I looked all over the block for some sort of snooty art gallery - you know, the kind that hang a bunch of solid-colored square paintings on the wall for $10,000 a piece. Instead, I spotted a piece of graphite with a pierced eyeball, which happens to be Simko’s signature icon. It pointed to the doors of Live Fast, a boutique chocked full of rock & roll fashion and vinage accessories. The entire store was covered in a mural that reminded me of the Garbage Pail Kids at a Punk Rock concert. I walked up to a striking young woman that resembled Betty Paige.

“Um, I’m here for the art show…”

She silently pointed to a door leading to the basement while adjusting a pair of bloody knife earrings in the display case. As I decended the narrow staircase, I was distracted by a picture of flames and a half-naked devil lady, so I smacked my head on the low ceiling.

“Happens to everyone,” said someone off to the left.

I rubbed my forehead and looked over to see a bartender with long black hair and a studded leather jacket smiling at me. He already had his arm outstretched to hand me a drink, which appeared to be some sort of green glowing concoction with an eyeball floating in it.

I raised an eyebrow. “What the heck is this???”

“It’s energy drink, vodka, and a lychee stuffed  with a red grape.”

I love New York, I thought. Despite the icons of bloody knives, screaming eyeballs, and flaming devil women, I felt perfectly safe.

Free booze and great art usually brings a large crowd, so after about an hour, my friends and I decided to step outside forsome fresh air. As we discussed meanful topics like cartoons and video games, I randomly felt a lemon bounce past my foot. For a moment, I thought it was a tennis ball until a blur of orange flashed by me.  A woman in the crowd let out a yelp. The people around me started to duck and cover as we heard the sound of dozens of pieces of citris pelting us from an unknown souce.

Lemon. Orange. Lime. Lemon.Lemon. Orange. Lime. Lemon.

I looked across the street and a cluster of about teens were pulling fruit out from a box and throwing it at us. All of them were boys, except for a teenage girl with a red tank top that was inexplicably holding a live ferret in one hand and laughing.

Without even thinking, I blurted out, “Hey, stop! Why are you DOING that?”

A boy that looked to be about nine years held up a Snapple bottle as gestured like he was going to throw it at me. An older kid in the group, probably about fifteen years old, grabbed it out of his hand.

Oh, good, his older brother is going to stop him from throwing that bot-

Before I could even finish my thought, the older kid chucked the bottle at me, narrowly missed my head, and shattered the windshield of the car next to me. I covered my face as shards of glass sprayed everywhere. The crowd gasped.

I impulsively bolted down the street to follow them, ducking behind parked cars so they wouldn’t see me. I dialed a few numbers on my cell phone as they continued to throw fruit at the passing crowds.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Um, some hoodlums are throwing fruit at crowds and they just threw a glass bottle into a crowd of at least 20 people and shattered a windshield.”

“What is your location?”

I had no freaking clue. In my adrenaline rush, I must have bolted about six blocks without even looking back, and I was totally lost.

“Um…near…#1 Chinese Restaurant…hold on…” There are probably approximately 8,000 “#1 Chinese Restaurants” in New York City.

I muffled the phone. I yelled into a the streams of people that washed by me, “Where…where am I?”  I must have looked like a desperate raving maniac. Everyone ignored me, until a familiar voice “240 East Forth Street”. It was the guy that handed me the eyeball cocktail. I repeated the address to the dispatcher.

“You wait here!” he said, “I’ll trail ‘em while you get the cops!”

Before I could stop him, he already disappeared into the crowds.

(to be continued)

(photo by Roman Volkov)

“Actually, I’m not passing through Piscataway, Anyu. I’m heading straight to New York City to see my friend’s gallery show.”

“Oh, noooo! New York is dangerous!”

“I’ve been to New York a zillion times. I’ll be fine.”

“Didn’t Anita get mugged last time she was in New York?”

“First of all, that was TEN YEARS AGO. And you are incorrect. She was in Piscataway at the time.  See? I’m safe in the City while all you scaredy cats in the suburbs get held up for your hoagies.” (read about the mugging here)

“Vell, just be careful. Are you brinking a man vit you for protection?”

I groaned.

The next day, my friends and I took the train in to New York and I could not stop thinking about delicious New York City-Style pizza, where the slices are huge, the crust is thin, and the sauce is perfectly sweet. We walked for blocks and blocks and could not find a single “mom & pop” pizza shop.

“How is it possible that we can’t find a pizza place in NEW YORK?” my friend asked.

“Because weird, annoying, and inconveninent stuff always happens to us,” I replied.

Just as we were about to give up our search and grab some Chinese, we saw a sign for NYC-Style Pizza. The rickety sign and crumbling brick facade was nothing to write home about, but it was the warm, garlic-scented air that lured us inside (Editor’s Note: Although my family is from Transylvania, I have no qualms about  garlic. That’s a rumor).

“How is your food?” the Owner asked as we took our first bites.

“Spaghetti and meatballs for Table 2,” he waiter replied blankly.

“He asked for a little bit of spaghetti with ONE meatball. Not this! This is three god-damned meatballs!”

“No, I thought he orderd-”

“No, no, NO! I know what he ordered, I was RIGHT THERE! They come in here ALL the TIME and he NEVER orders three meatballs. Are you freaking CRAZY? Maybe if you payed some damned attention, you might have noticed what my customer freaking ordered before you bring him three freaking meatballs when he said he only wants ONE!”

The pizza boy silently walked to the back of the restaurant with his head hung.

The Owner looked back at us. 

The bus pulled into the church parking lot after midnight. My mother breathed a sigh of relief  as I climbed down the narrow steps and into her spicy mustard-colored station wagon.

“How vas it?” she asked.

“I ate some amazing food, saw all the sites, and I bought you this!” I held up an overpriced “I Love New York” keychain.

“Oh, tank you, Stephie,” she said, snapping the bawble onto her already large collection of keychains. “So, did anyvon try to bodder you?”

“Nope, I felt completely safe the entire time. It was awesome!”

“Vell, make sure you call Anita vhen you get home, she called like four times, I tink she had sometink to tell you, I dunno vhat.”

I thought better of mentoning Anita’s fear of Mole People to my mother.

I arrived back at the house and curled up on the bed with our old rotary phone that was the same exact color as my mother’s station wagon. “Hey, Anita! Just calling to let you know that I am alive! What did I miss?”

“Oh. My. GOSH,” she said. She took in a deep breath. “Sooo…I was bored because you guys were gone, so I called Tony, Crystal, and Allen to hang out a while. We decided to go to the QuickCheck to get some hoagies. Well, while we were walking back to Tony’s place, he remembered that he had forgotten spray cheese…”

“What the heck did he need spray cheese for? That stuff is nasty.”

“Yeah. That’s what I said. But you know Tony…he wanted to freak out random people on the street by screaming ‘I am a human penis!’ whille spraying cheese out of his mouth.”

I groaned. “Wow. Either Crystal needs to dump that guy or we just need some new friends.”

“Uh, yah, that’s what I said. So ANYWAY, he made us go back to get his stupid spray cheese, and I kid you not, as soon as we got out of the store, these three guys held us up with a knife.”

“OH, MY GOSH! I can’t believe you’d get mugged outside of a QuickCheck in freaking rinky-dink Piscataway, New Jersey. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. But they took everyone’s wallets, Tony’s backpack, Crystal’s beeper…and they even took our hoagies.”

“And the spray cheese?”

“Gone forever. Some other a-hole is probably spraying it in or out of his mouth as we speak.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, at least they are slightly closer to getting cancer.”

“Yes, if living in New Jersey doesn’t do ‘em in, then the spray cheese will! But seriously, good thing you and Bob were in New York!”

“Yeah, I didn’t have any trouble with the Mole Pe-” I was cut off by a knock on the door.

“Stephieeeee!”

“Hold on, Anyu, I’m on the phone!”

“STEPHIEEEEE!”

I sighed. “I gotta go, Anyu’s freaking out for some reason, talk to you later.”

“STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!”

I opened the locked door. “WHAT???”

“I vas listening in vit your conversation vit Anita and dis is terrible news.”

“Anyu! STOP picking up the other line to listen to my phone calls!” I said in my whiniest teenage voice. ”That is SUCH an invasion of privacy!” I went over my brief conversation with Anita in my head to analyze if I had said anything incriminating.

“It vas an accident,” she lied. “But no more QuickChecks for you!” she commanded. ”Dey are DANGEROUS! Dah robbers vill steal you!”

For the next few years, every time I went to a QuickCheck, I had to lie and say that I was going to a 7-11. Because there’s no such thing as a shady 7-11, right?

Photo by Nuts&Gum

Photo by Mark Magliocco www.markm.com

“I can’t belief you vould drag me up dis early for a stupid trip,” my mother said as we walked towards the main entrance of the Middlesex Mall.

Even the security guard looked sleepy as he unlocked the doors and ushered us into the empty corridor. I however, was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was going to go to New York! I imagined the smell of roasted peanuts and the sound of taxi cabs and newspaper boys. I smiled at the thought of walking through a city, arm-in-arm with my first love. For one day in my young adult life, I could stand tall without the sound of Anyu and Nagymama criticizing my outfit behind me. 

We assumed that we could pick up some pepper spray at the K-Mart, but we were out of luck. The K-Mart directed us to the 99 Cent store. 99 Cent store directed us to the Hardware store. The Hardware store looked promising - I walked up to the counter and saw the empty peg for pepper spray.

“I’m afraid we’re out of pepper spray, dear,” the attendant said. “There’s been a bit of a crime spree around, so we’re sold out.”

I looked over at my mom, fearing that she heard the words “Crime Spree”. Instead she was inspecting the inside of a mailbox display.

The attendant continued, “Try the Pathmark, they should have some in one of the isles.” 

I was getting a little anxious.  Everyone I know has a Ghetto Pathmark™ that always smells like mold and only seems to stock items that are three days from their exparation date. This Ghetto Pathmark™ was no different, and of course, it was on the opposite side of the strip mall.

“Anyu, let’s just drive…”

“Your lazy fat butt can valk dere, I’m not vasting gas on dat.”

So, with 45-minutes left until the New York bus pickup, we power-walked to the Ghetto Pathmark™ and walked up to the first person wearing a blue shirt. He was about 500 years old and had thick glasses that were far too large for his head. Honestly, I’m not even sure if he worked there.

“Vhere to get Spray Peppers?” she asked.

“Okay, I show you now,” he replied in a thick Indian accent.

He slowly lead us into the produce isle and pointed towards an assortment of red and green peppers tinged with a yellow glow under the fluorescent lights.

“No, I’m sorry, Pepper Spray, not bell peppers,” I said politely. He looked confused.

“Yah, yah, Spray Peppers,” my mother repeated.

He smiled and shook his head. “Okay, you follow me now.”

He walked a little deeper into the isle and held up a bottle of Fit Vegetable Wash.

“No, ve don’t vant Vindex, ve need Spray Peppers,” she said, not wanting to even touch the bottle. For some reason, mother has an irrational fear of anything in a spray bottle, especially Windex, oven cleaner, and carpet cleaner.

“It’s good!” he insisted, thrusting the bottle towards her. “Good for peppers, fruits, good for-”

“No, Sir, we need Pepper Spray. Mace. For robberies.” Both the attendant and my mother watched me as I tried to mime spraying a mugger in the face.

“Ooooh,” he replied. “Dey no sell. You try mall now. Shoe store have it.”

I looked at my my pager at it blinked 9:35. At this rate, we weren’t going to make it. I grabbed my mother by the arm and dragged her towards the exit so she couldn’t get distracted by all the “Spectacular Savings”.

“Anyu, I’ll be fine without the pepper spray. We should really go.”

“No spray, no New York!”

I sighed. “Please Anyu, let’s try the shoe store, then. I really want to go.”

“Dat man’s crazy, dey don’t sell Spray Peppers at the Shoe Store.”

“We’ve got to TRY!”

We worked our way back into the mall to the Payless. I sheepishly approached the cashier who was busy sorting through a large box of tags.

“Um, I know this is a weird question, but do you guys sell pepper spray?”

“Not a weird question at all,” she said, smiling. “We don’t, but the shoe cobbler across the hall has it right in the front of the store.”

 ”Thanks…”  I was starting to think that I was on some kind of hidden camera show. The Shoe Cobbler was the last store left in the little shopping mall, besides the food court. And it was right across from the K-Mart where we started the whole pepper spray search. Of course.

The clock was ticking. I bolted out of the Payless and tried to ignore my mother screaming, “Don’t leave me, you’ll get lost!” I ran all the way across the mall and poured into the tiny shoe repair shop so quickly that I almost slammed into the front counter.

“I need…Pepper Spray!” I said, my palms leaving greasy streaks on the glass.

“You mean, right now?” the old man asked, raising his eyebrows. “Is someone chasing you?”

I struggled to catch my breath. “No…late to New York…gotta buy protection…”

The shopkeep nodded knowingly. He reached behind the counter and pulled out a can of Triple-Action-Pepper-Spray Tear Gas with a UV Marking Dye. “Just one, Miss?”

“Yeah….jus-one,” I huffed. ”I don’t…needa…bag.” I’ve never been very athletic.  

My mother waltz in behind me. “Vhat dah hell you running like dat for, you could have tripped and split open you head and den-” She trailed off as she saw that the cashier screen was blinking $19 and some odd cents.

“Twenty bucks for DAT?” my mother said, pointing to the small cannister. ” You think they sell it at dah Home Depot cheaper?”

I slapped $20 on the table. “Keep the change. Let’s ROLL!”

My mother yelled at me all the way to the car. “I can’t believe you didn’t get your change. $20. Vhat a ripoff!”

“At this point, I would give my first born for it to just LEAVE.”

“You didn’t even get your receipt! Vhat if it’s defective?” she asked as she opened the car door.

“Um, well, if it’s defective, that means I’ll probably be dead, so I won’t need a receipt.”

She froze as she was about to put her keys into the ignition. “Oh, no…vhat if it’s defective?”

“Ahhh, I was kidding! It’s fine! Let’s gooooo!”

We arrived at the steps of the Church a half hour late. Everyone was loaded onto the bus and Bob was pacing around in the parking lot. I jumped out of my mother’s station wagon and ran towards him.

“I made it!” I said as I gave him a big hug.

“Hey, hey, NO PC!” Pastor Jim said in a billowing voice. “PC” (Personal Contact) was frowned upon at Youth Group events.

“Oh, right, sorry. I’m just so excited that I’m actually here!”

“Don’t lose my child!” my mother ordered as she handed the Pastor the permission slip.

“We won’t Ms. Yuhas.”

“And don’t drive too fast! The Varrazano is dangerous, you could flip off!”

“Okay, Ms. Yuhas.”

“And don’t talk to HOBOS! Dey’ll steal you!”

The Pastor turned to me. “Okay, Stephanie, just get on the bus, you’re upsetting your mother.”

“What the heck took you so long?” Bob whispered.

“Mom was running all over town looking for pepper spray because she wouldn’t let me on the trip without it.”

“Pepper Spray?” the Pastor Jim said, overhearing our conversation. “That’s a weapon. Hand it over or else you can’t come on the trip.”

I handed him the pepper spray, still in its original wrapping. Guess I should have kept that receipt afterall.

I carefully placed the paper down in front of her and crossed my fingers. She glanced down and her face twisted into a horrified expression. “NEW YORK CITY? NOOOO! Somevon will steal you!”

“I’m 16, Anyu. And I’ll be with a zillion other people, including Pastor Jim, who’s a 6′3″ former biker gang member that allegedly has weapons training.” My mother looked even more horrified. “Well, uh, before he converted and became a super nice non-violent Youth Pastor. So. I think we’re okay.”

“No freakin’ way, Mr. Jose. New York is dangerous.”

I threw my hands in the air, stomped out of the room, and started dialing. “This is SO unfair!” I whined as soon as my best friend, Anita, answered the phone. “Mom won’t let me go to New York with Youth Group because she’s afraid gypsies are going to kidnap me or something.”

“Well…” she started, “New York is kind of dangerous. I was reading this book about Mole People that live underground and snatch women.”

“Anita! Stop reading those stupid ‘Weekly World News’ Magazines that my mom gives you!”

“No, seriously. Dad got me this cool book and it confirmed that the rumors of the alligators and mole people in the sewer. In 1994, there was this incident where-”

“Don’t listen to him! Your father is just as crazy-paranoid as my mom.”

“Fine, then, don’t go calling me when the Mole People are mugging you.”

Just then, my pager started vibrating. I looked down and saw the numbers “808 58008 07734 “. I turned it upside down and saw that the numbers resembled the words “HELLO BOOBS BOB”.  I sighed. “Anita, Bob’s paging me in stupid leetspeak again, I’ll call you back tomorrow or something.”

I dialed Bob and he answered,  “HELLO, BOOBS, IT’S ME, BOB!” He cackled like a maniac.

I groaned, “Hard to imagine that your dumbass is turning 18 in a few weeks, you act freaking 13.”

“Well, I wouldn’t page you if you got Call Waiting.”

“I’m in the Old Country over here. I’m using a rotary phone, forget about call waiting. And speaking of Old Country, I don’t think I can come up to New York tomorrow, mom’s having a cow.”

“What’s her problem this time?”

“The usual. She thinks someone is going to steal me. And Anita won’t back me up! She thinks we’re gonna get mugged by Mole People or something.”

“Cool, I wish that would happen! We’re probably just gonna watch some stupid musical and get hot dogs. You know, boring stuff.”

“Yeah, well, tell that to my mother.”

“Seriously? You want me to talk to her?”

“Meh. Give it a shot if you think it will help.” I held my hand over the receiver. “ANYUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! BOB WANTS TO TALK TO YOOOOOU!”

“Oh, my God, he’s not here is he? I need to fix my hair!” She ran into the bathroom in a panic.

“NOOOO, HE’S ON THE PHOOONE!”

“Vhat? Vhat does he vant? Is he on his vay over? He can’t come, dah house is a mess!”

“NO! He just wants to talk to you, come over here, already!”

“Oh. Okay.” She picked up the phone. “Vell, HALLO, Bob. How’d you modder?” I walked into the other room and played some Road Rash 3 on my Sega. I knew this conversation would take a while.

After about an hour of knocking 64-bit animated characters off of motorcycles, my mother called my name. I rushed to her side.

“Okay, Stephie, you can go to New York. Go talk to Bob.”

“Oh, my gosh!” I said, picking up the phone. The receiver was burning hot and a little damp from my mother holding it tight to her ear, but I didn’t care.

“You owe me big, Yuhas.”

“How the heck did you convince her?”

“Well, I had to promise to protect you. And then my mom got on the phone and said that she would be sad to know that you weren’t going, and that this is a necessary step in your adolescent development, blah blah blah. And then I suggested that you pick up some pepper spray before the trip tomorrow morning.”

My face fell. I looked at the clock: 10: 15 p.m. “Oh, God. Bob…what have you done to me?”

“What do you mean?”

“All the stores are closed, Bob. Where the heck am I going to get pepper spray by 10 am tomorrow? I don’t even know where they SELL it!”

“Um…the mall?”

(to be continued)

Photo by Doomgiver

It felt like I only closed my eyes for a moment when the phone rang. “Hello?” I said, trying to remember where I was.

“Oh, lazy, Stephanie,” my aunt said over the phone. “If I didn’t call to vake you, you vould have slept until noon.”

“What? But I was up all night with-”

“So, are you comink to dah barbecue, Princess? Or should ve send a chariot for you?”

I didn’t have it in me to argue. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into a piece of charcoal-grilled hot dog. I could already smell the scent of shish kabobs mingled with green grass and sparklers. I hoped that someone else thought to make Strawberry Pie.

Happy food thoughts bounced around my brain until my cousin Irina and I pulled up to my aunt’s driveway. I was a bit confused when I noticed that the entire lawn was empty - no people, no picnic blankets, no grill.

“Where the heck is everyone?” I said.

“Oh, you know my mother,” Irina said, “She probably woke up at 7 am, and then puttered away the entire morning until she absolutely had to change out of her bathrobe and get groceries.”

“But not before calling me to criticize me!” I added.

“Of course. We would never miss that opportunity.”

My aunt pulled up a few moments later with a car full of groceries. We made small talk as we helped her carry the bags to the kitchen. She was stressed as usual. “I can’t just sit here and talk, I hafto cook, everyvon will be over any minute!”

“Do you need me to help you fire up the charcoal?” I asked.

“Vhat do you mean? Ve don’t own a barbecue grill.”

“How are we supposed to have a barbecue without a barbecue?”

“Vhat do you mean? I’m boiling tings.”

If that isn’t stereotypical European, I don’t know what is.

The rest of the family arrived about an hour later.

“Hey, guys. Do you want to go OUTSIDE and have a picnic?” I asked.

“I’m a pterodactyl!” my nephew screeched, flying around the table.

Anyu made a face. “Vhy vould ve do dat? It’s too hot and sunny out dere. You’re just gonna get freckly. Stay inside so you don’t get freckles.”

I shook my head. “I think you guys are missing the point of 4th of July. We’re supposed to-”

“Fire sword! You’re dead, Mommy!” he shouted.

“Yes, honey, I’m dead.” She stuck her tongue out and pretended to die.

“Boiled hotdog?” my aunt said.

“Sure,” I said, looking down at the bleached weenie.

After eating all the boiled stuff, and then my cousin turned to me, “You made dessert, right?”

 “Well, I was going to make a pie, but it didn’t work out, so I bought cookies and then the-”

“I knew you vere too lazy to cook,” my mother interrupted.

“I tried! I went to the store and all the lights shut out and-”

“Stephie is too busy to cook. She’s SO busy in PHILADELPHIA,” my aunt remarked, stirring around corn that had been boiling for about an hour.

I braced myself for criticism as each family member lifted out the slightly-irregular cookies.

Anyu took a bite and made a face…a good one this time! “Dese cookies are yummy,” Anyu said.

“Yeah, they’re all melty, like they’re fresh baked. Where did you get these?” my cousin’s husband said.

I was shocked at the enthusiasm. “Uh, Walmart. They were $2.”

“Wow! Amazing! You totally got the deal!” Irina said.

The family continued to talk about the “amazing” melty Walmart cookies until my nephew ran up and pointed at Irina in the deadliest pose a 4-year old could conjure.

“Fire sword,  you’re dead!”

“Where did he learn this fire sword death stuff?” I asked his mother, Erin.

“Eh, boys are into gross stuff at this age. Last week, when I asked him what he wanted for dinner, he said he wanted a ‘Dead Bloody Brotosaurus’.”

“Fire sword! You’re dead, Stephie-Nay-Nee !” he shouted.

I smiled. “I’ve made a protective bubble against your Fire Sword.”

“POP! I popped your bubble. FIRE SWORD, you’re dead.”

I pretended to die.

“Oh, yah, speaking of dead,” Anyu started, “Did you hear? My first husband died dis veekend. He’s in a freezer now.”

I rolled my eyes, “Hey, everyone! Happy 4th July! Anyu’s ex is in a freezer!”

“Vell, he von’t be frozen for long,” Anyu corrected. “Dey’re gonna burn him next veek.”

“Lucky. At least they get to barbecue,” I muttered.

Photo by Martin Boose

“In all the years we’ve been alive, we’ve NEVER had a family BBQ at the house. Let’s have one for this 4th of July. I would really like to make some good memories for the boys.”

I wracked my brain for “good memories”. To me, 4th of July was filled with the sound on my mom screaming in terror every time my neighbor set off fireworks. Every time she heard the slightest “Boom”, she would run to make sure that the roof wasn’t on fire from “dah ashes from dah firevorks”.

Despite the fact that I had already made plans, I decided that I would find some way to cancel them so I could spend time with my family. I want my cousin’s children to have happy, non-traumatic memories , so I if that means I have to make sure that my mother doesn’t get naked in front of them like our last vacation, so be it.

“Great idea. I’ll bring dessert.”

As soon as I hung up the phone, I started to get grand ideas about baking an award-winning pie. I’ve always been a little annoyed that my mother assumes that I just don’t know how to cook because she never bothered teaching me. Despite the fact that I’ve been known to cause a few explosions, I wanted to prove to her for once that I’m capable of making a simple dessert. I mean, how hard could it be?

Since I am a huge fan of “Pushing Daisies”, here is the recipe I picked:

“I’m going to a family barbecue, darn it, and I’m going to make Ned’s Strawberry Pie,” I announced to my roommate.

He looked at his watch. “Okay, it’s July 3rd and technically, it will be July 4th in approximately an hour. You should probably start baking now if you are going to make it to your family’s tomorrow morning in all the traffic.”

“To the 24-Hour Acme!” I declared, standing in my most dynamic superhero pose.

” Steph, you’re so weird,” he said as he grabbed his wallet.

I love shopping in the wee hours of the morning. This gives me an opportunity to leisurely browse the selections while avoiding all the screaming children or soccer moms pushing past me to save fifty cents on toilet paper. While my roommate placed approximately 87 cases of soda in the cart (”They’re on sale for $2 a case! What a deal!”), I painstakingly selected freshest, most delectable organic strawberries I could find.  I even hand-picked some “Jersey Fresh” corn and all the ingredients to make the pie shell from scratch. I was confident that this was shaping up to be the Best-First-American-style-4th-of-July-Barbecue ever.

As I was walking to grab a can of whipped cream, a store employee ran up to me and said, “Ma’am, you’re going to need to check out right now because we need to do a complete system reboot. We’re going to go offline in ten minutes.”

“Okay, I just need to grab some whipp-”

“No, ma’am, you need to go right this second.”

I sighed. “FIIINE.”

I called to my roommate in the sugary cereal isle and we walked to the front. There was only one line open:  the dreaded self-checkout. We waited patiently as the guy in front of us tried helplessly to scan a pineapple. After about five minutes of failure, he attempted to pay and the computer started making a weird beeping noise. A few minutes later, a cashier walked over to him to help him swipe his card with her supposed advanced card swiping skills. More beeping. The poor guy was probably charged seventeen times for that stinking pineapples.

My roommate rolled his eyes. “ABANDON SHIP!” he declared, storming towards the door. I looked back at my cart - the corn I so choosily chose. My heavenly strawberries. The $2 soda.

“But…” I looked over and the cashier was still swiping and muttering to herself.

I sighed yet again. Failure. I started to pull the cases of soda out of the cart and stack them on the endcap.

“Stop that!” my roommate yelled. “It’s the store’s fault, Stephanie, leave the cart or I’m leaving you!”

I looked at my strawberries for one last time as we dashed out the door. I still feel guilty for abandoning that shopping cart.

We drove over to the 24-Hour Walmart, which was oddly packed for the late hour. I walked to the produce isle and immediately saw what scientists might classify as “corn”. It had looked like a mob had come in, shucked all the corn halfway,  and thrown the corn silk around like confetti. I looked at the scene, thought of all the grubby fingers that had fondled the cobs, and thought better of buying any.

From where I stood, I could see a giant pile of strawberries glowing bright red in the fluorescent lights. As I walked over, I noticed an ever-so-slight fowl smell.  I stooped Many of the strawberry pints were covered in a greenish gray mold, and the strawberries that seemed fresh had hoards of gnats flying all around them. A few strawberries had rolled out from the pints and had been smashed into the grates in the store display. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that one of these smashed strawberries  had an actual human bite mark in it. Super-Failure.

I walked over to the bakery aisle to see if I could just buy some kind of pre-made fruit pie. They were all overpriced and the first few ingredient were Maltodextrin, Potassium Bromate, and Aspartame. My rule of thumb is that I need to be able to pronounce at least the first four ingredients in anything I eat, so the pie was suspect. I ended up buying some $2 cookies because they at least had familiar ingredients like “flour” and “sugar”, and leaving the horrible store.

Since I saved time on baking, I decided to just drive up to my cousin’s house, sneak in with my spare key, and just crash over there to avoid the morning commute. Everything was going smoothly, until I tried to get off at our exit on the Turnpike. I noticed that all the  EZ Pass lanes were blocked off, so I had no choice but to go to the Cash-Only Lane.

We were at a standstill, so I had time to sift around my car for change. I had pulled out about $1.50 from my seats and I noticed that we hadn’t even moved an inch.

I waited. And waited. And waited.  Even in the late night, the heat was unbearable. The air conditioning in my car doesn’t exactly work correctly, so I opened a window and prayed for a breeze.

Somehow, even though there were only about twenty cars in front of me, it took over an HOUR to crawl up to the gate.

“Um, sir, I’m don’t have a ticket because I have an EZ Pass.”

“All our computers are down, Ma’am. If you want to go through, you have to fill out this form, I need to take down your pass and plate number, and we’ll bill you later.”

I couldn’t believe it. For the second time that night, technology had failed me.  As I threw my change back down onto my seat, I noticed that my cheap Walmart cookies that were starting to melt and buckle in the humidity. EPIC failure.

I worried that this rough start was just an omen for the events to come.

To be continued.

photo by Carol Kramberger

Nichole Remmert writes:

Hi there - I love your blog and tweets; I remember bits of my own childhood when I read your stuff.

My own nagymama died before I ever knew her, when my mom was just 14.  Her father was always at work (and not Hungarian), and The Uncles (her mother’s brothers) saw to it that she would be raised a good little Magyar.  My mother was rebellious though, and when The Uncles would tell her she wasn’t behaving to their standards, she’d bait them saying that we were, “… nothing but a bunch of gypsies…”  THE HORROR!  (in reality, the family was nemes - noble - and The Uncles were fiercely proud; so much so that even eating corn was rebellious for my mother, as she’d grown up forbidden to eat such peasant foods).

Funny how people become their parents (or in this case, their Uncles) when they have children of their own.  While mom remained a fan of corn, I was always sternly warned that if I wandered off, I’d be captured by wild bands of gypsies, who’d kidnap me and make me work the fields.  What a hard life I’d have with these crazy gypsies if I disappeared too far around the corner at the JC Penney.  I’d surely be sorry.

As I got older (and the eighties progressed) I was drawn to the oversized, spangly jewelery that I’d see on MTV and then cheaply imitated at the mall.  My mother would tell me that I’d look like a gypsy with all those shiny spangles.  Somehow, the gypsies had gone from being child stealing kidnappers to what in my mind essentially amounted to Madonna Wannabes.  Gypsies seemed okay in my preteen years.

The funniest thing about all of this was that when I moved to Budapest after college, my wallet was lifted from my purse on the 19 tram.  I called my mother because I’d lost some things that I’d need her help replacing, and her first response was, “WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT GYPSIES?!”  Sigh.

You do great work!

Best,

Nichole Remmert

—-

And you do great work, too, Nicole! Now, if you’re done looking at that JCPenny Bathing suit, step into my caravan for a second so I can feed you some delcious corn! Come on..i’s made out of CANDY! Mmm…candy cooooorn.

All this talk of Gypsies remind me - one of our Project Twenty1 Teams last year made a fantastic short animation called “Gypsies”. I think it will amuse you as well:

I tossed and turned for a while, counted sheep, and even tried to put a pillow over my head. Nothing worked.

“Anyu, are you okay? Why are you breathing and sighing so deeply?”

“Ehhh…my bra…it’s too tight.”

“What size are you?”

“36C.”

“No way, mom, you’re bigger than that. Even I’m a 38B.”

“No vay you’re a 38! You haf no boobs!”

“Gee, thanks. And ‘38′ has nothing to do with boob-size. It’s the circumference of my rib cage.”

“Oh….really? Den vhat are dah letters for?”

“That’s the cup size. For your boobs.”

“Oooooh. Nobody ever told me dat. I just picked von up vhen I was 18 and I’ve been getting dah same size ever since.”

“Didn’t Nagymama ever teach you about that stuff?”

“You didn’t talk about tings like dis vhen I vas young, Stephie. You veren’t supposed to.”

“Says who?”

“I dunno. You just veren’t supposed to talk about anyting.”

My mother eventually  “unbuckled” herself, her heavy breathing hastened, and I fell asleep.

I was in the middle of my reoccurring dream about carnivals when I felt a pair of strong hands shaking me.

“Stephie!” Anyu yelled. “Somevon is tryink to break into dah room!”

I muttered something unintelligible about cotton candy.

“Seriously, Stephie! Dey are trying to get into dah bathroom!”

She dragged me out of bed and pointed me in the direction of the closed bathroom door.

“Anyu, no one is trying to break into a freakin’ Bible camp…”

She put a finger to her lips to shush me. Indeed, there was some sort of clicking coming from the bathroom.

I reached for the doorknob, trying to ignore my mother’s nails clutching my upper arm. I opened the door and braced myself. There was nothing - no one at the window, no one behind the shower curtain.

Click click click. Click click click.

My mother looked up at the ceiling in horror, pointing to a small rusty vent.

“Dey’re trying to get through dah ceiling, Stephie!”

“Anyu, that vent is smaller than a piece of paper. No one could fit through it.” (Well, except for “Tombs” from X-files, but I decided not to mention him, given my mother’s paranoia and lack of Sci-Fi knowledge)

“Maybe dey can’t fit, but dey are probably still peeping through dah vent! Listen!”

The clicking persisted.

“Anyu, it’s a windy day. The air is blowing through the duct and rattling the vent. That’s all.”

“Nope, somebody is definitely dere. I can feel someting vatching.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had spent the entire day apologizing for my mother’s inappropriate public demands for a husband, while listening to the intimate details of my nephews’ pooping habits,  all the while hearing the constant drone of misters lamenting about the eternal fires of hell. This “vacation” already felt like hell on Earth, so I just wanted to get back to my Cotton Candy Carnival dreams.

“Oh, you know what, Anyu? I think I saw a bird fly in there this afternoon from the roof,” I lied. “He’s probably just making a nest or something.”

“Or maybe a skirl?”

“Yeah, maybe it was a squirrel. Or a bird. Or a squirrel bird. Yeah, a flying squirrel. Anyway, we’re probably keeping it awake talking about it, let’s go to sleep.”

“Okay, good. I’ll turn on the fan, then, so maybe it vill cut it up and it’ll die.”

“Yeah, sounds great, goodnight.”

The next morning, I woke up to my mother reading a magazine and singing to herself in her tighty whities, completely bare-breasted.

“Ewwww, Anyu, cover yourself.”

“I tink dat skirl isn’t dead yet, Stephie, but maybe by tonight he’ll starve to death.”

“Anyu, do you hear me? Why are you shirtless?”

“You told me my bra was too tight! I don’t vant to cut off my circulation. Dats no good!”

“You’ve been wearing the wrong size for 30 years, one more day isn’t going to kill you.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Without evening thinking, she answered the door, just barely crouching behind it to cover her naughty bits.

It was my 7-year old nephew, Attila.

“Stephie-nay-nee! They rang the breakfass bell, come on!”

I jumped towards the door in slow motion, matrix style, “ATTILA, NOOOO, DON’T COME IN!”

My mother looked at me like I was crazy as I hugged the boy’s head to shied his eyes from the horror. “Vhat’s dah problem? He’s just a little boy, it doesn’t matter, he von’t remember.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll try to repress this memory, but years of therapy will bring it back up. Please, Anyu, put some clothes on.”

“Eh, I’m on vacation. Clothing’s optional.”

Photo by 3Vertias

“Oh, tank you, Stephie,” she said, admiring the bottle, “Did you bring dah cups?”

“Yes, I have them,” Irina chimed in. She pulled out several wine glasses from her bag. It was actually her idea to “drug” my mother with fruity wine.

Anyu made a face and sniffed them. “Are dese clean?”

Irina rolled her eyes, “Yeeees, Ildie, they’re clean.”

“Are you sure? You didn’t just pull dem off the shelf from dah Dollar Store and put dem in your bag, did you? People probably touched them.”

“NO, Ildie, I brought them from my kitchen cabinet.”

Anyu thought for a moment, “Your kitchen cabinet is probably dusty. I’m gonna vash dem.”

We both rolled our eyes as Anyu washed all of the glasses in the hotel sink, sniffed them, and washed them again. Eventually, she poured us all large glasses.

“Here’s to relaxation,” said Irina.

“Cheers!” I said.

“Kedves egészségére!” said Anyu. “So, vhat’s dah story?”

For a short period of time, we actually had a really good conversation.  We laughed,  shared the lastest “juicy gossip”, and Anyu genuinely seemed to enjoy some of the gifts I bought her. The wine was working!

I handed her the last gift, an 8×10 glossy headshot taken by a professional photographer. “Anyu, you’re always asking for current photos, so here the latest one.”

“Eeeehhh….vhy dah hell do you need to wear pink? You look like a pig or sometink!”

“Ildie!” my cousin yelled, seeing my disappointed face. ” It looks nice! Really! I mean, you look really different, but it still looks nice!”

I sighed, “Sorry it’s not the 8th grade dance photo.”

“Oh, yes! Dat vas a good von! You Irina, do you remember, Stephie used to be so sexy…”

I plopped my head on the pillow. “You just can’t please everyone,” I thought. Since even one glass of wine makes me sleepy, I fell asleep almost immediately.

The next morning, I woke up to my mother’s singing. “Pretty voman, valking down dah street…pretty voman. Vould kinda like to meet. Pretty vomaaaaan….”

I glanced over to see cousin sitting straight up in bed with a furrowed brow. “I am going to kill your mother,” she said, fists clenching the blankets.

“Eh, she’s always singing something,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“No, not that!” she said, “You didn’t hear her drinking all night?”

I looked over at the bottle on the nightstand. “What do you mean? Half the bottle is still here, she didn’t drink that much.”

“No, it’s not the amount of drinking. It’s the volume of drinking.”

I was confused. “Um, the words  ‘amount’ and ‘volume’ pretty much mean the same thing.”

“Oh, wow, I can’t believe you slept through it.”

“Remember, Nagymama was poking and prodding me all night as a child. I sleep like the dead.”

“Okay, then, let me demonstrate.” Irina got up and grabbed one of the wine glasses. She cleared her throat to ready herself for the performance. She sighed loudly. She put the glass to her mouth and made a loud “SIIIIIIIIIIIIP!” noise.  She slammed the glass on the nightstand. She sighed again loudly. She scratched her head so furiously that it sounded like two sticks rubbing together. She then picked the wine glass up again, moved it an inch, and then put it back on the table with a clang. She adjusted her boobs and burped. She looked back down at the the glass, sighed, picked it back up.  “SIIIIIIIIIIIIP!” She slammed the glass back on the table. I laughed.

“This is not funny, Stephanie! I was up ALL last night because of your mother’s sipping and sighing and scratching and banging…I’m going to kill her!”

“Welcome to the first seventeen years of my life, Cousin. Remember, I never had my own bedroom.”

“Yeah, and that’s why I am sleeping next door tonight. Sleeping in a room with a married couple and their two young children is quieter than sleeping next to your mother.”

Photo by Steve Woods