Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner

by Lancaster, Jen

  “There’s no alert on the screen,” he counters. “It’s fine.”

  I know something’s particularly wrong with the weather because Loki, who fancies himself a lone wolf, is presently trying to climb inside my shirt.

  When the wind hits so hard the second floor shakes, I finally realize what’s happening. “Um, honey, we’re watching a cable show on TiVo. If there’s a weather alert, we’re going to miss it.”

  We switch over to network programming to see that not only is there a tornado warning, but it’s pretty much over our damn house right this minute.

  We dash down to the basement, sweeping up cats, dogs, and ice cream in our wake. [If I’m going to die, then I’m finishing my dessert first.] Although the cats weren’t so much “swept up” as “dragged kicking, screaming, and clawing the ever-loving shit out of us” as we wrestle them to safety.

  And that’s where Fletch’s superior preparedness skills come into play. We immediately herd everyone into the most protected corner of the basement, where there’s a cushioned area large enough for us all to wait out the storm in comfort and safety. He’s staged emergency lanterns about the area, has a battery-operated NOAA radio at the ready, and we’re hunkered down next to enough food, [Human and pet varieties.] water, and medical supplies to last a nuclear winter. He tosses me a headlamp, an emergency whistle, and some antibiotic cream to take care of Gus’s scratch marks. I apply the salve to my gaping chest wound right as we lose power.

  We’re under an active tornado warning for another half an hour and while we sit there in the dark, rapidly warming basement with the sound of a hundred freight trains going on overhead, the dogs aren’t the only ones shaking. The crackly, computer-generated messages on the NOAA radio make me feel like we’re among the last survivors on earth. As we hear about all the marine warnings, I say a little prayer for anyone on the lake who was caught by surprise.

  When the tornado warning ends, we tentatively make our way upstairs. I half expect to see huge tree limbs poking through our roof, but for the most part, everything appears normal. Dark, but normal. Fletch patrols the yard with his flashlight, but other than a bunch of smallish downed branches, there’s no appreciable damage.

  “Okay, that was terrifying,” I admit. Fletch and I are standing in the kitchen, illuminated by each other’s headlamps. “What do we do now?”

  Fletch knits his brow. “Now we wait for the power to come back on. I’m sure it won’t take long.”

  When we were looking for houses, our Realtor mentioned that losing electric is an occasional cost of living in a suburb known for its trees. We have so much old growth up here that when one strong breeze hits an ancient limb the wrong way—boom! No air-conditioning or Price Is Right for you!

  Early in our home search, we saw some listings that had built-in natural gas–powered generators, capable of running the entire electrical grid. The preplanner in me thought this was the ultimate in being prepared, but Fletch disagreed.

  “If there’s a cataclysmic event, you really think North Shore Gas is going to keep the methane flowing into the house? A generator may work in the short term, but if we’re going to invest in anything, we need the capability to defend ourselves,” he reasoned.

  And at the time he made a lot of sense.

  But now that I’m standing here in my hot, dark kitchen? Not so much.

  I grab a couple of lanterns, a flashlight, and something to read. I decide to station myself on the back porch where I might catch some cross-breeze. Even though we’ve been without power for only an hour, the house is already sweltering.

  As I settle in with my Kindle, I can hear Sergeant Fletcher poking around in the back of the house gathering supplies. He returns a few minutes later with a Navy SEAL–type apparatus strapped to his leg. In the wan light, I make out a sidearm, a small bayonet, and a high-powered Maglite. Although it’s dim out here, I have no trouble seeing the smug look on his face.

  “See how good it feels to be prepared?” he crows.

  “What?”

  He repeats his statement, louder this time. “I said, ‘see how good it feels to be prepared?’”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t hear you over the roar of the neighbors’ generators.”

  Our porch sounds like we’re surrounded by dozens of riding lawn mowers going full tilt or ten million angry African bees. The ground is vibrating from the omnipresent hum. Although most of our views into their homes are obscured because of the trees, I can still make out lighted windows and, in one case, the ambient glow of a television. “Look!” I shout, pointing east. “They’re watching Burn Notice!”

  Fletch waves me off, patting his thigh apparatus. “Please, they’ve got the TV on. Big deal. This is a tiny, tiny inconvenience. A blip, really. How are they going to protect themselves from looters? How are they going to disperse a riot? When the grid goes down, who’s going to be laughing then?”

  I take a moment to consider his comment. “So… what you’re telling me is that we’re prepared for looting, riots, and zombie wars and if we need to, we can take the neighbors by storm?”

  “Bingo.”

  “And yet, despite our superior firepower, in the short term, I can’t blow-dry my hair or run a load of laundry, and in the morning, I’m going to have to throw out our mayonnaise.”

  He shrugs. “I stand by our choices. Long term, baby. Long term.”

  I grit my teeth. “Then I’d better eat the rest of the ice cream.”

  “I’m sure the freezer will be fine for now. Your average fridge stays cold—”

  “I SAID I’D BETTER EAT IT.”

  We sit in as much silence as the neighboring generators will allow. Our house is normally a hermetically sealed seventy-two degrees, so Libby and the cats are reveling in the excitement of roaming the screened porch in the sultry evening air.

  The older dogs, on the other hand, are tense. You see, we were back on our feet financially when we rescued the cats a couple of years ago. Their lives are nothing but belly rubs and store-bought treats. Neither they nor Libby know of the days when we’d lose electric or heat due to nonpayment. They’re completely unaware of the daily low-lying tension that used to envelop our lives like a fog that never quite lifted. They have no idea why we sometimes still inadvertently flinch when the phone rings. But the older dogs? They remember. Maisy rests her head on my lap, searching my face with her liquid brown eyes, as if to say, “Are you idiots poor again?”

  When we go to bed, I’m completely restless. I’ll doze off for a minute and then wake up, expecting the power to be back. We’re trying to retain what little cool air is left from the air-conditioning, so we keep the windows shut. The house is deadly silent, so much so that I decide to use up precious iPad battery life to run the ambient noise app I’d downloaded for book tour travel.

  “Flanders! My socks feel dirty. Give me some water to wash them,” Fletch says, quoting The Simpsons episode where Homer uses up all the canteen’s contents for grooming purposes while lost at sea.

  “I don’t care to be mocked,” I reply darkly.

  “What’s the problem? You in a mood because the lights are out? Big deal. It’s not the end of the world,” he says, attempting to comfort me.

  “Oh, no,” I agree. “We’re ready for the end of the world. Just not for the end of the night.”

  Fletch smiles and shakes his head. “This is because you can’t watch your stories, isn’t it?”

  My stories.

  My secret shame.

  Or rather, my Secret Life shame.

  When Stacey and I went to Dallas, we’d lost our voices by the time we arrived at the airport on our return. To save our throats, we opted to watch our various handheld electronics instead of chatting.

  Despite wearing earbuds, I couldn’t help but notice Stacey’s reaction to her iTouch in the chaise across from me. From exasperated gasps to the snorts of derision, something was clearly bothering her.

  “What on earth are you
watching?” I probed.

  “Only the stupidest show on the face of the earth. It’s called The Secret Life of the American Teenager and it’s about a moronic fifteen-year-old who gets knocked up and then spends all day moping around her house, hugging her knees in a sweater with exceptionally long sleeves,” she replied.

  “Isn’t Molly Ringwald in that? [Do I even need to mention how I feel about Molly Ringwald at this point?] And wasn’t it supposed to be critically acclaimed?” I asked.

  Stacey sighed and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling in the Admiral’s Club. “Yes, and I thought so, too, but clearly not. Seriously? The writing on this show makes 7th Heaven look like The Wire. It’s corny, it’s cheesy, it’s ridiculous, the acting is atrocious, the dialogue is completely wooden and”—she paused to meet my gaze—“you’d probably love it.”

  As I had plenty of shows already programmed on my iPad (of course) I didn’t get a chance to tune in for a while. But the minute I started, I couldn’t stop. The show is exactly as corny and cheesy and ridiculous as Stacey claims. Secret Life is part telenovela and part after-school special and that’s what makes it so good. I mean, have you ever seen a show where the Christian girl claims that her dad [Played by John Schneider, aka Bo Duke!!] was killed in a private plane accident because she lost her virginity? Or that the character played by the kid with Down’s Syndrome is a raging asshole? Or that the writers are clearly being paid every time the actors say “had sex” and never once use a different euphemism for said act? [I’ve since learned that there are drinking games based on this show.]

  In the past month, I’ve viewed almost five and a half seasons and watching this show is my nighttime ritual. I’m at the point where it’s not really bedtime until I find out the latest haps in the Ben-Amy-Adrian-Ricky love square. It’s killing me that without power, we don’t have the bandwidth for Netflix to work on my iPad.

  That’s why I can’t sleep.

  Of course, I don’t admit Fletch is right because he’ll laugh at me.

  Ironically, Stacey hasn’t even told her shiny new husband, Bill, that she watches the show because she’s mortified. She waits until he’s out cold and then pulls out her iTouch all silent-like in the middle of the night.

  After a fitful night of dozing in half-hour increments, I finally rise for the day. I spend the next three hours fishing foliage out of the pool with a big blue net and hosing a billion fallen leaves off the patio. I don’t get a full idea of how bad the storm was until I notice that one of our forty-foot pine trees is listing at a forty-five-degree angle. The wind pulled it right out of the ground and half its tangled roots are visible at the base. Whoa!

  Later, Fletch pries the electric garage door open and goes out to buy ice. We’ve already lost the contents of the fridge, but I’ll be damned if we’re going to waste my stockpiles in the freezer. I’ve spent a year loading up on extra cuts of meat so in case we ever find ourselves in a lean time, we won’t want for protein. I’ve easily stored hundreds of dollars’ worth of rib roasts and steaks and pork loins, well aware of how much better these items taste than hamburger-bun mini-pizzas. Fletch returns home with a cooler the size of a coffin filled with bags of ice and we’re able to save all our frozen goods.

  Although we have every resource available from cash and credit and plenty to eat and shelves of books I’ve been saving for just this kind of occasion, I can’t seem to unclench.

  I’m furious that for all my worrying, for all the ways that I plotted and schemed to make sure we were never without again, here we are in a situation that’s completely out of my control. In my head I know I’m in my own home with a mortgage that’s paid in the gracious green suburbs, but in my heart, I’m standing by the back window of my shitty rental apartment, watching the repo men wheel away in the car we can no longer afford and waiting for the eviction notice.

  Funny how one tiny power outage can bring me back to the very worst time of my life, triggering every fear and insecurity about not being ready.

  Fletch, who’s been diligently tucked away in his office all month reconciling our bank statements from 2010, is delighted to have a Mother Nature–induced day off. While he was out, he picked up a chain saw and related protective gear and has been happily hacking away at downed limbs and overgrown brush. To him, this is, like, the best snow day ever!

  But for me? I can’t stop fretting about my stupid wavy hair and pacing around in the vicinity of the television. I try to read but nothing holds my interest, likely because I’m up and fooling with the dial on our battery-operated radio every ten minutes trying to get an update on ComEd’s progress. I just need the lights to come back on so I can remember that it’s 2011, and not 2002.

  When I go to use my iPhone to order a pizza, I burst into frustrated tears when I find the battery drained because it always gets bumped on in my overcrowded purse. Fletch senses I need some cheering up. He challenges me to a board game, something I always suggest, but rarely get to play. But instead of being thrilled at the opportunity to finally whip his punk ass at Worst Case Scenario, [How does Fletch know so much about shark bites?] I fret and pout through the first two games.

  Due to a couple of clever guesses on my part in regard to grizzly attacks, I’m in the lead when, out of nowhere, the room is flooded with light. I spring from my seat, dashing over to the power strip where I charge everything.

  “I wouldn’t get so excited,” Fletch says. “They may be working on the line and we’ll probably go out again before we’re back on.”

  We have two blissful minutes of illumination and I get to whiz with the lights on for the first time in twenty-four hours, and poof! Just like that, they go out again.

  “NOOOOOOOOO!!!” I shout.

  “Yeah, figured that would happen. Sit down, it’s your roll,” Fletch says.

  We return to our game and I’m energized by having the lights on again, even if it was only momentary. But that’s really all I need to get my head back into the present.

  As we play, I’m reminded of my seemingly endless stretch of being unemployed. Although things were pretty bad at the end, it occurs to me that at no point while I was out of work did I ever think to enjoy having the time off. I never once gave myself the luxury of relaxing. In retrospect, I probably would have gotten a job a lot quicker if I hadn’t gone to my interviews so tightly wound. I’m sure I came off ten times more intense than I actually am.

  I’m not saying I’m unhappy with the way things turned out—far from it. I have a career that I love and a life that’s full of joy. But I wonder if I wouldn’t have created a happy ending just a little bit sooner if I’d ever allowed myself to just be, to appreciate the freedom of not being tied to a corporate life that I’d hated, to realize that in a world that’s constantly go-go-go, sometimes it’s nice just to turn everything off and spend a little quality time across the table from the man that I adore… while beating his pants off at a silly board game.

  The lights come back on about twenty minutes later, as we’re halfway through with the rubber match determining the World Champion at Worst Case Scenario. Instead of bolting out of our chairs to throw in some laundry or run the dishwasher, we stay seated, enjoying the game and one another’s company. And even though I lose the game, I still end up with the feeling of Charlie Sheen–grade #WINNING.

  Later, after straightening my hair and running the vacuum, I happily climb into bed. Before I even get to the part where Molly Ringwald sings Secret Life’s theme song or the cats open their first cabinet of the evening, I fall into a deep, blissful slumber, glad to be out of the past and back in the present.

  My not-so-secret-life is good.

  However, I do plan to shop for my own generator.

  Because if the world does come to the end? I’m going out with the lights on.

  Reluctant Adult Lesson Learned:

  Being prepared in life is good, but living life in the moment is better.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R T·W·E·N·T·Y-T·H·R·E·E
/>   The Five Stages of Grief

  “Gotta go! Close up shop!”

  Two minutes later.

  “Did you not hear me? We’ve got to go!”

  A minute after that.

  “Jen, the ‘Internets’ will still be there when you come home. Move it! Don’t want to be late!”

  I sigh and log off, hustling down the stairs to change out of my robe and into some clothes. We have an appointment to talk to the bank about refinancing our home today. The rates have dropped and because Fletch and I are all grown-up now, this is the kind of thing to which we pay attention.

  Or I normally would… if I weren’t so distracted online watching the melee between a bunch of bloggers arguing over whether or not some fighting unicorn-shaped dessert served at their convention seemed “racist.”

  Don’t misunderstand me—racism is still a problem in this country and I’d never discount how tragic and unfair that is. However, I posit the best way to combat ignorance and intolerance is not by sending passive-aggressive tweets to those who ate the cake in the first place. [But what do I know? I wasn’t even invited!]

  On my way out, I stop in the kitchen to grab my iPad. If the whole cake thing turns ugly, I intend to have a front-row seat.

  Fletch pauses before we head to the garage. “You look nice.”

  “Thanks! Did you expect to see me in my bathrobe? Or did you assume I’d put on yoga pants and a stained Champion T-shirt?” To be fair, that is my standard at-home, go-to outfit.

  “Sort of,” he replies. “New shorts?”

  I nod. I’m clad in an adorably fitted pair of knee-length, white Not Your Daughter’s Jeans denim shorts, [Wearing white bottoms for the first time in thirty years… thank you, perimenopause!] wedge sandals, and a sheer floral tunic with a stretchy tank underneath. I threw on one of my fancy bras, too, and not my usual ones with the tatty lace and spray-tan stains. I figure if part of it peeks out from underneath my Spanx top, it should seem intentional and cute and Hello, Sailor! and not, you know, pathetic. I don’t want the banker to be all, “Oh, honey, stop worrying about rates and get yourself to Victoria’s Secret STAT.”