The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (6 page)

He blew a giant bubble in my face and juggled his bag impatiently, “I'm Tonto.”

“All right, Tonto,” I said, “Here's a bright, shiny penny for you.”

“Cripes lady,” he said, “can you spare this?” (Later, I was to discover Tonto very strong. Tonto bent TV antenna after I gave him his shiny new penny.)

Mentally, I began to draw up a list of rules and regulations that would give Halloween back to the little children. How do you know when you are too old to go “begging”?

1. You're too old to go begging when your mask tickles your mustache.

2. You're too old when you've figured out the only thing a penny will buy is your weight and you're watching it.

3. You're too old when you drive yourself to the subdivisions.

4. You're too old when you say “thank-you” and your voice is changing.

5. You're too old when you are rapping on the doors and Johnny Carson is signing off.

6. You're too old when you reach over to close your bag and your cigarettes fall out of your pocket.

7. You're too old when you have a sign on your bag that reads, “Personal Checks Accepted.”

8. You're too old when the lady of the house turns you on more than the candy apple she just gave you.

Around eleven o'clock I refused to answer the door.

“Why?” asked my husband.

“Because we have run out of treats and when I told the last guy all I had left to give was a bruised orange, he moistened his lips and said, 'That's what you think, baby.' ”

Seconds later, my husband returned from the door, “Quick! Give me some treats.”

“I told you I don't have aniything left. The refrigerator is cleancd out. So are the snacks. What do you think they would do if you offered them a raw potato?”

He peeked through the curtain and viewed two motorcycle freaks wearing sleeveless leather vests with no shirt and a helmet with a horn coming out of either side. “I think they would turn my nose inside out.”

Crawling into the children's bedroom, we felt around in the darkness until we found their little orange trick or treat bags. We grabbed a few handfuls of taffy to appease the motorcycle gang.

Later, crouched in the hallway, the children's bags between us, my husband looked at his watch. “It's 11:30,” he said. “Do we dare turn off the porch light?”

“I don't think so,” I said tiredly. “It's too risky. The Mintons turned their lights off early last year and a group stole their garage. How much longer do you think we can hold out?”

“I don't know. How much ammunition do we have left?”

My fingers deftly counted out the bubble gum, the miniature candy bars, an apple with a bite out of it, and a few loose pieces of Halloween corn. “With luck, two or three hours.”

We both sat up stiffly as the doorbell rang.

“I love you,” I said simply without emotion.

“I know,” he whispered.

The Identity Crisis

You would have thought with five thousand people living in Suburbian Gems that we would have had an identity problem. This was just not true.

As I told my husband, “All you have to do is to reach out to people and the warmth is there.”

“I don't have time to socialize,” he said. “I work. I cut grass. I watch a little TV and I go to bed so I can get up tomorrow and start all over again.”

“And you're missing the entire concept of rural living,” I said. “That of getting to know one another on a personal basis. Today is Saturday. Why don't you go down and borrow Lawnsweeper no. 1's charcoal starter for the party we are having this evening?”

“Is he the one next to the pot-bellied stove on the porch?”

“That's Lawnsweeper no. 2 and you know it. Besides, the stove was stolen last Halloween. No, Lawnsweeper no. 1 lives next to the faulty muffler.”

“Oh him.”

“I know, but his wife's nice.”

“What's her name?”

“She's the size 18 1/2 with five garbage cans.”

“Why didn't you say so. Incidentally, did you invite the guy who saves his anti-freeze each year?”

“Had to. I invited the people with the air conditioner in their bedroom window and they live right next door to one another.”

“That would be awkward.”

“I only hope they get along with the super liberals.”

“What super liberals?”

“The ones who live two blocks over next to the kid who sets fires.”

“How do you know they are super liberals?”

“You know that little black jockey statue that has a ring in it to hitch a horse to? They painted him white.”

“I remember that. The rhubarb grower had a fit.”

“I've never trusted anyone who grows rhubarb.”

"Before I go, do we have anything we've borrowed from

Lawnsweepcr no. 1 and never returned? I'd feel like a fool asking to borrow something that's never been returned."

“You shoulcl feel like a fool. He's the one who borrowed our plunger and loaned it to the people with cats For sale.”

“They've had cats for sale since we lived here. Do you suppose it's the same cat?”

“I feel sorry for the new people who just moved in next door.”

“Who are they?”

“The Airstream people. What that little beauty doesn't have in it, they'll never need.”

“They must have money.”

“Wait until they find out they're wedged in between cats for sale and the people who let the plastic pool kill their grass.”

“I remember him. Met him at a party at the house with the nut who flew the flag on John Wayne's birthday.”

“How could you forget them? They own that big Doberman who hides his head in your crotch and you're iilraid to move. Speaking of weirdos, got a card from the two-car garage people.”

“How did they ever fit a two-car garage on that lot is what I'll never know.”

“If you met them personally, you would know. They're pushy.”

“I thought so. Where did they go?”

“Went camping with the people with the built-in appliances.”

“It figures.”

“You'd better get going.”

“Hey, I just remembered. You know how you always accuse me of not meeting new people? I met a newcomer last night when I was looking for our newspaper.”

“Who is he?”

“Name is Alan Cornwall.”

“I'll never remember that. Who is he?”

“The Porsche with the kid who spits on our tires.”

“The one who just sprayed for bagworms?”

“That's him.”

“Why didn't you say so? I hate name droppers.”

THE HEARTBREAK OF PSUBURBANIASIS

The Seven-Inch Plague

In 1946, the suburbs suffered its first plague.

It struck with little warning and attacked the weak, the bored, the vulnerable seeking relief from the monotony. Its name was television and by 1966, it would enslave sixty-two million families.

We fell victims just before Christmas when my husband carried it home to us from the city.

The disease looked harmless enough—a seven-inch screen that looked like a hand mirror. We put it on the bookcase in the living room, got a vanity bench from the bedroom and positioned our eyeballs 16 inches from the screen where we became mesmerized as a full-grown woman carried on a conversation with two puppets.

Television was a terminal disease that was to spread and worsen, driving people from acute withdrawal to chip-dip attacks.

Because I am basically a strong person, I was able to resist the disease better than most, but my husband's addiction to television grew steadily worse. He became a sports addict who was in a catatonic state twelve months out of every year.

No one would have guessed that his condition would become so hopeless that I would approach a lawyer to have him considered legally dead. The lawyer advised me that due to the legalities this was not an easy thing to do. Just because a man sits in front of a TV set with eyes fixed and no pulse is not enough. He said I would have to keep a log of my husband's behavior over a year's period of time. I began to keep a diary in August.

august

The fifteenth of this month was visiting day for the children. Waiting for a beer commercial, I lined them up and said stiffly, “Children, this is your father.” He offered them a pretzel at the same time watching a beer can dancing with a hot dog. When we insisted he stand up, the children gasped. They remembered him as a much shorter man.

SEPTEMBER

The set went out today during the Dallas—Los Angeles game. “It could be a tube,” I said.

“Shhh . . . and get out of the way. The Cowboys are ready to score.”

“No one is ready to score,” I said. “You don't understand. The tube is black.”

“That's ridiculous. Look at that lateral . . . my God, they've fumbled.”

“Just relax. It could be only this channel experiencing temporary ...”

“Lady, you are going to be temporary if you don't get out of this room and let me watch my game in peace.”

I left him sitting in front of the black screen screaming and cheering. Maybe I can talk some sense to him when he is watching the commercial that isn't there.

OCTOBER

Today, our living room was named the first recycling center to be served by a mobile unit. My husband was so engrossed in watching the World Series, he was quite unaware of what was going on.

Television cameras ground away while cub scouts gathered together eight barrels of cans, six barrels of bottles, and 500 pounds of paper.

I pecked my husband on the cheek as I left. He swatted at me and grumbled, “How did that fly get in here?”

NOVEMBER

I am really worried about my husband. On Sunday, he sat in front of the TV set from noon until 10:30 p.m. There was no evidence of breathing. I called our doctor who wheeled in an EKG machine to check the blood supply to his heart.

My husband rallied for a moment when the machine was placed directly in front of him. He bolted upright in his chair, blinked a few times, started fiddling with the knobs and said, “All right, whose been messing around with the antenna?”

DECEMBER

We have found it easier to decorate Daddy than to move him away from the television set.

First, we covered his feet with a simple felt skirt dotted with sequins. Then we hung a candy cane from each ear, and a string of lights around his head. Tonight, we are going to string popcorn and tinsel around his chest.

It's wonderful being a family again.

JANUARY

I'm terribly concerned about what's-his-name. He has watched more bowls this month than the restroom attendant at Kennedy Airport.

He does not eat well. I poked my head through the door today and said, “Have I got a bowl for you!”

“What is it?” he asked, dipping his spoon into it.

“I call it 'Instant Replay,' In it are shredded sports pages, a dozen or so flip tops from beer cans, a few cigarette butts, and a lock of Howard Cosell's hair.”

His eyes never left the set as he chewed mechanically, “It needs salt.”

FEBRUARY

I read somewhere man does not live by Curt Gowdy alone.

Tonight, I slid into a nightgown made of Astro-Turf, and sat on the arm of his chair.

“I have a surprise for you,” I said huskily.

“Keep it down. Fess Parker is trying to tree a coon.”

“What would you say if I told you I had just bought a water bed?”

At first, I thought he didn't hear me. Then he turned slowly. “Are you serious?”

He bounded from his chair, ran to the bedroom and a smile crept across his face. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” he asked.

“I hope so,” I breathed.

“Now I can stock my own trout.”

march

All the green things are coming out this month, except my husband. He is alive (if you call this living) and is being fed intravenously on a diet of basketball, baseball, golf, and hockey.

It has become a game with the family trying to think of ways to get Daddy out of his chair. We have tried, “Your sweater is on fire,” “Watching hockey can cause bleeding gums,” and “I am leaving. You get custody of the kids.”

There is something very unnatural about a man .who has a niche in the wall and every day puts fresh flowers under a picture of George Blanda.

APRIL

The baseball strike postponed the opening game thirteen days. Through conscientious throat massage and stuffing his mouth with pebbles, we were able to get my husband up to four words a day during this period.

The first day he said, “Wha ...”

The second day he said, “What.”

The third day he was up to, “Whhhat is yyyour naaaame?”

The players settled their differences soon after and he has regressed once more to clearing his throat.

may

We put his mother in knee socks, shin guards, and a hockey face mask and shoved her in front of his chair for Mother's Day.

My husband was watching a ping-pong game and granted her an audience for only a few seconds. Then he punched her playfully on the arm and said, “Hang in there, kid.”

june

In an attempt to clean out all of the old things we never use any more, I realized that I had inadvertently set my husband at the curb on top of a rusted bicycle.

The driver of the truck led him to the house and said, “It's cute, but what's it for?”

“It does a lot of things,” I said. “It eats leftovers, contributes body heat to a room, and can quote more statistics than the Sports Almanac. We use him for a doorstop.”

“What's he doing with a candy cane over each ear?”

“He looked so great at Christmas, we hated to take him down.”

july

“I am leaving you,” I said calmly. “I can't stand it any more—the loneliness, the boredom, the roller derbies, the golf tournaments, the snacks. I'm young. I have all my own teeth. I want to see a movie besides the Frazier-Ali fight. I want to dance and drink champagne from a slipper. Do you understand?”

“Shh,” he said, “there's a commercial coming up. The one where the beer can dances with the hot dog.”

The Suburban Myth

There was a rumor going through the city that the suburban housewife drank her breakfast, accepted obscene phone calls—collect—played musical beds with her neighbors, and rewrote the book on Show and Tell.

The rumor was started by Edward C. Phlegg, the builder of Suburbian Gems who was smart enough to know that when virtue moves in, there goes the neighborhood. And if anything could sell the suburbs, sin could.

Everyone who lived there had the feeling that everyone was “swinging” except them. In fact, one evening in the paper there was a story about a “local” young mother who put her children under sedation every afternoon and engaged in an affair.

The idea intrigued us and we devoted our entire coffee klatsch to it. “Okay, who's the little temptress who is spiking the peanut butter with Sominex and carrying on in the daylight?”

We all sat there stunned.

“Marci?”

“What!” she sputtered. “And give up my nap?”

“Helen?”

“If you find my car in the driveway and my front door locked, call the police. I have my head in the oven.”

“Linda?”

“Get serious. The last time I was in my bathrobe at noon, I had a baby in the morning and was dressed in time to get dinner that evening.”

The plain and simple truth is the suburbs were not conducive to affairs. Bus service was lousy and in the winter you couldn't depend on it at all. The house numbers were all fouled up and it was difficult to find your way through the rows of houses in the plat.

The neighborhood was crawling with pre-schoolers who insisted on coming into their own houses to use the bathroom. The floor plan was clumsy. There were too many traffic areas—too much glass—and besides, there were no alleys for a Plan B alternate exit.

Everything was against us from the beginning, including the domestic rut we had fallen into.

As Marci pointed out, "I think we're fighting a losing battle. We wouldn't recognize a pitch if we heard it. Take me. Please. My vocabulary has been reduced to five sentences which I mumble like a robot every day of my life. They never change.

1. Close the door.

2. Don't talk with food in your mouth.

3. Check out the clothes hamper.

4. I saw you playing with the dog so go wash your hands.

5. You should have gone before you left home.

“The responses never vary—not in ten years of child raising. One night at a party,” she related, "I drifted into the kitchen in search of an ice cube when a devastating man leaned over my shoulder and said, 'Hello there, beautiful.'

" 'Close the door,' I said mechanically.

" 'I don't believe we've met,' he progressed. 'My name is Jim and you are ? ? ? ?'

" 'Don't talk with food in your mouth.'

" 'Hey, you're cute. I like a sense of humor. What say we freshen up your drinkypoo and find a nice, quiet spot all to ourselves.'

" 'Check out the clothes hamper, 'I said brusquely.

"He hesitated, looking around cautiously, 'Are you putting me on? I mean we aren't on Candid Camera or anything are we?' He slipped his arm around my waist.

" 'I saw you playing with the dog so go wash your hands.''

“His arm dropped and he edged his way to the door. 'Listen, you just stay put,' he said, 'I've got something to attend to.' ”

“Tell me you didn't,” said Helen.

“I yelled after him, 'You should have gone before you left home.' ”

“Did you ever see him again?”

“Never,” said Marci sadly.

“Well, someone is having a good time out there,” said Linda. “Who could it be?”

“What about that slim blonde in the cul-de-sac, Leslie?”

“What about her?”

“I think she drinks,” said Linda.

“What makes you think that?”

“Her curtains are drawn all day, the dog is never out, the car is always there, and she's pale.”

We all exchanged glances. “You don't know about Leslie?”

Linda shrugged her shoulders. “She doesn't drink?”

“Not a drop,” I said. “She's a Daytime Soap Operaholic.”

“You're kidding.”

“No, she has a fifteen-serial-a-day habit. Just sits there day in and day out with the curtains drawn and cries.”

“Just because you watch a lot of soap operas doesn't mean you're addicted,” defended Linda.

“Haven't you seen the literature from SO (Soap Opnrnholics)? Here, if you have any one of these symptoms, you're in trouble.”

Helen handed Linda the SO Handbook.

1. Do you watch a soap opera at seven in the morning just to get you going?

2. Do you watch soap operas alone?

3. Do you hide TV Guide so your family won't know how many serials you are watching?

4. Do you lie about how many shows you watch a day?

5. Do you contend you can turn off “As the World Turns” and “Love of Life” any time you want to?

6. When you are "Guiding Light'-ed are you an embarrassment?

7. Do you refuse to admit you're a Soap Operaholic even though you refused to miss “The Secret Storm” to have your baby?

“If that isn't a kick in the head,” said Linda. “The Suburban Orgy is a myth!”

Helen clapped her hand over her mouth. “Lower your voice, you fool. What do you think would be the resale value of these houses if that got out?”

Hosting a Famine

Fat just never caught on in the suburbs like I thought it would. I used to sit around and think how this is the year for the Obese Olympics, or the Pillsbury Eatoff or Bert Parks warbling, “There she goes, Miss North, South, and Central Americas,” but it never happened.

Fat just never made it big. No one championed thin more than the women in Suburbian Gems. Some dedicated their entire lives searching for a lettuce that tasted like lasagne.

They exercised. They counted calories. They attended Diet Seminars. Their entire conversation centered around how wonderful it felt to starve to death.

Ever since the babies came I had noticed a deterioration in my own body. My neck became extended, my waist filled in, the hips ballooned, the stomach crested, and my knees grew together.

One day my husband looked at me and said, “Good heavens. Are you aware that you are shaped like a gourd?”

At that moment, I converted to the suburban religion called Cottage Cheese. I ate so much cottage cheese my teeth curdled.

That wasn't the worst of it. Once you were an ordained cottage cheese disciple, you were committed to total understanding of the entire diet community.

I don't think I will ever forget the first luncheon I gave for my neighbors in Suburbian Gems. They were all on a different diet. It was like hosting a famine.

Helen was on the Stillman diet which means eight glasses of water, lean meat, and a bathroom of her own. [What does it profit a woman to look thin if you have to wear a nose plug for the rest of your life?)