Maybe (Maybe Not) (7 page)

After a month of looking, she found the wonder dog—the dog of great promise. Female, four months old, dark gray, blue eyes, tall, strong, confident, and very, very,
very
friendly.

To her practiced eye, our mother could see that classy genes had been accidentally mixed here. Two purebred dogs of the highest caliber had combined to produce this exceptional animal. Most likely a black Labrador and a weimaraner, she thought. Perfect. Just perfect.

To those of us of untutored eye, this mutt looked more like the results of a bad blind date between a Mexican burro and a miniature musk-ox.

The fairy dogmother went to work. Dog is inspected and given shots by a vet. Fitted with an elegant leather collar and leash. Equipped with a handsome bowl, a ball, and a rawhide bone. Expenses: $50 to the pound, $50 to the vet, $50 to the beauty parlor, $60 for tack and equipment, and $50 for food. A total of $260 on a dog that is going to stay forty-eight hours before auction time.

The father took one look and paled. He smelled smoke. He wouldn’t give ten bucks to keep it an hour. “DOG,” as the father named it, has a long, thick rubber club of a tail, legs and feet that remind him of hairy toilet plungers, and is already big enough at four months to bowl over the girls and their mother with its unrestrained enthusiasm.

The father knows this is going to be ONE BIG
DOG. Something a zoo might display. Omnivorous, it has eaten all its food in one day and has left permanent teeth marks on a chair leg, a leather ottoman, and the father’s favorite golf shoes.

The father is patient about all of this.

After all, it is only a temporary arrangement, and for a good cause.

He remembers item No. 7 in the prénuptial agreement.

He is safe.

On Thursday night, the school affair gets off to a winning start. Big crowd of parents, and many guests who look flush with money. Arty decorations, fine potluck food, a cornucopia of auction items. The mother basks in her triumph.

“DOG” comes on the auction block much earlier than planned. Because the father went out to the car to check on “DOG” and found it methodically eating the leather off the car’s steering wheel, after having crunched holes in the padded dashboard.

After a little wrestling match getting “DOG” into the mother’s arms and up onto the stage, the mother sits in a folding chair, cradling “DOG” with the solemn tenderness reserved for a corpse at a wake, while the auctioneer describes the pedigree of the animal and all the fine effort and neat equipment thrown in with the deal.

“What am I bid for this wonderful animal?”

“A hundred dollars over here; two hundred dollars on the right; two hundred and fifty dollars in the middle.”

There is a sniffle from the mother.

Tears are running down her face.

“DOG” is licking the tears off her cheeks.

In a whisper not really meant for public notice, the mother calls to her husband:
“Jack, Jack, I can’t sell this dog—I want this dog—this is my dog—she loves me—I love her—oh, Jack.”

Every eye in the room is on this soapy drama.

The father feels ill, realizing that the great bowling ball of fate is headed down his alley.

“Please, Jack, please, please,”
she whispers.

At that moment, everybody in the room knows who is going to buy the pooch. “DOG” is going home with Jack.

Having no fear now of being stuck themselves, several relieved men set the bidding on fire. “DOG” is going to set an auction record. The repeated hundreddollar rise in price is matched by the soft
“Please, Jack”
from the stage and Jack’s almost inaudible raise in the bidding, five dollars at a time.

There is a long pause at “Fifteen hundred dollars—going once, going twice …”

A sob from the stage.

And for $1,505 Jack has bought himself a dog. Add in the up-front costs, and he’s $1,765 into “DOG.”

The noble father is applauded as his wife rushes from the stage to throw her arms around his neck, while “DOG” wraps the leash around both their legs and down they go into the first row of chairs. A memorable night for the PTA.

I see Jack out being walked by the dog late at night. He’s the only one strong enough to control it, and he hates to have the neighbors see him being dragged along by this, the most expensive damned dog for a hundred miles.

“DOG” has become “Marilyn.” She is big enough to plow with now. “Marilyn” may be the world’s dumbest dog, having been to obedience school twice with no apparent effect.

Jack is still stunned. He can’t believe this has happened to him.

He had it down on paper. No. 7. Kids or pets, not both.

But the complicating clauses in the fine print of the marriage contract are always unreadable. And always open to revision by forces stronger than a man’s ego. The loveboat always leaks. And marriage is never a done deal.

I say he got off light. It could have been ponies or llamas or potbellied pigs. It would have been something. It always is.

E
nvy is part of the secret life.

In the
public
and
private
realms, envy has long been considered a sin infused with jealousy and a tendency to covet, which thou shalt not, especially in the case of thy neighbor’s wife and whatever. Still, in the sanctuary of our solitude, we envy.

There are degrees of envy. The “Lord-I-wish-I-could-do-that” envy that is carried on with a light heart and good humor is harmless enough. Most envy that doesn’t lead to theft and manslaughter is OK. Affirmative envy that reflects delight in the fringes of human achievement is a pleasure like bittersweet chocolate. You have to develop a taste for it.

In my case, I envy a guy who used to come into the old Buffalo Tavern in Seattle. He’d hang around the
pool tables and offer to play you left-handed. Using a No. 5 trenching shovel for a cue. If you’d give him three balls ahead, he’d even play you with the digging end of the shovel, which had some duct tape on it to keep from nicking the cue ball. If you were smart and you weren’t one hell of a pool player, you’d leave well enough alone. And just offer to watch him destroy some other fool’s ego. But if you wanted to get a little education of the kind they don’t teach in high school, and you didn’t mind losing twenty dollars in a hurry, then you could take him on, shovel and all. I know about all this—firsthand.

Oh, he was good, all right, but he was nothing compared to his wife.

She played with a broom or a mop—your choice—no handicap.

She’d whipped every hotshot cue-pusher in town before she stopped playing pool and started having babies. Rumor is she played her obstetrician three rounds of eight ball for her bill, double or nothing. She won. My wife envied her.

My wife also envied Lena Horne, the tall, African-American, sexy, sultry torch singer who has graced the American stage for so long. My wife is short, Asian-American, sweet, and is good at old Girl Scout songs. It’s OK that she envied Lena Horne. For this kind of envy, you don’t go to hell.

At age fifty-five, I begin to realize there are some things I will never have or be or do. For lack of
opportunity, equipment, inclination, talent, or something. Playing championship pool with a shovel or a broom or a mop is just not going to happen in my case. I’m stuck with the secret consolation of affirmative envy. My only hope is being reincarnated. I am counting big on reincarnation.

In my next life, I will be one of those who remembers great poetry and can recite it with skill and passion. I will be able to tie all kinds of knots and never forget how from one time to the next. When I come around again, I will have a brain that can become fluent in another language.

I will be able to play a small accordion, tap-dance, sing in a very deep bass voice, do close-up magic tricks, and play “As Time Goes By” on the slide trombone so well that all estranged lovers will be reunited when they hear it.

And I will finally be able to remember what beats what in a poker hand.

Note that I don’t ask to be handsome or wise. Those are burdens I couldn’t carry. Mostly, it’s just the small stuff I envy now and want next time. Like being able to shoot championship pool with a shovel.

Or maybe with a chopstick.

Now
that
would be something.

A
n article in
The New York Times
gave the price tag for a basic household tool kit. It suggested that the best buy was an all-in-one tool set, including a hammer, five pliers, nine screwdrivers, twelve combination wrenches, fourteen hex-key wrenches, an adjustable wrench, a forty-piece socket set, a seven-piece nut-driver set, a ten-foot measuring tape, a utility knife, a wire stripper, and a folding saw. In an aluminum case—$149.95 plus tax.

There was a time when I would have ordered two of these sets.

There was a time when I thought tools made the man. There was a time when I thought if I couldn’t actually own a hardware store, I’d at least like to live next door to one. That’s the handyman’s dream. On
the other hand, if I had all the right tools and all the right parts, the obligation to always
use
the right tools and
employ
the correct parts might be inhibiting. It surely would take the creative edge off common home repair.

As a matter of fact, I already do have a great many of the right tools out in my garage somewhere, along with drawers full of proper parts. What I don’t have is the time to make ten trips out to the garage or sort through the boxes and drawers. I begin to realize that these tools and parts are talismans—juju devices to appease the household gods. Besides, it’s cold and dark out there in the garage.

But the real secret of efficient home repair is quite simple: Use what’s handy when the need arises.

I give you an example. At least half your basic home fixit jobs call for a screwdriver. You’d don’t really need to go out in the garage and spend ten minutes looking for that sixty-dollar twenty-piece matching set of screwdrivers with three styles of magnetic tips. Many screwdrivers are nearby. Fingernails. A dime, nickel, or quarter. But you really can’t beat the all-purpose combination of a butter knife and a nail file. In fact, the kitchen is full of knives that make great screwdrivers. So what if you snap the tip off one? No problem—you’ve got yourself an improved screwdriver.

Spoons also work quite nicely when the knives don’t. Even forks will pry the lids off cans, though forks should be reserved for mixing paint. The point is, you have at hand all the screwdrivers you’ll ever need. Right there in the kitchen.

Need a lightweight saw? That’s what serrated bread knives are for.

As to pliers: fingers. Or fingers with a dishtowel wrapped around the top of something that won’t come off after you’ve pounded the edge of it with the handle end of a butcher knife. Tweezers and clothespins work as pliers for small jobs. But the best pliers are in your own mouth—teeth, of course, teeth. Just don’t let your kids catch you.

And while I’m mentioning body parts, let’s talk about
power
tools—knees, elbows, fists, and feet. A great many things can be fixed by kicking, pounding, shaking, and throwing.

To cut and open things, there are, of course, all those knives in the kitchen, and the razor blades and manicure sets in the bathroom, which is a good place to use them because you are closer to the Band-Aids, which you will need sooner or later when you use sharp tools.

Sandpaper? Emery boards for fine work, a cheese grater for the heavy projects. Nutmeg grater for finesse.

Duct tape. Duct tape is a must. No home, office, marriage, or life should be without it. You can never have too much duct tape. Did you know it’s even required for all NASA missions in space? Seriously.

Just as basic are a pencil and a scratch pad—so you can leave a message for the repairman who comes when you have overrepaired something.

As for miscellaneous parts, don’t go to a hardware store. Go to a garage sale when some retired couple is selling out and moving to Florida. Buy that drawerful of stuff they have in their kitchen somewhere. The one full of thirty years’ worth of odds and ends. Most everything you’ll ever need for home repair is in there.