Miss Cranky Pants

It's official: I am a cranky pants. I am drawn to blogs and books written by cranky middle aged women about how other people annoy them to no end. Then I get mad because I could have written them, if I had time and were organized and capable of finishing a project. To wit: http://open.salon.com/blog/joan_h/2010/02/08/the_old_lady_in_apt_202, a lovely rant about noisy and inconsiderate college students (yeah, yeah, I was once a noisy and inconsiderate college student, but that I was like, 500 years ago and now my 15-year-old listening to music in his room bugs the bejeezus out of me even with the door closed). Or this -- http://theharperstudio.com/authorsandbooks/lisa_kogan/the-book/someone-will-be-with-you-shortly/ -- Lisa Kogan's collection of vintage O Magazine pieces and new tirades about the indignities of growing older (no one says "No way are you [fill in the age you currently are]; you look at least ten years younger!"), people who clip their nails in public elevators, the decline of civility (and with it, Western Civilization) and other assorted horrors and affronts which become more and more appalling as we become older and more decrepit.

Why We Did This

When I was 11 or 12 years old, I discovered Bewitched reruns on Channel 44. I would return from school, unlock the front door (I was a latch-key kid, which in those days did not constitute child abuse on the part of my parents), make myself some toast, spread it liberally with cream cheese, and top the cream cheese either with tomatoes sprinkled with salt or my grandmother's homemade plum jam. Then, toast in hand, I would watch, enraptured, as spunky Samantha Stevens negotiated deftly (or with charming ineptitude) the demands of her glamorous, eccentric witch and warlock relatives, her depressingly normal husband Darren, Darren's humorless boss Larry Tate, and the nosy next-door neighbor Gladys Kravitz, who was convinced (and rightly so) that something funny was afoot at the Stevens house. Although I was way too old for magical thinking, it was my secret conviction that if I managed to wiggle my nose unassisted, like Samantha (not like her adorable daughter Tabitha, who had to resort to the forefinger-on-the-tip-of-the-nose trick), I too could make magic happen. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, as much as I scrunched up my nose in front of the bathroom mirror, it never wiggled spontaneously, no melodious chimes sounded in the background, and my seventh grade nemesis, Tony A., did not, alas, turn into an ottoman or a yapping lap dog.

In due course, I grew up and started doing what grown-ups do: losing my sense of humor, the metabolism that allowed me to consume six or seven toast and cream cheese and jam sandwiches before dinner with no ill effects, and the conviction that I could make magic happen just by wrinkling my nose the right way. Oh, and getting married and going to graduate school and acquiring cats and children and minivans with indiscriminate abandon entered into the equation as well. It had been years since the last time I watched a Bewitched rerun, but it all came flooding back when my husband, sleepily rolling over in bed, called me, not Sam -- oh, noooo -- but (wait for it) Gladys Kravitz. Gladys Kravitz! The dowdy, pudgy, middle aged woman with badly styled hair and a strident New Jersey accent who spied on Samantha from behind lacy curtains. All because I sprang out of bed in the middle of the night to peek out from behind the curtains of our bedroom window in our rented duplex to see some major police action going down on the next-door neighbor's lawn. Honestly -- who would not have done the same had they woken up at 1 a.m. to the sound of feet pounding on the pavement and a hoarse voice yelling, "Freeze! Police!"? Wouldn't you pull back the curtains just a wee bit to get a better look at the four police cruisers parked every which way right in front of your bedroom window, red and blue lights flashing like mad, and a dozen uniformed policemen with guns drawn standing over a guy lying face-down on the next-door neighbors' front lawn? Gladys Kravitz, indeed.

Long story short: my husband may not be a fan of peeking out of windows and spying on the neighbors, but a few months ago, I found my soul-mate -- a partner-in-crime, if you will, although we have not committed any crimes (yet) -- who relishes doing exactly that, exactly as much as I do. Unbelievable as it may sound, she too has been called Gladys Kravitz by her husband -- also for spying on police action on her street in the middle of the night while shivering in her nightie behind the curtains. Separated at birth much? To top it all off, we know the same people. We gossip like mad. We are funny and clever individually, but put us together and we are a laugh riot (at least we think we are). Above all, with children ranging in age from 8 to 23, we have seen just about everything -- and we're more than happy to share our impressions, because we're generous like that. We have ventured forth, and we have peeked -- from behind curtains, into classrooms, into children's bedrooms that look like they'd been hit by the proverbial tornado, into other people's shopping carts, wondering what we might make for dinner considering that we have to drive multiple children to and from multiple engagements all of which conflict with the dinner hour. We have mentally rolled our eyes at the woman who takes five samples at a time from the Trader Joe's free sample area while her three-year-old stands up in the cart, looking like he's about to topple over on his head, and we have smiled politely through gritted teeth at moms who feel compelled to recite every detail of their child's social calendar when all you really want is to set up a time for a simple playdate. And we have discovered along the way that true magic lies not in the nose, as I thought when I was young and foolish, but in the eyes. And in the telling. Here's to you, Gladys.