Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. III

Before his eventual slip, Nicholas was a very normal young man. Like most American males his age, he hadn't cared much for school, but he was not dumb. He had a tight-knit group of friends, but he was not popular. He did not earn stellar grades, nor did he excel at any sport, and he wasn't inclined toward any of the cheesy social clubs or nerdy groups that met after class to debate school politics or play chess. He was not a theater geek, a band geek, or a choir geek. The idea of staying after-hours repulsed him.

He preferred, instead, solitary activities where he could enjoy himself in peace. He loved to watch movies and television. The screen mesmerized him. His laptop quickly became his closest companion: he could download all the entertainment his heart desired at the click of a button. He devoured entire albums by all the latest artists before supper, and for dessert he would surf the web looking for pornography, masturbating grimly before falling asleep and repeating the whole process the next day. The limitless possibilities of the internet dazzled him. Everything and everyone interconnected, hooked up twenty-four-seven, and all the collected information capable of being delivered to you instantaneously anywhere on the globe.

It wasn't long before Nick stopped leaving the house, and soon, even his bedroom. The only connections he formed with other people were through online gaming, their disembodied voices melting into the digital cacophony that became his daily life, his paradise, his prison. He texted and emailed and downloaded and uploaded and played and slept and masturbated each day away. He lost all interest in women. The violence he could engage in through stereoscopic three-dimensional interactive formats replaced movies, and soon even the virtual warfare grew stale. His palette deadened, his senses dulled by the constant stream of stimulation. He felt naked without his headphones. He appeared disoriented when he wasn't staring at a monitor or television screen. His parents couldn't reach him. He dropped off the planet and entered a void of isolation, a self-imposed solitary confinement, away from the world and all the people in it. Graduation came and went, and he occupied his time with his electronic friends, which he believed were far more loyal than their human counterparts. Ambition withered away like a neglected flower. He only opened his mouth to consume nutrition and fluids.

This was two months prior to his fateful meeting with the fat bearded man who could not see or hear.

It did not happen all at once, but neither could Nicholas pinpoint exactly when it started happening. He simply stopped enjoying things. Television programs became boring and repetitive. Video games stirred no excitement in him. Music became static, a noise that made no sense to him. He became sterile and hollow. He reached deep down inside himself...and found nothing.

Nicholas came to the horrifying conclusion, finally after much worrying, that his life had ceased to have meaning or purpose. But he could not communicate this to anyone. When he tried, it was like pounding his head against a brick wall. He had the distinct impression that he was talking to Charlie Brown's parents. He began to fear that he would never figure out or be able to articulate what he was looking for, what was lacking. The hole inside him grew deeper and more foreboding, and nothing would fill it. Depression fell over him like a parasitic pall, draining his will to live. The worst part was that it seemed absolutely no one understood. Or maybe they simply refused to listen.

The ultimate realization came when he left the office of the therapist who could not hear him. Nicholas put his feet on the sidewalk, peered down the street, looked left and right, and became aware that no one was going to listen to him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not force any of these people to comprehend him. And nor could they be comprehended. Pedestrians crossed streets, horns blared, commuters adjusted their radios and gave strangers the bird. Nick was suddenly stricken by the harshest sensation of loneliness he had ever experienced in his life, and it filled him with despair. He was completely alone. 

Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. II

A strange darkness descended from overhead and splashed onto the table, bathing Emily and her immediate surroundings in a warm glow as the restaurant dimmed its lights for the dinner shift. Ariel sat directly across from her, but she appeared not to notice, her eyes focused intensely on her cell phone and thumbs working furiously, pounding out a seemingly endless stream of essay-length text messages. Emily chose not to ponder what on earth her friend could have to say that was so important that she couldn't even focus on her food or the drinks they'd ordered. She sighed and laid her head on her hand and looked out across the crowded dining room, surveying the young smiles and grins, the laughs and guffaws, and the beginning hints of slurred speech that would soon become more and more pronounced as the night continued and the guests that began filtering in consumed more and more. Directly to her left was a particularly young couple, definitely not part of the prime time bar crowd, who had finished their meal a quite some time ago and were now picking at the remains of bones of barbecued wings, french fries, and seasoned mozzarella sticks. The boy had a bowl of black hair, the bangs of which nearly covered his eyes and he had to continuously brush them away to get a better look at who, Emily assumed, must have been his girlfriend (or at the least, date for the night): a dangerously beautiful brunette, stern eyes and a twitch in her lips that indicated some sort of experience or wisdom beyond her years. She intimidated him, Emily could tell. But he held his own...he met each gaze, smiled at the right moments, laughed at all her jokes, kept pace in the conversation. The girl was clearly enjoying herself, but the young man was hopelessly in love. It was written all over his face, and he was acutely aware of this, constantly having to strain to not look so goofily smitten. Emily's interest was momentarily held as she took all this in, and within a moment she could tell, this smoldering brunette was going to take this boy's virginity tonight. The scene pinched her heart slightly, and she let her mind wander, remembering when she was so young and headstrong, how the boys used to lie down at her feet.

Meanwhile she could see, to her right, the bartender in another section, clad in a tight black vest, restlessly cleaning glasses and setting them on the polished wood surface upside down, paying no attention to the task at hand. Instead he was focused on Ariel, who was now slumped backward in her seat, still staring at her phone with a detached, glazed-over look, and Emily could feel that he wanted her. She wondered what that must feel like now, to be the center of attention: to know that every man in the room who saw you, even glanced at you in passing, instantly wanted to fuck you. But she let it go, because deep down she knew that not even Ariel was aware of this or could let the whole ego-trip thing go to her head. She was too wrapped up in her Blackberry to know what was even going on around her, let alone the fact that she was supposed to be on a dinner date with her so-called best friend, whom she had not seen in a very long time and that this should be a very enjoyable evening indeed. Instead they had spoken for about five minutes, then the appetizers and drinks had arrived and Emily watched, feeling somewhat dejected and ignored, as her former college roommate simply forgot she existed. She sighed and drummed her fingers on the table, trying to amuse herself, unsure of how to proceed. It wasn't that Emily was particularly bitter or resented the fact that Ariel had her own set of priorities and interests (like deciding not to finish school) that were completely separate from her own. Ariel liked working in a department store, selling superficial, expensive clothes to superficial, expensive people, and spending at least a quarter of each paycheck (after the rent and utilities at her downtown apartment were all accounted for) at any given number of clubs and glitzy joints that pumped obnoxious electronic music through the speakers and allowed her a sort of detached enjoyment—she could dance and flirt with whoever she wanted, even grind right up against them, without ever actually having to get too close—and Emily knew this. It was just that when they actually decided to get together and sit down (which was happening less and less frequently, maybe once every two months), she found she simply had nothing to say. It was as if they were living on two separate planets now, one where Ariel existed in her own little bubble and floated around, poking other bubbles curiously and then reverting to its own isolated, fixed position, while Emily meanwhile was getting caught up in the void of the real world: commuters and traffic and nine-to-five and coffee bars and cigarette breaks and Letterman. What it really came down to, it dawned on her suddenly, was that they had absolutely nothing in common anymore. She had graduated from college over three years ago and moved on; Ariel, on the other hand, seemed to just drift further and further inward, never growing or expanding. Her entire experience and perception of reality was drenched in the music and media that permeated every aspect of 21^st century life, and she did seem to not mind this, while Emily desperately fought and railed against the consumer-machine, trying to maintain some sense of self-control and individuality without forfeiting what she valued most: that primal, deep connection she felt toward other human beings, the part of her that was aching for attention and companionship but always ended up disgusted with what she found waiting behind every door, every phone number, every blind date in every over-crowded, noisy cafe across the street from her office.

She snapped out of this tangential train of thought and realized she, too, had started to daydream and drift off in her own head. She suddenly felt very annoyed. She no longer valued their time spent together, watching Ariel text her boyfriends and laugh at inside jokes. Instead, she wanted to go home. She eyed the young couple to her left, who were beginning to shuffle out of the booth, with envy. The boy, wisely, Emily thought, pulled out his wallet and dropped a hefty tip on the table, then flashed his date a smile and offered up his arm. What a gentleman, Emily thought. That confirmed it: he was definitely going to score. She felt a wistful longing for the days of her youth now, wondering what had happened to her freedom, to the days when she could meet someone's gaze and know precisely, in that moment, that they were seeing her in return, and that connection, that hidden part, would glow vibrantly and confirm what she was experiencing was genuine. She wondered what had happened to her and her friend. No; what had happened to society. To her generation.

“I said, do you think I should try the Yogo-Berry Martini?”

“What?” Emily shook her head and realized Ariel was actually saying something to her. “Oh, I don't know,” she sighed. “Why not?”

Contextual Mediocrity

“I don't think you're listening.”

Nicholas Allen tightened his lips and tried to focus on the large, sweaty, bearded figure seated in front of him. “Hello?” he asked again. “Are you hearing me?” His voice entered a higher register.

The fat man clicked his ball-point pen and scribbled on a clipboard clenched in his left hand. His words were cold, clinical, calculated. “Are you suicidal?”

Nick had never known how to answer this question. “If I had a dime for every time I've heard this in the last two weeks...frankly I'm tired of answering it. What does that even mean?”

Silence. Scribbling. “And when's the last time you tried to hurt yourself?” he murmured, detached.

Nicholas didn't care to define the difference between attempting something and actually accomplishing it. It no longer mattered. This was the third therapist he'd been plopped down in front of in a fortnight. They were all the same. All clinician, no heart. They couldn't hear what he said. They couldn't see him, see a human being trying to communicate something so simple and primal and debilitating. They could not help him. His throat began to tighten, the syllables that tumbled forth choked and half-wrought with the same sense of helplessness and desperation that now permeated his life, looming over him like an ominous thunderhead, black as pitch: “I need help.”

He cleared his throat, eyes never leaving the clipboard. Same robotic monotone. “That's what we're here for, son. Now, what's your date of birth again?”

The first time Nicholas cut himself, it was rather by accident.

Unsure of how sharp a lone razor blade really was, and how effective it would be in ending his life, he conducted a quick experiment on the back of his arm, well underneath his wrist. It looked like such a simple thing, surprisingly pliable, unassuming. It did not appear sinister. It did not suggest, through any aspect of appearance or by method of handling, that it was capable of inflicting destruction and pain.

He closed his eyes and sliced in a wide arc, swinging his hand down and across in a rapid motion. The skin cleaved immediately, a gaping maw suddenly appearing where flesh once was. It was very deep and red. Blood flowed readily and covered his arm, quickly drying into a sticky sleeve, and the excess dripped with unexpected speed, increasing, now regularly falling in a straight line like a faucet that's been opened only part way. Nicholas cried out in surprise and dropped the blade onto the linoleum of the bathroom floor. His eyes widened. He was struck by the pain, instantaneous and sharp. He held his arm against his stomach, rocking back and forth, groaning until the pain subsided. He considered picking the blade back up and continuing the job.

“Nicholas?”

He shook the memory away and refocused on the present. He reminded himself of the steps. Focus on the present. Live in the moment and open yourself, let yourself experience it as it is, accepting and nonjudgmental, until it passes, then move on to the next. “I don't understand the question.”

“Have you ever attempted suicide?” the fat man repeated, sounding either bored or annoyed. Perhaps both.

Nick drew a deep breath into his lungs. “I know what you're thinking, so I'm not going to answer your question. I don't even know what it means. I am not scared or confused because I want to die; I am confused as to how you do not. How everyone does not. I don't want to feel this way anymore.” His confidence began to falter. “If you want to give me medication, fine. I'll take the medication. But I've been through this before, and it didn't help. What I need,” he leaned forward, hoping to make an impression, “is for someone to listen. Please. I just want to talk. I need to talk.” The man clicked his pen, and rolled it over in his fingers, his expression unchanged. “Okay?”

There was a precarious moment of silence, and Nicholas Allen could almost feel his life hanging in the balance, a feeling he was becoming all too accustomed to, and he shivered in its wake as it passed.

The therapist frowned and looked back down at his desk, then leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “I think we should refer you to another facility. You see, son, this isn't exactly what we do here...”

But Nick didn't hear the rest. He put on a calm face and began considering all the ways he could get out of this facility as quickly as possible. He did not panic, at least not outwardly. Nor did he scream, or yell, or cry, or threaten the man. He had learned how to hide his anxiety, the terrible monster that sneaked in and grabbed him at will. If you didn't, if you let them see it, it was a sure way to get locked up again. And Nick didn't want to be locked up again. He knew exactly what he wanted, he had made up his mind as soon as he realized this one was deaf too.

He wanted to die. Tonight.  

Some of Which Should Probably Be Removed

Take one.
Transcribed verbatim from Kevin Nix's Facebook page, December 27, 2011:

As the year draws to a close, looking back I can say with no hyperbole that 2011 was the hardest, most challenging, and most rewarding year of my entire life. I can't wait to see what the future holds.

One of the interesting things about becoming an adult and getting older is that you're always learning something new about becoming an adult and getting older. Here's one: no matter how bad you think things can get, they can always get worse.
2011 was, indeed, a challenging year. I had some of the lowest lows and the highest highs. I plumbed the darkest depths of depression and made one of the most difficult decisions of my post-high school career.
The Summer of 2012 made 2011 seem like a cakewalk.

Take two.
I've been gone awhile. I had to take some time off because I got really sad. Three days in an inpatient psych ward, one visit by the police, countless nights spent up with friends worrying, approximately one pint of tears, one scar, two incredibly frightening phone calls, several burned bridges, several cartons of cigarettes, and a new daily regiment of 300 milligrams of bupropion a day later, I can say that I'm feeling a little bit better.

Take three.
Okay, so maybe I wasn't completely serious going in, and maybe I botched the execution horribly, but you can go fuck yourself if you think I didn't at least think I knew what I was doing at the time. I got scared. You would too. It's fucking scary. It's like a separate, ethereal, intangible entity that can enter and exit you at will, often with very little warning. It is highly resilient. It is both yourself and detached. It is both your mind and someone else's. You have to learn how to fight it. You have to learn to recognize the signs and brace yourself. You have to be strong. You have to pick yourself up after being defeated; over, and over, and over, and over. You do not get to quit. You have to do whatever it takes to defend yourself against it.
You have to do these things, or it will kill you.
There are steps. There is a process. There are options. You can choose to buy into them or you can choose to go it alone. Except you were going it alone the whole time and where did that get you? Think again. Go back, re-evaluate. Maybe this will work.
Recognize your strengths. Set goals: daily, short-term, long-term. Take inventory. Learn to control your breathing. Keep a journal. Take your medicine. Keep cards with names, lists, and phone numbers in your wallet. Don't try to go it alone. Remember not to always trust what your mind is telling you. Relax. Remember that the world is not going to work with you. Prepare for the unexpected.

Take four.
If I were an addict, he'd be my heroin. There he is, coming towards me. Beeline. Quick, turn around. Puff on that cigarette. Harder. Inhale. Hold it in. Let it out. Glance back, but the words are already escaping his lips and they're directed towards me. My head swims, vision goes blurry. Was that him or the nicotine? Nevermind, this is actually happening. Focus. The wind is blowing hard. It's hard to hear. Ask him to repeat that. Frown. I try pretending that he isn't shattering the almost zen-like focus I'd built for myself as a survival mechanism over the past three weeks. Wait. Oh shit, I can feel it. My feet are floating towards him unconsciously. I didn't command myself to do this. Fuck you, brain. Cooperate. He's speaking now. Real words, he's real and he's here and he's in front of me oh jesus christ he's smiling now wait no please don't apologize it's my fault i'll never do it again i promise oh please god don't be mad at me
That was it, I can feel it now. He's flowing into my veins. Oh come on, I thought I was over this. This goes against everything I've been working on. No, I don't mind that you're a mess. Hey I'm a mess too. Let's be a mess together.

Take five.
Okay, so that was a little melodramatic. See? That's how easy it is. To fall back, I mean. To lose progress. Slide backwards. But I can choose not to think like that. They taught me that. I may not be able to control my environment or what happens to me, but I can choose how to react to it. I can train myself to treat love like a gift instead of a disease. It does not have to cripple me. Make it something healthy. Learn the signs. Learn how to anticipate and react. The process works if you believe it can. Not everyone believes it will. Don't listen to them. Your normal cognitive patterns are what brought you here in the first place. That's why we're fundamentally altering them. We're going to make you better.

Take six.
It's good to be back. I've had a lot of support along the way. No one gets this far without it. You know who you are. You know you are loved and appreciated. I could go on, but some things really are better kept to myself. Let's get creative again.

Still Me

Burn another evening, and watch the hours tick away, while I continue to try to scrub the scent of past lovers off my palms. You infect every pore, not so much a human presence but a viral essence, until I don't want to sleep anymore. My eyes grow red and weary, staring at the ceiling, praying for you to come along and sweep me off my feet.
A series of precisely calculated missteps that throw the entire machinery of these carefully laid plans into disarray, now I gaze upon the wreckage and wonder where I went wrong.
Perhaps it was the moment you said "Please," or maybe it was when I said "Yes." Now the moments from my past tick by in my memory, and each one becomes a sinister herald portending my fate.
Like when I put the key in the ignition.
Like when you sat across from me with want in your eyes.
Like when I looked up at the stars and could have sworn they were all lined up and smiling just for me, and I smiled right along with them. But your smiles were lies.
Now where do I go from here? I do not want you so much as crave you. What started out so innocent quickly turned black and red, a poison I willingly injected into my veins, distorting the chemical concoction and creating an entirely new strain in my brain. This was new, this was safe. But now it has turned old and sour. New life? Old habits. Die hard? I know not any other way.
The crash and burn extended further than I could have possibly anticipated. Now you'd need a fucking search and rescue team to find my remains, scattered as they've become across this concrete jungle. Penniless and hopeless, desperate to find the missing ingredient. Was it you all along? No, we were destined to be alone.
Was it the itch you scratched that flipped the switch inside? Was it the fear of knowing you'd become part of something bigger than yourself? Is it my punishment for caring too much? Will you say you didn't feel it too, glowing so brilliantly between us you could feel the heat it emanated? Or was it a nuclear meltdown, signaling us to run away? Never before have I witnessed an act of passion so cold, an air of passivity so aggressive.
But it doesn't matter. Whatever path I'm on now, you are not in it. You are still you, and I am still me. Slightly more wounded and staggering, but still me. Somewhat defeated and lost, but still me. Still searching, still hoping, and still thinking about you...but still me.

Amazing Journey

Exactly one hundred twenty-six days ago, I silently made a decision. A promise to myself. In six more days, I will see that promise fulfilled.
Getting to this point required a large amount of hard work, dedication, and focus. Being that I am an inherently lazy individual, my definition of "hard work" is likely a little lax compared to others', but it felt like moving mountains.
This isn't something I came to overnight. It was an ongoing process, still is, something I take with a large grain of salt and no small amount of trepidation and fear. But, in the last five months, I think I've learned to conquer fear. Or at least quell it to such a minute sliver that I can effectively pretend it does not exist.
Not that I claim to have some sort of special knowledge or secret key to fulfillment; the only thing I know is that there are many things I do not know. I like to believe wisdom lies in knowing one's limitations, and I weigh these on a daily basis. The human condition, and striving to understand it, is a many fractured, contradictory science of ifs and buts. If I pretend I am unafraid, fear ceases to exist compounded with ignoring something does not make it go away, for instance.
In choosing to set my sights on reestablishing a life in Indiana, I hold no malice toward the life I built here, the people I met and knew, the accomplishments I made, and the immense help I received in doing so. You could go so far to say that nothing I have yet built for myself has been made independently, that to pat myself on the back for doing anything is selfish and ungrateful. Part of choosing to forge ahead in a new (yet old) place is in pursuit of true independence: living in a castle you built from scratch, with no help whatsoever.
I do not hold any illusion that I am there yet, or even that I am ready. For all of my hard work and dedication I poured into these last years, those efforts are nothing compared to the monumental task that lies before me. But what I am ready for, and I hold true for myself, is that accomplishing these goals is my number one priority.
When this year began, I had high hopes and dreams. Most of these were shattered completely (one of the reasons I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions; life changes too quickly and without notice to make those big-picture plans for yourself), but I did choose to climb out of the rubble and emerge a new man. I think I've done a well enough job. If you do not immediately recognize me, do not be afraid. Sometimes I do not even recognize myself. But I learned that it is a natural evolution, a fulfillment of early promise, a promise in itself of things to come.
I learned that wallowing in self-pity and misery is no way to live, but is in fact a great way to die (as I nearly discovered), so now I choose how to think. This may sound trivial, cliche, or void of any great philosophical truth, but I learned it is a great secret, one worth uncovering. Learning and choosing how to think. I learned that one of the greatest obstacles our generation faces is falling into a default mode of solipsism and self-centeredness, albeit in a different form than most people think of when they hear the word "selfish." I learned that my default mode of thinking is usually to assume that I am a victim, an unfairly treated and shit-upon individual whose struggles are so much more vast compared to others that I should be a martyr. I learned that feeling and thinking that the entire world is out to get me, that every other lifeform on earth's sole purpose was to fight and degrade me, is just as bad as solipsism, and a very sinister form of selfishness. I learned that in order to be who I want to be, I have to realize and accept the fact that I am but one man in a large sea of people, no bigger or more important than anyone else. Humbling yourself like this, I learned, is also extremely difficult, and does not happen overnight.
My transformation thus far has been multifaceted. I shed the shackles of the past, the memories and experiences that I feared had broken me as a human being and permanently labeled me "damaged goods." I accepted my mistakes, and purged many of the demons that had led me to this solipsistic attitude. I lost weight. I fought to change my physical appearance to reflect the changes within. I made straight A's in school for the first time in the history of my secondary and post-secondary education. I discovered renewed purpose through a talent I had previously assumed was worthless. I made it my mission to sharpen it. I made peace with a man I blamed for all my problems. I sought to learn how to strengthen the bonds between me and those I call friends. I strove to embrace change and accept it.
Change is a funny thing, though. I understand that it is the only thing you can rely on in life's journey. But I have also come to believe that part of this quest is to reject certain notions of change. We fight and struggle against the chaos of our journey to hold onto some things, to make sense of the storm and resolve some sense of order to our lives; to find some constant, some platform and base to rest on when we are weary, to collapse on when we are defeated, to get back up from when we are motivated, to celebrate on or cry in. I cannot tell if this is foolish or noble. But I believe that those of us that achieve it attain a certain level of happiness and fulfillment that others lack. I will go with the flow, and ride this wave, come what may, but along the way I will make sacrifices to hold onto the people I love. This is my test. This is my spirituality.
Just wait and see.

R.I.P. D.F.W.

Here is the scene:

V.F.W. Post #6917. The entire back room, which is about the size of a small indoor concert venue,¹ has been rented out for a baby shower. My cousin, whose mother has undertaken the mighty task of planning and pulling off this shindig, is the young mother-to-be. She has hired outside help to come in and strip and wax the floors, the cost of which I won't even bother to divulge here.² We arrive shortly before 11:00 AM to begin preparations.

Two rows of five fold out tables, each about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, are placed in the direct center of the room. The entire hall is flooded in fluorescent light, courtesy of three rows of five fixtures each. Each table has a light blue silk cloth draped on top of it, along with chintzy centerpieces, party favors, small baby-bottle shaped containers of candy and gummy bears, and small blue pens (the purpose of which will only be revealed later). Each table has eight fold out chairs stationed around it, four on each side. The east and west walls are adorned with heavy, dark, navy blue curtains to cover up the dart boards that hang on the walls. Banners reading “IT'S A BOY!” are strung across the top of the curtains.

Small sandbag weights, each holding a plethora of multicolored helium balloons, are placed in the center of each table.

The south wall has four more such tables, each with matching tablecloths, clustered around it. Each table has about a dozen trays of Korean food. The husband of the young mother-to-be is half Korean, and his family (but mostly his mother's friends) have showed up en masse and each one has prepared native dishes. There is enough food to feed a small army.³ The western wall has two eight-by-four tables lined up alongside it, each with its own light blue tablecloth, with the addition of darker blue tableskirts attached around the edges, making them appear more festive. Perched on top of the tables is a multitude of presents and gifts. They completely fill the table, and getting them all to fit was not unlike an amateur game of Tetris. In addition to the bounty of presents are three separate cakes: one chocolate, one white, one marble.

The tables with the presents are also adorned with helium balloons, and excess balloons are placed on top of unused, stacked-up chairs in the far northwest corner. Thin, blue paper streamers are strung across the ceiling, meticulously twisted just so as to give them a helical shape, and crisscrossed to meet in the center, where another cluster of balloons are hanging from the ceiling.⁴ Also along the western wall is a sine wave of colored lantern-lights hanging from the ceiling, which are plugged in to the northern wall via extension cord.

The extravagance of the occasion cannot be overstated.

Guests begin flooding in shortly after 2:00 PM, and I wisely choose a corner seat in the back (i.e., the north end), a vantage point from which to observe. I am here to determine the answer to a question that has been nagging in my brain since the whole thing started: what really is the point of a baby shower?

Food is served immediately. The line takes over fifteen minutes to get through, and all the people standing in it constitute a veritable melting pot of cultures; an Americana microcosm. Koreans outnumber Anglos and Hispanics about 2-to-1, of which there is about an equal number of, and there is one lone Brit. His name is James, and the task of keeping him company sort of fell on me by proxy. Everyone else in my family has sort of fell into a separate niche of company, save for my youngest cousin, who is shoved so far up his girlfriend's ass it's hard to believe he's consciously aware of anything or anyone else around him. The final table in the buffet line is filled with over a dozen porcelain plates arranged on tiered platforms that contain fresh fruit and vegetables and dips of every conceivable variety. The honeydew melon is remarkably fresh.

James and I fill our plates to the brim and take our seats in the back. We don't speak much, he mostly makes pointed observations about how much different this ceremony is in the United States compared to the United Kingdom.⁵ I have no idea what any of the food on my plate is. Some of it I've had before at other social functions where Korean dishes were served, but I know not the names of these dishes nor what their ingredients are. Indeed, only one has meat in it so far as I can tell, the rest seems to be made up of rice, beans or seeds of some kind, and small, stringy, crunchy noodles that taste like something that would typically be fed to marine life in captivity. It smells like an indoor aquarium. My plastic fork snaps in half with a loud thwack when I attempt to cut into the meat, so I relegate myself to a mountainous heap of refrigerated deli spirals. My stomach begins to hurt after less than ten minutes.

My family is spread out rather linearly: my mother sits in the row in front of me, my aunt two rows in front of her, and my youngest cousin one row ahead of her. My cousin's girlfriend appears to be staring at me for the majority of the meal, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat, trying to avoid letting her know that I am aware that she is indeed staring at me and that it is making me uncomfortable. A large man in a red shirt and a backwards cap sits across from me and James. He has large tattoos on his arms in the design of pirate flags. I instantly despise him.

Despite this being a specialized celebration, there are in fact three pregnant women here.⁶

A cavalcade of small children (who were presumably only interested in consuming sweets) are running around the room, screaming at each other and making guttural noises that I cannot decipher. Three of them are small Hispanic girls, their pink and green dresses presenting an image so diametrically opposed to their demeanor it is downright frightening. They are like miniature, well-dressed nightmares.

After the meal, a raffle is held in the form of small games,⁷ the winners of which get to pick from a selection of pricey home appliances and sundries. No one seems to be really interested, despite the fact that my aunt's loud voice and years of experience as a teacher allows her to command the large room instantly and hold everyone's attention. Another couple sits down across from me and James. The man says to us “I'm not playing baby games,” then looks to whom I presume to be his wife and says “You can play baby games.” He and James sit and pick at the candy on the table, popping sweets into their mouths absently.

Instead of playing along, I continue to sit by myself and observe.⁸ I still haven't figured out what the point of all this is. I can't help but feel that it's kind of obnoxious. There are more gifts here being handed to the young mother-to-be than all of my birthdays and Christmases combined. And for what? They're technically supposed to be for the baby, but the baby isn't even here yet, so really they're for my cousin. It's not like the baby really needs them, or even has the capacity to be grateful for them. Sure, the baby needs clothes and diapers and such, but my cousin is well-off, and her husband can more than provide for the child. The whole affair is just gaudy.

A sort of post-meal lethargy steals over me, and I saunter outside to have a cigarette.⁹ It is well after 4:00 PM now. While I'm smoking, several guests begin filing out, heading home early. I contemplate jumping in my car and leaving as well, but, being part of the family, I will be expected to stick around and help clean up afterward. Leaving now would definitely assure me an ass-chewing later on. James peeks out momentarily and asks for a hit off my cigarette.¹⁰ I shudder to think of how much money this whole bonanza has cost the parties involved. Granted, my cousin's husband's mother is extremely well-off, and it means very little to her either way, so long as her son and daughter-in-law are satisfied, but this has undoubtedly put a severe strain on my side of the family.

After smoking, I find that the nicotine has done little to reinvigorate me, and I end up taking a small nap with my head on my arms at the table.¹¹ When I awaken, nearly everyone has left, and my cousin is still seated at the front of the western wall, unwrapping presents. My mother is sitting next to her with a pad and pencil, diligently documenting everything she receives and collating the various cards and notes attached to the presents. I stumble groggily to the refrigerator behind the tables of food, which several Korean ladies are beginning to clean up and put away before leaving, and get a bottle of water, then slouch back down in a chair and check my phone. Some of the balloons seem to empathize with me. 5:30 PM. My youngest cousin is already gone, he had the good sense to get out before he was asked to do any manual labor, and is most likely at home right now boinking his girlfriend. I shudder again and shove this thought from my mind.

Finally, after the last present is unwrapped, and everything is loaded into my cousin's husband's truck, and the trash has been taken out to the dumpster in the dirt parking lot, and the folding chairs and tables have been picked up and stowed away in the northwest corner, and the floors have been swept, and the streamers taken down, and the leftovers loaded up in my aunt's car, and the balloons shoved in the backseat, and everyone double checking their pockets to make sure they haven't forgotten anything, and all the perfunctory hugs and goodbyes have been executed, I make my way back to my car, which has been sitting in the sun for over seven hours now, put my key in the ignition, shrug and say “Well, at least we got a free meal out of it,” then pull away, and merge onto the highway in the setting sun.

1 For anyone reading who has been to the Emerson Theatre in Indianapolis, you wouldn't be far off.

2 Hint: it's a three digit number, and the first digit is larger than five.

3 I have no idea what this expression means. How large is a “small army”? There were roughly eighty people in attendance, but this hardly constitutes any army, even a small one. Suffice to say, there was a shitload of food.

4 These particular balloons are not filled with helium, for obvious reasons of elementary physics.

5 Including, but not limited to, calling diapers “nappies”.

6 One of the attendees, in fact, seems confused as to which baby's arrival she is supposed to be celebrating.

7 Mostly puzzles involving coming up with words for animals using each letter of the alphabet (the entire shower is centered around the theme of Noah's Ark and under-the-sea type gaiety), and a house variation on “The Price is Right.”

8 It's not like I could really win, anyway. I'm technically part of the group that's hosting the celebration, and awarding me prizes would undoubtedly be seen as nepotism; besides which, none of the items on display really interest me.

9 Salem Menthols, which I got on sale, and are not my preferred brand.

10 Which he affectionately refers to as a “square.”

11 A practice which I perfected in high school, and still to this day seems like second nature to me, despite the incredibly awkward posture involved.