Don't Sleep With a Bubba

by Susan Reinhardt

  “Dinner’s ready,” I said, rather yelled from our deck overlooking the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains. At least I didn’t shout, “Come and get it, you nasty-ass heathen!”

  It took a while, but finally everyone was seated and enjoying the meal, my children pretending to eat the fish when I knew they were giving it to our fat gay Pomeranian. After 2.5 minutes, Tidy Stu, who eats like a high-suctioning Rainbow vac, had inhaled his meal, jumped up from the table and was outside massacring leaves with one of his Rambo-like yard tools.

  He had forgotten to say the most important thing a woman needs to hear after she’s worked all day and cooked her butt off. I was waiting for him to purr, “That was delicious, my sweet beloved,” or at the very least, “Good eatin’, hon. Maybe I’ll grab yo ass later.”

  My mama always taught us to say, “I enjoyed it,” even if the food sucked. I had PMS and was fed up. Two doctors had put me on antidepressants and said, “We are sorry to inform you but your insurance company has denied our Uterus Removal and Incinerator Services.”

  Stingy HMOs. Thus I gripped Stu’s plate, still half-full of fine fish, and walked onto the deck, leaning over the railing where the asphalt driveway is located and where Tidy was blowing everything the earth had ever coughed up.

  “STUART!!!!!” I screamed. “YOU FORGOT SOMETHING!”

  He pulled out his earplugs, and shot over a look he always gives me, the What’s wrong with you, woman? one.

  “What? What is it?”

  I felt the pulse in my neck throb and smelled salmon on my hands. “I worked two hours on this meal and you didn’t say you enjoyed it. You just hopped up from the table after 2.5 minutes and said nothing.”

  He huffed and made a hand gesture, a naughty one that redneck motorists or El Camino drivers are prone to give. As a result, I did what felt natural, since the dishes I had were the everyday and not the good china, bless my sweet mother-in-law’s heart.

  “Here you go,” I said. “A little souvenir so you’ll remember the wife you ONCE had and who ONCE cooked SA-MON dinners. Enjoy!” I let the plate with his leftovers sail to the ground, shattering all over the driveway, rice and fish juices, pieces of ceramic flying everywhere and sounding as if a mini-bomb had exploded. Whew, that felt good. The sound of the crash released more tension than going to a kickboxing class or playing Whack-a-Mole at Chuck E. Cheese, a great stress reliever, my dears.

  As I brushed off my hands and walked back across the deck, I noticed my elderly neighbors leaning from their pristine gazebo, watching in horror the entire affair. I smiled and waved, then patted my belly as if they could read my mind. “Just another problem with my uterus, you see.”

  Not long after that episode, the moods started to get more unpredictable and continued as the months and years went by. My dear friend Kelly keeps telling me to eat yams and soynuts but all I want to eat are dark chocolate bars and fight the cattle for their salt licks.

  Part of this whole, I’m-40-You-Better-Watch-Out Syndrome is a cocktail of swarming, screeching hormones reminding a woman she is at an awkward stage in her life. That juncture called Child Bearing or Child Barren? Possibly Fertile. Possibly Out of Order.

  Sugahs, it’s not a pretty creek to straddle. This is where thousands of dollars in therapy and medications or a few good feature films will straighten out that perimenopausal portion of our lives. “Pills and Skills” is what my dear psychiatrist friend says as he opens his prescription pad and tries this and that.

  For me, the turning point, the moment of facing up to halfway curing this new estrogen-swinging nature, arrived soon after watching Fried Green Tomatoes following a twelve-year hiatus from the movie. I can’t watch movies like men do, who can see the same flick forty-eight times a year and don’t mind one bit.

  Of course, my own personal Alpha Male wouldn’t watch it with me. “That’s a chick flick,” he said, eyes and ears aimed at the squeaks and pounding shoes of the Lakers whipping the Spurs. Meanwhile, I was glued to Evelyn Couch, the meek and portly housewife in Fried Green Tomatoes who transforms into Towanda the Avenger, the woman who rams her car six times into the red VW of a pair of big-haired bimbos who’d earlier mocked her.

  Y’all remember the movie?

  It’s worth renting for a bit of reacquainting. It had been too long since I’d seen a sapped housewife switch gears and tap into her pool of dancing hormones and emerge a sweet yet sassy symbol of assertive goodness. It was time for me to become Towanda. To hell with Lexapro and oleander. My personal Alpha Male had banished everything I’d known and loved, including bath mats and bed skirts, and had laid down the law concerning our woodsy backyard.

  “No play set and no basketball goal,” he boomed out every week. “There’s a nice playground in our neighborhood. I don’t want to ruin the views looking at plastic, trailer-park shit all over our nice yard.”

  I listened with a breaking heart as my children begged for outdoor joy and apparatuses. Finally, after viewing Fried Green Tomatoes , again, I invited Towanda into my soul and took her with me as I hit Lowe’s, Target and Home Depot.

  The result is a backyard populated with swings, a climbing wall, hand rings and a basketball goal I put together with sweat, caffeine, cussing and a teenaged neighbor who encouraged and cheered my inner Towanda as long as I plied him with cappuccinos and Krispy Kremes.

  When my Alpha Male saw it, he was livid. He steamed and snorted like a bull. Then I started laughing, falling to the ground and rolling around in the leaves and shouting, “Whew, baby. Look at the white-trash yard getups I have thrown together for the pleasure of our sweet children. Get a load of the climbing wall I nailed into that hideous, good-for-nothing white pine.

  “It was Towanda, hon, not me, who decided the kids needed some backyard recreational devices. You told me to get off my meds so I’d want more sex, so it’s not my fault Towanda’s inhabiting my body and there’s nothing I can do about it but say, ‘Heck, I’m awfully sorry. The kids worked hard all year in school and did well on those end-of-grade tests that had all the teachers brewing ulcers and guzzling wine coolers.’”

  He wasn’t about to relinquish control of his Kingdom of Unmarred Acreage. “I told you I didn’t want any plastic in the yard. I’m the man. I’m in control.”

  “Hon,” I said as nice as possible. “No one’s in control but my parts gone to seed. Until I sell my uterus on eBay or see it swilling in a jug of formaldehyde, I expect it to keep sending signals that will scramble the sane out of any woman. You know the kids needed something to do out there besides light matches and pee in the poison ivy, and that I have a strong urge to hack and hammer things. You understand? Whack-A-Mole was no longer cuttin’ it.”

  He squinted and wrinkled up his nose. “I need your car keys,” he smirked. “From now on, you’ll drive the ’71 El Camino and I’ll drive the Lamborghini.”

  “What Lamborghini? What El Camino?”

  “The cars I’m getting today on a trade-in since you decided to ruin my mountain view with a few pieces of plywood, trashy plastic and more of your insanity.”

  “Great. I love Lamborghinis. I’m sure you and the El Camino will be a perfect match. You can even fit it with a camper top and have a grand ol’ time.” I gave a little smile and wave before jumping on the new swing as if a kid at the park. You gotta let a man win sometimes. Even Towanda knows that.

  For about a week, Towanda laid low, and I briefly became the meek and sweet woman I can sometimes, albeit rarely, become. Towanda didn’t stay hidden for long an
d returned during the pool incident where the neighborhood slut, a mother who likes to walk around prancing and with her nose straight up in the air, gave me a run for my hormones.

  This is a time in life when a bit of assertiveness is needed. When another person simply MUST be “taken down a peg or two,” as my own mama used to say. The tricky part is balance. A fine line, like a thread of worm silk, separates assertiveness from aggressiveness. I didn’t want to be a bitch, just a deliverer of a sweet and well-deserved comeuppance for this middle-aged Britney Spears wanna-be.

  I’d begun tiptoeing along that line, holding my tongue to the point of nearly biting it in half due to a couple of bullies who’d decided to make one of my cherubs their target. My son, unfortunately, inherited two separate genetic codes, one for each ear. Since mine stick straight out like the doors of a taxicab, one of his ears is also like a turn signal. While the other, inherited from his dad, is as flat as a Doberman’s. People tease him a lot about those odd ears that I, as his mother, adore and want to smooch and flick.

  This taking-up-for-our-kids is a hard area for us mama lionesses desiring to sink our fangs into Pit-Bullish children and parents who rip into our youngsters’ spirits and suck the goodness from their hearts. We want to attack, but then we remember the Golden Rule: Do unto others as they have done to you. I think that’s how I’ve come to interpret it.

  I’ve sat around listening to so many horror stories from moms and dads who endure the Bully Syndrome—whether at school or in their neighborhoods. If a kid is different in any way, it’s as if he or she is wearing a sign: COME AND GET ME . I’M RIPE FOR YOUR PICKINGS . It’s hideous and cruel and shouldn’t be tolerated.

  Here is where I’d like to share my own way of handling these baby devils and their living-in-denial parents. These methods are not approved by any pediatrician or therapist. All I know is that at times, it feels right to execute parental business in this manner.

  I developed these guidelines after an MOB (Mother of a Bully), also previously referred to as the neighborhood slut, was lounging poolside and greasing her body with oil.

  She decided it was time to hurl expletives at a group of kids frolicking in the water. Granted the kids were acting up. She actually thought they were checking out her 7-year-old daughter’s butt. Excuse me? Boys under 11 or 12 are only interested in themselves, Xbox games and nearly drowning each other.

  I tried deep breathing but couldn’t settle my nerves. Had this woman ordered them to sit out, or called upon their mamas, maybe even sprayed them with a cold hose, that would be one thing. But to cuss the clouds gray? And in the presence of little innocent ears? Ears that at least on my little boy were a set of mismatched body parts.

  For her to think they were lusting after her second-grader’s behind? No, Sugahs. That tea’s not sweet. With that in mind, and if you have bullies in your present or future, here are my Rules for Assertive Southern, Northern, Midwestern, Yankee Or Any Frustrated Mothers to try when shunning the Golden Rule is warranted.

  1. Approach the MOB in a calm voice. Choose words sharp enough to cut butter but not so sharp they could fell trees.

  2. Dress in something pink and refreshing, such as a huge hat, and big Audrey Hepburn sunglasses. If this confrontation is taking place poolside, the Mama Lion will always want to have her head looming twice its regular size, and the pink straw gardening hat is perfect for minimizing and overpowering the mean slut mama’s ego.

  3. Lipstick is a must to complete the Assertive Woman ensemble. It’s always a plus if it matches the color of the hat unless the hat is straw colored, which I DO NOT recommend.

  4. Delivering your words in a regular speaking voice, even coated with syrup, can’t hurt. Instead of cussing—favored by the trashier MOBs—use snappy phrases such as “You possess an intolerably egregious lack of respect for America’s youth,” for extra punch.

  5. Smile the whole time. This is the hard part, especially when you are shaking and about to pass out from sheer anger.

  6. If the Trashy MOB hurls an ugly barb, explain to her that her conscience should bother her and if not she will go straight to hell where she will surely fry turkeys in malfunctioning units with evil men on a daily basis and light grills with high-octane unleaded gas.

  “Either that,” you can tell the MOB, “or you’ll lose all your teeth because it says in the Bible that those who use their mouths for uttering vulgarities will one day wake up toothless.” If she asks, “What book of the Bible did THAT come from?” just be prepared to make up something, preferably Proverbs or Tootherotemy Chapter 4, Verse 7.

  7. When dealing with the bully directly and not the MOB, it’s a good idea to whisper the following words near his or her face: “You can go ahead and call my kid mean names till your tongue forks, but hear me now. I shall twist your ear until your head resembles Van Gogh’s but is much bloodier. You remember Van Gogh or does your bullying rectum need an art lesson?” By this point, the kid is usually about to vomit with fear, and this is good. Real good. “Van Gogh, you nincompoop, is the artist who cut off his ear and mailed it to somebody who’d pissed him off. So with that, either leave my kid alone or it’s Van Gogh city and your ear is mine, buster. Got it?”

  Works like a charm. Better than yams, soy and perhaps even Uterus Removal Services. Point is simple: When our eggs are in wheelchairs, our possums cobwebbed and our uteruses useless BIBs, Towanda has a place in all our lives. It’s just up to us to invite her in for tea. Sweet is always preferable. And a slice of lemon couldn’t hurt one bit.

  You Can’t Clone Decency

  This is the story I didn’t want to write but felt I had to. I’m doing it for me, to expunge the guilt and the shame I’ve carried for more than twenty-five years. And I’m doing it for mothers of girls going to college and those young women themselves.

  T he wood floor smells of spilled beer, dirty shoe leather and sweat mixed with Lauren perfume in the blood-red bottle. Young men, still boys inside their yearning bodies, see the approaching evening as one soaked in alcohol and promise.

  I’m at the Kappa Alpha fraternity house of a small Christian college with a boy who’s technically a man.

  He is 22. I’m 17. And scared. My tiny town life didn’t prepare me for this, and Mama had never gone to college and couldn’t warn me of what may come. Daddy, an honors student, didn’t head out to frat parties after classes. He worked at Sears to help pay tuition while Mama cut hair for a stingy man who stole her tips and paid her a fraction of her worth. She came home with red, chemically burned hands and the smell of ammonia deep in her raw skin. They lived in a cardboard apartment, known as Married Student Housing on most campuses. They weren’t familiar with the Greek system and its mostly rich kids who are overindulged, drive cars that still carry that new smell, and vacation in spots where stars and jet-setters tend to congregate.

  The only fraternity parties I’d ever seen were in the movies, and I figured Animal House had certainly exaggerated them. I never thought getting laid was the goal of these guys whose other mission appeared to be cloning each other in both behavior and attire, all wearing khakis and button-downs, pink short-sleeved Izods, and Docksides or Topsiders with no socks.

  I came unprepared, packing Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and Candie’s, Clairol hot rollers, Final Net hairspray, inexpensive tops, a pair of purple fake-leather pants, a couple of pairs of Levi’s jeans and cords. I had never owned chinos or Izods. All my shoes had chunky heels except the Adidas leftover from cheerleading. White with royal blue stripes, the color of the mighty Grangers, my alma mater’s state c
hampionship football team in LaGrange, Georgia, just an hour southwest of Atlanta.

  I knew about Grangers and Candie’s and Bonnie Bell lip gloss and boys who lived to glide from base to base but had the courtesy not to push it if a girl said no. I knew about riding in cars with friends and splitting eight-packs of bottled pony Millers or six-packs of Schlitz and letting it wear off before we went home.

  We were in control, even if we didn’t want to be. We had parents who waited up at night and would have coronaries and cerebral hemorrhages if they caught us drinking. We were in church every Sunday morning, evening, and even on Wednesdays if Baptist, which we were. Mama taught the Girls in Action classes and we ate the fried chicken or roast beef and gravy on Wednesday nights before the services led by the oldest and most boring reverend I’ve ever encountered.

  Now I am 17 and free to drink as much as I want, and I will. It’s been my plan all summer and I can’t figure out why I’m so in love with the notion of drinking excessively unless it’s because I’ve been kept on a tight leash for all this time and, finally, I can untie all ropes and curfews and let loose, go wild.

  It feels wonderful, as if I am a pigeon suddenly taking flight from the top of someone’s encapsulated roof with an open escape hatch. That alcoholism could possibly be brewing in my blood was of no concern or thought. That my grandfather had been an alcoholic who blew his brains out all over the bedroom floor and walls gave me no reason to think I had his genes lurking in my DNA.