Forever, Erma Page 13

  I rest my case.

  Garage Sales—June 6, 1971

  What is faster than a speeding bullet? More powerful than a locomotive? Able to leap tall buildings in a single jump?

  Women at garage sales, that’s who.

  I had to see Garage Power firsthand to believe it. Before moving out of state, I found myself with a few excess trinkets. (Who am I kidding? The attic was so full of junk the county couldn’t get the door open to condemn it.)

  My girlfriend Esther said, “You are a natural for a garage sale.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “Because you are cheap.”

  I sniffed. “I don’t think you understand that spreading one’s personal wares out in a garage for public exhibition is not only crass, it smacks of being tacky.”

  “I made thirty-two bucks off of my junk,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” I asked excitedly. “Get the card table and let’s get started.”

  The garage sale began at 9 A.M. By 7:30 A.M. I had 15 cars parked on the driveway, 18 on the lawn, two in a ditch and a Volkswagen trying to parallel park between two andirons in my living room.

  They grabbed and bought anything that wasn’t pumping water, cemented in the ground, growing from seed or spitting sparks at them when touched.

  They bought cocktail toothpicks that were billed as “like new,” radios guaranteed not to play ever, plastic flowers that had died, toothless rakes, buckets with leaks, books of German military commands, and a ukulele that only knew one song, “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise.”

  At one point I tried to shove through the crowd with a package in my hand. A woman grabbed it from me and said, “I’ll give you thirty-five cents.”

  “No, really,” I stammered. “This isn’t—”

  “Forty cents,” she said, grabbing it, “and that is my last offer.”

  It is the first time anyone ever paid me 40 cents for my garbage.

  By 4 P.M. I watched tiredly as a woman tried to coax my husband into her trunk.

  “Esther,” I said, “this is the most incredible sight I have ever seen.”

  “What’s in that package under your arm?” she said.

  “It’s nothing.” I hesitated.

  “It’s mildewed laundry!” she shouted. “How much did you pay for it?”

  “Thirty-five cents, but some of it still fits.”

  Relaxing with “Country Gardens”—October 26, 1975

  I wish all of you had known me when I was tense.

  Those were the good times. There was color in my cheeks, my hands were steady, and people said my laughter was like the sound of Tiffany when you thumped it with your finger.

  But that was before I started to crewel Country Gardens.

  Everyone I knew was into some kind of stitchery, and one day as my friend Terri sat needlepointing a calendar, I said, “How do you have the patience?”

  “Patience?” She laughed. “This is the most relaxing thing I do all day. You’re tense. You should get yourself something to unwind.”

  That’s when I bought Country Gardens, a stamped piece of linen in a kit with 28 colors of yarn and instructions for 18 stitches.

  Ever since, Country Gardens has never left my side. It is like an appendage growing out of my fingers. I started it one morning when the kids left for school. At three when they wandered home, I was still at it and I continued on through the night.

  Unwinding was a full-time job. The children bugged me constantly, demanding food, answers to questions and first aid when they bled. The other morning as I stitched feverishly, one of them came up to my elbow and said, “Mom.” I jumped a foot off the chair.

  “Can’t you see I’m relaxing?” I said. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of appointments. If you want me to make time for you I can, but don’t just drop in. Besides, why aren’t you at school?”

  “It’s Saturday,” he said simply.

  My husband says I am possessed. The other morning about 2 A.M., he leaned over and said, “You have relaxed enough,” and flipped off the light. I don’t know what kind of animal would turn off your light in the middle of a French knot. I cried myself to sleep.

  Yesterday, Terri dropped in (without an appointment) and suggested I relax more. “You are pale, your eyes are red from strain, and frankly I get more fun out of burping my Tupperware than talking to you anymore.”

  I figure if I can work straight through without interruption, Country Gardens should be finished and framed by the first week of November. Then I may take a few days off and be tense.

  After all, all play and no work can kill you.

  Working Wife/Maid Communication—September 28, 1982

  Some of the best fiction being written today is never serialized in the slick magazines and never makes it to The New York Times list.

  They’re messages between the working wife/bachelor and the woman who comes in to clean the house/apartment. Sometimes, they never even see each other. They communicate only by notes left on the refrigerator door.

  The following is a series of written communiqués between Wilma and her employer, Mrs. Rutledge.

  “Mrs. Rutledge, There is a cat mess at the end of the sofa. Wilma.”

  “Wilma, I know. Mrs. Rutledge.”

  “Mrs. Rutledge, What do you want me to do with it? Wilma.”

  “Wilma, You are limited on options. You can surround it with sand and use it as a putting green, gift-wrap it and amaze your friends, or clean it up. I prefer the last. Mrs. Rutledge.”

  “Mrs. Rutledge, I was going to clean up the you-know-what, but the sweeper smells funny and sounds strange and won’t pick up anything. Can you fix it? Wilma.”

  “Wilma, The cat is missing. I suggest you check the sweeper bag. Mrs. Rutledge.”

  “Mrs. Rutledge, The cat was not in the bag. Maybe the cat mess is not a mess at all. It looks just like something in a green bowl in the refrigerator. Is it what I think it is? Wilma.”

  “Wilma, What do you think it is? Mrs. Rutledge.”

  “Mrs. Rutledge, I knew once, but I forgot. The sweeper works just fine. What did you do to it? Wilma.”

  “Wilma, I emptied the bag. Mrs. Rutledge.”

  “Mrs. Rutledge, You know that little problem I told you about two weeks ago about the cat? I think I solved the problem. I moved the sofa over it and you can hardly notice it now. Wilma.”

  “Wilma, You’re fired! Mrs. Rutledge.”

  “Mrs. Rutledge, There is another cat mess I didn’t tell you about. It’s hard to find. I’m the only one who knows where it is. Goodbye. Wilma.”

  VCR—January 24, 1985

  For weeks, we looked at the videocassette recorder in our living room without speaking.

  Mentally, I had begun to think of other uses for it. Maybe we could put legs on it and use it for an end table or release the ejection slot and put a plant in it.

  From time to time, my husband would leaf through the manual with an intensity usually reserved for a nervous flier reading about the evacuation procedures on an aircraft.

  It wasn’t until last Friday night that he cleared his throat and said, “Since we are going out to dinner, why don’t we tape Dallas so we can watch it later?”

  I put my hand over his. “I want you to know that whatever happens I think you’re the bravest man I have ever met.”

  As we stood in front of the machine, my husband observed, “This is ridiculous. We look like all we need are padded coveralls and a bucket of water. Good Lord, we aren’t dismantling a bomb. It’s only a harmless VCR. Read! I’ll punch buttons.”

  “You want me to read to you the page on how to use the manual?”

  “Skip that and get on with how to set it when we’re not here.”

  “You have to swing down the cover of the programming button compartment at the right of the clock and set speed switch to LP, SP, or SLP before you insert the cassette.”

  “The clock is blinking.”

  “T
hen you screwed up. You have to go back and reprogram that particular memory position.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Press the DAILY button. Not the 2W, you ninny or you’re back to square one!”

  “I think I’ve got A.M.,” he said.

  “Well, you want P.M. You should be able to select one of the eight programs by pressing the button with the number and the minutes and the hours. Do you see the days of the week flashing?”

  “Everything is flashing.”

  “Don’t forget to press the record stop time. Are the letters CH flashing? If so, you’re ready for the channel selector switch. Hey I think you’ve done it. I see J.R. and Miss Ellie.”

  “What you see,” said my husband, “is the actual program on the regular channel. We might just as well sit down and watch it. I don’t know the time, but we’ve obviously missed dinner.”

  “What Time Is It?”—November 2, 1986

  We have three clocks in our house, and each of us has a wrist-watch. If you want to know what time it is, you’d find out faster by driving over to the bank or calling Time of Day.

  The clock on the VCR blinks on and off at 12 A.M. That is because the power went off in the house in the spring, and when the continuity is broken, that’s how the clock lets you know that the continuity is broken.

  We had every intention of resetting it until we saw the directions. I was to hold down the clock button while my husband performed steps 2 through 5, but he screwed up by pressing the hour-minute button before he pressed the day button, and after a while we figured we were too old to start again at Step 1, so we let it blink.

  The clock in the bedroom is hooked up to all kinds of things, including a radio and a speakerphone. It blinks too because its continuity was broken, so we never know what time it is. We are only sure that every morning at six, a disc jockey awakens us with a promise to maintain our pool with premium service. We don’t have a pool. We also don’t have to get up at six, but we can’t figure out how to make him go away.

  The clock on the oven hasn’t had the right time since we have owned the stove. That is because without my glasses I cannot see what I am twirling and mistake it for the timer. Thus if it is 4 o’clock and I put a roast in the oven, I inadvertently reset the clock to 4:45. I have been known to lose as much as 2½ hours on a busy day in the kitchen.

  I have a wristwatch that gives you the time in Hamburg, West Germany. That is where the watch was made and set. The directions that came with it are very complete and written in German.

  I live for the day when I’ll be walking along the street and someone will say, “Pardon me, but do you have the time in Hamburg? I want to call my wife before three.”

  Possibly the only source of time in the house is my husband’s watch. It’s a runner’s watch, which means it looks like a time machine that is ready to blast off. He can give you the time if you have the time to wait for it. He must depress a small knob with a sharpened pencil and subtract four or five hours from the time he bought it depending on the season and whether we are on daylight saving time. It sounds like a lot of fiddling, but to reset it he would have to climb in the car and make sure the owner of the shop where he bought it is in.

  A couple came over the other night and innocently inquired, “What time is it?”

  My husband said, “I don’t have my calculator with me. You tell them.”

  I blinked my eyes 15 or 20 times. They left hurriedly. It wasn’t that late.

  Boston Fern—November 13, 1986

  I bought a Boston fern last week, and as I placed it on the countertop a hush came over the entire family.

  They were all remembering the one I brought home in 1981. Finally, my mother whispered to my husband, “I tried to talk her out of it, but you can’t tell her anything.” He said, “I hope you’re not going to get emotionally involved with this one.” One of my children shivered and said, “Is Mama going to be sick again?”

  I assured him that this Boston fern was different in many ways. The one I bought in 1981 cost $45, an excessive amount for a plant that cost more than my first set of flatware. I was an emotional pygmy then and never considered it would die in three days. Relationships with the flora and the fauna were important to me five years ago, and I felt personally responsible for their demise. I’ve watched PBS, and I’m wiser now.

  I know now that you can’t take a Boston fern seriously. It’ll tear your heart out. You have to know that from the moment you take it out of the nursery, it turns hostile. It doesn’t want your water. It doesn’t want your sun. It doesn’t want your fertilizer or your Willie Nelson records. It just wants to die.

  So why do people buy Boston ferns in the first place? Because they need to feel challenged. You reach a stage in your life where you know you’re not going to be Miss America; you’re not going to win the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Winning the lottery is a long shot, and you’ve been passed over too often to have a late-night talk show of your own. So you see how long you can sustain a Boston fern.

  The fern was in the house three hours when it went limp. We all gathered around and offered advice. “It’s too near the stove.” “It’s getting a draft from the air vent.” “It’s offended by the music on Prairie Home Companion.” “You overwatered it.” “You should have misted it.” “It needs fertilizer.” “It’s Reagan’s foreign policy.” “You should have gotten a heat lamp.” “The dust is killing it.”

  Within two days, the fern was in the final stages of deterioration. I bit my lip and said, “These things happen.” Then I threw myself on the plant and gave it leaf-to-mouth resuscitation. The family restrained me. “How much did you pay for it?” asked my husband. When will any of them ever understand that it isn’t the money?

  A few days ago, I was going by one of those silk plant stores. I couldn’t resist going in and checking out the fake Boston ferns. There were only two. Both of them had leaves missing, and the edges were turning brown.

  I felt better.

  Repairmanese—March 3, 1988

  We had a malfunction recently in our alarm and they sent a man to check it out.

  When I asked him what the problem was, he said, “One of the little wires is sick.”

  Call it a gut feeling, but I felt he was talking down to me, so I said, “Could you put it a little more technically than that?”

  He said, “We were getting a silent signal when your toggle switch was inadvertently moved to the program position, so I reset it and checked to see whether there were any problem zones from the protective circuit due to winds the other night.”

  I said, “Does that mean the boo-boo is gone and the sick wire will smile now?”

  He nodded.

  For years, I’ve been trying to speak Repairmanese, but the natives all sound like they have mouths full of Novocain. Besides, the language has 56 known dialects: electrical, plumbing, refrigeration, termite control, roofing and siding, painting, washer repair—you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to speak washer repair.

  All I wanted to know were a few well-placed phrases to repeat to my husband in order to justify a bill for $67.33. That’s all I needed to know. By the time the washer repairman got finished with a 10-minute explanation, the only words I recognized were “pump” and “boxer shorts.”

  And by the time I translated it to my husband, he said, “I don’t understand why the pump was wearing my underwear.”

  When we were building the house, it was like visiting the Tower of Babel. Everyone was speaking his own language at the same time. I remember saying something to the electricians about splicing a lot of wires together so two switches could have their hearts beat as one; they laughed for a week.

  I haven’t felt so intimidated since we were all watching Louis Rukeyser one night, and he told a stock market joke and everyone in the room laughed, including me. But I didn’t have the slightest idea why. And I thought Carl Sagan was funny.

  As the alarm system repairman prepared to leave, I said, “I understand
why you weren’t too technical. My job is the same way. I’m a writer, and if I told you my creative level was stagnating and that cadences and insights were eluding me, you wouldn’t know what I was talking about either.”

  He said, “It means you don’t have an idea for a column.”

  The man is obviously bilingual.

  Eyeglasses in Every Room—June 27, 1989

  It has taken me a lot of years and progressive astigmatism, but I have finally amassed enough eyeglasses to have a pair in every room of the house. I can’t see out of half of them, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t need them anyway.

  Every time I got an eye examination and was advised that I needed stronger glasses, I’d never throw the old ones out. I’d put them in one of the rooms. Moving from room to room playing “musical eyeballs” is a romp through my life.

  The pair I keep in the bedroom were my very first glasses. I got them in high school and look like Sally Jessy Raphael with a migraine in them. The glass is almost clear, and the only reason I wore them is that I thought they made me look smarter. They’re painted with red nail polish. Someone sat on them, and they’re held together with a bunion bandage. The only thing I use them for is to help me set the thermostat each evening before I go to bed.

  I bought the vintage pair in the living room soon after I was married. There was this silly mix-up where I cooked my turkey by its price with all the innards in the cavity. Nineteen hours is too long to cook a turkey. I got a pair of reading glasses.

  The bathroom glasses are considerably stronger. They were prescribed when I confessed to going into a restaurant and pretending to drop the menu on the floor. I read it quickly before I leaned over to pick it up. A lot of people do that.

  The granny glasses were a long time coming. I didn’t succumb to them perched on the end of my nose until one day, at one of the kids’ parent conferences at school, I realized I said, “Excuse me, you were first” to a coat rack. I got half glasses just so people would think I looked like an interested parent. They’re jammed in a phone book in the hallway.