ON HOLD
“No, I would not like to call back later,” Ellen Krugman said grumpily to the Time Warner Cable customer-service representative on the other end of the line. “I did that yesterday with someone there named Richard, but when I tried to call him back at the extension he gave me, there was no such extension. And when I called customer service again, they said no one there was named Richard. So no, I’m not calling back, thank you very much. I’m staying on hold.”
“Please wait while I speak with my supervisor,” said the representative. “I’m sorry if there has been any inconvenience.”
If? thought Ellen. There had been a lot of inconvenience. For the third month in a row, Ellen had been billed not the $59 for the “special package” of phone, cable, and Internet service that she had signed up for, but for separate and “premium” monthly charges for phone, cable, and the Internet, plus late-payment charges, and $54 for a three-year subscription to Sports Illustrated for Kids—$3,489 in all. Ellen had called every month, to no avail. Normally a mild-mannered, easy-going sort, Ellen was now at the end of her rope. “I’ll do whatever it takes to clean up this darned mess once and for all,” she said to herself.
Hours passed while Ellen languished on hold. Night fell. Fearing she might doze off, she downed cup after cup of black coffee, requiring frequent trips to the bathroom, and much running of the water in the sink so the person at the other end—if there was ever going to be a person at the other end—wouldn’t suspect she was using the toilet. Ellen took to just chewing the coffee beans, a fistful at a time.
Dawn broke. Ellen was still on hold. Night fell again. And again. True to her vow, Ellen stayed on hold, chewing on her coffee beans, for five days. Floaters began to dance in front of her eyes, which she believed to be undetonated hand grenades sent by the cable company, and she dashed frantically around her apartment in an effort to catch them. Finally, Ellen’s downstairs neighbor, alarmed by the sounds of Ellen’s body slamming against the walls, brought her to Bellevue Hospital. Ellen was diagnosed with a psychotic break and consigned to the psych ward. There she remains to this day, huddled in a corner of the bile-yellow rec room, clutching her now-antique flip phone, still waiting, still hoping, still on hold.
THE HITCHHIKER
“Need a lift?” said the driver, his face shrouded by the wide brim of a handsome black Stetson.
Normally, sensible thirty-year-old Maeve Slingerland wouldn’t accept a ride from a stranger, even a friendly sounding old fellow like the one in the shiny black Range Rover that had pulled up alongside her. But she needed a ride, badly. She had to get help right away for Jeff, her fiancé.
Two weeks earlier, she and Jeff had struck out high-spiritedly from Manhattan in Jeff’s beat-up old Volvo, camping their way across the country en route to Maeve’s college roommate’s wedding in San Francisco. They’d had a fine, trouble-free time—until now.
Shortly after crossing into Montana, she and Jeff had ventured down a dirt road looking for a picturesque campsite. They were delighted when they found that the road led to a babbling, crystal-clear creek at the foothills of the majestic Rockies. No sooner had they pitched their tent, however, than Jeff complained of feeling hot and dizzy. Using her emergency-kit thermometer, Maeve was alarmed to find that it registered Jeff’s temperature at 104 degrees—and climbing.
“Off we go!” said Maeve, struggling to sound upbeat. “Let’s find a doctor to take a look at you.” Ashen-faced and trembling, Jeff could only nod in assent.
But when Maeve turned the key in the ignition, the Volvo wouldn’t start. Again and again she tried, but it was no use. The old car’s engine refused to turn over.
To make matters worse, Maeve’s cell phone, she discovered, wasn’t getting a signal at their remote spot. She had only one option: to set off on foot, promising Jeff to return with help as soon as she could.
For two long, hot hours Maeve had walked the dirt road back in the direction of the highway with not a single car in sight. At last she’d reached a more trafficked road—but the few cars that passed had ignored her outstretched thumb.
Now, with the appearance of the man in the Range Rover, her luck seemed to have changed. “If you’re heading to town,” said the old gent, “hop on in.”
Gratefully, Maeve climbed into the passenger seat.
“Where do you hail from?” asked the driver.
“New York City.”
“New York! That’s one of your blue states, isn’t it?” The old man’s voice had taken on a cool, almost hectoring tone; Maeve saw two thin lips curled into what looked like a smirk. A strange, but somehow familiar, sneer. She’d seen it before, she was certain.
“I guess,” said Maeve warily.
“You guess?”
“I don’t really follow politics.” In fact, Maeve had majored in Geogender Political Cinema Studies at Mount Holyoke and now worked at Planned Parenthood, but she didn’t want any trouble.
“You know what, missy? I don’t believe you.” With that, Maeve heard the ominous thudding sound of the car doors locking.
“Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to take a nice, long drive while I explain how American freedom will not be secured by empty threats, meaningless red lines, leading from behind, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies, or apologizing for our great nation.”
On and on he fumed, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. Suddenly, Maeve knew who he was.
But it was too late. Maeve was a prisoner in the car, which the man drove and drove down the winding country roads, ranting all the while, until darkness fell. At last they arrived at a huge, imposing house high on a mountain.
“Mommy!” the man called out his car window. “Come see what I brought!”
A small, stout woman in a knit suit appeared from the shadows. The man rolled down Maeve’s window, and the woman reached in on Maeve’s side, squeezing the flesh on Maeve’s forearm between two fingers.
“Mmmm,” said the woman. “Firm, but tender. Good hunting, Daddy. I’ll just go preheat the oven.”
Maeve had an idea. “Is that Valerie Jarrett?” she said, pointing into the darkness.
The man turned his head to look, a low, growling noise coming from deep in his throat. At that moment, Maeve reached across him, pressed the unlock button, flung open her door, tumbled out of the car, and ran for her life.
Eventually, after flagging down a ride from a state trooper, Maeve found a doctor in town, and they drove back to Jeff, whose fever, it turned out, was only a case of the flu.
When they arrived at the wedding, Maeve and Jeff couldn’t wait to tell the other guests the amazing story of how Maeve had been abducted and almost eaten for dinner by Dick and Lynne Cheney. “You’ll never believe this,” Maeve began. But when she finished telling the story, everyone said they totally, totally believed it.
DUTCH BOY
Frieda Gleason was glad she’d treated herself to a weekend out of town. Hardworking and frugal, Frieda usually devoted her weekends to supplementing her modest proofreader’s salary with freelance work. But if she hadn’t gone this weekend to visit her childhood chum Peggy in Sag Harbor, she’d never have met Roger, the handsome real estate broker who’d sat down next to her, and with whom she was now having a long, lively chat on the Hampton Jitney.
Roger was the first man shy Frieda felt instantly comfortable with. As they talked, she discovered that they had the same likes and dislikes—both enjoyed early-morning walks in the park, disliked Joe Scarborough as well as Mika Brzezinski, and still read the paper version of the Times.
“Would you like to have dinner sometime?” Roger asked when they both got off the jitney at the Eighty-Sixth Street and Lexington Avenue stop. “I’ve always wanted to go to Per Se.”
“Me too!” said Frieda, who had once proofread an article about the elegant eatery.
Several days later, the two of them sat down to dinner at the restaurant. Roger suggested the full nine-course tasting menu. “Would that be all right with you?”
How courteous, even courtly, he is, not to mention generous, thought Frieda, who noticed that the tasting menu cost $325 per person.
Roger even splurged on a $250 bottle of Burgundy. “Should we?” he asked, smiling, before summoning the sommelier.
“Oh, why not?” Frieda replied, delighted. Most of her dates took her to restaurants they invariably advertised as “fun,” meaning “cheap.” Frieda had had her fill of Mexican and Indian joints. Here, at last, was a man willing to splurge on his date!
At the end of the sumptuous meal, the waiter brought the bill. “So we’ll just split this down the middle,” Roger said, placing his credit card next to it.
“Excuse me?” said Frieda.
“Well, technically you owe a little more—you had the latte—but it’s not a big deal.” Roger paused, then chortled. “Did you think I was paying for the whole thing?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the rule. I don’t know why!”
“That’s stupid.”
And that is how Frieda Gleason paid $458 for her dinner, not including tax and tip.
MINDFULNESS PAYS
The residents of Happy Lotus Sangha, a Buddhist community in upstate New York, were just sitting down to their noonday meal of black rice and beet greens when the door of the dining hall was flung open. There, standing in the doorway, was Martha Stewart herself!
The members of Happy Lotus, many of them former corporate executives and the like, recognized her straightaway. They’d heard that she’d bought the robber baron’s estate next door, but none of them had expected the domestic diva to call on them.
Yet here she was—grinning broadly, a calico bandanna tied around her neck, and holding out a platter. On it was a large cake, its top an exquisite lotus flower crafted from hundreds of candied citrus-peel “petals.”
“Namaste, gang!” she said. “Please enjoy this Meyer-lemon cake. I made it myself, and it took me thirty-seven hours. But I’ve just retired, so I have more time. Speaking of time, you know what I’d like more of in my life from here on in? The kind of loving-kindness and compassion that you practice here at Happy Lotus. May I join you in your morning meditations?”
“Of course!” exclaimed the delighted Rinpoche. Wizened but robust, the ninety-seven-year-old Tibetan monk delighted in welcoming all guests to Happy Lotus, where residents lived a life of penury, eking out an existence from the sale of handmade meditation cushions and prayer flags.
And join them Martha did—chanting and meditating every day from dawn till noon, attending Rinpoche’s daily dharma talks, and humbly taking her turn serving the others at mealtime.
One day, Martha failed to appear at the sangha. In the middle of morning meditation, there came a knock on the front door. When one of the sangha members answered it, a smiling, attractive woman stood in the doorway, flanked by a camera crew. “I’m Robin Roberts, from Good Morning America. We’d like to talk with Rinpoche about Martha’s new Lovingkindness line, inspired by her time here with you.”
Robin Roberts held out a handsome, slick catalog, filled with products: Here, in varieties of maroon and orange, Buddhism’s colors, were meditation cushions and prayer flags as well as accent pillows, sheets, towels, duvet covers, dog beds, garden accessories, luggage, and Lovingkindnessware, a collection of cookware and kitchen utensils.
Rinpoche, who had joined the sangha member at the door, perused the catalog. “Where is Martha?” he asked solemnly. “I must speak with her.”
“She’s in the Mojave Desert, getting ready to fly to outer space with Richard Branson,” replied Robin Roberts. “Isn’t that so Martha?”
Rinpoche walked briskly to Martha’s mansion. There, on the expansive front lawn, he saw a sign: FOR SALE BY SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY. The mansion’s doors were locked, the shades drawn, the usual fleet of SUVs gone. Martha had moved on.
“Everything changes,” Rinpoche comforted his followers. All life was impermanent, he reminded them, including Martha’s.
Yet even Rinpoche found that he could not entirely overcome his negative emotions, particularly when The Wall Street Journal reported that Martha’s Lovingkindness line had grossed $187 million in its first three months. Even monks get tired of eating rice every night.
THE ANNIVERSARY
Stacy Stengel had never felt so miserable.
She’d thought of the perfect way for her and Dave to celebrate their five-year anniversary: a romantic weekend getaway. And she had just the place—the rustic Vermont inn she found on the Internet. Photos showed spacious rooms with four-poster beds and fluffy duvets, and a dining room with a fire crackling in the hearth.
She knew that she and Dave badly needed some quality time together. Dave had been moody and irritable for so long—finding fault with everything she did, even going so far as to call her a “dummy” and “just a kindergarten teacher.” Sometimes Stacy wondered if Dave even liked her anymore.
This weekend, Stacy thought, would surely do the trick. She and Dave would cuddle and laugh and get to know each other again.
At first, things had gone perfectly. Dave loved their dinner by the fireside, and had even made love to her afterward, albeit quickly, as was his habit.
Now, though, they were woken from their deep slumber by a noisy mayhem in the hallway—girlish screams and whoops of laughter, boyish bellows and hootings, and the unmistakable aroma of marijuana.
Stacy opened their door a crack. Here, like wild animals let out of their cages, were at least twenty teenagers, tearing up and down the corridor, pummeling and throwing things at each other.
“Would you please be quiet?” Stacy asked them.
“Uh … no?” said one of the boys, and back the mob went to their raucous carryings-on.
“What the fuck?” said Dave.
“The reservation clerk said there’d be a big group coming this weekend,” said Stacy, crawling back into bed.
“And you didn’t ask her what kind of group?” said Dave. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m so sorry, Dave, I am!” said Stacy, her eyes shimmering with tears.
Stacy threw on her robe and went to the front desk. The night manager apologized profusely; the youngsters were from upstate New York, high school seniors on the school’s annual ski trip. He had already complained to the trip’s chaperones, but it had been no use; the scolded children had quieted down for a few minutes, but were soon up to their hijinks.
“We’re leaving,” said Dave, stuffing his clothes into his suitcase. He said not a word on the entire four-hour car ride home.
Soon Dave turned their anniversary weekend into a funny story, regaling all of their friends with the story of how the boisterous kids had ruined their stay, and how it was all Stacy’s fault.
“Duh!” he would say, pointing at his wife. Stacy had never felt so humiliated.
Then one night, after having too many drinks at a buddy’s bachelor party, Dave stripped off all his clothes and passed out in bed next to Stacy, who was lying awake, thinking about her marriage. Two hours later, needing to use the bathroom, he stumbled out of bed; still drunk, he took a wrong turn, mistook the front door of their apartment for the bathroom door, and ended up in the building’s hallway.
“Stacy, let me in!” he pleaded as neighbors appeared at their doors, some cursing him for waking them, others giggling at his naked, shivering self. One neighbor took out a cell phone and shot a video of Dave yelling and banging on his door.
But Stacy didn’t open the door.
The next morning, YouTube featured footage of Dave’s misadventure, and by evening “Naked Dave” had fifteen million hits. Dave had become a global figure of fun.
Shortly thereafter, Dave and Stacy were divorced. Dave moved to Lapland, where he hoped (mistakenly, it turned out) that people hadn’t heard of him. Stacy married a very nice man who thought she was adorable, and not dumb at all.
FERBERIZING
Phil and Janet Kriegler weren’t surprised. Their daughter Giselle had always been an exacting, particular person, even bossy at times. So when she asked them to care for Jasper, her five-month-old, while she and her husband, Sam, attended her business school reunion, they knew she would have plenty of instructions for them.
Giselle gave Phil and Janet not a moment to recover from their five-hour journey, most of it on congested I-95, before she began going over her typed list of all the things they needed to know to care for the baby. And none so important, Giselle stressed, as Jasper’s “sleep program.” Janet and Phil looked at each other uneasily—they couldn’t remember how any of their children had slept as infants. It was all a blur.
“We’ve just begun Ferberizing him, and it’s essential that you enforce it,” said Giselle, who felt that her parents had been cavalier, even careless, in her own upbringing.
“Like Sanforizing!” said Phil playfully. “What is Sanforizing, anyway?”
Giselle ignored her father’s remark. There was a time for dopey jokes, and a time to be serious, Giselle felt, and her dad had never known which was which.
Ferberizing, she explained, was a method of teaching infants how to comfort themselves in their cribs so that they could fall asleep on their own. When Jasper cried in the night, Phil and Janet were allowed to go into his room, but only to pat him and offer a few words of comfort before leaving. Under no circumstances were they to pick him up.
“What we’re aiming for is gradual extinction,” said Giselle.
“Like the dinosaurs!” said Phil.
“Oh, my God, would you stop,” said Giselle. “Gradual extinction means the slow removal of the parents from the baby’s room altogether.”
The first night, Jasper cried when they put him in his crib. They patted him and left the room. Jasper kept crying. Phil got up, patted him, and went back to bed. Jasper cried. Janet got up, patted him, and went back to bed. Jasper continued to wail. Phil got up. Then Janet got up. Then Phil got up. Then Janet got up. On and on, until, with dawn breaking, all three of them finally fell into an exhausted sleep.
Phil said he’d rather be waterboarded than live through another night of Ferberizing, but Janet wouldn’t let him quit.
“That’s it, we’re done,” Phil announced after the second night of nocturnal hell. Janet acceded, but only because she had developed a ferocious migraine, her first in years.
For the rest of the week, Jasper slept in bed between them. If he woke up in the night, Phil and Janet didn’t notice. He seemed to quietly fall back asleep.
When Sam and Giselle returned, Phil and Janet, full of false cheer, told them that Ferberizing had been a breeze. Jasper had done great; they were practically extinct.
Three days later, Giselle called. “He cried all night!” she told her mother. “He’s worse than ever! He must be regressing because we’re home.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Janet.
A day later, Giselle called Janet again, even more agitated. “I just found one of his pacifiers at the foot of our bed!” she said. “You and Daddy let him sleep with you! I can’t believe you lied to me!” Obviously, Giselle added, she couldn’t trust her parents to take care of their grandson again.
“Hallelujah,” said Phil, who could hear Giselle yelling over the phone even though he was across the room.
“I heard that!” screamed Giselle. “I hate you!”
She’ll get over it, Phil told Janet. But Giselle never did get over it. She never left them alone with the baby again, and she wouldn’t bring Jasper to visit—she couldn’t trust them to childproof their home, she said. Janet and Phil always had to go to Giselle’s house to see Jasper. Phil said he almost preferred Ferberizing to driving on I-95, but there was nothing to be done about it. And in time, with Giselle’s vigilant Ferberizing—seven and a half years of it, give or take—young Jasper learned to sleep through the night.