The Long Goodbye

My family makes leaving an Olympic event; you need stamina and training to do it. We don’t just leave; we amble, linger, dillydally and tarry our way out the door. We have whole conversations instead of a simple good bye. It is well known that if you want to leave at 1, you best start saying goodbyes around 12. The amount of time needed to say goodbye is a complex formula. Take the length of time since you have last seen each other. Divide by the amount of children or other family members waiting to leave. Times that by the wind-chill or humidity factor outside. Factor in the importance of the next to do item you have to leave for. Add the importance of the event (such as wedding, funeral, Fourth of July, second Sunday of the month). Times that by the odds of seeing each other within the next month. This will give you a rough estimate of the time needed for a goodbye. Other factors can come into play, if two people are saying goodbye to the same person, length can either increase or decrease in proportion to the relationship of everyone involved.

Now I have recognized that not everyone can leave this way, most people seem to say, bye, catch ya later and walk out the door. I do not know how to do that. So instead if I want a ‘normal’ goodbye I feel the need to say BYE and scuttle out the door like a cockroach running from the light. I’m told that this makes people feel awkward and uncomfortable. I’m not a fan of it myself; I need at least 20 minutes to part ways. Anything less than that and I feel fractured, drifted, at a loss. Yet most don’t want to give me the 20 minutes I need, they get frustrated and are politely shoving me towards the door so they can slam it in my face. I have yet to figure out how to explain to them that I do not do quick goodbyes. That my wanting to linger is a testament to what they mean to me or a testament to my genetics.

Tidbits about me:
I eat my macaroni and cheese with potato chips.

I cannot sleep with any body part hanging off the bed. I think I never outgrew my fear of the monster under the bed.

I have an active and vivid imagination. Often when I am in that gray time between sleep and awake my imagination punishes me. It sends me imagines of snakes, often giant, man-eating snakes that are going to gobble me whole. I’m terrified of snakes, small ones, big ones… they are all the same to me. They send shivers up my spine, goose bumps up my arms; they steal my breath and my voice. During that gray time, my brain sends them to me. When this happens I make my brain send polar bears in. Big fat, fluffy mean polar bears. Polar bears make the snakes go away. Moral: Polar Bears beat snakes and I’m crazy.

I dislike raisins. I feel they are dead grapes and do not understand why people eat them.

Ed Norton pisses me off. His mere existence raises my blood pressure and makes me want to rage against the world. Writing that statement makes me want to punch kittens in their adorable faces.