Humor

The Mooch March

Kathy Stevenson1 Comment

Here is a link to my newest essay just posted in the Travel section of The Washington Post.  I will also paste a copy of the essay below.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/with-hosting-at-a-standstill-we-revisit-the-highs-and-lows-of-having–and-being–houseguests/2020/09/03

THE MOOCH MARCH

by Kathy Stevenson

 

When I mentally tick off some of the many changes brought about in our lives by the coronavirus pandemic (something I try not to do too often), one in particular lays me low.  We can no longer visit friends and family with carefree abandon.  And by “visit,” I mean “stay with.”

Because, with my family – and many of my close friends – scattered around the country as we are, a visit always means more than just a casual drop-in, or even lunch or dinner.  A visit might be posited as, “It’s John’s vacation, and we happen to be passing right by you, so naturally we’d love to see you.”  This can literally mean anything from a cup of coffee to a three-day guided walking tour of Chicago, and the ball is now in your court.  You could theoretically reply, “Great!  I’ll make a lunch reservation at that Italian place you guys like.”  But you know you really can’t say that.  This is an opening dance that has rules of etiquette fraught with all sorts of pitfalls.

You know you have to Make The Offer.  Especially after they say, “Oh, well, we’re going to try to drive eight hours that first day, so I guess we could just meet for a quick dinner.  But we would really, really love to see you.”

Then it just slips out.  “Why don’t you just stay with us?”

Before you know it you’re shopping for new towels and sheets, and shoving things into closets because your “guest bedroom” has morphed into a storage room while you weren’t paying attention.  Or maybe you will put your visitors in your kids’ room, and let all the kids sleep in the living room on couches and blankets.  It will be fun!  An adventure!

After The Offer of a sleepover (a day, a week, now it’s not clear) is accepted (only if you’re SURE we won’t be too much trouble) the next step also falls to the host or hostess.  “Do you all have any allergies, or dietary issues we should know about?”

Get your notepad out.  John can eat fish, but not shellfish.  Mary doesn’t eat red meat anymore.  Charlotte is allergic to cats, and Oliver is afraid of large houseplants.  “But whatever you guys want to do is fine with us!  We’re super easy!”

Lest I sound like the cranky misanthrope that I am only in my fantasy life, I’d like to state here that I do love seeing friends and family in both my home and theirs.  For many years my husband and I owned a small home on an island in Florida, and we loved sharing our little piece of paradise with visitors.  And many friends have reciprocated with wonderful hospitality in their own homes from Friendship, Maine to La Jolla, California.

In fact it was on the island that I first heard the term Mooch March, and realized that it was quite common to refer to both visitors and our own selves as “moochers,” a crass term that implies freeloading of an unseemly nature.  Of course it helps to have friends and relatives who live in desirable places to visit.  Extra points for beach parking and a nearby bakery with coffee and cinnamon buns.

Benjamin Franklin, sometimes known to be a tad crass himself, said, “After three days, men grow weary of a wench, a guest, and weather rainy.”  Okay, so maybe that doesn’t translate too well today…

Maybe, instead, we could take Jane Austen’s words into account, as spoken in her novel Emma, “It was a delightful visit; – perfect, in being much too short.”

The pandemic has placed restrictions (and worse) on so many parts of our lives.  But to welcome loved ones, friends and family into our homes, or to visit them in theirs – that has been demoralizing in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

Get ready for next summer though, to mooch and be mooched.  Because we will all be hitting the road.  And we would love to accept your offer of a night or two in your home.  Three, at the most…

 

 

I Feel Bad About My Neck Hair (With apologies to Nora Ephron)

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

Here is the link to my new essay just posted on the website dedicated to newspaper columnist and author Erma Bombeck’s legacy at the University of Dayton.  I have great memories of my mom and her friends reading and sharing Erma’s newspaper columns when I was growing up, and then I grew to love her work as well.

But I also wrote my essay with author Nora Ephron’s influence.  Her funny essay about feeling bad about her neck kind of gave me the inspiration to take her commentary a little further.

Two women writers who many of us today really miss…  (I will also copy the essay below if you can’t link to it for any reason.)

I feel bad about my neck hair (with apologies to Nora Ephron)

I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK HAIR

by Kathy Stevenson
(with apologies to Nora Ephron)
One weird side effect of this extended period of time sheltering in place is that many of us are spending more time looking in our mirrors. Maybe not those of you with small children at home – who rarely even get to go to the bathroom alone – but the rest of us are doing some really odd things to fill our days. A lot of us are trying things for the first time – baking bread, cleaning baseboards, flossing every day, cutting and coloring our own hair. Many of us are looking in our bathroom mirrors more than we ever have in our lives. And it ain’t pretty.
In the olden days of the past fifty years or so, my “beauty routine” has been remarkably consistent. I buy “product” (moisturizers, skin treatments, entire makeup lines) and then in a frenzy of self-improvement I use the “product” once or twice, at which point it goes where all product goes to die. Into one of the bottom drawers in my bathroom vanity.
These bathroom drawers themselves are like an archeological dig into my flaws and their potential remedies. Miracles have been promised; youth restored by tubes and vials and small glass jars that I blithely and enthusiastically put on my department store credit cards, urged on by perfumed saleswomen whose main sales technique is to stare appraisingly at my face (devoid of any product) and declare me a candidate for much improvement.
As a writer, I am seduced by the words on these products. “Pure Vitality,” “Healthy Radiance,” “Restructuring,” “Hydrates and Tones,” “Bio-Repair.” And the ingredients! Rose stem cells and extracts. Smoothing acmella flower. Bilberry and chamomile. Red ginseng root and Manuka honey. Yum, yum.
“Do you use a styling paste on your hair?” asks a lovely woman with perfectly styled hair and moist skin behind the makeup counter at Nordstrom. I had come in for my annual purchase of one tube of mascara. Somewhere I had read that you need to replace your product every so often, even if you haven’t used it. This seems somewhat of a scam to me, until the makeup lady frowns and shakes her head knowingly, “You wouldn’t eat a pastry that had been sitting in your kitchen cupboard for a year, would you?” Ahem. I might?
Back to my bathroom mirror. There is no nice Nordstrom lady any more. In fact, my relationship with Nordstrom – a relationship I have cherished and nurtured over many decades – has been reduced to the same two or three things I know I can order online.
Which brings me back to product. And my bathroom mirror. And a mistake I made in looking in those lower two bathroom drawers full of free samples of product. I decided that this would be the perfect time to start a new beauty routine, and use some of the product samples that had accumulated there like the ghosts of past flaws.
I pulled out my vanity mirror to take a good look at my facial and neck area. I turned my head slightly up and toward the side, the sunlight streaming in through the window to the bathroom mirror, and that’s when I saw it. Neck hair. I mean it wasn’t a pelt – you couldn’t comb it (yet) – nevertheless, it was there. Thanks, Polish relatives, I thought. We are a hirsute race, and I immediately wondered how long I had been walking around with this neck hair, with nobody telling me about it.
Not even my husband, who I corralled and screamed out, while pointing to my neck, “YOU NEVER THOUGHT TO BRING THIS TO MY ATTENTION?!” He froze in place and blinked rapidly, like he always does when he thinks I am accusing him of some transgression.
“THIS. THIS NECK HAIR! THIS FUR!”
“Hmmm…” As he peers at my neck. “It’s not that noticeable.”
And so, dear reader, I shaved it. With my pink Bic disposable razor. I Googled it first, of course, but then I decided that I would be my own beauty consultant for once. There was no nice Nordstrom lady to help me anymore. There might not even be a Nordstrom. And I was not going to live with neck hair, even if I never saw anyone outside of my house again for the rest of my life. Even if we all had to wear masks forever and ever, and probably nobody would notice my neck hair.
Because even in a pandemic, one has to have certain standards.

Sheltering in Place: A Family Drama

Kathy Stevenson1 Comment

SHELTERING IN PLACE: A FAMILY DRAMA  (This essay originally posted on the website for WHYY in Philadelphia as “Snow Days.”  Just substitute “shelter-in-place” for winter storm warnings and snow days, and you have the same idea.)

The Day Before – Hello.  This is The School calling to inform you that, due to the upcoming winter storm warning, school will not be in session tomorrow.  Please do not drop your child off at school “accidentally,” on your way to your Pilates class, and then claim later that you never got this call.  You know who you are.  And so do we.  This message will now repeat.

Day One a.m. – What a rare treat to have the little darlings home for a day.  I will use this unexpected gift of time and make it a special day.  Outside the weather may be frightful, but our day will be quite delightful.  First, I’ll make everyone heart-shaped pancakes, then we’ll snuggle up and watch a family movie.  Or two movies – after all, we have all day!  We can bake cookies later, then maybe a few games of Monopoly.  Just some good old-fashioned family time.

Day One p.m.  – The school called again with one of those damn robo-calls.  Blah, blah, blah winter storm.  I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have “snow days.”  And that was before global warming, when we used to have real snow.  Hubbie was telling the kids the story of how he used to deliver newspapers on his bike in snowstorms worse than this.  Then he got all grumpy because they walked out of the room during the part where he had to dig in the snow when he dropped his dime tip from Mrs. Gianetti.

Day Two – Slightly hung over.  I didn’t think I drank that much, but the recycle bin doesn’t lie.  The day I start hiding bottles is the day I will admit I have a problem.  But I know I don’t, so what’s the big deal.  Hubbie is home today also, because no one can get anywhere.  I can’t think of the last time we were all together with no chance for escape!  We have decided today will be “Puzzle Day.”  That is because no one will play Monopoly again with H.  I didn’t know this when I married him, but he has an irritating tendency to gloat when he has one over on you.  He actually cackled with glee when he bankrupted sweet little J.  She cried and asked, “Why is Daddy being so mean?”  I said I didn’t know.

Day Three – When the school message came in again last night I wanted to take the phone and smash it to a pulp.  No wonder our kids are lagging behind third world countries in education.  Today I will insist on everyone (including H) leaving the house to get some fresh air.  I don’t care if it is a wind chill of ten below.  Maybe they can build a snow house and all go live there.  Just kidding.  Not really.  Only eleven hours until cocktail hour.  I will not lessen my personal standards just because the city is in crisis.  Things could be a lot worse.  I just saw a news report of a couple stranded in a Best Western with no heat or food.  Uncharitably, I thought to myself, at least they’re not with H!

Day Four – Saturday, and the sun is finally out.  Unfortunately, the snow is now blowing sideways, and due to drifting, no one can get anywhere.  I told H that maybe he could get his trusty bike out and cycle on down to Whole Foods, just like when he had his paper route.  Luckily I bought the 1.75 liter size of Bombay Sapphire the day before the storm hit.  A stroke of brilliance, if I do say so.  Gotta go – I’m the Bingo caller for the family Bingo tournament, and quite possibly the only person in this family who doesn’t cheat.

Day Five – I never realized it before, but in certain unfortunate ways, my children seem to have inherited many of H’s family’s habits and personality quirks.  Nose-picking, slack-jawed staring off into space when being asked to help with chores, the aforementioned cheating (even at Candy Land, for Christ’s sake), nervous throat clearing, and an inability to tell when they’ve worn an article of clothing too many days in a row without putting it in the dirty laundry.  I really don’t know how much longer I can take it.  I had to stay on the Elliptical from noon until six o’clock just to keep myself away from the liquor cabinet.

Day Six – Just saw a news report that nine months from now there will be a big blip in the population with a whole lot of  “blizzard babies” being born.  I glowered at H as he sat playing video poker in his ratty bathrobe.  The gin is gone.  Don’t know if I can go on much longer.

Day Seven – Yippee!  Everyone back to school and work today.  Little J asked why Mommy was so happy, and I said because I love you and your brother and Daddy so much.  So, so much.

 

 

The Summer Stay-Cation: A Labor Day Story

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

For Labor Day Weekend: A short-short story just for fun…

A lone leaf drifted lazily into the small kidney-shaped swimming pool in the backyard of my dear friend Muffy. An orange leaf. The three of use, Muffy, Buffy, and myself peered up with trepidation at the large elm tree that shades the deep end of the pool.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Muffy, with a pained sigh.

Buffy lowered her huge, protective sunglasses and tilted up her enormous hemp sun hat to further assess the situation. She sighed as well. “Yes, I’m afraid summer is almost over. Before you know it the Neiman Marcus holiday catalog will be here.”

“Are you still getting that?” asked Muffy. She sounded a bit smug and sanctimonious, and I knew what was coming next. “I e-mailed all my stores and asked them to not send me any more catalogs. Do you know how many trees it takes to make one Neiman Marcus holiday catalog? More like a forest!”

I couldn’t see behind Buffy’s sunglasses but I knew she was rolling her eyes. Continue reading →