Melissa Burnett

teller of strange tales

Author: melissaburnettwrites

  • Cleanliness is Next to Joyfulness

    Dear Reader,

    I know I’m not the only person to lose count of the number of times I’ve thought, “Ugh, I need to shower, but I really don’t want to.” Let me tell you something: If I lose the ability to shower, I will really, really want to.

    It started as a small leak. Tiny. Easily ignored. Then it grew, and then it grew some more. Next thing we knew, the cats were playing Gene Kelly in the bathroom, tap dancing through splashy puddles on the floor. We had to shut off the water. My husband examined the trouble and saw exactly which part had cracked and needed to be replaced.

    “It’s an easy fix,” he said.

    It would have been, except for one small hiccup. We live in a 1926 house, which is very cool until something goes wrong. Lowe’s and Home Depot don’t carry parts for a hundred-year old clawfoot tub. Even Ace Hardware, our go-to for weird parts, didn’t have what we needed. We had to order the parts. It would take a week to get them.

    Did I mention we only have one bathroom? Until the parts came in, there would be no showering.

    I started the week optimistically. We still had a sink, after all. I could wash well enough with a washcloth and a basin of water. I had dry shampoo, and I’d put my hair in a bun once it got too greasy. I’d be fine.

    (Reader, I was not fine…)

    I don’t think I stunk, the sink baths took care of that, but my God did I feel terrible. I never realized how much I depended on a long, hot shower to wash away the stress of life. On top of that, no amount of dry shampoo could stop my scalp from feeling itchy. Before this, I thought I understood the connection between depression and showering, that depressed people don’t want to shower. I never realized the converse was also true. Not showering made me feel depressed.

    During that week without showers, I accomplished  next to nothing. I couldn’t find the motivation. One day, I never even changed out of my pajamas. What was the point? I was a cave-dwelling thing, speaking in grunts and spending my time scrolling through endless streams on social media. Look at those real people! I was no longer one of them.

    The day the parts arrived, my husband installed them immediately, and I jumped in the shower the moment he gave me the all clear. My God, the bliss! The absolute, unfettered joy! My dirt-induced depression swirled down the drain. Inspiration for three creative projects leaped to the forefront of my mind. I was a real person again! I would live!

    I returned to my word processor before my hair was even dry, finally able to write again. But that was yesterday. Excuse me now–I think I need to take another shower.

    Love, Melissa

  • The Internet is Quicksand

    Dear Reader,

    I had a great time on my girls’ trip (see last week’s post) but the best part was this–we had no internet access at the cabin. It was nice to have no one need anything from me all week, but let’s be honest. If I’d been able to go online, I wouldn’t have done anywhere near the amount of reading and writing I did. The internet, you see, is quicksand.

    It’s a common joke these days. “Based on my childhood media exposure, I expected quicksand to be a much more present danger in my life.” We all laugh, but none of us seem to realize how much of our lives we do spend mired in the stuff. Not literally, of course. I’m talking about the metaphorical quagmire that traps us each time we go online.

    Don’t get me wrong–I love the internet nearly as much as I despise it. For a curious person, carrying around a device with instant answers to my every question is a miracle.

    But…

    I’m sure King Midas’s ability to turn anything to gold felt like a miracle, too, right up until it destroyed everything he loved. Our quicksand doesn’t work as quickly as the golden touch, but it’s just as insidious. It turns our most precious resource–time–into a weight that pulls us down and drowns us.

    How often have you tried to check one quick thing online, then realized an hour disappeared without notice? It’s been carefully planned that way, because the more time you and I spend online, the more ads we see and the more money goes into various pockets.

    (Not ours, of course. Never ours.)

    The world these days is a place where it’s nearly impossible to complete any task without a visit to the World Wide Web. Once we dip just a toe in…. Boom. Quicksand.

    I remember those jungle movies shown on ’80s television. Once the hero blundered into a pit of quicksand, he was done for, unless someone else was around to pull him out. He might still be able to talk and try to get out, but we viewers knew death was inevitable. Its slowness made it all the more gruesome.

    So here we all are, slowly drowning in this quagmire of our own making. This time, those bystanders who might grab ahold to pull us out are sinking just as surely as we are. I’d love to offer a solution, but unfortunately, I have none. The best I can suggest is to spend a few days in a place with no wifi. It may not save us in the long run, but it does make for a lovely reprieve.

    And hey, it’s easy to find and book a trip like that. All you have to do is search online. Good luck!

    Love, Melissa

  • Girls’ Trip

    Dear Reader,

    Later today, I am heading out of town for a first. I could call it a girls’ trip, but I’ve taken those before, so that’s not the new part. This trip will be different from the ones where my friends and I ran around doing things together. This time, my friend and I are going to a cabin for four days, and we have no plans to do anything other than be there.

    We’ve been calling it a reading retreat, but along with books, I’ve packed journals and notebooks and art supplies. It certainly won’t be all reading. A more accurate name than either girls’ trip or reading retreat would be something like, “we’re disappearing and no one is allowed to need anything from us–even our attention–for the next four days.” But that’s unwieldy. Girls’ trip it is.

    I feel like I should say women’s trip rather than girls’, but that’s not the common phrase. In this case, I can’t be too mad about it, because it’s the same for the men–they “get together with the boys.” I suppose the assumption is that when we gather with our own gender, away from the expectations created in mixed company, we revert to our childhood selves. Maybe that’s true. The best part of childhood, after all, was having no responsibilities. That’s what my friend and I are most looking forward to this week. We won’t have to do anything other than indulge in our own thoughts and dreams. I’ve packed coloring books, for God’s sake. This week, we will be girls again.

    When I actually was a girl, my favorite thing to do was to lie on my bed and imagine. It didn’t matter what I imagined; just letting my mind run free was the point. There’s not much time to do that as an adult. Too many voices and crises and responsibilities clamor for my time and attention. But for the next four days, there will be none of that. I may sit on the couch with a book in my lap, but I wouldn’t be surprised to discover I don’t do a whole lot of actual reading. I suspect my mind will soar beyond the clouds and far away. What will I imagine? It doesn’t really matter. The time and space to think without interruption will return me to my childhood self in the best possible way. Hopefully, I’ll be able to bring a bit of that feeling home with me when the trip is over.

    So yes, I guess I will embrace the title of girls’ trip. There’s nothing wrong being being a girl for a while. The girl who lives inside this woman still has dreams to dream. I would do well to let her fly free.

    Love, Melissa

  • The Calendar Problem

    Dear Reader,

    I have a beef with whoever invented the days of the week. Would it have been so hard to give us an even number? Either six or eight would be fine, I’m not picky. But no–they had to go with seven. It makes things difficult, calendar-inventor guy, and I’m not happy about it.

    For one thing, there’s my hair. It looks best if I wash it every other day, but my schedule works best if I wash it on the same days each week. Thanks to your calendar, it’s impossible to do both. I can wash it on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, but then my Sunday hair looks awful. If I wash it on Sunday, then I’m stuck with Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday the following week, and holy hell does that mess with my schedule. Do you have any idea, calendar guy, how long it takes to dry my hair? I can’t go around fitting that into my schedule all willy-nilly on random days. But thanks to you, it’s either do that or deal with terrible Sunday hair. Thanks a lot.

    It’s not just my hair, though. So many things would be simpler with an even number of weekdays: dividing household chores, planning workouts, even buying groceries. Think about eggs, calendar guy. They come in dozens, and if I eat two each morning, that leaves me eggless on Sunday. Sure I can buy extra, but that means my days and my eggs are never going to come out even. Do you know how frustrating that is? Do you know how many food products are sold in dozens? I take back what I said earlier. Six days is inherently better than eight, and I’ll tell you why. It’s not only about eggs and cans of soda. Think of the months, man.

    The city picks up our recycling on the first and third Fridays of the month, but sometimes–whoops!–there’s a fifth Friday, an unexpected extra week of letting trash accumulate. Also, paychecks come every other week, which means if I want to budget evenly each month, I have to allocate a bit of each extra paycheck gradually over six months. That’s impossible, sir. Everyone knows extra money disappears the moment it hits your bank account.

    Now picture this: A calendar in which each week has six days and each month has 30. It would be perfect! I know, you’re asking where we make up the extra five days (six in a leap year). We’ll stick those between Christmas and New Year’s. No one knows what day it is then, anyway.

    Although, come to think of it, that still wouldn’t solve all my problems. There would still be an odd number of weeks in a month. Maybe we should try four weeks of eight days each. Maybe four weeks of six, and we invent an extra month? Six weeks of six, and we discard January and February? Those are terrible months, anyway.

    Well, figuring out how to make it work is your job, not mine. You’re the calendar guy. Meanwhile, I have to go wash my hair. I’ve gotten knocked off schedule again, and I know just who to blame.

    Love, Melissa

  • The Nature of Time

    Dear Reader,

    Last night, while I was trying and failing to sleep, I found myself contemplating the nature of time. (And then I wonder why I can’t sleep!) Even after writing a time travel novel, I’m not sure what I believe. Does the past actually exist? Do historical documents replace the events they describe? If there’s an error in such a document, is it actually an error, or has it then become true?

    On the surface, the answers seem obvious. Of course the past exists, because we feel its effects in the present. But if Person A and Person B have conflicting memories of something they did, the objective truth is long gone. Does that make both versions true, or neither? The effects of that event felt in the present will be different for each person. Now, strangely, both versions seem equally true. If the story is something passed down through their families, Family A and Family B know different truths, which become stronger and more entrenched with each generation. So does that past event exist, or are the effects in the present the only truth?

    Unfortunately, I fell asleep before I came to any conclusions, but the questions won’t go away that easily. Though I love fiction in which characters visit the past, I can’t imagine it would ever work in real life. If Person A traveled back to his memory and Person B to hers, they would never meet there to discover the real truth. Instead, they would each visit their own version of events. Memory is a time machine, but it’s a faulty one. It can only reinforce the truths we already believe.

    Or so my thoughts ran last night as I tipped toward slumber. Maybe tonight I’ll try to solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. That’s still a mystery, right? I’m certain that’s the way I remember it.

    Love, Melissa

  • The House of Mouse

    Dear Reader,

    When I was a young mother–and I was a very young mother–I had a friend with kids the same age as mine. Well, I had several of those, but I’m thinking about this friend because of something she used to say. Every couple of months, she would sigh dramatically. “I guess it’s time to take the kids to The House of Mouse again.” By that, she meant Chuck E. Cheese.

    I didn’t understand her attitude at all. She made those trips for her kids’ sake, but she hated the place. Her reasons were legitimate: the noise, the chaos, the expense. I never saw those drawbacks as serious enough to negate the main attraction. My daughter had a great time there. She was happy, she was entertained, and she was safe. The hours we spent at The House of Mouse gave me a chance to turn my parenting brain off and think my own thoughts. For a few hours, I rested secure in the knowledge my daughter wouldn’t need anything complicated. She wouldn’t complain she was bored.

    Besides, I could sneak in a game or two of Skee-Ball for myself. I love that game.

    To be fair, that friend was significantly older than I was, even though our kids were the same age. In the years since, I decided I probably would have shared her attitude if I hadn’t been so recently out of childhood myself. Last week, I had the opportunity to test that theory. It proved untrue. I’m 50 now, but I still had a great time visiting The House of Mouse with my niece and nephew.

    For one thing, the people-watching there is exceptional. You’ve got kids, you’ve got parents, you’ve got employees in various stages of enjoying or tolerating or despising their jobs. For a writer, there are few more fertile grounds than Chuck E. Cheese for observing possible character traits to borrow.

    For another, if you love the kids you’re with, how could you not enjoy their joy in being there? My nephew ran gleefully from the games to the slides to the pizza, calling behind him, “Aunt Ah-yissa! Come watch!” My niece, older and more knowledgeable, said, “Aunt Melissa, do you want to play Skee-Ball with me?” That girl knows the way to her aunt’s heart.

    In between, there was time to talk and laugh with my sister and our mom while the kids were occupied and not needing our attention. What could be more precious to a constant caregiver than those fleeting moments when your care is not needed?

    So no, Dana, I still don’t understand your disdain for The House of Mouse. The place promises to do one thing, and it delivers admirably. It’s hard to put a price on those moments when motherhood becomes briefly easier, but to my mind, the price Chuck E. charges is not too high at all.

    Besides, I still play a mean game of Skee-Ball. Anyone want to join me? You get the tokens; I’ll buy the pizza.

    Love, Melissa