Suburgatory

by Linda Keenan

  Furburger. Then Juicy Box. Then Mrs. Fluffy. Then Spasm Chasm. And then, finally, the one that was both the dads’ favorite and the final straw for the concerned moms, Cooz McSlimy.

  At that point, the majority of moms thought the only solution was to remove the actual piece of equipment. Manheim, the first mom to rail against Playground Vagina was surprisingly against the idea, arguing that the children shouldn’t have to suffer from the actions of some filthy teenage boy.

  The mystery was solved one night after a park supervisor realized he’d left his toolbox and returned to find Manheim, with spray can in hand. After she was fined by the police, Manheim was asked to explain her bizarre actions. “I’m bored out of my mind. These dads think they’re bored out of their minds? They’re only here a few times a week, not a few times a day.” But why did she advocate removing the original Vagina? “Oh, you know when you get away with something you get hungry for more? Like Anthony Weiner? That’s me,” said Manheim.

  The dads, when they first saw Manheim again, were so in awe of her they could barely speak. The bravest among them said, “We didn’t think girls … knew all those names.” “You’re forgetting I actually have a vagina!” And with that Manheim joined the brotherhood, having already been cast out by her old sister-moms.

  Little Loman’s Lemonade Stand

  Suburgatory, USA—A pint-sized Willy Loman is selling lemonade, Nilla wafers, and despair over on the corner of Cartwright Street and Elm.

  “We’re out there, baking in the sun, dreaming of closing a few measly sales, and what do we get? Dust in our face from the Caddies just whizzing by without a care in the world,” declared sad-sack eight-year-old Jonah Miller.

  “What’s a caddie?” asked seven-year-old Abby Green, who’d do anything, anything in the world to save Miller from the terminal gloom that’s descended on him these past two days of selling no more than two lemonades and one Nilla wafer. But mostly she has no idea what he’s talking about.

  “It’s what the great man drives, doll, not you and not me,” said Jonah.

  Miller has spent much of the weekend manning the stand. And what a weekend it has been. It began with the exhilarating promise of little-boy riches and is ending with the dying dreams on the hard streets of a suburban town on the edge of a haunted future.

  “I look around … I see these other lemonade stands … every one of them grabbing for just one tiny crumb off the delicious cake that is America. But what are we really in this for, this rat-race that takes a boy who gives his blood, sweat, and guts and eats him alive? Why Abby? Why?” Jonah implored.

  “Because we wanted money to get tokens at Chuck E. Cheese, remember?” responded Abby.

  “It isn’t right, what kind of life is this, in the greatest town in the loudest country in the world?” Jonah questioned, putting his arms and head down on the stand.

  Abby ran to get her mother. “You know, I could kick myself for even letting Abby and her weird friend Jonah set up that little dread-factory. I should have known that they’d be out there, just asking to get their hearts broken,” said Peggy Green. “Everyone drives in suburbia. You know, his cousins Ben, Josh, and Daniel in New York set up a stand at 82nd and Madison—“Lempops”—and made, I’m not kidding, two hundred bucks in two hours? It wasn’t even real lemonade! But here, the only people on the roads or sidewalks are these psychotic runner-mommies, who wouldn’t ever think of stopping to give these kids one moment of dignity. ‘What, you want us to eat your fake lemonade and cardboard carb-laden poison cookies?’ Well if it was your kid, you’d stop. I’m sure if it was a Botox stand they’d be lined up half a block long.”

  Green immediately put out the message—“Attention Must Be Paid” to locals on Facebook and Twitter, telling them if they didn’t go out and buy a Dixie cup and a Nilla wafer now, they risked her unfriending and unfollowing. “And public backstabbing, too,” she said.

  When people finally started arriving, Jonah picked up his head slowly and seemed at least relieved, but by no means redeemed. Would he now ever consider a career in sales? Jonah took a deep, defeated breath. “No. There’s only one place where a beaten soul can hold his head high and shoot for honor and esteem in a boy-eat-boy world, and that’s behind the toy counter at Chuck E. Cheese.”

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  Anti-Vaxxer Barbie Doll Unveiled

  Suburgatory, USA—Anti-vaccination activists have unveiled their latest ammunition in the battle to raise awareness of the harm they say that vaccines can cause: Anti-Vaxxer Barbie. The blond, amply proportioned anti-vaccination crusader spouts a number of slogans written by Charlotte Burger, head of the advocacy group Vaxxer Zappers, including:

  Measles schmeasles.

  Vax are whack.

  Protect me, don’t inject me.

  Your gut knows, your pediatrician doesn’t.

  Think for yourself. Just say no.

  Before you poke, Google it.

  Pox or vax? I choose pox..

  Burger demonstrated the doll, a retrofitted 1992 Teen Talk Barbie, with matted hair and a disheveled outfit. “I know she looks like, well, she’s looking a little used, and the clothes are so dated. But we hope people focus on the important message that Anti Vaxxer Barbie is delivering.” She began playing the doll, pushing the button on the back.

  Vaccines—pushing poison.

  Will I ever have enough clothes?

  “Oh no,” said Burger. “That last one isn’t supposed to be in there. I thought we had gotten all the old Teen Talk Barbie phrases cleared out. Let’s try again,” she said.

  No to the needle! No to the needle!

  Wanna have a pizza party?

  “Goddamn it!” Burger exploded, fumbling with the doll. “One more time.”

  Meet me at the mall!

  Scientists don’t know everything.

  Big pharma, big bullies.

  Math is hard!

  The alternating phrases were made even more jarring because the original perky Barbie voice clashed dramatically with the harshly strident voice of Vaxxer Zapper Charlotte Burger.

  “Ugh. We have a dad who tinkers with this kind of stuff, taking out the old computer chip and futzing around with it. We’re really into ‘do-it-yourself,’ ‘think-for-yourself,’ but maybe we should have asked a professional or something,” said Burger. She tried it one last time.

  You vaccinate? Go fuck yourself, sheeple.

  This reporter waited for an explanation, but Burger simply said, “Oh that one is supposed to be in there!”

  When vaccine proponents got wind of Anti-Vaxxer Barbie, they commissioned a toy maker found on the homemade crafters’ website Etsy to begin work on their own doll, a girl confined to a wheelchair in a world where childhood diseases are once again running rampant. They plan to call her “Polio Polly.” Their doll will say, “I wish
my legs worked!” and “Why did hippies let polio come back?”

  When told of this development, Burger just threw up her hands and said, “You see? So overdramatic.”

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  McDonald’s a Very Bad

  Setting to Explain Slavery

  Suburgatory, USA—A local mom is kicking herself for choosing McDonald’s to explain slavery and its legacy to her six-year-old son. “The legacy of this stupid decision, well, I’m going to live with it ’til at least the seventh grade when Teddy finally actually understands slavery. That is, unless we are ripped apart in the giant race riot he causes before then,” said Jan Maxwell.

  Jan and Teddy were heading to lunch at the Boone Street McDonald’s; Jan was listening to Fresh Air with Terry Gross on public radio. As part of Black History Month, Gross was interviewing an author about the history of the slave trade. “Terry Fucking Gross. Another white liberal moron just like me,” Jan said, berating herself.

  As they arrived at the McDonald’s, Teddy and Jan ordered their food and sat down. It was then that Teddy asked his mom, “What’s slavery?”

  Jan: Well, Tadpole [Teddy’s nickname], this is hard. Slaves were people with darker skin who were forced to serve other people—lighter people like me and you. They had terrible jobs, doing the same boring or tiring thing over and over and over …

  Teddy processed this, looked at the entirely black or Hispanic staff of McDonald’s sweating, stone-faced and slinging fries with lightning speed, and then looked at what was, on that day, the entirely white clientele, mostly moms and kids, eating contentedly.

  Teddy: You mean, like them? [pointing to the counter] They are slaves?

  Jan: No, no, not at all, Tadpole! Slavery’s over. They get paid. Slaves didn’t get paid. They got food and a place to sleep, that’s it.

  Teddy: Oh, that’s good. I’m sure these brown people get a lot of money now after all that slavery stuff.

  Jan: Well… .

  As a mother, Jan knew that being honest about salaries at McDonald’s might complicate matters immensely. But as a good liberal, “like Terry Fucking Gross,” Jan made the regrettable mistake of being honest.

  Jan: Well, actually, I’d be lying to you if I said they do. They don’t make much. Very little in fact. They make enough to just get by, but not much more than that. It’s a hard life.

  Teddy: Do they at least get to eat the food?

  Jan: Um, no. They take their small amount of money from McDonald’s and buy food, probably somewhere else, like we do, at the store.

  Teddy: So slaves got paid in food and these brown people get a teeny bit of money and buy their own food?

  Jan: Yes.

  Teddy: Then what’s the difference? They are slaves!

  Jan: No sweetie, they’re not. No one owns them.

  Teddy: If McDonald’s pays them their tiny money and but doesn’t feed them, then doesn’t McDonald’s own them?

  Jan: No … look, Teddy, they don’t make much money but they aren’t slaves. They have their families—slaves mostly didn’t have their kids with them. Moms lost their babies.

  Teddy: What about those moms? [gesturing to the women working behind the counter] I don’t see any brown babies here. Where are their brown babies?

  Jan: They put them in daycare—you know, the place to keep them so the workers can do their work for McDonald’s.

  Teddy: So McDonald’s takes them away!

  Teddy started crying and said, “I don’t want my Happy Meal if a brown mommy gets her brown baby taken from her!” And then, before Jan could grab him, he ran up to the counter and said, “I’m so sorry you are slaves and I’m a slavemaker! You shouldn’t be slaves!”

  Jan said, “Teddy, no!”

  Then he told white people in line that they were “slavemakers,” too.

  Maxwell shudders even recalling it. “Basically I’ve turned my son into a little Malcolm X. A Malcolm X who still wets his bed.”

  Will she go to McDonald’s again? “No. From now on we’re getting served by mostly white people only. Teddy X better start liking Starbucks.”

  Dog Fed Better than Scholarship Child, Says School Nurse

  Suburgatory, USA—A concerned school nurse asked for a meeting with the mother of Tom Mason, a scholarship student at Bundy Academy, upon deciding that her dog is fed better than the student.

  “A dog is a child, my child, and of course I feed Roxie only hormone-free grass-fed beef, real cheeses and yogurts, pureed vegetables, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, and flax seed,” said Jenny Maurice, who added that on special nights he gets “prepared dinners,” including one described this way on the menu at the high-end Delicious Ruff Doggie Bistro: “Ground Shoulder of Farm-Raised Beef served over Couscous and Oven-Roasted Leeks. Served with a sauté of Fresh Pan-Wilted Kale, Fresh Garbanzo Beans, Roasted Polenta, and Hint of Garlic. Then drizzled with High Oleic Kosher Olive Oil.” Maurice said, “I know, I know, it sounds a tiny bit excessive, but it really keeps Roxie’s coat shiny.”

  So with all her attention to Roxie’s diet, “and my own,” she added, Maurice was disturbed when she saw Tom’s monthly diet diary, which is required of all the students. “You’re damn right I requested a meeting with his mother!” said Maurice.

  This reporter asked whether she also requested that the boy’s father attend.

  “Oh come on,” she said, exasperated. “Father? What father? What planet are you on? Even if there was a father, and I doubt it, I wouldn’t call him. They’re pretty much all useless, no matter where they come from.”

  Maurice decided that Mason’s mother wasn’t going to be receptive after it took a week to set up the meeting. “Oh, because I’m a bad mother? Is that what she thinks?” said mother Terry Quillan. “You know, he is with his dad half the time but I’m guessing she didn’t call him in for a meeting. Which took me a week to set up
because we live twenty miles from school and I work. At Clucky’s Chicken. They don’t give you a ton of ‘me-time’ at Clucky’s Chicken.”

  As Maurice and Quillan sat down together, Maurice placed a sheet down showing the new USDA “plate” with its nutritional recommendations. “Ms. Maurice, I’m fully aware of what’s healthy and what’s not,” said Quillan.

  “Well, not to overstep …” said Maurice hesitantly, “but Tom’s diet diary had a lot of carbs and not much high-quality protein like, say, wild salmon, and no real ‘rainbow’ of fruits and vegetables. It looks mostly frozen or from cans and certainly not organic or locally sourced. Now since I care so much about this issue, I took it upon myself to talk with the folks at Whole Foods to put together a possible meal plan for you!”

  The list included Pineapple-Chicken Kabobs with Quinoa, Fruit, and Hemp Seed Muesli, and Lebanese-Style Grass-Fed Ground Beef Kabobs.

  “I thought the chicken and grass-fed ground beef would be more affordable for you. Things like wild sea scallops can really add up. I know firsthand!” said Maurice, hoping to be helpful.

  Quillan looked at the list in enraged wonder. “This food would wipe out a week’s worth of food stamps in two meals. Tell me, is my son doing poorly in school? Is he overweight? No, he is neither. He eats what I can afford and what he’ll actually eat. And what he eats at his father’s house half of the time. This meeting’s over.”

  As Quillan stormed out, Maurice lovingly fingered the frame on her desk showing Roxie’s photo. “Oh Roxie. You are so lucky to have me.”

  Discount Doula “A Really Bad Choice”

  Suburgatory, USA—A couple admits that hiring a “discount doula” was a “really bad choice,” making the delivery of their first child unforgettably awful. But their nightmare had an unexpectedly happy ending.

  “Yes, looking back, trying to save money on a doula was a big mistake,” said Alysia Verderese. “But I just thought that anyone who calls themselves a doula is probably a caring, thoughtful person. Anyone who even knows what a doula is is probably a caring, thoughtful person, right? ”