A Shrink Wrapped Mutiny

When I was a child, we used to shop for groceries daily. Bradshaw’s grocery was just up on George Street, the old village market street, perhaps five minutes from the house. In bombed out Britain, many people were living crammed into rooms and fridges were a luxury. We’d buy two ounces of butter (a treat), a quarter of tea, and a couple of eggs (always fun to see them candled) that Mum would put on the window sill overnight. My favorite peppermint humbugs were sold in two ounce bags and nothing was prepackaged. All would be deposited into a wicker basket. Wrapping was reserved for soft goods and was generally brown paper wrap and string, except for fish and chips which came in waxed paper wrapped in newsprint.

Nothing was wasted because there was so little. My mother had a rather large ball of string and the brown paper was regularly reused for posting things. Anything larger was collected by a man with a cart who came through the street yelling, “Any old rags, any old bones.”

Today I can hardly come home from the market without a garbage can full of discarded wrapping materials. It is so overdone that I have conceived an absolute hatred of opening packages.

My animus toward packing materials begins with milk cartons. Supposedly easy to open and “hygienic” because fingers wouldn’t touch the spout, these cartons are the Edsels of the milk world. You have to push open the top, which never goes back far enough to clear the adhesive, then pull it forward to form the spout, except that it invariably tears, leaving a jagged edge through which the milk escapes on the sides when you try to pour it out.

My ire continues with anything pressure sealed. Potato chips (never mind that I shouldn’t be eating them), small ketchup packages, “freshness” pouches inside cereal boxes—anything that says “tear here.” Invariably it doesn’t and when I resort to my teeth the package disgorges its contents all at once and usually on me.

My particular fury, however, is saved for shrink wrap and for the thick plastic fortresses that electronics—even the cheapest stuff—come encased in. I bought a headset for my cell phone the other day. I brought it home and began the assault. I tried my kitchen shears which can cut through chicken bones. Didn’t make a dent. Then I tried to pry the edges apart with a kitchen knife. No way. I took a screwdriver and tried to punch a hole. The screwdriver glanced off the package and sent the headset onto the floor where it nearly hit the cat. I finally decided the only way to get into it was to put it in a vise and use an electric drill to start and then enlarge a hole. Even then it pulled apart reluctantly and left jagged and very sharp edges.

Opening this headset has confirmed my mutiny. I have resolved that if I buy any further things encased in this type of package that I am not going to leave the store before they open it. If they don’t want to open it, they can do without the sale. I haven’t yet put my policy into place, but I am now looking forward to the opportunity. Best Buy, watch out.

As another part of my mutiny, I’ve also resolved to do without as much wrapping as I can, not for the sake of the environment (although I feel virtuous) but for the sake of sending a very strong message to manufacturers that if they want sales from us older folks—or anyone else for that matter—that their convenience does not trump ours. I had a vise and I know how to use an electric drill. Others don’t. Manufacturers can choose to package that way and I can choose not to buy. I now take my own bags to the grocery store. I’ve found that I can reuse even the clear bags that vegetables and fruit come in. I’ve cut my plastic trash to an absolute minimum. My green reusable grocery bags are the modern equivalent of Mum’s wicker basket. They may not be as quaint but they work just as well.

I feel good about my mutiny. Perhaps if others take a similar stand we can make some sort of difference. Now if only I could do something about the masses of foam peanuts used to fill the standard boxes that the post office has begun forcing us to use.

Belgians and Pinots

When I was younger, I could eat anything. For that matter, I could drink pretty much anything as well. I suppose you might say I was indiscriminate—except for beer, which I hated. If someone told me that a certain wine was a good vintage I took their word for it. I had to. Unless it was sweet, I couldn’t tell much in the way of subtle differences. Lost on me, I’m afraid.

I learned to like beer as a defense mechanism when I was in graduate school. After class, the group went down to a pub right on Lake Union (I went to the University of Washington) for discussions and arguments around a pitcher. I’m not even sure that the pub had much beyond hard liquor and beer. It must have, but I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to be the only one asking. The first beer I liked was Coors, which is about as close to drinking air as possible. Once I had the taste, though, I could drink the others and even went so far as Nut Brown Ale. There it stopped and still does. I can’t bring myself to try Guinesss.

Same thing happened with wine. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii, lots of students were drinking things like Apple wine, sort of a fruit juice with a kick. We did have our standards though. We never drank Ripple—that was reserved for liquor store clients with brown paper sacks. But we did drink stuff that was so sweet that even now I cringe when I think of it.

I graduated to more subtle stuff through margaritas. I remember one day going to a Mexican restaurant in Honolulu with my best friend Kimi and downing a pitcher of margaritas between us. We walked straight when we left too. I doubt that my liver has forgiven me for that even now although I take guilty pride about having accomplished it even as I suspect that the margaritas were watered down. But there’s no way I could do that today. I was never a heavy drinker anyway, but I know what will happen if I try to drink even one glass.

But it’s not just my capacity for alcohol that has changed with the years. It is also my taste. I don’t like sweet things as much as I once did. I also don’t like lots of competing flavors. I want smooth and subtle tastes now. My doc told me this a natural part of aging—sort of a rearrangement of body functions like the arthritic knobs on my fingers. To me it is an inconvenience of major proportions because what I enjoy now inevitably costs much more. I like the Belgium beers, which cost about as much for one bottle as for a domestic six pack. Same thing with wine. If I drink the cheaper stuff, I get a headache. My local wine shop says it’s the sulfites in the mass produced wines. The owner now points out to me bottles of wine around $15 with the assurance that they have been “made as if they are more expensive.” Sigh.

I hadn’t thought that getting old was going to be so expensive and discouraging. And it’s not only wine. Through the years I have developed intolerance for rice, preservatives, and peppers. Consider the tragedy when you love Asian food, cannot eat most breads except for the (expensive) artisan breads, and live in the midst of some of the best Tex-Mex food in the country. Add to that the need to avoid cholesterol and fats. And I’m sorry—fake eggs just don’t taste the same. Occasionally I mutiny and have green chili stew. That night I listen to subterranean rumbles and gobble Tums for the heartburn. Sigh again.

Just listen to me! Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m turning into my worst stereotype of people my age: finicky, querulous, and self-absorbed. I guess when one of those thoughts crosses my mind, I’d better go have a glass of Belgium beer or a glass of subtle, smooth Oregon pinot noir.

Domestic Goddesses

There’s an e-mail going round the world right now with a copy of an article from Housekeeping Monthly of May 13, 1955. It’s entitled “The Good Wife’s Guide,” and I assume it’s authentic because it sounds about right. Basically, it advises the woman to not ask her husband questions about his actions or question his judgment because he knows best and because she has “no right to question him” and that, as a good wife, she should “always know her place” because his “topics of conversation are more important.” Behaving in this way, the article assures the reader—presumably women—will provide “immense personal satisfaction.”

To his enduring credit, Sid read it and laughed. He said he’s never seen anyone’s marriage like that and thought the article had to be satirical. I knew differently. Like most other young women during the fifties, I was bombarded by these stereotypes and I saw firsthand the awakening caused by books such as Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, which suggested that being a domestic goddess (remember Marabel Morgan and fascinating womanhood?) was not only unrewarding but also soul-deadening.

The idea of submissive women, a particular favorite of evangelical Christianity, made absolutely no sense after WWII, when women discovered that the domestic goddess within them could produce ships, aircraft, and armament. They worked full days, raised children, and made their own decisions. Hence all the propaganda right after the war about trying to reestablish domestic relations. But even in the face of reality, the traditional view was seductive probably because it was familiar. Even my mother, fiercely independent and competitive as she was (she once advised me not to clean my husband’s boots or press his trousers under the mattress??), she who had nursed during the war under bombing and blackouts used to talk contemptuously about women who got beyond themselves, all the while going her own wayward way. Oh Mum. Then as now the evangelical ideal produced hypocrisy.

I had a personal run in with it as an undergraduate at the university. I went to an honor’s seminar presentation by a professor of education who read from his unpublished book. He couldn’t understand why no publisher wanted it. His thesis was that women wanted a strong man to make all the decisions for them. He asked for a show of hands from the women: how many women really wanted a man like that? Some hands went up. I was amazed. He saw that mine hadn’t. So he asked the reverse question: who didn’t? I put up my hand. I could see he was annoyed. He asked me what I wanted. “I want a partnership” I replied. Now he was contemptuous. “If you find an apartment that you like but he doesn’t, who makes the decision?” He smiled smugly. He thought he had me. “Money,” I replied crisply. The room—full of students and faculty—erupted in laughter. I found out later that the professor’s wife was definitely not a domestic goddess.

In the early years of my marriage, I tried to be a domestic goddess in my own way. Except that I’d call it more like trying to be super woman. I did the cleaning and housework, took care of my baby, and was a full-time student. I thought that was what I was supposed to do because my husband was “allowing” me to continue my schooling. I don’t know how I still managed to get good grades. Then one day I came home from school, picked up my boy from the babysitter, and had a major attitude adjustment session with my husband. I credit that moment with the real start of a partnership that lasted thirty-eight years. I don’t blame him for his assumptions. I blame his upbringing. He thought that’s what women did. The “ideal” of womanhood had turned me into a servant and held him in a state of perpetual adolescence.

I look around me now and marvel at the progress women have made since the 1955 article for wives. Two-salary families are often a necessity, studies show that domestic duties are more nearly shared, and while there are traditional families where the woman stays home to raise the children, there are options open to her. Universities are now composed of over half women and they are making their way in professions that have been seen as traditionally male. They are doing so well that I feel sad for the remaining societies that repress women because they are losing half of their brainpower. One of these days, a woman will lead this country because it is part of the inevitable progression from the 1950s and the Women's Liberation movement, which was never just about women but also about freeing men as well.

I will concede one thing to that 1955 article though. When anyone—male or female—comes home from work, it’s nice to find dinner waiting and someone glad to see him or her. It's even better, however, when both of them work together to make it.

In a Lonely Place

Through the years, I’ve watched older people deal with the realities of a corrosive loneliness. Some join a community or move in with family (if they are willing) because they have lived communal lives. Others, those who have lived more alone, often seem to retreat into a private, quiet world. I suspect that becoming a joiner or a recluse has a lot to do with personality.

Sid’s sister, for example, is a joiner. She is in her mid-eighties and lost her husband about six years ago. For several years she hung on to the family apartment until she accepted that she needed to be closer to her children. She is a gregarious soul, active and in good health, so she rented an apartment in a retirement complex where the meals are provided, the residents play Wii games, and they get together for bridge and excursions. Connecting with others is a logical extension of who she has been all her life: she has always volunteered and participated in community activities. Predictably, she has made friends quickly and I expect that she will soon be volunteering on residence committees.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, was an extreme recluse. She had always been a difficult, somewhat demanding personality, but it was exacerbated by the loss of first her son (my husband) and then her own husband. She withdrew from the world and blamed her loneliness on her children. She complained constantly about what she saw as their lack of attention. When they did make the long trek out to see her, the visits were so laced with her bitterness and recriminations that she drove them further from her life. Curiously, she incurred the very thing that she so much resented. In the end, and very sadly, she died alone in her bed, having driven everyone away.

I suppose I am some form of a modified joiner. When I lost my husband ten years ago, I went into the wasteland. At first, I numbly focused on getting through the day. I hung on for the first anniversary of his death when I expected things to get better. In fact, they became worse. I was forced to redefine myself in that second year as single. I was no longer part of a couple and I was treated differently. People moved on with their lives and expected me to move on with mine. Couples who had been friends slipped away as they preferred activities with other couples. No one wanted to hear about how it was difficult sometimes for me to even get out of bed. They wanted to hear about fresh starts and new beginnings and how well I was coping. Finally in the third year, I realized that I was desperately lonely and forced myself to reach for life. I had to. I was still too young to sit waiting for the phone to ring. It was then that I was fortunate to find a good man and to have the courage to start another relationship. I imagine that people who know me well expected that this is what I would do. My choices in life have always been to take action—not always well considered, I will admit—but to surge forward nonetheless. I suppose I joined up again with life.

I wouldn’t have thought much about loneliness if I had not been forced to by being widowed. Loneliness the last issue many of us will deal with and yet it is the one we think about the least. We buy insurance for long-term health care should we become incapable of taking care of ourselves. We buy life insurance to leave something to our heirs. But we do not think about what we should do if we are one day left on our own and grateful for a few words of conversation from the cashier at the supermarket. I hope never again to have to deal with being by myself in the terrible way that life was stripped from me after a marriage of thirty-eight years. But if I am, I can only hope that I will once again reach out for life, valuing the great gift that life is and not squandering whatever remains of it.