I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression (11 page)

“Then what did you do?”

“I took him off and got another glass of water and demonstrated for him again.”

“And he finally got the point and now is on his way to being trained, right?”

“Wrong. Every couple of hours or so, he gets a glass of milk and pours it over the potty and dances to ‘The Impossible Dream.’ ”

“Do you think he’ll ever be trained?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sadly shaking her head. “I only know how disappointed he’s going to be when he throws a pitcher of water over an Army latrine and there is nothing to dance to.”

You know the trouble with some women? They have no imagination. A neighbor was telling me the other day that her little boy, Jody, wanted to bring a bull snake home from his vacation.

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I couldn’t think of a reason why he couldn’t,” she said, helplessly shrugging her shoulders.

“Are you kidding?” I shrieked. “A few years ago, my son captured a small, slimy specimen in a Coke bottle and I could think of ten reasons for leaving him behind (the snake, not the boy).

“1. Snakes do not know their own minds. They may
jump up and down and think they want to leave their mommies and daddies for a fun trip, but after two days away from home, it’s split-up time. (Or spit-up time if they stay)

“2. You would get bored with one another. After all, what can a snake do? Can he chase a ball after you throw it? Can he walk to the shopping center with you on a leash? Can he walk into a crowded room and keep it that way?

“3. Snakes are a minority group. Face it. Do you want him to feel the pains of discrimination? Wouldn’t it break your heart to have his admission refused at Bible School? Or leave him outside in a Mason jar while you are inside with friends?

“4. Snakes are difficult to paper-train.

“5. Snakes adhere to a diet of living things. What happens when he runs out of mice and begins to eye our meter reader?

“6. How would you know if he got a headache?

“7. How would you explain it to him if someone accidentally clobbered him with a rake?

“8. You would be forcing on him a monk’s existence. How do you know he doesn’t want to date and eventually have a family?”

“Did he buy it?” asked my neighbor, bright-eyed. “I mean did he realize that there were inherent differences between a boy and a snake?”

“Not until I hit him with reasons nine and ten.”

“Which were?”

“9. If you put that snake in the car with your mother, she will have a heart attack and drop dead.

“10. Ask yourself, do you want to be a motherless boy roaming through life with a sex-starved, militant, maladjusted snake in a Coke bottle?”

“He chose you instead of the snake, right?”

“No, but he’s thinking about it.”

Fiddler on the Roof
holds the all-time performance record for live theater. On Broadway, this is true.

In our home, the record is held by a little drama that unfolds every evening, called, “Guess Who’s Stuck with Dishes After Dinner?”

During the past eleven years, the original cast has staged 4,015 performances, plus a matinee on Saturdays and Sundays. The curtain opens to reveal a family sitting around after the evening meal. The oldest child speaks.

“It’s your turn,” she says mechanically to her brother.

“No way,” he says, turning to his brother. “I did them last night.”

Little brother turns to the diner on his right and says, “I did them night before last.”

“What did we have to eat that night?” challenges his sister, her eyes narrowing.

“We had chicken. I remember because I broke the disposer.”

The daughter moves to stage left and shouts, “Then that proves it. We had casserole the night before which I left to soak so that makes tonight
your
night.” (She whirls around and points a finger at larger brother.)

“No way,” he says. “If you remember I traded you last Tuesday night because you had to decorate the gym.”

“And what about that time five years ago when I filled in for you when you broke your arm and spent the night in the hospital?”

“I paid you back for that. Besides, I don’t put large mixing bowls in the refrigerator with one prune pit in it to keep from washing, like some people I know.”

“And I don’t leave my garbage in the sink like other people I know.”

Little brother at this point is making a quiet exit stage right when he is discovered.

“
Hold it!
It’s your turn. I can tell by looking at you. You are laughing on the inside.”

“I am not laughing. I think we should start fresh with the oldest and then keep track.”

“You say that because you are the youngest.”

“Big deal. I didn’t get a watch until I was twelve.” (No one has understood that line in eleven years.)

The audience, comprised of two adults, pushes away from the table and walks out of the theater.

“When did we have spaghetti last?” asked my husband.

“About three weeks ago,” I said. “Why?”

“I found some on my plate.”

“That’s what happens when you try to make dishwashers out of sensitive performers.”

The average life span of a refrigerator light is thirty-seven years, four months, and eighteen hours.

We have replaced three bulbs within the last two years. This is due to the fact that every fifteen minutes, the two giant doors swing open (one for the freezer and one for the refrigerator) and my son stands there motionless staring at the contents as though he is awaiting the second coming.

Seeing him look from one side of the box to the other, it always seems as though he should be saying something like, “I suppose you are all wondering why I have gathered you here,” but there is nothing. Only cold, silent appraisal.

The other night, as I threw an afghan over my feet to
break the chill from the open refrigerator, I yelled out to him, “Why don’t you let those poor leftovers deteriorate in peace?”

“I’m looking for something,” he said.

“And you’re gonna get it,” I threatened. “Now shut that door.”

“There’s never anything to eat in this house.”

“Then how come we are the only six-garbage-can family on our block? Besides, you cannot possibly be hungry. You just got up from the table.”

“That was an hour ago.”

“Shut the door.”

“Can I have an ice cube?”

“I suppose so,” I said tiredly. Minutes later, I heard the blender going and went out to investigate. The counter top was spread like a Roman orgy feast with French bread, olives, lunch meat, cheese, dips, and a malt frothing in the blender. “I thought you only wanted an ice cube,” I said.

“You can’t eat an ice cube by itself,” he said, sinking his teeth into a sandwich.

The other night after I had stocked the refrigerator to capacity just three hours before, I too succumbed to the lure of the refrigerator and thought I would open both doors and view the array of food.

To my dismay, I plucked two empty milk cartons from the top shelf, an empty olive jar, a butter carton with no butter in it, a long slice of cheese that was beginning to curl, a cake plate with only a layer of crumbs, the bone of a chicken leg, and a quart-size soft-drink bottle with a cap on it and a quarter-inch of soda in it.

My husband came up behind me. “You too? What’s the big attraction?”

I was numb. “I can’t believe he ate the whole thing.”

My son entered kindergarten with a four-word vocabulary: “My mom can drive.” Later, he added words like “anytime, anywhere, and distance is no object.” But for the first year, he made it on those four.

His teacher, Miss Varicose, was quite concerned about him and asked me to come to school to discuss the problem.

“I’m quite puzzled over … by the way he never told us his name.”

“It’s Charlie,” I said.

“Charlie seems to be on the outside of our little circle. He does not seek out friends. He never volunteers to answer questions, and at times his behavior is bewildering. For example, the other day I said to the class, ‘I want you to line up against the wall, the boys in one line, the girls in another. We are going.…’ At that moment, Charlie jumped up on the desk, waved his arms excitedly and shouted, ‘My mom can drive.’

“ ‘That won’t be necessary,’ I told him. ‘We are only going to the lavatory.’ I don’t understand Charlie.”

“Of course you don’t,” I said. “You have to know that Charlie was born on the tail end of our other children, all needing to be driven hither and yon. He was born in a car between helping deliver a Sunday-morning paper route and taking his sister to a Girl Scout cookie rally. He cut his teeth on a stick shift. He learned his numbers by reading the mileage gauge. The only primary colors he knows are red, green, and amber. His alphabet is limited to P, R, N, and D. That kid has spent so much time in a car that when we passed a house the other day, he wanted to know who stole its hubcaps.”

“Then being raised in a car has had an effect on Charlie?”

“You didn’t notice he holds his pants up with a seat belt?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You are not the only one confused, Miss Varicose. Not only for having trouble understanding him, but for the mother image I have created. Most children think of their mothers as hot apple pie and the American flag. Charlie sees me as four wheels and a tank of Platformate. He thinks driving a car is the only thing I can do.”

“How did it all begin?” asked his teacher.

“Well, it all began with my first child,” I explained. “She came home from school one day bearing a mimeographed sheet of paper. It read:

MOTHERS MOTHERS MOTHERS
WE NEED YOU

The first grade of Bradford Primary will participate in a field trip on Saturday at the Stillwell Owl Sanctuary. We are in need of mothers who can drive. This will be an enriching experience for you.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

“Actually, it wasn’t an enriching experience at all. Two of my little passengers entwined themselves around a soft-drink machine and refused to go on the nature walk. One child in the car confided he had chicken pox but his mother covered it up with make-up so he wouldn’t miss the field trip. And a flock of owls mistook my car for a relief station and created a credibility gap at the car wash.

“By the time my second child entered school the word
was out. ‘My mom can drive,’ became their battle cry. It brought them prestige, importance, attention. It brought me girdle creases that can only be removed by surgery. I had so many ‘enriching experiences’ that the family was eating plastic food and wearing plastic underwear. I took a group to the book bindery, the state gas chamber, the piano factory, the persimmon festival, the press room of a local newspaper, and an aardvark farm.

“One day after returning from a field trip through a steel mill (which was responsible for the fillings in my teeth melting down), my child brought me a mimeographed sheet. ‘Guess what, Mom? Our class is going on a boat trip down the river to visit a polo score card factory. I told my teacher, “My mom can drive.” ’

“ ‘Not this time,’ I sighed, removing my goggles and safety helmet.

“ ‘Why?’

“ ‘Really, dear, I mustn’t be greedy. There must be thousands of other mothers out there in utility room land who have an enrichment deficiency.’

“His face fell. ‘What can I tell my teacher?’

“ ‘Tell her I am having labor pains thirty seconds apart. Tell her my Mother won’t sign my permission slip. Tell her anything.’ ”

“Did it work?” asked Charlie’s teacher, leaning closer.

“No. I ended up driving eight boys and girls to the old Salt Line Pier where we joined forces with eighty other third-graders. The trip was like a Chinese fire drill. Fifty-eight out of the eighty children ate their box lunches before we got out of the school yard.

“Two little girls became nauseated on the boat and threw up in my handbag before we left the dock.

“A kid named Max had me hang onto his water skis which he brought along ‘just in case.’ Three sweaters, a pair of glasses, and the kid voted most likely to fall overboard fell overboard.

“Linda dropped her loose tooth down the John and became hysterical when the kids told her the tooth fairy couldn’t swim.

“The class bully spread a rumor we were on the
Titanic
and had half the class in lifeboats singing ‘Nearer My God To Thee.’

“One child swore he saw a ship nearby flying a black flag with Cyril Ritchard aboard. I spent the entire boat trip in the restroom throwing my body in front of obscene words printed in lipstick on the walls.

“When we landed at the factory site, we discovered we had a mutiny on our hands. Two thirds of the children voted to stay in the souvenir shop and buy alligators dressed as merchant seamen and sweatshirts proclaiming,
SAVE WATER. TAKE A BATH WITH SOMEONE
.

“The other third were bored and wanted to get back to school early so they could shoot baskets in the gym.

“On the trip home, I asked one youngster what he liked best about the trip. He said, ‘The towel machine was neat.’

“So you see, Miss Varicose, ‘My mom can drive’ are the only four words Charlie has heard since he was born and those four words are driving me out of my tree.”

“What do you suggest we do?” she asked.

“I was hoping you could work with Charlie and perhaps teach him a new word.”

“Like what?”

“Like ‘no.’ ”

“Isn’t that rather drastic?” she asked. “I was hoping you might favor the tapering-off plan. You see, this Wednesday our class is going to the museum to see a film on
Birth of a Peat Bog
. No scenes censored. We need mothers to drive. As soon as Charlie discovered it was an enriching experience, he volunteered you. He has the mimeographed sheet telling you to pack a box lunch, wear flats, and be at the school by ten.”

“Miss Varicose, what would you say if I told you I was going to put a seat belt around Charlie’s mouth?”

“But … his pants would fall down. It would be a traumatic experience.”