The Most Dangerous Magazine

By Charlie Melton

In my normal meandering trek over reading material I came across a pretty little magazine catering to would-be psychologists. The cover was so compelling I jumped right in. If you know me at all, you won't be surprised that I became obsessed.

The first thing that catches my eye is “Stop Being a People Pleaser”. The behavior is ultimately self destructive. There are several examples of people pleasing. I don’t want to disappoint the author or publisher so I read the articles and referenced data. I read it over and over again in case I run into the aforementioned professionals and they quiz me on the facts as presented.

One article discusses being unable to say “no” to other people. It moves me to the core. I can’t say no. I don’t really want that piece of pie, but when the waitress asks if I want it I say yes. I don’t want to disappoint her. I don’t want to disappoint the person that baked it by not eating it. The same goes for the second bowl of chili. Darn this people pleasing. Darn it to heck. I even agreed to give half of my stuff to another person. It’s my wife I gave the stuff to, but I’m sure the writer of the article counts that as being unable to say no.

Another facet of people pleasing is taking on too much responsibility. I’m guilty of this as well. All of my life I've taken on excessive responsibility. Early on in my career I accepted the unreasonable responsibility of showing up for work almost every day. I know I really don’t want to do that, but I’m a people pleaser. It pleases my boss and coworkers, so I do it. It pleases my landlord and the bank that financed my truck because they think it helps me pay them. They’re right, I do pay them. That’s what people pleasers do. I’m so bad I spend most of my time at work and most of my money is spent to please others, including a grocer and the electric company.

As a people pleaser I want people to like me, and it’s horrible when someone doesn't like me. I do everything to insure people like me. Take for example parking at the store. I can’t park over the yellow line or someone may be upset and not like me. I pull in and out correcting the angle of my truck. I get out and gauge the distance from my mirrors from the edges of my allotted space. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m sloppy. You may think it’s from OCD, but it’s not. That’s unless you want it to be OCD, and then it is OCD.

I read on and on. It’s not good at all. I've got to break the cycle of people pleasing and do something else with my time. The task seems insurmountable, but I feel I have to. It’s a divine mandate. Where do I start? How do I stop people pleasing?

The first thing I have to do is say no. It’s a simple word, this “no”. I don’t want to say it, but I have to for my own well being. I have to accept the sick feeling I get from saying “no” and learn to deal with it so one day I’ll be a better, happier person.

I begin by telling my landlord and creditors no. I tell them I’m getting mentally healthy and they can’t take my money anymore. I feel guilty and worried but I deal with the anxiety knowing it will diminish. I refuse to help the repo man tow my truck away because it’s not my responsibility, whether he likes it or not.

I move on to my work life. I tell the boss when I want to work. I tell him I have stopped people pleasing and I’ll let him know when I can work and what I want to do at work. I feel a little better about myself.

As time has gone on, my life is much better. I have time for myself. By eliminating the need for people to like me I don’t have to do many of the things I felt compelled to do. My former workdays are now “me days”. I don’t have a truck so neat parking for others is not an issue anymore. The only detriment is that I gave up the remaining half of my stuff due to a judge giving it to my wife.

Mental health is a process. Baby steps will get me there.  I’m getting back to work on it after I read “What is your phobia?”

Case of the Purloined Pie

The building passes as a nursing home where I pass as the maintenance guy. I see it for what it is. It’s a city full of intrigue and deception. It’s a city full of tasty treats and donated baked goods. It’s a city and I’m its protector. I’m Charlie Melton, Dessert Detective.

I’m making a chain of paper clips when she walks into my life. She has fiery red hair and dangerous shoes. Shoes that could sprain a girls’ ankle and sprain a guys’ soul. Shoes that make good girls go bad.  I lean back in the chair and put my feet on the desk. She strolls in the office and looks me in the eye. “Why are you in my office? Get to work.” she growls.

I stand up and ease past her. “The kitchen is missing a blackberry pie. It’s for a fundraiser. Do you know anything about it?” she breaths in her best big girl voice.

“A missing pie, eh? I’ll take your case. I get $100 a day plus expenses.” She slams the door. That dame is playing it hard. I’ll find her pie. I’d find her pie and finish the paper clip chain. The case will be solved by me,  the Dessert Detective.

I pull my cap low over my eyes to fight the glare of the dining room lights. Making sure I’m not being followed, I stroll over to the nurses’ station.  I take a seat next to the brunette bombshell writing secret nurse words in an official looking book. Maybe she knows something. Maybe she saw something. Maybe she has cookies.

“What about the pie, sugar cakes? Have you seen a missing pie?”

She turns and looks at me with big brown eyes; eyes that are like pools of hot fudge waiting for a bowl of ice cream. “I’m charting”, she said. “I don’t have time.” She seems scared or really irritated at being interrupted. This case is getting deep.

I give her my card and instructions to call if she remembers anything or gets any cookies. I glance at my watch and see it’s time. It’s time to go to lunch and take a quick nap. I stroll through the door and out of her life forever, or maybe an hour.

I come back in the building with a full belly and red eyes from a nap haunted by images of disappearing pies and irate nurses. I come into paradise gone wrong. I come into a room full of guilt.

The room is full. Everyone is seated at tables and looking down in shame at undecipherable coded cards. They know something, and they’re ashamed. Maybe they’re afraid. One guilt ridden pie purloining suspect is standing. I march over and turn on the drill sergeant voice. “Where’s the pie? You know something.” 

She can’t even look me in the eye. “B-11”, she says. “B-11” It’s some kind of nefarious code. What does it mean? “N-42”, she says. I fade back to think. I’m not getting anything out of this crowd. They’re too afraid, or ashamed. Maybe they’re bored, I don’t know.

I walk around, thinking. I think about who has motive to steal a pie. Who has opportunity? Who has change for a five so I can get a soda?

I go to my maintenance shop to search for change and there it is. It’s the smoking gun. It’s the gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s the payday. On the desk is an empty pie plate with crumbs and a partial blackberry. Then I remember.

I ate it. I thought they brought it for me. Darn this senior forgetfulness. Darn it to heck.

I quickly cheer up. I solved my case. I got my man, even if it was me. I earned my fee. I’m still good, very good.

Tune in next time for;”Dessert Detective, The Great Cake Caper.”

Plagued by Bats

Battle for a Safe Home

By Charlie Melton

I’m busy inventorying left over Christmas goodies. I lose my count when my wife yells from the bathroom. She knows I don’t like talking to anyone that’s in the bathroom. It’s just gross. She yells anyway and probably propels bathroom germs all over the house. No, it’s not weird. It’s scientific.

“There’s a bird in here!” she yells. Just then it flutters out of the bathroom. It flaps erratically near the ceiling. It’s living proof that talking in the bathroom is dangerous because it’s sick already. It must work like a canary in a mine. It’s more sensitive to bathroom germs. It’s sort of an early warning system for diseases spread by talking.

The bird continues to flap around so I open the door. I and my Grandson man towels and brooms attempting to shoo it out. It’s really fast and erratic. All we accomplish is to look like idiots.

As the plague ridden fowl swoops I notice the wings are devoid of feathers. They look a little leathery. Great, it’s a sick bird with mange. My hair will probably fall out. That is, if I had any hair it would fall out.

Wait, it’s not a bird. It’s a bat!

Bats are supposed to hibernate in the winter. He shouldn’t be out. He must have missed the “hibernate in winter” memo. Maybe he has a pregnant bat wife. She probably woke him. She had a craving for some bat-wurst.

I yell bat and start ducking as it does a fly-by. I pull out my phone and Google bats in winter. I find vague references to winter bats, but volumes on bat induced diseases. They are just little flying Petri dishes with sonar.

Great, now we’ll get Rabies. Wait, we’ll get Ebola. We may even get histoplasmosis.  I don’t know what histoplasmosis is, but it has many syllables. It has to be bad. I get lost in Google trying to figure my life expectancy. I look up and the bat flutters out of the door and into the winter sky. I should feel relieved but I’m not.

Now the search begins. The bat had to come from somewhere. They’re like kids, if you see one there is a whole unseen flock close by. We searched all of the ceilings for a penetration to the attic, but there’s nothing. We checked the basement. The internet said to look for guano. I don’t know what that is but I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen any.

I call exterminators. Are you aware that those folks want money, and lots of it? That’s ridiculous. I’ve got this. I do a little thinking and have the perfect solution.

You know those mouse traps? Not the spring ones that’ll break your finger. I’m talking about the glue ones. They work really well. I’ve put them out and caught several mice, a cat, and a toddler. I and my mini-me go to the farm store to pick some up. Just so you know, they’re not cheaper by the dozen, or by the gross. I buy a mess of glue traps and head to the bat infested house.

Glue traps on the floor won’t catch bats. They have to be higher up. We tinker around and come up with a perfect method. It’s really genius. I may patent it, so don’t tell anyone.

We string glue traps from coat hangers, and then another level of traps from the first ones. The contraptions are hung from the ceiling using a generous amount of duct tape. We get a little carried away and have to shorten the rig to keep from getting stuck to it when walking by. About 9 hanging mobiles per room look pretty good. They’re called bat-mobiles. Catchy, isn’t it. If a bat starts his erratic flybys he’ll get stuck. I’ll put him in a biohazard bag and send him to a certified landfill so he won’t infect anyone else.

The good news is the bat-mobiles work. Bats have completely avoided my house. My taller friends avoid my house as well, but that’s just collateral damage. It’s to be expected. 

Small Changes the World

Small Changes the World

By Charlie Melton

Small inputs cause spectacular changes. The people that study such things say that in a flock of starlings each bird tries to get to the center of the flock as they fly. A starling sees a hawk, and tries to move to a safer position. This causes his neighboring starlings to move. The movements are telegraphed throughout the flock. To an observer, it appears to be a carefully choreographed swirling and spinning motion of the entire flock that is beautiful to see. The aerobatics are really just a response to a small movement of individual starlings on the fringes of the population. While it’s truly chaotic, it looks incredibly well planned.

Most are aware of the “butterfly effect”. The butterfly effect is commonly understood to mean that a butterfly moving its wings in Brazil can cause a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. The real meaning is that the causes of the hurricane are so chaotic and unknowable that even the butterfly could have affected it. It’s impossible to know if the butterfly, or any other small action contributed to the hurricane, but the hurricane exists.

I think that our lives are like that. You may do, or not do, a small insignificant thing that contributes to an immense occurrence. Let’s reason this out.

You see a car along the highway with a flat tire. You stop and help change the tire. The driver drives off to make an important appointment with the doctor. The doctor performs a test that shows the person has the early stages of cancer. This person gets the treatment and recovers, and eventually has a child. That child becomes a great leader. You can’t say that your small input gave rise to a great leader. You can say your small input had a corresponding effect. The end result of many small inputs from many places was the great leader.

You see the same car with a flat tire and don’t stop. The person misses the appointment and eventually dies of the disease that wasn’t caught early enough. They never have a child to become a great leader. You didn’t cause the lack of a beneficial outcome, but you perhaps contributed to it.

We could go on and on with infinite possibilities as the outcome of a single input. It’s impossible to know what effect actions have in the scheme of things. Even scientists that study complex systems can precisely duplicate all inputs and get diverse outcomes.

The point is that everything we do has an effect. We can never know what that effect is, but it’s significant just the same. When we drive by the car with the flat tire, we’ve made a choice that has long range and profound consequences. Stopping to help also has consequences. We’ll never know this side of heaven how the act plays out.

We don’t go about our lives in a vacuum. We touch lives, and ours are touched, everyday. We’re part a grand chaotic dance, just like the starlings doing aerobatics over the fields. What we do matters on so many levels we can’t come close to comprehending all of the ramifications.

We’re not alone and we matter in infinite ways. We have profound effects on others. Always remember that.

The year of our Lord 1971. That’s the last time I saw him. I meant to call or go see him but time got away from me.

No, that’s an excuse. I thought about going to see him hundreds of time, but thought about it enough each time that I didn’t take any action. I did call once, in the ‘80’s, when I was home on leave from the service, and that went OK. I promised to stop by, but time….

 
His Mother was ill, and I sent word that I would come by, but time… She died awhile back, and I meant to go to the visitation, or the funeral, but time… After all, we were family of a sort once, and maybe we still are, according to how you define it. He was my stepfather, which would make her my what? Step grandmother? Is there such a term? Maybe Grandmother, or maybe nothing, I’m not sure. How do you define family? He was my stepfather, and maybe still is. My mother divorced him, and did that accommodating judge severe my ties to him as well. Was the divorce like when a surgeon cuts away an offending tumor? Is the tie severed because my mother died, or is it still there? If the tie’s not there, why do I even remember it?
His mothe

Time. Is it ever ticking away, inching further from the “then” to what?
The “never? Soon the choice will be gone. If I don’t go, will I have regrets? If I do go and sit a while does that absolve me for all of these years in which I did nothing? Do I get a special dispensation because he’s in an old folks home and won’t even know me? Because if I know, is that all that matters? If he dies and I have not gone what part of me goes to the grave with him?

Maybe each of us should go, and go often. Maybe each of us have to remember even one good thing and cling to that until it compels us to go and see our afflicted, our lonely, our discarded. If those sad persons can bear the past then can’t we able bodied, we sane, we strong ones go and sit a while? If we do go, will time stop its merciless march? Will we each be absolved of all wrong?
Time.

Brother by Another Mother

We watched the raccoons from our upstairs window.  The three of them attempted to eat the entire truckload of soybeans, but finally gave up.  As they climbed down, the portliest fell to the ground.  I thought it was hilarious, and went outside to get a closer look.  When they saw me, they ran around the barn and I knew they had climbed to the roof when I heard the click- click of their claws on the tin.  I was almost rolling in laughter when I heard click- click-screech- thud.  The clumsy one slid down the roof and dropped like a bean filled bag of fur.

I imagine the other coons got a good laugh at his expense.  Then I realized the clumsiest was akin to me. I was watching my brother of another species. Maybe he’s a karmic twin.

Maybe he’ll compensate for being inept at raccoonery by studying hard and learning to write witty stories.  Perhaps he’ll use his clumsiness to make the other raccoons laugh and attract lady coons.  Maybe in years to come he’ll move to a small town and complain about the raccoon government.  Do you think he’ll retire from raccoon affairs and yell at the young raccoons to turn down their stupid music and pull up their furry pants?  We’ll have to wait and see.

Fight Against the Night

I believe it’s called “sundowning”. The night is worse for her. The night is when she’s the most confused. She’ll ask me if I know her, and I reply I do. She’ll say she’s afraid because she doesn’t know where she is. I reply that she’s where she is supposed to be, and that she’s with people who love her.

The girls let her sit in the nurse’s station. That seems to help for a time. After a while I ask, “May walk you to your room?” She says yes, and takes my arm. We walk arm in arm, talking about the weather, or how nice her hair looks, or some other small talk. When we arrive at her door I thank her for the walk and bid her good night. I reach in and turn on her light, as the dark seems to be her enemy. I point out her familiar things arranged on a shelf and see a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. I like to think that I help her relax, to not be so afraid.

The day is different. She’s the alpha in the dining room. When I walk by she calls me a smart-alack or swats at me as I pass. She plays the piano but stops abruptly because she’s forgotten how. She tries to tell me something, but can’t find the words. We play a guessing game until her patience wanes and frustration takes over. It’s night again. Perhaps it is new to her. Perhaps it’s déjà vu. She takes my arm….