I wonder if they only exist in Northern Utah, those nondescript white vans with the simple lettering “Incident Management” painted down their sides. I don’t recall seeing them anywhere else, though maybe they escaped my notice during my preoccupied thirties in Washington. I can’t remember now if they have flashing lights (I think they do). But I’ve seen them everywhere here—there must be a fleet of them— and I always wonder, when I see one, just what incident they’ve been summoned to manage. Domestic disasters? The vans look a little underdressed for such major disturbances as earthquakes, tornados, terrorists, or flooding (and too local for other aquatic catastrophes such as Watergate and Whitewater).
And so I am left perplexed. What DO they mean by incident? How do they intend to manage it? Who are “they”? And how are they summoned? Could I call them, if I had an incident? Or do they just suddenly show up in my moment of need.
They haven’t yet, but what would it look like if they did? What if the white vans came the day that I left the beans boiling on the stove while I ran errands for two hours? I picture someone with Julia Child-like atmosphere (practical shoes and purposeful stride) stepping briskly out of the van and up my front steps. A tall man in a tool belt, the strong and silent type with clear eyes focused intently somewhere in the middle distance, would follow her. That sounds good. But then again… I’m not convinced that Julia’s ready cheerfulness and Clint’s keen glances would have helped; Clint and Julia are, after all, complete strangers. They might have scared us. I was beside myself that fateful afternoon, throwing windows open, looking frantically for fans, crazily mourning the ruin of new paint and new carpet as I ran from room to room, while my little girls (Michaelyn and Maurya were little then) trailed helplessly behind me. Eventually Maurya stopped in the center of the family room, turning around and around in a tight circle and sobbing. To this day, the smell of smoke or the sight of an out of control fire makes her sad. But somehow, on our own, we cleaned up. Frank brought home industrial fans and a carbon filter, and in a few weeks, you couldn’t tell I’d nearly burned the house down.
Maybe the white vans would have flocked to our curb the day Ezra found my red lipstick. Ezra was a toddler, and yes, even back then, I was on a casual (but still perpetual) hunt for the perfect red lipstick. The tube Ez found was not It. I had grown careless, leaving my red lipstick rejects in a drawer in the bathroom. Where Ez could find them, and he did— when I stepped out into the garden to grab…something. Basil or zucchini or a weed or something. When I came back, his bare torso and bare legs (yes, he was in nothing but a diaper—an Incident within an Incident) were covered in lipstick, and so was the beautiful white berber that covered stairs and hallway (He’d been sliding on his belly, how fun is that). Perhaps for our Ezra and the Red Lipstick Incident, the white vans would be manned with a fleet of Chuck Norrises armed with Spot Shot. Can’t Chuck Norris do Anything and Everything? But there was no Incident Management crew that day. I called Young’s Servicemaster carpet cleaners. One average guy, an Everyman, probably with light brown hair and unremarkable shoes, showed up with cleaning solution and a nifty steam cleaner. Half an hour later, he left, and the red lipstick was gone, without a trace. I think that is as good as it gets.
Plus, I knew I could always call my friend Elaine for practical advice during that sort of Incident. She is the one that taught me that shaving cream takes out all kinds of stains.
There have been Blender Incidents at our house that (as far as I can tell) have gone unnoticed by Incident Management. A Blender Incident is when either the blender or the chef grows too ambitious, and no amount of muscle or strategy can keep the blender covered. The lid flies off, and the contents of the blender come spewing forth, Vesuvius style. Coating cabinets, walls, windows, ceiling, countertops, floors, and new shoes with concoctions only Frank and I could dream up (in my case, a peach smoothie; in Frank’s, a spinach/black grape green smoothie). The Blender Incidents may have attracted the notice of Incident Management; no one but perhaps the most vigilant neighbor watching from their window will ever know. Because during our Blender Incidents, we have always been too invested in frantic cleanup to notice whether white vans were or were not arriving. Whether an efficient lineup of Brady Bunch Alices were marching to our front door. We wouldn’t have heard the doorbell ring, I don’t think. And Alices, unlike Chuck Norrises, could hardly be expected to kick down the door to get inside and clean up an Incident.
There have been Heartbreak Incidents that we have muddled through on our own, with quiet, gentle acknowledgments of love from neighbors and friends and (I sincerely believe this) from God. Michaelyn ran away last fall for a week. Days after my art exhibit. Left without a word or a trace. She came back, which turned out to be nearly as devastating as her leaving, and left again two days later to live with grandparents in another state. It took us awhile to figure out that she just desperately wanted to Launch, and that Launching is extra tough when your life is complicated with Aspberger’s. If white vans had shown up then, I would have rummaged in my freezer for homemade whole wheat oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to give the crew so I could politely send them away (I imagine E.B. White with a gentle, earthy anecdote, Paul Bunyan, Eleanor Roosevelt, and an Abraham Lincoln look-alike).
Today, too, we managed The Bunny Rabbit Incident all on our own. For several days, we had bunny sightings in our garden; we all saw it, the white bunny with orange spots, someone’s abandoned (or escaped) pet. It was cute. It was darling. It was fluffy. It had big soft ears and big brown eyes and a delectable tail. It ate my ferns. It ate an entire baby Annabelle hydrangea bush (seriously? I thought hydrangeas were poisonous). It munched on new rose bushes. This morning, we saw it again. We cornered it, Frank and I did. After we’d gotten our hands on it three or four times, and it had squeezed through (like a soft, silky-furred bar of soap) and escaped to watch us from a distance as it daintily nibbled on sedum (poisonous!) and ornamental grass and more roses, I said “grab the nape of its neck! Like you do with kitties!” He did and the bunny was caught and trapped in a laundry basket til we could decide what on earth to do with it. Whereupon Frank left to go on an Epic Journey (retrieving Ezra from cousins in Central Oregon), the cute little bunny urinated and pooped in the laundry basket, and Meisha began to sob because we weren’t going to keep it. Eventually (in duress, and with much consideration) we decided to take it to the park at the very end of twelfth street and set it Free. Free to munch on wild roses growing next to the river. Life in a cage looked miserable (the laundry basket was ample proof). So we loaded Bunny (Meisha named it Rose) up in a box with a towel… but this is where we discovered that we hadn’t been haunted by a solitary bunny. Another orange and white bunny showed up (maybe interested in the first bunny’s fate?); Maurya chased it into the garage and her friend Jessica closed the door and Maurya and Meisha and Jenny (Meisha’s friend) and I crawled behind and under and around stuff until I got a hand on the nape of its neck and pulled it out from its hiding place, kicking and scratching. So we boxed up another bunny to set free at the very end of 12th street. I sent Maurya and the boxed bunnies and the sisters and the friends off in our van, while the one little friend left behind (Genevieve) protested. She was so sure those bunnies belonged to someone who was missing them. She was so persistent I had to listen. I walked down the street with her to the new neighbor’s house, the neighbor I don’t know very well, and asked if they were missing any bunnies. She looked aghast. We are! She cried. I looked aghast. They may be finding their freedom by the river this very minute! I told her. Thank goodness for cell phones. I reached Maurya just as she was parking the van at the end of 12th street. Just seconds before the pets would have been irretrievably (and probably blissfully) free. Whew. But, alas. The Incident is ongoing. There is, we learned, still a third bunny at large (and it, too, is orange and white). One orange and white bunny for each of the little boys that lives in the house down the street.
We managed that incident all by ourselves. Notwithstanding its ongoing-ness. White vans would have been redundant, would yet be redundant. And who would people those vans this time? Who would have appeared on the scene of the Bunny Incident? Oprah? Jack, of Pest Control? Martha Stewart? Jeff Corbin? The gentle sounding fellow who used to do “Wild America” on PBS, his little girls in tow? Jacques Cousteau?
I will mention one more Incident, the Hike Incident. There are so many; I’ve only grazed the surface, particularly of the heartbreak and/or house flooding order of incidents. But how about this. Maurya and three friends went on a hike yesterday. Lately, a favorite thing to do, climbing switchback trails and clambering up rocky slopes to reach the top of some mountain or other. On the way up, Jessica hurt her ankle. She couldn’t walk. Maurya texted me in a panic; what do we do? I texted back (worried but not yet panicking) can you not support her between two of you? Concerned that they might be in a rock clambering part of their journey (they were). A while later, she texted me that they were making their way safely down, were nearing the beginning of their trail. When she could tell her story, I learned that the kids encountered three other hikers along their descent, who each gave them assistance (sounds almost like a fairy tale, or a revised version of The Good Samaritan). First, a man who said he was an ER doctor examined Jessica’s foot, determining that ligaments were torn but no bones were broken. He helped the kids past the rocky part. A while further down the trail, Jessica was in extreme pain when a woman hiking by stopped and asked to help. She said she was a massage therapist. She gently probed and pressed and massaged Jessica’s foot; Jessica felt a little “pop” and the pain subsided and the swelling decreased. The third hiker was a man sent up the trail by the first hiker. He was big and burly, and he carried Jessica the rest of the way down. Which was such a blessing, because Maurya and the two other friends were at their furthest limit, exhausted. Maurya’s arms are still sore today.
Incident Managed. No white vans anywhere on the mountain. Which is fine; I kind of like the mysteriousness of those white vans. Their ambiguity, their potential (but untouchable) symbolism. And looking back on each of my Life’s Incidents, I am content that I managed (more or less) adequately. With the help of friends, little girls, sometimes strangers, and always, always, God.
