Now GUILT and PANIC, accompanied by their personal Stones theme song, “This Could Be the Last Time,” have made themselves comfortable on Super Stu’s side of the car, as well, and he and I keep looking at each other like, Hmm, maybe we could have learned to live with the traffic in Paramus, the commute to the city, and the lack of parking in our tony hometown. But nah. We chose to come to the country and get killed.
Forty long minutes later, we pull into Doug’s driveway. It’s pretty frozen, and I don’t want Cuy falling and cracking his head on the ice, lest we wind up back at the hospital, so I carry him to the back door.
It’s locked. Not realizing my thoughtful sister-in-law had left the front door open for us, we decide, in our slap-happy state, to go in through the garage. Which means navigating the sloping, ice-covered asphalt that could do double duty as an Olympic bobsled run. And that means I’ve got front-row seats for the McMen-scapades.
First Super Stu goes sailing, Scott Hamilton-like, down the driveway toward the huge garage door. For a second I’m sure he’ll fall, but no! He sticks his landing, and punches in the code. Slowly the door starts to lift, and Cuyler, just this side of delirious and desperate to go to bed, lunges for it.
Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, his Ninja Turtle sneakers are no substitute for ice skates. His feet fly out from under him and boom, he’s on his butt sliding toward Stu. Certain he’s split his skull—it’s dark, and at this point I’m a little delirious myself—I run toward him, slip on the ice,50 slide directly into my sick son, and drag us both right into the garage, where we’re greeted by those ever-growing Hefty Cinch Saks.
Home, sweet, refuse-filled home. Next stop, the recycling center. Or maybe just rehab.
Country road, take me home. . . . IN one piece, please!
In the short time I’ve lived here, I’ve come to one major conclusion: driving in the country is a lot more dangerous than in the suburbs or the city. I hate dodging yellow cabs as much as the next commuter, but at least you expect their abuse. Here, everyone’s laid-back and unhurried. Until they pile into their pickup. Then they unleash their inner cabbie, and there’s no question the meter’s ticking toward my demise. To keep your rides through the rural countryside safe, heed the tidbits I wish someone had told me. . . .
Speed demons are de rigueur. Country drivers tear along like they’re related to Jeff Gordon, so get used to it. In fact, they spend more time on my bumper than my kid does on MySpace.
Passing is practically impossible. Common sense says pull over and let ’em pass. But you can’t, because the winding country roads don’t have curbs; they have deep, rock-filled ditches. This means you’re stuck, and it’s like having Cujo on your culo. Frankly, if the object in the mirror is closer than it appears, then these folks are in the backseat with my boys.
Beware of tailgating tail waggers. Why do country drivers tailgate so? I think it’s because Spot’s got the steering wheel.
For starters, it’s a scientific fact that dogs like to chase cars. Add to that the slightly less scientific but equally true fact that lots of country folk let their canines sit on their laps and I commandeer their vehicles, and you can see how I’ve come to this conclusion. Road test it yourself: Next time you’re cruising the countryside, check your rearview mirror; I’ll bet you’re greeted by Fido’s grinning reflection.
Vanity tags are trouble. Beyond the fact that some Rottweiler has the wheel, there’s another reason country drivers are virtually bungee corded to each others’ bumpers: they’re deciphering the vanity tags. Sure, BUBBASGRL and IBRK4BASS, are easy. But DOMEBABY? I saw that plate, pointed it out to Hemingway, and asked, “What’s a dome baby?” Without missing a beat he looked at me leeringly and said, “Do me, baby.” I nearly smacked him, because the kids were in the car, and then it dawned on me. Duh. Do. Me. Baby. Sometimes I am so blond.
Watch for stupid speed stunt #1 . . . I call it the Left Arm out the Driver’s Side Window Dangle. Maybe you’ve seen these yahoos cruising along, window wide open, left arm blowing in the breeze? Aren’t they cold? Isn’t their dog cold? Aren’t they afraid of losing a limb? I see them coming, hairy arms and wedding-ringed fingers flapping, and pull so far over, I’m in danger of flipping the car and killing myself. All this just so I don’t amputate some idiot’s arm at the elbow. Maybe I’ll simply reach out, rip it out at the socket, and beat the doofus to death with it.
And #2 . . . Even scarier than exposed appendages or spying Duke in the driver’s seat is the “Look, Ma, no hands!” habit so prevalent in these parts. More than once I’ve pulled alongside some guy in a massive pickup stacked high with hay, doing sixty-five on Route 66, his left hand flicking his Winston into the wind, his right squeezing his cell to his skull. Who’s got the wheel? Now, there’s an excellent question. I hate to think nuts like this are driving with their knees, but I see no alternative. Unless there are other body parts involved, and that prospect I’m not even going to pursue.
Chapter Nine
CAUSE OF DEATH: COUNTRY TIME
I have a confession to make: The sticks are starting to grow on Super Suzy. True, there’s still no Banana Republic down the block. There’s no J.Crew on the corner. And there’s definitely no Starbucks in the center of town, and no plans to put one in, either. The “local” supermarket remains a twenty-five-minute ride, and the closest movie theater is about an hour north. But all this driving means I’m getting a good look around. And frankly, I like what I see.
Each morning at Oakfield51 I watch the sun come up pink, purple, and orange over the Bull Run Mountains, through bare trees and over winter-green pastures dotted with cows and deer, and you know what? It’s one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen.52
At about seven thirty, I walk out to warm up the car and am consistently startled by the heifers mooing their morning hellos. The first time it happened I actually spun around and saw Number Seventy-six and her friend, Fifty-four, looking at me like I had no manners. What I actually lack is brains, as I think I said—out loud—“Oh, hi there. Good morning to you, too,” and then I jumped into the Durango and locked the doors before they could charge the car. Some big, tough “New Yawka” I turned out to be.
At ten minutes of eight the boys and I take off for school. The ride, past horse farms, hay bales, and beef cattle operations, is spectacular and calming. This is particularly good for my kids, as I’ve yet to give in to the urge to pull over and beat them for fighting over which Bowling for Soup, Green Day, or Good Charlotte CD they’ll play and how loud. Once they’re in school I get back in the car, thank God again that, while it may not have an Abercrombie and Fitch, at least Fauquier County has all-day kindergarten, and cruise off to start my day.
But just what do I do all day? You know, when I’m not wandering lost and unmoored through the veritable four-star hotel we’re currently calling home.
I’ve been giving this some thought, and since I don’t have a job to rush to, and I’m not unpacking boxes yet, I feel funny admitting that I really don’t know. If that’s not bad enough, by three o’clock I’m ready for a nice nap. I can attribute this either to advancing age53 or being busy. And since I am absolutely not getting older (though a stash of Stri-vectin for my wrinkled forehead would be fabulous), I must be busy. But doing what?
Let’s see. I spent one morning (and I really do mean one morning) getting my Virginia state license. That was fun. (You know, the way going for an annual physical and finding out you really did gain ten pounds, and no, it’s not from a tumor—damn!—is fun.)
Hemingway and I drove to the DMV in Warrenton with grand plans to get our new IDs, do some errands, squeeze in a nice lunch, and make it back in time to pick up the boys. And it was all going according to plan until we presented our New Jersey licenses. Or more accurately, until I presented mine.
“Where’s the photo?” demanded a small, stocky woman in a black dress with white pin dots and a badge that read, HI, I’M TESS; I’M HERE TO HELP! She didn’t seem to be here
to help. She seemed to be here to be unhappy, very unhappy, particularly with me and my pictureless license.
“New Jersey doesn’t require one,” I replied, smiling. For some reason I always assume that if I keep smiling, whomever I’m dealing with will, too. Eventually.
“His has a photo,”54 she said, nodding her head in Hemingway’s direction and absolutely, positively, not smiling.
“His is newer. Plus I renewed by mail. That’s why there’s no photo.” Still smiling!
“I need something with a photo.” Still seriously not smiling.
“I have my old Family Circle ID,” I reply, rummaging through my wallet. “How’s that?”
“Family Circle, as in the magazine?”
Yes! A reader! My worries are over!
“That would be the one.” I pause and hand her the ID card, smiling so hard I fear a bicuspid will break. “Do you read it?”
“My mother-in-law does. The National Enquirer’s more my style.”
Damn, the double kiss of death: the dreaded mother-in-law connection and Elvis sightings. Suddenly I foresee a future stuck at Nate’s Place. God, I hope we can get high-speed Internet.
“Where does it say Family Circle?”
“Umm, it doesn’t. It says . . . ”
“Are you Susan Gruner T. Jahr? I thought you were married to him.” She looks at Hemingway.
“I am. I am married to him,”55 I reply. “There’s my name,” I say, pointing to my signature on the card. “Gruner plus Jahr is the company I worked for.”
“I thought you said you worked for Family Circle.” Now she’s eyeing me and backing away from the counter, like any minute I might go berserk and take out the bottled water machine.
“Gruner and Jahr owns Family Circle. It’s a corporate ID card.”
“Uh-huh,” she grumbles. “Marge, you got a minute?”
“When I’m finished with Mrs. Dunlevy,” Marge replies in a manner that suggests the Mideast crisis will end before she’ll ever be done helping Mrs. D. And of course she’s not smiling, either.
“You’ll have to wait,” Tess tells me, pushing my inferior paperwork to the side. “Only Marge can make this call.”
“Make what call?” I ask, alarmed, and fighting the urge to go all Jersey girl on this gal. “This is me, in this picture, see?” I say, whipping my sunglasses off the top of my head, rearranging my hair, and giving her the most marketing director-ish smile I can muster. “And here’s my name, and here it is again on my license.” I pause and smile so hard my bottom lip splits.56 Blood collecting on my kisser, I continue my pitch. “See? It really all makes sense. So you can make the call, right, Tess? I mean, look at poor Marge. She could be all day with sweet Mrs. D.”
To my horror, taciturn Tess simply disappears behind a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and Hemingway, who until this point had been having a good guffaw at my expense, sidles up and gives me the “No Sopranos Mode, Suzy” stare. I want to kill him. I want to kill Tess. I want to kill darling little Mrs. Dunlevy for having the audacity to hog Sergeant Marge for almost forty minutes.
Ultimately I needed two dozen documents verifying my marriage and status as a natural-born U.S. citizen, while the gentleman behind me, fresh off the boat from Botswana or Guyana or someplace definitely not within the borders of the continental United States, needed a note from his mom.
Another morning (and again, I really do mean a full morning) was spent at the bank opening savings accounts for the boys. My sons have, like, thirty-five cents between them, so I figured, how long could it take? I should’ve packed a lunch. I arrived at nine and left at noon. Three hours for two savings accounts. That’s ninety minutes each. And for each it was as if they were opening a savings account for the Very First Time.
First, they had to open the special savings account program on the PC. But they couldn’t recall what directory it was in. Then they found it, but the computer was “running slow.” Finally, mercifully and miraculously before Casey’s high school graduation,57 the program opened and I thought, OK, now we’re getting somewhere. And then it dawned on the woman helping me that the Mistress of Savings Accounts Ceremonies was out—on maternity leave, no less—and the only person she’d taught to use this little slice of rocket science was off having shamrocks applied to her manicure in preparation for a big St. Patty’s party.
I wasn’t sure what to be more appalled by. The thought of having what basically amounts to boogers put on my nails, or the creeping realization that a ceramic piggy bank would be better than this place.
Not to be deterred, Miss Happy—because she was just so happy! And helpful! And positive!—announces to me and the one teller on duty that “It’s no problem! No problem at all! We’ll simply use the tutorial!” We? Who’s we? If I was going to have to sit through Savings Account Software 101, I was doing so as a spectator, not a participant.
This was bad. I kept looking at my watch. I’d been there two hours and we were nowhere near the end of this happy endeavor. My “Be polite; you’re the new kid in town” composure was beginning to crack. If I wasn’t careful, in a moment I’d unleash my New York-perfected impatience (aka Sopranos Mode), complete with condescending tone and clipped, speed-of-light speech, and then I’d have to find another financial institution, maybe even a real one, to babysit my kids’ one buck.
While Miss Happy flipped pages in the tutorial, fussed with her glasses, and occasionally punctuated her keyboard pecking with such comforting commentary as “Now, where’s that screen? Oh, there it is! Certainly does look different since the last time I did this.” Chuckle, chuckle. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out, Mrs. McCorkindale. Won’t take but a minute more,” I gave some thought to getting up and leaving. I also thought about feigning illness, or suddenly remembering a forgotten appointment for an appendectomy. But instead I sat there and prayed for death to take me, or at least my voice box.
No such luck.
Maybe it was because I had a headache from sitting there all morning. Maybe it was because I just couldn’t believe I’d get nothing else done but this (if I was lucky) before the day was shot and it was time to get the boys. Or maybe it was my inability to comprehend how I could possibly have selected the one bank out of two in this bustling burg where opening a savings account meant descending into the seventh circle of hell, but suddenly my mouth shot out of the starting gate, leaving what’s left of my brain far, far behind.
“You know what?” I said really, really nicely, with a big smile and my best “Oh, ha ha, this happens all the time to me” tone, “PCs are so overrated. Really. Forget the PC. And the software. Let’s break out some paper and a pen and do this the old-fashioned way. What,” I continued, my mouth getting completely away from me as I watched confusion cross Miss Happy’s face, “no ballpoint? No problem. I’m sure you’ve got a quill pen and a piece of parchment that will work just as well. And let’s not forget that abacus collecting dust back there. We can use it to divvy up my kids’ money. Then I’ll just give you their names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and such, and you can finish the paperwork whenever Miss St. Patty’s Day decides to come back to work. Sound good? Good! Here’s our PO box number. You can just mail me the passbooks when they’re ready. Or send them via carrier pigeon. Whatever’s more your speed. What am I saying? You’re certainly not into speed around here. No, no rush. Really. However you want to get them to me is fine. I’ve taken up too much of YOUR time already. Well, this has been a little slice of heaven. Thanks for all your help. I’ll see you soon.”
And then I waved, grabbed my bag, and beat it the hell out of there. Surprisingly, it took only a day or two to get the passbooks. And to think I could have spent all that time watching Miss Happy hunt and peck.
When I’m not attempting to bank at Satan’s Savings & Loan or being interrogated by the unhappy drones at the DMV, I spend a good bit of time, not to mention money, trying to obtain the perfect blow-out.
Now, please don’t think I’m a princess. I
’m not.58 I just cannot blow my own hair dry bone straight. And that’s how I like it: bone straight. Not wavy. Not curly. And definitely not 1980 High School Yearbook Big. Straight.
Naturally, this is the one state I can’t get my hair into on my own. Despite years of purchasing exorbitantly expensive round brushes; professional blow dryers (some of which I’ve actually plugged in); and salon-only shampoos, conditioners, and straightening products as pricey as a Porsche—not to mention being tutored by my sister-in-law Nancy and my cousin Lisa, both of whom have the stick-straight stuff down to a science and who have provided frequent blow-dry coaching sessions while squeezed into some of the world’s smallest the bathrooms with me—I still look like a blond Ronald McDonald when I do it myself.
So that means I need to find a salon, or more specifically, a stylist, and frankly, I needed to find her—or him—yesterday.
You might think that any Francine with a flat iron would be fine. But you’d be surprised at the ire my poker-straight preferences arouse in certain hairdressers. At Salon Demure, a surprisingly chic—for the sticks—salon Nancy and I decided to try, we encountered a stylist whom I will forever refer to as the Curl Nazi.
When Nance called to make our appointments, she told the receptionist specifically that we were coming in for blow-outs. Stick-, bone-, pin-, poker-straight blow-outs, so please, allow plenty of time for both of us, and plug that flat iron in pronto.
On the appointed day and time, Nancy and I stroll into the salon and are immediately ushered to the sinks. We’re shampooed, conditioned, and so wonderfully scalp massaged I’m certain I can cross Find new hair salon off my list of things to do.
Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl Page 6