the Euphuistic Frog

by T. Leah Fehr, July 2, 2007

My mornings are mundane and ritualistic.  They must be, so as to preserve what is left of my sanity.  From the moment I wake to the moment I am seated at my desk, I am led by a series of occurrences that never differ from day to day.  I could tell you the time by what it is I am doing at any given moment.  For example, it is always 4:59 when I am lighting my first cigarette and pouring my first cup of coffee, with a towel wrapped round my head.  It is 5:17 when I apply my mascara, and it is 5:32 when I pour my second cup of coffee and light my third cigarette.  It is 5:53 when my bus arrives, and I find my nose buried in a book whilst crammed onto a sticky and malodorous train at 6:12.  6:36 finds me disembarking said train and walking with determination and eyes lowered through the myriad of commuters whose presence I am forced to endure every business day.  I will have purchased a gourmet flavored coffee (hazelnut cream being my favorite) at 6:44, and will light my fourth cigarette at 6:47.  You’ll note that I’ve skipped over my second cigarette completely – it is my random cigarette and is smoked, inevitably, at any point between cigarette one and cigarette three – it defies the morning-time continuum and therefore defines the only spontaneity of my post-dawn/pre-desk activities.  And, at last, 6:52 finds me standing in an elevator ascending to the sixth floor where my ritual abruptly comes to a marked halt.

I am content in this sacrament, and should anything disrupt my morning (traffic jam, weather delays, the dreaded over-sleeping , or some obviously blind, deaf and dumb schmuck getting hit by a bus or train), my day is invariably put off immediately and will be a downward spiral from that moment on.  While this behavior may seem somewhat eccentric, it is truly nothing more than one of my tobiisms – those things which make up who I am.  Not dissimilar to this can also be mentioned my need for the exceedingly voluminous playing of various music from the 1950’s and 60’s (Buddy Holly and Elvis being my favorite) on any given Saturday afternoon, with incense burning, a glass of wine in hand and admittedly poor dancing and frightful singing in my living room.  Or my distinct inability to write a word of poetry or prose using a pen and paper, as in times of yore, but that my creative pool may overflow(eth?) only with a glowing screen, keyboard and Rhymezone on-line rhyming dictionary and thesaurus.  These are other of my tobiisms.  But I digress (which, by the way, is yet another tobiism… you get the gist), so let’s return to the point of this particular narrative, shall we…. and that brings me to her.

But, no… before I introduce her, I must make perfectly clear my state of mind during my morning routine:  I speak to no one, I make eye contact with no one, my home is still blessedly asleep at the hour I must rise, and most of the herd with whom I am forced into public transit servitude are of the same countenance as myself, and keep their eyes lowered and their stinking coffee-breath mouths closed.  Oh, of course, occasionally we are subjected to the Holy Transit-Evangelist preaching against the sins of transit-goers everywhere – you’ve heard her, I’m sure – divorce is evil, homosexuality is evil, music is evil, and telling her to shut-the-fuck-up is REALLY evil, but she is invariably removed from the train, or at the very least, silenced by a commuter whose has had one cup of coffee too many and decides to go all Christopher Walken on her ass.  Dammit, I’m digressing again… well, let’s just sum it up by saying I like my space and my quiet and my solitude during the two or so hours it takes me to get to the office.

And then she appeared.  It was some months ago, between the times of 6:36 (when I step off the train) and 6:38 (after I’ve ascended the stairs to enter the maze of above-street-level tunnels that span the entirety of downtown, with food kiosks and coffee shops along the way so as to lead the corporate rats from point A to point B, while meticulously dodging the sushi bar, for the reek of raw fish is just too much that early in the day).  And suddenly, without warning or precognitive dream, a soft and hesitantly cheerful voice was penetrating my rigid morning bubble with a horrifying ‘Good Morning’.  Shocked from my ceremonial silence, my very tenacious study of the pavement in front of my feet was interrupted and I was forced, by nothing more than morbid curiosity, to find the source of this atrocity and (God Help Me) respond to it with my own mumbled and hoarse (did I mention I don’t speak in the morning) ‘… mornin’…’.  

She was monstrous; I daresay ghastly.  With her gentle and painfully shy smile, her friendly and cute young face, her nervous manner and strange small voice, I was, as you can well imagine, immediately terrified and it was all I could do to muster the courage to not run screaming in the opposite direction at the very sight of her.  And her onslaught of terror was merciless and seemingly ceaseless as her verbal accosting was then followed by her assaulting me further with the offer of a free daily newspaper.  I clutched whatever book I was currently reading (a Kundera, I think) even tighter to my chest, cowered pathetically away from her and shook my head fervently while my eyes darted hither and thither in search of the quickest escape route.  But what was this… she had spotted her next victim not four steps behind me, and as her predatory gaze disregarded me for a moment, I took the opportunity to run up the last few steps to the salvation of the rat-maze, without so much as a backward glance at the fate of the poor doomed soul behind me.

I had survived.  I had come face to face with my worst nightmare – morning pleasantries – and somehow had overcome it and lived to relish in the banality of my mornings, henceforth.  So it is written, but not so, was it to be.  She haunts me there, between 6:36 and 6:38 every morning, her taunting and torturous presence upon those steps.  As I was going up the stair, I met a newspaper solicitor who wasn’t there.  She wasn’t there again today.  I wish, I wish, she’d go away…. or something along those lines.  Her presence has become my own hellish inevitability and while I continue to withstand her attacks, I can feel my will withering, my solitary sensibilities fracturing with every near-escape.  God forbid, I think I may have actually smiled at her one morning last week!  But is it all my master plan to deceive her and cease the rampant horror of our encounters?  Of course!  My simple smile may just be enough to appease her and bring her to lower the threatening paper as I pass.  I have not again made the fatal error of returning her morning greeting, and I avert my eyes from hers with every passing – they can sense fear, you know.  But I declare now with resounding assertion:  I will NOT succumb to the temptation of the dreaded Free Newspaper.  

Now, you may be asking yourself why I don’t just accept the damn paper.  And I suppose, on some sane and thoroughly repugnant level, it would be a reasonable question.  And my answer is quite simple:  nothing is free.  And if it is free, one must ask oneself why?  Is the quality of the paper in question so atrocious that they can’t, in a society that demands remuneration for everything, charge even the smallest pittance, to offer assurance that it has any value at all?  And what of the people, these endearing little ogres, these adorable and friendly little trolls, who haunt dismal stairwells, intrude upon morning rituals and oblivion, to peddle this paper – surely they are not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts?  So, therefore, at what cost to them is this ‘free’ paper made available to the general public?  And to declare any paper ‘free’ is an environmental and ecological affront, is it not?  But now I just sound like a tree-hugging do-gooder, which really I’m not, or I wouldn’t subscribe to two newspapers (that I have to pay for, I might add) which I never read.  No, the real conundrum is this:   Why, as human beings, do we feel the incessant need to take that which is free, regardless of our need for it?  Do we honestly think we’ve got one up on society if we can dash away with something without having paid for it, even if we toss it in the garbage five minutes later?  And if I don’t take the paper, am I offending the shy little girl offering it?  Could my aversion to her offering be somehow detrimental to her?  Could she lose her job because I never accept that damn paper from her?  Am I offending the writers, photographers, publishers, editors – could my one paper per day reduce their readership to the point that their investors back out and they all become one of the innumerable homeless I step over every morning?  So, am I then obligated to suffer guilt over this denial?  And is it that obligation of guilt with causes me to avert my eyes in shame every time I step past and ignore her?  So why, then, do I feel as if I am being accosted simply by the offering, aside from the obvious disruption of my aforementioned morning routine?  Does the obligation of guilt beget anguish, or does anguish oblige guilt?

And so it goes, that these are the thoughts which torment me every morning between 6:36 and 6:44, when my gourmet flavored coffee (hazelnut cream being my favorite, of course) is finally enough to distract me and allow me to carry on with my day… until the next morning when I ascend those steps and face my post-dawn/pre-desk demons once again.