Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner (12 page)

Fortunately, everyone eventually tires of their fancy, unused, dust-gathering gravy boats and when they do, they take them to the consignment store. I spend weeks scoping out and scooping up beautiful porcelain dinner sets and heavy crystal bowls, paying pennies on the dollar of their original cost.

My hobby morphs into an obsession purely by accident. I find a beautiful silver serving bowl and it isn’t until I use it the first time that I notice the engraving. Turns out I didn’t nab a fancy five-dollar potato chip holder at all—I purchased a stupid trophy. I still use it to hold party snacks, but I turn the writing side around and butt it up to the wall so no one sees what it really is.

After resenting my purchase for a while, it occurs to me that having someone else’s
1967 Division IV Hiring Award
is kind of kitschy. Once filled with potpourri and placed on an empty shelf, it actually seems intentional and
that’s
when I realize this is the exact kind of classy shit Pottery Barn uses to make their catalog pages so crave-worthy.

I begin a quest, expanding my search to antiques stores where
I unearth a Bakelite beagle trophy from a 1959 dog show in the thirteen-inch bitch division. I’m not sure if the manufacturer was trying to be funny or if the event organizer screwed up, but it is clear from the beagle’s generous undercarriage that
this is no bitch
and a shelf theme is born.

(Do I need to clarify the theme is “trophy” and not “transgender”?)

Six months after beginning the process, I finally collect enough pieces to fill in the empty shelves downstairs, supplementing my trophies with loads of vintage books. Of course, whenever I check out with an armload of novels, the cashier is perpetually delighted. She’s always all, “Ooh! You must be a huge reader!” and I never have the heart to tell her that I hand select each novel solely based on their red spines.

I know, I know.

I’m ashamed.

But they match the drapes!

I’ve slowly been adding pieces to the shelf in the TV room upstairs, too. Even though we’re not terribly athletic, [
Like, at all.
] I thought vintage sporting equipment would be a fun theme. I envision displays of tattered velvet equestrian helmets and fencing masks and those old-timey leather football helmets, kind of like a fraternity house basement circa 1940, or a T.G.I. Friday’s minus the shitty food.

Thus far, I’ve sourced a couple of vintage baseballs and some scruffy croquet balls, but that’s it. The process of unearthing these treasures has been exhausting and frustrating, particularly when I
see something great but it’s cost prohibitive. [
$450 for an old-timey football helmet? No.
] My shelves sit white and open, leering at me.

As always, Stacey shows me the way.

“What about eBay?” she asks.

I grimace. I have such bad memories of eBay. “What about it? I hate eBay. eBay’s where I had to sell all my designer stuff back in the bad old days. Far as I’m concerned, eBay sucks. It’s nothing but a bunch of crooks in China trying to sell knock-off purses, ruining it for the rest of us by driving down the prices for those looking to unload
authentic
bags to keep their lights on.”

Stacey opens her laptop. “What would you like me to find?”

Really?

Do we have to go through this?

“They’re not going to have what I want.”

“Uh-huh. I’m going to search for… ‘vintage bowling trophy’ and… hey. You certainly wouldn’t be interested in this.” Stacey attempts—and fails—at keeping the smug out of her voice.

I try not to appear interested because I hate admitting Stacey’s right, even though that’s the case at least ninety-nine percent of the time and the entire basis of our friendship. “What wouldn’t I like?”

“A giant silver-handled loving cup from 1917, awarded to the men of Delta Tau Delta to commemorate their second-place finish in the Inter-fraternity Bowling League.” She turns the screen to face me.

Oh. [
Were I to express myself in such a manner—which I won’t—this is where I’d say that I got ladywood.
]

Welcome to eBay.

eBay is a fine place to unload your Prada bag when you’re in a desperate situation and it’s exactly what the doctor ordered when searching for a specific item, say an authentic 1965 edition of the game Mystery Date. eBay is a very, very bad place to go if you’re a hypercompetitive asshole with a penchant for spite bidding.

Try to guess which category I fall under.

It all starts innocently enough—like it does—when I spot the perfect old-timey football helmet at an attractive price. I meet the minimum bid and set a reasonable ceiling and then spend a few days watching the nonexistent auction action. But as I sleep, a bidding war breaks out between me and some douche bag named a********7, who wins my stupid helmet for a dollar more than my bid ceiling.

Unacceptable.

At the exact same time, I lose out on a vintage blue ribbon from a horse show as well as a set of leather riding calf protectors that seem like something Ronald Reagan would have worn in a film.

Revolution.

I begin to note auction endings in my calendar and instead of passively going along with the process, I become an active participant. The second the “You’ve been outbid!” e-mail arrives in my in-box, I’m on it, jacking up my bid ceiling in increments of ten dollars to flush out the lookie-loos.

Yet I still lose auctions.

I imagine elaborate sting operations wherein all the owners of vintage leather catcher’s masks band together to create an evil
cabal whose sole purpose is to keep me from winning their items. Dicks.

When I spy the potential cornerstone of my collection—a small sterling trophy from the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, recognizing Hunky, the 1907 winner of Class Dories competition, shit gets real.

The time has come for spite bidding.

I set my bid ceiling ridiculously high and systematically knock out all the competition. I have no idea who the other bidders are in real life—perhaps a relative of Hunky or a historian tasked with bringing home all the Seawanhaka trophies, but I care not. That trophy is going to sit on my empty shelf, holding a hydrangea blossom when seasonally appropriate, and that’s all there is to it. As the time on the auction runs out, it’s five… four… three… two… one…

#WINNING!!!

Once I discover a system in which I get the items I want
and
piss off a faceless portion of the Internet, I’m unstoppable. I win auctions left and right. Vintage hockey skates? Got ’em. Small tin sign indicating where the polo club served cocktails? All over it. Antique Indian juggling clubs? Yeah, baby. Old-timey football helmets? Enough to protect the tender melons of the entire starting line, thank you very much.

Fletch doesn’t even balk at what I spend because ultimately a first-place ribbon from the Iowa State Fair for Shorthorn Cattle costs substantially less than shoes, jewelry, purses, or anything purchased on an Ambien high. Plus, I’m working out a lot of aggression by crushing other people’s auction dreams. And, if someone out there has to sell her pair of 1952 Wilson Football cleats
(with original box!) in order to cover her light bill, I’m happy to pay it forward.

Ironically, what puts him over the edge about my hobby is the packing peanuts. Thus I’d like to present How to Make Fletch Apoplectic in Ten Easy Steps:

Fletch has now begged me to reconsider both gardening and antiquing as hobbies, instead opting for something less competitive/messy/expensive.

He suggests sewing.

Sewing?

Huh. That’s a thought. I have lots of friends who sew and I love seeing the stuff they create. My friend Wendy is an ace and her basement’s so well stocked it’s like visiting a tailor.

This… might be useful. With some practice, I could whip up some casual, more modern curtains for the bedroom to replace those drapes that look like casket-liner. Plus, I could use the time that I was sewing to listen to opera and that feels really sophisticated and mature.

Yes.

This idea is growing on me.

This could work.

Thing is, fabric can be really expensive, so I’d probably want to start with tiny projects, like napkins or place mats or dresses.

Very small dresses.

Like… doll-sized dresses. Really, wouldn’t Miss Joan enjoy something comfortable to change into after a long day at Sterling Cooper? Her little purple suit is so stiff and fitted. And those girdles are murder! I bet she’d love a nice, soft housedress. Ooh, better yet—some yoga pants! Just imagine how popular she’d be if she were bendier!

As for Betty Draper—I imagine she’s as bitchy as she is because she’s stuffed into a girdle all day, every day. All that restricted circulation must angry up her blood. If she had some elastic-waist pants and maybe a loose tunic, she wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Don and then they’d get back together and poor Sally Draper could stop acting out her daddy abandonment issues with all the little boys in her new neighborhood.

If you think about it, by learning to sew, I could (in theory) save an entire (fictional) family.

Plus?

Then I’d have an excuse for playing with dolls!

I
n retrospect, the whole spying thing seems pretty childish.

In my defense, keeping tabs on my neighbors’ comings and goings was a necessity when we lived in the city. I mean,
someone
had to act as block captain because the police certainly weren’t on patrol.

I can count on zero fingers the number of times the Chicago PD responded to 911 calls when we lived in Bucktown, and I’m not talking the usual,
“Hello, Jeannie, who’s bothering you today?”
reports about assholes parking in front of my garage. [
Listen, blocking the alley violates fire code and I’m pretty sure that’s a crime or violation or at least very annoying every time I had to drive around and park out front.
]

Squad cars never rolled when we phoned about the sound of gunshots or the knife fight on our sidewalk or when acts of prostitution were committed in the vacant lot next door.

Yes, the van was rocking but did five-oh come knocking? Negatory.

I’m not sure what the Chicago PD considered
real
crimes in that godforsaken neighborhood, but they included neither drug deals nor domestic violence.

Clearly I had
no choice
but to name myself Neighborhood Hall Monitor, [
I should have bought myself a sash and a beret to go along with my whistle, cell phone camera, and good whacking shovel.
] and it’s totally not my fault that this dovetailed nicely into my natural propensity for observation. Could I help it if my Constant Vigilance™ occasionally turned up a few hidden truths about my neighbors?

After I spent a full day on Neighborhood Watch, Fletch would return home from work and I’d fill him in on each transgression I witnessed, like which of our idiot neighbors drove her kids around without seat belts and who threw an empty McDonald’s bag on my lawn and did he know the McRib was back? Then Fletch would call me Gladys Kravitz [
Other Notable Nosy Neighbors in Television History include Messrs. Roper and Furley. If you don’t catch any of these references, turn on Nick at Nite, like, immediately.
] and suggest (urge, plead, implore, demand) I find another way to occupy my time.

Every day we had some version of this conversation while he changed out of his grown-up clothes after work:

“You don’t understand,” I argue, sitting by the window on the bed where I can keep one eye on my husband and the other trained on the street, like one of those creepy chameleons with the swivel-y eye sockets. “It’s my civic obligation to note comings and goings.”