She held up the shard of mirror and stared at the reflection. The eyes staring back at her seemed cold and distant. Maybe it was because the eyes were a light shade of blue. She’d always heard blue eyes masked a personality of someone with ice in their veins.

Was that true?

Maybe.

But she had reason to think cold thoughts.

She looked down at her thumb that was holding the shard by the edge. A small trickle of blood had formed from the jagged edge of the glass.

She hadn’t meant to break the mirror with that much force. But that’s exactly what happened when Madge finished reading their last bank statement. She’d found the statement hidden underneath the cufflinks in Stan’s jewelry box. The balance? Not the $350,000 she thought was in there. The balance, as of last Monday, was $5,000.

She put the shard down carefully on top of the lace doily on the dresser, hoping there wasn’t blood on the back of the broken piece. Madge told herself she should’ve been more careful.

“You should’ve been more careful about a lot of things, old girl,” she said to herself.

“I was too busy to notice,” Madge said, not realizing she was talking out loud. She was the only person in the house she’d shared with Stan for the last 40 years. The wallpaper was original to the old house, Stan hating the cabbage rose print, Madge thinking the pattern matched the 100-year-old house.

“Maybe you should’ve noticed how I felt about a lot of things,” a voice whispered in her head, a voice she’d heard and felt all her life. “Then maybe you wouldn’t be in the situation you’re in right now.”

Madge saw the cut on her thumb needed more than spit. She turned and went into the bathroom, looking around for the box of Band-Aids she kept in the medicine cabinet. While rummaging, she found bottles of prescription meds for Stan – here was one for his high blood pressure, and one for the time he had the beginnings of an ulcer. Madge moved the bottles, looking for the dark brown bottle of mercurochrome she’d had for years. That’s when she saw the small bottle with the blue diagonal shaped pills.

Viagra.

A prescription for her late husband who hadn’t touched her in years.

Madge picked up the bottle and noticed it was almost empty. She checked the number of pills prescribed – 20. There were only five tablets left.

“One more thing you weren’t careful about,” the voice in her head said, triumph in its tone.

“Shut up,” Madge said out loud. “Just shut up.”

She threw the bottle against the bathroom wall, causing the top to pop off and the pills to scatter on the faded green linoleum floor.

Madge was oblivious to the slow trickle of blood running down her thumb.

“You better do something about that or it’ll stain the grout,” the voice said. Madge had heard that nagging voice all her life and, she hated to admit, so had Stan.

“You’d better take care of the oil change in the car or the engine will freeze up.”

“You’d better change the air conditioning filters in the house or we’ll develop allergies.”

“You’d better stop paying fees to be on that stupid bowling team. Taxes are going up.”

Madge heard her cell phone ding. She unrolled a foot of toilet paper and used it to stop the bleeding on her thumb, temporarily giving up the search for a bandage. She picked up the phone and saw it was a message from the funeral home.

“Visitation is set for 10 a.m. to noon tomorrow,” the text stated. “Payment in full for our services will be due at the end of the service.”

Madge put the phone down, closed her eyes, and then opened them. Shards of the mirror were scattered around the dresser. She wasn’t surprised. She’d slammed that mirror so hard against the wood that she was surprised she hadn’t damaged the dresser as well.

“What do you expect?” the voice said. “You just found out your supposedly faithful husband of 45 years had gambling debts that wiped out your 401k.”

Madge felt her knees go weak again. All the money she’d given freely to Stan, thinking her husband with a degree in banking was taking care of them. All the while, he’d been involved in online poker games, losing hundreds and then thousands of dollars. Right now, she had less than $5,000 to her name.

“You have this house,” the voice said. “Sell it.”

Madge looked around. What could she get for this old place. The roof leaked – Stan always too busy to fix it. The plumbing was shot as was the furnace, and everything needed updating. Now she realized she didn’t have the money for those fix-it chores. America’s Cardroom had their money.

Madge had no idea her husband had that big secret. It wasn’t until she’d checked their banking account a few hours ago that she saw huge chunks of money gone. She called Stan’s co-worker at the bank and confronted him.

“Madge, I begged Stan to come clean to you, but he didn’t want to,” Ron told her in a whispered voice. “He knew he was in over his head, but by the time he told me what was going on, he’d cleaned out your savings account.”

Madge had grabbed onto the edge of the dresser, her head spinning. Thousands of dollars gone, all right underneath her nose. And where had she been?

“You were busy grading papers and complaining about the educational system, your fellow teachers and the slacker kids, that’s where you were,” the voice said. “And when you weren’t griping about them, you were busy with your crossword puzzle books.”

The voice was right. She’d been too wrapped up in herself, her problems and her insecurities to pay attention to her husband or her personal life.

The gambling was bad enough. But the Viagra pills? What were those for?

Madge went back into the bathroom and, this time, found the bandages. She wrapped her thumb and returned to Stan’s laptop. It was on a desk in the room. She and Stan had slept in separate bedrooms for the past 10 years, her snoring keeping him awake and his snoring keeping her awake.

“You never considered the man might be lonely, did you?” the voice asked.

Madge was silent.

“Did you?”

“No,” she whispered. “But then again, he never considered that I might be lonely.”

She opened Stan’s email – the man never closed his G-Mail account – and glanced through the in box. There were typical advertisements for storm windows and tax help. She went through the folders and found one marked “Cadillac.” They’d never owned a Cadillac, she thought. A Cadillac was a car Stan always dreamed of having but she always told him that was a ridiculous purchase. A Buick, now that was a trusty, sturdy car.

Inside the Cadillac file were emails from a woman named Dolly. Madge read two of them and knew instantly Stan had been having an affair with her.

Madge scrolled down to the bottom of the folder. Apparently, Stan and Dolly had been lovers for five years.

Her thumb was beginning to throb, just like her head. In a matter of two days, her husband had dropped dead from a stroke, she found out her life savings were gone, she discovered her husband had been having an affair and here she was sitting in a shabby bedroom with decades old wallpaper and shards of glass all over the faded rug.

She sat in the silence, watching as the shadows deepened in the room and then remained sitting until the room was dark except for the now dim light from Stan’s computer screen.

“You gonna just sit there and let life happen to you or are you going to do something about it?” the voice asked. The voice still nagged, but the nagging had a different tone now. It challenged instead of criticized.

Madge walked over to the shard of glass she’d held earlier and looked at herself in the reflection. This time, she accepted that the blue eyes looking back were icy cold.

“I’m gonna kick ass,” Madge said. She picked up her phone again and found the number of her friend, Marissa.

“I’m so sorry about Stan,” Marissa said.

Madge interrupted her.

“Yeah, that’s fine, thanks, but I need you to list my house. While you’re at it, help me find a company to sell all my furniture as well,” Madge said.

It’s time to stop ignoring what’s happening around me, she thought.

“About time,” the voice said.

And for once, Madge agreed with the voice. And, she thought bitterly, so would Stan.

 

 

Growing up, we loved board games. “Jeopardy” and “Family Feud” were family favorites, and knowing facts and trivia always helped clinch a win.

A few years ago, I found a website, IMDB – the Internet Movie Database – that listed all kinds of media information, from plot summaries to cast members to my favorite category, trivia.

While watching something on either television or my computer, I usually search IMDB trivia, and all kinds of useless information fills my phone screen.

One rainy afternoon when going down memory lane, I decided to see what I could find out about some of my favorite television shows from the 1970s and 1980s. If you wonder what happens behind the scenes, keep reading.

Credit goes where credit is due – facts here are courtesy of the IMDB website.

“Little House on the Prairie.” This was my weekly cry show. This little family always found a way to tug at my heartstrings. Fun fact – when the Ingall family sat down to eat, the stars had Kentucky Fried chicken, definitely not a delicacy in Minnesota’s pioneer days.

“Happy Days.” Richie, Fonzie and the crew were always there for a feel-good show about growing up. Little-known fact – a teenage boy was contemplating suicide and wanted to talk to Fonzie. Winkler took the call and convinced the boy to give life another chance.

“WKRP in Cincinnati.” Not a Thanksgiving goes by that I don’t watch the clip – “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” I’m not alone. Every November, thousands of people watch that video on YouTube.

“All in the Family.”  Bigot Archie has a full-fledged liberal for a son-in-law. Archie and Meathead allowed us to open the door to uncomfortable conversations. Fun fact about Edith: The show made fun of Jean Stapleton’s singing, but in reality, she was a professionally trained singer who’d performed in musical theatre.

“The Jeffersons.”  A spin off from “All in the Family,” George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) was a successful, vain Black man who carried the show. Fun fact:  Isabel Sanford was the first Black actress to win the Outstanding Lead Actress in a comedy Emmy award.

“The Munsters.” To say it was a stretch of the imagination to have a Frankenstein-style man and a Bride of Frankenstein woman living in a creepy mansion appear normal makes me laugh now. That doesn’t include the strange Uncle Fester. Fun fact:  Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster) was 6’5” in real life. But he needed to be even taller, so he wore shoes that elevated him by four inches.

“Taxi.” A sitcom about life in a New York City taxi-cab office. I have lots of favorite scenes, but when Jim takes the driving test and asks what a yellow light means, the result still cracks me up. And nobody can down a beer in one gulp like the despicable Louie DePalma.

“Dallas.”  Like 83 million other people, I had to tune in to see who shot J.R. Fun fact: The house used as the “Southfork Ranch” house was a real Texas residence called “Duncan Acres.” Years later, the Duncan family was forced to sell the house, and it is now a museum devoted to the show.

“Gilligan’s Island.”  I had to stop watching this sitcom because I was frustrated about people being trapped on that island. Fun fact: the show’s crew could only make props that would’ve been found on the island. They loved the challenge.

The next time you sit down to watch a movie or TV show and wonder about the back story, check out the IMDB website. Then you’ll know useless facts that somehow make you feel smart.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Library. 

 

There’s a scene in the sitcom “Schitt’s Creek” where mom Moira is trying to share a family recipe with her son David.

Moira hasn’t a clue how real people function, but she claims she can cook her mother’s enchilada recipe. She asks David to help.

When the instructions call to fold in the cheese, David asks what that means.

Moira tells him to just fold in the cheese. He asks for directions again. David finally realizes she hasn’t a clue about cooking, especially how to fold in cheese.

I felt a little like Moira when my grandson, Alex, and I were out for one of our last driving lessons – parking.

Over the past few years, I’ve gotten lazy about parking. I usually turn left into a parking spot because it seems easier, but either the front of the car is over the line or the rear end of the car is sticking out too far.

Then there’s the problem of getting inside the lines.

If I’m somewhat in the middle, it’s a success. If not, I park further out where sloppy parking doesn’t matter as much.

Alex said parking was on the driving test, so we set off on a Sunday afternoon to tackle this last lesson. We found an empty parking lot, and pulled in. Knowing I’m not great at parking, we decided to watch a few YouTube videos for some expert advice.

I learned a few things – there’s right-hand parking and left-hand parking. The reason I prefer left-hand parking is because the driver sits on that side and can see how close they are to the car on the left.

We set out two home-made cones for Alex to drive around – one of his younger brother’s toys and an empty laundry detergent container. Not top-of-the-line tools, but the make-shift cones would serve their purpose.

Then it was time for Alex to park. He asked what to do before turning into the spot. I hesitated, knowing my parking weakness. I took the easy way out.

“You park the car,” I told him.

He looked at me.

I motioned with my hand toward the empty spot.

“You just park it,” I said again. “Remember what we saw on the videos. Just park the car.”

Being a wonderful grandson, he tried to follow that useless advice.

But he was too close to the line on the driver’s side.

“How do I fix it?” he asked.

I thought about it.

“Just try again,” I replied.

He tried again and was on the line on the right-hand side of the car.

“Got any advice?” he asked.

“Let’s watch the videos again,” I replied.

We watched two different ones, and Alex patiently backed the car out of the spot. He turned the vehicle around and stopped.

“What should I do now?” he asked.

My advice was sound.

“Just park the car,” I said. That’s when I thought about that scene from “Schitt’s Creek.”

We moved to another empty parking lot, but this one had plate glass windows where Alex could see what he was doing. In just a few tries, he figured out how to turn and then straighten out the car.

Luckily, when it came to parallel parking, Alex got it on the first try without any useful advice from me. That was a stroke of good luck because my advice would’ve been the same – “You just park it.”

Later, I asked my 18-year-old granddaughter for advice about how to park a car. She looked at me and smiled.

“You just park it,” she said.

Vindication.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

One sleepless night, I was mindlessly scrolling on my computer and came across a video of a little monkey named Punch.

I wasn’t the only one captivated by this adorable monkey whose life is anything but easy.

Over 90 million people around the world have watched videos of Punch.

The reason?

Punch reminds us of ourselves.

A little background.

In July, a macaque monkey was born at the small Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan and was abandoned by his mother shortly after birth.

The zookeepers had no idea why the mother abandoned the infant. All they knew was they had a tiny motherless monkey, starving for attention.

To help, the zookeepers gave Punch an IKEA stuffed toy that resembled an orangutan. Instantly, Punch hung on to that comfort plushie much as a needy child hugs a stuffed animal.

When Punch was old enough, the zookeepers released him to the troop, making sure the little monkey had his stuffed animal/surrogate mother.

The experience was brutal.

The monkeys attacked Punch, chasing, pushing, and hitting the young monkey. Punch would run away to his stuffed animal, crying in fear.

He dragged the stuffed toy everywhere he went, huddle up with it, sometimes hiding, sometimes crying, whenever other monkeys would come around.

The only times Punch would venture out alone were when his two favorite zookeepers would enter the barren enclosure.

Punch would jump up on their legs, scurry up their backs and ride around on the zookeepers’ shoulders while they fed the other monkeys.

Sometimes, the zookeepers kept Punch with them. Other times, they’d gently put Punch down, hoping he’d connect with the others. According to experts, there’s a social hierarchy and Punch needed to fit in.

News of Punch’s rough life spread on social media. Soon, the zoo was seeing hundreds of visitors a day, with lines stretching outside the zoo’s gates to see Baby Punch.

Millions have watched videos of him, frustrated when he was being bullied and cheering when his favorite zookeepers carry him around.

Feelings are so strong for Punch that a fund with Change.org has been established to relocate Punch from the concrete mountain in Japan to a nurturing sanctuary where he can socialize in a more natural setting.

But, despite the somewhat stark conditions at the Ichikawa City Zoo, Punch appears to be improving. He’s spending less time alone, and he seems more confident.

After weeks of being ostracized, Punch isn’t being picked on as much, and he’s bonded with a female macaque in the troop.

There’s a reason this little monkey has captured so many hearts. He’s all of us who’ve been bullied in life. He reminds us how important it is to have someone hold us and comfort us.

He’s us when life treats us harshly and we feel we don’t have a friend in the world. But Punch has something special – he never gave up. Despite the hits and slaps and rejections, Punch kept hoping to find someone to love him.

Punch taught us to keep trying. Even if we’re the smallest one in the room, the face that’s rejected because it’s new or pushed away, we can’t give up.

We need to believe someone will see us for the special being we are.

Thanks, Punch, for reminding us that having a little hope and to always keep trying are the best qualities we can possess.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.