That's Why the Lady Is a Horse's Ass

Overheard today at a child's birthday party (as my faithful readers know, I generally loathe these little affairs--especially when they are populated with nouveau riche nasties with lifelike movements and real eyes that open and close when they move):

Small Lumpen Mother with some frightful skin problems: I really need to lose seven pounds before this wedding.
Soccer Whore 1: What diets are you trying?
Small Lumpen Mother: I've tried the [unintelligible]*.
Soccer Whore 2: I've tried that. It's really effective. I feel faint and headachy all the time, though. Oh my gosh.
Soccer Whore 1: But you've lost weight!
Madame Tussaud's Escapee, made of lifelike wax: So much. You look fantastic. I mean, where else could she lose weight, girls? Her eyebrows? Her little finger? [Witchy laughter.]
Small Lumpen Mother: But I have got to lose these seven pounds. The wedding is at the end of May!
Madame Tussaud's Escapee: You have to try the [unintelligible] diet.
Small Lumpen Mother: Oh, how does it work?
Madame Tussaud's Escapee: My advice? Do not start dieting now. Wait until 9 days before the wedding to start the diet. You will lose the 7 pounds in exactly 9 days. Surefire.
Small Lumpen Mother: But...won't I just gain it back right away after the wedding?
Madame Tussaud's Escapee: Well, yes. You will. But it works!
Me [very silently inside my own mind]: Hey dingleshit! Did you mention that you will only lose the poundage from your brain? [Slappings with shitty, tasteless pizza ensue.]

*I tried to get closer to hear them better and find out about the mysterious diet, but the cloying scent of their perfume and the flinging about of jewel-encrusted fingers seemed dangerous, and drove me back into the crowd of greasy-fingered children. Whereupon I hid, watching them with narrow eyes, and ate a piece of cake.

Shuffles Redux

Tonight on my way home I spotted our neighbor Shuffles, shuffling her way along our street with her wiglike dark hair bobbing as she moved. Her trim little bluejeans were much too high around the ankles and she wore black running sneakers and a nondescript blue sweatshirt. I stalked her in a stealthy manner, noting once again the similarities between her visage and that of a Cabbage Patch Doll. Not once did she turn, but I sensed that, yes, she knew I was there. She felt my beady eyes at her back, my hot breath upon her neck. She seemed to twitch when I darted behind this tree and that shubbery, although she thought it merely the wind's vagaries that caused her an involuntary flinch.

I know ye, Shuffles. I know that you stole my little cat Potatoe exactly two years ago, and keep him close by your side in your darkened house with drawn shades, the house that smells of old cabbage and bunions. I know you read your horoscope this morning, and it alerted you to the possibility that a stranger will spot you bagging groceries at the Stop and Shop and whisk you off to Hollywood, where you will star as a stripper in a low-budget remake of Showgirls.

I am aware that you set out your black running shoes next to your white this morning and thought: "I shall choose the black. Today, I shall choose the black." And that Potatoe curled around your bony white ankles as you sipped your weak tea and ate a fried egg, and the egg dripped down over your chin and you wiped it with a rag that was once a pair of faded, grey Granny undies, consigned to the cleaning supply closet. You read OK magazine as you ate, and entertained rude thoughts about Britney's midriff, and agreed with the poll that suggested her career was ruined. And yes, Shuffles, you let yourself gloat in the fact--for one quick moment--that your stomach is flatter than Britney's can ever now be. That decision not to fall in love, marry, and have children--a doom-laden sequence that leads inexorably to midriff spread--has its rewards, and they are sweet rewards indeed.

After you ate your breakfast you sorted your cutlery, brushed your wiglike hair, and wrote a letter to the mayor of New Rochelle demanding redress for all sorts of ills, including the noxious sounds emitted by the cement trucks that pass along the 95 entrance ramp. You also spoke firmly about the need to replace the stop sign at the corner with one that does not have a sticker on it reading: "No Jesus, No peace. Know Jesus, Know Peace." Not that you have anything against old Jesus, but enough is enough with the grafitti. WWJD indeed, Shuffles--why, he'd be an upstanding citizen, just like you!

I think we are sympatico in a way, Shuffles. I'll bet that you wouldn't fit in with those Pelham moms, either. You'd find them distasteful, as I do, and you would spurn their SUVs with many rude hand gestures, if you only had a car yourself and weren't forced to shuffle, shuffle everywhere. You would give them that owl-eyed stare from behind your giant, round glasses--smeared with fingerprints--and think to yourself: "Poo. I don't like them one bit." I applaud your dignity, Shuffles!

I think you don't think much of our neighbors, either. Some of our close companions here are Lumpen, unassailably stupid, and built like brick shithouses. Not all, mind you. You know what's what, who's good, and all that. You are a shining beacon of hope, Shuffles.

Except there was that odd moment the other night when, on your way home in the darkness, you stopped right across the street from our porch. You turned and stared--for a long, long uncomfortable minute. You stood still like a hunting dog, poised to lunge. I stared back, but partially shielded by one of our porch columns, so that you couldn't see the whites of my eyes. What were you looking for? I held my breath. Would you step across the street, that great divide, and confess your misdeeds?

"I'm sorry I took your cat," you might have said. "I was just so dreadfully lonely." But you said nothing. You left, eventually. Back to your home with the green shuttered door and the crappy peeling paint, head down and shoulders hunched, flipping your hair over your shoulder like some hoochie teenager and moving with that perplexing gait...shuffle...shuffle...shuffle.

I guess you can keep my cat, Shuffles. He piddled in our basement anyway, and he was as dumb as a post.

Pelham Housewives Smackdown!

Last night I wrote this letter to the director of my son's school. She's a decent and nice person, so I was decent in turn. I thought, however, that I would edit the letter to illuminate my true and more heartfelt feelings about the subject.

Dear_____,

I appreciate all the changes you've made to make the parking at the school easier and safer--they seem to be doing the trick!

I thought I would bring up one concern, however. I'm not sure what you can do about it, but I see some rude behavior from the moms skinny, nouveau riche beeatches who drive the giant SUVs motherfucking, gas-guzzling, planet-wrecking, gargantuan pieces of shit that take up half the road. As my nanny was pulling out today from a parking spot, she paused to let someone ahead of her pull out. The mother in the SUV behind her leaned on the horn and angrily gestured at her to "get a move on." My nanny was shocked and appalled that another member of the school community this nasty bitch would be this rude. Perhaps a gentle reminder about courtesy public slapdown in the next newsletter school ampitheatre--come on, me and her, mano a mano--would be helpful?

Frankly--and this leads me into another rather difficult topic I have often thought of broaching--the behavior of some of the parents at the school saddens me sickens me and has made the town of Pelham a dark blot on the landscape forevermore. It is, in fact, the reason that we do not plan to send our son back next year, nor will we be sending his younger brother in the future. The school and teachers are wonderful, but many of the mothers are unfriendly, uncommunicative, and seem to belong to an exclusive club that desires no new members total freak-ass beeatches who have never worked an honest day in their lives and have nothing better to do than complain about "the help." Oh yeah, and I'll bet they have ostentatious, tacky gold fixtures in their bathrooms, too. And their husbands are old, bald, and have small penii.

It is a shame that at this point in my life, I should be sharply reminded of junior high-school cliques when this sort of thing has no place in a school community. Sadly, I am not referring to the children but to the mothers loathsome slagmounts to whom I alluded earlier. Last year, I attempted to set up several playdates for my son in order to extend his school friendships, as suggested by his teacher. In every instance but one, the mothers rebuffed me by not returning my calls and making no overtures of their own went back to picking out tacky shit for their oversized, repulsive homes. Eventually, I gave up--to my son's detriment. While he was invited to the birthday parties along with everyone else, only a few mothers even took the time to say hello to me. [Yeah, even the short, squat one with the glasses who has an extra Y chromosome. Yeah, her too. If you're gonna be a beeatch, says my husband, at least be hot. This woman looks like she just popped up from a groundhog hole. And her name is Donna. Yeah, I'll name names! Or maybe it's spelled DAWNA? Or used to be before she was found turning tricks in a Hohokus lesbian strip club. ] The lack of friendliness has been downright bizarre the source of my recent "I'm a-gonna go put human poo on the steps of the craphole Pelham Country Club" fantasies.

While this year it's too early to tell, I don't have high hopes based on last year's experiences. Seeing mothers in tennis skirts stand on the frontsteps and gossip about their nannies no-account trash who were no doubt scooped from the Bronx by some wealthy schmucks with extra money to spend on Botox doesn't make me feel like this is the right community for me makes me want to slap, slap, slap my sillies out--just like the kids' song!

I realize there is little you can do about people's attitudes, but I believe that a school should be a welcoming, loving community from child to staff to parents. This has a huge impact on my perceptions of the school as a whole. I find myself saying to friends who ask: "Yes,it's a lovely school, but the parents just aren't very...nice are complete, human shit. The community is cold. Therefore, I don't recommend it for your child stay the hell away!" Occasionally, I get the response from a fellow local parent that "the school has the reputation of being extremely snobby filled with people better served by being fed to carnivores in a Roman circus." It's unfortunate that this should be the case when my son adores the school and his teachers.

Realistically, I don't want him growing up in a community where he has no outside contact with his friends other than the school hours. Nor do Iwant him to think that such rudeness and unmerited elitism are a good way to behave; I fear that his young school friends, given a few years, will morph into small versions of their parents [yeah, you know they will, and it's gross].

I don't mean to suggest that you can "do something" about this or even that my perceptions can be anything other than subjective are anything other than a priori fact, objective as gold bricks. I have never had a problem with the school staff or the teachers. I do feel that to keep silent about why we are not returning next year wouldn't be right; not only because you might make the faulty assumption that we're not happy with the teachers or academics. Of course, if there is anything that can be changed I would prefer it to be now, when my son is still in the midst of his school experience.

Although school should not about me and is about my son, my experiences there do make an impact on him. I do wish I had the experience that friends of mine have shared about their children's preschools, in which the community is nurturing, diverse has more than one token "colored" child in the ENTIRE SCHOOL, lasting, and inclusive. Perhaps there are
subtle things that can be done to coax the school parents in that direction beat the tar out of the motherfuckers? If you can affect the general climate in that regard, more power to you.

Thank you for listening. New Ro is in the house!