Housebroken Read online

  A CONVERSATION WITH MY FRIEND MARY

  ME: How are you, Mary?

  MARY: I found mice shit in my shoes.

  ME: Do your neighbors have chickens?

  MARY: Yes.

  A CONVERSATION WITH MY FRIEND VALERIE

  ME: How are you, Val?

  VALERIE: My husband saw a rat in our kitchen.

  ME: Do your neighbors have chickens?

  VALERIE: Yes.

  A CONVERSATION WITH MY FRIEND COLLEEN

  ME: How are you, Colleen?

  COLLEEN: I had chickens once. They were torn limb from wing by raccoons.

  ME: You invited murder into your backyard. I’m sorry, that is not sad. But please remember to make sure to take whatever tortilla chip you touch. You have mouse shit hands. And most likely the hantavirus. Again, please stop touching all the chips.

  So yes, the thought of our new potential neighbors was a bit of a worry spot for me, but I tried not to let it show when I talked to Freddie. I wanted her to be excited for her new home and not dwell on the sadness that would come with leaving the house she had raised her children and grandchildren in. It was important to me that she have a really good experience moving into her new place.

  “It’s right around the corner from the good coffee shop and the yarn store,” she said happily. “Now I can walk there!”

  “That is awesome!” I said, nodding and smiling. “Please don’t sell the house to hippies. Patchouli makes me nauseous. So does incense. And dream catchers.”

  Freddie laughed. “The backyard is so big,” she added. “We’re going to build Ed an art studio back there.”

  “That is perfect!” I agreed. “And don’t sell the house to someone who might rent it to college kids.”

  “The house is such a manageable size, I can clean it in about a half an hour!” she exclaimed.

  “No way!” I chimed in. “Or to people with small children. Don’t sell to people with small children. Older children or no children would be great.”

  “And did I tell you it’s a stucco house?” she added. “That’s not very common in Oregon.”

  “If you could find a nice, quiet retired couple, that would work out well,” I suggested. “Without pets. Birds would be fine. As long as they don’t put them out on the deck. Which is three feet from my bedroom window.”

  “I can’t wait for you to come over and see it,” she said with a wide, happy smile.

  “A professor would be good,” I suggested. “But not one from the folklore department. Everyone there is nuts.”

  Freddie kept on smiling.

  I tried to, too.

  “And try to get a good cook, if you can,” I added. “Someone who brings vegan things or just carrots to the Fourth of July potluck won’t go over well, I’m afraid. And not someone who thinks they make the best potato salad. We already have three of those, even though mine is clearly the winner. We could really use a skilled baker to round things out. A really good tiramisu would be excellent. Did I forget to mention no vegans?”

  “No,” Freddie answered. “You didn’t.”

  A few weeks later the For Sale sign went up in Freddie’s yard, the open houses began, and the prospective neighbors came.

  “Ew,” my husband said as we peered out from behind the curtains, watching them descend on the house. “God, I hope we don’t get the one in the convertible Mercedes!”

  “Oh my god,” I agreed. “Meet me on the deck!”

  We got out there in just enough time for the Mercedes people to step foot into Freddie’s backyard.

  “HONEY!” I yelled to my husband, who was ten inches from me. “That damn hobo pooped on our deck again!!”

  “I bet he’s still living in our next-door neighbors’ bushes! The neighbors with the house for sale!” my husband yelled back.

  “Perfect!” I whispered. “Wait! They’re fleeing, but a van just pulled up with a rainbow painted on the side. Throw on that blue short-sleeved shirt I bought you and come back out here!”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “There is no time for questions when you have urban farmers entering the premises! Just do it!” I hissed.

  Just as the van owners, both with waist-long stringy gray hair, passed an open window in Freddie’s living room, I shouted, “Honey! How many people did you arrest on your shift today? I hope you got to shoot at a criminal! I love being married to a cop!”

  Our next challenge was trying to anticipate scenarios and prepare for them before they actually occurred, like getting our telescope set up and clearly pointed toward Freddie’s house should we see anyone undesirable, like people who looked like they might own a small yippy dog or raise their own lamb for Easter dinner. If I could have found a life-sized cutout of Gladys Kravitz, it would still be propped up in my window. But we barely had time to get the telescope up on three legs before Freddie came over with the news that she had sold the house.

  “To a family?” I exclaimed, feeling for a soft place behind me to collapse. “I thought we covered that.”

  “They look very cute, and they sent me a picture of themselves sitting on our front porch,” she explained. “They look like the house was made for them. All of the children are adorable.”

  “All?” I said, putting my face in my hands. “How many?”

  “I think three altogether,” she replied. “I think you’ll really like them!”

  Four weeks later, Freddie and Ed had completely moved into their new stucco home with the huge backyard, and I had new neighbors. The three kids were running around the yard laughing when I walked up to their front door with a bunch of basil I had just pulled from my garden.

  They were new to Oregon, just like we had been ten years before, and I could not have been more thankful that there wasn’t a dream catcher or an item of tie-dye in sight. Mom drove a van, but it was a Toyota, not a Volkswagen, and as we made our introductions, the middle kid, a boy, ran over to the front porch where we were standing and tattled on his younger sister. “Mom! Lily is peeing on the side of the house!”

  My new neighbor laughed exasperatedly, not the kind of laugh that said it was great that her kid was communing with nature or that it was adorable, but that her kid just peed on the side of the house and there wasn’t much she could do about it now. I liked that.

  “My house is a mess,” she explained with a smile. “And I could say that it’s just because we’re moving in, but it’s always going to look this way!”

  “My house looks just like yours but I don’t have kids,” I said, and we both laughed. “And I’ll tell you right now, although you are mainly going to see me in my bathrobe, I am not an alcoholic. Anymore.”

  “I wear mine when I take the kids to school,” she divulged, and that’s when I decided I liked our new family, a lot.

  “Can we have Killer Burgers for dinner tonight?” Lily said as she ran around the corner from where she had just peed.

  Then I decided that I loved them.

  “I’m just so glad you didn’t turn out to be the people with the rainbow-painted van,” I said. “I was terrified they’d be our new neighbors. They looked like they were going to set up a chicken coop before they unpacked their dishes!”

  My new neighbor laughed. “No, we didn’t bring chickens with us all the way from Missouri,” she said. “But I think we’re going to get some.”

  “OH GOD PLEASE DON’T,” I said before I even knew I was saying it. “They bring mice with them that poop in your shoes.”

  “Really?” my new neighbor said. “I never heard that.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “I swear it’s true. I’ve done research. Everyone I know who has mice also has a neighbor with chickens.”

  She just nodded.

  “Plus we have predators,” I felt compelled to add, and pointed up toward a tree. “Raccoons.”

  “Freddie told us they were hit by a car,” my neighbor replied.

  “They got better,” I said, nodding.

  She nodded, too.


  “And there are possums,” I layered. “Possums have a hundred teeth. It will look like the Manson Family had a pillow fight back there.”

  Then it got quiet, despite the kids still laughing in the yard.

  “How about if I buy you eggs every week?” I suggested. “I can even hide them in little spots all over your backyard like real chickens!”

  My neighbor politely smiled and said nothing.

  “Well, enjoy the basil,” I said as I tried to smile again, and then walked back to my own house three feet away, wondering if people sold raccoons on Craigslist.

  When I felt my big toe hit the cold water, I knew I had done something bad.

  Really bad.

  Awfully, truly, disastrously bad.

  Why? I whined to myself. Why wasn’t I paying attention? And why do I have to be naked?

  Three days before, I had arrived in New York full of anticipation and excitement, eager to see what fun my trip with my friends Amy Si and Amy Se would bring. Since then, I had twirled a path of destruction and chaos that only a bad guest can.

  I know I have the predilection to ruin things with a glance, obliterate an object with a step, and pulverize anything with a slight miscalculation. I try to restrain my Godzilla-like tendencies, but I’m fighting a losing battle, even without a swishing tail.

  The more I try to be a good guest, the more I end up being not only a bad guest, but the reigning winner in the Bad Guest Hall of Fame. I bring my own booze so I don’t drink yours. I bring my own food, too, especially salty snacks. I swear I will never go through your drawers. I will take you out to dinner. I will do your dishes. I will make my bed every day and try to control the encroaching spread of my possessions into your living area.

  But I know myself better than that.

  If I come to your house, I will spill a drink within the first ten minutes I am there. It doesn’t matter if it’s my drink or someone else’s, my hands will find it and knock it over, especially if your table is set with heirloom linen from the old country or a brand-new, no-discounts-applied tablecloth from Gracious Home. If you have a pet, especially a small one or a kitten or puppy, I will terrify it by stepping on it before I see it and scar it forever. If I stay at your house for longer than twenty-four hours, I will clog your toilet just by peeing. And if I were dating you, the issue would be so bad that I would need to call you for help. Then you would break up with me.

  And I totally get it.

  My mother will be the first one to tell you what a horrible guest I am, even though I don’t particularly consider myself a guest in my parents’ house. Anywhere I may potentially live when I become broke enough doesn’t meet the requirements, especially if at fifty, I still have a curfew of when I need to be “home.”

  Typically, every time I reenter the house after being away from it for an hour or two, I will open the front door and hear my mother say, “Laurie? Could you not leave your towel over the curtain rod? You’re going to bring that whole goddamned thing down. It only stays up like that because of pressure and gravity.”

  “Laurie? Did you use the Keurig today? Because now it won’t work.”

  “Laurie? Did you park on the wrong side of the street? Dad says you’re going to get a ticket.”

  “Laurie? Could you please—” (gagging sounds) “There was a—” (more gagging sounds) “Oh my god. Oh my god—” (big gag) “you left a hair on the sink!”

  “Laurie? There was a Hershey’s chocolate Kiss right here on the counter. Did you see it?”

  “Laurie? Did you leave a doody mark on the seat of the toilet?”

  Yes. She actually asked me that. I’m not going to say who I suspected, but let me just mention that I had an eight-year-old nephew at the time who was recently learning to take care of things for himself.

  The phone calls do not stop when I get home. I will inevitably open the front door after coming home from the airport to see that I have a message on my answering machine:

  “Laurie? What is this? It’s pink— It’s not pink? What the hell color is it then? Dad says it’s peach. I don’t think it’s peach. You’re crazy, this is peach? Go back upstairs. I’m leaving a message, Jimmy. Anyway, your father found it in your room and we think it may be your underwear. It’s long for underwear, though. It looks like it has legs. At first Dad thought it was a pile of skin. Jimmy, I said go back upstairs. Anyway, it’s here. In case you are missing…skin. Yeah. I really don’t like touching it. Don’t ask me to mail it. I’m not sending underwear through the mail. That’s illegal.”

  And after the following visit:

  “Laurie? You left your girdle here again. At least this time Dad didn’t try to kill it. It was behind the bed. Why are you throwing a girdle around in your bedroom? I don’t understand what you were doing in there. I think that’s very weird.”

  Now I hide a pair of Spanx somewhere in my parents’ house every time I visit, and whoever finds it wins a prize.

  But in New York, I swore I wouldn’t leave anything behind, including hairs and broken shower curtain rods. I was not going to break, squash, or set anything on fire during my vacation, especially since Amy Si and I were staying at Amy Se’s recently purchased apartment for a portion of the time.

  Amy Si and Amy Se, by the way, have been best friends since first grade, as the teacher had them sit in alphabetical order, and both of their last names begin with S. To distinguish one from another, we add Si and Se, the next letter in both of their respective names, to avoid confusion and unnecessary blame.

  Since Amy Si was a judge for a journalism award that takes place in a very swanky club in midtown, the foundation that hosts it provides complimentary quarters for three nights, which she shares with me because I tag along. It is the kind of place that makes me feel like a whore as soon as I walk into the lobby. I am not wearing pearls, I am not carrying Louis Vuitton luggage, and I am happy to pull my little suitcase behind me and not hand it over to the bellhop who desperately grabs for it, even though I just recently read in a vintage etiquette book that ladies should not carry their own luggage through hotel lobbies, lest they look like, well, a whore. I do not fit in here, and I never will.

  One night, while staying at the club, I tried to hail a cab in the rain. I stepped off the curb where I didn’t know there was a curb, fell right into the street, and when I got up, I had a big, round wet mark on my belly the size of a medium pizza.

  “Oh! She’s down!” the aging bellhop who watched the whole thing said to Amy Si, who was waiting inside. “One minute she was there, and the next it was like she was swallowed by a sinkhole.”

  But that was fine. I eventually gave him a dollar for hailing a cab while I wiped blood off of my knee.

  I’m not exactly sure if it happened when I fell down, but the next day, I noticed a flopping noise coming from my foot that resulted in the discovery that the sole of my shoe had completely separated from the top. I found some Gorilla Glue at a nearby hardware store and tried to fix it, but unless I was going to stand on one foot for the next twenty minutes, the glue wasn’t going to hold. I flopped around for the rest of the day, and that night I reapplied the glue and held it down with the leg of the nightstand on top of it. I am crafty that way. The next morning, Amy Si and I got up, had coffee and croissants, and mapped out all the places where we wanted to eat something that day. An hour later, we were showered and Amy Si was putting the finishing touches on her makeup in the bathroom, so I lifted the nightstand off my shoe and bent over to pick it up to see if the glue had held, but the shoe was ripped right out of my hand. I grabbed it again, and one more time, my hand came up empty.

  Trying to figure out what was going on, I bent over to get a really good grip this time, and that’s when I saw what looked like yellow goo bubbling out from my shoe and trailing all the way to the carpet.

  Shit, I said to myself, then pulled as hard as I could on the shoe but it wasn’t going anywhere. It was staying put, the sole of my shoe glued determinedly to the carpet.
The Gorilla Glue had bubbled and expanded, growing to twice its size, and looking like honeycomb was bursting out of my shoe. I yanked again, no luck. I tried to shake it loose, but this was a fight I wasn’t going to win without a knife.

  Thank god for croissants, room service, and cutlery.

  While Amy Si was still working on her eye shadow, I sawed away at that carpet like it was a leg that was trapped under a dislodged boulder and I was starting to get hungry.

  Amy Si opened the door to find me sprawled out on the floor, working up a sweat.

  “Are you doing yoga?” she asked incredulously.

  “No,” I huffed. “I glued my shoe to the carpet. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure that you can’t tell so that you don’t get charged for replacing the rug.”

  “Um,” Amy Si said.

  “I don’t have a choice, Amy,” I said as I stopped sawing and looked up at her. “These are the only shoes I brought! I have to free them!”

  She watched, not saying anything, as I chopped away at the carpet and freed the shoe, leaving a defiant bald spot where the attachment had been.

  “Look,” I said happily as I moved the leg of the nightstand over to cover the gaping patch of missing carpet. “You can’t even tell!”

  Amy opened her mouth and stayed like that for a long time until she said, “We might have to rearrange the room in order for no one to notice.”

  “I’m sure hundreds of Republicans have done very dirty things on this rug. It’s time they replaced it anyway.”

  The next day, with the bed in our room moved over as far as it would go, we checked out of the club and brought all of our stuff over to Amy Se’s.

  “Please don’t glue anything at Amy Se’s,” she said. “In fact, I’m going to need to hang on to that bottle until you leave for the airport.”

  Amy Se’s new apartment was exquisite. Right off of Central Park West, it was in a gorgeous Art Deco building with beautiful windows, a gleaming wood floor, and a terrace that looked over her part of New York.