Dylan Stafford

I hate email. Flat out. Whoever invented email is torturing me. Email multiplies like rabbits—one goes out and two come back. I get barraged by them at work and it doesn’t help that I sometimes can’t read.   

Last week I got an email inviting Marisa and me to a Saturday night holiday gathering. My good friend Elizabeth was having a party. Marisa thought it sounded fun and she arranged our friend Jen to babysit after her work.   

Elizabeth sent a second email asking if we were coming because she had to buy the food. I skim emails and miss key details. That should have been my clue. If she needed a headcount then we probably better be on time. I knew we were going to be late because of Jen’s work schedule, but because I thought it was a big tree-trimming event with lots of people I didn’t think our lateness would disrupt anything.   

Jen came and we did the babysitting handoff with Jack. Marisa was still blow-drying her hair and Jack was playing Legos in front of the fireplace while I was watching an ESPN documentary about University of Miami football in the 80s and 90s. By the time we were in the car it was 8:00. Marisa was fighting a cold and she said, “Let’s make sure we leave by 10 tonight. I want to get a good night’s sleep and not push myself.” I replied that we would do that.   

While we were driving Elizabeth called to check and see where we were. She was super sweet but after I hung up I started wondering if I had missed something. This was a tree-trimming party and she was supposed to have a houseful of people, so she wouldn’t step away to call us would she? And didn’t it sound kind of quiet in the background?   

We arrived at her home and walked into a warm living room that smelled like cinnamon and candles and Christmas. Instead of people everywhere there were only two other couples. Instead of a half-decorated tree there was a dining room table fully set with centerpiece and crystal and show plates. I looked at the well-noshed trays of appetizers with the sinking realization that I had missed some more email details. This wasn’t a tree trimming party. This was a formal dinner party and we had made our host wait over an hour. My heart dropped as my embarrassment rose.   

Elizabeth never gave the slightest hint of annoyance. She graciously hosted the evening with toasts and courses and gifts. The other couples were longtime friends of hers. One couple was Jewish and in honor of Hannukah Elizabeth served potato latkes with apple sauce and sour cream. The green salad had blackberries and blueberries and strawberries as well as cream cheese and nuts. The main event was a sweet potato casserole, seasoned green beans and chicken breasts with rosemary and citrus drizzle. Desert was a platter full of creamy calories. All this, plus gifts and stories and it was 11:50 when we left.   

Driving home I was upset to the point of not knowing what to say. Everything should have been perfect after such an exquisite meal but I felt like a loser for both showing up late and now leaving late. I had inconvenienced Elizabeth at the beginning and Marisa at the end. Marisa was tired from her cold and she wanted to get a certain medicine but we missed the closing of the drugstore by 5 minutes. I sped off from the pharmacy parking lot as my emotions came out in my driving.   

“Dylan, it is ok. I’ll be fine.” she said. “You don’t need to speed.”    

I held the wheel with both hands and didn’t say anything. In my mind everything was dark. The thoughts were coming fast and bitter. “Why can’t I pay attention? I can’t even read a damn email right. Why am I always in such a hurry? The one night I’m in charge of our social life and I screw it up? How are we going to get to Orange County in the morning if we are out this late tonight? When did we tell Jen we’d be home? I bet I made her angry too. She’ll never babysit again and now Marisa can’t get any medicine.” Bang, bang, bang my mind was firing its accusations.   

I slowed down my driving and silently prayed for intervention, “God, please remove my defects of character.” I wasn’t specific. Any defect would do. I couldn’t distinguish between impatience and intolerance and being judgmental. I tossed the prayer up, Hail Mary style, hoping for any relief.   

I couldn’t quit thinking that I had pushed my wife too far when she wasn’t feeling well. My mean brain was throwing guilt and shame at me like the food fight in Animal House.   

The last chance for cold medicine was the liquor store down the street and they did have some night time medicine that could help her get a good night’s sleep. We came home and hugged Jen and heard about Jack’s bedtime. Jen was on the couch watching an old Western and all was well with her. She said he had a good evening but every now and then he would remember mommy and daddy were gone and get upset. Jen was fine that we had stayed until midnight. She gathered her coat and left. Marisa and I went and brushed our teeth quietly. Jack was asleep in his bed, his body cocked up at a funny angle on a pillow with his blue-striped fleece pajamas keeping him warm.   

We crawled into our bed and I gave Marisa a kiss on the cheek. “I love you love.”   

“I love you too.”   

The next morning Jack came into our bedroom at 7:00 rubbing his eyes and requesting mommy. Marisa gamely got out of bed to go play with him while I slept a little longer. When I got up there wasn’t much time left.   

Every month Marisa and I go to a breakfast salon with a group of friends. We eat and drink coffee and try to solve the world’s problems by noon. We rotate houses and this month our friend down in Orange County was hosting. The salon starts at 9:00am but I needed to leave by 8:00 to make it on time.   

“Do you want me to make you some coffee?” Marisa asked.   

“No, there will be coffee there and I’m already running late.” I replied.   

Marisa dressed Jack while I took a shower. We bundled him up and into his car seat and I kissed Marisa on her cheek. She was still fighting her cold so she was staying home to rest.   

Sunday morning is when I imagine what it was like to live in Los Angeles before it got crowded. The traffic flows freely and the air is clear and the mountains are easy to see. That California cliché about being able to snow ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon makes sense on Sunday mornings.   

Jack and I made good time to Orange County. We were only about fifteen minutes late to the salon. I greeted my friends and explained to them that Marisa was congested and had stayed home. Our host Kay had prepared a feast of a breakfast with both meat lover and vegan options. Her daughter is vegan and Kay is learning new recipes. I started with coffee to get my caffeine back up to my normal levels.   

In recovery meetings people say, “If one is good, then five must be better.” I don’t think that way about alcohol anymore, but these days you might say I am powerless over coffee. Why wake up to just one cup when I can have a half pot to myself? I prepare the coffee maker at night and in the morning hit brew on my way to the shower. I have my warm-up pot at home and then drink more when I get to work.   

To drink less, I have to wean myself slowly. If I change my caffeine too quickly I get a solid headache in the afternoon. I was afraid this might happen today, since I was having my first cup of java three hours later than usual. While we had our salon, talking about life and love and politics, I sat on the floor against the couch and sucked down coffee like there would be hell to pay if I didn’t catch up to my daily dosage.   

The salon lasted until 1:30 and it was almost two when Jack and I headed home. My plan was that Jack would fall asleep in the car and get a long nap while I drove slowly in the afternoon traffic. I might even drive beyond our house if he was still sleeping. My Dallas Cowboys were playing the San Diego Chargers and I planned to listen to the game on the radio.   

Often Jack is asleep in minutes but today he was in his car seat chatting away about the morning and the muffins and the doggie and the trucks on the highway. He was wide awake and the traffic was moving well and my nap plan was falling apart. My fear was we would get home too soon and Jack’s nap would be too short and he would be cranky the rest of the day.   

Fifteen minutes later he did fall asleep, quickly, like a light switch going off. Maybe it was the monotony of the radio football or maybe he was just tired. The traffic slowed and I felt better that he was getting his nap. But I also started to feel something else. I started to feel like I had to pee. Apparently I had overdone it trying to catch up on my coffee. Plus, adding to that pee feeling, the caffeine headache I had been trying to avoid was happening anyway. My head was starting to pound and the bright California sun amplified the pain between my ears.   

I love Stephen Colbert and his Colbert Report. In one of his mockumentary episodes he railed against the evils of trucker bombs. With dramatic music and slow speed close ups he showed, strewn along the highways and byways of America, discarded plastic Gatorade bottles full of amber colored liquid, a liquid distinctly different from the original contents.   

It turns out long haul truckers like to get paid and part of how their salary gets calculated is how fast they make deliveries. Instead of losing time pulling over to pee, they keep the engines of capitalism humming by relieving themselves into empty plastic bottles to keep on truckin’. If they are civic minded, the bottles will get emptied out later. If not, they get tossed out the window into the ditches of America to add to our litter, thus trucker bombs, the demon in Colbert’s mockumentary.   

Jack was asleep in the car seat. The Dallas Cowboys were playing painful football on the radio broadcast, not doing well at all. My headache was pulsing and my bladder was bursting and the sunshine was making it all seem loud. I started going through my options. If I pulled over and went into a restroom, I would have to take Jack with me and his nap would end. Jack would be cranky the rest of the day and Marisa would be disappointed. If I kept driving he would sleep, but I might have lifelong kidney damage.   

Maybe I could pull over on the shoulder but keep the car running so Jack wouldn’t wake up? Sure. Good plan. On the freeways of Southern California in the blazing sun it would be like taking a leak on the fifty yard line during halftime. I had to keep going.   

Another TV image filled my mind, erasing the Colbert memory. This time it was those public service announcements warning against drinking and driving. Each time the officer knocks on the window of the drunk driver sitting in a car full of liquid. Each time the driver rolls down the window and the liquid comes sloshing out. It is supposed to be beer or wine but today in my mind it was pee. My kidneys had failed and the pee had filled my whole body. All I could think about was peeing.   

The only grace was that Jack continued to sleep. We were up to forty minutes now and he was still sleeping. If I could only hold on for twenty more minutes we would have reached the magic hour mark. Anything over an hour is a success for a weekend nap and usually enough to ward off the evil crankies. But twenty more minutes for my bladder seemed like too much.   

I started to imagine pulling off on the shoulder anyway, peeing in the full glare of the afternoon light with people honking at me as they drove past. Worst-case outcomes ranged from getting a ticket to getting rear-ended and perishing in a giant fireball, a fireball that faintly smelled of burning urine.   

The traffic was moving and we were coming up to our exit. It wasn’t an hour. We were at fifty minutes of naptime. The exit ramp had a red light at the bottom and I had to stop. Jack twisted in his car seat and in the rear view window I could see his eyes starting to open, slowly, like a dinosaur coming out of a bog. He’s a toddler now and he doesn’t wake up crying, but kind of mumbles as he gets his bearings.   

“We home?”   

“No Jack. We’re almost home but not quite.”   

Don’t think about an elephant.   

Don’t do it. Don’t think about an elephant. I mean it… It’s hard to do isn’t it?   

Well that’s where I was with the pee. All I could think about was pee. We were about five minutes from home but I had to pee so badly. If I made it to home and ran in the door to the restroom and left Jack alone in the driveway in his car seat, that didn’t seem like a very good parenting. I didn’t think I could make it anyway so I started looking for someplace to pull over. There was an empty Gatorade bottle in my car and I was about to make my own trucker bomb.   

I pulled behind a restaurant in an alley but there were two old guys standing around a small grill. Dammit. I circled back and parked on the side of the restaurant. It wasn’t private but it was better than the highway and the fireball.   

“What daddy doing?” Jack asked from the back as I maneuvered.   

“Jack, daddy make peeps.” I replied, definitely feeling like father of the year at this point.   

“Why daddy make peeps?”   

This conversation was going nowhere. “Everybody make peeps Jack. That’s what people do.”   

“Why?” He asked again but he wasn’t really interested. He was looking out the window at the men at the grill.   

The relief was blissful as the bottle filled and my bladder said thank you. The only question was whether the bottle was going to be big enough. I could see the pee slowly creeping up the sides. It was going to be close. The bottle wasn’t big enough. Whatever that inside muscle is that makes pee stop, I flexed it. It worked, sort of. I put the cap back on the bottle. My bladder cried thank you. My headache wasn’t better and my Dallas Cowboys were still losing. But I didn’t have to pee anymore and Jack almost got a whole nap.   

Somehow the domino effect from that email had led me to this, too much coffee and peeing in a parking lot. If I would ever slow down when I read emails maybe things like this wouldn’t happen. But then what would I have to write about?