I Still Have It. . . I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It (6 page)

The embellished jean was “jeanius.” I don’t know who thought of adding sequins and rhinestones to farm attire, but it works for me. It says,
Yes, I’m casual, but I’m also dressed up and ready to party.
I’ll pay six times more for a pair of jeans that sport Swarovski crystals than I will for a pair that has pockets. I don’t know who this guy Swarovski is, but he’s everywhere. He’s on my handbags, in my hair, and around my neck. The two men I now spend the most time with are my husband and Swarovski.

Now, as I’ve told you, I love jeans, but the low, tight jean is a fashion that only 2 percent of the women in America can wear attractively. Unfortunately, it is being worn by at least 62 percent. I can’t help thinking that if these women can afford the latest fashion statement, they can also afford a mirror. My husband and I were walking along the street the other day and passed an ample woman wearing tight, low-cut jeans and a short knit cropped top. Her middle bulged generously. My husband looked at her and uttered, “That reminds me…I have to check my tires.”

My daughter wears a school uniform. Yes, the children look a little Stepfordy, but they do look neat. I think clothing can influence behavior. My daughter is definitely more polite when she has her blouse tucked in.

The clothing of young boys mystifies me. I’m told the baggy look originated because it made it easy to conceal weapons and the look just caught on with the male population. At this point not only could they conceal weapons, they could conceal washing machines. They’re not even pants anymore; they’re socks with a belt. And all these kids are on cell phones. What are they saying? “Hey, dude, how many times did you trip over your pants today?”

If the world continues this clothing downslide, people will soon be getting married in pajamas. We’ve gone from wearing suits of armor to wearing tablecloths. Comfort is important, but aesthetics count too. If not, let’s all cut holes in sheets and stick our heads through them. (However, let’s first make sure they’re colored or patterned so nobody thinks we’re bigots.)

I do feel better when I make even the slightest of efforts to spruce myself up. In fact, I’m going to go change. Today I’m not picking up my daughter from school wearing a jogging suit. I’m not wearing blue jeans with Swarovski crystals. No, I’m wearing a dress, high heels, makeup, earrings, and my good watch. Oh, whom am I kidding? I’m staying in my jogging suit. It’s more comfortable, and who knows, I might even get the urge to jog.

I used to be a vegetarian, but I quit because it has side effects. I found myself sitting in my living room, starting to lean toward the sunlight.

Christmas Rap

T
HERE IS A DOWNSIDE TO BEING HAPPILY MARRIED
to the same man for eighteen years. Every year the holidays arrive and I have to find something to give my husband that he wants and that I haven’t already given him.

Annoyingly, there has never been anything Martin has given me that I haven’t absolutely loved. I feel one of my main attributes is my ability to enjoy gifts. Many women who have been married for over fifteen years adopt the “buy it yourself, wrap it yourself, open it Christmas morning, and pretend to be surprised” method of gift giving, but my husband happens to have great taste. I married a straight guy with a queer eye. Sweaters, blouses, dresses, jewelry—he has never gone wrong. Everything he chooses also fits me perfectly. Either he’s very smart or he has a girlfriend who is exactly my size.

One evening, attempting to walk off a particularly fattening Italian dinner, we strolled past an upmarket men’s store. Martin looked into the store window, then looked down at his jacket and said (and I quote), “I need a new leather jacket. Look at this.”

He pointed to the breast pocket, which was drooping, and then to the hip pocket, where the stitching had begun to fray.

“Someday I would love to own a really expensive black leather jacket.”

Now, everybody knows that if you say this to your wife at the end of November, then a black leather jacket will duly appear underneath your Christmas tree at the end of December. By the way, I’m Jewish, but I celebrate Christmas too and I’m going to do that until the Jewish people decide on a way to spell Chhhaanukkkaaah.

He continued.

“I need a new pair of black dress shoes too, and a new belt. This one is too big—I’m losing weight.”

“Hallelujah.”

“What did you say?” my husband asked.

I then realized I was so overcome with joy, I had said it out loud.

“Nothing, I was just clearing some phlegm. Hhhhaaalleah. There, that’s better.”

I had my three presents. No more combing the shopping malls and ending up with a talking meat thermometer and a toe massager. This would be the Christmas where the shopping would take me almost no time and the presents would become instant classics. I don’t have to tell you that when a woman buys clothes, they last a season; when a man buys clothes, they last a lifetime. My grandfather still wears his Cub Scout uniform.

I glowed with the confidence of a television presenter when I returned home from my shopping expedition the following week. The whole trip had taken exactly three hours and I was finished shopping for my husband. I was careful to revisit the men’s store we had passed on our calorie-burning stroll the week before. The jacket in the window that he had coveted happened to be his exact size. It was expensive, but what the hell? It would be worth it just to see the Yuletide joy on his face when he slipped his arms into the silk-lined sleeves. I also bought a black belt one size smaller than the one currently hanging in his closet and a pair of black dress shoes that were almost identical to the ones he had been wearing for the past fifteen years. How could I miss? I was so certain that I had hit a holiday home run, I didn’t even bother with the little gifts I usually pepper his Christmas mornings with to increase my odds of buying something he likes. No reindeer boxer shorts or Santa golf balls to wrap this year. This year I was only bringing out the big guns.

It was a particularly pleasant Christmas morning because our baby was a year and a half old. The Christmas before, being only six months old, she’d really only joined in when we rolled her around on the used wrapping paper, but this year she was big enough to destroy. We opened the baby’s presents first: a dollhouse, clothes, shoes, stuffed animals, and of course that musical toy that rolls around on the floor and not only drives you crazy but eventually can get you evicted. (Thanks, Auntie Joyce.)

Then it was my turn. I opened the small square box that had to be jewelry, and there they were: the pink sapphire earrings I had admired six months ago. He had done it again, but this time so had I.

I decided to start off with the belt. The wrapping was off, the box was opened, and the belt emerged like a newborn from the crinkly tissue paper. He held it up.

“I like it,” he said. “Let’s see if it fits.”

He wrapped it around his waist and began to tug.

“What size is this?” he asked.

“It’s one size smaller than the belt you told me was too big.”

He tugged some more.

“I’ll exchange it tomorrow,” I said.

“You can just return it. I like the one I have.”

The shoes were next.

“These are very nice, but they’re stiff. My old shoes have molded to my feet.”

“Put them with the belt.”

It was two strikes, and I was down to the final pitch.

“I know you’re going to love this,” I said hopefully.

He stared at the baby-soft leather jacket cradled in its paper nest. He lifted it out and slipped one arm into a sleeve and then the other. He zipped it up. The sleeves were too long, the jacket was too short, the circumference too tight. He looked like he’d stolen a jacket.

“I know this was very expensive and I appreciate the thought,” he said. “But what the hell were you thinking?”

“I didn’t think. I didn’t have to. We walked past the store and you pointed to it and said, ‘I want an expensive leather jacket,’ and then you said, ‘My belt is too big and I need new shoes.’”

“I was just talking. I have all those things.”

“But I was so certain that you said it because that’s what you wanted. I pointed to the earrings because I liked them, not for finger exercise.”

He gave me a hug.

“And I’m glad you like them.”

“It’s not fair. I love them.”

I removed myself from his sympathizing embrace.

“Well, what did you want?” I asked.

“A rare book.”

“A rare book? You don’t have any rare books.”

“I know. That’s why I wanted one.”

Men!

The good news is, I found a first-edition Raymond Chandler novel on the Internet and it arrived before Easter. He loved it, even though he’d read it before.

Superficial Nightmares of the Overprivileged Woman

I
AM A TINY BIT ASHAMED TO ADMIT THIS, BUT
lately I’ve been having superficial nightmares. I’ve been waking up in a cold sweat over the following:

1. I splurge on a deluxe pedicure and the next morning I wake up to find the polish completely gone.

2. I’m on the phone at the hairdresser’s and when I arrive home, I realize that I wasn’t paying attention and that he has parted my hair on the wrong side.

3. My daughter refuses to wear pink.

4. Robbers break in to my house and steal my expensive handbag.

5. We’re on vacation and find out there is a special deal that includes breakfast and champagne at sunset and everyone was aware of it except us. The general manager is on vacation and no one has the authority to alter our vacation package.

6. Inexplicably, the diamond ring my husband bought me for our fifteenth anniversary becomes cloudy. There is no remedy.

7. Starbucks no longer makes low-fat lattes.

8. There is no bottled water anywhere.

9. I wake up to find a new building has been erected in front of my apartment window, totally blocking my view.

10. My Jacuzzi is broken. There is no access panel door to be found and the plumber has to chip through the marble to gain access. After the motor is repaired, a match to the marble cannot be found and the entire surround has to be replaced. (This actually happened, and let me tell you, it was a nightmare.)

Dining in the Dark

“
W
HAT’S FOR DINNER?” MY HUSBAND ASKED.

“It depends on what you want. We can have either Chinese, Italian, or Thai delivered. I’m very versatile,” I replied.

“I have an idea. And don’t shoot me down—hear me out. Why don’t we venture out where the food actually lives, for a change?”

“You mean you want us to go to the food instead of the food coming to us? Are you insane?” I retorted.

“Rita, there are people who eat in restaurants on a regular basis.”

“Maybe they’re homeless.”

“No, these are people who get out of their sweatpants and into clothes that have zippers and order from waiters and waitresses.”

“OK. Should we have Chinese, Italian, or Thai?”

“We’re going to try something different. We’re going to eat in a trendy restaurant aimed at the desirable eighteen-to-thirty-nine-year-old age group,” my husband said, reaching for a magazine he had recently purchased featuring “The Top Ten Hottest Places to Eat in L.A.”

“What if they don’t let us in? I hear they card people over forty now at these places. It will be so humiliating.”

“I’ve already thought of that. I’m bringing a copy of our latest bank statement and a picture of our beach house. I feel we can overcome our age problem with our financial achievements.”

“OK. First let me try to get a reservation in Trendyland.”

“Call this number and try to sound young.”

“Hello—I mean, hi—like, we’d like to book a table, like, for two…Like, for tonight at, like, seven…Well, when is the first open reservation?…Yes, we can come in three weeks, but we’re going to be mighty hungry…Yes, I’ll hold…OK, great—I mean, awesome…Yes, I realize how lucky we are…My name is Rudner…No, not Rubner,
Rudner. D
like in
dysentery
…Why do you need our phone number?…OK, but we’re not going to cancel, we know how lucky we are…Why do you need our credit card number? Are you going to charge us for the call?…OK, but I swear we’re not going to cancel…Yes, I’m still aware that we’re, like, very lucky…Thank you very much. We’ll see you then.”

I hung up the phone.

“We are so lucky. They’ve had a cancellation for tonight at ten-thirty.”

“Ten-thirty? I thought you were pushing it asking for seven. We usually eat at six.”

“Well, we can’t cancel. They’ll have us arrested.”

“Great. So we’re going out to dinner half an hour after I go to sleep.”

“This was your idea. I was happy with vegetable moo shu.”

We whipped ourselves into a caffeine frenzy so as to stay awake past our bedtime and at ten o’clock backed our trendily jeaned selves and our car out of our garage and headed toward unfamiliar territory.

“I’m glad we did this. We never go out at night. This is good,” Martin insisted, stifling a yawn.

As we pulled up in front of the Japanese/Somalian restaurant a red-jacketed valet child opened the door for me.

“Welcome to Auravooshi.”

Martin handed the valet his car keys. The juvenile advanced our car three feet, got out, and closed the door.

“I could have done that,” Martin whispered. “Then I wouldn’t have had to give a twelve-year-old the keys to my very nice car.”