The last minute bait-and-switch perpetrated by an Airbnb host left me scrambling for a hotel room for my fourth trip to UC-Berkeley’s School of Optometry and their fourth attempt to properly make my glasses. I count, of course, the two prior pairs that I had seen and the one rejected by the lab. Self-acquired frames in hand, bag crammed into my messy car, tired feet ensconced in wool socks and Blundstones, I drove hell-bent for fury to a hotel room booked at the last minute, right after I pushed for a full refund from the out-sourced customer service folks at Chesky’s franchised palace place.
Still blithely unaware that the hotel I had selected stood to be sold on the auction black in two weeks’ time, I idled at a light in the soft air of a spring afternoon. I could not see the ocean, but I had crossed the Bay and strained to catch a glimpse of the broad westward sweep of water breaking on the concrete rim of the City. A ship tarried just north of me as I tore my eyes back to the roadway and watched for my exit. I cannot deny that my muscles loosened their tense grip, perhaps just a small release but enough for me to understand that I need but drive a half mile to hear the voice of my Pacific. A sigh escaped into the quiet confines of my vehicle.
I looked through my windshield as the light continued to glow with its commanding red. I felt my brow furrow; my eyes squint; and then, without so much as a twitch of warning, I smiled. The cars around me and those across from me waited through an extra cycle as a little row of urban ducklings crossed, Mama duck at the front, her helper taking the rear.
In a half hour, I would be laboriously leaning on a high counter shouting through a plexiglass barrier as the clerk tried to rescind my booking due to the demise of the elevator which would have taken me to my accessible accommodation.
In an hour, I would trudge up seven steps to a king-size nonaccessible room and stare dejectedly at the step-in tub shower combo, wondering if would be able to struggle into its depths without falling.
Two hours later, I would beg the DoorDash Customer Service to make sure its driver brought silverware.
As night surrounded the Juliet balcony overlooking the parking lot, I would pry over-cooked tofu from bitter kale with a plastic fork begrudgingly tendered by the same clerk, after I declined her first offer of a spoon through gritted teeth.
In ten hours, the waitress at Oceanview Diner would inform me in a weary voice that she couldn’t serve me on the patio after all.
In twelve hours, the optician would adjust the fourth incorrectly-made glasses on my face, and promise Attempt Number Five before mid-June. Or, quite possibly, early July.
But as I sat at the red light, watching those little children innocently cross from curb to curb on the broken streets of Berkeley, California, in their matching yellow T-shirts, my heart felt only joy.
And of my own free will, without hesitation but with an unwavering dedication, I left my heart right there.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
The Missouri Mugwump®
