Michael Jackson’s death is tearing our family apart.
My daughter took the news hard. “You know, Michael Jackson died,” she told me a few minutes after she saw a breaking news bulletin.
“I know,” I said. “Do you know who he is?” Because ten year olds are funny. Like my daughter had no idea who Madonna was. And until she was eight, Jesus.
“No,” she said, ” but it doesn’t put me into the best mood to hear about people dying.”
“Oh, honey,” I tried to cheer her up, “people die every day.”
Meanwhile, although Husbandrinka is one of the few people who truly doesn’t give a shit about celebrities, dead or alive, he has been approached by a disproportionate number of people who wanted to share their grief with him. “He was so young,” our doorman told Husbandrinka as he was getting the mail.
“I’m really heartbroken,” our dry cleaner told him.
“I wanted you to know that I am devastated,” a colleague emailed.
I am outraged.
No one said anything to me. Which is surprising because I’m so much more celebrity-friendly and sympathetic. So of course I have celebrity condolence envy because everyone seeks Husbandrinka out for celebrity postmortem talk and no one talks to me about it.
I even made a list of benefits of discussing Michael Jackson’s death with me versus Husbandrinka.
Reasons Why It’s Good to Discuss Michael Jackson’s Death With Me
1. I have been dutifully following the media and can intelligently discuss various aspects of Michael Jackson’s life, career and indictments.
2. I am super nice and sympathetic.
3, It’s entirely possible that I will blog about your celebrity grief and you will experience blog fame.
4. I have a few theories that I am happy to share at no extra cost at all.
Reasons Why It’s Good to Discuss Michael Jackson’s Death with Husbandrinka
1. He doesn’t care, so he will not interrupt you with his own two cents.
Obviously, I’m the clear choice. Or clearly, I’m the obvious choice. Whatever.
But our marriage is not the only one suffering. Because the other day, mama showed us Time Magazine and said, “this is the only picture of him that I love.”
so although this image is obviously from Time Magazine, I got it from Washingtonpost.com. And then I couldn’t get rid of that crap on the bottom.
And papa said, “that is not a picture. It is a photo.” Papa, god love him, does this sometimes. Like the time that he insisted that “kids” were “goats” and that his grandchildren were “children” and not farm animals.
“You can say ‘picture’,” I reassured him.
“Picture is painted. Photo is a photograph,” he put his foot down.
Lest you think that papa is not colloquial, I have fond memories of his trying to teach me a few idiomatic phrases when we first came to America.
“If someone tells you some nonsense, tell them ‘Go tell it to the Marines’,” he instructed me.
I was ten. And confused.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because that’s what Americans do,” he explained. “You say go tell it to the Marines and you fit in and have friends.”
I nodded, but never followed his advice. Although admittedly, I’ve been low on friends for years.
One day he called me, alarmed.
“You know, I’ve been saying ‘whole bowl of wax’ and now I think it’s ‘whole bowl of wax’,” he told me.
“Those two phrases are exactly the same,” I reassured him, leaving out that no one knows what it means.
“No, one is bowl, like Life is a bowl of cherries and the other is bowl like men have two bowls.”
Oh. balls.
Who hasn’t made that mistake?