Ain't you that Dummy Girl?

“Ain’t you that dummy girl?”

“Excuse me?”

“The dummy girl, you know, got a dummy in 'ur car.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that’s me…”

“We just call you ‘dummy girl’ because of ya dummy, not ‘cause we think 'ur dumb or nothin'.”

“That’s great…” Now shoo...go away....

“Where‘s he at?”

“Who?”

“Yo’ dummy?”

“Oh, he’s in the trunk.”

“Why you keep him in the trunk?”

“Well, because when I’m here, I don’t need him sitting in the front with me.” I'm sure this guy is wondering what I need him in the front seat for in the first place....maybe when I'm "there" wherever "there" is, I'm in the back seat with him...

“Oh. Can I see him?” He doesn't care about "here" or "there" or front seat or back seat. He just wants to see him.

“Sure.” And I open the trunk, revealing my dummy, he’s lying face up. His expression doesn’t change when he sees me and this redneck.

“Yep, that’s him! ‘Howdy, there, Dummy!’” (And if The Dummy could think or talk he’d say “Howdy, yourself, Dummy!”)

“I’ve gotta get to work…”

“Yeah, me, too, thanks for showin’ me.”

“You’re welcome….” I get my dummy out and put him in the front seat, even though I just told my new friend that I didn't 'need him, um, now that I'm here.'

“Hey er’body, I just seen that dummy, she keeps him in ‘er trunk!” He says to his fellow workers as he’s walking up to their truck. They all stare at me as they pull away, the way you'd stare at a freakshow at the State Fair.

~~~~~

I had so much fun in 1990 with yesterday’s blog post, that I thought I’d stay in that year for another day.

Safety Man.

This is the dummy’s name.

I told you yesterday about my long work commute and that my mother made me get a “bag phone” for safety. I had a 90 mile commute, one way, mostly rural and this made my mother worry because I was on isolated roads a lot by myself. I was 23 years old and in the car alone and my mother was losing sleep over this.

She felt I needed protection.

~~~~~

Mom’s a great gift-giver. She’s the kind of person who puts lots of thought into a gift and spares no expense or effort in obtaining the gift. We look forward to birthdays and Christmas unlike any people I know.

In my 42 years, my mother has had only two gifting epic fails.

The first one was when I was about seven years old. Lacye and I were obsessed with horses and we rode our stick horses every day in the yard. My mother decided to make us something more realistic that year. She worked tirelessly on these things every night for over a month before Christmas. We knew she was up to something, we couldn’t wait to see what it was…

What is was, was a horse, whose bones were a laundry basket with a hole cut into it. This is where our bodies were to go. She covered the laundry basket with cheetah print fabric,then made a head, complete with yarn-mane, a bridle with reins and of course, a tail made of long, black yarn…two of them, exactly alike.

We went from a stick horse with a plastic head to what can only be described as a large….

Contraption…

You could not throw this thing on the ground if you spotted a frog you wanted to catch. It could not double as a weapon if your sister pissed you off. This thing was a commitment…

This horse was could not “run like the wind” in. It was not aerodynamic like our stick horses were. It bounced when we galloped. A bouncing, cheetah-covered laundry basket and a head, with reins, lest we needed to make it slow down…

It was like Ralphie in the Bunny Suit. It was that bad.

This was Mom’s first epic fail gift. She didn’t do it again until 1990, for my 23rd birthday, when she gave me Safety Man.

She and Dad were so excited, although I could tell Dad was walking the fine line of how much Mom loved it and how much he knew I’d think it’d suck, either way it was entertainment. Dad has been entertained by having a wife and three daughters for years and years, it's either laugh or go crazy.

Safety Man, being huge, came in a huge box. I think she obtained Safety Man from The Sharper Image. She wrapped this box as nicely as the could with yards and yards of wrapping paper and presented it to me.

I was giddy with excitement. I tore into it, first paper, then the box, opened it up and saw….

A person.

Imagine my surprise at obtaining a person for my birthday.

I pulled the person out of the box and noticed he was only half a person. He stopped below the waist, right at the hips.

He was handsome
He had good hair
He didn’t talk
He listened to everything I said
He had nothing below the waist

My parents had given me a half-man for my 23rd birthday.

“What is this?” Was all I could say.

“This is Safety Man, he rides in your car, to make people think you have somebody with you…”

“Oh.” Oh shit…she’s gonna make me put this thing in my car. Oh shit…My windows aren’t even tinted…

“Do you like him?” Mom’s desperately trying to read my expression, she is thrilled with her gift….plus I think she’s kindof making fun of me, at the same time.

“Sure, I guess? Where’s he gonna go with me?”

“Everywhere!”

“Oh…” Oh. Shit. Holy, holy, holy shit…

“He makes people think that you’re not alone in the car! And look what all you can do with him..” She sits him in a chair and positions his arms, one on the table, one on the chair, she jerks his head around to look at me, you know, like he’s my boyfriend or something.

Silence, I say nothing while we are moving his arms around, playing with him when she says “I could buy his bottom half, they sell it….your father and I didn’t think you needed it, though…” Whatever would my parents think I would do with the bottom half of a man? Of course I didn't need it.

“No, Mom, that’s okay, one half of a man who doesn’t talk is fine with me.”

My parents lived in chronic fear that I was a perpetual loser and old maid because I was 23 and not married yet.

They bought me a boyfriend.

Again…

My parents felt so sorry for my single-ness that they actually bought me a boyfriend to ride in the car with me.

So, here’s what I did. I put Safety Man in my front seat for approximately two miles of my commute. He went from my office to the Junior Store on the outside of Eastpoint, where I’d pull over, put him in the trunk and buy myself a Diet Coke and some chips, then, on the way back into Eastpoint, the next morning, I’d pull off at the Junior Store, get myself a coffee and put him back in the front seat.

This transaction was always a little embarrassing to me, so sometimes I’d just put him in the back seat, but not often, because people walking by my car had once thought he was a real person, lying in my back seat, unconscious. After that, I tried covering him in a sheet, but then he just looked like a dead person, in my back seat, whom I was concealing, under a sheet, while I was at the mall or at work. I’d rather look like a lunatic than a killer, therefore, he had to reside in the trunk…

This is where I saw the construction worker who was so interested in getting a closer look at him. You see, I had to parade Safety Man through Eastpoint in case I passed Mom or Dad…

While Mom and Dad were turning me into The Old Maid, Eastpointer’s had deemed meDummy Girl.

After the Dummy Girl Incident, I gave up on the whole charade.

“Mom, all of Eastpoint calls me Dummy Girl because of (you…) Safety Man… This really sucks because I have to go to the Junior and the Post Office…”

“Well, just take him out at the Junior on the way into town, then they won’t see him.”

“Excellent idea…”

Needless to say, Safety Man lived in my trunk for the duration of the ownership of that car…now he lives in my attic. He is dressed in one of my father’s shirts. Frank likes to take him out sometimes at Halloween, sit him on the doorstep, let him ride on the Halloween Hayride…

So now, at the age of 42, I actually appreciate Safety Man…all his wonderful attributes, mostly his silence and lack of lower body. I could eat chips all day long, he wouldn’t care.

I’m going into the attic to bring him down for some fresh air and snap his picture for this post. We might talk for a while, maybe I’ll take him on the school pickup run, tell him about my blog posts, make him listen to the Madonna Glee CD…

For more of Mom's gift-giving advice, and to see what happens in 1991....please go to the following link and click "Like.