Couplehood Read online

  And the best part is, it doesn’t even have to be your mother. I go up to total strangers: “Miss, do you have kids? You do? Could you spit oh this? I can’t get it out.”

  My wife and I are lucky; we agree on the baby thing. We both want to have kids, and we both don’t want to have them yet. We feel we should get our relationship, our work, our families, and the universe in order before we jump into anything crazy.

  Admittedly, this indulgent, post-baby boom, dual career, overthinking, let’s-make-everything-perfect-before-we-bring-anyone-new-into-the-picture plan of attack was not something they did in the 1200s. I’m pretty sure you never heard couples in the fiefdoms of Europe saying, “I just want to get promoted from Serf to Peasant before we take on the responsibility.… If I can just make Executive Bumpkin before I’m 35, I think I’ll be ready.… And you’re out of town so much now, what with the Crusades and all.…”

  We both swear that when we do have a baby, we’re not going to be obnoxious about it; we’re not going to be one of those couples who whip out the wallet and shove their baby pictures down your throat.

  “Look at this kid—is that beautiful or what?”

  They force you into a compliment.

  “Is this kid beautiful, or is this kid beautiful?”

  I always ask to hear the choices again, because they sound so similar.

  The truth of the matter is, sometimes it’s not a beautiful baby. And I can’t lie. I tell them right to their face, “No, that’s a monkey you’ve got there. I wouldn’t have said anything, but you hound me and you hound me, so now I’m going to tell you: You have yourself a little monkey there. And let me tell you why: He’s an hour and a half old in this photo, so you may notice his eyes are not formed yet—that’s unappealing; his ears are somehow not touching his head, they’re kind of hovering around his skull. And, furthermore, his knuckles are scraping the floor. These are signs of having a monkey. Now put the picture away so I can finish my lunch.”

  Then you feel terrible, so you try to say something positive: “Hey, it’s a nice wallet.… I’ll give you that.…” Try to keep the friendship alive.

  And it’s not just one or two pictures; they take a shot every nine seconds. For new parents, every event is a photo-op.

  “Here’s him coming into the world, here’s him getting toweled down.… Here’s him eating his first meal, here’s the elimination of that very same meal.…” They document everything.

  But you’ll notice this slows down with each kid. The second kid gets a little less coverage, the third kid even less.… A fifth or sixth kid has virtually no photos taken. Maybe one last shot of him running away from home. “You see the bus station? You see the gray jacket in front? That’s Tommy lunging for a Greyhound.”

  When I was a kid, my father was a big picture taker, but he was never in the pictures. Sometimes you’d recognize a piece of his thumb, blocking the lens, but that was about it. That’s all future generations will have to go on. “You see that beige blur? That’s your great-grandfather. Look at your thumb—is that a family resemblance or what?”

  And I’ll tell you something else about fathers: They never take pictures for the sake of beauty; they need to see relatives. They’ve got to put at least one family member in every shot. It’s never, “Oooh, isn’t that a spectacular vista.” It’s, “Oooh, you and your mother go stand next to the vista.” “Stand with your sister near the sinking sun.”

  That’s why they never get those once-in-a-lifetime shots—they’re too busy moving people around.

  “Hey, Dad, grab your camera—there’s Big Foot!”

  “Okay, go stand next to Big Foot.”

  “But, Dad, he’s getting away.…”

  “Well, hurry up then. I want to get the two of you together, otherwise what’s the point? You won’t appreciate the height difference … that’s nice … now smile.”

  See, that’s another reason I’m putting off having kids: I don’t want to be the grown-up that some fourteen-year-old is rolling their eyes about. And you know it’s going to happen.

  Because when you’re a kid, for a couple of years, no matter how wonderful and loving your parents are, you’d trade them for your friends’ parents in a second. Friends’ parents always seem cooler than your own parents. Life just looked better over there.

  Ironically, your friends always wanted your parents.

  “Oh, your mom is so great.”

  “Okay, yeah, but not all the time.”

  “And your dad’s so funny—”

  “No, he’s not, he’s really not. Just when people are around. Seriously, it’s a show.”

  I’ve always thought they should have an exchange program where family members could switch for a while so you could appreciate your own. Just for a day.

  Your friend would call you up in a matter of hours: “Could you take your dad back now? He’s annoying everybody. We didn’t realize he only had that one joke.… We thought it was a series of funny things.”

  “What did I try to tell you?”

  And the truth is, we know we’re going to be exactly like our parents.

  I’m already starting to drive like my father. He wasn’t a particularly bad driver, it’s just that he had different Driving Priorities. For example, being in any one particular lane wasn’t such a big deal. His attitude was, “Hey, I’m going in the same direction as practically everybody here.”

  I don’t do that yet, but I do chase cars for miles just to tell them their lights are on. I do leave the radio on stations I’m not listening to. And when I make sudden stops, I do shoot my right arm out automatically, even when there’s nobody sitting there. I punch the seat—just to be safe.

  Did you know, by the way, that this is the leading cause of passenger injury? The Protective Slam of the Driver’s Fist? It’s true. More damaging than whatever collision they were trying to prevent. BAMM! “Well, Dad, you missed the Buick, but you got my lungs pretty good there.… As long as we’re going by the hospital, why don’t we stop and get your watch taken out of my heart.”

  And I’m starting to watch TV like my parents. Whenever they watched movies together, they never commented on the movie itself. Just the actors, and usually only about their age.

  “Oh, he was younger, huh?”

  “Look at that Melvyn Douglas, how young he looks there.”

  “Boy, she s really gotten old, huh? … She used to be my age.”

  Or, my favorite: “You know, he’s no spring chicken.”

  “Lena Horne? God bless her—she’s no spring chicken.”

  Spring Chickens are evidently things that people are “not.” You never hear about people who are Spring Chickens.

  You don’t watch a movie with Macaulay Culkin and say, “Wow, he is currently a Spring Chicken.” But wait till you’re watching Home Alone 25. See if you don’t turn to your kids and say, “You know, he’s no spring chicken.…”

  Ideally, they should give you a couple of “practice kids” before you have any for real. Sort of like bowling a few frames for free before you start keeping score. Let you warm up.

  I used to think having a dog was adequate preparation for parenthood, but I’m told they’re not exactly the same—pet ownership and child rearing. As I understand it, you can’t just leave out a bowl of water and trust that children will entertain themselves by licking their stomachs and chasing a squirrel.

  Also, if a child does something they shouldn’t—like, oh let’s say, steal a car—you can’t just whack them on the nose with the Sports Section and say, “What-did-you-do?!” It’s not an effective deterrent.

  And there’s the responsibility. If I’m ever even remotely negligent with the dog, it just confirms my suspicion that I’m not ready for kids.

  “I can’t believe I just left the dog in the closet for an hour and a half.”

  “You didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “I know, but what if that was our child? Say our son was chasing a squeaky toy and fell asleep behi
nd our shoes …”

  “Kids don’t do that.”

  “Yeah, well, still … I think we should wait.”

  Sometimes, I think I’m ready. I’ll play with someone else’s baby and think, “Hey, this isn’t bad.… They’re cute, they smell like soap, and this one seems to really enjoy me. What the heck—let’s do it.”

  Then, I find out something really fundamental like, “Babies wake up in the middle of the night,” and it’s all off.

  “Oh, yeah, right—okay, let’s not do it.… I forgot about the middle-of-the-night thing.…”

  Also, I keep thinking that I don’t know enough to be anyone’s parent. Because kids ask a lot of questions, and I’ll be honest with you—I know virtually nothing.

  I don’t know why planes stay in the air.

  I don’t know why driving back from somewhere takes less time than driving there.

  I don’t know why after rain showers it smells like that.

  I don’t know how you can tell from the outside of a grapefruit if the inside is going to be pink or not.

  What if my kid wants to know?

  I grew up thinking my parents knew everything. I’m sure they didn’t, but at least they were smart enough to fake it. I don’t even know how to do that yet.

  I have a great fear of just how much I don’t know.

  Have you ever looked in an encyclopedia and seen a picture of Neanderthal Man? (I’m asking this for a reason; go with me for a second.) In every picture, it’s the same guy. Evidently, they only dug up one Neanderthal to represent the whole group.

  I have this nightmare that thousands of years from now, they’re going to dig me up to be Mr. Twentieth Century guy. And I won’t be able to answer any of their questions.

  They’ll say, “Well, didn’t you live in the twentieth century?”

  And I’d tell them, “Yeah, but I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t know there was going to be a quiz, so I didn’t take notes the whole time I was there. I was sorta taking it pass/fail.… I’ll try to help you out. What did you want to know?”

  “Just a few things: How did they get sweaters from sheep?”

  “I don’t know. The stores already did it for us. We didn’t have to actually yank the wool ourselves.”

  “How did they get water from the river cleaned up by the time it came out of your faucet?”

  “Um … some sort of pipe, I’m guessing. I don’t know.”

  “How come electricity never fell out of those little socket holes in the wall?”

  “Um, once again—I don’t know. There was a switch, that when you put it up, it would just kind of stay, and—I don’t know.”

  “How did those skyscrapers get built?”

  “Uh … They dig a big hole, and men wearing metal hats would whistle at women for a couple of months.… I don’t know, I didn’t work in that area.”

  “Is there anything you do know?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m not ready to have kids yet.

  I’ll See You

  in My

  Dreams

  Every night, by the time you climb into bed, the day has generally taken such a bite out of both of you that the chances of feeling loving and affectionate can be pretty remote. To combat this, we have a rule:

  No discussing Things We Have to Do or Unpleasant Business once we get into bed. Unless it’s really important. Or you meant to say it before and didn’t get a chance. Or you just feel like saying it for no real reason. (We’re nothing if not flexible.)

  Originally the plan was, no discussion of unpleasantries while getting ready for bed, but that’s too hard. There’s something about putting a toothbrush in your mouth that makes people want to talk.

  Consequently, even the most important exchanges take place between rinsing and spitting.

  “I saw that doctor today.…” Spit.

  “Yeah?” Swish, swish, spit.

  “Yeah.” Little spit. “He said it’s nothing.” Big spit.

  “Well, I say,”—little dribble—“we get a second opinion.” Gargle, gargle, cchhwip, pttooey.

  (Incidentally, Cchhwip Pttooey is not only the sound of someone spitting, but, interestingly enough, the Minister of the Interior of Sri Lanka.)

  Every night, you brush and talk and spit and catch up, racing to beat that Conversation Curfew.

  See, you don’t want to drag the world into bed with you, because there’s enough going on there already. Beds are complex, multipurpose arenas, and it’s important that the two parties specify which activity they’re undertaking.

  “Are we talking, or are we reading?”

  “Are we sleeping, or are we fooling around?”

  You have to clarify.

  “Are we not talking because we’re mad, or because we both just don’t feel like talking?”

  “Are we thinking ambitious fooling around or let’s just do what we’ve got to do, and not kill ourselves?”

  The good thing is, when you’re together forever, there’s less pressure to make any given night magical. You always know you have another shot tomorrow. And the next night.

  That’s the whole beauty of Forever—nothing but tomorrows.

  Of course, if you cash in the Tomorrow Chip too often, you break the bank. One day you roll over, notice each other, and say, “Hey, we used to do something here involving rubbing and touching—any idea what it was? No recollection at all? Hmm … I know I enjoyed it, I remember that.”

  So you negotiate, you clarify, and settle in. You find your position, you fix your pillows, and arrange your mutual blanket.

  That blanket, essentially, is your relationship: one big cover concealing the fact that two people are inside, squirming around each other trying to get comfortable.

  How you handle that blanket is crucial.

  Sometimes I wake up and I have no blanket. There’s nothing there to handle. The woman of my dreams, who is sleeping very cozily, has somehow accumulated the bulk of what’s at least half mine.

  I tug at it gingerly. She stirs, and seemingly unaware, she tightens her grasp and rolls farther away, taking with her another good foot and a half of blanket. I watch her and calculate my options. I decide it’s not worth waking her up or being spiteful, so I try to make do without.

  I stare at the ceiling and count the little paint bumps, hoping I can bore myself back to sleep. Within seconds, my brain comes up with five different parts of the house that need painting and fixing, and then I think about how the guy at the hardware store who was so helpful doesn’t work there anymore and how the new guy is really unctuous, and I should probably find someplace else. It’s 3:25 in the morning and I’m looking for new hardware stores.

  Now I’m more irritated and much more awake. I look over and see my bride dreaming blissfully, secure, cradled and warmed by what is now over 90 percent of the blanket. Despite my affection, I resent her deeply.

  I sit up. I look at her. I watch her sleep. I think to myself, “How can this be? After all the negotiating and maneuvering and tap dancing we’ve done, how is it that this person, who, by my own initiative, will be placing her head twelve inches away from my head for the rest of my life, is getting such a better end of the bargain? It just doesn’t seem right. Will we never get better at this? Must one of us always be less content than the other?”

  I pull up the pathetically small segment of blanket left available to me and scoot up next to the woman of my dreams, partly because I hope that her sleep will rub off on me, and partly because I figure she’s got to be warmer than I am.

  And as I hold her close against me, it dawns on me: Now I remember. This is why we go through all of that. Because holding The One Who Fits in your arms simply feels this good, and nothing else really does. And to earn this, you must swat away all that stands in its way.

  At this point, my wife senses I’m staring at her and opens one eye.

  “What,” she says.

  I say, “What do you mean ‘what’?”

  “What are yo
u doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What are you looking at me for?”

  “I wasn’t looking.… I was just thinking … are you really going to be right there every night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Forever?”

  “Mm hmm.”

  “You’re saying, that of all the people in the world, the one to whom you will donate your Naked Self, night after night, is me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  If I let it go there, it would have been a nice moment.

  “And the reason would be what—because I’m that appealing?”

  Now she opens both eyes, props herself up on her elbow, and before she can say anything, I say, “I went too far, I see that now. You just go back to sleep, and I’ll say nothing.”

  She slides toward me, and we find homes for our arms and legs. Before long, we’re sleeping.

  And in the morning, the dance continues.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my wife, Paula, without whom I have no act; Dan Strone for asking me if I wanted to write a book; Arthur Spivak for telling me that I did, and making it all happen; my friends and family who put up with me being “so busy because I’m writing a book”; Irwyn Applebaum and all the nice people up at Bantam who made me feel at home; Louie Maggiotto for transcribing and translating; and Rob Weisbach, editor extraordinaire, who took all these shovels full of stuff and made it look very much like a book.

  About the Author

  PAUL REISER is the star and co-creator of the critically acclaimed NBC series Mad About You. This is his first book. (That he has written. He has read many others—we just don’t want to make a big deal out of it.)