Monday, March 26, 2012

The Kind Of Shit I'd Do On A Regular Basis
...if only I had more vagina balls

I go to therapy once a week, because I need it and I like it and I want to fix my broken parts, don't judge me. But I don't just go to any old therapist. I go to therapy at the NYC county courthouse. Why? Maybe I'll tell you the whole sordid story sometime. My therapy there won't last much longer, though, because my therapist is pregnant and about to take that baby and run. If I had $1 for every time that my therapist has gotten pregnant and quit being my therapist, I'd have $2. There's nothing quite like poring over abandonment issues with someone who is about to abandon you. But that, too, is a story for another day.

This session, I arrived on time, early even, the eager damaged beaver I am, to find a line of people longer than the o's in Goooooogle waiting to get their belongings x-rayed so they could gain access to the court house, probably see their therapists too, I bet! I'm usually the only white person in line, which says as much or more about me than it does about everyone else.

As I waited and looked around, I started doing some Tom Green style math and surmised that I could limbo the rope, shimmy between an unused metal detector machine and the wall, slide across the table, run up the stairs two at a time and be in my therapist's office before anyone even noticed what was happening, circumventing the America's Got Talent length line of people. To gauge the task, I turned to the friendly gentlemen behind me and jovially outlined my plan. He laughed but then gave me serious advice: "Don't do it, they will be on top of you in a second and you'll be in chains." The fellow behind him added, "They train for this stuff. They're ready for you."

It was somewhat encouraging to me that these guys were intimidated by the fat security guard who read a newspaper and the younger guy who was doing some yoga bends. Those guards didn't scare me one bit, and I realized it's because I'm a woman. I knew they probably wouldn't hurt me. Maybe they'd cuff me and toss me around a bit, but I wouldn't get punched in the face or baton-ed in the tit-sicle, and certainly not treated the way a man of any color would be dealt with if they pulled that kind of shenanigan.

"That almost sounds like a dare," I said to the guys. They roared with concerned laughter, which ended abruptly as they repeated their warning solemnly. "Don't do it."

I considered making an iPhone style video to see what would happen if I tried my little challenge. I considered the outcome: I get arrested and everyone I know fires me as a friend. It was barely enough to discourage me. The thing that ended up changing my mind was that I really know how badly jail sucks, having visited an old former friend there several times who used to get arrested a lot.

So instead, I waited in line like a sucker, and missed out on what I'm sure would have been a really exciting and maybe even life altering adventure.

I'm so glad for the emotion of fear, because this world -- and my life -- would be absolute utter chaos without it. But at the same time, I bet just a little more fearlessness on my part would have made this Monday a really fun day.

No comments: