I Need Help Because They Do

What is it about me that attracts people without a firm grasp on reality? I’m not aware of doing anything to solicit this, yet I am never without a “special friend”.

A couple of jobs ago, while working for an organization serving the lesbian and gay community, I had an elderly woman, a Chinese immigrant, who came by the office once or twice a week seeking my assistance. She spoke few words of English, and her dialect of Chinese was spoken by no one in my office nor by any of the Chinese community organizations that I tried to pull in. We communicated by a combination of sign language (hers) and badly misspelled handwritten notes (mine). There were a few phrases she had that I could always identify, “Bad man, bad man!” being one, and “Call policee Miss Jill, call policee” being another. She had two essential complaints, one about the merchant running the store next to hers (he was the “bad man”), and the other about the large urban high school half a block from her (she wanted me to call the police about the kids who, when they left campus, often came into her laundromat and tormented her blind husband). I spoke to the police on her behalf many dozens of times, and even called the school principal more than once. But I knew we had both crossed the line when she offered me $2,000 to close the school. While it was flattering to realize that she thought such a thing was within my power, I had a tough time picturing me, Ms. Lesbian/Gay Community, calling for the closing of the campus. (Plus, if I could pull off such a thing, wouldn’t it be worth a whole lot more than two thousand bucks?)

This week I was out of town leading trainings for staff and teachers of a school district. At the end of a session a meek gray woman, barely 5 feet tall, approached me and asked for my phone number. I imagined that she was hoping that I might come and make a presentation to her classroom. As I wrote my digits on a slip of paper, she asked me how much I charged for an hour of consultation. I told her that would really depend on what she needed.

Her emotional floodgates opened, she launched into a story about her son, who she alleged was sexually molested by his father. She said that her son’s lawyer was now accusing her of being a religious fanatic and she needed advice on what to do. This wasn’t a normal sized flood, her problems were Noah and his Ark in size.

Let’s review: I have no expertise in the area of sexual molestation. I possess no legal background. I am scared of religious fanatics of all stripes and colors. I just facilitated a training in ABSOLUTELY NO WAY related to her question. Why are we having this conversation, and why can’t I tell her to never call my phone number? I pointed at my fellow trainer, who had entered the room while we spoke. I said, “That’s probably the woman you want to speak with, she’s really the one in charge.”

I left the training in search of a special friend who has a problem I can actually help with. What d’ya got?