The Muriel Rule

So every family has their "stuff".

We had Muriel.

Muriel was my grandma and she died last year after living 95 wonderful years working, driving around, putting on lipstick, wearing her silver shoes and basically insulting everyone she met. She was seriously vain and spent her entire life insisting her hair was naturally blonde. She used to say that she would just use a little "fluff" to brighten it up. PS "fluff" was peroxide and "naturally blonde" was out of a "fluff" bottle. She loved being blonde so much, my papa called her "Blonde" as her name her whole life. I loved Muriel and many people did not. Maybe because in my family I am the only one with light hair and blue eyes. I could be adopted but that is another story.

Did you ever see the Twilight Zone where everyone looks like pigs, so people thinks pig faces are beautiful and the attractive people are shunned because they are the minority? Or the Muensters with Marilyn? Now I am not saying at all that my family is ugly or that I am more attractive than anyone else, all I am saying is that Muriel, although she was Jewish, could have been a Nazi with her love of blonde, blue eyed people and I just happen to be the only person in the family that looked like that. She also loved my older cousin Richard but that is because he had a penis and she only loved blondes and people with penises mostly because there arent too many of either in our family.

So Muriel lived in Hollywood, Florida not far from Fort Lauderdale. She had a pool that had so many rules that you had to read the guide before you went in to swim. Shower to remove sunscreen, put hair in ponytail, no splashing the ladies who had their hair done on Thursday and needed it to last until next Thursday, no floats, no screaming, no having fun. Never mind the old men with poor bladder control or the diapered by day women who probably couldnt jump out of the pool quick enough to grab their walker and race to the bathroom. What are they doing? Using the pool as their personal toilet I assume. But dont let them see you with your hair hanging or they make you use the dreaded rubber band.

Another rule that we had to disobey all the time was moving of the lounge chairs. Being young sun worshippers, before the days of melanoma, we would soak ourselves in baby oil and spend the entire day in the sun turning the chair hourly to be in direct contact with the sun.

And then " the tan man" would come to scold us. He looked like the Crypt Keeper and about a hundred years old, but was probably just a regular 65 year old who had spent way too many hours in the sun. He was chocolately brown, shiny from his baby oil and meaner than the devil eating angel food cake. He did not want the chairs moved because his job as crypt keeper or should I say "Hillcrest lounge chair keeper" was to make sure the chairs were all lined up, facing the pool, thats it, no arguing, his face might peel off if he got real mad.

So this is where Muriel lived with all the other mah jong playing jewish old ladies and all the poker playing jewish old men. My grandma and papa lived there from 1974 to 1990 when my papa died. Grandma Muriel lived there until she was forced into a home, which killed her in 2007. Long story for another time, but anyway this was paradise for 2 retired jews to spend their retired days. They didnt mind the rules, it gave them something to talk about when someone didnt follow them. "Hey did you see Judy's grandkids ? They didnt shower when they went into the pool. Oh my god they splashed Mona and now she will have to pin her hair until next Thursday." And it went on and on in Hillcrest.They started there as the young retirees and then watched as they people they knew were taken away one by one by silent ambulances. Thus is the circle of life, you start out in the womb and you end up in Florida.

My papa was the most annoying man who ever lived, at least in his older years when I knew him. He would wait until we all sat down for dinner and he would be like " dear can you get me the salt" and when you would come back with the salt he would say " dear can you get me the lemon juice" My mother said when she was a kid she would set the table and make a game out of trying to put every single thing on the table, but I guess his game was to pick the one thing that wasnt there and ask for it. He used to cough into a napkin while we were eating and save it next to his plate. Eating with him made me lose my appetite. I wish he was alive now to cough at my dinner. It might stop me from shoveling in the food.

Ok so he is really annoying... he dies in 1990 and suddenly we finally realize that my grandma is just as annoying but has been hidden by the annoyingness of my papa. It is like a crazy revelation and quite scary actually. I think we would have been more scared if we knew she was gonna live 17 years longer.

So Muriel is visiting us now in New York on a regular basis, for a week or more at a time and she makes it about 2-3 minutes off the plane before she usually says the nastiest things. She pats me on the hips and says " oh are you watching your weight?" Yeah grandma I am watching it go up while I sit with my oreos and milk every night.

She farts everytime she stands up and we all ignore it, part of the Muriel Rule. She thinks her 80 year old body is a thing of beauty and often walks through my house naked. Muriel Rule I would say as my kids would be sickly grossed out and laughing at the same time. She reapplies lipstick after every bite of her food. She burps and says pardon me a million times while she is eating greasy, fattening crap. She orders water at restaurants and then asks for lots of lemon and then adds packets of sweet and low to make her own free lemonade. She eats half her meal, says its not good, sends it back, gets new food and then asks to have it wrapped. At this time I have little kids, but when I serve dinner, she practically knocks them out of the way to put her plate in my face to be served first. Muriel Rule. The kids know when they see the Muriel Rule look by this time, I dont have to even say it out loud.

The list goes on and on and when she visited we would all be under such stress that we would whisper and complain about her the whole time.

This practice made me sad although I participated in it often. I hated talking about her basically in front of her and the more we all compared stories ( when I say "we" I mean my mother, sister, aunt, cousin and I ) the worse we felt and the harder it was to put up with her visit.

So I made the rule. I called it the Muriel rule to honor her. Basically what it meant was that when you had an annoying story to tell about something terrible she said or did, you had to remember it and it could not be discussed until she was safely on the plane back to Florida. On the plane... that was the rule. Then all hell broke loose. We would freak out and be like oh my god how could she say that and then we would laugh. She would always call the next day and thank us for the wonderful visit and we were safe until the next time. But just like with giving birth , the longer you go without the pain the easier it is to do it again.

The Muriel Rule has since been applied to other situations when you want to talk about someone but they are right there. My family was big whisperers and it wasnt uncommon for someone to be whispering in the kitchen about you when you were standing outside the kitchen window. It was one of those things that when you walked into the room it got silent. You know... I personally cannot stand that kind of confrontation and so I applied the Muriel Rule to every family get together. These stories cannot be talked about until the person is at least in their car pulling out of the driveway. Believe it or not this has actually backfired when the person we were talking about immediately after they pulled out of the driveway came back for something they forgot,

Ok... so the Muriel Rule isnt perfect yet... but it works when you have a party where there are guests who are obligations and not completely welcomed and you need to tell all the gory details... but only after they leave. Every experience is an opportunity for a story I always say.

It made Muriels visits more bearable. It allowed me to enjoy her company and not find out that she thought my house was a pigsty until after she was safely back to the tan man and mah jong and 4 o'clock dinners.

I miss Muriel a lot. But I am glad she is finally with my papa in heaven. I am sure he is saying "Blonde, can you get me a hot cup of tea with lemon" and I am sure she is serving it to him with her silver shoes and her pink lipstick and he is asking for the sweet and low and she farts as she stands up and shuffles off in to the kitchen to get it. They are happy there and now the Muriel Rule is famous in our family all because of the rude annoyingness of two old people.