Suburgatory

by Linda Keenan

  “My mom never heard of doulas,” said husband John.

  “I rest my case.”

  The couple was hoping for as natural a birth as possible and thought a doula labor-and-delivery coach could help, especially because Alysia’s mother was dead, and she would have had no women in the room with her. But with money tight, the Verdereses found a Craigslist ad that read “Doula For Less Moola.” John seemed embarrassed upon being reminded of this. “Yeah, I guess a doula with a corny, rhyming name should have been a tip-off. And the University of Phoenix reference.”

  But Alysia appreciated the honesty of discount doula Maggie Brown and got a “warm vibe” from her ad:

  I am offering my services at far less than the going rate, because I admit to being new to the delivery room. But I do have certification from the University of Phoenix and proven experience in very stressful human situations. I love meeting new people! And I look forward to making your birth experience an unforgettable one!

  Alysia Verderese prided herself on taking chances on people. “I’ve always tried to help the little guy, and every doula has to have a first time, right?”

  Once labor began, the couple arrived at the hospital and met Maggie Brown there. “Ummmm, I expected a kind-looking, natural older woman,” said Alysia. “Translation: an old lady, no bra, with an ass-length gray braid,” said John.

  Instead, Maggie Brown “looked like Joan Jett. Only meaner,” said John. “Or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” said Alysia. “I thought she was going to man-snap all of a sudden and rip John’s face off.”

  But Alysia did notice that the tattoos, scary at first glance, were actually half the cast of Fraggle Rock all over both her arms. “I mean, how mean could she really be?” asked Alysia.

  Brown came in with supplies, which Alysia in her doula daydreams imagined might be aromatic oils, candles, and washcloths in an earth-toned, organic fabric bag. Instead it was a plastic Walgreen’s bag with Cheetos, Capri Suns, the latest issue of US Magazine, tampons—“I was out,” explained Maggie—and a package of diapers. Alysia took the diapers and said, “Maggie, we’re in a hospital. They have diapers here. Also, these are for eight-month-old babies.”

  “Oh, does that really matter?” said Maggie. She threw herself down in the chair and started reading her US Magazine and eating Cheetos. “You want some Cheetos?” she asked Alysia, who replied, “No, Maggie, I can’t eat during labor.”

  “Oh! Sucks to be you!” said Maggie. “Must have missed learning that one at ITT Technical.”

  “Your ad said it was University of Phoenix,” John said.

  “What’s the difference?” Maggie said.

  “She got me there,” John admitted.

  When Alysia started contracting, Maggie stood up and silently watched her, staring directly at her face. “Wow, this looks like it really hurts. Hurts like a total motherfucker. You poor, poor lady.”

  The nurse came in to see if she wanted her epidural. “Oh no no, no epidural. I have my doula here with me—” Alysia smiled tentatively “—to help me get through it.” The nurse gave Maggie a slow up-and-down look and said, “You look like Lisbeth Salander, the ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,’” “Oh my God, THANK YOU!” Maggie said, momentarily elated. “Wait, is the epidural the pain stuff? Dude, don’t be crazy! You have to get it!”

  Alysia: Maggie, I told you I wanted a natural birth. Do you even know what a doula is?

  Maggie: Well, the lady whose dog I walk—she’s kind of rich like you—she had one and it sounded so, so, caring and thoughtful.

  Alysia: Yes! See, John? Caring and thoughtful. [John rolls his eyes.] Exactly. But I’m not rich. I mean, maybe to you I am.

  Maggie: Well, anyway, dude it’s totes your body and for whatever reason you seem to want to suffer, and I really really don’t like to watch people in pain or suffer! You wouldn’t say ‘no drugs’ at the dentist’s office getting something pulled out of your mouth, would you? [She starts to tear up.]

  Alysia: Maggie, what did you mean in your ad when you said that you had ‘proven experience in very stressful human situations’?

  Maggie: Oh … well, I was in Iraq. One day our supply convoy got hit. I was OK, but, it was bad. So now I just want to do happy things like help babies and mommies and shit.

  John said, “Great, so now I had no chance of throwing her out of the room. First, she’s Lisbeth Salander, weirdo punk doula, and now she’s Lisbeth Salander, American fucking hero.”

  As Alysia’s contractions got stronger and stronger, Maggie covered her face and kept repeating “I can’t watch! I can’t watch!”

  Alysia, panting, said, “It’s OK, Maggie, you’ll be OK!”

  When the Verdereses’ son finally emerged, and Maggie saw the blood, John said, “I swear to God, she got the thousand-yard stare.”

  But then, once little Cory was cleaned up, Maggie slowly walked toward him and, like Alysia and John, looked utterly transformed. “Hi, little man! Hi, little man! I’d take such great care of you if I could just figure out what to do and get my act together a little bit and let this piercing heal up a little better, and I’m really good with dogs,” she said, softly touching his fingers and toes and nose. “Do you guys maybe need a babysitter sometime?”

  Reader, they hired her.

  Mommy War Combatants Embrace Mutually Assured Destruction

  Suburgatory, USA—Combatants in the Mommy Wars have achieved a carefully calibrated detente, with each side amassing large stockpiles of vastly destructive Guilt, Pity, and Scorn bombs.

  Both the stay-at-home moms and the working moms have absorbed the lessons of Mutually Assured Destruction, which helped keep the peace during the Cold War. That means the combatants make it clear the weaponry they possess, so that each side knows an attack by one would result in total annihilation of both.

  Valerie Snow, accused war criminal and guerrilla leader of the stay-at-home moms (SAHMs), described her side’s weaponry while cutting decorative radishes for the evening’s PTO volunteer appreciation dinner. “If they so much as hint that we might have something better to do with our time than making decorative radishes, by God, they will live to regret it.”

  Snow describes the catastrophic impact that would result from deployment of their Guilt, Pity, and Scorn (GPS) bombs against the working moms.

  “Well, our carefully engineered GPS bombs would unleash some devastating, shattering intelligence. They would inform the working moms each time their children said, ‘Why can’t my mommy volunteer all the time like you do?’ (Which happens all the time, just sayin’.) They would disclose the intimate details the child shared with a stay-at-home mom because, where the hell is their own mother this time? Oh yeah, working, because of her pathetic priorities. They would catalog all the joys the working mothers had missed while on the job—the first soccer goal, first crush, weekday summer visits to the local pond. And they would throw in some anecdotes from empty nesters dying to have their kids back and wishing they had done things differently, like be with their children.

  Amber Ostroff, who leads the working moms (WMs), betrayed no fear of the other side’s lethal capacity. “Oh please, you think that’s gonna scare us?” said Ostroff, speaking from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport where she was en route to a client meeting. “We are corporate lawyers and doctors and college professors. Remember college, ladies??? What was that even for again? Right, you got an Ivy League degree in making decorative radishes.” Snow flinched upon hearing the statement and the radish crack, but maintained control.

  The WMs’ own GPS weapon, designed by a working mom engineer at a leading defense contractor, would strafe the SAHMs with the charge that they insult poor and working women by suggesting there’s any “choice” in staying home for most women. It would inform them that they are weak role models and an “insult to every feminist who fought to get them in the workplace in the first place,” said Ostroff. It would force stay-at-home moms to talk about “anything other than their kids.” Says Ostroff
, “Good luck with that one, ladies!”

  Their GPS would also feature new research suggesting that overparenting is hurting, not helping kids, and statistics showing that stay-at-home moms who give up careers take an enormous financial risk if their husbands decide to divorce them and snap up a younger model. When that happens, says Ostroff, “The SAHMs turn from being parasites in their own home to parasites on the whole nation.” It would also question whether they had remained sexually appealing to their husbands. “Ever see a working mom in a hideous pair of mom jeans? No. We have some self-respect.”

  With these equally fearsome weapons aimed at each other, both sides have been able to manage a very fragile peace. “While your leaders fight the public battle, we suggest that when our SAHMs see a WM, that they just be polite and ask one token ‘How is work?’ question, and try to leave it at that. If the WM starts droning on about how challenging her latest project is or bragging about a big raise, we’ll advise the SAHM to just excuse herself and go back to collecting box tops.”

  “Agreed,” says Amber Ostroff. “Keep it all on the surface, smile and nod, smile and nod, and as long as they don’t start passive-aggressively guilting me about these stupid school events I’ve missed, we might all make it out of this alive.”

  SHOUT OUT

  Walk All Over Me, I Don’t Care,

  but Don’t Call Me a Perv

  The Halden Street sidewalk, known to local police as the “Sidewalk Perv,” was installed over an eight-month period two years ago.

  Listen up, there’s a reason this is called Shout Out, townspeople. I am the Halden Street Sidewalk, not the Sidewalk Perv. I might be a little rough around the edges and have a few chips and cracks. I am made of gravel and rock, after all, and yes I do come from that industrial park across town lines where only the trucks go and the Oxy addicts squat. Excuse me for not being classy enough for you, Halden Street.

  Now I’m not saying I’m easy to like. I do hate a lot of you. I hate fat people pounding on me, but I hate those crazy joggers even more; scary bitches, faces all scrunched up in terror like they’re being chased by the big bad old-age monster. Guess what? He’s coming for you anyway! Also, I hate people in wheelchairs barreling over me all day long without a thought in the world. I hate snow and drunks who puke on me and those mouth-breathers who spit their gum on me, and most of all, of course, every damn dog on the street shitting in my face.

  But what I like, I like a lot. And that’s the ladies. Is that a crime? I like all types of ladies, except the fat ones and the crazy joggers. And, come summer time, pull up a chair, because I got the best view in town. Yeah, when I saw those pink french-tie hip hugger panties Cindy Kramer was wearing yesterday, yeah, you could say it made my day go a little faster. And if you ladies go all Lindsay Lohan and ditch the french-ties, the booty shorts, the boy leg briefs, g-string thong, or the classic high-waist bikini altogether, giving me a show of a lifetime, that’s my fault? It seems like you’re the Perv here, Miss Eileen Marple, not me.

  But I want to make one thing absolutely clear. I do not ever look at an underage girl. Who do you think I am, Roman Polanski? When a young lady in a Catholic school uniform walks over me, I turn my eyes deep into the bowels of the earth, and trust me, what’s down there is not pretty. I am no pedophile. I am a completely passive lover of women, not a menace. So stop walking all over me, curb your dogs somewhere else, and stop shitting on my good name.

  Mom Plans School Auction

  During Dreary Sex

  Suburgatory, USA—A local mom who is a skilled multitasker used her once a week lovemaking session with her husband to plan her school’s much-anticipated school auction.

  It’s hugely, massively important to the PTO’s budget, thought Sheryl Winnick as her husband Dave ran his finger up her calf and asked, “Did you shave?” That was a typical signal to begin their lovemaking, along with the comment, “Hmmmm, you smell good,” and a playful head nuzzle.

  “Yes, I shaved,” she said. This was his cue to perform mostly perfunctory oral sex on his wife. “Oh no, it’s not fun at all but I so appreciate his effort. It’s just a nice courtesy.” Now … I was thinking a good theme would be Arabian Nights, she thought, as he continued attempting and failing to pleasure her.

  Arabian Nights … would that sound too … Muslim? Well, screw those bigots, that’s so ignorant. Anyway, maybe the PTO moms could wear harem outfits. “That’s it, give it to me, honey …” This was her way of telling Dave it was time to perform her own perfunctory and generally substandard oral sex on her husband. “Yeah it’s lame,” he admits. “She’s bad at it, and tonight I know she is planning the auction while blowing me, but you know, it’s so important to her. I’ll take what I can get.”

  At this point, says Dave, it was “go time,” and he entered Sheryl from the side, which was typically a two-minute prelude to the finale: climax for him and perhaps her, occasionally, through the tried-and-true missionary position. We’ll get the VFW Hall and have a preview the night before, thought Sheryl. We can do a spa package, haircut certificates from Snippety Crickets, what else? A grown-ups Wii party … that actually did great last year … ski house weekend… “OH YES!”

  At that point, Dave finished and Sheryl gave out a hearty, but secretly forced, gasp. Dave was satisfied despite the fact that Sheryl’s mind was clearly elsewhere, and pretended to have an orgasm. “You can see how devoted she is to the school and the kids. Marrying her was the best thing I ever did.”

  “Honey, should we watch the Daily Show now?”

  “Sure!” Sheryl said, snuggling up to her husband. I wonder if Jon Stewart would ever sign a book for us to auction off at Arabian Nights—he’s always defending teachers. Hmmmm, now how would I get in touch with him?

  Guidance Counselor Feared, Loathed

  as World’s Sole Remaining Hyperpower

  Suburgatory, USA—Area guidance counselor Mavis Goodstone has been declared the world’s undisputed hyperpower by some of our region’s most prominent residents, who were discussing Goodstone’s massive, destabilizing power while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

  Goodstone is renowned locally as the high school guidance counselor with the “golden touch” in terms of college admissions. But few parents have been able to decipher her motivations or her delphic comments, and many are left enraged by the capricious and arbitrary ways that she decides who to help and who to spurn.

  “That frigid bitch used her power to keep my kid out of Harvard, and I teach there,” said historian of empires past and present, Denis Ferguson. “Since then, Goodstone has amassed unparalleled military and economic might. A unipolar world is a dangerous world, and Goodstone is a very dangerous and, I should add, very unpleasant woman.”

  Hedge fund manager Gareth Faber agreed. “Yeah, you know people hated Bush. But at least that decider was pretty personable. This decider won’t even make eye contact.” Faber, whose son is applying to Brown, still has no idea if his child is on Goodstone’s anointed list.

  “Goodstone’s currency is just murdering the dollar and the Euro and you know, my wife Jenny just texted me to say Golden Goblin [Goodstone’s nickname] appeared a little aloof this morning when she went in to discuss Tristan’s applications, and now she is fuh-reaking out. Total disregard for human rights.”

  Some predicted, and hoped, that Goodstone’s overweening power and hubris would lead to her eventual downfall as a hyperpower. “She’s pushing the envelope. Her preemptive strike on Syria, her runaway deficit spending on arming herself, and her tactical blunders—snubbing Anna Wintour’s daughter?! Who snubs Anna Wintour? Oh I know. Mavis Fucking Goodstone. In her JC Penney pantsuits,” said foreign policy expert Hassein Makaria. “All these bold but shortsighted moves could signal the end of a long, and, as history will prove, ugly reign. Gareth … um … did Jenny mention how Goblin acted toward [Makaria’s wife] Valerie? Her appointment was right before Jenny’s.”

  Faber became agitated. “Where d
id she even go to college? Have you heard her do assembly at that open house? Can she even speak proper English? How did that woman get to be the global hegemon? I just don’t get it.”

  The participants at Davos tried to get their underlings to negotiate with Goodstone while in attendance at the World Economic Forum but their diplomatic entreaties were harshly rebuffed.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Write a column for the Times that just says, ‘Bitch, Call Me Back’? Like that would do it, I’m sure she doesn’t read the Times. She’s USA Today all the way,” said New York Times oracle Thomas Friedman.

  Friedman went on, “Folks, pull up a chair and listen. Humiliation is the most underrated geopolitical force, and if I don’t get a callback soon, she’s catching hell, and I’m calling for sanctions. That piano-legged shrew. She will be her own undoing.”

  Dr. Drama

  “When life hands you a problem, let’s make it more interesting!”

  Dear Dr. Drama:

  I think my husband, I’ll call him “Tom,” is flirting with other women on Facebook. I should say, I know he is flirting with other women on Facebook. It is making me really crazy! What should I do?

  —Face-Freaked in Suburgatory

  Dear Face-Freaked:

  So let me guess. The pictures “Tom” has up on Facebook are the best pictures ever taken of him to the point that you barely recognize him? And for some reason you don’t seem to be in any of them? And aside from the flirting, does Tom post updates like “Didn’t ever think I could bench-press that much!” or “Margaritas chilling in the fridge, marinated steak on the grill, relaxing on the deck. LIFE IS GOOD.” Am I right?

  Well, you could ask Tom to stop flirting, sit down like grown-ups, and ask, “What’s missing here that you need to take to Facebook for stimulation?” and boring boring blah blah. But I have a much more satisfying idea.