The Funny Thing Is... (8 page)

Sometimes I get a little down when I realize I’m never going to be as smart as I’d like to be. So I’ve come up with a few little tricks to make me feel better. You’re welcome to try them out if you feel like it. I mean, you bought this book—you deserve that much. If, however, you’re borrowing this book from a friend, I’d suggest you give your friend a few bucks first. Or, better yet, send me a few bucks.

One way, I find, to start feeling better about myself is to take a good look at really smart people I admire—people who have really accomplished something or seem to be extremely successful in the world. I really take a hard look at them, examine them. How did they do it? What do they have that I don’t? What makes them so special? Who do they think they are? They’re stupid! They think they’re so cool. Well, they’re not! And, presto, by making somebody look worse, magically you look better.

But even though the above method might make you look good to yourself, it’s not going to do diddly (or P. Diddly, which I believe is the current expression) as far as the rest of the world sees you. For that, you need to be the next best thing to actually being smart. Which is, of course, pretending to be smart. How do you do that, you ask, scratching your head, a quizzical expression on your face, perhaps a long blade of grass between your teeth?

For one, big words make other people think you’re smart. Remember, long words are better than short words, even if it’s a bunch of short words. Here’s a word you can use: kitchenette— it’s a small kitchen. For instance, “Oh, you have such a nice small kitchen” is not nearly as impressive as “Oh, you’ve got a lovely kitchenette, don’t you, now?” I added “don’t you, now” to sound a little bit English. They all seem smart. If you can do a good English accent you don’t even have to use long words. It’s almost better not to—then you could just come off snobby.

Another way to appear smarter than you actually are is to have a few trivial facts at your disposal. Once you’ve memorized these facts, just sprinkle them into your ordinary conversation like … sprinkles, I guess. Here are a few that I use:

Telemacbus
—in Greek mythology, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, who helped his father kill Penelope’s suitors. I’m not sure how you’ll use this. So never mind.

Oh, how about
zwitterion
—in physics, an ion carrying both a positive and a negative charge, thus forming an electrically neutral molecule. Example: “Oh look, there’s a zwitterion.”

Albertus Seba
was an apothecary. He was born in 1665 in the East Frisian town of Etzel. I have no idea what an apothecary is, or where the heck Frisia is. So, if I’m asked, I usually just point at something in the distance, then run in the opposite direction.

You can always try, “Alpacas communicate by humming and spitting.” Then again, so does my grandmother.

And what if none of these methods work? What if you can no more pull off pretending to be smart than actually being smart? Well, there’s no need to get depressed. Maybe smartness or smartyness or smartynessness just isn’t for you. Which is okay, because if you look around, you’ll see that people who are not smart have achieved success in every realm of endeavor. Look at politics; look at sports; look at who’s on TV and in the movies. You’re not going to see a lot of smarties. Look at me. I’m not all that smart and yet the accountant who I authorized to take care of all my finances told me that I made literally hundreds of dollars last year.

Feel better? Good. That’s what I’m here for. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I seem to only be using 8% of my brain right now. I’m going to go on a little expedition to look for the other 2%. If I’m not back in a couple of days, don’t worry. Something shiny must have distracted me.

Last week in therapy, I was in the middle of a story when my therapist, Dr. Brandon Muflin, interrupted me. “Helen,” he said.

“It’s Ellen.”

“Helen, Ellen, when you get down to it, is there really any difference?”

“Well, actually …”

“I don’t want to get into your constant need to correct people. I’ve realized what your real problem is. You spend too much time in our sessions talking about yourself.”

“But isn’t that the point of therapy?”

“In fact, no.”

Then Dr. Muflin (I know, don’t certain people’s names make you hungry?) suggested that instead of coming in each week and “yammering away” about the things that are bothering me, I should write them down—make a list of annoyances. He would then spend our therapy sessions reading my list while I did chores around his house. “Much like Daniel-san did for Mr. Miyagi in
The Karate Kid
,” he added, trying to convince me.

Well, since Dr. Muflin’s the one who is three credits shy of getting his B.A. from a partially accredited university, and not me, I decided to take his advice. So, without any further ado—okay, maybe with just a little ado—here are:

THE
10
THINGS
THAT
ARE
BOTHERING
ME
THIS
WEEK

1. Golden Delicious apples. Where do they get off naming their apples that? That’s a little immodest, isn’t it? What if I called myself “Incredibly Attractive Ellen”?

2. The way the receptionist at the dentist tries to book your next appointment six months in advance. “How’s 8:45 A.M. on October the 5th?” I want to say, “Nope, that’s no good. I’m shopping for groceries at 8:50 A.M. that day.”

3. Businesses that offer to make up for poor service or poor products with a voucher for
more
free poor service or poor products. “If you’re not satisfied with your meal, your next unsatisfying meal here is FREE!”

4. Car lot ads that brag, “Our sales manager screwed up! We’ve got too many cars and they must go. His mistake is your lucky break.” How does this guy keep his job? Every year he screws up and orders too many cars. I don’t want to buy from a dealership that allows this degree of incompetence.

5. The salesman at the big electronics store who tells you how well-made and dependable the TV is that he’s trying to sell you, and that he’s never had any customers who have experienced any problems with it. Then, when you get to the register, he tries to sell you the extended warranty.

6. My masseuse, who always says, “Boy, you’re really tight today.” Just once I’d like to hear her say, “Wow, your muscles are incredibly loose and relaxed. Why are you even here?”

7. When I’m standing at a cash register and the cashier says, “Ten twenty-five. Got a quarter?” I want to say, “No, I’m sorry. Let me find a cash register somewhere so I can get change and I’ll be right back.”

OR, if I tell them I don’t have the exact change, they say “No problem.” I want to say, “I never thought there was a problem. You’re the cashier… This is a cash register. Making change is your job. I didn’t expect a problem.”

8. Bumper stickers that say, “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” Or, “I’m late, but worth the wait.” Okay, we get it… You’ve got terrible money and time-management skills.” These are character flaws. Why advertise them? While you’re at it, how about, “I’ve got poor personal hygiene.” Put that on a bumper sticker, why don’t you?

9. The way ranch dressing is always ordered “on the side.” It’s the mistress of salad dressings. Won’t somebody stand up and make a commitment to ranch dressing? Stop treating her like a whore. Let her come with the salad to the dinner party. Don’t force her to drive in a separate car!

10. Dr. Muflin’s blinds in his den. They’re those metal ones instead of wood and they are almost impossible to clean. I know it’s only his den, but you should never skimp on window treatments.

Well, I’d write more but I don’t want to be late for therapy. My chores today are organizing Dr. Muflin’s sock drawer, mulching his prize roses, and trimming the high branches in his apple orchard. Golden Delicious. It figures.

I get a lot of cards and letters asking me to write about my dad. Well, most of them come from my dad. Sometimes he tries to fool me by signing a woman’s name, then putting on lipstick and kissing the envelope. His scheme doesn’t fool me. The return address sticker he got from donating to the
ASPCA
is a dead giveaway.

Since his birthday is coming up and I haven’t found a good card yet, I figured I might as well give him his wish and write something about my dad.

I remember my childhood like it was yesterday or even this morning. Yet I was a little innocent girl, so I know it wasn’t this morning because I was this age even yesterday. But what I remember most is late afternoon, dinnertime. Mama would be in the kitchen with Suky, our nanny. Suky was blind, so I don’t even know why she’d be in the kitchen because she wasn’t allowed to help cook. She once sprinkled the Christmas cookies with Ajax. I didn’t mind. But anyway, if it was Friday, supper would be a big kettle of fresh vegetable soup. Grandma would chop the carrots and celery. Every week she’d wave her big cleaver in the air, calling out the same thing: “Ooh, this knife is sharp. Y’all be careful. Whoa! I can’t control my arm! Just kiddin’.” Grandma was so funny. And dangerous.

Usually, I’d be in the backyard playing
Starsky & Hutch
with my best friend, Lucy Tanzamar. (Hi, Lucy!) She had a huge head and always wore jumpsuits. My favorite was a bright yellow one with nuts all over it—every kind of nut, not just two or three. It had peanuts, pecans, pistachios, almonds, cashews, Brazil, acorns, macadamia, walnut, chestnut, pine, beechnut, filbert, hickory, mixed. Later we found out that peanuts, almonds, and walnuts weren’t nuts at all but actually something called “drupes.” We used to laugh about that, thinking,
Here we are knowing that, just little girls, and whoever designed that jumpsuit must’ve been an adult, but they didn’t even know they made a huge mistake
! We wanted to write somebody but didn’t know who to write. Anyway, I loved that jumpsuit.

When we heard my Dad’s moped pull into the front yard, we’d get so excited. We’d run inside, where Mama would be making a big batch of banana daiquiris. We’d all be trying to guess what he’d be dressed up as. Every day it was different. Sometimes he’d be in a monkey suit, sometimes he’d be in pink fur, like a giant bunny. He passed out flyers for new businesses in the mall, so he got to keep all the suits. Sometimes, to surprise him, we’d all be in suits too: Mama would be a swordfish. Suky would be a mongoose. (We told her she was an alligator— she didn’t know.) Grandma was an iguana, and so on. We’d light all the sparklers and dance around in circles, like elephants in a circus. Then my dad would enter and start juggling dishes while singing some Glen Campbell song…

Whoa. Wait a minute. Okay, I’m so embarrassed. That’s not my childhood, that’s a play I saw in London. I’m sorry. I was wondering, because none of that sounded familiar. I’m thinking,
Who’s Lucy
? No,
my
childhood was totally different. I had a twin brother who was an albino Mexican midget and my dad sent us to a Swiss boarding school. No… that was a movie I saw. Okay, I’ve got it now. Obviously I’ve been trying to block it out, it was so painful. When I was eleven, my dad made me swim in a pool full of rats. No, wait, that was last week’s
Fear Factor
.

Okay, I remember now. I look back on my childhood and I remember how my dad would play these practical jokes on me all the time. I remember one time so vividly. I was seven years old and I was in the backyard playing. Real hot, sunny day, about 97, 98 degrees, but not real humid. It was hot, though.

Anyway, I went into the kitchen to pour a glass of lemonade, because I used to just
love
lemonade. I still drink it. I don’t drink it as much as I did when I was a little girl. Sometimes I’d drink it all day long. I’d drink so much that I’d be lying in bed at night, “Mom, I got a tummyache!”

Anyway, so I’m in the kitchen, and in the kitchen were my dad, my mom, all my brothers and sisters, just standing there, staring at me about to start laughing, and I’m like, “What?” So my dad said, “Ellen, honey, uh, we’ve never liked you as well as the other children. So, we’ve sold you to a tribe of Iroquois Indians. They’ll be here to pick you up in about an hour. We’re going to the Ice Capades. Good-bye! Good luck!” I was seven.

So, I lived in the Uriginees mountains for about nine years with the Iroquois, learning basket weaving and pottery making, and I taught them that noise you make under the armpit. That was the skill I had. And it was customary to marry within the tribe at thirteen and have several papooses, which I did. Cluck Cluck and Too Koo were their names.

Anyway, nine years later, trudging up the mountains came my dad, my mom, all my brothers and sisters, carrying a big pitcher of lemonade. Of course my tribe and I didn’t recognize them—we were shooting them with bows and arrows and everything—but they got up to the top and said, “We’re just kidding! We love ‘ya! Come on home.” And we went home and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Here’s the funny thing. The funny thing is, they weren’t even real Indians. They were actors my dad had hired to play Indians, just to fool me! Even today, I’ll be watching an old rerun
of Love Boat
or
Mannix
with my dad, and we’ll say, “Oh, hey, there’s Running Steve!” That’s not his real name; I know that now. It’s Rick Schroeder! I thought he was an Indian! I didn’t even know. He was always joking around, my dad.

My dad’s famous saying was, “Kids, this is no picnic.” Once he said it and we already had the tablecloth out on the grass and everything.

Actually, because my memory is so bad, most of that stuff about my dad isn’t exactly, totally 100% true. But here’s some stuff that is … kinda, a little bit.

My dad would always pay for things with change. I can see wanting to get rid of it; it’s change. But if he was always paying for stuff with change, why was his dresser always covered with it? The entire top of it. I asked him about it one day and he said to me, “Beth, I’ll tell you what, I’ve always loved coins. In fact, I wanted to be a pirate when I got out of college, but then I met your mother and before I knew it, I had a family to raise. I guess these coins are like the booty and this dresser is my treasure chest that will never be.” I’m pretty sure he was just joking about not knowing my name.