[AGL] anusing

[Michael Eisenstadt]

The Tractor Driver or the Pothead?
  a.. By RHODA JANZEN
Published: September 11, 2009
Cosmic forces have a way of turning up the heat to make us change. Nothing 
gets your attention, for example, like being ditched by your husband for a 
guy he met on Gay.com, or having your car totaled by an inebriated youth six 
days later. Had I done anything to deserve these things? Nothing. I ran six 
miles a day and made my own yogurt! But when your husband is out canoodling 
with a dude, the thing to do is pack your bags and head home for a while, 
even if home is a Mennonite community 3,000 miles away in California and at 
43 you're no longer a practicing Mennonite.

 Mennonites, by the way, are not the Amish, although both espouse 
simplicity, nonviolence and cabbage. And unlike the Amish, most Mennonites 
drive cars. Which is how my mom and I got to Circuit City one afternoon a 
few days after my arrival in late 2006.
We were in the customer-service line. Weary consumers clutched their 
disappointments, but my mother was in her usual cheerful spirits. The 
presence of strangers eight inches away notwithstanding, she suddenly said, 
"If there aren't any single men where you are, I know someone for you."

"Who?"

"Your cousin Mark - he's a professor in Nova Scotia," she said earnestly. 
"And he has a beach house."

According to Mom, Mark (his middle name) and I had something in common: I 
teach college, too. And we had something else in common: grandparents. "Mark 
is my first cousin," I said. "That's both incestuous and weird."

My Mennonite mother considered this. "Well," she said, "I think it should be 
fine if you don't have kids. You can adopt. Mark would make a terrific 
father. You should see him with his nephews."

I had no idea how to reply. Maybe now was a good time to mention that, with 
my husband gone three months, I had already been out on a couple of dates. 
This new guy wasn't the love of my life, but I had lowered the bar, see. He 
wasn't Mr. Right, but he was Mr. Straight.

Mom was disappointed, but she took it in stride. "What's your fellow like?"

I was too emotionally battered to utter polite fibs. "He's a slacker, 
really. A relaxed pothead. He wears pajamas to Target."

"Oh." She nodded supportively. "A relaxed pothead sounds nice."

It made sense, I suppose, that a woman who would promote endogamous marriage 
would not blink at a pothead. "Maybe my cousin smokes a little weed," I said 
speculatively (although I'd bet my few remaining assets that he does not).

"No," Mom said. "Mark would never do weed! He drives a tractor! In his spare 
time!"

"How does driving a tractor prevent you from smoking weed?"

By now several people in line were eavesdropping.

"If you drive a tractor in your spare time," my mother said firmly, "it 
means that you have a strong work ethic, which is probably why Mark has had 
the gumption to earn himself a nice beach house."

"Surely he doesn't drive his tractor on the beach?"

"No! He drives it at his parents', of course! He gives the nephews rides."

"Oh! I thought that he was working on the tractor!"

"Mark works very hard," Mom said. "You know perfectly well that a tractor 
can be hard work and fun too. Like marriage."

One of the best things about Mom is that she will follow you anywhere, 
conversationally speaking. "Mom," I said, "would you rather marry a pleasant 
pothead or your first cousin on a tractor? Both are associate professors."

"You marry your pothead if you like," she said, "But as for me and my house, 
we will serve the Lord."

"Hey!" I said, indignant. "How do you know the pothead doesn't serve the 
Lord?"

"I think that the Lord appreciates a man on a tractor more than a man 
smoking marijuana in his pajamas," Mom said earnestly. "I know I do."

"O.K., O.K.," I said, as we neared the counter. "I give up. I will marry 
Cousin Mark. Just as soon as he asks me. You'll be our first guest at the 
beach house in Nova Scotia. But I'm warning you now, there's gonna be a 
little weed on your pillow. Instead of a mint."

She chuckled comfortably. "That's O.K. I don't like mints."

Rhoda Janzen is the author of the memoir, "Mennonite in a Little Black 
Dress," which is being published next month. This essay is adapted from the 
book.