Trick or Drink?

Every year, I wanted to dress up as Barbie for Halloween. But rather than buy a blonde wig and some type of princess gown, we would go to the local K-Mart and buy a “Barbie Kit” which contained what looked like a crappy vinyl hair cutting cape with a dress painted on it and a plastic face mask. Don’t get me wrong, I really wanted that cheap-o costume because all the kids in school ran around in plastic “Ninja Turtles” or “Power Ranger” suits. It sure beat the heavyweight upholstery fabric my aunt used in prior years when constructing me so many couch-like costumes.

When I was about 8 or 9, I convinced my mom to let me be "Princess Barbie". We got home with the costume and my mom immediately whipped out a pair of trusty scissors. For a moment, I was afraid that it was time for my Bowl Cut, but instead, she started cutting into the Barbie mask. She was convinced that the plastic mask would asphyxiate me, so she cut larger nostrils into the nose…and in case my nose was stuffy, she cut off the lips…and so I didn’t trip while I was walking, she cut open the eyes. Nagymama had to physically restrain me as I screamed “Don’t cut! Don’t cut!” as if Mom was amputating my freaking face.

Once she was done butchering Barbie, I glumly put on the costume; I was at least satisfied that she did not cut into the dress. But of course, since New Jersey is usually a bit chilly during Halloween, Nagymama made me bundle up and cover my entire costume. So, I basically went door to door wearing a peach-colored jagged piece of plastic strapped to my face with a piece of elastic, two layers of patched-up sweatpants, a Christmas turtleneck, and an oversized goose-down coat buttoned to my chin. This is how the door-to-door conversations should have went:

“Trick-Or-Treat!”

“And what’s your Halloween costume, little girl?”

“Formerly Barbie. But now I’m the creepy guy from Texas Chainsaw Massacre who straps people’s faces to his own face.”

“Oh, okay. Here, have some crappy Mary Janes, they’ve only been sitting around my candy dish for six months.”

Oh, the frustration.

So this Halloween, much like every other Halloween, Nagymama, mom, and I went over to our neighbor Gustaaf’s house for candy. And as always, he invited us inside. I hated going inside because their house always smelled like mothballs and old doilies, and he and Nagymama would talk to each other in Dutch for hours on end. After a few minutes, I stared to anxiously pace around the house because I wanted to go Trick-or-Treating.

Gustaaf’s 500-year-old wife, Olga, screamed after me, “Shit down, shit down, you run round too mush, I git you someting.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

I was scared because almost every other time I went over, Olga brought me out hideously bitter grapefruit juice that my mom would make me drink because it was “good for me”. This time, I was thrilled when she brought out what looked like a cold glass of soda. I took a fast gulp and nearly spit it everywhere. I must quote Ralph Wigum from “The Simpson’s” when I say, “It tasted like BURNING!”

Nagymama was not pleased with the faces I was making. “Drink it, you don’t want to be rude, do you?” she said in Hungarian, with her menacing, “I’mona get the fa kanál” stare.

So, I drank it. And the family talked some more. And Olga poured some more. And Nagymama stared some more. And I drank some more.

After some endless jabbering, Gustaaf finally reached into his wallet and pulled out a five-dollar bill, which was my “Treat” for this year. For a moment, I got excited thinking about how much candy I could buy with that $5! As I went to walk to him, I felt a little funny, and promptly fell over.

Oh, the chaos…

I was immediately picked up, ushered out, and brought home for fear of concussion. My mother deduced that fell because I could not see correctly in my mask and gotten my foot caught on my vinyl Barbie dress. In reality, it probably had something to do with the two-and-a-half Black Russians Olga had given me.

I didn't get much candy that year. But I'm pretty sure I got a hangover in the morning.

Photo by PeeJay

Nagymama's Run-In With the Law

Whenever Nagymama walked to the corner store to buy milk and eggs, she would always stop by the liquor store to buy a lotto ticket. Since my grandmother has always been a little bit of a handful, my mother always welcomed Nagymama’s trips to the corner because it gave her “a moment’s rest”.

Well, one day, that “moment” turned into over an hour. We started to get really worried; the store was no more than half a mile up the road, so Nagymama was usually there and back in about 30 minutes. My mom ran to scour the neighborhood.

Nagymama wasn’t at the corner store. She wasn’t at the liquor store. She wasn’t even at her usual spot at the local McDonald’s, eating hamburgers and petting little kids on the head with greasy fingers while their parents smiled uncomfortably. Nagymama was missing.

Little did we know that Grandma had gotten her lotto ticket as usual, but on her way back home, she started “shopping” for houses. For as long as I have been alive, Nagymama has wanted a “bi-level house”. She would even “case” the neighborhood to see if any bi-level houses were for sale, so “I vill know vhich house to buy vhen ve hit dah lotto.” If she had saved all the money that she spent over the years on lotto tickets, she could have probably bought six bi-levels!

So, on this particular day, she must have gone up to one of the neighbor’s houses and they called the cops. God, I could, just HEAR the phone conversation:

“Uh, hello, 911? There’s a crazy old lady wearing house slippers on my front lawn, peeking though my windows and writing something on a napkin. She probably belongs to someone. No, I checked, she’s not wearing a collar…”

The cops immediately answered the call and drove up to Nagymama, asking her is she was lost. Although she speaks Hungarian, Romanian, German, and Dutch, her hearing is really bad and her English is only “so-so.” She lied, “No, no, I am Mizz Mary Smith from New Brunswick!” They assumed she was disoriented and couldn’t remember where she lived, so they planned to put her in the car and drive her around the neighborhood until she recognized something.

Both cops got out of the car and tried to get her in the back. She clawed and kicked and scratched and screamed bloody murder. She screamed so loud that my mother was able to hear her from around the block. My mom sprinted towards the noise, screaming, “Anyu! Anyu!”

Of course at this point, there was such a commotion that all of the neighbors were outside to see the spectacle. This is yet another reason I didn’t have many friends in the neighborhood.

The cops finally saw my mom and backed off of grandma. “Officers, officers, dis is a mistake, dis is my modder!” While Nagymama then proceeded to take her papucs off and smack my mom in the side of the arm.

“You’re trying to send me to the nuthouse!” she screamed, “You called them to take me away!”

If that was true, I might have had that phone number on speed dial.

Photo by Eric Martin

Authentic American Goulash Recipe

I realize that some people might end up here from Google because they actually want to know how to make REAL American Goulash. Well, go buy a box of Hamburger Helper, because that's what is basically is. No? Well, okay, fine, Google-o-phille, here is your recipe:

Home Recipe courtesy of Lenny's Family Recipes

1 lb ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
2-4 garlic cloves, diced and smashed
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can tomatoes, dice if using whole, do not drain
1 (15 1/4 ounce) can whole kernel corn
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
8 ounces elbow macaroni
1-2 tablespoon chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste

1. Prepare elbow macaroni according to directions on package till al dente.

2. Save a little of the pasta water in case you need it later to loosen the sauce.

3. Brown meat in a large skillet, drain the fat and add the onion and bell pepper half way through cooking.

4. Drain any remaining fat when onion and pepper is done and add garlic, stir it about.

5. Add the meat mixture to the cooked macaroni, add the canned tomatoes, corn and sauce.

6. Mix all this together and add seasoning to taste.

7. You may need to add some of the pasta water to loosen the sauce if it is too dry.

8. Invite Stephanie over for this delicious home-cooked meal. She'll bring her low-cal homemade banana bread. But that recipe is a secret :)

Have your own style to make American Goulash, Hungarian Goulash, or North-East Tanzini-Ubeki-Czeci-Irani-Swonian Goulash? Please also feel free to post some of your Authentic Recipes "from Grandma" so we can keep these dishes alive!

Photo by Oliver Gruener

My Night in Jail

Even as a 25-year old woman, I have to lie to my mother any time I go on vacation. It’s not because I’m sneaking around; I’m just “protecting her from the truth”. If she knows I’m on a plane/ train/ automobile, she’ll worries herself sick, so out of sheer love, I lie.

Keep in mind, lying to my mom is no small task because she has "Radar". A few years ago, I went to Las Vegas, I had no sooner gotten off the plane when my phone started ringing off the hook. “Oh, I’m just playing video games, mom. That’s TOTALLY not the sound of 5,000 slot machines going off at once…”

So, last week, I went to the Ottawa International Animation Festival. I made the mistake of telling my mom about when I first went to the convention in 2002, so every year she starts pestering me about it when September rolls around. This year, I was hoping she would forget, but the night before my flight, her Radar went off.

“Stephie, you going to dat Canada ting again?”

“Yes, it's tomorrow,” I replied glumly, knowing damned well that I had just stepped into a two-hour conversation.

“Are you gonna get your period? Did you pack pads?”

“Oh, my gosh, mom, please…”

“Don’t forgit your Passport. Your birth certificate is no good now.”

“Yes, I know.”

“And don’t jus pack crappy tank tops, it’s cold in Canada.”

“Yes, I know, this is like the fifth Canada trip I’m taking.”

“Listen, your teacher is gonna be dere to chaperon, right?”

“I’m 25 now, mom, they have ME listed as a chaperon.”

“Vell, I hope a teacher is still around to check and make sure nobody steals you. Are you bringing your mace?”

“No, you’re not allowed to bring mace across borders.”

“Are you still staying at that crappy Jail Hostel?”

“Yeah, it’s cheap.”

“But vhat if something happens? Vhy don’t you buy some more mace?”

“Listen, just for you, I’m going to bring the giant pair of razor-sharp tweezers your sister got me for my birthday. If anyone messes with me, I’ll just impale them.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m vorried…”

“Don’t worry. These Canadians...they’re a gentle people.”

“Stephie, don’t forget to pack your maxi pads.”

As expected, the conversation went on like this for another hour and forty-five minutes.

So, I went to Ottawa and had a grand old time. The Jail Hostel isn’t even that bad – there’s a full kitchen, eating area, free wireless internet, and male and female floors are segregated. I highly suggest it for the value! The only thing I hate is the public showers – they’re a little skeevy.

One night, I entered the shower with my pool shoes (mom reminded me to bring them about a million times), and closed the stall door behind me. In the middle of shampooing I heard someone come in a few stalls down from me. I finished up, toweled off, I noticed that the other person in the shower never turned the water on.

My paranoia set in. I had already called 9-11 earlier in the week because a student collapsed from alcohol consumption, so I was imagining some drunk girl chocking on her own vomit in the shower. I glanced over at the closed stall door and just as I saw a flash of HAIR peek our from over the partition. Now, keep in mind, it was about 3:00 in the morning and I had attended about 500 marketing seminars, so I figured I was hallucinating. I looked up and saw the hair peek out once again. To ease my apprehension, I slightly bent down to peeked below the stall, expecting to see painted toenails, but I simply saw four legs of a chair.

I reacted before I could actually think. “What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?” I asked the bathroom door. I stopped to think for a moment. Holy crap, I can’t believe I just said that. I am standing in an old prison at 3:00 in the morning wearing nothing but a towel talking to some disembodied head of hair in the shower. If this isn’t the setup to some grisly horror movie, I don’t know what is. My mother was right all along. Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh…

I rustled around in my bag…crap! That's right, no mace! But I had my trusty thrusting tweezers. I pulled them out and waited for a reaction.

The door replied in a teenage male voice. “Ohhh…..crap. Am I in the girl’s room or something?”

I rolled my eyes. “Uh, yeah, and I gather you learned that from staring at me from the side of the shower stall inappropriately?”

“CRAP! CRAP! No, uhh..it’s a mistake! F*ck! I thought I might be in the girl’s shower and I was trying to be inconspicuous! Sh*t! It’s not what it looks like!”

For about two seconds, I believed him. I mean, heck, if I accidentally walked into a male shower room, I would probably hide until I knew everyone was gone, too.

Just as I let my guard down, the crazed 18-year old bust out of the shower stall. I stood there, shocked, with my feeble tweezers in hand as he ran by me, calling, “Sorry sorry sorry sorry!”

I was dismayed to see that he was wearing street clothes, and had no towel/toiletries to speak of. I was speechless. This could only mean one thing...

PEEPING TOM!

I ran back to my “jail cell” as fast as I could, squish-squashing puddles of water though the entire corridor. I threw on my pajamas and immediately tried to wake my friend Lisa who was sleeping in the bunk above me.

“Lisa, Lisa, come downstairs with me, I need to go to the main office. Dammit...”

Nothing. Not even a stir. She was out like a light.

I didn’t want to walk around alone anymore, so waited until morning to file an incident report. The more I thought about it, the more it kinda creeped me out. I went back to the shower, just to see if I was making a big deal out of nothing. I went over to his shower stall and the chair was still in there. I stood up on the chair and got a full gander at the three adjacent stalls.

Man, I am such a moron for showering alone in a public bathroom. Someone could have totally attacked me, or I could be in a Canadian prison right now for murdering some punk with a pair of tweezers. Thank GOD I am about 6 feet tall…I mean, what if he had seen me and thought, “Well, I can’t assault this brontosaurus, so I’ll wait for some smaller girl to molest.” AHHHH!

I considered hanging up signs to warn the other girls with a little picture that said, “Girls! Make sure you shower with a buddy!” But just my luck, the whole “Shower with a Buddy” slogan would attract MORE Peeping Toms.

In an attempt to rationalize this whole incident to myself and not completely lose faith in society, I just chalked the whole incident up to some kid trying to get a cheap thrill. But just in case, I verbally warned all the college girls on the trip. Professor Larry overheard the story and commented, “Well, let’s just hope he was only peeping at you with his eyes and wasn’t taking pictures with his cell phone.”

Thanks, Larry. I hadn’t even thought of that.

So, next time you’re cruising the internet for porn, let me know if you come across my picture on www.SoapyBrontosauruses.Com. And please, for future reference, when you're in a public shower of any kind, be safe and Shower with a Buddy.