People I Want to Punch in the Throat

by Jen Mann

  My kids are accoutrements freaks. They see these “pros” and they want that shit, too. Adolpha swears the Barbie bowling ball would make her a better bowler, and Gomer is convinced the finger wrap would help him get strikes every time.

  This year we have new management at the lanes, and they realized it was probably a good idea to keep the freeloading kids at one end of the room and the paying customers at the other. This new change has cut down considerably on our interaction with the old folks and our visits to the pro shop on the way out the door.

  While I found the aged bowlers fascinating and enjoyed watching their dramas unfold, I’m learning that the kid bowlers have their own drama, too, and it can be just as entertaining.

  One hot summer day, I’d taken Gomer to the lanes to cool down and scope out the swag. We were halfway through our first game when a mother-daughter duo showed up and took the lane next to us. As they got settled my son scored a strike. The other mom cheered for him. I smiled at her, but thought, Oh no. We’re not going to have to be friendly, are we? I just want to bowl with my kid, and I’m in no mood to make polite chitchat. I suck at that. Needless to say, I didn’t need to worry. By the end I was afraid to open my mouth because I try not to swear in front of my kids or give unsolicited parenting advice (at least out loud).

  The daughter was about ten and was bowling by herself. Mom was just there for moral support. She’d even brought a magazine and pretended she was going to read it.

  The girl bowled her first ball and put it in the gutter. Mom’s head snapped up from her Vogue. “What happened? Were you not concentrating? Why did you do that?”

  “Concentrate?” the girl said. “What do you mean? I’m just throwing the ball.”

  Mom slowly, deliberately closed her magazine, set it down, and said, “What. Do. You. Mean. You’re. Not. Concentrating? Bowling is a game of concentration. Don’t you want to be good at bowling? Don’t you want to feel good about yourself when you accomplish a high score?”

  WTF? It’s free summer bowling, not the Junior Olympics.

  The girl said, “I really don’t care. It’s just bowling.”

  “Well, you should care. That little boy next to us is beating you. He’s probably like five and he’s beating you. How does that make you feel?”

  At this point I looked at my phenom bowler (who was actually seven at the time) to see if he was hearing this conversation. Apparently I’m the only Nosy Nellie in the family, because my kid was oblivious. Thank goodness, because I really didn’t want to have to tell this woman to pipe down, and if it bothered my kid, I was going to have to.

  The mom never picked up her magazine again. She continued to berate and “coach” this little girl until it was absolutely uncomfortable to watch (but I managed to, of course). “Oh come on, another gutter ball? That little boy hasn’t had one yet.” (Yeah, that’s because that little boy was playing with the bumpers up; he would be pretty freaking fantastic if he could manage to get a gutter ball.) “Concentrate! I can tell you’re not concentrating. Do it right this time.… See! You just got a spare. Doesn’t it feel good to be a winner? Don’t you want to feel like that all the time?”

  Seriously, lady? What is wrong with you? Does everything need to be a competition? Does your kid need to win everything she does? Is winning the only way for her to develop self-worth?

  I got the impression this little girl is an only child, so right there is a ton of pressure on this kid, and then you add a mom who makes her feel like crap because a seven-year-old was beating her at bowling (with bumpers, don’t forget) … yeah, I think that’s probably a recipe for an eating disorder. Free bowling is just for fun; can you imagine what real organized sports looks like in this family?

  Probably a lot like some of the kids’ games I’ve been to. I don’t know what it is about this town, but everyone is positive they’re raising the next A-Rod or Nadia. The parents spend an absolute fortune on bats and mitts and private lessons and camps and tournaments, all so their kids can be called winners. I don’t see these same parents signing their kids up for Mathletes or chess club. It’s always baseball, football, dance, gymnastics. They put all of this pressure on their eight-year-old kid to succeed and win at any cost. I’ve been to soccer games where dads are yelling, “Take him down, Jefferson! Just like I showed you! Make sure he can’t get back up!” and gymnastics classes where the star falls off the balance beam and the moms hold their collective breath while calculating just where their precious child would fall in the lineup if Ms. Thing is severely injured.

  There has got to be a better way to motivate your kids. Of course I want my kids to be successful, too, but I feel like I have to pick my battles. I’d like for Gomer to practice his soccer and stick with it. He enjoys it and he’s a decent soccer player. I don’t expect him to win every game, and I fully expect him to come home someday and tell me he wants to try another sport.

  Adolpha isn’t sure what she wants to do. We’ve tried dance, but she is her mother’s daughter (i.e., graceless). Cheerleading was not a hit: “What am I doing here, Mommy? I’m freezing cold and I’m cheering for a bunch of boys to win a game! Who cheers for me?” (Exactly, Adolpha. Exactly.) Soccer requires way too much running, but she loooooves the kick-ass socks. (I told you my kids love the “gear.”) Now she thinks she’d like to try basketball, mostly because she’s tall and she thinks high-tops are cool. (Sigh. More gear.) After one broken arm and multiple mishaps, I’m thinking my klutzy daughter might be better off in art classes.

  Good thing for us the mother-daughter duo finished up their games before we did or else Mom would have totally schooled me—I barely beat Gomer in the first game, winning by just ten pins, and in the second game he destroyed me. I obviously lost my concentration once they arrived, and I couldn’t get my head back in the game. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I won’t let that happen again! I felt like crap that night. I almost binged and purged.

  I’ve always been a little naive when it comes to drugs. I’ve never tried them and I don’t know many people who use them. When I was in college, some friends and I drove across the country to attend the Woodstock ’94 concert in upstate New York. As we were driving down the highway, a carload of boys pulled up beside us. The passenger held up a handwritten sign that said, GOT A BOWL?

  “Why do they want a bowl?” I asked my friend. “Are they making a salad?”

  My friends teased me mercilessly because it took me several more exits to realize they weren’t making a salad—or soup.

  So it’s no surprise that it took me so long to figure out that I’m one of the few moms in my town not on drugs. When I say drugs, I don’t mean pot or meth. I mean the good stuff: Valium, Adderall, Oxy. I’m the only one left who’s feeling my feels and suffering from wild mood swings. I’m the only one who can’t remember to pick up the kids at school when they have half days. I’m the only one who leaves the house in my pajamas because I can’t get my shit together, nor do I give a shit that I can’t get my shit together. I’m the only one whose house is constantly buried in piles of laundry, and I am the only one who never makes homemade anything for class parties. (Hey, someone’s got to bring the paper products, and I am happy to be that mom.) When I go to the grocery store, I’m surrounded by perfectly put-together Stepford wives with fake smiles and dead eyes searching for the best organic food to put into their bodies as a chaser for their drug cocktails. (Am I the only one who finds it ironic that they won’t eat a Cheeto, but they have no problem downing narcotics like they’re Tic Tacs?)

  I know, I know—for many of these women, these drugs are a necessity. They cannot leave their houses without their Zoloft and their Xanax. Those are not the women I’m talking about. I’m talking about the tons of women who pop pills just to smooth out the sharp edges, help them focus on their staggering to-do lists, or dull the boredom of their lives. These are the women for whom these drugs aren’t a daily necessity to function in the world; instead they’re the ones who use them as mother’s little
helpers.

  I’m so stupid, I always thought a mother’s little helper was a young neighbor girl who babysat your kids for a pittance while you ran some errands. When I was nine years old, I was sometimes hired to be a mother’s helper. I was paid a quarter an hour to sit in a house with a neighbor’s sleeping baby and watch TV. My only job was to make sure to get the baby safely out the door if the house somehow caught on fire.

  Being a mother’s helper really sucked. The pay was terrible and the baby had a sixth sense that would make her wake up as soon as her mother left. So instead of watching TV I was forced to shush an irate baby for a lousy quarter.

  I’ve since realized that I was wrong. No one works for a quarter anymore, and now mother’s little helpers aren’t neighbor girls—they’re drugs. No wonder the supermoms can accomplish so much in twenty-four hours! I could get a lot done, too, if I was jacked up on Adderall and Vicodin.

  These doped-up supermoms are the ones who turn every children’s soccer game into a pharmaceutical black market. You can always spot them, because they look like a bunch of tweakers pushing up on one another looking for their next fix. They say stuff like, “I just used my last Xannie and I can’t get in to see my doctor until Tuesday. Do you have one you could spare? It’s been a day.”

  As intense as these women are, they seem fairly harmless compared to the superusers. I’ve only met one superuser. Adolpha broke her arm when she was five, and it required surgery. She was prescribed something fairly heavy-duty to numb the pain and help her sleep. After a few weeks, I received a text message from a mom I know (aka the superuser).

  Superuser: How is Adolpha feeling?

  Me: Much better, thanks.

  Superuser: Oh good! Did they give her anything for the pain?

  Me: Yes, we have a prescription to help her sleep, but she stopped needing it a week ago. Tylenol is doing the trick now.

  Superuser: Oh good! Any chance she has any leftovers I can buy from you? I have a terrible migraine and I could use something to help.

  I was stunned. I wanted to write back: What the fuck, lady? Did you just offer to buy my child’s pain meds?

  I chose not to respond to the text. I just ignored it. Then a few days later I got another one.

  Superuser: I don’t know if you got my last message. I need to buy Adolpha’s leftover pain meds. I’ve got an awful toothache and I can’t get to the dentist this week. My dentist would totally prescribe something for the pain, but I just can’t get there, so it’s just easier if I pay you for Adolpha’s. Would fifty bucks work?

  I ignored her again. I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, she wasn’t someone I see on a regular basis, so at least I didn’t have to see her in the parking lot at school and have her ask me face-to-face to sell her drugs illegally. After another few days passed I received the final text message from her.

  Superuser: Hey, just so you know, I was totally kidding about buying Adolpha’s meds. It was just a joke. You can stop being all weird and judgy now.

  That’s when I took superuser out of my phone. I’m not interested in being friends with a fucking junkie.

  I’d rather be friends with the supermoms. Sure, they’re on drugs, but at least they’re not downing cherry-flavored cough syrup to get high. I don’t want to get high. I just want to get my shit together. I need the supermoms to fill me in. I’m so pissed off that they won’t let me in on their secrets. I just want to know if it’s a blue pill or a white pill that makes you bake ah-may-zing brownies, or if it’s a red pill or a yellow pill that gives you the stamina for a two-hour workout. I’ve tried to ask subtly, but no one will ’fess up. Those bitches will never let me in their club. I finally decided to confront the next supermom I met and just simply ask her.

  It was a beautiful fall day at the soccer fields when I met Stacy for the first time. The game had just begun when she arrived carrying homemade pumpkin spice muffins with cream cheese frosting for everyone, photos of the jack-o’-lantern she had elaborately carved earlier that morning into the shape of a witch stirring a bubbling cauldron with the rising steam spelling out the word “Boo,” enough material and glue for each of the siblings not playing soccer to make adorable “easy no-sew” bat wings as a fun craft to fill their time, as well as little gift bags for every mother full of Halloween-themed wine charms and sleep masks that were embroidered with “Sleeping for a spell.” Besides her generous gifts, she also looked terrific. She was wearing the perfect fall outfit with just the right number of layers and textures and cool boots. Her hair was beautifully twisted into a loose braid casually thrown over one shoulder. While everyone sat in their lawn chair and screamed at their kid to “attack the ball,” Stacy ran up and down the sidelines taking (no doubt fabulous) photos of her son and overseeing the siblings’ craft bonanza.

  At this point I should also mention, in case you don’t feel bad enough about yourself, that Stacy has a full-time job outside the home. Like a really important one. I’m not sure what she does exactly, but from the thirty seconds that she slowed down long enough to talk to me, I learned that she works fifty hours a week or so and travels around the country every few days and then comes home and makes her kids pancakes in the shape of clovers for breakfast, because it’s International Clover Day or some shit like that. When I told her I was surprised she knew it was International Clover Day, she informed me that every day should be a holiday. She told me there is an international holiday of some kind almost every day that you can celebrate. (She’s absolutely right! I just looked, and today is the day the French celebrate the anniversary of the execution of Marie Antoinette. Maybe I should make hot dogs for dinner tonight and design a tiny razor-sharp guillotine to cut them into bite-sized pieces.)

  After thirty seconds with her I was wiped out. “Okay, seriously, I have to know, Stacy. How do you do it all?” I asked her as I bit into one of her delicious muffins. Damn! I thought, I don’t even like pumpkin, and these are fucking awesome!

  “You just have to prioritize, Jen,” Stacy advised me. “I’m a huge list maker.”

  “Riiiight. List making,” I said. I didn’t buy it. “Come on, Stacy. I know there’s a secret. I know that all of you perfect moms are on drugs. I just want to know which ones so I can get on them, too. You guys are so secretive and keep that shit to yourself. Is it Adderall? What do I have to tell my doctor to get him to prescribe some for me? Every time I tell him I’m tired or distracted, he tells me to try yoga. Fucking yoga!”

  “Excuse me?” Stacy stopped taking pictures and looked at me, horrified. “Are you suggesting that I’m a drug addict or something?”

  The rest of the moms around us went silent. “Well … I just …,” I stammered. “ ‘Drug addict’ sounds kind of harsh. It’s not like you’ve ever tried to buy my kid’s leftover Oxy or anything.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” Stacy asked.

  “Nothing. Look, I just want some pep in my step, too,” I whined. “I want what you have. Is it Ritalin? It’s Ritalin, right?”

  “My daughter takes Ritalin,” Stacy gasped.

  “I figured it was Ritalin,” I heard a mom behind me whisper.

  “And you don’t swipe a pill from her here or there?” I asked Stacy.

  “Of course she does,” the mom behind me whispered.

  “Who wouldn’t?” another chimed in.

  “Absolutely not! Jen, I’m sorry that you can’t get your life organized and that you can’t seem to find the time to do nice things for yourself and your family, but that doesn’t mean that just because I can, then I must be a drug addict! Now, as I told you earlier, I have a very high-powered and stressful job, so of course there are times that I take a nerve pill or two to help me get through an important day, but I’m not one of those stay-at-home moms downing Xanax all day. They are the ones with a problem.”

  She stomped off to the end of the field, where she could get as far away as possible from me.

  I watched her go and felt stupid. What the fuck is a
nerve pill? I wondered. Then the whispering moms came up beside me. One put her arm around me and said, “Phew, that was a little rough, huh?”

  I nodded.

  The other one opened her handbag. “Need a little something to help you feel better, sweetie?” She offered me a little blue pill.

  Holy shit! I was in. I looked at the little blue pill and then into the woman’s lifeless eyes. I heard Stacy call out, “You’re doing wonderful, Jaxon! I’m getting some great action shots for your scrapbook!” I realized I had no desire to scrapbook or bake or work out—with or without pills. And no pill was going to give me a sense of style or gorgeous carefree braids. I didn’t want to take a pill that would turn me into a cleaning zombie (although I’m sure the Hubs wouldn’t mind). I liked my mood swings, I liked my sharp edges, and I liked feeling angry and scared and excited and angry.

  I also realized that Xanax and Adderall aren’t my mother’s little helpers. I’ve been downing my drug of choice for years without ever realizing it. I’m not a pill popper. I’m a stress eater.