Well, I survived another gift exchange with Heather Pomeroy… so Christmas can’t be all that bad.
Most of you know. But for those of you who don’t HP, she is my autistic sister. She’s taller than me, and has a deep, imposing voice. It wasn’t unusual for her to kick my ass when we were younger. Well, we have a Christmas gift history that has darkened my doorstep for a lot of years. Every year for as long as I can remember I grit my teeth not knowing what Heather is going to ask for each Christmas. Not having a filter, she has more than once turned away gifts from yours truly, along with many other unsuspecting givers. My dad tried to give her a watch & she wouldn’t even open it. She kept pushing it away saying “I DON’T WANT IT, IT’S COLOGNE”! My father kept telling her it wasn’t but she wouldn’t listen. After he opened it up she still rejected it. She told him “I DON’T WANT IT… THERE ARE NO NUMBERS ON IT”. (It has Roman numerals… Even I didn’t think of that one)
This year thankfully she asked for, and I quote: “Year of the Cat and Isn’t She Lovely”. So, I bought a CD player for her & burned a CD including those songs. Sounds easy, right? Well here are some previous Christmas gift requests from Heather:
“FOOTY PAJAMAS” - Have you ever tried to find these for an almost 6’ person?
“LINE CROSSED WINDOWS” - To this day I have no idea what this is.
“FLAT HEADED GHOST” - Good luck.
“DOME HAIR DRYER” - We actually found one of these, surprisingly. I thought they were all destroyed after the 70’s.
“ADULT SIZED HIPPITY-HOP” - To be honest, I wish I did find one of these. Imagine going to work like that?
“WEEBLES” - Unfortunately, she asked for these like 2 years ago. If only she wanted them in 1975 when I had them.
“THE APPLE CLOCK FROM GRAFTON ST..” - She still brings this one up. We lived there in like 1976-1977. That is so 5 minutes ago.
“A BIIIIIG GLOBE” - I asked “How big”? She answered “AS BIG AS THE WORLD”. If only she knew that this was a Steven Wright joke.
The best one of all time, was:
“ A DUH-Z-DO”.
She had been asking my mom & I for one of these for a long time. We just attributed this to some nonsensical thing in her mind somewhere. She also called up my father to ask for one too. This guy doesn’t understand her in general, much less be able to field a request like this. Usually he needs me there when he visits her. So she calls him for this, and he of course doesn’t know what it is. He asks her to spell it, and she does so (without missing a beat) phonetically: “D-U-H HYPHEN Z, HYPHEN D-O…. DUH-Z-DO”. Needless to say, Mr Wizard writes this down exactly & starts going all over Boston to look for one. He went to Filene’s, Jordan Marsh, Sears & even to Strawberries just in case it was music she was looking for. He worked for the MBTA & he asked all of his friends there as well. He went everywhere in an effort to please her.
Meanwhile back at her group home, Heather tells my mom that she drew a picture of the duh-z-do and asked her if she can hang it on her wall. My mom in a daze says “sure”. (after being with Heather for a while, you say ‘sure’ to almost everything). Then the next day the staff at her home calls my mom up. They ask: “Mrs Pomeroy, did you give Heather permission to hang a picture up on her wall?” She admits as much: “Yeah.. she wanted to hang a picture of the Duh-z-do she’s been talking about all of the time. What’s wrong? Is there a problem with the picture”? The staff replies “Ummm… do you know what a duh-z-do is”? Of course, she does not. The staff then reveals: “ It’s a man’s genitals Mrs Pomeroy”.
So here my dad was looking all over Boston for something that he HAD all of the time. One of my dad’s work friends asked him after Christmas “Hey Chet, did you ever find that thing your daughter wanted”? My dad quickly replied, “It’s your balls, Jim”!!
For the record, I saw the picture she drew. And it wasn’t just a drawing; she had cut the phallic shape out of red construction paper and pasted it on a white background. It was like 4 feet long. I wish I were there when the first staff member walked into Heather’s room and saw this thing. Imagine an enormous cock & balls over her bed staring at you.
Hey, at least she makes it clear to what she wants. And I just can’t wait for next year
