The Chronicles of Marge

Non Sequiturs: A Collection

It seems I haven't really written in weeks, but that isn't the case. I just haven't had time to compose anything in a complete form, so instead, I have an inbox full of notes I've e-mailed to myself while at work. None of these are important, none of them are really entertaining, but such is my life the past 3 weeks, and here I'll document.

Sometime in Late March

I've been extremely busy digging up a 5x5 foot area in the yard to discover a backlog of canna lilies amounting to at least 150 rhizomes and then advertising said lilies on the classified page at work, and then having Ladies of the World tearing their hair out to get said lilies, and then arranging the lily pick-up and having to explain that you don't need 30 clumps of rhizomes unless you are adopting a freakin'-A highway median because 30 clumps equals at least 60 rhizomes, and apparently Ladies of the World haven't read The Southern Living Garden Book, which is like going to church and never reading the Bible. And even if you do go to church and don't read your Bible, you would never admit it on your Web site. Likewise, Ladies of the World interested in canna lilies should pretend to know something about them when they pick them up from my house. A useful tip: I find nodding helps. Then go home and use Google. 

April 7

I've just had a few weeks in a row where nothing quite goes as planned. Like I showed up to work today not knowing what exactly to wear after it was 80 degrees yesterday but now gray and rainy today with a cold front on its way. So I opted for sandals and some drab-looking dress slacks that I hadn't worn all winter and was feeling sorry for this morning. I need to remind myself never to feel sorry for items of clothing again. I realized the pants were missing a button once I got to work and was all SOL on fixing that one while at the office. But worse, I realized the pants looked stupid, and maybe wearing something at the workplace that feels like pajamas isn't okay even if you bought them in the working women's section of H&M. I sat there all day counting the minutes until I could put on my spandex ass-padded shorts because those, my friends, were a great improvement to the disaster of a pair of pants I had on that did nothing but suck my self-esteem down through one leg and out the other, and at least in spandex, people will notice that my legs have shape and aren't really large pipe cleaners. 

April 12
I am glad that basketball season is finally over. The late nights and all that money we've paid to City Beverage in food and alcohol just so we can view the games on a big TV were starting to get to me. I am still catching up on sleep, and it's almost a week later. Don't get me wrong—it was a great ride and I was glad to be on the side of a well-deserved winning team. But my heart is also in the process of breaking a bit because my love affair with Danny Green is now officially over. He is moving on. I will never see him again. It's like when you were in high school and the older guy you dated graduated and left you behind and you were a bit despondent and it took you the entire summer to get over it. That didn't really ever happen to me, although I did break up with an older boyfriend (over a land-line telephone, mind you) after he graduated because, at the end of the day, he was an ass and even though he purchased a T-shirt for my little sister when he went on his post-graduation tour of Europe, it didn't mean that he was a great guy. That meant something else.

Also: I was glad to see Tyler Hansbrough actually show some real emotion at the end of that last game. Maybe he will finally quit walking around with a facial expression that says "I Cannot Believe This Is My Life." Here's a life lesson for you Tyler: I walk around every day and I cannot believe that this is my life either, but I've learned to close my mouth about it.

April 14

My little sister is back on facebook but under a pseudonym that only her sisters would recognize—let's just say that if I followed suit, my name would be Amy Lucas. According to her profile picture and information, Vern is now a 44-year-old chocolate lab who is forever grateful to have been saved from euthanasia—so much so that she spends her days eating large quantities of food, gazing longingly into her owners' eyes, and collapsing on the floor from which removing herself is a near impossibility. That also means that Vern is now the eldest sibling—finally! Vern: I will be shipping to you the eldest sibling filing cabinet that came with my life. It is filled with ANXIETY and WORRY and a half empty bottle of tequila.

Public Service Announcement From Marge: Look Into Pants

I've waited 2 weeks to tell this story because I wasn't sure how to say it. It's one of those stories that could shock, dismay, offend—depending on how I tell it—or cause gales of laughter. However, I've shared it with at few people, and I think I can handle any feedback I may receive. Also, if you feel the need to laugh, please do. That's where I am now with this and where I will probably remain for a long time.

The date: April 2, 2009. The time: 7:13 a.m. The location: 2.5 miles from where I live. The truth: everything I share with you now.

So I was biking to work on a crisp gray morning a couple of weeks ago, down the same road I always take and experiencing nothing out of the ordinary. I noticed a dark green minivan pulling out of a townhouse complex on my left. The van got in the far left lane going my direction, and I didn't think anything of it until I approached the stoplight at the intersection, and the van pulled quickly into the right lane—the lane beside me. The van stopped about 4 feet shy of the white stop line, to which I rolled up to and stopped. The van then suddenly pulled up to line, which caught my attention. My brain automatically went into cyclist defense mode: does this guy see me? is this guy going to turn right and cut me off? I looked back to check for a turn signal, which I didn't see, and then I looked at the driver, and said to myself, "That man isn't wearing any pants." And then I said to myself, "And that's not a Coke bottle he's playing with in his lap." And then I said to myself, "Oh holy shit." I didn't know what to do. I'd never been in this situation before, and at that moment, all I wanted was out. So I rolled my bike back so that I was at the back of the van, out of sight of the man without pants and unable to see the offending object. 

World, it was huge. It was also the longest red light I have ever experienced in my life, and never before have I looked straight ahead with such purpose and determination. Once it turned green, I hesitated for a moment, hoping the guy would just get his show on the road, but he didn't move—I mean, I guess it's kind of difficult when you are dealing with all that—so I pedaled on by and was relieved when I looked back and noticed he had turned right and was not going my direction. 

Once I got moving, my brain started working. Should I have called the cops? What if this was a sex offender of the verge of offending? What if he shows himself to a child? What if I see him tomorrow? I admit to The World now that I didn't call the cops because I was so shaken and disturbed at the moment. I mean, I'm 30 years old; I'm used to a stray penis every now and again, but this was a new experience for me. I've seen on the news or on TV crime shows that people like this are out there, and as much as I know this happens, it has never happened to me, and because of that, I've retained this idea that I'm immune to this, that good is the first emotion that people have, that no one is going to whip out a penis and show it to a random lady on a bicycle. But there I was, one ordinary lady on one ordinary morning, having one of the security blankets that guard my perception of the world being quickly ripped from me. There I was, being used by another human being in a fairly disgusting way. It was clear to me from the movements of the van and THE FACT THAT HE WAS PANTLESS, that he wanted me to see him and that he wanted to watch me, and I felt icky and cheap and a little sick inside. I mean, come on man, why not get a copy of the Victoria's Secret catalog and spend some quality time in the toilet like any normal person? Is that too much to ask?

But then again, I'm just now beginning to understand the level of pervert that roams the streets of Durham at 7:15 in the a.m. I admit that I still don't understand much, even after this experience, and that I don't really want to understand any more than I do because, at the end of the day, this is a man who consciously got into his car and took off his pants or else walked to his car in the fresh morning air without wearing any pants at all. And folks, that is just not something that I need to think about any more than I already have.