by Jen Mann
“Oh yeah?” I said.
“Yeah. I think he knows how independent you are, and he wanted you to have some of the fun building the house, too. This way it can be exactly like you want it. You want my help?”
“Sure!” I said.
“Great. We’ll work on it today…right after my nap. Okay?”
“Sounds great, Dad!”
To this day, the dollhouse sits in my parents’ attic with a mangled roof, an unfinished porch, and a dilapidated doghouse.
The Christmas I was twelve is commonly referred to as the “Neon Christmas.” I was in junior high and artists like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper were all the rage. Every girl in America wanted to be them. My dad took one look at Madonna on MTV and called her a “hooker who would never last.” Ha. Looks like Madonna and her crazy, creepy, super-toned fifty-plus-year-old arms are having the last laugh, Dad!
That was also the year I became a label whore and fashion victim all at the same time. Up until that point I had been in private school and had to wear a uniform to school every day, so I never got to cut loose and embrace a fad. On the weekends, I pretty much wore whatever my mother picked out for me: silly tops with my initials embroidered on Peter Pan collars, corduroy vests (sometimes with rainbow suspenders and sometimes without), snazzy velour track suits, and homemade jumpers. You name the bad look, I wore it.
In 1985, I left private school and hopped the school bus to a public New Jersey junior high. For that first day of school, I tossed my terrible past fashion faux pas out the window and joined the MTV nation with my industrial-sized can of Aqua Net, a pair of acid-washed jeans, and a fashionably ripped T-shirt. I had purchased the jeans and T-shirt at the local mall but had foolishly disregarded the labels on these clothes. To me, one pair of acid-washed jeans was just like any other pair. Silly, silly, stupid Jenni!
Luckily, my peers at public school quickly educated me. I found a group of girls who took me under their collective giant Jersey-girl bangs—I mean wings—and explained to me that I was totally grody to the max.
Julie: Oh. My. God. Like, what are you wearing?
Me: Acid-washed jeans.
Julie: Yeah, but from where? What brand are those? Those are not Guess!
Me: No, they’re not. I think I bought them at Deb. They’re, like, half the price of Guess.
Carrie: Ewww. Gag me with a spoon! Of course they’re, like, half the price! Deb is totally for burnouts and hosers.
Andi: No, I think your jeans are really bitchin’…Sike!
Carrie: Burn!
Me: I didn’t know. I came from private school.
Andi: Oh, thank God. That makes so much more sense. I thought maybe you were SPED.
Me: SPED?
Julie: Duh. Special ed. Did you ride the short bus today?
Me: Oh. Uh, no. It was a fairly big bus, actually.
Andi: No shit, Sherlock. We ride the same bus.
Julie: Look, you’re not a complete loss. Your jeans are bogus and your shirt is just…ick. Your bod is sort of okay, but we can fix you.
Me: You can?
Andi: Totally! You should have seen Carrie last year. She was so grody! Everyone wanted to put a bag over her head until we got hold of her.
Carrie: Now I’m, like, totally rad.
Me: You do look…rad.
Julie: No duh!
Andi: Do you want to be fixed?
Me: Of course!
Andi: We have to hit the Livingston Mall, because the Morris County Mall is always crawling with mall maggots.
Julie: Do you have access to a credit card?
Me: I’m not sure. I mean, my mom has one. She usually goes shopping with me.
Carrie: We need to be able to shop in total freedom. No parental units.
Me: Okay, I guess I could ask if I could use her card.
Andi: We find it’s better to just borrow the card and then return it at a later date. The parental unit rarely notice that a card’s even missing.
Julie: Unless someone totally narcs on you.
Me: Um…that’s okay. Yeah, I’ll just ask my mom. She’ll totally say yes, she’s…uh…gnarly like that.
Julie: Don’t call your mom gnarly, that’s so weird.
Me: Right.
Carrie: Ugh. Like, what is your damage?
Julie: Totally! You’re such a noid!
Andi: All right, guys, take a chill pill. That’s enough baggin’ on Jenni for today. She’s our special project. We can’t be mean to her. We’re helping her. Remember? It’s not her fault that she dresses like a troll. You do own some neon, right?
Me: Neon? Uh…No, I don’t.
Julie: You’ve got to get some. Madonna wears neon. It’s totally bad!
Carrie: Look, first things first. We need to get you a pair of Guess jeans—real ones this time—and some neon, and then you’ll need some of those rubber bracelets that Madonna wears.
Julie: Like, don’t forget her hair!
Carrie: Yeah, nice head. We should totally get some scrunchies and get your hair off your face.
Andi: Is that a perm?
Me: Yeah, my mom thought it was a good idea.
Carrie: Well, it wasn’t.
Andi: You need a Swatch, too!
Me: I have a watch. I got it a few years ago. It’s got Mickey Mouse on it, but I wear it ironically. Y’know?
Carrie: Ironic Mickey Mouse? Negatory.
Julie: You need four Swatches, actually. So you can have two on each arm. That’s a totally righteous look.
Andi: I’m so sure! Totally.
Carrie: What about miniskirts?
Julie: Not with those legs. We’ll get her some stirrup pants.
Andi: No doubt!
Me: That sounds…tubular.
Julie: Seriously, Jenni, stop that. You sound like a total spaz.
Me: Bite me, Julie.
Carrie: Ooh…face!
Andi: Bell’s ringing. We need to book.
Carrie: Yup. Time to bounce.
Julie: Let’s jam.
Me: Um…ciao!
All: Stop it, Jenni! You’re so weird!
Julie, Andi, and Carrie gave me such sage advice that day. I knew exactly what I had to do. I couldn’t steal my mom’s credit card, so instead I asked my family for clothes that Christmas. The more labels the better, the more neon the better, the trendier the better.
Word spread quickly from one grandparent to the next and trickled down to the aunts and uncles: Jenni is a hot mess, but there’s hope. My family took it upon themselves to raise my cool factor. They hit their local malls and bought anything they could find that was neon and/or acceptable name brands. That Christmas I received the following:
• One pair Guess jeans. (I was—and still am—very short, and there was only one style of Guess jeans that fit me properly. I’m thinking they were supposed to be capris, but capris hadn’t caught on yet. I didn’t care—all I knew was there was an upside-down triangle on my ass and I didn’t have six-inch cuffs on my pant legs. I was thrilled.)
• Four neon sweatshirts—yellow, green, orange, and pink.
• Five Limited sweaters that hung off one shoulder. (Yes, it was a bit chilly in the winter, but I was too cool to notice.)
• Three neon purses—one green and two orange.
• Three Swatch watches.
• Approximately twenty neon scrunchies—all colors, many repeats.
Within six months I was completely out of style again. That’s when I adopted the signature look that I still sport today: earth-tone cargo pants, black shirts, and sensible shoes. I vowed to never be trendy again, and as most of my friends and family can tell you, I’ve kept that vow for over twenty-five years.
For as long as I can remember, my mother has always made us pose for an annual family Christmas portrait. She does this so that she can include a copy with her annual Christmas letter to friends and family. I use the word portrait loosely. Never once did she trot us off to Olan Mills or even Sears Portrait Studio to have a p
rofessional snap us. Instead she’d wait until we were at some family gathering anytime between Halloween and early December, and then she’d ask whichever random relative who had the misfortune of sitting too close to us to take our picture. Nine times out of ten someone’s head was cut off or the picture was off-kilter or the focus was off. My mother would ask this poor sap to take “a few” just to make sure she had enough to choose from.
As I got older, my mother’s pictures became more elaborate. She liked us to coordinate our look so that we blended together. I don’t know what the deal was, but it seemed like everyone else got the style memo but me. My parents and brother would be in navy or red, and I’d show up in orange. We also had to have amazing backdrops. Gone were the days of Grandma or Grandpa snapping a pic of us on our front porch just before they drove away. Now we had to be in front of a roaring fire with stockings behind us or arranged by height on a garland-and-tinsel-shrouded staircase.
I have no clue why anyone (myself included) does this. Who really saves these pictures? Who receives the Punch family portrait and puts it on the refrigerator? Better yet, who thinks: Oh, wonderful! The Punch family photo has arrived! I am so glad I went ahead and bought that frame the other day. Now I can keep this picture for all time! No one, that’s who. Everyone who receives the Punch family portrait looks at it and says, Huh, Jen must be looking old since the Hubs used the soft-focus technique this year. Or even worse: Just the kids this year? What gives? There must be trouble in paradise. I’m not surprised. Jen has always been a bitch to live with. Poor Hubs—good for him for giving her the heave-ho.
I know that the only picture I ever save is the one that C.B. and his wife, Ida, send, because I’m actually related to them and I don’t mind putting them on my fridge. I would feel awkward gazing into the faces of my hairdresser and her family every morning when I get out the milk. I’ve never even met her husband and I didn’t know she had kids until she sent the picture. So the hairdresser’s picture joins everyone else’s in the pile that sits on my counter for a week or so while I contemplate saving them for some stupid project I found on Pinterest. And then I realize, who am I kidding? There is no way in hell I am ever going to use my cell phone to take a picture of someone’s Christmas portrait and save it in my phone as the picture that comes up when they call me. (I’m exhausted just thinking about it, so there’s no way I would actually do that!) Nor will I ever punch a hole in the upper left-hand corner of each picture or card so that I can thread them all together with precious holiday ribbon and make an adorable coffee-table keepsake flip book.
Nope, I just like to see how old, bald, fat, or thin everyone has gotten over the years and how big the kids are now and then I toss the cards in the recycle bin because I care about our planet.
But here is my dirty little secret. While I’m hardly a Christmas overachiever, when it comes to holiday cards I make my own family do the same thing. We sit in front of our “good” tree or our fireplace with the stockings behind us (my mother was right—a roaring fire does look better than a cold, dark hearth). I dictate the wardrobe, which is usually red and black, since the Hubs and I look best in black (so slimming!) and the kids can be our splash of color in their red. We set the timer on the camera and I make the Hubs take many, many shots since he and Adolpha can’t smile naturally. When they try to smile naturally, they both look like absolute freaks with huge teeth and dead eyes. It’s a frightening combination.
When I was a child, if my lack of style wasn’t enough to make me stand out in these pics, my hairdos made sure I wasn’t overlooked. I have naturally curly hair that tends to do whatever it wants. Back in the 1970s and ’80s, when I was growing up, there wasn’t much you could do for my type of hair. Nowadays, however, there are amazing products that smooth and condition unruly hair. There are shampoos and creams and gels that make your curls nicer or tame them into straight, glistening sheets. Not so much back then. Flatirons didn’t exist, or if they did, I didn’t know about them—but I wish I had, because the flatiron has literally changed my life.
Back then everyone was obsessed with “feathering” and there was no way in hell my hair was going to feather, ever. It was always frizzy, dry, and limp. I could get one side to feather brilliantly, but the other side stuck straight out because I had fucked-up cowlicks. For real. My mother wasn’t much help in this department, as she had her own hair problems. Her hair is thick and coarse, and by the time she was done fighting it into submission I think she was too exhausted to mess with mine.
When I was six I had long hair that I had worn in Laura Ingalls–style braids for years. That year I cut them off for the Dorothy Hamill ’do, thinking maybe short hair would cooperate better. Alas, one side flipped under beautifully, while the other side flipped up. Son of a bitch!
That’s when someone (I’m assuming my mother) decided that a perm would be the solution to all of my problems. A fucking perm. What the hell was she thinking? I blame my mother, but she swears it was me who begged for a perm. I have no idea. All I know is that someone sensible should have stopped this.
When I brought the Hubs home for the first time and he saw the Christmas picture circa 1983, he said, “Oh God! Look at your hair!”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Everyone calls that ‘Jenni’s pube-head phase.’ ”
Growing up, I was not the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to math and geography, but this was especially true when it came to sex. When my mother finally sat me down and told me about the birds and the bees, my initial reaction, like that of many kids my age, was disgust.
“Ewww,” I said with a grimace. And then I saw my brother, C.B., and my superior math skills kicked in. I did the addition (in my head, thank you very much), which made me even more grossed out. “Hold on. You mean you did that twice? Double ewww.”
I was thoroughly revolted, but I could handle the idea of my parents getting busy as long as I thought sex was for procreation only. The thought of sex for recreation would not occur to me for many more years. (It’s actually embarrassing just how many years it took for me to think of that idea.) What I’m trying to say is the thought never crossed my mind that my parents might actually enjoy their…ahem…alone time. (Triple ewww—the thought still makes me squirm a little.) So it was a huge surprise to me when I finally came to that realization.
When I was a kid my dad had a job that forced him to be on the road Monday through Friday, so the weekends were when my parents caught up with each other. It had been a loooong five days for Dad, living in a hotel room and surviving on whatever he could get out of a vending machine. It had been an even longer five days for Mom, shuttling C.B. and me around town, mediating hourly disputes over who exactly was touching whom, nagging us to clean our rooms, and helping us with our homework. I’m guessing she would have killed for an empty hotel room, fully stocked vending machines, and a mini-bar, but this isn’t a competition to see who had it the worst (even though Mom totally did). We all missed Dad during the week, and C.B. and I were glad to see his suitcase in the front hall every Friday after school. Mostly because it meant that Mom would cook something besides eggs or Frito pie for dinner. Breakfast for dinner is only a fun treat when it doesn’t happen every Monday night.
As soon as we saw Dad, C.B. and I would try to tell him everything he’d missed during the week. Since I was the oldest and the loudest, I’d always start. “Dad, Dad, Dad! There was this girl at lunch on Wednesday. She’s new and she is so cool. She has the best Guess jeans! They’re a brand-new style. No one in Jersey has them yet! Her grandma sent them to her from New York City or something. But my friend Kerry, she has an older sister who works at the mall, she said her sister’s store is getting like two pairs on Saturday, but she can only hold a pair of them for me until noon. Can I have some money? I need to get those Guess jeans or else no one will like me!”
“Dad, Dad, Dad!” C.B. would interject. “Jenni doesn’t need any more jeans, and we all know more jeans aren’t going to help Jenni get new frie
nds. She’ll still be a weirdo—just a weirdo with new jeans. Nothing can help that. But I need a new skateboard. Mine broke this week while you were gone. Mom says I can’t have a new one because I was messing around when it broke, but it wasn’t my fault that it broke. It wasn’t good quality. If I had a decent board, it would have never broken when I tried to grind with it. A decent board would have grinded perfectly.”
“Isn’t the word ground, C.B.? And stop calling me a weirdo, weirdo. Look, it doesn’t matter, Dad. Who cares about the jeans? What I really need is a telephone in my room. Everyone has their own phone and their own phone line. It actually makes a lot of sense, because then I won’t tie up Mom’s phone with my calls. I got in super-big trouble this week for talking on the phone too much, so Mom took away my phone privileges because she totally missed like eight calls from Grandma. She finally reached her and it wasn’t like it was an emergency or anything—she was just calling to chat! If I had my own phone line, that would never happen. Oh! I’ll also need three-way calling, call waiting, and a fifty-foot cord so I can take the phone everywhere. It’s essential.”
“She’s getting a phone? Are you serious? If Jenni gets her own phone line, do I get one, too? It’s only fair.”
My dad would eat his meal without saying much. He’d simply nod along while C.B. and I harangued him and bled his wallet dry. I’m guessing his behavior was the result of a combination of guilt for missing an entire week of our lives and our patented method of relentless whining. Fifty dollars for jeans probably seemed like a decent price for a meal that wasn’t a Snickers bar washed down with a can of Pepsi.
My mom didn’t nag Dad too much, but she also didn’t shush me and C.B. She had put up with our crap all week, and I’m sure she felt like it was his turn to listen to us.
Dad would use Friday night to decompress and get back in the groove of being home, and on Saturday C.B. and I would have our dad’s attention for most of the day. He would play games or watch TV with us. Sometimes he’d take the family to the movies or out to dinner.