Security

Jason has to leave to pick up the kids from school and Sonja has come to sit with me. Finally, the security guard comes out front and calls me. Security guards scare me, but this one surprises me and smiles. He's nice! He tells me I can come back. I hand my purse to Sonja. He tells me I have to take off my pearls. My pearls. As I hand them to Sonja, my mind flashes back to that Sunday. I see her giving them to me, telling me they were her mom's, that she inherited 3 strings of them when her mom died and that she wanted me to have one. A lump grows in my throat as I realize once again how blessed I am to have a sister like her. As I hand her those pearls, I ask her to please take care of them. They mean the world to me. Then the guard says I have to take out my scrunchi. I try not to be humiliated by my pony tail hair. After all, I'm heading into the looney bin. Really?! How much more humiliating can it get?! But still. I'm embarrassed. I hug Sonja goodbye and walk through the doorway.
My heart is beating rapidly as we walk down the hallway, but again, I am struck by how nice the guards are. Very friendly. Very respectful. And then he reaches for the rubber gloves. My heart starts to race! "Oh, HELL, no!" my mind screams. "I walked in here completely voluntarily and definitely did NOT sign up for this! LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!"
"Turn around, please, back to me"
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
"Arms out like an airplane."
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!!!!
As he pats down the outside of my clothing, through my pain and fog, I sense a giggle well up and I know this will be a story. The snapping of the rubber gloves. The panic filling my mind. The benign and uneventful pat down. The overwhelming relief that a stay in the nut house does not, in fact, include legal rape. Whoo!