The Suburban You Read online

  All this hockey in your friend Rick's blood had a strong influence on Rick naming his only son Cooper, after the world's largest manufacturer of hockey equipment. Cooper is the brand of hockey stick, shin pads, hockey pants, shoulder pads, elbow pads, helmet, gloves, and jerseys that you and every other hockey player wore when you were growing up. It is a market-dominating brand.

  Rick is the last person you think would have his kid, Cooper, named after the world's leading hockey-equipment maker, wearing figure skates. No worries here. Today, however, you learn that about that assumption you could not be more wrong.

  On this beautiful five-degree day, you show up to skate. You go into the warming house, where a fire is burning in the fireplace, and you greet your friends. You say hello to your daughter's good friend Emma and hug Rick's wife and shake Rick's hand. Cooper, who you suspected would be decked out in a $150 set of CCM Tacks, is not.

  You go to give Cooper a fake high five, where you pull your hand away at the last minute, like you always do, because it makes him laugh, and you notice something that you are not prepared for. What you observe catches you so off guard that you forget to pull your hand away to fake Cooper out, because this boy, this hockey-player-to-be, this hockey legacy, is wearing figure skates. Not only are they figure skates; they are white figure skates.

  “Rick,” you say, “what's up with the skates? They are really nice. No, really, I mean it,” you say. Rick's wife, Beth, who has known you long enough to understand your ability to poke fun, steps in to defend your friend Rick. “Cooper's ice-skating teacher said that Cooper should start skating on figure skates,” she says. “Did his skating instructor specifically recommend white figure skates?” you ask. You do not get an answer. Rick's wife tells you to stop discussing Cooper's skates in front of him, because he may get self-conscious about them. “Wouldn't Cooper getting self-conscious about wearing white figure skates be a good thing?” you ask. Again, you receive no reply. You look to Rick and comment that it may be time to reconsider his wife's selection of a skating instructor for his son Cooper.

  The next day, you run into Rick's wife on the train coming home from work. You are seated three seats behind the only person in your car who is sitting alone, and “she” has long, flowing blond hair, is wearing high-heeled shoes, has two-inch-diameter hoop earrings, is wearing black stretch bell-bottom pants and high heels, and has long manicured fingernails that are painted black.

  Beth tells you that when Cooper came home from skating yesterday he tried on his sister's dress. “So what did you expect?” you say. From the train station, you walk home with Beth and you tell her to come into your house for a minute, that you have something for her. Beth comes in, and hangs out in the kitchen with your wife while you run to the garage. You enter your garage and David Golob's garage door starts to open. In the garage, you find your son's first pair of skates, a pair of black hockey skates, and give them to Rick's wife and say, “Beth, please give Cooper these skates, now.”

  Go for a Walk with Your Wife

  It is 3:45 P.M. on Sunday and your son is at basketball practice. It ends at 5:15 and his friend's dad, your friend Mitch Larson, is driving him home. Your daughter is at her friend Emma's for a playdate. Your wife has made arrangements for her to stay there until 5 P.M. or so. You are a free man and wife for an hour and fifteen.

  This is an unusual circumstance to experience in the middle of the day. You come into the house and your wife says to you, “We have an hour and fifteen minutes alone—would you like to go for a walk?” You think of some other things that you would like to do with your wife, but this sounds pretty good. It is winter, it is below-zero cold, there are massive icebergs down at the beach, and you love going to the beach more than you like most things, all year round. Your wife knows this, like she knows you love purple grape juice. What better place, you think, to take a walk than on the beach.

  You say, “Honey, that sounds terrific. That is a great idea.” You get your long johns on and she hers. You get your coats on and you say, “Let's drive to the beach and then walk along the beach.” It takes you three minutes to drive to the beach, including the time it takes to walk from your house into the garage, get into the car, open the garage door, pull out of the garage, and close the garage door. (That is one reason you overpaid so much for your house.)

  Who can argue about a walk along the beach, especially someone who has already established that she wants to go for a walk. You say, “Let's go,” not wanting to waste a precious moment. As you walk out the back door of your house, your wife says to you, “I wanted to walk in the neighborhood. Why don't we walk to the beach,” emphasizing the to. You are accustomed to being challenged frequently about many ideas you introduce into your household, but your idea to drive to and then walk along the beach is one about which you were not anticipating any resistance. In your mind, it is just not a topic that should be controversial at all.

  You soon realize that you are wrong about this. You walk to the car while your wife says two more times, “I just felt like walking from here.” “Honey,” you say, “let's just go to the beach. We see our neighborhood every time we leave and return from our home. The beach is amazing now. There are so many huge ice floes. It's such a great opportunity to check it out.”

  She says “OK” and reluctantly gets in the car. As you are pulling out of your garage, David Golob's garage door begins to open. You drive through the alley and onto the curved street.

  By this time, the topic of where to take your walk has become the single most important issue of your wife's existence. She says to you again, in a more assertive way, “I just wanted to start walking from home!”

  You fail to see any logic in your wife's assertiveness on this topic, but you know better than to try to understand her logic. It is the same logic, you believe, that she deployed for seven years in not buying you your favorite beverage. At least she is consistent, you think to yourself, for whatever that is worth.

  You wish more than anything that in a situation like this your wife could just flow with it. You wish that in matters as meaningless as taking a walk she could for once just accept your idea. You wish that, to your wife, just spending time with you anywhere would be a good enough way to spend an hour and fifteen minutes. But on this day, like most, your wishes do not come true. You know your wife well enough to know that the only thing to do now is turn around, park the car in the garage, and start your walk from the house. This is what you do. “Whatever will make you happy, honey,” you say unenthusiastically.

  As in most situations like this, the only thing to do is to get over it and put it out of your mind quickly. You start walking from your house and walk to the beach, along the beach, and back home. It is a terrific walk, and what you enjoy most is spending the time with your wife.

  Drive

  You live in a suburb with brick streets. It is an old neighborhood. Most of the houses have only two garage spaces. Because there is a lot of disposable income in this suburb, when kids turn fifteen and sixteen they get cars, which for the most part are indistinguishable from their parents' cars. Because there are generally only two garage spaces per house, these third and fourth cars in the household end up parked on the street. You do not like this parked-on-the-street look, and neither do others, but there is not much to be done about it, until one day you have an idea.

  A few years ago, when you began observing cars parked on the street in front of your house, you asked your son and his friends if they would like to play baseball on the front lawn. “You have plenty of space to play,” you said to them. “Don't worry about the cars, you won't hit them.” They did play with the brand-new hardball that you had given them to use, but occasionally the cars did get in the way of the balls the kids hit. Since the advent of those baseball games, there have never again been cars parked on the street on your block. You suspect that they have relocated to other streets. Anytime the cars start parking there again, your kid and his friends get a sudden urge to play bas
eball on the front lawn.

  Because the streets were built long ago, they are not as wide as you would find in other, newer suburbs that have been built over cornfields. While there are many cars parked on one side of many of your suburban streets, because parking is restricted on the other side, there is still always room for your car and an opposing car to drive by. The streets are dimensioned adequately to fit three cars across. You know this, but most of the drivers in oncoming cars do not. They think that the streets are too narrow, so either they will pull to the side and stop to let you go by, or will expect you to do that for them. You are also usually in a rush to get somewhere, so, to you, every minute counts. Like eating, showering, and shopping, driving is something that you like to do fast. You realize that if you stopped and pulled to the side to let each opposing car pass you it would take twice as long to get most places in your neighborhood. Long ago you made the decision to keep on driving when you confront this frequently occurring situation, because you know that, while tight, there is enough room for everyone.

  This decision, like many you make, has positive and negative consequences. On the positive side, you get places quickly and your driving is steady. On the downside, you are the recipient of a lot of nasty looks from people who generally recognize you or your car as you barely squeeze by each other. You have learned to avoid eye contact when you fail to stop for oncoming traffic on these brick suburban streets. You can tell that the person, usually a mom, in the opposing car, typically an oversized Suburban or Navistar, usually thinks that because they are proceeding along a section of street with cars parked on one side that you, the oncoming car, should pull over to the curb or between two parked cars and stop to let them pass by. You don't, and you know that it does not matter, because the street is wide enough to accommodate all of you, even the Suburban, and that everyone always makes it by OK, even though it is a tight fit.

  You have accepted these nasty looks as a consequence of a decision you have made, but you always hope that they are from people who do not know you or recognize you. You are never quite sure, though, because it has been a long time since you have made eye contact with anyone driving in a vehicle that is coming toward you on your suburban streets.

  Convert to Premium Gasoline

  Your German luxury car has a stick shift. You really enjoy your time in this car, because you think that there is no car that is better suited to you than this one, which is responsive to your aggressive driving style.

  Fifteen years ago, the day after you got your first real job offer, you bought your first nice car from the car dealer whom you liked so much you wanted to invite him to your wedding. It was a Swedish luxury car with a stick shift, and you liked it even though it needed to be fixed often. Luckily, you found a mechanic that you really trusted.

  Your mechanic was this good guy named Kevin but who referred to himself as Sven. Sven, who you called Kevin, was the smartest mechanic you ever met. He worked only on the brand of Swedish cars that have a reputation for needing a lot of work. For Sven, choosing this brand of car to center a business on was no random, haphazard event. He knew that these cars need a lot of TLC, and that their owners were loyal to the brand and liked them to run at peak performance. He figured that he could make more money repairing this particular brand of car than any other car, and, if he made half as much from his other customers as he did from you, you know he was right and that he was living big.

  One day, you ask Sven what type of gasoline you should use in your car. You believe him to be the most qualified person to answer this question. He does not hesitate with his response, and there is no lack of confidence in his voice. Sven tells you that your car will run the same on any octane level commonly available at any gas station. You have been paying the twenty cents per gallon upcharge for the expensive stuff for a year or so, since you purchased your first new car, so Sven's response means money in your pocket from now on. This is a good news day. You immediately stop buying the expensive stuff and switch to the lowest grade of regular.

  You drive that car for 102,000 miles before you sell it and trade up to a German luxury car with a stick shift. During the new-car orientation when you pick up your German luxury car from the dealer—whom you do not like as much as the dealer from whom you purchased your Swedish luxury car—your car dealer tells you to use only premium gasoline. You nod your head yes, knowing that you will not; someone more insightful than him has told you to save your money. You assume that car dealers have some kind of conspiracy going with gas stations and get some kind of “commission” from them based on the difference between the price of premium gasoline and the price of the cheapest stuff, which Sven told you to buy.

  You pull off the lot and the first thing you do is fill up that new German luxury car with regular gasoline. It runs fine, you think, much better than your 102,000-mile Swedish luxury car. After all, it is a German luxury car with 2.8 miles on it. You continue to buy regular gasoline for the five years that you own that car, and for your next new car you acquire, which happens to be of the same brand. You are now fifteen years into driving these fancy European cars and you have bought only the cheapest-grade gasoline that you can buy because of that one conversation with Sven, years ago.

  Then, one day, you come home from a business trip that you have taken with your friend-boss to one of the properties your company owns in High Point, North Carolina. It is night, and Sean, one of the security guards in the building that you manage in Chicago, picks you up in the less than a year old Lincoln Continental that your company owns. You and your friend-boss sit in the back and you talk about the day and ask Sean how his day was. Sean usually does not speak much on these trips home from the airport. That is, until he drops your friend-boss off at his big house, which sits on two lots. It is funny, you notice, that once your friend-boss leaves the car Sean starts talking to you about all kinds of stuff. This happens every time Sean gives you and your friend-boss a ride home from the airport, which is at least once a week.

  On this night, as you pull out of the long driveway of this ample home which sits on the only double lot in this highest-income-per-capita suburb—which, as you have once been corrected by one of its residents, is actually a village—Sean all of a sudden has something on his mind that he wants to share with you. He becomes talkative.

  “Could you believe how shitty this car is driving?” he asks. You tell him that you have not really noticed. “Check this out,” he responds, as he nails it on this quaint, short, highest-income-per-capita in the U.S. street, where you have never seen anyone drive faster than twenty-five mph. The car sputters and hesitates badly. You admit that you notice the problem then and it is not good. “What is wrong?” you ask. Sean responds, “We hired some new security guard who wanted to save our $11-billion, 75-million-square-foot real-estate company a few bucks by buying regular-grade gasoline instead of premium grade. That is why this car is fucked up. Could you believe what that idiot has done? Would you ever do that to your car?”

  At that point, your interest in this conversation picks up, and you ask, “Will the car always be fucked up, or will it go back to performing better once you put in the expensive gasoline?” You ask this question not because you care about the car you are in at that moment, but you know that the answer to this question will impact you and the German luxury car that you drive. Sean says, “I don't know.”

  You are now at your house. That night after supper, you get in your car to go to the library with your son. You decide to swing by the gas station and fill your car up with the most expensive gasoline they have. That night, the ride from the gas station to the library is the smoothest, snappiest ride that you have had in any of your cars in the past fifteen years.

  Go to a Restaurant with Your Family

  It is Sunday evening, and this weekend, like most, was event-packed. There was a soccer game, ballet class, swimming lessons (with Annika), your son's football game, two playdates, a birthday party for your daughter to attend, and a Cub Sc
out activity. This afternoon, your wife asked if you felt like going out to dinner tonight.

  Your wife makes gourmet meals just about every night of the week, and when she asks if you feel like going to a restaurant you tend to think that she is feeling tapped out and in need of a break. “Great idea,” you respond. “That sounds like fun.”

  Your wife asks where you would like to go. Of course, she has already thought this through in her mind and knows exactly where she would like to go, but why miss out on an opportunity to arrive at a common solution together? She asks this question, hopeful that you will somehow stumble upon the same idea that she has, but, if you don't, she knows that she can effectively manipulate your thinking to align it with hers, making it seem like somehow the restaurant that you end up at was your idea when it fact you had nothing to do with the selection.

  “Bruno's,” you respond, naming one of your favorite family restaurants, a lively nearby place that has terrific pasta, which is your favorite food. You have been there only twice, both times when your wife has been out on “girls' night.” Your wife looks at you as though you have just recommended going to the lunch counter at Target for dinner. “Bruno's,” she says. “I am tired of Bruno's. You always want to go there. Where else?” she asks. “What about the Mexican Café?” you suggest. “No,” she says. “I don't feel like Mexican.” You now start to understand that you are really playing a game of twenty questions, and that, unless you stumble upon the one restaurant that your wife has already selected for you, you will have to continue suggesting restaurants until you stumble across it. Alternatively, it may be a game of process of elimination, whereby your wife's strategy is to eliminate any option that you introduce, leaving only one logical alternative, the place where she wants to go. You say to your wife, “You know, honey, I really don't care where we go. Where would you like to go?”