Bombeck - If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries What Am I Doing in the Pits?: Bestselling Author of Family--The Ties That Bind...And Gag!

If Life Is

a Bowl of Cherries

What Am I Doing

in the Pits?

Also by Erma Bombeck

At Wit's End

"Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your

Own!"

I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression

The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic

Tank

If Life Is

a Bowl of Cherries

What Am I Doing

in the Pits?

by Erma Bombeck

McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY

New York St. Louis San Francisco * Dussetdorf '

Mexico Toronto

Book design by Lynn Braswell. Illustrations copyright 1978 by Hal Just.

Copyright 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 by Erma Bombeck. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any lonn ur by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

1234567890 BPBP 78321098

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Bombeck, Erma.

If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?

I. Title.

PS3552.059I34 818'.5'407 77-17344 ISBN 0-07-006451-2

A number of the chapters in this book are based on material that has appeared elsewhere in .another form.

For my editor, Gladys Carr, who has the courage to laugh only when it's funny.

To my agent, Aaron Priest, who gives 100 percent, but takes only 10 percent.

for my Mom and Dad, (Albert and Erma Harris), who tell everyone their daughter is a successful dental assistant.

Contents

Introduction

A Pair of White Socks in,a Pantyhose World 1

1 If You Thought the Wedding Was Bad... 7

2 The Mother Mystique 25

Who Is I. Dunno? 27

At What Age Is a Child Capable of

Dressing Himself? 28

Haven't I Always Loved Whatshisname

Best? 30

"Why Can't We Have Our Own

Apartment?" 32

Is There a Life After Mine? 34

"Why Can't Our Average Little Family

Get Their Own TV Series?" 36

3 Who Killed Apple Pie? 41

Primer for Imaginative Children 49

4 The Varicose Open 57

5 Profile of a Martyress 67

Profile of a Martyr 69

6 Have a Good Day 75

7 "Warning: Families May Be Dangerous to

Your Health" 85

8 There Ought to Be a Law... 101

A Baby's Bill of Rights 101

The Hernia Amendment to the National

Anthem 102

Kissing by Mutual Ratification 104

Search and Seizure Rights in the

Laundry Room 106

Regulation of Interstate Shopping Cart

Traffic 108

Truth in Fair Packaging of Children 110

Constitutionality of Drive-in Windows 112

Are Family Vacations Legal? 114

Illegal Possession of Junk Food 116

The Right to Declare War 118

Register Camera Nuts 119

9 Gametime 125

Joe Carter's Jubilance and Excitement

Seminar 130

10 Fashions and Fads That Underwhelmed Me 135

11 How to Speak Child Fluently 147

Things My Mother Taught Me 147

12 "Travel Is So Broadening I Bought a

Maternity Dress to Wear Home" 163

13 The Trick Is Knowing When to Laugh... 171

Microphones 172

No One Wins 174

The Unmailed Letter 176

Killing Your Mother 177

14 I'm Laughing So Hard I Can't Stop Crying183

When Did I Become the Mother and the

Mother Become the Child?184

Mike and the Grass189

My Turn 191

Beauty193

You Don't Love Me 195

Are You Listening? 196

The Chimes 198

Epilogue201

If Life Is

a Bowl of Cherries

What Am I Doing

in the Pits?

Introduction

A Pair of White Socks in a Pantyhose World

I've always worried a lot and frankly I'm good at it.

I worry about introducing people and going blank when I get to my mother. I worry about a shortage of ball bearings; a snake coming up through my kitchen drain. I worry about the world ending at midnight and getting stuck with three hours on a twenty-four-hour cold capsule.

I worry about getting into the Guinness World Book of Records under Pregnancy: Oldest Recorded Birth. I worry what the dog thinks when he sees me coming out of the shower, that one of my children will marry an Eskimo who will set me adrift on an iceberg when I can no longer feed myself. I worry about salesladies following me into the fitting room, oil slicks, and Carol Channing going bald. I worry about scientists discovering someday that lettuce has been fattening all along.

But mostly, I worry about surviving. Keeping up with the times in a world that changes daily. Knowing what to keep and what to discard. What to accept and what to protest.

Never, in the history of this country, have worriers had such a decade as the seventies. Each year has produced a bumper crop of worrierees larger than the year before and this year promises to be even better.

Children are becoming an endangered species, energy has reached crisis proportions, marriages are on the decline, and the only ones having any fun anymore are the research rats.

You cannot help but envy their decadence.

Throughout the years, these furry swingers have been plied with booze, pot, cigarettes, birth control pills, too much sun, cyclamates, caffeine, Red Dye No. 2, saccharine, disco music at ear-shock decibels, late nights, and a steady diet of snack food.

If people haven't asked themselves these questions, they should:

How come there are still more rats than people?

How come you've never seen an iron-starved, dull, listless rat drag around the house?

Did you ever see a rat with a salad in one hand and a calorie counter in the other; yet have you ever seen a fat rat?

Have you ever yelled at a rat who couldn't hear you and couldn't outrun you?

Did you ever see a rat drop dead with lipstick on his teeth?

These unanswered questions have bothered me because everytime I turn around a new research study is taking away something that has added to my pleasure in the past, but is bound to make me sick in the future.

I heard a story about a research rat recently that makes one pause and reflect. The rat's name was Lionel. He was a pro. He had everything tested on him from artificial sweeteners to bread preservatives to foot fungus viruses to brutal subway experiments and survived them all. A researcher figured he was something of a Superrat... an immortal who could sustain life no matter what the odds.

The researcher took him home as a pet for his children. Within three months, this indestructible rat was dead.

It seems that one day the rat was taken for a ride in the car with the teenage son who had a learner's permit. The rat died of a heart attack.

That's what this book is about. Surviving.