Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog (32 page)

“Did you say diamonds?” I asked. If I had a hearing aid, I would have checked the battery.

“Yes, the dust exfoliates the skin.”

“With
diamonds
?”

“Yes, and you have to make sure you wash it all off, or your face will be sparkly.”

“Like a stripper?” I asked, and Francesca added:

“The richest stripper in the world.”

Then we listened to the rest of the pitch, and in five minutes, I felt myself mesmerized by the salesgirl, or maybe by her skin. Her pores shimmered like precious gems, never mind that she was twenty years old, which means that she wasn’t a salesgirl, but a saleschild.

Then she showed us a toner, which I had always thought
was something you put in your computer printer but was actually applied to the face after diamond-exfoliating, and she also helped me understand that I needed both a day cream and a night cream, though I had never before thought about face cream having a time limit, which shows what a complete rube I’ve been.

She asked, “Do you ladies have an eye cream?”

Francesca had the right answer, which was yes, but only because she had cheated and had gotten the free sample, which I must have been insane to give to her, as my eyes now clearly thirsted for their cream. I wondered if there were special creams for other things on your face, like lip or nose cream, but I was too spellbound to ask.

The saleschild turned again to me. “Which serum do you use?”

“Serum?” My mind flipped ahead to the possibilities. Truth serum? Serum cholesterol? Huh?

“There comes a time when every women needs a serum.” The saleschild held up a tiny green bottle from which she extracted a medicine dropper. “Now, hold out your hand.”

“Yes, master.” I obeyed, and she let fall a perfect teardrop of serum onto the back of my hand, leaving a costly wet spot that dried sooner than you can say, Charge it!

“The infusion is absorbed instantly into the skin, leaving it revived and refreshed.”

“Like a magic potion,” I said, awed, when I felt Francesca’s strong and sensible hand on my arm.

“Mom, we should go.”

But I could only hear her as if from far away. I had slipped over to the dark side, and by the time we left the mall, I had a shopping bag full of bottles and tubes, jars and gels.

In other words, toy trains.

I don’t know what kind of conversations you had around your dinner table growing up, but ours were generally about disasters. Mother Mary could make a disaster out of anything. Our kitchen was an accident waiting to happen. I reprint below her most important warnings, in case you’re sitting in your breakfast nook, blissfully unaware.

If you put too much spaghetti on your fork, you’ll choke to death. If you don’t chew your spaghetti twenty times, you’ll choke to death. If you talk while you’re eating spaghetti, you’ll choke to death. Bottom line, spaghetti leads to perdition.

Spaghetti isn’t the only killer. If you load the knives into the dishwasher with the pointy tip up, you’ll fall on them and impale yourself. Also you’ll go blind from reading without enough light. Reading in general ruins your eyes. If you eat baked beans from a can that has dents, you’ll die of botulism. This was before people injected botulism into their faces. Nowadays, the dented can will kill you, but you’ll look young.

You should know that electrocution, a go-to Scottoline hazard, will result from many common household items. You’ll be electrocuted if you use the phone during a thunderstorm. If your nighttime glass of water spills onto your electric alarm clock, you’ll fry in your sleep. In fact, any small electrical appliance,
given the chance, will leap into the nearest sink to kill you. Trust me, blow dryers lie in wait. Your toaster has murder on its mind.

A closely related disaster is fire, and almost anything can start a five-alarmer. Birthday candles. Lightning striking the house or the car. The stove left on. A cigarette butt tossed unpinched into the trash. Oddly, nobody in my house worried about smoking. If you smoke, you’ll be fine.

Exercise is lethal. If you play a sport, the ball will hit you in the breasts, presumably deflating them. You’re a goner if you run with scissors or sharpened pencils. Swimming less than an hour after you eat is out of the question, but if you want to play it safe, better to wait until tomorrow. And if you don’t listen and sink like a stone, don’t come crying to me.

It’s your funeral.

As a result of my valuable childhood preparedness training, I’m the lady stockpiling milk, eggs, bread, rock salt, and snow shovels before a storm. And during the anthrax scare, I was first in line at the hardware store. I bought the requisite cord of Saran Wrap and a gross of duct tape, with which to seal the house, and all of it sits in my basement, at the ready. The deadly cloud of anthrax never came, and for that you have me to thank. I pre-empted it. I scared anthrax. I had enough Saran Wrap to protect all of us, if not keep us fresh for days.

Now that you know how prepared I am, you can imagine my dismay when I read something recently reiterating that all manner of disasters could happen—wildfires, hurricanes, and tornados—and I should go online to test my “readiness quotient” (RQ).

Uh-oh.

I’m terrified to report that even though I unplug my blow
dryer after each use and load my knives correctly, my RQ score was a 0 out of 10.

I knew I should have studied.

The report said that the average RQ score for Americans is 4, and that only two other people in my zip code had taken the test. Here’s where I went wrong, so you can learn from my mistakes:

Not only did I not know how to find the emergency broadcast system on my radio, I couldn’t even find my radio.

I don’t have a disaster supply kit, and duct tape doesn’t count.

I don’t have a “Go” kit. I have only a “Stay Home And Wait It Out” kit.

I don’t have a “family communications plan.” Honestly, who does? Communications are hard enough, but family communications are impossible. You have a better chance of surviving a tornado than communicating with your family.

In event of a disaster, I haven’t established a specific meeting place, but that’s easy to choose. The mall.

I don’t drill my family on what to do in an emergency. Scream Hysterically was not an option. Nor was Hurry Back To The Mall.

Nor do I know first aid. Evidently, a box of assorted Band-Aids, even the kind with the antibiotic, isn’t enough. This surprises me. When the earthquake hits, my money’s on Neosporin.

So you know where this is going. I suggest you log on to
www.whatsyourrq.org
, test yourself, and get your act together before the apocalypse.

See you at the hardware store. I’ll be the one in the gas mask.

In a gas mask, I look young.

Because I lectured you in my commencement speech to slow down and savor the moments of your life, I thought you should know I’m doing nothing like that.

I flunk savoring.

I know it’s the drowsy dog days of summer and I’m supposed to enjoy sitting around watching the tomatoes ripen and noticing the particular hue of the sunlight as it hits the leafy trees and blah blah blah. Summer sounds like literary fiction, but I write books with car chases.

In other words, I got a new summer project.

Let’s see if you can guess what it is. It involves wood, nails, and feathers.

Give up?

A chicken coop.

With chickens.

Here’s how it happened. You know how I am about home decorating, and I just finished with the house, to mixed results. The good news is that the aluminum siding is gone, the stonework looks fantastic, and the clapboard is fresh Bavarian Cream.