Head in the Sand ... and other unpopular positions by Linda M Au Page A

see
it stop right in front of me. What if I’m wrong and they now
collect fares upon entering the bus? The pressure is too great. I’m
not ready.
    I step aside to let others get on the bus
ahead of me so I can watch what they do. I’ve become a mindless bus
sheep. An older lady—clearly a senior citizen who rides free
anyway—gets on first, which doesn’t help me determine at what point
fares are paid. The second person in line is the middle-aged man I
saw spitting on the ground when I first got to the bus stop. He
walks right past the bus driver and the fare box without dropping
in any money or showing any sort of bus pass, so I figure we’re
paying upon exit, as I suspected. My heartbeat slows to a rate that
might not need a pacemaker after all.
    My hand slowly slides back out of my purse
as I take my turn and step onto the bus, where my next worry
assaults me: Is there an appropriate seat left for me? I’ve been so
busy worrying about the method and timing of bus fare payment that
I neglected to allow enough angst-time to deal with the
implications of having nowhere to sit, or having to sit with people
who make me nervous or scared or who just creep me out. I’m
suddenly aware of all the issues I still have. I realize I am a
pathetic blob of fear and self-loathing.
    I look around me as I settle into an empty
seat on the aisle halfway to the back. Before I have time to
chastise myself for being such a panic-stricken idiot about
something so simple, the bus turns left at the next intersection
and heads south.
    But the mechanic’s shop is
north.
     
     

I’m Your Biggest Fan
     
    My beloved husband has to tinker with every
electrical object within a fifty-mile radius of his toolbox. It’s
his nature. But for some reason this doesn’t include our four
ceiling fans. He avoids them like the plague. And I’m pretty sure
he routinely avoids the plague.
    At some point during the Mezzazoic Era the chain on
the living room fan broke and now we can’t turn it off. In the
summer Wayne says, “It provides good circulation.” In the winter he
says, “It brings warm air off the ceiling.” (And whooshes it out
the front door at breakneck speed, I might add.)
    The whole contraption wiggles around in an electronic
belly-dance. Wayne says, “I should balance that thing” and spends
half a weekend at Walmart buying a balancing kit, which he puts on
the coffee table and promptly forgets.
    One time he shut off the electric to fix
something—and the fan finally stopped. The dust gunk on the paddles
was a foot thick. I thought I might be able to use it to stuff
pillows for the couch but hosed it off with a power washer
instead.
    The ceiling fan in our home office tries to shear off
the top of my head whenever I get too close. It’s a good thing I’m
only five-foot-two, or by now I’d be, well, probably five-foot-one.
When this fan goes into its own little belly-dance, Wayne says, “I
gotta balance that thing” and disappears on a field trip to Home
Depot to buy another balancing kit, which he puts on the coffee
table alongside the first one. I make a mental note to get a bigger
coffee table.
    The ceiling fan for the kitchen has been in the box
since 1997. When the coffee table fills up with gadgets, faucet
parts, and balancing kits, we start using the kitchen fan box as an
auxiliary coffee table.
    Finally Wayne finds time to install that fan.
(He has no excuses this time. It came with its own balancing kit.)
This one does only a tiny belly-dance. I feel strangely blessed.
    The bedroom ceiling fan—which hangs directly
over our waterbed—is a mystery to me. One of the paddles is bent
and hangs at an awkward angle. In hushed tones, Wayne cautions
me never to turn it
on. Never. Whenever I enter
the room, my fingers are drawn to the switch out of morbid
curiosity. But I resist the urge, because ever since he said that
I’ve had nightmares of burning helicopters spinning out of control
and crashing into Lake