When generations collide

July 17th, 2005

Mr. and Mrs. are on their way over for dinner. They are charming, supremely civilized people, both in their seventies.

I am afraid that our lifestyle will frighten them. Or repulse them.

“If we have them over the first night, it’s our best shot of showing them a clean house,” I say. “It will all go to hell by Day 2. You know it will.”

David nods and fires up the grill.

When they arrive, Sophie leads Mr. into the backyard to show him our wild blackberry bushes, the ones I am convinced are laced with all sorts of nasty PCPs from the GE plant. But right now I am worried about another form of PCP: Putrid Canine Poo. I have a feeling David has not thought to warn our guests about the dog poo minefield.

I stick my head out the back door. “Um, you might want to—”

Mr. is already Mr. Ed-ing one fouled wingtip on a clean patch of grass.

I hastily offer Mr. paper towels and a nearly empty bottle of random cleaning fluid. We both pretend that the cleaning fluid is tailor-made to remove dog poop from nice perforated leather shoes. He is a classy guy.

When it’s time to eat, we all settle into chairs on the screened-in back porch. It is humid and not at all pleasant. I worry that an errant breeze may waft eau de dirty diaper through the windows from the garbage can on the side of the house.

But the porch has one thing going for it: It is dimly lit. Dimly lit is a highly desirable state of affairs at our home.

David begins serving Mr. and Mrs. his excellent grilled offerings. He has outdone himself. It’s a lovely meal.

I turn to Sophie. She sits beside me, examining her cloth napkin as if it is some mysterious alien relic.

I take it from her hand and smooth it onto her lap.

She scowls slightly. “What are you doing?”

“We put a napkin on our lap at mealtime, honey.”

“Why?” she asks. Mrs. glances in our direction.

“Why, it’s polite, sweetie,” I say, ignoring the sweat coursing down my temples. Why, I’ve prefaced a sentence with ‘why’. Why? “It’s what you do.”

Sophie shoots me a look. Oh, really? Then how come this is the first time I’m hearing about it, Emily Post?

After dinner, I clear the plates. Mrs. follows me into the kitchen. She is very impressed with the meal David has prepared.

“You hear more and more of this sort of thing,” she says. “Men doing all the cooking for their families.”

I smile. “I like the men of this generation,” I say.

She points her index finger at me.

“It’s good for the women, but what about the men?”

*****

The next night, Mr. and Mrs. suggest that we suggest a restaurant. We do.

Before Mr. and Mrs. arrive to pick us up, I am frantic. I have good reason: I cannot find my butt girdle. I cannot go to a Nice Restaurant in a Nice Dress without my butt girdle. There would be a rift in the space–time continuum, a violent, gaping tear, and ancient oak trees and freshwater lakes and aging pop stars and all sorts of corporate headquarters and thatched huts and frail asthmatic children and Jujubees and budgies everywhere would be sucked away into an alternate universe. I have enough on my karmic rap sheet as it is.

I think I might hear something, far, far, far off in the distance. But I am too busy searching for the BG to pay attention. In the bathroom, I root wildly through the dryer, the laundry baskets, under clumps of wet, mildewy towels.

“That was a joke,” David says. “Ha. Ha ha.”

“What?”

David watches me from the sink, where he is calmly shaving. “Never mind. What’s wrong?”

Why is he speaking to me? Do I know this man? Does he not realize what is at stake?

He is still looking at me curiously. I struggle to collect a few of my more articulate brain cells and make them stick together. “It’s just . . . it would be a LOT BETTER if Mr. and Mrs. didn’t have to come here first and COLLIDE WITH THE BABYSITTER. Overlap. Overlap. I don’t like the overlap. We should have just said we’d pick them up. It’s all wrong.”

I sprint from the bathroom during this confounding speech to continue my search for the butt girdle in the cramped upstairs hallway. The hallway is lined with piles of dubiously clean clothing, spilling linens, stacks of empty air conditioner boxes and assorted child-related detritus. I do not have a dresser, and this only contributes to the mess.

But the butt girdle is nowhere. I choke back a sob.

David squints at me. Do I know this woman?

“What are you looking for?”

“A foundation garment.” I am sniffling.

“What?”

“Never mind. Just . . . please go prepare for the overlap. The collision of generations.”

*****

The galaxy remains intact; I find the butt girdle in a basket full of ethnic Groovy Girls. I ladle handfuls of my lower-body flesh into the garment for several minutes. I am finally ready to rock ’n’ roll.

*****

At the restaurant, Mr. praises David’s cooking from the other night.

David blushes modestly, maidenly.

Mrs. glances at me. “You’re very lucky,” she says.

“David likes to cook,” I say. I am starting to feel panicky. All synapses point to PANICKY in my brain. It is not an optimal reading.

“Isn’t that something,” she says. She slices her chicken without moving her elbows. She is elegant.

“David’s always loved cooking,” I say again, to no one in particular.

Mrs. takes a tiny bite of her chicken, then swallows minutely. “I’ve always said that married couples need to figure out what works for them.”

“Well, it’s working,” I say. “We’re awfully happy.”

She dabs at the corner of her mouth with her napkin, then resumes slicing her chicken. I envy her delicate wrists, her small appetite. What man would not love a woman like this?

“David’s a great guy. I’m crazy about him,” I say.

A single nod from my Mrs. “He’s a very good man.”

No, I know that already. I know that. I appreciate him, I do, I swear. “He is the best thing that ever happened to me,” I am now saying in a strangled voice. “He is my GIFT. He is my ANCHOR.”

She neatly spears a bit of salad.

“He is my ROCK OF LOVE.”

Oh my God.

Maybe she didn’t hear me.

She heard me.

I try to laugh gaily, but I’m not sure what this should sound like, and I wind up guffawing. “David, tell her. Tell her that you’re happy, and that you like to cook.”

The Rock of Love smiles pleasantly. “I love to cook.”

Everyone smiles pleasantly. Just leave it at that, just leave it at that, dear God, no no someone stop me someone stuff a cloth napkin in my—

“Tell her I DO things,” I command in a booming voice. I take a swig of my wine, trying to look like a jolly, sophisticated pirate instead of the neurotic nutcase I am fairly certain I am portraying myself as.

David nods vigorously. “Jenn does plenty of things.”

I point my fork at him. “I teach our girls things, don’t I?”

At this point, Mr. and Mrs. have been completely silenced by this pathetic display. They chew politely, waiting to be released from the hell that is Anxious Jenny.

“You teach our girls many, many things.” David cannot be more specific than this, not at this time, but I am still appreciative of his efforts.

Mrs. takes a petite sip of her white wine. “Sophie was very worried about bees this afternoon. I had to tell her that bees do very good things, that they pollinate flowers and make honey. Can you believe that? She didn’t know.”

David, suddenly prescient, gets a pained look on his face.

“Well, okay, I admit it, I admit that it never occurred to me until JUST NOW to tell her about bees,” I say. I am a broken woman. “I just forgot, I guess. I forgot that bees are around for a reason. I mean, anybody can FORGET.”It is almost a whimper.

The waitress saves me momentarily from myself by clearing our plates and bringing up the topic of dessert.

I manage to order the molten chocolate cake, but I am still fretting over my pitiful contributions to my family. I should be teaching my children how to fold cloth napkins into origami swans. I should be doing more for my husband, more cooking, more cleaning, more whiskey-fetching and footstools, maybe even some unspeakably lurid things involving props and period headgear and mini-DV recorders.

Holy crap, am I doing anything at all? No. I am a lump of useless, butt-girdled flesh. I disgust myself.

“My goodness! What an appetite!” says Mrs., as I stick a nervous fork into David’s dessert after devouring my own.

I’ve screwed up on bees and providing hot meals for my man, but surely, surely, I’m doing something with my time. Why can’t I think of anything? Surely I do something around the house, something with the toilets or the clothes, surely David is getting his money’s worth of wifely duties. Think. Think. THINK.

I am still thinking hard when we exit the restaurant and climb into the car. Then it comes to me.

“I balance the checkbook,” I blurt out, even though they are all talking about something else now, something innocuous like Emma Thompson movies.

Conversation stops dead. “I balance our checkbook,” I repeat idiotically. Silence. “That proves it. I’m not a trophy wife.”

No one says anything. “That was my joke for the night,” I say. “Trophy wife. Ha. Ha ha.”

David laughs jovially from the front seat.

Love that Rock of Love.

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