The Dave Who Ruined Christmas
by Emily Epstein
“Man, I wish you could join me for Christmas,” Dave said.
“I know. It’s not even like I’m doing anything special—maybe a movie and some Chinese food.”
“Why don’t you come up to Syracuse? My family always makes it a really big event, and I’ve been wanting you to meet my parents anyway. And . . . I miss you. Besides, maybe then we can finally, you know, take our relationship further.”
That was all it took. I had never celebrated Christmas before, most likely because I’m Jewish. But like most Jewish people, I’d always been kind of curious as to what actually happens at Christmas. Was it as warm and fuzzy as all the Hallmark commercials? Did someone always get a diamond and happiness abounds, like Zale’s says? Would I get the hottest new toy that I had been wishing for, as Toys R’ Us predicts? I’d also never dated a guy who was so freaking . . . nice. There were no games with Dave, no mystery as to how he felt about me. And it was refreshing. I couldn’t wait to see him.
Several days later, after a long and snowy six-hour car ride, with me gripping the wheel until my knuckles turned white, I found myself at Dave’s parent’s house on Christmas Eve. He greeted me with a long hug, as did his parents, his ninety-three-year-old grandmother, his three older sisters, their spouses, and their multiple kids. I found myself quite overwhelmed. I smiled and made small talk, but I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. There were so many people. And so many Christmas decorations. And so many representations of Jesus and his various relatives.
We sat down to dinner. There was a large ham. There was turkey. There were about fifty side dishes. I picked at the sides and made small talk about my classes. Dave and I held hands under the table. I felt the pressure of his thumb stroking my inner palm, and it soothed me. Every time one of Dave’s parents would ask me a question, they would look at each other and smile after my answer. After dinner the children ran off to play games that small children play.
“Okay, guys,” Dave’s dad said, looking at all of us adults expectantly. “It’s time to take communion!”
Oh, no. Was he really serious? Is that something you do at Christmas? Was I expected to do this, too? I imagined if I actually took “communion” some Jewish child would lose his Hanukah gelt.
“Pssst, Emily. Over here.” I looked over to see John, Dave’s oldest sister’s husband, gesturing to me. “You look scared,” he whispered. “Don’t worry. I’m Jewish, too.”
“Do they know?” I asked, alarmed.
“Of course. Listen, since we’re Jews, I’ve come up with our own special ‘communion’ that only we can do. Join me.”
“Okay,” I said, looking over at Dave, who gave me an encouraging smile from across the room.
“Take this Ritz cracker. I want you to eat it, say ‘shalom’ and kiss me on the cheek on the count of three.”
We did. It seemed to make John incredibly happy. I’d forgotten how good Ritz crackers can be. Probably much more buttery than a communion wafer. I also wondered if John would just perform this ritual with himself before I came along. That must have been really weird.
“Now go back to the Christmas stuff,” he said, as Dave came over. We sat in front of the fire and looked at their Christmas tree. It was huge and leaned slightly to the right. The ornaments were plentiful, some homemade, and didn’t match.
“We add new ones every year,” he began to explain in great detail, as if I had not only never celebrated Christmas before, but as if I was also autistic.
“Nice,” I said. It was really a very good idea, those Christmas trees. Kind of like a shrub of memories.
“See this one?” Dave said, pointing to a small ornament that looked like a movie camera. “My parents gave me that one when I started college and I decided to be a film major.” Dave was now in his junior year and I was a sophomore. We had met while working on the school newspaper as Features editors. We were just like the movie Up Close and Personal without the excitement or Robert Redford.
It was getting late so we got in our pajamas. I had packed the most flannelly pajamas I owned, not wanting to alarm Dave’s parents. If I could have found footie pajamas, I probably would have brought them. I was surprised to find out that I was sleeping in the same room as Dave, him on the floor and me in the bed. That would not have been cool at my house. Of course, a Christmas tree wouldn’t have been cool either.
“Well, my sisters are so much older that my parents probably aren’t even thinking about us being in the same room. That or they’re really glad I finally have a girlfriend,” he said, smiling shyly. He seemed almost giddy. I had a feeling I knew what was coming. It felt weird doing it here, but kind of exciting, like I when I used to smoke pot in my parent’s basement.
We said our goodnights to everyone and went to bed. Spooning me from behind, he whispered in my ear, “I really am glad you came up.”
I was glad, too. I wondered why I hadn’t always made life so easy for myself by dating someone free of drama. Sure, it wasn’t always nonstop excitement, but it was comfortable. We started to kiss, when he stopped and looked deeply with his navy blue eyes right into mine. “I want this to be the night,” he said.
“Are you sure? You’re ready?”
It wasn’t me I was worried about, it was Dave. He might have been older, but I was more learned in the ways of the sex. And by more learned, I meant I’d slept with two other people.
“No. I want to do it,” he said, blushing furiously. “I’m glad I waited for you to come along.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle,” I said, laughing. And we went to it. Or at least we tried to. Dave had a little, how shall we say, performance anxiety. So after trying for a while, we gave up and fell asleep, still content to be next to each other.
The next morning we woke up to Christmas. I got a sweater from the sisters, sans Christmas tree (‘we weren’t sure you’d like that,’ said Carole, the middle sister) and I ate more cookies than all the kids combined, most likely because there was no one there willing to stop me. I headed home later that day, with a container of more cookies and ham (I couldn’t say no) in my backseat. While I was slightly irked by my lack of booty, overall, it had been a memorable experience.
Dave and I kept dating for a few months. It was nice but fizzled out. We never consummated the relationship, despite quite a few attempts. That probably didn’t help things either.
A couple years after college around Christmas I got an email from Dave. “Here's a surprise about my life,” he wrote. “I'm in medical school up here in Buffalo! I finally got in this past summer! Additionally, I am dating someone. Her name is Tracy and it is going really well. Give me a call if you get a chance, I’d love to catch up.”
So I contacted him. And he emailed back. And soon it became clear why he had really contacted me. “So I really like Tracy,” he wrote. “And I think we’re ready to sleep together. And I know that we didn’t, but we got pretty close. I don’t know how to say this, but, you didn’t have any diseases, did you? I mean, I’m sure you don’t but I just figured it would be good to know these things before I take the plunge. Okay, thanks and glad to hear you’re doing so well! Best, Dave.”
I stared at my computer. Dave thought I was whore. And Dave was in medical school, so unless he was studying some new disease, I’m not sure what diseases he thought I might have given him just by making out. (I do not have herpes. My lips are just chapped.) I responded with a terse “No, I’m clean.” So much for catching up.
THE TALE OF TOO TALL TOM TOLLEFSON
by Tanner Dahlin
I was living in Fargo, North Dakota and on December 24th of 2004, I started my Christmas Eve bartending shift by exchanging an awkward hug with my boss, Paul. Paul was normally a positive guy with a big grin, but not this day. He was wearing a clearly homemade bright red sweater with giant white snowflakes knitted into it. He angrily pointed to it with his thumbs and said, “Huh? You know? Tis The Season!”
I started my shift and no one came in for a long time. In fact, no one was coming in at all and I started to wonder weather or not I came in on Christmas Eve just to earn the $3.45/hour the bar paid, when a regular’s car pulled in.
A small, blue, two-wheeled drive Honda Accord swiveled through the ice packed concrete parking lot and lazily came to a sliding rest across three parking spaces. After a few moments the door flew open and a giant leg bent out of the driver’s seat. The next thing I could see was a short crop of blond hair on an almost birdlike human head as a 6’7” tall, Scandinavian man unfolded out of the small vehicle. He wasn’t dressed appropriately for the weather and the wind was blowing strong and icy snow was blowing in his face. Yet, he seemed calm and undeterred as he slowly marched up to the building.
I could always see people, through the bar windows, running from their snow packed cars and I would like to announce an observation. North Dakotans have developed a very distinctive trot while they make the frozen run to and from their car. There is sort of a posture they’ve developed where they try to keep their legs as close together in an attempt to create friction heat. They do this, while simultaneously clenching their butt cheeks together to lock out any icy wind, all while moving at absolute top velocity!
This man did not assume this posture, however. He marched into the snow as if every flake that burned his skin didn’t even touch him and he flung open the doors and stomped the snow off his boots. The whistling of a high wind shrilled through the hinges as the door slammed shut.
This was no ordinary bar regular. No. This was Too Tall Tom Tollefson, the famous former local weatherman. To understand the Tale of Too Tall Tom Tollefson, one must understand the people of Fargo, and to understand the people of Fargo, one must understand the weather.
In a frozen city, whose denizens proudly smile beneath their frozen facemasks, the weatherman is king. Too Tall Tom Tollefson was Fargo’s Medieval, giant turkey leg eating, goblet of mead swilling, royalty.
It gets so cold in Fargo, North Dakota, that during the colder parts of the winter, a car’s engine will inevitably freeze and the pistons won’t budge. This causes a car starter to whine and moan. Most January mornings you can hear the starter wines carry across the frozen lifeless earth.
There have been whole weeks where it never got above 20 below. Never got ABOVE 20 below for 7 days straight or longer! There are times where it is so cold that you could take a cup of warm water and take it outside and throw the contents of the cup up high into the air, and by the time the water droplets hit the ground all the water would freeze solid, and little ice pieces would lay on the ground. I wouldn’t believe that, but I saw it demonstrated several years ago, on live national television by none other than Too Tall Tom Tollefson, himself.
It was on Good Morning America. Pretty big deal, for Fargo. He proudly tossed the water as high as he could, and I could tell by his face that he was desperately hoping it would work. And I could also tell that he was drunk. And this came at no surprise. In fact, there were many clues that Tom was a drinker.
“He’s A Drinker” Clue Number One: He was way too excited. North Dakotans are very quiet and mild mannered people, and he was always speaking at a very high energy level. “Good Evening Everybody!!! IT”S GONNA BE COLD!!!” he would happily yell.
“He’s A Drinker” Clue Number Two: He was always happy that it was cold. People in Fargo are supposed to begrudgingly appreciate the uninhabitable deadly cold, not celebrate it. Too Tall Tom Tollefson celebrated the winter. He proudly and wildly waved his arms across the weather map telling of below 19 degree temps and 74 degree below wind-chill with such a pleasure that he mush have just been smashed.
“He’s A Drinker” Clue Number Three: His nickname was Too Tall Tom Tollefson, and we were all pretty sure it was a nickname that he gave himself. It’s not that it wasn’t appropriate, he was a really tall dude, it was just that he gave the nickname to himself, and that’s just weird.
The final nail in the coffin in the public opinion is “He’s A Drinker” Clue Number Four: He called blowing snow, “BS” on locally broadcast television in a way that you could just tell he meant Bull Shit. “We are going to have some flurries tonight with winds from the north! That means it is going to be coooold, and we will have a lot of BS coming in from the Grand Forks area.” It also didn’t help that he would go to the local bars, like mine, and drink, drink, drink, after every 10pm broadcast.
So, Too Tall Tom Tollefson strides into the bar, and I had his Grey Goose Martini made just the way he liked it and ready for him at his stool by the time that he sat down. Paul, eagerly smiling, plopped down right next to him like a tween plopping down next to Robert Pattinson. Paul comped his drink, as he usually did with Tom’s first one, cause “It’s good for business to have celebrities here.” The next four were always on the weatherman, though.
“Better poor one for yourself, Tanner, it’s Christmas Eve for Pete’s sake.” Tom offered kindly. I was about to give him my usual, “Thanks, but our corporate policy prohibits me from drinking on duty,” but before I could say anything, Paul said, “Go ahead, buddy, in fact pour two, you know, we’ll both have one, ok?”
This was especially odd coming from Paul, who’s strict and eager adherence to every single Corporate Policy made him probably one of the most anal retentive people I had ever met. One time Paul wouldn’t let a coworker wait tables because her shirt was 90% Cotton and 10% polyester instead of the Corporate mandated 35/65 ratio. True.
“Here’s to you two guys who have to work on Christmas Eve” Tom said and we all drank. “Aren’t you kinda pissed about having to work today?” he asked.
Paul was drinking his beer quickly, like a kid drinking milk after playing outside. He finished and loudly exclaimed, “Well, ya know, I am kinda pissed.”
I made Tom another Martini, and I quietly poured my boss another beer and slid it in front of him with the ease of an old bartending pro. He didn’t even really notice and drank from the new beer, thereby giving me full understood authority for my second drink!
Paul was really mad, and getting a little tipsy. “All managers are required to wear a dress shirt and tie, well I was supposed to get Christmas off, so I’m going to give them the middle finger, and I’m going to wear this sweater, I don’t care if it’s against regulations, because, you know, tis the season.”
I made my second drink and I made it stronger than the first, and made Tom his fourth Martini of the night. “Damn the Man, that’s what I say.” It’s true. Tom did say that. Every once and a while a stupid moron would drink up the courage to ask him why he wasn’t on the news anymore. The moron would usually ask loud enough where his friends could see that he didn’t wuss out. Tom would always graciously decline to comment except for occasionally saying, “Damn the Man.”
The truth is, towards the end of Too Tall Tom’s reign, Daryl Aarnason started to make more and more regular appearances on the weekday broadcast. Daryl was a ‘B’ team weatherman who worked the holidays and weekends, he was pudgy and short and quiet. For a while, Tom still did the nightly promos, my favorite part of the news. They would be little 10-second pieces that would run during the commercial breaks, where Tom would cram in as much info as possible. Why I loved them is that he would always start by looking away from the camera, and then shoot his head toward the camera like a falcon spotting a field mouse. “It’s gonna be cooooold with a lot of B.S. and wind chills in the negative 30s, and if you live in Bourop then you can expect some blizzard conditions.” And then commercial. Some high energy stuff.
Soon after short-and-pudgy Daryl came up from the ‘B’ team to start covering Tom’s growing absences, a new ‘B’ team weatherman was hired. He was named ‘Shad’ and I swear he looked to be a fifteen-year-old kid in the midst of some pretty fierce puberty. Then Daryl started doing the promos and introduced a wildly popular new segment called, “Daryl Aarnason’s Weather Info” where he would answer weather questions in a rich absent monotone that soothed the residents of Fargo.
Then one day, Too Tall Tom Tollefson disappeared from the airwaves for good. He never really talked about the day he got fired, or anything about the news. He was just a nice guy who loved the cold and was also really animated. A perfect North Dakotan weatherman king with a tragic flaw.
Tom paid for his martini’s, tipped really well, and then walked into the night with his coat flapping open in the below zero wind. Bypassing his car entirely, he proudly strode past the windows of the bar waving up at Paul and I. He wasn’t scurrying in an attempt to keep warm either. He was slowly walking home with the fresh, ice cold, winter air filling his lungs, as his long Norwegian legs strode easily through the B.S.
CUTLETS
by Alexis
There’s always been a formula to my family Hanukah Party, or any holiday we’ve spent with my mom’s twin sister and her family. Most family traditions are the kinds of things you look forward to. Unfortunately for me, ours seem to induce all kinds of stress.
Like all nights out, last year’s party began with getting dressed. But when I say dressed, I’m not talking Sunday best kind of dressed. My mom and aunt are a little like those stage moms in those creepy shows about five year olds in beauty pageants. I used to get yelled at if I left the house without lipstick on. And I was only six.
Next comes the Greeting. Or, if I’m being honest, the once-over. This is the moment when my aunt makes sure that her guest, after spending hours getting ready, is now hot enough to enter her house.
At last year’s Hanukah, she answered the door in a floor length, body-hugging sequin gown. She stood there in her six inch stilettos, blond hair pouffed out from a couple hours spent in curlers, and one hour under a hair dryer chair. After years of being considered “the frumpy” cousin, I had finally decided to step it up and invest in some heavy eye makeup and an outfit that would make even the cast of MTV’s the Jersey Shore blush. My aunt’s gaze moved from my knee-high boots, to my fishnet stockings, pausing at my butt-grazing skirt. I felt like a freshman under the appraising eyes of a senior boy. “Can I please come to your frat Party?” My off the shoulder top, was the clincher. “Well come in already! You’re letting in all the cold air. Don’t you love my dress?”
Cocktail hour that year had improved from years past, wherein the adults used to drink little glass cups of sherry and if we were lucky, the kids were allowed just a sip, or a schlug (as my grandma used to say, in Yiddish). This time, because now we were all legal, we had a choice of two beverages: Apple martinis or cosmos. I think my mom and my aunt saw a couple of reruns of Sex in the City, decided that it was cool to imbibe drinks with bright pretty colors in them, and declared these the signature drinks of the house. I requested a nice dirty martini before dinner. Good luck finding a jar of olives in any of our family’s houses. I had to settle for a gherkin pickle-tini. Not as bad as it sounds though.
While drinks were being served, someone set out the chopped liver. This is the caviar of the Jews.
Like vultures, my twenty-something year old cousins descended on it and started shoveling it into their mouths. It’s scary, seeing a 100-pound woman eat fistfuls of liver, and then scream at her mother that there weren’t enough gherkin pickles to put on top of her chopped liver and crackers combo. I spent those tense few minutes trying my best not to look like a pickle thief.
I like my chopped liver but I wouldn’t give away my first born for it. For some reason this is not acceptable.
“What’s wrong honey? You don’t like the liver?” my mom asked me that night. I was literally polishing off my third cracker.
“I do like it,” I said. “I just don’t want to ruin my appetite.”
“You used to love chopped liver,” she said wistfully, as if my self-control signaled some sort of loss of innocence, or a giant rift in the relationship between mother and daughter.
While people were still milling about, my aunt called my father, who is a physician, into the hallway to inspect my aunt’s latest medical mystery. This happened every year, but the questions just varied slightly.
“What do you think of this mole?”
“What should I do about the pain in my arm?”
“This rash just won’t go away.”
He was always happy to give his initial opinion, but always had to remind family members that his field is gynecology. Once, my aunt pulled my dad and my cousin, when she was about 12 into my cousin’s bedroom to ask my dad if he thought something was wrong with my cousin’s boobs.
“We think that one of them isn’t growing right,” my aunt said, pointing to the errant boob.
Luckily, this was something my dad could confidently speak about, though looking at your half naked niece is just a little awkward.
“Your daughter’s breasts are perfectly normal,” he assured them.
Of course, I thought my cousin’s lopsided boobs were hilarious and told her my dad was just being nice and that she should consider herself deformed until nature proved otherwise.
The final event of the evening, before dinner is served is always Show and Tell. This is when all the women gather in a bedroom and show each other their battle scars while they try on the latest clothes purchased at Loehmanns, Nordstrom’s or Bloomies. Lipo, tummy tucks, eye lifts, neck lifts, boob jobs, boob fixes, weight loss, weight gain, you name it.
Last year, while my cousin and I sprawled across my aunt’s comforter, we watched my aunt wiggle out of her gown to show us a giant black and blue mark along her thighs and butt.
“Wow, you can hardly see the scar,” I joked.
“Excuse me,” she said to me. “Not all of us have your mothers thighs.” “I go to the gym for two hours a day,” my mom said defensively.
“Yeah right, you don’t even break a sweat and spend the whole time flirting with Big Dave the towel guy. This is you on the treadmill,” I said, doing an imitation of my mom smiling like a beauty queen and walking at a leisurely pace. My mom just made a face.
I needed a dress to wear to an upcoming wedding, so my cousin suggested I try on one of hers. She offered up a sparkly Herve Leger number—aka the “Bandage Dress”. It was a peach colored floor length gown with a jeweled bodice. My cousin told me that when she wore it to a recent wedding, everyone couldn’t stop staring at her, rather than the bride. I was going to my husband’s aunt’s second wedding, so this was not the effect I was going for.
“Wow. It’s gorgeous,” I said, blinded by the rhinestones. “I, I couldn’t.”
“Yes! You have to! C’mon Lex! Just try it,” urged my cousin.
“Yeah, put it on!” my mom agreed.
“Don’t get lipstick on it,” my aunt cautioned.
“I don’t WEAR lipstick,” I reminded her.
After being manhandled by my cousin, mom and aunt, I finally was in the dress. I feared that if I took a breath of air, the whole thing would explode off of me. Now, I’d seen pictures of my cousin looking quite ravishing in this thing. She had the Malibu Barbie tan, the hair extensions, the body. I looked well….Like something was missing.
My aunt knew just what. She reached into her bra and pulled out a pair of two blobby things that looked like chicken cutlets.
“Try them, they’re fun.”
Fun? I wasn’t so sure. They jiggled in my hands and felt kind of warm. OK. I packed the cutlets into the dress and watched the smiles of approval form on everyone’s faces.
“Oh honey, now we’re talkin’,” my aunt said.
I officially was one of the girls. And now I actually had some ‘girls’ of my own. I had to admit, I looked pretty good.
“Wait!” said my mom. She fussed with my hair in order to give it some “height”. “Now you can show Jesse,” she said.
I did a Jessica Rabbit type walk into the living room, where my husband was sitting with the rest of the family. What would he think of Alexis 2.0? Or Alexis Boob Point 0?
Boom Chig a Boom Chig a Boom.
My dad told me I looked very nice.
“So?” I did a twirl. “What do you think of this, for your aunt’s wedding?”
The look of horror on Jesse’s face said it all. His brow furrowed in confusion as if he couldn’t register me + rhinestones + chiffon+ giant breasts.
I was pissed. “What? You don’t think I look pretty?”
“Hey, whatever you want to wear is fine with me,” he said, but I could tell it wasn’t.
No one could believe he didn’t like the dress. And even though Jesse had been worshipped earlier that evening for buying my aunt flowers and bringing a bucket of chopped liver from Zabars, dinner was a bit tense. He might as well have said he didn’t like my grandma’s chicken soup. My aunt, mom, cousin, even the cat, threw Jesse icy glares.
In the car on the way home, we talked about things. It was weird. I didn’t even really want to wear the dress. But I think for a moment, I wanted to feel connected to the women in my family. I don’t think Jesse hated the dress that much, or that he has a thing against chicken cutlets. In fact, he adores anything breaded and fried. I think he saw a glimpse of what I could have been had I stayed in New Jersey my whole life. Like he was scared of what these relatives of mine might do to me if I spent too much time alone with them.
We had our own Hanukah Party this year. First we got dressed in T-shirts and jeans. Then we greeted people at the door with shots of vodka. We had cocktails. The last part of the evening was just hanging out and chatting. Plastic surgery scars were completely optional.
Blood Stains
I know everyone thinks Angelina Jolie was the first to make adopting third world orphans fashionable. But I started doing it way before it became super trendy and infertile couples in Park Slope started toting them around like the latest handbag.
I felt so blessed that my parents had the good sense to escape India and make new lives for themselves in New Jersey. So I decided it was time for me to give back to the Motherland. A few years earlier, I adopted an Indian orphan named Kavita through Children International. Through the years Kavita and I had exchanged letters and heartwarming stories. She told me about going to school and making friends and I told her about the latest guy I had been dating or my most recent shoe acquisition.
Kavita had become practically like a daughter to me. I had been giving Kavita money to buy things like new school uniforms and pencils but I decided to take it to the next level. Why not host a charity party? I always read about celebrities attending benefits in US Weekly, so I figured I could do it too. A Bollywood themed party would be perfect!
There was only one problem. My sex life. My libido often got me into trouble, causing me to do things like forget to go work, oversleep and miss my college midterms, and lose my contacts in some guy’s apartment resulting in temporary blindness. So when a guy asked me to go out the night before my party, I should have known it would be major bad news. But he was soooo cute! He was English, an army vet, and dirty in a way that made me think he would be a good lay.
After getting sufficiently wasted off copious amounts of champagne and Jack Daniels, we headed back to my apartment, where we began to get it on.
Then began the litany of chatter.
“Baby you’re so hot.”
“Oh yeah fuck me harder.”
I’m not into chatty Cathys during sex. I talk enough during the day so I don’t need any more chit chat while someone is poking me. To get him to shut up I started pushing his head south. It took him a second, but he finally made his way down there. I waited awhile to feel something and after what seemed like an eternity, I began to wonder if he even knew what a clitoris was. I mean it wasn't like this was a "Where's Waldo?" situation. It was pretty straightforward.
I decided I needed to do something before I started chafing. I was just about to get on top when I noticed it.
“What is that?” I said pointing towards his arm.
“It’s a smurf.” He replied.
“Oh.” Any juice I had left was slowly drying.
Here I was fucking a guy with a smurf tattoo on his arm. And not just any smurf. An evil smurf. It looked like it had been drawn on by a retarded right-handed monkey. With the amount of money he wasted on that dumb tattoo, I could have bought Kavita a mansion in India! Kavita is starving while idiots like him are getting cartoon characters tattooed on them.
I knew right then and there this session in the sack was going south quick. I got on top to finish this up before I get completely turned off. Thankfully he came soon enough so I didn’t have to continue too long. We rolled over and lay there sweaty and panting. That’s when I started feeling the pangs of guilt. I had shirked my cooking duties for Kavita’s benefit party just so I could laid by someone who couldn’t find my lady parts and had poor taste in tattoos. It was then I began to ponder what exactly I was doing with my life. Unfortunately my deep thoughts were interrupted by Tom.
“Um did get your period? Because there’s blood everywhere.”
I looked down at the sheets. Even in the dark I could see the huge blood stains all over my black and white French toile duvet cover. Fuck! That thing was not cheap.
“Um, well I thought it was done. Sorry!” The tricky about periods, for those of you who don’t know, is that sometimes it seems like its gone, when in reality there’s just a little more left. Like a tube of toothpaste you have to squeeze really hard.
“I went down on you.”
Hmmm, I had been hoping he would forget that. “Well it’s kind of hot in a fucked up way isn’t it? Like a vampire. Vampires are really hot now.”
“Yeah I guess you’re right.”
He was so blasé I began to wonder if I could get him to do it again. I wanted to test my powers of persuasion even if he wasn’t really that good.
“Baby, that was soooooo good. Can you do it again?”
“You want me to go down on you again???”
“Oh yeah. C’mon honey it was so hot.”
He went down on me to quote 50 Cent, like a fat kid loves cake.
As my friend and co-worker TK would say, that’s the power of the pussy.
Unfortunately, the ol’ puss was a little too powerful because I couldn’t get Tom to leave the next morning. I had been hoping as always for a quick exit but it was not to be. I mean hello, I still had samosas and pakoras to prepare from scratch. I had even bought the ingredients yet! Kavita was going to be so disappointed if I didn’t come through. I had meant to cook last night but that all went to shit once Tom asked me out.
“Come on baby one more time,” he said. I found myself tempted in spite of the smurf.
Omigod, what was I going to do? Poor Kavita is sitting there in a shack in India somewhere depending on me and here I am trying to decide whether I should have sex or not. I was on a downward shame spiral.
I glanced over at my clock when he wasn’t looking. Oh my God it’s already 12:30. Shit! How was I going to clean, go grocery shopping, cook, paint my nails, and look fabulous by 7? I hadn’t even had my morning coffee yet.
I knew what I had to do.
“Sorry dude. But I seriously have to get ready for Kavita’s benefit party.” I got up, much to Tom’s chagrin, and started to get ready. He begged and pleaded, but I ignored him and threw his pants at him.
“OK, honey but I’m taking you out next week.”
“OK, sure whatever.”
I slammed the door behind him. I was so proud of myself for making the right decision. Now it was onto my party. It was 1pm. How was I going to make samosas from scratch? I sat there pondering my dilemma when it hit me. OMG, how could I be so retarded??? Jackson Heights!!! The plethora of cheap frozen Indian food would impress my whitey cracker friends who don’t know any better and it would save me time.
Next I looked over at the state of my comforter. A blood soaked comforter doesn’t seem too welcoming for guests. I tried washing it but it wasn’t working. I stuffed my still wet comforter into a garbage bag and put a decorative blanket on my bed.
Now that I sorted that out I was able to finally focus on Kavita and her benefit party. I went to Little India and loaded up on all kinds of frozen goodies, pre-packaged drinks, snack mixes, chutneys and ice cream.
Back home I taped a picture of Kavita to a piece of poster board and drew a sad face underneath. I figured I should also brush up on her story in case the guests ask. I pulled out my informational pamphlet and began reading.
Wait a minute Kavita is not an orphan?? She has a family? And they’re just kind of poor. Kind of poor? What the fuck is that? I felt betrayed. I want my adopted children to have no family except for me. I want them to be dirt fucking poor. Why would I want to help someone that was kind of poor? I felt kind of poor every time I went into Barneys and saw a pair of designer shoes I couldn’t afford.
For 11 seconds I pondered getting rid of that fake orphan Kavita and adopting a child for real from Sally Struthers. But then I thought fuck it. I cut Kavita off but I got a pink cactus instead. And by the way the party was fabulous.
Wrapping the Holidays
The winter after I turned nine, my mom took me shopping at the Macy’s department store downtown. I was a shy but curious kid, so, unlatching myself from her side, I wandered over to the cramped gift-wrapping room near the restrooms, and watched the middle-aged women who worked there bend over the slick red boxes with crisp white text. What they were doing was so interesting that the stained carpet, stuffy non-circulating air, and the spot that looked conspicuously like pee in the corner did not discourage. The women pulled swiftly on one of the rolls behind them and tugged at the metal cutter so there was just enough to wrap the box and neatly fold over a thin edge, which they’d tape in the middle and then at the ends. Upon special request, they’d create some sort of tri-fold-over design or special bow. Then they’d curl the ends of the ribbons with the blade of a scissor. I watched these women so carefully, studying their every move, and after begging my mom for extra gift boxes, I went home and practiced. I thought these women had one of the best jobs in the whole world.
I have always loved Christmas. One of the more peculiar things about this, perhaps, is that I’m Jewish. Maybe I’ve always loved Christmas especially because it would never really be mine. When I was younger (and even now, really) I always wormed my way into the households of my Christmas-celebrating friends.
When I was a kid, my older brother periodically teased me about many things, one of which was that I was adopted. Clearly a product of my Vietnamese mother and Jewish father, inheriting my dad’s smile and knees, and my mom’s eyes and coloring, I was still sensitive to my brother’s jabs. But I thought that maybe if I had been adopted, at least there might be a possibility that I could be a religion that actually celebrated Christmas.
My mom grew up Buddhist and Catholic, but neither of her parents was really religious. Maybe about ten years after she married my dad, she decided she’d convert to Judaism and that her children would be raised Jewish. Her conversion happened in time for me and my brother to attend Hebrew school, then get Bar/Bat Mitzvah’ed and finally, confirmed—which is like having another Bar Mitzvah at 15, without the party. Not only did we get confirmed but we were even Jew-y enough that both of us were actively involved in local Jewish youth groups and I happened to be President of mine. So, despite the Vietnamese bit-of-Catholic-bit-of-Buddhist blood, I grew up an uber-Jew.
And yet I liked everything about Christmas—from the nice-smelling trees to the trimmings to the twinkly lights and—of course, presents! I was an easily self-amused kid and not one that needed lots of presents (though I did get one every night for eight nights so who’s complaining?!) but what I really loved about presents was—you guessed it—their gift wrap: foily reds, glittery snowflakes, curly ribbon. I‘m the kind of person who still carefully unwraps gifts, peeling the tape free at the seams and neatly folds the paper to keep and use for later. Even before that fateful visit to the Macy’s gift wrapping counter, I’d had an interest in gift wrapping. My parents asked me to do all of their gift wrapping, and I became the “manager” of our gift-wrapping center, upstairs in the hall closet, which encompassed such activities as: organizing the paper (folded and in rolls), ribbon, bows, tissue paper, and boxes. I was so good at it—and it made me so happy—that I decided that’s what I wanted to do when I grew up; clearly this is when my aspirations to be a starving artist began.
That same day at Macy’s, after drooling not over all the department store goodies, but the paper, my mom and I walked by the big line of children waiting alongside their parents to see none other than Santa himself. I was not even sure if Santa was real (rumors flow in public school, you know) but I wanted to see him. I liked Christmas.
“Mom? Can we visit Santa?”
“No, honey, we don’t have time today. I’ve got to get a lot done.”
When she said “we don’t have time today” I knew it meant, “We’ll never have time. We don’t see Santa.”
“Pleeease?”
“No, Elicia. C’mon,” and she shooed me along to the garage, where our station wagon was parked.
I watched the kids in their best Christmas outfits, with red and green velvet, lace and gold trimming, waiting in line for a dream. A dream that would last perhaps thirty seconds, maybe involve fear, disappointment, excitement, or perhaps even be forgettable. But I wanted my chance for a dream, and I didn’t get it.
I spent Christmas Eve that year with a friend and her family, but my Christmas ended there. I never knew what happened during the middle of the night, when Santa and his reindeer were supposedly en route via sleigh. But then again, I never worried about being bad or good (for Santa at least), never feared coal in my stocking or empty space under the tree.
There were all kinds of details about Christmas, though, of which I was skeptical. On the fence about Santa’s very existence, I knew that if he did exist, he did not come in through the chimney. I was sure that my friends’ parents provided Santa Claus with a house key, and he’d come in quietly through the back door. As for reaching all those kids in one night, I thought it had something to do with different time zones, but I was not exactly sure how that worked. My parents never let me eat a lot of sweets because they insisted I’d get a stomachache, a fact which at some point I challenged them on, and lost. So if Santa ate all those cookies people left for him, he’d get a bellyache and wouldn’t be able to work. Just how Elijah would get drunk if he had accepted all that wine on Passover.
Everyone pretty much knew Hanukkah Harry and a Hanukkah bush was just made up so Jewish kids didn’t feel left out, but the more I thought about it, I was not left out. I got to celebrate Christmas Eve with my friends, and Hanukkah was not so bad. It was good, in fact. I got presents from my parents, who witnessed how I behaved on a daily basis. They did not have to report to a third party in the North Pole and I did not have to fear coal in my stocking or elves botching up my toys. My gifts came straight from Hasbro! And since I got to provide my parents with a wish list and even go shopping with them for some of my gifts, I knew I’d be happy with them. I never received underwear or socks or lip-gloss. And I even got to wrap some of my own presents, which was probably one of the best parts. These gifts were still a nice surprise every night that Hanukkah, when, after we lit the candles and said the prayers, my brother and I scurried around the house trying to figure out where my parents had hid them.
And as we sat on the floor, my brother tearing his gift open eagerly, and me carefully opening mine at the seams, I realized that however my holiday was wrapped, the gift inside was still love.
