Of Nabs and Books
One definition of the word “nabs” is clearly “to seize suddenly.” Another is a colloquial term utilized to describe a pack of six peanut butter crackers. I have a particular fondness the orange, cheese-flavored kind with peanut butter.
After reading the newspaper this past Sunday, like probably every other reader of this past Sunday’s paper, I found myself overwhelmed by feelings of dread and panic over our country’s economy. You know it’s bad when you secretly envy the man who was found dead near the cemetery, probably from a heart attack at 64, as no foul play was suspected. That’s the way to go, I thought. Just take a walk, find a cemetery and buy the farm. He had accomplished much, being a composer, and the article spoke well of him, so he went out on a high note, no pun intended. Lived a good life. Died a peaceful death. What more could one ask for?
I adjourned to our bedroom to contemplate my fate should I no longer be employed or find myself out of the loop, out of the grind of day-to-day life as a worker. I’ve read a good deal about how people are coping with this situation, and having been laid off four times in my professional career, I can identify with these coping techniques. You’re laid off. First, you cry, and then you immediately update your resume. You file for unemployment. You frantically search the newspaper and job boards for jobs. You join support groups. You call friends asking about possibilities. You lie in bed, ignoring the sunshine and the sound of birds singing, praying for the telephone to ring with “the offer”. You suffer the indignities of the Employment Security Commission. You contemplate how much less you’ll be paid and how you’ll accept this reduction in salary just to be back “in the loop.” To say that you are “nabbed” by these feelings of shame, guilt, worry, fear, diminished self-worth would be an accurate description.
I lied in the bed Sunday, a magnificent spring day with many birds singing, contemplating this possibility of suddenly being out of the loop again. The unemployment lines are currently flooded with professionals whose qualifications far outweigh my own, so should I find myself in this predicament, getting hired seems like Mission Impossible. I recalled reading in the Sunday paper, “For every job, there are at least five qualified applicants,” and then reading an analysis of the current administration’s job creation efforts and the mathematical deducing that said if 2 million jobs are created, but 1.5 million jobs are lost through layoffs, then only 500,000 actual jobs are created and can be credited to said job creation efforts. It made my head hurt.
Then, rather than closing my eyes, I started to look around our bedroom. Nearly every wall is covered in bookshelves. And I was seized suddenly with a new thought. Should I find myself in this aforementioned situation, I could just read. Titles like “Nabakov on Literature” and “The History of Magic” and last year’s National Book Award winner “Tree of Smoke” jumped out at me, as did the collection of books by Don DeLillo, and books on the surrealists. Books by Bellow and O’Connor and Levi-Strauss and Georges Battaille on Nietzsche suddenly seemed like good uses of my time. The eleven books my husband read for a class on literature and the religious imagination last semester were all neatly stacked in one section. Another shelf yielded essays by Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh and “Man Alone”. My own books on drawing and advertising and rocks and divination techniques clamored for my attention. I’ve often said that if we were snowed in or otherwise stuck in our apartment from some unseen disaster, we would have no lack of entertainment for the massive quantity and variety of books that my husband has collected and refused to part with.
But what, should this predicament come to pass, what would I eat, I thought. Even in these difficult economic times, Nabs, as they are known here in the Southeastern United States, can still be purchased for a quarter in many convenience stores. I could stock up on Nabs like survivalists stock up on deer jerky. I could cash out my 401(k), spend it all on Nabs, drink water, and read for long, long periods of time. I felt strangely comforted by this thought. Like there was an option for me and like being out of the loop might not be so devastating after all.
I went back to work Monday in a much brighter mood. My job in Corporate America seems relatively secure for the moment, but I held on to the realization that, should the wheel of fortune spin the other way, there are alternatives. There are Nabs and books.
Just over three years ago I met this crazy, insanely intelligent, wickedly funny, completely irreverent and wildly talented man just by happenstance on Yahoo Instant Messenger. We’ve been through a lot together in our short time together, and, except for going to work every day, we’ve rarely been separated. Not many relationships can withstand that kind of constant contact, but ours has and has improved, I’m happy to say, almost daily. Not many people know Budd, mainly because he is often hesitant to let many get too close – in our short time together, we’ve been hurt by several people we tried to develop friendships with- but those who do know him, his friends from college, our friends from the Raving Knaves and Verona and Wyatt, can see the complete uniqueness in this person I married in the smallest of ceremonies at the courthouse with plastic flowers in my hand and tears in my eyes, dressed in the most casual of clothing as if I were going to clean out a closet. I’ve never regretted that day, or the day we met. It was as if someone had awakened me from a deep slumber and pulled the curtains back to reveal the most bright and beautiful of days.
