Washington DC’s Lamest Cover-Up Ever

I’m almost forty-four now, and I figure that I’ve lived enough to have some interesting personal stories.  The go-to’s in the bar or the picnic with right crowd.   A few of mine are funny; a few are not.  Two are tragic enough that they hang around in the corners every day, ready to jump.  But they serve one useful purpose: whenever my day sucks, I can compare it to them and conclude “it isn’t nearly as bad as that.”

Then there’s this story.  It was almost tragic (but wasn’t), funny (at my expense), and definitely one that I can compare to a bad day to remind myself it can always get worse.  It has earned its spot in the lineup as my lead-off bar story. 

It begins with how I almost killed a cop.

Not funny, but I’ll explain.  I HAVE to explain that sentence before I trip some sort of search engine that sends the boys in body armor through my windows.  I wasn’t TRYING to kill a cop.  I’m a gainfully-employed, family-raising, functioning adult.  More or less.

It was an accident.  Literally – a traffic accident.  This particular one happens to be the last of many I’ve had, and ever since has prompted me to drive like an eighty-four year old.  It happened in Washington DC and was borne out of many things of which I am intimately familiar: bad decisions, DC traffic, and DC bureaucracy. 

This was in early winter of 2006; despite what happened my memory is terrible enough to be unable to recall the date.  I have no doubt that’s because of my son, who was two at the time.  Let’s be clear about something: my now 11 year-old son is awesome.  He is really an upgraded me: Mom’s good code, Dad’s good code, all neatly packed into a freckle-faced interface with 20/20 vision (which is better than Dad’s by a factor of nine).  But early product development was rocky.  Until he was almost ten years old, when other parents asked us at what age he started sleeping through the night our anger-laugh response was “we’ll let you know!”

So in his terrible twos my commutes south to Baltimore and workdays were a semi-comatose haze.  On this particular evening I was meeting my boss to entertain a client at the International Spy Museum. (If you’re in DC and have the time, go.  It’s fun if you’re into that stuff).  This past year Inrix rated Washington DC as the worst traffic in the nation.  Higher than Los Angeles; higher than New York.  Nobody who drives there LIVES there.  Those living there don’t drive, and their ain’t much in-between about it – they’re either riding public transportation or have a title in front of their name and are being blasted through traffic lights in black armored cars.  (Still the best opening ever to a White House Correspondent’s Dinner routine: Stephen Colbert tells the crowd “before we begin, would the drivers of 14 Black SUVs please move their vehicles; you are blocking 14 Black SUVs that need to get out.”)

So zombie Dad is working until five and headed into the heart of Northwest DC just when the caravan of starched collars in BMWs is dog-piling it in the other direction.  I’m sure you’ve seen DC on a map and know it’s more or less a square on three sides.  The streets are cross-hatched almost exactly to these, and the intersections have traffic lights that often rest on short poles at the corners, not on overhead wires.  I call these “intersections,” but in reality during rush hour they’re “parking spaces.”  Oh – are you looking to turn left?  Is THAT what this space that exists between perpendicular directions is for?  Goodness; I had plans to stare straight ahead and pretend you don’t exist.  Sorry!        

I had finally shoehorned my Jetta’s front end into the crossroads of New York Avenue and D Street.  I was behind one more car looking to turn left; the light was turning yellow and we both began palming our steering wheels to make a break for a space that had appeared between a sedan and a delivery truck.  Yes, there should only be one car in the intersection and what I’m doing is technically illegal.  But for fuck’s sake, the last time there was an opening to turn was ten minutes ago, and zombie Dad’s not really into making good decisions these days anyway. 

Car #1 makes it through with me hot on his bumper as the light flicks to red.  Here’s where the cop comes in. 

And by “cop,” I mean motorcycle cop.  And by “in” I mean in the intersection flashing his sirens.  Around the OUTSIDE of the delivery truck.  Where neither of us can see each other until… Let’s just say I knew he needed a shave and a boot shine. 

I slam on my brakes, he slams on his, and I watch in ultra HD as this very large police officer flips over his very large Harley’s handlebars and disappears, head first, in front of my Jetta’s grille.

I don’t know how many times in your life you’ve experienced pure terror.  I sincerely hope your answer’s “none except for the little kid stuff”.  Regardless, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard the expression “oh my god, I pissed/shit my pants I was so scared!”  I can tell you – those are not the only options.  They’re just doors number one and two.  Door number three’s the ass pucker.  I swear that after his boots vanished under my windshield my first coherent thought was “I think my ass just swallowed itself”.

I was too terrified to even register if I had hit him.  I backed up, turned and eased my car onto the right shoulder of D Street.  There was suddenly a LOT of drivers giving me space. 

When I stopped and shut down the engine, I knew what I needed to do.  I needed to look behind me into that intersection.  I am fully expecting to see a dead body and what will likely be the end of whatever I was hoping to do for the next ten to fifteen years. 

What I see is a very much alive police officer, forearm only slightly cut, standing up his damaged motorcycle and walking towards me with a wave and a smile – A SMILE – yelling “I’m fine!  I’m fine!”  The relief is unlike anything I’ve experienced.

The not-dead cop is at my window now, asking me to get out of my car.  For a moment, I click back into pucker mode. I’m thinking it’s time to join that wonderful minority of guys in suits sporting handcuffs.  But when I get out – no handcuffs.  No yelling.  This guy is NICE.  “Are you OK?” he asks. Am I OK?  This is the almost-vehicular manslaughter victim checking on me.  I’m not really processing much, but I am dimly processing the oddity of this.

So there we were on the shoulder: him with his bleeding forearm and me without handcuffs.  I’m still shocked about how not in trouble I am.  I think if it had stayed the two of us, we would have made certain both of our vehicles were drivable and been on our way, as unbelievable as that is.  I don’t understand why this is heading in that direction, but I’ll take it. 

It does NOT stay the two of us.  To this day, I am convinced that something happens in a command center somewhere when a police motorcycle tips over.  It’s either that or traffic pattern karma had REALLY decided to bend me over.  Because over the next five minutes, the following parks across from us: two patrol cars, one fire truck, and one CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION VEHICLE.  I swear I am NOT kidding here.

All of the occupants get out, call over my forgiving not-victim and begin a heated discussion next to one of the patrol cars.  I’m asked to stay by my vehicle on the other side of the road, so I can’t hear what they’re saying.  There are lots of animated gestures.  My blackberry begins to accumulate a series of “where the fuck are you” messages from my boss.  Passerby are staring.

This, folks, is where I shit my pants. 

No, I didn’t full-on let go.  I’m not a toddler.  But, well, I added a new set of skid marks to D Street.

A good ten minutes pass.  The confab of cops settles down.  I’m waiting, standing next to my car, marinating.  Finally one of the other patrolmen approaches me with two pieces of paper and a pen.

He says more or less this: “Sir, we’re terribly sorry for the delay.  I do need to write you a warning, but it’s just a formality.  You can go home and throw it away.  Since this involved a vehicle occupied by an officer, you’ll need to write a brief statement of what happened, ok?”

What the fuck?  After a near fatal miss, a small parade’s worth of hardware (why was the fire truck EVER there?), a mini FOP convention and a pair of soiled underpants, the end result is two pieces of paperwork?  Why?

I get my answer when I lay the statement form onto the roof of my car and start to bring the pen to it.  I’m stopped by a very large police officer with a cut forearm.  And when I look up at him, he is glaring at me like I thought he should have from the start. 

And he more or less says this: “Here. Is what.  We are saying. We did.”

I’m reasonably certain there is only one explanation here.  Back when I almost killed him half an hour ago, I had assumed that he was plowing through the intersection, sirens blaring, to get somewhere.  I’m pretty sure that was the shit HE was full of.  He was headed home and didn’t feel like waiting at another cocked-up traffic intersection.  Just like me. 

We spun quite the tale, the two of us.  That statement was Tom Clancy precise.  We referenced exact distances.  Sunset glare in mirrors at specific angles.  Reaction speeds.  For the time it took to write it down, we were partners – partners in the lamest, most pathetic, least significant cover-up in DC history.

I eventually made it to The Spy Museum after an emergency stop for pants (and boxers) at a men’s store.  I had hastily pounded out an almost nonsensical explanation to my boss, and filled in the gaps when I arrived.  He took one look at me, walked me to the bar and ordered me a double.  Of which I had five more. 

I still have the warning in my glove compartment.  It’s a ridiculous little memento of the single most absurd thing to happen to me.  Most important, though, is that it’s a reminder.  Whatever stress or anxiety I might have had in my day, I have not almost killed a cop.  I have not shat myself.  And I’m a bona fide Washington co-conspirator.  Life is okay.

The Chemical Hard Reset

Hello, World.  Again.

 

I had all of the best intentions to re-start a blog with gusto in the past week.  However, I’ll make it clear very quickly why that didn’t happen… and why it’s very possible that the title of this blog may become more than a bit ironic.

  

Ever wonder about the official definition of a “hard reset?”  Here’s what you find when you google the definition:

“A hard reset, also known as a factory reset or master reset, is the restoration of a device to the state it was in when it left the factory. All settings, applications and data added by the user are removed.”

Strictly from a chemical perspective, my brain ran headlong into its own version of a hard reset this past week. 

 

Monday morning, September 21.  Unofficially, the first day of autumn… and I was in a foul mood.  I often am as the fall begins.  I love summer.  Baseball, lighter Northeast traffic during rush hour, grilled meats… what’s not to love?  There were more specific reasons for my mood boiling on the surface.  Not important for this post, but maybe more some other time.  This is about chemicals, first and foremost stimulants.

 

Ah, stimulants.  My second favorite drug behind depressants, and my favorite for mornings.  For fun, let’s start keeping score of the stimulants Mr. Coffee Dog imbibed on this lovely morning.  Leading off, as always on a weekday, is 72 mg of Concerta, a.k.a. Methylphenidate, or Adderall. Before you ask: yes, it’s legal.  I’ve had a valid prescription since Middle School.  I washed down the pills with a cup of Donut House coffee straight from my morning girl Friday, the Keurig. 

I was chasing this buzz at 5:30 am, with every intention of exercising.  That didn’t happen.  One cup of coffee down, and my fourteen year-old daughter awoke early to run an old-fashioned, between-the-tackles play from the teenager playbook:

a) Stop what I was doing, RIGHT NOW, and 

b) Go get her money to pay for something she needs to pay for TODAY. In this case, it was Homecoming Dance tickets.  She has a date.  God help me. 

So goodbye workout, and hello errand.  Off to the Wawa for a free ATM.  By the way, Wawa has amazing coffee.  Never pass it up.  

(Stimulant score: 72mg Concerta, 34 Oz. of coffee.) 

The errand turns into dropping off the children to school, which turns into being late for my hour-long commute.  I arrive at my office in Owings Mills late for a 9 A.M. meeting after rolling out of bed before the sun is up.  Not cool. 

This is the top of the frustration cake.  There are other layers, many of them.  And like a good tiramisu, I tend to soak them on a daily basis with various morning coffees and evening cocktails.  Or to get back to the technology metaphor – I’ve got a pharmaceutical app for that.  

The reset came about 10:30 am.  

I hung up from a conference call and noticed a ringing in my ears, along with a little dizziness. Neither of these things are unusual for me, especially with caffeine and seasonal allergies.  But the little feeling of vertigo was just a warm-up.  The world began to turn like a playground wheel that the class clown dares everyone to stay on no matter how fast he turns it.  In the space of sixty minutes I had gone from shrugging off the start of a head cold to cold sweat.  I called my wife, and without even listening to my words she heard my tone of voice and said: “I’m coming to get you.” 

All I needed to do was get to my office elevator and meet her in the lobby to get to a doctor.  Instead, I stood to walk out, dropped my hands to my knees and felt the worst vertigo of my life. 

A little something about me: I have a loud, loud voice.  It isn’t that I talk loudly on purpose; I just have big, German-Welsh vocal cords I inherited from my Dad.  Even when he raised his voice, the window glass of our living room shook.  So when I throw up, I’m a bit of a screamer.  It’s purely involuntary, completely unavoidable and (I’m told) akin to the sound you would imagine a person makes if they’re being turned inside-out like a reverse-able sweater.  I scared a lot of people.  Three co-workers picked me up and carried me downstairs to my wife, who drove me, still ralphing nothing but air, to the ER.

The rest I remember like a bad hospital drama episode where the director tries to be “edgy” and films from a first-person shaky-cam perspective.  Except, since the vertigo was relentless, the camera can only point straight down.  Head CT.  Cardiac enzyme tests. IVs, waiting for a bed to be admitted.  You’ve seen TV.

They ruled out the big stuff that can kill a guy in his forties – heart attack and stroke.  Narrowing down the symptoms, the verdict came in late Monday evening: a severe attack of viral vestibular neuritis, or labyrinthitis.  I was prescribed high doses of anti-vertigo medications and given a lot of fluids (apparently I was dangerously dehydrated – imagine!).  And then I did what everyone in hospital rooms do: waited to feel better.  Slept when I could.  Changed channels.  You’ve seen TV.

What I didn’t understand while trying to keep the world still was that aside from the anti-vert and normal things a human needs to stay alive, I hadn’t noticed what I wasn’t getting anymore: my regular doses of legal uppers and downers.   Whatever withdrawal might have come my way was drowned out in the nausea and dizziness from the virus chewing on my right inner ear.  By the time I returned home, those doses had been reduced enough for me to notice that the buzzes I gave my brain were gone.  I’ll be honest – it had been so long since I had felt… even.  Probably before the kids were born and had colicky infancies, thus giving birth to my nickname.  My energy was even, level, like when I was a kid.  Reset.  

I have to tell you, it’s like reconnecting with an old friend.  Even during the last two weeks while still recovering my vision and balance, I woke up when I needed to and went to bed without my usual restless struggle into sleep.  Walking a straight line and holding my attention to a piece of writing (like this one) is still a challenge, but it’ll come.  None of the specialists have used code phrases like “setting proper expectations” or “permanent damage.”  This will go away.  

What I don’t want to go away is the hard reset of the chemicals that make up how I power my thoughts up or down.  Gone are the mornings of filling the thermos with three k-cups of dark roast.  Because they only lead into the residually stressful evenings that demand a stiff Jack and Coke. And the system gets clogged again.  I like even – more than I thought I would. 

Of course, lurking beneath this newly zen me are the old layers of stress, demanding to be heard, only now without a little liquid energy or courage.  I’ll have to square my shoulders and lean into them, caffeine-free and sober.  

Wish me luck. 

The Waiting Place

"...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting."

Odds are if you grew up in the last twenty years and attended some kind of graduation ceremony, you have read Dr. Seuss' "Oh, The Places You'll Go."  You might have received it as a graduation present or read it to your young children (although a lot may go over their heads, depending on how young they are).  I know it's practically cliche at this point, but I believe that things become cliche for a reason; this little book captures so much of the reality of our ventures into the adult world.

As an man in my forties and mid-career, I have found that the economy of the last decade has had an almost gravitational pull towards Seuss' waiting place.

My last two weeks have been a perfect case in point.  Driving towards a client meeting in Kansas City, my cell phone lit up with an unrecognized number from a town near my home in Bel Air.  On the other end was a recruiter, who excitedly described to me a position that had opened up for a large corporation.  An interview followed, followed by verbal offer, followed by a written one.  Last week, I had gone to the point of completing new employee documentation.

Let me back up for a second.  I am currently, gainfully employed, and have been in the same position for some time now - a fortunate place to be, with only one exception.  My boss is what I consider to be the DSM definition of a Sociopath.  Sure, everyone's is, right?  True story: one of my co-workers was leaving a meeting in DC to head to a metro station.  Passing by in his Jaguar convertible (another red flag, in my opinion), he stopped and offered my colleague a ride.  After picking him up, he traveled a few blocks off of my colleague's normal route before checking his watch and, realizing that he was late for a meeting, turned to this man and said: "I'm running late.  You'll need to get out."  He then left him to find his way to another metro station.

Did I mention this colleague of mine was blind?

Suffice to say, there have been enough incidents with someone of this mercurial behavior to merit a certain desire to leap from the bucking mechanical bull that is my professional life.  Expectations to front my own travel costs and slow reimbursement of expenses come to mind.  So the speed at which the phone call from this recruiter turned into a job offer was not only unexpected, but thrilling: the prospect of finding a little NORMAL in my working world was enough cause for celebration.

Then came a message that looked a little like this:

"Thanks so much (insert potential new employee here), we're excited to get going... we'll let you know when we receive the purchase order from our client instructing us to proceed."

In other words: we've just added you to the inventory, pal. We'll let you know when someone pulls you off the shelf and buys you.

Out of all of the things that have changed since the early 2000's in my profession, this has been the largest and most frustrating.  There was a time that companies hired ahead of demand, keeping a positive mentality that the work was coming for a person to step into.  Today - just like Wal-Mart or some other retail giant keeping their product inventory low - companies practice "just-in-time" hiring policies.  They will recruit, interview, evaluate and even make offers.  But when the time comes to pull the trigger, no one moves based on expectations of new business - only when the ink is dry on the contract.

I appreciate the logic of this.  We ARE living in lean times.  They've been brought on by a combination of hubris in the stock market, globalization of the labor force and uncertain, escalating regulations.  Employers maintaining a scarcity mentality is understandable.

But the effect on the human side of the ledger is one where there are some of us - how many I honestly don't know - who are existing in a weird zone of "maybe" with potential employers.

Which brings me back to the waiting place.

I act like everything's normal with my clients.  Can I come out for my next Kansas City site visit the week of the 24th?  Sure I can.  Work on that proposal?  You bet.  But will I be around to go anywhere or work on anything by then?

I don't know.  I'm waiting around for a Yes or No.

Hello World

"Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy."

-- Stephen King, "On Writing"

"Writing distills, clarifies, crystallizes thought."

-- Steven R. Covey, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." 

Welcome to The (re)-inaugural post for The Coffee Dog House.  I'm glad you came, and I'll do my best to make certain I don't waste your time.  Or to put it another way: you have a lot of choices with where you waste your time on the internet, so thank you for choosing mine.  I'll try to make it as enriching and entertaining as I can. 

So about this site: I'm by all appearances a regular Family Guy in my forties.  Work-wise, I'm a consultant in the Washington D.C. area.  I teach people in government and government contracting how to manage projects.  I'm one of the tired, the overpaid, the huddled commuters yearning for common sense.  I say this without a trace of self-pity; I get paid a lot of money (well, a medium amount I suppose) to tell people what I think and to help them solve problems.  And in doing that, I write all of the time: sensitively-worded emails, dry technical documentation, proposals, training material.  It's a lot like creative writing, only without the personal satisfaction. Or creativity.

Before this, though - in another life, before the wife and kids - I was a High School Teacher of English Literature and Acting.  I directed Shakespeare, graded papers and performed in local theater.  In job interviews and cocktail parties, this is the part where people ask me, "so how did you wind up doing this?"  I'd give an appropriately neutral answer, of course.  On my blog, I'll tell the truth: hell if I know.  Like a lot of us, my career trajectory was fueled by a desire to feed my family and steered by opportunities, layoffs, job markets and unsolicited advice from well-meaning relatives.  I didn't have much of a plan.  A poster on the wall of one of my Guidance Counselors read: "If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up someplace else."  Done and done.

But here's what I've found out about where I am at the end of Act I of my life: by knocking around in the worlds of Education, Arts, Technology and Government, I've had a chance to grab some front-row seats to some of the more insane parts of American life.  For the last several years I've been in the Orchestra, front row center, of government projects, watching how good people in Washington try desperately to shoehorn laws into actual work that is supposed to do something for someone.  That isn't a remark designed to be liberal or conservative: the problems with making laws into making laws work for everyone is equal opportunity.

So at 42, I believe that I know three things really, really well: being a Husband and Father, writing decently, and observing the political world's impact on American life.  So this blog will be about all three.  Sometimes I'll just put out personal essays, sometimes maybe some short stories.  Occasionally, if I'm feeling brave, I might try to bring some full-on journalism onto the page based on my work and what's happening in our country.  Considering the headlines surrounding healthcare.gov and my experience in managing projects, right now is a target-rich environment.

Like most of the zillions of Internet blogs out there, I'm writing to try to bring my own thoughts into clarity.  For me, it's also important to blow on those creative embers in my mind before they go out.  But here's my promise: regardless of whether or not I'm putting out an essay, short fiction, or article, I'll do my best to make this worth your time.  If I don't - call me out on it.  That's what the comment section is for, in my opinion.