A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
For a while there in the Aughts, I’m pretty sure there was an FCC regulation that required an Intervention rerun to be broadcast at all times of day and night. Today, there seems to be a similar rule governing the scheduling of 90 Day Fiancé. Intervention was a reliable presence on the airwaves but certainly not a […]
Sometimes I think it’s a shame I didn’t live in an era before modern orthodontics. I have naturally occurring straight teeth—no medical intervention went into the making of my smile—and I figure that back in pre-braces times this feature would have made me stand out, godlike, among the snaggletoothed masses. Of course, those days were […]
I grew up in a home with four women—my mom and three sisters—and they used up toilet paper like they had a vendetta against trees. In fact, we had a family rule that when one of us went to the store for any reason, that person was supposed to pick up a four-pack of Charmin […]
My grandpa would remove his unwanted nose hairs by yanking them out with his fingers. I watched him do it once. We were in a car. He was in the driver’s seat, and my grandma was sitting next to him. I was in the back. We were stopped at a gas station, and while we […]
I’ve never met a dental hygienist who didn’t have the skeptical yet sorrowful air of someone accustomed to being lied to all the time. The wives of mid-scandal politicians have a similar demeanor. It’s a look that says, I’m obliged to pretend that I believe you, but we both know that you don’t floss every […]
There’s a scene in the musical Caroline, or Change where the title character, a maid in 1963 Louisiana, is explaining to 8-year-old Noah, the son of her employer, that God made everything—“the whole world, you and me and this wash machine.” “Did God make the dryer?” Noah asks. “No, the devil made the dryer,” Caroline […]
I didn’t start putting styling products in my hair until the summer after my freshman year of college. The next summer I came out of the closet. Make of that what you will. Despite my hair’s gel-free condition in high school, a classmate we’ll call Elizabeth (not her real name) did turn to me one […]
My father taught me to shave by handing me a Norelco. That was the extent of his instruction. I rubbed the buzzing thing over my face until the fuzz was gone, and thus was I initiated into a timeless rite of manhood. I don’t know how electric razors work, but it feels like they yank […]
Indirect Objects 