While I intently work through math torture problem number seven, my son orchestrates the Battle of Armageddon between his eraser and the salt shaker left on the table from dinner. It’s irritating as hell, but I know from experience it will take more energy than I have to negotiate a peace treaty between the eraser and the salt shaker, so I let go. Suddenly, there is silence. And stillness. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I slowly lift my eyes from the math workbook and am terrified by the look of horror on my son’s face. The eraser and the salt shaker are frozen in mid air attack. I’m thinking to myself, “I didn’t hear the alarm signal that a door had opened ... the sixty-eight pound yellow Lab at my feet has not even flinched ...”
Then I see her ... my daughter ... MY SEVEN YEAR OLD DAUGHTER .... who has procured from the charity bag and adorned herself with 1) a red underwire push-up bra, 2) a black blouse that fits her like a mini-dress, 3) a pair of black patent boots which fit below the knees on me, but are thigh-highs on her, and 4) two C cupped sized granny smith apples which she has appropriately placed inside the red under wire push up bra. She says, “How do I look?” and proceeds with a wobbly curtsy that causes one of the apples to hit the tile floor. Then she says, “Uh oh, my boob fell down.” I’m speechless with the most unfortunate and inappropriate exception of, “Just you wait.”
The next night, my husband is working crazy late so I get the kids to bed and get in bed myself and try to find something on TV that will keep me awake until he comes home. And what do I find but the original, from 1975, The Stepford Wives. I had never seen this movie. I, of course, knew all about it and had seen the remake with Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick. I was only eight years old when this movie was released, almost the same age my daughter is now, and it’s a movie that I’ve never thought to rent. I WAS TRANSFIXED.
