Life Lessons

As we move into the new year, I've gotten a bit philosophical and my mind has wandered to life lessons. What do we learn from our parents?  What do we teach our children?  Parents try to pass on certain values and ethics to their children, but often as not the kids have a very different take-away.

For example, my parents used to take my sister and me on Sunday afternoon rides in the country.  Cindy and I would lie upside down on the back seat and count the trees and telephone poles as we sped along. Our father would take the little hills too fast in order to give us all a roller-coaster-like thrill.  We would lift off the seat and plop back down, filled with the rush of excitement/daring. I remember once our father had to brake suddenly and my young body flipped over the front seat and landed near my mother's lap. Laughter ensued from the grownups and then I was folded back over the seat.  I think our father had several life lessons in mind on those rides: seize the day, have your fun when you can, be unconventional, don't follow the rules, getting out in the country is good, etc.  What lesson did I take?  Wear seat belts.  Always wear seat belts!  They weren't even invented yet, but I was looking ahead.

Our parents were working class people, hardworking, stressed, and they had expectations that we would learn how to do chores and help around the house.  They did not have high aspirations for us because they were realists and they only knew what they knew. There was no expectation that my sister or I would go to college, nor our younger brother.  We would get jobs, marry, settle down. My sister and I were taught the inside chores: laundry, dishes, dusting, etc.  Our brother was taught the one outdoor chore: cutting the grass. Despite the fact that our father helped with cooking and cleaning, and even enjoyed them, and would have made a damned good stay-at-home dad, gender roles were high on the list of lessons to be passed on to us.  What did I take from this? Sexism bad, feminism good.  Sexism bad, feminism good.  Also, I must go to college.  Not sure why, but I must go.  

Now of course, I wonder what my daughters have learned from my husband and me.  If we tried to teach them anything, it was to be left wing.  Politics were very one-sided in our home.  And we taught them that entertaining is a good thing to do; have parties, invite friends, cook good food.  But what else did they learn from us through all the day-to-day living?  All the times we weren't trying to pass along any nuggets of wisdom.  When I was driving, or reading, or going out with my friends...when their dad was working, or napping, or making enchilada sauce...what were they peeking under the table to see? What did they absorb and to what did they inwardly resolve to always do the opposite?  Too early to tell.    

As I look back at that list in the first paragraph, I see that some of my dad's lessons stuck after all: have your fun when you can: check.  Getting out in the country is good: check. Be unconventional: check. We've definitely passed that one on to our children, too, whether we were trying to or not. One example: when our younger daughter was in first grade, her teacher asked each of the students what his or her favorite movie was.  Around the room the little darlings declared "Little Mermaid” or similar kid stuff.  Our daughter? "Lethal Weapon Two," she announced to the stunned teacher.  Not just Lethal Weapon, no, she preferred the second in the series. Hmmmm, showing our first-grader R rated movies...maybe "Don't follow the rules" stuck, too.

Vote for Me

If I ever run for public office, it will be on a single issue: improvement and standardization of women's public restrooms.  I am sick and tired of waving my hands all around a faucet, waiting for water to emerge, only to see there is a knob that should be turned; banging on a soap dispenser that is waiting for me to hold my hand under the shoot; and feeling up the paper towel dispenser until I finally give up and dry my hands on my pants. Sometimes I start to look around for the hidden camera because I think I must be getting punked.

If I am elected, all women's restrooms will have a hook on the inside of each stall door. That hook will be large enough to hold a purse strap and a coat collar so I do not have to swing my purse onto my back, crunch my coat up around my boobs, and hold everything in place while I pull down my pants and lower precariously onto the toilet. Invariably, my purse succumbs to gravity and falls onto the floor, right between the toilet base and the receptacle for 'sanitary' products. When that happens, I just want to leave my purse where it landed and walk away.

All toilet stalls will have a fresh supply of seat covers, and manufacturers of said covers will figure out a new way to package them so the first few don't shred to pieces or come out in a clump that a woman before me has crammed back in the container.

Toilet paper.  It doesn't have to be two-ply.  I know that's expensive.  But the stuff they're using now doesn't even merit being called one-ply.  This stuff is more like half-ply or no-ply.  In fact, this is what takes us so long in the bathroom: extracting microscopic bits of toilet paper, one after the other, until we finally have a handful.  That process can take up to an hour and by then we have to pee again.

All toilets will be manual flush!  This is a nonnegotiable piece of my platform.  I am fed up with toilets that flush while I'm still unzipping my pants, flush again while I'm doing my business and a third time while I'm trying to get my clothes reassembled, still holding my purse and coat because there was no goddamn hook.

All public restrooms will have a well paid attendant who cleans and restocks about once an hour and isn't one of those who sit around next to a bowl of rosewater and a tip jar and thanks you for coming.

All women's bathrooms will have enough stalls to handle the traffic or else the men's bathrooms will be relabeled unisex for overflow.  If an establishment is small, like a restaurant, but large enough to have two little water closets, and chooses to label them both unisex, they will be severely reprimanded.  One will be for women only, the other unisex.  If I can hold it (which, I admit, is unlikely), I'll wait for the women's room because it will be cleaner and the seat will be down.

All women's rooms will have a mirror bright enough to check for spinach in my teeth.

And finally, all stalls will have functioning locks, because there is nothing worse than getting bonked in the head while you're sitting on the toilet, holding all your belongings off the floor, and leaning forward to press the door closed each time it swings open, when some other poor woman tries to enter your stall.

Thank you for your vote.  

I’ll Have the Pie

Are you ready for Christmas?  No, me either. But last night I decided to watch a little television to relax and veg out and what happened? I was accosted by one Christmas themed advertisement after another. Last night, November 7th, a week past Halloween, seven weeks before Christmas, and three solid weeks before my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. (Isn't Thanksgiving great?  Just food, food, more food, family, friends, and more food, including pie.) But I digress. I was saying that I'm not ready for Christmas. And of course I don't want to be ready. What kind of anal planner has the holidays under control this far in advance? 

But Glade Air Fresheners is ready. They're already running an ad with a multiracial group of girls singing about peace. Because when your kitchen smells of fish or your living room reeks of eau de chien, your mind immediately goes to the end of war for all time, right? Sniff, sniff. Sniff, sniff.  Yeah, I think that's garlic and will there ever be peace in the Middle East?  

Walmart's running ads with garlands and red ribbons in the background and then, to make sure you get the main point—presents—they show a woman sitting on Santa's lap. That's a little creepy. And Walmart's also partnering with Wheel of Fortune on Secret Santa-themed shows. Again, kind of creepy.  Who are these secret gift givers and where are they hiding?  Will one pop out of the wheel in an elf suit?  Or peek from behind the bonus board to whisper hints? Try C. I think there's a C.  Maybe an A?

Kay Jewelers isn't being left behind. They're pushing gifts of jewelry under the tree this year, because what woman doesn't want her boyfriend to propose in front of her whole family while she's still in her bathrobe? Nissan's ad has Christmas trees in the showrooms and they seem to only be selling red cars this time of year. Sorry ma'am, powder blue isn't available until Easter. Disney takes it a step further and suggests contacting your travel agent to spend the holidays in the Magic Kingdom where no doubt you'll encounter Mickey and Minnie dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

And those aren't all the Christmas commercials I saw in just two and a half hours. Best Buy, Bank of America, in fact, probably all the commercials from now until December 26th will feature holly, fir, mistletoe, Santa, reindeer, and piles and piles of presents.  

I know this is by now an old lament.  The Christmas season has been marching ever earlier on the calendar, ruining the fun for kids and adults alike.  If one quarter of the year is devoted to hyping shopping in the wrappings of made-for-TV movies, feel-good pablum, and various interpretations of the holiday, from the very religious to the very secular, how damn special can it be?  Now, I'm not religious and never was, but I remember the almost-impossible-to-stand anticipation of Christmas morning after just a few weeks of hype.  It was painfully delicious. It was special.  This nonstop barrage is just downright annoying.

Funny, it's Hanukkah that's right around the corner; it starts super early this year, in November, the day before my favorite holiday.  Did I mention pie?