Blacklisted from the PTA

by Davidson, Lela

  It was immoral. When the inevitable happened it hit him hard. John spent weeks looking at the ceiling, searching for his strategy. I discovered he’d opted for the attic route when I was folding laundry and a light casing crashed to the floor, accompanied by a grunt. He’d have to fix that now too.

  But damn it, he’d changed the bulb! He beamed coming down the stairs. The glow disappeared when he flipped the switch to find it still dead. He’d missed the location and replaced one perfectly good bulb with another. I reminded him that we didn’t need to turn on those lights. Ever. But he insisted, so we agreed to change them all at once. I suggested hiring a service. Once you pay someone to clean the toothpaste ring out of your bathroom sink, there’s not much you won’t outsource.

  John wanted to do the job himself so we moved furniture and rugs, and leaned a borrowed ladder against the wall. Wanting to be as useful as my prize of a husband, I planned to do a thorough cleaning under the sofas where I expected to find entire colonies of dust loving creatures. All I found was the shiny wood flooring John installed last winter.

  Clearly, the cleaning lady needed a raise. As my devoted husband climbed, the ladder wobbled terribly. How could I not picture him plummeting to the floor like two hundred ten pounds of raw meat? I wondered what widowhood might look like. Adrenaline shot through my core as I realized I’d probably have to give up the housekeeper.

  I noticed the weight limit on the shaky aluminum ladder: two hundred pounds. “Careful, Babe.” We moved around the room, him taking new and old bulbs on each trip up and down the shaky ladder and me with my foot firmly wedged at its base. I knew that should something go wrong, my hundred and twenty pounds wouldn’t stop any tragedy and could in fact, render my children orphans. (Oh sure they’d love it, but that’s another essay). Once we had a system going, my mind wandered.

  What would I do if he fell? It’s not like I could score another like him. Hitting the Power Ball is a once in a lifetime deal. Once you’ve won, what’s the point of wasting your money on scratchoff tickets? Still, I made a mental note to Google “respectable period of mourning.” I do look great in black.

  Concentrating to keep my post at the ladder, my eyes were on John’s legs, but my mind escaped to that great looking guy in the carpool line and the green-eyed boy at The Gap who almost sold me those awful jeans because he kept saying my name. This imaginary widowhood was nothing but a harmless fantasy, right?

  I wondered where John had been while they were selling tickets to the awesome wife lottery. Of course I was relieved—happy even—when he came down safely from the ladder that final time. Jackpot husband intact. Only a fool would dream of anything else. But in case I decide to further indulge the dark side of my imagination, I’ll have my chance.

  Tomorrow he’s checking bent roof tiles.

  Are We There Yet?

  THIS YEAR I BOUGHT AIRLINE TICKETS FOR AUGUST IN APRIL. That’s how far in advance I planned our summer vacation. Not exactly spontaneous. As I confirmed the reservations, I wondered when summer vacation morphed from something that exemplified pure freedom to just another obligation. When had it become a mere set of squares on the calendar to coordinate?

  When we were kids, the last day of school and the first day of the next school year may as well have been decades apart. All we knew was trips and reading lists and sleeping in. We had waterslides, watermelon, and trout fishing. And the end was too far away to imagine. Just like those long car trips where we could not help ourselves but ask, “Are we there yet?”

  By the time we hit the more permissive middle school years, we had traded jumpers for bikinis. Summer meant drinking ulcer-inducing quantities of Diet Coke, watching MTV until our eyes bled, and taking sex quizzes in Cosmo—all while baking in the sun under a healthy coating of baby oil mixed with iodine. We were all pink cheeks and blonde streaks, earned honestly at the seaside or pool. In high school we had summer jobs and summer loves. We sneaked out and drank wine coolers until dawn. The college years brought more of the same, only legal this time. Those became the summers against which all future Junes, Julys, and Augusts would be judged. If ever we were there, that was the time. And we thought it would last forever.

  But it didn’t last long. We grew up and went to work and packed up summer vacation with our varsity jackets and mix tapes. Highlights were acquired at the salon, and the rosy pink glow came courtesy of Cover Girl. The closest we came to liberty was sneaking out of the office early to hit Happy Hour, and maybe a week off for good behavior. The sun still brought fun, but even when business was slow, there wasn’t much difference between summer and the rest of the year. Days were spent in cubicles wishing we were anywhere but there.

  Then we had kids and their summer schedule dominated ours. Simply taking care of them during non-school hours became a challenge. Working parents scrambled for childcare and their stay-at-home counterparts scraped at their own fragile sanity in a house overrun by children. There was tennis practice and drama camp, the junior botany club, and something down at the library with Elmer’s glue and sequins. Summer seemed more like a prison sentence than a get-outof-jail-free card. Even the pool was a chore. We knew that SPF 50 was probably overkill, but a kid’s sunburn might get us hauled into Child Services. Weeks zipped by on the calendar faster than we could pencil in a day at the lake and a trip to grandma’s house.

  It was our children’s turn to ask, “Are we there yet?” Soon they will have their own jobs, and cars that carry them away for frighteningly long stretches of time. If you’re like me, you can’t help but wonder what you’ll do when your little birds fly the nest.

  I can tell you exactly what you’ll be doing.

  Working. Someone’s got to pay for all that fun. And you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you? It’s the natural evolution of summer. The result, however, is that the next time you can expect to have anything resembling the carefree joy of your youthful summers will be sometime after 2030.

  Meet me at Happy Hour and we’ll gum some corn chips and suck down a virgin margarita.

  Are we there yet?

  Not in the Frommer’s Guide to New York City

  LAST SUMMER WE TOOK OUR FIRST TRIP TO NEW YORK. I FAITH-fully studied the Frommer’s Guide to New York City With Kids to find the perfect place to park our suburban family for the twoday trip. The financial district turned out to be surprisingly low-key and family friendly over the weekend. Despite our tourist status, it didn’t take long to feel like New Yorkers.

  I even figured out the subway. The first day we found our way onto the red line, headed to the Museum of Natural History. Smug, I watched another family openly consulting the Frommer’s Guide I’d wisely tucked into my backpack. Rookies.

  We bounced along until my son inexplicably hopped up and walked off the train at Canal Street—a full 673 blocks early. He had one foot on the platform before I sprung from my seat and pulled him back in. Crisis averted.

  “I could totally live here,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. My husband rolled his eyes. I held onto my son until we safely reached the museum, where, following my carefully crafted itinerary, we saw as many of the most important exhibits as possible. (Including an unplanned sighting of Carolina Herrera, next to a panorama of Great Plains—and yes, her white shirt is crisper than yours.) When it was time for lunch we found the perfect pizza place exactly where the book had promised.

  “I could totally live here,” I said later, watching my kids play air guitar on a rock in Central Park.

  “You think?” My husband wasn’t convinced.

  That next day we took a tour of the harbor and ate overpriced pasta on Pier 16. Afterwards we walked along the waterfront of Battery Park City, an area full of Frisbees, dogs, and strollers. The guidebook had highlighted the playground just two blocks from our hotel as a key perk of the location. Once again, Frommer’s didn’t disappoint.

  Our children swung in the tires, climbed the rope net, and slid down the fireman’s pole with real city kids wh
ile my husband and I found a bench to relax and keep an eye on them. With the sun setting, and the slightest chill in the air—just enough to bring us closer together on the bench—we felt completely at home. Like a couple of locals.

  “I could totally live here,” I told my husband again. “Nah.” He reminded me that everything we owned in suburbia—the house, the cars, the boat, the stainless steel refrigerator—would buy us approximately six hundred square feet in New York City.

  As we enjoyed our last night in the city, vowing to come back soon, three very cool teenaged girls—the kind you might see on one of those reality shows I’m too old to know the name of—approached the playground equipment. The tallest, longesthaired, hottest-bodied of the three immediately grasped the pole directly in front of us and began demonstrating to her friends how to work it. Twirling, sliding, grinding. Clearly, she had practice. My husband squirmed, simultaneously watching and averting his eyes. I searched my pockets for ones.

  “Well…” I said. “That wasn’t in the guidebook.” The closest thing we have to this kind of entertainment at home is when an Arbor Mist loving girlfriend hosts one of those parties where you’re supposed to buy your own personal stripper pole and install it in your bedroom. (Because your children would certainly never ask, hey mom, why are you hanging off that pole?) A friend of mine recently had one built into her new house from the upstairs down into the laundry room. She calls it a fireman’s pole, swears it’s for the kids to slide down. Right, that’s why the laundry room also has a chaise lounge and a deadbolt.

  The free show continued for some time as the beta girls took turns emulating their erotic alpha. It didn’t bother me, so long as my daughter was oblivious. And when my husband recovered from his initial shock, he turned to me and said,

  “I could totally live here.”

  Camping, Anyone?

  IT WAS THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR. NATURALLY, WE DECIDED to camp. But first, for added amusement, we spent the entire ninety-plus degree day on the lake with friends. All day we soaked in the sun and its glare off the water. Grownups quenched thirst with beer while kids gorged on Cheetos and orange soda. We all got sunburned. As the hour got later and hotter, friends questioned our choice to sleep in a tent. But we truly believed it would be fun.

  Around six, when everyone else docked their boats and headed for the air-conditioned Nirvana of their suburban homes, we trailered up and parked ourselves at the campsite. A friend waved goodbye, saying “I’ll be thinking of you tonight, when I flip my pillow over to the cool side.”

  But we knew. We KNEW how to have fun. Not like those wimpy homebodies. We had hotdogs and ‘tater salad and all the makings for perfect s’mores. First, we built a fire. My husband thinks of everything. Never mind it was ninety-five degrees without a breeze. How else would we cook the hotdogs? While the fire blazed, the kids complained. Even the lake—by now one huge bathtub—offered no comfort. I gave my children ice from the cooler, which they rubbed on their reddened skin. The dog hung his head.

  “It’ll be fine once the sun goes down,” my husband reassured. But he was wrong. Somehow the temperature increased after sundown. Even melted chocolate and marshmallow could not lift our spirits. In the darkness, we sat—around the place where the obligatory campfire had been. When it got too hot to expend the energy necessary to make up stories, we went to bed. And by bed, I mean the ground, cushioned by a generous layer of nylon tent floor. Our spacious four-man (yeah, right) tent offered the added benefit of trapping the now liquid air.

  The children and I whined and feverishly fanned ourselves with paper plates. Finally, we pleaded with my husband to go home. He wouldn’t hear of it.

  “It wouldn’t be so hot if you quit complaining, you pansies.” Our protests affect the air temperature, apparently. But you know what they say: pick your battles. So I sucked it up and persuaded the kids to do the same. We suffered in silence until I felt I might actually suffocate. I sat up and pressed my face next to the tent “window,” hoping to get some oxygen through the nylon mesh.

  “What are you doing?” my husband asked.

  “Oh, nothing, Babe. Just breathing.”

  That’s all it took—fear of spousal asphyxiation—to convince my husband it was time to go. The kids leaped into action. In the dark we packed the boat in record time. Our quickness was fueled by the joyful anticipation of sweet, cool A/C. I swear the dog smiled.

  Five minutes out of the campsite the air temperature dropped ten degrees. But that was nothing compared to the icy cotton at home, on the flipside of my pillow.

  Could Be Worse

  BLOODY, BRUTAL, BONE-CHILLING SQUIRT LEVEL HOCKEY. THAT’S what compelled us to drive five hours in the snow. We’d made good time to St. Louis, without so much as a missed exit, and checked into a Holiday Inn just off I-55. I took credit for that. A check of the coach’s email confirmed we only had time for a quick pee before heading to the ice rink so the nine- and eleven-year olds could skate to certain victory—or at least a consolation medal. With fifty pounds of reeking hockey gear, we headed to our first game.

  Note: Good hockey moms Febreeze (yes, that’s a verb) and/or launder hockey clothes and equipment weekly. I prefer a good scrubbing annually. Call me green.

  We piled into the Dorito-littered car, mapped the route on my handy i-can-quit-anytime phone, and headed north on I55.

  “What did we do before we had GPS?” my husband asked. “We called people on the phone and they said things like, take the 54th Street exit and turn right on Maple.” No need for unreliable human contact now. I had a Super Phone.

  “It could be worse,” I told my family when my husband took the wrong ramp—the one that led to the graffiti district in downtown St. Louis. “It could be dark.” No one appreciated my joke.

  After a quick tour of rundown factories with barred, broken windows, colorful wisdom sprayed onto the walls, and too many one-way streets, we found the highway that led to the Illinois suburb hosting the hockey tournament. (Yes, our game was in a different state than our hotel.) We had barely lost five minutes; my baby girl, the star defenseman, and my son, super wingman, would make it to the game on time.

  Though my husband wasn’t saying so, I know he thought the wrong turn was my fault, and maybe it was. Sure, I was navigating, but he was the one turning the steering wheel. At least the phone battery was charged and the little blinking ball that represented our car on the map was back on track. It could have been worse.

  “Are you sure this is the way?” my children asked six hundred and forty-seven times.

  “Of course I am.” I held up screen with the digital image of the map. “See.”

  Twenty minutes later we were lost again. This time it really was my fault, or rather my phone’s fault. The GPS missed a turnoff that led to Fairview Heights. We were headed to Chicago. I called the rink for directions to I-64 and our exit just before the coach called in a panic over the absence of his two star players.

  “We’re almost there,” I told him. “Exit twelve, right? Off sixty-four?”

  “Uh—I came in on fifty-five, so… not sure.”

  “Okay, well, we’ll be there A-S-A-P.”

  We were at the exit in minutes, within a mile of the rink. And with ten minutes to spare. We would have made it with no problem, if some genius hadn’t put the hockey rink too close to the shopping mall. In the crawling Saturday afternoon traffic, my husband’s face grew tighter and grayer at the eternity of each stoplight. He changed into the right lane, only to have the left move faster.

  To diffuse the stressful situation I screamed toward the backseat, “Stop talking!”

  “We didn’t say anything.” “Whatever,” I said. “Quit complaining. It could be worse.”

  In the ensuing quiet, my synapses fired. I-55, really? Coach got here on I-55? Because according to my virtual map we were nowhere near I-55.

  “That would be funny,” I said, thinking out loud, “if we were going to the wrong rink.” The crease in between my
husband’s brows grew deeper. The kids groaned. I doublechecked the email with the rink address and reassured everyone, “We’re totally going to the right place.”

  We found the street the rink was on. It was a dead end. However, we could see the building through the trees just yards away. My husband looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  “I’m going for it.” He jumped the curb, burned around a couple of trees, and bounced into the parking lot like a triumphant Clark Griswold pulling up to Wallyworld. I told him to pull up in front, unload, and I’d park the car. Just as my family had taken out the last of the hockey bags, the coach called again.

  “How close are you?”

  “We’re here,” I told him. I looked at red letters on the side of the rink. “US Hockey, right?”

  Horrible silence filled the line.

  “Uh—no. We’re at American Hockey.”

  Of course they were.

  “Didn’t you get my email last night?”

  “No, Coach, I didn’t get your email.” Behind the car, frustration turned to anger. Gear thudded back into the car, doors were slammed, and the look on my husband’s face was—not good.

  With the smelly bags and players reloaded, I hit the reverse route button on the mapping app and we headed back, rolling south on I-55 through downtown St. Louis, back the way we had come, with the Gateway Arch as a backdrop. This time it was getting dark; this time we didn’t get lost. I called the coach and told him we’d try and make the second half.