A Liturgy for Getting Robbed

All this started because we bought a minivan.

But first, our babysitter quit. It was a Monday night at 10 p.m. and she sent a text. I’m so sorry but I’ve realized I’ve taken on too much this summer and I won’t be coming back Wednesday or ever again, and I know your kids will be sooooo happy to have more time with you because it was all they asked me for every minute!! Thanks for the opportunity xoxo. I bent over double, toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, staring at the counter. I’d hired this person to provide a bit of respite: ten hours a week. I thought I might write, or run a quarter of a mile, or maybe, I don’t know, wash my armpits for once in my life. Ten hours. That was all I wanted. That, and maybe two weeks’ notice. Was that too much to ask?

Okay, God, what now?

A friend put it best when she said, “Moms are people too!”

Seriously, Lord, am I a person too?

A few days later, I saw the Barbie movie. I enjoyed the spectacle, the color, all that pink. But I walked out of the theater feeling a bit perplexed and a little depressed. Greta Gerwig is an exceptional writer and director. She made a great case for why it’s hard to be a woman in our culture — all the contradictions and paradoxes and Catch-22s — but she didn’t seem to offer all that much hope. In the end (spoiler alert), after the much-ballyhooed America Ferrara monologue, Barbie chooses to leave Barbie-land behind and become fully human. But why? Maybe it’s because I’m thirty-six years old, with two kids under age five. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed and so worthless all at the same time. I walked out of the theater with the eerie and poignant Billy Eilish ballad ringing in my head.

Our Father, what were we made for?

A wise neighbor said, “Happiness is the difference between expectations and reality, and expectations can be lowered.”

The following week, since I no longer had the help of a babysitter, my children joined me on an hour-long adventure to a used car dealership in Clarksville, Tennessee to test drive a Toyota Sienna. After trying out a fleet of SUVs, Patrick and I finally admitted that a minivan would add a much-needed layer of convenience to our increasingly complicated family life. But, plot-twist!, minivans are nearly impossible to find. (Turns out, I’m not the only person willing to trade ego for ease.) In Clarksville, my boys and I climbed into the 2021 Sienna, only to be hit by something caustic. It smelled like a dead rat was rotting in the air vent. “We can take care of that,” the salesman said. He had very yellow teeth. When I asked if he wanted to join us for the test drive, he said no, he had other things he could do while we kicked the tires. I gave it a cursory spin — we’d driven an hour to see it, after all — then handed the keys back and drove home.

Lord, teach me to lower my expectations.

That night, while scrolling AutoTrader, I caught sight of the holy grail: a fully-loaded gently-used Honda Odyssey available and within a 20-minute drive of Nashville. The next day, I loaded the kids up once more, and we went, again, to a car dealership. “Do you think this place has a vending machine?” my older son asked.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, let this place have a vending machine.

Much to my surprise and delight — the van smelled like fresh leather. It smelled like road trips to the mountains and to the beach. It smelled like carpools and possibility. I had not planned on buying the car alone with a five-year-old and three-year-old in tow. But I was Phi Beta Kappa, dammit. I was magna cum laude. I was made for this. I bought the kids Cheetos and a soda and told them to be quiet. Mom needs to negotiate.

Which brings me to getting robbed.

We took a joy ride on Saturday in our new minivan to one of our favorite hiking trails. We unloaded, left our wallets and phones in a special hidden compartment in the Odyssey console, then locked the doors and headed out for the 2.5-mile trek. Or at least, we thought we locked the doors. It’s a new car. The buttons are all unfamiliar. Do you press it once or twice? Do you have to wait for a beep? Who’s to say?

By the time we returned, all of our credit cards had disappeared. In the hours we were hiking, the thief had attempted to charge more than $12,000 on five different cards — all of which had been pilfered out of our wallets while we splashed, unaware, in the nearby creek. In a stroke of generosity (or strategy?), the thief left our driver’s licenses and our iPhones (all of which were in reach). And we were lucky — within a few minutes of discovering we’d been robbed, Patrick and I were calling our banks, canceling everything. We’re pretty sure we won’t have to cover any of the charges.

Dear Jesus, thank you for sparing me a trip to the DMV.

Here’s what no one tells you: adulthood is chock-full of menial tasks and unexpected inconveniences. Parenthood is a spiritual education in maintaining inner peace while suffering near-constant interruption. When you’re left hanging, when you’re overwhelmed by reality, when you’re robbed blind, you’re left with two choices. You can rage or you can pray. For me, rage and prayer often sound the same.

Someone should tell Barbie. Humanity requires flat feet and knees that bend.

Dear Lord in Heaven, please don’t let that $12,000 transaction go through.

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Recent Favorites

ARTICLE: A Bunny’s Tale Part I and Part II by Gloria Steinem (1963). I’ve been delving more into the 1970s as research for my novel, and this week, that research sent me into Hugh Hefner’s Playboy club with Gloria Steinem. In 1963, on a magazine assignment, she infiltrated the Playboy club as a Playboy bunny and then wrote an exposé. None of this will end up in the novel, of course. But interesting nonetheless. In that day, the commodification of women was far more overt.

ESSAY: I Put On Lipstick for This? by Rebecca Anne Nyguen. Speaking of the commodification of women, my friend Rebecca wrote this incredibly funny essay about “later in life” dating for The New York Times. Go Rebecca!!

LISTEN: Barbara Kingsolver Thinks Urban Liberals Have it All Wrong on Appalachia. The Ezra Klein Podcast. I absolutely loved the book “Demon Copperhead” and this podcast was an excellent companion, to help understand Kingsolver’s writing and research process. She’s spot on, and I think understanding her argument is very important as we move into another election cycle.

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One More Thing…

Can I toot my own horn for a second? The average e-mail open rate across all industries is around 21%. The same is true for Substack. I am proud to say The Forest Is Mostly Dark’s average open rate is an incredible 73%. Seventy-Three Percent! That statistic is mind-blowing. THANK YOU. Thank you! It is an absolute privilege to send you these newsletters, and I do not take your time or attention for granted. Your responses give me the courage to keep going.

— Claire