The Survivorman Face

I have no poker face. If I'm happy, it shows, if I'm upset, it shows, and if I'm disdainful, it really shows.

Jason refers to it as my Survivorman face. Survivorman is a show on the Discovery Channel made by this guy who's an expert in outdoor survival, so on the show he plops himself out in the middle of the Arctic tundra or the Amazon rainforest or the Sahara desert or whereever and has to survive on scorpions and toe lint for a week. The conceit of the show is that he films the show himself without a camera crew, so he lugs all the cameras around and sets up shots himself, and spends lots of time babbling to the camera while he's out there alone in the wilderness.

Jason introduced me to this show a few years ago, and while I certainly respect the guy's skills, I always found his incessant chatter annoying (somehow, Bear Grylls of Man vs. Wild manages to do it without annoying me, but maybe because he's smoking hot). Without being conscious of it, I would spend the majority of the show with a look on my face that came to be known as the Survivorman face.

The Survivorman face is basically an exaggerated "who farted?" face. Brow furrowed, eyes slightly narrowed, nose and upper lip pulled up, mouth slightly open. It's a look that I spend much time and effort hiding. In court, for example, it is the height of bad form to react to something your opponent says with eye rolls, heavy sighs, or open looks of disdain. It's rude and unprofessional, the sign of a rookie. So when I'm in court, I keep my face absolutely neutral. The most I will allow myself is a slight eyebrow raise from time to time, kind of like a pressure valve to keep my head from exploding right off my shoulders.

But it takes enormous effort to maintain that facial calm, and in my everyday life, I have more trouble disguising it when someone does something that betrays them as a complete chowderhead.

Which makes dealing with my next-door neighbor difficult.

Did you ever meet someone and discover that every single thing about them irritated you? That's my next-door neighbor. She's a busybody who's always complaining and seeing conspiracies against her everywhere. Plus, if the sun is down, she walks around the neighborhood all bundled up in a ski parka and hat, even though the lowest it gets here is about 75 degrees. She even asked if she could have one of Zeke's newborn-size onesies so her stupid little yippy dog could wear it. Everything she does bugs the living shit out of me.

I knew we were in trouble the first time we met and she introduced herself. She has this crazy name that her parents made up and that means nothing, but her parents apparently told her is a biblical name. It isn't. So of course when she told me her name and said it was from the Bible, I thought about it and immediately the Survivorman face appeared. Jason elbowed me and I made it go away.

Within days after we moved into our house, NDN started bugging us about the trees in our yard. According to her, our trees are too tall and violate the condo rules. She has been writing letters to the condo association for over a year, and they have been ignoring her. Our sellers did not disclose any possible violations of the condo rules, so my position is and has been that it's not my problem -- if someone wants to remove the trees, fine, but I ain't paying for it.

One night NDN showed up on our doorstep with a big stack of copies of the letters she had been sending to the condo board for the past year, and copies of the condo rules she claims we have violated. I opened the door, saw who it was, and immediately forced my face into my neutral "court" expression.

"Hi. I just wanted to give you copies of these letters so you would know what's going on."

"Oh, OK. Thanks."

"You can see that this newsletter highlights the fact that trees in your yard can't be over 15 feet tall, or over the roofline. I tried dealing with the previous owners but they ignored me, and the condo board hasn't done anything about it either, but your trees clearly violate the rules."

"Hmmmm." Deep breath.

"I know it wasn't disclosed to you and you didn't know anything about it, so it really shouldn't be your problem."

"That's right, it isn't." Stay neutral, stay neutral.

"Oh, and also, there's a board meeting tomorrow that I think you should go to. There's a proposal to put in a gate at the entrance to the neighborhood, but I know for a fact that the company that has bid on the job to build the gate has one of the board members in his pocket and is giving him kickbacks. You should vote against it."

Slight eyebrow raise. "Is that right? How do you know this?"

"I have a source on the board."

"Really? Who?"

"I can't tell you."

"Hmm," I keep my voice silken. "Well, that makes it hard to assess their reliability, doesn't it?"

"Oh, they're reliable, I can promise you that. Anyway, I just wanted to give you these letters."

"Well, I sure appreciate that." Sometimes having spent half my life in the South comes in handy. "You take care now."

A few weeks later I ran into the property manager. When he realized where I lived, he said, "oh, you live next door to the crazy lady. Don't worry about your trees, they're fine. I'm sending her a letter tonight telling her that her complaints aren't valid." We haven't heard from her about the trees since.

Then last night, the doorbell rang. I opened it, and NDN was standing there, all rugged up in her parka and scarf. It was almost 80 degrees outside. Survivorman face started to creep up, but I caught it in time.

"Hi, can I help you?"

"Hi, Wendy. Do you smell something? I think something died in your backyard."

I sniffed the air.

"No, I don't smell anything. Jason, do you smell anything?"

Jason went out into the back yard and took a whiff. "Nope, I don't smell anything."

"Well, when I was walking on my walkway, which is next to your yard, I smelled something that smelled like a dead animal."

"Hmm. I don't smell anything and neither does Jason."

"Yeah, also, I was washing my car and one of the kids across the street came over to me and said he smelled something funny."

Neutral face, Wendy.

"I don't smell anything and neither does Jason."

"It smells like something died."

"I don't smell anything and neither does Jason."

"It smells like it's coming from your back yard."

The facade is beginning to crack. I'm trying really hard to keep it together.

"I don't smell anything and neither does Jason. I don't know what else to tell you."

When I went back in the house, Jason took one look at me and burst out laughing.

"Hello, Survivorman!"