FRESH YARN presents: What Plastic Patio Furniture in my Living Room?... by Tiffany Zehnal

FRESH YARN presents:

What Plastic Patio Furniture in my Living Room?
By Tiffany Zehnal

"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept."
- Bill Watterson, author of Calvin & Hobbes

* * * * *
My childhood was nothing to write home about. It was neither extraordinary like Bobby Fischer's nor bleak like Frank McCourt's. I didn't play chess and never once took on an Irish accent. Not even on St. Patrick's Day when anybody with a mouth did. More or less, my childhood was just your basic, run-of-the-mill, generic kind. Like the ones you'd see on TV. But with less flattering light and an inferior kitchen set.

I remember it fondly.

I was raised in a two-income, one-dog, middle-class home in Houston. We watched the Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday night, had a cutting board clock in the shape of Texas on the wall, and, more often than not, found Hamburger Helper had its way with our ground round at dinnertime. Like I said, nothing fancy, but definitely on the right side of the tracks… or so I thought. Come to find out, the map was upside down. Ignorance is not bliss. It's just ignorance. And it's not a good thing to dabble in when you're living on the wrong side of the tracks.

The reality of my childhood evaded me all my life and only accidentally revealed itself last week some thirty-plus years later during a phone call with my mother. A geographic update: we are both living in California at this point. She in the San Fernando Valley and me, not in the San Fernando Valley. As it turns out, my mother, a 64-year-old woman who lives with her boyfriend Phil, in Northridge, had it with his lazy ways and unkempt yard, and was setting out to make a life of her own. Completely Phil-less. In a double-wide.

I couldn't believe my ears. "Mother, you're going to buy a trailer?!" I said over the phone with all the disdain and angst of a thirteen-year-old.

"Yes," she said sharply, preparing herself for battle.

Against my better judgment and ability to self-censor, I lobbed a high one at her: "To live in?"

My mom immediately became defensive, as is our way. "It doesn't have wheels."

"But it's still a trailer," I spat.

And down came the silence. The long, uncomfortable, God-I'm-a-total-bitch silence. She was clearly picking her next words carefully.

"Tiff, could you just do me a favor and see it before you start judging me?"

So one favor later I found myself driving to Canoga Park to look at a double-wide. And somewhere on the 405 North, behind a too-big-for-the-road Suburban and in front of a Tahoe that could hold Goliath and several of his big-boned friends, my fuzzy past came painfully into focus and there was nothing middle class about it. With my crying barefoot baby strapped in the back and me and my unwashed hair and zero job prospects in the front, there was no denying the obvious.

I had white trash in me.

And I could no longer remember my childhood fondly. I was too busy remembering it accurately.

* * * * *

White Trash Red Flag #1: Texas. Self-explanatory.

It's a big white trash state and we lived in it.

White Trash Red Flag #2: Divorce. A must-have in every white trash family.

My mom and dad divorced when I was six and that's when all our socioeconomic problems began. The middle-class house was sold, we moved out of the middle-class neighborhood and, apparently, turned in our middle-class membership card. We were movin' on down.

White Trash Red Flag #3a: The live-in boyfriend. I'm assuming you've seen a little program called "Cops."

After the dissolution of my parents' marriage came the introduction of my mom's new boyfriend, Terry, who, as if playing a role in our little play of hard times, was a white man with a red afro. And before I understood what an afro was, he, his hair, and his greasy jar of curl activator moved in with us.

White Trash Red Flag #3b: The new live-in boyfriend. I'm still assuming you've seen a little program called "Cops."

When Terry ultimately revealed he wasn't a fan of people shorter than five feet and younger than his mustache, which would be my two older brothers and me, he moved out. Nobody was sad to see him go. Except the greasy jar of curl activator he left behind. We were a straight-haired people. The stuff would never be used again. Or so I thought. Terry's Change of Address card was still being processed at the post office when Mom met Lorne at a party, dated him for a minute, and then let him move in with us. With his giant afro. Another white man with a black man's lid. The chances were slim yet likely. The greasy jar of left-behind curl activator had a new reason to live. Especially with the middle-of-the-week City Hall wedding right around the corner.

White Trash Red Flags #4 & 5: Alcohol abuse and unemployment. Alcohol and unemployment are to white trash what peanut butter and jelly are to toddler.

Because my new stepfather was a Vietnam vet, he had been carrying around a duffel bag of problems. Social ones, drinking ones and the ever-popular employability ones. These kinds of issues often resulted in him being drunk and unable to communicate to my mother about how frustrated he was that he couldn't get a job -- a delightful scenario that played out night after night. My brothers and I never missed a performance.

White Trash Red Flag #6: Outdoor furniture indoors. And/or a car on the lawn.

Well, my stepfather never parked his El Camino in our yard.

But the summer my mother and her husband separated, Lorne moved out and took his entire five-piece tiger-striped couch set with him. Our living room was devastated. My mother covered the carpet indentations left by the fake tiger ensemble as best she could. With our white plastic lawn furniture. Not a teak piece in sight. Our backyard looked like it had been robbed. On the bright side, watching One Day at a Time in a chaise lounge is as comfortable as it sounds.

White Trash Red Flag #7: "One Day at a Time." Ann Romano had some real tough times. Real tough.

Watch what you know.

* * * * *

The trailer park was located smack in the middle of an industrial park in Canoga Park. Sight fully seen, it was clear there was no amusement in these parks. I was surrounded by gray. Gray buildings. Gray signs. Gray roads. Gray heads. Yes, my mother's new double-wide was located in an "over 55" trailer park. If you listened closely, you could almost hear the AARP circling. Like vultures over an old cow carcass.
I turned off my car and locked the doors. A last minute attempt to delay the inevitable.

Cue inevitable.

Tap tap tap. I'd know that tap anywhere.

"Honey? Aren't you coming out?"

I could see her out of my dirty rolled-up window. My mom, my mother, the giver of life, beaming, so happy at the prospect of independence, stood patiently by my door, waiting for my exit. Her "realtor" Ivan, melting, so sweaty in his tweed-like sports coat in the dead of summer, tried to catch a break in her shadow. And the two of them got to me. Who was I to poo-poo her dream? Even if that dream came with an aluminum porch and a neighbor who had a "Never drive faster than your angels can fly" bumper sticker on her '91 Camry.

It was time to buck up and I knew it.

So, with a smile on my face and a shoeless baby in my arms, I followed my mom and her realtor's perspiring upper lip up the green-as-grass carpeted steps that led to the front door. This was it. Since I could no longer deny my past, it seemed pretty unfair of me to deny my future. Two seconds and two steps later, I was in a double wide.

"Wow, it's big!" were the first words out of my mouth. Neil Armstrong, I am not.

No one was more surprised by my declaration than me. I entered, expecting to be met with a God-awful trailer smell (one part hospital to one part public ashtray to one part poverty) and toxic black mold spores. Instead, I found myself greeted by the fresh scent of lavender and the cleanest, sporeless paneled walls I'd ever seen. The new carpet was white and plush and the living room, sunken and inviting. Dishwasher. Microwave. Washer AND dryer. And on the wall? Central freakin' air! I kid you not. With a little Restoration Hardware Silver Sage paint on the faux wood walls, I could live there.

And it got me thinking.

Maybe trailers are a practical housing option in this overpriced real estate market. Maybe it is perfectly acceptable to use a wooden cable spool as a living room coffee table in a pinch. And maybe just maybe I don't have white trash in me after all. I mean it's not like I don't know who my baby's daddy is. I do. And I have the paternity test to prove it.