Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 27, 1994 TAG: 9401250190
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This, after being trapped inside my house for four days in a row, without so much as retrieving the mail from the porch.
This, after being called "Dinty Moore" by my husband, which was as humiliating as it was funny. He was referring to a new Demi Moore-like snapshot of me, in which my eight-months-pregnant naked belly protrudes from my oh-so-sexy flannel nightshirt. (I'm still waiting for that call from Vanity Fair.)
And this, after spending the better part of 10 days - mostly home, mostly alone - with my schoolteacher husband, a man who has mastered the fine art of puttering, frittering about and piddling away his school snow days.
So you can see why this sentence struck such a chord with me. It's from Rick Bass' short story, "Choteau," and it's the best one-sentence description of cabin fever I've read anywhere:
When they start feeling that rumble coming on, that low slow kick in the back of their heads and between their ears - the itch starting up - then one of them will go lock the guns in the barn and throw the key into a snowdrift, where it will not be found until spring thaw; and then, when their hate for each other, and for everything, for the entrapment of the cabin, can no longer be stood, but when stepping outside might be fatal - lung-searing, at a wind chill of seventy below - they put on these huge red inflatable child's boxing gloves - "Rocky Boppers," they are called - and with these monstrously-oversized balloon-fisted gloves, they'll stand in front of the fire and just let each other have it, whaling away, pounding and pounding on each other, jabs and hooks and uppercuts, all of it, fighting for over an hour sometimes, fighting until they can't stand up; collapsing then, exhausted, as if drunk, in front of the fire, where they will fall asleep, into the deepest of sleeps, with a dream hoop over the mantel, until the fire dwindles and Jim must get up and take the balloon gloves off and go outside and get another log for the fire.
One sentence: six dashes, two semi-colons, 23 commas and one period.
When you're stuck inside with your husband for as long as I've been, a sentence like that can really impress you. So can:
The amount of time he spends reading the newspaper - A MINIMUM OF 90 MINUTES EVERY DAY - including every single comic strip (he pines away for Bitsy Twill from "Gil Thorp"), the personal ads, every single story and horoscope.
The amount of time he spends in the bathroom (not taking a shower or washing his hair, but sometimes continuing to read the newspaper).
The amount of time he spends filling out sweepstakes forms, taking special care to label the generic grid map to our house - so the Prize Patrol will have no trouble finding us.
Of course, the minute I started writing this column - my husband's fifth day off school in a row - he commenced being useful, beginning to sand and then touch-up paint the crib our friends loaned us a few weeks ago.
And while I'm feeling guilty, I should add that he has forbidden me from: driving on the ice, walking outdoors unassisted, getting in and out of the bathtub by myself, and - for the benefit of the public good - wearing my seam-stretched black maternity pants seven days in a row. (Six is acceptable.)
He made me homemade chicken soup when I had the flu last weekend while I shouted instructions from the couch. He didn't laugh when I took my temperature every five minutes. He helped some friends with a leaky pipe. He drove our 78-year-old neighbor lady to the beauty shop for a perm.
A friend of mine who was stranded with an icy driveway and her three small children all week reported that they "just made a paste out of graham crackers and water, and then spread it all over the living room chairs."
We're supposed to get together this week for lunch so she can give me some tips on the true meaning of too much togetherness. She's bringing me a list of day-care facilities in the Roanoke Valley.
And while I plan to cut back my work hours, continuing to write from home after my maternity leave, I know that transition will be bumpy. For one thing, I'm used to working in complete silence, with nothing but the soothing hum of my IBM clone and the occasional yawn of my dog to keep me company.
So I'm sure last week's bout with the fever - both flu and cabin - was only a tepid warm-up, compared to the claustrophobic heat I'll feel in a mere five or so weeks.
Eighty diapers a week, 10-12 feedings a day, two or more hours of crying every single day - not counting colic.
Not counting my own tears.
I'm thinking about ordering a set of Rocky Boppers, just in case.
\ Beth Macy, a features department staff writer, wrote this entire column while wearing her Dinty Moore flannel nightshirt. Her column runs Thursdays.
by CNB