Things Are Looking Up

It came to my attention today as I was blotting up a coffee spill with the Business section of the newspaper that

A)     If they reduce the page size any more, it will be like reading the headlines in the small print section of my Kia contract, and

B)     Rolls Royce, kiddie car of billionaires, is enjoying a boom in sales.

I’m not sure these two findings are unrelated.  Lifestyles vary between the Rolls Royce set and the “I hope it keeps rolling” set. Just look up the prices and you’ll understand the difference.

While newspapers are edging us toward the “squinting is in” theory to conserve money, Rolls Royce is doling out luxury cars like concessionaires deal $10 beers at the ball park.  To those of us still trying to work out a payment plan for the beer, the idea of dashing off a $400,000 check for a car, even one that has tiny overhead lights that make the roof look like a heaven of twinkling stars, would be like stuffing a gold bar into a birthday card for a niece we don’t have time to shop for.  “Can’t get away; buy yourself something nice.”

At the Dubai WalMart.

I realize that there are jobs that come with more perks than mine. What would I do with dental insurance that makes it possible to collect enough teeth to eat toasted pecans, enough time off to catch the red-eye flight to Paris, white-gloved butlers who serve tea with extra lumps?

The last time I got lumps at the office, I was crammed under my desk trying to figure out which wire to jiggle so the mouse would work.  Since I’m the only one there, I would get stuck up with red tape if I filed for Worker’s Comp, so I scolded myself for negligence and stuck a Band-Aid on the sore spot instead.

I’ve never figured out how to get one of those other jobs: jobs that pay dividends instead of money and come with enough compensation that you can hire someone to remember the secret password (Jeeves, what is my mother’s maiden name again?) to your Fandango account. Those are lifestyles and are referred to as something you’re into, not something you do.  (He’s into stocks and bonds or investment banking.)  By comparison, I’m not really into filing six months of committee reports, but I’ll be up to my agenda in paperwork if I don’t.

So it’s not likely that I’ll be pulling up to the office in a Rolls Royce Phantom any time soon.  But you can bet your Silver Shadow I know how to see the twinkling stars in the sky without paying extra.

Just look up.

50 is Not a Speed Trap - For Lisa

This is the post I ran on my 50th birthday. Since then I've done some crazy things (ditched the family Thanksgiving dinner for a weekend at the beach-fabulous!), experienced some unusual events (so glad I didn't have to use that catheter on the Captain), and took off on some spur-of-the-moment adventures (Ghassan's for lunch, anyone?). This time around this post is for Lisa. There's still time to change the world. Fifty isn't fatal. It's a fantastic voyage. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!


Some of my friends are slowing down for 50. Not me. I'm hitting the gas and leaving three feet of tire marks and twenty dollars worth of fumes behind me. I'm not complaining about my life so far--I'm married to the man of my dreams who hardly ever looks at me like I've taken leave of my senses, and I have two sons who can play Guitar Hero like they were born with Stratocasters in their hands. I just don't want the next 50 years to be the second lap of the same race.

Sure, I'm slower. I'm slower to get angry. And I'm heavier. I’m carrying some wonderful memories along with me. But they don't have a parking space near the Pearly Gates reserved for those that are pokey and fat. So, God willing, I’m gathering myself up to forge ahead, full throttle, without thinking whether this 5-0 bump in the road will send me soaring into the blue or skidding into a ditch.

I'm going flat out, full speed, wide open and see where it takes me. Whether it’s around the next left-hand turn or into the pit, there’s a story waiting to unfold. I’ll have plenty of time later when I'm done with the race and waiting to see who comes in second to check out the rear view and see what I left behind. If I'm still interested.

I'm going to make as many people laugh as I can today, I’ll put off crying until tomorrow, and I’ll learn to dance the can-can without throwing out a hip.

I can hunt the liniment and bandages later. And maybe I'll color my hair. WalMart stays open all night.

Wonder if they’ll rotate my tires.

Drip Dry

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what happens to my towels. There are times I think the door to my bathroom leads to some sort of lavatorial Bermuda triangle where terrycloth goes to die.

Today my husband disappeared into the bathroom to take a shower. Seconds later he pried the door open a crack and stuck his head out.

“Have you washed towels lately?”

“Have you shaved your legs lately?”

“I’m not trying to be sexist. I just want to dry off.”

“Yesterday I washed everything that resembled a towel. I even threw in that funny sweater your mother gave you.”

“That’s not terry cloth.”

“Well it’s certainly not made of anything that Mother Nature has to offer.”

The door closed. I heard furtive searching sounds coming from the bathroom closet. Seconds later he peered out of the door crack with one distraught eye.

“What’s the matter?”

“All that’s left is the hooded froggie towel from when the kids were little, and the pink velour with the floral design.”

“Go for the flowers. The frog repels moisture. You can dry on that thing for half an hour and still retain enough water to qualify as a camel.”

Later that night I found six hand towels and a frayed wash cloth drying on the towel rack. I guess he didn’t want to take any chances with the rose buds. I tossed them all in the laundry.

It’s not that we don’t own other towels. If all the terry cloth in our possession were draped across the Atlantic, the ocean would dry up quicker than Bernie Madoff’s revenue streams the day the subpoena surfaced.

But our towels are given to vanishing when emergencies arise. Harry Houdini would have been envious of the sleight of hand towels we’ve experienced.

The day that the Captain of my oil pan kept screaming for something to wipe the dipstick with when he was checking my fluids, the festive holiday guest towels disappeared. The day Son One and Son Two were heard arguing over who was to blame for the massive Fruit Loop spill on the living room shag, the blue velour towels I got for Mother’s Day went missing. The day we adopted the third puppy, I took out stock in cotton futures.

There’s nothing I can do about the towels that are already gone, but there are preventive measures I can take to guard against these towel-thieving guys.

First thing Monday morning, I’m heading to Wal-Mart to snag a buggy full of pink velour towels with a floral design.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll hang the froggie on the towel rack year round and let ‘em drip dry. The living room shag will thank me for it.

Traveling Shoes

For a trip to Wal-Mart last weekend, I wore dress pants and heels. For a wedding at the Ritz last month, I wore pantyhose with no feet and carried my shoes. I use my copy of Dress for Success to even up the slope under the litter box where the builder got a little crazy with his leveling tool.

Granted my trip to WalMart came just after church, a place I generally visit wearing matching clothes, or at least the ones from the end-of-the bed pile that I’m fairly certain are clean.

I bought new shoes to wear to the Ritz. On the “Cinderella needs new shoes for the ball” theory, I used the grocery money to purchase a pair of black satin peep toe pumps in size “Does Not Fit” as require by the Fashion Statute of ’08.

Getting dressed for an elegant party in a hotel room three hours from home is not a good time to find out your shoes are the same size as the infield at Yankee stadium. When I walked across the room, the shoes flew off like rainy day road slush off truck tires.

It didn’t help that I had three other pairs of black shoes in the bedroom closet 200 miles and a red dirt driveway down the Interstate.

It didn’t help that we’d just made an emergency shoe run for the Captain who had apparently chucked his dress shoes out the car window while cruising down the highway at 70 miles an hour. At least I couldn’t think of any other reason why he had taken care to bring a charcoal gray pinstripe suit, gray silk tie, and two year old grass-stained Reeboks.

The scenic, historic town that held the Ritz was much too quaint to offer anything so mundane as a shoe store, so we dashed to Shoes R Us in the next village to pick up a pair of dress shoes. We were even now donning our fancy duds to attend an elegant party with folks who did not purchase their clothes at the Zippy Mart.

“Why did you buy shoes that don’t fit?” The Captain of my Love Boat has a happy talent for driving my stress meter into uncharted territory. He was oblivious to the Jaws music that began in low tones in the background.

“They fit in the store.”

“I see. Why didn’t you ask for out-of-store shoes?” Sure, the man with the plastic dress loafers thinks he’s a comedian. Let’s see if he’ll find any clean underwear in the drawer the next time he’s headed for Lunch with the Boss Day.

“I tried them on without hose. With hose, my feet slip down like they’re on a swimming pool slide. My toes are trying to crash out the end into deep water.”

“What should I do? Throw you a life preserver?”

I strolled across the room to kill him, gripping the inside of my shoes with my toes like a cardinal clutching the branch of an icy winter pine. After about twenty minutes I stopped to rest before finishing the trip.

“Just let me hang on to your arm. We’ll walk slowly. We’ll look more elegant like that anyway.”

“Ohhh, like Jed Clampett easing down the spiral staircase to visit the see-ment pond.”

If I could aim it properly, I would have stabbed him in the instep with a stiletto. Unfortunately control was a problem and the shoe flew off sideways like it was lost in space.

At the Ritz, we were met by a smiling valet who clearly intended to park our car. Our car that was so full of wadded tissues that I attempted to use as shoe padding on the trip over that it looked like a Puffs outlet store.

The valet extended a well-manicured hand. My husband dropped the car keys into it-- just before Cinderella’s slipper knocked him out of commission with a pop fly to mid-centerfield. I never saw a valet fold into accordion pleats before. His reflexes were quite spectacular.

Not long after the wounded valet incident, the shoes took the road less traveled, and I skied down the hill barefoot to the lovely lakeside wedding. About the time I hit the sidewalk switchback halfway down the black diamond slope, the feet ripped out of my classic black hosiery, held in place by a single strand of between-the-toe nylon.

I arrived at the bottom of the mountain with a spray of grass and a flourish, and with all the grace of an Olympic champion accepted the arm of the usher, black satin pumps in hand, and the Captain trotting up behind.

The wedding was picturesque and stunning in its simple beauty. But I’m sure glad I didn’t promise to keep those pesky pumps Til Death Us Do Part. I’d hate to have to commit a crime of passion on my sole mate with a monogrammed napkin.

Here Comes Da Judge, There Goes My Lunch

After two days of fun and festivities starring on I Dream of Jury Duty, I’ve come to the startling realization that a jury of my peers is the last thing I want to come across if I’ve done something bad enough to land me in the little gray room where the man in charge wears a black dress.

When I think of my peers, I’m conjuring up images of Penelope Cruz with a Wal-Mart wardrobe.

Would you believe Megan Fox’s non-anorexic sister?

How about Barbara Bush sporting chubby stretch jeans and a maternity top?

Apparently a jury of my peers is likely to be those folks shuffling around Wal-Mart in backless slippers in the wee morning hours, waving a denture cream coupon at a frightened clerk and checking to see if the lite beer is on sale. Or the folks who would have to take donations to collect a full set of teeth who are trying to get the family rate at the cattle barn section of the county fair.

A glance at the photo album on the bottom of the stack is enough to remind me that our family reunion looks more like Night of the Zombie Prom than a Sunday School gathering. A single glance at a table of my relatives--Aunt Rhoda is wiping gravy from her mustache and Uncle Bob can never remember to secure all the fasteners on his overalls—tells me that I’d rather head straight down to the Boogeyman’s Castle than expose my private business to a panel of these folks. To me, the theme is Bring In The Clowns, but to the side of Law & Order, Aunt Rhoda is the author of somebody’s Bill of Rights. It’s hard enough to shop for Christmas gifts for these people; to think they could be the guardians of freedom is like expecting Paula Deen to preside over a Weight Watcher’s Convention.

Now I’ve witnessed a set of jury peers with my very own peepers and the experience left me with a new appreciation for the law. Before I help myself to any more zucchini from the neighbor’s garden, I’m going to stop and consider what kind of splash the evidence will make when presented to the jury. I wish I could say the same thing for the hefty lady that showed up in court to get her photos back from a stalker friend. This was the kind of cheesecake that rots the cherries before you ever get to the graham cracker crust.

But even after my personal experience in the jury end of the hygiene pool, I am a supporter of Freedom, Truth, and the Right to Bare Arms.

But now I know why Justice is blind.

Gemstones for Grumpy

There is something about me that would still find discontent living with a princess and working in a diamond mine.

That and the fact that I’m at the stage of life when my mood jumps from irritable to "dinner party for twelve" crazy and back again without pausing to register a change in barometric pressure, gave my husband the inspiration to buy me a set of hot pink summer lounging pajamas emblazoned with Grumpy the Dwarf the last time he was at Wal-Mart on a quest for the perfect window fan.

Grumpy is staring out from the shirtfront as if someone just lined the bed of his pickup truck with dotted Swiss and edged it in tinsel and pom pom fringe. Imagine that same dwarf with hot flashes, swollen ankles, and hair like raw spaghetti, and you’ll have some idea why the Captain is sending up distress signals.

“Other wives get Victoria’s Secret. I get Wal-Mart separates.” I’m sitting on the deck at Raelynn’s house guzzling lemonade and hatching red blotches. My goal is to join the blotches together to give the impression of a sunburn. There’s no vacation in the checkbook this year and I want people to think I’ve been to the beach.

“At least he paid full price.” Raelynn has a bargain finder instinct that’s better than a Global Positioning System set on Sale. She sometimes gets heartstopper deals at the Good Will store, and one time snatched a formal gown out of the jaws of white trash, but she never goes cut rate on gifts. She says real friends deserve retail price.

I don’t agree. If I thought a rash would get me a sympathy discount, I’d manage a wheat allergy that would wipe out the store. I emptied out a restaurant once, but that turned out to be the flu instead of food poisoning. There’s a fine line between bargain hunting and contagious diseases.

“Full price came to $12.00.” I stretched one leg, pointing my toe to check for progress. Looked like freckles up my shin was the best I could do toward achieving a full body glow. “Plus tax.”

“Didn’t he get you that opal necklace you wanted for your birthday?”

“Yeah,” I peered at a likely spot on my arm, then flicked away a lady bug. “I broke the chain.”

“And the opal earrings to match for your anniversary?”

“The posts hurt my ears. I thought I’d get some on French hooks.”

Raelynn looked at me like I’d just snatched the last Prada bag off the clearance shelf. Men give her presents every week of her life, but she’d trade every trinket for a man who fills her sails like the Captain does mine. “Girl, it might say Grumpy across your chest, but it says Dopey in your eyes.”

I grinned and gathered up my towel, empty glass, and trashy magazines.

“Where you going?” Raelynn raised an eyebrow with an arch that was better manicured than the one in St Louis.

I padded into her empty house to put my glass in the dishwasher.

“Home,” I called back over my shoulder. “To show off how nice Grumpy looks in opals.”

Bathing Suitable

Buying a new bathing suit is like selecting an alias for the Witness Protection Program. You want something that fits and has flair, but that will keep all your hidden assets locked away where no one will ever find them.

In my experience, the main function of a bathing suit is to gather oceanic sand in the lining of the crotch while you’re trying to balance on the retracting grains of an outgoing wave without spilling your drink-filled coconut. With my typical lack of coordination, my coconuts take a dunking every time.

I went shopping with my sister and my niece, Knockout. This girl could wear an oven mitt and guys would follow her into deep water. I was painfully aware that my thighs had expanded to the outer banks and my behind had relocated to the subtropics.

We’re at Wal-Mart, browsing through the racks. It’s the only place I can get support hose, Sugar Smacks, and sinus medication without having to change parking lots. Presently my buggy is loaded with a month’s worth of Friskies and the floral pack of Hanes Her Way Full Coverage. Nothing says party like a well-fed cat and chubby sized underwear.

While Knockout was slipping on bikini tops over her clothes, I was fumbling through the racks looking for something with sleeves and a bib. I couldn’t fit a bathing suit over my clothes if I had the Jaws of Life to help me dress.

“What about something with a little sarong to cover up problem areas?” Knockout suggests, flattening an invisible wrinkle in her belly button.

I couldn’t fit a sarong over my shin with a shoe horn.

“Do they have anything with a hoop skirt instead?”

I’m headed to the seashore for a weekend away from the Labradors. All I’m going to do is pick up a few seashells, eat some fish without having to share, and play a round of beach putt putt. I shouldn’t have to use up the gross national output of latex to get a hole in one at Shipwreck Cove.

When it comes to shopping for clothes, I use the lawn and garden strategy. I don’t so much have to focus on my strengths so much as try to mulch the problem areas. I’m at the age when weeds are creeping into the rhododendrens and the ground cover is losing momentum. I figure if I keep everything in the dark and provide proper drainage, we can keep the damage to a minimum.

Also I stand by the idea that if I can’t see it, it’s not a problem. I’ve played hide and seek with my navel for 35 years. Once I passed 40 and realized I’d need a topographical map and a satellite signal from NASA to find my waist, I declared myself the victor and began looking for my original chin. We might have to call in the Mars Rover for that one.

“What about a cover up? You like retro.” She held up a tye-dyed washcloth, swirling with all the colors of a bowl of breakfast cereal.

“It looks like something you used to clean up a chemical spill. A very small chemical spill."

I wandered across the aisle to a rack of likely-looking house dresses to use for disguise. My idea of coverage is mountains-to-sea. I’m not interested in anything that leaves the foothills or the Great Plains out in the open. I untangled a handful of spaghetti straps and pulled out a prospect. “What about this? It’s almost long enough to cover the coast at high tide.”

“That’s a prom dress.”

“How can you tell?”

“There are sequins on thong.”

“I thought that was an armband to hold my iPod.”

“There’s a clip on the tiara for that. See, there’s a secret compartment behind the disco ball.”

Three dozen prom gowns and I pick the one that needs John Travolta in a white suit to complete the package.

“Here’s an animal print. You’d be right in style.” Knockout whipped a bikini bedecked with pink and green peace symbols off the rack and held it up with a flourish. A trail of leopard prints the color of blush traipsed through the peace fields.

“The leopard is already embarrassed and I haven’t even tried it on.”

She flipped through a few more prospects. “There’s nothing left on the rack but old lady swimsuits.”

To this kid, Paris Hilton is ancient history.

With a sigh, I tossed the sequined thong and tiara selection into my cart. I may not be Queen of the Prom, but I’ll be the best dressed gal at the Pirate Ship Putt Putt course.

Easy On The Green

Personally, I don’t care for golf because I don’t approve of animal cruelty in any form. From what my sons tell me of golf outings with their father (Husband Number 1 for those who keep score), a worm army, several chipmunks, and at least one slow-moving blue jay were placed in enough danger to qualify for government-sponsored relocation. Of course this is a man who considers tube socks haute couture, so his golf cart has been running on fumes for a long time.

Considering that fact, it seems like a good idea to encourage men to watch the Masters. It’s one of the only sporting events where they view an article of clothing as a prize. Not that the green jacket will go with anything they have on. When I think of what plaid has had to suffer for the sake of sport, I want to run down to Wal-Mart and buy up all the material scraps from the clearance table before they strike again.

Over the years, the talk on the course has not been, strictly speaking, about what to wear on the course. At least once the hot topic of discussion was “uniform balls” by which, if they mean what I think they mean, I’m completely embarrassed for their wives and mothers. What they say it means, according to a random sampling of an article in the newspaper delivered fresh to my pine tree each morning, is that they all use the same ball. Not the very same one, but little golf ball clones of the original. That way nobody is using, let’s say, a ball so juiced that the words “Fresh Squeezed” should be stamped into the dimples.

Golfers tend to go all white around the spikes when uniform balls are mentioned, but they agree that if such a thing were to happen, it could only happen at the Masters.

Apparently, the laws of space and time bend according to the Masters whim. Where else could you get 365 acres of flowers to bloom at the same time without having some neighbor kid pick them all?

Also, the Masters has its own vocabulary. Fans at the Masters are called patrons. Of course, that's what they call customers at The Chicken Ranch too, but when the price for a ticket surpasses that of a high-end Rolex, fans can be called Grand Putting Poobahs and wear tube socks with different colored stripes for every day of the week if they like.

This year, the golfing world is abuzz and everyone is Twittering about the return of Tiger Woods, who has spent most of his time putting out of the rough off the green as well as on. A recent article hit the newstands describing Tiger’s activities over the past year. You have to show two forms of identification and undergo full body decontamination just to read the headline. All I know is that any man who has made as many holes in one as he has is bound to be indulging in performance enhancement of some kind.

Which brings us to the last matter. Why are women allowed to play with the masters but not at the Masters? A woman can keep both hands on the club and her eye on the long ball without leaving anything unsavory in the sand trap.

It’s probably a good thing for the guys not to have the extra competition though. There’s not a woman alive who wouldn’t walk off with the top prize. It’s a blazer and purse to match—and they come in our favorite color. Green.

Happy Valentine's Day, Captain!

Dating for Baby Boomers is a lot different than dating for teenagers. Teenagers may say they're hanging out, but Baby Boomers really do. I should know—these days I spend a major portion of my life trying to cover it all up. To me, a belly shirt is something that rides up in the front when I pull the shirttail down in the back and is more an item I would wear to ward off would-be attackers than out to a seven-screen cinema on Saturday night.

When teenagers say they’re going to see a movie, they mean an action flick where the main action is blood loss. Baby boomers experience blood loss when we stand up too fast and all of our platelets stage an intervention around our ankles. Teenagers go to a Counting Crows concert and play air guitar. Baby Boomers count crows feet and go to see the Eagles farewell tour. (Unless we can find it on HBO. Then we watch it from our recliner, wake up at the end of the show and say, “Now THAT’S music,” as we gather our pillows and head up the stairs to bed.)

The younger generation thinks midnight is the new sunset. By the time the clock on the mantle strikes 12 at my house, I’ve been in bed long enough to have pillowcase creases on my cheeks. I realized the difference in mindset one wild weekend when The Captain of My Love Boat and I planned an adult extravaganza to keep the current flowing to the old spark plugs. Both of our teenaged sons were gone for the weekend, so with a hot date in mind and free access to the car, we headed out with high hopes and no curfew. Friday night we went to Wal-Mart and bought a box of those nose strips you put on at bedtime so you don’t sound like an asthmatic mountain goat.

We were going to go out to eat, but we were both so tired from the Wal-Mart excursion that we went home, had a peanut butter sandwich and went to bed, where we slept soundly until 2 a.m. when we passed each other in the darkened hallway during bathroom breaks. Thus rested, we were able to venture out to the mall Saturday night where we shared a combo meal at the food court, got a smoothie for dessert and walked to the electronics store to see if the batteries were on sale. Then we went home and went to bed. I woke Bill up about an hour later trying to put one of those nose strips on him without turning on the light. My aim must have been a little off because when I got through, he wasn’t able to close his eyes for the rest of the night.

So let the teenagers have action-packed movie dates at the mall. As for the two of us, we’ll always have WalMart. And a relationship where we stick together like a no-snore nose strip.

Drip Dry

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what happens to my towels. There are times I think the door to my bathroom leads to some sort of lavatorial Bermuda triangle where terrycloth goes to die.

Today my husband disappeared into the bathroom to take a shower. Seconds later he pried the door open a crack and stuck his head out.

“Have you washed towels lately?”

“Have you shaved your legs lately?” I love the man, but I'm not the only one in the house that can rinse and spin.

“I’m not trying to be sexist. I just want to dry off.”

“Yesterday I washed everything that resembled a towel. I even threw in that funny sweater your mother gave you for Christmas.”

“That’s not terrycloth. It's cashmere”

"So that's why there was enough fluff in the lint trap to knit a goat.”

The door closed. I heard furtive searching sounds coming from the bathroom closet. Seconds later he peered out of the door crack with one distraught eye.

“What’s the matter?”

“All that’s left is the froggie towel from when the kids were little and the pink velour Martha Stewart with the floral design.”

“Go for Martha's flowers. Froggie repels liquid. You can dry on that thing for half an hour and still retain enough water to qualify as a camel.”

Later that night I found six hand towels and a frayed wash cloth drying on the towel rack. I guess he didn’t want to take any chances with the blossoms. I tossed them all in the laundry.

It’s not that we don’t own other towels. If all the terrycloth in our possession were draped across the Atlantic, the ocean would dry up to the size of a turtle’s teardrop. But our towels are given to vanishing when emergencies arise. Harry Houdini would be envious of the sleight of hand towels we’ve experienced.

The day that Bill Dear kept screaming for something to wipe the dipstick with when he was changing the oil, the guest towels disappeared. The day Son One and Son Two were heard arguing over who was to blame for the massive Fruit Loop spill on the Oriental carpet, the blue towels I got for Mother’s Day went missing. The day we adopted the third puppy, I took out stock in cotton futures.

There’s nothing I can do about the towels that are already gone, but there are preventive measures I can take to guard against these towel-thieving guys in my house.

First thing Monday morning, I’m heading to Wal-Mart to snag a buggy full of pink velour towels with a floral design.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll just have to install automatic air dryers in the bathroom. They're not very thorough, but it's best to let your delicates drip dry anyway.

Paper & Scissors Rock!

On the whole, I’d rather give my teenage son a Platinum MasterCard and send him to Wal-Mart on Saturday night than do the Back-to-School shopping myself. His gym locker is in better shape than the Three-Ring Binder section of Wal-Mart after the list-bearing hordes have swept through. Back-to-school shoppers invade discount stores in August like a swarm of fire ants in a field of sweetgrass, and they’re not leaving until they’ve crossed the last bottle of hand soap off their list and called in their relatives to find the pink lunchbox they hid behind the Pepto Bismol display back in June.

Anyone who thinks a mother in search of a pack of Crayolas and a bottle of Elmer’s isn’t dangerous has never had a kid in 4K. Here’s a woman who has visions of getting a toddler-sized tornado out of her kitchen and Dora the Explorer off of her television and there’s not a force of nature that can stop her from climbing over two Kleenex displays and a store manager to get that last glue stick. And as sure as a drink box shoots a stream of blue goo in your eye when you punch in the straw, she’s gonna have a kid that wants a Batman backpack after she bought Iron Man on clearance during the summer. Put 500 copies of this woman in the safety scissors section of a discount store and in less time than it takes for Junior to lose his lunchbox, they’re fighting over the last pack of construction paper like so many Edna Scissorhands. Desperate Housewives are Stepford Wives by comparison.

Don’t even get me started about book bags and blue jeans. You’d think that one pair of pants made out of faded blue denim would be pretty much be like the ones you found for ten bucks on the clearance rack at Target. Just because the hem hit mid-ankle and the waistband tucked neatly under his armpits, Teen Boy at my house went all white around the shoetops and refused to have his yearbook picture made.

Kids today need to understand that yesterday’s highwaters are today’s Capri pants. But that argument doesn’t even work with girls. It certainly didn’t mean much to a seventeen year old boy whose regular uniform consists of 50 pockets spread across a bolt of camouflage material and a faded T-Shirt that reads, “I’m Up and Dressed. What More Do You Want?” So why do those clothes cost more than it takes to gas up a Suburban? Abercrombie & Fitch must charge by the letter.

And when did a backpack become a designer accessory? Today’s bags have room for everything except books, which—according to my son who is a High School graduate, and therefore an expert in these, and all other, matters--are optional in the classroom these days. I can understand filmstrips going the way of ancient technology, but books? They take up valuable space needed for everything from MP3 players (I don’t even have MP 1 & 2) to cell phones, which are very important so you can call your friends between classes to see who did the science homework.

Which brings us to the main source of our school woes. Friends. It is a principle of life that a true friend will not buy the very last pair of torn blue jeans at the mall. Nor will a friend refuse to eat school lunch and choose to hang out at the drink machine after I’ve shelled out $300 in advance for the pizza line in the cafeteria. Last year I discovered that I was feeding three random boys and the school rabbit, while the only things my child ate off his plate was apple peel and barbecue chips.

This year I have resolve. I will not buy clothes just because people my child doesn’t even like wear them. I will not buy trading cards just because the people my child does like would rather duel than eat lunch. I will not volunteer to chaperone the school dance just so my child can go and eat free pizza.

But if I get free pizza, that’s another story. I’ll have to buy something cool to wear. Maybe some designer jeans.

It's a Wash

Moving from last week’s baby poop extravaganza up the time line to indoor plumbing, we come to public potties, where I also have issues. Now you can tell if you ever drop by the house that I have no tendencies toward a cleanliness fetish of any kind, so that’s not the problem. I don’t panic over germ infestations unless they present themselves in the form of a creature that is hopping, flying, crawling, buzzing, or of course rubbing its little hands together menacingly in my direction.

But let's move back down the pipes to the potties. My problem is the trend toward installing automatically flushing toilets in public restrooms. I’m not sure what sort of fiendish mind conceived of such a device. Obviously the same mind that thought of squirt cheese or miniature cookies that come in tiny packages labeled 100 calories each. Everybody knows it takes a quart-sized baggie of cookies to equal 100 calories, particularly if chocolate is involved.

Now when it comes to plumbing, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the advanced technology that takes away the need for manual flushing, but I can’t seem to operate the things. When I open the stall door to enter, they inevitably begin their erratic tidy bowl dance, complete with crashing tidal waves and whirlpools. Not having thought to bring along a change of clothes, I favor an approach most often used by a goal-oriented runner approaching a closely guarded second base at Yankee Stadium. I slide in low and hope I don’t need laundry detail.

Next, I settle onto the nest like a laying hen, my pocketbook clutched tightly in my lap. I realize that as a good citizen and a proponent of clean living I should hang my pocketbook daintily on the hook provided, but I don’t do that because a) I'll generally forget it when I leave, b) I intend to reapply my lipstick, Blushing Berry, available for $7.98 at Wal-Mart, while seated, and c) I never remember the hook until the optimal time to arrange for its use has passed. This immediately leads to a logistics dilemma requiring remarkable dexterity in reaching the necessary accesories. I lean forward to place my purse on the floor, in spite of agitated e-mail circulations that implore me to choose a better option.

Immediately with a roar and the crash of waves of water, the auto-flush option jumps enthusiastically into service, cleaning more surface area than I find comfortable. I involuntarily leap to attention, realizing too late that quick attention should be accompanied by returning all possible garments to the upright position. My knees are bound together by nylon and elastic lace and a sizable amount of yardage in the form of stretchy pants as I hop awkwardly in an attempt to avoid the purse obstacle situated on the floor like a hungry mouse trap ready to snap to work given the slightest provocation.

I bend to remedy the fabric situation which sets off a renewed frenzy of water fun. By this time, bystanders are bending to peer under the door to see if distress requiring the jaws life of is taking place in Stall Number 1. After repositioning all my garments to their accustomed areas of coverage, retrieving my purse, which once again sets off a tirade of flushing action, I hold my head high and exit the stall.

Now to wash my hands. Which I would do if I could figure out how to activate the automatic faucets long enough to reach the soap. I wet my hands and wipe them off on my pants. I'm not about to attempt the automatic dryer.

The O's Have It

The New Yorker recently got in big fat trouble for splashing a picture on the magazine's cover displaying a dashing Barack Obama decked out in the loose robes of an Arab, rapping knuckles with tough-love-Barbie Mrs. Obama who’s rocking haute terrorist couture.

Now I don’t keep up with the goings on of men generally, since I have basically no interest in how many channels I can watch simultaneously on television, but if dressing my husband in matching hat and gown will get me a tank of gas I can afford, I’ll be fighting the crowds in the Stout Ladies Department at Wal-Mart to find Bill Dear a suitable outfit.

Other than that, I’m not going to comment on B-Ob’s little ensemble, because my attention is on his Rambo-ready wife. As far as I’m concerned Michelle Obama is the one to watch. Anybody who has a child that's thrown a DEFCON 3 rated temper tantrum in the cereal aisle at the grocery store because you won't buy the Twinkly Sugar Bombs with the free Hannah Montanna microphone inside knows that Mrs. O has got the go-ahead gear for the modern Mom.

As a mother of teenagers, I know there’s not a day goes by that couldn’t be improved by a round of ammo unloaded in the PlayStation and the business end of my AK47 leveled low and steady at anybody hanging on the refrigerator door asking me what’s for supper. Fire off a warning round, and I might even get somebody to start at their bedroom door and shovel a path to freedom, or failing that the closet, through the piles of dirty laundry and borrowed electronics that presently restrict room to room travel. But that’s probably pushing my luck.

The next time I have enough teenaged boys hanging on the furniture in my living room to start my own alternative school, I’m going to break out the camo pants, sling on the Sure Shot and growl, “Somebody take out the Hefty Bag or your little electronic army men are gonna be missing some pixels.”

Of course, the only weapons allowed in the house are some foam rubber swords from the circus and an aging Super Soaker, which was an awesome example of water firepower before it sprang a determined leak in the back. These days, anybody that tries to take out a crowd of defenders either looks like the last place finisher in a wet T-Shirt contest or a likely candidate for a Depends commercial. Either way, I’m going to get the guys attention long enough to ask them to take the trash out.

So go ahead. Make my day.

IMPortant Turn of Events

I’m pretty sure there’s an imp inside the dryer that turns all the shirts inside out. While everyone is spending their time looking for nonexistent sock snitchers, the real culprits are scurrying around like hamsters on a wheel saying “Quick, grab the washing label and run toward the neck!” and slipping down my new washable silk like sand down a sliding board. By the time they’ve whirled through the spin cycle and survived the “fluff and puff” stage of the dryer, the little imps have had ample time to make sure they’ve left no tag unturned. And a few extra seconds to pry a button loose on my new blouse.

Sometimes to fool them I’ll turn the shirts inside out myself before I launch them into the agitating vortex of the washer. I can just imagine their impish anguish when they find out the job’s done. Or perhaps it’s more a case of The Elves and The Shoemaker, and they’re gleefully performing a Playtime Polka in the washwater while I’m clinging to the machine during the presoak cycle, straining to see if there’s any action below the bubbles.

It’s not just shirts. Underwear invariably dives label-outward from the dryer into the hamper, and I have to execute the “arms through the legholes reverse maneuver” before I tuck them safely into the dresser drawer. I was perfectly aware of the tedium of housework when I signed up for this tour of duty, but if I had checked out the job description for Underwear Reversal Technician, I’m not sure I would have accepted the position. It’s not that I don’t have the qualifications or experience, but that’s a chore that ranks right up there with Shore Patrol for the Tidy Bowl Man.

Now when it comes to socks, I’m afraid I have the opposite problem from the rest of the population. I grow extras. Odd socks appear randomly and with abandon in my laundry room like I’m Matchmaker.com for lonely footwear. Once, after the children were grown, a bootie climbed carefully out of the lint trap and nestled in the palm of my hand. I didn’t have the heart to turn it away. It’s still curled into a tiny ball in the sock drawer where every now and then, Bill Dear will run across it and snort “Why do we keep this thing?” and tuck it carefully back under the argyles. I’m afraid that one day I’ll run across a single-socked baby at the Super Wal-mart and he’ll wiggle one set of bare toes meaningfully in my direction and demand the return of his fuzzy footwear. But I can’t help it if my home is a clearinghouse for every stray item in the universe.

I won’t even touch on my track record for acquiring lost kittens. They show up in the laundry room, too. But at least they use the door.

The Thighs Have It

I’m at the age when my thighs angrily reject fat-free muffins. “Bring us biscuits,” they sneer, spraying sparks as I walk. I would like to see daylight between my thighs just one more time before I die. I’m not planning on leaving the world of supersized fries and double-thick shakes any time soon, mind you. But it’s nice to have a goal.
So after an unfortunate career change (from having one to suddenly not having one) I decided to join the health and fitness craze and submerge myself in aerobic (free) activity. It was either that or shop for a new interview suit in the chubby department. “Let’s go walking,” I suggested to my sister, Laudy.
“Why?” she gasped, regarding me with the look she usually reserved for artificial cheese.
“Well,” I said, suddenly inspired. “If we’re out of the house, we won’t be licking crumbs from the toaster oven tray. I got a nasty burn chasing banana bread bits last time.”
So every morning we walked at the mall. We walked 20 minutes in from the parking lot to the biscuit place. Then we walked 20 minutes back to our cars, chewing thoughtfully.
“You think we should pick up our pace?” I asked one day as we strolled along.
“I’m stuffed. I couldn’t eat another bite.” She held tightly to her biscuit wrapper as two elderly ladies dressed in sweat suits shot past us, whipping up an unruly breeze.
“Well, maybe we’ve missed the point.” I brushed sausage crumbs from my stomach. “I wore corduroy pants last week and almost set my underwear on fire. Smoke was coming out of my pants leg and a waitress poured tea in my lap trying to put me out.”
Ultimately I had to give up the “walk yourself thin” health regimen touted by all the women’s magazines. I gained so much weight, I found out my stretchy pants were in cahoots with a panty girdle I’d stuffed in the sock drawer.
For the New Year, I’m tinkering with an experimental new program: The Sports Bra Allover Workout. With the startling acumen that usually alerts me to uneaten pie crust on the plates of nearby diners, I noticed that I often bust buttons off of blouses in spontaneous bursts of rapid fire. I also snap underwires like rednecks crush beer cans, only I don’t use my forehead.
Therefore I have instituted a rigorous physical training program. I plan to keep fit with a three times weekly series of stretching exercises followed by a trip to Wal-Mart to try on sports bras. Granted that this is a pastime fraught with danger, I’m going to approach my new exercise program with a certain degree of caution and respect for spandex.
Yesterday when I attempted my first fatbuster fitting, I foolishly tried to pull the treacherous garment on over my head. I exercised not only myself, but two elderly saleswomen and a security guard who thought I was trying to rob the lingerie department when the wretched thing snapped smartly around my face like a ski mask leech and wouldn’t let go. My ears stuck through the armholes and I had to chew an air passage in the doubleknit to breathe.
I may have to give up on my new exercise program, though. The store manager red-carded me and banned me from lingerie. Maybe I’ll try Victoria’s Secret. It did wonders for Heidi Klum. She’s had three children, looks great, and gets a discount on all the undergarments that fight back.

From Hot Dogs to Handcuffs

Once upon a time, as the newspaper accounts tell it, there was a whole pile of parents with nothing better to do than sit in the school pick-up line and talk about life and love and what to wear to Wal-Mart. As time went by, they came to school earlier and earlier until they started getting there before their grits were even cold, and since it’s just natural to get hungry doing all that waiting and talking, they began bringing snacks. Everybody knows a sausage dog is no good unless it’s been sizzling on the George Foreman for a little bit between the Pledge of Allegiance and Recess. So these folks lined up in the elementary school pick-up line four hours early, popped open the campers, set up the grill, and tailgated til the cows came home. Or until school let out, whichever came first.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all about tailgating. I’m not above getting out grandmama’s stainless and grocery store china and grilling corn dogs from the back of the Toyota whenever there’s a high school football game worth going out in the cold for. Nothing says “party” like Hi-C punch in a Dixie cup. But there’s a time and place for everything, and it’s just downright tacky to pull out your cocktail weinies while you’re waiting on your first grader to get out of show and tell.

For some reason, the principal of the elementary school felt it wasn’t conducive to good study habits to have the students’ parents giving each other high fives and downing SteakUms in the parking lot all morning. Maybe if the parents had invited the principal to join them, the police wouldn’t have got involved. A little tact and adherence to good manners might possibly have headed off the jail time, or at least cut down on the assault charges. When school let out and the principal headed off to shoo the partiers away, one of the Mamas took it personally. Threats regarding the principal’s future health plans filled the air, phrases full of colorful adjectives and a more than a few unseemly nouns were exchanged, police came to visit, and a whole pile of bright-eyed grade-schoolers just getting out for the day learned some new words. And all the while there was the naughty woman’s husband, rubbing his face and shaking his head, saying, “I TOLD her to get in the camper.”

I’m just glad it wasn’t me. If the police were leading me away from the scene in a set of fancy bracelets, all the members of my family, from Dad to Dachshund, would queue up in a nice receiving line by the squad car to witness the festivities. As I drew near, Son Number One, who at 19 has his priorities firmly in order, would lean out to me and whisper softly in my ear, “Mom if you’re not cooking, we’re going out for pizza. Where do you keep the coupon's for meat lover’s?”