Suburgatory (21 page)

Freecyclers

This is a website where you post items you can offer to others to come pick up, bits and bobs you'd end up chucking in a landfill. Through freecycling, I've met a saintly foster mom and a few delightful junkster shut-ins. Here are some of my favorite offerings from freecyclers.

Offer:
Ovaltine. We have promised this twice and it is still here. Please, for the LOVE come get the Ovaltine. It is starting to develop a complex. It's a really nice 12 oz. jar. I hope someone out there can give it a good home.

—Miserable (Ovaltine) in Marlborough

Offer:
Gynecologist examining chair from maybe the 1940s. Your grandma might have been examined in this!

Offer
:
Extra progesterone vaginal suppositories for hormone replacement.

Do you have any idea how much those suppositories cost retail? I hope someone snagged them.

And sometimes being Super-Crazy-Mega-Cheap brings friends closer together.

One day recently, a friend, PTO goddess Laura Beazley, who is not in the Weirdo Junior League (not yet, anyway) looked over at me, and, knowing I had just gone on a thrifting adventure that week, started laughing uncontrollably. “What?” I asked. She pointed at my outfit and said, “That's my shirt! The shirt I left at the dump! You found my shirt!”

It's a freeganista miracle!

Five-Year-Old Loves, But No Longer
“In Love with,” Mommy

Suburgatory, USA—A five-year-old boy “loves” but is no longer “in love” with his mommy, and thinks she has grown “needy and possessive.”

Evan Morton was in a reflective mood about his situation while sitting in his Batman Underoos at the kitchen island, nursing the last of his Horizon Organic Chocolate Milk Box. “See?” he said, pointing at the label certifying the milk as antibiotic-, pesticide-, and hormone-free. “See, what good care she takes of me? God, this is hard. So, so hard.”

He gestured in a defeated way to his dad, who was at the refrigerator. “Dad, can I get another one of these?”

“Comin' right up, Ev,” his dad replied.

According to Morton, he and Mommy have been together for five years. “Let's be honest. Early on I was in it just for the boobs. That first year, it was all boobs, all the time, all I wanted and needed. I didn't really look at her as a person. I know I sound awful for saying that, but it's true. She was more like some . . . thing . . . attached to those wonderful boobs.” He sucked down the last of the second chocolate milk.

“Listen, Dad.” He belched. “Good one, right?”

His dad said, “Good one, buddy!”

Morton went on. “But eventually she was more than boobs. In years two, three, and four, the relationship deepened. She gave me solid food, and we really connected as human beings. We were really communicating. Seeing her face lit me up like nothing else. I'll never forget our first visit to Bugaboo Creek together—my choice, of course—to see the robot moose. We laughed together so hard. Sounds silly now. Sad too,” he said.

“You OK, Ev?” his dad asked.

“Yeah, I'm alright. Anyway, yes, I was in love with her. Me and her and no one else. Well, at that point there was also Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine and Diego, and, I'm embarrassed to admit, The Wiggles, but at that time if I had to make the choice between Bob and Tom and Diego and The Wiggles and her, I would have chosen her.”

Morton moved out to the living room and flipped on the TV.
Power Rangers: Samurai
was on. “Yes!” He did the same frenetic dance he always does when the opening sequence of
Power Rangers
comes on, which involves cartwheels, handstands, fist thrusts, and running around in a circle.

As he sacked out to watch
Power Rangers,
Morton started to describe how things have been going downhill for the two of them. “She's
so
needy and possessive. You know, after school I want to play the Pip Penguin Club with my boys. We're space penguins who kill zombies who are trying eat our space brains. It's
really
important to me. It's my thing, it's what I do. She demeans it. And she is always embarrassing me in front of my buds and dragging me home. Then she's pissed and doesn't get it when she asks, ‘Why don't your friends like meeeeee?'”

Also, Morton believes her nagging is taking a real toll. “She's always asking me, ‘Are you going to wear that Clone Wars T-shirt
again?
' ‘Yes I am, Mommy, until freedom is restored to the galaxy, and General Grievous and Count Dooku are taken down, YES I AM.
What
does it matter to you?' Or with the food, always the food. ‘Eat your gummy Vites. Just try these eggie-eggs, just once.' I mean, do I
look
like the kind of guy who wants to eat tofu? I ask her, ‘How does this even affect you?' Then she starts crying and telling me it's because she loves me more than life itself, and it's just awful, and, hey, I'm not made of stone.”

At that point, Morton heard his Mommy come in with groceries. She walked in and said, “Hey, handsome!” Morton looked at her and said, “hey.” She came over to give him at least ten kisses and to ruffle his hair, while Morton squirmed away. “God, that was awkward, wasn't it? Sorry you had to see that.” Morton said, cringing.

“What do you want to do tonight?” she asked.

“
Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
is on,” Morton replied.

“OK, well, we are going to Bertucci's, so maybe it will be on when we get back. You've been in those Underoos all day. Go change!” Mommy said.

Morton groaned and stomped upstairs. “Yeah, I'm annoyed. But I still know, when all is said and done, that she's a wonderful woman. Who I still love. Who probably deserves better,” he said, pulling out his Clone Wars T-shirt from the hamper. “NOT the Clone Wars T-Shirt
again,
Evan!” she yelled from downstairs.

Dad: Guppies Represent
“Everything that's Wrong with America”

Suburgatory, USA—A dad is telling his daughter that the guppies in their home represent “everything that's wrong with America.”

Greg Mazur, forty-nine, recently lost his job as sales manager at the Piermont Insurance Company and now is spending more time at home with his ten-year-old daughter, Ava.

“Time to feed the freeloaders!” Mazur said, grabbing the fish food to shake into the aquarium.

“God, it's like Sodom and Gomorrah in there. Ughhh . . . disgusting,” said Mazur. Ava has been noticing that her dad now gets agitated every time he has to feed the guppies, a community of dozens that grew from a single guppy brought home from school last year. “Yeah, that first guppy slut must have been knocked up when Ava brought her home,” said Mazur quietly.

Ava:
Daddy, why are you so mad at the guppies?

Mazur:
Well, sweetie, because I look in there and see everything that is wrong with America. You know, when Mommy and Daddy decided to have you and your brother, we planned it out and made sure we could swing it, money-wise. But look at these guppies, do you think they plan anything? They just have guppy after guppy after goddamn guppy, I mean do they think they have any chance of paying for, I don't know, college?

Ava:
Daddy, guppies don't have college.

Mazur:
But if they
did,
all these little babies, they'd be out of luck wouldn't they?

Ava:
What does it matter?

Mazur:
What does it matter? What matters is that they are relying on us to feed them, money out of our pockets, stuck paying for their bad life choices.
[muttering]
Welfare queens. . . .

Ava:
What's a welfare queen?

Mazur [muttering]:
They're guppies who can't keep their legs together. See there's no respect for life in there. They swim around in their own poop and pee. Diseases all over the place—white spot disease, gold dust disease, fish lice, dropsy. Those are
lifestyle
diseases, Ava. You
choose
to get them because you don't take care of yourself.

Ava:
Daddy, if it's dirty in there, that's
our
fault.

Mazur
:
Right, it's always our fault. I repeat—no respect for life. These people eat their own. Once they shoot them out they don't even bother with taking care of them.

Ava:
But Daddy, that's what Miss Dalton said they're
supposed
to do; this is nature.

Mazur:
That's fine for Miss Dalton, but we don't have to like it, or celebrate it.
[muttering]
Typical liberal bullshit they feed my kids. That's why they hand out these guppies. Start trainin' 'em early to hand over their hard-earned cash to a bunch of lazy thugs.

Ava [defiantly]:
I love my guppy family.

Mazur [muttering]:
Family. Like the Manson Family maybe or some filthy commune. Seriously, Ava, does that look like any family you've ever seen? How many are in there? Do they know who their fathers are? Who are the moms?

Ava:
The moms are the fat ones.

Mazur [triumphantly]:
Bingo.

At that point, Mazur's wife Emily came home, walked in, and kissed Ava and said, “Oh no, has Daddy been yelling at the guppies again? Greg, ease up on the poor guppies! They didn't lay you off from your job, you know. Did you put in for unemployment today? Or just yell at the guppies again?”

“Ummmm,” Mazur said, looking dejected.

“Greg. Honey,” she said, hands in the air.

“OK, right. I'll do it. We'll be OK,” he said, shaking more fish food into the aquarium.

Dr. Drama

“When life hands you a problem, let's make it more interesting!”

Dear Dr. Drama:

I'm afraid my husband might be gay. He doesn't seem to have much interest in me, you know,
that way,
and he just seems a lot more, um, fixated on the dads when we go to school events or soccer games. Also, and I know I shouldn't have done this, but I looked at his search history on the computer and found gay porn! And then I found a strange number on his cell phone that came up a lot, I called it, and it was a man. Do you think he might be gay? He's my best friend, I don't want to lose him!

—Paranoid in Suburgatory

Dear Paranoid:

Your subconscious is screaming at you, and your conscious is covering its ears and yelling “La la la. I can't see the big fag sleeping right next to me!”, so I'll say it loud and clear for you: Your husband is gay. You can pretend all you want that just being a little curious about gay porn doesn't mean anything, but take it from another sucker like me: Where there's gay porn and a mystery man, there's a late night circle jerk or early morning gym tug fest not far behind. Then he'll settle down, find that special guy, and have a beautiful gay wedding you won't be invited to.