Where do old vibrators go when they die? I know I am not the only one who has wondered about this. Most women in my age range have at least one sex toy, which like all small appliances have a relatively short shelf life.
Yes, of course you have more than one sex toy. There is the starter one you purchased when you first thought about venturing into the world of adult toys, which was more of a novelty item than anything. That little pocket rocket couldn’t electrocute a moth, let alone produce an earth shattering orgasm. For something of that strength, an upgrade had to be made, which perhaps you enjoyed so thoroughly that you should have purchased them in bulk, what with the way you burn through them. Add to that your old collection of porn, maybe even on VHS, all bought back before the days of the Internet sex smorgasbord. Chances are good that most of us have a couple of crappy old vibrators and some really bad porn hiding in our closets. The suburbs are teeming with them, an infestation of outdated unmentionables.
At some point, you will break up with your part-time battery operated lover. You will either move on to something newer and younger and stronger with an electrical cord, or just wear your old favorite the fuck out. And then what? Just toss it in the garbage can along with the expired cottage cheese, forgotten like yesterday’s sale catalogs? Or are you too embarrassed to put it in your own trash, in case the sex police are sorting your Hefty bags right now AS YOU READ THIS? Maybe you hide it in your hoodie and take a walk, hoping one of your neighbors has hauled the trash cans to the curb for pick up day, whereupon you bury it in their trash and keep walking, hoping that no one saw you. I would imagine that the landfills are overflowing with broken down dildos and vibrators. It’s not like you can take them to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.
Once when I worked as a cashier at a grocery store, a rather obese woman returned a douche bag that she had used because it had a hole in it. I tried to just stuff some money in her hand to make her go away, but no, I had to do a price check and everything. I'm still shocked at her nerve, twenty-odd years later. Who returns a used douche bag? Who even buys a new one? If it were me and I were into douche bags, I would just eat the cost and pony up for another. But bring it back to the store? I think not.
It’s a shame, if you think about it. If Apple can refurbish an old iPod, why can’t somebody fix up a used sex toy? It’s not that different from a waterproof flashlight in terms of technology, is it? Surely some engineer out there could come up with either a better, more reliable design or at least an easy way to fix them up.
Why isn’t anyone working on this issue?
I have two theories. The first is that the sex toy manufacturers know that you will be too embarrassed to do anything about their inferior products, so they only have to make them good enough to get you hooked. There is a reason that Toyota and Maytag aren’t in the vibrator business. No corporation wants you to get your rocks off with the same trusty, reliable friend for longer than most marriages last. And if your toy breaks after a few good times, what are you going to do? Send it back and ask for a replacement? I bet most suburban women would prefer to shell out another fifty dollars than go through that level of humiliation. Can you imagine the phone call to complain about your vibrator?
Customer Service Operator: May I help you?
You: Yes, I have a problem with my sex toy.
Customer Service Operator: What sort of problem? Can you describe it?
You: Not really. I just want to exchange it.
Customer Service Operator: We can’t exchange used merchandise. Has it been used?
You: I don’t want to talk about it. Can I just get my money back?
Customer Service Operator: I can’t issue a refund without knowing what the problem is. What seems to be wrong with it?
You: Never mind.
Customer Service Operator: How else can I help you today?
You: I’d like to place an order for a new vibrator.
Customer Service Operator: Which model are you interested in?
You: I just remembered I need to wash my hair. Good bye.
Which is how you ended up with more than one vibrator in the first place; you broke that starter one, didn’t you? So you toss it out because as far as you know, no one has created a refurbishment or used sex toy industry. Because ew, who wants a used sex toy? Unless that dildo was inside Marilyn Monroe’s sugar walls, chances are good it’s not collectible. A used vibrator is like an old whore; who knows where it’s been? Even if they could be refurbished, and I am talking about vibrators and not old whores, who would want them?
I propose we begin a campaign to renovate old funky vibrators and send them to impoverished nations. If we can do it with Crocs, why not a two foot long double headed dildo? It will be a great way to spread a little happiness to some places that sorely need it, while reducing the waste in our landfills. I’m still working on a name for this venture, but my current favorite is "Buttplugs without Borders." When I get it up and running, I’ll let you know where to send your donation. Just be sure to double bag it, because I don’t want to touch your old nasty adult toy.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
It's For a Good Cause
What is it about piece of crap toys that children find so motivating? Have you ever really looked at the prizes! at Chuck E Cheese or an arcade? You have to collect about a thousand tickets to get an inferior stuffed animal or some glow in the dark oversized Frisbee. Think about that for a minute. In order to get a thousand tickets, you have to spend at least ten dollars playing skeeball or the same video games that your child could play at home on the Xbox or Playstation. Only you don’t give them prizes! at home. You only yell at them for playing too many video games. And there is no five or ten dollars’worth of tokens that you could collect, and even if you did, they would borrow that money from you in the first place, so anyway you look at it, you are paying more and more money for them to waste their time not doing homework, reading, or exercising. But as usual, I digress, because the point isn’t the playing of the video games. The point is a child’s desire for winning a piece of crap that costs way more to win than it would to purchase outright.
This unbalanced prize!-for-cash ratio is even more obvious when it comes to the ubiquitous school fundraiser. The parent-teacher organization decides on some gimmicky thing that no one wants like overpriced wrapping paper or frozen tubs of cookie dough, and then all the parents have to get behind it and be excited and send in checks and even hit up their parents and friends for checks, and at the end of the day, the classrooms might get an extra dry erase board and a functional water fountain. The parent-teacher organization comes up with some idea of how much each child should raise, and while you would rather just write a check for that amount and call it a day, your child won’t allow it. That’s because he or she is judged by their ability to persuade friends and family members to cough up some dough, so they can win prizes! Prizes! always is followed by an exclamation point. Who knew your child was getting a free business education while in elementary school?
It’s the Gap principle, really. I worked at the Gap for a month after earning my bachelor’s degree, and a good thing it wasn’t in philosophy because I would have gone postal over the Gap sales logic. For them, it wasn’t about how much each customer spent; it was all about how many items were bought. If you sold one jacket for 200 dollars, you were looked down upon by those employees who were able to get a multiple item sale. That’s why they always push socks and belts at the Gap. It’s better to sell a t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and a belt, all on clearance, rather than just one expensive sweater.
That same illogical logic applies to fundraising. At the end of the day, the money needs to be there, but they rather get a hundred dollars from five donors than one five hundred dollar donor. It has something to do with raising awareness. Whatever.
The parent teacher organization doesn’t want Mom and Dad to write a fifty dollar check. They want five different people to write ten dollar checks. And they ensure this happens by awarding your child prizes for getting more people to sign up. Wait a minute, isn’t this the same thing Bernie Madoff did, only without the prizes!? Now it’s all making sense.
This afternoon, my daughter came home with her spring fundraising brochure. Apparently, the parent teacher organization has figured out that we don’t want any more of their crap, so instead of getting an actual unwanted item for our check, we now are writing checks out of guilt. The fundraiser? As far as I can tell, it’s a fun run. The students are expected to run a number of laps, and the donors will sponsor the laps at a certain dollar amount per lap. The hope is that the students will run anywhere between 25 and 30 laps. The problem, however, is my daughter has no idea what the distance of a lap is. Are we talking four laps is a mile, or 25 laps? Are they running around the school or the gym?Who decided running was fun? And if I sponsor my asthmatic daughter at a dollar a lap, will I owe her four bucks or forty five?
The prizes!, as you have figured out by now, aren’t based on dollars pledged, but on how many pledges each child gets. The more people my child sucks into this pyramid scheme, the more rubber bracelets and bouncy balls come home with her, and she wants that bouncy ball, dammit!
When all the homework was done, my daughter got on the phone and called everyone whose phone numbers I knew. Grandparents. Close friends. Aunts and uncles. She left messages in her little girl voice, ignoring the phone script the fundraiser provided in favor of her own confusing words, hoping that each family member would call back and sponsor her. She even let them know that she sucks at running and therefore a per lap pledge would be more cost effective than a flat donation. What she didn’t tell them is that she only qualifies for prizes if she secures per lap donations. So if I write her a check for fifty bucks, she gets nothing. If ten people sponsor her at a dollar a lap, she will be up to her chin in balls. Bouncy balls.
So if you get a call from my kid, do me a favor and call her back. She doesn’t ask for much, really, just a few bucks per lap. She guarantees it won’t be thirty five laps. And it’s for a good cause: supplementing our tax dollars to cover basic school supplies that the district can no longer afford to buy. Plus, they are promoting health and exercise in our obese lazy children. It’s a win-win, right? I will be so proud of my daughter as she wheezes around whatever the course is, earning money for copier paper and getting bouncy balls and light up markers that will be left on the kitchen counter, never to be touched again until I toss them in the donation pile or the trash can. We can all get behind that, can’t we?
This unbalanced prize!-for-cash ratio is even more obvious when it comes to the ubiquitous school fundraiser. The parent-teacher organization decides on some gimmicky thing that no one wants like overpriced wrapping paper or frozen tubs of cookie dough, and then all the parents have to get behind it and be excited and send in checks and even hit up their parents and friends for checks, and at the end of the day, the classrooms might get an extra dry erase board and a functional water fountain. The parent-teacher organization comes up with some idea of how much each child should raise, and while you would rather just write a check for that amount and call it a day, your child won’t allow it. That’s because he or she is judged by their ability to persuade friends and family members to cough up some dough, so they can win prizes! Prizes! always is followed by an exclamation point. Who knew your child was getting a free business education while in elementary school?
It’s the Gap principle, really. I worked at the Gap for a month after earning my bachelor’s degree, and a good thing it wasn’t in philosophy because I would have gone postal over the Gap sales logic. For them, it wasn’t about how much each customer spent; it was all about how many items were bought. If you sold one jacket for 200 dollars, you were looked down upon by those employees who were able to get a multiple item sale. That’s why they always push socks and belts at the Gap. It’s better to sell a t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and a belt, all on clearance, rather than just one expensive sweater.
That same illogical logic applies to fundraising. At the end of the day, the money needs to be there, but they rather get a hundred dollars from five donors than one five hundred dollar donor. It has something to do with raising awareness. Whatever.
The parent teacher organization doesn’t want Mom and Dad to write a fifty dollar check. They want five different people to write ten dollar checks. And they ensure this happens by awarding your child prizes for getting more people to sign up. Wait a minute, isn’t this the same thing Bernie Madoff did, only without the prizes!? Now it’s all making sense.
This afternoon, my daughter came home with her spring fundraising brochure. Apparently, the parent teacher organization has figured out that we don’t want any more of their crap, so instead of getting an actual unwanted item for our check, we now are writing checks out of guilt. The fundraiser? As far as I can tell, it’s a fun run. The students are expected to run a number of laps, and the donors will sponsor the laps at a certain dollar amount per lap. The hope is that the students will run anywhere between 25 and 30 laps. The problem, however, is my daughter has no idea what the distance of a lap is. Are we talking four laps is a mile, or 25 laps? Are they running around the school or the gym?Who decided running was fun? And if I sponsor my asthmatic daughter at a dollar a lap, will I owe her four bucks or forty five?
The prizes!, as you have figured out by now, aren’t based on dollars pledged, but on how many pledges each child gets. The more people my child sucks into this pyramid scheme, the more rubber bracelets and bouncy balls come home with her, and she wants that bouncy ball, dammit!
When all the homework was done, my daughter got on the phone and called everyone whose phone numbers I knew. Grandparents. Close friends. Aunts and uncles. She left messages in her little girl voice, ignoring the phone script the fundraiser provided in favor of her own confusing words, hoping that each family member would call back and sponsor her. She even let them know that she sucks at running and therefore a per lap pledge would be more cost effective than a flat donation. What she didn’t tell them is that she only qualifies for prizes if she secures per lap donations. So if I write her a check for fifty bucks, she gets nothing. If ten people sponsor her at a dollar a lap, she will be up to her chin in balls. Bouncy balls.
So if you get a call from my kid, do me a favor and call her back. She doesn’t ask for much, really, just a few bucks per lap. She guarantees it won’t be thirty five laps. And it’s for a good cause: supplementing our tax dollars to cover basic school supplies that the district can no longer afford to buy. Plus, they are promoting health and exercise in our obese lazy children. It’s a win-win, right? I will be so proud of my daughter as she wheezes around whatever the course is, earning money for copier paper and getting bouncy balls and light up markers that will be left on the kitchen counter, never to be touched again until I toss them in the donation pile or the trash can. We can all get behind that, can’t we?
Friday, February 17, 2012
Adult Swim
Children should be seen and not heard. And by children, I don’t mean mine. My children are darling and precious and wonderful. I mean all those little kids whining and sniveling and crying in public. I know they shouldn’t all use pacifiers until they enter school, but seriously, can’t you teach your children to put a sock in it? Go to a grocery store or Target before lunchtime on any weekday and you'll see what I mean. It’s loud out there in public, man. If I drive down the street blaring my music, I am violating a noise ordinance, but so is your child in the Easter candy display. Maybe you shouldn’t push your cart by the M&M’s if you aren’t going to rip open a bag and share them with your little chatterbox.
I might sound a bit bitter; I recognize the makings of a curmudgeon in myself. I remember those days too. Breakfast was over and lunch and naptime were hours away. How were the next seven hours before bedtime going to be occupied? Every day can’t be filled by inventorying the Legos and Matchbox cars. A tea party every day is less party-like when it becomes a daily chore.
There are only so many times you can change a Polly Pocket dress before you lose brain cells and develop arthritis in your fingers. Plus, sometimes you need more Pull-ups and children’s Benadryl and a box of wine. Sometimes you just have to get out of the house with your little kids before you become the breaking news story on CNN. So you pack up the two year old and the newborn in your minivan and you kill an hour at the grocery store, opening a bag of Goldfish crackers for snack time and hoping to have some stimulating conversation with another mom pushing around her grocery cart shaped like a truck filled with her own 2.5 offspring. Then you check out and think, did that bag boy just flirt with me, and you catch a glimpse of your greasy hair and spit-up stained sweatshirt in the minivan door and remember that no one is flirting with you in your current state of unkempt fertility. You are not a MILF; you are a MILA (Mom I’d Like to Avoid.)
So I get it, really. I have been there. I had many a trip to Walmart with my two year old just to watch the seafood manager fill up the lobster tank. My daughter S and I were thrilled when we timed it just right. The man would unload the box with these disoriented three pounders and drop them in the tank, at which point all the lobsters would demonstrate their territorial behaviors without the use of their rubber banded claws. But just so you know, if S had a meltdown in front of the Little Debbie snack cakes, I would snatch her out of the cart and abandon my errand because no one, including me, wanted to hear her whine and carry on.
That’s my point, really. No one wants to hear your kid whine. Maybe you are good at ignoring your child’s desperate pleas for the Dora the Explorer body wash, but I am not. I also can’t tune out the sound of your newborn’s mewing for that delayed bottle, and I really don’t want to listen to your girl scream when her brother yanks out one of her braids in front of the cat food. All it does is make me forget what I needed at Target in the first place. Just make it stop.
One of my friends says the problem isn’t all the noises, but my inability to tolerate or overlook them. I am just as squirrelly with the pen clickers and chair rockers and foot tappers as I am with the whiny preschoolers. I want it all to go away because I can’t tune any of it out. But I disagree; I am pretty observant, and if there is that much assault on my radar, chances are pretty good that two planes will be sharing the same runway. It's not that I am intolerant, but rather, some of you are just plain annoying.
Think of how much more efficient it is to run errands without your kids. The bill is cheaper because the impulse purchases are at a minimum, plus your time is your own. No one complains about being hungry or bored or hating kale or why can’t you buy the pink Qtips. How much simpler is it to get only yourself in and out of your car seat? Not only that, but you can listen to whatever you want on the radio, and if you want to hear it three more times, who is going to stop you? If I am going to listen to a song three times in a row, I rather it be the Beastie Boys than the Wiggles.
Here’s what I am suggesting: leave the mid-mornings at retail establishments to the stay at home moms with school-aged kids and the old people. I know you have errands to run too, but why not do them after the kids go to bed? They’re young, so lights out should be about 7:30 or so, right? That leaves you plenty of time to hit the grocery store, the pharmacy, and even a department store while your husband stays home and looks at porn. Don’t worry about the shower and early bedtime you indulge in after the little darlings go to bed. Shower with them during the day and call it water play time. How educational is it to show them how time and gravity can do a number on the human body? And while you’re at it, shouldn’t nap time be for the whole family? You’ll be fresh for that pre-dinner hell hour if you catch a little nap after lunch. And after they are all tucked in for the night, well, what better time to get your shop on?
Please, I beg you. If you won’t do it for me, then think of the children. Because if you don’t shut them up and keep them home, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it ain’t gonna be pretty.
I might sound a bit bitter; I recognize the makings of a curmudgeon in myself. I remember those days too. Breakfast was over and lunch and naptime were hours away. How were the next seven hours before bedtime going to be occupied? Every day can’t be filled by inventorying the Legos and Matchbox cars. A tea party every day is less party-like when it becomes a daily chore.
There are only so many times you can change a Polly Pocket dress before you lose brain cells and develop arthritis in your fingers. Plus, sometimes you need more Pull-ups and children’s Benadryl and a box of wine. Sometimes you just have to get out of the house with your little kids before you become the breaking news story on CNN. So you pack up the two year old and the newborn in your minivan and you kill an hour at the grocery store, opening a bag of Goldfish crackers for snack time and hoping to have some stimulating conversation with another mom pushing around her grocery cart shaped like a truck filled with her own 2.5 offspring. Then you check out and think, did that bag boy just flirt with me, and you catch a glimpse of your greasy hair and spit-up stained sweatshirt in the minivan door and remember that no one is flirting with you in your current state of unkempt fertility. You are not a MILF; you are a MILA (Mom I’d Like to Avoid.)
So I get it, really. I have been there. I had many a trip to Walmart with my two year old just to watch the seafood manager fill up the lobster tank. My daughter S and I were thrilled when we timed it just right. The man would unload the box with these disoriented three pounders and drop them in the tank, at which point all the lobsters would demonstrate their territorial behaviors without the use of their rubber banded claws. But just so you know, if S had a meltdown in front of the Little Debbie snack cakes, I would snatch her out of the cart and abandon my errand because no one, including me, wanted to hear her whine and carry on.
That’s my point, really. No one wants to hear your kid whine. Maybe you are good at ignoring your child’s desperate pleas for the Dora the Explorer body wash, but I am not. I also can’t tune out the sound of your newborn’s mewing for that delayed bottle, and I really don’t want to listen to your girl scream when her brother yanks out one of her braids in front of the cat food. All it does is make me forget what I needed at Target in the first place. Just make it stop.
One of my friends says the problem isn’t all the noises, but my inability to tolerate or overlook them. I am just as squirrelly with the pen clickers and chair rockers and foot tappers as I am with the whiny preschoolers. I want it all to go away because I can’t tune any of it out. But I disagree; I am pretty observant, and if there is that much assault on my radar, chances are pretty good that two planes will be sharing the same runway. It's not that I am intolerant, but rather, some of you are just plain annoying.
Think of how much more efficient it is to run errands without your kids. The bill is cheaper because the impulse purchases are at a minimum, plus your time is your own. No one complains about being hungry or bored or hating kale or why can’t you buy the pink Qtips. How much simpler is it to get only yourself in and out of your car seat? Not only that, but you can listen to whatever you want on the radio, and if you want to hear it three more times, who is going to stop you? If I am going to listen to a song three times in a row, I rather it be the Beastie Boys than the Wiggles.
Here’s what I am suggesting: leave the mid-mornings at retail establishments to the stay at home moms with school-aged kids and the old people. I know you have errands to run too, but why not do them after the kids go to bed? They’re young, so lights out should be about 7:30 or so, right? That leaves you plenty of time to hit the grocery store, the pharmacy, and even a department store while your husband stays home and looks at porn. Don’t worry about the shower and early bedtime you indulge in after the little darlings go to bed. Shower with them during the day and call it water play time. How educational is it to show them how time and gravity can do a number on the human body? And while you’re at it, shouldn’t nap time be for the whole family? You’ll be fresh for that pre-dinner hell hour if you catch a little nap after lunch. And after they are all tucked in for the night, well, what better time to get your shop on?
Please, I beg you. If you won’t do it for me, then think of the children. Because if you don’t shut them up and keep them home, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it ain’t gonna be pretty.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
A Good Deed
I stood in the express checkout line at the grocery store behind an elderly woman and her granddaughter. They were purchasing a single gallon of milk and were deep in conversation while the cashier waited patiently for them to pay for the milk. It cost $5.79, and the child gestured towards the register and then to her grandmother.
Watching their exchange, I assumed that perhaps one or both of them might be hearing impaired. Then the woman spoke rapidly to the child in a foreign language, and the child gestured again in the direction of the register. I recognized the language as Russian, although I didn’t understand what she said. I took two years of Russian in college, which at the time left me able to read a child’s primer if I had six weeks and a dictionary to decipher half the text. I wasn’t fluent on even a four year old’s level after two years, and that was twenty years ago. Now, about all I can remember is how to count to three and say hello, good bye, please and thank you. I also remember the word for “onion.” It doesn’t come up much, I have since discovered.
I waited and observed the two of them talking and gesticulating. Finally, the elderly woman took out a five dollar bill and handed it to the cashier. She did not have the additional seventy-nine cents. The cashier stood there, unsure what to do. The little girl kept pointing to the register, which made the grandmother answer her in guttural tones. I noticed they were buying a gallon of organic milk and wondered if it was a deliberate or accidental choice. Had she bought regular milk, she would have had enough money, but no one would have been able to communicate that to her. She was aware, however, that she did not have enough to buy the milk.
I took out my wallet and dug through my change purse until I produced three quarters and four pennies, which I handed to the cashier. “Here,” I said. “Let them have the milk.”
The cashier took my change and finished their sale, handing the receipt to the lady. The old woman realized I had helped pay for the milk, and she turned to me and said, “Thank you” in heavily accented English. She sounded like the Russian bear from the Bugs Bunny cartoon I had watched earlier in the day with my daughter.
I answered her in Russian, “Pahzhalostah,” which means you’re welcome.
Her eyes lit up, a big smile on her face. “Ah, pah-Ruski!” she exclaimed, which means something like “in Russian,” and she launched into a long sentence of foreign gibberish. I had no idea what she said to me, but her eyes smiled her gratitude.
I glanced at her, then looked down. I was taught in my college class that Russian people don’t like direct eye contact. Of course, that was back when it was the Soviet Union. Now, they might enjoy a little more directness.The child grabbed the jug of milk with one hand and put her other hand in her grandmother’s. Together, they walked out of the grocery store.
The cashier scanned my one item and asked me,” What were they speaking?” “Russian,” I said. “Are you Russian?”he asked me.
“No, I took a couple years of it in college, forever ago,” I told him. “I never expected to use it at Publix though.”
On my drive home, I passed the old woman and the child walking in the dark through the parking lot, holding hands. They were beautiful together, so tender and loving. I was tempted to wave to them but didn’t want to intrude on their moment. I remember holding my grandmother’s hand while walking, how soft and loose the skin on her hand was, the feeling of her thick veins against my fingertips as I rolled them. I remember matching my gait to hers. My grandmother was always happy to walk with me, around the block, on the beach. She was the one person who would walk with me when I was little. My grandmother’s parents were Russian, although she never spoke a word of it in front of me. I learned my Yiddish from her, and I took Russian in college to honor her.
To be an old woman in another country with a foreign tongue, or a young child who would not be taken seriously by most adults; that is a lonely place to be. To not be able to pay for a gallon of milk or ask a question or be understood. And then, to have a familiar word and a kind gesture. That is worth the price of seventy nine cents.
Watching their exchange, I assumed that perhaps one or both of them might be hearing impaired. Then the woman spoke rapidly to the child in a foreign language, and the child gestured again in the direction of the register. I recognized the language as Russian, although I didn’t understand what she said. I took two years of Russian in college, which at the time left me able to read a child’s primer if I had six weeks and a dictionary to decipher half the text. I wasn’t fluent on even a four year old’s level after two years, and that was twenty years ago. Now, about all I can remember is how to count to three and say hello, good bye, please and thank you. I also remember the word for “onion.” It doesn’t come up much, I have since discovered.
I waited and observed the two of them talking and gesticulating. Finally, the elderly woman took out a five dollar bill and handed it to the cashier. She did not have the additional seventy-nine cents. The cashier stood there, unsure what to do. The little girl kept pointing to the register, which made the grandmother answer her in guttural tones. I noticed they were buying a gallon of organic milk and wondered if it was a deliberate or accidental choice. Had she bought regular milk, she would have had enough money, but no one would have been able to communicate that to her. She was aware, however, that she did not have enough to buy the milk.
I took out my wallet and dug through my change purse until I produced three quarters and four pennies, which I handed to the cashier. “Here,” I said. “Let them have the milk.”
The cashier took my change and finished their sale, handing the receipt to the lady. The old woman realized I had helped pay for the milk, and she turned to me and said, “Thank you” in heavily accented English. She sounded like the Russian bear from the Bugs Bunny cartoon I had watched earlier in the day with my daughter.
I answered her in Russian, “Pahzhalostah,” which means you’re welcome.
Her eyes lit up, a big smile on her face. “Ah, pah-Ruski!” she exclaimed, which means something like “in Russian,” and she launched into a long sentence of foreign gibberish. I had no idea what she said to me, but her eyes smiled her gratitude.
I glanced at her, then looked down. I was taught in my college class that Russian people don’t like direct eye contact. Of course, that was back when it was the Soviet Union. Now, they might enjoy a little more directness.The child grabbed the jug of milk with one hand and put her other hand in her grandmother’s. Together, they walked out of the grocery store.
The cashier scanned my one item and asked me,” What were they speaking?” “Russian,” I said. “Are you Russian?”he asked me.
“No, I took a couple years of it in college, forever ago,” I told him. “I never expected to use it at Publix though.”
On my drive home, I passed the old woman and the child walking in the dark through the parking lot, holding hands. They were beautiful together, so tender and loving. I was tempted to wave to them but didn’t want to intrude on their moment. I remember holding my grandmother’s hand while walking, how soft and loose the skin on her hand was, the feeling of her thick veins against my fingertips as I rolled them. I remember matching my gait to hers. My grandmother was always happy to walk with me, around the block, on the beach. She was the one person who would walk with me when I was little. My grandmother’s parents were Russian, although she never spoke a word of it in front of me. I learned my Yiddish from her, and I took Russian in college to honor her.
To be an old woman in another country with a foreign tongue, or a young child who would not be taken seriously by most adults; that is a lonely place to be. To not be able to pay for a gallon of milk or ask a question or be understood. And then, to have a familiar word and a kind gesture. That is worth the price of seventy nine cents.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
It's Mary Poppins, Not Song of the South
My younger daughter S is a huge fan of dancing. She takes ballet twice a week, and she also takes jazz and tap once a week. I’m glad she enjoys herself so much. She is learning to appreciate the art of movement, to trust what her body can do, and also that dance is an art form. So much of what we see as dance these days isn’t art; it’s really just simulated intercourse. Now, I like intercourse as much as the next guy, but seriously, I don’t want to watch my ten year old pop it and drop it low and grind all over the floor. I much prefer to see her sway gracefully and bend and curve and leap with control. I might not feel the same way next year when she starts Pointe and her still growing toes are crushed under her own body weight, but right now, as long as she is moving and happy doing it, then I will keep writing those checks and driving her leotard covered ass to the dance school.
When I picked her up from dance yesterday, she was very excited because she found out the song numbers her class will be performing in their upcoming spring recital. The recital’s theme this year is “Mary Poppins,” and she is familiar enough with the movie to be elated. She will do a ballet dance to a slower song whose name she can’t remember, but she is thrilled to be a penguin for her tap dance number. Do you remember the penguins in “Mary Poppins?” Of course you do, that’s the scene when Dick Van Dyke pulls his pants down to his knees and flaps his arms around along with the animated penguin wait staff. “Mary Poppins” is a pretty trippy movie if you think about it.
The part that she is most excited about, however, is the dance number for her jazz class. They will be chimney sweeps and dance to “Step in Time,” a lively little ditty from the movie where the chimney cleaners all pop out of the smoke stacks and pounce around the rooftops of London while singing with heavy cockney accents. S got in the car and told me all about her dance number.
“Mom, it’s going to be so much fun. We are going to dance with broomsticks and everything.”
“That does sound great. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I wonder what our costumes will look like, and Mom, we are going to do the whole dance in black face!”
“Wait, what?” Did my kid just tell me she is doing the Al Jolson version of “Mary Poppins?” I can see it now, a whole line of white suburban kids, their blond locks tucked up in newsboy caps, the whites of their eyes stark against the black shoe polish of their faces, their mouths an exaggerated red O. I could picture them all down on one knee, jazz hands fanning out as they sang “Mammy, my little mammy.”
I said to S, “What do you mean by ‘black face?’”
“You know, Mom, all that dirt on their faces, from the chimneys?” she said.
“You mean soot?” Of course she meant soot. They are chimney sweeps, not old vaudeville actors. Why did my mind have to immediately go there? Oh no, does that make me racist? Does my daughter think I’m racist? Of course she does, she gets mad at me if I refer to a black person as a black person, not an African American. That’s it; I need to get fitted for my white robe and hood. Wait a minute, I can’t do that; I’m Jewish. They won’t give me a white hood. Maybe I can get a white robe with a yellow star.
“Yeah, the ashes. I wonder how they are going to do that. I guess it will have to be the last number because our faces will be too dirty to dance in ballet costumes.”
“Good point. I can’t wait to see how they are going to pull that off,” I said, hoping she couldn’t tell I flipped out for a moment over the idea of a whole dance class in black face.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s going to be great!” S settled happily into her seat, and I drove us home, keeping my thoughts to myself. Who says I don’t have a filter?
When I picked her up from dance yesterday, she was very excited because she found out the song numbers her class will be performing in their upcoming spring recital. The recital’s theme this year is “Mary Poppins,” and she is familiar enough with the movie to be elated. She will do a ballet dance to a slower song whose name she can’t remember, but she is thrilled to be a penguin for her tap dance number. Do you remember the penguins in “Mary Poppins?” Of course you do, that’s the scene when Dick Van Dyke pulls his pants down to his knees and flaps his arms around along with the animated penguin wait staff. “Mary Poppins” is a pretty trippy movie if you think about it.
The part that she is most excited about, however, is the dance number for her jazz class. They will be chimney sweeps and dance to “Step in Time,” a lively little ditty from the movie where the chimney cleaners all pop out of the smoke stacks and pounce around the rooftops of London while singing with heavy cockney accents. S got in the car and told me all about her dance number.
“Mom, it’s going to be so much fun. We are going to dance with broomsticks and everything.”
“That does sound great. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I wonder what our costumes will look like, and Mom, we are going to do the whole dance in black face!”
“Wait, what?” Did my kid just tell me she is doing the Al Jolson version of “Mary Poppins?” I can see it now, a whole line of white suburban kids, their blond locks tucked up in newsboy caps, the whites of their eyes stark against the black shoe polish of their faces, their mouths an exaggerated red O. I could picture them all down on one knee, jazz hands fanning out as they sang “Mammy, my little mammy.”
I said to S, “What do you mean by ‘black face?’”
“You know, Mom, all that dirt on their faces, from the chimneys?” she said.
“You mean soot?” Of course she meant soot. They are chimney sweeps, not old vaudeville actors. Why did my mind have to immediately go there? Oh no, does that make me racist? Does my daughter think I’m racist? Of course she does, she gets mad at me if I refer to a black person as a black person, not an African American. That’s it; I need to get fitted for my white robe and hood. Wait a minute, I can’t do that; I’m Jewish. They won’t give me a white hood. Maybe I can get a white robe with a yellow star.
“Yeah, the ashes. I wonder how they are going to do that. I guess it will have to be the last number because our faces will be too dirty to dance in ballet costumes.”
“Good point. I can’t wait to see how they are going to pull that off,” I said, hoping she couldn’t tell I flipped out for a moment over the idea of a whole dance class in black face.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s going to be great!” S settled happily into her seat, and I drove us home, keeping my thoughts to myself. Who says I don’t have a filter?
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