Bacon and Eggs

Spring is here. The year is winding down. Teachers (and students) are counting how many days we have left before summer break. There's a hopeful listlessness spreading through the school, a strange slow energy of distraction and indifference. Parents feel it, too. Tardiness and absence rates are rising. The sense of purpose that characterized the fall is slipping away as we look forward to next year.

I have felt it this month as well. Instead of getting up to run and make lunches and feed the family I sit on the side of my bed and brush my hair slowly, wilfully ignoring the news broadcast on the radio. The children eat bowls of cereal before I come downstairs and pack vaguely balanced lunches that they don't let me inspect. Our morning routine has evaporated.

All week students have been coming to the office complaining of stomachaches, of being tired, of headaches. An outbreak of strep? Perhaps springtime allergies. I give them water, have them rest for ten minutes, tell them to come back after lunch. They don't. Finally I made the connection and started asking the most important question: did you have breakfast?

No, they said. Didn't have time. I'm learning that lack of time is code for mom's working two jobs or we don't have money for gas or I sleep in the living room and the TV keeps me awake. Spring seems to be a time of transition. Of leaving one crowded home for another. Seeking new. Seeking better. Upsetting the routines and patterns which offered a semblance of stability.

The school offers breakfast free to all students, but when it's a necessity it becomes a point of pride not to go. The hunger doesn't subside, though. So they come to the office. We add ten minutes to the tardy slip and order them to the cafeteria, for which they are secretly grateful. We whisper in the teacher's ear that he didn't have breakfast, and she will slip him a snack mid-morning. In the office we hand out granola bars to tide them over until lunch. We do our best to close the gaps.

I dispense snacks and think about my own lapse. Most every day this year I cooked bacon and scrambled eggs and buttered toast. My family ate together before bustling out to school with no worries other than remembering to bring our lunch boxes. My children and husband are unaware of how blessed we are. As for me, I think I'll get up and prepare breakfast tomorrow. 

Climbing Wall

Feeling her fingers slip, Annalee pressed the pads of her left hand deeper into the rock. It did no good. The additional weight scraped off several layers of skin as she fell backwards, toes sliding out of their tiny holds. Her loud “FUCK!” echoed back from the wall and she sat into her sling, webbing creasing her buttocks and groin, rope thrumming in her right ear as it stretched taut.

“Whoa, cowgirl! What’s the rush?” The teasing voice carried up the rope. She looked down at the man belaying her. Shaggy hair was barely contained by a tie-dyed bandanna. His lean face was tanned behind a few days beard. He smiled and she caught a glimpse of white teeth before he reassured her “I gotcha.”

Well duh! she thought. You’re on belay. “Thanks!” she hollered back. Don’t know why I’m climbing with a stranger. Dumb. But he’d done everything right, and the folks at the climbing gym had said they would make good partners. They’d been right so far.

She wiped the blood oozing from her fingers onto her shorts and turned to the face. Securing her toes, she stretched again for a tiny ledge. Her ankles popped as she caught it, easing fingertips over the edge. She could feel every knuckle strain. Finally it felt secure and she lifted her right foot, sliding it up slowly, seeking a hold. There! Turning her toes outward, the soft instep caught as much as possible. Her calf tightened as she slowly shifted weight, tension running up through the knee and into the thigh. She increased the pressure, rising to the right, pulling with fingertips and the ball of her right foot. Her left foot came free and she began, too early, to tap around for a toehold. Suddenly the dust of the ledge above gave way and -- tearing her fingernails to the quick -- she slid down until once again the rope caught her.

“Ah fuck it.” She was quieter this time – disappointed. Leaning backwards she shouted  “I’m not gonna make it.”

“That’s cool. You coming down?”

Duh! “Yeah.” She found her original holds and shouted “Climbing.”

“Climb on.”  The rope immediately slackened, giving her just room to begin moving down. He really was a good belay – just right with the rope, always attentive. Annalee slowly scrambled down. At the bottom she faced him and they exchanged a quick “off belay” “belay off” before she removed her helmet and unclipped her harness. Still looking down she thanked him again. “I’m really glad you do that.”

“What? Catch you?” his tease was gentle. She looked up into a smile and returned it.

“Well, that too. But I mean saying ‘belay off’ and ‘off belay’ when it’s totally obvious.”

He shrugged. “It’s the right thing to do.”

They busied themselves for a few moments rearranging gear and coiling ropes. When everything was just right she yawned and asked, “You ready?”

“I’d like to, if you can stay awake.”

“Might need an anchor, but yeah, I can hold you. Remember, it was your idea to meet at dawn.” She allowed herself to be a little sassy. He could handle it. He started laughing as they worked together to fasten an anchor rope around a nearby rock outcrop. When it was secured Annalee unscrewed the lid of her bottle and gulped down some water before taking a couple bites of gorp.

“Need a break?” he asked as he returned his own bottle to the gearbag.

“Nah, just a little thirsty. We’re good.” She smiled again at him, admiring. He was built for climbing, long and slim with deceptively lean muscles. He pulled off the wrap that held shaggy locks out of his eyes and buckled on a helmet.

“On belay.” He stared directly at her as he spoke. The words were suddenly seductive, challenging.

“Belay on,” she responded in kind, then blinked several times as he turned quickly away from her to the rock face behind him.

“Climbing.”

“Climb on.” He reached, pulled, and suddenly she was watching a vertical dance as he wove his way steadily up the face. Annalee was astonished at how quickly she had to slide the rope through the brake, feeling him move through the quivering live rope. He climbed with such grace she almost became mesmerized and only a sense of responsibility kept her from gawking. All too soon he was at the top.

“Wow!” she shouted up. He turned and grinned down, pleased at having impressed her.

“Think you can bring me back?”

“Of course!”

He planted his feet and leaned back, away from the wall. “Ready to lower!”

“Lowering!” Annalee did a couple of stuttersteps forward as she took his full weight, but the anchor held fast, and he easily walked backward down the wall as she fed rope through the descender. Soon he was next to her. He walked close, facing her, and quietly said “off belay.”

She found herself leaning in as she replied “belay off.” Her heart pounded. It was a wrench when he turned away to unhook and remove his helmet.

After a quick consult they decided it would still be cool enough for one more ascent after breakfast. They coiled the ropes and gave the gear a quick once over before settling down to eat. They’d brought pretty much the same things: yogurt and apples, peanut butter and bananas. She shared a Danish carefully wrapped in foil as a special treat. Afterward they both smelled of cinnamon and vanilla icing, and she imagined how his lips would taste. They chatted, comparing notes on climbs they’d done before and mutual acquaintances at the climbing gym.

“What do you think about that line?” he pointed to a route thirty feet to the right of where they’d ascended – at least, where he’d ascended – an hour before.

“I dunno.” She was embarrassed to admit that she might not be up to it. Of course, she’d had breakfast and the rock no longer sheltered slippery pockets of dew. But the new climb was definitely harder, maybe a 5.15. It was at the very outer edge of her abilities.

“Come on. You can do it. I’ll go first so you can see the holds.”

Annalee laughed. “Yeah, like my little t-rex arms could reach your holds!”

He made a face, then pushed again. They debated for a while, Annalee feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

“Look,” he said, exasperated, “they put us together because you said you wanted to get better. This will help you get better. And it will be a nice change of pace for me.”

Annalee was stung by the condescension that slipped into his voice. “Okay. Okay! I’ll give it a try. But you saw how I did over here. And I’m gonna be slow.” The explanations bubbled up defensively. She really didn’t want to do this. “How about I belay you, and I’ll try another time?”

“C’mon.” He locked eyes again and she flushed. “You did great the first try. You were probably just hungry. Like you said – it was my idea to come out before dawn.”

She found herself wanting to impress him. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m just. Well. It’s a tough route. I’m not sure I can make it.”

“You can.” He leaned forward, touching his forehead to hers. “Annalee, you can do this.”

“Okay. If you say so. But I probably won’t make. And if by noon I'm blubbering like a baby, I'll be screaming your name and begging you to save me.”

“You promise?” he teased, then relented. “Nothing to worry about, cowgirl. I gotcha.” He smiled radiantly and suddenly grasped her hand. Turning it over, he looked at her raw fingers and scraped knuckles. “You’re a good sport, you know that?” Then he kissed the back of her hand, tickling it with his beard. Her breath hitched. He sprang up and began setting up.

“Okay, okay. Left hand up and a little to the right.” His voice held her up as she reached for the next hold. She gripped and tried to relax. She’d been on the rock for almost two hours, slipping and trying again, slipping and trying again, prodded back each time by the desire to please him. “Right hand straight up about a foot.” Reach, pull, step, lift, stretch. She no longer wanted to get to the anchor.

“Take.”

“What’s wrong, cowgirl?”

“I’m tired. I’m not gonna make it. I need to come down. Take!”

“You can do it. Just try.”

“I AM trying!” Tears of frustration leaked into her voice. “TAKE!” She held her breath, waiting for him to tighten the slack. To take her weight.

“No. I’m not going to help you give up.”

“Please?”

“No. I’m really disappointed in you, Annalee.”

She held fast with her right hand and pulled the left off the rock to stretch out a cramp. Her center shifted and both legs started shuddering. Typewriters. That’s what her mother had called it when that happened. She leaned in again, resting her knees against the rock and slowly stretching out one leg at a time.

“I’m really sorry. But I’m getting cramps and my legs won’t hold me much longer.” Annalee wiped the sweat from where it was collecting in her eyebrows, leaving a bloody chalk line across her forehead. “Please? Take?”

The rope, instead of drawing upward, slipped down past her shoulder.

“Adam?”

Annalee tried to turn, but she was stretched too far, spread-eagled against a granite cliff forty-five feet above the forest.

“Adam?” The weight of the rope was pulling it down faster and faster until it sang in her ear.

“I’ll try, Adam. Please! Take? Please? I’ll do my best!”

The fused plastic end of the rope whipped against her cheek, leaving a stinging welt. She automatically slapped her hand to the injury with a gasp, then clutched at the rock when the mass of the rope tugged at her middle, drawing her backwards. Drawing her down.

“Help me! Please Adam, help me!”

The blood on her fingers made them slippery. Annalee gingerly wiped them on her shirt, working her way through a rotation of stretching, fighting the exhaustion and trembling. She reached for handholds, waved her toe against the wall seeking toe holds, imagined climbing blindly down. She was lost. She waited, but knew. She was lost.

Scenes from a Funeral

chapel ceiling

The chapel is familiar. I sit alone in a too-small pew and try to remember who we buried last. There have been so many.

Behind me someone gossips about the sale price of a neighbor's house, setting off excited chatter about the real estate market. Elsewhere a cluster of strangers commiserate about how the weather has thrown off their landscaping schedule. 

This death is once removed: the father of a friend. My relief is distasteful to me. Still I clutch a tissue, prepared for the echoes of past grief--or premonitions of future sorrow--to rise up and claim me. 

The injustice of time gnaws at me. They say it marches on. The vocabulary is wrong. There must be a word that combines colossal and indifferent and relentless instead. When engulfed in sorrow I long for a button with which to pause everything so I can, for just one moment, bypass the mundane and instead contemplate the profound. Washing laundry, mowing the lawn, taking a shit all seem obscene in the face of loss. The inescapable obligation of little tasks unfairly diminishes personal grief. There should be an isolation chamber into which the bereaved can retreat and ponder mortality and love and friendship and the meaning of life and death without penalty. Instead we are forced to carry on.

The rabbi stands and gently begins the ceremony. The gardeners and homeowners behind me shuffle to sit with their partners. Speeches are made. Songs rise gloriously to the rafters. My tears ebb and flow in tides of sympathy. I time my nose-blowing for the in-between moments, preferring to break the peace rather than interrupt the farewells. I inadvertantly make a sound like a trumpet and bring a moment of levity. The laughter forgives me any embarrassment.

The final prayer is spoken. The sound of voices intoning the kaddish in unison resonates through my center. There is no comfort for me in the words; they are in Hebrew. I am both together with and apart from my fellow mourners. 

The widow is conscripted into the task of hostess: greeting each well-wisher, thanking the rabbi, figuring out what to do with the flowers. I make a note to arrange my funeral now to spare my loved ones. Then I change my mind. Perhaps busyness interrupts the grief, making it more bearable. The practicalities seen brutal, though. Walk-throughs, selecting music, paying for services are salt in the wound. She tells me tearfully "I didn't want to do this" and I understand she is referring to saying goodbye, but I wonder if she also means the administrivia of funeral arrangements. I shake her hand helpessly and step away.

I find my friend and we hug and wipe our tears and comment on the weather. Words are froth, conveying nothing. I stand close, knowing presence counts, wondering if I am being presumptuous. I have stood in the void into which she has been thrust. I can do nothing but be present. Time will march on, indifferent and colossal and relentless. This scene will play out again. We will become practiced in supportive hugs and small words. Laundry will be washed and lawns mowed. I can do nothing. I can be present. Time will march on.

The Things You Miss

All I wanted was a spoonful of peanut butter. 

I wasn't the only one desperate for a taste of home. There were twelve of us living in Hungary that semester and each had something, one thing, that we missed more than anything. I remember one fellow waxing poetic about Cool Ranch Doritos. For me it was creamy peanut butter.

It's subtle, how certain foods, certain flavors, characterize a culture. Never before -- or since -- my time in Eastern Europe have I eaten such a variety of pickled vegetables. Between bouts of gastric distress we joked that there was only one thing a Hungarian would not pickle: bacon. And that was eaten raw. My memories of suppers that year are visions of braised meat in a savory sauce, balanced by pickled carrots or beets or cucumbers or cabbage and with a side of raw onion. Breakfast was crusty buttered rolls with cold cuts and a fruit tea I've been unable to find since. Sometimes we had a hard boiled egg. For dessert my host mother made a slightly dry, mildy sweet poppyseed cake dotted with cherries which she served us almost weekly. I never decided if I liked it. Lunch was more of the same, unless we went to a restaurant. There we delighted in thin, slightly rubbery pancakes that could have easily been confused with crepes. The Hungarians insisted they weren't French at all but a traditional Hungarian dish called palacsinta. Regardless, the restaurant had more than 40 options for filling, including an amazing savory spinach and mushroom concoction.

Saturdays the girls would meet at the baths and soak and get a massage for just $1, then relocate to a pastry shop to chat. We made up for our missing salads by eating pastries and desserts. Linzer tortes and flaky croissants, cakes with a thousand delicate layers. I have never felt so luxuriously indolent. But still we missed the tastes of home.

One of our students -- a New Yorker, naturally -- found the only bagel shop in Hungary. He was alternately overjoyed by and disappointed in the bagels. As a westerner not schooled in proper New York cuisine, I couldn't taste why. And the Hungarians? They were (again) baffled. "It's just boiled, baked dough" they would say. I think perhaps we were drawn as much to the rattle of English words and American slang as we were the food.

We tried, my roommate and I. We visited almost every grocery in the city, some twice. I've forgotten most of my Hungarian, but I will always remember approaching store clerks and inquiring after amerikai földimogyorókrém -- American underearth nut cream. They were universally baffled. Their solution was, not surprisingly, to point us to the Nutella. And while that chocolate hazelnut spread is delicious and amazing, it is almost exactly nothing like peanut butter.

It became a mission. The two of us lived with a host family in Buda just below the Fishermen's Bastion. It was a beautiful location. Sundays I would walk up the hill and get a couple of pastries for us to share for breakfast. We would savor them on the patio as the bells of the entire city rang in unison. Afterward we would go shopping, and wherever we went we inquired with no success.

I had to go to Denmark finally to find a jar of peanut butter. 

For Spring Break I took the train to Copenhagen where my boyfriend was studying business. He, too, had felt the isolation of being an American abroad. Scandanavia, though, was somehow more familiar than Eastern Europe. Perhaps it was the cars. The streets of Budapest were hazardous with Ladas and Skodas. In Copenhagen Saabs and Volvos were common sights.

My love's parents were immigrants to the US, Italian to the core. We had teased his mother about her first experience with American lingo -- she was apalled at the idea of eating canine when offered a hot dog -- but the edges of derision were worn away by our common experience of being foreign. In the shared kitchen of his dorm we made basic  spaghetti with his grandmother's pasta sauce and garlic bread, and I was comforted. 

One morning he took me to have danishes in Denmark. I laughed. They were little different than those from shops at home. Later he escorted me around a grocery store, pointing out dozens of preparations of fish, all strangely flavored. I squealed, I think, when I found the peanut butter, shocking both the Danes and my sweetheart. In the distraction of companionship and travel I'd forgotten my quest. I bought two jars and within minutes of purchase I had opened one and scooped a lump out with my finger. It wasn't Jif, but still salved my homesickness in a way that even his arms had not. I saved the second jar to share with my roommate back in Hungary.

I returned, sharing adventure stories with my compatriot students. One fellow brought back stacks of devalued currency with the dream of papering his walls back in the States. It was a pleasant reunion, and we remarked to each other how nice it was to come home. Our centers had silently shifted from Washington to Budapest. We had become ffriendly  with our adopted city, confident in our ability to stutter through the language, easy with the underground and nightclubs.

We travelled to Moscow and faced an entirely new level of foreigness. Our hosts -- a sister school -- treated us as honored guests but the country was desperately poor and we could feel it. Everything was shabby and the people were gaunt. We donned the mantle of tourist, exploring the city from dawn 'til dusk, but soon the poverty wore at us as well. For breakfast we were given the best they had: a small glass of Tang-like drink, two undercooked eggs, a piece of toast with jam, and a cup of black tea. Every day we walked through lunch hour returning late in the evening to a small portion of meat and a small bowl of borscht. Everyone lost weight, becoming painfully familiar with constant gnawing hunger. One of my classmates was a football player. We took turns sharing our food with him as his clothes became looser. Upon our return we learned he'd lost nearly 30 pounds in two weeks.

At our professor's instruction we had brought as host gifts long batons of Pick salami and other food stuffs from Hungary. We eyed the treats with desperation, imagining the fat melting savory on our tongues. Our courtesy was saved only by the knowledge of our pending escape. Someone acquired a loaf of bread and another found a jar of jam. I had brought the peanut butter. Each morning before breakfast we would huddle in a dormitory room secretly sharing out morsels of Americana before putting on our brave traveler faces and going out for the day.

We returned to Hungary, relieved. There was the museum we knew. This was the classroom in which we spent so much time. Jokes about our adopted home resurfaced, binding us with laughter. We gorged on palacsinta, savored the gulyas, scarfed down our cold cut breakfasts like natives. Then the semester ended, and we flew like dandelion seeds hither and thither. I travelled to Spain, met my beloved in France and journeyed with him to relations in northern Italy. With each country we visited the food became less exotic, less of an adventure. I returned one last time to Hungary and caught a plane home to the United States.

In my mother's kitchen I unpacked a parting gift from my host mother. It was an aluminum pan, much like a frying pan, but with large holes through the bottom and hooks on the rounded edge. As I recounted my adventures for my mother I prepared the cirke and set it to braise. While it cooked I mixed a loose egg batter and pushed it through the holes into boiling water. The nokedli sank and rose, and when they were done I served everything all together. We sat and ate the national dish of Hungary -- chicken paprikash with dumplings -- and I was home.

Urban City Snapshot

I have locked myself out of the car. I borrowed my husband’s ignition key for the weekend — since I left my keys at work Friday afternoon — but was ignorant of the need for a separate door key. While I wait for my knight in shining armor to come, I watch the world go by.

I face what once was Denver’s main street. As in most cities the main drag was long since bypassed by the interstate and the need to rush around the city. Further east there are blocks of dilapidated Motor Hotels with quaint western themes; they are a glimpse into a bygone era when a road trip was a family adventure rather than a trial of togetherness. This far west I’m in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, an eclectic mix of grand old homes, dive bars, and newly fashionable restaurants, all with a fantastic view of snow clad mountains rising above downtown.

Last week’s snow has cleansed the city, leaving an empty sky and emerald grass. Trees are reluctant to leaf out just yet so the finches, sparrows, robins, and magpies stand out as they weave fences of song. Squirrels hang upside down on those same trees like diurnal bats. I have little use for them, although I concede their fuzzy cuteness. Gray squirrels were introduced to my city a hundred years ago by a homesick Chicagoan. I loathe them for driving out our native fauna and fear the bubonic plague they carry. Still I chuckle at their antics as a pair chase round the base of a barren elm tree most likely planted before their kind came.

Traffic is leisurely. Roaring engines and impatient acceleration will come later in the day, when the drivers have woken to the urgency of getting somewhere. For now they’re all still sleepy or perhaps enjoying a cup of coffee with the window down and spring blowing in.

Cyclists shrink-wrapped in logo-spattered spandex roll slowly to a red light. Their muscles are drawn long and lean. Green light. Standing above their saddles they thrust forward, a melding of man and machine, ungainly in the first strides but picking up speed across the street. They soon are out of sight.

A fire engine bustles past, impatiently shouting its way through traffic to aid an otherwise forgotten man who has collapsed. I wonder who called for help, cynically imagining the restaurant owner phoning in, desperate to rid himself of the homeless nuisance diverting customers. The sun warms my shoulders and then my heart and I hope instead that passersby offered assistance to a fellow just a little down on his luck.

Before me rises a modernist apartment cube. The building is clad in large rectangles of matte blue gray aluminum, lending it an air of space-tech. There are balconies for each residence. I watch as two men, most likely strangers despite their proximity, mirror exactly each other’s movements. Mr. Seventh Floor South is a stocky, bearded black man in a vest and do rag who is obviously enjoying his coffee. Tenth Floor East is lean and muscular and white and confident enough that he stands in just bicycle shorts. They simultaneously lean on the black iron railing, looking out like satisfied kings surveying their tiny kingdoms. They stretch and sip and turn and lean again in an unscripted ballet that — more than any work of art — speaks of our common humanity.

The grumble of my husband’s truck draws my attention down to the parking lot. I trade him a kiss and a doughnut from the bank for the key and we each drive away.

Superior Neutral

For +Aaron English

I took a silly quiz today about what kind of Dungeons and Dragons character I would be. Apparently I'd be a Lawful Good Human Sorcerer, 6th Level. That factoid is essentially useless to me as I haven't participated in any Role Playing Games (RPGs) since fourth grade, when I actually did play a little D&D. I was struck, however, by the "Lawful Good" part. It might be a little too true. I like law and order. I have faith in our government and our justice system. Not completely -- I'm not a fool. Still . . .

I am not just an optimist. I am an idealist. As I've gotten older I've been mocked for my shiny outlook, as if I don't see the injustices that are perpetrated in our country. I do see. I am wounded by the pain they cause. Yet I continue to believe that people are innately good and I try to be a Good Person. I am trying to teach my children the same.

Perhaps as a result of my positive outlook, I believe that most of the laws that have been enacted are reasonable efforts to provide safeguards for the general citizenry. I (mostly) abide by them. True, there are a couple rules I flaunt. Speed limits. Right turns at red lights. Others I can’t think of right now. Generally, I am a Lawful Person.

After I posted the results of my quiz I was challenged with the following: “So yesterday I was wondering about the spectrum between lawful good and chaotic evil. Is there a superior neutral?”

I’ve been pondering that question for hours. I keep thinking about the countries that remained neutral during World War II, and the US attempts to remain neutral through the beginning of World War I. In both instances neutrality was posited to be the superior choice. Non-combatants were idealized as above the fray. In reality, though, by not participating they made possible the harmful actions of the aggressors. Inaction was – as far as I am concerned -- a morally bankrupt choice.

Thinking about that my conclusion was that of course there is no superior neutral.

Then? My children started fighting. I have no idea what it was about – probably having to time-share our iPad and the game in which they both are engrossed.

I chose not to engage. They are old enough now that it is up to them to find a solution. They are (generally) past the point of causing each other intentional physical harm. They are invested enough that they’re unlikely to damage the “toy” over which they are fighting. As a parent I want them to learn how to negotiate a settlement. Life skills, I call it. Also? It’s too damn petty for me to care.

Eventually they came whining to me, pointing fingers and complaining. I stayed above the fray, removing the object of their mutual desire and setting them both to another task. They also were required to come up with a proposal for how to avoid the situation in the future.

So, for all my optimistic, law-abiding, moralistic worldview, I guess I’ll have to tell my friend that there is a superior neutral. At least in my home.

Border Crossing

24 hours after I left my passport at the bank I was in police custody at the border. All because I couldn't figure out how to open a door. 

Actually, the entire semester I lived in Budapest, Hungary I couldn't figure out how to open a door. Living in a country where you don't know the language is challenging. It's not the big stuff that's hard. There are guidebooks to get you from point A to point B. There are phrasebooks for medical emergencies. But in all the tourist literature, there's nothing that tells you which bathroom to use. (For the record, női is women's, férfi is men's. You're welcome.) In my case, I spent five months unable to read the push/pull signs on the door. So regardless if I was entering or exiting, I did it wrong. Standing on the street I would pull and pull until I finally realized it opened inward. And when I left? I'd automatically push, and wind up walking right into the door. BAM!

I have an excuse. In the States, by law, all business doors open outward. This way in an emergency folks can easily stampede through the exit rather than piling up like cattle and dying of smoke inhalation. It happened. We fixed it. Eastern Europe, however, was either fine with a little population control or figured they'd behave better in a panic situation. Either way, throughout Budapest the doors opened inward, and I couldn't get used to it. 

Anyway. The day before we went on a weekend field trip to the Czech Republic I exchanged some American dollars for Czech koruny. Now, I'd walked smack into the big glass door every single time I left that bank. Glass doors are the worst, not just because passersby laughed as my whole body smushed up against the glass, but because that kind of door makes a particular ringing sound that draws the attention of everyone in the room. I'm pretty sure -- after seven or eight incidents -- that the bank tellers were taking bets on if I'd make it out okay this time or knock myself completely silly.

Thus I was concentrating so hard on which way to open the door -- and hoping that for once I'd get it right -- that I forgot to pick up my passport.

I still got it wrong.

That evening as I was packing my bag I realized what I'd done. I called the embassy to report my missing passport. The nice Marine there told me they'd been expecting my call, and I could pick the passport up from the bank on Monday when it opened again. Distressed, I phoned my professor and explained the situation. Pepi was a happy-go-lucky guy, and he wasn't really concerned. "You have a photocopy of your passport, right?" he asked. I confirmed. "Just bring that. It'll be fine."

I didn't believe him. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn't NOT go after he told me to.  So the next day at 5 a.m. I met my classmates and Pepi at the train station and we boarded the express to Prague.

Eastern European border guards were not friendly in the 1990s. I can understand. They'd been through a lot. Soviet occupation, the cold war, insane amounts of pickled vegetables. Foolish American college girls who attempt to cross the border with a photocopy of their passport? Apparently that's even worse. They waved large rifles in my face and yelled loudly in Hungarian. My Hungarian at that point was limited to nouns including "dentist" and "hippopotamus" and "figure skater". (We took Hungarian language lessons every day, but the teachers had been hired from an elementary school. Can you tell?) I cowered. They pulled me off the train.

Fortunately I had a guardian angel. My classmate Maria spoke near-fluent Hungarian (she was living with relatives that semester) and she volunteered to stay with me. Not that her services were really needed. The police didn't speak to us again for six hours. The train chuffed off and we were walked at gun-point into a small dim cinderblock police station. They pointed toward some chairs and we sat. 

Nothing further happened.

I lie. I actually underwent excruciating torture at the genial hands of a nice elderly Australian couple who also had been pulled off the train. I'll get to that.

As far as Maria could tell, we were going to be returned to Budapest on the next train headed that way. We just had to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

We chatted a little. It turns out the Australians also were on their way to the Czech Republic, but they hadn't gotten a transit visa through Slovakia. Oops. After a while conversation dwindled, and we waited some more.

We grew hungry. Neither of us had any food, and we had no idea when the train would come. Our stomachs growled. We fidgeted. The guards stared stoically at us. Time didn't pass.

Mrs. Australia sensed our discomfort. She was a kind woman, and she suggested that we share her meager meal. We gratefully accepted her offer.

There have been millions of debates about which country has the strongest, toughest citizens. Russian Cossacks are said to be fearsome. The Zulu held off the British using only cowhide shields.

None of them compare to the Australians.

Mrs. Australia handed each of us a piece of bread smeared with Vegemite. She cheerfully ate hers, and started prepping another. I ate mine.

My tongue died.

Friends, Vegemite is a salted yeast paste with other savory additives like onions and celery. Eating it is akin to rubbing your tongue vigorously with a beef bullion cube until it bleeds, then holding the whole mess in your mouth. Forever. Except worse.

My mother raised me well. I choked down my "treat", smiled and said "Thank you." But I had to avert my eyes as that sweet old lady made another, and ate it. My respect for her ratcheted up with each additional bite. If Australians can handle that, they can take over the world. I no longer worry about nuclear annihalation. I have nightmares about being forced to eat Vegemite.

My tongue began to revive. That's when the real torture began. Remember how I said salted yeast paste? I had nothing to drink. There was no bathroom in which I could rinse my mouth. The savory bloody yeasty taste lingered and grew. It transformed repeatedly, sometimes highlighting a metallic aftertone, other times bringing out the onion. And through it all, salt. Dry, dessicating salt. My mouth was parched like the Sahara. I felt like I'd eated the Gobi desert. My eyes began to sink into my head. My fingertips shrivelled. I hallucinated fountains and bathroom taps.

Still we sat, waiting. I could not longer speak -- my tongue wouldn't function properly. I covertly eyed Mrs. Australia looking for horns or other signs that she was the devil. Vegemite still coated my teeth.

Finally the train came. It was a local, stopping at every town. Somehow Maria was able to find us each a soda. I have no idea what I paid. However much, it was worth it. 

I have been in some scary situations. I've done some stupid things. I've given birth twice. Nothing compares to four hours of sitting in a foreign police station with no water and the taste of Vegemite on my tongue.

Oh, and when I got back to the States? I went to the bank and made an ass of myself trying to pull the door open. Apparently I'd finally gotten used to Hungarian doors. Yep. It's the little things that are hard when you travel.