I have been known to attempt good deeds, but sometimes I'm not sure I've done it right.
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Once our cat caught a frog and when I took it away from him, I saw that it had a long open cut in it's skin exposing stuff that should not be out in the open. I decided stitches were out of the question, and the vet said they would kill it, in a humane way, if I wanted to pay for it. I'd have just left it with the cat if I wanted it dead.
So I had this great idea that I would super glue the skin back together and set him free near the creek. Don't know if it helped him or not. But my family laughs about how silly I was to do it. Silly!? It was f'n brilliant. Thinking outside the box...
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One winter, about three years ago, I found a toddler wandering around outside a deserted gas station. I took him inside and asked the clerk to call the police, which he did. I stayed behind the counter with the clerk and the baby. He was coatless, not dressed to be outside. I was not handing this kid off to anyone who might come in until the police got there. My mommy instinct was rapidly taking notes: the kid was clean, diapers seemed pretty freshly changed, genial and sweet, no visible bruises, didn't seem to understand English, French or Spanish.
It was taking forever for the police to get there, when a group of Arabic men came into the store. On foot, no car. They immediately locked in on the kid and the kid looked back with recognition. One of them spoke to the baby and he responded and leaned toward him, so I was pretty sure this was his family. But I was not handing over a kid I had found wandering around, until the police got there. The clerk was telling the men that the police were coming, and that I had found the baby, etc...
When the police car pulled up, I gave the man the kid and explained what had happened, to the cop. The men said they had a restaurant in the shopping center and the toddler had just walked off. I believed them, so did the cop.
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Once I took the kids swimming at the local YMCA. I was sitting by the shallow end of the indoor pool watching my kids, and noticed the beginning of the first swimming lesson for little kids. There were three perky teenage girls talking to the kids. They had maybe 15 or 18 kids sitting on the edge of the pool with their feet dangling in. Some of these guppies looked like they weren't two years old yet. The kid at the end of the line, right in front of me, silently slid off the side and was sinking to the bottom. I jumped up and grabbed it out of the water.
None of the "teachers" had even noticed. I made sure the kid was OK, then I got in the face of the nearest "teacher" and gave her a talking to. I wanted to stay and talk to the child's parent when they came back to pick the kid up, but we needed to leave, so on the way out I told the girl at the front desk what had happened. Something told me that the parents would never be told how close their kid came to drowning.
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When my first son was 4 or 5 years old he choked on a peanut butter sandwich. I had to stick my finger in his throat and dig a glob of it out. Then I picked him up and with his head down, leaning over my arm, I rapped him on his back. The Heimlich maneuver would have been next, but he was able to cough out the rest.
This is a warning about "health food store" peanut butter. The kind where the oil separates from the mixture and sits on top, and you have to stir it back in every time you use it. As you use up the peanut butter, there is not any oil to stir back in near the bit at the bottom of the jar, so it is very stiff. This is what the sandwich was made with.
I cursed this "health food" and myself for using it, and never bought it again. Skippy, and Jiff etc., are always creamy and stand a much lower chance of choking your kid to death. If A.P. had passed out before he made it to the kitchen, where I was, I wouldn't have known he was choking, because he couldn't make a sound. I'll never forget the look of terror in his eyes, the color of his face, and his throat's unsuccessful attempts to retch it loose. I'll take additives over a dead kid any day.
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I experienced periods of starvation, on and off, during my first marriage. I remember being jealous of the pets I would see in people's yards. I knew someone was making sure they would be fed. I only tried begging once, in Eugene, Oregon. I couldn't do it. I broke down crying in front of the store and a student asked me what was wrong and gave me the bottle of grape juice he had just bought. His kindness has never been forgotten, but I felt like shit, taking what wasn't mine. But I had a baby to nurse and a husband who was a selfish jack-ass. Thank you, kind stranger, whom ever you are.
The store was across the street from the University in Eugene, Oregon near Skoob Doog. I think that was the name of book store, 'good books' spelled backwards. We lived in an empty apartment behind it, across the street from the hospital. Our side window looked out onto a grassy area where a tempura restaurant next door had picnic tables set up for their customers. Years later, one of the Architecture Professors at the U. of Texas told me he was at the University in Oregon at that same time and ate at the picnic tables at that oriental restaurant next to us.
Anyway, the point of this was that I sometimes buy $10.00 worth of groceries for people on the side of the road with "will work for food" signs. And I used to keep granola bars in the car for when a short shopping trip wasn't possible. I'm a real sucker for hungry people.
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I tried giving blood to get money for food. Actually I gave plasma. They separate it out of the blood and put what's left over back into your vein. I only did it twice before they told me I didn't weigh enough to give blood anymore.
I did learn that many of the people in line to give blood were the street people, the ones who had fallen through the cracks. This was before AIDS. You may have to thank a wino or that person sleeping on a heating grate, if you ever get a blood transfusion.
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I had my purse stolen outside Ken Keesey's brother's store in Oregon too. I had applied for food stamps, and they were in the purse (macrame, of course, made by me, stupid hippy, string was cheap). No one would help us. The food stamp office people treated me like I was the hundredth person who had tried that story on them, and they turned me away with no suggestions for how to survive with no money and no food. So it was graveyard cherries and food my husband stole from a friend's house, while she was out of town. He was going to water her plants for her, so he had her key. She only had a little bit of food, and I think he probably drowned all her plants. She was probably too pissed to ask where her food went and why her plants were dead. She avoided us after that.
It was really nice of those people to plant cherry trees in the grave yard. Oregon cherries are sweet and good!
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I wish I had known that in bars, they serve free food at happy hour! I was such an innocent, ignorant, idiot, and hadn't really been in a bar before (except for one creepy time that doesn't belong here). I was vegetarian brainwashed anyway, but, if you are hungry, that's the place to go! And people will send lots of free drinks down the bar to you! Even if you only want to drink soda. And some of them will want to kiss you, too! Who knew?... It beats the hell out of begging.
I found out about happy hour food too late. I had ditched Hub#1 and had a job waiting tables in Austin by the time I saw how it worked. And the bartender was my boyfriend, so kisses were strongly prohibited, not that I was looking for them (or drinks or food). If I was at the bar, I was usually just resting my feet after my shift, and watching the "Cocktail" show the bartenders put on. They would twirl bottles, fling stuff around, slide drinks down the bar, etc...It was a wild, crowded scene at happy hour.
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O.K. the creepy time:
I was about 19 or 20 years old and I was taking the bus between Indiana and Nashville, and the bus stopped at the station in Louisville for a while. It was daytime, I may have had to switch busses, I can't remember. Anyway, an old man came up to me and started talking to me about how he was lonely, and would I just sit and talk to him for a while, in the bar near-by? I thought he was a sad guy, and if just talking to him for a while would cheer him up, I should try to help. (God, I was gullible! Don't you just want to smack me?!)
We went into this dark little bar. The people behind the bar seemed to know him, and he took me into a back room. I don't remember the conversation, but I remember he wanted kisses. I may have let him kiss me on the cheek and then I left pretty quickly. As I left, all the possible motives for the guy's actions began to flow into my pea brain.
I had no idea that I was raw meat on the street. I thought I could take care of any situation that might come up. I didn't know that to the professional predators, I stuck out like a baby lamb.
