Introduction

I was never a beauty—no, not by anyone’s standards. In the beginning, as a very young child, I had fine curly chocolate-brown hair, expressive big brown-black eyes under a thick veil of upturned lashes, milky white skin and rosy cheeks. I was cute. Get the picture so far? In all fairness, however, I should also add that my thin-lipped mouth was disproportionately small in relation to my round-tipped nose, extending in width from nostril to nostril and only a fraction beyond when stretched into an endearing smile. And my eyebrows were mere slashes—one forward and the other back— giving me the appearance of being either in a contemplative state or gravely troubled. I was chubby with cute little dimples at every joint—knees, elbows and knuckles, and pudgy folds adorned my tummy, legs, arms and neck. As I said, I was cute but not a beauty.

Being cute was an obligation I had to meet because it was expected of me. Consequently, as I was growing out of one stage of development into another, my cuteness had to be re-examined and adjusted accordingly. Approaching the teen-domain, I got busy with outlandish diets and excessive physical exertion—I jogged, I power-walked, I lifted weights, I swam. Hard work paid off as dimples and folds melted away with baby fat to reveal a delicately petite frame.

I remained cute until reaching my mid-teens at which time more modifications were required. My eyebrows needed tackling; plucking, waxing and penciling became part of my daily maintenance routine until I was satisfied with my new and somewhat different cuteness.

Upon exiting my teens, my hair needed straightening in order to sustain cuteness. Sadly, the harder I tried the more frequent were those loathsome bad-hair days. It was the biggest struggle of my life and I finally gave in and left nature to its own devices. Thus I remained standing under a long mop of unruly curls but, surprisingly enough, it did not mar my cuteness.

And while we are on the subject of hair, a newly discovered problem reared its ugly head in my early twenties—hairy legs and bushy armpits. To maintain that ever-coveted cuteness I waged an endless war against unwanted hair and I have the battle scars to prove my valor. Day after rigorous day, I heroically risked nicks and cuts while advancing on my stormy mission to mow down and destroy every spiky strand that dared to peak out of its hypodermal niche. The end results were worth the persistence and efforts because the suntanned shapely legs I flaunted from under micro-mini skirts were silky smooth and raised arms revealed alabaster elegance.

Another major requirement I was obliged to meet was purely academic and I lived up to this challenge by excelling at school and ending up with two post-graduate degrees in hand. I was smart because it was expected and as one of my professors once told me, “You, kid, are a force to be reckoned with.”

Honestly? I was not always so very smart but I learned to fake it from a dear cousin of mine. She had an insatiable flair for asking questions with an all-knowing air of superiority softened by a sweet smile of innocence. One could never tell whether she asked for self enlightenment or whether she was testing her audience.

Well, I learned to emulate her (she never found out about that) and it worked. It really did. Whenever and wherever I wanted or needed to enrich my knowledgebase I would ask the right question with that very specific demeanor and sugary smile and bingo! People, innately competitive, tripped all over themselves to prove that they were smarter than the others and provided me with the answer I needed.

And before I go any further, please remember that you are the first and only person I have ever told that, like my cousin, I occasionally faked being smart. So I beg and beseech you to help me preserve my flawless reputation by keeping it all to yourself. OK? Do I have your word?

Any time off I got as a reward for good behavior was crammed with hobbies of my own choosing—reading, writing, dancing, music and travel. I was part of a local modern ballet group and more often than not won dance contests at school affairs. I was, and still am, a voracious reader of mysteries, historical sagas, adventure stories, science fiction, biographies, self-help and the classics. When I set down whichever book I was reading at the time, I immediately picked up a pencil (pens are not conveniently erasable and computers have a tendency to crash on me) and wrote poetry and prose. Music, especially classical, was a passion for all occasions and I indulged in it by listening to the radio or prerecorded tracks as frequently as I could. I even attempted a few simple tunes on my piano’s black and whites and on the regal strings of my harp. Travel, my most extravagant hobby, took on a force of its own as I resolved to uncover every corner of our planet. And to document all my travel adventures, I took pictures with the camera that became a permanent fixture in my “slender long-fingered hands,” so designated by an agency in my short career as a hand model.

On top of all else I found time to do volunteer work at pediatric burn units, at retirement homes, at animal shelters as well as at local schools. And that was at the expense of meeting friends at corner bars, shopping in malls or watching the latest and greatest television shows. But I never minded the sacrifice.

As I ripened and matured I discovered humor and used it as a shield for self-protection and a mask for concealing my own shortcomings and everyone else’s. I became very good at it because practice makes perfect and I perfected it through habitual usage. I was an equal opportunity provider so anyone who entered my sphere got a generous serving of comedy—some sweet, some sarcastic, some witty, but never ever foul. I was that cute girl who made everyone laugh.

On my twenty-second birthday I stood before a full-length mirror and took inventory of the reflection before me: cute, petite, smart, worldly, funny. I liked what I saw but more importantly I reflected that I made my parents proud, that my teachers admired me and that my peers looked upon me with fondness.

Now is as good a time as any to speak about those peers of mine who looked upon me with fondness. You might think that boys liked me because I was cute but that was only partially true. The bigger and more accurate reason had to do with the fact that we were growing up in a sexually liberated society that I never surrendered to, if you know what I mean. I was an enigma, a puzzle, a challenge. I was that elusive prey that hormone-raging boys and their hunter-instinct found so alluring and relentlessly sought to vanquish. The female sector of my sexually liberated peers liked me as well. Remember, I was only cute thus did not measure up to the beauties amongst us. And due to my unyielding stance regarding sexuality, I was not in competition with the rest of the girls—beautiful, cute or homely. Then there were the select nonconforming guys and gals who braved stepping out of their allegorical closets and loved me for the oddball that I was. At the risk of sounding conceited, I had plenty of friends who seemed to genuinely like me.

Wearing my cuteness like a well-fitting article of clothing, I confidently stepped into the next phase of my early adulthood. But whoops, I was stunned to find that my cuteness no longer mattered and the camaraderie, fondness and admiration that I took for granted in the past suddenly became unattainable. This revelation shocked me into a passivity that I was unaware of possessing. Simply put, I was dazed into submission the likes of which I had never before experienced. This period of my life is depicted in the volume before you and consists of stories about my life amidst a family I acquired through matrimonial bliss, also known as my in-laws whom I shall call my Out-Laws.

I need to get these stories off my under-developed chest but thus far have found no appreciative audience.

I have tried bribing friends to lend me an ear but I never have enough hard cash to make it worth their while. I began threatening relatives to hear me out, but they all suspect that my bark is bigger than my bite. Strangers in nearby supermarkets, co-occupants of city park benches, fellow members of local libraries, patrons of shopping malls, clerks at banks, dancers at clubs, drinkers at bars, attendants at gas stations, and so on and so forth, all suddenly remember their mothers’ warnings about talking to strangers and turn a deaf ear.

I joined a program for tale-spinners anonymous (TSA) but was never allowed to air a single story because the group was too busy reciting their twelve-step creed. My parents want only my obedience, my husband wants my compliance, my kids want my money, my therapist wants the child within, and my boss wants only “yes sir” out of me.

Even my diaries are uncooperative. They simply fill up too quickly and run out of room for all that I need to offload. My budget is running dangerously low so I cannot continue to purchase one diary after another only to have it slam its covers in my face!

So, you are it, dear reader. Sit back and relax while I let my stories pour out as they may. OK? Here we go!

Oh, just one moment, please. You are probably thinking right about now, “How selfish of her,” and I would not blame you for one instant. It does sound like I am making this all about me, me, me!

But it really is not all about me. Remember this: I stuck around, I persevered, I allowed, I enabled, I tolerated the twenty years in question all for you, my esteemed reader—and that because I was first and foremost striving to compile enough material to make this work irresistibly entertaining for you and only you. If you step back, scrutinize and peel away residual trivia, you will appreciate how ridiculously hilarious it all truly was.

And what is in it for me? That is a fair question and I will address it immediately by revealing yet another aspect of my persona—at heart I am an entertainer and the rest of me is a people-pleaser. I love making people laugh. My underlying but only secondary motive is to attain your compassion and empathy for bonding purposes only. After all, chances are that you have experienced at least a few similar incidents. Or you may have heard of them from other credible sources.

“You’re obviously no hyena,” a beloved uncle once said to me and he was absolutely correct. As much as I love making others laugh, I myself laugh rarely and showing off my pearly whites is not a frequent occurrence either. It is not that I take myself or life and the world too seriously but that I seldom find them amusing. After all, I am a child of survivors of the darkest years in recent history and was reared on autobiographical stories from that horrific era—facts that dulled my appetite for joviality.

In summary, Meet My Out-Laws is an account of slightly caricaturized, mildly dramatized and nostalgically recalled true episodes from my long ago yesteryears for your eyes and enjoyment only.