Forever, Erma

by Erma Bombeck

  It gives young cabbies and bellhops their first American hernia. Oh, and once when the towel bars were full of laundry, I hung a few socks on it to dry.

  Mostly it makes my husband feel like Ansel Adams.

  I know now I should never have married an amateur photographer, but when you’re 35 and not moving, you panic. My life has been a series of “Would you hold this lens?” “Stand still, I’m losing my light” and, “So the bus left without us. There’s always another one.”

  Blessed are the women who marry a man who photographs the Grand Canyon from a moving car through the windshield with an Instamatic. They don’t know how lucky they are.

  My husband’s version of the tripod is quite different from mine. He will tell you about the hummingbird he saw with crossed eyes, the sun setting over the Kremlin that looked like a hammer and sickle and the dramatic picture of the men on Easter Island facing away from the sea. What he won’t tell you is that his tripod was in the suitcase in the hotel room all the time.

  We didn’t take the tripod this year. I said it was either it or me. He thought about it for a week before leaving it behind. The guide at Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio said, “I assume all you serious photographers have a tripod.”

  I knew what I had to do: drop to all fours, balance a camera on my head and remain still for as long as it took.

  Alaska Cruise and Smoked Salmon—April 21, 1987

  Last spring, my husband looked up from the travel section of the newspaper and said, “Have you ever thought of what it would be like to catch and smoke your own salmon?”

  “I think of nothing else,” I said.

  “Think of the money you could save by doing it yourself and eliminating all those middlemen. And look at all the fun you could have in the process.”

  The next sound I heard struck terror in my heart. Jack the Clipper was ripping out the story in those little zigzag cuts that meant he was going to put it in his billfold for future reference.

  In June, he booked passage on a ship for the two of us to cruise the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska in search of bargain salmon loaves, salmon steaks and pate. The cost of the cruise was excessive, but as he pointed out, “Salmon don’t swim by your front door.”

  Since we live in a desert climate, both of us had to buy a warm wardrobe for salmon searching, consisting of windbreakers, parkas, knee-length boots and extra rain gear.

  The first several days were the fun ones, when I threw up every minute I was awake. Then it went downhill. We boarded little Zodiacs and sat in the rain for hours at a time. The monotony was broken only when one man got a hook caught in his lip, and when I thought a plane was landing in the boat...and it turned out to be a mosquito.

  On the next-to-last day, we caught 45 pounds of salmon. They were expensive to air-freight home, but as my husband said, “Those little babies will pay for themselves in pure pleasure.”

  Their arrival necessitated giving away less exotic fare in our freezer like chicken, roasts and steaks. What with the holidays, we didn’t have time to fiddle with the salmon, but soon after the New Year, we purchased an electric smoker that we discovered was missing two wing nuts. The assembly instructions were written in Swedish.

  Last week, my husband decided the time was perfect to smoke our own salmon and have that fun he talked about. He was going to serve our guests smoked salmon on little crackers. He went out once for salt for the brine, made another trip for the wood chips and still another for bags to hang the salmon in to dry.

  When he plugged in the smoker, the fuse blew. He put the smoker in his workroom for a higher voltage plug, and the smoke alarm went off. By the time our guests arrived, the process hadn’t even begun. I put out a bowl of nuts.

  At three in the morning, the salmon was ready. We figured it cost $3,095 an ounce.

  Gold costs $405 an ounce.

  Who wants to be worth their weight in salmon?

  The Holidays

  Children of Christmas—December 25, 1969

  THERE IS NOTHING SADDER in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.

  Not to feel the cold on your bare feet as you rush to the Christmas tree in the living room. Not to have your eyes sparkle at the wonderment of discovery. Not to rip the ribbons off the shiny boxes with such abandon.

  What happened? When did the cold bare feet give way to reason and a pair of sensible bedroom slippers? When did the sparkle and the wonderment give way to the depression of a long day? When did a box with a shiny ribbon mean an item on the charge. A child of Christmas doesn’t have to be a toddler or a teen. A child of Christmas is anyone who believes that kings have birthdays.

  The Christmases you loved so well are gone. What happened? Maybe they diminished the year you decided to have your Christmas cards printed to send to 1500 of your “closest friends and dearest obligations.” You got too busy to sign your own name. Maybe it was the year you discovered the traditional Christmas tree was a fire hazard, and the needles had to be vacuumed every three hours, and you traded its holiday aroma for a silver one that revolved, changed colors, played “Silent Night” and snowed on itself.

  Or the year it got to be too much trouble to sit around the table and put popcorn and cranberries on a string. Possibly you lost your childhood the year you solved your gift problems neatly and coldly with a checkbook.

  Think about it. It might have been the year you were too rushed to bake cookies and resorted to slice-and-bake with no nonsense. Who needs a bowl to clean? Or lick?

  Most likely it was the year you were so efficient in paying back all your party obligations. A wonderful little caterer did it for you for $3 per person.

  Children of Christmas are givers. That’s what the day is for. They give thanks, love, gratitude, joy and themselves to one another. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have children around a tree. It’s rather like lighting a candle you’ve been saving, caroling when your feet are cold, building a fire in a clean grate, grinding tinsel deep into the rug, licking frosting off a beater, giving something you made yourself. It’s laughter, being with people you like and at some time falling to your knees and saying, “Thank you for coming to my Birthday party.”

  How sad indeed to awake on Christmas and not be a child. Time, self-pity, apathy, bitterness and exhaustion can take the Christmas out of the child, but you cannot take the child out of Christmas.

  Kids Are Sick...It Must Be Christmas—December 18, 1970

  The other day Bruce complained, “My head hurts and my nose is stuffy.”

  “Ridiculous,” I said. “It’s too early. Christmas is a week away.”

  Normal people can always predict when the holidays are near at hand. There is an air of excitement, the smell of evergreens, the ringing of bells, the singing of carols. There is a saying at our house: “We got measles. It must be Christmas.”

  Down at the Laundromat, I am known as Typhoid Mary. “What are you having this year for Christmas?” they ask as I sort my clothes.

  “Well, I’ve got one exposure to chicken pox, one who has had mumps only on his left side, and two just throw up to keep things interesting.”

  It’s never serious enough to be an emotional drag, but I’ve forgotten what real Christmases are like. I cornered my friend Donna Robust and begged, “Tell me again about Christmas at your house.”

  “Well,” said Donna, “on Christmas morning I get up first and—”

  “Start going through the yellow pages to find a drugstore open,” I said, my eyes glistening.

  “No, no”—she laughed—“I turn on all the lights around the Christmas tree. Then I ring the sleigh bells and—”

  “I know, I know,” I said excitedly, “it’s pill time. You give one a spoon of Coke syrup, another an aspirin and the baby a suppository for nausea.”

  She shook her head. “I summon them all around the tree to open up their presents. Then, after breakfast, we all get dressed—”

  “Can you imagine that?” I sighed.
“Everybody dressed!”

  “Then we go to church, and that afternoon we have fifteen or twenty people in for Christmas dinner.”

  “Once I saw my dad on Christmas. He slid two batteries under the door for a robot monster that didn’t include them.”

  “I bet that was nice,” she said.

  “Oh, and another time the doctor dropped by to check on us and brought in a bit of snow on his boots. The kids went wild.”

  “Maybe this year things will be different,” said Donna, patting my hand.

  “Maybe so.” I sighed. “But tell me again about how you all get dressed and go out....”

  Family Christmas Newsletter—December 9, 1971

  I regard the family Christmas newsletter with a mixture of nausea and jealousy—nausea because I could never abide by anyone organized enough to chronicle a year of activities; jealous because our family never does anything that I can talk about on a religious holiday.

  For years I have been assaulted with Frieda and Fred’s camping adventures, Marcia and Willard’s bright children (their three-year-old has a hit record) and Ginny and Jesse’s kitchen table version of “The Night Before Christmas.”

  “You know something?” I announced at dinner the other night. “We’re a pretty exciting family. This year, instead of the usual traditional Christmas card, why don’t we make up a newsletter?”

  “What would we say on it?” asked a son.

  “What everyone else says. We could put down all the interesting things we did last year. For instance, you kids tell me anything you did in school that was memorable.” Silence. “This is no time for modesty. Just spit out any award or recognition you received throughout the school year.”

  Finally, after five minutes, one son said, “I passed my eye examination.”

  “See?” I said excitedly. “I knew if we just thought about it a bit—now, where have we been that’s exciting?”

  “We got lost that Sunday and went by the Industrial School where you told us one of your uncles made license plates.”

  “I don’t think our Christmas list wants to read about that,” I said. “Let’s see, have I been anyplace?”

  “You went to that Sarah Coventry jewelry party last spring.”

  “How about that?” I said excitedly. “Now, keep going. Anyone get promoted? Married? Divorced? Hospitalized? Retired? Give birth?” Silence.

  “Anyone say anything clever last year? How about the year before that? Did anyone compose a song? Write a letter? Belch after dinner?” Silence.

  “Anyone protest anything? Stop biting their nails? Scrape a chair in the Christian Science reading room? Get up in the morning before ten?” Silence.

  “Anyone lick a stamp? Kick the dog? Wash their gym suit? Sit up straight in class? Replace a lightbulb? Breathe in and out?”

  They all sat there silently contemplating their year. Finally, I brought out a box of Christmas cards.

  “What are you doing? We thought you were going to send out a family newsletter for Christmas.”

  “No sense antagonizing the poor devils who sit around and do nothing all year.”

  Christmas Chimes—December 23, 1976

  Everything is in readiness.

  The tree is trimmed. The cards taped to the door frame. The boxes stacked in glittering disarray under the tree.

  Why don’t I hear chimes?

  Remember the small boy who made the chimes ring in a fictional story years ago? As the legend went, the chimes would not ring unless a gift of love was placed on the altar. Kings and men of great wealth placed untold jewels there, but year after year the church remained silent.

  Then one Christmas Eve, a small child in a tattered coat made his way down the aisle, and without anyone noticing he took off his coat and placed it on the altar. The chimes rang out joyously throughout the land to mark the unselfish giving of a small boy.

  I used to hear chimes.

  I heard them the year one of my sons gave me a tattered piece of construction paper on which he had crayoned two hands folded in prayer and a moving message, OH COME HOLY SPIT!

  I heard them the year I got a shoe box that contained two baseball cards and the gum was still with them.

  I heard them the Christmas they all got together and cleaned the garage.

  They’re gone, aren’t they? The years of the lace doilies fashioned into snowflakes...the hands traced in plaster of paris...the Christmas trees of pipe cleaners...the thread spools that held small candles. They’re gone.

  The chubby hands that clumsily used up $2 worth of paper to wrap a cork coaster are sophisticated enough to take a number and have the gift wrapped professionally.

  The childish decision of when to break the ceramic piggy bank with a hammer to spring the 59 cents is now resolved by a credit card.

  The muted thump of pajama-covered feet padding down the stairs to tuck her homemade crumb scrapers beneath the tree has given way to pantyhose and fashion boots to the knee.

  It’ll be a good Christmas. We’ll eat too much. Make a mess in the living room. Throw the warranties into the fire by mistake. Drive the dog crazy taping bows to his tail. Return cookies to the plate with a bite out of them. Listen to Christmas music.

  But Lord...what I would give to bend low and receive a gift of toothpicks and library paste and hear the chimes just one more time!

  Son Home for the Holidays?—January 2, 1977

  “Wasn’t it wonderful having our son home for the holidays?” I asked my husband.

  “It certainly was,” he smiled wistfully.

  “I didn’t realize we’d miss him so much. He’s grown taller, hasn’t he?”

  “And looks a little too thin? I suppose a mother would notice those things before a father, wouldn’t she?”

  “How’s he doing in school?” I asked. “He’d talk those things over with a father, wouldn’t he?”

  “Not really. He has matured quite a bit, though, hasn’t he?”

  “A father would observe that right off the bat.”

  “If you want to know the truth,” said my husband, “I never set eyes on the kid the entire three weeks he was home.”

  “You’re kidding!” I gasped.

  “No. I thought I saw the back of his head once as he was backing the car out of the driveway, but I couldn’t be sure. How’s he doing?”

  “I never saw him either.”

  “He was here, wasn’t he?” asked my husband.

  “Oh, yes, I’m sure of that. I could see him mounded in the center of the bed. He’d get up around the crack of noon and take a shower, and once I handed him the phone through the door.”

  “You actually saw him?”

  “It was steamy, but I’m pretty sure it was him.”

  “Wait a minute,” said my husband. “Does he have a gray sweater with three stripes on the sleeve? I think I saw him one night holding both refrigerator doors wide open like he was welcoming a convention.”

  “That’s wasn’t our son; that was Mark.”

  “I wish I had known that. I apologized to him for not spending more time with him.”

  “It’s a natural mistake. He was here the entire Christmas vacation. Wait a minute. There’s the phone.”

  “Who was it?” asked my husband later.

  “Mark’s mother. She wanted to know how her son looked and if he needed anything.”

  “Any news of our son?”

  “He’s fine and says he doesn’t know if he can get home for spring vacation or not.”

  “How will we know for sure?” shrugged my husband. “Just feel the hood of the car.”

  Halloween Challenges “No Talent” Mother—October 30, 1979

  I never approach Halloween that I don’t remember my first brush with discrimination.

  I’ve never told you this before, but I was the first “no-talent” mother to integrate a neighborhood of mothers who were art school graduates. When I looked at the house, the real estate agent tried to warn me. He said, “See that mailbo
x next door to you? The one with the flowers and butterflies hand-painted? Mrs. Walters did that freehand.”

  A bit farther down the street he pointed to another house and said, “Isn’t that a clever play area with the Peter Pan motif? Mrs. Tierney did that. She’s very handy. In fact, all the women in this neighborhood can make anything out of nothing.”

  I was undaunted. You can’t keep a person out of a neighborhood just because she doesn’t have imagination. When they knew me, they’d learn to love me and to accept me for what I am.

  I was wrong.

  Their cakes at the bake sale made mine look like sliced bread. Their garbage cans were hand-painted with cartoons and cute sayings. Their hedges were clipped and shaped to look like farm animals. Their hand-smocked yokes for their daughters’ dresses were everywhere, and macramé hung from every porch.

  They turned old discards into museum pieces, decoupaged until they fainted, and looked the other way the Christmas I bent a coat hanger, twisted nose tissue over it and called it a wreath.

  But it was Halloween that did me in, that single day when your children turn to you for imagination and creativity, the one day of the year when you must transcend fantasy.

  There was something about the hand-carved pumpkin in the window across the street I couldn’t put my fingers on. Then I realized it had capped teeth.

  The porch on the other side of us had a replica of Ray Bolger right out of The Wizard of Oz. When the doorbell rang I was greeted by a parade of monsters, pirates, queens, animals, ballerinas and spaceships right out of the wax museum. My daughter came home in tears when everyone wanted to know what she was doing running around the street with a grocery bag on her head.

  I learned a lesson that night. You may exist in a clever neighborhood, but you can’t be happy there. They’d have to bus me in to get me back.