Flashback to 2015 — So, Crazy, Sadness And Rage Walk Into Courtroom…

Oldie but goodie…and it feels even more apropos in these crazy-ass times. Maybe because the antics we are seeing played out daily in our political discourse are extremely familiar if you grew up with a family or you know, interacted with anybody who didn’t necessarily have your best interests at heart. 

Stay strong out there!

xox

Judgment alert! There may be some judgment leveled here. Hey, I’m no saint.

How come the crazy ones never lose any sleep?
Is it their complete lack of a conscience that causes them to appear so slick, smug and impossibly fresh?

Not a hair out-of-place.
Barely a hint of the devil that lies within.

While those of us that have the misfortune to find ourselves in their orbit are sleep deprived, disheveled, walking disasters.

The fact that people who operate outside the constructs of polite society can close their eyes at night and sleep the uninterrupted, peaceful sleep of the just.

That will always bother me.

Why is that?
How can it be?

Case in point: The night before an arbitration with the attorneys for DWP to discuss the fact that their one-hundred-year-old water main had burst and turned my store into an aquarium, I tossed and turned until the sheets were knotted up around my head and neck, fashioned into some kind of an unattractive turban/noose—and I ground my teeth down to tiny, baby, Chicklets. This left me the next morning gumming my toast, with a foggy brain and pronounced sheet marks on my face that didn’t fade until after lunch.

Once at the courthouse, the team of He, She and It, who represented the water company, entered the room laughing. Uproariously.
Like Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon had driven carpool.

I felt at a distinct disadvantage. Out of the loop, like the funniest joke ever told was completely lost on me. Was that their plan?

Upon closer inspection, they were meticulously coiffed and groomed, cool as the proverbial cucumbers, while I was permanently wrinkled, drenched in flop sweat, and frantically struggling to remove a poppy-seed from between my two front teeth with my tongue.

Note to self: Don’t accept half a poppy-seed bagel when you’re out of coffee. And you forgot your water.
You’re going to need something to rinse your mouth with when the Big Guns enter the room.

If I’d had more sleep I would have remembered that.

They all seemed so nice, so genuinely happy to meet me; that is until the bell rang and we went to our respective corners. Then the gloves came off and the crazy started to show.

They gaslighted. They made shit up. Their entire alibi was jack-crap.
With graphs, documents and flow charts they made a pretty compelling case. Listen, if you show me a flow chart, I’ll believe almost anything. Somehow they double teamed my attorney and me, and in the most well crafted, legal babbley, thinly veiled insulting way, they pinned the whole thing on me! They made the accidental, midnight break of their water main seem like MY fault!

It was 2009. Business was slow, debt was high, banks were failing left and right and I needed out—only I was too stupid to commit arson.

I know, crazy, right? But when we broke for lunch even I wanted to throw the book at me.

The picture they painted of me was that of a sad-sack, loser of a businesswoman, which was exactly how I felt at the time.
I think my lawyer drank the Kool-Aid too—they were that convincing. She wouldn’t make eye contact, skulking into the corner on her phone, and then disappearing for the entire lunch break.

But you wanna know what trumps sleep deprivation? Rage. That’s what.
It also instantly removes sheet marks from your face.

It also over-rides all victim-hood.

Crazy and Rage are curious dance partners and they should never be left alone in a room together.
Let me tell you why. Crazy is so put together, so charming and unflappable that she never breaks a sweat. And that bitch looooooves a victim, she gets off on them—they get her panties wet.

Rage is no victim, he’s a gangster. He’s raw, he’s greasy and he talks real dirty. He wears a wife beater t-shirt and too much Aramis; and he has only one thing in his crosshairs—Crazy.

Crazy gets high on Rage and it quickly becomes a street-brawl.

But let me tell you something, Rage is better than Sad, which is where I’d pitched my tent for eighteen months. Some say you can get caught in anger and never feel despair. The opposite had been true for me.
And sad victimhood? Well, that’s like chum in the water to Crazy.

So Rage felt better. It felt…empowering. If sadness felt like quick-sand, Rage, like solid ground.

It got my attention and cleared my vision, so I could finally see the truth and it kicked Sad’s ass to the curb.

I locked myself in a public bathroom stall and kick-boxed the toilet-tissue dispenser for nearly an hour before taking a walk around the building, coming to my senses, and finding my courage.

I knew my opponent. I was very familiar with Crazy.
You see, I had met her as a teenager in the form of my father’s second wife. I had witnessed her devour her victims whole and I was smart enough to remember that Rage threw her into a sort of drunken frenzy.

I also remembered that there is no reasoning with Crazy, and nothing can get to her.  Nothing touches her heart. There is no sympathy, empathy or compassion and absolutely nothing is open for discussion.

She acts as your judge, jury, and executioner.

And the more they sense is at stake, the faster and louder the accusations come. Their aim is to keep you off-balance, on the ropes.

Remember, Crazy is rested, ready and strong after her peaceful night’s sleep. How is that fair?
Because Crazy get a buzz off this shit and she doesn’t care about anything other than winning.

I sure wasn’t feeling sad anymore, Rage had taken over and hatched a plan but I knew better than to let it enter that arbitration room. I could hear the team of Crazy, Crazier, and Craziest, whopping it up inside so I waited outside until I saw my attorney exit the elevator.

“You handle this, I’m leaving” I announced. I had her by the arm and was walking her back down a long hallway of endless doors, out of earshot of the hyenas.

“What?” she looked surprised.

“You don’t need me here. They can smell my fear and sadness, and well, their offer is beyond ridiculous. See what happens when they can’t focus on me. When they have to deal with you and only the facts.” We had walked in a circle making our way back toward the bank of elevators.

She reached into her bag for paper and a pen. “Give me the number you’ll you settle at,” she asked. She seemed relieved like the day could be salvaged. Like it could go back to a language she understood—the law.

I wrote a figure down. She looked and nodded in agreement, folding the paper into a small square and tucking into her suit-jacket pocket. Just then the elevator chimed, opening right on cue. People were packed in like sardines, but as I stepped inside she grabbed my purse strap, turning me around. “This could end today,” she said with a hint of a smile, letting go of my purse as the doors closed.

A hairy mystery hand reached around me and pushed the button for LOBBY, getting me the hell out of that DWP building. I know it was Rage. I could smell his Aramis. But I made sure I left him behind, losing him in the crowd.

*I got the call a couple of hours later that they’d settled on the figure I’d written down. “Piece of cake” I remember her saying in a distracted voice, she was already on to her next case.

I feel safe in saying that we all slept well that night.

Maybe some of you guys needed to hear this,
Carry on,
xox

*And don’t get your panties in a bunch if I anthropomorphize emotions. We all know crazy is not female and rage is not male, so calm the fuck down.