As you know, my little sister, Erica, lives in Asheville, North Carolina. As you also probably know, Asheville was hit by a hurricane last Thursday and Friday. In addition to knocking out all water, power, and communication, the hurricane cut off every waypoint to Buncombe County so no one could get out to safety or in to help. I got a phone call from Erica on Friday in which I could make out the words, “Fine…basement…trees,” and then the line went dead, which is the exact type of call I wanted to receive from my sister and I certainly didn’t go into a full-scale multi-day panic (and everyone is probably not getting ham radios for their birthday from me, except they are).
Erica and her family were able to evacuate on Sunday and her story, and Asheville’s story, isn’t mine to tell. I will say this: I am eternally grateful for the number of people and organizations who immediately sprung, and continue to spring, into action; humanity at its finest. I have hundreds of examples; here’s one from a user named “Prophet_Of_Helix” on Reddit:
“Live in Oak Forest by TC Robertson. Within an hour of the storm officially passing on Friday the entire neighborhood was out with chainsaws and equipment and 4x4ers out checking on neighbors and clearing trees. One of our elderly neighbors had a tree fall and pierce their roof and they got her out to another neighbor, the tree chopped up and removed and the roof tarped over in a few hours. The people have been incredible.”
As you can imagine, devastation like this carries with it a lot of emotion, and little of it good. And so – sigh – because my sister reads this every week and because I know she could use some levity, I’m going to tell you a story I’ve never told another living soul. Not my best friend; not my husband; not Erica. There’s a reason why I’ve never told it, and you’ll know why as soon as you read it. I’d like to warn you that it’s pretty crass and if you do not like untoward things to click away now. I’d like to apologize in advance to my father, and Kyle, and my penpal Mark and, really, to everybody. Next week I’ll write about trees or Kyle’s college class or something much, much nicer.
Okay.
This is the story about the last time I wore a thong. Thong flip-flops? You may be wondering. No.
Girls today have an incredible amount of body confidence (excellent) and when we were on the Floridian beaches for spring break this past winter, everyone was wearing a bathing suit thong. EVERYONE. Thong wearing was also a big deal in the 1980s, as evidenced by such shows as Baywatch and Saved By The Bell and basically everything on television. EVERYTHING. The period between the 1980s and the 2024s, however, relatively thong free. If you had one, it was worn strictly as an undergarment. I, a person who fell more on the pantaloon scale of underwear, owned one thong. It was pink, and I bought it because it was the briefest of fashion trends to wear low-cut jeans with your thong hanging out (this was Christina Aguilera’s fault).
In college, I had a summer internship in Los Angeles with an extremely large corporation. I worked on the 17th floor.
While you can wear thongs (the flip-flops) to work nowadays, back then you had to dress up. Most of my workwear was what I’d describe as “CAREER FIRST Corporate Executive” with shoulder-padded blazers, power mermaid skirts, and sensible pumps. On a random Casual Friday, however, I don’t know if I was feeling CAREER FIRST confident or overly relaxed in my internship or what, but I decided to dip into my “normal” clothes and wear a pleated skirt and a tucked in polo shirt to my job. And, again, I don’t know why – but I wore the pink thong.
If you’ve ever worked or lived in a high rise, you’ll know that waiting for the elevator is an interminable task. I arrived at work and the pile-up for the elevator was long enough that I decided to take the stairs instead of waiting 400 years to catch a lift. I marched up the 17 floors with vigor and pizzazz. So much, vigor and pizzazz, in fact, that I was sweating by the time I reached the office. No matter; I went to the bathroom, dabbed my face and neck and pits (gotta protect that polo) with a paper towel, and went to my desk.
My desk chair was made of hard wood, and when I sat down it dawned on me that my tush was on the actual wood due to the shortness of my pleated skirt. I shifted and pushed and cajoled that skirt every which way, but I could not get it to provide any sort of barrier between my bum and the chair. And, since I was wearing the pink thong and not my normal 1790s pantaloons, it was not my underwear which was in contact with the chair, but my actual skin.
As I was attempting to maneuver my skirt beneath my bottom, it also became clear to me that the sweat that I thought I had removed from my face, neck, and pits had actually just rejiggered itself to my cheeks…meaning that not only was I sitting on my own butt, but I was sitting on my own butt in my own butt sweat.
It was at that moment that my boss appeared and asked me to type up a letter.
Back then, letters were typed on a typewriter. I had a typewriter at my desk for that very use, and the reason my boss had come over was that she wanted me to type the letter while she watched over my shoulder. I took a deep breath, attempted to will myself to stop sweating, and began to type.
On the third paragraph, my boss lost her train of thought. She rubbed her head and scratched her chin and tapped her foot and finally said, “You know, Amanda, why don’t you let me sit down and I’ll take it from here.”
“Um, okay,” I said, after a long pause. I stood up.
My boss pushed the chair back.
“Oh!” She said. “Did you spill coffee?” She pointed to the seat. It was glistening with a substance I knew to be sweat and she knew to be a liquid.
“I guess I must have,” I said.
We both looked at my desk, where nary a coffee cup had ever sat.
“Let me go run and grab a towel,” I said.
“No,” she stopped me. “I mean, we can do the letter later. I’ve run out of ideas, HA HA HAHA.” She laughed too vigorously. “Why don’t you take a quick break?”
“Sure,” I said. I walked to the break room. As I contemplated melting into a puddle of shame or actually getting a cup of coffee, the day janitor appeared with a towel and sprayed off my chair with his bottle of cleaning fluid.
I worked at that job for another month and a half. Never once did my boss ask me what the substance was on that chair. Never once did we speak of it in any capacity. When I left, she wrote me a glowing (or maybe glistening) recommendation. I still have that thong as a reminder to not get too large for my britches.
The photo above was taken in Asheville. My sister has asked that anyone looking for a place to visit consider Beloved Asheville.
This week on North Dakota Today we talked about David Olson, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as a nonprofit bringing sweets and community support to Grand Forks. Check it out. (Valley News Live)
Five nurses and one paramedic from the North Dakota Medical Reserve have deployed to North Carolina to help with hurricane recovery. (KX Net)
I’m not sure this is NICE news but it’s certainly good news (and it was life-saving help by the West Fargo Police; just a warning that it’s a bit of a stressful read): West Fargo’s Sam Dutcher was saved by the police after his Honda Pilot malfunctioned and took the car on a 40-mile ride at 100 miles per hour. (Valley News Live)
Grand Forks’ Earl Barcome and his dog were rescued by the Coast Guard after they were stranded in the middle of the water by Hurricane Helene. (Valley News Live)
I know I’ve posted about this a couple of times but I like it: the Honor Flights have returned home. (KFYR TV)
One of my readers, Faye, sent me a stack of nice news that she found in her own travels around the Internet. Here they are (thanks, Faye!):
Fargo’s Jaxson Thompson has a new jet ski, courtesy of Make-A-Wish. (Valley News Live)
Minot’s Rodney Ritz is the Cart Commissioner (thank you, Rodney!). (KX News)
Hundreds of people walked to hopefully provide their fellow community members a way Out of the Darkness. (Fargo Forum)
North Dakota Nice 
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