Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?
Page 19
Then I remind them that if they decide not to play ball and withhold those valuable nutty quotes, then my book will sell poorly and they face the Elder Care Economy Package: living in my sister Dinah’s basement. Dinah has protested this arrangement in the past, but I’ve told her repeatedly that I live in a cramped New York City apartment without a basement, while she has a suburban house. Plus, old people shrink as they age, so the folks won’t take up too much room. And Dinah won’t have to pay any extra money, because she can be their round-the-clock nurse herself. See? It all works out.
This is the sort of difficult but necessary conversation that you must have with siblings when your parents get older. I’m just grateful we’re all so close. Then it’s less painful to sit down with your sister, look her in the eye, and say, You do it. I don’t want to. Taking care of old people isn’t really my “thing.” That kind of comfort level—well, it’s what family is all about.
ALSO BY JANCEE DUNN
Don’t You Forget About Me: A Novel
But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl’s
Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous
About the Author
JANCEE DUNN grew up in Chatham, New Jersey. From 1989 to 2003, she was a staff writer at Rolling Stone. Her work has appeared in GQ, for which she wrote a monthly sex advice column; Vogue; The New York Times; and O: The Oprah Magazine, for which she writes a monthly ethics column. She has also been a VJ for MTV2 and an entertainment correspondent for Good Morning America. Dunn is the author of But Enough About Me, a 2006 memoir about her life as a chronically nervous celebrity interviewer, and Don’t You Forget About Me, a novel released in 2008. She lives with her husband, the writer Tom Vanderbilt, in a converted church in Brooklyn, New York.
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
* * *
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.