Tales From the Crib Read Online Free PDF Page A

chocolate frosty cone on its roof. No cookies or cake. No rice or pasta. No bread. A bite of fruit and maybe three beans were acceptable. The nurse assured me there were foods I was able to eat-cheese, meat, and all the leafy vegetables I could pile on my plate. Oh joy. It was basically the Atkins Diet with the added bonus of needling my finger and analyzing blood three times a day. And let’s not forget that fabulous way of waking up every morning by peeing on a matchstick-sized strip of alkaline paper. I’m not a morning person and the strip was quite small. ‘Nuff said.
    At the baby shower three women from the agency where I used to work filled me in on all the post-layoff gossip. Kimmy wore a winter-white leather jumpsuit that looked as if it were tailor-made for her, which it very well may have been. Sometimes I look at her and try silently brokering body-swapping deals. Some may call this prayer. First, I ask if I can look like her, then counter my own proposal by offering to settle for a week with her body. Then I compromise again, and say I could be happy with her legs and face, and pretty soon I’m chopping my lovely cousin into parts and taking the leanest, loveliest cuts for myself. Her arms are quite well defined too, but I’m not greedy. I just want the legs and face. Maybe the ass and tummy too, if I may.
    My aunts Rita and Bernice drove in from Long Island for the shower. They are a portrait in opposites. Bernice sees the good in every situation. When her husband died, she said that while she’d miss him very much, she was happy to get a break from his heart-healthy diet. Rita, on the other hand, is in the habit of pretending to spit after any of her negative comments. In other words, every time she speaks, there’s cause to pretend she’s spitting on the ground beside her. Once I was trying to shave off a few pounds and declined her offer for ice cream. “Why no ice cream, big shot?” Rita snapped. “You think you’re too good for ice cream?” I have no idea where this came from, or if, for that matter, there were people who felt too good to eat ice cream. Was there a moral position on ice cream?
    Zoe told the group about a new reality television show she was producing called Real Confessions. Basically the show would consist of pixilated faces confessing their sins to a hidden camera. At the end of the confession, an Alan Funt-like character would ask through the screen if the congregant had ever heard of Real Confessions. In theory, the person would have a knee-slapping great sense of humor about this and exclaim, “Well Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, am I on TV?!”
    “Zoe, I was raised Catholic,” my mother chimed in.
    “No one wants their confessions aired on national television. Why would anyone agree to this?”
    “Complete absolution,” Zoe said. “No contrition. No Hail Mary. No rosaries, no nothing. Let us air your confession and you get off with no penance.”
    “A ‘get out of hell free’ card?” I asked. “Exactly!”
    “How do you get the Church to go along with it?” Kimmy asked.
    Zoe explained. “Plenty of churches have turned us down, believe me,” she rolled her eyes as if to suggest they were being ridiculous. “The show offers a $15,000 donation to the parish for every confession we’re able to air.”
    “So if the person gets mad that her sins have been recorded by a hidden camera, the priest has an economic interest in smoothing things over?” I asked.
    “Cash money, baby. Father O’Neil on Staten Island is one smooth operator, let me tell you,” Zoe laughed. She put on her best Irish accent. “No one made you do the sinning, my boy. You and the devil did that on your own. Now make good with the Church and let these fine people air your confession. No one but God, you, me, and the fine people at FOX Television will ever know it’s you. Think about it, Tommy boy. We’re looking at lots of rosaries for adultery. Aren’t there other things you’d rather be