Grey's Journal:
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I opened the door to the bathroom and a crow flew at me from its perch on the toilet. I closed the door and heard it thwump against the wood. Sometimes in life, an event is too unexpected to be surprising. Gee, I thought, I don't remember there being a crow in the bathroom. But, I must acknowledge, it was quite possible that I had missed it. Zornitsa often accuses me of being woefully unobservant and absentminded. She is not the first woman to do so and I daresay she won't be the last. While I may not have noticed a large, flapping bird, it would not have escaped Zornitsa's attention. She had used the bathroom before going to work in the morning and I was sure she would have alerted me to the situation. Shortly after Zornitsa and I moved into our flat, late at night when I was getting ready to go to bed, I heard her yell my name from the bathroom. Seconds later Zornitsa was in my room wearing a towel and a frightened expression. ``There is a huge bee in the bathroom,'' she told me, her eyes wide. ``Oh, really?'' She nodded. ``Am I supposed to take care of it?'' She nodded again. This I found amusing. Though I do think of her as a princess, her tough demeanor also invokes the image of an amazon warrior. The kind of woman who uses her cunning, instincts, and a large spear to hunt wild boar through forests by moonlight. So, to be asked to take care of a bee by her, made me smile. I took a piece of cardboard from my room and got a glass from the kitchen. ``What are you doing?'' She asked. ``Catching the bee.'' ``Just smash it.'' ``I'm not going to smash the bee.'' Like most humans, I have a highly arbitrary moral code when it comes to animals. Some I eat, some I kill, some are kept as pets and some are free to live as they choose. What category animals are placed in is mostly based on how cute they are. Bumble-bees are so big and dopey you can't help but like them. That they can fly at all seems a miracle, like Peter Pan sprinkling fairy dust on the pudgy kid. They also pollenate flowers and give us honey (well, we really steal it from them) so I was in no rush to smash a lost member of a nearby hive. If it had been a spider in the bathroom though, I couldn't have flattened it fast enough. I stepped inside, and confirmed it was indeed a charming bumble-bee, and went to work to capture it. I try and get near, but it kept flying away and landing on inconvenient surfaces, like the water spigots or the shower curtain. ``Did you smash it yet?'' Zornitsa asked from the other side of the door after a few moments. ``No. I told you I'm not going to smash it.'' A pause. ``Just smash it.'' ``Zornitsa?'' ``Yes?'' ``Can you do me a favor?'' ``What?'' ``Bring me a credit card from my wallet, please.'' ``Why?'' ``Can you just get it?'' ``No. Tell me why first.'' ``You won't bring me a credit card?'' ``No.'' I sighed. I've never been stung by a bee -- I've been stung by wasps, evil, non-honey-producing, eminently-smashable wasps -- but never a bee. As a result, I've harbored the idea that I may be allergic to bee venom. This fear was exacerbated when, as a child, I watched a TV program detailing what happens to those who are allergic. I can still see the image of the red, bloated man gasping for breath as he looked into the camera. Fortunately, this same program also detailed a method to quickly remove a stinger by using a credit card -- and I made sure to remember it. After I explained this to Zornitsa, she thought it over for a moment before replying through the door, ``No, I won't get you a credit card. Just smash the bee.'' Thirty minutes later, despite her wishes, I managed to capture the bee and release it outside. I like to imagine that this will grant me safe passage through the front yard, that if I accidently disturb the hive this little drone will turn to her friends and say, `It's OK girls, he saved my life once, let him pass.' With a crow in the bathrom and not sure what else to do, I opened the door and quickly stepped inside. Now the crow was sitting in the bathtub giving me an unmistakable look of annoyance, as though it was a flatmate whose morning routine I had interrupted. I now felt I was the intruder in my own flat. Looking at the annoyed crow, I wondered what Zornitsa's verdict would be. Smash or not? When I asked her after she came home from work she replied ``Smash it? No. You don't smash birds.'' I was relieved to hear this, until she continued her thought, ``You don't smash birds, you shoot them.'' Fortunately for the crow, Zornitsa, who was formerly employed at large gun importer in Bulgaria, was not at home. I opened the skylight and gestured to the crow the way out. It looked at me and stayed in the tub. I gestured again, though the second time was equally as futile. It was like trying to point something out to my dog. She would only look at my hand, and never in the direction indicated. There was something about the idea of pointing that could never seep into her walnut-sized brain. As there was nothing else to do, I picked up the c row. Much to my surprise, it didn't try to peck out my eyes or fly away, it just about hopped into my cupped hands. I suddenly decided that I rather liked crows. I brought it to the skylight where it stretched its surprisingly large wings, and flew away. It was only when I closed the skylight that I thought of the obvious question: how did the crow get in? The skylight was the only opening to the outside and the bathroom door had been closed. The question grew larger in my mind -- and I began to search for a crow-sized hole I may have not noticed before. At this point, I should mention that this was no ordinary morning. For the first time in six months, I had somewhere to be at a specific time. I had an interview at King's College to get into their teacher training program. *
* *
Now for you, dear reader, it may come as a sudden shock to hear that I am trying to become a teacher, as it is something I have not mentioned in any of my previous journals. Well, too many times, I have conceived plans in my journal and then never done a thing about them. Those journals loomed over me as failures so much that I've considered exercising revisionist history and deleting them, but so far, I haven't. Anyway, I decided that my teaching plans were a story I'd wait to tell, so that there would actually be something to tell and not just another list of vague intentions. It's hard to say exactly why I made all the big decisions in my life. I couldn't tell you why I chose Geneseo (although the 2-1 female-male ratio didn't hurt) as my college and I couldn't really tell you why I wanted to move to London (although my idea of girls with British accents didn't hurt). In the end, all I can say is that teaching is something I've always had in the back of my mind as a job I could do well and enjoy. And now, it felt to me that the time was right to start down that path. I applied to King's College for their one-year teaching certification program. I had hoped to either get a letter saying I was accepted or rejected. Much to my dismay, I got a letter saying they wanted me to come in for an interview. *
* *
I spent half an hour tying to unravel the secret of the crow's entrance before I realized that I was running behind on my time table for the morning. I quickly took a shower and got dressed. I put on my black pants, the nice shoes Zornitsa helped me find, my t-shirt, and finally, I buttoned up my one nice blue shirt so I would look good for the interview. But, there was a problem. One of the buttons was missing. Damn! I looked around for it, but soon guessed that it must have been lost in the move. This was a problem I didn't know how to solve. Unsure what else to do, I pulled off one of the extra buttons on my cuff and tried to think of ways to affix it to the front of my shirt, not so that it did anything useful, but so that it gave the appearance of doing so. I looked for tape or glue or something but, we were still lacking the minor tools of life in the new flat. Blinded by the panic, it took a long, long time before the simple solution came to mind: buy a sewing kit from one of the stores on the neighboring street. Into the Turkish supermarket and out with a small needle and thread. I spread my tools across the kitchen table and just stared at the four objects (shirt, button, needle, thread) and wondered how they were supposed to go together. The last time I dealt with a problem like this was when I took home economics in the 8th grade. The teacher must have covered sewing buttons, but I couldn't remember. All I could recall was the final project of the class: make a sweater. We were provided with the cloth and a sewing machine and an idea of what sweaters were supposed to look like. It can't have been this long but, in my memory, I recall spending weeks on this task. Weeks of folding, cutting, sewing and saying `uh-oh'. When it was all done, I brought the sweater-thing home to show my mother. ``I think I'm going to donate it to the homeless,'' I said. ``I'm not sure they'll take it,'' she replied. So, my previous experience did not lend me confidence in this moment of need, but I had no choice. With an embarrassingly large amount of concentration, I focused on threading the needle, lassoing the button, stabbing my shirt, and finally cutting the thread. When I finished, the button not only looked decorative but once again served a useful function. I burst with pride and started to imagine ways that I could work this into my interview: ``That's right, not only do I have a degree in applied physics but, you see this button here?, I sewed it on this morning. By myself.'' This brought my fast-approaching interview back into my mind. According to my internal schedule, I was now an hour behind, so I grabbed my papers and ran out the door. I arrived one hour before the interview started, but that's the way I always plan my life: I need to be early after factoring in transport strikes, trips to the hospital, missing buttons and annoyed crows. *
* *
The interview did not go well. With my rather disjointed history, I didn't fit neatly into any of the little check boxes on the woman interviewer's clipboard, and this seemed to annoy her. My history of college defrees in two different fields of study, and my move to London, much to my surprise counted against me. My interviewer told me she took these as signs of indecisiveness and a `flighty' nature. Also, she seemed annoyed that I didn't have prior experience teaching, which mystified me. Given that I was not allowed to teach in a public school without the certification this program would provide, I wondered how I was supposed to have teaching experience. `Do they ask law school applicants how many court cases they have tried?' I wanted to ask, but instead I just remained silent. *
* *
There was more horribleness in the interview, but I'd rather not relive it here. I may have taken my disappointing performance out of proportion but, nonetheless, I went into a several week semi-depression as I worried about my future. I felt like staying inside and didn't go out much. I had planned to fly the London Eye on the date of my one-year anniversary in London, but never made it. I hung around the flat either wasting time on the internet, endlessly browsing or listlessly reading comic books. Also, for some inexplicable reason, I grew fond of taking baths. I can't remember the last time I took a bath -- sometime in the dimness that is my childhood -- but now I took them almost daily. Also, in the footsteps of lonely and bored housewives, I consumed carbohydrates. Lots and lots of carbohydrates. So many carbohydrates that Zornitsa commented that my cheeks were getting fat. My particular vice was buttered toast. Loaves of bread disappeared in a single day. My bath-taking, butter-eating habits led Zornitsa to dub me a househusband. Then, as the dishes piled up and the disorder of the flat increased, she amended that to a bad househusband. So this was how I passed three horrible, anxious weeks waiting to hear back from King's College. But, eventually, there it was: an envelope with their red seal. When I was in high school during the college application process, there was much talk of envelope size: thick or thin. You could know before reading the contents if you were in or out. The envelope from King's was thick. But, my mind started playing tricks on me. `Perhaps,' it whispered `they do it differently here. Perhaps that thick envelope contains not all the forms and information you need to join the school, but a very, very detailed essay entitled All The Reasons King's College Doesn't Want You And Why You Are A Worthless Human Being, much like the dialogue you have been running over in your head all this time.' I took the envelope and, as I like to do, didn't open it for five minutes, just to prove to myself that even in moments when life hangs in the balance, I have, at least, a little self-restraint. Then I tore it open and read that they were offering me a place. Seeing the words, I slumped against the wall and was happy again. |
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Copyright © 2004 Wellington Grey  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. |
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