Must_Not_Throw_Laptop_at_Strangers

I pretty much like everyone. I’m just one of those “Can’t We All Just Get Along” people. Ask my high school friends—it really used to piss them off that I couldn’t just badmouth a few folks every once in a while. I’ve gotten a bit better (or worse), but I still rarely dislike people, especially strangers. You’ve got to do a lot to annoy me, even more to anger me.

There is, however, a certain type of person who, with just the briefest of contacts, makes me want to stomp my feet and punch the air with frustration: he who has an answer for everything, one that is completely impervious to any sort of rational dispute. No one could teach him anything, he’s so sure he already knows it. He raises arrogantly talking out of one’s ass to an art form, and he does it with an astonishing lack of self-awareness. I say “he” because the ones I meet are usually men, also usually white. Perhaps I just haven’t come across a specimen who wasn’t a Caucasian male, or perhaps it bothers me less coming from anyone else, or perhaps this is just one more sad example of the confirmation bias.

At any rate, two of them are in the process of ruining my evening. They are, apparently, experts in each of the following topics: child-rearing, mental health, the economy, and EVERY SINGLE THING THEY DISCUSS. They base their persuasiveness on the fervor of their opinions, rather than anything minor like, oh, say, LOGIC or EVIDENCE. They just started chatting, and in an hour they’ve driven everyone but me out of the crowded café and still have things to talk about. I wish they’d give up pretending to be straight and just start making out so they’ll at least SHUT UP. So much for trying to get some work done (oh yes, did I mention they give no thought to the fact that they might be annoying the pants off of the girl at the next table, preventing her from getting any work done by talking so loudly and demonstrating such a lack of rational thought that she wants to jump out of her seat and beat them over the head with a big bag of REASON).

(Deep breath)

Ahem. I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned from them as I’ve eavesdropped:

Putting a fussy baby in a quiet, dark room until she stops crying is like locking an elderly person asking for a glass of water in a quiet, dark room until he stops talking.
People should just accept sadness and not lazily resort to medications. Nor should children suffering from ADHD (those lazy kids!).
The US economy is in bad shape because, unlike in European countries, kids don’t move back home after school and stay until they get married.
Children were better off when their parents used corporal punishment, because then the kids didn’t mistake their parents for their buddies.
Northerners are responsible for the urban sprawl in the South because of their demand for urban amenities in the suburbs.


Do I need to tell you how much self-restraint it took me not to jump up and tell them about the deep, dark hole depression carves in your life; that babies sometimes just get themselves overstimulated; that, even though it’s fashionable to bash Ritalin, it seems to work miracles with certain children; that those European youngsters who stay at home so long tend, from my experience, to take a lot longer to achieve emotional maturity and self-reliance; and that hitting kids isn’t the only way out there to establish clear parental-child roles, and oh jeez I’ve worn myself out and lost control of the punctuation?!

I can’t tell you how satisfying it is for me to tell you about them. Am I being passive-aggressive? Probably, but it is so satisfying. I still might get up and smack them around with my soft little hands and my hard, cold logic. In the meantime, I’ll just smirk.

The Pit of Despair and Other Surprises

You should know that my husband is not a filthy person. His dresser and side of the closet are neater than mine are (family and former roommates now point out that that’s not saying much). When it comes to the chores, we have a general division of labor that works for both of us. I wash the dishes, and he puts them away. He scoops the litter box daily; I wash it out weekly. He straightens up while I go after the baseboards with a toothbrush. Don’t ask me to take out the recycling, and don’t ask him to clean the toilet.
We both appreciate a neat, well-organized home, and, though we haven’t quite figured out how to put that into perfect practice, nothing inside our apartment ever approaches icky; we would never even be considered for those house-cleaning reality shows. All in all, things work well and stay pretty darn clean. Except for his car.

The typical filthy, rather-walk-than-catch-a-ride-in-it car is littered with fast-food wrappers and just enough remaining bites of hamburger to attract pests, ankle-deep in garbage, unopened mail and dirty tissues. My husband’s car is quite a different beast, though still beastly. A friend once compared it to a compost heap, a particularly apt description if you stretch it a little to include the tool-shed next to it. You’ll find apple cores, landscaping supplies, and enough dirt to pot a few sapling trees. I think he might actually be transporting mulch and compost loose in the back of his car; he himself admits to considering it more as the flatbed of a truck than the back of a station wagon.

Last Christmas, I gave my husband a homemade gift certificate to clean his car, driven by a dangerous combination of the seasonal spirit of giving, a desire to find out what color the upholstery really is, and a good dose of eggnog. I had to make good before the next Christmas or lose all credibility, so yesterday I tackled the unthinkable.

In addition to as much dirt as expected, if not more, I found the following:
~89 cents (28 cents of which remain in the car, firmly stuck to the dashboard with some sticky substance I’m trying not to think about too much)*
~3 feet of weatherstripping
~A pair of new pants still in the shopping bag, along with a 5-month old receipt
~4½ pencils (one was broken)
~2 pens
~1 Sharpie
~1 good old-fashioned paperclip
~1 large new-fangled paperclip
~2 unidentified objects that look like they are meant to cap the sharp ends of a piece of furniture or entertain cranky toddlers or…something
~1 Water Ace Transfer Pump (for, you know, transferring pumps, or pumping transfers, of course)
~a bagful of brand-new gardening gloves
~5 or so of those little orange flags on dastardly sharp metal sticks that are used to mark baby trees and discourage people from cleaning out cars
~An unidentified object that I think used to be a piece of fruit. It sort of looks like a huge peach pit, so I’m going to go with peach. Once I figure out how, I’ll post a picture of it. In the meantime, it’ll make a nice paperweight.
~An unlocated source of a brown sticky liquid that somehow got all over my left forearm. I think this was under the driver’s seat. Again, I’m trying not to think about it.

The whole job involved a lot of contorting and awkward maneuvers and was very tiring, especially since I seem to have lost my crevice attachment. No one gave me a medal once I finished, but I sure am glad to have gotten that “for worse” part out of the way early on in the marriage, and I’m looking forward to 60 years of “for better” from here on out. Right? Right? Am I right?

*My husband now informs me that this substance is superglue, which leaked out of a tube he'd left on the dashboard. I kid you not. Good thing he doesn't toss hundred-dollar bills up there. Oh, does anyone know of a superglue solvent?

After three months of marriage I fell helplessly, madly in love with someone new. So did my husband. With the same person. No, I did not steal this plotline from the soap opera you watched last Tuesday. The object of our mutual affection is 17 weeks old, and I saw him for the third time this weekend.

When we first met him, he had bright blue eyes and the soft, almost featureless face of all babies, though people made immediate pronouncements that he resembled his grandfather's baby pictures, as well as me, his adoring aunt. Now he reminds me of no one more than Santa Claus, with his cheeks rosy from the windy streets of Manhattan and his big, open-mouthed, half-moon grin showing little ridges where he'll soon be teething. He giggles with delight when sung to. He sleeps pressed up against you in the snuggly, gripping your finger tightly until he enters the deepest phase of sleep.

There is something distinctly different about this contact with a baby who belongs to me. An increased emotional closeness, sure, but also a wonder at both the responsibility of being present throughout his life, and the possibility of who he will become as he grows into a child, a teenager, an adult with a personality, opinions, intellect, and talent. I speak French to him when I'm with him, hoping not only to take advantage of his developing brain's capacity to learn, but also to establish an unique link with him, something just for us.

He lives a six-hour drive but a short flight away, and I plan to see him as often as time and funding permit.