Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner (20 page)

Maybe someday they’ll be grown-ups, singing in their own kitchens, making their own Bolognese sauces, and recalling what was, to that point, the greatest night in their own lives.

Yet I can’t help but comment to Joanna, “Rick Springfield is currently performing at Indian casinos. How mad is he right about now?”

I slip out after the first encore. Though I’d like to see the much-hyped production number when Artie finally stands up from his wheelchair and safety-dances, my desire to exit the parking lot expediently is stronger.

When I get home, I tell Fletch all about the show and he’s the one who insists we raise a glass to my friend’s dad Mr. Moon.

Even though it’s thirty years later, he’s still earned it.

A month later, I find out one day too late that Rick Springfield himself played my little town’s fireworks celebration on the Fourth of July.

Part of me kicked myself for not reading the local paper sooner, and part of me was glad to have missed it.

I wonder, would I have still swooned at the sight of him, willing to commit a very public homicide just to stand closer to him? Or would I have just felt so damn old seeing him after all this time?

Ultimately, the idea of my first rock god performing for a pittance on a small festival stage breaks my heart.

Yet knowing that his songs—or at least the most important one—can still bring an entire arena to its feet, makes me feel better.

Still crazy for you, Dr. Noah Drake.

Rock on.

“I
’ve got it!”

I dash down the stairs to the door, shoving pushy, barky dogs out of the way before grabbing money off the bookshelf.

I slip out the door to trade the cash for a brown paper bag from which exotic spices emanate. The restaurant must be busy tonight; the owner usually delivers the order himself, largely because his young daughter is in love with Libby and she likes to ride along. But that’s no surprise; every little girl loves Libby.

Physically, there’s not much difference between Maisy and Libby—they both have strong, stocky bodies and big, square heads. Maisy with her super-smiley face and tan and white coloring actually looks less foreboding than Libby, but Maisy isn’t nearly as popular with the Elmo set. Being around Maisy is like strolling a Moroccan souk—one second, you’re minding your own business, innocently perusing a lovely display of woven wicker
baskets, and the next, BAM! A cobra pops out ninja-style and attaches to your face.

Granted Maisy’s a kisser,
never
a biter, but it’s really hard to explain the difference to a wailing kindergartner. [
We give families an extensive briefing before they’re even allowed to meet the dogs. Regardless of warnings, the kids are always, “I love doggie kisses!” but they fail to anticipate the French part.
]

Libby’s equally enthusiastic, yet more gentle. Earlier this summer my friend Becca was over with her family. We kept the dogs inside for a while because we knew her little girl was terrified of them. Flash forward an hour and an introduction—instead of swimming, her daughter spent the afternoon leading Libby around with her finger looped through her collar, while Libby obeyed every command given to her.

What can I say? Libby’s a charmer.

Of course, later that night, Libby counter-surfed herself a packet of lightbulbs, chewing everything to shards on the kitchen rug. [
She was fine. The only one who ended up bleeding was me when I cleaned up the mess.
]

The next day I received a thank-you note from Becca reading,
“My daughter wants a dog. Your dog. Beware a preschooler in princess shoes scaling the fence to dognap.”
So it’s no surprise that the daughter of the Thai restaurateur always wants to see the puppy. Libby has that kind of effect on kids.

The Thai place also knows us because it’s pretty much the only delivery we order. When we lived in the city, we could get every possible variety of ethnic foods, from Afghan to Vietnamese. But the unfortunate trade-off for safe streets and an outstanding
public school system is that there are almost no decent restaurants. We tried ten different, disgusting delivery joints [
Although it’s difficult to ruin a pizza, it can be done.
] until we found the Thai/Japanese place and now we’re frequent fliers.

I bring the bag upstairs because we’re allowed to eat in the TV room only on delivery nights. Granted, the worst that can happen is a small soy sauce spill, yet we’ve created an elaborate system of carpet-saving checks and balances, largely because Libby’s wreaked such havoc on them. When we first adopted her, we called her Whizzy Libby and The Bladder o’ Doom.

With a lot of training—A LOT—she’s better about holding it. However, the more she learns to control her elimination, the more she acts out in other carpet-hating ways. Like eating pens. And magic markers. And bottles of Lincoln Park After Dark nail polish.

I settle in and queue up the DVR. “
Burn Notice
okay?” [
If you haven’t already figured it out, Michael Westen is so the new Jack Bauer.
]

“Definitely,” Fletch replies, systematically unloading the bag. He first lays out packets of soy sauce, napkins, and chopsticks before opening containers and inspecting their contents. “What’d we get? Tempura—mmm, Pad Thai with chicken, that’s me, some jasmine rice, and… no. Jen, what is wrong with you?”

He’s referring to the Panang Thai Curry, otherwise known as my kryptonite.

The thing is with Superman?

He knew he couldn’t handle kryptonite.

He hated kryptonite.

He actively avoided kryptonite.

He would never willingly order kryptonite because he was
smart enough to know that kryptonite would cause him to spend the entire night crying on the toilet, cursing the state of his bunghole. Week after week after week.

That’s when Libby dashes into the room, proudly carrying a plastic toilet brush in her mouth.

“It is truly impossible for you to learn, isn’t it?” he asks. Whether he’s directing this comment to me or the dog is yet to be determined.

I don’t reply. Instead, I take the brush back to the bathroom while Libby trots along beside me. Then I point to the brush and tell her, “Leave it!”

What I don’t mention is that Mama’s probably going to need this later.

Panang Thai Curry seems innocuous enough because it’s mostly coconut milk and there’s barely any chili powder in it. Plus, it’s indescribably delicious because of the basil and red pepper, with a hint of lime. The addition of fish sauce sounds grotesque, but that’s what gives it such depth of flavor.

The first time I ate it I tried to use a fork and I dripped it all over the place, which is one of the reasons we [
Read: Fletch.
] instituted the We Eat Upstairs Only on Delivery Night rule. Also, when I finished I was covered in broth. Fletch said I looked liked I’d been through a curry car wash.

I ordered the dish because it sounded like a little adventure for my mouth. Plus I could secretly congratulate myself for moving so
far away from the cheeseburger-and-orange-soda comfort zone of my youth. Through college and my early professional years, I didn’t have the budget to improve my palate and enjoyed many, many presweetened-cereal-based meals. But after almost passing out in Target after yet another blood sugar spike, I had to accept that there’s more to life than empty carbs.

Also, I’ve talked enough smack about the employees at the Elston Target and it’s not in my best interest to be unconscious around them.

Almost as soon as I discovered a deep and abiding love for Panang Thai Curry, I discovered that I can’t digest it. Maybe I don’t have a tolerance for so much spice or it may be that I ruined my colon from years and years of running Artificial Red Dye #7 through it. Regardless, I need to cease and desist with the Panang Thai Curry because I’m murdering myself from the inside out.

And yet I can’t stop myself from stuffing it in my mouth, much like Libby can’t help but chew up my cordless mouse every time I accidentally leave my office door open.

It’s a problem.

For both of us.

But your husband is.

So when he instructs the restaurant owner to never deliver Panang Thai Curry ever again, you are not allowed to divorce him because he’s only trying to save your dumb ass.

Literally.

Now if he could keep the dog from pulling up the carpet in the family room, you’ll all be in excellent shape.

W
hen I thought about adult life when I was a kid, I imagined cool stuff, like gambling in the casinos of Monte Carlo, zipping around winding mountain roads in my Aston Martin convertible, and taking top secret meetings in underground lairs.

Basically I thought all grown-ups were James Bond.

At no point did I realize the pinnacle of my own personal quest for maturity would entail this: sitting across a real dining room table in an actual dining room, debating the merits of whole versus term life insurance.

Talk to me five years ago and I’d have laughed at the thought not only of voluntarily inviting in the insurance agent but sitting in a room with him where—by design—it’s impossible to eat dinner and watch
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
at the same time.