Daisy is Outraged

I was delayed in my morning visit to The End of Time by a phone call from my older sister’s kid, Daisy. My niece is a junior in a college two time zones away and is not shy about confronting injustice with the precise verbal artillery she inherited from her mother (I never won an argument with my sister even once in my life. Even when I was right, she wore me down with her command of the English language and ability to speak with a tone that could cut through steel plates).

Her current outrage was aimed at an experience the day before at a major airport. She had made her way through the security process and found herself detained and subjected to questioning by a hefty man who appeared to be only a few years older than her. Here is how she described the event:

“Uncle Max, I’m telling you: This guy was a complete idiot. He opened my purse and pulled out something that he suspected could be a tool of terrorism. Aren’t you just DYING to know what is was?”

“Yes, Daisy,” I said. “I am dying.”

“Was it the miniature scissors that I always carry? Hmmm?”

“I’m betting not,” I said.

“How about the 3 ounce bottle of hair spray that could blind the flight attendant while I ripped off the alcohol cart? Would that be it?”

“Seems too obvious,” I offered.

“Or could it be the knitting needles that I brought so that I could work on the sweater I’m making for you for Christmas?”

“You’re making a sweater for me?”

“Maybe. But you could probably stab someone in the eyes with knitting needles, couldn’t you?” Daisy was getting louder, and I wondered when the crescendo would resolve itself so that I could find coffee.

“I think stabbings would be possible with knitting needles,” I said, “although I’m just speculating.”

“Of course,” she said. “Any moron would know that.” I was glad to be lumped in with the morons rather than the idiots.

“No,” she continued, “it wasn’t any of those things. Let me tell you what it was.”

I had a flashback of my sister working her way through the many possible violations I could have committed by going through her private stuff or failing in some assignment that only bossy older sisters can demand. As we moved through all the unviable possibilities, my ultimate sin would be revealed with gusto, resulting in me being either exiled or tortured. I had to remind myself that I was not speaking with my sister, I was now a grown man, and Daisy did not have the power to reach through miles of phone line to abuse me. It was not me who was in trouble.

“What was it, Daisy?”

“It was A TAMPON!” She was yelling now.

Although I was not unfamiliar with the mysteries that are uniquely feminine, I had failed to ever develop any level of curiosity about tampons or other related products. They were none of my business and everyone seemed to be fine with that. Words eluded me now that my frank and fearless niece described her interrogation.

“This cretin looks at me like I’m supposed to start shaking and confessing my plan to hijack a plan with a feminine hygiene product. I thought he had to be joking, but his stupid face had ‘This is Very Serious’ stamped on it.

“He’s like, ‘Can you tell me about this, Ma’m?’ Can you believe that he called me ‘Ma’m? Holy crap, Uncle Max, I’m only twenty years old!”

I had to remind myself that people Daisy’s age do not report conversations using conventional language like said or asked or replied, like writers do. Daisy had apparently landed on the colloquial “like” to describe human verbal interactions. I wondered if this was an unconscious attempt at honesty, recognizing that the retelling of conversations is always an approximation. It’s only like something, not a digital recording that is fully accurate. Daisy continued.

“So I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? You want me to explain what this is?’

“He’s like, ‘That’s right, Ma’m. And please lower your voice.’

“I’m like, ‘Sir, do you have a mother, or maybe a sister?’

“He’s like, ‘Just a mother, Ma’m.’

“So I looked around and saw this female security person, and I yelled at her to get her attention. I guess I was pretty loud, because a couple of other men with badges and stupid security shirts came over, looking alert. I’m sure that at 102 pounds and with my hair in a ponytail, I looked really threatening.

“When the woman came over, I pointed to the tampon and said, ‘Would you explain to this poor man what this thing is?’ She and the other men all stared at it like it was a hand grenade.

“She’s like, ‘It’s a tampon.’ Of course she would know that.

“One of the other guys goes, ‘What’s wrong with it, Eddie?’ I could tell that old Eddie was getting nervous and that he realized he had gotten in over his head.

“I’m like, ‘He doesn’t know what it is. He thinks it’s dangerous.’

“One of the guys tried to keep from laughing, but his laugh came out his nose and he had to go find a Kleenex. The woman picked up the tampon and looked at it.

“She goes, ‘I think it’s okay, Eddie.’

“I asked Eddie if he’d like to keep it to show his mom, but he just put it back in my purse. They finally let me go, and I was just so happy that people were all laughing at me when I went to the gate. Why are some guys so sub-human, Uncle Max? You need to write about this. Our homeland security people need to clean house.”

I had no answer for Daisy. I told her I’d think about expressing her concerns in my weekly column, but I wasn’t sure that the delicate tastes of my readers were ready for accounts of misunderstood female physiologies.

I must admit I was a bit sorry for old Eddie. Once it had been determined that he was unfamiliar with the world of tampons, his colleagues would never let him forget it. I imagined that various products of the same nature would find their way into Eddie’s lunch box and locker and possibly even in the exhaust pipe of his car.

Such is the way of men.