Forever, Erma Page 12

  With that pronouncement, he pushes himself away from the table and goes on his annual buying spree—for himself.

  He discards from his drawer all the boxer shorts where the elastic has died in the waistband and buys new ones. He renews his TV Guide subscription and buys a new warm-up suit on sale and a book he wants to read. He tracks down his favorite ski pajamas and buys three pairs. He carts in new sweaters and replaces his old billfold that is falling apart.

  He shops for a coffeecup holder for his car, new luggage tags and a pen to replace the one he lost.

  Boxes and tissue fill his room as he pulls out shirts that were too cheap to pass up and a pair of glasses he’s always wanted that you wear to tie flies.

  If I were Santa Claus, I’d smack him right across the mouth.

  Men at best are impossible to buy for.

  The styles of their clothes rarely change. Their hobbies are limited. They don’t succumb to cosmetic promises to take years off their lives, nor do they do busywork like needlepointing or knitting. Their jewelry is limited.

  What they don’t have they don’t need, and what they don’t need they don’t want.

  We have the same argument every year. “I suppose you bought yourself a flu shot.”

  “Actually, I did. Why?” he says.

  “I was going to surprise you with it,” I said.

  “You know me; I don’t need anything.”

  “You need someone to put you under sedation until Christmas,” I snapped. “How would you like it if two weeks before Christmas I went out and bought everything I wanted and left you with nothing to buy? You’d be devastated.”

  “Try me,” he said.

  I thought my father was hard to buy for. He didn’t like to read and he had only one hobby: golf. We golfed him to death.

  When he could no longer play the game, we were stuck with his other passion: peanut brittle. One year, he got five cans of peanut brittle, including one made with jalapeno peppers.

  I told my husband, “Do you realize I am the only shopper in town who returns gifts before Christmas?”

  He said, “I’ll do it for you. I have to go out again this afternoon. I have my eye on a tie for my brown suit.”

  Home Sweet Home

  Household Hints—September 11, 1965

  “HEY, IF YOU WRITE a column for the newspaper,” said the voice on the telephone, “how come you don’t tell women how to get stains out of their stainless steel sinks?”

  I mumbled something about being blackballed by the PTA hospitality committee for my blunders in the kitchen and said goodbye. But not before she had stirred up a hornet’s nest of memories.

  Some 15 years ago, I actually did a household hints column for the local newspaper. To this day, homemakers in the area are still trying to salvage bits and pieces of the damages I caused. Queries on “How do I clean my bathroom?” would get an answer like “Burn incense daily. At the end of five years...move.”

  What really amazed me was how seriously women took their housekeeping chores. To some, it was a way of life. Their plaintive pleas rolled in daily. “How do I clean my alabaster?” (“Madam, I didn’t know birds got dirty.”) “How can I prevent scrub water from running down my arm to my elbows?” (“Hang by your feet when you wash the walls?”) “Is there a formula for removing chocolate from overstuffed furniture?” (“No, but there’s one for beating the stuffing out of the little boy who ate chocolate on the overstuffed furniture.”)

  After several irate calls from women who had tried my little balls of paraffin in their rinse water to make their chintz look chintzier (one woman said if her curtains had wicks they’d burn right through Advent), I promised my editor I would try these things at home first. My home began to take on all the excitement of a missile at countdown.

  From these experiments came some pretty profound results.

  To make a towel for the children’s bath, simply take two towels and monogram each with an F One F will represent face...the other, feet. Then simply toss both towels into a corner on the floor. This sounds primitive, but after three days they won’t even want to know which F they’re using, and at least the towels will always be where they belong...on the floor.

  For mildew or musty odor on the shower curtains, simply take a sharp pair of scissors and whack it off. Actually, the more mildew, the more interesting the shower curtains become.

  To clean piano keys, try having your children wear chamois gloves moistened with clear water. I daresay their practice sessions won’t sound any different, and you’ll have a clean keyboard.

  To remove gum stains, pick off as much gum as possible, then soften it by applying egg white. An egg white is better to live with than chewing gum.

  A sterilizer that has boiled dry will make an interesting conversation piece. Small rolls of dust under the bed will entertain small children for hours. (Likewise in-laws, malicious neighbors and the board of health.)

  I thought I had touched all bases on how to live with housework until I received a note from a woman who had solved her ironing problem in a unique way. She wrote, “Two to four times a year, before holidays, I pack the unironed clothes in a bag or box and label them EASTER GRASS, OLD CHRISTMAS TRIMMINGS, FOURTH OF JULY FLAGS (RAIN-SOAKED) or HALLOWEEN PICTURES. By the time they’re discovered, the children are married or living away from home.”

  Now, there’s a woman who makes sense.

  The Home Handyman—January 18, 1966

  I am one of those devoted wives who is trying to up the retirement age for men to 95.

  The motives are purely selfish. I don’t think I could stand Mr. Fixit around the house for longer periods than my present four hours a day, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

  The mail I’m receiving bears me out. On one card was a plaintive Help! In another letter was penciled, I’m being held prisoner by an idiot with a set of wrenches in a house that has been without running water for 23 days.

  The home handyman usually fits into one of two categories. First, there’s the home improvements dropout. He’s the one who is fired with enthusiasm over a project at the outset. Within minutes of a request, he has laid wall-to-wall ladders over the living room, has a myriad of paint cans open and ready for spilling and the good draperies spread about the floor to pick up paint spatters. Then he smiles, climbs into his coat and says, “I just remembered, I’m off to study the tootse fly in South America. Don’t touch anything until I get back!”

  Some dropouts are not so inventive. They simply pull the stove out from the wall, take the oven door off, remove the back panel, spread shelves around the kitchen, then announce, “I don’t have tools like the rest of the fellas. I do the best I can with a Boy Scout hatchet and crude tools I’ve been able to fashion out of boulders and buffalo hide. But when you don’t have the right tool for the job...” (Along with the cold dinner, there isn’t a dry eye in the house.)

  Other dropouts are easily identifiable. They’re the ones with the screens in during the winter and the storm windows in during the summer months. They spread grass seed in the snow and put up TV antennas in an electrical storm.

  The second species is the perennial putterer. He never sleeps. And he never puts off till tomorrow what he can bungle tonight. Simple appeals, like “But it’s the dinner hour,” “But the company’s here,” and “Please, I’m in the middle of a shower,” all fall on deaf ears. He comes on like a herd of turtles at a cocktail party.

  One of these perennial putterers was a man from the Midwest who was asked to reach behind the washer and put a simple plug into a simple outlet. He hoisted himself to the top of the washer, where his foot promptly broke the washer cycle dial. He lowered himself behind the appliance, inserted the plug halfway and blew out all the power on the kitchen circuit.

  Shocked (but literally), he backed into the dryer vent, disconnecting it. Simultaneously, he dropped his flashlight in an opening between the walls. For an encore, he rapped his head on the utility shelf and opened a hissing valve on th
e hot water heater with his belt buckle.

  I hear stories like that, and I wonder if the age of 95 is too conservative to shoot for.

  The American Clothesline—April 20, 1967

  Never do I feel the sun on my face and the wind gently billowing my skirt that I do not hold my right hand over my heart and mourn the passing of the housewife’s answer to Radio Free Europe: the American clothesline.

  Like the American buffalo, Irish tenors and the nickel cup of coffee, the clothesline is virtually becoming extinct. And with it goes the greatest communications medium the world has ever known. When I was a kid, the neighbors stretched a clothesline the day they moved in. And we watched and learned. “How many of them are there? Boys or girls? Ages? Do they have nice underwear?” (Mama always said you could judge a woman by the underwear she hung and her character by the way she acted when her clothesline broke.)

  By the time I had a home of my own, I could read Monday’s wash like a gypsy reads tea leaves.

  New diapers: “She brought the baby home.” Navy bell-bottoms: “His leave came through.” Extra sheets: “The in-laws from Kansas City.” Sleeping bags: “She finally found a camp to take those boys.” Blankets: “Stay away. They’ve got the virus again.” Training pants: “Well, it’s about time.” Curtains and slipcovers: “She starts earlier every year.” Wading boots and fishing nets: “I’d leave the bum!” Bathroom wall-to-wall carpet: “Status seekers!” The clothesline was more than a flapping news bulletin. It was a little game housewives played. The women used to run a footrace to see who could get their wash out on the line first. If the sun ever rose on an empty clothesline, I think it had something to do with the success or the failure of your marriage. At least, it seemed that way.

  It was also a test of skill and endurance to see how swiftly you could transfer a pair of steaming long Johns to the clothesline in sub-zero temperatures without having them freeze in the basket in a cross-legged position.

  As for me, it was group therapy...a lull in the busy day...a wave and a hello...a breath of fresh air...a glance upward at the sky...the smell of rain...the chill winds of winter to come...the fluffed-up chenille and the sweet-scented sheets that would never see an iron.

  Why, if I had a clothesline today, I wouldn’t be going crazy over the suitcases airing on my neighbor’s patio. I’d have known before they did whether they were going or coming.

  Getting Locked Out—July 8, 1968

  Ever since my mother’s house was robbed of a Swiss watch, a bottle of Scotch and a box of Girl Scout cookies, I have been suspicious of every strange man in the neighborhood who has booze breath, crumbs in his beard and the right time.

  If anyone ever broke into our house, they’d leave a donation, but still my husband insisted I start locking the doors every time I left it.

  This is a kick in the head for me, as I have a thing about keys. They’re like umbrellas. I only want to be bothered with them when I need them.

  I am inclined to mail them with my letters, use them as bookmarks, toss them into ashtrays and, often as not, leave them hanging in the lock on the outside of the door.

  Since last February, I have broken into my own home 38 times. There are several approaches to the problem of being locked out.

  First, there’s Plan A, or the Crowd Teaser, as it is often called. Haul a ladder from the garage, have the kids steady it at the bottom while you climb to a small opening in the attic no bigger then the lid of a kidney bean can, and proceed to shinny through.

  The dogs are the first to notice the commotion and will stage a bark-in. Their noise will in turn attract the mailman, neighbors, salesmen and meter readers from a 12-mile radius.

  Eventually, a social worker will ascend the ladder slowly and try to talk you down by telling you that you are loved and needed, your acne will clear up, and you have no right to throw away your own life.

  Plan B is a bit more subtle...but not much. You find a window with only enough space for a draft to go through and try to squeeze Sparrow Legs (he’s the only kid in the family who fits in a supermarket cart, remember?) and drop him into the house, head first.

  This is risky, as once little Sparrow Legs is in the house, he runs off to his bedroom to play with his trucks and cars and forgets all about the key and the rest of his family hovering together on the front porch.

  Plan C was a favorite of ours. To avoid embarrassment and public ridicule, we’d go into the garage, shut the door and read aloud from the fertilizer bags until Daddy came home with his key.

  I hesitate to mention Plan D, which is a little theatrical. We would go to the back of the house and make a human pyramid like the Wallenda family, while the smallest would gain entrance to the attic through a louvered opening. Invariably, however, my husband would notice the hole in the ceiling where a foot went through, and we had some explaining to do.

  Breaking and entering is hard work. That’s why I say to anyone who craves a Swiss watch, a bottle of Scotch or a box of Girl Scout cookies, it’s almost easier to go straight.

  No Pencil in the House—February 17, 1969

  We have 26 appliances in our home, two cars in the driveway a few savings bonds put away, and I am a “standing” at the beauty shop.

  We do not own a pencil.

  On the surface we would appear to be a family of some comfort. If Onassis knocked on the door and wanted to buy our house for a highway phone booth, I would have to sign the agreement with (a) an eyebrow pencil, (b) yellow crayon, (c) cotton swab saturated in shoe polish, (d) an eyedropper filled with cake coloring, or (e) a sharp fingernail dipped in my own blood.

  Pencils are weird little devils. I discovered this quite by accident. One day I took a spanking-new pencil, sharpened it and put it by the telephone. Three days later the same pencil showed up in the vegetable crisper of the refrigerator.

  I put it back by the phone. It popped up in the medicine chest.

  I put it on a string and attached it to the telephone. It broke its lead. I sharpened it. It broke the string.

  It was clear that lousy pencil was not an ordinary inanimate object. It possessed the human qualities of free will and intellect.

  As I studied this strange creature, other things became apparent. It enjoyed no sex life whatsoever. Other household items, like coat hangers, straight pins and paper clips, propagated themselves.

  Not pencils. They never begot anything but frustration. They came into this world alone, and they dropped behind the stove and out of your life.

  They also had an affinity for never being where they were needed.

  The other morning I had to write an admittance note for my daughter. “Get Mama’s all-occasion cards,” I yelled. (We haven’t had stationery for six years.)

  She gave me the box.

  “Okay, what’ll it be? Happy Birthday to a Nephew Who Has Been Like a Mother to Me, Sorry You’re Sick or Thinking of You in Your Hour of Sorrow?”

  “The birthday, I guess.”

  “OK, now get me a pencil.”

  “Where?”

  “Try the desk, the sewing basket, the stove drawer, Daddy’s workbench in the garage and my black purse.”

  “Not there.”

  “Very well, try the glove compartment of the car, the clothes hamper, the toy box, the pocket of my blue housecoat, the sink drain, the mailbox, the guitar case and the base of the big oak tree.” (Shouting hysterically) “All right, you little devils! Come out, wherever you are! You’ve had your fun. I’ll show you. You’ll go to bed without your din-din!”

  And some people worry about the Russians.

  The Husband Who Prunes—September 15, 1969

  There is something about a pair of pruning shears that turns a mild, conservative husband into a raving madman. If you watch closely you can almost see the physical features change. His ears become pointed, his teeth extend over his lower lip, and his muscles fairly ripple with the excitement of leveling all those wonderful trees and bushes even with the group.

  T
here is a rumor that seven states are considering overpruning as a cause for divorce, second only to incompatibility and adultery. I hope our state is one of them.

  No judge would dare deny me freedom after he heard the story of my privet hedge.

  The first year I planted the hedge my husband knocked them down with a hose spray. The second year he inadvertently ran them down with his power mower. By the third year they had barely strength enough to grow leaves when he said, “They look a little raggy. Maybe I should prune them.”

  “You won’t prune them as severely as you did our maple tree, will you?”

  “What maple tree?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Women do not understand the principle of development,” he explained. “If you want the hedge to become bushy, you must prune it to promote growth and fullness.”

  Whack!

  “Murderer.”

  “Look,” he said. “Didn’t I prune your roses back last year and didn’t they do better this summer?”

  “Better than what? I had to repot them and give them penicillin shots.”

  Whack!

  “Now you’ve done it,” I said. “That side is lower than the other.”

  “So, what’s the problem? I’ll just even it up a little.”

  “The last thing you evened up were those evergreens on either side of the garage.”

  “What evergreens?”

  Whack!

  “Did anyone ever tell you you’re vicious? I mean, there has to be a sadistic streak in a man who destroys beautiful things.”

  “For heaven’s sake, will you keep your voice down? They’ll grow back.”

  “Hush. Look around you. This yard looks like a testing ground for nuclear weapons: a few battered twigs, a few twisted roots, a mound of dirt here and there.”

  Whack, whack, whack!