Okay okay okay: tomorrow afternoon, my youngest first cousin gets married. That sounds pretty simple, right? It’s anything but: a few years ago, my cousin Tony joined the Army or the National Guard or something, went off to mechanic school and nothing happened for a long time. Finally, he was deployed to Iraq just as his father – my Uncle Frank – was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Uncle Frank is married to Auntie InExcelsisDeo, my father’s sister, and this diagnosis happened the fall after Dad died, so an entire Italian family ran screaming for about six months. Vern Yip redecorated Auntie’s house as a Christmas special and my cousin Sandy put together her wedding in a flash so her father could walk her down the aisle. The Army or the National Guard or something sent Tony home, which was a total shock to the woman he married in judge’s office on Tony’s way out of town, and they decided to get married in front of his whole Italian family, her biker gang and Uncle Frank, who’s building furniture and looks pretty damn good for a guy who was supposed to be dead two years ago, and two weeks ago now, Tony’s legal wife and shiny new real estate license holder Poppy announced on Facebook that she’s pregnant. Goddamn if I know where to shop for an event of this magnitude.

Tony and Poppy are getting married in a Friday afternoon ceremony somewhere near the Jersey Shore, but inland. It’s close enough that you can smell the ocean, but sometimes you can smell that from my house and we are talking about the Atlantic. Also: I’m not sure if it’s indoors or out, so who knows what we’ll smell. This wedding is also in the middle of August, when no one who’s anyone without a back-to-school shopping list would be caught dead in a a retail clothing establishment without a pea shooter and a garbled manifesto. Today, my sister Daria took pictures of half her plastic-wrapped wardrobe. Brace yourself: nothing says Poor Impulse Control like crazy people at a cocktail hour.

A week ago, the massage therapist watched me limp toward him. He pointed at my feet and said something remarkable.

Dude: Stop that.
Tata: Um…um…
Dude: How are you feeling?
Tata: My whole self is pretty good, but as far as you’re concerned I bet I feel less like a hip and more like two wire hangers and a canned ham.

About a week ago, my brain started to feel like a radio stuck between stations and broadcasting from Eastern Europe, but that’s okay. I’ve always wanted to see Prague. My confusion was compounded by Siobhan’s departure for a sparingly glamorous vacation just as it became apparent the Vespa dealers in New Jersey have all lost their minds. The guy in Neptune, for instance, actually said the words, “Yeah, but the color doesn’t matter,” as Fox News blared from the showroom flat screen behind his head. The dealer in Montgomery was pleasant, but allowed as how orange was a safe color for me, though of course it’s safe from me. Finally, the dealer in Metuchen put a quote in writing, then pretended he hadn’t, no backsies. I laughed all the way home, applying my reddest lipstick.

I’m going to make that man cry. Siobhan’s vowed to give up camping for good. So, of course, I feel better.

Tata: We’d looked at fridges and settled on a Hotpoint 17 cu. ft. as a good size/shape for the basement. At Home Depot: $434, with rebates and delivery: $404 plus some change. Hotpoint may be evil, but it’s possibly less evil than Whirlpool, and Home Depot is still on my Merde List.

Siobhan: It took you six months to Google a washing machine, so I’m impressed with your improved shopping ability.

Tata: After you and I talked yesterday, I went home, Pete and I developed a good head of steam and drove over to Derby, which is local and I’d rather buy local. The guy there seemed kind of hostile. I said we were interested in the Hotpoint 17 cu. ft. and Home Depot was selling them for $404 delivered. Three times, I said this. Three times, he said Derby would start at $479 + $60 delivery + taxes, and there’s no way Home Depot was selling this model for that price. I said, “We saw it with our own eyes.” Three times, he essentially called me a liar, so we left. Derby was also selling Girl Scout Cookies, so Pete was sorry to leave.

Siobhan: A case of those qualifies as groceries.

Tata: At Sears, we found a GE Energy Star 18 cu. ft. For $479 + delivery charge + warranty – rebates + tax and could not get a clear picture from the salesman of the price, and it couldn’t be delivered until the 14th. GE is of course evil, but I need a fridge. I came very close to saying, “Fine. Whatever.” Then I didn’t so much change my mind as not commit and the salesman disappeared. We saw three car wrecks in a space of two miles, which NEVER happens.

Siobhan: I’m starting to know how that feels.

Tata: Pete and I drove over to the Home Depot in Milltown, where when we walked in the front door, there stood the GE Energy Star 18 cu. ft. model with a long series of discounts on a sales tag. Bottom line: $331. With tax, it turned out to be $353 + change, delivered Saturday. And that guy at Derby can kiss my entire ass.

Say, isn’t this a blog called Poor Impulse Control, which title is like uber-swiped from a novel predicting a terrible, fucked up future? Well, not if you’ve seen my table manners, but what’s this then?

Important characters

Y.T. (“Yours Truly”)
A 15-year-old skateboard “Kourier” who helps Hiro investigate the mysterious meta-virus. She is Hiro’s “partner” in information-gathering for the Central Intelligence Corporation. Her real name is never stated, though she is alluded to in a later book by Stephenson, The Diamond Age. Like all Kouriers, she uses an electromagnetic harpoon to hitch a ride from (often-unwilling) motor vehicles, such as Hiro’s. Though she does not carry any lethal weapons, all Kouriers are outfitted with a wide variety of defensive countermeasures, which Y.T. uses throughout the book to escape sticky situations. Her mother is a worn-down programmer for the irrelevant Federal Government; Stephenson satirizes American bureaucracy (in particular, the real-life Code of Federal Regulations) via a multi-page memo on intra-office toilet paper policies which good employees are expected to spend 15.62 minutes reading.

Toilet paper policies? What? Help us, Newark Mayor Corey Booker:

Newark city employees may have to start carrying a roll of Charmin’s [sic] to work.

Mayor Cory Booker says the city can no longer afford to buy toilet paper.

Who knew the terrible, fucked up future would also be embarrassing?

Dear Future Generations:

It’s just a matter of minutes before we’ve never met and as far as you’re concerned I’m a dusty relic in some old green pictures. It is impossible for you to know me as anything but a two-dimensional object. A very wise person once told me that all of history before one’s birth might as well have never happened for most people, and even people who care can’t really imagine it. He went on to say it was all some sepia-toned movie, then a person’s born and things that can really be considered start happening. Turns out he also smoked a brand of cigarettes I never saw anywhere else and may have leafletted Havana eight months after I was born, but that doesn’t help you any, does it, pumpkins? Of course not. So let’s talk about this.

This apron cannot protect you from ridicule, cooking spatter.

Recently, I made a perfectly innocent request of my friends. You remember my friends: they’re the mostly puzzled people. I asked them to clean out their stashes of knitting yarn, toss the scraps my way and I’d knit blankets for stray cats. Yes, it’s hard to believe we still have problems like knitting, scrap yarn and stray cats, but stay with me here. One of my friends has been cleaning out a house belonging to the elderly mom of a friend of hers, and apparently that mom is full of surprises. My friend has delivered two large garbage bags – yes, we still have garbage, it’s so EMBARRASSING TO BE ANCIENT HISTORY – and the second one contained the style-bucking apron above and this eye-opener to boot:

Drusy points out a major flaw in this apron's design: no human could wear it with a straight face. Nor should he.

No really. I was hot,

Princess Ta

This morning, I drove into the parking deck, went up a flight and parked. As I gathered my book bag and umbrella, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a parade of underdressed ROTC students exit the stairwell, drop to their hands on tar covered with motor oil, chewed gum and broken glass and do pushups. I slammed my car door and they got up and ran off. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to draw a breath to yell, but I had questions. First: why were those kids wearing shorts in a driving 40 degree rain? Second: where was that army going to wipe its hands?

Shortly thereafter, a blogger I respect but with whom I occasionally disagree contacted me about health insurance reform. She’d found PIC on some index of bloggers writing on the topic. As Dad used to say, often and with great relish, Well, shit. You’ve got me there. I’m waiting to hear what kind of plan might involve both a serious academic and a crazy refugee from the art world and the costume shop. If she reads through PIC for more than a few minutes, I expect her to change the subject, edge away from me and loudly declare that she hears her mother calling. My feelings won’t be hurt; I’m thinking the funny thoughts. Here’s one: I might like her plan.

Things were different when we were kids. Everyone had to entertain him- or herself.

Pete: Remember that decorative brick wall in my house growing up?
Tata: Huh. Yes, I do.
Pete: My parents put it up one brick at a time. They made the bricks themselves. It took forever. Then some lunatic gave me a hammer.
Tata: Really?
Pete: Yeah, Ricky, the kid down the street gave me a toolbox with real tools for my third birthday. My parents took it away until I was a little older. I remember sawing the molding around the front door. Also, smashing the bricks with the hammer with my little brother.
Tata: Your Mom was the get-even type. Did Ricky’s get a bouquet of tacks for Mother’s Day?

My mother, raised by her grandmother, taught her children quaint old-fashioned traditions you simply can’t explain to teenagers, I swear to Jebus.

Tata: I don’t know if these were real eggs. They’re hollow and decorated with real flowers.
Customer Mom: This has a hole in it. Oh, and another at the bottom.
Tata: That sort of argues for real. Did you ever blow eggs?
Customer Teen: What – I –
Tata: That’s the correct term. You stick a straight pin through the shell at the top and make a slightly larger hole at the bottom and gently blow the contents of the egg out through the larger hole while making every effort to not pass out and crack the shell.
Customer Mom: What is the outcome of that?
Tata: Omelets and decorated eggs you can keep without a biohazard event. Oh, and your face feels all sparkly.

Miss Sasha plans to deliver her second child in June, which necessitates my least favorite of all life events: a baby shower. I tracked down my grandmother Edith’s cousins.

Tata: Ellie, my daughter’s having a baby. Can I send you and your sister invitations to the shower?
Ellie: No, thank you. We wouldn’t have any interest in that. My sister is nearly ninety. We hate these things.

I burst out laughing.

Tata: I wish I could skip it. I hate them, too.
Ellie: Don’t go! Why should you go?
Tata: I am the mommy. It blows, but there you have it.
Ellie: Arrive late, leave early and bring a good purse. But leave early.

The person throwing this party is the Fabulous Ex-Husband’s current wife Karen, who also loathes baby showers.

Tata: Ellie’d rather be boiled in oil than show up to a baby shower. Me, too, but I’ll be there.
Karen: I wish I could be anywhere else.
Tata: Once you answer the door, these things conduct themselves. Let’s duck out for sushi instead.
Karen: What? I wish!
Tata: Life is short. Let’s get spicy tuna.

I may yet get a bouquet of tacks.

Tonight, we went to see our lovely niece Lois’s high school performance of Bye Bye Birdie, in which Lois played the ingenue Kim. Before you get nervous: Lois has the high, clear voice her whole family shares and it was a delight to listen to her sing. The plays gender politics utterly blow, but the kids did a great job with the big musical numbers. Two of dozens could dance. Did I mention they sounded great? They sounded great. We left happy.

In the car, Pete said, “Well, that was…wholesome.”
I said, “Next time, we have dinner in a strip club first.”