The Further Jeremiads of Etienne Shurdlow

This is (I think) the third installment of Like I Really Care, my unpublished novel about an advice columnist/blogger named Etienne Shurdlow who gets fed up and starts handing out bad information. It is calculated to offend, even though the bar for what’s offensive is pretty much made out of smoke these days. In any event, it’s guaranteed to make me ineligible for a judgeship some day. Enjoy. (And thanks to some of my friend who contributed letters.)
 
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Dear Etienne: Whenever I go for a job interview, I psych myself into being the most positive person in the world. Even if it’s raining, I persuade myself that it’s sunny. If I have trouble parking, I pretend that I enjoy the walk to the appointment. If the interviewer is in a gruff mood, I act super-upbeat to try to cheer him up. The result is that, even if the interview goes well, I feel like an asshole. Shouldn’t I be myself at such occasions?  -- Audition Anxiety
 
Dear Audition: Play the game if you want the job. What you are selling is not only your competence but your composure. The main reason people are hired is so their boss will never have to worry about them doing their job or protecting his. In fact, during your job interview, you should scope out the person who’s asking you all the questions and try to ascertain if he or she is doing the same thing you are: faking it. Job interviews work in two directions. Have you accidentally landed a job interview with a cult-like company? Do they insist on their own argot (e.g., saying “challenge” instead of “problem”)?  Do they go away on retreats? Have motivational speakers? Have they instituted TQM (Total Quality Management), which is a way of forcing people to accept bad decisions by asking, “Have I answered all your questions adequately?” (To which you should say No just to ruin their day.) If you don’t feel comfortable, don’t take the job. If you have to take it, remember not to blame yourself.
 
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Dear Etienne: I did something awful many years ago. My friend and I broke into the basement of an apartment building and made a secret hideaway among the pipes and the foundation. In order to get there, however, we had to cut through somebody’s storage locker. The person who owned the storage locker had canned tomatoes in Mason jars and, when I stepped on a box thinking it would support me, my foot went through and I broke several of the jars, spilling their contents. I don’t know whose tomatoes they were, and of course I said nothing at the time, but every now and then I worry that the woman (if it was a woman) probably went down to her storage locker expecting to find the vegetable she had put up the summer before and, instead, found the spillage. It’s too late and too impossible to make amends now. What can I do to assuage my guilt? – Ashamed in Arkansas
 
Dear Ashamed: Try forgetting it. What’s done is none, and no life was damaged. You can never make proper restitution to the person whose property you trashed, however accidentally. Consider your letter to me as your first step toward absolution. The next step might be a donation to, or volunteering at, a local food bank. I suspect that many of the good deeds done by adults are in some way to compensate for some of the shit they pulled as kids. If those are the roots of altruism, so be it. The important thing is to grow up in ways that honor ones past without repeating ones mistakes. (On the other hand, I don’t know what selfish adults are compensating for.)
 
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Dear Etienne: My husband takes an extremely long time to climax during intercourse. This allows me to enjoy multiple orgasms, but it takes a toll on him. I have tried helping him in every way that either of us can think of, but nothing works. We’ve been married for three years and the imbalance is starting to affect his self-confidence. Lately I become sore and he becomes fatigued. Despite what it may sound like in this letter, it is not arousing or even charming. Where should I go? -- Burned in Bermuda
 
Dear Burned: It’s not an “I” problem, it’s a “we” problem. I gather than you have already discussed this situation with your husband and are satisfied (so to speak) that he is not purposely delaying release. The next step is for your husband to see a licensed sex therapist. His problem may not be physical, it may be psychological. An inability to climax might mean that, despite his assurances, he may be thinking of something or someone other than you in order to delay release. He might even have a phobia of his own bodily fluids. If this is the case, the solution may be a routine of CBT (no, no, no, not that; it stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) to desensitize his mind in order to sensitize him elsewhere.
 
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Dear Etienne: My young son gets into the usual amount of trouble that any ten-year-old can be expected to get into, from giving his younger sister a hard time to neglecting his chores around the house. Lately, however, he has been talking back to his school teacher. The first time he did this he was sent to the principal’s office, which I didn’t learn about until the second time he was sent there a week later, after which I was summoned to school for a parent conference. Naturally, every parent takes her child’s side in such matters, although I was curious about why my son misbehaved a second time so soon after the first. When I got to the meeting and met the teacher I was stunned to see that she is a control freak, a martinet, and something of a harpy. I wasn’t expecting a female version of Mr. Chips, but I was gobsmacked when I found myself staring at Miss Gulch from The Wizard of Oz. I don’t mean that she was unattractive; that had nothing to do with it. It was that she had a foul-tempered, impatient, confrontational personality that had me losing my polite demeanor within five minutes of her harangue. I have since learned from other parents that, so far this semester, she has sent every single child in her class to the principal’s office and that the children consider it a badge of honor. The school refuses to fire her because of her union seniority, but I’m concerned that my son’s grades will depend on how well he survives this harridan rather than how he does on his schoolwork. – Distraught in Detroit.
 
Dear Distraught: You didn’t say whether this was a public school or a private school, but in my experience private schools are more sensitive to the desires of their paying parents than are taxpayer-supported public schools. If this is a public school, send a letter recounting the incidents, including the dates and names, to the Superintendent of Schools in your school system with a CC to your son’s Principal. Specify a written reply. Get other parents to do the same thing. This is no longer a simple matter of discipline, it speaks to the larger issue of whether the teacher has lost control or respect of the class. When I was in seventh grade our third period English teacher was new in the profession. Our classroom was fifty feet down the hall from the door to the cafeteria, yet when the lunch bell rang she took pleasure in keeping us in our seats until, I swear, half the school was in line ahead of us. She called this punishment “slenderella,” thinking she was being funny about forcing us to diet like she was. Our class felt differently. There were thirty of us in the class and every day one of us would purposely misbehave so he or she would get sent to the Assistant Principal’s office. After a while, the Assistant Principal (whom we called “chrome dome” because he was bald) was astonished to see so many discipline problems. Let me cut to the chase: Miss Slenderella’s contract was not renewed for the next school year. So there’s hope for your child’s bête noir.
 
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Dear Etienne: When I visit my elderly, widowed mother, who lives in another city, I am buoyed by how spry and alert she is, but then when I look around her house I am appalled at the amount of dirt and dust she allows to accumulate. I am not a clean freak, but spider webs in the bathroom and encrusted grease on the stove are something even a pig wouldn’t accept. The one time I mentioned this to her she got defensive and I quickly changed the subject, but that night I stayed up scrubbing and cleaning. I’m dreading my next visit. Is it normal for older people to say What the hell, or is there something deeper? – Blinded in Birmingham
 
Dear Blinded: Many older people have diminished sight for a number of reasons: cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, or simply normal failing eyesight. Rejoice that your mother is still alive and alert. If the dirt doesn’t bother her and it isn’t life threatening – and if she doesn’t do a lot of home entertaining where others might notice – there are three things you can do that immediately come to mind. 1) Leave it alone as long as she’s happy; 2) Secretly clean it yourself on your visits, or; 3) Hire a housekeeper. Either way, shut up and be happy that she can still live on her own.
 
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Dear Etienne: My middle-aged, unmarried uncle thinks that every conversation is a song cue. He lapses into ballads, show tunes, and godknowswhat else every time he hears something that reminds him of one. He also dresses above his income level and, on those occasions when we talk about our personal lives, he is unusually careful with pronouns. On the other hand, he likes to come over to our house and watch figure skating with my wife. The kids are starting to ask about him. What gives? – Nephew in Newark
 
Dear Nephew: Unmarried, show tunes, and vague pronouns? Do the math.
 
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Dear Etienne: I have a friend who has lost her sight. Whenever we’re together, I am careful not to use words like see, look, or watch. This is because, the first time I said, “It’s good to see you again,” she shot back, “That’s nice, because I can’t see you at all.” She didn’t mean it to embarrass me – it was simply her way of responding – but I still felt like a ogre. Should I keep watching my language around her or just let it rip? – Picky in Phoenix
 
Dear Picky: She seems to be dealing with it better than you are. Keep using normal language. The more you worry about offending her, the more you actually will offend her by holding back. Trust me, she will know.
 
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Dear Etienne: When I was twelve, I built a tree fort with a friend. It was in the woods down a hill from a construction site and the workmen had dumped lumber and materials into the gulch from the old building they were tearing down. We built the fort out of these discards, thinking ourselves highly moral, not only for not stealing materials, but for not illegally dumping the trash in the woods. We also found a couple of rolls of tar paper and some ventilation conduits and commenced to built a tarpaper fire that got so powerful that it shot out of the top of the vent almost three feet. It doesn’t take Smokey the Bear to figure out what happened next. We started a forest fire and, when we couldn’t beat it out with tar paper, we beat it out of the site ourselves. It was muddy and I lost a shoe in the mud. Fortunately, the fire department was called and arrived in time so that there was almost no damage, but for weeks afterward I worried that someone would find my shoe and reconstruct what I looked like the way paleontologists reconstruct dinosaurs from a footprint.  This was over forty years ago and I still have nightmares in which I am barefoot and running from some unnamed pursuer. I feel the cold mud, I feel my mud-soaked sock flopping at the end of my foot, and I feel the twigs and rocks that I step on while racing away. My friend and I never discussed it (he died several years ago) and this letter is the first time I have ever told anybody about what we did. Will I feel like this until the day I die? – Ashamed in Ashland
 
Dear Ashamed: You ought to talk to the kid who smashed his neighbor’s tomatoes (see above). What you did was worse, and let’s not kid ourselves. You might have caused major damage, even injured somebody (including yourself) by your dangerous act. Didn’t your mom ever teach you not to play with matches? Wow have times changed. Remember the days when the worst thing a kid did was steal a watermelon or try cow-tipping? As Peter Pan said, “Children know such a lot these days.” Many of us do things we’re ashamed of. The point is to grow from them and change one’s life for the better. The statute of limitations for tree fort crimes must have passed by now, and I’m sure your letter has probably touched a reader who has done something similar and needs to know it’s time to let himself off the hook. Or perhaps – and I’m just saying this to pull your chain – he’s the one who found your shoe in the mud.
 
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Dear Etienne: I am in a pickle. Several months ago I committed to attend a friend’s wedding across the country and, as the date approaches, I find that I am unable to afford the trip, not to mention a gift. Is there any graceful way out of this? I don’t want to destroy the friendship, but I also don’t want to let on how my fortunes have plummeted. -- Pickled in Philadelphia
 
Dear Pickled: Money or not, the hell of modern air travel makes it understandable that you would want to bow out of dealing with the TSA, the airlines, and the great unwashed (a.k.a. your fellow passengers). But that won’t let you off the hook inasmuch as you have already given your word. You might lie and send your regrets explaining that you have just been informed of an important business conference or retreat on the nuptial date that you cannot change or avoid at risk of losing your job. It’s a small lie and will hardly distract your friend given the overwhelming nature of the event. If you bow out early enough, the caterer can deal with it. (The worst thing one can ever do at a wedding is to be a no-show or, worse, to show up without having previously sent an acceptance.) As for the wedding gift, etiquette says you have a year to send one, and perhaps your income will improve in that time. If not, you may want to make a small contribution to a charity in the couple’s name. The charity will send them an acknowledgment, the exact amount will not be mentioned,  and you’ll be thanked for such a meaningful gift rather than for yet another set of candlesticks. Keep in mind, however, that breaking a social commitment of this nature may affect your friendship.
 
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Dear Etienne: I have noticed that when a pet enters a room where a group of people are talking, several things happen. If it’s a cat, it wanders around rubbing against everybody’s ankles prompting people to reach down and stroke its back until it determines who among them hates cats the most, then it settles at that person’s feet. If it’s a dog, the person who likes dogs the most will be the first one to notice and call it over, scratching it behind the ears and invariably prompting the owner to say, “You’ve got a friend for life.” I have a theory that guests treat the owner’s pet the way they themselves would like to be treated by the the person in the group to whom they’re attracted to the most. An animal is a surrogate for the person whose stomach you would prefer to be rubbing or whose ears you would like to be scratching behind. I wonder why nobody has done a study of this. – Animal Lover in Albany
 
Dear Animal Lover: I’m not sure they would know what to put on the grant application. There certainly seems to be something to what you say, although we need to consider it from several angles. The first is the now-familiar institution of “therapy animals,” usually dogs, who are provided to the elderly, people who have recently gone through trauma, or those whose grip on sanity is loosening. No one knows exactly why it works, but merely holding a docile animal on ones lap has a calming, centering effect. Humans also favor animals over their fellow humans when it comes to violence; studies comparing crimes against people and crimes against animals show that animals win paws-down in the sympathy department. Speculation is that humans regard animals as defenseless, as anyone who follows the slaughter of wild animals by so-called “sportsmen” can see. Taking all of this into consideration, it’s understandable how people would use animals in the place of other humans. (This presumes that these are consenting animals.)
 
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Dear Etienne: My parents are getting a divorce after eleven years of marriage. I am twelve. For some reason I think I may be the cause of it because I have a cleft chin and neither of them does. What does this mean? – Orphaned in Omaha
 
Dear Orphaned: You are not the cause of your parents’ failed marriage but you may be the result of it. Either you are adopted and they haven’t told you, or, if neither of your parents has a cleft chin, there’s a good chance that your father does, and he is not the man who is married to your mother. The fact that you were born out of wedlock suggests that one of the above must be the case. In either event, you are not the cause of the divorce; the cause probably began before you were born. In due course, probably in family court, you will be asked which of your parents you want to live with. If you choose your mother, you should keep in mind that she probably cheated on your father. If you chose your father, keep in mind that you will always remind him of his wife’s unfaithfulness. Sucks, doesn’t it? I’m not suggesting that the following is the best course of action, but if I were in your shoes, I would decide who lets you get away with the most, from playing computer games to staying out on school nights. Don’t be bashful about discussing this with both of them (separately, of course). They are going to start competing for your affection very soon and you don’t want to blow it. Meanwhile, you may want to ask your school guidance counselor for advice of how to handle what may be a difficult period for you until you turn 18. If you have a close friend who is growing up in a stable home, spend time there. You have my sympathies, honest. 
 
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Dear Etienne: I attend a state university and I am constantly being bombarded by micro-aggressions. From T-shirts to ring tones, and from posters for events to words spoken casually in conversations, I am always being assaulted by comments that could be construed as racist, sexist, ageist, or xenophobic, In class there are trigger words that make me uncomfortable or angry about subjects we’re discussing in history, social science, psychology, and English. College is supposed to be a place where it’s safe to learn. Why can’t they pass laws to punish people for saying things that are so offensive? – Challenged in Columbus
 
Dear Challenged: How about this for a trigger word? You’re an idiot. College is a place to learn, not censor. The way you’re complaining, you’ve probably never had to face any opinion other than the ones you already have. Even if you weren’t sheltered up until now, you probably grew up thinking that your views were the only ones that exist. They are not. There is a whole world out there and college is the best place to learn about it. If you fail to accept the simple fact that the world is full of people who not only don’t share your views, they dislike you for having them, you are going to be at an immense disadvantage. You are going to be one of those people who only watch one TV channel, who only read one newspaper, who listen to one radio station, and who only associate with people who share and reinforce the opinions you already have. This applies to Liberals and Conservatives alike, so don’t be smug. Not only will this make you someone who loses out on the greatest part about being human -- the ability to learn -- it will make you a drag on society. Forget trigger words. Forget micro-aggressions. Forget political correctness. Instead, go outside and play. Embrace the world. Sure, you’re going to find things in it that upset you and that you don’t like. Fix them. But first you have to know that they’re out there and you can’t both away from reality and make informed contributions to society.
 
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Dear Etienne: When I turned thirty I made a resolution not to make fun of my friends. You know the kind of badinage I’m referring to: calling people names in fun, belittling someone for a clumsy mistake, telling someone to F-off. I used to think that such remarks solidified an existing friendship. But when I stood back and thought about it, I was no longer so sure, so I stopped doing it.  I didn’t suddenly go all Fundie -- I can still cuss up a storm or take strangers to task -- but my friends are sacred. Now I am more aware than ever of the wisecracks that they throw at each other and that they still throw at me. It’s like I’m “it” in a verbal paintball contest. I’ve chided them about being so negative, and I keep hoping they’ll see my example and stop, but the coin hasn’t dropped for them yet. How did Gandhi pull it off? – Benign in Benin
 
Dear Benign: Good on you. There is so much negativity in the world today that you have created your own oasis of civility. There is nothing you can do about people who treat others poorly. You can say, “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that around me” and gauge by their astonished reaction when they don’t understand that they just said something wrong. Gandhi had a point: if you act the right way, others will eventually realize the error of their way. Okay, maybe it worked better in the days of the Raj than it does in the age of Twitter, but as long as you treat others well without being insufferable about it, you’ve got a good thing going.
 
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