Bombeck - I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression

The other day I went into the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to have my drivers license renewed.

The man behind the counter mechanically asked me my name, address, phone number and, finally, occupation.

I am a housewife, I said.
He paused, his pencil lingering over the blank, looked at me intently, and said, Is that what you want on your license, lady?
Would you believe, Love Goddess? I asked
dryly.
In my lifetime, I have had many identities.
I have been referred to as the Tuesday pick-up with the hole in the muffler, the 10:30 A.M. standing in the beauty shop who wears Girl Scouts anklets, and the woman who used to work in the same building with the sister-in-law of Jonathan Winters.

Who am I?
Im the wife of the husband no one wants to swap with.

Also by Erma Bombeck:

AT WITS END

JUST WAIT TILL YOU HAVE CHILDREN OF YOUR OWN! (with Bil Keane)

IF LIFE IS A BOWL OF CHERRIESWHAT AM I DOING IN THE PITS?

AUNT ERMAS COPE BOOK: How to Get From Monday to Friday in 12 Days

MOTHERHOOD: The Second Oldest Profession

FAMILY: The Ties That Bind and Gag!

I WANT TO GROW UP, I WANT TO GROW HAIR, I WANT TO GO TO BOISE

Published by Fawcett Books

A Fawcett Crest Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 by Field Enterprises, Inc.
Copyright 1970, 1971, 1972 by The Hearst Corporation

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Alternate Selection of the Doubleday Book Club

eISBN: 978-0-307-77825-3

This edition published by arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc.

v3.1

To BILL, who said,
Whatya been doin all day?

Before you read this book, there are a few things you should know about me.

I consider ironed sheets a health hazard.

Children should be judged on what they area punishment for an early marriage.

There is no virtue in waxing your driveway.

Husbands are married for better or worsebut not for lunch.

Renaissance women were beautiful and never heard of Weight Watchers.

Mothers-in-law who wear a black armband to the wedding are expendable.

Missing a nap gives you bad skin.

Men who have a thirty-six-televised-football-games-a-week-habit should be declared legally dead and their estates probated.

For years, I have worked at being a simple, average housewife. I am ready to face the facts. Im a loser. Excitement for me is taking a Barbie bra out of the sweeper bag. Fulfillment is realizing I am the only one in the house who can replace the toilet-tissue spindle. Adventure is seeing Tom Jones perform and throwing my hotel key at his feet (only to discover its the key to my freezer).

Would it shock you to know that as an average housewife I have never been invited to an aspirin lecture? You know the commercial Im talking about. Theres this ratio-balanced roomful of people sitting around finding out everything theyve always wanted to know about aspirin but were afraid to ask.

Can I drive a car after taking aspirin? Can I take aspirin with other medication? What are the ingredients of aspirin? I worry about me. I dont want to know anything about aspirin.

After twenty-three years of marriage, you would have thought that once during that time some stranger would have called and asked me what laxative I use. My kids never tell me what the dentist said. My husband never smells his shirts and smiles. We rarely spend an evening sitting around reading the ingredients on dog-food cans. And I cant tell you when was the last time my husband offered to shampoo my hair.

I was telling my neighbor, Mayva, how commercials had evaded me and she said, You ninny, let me see your handbag.

I opened it to reveal the usual collection of womens junk.

Thats your problem, she said. Youll never get into a commercial traveling like that. She opened her purse. In it was a large bottle of Milk of Magnesia (You never know when you are going to sit on a park bench with someone who needs a coating on their stomach.), a package of breath mints, a pound of Mountain Grown coffee, a hair spray, a bottle of dishwashing detergent, a compound to soak your dentures, a can of floor wax, a room deodorizer, and two rolls of (whisper) toilet paper.

If you want to be a normal, average housewife, she said, youve got to be ready for em.

Yesterday, I knocked on Mayvas door. Guess what? I said. It worked. I almost got in a commercial. I was in the supermarket and I was approached by this man who wanted to know what laundry soap I used. I opened my handbag and showed him this big box. He was pleased as punch. He said, What would you say if I told you Id give you two boxes of an inferior brand for this one? I told him Id say, Youre on, Barney!

You blew it, said Mayva softly.

Im afraid youre right, I said.

I suppose I should be depressed, but I have a theory there are some things in this life you cannot control. Its psychological defeat. No matter what you do you cannot win.

Take my son. The other day I dropped him off at the tennis court and as his opponent walked over to introduce himself, my son froze. After the boy left, he slumped to the bench, holding his head between his knees. Did you see him, Mom? he asked miserably. He was wearing a sweat band.

I could have cried for him. Any fool knows sweat bands always finish first. I wanted to comfort him, but in my heart, I knew the outcome. He was psychologically defeated.

I know. I was defeated for the title of Miss Eighth Grade Perfect Posture when I saw Angie Sensuous was a finalist. Angie was never carried in a fetal position. She was born sitting upright.

I knew I had blown the presidency of the Forensic League when I walked out on the stage dragging a piece of toilet tissue on my left shoe. I knew I could never shape up when I walked into the YWCA exercise class dressed in faded pedal pushers and knee-length Supp-hose when the rest of the class had leotards.

Dont ask me how you know. You just do. Your dog will never get well when you take him to the vet and all the other dogs have rhinestone collars and leashes and yours has a fifty-foot pink plastic clothesline around his neck.

You know your day is lost when you go into town and the elevator operator takes you straight to the basement budget store without asking.

You know instinctively that you will never get a hundred-dollar check cashed when the button falls off your coat. I always loved Fannie Flaggs remark that she could have won the Miss America pageant, but she got the wicker chair in the bathing suit competition. She knew.

I try, but somehow I am always the woman in the wrong line. Lines are like a foreign language. You have to know how to read and to translate them. What looks to me like a thirty-second transaction invariably ends up as a tenor thirty-minute wait.

I am always behind the shopper at the grocery store who has stitched her coupons in the lining of her coat and wants to talk about a strong chicken she bought two weeks ago. The register tape also runs out just before her sub-total.

In the public rest-room, I always stand behind the teen-ager who is changing into her band uniform for a parade and doesnt emerge until she has combed the tassels on her boots, shaved her legs, and recovered her contact lens from the commode.