Utensils of War

There is so much more to moving than placing everything you own into several hundred labeled boxes. It takes a lot of planning, packing tape, patience and mental fortitude to leave the non-packable memories behind.

Moving day is always the worst. There is so much going on that I shouldn't have noticed anything out of the ordinary. Movers with their furniture dollies and aching muscles flat-footed it through my emptying rooms. Realtors with their clipboards and cameras scrambled to place my two bedroom ranch-style on the market for an over-inflated price.

I was scrambling too. In each room I was making sure that everything was either in a box, the moving van or in my car. But with all of this commotion I heard a unfamiliar reverberation bounce off my empty walls. The echoes of footsteps came at me from a pair of shoes; a pair of legs that haven't entered my doorway before. There is no way I can explain how I knew that a stranger was in my house, but none-the-less, my “Spidey-sense” was making me feel real uncomfortable. These footfalls didn't sound weighted down like a person carrying a heavy object or like the high heels of a real estate agent. They did sound like a pair of feet that didn't want to draw attention to themselves, like someone who knew the floorboards squeaked but wasn't quite sure which ones.

The short hairs on the back of my neck uncurled and stuck straight out. My sandy-blond hair had been in this situation before so I knew not to take it lightly. The kitchen that I was standing in was the last room that the movers and I packed up and hauled out to the truck. I left the kitchen, until last because I hadn't found a good pizza delivery in my area worth the money. I prepared all of my meals right up to the last minute.

In the sink were the remnants of my last meal: a heavy coffee mug, a spoon, fork, butter knife and a small plate. The trash can contained a toaster that was obviously in cahoots with the smoke detector; every time I put two slices into the slots the smoke detector would whistle when the toast was burned. There was not much in the way to protect myself from an intruder but I've seen movies were a damsel, like myself, has done much more with less. Of course I would rather have had a knife with a more superior blade than one that spreads butter.

With my limited cache of weapons I picked the one with the best potential to cause harm... repeatedly. I was armed with the toaster. I was never going to be Annie Oakley (I didn't own a gun), Dale Evans (I can't even sing in the shower), or even Bonnie Parker of Bonnie and Clyde (my previous boyfriends weren't exactly criminal), but I had to make do in what could turn into a life or death duel.

In the few seconds it took me to review my armory I lost track of the footsteps of my intruder. I had the bulk of the toaster in my right hand ready to start swinging it by the cord in my left. I felt foolish armed with a General Electric kitchen appliance until I heard the heavy breathing behind me. Even before turning around I started my toaster lasso in motion and secured my grasp on the plug with both hands. I didn't want it getting away from me before I had a chance to use and reuse it on my predator. Unfortunately, the toaster was spewing tiny DNA molecules of whole grain bread and I had to be careful not to get them in my eyes.

My heart was stutter-beating, my legs were turning to vanilla pudding (my least favorite flavor) and my right wrist was starting to hurt. I saw the shadow on the floor before I saw the stalker. He was wearing a dark suit, a bright floral power tie, and a smile. The facial expression was the only weapon I saw but I've seen how some dishonest men can use a toothy grin. I was only drawn to the tie and the smile for what I was hoping to be only a hiccup in time before I started to record his hair and eye color. They were brown, and blue with a tiny bit of gold highlights.

He was a well groomed intruder: tall, dark, and if I wasn't scared out of rational thought, I might even called him handsome. I noticed his hair was gelled to look wet, his teeth were unnaturally white and straight, and his tan was even. However, despite my past transgressions with bad men, I didn't feel like taking him home to meet the family.

“Are you the lady of the house?” he asked.
“Nope” was my reply. I didn't tell him I was moving, it was only obviously stated by the empty rooms. Also, I didn't want him to know where I was moving to.

I stopped swinging the boomerang bread burner but didn't let down my guard. He could still be a Tupperware salesmen, a Jehovah's Witness, or a psychotic serial killer. I didn't need a plastic canister set, another pamphlet to read or to have my life ended. I also didn't need an unexpected person keeping me from my boxes of stuff headed down the highway.

This man was unnerving because his eyes, which were as blue as an icy river and just as warm, would only focus on me. He didn't turn his head until I walked out of his forward sight and that cheap, painted on, car-salesman smile never left his lips. His chiseled chin protruded out from his face like a jagged cliff and his goatee looked like crabgrass growing in the cracks. If the cartoon character Dudley Do-Right ever found himself on the wrong side of the law this is what he would look like.

I was in trouble, I just didn't know how or why.

“I don't know who you are but I wish you would leave!” The eyes stayed on me like a dog begging for a bone and the smile started to attract the natural light coming in from the windows. To prove my point I started to spin the toaster again.

“I just wanted to show you how to better protect your house from would be thieves” said the man like he wasn't concerned about the whirling toaster making any kind of sustainable contact to his head. I can only imagine what other situations he found himself in after making that comment. I'm almost positive this is the first time that he came face to face with a toaster moving at the speed of sound.

The word 'thieves' worried me since I've seen shows on television where ex-cons break into a persons house to show a homeowner how vulnerable their house is to anyone wanting inside.

“Am I on Candid Camera?” I stupidly asked. I was afraid that I gave away my age by referring to old television shows. It isn't easy to lie about ones age if a person refers to things that a younger person wouldn't have knowledge of. Of course it was too late to retract the question and my worries that didn't appear to be the age that I assumed. (Never ask a woman her age and she'll have one less reason to lie to you).

Once again he replied without considering what I had said or that I was armed and ready to cause bodily harm. “I walked into the front door of this house undetected and...”

“I knew you were in the house” I hastily interrupted, “and I grabbed this mighty weapon.” To prove my point I swung my arm closer to his body. “The house is nearly empty and what I haven't packed you are more than welcome to steal. You'd be doing me a favor since I wouldn't have to pack what is left.”
I didn't mention that I wouldn't have to call the police to report this theft since I didn't want this stuff anyways.

“Now, Missy, that is no way to react to a concerned citizen. I can show you the error of your ways in your new place” he said.

I thought, “Oh no he didn't... he called me Missy. He's trying to patronize me, he's trying to make me feel indebted to his outlandish and unwarranted concerns.” and he called me the wrong name.” As I flushed with anger, I spoke...

“I'm going to show you that I don't need your help because I'm not going to tell you where I'm moving to. Don't follow me either because I'm walking out the door now!” I'd be lying if I said that I uttered these words in a powerfully reassuring way that struck fear in this man. They oozed out of me like oatmeal boiling over onto the range top. My body language showed how serious I was about leaving the confines of my kitchen.

I made bigger loops of the toaster, trying to forget about the pain it was making in my hands. We were both lucky that he stepped back as I continued on. My hands were now so stiff that I could barely feel the cord in my hands. There was probably only seconds left of the control I had on the toaster and I'm sure glad I didn't have to find out how long I actually had left. At the front door I turned around and saw that he moved at least three steps from his previous position. I guess I didn't make myself clear that I didn't want him to follow. I threw down the toaster and ran. My arms continued on their circular movements involuntarily. Imagine a baby bird learning to use his wings for the first time, that was how I looked.

I got in my very stylish, fuel efficient Ford Focus fumbled slightly with the keys while I put them in the ignition. There was no sense worrying about giving him a ride anywhere, even if he did overpower me. It was filled up with my belongings that I didn't trust with the movers. Not a moment did I waste starting and putting it in gear. This is when he walked out the front door gave me that creepy, “trick-or-treat” smile and I floored the gas pedal. The car jumped the curb, drove over the lawn and I pinned the intruder between my old front steps and the bumper.

Two things came to mind as I sat back in the driver seat of the car as the man's face was creased with pain. First was the great sense of relief that I protected myself from a man, a stranger in my old home. The other thing was sort of metaphoric... the old me was standing inside the house petrified with fear and the new me was in the driver seat with a satisfied smile on my face.

From that point on I decided I would never look back on the timid, scared and reclusive me. It was going to be full speed ahead... only after I looked over my shoulder to back my car away from the porch.

To add one final insult to his injuries I got out of my car and thanked the man for showing me how to protect myself. As a teacher of the failure of my ways, I don't think he counted on my curve to his lesson plan.

I later found out that I did this neighborhood, this town and the world a great service. The man I had showed the error of his ways was wanted for burglary in three states, two countries and a continent. The new me was batting a thousand and I was not even trying to be a crime-stopper.

Unpacking the cardboard boxes, plastic bags and make-shift containers seems that way, harder than packing them to begin with. It may all be the same stuff from your former life but now you have to find a new place for it in your next. Will those pictures of lawn furniture and cool summer drinks blend in with the Currier and Ives Winter scenes? Do those cutesy penguin salt and pepper shakers go with the apple tiered valances? Will your coffee table fit perfectly in front of the overstuffed couch like it did in the old-you place? With my new better, stronger and prettier self-esteem image I made the settling in harder than it needed to be.

I chose to make my new life more colorful than the last with a few gallons of paint, painting supplies and a few blank plaster pallets. When I was done, there wasn't a white wall in the house. I had blueberry, light lemon, raspberry, and other fruity colors plus a chocolate accent wall in my bedroom. My designer wasn't Martha Stewart, it was more like Rachel Ray.

Three weeks into my new place and my new frame of mind, I was placing the last flattened box into the dumpster, when I heard another one of those sounds that makes the short hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I knew when I finally threw the toaster out, I was setting myself up for another would be attacker. So what did I do? I, of course, did what any other scared Samaritan does when confronted with a would be attacker. I looked around the dumpster to see what other people's trash I could turn into a treasured weapon.

This is when I realized that my new neighborhood wasn't any safer than the last one, even though I ran into the one man crime spree on my last day living there. There was absolutely nothing amongst these trash bags and folded boxes that I could use to protect myself other than a sparsely bristled broom and a cracked round trash can lid. Call me Spartacus without the armor and flat bottomed sandals with the extra-long laces wrapped around the calves.

With sword and shield in hand, I felt a little less vulnerable as I tried to identify the noises before turning around. These noises all together sounded exactly like a dragon to a would-be dragon slayer. I heard the heavy, high pitched whistled breaths of a fire-breathing lizard, the rubbing of large rough scales and the heavy footfalls of long dragon talons. Of course I knew there are no dragons, which meant that I had to find a logical explanation for these audio occurrences.

I, once again, after finding myself inches away from some force wanting to do me possible harm, took a firmer grip on my senses and my self-defense items, and turned into the noises. I saw three leather jacketed, t-shirt wearing elderly men standing there facing me. My first impression of this threesome was either escapees from a nearby nursing home, the world's oldest gang or three side effects of Viagra.

The first one I focused on had a tag-along oxygen tank with a thin plastic tube leash that went to his pudgy nose. He was as tall and frail as the last stalk of corn. The gray hair on his head had no signs of thinning but it was greasy, uncombed, and long. From this distance I couldn't see the color of his eyes and I was hoping that we never got close enough for that. I did see that he had a anxious smile on his face; it was like the look of a child in anticipation of opening a wrapped present. If he thought I was a gift for him and his buddies to unwrap... well he/they had another thing coming.

The second of the three men stood behind a small metal three-sided cage with two rubber wheels on the side closest to me. I don't think his walker was fit to his body frame because he had to lean way over to put his two wobbly hands on the top. He had a halo of gray hair around his less than perfect scalp and more wrinkles on his face than used sheets at a brothel. Like his buddies he also sported some kind of a sneer.

A man who sported black and gray peppered hair was the final riser to this pyramid. If I had to guess I'd say he was the youngest and the shortest of the group of elders. His shirt was stained from just below the chin to the middle of his stomach. He was a drooler and by the looks of the dried rings on his shirt this wasn't the first time he's dribbled moisture. With their advanced age and medical problems, I felt reasonably sure that I could take them if I needed to.

The Oxygen Bandit made a movement with his free hand, and Drooling Guy dripped saliva down his shirt as his Walker Wielding Buddy spoke.

“Whoa there young lady...” he paused long enough to rearrange something in his pants, “are you sure that your Gladiator get-up is enough to take on us three randy men?”

“We've been doing this sort of thing our whole lives.” said the Oxygen Bandit, “We're experienced.”

My earlier assessment of this geriatric group was dead on... they were escaped nursing home gang members on a libido enhancement regimen. I saw the telltale wristbands, their arthritic hands frozen in gang signs and the tent stakes in their plaid pants. Didn't these misguided grandpas realize that their condescending tone was causing me to want to kick their old, decrepit asses?

The old Sarah would've taken them to lunch before taking them back to their nursing home, but the new Sarah was going to gladly give them a fight before taking their wounded pride to the old folks home. I didn't answer the Oxygen Bandit question with words, body language or any head movements.

“That's a good thing, Missy. We like our young-uns feisty,” taunted the Walker Wielder.

“Here we go again,” I thought. Why must people always call me Missy when they don't care to learn my name? Was it due to my strawberry-blond hair, my five-foot-six inch frame and my near perfect body? Is this name slang for a prospective damsel in distress? Truthfully I did not want to know the answer.

The three humped-back criminals shuffle-stepped a little closer to the end of my broomstick. The Oxygen Bandit made another hand signal and Walker Wielder and Drooling Guy sidestepped in opposing directions. In an attempt to show me that they didn't need their medical devices for support, they all punched their tattooed-fingered fist into their palms. I saw the word “PAIN' written on their knuckles with ink, and lined on their faces with grimaces. I've watched limbless saplings stand up to hurricane force winds better than these three. The internal struggle between the old and new Sarah ended when I thrust forward the broom and hooked the head onto the support of the walker and pulled it back as fast as I could.

The apparatus fell over, tangling the broom. This was not quite what I had intended. I watched as the curmudgeon lost his balance and landed in a heap on the cement. He was going to spend most of this fight trying to recover his walker and then stand back up. The Oxygen Bandit flashed another sign at Drooling Guy and baby-stepped closer to me. “Hurt” was the other word tattooed on the other hand. If I wasn't in a struggle for my life I probably would have laughed. Looking at their arthritic hands brought to mind the hurt and pain of growing older.

I dodged a rather slow moving oxygen tank aimed for my ankles and watched as my wet-shirted attacker took it in the shins. The old man was sturdier than I gave him credit for. Even though the pain of the strike registered in his voice he still stood upright. He reached out and grabbed me. I tried, unsuccessfully to free my broom from the walker. I leaned forward in hopes that his arms would go right over me and he would lose his balance again. This didn't happen and my prone position actually made it easier for the Oxygen Bandit to close in the gap and grab my hair. The only move I had left was to bring the trash can lid up from under me and swing it wildly in front of me. I hit the oxygen tank with the lid which severed the plastic tubing which brought this old geezer to his knees gasping. He didn't let go of my hair and I found myself on the ground just inches from the Walker Wielder, who crawled his way into the fight.

I felt hands on the waistband of my sweatpants and I did the only thing I could think of to break free. I turned myself over on my back and kicked out with both legs. Drooling Guy took a running shoe in the groin and the Oxygen Bandit took the other in the side of his face. In a move I didn't see coming Walker Wielder dove on top of me and began to fondle my upper womanly curves. The moment he closed his hand to cop his feel, I made him feel the writing on his fingers in the place where he was going to feel it the most. Who needs expensive personal defense training when a good kick to the jewels will stop any over-aggressive male? I brushed him off, rolled over on my knees and stood up. While the old men were checking over their wounds, I freed the broom from the walker and prepared for the next wave of the attack.

The old Me would have run at this moment of peacefulness. The new Me was watched as these misguided elderly men tried to recover from their slower-than-molasses agility and from the whooping I gave them in round one. As they moved, I heard the sounds of their aging bones. They were a creaking bone drum and bugling screams of pain corps.

“Missy,” said the Walker Wielder, “you're a feisty one alright.”

“Haven't you heard,” said the Oxygen Bandit, gasping for every breath, “that we are experienced?”

The Drooling Guy, helping his fellow gang member save oxygen, spoke the remaining thoughts, “We've been doing this our whole lives.”

It was deja vu for me and dementia for them. Round two started off in the same fashion as the first with the addition of heavy breathing. The Oxygen Bandit made the same hand signal and the Drooling Guy wet his shirt with a long filament of water that glistened in the sun. Walker Wielder clanked and shuffled closer to me. I went immediately to my defenses and grabbed the wheeled cage and wrestled it from the geezers weakened grip. To say he put up a fight would be a gross understatement.

With his aluminum legs in my hands, I watched as he walked the tightrope between falling gracefully and collapsing. He felt the hurt and pain of my rejection on his hands, elbows, knees and nose. Once again, he was the first one out of the fight. He wouldn't stay there for long. These men would never say die. They weren't afraid to think about death, but at their age, they thought they were going to live forever.

The Oxygen Bandit made another hand gesture and the Drooling Guy sidestepped a step or two. With no tank to wield I was up against two foes coming slowly at me. I picked up the walker like a lion tamer uses a chair against his big cats.

“Don't make me hurt you,” I confidently exclaimed.

For once in my life, I felt the power in my words and I was about to embrace them when I saw the two oldsters strike a non-threatening pose. Then I heard another female voice exclaim.

“George, Chuck and Fred are you up to your old tricks again? When are you going to pick on someone your own age?”

Two young women wearing hospital garb came from behind me, and gathered up the elderly bandits and their equipment. As they assessed the damage of the situation, they knew that I had the upper hand the entire time. Their smiles were restrained by their efforts to respect the feelings of the tortured.

My day ended with me hearing a non-sincere apology from three, not-in-the-least-bit humbled men. I did not call the police.

Even though these hoodlums were all older than the parking lot I now stood in, I felt more confident in my ability to take on the world and survive. Wouldn't you if you've found yourself defending yourself twice in the last few months to the dirge of the world and walking away with little less than a memory.





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