"I like you," he said. "No, you don't," I said. "Why do you say that?" he asked, exasperated. He'd been trying for almost an hour to get me to agree to a date. "I just do." "No, you don't." "You don't know me!" He threw his arms up in the air. "I know I like …
What happens next?
My traveling companion pretended to be asleep. I stared out the train window and ran over all the things I should say when he bothered to look at me and how I ought to say them. Perhaps he pretended long enough to really fall asleep, but he kept his eyes closed for two hours. Not …
Clueless
"You really don't know?" my step-sister asked. "How am I supposed to know anything? You were just gone," I said. We sat in her room. The door was shut but we could hear her mother's voice from my dad's room. It wasn't their bedroom. My step-mother slept in the bed next to the pool table …
In love? We have a form for that.
"Are you in a relationship?" he asked. I didn't think to lie. "Yes." The tactophobe and I had been dating for only a few weeks. I was still filled with hope. The question was part of my Peace Corps application process. As my recruiter explained--most people who quit their service early do so for a …
Money and Knives
When I returned to America, I decided it was time to sell my mother's things. Boxes of dishes, clothes, books, art supplies, papers, and odds and ends were piled and crammed in my bedroom in my father's house. The boxes had once gone from floor to ceiling with only a path to my bed kept …
Sitting Next to a Thief
The police called and told me to come down to the station. They said they needed to ask a few more questions. This time I went there on my own. They showed me my list of stolen items. They asked me to check the value of each thing. Then they told me to go into …
Poster Girls and Mugshot Men
My friend took me to the police station. The first thing I noticed were the posters of half-dressed women. A year and a half in the country and I couldn't get used to these posters that hung everywhere--police stations, doctors' offices, buses, and plastic bags to carry your vegetables home in. The officer told to …
A-ha! There it is!
"I help you," he said. "Thanks, but I'm fine," I said. We walked along the ice-covered sidewalk in the dark. I didn't know him. I stepped on an ice patch and spun. My oversized backpack pulled me down to one knee. He helped me up, picked up my backpack, and slung it over his shoulder. …
because if I could…
and I needed something different today. Thanks to monkeybird.
Other Men’s Girlfriends and Other Vexations
I didn't go to cause him trouble, but loneliness and culture shock do not make for clear thinking. The first few months at my Peace Corps were not going well. The headmaster asked me almost every day to repeat French phrases I didn't understand. My students threw themselves on the floor if they any paid …
Continue reading Other Men’s Girlfriends and Other Vexations
Marta Bacon 