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FRESH
YARN PRESENTS:
What
Plastic Patio Furniture in my Living Room?
By
Tiffany Zehnal
PAGE
TWO:
 White
Trash Red Flags #4 & 5: Alcohol abuse and unemployment.
Alcohol and unemployment are to white trash what peanut butter
and jelly are to toddler.
Because my new stepfather was a Vietnam vet, he had been carrying
around a duffel bag of problems. Social ones, drinking ones and
the ever-popular employability ones. These kinds of issues often
resulted in him being drunk and unable to communicate to my mother
about how frustrated he was that he couldn't get a job -- a delightful
scenario that played out night after night. My brothers and I never
missed a performance.
White Trash Red Flag #6: Outdoor furniture indoors. And/or
a car on the lawn.
Well, my stepfather never parked his El Camino in our yard.
But the summer my mother and her husband separated, Lorne moved
out and took his entire five-piece tiger-striped couch set with
him. Our living room was devastated. My mother covered the carpet
indentations left by the fake tiger ensemble as best she could.
With our white plastic lawn furniture. Not a teak piece in sight.
Our backyard looked like it had been robbed. On the bright side,
watching One Day at a Time in a chaise lounge is as comfortable
as it sounds.
White Trash Red Flag #7: "One Day at a Time."
Ann Romano had some real tough times. Real tough.
Watch what you know.
*
* * * *
The
trailer park was located smack in the middle of an industrial park
in Canoga Park. Sight fully seen, it was clear there was no amusement
in these parks. I was surrounded by gray. Gray buildings. Gray signs.
Gray roads. Gray heads. Yes, my mother's new double-wide was located
in an "over 55" trailer park. If you listened closely,
you could almost hear the AARP circling. Like vultures over an old
cow carcass.
I turned off my car and locked the doors. A last minute attempt
to delay the inevitable.
Cue inevitable.
Tap tap tap. I'd know that tap anywhere.
"Honey? Aren't you coming out?"
I could see her out of my dirty rolled-up window. My mom, my mother,
the giver of life, beaming, so happy at the prospect of independence,
stood patiently by my door, waiting for my exit. Her "realtor"
Ivan, melting, so sweaty in his tweed-like sports coat in the dead
of summer, tried to catch a break in her shadow. And the two of
them got to me. Who was I to poo-poo her dream? Even if that dream
came with an aluminum porch and a neighbor who had a "Never
drive faster than your angels can fly" bumper sticker on her
'91 Camry.
It was time to buck up and I knew it.
So, with a smile on my face and a shoeless baby in my arms, I followed
my mom and her realtor's perspiring upper lip up the green-as-grass
carpeted steps that led to the front door. This was it. Since I
could no longer deny my past, it seemed pretty unfair of me to deny
my future. Two seconds and two steps later, I was in a double wide.
"Wow, it's big!" were the first words out of my mouth.
Neil Armstrong, I am not.
No one was more surprised by my declaration than me. I entered,
expecting to be met with a God-awful trailer smell (one part hospital
to one part public ashtray to one part poverty) and toxic black
mold spores. Instead, I found myself greeted by the fresh scent
of lavender and the cleanest, sporeless paneled walls I'd ever seen.
The new carpet was white and plush and the living room, sunken and
inviting. Dishwasher. Microwave. Washer AND dryer. And on the wall?
Central freakin' air! I kid you not. With a little Restoration Hardware
Silver Sage paint on the faux wood walls, I could live there.
And it got me thinking.
Maybe trailers are a practical housing option in this overpriced
real estate market. Maybe it is perfectly acceptable to use a wooden
cable spool as a living room coffee table in a pinch. And maybe
just maybe I don't have white trash in me after all. I mean
it's not like I don't know who my baby's daddy is. I do. And I have
the paternity test to prove it.
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