The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief, and Manipulation

by Melissa Rivers

  The Loo of Love

  There’s an old adage that says, “Neurotics build castles in the sky, and psychotics live in them.” My mother would never have gone into them because the bathrooms were probably filthy.

  As much of a public figure as my mother was, actually physically touching the public wasn’t on her list of things she needed to do. She loved people; she was just a bit of a germophobe. Not on the level of Howie Mandel or Donald Trump, who, I believe, boil their hands three times a day, but she did have a designer hazmat suit in her closet.

  She actually carried full-size cans of Lysol in her purse, along with multiple bottles of Purell and various brands of wipes. One would have thought she was planning to diaper a thousand babies or treat wounded veterans on a battlefield.

  Whenever she entered a hotel, she would spritz and spray every single surface in the room before she took off her coat or sat down. At the end of her stay, her room was so clean the maids would leave her a tip. (Yet she had no problem eating a handful of M&M’s from a Costco-size bowl on some receptionist’s desk in a doctor’s office.)

  She especially hated public bathrooms—and by “public bathroom,” I mean any bathroom not used exclusively by her, Cooper, or me. She was phobic about anybody else’s yuckiness—if the person wasn’t related to her. She had a clause in all of her contracts that her dressing rooms had to have a private bathroom and that no one else could have access to it.

  She tried to avoid using public bathrooms at all costs. When I was little and was on the road with her, going from town to town by car, she had a rule: no food or water for at least twelve hours before we left the house, so we wouldn’t have to stop. If she had back-to-back gigs, that kind of fasting was quite a challenge. I think we were the only Jews who observed Ramadan.

  On the rare occasion when she did have to use a public or semi-public bathroom (office, studio), she would make someone (me, if I was available) stand guard outside the door so no one else could come in while she was in there. And once she was inside, it became lengthy sentry duty. For the first ten minutes you’d hear the sounds of spritzing and spraying and water running. Then, when she was finished cleaning the place, it was another ten minutes of the same sound effects before she tried to get out, which was an ordeal unto itself. That’s because, afterward, she refused to touch anything with her hands, which meant she had to do everything (turn handles, open the door, etc.) with her elbows, knees, or feet.

  She used to have a bit in her act about papering the toilet seats in public bathrooms: “Every woman in this room has spent one third of her life in a public restroom going, ‘Paper, paper, paper, paper, paper,’ ” and she’d mime covering a toilet seat. “Then you turn around fast and all the paper, paper, paper, paper, paper blows off and it’s ‘Aw shit, you gotta start all over again.’ ”

  There are only two things that could have made the public bathroom scenario worse for her:

  1. This is something every celebrity has encountered: a fan recognizes her, comes out of a stall, doesn’t wash her hands, and wants to shake my mother’s hand. My mom said that every time she saw that hand coming toward her, she felt like a car stalled on a train track with a speeding locomotive bearing down. She finally figured out a solution to the dilemma; she’d put the burden on herself and say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t shake hands. I’m just getting over a rash from an allergy.” (Of course, she wanted to finish that sentence with “I’m allergic to filthy pigs who don’t wash their hands after they take a dump.”)

  2. An even more uncomfortable situation was when a friend of hers would come out of a stall and not wash her hands. This would end lifelong friendships. “I’ve been friends with Claudine for thirty years. How could I ever shake her hand or eat at her house again?—Ohmygod! I had dinner at her place last month. What if she didn’t wash her hands? Do you think there was pish in my meatloaf?”

  The nice thing is that she passed these fears on to me. When I’m in a public restroom, I rush through so fast people must think I have the metabolism of a hummingbird. I feel like I’m in a horror movie and that a shark’s going to come up from the toilet and bite me on the ass.

  Even nicer? She spread the love to Cooper. When it was her day to read to the children at Cooper’s school, before she started reading, she would play the “Purell Fairy Game” and wash the kids down before any of them was allowed to touch or sit near her. When I pointed out to her that Purell-ing the children might give them a complex, she said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Melissa. They’ll appreciate my care for their health and well-being. Besides, God only knows where those filthy, sticky, booger-riddled hands have been.” (Yet she’d share a spoon with her dogs and justify it with an old wives’ tale: “Melissa, you know dogs’ mouths are cleaner than ours. They’re practically antiseptic.” “Yes, Mom, and later today we should wash our clothes on a rock on a riverbank, and then maybe birth a baby on the inside pages of a newspaper.”)

  I hope this essay will provide you with a chance for some self-reflection into your own personal habits. And when you’re finished reading it, please go wash your hands. You have no idea whether the bookbinder was a slob.

  From Here to Maternity

  I had a horrible pregnancy. It was worth it, of course. Cooper is the greatest thing I have, or will ever have, in my life. There’s no amount of pain and suffering (including water torture, bamboo under the fingernails, and listening to Yoko Ono Live on headsets) that I wouldn’t go through again to have a child like Cooper. Although the grueling nature of those nine months does make me wonder exactly what kind of crazy that Duggar woman is. At last count, Mrs. D. had nineteen children. Nineteen. Someone needs to tell her it’s a uterus, not a warehouse.

  When I was pregnant, I had beyond morning sickness; I had 24/7 sickness. I would throw up in the morning. I would throw up at night. I would throw up during breaks from throwing up. I spent so much time in the bathroom, hunched over, that I’m surprised I didn’t give birth to Quasimodo. In addition to the constant morning sickness, I had every complication known to man—including an enlarged prostate, which was odd, to say the least. I was so sick that I was on total bed rest for most of my pregnancy. I spent so much time in bed that my mother used to say, “Well, Missy, that’s what you get for asking Sunny von Bülow to be your midwife.” Had I not been so sick, I’m sure my mother would’ve figured out a way for me to make money on my back; it’s not like she hadn’t suggested it before.

  To make matters worse, I felt really guilty being in bed all the time. Why? Because our family history is that my mother had the easiest pregnancy of all time and worked right up until the moment I was crowning. The story goes that she actually went into labor while onstage at a club in New York City. She was cramping and Lamaze breathing, but knew she had to finish the set in order to get paid—so she took a gulp and gave them thirty minutes.

  So, anyway, I’m lying there, pregnant and weak, day after day, thinking I’m a loser and that I can’t pull off what my mother pulled off (i.e., having an easy pregnancy and working continuously literally up until the moment I was born). I was constantly fighting with my doctors to let me get out of bed, out of the house, to work and be productive. And occasionally, between terrifying complications, they let me. I don’t mean I took a job as a stevedore or a coal miner, but I did continue to work.

  Guess who gets mad at me for doing what I perceived was expected of me? That’s right, Mother Teresa Joan Rivers Rosenberg. On one of the rare days I was allowed off bed rest, we were driving home from E! and she started jumping on me: “Why are you working so hard, why are you driving yourself like this? It’s not healthy.” Here I am, sick as a dog, but trying to live up to this family standard, and I get flak for it. So I said, “You worked and worked and worked right up until the day I was born. That’s what you always said. You led me to believe you were eight months pregnant, working on a chain gang breaking rocks in the hot sun!” She stopped for a moment and said, “Are you kidding me? Why would you think
that? I slept all day long and I worked for half an hour at night. I spent the other twenty-three and a half hours of the day resting and being pregnant.” Turns out, this is pertinent information she never shared. The moral? Never let the details get in the way of a good story.

  Because I was having so many complications, they decided to induce labor early (two weeks). The doctor said, “When do you want to do it? It has to be in the next few days.” I decided on Thursday, so I’d have a long weekend and give people more opportunities to visit and bring gifts. (I’m always thinking of others. Did you know that Melissa is Hebrew for “altruism”?)

  On Wednesday night I wasn’t feeling well, and since I knew they were going to induce labor on Thursday night, I figured I’d do what I needed to do on Thursday day. So I went to work, ran errands, and went to my yoga class. (FYI, Downward-Facing Dog isn’t a pretty sight when a woman’s in her forty-seventh trimester.) I was having trouble holding a pose. I thought I was cramping from the yoga positions, so I ignored it. After I had showered and gone home, I was still uncomfortable, but I remembered my mother saying, “Trust me. You’ll know when you’re in labor.”

  Since I have a very high tolerance for pain—again, another recessive trait—I didn’t start getting nervous until I realized I was uncomfortable in five-minute intervals. Light bulb! I’m in labor! So the entire family jumped in the car to go to the hospital. My mother, always properly dressed for the occasion, started putting rubber gloves on, in case she had to deliver a baby in the back of my Range Rover. To calm me down, she said, with a lilt in her voice (and how often we thought of her voice as gentle and soothing), “What are you so worried about? Childbirth is easy. Oh please. I had one shot of something and that was it. Shot you right out.” Lying in the backseat writhing in pain, all I kept thinking was “How is it possible my mother went through this with just one shot of painkiller? She needs half a valium just to get a pedicure.” I thought I knew my mother, but no, apparently I was a stranger in a strange land.

  As I looked up at the front seat, squinting through my pain, instead of seeing a small blonde woman with stitches behind her ears, I saw Cerberus, laughing as it guarded Hades. Shamed and blamed, I gritted my teeth for as long as I could. Tradition be damned, as soon as I got out of the car, I gave in and started begging for an epidural.1 Of course, we were in the parking lot and I was pleading for drugs to a valet, and all he could do was validate my ticket, but at that point I was desperate. Years later I found out that my mother’s “one shot” was Demerol, and it was on an IV drip—for eight hours. Turns out I had shamed and blamed myself for nothing.

  1 Note to expectant mothers: Ask your anesthesiologist if there’s any way he can leave the epidural in for the next eighteen years. You never know; he might say yes.

  Begin the BAGuine

  My mother told me that packing properly for a trip is a science, like physics, chemistry, and extortion. She said the key to successful, stress-free air travel is to pack “lightly.” Of course, her version of packing lightly involved shipping containers, because “you just don’t know what you’re going to need when you get there.”

  My mother taught me never to check any luggage. She said that there was nothing to be gained by waiting around a carousel with a bunch of strangers. (“Leave that for carny workers and old perverts.”) She was thoroughly convinced that with just a little more wiggling, she could fit virtually anything in the overhead compartment … or in the closet, or strapped into the seat next to her, or blocking the aisle. “Step around it. What, are you so important I should put my makeup trunk in the cargo hold?” When it came to the FAA rules for quick and easy travel, she thought these were nothing more than suggestions.

  In case you’re wondering why my mother travelled with so much luggage that she needed her own personal Sherpa1 it’s because a lot of her bags were filled with products—Joan Rivers products (which, my friends, are available on QVC). She brought scarves and watches and bracelets and earrings to give out to anyone who crossed her path—and I mean anyone. Even when she went on safari in Africa, she had her “gifties” in tow. According to her, “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the smiles on the faces of those starving, naked Ubangi women when I gave them my classic Joan Rivers Bee Pin.”2 When I pointed out that these women didn’t have clothes, she said, “Don’t worry, they will. They’re waiting for the UN airdrop. Melissa, just because they live in mud huts and eat sticks doesn’t mean a little sparkle won’t go a long way. Every woman knows a good accessory can update an entire outfit.”

  1 Personal shout-out to Sherpa Babu Chiri. Wassup, bro? How’s the fam? Miss you. Xoxo

  2 No, really, this is a true story. She gave them Bee Pins. I’m not kidding.

  Do Your Duty(-Free Shopping)

  My mother loved to shop. Anytime, anywhere, she was more than ready to pull out a credit card and swipe. In fact, one of her biggest regrets in life, particularly as she got older and her friends began dying off, was that funeral homes didn’t have gift shops. This was doubly upsetting because she liked to wear basic black.

  But this bit of shopping sadness was far outweighed by the fact that over the past twenty years or so, airports have turned into nothing more than malls with planes, and given my mother’s travel schedule, she was never far from a cash register. The ever-expanding diversity of shops meant she could find anything she needed (or didn’t need but just felt compelled to buy), from scarves, gloves, and five-dollar accessories to phone covers, snow globes, and massage chairs. She actually found her favorite rolling bag in an airport shop in Canada. Luckily, she spent a lot of time there and was able to acquire a full set of luggage in less than seven months. If those airports had adoption centers as well as stores, I’m pretty sure I’d have an entire litter of Canadian siblings.

  International travel was especially exciting for her because not only were the airports bigger and as such offered more diverse stores, but they were duty-free. (A lot of travelers, cheapskates, and Tea Partiers consider duty-free shops to be some of the Happiest Places on Earth. The shops sell a wide variety of items at below-usual cost because they don’t have to pay certain taxes on the merchandise. These stores are especially helpful if you’re travelling overseas and don’t want to bring a lot of extra luggage. Let’s say you’re a European man headed to New York City on a two-week vacation. Why pay a two-hundred-dollar airline fee for an extra bag when you can stop at the duty-free shop at JFK airport when you land and, for eighteen bucks, get twenty pairs of hideous brown socks to wear with your ratty sandals and mismatched shorts?)

  To a small, Jewish woman with a large purse and deep pockets, duty-free shopping was simply heaven on earth. I’m convinced that at least once in her life, my mother spent thousands of dollars on an unnecessary plane ticket just to save six bucks on the giant Toblerone chocolate bar at the duty-free shop in Stuttgart.

  Another thing that put a smile on mi madre’s face was the fact that duty-free shopping didn’t stop at the Jetway; she could still buy stuff on board the plane. On most international routes, near the end of the journey, the flight attendants come through the aisles offering duty-free items for purchase. My mom knew that this was bargain-hunting time, because the crew was tired and could easily be manipulated into lowering prices or “accidentally dropping” an item into her purse. Her other fail-safe way to get duty-free items quickly and cheaply was to order them very loudly. “Do you have vibrators? How about triple-D batteries? What about salves and ointments?” The poor flight attendants were so embarrassed and ashamed that they’d offer my mother the entire cart for half price if she’d just stop yelling in that very distinctive voice.

  Truthfully, though, my mother said that the duty-free shop serves two major purposes: First, it provides passengers a chance to buy a great last-minute gift for someone, to show them that you’d thought about them. (As my mother knew and taught me well, no one doesn’t like getting a present, and no one doesn’t like to know other people are thinking about th
em—even if they’re doing it in a tax-free store.) Second, carrying a duty-free bag distracts the customs agents from going through your bags and looking for all the shit you actually are smuggling in. (Not that my mother would ever have done that, no, not her. FYI, she did not consider “muling” smuggling—and if you don’t believe me, ask the guy she convinced to bring in a Chanel bag from Paris for her in his colon.)

  A Dingo Stole My Baby

  The first thing the doctors do when a baby is born is make sure that it has all the right parts in all the right places. According to my mother, that means nose on face, toes on feet, money in bank. Then, once all the parts are present and accounted for, they let you hold the slimy little critter on your chest for a photo op. Next, they hose it down and tag it, like it’s an elephant they’re tracking in Kenya. They put a tiny electronic wristband on the tiny wrist to make sure no strangers come in and steal the baby from the nursery. I think of it as a Baby LoJack.

  Little did I know as a kid that I did not have to worry about “stranger danger.” I had to worry about a small, blonde predator, usually camouflaged in furs, QVC jewelry, and Manolo Blahniks. Some of you might have known her as Joan Rivers. I knew her as Grandma Dingo. Cooper was less than six hours old the first time she tried to make a run with him. To be fair, she wasn’t trying to abscond with him and take him to a Third World country to sell into the slave trade or put him to work in one of her jewelry factories. (“Little hands can set little stones!”) She was simply going to the gift shop to buy a “Congratulations, You’re a New Grandma” card for me to lovingly and sincerely sign. What she didn’t realize was that the painted lines on the floors of the maternity ward weren’t just some weird, random art installation; they were electronic sensors. If one of the little Baby LoJacks crossed one of those lines, it’d set off an APB and a very loud alarm. I don’t want to say my mother disrespected the boundaries, but when she was on the ward, those alarms went off more than Lindsay Lohan’s ankle bracelet.