Blacklisted from the PTA Read online

  I’m dead already! The black screen stared at me. The blinky-blinky orange light on the power button disappeared. What I had neglected to inspect before—the cord—I now found broken, possibly mistaken for a rawhide by the dog I feed and bathe and medicate.

  When I whined to my husband that I was on my way to Best Buy for a new power cord, he told me we had a universal cord in the desk drawer. When I hear the word, “universal,” I think of something easy, something equipped with its own internal superior knowledge that allowed it to operate without my help, something even a techno-loser writer could figure out.

  Right. The universal cord had several tips to choose from and several pieces that all seemed to fit together. I eventually figured out the correct order to connect the pieces, but even fully assembled, the master of all power sources wouldn’t turn my computer on. I checked the ports again. All were in order so I gave up on the omnipotent power cord and took everything to Best Buy where two guys younger than my Compaq told me I needed a new cord. Perhaps I would like the $149 model. (Not that they’re on commission or anything.)

  In desperation I visited the Geek Squad desk where I was outrageously lucky to get a wildly talented geek. She listened to my story and offered a few tricks. While she spoke, and without breaking eye contact, she gently turned my computer over, effortlessly located the release, moved the battery slightly, and closed the compartment. Elegantly and without any overt display of ego, she sent me on my way to try the universal cord once more.

  At home, the tones of the power-up sequence melted my shoulder tension and let me know that I would live to log in another day. All it had taken was a loving touch.

  The machines aren’t so different from us after all. I guess that’s why we’re so dependent on them.

  Three Steps to Good Housekeeping

  MY NAME IS LELA AND I HAVE A HOUSEKEEPER. DON’T JUDGE ME. I’ve done enough of that myself. I’ve also tried to handle the housework myself—even enlisted the kids in a weekly ritual to rid our home of the odor of dog and used Kleenex. The routine consisted of making a list of chores, cranking up the Jonas Brothers, and setting a timer for an hour. It was ugly, but in the end the house was clean—not white glove clean, but good enough.

  I would follow up throughout the week nagging the children to pick up their things until I ran out of saliva. This system worked for a while, but the kids complained and I got tired of yelling. We slacked off. When I once again feared picking up a staph infection from my own bathroom, I knew I needed help.

  Step 1: Admit that you are powerless over your poor housekeeping. The grime coating my best wedding gift vase was so thick I’d forgotten its original color; dust bunnies had morphed into a pack of vicious jackrabbits under my sofas; and there were leftovers in the fridge dating back to the Bush Administration. It’s like a disease, this inability to scrub grout and polish porcelain. Clearly, I was not in control. So why feel so guilty about outsourcing? I’m only trying to set a good example. I wouldn’t want my children to think a woman is supposed to do everything. That would be wrong.

  Step 2: Realize that the solution lies in a higher power (i.e. a housekeeper). I called the woman who used to clean our house back when I had one big paycheck instead of the handful of small ones I now receive. She was available. And she’s great—with baseboards, stainless, and my fingerprint-laden glass-topped desk. I justified the luxury by telling myself that now the kids and I will have time to work on the deep detail cleaning and organizing. We’ll thwart the landfill-o-crap that threatens to overtake their bedrooms. Mmm-hmmm. That’s exactly what we’ll do with the time. We won’t sit around eating Sour Patch Kids and Raisinettes and watching American Idol. No way.

  Step 3: Commence with the cleaning. Naturally, I had to clean up the house before the housekeeper’s first visit. I won’t be judged for hair-clogged drains and fuzzy ceiling fans. More important, I don’t want her thinking we’re trouble like those slobs across the street. I can’t afford a rate hike, and I do detest those pesky negotiations.

  Her first day back I withheld a giggle as she lemonpolished her way around the room. I let out a hearty “YES” when I saw the neat pile of rags next to the washer after she’d gone. I floated through the house on a lavender and Pledge-scented cloud. Goodbye, tiny hairs and pet dander. Hello, shiny wood floor.

  Am I spoiled? Sure. Am I addicted to the housekeeper? I can quit any time. Ultimately it comes down to happiness. And nothing makes me happy like crumb-free floors and shiny granite.

  Glamorous Task

  I START WITH A HOT CUP OF COFFEE AND TWO PIECES OF FUDGE. The drawer before me is a mess of tubs, tubes, and compacts, hair bands and hair—a chaos from which no beauty could emerge—unlike the pretty makeup on the counter, which is proudly displayed in leaded crystal and condescendingly mocks the dirty stepchildren shoved in the drawer.

  As I dig into the mess I find I have enough black eyeliner—in different shades and degrees of sparkle—to survive the apocalypse. (You’re not really asking if there are different shades of black, are you?)

  I find five different colors of red lipstick, one of which I know to be at least ten years old. You can’t just toss a red; you never know when you’ll need one or another to mix just the right tint. Red matters. I spent years wearing a tangerine poppy shade after reading that while women prefer blue-toned reds, men are drawn to orange-based hues. Now, to brighten my task, I smear some scarlet on my lips. With the rest of my face bare, I am transformed into a forties movie star/harlot. Just as I’m thinking this look works better in black and white, my husband walks by and utters “Damn!” in a way that tells me the look is definitely more harlot than starlet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Despite his—and most men’s—declarations that they prefer a natural look, my husband has never complained about my made-up face, including the occasional overuse of apocalyptic eyeliner.

  “Should I get the door?” he asks. The thought of my children banging on our closed bedroom door is about as sexy as last spring’s experiment with green eye shadow. Besides, while an organized makeup drawer may not rise to the level of “better than sex,” if done right, it lasts longer. I politely decline.

  My coffee has lost its steam so I indulge in the fudge as I pick through old foundation and a pot of glitter-something. I find a tube of Revlon Beyond Natural Primer. Beyond natural, way beyond—because it’s actually plastic.

  I don’t understand the allure of primer, but beauty editors swear by the stuff so, since I’ve recovered it from the drawer of disorder, I vow to once again use the miracle elixir to spackle my pores. They’re not so bad, as pores go, but also not so good that they couldn’t use some silicone assistance. I smooth on the polymer, carefully avoiding my simmering red lips. Returning to the cosmetic confusion, I wonder why there are two of Step Two of my Mary Kay home micro-dermabrasion kit but only one of Step One.

  Clearly I’ve been sanding at a faster rate than I’ve been replenishing. I stop to play with an eyebrow kit because it’s new, and because I am almost as obsessed with my eyebrows as I am with my lips. I throw away the toothbrush I ruined scrubbing the eye pencil sharpener. Then I toss the business card for the esthetician at the dermatologist’s office, but only because her number is already programmed into my phone.

  When I am done cleaning and culling, the drawer is organized into tidy compartments. I reward myself with the remaining fudge and admire my work. There is a container for everyday items: contact lenses, deodorant, makeup (like mascara) that’s not pretty enough for the sink-side crystal tray. Another container holds sixteen shades of eye shadow. Yet another is home to a modest thirteen tubes of lipstick and gloss. (Don’t worry, there are more throughout the house.) One final container holds resurfacing crystals and a micro-chemical peel. Floating free in the drawer are four more toothbrushes in case I need to tame an especially errant brow or clean all that waxy black eyeliner film from around the sink drain.

  The coffee is cold, the fudge is gone, and my red l
ip shaped mark on the mug is the most glamorous residue of my task. I swipe a bit of ruby gloss over my crimson-stained lips. For the moment my world is in order. Which is a good thing, because my husband is back, eyeing me in the mirror.

  This could get messy.

  I Am the Wirus

  FEW THINGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT TO A WRITER THAN A functional computer. Slow start-up, programs that close unexpectedly, and digital minions who save your words to a drive you’ve never heard of can cause any of us to channel our inner Hemingway. And I’m talking about his efficiency with liquor, not words. For bloggers, lack of a working gateway proves even more disastrous. We live to surf websites for opportunities, never knowing where we’ll earn a quarter to write about our sock matching technique or a buck for our words about little Johnny’s first bicuspid.

  “Maybe it’s not a virus,” I told my husband. “Maybe it’s Spyware.” I liked pretending I knew what I was talking about.

  “Spyware, huh?”

  “Spies are everywhere,” I said, looking around like a character in a cold war novel. I shrugged it off. “There must be something they can do right? I mean, don’t you think they can fix it?”

  “How can you get rid of it if it’s spying on you?”

  Smartass.

  When I reached out for help, the men of a certain anti-virus protection outfit were only too happy to chat me up.

  Ramesh: Welcome to the Antivirus Solution Center. How may I help you?

  Lela: I have a problem with my web access. I think I have a virus, or spyware.

  Ramesh: What is your 32-digit product number?

  32-digit product number? This is exactly why I had put off contacting the virus people for over a month. If I had the kind of mind that could commit a 32-digit number to memory, I probably could have taken the computer apart and excised the electronic gremlin myself.

  It took me a week to convince the chat guys that I had a legitimate problem, and it only happened then because during an online scan, the viral beast interrupted the scan. I was immediately upgraded from the chat service to a phone consult.

  “Sounds like you have a wirus,” my new helper announced.

  Did he say walrus? “Pardon me?”

  “I think you have a wirus.”

  Wirus? “No,” I said. “My wireless is working fine.”

  “Not wireless, wi-rus.” He sounded irritated.

  Wirus, rirus… virus! “Yes, yes, I have a virus!”

  May as well have been a walrus, because it was goo goo g’joobing all over my computer.

  He transferred my case to the virus department, which he said would be in contact within forty-eight hours. Silly me, I thought the whole company was the virus department. I fought back bitterness. What’s two more days when you’ve been dealing with an evil infection for over a month? If only hard drives responded to Monistat.

  I tried to put the setback in perspective. I hesitate to write these words because some sinister program is probably watching as I type, but honestly, bad as it is, a computer virus is really not so bad, relatively speaking. Compared with real viruses, like Ebola or Bubonic plague, a computer worm is insignificant. I might miss a deadline, but no one’s going to die if my laptop runs slow. No one’s going to waste away if I can’t check my email or trade a stock. No village will be flooded if I can’t pay my gas bill on time.

  A writing buddy recently described her falling out with a hard drive. “It was horrifying,” she said.

  Horrifying?

  A strong word, even for writer who’s had her words erased.

  “I know,” another writer commiserated. “I went through that last fall.”

  They nodded, touched hands, and their misery made me wonder if we need hospice for dying computers and grief counseling for lost manuscripts.

  To be safe, guard against overconfidence around computers, especially if you’re a writer. Think about it—the innocent looking Mac or PC knows our most private thoughts, to say nothing of the passwords to our bank accounts. They are spies, and they are everywhere.

  Also, beware of mocking the chat room guys, even inside your head. As soon as I got the wirus fixed, my wireless went out.

  Portrait of a Junk Drawer

  AS A KID I ONCE OPENED THE WRONG DRAWER AT A FRIEND’S house. Instead of the spoons her mother had asked for, I found a broken ruler, chewed pencils, and a padlock splattered with paint.

  “Junk drawer,” the mom said. “Everybody’s got one.” What a relief. We had a drawer at home that held hair bands, restaurant matches, and inkless pens. I’d assumed this was our family’s particular shame. Learning that other people suffered the junk-sickness was comforting, but still, I wanted better for myself. When I moved away from home, I tried not to repeat the pattern, but somehow ended up maintaining my own junk drawers in apartments and houses across the country. All the while I dreamed of an organized space with cubbies for keys, picture hanging hardware, and miniature screwdrivers. I’m not quite there.

  We have two junk drawers now: his and hers. His catches manly items like lighters, electrical tape, and the occasional nut and bolt. Mine is for the stuff of daily life. I open it no less than ten times a day and I organize it over and over in my continuous effort to get it to close properly.

  First, I root out garbage because trash gives respectable junk drawers a bad name. I don’t need an old church program or last May’s third grade spelling list. I toss cardboard boxes and brochures for $45 bottles of acai berry juice. Of course, not all trash starts out as such, but is rendered useless over time. What good is $3 off a car wash in 2004? Was I planning to time travel? I find idea notes for stories scratched off on index cards: Red Explorer-leaf pile playhouse-childhood dream with circus rat. That’s useful.

  Some things inspire guilt, like my daughter’s crumpled artwork. While my firstborn’s early masterpieces hold a place of honor in a plastic tub somewhere, the second child will surely need art therapy later. There is the Scalpicin I bought before I realized the itchy scalp really was lice and not just some other irritant that, God forbid, the neighbors might mistake for lice. I debate where to put the telephone number to Poison Control (in case I splash nail polish remover in my daughter’s eye again).

  Then there are essentials. Sure, I can live without the nutritional information for McDonald’s and Starbucks, but not my bent and faded Weight Watchers Points Counter. That stays. Also, Post-its, Sharpies, tape, and paper clips. These are musthave supplies in a well-stocked kitchen.

  I finally reach the bottom of the drawer, only to find that uncapped pens have created inkblots that inspire me to peer deep into my psyche. Not good. The ink needs covering up— quick. Back into the drawer go immunization records, pencils, candy, scissors, and erasers. Back in for binder clips, thumbtacks, and take-out menus.

  Done. One little spot is relatively organized and I feel lighter. Though my drawer may not be perfect, it gets me through the day. And it shuts—for now.

  Which is more than I can say for the silverware drawer.

  Mommy Meltdown

  IT HAD BEEN ON THE CALENDAR FOR WEEKS: PIANO RECITAL– 4 P.M. At 4:30, I realized we weren’t there. I began a meltdown. The last time I’d experienced a guilt-fest that intense was Christmas Eve the year before when I’d been certain that I hadn’t gotten my kids even one gift they wanted and worse yet, my wrapping sucked. Now, like then, I puddled onto my bedroom floor, sniffling and sobbing like a toddler. I’d failed as a mother yet again. I cried for the missed recital during broad daylight in front of the kids.

  “Mom? Are you crying?” My daughter looked at me as if I’d grown an arm on top of my head. “Are you okay?” my son was equally confused. “I’m the worst mom ever,” I blurted through the snot and tears. Not only would my children miss the chance to play the piano in front of all those adoring fans, but their names in the program would announce my failure.

  Davidson. Davidson? Are you here? What’s that—neither Davidson is here? Oh dear. It seems the Davidsons have
other plans today.

  Murmurs would float through the crowd. We’d be banned from the music school. Good mothers, afraid of my contagious badness, would move closer to each other when they saw me at Walmart. I’d be the Leper mom. My Good Mommy card would be revoked. And whose fault was that?

  Mothers get no training, no license, no education credit hours to maintain. I screw up—a lot. For example, I once called my son a moron for spilling a box of angel hair pasta on the tile. No good mother would do that, but those noodles are hard to pick up, damn it. I’ve mastered the mommy apology: “Sorry, Sweetie. Mommy’s very crabby today.”

  If only there were classes to teach us the intricacies of calendar management, lunch box basics, and play date etiquette. I want a certificate to hang on my wall, one I can point to and say, “This is what they taught me. I’m qualified.” Maybe we can learn mothering by mail. Everything from pacifier maintenance to paying for college could be taught by correspondence courses and online chats.

  Ambitious moms could go for an Associates Degree in Artsy Craftsy, or a Bachelors in Butt Wiping. Truly overachieving moms could go for their Masters in Mommy & Me or PhD in Potty Training. There would be continuous education in PTA management and extra credit for lice eradication. Face it, we need a curriculum. Women’s intuition can leave a lot to chance.

  As for the missed recital, it turned out there was another one the next day. By then my sobs had subsided and I watched with pride as my babies plunked out Old MacDonald and Mary Had a Little Lamb on the ivories. For this whisper of musical talent I had tiptoed at the edge of sanity. I obviously had much to learn.