I’d had a smattering of D’s all my life. Even my birth bordered on dejection. My dad and pregnant mom moved items into their new home built by Grandpa Lang. A heavy bureau drawer she carried over her head fell on her, inducing early labor. Old Dr. Walls, Mom’s obstetrician, had also delivered her. “Baby’s only got one leg,” he shrieked when one frail foot arrived first on the scene. Then he shouted to my dad, “Your wife or baby?”
My other leg emerged wrapped around my neck. At seven weeks premature and four pounds, it was the only claim to early, lean, and limber I would ever hold.
My parents named me Penny Lee. (The Pamela Lee autograph was reserved the B line — invariably, B-line standees have really big boobs and blond hair.)
To complicate matters, my dad, a self-proclaimed comic, called me the ever-endearing Lenny Pee. I remember voicemail messages — “Hi, Lenny Pee. Guess who this is?” Gee, let me think. I didn’t have a clue, so I never returned the calls.
Then came the demure personality. Freckles never helped. Mom had scrubbed with such force she left second-degree towel burns on my nose. She rubbed profusely to rid my scalp of little spots of cradle cap. Since I’d been out of the crib for six years, anyone else could’ve guessed — more freckles.
At the start of second grade, Mom bought colorful decals of playful skunks to apply on my green metal lunchbox and matching thermos. Just like Flower in Bambi. I liked them. Pre Scratch-and-Sniff days, I didn’t fathom the ridicule that awaited me. After eating lunch each day, I’d cover the ominous pail with my favorite rhinestone scarf. Then one day someone stole the scarf.
That was only the start. My shyness was aggravated by an extreme lack of coordination. I was picked last for school recess teams and had trouble wrapping the maypole on May Day. Danny, the only boy who ever picked me as his dance partner, had warts all over his hands.
In an effort to conquer my shyness, my parents adopted a pet. They wanted me to bond with someone besides them. They had no idea what bonding meant. Frankly, they wanted me to stick to something besides their sides. They wisely recognized a special attachment between creatures with bird legs. The baby chick followed me everywhere.
My fluffy companion ate scraps from the dinner table and drank root beer from my glass. We played in my new yellow wood frame playhouse constructed by Grandpa. This same grandfather surprised my parents with a concrete wishing well in the middle of our front yard while we traveled on vacation. Grandpa never attached the canopy for the wishing well. We called it the wishing cylinder. And likewise, he never finished the inside of the playhouse. Still it was one of my favorite places to be.
One afternoon I offered my feathered chum a drink, and held its head in a glass of water a little too long. When I pulled it out, its head flopped to the side, and it didn’t look very perky.
“Help,” I screamed. My pet chick, limp and lifeless, lay on its back in the palm of my hand. Mom, wearing a dark blue dress with a drawstring waist, a white Kleenex tissue poking out of a pocket, gingerly pressed on its chest. Water spouted from the chick’s beak. She massaged the pet until it blinked its eyes, peeped, and jumped up on my hand.
But Grandma Lang, with her ranching background, fixed dinner with what she found close by. She had different plans for my chick when he developed meatier thighs and legs.
Next came the pet rabbit. He seemed sturdier than the chicken. Until his bottom tooth grew into his nose. “Whitey can’t eat,” I cried. Not to be confused with Whitey can’t jump, the rabbit leaped out of my arms and fell on the hard concrete. His head smacked the ground and the overgrown tooth snapped off. He would have been okay if Grandma hadn’t had that ranching background. Again she had other plans for him.
Pets did not improve my life. And Grandma didn’t improve their quality, or at least quantity, of life either.
Since pets hadn’t enhanced my image, maybe my parents wanted to start afresh. For whatever reason, they began mass-producing when I was eight. With my folks bent on multiplying and replenishing the earth, brother Timmy was adopted. My brother Kelly came along when I was thirteen and fifteen months later my sister Holly. Maybe they hoped sheer numbers would give me courage.
Even Mom’s physician tried his hand at comedy. Wouldn’t you know it — a doctor coming to earth as a joker?
“Don’t worry Mrs. Thomer. You don’t have a tumor,” he jested. “You’re just having a little Thomer.”
More intimidating was the dumbfounded look I wore my entire adolescence. In ninth grade, rumor circulated that my typing teacher had an artificial limb. “Mom, guess what?” I exclaimed. “Mrs. Boise has a fake leg.”
“Can you tell which one?”
“No,” I answered, with all the logic I could muster. “It must be the top half.”
The problem only exacerbated when I acted upon these less-than-intelligent promptings. When I couldn’t unplug my record player, I grabbed the first utensil I found — Mom’s sewing scissors. I opened the shears, grasped the blades in the middle, and stuck one point in the wall socket. A small fire ignited the carpet in front of the other tip. I never felt anything — except Mom’s seldom seen wrath. “I’ve told you a million times,” she scolded, wearing another blue flowered dress with a drawstring waist, a white Kleenex tissue wadded in a pocket, “you’ll ruin those scissors if you use them on anything except fabric.” (I inherited the shorter scissors with a blunt tip.)
Stupid D’s constantly got in my way. As a teenager, it had been those awful driving disorders. I went through cars like runny noses go through Kleenex tissues. I totaled two cars within six months of receiving my license. The second accident involved a curve on the Hollywood freeway. I hadn’t maneuvered the turn as sharply as I hoped. After taking out a guardrail and a light standard with a new (thanks to the first accident) Dodge station wagon, I closed my eyes. I had little confidence the picture in front of me would improve. Besides Dad had said, “If you crash, relax. You have a better chance of surviving.” After I shut my eyes (I don’t know if closing them was what he had in mind), I struck another guardrail on the other side of the lamp. It slowed the car down enough so that by the time it reached the cement wall, the crumpled vehicle halted snugly against it.
A police officer pulled me out from an open window. “Dad, I had an accident,” I said, phoning home from the station. My voice trembled. I knew there were no worse words for a parent to hear at one in the morning.
“Are you okay?” Though groggy, he sounded genuinely concerned.
“Yes,” I cried.
“Any damage to the car?”
“It looks like an accordion.” It’s good broken bones don’t begin with the letter D.
Later I think I saw our car on television. On the Lawrence Welk show. I hated that show. Grandma made us watch it. She longed to enlighten us with culture. (Personally I’ve never met a cultured person who could polka.) But I admit I got excited the night we saw our car. Myron Florin used it as his backup accordion.
Oh, those dastardly D’s. What line did you stand in?
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