On the Contrary

When my teenager, E, was a toddler, she used to like to play a game we called “dis or dis?” Basically, she would carry a random object in each hand, walk up to someone, and say, “You want dis or dis?” while holding out each hand. The player would indicate which object was preferred, and E would thrust out her other hand and shriek, “No, you want dis!” She could play it for hours, and no matter how many different choices you made, they were always the wrong ones.

Today is E’s fifteenth birthday, and she still plays a version of her favorite childhood game. This morning’s edition involved E’s desire to dress up for Cowboy/Farmer/Redneck day at school. I don’t which was the actual theme, because E changed it every time she asked for help in finding appropriate accessories.

Her high school is celebrating spirit week, and E has mixed feelings about the whole thing. She wants to participate, since there is incentive to do so, usually in the form of extra credit points. But it comes at a cost, the potential to embarrass oneself. The school has a special event every night, special lunch food at the cafeteria sponsored by a variety of local restaurants, and even cupcakes and cookies for sale, made by a bunch of Pinterest loving teachers.  Money is collected in many of the classes, all for some sort of charity donation that E has yet to tell us. Also, every day has a dress-up theme, and while a bunch of kids really get into it, E prefers a more understated approach.

So this is how the game went today:

E (over breakfast, this morning, a half hour before she has to leave for school): Mom, I need some cowboy clothes for school today.

Me (still cooking her special birthday breakfast of turkey bacon and pumpkin spice-vanilla French toast): Sure, I can dig something out for you in a minute.

After breakfast was ready, I went to the guest room closet, the black hole of all things without a permanent home. Mostly it stores things like extra blankets and pillows, old Halloween costumes, gift boxes, and even the few stuffed animals and yearbooks I saved from my childhood bedroom. It also contains a few things that belonged to my late grandfather, Pop-pop.

Pop-pop fancied himself a cowboy. He didn’t grow up on a farm, he didn’t own a ranch; he was just a Jew from Baltimore who worked in sales. At some point in his adult life, however, he decided even if he wasn’t from the Old West, he could still look like it. He began wearing only western wear, which he continued until he passed away. Cowboy boots, tooled leather belts, scarf ties, pearly snapped shirts, and always a stiff cowboy hat, felt in the winter, straw in the summer.  He kept a horse at his friend’s house in Chicago when he moved nearby, and he loved to ride, more than anything else, except maybe a tall Jack Daniels and a nice pair of knockers. When he died, he left behind that collection of hats and belts and boots, and my sisters and I each kept a couple for ourselves, either to wear, or just because they were his.

At 7:30 this morning, I was in that closet, digging through the boxes until I found some belts and two pairs of boots, both snakeskin, one cordovan, the other a flashy red and black. I brought the boots out to show E.

Me: Look what I found!

E: I can’t wear those.

Me: Why not? Pops had small feet.

E: I will just wear my new boots.

Me: But your new boots aren’t Western.

E: Well, they still look like riding boots. Close enough. Anyway, I have boots. I really just need a hat.

Me: Why didn’t you say so?

I walked back to the guest room and continued to dig through the closet until I found a slightly crushed square Stetson box. Inside was a lightly stained grey felt hat and a pale straw hat with a dent in it. Pop-pop would have been really pissed at the condition of his hats.

I took the hats into the kitchen where E was sopping up the rest of the maple syrup with the last bite of French toast.

Me: Winter or summer?

E: Um, those are big.

Me: Of course they’re big. They’re real cowboy hats, not those fake things they sell at Target.

E: I can’t wear hats to school.

Me: Then why did you send me in the other room to look for a hat if you can’t even wear it?

E: I hoped you had one with a string around it that I could just hang on my back.

Me: Cowboy hats don’t have strings on them.  I found some belts too. I can go get those for you.

I rushed back to the closet, grabbed the handful of scarf ties and belts I found, and brought them back to the kitchen.

Me: What about these?

E: I don’t wear belts. Don’t worry about it.

Me: I am not worried about it, but I literally just produced an entire Western outfit for you, at your request, and you don’t want any of it.

E: I guess I’m just not comfortable wearing a dead man’s clothes.

Me:  It’s not like he died in these actual clothes!

E: It creeps me out. But thanks for trying.

I put everything back in the guest room, on the floor, since I am pretty sure it will take hours for me to Jenga that closet back together. Then I went upstairs to my other daughter’s bedroom. In her closet, from an old camp costume, was a small straw cowboy hat with a neck string. I took it into E’s bedroom and handed it to her.

E: Thanks, Mom. It’s perfect.

Me: Next time you want something exact, like a cowboy hat with a neck string, do me a favor and tell me. It would save me a lot of time and frustration.

She has managed to take her favorite childhood game and turn it into a more complex and narcissistic teenaged version.  And she is the master.

Happy birthday to my first born, my sweet baby girl. I know she isn’t reading this yet, but one day she will, and hopefully she will see the humor and joy and love she brings me every day, in her own special way. She is worth all of it.

Please Refrain From Tickling the Ivories

Some people are game for anything, and some people, like me, just aren’t. I don’t really have a bucket list of things to do, like sky diving or BMX racing or auditioning for American Idol. Chances are pretty good that if I haven’t tried it by now, I must have a reason. My reticence for new experiences isn’t limited to wild or dangerous activities. I have no interest in eating a “belly” or anything contained therein, but that doesn’t make me boring. If I’ve made it this far without developing a taste for offal or lake fish or even rutabagas, and I’m good with that. I don’t need to hear the right country song to convert me, because it just doesn’t exist, and even if it did, it would still be country music, and I would still change the channel, and that’s okay. I don’t need to think outside the box; the box is quite cozy, thank you. If boxes aren’t comfy, then why do cats always try to sit in them?

My attempt at living on the edge, of going outside my comfort zone, was going to a piano bar. I know, I know, it wasn’t like I hand fed an alligator. Still, I had never been to a piano bar before, and I didn’t feel like I had been missing anything. But it was my good friend TA’s birthday, and it was an evening out with the ladies, and so I went along. It’s called “being a good sport.” Did I mention sports are another thing I know I don’t like? I like my friend, and I like birthdays, and I like music, and so I thought, I’ll try to have a good time.

Turns out, I don’t like piano bars. Now, I would never have known if I didn’t go, but now I do, and I won’t be making that mistake again.

We arrived to a full house, tables mostly full, facing a small stage with two grand pianos with a few other instruments scattered about. Our table was of course right up front by the stage, and we all ordered drinks to liven up our mood as we waited for the show to begin. Near us were some other large parties, some of which also were there for birthday celebrations, which led me to believe this was more a special event thing than a regular night out, kind of like going for fondue. The drinks were pricey, the tables were crowded, and the noise was loud. I was already regretting my decision to come along, but tried to remember it was because I love TA. 

That’s when the pianists came out and took the stage. The two men seated themselves at each piano, and then they engaged the crowd with an opening song and a little explanation of how the piano bar concept works. Basically, each table has a collection of slips of paper and little golf pencils. Patrons are encouraged to write down the names of songs they want to hear, and then take it up to the pianos along with some money. If the musicians were familiar with the song or if the price was right, they would play it, a living jukebox of sorts.

Immediately, the people at the tables dove into their pockets and purses and produced wads of single dollar bills. Singles were everywhere, more like a strip club than a piano bar. People slowly started approaching the pianos, but before long, they were making it rain all over that stage, single dollars flying everywhere. While one pianist would play a song, the other would look through the request slips, deciding what he knew or liked, and what he didn’t want to play he would toss onto the other piano. The money collected went into a gigantic tip jar. The whole process was frenetic and odd.

So what did people want to hear? Bill Joel. Lots of Billy Joel. Sometimes some Beatles, maybe a little Jimmy Buffet,  an occasional Don McLean, but Billy Joel was the man. The piano man.

I’m not much of a Billy Joel fan, to be honest. My father was a huge one, and whenever we went to visit him, we could expect to hear at least one album a day, to remind my sisters and I how lucky we were that he didn’t have custody of us. What made all the Billy Joel worse was that I knew all the words, singing them in my head against my will.

I decided to make a hasty retreat to the bathroom, if only to get away from the crowd, who also knew all the words and sang along drunkenly to every song. The music was more muffled in the restroom, but as I entered my stall, I noticed a thoughtless lady patron at some point in the evening had attempted to flush her tampon, with no success.

It wasn’t just gross; it was also ridiculously stupid. In every woman’s restroom in America for at least the last twenty years, signs are posted about not flushing feminine hygiene products. In fact, every stall has its own little waste basket mounted on the wall specifically for your disgusting used pads and tampons, because they don’t flush, and if they accidentally do make it down the pipes, they will fuck up the plumbing something awful. It is common knowledge to not flush a tampon, ever.

I had a dilemma. Did I pee in that stall and let the next person think I was the bleeding idiot who left my tampon like a buoy floating in the bowl, or did I leave that stall for another, opening myself up to judgment from the other women waiting to go?

After I returned to the table, I settled down and tried to have a good time. That ended the minute the crowd began putting their arms around each other’s shoulders, swaying in time to the next Billy Joel song, singing along loudly, pausing only to have another sip of whatever intoxicant they were ingesting. I also don't "sing along." It's one of the things I hated most about going to camp. I don't want to sing along, and I don't sway, and I also don't want to clap when instructed. I am not there to be part of a show. I just want to be left alone, with my thoughts, in the middle of the crowd.

I leaned over to one of my friends and said, “I think I am ready to go.” 

“No!” she said. “Just a little longer. I paid good money for them to embarrass TA.”

That was another thing money could buy you: a little public humiliation. A few other people in the crowd were also celebrating birthdays, and for a Hamilton, the pianists would call up the birthday boy or girl and make them do stupid shit. Two women had to act out the timeless classic “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” which devolved into some sort of lesbian groping display, much to the delight of most of the men and a select few of the women. Another woman, Rhonda, also was called up to the stage, but she angrily and adamantly refused to participate. I liked Rhonda. She has moxie.

During a Chuck Berry song, an older gentleman from the audience approached the stage and offered twenty dollars if he could play since he knew that song. The pianist obliged him, and he sat down and really rocked it out. Bolstered by the crowd’s support and the sense of entitlement that comes with spending twenty bucks on nothing, he decided he was going to play a few more songs, even going so far as dedicating one of them to someone at his table. There was no getting this man off the stage. During his pretty adequate rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire,” the pianist, who had nothing better to do, poured a shot of liquor on the piano top and light it up. The crowd went wild. I was at my limit.

When the next Billy Joel song started, I got up and said goodbye, nicely I hope, but I just had to get the fuck out of there. As I left, the bouncer asked me if I was planning on returning. “Never,” I said to him. “Never again.”

 “One!” he yelled to the people in line behind the rope, waiting to get in. “I got room for one!” A rope, with people waiting, in my town in South Carolina, to get into one of the circles of hell.