To the Last Man I Slept with and All the Jerks Just Like Him by Gwendolyn Zepeda

trash women, frumpy or not, seemed to have no such hesitation. They fell into three main types: those who sang in Baptist choirs and were proud to show off their God-given talent, those who obviously practiced for hours each day until their voices were indistinguishable from Patsy Cline’s, and those who were too drunk to care what they sounded like. Most of them took advantage of the KJ’s $5 recording service and went home with taped memorials of their successes.
    We went back to the bar on subsequent occasions. Eventually, an amaretto sour gave me the courage to choke out song. The KJ whispered basic vocalization techniques with his hand over his microphone. “Breath! Sing Louder!” Shamefully, I imagined what any of my old voice coaches would have said if they’d seen.
    All the way home I sang the song as I should have, anger and determination giving me back my voice. “Okay, that’s enough,” my husband finally said.
    The next time we went, it was my twenty-six or twenty-seventh birthday. We’d dropped our three kids off at my mother-in-law’s for the evening and I was ready to make the most of it. After two amaretto sours, I slammed the big book open to my dream karaoke song, “Last Dance,” by Her Disco Highness, Donna Summers.

    “I don’t think these people are gonna wanna hear that,” my husband said.
    “I don’t care,” I replied. I put my name on the list and, before I had time to chicken out, it was my turn.
    I got up on stage and told myself that this was my last chance. Last dance, last chance for love. I sang my freaking heart out. Everyone in the bar hooted, whistled, and danced. I nailed the high note so beautifully, the KJ played it back on his recorder for everyone to hear again.
    Strangers congratulated and complimented me as I made my way back to my husband’s pool table. Then a little man in a big black cowboy hat got up and belted out something by the Village People. Then someone else sang something by the Bee Gees. We all danced together. I had shown them the magic of disco. For one night, I had touched their lives.
    I glowed with pride all the way through the next pool game and then through our meal at the International House of Pancakes.
    Throughout the years that followed, I reminisced about that night and looked forward to the next time that I’d have that much fun.
    Day-to-Day
    All the feminist literature I’d read in college had warned against the entrapment of housewifery. Nonetheless, I’d decided to stay home with the kids until they were old enough to go to school. I’d had bad experiences at daycare centers when I was a child, and I wanted my kids to have better childhoods than mine. The women who’d written the feminist books didn’t understand my culture. I was nineteen years old. I knew what I was doing.
    Housework was heinous and I did as little of it as I could get away with. My kids were fabulous and I did as much as I could to show them my love. Boredom was inevitable and

    I fought it with everything at my disposal. Here is what I did over the next few years:
    •  Gardened.
    •  Sewed.
    •  Dropped out of college.
    •  Crocheted doilies.
    •  Baked bread.
    •  Developed weird little obsessions.
    •  Made piñatas for my kids’ birthdays.
    •  Taught the kids to dance to Mexican music, just in case we ever went back to my hometown and danced like I used to before I got married.
    •  Fought with my husband until I cried.
    •  Drove the kids to soccer practice.
    •  Took the kids to the library.
    •  Held my kids in my arms until they fell asleep, and then I cried.
    •  Gathered pecans, shelled them, and made pecan pies.
    •  Spread newspapers all over the dining room table and taught the kids to paint.
    •  Visited my mother-in-law.
    •  Yelled at my kids and spanked them. Then I cried.
    •  Killed ants and roaches.
    •  Fed stray cats.
    •  Taught myself to use my husband’s computer.
    •  Taught my