by Jill Kargman
Harry and I bicker about all kinds of crazy shit (texting at the wheel, bringing business to the dinner table), but the times I’ve come closest to calling Raoul Felder and filing for a D have all evolved around “adventure.”
The most memorable was when Harry led me down an Aspen trail called AMF. My husband is an insanely gifted skier, having raced on a development team. He was cut from the Olympic trials but skied professionally for the United States on an International Ski Federation team in Europe for two years, which is why he was practically a senior citizen when he graduated college. The day in question, we went to the top of Snowmass and switched to the pommel lift up to the tippity top, and I blindly followed him down the trail against my better judgment. It was a cliff of waist-high powder and I started to panic. I quote unquote “engaged my core” slash “powerhouse” and worked impossibly hard to turn my quivering legs. I was in waaaaaay over my head. I thought, Holy fucking shit, this could not be worse. And then, like in a movie when someone says that and then lightning strikes and torrential rain pours down, the cliff gave way to a forest, where I had to thread the steep needle of the narrow trail through trees. I was positive I’d go the way of Sonny Bono and screamed, “I fucking hate you!” Despite the twenty-degree winds, I was sweating like a pig. Make that a pig in a ski suit. Two more hairpin turns and I wiped out and fell. I burst into tears and I was aching in every muscle in my body. “I want a divorce! I am serious!” Harry was laughing and coached me how to get down. Livid, I finally made it down and stormed by him, red-faced and tearstained. When a friend’s husband saw us inside and I told him Harry had idiotically made me ski something called AMF, he looked like the Edvard Munch painting The Scream. “You know what that stands for, right?” he asked. “ ‘Adios, motherfucker.’ ” Nice.
I called my parents, bawling that I hated my husband, and they laughed and talked me down, saying they adored him and to give him a break—he never would’ve done it on purpose. I got over it with a glass of red wine, and naturally now we laugh about it. But the point is that my parents guided and supported our marriage. Not just by example, but also with sage advice and patient talks. They took our children so we could get away for the weekend; they sat with me and played during what is to most people Happy Hour but to moms can be Suicide Hour, assisting in bath time, stories, and bedtime. I could not have gotten through those early years of child-rearing without them.
When my kids were nine, six, and five, my parents celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary. My brother, Willie, and I decided that since they didn’t want a party to celebrate, we would (tough shit) throw them a surprise party. With our spouses in cahoots, we cajoled them to a “wine tasting” and ambushed them with all their friends at our favorite little restaurant in Sun Valley, Cristina’s, the homiest nook you can imagine—a small cabin with a roaring fire and delicious cooking smells from the crackling kitchen. It was a truly special night; here is the toast Willie and I took turns reading:
’Twas the night after Christmas
And all over the world
Vacations were ruined
As a marriage unfurled.
Dad loved Mom’s suede clogs
And her accentless French.
She loved his sharp wit
And knew he was a mensch.
When Mom and Dad met
Dad wore a red plaid blazer.
Vegas odds had placed bets,
But amazingly its ugliness did not faze her.
But Dad won her heart,
For underneath was a humorous charm.
His humor was brilliant
Even if his Belgian Shoes were cause for alarm.
The engagement was so short
The bridal atelier thought Mom was knocked up.
But why wait to wed
When your heart’s all locked up?
’Twas a date inconvenient,
With weather egregious,
But it was so warm and cozy
Within the St. Regis.
The groom was a riot,
The bride was a hottie.
Soon my brother and I arrived,
Sometimes nice, mostly naughty.
They dealt with mice, stress, and chaos,
With kids and drunk clients,
And those awful teen years
Met with ’tude and defiance.
You put up with my boyfriends
And never kvetched,
And now you have Sadie
And Ivy and Fletch!
There are no more devoted grandparents
Than Poppy Arie and Grammy Coco.
Jill hands over the tots
When they drive her quite loco.
My morbid ’rents just bought funeral plots
Side by side on Nantucket.
It’s a little weird and creepy
But they think Queens cemeteries suck it.
So raise a glass to forty years
And here’s to loving your spouse.
To us, we’re Daffer Dan, Frog Friend,
Polar Bear Cub, and Miss Mouse.
We love celebrating you
And we’re having a blast.
You guys have proven
That true love will always last….
WE LOVE YOU!
THANKS FOR BEING THE BEST PARENTS EVER!
—
Now together almost forty-four years, the duo are happier than ever, doting on five grandchildren and traveling through their golden years in such a blissful partnership. This book would have zero pages if it weren’t for them, since they both instilled every iota of humor in my brother and me. And while the rest of the country is experiencing holiday postpartum depression and returning gifts the day after Christmas, we are clinking glasses and reveling in their anniversary.
For those of you who don’t know, school placement in New York City is a fucking war zone. If you don’t live in a “good” public school zone (and the “good” schools seem to have little correlation with the “good” neighborhoods), you are totes going through metal detectors. And if you can fork over tuition or swing a scholarship, you might start looking into private schools for your nuggets as early as in utero to get them into a kindergarten of choice. I’m not quite sure how these admissions officers judge the kids, but I guess they can glean a lot from finger-painting, blocks, and sand. Oh, and they fully grill the parents as well, obviously.
We got Sadie (and then Ivy) into an all-girl’s private school without too much trouble—only a few bribes, lies, and blow jobs, no big whoop. When we were applying to kindergarten for my son, Fletch, I wished I could shove a wig on him and send him off every morning with Sadie and Ivy, but, alas, we had to start fresh and try to jam him into one of the coveted fifty private spots with a thousand kids competing. We didn’t want to move, and I wasn’t about to pull a Sally Field and bone some fat bespectacled board of ed. dude (a scene that makes me forever recall that sad movie Forrest Hump).
So we cast our net wide, touring the city for the right place for Fletch. We visited campuses and considered the options. I filled out the applications and wrote the obligatory essays, something we hadn’t had to do for the girls’ school. The whole process chipped away at our sanity a little, but I’m happy to report that for the most part we held our shit together, even knowing that most other competing families were hiring writing coaches—moonlighting PhDs and novelists, for fuck’s sake—to “massage” their personal statements. We didn’t need Xanax to get through it like some others I know, but it’s still daunting to sum up your five-year-old in a one-page “Parents’ Statement.” In the end I managed to painstakingly construct something I must admit I was rather proud of. We were a good package! I was feeling pretty confident.
But then Fletch’s nursery school director made a comment that sent my blood pressure into the stratosphere. I became one of those moms.
“Mrs. Kargman, you know we love you, but…the boys’ schools are different from the girls’ schools. Much, much, much more conse
rvative.”
I gulped. “So?”
“So we appreciate your irreverent side, and that worked with the girls’ school, as Thérèse is very downtown and open.” (She was our East Village–dwelling admissions director at the girls’ school.)
“And…”
“And we would advise that you cover up your tattoos during these interviews.”
Shock.
I think my quiet—stone-cold disbelief is what it was—made Harry start talking. “Totally, totally,” he said. I continued to stare in stunned silence until our little meeting was done.
Out on the street I threw a hissy fit of hear-me-roar proportions. I admit it, I acted like a big baby, or actually more like a snippy righteous teenager trying to “be herself.” I was going all Whitney Houston about being who I am, when Harry very calmly said, “Sweetie. No one is trying to change you. They’re simply saying that this is a very uptight scene and to play the game! It’s really not a big deal and you’re being crazy.”
Well. Nothing makes a woman go crazier than being told she is crazy. My rants escalated from the “Greatest Love of All” to Heart’s “Barracuda.”
“I AM WHO I AM AND FUCK THESE ROBOTIC VANILLA FUCKING SCHOOLS AND THEIR DEMONIC GATEKEEPERS!”
Harry calmly explained that no one was attacking me. Or him. They were just looking out for Fletch. Was I seriously going to cut off my nose to spite my face if it would affect our kid? he asked.
Ugh, fine. Pop my anger balloon. Deflate my righteousness. He had a point. I agreed I’d wear long sleeves to cover my wrists, NBD.
The date rolled around for the first interview. And, just my luck, it was 98 degrees. And, like the boy band of that temperature, it was insuffs. I was shvitzing my balls off before I even got to the corner, and I was in my sleeveless dress, my leather jacket draped over my shoulder. When we walked in, I put the jacket on to cover the ink on my wrists. Everyone else was wearing short sleeves and here I was, dressed for Halloween on an Africa-hot day. I felt and looked like a complete asshole.
But I managed to smile as I shook hands with the pretty blond admissions director. She was reed thin, stylish, and perfectly sweat free. She led us up the stairs on a tour, and with each step I felt the sweat gathering at my temples and dripping down my body. My pits were a swamp of caked Tom’s of Maine lavender deodorant and faucetlike perspiration. I was almost seeing stars when we got to the ninth-floor gym and I thought I was going to pass out. We went into the interview, were seated on a lovely settee, and discussed my little guy. I remember sitting up straight and politely answering a stream of questions, what sports he enjoys, what toys, what a typical Saturday consists of. And that sweat was pouring out of every pore. We left a total of ninety minutes later and burst into the street, me peeling off my now soaked-through jacket. It was so BO-logged that I almost needed to trash it so as not to be picked up by Homeland Security for possession of chemical weaponry. I could’ve bottled it and shipped it to ISIS and we’d win the War on Terror. My hair was so matted and gnarlissssimi I was mortified, and my whole being was like that Charlie Brown smelly kid with squiggly lines orbiting him to connote stink. Good times!
Thankfully, the rest of the tours were mercifully cooler and my various blazers and leather jackets were suitable. But here was the problem: our first-choice school was the one where I had looked like I was mid menopausal hot flash and probably behaved like a fucking lunatic who had to catch her breath and wipe perspiration every twenty seconds.
Fast-forward two months. The setting was SoulCycle, aka spinagogue. I was going bonkers as a shut-in during Hurricane Sandy, and women were dangling off the ceiling, cramming their way to the desk, begging for a spare bike, since our kids had been home all week because of the weather. I did a hope dance, which is when I cross my fingers and do a goofy jig, and it somehow worked! I was given one of the bikes in the Staten Island/undesirable section in the back. Ordinarily I’m a front-row type, so I’m right up in the action, but that day I was so desperate that I was still fired up to be in Siberia—I was going to finally move my ass and get out all my pent-up aggression from being cooped up.
I banged my hip bone on every bike on my way to the nosebleed section up on risers in the back corner, put my water in the water holder, and blissfully started setting up my bike. And then. All the blood suddenly drained out of my face as I looked at the ringed hand putting water in the water holder next to me. It was the pretty blond admissions director from my first-choice school—the very one where I had been sweating my balls off and panting like a golden retriever. Fucklesby McShitcock. I was there in a black ribbed tank top that said “I STACEE JAXX” from Rock of Ages. That would be Tom Cruise’s drug addict character who had two life-size gun tattoos on either side of his pelvis pointed at his (probably pierced) cock. And, of course, my own tattoos—sweet little ribbons tied into bows on the inside of my wrists—were obviously exposed. Awesome. I got on the bike and kept my head down but knew she saw me. My mind was racing, thoughts going something like this:
Okay, I can do this. In a few minutes the lights will go off. It will be pitch-black. She is here to work out, she isn’t doing research. She meets thousands of parents and she doesn’t know who I am.
But wait…she doesn’t know who I am…we are all faceless, names piling up in a tower of files. Maybe if I say hi I could imprint myself on her memory?
“Listen,” I said leaning over to her, “my preschool director told me not to show any of you my tattoos, so I was totally sweating to death the day of our interview because it was deathly hot and I was wearing a leather jacket!” I showed her both wrists guiltily, then started pretending I was Wonder Woman with her power cuffs with full sound effects, and she started laughing. “Oh well!” I shrugged guiltily.
“I can’t believe they said that.” She laughed, shaking her head. “But don’t worry, Jill—don’t tell anyone, but I have one, too.” And with that, the lights went out and Madonna rang through the air.
www.Holyshit.com/FUCKYEAH!
I came home and triumphantly announced that I owned it, as Harry smiled and put his head in his hands. I was incorrigible. Oh, and Fletch got in. While he is a smart cookie and maybe would have pulled it off, I maintain that back row interaction was a key factor.
I think when he applies to college, I’m gonna get sleeved.
Cake
If you’re asking yourself “Who the fuck doesn’t like cake?” you are like many a birthday party hostess when I was a kid. It got so I would sob on the way to each and every birthday party, tearfully imploring my mom, “Tell the mother I don’t want cake! Tell the mother!” I needed her to help me avoid the angry, DEFCON 2, “You don’t want cake? What do you mean you don’t want cake? Try it! Just take a bite, it’s so delicious!” I didn’t want to take a bite. Because I fucking hate cake. To this day I decline cake, because I find it too sweet and I don’t like the texture. I love chocolate and ice cream and have a goddamn soul, I just don’t like cake. So sorry.
Summer
As annoying people love to say, “I can’t even.” Every June I start to feel like a motherfucking mogwai, shrouded in shadow, yelling, “Bright light! Bright light!” And yet I am forced to inhabit the world, and like Robert Pattinson’s diamondy chest outside that Volturi castle, it doesn’t go well. I am not only an insta-lobster but also miz from heat and, the cherry on top, I had melanoma six years ago. Oh, and don’t get me started on fat peoples’ midriffs and toes that go over the edge of their flip-flops. Summer—no thanks.
The beach
See above. But more specifically, the whole sand-in-vagina thing is so unpleasant I just want to boil myself. I try to take a walk, but that shit is a pedicure ruiner. I try to sit, but get bored. The second we arrive, I ask if it’s lunchtime yet and spend the first hour waiting to crack open the sandwiches from their prison of tinfoil. Then I’m asking if we can leave yet. Other detractors include: obesity, the smell of sunblock (which I swear is ineffective), screaming children, j
ellyfish, boats you’re not invited on, flying umbrellas that could impale you at any moment, sharks, and drowning people. Other than that, it’s great.
A beer
I was handed my first beer at thirteen at a Columbia University party I had no business being at. But since someone had handed it to me in a classic Solo cup and since I understood it to be “America’s water,” I felt I should try that shit. Not even a glitter rainbow cup could make that horse pee taste anything other than disqueecious. That is my brother’s word, which is an exponent of disgusting. Yes, I wanted to be cool, but not that badly. I left it on some kid’s desk.
When I was in high school, I went to an off-campus party and I thought I’d give beer a second try, since I was at a real live kegger like real American youth! Gnar. Ly. And that’s it, folks! Never again; it’s an acquired taste that this beeyotch simply won’t acquire and I’m aiiight with that. So please don’t tell me there’s nothing better after a ski run—it ain’t happenin’. #cowpiss #trashtastic #daterape #sports #thegame #yuck.
Rap and also country-western
I am aware I’m losing more of you as this list progresses, but I hear honesty is the best policy and so I’ve just got to tell you I’m just a rock ’n’ roll girl! I love guitars! Oh, and show tunes! (I am Andrew Lloyd Webber’s bitch.) What can I say? I like the occasional rap song when there is a sampled rock song in the background, or when it’s Lin-Manuel Miranda-y with awesome melodies, but that’s pretty much it. Don’t you dare say that I am racist, because I’m an equal opportunity offender and despise country music even more! No song needs lyrics about screen doors slamming and jilted lovers smashing windshields. I will always be a hard rocker. Sorry, Nashville.