In many ways I feel that fate destined me to become an independent woman. It is a little known fact that I am (little known because I've taken pains not to act like:) an only child. From childhood, I had to dig into the depth of my imagination during play-time to compensate for the obligatory companion that I was not granted. And accordingly, any trouble that I got into, or mess that I made was something I had to answer to on my own. Thus, as the years went on, it's only natural that I became an expert in how to get myself into.....and out of: trouble.
That independent streak has continued on into my adult life with adult things. I've learned how to get myself to the doctor when something is wrong, fight with my health insurance plan and actually get what I want, and generally do what has to be done to live successfully as a chick on her own. This past April I woke up to a flooded apartment one rainy Sunday morning. After promptly freaking out, I cleaned it up, got my soggy rug taken out to be dried, and arranged for work to commence on replacing my floor while I was away on business that week. When I walked back into my apartment that Thursday rolling my suitcase behind me, I was relieved to discover all was once again right in Apt 2R. One Saturday morning not long after, I found myself at Citibank, opening a CD. On a rather ironic note, I am the one who usually detests asking for directions....or help of any kind in general. Unfortunately, there are occasions when this doesn't work and I'm forced to admit defeat. One thing I've also learned to do as an independent woman is to reconcile myself to the fact that every once in awhile I need to be rescued...more often than not by a member of the opposite sex.
Case in point: Recently I was walking home one weekend night. I was wearing a pair of wedge shoes that had an intricate leather design, held together with stitching. They were the last pair of its kind on the sale rack at DSW, and I was happy with my find. Around 21st Street, I suddenly stumbled, and my right foot flew completely out of its shoe. "And I haven't even been drinking..." I thought, and looked down, prepared to simply put my shoe back on and continue on my way. When I examined the situation more closely, however, I realized that the toe portion...which held the entire freakin' shoe together...had basically given way. And suddenly there I was on 21st Street with one shoe that I could not walk in. I'd have to tie the shoe back together in order to be able to at least walk the seven blocks home. Thinking on my feet (no pun intended), I hopped a few yards to where someone had thrown the plastic remains of an umbrella casing. Picking it up, I wound it around my finger and threaded it through my shoe, tying the most awkward knot you've ever seen. There....that would work...until at least 17th Street.
From the distance I heard a male voice "Miss, no, no..." It was the man who had a table of wares on the corner of the street (since I knew you'd be interested: it's handbags that he sells). He was digging through his supplies, and came toward me with a clean white piece of string...which was already a better alternative in that it hadn't been lying on the street. He brought his folding chair over and bent down, casting my plastic fastener aside. With care, he threaded this string tightly, and even snipped the edges with a scissors that he happened to have handy. I shook his hand and thanked him profusely. I had no problems on the way home, and I was happy to have another story about why New York City isn't an unfriendly place. Not at all. Ok, so I had come up with a slap-dash solution on my own with the plastic wrapper (and I wasn't even a GIRL SCOUT!), but the help I received provided me with a much better resolution.
Case in point: A few weekends ago my good friend Tamara packed my friend Julia and I up and whisked us upstate to a beautiful house that her family owns. It was just supposed to be us girls (so we could talk about the guys, d-u-h) and we quickly made plans to sun, swim on the lake right by the house, read trashy magazines, and grill. During the course of our sunning ourselves, we soon noticed that Tam's neighbors appeared to include a trio of tall, brunette, and possibly underage males. We began to make the cliched Mrs. Robinson jokes, snickering to ourselves, but when one of them held his beer bottle up to us from the distance, we raised ours just the same. While Tam went off to prepare the grill, Julia and I stayed behind to soak up the last of the sun and talk. We noted that the boys had gotten out their row boat...and soon after we realized that they were slowly making their way towards us. They were being neighborly, of course, and adolescent at the same time, we looked at each other, shrugged, and accepted this unexpected Boy Attention. They were thorough, and made sure they stopped by to introduce themselves to Tam as well before departing.
Having made our new friends, we returned to our independent existence and focused on the topic at hand: getting this grill fired up. As the minutes ticked on and we still hadn't managed to produce anything from our grill hot enough to cook, our hunger started to get to us. Tam made the remark that since the era of the caveman, fire has pretty much always been a man's domain. With eyes sparkling, Tam cocked her head to one side and called out, non-chalantly, to the porch in the distance where we knew the boys were eating dinner..."Hey..John??? Could you come over for just a little bit."
Within five minutes all three of them were there. They cooked us the best burgers I've ever tasted with sweet corn to match. They were unbelievably attentive, making a trip back to their house quickly to bring the last of their beer to share with us. Lesson learned is that "Girls Only" weekends are all well and good, but it seems that sometimes going the independant route may lead to starvation.
Case in Point: Having worked at my company now for three years, I've come to accept that there are certain unspoken patterns that emerge. One of these strange patterns is that I go through a printer cartridge approximately once a year. That's just the way it is. Every July-August, the documents I print at my desk start coming out gray and streaky. When this happens, I toddle off to our giant supply room, pick out the cartridge that matches my HP 1300, and toddle back to my desk to change it.
This year, however, I had an entirely flaky-moment when I went about performing this task. The printer cartridges are labeled with very explicit arrows. How I did not see them remains a mystery to me, but before I knew it, the new cartridge was ferociously jammed into my printer. It was entirely bizarre, the more I pulled at the cartridge, the more the printer wedged it in. It reminded me of a boa constricter strangling its prey.
With a sigh, I picked up my phone to call in the First String, my coworker Holden, who would certainly do all he could to help, but who would also never let me live this down. Alas, Holden was currently nowhere to be found. I then called in the Second String, my boss Tom, who would also not let me live this down, but more in a "you graduated from college magna cum laude but can't change a printer cartridge?!" kind of way. I ended up with the right person because Tom became determined that my printer was going to release the cartridge. He was so convinced that he began using office supplies as tools. A Bic pen isn't a bad lever after all. A crowd of our colleagues gathered to watch this spectacle, and just when we thought we were seriously going to have to call our systems support staff with the dumbest computer issue ever, the printer relented-and we once again had a printer cartridge in our hand-albeit a mangled one. The printer cartridge did not survive, but the printer did. As for whether my dignity survived...the jury's still out on that one.
I think it's fair to say that no matter which gender you are, it is sometimes very difficult to ask for help in sticky situations because we feel it makes us admit defeat. In all three of the situations I described above, I literally calculated each time if there was any way that I would be able to get away with fixing what was wrong by myself. In the case of my shoe, help was thrust upon me, which I feel made things turn out for the best. Regarding the fated grilling incident, it was really Tam who made the decision to call in the Boys. Looking back on it, however, I really think if we hadn't asked for help, it would have been another 2 hours before dinner instead of the 28 minutes it took for the guys to get everything straightened out. And in the case of the printer cartridge, I can look you in the eye right now and say that if I hadn't asked for help, that damn thing would still be jammed into my printer as we speak. It's just humbling to realize that, although we generally do an excellent job of taking care of ourselves, there are rare occasions when we have to drop the "In" of "independence" leaving us with....dependence. Ok, I'm off now to rewire my stereo.
