Boys' Dolls, Matchmaking, and Kitten's Play: A Slice of Strife
Not too long ago on my familiar planet, I was besieged by a red and angry monster and by his cruel, blue compatriots. Without so much as a warning growl, the rouge rogue shot nuclear torpedoes from both of his laser cannon arms at me. Before either his indigo compadres or I could respond to that invective, Berkly ambushed that bad guy. Bent shirt hanger in one hand, borrowed doll cape in the other, Berkly meant to deconstruct that demon. Kitten hissed and sprang from the room.
Albeit Rumer’s tallest cactus, not to mention his pile of dirty laundry (ever-so conveniently stacked in front of Rumer’s door), and his latest language arts paper suffered from that brave defense, Berkly did belay me from the clutches of the two-inch toy. My valiant kindergartener, though, had not been focused on breaking up the melee; he had entered his brother’s kingdom to destroy the ‘bot since said plaything had been commandeered from Berkly’s private collection.
I reached for jammies and T-shirts scattered amongst architectural renderings, half-painted model airplanes and not yet retired elephants before righting the prickly plant. The boys, absorbed in redefining martial territory, took no notice of either the crumbled papers that I appropriated or the game of Bowling for Dustbunnies that had begun one floor below.
Kitten was batting at imaginary friends, instead of at the small, plastic balls, which had leaked from a birthday party goodie bag and had collected under the parental bed. While Kitten was otherwise occupied, those toys idled among lost socks, dirty tissues and missing library books. When she became interested, her resulting reverberations were unremitting. Rummmmble . . . warned a ball as it coasted over the bedroom’s wooden floor. Rummmmble . . . sounded another immortal party favour. Rummmmble . . . resonated a third as our young feline perfected her pounce. Meanwhile, the phone clanged.
Three rings before the machine. Four before a total disconnect. I grabbed the receiver midmessege. Demanding my ear was a stranger with a pleasant voice who happened to think that I could put her in touch with a miracle.
Given, I like little people who squish applesauce into their plastic trucks before putting their toys away. True, I adore furry critters that bring spasming rodents into my office only to release their live prisoners at my feet. Certain, I am enamoured of a man of in-between years who might remember, the day after tomorrow, to clean his clippings out of the bathroom sink. Howsoever, I manifest little affection for unfamiliar females whom call me with requests for eligible doctors, lawyers and tax accountants and even less love for unknown gentlemen who won’t dream of marrying anyone bigger than a size four.
‘I see.’ I didn’t. I didn’t know her name or her reference. I had no idea how she found me. I did realise, though, that Molly’s voice had since joined Berkly and Rumer’s and that more of those block-made creatures seemed to be flying across the floor above. Come to think of it, why was Berkly running around with a bent shirt hanger? Eyes are precious.
‘At least five ten in height,’ Miss Mystery continued. She had been droning while I had been pondering. Tenacity and looks were her bids for love.
‘Why is height so important? There are good short men.’
‘I never dated anyone under six feet,’ Madame Five-Two parried.
‘Would you relocate?’ I offered, hopeless to the noise of glass and metal above.
‘As long as he moves to my neighborhood,’ addended Sally Sensible.
‘What about children? Divorced guy? Widower?’ Suddenly, my home was too quiet. In balance, no one was seeking ace bandages, comfrey compresses or stitches.
‘Not messy. Not too cute. Not too young,’ insisted my calculating client.
I took a deep breath and listened for further evidence of violence. The cats obliged. A rotund grey and white bit chased a svelter striped thing down three flights of stairs.
‘How old?’ I refocused.
‘In college is best. I don’t want to raise someone else’s.’
Thud. My public service was interrupted by a bulletin concerning Captain Contagious and his sidekick, Mr. Annihilation.
‘The boys are attacking us! The boys are attacking,’ sirened little Molly. Having gleefully dispatched the news, she ran back up the stairs, skipping over the towels that she meant to put in the laundry closet and over her dollies’ collection of plastic shoes. My family’s stairs and halls seemed destined to live as repositories.
Just the other day Bernadette insisted that she needed to annex part of Molly’s room to contain her spillage. I suggested that she toss the deflated plastic hammer, the broken beanbag chair and the incomplete crochet projects. She countered that my husband and I didn’t love her because we refused to rent space for her collection of Little Missy magazines and refused to share our closet with her for purposes of her outgrown, but cherished, fancy dresses.
Offering apologies while ending an unwanted and unsolicited phone call (!) I pursued my zealous offspring. The upper regions of my home were strewn with toilet paper rolls, streams of building blocks and yet more misshaped shirt hangers. I stepped over last year’s sunglasses while putting my shoulder to my eldest son’s door. It did not yield.
‘Move!’ I bellowed in my best Mommy voice.
‘What’s going on?’ I demanded as the household’s regulator
‘I don’t like what I see.’ My inner politician helped me to reframe my rhetoric; if I punished all of them, I’d have no one left to help me with the grocery shopping.
‘Rumer did it,’ sacrificed Molly.
‘Did not. Get out ‘a my room. Now!’ defended the local champ.
‘He hit me,’ added the usually overlooked Berkly.
‘You get out, too,’ vexed the beleaguered local.
‘Scoot,’ the riot police proclaimed before ticketing the townie for littering municipal streets. A follow-up lecture would have ensued had the phone stopped ringing.
I bounded down two flights only to discover not my agent protracting a deal, but a second call from the aforementioned young woman; she wanted to know if I had read her follow-up email. The pictures were shot in good light, she reassured. A renowned school had conferred her philosophy degree, she rejoined. She wanted me to know, as well, that during our prior twenty-seven minute-long chat, she had decided that she could ‘settle’ for an executive, as long as he would vacation in warmer climes. I glanced up long enough to see a senior feline stalking Kitten.
My striped wonder was no sooner screaming past my office door, away from the amazingly ambulatory furred-covered, well-fed bolster than the front doorbell rang, and rang, and rang. Molly and Rumer pushed each other all the way down two flights to answer it. Their shoulders and foreheads vied to be first to get to the screen. That they made an immediate return trip back up to their andocentric wonderland belied the identity of the ‘guest’; Bernadette had returned home, smiling from one glittering silver tooth to another. She liked to make scary smiles with her braces.
‘Back door friends are best’ I corrected, regarding the handset in my hand and turned from my not-quite-child back to my caller.
‘Ma, about that play, the one Mandy’s going to. She asked if...’ prepared my trial lawyer.
‘No,’ overturned the court.
‘. . . so that guy, who owned his own jet, frequently flies from California to see me . . .’ droned on my other client.
‘No child,’ snarled the enforcers sent to monitor the crime scene.
‘. . . so I told him, I couldn’t marry anyone’s mama’s boy. . .’ segued my captor.
‘Thanks Mom. I knew you’d say “yes”,’ barked my clever adolescent upon realising my phone phantom wanted to talk more about khakis versus dress pants on men.
Later, after I was able to pull myself away from that haunting’s monologue about the relative merit of a symphony hall as a dating venue, as I nestled among a green, stuffed lizard, a reading pillow, and a pile of almanacs, I traced my eyes over the half-emptied water bottles (the stains on the carpet beneath the carpet proved those vessels were not ‘half full’), a yet incomplete atlas of an alternative universe, and an unfurled karate belt.
‘Did ya know,’ I proffered.
‘What?’ was the disinterested response. He was busied adding another continent to his imaginary map, oblivious to the fact that much of the debris from the previous war still lay strewn across his room.
‘Your monsters, the ones you and your friends build and trade, are really dolls... are over-priced tie-ins, money-makers for some toy company… marketed as scary creatures so macho kids will buy them.’
‘I knew that.’
‘Instead of allowance? As a favorite toy? What about art projects? Basketball? Bike rides? Staring out the window? Staring at your sister?’
‘Mom…’ Rumer rolled his eyes at the ceiling, likely wondering why parents state the obvious…
‘What?’
‘Please don’t tell my friends.’
Article by KJ Hannah Greenberg
KJ Hannah Greenberg gave up all manner of academic hoopla to chase a hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs and to raise children. This year, she dusted off her keyboard and began to churn out smoothies, vegetable soup, and more creative work than might be considered proper for a middle-aged woman.
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