I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression Read Free Page A

Gemini, Taurus, and Capricorn and literally blush at what was in store for them.
    However, when I reached my own zodiac sign, it was always the same. “A new hair color could get you a cab. From the 10th to the 15th, it might even get you mugged (on a slow night). Stars born under your sign: Minnie Pearl, Wally Cox and Walter Hickel.”
    This month I opened the magazine and was thrown into shock. My sign read, “Mr. Sex and Vitality will come into your life around the second of the month.”
    On the morning of the second, I was quivering at what I knew would happen. Arising early, I fixed breakfast, sent the kids off to school and sat down to wait for Mr. Sex and Vitality. At ten, the doorbell rang. It was the garbage man telling me he had a rule about picking up more than five cans. I couldn’t question his vitality, but how sexy can a man be who smells like cantaloupe and wilted lettuce at ten in the morning?
    At eleven-thirty, as I was eating lunch, the phone rang. The voice at the other end wanted to make a house call and talk to my husband and see if we would like to spend our retirement managing a motel. He didn’t sound sexy or vital, but then anyone who could get so worked up wrapping all those bathroom glasses in see-through bags …
    That evening I stayed dressed just in case Mr. S and V rang my chimes.
    “What are you dressed up for?” asked my husband. “You going bowling or something?”
    “My horoscope said Mr. Sex and Vitality would enter my life today.”
    “That reminds me. Did you take my suit to the cleaners?”

    “You wanta nibble on my ear or something?” I asked.
    “Are we out of chip dip?” he asked absently.
    Within minutes, he was dozing in the chair, his paper on his chest, his can of beer balancing precariously on the arm of his chair.
    I wondered how Wally Cox, Minnie Pearl, and Walter Hickel made out.

I Gave Him the Best Year of My Life
    People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a century for their secret for success.
    Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgiving woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Paul Newman. Those are the breaks. I realized, being mortal, he couldn’t possibly understand my dry skin, boot puddles on my waxed floor, hips that hang like saddlebags, and a house that holds for me all the excitement of a disposal plant.
    How could he appreciate that my life is like a treadmill with stops at tedium, boredom, monotony, and the laundry room. That is why he comes bounding in each evening with a smile and a report of his day. Last night, for example, he munched on a stalk of celery and said, “I’ve had quite a day. Worked like a son of a gun this morning with Fred. Then we got in the car and toured an installation north of town. Suddenly I remembered it wasSandy’s birthday. You remember Sandy, don’t you? (I remember Sandy. She was the one who burnt her bra and five engine companies showed up.) So, we treated Sandy to lunch. By the time I got back to the office, it was time to wrap up. I’m late because I stopped off at John’s to see his new boat. What did you do today?”
    “I fired my deodorant,” I said. When he left the room I mumbled, “Paul wouldn’t have been so unfeeling.”
    “Who’s Paul?” asked my eleven-year-old.
    Now, trying to explain Paul Newman’s mystique to an eleven-year-old is as futile as explaining Dr. Wernher von Braun to Goldie Hawn.
    “Paul Newman,” I said patiently.
    “The guy in
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?
He rode a neat horse in that picture.”
    “What horse?”
    “How come you’re smiling and looking funny?” he asked.
    “Like what?”
    “Like when you find a quarter in Daddy’s chair.”
    “It’s Paul Newman,” I shrugged.
    “Would you like to be married to him?”
    “It has nothing to do with marriage,” I said.
    “You mean you’d like him to be your friend?”
    “I wouldn’t have phrased it quite that way.”
    “He’s about as