Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Hating my Burglars in London

One of the regular treats of any visit of mine to London is a reunion with a group of colleagues from the job I held for over 8 years, in a non-profit agency. Once I was no longer their manager, four members of my team and I became very dear friends. We gather in London when I come to town, every few years. Sarah travels from Dublin; Jo and Jules from different parts of Suffolk; and CC from Sheffield.

This was the very first time we did an overnight. I was house and cat-sitting in Crystal Palace, a deeply southern part of London whose fortunes have escalated since a new train line was inaugurated for the Olympics. The village has wonderful cafes, restaurants, junk/charity/vintage shops – and the property values are getting out of hand. Along the whole area runs a large park with everything from a major sports arena to a museum of the great Crystal Palace which burnt down to an amazing Victorian sculpture garden of dinosaurs.

We have a divine time hanging out the first day and on the second day we breakfast at my “regular” café, all the proceeds for which go to supporting women who have been hurt by their partners. (I hate the term “domestic violence” – it always sounds like someone is taking a beating from their condo.)

Jules and Jo have to leave by noon, and CC and Sarah try to convince me to join them in tootling around central London. I am torn: I want to spend more time with them, especially playing along the river, but I have an apartment to clean, suitcases to pack for departure tomorrow, and a union newsletter to work on. I convince them to at least stop by the place where I am cat-sitting for a cup of tea before they continue on. They agree.

This ground-floor flat is entered not from the front (where a carving proudly announces it was built in 1883), but through the back, garden gate. It’s a wobbly green wooden door with an old-fashioned lock that leads into the owner’s garden of potted plants and a table and chairs. There I am to use a different key to let me into the kitchen door which is half-glass, half-wood.

However, on this occasion, as I stand at the garden gate, I notice something amiss. “What the fuck is the matter with the door?” I ask my friends. “Look here, something doesn’t look right.” I easily push the door in – without using my key – and then suddenly two guys explode out of the garden, pushing past us and running down the road.

My friends told me later that I screamed at the guys, “I hate you! No! No!” and that I scared the crap out of them. I was going to run and try to take them down because I could see one was wearing a bulging backpack and all I could think of was my laptop.  Instead I go through the garden to find that the kitchen door is still closed and locked. There is a heavy shovel leaning against the door and on examination we can see that they had battered the door near the lock to try to get in. Five minutes later and we would’ve walked into a crowded apartment with two blokes grabbing things and no way to get out. Scary stuff.

And what things were there to grab? The owner has only one large and one medium flat screen tv. And  a DVD player – all too big for their backpacks. On the other hand, I have my precious laptop, a Kindle, an iPhone, a lot of cash, credit cards from two countries. Too much to think about.

How lucky am I to have my mates there? Fucking lucky. First I call the neighbor upstairs, my emergency contact. He suggests calling the police, but I am hesitant to call the cops to the home of someone else without their permission. The neighbor says he suspects they were junkies just trying to grab something to pawn. But none of the three of us think they were junkies. They looked like healthy high-school kids, clean-cut, nice clothes – one in his early teens and one in his late teens. Sarah thinks they must be brothers because of their quick non-verbal communication, their decision to make a run for it just as I push open the door.

I call my friend Sue next – she’s my trusty advisor – and she agrees with me that I should check with the owner before ringing the cops. So I call the owner in Romania. He says to call the cops. I do – giving them all the info that collectively the three of us can recall about the would-be burglars’ descriptions, etc., and they quickly send around two cops who ask us all the questions all over again. The cops say they have about 10 such incidents per day.

We three women are feeling a little wobbly in the knees and shaky in the hands as we go through possible scenarios and timings. The heavy shovel could have been a profoundly deadly weapon, swung at unsuspecting faces. There were numerous recycling glass bottles in the corner near the door they were trying to bash that could have been used to slash flesh. One of them could have had a knife. I could’ve gone touring with my mates and come home hours later to the amputation of my computer.

I tell the girls I’m okay and that they should go. I decide that I am not up for sleeping in the nearly-violated flat alone and that I will pack up and get out a day early. I call Sue to announce that I am descending on her hospitality, poor thing, and then I spend a few intense hours making it happen.

I email Barry back in Boston and he calls to give me some support and sympathy. The thing that continues to feel odd is the fact that I don’t remember screaming, “I hate you! No! No!” – but there is no doubt about it, as there were two reliable witnesses. What those words? Why not my usual “Fuck you”? I instantaneously thought of my laptop – of nothing else – because I am on a writing holiday, because I live on my computer, because it holds my entire life, for so many reasons that make it my most precious device.

I’m writing this from Sue’s place, where I am comfortable and cozy and simply drained. Withered. Depleted.

Nothing happened. CC, Sarah, and I stopped the burglary. But still, we are reminded of how our lives can change in frightening ways in the turn of a key.

From Chico’s to Transportation Security Administration Harassment

As many American women of a certain age and a certain flair know, Chico’s is the place to go for two types of fashion items: perfect indestructible travel garments and clothes that sparkle. I do wear the Chico brand – I know I’m marking myself as a fashion loser by admitting this in print – but I have always obtained mine when people’s mothers die or in second hand shops. New Chicos are beyond my reach.

However, I happened online to see a glorious no-iron cotton shirt with a stand-up collar in a radiant emerald that was half price right before my departure for five weeks in England and Italy. I drove the 40 minutes to the closest shop, where the window bragged of a “buy 1; get 2nd half price” sale. I consider that obnoxious non-consensual retail and so entered the store in a grumpy mood and complained. If you want to give me a discount, give it me. Don’t make me buy things I don’t want.

The saleswoman probably felt she wasn’t paid enough to deal with pissed off patrons so she passed me off to the manager Barbara, with whom I bonded immediately. She started trying in the most charming way to sell me a suitcase of items, not the least a soft, cuddly, comfy, warm, attractive travel outfit from their new travel line Zenergy. Grey with sequins. It was an outfit I could wear with pride in any Florida senior center full of Brooklyn sunbirds over 85. Fit perfectly. (See the model on the left.)

I overheard a woman talking about her 50% email offer and when I came out of the dressing room, I asked Barbara for my 50% off. She said, No problem, and tried to look up my account (which I’ve never had.) “Cancelled all my retail emails,” I lied. She searched by my name, my credit card, every which way. She searched Sue Katz and came up with 162 accounts. Finally she searched by my present address and it came up Phyllis Katz. My dead evil mother. “Bingo” says I. “I must have been using my mother’s credit card.” So that was my 50% off of the jacket. Barbara found a $25 coupon to help with the pants. Finally she explained that although the online shirt sale said half-off, it was only for the beige, and not the emerald, but as it was confusing, she’d give me that too.

The first problem I noticed with the travel outfit on the day of travel was that the straps of my backpack (used only when I travel) rubbed exactly where the sequins are. Bad design. The second issue was a major disaster, one that got me in trouble with the law. Not only did the sweater sequins look suspicious to the TSA X-ray machine, the matching sparkly seam down the sides of the pants did too. “I’m going to have to pat you down wherever there are clothes,” said the uniformed woman with the whiney voice and sour face.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “You can see the sparkly bits match the dots on your machine,” I pointed.

“That’s the rule,” she insisted. “Come over here.”

“I don’t want you to touch me,” I said.

“Are you 75? We don’t have to body search anyone over 75.” She giggled. I was not amused.

She started running her hands – “just where you have clothes” she said. As if not touching my ear lobes made it all right. “I’m now going to run my hands under your breasts.” She did, and it felt like an attack. “Now I’m going to run my hands up your legs, now the inside.”

I was twitching and cringing and moving and jumping and objecting. Then she touched my pussy. “You touched my privates!” I said loudly.

She took offense. “I did not. That was the back of my hand. Imagine how I feel. You think I want to do this? You think I like this? I’d like to get a little sympathy here.” She was serious.

She did the same thing on the other side, running her hand up. “You touched my privates again!” “No I didn’t. Anyway, you’re done.”

“What’s your name? I’m going to report you for touching my pussy.”

“My name is Lynch,” she said reluctantly. I walked away, saying loudly, “Lynch. Lynch touched my private parts!” She yelled at my back, “I did not! I did not!” I kept walking in as resolute a way as a woman who has been assaulted by an obnoxious undertrained piglet can do.

I must say that once I was in the hands, not literally, of Sergio, the lovely British Airline flight attendant, I was able to relax. BA does such a better job than USA airlines. Lots of video entertainment if you like that sort of thing, headset included free. Decent food. Lots of drink. Decent-ish tea. Quiet crowd. I lucked out: I had a woman in front of me (so she didn’t recline) and another next to me (so she didn’t have to take up all the space to air out her balls.)

My big challenge on arrival was dealing with my luggage for a long trip to (the rather fabulous) Crystal Palace area where I am cat-sitting a cat named Lucky, a place so south in South London that not only have I never been here, my friend Sue O’Sullivan, who has lived in London for 50 years, has never been here. I had to switch several times, but at Victoria Station there were several unavoidable flights of stairs – no escalator, no lift. At every instance where I needed help, someone anticipated the problem and offered help. I never had to ask. A young woman or a young man simply volunteered. Up the endless stairs at Victoria. Lifting my suitcase over the turnstile after I had paid (!) my 30 pence to pee. Watching my bags because they didn’t fit into the stall. Helping to drag them up the hill to this lovely flat.

The flat is terrific. I’m working at a rather majestic roll-top desk (see snapshot). The rain has let up. It’s chilly but I was warned. I’m at my computer as you can see. I love being abroad. But I need to tell Chico’s to get back to the drawing board. This outfit might be great in a car or train, but this outfit sucks for travel on planes.

Here is the comedian Hari Kondabolu talking about TSA.