by Andy Simmons
Since I had no idea what poison ivy looked like, I kept my plan of attack simple: Anything remotely planty goes. Ferns? Gone! Hosta? Gone! Rosebush? Gone! Trees? Gone! Mailbox? Gone! I was Sherman marching on Atlanta, laying waste to anything in my path. What the weed killer didn’t get, I ripped out by hand. What I couldn’t rip out, I ran over with my car.
“That’s the Japanese maple!” screamed Jennifer.
“Now it’s mulch,” I said, grinning devilishly over the whirring engine of my ’95 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
By the end of the day, I’d rid the yard of all the poison ivy, save for one sorry little clump. Like the heads of the vanquished left on spikes outside medieval castle walls, it served as a warning to any of its kin that might dare to show their shiny leaves around here.
Hot and tired and feeling pretty damn good about myself, I unraveled the four rolls of duct tape that had adhered to my body and stepped out of my sweat-soaked clothes—twenty-seven pounds lighter than when I entered them. The shrieks of horror from my seventy-eight-year-old neighbor spying my naked body startled me so much that I tripped down a small embankment, only to be saved by the soft, pillowy embrace of the remaining clump of poison ivy.
As I bathed in calamine lotion, Jennifer figured out that all my tireless work had reduced our home’s value by a third. So she hired one of the landscapers to return the yard to its previous state of disrepair. We went with the guy who charged by the blade of grass. With no lawn left, how expensive could he be?
Buff Your Shoes with a Banana
My parents dropped by to help with a project I’d put off: cleaning the house. Now, Mom and Dad are—hmm, how do I put this delicately?—cheap!
So when I offered to pick up cleaning supplies, they said, “Never mind. You have everything we need right here in the house. Where’s the vinegar?”
“Here,” I said, bringing out the twelve-year-old balsamic. Mom pushed past me and found the distilled white vinegar. She instructed me to make a sandwich and get out of her way.
As I ate my ham on white, I watched her tackle a carpet stain with the vinegar. I thought it a bit odd, but less so than her sniffing my bookshelf. When one book caused her nose to wrinkle, she walked it over to the kitchen and deposited it into the freezer.
“That’ll get rid of that stale odor for a while,” she said. I nodded in agreement, although I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to. “Hey, there’s broken glass here. Did you do it?”
I shrugged. Grabbing the sandwich out of my hand, Mom threw the ham to the dog, wiped the mayo across my scalp, and carefully mopped up the glass shards with the fresh bread.
“Hey!” I protested.
“Mayonnaise is a hair conditioner,” she said. “And picking up tiny slivers of glass is easy with white bread.”
Mom had lost her marbles, and I thought it only fitting that her husband should know. I found Dad in the yard, mixing an ounce of vodka, some liquid dish soap, and two cups of water in a spray bottle.
“I’m hunting weeds,” he said, seeing my puzzled expression.
“With vodka?”
“Apply this mixture on a sunny day.” Spritz. “It won’t kill the weeds.” Spritz. “But the alcohol does dry ’em up.” Spritz, spritz.
“You do realize that’s the Grey Goose?” He didn’t care.
Is everyone crazy? I thought as I walked back into the house, where Mom was buffing my shoes with banana peels.
“Mom, what are you…” BAM! I slipped on a banana peel. “Ooh, my back…”
“Don’t move,” she yelled. “I’ll get the meat tenderizer!”
But first she pulled off my shoe, grabbed a sock, and disappeared into the kitchen. I tried to run for my life, but Mom was quick. She returned with a paste made from meat tenderizer and water, and rubbed it on the small of my back. She then placed my sock, which she’d filled with dried kidney beans and microwaved for thirty seconds, over the paste.
Before I had a chance to call 911, a curious thing happened—my back began to feel better! The enzymes in the meat tenderizer were soothing my aching muscles. And the beanbag sock worked like a heating pad.
Suddenly, I saw things anew. My shoes were clean. And though the carpet smelled like salad dressing, the stain was gone. Out in the yard stood Dad, sipping his weed killer and admiring his handiwork: shriveled weeds.
As crazy as it sounds, my parents were right. We don’t always have to buy specialized cleaners or expensive, chemical-filled concoctions. We already own many of the things we need to clean a house, mend a household item, or soothe a bruised back.
To celebrate my clean house, I invited them to stay for dinner. They declined. They had company coming over and had to make a big salad.
“First,” said Mom, “I have to throw the lettuce into the washing machine.”
Huh? *
*Place a pillowcase inside another, fill with rinsed lettuce leaves, tie both pillowcases with string, and throw into the washing machine with a towel for balance. Run the spin cycle, and you’ve turned your washer into a giant salad spinner.
How Sweet It Is
“What are you doing?”
“I’m reading the menu.”
“No, with your hand,” I said.
“I’m holding the menu,” my father said defensively.
“With the other hand.”
We were seated at a booth in a diner. Dad was hiding something in that paw, which he stealthily slid across the tabletop before stuffing it into his pocket.
“You’re stealing Sweet’N Low, aren’t you?’
“It’s not stealing; they want you to take it. That’s why they leave it out here.”
“They leave it out here for you to put in the coffee that they serve you.”
“How else am I expected to get Sweet’N Low for my coffee at home?”
“Dad, I know you don’t get around as much anymore. But let me clue you into something: They have these things called supermarkets. And inside these stores are aisles. And in the aisles are shelves. Lots of shelves filled with goods. And next to the sugar…”
“Everybody does it.”
“I don’t.”
“And you never have Sweet’N Low in your house. Next time I come over I’d appreciate it if you stopped by a coffee shop and picked up a few packets.”
“If it’s not stealing, then why are you sneaking them? Why not go from table to table stuffing all the Sweet’N Low packets into your pockets?”
“Because those customers wouldn’t have any to take home with them.”
Dad was a remarkably ethical criminal. I’d recently read an article about a thief who, after robbing a home, cleaned the house and even did the dishes. If Dad took to breaking and entering, I’d like to think he’d do the same.
“He saw me,” he said. Dad’s fingers were in the sweetener bowl when he noticed the manager eyeballing him. “Quick, take the Sweet’N Low.” He shoved seven packets of pink gold my way.
“Why don’t you just put the Sweet’N Low back?”
“And admit I’m wrong?”
“You are wrong!”
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” asked the manager. I ripped open the seven packets of Sweet’N Low and dumped the contents into my half-empty coffee cup and took a sip. All that was missing was some perfume dripped into my eyes and I would have had the full lab-rat experience.
“Yeah, two more cups,” said Dad, cool as a cucumber. The manager spotted the empty sweetener bowl. Dad smiled. The man smiled back, then took a full bowl from another table and placed it on ours before leaving. Dad quickly emptied the contents into his pockets.
I’m not sure why he steals Sweet’N Low. I think it’s because Dad comes from a long line of petty thieves who looked upon restaurants and supermarkets as bargain-basement dollar stores. On those rare occasions his mother dined out, it was to stock up on provisions. She’d bring along a handbag large enough to store bread, pats of butter, salt and pepper shakers, any silverware she might be short on at
the time, and the occasional salad plate. One of his aunts thought nothing of strolling around the supermarket snacking on grapes and cherries before settling down for lunch at the olive bar.
Dad rifled through the bowl again, making sure he hadn’t missed anything worth filching. He won’t take the yellow or blue. He’s loyal to his brand.
It’s funny, other than his long-time love for Sweet’N Low, there isn’t one specific thing that I really remember about my father growing up. He had a good sense of humor. He was always around. He never spanked me. Hell, I can’t recall him ever really yelling at me, except maybe when I deserved it. And even then it was drudgery for him. But that one thing?
Friends of mine have fond memories of an incredible trip to the Grand Canyon that their fathers took them on, or the ski trip to Vail. We never did any of that. Dad was a true son of Brooklyn, before the hipsters took over. And as tough as he was, the Grand Canyon had snakes and soil, and he wanted no part of any of that. As for skiing, why be cold when you could stay inside a nice, warm apartment in New York? Our vacations, when we took them, were usually spent near a racetrack or up at the Holiday Inn in Tarry town, about forty minutes from home. It had a pool and it had…a pool. What else did we need? Plus there was a basketball hoop and a field big enough to toss a ball.
We were a formidable two-on-two basketball team, Dad and I. I’d feed him the ball, and he’d take it to the hoop. In football, it was reversed. He was the quarterback, a southpaw whose delivery confounded everyone. I was the fleet-footed receiver who longed to be on the other end of one of his perfect passes.
We were complementary teammates, and teammates we would remain, even when I got older.
On a visit home from college, my dog had gotten sick all over the white living-room rug—my mother’s pride and joy. I was furiously cleaning it up when Dad happened by. “What are you doing?” he said, blissfully unaware of the horror to come.
“Phineas crapped all over the rug!” I whispered anxiously.
His smile disappeared, and his mouth formed a large oval shape as he placed both hands on his cheeks. Depending on your reference point, he was either The Scream or Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. He then looked furtively around. “I’ll distract your mother,” he said, before running off into the other room.
Dad had my back, always. That I do remember. No matter what I said, or what idiocy I engaged in, I was protected.
“Here you are, gentlemen.” The manager placed two new cups of coffee down in front of us and turned to leave.
“Excuse me,” I said, freezing him. I held up the bowl of sweeteners. “There are no Sweet’N Lows. Mind getting us some?”
The Dow of Pooh
My daughter’s favorite bedtime stories have always included Winnie the Pooh. Whether these adventures came from the nimble mind of A. A. Milne or something I was forced to concoct on those days we traveled and left her book at home, Pooh, Tigger, Roo, and the other denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood had to see her off to slumberland.
And though she’s reached the grand old age of nine, Quinn still enjoys a good Pooh tale. With apologies to Mr. Milne, here’s one I dreamed up recently during the waning days of the Great Recession. In this story, it is revealed that one of the great stock-market shamans isn’t Warren Buffet or even Jim Cramer, but is, in fact, none other than the consummately calm, reflective bear—Winnie the Pooh.
While Eeyore frets, “Zynga or Genentech?”
And Piglet hesitates, “If I wait, the price of the stock will surely fall.”
Pooh simply is, “I’ll just buy a mutual fund.”
In Which Pooh Learns How Companies Raise the Value of Their Stock
Pooh and Rabbit have gone into business together making and selling Cottleston pies. Much to their surprise and pleasure, the business has done quite well.
“Hallo, Rabbit,” said Pooh, entering Rabbit’s office.
“I’m a chief executive officer, Pooh. Please address me as ‘Mr. Rabbit,’” Rabbit chided.
“Hallo, Mr. Rabbit,” said Pooh.
“Hello, Pooh,” said Rabbit. “These reports you gave me show production and profits soaring! We’ve actually sold three pies! If this keeps up, I predict our stock will rise forty-two percent. And by year’s end we will have sold five pies!”
“Maybe we shall build new Cottleston pie factories and hire hundreds of chefs and make more Cottleston pies,” said Pooh, dreaming of a world full of Cottleston pies.
“I’ve a better idea. I’m laying off workers,” declared Rabbit.
“But…” said a confused Pooh.
“Wall Street loves unemployment,” explained Rabbit. “In fact, I’ll hire Roo, Kanga, and Tigger just so I can fire them.”
This was much too much for a Bear of Very Little Brain.
“Laying off workers lets everyone know our operation is efficient,” said Rabbit.
“How many workers are you planning to let go?” asked Pooh.
“The entire workforce,” answered Rabbit.
Pooh tried to figure out how many workers would be left if the entire workforce were laid off.
“And this is just the beginning,” said Rabbit, proving his point that it was, in fact, just the beginning by moving on to the middle. “We’ll expand! We’ll buy other corporations, then close them down as well.”
There was something nagging at Pooh, but he couldn’t think what it was. Oh, yes…
“But who will produce the Cottleston pies?” For a Pooh, this was a most important question.
“Who cares about Cottleston pies! We’re improving efficiency. By the way, I’ll have to lay you off, too. I’m sorry, Pooh. You’re a nice bear and have done a great job, even if I did have to keep reminding you not to taste every single pie that came out of the oven.”
“But I’m the chief funancial officer,” said Pooh.
“That’s chief financial officer, Pooh,” corrected Rabbit. “And frankly, having a chief financial officer when there are no finances to preside over isn’t efficient. Once I’ve announced that you’ve been laid off, I expect the company’s stock to double. Then I’ll fire myself, dissolve the company, and the stock will go through the roof!”
“But then there’s no company,” said Pooh, still confused by modern economic theory.
“Perfect! A nonexisting company is the model of efficiency. No overtime, no benefits to be paid out, no overhead! If every corporation laid off all their workers and shut their doors, America would be much better off. We could compete with anyone, anywhere!”
Rabbit stopped. He had just thought of something troublesome.
“Hmm…of course, my new wealth will send me into a higher tax bracket.”
“What tax racquet are you in now?” asked Pooh.
“The zero-percent tax bracket. I’ll have to take deductions. I know—I shall donate my body to a taxidermy school.”
“What shall I do?” asked Pooh.
“If I were you,” advised Rabbit, “I would start buying stock in the company.”
In Which Tigger Exudes Irrational Exuberance
With interest rates at all-time lows, Tigger convinces Piglet to cash out his safe bond and income mutual funds and go where the real money is: day-trading. Piglet is quite nervous. After all, it is hard to be an aggressive stock trader when you are only a Very Small Animal.
“Tiggers like this Microwiz stock best of all,” said Tigger as he bounced on the buy button of his computer.
“Then I shall buy Microwiz, too,” said Piglet. “Now, let us look for Pooh, who…”
“SELL! SELL! SELL! Tiggers don’t like Microwiz stock!” exclaimed Tigger, bouncing on the sell button.
“But I thought Tiggers liked Microwiz stock best of all,” said a confused Piglet.
“No, Tiggers like Macrowiz stocks best of all. BUY! BUY! BUY!” said Tigger, while purchasing stock in Macrowiz.
So Piglet did what Piglets do, which is to do what they’re told. He sold Microwiz at a loss and bought Macrowiz.
“Now, Pooh must surely be…”
“SELL! SELL! SELL!” blurted Tigger as he bounced all about the room, clear out the window and back in through another window. “SELL! SELL! SELL!!!! Tiggers don’t like Macrowiz.”
“But Tigger, I thought Tiggers liked Macrowiz best of all?”
“Tiggers like Midwiz best of all!” And so Piglet bought Midwiz.
By the end of one day as a day trader, Piglet is frazzled, broke, and drunk on acorn wine. Piglets, one should be warned, are nasty drunks—like many Very Small Animals. Poor Roo discovered this when a besotted Piglet yelled at him to “leave my damn lawn and go play where the Woozle wasn’t!”
In Which Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place and Pooh Leaves a Small Present Before Saying Good-Bye
After witnessing the effect the stock market had on his friends, Pooh wished to pay a visit. So he packed up his small fortune (his seventeen pots of golden, delicious honey) then he and Christopher Robin left the forest and ventured to the New York Stock Exchange.
“Had I thought of it, I would have brought a stick from the Hundred Acre Wood and exchanged it for a city stick,” said Pooh, looking up at the New York Stock Exchange sign.
“That’s ‘stock,’ you silly bear,” said Christopher Robin.
Pooh knew instantly that the stock market was an enchanted place. For its floors were not like the floors of the forest, gorse and bracken and heather, but carpeted with torn pieces of paper, and it echoed with the sound of scampering feet running this way and that. Standing there in the New York Stock Exchange, he saw the future of the world. He saw what lay in store for himself, his friends, and those who one day might be his friends.