Margareta Gets Her Belly Button Pierced

Margareta got her belly button pierced. I didn’t even know this was going to happen. Here’s how I found out: I came home from work one night last week and, as I do every night when I come home from work and more out of habit than anything else, I said to Helene, “Anybody out tonight?” The kids all have jobs. They take music lessons and play sports. Chances are somebody is going to be out. We were in the kitchen, Helene and I. I was twisting the top off a bottle of beer and Helene was readying a salad for dinner.

She replied, “Just me and Margareta. I’m taking her to get her belly button pierced.”

I looked over at her, the bottle cap on my bottle of beer only half twisted off. “Come again?” I said, convinced I had misheard what she said.

“Margareta is getting her belly button pierced tonight,” Helene said, not even looking up from the salad she was making. “After dinner,” she said. “I’m taking her.”

I put the bottle of beer down on the counter beside the sink, unopened. “She’s gonna what?”

Helene said, still not looking up from her salad, “It’s a fashion thing. You know what teenaged girls are like.”

“But it’s 25 below outside,” I said. “Who’s gonna see it?”

Margareta came into the room. “What’s for supper,” she said, unaware of the conversion I was having with her mother.

“Needles and pins,” I said.

“What?” she said, looking at me with a screwed up, ‘what-are-you-talking-about’ look on her face. Then she looked across at her mom. “What’s dad talking about?”

Helene finished tossing the salad and put the bowl to one side. Then she started slicing chicken breasts into strips. “I told him about your belly button,” she said.

Instinctively, Margareta folded her hands across her stomach. “Mom!”

Helene shrugged. “He was bound to find out,” she said.

I looked at Margarta. “Why on earth do you want to poke a hole in your belly button?” I said. “Look at your Aunt Linda. If you can,” I said, wagging a finger. “Hers is all infected. Has been from the get go. And what if the – I don’t even know what it is they clamp onto you down there – but what if it gets caught in your shirt when you’re trying pull the shirt up over your head? You’ll be doing backflips.”

“Dad!”

“I’m serious,” I said. “It’s a belly button you’ve got down there, not a button hole. If God had wanted you to poke a hole in your belly button – ”

“OK, OK,” Helene said, tapping her knife on the counter like a judge with a gavel.

“If you are really intent on mutilating yourself in this manner I could save you money,” I said, looking at Margareta. “I could make the hole. I’ve got all kinds of tools in the basement. Surely there’s something, a drill or something or maybe a small screwdriver –

“And you’ll need a grass skirt, too,” I said.

“What for?” Margareta said.

I picked my beer bottle up off the counter and slowly twisted the top off of it. “Well, once you get the belly button done you may as well get the grass skirt that goes with it and start your own belly dancer business,” I said. “You could rent yourself out to Hawaiian-themed parties. I’ll even lend you my Aloha From Hawaii tapes.”

“Go easy on her,” Helene said, finishing off the chicken breasts and scraping them from the cutting board into the frying pan. “Remember how when you were a teenager you had blue suede shoes with 7-inch leather heels?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But I didn’t have to poke holes in my feet to put them on.”

Kids today. I’ll never understand them.