The Apples of My Eye
I think it’s fair to say that when I do or say something mockable, I’m the first person to admit it. In fact, I’m often the first person to point it out. So I find it quite irksome when something I do or say is NOT mockable, yet is perceived as mockable by someone else, who does indeed mock me.
Keith and I spent the weekend in the central New Jersey village from which we both hail. We’d been invited by his twin brother, Craig, to go apple picking with Craig’s wife and two little boys, ages 3 and 18 months. Apple picking in the Garden State has long been one of my favorite activities for several reasons.
- It’s one of the very few outdoor activities in which I can actually participate without feeling totally humiliated.
- I love fall weekend outfits, even though I never seem to have the right one.
- Cider and donuts
- The parts of New Jersey in which one picks apples happen to be extremely beautiful and validate my perpetual defenses of my homeland
- The parts of New Jersey in which one picks apples absolutely fascinate me in general. I think this is because they lie a mere 20 minutes west of where I grew up – in a generic, middle class suburb – yet truly qualify as “country.” These apple-rific towns have funny names like Peapack and Gladstone (one town) and Pluckemin. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by “Pluckemin?” Furthermore, they’re ground zero for the morbid local lore of the Kienast Quintuplets, the second set of surviving quintuplets in the U.S. They grew up in Liberty Corner, 12 miles away, and their father committed suicide in 1984 after finding himself unable to support his giant, Perganol-made family. (Read more in the New York Times)
- Even furthermore, most of the creepy stories I read about in Weird New Jersey take place somewhere in Somerset or Hunterdon Counties.
- Cider and donuts
So on Saturday morning, we piled into the mini-van, made a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts, and headed to Melick’s Town Farm in Oldwick. Keith and I approached the basket procurement stand. I was looking specifically for Macoun apples, which both Jan and Keith’s mom had requested, and which aren’t that easy to find in the city. Thankfully, a sign explained which types of apples were currently available for picking, and Macoun was among them. I was confused, however, by the fact that each apple type had an “Upper” or “Lower” label next to it. Seeking clarification, I asked the basket hander-outer whether that referred to the part of the tree or the part of the orchard.
Basket Hander-Outer – whose relatives, I guarantee you, live in the Pine Barrens – literally doubled over with laughter.
At first I didn’t even realize she was laughing at me, as I really didn’t think I’d said anything funny.
Then she managed to gasp, in between the sniggering, “Oh my lord. You are so cute. I’m gonna put that in my quote book.”
She called over a male co-worker and repeated what I’d asked, prompting him to fall into hysterics as well.
“What is so funny that you both require medical attention?” I asked, with a hint of tone.
Keith said, very kindly, “You do know that only one kind of apple can grow on a tree, right?”
Of course I know that. Sheesh. But yet …
I attempted to explain what I thought was very intelligent reasoning.
One: I didn’t know whether the trees were labeled – Winesap, Empire, Golden Delicious, Honeycrisp … If not, it seemed totally plausible that certain types of apples grew on certain parts of the trees, and that their location would help pickers identify them. If the elusive Macoun grew only on UPPER branches, let’s say, I’d know that a lower-hanging fruit, as a certain old boss of mine liked to say, was not a Macoun.
Two: Nowadays, thanks to genetic engineering, “they” can morph all kinds of fruit. Is the tangelo not a tangerine crossed with a grapefruit or pomelo? Is there no such thing as a grapple? Have you met my friend the pluot? Ergo, it also seemed plausible that a tree COULD offer more than one type of apple.
Alright. I can see why you’d think this was just my idiot savant talking. But yet …
Three: Even if it was the stupidest question in the history of questions, was it really THAT funny?
Frick on a worm-eaten, rotten-cored stick. Why are you all laughing at me?! I smaht! I really smaht!
I had no choice but to retaliate with the first potentially mockable detail I could conjure. I announced to my fellow apple pickers and Basket Hander-Outer that earlier in the week, when I’d blown a fuse drying my hair, Keith had had no clue what or where the fuse box was. I went to Home Depot to replace the antique fuses and I reinstalled them myself.
Take that, you evil mockers.
The evil mockers still found my question funnier.
“Just give me a basket,” I said before storming off to the UPPER orchard where ALL the good apple types were located.
Sigh.
In the end, it all worked out. We collected an array of flawless Jersey apples, apple butter, corn relish and donuts. We partook of the noonish meal at a fabulous deli called The General Store and finished the afternoon with a trip to Tarzhay which always makes everything better.
Addendum: My dear friend Loren, who is very smart and holds degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University, reports that she was apple picking in the Berkshires this weekend and learned …. THERE CAN IN FACT BE MORE THAN ONE APPLE TYPE PER TREE, THANKS TO GRAFTING.
My Worm
I don’t think I’ve ever called a doctor’s office and been able to actually SPEAK with a live person, much less a doctor. (I’m not counting the bazillion times I’ve dialed Lew to confirm that my headache/stuffy nose/cramp/itch was not Ebola and that death — or even worse, barfage — was not imminent.) This is particularly aggravating and unsettling when it’s the doctor who called YOU in the first place and you’re trying to find out why.
Earlier today, the office of my trusted internist, Dr. O, left a message saying that I needed to get in touch at my convenience. While the receptionist did say it was not an urgent matter, there was no question — in my opinion — that there was pity and alarm in her tone. It was pretty clear to me she knew I had something bad and just didn’t want to scare me. Now, I haven’t seen Dr. O in more than a year, so the possibilities were somewhat limited. I might very well have Ebola, but given the speed at which that particular filovirus kills its prey, I was reasonably sure I’d caught it more recently than last summer. It was probably more like one of those slow-moving parasites or Guinea worms that just set up camp in your body, eventually bursting out through a blister on your ankle and and needing to be removed one inch at a time. Blech!
Prepping for the bad news, I knew I’d be a medical mystery. I could hear the “Dateline” teaser: It’s a disease that afflicts sub-Saharan Africans with no access to clean water. So how did this Manhattan woman end up with a 76-foot tropical worm in her foot? Friday at 10.”
Alright. So I had a 76-foot worm living in my intestines for the past year. No biggie. I’ve heard worse. It actually explained a lot.
Unfortunately, I tried three times this afternoon to get in touch with Dr. O’s office so I could hear this diagnosis. All three times, I got the same recording telling me it was either during lunch (it wasn’t) or the office was closed (presumably). There wasn’t even a “leave a message” option, unless this was a medical emergency. Bravely, I chose not to classify my worm as an emergency.
So of course, I sent an email to Lew, asking him how worried I should be.
“Not at all. It’s probably just a reminder to schedule your annual physical.”
Hmm. Hadn’t thought of that.
Suddenly I knew exactly how the conversation with Dr. O’s office would go.
Me, in concerned tone: Yes, this is me. I’m returning your call.
Office Person, in sympathetic voice: Oh hi. Thanks for calling. Look, we are REAAAAAAAAAALLY sorry about this … but it seems there was a mistake with your blood work the last time you were here. And as it turns out you ARE crazy.
Chicago II: The Good Deed
My list of most satisfying sensations includes flossing after eating corn-on-the-cob; scratching mosquito bites; peeing after a long car ride on which excessive amounts of water and iced tea have been consumed; receiving dog kisses from clean Wheaten terriers; removing a dry contact lens; sneezing after several false alarms; successfully plucking a piece of stubborn eyebrow stubble; and watching mean people trip.
But truly, there are few feelings better than seeing the impact of a good deed you’ve done.
On Sunday, our last day in Chicago, Keith and I partook of the noon-ish meal at a diner-esque venue called Tempo and then threw away money on a so-called Gangster Tour. The Gangster Tour consisted of a 90-minute school bus ride narrated by a scrappy college kid in a cheap zoot suit. He instructed us to duck every time we heard (plastic) gunfire, handed out equally plastic roses to all the “dolls” on the tour, and had obviously trained at the Rodney Dangerfield Mail Order School of Comedy.
Cabrini Green: "Temporary lay-offs ... GOOD TIMES!"
The tour made just two actual stops. The first was Holy Name Cathedral, near which Earl “Hymee” Weiss, a Capone rival, was gunned down in 1926. That wasn’t his real name, in case you care, and he was Polish, not Jewish. The second was Cabrini Green, icon of American public housing gone bad and the setting of Good Times. Cabrini Green wasn’t even built until 1942, long after Al Capone had gone crazy from syphilis, so I’m not sure what its remnants had to do with him. We did, however, do a very brief hi-bye of the Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park, where Public Enemy No. 1, aka John Dillinger, had been shot in 1934. That was somewhat cool. As was the cupcake we had from MORE on the way back.
That evening, we dined at the famed romantic fondue restaurant Geja’s. From Geja’s, we took a cab to Navy Pier. As we were getting out of the cab, Keith grabbed what he thought was my wallet from the back seat. It wasn’t. The cab pulled away very quickly so we weren’t able to return said wallet to the driver, who might have known which previous passenger had left it. Luckily, a policeman was walking the beat nearby. Unluckily, he advised us against giving him the wallet, as he’d have to send it to Central Processing where it would most likely just get sucked into a vortex and never see daylight again.
Thank you, officer. That’s very comforting.
We attempted to find the owner through the obvious channels with no luck — he had a pretty common name and there was no listing for him at the address on his ID card. We considered the various options we had for getting it back to him, none of which were entirely viable.
I was sure that the journalist-stalker in me could track this guy down. There had to be something in the wallet that would tell us how to find him. I deduced that he had recently collected unemployment benefits (folded claim); worked in the food services industry or really liked roughage (handwritten list of salad types and the most appropriate dressings for them); was Catholic (tiny prayer card featuring the Virgin Mary); had relatives somewhere (photos of a couple and a little girl); knew a district attorney in Sacramento (business card); and didn’t drive (no license — just the government ID card).
Naturally I concocted the saddest possible story for this phantom wallet owner. He’d had really bad luck with jobs, which took its toll on his marriage. The woman in the picture is his ex-wife, Joanie, who left him, and the little girl, now an angry teen, is his daughter (Jessica or Lisa). The photos are old, but he holds on to them as a reminder of better times. He hasn’t seen his daughter in years and she’s a Goth now. His apartment is actually one room in an old, dark, depressing building, and he rents it from an elderly Croatian woman who wears housecoats and carries a broom around. His seeks comfort in prayer.
I was getting teary just thinking about it. He’d probably called Joanie and begged her to let him stay on her couch, but she’d said no because her new boyfriend, Mack, wasn’t cool with it. Oy.
The next morning we asked the woman at the front desk if the hotel had a Lost and Found. They did, but like the police officer, she didn’t recommend leaving the wallet there, as it might end up in any number of places other than the hands of the owner. We were trying to do a good deed, but there was no viable way to actually do it. We truly had no idea what to do with the wallet besides carry it back to New York with us, put it in the mail and hope it arrived safely.
But there was one last — albeit highly unlikely — possibility. I’d noticed a pay stub from a corporate office in California. One of the logos on it belonged to an eatery called “The Grill.” Which happened to be the name of the eatery in our hotel’s lobby. I stopped in and asked the manager if there was anyone on staff with the name of the man whose wallet we’d found. THERE WAS, AND YES, HE’D LOST A WALLET THE NIGHT BEFORE!
We’d found a wallet two miles from the hotel and it happened to belong to someone who worked IN the hotel. Of all the hotels in the entire city. Uncanny, no?
I gave the wallet to the manager, who insisted that we wait until the wallet owner could thank us himself. A few minutes later, a waiter learned his wallet had not fallen into evil paws after all. He literally choked up as he expressed his gratitude profusely and relayed the details of the wallet’s loss (it wasn’t like him to lose things; he’d been distracted because this was his first week on the new job, he’d thought the wallet was in his pocket when he got out of the cab, and so on). He offered us money and semi-hugged me. I remain convinced that I had his story down pat, but either way, this seemed to put a smile on his face.
And I have to say that as much fun as I had on our trip to Chicago, knowing we’d brought such relief to this stranger was the best part by far.
Chicago I: The Pink and the Brown
For as long as I can remember, the city of Chicago has fascinated me. I’m not sure why, but it probably has something to do with John Hughes, Bob Newhart, Ferris Bueller, Airplane and deep dish pizza. I have been there eight times since the summer of 2001, including three trips in the dead of winter, none of which bothered me (though I did have to make a pit stop at Lori’s Shoes, aka “The Sole of Chicago”, for an extra pair of wool socks once). Chicago is the only place I’ve been in the world that looks and feels exactly the way I imagined it would – and the only place that feels as much like a city as New York. I love the architecture, I love the food, I love the shopping, I love the history, and I love the people. Sure, they’re a little less svelte than the average New Yorker, but still. They’re friendly and they still think brunettes are a novelty. I suspect that in a past or alternate life, I lived in a sprawling penthouse apartment in the Gold Coast and wore clothes purchased at Sugar Magnolia to my job as a crackerjack copywriter at Leo Burnett.
The view down from the 103rd floor
But in my current life, I reside in a less-than-sprawling 1 BR in over-priced Manhattan, and the city whose name means “smelly wild onion” in Potawatomi is still a plane ride away. So Keith and I decided to spend Labor Day weekend there, inspired by the newly opened ”Ledge”at the newly renamed Willis Tower (better known as the Sears Tower). “The Ledge” is actually three 10×10 glass-walled, glass-bottomed boxes that jut several feet from the 103rd floor skydeck. “They” claim it can hold five tons of human weight, which is good, because that’s about how much pizza we ate at Giordano’s shortly before making the pilgrimage.
After Giordano’s and the trip up to the 103rd floor, we were both feeling a smidge bloated. The only remedy I had with me was the chewable form of Pepto Bismol – bright pink tablets that taste like cherry-flavored chalk but are weirdly kind of good. I’d never actually taken Pepto before, if you can believe it. It just wasn’t my go-to drug of choice for stomach ailments. But, the chewable form was easily portable and complied with NTSB regulations, so I kept a pack in my bag just in case.
The following morning, Keith rose early, as he usually does, and went for a run along Lake Michigan. I did not rise early, as I usually do not, and I did not go for a run along Lake Michigan. I did, however, wake up with a strange rubbery taste in my mouth. I didn’t panic at first, although I thought it was odd, as I did not recall having eaten anything made of rubber. Nor did I think of rubber as the kind of thing that “repeated on you,” as Jan and Lew would say.
During the denial phase of my extended wake-up process, I decided that my rubber breath was most likely a delayed reaction to the industrial strength tooth glue the dentist had used a few days back whilst installing a porcelain overlay on a badly broken pre-molar. (That’s another story – it involves an olive that was supposed to be pit-less.) Nothing to worry about.
Until I went into the bathroom and saw my tongue, that is. It was … wait for it … dark brown. [Insert Law & Order "dun dun" sound effect]
Ew! OMFG! Ew! What the hell is that?!!!
My knowledge of freak diseases is quite impressive for someone who never went to medical school or appeared on the FOX drama House. But in all my years of practice I had encountered nothing whose symptoms were dark brown tongue and tire taste.
I cannot convey to you the terror that came over me. What kind of rare, unimaginable condition had I contracted on the subway en route to work? What weird virus had been lurking on the baggage claim at O’Hare? Was this a sign that my internal organs were disintegrating and causing some enzymatic by-product to travel up my throat? Should I prepare to puke out my gallbladder? Should I call 911?
Frick on a discolored stick.
I did the only thing I could think to do. I rang Lew.
“Lew! I have a strange medical question,” I said, not wanting to worry him but quite sure he was going to tell me I needed a biohazard suit to protect the city of Chicago from whatever I had.
Such a question is not unusual. I pose strange medical questions to Lew on a regular basis, and nine times out of 10, his answer is either “stress” or “pulled muscle.” I could be bleeding to death on the side of a deserted road from a gunshot wound and Lew would tell me it was just a pulled muscle.
But in this case, he was truly stumped.
“A brown tongue?” He was silent for a few seconds. I waited for him to tell me it was a pulled muscle. But he couldn’t. Because he knew what I knew. That I obviously had a rare filovirus/protazoa/bacteria/fungus/prion morph usually found only in male wild gazelles in the jungles of Nambia.
It may look all pink and pretty now ...
I thought it might be worthwhile to mention the Pepto ingestion, on the off chance that had something to do with BTRT (Brown Tongue Rubber Taste) syndrome.
Get this: IT DID!
Evidently, the bismuth and the salicylate in Pepto can separate after ingestion, combine with the sulfur found in spit, and create something called bismuth sulfide. Delish!
After a few minutes of over-zealous tongue brushing, I was able to restore most of my tongue’s original color. The rest — which couldn’t be reached via toothbrush without a major gag — faded as the day went on, as did the yummy rubber taste. But wow. Note to self: travel with Zantac and Mylanta from now on.
I Remember Bartleby
I’ve long believed I was at least part idiot savant. I excel at useless difficult tasks like completing the New York Times crossword and rapid haiku composition. I can name all the U.S. presidents in order and match up 99.9 percent of area codes to their corresponding cities. Yet simple things like tip calculation, Boggle games and the reality television phenomenon leave me stymied. But no matter how sure of my idiot savant-hood I may be, there are times at which I am absolutely astounded by my own mental density.
Earlier this week I received a letter from a collection agency, telling me I owed the New York Times almost $70 for the subscription I had at my old apartment. (Note: the fact that I’m able to demolish the crossword puzzle within said publication is merely a coincidence in this story). Now, I don’t make a habit of avoiding bill payment until collection agencies come calling. But in this case, an aggravating combination of lost passwords, ridiculously labyrinthine customer service at the New York Times, early onset Alzheimer’s and an insane workload left me with an outstanding balance.
I rang the agency’s phone number, which, I couldn’t help but notice, had a 216 area code and thus, a location somewhere in Cleveland. The following outgoing message met my ears:
You have reached the small balance department at Company X. Please leave your name, a phone number where you can be reached during business hours and the reference number provided at the top of the letter you received. This message is from a dead collector.”
Holy crap. This message was from a dead collector. Was I responsible?! Had someone lost his or her life because I neglected to pay for two months of newspaper delivery?! Did that message mean another Company X employee, already putting in 12-hour days at the depressing Cleveland office, been forced to take on the outstanding files of his late co-worker? Could that person also be on the verge of suicide or death because of my negligance? The thought was horrifying. Furthermore, for some reason, the whole thing reminded me of the great Herman Melville character “Bartleby the Scrivener,” an enigmatic man who “preferred not” and who had, it was implied out after he passed away, suffered some sort of a mental breakdown after working in the Dead Letter Office.
I visited the Company X web site and sent an email to the general inbox. I explained very warmly and honestly why I’d let the bill slip through the cracks. I apologized and expressed my condolences on the loss of a staff member. Perhaps a very plain, lonely customer service representative had pined for the dead collector from afar. Perhaps she’d sensed some interest and, at the time of his death, been expecting and desperately hoping for an after-work drink invitation — a trip to Appleby’s or the Olive Garden. Perhaps the dead collector lived with his elderly mother in an old Victorian house. Perhaps he wore short-sleeved polyester suits. Perhaps he was the type of man who drank Coke every morning instead of coffee and who wore all-white sneakers.
Oy.
The email didn’t assuage my guilt, so I found an alternate phone number for the company — also a 216 — and dialed it. I was transferred to several people before finally reaching someone in Small Balances. I began to speak what I’d written in the email. I paused every few sentences in case the representative wanted to thank me for my words of support at such a painful juncture. And then, it hit me. I could practically hear Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man, along with Jim Carey’s in Dumb and Dumber and of course, Forest Gump himself, making fun of me in a superior manner.
Big fat DUH!
There was no dead collector. There was, however, a DEBT collector.
Jaws of Life
Earlier today, Dave sent around this disturbing yet strangely funny article from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, about a cute little Wheaten terrier named Mandy who was saved by her owner from the jaws of a vicious alligator. Mandy survived unscathed and with all her fuzz in tact, but the owner lost two fingers during the extraction. Dave’s circulation of the article to the Philly posse and other dog-loving friends prompted a few exchanges about whether or not we would do the same thing if, God forbid, we found ourselves in the same horrible situation.
I truly believe I would jump in to save Ollie or my god-dogs Howie, LuLu and Dolly, from anyone or anything, instinctively. But what if, I asked myself while procrastinating, I had the choice of losing a few digits and saving the average dog on the street, or merely calling 911 and hoping for the best? I’d like to say I’d think of this victimized pooch as my own. But the truth is, it would probably depend on the dog in question, the alligator in question, and of course, whether or not I’d just gotten a manicure.
Of Caffeine and Chins
Time is ticking. Just not on this awesome Cartier watch, unfortunately.
Those of you who know me will find this SHOCKING. I mean really. Prepare. Assume the crash position. Yesterday, for the first time EVER, I… was … running late. I know. Contain yourself. It’s impossible to picture me, the epitome of promptness, being tardy. I’m sorry for shattering your image of me. Please continue to read nonetheless.
I’ve never figured out why, but whenever I’m running late, I find myself uncontrollably compelled to undertake silly tasks that eat up precious time and could sooooooooo easily wait until another juncture. I’m sure there’s some deep-rooted issue associated with this behavior. Most likely, it links back to Jan, who had a habit of waiting to commence her preparation for external family gatherings until about five minutes after we were supposed to be at the homes of certain relatives. I have several recollections of my father screaming across our ranch house from the den to the bedroom, “JAN! Are you ready? We were supposed to be there already!” And Jan screaming back, “Hold your high horses. I’m getting into the shower”
I shall refrain from commenting on her use of the term “high horses.” But it’s one of many gems she utters regularly. Note to self. Idea for blog post: Top 10 Jan-isms.
A few examples of things I have been known to do regularly even though there is absolutely no time and even less urgency:
- Cut cuticles and/or file nails
- Shave legs when said legs will be fully covered by at least one layer of clothing and thus invisible to the world
- Empty dishwasher
- Conjure most random person I can and see if he/she is on Facebook
- Stare into space
- Caress wedding band worn during ill-fated time with Sloth and pray to one day sport such an item again
- Inspect muzzles of various stuffed animals (most often Milty, the floppy and myopic moose; Droozy, the feisty but innocent palm-sized puppy; and Horsie, the rogue Texan equine)
- Attempt to locate t-shirt that I have not worn in at least two years and will continue to not wear
- Wait to get out of bed until after completely irrelevant Today Show segments have finished. These include: local traffic (I live in the city and drive nowhere, ever); the Willard Scott/Smuckers birthday announcements (because without the knowledge that Sadie Smith of West Bumblefrick, Arkansas is now 104, an age she reached thanks to whiskey and Marlboro Reds, how can I really do my job?); the importance of early prostate cancer detection (I have no prostate); managing your money (I have no money); and of course, do-it-yourself Christmas decorations (a must for every Jewish girl).
You might think this inability to get the day rolling has something to do with my night owl tendencies. (For a good read on this side topic, see this Rachel Birnbaum essay from the New York Press. She sounds like me in many ways.) And it might. But it doesn’t. It’s just some kind of freakish thing in my DNA. I’m like one of those poor souls in an Oliver Sacks book with no concept of right versus wrong, hat versus wife, or rush hour versus leisure time.
Another frequent but understandable delay involves the procurement of my morning coffee — iced at this time of the year. I don’t know if this act actually CAN wait, so perhaps it’s not fair to include it here, but let’s say it is. Even if I am beyond late, even if I have the most important meeting in the history of meetings, even if I can hear the subway rumbling beneath my feet or see the bus pulling up to the stop, I MUST stop at the little silver urban coffee cart.
In my neighborhood, there is such a little silver cart on the corner right by the subway entrance. The man inside the cart is very kind, but very slow, and also very hairy. I have no reason to believe he sheds during coffee pour-age, and in fact, he always wears a hair net and gloves. But I have to admit, it leaves me a smidge grossed out. His elaborate system for pouring in the half-and-half, then the coffee, then the ice, THEN inserting the straw and removing the paper from all but the very tip allows me to focus on the hirsutism for a few minutes every day. I try not to let it get to me because I really don’t want to change my routine. For almost three years, I have been able to purchase and drink coffee from this man without incident.
Yesterday, there was a disheveled middle-aged woman standing next to me as I waited. I don’t know if she too was waiting, or if she was just loitering because she has the hots for the barrista or something. But at the exact moment he handed me my iced coffee, I happened to espy two long, gray and particularly disgusto whiskers sticking out of her chin.
Big fat EW! Thanks for the whisker latte, lady! Blech! (Please note, I am not judging. I merely find it ew-inducing.)
In what I can only assume to be a case of transference (not wanting to think ill of the cart man, I thought ill of the chin), I was completely unable to drink the iced coffee. The woman hadn’t gone anywhere near my cup, but I remained convinced that somewhere inside lurked one of her chin hairs. And even when I was able to put that possibility aside for a nanosecond, I found myself haunted by the sight of them.
Frick on an unwaxed, untweezed, unthreaded, un-Naired stick.
The damage was done. It’s over. It was a good run while it lasted. But now I have to break up with the cart man. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I arrived at work not only late, but uncaffeinated. I am 90 percent certain this was some sort of cosmic lesson about the importance of promptness. And it’s true. If I had just put my shoes on during instead of after the Ensure commercial, I would have missed the chin.
From the Happy Ending Sundae Story Files …
Shortly after finishing my last post about the sad characters who torture me from time to time, I encountered yet another one who deserves to be included as an addendum. Or sad-dendum, as the case may be.
I was on my way to work the other day, listening to some retro music on my iPod, when a disheveled and malodorous gentleman appeared in front of me, out of nowhere. He was carrying a giant box of candy that appeared to be a generic version of the Welch’s chewy fruit thingies pictured here. I am familiar with said thingies because my dear friend Kelly has been known to eat them for breakfast, on account of their being fruit and all.
“Buy some candy! Support [insert name of charity I’d never heard of]!”
I kept walking without responding, but am not sure whether it was because he startled me, because I didn’t fully hear him, or because I found his alleged charity – whose name included the words children, shelter, hospital, clinic, cancer, homeless, Katrina, asbestos, September 11th, AIDS, Basque separatists, Darfur, puppy mills, dolphins, fur, veterans, diamond mining, gay rights, reproductive rights, seatbelt laws, child labor laws, bottle-fed children, migrant workers, little people, exploited reality TV stars, Paris Jackson, and of course, recombinant bovine somatatrophin – highly suspicious.
I thought and hoped the man would see that I wasn’t interested in his wares and move on to the next passerby. But no.
He shouted the following after me: “Miss! MISS! COME ON! They just fruit treats. They not gonna hurt you!”
Frick on a tax-deductible stick. Why did he have to say “fruit TREATS?” Of all possible words – why THAT one?
The question I really should have been asking myself was why the word “treats” made struck me as so sad, but I was too caught up in the epic drama of the moment to be introspective. I was also too caught up in the epic drama of the moment to actually purchase a bag of the harmless fruit treats. Instead, I continued on my way and sent 10 emails describing this interaction. I was comforted to know that many of my friends found the word “treats” touching as well. But still … it is I who must bear the burden of this man alone.
Freaks and Geeks
“They” say that everyone has a special gift, and I have several: the ability to sleep Indian-style; a Rain Man-like memory; an uncanny awareness of strange genetic diseases; and a freak radar that empowers me to hone in on the most upsetting and disturbing individuals within my five-mile radius. On an alarming number of occasions, those individuals have been my friends and boyfriends. Most of the time, they merely leave me temporarily unable to eat or sleep. Other people seem able to block out or quickly forget about these unfortunates, but I remain haunted by lost, lonely-looking elderly people; spinsters; handicapped, retarded and cancer-stricken children; people eating by themselves in public; people riding the bus by themselves at night; mentally ill people; the homeless; and anyone I deem to be oppressed (Muslim women in burkas, Hassidic women toting eight kids and wearing itchy wigs, women who are 9 months pregnant in the middle of a heatwave).
This “gift” has plagued me as far back as I can remember. The earliest and most definitive example I can give you is the man from the Friendly’s on South Avenue, whose image is causing me to tear up even decades after the last time I saw him. Every single time I dined there – whether it was after school with Jan and Jamie, for dinner (the Early Bird Special) with my grandma on Saturdays, or late at night after a high school cruise through the Watchung Reservation – he was there too, alone. He was roughly middle-aged at the time, with dyed black hair, a dark complexion and a severe limp for which he used a cane.
It was bad enough that Friendly’s seemed to be the mainstay of his diet. It was bad enough he was crippled and bad enough he was always eating his sad little sandwich or hamburger by himself. But the clincher came at dessert time. Without fail, the smallest of the Friendly’s sundaes – the Happy Ending Sundae – would arrive at his table a few minutes after he finished his entrée. For reasons that I still don’t fully understand, this memory of the sundae’s arrival is among my most poignant.
Since then, anytime I’ve witnessed something of this nature – something sad to me but not tragic – I’ve referred to it as a “Happy Ending Sundae Story.” This categorization is often misunderstood, because its inclusion of the word “happy” does in fact imply an element of “happiness.” But make no mistake: there is NO mirth in a Happy Ending Sundae Story.
Jan claimed that she saw the man from Friendly’s driving around town with a wife and children, but I think she just told me that to make me feel better. I do wonder though, from time to time, if he ever went home to this theoretical family and said, “Every time I go to Friendly’s there’s this creepy little girl there, staring at me with a look of pity on her face …”
Another tale from the ice cream freezer … in the next, slightly more upscale town over from where I grew up, there was a brand- spankin’ new ice cream purveyor called Haagen-Dasz. And Haagen-Dasz, being all foreign and shit (or so we thought in 1982), was faaaancy. I mean people, they sold BOYSENBERRY ice cream. This town also had its own resident schizophrenic. I didn’t know he was schizophrenic – I just thought he was odd – but that’s what Lew told me when I’d sadly watch him lumber around the town center. The man was bearded with pocked skin, had a very clumsy gait and always wore too-tight, too-short khakis, black orthopedic shoes, a short-sleeved plaid shirt, and Coke bottle glasses.
One day, my friend Bethany and I were partaking of a frozen afternoon treat when the man got on line behind us. At the time, the custom-ordered ice cream bars, dipped in warm milk or dark chocolate and then coated with your choice of crumbled candy toppings, were all the rage among the tween set. But for an adult?! Unheard of. Yet that’s what he ordered. This in itself wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world – it was the way he ordered it. I can still hear him to this day saying, “Uh … uh … a vanilla bar please.” Needless to say Bethany enjoyed both hers and mine that day.
At the Bagel Chateau in the same town, a soft-spoken college girl with a severe under-bite and noticeably skinny wrists worked at the cash register. Snotty customers were always snapping at her, and she would get flustered, which made me feel sorry for her. Her cash register post also called upon her beverage preparation skills. Every day that summer, Jan requested a fresh-brewed ice tea, so finally, the kindly girl poured said beverage ahead of time and had it waiting for Jan when it was her turn to pay. That, of course, was the day Jan wanted a Diet Coke.
On the train coming back from Washington just last week, my Spidey sense located TWO Happy Ending Sundae stories. One was the geriatric woman sitting next to me. She slept most of the way, but woke up every 20 minutes or so, pulled out a Tupperware container, took two bites of what smelled and looked like blondies and zucchini bread, sipped from a Tupperware/Rubbermaid water bottle, then went back to sleep. Someone had obviously put her on the train and made sure she had sustenance for the whole ride. The other was a man, also with a severe underbite, who couldn’t close his mouth all the way and chewed extra loudly as he ate a giant bag of generic Dorito-esque Party Mix, most of which ended up in his beard. He, obviously, couldn’t afford name-brand Doritos and had probably saved up his whole life for this one train ride.
There was the girl in my class who had no bladder control. I don’t mean she was a 1st-grader still having accidents. I mean she was 10 and had some sort of condition – involving a third kidney, it was rumored – that left her unable to know when she had to go to the bathroom. You can imagine how nice the other kids were about this. To make matters worse, she chose to go by a nickname that just about HAD to be paired with “Wetsy.” The kids truly tortured her, and one day, it got to me. I guess I couldn’t help but feel there was a little bit of her in all of us, and while I wasn’t strong enough to stand up for my picked-on self, I could do it for her. So I stepped out of line on the way to the playground and told one of the 4th-grade bad asses to shut up and leave her alone. It was the first and only time I ever had detention. The next day, the girl came up to my desk and asked, “Would you like a green apple jelly bean?” I remember being very touched by this gesture and accepting the bean, but then being afraid to eat it because I thought it might have had pee on it.
My sensitivity to the sad-sacked didn’t always result in kindness or appreciation. Around the same time that Peegate went down, a particular group of girls took to ganging up on me for no apparent reason. Let me tell ya – it’s real nice when girls gang up on one another. Real nice. I’m just thankful we didn’t have Facebook back then. They took turns being “the boss” and declaring who in the class should be ostracized. It was always me. (Remember, this was pre-braces, flat-iron and undereye concealer.) One time – ONE LONE TIME – they turned against a girl named Susan instead. Recognizing the pain and horror of Susan’s position, I disobeyed the “no talk” decree and made an extra effort to be nice to her. It was great for about two hours, at which point the gang reinstated Susan and returned to their hatred of me. I assumed that Susan would stick up for me, now that I’d stood up for her. But I remember her running away from me and saying, “I don’t know what to tell you Traci. No one likes you now.”
I’m quite sure that not one of the Happy Ending Sundae Story victims I’ve described here has any recollection of me. But I’ve never been able to forget them. And there are MANY more.
I saw these in person yesterday.
But every now and then, almost always in New York, it goes without saying, I’ll witness someone so odd that the rest of the world notices too, and for whom I just can’t conjure any feelings of empathy. I don’t like when this happens, because it makes me feel like a terrible person, but it’s beyond my control at times. Yesterday on the subway, I sat across from the creepiest man I’ve ever seen in my life. He was in his late 60s or early 70s, thin, muscular, and bald on top. The hair that he did have, on the side of his head and in back, was silver and very long. He had secured it in a ponytail with a leopard-print scrunchie, and his fingernails were freakishly long. The set of his lips made him look like he’d just tasted a really sour lemon. He was sporting the following: a skin-tight, polyester tank top with images of Marilyn Monroe silkscreened all over it. A polyester, skin-tight Speedo-shaped bathing suit or undergarment, black, with a neon polka dot motif. Knee-high running socks with stripes at the top and vintage sneakers. A dozen colored, plastic bracelets and rings. And ginormous Dame Edna glasses like the ones pictured here. He really wasn’t bothering anyone – in fact he was intently reading the New York Times – but the two women on either side of him got up, preferring to stand than be contaminated by his creepiness. I could see that everyone in the car was looking at him. I wished that I could feel bad for him. I certainly wouldn’t want people to run away from me like that. But I just couldn’t.
NBC Order
First of all, I promised I’d dedicate this post to Keith, who goes to sleep much earlier than I do and is quite cute.
I also must admit that I am double-fisting between WordPress and the last NBC episode of Medium (which will reappear on CBS this fall). It’s not right, I know. But I desperately need to find out the fate of the du Bois family and Allison’s brain tumor. I also desperately need to share this brief tale, as there will never be a more appropriate occasion.
Side note/spoiler alert: the tumor is benign, but Allison is in a coma after suffering a stroke during surgery.
A little more than 15 years ago, in the frigid winter of 1994, I was a college senior in baggy, used Levi’s, dark brown lipstick and Doc Martens. I had spent the last four years surrounded by short, stocky, dark-haired, middle class Jewish boys in backwards baseball caps who wanted no part of me. (I’ve always suspected things would have gone a different way if my boobs had been more reminiscent of a Hungarian shtetl peasant’s, but what can ya do?) The unrequited loves of my college life had graduated the year before, and I lacked diversion. I couldn’t stand being there anymore but was terrified of the real world, I lived with the knowledge that Jan thought I was fat, I couldn’t sleep, I was depressed, and my friends had had it with me. Good times.
But there was one lone light in my life. We met during a bout of insomnia, when I turned on the little pink TV my grandma had scored when she opened a checking account. He made me laugh. He introduced me to people I’d never otherwise have met. He was an underdog, just like me. Physically, he couldn’t have looked more different from the people around me. He was nine years older than me, 6′4, with red hair, freckles and pasty skin. He was, as someone famous once said, the least Jewish-looking person you could imagine. But he’d gone to Harvard, he was the son of a doctor and a lawyer, and his little brother had gone to the prom with my friend Lauren.
The not-so-little talk show host who could
His name was Conan O’Brien, and I seemed to be the only person in the world who thought he was funny. Rumors of cancellation swirled around me, and I felt a certain kinship — he was the celebrity equivalent of me. Smart, lovable and misunderstood. He just needed more time! People mocked me when I told them I found his wit chuckle-worthy, much as they mocked me at the height of my Duran Duran obsession. On our spring break that year, Kiki, Wendy, Jen, Lisa and I were fortunate enough to attend a Late Night taping. I was very concerned beforehand that we wouldn’t be able to get tickets. The NBC page laughed when I expressed this concern and told me they’d been PAYING people to sit in the studio audience and clap on cue.
In June of that year I went again, and this time, actually got to shake hands with and talk to the giant comedic genius.
“I went to school in Boston too,” I said, sure that he’d find this FASCINATING and a sign of our soulmate-hood.
This prompted Conan to ask me if I was Irish, and I wondered briefly how someone who’d gone to Harvard could look at ME and pose such a silly question.
The first and only thing I could think to say was this: “No, but I use Irish Spring soap.”
Hey, it’s better than what I said to Pete Sampras.
Not surprisingly, this did not compel him to get down on one knee and propose.
“You’re my idol,” I blurted out.
And even Conan himself could only reply with, “Please. Let’s not get crazy here.”
No one thought he’d make it. But I believed in him. I knew he could do it. And tonight, Conan O’Brien has become the 5th host of the Tonight Show — the loftiest position in post-prime time television. This is one small step for a dork, and one giant step for dork-kind. I’m kvellin’ like Magellin’.
But you should know that in addition to feeling certain I’d one day be an O’Brien, I also fantasized about being discovered by Conan. So I decided to send him some of my brilliantly comedic writing samples. Except of course that I had none, so I had to be crafty.
Andy Richter, Sidekick Extraordinaire
There was no time to develop full-fledged sketches or sit-com scripts; I’d have to convey my unparalleled genius some other way. I remembered a brain game I’d once played at camp. It involved the penning of a poem or song containing 26 words, in alphabetical order. The fate of my comedy writing career lay with this gem of a plan, executed with a Macintosh SE and dot matrix printer, late one night in Waltham, MA. I think we all know what the fate of my comedy writing career turned out to be. But this, ladies and gentlemen, is my 1994 alphabetical Ode to Conan — mailed to Rockefeller Center, signed for by someone in the mailroom and never seen again until right this minute.
At Banter, Conan’s Deft. Educated Finely, Graduated Harvard. Imparts Jokes. Kismet! Letterman Moves, Now O’Brien Presides. Quipping Richter, Sidekick. Throw Us, Very Witty Xanthrocroid, Your Zeal.
