Pathologically Genuine Draft of Chapter 4 (more like 3.5): The Birth of Coping.
vending machines, dogs, and coping with the humiliation of stuttering
In chapter 3, I discussed quirks that developed that started to show difference. Originally, I was planning to move into my happy childhood with new traits appearing in chapter 4, setting the stage for a negatively transformational move from Pittsburgh to Connecticut.
Yet, I am very emotionally tied to stories I had written previously about vending machines, dogs and stuttering. Those were originally written as self-contained essays, so I wasn’t quite sure where to place them.
In thinking about those elements, I realized that these were the early stages of developing coping mechanisms. So, it seemed like these stories make a great interlude chapter between the development of traits of difference, and the evolution of my childhood. So, now I have Chapter 1 framing the big question; Chapter 2, framing where I came from; Chapter 3- first signs of difference; Chapter 4 – first signs of coping mechanisms. Chapter 5 will be how these all played out in a happy childhood that would be blown to pieces in Chapter 6.
Chapter 4 (really like 3.5)-
Before life got harder, I had unknowingly begun building strange little coping systems to help me navigate a confusing world. I seemed to need comfort, predictability, and emotional safety more than other kids.
The coping systems might seem unconventional or naïve: vending machines, dogs, and learning how to survive in conversational purgatory because of stuttering.
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Vending machines were an obsession when I was in my pre-teens. They were predictable. I still think there is no better match between the effort expended and the immediate reward of that effort then the vending machines of the 1960s. If I wanted to say buy a package of “Good and Plenty,” vending machines required me to insert a quarter and exert some physical effort pulling out the lever and the prize would appear in an open slot.
Yet, the result was never really certain because I couldn’t see the items in the machine, only the pictures above the levers. Nonetheless, the prize I wanted was always dispensed into the open slot. Vending machines taught me that the comfort of predictability can exist in places, even in an uncertain world.
Candy was not the only item I sought. I liked any vending machine that gave me that sense of comfort, predictability, and a prize. Many bathrooms those days had smaller vending machines that dispensed “Wash and Dry” towelettes. I loved those machines, too, even though I was never one to worry much about washing my hands. The towelettes were still a comforting, predictable prize.
A bathroom vending machine, however, was the only vending machine that ever really let me down
One of my favorite restaurants in Pittsburgh was Minutello’s. It was in the basement of an old hotel. It was a seedy hotel back in the mid-late sixties. But I didn’t care because I loved the place.
We went their often. They had a wonderful antipasti salad filled with Italian delicacies, the world’s best marinara sauce, and an exceptionally good pizza. I always pigged out. But I was very thin. Probably from all the calories I burned pulling the levers of vending machines.
There was a cool vending machine in the men’s bathroom at Minutello’s. I was at the restaurant with my mother and my brother one evening. I felt an urgent need to engage in a donor-recipient interaction with that vending machine and enjoy my prize of the quick drying towelettes. So, I begged my mom for a quarter. She succumbed to my cuteness. So, I excitedly skipped into the bathroom to claim my prize.
I put my quarter into the slot, turned the handle, and out came a plastic package that looked nothing like towelettes. I was confused, but also optimistic. I mean I trusted that good things always came out of vending machines.
I ripped open the package with my seven or so-year-old hands. The package did not contain towelettes. And the object I removed didn’t look like candy or a toy. It was an ugly brown color and looked like the weirdest balloon I had ever seen.
Embarrassment was not a feeling that had developed yet. I had no problem bringing my newfound curiosity back to the table and announcing to my mom and brother (and to the entire restaurant), “Look at this weird balloon!”
They responded with hysterical laughter causing all of the other diners to focus on our table. I really couldn’t have cared less. I was focused because I wanted to know why I got such a weird balloon.
I don’t think my mother or brother actually told me it was a condom that day. I hadn’t had any “birds and bees” conversations yet. They must have done the smart thing with me. They got me to focus on something else I was really interested in, probably the food.
This was not a good first exposure to a condom. My reaction was disappointment and confusion. How could a trusted vending machine let me down by giving me a weird balloon? Later in my life, my sex drive was (and is) well below average. Perhaps the bathroom at Minutello’s contributed to that condition.
This was also the first time in my life that a vending machine failed me. The need for predictability and comfort was still there, but I could no longer trust vending machines to fulfill that need.
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I turned to dogs.
Frisky, my childhood dog, was a mixed breed black dog. In my memory, she was as large as a giant labrador retriever, but I think she was no more than thirty-five pounds. Despite her small size, her impact was as a big as a large meteor crashing into the earth.
She was everything I needed then to regulate my emotions and easily filled the void of vending machines.
She provided comfort and predictability. She also genuinely both liked and loved me no matter what I did and never, ever rejected me.
Frisky was an urban farm dog. Instead of herding and protecting farm animals, her job was herding and protecting me.
My parents would shoo me out the house to go play. She would follow me down the street in my baggy comfortable clothes and Keds or Converse tennis shoes (people not from Pittsburgh would call then sneakers). No matter what I did whether it was playing softball in the empty lot on our street or playing a board game like Risk on someone’s porch, she would wait for me and then walk me home.
When I walked to school, she would try to follow me, making me turn around and shut her in the house despite her protestations. I would not have twirled my hair and pulled it out in school had she had been allowed to come with me.
At the end of the school day, I would experience a celebration. Frisky acted like she had been waiting for me all day. She probably had been.
If I was sad or hurt in my relationship with my parents, or other kids, or recovering from a teasing incident with my brother, she was my source of comfort and therapy. I would cuddle with her on the floor in our upstairs hallway and she would heal the injured spirit.
No other pets but dogs have ever been able to do that for me. There is a true evolutionary bond between humans and dogs. But I certainly considered other pets as I aged and was in a situations where having a dog was difficult.
Pet rocks would have likely been my second choice. There are reasons why I now think that these inanimate companions might have been good for me.
Pet Rocks don’t require much care. You don’t have to feed a pet rock, meaning there would be one less thing to worry about when life got overwhelming
Rocks never need to go to the vet, which reduces anxiety about a sick companion. And rocks don’t die.
Rocks are noticeably quiet and seem to be very good at listening, so I never felt sensory overwhelm with a rock. They also don’t make noises that annoy me like humans do by chewing loudly or walking on hard floors with hard-soled shoes.
It is also easy for me to imagine a rock loves my because they can’t tell you otherwise with words or actions.
Rocks are even as genuine as dogs.
Their major limitation is they have no idea how to comfort anything.
What about other pets?
I am allergic to cat hair and urine. When dog looks at me, I feel they either love me or that they want me to do something for them. When a cat looks at me, I feel they are sizing me up for their next meal.
I have a fondness for turtles because the idea of withdrawing into a shell was a superpower that I wish I had. But it is pretty easy to figure out with turtles that they would almost always rather be somewhere else other than a terrarium..
While pet rocks are low-maintenance and 100% genuine, I never adopted one because of their limitations. But there were periods of my teens and adult life where I did not have a canine companion. In those moments, I wish I had a pet rock.
Thanks to Frisky, I recognized how important dogs were for me to cope with a world that I didn’t understand. She was the first of fourteen dogs that provided comfort and coping Some will be revealed in following chapters.
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I loved going out to eat and I liked answering questions in class. Well, I Ioved it when words came out of my mouth. My enthusiasm was greatly diminished because I stuttered.
Ordering food or being asked a question in class put me in a spotlight for which I wasn’t prepared. Sometimes in those situations, no matter how hard I tried, words would not come out of my mouth.
I’d be sitting at a table at our favorite deli and be so excited to order my corned beef sandwich. The server would look at me, and my vocal chords would become paralyzed and no words were uttered.
My heart would sink as I could see the impatience of the server. I could feel the weight of what felt like thousand eyes looking at me, even though there were only twenty people in the restaurant.
It felt like hours sometimes before I could get any word out.
Sometimes others would grow so frustrated they would just shut me off and replace my word with what they thought I was trying to say, which was often wrong. Because I couldn’t get the hard “c” out of my mouth in corned beef, the waitress might say, “Do you want a coke?”
The harder I tried to get the word out of my mouth, the less likely it was for the word to be vocalized. Eventually, I could get the word out. When that happened, I experienced a sense of relief like a patient who just had their ventilator removed.
I also had to shrug off the shame of not being able to order something that began with a hard “c” (and other letters). It stung like a Yellowjacket. But stuttering happened daily, and my brain became tolerant, perhaps even immune, to the linguistic torture.
I still occasionally stutter these days, but I rarely notice. I was never professionally treated for stuttering. I guess I just grew out of it. Yet, sometimes, when I least expect it, the server will ask for my order, and I experience my vocal cords freezing
Thankfully, no one ever stuck their hands down my throat to try and pull the words out. They really would have never needed to because the words always come, even if it takes a few years.
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Even with these strange quirks, I still had a happy childhood. No teacher or classmate called me crazy. I had comforts, routines, and a dog—Frisky—that helped me navigate a world that still mostly felt safe.
That safety wouldn’t last forever.