Canthook

If not for Marie, I could rarely leave the house. I'm agoraphobic, but if I prepare myself mentally for the challenge a day or two ahead, I am accompanied by my black and red German Shepard, and I practice "island-hopping", I can escape once in a while. Without her, I'd be trapped in this cave most of the time.
She doesn't mind. In fact, on those rare occasions when she has to stay home - perhaps I expect to be someplace for a couple of hours, and the weather is excessive - she's offended, thinking she's being surely punished for some misdeed she wasn't aware she was doing.

I don't know if other agoraphobes call it "island-hopping", but I'm sure other agoraphobes practice the same strategy. There are certain "islands" where I feel semi-safe - the Italian bakery down the street, the Waffle House, the doctor's office, Barnes & Noble, the used-grocery store. If I'm going someplace unfamiliar, I make a point of visiting one of my islands before and afterwards, so I can decompress.

I've called it decompressing for a long time, referring to reducing stress levels, but my trophy wife recently pointed out that there's another meaning. When I leave my cave, I experience extreme levels of stress. My gut binds up, and I develop gas. If I'm out long enough, I'm constipated for three or four days, possibly as long as a week. On the other hand, I often have to hurry to one of my islands to visit the john, and, well, "decompress".

Earlier this week, I was preparing to use the facilities at Barnes & Noble. I'd gone to the stall on the end, the handicapped stall, because I'm a gimp. Due to an automotive wreck in 1996, I have limited range of motion in my right hip, and the grab bars make it easier for me to sit down and stand up. But the door was locked. Apparently, that stall was in use.

There were feet showing below the stall closest to the sinks, too, so I entered the middle stall, and started to lower my pants. At that point, a chill ran down my spine. In order to sit down, I needed to widen my stance, or I'd fall on my face. Would that lead to my being arrested, for soliciting gay sex? I don't object to others having gay sex, although I'm straight, but I do object to being arrested - for anything.

No time to fret about it. It was an emergency. No grab bars, so I widened my stance, and lowered myself as best I could manage. Luckily, it wasn't a trap. To paraphrase a Carly Simon lyric, "I haven't the time for a strain". I barely got where I was headed before the gas took over.

So today, when they cleared the initial suspect in the Times Square bombing, I felt a certain kinship with him. He'd mailed letters to Capital Hill offices that arrived Thursday. Inside the manila envelopes was a photo of a man standing before the recruiting office, holding a sign saying "We Did It."

The "We Did It" referred to the 2006 general election, when many anti-war candidates were elected to Congress. Just his luck that it arrived on the day of the bombing, making it look like a confession to vandalism.

That's my luck, too. I keep thinking about the guy who sent the letters. He made no attempt to hide his identity; his name and address were on the return address. He
probably heard the news about the bombing, and gulped. Then the police would have knocked on his door, and he'd have stained his drawers.

The police have focused their investigation on a thin man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, riding a bicycle "in a suspicious manner." I left my bike in Ohio when I moved to Pennsylvania about 1999, but I'm sure that anyone seeing me ride a bicycle with my gimpy hip would describe it as being suspicious. I wear a hooded sweatshirt, too, but I'm not thin. Have the police checked out Phil Laak?