Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl

by Susan McCorkindale

  So while Casey sulked and moaned about the mortification of waiting for his mom to find a bra, I finally began scouring the lingerie aisles, hunting high and low for my size: 34M, for marble. I was so intent on this endeavor that I didn’t see what Cuyler was doing. I did, however, hear about it. As in, “Can you believe that boy’s behavior?” I knew without even looking that the silver-haired seniors shopping two rows to my right were referring to my little rascal. And I just knew what he was doing, too.

  Slowly and sneakily, my puny pervert was walking up and down the aisles, “tweaking” the Maidenforms and Balis and beaming like, well, like a little boy in a bra department. He must have felt me watching him, because he stopped, put his hands on his hips, and, glaring at me for daring to derail his meteoric rise to juvenile delinquency, shouted loud enough for all the little old ladies to hear, “What? What’s the problem? It’s not like there’s breasts in them.”

  Ultimately I found a hot little number that promised to boost my booty to a 34GB, as in golf ball, and would have liked to get the matching panties, despite the fact that they possessed no butt-reducing attributes. But when Cuy donned a bra so big each cup could’ve contained a football, and came running up to me, shouting, “Hey, Mom, this is better than a ball bag!” it was one incident in intimates too many for the sales clerks at Kohl’s. And so, rather than wait for security to escort us, we departed the department store sans skivvies.

  If our adventures in underwear land weren’t enough to make me wonder why I ever pitched my birth control pills, the next day the kids and I helped Hemingway replace the perch in the movable chicken tractor.169 I was busy howling away at the piano with no idea this task had commenced when Cuy came running in, screaming, “Dad needs you! Dad needs you!” I took off after the free world’s fastest child, losing my sexy and oh-so-farm-inappropriate Chinese Laundry sandals somewhere between the kitchen and the white-trash tire planters that grace my otherwise gorgeous backyard.

  (Have I told you about the tire planters? Ages ago, some creative soul took two huge tractor tires and cemented them into the ground in my backyard. Then he, or she, filled the center of each tire with dirt and planted them with lilies. They’re lovely, really. If you like landscaping that can do double duty as a punch line in a Jeff Foxworthy joke. But back to the tale of the chicken tractor.)

  Barefoot and frantic because all I could see was the tractor tilted precariously downhill and Casey holding on to the hitch for dear life, I raced up, shouting, “Where’s Dad?” to which he replied in that churlish, teen-trademarked tone, “It’s about time you showed up.”

  Drawing a deep breath and, miraculously, refraining from decking the little doo-doo head, I paused and then flipped a heaping helping of the cow manure and chicken scratch concoction squishing between my toes at my insufferable firstborn. It wasn’t pretty, but it had to be done. And then I began looking for Hemingway.

  After a quick peek under the wheeled mini mausoleum, I discovered the poor guy stuck in a squat inside. In searing pain and unable to escape the accelerating pullet palace, he’d flown into High Thesaurus Mode, shouting to Casey to “Grab the thing! Grab the thing!” And our big guy complied, responding to such specific instructions by first grabbing a hammer, then a cordless drill, and finally a post to the electric fence, which fortunately was off at the time but which managed to shock Hemingway into saying, “The hitch! Grab the hitch!”

  And that, of course, is how I found them. I quickly freed the Bob Vila of Bird Land and relieved Mr. Happy of hitch-holding duty. Together we replaced the perch, and I went back to the piano, but only after carefully—wearing a bright yellow pair of plastic gloves and using a heavy-duty scrub brush soaked in bleach—digging out the livestock detritus packed between my piggies.

  For me, though, the highlight of the week was the hike I took with Cuyler. He wanted to hunt for treasure in the woods, and I didn’t want him anywhere near the forest primeval without a parent, so I dug out some relatively appropriate footwear and went with him.

  I imagine we were a pretty funny sight, Cuy in his tiny Timberlands and me in my midcalf Naughty Monkey cable-knit wedge-bottom boots, clomping past the cattle, both of us wearing binoculars around our necks and carrying walking sticks we found by the barn. Cuy also had his military-style backpack, which he’d filled with a magnifying glass, a book on insects, two bottles of Poland Spring water, and several Oreo Mini snack packs in case we got peckish. I love a second-grader who can pack a picnic.

  We spent about two hours following old horse trails, playing on a decomposing wooden wagon we found hidden beneath an overgrowth of bushes, and poking at abandoned snake skins with our walking sticks. Cuy stuffed a couple in the Ziploc bag he brought along and was pretty happy with his loot, when suddenly he made the discovery of the day: a buck skull, antlers and all.

  “Mom, look,” he hollered. “It’s Stevie the Skull!”

  The damn thing had a name before I even knew what hit me. And then I thought Hemingway was going to hit us when he saw us carry it into the house. I believe his exact words were, “Do you know what kind of germs are on that thing?” Anyway, he made us (me) boil it in water and bleach on my brand new Jenn-Air range (trust me; I’m not using that pot again), and I felt like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. What a stink. Makes me wonder if that bunny smelled as bad as our buck.

  Now that the kids are back in school and my bout of Post-Traumatic Spring Break Disorder (complete with freaking my family out by jokingly suggesting we enjoy a bowl of the Stevie the Skull soup I whipped up170 has begun to abate, I’m starting to look forward to spending the summer with my two crotchety kids. Of course it won’t be the whole summer. What with basketball, lacrosse, football, baseball, paintball, and shooting171 camp on their calendars, we’ll get about a day together at the end of August. Just enough time to hit Old Navy again; drop a bundle on stuff they’ll outgrow, shred, and lose in as little as a week; and then stick their butts on the school bus. Ah yes. Nothing quite warms my heart like family time. All five minutes of it.

  Which is about how long spring break should be. Unless it involves a trip to Miami Beach. Then I’ll just see the boys when I get back.

  Chapter Thirty

  ME AND BOBBY D.

  I hope they have chocolate in hell. Why? Because that’s where I’m headed. It’s not my fault of course, and I blame Esquire magazine for the whole mess.

  You see, several Fridays ago, which just happened to be Good Friday, I did what I do every Friday and raced into my favorite hair salon172 to get my hair blown out. (Yes, I get my hair done once a week, just like your grandma did. As I’ve previously explained, I absolutely, positively cannot wield a round brush and a blow dryer without ultimately bearing a striking resemblance to a thatched hut, a blond Ronald McDonald, or a square bale. And yes, the twenty-five big ones it costs me is nothing in comparison to the therapy bills I’d rack up without my weekly appointment with Ashley.)

  I mention that it was Good Friday because, out of deference to that high holy day, I typically try to think only pure, irreproachable thoughts about things like pastels, white rabbits, and Easter eggs.173 This isn’t easy, since I like to daydream about finding Johnny Depp at my front door (Oooh, look what the bunny brought!), but I try.

  Anyway, I sprint into the salon from my Jazzersize class174 and collapse onto the sofa. I’m sweaty, spent, and in no mood for the extra work demanded by the women’s magazines cluttering the coffee table before me. Better Homes & Gardens wants to help make my meat and potatoes “pop!” (Fine. They can start by cooking them for me.) Vogue has “630+ pages of fabulous fashions!” (Which I’d look at if I had the strength to lift it.) And Oprah believes “the time is now!” for me to live my best life. (Hmm . . . how does she know I’m not? Has she been following me? Maybe there’s some truth to the theory that Ms. Winfrey is really Big Brother.) The thought of digesting all this drivel exhausts me. And then I see it. Or to be specific, him. Robert Downey Jr. on the cover of Esquire maga
zine.

  Have you any idea how much I love Robert Downey Jr.?

  Like lots of women, I have a secret place in my heart for a hot bad boy. Sure, my brain says the clean-cut Brooks Brother in the shiny Beemer is the way to go. But my weak knees and racing pulse want the scruffy, ripped hunk on the hog. The one who looks like he’s been around the block a time or two. Or three.

  I’m not going to explore the psychological underpinnings of this covert preference. First of all I’m not that bright, and second of all it’s not that complex. If given a choice between Josh Hartnett (cute as he is) and Leonardo DiCaprio, I firmly believe most women would leave with Leo.

  I, on the other hand, would depart with Mr. Downey.

  To me, he’s the baddest of the bunch. Handsome, hot, and always in a whole lot of trouble, he was the man who made Ally McBeal worth watching. And I did. Up until he was busted for something, hauled off to the clink, and all David E. Kelley could think of was to replace him with a note pinned to a snowman.175

  I flip frantically to the article, bad girl thoughts kicking those snowy white bunnies in the butt, and there he is. Badder and more beautiful than ever. I’m not three words into the story when I’m told to go back to have my hair washed. How lovely; an opportunity to recline with Roberto.

  Clutching my Esquire (because there’s no way I’m leaving without it), I flop back in the sink and say, “Jamie, who’s your favorite bad boy?” “Tommy Lee,” she replies. Instantly. Without hesitation. Like she knew I was going to ask. I love that the world’s best shampoo girl has bad boys on the brain.

  In seconds we’re carrying on like a couple of high school sophomores. “He’s so hot.” “That hair.” “Those eyes.” “His shoulders.” “Nice butt!” We’re giggling and making so much noise the other patrons and stylists want to know what we’re talking about. “Bad boys,” I announce, popping up out of the sink and spraying shampoo and warm water everywhere. “Who’s your favorite bad boy?”

  Mark Wahlberg. Viggo Mortensen. Taylor Kitsch. Leonardo DiCaprio. Jamie Foxx. Charlie Sheen. Adrian Grenier. Taye Diggs. Patrick Dempsey. James Franco. Aaron Eckhart. Clive Owen. Denzel Washington. The names are flying fast and furious. I rip out my notepad and start scribbling. And then it dawns on me: I’ve written Colin Farrell’s name at least fifteen times.

  “Ladies! Ladies!” I yell over the near riot that’s erupted. “Colin Farrell? He looks like he needs a bath.”

  “And don’t you wish you could run the water for him?” cracks my pal Ashley.176

  It couldn’t have been more fun if there were margaritas involved. I doubt they’ll have those in hell, but I’m holding out hope for something sweet. You know, like a Hershey bar. And a spot next to my boy Bobby.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  STYLE SMACKDOWN

  It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I find the farm incredibly boring. I mean, how many bulls can you watch mate with cows before you start to go cuckoo? When it happens, I do my best to entertain myself. I go through my collection of Family Circle cookbooks and come up with new ways to make poultry,177 and I ponder—and occasionally attempt to implement—unique uses for the ticks I pull off Grundy and Pete.178 But sometimes nothing works. Nothing distracts me or stimulates me. And I find myself lost in flights of fancy.

  Like the other day. I suddenly started thinking about launching a new game show.179 I call it Style Smackdown. It came to me when, for the one million and twelfth time, I opened my closet, sweater chest, and T-shirt drawer, and it hit me: I have absolutely nothing to wear. Sure, I have a few decrepit pairs of cords, some decomposing black suit pants, and a pair of bib overalls Hemingway brought home one day when he’d obviously missed whatever medication he typically takes to prevent such spending sprees at Tractor Supply, but other than that I’ve got nothing. Nothing stylish. Nothing “now.” Nothing I can’t wait to wear.

  In an effort to smack back and fill my drawers and closet with cool stuff I’d actually look forward to putting on, I ran to my “local”180 Borders, staked out a spot in the magazine section, and grabbed a fistful of fashion bibles. Ten minutes into Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, In Style, Glamour, Marie Claire, and Cosmo, it dawned on me that I didn’t have a prayer of finding something “now.” But if I want something “then,” that could be arranged.

  Before I get to where I’m going, and I promise I am going somewhere with this, I’d like to take a quick poll. How many of you are reading this while wearing a pair of skinny jeans? Come on, be honest. And if you’ve succumbed to the attraction of these sausage-skin sheaths, I simply must know, oh, fashion-savvy sisters, what do you wear on your feet? Nice, safe flats or sexy stilettos? Slouchy boots or a pair of over-the-knee leather bad boys that should come with a whip for a really wild date night?

  And please don’t tell me you’ve got them tucked into a pair of Timberlands.

  I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m betting that, like me, most of you don’t clad your limbs in skinny jeans. Sure, you have friends who do, and some of them look darn good. But I’m equally certain you have others in your social circle that look less like Kate Hudson and more like upholstered pears in their Rock and Republics. But not you. You’re not slipping into a pair of those suckers. Why? Because you’re not blind. And because years ago you made that most important of fashion purchases: a mirror.

  I credit my mirror, my eyesight, and my common sense for keeping me away from the ’80s-inspired styles making a comeback. It’s tough, though.

  Page after page of magazines like Vogue, where you’d expect to see such silliness, to more traditional, middle-of-the-road reads like Redbook, where you’d expect to be spared it, are showing fringed boots, one-shoulder shirts, blousy bubble-hemmed miniskirts layered over leggings for a look that may have come from the catwalk but belongs on the court jester.

  Of course that’s just my opinion, but it’s one based on firsthand experience, in-depth research, and painfully personal trial-and-error product testing. After all, I went to college in the ’80s and, unfortunately, I’ve got the pictures181 to prove it.

  In one I’m suffocating beneath a cowl-neck sweater with so many folds it could double as a BabyBjörn. In another I’m wearing a pair of lavender corduroy gauchos with purple suede cowboy boots and a shimmery (and very sheer) pale violet poet’s blouse. I recall buying the entire ensemble at Henri Bendel, which proves you can drop a bundle and still look like Barney.

  In a third photo, I’m posing in a white faux-fur jacket worn atop a long-sleeve, skintight, silver turtleneck mini-dress, with matching sparkly leggings and Valley Girl boots. I look ready to run from a John Hughes film casting call to a date with one of the guys from Devo.

  Skinny jeans? Sure, I wore them. From the front they were fine. From the back I appeared to have a sizeable hematoma distending from the base of my spine. Leggings and leg warmers? I had dozens of them in a variety of stripes and solid colors that I paired with cut-up sweatshirts. After all, who didn’t want to look just like Jennifer Beals? I even recall making the leap from Flashdance-inspired fashions to cat suits and ankle boots, all the while wondering if, when I graduated, I could wear the stuff to work. (The answer: yes, if the job involved prowling the stairwells of the New York Port Authority during nonpeak hours.) What a feeling indeed.

  As for the dolman-sleeve tops the stores and catalogs are carrying again, I confess, I owned several. My favorite was a black-and-white-striped number that gave me a wingspan a wandering albatross would envy. They’re not something I’m buying now, though. These days if I want my triceps to flap in the breeze, I’ll simply strip down to my bra.

  Maybe it’s just me, but I really think that if designers are going to pursue the “fashion backward” business, they should be required to add at least one modern enhancement to the clothing they pull out of the past.

  For example, if Stella McCartney or Michael Kors insists on reintroducing the aforementioned skintight turtleneck mini at the Paris collections, New York Fashion Week
, or wherever, the new version has to come with a nuclear-power thigh slimmer and a two-pack of Gas-X attached to the tag (because if you bloat while wearing that baby, it’s over).

  You see what I’m getting at here? If stuff’s going to come back, it’s got to come back better.

  Don’t give us run-of-the-mill leggings. Give us miracle leggings. The kind you slip on, and in seconds have gams that should be insured by Lloyd’s of London. You want us to wear skinny jeans? Make them with magic fabric that prevents the Pear in a Sausage Skin syndrome so many of us regular gals suffer from. Or somebody’s going to be sorry.

  Of course there are certain looks that should never make a comeback. I’m talking about things like pants with waists so high you can rest your boobs on your belt, and tartan plaid ponchos with coordinating kilts. I imagine such Emerald Isle style is appropriate if you’re applying to be Grand Marshall of the St. Paddy’s Day parade, but other than that, why cough over twenty-two hundred bucks to dress like a bagpipe player?

  Frankly I can’t believe I just spent forty dollars on fashion magazines and am still completely clueless as to what I should be wearing. The upside is that I know what I never want to be caught dead in (besides the bib overalls Hemingway won’t let me take back).

  Leopard-print bustiers and cuffed wool shorts come to mind, as do cropped sailor pants, flowy dresses that make even the most Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen-esque among us appear pregnant, and rabbit fur jackets with raccoon trim.182