Adulting

Lilly was growing up in an adult world.  When I suddenly found myself single with a toddler, no vehicle, no money, and no daycare, I had to think on my feet.  I called my boss and explained that while I was looking for daycare, my daughter would be camping out in my office. 

“I don’t care who you have in there as long as you do your job.”

Lilly was familiar with the nursing home, having visited occasionally around the holidays or for activities.  She had a building full of ladies and men who told her to call them Grandma or Grandpa.  She was fed their dessert, unless I snatched it first. They kept cookies and candy in their rooms to share with their grandchildren and my daughter.

The nurses were the worst; they gave her forms to “chart” and spoiled her rotten.  I caught a c.n.a. lifting her to wash her hands and face when Lilly stood in front of her, arms raised.  I started hearing, “My a nurse.” And “I’m the boss” out of her sassy mouth.  I stopped it whenever I caught it, but having a small child in a nursing home means the parent loses control. 

I did have one rule: No crying at work.  Lilly threw a tantrum one day when it was time to go home, and I informed her that my staff doesn’t cry at work, and she doesn’t either.

Lilly had found her tribe among the grown-ups. She started measuring me against the nurses she saw at work. 

One afternoon, on the way home, she made an announcement.

“You are not a real nurse. Fran is a real nurse; she gives shots.  You don’t give shots.”

I was exhausted. I just agreed that Fran is the real nurse. 

I finally got Lilly into childcare for the afternoons after Headstart.  I wanted her to interact with children, to learn and grow with people her own age.  I worried that growing up around adults would be detrimental to her.  Then I would reassure myself, thinking, “Well, I grew up around adults, and I did fine.” 

Then I became even more anxious, thinking about some of my choices and decisions in life and realizing there were long periods when I wasn’t “just fine”.

I did okay in my early childhood.  When Dad brought home two homeless men in succession and moved them into our poorly heated shack, I was able to roll with it.  Of course, I was a baby and got to eat baby food, so I wasn’t worried about extra mouths to feed.  One of the two Freds was my tutor, according to my sister.

It was great fun being a child around adults.  I could read True Detective magazines, and when I brought up a word like “sodomy” at the dinner table, my sister and brother would get in trouble.

“Who taught her that?” Dad would bellow.

“She’s reading your damn magazines.” Mom would answer.

I got away with all the major crimes.  Cutting Donna’s stirrup pants just earned me laughter. Claiming alongside Tubby that we had somehow missed the school bus again, no one would question my innocent face with huge brown eyes of trust.  My eyes were huge because I knew Tubby would make good on his promise to “kick me back to last week” unless I kept my mouth shut.

Sneaking beer was cute.  Making a mess in the kitchen by smearing dish soap on the cupboards using Dad’s shaving brush was just another silly little kid thing.

You can see where my mind was going when I looked at the situation as a mother.

I was spoiled rotten. As much as my parents and siblings could spoil a child in their financial situation.  If we had been at the poverty level, maybe even close to the middle class, I would have been a monster.

Dad’s parenting is best described as nonchalant.  Sometimes he called me “boy” if he couldn’t remember Pooch. As the head of the household though, he always had the final veto over Mom. Mom was tired by the time I came along; she would rather just laugh about it and let it go.

We all knew that if Dad was preoccupied with something or someone, any requests would be met by an absent, “Uh-huh” and a dismissive nod.  We used that to our advantage.

No one used that to their advantage more than Donna.  She scored the highest for getting one over on Dad. Mom, the official historian, never tired of telling the story.

“Donna was doing something, and she needed a button.  I don’t even know what she needed the button for, but the button she needed was just like the one on your dad’s winter coat.”

Dad always wore a long black winter coat, with his beard and mustache, his head always covered; he resembled a rabbi.  If the rabbi had been kicked by a cow and rolled in the gutter a few times.

“Your dad was talking to Eddie Schmidt one morning, and Donna came up when Eddie was talking to him.  She asked him, ‘Can I have your button?’ and your dad just said, ‘Uh-huh.’ So, she cut off the top button off his winter coat; he didn’t even notice because he was talking to Eddie.  He was wearing the damn coat!  Then Donna decided she might as well have all the buttons match instead of getting one.  So, she kept going and cut all the damn buttons off the coat.”

I could always picture the scene.  Dad was at one end of the old metal kitchen table, cup of coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other.  Dad would be wearing his winter hat and coat, taking a break from chores before he went back out.  Across the table would be Eddie, similarly dressed, with a cigarette and a coffee cup in his hand.  They visited each morning right after milking and somehow still found something to talk about.  Mom said they were like two teenage girls when they got together.

“Then Eddie left, and your dad stood up to go clean the barn.  He went to button his coat because it was freezing cold, but there weren’t any buttons! He let out a bellow like a mad old cow; ‘what the hell happened to the buttons on my coat?’  He just stood there, didn’t know how he could have lost all the buttons on his coat.  Donna came running. ‘You said I could have them.’  I told him he had to start listening and just not agree to everything you damn kids ask.”

Dad hated rats and mice.  Nothing gave him the heebie-jeebies like seeing a mouse or rat running across his path.  Not even snakes gave Dad the creeps like a small furry rodent.  Of course, I loved anything soft and cuddly. Rats, mice, and hamsters fit into the category of soft and cuddly. I used Dad’s inattentiveness and unwillingness to say no to me against him when it came to my pets. I had finally outdone my big sister.

Somehow, I managed to get Dad to agree to my becoming the caretaker for my cousin’s elderly hamster. Poor Cinnamon had long outlived her one-year hamster expiration date.  She spent most of her time sleeping and ignoring my face staring at her through the cage bars. I didn’t care if she was elderly, demented, or preparing for her celestial journey.  

When the absolute cuteness became overwhelming, I would gently lift her from her hospice bed and take her out of the cage.  This was a big Dad’s no-no rule.

“I don’t want to see that damn rat out of that cage! You keep that damn thing locked up until she is dead.”

An obedient child would have listened.  But I knew Dad’s rules were merely suggestions.  Mom’s rules were solid iron. Dad's rules were more of a conversation piece.

I sat cross-legged on the living room floor, cradling precious little Cinnamon on my lap. I could hear Dad and Uncle Lee talking in the kitchen.  Both were hard of hearing, so half the county heard them talking in the kitchen.  Absentmindedly, I petted Cinnamon, listening to Dad and his brother shouting at each other.

“I told that fool he shouldn’t have planted corn in that field!  Nothing grows on that sandy-bottomed son-of-a-bitch!”

“Yeah, I think I can get a load of hay on that far ditch!”

“That Ray can be a crooked bastard, I don’t trust anything he has to say.”

Amused at two different conversations simultaneously and independent of any topic, I didn’t notice Cinnamon sneaking off my lap.  While I was distracted, she had mustered up some energy, a final rally, and was waddling across the living room floor. I leaned over to pick her up, and she sensed imminent danger.  In a burst of speed to escape the perceived clutches of the grim reaper that had been stalking her for months, Cinnamon turned into a blur of hamster fur.

My fate was sealed when I stood watching a tiny cinnamon brown colored rat creature run into the kitchen.  Turns out Uncle Lee was as scared of rats as Dad, if not more.

“What in the hell, it’s a rat!” Uncle Lee screamed.

He jumped up, his chair falling to the floor. I peeked into the kitchen.  Both men were standing up in sheer terror.  At least now their volume had increased enough that they could hear each other.

“Kill it!” Dad screamed.

“I’m not touching that damn thing!” Uncle Lee yelled back. 

Despite his declaration that the escaped hamster was a no-touch object, Uncle Lee was prepared to defend himself.  He was standing on his left leg.  His right leg was repeatedly moving up and down like a piston, stomping the linoleum floor in front of him. 

Cinnamon was frozen in the middle of the kitchen, hamster miles of distance between her and Uncle Lee’s stomping feet.

Dad stood behind Uncle Lee, his farmer's cap in his hand.  “Shoo,” he yelled at Cinnamon, while beating his hat against the side of his leg.  I expected one or both men to jump on a chair at any moment.

“Pooch!  Come and get your goddamn rat!  Put that damn thing in a cage and keep it there!”  Dad bellowed at me.

Watching the two grown men quivering like frightened schoolgirls in a cemetery, I could barely move.  The moment was too hilarious not to enjoy.  My lack of response only made the two men even angrier. 

“God damn kid, get this thing out of here! Kill it!” Uncle Lee yelled at me.

Cinnamon sat calmly in the middle of the kitchen.  She was awestruck by her own power.  Basking in the glory of her strength to overwhelm human beings, she didn’t even notice when I picked her up.

I put her back in her cage and petted her through the cage door as she snuggled down for a well-earned nap. I could hear the two men in the kitchen discussing the crisis.

“Why the hell would somebody want something like that for a pet?” I heard Uncle Lee ask as he set his chair firmly back upright.

“She’s always bringing home some damn animal and keeping it in the house.  I told her to keep it in the cage, but I should have known she couldn’t leave it alone. That kid has always gotta have something in the house.  If it ain’t one thing, it's another.”

“Lyle made Kristy get rid of her damn rat; he couldn’t stand that damn thing in the house any longer. He should never have let her have it in the first damn place.  Glad he got rid of that thing; he shouldn’t have rats in the house anyway. I told him that damn dirty thing has no place in a person’s house.” Uncle Lee announced.

Now I had solved the mystery of why my cousin Kristy was willing to hand over her beloved hamster to my care. Kristy was Uncle Lee’s granddaughter and knew her Grandfather made real rules with no loopholes.

A few months after her glorious day of freedom and martial prowess, Cinnamon went to that big hamster cage in the sky.  Of course, I cried.  Of course, my dad comforted me.  And of course, he made Mom drive me to the local Pamida in town and buy me two new hamsters. 

Thus began my hamster farming days.  Before long, I had hamster cages lining the sitting room.  They managed to get Mom’s drapes into their cages one night and chewed them in half.  Mom didn’t find it as hilarious as I did.  The hamsters bred and bred and bred until we were overrun with hamsters.

Dad never said a word to me about the hamsters.  One night, as I was lying in bed, I heard Dad announce, “Goddamn house is full of rats.  I let her have one rat, and now we are covered with rats around here!  Damn kid can’t leave it alone.”

Mom must have been waiting for just this moment.

“Where the hell do you think she gets it from?”