms besides tuck them up on your chest. He is able, however, to scratch his head and put a little pillow behind him.

I am posting some pictures because I know how hard it is when you care about someone to not be able to see what their situation is. I was not in very good shape for a few days while I was still in Tacoma, but Doug sent me an email with some pics he'd taken of dad in the hospital and the big "unknowing" was lifted a bit. It helps to see to believe, you know?

There are a lot of good things about the circumstances of this heart attack. Number one is it didn't happen in Guatemala, where he was 24 hours earlier, nor in Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, where he was 12 hours earlier, nor on the road to Little Rock from DFW. Number two is mom is on-point and he took an aspirin. True, the fact that he's quite healthy and young (as far as these things go), was depressing and scary. It's been a real wake-up call for him and Mom, which also is not wholly a bad thing.

Dad has a really good attitude about healing up and he's enjoying his nurses and the respiratory therapist and everyone else at UAMS hospital. He's not a negative person or a racist, which I wonder if that is not a trait that is the bane of the extremely diverse hospital staff, what with it being in Arkansas. He does what they tell him, like blow in this little tube and try and get an air bladder up to 2,000 somethings. It's about three inches from the bottom of the thing, and which he told Dannette, his respiratory therapist, was to get air into his "alluvial sacs," duly impressing her. "I usually just say air sacs for most patients," Dannette said. Anyway, Dad's real social and a people person so he's all chatty with the nurses, even if he doesn't have the strongest voice at the moment. He has to work extra hard to get the words out, so he sounds a little quiet and strained.



Doug and Dad.

Dad sat up for several hours today, which is a big change for him. He is usually lying down on the bed — which is not that bad. It's pretty squishy, as I found out when I plopped on it while he was sitting, and he said it was the most comfortable of the three he has been on. He's got wires hooked up all over and tubes and whatnot. He has a couple of tubes coming out of his neck area that Monique, one of his nurses, injects with heaven knows what. He had about four injections while Doug and I were there and that didn't include an IV drip and albumin to do something for his veins. He also has stuff coming out of him — a catheter and a wound sucker (yes, that's the technical term) — and a Mr. Thirsty, like from the dentist, and all three hold their respective fluids, which I guess the staff is used to and thank goodness Dad is fairly shameless about it from the pain meds and the gratefulness for being alive. To me the collection of fluids reminds me of the early medical practice of checking the humors.

Dad hasn't been on a lot of pain medication because his tolerance for pain has skyrocketed since The Kidney Stone at Meegan's Wedding incident. We are encouraging him to not dismiss pain levels of 6/7 just because he can. Dannette and Monique told him it might hinder healing and his breathing.

Doug has been so good to Dad and Mom. He is a real rock, and you can tell from this picture that he's such a good-lookin' young man. We did a crossword puzzle with dad. Talked politics. He got a call from a college friend of mom's. Last night when I saw him (for the first time) he really wanted to watch "The Daily Show" with us, but alas, it was Saturday.

I want to give a special shout-out to Kaye for taking care of Shelby, the 14-year-old Jack Russell, while Mom couldn't cope. I picked him up and he was getting along great with her feisty little Pomeranian and six cats. It's because he's old. I brought him home and he sniffed everything inside and out (I guess to check that no other animals had been here in his absence) and has been sacking out in his usual pillow. His being here will raise Mom's spirits a lot, I am sure.

Although Doug was horrified that I brought in a camera (and proceeded to document the transfer to the chair, which is kind of revealing with the gown and all, but particularly invasive for the sort of vulnerability it captures of a man depending on two women to get him up and about) I'm used to talking to people about/at their worst moments and generally being nosy (I'm also used to respecting the dignity of my sources, however. Well, except a few and that's because they don't have any).

Well, that's the update for now. Tune in for more pictures and milestones as they become available.

Going postal

So my folks sent me a package with the parka I left in Arkansas and some books my mom wanted to get rid of (my old Lloyd Alexanders among them. The nerve!) so badly she put them in her "go ahead and 'borrow' these books" bookcase at school. If I hadn't decided to go to the post office to pick up the package rather than have it delivered to the lease office I never would have seen a near riot.

What happened was the downtown office was very foolishly understaffed this morning. Some guy named Steve was it. And when I got there the line wasn't too heinous. But this is the post office, and conditions change very quickly. And Steve was giving the old fashioned kind of service one sees, if ever anymore, in the sorts of small towns where people are either related to each other to some degree or can't run the risk of angering anyone else because generations of grudges will be born. I mean, he was chatting with people, whistling while he worked and taking his sweet time about everything.

While this was irritating, and much more so when the line stretched for about half the length of the nearly-city-block-long building, what set the whole thing over the top was the guy with the passport application. What a maroon. From the moment he did the "what? I'm next" look of surpirse and I saw his Tarpon Bay, Fla. t-shirt, I knew this was going to be a very special conversation for Steve. When Steve called out, "oh, a passport!" I think we all knew where this was going.

And going. And going. I heard Steve and Tarpon talk about where Tarpon was going, how often he traveled, how Steve didn't get to travel too much because he has two weeks a year, but when he retires he has some ideas about where to go, etc. etc. etc. I clocked this transaction at 15 minutes when Willie, post office person number two, showed up and acted like he was going to take over another register.

But no sweet relief yet. Willie didn't have a key to get a cash box, so he went looking for the manager, then Steve went to get him and give him a key to get a cashbox because the manager had left, then there was more aimless running around for a few minutes ... it was like a victory for alacrity was snatched out of our hands.

Anyway, Steve keeps flapping his gums with Tarpon. And the lady in pink decided to rebel.

The lady in pink was a middle-aged Black woman in a much-too-short pink frilly dress — kinda flapper frilly more than girly frilly, with layers of ruffles overlapping each other with a hot-orange line print. Also she had hot pink thongs on with big hot pink flowers on them. And hot pink toenails and hot pink hair accessories. The funny part was that she had all different shades of hot pink on so she looked less coordinated than crazy. She was also clutching her neck because she had some kind of issue with it.

"This is not a social call for you, will you hurry up?" The pink lady let out.

Something about that set off the bald retired honky in green-lensed glasses behind her and another old guy behind him. All three of these folks just started going OFF on Steve. Who came back with some pathetic, "I'm just providing good service" line to them. At this time Willie reemerges with a cashbox and sets up and serves about three people in rapid succession.

Pink lady: "Oh, please. You are too slow and you act like this is social hour every time I come in here!"

Green glasses: "This is ridiculous, the line is too long for this kind of stuff!"

Other guy: "C'mon buddy, some people don't have all day!"

Tarpon looks a little amused and a little embarrassed and he kind of realizes he's done with the passport thing but has a few more words to say to Steve (enabling jerk) so he hangs back like he's going to get into the line AGAIN to waste other people's time or maybe to give Steve a special goodbye.

But he leaves because Steve gets grumpy and stalks off from the counter and comes back with a manager who asks if he can help anyone. Well, you don't have a cashbox, I think, so there's a limit to what you can do.

But the post office rebels don't want their packages ("I do!" I think), they want to burn Steve at the stake. A torrent of noisy invective is flung at the manager like so much chimpanzee poop. Albeit chimpanzee poop that should be listened to. This is not a case of an overwhelmed post office dude doing the best he can, this is a case of a guy who does not appreciate that rapidity is an all-important part of customer service.

Pink lady had the best comment, however: "You pay him $30 an hour to go slow; I could do ten times as much!"

Manager: "Who says I pay him $30 an hour?" Which manages not only to not address the issue but also to antagonize the pink lady, whom he then further insults by saying, "There is a test one takes to get into the postal service, it is going on now if you would care to take it we are looking for new employees." What a crappy manager. We are all hating the crappy manager. And Steve, who is now surly, has managed to help not even a single man, the guy after Tarpon is still standing at the desk. In the meantime, four people have been discharged from Willie's window.

I get to the window, ask Willie if this happens often and he said, "Just today." He handed me my package and boom, I was gone.

The dispersal of the postal riot people would not have been possible if not for the quick hands and non-surliness of Willie at that time (although if the cashbox thing had been resolved earlier there may not have been a near-riot at the post office in the first place.) Willie was the true hero today. Steve, champion of slow-food values but not actually nice enough in reality to know how to be a window worker and the manager, who did everything in his power to avoid the fact that he had understaffed the front desk, and with a turtle-human hybrid to boot, and actually goaded an angry (and clearly crazy, because that was a lot of pink) lady, were the losers.

It was quite an experience for the Northwest. You people in the east coast and south know from confrontation; out here the whole Scandinavian culture is all about playing nicey nice. You never see this stuff. It was awesome.