Tip It! (11 page)

We trudged back to the school, looking everywhere for it, her crying and me half yelling at her about why she couldn’t leave it where she could see it! Naturally some kid found it, thought, “What a nice poncho!” and took it home. I’m sure Kathy still thinks about that poncho. I certainly do my part to help her think about it.

“Remember the poncho you got to wear only once?” I’ll say.

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, everyone. Or do without!

An Old-Fashioned Flimflam Scam

KATHY:
I know another one of your budget tips, Mom.

MAGGIE:
What?

K:
Perhaps you’d like to tell everyone about how good you are at returning things.

M:
Well, working in the returns department at Form Fit was very valuable experience. See, I would write letters to people who sent us the bras they’d purchased, and—

K:
Hold on, hold on, Mom. I’m talking about what you do now. Let me throw out a hypothetical. Let’s say you had a daughter whom we’ll just call—oh, I don’t know—
B
athy. And every single year for Christmas,
B
athy got you a new sweater or a new outfit or a new makeup kit that she thought you would like, and then every single year without fail, that new sweater or outfit or makeup kit somehow ended up back at the store. Would you like to walk us through that process?

M:
The reason is, Kathy, the things you gave me—

K:
B
athy, Mom.

M:
Oh, stop it. Look, those gifts were too expensive! I didn’t want you to spend that kind of money.

K:
What. Do. You. Care. I got it for you!

M:
I do care, Kathy, because I want you to save your money.

K:
But you pocket the money anyway!

M:
But I know what I want. I could probably buy three things for the one thing you paid for.

K:
It’s a scam, Mom. An old-fashioned flimflam scam.

M:
What do I need with these fancy things you buy for me? You bought me a Coach bag, and a beautiful blazer, with some slacks to go with it, and you said, “This will be wonderful when you go shopping.” Shopping? I look like a slob when I go shopping, and that’s the way I like it.

K:
How do you talk the salesgirl into giving you cash when you know I paid credit for it?

M:
I don’t know. I just do.

K:
Fess up.

M:
I just tell them I want cash.

K:
And? You what? Come on. You told me this. You act pitiful and . . .

M:
Bat my eyelashes.

K:
There. Was that so hard?

M:
Well, you’ve
got
to bat the eyelashes.

But I’ll tell you one of the reasons I’m very proud of Kathy. When we moved out to Los Angeles from Chicago, Kathy came, too, and stayed with us until she was twenty-eight. That’s because she wanted to break into showbiz, and we didn’t want her worrying about money. But when she got her first apartment—a little studio place—she was thrilled to pieces, and we were thrilled, too.

So I did what my mother did for me: showed her how to make a budget for herself. See, when Kathy made money while she was living with us, she only had to worry about spending for herself. We never charged her room and board, and we let her use our car and our gas card. We paid her medical bills, and I even tucked a five-dollar bill in the rearview mirror for her, so when she went out with her friends after acting class she had some money for fries and a Coke, perhaps. I never wanted her to be without money.

But when she moved out, I wanted to pass on what I’d learned; she was going to be living on her own and paying for things on her own. I had done the same thing for all my kids when they left home. I showed her how to keep different envelopes for different expenses; how to prioritize from what gets paid first (rent, utilities, credit card debt) to what gets paid last (clothing, eating out); how it’s important to save even just a little from your paycheck, because it could ultimately help you pay for something bigger; how you shouldn’t rob Peter to pay Paul. All my wisdom from being a budget-conscious Depression-era child. Then we sent her off to live on her own.

I sat down next to my husband afterward and said, “I know what’s going to happen. I can tell you, every other month, she’ll be comin’ with ‘I don’t have the rent! I can’t pay the electric bill!’ ”

“It’s still a good idea, what you did, Mag,” Johnny said to me. “That’s your thing. That’s what you love to do.”

So I waited for that call. And waited. And waited.

I never got it.

She never once came to us for rent money, for utilities, for anything like that. Remember, this was a kid, money didn’t mean anything to her. Believe me. And Kathy just did wonderful. I was so proud of her.

Of course, now I think she spends way too much money on things.

But she’s got it at least!

In my day, we didn’t say “recycling,” we called it “conserving.” Here are some surefire ways to conserve the planet!

1.
REUSE PAPER TOWELS
. No need to buy those silly half-size paper towels, just buy full-size, rinse them out, and wring them dry after you use them. Hang them over the side of the counter to dry and they will be good as new in a day. If it’s just wrinkled, so what? Are you too fancy for wrinkled?

2.
SAVE RUBBER BANDS
. Didn’t you know there’s a rubber shortage going on? Every ten thousand of those useful little elastic helpers you don’t throw away will save a tire!

3.
REUSE GREETING CARDS
. Just because a card has been signed once doesn’t mean you can’t use your God-given creative talents to make it new! Draw over that old signature and turn it into a bunch of flowers or a pretty paisley-patterned heart and sign that card again. Your original artwork will make the recipient feel extra-special.

4.
USE A TISSUE TILL IT FALLS APART
. If you’re real careful with how you fold a tissue you can use it to blow your nose up to ten times!

5.
WEAR A MUUMUU OR A DUSTER
. When you’re at home a duster is the ultimate in comfort, and for a garden party you only have to get half-assed dressed up, so a muumuu is the perfect outfit. You can wear ’em a hundred times between washings, which is only three and a half washes a year. Think of all that water and laundry soap you’ll save!

6.
DRINK BOX WINE
. According to fancy environmental experts, a three-liter box of wine generates half the emissions that manufacturing and shipping a 750-milliliter bottle of wine produces. Plus, you get more wine!

M
aybe you remember when my daughter said that terrible, terrible thing at the Emmys a few years ago about Jesus. I guess, it was more
to
Jesus—well, both about and to Jesus, really—but anyway, I won’t be reprinting it here. [
“Suck it, Jesus” is what I said. I repeat it often.
] Let’s just say I wasn’t too happy. I was happy for her winning the award, of course, but not about how she handled herself. This was television, for Chrissakes! People are watching! [
By people, she means the tens of viewers who watch a clip special that airs on the E! channel on Saturday morning a week before the prime-time Emmy Awards.
]

Well, pretty soon after that I was watching my beloved Bill O’Reilly [
Zzzzzz, huh, what?
] on his Fox show
The O’Reilly Factor,
and when he got to his “Pinheads and Patriots” segment, he mentioned Kathy, then showed the clip of what she said when she was onstage accepting her Emmy. He even warned his viewers to change the channel, because they might find it offensive! [
I support all changing of channels from Fox News to anything else.
] Well, I already knew what she was going to say, so I kept it right there.

After the clip, he said the words I knew were coming: “Ms. Griffin is a pinhead, no doubt.”

Guess what, Bill? I couldn’t have agreed with you more! [
Is that a bus I hear? Because I believe I was just thrown under it by my own mother
.]

I even thought it was funny when he showed a clip of Joy Behar and Kathy talking about something political, and he called them Dumb and Dumber. I thought that was hysterical! Not that I’d ever call Kathy dumb. Reckless, maybe. Never dumb.

Maybe that’s why I love my Bill O’Reilly. He tells it like he sees it, which is what I do, and what I did, too, to Kathy after she blurted out that awful thing at the Emmys, and used that bad language on New Year’s Eve with Anderson Cooper, and . . . oh there’re too many examples to go into. I know Kathy and my other kids—mostly liberals, all—get on my case about watching Bill. But I don’t care. He’s got an excellent speaking voice, always looks real handsome, and is on the lookout for these idiots who want to hurt us. He’s got a lot of things to say about morals and the way our country should be that I have to admit I agree with. (I like Sean Hannity, too. He seems like he’d be the perfect son. Of course, they’re both Irish Catholic, so maybe I’m a little prejudiced!) [
Mom, can you choose a word other than “prejudiced”? How about “fluffy”?
]

Now, do I sometimes hear something Bill says and roll my eyes and say, “Oh, Bill, come on!”? Sure! And he does talk over his guests a little too much to suit me. And I guess there was that one little episode on his old tabloidy show
Inside Edition
that made its way around the Internet recently (and which Kathy was only too happy to show me), where he’s screaming at somebody—using bad language that I know he doesn’t really approve of—and he clearly thinks it’ll never be recorded for posterity. He must have been under a lot of stress or something. [
The stress of counting his money and sending angry e-mails to that terrorist George Clooney
.] But who agrees with everything somebody they like says or does? Plus, some of these people are so far out with their opinions, to me they’re actually funny. I can’t even get mad at what they’re saying because it’s so stupid.

Ever since I started watching
The O’Reilly Factor
—I never saw Bill on
Inside Edition
—I’ve found him to be very smart and very funny. I also think he’s fair and balanced. [
It’s not like you made that phrase up, Mom. You’re spouting a Fox News slogan.
] To a point. He says he’s not a Republican, that he’s an Independent. But he does lean toward the conservative side. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve leaned that way myself as I’ve gotten older. But at heart, I consider myself Independent, too. [
For the record, my mother’s a registered member of the Bullshit Party.
]

If you listened to my kids, though, they’d lead you to think I listened to his radio show every day, too, I was some rah-rah Republican, and had posters of Bill on the wall!

Okay, everyone, I do have a doormat that says
THE SPIN STOPS HERE
that Kathleen ordered for me from an Internet catalogue. [
Yeah, Mom, I paid for it with S&H green stamps.
] And I have a signed picture of him, too. Those of you who watch Kathy’s show know that. One day I went over to Kathy’s house and she said, “I’ve got a surprise for you!” I’ve learned over the years to not know what that might possibly mean. Since the cameras were there to film, I just assumed she was going to say something to get me riled up. But instead she hands me this big envelope, and inside is this glossy picture of my Bill—a real nice shot, I tell ya—and a nice message made out to me!

Well, I let out a scream, like I was a teenage girl! And I never do that.

I still haven’t gotten it framed yet—sorry, Bill! [
Yeah, Bill, hope we haven’t inconvenienced you, BILL.
] But every once in a while I take it out and look at it and laugh. Not at you, Bill! [
Oh no, Bill. No one in this house would ever laugh AT you. We laugh WITH you. Especially your hilariously witty repartee with Glenn Beck. Oh, I could watch you two lob the ball back and forth all day.
] I laugh about Kathy giving it to me, and her looking at the camera for her show and pointing at me, saying, “Bill, this is your demographic! Your only demographic! Are you happy?”

Anyway, I got a big bang out of that.

Would I love it if Bill put Kathy’s picture up as a “Patriot” at least once? Of course. Because Kathy is a patriot. The stuff she’s done, going to Iraq and Afghanistan, performing for the soldiers, visiting the wounded at Walter Reed, I’m very proud of her. Kathy has nothing against this country. She loves it. So if you’re reading this, Bill, I may have my own little chuckle when you correctly label her a “pinhead,” but there’s another side to her, too.

I do honestly hate it when journalists or writers can’t see the other side of something. You have to do that to get the whole picture. I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh, but he’s gotten so far off base, so unbalanced about things. It just seems like hatred. [
I was wrong, God. You do exist
.] Again, you’d think I followed every word Rush says, if you listen to my kids. Or that I never listen to anybody liberal. That’s not the truth. I think.

I like that Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. I used to listen to Air America on the radio, even though I thought they were so far left, the names they called President Bush were disgusting. I really mean it. [
Especially when they called him “President.” Ick
.] But I like Rachel’s show. She’s fair and balanced. [
I’m sure she’d love that you’re using the Fox slogan to describe her, Mom
.] Rachel’s a liberal, but I don’t think she’s nuts. [
Well, that’s the important thing,
Rachel. That you’re not a raving, drooling lobotomy candidate, according to my mother’s medical journal
.] She’s really smart, and she never denigrates anybody who comes on her show, and I love that. Even if who she’s talking with is against her. [
Yeah, it’s called being civilized, as opposed to Glenn Beck wearing his plastic Hitler mustache yelling at a picture of the White House press secretary
.]

As for Keith Olbermann, I hate this little feud that he and my boy Bill are carrying on. Bill’s always Keith’s “Worst Guy Ever Around” or whatever the hell it is, and Keith is always a target of Bill’s. It’s childish. Honestly, guys, you’re men. You’re not little kids. Forget it already and move on to something important. [
Sounds like Judge Judy needs to open her docket for a Very Special Case
.]

Speaking of somebody who does important things, I do love that Anderson Cooper on CNN. First of all, I admire him so much for what he does, going to all those places like Iraq and Rwanda and Haiti and where the tsunami hit. Before anybody knew who he was, I’d see him in all these places and think, “Who is this guy?”

Plus, I thought he was so cute! [
God, Mom, you’re so much more shallow than the other sophomores. I hate this sorority!
] He’s also very smart and very serious, and you can tell he has a great sense of humor. And that’s not just from being willing to stand there with Kathy on New Year’s Eve when she’s saying all those reckless things. [
Exhibit A: “Hey buddy, I’m workin’ here, I don’t go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth!”
]

The funny thing is, when I mentioned to Kathy after their first New Year’s Eve appearance that I really liked him, she said, “Ma, don’t you remember Anderson?”

“No,” I said.

“From the show I did back on MTV?” she said, trying to jog my memory.

Oh, right! See, Kathy once had this show called
A
Really
Really
Reality Show
[
actually, it was called
Kathy’s So-Called Reality,
but whatever
] where she talked about reality TV. This was back when shows like
Survivor
were first starting to hit big, and Kathy wanted to have some fun with this new kind of television. Johnny and I used to be on the show with her—sometimes we read her mail on the air, or acted out scenes from reality programs, very funny stuff—but what I’d forgotten was that Anderson had been on, too! He used to host
The Mole,
after all. This was before he went to CNN.

One time, during a break, Johnny and I were sitting with Anderson and talking, just the three of us. We were asking him all kinds of questions, ’cause we didn’t know him from Adam. “Are you in the biz?” “Do you want to be an actor?” Real innocuous stuff like that. [
I’m cringing so hard right now I’m not gonna crap for two months. Please tell me my mom did not turn to Anderson Cooper and say “Are you in the biz?” I was wrong, God. You don’t exist. I’m back to being an atheist
.]

He said, “No, actually I want to be in the journalism business. I took some time off from that for a while because I wanted to get away from news and see what reality TV was all about. I’ve been having fun on this show here, for instance.”

“Yeah,” we said. “It is fun, isn’t it?”

“But I think I’m done with this,” he said. “I’ve had my taste of being out here, and I think it’s time for me to go back and get into serious news and journalism.”

We thought he was so nice and smart, and we wished him the best. Again, we didn’t know who he was except a handsome fella with nice manners and what seemed to be a good head on his shoulders. So later Kathy came up to us and said, “You know who Anderson Cooper is, don’t you?”

“I know he’s on TV,” I said. “He hosts that great show
The Mole.
But otherwise, no.”

“Ma, he’s Gloria Vanderbilt’s
son
.”

Oh Gosh, I darn near
died
! And here we were asking him about whether he wanted to be an actor! I was mortified. [
Thank you, Jesus! I’m back!
] But after I thought about it for a second, I told Kathy, “Thank Christ you didn’t tell me that before we talked to him.”

You know why? Because while Johnny would have been simply great talking to him with that knowledge, I would only have wanted to ask him about his mom. See, before she became known for fancy jeans, Gloria Vanderbilt was the daughter of a shipping magnate, and at a very young age—this would have been the early 1930s—she was involved in a custody battle between her mother and dead father’s sister that was all over the papers. The country was immersed in it, and when I was a kid I followed it completely. She had always looked so adorable, wearing such cute little outfits and sporting those fancy bangs, kind of a Buster Brown look. I remember thinking what she had to go through was awful, and I felt real sorry for her. I’ve just always been fascinated by her. I even have her most recent book at hand, called
Obsession: An Erotic Tale.
It was a gift to Kathy from Anderson, autographed by Gloria herself! Never in my life did I think I would have a book on my coffee table autographed by THE Gloria Vanderbilt. What Kathleen doesn’t know is that she left a note from Anderson inside the book that he wrote to her after New Year’s Eve. I guess he had sent her some cookies and a pie from his favorite New York bakery. In the note, he calls it “crack pie.” Gee, I hope he was kidding. [
Yeah, Mom. You caught me. There’s a bakery in New York called Crack Pie, and they serve pies filled with crack cocaine and ship them undetected to hotels in New York City, and Anderson Cooper is their biggest customer. No, it wasn’t a joke at all. Anderson Cooper actually sent me a pie filled with crack, and I think you should spend a lot of time worrying about it. You might want to report it to your beloved Bill
.]

Anyway, I can’t wait to read the book!

Can you imagine, though, if I’d known the family connection when I met that wonderful Anderson Cooper? I’d have talked his ear off about his mom and what I thought of her, and it probably would have been the last thing he wanted to hear about. I don’t know if I even would have been as friendly. I might have been too distracted. After all, she is one of the great beauties of our time. But we had a great talk with him as it was, and it says a lot that during our conversation, he was just like anybody else.

Or so we thought! Still, you never would have heard him say, “Oh, I’m from New York. You’ve heard of my mother, perhaps?” [
Actually, I think that’s what Norman Bates would say
.]

Anyway, I love him. I love how he reports. I like the questions he asks. He doesn’t ask the stupid Hollywood-type questions that never make any sense to the situation at hand. It’s never, “How do you feel about the earthquake?” What’s somebody supposed to say to that? “Oh, I think it’s just great!” Anderson will ask the serious questions, the ones that get real answers, and he has compassion. I love how he’s keepin’ ’em honest. [
Does he also go around the world
360°?] I’m just thrilled Kathy’s met him and that they’ve become friends. I hope they stay friends. I know he’s Gloria’s, but I like to think of Anderson as my son, too. He’s a great guy. [
You’ve got that right, Mom
.]