The Jewish Daughter Diaries

by Rachel Ament

  Land O’Lakes has been a thing with the women in my mother’s family for years! My grandmother’s way of desecrating the package from Land O’Lakes butter was to cut out the small rectangle representing the butter being held by the odd image of a kneeling Native American woman on the side of the package, and then roll up her knees until they fit in that small rectangle, making her knees look like her breasts. Try it sometime! I have one of these in my wallet!

  I awoke with dread on the appointed day, and Mom and I drove to Bloomingdale’s. There’s something awful about department stores in general. I don’t know if it’s the lighting, the meta-spectral burglar alarms that you feel without hearing, the hidden sorrow of the consumer population in general, or the pathetic nature of buying things when someone will have to discard them when you die, or what it is.

  But there was something especially loosey-goosey about this particular day. I remember it was very, very hot, and Mom was sweating profusely, which made her start cursing, which in turn softened my resolve to take the outing seriously, and the whole thing felt very tenuous right from the get-go. When we entered the store, my mother, already well along in her development of a peremptory manner of speaking to clerks and waiters, demanded to see the dishes section, explaining to the woman that I was getting married momentarily and that we were in a big hurry and needed the most immediate attention.

  The woman showed us to the housewares section and turned us over to another woman, who began a series of long-winded presentations about the different patterns. Something had happened to the air-conditioning, I think, because it was getting hotter and hotter in the store, and the whole place began to smell like rotten eggs and to schvindle, a Yiddish word which means dancing around in your eyes in a nauseating sort of way, like op art or badly designed wallpaper.

  My mother kept looking at me, and I was trying to pay attention to what the lady was saying about these ridiculous dishes. Since, as a domestic failure I didn’t really give a good goddamn about dishes, I was having trouble paying attention in the first place, and worse still, my mother had started giggling. I was making every effort to keep a straight face and tried to ask some questions about the appropriateness of the dishes for microwave use or some such nonsense.

  The temperature seemed to rise by the nanosecond. Mother was dripping with sweat, and I felt exhausted and bored and like I was going to faint. Mom tried to cover up her giggling by pretending to cough, but this just made her sort of guffaw, and then I felt myself slipping. This is what always happens during these episodes.

  Within moments, Mother’s guffaw had turned to out-and-out giggling and then to belly laughing; and then I started laughing very forcefully too. The saleswoman said a few more words and then realized she was totally out of her league with these two weirdos, probably drunk for all she knew, and she shook her head in disgust and ambled away.

  Meanwhile Mom and I were going great guns. It was that Chaikinian laughter, that sense of the infinite and the ridiculous at once, and breathing was actually getting difficult because we were laughing so hard. Mom started staggering and wiping her eyes with a handkerchief, so I led her over to a bench where we sat down and tried to compose ourselves.

  We almost had it under control when one of us started up again, and this just got the other going; this happened several times. I don’t know how much time went by as we sat there in that state. Other customers began fleeing the housewares department. Finally a security guard came over and asked us to vacate the premises. I remember him escorting us to the door to be absolutely sure we left.

  Laughter for me is kind of like a magic carpet ride. The purest kind of mystery. When I get on it, it goes faster than it should, and it floats atop things. I often feel that I could ride it right out of here and never come back. Of all the occasions leading up to my wedding, which took place outdoors on the exquisite grass of my childhood home, this is one of my favorites. And the future I see for myself in my mother includes a vision of moments with my own daughter, when laughter becomes an apotheosis of that crazy kind of love.

  HOME FOR THE APOCALYPSE

  Gaby Dunn

  My mom is a fan of email forwards with dubious cautionary advice that Snopes.com—and any even mildly intelligent person—has already debunked. For instance, did you know that if you put your ATM password in backwards, it alerts the police that you’re being robbed at gunpoint? Did you know that rapists only go after girls wearing ponytails and that women with short hair are less likely to be victims? Did you know that dialing *677 tells you if the unmarked police car trying to pull you over is actually a murderer?

  You didn’t? That’s because none of these myths are true, but all of these tips have been heralded as life-saving advice by my mother.

  Other scary emails instructed me:

  1. To never get out of my car to remove a flyer from my windshield because a carjacker is waiting to get inside.

  2. That hotel room keys can steal your credit card information.

  Also, this isn’t advice, but did you know George W. Bush makes the same face as a monkey sometimes? That was from a terrific, Mom-forwarded chain letter, too.

  Recently, she came up with by far the most outlandish bit of safety advice. My mom called me and my younger sister to tell us she wanted to book us plane tickets home for December 21, 2012, because she’d heard on TV that this was the date of the end of the world. She wanted us both “home for the apocalypse.”

  The plan she’d devised was to rent a helicopter way in advance and fly around until the flood waters subsided. Then, we’d float inside the helicopter until we found land or other refugees—or ran out of gas. I am not sure why she was convinced a helicopter would float. Until we were rescued, my whole family would just stick together in the cramped space, like Thanksgiving dinner for all eternity. I told her I’d rather just go out with the fiery asteroids. Thanks.

  It’s not that my mother isn’t smart. She is one of most well-read women I know. She is, unfortunately, a winning combination of gullible and anxious. I have never known her to understand sarcasm, instead answering every burn I sent her way as a moody teenager with a sincere apology and desire to do better. The guilt I felt was insurmountable. It was a better comeback than any she could have zinged me with on the spot.

  Her anxiety was a different hurdle, and it was contagious. I went along with all my mom’s half-explained safety tips because I was also scared. She wanted to instill some healthy fear so I didn’t walk off with a stranger.

  I grew up in the same city where Adam Walsh, the six-year-old son of America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh, was kidnapped from a local mall and murdered. It was a mall we’d visited as a family many times. After that, my mom was convinced that every stranger we saw was planning on walking off with me the minute she turned her head. Her paranoia may have sprouted, rightfully, during that time. Many mothers in our area felt the same.

  And so I learned to “protect myself.”

  When I was in second grade, an ice cream truck started a new route down my street. Every day, I would hear the jovial music begin as all the kids would stream out and line up to purchase ice cream. Every kid except me. My mom was convinced that “ice-cream-truck driver” was the perfect undercover job for a pedophile kidnapper.

  Her other reasoning? Quote: “Gabrielle, you were just a little kid. How were you gonna know the difference between a regular ice cream truck and a pedophile in his car offering you ice cream? If I let you go to one truck, you could think you’re supposed to go to all trucks.”

  My mom was actually convinced I wouldn’t notice that one was a big, white musical ice-cream truck and one was a guy holding a Popsicle next to a grungy El Camino.

  I was never allowed to open the door for a pizza delivery man. Instead, I had to slip the money through the mail slot and tell him to leave the pizza on the welcome mat. Then, my mom instructed me to watch through the front window to make
sure the delivery van pulled away before I opened the door to retrieve the pizza. I did this well into my teens. It was like a reverse Silence of the Lambs every time we ordered Papa John’s.

  My mom is also extremely cleanly. My younger sister dubbed her the “white tornado” for how often she speeds through the house, picking up toys and clothing and dust in her wake. My mom is in no way comparable to Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest, but they did share one non-negotiable tip: no wire hangers. She even cleans the house before the housekeeper comes so no one will ever have seen her with a less-than-spotless home.

  We never had “the talk” in a traditional sense, though we did have a discussion about the ablutions of future paramours. Her one big piece of dating advice for me as a teenager was to never date a boy with dirty fingernails. A boy who couldn’t be bothered to clean his fingernails didn’t care about the little things, the details, the important stuff, and would therefore make a terrible boyfriend.

  “If he shows the initiative to clean his fingernails, then this boy is probably ambitious, hard-working, and conscientious,” she’d say. “He has goals. He cares about how he presents himself. He probably calls his mother once in a while.” You know who else probably cleaned his fingernails compulsively? Patrick Bateman. Sure, he had ambition. But it was murder ambition.

  For someone so paranoid, my mom should have picked up on the correlation between obsessive cleanliness and sociopathy. This is, after all, the woman who forced me to keep cash in my underwear and socks in case I was ever mugged. A pickpocket could also easily steal money from my backpack or my purse without my feeling it. You know, if I had the nerve endings of a frozen pizza and the thief had the stealth of Fagin or Aladdin.

  According to my mom, it’s much safer to keep your money in a fanny pack or, like I mentioned above, in a pouch inside your underwear. She actually suggested an underwear pouch. I suspected that doing any of those things would surely prevent anyone from ever reaching into my underwear again.

  Having paper in your shoe is, according to my mother, a good luck charm. Any time I had an exam at school, my mom would tell me to put a small piece of paper in my shoe, supposedly to help me remember what I’d studied. There’s no secret mom logic behind this one. It’s a trick my grandmother believed in and passed on to my mom, who passed it on to me. Somewhere along the way, I think they lost a step: maybe the step where I write the answers to the test on the paper first.

  When I was three, she taught me a made-up song with my full name, address, and telephone number so that I could tell the police where I lived if I ever got lost. (I still remember the made-up song.) She brought me down to the police station to give them fingerprints and a cheek swab, just in case, and we made a home video of me stating my name, height, and age in case one needed to be given to local TV stations. Even though, according to her logic, I wouldn’t know the difference between a police officer and a guy in a sailor hat holding a Popsicle.

  Then, when I was about seven, my mom put me in the open trunk of my dad’s car and taught me where to kick so the taillight would burst if I were ever abducted. I remember the scratchy feeling of the trunk’s carpet and the sunlight in my eyes as my mom stood above me, watching my leg pretend to kick out the light. Then, she said, I could stick my hand through the hole and wave to passing cars to alert them that a kidnapped child was inside.

  She’d heard about the technique in an email forward.

  MY MOTHER PLAYED THE DRUMS AT MY WEDDING

  Wendy Liebman

  Like so many other Jewish women of a certain age, I’ve started turning into my mother. She likes what she likes, doesn’t put up with bullshit, and hates the word “asshole.” And lately, I’ve noticed myself slowly, reluctantly taking on these attributes as well. But I’ll never wear a shower cap or become obsessed with golf. And I swear I’ll never play the drums at my daughter’s wedding. (Especially since I don’t play the drums or have a daughter.)

  • • •

  I met my husband, Jeffrey, when I was thirty-eight and he was hired to write a sitcom for me. Our first meeting was at a deli in Studio City, California. The greeter said, “Where do you want to sit?” And I blurted out, “I just want to look at you!” (To Jeffrey, not the greeter.) I knew it wasn’t professional—I wasn’t even thinking really—the words just fell out of my mouth. Jeffrey told me later that when he saw me walk into the restaurant, his knees started to wobble and he didn’t know if he would make it to the table.

  It truly was love at first sight for us both. I don’t think we talked about the sitcom for more than five minutes, but I moved in with him three months later, fell in love with his sons, and learned how to do laundry. Up until that point I always thought I was going to be an old maid because I was still single and approaching forty, but we got married four years after that.

  My mother, Toni, fell in mother-in-law love at first sight with Jeffrey as well. I could tell, because as soon as she saw him standing at the door, she said, “Here,” and handed him a garbage bag to throw in the can outside before crossing the threshold of her life.

  Really, Mom? Not “Hello!” Or “Nice to meet you!” Or “Wendy’s told us so much about you!” Or “Come in! Sit down, relax!” Or “How was your flight?” My mother, not one for small talk, just said, “Here,” and passed the Hefty bag to my Prince Charming like it was a hot potato.

  It took me a while before I realized that my mother knew right away that Jeffrey was here to stay. I mean, you don’t ask a stranger to take out the trash unless you have a sixth sense that soon he’ll soon be doing it every week for your daughter.

  Four years later, Jeffrey asked my father if he could marry me. My dad was thrilled. My mom said, “It’s about fucking time.” That’s not even a joke. That is what she said.

  • • •

  I planned my wedding like a sorority girl. I had a notebook full of info. Guest lists. Seating arrangements. Food and flowers. Hotel contacts. Rehearsal dinner plans. Directions to the lingerie store where they would make a special bra for me to wear under the gown that could’ve paid for the rehearsal dinner. All the papers were neatly filed and color coded, receipts and business cards attached. I wanted everything to be perfect. I cut out pictures from magazines. Hired a guy named David to coordinate the music.

  After sending a blurb to the New York Times to announce our marriage (Liebman/Sherman, April 12, 2003, Pasadena, California), the editor contacted me and said the paper wanted to do a longer story. This motivated everyone to kick it up a notch. The flower guy told me he would arrange every flower himself. The people at the Ritz said it would be even ritzier. Everyone was pitching in. And I was confident that my wedding would be breathtaking.

  But I was worried about one thing: that my mother would end up playing the drums. Because she loves to play the drums. And she’s wicked good. It’s been a family joke for years that at any given function, my mother, all five foot one of her, would inevitably find the drum set and invite herself to sit down and jam. We all know it’s going to happen; it’s just a question of when.

  So at the rehearsal dinner I gently asked her not to play the drums at my wedding.

  “Why not?” she asked curiously.

  “Well…because. Well, because I’m asking you not to.” I was very adult about it. She said a cheerful, “Okay.” And that was that.

  • • •

  The outdoor ceremony was like a fairy tale. Jeffrey actually showed up. Just as everyone moved inside to the reception, it started to rain, which I’d heard was good luck at a Jewish wedding. The ballroom was exquisite. The food delicious. The cake divine. Surrounded by friends old and new, and family from far away, it was a room full of love and laughter, union, reunion, and celebration. (Not to mention the New York Times.)

  So I’m now Wendy Ellen Liebman Sherman and it’s one o’clock in the morning. I’m holding my shoes and people are saying good-bye. I feel exhilarated, overjoyed, mar
ried. I got hitched without a hitch. David comes over and tells me the band is going to play one more song before packing up. I see my mother make a beeline for the stage.

  I am truly stunned. I step in her path. Very quietly I ask, “Mommy, what are you doing?”

  And without missing a beat, no pun intended, as if we had never had a conversation about this exact thing the night before, she says, “I’m going to play the drums!”

  My husband of five hours interrupts and says to me, “May I have this dance?”

  I take a deep breath, take Jeffrey’s hand, and get out of my mother’s way so she can take her place with the band to do her thing.

  And then I looked at my father and I saw the joy it brought him, unless he was just happy because his forty-two-year-old daughter had finally gotten married. But he was smiling ear to ear. I blew a kiss to my mother. I wasn’t even hiding under the table. I was enjoying the last song of the first day of my new life.

  MOM, EVERLASTING

  Mireille Silcoff

  I can’t figure out if my mother is the first or last person with whom I should be discussing my organ donation form. It came with the renewal of my Canadian Medicare card a few weeks ago and has been sitting—questioning my fabric as a human being—on my desk ever since: will I “save lives by consenting to organ and tissue donation”?

  My mom says she hasn’t signed hers either. She says she hasn’t signed it “just in case.”

  “Just in case what, Mom?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it will hurt.”