Dear Charlotte,

Like the rest of us arachnids, when I was a baby spider, I looked up to you. Before I could even embalm a fly on my own, I’d heard about your barnyard heroics.

Shiraz, Iran: November 1, 1978. The day I was born. I’d like to say it was a Wednesday, but who the hell knows, I’m not Rainman. And even if I did have a talent for counting errant toothpicks, wrapping one’s mind around temporal exactitude once the International Date Line has been crossed is nearly impossible.

I was a child born into a time of revolution and flux. Iran had only recently deposed their Shah and the first day of the hostage crisis was almost exactly one year away. The world watched with concern as Iran’s 2500 year old monarchal tradition dissolved in a fantastic heap of religious fundamentalism.

Who is the most reviled human being? Who is the brunt of the unkindest jokes? The title gives us away. It’s the mother-in-law.

In this lecture I will not propose that we mother-in-laws feebly protest our bad reputation. Hell no. I say, let’s get born again into society’s stereotype. Let’s use it to get the benefits we so obviously deserve. Above all, let’s help our children expunge those feelings of guilt towards us now, while we’re living, rather than suffer those unfixable feelings of guilt when we’re gone.

Proposal for a Ph.D. Thesis in Sociology The University of West-Central X

Introduction:

The sociology of children’s play spaces is such a well-mined field that it might even be characterized as a veritable minefield for potential dissertation writers. Horizontal and vertical studies abound, as do methodologies, which range from (unsurprisingly) the concrete to the theoretical, and from studies of single play spaces, to comparative studies of multiples.

He could not remember that he ever had been well, completely well. But he had faith. Always ready to try something new, he reached for the bottle of “Dopymilstonal, 85MG, Take one or two tablets a day as needed, with or without food”. Those labels are so helpful, so encouraging. One feels better right away because one has hope again. Till next day when the side effects kick in. For some inscrutable reason he tended to be one of those “in rare cases” patients. Sure enough, next morning he felt dizzy and passed a bucket full of pink urine, just as it said in the accompanying little brochure printed on very thin paper in a microscopically small type size. Well, what else is new, he thought, and went to get himself a snack. At night he took another tablet because he felt that it was needed.