Forever, Erma Read online

  “What is there about women that they cannot stand to see a smooth bare wall?” he grumbled.

  “And what is there about men that they cannot stand to have the necessities of life hung from a wall?”

  “What necessities?” he asked. “Certainly you don’t need that mirror in the hallway.”

  “You said that about the light switches.”

  His eyes narrowed, and I had the feeling he was going to zap me with his big point. “Do you realize,” he asked slowly, “that there is not one single wall in this house where we can show a home movie?”

  “Radio City Music Hall only has one!” I retorted.

  And so the nail vs. the bare wall has gone on for years at our house. He wouldn’t hang a calendar over my desk because in 12 months the nail would become obsolete. He wouldn’t hang the children’s baby pictures because in two years they’d grow teeth and no one would recognize them. He wouldn’t let me put a hook in the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to hold my robe while I showered. He wouldn’t let me hang a kitchen clock anywhere but on a wall stud, which happened to be located just behind the refrigerator.

  I have waited 23 years for my revenge. Yesterday, he reported he ran over a nail with his car.

  There’s an object lesson here, but I won’t insult your intelligence by pointing it out.

  My Husband the Prince of Darkness—February 20, 1973

  The poet who said “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness” did not know my husband.

  He has dedicated his entire life to flipping off light switches, giving rise to his theory that “It is better to break your leg in the darkness than to curse the light bills.”

  By his description, our house is lit up like a pleasure boat cruising up the Potomac. He lies. Had we lived in England during the blitz, ours would have been the only house that never needed blackout curtains.

  It is like living with a hamster with long arms. For example, I will turn on the bathroom light switch, and 15 seconds later the light will flick off. From the darkness, a voice will proclaim, “Unless you’ve rearranged the furniture in there, you know your way around, don’t you?”

  His tour through the house every evening has become rather predictable. “Who’s in the kitchen?” (Click.) “Who’s in the hall closet?” (Click.) “Who’s in the bedroom?” (Click.) Then we are in for his dramatic tally. “I have just turned off thirteen lights.”

  The most frustrating patch of darkness is the garage. He pulled the car in the other evening and doused the lights. I fumbled with the car door while he fumbled for the house key. Finally, he shouted, “Are you all right?”

  “Don’t talk to me,” I said. “I’m counting my steps like the blind boy in Butterflies Are Free.” Inside the house he inched his way through the darkness.

  “It’s twenty-two steps to the family-room light switch,” I said.

  “I don’t want the family-room light switch,” he said. “I want to turn on the stove light. It’s a smaller bulb.”

  “How about a sparkler?” I asked.

  “I’ve had enough of your smart remarks about my war against waste,” he said. “Today I bought a lamp that illuminates the entire room. No more stumbling around. No more squinting. You and your lack of regard for money will love it!”

  I followed him into the bedroom, where he proceeded to turn on the light above our bed.

  Recoiling from the glare into the corner, I had the strangest sensation either Moses was going to write something on a mountain or a new supermarket was being opened.

  As he lay in bed reading, and as the lids of my eyes were being broiled to medium well, I could only wonder if Thomas Edison could be named as co-defendant in a divorce suit.

  Husband Has Clothes for All Occasions—May 8, 1979

  Whenever a group of women get together, they always discuss at what age a husband is capable of dressing himself.

  I stopped dressing my husband two years ago when it became clear he had a wino dress wish. He simply did not care that a striped tie and a plaid shirt were incompatible, or that trousers worn to the ankle were to be slipped on only on the way to the rowboat in the event of a flood.

  We had words over it, and I said, “From here on in, you are on your own.” This year, I am going one step further by severing the marital discord entirely and letting him do his own packing for vacation. It’s risky, but he has to assume the responsibility sometime.

  Last year, just before vacation, I checked over his suitcase and he had proved once again his readiness for any occasion.

  He had clothes in which to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

  He had clothes to parachute behind enemy lines dressed as a mercenary.

  He had clothes to commandeer a torpedo boat through a squall.

  He had clothes to barter for mules and guides in a Colombian jungle and clothes to celebrate Halloween behind the Iron Curtain.

  He had clothes for snorkeling, discoing, safaris, high teas and low ceilings, clothes for lounging and clothes to leave behind as tips.

  He also packed eight pairs of shoes, a tripod and coats for all seasons. There wasn’t a porter in the world who could have put an inch of space between that suitcase and the floor. I was not about to travel with the luggage of an anvil salesman.

  Naturally, I brought some reason to the contents, taking care to stuff the shoes neatly with underwear, put the necessary items into plastic bags and layer the suitcase with cardboard to guard against wrinkles. It would be his last brush with systematic packing.

  Yesterday he told me his packing was complete. I opened the closet door. There was nothing left in it except a red vest and bow tie left over from high school.

  “In case you decide to wait tables, you may have nothing to wear,” I said dryly.

  He grabbed it off the hanger and stuffed it into his flight bag.

  Jim Is Retired—May 19, 1985

  See Jim. Jim used to run and jump and chase accounts. Jim is going to stay home now. He has a new watch. He will tell you what time it is even when you don’t ask.

  It is time to get up.

  It is time to remove the oil stain from the driveway before it spreads to the rest of the house.

  It is time to alphabetize your spices.

  It is time to eat. (Lunch/dinner/breakfast/break/snack/party.)

  It is time to use the packet of yeast before it expires at noon tomorrow.

  Sometimes Jim will act like a houseguest.

  “Where do you hide the iced-tea glasses?”

  “The hall bath needs toilet tissue.”

  “There is someone at the door selling something.”

  “I’d put the dishes away, but I don’t know where they belong.”

  Sometimes Jim will act as if he has hired you for the summer.

  “Who was that on the phone, and what did they want?”

  “Where are you going, and what time are you coming back?”

  “I don’t think the grass can wait another day.”

  Retired men like Jim bring efficiency to the home.

  “It is cheaper to make your own tea bags than to buy ready-made.”

  “Don’t heat up the oven for one baked potato. Do a dozen and freeze them.”

  See Jim drive a nail by the door to hold your car keys.

  See Jim drive a nail by the phone to hold a pencil.

  See Jim drive a nail in the desk to hold your unpaid bills.

  See Jim drive you crazy.

  You are surprised. You did not know you married a man who knew so much about dishwashers, wax buildup, hand washables, stain removers and children.

  Jim is surprised. He does not know how you have managed to stumble through 40 years of running a house without him.

  Everyone is surprised he is busier than ever.

  You’re not.

  My Social Life—November 3, 1985

  There is no delicate way to say it. My social life is somewhere to the right of a sedated parakeet.

  It happens
. The Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgeralds of their time who vowed 36 years ago to let the good times roll have turned into Ma and Pa Kettle.

  During the last 20 years, it has been an uphill fight to get my husband out of his running shoes and into hard soles. This madcap who used to bounce around a dance floor like a Ping-Pong ball and have confetti in his bathrobe pocket is now reduced to a TV remote switch and deep breathing by 9 P.M.

  Most of the time, women are the social animals who plan dinners and movie dates, buy season tickets to concerts, organize bowling and tennis games and keep them on the move. Then one day the nonsocial “ani-males” become militant. They rebel.

  “Are we going out again? I feel like I’m on a treadmill. How do you expect me to work every day and keep up this pace all night? Don’t you ever get the desire to just stay at home and relax? I suppose next month you’ll want to go out again!”

  For me, it gets tougher and tougher to sell my husband on a social outing. He’s at that time of his life where his heart will take no surprises. If it’s a movie, he wants to know if he’s going to like it. If it’s a party, he wants to know when we’re coming home. If it’s a game, he wants to know if the score is going to be close. If it’s a lecture, he wants to know if it’s worth staying awake for. If I mislead him, I am held personally responsible and points are mentally racked up against me.

  They say you can always tell how exciting your life is by the hour you get into your nightclothes. Sometimes we have to change our pajamas because we dribbled our dinner onto them. I cannot tell you the times we have said to startled guests who just dropped in unexpectedly that we both have the flu.

  The other night as I sat needlepointing in my nest of pillows and his recliner body was draped over the recliner chair, the phone rang. He jumped back to reality and said, “Who could be calling at this hour?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He hesitated before he picked it up. “They don’t call to tell you you’ve won the lottery at eight-thirty at night. It must be bad news!”

  There are some people who tell me I should be flattered that my husband wants to stay at home. These are the same unstable people who believe age has nothing whatsoever to do with the way you feel.

  I always knew a man’s home was his castle. I just never thought he’d pull up the drawbridge at 5:30 in the evening.

  Clippers—April 26, 1987

  I was leafing through a magazine in my gynecologist’s office the other day when I encountered a page with three holes in it left by a “clipper.”

  Slamming it shut, I looked around in horror. I didn’t know why or when, but my husband was there or had been there as surely as if he had left his business card.

  He belongs to a sick little group of people who feel compelled to rip out any story or cartoon that catches their fancy. It’s not enough to read it and enjoy it. They have to own it.

  By the time I sit down to read our paper, it has more holes in it than a screen door on a rental cabin. Thanks to his handy razor blade, he has deftly committed surgery on two thirds of the contents. Small wonder that people accuse me of having a current-affairs lobotomy. All I can discuss intelligently is the masthead on the editorial page and the advertising rates in the want ads. Everything else has been removed.

  Last week, he ripped out the weather map and was folding it carefully to store in his pocket. “What are you going to do with that?” I asked.

  “I’m sending it to the Cochrans in Ohio,” he said, “so they can see how cold they were.”

  “Why would you want to do that? They live there. They already know how cold it was.”

  “Yes, but they didn’t know that it made our newspaper.”

  I knew better than to look for logic. I didn’t find it when he sent the day’s horoscope to his sister in Florida, telling her she’d hear from a stranger that day. By the time she received it, her son had probably called anyway.

  In my mind, I have constructed a profile of these clippers. They are people who preface every sentence with, “I don’t suppose you read that amusing story the other day about...” and then proceed to open their billfolds and read the entire story out loud to you. Their letters always have a cartoon falling out of them attacking the weakest part of your personality. They paste apropos stories on your bathroom mirror (FIVE MILLION WOMEN WANT YOUR HUSBAND). They never leave home without a Swiss Army knife in case they find a paper in the airport that someone has left.

  I met a man the other day who fit the profile, and as I was about to walk away he told me how he clipped my columns and covered the refrigerator with them.

  On second thought, a man has to have some vices.

  Car Heater—December 11, 1988

  My husband and I go through this every winter. We climb into the car, and before we back out of the garage I say, “Turn on the heater. I’m freezing.”

  He recites, “I cannot turn on the heater yet. The car isn’t warmed up.”

  “What’s to warm up?” I shout. “If we have a heater, why don’t we just turn it on?”

  With this, he flips open the glove compartment and hands me a diagram of the engine of a car, which he made 30 years ago. “Find the radiator,” he commands. “Now look for the engine block.”

  Then he proceeds to tell me how wind goes through the radiator, which is full of fluids. The wind cools the fluids, and with the help of a pump, also cools the engine. I know there is no stopping him once he gets started on this discourse.

  He explains how the heater has a thermostat in front of the water pump. It traps the water in the engine until it reaches a certain temperature. Then it is released and the car can heat up.

  As I fold the diagram and put it back, I ask, “So why do they have a whole panel of buttons regulating heat, and when you push them cold air pours out?”

  As we drive in silence, I finally approach the subject again. “Do you suppose it will heat up before we get to where we are going?”

  “The car has no way of knowing how far we are going,” he says patiently.

  “Joyce has a car that can heat up her coffee and has a digital clock that tells her what time she will get someplace if she maintains a certain speed. There’s even a little voice that tells her when her door is open, her brake is on and she is driving too fast. And you are telling me that this car has no idea when it is going to release a little heat?”

  “Her car probably doesn’t heat up any faster than ours does.”

  “You don’t know that,” I snap. “You’re just being stubborn. Just because you have a heavy coat and a jacket under it, you’re not even cold. Women don’t wear as many clothes as men. No wonder we’re sick all the time. We’re sitting around waiting for the heat to kick in.”

  We ride in silence a while longer. Finally, I say, “I hate to say this, but I think you don’t turn on the heat because it uses more gas and you’re cheap. It’s just like the thermostat at home. It’s easier to curse the cold. I’ve never told you this before, but I’m afraid to fall asleep at night. I’m afraid I’ll never wake up.”

  He leans over and pushes the heater button and hot air pours out. “We had heat all the time, didn’t we?” I say.

  “We did not have heat all the time. We’ve been arguing for ten minutes.”

  He’s been saying that for 30 years.

  Husband Reads at Night—March 14, 1989

  We’ve talked before about my husband, the Prince of Darkness. I’ve told you how he has dedicated his life to turning off lights. How he turns off the porch light before our guests have reached their cars in the driveway. And how he figured the Donald Duck night-light cost 8 cents a year and pulled the plug on it.

  Well, I want to correct an erroneous impression I may have left with you. There is one moment when the cost of a light is no object. It can never burn too long or too brightly. In fact, it is the only 200-watter in the entire house. I’m talking about the light by the bed he shines in my eyes when I am trying to sleep and he wants to “read a little
to get sleepy.”

  A lighthouse should have such a light. Night baseball games and operating rooms should benefit from such radiance.

  The other night I asked, “How long are you going to read?”

  He said, “Whenever I get sleepy. Why?”

  “Because I want to know how much Number Thirty sunscreen to use on my eyelids.”

  “It’s not that bright,” he said.

  “It’s like looking at Queen Elizabeth in a snowstorm. It is the whitest white I have ever seen.”

  “Do you want me to ruin my eyes?” he asked.

  “If that’s what it takes,” I said.

  I personally do not know why it takes so much light to peruse a dull book he has been reading for three years.

  Lately, a new wrinkle has evolved in his discovery of light. He has started to bring to our bed boxes of snacks and a television tuner. Even if I were not blinded by the light, the sound of him grinding up a hard pretzel in his teeth would jolt anyone out of a coma. (Did you know it takes 133 chews to masticate a small Triscuit?)

  The volume on the television set is low enough to know Carson is saying something, but you don’t know what. It is loud enough to hear the laughs.

  I once sat up in the middle of this orgy and said angrily, “I cannot believe you are the same man who, when the power goes out, tells me God is punishing me for leaving the garage light on all night. The man who turns off the Christmas tree lights when we leave the room to answer the door.”

  He stopped chewing and said, “Why don’t you just sit up and join me? It would be more cost-efficient if you did.”

  I almost punched his light out.

  Husband Preempts His Christmas Gifts—December 10, 1992

  I know the symptoms well. My husband looks up from the paper and says, “Good grief, it’s the middle of December already. I’ve got to start shopping.”