Mrs. Dingwall

Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium

Last night over the adult beverages and Benedryl (Mr. P has been flattened by seasonal allergies this week.), Mr. P discussed my school year. All in all he said, it hasn't been a very good one. And when I gave it some thought, I had to agree. So I accepted my punishment like a proper middle-aged lady; evening detention in his office (the old four poster) for the next 2 weeks. Mr. P did add if there's another incident before school is out, then it's summer school for me. Well, if that isn't just the reason to shift the Jeep into 3rd gear and maybe even up into 4th, cut in pickup line this afternoon leaving a 20 ft skidmark in my wake just to prove beyond a reasonable doubt I was guilty, then I don't know what is. But as usual, I am digressing.

Anyhoo, this is the perfect time to share with you how I developed the necessary backbone when dealing with the Hillary Clintons of the world. It took a Mount Holyoke girl who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife, don't you know? to properly fuse and calcify the connecting tissue. This Mount Holyoke girl who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife, Mrs. Dingwall, was the mother of my girlhood best friend, Eleanor. Now at the time I fell afoul of Mrs. Dingwall,who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife, Eleanor and I were already on the skids, friendship-wise. This is because being a daughter of a Mount Holyoke girl who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife she had zero coping skills. I was beating her in the horse shows and she couldn't hack it. She'd cry all the way home in the leather backseat of her mother's Caddy saying it wasn't fair. (Though in Eleanor's eyes it was perfectly fair when she bested me. Why it was laughter and smiles all the way home, I might add.) The Dingwalls always gave me a ride because thanks to my dad the psychopath, my mother was the only working mother in my set which not only made her unable to watch my horse shows, it made her unable to ferry me to and from the barn. We had to rely on the kindness of friends. (Some friends as we later learned.) Mrs. Dingwall went on to handle her daughter's unhappiness at my horse show wins by pulling her out of riding school.

Mr. Dingwall was completely unlike his wife. Sure, he too was a bleeding heart liberal Democrat and agreed with Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife of only allowing his daughters to watch PBS, but he paid an enormous price for that incredibly stupid idea. One of his girls (and I am employing the term most loosely) went on to an Ivy League eduction, naturally, and then on, even more naturally, to become an Evangelical lesbian priest in the Episcopal Church, evangelizing the good news about lesbians, naturally. But for a starter, Mr. Dingwall was fun. He also like women to dress like women, he thought my mother was a better cook than his wife and would openly say so to his wife and daughters whenever he queried what we were having for dinner at my house and Mr. Dingwall was one of the few dads in our neighborhood who had a subscription to Playboy. Yup, he did. More than that, we knew where Mr. Dingwall hid his Playobys - in his workshop in the basement. So, naturally I liked Mr. Dingwall, who wouldn't? All the other kids in the neighborhood liked him too. Because of his popularity on Doorbell Night (the night before Halloween) Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife let Mr. Dingwall off his choke collar and leash, and he was allowed to come into his own. He would hide in the bushes, do you know he did a much better job of hiding himself in the bushes than he ever did with his hiding his Playboys but as usual I'm digressing, and attack us with the garden hose, water balloons (the old-fashioned kind made out of Baggies) and even his shaving cream. It was great.

So, the Doorbell Night I was in 7th grade (I think that would be the infamous Doorbell Night in my neck of the woods as that was the Doorbell Night the cousins of Kennedys murdered 15 year-old Martha Moxely -see Domminick Dunne if you need more explanation), the boys in the neighborhood got together to plan a full-scale attack on Mr. Dingwall. My older brother was one of the commanding officers of said attack. Since our home was across the pebbled street from Mr. Dingwall, our home was fortified against reprisal attacks. The day beforehand so no one would notice especially my mother, my brother and his friends took rope and strung it about 6 inches off the ground and through all of the Maple and dogwood trees, plus Evergreen bushes. Then they disguised the rope with covering it with fallen leaves from the other boys' yards. The plan was that Mr. Dingwall, or his daughters, and if they were really lucky, Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife, once their home had been assualted would naturally try to mount a surprise attack on our house. But the surprise would be on them as the rope would naturally trip them to the ground, and once they were there, 3 7 year-old boys were under orders to emerge from the bushes and pelt them with eggs taken from my mother's refrigerator when she wasn't looking. My mother had 5 kids. She always had at least 2 dozen eggs in that thing at any given time. You must admit the plan was sheer brilliance. Too bad my brother had been struck with Juvenile Diabetes just a few years earlier. It ended what could only have been a brilliant military career.

Unfortunately there was only one flaw with this plan and it was a variable. You've got to, when making strategies for anything, count on variables as they always happen. The variable that Doorbell Night, which worked enormously in my brother and his friends' favour, was that Mr. Dingwall was out of town on business. His home, which had the largest Doorbell Night attack ever planned in the history of our neighborhood was left completely unguarded. Even worse for Mr. Dingwall, that was the night Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife and her daughters were coming into their own, socially. Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife had invited several of the very wealthy girls from our Episcopal parish to spend the night. And guess who had not been invited to this most posh of slumber parties? Why me, of course. Eleanor Dingwall's very best friend of many years running now. And once my brother and his friends plus the other kids in the neighborhood realised I had been dissed by Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife, the attack on the Dingwall home took on a life of its own.

Then the worse thing that could of happened, happened. Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife,, got mad and told her girls and the posh girls to attack....

But this was before feminism had really taken hold in my neighborhood and boys were still very much boys. Those girls were Silly Putty in the hands of my brother and his friends. The ended up all quickly retreating into the Dingwall home completely covered in water, eggs, and shaving cream. We could hear Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife screaming all the way from the street.

Understanding that Mrs. Dingwall's who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife wrath was going to spur on the counter attack on our home, my brother and his friends rustled the 7 year-olds who had been stationed all this time in our bushes and sent those boys home with orders to return as quickly as possible with all of their mother's eggs. Which they did. And it was just in time to see the Dingwall girls along with the posh friends creep out of the bushes of the Dingwall yard and make a run for it to our front door with Mr. Dingwall's shaving cream. They never made it. The rope stretching between two giant Maple trees did its job proudly. It took all six of them down in one fell swoop. Then my brother and his friends sprang out and just pelted them with eggs. They all limped back to the Dingwall house crying.

So, it came as little surprise the next morning (this would be Halloween) to see that someone, or many ones, had during the very late hours of the night, smashed all of our pumpkins and more than that soaped all of the our windows panes (6 over 4 paned windows) with very nasty words about one of my sisters. She had gotten in on the egg pelting the evening before. It was when my mother saw this, she figured out something had transpired the evening before. The piano teacher (a man of mature years who just adored her) and she had spent the evening discussing life over coffee (probably spiked with whiskey) in the breakfast room. We told my mother this had to be the work of the Dingwall girls and their posh friends. She wasn't mad. She just told us to clean it all up. Which we were in the process of doing when 8 year-old Edwin Tall (who had not been allowed out the evening before) rode up the front walk on his new bike to ask me what happened to our pumpkins and our windows.

"The Dingwalls and their friends did this."

"The Dingwalls smashed your pumpkins and soaped your windows?"

"Yeah, look what they wrote too."

"The Dingwalls wrote that?"

"Yup."

So, off rode little Edwin Tall right over across the street to Mrs. Dingwallwho was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife and we have all safely assumed for the last 33 years that little Edwin Tall told Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife that I, Mrs. P, had said her daughters had used bad language. Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife came flying over her hedge and across the street with the smoke coming out of her nose and ears. She srceamed at me for saying such horrible things about her girls and demanded one of my sisters, who was standing there with her mouth wide open, to go and get my mother NOW!. Which my sister did.

My mother emerged from our house, smiling, to be on the receiving end of one of the worse tongue lashings I have ever witnessed in my 45 years. Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife did not hold back. She let my mother know, in no uncertain terms, just exactly what she thought of us. And the evidence of how awful she thought we were, was that if anyone's children used such bad language, it would be my mother's children, not hers.

That was all I ever needed to see. Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife had revealed herself and her true thoughts about my family. I was done with the Dingwalls. Forever. Eleanor Dingwall and I did not speak again, in any serious manner, until she was engaged many years later (and a few years before me). Then, that was only to advise if I ever got married to not go to a jewelry store to get my ring but buy it under the table from her father's friend as I'll get a much bigger one that way. Hells bells, Mr. P not only took me to the best jewelry store in my hometown, he wrote a check right there on the spot for a ring that had 3X more carat weight than hers and, unlike hers was not set in white gold but platinum, but as usual, I am digressing. Back to school years. Eleanor and I never were friends again. Her mother had killed our already struggling friendship. Eleanor knew the truth about had happened and she knew why I wouldn't speak to her.

Mr. Dingwall returned home from his business trip and one can only imagine what a homecoming that was. In the years after, his career just took off and he was a golden boy in the publishing world. Before you knew it he was tooling by our home (at 15mph) with an English driving cap on his head, leather gloves on his hands in a Jaguar on weekdays and Porsche on the weekends. Then, he got the Golden Parachute early and went to Yale Divinity School to take orders to become an Episcopalian priest. This was one of the few times I regretted not being on speaking terms with the Dingwalls. I would have loved to asked him if he still took Playboy or had gotten rid of his bootleg copy of Yoko OhNo's "The Fly". After a few years of preaching on the evils of corporate America, the evils of first George Bush who he refused to say prayers for in the Prayers of the People, and promoting the active homoseuxal life in the clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church, Mr. Dingwall retired. Soon the Dingwall home was sold and the Dingwalls were retiring to a very posh place in Florida. A few days before the moving van arrived, Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife called my mother and asked her to go have dinner with her the night before she departed. At the restaurant, Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife ordered some wine and when it began to have it affect, she said,

"Mrs. P's mother, there's something I've needed to tell you for 24 years."

"What?"

"It was my daughters who wrote those words on your windows."

"What windows?" my mother asked before taking a sip from her wine glass.

Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife then learned the most awful truth. My mother had moved on as they like to say in the Episcopal Church long, long ago. She had completely forgotten what had happened that Doorbell Night 24 years earlier. So, Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife because she had brought the whole thing up again, had to explain to my mother how she had been such an Hillary Clinton towards me (and my mother) and ruined forever my friendship with her daughter, Eleanor. According to Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife, it was Eleanor's younger sister who confessed that very Halloween night to her that it had not been us but them and their posh friends from our Episcopal parish who had written those bad words in soap on our windows.

24 years later I had Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife right where I wanted her. A bible study friend and retired Junior Leaguer like Mrs. Dingwall who was at school with Henry Kissinger's wife had moved a few years ealier to the very same posh place (and in a much more posh house) that the Dingwalls would now be residing and begining their new life in retirement. I rang my bible study friend up and asked her to tell Mrs. Dingwall at her forthcoming 'Welcome Retired Junior Girl Tea' that her old neighbor from Connecticut, Mrs. P, sends her, her very best regards.

I understand my bible study friend executed my reprisal as flawlessly as my brother and his friends executed their plans on that fateful Doorbell Night 24 years earlier.

Comments

[Mitchell Bond]

Brilliant yarn, one question though:

So, Mrs. P, I am confused did you grow up with a single mother of modest means?... or (as you once wrote) did "[t]hey just looked at my father's salary and called his broker."?

This would imply some degree of wealth and that you had a father--not that alternative to having a father would be some sort of virginal birth... oh, nevermind, you get the point.

So what's the deal, what is truth and what is merely literary device? I yearning to know, you ex-antipapalist. (I assume that all Episcopalians are antipapalists bent on the destruction of all forms of popery.)

[Joules]

I tried to make it through the entire cowgirls video but I couldn't stand it. Here I thought I had matured to where I could appreciate every form of music.

Love this story! It would make a wonderful movie scene.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Mitchell, my real childhood, the one that I draw on for stories was one of great contradictions. Yes, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. But said silver spoon was yanked out, in a most unceremoniuos manner I might add, when my father the psycopath abandoned his wife and 5 children when I was very young (under 6 years of age). After my parents' divorced, my mother and her children remained in the same posh neighborhood because her father, my maternal grandfather, had, out a a good and just desire to see his daughter and grandchildren well-situated, extended a gentleman's loan to my dad the psychopath of the money needed to purchase a home in a lovely neighborhood that was far beyond the psycopath's means at the time. Because in the years between the purchase and divorce, my dad the psycopath never paid one farthing towards the gentleman's loan, the court naturally awarded my mother our home. My mother had a strong desire to see her 5 children to be raised in the style they were born to so she never sold the home and she had to work very hard to try and keep up with our neighbors. Naturally, this was an impossible task, fated to fail the day dad the psychopath zoomed out of the driveway with his golf clubs and alliagator suitcases in the trunk of his car.

My father the psychopath went on to have a spectacular career, far more brilliant than Mr. Dingwall's in fact and he has lived a very lavish life ever since. And it was most definitely his life, not his children's.

However, oddly as it may seem to everyone, because I lacked the obvious means to keep up with those around me, it placed me, more often than not, in the role of observor as opposed to participator. That has served me very well. It also taught me while still young the value of friends who look beyond the surface for more important qualities which has served me even better.

Absolutely nauseating I know, but none the less still true.

Joules, the contradictions still continue to this day. I adore cowboys. Even better, I adore their belt buckles...

[Mitchell Bond]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question at such length.

I have said in the past that to stand atop a mountain is to see everything very well except the mountain, only when one is not in that prominent position can one learn to understand it.

Frankly the idle rich are the least reliable sources about the happenings of the idle rich.

However nauseating dysfunction and paternal abandonment may be, it is certainly not uncommon and I have great empathy in that respect.

But enough seriousness, I await your next piece. The gentlemen with whom I board and I enjoy your writings very much.

[Joules]

I like their belt buckles, too.

I see a parallel between you growing up among the rich but not really being rich and my family living among the normal but not being normal since we're raising a boy significantly affected by autism. I prefer to encourage myself to observe myself and my fellow man as objectively and humorously as I can, which is a nice way of chasing off bitterness and not allowing circumstances to dampen my spirits.

Who can stay gloomy or feel like a victim when chasing a naked, 85 lb. 10-year-old down the driveway trying to get him back into the house before the neighbors see and call social services? And when the chatty, interfering neighbor comes up the drive to tell me that my crabgrass is out of control and my son, unencumbered by social awareness, goes out to try to push her back down the drive and back to her house, I have more reason to laugh than many people do in a lifetime (quietly, as I try to show him the error of his ways).

[Joules]

By the way, I would like to be clear that in no way am I trying to say in paragraph one above that you are bitter. How would I know? I'm only thinking about how I try to approach my current circumstances. I'm sorry if I sound preachy--it's a terrible habit I picked up growing up in a ministerial family.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Joules, reality is my friend and so is satire. As a result, I employ a lot of both in this space...in hopes of amusing people.

Mr. Bond, thank you.

[Joules]

You certainly do amuse people. I'm really glad I found this site through James Poulos' site. These stories are great fun.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Thank you Joules. That Mr. Poulos is quite the man about Georgetown, isn't he?