Armed With Sponge Mop—In Search of Excellence

Barbara Woods Collins

I must confess to you—I have a real fear of leaving this life without ever having achieved excellence in something. I have nightmares about a Gothic "C+" being carved on my tombstone. I'm certain one of my children will grow up and write a book about me, and the dedication will read, "To Mom, a "C+" if ever I saw one". I tell you, it bothers me!

I chose to be a "full-time wife and mother", rather than a brain surgeon, an astronaut, an astrophysicist, or a paleontologist. I feel relatively certain I could have excelled in any of these fields, had I chosen to pursue one of them, but I chose to seek excellence in a field where the competition is merciless.

This came as a real surprise to me. I thought, quite frankly, that the whole thing would be a cinch. Before I became a Mom, I knew a few women who were wives and mothers, and they were certainly not excellent. Their kids were uncivilized creatures who ate with their hands, threw up on the furniture, and did unspeakable things while I was eating. My children will never do that! I said to my self. Some unknown sadist recorded those words and has been playing them back to me daily ever since.

Mind you, I haven't been a failure. I don't mean to imply that. It's just that I, like everyone, am subject to comparison in the process of being judged. And the group with whom I am being compared defies comparison. Let me tell you about them.

Their code name is "EWAM" ("Excellent Wife and Mother"). They are organized, and they are infiltrating our neighborhoods at an alarming rate. Beware, because they are determined to prevent the rest of us from ever raising our standings above a "C+".

The EWAM may not be immediately recognizable. This is one of the reasons she is so dangerous. She may move in next door to you and appear perfectly normal. Become suspicious, however, when you go over to introduce yourself as soon as the moving van drives away, and she offers you coffee and freshly baked bread. (Her family never eats sweets, of course.) She apologizes for the mess. You look around and see a perfectly organized kitchen, looking as if the entire room has been transported in toto from one house to the other. You blush as you remember the three unpacked boxes that have been in your kitchen since you moved two years ago. You see?! A few hours in the neighborhood, and already she's working at lowering your rating.

Then you meet her children. There seems to be some universal qualities among EWAM children. They always have curly hair, they never get dirty (even after a 2,000 mile car trip), they disappear from sight unless summoned by an adult, and they always wear what their mother picks out for them. Furthermore, they are born potty trained, never dump flower pots onto the white carpet, only play in the play room, never sit on their beds, and always have neat dresser drawers. They always get the lead in the school play, and never flunk biology. I firmly believe that they read baby books in utero so that they will be born knowing what is expected of them. As infants they adore eating and sleeping on schedule, and wouldn't even consider waking up just as Mom gets her hands into the oven cleaner. (Of course, an EWAM oven never gets dirty, anyhow.)

The EWAM husband is very carefully selected. Chances are that he, too, can boast of EWAM stock; therefore, he falls easily into the pattern of excellence. He has been to an Ivy League college (or at least to someplace other than Horsecreek Tech). He is, inevitably, climbing the ladder of success, his EWAM bedmate making his climb one of her primary concerns. His success is assured.

But let's get back to the EWAM herself. Perhaps by becoming more intimate with the enemy, I can steal some of her secrets—can rob her of her superiority, can raise my rating to at least a "B-". What is it that makes her distinct?

An important fact that I learned immediately is that the EWAM has no junk drawer in her kitchen! Honestly. Consider this: You find a strange screw on the kitchen floor and don't know where it belongs. What would you do with it? Obviously, you would put it in a kitchen drawer that contains other miscellaneous artifacts such as a glove with no match, a knife with a broken handle, batteries that may or may not be live, and art work done by your 15-year-old when she was in kindergarten. To me, this is a logical action. (Someone suggested the top of the refrigerator for storage of these items, but I found that they kept falling into the potato salad.)

The EWAM is appalled at the thought of all these unrelated items being in one place. As I discussed this with her, I detected a distinct shudder. "Why not find where it belongs?" she asked patiently. EWAMS pride themselves on their long-suffering patience with the rest of us. They love to use phrases like "I know it must be difficult." This comfort might be offered as your two-year-old shrieks for a toy in the grocery store. Bless her for her comfort!

The EWAM actually puts her family pictures into albums! Of course, we all plan to do this also, one day, right? But I had never met anyone who had actually gone through with it. For all these years, I thought shoes were sold in boxes so that the boxes could be used to store family photos. Education does not, it seems, end with graduate school.

One thing I learned the hard way: Never, I repeat never be pregnant at the same time as an EWAM friend. I made this mistake once. Two days after the doctor declared me pregnant, my body grew to the size of the Goodyear Blimp, and it kept growing. Hers remained a size 3 until two days before delivery. Furthermore, two days after delivery, her perfect size 3 figure was back. Of course, she still complained of being fat, as she patiently did postpartum exercises with me. And she said to me, "I know it must be difficult."

One way to identify an EWAM at a party is to look for the one who doesn't have second-hand formula on her best dress. Knowing how predictably my babies always anointed me just as I was about to walk out the door in my only dress that fit, I assumed that tell-tale spots on basic black was a universal symbol of motherhood—like bloodshot eyes and sleep deprivation. EWAM babies, of course, would never commit such an indiscretion. I have it on good authority that they don't even burp.

Early on, I adopted the motto: Clean houses create neurotic children. When I felt intimidated by the EWAM and her excellence, I would fall back on these words of wisdom. Eventually, however, I found myself having to reconsider my philosophy. It might have had something to do with the fact that my kids were saying, "Mom, this house is such a mess it's making me neurotic." It could have been that. In any case, I was forced to observe closely the EWAM's housekeeping—an area where she seems to consistently excel.

No bug would dare end its life in the EWAM's light fixture; no grease makes its way to her grease trap. (She catches it midway, somehow.) If you should casually drop in on her at 7 a.m., you would find no unmade beds, no dirty dishes, no rumpled cushions. (EWAM families defy gravity, actually; they manage to sit without ever rumpling anything.) One word of caution: if your house catches fire in the middle of the night, never go to an EWAM house to call the fire department. She will make her bed before answering the door. I know people who lost their houses that way.

Those of us who have had to live near an EWAM, have had to face the daily feelings of inferiority caused by this close proximity, can scarcely be blamed for a sigh of relief when that inevitable job promotion means EWAM relocation. "It's over!" we scream in the solitude of our bathrooms. Ah, would that it were really over!

The EWAM never relinquishes her position of superiority over any of her inferiors. No matter where she lives, she maintains control. She keeps us all in our places with her annual Christmas Letter.

The EWAM Christmas Letter is a yearly update—a written reminder of all the things that we didn't get around to doing, of all the terrific things that didn't happen to us. It goes something like this:

Dear Friend,

This letter is duplicated by the thousands, and is sent to everyone who has even casually known the family. It is, I believe, the true cause of holiday depression. It is the real reason people flock to the offices of mental health professionals in such great numbers at Christmastime.

So what can we do? Do we continue to frustrate ourselves with attempts at competition? Do we continue to try desperately to clean the mildew stains from our showers and the gravy stains from our tablecloths? I, for one, am willing to admit defeat. I am convinced that the EWAM characteristics are transmitted through the DNA and are therefore not learnable. But how on earth do I break this to my family? I wonder whether medical schools accept middle-aged women?

copyright ©1995 Barbara Woods Collins