This is a Farce

I'll admit to occasionally embellishing a story, but every word of this is 100% true. In fact, it has all been even more ridiculous than I am making it out to be. 

It all began a few weeks ago, when my family and I were watching the first episode of Cosmos. My 6-year-old son Jay was sitting on my lap, and he suddenly started scratching his head. "Strange," I thought. "I hope he doesn't have lice."

I didn't think he did. Not because I had any reason to think we were safe - in fact, I'd recently gotten a letter from his school portending exactly this. Nope, it was pure arrogance. An unshakable belief that defies all evidence to the contrary. When it comes to mishaps both large and small, Ima be just fine. No lice.

Over the next few minutes, my faith was shaken. He was scratching his head more furiously by the minute. I turned on the light and started to check, and there they were! Two, right on the back of his shirt. I ripped the shirt off his body and told my husband to take it to the laundry, while I got to work checking Jay's head.

I'd had lice once before, in my mid-20s, before I had kids. I had quite a nice nit comb to show for it, so I dug it up and started combing the lice out of my son's head.

My previous bout with lice had been brief, relatively painless, and successful. That, in addition to the bedbug epidemic, has cured me of any fear I ever had of them. They're weak, and surprisingly fragile. They can't survive long without a human host, and you don't even need to wash everything in hot water. It's the dryer that kills them. They've only survived the evolutionary process because they're so hard to see. Still, while I worked on Jay's head, my husband Jeremy ran around the house, stripping beds and starting laundry.

When I finished with Jay, I checked my daughter Bean, and later Jeremy. Only Jay seemed to have them. Even with my considerable faith in my own invincibility, I didn't think this would last long. Of course the rest of us would get them.

But we didn't, and after that night Jay appeared free of them, too. For a few days, I kept my guard up, checking all of us at least once a day. Something didn't feel right. I wondered what my problem was. Did I want a worse case of lice? I couldn't shake the feeling we were getting off too easy, that not finding lice or nits was proof of nothing but my inability to spot them. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When I found nothing, I began to relax, sometimes for 2 or 3 days at a time. But my suspicions always returned. Jay would scratch his head, and I would spring back into action. During this time I built up quite an arsenal of both knowledge and materials. A robotic comb that electrocuted live lice on contact, but did nothing for nits. A finer nit comb. Vinegar, olive oil, tea tree oil, coconut oil. In a moment of self-doubt, I even bought some useless lice-killing shampoo. In my spare time, I read about lice.

Maybe once a week, I would find 1-3 lice or nits on Jay's head. No more, and never both at the same time. I would take the opportunity to check everyone's head and do more laundry. Other than that, things went on as usual.

On the Saturday at the end of my kids' spring break, I attended my book club. Jay stayed home with Jeremy, and Bean went to a friend's house.

When I got into the car to leave book club, I saw a text I hadn't noticed before. It was Bean's friend's mother, asking if Bean's finger was okay. This was the first I'd heard of it, so I called Jeremy, who told me she had burnt her finger with a glue gun, but seemed fine. I relayed this message to the other mother and didn't give it another thought. I'd gotten mild burns from my glue gun before. No big deal.

But arriving home, it was clear that Bean was in pain. The burn looked unpleasant, but not serious. I encouraged her to soak it in cold water, gave her extra hugs and TV, and assumed it would be better the next day. This continued for several days, during which time Jeremy, who is also what Gray's Anatomy would call "my person," left town for work.

Every little thing seemed to go wrong. The cat knocked over the garbage. The kids fought, and they were more demanding than I felt they had any right to be at their ages (10 and 6, I thought! Hardly babies). Small stuff, but I am woefully terrible at handling small misfortunes. I can't say I'd prefer a large one, but I do seem to bear them better. I was terribly on edge, taking deep breaths constantly to avoid snapping at my poor, innocent children.

Bean continued to complain of the pain in her finger until I finally let her stay home from school and took her to the doctor. Second degree burn, beginning to get infected, might even require physical therapy to regain full range of motion. I was batting 1,000.

I struggled to suppress my own stress and sympathize with Bean. Of course it would be wrong to make it all about me. "Your severe burn is very stressful for me, so you'll have to excuse my meanness."

So instead of coming out and telling her that, I simply demonstrated it with my actions. I tried, but I wasn't fooling anyone, least of all Bean. After we picked Jay up from school, I decided that what I needed was to walk a labyrinth. Yes, that was all! I'd walk a labyrinth, and I'd be fine. I took the kids to a playground that had one, and and asked them to give me five or ten minutes.

They didn't. Bean in particular kept yelling for me, asking about all manner of things. I couldn't shake the feeling that she just couldn't stand to see me doing anything that wasn't about her. Finally, Jay had to go to the bathroom. The playground didn't have one, so I abandoned the labyrinth, and we left. Although he obviously wasn't kidding about needing a bathroom, he complained bitterly about leaving. My resent-o-meter was going off.

That evening, I thought we'd watch a movie and relax. But as the kids were setting it up, I knocked a dish off the kitchen counter. It hit the floor and shattered. As I went to clean it up, the phone rang.

I hate the phone. I have always hated the phone. After Bean was born, this hatred took on a life of it's own. It's unreasonable as hell, but the phone ringing makes me want to kill whoever is calling, regardless of the reason. I have to take a deep breath and steady my voice before answering. If things are going well, I think "God, you just couldn't let me have a moment's peace, could you?" If they're not, and at this moment they weren't, I can hardly contain my rage.

If I had been able to walk that labyrinth, I thought, I would have been able to handle this (I assure you, I was wrong). Suddenly, I found myself talking instead of thinking, and then yelling instead of talking.

"I wanted to walk that labyrinth, but you just could't give me five minutes," I started in. Belligerent. Nasty. My rant lasted maybe 30 seconds, but I swear it was just awful. Much worse than I'm making it out to be. Bean ran to her room and started sobbing.

I felt terrible. I got the impression that I'd been making her feel awful all day. Probably even longer than that. Maybe her entire life. My yelling at her was just the final straw. Her finger still hurt. Couldn't I have let go of a little obnoxious behavior from 3 hours ago?

I followed her, and we talked. I could barely keep from crying myself, but tried hard not to. Why should she have to try to make me feel better? I was the one who had hurt her.

We walked back downstairs, where I found more lice on Jay. Not many, but they were there. I didn't find any on Bean or I, and I might have been grateful for having a mild case. But I wasn't. I was truly losing it, and a part of me had begun to feel like these lice were actually conspiring to gaslight me.

That was it, I decided. We were dropping out of life for the rest of the week. I had looked into professional lice removal, but it seemed too expensive. Fuck it, I decided. We're going to Lice Knowing You tomorrow.

I posted a stressed-out status update on Facebook, and my mother-in-law texted - texted, thank God! - and offered to take the kids for dinner the following evening.

First thing the next morning, I made an appointment. The only available salon was 45 minutes away, but I didn't care. I fed the cats, noting to myself that I would need to get cat food on my way home. Anticipating it might take hours, I instructed the kids to fill their backpacks with toys, books, and colored pencils, and drove to an old apartment building that was now full of offices. Apparently, this was the place.

It was very discrete. It took me a moment to decipher that I wanted to dial the number for "LKY." It rang, and a voice asked, "Do you have an appointment?"

"Yes, for noon," I answered.

Without another word, she buzzed me in.

That was the tipping point. I suddenly felt like I was in an impossibly tame Quentin Tarantino movie, going to see a top secret fixer of problems I'd learned about through an underground source. We walked to the appropriate office, but it was locked. The hall was full of signs demanding silence, and stressing that cell phones were strictly forbidden. After knocking repeatedly, I didn't care anymore. I just didn't care. No more Ms. Goody-Goody-By-the-Rules-Rule-Follower. I pulled out my phone and called. Nothing.

Five minutes later, a woman in her 20s casually strolled over, explaining she'd been on her lunch break. She was tall and gamine, with short, dark hair and big, brown doe eyes. I'd been expecting a middle-aged woman in a long skirt, something like how I picture Old Mother Hubbard. My awful mood hadn't entirely abated. I hated this hipster lunch-eater. Lunch! Didn't she realize this was an emergency? Did she also have a solid gold easy chair at home (because de-lousing people is how the rich love to spend their days, am I right)? Or was I simply realizing I'd forgotten to give my children lunch?

The second we stepped into the room, my stress somehow dissolved. The hipster turned out to be a very friendly mother of two young daughters. She inspired my total confidence. Bean and I were fine, and she dealt with Jay's head in half an hour. She was fantastic. I paid and tipped her well, in part to make up for the mean things I'd thought about her. The kids and I headed to a popular nearby park.

At the park, everyone we encountered spoke excellent English, but with a faint accent. I pegged one man for Russian, another for Swedish, one woman for Dutch, and finally one more woman as possibly Kiwi.

We spotted Russian Guy first. He had the tiniest dog you ever did see. I guessed she was a chihuahua puppy. The kids bounded over to ask if they could pet her, interrupting Swedish Guy, who in retrospect was probably using the dog as an excuse to talk to Russian Guy.

I thought Swedish Guy seemed to bristle, and guessed it was because he was jealous we were lavishing more attention on the small dog than his own. I made an effort to throw some compliments her way.  Only later did I realize the kids were cockblocking him. Although complimenting his dog had seemed to help, I know now that had less to do with my identifying and remedying the problem, and more to do with the the difficulty of being openly hostile toward someone who is complimenting your dog.

Russian Guy, on the other hand, didn't mind at all. He wasn't trying to get rid of Swedish Guy, but he was indifferent to him. He was used to the attention his dog attracted, and loved it. A fan was a fan. We were all the same to him.

"Her name is Nutella. She's a Russian Toy Terrier, and she was the runt of the litter, so she's about half the size of a normal one," he bragged.

Nutella was 3, and her owner pulled out his phone to show us all baby pictures. She looked exactly like a 6-inch-tall deer. Normally I'm not wild about dogs, and I'm awfully politically correct about pet-ownership. No fancy animals, and no animals that shouldn't be in captivity. As a general rule, I think they should come from the Humane Society. But I secretly long for an exotic pet. Specifically, I want a dik-dik. "Maybe..." I started to think.

When we parted, Russian Guy gave us Nutella's card, and urged us to follow her on Facebook or Twitter. I just might.

Jay, Bean and I continued on until we came to some climbable trees, where a few other children were playing. I sat down a few feet from Dutch Mom and Kiwi Mom. They didn't try to engage me in awkward small talk, and I was deeply grateful. They seemed relaxed, maybe even happy.

"None of this would be happening if I were Dutch or Kiwi, and even if it did, I'd just take it as it came. Like those amazing women I know nothing about," I thought. Oh, well. I took out a book, and was happy enough to read in the sun.

The kids began to bring us things they were finding. A high-heeled shoe. An earring. A small talisman. Dutch Mom summoned her kids and told us all in a faintly-accented deadpan, "I'm out. If your kids find anything else after this, it's your police report to file."

I went to find my own kids, and found that the treasures they were finding were coming from a cluster of homemade alters set up near the trees. But I only felt a little bad about the kids disturbing them, because they were in a public park where kids play.

It was time to get the kids to Grandma. I gathered them up, figuring with traffic, we'd just make it before she had to leave to pick up my father-in-law. But we hadn't gone more than a mile when I spotted it. The mystery soda machine I'd been promising to take my kids to for weeks. It was the furthest thing from my mind, but there it was, right on the sidewalk.

I pulled over abruptly, and started hunting for change so the kids and I could get sodas. I only had enough for two. Oh, well. I really only wanted water anyway.

The kids gleefully traipsed over to the machine, and when they came back, one of the sodas they'd gotten had three quarters taped on the bottom of it - a prize redeemable for one free soda. I have dodged some serious bullets in my life, but I've never wanted to credit a guardian angel. It seems narcissistic, considering all the people who didn't dodge bullets. This was the first and only time I've experienced divine intervention. True, I didn't really want soda, and I certainly didn't want the syrupy Hawaiian Punch I received (who knew they still made it?), but that wasn't the point. The ghost saw a struggling mama, and it did what it could. It's just a crappy old vending machine with the good fortune to be owned by a whimsical marketing genius, you say? That we happened to score the winning soda was just a coincidence? It being haunted is a social-media-fueled whispering campaign? Shut up and let me have this.

As we drove away, Jay called out, "I love you, haunted soda machine!"

It only took a few minutes, but it was a crucial few minutes that caused me to hit traffic, which made us miss grandma (it was worth it). We'd have to wait outside until she got home. Which would have been fine, but Jay had to go to the bathroom. Badly.

"Go by the tree!" I told him. He was visibly desperate, but he wouldn't do it. Nor would he try to get into their back yard and go there. Finally, it occurred to me. Once, long ago, I had been given a key. The memory was fuzzy, but I started testing my keys, and viola! We were in.

Except we weren't. Although he knows them well and has visited that house literally hundreds of times in his life, Jay didn't feel right about walking in when they weren't there. "They're your grandparents!" I implored. "They would not want you standing outside their open front door having to pee!"

"I'll go," Bean said, and sashayed past us. She sat down at the table and set to work on the comic book she'd started writing at Lice Knowing You.

It took some convincing, but I finally got Jay to go inside. He wouldn't allow us to turn on any lights or touch anything. He used the bathroom, and hurried back out to the front porch, where he was not too well-mannered to start repeatedly throwing himself against the glass screen door out of boredom. I lured him into the back yard, where we played until Grandma got home. In exchange for my children, my Mormon mother-in-law handed me two valium.

I was on my way. If I were exaggerating about any of this, I would say I forgot to pick up the cat food. But I didn't.

Socially Awkward Penguin Meets Socially Awkward Penguin

I see her next to the sample table at Trader Joe's. She's an older woman, maybe in her late 50s or early 60s. Blonde, well dressed. A real class act. If I had one criticism, it would be that she has butter on her face.

This cannot stand. Someone has to tell her. But I can't, because my mouth is full of the same buttered scone that sullied her face. I look around, hoping someone else will notice. No one does. How can you people just stand there and do nothing? How long can it take to chew and swallow a bite-sized sample of scone? Apparently a while. She had a head start of perhaps 30 seconds, and I'm afraid she'll walk away before I can tell her.

I catch her attention and mime wiping something off the corner of my mouth. This ignites a dormant insecurity in her that had been brewing just below the surface, but she has no idea what I'm referring to.

After what seems like hours, I finish chewing and tell her, "You have butter on your face."

She wipes it off, but her insecurity has not been soothed. I feel bad. Should I not have told her? No, that's crazy. No decent person would let anyone - anyone - go around like that.

"Um, can I ask you something?" she asks.

"Sure," I say tentatively. What have I done?

"This is probably the weirdest question a stranger will ever ask you, but can you see the spot on my tooth?" she pulls back her upper lip to reveal a tooth with a small white spot. The tooth isn't a molar, but it's far enough back that she'd have to be grinning like an absolute maniac for anyone to see it.

"Not unless you point it out," I say.

She's visibly relieved.

"I just had dental work done," she explains. "The dentist said that extra white spot would go away after a while, but when you pointed, I thought it must be noticeable after all."

"Oh, God. No. No! I would never point at a spot on someone's tooth. Not that I could see it anyway. But I'm not a jerk. I would never!"

Mercifully for both of us, we part ways. I'm glad she was a fellow socially awkward penguin, because it's always a relief to find one in an unlikely package. I'm glad for her too, because I imagine she must have been glad I wasn't some smooth operator. Still, it made the whole scene infinitely more painful than it should have been. Despite the distraction, I didn't fail to notice the scone was pretty good.

I'll Refrain from Saying Bossy, but You Can't Convince Me It's Will Solve Anything

Banning Bossy has been making me uncomfortable for weeks, but I couldn't put my finger on why. Which made me even more uncomfortable. Why couldn't I support other women by getting excited about banning the word bossy?

The first hint came with this post, which pointed out that being bossy is not necessarily the same as being a leader. Nay, a bossy person may be no leader at all, and a skilled leader need not be bossy. I agreed wholeheartedly, but there was still something missing.

A friend pointed out that all of this seemed to stem from the likelihood that Sheryl Sandberg was called bossy as a child and still resents it. I suspect she's right, but does that mean Sheryl Sandberg is wrong? After all, racism, sexism, homophobia, and every other "ism" leaves us with people who have been subjected to them and resent it. If not, there would be no problem.

Slowly, it dawned on me that Sheryl Sandberg is not wrong about bossy at all. Women are judged more harshly than men are regarding almost everything, and there's no doubt that women in leadership positions are more likely to be met with resentment for not being "nice" enough. Clearly men, are more comfortable with leadership, and Sandberg is right - it's a problem.

"Bossy" isn't even an entirely unflattering accusation. It's generally accompanied with at least some grudging admiration, and carries the implication that the "bossy" girl is capable, intelligent, and inspiring. She is, in short, a leader.

However, I can't shake the feeling that the girls it presents the biggest problem for are the girls who face few challenges aside from sexism. They have conventional interests, and their strengths are the things we tend to place a high value on as a culture. They are generally pleasing to adults. They're smart enough, and nobody is going to miss it because they have no trouble expressing it. They're high achieving, middle and upper class, white, and don't suffer from learning disabilities or behavioral disorders.

So what's the real issue? The middle-class white woman's desire and demand for universal approval. This need isn't rooted in entitlement - just the opposite. It's based on the idea that it's a girl's job to make sure everybody is happy - with her - all the time. If you've made someone angry or resentful, you've done something terribly wrong. Yet, although entitlement isn't the cause, it is the result. A certain culture of women realizes they shouldn't have to worry about pleasing everyone all the time, yet still feels they shouldn't be the target of any disapproval. Their job is to make everyone, adults in particular, happy and proud, and they are very, very good at it.

The problem is, every girl gets the message that they need to make everyone happy loud and clear. But poor girls, girls of color, and girls who aren't what they're supposed to be in one way or another learn very quickly that it's not going to happen. Large swaths of people will always disapprove of them. Even so, removing the ability to please doesn't remove the desire. Women who are called "bossy" are in fact the women who are the least hurt by all this.

The ability to please is, of course, a mixed blessing. It can turn into an unrealistic expectation, turning girls into insecure perfectionists who are vulnerable to eating disorders and other problems.

Sheryl Sandberg has worked hard, and has, in return, received plenty of admiration and praise. Being called "bossy" is the closest thing to negative feedback she's ever received. The sexism lies in the fact that it bothers her so much.

Free to Be a Brony

I recently came across this story about Grayson Bruce, who was told to leave his My Little Pony bag at home because other kids bullying him had become disruptive. It's been making the rounds on Facebook for the past few days, and many people have made many excellent points in regards to it. Clearly it's blatant victim blaming, on par with blaming a rape victim for the way they were dressed. It also sends the message that conformity is not only easier, but the right thing to do. You owe it to the people around you, and they have the right to make your life miserable if you don't do it. Not to mention the fact that Grayson is being bullied because he's different, which likely will not change if he ditches his backpack.

There is an age-old adage the angel on my left shoulder often repeats when I read an article like this. "Don't read the comments!" she urges. It's sage advice. However, the devil on my right shoulder, who looks remarkably like me (one key difference being that she wears a black statement t-shirt), disagrees. "Fuck that," she retorts. I'm right handed, so she generally forces my hand before the angel can step in.

Although the devil makes a compelling argument, the angel is right. Reading the comments makes my blood pressure rise. Worse, it makes me want to respond to some of the comments. But if I respond to the comments, I might as well put on a statement-t and go live under a bridge. I know, it's probably where I'm headed, but I'm not ready yet. For now, if I really can't control myself, I have my blog.

This story triggers quite a few different issues. The narrow, constrictive demands of masculinity is the most obvious, and the school is sending a damaging message to all of the children, bullies and victims alike. But it is also a reminder of our adult privilege. Yes, I, PC thug, said adult privilege.

The comments section contains some doozies, but the sentiment generally boils down to one concise point made by a thoughtful man named Brian.

"Another parent that doesn't understand the real world." 

Who, Brian, not that. Your literacy is head and shoulders above many of your fellow commenters, but still...in the real world, people judge you on these things. I'm not kidding - the world is harsh, and some of us can be real assholes.

When adults use the term "the real world", they are generally referring to the adult world. This is strange, as kids inhabit the same planet we do and are in the process of living real lives, but I suppose I can let it go. I'm straying from the crux of the matter, which is that you have the "real" world dead wrong.

Assuming Brian is an adult, I would absolutely love to hear the last time he, the school administration, or the social worker Grayson Bruce's mother talked to were punched, verbally abused or received even the slightest disapproval regarding the vehicle in which they carry their possessions.

You know what doesn't fly in the adult world? Assault, harassment, and stalking, which are more accurate terms for what we call "bullying" when it happens to kids. You could probably get away with telling someone you disliked their purse (and, therefore, them), but it would reflect poorly on you, not them. You'd look like what you are - an emotionally stunted loser.

In the adult world, we don't punch someone because we don't like their bag. It does not happen. If it did happen, there would be consequences. Consequences that wouldn't involved telling the victim, "Yeah, well, that is a pretty stupid bag, and that guy hitting you is too much work for me. You're easier to control than he is, so just get a new bag."

But Grayson Bruce and his classmates aren't adults. They're kids. Kids who are not necessarily developmentally ready to accept that other kids like different things than they do. Kids who are still learning the rules. That's why they have adult guides. Social workers, teachers, parents and administrators to tell them, "Hey, if you don't like Grayson's backpack, you can just keep it to yourself."

Math Problems That Stand a Chance of Motivating My Kid

Cinna, Fred Weasley, Primrose Everdeen, and Rue are depending on you! Finish the story problems in a timely manner, with minimal fussing, and you can avert their tragic deaths. Go!

1. The arena has a 5-foot-wide river of flesh-eating acid, but if you make it to the end, you know you will find a big bowl of lamb stew. You are literally, and by literally, I mean literally, starving. If the area of the river is 1,036 square feet, how many feet must you travel to get to the stew?
2. Lawrence had 146 cherries. He used them to bake 5 pies. Assuming he used the same number of cherries for each pie, how many will each pie have? He will give any remaining cherries to his hungry pet dove, Neville. How many cherries will Neville get?
3. The parking lot at the Bruno Mars concert has 5 identical rows of parking spaces. If there are a total of 615 spaces, how many rows are there?
4. Cam baked Lily's class of 25 students each one gluten-free, anise macaron. If each batch yields 5 cookies, how many batches did Cam bake?
5. Students worked in teams to write letters of complaint to the mainstream media. The team most concerned with ablism wrote 3 letters. The team most concerned with adultism wrote 8 times as many. How many letters did the team most concerned with adultism write?
6. The Hunger Games begin at 8:30, and the first tribute dies at 10:15. How many minutes passed between the games beginning and the first tribute dying?
7. If Cato starts running from Thresh at 11:15, and runs for 3 hours, 20 minutes before Thresh slaughters him, what time does Cato die?
8. The arena has a path that looks safe, but burns up the children's feet on contact. Three tributes are mutilated before the other 15 figure out they should avoid it. How many children died before any of this happened? If it one of the injured takes six hours to die, one 8 hours and 20 minutes, and one 13 hours, what is the mean amount of time between injury and death? 
9. Bill Weasley will require a total of 11 surgeries to recover from his werewolf attack. The surgeries must be spaced three weeks apart. How many weeks until Bill does not need any more medical intervention?
10. French film director Alice Guy-Blaché donated 8 boxes of film to a collective of struggling young feminist directors. 5 boxes contained 12 reels each. The rest contained 24 reels each. How many reels did Alice Guy-Blaché donate in all?
11. Katniss must convince 15 members of President Snow's cabinet that she is madly in love with Peeta. She has already convinced 10. What percentage of cabinet members remain unconvinced?
12. 2 vats of poisoned gas cost the game makers the same. If one vat contains 900 mL and the other contains 1L, which is the better buy?
13. Sylvia has received an $18,000 advance on her novel. It is due in 52 weeks and will take her 1,267 hours to complete. How many hours a week must she work on her novel in order to meet her deadline? She has already spent her advance.
14. Professor Umbridge makes Harry stay after school and carve words into his own hand for three hours every afternoon. He spends a total of 28 hours carving up his hand. How many days did this take? 

*Bonus question: This test contains at least one major literary inconsistency. Can you guess what it is? Do you see more than one?

My Imaginary Business Meeting With Beyonce's Dad and Sister

For a variety of reasons, I'm down today. Not very down, just mid-range down. You know what helps cheer me up when I'm slightly to moderately blue? My imaginary business meeting with Beyonce's dad and sister.

I was surprised when I heard they wanted to meet with me, but not overly so, because I have a reputation for being an extremely successful, competent, and pragmatic business person. It's worth their while to work with me – they wouldn't bother otherwise. What kind of business am I in, and why do Beyonce's dad and sister want to collaborate with me? I don't know, and making something up would bring me no comfort. So just sit back and relax, and don't ask too many questions.

When they arrive at my office, they are all business. Especially Solange. No chit chat. They don't accept coffee, tea, or even water. But they aren't hostile, either. They just don't mix business with pleasure. This is business, and they have places to go and people to see. They don't have all day.

We aren't friends, just associates. Beyonce might compliment your shoes or feign an interest in your recent vacation, but not Solange. What you see is what you get with Solange. She never lies, not with her words or her manner. She's here to hammer this thing out. That's all. She is sincere to her very core. The way she sees it, she doesn't really care if your kids have started school yet, so why would she ask? If she likes your shoes, she'll go home and have a serious discussion with her personal shopper to find out why she didn't get to them first. Not a tantrum, though. She just wants to find out exactly what happened. 

Solange is beautiful, in a cold, distant sort of way. Her natural hair looks even more incredible in person than it does in pictures. She isn't overdressed, but her style is impeccable. Tailored, vintage-looking pants and a button down shirt that makes a bold statement, but doesn't convey the desperation for attention that flashy clothes so often do. That outfit is so entirely suited to her in every way, she could have been born in it. Her makeup is perfect. 

Mr. Knowles is no pushover, but he's a little more like Beyonce than Solange. He smiles, shakes my hand, and starts to make small talk. Solange shoots him a look that lasts only a nanosecond, but lets him know this isn't what we're here for. Not that he's a whipped-dog type, or an incompetent fool who is dependent upon his daughter's skills. He most certainly is not. But you have to understand that Solange is extremely powerful. True, he's her dad and has known her since she was born, but her authoritative presence is truly staggering, something you couldn't get used to no matter how long you were around it. You've never encountered anything like it. Nobody's cowering, but nobody's contradicting her, either.

I hold my own, knowing they would never have approached me if I didn't have all their respect. We get down to business.

I write an estimate down on a piece of paper and slide it across the table toward them. Solange takes it, and tilts it so Mr. Knowles can see it, too. The sides of her mouth start to curl up, because despite herself, this is what she lives for. She loves to negotiate, and can barely contain her glee. But she does, because she has the discipline of a prima ballerina. She writes down a counteroffer and slides it back to me.

I turn over the paper over and almost laugh out loud at the lowball offer. What if I were to accept it? Solange and Mr. Knowles would probably call the whole thing off then and there, because they do not suffer fools. We're just warming up. They aren't going to sell themselves short, but I'm confident they won't try to cheat me in any way. It's not that they don't care about money – they do. Very much so. But for them, the game is almost as appealing as the prize. It's not a real competition unless everyone plays fair. They couldn't look at themselves in the mirror unless they knew they'd won fair and square. I'm not worried. I know we'll all walk away satisfied.

After exactly an hour of productive negotiating, we come to a mutually beneficial agreement. Solange finally allows herself to crack a smile when she shakes my hand, but she still doesn't get too friendly. After all, I'm a business associate. This isn't the last time she'll be working with me.

The Last Stone on Your Grave

The way I remember it, I was three years old and playing in my back yard. I chatted with my next door neighbor, a dark-haired man of maybe 20. That was all.

The way my parents remember it, they heard me outside talking to someone, so when I came in they asked me who it was.

"My friend Ralph," I said casually.

They say Ralph was 90 years old and had died a few days earlier.

Do I believe in ghosts? It makes no difference. Either they exist, or they don't. My belief doesn't make them real, and my lack thereof doesn't make them false. I do not fear ghosts, and I am puzzled when others do. For most of my life I labored under the assumption that they were either proof of life after death, or a form of death denial invented by people expressly to comfort ourselves. So what's to be afraid of?

"There is no record of a ghost ever hurting a person," I have occasionally reasoned, attempting to comfort a frightened child. You're right to snort. It works as well as it sounds like it would. Meaning, don't bother. At times, I have resorted to saying that there is no such thing as a ghost, which I always swore I never would, because how should I know? Of course, that doesn't work either. Expressing a fear of ghosts is a safer way of expressing fear of death. So what I'm really saying is, there is no record of death ever hurting a person, and there is no such thing as death. Even the youngest child knows this to be utter nonsense. I have concluded that there is little to nothing you can do to sooth someone's fear of dying. Whether you are an adult or a child makes no difference at all, because death turns us all into lost, ageless souls. All you can do is try not to make it worse.

Perhaps it speaks to my lack of imagination that the possibility of a ghost without consciousness only recently occurred to me. Seeing Ralph, whether it was real or imagined, offers no evidence at all that he hadn't been completely obliterated. Even if there is life after death, and believe me, I'm open to the possibility, the versions of us that lived on earth will not last forever. With him went his memories, and at his age, there were probably people in those memories nobody remembered but him. They died their final death on the day he left the earth, only this time around it went completely unnoticed.

For the last few years of his life, my grandpa suffered from increasingly severe dementia. It wasn't the backward march of Alzheimer's, regressing him to a younger man, then a teenager, then a child. He just gradually seemed to forget everyone and everything he had ever known. However, before that happened, aware that he was a very old man coming to the end of his life, he would repeat the same few memories more and more frequently.

My grandpa was born in 1915, so his birthday was not on a holiday weekend until Veteran's Day was first observed as Armistice Day in 1918, just as he was turning three. He remembered a big parade, and a man who carried him on his shoulders and pointed to the gutter.

"The Kaiser's down there!" he told the toddler version of my whip smart grandfather, who understood that it was not true.

For as long as he had an ounce of lucidity, he told that story whenever I saw him. Like most men his age, he later became a WWII Veteran himself. Although he was not one for war stories, there was one that haunted him more and more.

My grandfather and his unit were approached by a terrified German soldier. He was only a boy, and he came to them with his hands up, shouting an "I surrender!" that he himself probably did not understand. He hoped the American soldiers would, and they did. But one of them shot him anyway.

"He shot him!" my grandfather would say, his horror, shock and disgust as evident at the age of 90 as it must have been 65 years earlier. "He just....shot him."

The German boy seemed to be knocking, then banging, on the door of my grandpa's mind, demanding to be remembered.

Last week, my grandpa died. Who did he take with him? He was the last surviving member of his family of origin. His little sister had died a year before, making me grateful for his lack of memory and comprehension for the first and only time. Thank God for small mercies. Not that he believed in God, or, for that matter, that I do.

She'd had her own husband, children and grandchildren, and presumably a community full of various other players. So no worries there. Aunt Jackie will live on in memory for years to come. I myself remember her as a lovely, gentle woman, the perfect foil for her gruff husband. Those who knew her better would be able to provide you with a more nuanced picture.

But what of his older sister, the brilliant woman with the movie star looks who had no children and died young? Well, she wasn't that young, and it wasn't that long ago. Her nieces and nephews probably remember her, along with a smattering of other people I cannot guess at.

His parents lived long lives, so again they must be remembered at least by their grandchildren.

His grandparents, though. As much as he felt and feels like my "real" grandfather, the truth is he was my step-grandfather. Do I call his parents my great-grandparent, or his grandparents my great-great grandparents? Yes and no. I didn't know them and don't share their heritage, but to the extent that my grandpa was a part of me, they must be, too. They tried to force their fanatical religious beliefs onto my grandpa and his sisters, until they were informed by his parents that they were going to drive their grandchildren away if they didn't lay off. Did they die with him on Friday?

The man who carried him on his shoulders on the first Veterans Day? The woman who did the cooking for his frat house? The uncle who was a barrel of fun when he was young, but miserable when he became old and religious? He seemed to have been a strong influence on my grandpa's passionate Atheism. The German soldier? Maybe he, who never had the chance to live a long, full life, was about to die too, and he wasn't going down without a fight this time. All of these people might have left the world forever with my grandfather. Or none of them. Certainly there are a number of other potential candidates that I know nothing of. Perhaps it shouldn't bother me, but it does.

I will, of course, never know who who puts the final nail in my coffin, although I believe, with the smug arrogance of someone who is alive, relatively young, and doesn't really believe she's going to die, that it will be someone I haven't met yet. Still, I can't help but wonder who will die with me.

My best guess is Ralph, someone I met (or didn't meet?) when he was very old and I was very young. I wish I knew more about him, but I know nothing. It's such an intimate task for the universe to assign to a virtual stranger, and I'm sorry that I believe myself to be the one who is going to do it. But I think I'll be taking Ralph with me when I go, and I think it will be for good.