Family - The Ties That Bind...And Gag! (4 page)

My husband loved that story. He said it made sense. “After all, a dog could give him all the tender loving care his wife could. He could fetch his slippers and newspapers, never hang on the phone all day long or leave dirty dishes soaking in the sink, and would keep his feet warm at night.”

I said, “If you feel that way, how come you didn't many a dog?”

My husband is too smart ... too old ... and too well fed to even think of touching that line.

THE GOSPEL OF

THE UTILITIES ...

ACCORDING TO

DAD

From the kitchen, the voice was barely audible.

“It's coining from the living room,” said one son.

We all froze like a tableau.

“Well, excuse me. I didn't realize there was someone still in this room. Silly me. I was ready to turn the lights out. Here, let me turn on a few more lights,” the voice continued. “I can afford it. I'm independently wealthy, you know.”

I smiled knowingly. “It's your father ... the 'Prince of Darkness' ... making a point,” I said.

“Don't tell me,” said my son, “let me guess. Dad is standing in an empty living room talking to himself to let us know we didn't turn the lights off again when we left the room.”

The other son shook his head. “Some things never change.”

The speech was a staple. For thirty years Dad had dedicated his life to flipping off lights in rooms with no one in them, turning off water spigots in the bathroom, and throwing his body over the meter in an effort to stop the dials from spinning.

His sermons on saving money and energy fell on deaf ears. His commandments on misuse lay like broken stone tablets amidst the wet towels and melting soap. For more than thirty years, he valiantly fought apathy—alone and unheeded. His gospel of utilities never got the respect he had hoped for.

THOU SHALT FLUSH. ESPECIALLY IF THOU IS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD AND HAS THE USE OF BOTH ARMS.

THOU SHALT HANG UP THE PHONE WHEN THOU HAS BEEN ON IT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE RATES TO CHANGE.

THOU SHALT NOT STAND IN FRONT OF THE REFRIGERATOR DOOR WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO DANCE.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THE REST OF THE FAMILY'S HOT WATER.

THOU SHALT HONOR THY FATHER'S AND MOTHER'S THERMOSTAT AND KEEP IT ON NORMAL.

THOU SHALT REMEMBER LAST MONTH'S ELECTRICITY BILL AND REJOICE IN DARKNESS.

There were other commandments, but these were the ones written in stone.

He began teaching them when the children were old enough to respond to the word “no.”

The phone company didn't make it easy. In the ads they made it look like such a pleasurable experience to talk on the phone. Grandma and Granddad were both poised over the receiver listening to their grandchild burp. Or an entire band jammed in a phone booth to call the tuba player who had to stay at home with his lip in a cast. Sometimes they showed you college friends calling coast to coast with tears in their eyes to describe a western sunset.

Maybe it used to be that way. But that was before Grandma and Granddad realized the burp cost them $9.12. It was before the band cashed in their airline tickets to make the call. Before friends realized it was cheaper to take a bus to see the sunset than to talk about it.

Our phone bill prompted my husband to put together the first of a set of rules for placing long-distance calls in the future.

Before placing the call, go to the bathroom. Blow your nose and get a drink of water. Read the weather report of the town you are calling to eliminate, “What's the weather like?”

Figure out the time zone to conserve conversation on “What time is it there?”

Don't play games like, "Guess who this is?

" Fight with your brother BEFORE dialing.

Laughter costs dollars. Save it until you're off the phone.

Don't repeat. If someone says, “I love you,” there is no need to say, “I love you too.” A simple “ditto” will suffice.

Animals and babies are a waste of time on the phone. They never bark/laugh/talk/sing anyway until they hear the party hang up, so write letters.

If you really wanted to see old dad lose it, you should have seen him walk into the kitchen and discover three kids with both doors of the refrigerator flung open while the hairs in their noses froze up. He had a rule for that too. He came up with an idea he used on our safe-deposit box. Every time he'd take out a document for our taxes, he would record it on a little sheet of paper. When he returned an insurance policy or our passports, he would write it down. In one glance, he knew what was in and what was out of the safe-deposit box.

He figured it should work with the refrigerator, so he posted the contents on the refrigerator door and asked the family to mark any withdrawals or additions on the sheet. A cabbage roll had seven ins and outs, signifying no one knew what it was until he bit into it. Some smart aleck withdrew thirty-five cherries and two peaches and returned thirty-five cherry seeds and two peach pits for inventory. A box of baking soda was withdrawn and returned with a note that said, “Needs work.”

Probably the most pathetic entry listed under withdrawals was ice cubes with a note that said, “Would have returned same, but don't know how to make them.”

He tried so hard. I used to watch him as he lined the children in front of the door and said, “Today we're going to learn how to speak thermostat. When your room is cold, what do you do?”

One of the boys came forward and hiked the thermostat up to 80.

“You have the idea, but you need a little fine tuning,” said his father. “Now, when your room gets too hot, as it will, what do you do?”

“Open a window,” yawned our daughter.

They listened intently to his “Daddy is not a rich man” speech and dutifully followed him to the meter so they could watch the little dials twirl around. He told them how much we were charged for each little twirl. I used to feel sorry for him as I watched from a distance, his lips forming the word “bankruptcy.”

Finally, one day, one of them said, “Wait a minute. Are you telling us that the colder it gets outside, the harder the furnace has to work to keep it warm inside? And that every time it clicks on it costs money?”

My husband nodded excitedly.

“Then you should have thought of that before you had three children,” he said.

At times our home has been mistaken for a nuclear power plant, a site of the premiere of a major motion picture, a night baseball game, or Mardi Gras in progress.

Despite his lectures on how a light switch works, we still have the only “lighthouse” offering a perpetual beacon (or sailors adrift in the Arizona desert.

I remember the night we arrived home to find thirty-two lights burning. My husband rousted the family out of bed and ordered them to the dining room, where he shuffled through a stack of papers and figures.

“Did you know,” he asked, ”that it costs each of us $135 a year to take a hot bath and that the washer costs $3.50 a year to operate?"

“Are you suggesting that we all bathe together in the soak cycle of the washer?” yawned one of the kids.

“I am suggesting that we all take a good look at what is going on around here. A shower is a lot cheaper and uses less water.” They thanked him for sharing and got up to leave.

“Sit!” he ordered. “Awaterbed costs $4.35 a year to heat, while an electric blanket costs only $2.20.”

“Great,” said our son, “why don't we all stand under a hair dryer to keep warm. That only costs $1.75 a year.”

“For a nickel more,” said another son, “we could use the vacuum sweeper to suck the dirt off.”

My husband stomped off in defeat.

“Your father has a point,” I told the kids. “After all, he pays the bills and all he gets back for it is waste. From here on in, we stop and think about how much it costs in electricity before we turn on a single appliance.”

When my husband came to breakfast, he said, “Where's the coffee?”

“I made it in the popcorn popper,” said our daughter. “It only costs 40 cents to run, while the electric coffee maker costs $5.40.”

One son didn't shave because it cost 40 cents a year.

The other one was late for work because the clock ($1.03) was unplugged, and a strange smell was coming from the freezer because it cost $109.45 a year to keep it plugged in.

I offered him a piece of solar toast from the window sill, but he just kept walking toward the door.

It was rather predictable that he would end up talking to himself.

THE FAMILY THAT EATS TOGETHER ... GETS INDIGESTION

Friday: 7 p.m.

As Yogi Berra once said, “It was deja vu all over again.” One child was throwing plates on the table like a Greek dancer, and one was standing in front of the refrigerator with both doors parted like the Red Sea, whining, “There's nothing to eat.”

He was joined by his brother, who said, “You don't know hunger until you're the last kid to leave home. Do you have any idea what I got when all of you left? Every container in the house had a stalk of wheat on it. There were imitation eggs, yogurt cultures multiplying and dividing in the refrigerator like a bad Japanese film, and Civil War milk— blue or gray.”

“Poor baby,” said his sister. “Tell us again how you drove a car to school at sixteen just to keep the battery charged lor the old folks.”

“They are so health conscious,” he continued, “they actually bought sugar-free laxatives. Can you believe that! What did they think I was going to do with it? Pour it over ice cream and pig out?”

“Get out the violins,”

“The minute you guys come home for a visit, it's a Pills-bury Dough Boy festival.”

“Is he deprived or what?” said his brother.

“You never had to use old encyclopedias where the most recent president was Harry S. Truman,” he continued.

“And we didn't get a watch for our twelfth birthday, either,” said his brother. “Just sit on it.” “Lighten up!” “Give it a rest and help set the table.”

“That's woman's work.”

“I'm telling! Mom!”

The voices were deeper. The bodies were larger. But the dialogue was from the mouths of the same people who were at the same dinner table fifteen years ago.

It was a performance staged especially for parents. Next to Chorus Line and Oh/ Calcutta!, it enjoyed one of the longest runs in the history of modern theater. It was all coming back to me.

“Mom! Make her stop,” said a voice flatly.

The silence was still deafening. “Make her stop what?”

“Humming.”

“I don't hear anything.”

“You never hear it. She's humming just so no one can hear it but me.”

I leaned over, my hair resting on her lips, and listened. Nothing.

“Look at her neck,” her brother commanded. “You can see it moving.”

I felt her neck to see if the veins were warm. Then I commanded her to stop.

“Did she do it?” I asked my son.

He smiled triumphantly.

Sibling Rivalry was invented by psychoanalyst Alfred Adler in the early 1920s. Up until that time parents used words like “They're killing one another” and “For God's sake, Larry, don't turn your back on 'em.” Adier said it was a “phase” children went through in which they competed for their parents' attention. They had it. They just didn't know it.

As the silence of the table returned, I said to the “baby,” “Why don't you say a prayer before dinner?”

The other two exchanged knowing glances like the first two cuts in the Miss America pageant.

He bowed his head and began, “Bless us, oh Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from the Brownies ...”

“Not Brownies, dork,” interrupted his brother. “You mean bounties.”

“Bounties is something you get for bringing in an outlaw,” said his sister.

“No, you're thinking of the ones who bring in prisoners in Canada. They're Mounties.”

“You're thinking of Monty, which was a nickname for General Montgomery during the big war,” said their father.

“Monty!” said our daughter. “They were the sisters who wrote Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.”

“That's Bronte,” I said.

“I thought Bronte made chicken,” he said.

“Jerk, that's Swanson,” said his brother.

“No, that's Colonel Sanders, the man with the little white beard and the white suit.”

“You are obviously thinking of Mark Twain.”

“Wrong,” said their father. “It was Mark dark and he was not a colonel, he was a general during the big war.”

“Is he related to Dick dark?” asked our son.

“Who's Dick dark?”

“Maybe he's related to Petula dark.”

“What's a Petula?”

“Isn't it like a cuspidor?”

“That's a tooth like a molar.”

“A mole is a little animal that ruins your grass.”

“No it isn't. It's a little dot on your face that you were born with.”

“That is a wart and it's something icky that boys hate but always wind up with.”

There was a silence for almost ten seconds when a small voice said, “That's what I said in the first place. Bless these gifts which we are about to receive from the Brownies....”

Sibling rivalry in our family began the first day I brought our second son home from the hospital. His brother looked at him and said, “Maybe later we could get a dog.”

The rivalry was subtle at first. Like he'd stand on the baby's windpipe or trap him under the casters of his playpen. At the grocery, he pushed his cart into a blank wall and left him.

“What's with you and your brother?” I'd ask. "He's dumb.

He doesn't do anything. He just slobbers and eats the labels off of cans."

It never got any better. When he stopped slobbering, he began to spit. When we got his mouth fixed, his nose started to run. When he walked, he stumbled; when he sat down, he got something wet. Even breathing became annoying.

When children are born, they come equipped with a computer bank that files away every kindness or gift ever rendered and the age it was rendered.

Heaven help the parent who gives one child a bicycle a year sooner than his brother or sister got one, or rewards him with a trip to the circus before the exact hour the others received their first trip to the circus.

The parents are not totally blameless.

I can't think of a mother in this entire world who has not committed the first sin of parenting: comparing her children.

From the day kids are born, we compare them with ourselves, their siblings, their contemporaries, and every other child with whom they come in contact.

They are smaller than their brother when he was that age. They are dumber than their sister in math, lazier than the boy next door, don't catch a baseball like their dad, and their hair doesn't hold the curl like their mother's.

One day my younger son said, “Why do you always compare me to my brother?”

“Because you're a cheap shot,” I said.

“I wish I was an only child.”

“Wouldn't matter,” I said. “When I was carrying your brother, I compared him to a baby my best friend was carrying. Hers moved more than your brother did.”

Near the end of the meal, one of them kicked another one under the table. When I asked why, he said, “HE knows.” When I asked “He,” I was told, “He's lying.” When I told him to stop it, he said, “You let him yell 'EEEEEE' at me all the time and never say a word.”

It went back and forth like that until the end of the meal.

I told one of them to go to his room. He said, “Sure, he's Mama's favorite.”

He was right. Every mother had a favorite. I had mine. It was always the child who was too sick to eat the ice cream at his birthday party, had measles at Christmas, and wore leg braces to bed because he toed in.

She was the fever in the middle of the night, the asthma attack, the child in my arms at the emergency ward.

My “favorite child” was the one I punished for lying, grounded for insensitivity to other people's feelings, and informed was a royal pain to the entire family.

The favorite child said dumb things for which there were no excuses. He was selfish, immature, bad-tempered and self-centered. He was vulnerable, lonely, unsure of what lie was doing in this world ... and quite wonderful.

The one I loved the most was the one I watched struggle ... and because the struggle was his ... did nothing.

Every mother knows her favorite child was the one who deserved love the least... but needed it the most.

As parents sit and listen to this exchange between siblings at the dinner table, they cannot help but reflect on the dazzling performance. But then the kids have enjoyed a long run with it.

No one asks for an encore, but you get one anyway as they spring into their “It's not my turn to do dishes.” Their freshness never ceases to amaze me.

If a poll were taken of children asking why they thought their parents had children, 12% of them would say they got bored watching television, 26% would say it was a 4-H project that got out of hand, and 62% would swear adults had kids to get out of doing their own dishes.

Despite the fact that fifteen million Americans walk around half sick from eating off of diseased dishes and breakage runs into six figures, it is still the number one chore of kids in the country today.

Early in my mothering career, I saw what I had going for me: a surly child who secretly spit on plates after she rinsed them, laying a foundation of mistrust; a child with kidneys the size of lentils who visited the bathroom five times during the clearing ritual; and another one who argued about it not being his turn for so long the dishes went out of style and the silver pattern was discontinued.

When electric dishwashers came out, I figured it would do for my family what panty hose did for my condo thighs ...pull them together as one.

The day the dishwasher was installed marked the first time my children fought...yes, fought... to see who would load it first.

The second night, the one who used to spit on the plates opened the door of the dishwasher and said, “How do you expect me to clear the table when there are dishes in there from yesterday?”

I had an answer. She did not like it.

“No one said anything about emptying the dishwasher,” she said. “I just fill it.”

Had this child been a steward on the Titanic and someone asked her for a life preserver, she would have said, “I'm sorry, but that is not my station. I work the aft deck.”

I cannot put my finger on it, but there was just something “yucky” about touching all those squeaky clean plates and sparkling pieces of silverware and returning them to the drawers and cupboards that turned kids off. They just didn't want to get their hands clean.

I've been emptying the dishwasher ever since we got it. As I do it, I cannot help but reflect on why I had children. What a thing to say. I had them because they would carry my genes and give me everlasting life. They would fill my life with joy and purpose and give meaning to my very existence.

On the other hand, German shepherd puppies can lick a dish clean in 30 seconds without moving the plate ... and they're real pleasant while they're doing it.

I don't understand it. The kids sit there all during dinner and never mention dishes. The conversation is light. Then one starts with something as subtle as, “Boy, I got a lot of homework tonight. The rest of you can sit here and talk if you want.” He begins to leave the table.

“You leave this table,” says another sibling, “and I'll break your face. It's not my turn to do dishes!”

The other one hops in, “It's not my turn. I didn't eat anything, so I'm out.”

The first one says, “We can figure this out very simply. I did them Tuesday because we had spaghetti. I always get stuck doing them when we have spaghetti because Mom never liked me.”

“Get off my case,” says another cast member. “You haven't done them in three weeks because of ball practice. You don't even play ball. You just suit up and sit in the shower room to get out of doing dishes.”

“That's a pretty rotten thing to say for someone who lets the dog help him clear. You think we haven't seen you?”

“At least I don't leave the broiler in the oven, the pans soaking in the sink, and save empty corn cobs in the refrigerator.”

It's the end of the first act; Parents give them a sitting ovation.

In my naivete, I always thought a family doing dishes together built character. I perceived it as a sharing experience where everyone pitched in and made it a better world.

This myth exploded the night we took a steak knife away from one of the boys who said it wasn't his “turn” and was using his brother as a dart board.

We moved right along to plan B, in which each of them would have his night in the kitchen and then be off for two nights. However, there was so much trading and paying back that the bookkeeping became unwieldy and we moved to a new house to start fresh.

We called the kids the three S's. Each had his own personality in the kitchen.

One was a Soaker. Everything soaked. The only thing that wasn't put in the sink and filled with water was the spaghetti pot, which always looked clean and hung with spaghetti hardened on it for three years.

One was a Saver. No leftover was too small to store in its original serving dish: a grape, a French fry, a wad of gum left on the dinner plate. All were preserved for whoever was on for dishes the next night.

The other one was a Slammer ... a one-person wrecking crew who could demolish a table in 30 seconds. She cleared. She stacked. She washed. She dried. She put away. All of this in fifteen seconds and at great expense to the management.

All three, however, had one trait in common. The moment the meal was over, a biological urgency would come over them and they would disappear into the bathroom until they were sure the food on the plates was in a solid state.

It was a game they played. Would Mom sigh her martyrdom sigh and say, “Never mind, I'll do them myself,” and when they emerged from the bathroom the kitchen would be sparkling and the dishes done?

Or would Mom fake 'em out and they would be in the kitchen giving a prime time performance to no one?

It was an act that was always held over. Yet, to this day they can't hear a dish rattle without instinctively going into the bathroom and locking the door.

WHO KILLED THE HOME-COOKED McMEAL?

In retrospect, it was only a matter of time before the Family Dinner Hour passed into history and fast foods took over. I knew its days were numbered the day our youngest propped my mouth open with a fork and yelled into it, “I want a cheeseburger and two fries and get it right this time.” I just didn't serve meals with show business pizzazz.

My pot roast gave way to pizza served in a derby hat and cane. My burgers couldn't compete with the changing numbers under the Golden Arches. I couldn't even do chicken ... right!

So, day by day I watched the family go outside of the home for meals where there were no tables to set and no clean hands required, and where green was not considered a happy color. The warm smells of Mother's kitchen gave way to the back seat of a station wagon littered with supermarket flyers, dry cleaning, schoolbooks, ropes, chains, jumper cables, and dog hairs.

The old rules for eating at home—sit up straight, chew your food, and don't laugh with cottage cheese in your mouth—didn't fit the new ambiance. A new set of rules emerged.

When ordering from the back seat of the car, do not cup your mouth over Daddy's car and shout into it. Wait quietly until you are asked what you want. Follow this with “thank you.”

Never order more than you can balance between your knees. Remember, ice that spills between your legs dampens not only spirit... as it were. If by some chance you receive a sandwich that is not yours, do not spit on it and throw it on the floor. Simply pass it back to the driver of the car and tell him a mistake has been made.

Front-of-the-car seating is better than back seat if you have a choice. The dashboard offers space for holding beverages. However, these are reseived for parents who have seniority in the family.

Conversation while dining in a car should be restricted to school happenings, future social events, and a polite exchange about noncontroversial issues. It is quite improper to carry on a discourse as to what the secret sauce reminds you of.

Eat with your legs together at all times. Unless the car windows are tinted, there should be no physical exchange between diners in the back seat.

Remember, you are basically dining in public. That means no French fries hung from the nose. Very few diners will find this amusing. Despite the fact that facilities in the car are limited, there is no reason why it should be a major McMess. Afterward, each person should be responsible for his/her trash and should contain it in a bag. Two-weck-old onion rings in the ashtray are not a pretty sight.

Why did the home-cooked meal become extinct? Maybe because it deserved to die. I got to the point where I couldn't even get the family to the table at one time. When I announced, "Dinnnnner!” the entire family swung into action like a precision drill team of Viennese Lippizaners. For no apparent reason, my husband would exit to the bathroom with two volumes on Churchill, one child would pick up the telephone and dial a random number, another would grab a basketball and go outside to shoot baskets, and one of them would take a bus somewhere.