A little elaboration into what actually happened this morning.

I had decided to drive Mike to work today because I needed the car to run errands. My plans were to go to KMart and pick up some groceries and then head over to JoAnn's and get some yarn because I'm almost out and want to make a blanket for my mom.

The sun is shining. It's a beautiful day. The classic rock station is playing.

I'm a renegade who had it made they finally found me...

And here comes this guy in a Tahoe.

Cuts me off by maybe...a foot? At least. I have to step on my brakes to avoid being hit.

And all I can think is, "My God, what's wrong with this guy? Who DOES this?"

He spins out into the median, comes back around and plows right into the front of us.

And that's when I start screaming.

And that's when I look up and see that he's still going.

THAT SON OF A BITCH HIT US AND HE'S STILL GOING DO YOU SEE THAT HE'S STILL GOING WE COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED AND HE'S STILL GOING.

I hear a tap on the window.

"Miss, are you all right?"

We have two witnesses who were on the road at the time, and then another couple who was in their yard with their son and saw the whole thing.

Everyone's answer is the same. "He looked like he was gunning for you."

If I had reacted differently, I would have been dead. He would have hit my door and I would not be here. I could have been killed. I literally could have been dead right then and there.

It's taken all afternoon for that to finally sink in, for the Xanax to wear off and for me to accept that.

We call Gary & Deanna, they show up with a camera and get some photos.

Photos of the bumper hanging off the car, of the damage to the front end, of the tranny fluid all over the ground. Glass and plastic all over the ground.

Tranny fluid looks like blood.

If I had reacted differently - even a little bit differently - I would not be here right now.

Recognizing your own mortality is a terrifying feeling.

Now I can understand - at least somewhat - how Chan must have felt when he got shot.

I wish I didn't.

But I am glad to be alive.

Because if things had gone any differently, I wouldn't be.

I'm never going to forget that.

We are all only human.

Life is truly a gift.

One careless, stupid act can take that from you or from someone else.

Please never forget how lucky you are to be here.

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Help me reach a thousand comments!

Spam me, amuse me, leave random useless bits of trivia, comment with every icon you have...let's see how long it takes me to get there.

Invite your friends, it's public! Let's get this ball rolling.

*crosses fingers and waits*

Well, it has been a truly amazing run...and I made it further this year than I did last. I sure can't stick my nose up at that!

This has been my second LJ Idol season, and like the one before, I have treasured the time that I spent competing and the people that I've gotten to know through Idol...I wish that I could name each and every one of you by name and thank you each personally.

I have been honored to share the stage with a group of amazing writers, from Ro to Ashlee, to Amy to Kizzy, to SHT to Kizzy, and being amongst their ranks was a gift that I was very fortunate to receive.

Thank you all for your support, for your friendship, and for giving me the motivation and encouragement to keep on.

My $20 donation will be going to the Humane Society Of Southern Arizona.

See you all next year!

♥

Poll #1359752 LJ Idol, Season Five – Week Twenty-Two: Achilles Heel
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None

The Ballot:

It's LJ Idol voting time again!

(I know, I know...the middle of the week, seriously!)

Please go here to vote for me and give me at least one more week.

VOTE NOW!

(Also, here is the charity donation poll, so you know I didn't forget!)

Poll #1359898 LJ Idol Top 20 Charity Is...?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which charity should I donate to since I've made the top 20 (and now the top 15!) in LJ Idol?

I wake up on a typical sunny Friday morning in Tucson, take my sleep mask off of my eyes, and I smile. The next twenty-four hours are mine, and I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do. I anticipate playing with the dogs, reading a book on the back porch, listening to music, maybe watching a movie with my husband. And then at 6:00, we bowl.

League bowling is one of the great joys of my life. My husband and I are on a team with his parents; his aunt, uncle and grandmother are also on our same league. I love the feeling of finding my mark, of placing my fingers inside my green Monsters, Inc bowling ball, (I didn't know that it was a Monsters, Inc ball until after I got it; the big eye on it was what won me over, although the smiling faces of Mike and Sully, and the sneering purple mug of Randall don't hurt too much either.), seeing if I can hit my 109 average or even better.

Tonight we're bowling a team we bowled with last year at Lucky Strike - Steve, a balding guy in his mid-forties who reminds me a bit of David Crosby, his wife Sue, a sweet-faced woman with glasses and curly silver hair, Sherry, a petite, white-haired lady with a whispery voice that makes her sound a little like Marilyn Monroe. That night, their fourth is out.

"So, we're bowling you guys," Steve says, taking his ball out and placing it on the return. "Cool."

"You're gonna be nice to us, right?" my husband asks.

"Good luck with that!" Steve retorts.

I laugh and finish my cheeseburger.

Over the loudspeaker, someone at the desk announces that we can start our ten minutes of practice. After throwing a couple of good balls I stop...you don't want to sabotage the rest of your game by throwing all your good balls away during practice. It's sort of like wearing your sexy underwear when your SO is out of town...you can do it, but what's the point?

The game starts out slow...I've got something like 45 in the 4th frame when lo and behold...I throw a strike. A perfect, beautiful, strike. I'm doing what my mother-in-law calls "shaking hands with the headpin", and right now it's working perfectly. Quite possibly, it is the most beautiful strike I have ever seen. Half the time when I pick up, you'll hear me say something like, "Well, that was messy as hell, but it worked." If bowling a strike is an art, this strike was a Degas ballerina; Renoir's boating party...it was truly that perfect.

Four more follow. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.

And now it's the top of the 10th. I look at my score...178 in the seventh frame and my other strikes still haven't been added in yet. Holy crap. Holy crap. I'm bowling with the big dogs now. Holy crap. Pretty soon people are going to think that I know what the hell I'm doing! I can't say that my placing second in all events during the women's city tournament a few weeks earlier was a fluke, now they're going to think I'm some sort of bowling Rain Man (or woman.) Oh, boy, what the HELL did I just get myself into?

So I throw again.

Nine.

And out of the seven of us bowling in this lane, there is a collective groan. Well, a groan from our team, and perhaps a sigh of relief from Steve, Sherry and Sue, who have been beaten like a redheaded stepchild caught shoplifting.

The pin that's left is the ten pin. Man, I hate that little bastard. There he is, looking back at me all smug and self-satisfied. I try to do that thing from The Waterboy where I imagine that the ten pin has done something to really piss me off, like say that I'm bowling with a little kid's ball or that it's a miracle with only one of my eyes looking at the lane, that I was able to get a five-bagger tonight. Well, screw you, Mr. Ten Pin, I'll show you what I'm made of.

And there's the curve that always seems to show up when I don't want it there.

The tenth frame is markless.

But lo and behold, I look up at the screen and there's my score.

206

I have bowled one hundred pins over my book average of 104. ONE HUNDRED PINS. Over one hundred pins, actually. I have effectively carried my team to victory and, as my husband would say, spanked our competitors.

I feel weak in the knees as I sit down and take a long swallow of my cherry coke.

"Wow," I murmur when Mike is done bowling. "Do you think they'll announce this over the intercom tonight?"

Five minutes later, I hear it.

"Congratulations to Corrie Wise on Lane 15, who just bowled a career 206 game! Way to go, Corrie!"

The applause is deafening. I feel like I've just won an Oscar. I feel like I need to have an acceptance speech. "I'd like to thank Kolb Mixers, for Mike, for encouraging me to bowl my best, for Uncle Edgar and Aunt Phyllis for cheering me on, for Gary and Deanna for letting me bowl on their team..."

When my husband's uncle comes over to shake my hand and tell me that I've bowled a good game, nothing else in the world matters. This is a man who doesn't spout out meaningless compliments. And if he tells you that you bowled a hell of a game, then you can be sure that you bowled a hell of a game.

Tonight I got to bark with the big dogs.

And there is nothing else that could even come close to matching that.

Hey all you lurkers, readers, shy folks! I really wanna know ya!

Here's an invite to those who might feel like they need one... COME ON IN! All are welcome! Friend me, introduce yourself and welcome aboard!


Bottom line - if you are a regular or semi-regular reader and not on my f-list, just drop me a line in this post and let me know you're out there.

Be well.

She's a liar.

You never touched her, you told me.

You said that if you did, it was an accident.

You said that she asked you to play the "monkey and snake" game that she learned at school.

And you said that you never touched her.

"I know she's lying," your mother said. "She wants attention. She told me once that she was going to get taken away from her mom and dad and taken to Hutton to live with the other girls. She's lied about that, why wouldn't she lie about this?"

"I SWEAR TO GOD THAT I NEVER TOUCHED HER," you screamed on a cool spring evening, face down on the bed. "I DIDN'T! I WOULD NEVER LIE ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THAT."

And then it was July.

The day before, we sat in the front yard on lawn chairs and ate Jamaican jerk chicken that I'd had marinading all day. Potato salad. Iced tea. The sun set behind us and we looked out at the back forty...the Yugo, my Reliant K., your mother's green Escort. I could almost see Lorraine's roses from where we sat that night together.

It was the last night I would spend alone with you.

You watched television in the attic. I read in bed.

I prayed, not for a not guilty verdict, but to learn the truth.

The next morning, the phone rang.

Your lawyer.

Your mother hired the best.

She made me stay in hell for another two years to help pay him off.

"They reached a verdict," you say, taking a bite out of a soggy grilled cheese sandwich. "We have to go to court."

I look down at my left arm.

I see "AMANDA IS A LIAR" carved into the soft skin under my arm. I see it ugly, angry and red. It stares back at me, challenging. I can almost hear her. "What if I'm not the liar, Aunt Corrie?" she says in my head. "What if I'm not?"

And the three of us left the house.

Only two of us came back that afternoon.

"It should be fine," she chattered from behind the wheel. "You didn't do anything wrong, it'll come out, she's a liar, she's a liar, we know you didn't do it, we'll go to Old Country Buffet to celebrate tonight."

Because an all-you-can-eat buffet will heal eighteen months worth of open wounds.

On the third floor, the Greek chorus sounds.

"Guilty."

Thirteen times.

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

I hold you and kiss you goodbye.

Tears soak your blue polyester polo shirt.

I am an empty vessel.

I sleep alone.

Your cat meows at every noise outside, convinced you've returned.

She circles me warily.

Friends support me, hold me up.

For a month, I believe you.

After a month of waiting in county jail reception, the truth comes out through a glass wall on the chi-mo floor.

"She asked me to. Don't hate me. I love you."

She asked me to. She asked me to. She asked me to.

It rings in my ears.

Finally the truth has come out.

No one left to blame but you.

Silverwood is an amusement park set out in the "wilds" of the North Idaho panhandle. When you grow up in Eastern Washington, it's by and far the most exciting thing to do in the summertime - persuade your parents to take you, your siblings and maybe a friend or two to Silverwood for the day. There's a log ride, something called Thunder Rapids, roller coasters, that thing that looks like a closed-in Ferris wheel (the Scrambler, I believe it's called), and all sorts of other wonderful things. You can take a train ride through the park and get "robbed" by park employees who ask for your snacks and anything else you're willing to give them, including pocket change. Once year my brother Ken nearly gave up the lunch my mom had packed that morning to Black Bart and his gang of bad guys.

Despite everything at Silverwood, my favorite ride has never been a fancy one. I'm not even necessarily sure what the proper name for it is, but I've always called it the swings. You get in - with a friend, if you're lucky - and you slowly begin to lift off and take flight. You can see the sky above you, always the perfect shade of blue, the people walking around below you, the vehicles traveling by on the highway that just look like Matchbox cars. You lean back, the wind rushes past you, you stretch your feet out in front of you - curl your toes inside your sandals and hope they don't fall off - and lose yourself for a few glorious moments in time.

It was the summer of 1994 when Monica and I went for a youth group retreat. A group of us - redheaded Greg Safford, his little sister Pam, Andrea Smith (a former friend whom I tried to reconcile with a few years later; she told you that being friends with me took too much effort), Monica and I. The group of us rode together in an RV that Jean, Pam and Greg's bedraggled, slightly crazy mother, was driving. There were more of us in other cars - Matt, his brother Nate, Torrey, an awkward dark-haired kid who never quite fit in no matter how hard he tried, Jeremy Affeldt and his type-A sister Nichole. This was the highlight of our summer, this is what we'd been waiting for. This was what we had to look forward to.

Monica and I headed for the swings.

The two of us got on, squeezed into one of the tiny seats together, tilted our heads back, stretched our feet out and let the wind wash us away. We felt like we were flying, she and I did. Nothing else mattered. We were two teenage girls - thirteen and fifteen - and still had to experience broken hearts, the pain that came from not being loved in return, so many nights spent crying behind a bedroom door, scribbling in a journal that you hid under your mattress...afraid to put even your deepest thoughts in your own diary because you didn't trust your parents. The only thing that mattered at that moment was the two of us, the wind rushing around us, the sky clear and blue, speckled with creamy white clouds.

It was the most perfect day I could have imagined. Me and my best friend, young, without a care, soaking up the sunshine during the most beautiful day (that I can remember) in the whole summer of 1994.

And then, ten years went past.

I'm twenty-five years old, a quarter of a century. Monica is two years younger, newly graduated from Multnomah Bible College, considering going to WSU to become a vet. My life is in shambles - I live with my ex-MIL in a disgusting attic room that makes me cringe to remember how vile and repellent it actually was. My husband is in prison for molesting his niece. I'm going on my first full year without him home and am finally able to get a full night of sleep without waking up in tears, after the brutal remembrance of being alone. I put on a good front, though...I tell everyone that without my faith I would have cracked a long time ago.

Here we are at Silverwood again.

And it's another beautiful summer's day.

There are the swings, the yellow paint not as bright as it was all those years earlier, but they are still as familiar and comforting as my thirteen year friendship with Monica. I look at her, she looks back at me. And we share a smile.

"So, what do you say?" I ask her. "For old times sake?"

She smiles.

We get in line.

The two of us squish in right next to each other, fasten the metal bar over us, and I lean back, curl my toes up inside my sandals and close my eyes. The wind rushes over me.

For a few blissful moments in time, I am fifteen again.

And I am truly happy for the first time in a very long time.

It's almost 7:30, and my shift has ended a half-hour previously. I'm sitting out front in the lobby, the night security guard has on some soul music, and the two of us are each singing under our breaths along with Marvin and Tammi to You're All I Need To Get By.

And I hear crackling from Tish's walkie-talkie. It's the older security guard, a balding Mexican guy by the name of Ed. "...panic attack in Death Valley," he says, referring to the section of our department that sears.com takes their calls in. "Felicia called it in...wife is up front."

Immediately I know. I don't have to hear my name to know that it's him. It doesn't matter if the only people working in Death Valley tonight are all men, I know that it's him.

"I'll send her back," Tish says.

I look at her. "It's my husband, isn't it?" I ask, my purse in one hand, every fiber of my being standing alert.

She nods.

And I run.

Despite myself, I fear that it may be a heart attack instead of a panic attack. I can't help but feel that way as I fly past a group of people gathered in front of the time clock and hear one of them - I think it's Joanie - say "Where is Corrie headed in such a hurry?"

I dash through the Parts floor, narrowly avoid a skinny guy with glasses who's wearing a trench coat and looks a little like Commissioner Gordon from The Dark Knight who is logging off his computer. "Sorry," I mutter under my breath as I swerve past him and take the stairs into Death Valley two at a time.

When I find him, he's sitting at Charlie's desk. Debbie, the short, dark-haired Jewish team manager stands by him on one side. Christine, thin, blonde and as chicly dressed as a Gap model, stands on his other side. He's got a bottle of water in one hand - Aquafina, I wonder if someone had ran upstairs to get it for him.

Anxiety has been a constant companion in our marriage for the past eleven months. It's the unwelcome third party in our relationship, the third party in the menage a'trois that I never asked to show up. Anxiety has caused him to see the doctor time and time again, anxiety has made him believe that every chest pain is a heart attack and that he'll die before his next birthday. It works his way across his shoulders and settles in his chest, making him feel like he's going to die. No matter how many doctors have told him that he's fine, no matter how many stress tests have come back perfect, no matter that despite his size, he's okay, he has a hard time believing that.

"It was stupid, hon," he says as I give him a kiss. I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that he's okay, even though I knew that he would be. "I was on a call and I knew...got them transferred and Debbie knew there was something wrong."

Debbie would know. She seems to have a sixth sense about these things. I wonder if it's a Jewish thing or if she really is just that good.

I continue to rub his back as the EMTs show up, and curiously, people peer around the corner to see what's going on. I'm still standing there, right next to him, rubbing his back, working that knot out of his shoulders...trying to do what little I can do to take it all away.

If there was something that I could do to take this away from him, I would do it. I would rather suffer through debilitating anxiety attacks each and every day for the rest of my life than to see him like this. I think of the night a few months before when he called the EMTs, woke the whole house up, and had a yelling match with his dad at 1:30 in the morning. I wanted to take it off his shoulders, to lift it, to carry it with me, to do whatever I would have to do to remove it from him.

"Looks like you're fine," the younger EMT says. "Everything looks good. Now we do have to tell you that you can go to the hospital and get yourself checked out just to make sure, but it looks like you're okay."

I look at him. Christine looks at him. Debbie looks at him. The EMTs have left the building.

"Nah," he says, "I'm okay. Anyway, it's karaoke night..."

"If I were you," Christine says, "I would lie low tonight. No karaoke, just go home with your beautiful wife and relax. Maybe go out to dinner, something like that."

She's right, relaxation is what he needs.

It's what I need.

It's taken this long for MY heart finally to slow down and begin to beat normally. I kiss him on the top of his head and inhale the smell of his tea tree shampoo and Old Spice body wash, and I can almost feel the anxiety release him from its chokehold.

"You all right to drive?" Christine asks.

"If not," I said, "I can."

"Thanks, babe," he says, taking my hand as we walk out of the building together.

The October night is warm but with a slight hint of chill in the air. I wrap my arms around him in the parking lot and give him a kiss. He has told me, almost ever since the first night we spoke, that I have the ability to calm him down and make him relax. I want to have that gift now when we both need it so badly.

I take his hand in mine and hold it. His is so much bigger than mine...my long, thin fingers are nearly dwarfed in his huge paw. "I wish that I could..." I say, but I can't finish the statement. He already knows what I'm about to say...about how I want to take the anxiety from him, how I want it to go away and leave him, to let him be the happy-go-lucky, funny, warm guy that I married. The parking lot lamps illuminate my face and his. His goatee seems to glow in the unnatural luminescence.

"I know that you do," he says, "I know."

For a few minutes we stand there, wrapped in each other's arms, and for a moment in time, there is nothing but us.

And we are thankful for that one brief anxiety-free interlude.

If only it would last just a little bit longer.

If only.

Hey guys,

If you could please take a look at my bookshelf on Paperback Swap and request some books (I'm running out of space at home!) I would be more grateful than you could possibly imagine. And in return, if you guys want to post links to your bookshelves, I'd love to see what stuff you have posted as well.

Thanks!

Originally written 9/2006, but I found that it was still relevant now.

To whom it may concern:

I am very proud of the way that I look. I'm not a stick by any means, I am a voluptuous, curvy woman with plenty of meat on my bones. I love my squishy belly, my ample rear end, my great breasts. I have no complaints or apologies towards how I look. This is me, and I personally could care less if you like it or not, because I know that there are plenty of other people out there who do.

Now granted, I have not always been comfortable with my weight. After my ex-husband went to prison in July of 2003, I gained twenty pounds after finding solace with Chinese food from the deli at Safeway and pints of Ben & Jerry's. I was depressed and I didn't want to leave the house. It didn't help that I was subsisting on a diet of greasy Hamburger Helper, completely unhealthy amounts of fast food (and we're not talking salads, either), Hungry Man salisbury steak TV dinners, fried chicken from the deli down the street and grilled cheese sandwiches on Wonder bread with Velveeta, not grilled so much as fried in sticks of Imperial margarine.

And when I was married, my diet was relatively close to the same. My ex-husband would make biscuits and gravy, slather the biscuits with margarine and then slather gravy over the top of it. Fried spam & velveeta sandwiches. He would sit in front of the television eating deep-fried burritos covered with sour cream and chili. Dip hot dogs into a pile of mayonnaise. Brown rice? Never heard of it. Baked potato chips as opposed to fried? An abomination. Lettuce besides iceburg in a salad? My mom doesn't eat that way, so why should I?

It wasn't until November of 2003 when I was fully able to recognize that I needed to do something about my health. My best friend and I were walking back to my house from hers when a man in an olive drab military-style parka with the hood up ran past me and stole my purse. I tried to chase him as he continued running, but I felt like I was going to die. Ami, in better shape than I was at the time, tore off down the street after him, but was unable to catch him. I, on the other hand, stood on the sidewalk screaming profanities and crying, feeling like my heart was about to explode from inside my chest. I wasn't unhappy with my weight, but my health was in jeopardy. I thought about my grandfather, who had already had two heart attacks and one open-heart surgery in the past twenty-five years.

Not long after that, I was getting some r & r at my mom and dad's house, wearing a pair of jeans that I loved with big buckles on the upper thigh and a split leg. I was laying on my old daybed on my side, facing the wall, when my father comes in before leaving for work, and smacks my ass and kind of jiggles it. "You've got to shake off some of this poundage," he says, with his habit to make up words. "Because you know, you were such a solid little gal when you were in high school...and you looked super good back then, you know."

I have lost probably close to fifty pounds since that day. I didn't lose weight because my father told me that I had a big ass. In fact, he referred to it as a "ghetto booty" more than once, and I shot back with, "Yes, Jennifer Lopez has this same ass, and she's famous for it." I didn't lose weight because I was feeling unattractive. I didn't lose weight because I was a "fat American woman" as close-minded idiots like would say, I lost weight to improve my health and that's all there is to it. And again, I wasn't even trying to lose weight in the first place - I just wanted to be healthier.

So you know what? You can come here, you can take my photos, you can post them in LJ Flame Cup you can make fun of me and call me a fat, ugly American bitch, but you know what? Inner beauty is what shines the brightest, and no matter what size you are, what is sexiest is when you're comfortable in your own skin. Which is why I believe that some of the sexiest women out there are people like my friend Mia, whose confidence shines through her in everything she does,
Beauty is being comfortable with who you are and loving yourself for your flaws and your imperfections as well as your wonderful qualities.

It really isn't what you think, now is it?

And the only thing that is truly ugly is the hatred that close-minded, hate-filled, ignorant, idiotic people like you feel towards those that don't conform to your certain pre-set mold of what's beautiful. What do I think is sexy? This is.

Have a nice day.

Sincerely,
a fat, happy, sassy American bitch.

PS - I have no problem with who I am. At 185 lbs, I'm perfect happy with myself. And no stupid comments about "mooooving sideways through doors" or the eternally clever "cow" statement are going to make me change my stance. And if that's truthfully the best you can do, I find that quite sad. Would you like me to write down some insults for you next time so you can pretend that you know what you're talking about? It's the least that I can do. :)

This morning, I did a meme...one of those "tell me eight things about yourself" numbers that have been frequenting my friends list lately. The eighth item on that list was something along the lines of "If someone had told me five years ago that I'd be happily married with the man of my dreams, living in Tucson, AZ I would have laughed at you and asked what you were smoking."

I used to be a by-the-book person. I did what others expected of me. There were black areas and there were white areas. Nothing was gray. Things are right or things are wrong. Take something like abortion. It's wrong. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter if a twelve year old girl with Down Syndrome was raped by her mother's boyfriend, abortion is STILL wrong. At least that's how I felt back then...before I was able to look at things differently.

But in my late twenties, after doing everything the way that was prescribed by my parents...because their traditional daughter would never do anything rash or unexpected, I hit the rebellious streak that most people experience in their late teens or early twenties. No, I didn't get a tattoo of Elvis's face on my ass. I didn't get my tongue pierced. I threw caution to the wind and I did what I needed to do to be happy.

"I don't think that Corrie will ever leave Washington," Dad told someone he as chatting wtih on the phone one day. "Honestly, I see her staying here until she dies."

And truth be told, at that point, that's what I saw. I imagined myself having a couple of kids with the man who I adored (but who couldn't - or chose not - to reciprocate my feelings), saw him and my dad watching football and sharing a beer, and then discussing right-wing politics in the harvest gold and red living room.

In retrospect, I can't figure out what I saw in him. This was a man who, in the twenty-first century, expected to come home from work and find a hot meal waiting for him no matter what, and if she chose to vacuum in high heels like June Cleaver, more power to her. And of course HE had no intention of doing the housework...because that's what the woman was there to do. And she'd better make sure to have Little Smokies and cocktail meatballs ready when the ball game was on too!

I know, I know. Whatever did I see in that guy?

Anyway.

I chose to be unconventional.

Now granted, my definition of "unconventional" is undoubtedly not like everyone else's. But for Mike and Colleen Schmidt's quiet, studious, serious daughter, more comfortable in the company of books than her peers...to take the road less traveled, to NOT do what Mommy and Daddy expected, to run with scissors, to write her own ending...that was unheard of.

If someone had told the version of "me" that I was all those years before that I'd be running off to Arizona to shack up with a guy that I met on Livejournal whose first words to me were "You think I'm cute even after I told you to go fuck yourself?" I would have asked them what the hell they were smoking and if they were willing to share.

I did what no one thought I would do. The dependable, reliable, conscientious, courteous daughter, the safe child, the predictable one...who ordered the country club omelette at Perkins with a raspberry cream muffin, coffee with two sugars and two creams. SHE was the one throwing caution to the wind?

Right now, I am happier than I could have imagined I would have ever been five, six, seven years ago. Each day I face is one that I greet with a smile and a positive outlook. I thank God for the wonderful man who has given me his name. I wonder what I did to get so lucky, and then I remember.

I remember that if I hadn't colored outside the lines, I never would have made it here.

And truth be told? There is nowhere that I would rather be than here.

Most of you know that I work in retail. I do customer service for Sears, and day in and day out, I deal with customers. Nine-tenths of the time, my customers are incredibly wonderful people who are grateful for the help that they get from me, but every once in a while, there's one bad apple.

Or maybe she wasn't such a bad apple after all.

Let me take you back. It's New Year's Eve, and I don't want to be at work anyway. The one - and only - thing that I want to be doing is spending the day on the couch with my husband, watching movies and maybe a football game or two, although most of them aren't on yet. It was incredibly tempting for both of us to fake being sick so that we could snuggle up on the couch together all day watching The Dark Knight. But, you know, like our moms told us, sometimes we have to do things we don't like to do. So you put on your big-girl panties (or big boy boxers, if you rather), buck up and deal with it.

BEEP.

"FUCK YOU, YOU G##DAMN AUTOMATED SYSTEM I JUST WANT TO SPEAK TO A MOTHERFUCKING HUMAN BEING YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!" the voice on the other end of the phone screams.

I put my speaker on mute and, barely audibly, mutter something about being sorry that a house fell on her sister.

And then I begin my spiel.

"Thank you for choosing Sears," I start, "this is Corrie in..."

"CORRIE!" she bellows. "CORRIE, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MAD I AM. I BOUGHT THIS SON-OF-A-BITCHING STOVE AND IT'S LOCKED AND I DON'T HAVE THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL! MY KITCHEN IS A HOLE IN THE WALL AND I NEED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THIS SON OF A BITCH UNLOCKED AND IF YOU DON'T HELP ME NOW, I AM GOING TO COME OVER THERE, GET YOU, PULL YOU BACK HERE BY YOUR HAIR AND MAKE YOU CARRY THIS RANGE ON YOUR BACK THROUGH THE SNOW BACK TO THE STORE! DO YOU HEAR WHAT I'M SAYING TO YOU!?!?"

Yikes. I wish there was an option on the automated system that says "If you want to go ballistic on a CSA, please press star-pound-triple-six and an masochistic agent will be with you shortly.

One of the things that I was taught during training is that people are going to get mad. It's a given. It's a fact of life, they're going to get pissed off. They're going to yell and scream and jump up and down and call you names, but you just grin and bear it. If they get REALLY abusive, you tell them there's no reason to use that kind of language. If it continues, then end the call. It's always sort of funny, though...because sometimes what the rational-minded associate (being me) and the customer on the end of the phone (who is at this point madder than Yosemite Sam after he sat on a cactus) seem to consider being rational.

I never cry on my calls, even when people are really horrible. Although one time at another job, I was on the verge of tears because one of the supervisors was a control freak who yelled at me for reading and threatened to write me up. (Reading was allowed on the floor. He was just a douche. But anyway.)

"Ma'am," I start. "Ma'am, I do apologize that..."

"I DON'T NEED YOU BLEEPITY-BLEEPING APOLOGY!" she screams. "I NEED TO GET THIS STOVE UNLOCKED!"

"OK," I say to her. "OK, I do understand that. I really, really do. But there is no call for you to take it out on me, okay? I can definitely see how this has got to be frustrating for you, so take a deep breath and try to calm down, all right?"

And then I hear it. Instead of more screaming, she starts laughing.

HYSTERICALLY.

I don't know if it's embarrassed laughter or if she's finally realizing that it is maybe a little bit funny that she's on the floor surrounded by tools, trying to unlock a stove that (I discovered later on that night) is unlocked by flipping a switch right above the oven door.

"I...I am so..."

I wait.

"...so...so...sorry! I KNOW that it's not your fault! And I'm sorry, my emotions just got the better of me. Can you forgive me?"

I have to stop and take a deep breath now, because I'm not quite sure if I want to cry or if I want to laugh. Can I do them both at the same time? Will I get marked on my quality scores if I do?

"Okay," I tell her. "Here's what I'll do. Let me go ahead & put you through to our service department, give them the model number of your range and we'll get this figured out for you today, all right? And happy new year, ma'am."

"Thank you," she says, still laughing. "I just want this g##damned stove fixed. And I'm sorry, Corrie."

"You know what?" I tell her. "You don't need to apologize. I know that if I were in your situation, I'd be just as upset as you are."

Now it might just be me, but I'd say that defines "cracking up" to a tee. It fits both definitions perfectly.

What would you say?

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Tell your friends! The more the merrier! Let's make this HUGE!!

My Answers

Your name and/or LJ handle: Corrie - az_starshine

The story behind your LJ username: I've gone by other screen names in the past, but when I ended up moving to the Southwest from Washington, I needed a name that would suit me better than the two previous ones. My husband calls me Starshine, so I thought...okay, how about az_starshine? It works just fine for me.

Your website, especially-but-not-necessarily-so-no-need-to-be-exclusionary if you're an author, reviewer or bookseller: I have nothing exciting for you here...just my LJ. LOL.

What book are you reading or what audiobook are you listening to right now: Reading Lolita In Tehran

Anything else you want to mention to introduce yourself: I make amazing cookies!

A link to one of your LJ entries that you are particularly proud of: Loving a dog named Hope

It was June.

We were getting married in six weeks.

And I still didn't have a job.

And as much as I loved spending my days at home with a book and some crocheting, endless games of Scrabble Blast and Bejeweled on Pogo, chasing the dogs around the house and not getting dressed unless I really had to, I knew that it was time. I'd been here in Arizona for over a year now, and it was time for me to get a job. If I could have gotten paid for having lunch with my best friend and her daughter in the backyard - "board meetings", we called them - I would have. But unfortunately, as it always goes, real life tends to get in the way of the fantasy that we'd prefer to accept.

Despite the fact that my BLTs were so good that they'd make you cry, my brown butter cookies were described by my friend's son as "crack cookies" and that "something this good ought to be illegal", it just wasn't in the cards right now to get paid for baking and BLTs.

And then one day, I had an epiphany. I knew what I was going to do.

I applied at a place that had turned me down twice before.

I walked into the building with my head held high, because I knew, deep in my hearts of hearts that this time, it would be different.

But I knew more now...and I had faith in myself. This time, I would be able to do it.

I put on a green paisley blouse, black pants, strappy sandals. My hair was freshly washed, shining, clean. And I'd even put a little lip gloss and eye shadow on...I was going to wow them. I was going to let them know that I was going to win them over. This was my moment in the sun. My piece de resistance.

She stood up, shook my hand. And she asked me all the interview questions that had previously filled me with dread. She asked me how I would deal with an irate customer. She asked me how I felt about sales. She asked me how I felt I felt about competition.

"I would warm transfer, if necessary," I told her. "I would explain to the associate on the other line what the situation is, while doing whatever I had within my power to calm the customer down."

I expressed my willingness to sell.

I told her that I bowled on a Friday night bowling league with my husband and that competitiveness was a part of who I was and what we did. I explained that I set high standards for myself and that I was willing to push myself to be the best that I could be.

She scheduled me for a second interview.

With my spine ramrod straight, a smile on my face, without being able to feel the ground beneath my feet, I floated out to the car where my mother-in-law waited.

"They want me back!" I exclaimed. "I passed!"

A few days later, I came back for my second interview.

Same strappy sandals, same black pants. This time I wore a different blouse. This time I wore something that I knew made me feel good, and I knew that would help my confidence.

And I was right.

"Hi," she said, casual in capri pants and a tank top. She wore Birkenstocks and her silvery hair was worn in a French braid down her back. "I'm Sandy...you're Corrine? Nice to meet you."

She asked me questions about my employment history. She asked me how I would do in a workplace environment that was sometimes high-stress. She asked me how I felt about working on a team.

And then she hit on it.

"I have to be honest," she says, looking across the table at me. "I see that you basically just...left your last job. Everything else you have told me shows that you'd be a great fit for us here, but that does give me cause for concern. So what I want you to do, Corrine, is tell me why I should hire you."

She sat back, looked at me. Waited.

And I began to speak.

"I promise you right here and now," I said, "that I am going to be the best employee that I can possibly be. That I am more than willing to go above and beyond for my customers, and that there will never be a no-call, no-show on my record. I am a hard worker, and I am going to assure you that you will have absolutely no regrets about giving me this opportunity to show you what I can do."

She laid down her paper and pen, looked at me through dark eyes. "OK," she said, her face and her voice betraying nothing. "Go take a seat out in the reception area and HR will be with you shortly."

Five minutes later, I was filling out my hiring paperwork.

I was in.

Everything that I promised both Christine and Sandy those two days has come true - tenfold. My customers love me. I received a very elite award called "Best Of The West" that meant my all my stack rankings (quality, AHT, etc) were the highest out of anyone who graduated from training in August. I've gotten several commendations from my customer. And like I said that day, I have gone above and beyond to be the best employee that I possibly can be.

I hope that when Sandy walks by the "Best Of The West" billboard upstairs, sees my name on it and said to herself, "Wow, that kid really did what she said she was going to do. Way to go." And I hope she knows that she made the right decision by giving me a shot.

Every day, I try to do what I promised I would during that final interview, when I looked Sandy in the eyes and told her that she would have no regrets about hiring me. With every call I take, I prove that to myself and I prove that to my customers. At the end of the day when I look at my sales and resolve sheet and see five sales, resolved calls with happy faces next to them, I remember my vow. When a customer calls me on the brink of a nervous breakdown and I'm able to help them, then I've done what I promised.

If that's not "steady and faithful", then I don't know what is.

When I was a wee little one of about five or so, my parents bought me a pony. A white Shetland pony, who was quite possibly the cutest little thing that you could ever imagine. My mom and dad had their own horses - a palomino mare who liked to bite by the name of Shy Ann, an imaginatively named buckskin gelding named...yep, you guessed it, Buck. Along with an as-of-yet unbroken chestnut mare named Sugar, apparently Mom & Dad figured that it was time for me to get my own horse. So when Dad's friends Jim and Karyn decided to sell their daughter's pony Capp, we were the ones who got to take him home and make him my very own horse.

At that time, my parents were very involved in barrel racing and other gymkhana type events. I remember few, if any, weekends that weren't spent at the outdoor arena where we had the horse shows, or if you were on friendly terms with the family who owned it, "John and Rella's". Sometimes, on Friday nights, we'd go to pick rocks and lay down lime for the keyhole and keyrace events. The people who participated became like a second family to me...Ken and Bonnie. Rick and Joanie. Bob and Dorothy. Don and Pat. And of course, Orv and Marie...who later earned the affectionate titles of "Uncle" and "Aunt" before their names.

So it made sense that I should have my own horse. I was five, the right age to begin participating in the "buckaroo" class...and I'm almost sure that my parents would rather have me on a horse than running around like a chicken with its head cut off, playing Hot Lava Monster with Heidie, John and Rella's redheaded hellion of a daughter. Who could blame them for that kind of reasoning?

And then, my pony tried to kill me.

There was the night that he tried to run through a barbed wire fence - with me on his back. I was unhurt but pretty well shaken, and took off through the yard into the house where I sat in front of the TV watching Double Trouble and soothing my shaky nerves with a Schwan's orange push-em.

Compared to what happened next, the incident with the fence was NOTHING.

At all the horse shows, we had practice arenas...fenced in squares where you could work with your horse before the events. I rode Capp around for a few minutes when suddenly he decided that he didn't want to follow my lead anymore. Now it was HIS turn to be the boss, and he decided that he wanted to go home.

And like a bat out of hell, off he went.

With a screaming five year old girl pulling desperately on the reins screaming at him to stop...to no avail. "STOP, CAPP!" I screamed. "STOP NOW! WHOA! STOP!!! STOP!!!!"

On and on he went, ignoring me, little feet clippity-clopping on the pavement as he ran faster than what seemed (to me) the speed of light. When he heard the car come up from behind us, he began to run even faster...

And then I heard my mother's voice.

"Hang on, Corrie!" she yelled. "Hang on!"

I could hear my brothers fighting in the back seat of the Rabbit. And Kevin crying...as usual. If you LOOKED at my brother Kevin sideways, he'd start bawling.

"Your dad is coming too!" she yelled. "Just hang on!"

"I'm trying!" I yelled back. "I'm trying!"

And then, like a vision from heaven, there was my father.

I do not remember how Dad got Capp to stop running. I don't remember how I was rescued from what would have been certain death on Highway 2. (I do, however, remember Mom telling someone at the horse show later on that afternoon..."If that damn pony had gotten to Highway 2, I don't know what would have happened...but I know it wouldn't have been good.")

Yet I was saved. I was still alive. Scared and shaken, yes, but still in one piece.

Thank God.

As for Capp?

Not long after that, my parents put an ad in the Spokesman-Review. I can almost imagine how it must have read.

"FREE (OR OBO). KAMIKAZE PONY OF DOOM. TRIED TO KILL OUR FIVE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER ON HIGHWAY 2. HAS PARTICULAR FONDNESS FOR BLACKTOP AND BARBED WIRE FENCES. CANTANKEROUS, OLD, DIFFICULT AND MEAN. FREE TO SATISFACTORY HOME."

I remember when a middle-aged woman driving an El Camino showed up at our house with two little boys and a teenage daughter who, to my unreliable five year old memory, looked unerringly like Daphne from Scooby Doo, came to take my pony away. They loaded him up in the back of the El Camino and took off in a cloud of dust.

You know what's funny?

I still miss him a little bit.

Strange, isn't it?