OHL Guest Blogger: Vic Berger

What’s sip everyb'dy?? Tim is away at a celebrity baseball event this weekend so he bunted this blog post over to me. Let’s get crackin’.

Yesterday afternoon I had just taken a quick seat to cool off after walking Rosie. She gets a good amount of walks. I use her as a catalyst to more exercise, and really just to get me outside in the sunshine. My plan was to sit and brainstorm in the chair about what I wanted to tell you in this, my very first guest post in Tim’s weekly weekend Office Hours Live with Tim Heidecker blog. Thank you, Tim.

Naturally, five minutes into my post-walk cool off I slumped asleep in the chair. But I was fully caffeinated so I kept phasing in and out of consciousness, until my sleepy eyes spotted a woman whose face I didn’t recognize peeking into my living room through the front door. As she stared at me, I worked to register that this woman was not someone from within my dream. "Uhhhh hello there… how can I help you," I managed to get out. "Who are you?”

She gave me a half smile and stepped in further, seemingly like she was testing the waters for how I’d react. Took three or four more steps and I stood up and she just kept walking right past me into my own home.

The way she was acting reminded me of the people I used to work with at the development center years ago. The center I worked at is one of the last remaining state institutions in New Jersey. Think One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest with the massive cement rooms with tall, tall ceilings, causing every little sound to have a reverb effect that even for a lover of reverb such as myself, was disorienting. Let alone when there were multiple people screaming. But I didn’t sense any possible harm coming my way from her, so I asked some basic questions that went ignored, then she walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

People in need of constant support who were “lucky enough” to be entered into the public mental health system were taken care of by underpaid staff who are de facto family members. Doctors sometimes told the biological parents in the 50s & 60s that it’d be much easier on everyone involved to just put the baby in the state hospital and pretend this never happened. Harsh, yet at least they'd have some sort of day to day direct care support and consistency, unlike my intruder yesterday who didn’t appear to have a place to sleep.

But if I can get back to the toilet talk for a minute, this woman did indeed come to the right place, because I take pooping seriously. In the Berger household, I offer multi-ply soft as a feather TP to all my guests, invited or not. My 40th birthday present from my wife was a warming bidet seat. Highly, highly recommend gifting this luxurious throne to your significant other. Am I letting you in on too much about me?

While she was enjoying the facilities she shouted out asking if the shower worked. I said unfortunately it didn't. I tried to call a local police station on a non-emergency line rather than 911 to see if there was someone who wasn’t a cop that could come down to help her. Some sort of social worker or mental health expert I imagined but no one picked up and the recording said they’re busy so call 911 if you have to. So I called 911.

Twenty minutes later two cops pulled up and chatted with her and convinced her to stop playing my synthesizer and helped her walk out of the house. Was watching to see where they were going to take her because this sort of thing appeared to be their beat. I wasn't the only one to call about her, they told me. It didn't get any sadder than watching the cops simply warn her to stay out of people’s homes and then push her off alone again down the street.

Oddly enough, this wasn't my first time in a scenario like this. In 2008 I was living in an apartment above my grandmother's house. My nana walked in on someone in her kitchen making fried chicken and drinking a Natty Ice (that my Nana had in her fridge. She loved her Natty.) Cops came and took the guy away. He had taken a cinder block to a 100 year old glass door to make his way in. Last I read he had been arrested for similar behavior.

Mental health just isn't a priority. I don't know anyone who couldn't benefit from trying to figure out their shit.

I let my own mental health go improperly managed for the majority of my life. I didn't know how to or where to begin with it. No one talked about it growing up because if you admit and talk about your problems, you’ll be thought of as an outcast just like the lady who came to my house.

Sticking with therapy changed my life. It was early in that pandemic called COVID-19 when I started. After my therapist got to know me, she thought I was a good candidate for antidepressants. These drugs are the good shit, folks. They've helped make me feel fairly normal-ish. Therapy in conjunction with antidepressants seems to do the trick for me. I've managed to stabilize myself mentally well enough where my weight hasn't boomeranged because I've found healthier coping skills and worked to understand why my brain triggers the way it does. (Hi, dad!) I had to admit that no one was going to do this for me. I had to decide to take care of myself this time. Not everyone is so lucky though. I wish I had been able to do more to help yesterday afternoon.

I guess I’ll have to remember to lock the door when I’m working from home. It’s usually just me and Rosie during the day which means I see her more than I see my entire family most days. Dogs really do become an important part of the family. Tim and his family lost their pup Molly this week. She’d been with Tim and his wife since before kids were in the picture.

I love dogs, so I tend to associate certain eras in my life with the dog I had at the time. Jambi was with me when I had no idea what I was doing after college up until I met Ann. The Sadie era was marriage then the birth of our kids. Remembering my parents first dog Sampson takes me back to my elementary school years. Sampson was witness to the deeply romantic encounters that led to the coupling of Lynne and Vic the 3rd, which led directly to the creation of me! Sammy saw it all. EVERYTHING.

I held Sadie as the vet took her pain away. Death is such an awkward thing to handle for the living. I was a wreck. What do you even say to people who have lost someone or something? Brings me high anxiety to think of the right words. It’s something that’s, ya know, final, so you don’t want to have an upsetting interaction memory implant of yourself slipping on a verbal banana peel while walking through the receiving line. And you don't really want to make it about yourself by saying how sorry you are, because it's no fault of yours. Unless it is, then you want to apologize as much as possible. But most of the time you're gonna want to just say something that lets this person know you care about them and their loved one's memory will carry on.

Well, Tim, if you’re reading this, I care about ya. And I love ya. I will always think fondly of the Molly era. RIP.

Vic

P.S. After my intruder was shooed away by the cops yesterday, I looked down and noticed I had planted my brand new pair of sneakers directly on top of a large, fresh dog turd. That's so Molly!

P.P.S. Have a good weekend.