Southern Lady Code: Essays(23)

Etiquette for hospital visits: “Helen Michelle, after your husband’s grandmother has her leg amputated, don’t sit on her bed in the flat spot where her leg used to be.”

Etiquette for street crime: “Helen Michelle, always carry money for a mugger—three one-dollar bills wrapped up in a five. Keep the cash in your purse flap. This way, when you’re mugged, it’s easier for everyone involved. You grab the wad of bills, hold it up for the mugger to see, and shout, This is all I have! Then throw the money and run, screaming Officer down!”

Along with her blue eyes and compulsive need to compliment strangers (I too now can’t let a manicure or face full of freckles go unmentioned), I’ve inherited a gene that tells me how to behave when I walk in on a construction worker masturbating in my apartment.

What you do is freeze. The door to your bedroom is shut and from behind it is coming a lot of heavy breathing. You tell yourself he’s watching a Bruce Willis movie on his iPhone on his lunch break. You’re tempted to swing open the door and holler, “YIPPEE-KI-YAY, MOTHERFUCKER!” But then you hear what sounds like an otter stuck in a pickle jar.

You do not open the door.

You do not reprimand the construction worker through the closed door.

You do not clear your throat or call out, “I’m home!”

You leave the premises and make a phone call.

This is what a smartphone truly is for. Not for Instagramming pictures of the sky outside your airplane window or asking Siri what year Die Hard came out. A smartphone is for calling your interior designer from a street corner to tell him to call his employee and tell him to go. Ladies who confront masturbators in their apartments get murdered.

Manners keep you safe.

Mama says, “Helen Michelle, a lot of women have trouble saying no and then find themselves in worse situations because they were afraid of being rude. So, if you have trouble saying no, say ‘No, thank you.’ Let’s practice.”

“Okay.”

Mama says, “Miss, would you like to climb into the back of my unmarked van?”

I say, “No, thank you.”

Mama says, “Would you like to have a business meeting in my hotel room?

I say, “No, thank you.”

Mama says, “Would you like to drink something out of a gas funnel?”

I say, “No, thank you.”

“Sex on a bed of nails? Juggle live monkeys? Stick your head in an alligator’s mouth? Stab an icepick between your fingers as fast as you can?”

“Mama!”

“Let me hear it, Helen Michelle.”

“No, thank you.”

For more than two decades in New York City, Mama’s advice has served me well. And more and more I find myself wanting to impart her etiquette to others.

On the subway, I’ll ask my husband, “Why is that man rifling through his bag? He shouldn’t look the way he does and get onto a subway and rifle through a bag. I’m going to tell him.”

“Helen, that’s racial profiling.”

“It’s not racial profiling if he’s in camo and night-vision goggles on the 6 train. You don’t plant yourself in front of the exit doors and dig in a bag. He looks like a nut job. What’s he rooting for? Oh, his Purell.”

“Helen, please don’t say anything.”

“Well, he should know better. Someone should tell him he’s frightening us for no reason. Someone should also tell him not to Purell in public. He might as well be rolling deodorant onto his armpits.”

Upon hearing this story, my mother adapts like a ninja. In case of a terrorist, she instructs me to carry a makeshift weapon to benefit myself and others, like Granddaddy carried a lighter or Grandmother carried Certs.

“Helen Michelle, what you do is empty a fake lemon juice lemon and fill it with hairspray. Then, when you squeeze it, it’s a direct stream to the eyes. It’s blinding and completely legal.”

Call her crazy or crafty, it’s how my mother has taught me to survive. I’ve been mugged three times and come out unscathed. One time, I forgot the lemon. When the mugger said, “Give me your bags,” I said, “No, thank you,” and stepped around him like he was a perfume spritzer at Bloomingdale’s.





HOW I WATCH


            PORNOGRAPHY


            LIKE A LADY





I watch pornography like a lady because pornography finds me.

I don’t know if pornography finds everyone on Twitter or if it finds me because of my account name: American Housewife. Apparently American housewife is a popular search term in the pornography industry. Apparently folks like to see an ordinary, everyday housewife have sex with a stranger—be he repairman, yardman, or seven-foot-tall transient of another race or ethnicity with a penis the size of a T-shirt gun lured to the suburbs from a bus depot.

I like to see this for about a minute and twelve seconds, which, on average, is how long a Twitter pornography clip lasts—1:12 is enough for me because it’s the surprise that’s arousing. Pornography is like seeing someone juggle and thinking, Huh, I juggle. Is that what I look like juggling? Or Huh, I juggle bowling pins, but that lady right there juggles flaming chainsaws. I gotta see that.