How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane (38 page)

I don't have much time to think before Crazy-Eyes lunges toward me, grabs my burgundy pleather clutch purse off the sink, and tries to run. That purse contains
my most valued possessions: my grape Bonne Bell lip gloss, my bottle of Obsession knock-off perfume, my eyelash curler, and my favorite can of styling mousse.

Instinctively, I grab the end of the clutch and . . . clutch it. Crazy-Eyes snarls and says, “Give me that purse.” To which I respond, “No.” To which she responds by putting one arm behind my back and the rest of me in a very tight choke hold.

I try to scream, apparently unaware that one needs a working windpipe to do that. I stomp my feet, drilling red stiletto heels into her ankles, but my attacker doesn't even flinch. Deb, hearing the frantic tap-dancing sounds I'm making on the tile floor, comes to my aid, jabbing her well-manicured fingernails into the beast's arm. No reaction. Evidently, Crazy-Eyes intends to choke the life out of me, and not even acrylic nail tips are going to stop her.

As I feel my consciousness begin to slip away, two things occur to me: one, that the lasting memory of my eighteenth birthday will be of being mugged and choked out in the basement bathroom of a honky-tonk bar; and two, that because I'm sober, I won't even have the luxury of forgetting it. And then something else occurs to me: a sense of fury and indignation that I haven't felt in years, not since my brothers wrapped a postwrestling-tournament jockstrap around my face and tied it in a knot so complex it took me twenty minutes to escape.

Suddenly, my fear and panic are replaced with white-hot rage. I wrest my left arm free and flail blindly, reaching for whatever I can grab, the first thing a hank of frizzy
blonde hair. With all my strength I pull the attacker's face into view, ball my right hand into a fist, and throw the hardest punch I can muster. But unlike the countless feeble shots I'd aimed at my brothers' balls over the years, this one connects squarely with a BAM in the center of my would-be killer's face. She stumbles back, hits the wall, and goes down.

As I lean against the sink to catch my breath, the door opens. It's the Beefy Bouncer, wearing a smug smile that ranks 9.5 on the Douchebag Scale. “All right, ladies, let's break up the catfight,” he drawls.

Choking back tears, I say, “She . . . jumped me and . . . tried to . . . steal my purse!” My attacker mumbles, “No, she tried to steal my purse.” “That's a lie!” I croak. “She's clearly inebriated, and quite likely stoned on PCP . . . and I am a designated driver!”

The bouncer asks to see my burgundy pleather clutch purse. He opens it, pulls out the wallet, and asks, “Is this yours”? I look, and with an almost audible clang my sphincter slams shut as I reply, “No, it is not.”

Because it is not.

“So which one of you is ‘Crystal-Anne Shymkiw'?” he asks, though the answer is fairly obvious: it's the Metallica fan writhing on the floor, though the swollen bloody nose on her face doesn't quite match the version in her driver's license photo.

I try to convince the bouncer of the hilarious! misunderstanding! that has taken place, then chase it down with an earnest apology to Miss Shymkiw, a.k.a. the Crazy-Eyed victim, for evidently having confused
her
burgundy pleather clutch purse with
my
burgundy pleather clutch purse, still located on the upstairs bar. “Can you believe we both have such bad taste?!” I joke. But she does not laugh and finds it all so unhilarious that she insists on pressing charges against me for theft and battery. Winnipeg's Finest are summoned, statements are taken, and in a lucky turn of events the cops proclaim this the funniest call they've had all week (“like an episode of
Three's Company
, eh!”), and they convince Ms. Shymkiw to drop all charges.

It's about one in the morning when I am dropped off at my parents' house. My neck is red, my voice is hoarse, my hand is bruised and throbbing. I am ragged and shaken and most of all mortified by what has happened. I drag myself into the kitchen, where my parents are enjoying a midnight munchies snack of Fig Newtons slathered with cream cheese.
^*
When my mom asks if I had “fun” on my birthday, I lie down on the linoleum floor, then shut my eyes and open my mouth to let the story of this night spill out.

My dad asks if the other woman was badly hurt. I tell him no, but that I'd probably have to pay to get her blood-spattered Metallica shirt dry-cleaned. He nods thoughtfully. “So, in other words, you got her good,” he says, then smiles, pumps a fist in the air, and shouts, “FAR FUCKING OUT!”

And so it was. Far fucking out, that is. Sure, I'd inadvertently committed “assault with intent to rob,” but
more important I'd defended myself in a barroom brawl and made my stoned dad proud in the process. His fist pump carried more than just cream-cheesy goodness that night; it gave me a grasp on my family's attempts to make me the third son. It is also the reason I say with true pride that the day I turned eighteen was the day I became a man.

*
Delicious, BTW.

APPENDIX B

AN UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATION THAT MY DAUGHTER WILL HAVE WITH HER TEENAGE DAUGHTER SOMETIME IN THE FUTURISTIC FUTURE

I
need you to log out right now.

Don't lie. I can tell by your head movements that you're scanning the Intelliboard embedded in your retina. Log out NOW. We need to discuss what happened while you were alone in the pod today.

“Nothing?” Perhaps you'd like to take a look at what the NanoCam recorded? Siri, please play 3D NanoCam segment stamped fourteen o'clock, Earth standard time.

Now there you are walking into the kitchen . . . oh, and who is
that
? I don't recognize your “guest,”
but I'm
sure
he's just here to “help you with your homework”—

Shhhh, keep watching. It's about to get interesting . . .

Now I don't know if you caught what you said there, so I'll pull up the captioning. “Are you as hot as I am, Steve?” And there's the part where you start taking off your exogarments—aaaaaand there you are, just as naked as you were the day we brought you home from the lab!

Why are you looking away? We were just getting to the good part, where you push him up against the iFooderator and . . . my Google in Heaven, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?? Wait, don't answer that, I know what you were thinking, because I have the transcripts from your Telepath-o-log! “16:45 p.m., April 15, 2058: ‘MOM WOULD BLOW A NANOGASKET IF SHE KNEW ABOUT THIS. HA. HA. HA.'”

I just don't understand. Is this how we raised you? To swap bodily excretions in our kitchen with an unemployed Venutian named Steve?!

Just a minute. Don't turn this on me—I am
not
being species-ist! I just don't appreciate you attempting Interlinkage with some guy whose best quality is his eighteen-inch-long prehensile tongue! And just who is this “Steve” anyway? Who are his parents? Does he even
have
parents? Or is he some orphaned hatchling of questionable origin?

How dare you?! I AM A VERY UNDERSTANDING PERSON! Wasn't I understanding when you
begged
me
to get your pupils pierced, even though I predicted they would get infected—which they did, requiring
very
expensive eyeball replacement? And wasn't I understanding when you “borrowed” my Interstellar Micron Transporter, then “lost” it in a black hole? Did I complain, even though I had to ride that disgusting Quasar Shuttle to work for weeks?!

All right. I'm sorry for raising my voice. I just . . . I miss the old days when you and I would spend Saturdays taking the HyperTube down into the Mall of the Core. We'd share a plate of Chocolate-esque NutriPellets and just ThinkSpeak, for hours. And now? . . . Hand me my Endorphinizer. I think I feel moisture in my tear duct.

(long inhale, long exhale)

Are you being grounded? Uh, does a cyborg evacuate its waste materials through a pneumatic-tube chamber? Yes, you're being grounded.

First you will disconnect from the MindHive for one month.

Second, there will be no SexThink. Not even with yourself. You'll just have to research how we used to do it manually. No, it's not ideal, but you've made your REM pod; now you'll have to sleep in it.

Third, you will start dressing appropriately. That means your nipples are to be covered at all times. And if I find out that you're swapping motherboards with anybody . . . That kind of behavior is fine when you're in a Committed Partnership or Conglomerate—but until then, pardon my language, but no Starbuck'ing way.

Bottom line is, I didn't undergo cryogenic freezing—TWICE!—just so that I could be defrosted and watch you behave like some twentieth-century animal.

I just wish you would heed the words of your grandmother Johanna—a very wise and extraordinarily beautiful woman—who always used to say, “Don't be flattered if a being with male characteristics demonstrates visible excitation in its penile appendage.” Of course, I may be paraphrasing, but I think you get the drift.

And by the way, don't even try asking your dad for help with this one. He's in a horrible mood as it is—he was late for the Space-Time Conveyor, and now his legs and briefcase are stuck in 1973 until tomorrow afternoon. Personally, I'd leave him alone until he can reorganize himself.

Yes, we're done. Now despite everything, I want you to know that I love you, and I will never stop loving you. And I know you're upset now, but when you're four hundred you'll look back at this and laugh. Now give my jar a kiss and turn me around so I can look out the window.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
his book took a lot of words. And time. And snacks. And the help of a whole bunch of people to whom I am tremendously grateful.

The insanely talented folks at Perseus Books and Da Capo Press—thank you for all your hard work, your kind words, and for being so gentle with me (especially considering this was my first time). And great gobs of humongous, emphatic thanks to my editor, Renee Sedliar, for her instincts and intellect, and for our phone calls, which were consistently the funniest, most entertaining moments of my day.

Doug Abrams, thanks for putting me up to this, and for being the wisest, most honest, and intuitive literary agent I could ever have dreamed up. And thanks also to the delightful Lara Love (who, p.s., lives up to her name).

To my writer friends and to the writing groups to which I belong, past and present: Safehouse, The Disclaimers,
and to my Chicago lay-deez (I don't think we ever came up with a name; we were too busy writing and snacking to do that). Thank you for your notes, feedback, laughs, and raised eyebrows in response to many of these pieces. Thanks especially for making the solitary sport of writing not quite so lonely.

Wendy Hopkins, Renee Albert, and Rebecca (The Other Manly Lady) Corry: three of the smartest, funniest first readers a gal could have. Nobody punches up like you. Or in a more positive, loving, thoughtful way. Oh god, now I'm weeping. Moving on . . .

To Dani Klein, who suggested that I start writing about my family in the first place. This book is all your fault, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Lisa Belkin, the Honest-to-Godness Godmother to this book. Thank you for your support and encouragement and for entrusting your column space to my goofy stories. And thanks for making me cry the first time I saw my name in print.

To Alanis Morissette, for your insight and inspiration, and for telling me (in your non-pushy, Canadian way) that I was going to do this, years (seriously: years) before I knew it myself.

Suzanne Luna, for not just being a cheerleader, but for being a model of what hardworking creative kick-assery looks like. I'm still not sure how you fit seven days of living into a twenty-four-hour period; my best guess: a time machine. (I look forward to an explanation when I see you next yesterday.)

Thanks to Lindsay Howard, TV agent extraordinaire, for your continued guidance and faith over the years—I'm pretty sure our relationship has lasted longer than most Hollywood marriages.

To all the caretakers who've given me the space and time to think and write, all while keeping my kid safe, happy, and fairly clean: Jessica Dooley, Tina Rajabi, Astride Noel, Claire Kander, Telma Giron, and the wonderful staff members at JCYS, TBH, and Riverside Drive Charter School.