Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development

by Jen Lancaster

  11:16 P.M.—“What do you mean, ‘I don’t think that expression means what you think it means’?”

  11:17 P.M.—Oh. Then that man at Target with the FREE MUSTACHE RIDES logo was wearing a very dirty shirt.

  11:18 P.M.—“I would like to amend my previous statement. I need to wax this mustache or learn to twirl it, ha ha!”

  11:19 P.M.—I should tweeze this thing.

  11:20 P.M.—I should find my tweezers.

  11:21 P.M.—Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

  11:22 P.M.—Screw this. I need a professional waxing. Must make an appointment.

  11:25 P.M.—Can’t. Stop. Fondling. Mustache.

  11:30 P.M.—Fine, I’ll do the goddamned thing myself.

  11:40 P.M.—Can’t find new tub of wax I purchased for just this very occasion, so locate old container. Is very old. Is possibly the exact same tub that Moses’ wife used to remove her unwanted facial hair. (Desert light is unforgiving.)

  11:41 P.M.—But it’s wax. It’s not like it could go bad, right?

  11:42 P.M.—“I’m not ‘banging around and keeping you awake.’ I’m doing something important.”

  11:43 P.M.—Microwaving.

  11:44 P.M.—Microwaving.

  11:45 P.M.—Microwaving.

  11:46 P.M.—Microwaving.

  11:47 P.M.—I think my microwave may be broken.

  11:48 P.M.—Ah, there we go.

  11:49 P.M.—I don’t have a stick, so I’ll just use my finger to stir this hot, molten lava.

  11:50 P.M.—“Well, what do you expect? I just seared off my own fingerprint!”

  11:51 P.M.—Blow and cool. Use damaged digit to spread wax liberally on my Tom Selleck.

  11:52 P.M.—Wait for wax to harden so can pull off unsightly hairs in one (briefly painful) fell swoop.

  11:53 P.M.—Is not hardening.

  11:54 P.M.—Is not hardening.

  11:55 P.M.—Is not hardening. Is sitting on upper lip in a big, sticky blob.

  11:56 P.M.—Begin to tentatively peel off wax millimeter by millimeter. (Hate metric system.)

  11:57 P.M.—Is like removing chewing gum from underneath cafeteria table, only ouchy.

  11:57 P.M.—Hurty.

  11:58 P.M.—Hurty.

  11:59 P.M.—So very hurty.

  12:00 A.M.—Use sticky bits of already-peeled wax to slowly pry off other gummy bits.

  12:01 A.M.—Oh, yeah, this is WAY better than waiting nine hours and paying a professional ten dollars to handle this in five seconds.

  12:02 A.M.—The good news is the hair is coming off.

  12:03 A.M.—The bad news is, so is my skin.

  12:04 A.M.—How mad will he be if I wake him up to help me?

  12:05 A.M.—On second thought, he’d be mad for a second, but the mocking would last a lifetime. Must cowboy-up and finish job myself.

  12:06 A.M.—… And it’s finally off!

  12:07 A.M.—Except for those small, tacky bits with the Kleenex stuck to them.

  12:08 A.M.—I know, I’ll use baby oil. That gets rid of sticky stuff.

  12:09 A.M.—Hmm, I don’t have baby oil. Instead opt for canola oil. (Is heart-healthy.)

  12:10 A.M.—Wax is off, now to remove oil. Need toner.

  12:11 A.M.—But tossed out toner after that whole “who thought it was a good idea to make this stuff the exact same shade of blue as the nail polish remover?” incident.

  12:12 A.M.—Will use Fletch’s toner. Quietly.

  12:13 A.M.—!!!

  12:14 A.M.—“WELL MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN ‘GLYCOLIC ACID’ IN BIGGER PRINT ON THE BOTTLE!”

  12:15 A.M.—Probably should plan to make an “I’m sorry I got shouty after midnight” mousse tomorrow.

  12:16 A.M.—Inspect skin in magnifying mirror by light of new bulb. Hair is gone, but lip is swollen in manner of Simpsons character.

  12:17 A.M.—So this is what I’d look like if I had the ability to grow a big, red Fu Manchu mustache. Noted.

  12:18 A.M.—In retrospect, perhaps “learn to twirl it” wasn’t such a bad idea.

  12:19 A.M.—Is really late. Must get ready for bed.

  12:20 A.M.—I wonder if anyone else on the Internet is wrong?

  Reluctant Adult Lesson Learned:

  Philosophy makes a moisturizer that states on the label that you won’t find so many imperfections if you don’t go looking for them. The manufacturers of Philosophy products are a bunch of baby-booming hippies.

  My philosophy is you won’t find so many imperfections if you simply have that shit lasered.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R T·H·R·E·E

  Flipping the Script

  “What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving?”

  “Ignoring it.”

  “Ha. Right.”

  When I don’t respond, Stacey cuts her eyes away from the road to glance over at me. “No, seriously, what are your plans?” [A shorter “fictionalized” version of this story is available in Stacey’s fabulous book Off the Menu, in stores July 2012. Even though Jeneration X comes out first, Stacey wrote hers before I did. I felt that should be noted.]

  I reply, “I’m being serious. We plan on pretending that Thanksgiving isn’t happening.”

  Stacey and I are on our weekly pilgrimage to the Kingsbury Street Whole Foods Market. Stacey was out of the country when the place opened this May, so it was me who took her here for the first time when she returned in June. And now? It’s our special place; it’s kind of like our church, if churches specialized in locally sourced, grass-fed beef.

  I’ve always loved going to the grocery store, long before I learned to cook. There’s something about the cool, crisp, refrigerated air, the pyramids of glossy, precisely stacked fruits and vegetables, and aisle after aisle of neatly faced cans and boxes that deeply appeals to my inner need for order. [Or my inner need to “control things” as per Fletch.] My favorite time to shop is early afternoon, before the after-work rush, because that’s when everything is at its calmest and tidiest. (Before you ask, of course I’m the shopper who rearranges the jars of tomato sauce after I select one to keep the shelf pristine and symmetrical.)

  So if grocery shopping in an orderly, well-stocked store is good, then imagine doing so in the third-largest WFM in the world. Situated on the river, the Kingsbury store boasts an entire promenade where shoppers can stroll and dine and watch boats pass. In fact, the best view of the Chicago skyline can be seen from the top of the three-story parking garage. And that’s just the outside!

  The inside of the store is nothing short of monolithic. The fresh produce area alone is the size of a football field and it’s bordered by a coffee bar. The fact that they’re all about being “organic” and I can’t get a damn Splenda for my latte is an annoyingly first-world problem for sure, but that’s why I always carry extras in my purse. [You never know when you’ll have to sweeten on the go.]

  Did I mention the coffee bar serves beer and wine, too, and always has sports on the flat screen? For me, this isn’t as much of a selling point as you’d think because certain members of the WFM customer base are cluelessly aggravating enough without adding public intoxication to the mix. [Although to the person who always parks his Range Rover in the ALTERNATIVE FUELS ONLY parking spot? I like your style.]

  Beyond the produce section is the fresh seafood area where the mongers wear those big rubber boots-pants you see on the fish-tossers at Pike’s Market in Seattle. Even though I’m pretty sure the staff members just got off the El and not a Bering Sea crabbing vessel, I appreciate the nod to authenticity.

  There are places to sit and have a cocktail or meal throughout the store. Between the dairy and wine sections is a big wine-and-cheese bar, and past that you’ll find an upscale food court area, with everything from barbecue and hand-tossed woodfire pizza to fresh sushi.

  And the bars—don’t start me on the bars. There’s a make-your-own trail mix bar, a choose-your-own seafood bar, a decant-your-own honey bar, a mix-and-match cookie bar, and a hot food bar
with enough variety to satisfy everyone from the most humorless vegan to the world’s biggest carnivore. [Which is the Southern Elephant Seal. (I looked it up.)] One day I stopped by early after a dentist appointment and I stumbled across the breakfast bar, complete with biscuits and gravy. So magnificent was the sight that I wept a little.

  When other grocery stores dream of an afterlife, this is what they picture, with twenty kinds of fresh gelato and sorbet made daily and cheese sellers who say, “Hmm, I haven’t tasted that particular tomme de chèvre, either—let’s open it up and sample it together!”

  Through the confluence of unbelievably fresh product, a little training, and finally owning some decent equipment, I’ve come to love cooking. Turns out I’m fearless in the kitchen and Fletch is constantly delighted by the dishes I make. Yeah, there’s an occasional misstep—candy apple pork chops, I’m looking at you—but I’ve found real Zen at the bottom of my enamel cast-iron pot.

  In fact, last year Fletch and I tackled our first fully blown, fancy-set-table, official Thanksgiving dinner as our attempt to create a new holiday tradition. In the past we’d gotten together with family, but as our relationship became increasingly strained, [Read: certain members became bat-shittier.] we thought we’d be a lot happier on our own and this was our first go of it.

  Our menu was outstanding and I’m not sure what the best part was. The prosciutto-wrapped asparagus was the perfect blend of crisp and salty and the creamed pearl onions made me want to bury my face in the chafing dish and go at them feeding-trough-style.

  But as Fletch and I sat there at our grown-up table in our first real dining room—with a chandelier and everything!—eating a wonderful meal and drinking out of proper wineglasses, the venture into new traditions felt like a waste of time. I spent two days in the kitchen and we finished stuffing ourselves in about twenty minutes. The end result, although delicious, wasn’t worth the effort and felt like a huge letdown.

  Our other Thanksgiving option, going out to dinner alone, feels equally depressing, so we decided that our new new tradition is full-on denial.

  I tell Stacey, “We’re just going to be all, ‘Thanksgiving? Sorry, I think you dialed the wrong number.’”

  Stacey keeps stealing confused glances at me while she drives. “Let me get this straight—you plan to ignore Thanksgiving?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Honey, denial is not a strategy.”

  “Pfft. Denial is absolutely a strategy, particularly for the kind of holidays that depress you. For example, how did you celebrate Valentine’s Day last year?”

  Stacey’s lips get all scrunchy, and her voice is clipped. “I don’t remember.”

  “See? Denial. Works like a charm. [Please don’t worry about Stacey. When this happened, she was about four days away from meeting the man of her dreams. They got married in May 2011, and he gives her the best Valentine’s Days anyone could possibly imagine. I’m talking diamonds, champagne, and poetry. He treats her like the (bossy) goddess she is] Can you blame me for not wanting to recognize the day because it bums me out? All holidays do. Always have. I’ve hated the time period between my birthday in November and January second since I was a kid because, without fail, every single holiday devolved into big-time family chaos.”

  “How so?” Stacey gets distressed when I bring up familial insanity, likely because she comes from a functional family where everyone not only loves each other, but actually likes one another, too. No one tells anyone else they’re fat and no one gets into a screaming match over using too much hot water, nor does anyone continue to hold a grudge about shit that happened in 1976.

  It’s so weird.

  “Give me a specific,” she prompts.

  “Let’s see… well, every year like clockwork my mother would try to punish my father because he liked being home for the holiday instead of driving seventeen hours in the snow each way over a weekend so she could be with her extended family, none of whom he liked, so that was fun.”

  “That’s it?”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, please. We’d spend the week leading up to the holiday dealing with her sulking and pouting and I’d be all, ‘What are you, fifty?’ Then the actual day of Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter would roll around and she’d freak out because she spent so much time pouting and sulking that she’d be entirely off schedule in creating the meal. And despite having help from me, my dad, and later my sister-in-law, dinner wouldn’t be ready until ten p.m. and she’d be mad at us for complaining that we were hungry. Of course, she’d sabotage a situation already made super-tense due to starvation by unilaterally deciding madness like, ‘I’m going to make this a fat-free Thanksgiving!’”

  Stacey blanches. “That is a crime against humanity.”

  “Right? Plus, she believed that we should be all Norman Rockwell–y and, like, sit around in candlelight and listen to carols, and you know what? That’s a lovely thought and we should pencil that in. But when everyone’s gathered in the family room and we’re all quietly enjoying each other’s company for once by hanging out and watching the James Bond marathon on TBS, that is not the time to yank the television cord out of the wall and demand we share our feeeeelings. Because we feeeeel? Like watching Goldfinger.”

  Stacey laughs and says, “That can’t possibly be true,” while I nod emphatically. We arrive at WFM and find a cherry parking spot on the second floor next to the door. We exit the car and enter the store, taking the long escalator that dumps out right by the bar. “Need to cocktail up before you finish the story?”

  “Yes, but I won’t. Oh, and this totally happened, most recently from Thanksgiving 1992 through 1994 until my brother’s family entirely stopped coming for that holiday, and Christmases 1999 through 2006.”

  “Oy.” We grab matching carts and begin to peruse the most perfect stack of Honeycrisps. Each one is the size of a softball and they easily weigh one and a half pounds. We both murmur in admiration while we stuff them in plastic produce bags.

  “Yep. Hey, speaking of—sometimes my mother would take the thing my father dreamed about all year, her one home-run swing, the apple pie—and she’d substitute zucchini instead. Just because. Ask me how well that went over. I mean, I appreciate her looking out for my father’s health, but it’s one freaking dinner over the course of three hundred and sixty-five days. Hey, how about we don’t make it a fat-free Thanksgiving? I’m not saying she was all Joan Crawford because that’s certainly not the case, but believe me when I say I never looked forward to any holiday.”

  Stacey pats me on the arm as we wend our way past the fancy lettuce display. “Then? Every meal ended in recriminations when we’d make my mother angry by accusing her of hiding the butter and emptying all the saltshakers and filling them with No Salt. Which, of course, she did. By the way? When you put Smart Balance HeartRight Light Spread on mashed potatoes? I totally can believe it’s not butter. Passive aggression; it’s what’s for dinner.”

  Stacey stops in front of the fresh-cut fruit fridge. “Oh, peanut, I’m sorry.”

  “It is what it is.” I shrug. “I mean, I’m not all scarred and I don’t need therapy or anything. It’s just that the idea of going over the river and through the woods? Holds no appeal.”

  “What about Fletch?”

  “Ironically, our traditions were a step up for him. At least we had James Bond. Poor Fletch used to get stuck in the mountains of Virginia with no television and his grandmother would boil a chicken for Thanksgiving dinner. She’d serve the big, flaccid, gray mass of meat and say, ‘Let’s eat and get it over with already.’ So when we’re all A Christmas Story and order Chinese this year, don’t feel sorry for us because we’re going to have the best non-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving ever.”

  Stacey furrows her brow while debating pineapple chunks or rings. Then, after a few seconds she says, “No.”

  “No pineapple?”

  Stacey bangs on her shopping cart. “No. No, no. You need to celebrate Thanksgiving.”

  “Wh
at part of my I hate the holidays diatribe did you not understand?”

  “You don’t hate Thanksgiving. You hate conflict. You hate bad food. You hate chaos. Thanksgiving is inherently happy. No one hates Thanksgiving.” She stops herself. “Well, Native Americans maybe. Point is you can’t not be happy on a day where pie figures in so prominently. What you need to do is reclaim Thanksgiving. You need to flip the script.”

  “We tried that last year and it was lame.”

  “Because it was just the two of you. This year, you invite guests.”

  I protest, “Who’s going to come? Everyone always has Thanksgiving plans.”

  “Yeah, miserable plans. I can, in fact, believe it’s not butter plans. Plans they’re dreading because they never had your awesome Thanksgiving Day dinner as an option before. Start asking around. You’ll be surprised at how many people would rather go to your house. I’m telling you, flip the script.”

  “But—”

  “Flip it.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Flip. It.”

  We’re still debating when we run into our dear friend Gina. She spots us from her table on the second floor where she’s having lunch when she hears the familiar sound of us squabbling.

  “Gina, settle an argument for me,” I say. “No one would come to my house on Thanksgiving, right?”

  Gina cocks her head. “Why not?”

  “Because they have plans. Like you. Where will you be on Thanksgiving?”

  “Probably in my house, drinking wine, ignoring the day so I don’t have to be with my annoying relatives,” she replies.

  “Aha!” Stacey crows. “This is what I’m talking about. If Jen had a Thanksgiving Day dinner, would you come?”

  Without hesitation, Gina replies, “Absolutely! I’d much rather drink wine at your house.”

  Stacey turns to me. “Told you so.”

  I admit it, I like the idea of flipping the script, but the actuality of it may be too much for me to handle. “I panic when I have to cook for more than three people. Remember my dinner party this summer where half the guests never even got fed before they had to leave and I accidentally got hammered?”