I Knew Things Were Going Down a Bad Road When the Color Turned Green Bay Packer Gold

A true Wisconsinite, I have proudly rooted for the Green and Gold many times over many years.  I am old enough to have been around for each of their two great eras: The Bart Starr Era and The Brett Favre Era.  I am happy to sport the team colors on a Sunday afternoon or to frost half a batch of cupcakes with gold frosting and green sprinkles and half with green frosting and gold sprinkles for a superbowl or playoff party.  I have given Packer sweatshirts and fleece as Christmas and Birthday gifts.  I think that I have even silently booed at a Bears jersey once or twice, even though in general, I don’t believe in booing.  But I have my standards, and the fact is, I think that the whole cheesehead thing is a little beneath us and I do wince for my fellow state dwellers when I drive by a house that is painted gold with green trim and has a huge Green Bay Packer “G” on the front, likewise with the cars and vans.  I know that there is enough giggling and snickering out there about Wis – Kahn – Sin and the U-P, that we don’t need to add fodder to the fire.  So that is why I feel so disheartened about my bench.

 It all started out as such a cute idea.  My mother-in-law, who is a smoker, has the good grace when she is visiting, to don an overcoat and go outside for a smoke.  During the months that she was preparing to relocate here from her lifelong residence in New York, I thought that I would fix up something a little “special” for her occasions of banishment to the front porch stoop.  I located one of those 1930’s gossip benches or telephone tables – the ones with the small straight back chair and a little table attached on one side for the telephone to sit on – in vogue during the days gone by when there was one central phone in the house.  The little table provided a surface on which to write notes when taking a message and of course the chair – a place to sit while one took in all the latest gossip.  My plan was to paint it in an accent color, recover the cushion in a cute fabric and find a vintage ash tray to set upon it and as an added touch of kitsch – an old rotary phone.  As usual with my kitschy decorating ideas, I never quite get around to carrying out the whole concept.  All year long, the little bench sat on the stoop in its original 1930’s dark brown stain, a red oil cloth covering the seat and a white 1980’s princess phone atop the table.  Since our house has tan vinyl siding with forest green trim, it didn’t really accent or blend but sat more as an anomaly with potential and the kids found various ways to make jokes at my expense about the dysfunctional phone, kind of like the years I kept the upright vacuum cleaner in the living room covered by a huge “homecraft” bunny (but that is another story).  Even though whenever I gazed upon the décor of the front stoop, I saw it through the eyes of my vision – now that is a phrase: saw it through the eyes of my vision – by the end of a year, and the little bench having weathered a particularly difficult winter and spring, I was anxious to see it become what it ought to be.

 I decided that gold was to be the accent color and, because I had just spent weeks of dedicated, hard work on the flower beds and shrubbery, to reward myself by granting same self a weekend dedicated solely to bringing my front porch vision to fruition.  As usual with these things, wanting to sprint to the finish, I made a too hasty paint chip selection and purchased a pint of the color and the wrong sized brush for the job.  On a hot and humid early summer weekend day, I set about my pleasure task.  Determined to do it “HGTV right”, I primed first and read the directions later, at which time I learned that the primer needed to dry for at least 4 hours, by which time it would be near nightfall.  Delayed gratification: I wasn’t in the mood for it, but I dutifully waited the prescribed time.  Now this little piece of furniture had been left its original stain for good reason; it has many small surfaces, curves, grooves and cutouts that are not conducive to quick painting and require a great deal of crouching tiger hidden dragon type maneuvers for a 55 year old, non-flexible, chubby body.  (I suspect that many of you are thinking – why didn’t she just spray paint it?  And that too is another story, but the short answer is: because when I have tried that before, most of the paint becomes the answer blowing in the wind instead of adhering where I want it to and the cost of cans of spray paint adds up quickly!)  By the time I finished applying the first coat of color, it was dark, mosquitoes were attacking and I was too bendy to straighten up well.  I cleaned up as best I could and headed for a warm shower and heating pads.

 The next day revealed that the first color coat was wanting.  Because I was still bendy from the day before, it was a little quicker to assume painting position and begin. But it was much harder to get out of position at the end.  It was another sticky, humid day and my painting got increasingly sloppier and drippier.  At the end of the second color coat, I opted to sit there and watch the paint dry rather than get up and uncrouch myself.  The color was looking more sunflower yellowy than the burnished gold I had envisioned.  I unrealistically surmised that a third coat would make it better, which I began prematurely because I was tired of watching paint dry and all sense of HGTV perfection was dead to me.  When I finally placed the gossip bench back in its home, I stood there looking at it with a wan smile.  Instead of being an accent focal piece, it was more of a “which item does not belong in this picture“ piece – even more so than the brown stained original had been.  I was disappointed because I knew it would take a new wave of a certain kind of energy to fix it and it could be months before that showed up.  It took my daughter to put into words what was gnawing at the edge of my conscious:

The two of us standing shoulder to shoulder facing the porch, she summed up the problem:

“Really? … Mom! … Packer colors! … Seriously?”   (Packer colors because our front door accent color is dark green and with the gold bench next to it, the effect was indeed – Packer colors.)

 Me: “Ooooh my God; oh – my – God!  Geez!   How did I do that?   Crap!  How did I do that?  Maaaaaaaaaaaaan, I can’t believe I did that!”

A few weeks hence, the Packer Gold bench is still sitting on the front stoop next to the green front door still having the red oil cloth covering the seat.  It’s hideous and I’m embarrassed to boot, because it can only be assumed that I meant it that way.  It remains that way because it is just one thing after another claiming my energy and attention these days – and all so many things that are sidetracks demanding to be dealt with.  My compass is spinning wildly.

 On this particular day that I am relating here, I had gotten caught up in the vortex that is my estranged husband’s way of trying to make a lot of things happen at once without letting anybody in on the plan.  He had returned to town to take care of  some things and called our son from a garage where he was dropping off a motor he is hoping to sell and told him to load up the “non-functioning" lawnmower into the van and drive it over to True Value hardware so it could be looked at.  Our son, just getting ready to leave in the way that 16 year olds like to exit the homefront as often as possible, was really not in the mood to do anything at the behest of the man that he perceived as having lied to us for years by way of having a secret Vicoden addiction which he only recently admitted to and sought treatment for and then took up residence 5 hours away from home.  So I offered to our son, that if he lifted the lawnmower into the van, I would drive it over to the place his Dad wanted it delivered.  So, I am driving across town to the hardware store in the van with the seats taken out and the lawnmower now in residence.  I hear a strange loud noise when I stop at a stoplight; I look in the rearview mirror, the lawnmower has rolled a bit but nothing seems amiss.  At the next stoplight, I am at an angle pointing a little bit uphill.  The light turns green.  I accelerate and hear what sounds like an explosion.  I look in the rearview mirror to see daylight through a large jagged oval in the back window.  The lawnmower had rolled backwards, the handlebar shattering through the rear window of the van.

“Fuck!”  I say. “Fuck!” I say louder, continuing across the intersection like a cripple dragging my foot.  The Hardware store is the next turn.  I continue into the parking lot, the sound of tinkling glass seemingly blaring to all the world that this broad whose life is a mess, has just launched a lawnmower through her rear van window.

I am upset - upset because we just gotten things cleared up from the last vehicle mishap and money is so tight and we have a $250 deductible and I can’t believe I am going to be calling the insurance again with another incident, this just can’t be happening.  And why was I bringing the lawnmower to the hardware – that was not even on my radar, nothing was discussed about that and we are probably going to put our house on the market and have only a few weeks of lawn mowing left before my son and I move into an apartment and we can borrow the neighbor’s mower until then so this never should have happened in the first place and I am mad at myself for getting sucked into the frenzy of my husband’s agenda without raising an objection!

 Only a month before this day, I was in a hotel room, four hours from home and having just come from a gut-wrenching session with my husband and his counselor and having learned that he wasn’t coming back home and then my cell phone rings.  It is my son who has just been in a car accident, him the at-fault party, having rear-ended the car in front of him, which impacted the next two cars in front of her – the lady that he hit who doesn’t speak any English and whose head is hurting and doesn’t have any insurance who has a roommate that translates for her whose number has been given to my son by the police officer so that my son can call and tell her what our insurance can do for the lady that doesn’t speak any English and the two cars in front don’t have any insurance and one of the drivers is driving without a license so he is given a ticket and neither of the front two cars have any damage and the  lady who doesn’t speak any English – her car isn’t very damaged either, but our car is really messed up and my son thinks that he probably shouldn’t have driven it home but he just wanted to get home and he only looked away for a second and could I call this lady and call the insurance because he is all alone and he has a headache and he just can’t deal with this anymore.

 And now, just 4 weeks after that incident, here I am with another car damaged and little bits of glass tinkling all over a parking lot that will possibly inconvenience other drivers and I will be the cause of that, trying to decide if I should try to get the lawn mower out first and into the store with this shattered, jagged glass everywhere I might touch or should I rush in to get something to deal with all this shattered, jagged glass everywhere that is going to go flying as soon as I open up the back and I am so ashamed of my situation and want somebody that I can call and sob to and have them run interference for me but I can’t because I’m the end of the line here now and I certainly am not going to call my husband and abdicate that position back to him.  Damn that gold Packer color bench, damn!

 Normally, I would not see these three things as being along the same continuum, but my life at this time seemed to have made a U turn on an S curve with all sorts of strange events colliding.  I am thinking that I am going to have to sell the house that until recently I thought I would be welcoming my grandchildren into and that my own children to whom I had made a sacred vow on our 15^th wedding anniversary that they would never know divorce, would very soon have to be introduced to divorce, somehow it seems at this moment that, of course, that  bench would turn out tacky “superfan” packer gold when that is so far from what’s on my mind right now – so – yes – these three things are related, clearly.

 And on some level this is a bit tongue in cheek, but at this moment in the hardware store parking lot, with a shattered rear window and a shattering life after I have just yelled at my estranged spouse for coming to town for a few days and taking up the reins on a bunch of things without asking and without being asked, which has caused all these fragments and I see my son’s friend from junior high strolling towards me in his True Value Red employee vest and I am relieved to see a friendly face and a little proud somehow that he is looking so grown up and stronger.  He is empathetic to the mess I feel in, I ask him if he can lift the lawn mower out and can I perhaps borrow a broom and dustpan from the store to clean up all this glass so I don’t cause anybody to get a flat tire.  We wheel the lawn mower into the back of the store and he writes up a ticket and sheepishly tells me that there is a $15 fee to have it looked at and I have left my purse in the car and he has another lawn mower ticket to write up so I go out to get my checkbook and he says he will bring out the broom and dustpan after he finishes this ticket and I am walking to the car thinking – now another $15 when there is only $105 for groceries and gas for the next two weeks – and he comes out with the little short handled clean up broom and a dust pan and asks if I want him to knock out the loose glass for me and I think that I do but I want him to be careful, there are so many little pieces and dust – there is a thick layer of glass dust all long the bumper – so he is knocking out all the loose glass and I realize that it will take forever to sweep all the glass from the asphalt with that little broom so I go into the store for a push broom and as I am going back out, my son’s former baseball coach (whom I’ve never cared for) is walking in and damn it, he recognizes me and seeing me with the broom and apparently having parked next to me and having deduced exactly what happened and so of course has to say: “Who in the world would drive with a lawnmower in the back of a van and not have it tied down?”  “Well, I guess that would be me now wouldn’t it?”  Back outside with push broom, I thank Mitch and tell him, I’ll finish, he should get back to his job.  I am glad I have my sunglasses to protect my eyes, and I find a towel to wrap over my hand and a large paper gift bag is in the back of the van which I can use to dump the swept up shards into.  I sweep into mounds, mounds into dustpan, empty dustpan into bag, over and over.  Customers drive up, go in, come out, drive away.  Some just look, some have incredulous questions: “Did your window explode from the heat of the sun?”  I try not to look at faces or let them see mine, short answers, I will cry easily if someone is kind or tries to help and I’m not wanting to be that vulnerable.  Lately, any kindness makes me cry.  I finish and take the brooms back into the store and the bag of shards, it is heavy.  There is an ice cream treat freezer by the checkout; I think that I have earned a treat.  Back outside again. I stand against the car facing the late afternoon sun and eat my drumstick, then drive home thinking that I am going to write this piece at the end of my day.  In the driveway, I remove the insurance card from the glove box and go in to make the call.

 It goes surprisingly easy.  Only three options into the voicemail menu is the one for glass only, no other damage claims; that would be me.  Kelly, the customer service rep, is ready to help me in her young southern accent.  She is sorry I am having a bad time and hopes she can do something to make it easier.  She is getting my information and advancing through her menus.  She explains that there is zero deductible for this claim on our policy.  Really?  Zero deductible?  I pay nothing?  That’s right!  I am feeling better!  A few more questions, a few more menus.…

 Making small talk as we progress through, Kelly asks: “Whe-ire is Wis – cahon – sssen, anyway?”  “Is it way up No-orth?”  “What states is it next to?”

 This is all very sincere – she really doesn’t know just exactly where Wisconsin is and she is curious.  This is making me smile.  Her questions are rolling out as fast as I can answer.  I explain that we are north of Illinois and in between Minnesota and Michigan.

 “Are you next to Canada?” she wants to know.

 I say that we would be next to Canada, but there is this little bit of Michigan that sits on top of us.

 “But you can get to Canada from Wisconsin?”

 “Well, yes, but that’s all relative.  I mean, I live in the bottom right hand corner of the state.  I think it’s a good 7-8 hour drive to Canada.”

 “You know, it’s funny” Kelly goes on, “You just think about your own little state and you know where that is, but you hear about all these other states and don’t know just where they are.”

 “That is so true,” I say,  “You have made me smile, Kelly, by asking me where Wisconsin is.  And then on top of that, you tell me there is zero deductible.  I feel better!”

 And I meant it.  And Kelly let me know that she was pleased she could make things a little easier for me.

 A few more questions and Kelly can tell me that tomorrow between noon and 5, they will be replacing my rear window right in my very own driveway.  Well isn’t life just fine after all?

And I hang up the phone remembering back 4 weeks ago when my son had had his accident and I was four hours away, feeling devastated and my son, at home alone, needing my help.  And when I called the car insurance for him, and as corny as it sounds, I felt comforted and taken care of and I really, really needed that.  (So even if there are lower rates with another carrier, I am a loyal customer and I think that good customer service is so rare these days that it merits a mention by name).  When I spoke to Geico that day four weeks before this day, I couldn’t get through the explanation of the situation without crying – my world falling apart – and I was listened to, encouraged to take my time, reassured that they would get me through everything that needed to be done, no hurry, go ahead and cry, sorry that I was having such difficulty.  I had called the phone number that the policeman had given my son and talked to the translator/friend/roommate of the lady who didn’t speak any English who didn’t have any car insurance or health insurance whose head was hurting and wanted to see a doctor but needed to know how it would be paid for.  All this information I gave to the Geico rep along with the phone number and they told me that they would handle everything from this point forward, there would be no need for me to make any more phone calls to translator/roommate/friend.  By the time we were all done, I had been through several different specialty areas, each rep as careful as the last, each one asking if my son needed medical attention and how I was doing and when all was said and done, we had a tow truck arranged to pick up our damaged vehicle from our home the following Monday, a rental car would also be available at an agency in Waukesha and the car would be driven to pick me up, and lastly, someone would call my son on Monday to get his recorded statement over the phone.

So life is funny.  I had started home from the hardware store mentally beginning to write a piece full of dark irony about these incidents at a jagged period of my life.  Instead, someone asked me just where Wisconsin is and this evolved into a treatise of sorts about good customer service.  And I felt less encumbered for a little while, here in Wisconsin, home of the Packer's green and gold.