Bloodbath in Suburbia

The year was 1969, and I was a doting housewife and mother of three.

As usual, I had been running a little behind schedule. Not that I’d forgotten about the trip to San Francisco; I just wasn’t ready. There were appointments to keep, suitcases to pack, volumes of notes to write for the sitter, and grocery shopping to be done. God knows no respectable mother would leave town without stocking enough food to last, even if there was an earthquake or missile crisis.

The abundance of food reminded me that the huge refrigerator needed defrosting. How many times have mothers told daughters never to use an icepick to defrost? I always did it anyway, but that day, in my haste, I punctured a gas line. Leaning against the freezer door to contain the escaping gas, I reached for the phone.

The fireman calmly assured me that the gas was probably harmless, but that he “would send someone to check it out.”

Within minutes, the sound of sirens signaled that “someone to check it out” was transported by a hook-and-ladder truck, a fire truck, a team of paramedics, and the fire chief’s car. Wearing full rubber battle dress with hats and boots, and carrying axes, firemen swarmed through the house.

My two dogs, though hopelessly outnumbered, decided to attack the most alien of the aliens, the sole black man. We are a family with friends as diverse as the countries of the world and the dogs loved every soul who passed through our doors. Until this axe-wielding, hazmat donning, inferno-naut burst through the back door. As he tried to shake the dogs from his boots, I knew no amount of explaining about my involvement in and working for the civil rights movement would make amends to this man.

Outside, the chief noticed that the garbage bags were stacked around the fire hydrant, obscuring it from view. They give tickets for that.

City policemen also responded, possibly for crowd control, and noticed that my car was parked too close to the hydrant. They give tickets for that.

Neighbors gathered, speculation flourished, excitement mounted.

After the tickets were issued, the beagles leashed, the car moved, the garbage bag fort dissembled, the sirens silenced, and the crowd dispersed, I called the repairman. He would be out the following day.

In the morning, I woke up and realized that I had forgotten about cleaning out the freezer. And the next thing I knew -

I was standing in my kitchen covered by blood! Warm, nauseating, and dark, it covered me like a shroud, from my neck, over my blouse, across my white skirt, and streamed down my shins into the latticework of my white sandals.

Wordless, I was filled with horror. Obviously, I had exploded – ruptured as I flung open the heavy freezer door. My mind worked in slow motion. My last motherly gesture was to walk across the living room, lock the front door, and save my children from the trauma of discovering my body.

Surprisingly, as I walked slowly toward the door, I felt no pain. Was this shock? But before I could finish dropping blood all the way across the white, wool carpet, my mind shifted into gear, and I realized how I got into this condition. From my mouth came a scream of words so profane that the children might have suffered less had they found my body!

The children gathered around and stared. Their interested acceptance of my condition made me realize they had probably sold Erma Bombeck the rights to my life story. “What did you do now, Mom?” innocently asked the youngest.

Retreating from their questions, I turned to the kitchen, where I saw a note to myself: “When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember you were just going to drain the swamp.” It had never been more true for me than in that moment.

Now, not twenty-four hours since the firemen left, I was staring at my bloodied hands, realizing that when I flung open the door, a hundred pounds of thawed meat had washed me with a tidal wave of blood.

I was not bleeding to death. I would survive. The children left to report this latest episode to their friends.

Alone in the privacy of my kitchen, as warm blood dripped off my stomach and created a disgusting puddle on the floor, I removed my clothes and vowed to become more organized.

Because I needed all the help I could get, I threw open the door so the dogs could help clean the floor.

And there stood the repairman.