The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
By Charles BuschMarjorie, a pretentious Manhattan intellectual married to a retired allergist, defends herself agains the accusation that she should "do some volunteer work." Comic in its ridiculousness.
MARJORIE:
I am the Queen of Volunteer workers. A brigadier general in the army of volunteers. What do you think I've been doing for the past thirty years? Planned Parenthood, Dance Theatre of Harlem. I gave my life's blood to the Lenox Hill Thrift Shop. Every week, I was in that back room on my hands and knees unpacking every filthy box, sorting through garments stiff from sweat and urine. Every day I saw the other volunteers ransack the shop for any rag with a designer label.
Then by chance, buried in a box of moldy paperbacks, I discover a first-edition hardcover of "Siddhartha" in mint condition, still with the original dust jacket, and personally inscribed by Herman Hesse. I put it aside, making it abundantly clear to everyone that I intended to buy it myself. "To buy" - that is the operative phrase here. I come back the next day. "Where's my book? Where is 'Siddhartha'? The manager, Libby Fleishman, says, "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that you put that aside. I sold it to a dealer." It was an act of deliberate cruelty.
I went to the hospital board and exposed Libby's operation of selling directly to antique dealers and getting a personal cut. They demanded proof but none of the other volunteers would back me up. I was humiliated, disgraced and betrayed.
So I have done my share of volunteer work. I have chopped the vegetables, driven the meals on wheels, registered people to vote, pushed the hospital cart, stufed the mailing, licked the envelopes, worked the hotline, sewn the quilt, saved the whales, served everyone's needs but my own. Well, what about my needs? Who's gonna volunteer to save me?
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