Showered

I just finished reading Straight Man, a Richard Russo novel I picked up at the suggestion of my dear friend MEP. It was delightful. And so funny. And rather a timely choice for me, really, because the author makes use of a whole host of literary tools to propel his story, many of which I’ve reflected upon here at Beyond Pickles. Yet he also rather ingeniously uses the thought processes of his English Professor/Creative Writing Teacher protagonist to explain some basic rules of fiction at work in the novel. So clever. For example, at one point, our hero explains an exercise he uses with his students called “I know you, Al.” It’s not terribly complicated. Basically, the exercise suggests that the writer consider his or her character (whom we – and William Henry Devereaux, Jr. and his students in Straight Man – will call ‘Al’) and complete the sentence: “I know you, Al. You’re the kind of guy who ...” This is supposed to encourage a student to create consistent characters. It would be no good if you have a character like, say, Julia Child, who suddenly and inexplicably began championing Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. This would cause any reader worth her salt to say “But I know you, Julia Child! You’re not the kind of gal who would serve processed food from a tube to dinner guests!”

You get the point. As does Richard Russo.

Ah.

Great book.

I’ve been involved in a few showers recently, of the baby- and bridal- variety. Showers are interesting. They are a rite of passage for American women, aren’t they? In many ways, they are vestiges of sexism: a party for a woman – not a man – who is getting married or having a baby. It’s a showering of presents that usually encourage cooking, housekeeping, and child-rearing: the more traditionally female roles. The husband-to-be, or father-to-be, usually pops his head in at the end and fills the car up with the new mixer and towels or the diaper genie and pack-and-play, does a quick thank-you tour and does the skedaddle.

I know you, Actchy. You’re not the type of woman who goes for gender stereotypes. You couldn’t really like showers.

Right.

Except that I do sort of like showers. I like finger sandwiches. I like looking at new kitchenware and cute baby clothes. I like that showers usually entail complicated social etiquette and convoluted politicking that makes peace in the Middle East seem simple by comparison. And I especially like hanging out with multiple generations of women at the same time.

I was recently at the baby shower for the wife of one of my oldest friends. It was a lovely, typical shower: quiche, sheet cake, punch, a wishing well of baby books. The mom-to-be was very gracious, and held up each gift for all of the 40 or so guests to see after unwrapping it. My girlfriends and I let our moms and their friends take the front row seats, and we hung out toward the back so we could chat while the present-opening occurred.

You have to do that, you see, to facilitate the peanut gallery comments. There is a marked difference between what the women in their 30s and younger discuss at a shower and what the women in their 50s and older discuss.* More accurately, there is a marked difference in what the women in their 30s and younger don’t discuss, i.e., the perfection of the gifts. My friends and I sat around, half-noting who gave which present but generally using the unwrapping period as a chance to exchange gossip and news. The older generation, however, made a federal case out of every gift. At one point, the mom-to-be opened up a package that honestly almost brought the house down. The collective “Ohhh!” was deafening. I actually thought for a moment that the guest-of-honor had given birth right there in her mother-in-law’s living room. False alarm. She had opened up a 3 feet tall plush rock-a-stack. I should’ve known.

Showers can be time for nostalgia for the older generation. At my sister’s baby shower, my mom’s friend looked around at the car seats and outlet-protectors and baby gates and noted how things had changed. In her day, she recalled, one couldn’t wait for the eighth month of pregnancy because the mom-to-be could balance her ashtray on her belly with ease. And baby Tylenol was totally unnecessary: you would take the bourbon from your own glass, which fit nicely next to your ashtray, and rub it on your other child’s gums to soothe him.

Of course, there are some things that happen at showers that are universally amusing, no matter which generation is yours. My friend L. received a sack-like pair of legless fleece pajamas from her fiancé’s mother at her bridal shower. Not exactly something one would pack for the honeymoon. But is this better or worse than the time I witnessed another girlfriend open a box from her future mother-in-law that contained edible tattoos and a thong for her fiancé in the shape of an elephant’s trunk?

I know you, Actchy. You’re not the kind of woman who would delight in the discomfort of the guest-of-honor at her shower! No, I’m really not. And yet I am a willing participant in perpetuating the American tradition of showers. Even if they are silly. And sexist. Why?

I guess it’s the finger sandwiches?




*I realize I’ve excluded a decade of women. I think I did this because women in their 40s aren’t generally at showers. They’re busy hashing out the most productive time in their careers and raising tweens and teenagers and have no time to befriend women who are about to either get married or bring more future tweens and teenagers onto the scene.