The Housewives’ Guide To Anatomy

There are certain days when every word gets bitten off before it can chew. When, at best, the things you try to say turn on you and spit up half-masticated lumps of your tongue. Syllables resemble oily bags full of the odds and ends no one wants, the plastic pull-tabs and dusty cat toys; is it any wonder, with their mouths so full, that no one can guess what they’re trying to say? And besides, it’s probably giving them too much credit to think that they’re trying to communicate at all. They might simply enjoy the noises they make, the patient labor involved in gutting a vowel.

There are tricks for managing this condition. There are certain phrases that your own voice has forgotten how to hear, things that will escape detection long enough for you to say them. So they say is one, that’s the way my mother did it, and, can I help you? Stop, but don’t start. What matters is not that these phrases are irrelevant to the problems at hand, but that they are possible.

Besides, whose skin is it that has suddenly engulfed your right hand and ruined all your fingerprints? Why the impulse to pull up the venetian blinds, and see what might be sticking to the window? There must be a path between all the snowflakes, if only you could make it out. A scant half-animal threads ahead of you, picking up the broken furniture people have thrown from their windows, and even at this distance you can clearly see that there’s no white in her fur.

Locate the body before you begin, or digestion will take place outside it—a terrible waste of food. If you are unsure where to find your body, bait a comfortable chair with unspooled sticky tape, feathers, and a melancholy atmosphere. Then wait. What could be softer than the self unhinged? That is the hidden principle of digestion. Open yourself to its possibilities.

Be careful that the digestive process does not spread to the chair where your body reclines, or it may become tricky to determine exactly what has been swallowed, what acted upon by enzymes.

Once the body has been secured, gently turn it inside out using the same technique that you would with an opera glove. Dot its exposed surfaces with tender substances, and once it shudders right it again.

It will be weary from the exercise. Cuddle it. Remember that it means you no harm.

It’s a globe. You can’t just get off.

If you attempt to test the hypothesis by walking around it, you will only pull its ellipses tighter, like shoelaces, and so reduce your own options.

Your husband and children will assuredly become hostile if you set a place at the dinner table for your imaginary friend. Your husband will suspect a sexual frisson between you and your guest, and the children will resent the sudden bulk and overweening neediness characteristic of the imaginary. It will be much simpler for everyone if you hide the utensils intended for any non-visible friend or acquaintance. Your friend is certainly entitled to expect a welcoming place dedicated to his or her feeding, but may be surprisingly flexible on the question of where dinner is served.

A dinner table with a false top is extremely useful for this purpose. Lift off the top and arrange your friend’s placemat and silverware, glass and napkin attractively within. Thoughtful touches (a few blossoms floating in a crystal bowl, perhaps) will reassure your friend that this concealed dinner in no way implies a second-class status. Serve the meal, then replace the tabletop, drape it with a cloth, and go about setting the para-table normally.  Your friend will enjoy dinner in the warm comfort of the secret compartment, and your family will be none the wiser.

If this seems impractical the only alternative is to hide place settings around the house, in drawers and the backs of closets. The major disadvantages of this method are that you will have to cook several extra dinners every night to ensure that your friend will find at least one of them, and that the pleasurable conversation that should accompany a leisurely meal will become strenuous, conducted in long-distance whispers, as your friend may be eating far away from you.

Even if the room was definitely empty when you locked the doors and windows, inspected all the closets, and then turned off the lights, you should still assume it is populated once dark closes in. Whatever you cannot see is fecund and will surely breed figures that in one respect or another refer to the human form.

If something touches you in the dark, you should leap at once to the conclusion that this presence is animate, however cold, geometric, and lifeless its surfaces happen to feel. Does it refuse to yield under your fingertips, is it as chill and flat as the side of a refrigerator? Nonetheless, you must inform yourself loudly and insistently that it is not merely alive, but also intelligent and hungry. Do the work yourself. Conjure a coat of rough, oily hairs, breathing sides, and a smell of musk and upturned earth. The senses are deceptive unless properly directed, and this new version will surely be more accurate than your first impression.

If the presence then becomes threatening, try to distract it. Imagine beautified variants of your own body inside whatever garments happen to be lying around, or if none are available present the same body unclothed.

The horizon is a line that may slither in anywhere. Although straight in its relaxed moods, it will often bunch, pleat, or coil the better to conceal itself in the depths of a lingerie drawer or broom closet. It is an intestinal presence, and you should guard against its digestive inclinations. Do not assume that its diet is invariably limited to cars, boats, and birds.

In its white state, it may knock holes in sentences before you say them. Parts of the body, especially the hands and feet, may become confused in its presence and congregate in jostling bunches under the ceiling, or in extreme cases even flit from the window.

If your husband’s teeth or genitals seem suddenly too distinct, too brightly outlined, proceed with utmost caution; the horizon may have negotiated a path around them, and be waiting there in ambush. If you feel uncertain, approach him not with your hand but with an implement such as a hairbrush or pencil, and watch carefully to see if the object appears blunted or vanishes at its tip.

In its darkened form, your horizon may confine itself to making suggestions for your conduct: retreat, surrender, or a vow of silence. Even if you take these suggestions seriously, do your best to keep it off balance. Pretend to laugh.

Old Jisper Jaspers was the man of the hour. He worked at the factory until he cut the power to the candy machines. They had to send the prostitutes home, padlock the doors. The floors were covered in mud and bone and the feathers of small children. You couldn’t hear the canary scream over the sound of the ticker tape rattle, the toothless squall of the radio man, frequencies jammed until Jisper Jaspers cut off his left forearm and plugged up the hole with a prosthetic device.

(click for pronunciation)

Ovaries are the fruit of a clambering vine, the kudzu of the body. If they are subject to strict and watchful discipline then you may be able to coax their tendrils into elegant topiary, but left unchecked they will spread aggressively. Clusters of them will press on your liver and kidneys, displace the air from your lungs. Soon the interior of your torso will become a tropical confusion of ripe orbs. If you fail to eat enough to provide for their sustenance they may start to turn on each other, or to snake from your orifices in search of small fauna. They are capable of considerable stealth, and you will probably suspect nothing until friends complain that ornamental goldfish are missing from their garden ponds, or that a fox must have slipped in with the poultry.

This does not mean that they should be treated unkindly. Harsh measures will only provoke them. More than one lady who attempted to beat back her ovaries has found herself reduced by a finger, or even a hand. Keep them pruned to begin with and you will not encounter such difficulties. Throw them treats at judicious intervals; grapes are particular favorites.

If you husband your ovaries wisely, you may find they compensate for their lack of moral sense with a distinctive, even otherworldly charisma.

When your hand is holding a knife it may try to circle in on itself and surgically excise the possibility of further movement.

You might have the nagging feeling that your exhalations stop short: you wish for glassy pirouettes and instead produce forms that more nearly resemble flaccid teapots.

Your footsteps bury themselves in the middle of a busy street, and refuse to emerge no matter how you coax them.

The hinges along your heart’s back seam allow it to feign breaking and then clap itself shut again when no one is looking.

Though we take pains to conceal it, our bodies are permanently in decay. Give thanks that neither your eyesight nor that of your guests is keen enough to detect the detritus you’ve inevitably scattered about.

(Should you one day be struck with blindness, and should your other senses stretch out in reply, you will be pleased to discover that the bits of flesh you’ve left behind will make your house still feel your own.)

But be careful with houseguests or, equally so, bees, for should your detritus become fertilized or pollinated, you may be displeased with the results.

And most importantly: should you hear a shuffling while you sleep, fear not, for it is most likely your scattered, fallen cells attempting to scurry closer to their source. Lie still. Pretend to sleep. You’ll feel more whole in the morning.

(click for pronunciation)

Use ink to draw dotted lines around frequently used kitchen implements. This will not only make them easy to locate later, but will also restrain their tendencies toward metamorphic creep. When you decide to attempt a lemon meringue pie, you will not find your eggbeater covered in snake skin.

You should also find that ink controls your own unwelcome impulses. Cover your extremities with small, round dots about the size of dimes. If this proves insufficient, try inscribing your signature several hundred times across your feet and ankles. You may then rest assured that they will stay where you put them.

Ink can also help in obliterating objects that have lost their usefulness. Coat them thoroughly. Any remaining bare spots will permit the unwanted item to retain a worrying ontological persistence.

Similarly, a slow drip of ink placed above the heads of visitors or children will not remove them completely, but it should at least reduce their obtrusiveness.

On those afternoons when you prowl inside the limits of your own exoskeleton, unable to locate its windows and doors, you may feel you are in for a dreary interlude.

We suggest you adopt a brighter view of your confinement. Take advantage of the enforced seclusion to catch up on the housework, do your nails, or read some Gertrude Stein.

When your entrails inflict on you their brooding ennui, clouding your judgment and sapping your will, it is time to put them through their paces. They will resist a change of scenery, but show them you are serious and they will rise to the occasion, however grudgingly. Break them from the grip of boredom, and though they may seem sullen at first they will soon reward you with newly invigorated and cheerful digestion. Who would not weary of the same hermetic view of muscular walls, day after day? Your small intestine is in no position to relieve such oppressive moods as you might do, by reupholstering the sofas in lilac chintz, or trimming the curtains with bunches of blue velvet grapes.

You must take the initiative on its behalf. A small slit three inches above the buttocks will allow your intestine to nose out and peer at the view. It may seem shy at first. Give it time; curiosity will prevail in the end. Soon a vitreous bundle of intestinal loops will shimmer alluringly behind you, tinkling slightly with your movements. The intestine will coyly pretend not to notice when strangers stop to admire its bright curves and pellucid enthusiasms, but you may be sure it enjoys these compliments nonetheless.

Now choose small, elegantly crafted ornaments: miniature tea sets will do very well, as will cloisonné elephants, jade cats, and finer examples of dollhouse furnishings. Swallow them. In due course they will appear in your small intestine, and even if it maintains its coquettish reserve, you may note that the trinkets are arranged with every sign of taste and care.

There is nothing more frightening than what lurks beneath our beds.

Harmful if taken internally. Keep away from heat or flame. Avoid contact with eyelids, lips and mucous membranes. Use a sunscreen. Slippery when wet. Discontinue use if irritation or rash appears. Before using on an unknown surface, test on an inconspicuous area. In case of accidental ingestion, induce vomiting and contact a poison control center immediately. Keep from freezing. Contents under pressure. If contact occurs, rinse thoroughly with water. May stain skin, clothes, and other porous surfaces. Tingling, stinging, or redness is normal. Do not touch heart to any surface, since this may cause contamination. Keep tightly closed when not in use. Never reuse. See insert for further information. Keep out of reach of children. Store in a cool, dry place. Point away from face when opening. Not suitable for human consumption.

Your shadow exists to meet you halfway, and you should accept no less.

At those moments when you are “not quite yourself,” you may be sure your self has straggled behind you and so become wedged in the ribs of your shadow. When this occurs resorting to the dustpan and broom is not merely futile, but dangerous. Your self may shred under such rough treatment. Instead the proper method of retrieval is to stand on a hard surface with a single naked bulb directly in your face so that your shadow is helplessly splayed behind you, pinioned by the intensity of the light. Stand very still to prevent your shadow from squirming and secreting your self in some more ambiguous location. Then tip your weight onto your heels, take a shallow breath, and fall backwards as sharply as possible. With any luck the blow will dislodge your self from the shadow’s clutches and the recoil will propel that self back inside you. (Under no circumstances should you attempt this on a carpet or any other kind of soft material. You will drive your self deep into the fibers, with deleterious effects: not only will it be impossible to reconstitute the self in any usable form, you will also scatter loose threads of self hazardous to children, pets, and vacuum cleaners.)

You should notice an improvement in your outlook immediately. But if after a few days you find your mood still disconsolate and distractible you should assume this first effort has failed, and that more extreme measures are called for. At this juncture your only remaining recourse is persuasion. Face into the same glaring light and part your lips suggestively. Then walk rapidly backwards, tapping your shadow with your heels at each step and repeating, “Trust me, trust me, trust me.”

The pantry, for a housewife, is both storehouse and refuge, and in this it is superior to the cold and airless icebox. Curled up behind a jar of preserves, a housewife can go unmolested for days if necessary. For longer stays, a small light and pocket-sized book are recommended for keeping the terrors at bay. Shield the light with your palm and be sure to whisper, lest others take notice and disturb your recitations.

An additional word of caution: a pantry’s nature is to keep, and it will grow quickly attached should you allow it the liberty. Remove splinters immediately. Take shallow breaths. Should you feel your thighs begin to stick, slip a hand beneath each, palms down, and curl your fingers one by one until separation is assured. Say firmly, but with kindness, “No, no, I can’t take you with me.”

(click for pronunciation)

If your tonsils have lately shown themselves docile, well-mannered, and eager to oblige, you may wish to present them with a small token of esteem in order to encourage continued good behavior. If they feel unappreciated they are likely to regress into waywardness.

What would please them most? We suggest a pair of doll shoes with a bright, beguiling polish. But please don’t apply the criteria of elegance, tastefulness, and practicality that you would bring to selecting shoes for yourself. Instead look for styles that would be likely to appeal to a small child of limited intelligence and doubtful parentage: florid tints, precarious heels, and dangling baubles will delight your tonsils as much as they offend your eyes. Do you hesitate, thinking that if your tonsils wear such shoes strangers will mistake you for a lady of easy virtue? You need not concern yourself. Only the doctor will ever see them, and you may rest assured that he will understand.

If you are so fortunate as to have tonsils that merit still greater reward, consider having the shoemaker install steel taps on a pair in scarlet patent leather. Your tonsils will use these taps to signal the larger world in Morse code by beating a tattoo on the back of your throat.

The sound, you may object, most nearly resembles some feather-clad cannibal’s disports with his drum, but you will find yourself surprised by the advantages that can derive from this novel channel of communication. After all, by this time, you yourself will no longer be able to speak.

The clavicle is a housewife’s most prized possession. Before attempting the shops, be sure to check both the attic and pantry for suitable spares. An heirloom clavicle will serve you better, in the end, than a modern prosthetic, but the latter can be inscribed without fear of disintegration. An inscription is necessary, of course, to ensure that the clavicle remains one’s own. Choose wisely.