Read Online Adam Selzer by How to Get Suspended, Influence People - Free Book Online Page B

who was into women’s rights would consider the whole scene a giant step backward. But, as usual, I kept my mouth shut. I was under punishment, after all. And, anyway, it could have been worse. The outfit she wore when she used a cookbook from the seventies could probably cause blindness if one looked directly at it. My dad’s costumes, at least, weren’t so bad. Men’s fashions have remained pretty much stagnant, just a plain shirt and tie, for decades now.
    “What are we making tonight, then?” I asked.
    “Applesauce casserole with green beans,” she said, grinning evilly. “It’ll get you every vitamin you need for sure, because all the fruits and vegetables are mixed together in the same dish!” I silently wondered whether putting the two categories in the same dish would actually cause them to sort of cancel each other out.
    “Here,” she said, handing me an apron of my own. “Put this on.” When I did, I realized that it had the words KISS THE COOK printed on the chest. I hoped she wouldn’t try to follow those directions.
    She handed me a copy of a slim, stapled-together cookbook called
Everyday Is Applesauce Day,
and I flipped through it for a bit, feeling bad for the poor guys who were told to come up with a whole bunch of things that could be made out of applesauce. There’s really only one thing you can make out of applesauce, and that’s, well, applesauce.
    My first job was to mix up the applesauce with milk, green beans, assorted spices, and a couple of eggs in a large bowl. I started out just stirring it like I would normally stir something, but Mom stopped me.
    “That’s not the right way to do it,” she said.
    “What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m stirring, aren’t I?” Honestly, there are times when I think they don’t think I can do anything right.
    “Yes,” she said, “but you’re not following the rules. When you cook a food disaster, you have to pretend it’s the nineteen fifties, or whatever decade the cookbook was printed. You can pretend you’re a fifties teen.”
    My mother was not above forcing quality time on me.
    I dropped the spoon into the dish and started to walk off, combing my hair with my fingers.
    “Where are you going?” she called as I walked down the hall toward the front door.
    “Out to Dead Man’s Curve,” I said. “My friends and I are gonna listen to some rock ’n’ roll, do some drag racing, and maybe have a knife fight. We’re rebels.”
    “Nice try, Leon,” she said. “Get back here.” I had expected her to call me on that one, but surely she couldn’t blame me for trying. “Just talk about Eisenhower or something while you stir.”
    I gulped and silently thanked God that none of my friends were present to witness the whole thing, then started to stir and say “That President Eisenhower sure is swell” and things like that. While she got the oven ready and mixed up the pastry top for the casserole, she said things like, “Now, I was talking to Betty next door, and she said that if you mix green beans into things, it’ll give your children more iron. Do you think you’re getting enough iron, dear?”
    “Gee, Mom,” I said, “I sure hope so. I’m gonna need to be strong when the Russians attack us!”
    “Oh, don’t you worry about that, dearest,” she said. “You just worry about what all of those friends of yours have been doing at the drive-in. I don’t want you getting into that kind of trouble! You keep your hands to yourself, mister.”
    I almost stopped stirring as I realized that, in a completely sneaky way, my mother had just given me a sex talk.
    If that’s what the fifties were like, and, in particular, if these recipes were really what the food was like, it’s a wonder anyone survived them at all. The suicide rate was probably through the roof.
    But I managed to steer the conversation far away from sex by talking about hula hoops and integrating schools. By the end of the whole thing, I was actually sort of