Say What?

After returning home from a trip, I thought I should catch up on all of the news I missed, so I turned on my television set, and listened, as a man said, “It’s time to ask, ‘What do you really want from your toilet paper?”’ I don’t think it was Wolf Blitzer, although he is a very thorough interviewer.

I’m not in the habit of conversing with my toilet paper, but I guess I’d ask a roll or two, “Do you really enjoy hanging from trees on Halloween?” Or maybe I’d finally find out their preference for being rolled over or under the toilet paper spindle before being torn to shreds.

In case I run out of things to say to my toilet paper, another voice on my television set urged me to go to a local department store to find out--- “What speaks to you?” I went to the store and quickly discovered that it wasn’t the sales people. I listened for a while and thought perhaps I heard a pair of jeans swearing at me from the dressing room, but it was only a woman whose zipper was stuck. I wondered if it was Diane Sawyer, but decided she wouldn’t urge me to talk to inanimate objects after her experience interviewing an abundance of empty suits.

On my way out of the store, I made the mistake of walking through the Cosmetics Department. Magically, young women in smocks appeared, and not only were they talking but were spritzing me with all kinds of stinky perfumes, and making rude remarks about my face. As I ran the gauntlet, one after another begged to make me over. I said, “I don’t want to be anyone else.” After the third, “I could give you a beautiful makeover,” I finally replied, “I just had one. Can’t you tell?”She sprayed a new fragrance by Calvin Klein into my eyes, and I ended up smelling pretty good but blinded. By now, I just wanted to go home and talk to my toilet paper.

That evening I listened to the sweet beeping of my microwave oven. In four minutes I had a hot meal. It said, “Beep, beep, your dinner is ready.” That speaks to me.

Esther Blumenfeld (My tea kettle is whistling at me. It likes me just the way I am)

Party Time

Parties can be a mixed bag of nuts including the guests. Sometimes things go as planned. Sometimes---NOT!

When my son, Josh was in second grade, he brought home a birthday party invitation from a classmate named Helga. Her father was a visiting professor from Germany, and her mother was obviously a very formal lady, who had ordered engraved invitations for the entire class. Josh was on time for the party, and I noticed tables set with linen and formal ware, when I walked him to the door. Two hours later, when I picked him up, he came running out of the house with his arms laden with boxes. “So, how was the party?” I asked.  “Best party ever,” he replied. “No one came but me, so I had two pieces of cake, and won all the prizes.” From Josh’s viewpoint, the party was a huge success.

However, at the next gathering he was hit in the head with a stick, when the blindfolded birthday boy missed the piñata. Even though Josh was awarded extra candy and an ice bag, he didn’t think that was as much fun.

I have given parties when some guests arrived early, some late and some never showed up. One couple arrived at our front door a day early, took one look at me in my robe and slippers and said, “This must not be the night.”

I have been to parties where the hostess arrives late, but attended one event where the hostess never showed up. The most memorable party I attended was held in a mansion in Chicago, where I left doggy doo footprints on their plush white carpeting. That was one heck of a grand entrance. The butler cleaned off my shoes. I threw them away when I got home. They should have had smaller dogs.

The worst get-together I ever attended was when my husband and I arrived at his boss's home, and either the boss had forgotten to tell his wife we were coming, or they had locked horns right before we got there, because she only came out of the kitchen once, slammed a thermos of coffee, and a coffeecake, (still in the box) on the table, and left. Never saw her again.

I won’t tell you about the time my mother wrapped a leftover sardine around a piece of lettuce in her centerpiece, and my grandmother picked it up, took a bite out of it, and shouted, “Stop eating! The food is poisoned.”

Esther Blumenfeld (Surprise! The hostess is selling Tupperware.)

Promises and Protocol

People shouldn’t say what they don’t mean. For instance, when I was 7 years old, my next-door playmate named, Leigh Ann bit me on the arm. I ran home crying, and my Uncle Harry said, “I’ll kill her!” He never did. I assume Leigh Ann is an old lady by now, and maybe she has no teeth, but my Uncle should never have said, “I’ll kill her,” if he had no intention of doing so.

These many years later, I am still too trusting that people are going to do what they promise. I have a repair/replacement insurance policy on several items in my home, and have never had a problem with the repair promise as stated. However, my washing machine is now on life support. The first repairman who arrived on a Friday told me that my Maytag is older than he is, but said, “It’s a classic. Never get rid of this. They don’t make them like this anymore. Unfortunately, I can’t fix it, and I doubt if we can get the parts, but I’ll send out an older guy on Monday to see what he can do.” “Does he use a walker?” I asked. He ignored me.

The Monday guy had a window of opportunity to show up from 1pm to 5pm. I sat and listened to my washer suffer through a whirling seizure, and finally called the shop at 4:30pm. “You promised that he would show up between 1pm and 5pm. Is he coming?” I asked. “He got hung up, but should be there by 5pm,” was the reply. “Will he still show up after 5pm?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said, “but have a nice day.” Well, miracle of miracles, he showed up at 5pm. He didn’t use a walker, but had a severe hearing problem. However, by now my washer was thumping so loud that his hearing problem didn’t help him one bit.

After a bit of banging, and poking and prodding, he said, “I can’t fix this, lady,” and after playing with his computer, he said, “There are no available parts.” “Does this mean, I get a replacement?” I gleefully shouted. “Probably,” he said, “But first they have to do a world-wide search for a new porcelain tub for this machine, although, I’m sure they won’t find one, and I don’t know if that would even work.” “Then why do the search?” I asked.  “It’s protocol,” he replied. “After they find that they don’t have the part, or it’s too expensive, then they will call you and pay for a new machine, but I have to tell you---no machine is as good as this one.”

“My Maytag is only 48 years old,” I moaned. “I know, he mournfully replied, as he removed his cap and we both looked at my bumping, banging machine. It still washes clothes but under duress. Now, I have to wait two more weeks to see if the worldwide search turns up a tub. I have some Irish friends, and their Irish has rubbed off on me. I can put up with some bumping and grinding. A promise is a promise. And, I swear that this insurance replacement is in my future, or I will call Uncle Harry.

Esther Blumenfeld (Oh, Oh, my dryer is squeaking)

Stones and Camels

The flight to New York was uneventful. My plane landed on time, and my luggage arrived intact.  All was well with the world, until I hopped into a taxi driven by Mohammad. “This should go well,” I thought. “The man is named after a religious leader. How bad could it be?” I told him the name of my hotel, and he slammed his foot on the gas pedal, and we took off like a drunken bat out of Hell.

As we wove in and out of rush hour traffic on the expressway, Mohammad discovered that his emergency light was blinking.  “How do you turn this thing off?” he asked. “I assume there’s a switch somewhere,” I replied, as I got off the car floor and climbed back into my seat. “No switch,” he said. “Maybe it’s near the dashboard,” I replied. At that, my driver disappeared, as his head went under the dashboard. All I saw was his hands on the steering wheel. “Mohammad, come back to me,” I yelled. “You can fix the light when we get to the hotel.” He brought his head back out of his lap, but by now drivers all around us were honking and pointing to the blinking light.

Mohammad lowered his window and started shouting insults about mothers and camels and excrement, while the wind whipped my coiffure into my eyes. Finally, he slammed on the brakes, and deposited me, and my suitcase, at the rear entrance of the hotel, where I promptly got stuck in the revolving door.

Sigmund Freud said, “The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.” Freud was right. A colorful characterization is so much better than hitting someone in the head with a stone. There is nothing more descriptive than:

“He is having an identity problem trying to join the human race.”

“She needs a personality makeover.”

“He doesn’t have to say, ‘I don’t know,” because you know he doesn’t.”’

“She thinks she can save the world one light bulb at a time, and she is a few bulbs short.”

“She says she changed her mind, but I don’t know what she changed it into.”

I particularly enjoy the colorful language of regional put-downs:

 “He’s all hat and no cattle.”

“She’s a taco short of a combination plate.”

“He’s all foam without the beer.”

“She’s the dimmest bulb in the chandelier.”

Of course classic insults said by famous people have become an entertaining footnote to history:

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” (Oscar Wilde)

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” (Billy Wilder)

“He has all the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire.” (Winston Churchill)

I forgot to mention that I was stuck in that hotel revolving door with my suitcase, because a man in a hurry was pushing the merry-go-round door in the opposite direction, as I was trying to enter. When he finally stopped pushing, and let me come around, I looked at him and said, “You are a camel.” “No, Lady,” he replied, “I’m from Connecticut.” I’m not sure he got it.  Sorry, Mohammed.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Wisdom hurts.” Euripedes)

Eggplant Caper

Guest article by David Snell.

This article was inspired by my last article, "Food Glorious Food." David, a former ABC News Correspondent, is now the principal of Snell Communications, and wrote this story for his grandchildren. 

Marjorie and I were mad. 

Mother said we had to eat the Eggplant, but it tasted terrible. How terrible? So terrible we were ready to run away from home if we had to eat it. Usually we liked what mother cooked, and when we didn’t,  we knew the rule.  We could just sit there until we liked it. If there was cake or pie for desert, that usually helped to change my mind, but tonight there wasn’t any desert and, besides, the Eggplant was terrible.  Did I already say that?  Well, it was.

I sat at the table looking at the Eggplant, then looking at Marjorie looking at the Eggplant.  This time was different.  This time, we would stand up for our rights. How do you do that when you are six years old? I didn’t know, but Marjorie was nine-and-a-half. She was so old  she’d already lost her baby teeth and got most of her new ones. That’s pretty old, right? So, when Mother and Daddy left the kitchen, Marjorie said, “Let’s run away from home.” 

That sounded like a good idea to me. Both of us hated the Eggplant. Mother said we had to eat it.  Running away from home was the only answer.

“I'm sorry you feel that way," said Mother. "We'll really miss you," said Daddy.

They did seem sorry and I thought about changing my mind, but then Daddy got out his billfold and gave each of us brand new dollar bill. Wow! A whole dollar. It was more money than I’d ever had in my whole life.

Mother and Daddy waved goodbye from the front porch. Marjorie held my hand and we walked off down the street right through the middle of our town. As we passed the grocery store and the drug store, I looked back to see if they were still watching us. They were.

I had never been downtown without Mother or Daddy. Now, I held tight to Marjorie’s hand as we crossed the street and walked another block toward the edge of town. “Village limits,” said Marjorie, reading the sign on the side of the road just past the Skinner house.

Now, when I looked back, I couldn’t even see our house.  Now, when I looked past the sign all I saw was a field of corn – that Daddy told me a week ago was “knee high by the 4th of July” – and a long, empty road. I looked up at Marjorie. She was looking at the long, empty road, too.

 “It’s getting kinda dark,” I said. “Maybe it’s too late to start running away from home tonight,” she said. She was right.  I knew she was right. So, right then, we turned around and walked past the sign and past the Skinner house and back into town. That was when Marjorie had a great idea. “Why don’t we go to the drug store and get a milkshake and talk it over,” she said. So that’s what we did. We drank our milkshakes and we talked it over.  I don’t remember what I said, but I do remember what we decided.  Running away from home was the right thing to do (The Eggplant tasted terrible), but we should go home, get a good sleep, and start out in the morning.

There were hugs and kisses when we got home, but our happiness didn’t last. “You can stay the night,” said Daddy, “and we’ll only charge you a dollar each.” My heart stopped beating.  I felt a lump in my throat.  Our grand plan wouldn’t work after all. Those wonderful milkshakes (mine was chocolate) cost us more than we knew. On our way home from the drug store I had jingled three silver coins in my pocket, enjoying the sound.  Now, I felt my mouth start to quiver.

“I only have these,” I said.  “Marjorie said we should get a milkshake. “Well,” said Daddy, “I don’t know…”  “Clair,” said Mother, in that kidding tone of hers. “I think we can make an exception.” I didn’t know what “make an exception” meant, but her hug  made my stomach feel better. “We’ll only charge seventy-five cents for tonight.”

Is that what I have? What a relief. After I got my jammies on and said my regular “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer, I fell asleep, happy to be in my own bed and no longer sure about running away from home. I woke up to the sounds of morning, feeling great after a long night’s sleep. I stretched and looked out the window at my favorite climbing-tree, the one Marjorie and I had been climbing before supper last night--- BEFORE---The thought hit me like the stomach ache I got when I ate too much Christmas candy. Running away from home?  We were RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME.   

 I walked downstairs slowly, trying to delay what was about to happen.  Marjorie was already sitting at the kitchen table and Mother was standing by the stove  “Are you hungry for pancakes?” she said. 

Was I ever!

David Snell (Snell Communications)