Call Me Cruella

Childhood fantasies die hard. I grew up in the 50's, at a time when a girl’s first bra was a big thing. They actually called them training bras, as though our little bosoms needed to ease gradually into a lifetime of restraint and discomfort. (They may have been right.) The day I got mine, I locked myself in my bedroom and tried on all my clothes in the mirror to see if I looked any different. I had arrived.

Little girls also practiced writing their "married names" in their notebooks. If you had a crush on Jimmy Donovan, for example, you wrote "Mrs. Jimmy Donovan" inside all your notebooks. When you got tired of that, you wrote: Mr. & Mrs. Donovan, Joan & Jimmy Donovan, The Donovan’s, The Donovan Family - until your hand fell off.

And in my fantasies, the shapely Mrs. Jimmy Donovan was always wearing a fur coat. You couldn’t swing a dead fox in 1950's Hollywood without hitting a fur-clad star. Marilyn, Doris, Liz - they were always dragging a fur behind them. Every little girl dreamed of owning a fur coat someday.

Fast forward to the early 80's. My husband (not Jimmy Donovan) got a large and unexpected bonus, and asked if there was anything I had always wanted. By the end of the week, I had a beaver coat. I knew if I didn’t act fast, the furnace would break down, or we might come to our senses and change our minds.

I think I got to wear my coat a half-dozen times before - and it seemed like overnight to me - the animal rights protesters came out of the woodwork with spray paint. It’s not like there wasn’t an animal rights movement before I got the coat. But I honestly thought the protesters were some lunatic fringe group engaged in isolated incidents. I couldn’t believe that this prize which I had coveted since childhood, which had once symbolized glamor and sophistication, had become vulgar and disgusting.

It was with great frustration that I decided that if so many people were offended about the semi-aquatic rodents who died for my coat, then I would not wear it. Cruella De Ville was not the look I’d been going for. I stuffed it into a vacuum sealed bag and stored it on a shelf in my closet.

Like everyone else, I go through life trying to figure out what is right and wrong, and then drawing lines between what I will and will not do for the things I believe in. I will do this but not that. I will go this far - no further. The older I get, I become increasingly confused about what matters. I’m constantly rethinking everything, including my childhood fantasies.

In the 60's, it seemed I had hardly had time to enjoy wearing a bra before young women started burning their bras. I shoved all my bras to the back of the drawer and did not wear them. I felt that was a sufficient statement, and passed on the bonfire.

But by the time I got married in the 70's,"Mrs." was out, and "Ms." was in. You were supposed to keep your maiden name. Or, you could hyphenate the maiden and married name . I went with Ms. - not Mrs. I took both names - no hyphen. I am Ms. Joan Mayfield Call. I put a lot of thought into it.

And I truly like animals. I don’t kill them for sport. I want them slaughtered humanely. I never want them to suffer unnecessarily. I love my dog, and my cat. I think birds are hilarious. Emergency Vets is one of my favorite shows. But I eat animals, and I wear them. That is where I draw that line.

The anti-fur demonstrators would have a lot more credibility with me if they were equally strident with all people who eat and wear animals in any form. And I think their intense focus on fur coats (as opposed to, say, the meat counter at Walmart) is hypocritical. I can only assume that the focus on fur is connected to the price tag. I think it’s envy, which is often masked as righteousness.

Long before many of the protesters were born, there were those who believed that only the wealthy (i.e. selfish, corrupt and immoral) wore furs, and respectable women did not. Take Tricky Dick, for example. In his infamous "Checkers Speech," while defending himself against charges that he had kept a secret slush fund for campaign expenses, Nixon said that his wife Pat didn’t even own a fur coat, but only a "respectable Republican cloth coat." Perhaps that was the moment in time when the "green monster" was released.

All I know is, I’m trying to do the right thing here, and I’d just like to understand why. I’m appealing to my readers - all three of you - to tell me, if you know: Why is it so much worse to wear a fur coat than to eat a hamburger?

Also, what should I do with my coat? :

Destroy it?
Wear it?
Sell it on ebay?
What?
My operators are standing by.
joan@joancall.com

My Library

It is with great trepidation that I call your attention to the link for "My Library" in the right-hand column under "More from Joan Call." If you go there, it takes you to a great site hosted by librarything.com, where any deranged bibliophile such as myself can post her personal library with reviews and 5 star ratings.

Because I’m down in Florida until April without access to all of my books, "My Library" is just a partial listing. I’ve rated my books using the 5 star system. If you want to see book reviews, you can click around the site and find them. But I don’t do book reviews, and let me tell you why.

I hate to recommend books to people, unless I know them and their reading habits well. Even at that, it’s tricky. Hence, my trepidation. One of my best friends, with whom I had much in common, hated Owen Meany. Another good friend did not enjoy The Ha Ha, by Dave King. For my money, novels don’t get much better than those. I threw up my hands, and learned to feel presumptuous when I assumed I knew what another reader would enjoy.

During my three-year stint as a bookseller, I was forced to recommend books on a daily basis. If I determined that the buyer wasn’t a big reader -no problem. The customer in a hurry, for example: "Do you have that book on the stock market? I don’t know the name of it! It’s purple, and it was on Oprah!" Or, "I’m looking for a book for my coffee table. It should be kind of a lemony-yellow, (there would sometimes be a paint chip)about 11 X 14?" Or the frantic husbands, five minutes before closing on Christmas Eve: "I need a book for my wife! She likes to cook!"

Then there were the customers who had read one book that they really liked in their entire lives: "I just finished Fried Green Tomatoes! I’d like another book like that!" Wouldn’t we all. Really great stories that are both wise and funny are rare.

For me, a really good day at the bookstore was when I could find the perfect book for a troubled customer. They might have a spouse with cancer, a child coping with the death of a grandparent, or a "friend" with an eating disorder. I would sit them down with a cup of tea in my rocking chair and bring them a stack of books. I usually said something like, "I think this is the one you’re looking for, but you might consider these as well."

It was always hard for me to take money from those people when they checked out. Sometimes they’d be crying. Sometimes I’d be crying. Books can do that. It’s a beautiful thing when a book becomes the only key that can get a person through a door they need to go through. Most times, you need to find those keys on your own. Keep looking.

My Valentine

I got an email from my daughter yesterday. She was making heart-shaped brownies to serve to her boyfriend for Valentine’s Day. She bought his favorite candy. "What are you and Dad doing?" she asked me.

"No plans here," was my answer. "But that’s OK!" I assured her. And she knows that. She’s been through the entire evolution of our gift-giving habits - from no gifts to really bad gifts to no gifts and finally, a few thoughtful gifts each year. (But never for Valentine’s Day.)

My husband and I were married in the month of November. Our first Christmas together was so hectic that we agreed to not buy gifts for one another. I may have even been the one to suggest it. But when there was no gift or card for my birthday in January, I was devastated. I pouted. He didn’t notice. Subtlety is ineffective with Charlie. It’s like taking poison and waiting for him to die. There was a blow-up, and a "talk", and an agreement that there would be gifts the following Christmas.

And there were. If memory serves, there was a dust buster, a window fan, and a no-slip safety step-ladder. They came in large boxes, he wrapped them, and they looked great under the tree. The following year there was a power drill and a blender. I began to see a pattern. Our local Ace Hardware was his go-to store for presents for the wife. They’re close, open late on Christmas Eve, and not too crowded.

We had another "gift discussion." It was loud. We resumed the no-gift policy.

Early marriage is tough, or at least ours was. There wasn’t a lot said or written about the fundamental differences between men and women in 1979. Most women, including myself, were still busy trying to prove that the genders were the same - thinking that we had to be the same to be equal. I had not yet read Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys. (Laugh if you will, but that book was an epiphany for me.) I was still thinking that if he really loved me, well, he would notice when I was unhappy. And he would know why. I kept taking that poison and waiting for him to die.

I don’t know how many years into the marriage we were before I had another epiphany: Charlie has never been, and never will be, a guy whose love can be measured in flowers and jewelry. Mr. Romance he’s not.

Mr. Dependable is who he is. Mr. Wonderful Father. Mr. Take the Cat to the Vet in the Middle of the Night and Get Up For Work the Next Morning and Never Complain. Mr. Sure You Can Start a New Business Don’t Worry About the Money I’m Proud of You.

That’s who I married. That’s my Valentine.

Su Casa, Mi Casa

Have you ever rented a stranger’s home? This is something my husband, Charlie and I have done every vacation for over 20 years. When our children were young, it was just for a week or two. But now, we rent a different furnished house in Florida for three months every winter.

As soon as we arrive, before we unpack the car, Charlie and I take off in different directions, exploring the house in gender-stereotypical ways. He’s finding the electrical outlets, deciding on the best spot for his computer and my computer, checking out the hoses and fuse boxes, scoping out the garage and making his list for Radio Shack.

I spend a lot of time making a grocery list - not because I cook but because I’m still usually responsible for figuring out what necessities we need (coffee, soap, popcorn, TP). But as I take this inventory, what I am really doing is trying to get a sense of the people who own the home. Their presence is palpable, as though they were lingering spirits, and I need to make friends with them before I can feel at home for three months. This year, the spirits were restless. They were fighting with each other. I searched for clues.

This is tricky business. The closets and bureaus are empty, of course. Even the stray refrigerator magnet ("Bingo Keeps Me Regular!") or the books on the shelf could have been left by previous renters. But I’m up to the task. Out in the kitchen, some of the appliances are still in their original boxes, with German manuals and writing on the boxes. Charlie reports that there are two German language cable channels on the TV. OK, so the owners are German.

I wander around the whole house now, taking in the furnishings and the "art". The thing that struck us when we first entered the home was a four-foot sculpture of a goofy, demented-looking golfer by the front door. There is also, up on a high shelf, something of a statuette collection of golfers in liederhosen, and also much evidence of a crafty person who makes theme shadow boxes. The one over the kitchen sink, for example, contains plastic fruit, empty cereal boxes and the remnants of a Mc Donald’s Happy Meal. Also an American quarter and a beer cap. Not sure if they strayed from the theme, or perhaps the theme was "American Breakfast".

All of that exists, intermingled with lots of fat gold angels, Romanesque statues and a giant print of three amorous, disrobed Roman women hanging over the bed. This is not right. I plop myself down on a gold brocade loveseat in the living room and stare at the marble columned coffee table from Wise Guy Warehouse. Charlie gives me a dirty look as he limps by me with 3 suitcases. I should be helping him.

And suddenly I’ve got it. "The Germans just bought the house - recently!" I yell at him as I follow him back to the garage. "All the golfers and the fast food art belongs to them. Everything else was left by the previous owner! No wonder the spirits are fighting."

"That’s great," Charlie says."Can we unpack the car now?"