It had been gray and rainy for about 73 straight days here in Steamboat last spring and everyone was little cranky. It's like living inside Tupperware. I was fixing to turn 55 in a month and that retirement organization that shall remain nameless was hunting me down like a wounded deer. I still get my period but I have the enlarged middle of a matron along with chicken skin and back fat. When I walk the dog in the park I think people take pity on me when they smile, like "Oh geez, her life's going down the toilet."
So I foolishly decided to try to talk to my hubby about my existential anxiety which is the kind of stupid decision a gal makes after 73 days of rain. The car is always a good place to talk because it's like we have them hostage. I did that with my boys, teaching them to drive. "You need a licensed driver, son. Your butt is mine." As they white-knuckled their way through stop signs, I'd be having the "sex talk" exhorting them to "Always put a helmet on that soldier!" and such. They were a hostile but captive audience, like any guy in a car, so I decided to broach my crankiness with Bob when we were pulling out of a parking lot in town.
"I'm really feeling kinda blue," I said softly, "You know, not really like myself."
"They shouldn't allow left turns out of this parking lot," he responded.
Mother of God, what was I thinking?
I recounted the story later that day at a baby shower, sitting on a couch eating avocado chocolate mousse with my girlfriend homies from the hospital.
"Phyllis you dumb ass," Martha said, "You should have used the phrase 'blow job' in that sentence. As in 'I'm depressed, want a blow job?' He'd a heard you, trust me."
"Damn right," Betsy chirped in, "He'd be like 'Oh yeah, depressed huh? This'll make you feel better."
Dang, it's like men go to Knucklehead School at night and all learn the same stuff. When I was walking through the villages of Nepal the men would be outside their huts, laughing and smoking while the women slaved in the fields and carried huge loads of stuff around. So, my informal anthropological research shows that male blindness is a cross-cultural phenomenon.
What to do about the blue, about back fat, Bob's male brain, my endlessly functioning uterus? I don't drink, but I probably should. I pretty much stopped in my 20s because I'm a happy stupid dancing drunk - cheap to boot - and will gladly jump up on a table to shake my money-maker at a moment's notice. Some inhibitions are good, like keeping your shirt on in public, but there are days I miss how much fun it could be to just be an idiot.
When I was very young and married to Husband #1 he was in the Lion's Club - you know, the old age crowd that does good things and wears funny hats. Well, I was 23 and had to be a "Lion Tamer" when I went to their dinners and really, heavy drinking or suicide was the only way out. We even went on a Lion's Romp to the Poconos one weekend and of course the old people didn't want to ski or anything so I got loaded. That night, at the Lion's Ball we sat at a table in the back when some horrible singer came on stage and everyone started talking.
"Oh, come on folks!" she chirped, "Just give me a chance!"
It was noisy in there and I was very drunk and with the righteousness of an idiot sot I stood up, slammed both palms on the table and said in a really loud voice,
"F*** you! We don't have to listen to this s***!"
In slow motion, 400 Lions and Lion Tamers turned around and looked at me. You could hear a pin drop in that ballroom. I swayed but held my ground. Drooled a little, probably. We were asked to leave that night, but I subsequently got invited to a lot of parties.
On the way home from the baby shower I decided to drown my sorrows in a book store. A little blue book grabbed me, titled 'F IN EXAMS: The Very Best Totally Wrong Answers." I opened it, and soon was snorting in the aisle. Here's an example of the biology questions and real answers from high school kids:
"What is a fibula?" A little lie.
"What is the highest frequency noise that a human voice can register?" Mariah Carey.
You get the idea. And I laughed until I hurt and people were looking at me probably with pity again; I'm sure my back fat was jiggling but it was better than any beer or bong I would have picked up in my 20s. I bought the book, went home, and the sun popped out. Me and Chopper went to the park, and all the neighborhood kids came teeming out onto the streets riding bikes and skateboards, kicking soccer balls. My neighbor, holding her one year old, waved the baby's hand at me.
"Hey, you're starting the garden!" I said.
"Yep," she replied, "The lettuce is yours for the picking."
And that's the way it goes, folks. The agony and the ecstasy of being a human bean. As Roseanne Roseannadana used to say: "If it's not one thing, it's another." Tupperware, left turns, girlfriends and chocolate mousse; chicken skin and kids on bikes. My neighbor offers me lettuce not yet even grown and I get to start all over again.
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