Another all too brief visit home. I've really come to cherish our trips back to my folks. They've lived in the same home for almost 50 years, and once upon a time I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. Now it's become something of a sanctuary for us. Chalk it up to age and wisdom and having your life collapse in on itself like a cheap card table from WalMart.
My parents have adopted my partner as their own, and for my Mom he's the daughter she wishes she had, instead of the frosty one she's currently saddled with. When we're there we end up sleeping in separate rooms, not so much as a bow to their sense of propriety, but as an acceptance of the futility of trying to fit two grown men and two dogs into a full sized bed. I remember as a kid going to visit my grandparents and having to sleep on a 30 year old mattress that was so soft and worn that it engulfed you and turned you into a human taco. At my folks, it's the opposite. While the mattresses are also 30 years old, they are mysteriously hard as a sheet of plywood. They've lost all their lateral support, so you end up swaying slightly side to side and back and forth. It's like sleeping on a skateboard. But for some reason I don't mind.
We had our big Easter dinner on Saturday to accommodate our travel plans. My partner cooked a gourmet meal, as usual. My sister and her family arrived, and she was uncharacteristically pleasant, which is never a good sign.
Something was up.
It didn't take long to discover what that was. They weren't there more than 15 minutes before my sister cornered me in the backyard, where I'd snuck out for a smoke. I hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving, or spoken to her. We don't really talk anymore. She'd never asked for our new phone number once we had moved, and it never occurred to me to offer it to her since she hadn't used the old phone number to return any calls in years.
"I want to talk to you..." she said.
The wind up, aaaaaand... the pitch.
Turns out she and her husband had joined a cult, a multi-level marketing scheme selling the latest offering in snake oil... "Mona Vie", some cure-all elixir made from the Brazilian Acai berry.
"I haven't told Mom and Dad, and I'd like to keep it our secret".
Well I don't blame you... if you told them, they'd think you were a moron. I sure did.
I told her I was familiar with the product and she seemed a little shocked.
She cut to the chase, bypassing any talk about the actual product or it's alleged benefits.
"We already have 9 people under us, and if we get two more, we start making money..."
So there it was. Over the past year and a half, as my partner and I lost our jobs, our home and most of our prized possessions, as we were exiled to the wasteland of Bakersfield, she'd shown not the slightest interest or concern. Not a word of sympathy or encouragement or hope.
But now there was money to be made and she wanted to talk. I wasn't a brother to her anymore, simply an easy mark to skewer on the top of some pyramid scheme.
She said LA and Orange County were an "untapped market" and they were all going to get rich and she merely wanted to share the wealth, to get us "in on the ground floor" before it really took off.
I just wanted to end the conversation, so I lied. I told her that, of course, we would be absolutely interested. The problem was we didn't plan on staying in Bakersfield and it didn't seem wise to launch what promised to be a spectacularly successful franchise here only to abandon it in a few months. We'd talk later when we knew where we were going.
She always was gullible.
What I chose not to share with her was the reason I was already familiar with the product. Los Angeles and Orange County are "untapped markets" for a reason - those people aren't stupid. Not so in Bakersfield, where Mona Vie hucksters are as common as cockroaches. The rubes here have bought into it hook, line and sinker, even though few of them actually know how to pronounce "acai". My partner has been shaken down at work, and a few of my local clients have tried to do the same to me. You see cars all over town with huge "Mona Vie" decals on the back window. Each bottle costs $30 and to get the "full health benefits" you need to buy a bottle a week. Or so they say.
In a moment of weakness, my partner actually bought a bottle. It's like drinking motor oil. The only thing I could compare it to was drinking barium before an upper GI. We dumped it out.
For the rest of their visit, she'd catch my eye and give me a knowing look, a sly smile, a subtle acknowledgment of "our little secret".
Although it's not much of secret... my sister is an idiot.
