Stories

Every time I see a naked mannequin, I just want to stick one finger out, point, and yell “NAKED MANNEQUIN!”

I can’t be the only one, and I certainly can’t be the only one who has wanted to dress that naked mannequin up in a summer outfit just so I could invite him or her—or it—out for tea time in Central Park.

Yes, certainly, we’d have a tea party as lovely as the Mad Hatter’s on a blanket spread out on the Great Lawn. Although, I’d leave the invite for the Red Queen behind, because she’d surely be too delighted with how easy it would be to “be off with it’s head—that is, if the mannequin I window shopped for on 5th Avenue had a head at all!

But we’d sit for hours in the sun…me the Mad Hatter, and the mannequin, the Alice to my imaginary Wonderland-ah yes, it’d be the perfect tea party for two. Both of us, pale, and in serious need of SPF 50, we’d sprawl out across my blanket, and we’d laugh about the kids swinging and missing in their game of wiffle ball, and we’d compliment the jazz performers we could hear off in the distance, and above all, we’d share stories.

The drinks menu is easy—anything from scotch on the rocks to wine to martinis to Mint Juleps. And we know what brand mad men and women smoke, at least for now—Lucky Strike. But what do mad men and women eat? When they dine out in season four, it’s Chicken Kiev. And when they’re staying in—well, it’s easy to see why they don’t eat in very often.

In the first episode of the new season, Dan’s housekeeper told him that she had made pork chops—surely enough to drive a man not only to drink but to thoughts of an earlier season, when Betty, jumping up from the table to fetch his dinner, perkily asked, “Hot or cold”? Did we ever see Betty eat, even when she was pregnant? Most evenings she was brooding at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of wine. As little Bobby says, “Mommy doesn’t eat.” I can recall only two noteworthy exceptions: the vision of Betty—in the same episode as Bobby’s observation—devouring a chicken leg after her one-night stand with a stranger and her tryst in a sweet shop over a dish of ice cream with future- second-husband and Freudian-father-figure Henry Francis.

“Do you see this chart, Lynne? This is your height-weight percentile chart.  And do you see where you are? You’re waaaaaay up here. Waaay past the 90th percentile. Do you see that? How would you like a shot to suck all the fat away?”

Ok. So Dr. Salvo didn’t sound quite that evil, but it’s not too far off.  To this day, whenever I hear the word “percentile,” no matter the context, I cringe a little, remembering the good doctor showing me my elevated, childhood status on the red-lined chart.  And why did it have to be red?  As if being a chubby little kid were cause for dire emergency.

He really did ask me if I wanted a shot that would “suck all the fat away.” At the time I remember shuddering and saying no, needle-phobic as most little kids are.  Then, down the road a little bit, in my pubescence, I remember regretting telling him I didn’t want the shot. What if he really did have one? What if I could have saved myself all this pain? All this praying at night that I’d wake up thin?

We think this new episode by Julia Fowler is hilarious!! 
Make yourself a plate of James Moore’s amazing biscuits and gravy and pull up a chair...