Oh Boya

(February 7, 2001)

"Maggie's still talking about the beans," said my mother in today's phone conversation. She's playing at exasperation, but I know that she's secretly happy to have Maggie's focus diverted from her. If Maggie's complaining about my beans, that means she's NOT complaining anything related to my mother. The Bean Saga. Oh that's mine, alright.

Hub and I always try to bring Maggie something useful, something that she wouldn't buy herself. Like actual fresh fruits and vegetables, with all the vitamins still contained, and canned goods without the Botulism Dents from the "eat at your own risk" shelf at Pathmark.

Last Christmas Eve, Hub and I trekked to CT, going through our usual routine. We got the Maggie-groceries here in Somerville and packed them into the trunk. During the three-hour drive we pee'd at McDonald's so we wouldn't have to enter Maggie's bathroom. We'd planned our clothing so we could leave a fresh outer layer in the car. You have to replace what you're wearing inside Maggie's tightly-winterized apartment, because you'd get so infused with stale cigarette smoke that you'd want to throw your clothes out the window. I had my inhaler all ready to suck on once we left her place. Hub had eye drops, Tums, and he'd had an extra cup of coffee to try to stay alert (smoke makes him logy).

We reviewed answers to the interrogation questions so that by the time they are asked, I'd be desensitized and able to answer in a lighthearted, loving, conversational tone instead of howling the answers back with the same force and volume as the questions. Some lines I usually need to have prepared are, "No, I didn't gain any weight" and "We don't see any reason to get married."

It didn't occur to me until we were already on Shore Road in East Haven. I was examining my hair color. I'd left it untouched since Halloween so that it would be a few shades closer to my natural mousy brown by Christmas, in the hopes that my Awful Hair would be one fewer item to discuss from my list of Personal Failures As A Human Being. Then it hit me:

We didn't remove the price stickers from the groceries.

"Shit," Hub observed, rather calmly I thought.

Putting the price of something in Maggie's line of sight is like a showing a hydrant to a dog, or saying "PMS" to a PMSing FemiNazi. The whole day-- nay, the rest of the time we have left together on earth-- would become about What You Paid For That. How do I know? Well kids, my name is chiseled on the shit list already for idiotic financial decisions. Like my $1300 rent. Like the insane purchase of an eight dollar apple pie three Christmases ago. "You're crazy! You know what we used to pay for a pie? Seventy-five cents!" Like the not-even-a-second-thought surgery for Barney, our spunky little kitty. "You're crazy! Honey, you're tellin' me that if the cat were to go away, you'd feel bad? It's only a cat!". Like trying to go to college. "Why! You're a girl!" Like how I replace my four dollar shower curtain liner instead of spending the morning scrubbing mildew from it.

But all was not lost. Hub had an idea. "Before we go in, we'll take off all the stickers." But would she see us? Suppose her little knobby white head was already at the window when we pulled up, mouth set in that curious upside-down smile, sunlight glinting off her thick glasses? We had to take the chance. It was our only hope.

I was half out the passenger door as Hub pulled into the scabby parking lot and popped the trunk. For two full minutes the only sounds were the crinkle of Johnny's Foodmaster plastic bags and heavy breathing as the two of us worked with both hands: dart, pull, peel, dart, pull, peel. A canned ham, a jar of pignoli nuts, tomato sauce, bread, Stella Doro "S" cookies, olive oil. Little orange sticker remnants were everywhere, stuck to our fingers and strewn about the trunk. But it worked. We got all the prices off and hauled the bags upstairs.

Disaster averted, right? Well, there was only one problem in our selection. As I unpacked the bags, Mags caught site of some beans. "Honey, these aren't OUR beans!" she wailed. "These are THEIR beans!" Hub and I looked at each other. Our beans? Whose beans? We got the same Goya beans we buy at home.

"Whose beans?" I asked, stupidly gaping at the offensive beans. I can't see a single thing wrong with the beans. Goya, okay. Garbanzo, okay. 18.5 ounces, okay. Dentless, okay.

"These are Puerto Rican beans. You don't buy those beans! These are for THEM." A ha...racism was the problem that fateful Christmas Eve. The beans were not an Italian brand, like Progresso. Goya beans.

There's just no instruction manual for this.