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| This adds whimsy to my dining room, and makes people slightly more uncomfortable then the giant rice god does. |
Every once in a while, I not only find an old book, but I find an offensive old book and the heavens rejoice. Something horrifying and delightful! I found this monument to stereotyping in an old fashioned log cabin bookstore in Michigan. It is gloriously racist.
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| looks innocent enough |
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| OMG |
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| ...cause all gypsies do is bear bait and steal. |
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| Ok, this was actually helpful. I never understood Holland. I really needed a picture book. |
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| Yellow Race? 10/10 on the racist scale |
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| Why is this not their tourist logo: "Mexico... Land of Giant Hats"? |
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| Yep. You read that right. |
But that is nothing compared to what I had in my childhood collection of Nancy Drew books. Read this excerpt and then you tell me how far into the gutter our minds are today...
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| Yep, takes a perverted turn half way through... Mr. Drew you naughty old lawyer! |
That's why I was so shocked when Winston found this gem for me last week at Ollies Deep Discount. Picture Marc's but all the food is expired and the DVD's are all shitty burned knockoffs. Like this one:
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| It's funny how this never made it to the theaters. |
Anyway, this is what he found and handed to me with great ceremony. I honestly thought that offensive literature was a vintage thing, not a modern thing. Someone in publishing gave this the green light, and yet I sit about unpublished....
Well, thank God someone finally wrote a self help book for all those tragic rich people out there struggling to make their Latino help understand that they have to clean the pool but never swim in it. Because, of course, all help is Latino. I didn't even crack the cover for a minute, because I could not imagine the inside could be more offensively glorious.
I am happy to report that I was wrong. There are pages on child care:
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| "Little Rodney and Whitney may need a smack, but I will call INS if you do, Maria." |
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| This sounds like instructions for kidnappers. |
Instruction on cooking:
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| Translation: We want white people food. Don't stink up our house with your adobo and jalapenos. |
A section on caring for the elderly:
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| Translation: I am not touching that nasty old thing even if it is my mother. That's what you're here for. |
A section detailing how to describe the weather:
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| "Pablo. Cover the pool and gather the croquet set. These gale winds and hail might mean a tornado. Or hurricane." |
It's all so outrageously horrifying. Of course, I bought it. I plan to put it on my bookshelf to help weed out undesirables. If another mother comes over, sees it and laughs her ass off: new BFF. If, however, another mother comes over and asks to BORROW IT BECAUSE CONSUELA KEEPS CHANGING THE BLADES ON HER RAZORS, then I know to immediately claim we all have contracted "sudden onset pink eye" to get her out of the house.
Of course, it's got me thinking: if this crap gets published then no way I couldn't write a self-help book for men who marry women of Polish descent and make a fortune. I already mentally composed the introduction:
"Congratulations! You have made the greatest decision a man can make: to marry a woman of Polish descent. Well done, sir! You have the discerning eye to look beyond the pear shape, the 11 razor sharp chin hairs, the suspicion of all forms of authority except the Catholic church and the tendency to rages and harboring of grudges! For beyond all this lies for you a future of wide, sensual hips, a home that always smells fragrantly of boiling cabbage, enough baked goods to drive you to early type 2 diabetes and enough butter and sausage to clog every artery in your body by the time you are 45. But with all this wealth comes great responsibility. Your Polish wife requires a careful approach, especially if you yourself have no Polish blood. Her ways will be mysterious to you, and you may inadvertently enrage or offend her. To the uninitiated, the Polish can seem suspicious, irrational, borderline stupid, and unable to release a grudge. This book will guide you, step by step, through the pitfalls of living with the Polish and ensure that your marriage is a happy one. "
With the exception of the Jewish and African Americans, who, I ask you, has more offensive jokes made at their expense? MY OWN HUSBAND TELLS POLISH JOKES. All of this occurred to me last night at the pool. We were floating in the deep end watching people go off the diving board and making inappropriate comments. Winston swims like a polo player. I can doggy paddle badly. Read the following conversation and follow along with the italics for pointers that will appear in my book So You Love A Polish Princess.
Winston: Go off the diving board. I dare you.
Me: No! (panting from treading) Shut up.
Winston: Come on. I dare you.
Me: NO! I can't.
Winston: You can't tell me you've never gone off the diving board.
Me: OK, once! Once when I had to to pass swimming lessons when I was 10. I crawled to the edge and sorta fell off in a panic. But I passed. Anyway, (pant pant pant) I can't. I'm terrified of heights. You know that!
Winston: It's not the freaking high dive! That board is 2.5 feet over the water. Don't be a baby. You can do it.
Me: No, it is not. It is a plank perched over a 14.5 foot drop! The bottom of the pool is 12 feet down! It's like asking me to jump out the bedroom window!
Winston: That makes no sense. It's only two feet down to the surface of the water! The bottom of the pool is irrelevant.
Me: You are stupid. It is 14.5 feet and I don't want to talk about it. (pant pant pant)
Winston: By that logic, you are head is hovering 12 feet from the bottom of the pool right now. You should be freaking out.
Me: I just don't look down.
A Polish woman does not have to explain or provide support from the known world of physics for her phobias or life rules. A wise man would nod and say, "When you put it like that, diving boards are death traps. Let's call city hall before someone dies."
Winston: That makes no sense. You make no sense! What about the edge of the pool? Can you jump off the edge? Those babies over there are jumping off the edge. Hey, did I ever tell you the one about the tragic war between the Polish and the Germans? The Polish threw dynamite and the Germans lit it and threw it back.
Me: Shut up. I hate you so bad. I'm swimming over to shallow water. My hand is killing me and I can't paddle anymore. (pant pant paddle paddle)
It is never wise from a sexual standpoint to tell your wife of Polish descent a Polish joke. She will hoard and preserve her rage and then use it to freeze you out. You also don't want to tell the joke about how to sink a Polish submarine. (Knock on the hatch) She really hates that one. And you tell it all the damn time. And you're 1/4 Cherokee and she doesn't offer you firewater and shiny beads.
Winston: (cutting through the water like a yacht) What's wrong with your hand?
Me: I think I broke my pinkie. Or jammed it. (pant pant paddle paddle) It'll work itself out.
Winston: How did you break your finger?!
Me: Making cinnamon rolls. Shut the fuck up and stop laughing at me!!! It hurts like a bitch!
Winston: Let me guess: you broke it turning the oven on? Turning that little dial?
Me: (grabbing for a fistful of his chest hair) NO! I hate you! There! How do you like your little bald patch, Mr. Meany Pants?
Winston: I am going to dunk you. Take a deep breath.
Here, the husband has made a wise choice. To suddenly dunk her would result in the Polish wife vomiting and blaming her husband for the evacuation of Lakewood Pool until his death.
(So to get even with him, I went limp and floated up in the dead man's float, in the hopes that he would panic and apologize for dunking someone that can't swim. )
Winston: Cut it out. You're not drowning.
Me: I could have been! It looked totally believable! Admit it! That was awesome!
Winston: Sure, if drowning people pinched their noses. "Ooooh I have to pinch my little nose so water doesn't get up there!"
Me: Whatever. Anyway, back to my finger.
Winston: Which you broke turning on the oven...
Me: No, you son of a... I broke it wiping down the counter top so I could roll out the dough.
Winston: This is almost as good as you breaking your foot by standing up. What is wrong with you? Who breaks their hand wiping a counter?
Me: I was fully extending my arm to reach the corner and I almost stepped on a poodle and I fell forward and stabbed my pinkie with my entire body weight behind it into the edge of the counter!
Winston: If it's broke, go to the doctor!
Me: No. It's fine; it'll work itself out.
Here, the husband makes several errors. He is so caught up in mocking her finger injury that he neglects to show humble gratitude that his wife makes a delicious sweet bread that takes all day to rise. He should be afraid that she has put herself on the cinnamon roll disabled list and won't be able to make more for weeks. Further, and perhaps worst of all, he suggests she go to a doctor for her broken finger. A wife of Polish descent will not go to a doctor voluntarily. This particular husband need only to recall the following episodes to understand this:
"I cracked a vertebra in my neck running into the garage door but I think it's cool. It'll be fine. I can't move my arms."
" I got rear ended at 35 mph but I drove myself home because no way I am going to the ER. I can't focus my eyes, though. Yes, I hit my head twice. Once on the steering wheel and once on the drivers side window. "
"No, I can't actually walk right now because I cut that 14 ft tree down by myself today because it pissed me off. Do we know anyone who's an orthopedic surgeon?"
"Yeah, I think my molar is dead, but no fucking way I am letting the dentist pull it because it'll fall out anyway right? Like my dad's did."
"What's another broken toe? I already broke the other 7 of them. Now almost all of them are crooked. They match."
Never suggest a doctor out loud. Just trick her into the car and drive her there. And after the doctor patiently patches her up, agree with her on the drive home that all doctors are assholes and that there wasn't really anything wrong in the first place.
It's gonna be HUGE. I figure I'll crank it out this week and it'll be on the shelves at Ollies Deep Discount by the holidays. Pre-order your copy today!
Excerpts from So You Love A Polish Princess! by Dana DeLaney 2012
Look for it in stores this Christmas!
~dana
