Southern Lady Code: Essays(2)

I scared myself straight by binge-watching Hoarders. What do you mean, that lady couldn’t claw her way through her grocery bag “collection” to give her husband CPR?

So I gave books I had read to libraries. Clothes I hadn’t worn in a year went to secondhand stores. I gave away the microwave because I can melt Velveeta on a stove.

And then came Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Or as I like to call it: “Surprise, You’re Still a Hoarder!”

Kondo’s big question is: Does it spark joy?

I took a harder look around my home and answered: Pretty boxes of novel manuscripts that were never published did not spark joy. Designer shoes I bought at sample sales but never wore because they pinched my feet did not spark joy. My husband confessed that his inheritance of Greek doilies and paintings of fishing boats from his grandmother did not spark joy. So, out it all went.

And what is left is us. And my husband is happier. I’m happier, too. Turns out I like a tidy house. And I like cleaning.

Dusting is meditative. Boiling the fridge relieves PMS. Making the bed is my cardio, because to make a bed properly, you have to circle it like a shark. And all the while, I listen to audiobooks I would be too embarrassed to be caught reading. Not in the mood to clean a toilet? Listen to Naked Came the Stranger, and see if that doesn’t pass the time.

The downside is that my husband has created a monster. I burn through paper towels like an arsonist. I joyride my vacuum—which has a headlight—in the dark. And I don’t do it in pearls and a crinoline skirt. It’s not unusual for me to wear an apron over my pajamas.

I say, “Hey, it’s me or the apartment. We can’t both be pristine.”

Without hesitation, my husband will always choose the apartment.

Sometimes, I invite him to join in my efforts, offering him the most awful tasks as if I’m giving him a treat. I’ll say, “I’m going to let you scoop the cat box” or “I’m going to let you scrape the processed cheese out of the pan.”

My husband says, “You’re like a dominatrix Donna Reed.”

I say, “Take off your shirt and scrape the pan, dear.”

He takes off his shirt and scrapes the pan. In our more than twenty years together, my husband’s nature hasn’t changed.

Me, I’m a recovering slob. Every day I have to remind myself to put the moisturizer back in the medicine cabinet, the cereal back in the cupboard, and the trash out before the can overflows. I have to remind myself to hang my coat in the closet.

And when I accomplish all of this, I really do feel like a magician. Because now, when my husband comes home, the first thing he sees is me.





THE TOPEKA THREE-WAY





At a dinner party, the host fills a lull with: “Have I ever told you my Topeka Three-Way story?”

Now, this story does not take place in Topeka. I’ve changed the name of the city where it really takes place just like I’ll change the names (and, while I’m at it, the personalities) of all of us who heard it. I’ll call myself Bobbie Sue Gentry. That is the name of a lady who will give you the gory details. “Gory details” is Southern Lady Code for flat Coke and faux pas. If you repeat a word of it, Bobbie Sue Gentry will slit your tires.

I say, “You have not told us your Topeka Three-Way story.”

By us, I mean me and my husband, Beauregard Beauregard Gentry. Yes, I like his made-up name so much, I’ve named him twice. Beauregard Beauregard is the name of a man who has biceps as big as beer cans and calls his wife “Mrs. Gentry” because he is so happily married to her. Mrs. Gentry (me with a 1970s Coppertone tan) calls her husband Beau Beau because honestly, who wouldn’t?

Also present are another married couple: two male pickle-ball players who are not really pickle-ball players and not really gay men. But here’s the thing: every party is made better by homosexuals; so, since it’s my party, I’ll add gay men if I want to.

Mr. Topeka says, “I was flying across the country to go to a wedding with Chichi in San Diego.”

Chichi is the hostess and the storyteller’s wife. In real life, she is the opposite of a Chichi. A Chichi nukes nachos and serves them to you while wearing an airbrushed halter top that reads CHICHI. The airbrushed i’s dot her nipples and her nachos are delicious, but Chichi is not Chichi and her husband is not Mr. Topeka. In real life, Mr. Topeka finds himself in dinner-party-worthy conversation situations because, as he puts it, he talks to everybody.

This stranger asked him to switch seats so that he could talk to the gorgeous young woman Mr. Topeka was sitting beside. I will not give this gorgeous young woman a new name, because gorgeous young women are never given names in such stories to begin with. They are called gorgeous young women, which I assume to most men means a rack like a loaf of Wonder Bread and an anime laugh.

Mr. Topeka says, “So, I look at this woman, and she nods it’s okay to switch seats. And I ask her, Do you know this guy? And do you know what she says?”

“It’s her parole officer!” I say.

“What? No.”

“You asked me to guess,” I say. I am the kind of woman who considers every conversation a game show.

Mr. Topeka says, “No. She shakes her head, No. She doesn’t know the guy. And he’s wearing a wedding ring. And here’s the kicker: SHE’S wearing a wedding ring, too!”