Deborah Paul

We’ve become accustomed to leaving the bed with what appears to be a temporary crime-scene drawing of our bodies imprinted on the mattress.

Mary was critically ill, and although she had implored her family not to worry me, they decided I needed to know. All I wanted was to climb in bed beside her, lay my head on her shoulder, and cry, but I didn’t.

Until recently, I was unacquainted with Walmart on a personal level, unless you count my son having been fired from his high-school job stocking the candy aisle for declining to work on the night of the first Passover seder.

I found my favorite authors and slid my fingers along the spines of books I yearned to read. And not just read, but buy, hold in my hands, and, when finished, tuck onto a shelf, mine to remember and admire for all time.

I find the first stage of a remodel much like surgery, in that once you agree, there is no time to second-guess.

The fact is, our lifestyles have changed. We do not live at Downton Abbey, and there are no servants—thank heavens—to polish trays and tip silver teapots.

To clear the air, know that I did not vote for your husband. Either time. But I believe in your fight against childhood obesity—make that obesity in general—and think I have a new tool for your toolbox.

You are widely known for browbeating would-be chefs, but since I am more of a traveler than a foodie, I prefer Hotel Hell, the show on which you visit inns and browbeat the owners. Watching you zip yourself into a sleeping bag atop a questionable bed rather than risk the dirty linens was a hoot, as was seeing you scrunched up, knees skyward, in a too-small tub.

A mode of transport can provide more uses than the manufacturer intended—and not all of them are risque.

One of my most vivid teen memories involves a Monday-morning pep rally in the Broad Ripple High School gym, after Coach Gene Ring’s Rockets won the sectionals, then regionals, and secured a trip to the 1963 semi-state. As the rock-star players filed onto the floor wearing varsity sweaters, the students in the bleachers went wild. Dressed in our own uniforms of stitched-down pleated skirts and cardigans, my girlfriends and I jumped up and down ’til our eyeballs rattled, screeching like banshees. The rumble was deafening, the kind you can feel way down in your gut.

Over the last couple of years, I have seen, in person, the following performers: Willie Nelson, Tony Bennett, Joan Rivers, Jackie Mason, Garrison Keillor, Candice Bergen, Bill Cosby, Angela Lansbury, and James Earl Jones. Common among these celebrities is “maturity,” and, pardon the insensitivity, plenty of it. In fact, rough math indicates that their combined age approximates the 700-year-old mummy recently discovered in China.

My father came home from work every day with grease under his fingernails. His place of business was a southside auto-parts yard the family referred to as “the store.” The first thing he did upon coming home in the evening was scrub his hands with Lava soap, and even then, you could see the faint but indelible trace of black.

My 5-year-old granddaughter and I like to play the Tea Party Game, in which you spin an arrow to determine which cardboard food item—finger sandwiches, petits fours, fruit—to put on your cardboard plate, and at what point you get your napkins, utensils, and other necessities. The first one whose plate is filled and pretty place setting completed wins. She cheats, though, thinking I don’t see her re-spin, lightning-fast, when the arrow points to “Lose a piece.” If she already has a dessert and the arrow points to that category again, she claims it’s “on the line!” The competitive streak runs fast and furious in our family, and I do not judge.

You can buy chairs at the drugstore. Granted, the selection consists of remote-controlled lift chairs for the old or infirm, but still. They are chairs, they cost $799, and you can buy them at the drugstore. On my last visit, I was tempted to try one just to see how far it would launch me, but I was afraid someone I knew might see. So I moved on to the “walking sticks”—canes, for crying out loud—and blood-pressure cuffs. Those devices I expect to see at the drugstore, but chairs? That blows me away.

I fell for it, every last bit. There we were, cherished granddaughter in tow, standing in line at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, Disney World’s excessive tribute to all things princess. If you wanted to be transformed into, say, Cinderella or Snow White, you could buy hairstyling, “shimmering makeup,” nail polish, sash, face gem, and cinch bag for $59.95. But who could settle for such a paltry princess makeover when for $189.95 you got the works—glittery costume, tiara, wand, and all—and a personal photo portfolio?