Mary Gets Rubbed

Lurching headlong into a weekend, newly-freckled and be-blonded by the Florida sun, I return to Minneapolis wondering what will happen next…

If only we knew.

And then I smile. Because of course we know. My iPod! Why, set on “shuffle” and left to its own devices during a Friday-morning commute, my iPod tells the future!

Sic semper tyrannis! E Pluribus Unum! Eenie meenie jelly beanie, the spirits are about to speak! (Sorry, Bullwinkle.)

21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson
Rose Garden by Southern Culture on the Skids
Totally Nude by The Wallets
Blue Rondo a la Turk by Dave Brubeck
You Really Got Me by The Kinks
Sing a Song by Earth Wind & Fire

You see that, kids? Happy weekend.

So quickly, before I lose you to naked dancing and air piano, a quick thought…

Because there we were, as we so often are: black-pantsed and white-shirted and side-by-side. Neatly coiffed, hands clasped behind our backs, Mary and I rock gently on our heels, striving for a look that says both “I’m here to serve” and “Please don’t ask me for anything”.

We are standing in the banquet hall, just outside the swinging kitchen doors.

Church service over, a 30-minute bar/reception follows.

Christmas dinner is right around the corner.

“You look nice,” I say.

“No, you look nice,” Mary says.

Ice waters filled to a three-quarters height, butter pats and creams center-table, silverware inspected, we await the storm that will be the next four hours.

“Oy vey,” Mary says.

A man in a suit, comfortably nestled between “old” and “elderly”, is approaching with a surprisingly sturdy gait.

“Mary!” he shouts.

My head swivels to the right, where I watch a blush creep up Mary’s neck.

“You know this guy?” I say out of the side of my mouth.

“Everybody knows me,” she mutters.

The man in the suit wraps an arm around Mary’s shoulders, rubs her upper arm vigorously. “How’re ya, sweetheart? Say, I’m wondering what a guy’s gotta do around here to get a glass of ice water. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

Mary, ever the sweetheart, can indeed get this guy a glass of ice water.

I follow her into the back. “No, seriously,” I say, “How does he know your name?”

She shakes her head. “When I was setting up that table just outside the double doors, he was out there.”

“Did he hug you then, too?”

“I’m irresistible to the old guys,” she says, wide-eyed. “They want to squeeze me.”

It’s true. “You’ll probably get a proposal out of the evening.”

“Shaddap,” she says pleasantly.

Thirty minutes later, and Mary comes flying into the back kitchen. “Ack!” We’d just finished serving the salads: huge, glass-bowled affairs passed around tables of eight, family-style. I hold out a piece of fresh fruit to calm her nerves.

“That’s not going to help,” she says, popping it into her mouth. “Mmmm,” she says, “pineapple.”

“So what’s going on?”

She dabs at her lips, checks her lipstick in the polished steel of the hand-towel dispenser. “Do I look like I want to be hugged to you?”

“I personally find you almost indescribably attractive,” I say.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Why I oughta…”

“Why you little…”

We laugh.

“You busy? Come with me. Watch this.”

I follow her out to the floor, where she is engulfed by old- to elderly men. “Mary!” they shout.

“You gotta meet Pearl,” she says, grinning. She pushes me forward.

“Pearl!” they shout.

One of them throws an arm around Mary, rubs her on the back. “You’re nice people, you know that? You’re just nice people.”

And we smile at each other.

Because, darn it. We’re just nice people.

Nice, huggable people.


Have a good weekend, everyone. Don't forget to come back!

Wherein I Defend How I Define "Fun"

A re-post, while I freckle-up and get just a little blonder before I return to Minnesota...


You know how people say “well, it’s the little things…” and somewhere in the back of your head you find yourself thinking, “Sheesh. That phrase is so old…”?

You know why it’s old?

Because it’s true, dagnabit! It is the little things; and by golly if I have to defend that cliché, I will!

And you know how I feel about clichés, don't you? Why, I avoid them like the plague...

And so I came across one of these "little things" just the other day: my leg-warmers. I’ve been encasing my legs from ankle to mid-thigh in a pair of gray, cable-knit leggings since October now and will no doubt keep them on until all threat of frost has passed, sometime in June.

I keed! I keed! We should be safe from hypothermia by May…

Think of it! Mother Nature wants to kill me. Why, at this very moment, not only am I wearing the foundation garments you would expect on any reasonable female, but also leggings, socks, pants – er, trousers – a camisole, a shirt, a scarf, and a jacket.

And frankly, I feel a little under-dressed, as the jacket’s sleeves are only three-quarters’ length.

The best part about wearing leg warmers, though?

When you finally take them off, wearing only – gasp! – pants, you feel scandalously naked.

Hee! Hee! Hee! No one knows that under my pants my legs are naked!

Oh, and that snickering you hear right now? It’s my readers from across the pond. Apparently the word “pants” to them means “underwear”.

Hee! Hee!

But you know what’s even better than cable-knit leg-warmers?

Are you familiar with driving in the winter, the massive amounts of salty snow and ice that collect within a car’s wheel wells?

Why is the snow salty? Oh, it’s a little service provided by the State of Minnesota. The salt ensures that the ice will melt and that your car will rust properly. No, no, no! No need to thank them. It’s part of what a full-service state will do.

But back to the slush.

When you drive in the snow, loads and loads of it ends up in your wheel wells where it freezes into clumps.

And those clumps, my friends, once you’ve pulled into a parking lot, are an absolute delight to kick from the car. A couple of good kicks and there it goes, hills of filthy ice and snow fall with a satisfying splat.

All across the Great State of Minnesota, parking lots fill with dirty piles of kicked-off car droppings.

So the next time you’re wondering, why in the world do people even bother living in states where the weather tries to kill them with the cold?

Now you know.

Because we love the feeling of kicking large clumps of snow off from under our cars.

And in the summer, we feel like we’re naked.

Sitting on the Couch: 1976

Randy Dupree was my sister’s friend’s oldest brother, and his family lived just on the other side of the creek that ran in our backyard.

Randy was well built and good looking, particularly by trailer-park standards, smooth, with his tight Wranglers and his torso-hugging tee-shirts. He wore black leather boots, hung a black leather biker jacket across his rippling, 18-year-old shoulders. Randy sometimes kept his sunglasses on the top of his head, an unbelievably cool look in the eyes of this seventh-grade glasses-wearer.

Randy was the epitome of the tawdry end of high school sexuality.

Gail-Lynn does her best to keep the damage to a minimum.

“Now what do you need it for now?”

Sitting next to Karen and Cindy, I watch from the couch as Randy wheedles the car keys from his mother.

“The Club. Goin’ up to The Club.” He holds out his right hand, palm up, jiggles it up-and-down, up-and-down in a mute gesture of joking but impatient demand.

They have one car, Gail-Lynn and her three children. Gail-Lynn eyes him shrewdly, and I turn my attention away from Gilligan’s Island and toward the Saturday night ritual of Randy and the car keys.

“I got new wiper blades,” she says. “You’ll put them on before noon on Saturday.”

Randy grins. The hand stops jiggling. “Yes.”

“We’ve got a quarter tank now. It’ll be a half-tank when I wake up in the morning.” I had heard that Randy’s mom had been from somewhere south. Her “morning” sounds like “mawn-ing”.

Randy’s still grinning. “Yes.”

She turns to the chair by the door, fishes her keys out of her purse, drops them in to Randy’s outstretched hand. He’ll do what he says he will, or he won’t get to use it again. He made that mistake once and went without it for four straight Saturdays. That won’t happen again.

Keys in-hand, Randy moves swiftly toward the front door. The night awaits.

“Randy!” Gail-Lynn yells from the kitchen, where she is pouring her own ritual of Saturday night: a Crown and Coke.

His hand on the door knob, he turns back to face his mom.

“No pecker tracks in my backseat. That’s some good upholstery,” she yells. “You gonna have sex in my back seat, you lay a towel down.”

Grinning, Randy exits, stage-right.

Holy Hannah, Run for Your Life!

A re-run, while I spend a few days in Florida, thawing. :-)


The drive-in tried to kill me when I was 12.

How, you say?

Well, I did a bit of babysitting in my youth. Of course, one had to do quite a bit of babysitting at that time to make any money, because the going rate was fifty cents an hour, regardless of the number of children.

I once babysat four kids overnight and got less than $8.

But that’s another story.

I sat for my youngest cousin, Chad, here and there; and so it came to pass one weekend that my Aunt Jewel and Uncle Keith decided to go to a drive-in, bringing me along to watch the two-year-old Chad.

You remember drive-ins, don’t you? Rows and rows of speakers on stands, the rows of piled dirt that you parked your front wheels on, aiming yourself toward the screen, the teenagers who arrived in the trunks of their friends cars in an attempt to save the $4 or whatever it was to get in…

I didn’t get out much as a 12-year-old. I was a late bloomer of a gal, someone who could easily be portrayed in the movie of her life as someone who starts out in her brother’s corduroys and granny glasses and ends up, well, giving her brother his pants back.

But we’re going to the drive-in! We’re going to the drive-in!

Jewel and Keith up front, Chad and I in the back, what movie are we going to?

Why, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, of course!

I remember, quite clearly, Chad running ahead of me to the playground, lifting and placing him on the swing. The drive-in screen was visible, just beyond a couple trees, and I pushed Chad absent-mindedly while I watched the movie, watched as the van in the film pulled over and picked up the creepy hitchhiker, the one who went on to play with a knife, the one they kicked out a couple miles down the road.

I couldn’t hear it, of course, but even a fifth grader could tell you that this was not going to end well.

A number of hot dogs, some popcorn, a small keg of pop later, and we were in the back seat of the car again.

Chad lay on the floor and fell asleep.

With nothing else to do, I began to watch the movie.

Projected onto a screen 100 feet wide and 80 feet tall, I watched, through latticed fingers, as the free-wheelin’, van-drivin’ hippies were killed in horrible ways.

I kept my foot on Chad’s back as he slept.

We went back to their home after the movie, somewhere around 1:00 a.m. and I spread my sleeping bag on the floor of the spare room and closed my eyes.

And that was when the real horror began.

I was not accustomed to sleeping there, and every sound, every creak, put in motion the leather-faced freak now occupying precious brain space.

I summoned the dispenser of fear – the alphabet – for hours that night, reciting it in English, French, and Pig Latin.

Ohway ymay odgay.

It was around 6:00 a.m., as the sun was coming up, that I finally started to fall asleep.

And that’s when the garbage truck came down the alley. The sound of the hydraulic lift on the back of the truck – sounding every decibel like a chainsaw – caused my heart to rip through my ribs, whereupon it was propelled upward and hit the ceiling with a wet, percussive slap.

I peed my pants.

And then I died of fear.

You know, every day, I try to learn a little something.

What did I learn that day?

That there’s no way to ignore a screen that size.

And that you should always pack one more pair of underwear than you think you’ll need.

I'll Bet I Can Eat My Lunch Faster Than You Can

We need to do something about lunch, people.

I sat in the Skyroom on the top floor of Macy’s the other day in a rare out-for-lunch moment with friends. We sat kittycorner from a mother and son. The woman appeared to be in her early 30s, the boy maybe 9, 10.

He was eating quite enthusiastically.

“Slow down,” his mother admonished, “no one's going to take it from you.”

He tried to slow down, taking a couple of careful bites, but moments later he was back at his previous pace. Quickly, efficiently, he smiled between bites at his mother as he made short work of his sandwich. She smiled at him, love in her eyes; and he covered his mouth as they laughed good-naturedly.

That kid was what we call “a good little eater”.

Watching the exchange made me smile, too; but it also got me thinking about the casual nature with which we treat our midday meal.

Let me ask you: Where did you go to school? Did they allow you to eat with utensils? If memory serves me correctly – and I think it does – I’m pretty sure we were forced to eat whilst in line, plastic-kerchiefed women plopping ice-cream scoops of mashed-potato-lime-gelatin-surprise into our outstretched hands.

As an aside, my father swore that, when he was young, lime Jello containing free-floating shredded carrot and celery, the whole thing topped with Miracle Whip – yes, Miracle Whip – was considered a dessert.

It changed how I looked at him.

And how was your lunch hour in your 20s? Did they pay you for that time? I continually managed to find jobs where you had to punch out for lunch.

Hmm. Would I like to clock-out to eat or would I like to have another seven dollars a day on my paycheck?

Even now, I have a hard time stepping away from my desk and often eat my lunch while setting up meetings and prank-calling my friends.

I hear, by the way, that lunch in Europe is different, that it is sometimes accompanied with wine and naps. I refuse to believe that, however, as it interferes with my ability to continue to work in the United States.

Anyway, that couldn’t possibly be true – could it?

And if it is, how do we institute that in Minnesota?

Let me know if you know who I should contact. I’m willing to get the ball rolling on this one.

Oh, About Four Pounds or So

Seems that my parents and Mary did some bonding whilst Mary worked her sneaky wiles around the surprise party she threw for my birthday.

“When are you picking her up?”

“Who?”

“Mary!” I can hear my mother moving around her kitchen. Putting away the silverware would be my guess. “Aren’t you bringing Mary with you for lunch tomorrow?”

“What? When did this happen?”

“Oh, you know,” my mother says. “At the party. I said you were coming up for lunch and she said she wished she was coming up for lunch and, well, you’ve seen her, haven’t you. All big eyes and – Paul! Close that door! For cryin’ out loud!” She sighs. “Your father enjoys aggravating me.”

And so I pick Mary up for the two hours’ ride north to my parent’s.

She climbs into the passenger seat.

“You look nice,” I say.

She pulls down the sun visor. “I’ll have you know,” she says, smiling at the image she finds in the mirror there, “that I am wearing lipstick just for your mom.”

“Not for me?”

Mary, a woman notoriously good at taking care of everyone but herself, has had chapped lips since we met.

She shakes her head, flips the visor up. “I used to wear it for you, but now I wear it for your mom.”

“Well whoever you’re wearing it for, it looks nice.”

It’s quiet as we let this sink in.

“You’re lucky, you know.”

I know what she’s talking about. Mary lost her mother when she was quite young, her father a number of years ago.

“You can –“

“Can I –“

We stop.

I keep my eyes on the road, hands at 10 and 2. “You can use them, if you like.”

Mary stares out the passenger window. “They know stuff, you know,” she says. “Parents and older people. Like how many cups to a quart.” She looks at me. “Do you think your mom knows that?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet she makes the best desserts.”

I don’t say anything.

“Does she know how many feet to a mile?”

“Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure my dad does.”

This seems to satisfy her. “Seems like a Dad question, doesn’t it,” she murmurs.

I smile. “Hey, and if you’re going to ask my dad questions, be sure to ask him about his collection of literature, in particular his henways.”

Mary frowns. “What’s a henway?”

I smile. My father, the king of the clean joke, is going to love this.

“Oh, Mary,” I say. “Just be sure to ask. My dad loves questions like that.”

Bus Stop: 1976

It’s really cold today. You know it’s cold when Tammy’s hair freezes.

Tammy, the prettiest girl in the trailer park, is in the habit of washing her hair every morning before school, the better to emphasize the gleaming blue-black drape that hangs well below her waist. Because she is too cool to wear a hat, her hair has frozen solid in the six-block walk to the bus stop.

Next to Tammy is Rita Bayer. There is a wary, uneasy space between the two of them.

I know four of the Bayer kids. Their trailer is never empty of teenagers. Their driveway never has less than three cars in it - four if you include the Mustang on blocks back next to the shed.

All the Bayers are boys. Even the girls are boys. They are sturdy and box-shaped.

The Bayers aren’t built for speed; they are built to crush.

I had met Rita three months earlier at the bus stop on our first day in the new court.

“Hi,” I said.

“What’s your name?” she countered.

“Pearl,” I said. “What’s yours?”

“Guess.”

“What?” I said.

“Guess.” A demand.

“Um. Sharon,” I said.

“Pssssss, “ she said, hissing between her teeth. Clearly, she was dealing with an idiot.

“Mary?”

“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” she jeered. “Guess again.”

Guess again? No, thank you. “Um. I give up,” I said.

“Rita!” she shouted, triumphantly.

Rita? I was supposed to have guessed “Rita”? Yikes! Welcome to the first day of seventh grade.

Rita and I never became friends. Rita said things like “yank me” and, even worse, the horrifying “lick my butt”. I never knew where to look when she said that.

Tammy scowls at her in the thin pre-dawn light. The two of them are oil and water; and if Tammy had a brother, I’m sure she would’ve had him attempt to beat Rita up by now.

“Your hair is frozen,” Rita observes.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Tammy says.

“Howdja like me to break it off at the roots?” Rita asks, pleasantly. She could just as easily be asking “howdja like a three-day weekend” or “howdja like half a pizza”.

Tammy steps behind me, uses me as a shield. “Go ahead,” she says, holding my shoulders. “Try it, Lard-O.”

Lard-O is a misnomer. Rita isn’t fat. As solid as a tree trunk, and moving just slightly faster than one, she grabs the front of my coat with one hand and takes a swing for Tammy’s head with the other. She misses Tammy’s head but manages to grab her coat.

“Hey!” I shout, angrily.

“Stand still,” Rita advises.

“LINDSEY!” Tammy is screaming for her older sister. Lindsey, however, is a good block away. She sees what is going on and continues her slow walk to the bus stop.

Rita lets go of me and I duck away. Holding Tammy’s coat at the throat with her right hand, she casually licks her left thumb and smears it across Tammy’s forehead, then shoves her, hard, backwards.

Tammy falls heavily to the street. She jumps up, twisting to see the butt of her white painter’s pants. They are ruined.

“I’m gonna get you! I’m gonna get you!” she screams.

Tammy runs home, crying.

Rita looks at me. “Washing your hair in the morning is stupid,” she challenges.

“You’re right about that,” I say.