What Any Woman Does When Faced With Trauma - Find Fabio!
Written 1995. Last Edit June 1998
I put off writing this at the time - too much trauma. 1995 was a year I could have done without.
My then 18 year-old left home on a Friday - dosed up on painkillers - he had just had his tonsils out - and determined to drive 500 miles to San Francisco. He had the 87 Van (pristine at this point), a TV, VCR, Sega game set, clothes, a bed (office desk and bunk assembly), a computer and money. Mine.
He had been out of high school since June. It was now January. He had worked a few weeks at the company I worked for - in the systems support area.
He had solved several problems for them. When asked how he had managed, he answered "I read the manual". Interesting thought. He had also recovered several crashed hard drives (a saboteur had done his or her best to destroy my marketing department - he had recovered nearly 90% of the data. Good boy!) He had demonstrated that he could hold a job. (He's now on the front desk at Cisco Systems - a Sr. Systems Analyst.)
But, he needed to leave home. It was time. I can never sleep if they aren't in the house. He roamed in at 4AM. I took exception to rainbow flags on my balcony.
He had spent all of his college money on video games and party time. He did not want to go to college. Not yet. He wanted a job up North. My second child's college fund will require two signatures to raid. I learned.
So he went. (He came back for his Eagle court.)
I won't say I did not have my foot firmly pressed on his backside. I had ambitions of finishing one of the novels on which I had been working. I had visions of peace and quiet. I had visions of saving up for retirement. None of these things could be done with him living at home. There just comes a time.....
The very next Monday, I was downsized.
Now, understand, I had sent my last loose change with the now-departed child. I had no savings. I had a mortgage. Car payments. And San Diego was in a recession. Depression was probably a better description. General Dynamics had dumped 17,000 engineers into the market. Followed by all the minor companies that it had supported. Top Gun was leaving. So was the rest of the defense industry. Stores were closing. I know jobs there were nil - I had been looking for four years.
It would take nearly $10,000 to repair the house - the boy left not one door on its hinges and in one case, the boy's bathroom, there was no door. Nor was there one on the linen closet. And their bathroom sported cabinets with the doors at half mast. A peeling tub. A broken tub enclosure. Holes in plaster walls.
I painted every year. I plastered every year. But the hallway banister was down 48 hours after the contractor put it up. Three times. And the older one put the younger one through the wall for good measure - part of him anyway. The bonus room showed signs that they didn't know I knew they shot BBs into the plaster with rubber bands and in some cases, marbles. They did this where shelving would hide it from view and immediate discovery. I discovered it every year.
The contractor in such a hurry to get out of the house that I was left with an uneven lower floor. (He also used the wrong floorcovering - a cheap grade that was already showing signs of impending disaster.)
I had spent a lot on a new stove, a 70-gallon water heater, a top of the line dishwasher, a Jacuzzi bathtub, and garbage disposal. For me. Now I needed to repair the sprinklers.
I was on the phone and on e-mail for hours every day looking for a job lead. And painting and cleaning the rest of the time. Seventeen bags of clothes, drapes and toys and stray furniture was tagged for sale or disposal. We stopped movies. We shopped carefully. No clothes. Games. Nonessentials. The house had to be ready to show. I could not afford to recarpet - we offered it in escrow.
My youngest was convinced we would be homeless. I had to reassure him that it would take months for us to get close to that stage, if ever. I said we would simply ditch everything we had except the computers in a garage sale, dump the house or rent it and I would take whatever job I found. I told him that, with my resume, if I am not working, nobody is!
Secretly, I was terrified that at over 50, I would lose everything I had saved so far bowever little it was and would be back at ground zero. Unemployment would pay 7% of my income (seven percent!) [They never paid and still own me nearly $1000. It's another story. ] It would not even come close to making the mortgage payment. What little stock I had left was dumped to pay for repairs.
In the middle of this comes word of the Fabio Fan Club meeting - two days up in LA (this was 1995). I was going. Period. We would stay in a hotel. One night. An indulgence. A compromise. I would have liked to have stayed for both nights.
I had a job interview right after it (a job I would take - but I didn't know it then). And I had to plan the older child's Eagle court.
I needed a hug.
My younger son went with me. Not happily. We pulled in at night - the meeting was the next day. (There was supposed to be an auction that night but it was a bit of a bust.)
I made a new suit. I was, at the time, growing out of clothes as fast as I made them. (We hadn't discovered the thyroid-estrogen link yet.) I wasn't too thrilled. You can't stop aging, but you don't have to go quietly! Especially when you are also job seeking.
There were two days scheduled - and a mob to go with it. They decided to use randomly drawn letters to set up a queue and I pulled a letter telling me I had to be there the next day. Impossible! I was driving back that night. So I did something I never do. I screwed up my nerve and I spoke to Eric and he got me jumped up in line. Bless him. Maybe I looked as frayed as I was feeling by then.
My camera jammed. (It was not the camera's fault.) I didn't need to panic. Fabio was very patient and kept a very firm grip on me while my second camera was set up (thank goodness I had brought it). He insisted on several pictures. He autographed photos for me. I did tell him that my son was at that point up in the room punching out the Fabio pillow we had been given. That got a laugh.
I left feeling much better. Much.
My son and I loaded our luggage into the car and I got ready to drive back to San Diego. I was waiting for the "rush hour" to be over.
Just before I finally pulled out, Fabio and Eric came out to the parking lot - I got to show them my truck with the FABIOFN license plate. That plate really cracked Fabio up. Fabio posed with me again for a picture or two by the truck --- taken by my younger son. I got to lean on that chest again. In another very firm and secure hug. Nice man!
Only problem, my son used a telephoto setting!
I told you, my kids plot these things. It's OK. I remember.
PS. I still have the house in San Diego - it's rented out. And I am adding a room onto the second house I own in Northern California. But the younger boy is adamant about moving back down to San Diego (or, as he says, "home") while he goes to college. We shall see.
I haven't seen Fabio since. Not in person.
I haven't worked on my novels either.
I do spend a lot of time on his website though......
My "old" Truck - Fabio laughed at the plates - they are now
(2002) on the new Tacoma!
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