Suburgatory (3 page)

On a more personal level, I'm interested in the way we transmit our biases and neuroses (especially my own), like female body self-hatred, to our kids. If you see pieces attacking women, just know that, very often, I am attacking myself. Not to be hopelessly cliché, but I love how a child's unspoiled view of the world challenges our own jaded beliefs and often leaves us flummoxed. If I used to call bullshit on the Taliban, my own son now calls bullshit on
me
; and if you're a parent, you surely get what I'm talking about. And I see the way we rewrite our sometimes sketchy pasts once we get to suburbia, because
You're a parent now, and that old life is over—especially the dirty, sexy parts.
I am fascinated and frankly sad that Suburgatory seems to be where sex goes to die, or at least gets suppressed. Well, it comes pouring out in this book, so get your raincoat!

I have also included history's worst advice columnist—
Dr. Drama
—who gets earnest questions and wants nothing more than to stir the shit out of your already messed-up life. This was inspired by the often riotous and toxic comment sections of real website advice columns, where anonymity lets people project and splay their crazy any which way.

And it should go without saying that anything labeled
Paid Advertising Content
is not a real ad. Believe me, I wish those were real. That would mean more money for me and my amazing agent, editors, and publisher. Also, as I mentioned above, I have lived in three suburbs in two states and have gotten ideas and themes from friends who live in a dozen more, mostly white, mostly affluent suburbs.

Suburgatory
is
not
the town where I live now. I wouldn't stay here if it was, because some of the fictitious
people you're about to meet are truly awful—and, hopefully, awfully hilarious. Any of the
real people
mentioned are, of course, used
solely
for parody purposes; Cynthia Nixon, a great actress and public school advocate, did
not
suddenly move to suburbia with her partner. Blogger Perez Hilton did
not
take a job as suburbia's zaniest new “Manny.”
New York Times
columnist Tom Friedman did
not
threaten an all-powerful high-school guidance counselor with a nasty column. And surely, Wolf Blitzer did not really report “Live from the Lactation Room,” though I'd give my left nut to see that actually happen for real. It's all satire and I'd hope Wolf, an anchor I long admired from afar at CNN, would get the joke.

So do I think of myself as a Big Fat Zero, like the Social Security Administration thinks I am, a no-paycheck parasite? No, because I neglected to mention that the Big Fat Zero did include a Plus One, and that would be the love of my life, my son, Frank Keenan Mendes. I only hope he never reads this book and realizes how sick and twisted his “Best Mom Ever” really is. Maybe after my funeral! And so I begin with a piece that's in large part true (though not the baptism part) about the near-year I spent as a secret atheist surrounded by simply wonderful Baptist believers. It is no exaggeration to say that these ladies helped save me from the abyss of postpartum depression. But sadly for them, they did not save me from hell.

Atheist Mom So Lonely
She Accepts Christ

Suburgatory, USA—O
verwhelmed by the isolation of being a newly suburban stay-at-home mom in a town “not cool enough” for her, a local atheist has accepted Christ so she has someone to talk to.

Nonbeliever Mara Scully says her path to Christ was paved by the relentlessly friendly Baptists she met at R
edemption Hill Church soon after moving here from Manhattan's East Village with her young son and husband. “They were so friendly and cool in a really weirdo kind of way and not at all like those plastic mommy-drones in my neighborhood. And I was so lonely. When I heard there were other moms all gathered in one place, I didn't care if it was a Baptist church or a crack house. The crack house would have been edgier and more my speed, but, you know, whatever.”

Scully enjoyed the weekly church play zone, despite what she described as “a lot of crazy Christ stuff on the walls.” She stresses that she is open-minded. “Just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I'm bigoted. Is bigoted the right word?” It was nothing like what Scully recalled from her Catholic girlhood. “No ‘scary Jesus,' no gory wounds at all! Their Jesus is sooo happy, and you know what? So are they!”

“They” are the members of R
edemption Hill, who are puzzled by their new recruit. “She's not very pretty or turned out or ‘New York,' is she?” whispered Pastor Kevin Barnett's wife, Karen. “And we've tried every polite way we can think of to tell her to stop swearing. Can you tell her?”

After attending the church twice weekly, enjoying potluck dishes like Tater Tot Pie, and developing warm if casual friendships, Scully said there were some contradictory feelings. “Sure, I find their views on abortion, gay rights, and a woman's place in the home repugnant and all. But after a while they began talking more and more about living a Godly life and I knew where the train was going. What was I going to do? Lose my only friends out here in the middle of Bumblefuck Nowheresville?”

Scully said she met with the pastor, talked about the Glory Christ can bring to a young family, the eternal paradise awaiting her after the Rapture, and then proceeded with the ritual Baptism. Is she now a believer? Scully laughed heartily. “Not me. I'm still an atheist even though I did ‘technically' accept Christ,” she said, using air quotes.

“Of course I feel a little bad. But who's really getting hurt here? My Baptist buddies are thrilled that I'm saved. It would have hung over every conversation if I hadn't accepted Him, like when I wouldn't get a tattoo with my old girlfriends in Syosset. So awkward. Now I know how to talk the talk and we can keep having these nice coffees and playdates and, seriously, you gotta try that Tater Tot pie. Can't find that in the East Village! And since nothing happens after you die, no one's ever going to find out, right?”

“Breast-feeding Nazi” Really a Nazi

Suburgatory, USA—A “Breast-feeding Nazi” is an actual Nazi, combining her fierce lactivist advocacy with her membership in the American Nazi Party.

“You know who is really behind the formula industry? The Jews. Why don't you hear this on the news? The Jews. Why can I only buy my organic meat here at Whole Foods rather than hunt for it myself, as my White ancestors were able to? This one is a trick question. No, just kidding! It's the Jews again!”

Janie Tipton is a young mother with four children under the age of seven who believes that “Aryan Americans” need to repopulate America. This is one of two key tenets of National Socialism: the struggle for Aryan racial survival. “We believe in the Fourteen Words,” said Tipton, while searching the Whole Foods aisle for sprouted grain bread. “The Fourteen Words are this:
We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children
.
And I personally would add six more:
Breast-feed your babies, lazy White bitches.
”

How did her involvement in the American Nazi Party lead to her breast-feeding activism? “Oh, you've got that backwards. The breast-feeding came first. After I had my first son, I became possessed with the power of natural birth, and saw that there was only one true, pure method of feeding your child: at your breast, and nowhere else. Anything less is a corruption, a defilement. I became frustrated with my lactivist sisters who were too accommodating, too easy on those weak and inferior bottle addicts. And the more I investigated who was enabling the addicts, I finally discovered the real enemy of breast-feeding: the corrupt Judeo-Capitalist system.”

Does her husband believe as she does? “Oh yeah, he is just trying to make enough as a money manager for a few more years and then we'll move back to the land to unchain ourselves from this horrible suburb, the teeming savages right across the town lines, and from the Jew-gamed agribusiness industry poisoning our bodies and babies.”

Tipton is disturbed by the casual use of the term “Breast-feeding Nazi” to refer to anyone with a harshly judgmental attitude toward bottle feeding. “Some of them think they're all badass for saying ‘You should need a prescription to feed your baby formula!' You know what's badass? Telling bottle addicts to turn over their White babies to people who actually
care
about their
health
and
future
and freedom from allergies, their
strength
and
purity
and
intelligence,
which is what we will base our educational system on in our National Socialist future. If you don't believe that, stop patting yourself on the back by calling yourself a Breast-feeding Nazi, get out of the way, and let a real White woman handle this.”

The other tenet of the American Nazi Party is social justice for the White working class. “Of course, I believe that the White working man is now nothing more than a wage-slave, tax-cow, and cannon fodder, with their White babies forced to suck off the teat of the Jew-controlled formula-industrial complex,” said Tipton.

“The only problem with this one . . .” she whispered, “is that I grew up in [the posh Connecticut suburb] Darien, so it's a little hard for me to talk the talk on the working man stuff, you know, The People of the Folk, and all that. And not to be a total bitch, but I have such nice teeth compared to my White brothers and sisters who believe as I do. So, yes, I really am the ‘Aryan from Darien!' But you know, we hated Jews there, too.”

SHOUT OUT

I Am Certified Not Muslim . . .
And I Love Your Feminine Area!

Dr. Vijay Singh is a Harvard-trained gynecologist who practices at the Marley Street office building.

Greetings, gentle townswomen! I am passionate about your genital and reproductive health and have been trained at the finest institutions, including the Harvard Medical School. Despite my proven commitment to ladies' health, there seems to be some confusion about just who I am.

I am a doctor first, a Sikh second, and certifiably not a Muslim. Sikhs are not Muslims. Trust me, Muslims are as strange to me as they are to you! I do have brown skin and I wear a turban, but I am not Osama bin Laden coming at you with a speculum, like some of you seem to think I am! And remember he is dead anyway. A turban is not a message that says, “I'm about to kill you, infidel American.” It's just part of my religion and identity. I don't look at all those baseball caps everywhere and think Red Sox Nation is coming to get me, even if it sure seems that way sometimes.

Now to be fair we Sikhs have our terrorists, too, like the Muslims—one of them killed Gandhi's daughter! That probably didn't sound very good. But really, don't you ladies know that we
all
have crazies in our shared genetic pool? I don't see the British throwing cans of spotted dick at every Irish person they see. So yes Sikhs have terrorists, too, but none of them has ever hurt an American that I know of. Those were just a teeny handful of Muslim crazies that killed Americans, and I just happen to look like them! I am part of the 99.9 percent of nice, boring, not-Muslim Sikhs out there.

In light of the many recent incidents involving ladies seeing my turban and immediately walking out, I am forced to change my cancellation policy. Now that my not-Muslimness and nice, boring qualities are on the public record, you will be charged a fifty-dollar cancellation fee if you decide I am too scary to do your pap smear. For those of you who are fair-minded and can see that I am simply a Sikh who just happens to look exactly like Mohammed Atta and wants nothing more than to keep your insides pink and shiny and healthy, I hope to see you in stirrups very soon.

PAID ADVERTISER CONTENT

Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas

So! You married a Jew! Maybe fifteen years ago or so? It was your Irish-American mother's dream come true. “Don't marry some Irish stumblebum, find a Jew. They make wonderful husbands. They never cheat. Just avoid the ones named Spitzer, Weiner, and Madoff.” Gosh, how did Mom know that? Because she's Mom, of course, she knows everything!

But your little not-really Jewish son is almost a man. And that shiksa in you wants a little representin' at his upcoming bar mitzvah. That's where Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas comes in! Founded by goy goddess extraordinaire Erin Goodwin-­Gotbaum, our team of experienced shiksas will show you how to slip your cultural touchstones into the event with only the barest ripple of, “Oh, that's the shiksa wife at it
again.
” Well, it's your not-really Jewish child too, right?

At
Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas
we can make sure that “Danny Boy” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” just, you know, accidentally pop up on the DJ list. And of course we'll have the bar fully stocked. What is with these Jews and their constitutional inability to get down to business and
drink?
Quite the cross for them to bear, it seems.

For the Italian American, rest assured that Old Nonna Carnivale's gravy with meatballs—pork, beef, and cheese meatballs, of course (are there any other kind?)—will suddenly appear on the catering tables. Oh, those kosher guests will never know the difference. Or if they do, they'll think:
Boy, these Italians might be a bunch of thugs but they sure know how to make a meatball.
Nonna Carnivale's meatballs will put that horrible, bland
kreplach
to shame! And don't be alarmed, Jewish friends, when never-before-seen
paisans
—local guys from the shiksa's own corner of the Old Country—just show up. Because the meatballs are
that good.
And like Jews, paisans stick together.

Or what if your heritage is just a bit . . . trashy? Now for you, no event is complete without Pigs in a Blanket, but your adopted Jewish community might find that a bit . . . déclassé, and your Pigs sure as hell aren't kosher either. Well, as we say quite often at
Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas:
Tough titties! You, as the shiksa mom, let your child go unbaptized and now he's probably going straight to hell after death—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The least these people can do is eat your Pigs in a Blanket! And with our help, very strong encouragement, and well-toned Shiksa biceps, they will. Oh yes, that's a promise.