How to Be Perfect Like Me

by Dana Bowman

  I realized that my stance against bulk was pretty illogical. My therapist, I was sure, would ask me how I felt about it. Brian, I knew, would wonder why I was avoiding the savings in toilet paper alone. But as I ferried my cart and my children out to the car, while straining against it so I didn’t scrape the door of someone’s bulk SUV, I had had enough. It was like I had a redeemed Grinch moment, realizing that maybe, just maybe, whatever it was I was looking for didn’t come from a store, in bulk.

  Every so often I get to have an ice cream dream. This is a total opposite experience to the mom-under-the-refrigerator nightmare. It is heaven. It’s me and an ice cream store. As I lean over the display, staring at all the glistening chocolates and gooey strawberries, the guy behind the counter says, “You can have anything you like. Today, it’s free.” The really amazing part of the dream is my reaction to this. I don’t freak out or start shoveling all the flavors into one wheelbarrow-sized bowl. Instead, I carefully walk back and forth, perusing all the colors and smells. Often my children are with me, and we ask for samples and analyze our favorites like little dairy epicureans.

  I have noticed that I get to have this dream about once a month, right in concert with other hormonal cycles I have the pleasure of entertaining. My uterus is thoughtful, I guess. At any rate, once the ice cream is selected—I’m feeling like some mocha fudge—I sit down at one of those spindly little tables they always have at these shops. And I get out my spoon and dip it in the bowl and then . . . nothing. I wake up. Or that dream ends, and the next one is queued up, usually the one about me doing laundry or buttering toast.

  I never get to actually eat the mocha fudge.

  Here’s the thing. I don’t even mind. It’s the selecting that is so fun, the walking back and forth past the tubs of vanilla walnut and pink bubble gum. It’s fun to window-shop. Granted, it’s a dream, so eating the stuff might actually end up weird. Dreams do that. My mocha fudge might end up tasting like cotton balls, or my mom’s oyster dressing, or some other concoction tied to my psyche. I’ll never know. And still, I look forward to the dream. It’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

  And so, I vowed to live like that. Like I’m in that ice cream shop, looking at all the colors and breathing in the sugared air. If you’ve ever watched a three-year-old eat a scoop of birthday cake ice cream, you know. That’s how we should do it. We shouldn’t stop to ask ourselves how we’re feeling about the sprinkles. We should just eat it and make a mess, and when we’re full, wipe off and take a nap. I think my dream keeps trying to remind me of that.

  So, I vowed to eat more ice cream and stop shopping in bulk. It’s the weirdest combination of self-help out there. I don’t think anyone has ever suggested it in any behavior modification or talk-therapy setting before, but I don’t care. Because, you know what?

  It started working.

  It really started working.

  Items Best Bought in Bulk

  1.Thank-you cards.

  2.Gift wrap—not those silly bags but shiny wrapping paper. The kind you rip.

  3.Ribbons.

  4.Kazoos and Silly String.

  5.Party hats and tiaras. Especially tiaras.

  6.Balloons, helium optimal.

  7.Cupcake sprinkles.

  8.Hugs.

  9.Kisses.

  10.Life.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HOW TO BE

  married and content

  AT THE

  same time

  Based on the title of this chapter, it would be safe to assume that I am going to jump right in and talk about my very important bond with my beloved husband. You would be wrong. For the first few pages I would really much rather tell you all about my relationship with my cat, Bob.

  Bob is a tiny, grey cat who lives in our house, I swear. I say this because my friends have never actually seen Bob. She hides. Yes, Bob is a she. She earned her name because she is missing almost all of her tail. Also, she has feline influenza, so I have to give her daily meds, and sometimes I can be caught saying things such as “Can you grab me a tissue? I’ve got to go wipe Bob’s nose.” Perhaps due to all of this, Bob is extremely shy around humans and rarely can anyone in our household spy her, unless she is skulking past in her weird, skittery way as if she is saying, “DON’T LOOK AT ME. LOOK AWAY, LOOK AWAY.”

  This cat, in sum, is kind of a mess.

  And I loooooove her.

  Every night, as I tuck myself into bed, I feel a soft pounce on the bed. Bob is ready for bed too. She will slowly walk up my side until she has managed to wedge her tiny, nervous greyness as firmly into my side as possible, and there she will remain until morning. Or until I roll over on her, which has happened. She didn’t really do much; she just flattened herself out like roadkill, waiting until I realized that I was crushing the life out of her. She has really sharp little hip bones, so I did finally wake up, and she slid out of the bed. I swear I heard her murmur, “No, really, that’s all right. I’m fine. I just need to go walk it off. I’ll be right back. Cheery-bye.” And yes, in my mind, Bob speaks like she’s Angela Lansbury; it suits her somehow. Perhaps it’s because once I tried to dress her up in a doily and a tea cozy, but she doesn’t like to talk about that.

  Bob doesn’t talk at all, which is another reason why I love her so. She doesn’t even meow. The most noise we ever hear out of her is a sneeze, delicate and phlegmy.

  On occasion I like to call her Silent Bob, but it doesn’t really make her all that happy. She’s not a Gen X cat. That’s Steve, our white behemoth who lies around all day, makes a lot of noise, and is mellow about everything. He has no personal aspirations and is such a happy cat that Bob walks by him and eyes him with total suspicion. I have actually seen him put his paw around her shoulders and lick her ear as if to say, “Relax, lady. Chilly-chill. It’s all good. Here, lemme get you a tissue.”

  The truth is, Bob has issues. She has a dark past. This makes me love her all the more, of course. She is not at all like Hosmer, our dog, or pretty much anyone else in this house. Hosmer hangs out, waits for his next meal, and is so jazzed when the meal comes that he can’t even eat it, he’s just so grateful. He loves it when people just walk past him. “Hey!” he says with a wag as they pass by, “You are so awesome for doing that! For the walking! See you again soon!” Hosmer’s life goals are to lean on me and, if I move, quickly lick the moving part of me. His deepest secret is where he has hidden his squeaky carrot toy. And it’s right on his bed, in full view.

  I don’t really know what Bob has hidden in her past. I received her from a friend who wasn’t able to care for her anymore. It seems Bob has been fostered quite a bit. We don’t know how she lost her tail, but I don’t think these things happen pleasantly.

  I just know. I look into her deep, slightly cross-eyed face with her little tongue sticking out just a little, and I just know. She has a dark past. She’s seen things. And then, I get up to get a tissue because I need to wipe her nose.

  I know some would say that my relationship with my wheezy cat is a bit strange, but ours is a love without borders. Or normality, it seems. But she just needs me so much. When the boys go to bed, Bob shows up, walking up to me with her crossed eyes and her bowlegged strut. She sits so close I can feel her take a breath, in and out. I am the only one she will sit, or sneeze, upon.

  It’s nice to be so needed. I just wish it wasn’t so phlegmy.

  True, my kids need me. But that’s in an “I’m your kid and need you, but I will also drive you bonkers due to my ability to talk about Jar Jar Binks for hours with barely a break for air” kind of way. Bob is so very quiet. She asks for a bowl of kibble and the occasional tissue. And I’m pretty sure she agrees with me on the whole Jar Jar thing, so we’re good.

  Brian doesn’t need me. I know; that sounds kind of harsh. But I have come to realize that marriages are not based on the super romantic, “You are my sun, my moon, my everything” kind of thing. I mean, Brian does love me. And he does, I guess, need me. But he doe
sn’t need me. Not like Bob does, anyway.

  Are you familiar with that scene from Jerry Maguire where Tom makes cinema gold and tells what’s-her-face that she completes him? That scene has messed up so many marriages. This is why it makes it so easy to dislike Tom Cruise for a lot of things.

  Brian and I watched Jerry Maguire together. It was a romantic night, with popcorn, sex on the first date (theirs), and bed at 10:00 p.m. sharp (ours).

  As we prepared for bed, Brian and I embarked on a long discussion about why I should stop buying bargain toilet paper. I don’t know how we got there. Something about “You had me at hello” got us into a conversation that had subpoints and follow-up arguments on two-ply. I think, at one point, Anderson Cooper was called in to moderate.

  “What you are failing to acknowledge,” Brian said, his hands folded in a tent with fingers aligned, “is that my derriere* can only tolerate super soft. Not sandpaper.”

  “Yes, I get that, because I know how important your derriere is to you. Like, really important. But, honey, I am not going to buy it in bulk. We talked about this.”

  “Yeah, your whole refusal-to-go-to-Costco thing. What was that about again? I don’t get why you would do that. Our children need gigantic bags of cereal to feed them. Don’t you want to feed them?”

  “Your love of Costco toilet paper is what is driving the argument here, not our children and not finances. Just that stupid toilet paper. And yes, I won’t go back to Costco. I hate it there.”

  “Right. You had some sort of epiphany at Costco. And so, I have sandpaper for my derriere, and it’s killing me. I am going to die a slow, sandpapered death.”

  “Is it a tiny bit possible that you are overexaggerating here?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. And it’s exfoliating.”

  “NOBODY NEEDS EXFOLIATION DOWN THERE.”

  All the while, during this scintillating debate, Hosmer sat at our feet and quivered with distress. He sensed the growing frustration over paper products in our house, and his anxiety levels were sparking around in his tiny brain. Bob, on the other hand, folded herself into my side and sneezed occasionally with bliss. She didn’t pay much attention to the argument, except when I shifted in my seat and she had to come along for the ride. She’s like those remora fish that attach to the side of whales . . . but furry.

  I bet Jerry Maguire never argued about toilet paper.

  Well, maybe. He does seem rather intense. Perhaps these things matter to him.

  Our marriage seems to have tides. Every marriage does. We ebb and we flow with our feelings for each other and hope we don’t wreck. And our marriage has steered past many dangerous waters: my growing addiction; his anger issues—oh, and I’m sure those first two are so not linked—my relapse; and his innate desire to eat gas station hot dogs even though I beg him not to. And here we are, still floating along. We might be clutching onto stray driftwood, but we are still alive. And we are still in love, or working at being in love, every day.

  Brian was not quite as enthusiastic about my recovery the second time around. I wasn’t either. On more than one occasion, I missed a meeting because he got home late.

  “Where R U?” I texted. There was no response until he showed up as I paced the floor in the kitchen.

  “I had a meeting tonight, remember?”

  He looked at me blankly for a minute then rubbed his hand through his hair. “I am so sorry. I forgot. Can you still go?”

  “No. It’s okay. I’ll make sure to put it on the calendar next time.”

  And so it went. However, before Brian came home I was frustrated and wanted to add to the conversation, making addenda to the text that I actually sent.

  “WHY CAN’T . . .”

  “IT’S ALWAYS WEDNESDAY, HOW HARD . . .”

  “IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, FOR THE LOVE OF . . .”

  I started each of those texts but didn’t complete any of them because Brian and I were being extra kind to each other. And most of the time, texts like that only add mean to angry, and that’s just dumb. If you’re going to start out at angry, you don’t need to add anything to it. That’s like pouring Tabasco all over Brian’s five-alarm chili, when honestly, the chili was already its own advertisement for Pepto-Bismol.

  Also, never, ever text in all caps. Like, ever.

  Instead, I made sure to remind him or to set up a sitter, and I kept going to meetings. I didn’t give up in a huff and start drinking Jägermeister just so I could make a point to Brian. That is precisely how the alcoholic in me would operate, and I don’t listen to her anymore—she’s crazy.

  Brian and I weren’t having any more colossal fights, which was boring and good at the same time. Boring and good was a theme I was going for. I kept the house tidy. I started writing again. I didn’t forget to pay the auto insurance, and I made appointments for the dentist. I wrote detailed lists of what my day would entail at the beginning of the week and then carefully checked off each item. Sometimes I even used colored pens. Each day was like one of those ubiquitous “keep calm” graphics.

  I hugged Brian when he came home, and he kissed me goodnight, and we continued to walk along. No major icebergs floated by. The waves were still.

  It was all so dull I wanted to scratch my eyes out.

  But wait. Valentine’s Day was coming.

  As is so often the case, Valentine’s Day ends up being the lame spinoff of the winter holidays. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are the trilogy of fun. They involve costumes, men in costumes, candy, and presents. Thanksgiving doesn’t really have all that, and its main color scheme is brown. But it has pies and a parade. And did I mention, pie?

  Valentine’s Day has love, but in my opinion that does not compete with reindeer that fly.

  I did know better than to plan a Fantastically Romantic Evening (FRE). I didn’t really know what an FRE was anymore since Brian and I were both harboring small children. They had pretty much beaten the romantic out of us. We looked at them, particularly after watching them fight about who has a milliliter more of chocolate pudding and four more sprinkles, and we knew the truth: romantic was what caused all of this. Romantic was evil.

  But I did want to do something notable. I felt like I needed it. And Brian, too.

  The thing is, I love him. And Valentine’s Day is all queued up for that.

  Because I always think I am way more Pinterest-y than I actually am, I signed up to bring cupcakes to Charlie’s class for Valentine’s Day. In my mind, that always seemed like such a great idea because I would be helping in the classroom but not during the time-sucking nuttiness of the holiday trinity. This was also fortuitous because I didn’t really know I was going to relapse during the holidays, and now I was sober and making cupcakes, all at the same time. Thus, I would be able to make the cupcakes with the relaxed ease of a sober Martha Stewart. The only difference would be that I would be wielding store-bought frosting. Sorry, Martha.

  I decided to make a double batch of the cupcakes and incorporate them into my Valentine’s Day with Brian. Then, I planned to make Brian’s favorite dinner. For the evening’s festivities, we would eat steak and cupcakes and then watch a movie.

  I know. I want to curl up and take a nap just writing this.

  I had wanted to curl up and take a nap for so long, and Valentine’s Day was no different. But this is marriage. You get up and kiss each other hello, with his stubble and your morning breath. And he makes the coffee too weak, and you forget to pick up the towels, and his lunch is leftover chili that wasn’t good on the first running. And you text each other about four times each day, but it’s mainly about whether you paid the water bill or whether he can pick up dog food. And a lot of times the texts are answered with “Y,” which is code for “I’m too busy to talk and I don’t want to text ‘K’ because that’s rude, but somehow I can’t even get the time to push ‘E’ and ‘S.’” Your discussions at night hit maybe ten minutes tops. Instead, you invest in long-winded conversations w
ith small children about why peeing is a sport that involves both aim and dedication. And then you fall asleep, but not before he smushes over and tries to kiss your cheek but ends up kissing your eyeball due to the light being turned off. Then he snores and you hog the blankets. And you get up and do the whole thing again the next day. And so on.

  That’s marriage. It’s built upon a foundation of “and so on.”

  I realize I am not really selling this whole marriage thing. It doesn’t make an inspiring bumper sticker—Marriage: Sometimes It’s Nice.

  I would say Brian and I have a comfortable marriage. Comfortable is not bad. Slippers are comfortable. So are large couches and smooth jazz channels on the radio. And honestly, if I must, I’ll compare my marriage to warm, fuzzy slippers anytime. There are worse things. Yet, contentment doesn’t have to live in fuzzy slippers. It can live in Manolos, or some other high-end footwear; however, I don’t wear Manolos because they make my toes feel like they’re being eaten by stylish piranhas.

  Contentment deserves better.

  When I first got married, I wanted big feelings. If I’d had the choice, I would have picked the overacted, standing-on-the-roof-of-Alcatraz, holding-up-flares-and-shouting-my-lines type of feelings. I wanted to be the Nicolas Cage of marriages. To this day, I still don’t know what to do with feelings that are on low volume. But I’m learning to work with them.

  I have a friend whose parents are so in love it’s ridiculous. They finish each other’s sentences and like to sit on each other. One is always stroking the other like they need to be scratched behind the ears. They are so attentive all the time, bringing each other drinks or small plates of crackers and cheese.

  It’s really kind of gross.

  Granted, they really do seem to genuinely like each other, but the fact that they follow each other around like puppies is terrifying. I mean, what will happen when one of them up and dies? What then, cheese-and-cracker guy?