Pulling out of the driveway, my mom suddenly jumps and screams "GEORGE!" as if we had just backed over a toddler. "Stop the car," she says. "We can't leave without my pishvi." I sink a little in my seat as my dad slams on the brakes. Pronounced "PISH-vee," this is the made-up word she uses to denote a special kind of tote bag. It is the "evenings out" tote bag-red with white embroidery of a vaguely south Asian nature. I had learned to loathe the pishvi.

In and of itself, it is a fine shoulder bag of sorts-the kind that says, "Ask me about my 1984 sabbatical in India and you're in for a real treat of a slideshow!" No, it's the contents and context of the pishvi that's the problem. Around 95% of the time it hangs, empty, lifeless, and benign, inside the front door closet. The weeks go by and it gets pushed even further behind my mom's various jackets and overcoats with their tattered linings and musty smell of, well, unfashionableness.

But then comes the occasional Friday or Saturday night when the pishvi is called into service. According to ritual, the pishvi must be forgotten and then miraculously remembered en route to the downtown Portland restaurant. Usually this takes place in the driveway, but if the revelation comes half a mile down the road, we must pull a 180. We are to wait in the car for the customary ten minutes while my mom prepares the pishvi.

Finally, she emerges, slamming the door and brandishing the now-bursting pishvi. My dad scowls at his watch and mutters, "God damn powerplay," as my mom spins on her heels and returns to set the alarm system. It's highly unlikely that our squat, 1970s yellow house will ever be burglarized. But this isn't about safety. This is about control. My dad protests by drumming his fingers on the wheel, but he's a little, funny Jewish man, and so it's positively adorable when he tries to be angry.

My mom sits regally in the passenger seat, balancing her bulging pishvi on her lap. It holds a lifetime supply of containers, for we are not allowed to set foot in any kind of eatery without our own doggie bags.

As we enter the restaurant, the hostess gives us a look that says-at least to my eleven-year-old self-that we are a bag family, coming in off the streets after a long day feeding pigeons and babbling to ourselves. As she leads us to our table, I feel like every eye is seizing us up. "Look at those orange polyester pants!" I imagine all the crisply dressed diners gesturing at my mom. "What kind of parents don't make their kids clean up a little for a nice dinner out?" they seem to be saying at my hole-y Yale sweatshirt and wild hair. The pishvi is the icing on my pre-teen shame cake.

My mom approaches fine dining much like a village looter. She takes no prisoners, preferring to rape or set afire that which she can't take with her. Eyes mean behind her huge glasses, she scans her surroundings: bread basket, garlic chive butter, my sister's pan seared halibut.

"Are you done with that corn cake?"

"Can I pack up that last ravioli of yours?"

All of our plates must migrate to my mom throughout the meal so that she can loudly scrape the remains into ancient yoghurt containers with faded labels and mismatched lids. Once a dish is scraped, she uses her finger as a spatula, wiping it on the side of the container and then loudly sucking her finger clean. I can't tell if the tables around us are staring because my gaze is locked on my water glass in hopes that, if I concentrate hard enough on the beads running down the side, my mom will disappear.

When the server tries to clear the empty plates, she swats him away. "Not yet," she says gesturing at the containers that line the entirety of our table. "I'm taking that pesto sauce home with me." Then she adds, "But could you bring more bread?" A new loaf is placed beneath the white napkin and she deftly disappears it into the depths of her pishvi.

I often complained to my dad about the public embarrassment that doubled as my mother. I thought surely he'd understand. After all, he was well groomed and presentable, especially when a shiny stethoscope could be seen peeking out of his shirt pocket. Granted, my mom had one too but it was usually hidden in her battered briefcase. My dad and I were like two peas in a non-embarrassment pod, I thought. But, he just looked up from his book, smiled, and said, "Relax, they'll never see you again." This was true when it came to strangers, but then there was that whole category of people I had to deal with on a daily basis.

For school lunches, my mom overcooked a hotdog in the microwave and tossed its shriveled carcass into a plastic bag from the produce section of our local grocery store. Then, she'd squirt a generous dose of ketchup down into the steamy baggy, giving it a spin and locking the warm, soggy mess with a twisty tie. That was what I brought to the bargaining table each lunch hour in the gym/auditorium. It was a place where one's tradable goods equated personal worth, and so it was understood that I was valued in the same ballpark as a flaming sack of poop.

Ann Harwood lived in a palatial estate, and it followed that she always had Swiss Rolls neatly packed in a Ziplock bag. But, she was kind, often gifting her edible riches to the less fortunate. This, I somehow knew, was due to her being half-Democrat. Yet still, my dad would shake his fist and cheer, "Wait till the revolution!" as he maneuvered our bumperstickered station wagon around the Harwood's various Suburbans in their stately turn-around driveway.

Moving down the lunch table, Katie Cassidy had Gushers and a chain of upscale seafood restaurants that shared her surname. Chelsea Miller had Lunchables and conducted clothing label inspection after the consumption of said Lunchable. Brittany Anderson, whose father had a warehouse-like garage for his car collection, had strawberries during the off-season. Jacqueline Berry, oftentimes still wearing horseback riding boots from before-school lessons, had little sandwiches that looked like they belonged on a platter. Together, they had sharing/trading capital, nicknames, and-most enviable of all-group membership. Whereas I trailed hotdog stank behind me everywhere I went.

Thankfully, lunchtime feelings of inferiority could be tossed discreetly in the trash along with my soiled hotdog baggy. Upon hearing the lunch monitor's whistle, I'd make a dash for the exit, eager to prove myself in other arenas like sprinting, or the ever-popular "Slide Monster." In later years that would turn into a dash for the exit, eager to wield my special-issue library pass. It was laminated. It said, "ALL YEAR." And it did not specify the year.

My mom had a very good reason for not buying me the individually packaged food that would have made me popular: it was bad for the environment. The environment held a lot of sway in our house.

We always hear about man's ravages upon nature, but what about nature's ravages upon us? The environment was why I never had Handysnacks, why I never had Fruit-by-the-Foot, why I never had Capri Sun, and why I never had friends.

Perhaps I give Mother Nature a bad rap. Let's not forget Mother Feldman, from whose fertile womb sprang forth my unhappiness.

My unhappiness fell into three categories-food, clothing, and housing. All of which could be traced back to my mom, like civilization to Mesopotamia.

Clothing was not about clothing. Clothing was about belonging-that desperate, soul-wrenching desire to be liked. In 4th grade, my clothes tried so very hard to say, "No, no! I'm one of you guys! We wear the same lipgloss, the same skort." I longed to be like everyone else. Individuality was reserved for one day a year: Halloween. My costumes were so creative they bordered on mentally retarded. One year I was an Ecuadorian. Another year I was a dinner table, complete with place settings and a flower vase duct taped to a visor on my head. For the other 364 days of the year, I struggled for sameness--for even a single compliment that acknowledged the existence of that sameness. And I thought-wrongly, it turned out-that something called Palazzo pants were the answer.

Palazzo pants could take many different forms, from hippy to classy, from batik to subdued floral. For the most part, they looked kind of like a flowy skirt made into pant legs-beautiful, breathable pant legs. They had drape and swing, and I wanted them.

Only Chelsea Miller had pants in the Palazzo family, and so I knew this was my chance to be a trendsetter. It was a rare and momentous occasion, like spotting a unicorn in a clearing. Let's imagine that exact scene for a moment, actually. The unicorn grazes obliviously, its mane fluttering ever so slightly in the wind. Suddenly, it freezes, and for a moment I fear it will bound away. But then it looks up and says kindly, "Come, Kiera. Ride away to Popular Land with me." And you just can't say no to a talking unicorn.

"Pa-what pants?" my mom asks while running a plastic bag under the faucet. "Do you really need new clothes?" She turns off the water, gives the bag a shake, and spreads it out to dry on top of the dish rack. If her blonde perm hadn't been blocking the kitchen window, I would have seen a unicorn rear back, its horn casting a glint from the sun before disappearing into the woods.

"Yes," I say, trying to keep my voice steady. I could feel a shouting match coming on strong. But maybe-just maybe-it could be avoided through sheer force of argumentation. "Mom, just think about it. They'redressy casual."

She opens a deep drawer and plunges her arm inside, emerging again with a package of Oreos. So that's where she had hidden them. She takes a bite, and through the crunching and smacking says, "There's a whole drawer of perfectly good clothes downstairs." It was true: therewas a whole drawer of clothes in the basement, but I didn't agree with the "perfectly good" assessment. My sister's clothes were nine years out of fashion. My brother's clothes, although a mere five years out of fashion, were simply out of the question. Besides, she was missing the point. Clothes aren't just things to keep you warm and decent.

I try again. "The only new clothes I ever get are from Grandma," I say. That wasn't quite true. Babysitters often eyed my shabby clothing as if I were a street urchin in a Save the Children commercial. The next day they would show up with an armload of fashionable hand-me-downs, which I happily accepted. I think it had something to do with them being Jehovah's Witnesses.

"Well," my mom says, her voice rising at the mention of her mother-in-law, "Grandma isn't supposed to be buying you new wardrobes all the time like that."

My jab had hit a sensitive spot; it feltgreat.

"You have a whole closet full of clothes," she continues, drying her hands angrily on the dishtowel. "You're not going to break me down on this one."

I eye the plastic bag as it deflates. When its wet insides begin to stick together, I take it as my cue: Palazzo pants or bust. And so what had begun innocently enough quickly degenerated into a screaming match, the details of which I'll withhold for fear of incriminating myself as a whiny little bitch.

After the obligatory door slam, I creep down the hall, trying not to make the wood beneath the shag carpet creak while I eavesdrop.

"George, we give in on this and she'll think she can get anything she wants if she argues hard enough," my mom whispers fiercely.

"This isn't about that, Ginny. Don't you remember being her age?" It's hard to hear but I catch my mom saying something about "materialism" and "…daughter like this." My dad responds with something about "peer pressure" and "grade school shitheads." Bless him. In the end, either his logic won out or my mom got tired. Either way, I got to choose a tasteful Palazzo pant-vest combo at the mall.

And so I rode my unicorn to school the next day. I dismounted, having reached Popular Land at last. Filled with high hopes, I strode across the schoolyard, the wind billowing my pant legs. I breathed deeply, armed with confidence, and took in my surroundings. Where was the harpsichord, the never-ending Icee machine? Popular Land wasn't quite living up to its heavenly expectations, but I could wait. Give it time and I knew the air would smell like cotton candy, puppies would roam the playground, and someone would compliment my outfit.

Home Room and Social Studies come and go. Nothing. Finally it's recess. I linger by my target group, nervously touching my hair (which I had brushed for the first time since I could remember). And then, miracle upon miracles, they turn toward me and look me up and down.This is it, I think.

"Something's…different," Katie Cassidy says. I grin stupidly, remembering too late to purse my lips to cover up my mouthful of crooked teeth. Braces were years off. I wasn't even through speech therapy yet.

"Yeah," Brittany Anderson says. "You look kind of like John Lennon. You know, with the glasses. And the hair." John Lennon? That's just confusing. But then I realize what was going on. It was an insult.

Chelsea Miller weighs in while teasing her precociously highlighted hair. "I like the navy and white check pattern thing. Did you get those at Goodwill?" In pre-teen lexicon, that was the equivalent of a racial slur. Worse yet, some of the boys joined in laughing.

"Check out those pleats," they say pointing at my Palazzo pants. "I think my mom donated a pair just like those to Goodwill last month." Suddenly I feel like I have the contents of an entire Goodwill outlet store piled on my chest. I lisp a doomed defense, dropping department store names and offering proof of purchase.

I never wear the Palazzo pants again, opting instead to fold them and place them carefully in my dresser. Every once in a while I will open the drawer and pat the material lovingly. Eventually the pants and their matching vest will be given away to Goodwill.

One day, sometime after the Palazzo pants disaster, I invited Chelsea Miller over to my house. It might seem ill-advised given recent events, but this is the stuff life is made of: solicited blows to the emotional stomach. In this case, I opened myself up to a Roundhouse kick.

Your house and therefore you are cool based on two things: what there is to eat and what there is to do. My house was lacking in both departments. The cabinets-filled with ketchup packets and stacks of empty yoghurt containers-were as good as barren. As for entertainment, sometime around 4^th or 5^th grade my mom installed a child's lock on the television. Between the kitchen and the TV room, my house had the play date appeal of a sanitation plant.

The school bus takes Chelsea and me up through the wooded roads of our neighborhood, struggling mightily to make the hairpin turns. My thoughts rise above the din of children fighting and flirting amid the plastic-scented seats. I worry about bigger things: what would Chelsea think of my house? How would we pass the time? Had my mom, during the course of her day off work, restored the disorder I had frantically tidied before catching the bus that morning? She was prone to flurries of activity that left a trail of books, papers, and open cupboards in her wake. I followed her room to room, straightening everything she touched, demanding, "Why can't you clean up after yourself?" Left home alone, who knew what kind of mess she had made.

Walking up the street to my house, Chelsea expertly arranges her barrettes while I entertain hopes that my mom will be mysteriously absent. But, there in the carport is her battered station wagon with its strategically placed bumper stickers ("VISUALIZE WHIRLED PEAS" over the scrape on the lower left hand side, "HONK IF YOU LOVE PEACE AND QUIET" and "STRAIGHT BUT NOT NARROW" over the big dent on the upper right hand side). I was not the lute-playing earth child that should have gone with that hippy mobile. I wantedthings. Specifically, more of them, and badly; my mom wanted to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Chelsea glances from the mossy roof to the dirty, crooked siding to the overgrown rhododendrons that look like they're trying to eat the house. I hurry us inside.

"Do you want anything to drink? Water? Milk?" my mom asks while pulling two mugs from a shelf. I drink tap water from "Kaiser Permanente: Different from the Ground Up" and Chelsea drinks from "Physicians for Social Responsibility." My mom isn't so much anti-glass as she is pro-handle.

"So what do you want to do?" I ask Chelsea. She shrugs and glances at the kitchen, dining room, and living room. Matters of food and entertainment aside, by neighborhood standards my house is powerfully dumpy. The shag carpet is worn. The plastic kitchen countertops are taped at the corners. The sideboard in the dining room is a metal picnic table covered with a burnt orange tablecloth. I had a long list of household grievances to which my mom would reply, "Youknowthat kind of thing isn't important to this family." But, to me it was. I often spent hours studying catalogues that came in the mail, dreaming of homes that weren't mine.

"Let's see what's in the fridge," I tell Chelsea, as if we could spend all afternoon skipping and laughing in there. I swing open the door and immediately wish I hadn't.

"Why do you have all those mugs with yoghurt container lids on them?" Chelsea asks. Her vacation-tanned face quickly changes from sulky to morbidly curious. She looks like she's watching a tow truck remove the remains of a five-car pile-up.

For a moment I flirt with the idea of explaining that pouring milk down the drain is wasteful and that my mom will get around to finishing those last few sips eventually. The alternate explanation is that I had tried to empty all her mugs that morning, only to have been caught in a familiar scene: my mom argues that they're not mine to empty, I retort that any normal person should feel compelled to pry them from the refrigerator shelf (to which they are firmly cemented with dried milk).

I shut the refrigerator door wearily. It's going to be a long afternoon. But then I remember the Ramen noodles my mom had recently bought at the store. How easily the environment is forgotten during a ten-for-$1 sale! We'll gorge ourselves on package after package until we happily sink into a deep Ramen coma (the best kind of coma).

When the noodles are done I divide them into two portions-one meager (mine) and one heaping (Chelsea's). I serve us at the dining room table, fussing like an Italian mother. This is to be our crowning moment, perhaps heralding a new order. I have packaged food to share; the days of microwaved hotdogs are through. I am now a somebody-just like everyone else.

I finish my bowl and turn to Chelsea with a big, crooked grin. Chelsea pushes her mountain of noodles back and forth in the bowl.

"What's wrong?" I ask, trying to keep the sound of heartache out of my voice.

"Oh, nothing," Chelsea says, giving her noodles a few more pokes. Then she adds, "It's just that I don't feel like eating." A miserable silence follows. Finally Chelsea blurts, "Your house smells weird, I'm sorry."

Stop for a moment and imagine all the times you've ever heard "I think we should be friends, I'm sorry" or "I think we should stop seeing each other, I'm sorry." That is precisely what it felt like.

I wish I could say I grew out of these feelings-the Palazzo pants feeling, the Ramen noodles feeling-but no one ever does. You might as well try to outgrow hunger or having to go to the bathroom. Luckily, though, you grow into your emotions. Like a once-hated hand-me-down, there comes a day when you open the dresser drawer and think, "My ass will look great in these." When I open my own dresser drawer, I realize that my house simply smells like home, and even if it did smell like butt, at least it's mine.

My mom and I are older now, as tends to be the case after the passage of time. Once, during my first year of college, my mom sent an opened box of Wheat Thins in a care package. There were two bags in the cracker box--one unopened and one crumb-filled. A friend poked at it suspiciously, as if to ask, "Whodoesthat?" I was a little overworked and lonely, and so I appreciated my mom's zany kindness more than ever. I could see her about to lash the package with tape, and then maybe she stopped, looked around the kitchen, and wondered if she could fit anything more in there. These are the things we do for the people we love--even the people who have pushed us and our pishvis away.

"Did you know," I say to a friend who is telling me about her birth control preferences, "that my mom once gave a diaphragm fitter as a gift?" As we walk to dinner I brag about my mom like a proud parent. I describe her retirement party, how she thanked her co-workers by giving them each a memento from her office. It was a touching gesture, and not just because the gifts themselves had literally touched so many people.

"ANNIE!" I shout, stopping suddenly. She looks at me with alarm. "Wait here for a second," I say, spinning on my heels. "I forgot my containers."