An exact replica of a figment of my imagination: a memoir by Elizabeth McCracken Page A

didn’t ask. Her teaching style appealed to us, because like auto safety professionals everywhere her message was: YOU COULD EASILY GET DECAPITATED OR DECAPITATE SOMEONE ELSE! But! DECAPITATION IS EASY TO PREVENT IF YOU AREN’T DUMB AND CARELESS LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. The worst could happen, here’s how to minimize it. That’s what we wanted.
    We started the class with a short test, which included the question “What is an accident?”
    The answer she was looking for: an accident is force times mass. That is, she wanted to impress upon us that in an accident, loose objects in the car — water bottles, spare change, and so forth — could become imbedded in, or pass through, your child. Everything should be locked in the trunk, though purses were fine as long as they were zipped shut and seat-belted in.
    We’d already had our seat installed at the local firehouse by two policemen who’d struggled with the job. One had the sort of authoritative, well-tended mustache that only police or firemen can carry off; the other was tall and curly-haired. Together they crawled into the backseat of our car and frowned. “This is a hard car,” one had said, and I theorized that the Cadillac Catera — my parents had given it to us when they’d bought a new Subaru — had not been designed for the childbearing demographic. The policemen pushed and pulled and used a wedge of foam noodles duct-taped together, and then, as they showed us how to buckle a baby doll into the removable seat, told us not to move the base if we could avoid it. We told them we were taking a class in a few days, but we wouldn’t let the teacher move it. “You’re taking a class with Cindy?” one of the policemen said. He looked frankly a little frightened.
    Cindy, it turned out, had taught the policemen how to install seats, and she was skeptical about the foam noodles. “Right,” she said. “Let’s see what one woman can accomplish compared to two men.” In three minutes she’d reinstalled the seat without the noodles, and then she taught Edward.
    “Can I keep this?” she asked, slapping her palm with the noodle wedge like an old-fashioned movie policeman with his nightstick. “I’m going to see those guys next week at a safety event, and I’d like to give them this as a present.”
    3. An infant care class at the local hospital. In truth, neither Edward nor I knew anything about babies. Surely most of it was on-the-job training, but some advice on, say, diaper changing and bathing would help. For the first three hours of this session, the labor and delivery nurse who taught it explained the various things that could make your newborn baby look unsightly — stork bites; tarry black stool; rashes of all kinds; thick, greasy, channel-swimming fat; back hair; lumps from vacuum deliveries; dents from forceps deliveries.
    Then we got on the issue of circumcision.
    Perhaps the only real conversation Edward and I have ever had on the subject of religion came after our wedding. We’d been married with dueling officiants, now the village priest and his sonorous voice and official vows, now the American rabbi and the smashed glass and cries of mazel tov. I had been late to the service. To fill time, the church organist played first “If I Were a Rich Man” and then “Jesus Christ Superstar.” In other words, it had taken some work to appeal to both of our families.
    “My mother says the next thing to worry about is christenings and circumcisions,” I said to him.
    “No to both,” he said, and we solemnly shook hands on it.
    So I didn’t say anything at all about it when the topic came up: we knew what we’d do. The nurse, who’d already distinguished herself by saying that the administration of eye salve was mandated in “all forty-eight states,” was clearly completely and totally against circumcision but knew that she couldn’t say so. Well, not in so many words. “The United States,” she said, “is the only so-called