Someone To Watch Over Me

Well, Apple isn't technically eavesdropping. That makes me feel better, because I know that there's no way on or under the earth that I want anybody to know how many times I've listened to "The Night Chicago Died". Killer kazoo solos are hard to come by.

I know I'm supposed to be very upset about the government listening to private citizens. Honestly, though, I get more worked up over the poe-theeds who try to take their entire 38-item munchie fix through the express lane at Kroger. It's not that I don't value the Sanctity of Privacy and whatnot--because I do. It's just that I know, deep down in my heart of hearts, that I'm boring. I'm the most Wysiswyg person on the planet. If the government wants to know what it looks like when a Rubenesque lady in sweatpants and a Disney World sweatshirt reads on the couch, then have at it. If they want to hear me whine about plotlines in episodic television to my sister in Indiana, then good for them. Perhaps they will derive more interest from my life than I do. I will confess that I occasionally will drop "flag words" into a phone conversation with Miss B or Tom, just to give some CIA intern something to do. I figure that way maybe they'll listen to the whole thing and get caught up on the details from Grey's Anatomy they may have missed. Those Washington people are busy, and don't always get to watch as much TV as they'd like. I consider it a service.

I genuinely know what it is like to be spied upon. The Greatest Boyer Spy Legend of all time is The Band-Aid story. Bear with me. It's Friday.

When I was 16, my family took a three-week trip around Europe. We bought a Vanagon in Germany (third family in Fort Wayne to have the Oval "D" registration, thank you) and drove from country to country like vagabonds eating cold meat sandwiches and discovering that it is ALWAYS funny to hear your dad ask for "Zimmers fur Sex". The third time I laughed at his innocent request for lodging for all six of us he tried to change it to "Zimmer fur Sex Personen." I don't even know if "personen" is a German word. But I embarrassed that poor man across 8 countries. One of the countries was Hungary, where we ended up getting two Zimmers--one for the parents and one for the kids. That was a good thing. I had to get away from my mother. Her one fact about Budapest is that it is "actually TWO cities--Buda and Pest." She said that to us about 60 times and I was beyond my limit. (Even now at family gatherings I will occasionally announce to the room that Budapest is actually two cities. Last time she tried to throw a dinner roll at me.)

Nerd that I am I decided that my souveniers would be an 8-oz glass Coke bottle from every country. This was clever of me, because I'm wierd about food and could only drink Coke most of the time. The water available was from the bathroom tap, and that just wasn't gonna fly. So the four of us kids were in a hotel room in Buda or Pest--can't remember which--and my Hungarian Coke Bottle broke. There was much confusion, and poor Tom stepped on a piece of glass. His foot was bleeding everywhere and we were freaked out. Our parents were in another room, and none of us wanted to let them know we'd broken something. Miss B and I were rummaging through luggage for first aid supplies and Dave was freaking out about breaking Communist Property and how we were all going to be shot. Tom was just losing blood. Then there's a knock at the door. A really nice Hungarian woman came in and offered us a band-aid. And left.

Yes. You read that right. A member of the hotel staff knew that my brother had cut his foot on glass. They knew before our parents did. How? Dude, I don't know. It freaks me out to this day. Our room was BUGGED. On the upside, they didn't shoot us. And they had probably also bugged my parents' room, which means that some poor hotel person had to keep hearing about how his hometown was actually TWO cities. Everything worked out okay in the end.