Family - The Ties That Bind...And Gag! (5 page)

When Donna Reed first invented the dinner hour, it was designed to be a gathering place for the family, where they would sit around and exchange pleasantries about the asparagus.

Our family, when we got together, sounded like we were attending a lynching.

The problem at family dinners is that no one can agree on what is considered to be a “fit topic to discuss at dinner time.” Children tend to talk about things that take away your interest in food—and living. At one meal alone, I heard a description of the underside of the tongue, a rumor of what popular food contained rats' nostrils, what pureed peas remind you of when you look at them from a distance, and what happens to a dog's stool when he eats leftover chicken.

Men prefer to talk about money. Within minutes they can make you feel guilty for asking for seconds on the salt. They also take the opportunity to lay on the family their famous lectures on “An 'E' on the gas gauge does not mean evacuate,” “Don't reach out and touch somebody unless it's collect,” and my all-time favorite, “Why do we have to straighten his teeth? He never smiles anyway.”

Mothers use the togetherness of the meal to discuss the sins children committed in their diapers. (“No one ever amounted to anything who made a bed with a coat hanger.”)

As a cook, I don't know how much longer I could have endured the eating habits of my family. I discovered the more teeth the kid had, the less he chewed. They never ate anything that was green or was contained in a sack with their name on it. They never ate the same cereal twice and believed in their hearts that the dog got better food than they did.

Eventually, even my husband and I were seduced by the convenience of dining out. No wonder I loved it. I had never seen so many people in my life before. As we drove up to a restaurant with our friends, a valet opened our car door and said, “Hi, my name is Hal and I'll park your car. Have a good dinner.”

I said, “Thank you, Hal. I'm Erma and this is my husband, Bill, and our friends, Dick and Bernice.”

Inside, after we were seated, a young woman appeared and said, “Good evening. My name is Wendy, and I'm your cocktail waitress. What could I get you this evening?”

I introduced all of us again and we ordered something from the bar. My husband leaned over and said, “So, Dick, what's happening?”

A waiter brought a basket of bread to our table and said, “Good evening, folks. I'm Brick and these are our special toasted garlic rounds with just a hint of Parmesan and fresh parsley. If you need more, yell. Enjoy.”

“Thanks, Brick,” my husband said. “So, what's happening, Dick?”

Another waiter appeared and said, "Hello, I'm Stud and I'll be your waiter for this evening. I'd like to interrupt for just a minute to tell you about our specials this evening. The chef has prepared osso buco. This is made from knuckle of veal, garlic, chicken sauce, white wine, tomato paste, and anchovy fillets finely chopped.

"The catch of the day is smoked cod's roe, which the chef makes into tarama salata smothered with black olives, heavy cream, lemon, and olive oil.

“The soup of the day is everyone's favorite, watercress and apple, with just a pinch of curry. I'll give you a minute to decide.”

Numbly, we looked at one another. His monologue had lasted longer than most marriages.

“So, Dick, what's happening with you?” my husband began again.

Wendy reappeared and said, “Refills, anyone?”

We shook our heads. Stud followed her to the table and said, “Are we ready to order now?”

No sooner had Dick and Bernice agreed to share the salad than a table appeared and Stud narrated the drama of the birth of a Caesar salad like a midwife.

Meanwhile, Frank (the chef) appeared with a naked fish, which he stuck under my nose for approval. (Thank God I didn't order the strangled duck!) After the salad table came another table with flames leaping off it, and Stud electrified us with his commentary on sauce for the Moroccan meatballs.

Arthur appeared with a key around his neck and a book that weighed 36 pounds and introduced himself as our wine steward. I introduced him to Bill, Dick, and Bernice.

When the entrees were placed before us, no one dared touch his food until he had gone through the Black Pepper Experience. Now, I don't pretend to understand when pepper got to be right up there behind frankincense and myrrh, but it is. That's when Stud came over to the table with a pepper mill the size of a piano leg (the bigger the pepper mill... the larger the check) and said, “Pepper?”

All the conversation came to a halt while we thought about what our answers would be when it came to us. I hesitated a moment and then said, “Yes, please.” Stud watched my hand, waiting for me to orchestrate how much and the precise moment to stop.

The weird part of this is that not one grain of pepper comes out of the mill. (It's sorta like watching the first piece of luggage come off a carousel in airport baggage. Ever see anyone claim it? Of course you haven't. Because it doesn't belong to anyone, that's why.)

As Brick cleared the table, Stud appeared with his dessert cart and Wendy pouted openly when no one wanted a liqueur. I wanted coffee, but if we stayed any longer, I'd have been too old to lift the cup.

We said good-bye to Hal, Wendy, Brick, Stud, Frank, and Arthur. We were exhausted.

I suppose someday the home-cooked meal may return. When? Maybe when they come out with Phyllis Diller's fantasy: a stove that flushes. Who knows?

As one of the kids rummaged in the refrigerator, he said, “What's this?”

“It's celery and it's good for you.”

He said, “If it's so great, then how come it never danced on television?”

I couldn't answer him.

TECHNOLOGY'S COMING ...

TECHNOLOGY'S COMING

Friday: 8 p.m.

The younger son made his move first. He jumped up from the table and said, “I've gotta get my laundry started or I can't go out. What time is it?”

I looked at my watch. “It's 6 a.m. in Hamburg, Germany, if that helps.”

“Why do you know the time in Hamburg, Mom?”

“Because that is where the watch was made and set and the directions for resetting it are written in German.”

“The clock on the oven says it's 11.”

“That's wrong,” said my husband. “Your mother can't see what she's twirling half the time without her glasses and sometimes when she sets the timer, she resets the clock.”

“And the one on the VCR?” he asked.

“... is always 12 and blinking,” I said, “because your father screwed up between steps two and five when the power went out.”

“God, Mom, you and Dad are out of it. It's like the Twight Zone. How do you two function around here? I'd be lost without technology. This little beeper,” he said, patting his shirt pocket, ”keeps me in touch with the world."

“He's right, Mom,” said our daughter, “you oughta have one of those signals attached to your car keys and your glasses. Think of the time you could save.”

It was a subject I hated.

“Maybe we should have tranquilized you with a dart and fitted you with a beeper to track your migratory habits when you were seventeen and we'd have all slept better,” I snapped.

“Mom, why do you resist the twenty-first century? You don't even have a home computer.”

“I don't need a home computer. What would I do with it?”

“A lot of things. You could store all your personal documents in one place ... your marriage license, your insurance policies, your warranties. Just think, you and Dad could punch up your insurance policies in seconds.”

“We could die from the excitement,” I said.

“You could even use a copier around here,” piped in her brother, “to duplicate all of our medical records and your dental bills, not to mention a Christmas newsletter.”

“We need a copier like the Osmonds need a cavity fighter,” I said.

“She's hopeless,” they shrugged.

I sat there alone, toying with my coffee. They had told me what I didn't want to hear. Their father and I were casualties in the war of automation. Why did we resist it? Maybe because there was a time when there weren't enough hours in the day to fulfill all the skills of my job description. I was chauffeur, cook, nurse, decorator, financier, psychologist, and social director. I was important. All the slick magazines said so.

Slowly but steadily I was replaced by beeps, switches, flashing lights, electronic devices, and monotone voices. In the beginning, I taught my children how to tie their shoes and button and zip their clothing. Then along came Velcro tabs on their shoes and on their clothes where buttons and zippers used to be.

I used to tell them how to place an emergency call to Grandma if they needed her. Now it was a matter of pushing a button on a memory phone and it was done for them.

I used to enlighten them about the stove. I showed them how to turn it on and off so they wouldn't get burned. They don't have stoves anymore. They have microwave ovens that have little buttons to push and are cool to the touch.

At one time I pulled them on my lap and together we traced our fingers across the printed page as I read to them. I don't read anymore. All they have to do is insert book cassettes into their stereos and hear them read by professionals.

I have been replaced by ouchless adhesive bandages, typewriters that correct their spelling, color-coded wardrobes, and computers that praise them when they get the right answers. The future is here.

The kids are wrong. It isn't that we don't give technology a chance. We use the VCR. True, it was in our home for a full six months before we turned it on.

From time to time my husband would leaf through the manual with an intensity usually reserved for a nervous flier reading about the evacuation procedures on an aircraft. Then one day he said, “Since we are going out to dinner, I am going to tape 'Dallas' so we can watch it later.”

I put my hand over his. “I want you to know that whatever happens, I think you're the bravest man I have ever met.”

Looking back, that was the beginning of our march against time.

There are 24 hours in every day. I used to watch television 6 hours and 44 minutes a day, leaving me with 17 hours and 16 minutes.

After I scheduled 7 hours and 5 minutes to sleep and 2 hours and 15 minutes to eat, it only left me with 7 hours and 56 minutes to do my job.

Then we got cable television and what with the news channel, first-run movies, MTV, country western, spiritual, entertainment, and sports, my viewing cut into my workday. The VCR was supposed to solve our problem.

But when do you watch the shows you've taped?

I took time away from my 2 hours and 15 minutes eating time by eating in front of the TV set. Naturally, we began to buy cassettes to fit the VCR. I bought Jane Fonda so I could get my body into shape. However, I had to take time away from my 7 hours and 5 minutes of sleeping to do it.

On my birthday, a son rented two movies as a present. I panicked. They had to be viewed by 10 a.m. the next morning. Already I had a stack of shows that had been taped that I hadn't had time to view. I put the movies ahead of the tapes, rescheduled Jane Fonda for 4 a.m., and watched Terms of Endearment and Easy Money at 5 and 7 a.m. It was close but I made it.

Other scheduling problems were not so easily solved. Before dinner one night, I approached the VCR with my Julia Child cassette. My husband was watching Dan Rather. When I asked him to watch Dan in the bedroom, he said it wouldn't do any good as he was taping a M*A*S*H rerun on the other channel. I went into the kitchen, turned on another set, and watched Wheel of Fortune, and we didn't eat until 9:30 in front of Magnum P.I.

As the weeks go on, I feel the pressure more and more. With the VCR taping shows day and night, with my husband running from room to room, channel-searching to see what we're missing, the new cassettes on everything from how to repair your plumbing to how to be more assertive, the new films and video music, we're falling behind.

Already we're beginning to cut comers. We've got 60 Minutes down to 30, 20/20 to 10/10, and anything on World War II we fast-forward because we know the ending.

But the cassettes are winning. We both know that. It's only a matter of time.

Our son returned to the kitchen with his father's running watch in his hand. “I don't believe you, Dad. You've been telling time by your memory/recall lap 4, total time. Here, let me show you how it works. You've got a multimode chronograph and multimode countdown timer with one-tenth second accuracy.”

I watched the two of them hunched over the watch as my son patiently explained the mechanism.

Had it been twenty-some years since they had huddled over the kitchen table together and my husband brought forth the brand-new watch for his son and taught him how to tell time? They had “walked through” all the parts when they got down to the basics. When the big hand pointed toward the refrigerator and the small hand was toward the stove, it was 6 o'clock and time to eat. When the big hand was toward the mixer and the little hand was pointed toward the portable television set, it was time to go to bed.

If the kid went into a home or building where the furniture was not positioned in the same spot as our kitchen, he was to go to the nearest person and ask, “What time is it?”

With deft fingers, our son twisted dials and adjusted minute screws on the watch. My husband watched with admiration and awe. He had come a long way since that day twenty years ago at the kitchen table.

Minutes later, “Mr. Technology” yelled from the utility room, “Mom, how do you turn the washer on?”

Maybe not.

“ 'NO PESTS?' I THOUGHT IT SAID 'NO PETS' "

Where did I fail?

No one could accuse me of not trying to domesticate our children to feed and to care for themselves. But face it, they led sheltered lives under our roof. They never saw a naked chicken, never assisted at the birth of a casserole, or walked in unexpectedly and viewed the resuscitation of bread dough.

The harder I tried to educate them, the more they regarded the kitchen as an “adult community” that did not accept children or pets. Their visits were limited to throwing open the freezer/refrigerator doors and declaring, “There's nothing to eat in this house.”