Thirty-One

Thirty-one

Ten minutes. That’s how long it took me to walk from my house to the corner of Westchester and Wesley Avenues, where the bus stopped each morning around 8:20 in the summer of 1980. Port Chester to White Plains and back again, bus #13 brought me to my summer job at the health department, where I worked logging water samples and reports about bacteria counts from beaches and pools in the area. My first year of teaching just completed, I still needed income for the summer to buy gas for my Chevy Chevette and save money to move out of mom and dad’s home.

Ten minutes. That’s how long it took me to walk from my office to the bus stop at quitting time. Somewhere between my third week of work and my sixth, road construction by my usual bus stop forced me to trudge another block and a half to a different corner. I didn’t much like having to walk the extra distance in the heat or worse, on the occasional rainy day. But I didn’t regret my decision to keep the car parked at home in the driveway; I would have had to pay for parking, and money was tight.

Ten minutes. That’s how long a guy with curly blonde hair, blue eyes, and a killer smile stood staring at me from the alcove of the corner store at my new bus stop, where they sold newspapers and Coca Cola. I was seeing someone at the time, a Social Studies teacher seven years my senior. He was a nice man, but he wasn’t “the one”. I liked that the blonde guy was staring. I was a flirt, I confess, and I wanted to see what would happen. Besides, it was a nice way to spend ten minutes waiting for bus #13. The flirting persisted over several days, until actual words were spoken, and I realized I liked the sound of his voice.

Ten minutes. That’s about how long our first conversation took on the day we first sat side by side on the sticky- hot vinyl seats, where Ken revealed to me that he didn’t own a car and therefore had very little furniture in his apartment. I revealed that I did own a car, and would be happy to drive him downtown to look for a couch and a rug for his living room. In the interest of full disclosure, I mentioned the nice Social Studies teacher boyfriend because I didn’t want this cute blonde guy to make assumptions about my motives. We made plans a few days later to shop at Redi-Cut Carpet and the Salvation Army on Main Street.

Ten minutes. That’s how long we sat on the hood of my car making out (I like the repetition here, but you and I both know it was longer than that), and all thoughts of, and allegiance to, the nice Social Studies teacher had been as easily swept from my brain as tumbleweeds on a breezy day . Just hours before, Ken and I had successfully located a low-pile oriental rug woven in reds and golds, as well as a rust-colored furry couch. (I think furry couches were trendy at the time, even a little bit boho chic.) I was the one to suggest we celebrate our finds at the Cobblestone Restaurant, where I had parked the car where we later, well, you know.

So here we are, thirty-one years later and I realize I have never thanked the city of White Plains, New York, for the excellent upkeep of their streets, especially their bus stops. So thank you to whoever wrote up the work order to dig up the sidewalk where I used to stand and wait. It probably took you all of ten minutes to write it up, but isn’t it amazing how ten minutes here and there can really add up?

read more

Sweet and Sexy!

I am a consumer of junk. I eat junk, I watch junk on television, my husband would say I listen to music that is mostly junk, and I read junk. Malted milk balls, The Bachelor/Bachelorette, Macklemore  (Have you listened to “Thrift Shop” yet? What, What What, What? Poppin’ tags!), tabloids by the grocery store checkout. Preach to me all you want, but junk is FUN!

This week’s junky reading material included People Magazine, specifically the one with the gorgeous country singer on the cover wearing a barely-there cardigan wrapped around her petite frame, one pretty shoulder peeking out of it. I did a double-take when I read the headline. It said, “My Sweet & Sexy Marriage”. The quote underneath was, “I want to be a hot wife.” Once I absorb that critical information, I see that the article will include something about dates at Subway, flirty texting and long-distance love.

If you’re any kind of a real girl, (like I am) as you’re perusing the front cover, you are going to compare yourself to her, as I did. My hair may not be tousled and blonde, but I’m sure I have a sweater just like that, except with pills. I can’t help but have my shoulder stick out of it because apparently wire hangers are bad for polyester blends. But none of that is important. What’s important is comparing her marriage to mine. 

She has a sweet and sexy marriage?  Well, so do I! For instance, she says she feels “bad” that she isn’t home often enough to make sure there’s food in the refrigerator for her husband. All that time spent making gazillions of dollars singing to packed houses is sure to make going to the local grocery store an event that doesn’t happen too often. Ha! That’s nothing! I’m home ALL the time and there is nothing to eat around here.

Flirty texting? Puh-leeze! Here’s how my husband and I flirt: Every few days he replaces the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom but he does it WRONG. On purpose! There is a sweet and sexy reason he installs the roll incorrectly. He knows darn well, after being married to me for almost 31 years, I prefer to pull the paper OVER and down, not UNDER. Sometimes I think, How adorable! He’s teasing me. He’s saying, “See honey? I’m thinking of you every moment. Even in the bathroom!” I hardly ever grumble anymore while I turn it around and install it the correct way. Take that, Carrie Underwood!

They like to go to Subway for “dates”? Does anyone besides me think that’s ridiculous? If I had a gazillion dollars, I would cease and desist with the Subway sandwiches. In fact, Ken and I refuse to go on dates at all, to Subway or anywhere else. We don’t need no stinkin’ dates. We can stay home and have just as much fun, if not more, eating a more respectable rotisserie chicken from Stop ‘n Shop whilst watching “Dancing With the Stars.” Is there a better date than that? I think not.

Let’s discuss long-distance love. First of all, it doesn’t work. I mean, sure, it’s a novelty in the beginning. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. And then you’re all hot for each other because you haven’t had sex (in theory) for a long time. But I’m a firm believer that being away from your spouse for weeks at a time is a recipe for disaster. At some point he’s going to come home and suddenly have an interest in weird food that some co-worker introduced him to. Like sushi and something called shabu shabu. Or worse, he’ll start doing Tai chi in the back yard in full view of the neighbors. She’ll think, what the hell is on this plate and why is he waving his arms around like that? Is he sick? You’ll make him come back into the house and ask, “Who are you and what have you done with my husband?” When you finally train him back to some semblance of normalcy, it’s only a matter of time until he has to go away again and the cycle repeats itself until you want to stab yourself in the ears when he brings home yet another fusion jazz CD that he purchased from the piano player at the hotel lounge.

My husband and I don’t have to worry about long-distance love. Besides the fact that we never go anywhere (and we like it that way), Ken works in the basement. If I need him, all I have to do is start vacuuming the kitchen. He stomps upstairs to remind me he’s on a conference call and ‘WTF, it sounds like a train arriving at the station above my head’. But it all turns out okay in the end because now he knows the garbage disposal is stopped up.

The best thing about his working from a home office is I don’t have to worry about him cheating on me. Unless he’s got her stashed in the storage room next to his office, I don’t have any doubts about whether he’s faithful to me. Also, I almost never have to vacuum.

I love that Carrie Underwood is worried about her weight, which is somewhere in the 100 to 101 lb. range. She says, “I want to be a hot wife” and uses a personal trainer when she’s on the road, presumably to make sure she works off all the Subway sandwiches she eats. I weigh about a smidge more than she does, and by smidge I mean, well, never mind. I used to have a personal trainer, but had to give her up because I have a slight problem with authority. She was always telling me what to do!  Still, in the “hot wife” department, Carrie has nothing on me! Even if I’m wearing skimpy lingerie, I’m so hot we need to turn the fan on. No, really, we have to turn the fan on. I’ll say something sexy to Ken like, “Hot flash! Turn on the fan and hose me down!” It’s a real turn-on for him, I have to admit.

By the time I finish reading the People article, I almost feel sorry for Miss Carrie Underwood. What she knows about how marriage works over the long haul is about as much as I know about how to fix a garbage disposal. For instance, since neither of them is home for very long before one of them has to leave again, they can “both kind of enjoy missing each other.” Her husband is a hockey player, and he’s on the road a lot. But being a hockey player means he’ll retire sooner than most guys because you hardly ever see an old guy playing hockey.  So she hopes he’ll find another job after that because otherwise he’ll be home all the time and end up miserable, which will make her miserable.  

So let me get this straight: they’ve been married all of three years, and she’s already worrying about him being underfoot when he isn’t “working” anymore? Can’t she just set him up in the East Wing of their mansion? That way, if things are getting moldy in the sweet and sexy department, she can always leave him there for a few weeks and pretend she’s not  home so they can “enjoy missing each other,” just like the old days. Actually, there are times I’ve considered locking the basement door, but just for a few hours while I blast my Justin Bieber album and finish reading The National Enquirer in peace. Then, when I start to miss Ken, I can let him out. What a sweet and sexy time that would be!

Seriously though, I’d like to see the People Magazine cover about thirty years from now, just to catch up with those two lovebirds. That is, if she ever lets him out of the East Wing.

read more