Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl

by Susan McCorkindale

  So there’s my handsome kid, relieving himself and taking in the view. Suddenly he sees a facial hair—his first—and leans in with the speed of a running back barreling downfield with the ball for a closer look. Urine flies everywhere, soaking the back of the bowl and dribbling down to the floor. By his feet. On his feet. Does he notice? Don’t kid yourself, people. All he cares about is the wisp of a whisker he’s sprouted and how fast he can get to the phone to tell his friends. Which would be fine except that, as he’s running from the bathroom to his backpack to get his cell, he’s still peeing. Aim for the water in the toilet? I’d be happy if my son would be in the room with the toilet.

  Of course both Casey and Cuyler’s lack of peeing precision pales in comparison with that of their father—known lovingly as the Titan of Urinary Untidiness.

  I’ve seen Hemingway take a freshly cleaned toilet bowl and soil it almost beyond saving in under thirty seconds. Honestly, to follow my lover in the loo requires either a very strong stomach or a penchant for public toilets. That’s the kind of mess the man can make. Urine everywhere but the bowl, with a pinch of pubic hair thrown in for good measure. And of course the seat is up, always up, and sprayed to the point of streaking.

  Sounds disgusting, right? Disgusting doesn’t even begin to describe it. You need to experience it firsthand, or should I say tush first, as I did one night late in my pregnancy with Casey.

  There I went, waddling silently into our bathroom,143 desperate to relieve my bursting bladder, and keeping the place pitch-black so as not to wake my better half. What did I get for being little Miss Considerate? Urine-soaked slippers and the shock of my life as I lowered myself down, down, down to a toilet seat that was nowhere to be found. Before I knew it, I lost my balance and plunged into the toilet-seatless toilet bowl below. I tried to stand but I was stuck, really stuck—hips wedged, feet and legs flailing in the air stuck .144

  You’d think that after two kids, two dogs, one cat, seventeen chickens, three-hundred-plus head of cattle, one husband, and sixteen years of marriage I’d have made peace with the fact that the toilet was never going to be tidy. After all I’d had plenty of advance warning, particularly while using the Cheerios trick to train Cuyler.145 You toss some Cheerios in the toilet bowl and tell the kid to aim for them. My son loved it, his aim was incredible, and for one brief moment I was certain I’d raise a man who wouldn’t leave a mess for his wife one day.

  And then it happened.

  My little guy stopped peeing midstream, plucked the urine-soaked Cheerio from the bowl, slapped it on the rim of the toilet, took aim, and then sent that baby soaring across the room and into the tub. I was stunned. He was hysterical. Before I knew it, Casey and Hemingway were crowding into the room to get in on the game.

  So I should have known ages ago that, while other women would have fresh flowers in their bathroom, I would always have a family-size bottle of Fantastik in mine. It’s not sophisticated, but it’s practical.

  And since I’ll do practically anything to stay one drip ahead of my men, it makes sense. Even if their bathroom behavior—indoors and on the five-hundred-acre urinal on which we reside—doesn’t.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  WHO YOU CALLIN’ A LOULOU?

  Sometimes, despite the excitement of corralling escaped cows and the thrill of selling used farm equipment to mega millionaires, I really miss the stimulation of New York City and my staff at Family Circle. If I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that this is the reason for my recent, over-in-a-flash-fast foray into the retail arena.

  In an effort to save my sanity and make a positive contribution to the community (i.e., use my marketing skills to convince the women of this county to trade their riding pants for something roomier in the rear), I sought employment at a lovely little shop called LouLou. Why they hired me, when I have about as much style as our chickens have social skills, I don’t know, but suddenly, for the first time in forty-plus years, I was in fashion. Literally.

  I loved being at LouLou. It was so much fun to spend the day among clothing and jewelry and handbags and boots. I got to dress and accessorize the mannequins,146 and I got to help people pick out the perfect outfit for work, dates, and parties, and to give as presents. Helping others shop all day was almost as good as shopping all day myself, which is what I did when things were slow. In fact, I don’t think I ever brought home a paycheck from LouLou. Instead I simply signed it over to my manager to cover the Matt & Nat bags, Free People tops, Tribal cords, and Lucchese cowboy boots I had to have. After all, I got everything at a discount, so it was like constantly being at a terrific sale.147

  The joy of being surrounded by clothing quickly faded when I learned that part of my job was to steam each article as it came out of the box. For a true fashionista, such an assignment would have been a snap. But for me, the original Glamour “don’t,” it was a disaster.

  It goes without saying that I scalded myself, but I also suggested to a customer that she try on a “hot little number” we’d just received and that I’d just steamed. Lucky for me the garment’s toastiness tickled her pink—which is about the shade it left her back—and she didn’t sue me for stupidity. After that I demoted myself to hair accessory straightening duty, feigning a sudden, psychotic fear of the steamer.

  Steamer aside, the only thing I found really scary was being slow. It’s not in my nature to do nothing, and without a minibar to manage or a team to coerce into taking a kickboxing class, I had to find other ways to entertain myself.

  One particularly quiet morning,149 I curled up in the comfy wing chair in the corner and lost myself in a daydream I only wish I’d had the guts to indulge. In my “fashion savior” fantasy, I tugged, stretched, and practically split a size-two pair of riding pants by pulling them over the posterior of a size-ten mannequin. Then I placed the mannequin butt-front in the window with a sign that said NOT A GOOD LOOK. Next I dressed another size-ten dummy in a pair of beautifully proportioned Tribal trousers, stuck it fanny-front in the window, and slapped a sign that read LOULOU TO THE RESCUE! right below its rear.

  In my mind, this was a perfect marketing ploy: It addressed a consumer problem and positioned LouLou as the solution. The more I thought about it, the more excited I became. In seconds I was out of that chair and dancing to Green Day’s American Idiot CD.148 It could work! The store would make a mint! My boss would be beside herself!

  The thought of my manager stopped me midshimmy. I loved Barb, but she was built way more like Wonder Woman than like Angelina Jolie. Plus she rode. (Horses, not the subway.) What if she was put off by my approach? It wouldn’t matter if we sold out our entire inventory of Tribal slacks in six seconds. If she was offended, she might fire me. Or, worse, make me wear a pair of supersnug jodhpurs with a placard around my neck: “Try our Tribal pants,” it would say. “See my butt for the biggest reason why!”

  Clearly, it’s best if I stay really busy. Although had it been a little slower the day the Contessa strolled in, I wouldn’t have complained.

  It was a Tuesday and the store was hopping. I was helping people find the right size pants and a shirt that goes just so and ringing up sales and answering the phone. In the midst of the mayhem, in walked this little old lady who decided she wanted to try on this swinging, chic skirt. It was a good thing she was tiny, because the skirt was cut for a toddler. I grabbed her size and said, “Here you go! Let me get you into a dressing room!”

  But no. She didn’t want a dressing room. She wanted to “Slippa the skirta on, over mya jeansa.” (Did I mention she’s Italian?149 So she stood at the counter with the hordes of women I was trying to ring up, tugging this tiny, slim-cut skirt up over her jeans. Did it get stuck? Of course it did. And of course as she stepped out of it, she stepped on it and nearly careened into a metal belt display. I made a mad dash around the counter to catch her midfall, the word lawsuit flashing across my mind, and again suggested she use the fitting room.

  But no. Now she decided to slip it on ov
er her head. Did I mention she was wearing two shirts? She was. Did it get stuck again? Of course it did. And now I had hordes of women desperate to pay and depart with their purchases, and one older woman, her arms flailing wildly in the air, a $225 Basil & Maude skirt stuck between her eyeglasses and her armpits, crying, “Helpa, helpa, I tinka I’ma stucka!” Unbelievable.

  Finally she wriggled it down to her waist and then decided she really should take off her jeans150 to check the fit. So she hiked up the skirt, unzipped her jeans, and took them off. Right there at the register. In a store full of people. They’re looking at me. I’m looking at them. And we’re all doing our best to look anywhere but at this elderly lady’s tiny stocking-covered tush.

  Ultimately she bought the skirt and the matching sweater, and I was sold on the idea that it just might be safer for me to stay on the farm. Sure, I miss LouLou. But at least here the only heinies I have to look at are the hens’.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  HEMINGWAY, AND ALL THAT JAZZ…

  Since I no longer have a staff to cajole into taking a kickboxing class, and since I can’t speed walk around here without being chased by a clutch of cattle, I’ve been forced to find other ways to exercise.

  For starters, I Rollerblade. I race up and down our private road, which, while paved, is still an obstacle course of pebbles, chunks of gravel, and leftover deer bones Grundy managed not to digest. (Nothing like getting one of those suckers caught in a wheel for an airborne experience unlike any the Wright brothers ever imagined.)

  I’m sure it doesn’t help that as I’m ’blading along, I’ve got my iPod blaring dance music so loud I’m lost in a fantasy of strutting my stuff at Studio 54. To my way of thinking the farm and that disco are not so different. I’m surrounded by animals here, and I was surrounded by animals there. Of course those animals were doused in Obsession, 151 so maybe I should buy a gross for the gals.

  The fact that I’m pretty tuned out while charging around is fine in flat spots. But twice while lost in dance land I’ve gone hurtling downhill only to be greeted—suddenly—by the cattle guard that cuts across the road.

  In case I haven’t already explained, a cattle guard 152 is a series of metal slats designed to catch the hooves of an escaped cow and prevent it from charging out into the street and becoming chop meat. I’ve never actually seen a cow get caught in one of these contraptions, though Hemingway tells me it isn’t pretty, but I’ve definitely had firsthand—or should I say headfirst—experience with the device.

  If memory serves (and it may not, considering the smack I took to the skull), I was “Last Dance”ing with Donna Summer when I connected with the cattle guard at light speed. My right Rollerblade wedged between the first two slats and my body sailed forward until the anchor that used to be my ankle caught and catapulted me down to the ground.

  A minor concussion, badly scraped jaw, and large “egg” over my left eye later, I came to the conclusion that this is the reason people wear pads.

  Sure, I still Rollerblade, but not outside. These days I practice my figure eights in the Butler building (our Yankee Stadium-size equipment shed). There’s no cattle guard or gravel to fear, and dodging the hens153 as they scamper by and ducking the pigeon poop as it rains down from the rafters are really helping perfect my form.

  This is fine, to a point. But being an exercise freak, social butterfly, and longtime dance music lover (as well as someone who really doesn’t relish pain in conjunction with her fitness program), the bottom line is that I’ve had to find some other way to fight fat and make friends.

  So I joined Jazzercise.

  I know. I know. Jazzercise has been around since the ’70s. It smacks of striped leg warmers and matching leotards. It brings back memories of headbands and Olivia Newton John belting out “Physical” in one of the earliest music videos known to man. It was done by fat ladies who loved Cher and the Bee Gees but wouldn’t be caught dead in a disco. Your mom did it. Your grandma did it. Your aunt Gladys did it before she got the gout.

  Cool kids did not do it, right? Wrong.

  Cool kids definitely did it. I did it. So admit it: You did it too. You just didn’t tell anybody.

  The woman who invented Jazzercise was—and still is—brilliant.154 She took Bob Fosse’s and John Travolta’s best moves and melded them with aerobics. Then she tossed in a heaping helping of thumping, driving dance music, and gave women what they craved: a safe place to let their hair down while they brought their weight down. To me, Jazzercise is the world’s best disco—but without the cocktails and the come-ons. Which is of course what makes it the world’s best disco.

  Hello, my name is Susan and I’m a Jazzercise addict.

  Six days a week I drive down to Warrenton and dance, as my instructor Nancy says, like no one’s watching. Because unless you count my pals Toni and Lisa, Kim, Karen, Jenn, and Marina, no one is. And even they’re not really watching. They’re flat out laughing at my fabulous (and I use the word, like the muscles that once were my triceps, loosely) form.

  The twenty-five-minute commute doesn’t bother me, but lately I’ve begun to consider converting one of the barns or the aforementioned Butler building from its current use as roller rink/oversize pigeon coop and henhouse into a Jazzercise studio. Then I could have my own facility and all my friends could come here. Every day. Several times a day in fact. And then I’d no longer feel isolated because I’d import my own people!

  I got so high on the idea I took it to Hemingway, who just happened to be working in my future Jazzercise center at the time. “You know what we should do with all this space?” I practically shouted, stepping through the twenty-two-foot-high sliding (if you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger- strong) metal doors and surprising my busy farm boy.

  He looked up from the length of gutter he was preparing to cut and eyed me suspiciously. “If I’ve told you once Suz, I’ve told you a million times. We’re not making it a mini mall.”

  “No, no. Forget that . . .”

  “Or a Panera Bread . . .”

  “No, no. Listen . . .”

  “Or a Banana Republic or a martini bar or a jewelry store.”

  “Not a real jewelry store,” I replied, exasperated. How many times did I have to explain my grand plan? “A fake-diamond store. Really good cubics and stuff. I’d call it Just Faux Fun. Isn’t that a great name? Someday I gotta open a store like that just to use that name.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Great name. Come here and hold this.”

  “I don’t want to get cut.”

  “You won’t get cut. I will if I try to hold and slice at the same time.”

  So I held and he sliced, and soon we were both side by side on ladders, working a brand-new patch of gutter into place along the front of the bank barn.155 I’m not big into manual labor (my feeling is they have people for that, so let’s get some), but I love watching Hemingway work. In fact I love watching Hemingway read and write and flip burgers on the barbecue. I love watching him play catch with Cuyler, and patiently explain to Casey why porn sites are inappropriate (and how, if we find him surfing one again, we’re tossing his PC on the burn pile). I love watching him nap, with his reading glasses on his nose, the cat nestled right under his neck, and a book flopped open on his belly.

  I love watching him stroll through Tractor Supply, smiling as he picks up specialty chicken feed or a stone-washed pair of “Look, Sue! John Deere flannel-lined jeans!” I love how saleswomen fall all over themselves to help him, and how waitresses rush to save him from starving to death.156

  The cutest are the ladies at our favorite lunch spot who scramble to serve my honey his sweet tea before he’s even seated. The kids and I can be parched to the point of expiration, literally licking the table in a desperate search for some leftover condensation to quench our thirst, and all these gals can see is Hemingway.

  Waitress, looking directly at my husband: “What’ll it be to drink, hon?”

  Hemingway: “Iced tea, please. Sue, you too?”


  Me: “No. I think I’d like . . .”

  Waitress, completely unaware anyone else is at the table: “Sweetened or unsweetened?”

  Hemingway: “Sweetened’s great. Sue?”

  Waitress, inspecting Hemingway’s sweat-stained, grass-flecked thirty-year-old Marine Corps sweat-shirt with the intensity of a garment worker: “Been bush hogging?”

  Hemingway, who thinks he’s always dressed for success with his collection of clothes from the 1970s: “Um, a bit this morning.” Pause. “Kids, what’ll it be?”

  Cuyler: “Can I have chocolate milk?”

  Waitress: “Try the meatloaf; it’ll fill you up.”

  Hemingway: “I was thinking about a burger. Case, you want a . . .”

  Casey: “Coke, please.”

  Waitress: “Burger’ll work. Medium, right? With fries?”

  Hemingway: “Sure. And I think we’ll also need . . .”

  Me: “Could I just have an ice water with a slice of lemon?”

  Waitress: “I’ll be right back with your sweet tea.”

  Me: “Ask her if she can bring four straws.”

  I’m unsure I need to state this at this point, but just in case it’s unclear: My husband is truly one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen. In fact he’s one of the best-looking men any woman has ever seen—in a diner in Marshall or on a movie screen, for that matter.

  Blue eyes, salt-and-pepper hair (it was chocolate brown when I met him; I’m unsure who’s given him more grays, me and my insane ideas or the kids), high cheekbones, and a chiseled, model-perfect jaw us regular folk would kill for. (I, on the other hand, have a chin so pointy it could function as a hole puncher, but I believe I’ve mentioned that fact. Guess whose jaw both boys got? You got it. Not Hemingway’s.) Sure, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are hunks. But they’ve got nothing on Hemingway.