Pamela's Problem
Pamela stands out amongst my stories because she actually came to class, participated, completed assignments, and she managed to squeak out a low A by *gasp* earning it with class work. Her peculiarities involved her recently born daughter Miranda. Motherhood meant she occasionally missed a class, though she always made up any work, and she even brought her infant in one day. She apologized profusely, but Miranda caused no problems. Since the class largely contained boisterous conversation anyway, an occasional baby cry meant we included her in the conversation. Someone would declare an idea crappy because Miranda pooped in her nappy...or some such thing.
That group worked together supremely well, and most days the discussions about story grids, character development, and plot designs sparked lively debate and the creative juices flowed for all. Alas, one down side of Miranda's influence reduced me to reading about feeding a baby, changing a baby, babies never sleeping, and my least favorite subject that semester,
The Adventures of Slimey, the Runny Shit Stream of Arghnoth
. Think in terms of Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo, but without Christmas. Yeah.
She actually self published that crap. Fortunately for all of us, she was funny with a shitty subject matter.
These were good times.
Early in the semester, on a Monday, I think, Pamela entered class in a mood somewhere between thunderous anger and murderous frustration. The closest thing I could compare it to was when my kid damn near went psychotic from tooth pain (autism, here, meant he couldn't tell us the problem). I would've asked what vexed her, but class had already begun, and I didn't want to stop the flow of ideas. She largely kept to herself that day, and when she did add something it tended toward dark and, well, murderous.
Finally, just before the class ended, one of the others used a hilariously skewed segue from "speaking of french fries and the mating habits of blue whales, Pamela..." and he managed to remove all sarcasm and humor leaving only concern, "are you okay?"
She was clearly in no way okay. The other student simply wanted her to have a moment to share her troubles, and we all knew it. Pamela's arms remained crossed, however. She glanced around the room, took a deep breath, and replied, "well, no, obviously I'm not, and I appreciate all y'all's concern. Honestly, I do, but it isn't something I want to share, and there isn't anything you can do about it."
A chorus of assents and, "if you change your mind..." flowed around the room, and I returned us to the mating habits of blue whales. And french fries. Pamela smiled at me over her grumpy folded arms, I suppose, because I redirected everyone's attention, and we finished up our lines of thought on blue whale fuckery. We mostly decided that any such descriptions needed to be fanciful nonsense instead of What They Actually Do.
After that fucking whale of a class, I needed to run some errands before my next class several hours later, so I headed for the elevator and the exit. Pamela walked with me. She, also, apparently needed to get somewhere fast, and we shared a lift down to the first floor and the long walk to the parking lot.
Midway between the third and fourth floors, you can guess what happened.
When it lurched and the lights when out, she sounded off more of a micro shriek than a yelp. I didn't know if prior experience was fortunate for me or not, but this was far from the first time I'd been stuck in one of those ancient roman-era elevators. It happened often enough that I swapped out my nice shiny briefcase my wife gave me in my before times (a whole other collection of stories) for an old traveling salesman's case that easily doubled as a seat in and of itself. First things first, though. Pamela damn near began hyperventilating.
"Pamela, setting aside your pre-existing concern, are you okay, or are you claustrophobic, or do you have a darkness issue...?"
"No, I'm okay; I just..." even in the darkness I could tell she almost said 'really', "...need to..." she paused and almost told me something, but then she obviously changed what she was going to say, "...get home."
"I see." Well, no I didn't, but I didn't need to. Her business was none of mine until she decided to share it with me. "Well, I expect we'll be in here awhile. Last time for me was nearly six hours."
In a tiny voice she replied, "oh dear God, no..."
I pulled out my phone and used the ambient light to find the elevator's emergency phone. That call was way shorter than brief.
"How long did they say, Professor?"
"Eh, he didn't. That thing should be called a whenever-we-get-around-to-it phone." I checked my own phone but as with most enclosures around ancient-roman-era engineering, my phone detected no signal, but the ambient light illuminated us enough to see each other's faces. Pamela was absolutely not okay. She had I'm-in-pain written all over her face.
"Since we'll be here so long, please just call me Richard or Rich. Go with Dick if you want to be mean, but Professor seems too formal for trapped-together-in-an-elevator."
"Okay, Richard, if that's what you like. Please call me Pam."
"Will do, Pam. Would you like a seat?" I set my case down, and began fumbling with the latches, but Pamela simply slid down the wall and leaned her back against it.
She sniffed through almost a sob, and she looked up as if addressing God in her dissatisfaction with the situation He put us in. Course, God didn't make the elevator... Perhaps she addressed the elevator itself....or the asshole not working on the elevator even though he should be.
I opened the case and pulled out my super duper Helinox chair and spent the next few minutes putting it together. Gesturing at Pam, I said, "I have another. Please, sit comfortably."
She snorted and mumbled, "comfort," but she raised up and gave the chair a try. A moment later she offered a surprised, "thank you, Richard." Whatever the confluence of her problems, the chair seemed to help.
It took me another few minutes to get my other chair properly set, and then I eased into it. Having done what we could, I said, "I think we'd better save this," and I shut off my phone.
Silence lingered for a few minutes. I tried to measure my breathing and remain calm because getting upset would do no one any good, but every half minute or so, with slightly increasing frequency and decreasing pauses between, Pamela let loose with a grunt or a groan; to say the least, she distracted me. I contemplated her situation, but I couldn't figure out what it could possibly be. After I heard a soft sob, I figured she might not get angry with me for asking again.
"Pam, I know you said you don't wanna share, but something is obviously wrong; is there anything I can do? Perhaps it might even help if you tell me what it is?"
She stopped grunting and moaning, but she gave me no immediate answer. After a good half minute of silence, she groaned again before she softly said, "Can you keep this to yourself?"
"Of course."
"I'm serious, Richard. I..." She broke into a tiny sob, "this is embarrassing."
I softly replied, "it is also apparently painful, and it's making you miserable."
"...yeah." She took a deep breath and finally told me. "It's called hyperlactation." Ah, okay. That's why it didn't occur to me. "Basically, my breasts have been overproducing, and right now they're so full they're painful. I should be home feeding Miranda, and now I'm stuck in here...where it'll only get worse."
"I see. That really sucks if you'll pardon the pun."
She snorted her lack of pardon.
"I'm sorry. I wish I could help."
