Pam Sultan considered herself a modern woman, independent and in control. She had a job on Wall Street, a great social life, but she had no idea how to deal with the water rushing from her clogged toilet.
What`s a modern woman like Sultan to do? Instead of settling for some guy who knows how to use a wrench and charges $65 for the service, she might want to plunge in and invest $12.95 in ”The Modern Woman`s Guide to Life” (Harper & Row).
It`s the thinking-but-10-thumbed woman`s entree into the wonderful world of toilet repair, self-defense and good poker bluffs. In short, there`s info on everything from aplomb to zygotes.
Authors Elizabeth Chapman, Maggie Kassner and Karen Kriberney polled friends, family and total strangers on some aspect of the daily grind they had mastered. The book is a result of this collective kvetching, and it contains some solid and fascinating wisdom.
If you plan to become a stripper, for instance, it`s best to always perform on the sly, advises contributor Amelia Dunlop. ”Never tell anyone at your day job that you strip,” Amelia says. ”Lots of people will hold it against you for some reason.”
”Our assumption was that everybody`s an expert at something,” claims Kassner, a New Yorker who has weathered her share of daily disasters. ”But most of us have forgotten what it is. Women of my mother`s generation were given a solid grounding in practical household information, like how long to cook a pork roast. Women of my generation just don`t know a lot of this stuff.”
The book, which is part social commentary and part Encyclopaedia Britannica-”we think of it as a grownup Girl Scout handbook,” says Kassner- also reveals things your mother/aunt/sisters never told you, claim its authors. Such as:
– How to prepare seven edible facials.
– How to bluff at poker and how to bluff an orgasm (essentially, they`re the same skill, say the authors, so you need to master only one).
– How to troubleshoot the furnace.
– How to choose the right knife to carve a rib roast.
”We researched every response in the book and they`re all tried and true, although we do offer disclaimers on some of the folk remedies,” Kassner says. ”We thought it would be really helpful to have a wide-ranging reference work that could help people in a pinch.”
The bottom line here seems to be, when the going gets tough, all modern women need is a ”Modern Woman`s Guide to Life.”
”None of this stuff is really going to change your life, but it might affect your outlook,” Kassner says. ”Once you learn that it`s not such a big deal to buy a CD player, just think of the possibilities!”
