You Cannot Mess This Up

by Amy Weinland Daughters

  The cashier rang Dad up as he reached for his wallet. “Wait!” I said from the back of the line. “I’ll get this, Dick!”

  “No you won’t!” he said, grinning as he counted out the bills. “This is our treat.” The total was a whopping $14.04, a hell of a bargain, even if the rib eye didn’t quite live up to Morton’s or Ruth Chris’ standards.

  As we carried our trays out into the dark dining room, a collection of vinyl booths and wooden tables, we passed the new salad bar. “Oh, look at it, Rick,” Amy said, almost losing her tray. “It’s beautiful …”

  “Wow …” Rick said. “It’s so big, and look at all the ice between the stuff.”

  “OK, kids,” Mom said. “Let’s put our trays down before we do the salad bar.” Following Mom and Dad, we got our food situated in a booth and then reassembled to attack the vegetables.

  “Look at this, kids,” Dad said, waving his hand over the bar. “It’s all-you-can-eat, so load up on the good stuff.”

  Looking it over, I couldn’t believe the shock-and-awe the family felt over such a small display. These folks had never been treated to the Golden Corral or really even the salad bar at Wendy’s. All Bonanza’s wonder bar had to offer was the largest single vat of iceberg lettuce I’d ever seen, proudly displayed as if it was the purest organic arugula available to mankind, along with some containers of cherry tomatoes, sliced onions, carrot strips, cucumbers, sliced radishes and some suspicious-looking croutons.

  Where were the pasta salads? The hummus? The blue cheese chunks? The grilled chicken strips? The cherry peppers? The six kinds of olives? The avocadoes? The heirloom tomatoes and the self-serve ice-cream machine?

  What was the big damn deal?

  Not wanting to be the buzzkiller to this underexposed group, I whizzed my tray down the bar, filling my small plate gleefully with the “good stuff,” taking a few extra tomatoes just so I could feel like Dad got his money’s worth. Wait—this cost under two dollars … .

  As underwhelming as the actual salad selection was, the dressing offering was even more dubious: Italian, Green Goddess, Catalina, Roquefort and extra-creamy, extra-chunky Thousand Island. Ranch, Balsamic and Cabernet Vinaigrette were not welcome here. Ginger-Sesame, Chipotle Ranch and Creamy Caesar had no place at this bar! Knowing from Granny that Roquefort had something to do with blue cheese, I flung some of that on top and moved on. Wait! Here was something with redeemable qualities, yes, it was a food-service-sized container of Betty Crocker’s Bac-Os … Yes, I believed that the bacon-like flavor would enhance my salad. And so it did.

  The joy around the table struck me as somewhat profound. It made it obvious that this family didn’t go out often, especially for a daytime meal, but when they did, oh the pleasure they took. Did it make them better than my people, in my time? We ate out as casually as we did in and would have never, ever been able to achieve the levels of sheer joy these five did when presented with what was in fact a thin-meated meal. Or instead, did it make them—and us—simply products of our own times, really no different than the family from 1855 who didn’t even know what a restaurant was?

  The other thing that stood out—other than the number of diners who were vigorously slurping seemingly bottomless cups of coffee—was the lack of entertainment that Bonanza offered up with its $1.99 rib eye. Where were the TVs blaring the news and sports? Where were the online trivia games or Keno or lotto screens plastered across the room? Where were the table-side video screens with games to keep youngsters amused? Or, at the very least, what about a few cranes by the bathroom to shuffle off to when the fidgeting inevitably began? In fact, I scanned the room and realized that not one child was playing with a phone or tablet. Instead, they were just sitting there.

  Think about it—one hundred percent of the kids in a restaurant were just sitting there.

  It was more shocking than the huge-haired lady sitting two tables away from us, wearing a Little House on the Prairie inspired dress, taking a drag off her Virginia Slims menthol cigarette in between each and every bite of her loaded baked potato.

  With nothing to distract us, we did the only thing we could do—eat and talk. Little Amy had a lot to say, with Dad alternatively listening and trying to steer the conversation.

  “This one time at school …” she said, with a gleam in her eye. “Theresa got a Fudgesicle and she dipped it in her ketchup. And then … SHE ATE IT.” Even though everyone chuckled at the story, Amy wanted more of a reaction, so she continued, this time looking directly at Rick. “And then, Tensie told her to stop, but Theresa dipped it again and then opened up the top of her chocolate milk carton and dipped it in there too!” Rick found this humorous and laughed accordingly.

  “Amy?” Mom asked. “Do you play with your food at school?”

  “No,” she responded, as if this was suddenly the presidential debate and it was her turn at the podium, her answer requiring forethought and serious consideration. “But I do play with my school at home, and sometimes I’m eating food while I do it.” Laughing hysterically, she tried to explain that she had a Fisher Price schoolhouse that she played with, and that sometimes she ate her snack or dessert at the same time.

  As funny as Rick thought this was, and even Kim was smirking, Mom wasn’t amused. I got that. Amy was being obnoxious just for the sake of it. On one hand, I was impressed with her hilarity, and on the other I could see where Mom could have been over it. Totally.

  “OK, kids,” Dad interjected. “Let’s all talk about something more serious. I’m going to go around the table,” he continued, in his Mike Brady style, complete with robotic hand motions, “and each of us is going to say what we are thankful for … Now, we didn’t get to that yesterday, but we’ll do it today, since our cousin Amy is here with us.”

  The truth was, we didn’t do it yesterday because, to my knowledge, we’d never done it before or since.

  Dad looked across the booth at Kim. “Now Kim, since you are the oldest, you can go first.” Before this, I had never realized that Kim might have gotten pissed off about the whole “since you’re the oldest” approach. I always thought of it more like “She gets to because she’s the oldest,” rather than “She has to because she came out first.”

  Anyway, she was first. “Well,” Kim said with an edge of drama. “I’m thankful for my family, for my parents, my grandparents, my brother, and yes, even my sister.” Everyone oohed and aahed over this emotional display, spurring Kim onward and upward. “I’m also thankful for my friends, Melanie, Juli, and my science fair project that won first prize.”

  Even though the mere thought of Kim’s blue-and-gold science fair trophy brought the family into what was almost a state of applause, it was crap. I knew it was crap, little Kim knew it was crap, young Dad knew it was crap, and Mom knew it was crap—only nobody would admit it, even if somebody started to bang their Bonanza steak knife against the table.

  “Oh,” I asked, knowing damn well what the answer would be, “what was your science fair project about?”

  “Well,” she said, “I AM in the sixth grade …”—she was always eager to play the look at me, I’m the freaking oldest, with a preteen bra and everything—“and so I created a series of pulleys that demonstrated that by using simple objects, in this case a rope and a wheel, less force is required to move large items. Really …” she continued with a hint of superiority that only I caught on to, “It’s all about force and leverage.”

  If this had been 2014, I would have accused of her of looking it up on her iPhone, but since we were still in a Google-free zone, I let her off the hook. Clearly, my dad, the engineer, was not only an excellent designer and manufacturer of pulleys, he was also a badass teacher and life coach.

  “Yes!” Little Amy said with loads of unexpected enthusiasm. “The pulleys were black and red, and there were three of them, and they were on a board, and she won first prize, a real TROPHY!”

  Now hold on just a damn second, who in the hell did Little Amy think she was? She wasn’t su
pposed to, we weren’t supposed to—I wasn’t supposed to support Kim on her little delusional induction into the Junior High School Science Fair Hall of Fame. We, every one of us with the exception of Rick, who didn’t know what was going on, knew that Dad had made that thing. He was so proud of it that it sat in the attic for ten years, until Mom finally tossed it out when he went on that golf thing in Oklahoma.

  “We were all SO proud of Kim’s trophy …” young Amy continued, plainly meaning every word as Kim looked on, satisfied and pleased with the sisterly support. I had no choice but to look at the younger version of myself and wonder. Who knew that I had once been less eager to set things straight, to be right rather than righteous? Who knew that I was proud of her not because I understood what she did, or what she didn’t do, but just because she was my freaking sister? And her accomplishment was our accomplishment, because after all, we were family. That was true no matter how you sliced it, diced it or discussed it in therapy.

  For all her screwed-up qualities, Little Amy had humbled me, and reminded me I could still be something I wasn’t, something I had been before, before I started compulsively comparing myself with everyone else.

  Next was Mom’s turn. Predictably, she told my dad she didn’t have an answer, but to get back with her once everyone else had gone. “Now, Sue,” Dad said firmly.

  “DICK …” she retorted. This helped him to settle on Rick as his next contestant.

  “I’m thankful for Star Wars, and the Battlestar Galactica, and our dog Cecil,” he continued, “who saved Amy from being bitten by a snake. His head was swollen and the doctor said he was going to die, but he didn’t.”

  I had forgotten about that story, about Cecil biting the water moccasin in the garage, just as it raised its head to attack while I unwittingly had half my body in the refrigerator, one hand on a can of Old Milwaukee. It was the same sort of protective instinct he displayed just last night, urinating on the drunk would-be rapist.

  “I’m thankful for Cash,” Rick continued, referring to the overpriced poodle with a blue-turquoise encrusted collar that Mom had named Carlos Andre Sir Henri. We had always told people that story, the one about how much the dog had cost and his ludicrous acronym name, with such pride. Now I knew that behind the polite nods and agreeable looks that they must have thought we were nuts. It had only taken me thirty years to figure it out. Good thing I had passed the point that I even cared.

  “And I’m thankful for my Doggy,” he continued. OK, that was cute. He was referring to the little stuffed animal he slept with every night. On this day, that Doggy was everything to him. Speed ahead thirty years from now and I wondered if he even remembered it. His memory retention was different than mine.

  Now it was Little Amy’s turn. I still hadn’t come to terms with her, but she did add excitement to any and all proceedings. Apparently, or so it would seem, everyone else understood that undeniable fact too, some parties looking on with anticipation, and others—the ones who had engaged in the sexual shenanigans associated with her very existence—with anxious fear. She was like the bowl-cut version of E.F. Hutton.

  “Well, friends …” she emoted, almost slobbering with excitement now that she had the floor. “I’m thankful for many things … I’m thankful for the Washington Redskins, my new helmet, my castle playset—complete with moat—my books about George Washington, Francis Marion the Swamp Fox, Sam Houston and Abraham Lincoln.” Leaning back and crossing her legs dramatically, she continued, “I’m thankful for my mom, and my dad, my brother and sister, the Northampton Elementary Colts, my best friend Catherine, Camp Olympia, the Shamrocks, all soccer balls all over the world, archery, Christmas and that one time I was a star on the stage …

  “Yes friends, I’m thankful for the Second Grade Play, a performance that lives on in our hearts and minds, when I was a leaping part of history in a red-velvet costume, lined with actual gold, shouting ‘Wassail, Wassail,’ as the crowd roared! I had white tights on, and no shoes. And—do you know what? I was a star, a real star, a delight, a total delight. I was in the newspaper, I was on the front page—”

  “Amy …” Dad cut in. “Those are all wonderful things, but it’s time to wrap it up.”

  “I am thankful!” she said, ignoring him, her hands flailed out to her sides. “For the Houston Astros, for uniformed catchers everywhere, for stewed tomatoes, for lemon pepper, for gentle love and Chantilly Lace, and a pretty face, and a ponytail, hanging down. I AM THANKFUL!”

  “AMY!” Mom nearly shouted. “THAT’S ENOUGH!”

  But, for Amy, apparently, it was not.

  “I am thankful,” she almost whispered, but didn’t. “For thankful feelings … in my pantaloons …”

  Though this final declaration, delivered in full bug-eye, pleased the younger set, the parents weren’t feeling it. I got that. It was funny, but it wasn’t. If she had been my kid, and she reminded me of one of them, I would have shut her down, talked to her about the appropriate use of her own super power—humor—sent her to her room and then laughed hysterically. I may have even taken her cherry pie hostage.

  Silence.

  “Sue?” Dad asked, carefully. “Do you have something you’d like to add?”

  “Yes, Dick …” Mom replied. “I’d like to add that I am thankful for everyone at this table.”

  “Anything else …?” Dad asked, as if he was setting the stage for a dramatic ending.

  “No, Dick, That. Is. All …” she said, more slowly than he had asked.

  Silence.

  This is why we loved the silence. It was awkward, but sometimes, or every single time, it was better than the alternative.

  Undaunted, Dad turned to me. “Well, how about you, cousin Amy?”

  Chewing on the gristle of my rib eye, I knew I desperately did not want to pontificate on my thankfulness, especially given my current state of time travel, but there was no way I was going to let Dad the Younger down. It was a common theme in my life, in the lives of my siblings. As much as I couldn’t successfully operate a flat iron, or a regular iron, or a seven-iron, I couldn’t stop myself from pleasing Dad. And blaming Mom. Crap, I was screwed up. We were all screwed up. Everybody was screwed up. There was no such thing as the “new normal” because “normal” is a pipe dream.

  The hope of it, the fantasy of it being anchored in reality, was precisely what would-be cult leaders used to suck people into dangerous lifestyles, promising a prize that was, after all, unobtainable.

  You can’t get to normal, ‘cause it don’t exist.

  Cancel my Facebook account! I didn’t care about normal anymore, or showing anyone what my version of it was. I was into this screwed-up mess, because, after all, it was our screwed-up mess, it was my screwed-up mess. And if I had to put money on it, ours was better than anyone else’s. Gene and Bee’s and Frank and Ruth’s had been, Dick and Sue’s was, and Amy and Willie’s would be. And Rick and Jen, yeah, them too.

  “Well, I’m thankful for everyone at this table, and for my family back home in Ohio. Not for who I want them to be, but instead, just for who they are, right now. We may not be perfect, or even close to it,” I continued, “but I am thankful for us!

  “Even when it’s messy!” I said, banging the red, smoky candle holder on the booth. “Even when it doesn’t seem like it’s going to work out. Even when it doesn’t make any damn sense. Even when the bank account shrinks, and my thighs are big, and he doesn’t call me when he’s out of town, and I’m supposed to act happy, but I’m not. Even when I can’t see my way out of something, and I’m sick of remembering the bad parts. Even when I’m afraid I am the bad parts. Even when I can’t stop eating the Funyons, or drinking the red wine, but I know I should. Even when Texas Tech loses to the Aggies, and my kids lie, and my iPhone loses service. Even when I’m bloated, and feel ugly, and can’t stop thinking what I do is meaningless. Even when my toilets are disgusting, even when I start thinking time travel is real and even when I’m not thankful, even then, I’m freaking, co
mpletely, one hundred percent, for-real T H A N K F U L.”

  I said it all with a vengeance, staring out over the fake wagon wheels, or maybe they were real. Pausing, I looked around the table into a bank of wide eyes, well, those that weren’t looking at the floor, or their feet, or at the cell phones they didn’t yet own. Collecting myself, well, kind of, my voice softened, my tone changed. I meant this part, and probably all of it. “I am thankful, most of all for love, but also for all of you and this trip, and for everything.”

  Silence.

  It was obvious that no one had expected my tirade, not in a million years. Crap, I hadn’t even expected it. I barely knew these people, but I did, but they didn’t know that. I had said things that were impossible. I had crossed several uncross-able lines. But, I was lucky, I had a get-out-of-jail-free card with this group because to them, denial, or De Nile, or the Nile, really wasn’t just another river in Egypt. Instead, it was the sacred code we lived by. It was the law. If we acted like it never happened, maybe it never did. Who knew, but, for right now, I was thankful for that too.

  More silence.

  “Well,” Dad stated, finally. “Thanks for that, Amy, it was, well … inspirational. That leaves me.”

  Yes sir, I could count on him as much as he could rely on me.

  “I’m thankful for your mother, for each of you kids, who I’m proud of, and that our cousin Amy from Centerville, Ohio, came to spend Thanksgiving with us. I’m thankful for this country, and freedom, and the Second Amendment, and even though I don’t like Dan Pastorini, I’m thankful for the 8-4 Houston Oilers. I’m thankful for my own parents, my job, and a really fine steak for lunch.”

  “OK, Dick,” Mom cut in. “That’s enough … Let’s finish our food and get out of here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  MENSTRUATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION