The Mind of Scott

“I saw a lady give birth. Okay. I walked in there after the birth. Okay. What I saw… no man should have to see ever happen.”

Talking to Scott is like talking to one of my younger brothers. My brothers are different in many ways, but they both love to talk about topics that interest them. And they both seem to enjoy equally enthusiastic conversationalists with whom to have these verbal expeditions.

Most of the time when I talk to Scott, these crazy random topics come up and we discuss and dissect them until we get bored and move to some other train of thought. Scott is a friend of mine. We have some truly interesting chats, so I asked him if he would tell me a true tale for my blog. I got several, and have had to pare the conversation down to blog-sized. But they're all really intriguing tales. And now, back to our story.

“It’s the magic of the human body. I guess. But… I stood there for a couple seconds; it got weird in the room. Cause it freaked me out! I wasn’t expecting that when I came in; the doctors over here, standing side by side, and they just had… presentin’! For whoever walks in the room!”

Scott, an insightful African-American young man in his early 20’s, went on to describe this life-altering experience he’d had.

“And it… it freaked the (expletive) outta me! I still… it was AWKWARD! Then, I went over to the side to see the little baby, he was all ashy lookin’… I would think they would give him lotion or something, you know, they just came outta someplace moist; I’m surprised it was that… ashy. That was weird. It was really weird to me.”

I interjected, “I can only imagine. I saw a video of that happening when I was in college but…”

“Well, it’s even nastier when you see it come out with the sac,” Scott added.

“Ohhh…”

“Yeah,” he said. “The little… it looks even nastier, cause it looks like a bunch of iodine… just popped out.”

“Okay!” I didn’t know what else to say, ha!

“I… I’m serious. And it’s… and it’s very disgusting. Giving birth is one of the horriblest things you can ever see in your life.

I ventured to ask him, “Do you want kids?”

“Kids?” Scott thought for a second. “You know what, I’m not opposed to it but I’m also not jumping towards it or looking for it really cause… if it happens, it happens.”

Pushing the envelope slightly, I continued. “If you had a kid, would you want to see it being born?”

“I would be in there… but I would be cussin’ myself in the head the whole time,” Scott declared. He went on, “Cause she be cussin' me out, I be cussin' myself out cause “you know you don’t wanna be here right now for this” …cause you know what’s bout to happen. You SEEN it; it’s horrible.”

Scott went on to describe the variety of fluids and… other matter… that escapes a woman’s body during labor and delivery. I’ll spare you his descriptions. *grin*

It can't be THAT bad... can it? I mean, if nothing else, the end result has to be worth all the work, sweat, tears, cursing and... fluids...

“You can’t ev… you can’t lie and say when you were in high school and they showed you the health video and they… did they show everything?” Scott asked.

In MY high school? I never even heard of such a video being offered. Could have been due to the conservative climate of the area I lived and went to school in... who knows. I told Scott, “No, I didn’t see that in high school.”

Scott, however, was more than happy to elaborate. “They didn’t sh… okay, they showed us. They showed us the egg, and how hard one sperm has to fight to get to that egg. It’s a battle to the death! It is. You should watch the video. And you will realize that you were the toughest outta all those (sperm). You made it; they didn’t. They lost; you won.”

Yes indeed.

Scott concluded with the postulation, “To the victor goes the spoils of life.”

Amen, and amen.

Change of topics. We went on to discuss the trials and tribulations of getting your initial driver’s license, the evolving processes of getting your license renewed, explored several other topics, finally reaching the point at which we discussed job interviews.

Scott led in. “It makes no sense. It’s just like a job interview. Do you get sick of them asking you the same damn question 5 times in 10 different ways? You’re like… LOOK. I SAID I WORK OKAY WITH PEOPLE. Stop askin' me if I like people or not!”

I have taken issue with these interview methods before. “You know what gets me is those… those, uh… those questionnaires they make you take to see if you’re telling the truth and they ask you the same thing over and over in a different way?”

Scott knew what I was talking about. “Oh, the one that takes 10 hours to fill out?”

My rant continued, “Have you ever stolen a pen from work? Have you ever stolen office supplies? EVERYBODY’S taken office supplies!” I wondered aloud if the interviewee is expected to admit to past grievances or tell the truth and, thereby, paint him or herself as a Sticky-Note Crook. This is one of the multiple life-quandaries I have yet to figure out.

Scott contributed, “I’m not gonna lie, the first time I started doin’ em, I said no. Now I say yeah, you know what, I’ve taken a pen from a job; I’ve taken a stapler from a job!”

“Yeah.” I understood perfectly.

Feeling maybe just a little vindicated, Scott tossed out a “Thank you!”

I added, laughing, “Well I’ve done it both ways and I’ve never gotten the job either way. You know? Neither way worked for me.”

At this point, Scott grew ambitious in the face of ambiguity. “You know what, I’ma work for myself. I’m… I’ma work for myself. I don’t know what I’m gonna DO…” he thought aloud.

Scott is so smart and great with computers and electronics. In fact, at his home, he built his own tailor-made computer! I stated what, to me, was an obvious opportunity for him: “You’ll have a computer business!”

Scott agreed that was a possibility. “Either that or… draw. I don’t know.”

I love these little tidbits I learn about people I know when we get into these conversations. A fellow artist!

More pondering aloud… “Probably not for money but I would just like to draw, free time. I would like to, you know, make commission off of it but, you know, it wouldn’t be a source of income… that way it’d just be something I’d… but what I would do for…“

Scott stopped. A thought had hit him, and he had discovered the answer to his own life dilemma.

“You know what? I’ma win the lottery.”

He wasn’t going to hear any criticism. Solemnly, I agreed: “That is my goal.”

“It’s gonna happen,” he declared.

“That’s my goal,” I firmly repeated.

Scott continued, “Lottery? It’s happenin. 20… something. Lottery.”

Wishing big… one of my favorite things to do. It’s kind of a game I play in my head, not ever really taking it seriously… but oh, if I ever did win the lottery… man oh man oh man. I would be one grateful girl, let me tell you that.

“A nice little ca… you know what, it don’t even have to be a million dollars!” Scott mused. “50 grand. To where they don’t have the… or I have to get a lawyer so they don’t say my name, cause I don’t feel like moving.”

With no hesitation, I stated, “Oh, I’m moving! I get the money, I’m GONE.”

Scott agreed. “I… I understand. I would probably move somewhere else better.”

The conversation turned to the topic of Lena’s and my plans to move as soon as we get the money… we’re thinking Albuquerque… somewhere drier and cooler and… WAY out of the reach of hurricanes. (If you live in south Louisiana like I have most of my life, or anywhere along the Gulf Coast, you know exactly what I mean.)

“I can’t wait,” I said wistfully. “We’re work, I mean, we’re working on it.”

Hopes, dreams and everyday life. Those are part of the reason I have these conversations with people. I get to hear their hopes and dreams, learn some of their life stories and, hopefully, we both come out of the conversation having learned a little about each other and about life in general.

That is my hope, also, for the readers of this blog. Have a great week!