From Ritz to Spits and Back Again

Me: Stop growling at the waiter.

Captain: Tell him to get his hands out of my lap.

Me: He was just arranging your napkin for you.

Captain: If he arranges anything else in my lap, he’ll be serving salads at the rehab center.

Me: And you’ll be eating them in cell block 9. Here comes the first course. Remember to use your cocktail fork.

Captain: If that dude puts his hands in my lap again, he’s gonna find out what my cocktail fork is for.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, everybody at the party is going know you’re from a place where the dogs wear tags instead of tiaras. Nobody will ever confuse me with Paris Hilton. I pick clothes by the “will it show food” method, and my Labrador could eat a herd of her Chihuahuas and still have room for a Poodle snack later on. But I like to think that when it comes to manners I know enough not to blow my nose on the dinner napkin unless it’s paper and comes in an economy pack. Or at least a low thread count.

Sometimes, though, no matter how you try to disguise the poppy seeds wedged in your Saturday night smile, you may as well pack it in and head off to make a living as a camel farmer in Dubai because everybody can tell you come from a place where smoke detectors take the place of kitchen timers and you use 911 to call the family to dinner.

I’ve read up on the subject and even though camels have a reputation for expressing their opinions in unsanitary and vehemently saliva-filled ways, there are times I would opt for my hand at camel-milking and brave the spit rather than have another head waiter discover that I took my au gratin for granted.

Recently, I had occasion to visit the Ritz. And when I say Ritz, I don’t mean the cracker.

There are some places where a small town Southern girl is as comfortable as a garden tomato on white bread; center stage at the Miss Fried Okra Festival, the discount makeup stand at the corner flea market, the cushioned rocker in the church nursery holding a lap full of a baby made of wet and drippy.

Note that the Ritz-Carlton hotel during cocktail hour is not on this list.

I’m the girl who honeyed her crumpet upside down when invited to tea. The girl who shot a grape across the floor like fruit flavored buckshot at an outdoor café. The girl who thinks that any dessert plate within her orbit is an open invitation for food tasting.

I discovered that life at the Ritz isn’t the same as it is at Motel 6. At the Ritz, they’ll leave the light on for you, but they tally the wattage and charge it to your bill. I’ve paid less that than that for a permanent bridge to anchor my molars against Tootsie Roll devastation. The good folks at the Ritz will run your bathwater too, but for that price, the Captain says they should christen the QE II in it and scrub the bathtub ring with a live mink.

In my world, college and antibiotics comes in courses. At the Ritz, dinner does. All in all, we came through the maze of salad forks and bread plates unscathed. A line of waiters strode out with each course and circled our table like General Santa Ana closing in on the die-hard Texans at the Alamo. Those waiters put up a good fight, what with extra spoons and not a Bowie knife in the lot, but we showed those guys we knew what a finger bowl was good for.

Captain: We didn’t have finger bowls. You kept rinsing your hands in my Scotch and soda. Didn’t you see it on the video they made during dinner?

Me: Do you know the area code for Dubai? I hear there are some great opportunities in camel farming there.

Captain: There may not be any job openings. That’s where that waiter said he was headed the last time he tried to put that napkin in my lap.

Squashed

My plan for the New Year was to introduce a wholesome influence into the family’s diet, but it’s impossible to provide healthy meals when one child thinks eating tofu is a Fear Factor challenge and another child only eats food that is covered in pizza sauce or stays crunchy even in milk. They rejected whole wheat bread like it was liver loaf, and the time I bought skim milk at the grocery store, I got voted off the kitchen island. Cooking healthy meals for the family shouldn’t be like an episode from Survivor: Spinach Casserole.

My kids are convinced that broiled chicken is a bird that stayed in the farmyard without SPF 30 and died from exposure. Their idea of fine dining is to supersize their fries. I can’t imagine where they got this attitude. Sure, I believe the road to down below is paved with exercise videos and sugar substitute, but that’s just geographical fact. I haven’t eaten a dessert in six months that wasn’t presorted into 100 calories packages.

“What’s for supper?” Son One strolled into the kitchen licking the icing off a cinnamon bun and tearing open the paper on a candy bar so sticky it looked like it was made of library paste. This kid’s idea of healthy eating is frosting a salad with honey-mustard dressing.

“I thought we’d combine two of your favorite food groups for something new.”

“We’re having Italian and Mexican? Cool!”

“Those aren’t food groups. They’re nationalities. We’re going to have a healthy meal.”

“Did somebody give you a bushel of cast off zucchini again?” Zucchini is the stray cat of the vegetable world. It always shows up on my doorstep at dinnertime.

“You’re so suspicious,” I said, nonchalantly raking chopped zucchini into the dog’s bowl. “I thought I’d make that baked chicken they had at church.”

“You mean Death Chicken? Count me out.” He peered into the freezer and extracted a pizza that had been in limbo so long the pepperoni was petrified and the cheese came in crystals instead of shreds.

“It’s not really death chicken. We just call it that because it’s so easy to make that a lot of times we’ll take it to someone who’s had a death in the family.”

“Yeah. Ever wonder what they died from?”

“Probably from eating zombie food that was in the freezer so long all the vitamins turned to dust.” I managed to sneak a few small zucchini out of the bag under cover of the answering snort.

He peeled off the wrapper and shoveled a layer of ice from the crust. My kids think perma frost is a basic building block of the food pyramid. “What do I set the oven on for undead?”

“Very funny. It wouldn’t hurt you to try something that’s good for you.” Just then the dog wandered through the kitchen to check his dish for food molecules left over from breakfast. He picked up a zucchini slice, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then looked at me reproachfully and spit it out on the floor.

“See, even Bo hates vegetables.” Son One plopped the pizza down on the oven rack. It sounded like he’d launched a hubcap at the dumpster.

I put my hands on my hips. It was time for decisive action. “From now on we’re watching what we eat.”

“You’ll need to spring for something with a wide angle lens,” Son One mumbled, scraping up a shred of zombie cheese off the counter with a fingernail.

“I’ll start by cleaning out the refrigerator. We’re going to throw away everything that’s bad for us.” I held up a pack of withered bologna. To me, lunch meat is the gastronomic equivalent of an Elvis painting on velvet. Everyone thinks it will gain in value the longer they save it and their children end up using it as a gag gift at a holiday party and complaining about their inheritance.

Next came a cheese product that had so many additives it no longer qualified for any of the food groups. When I finished cleaning out the refrigerator, all that was left was a mushy, brown stalk of celery left over from Thanksgiving and a frozen diet dinner left over from the healthy eating binge I launched after the baby was born.

Just then the baby trotted through the kitchen jingling his car keys, and clutching a breakfast pastry made of simulated cookie dough and synthetic chocolate frosting. Eighteen years after his first bowl of sugar frosted cocoa bombs, artificial flavoring is still his favorite food group.

“I’m late for class. What’s for supper tonight?”

I smiled sweetly and chopped the remaining squash into miniscule green bits.

“Not zucchini.”

“Good. Last time I slipped mine to the dog. He had indigestion for a week.”

So I’ll cover it with fat free cheese. They’ll never recognize it.

Cookies, Kids, and Zombie Killers

I have two children, a main son to provide general mayhem and destruction, and a younger backup son for mental distress. Although the odds of them getting along is about the same as a double fudge brownie dying of old age in my kitchen, they take great pride when it comes to disturbing my peace. Sort of a parental trauma tag team.

Son Number One specializes in physical destruction. His responsibilities include punching holes in plaster, breaking small appliances, and clogging the plumbing. He holds a family record for mass destruction and once brought down an expensive light fixture with a simple fastball, high and tight. If you’re looking for a Rambo-style battle with water-based munitions in your living room or need to know how much Play Doh the ceiling fan will hold, he’s your man. His motto is “I didn’t mean to.”

Son Number Two specializes in emotional turmoil. He is responsible for the state of general untidiness in the house, having long ago mastered the art of talking his way out of cleaning his room, taking out the trash, and emptying the dishwasher. He is especially adept in the art of negotiations and can reduce an opponent to heavy sighs and hand-wringing without once dropping his video game controller. If he were an independent country, his national symbol would be the loophole. We expect him to have a successful career in government. Should monarchy come into vogue, he’ll be a natural.

One sunny spring day when all the world seemed fresh and new, the boys were playing together in their room. I sat at the computer composing an essay on the joys of motherhood. For a paying market.

“And that’s why motherhood makes my heart sing.” I typed the final strokes, leaned back, and wiped away a maternal tear.

“You can’t kill zombies!”

That’s not something I ever expected to hear. Until I had children.

“You can shoot ’em!”

I frowned thoughtfully. I needed to add some more endearing anecdotes.

“They’re already dead. You can’t kill something that’s already dead!”

Maybe how Ryan loved to help me with his baby brother. He would bring Jeffrey’s favorite toy lamb and help sing him to sleep.

“They’ve come back to life. Beat ’em with a stick!”

Or the time Jeffrey bought my Christmas present with his own money at the school store.

“I’ll beat you with a stick.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll cream you and your zombie army.”

Did I mention the children are now teenagers? They’d rather argue than eat. Unless I’ve got something artificially flavored on hand.

“There’s cookies in the kitchen.”

Exit two teenage boys, charging down the hallway like the bulls in Pamplona. There’s a crash. The Pamplona bulls never had to negotiate a tabby cat and two Cookie Hounds trying to beat them to the goodies.

In the kitchen, on separate plates, there are two kinds of cookies. One with chocolate chips, one with sprinkles. I have five minutes before Ryan polishes off the sprinkles and develops a sudden fondness for chocolate chips.

The essay needs a bit more length. I’ll add that cute story about Ryan coming out of church the sweltering Southern summer when his was six. He refused to listen to the sermon about humility because he thought the pastor said humidity.

Smiling with motherly love, I revised the word count.

“Zombies can’t eat cookies. They can’t eat anything. They’re dead.”

“How’d you like to see for yourself?”

At times like this, I think back to what Mom always told me. Whenever I came to her with my traumas and tantrums, she’d laugh and say, “Don’t worry, it’ll get worse.” She said it when I was three and ran to her with a skinned knee, and she was right. I broke my arm. When I was thirty-three and getting divorced, she said it again. And soon my kids became teenagers. But by then, I had it figured out. If things can get worse, it’s not the end of the world. Things will also get better. So if postponing the essay for a few minutes to Google “Zombie Facts” is the worst thing to happen today, life is pretty good.

Especially if there’s a chocolate chip cookie left.

This tale of zombie cookie love was first published in the February/March issue of The Wham Magazine.

The Neighbor Hood

Usually life’s little lessons come from something you’ve done wrong, and you’ve suffered through enough inconvenience and embarrassment that you’ll remember never to do it again. Failing to proofread the hymn titles when typing the church bulletin comes to mind. (The Herald Angels SING. Southerners tend to drop letters at the end of words, but in this instance, the “g” serves a vital purpose.)

Sometimes, though, we get a little break and can take a lesson from the book somebody else has had thrown at them. Something like a two-for-one “You’ve Suffered Enough” coupon. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn some of these lessons from careful and conscientious observance of neighbors I’ve had through the years.

One ambitious fellow saw so much of the Sheriff and his dedicated support staff that we voted black and white our neighborhood colors and put up a little sign at the entrance to the neighborhood: “Leashed dogs welcome; don’t feed wild animals or stray children. All deputies report to the second house on the left for briefing and registration and to pick up a fundraiser information packet.”

Community watch takes on a whole new meaning in my neighborhood. We don’t just look for trouble. We sell tickets and rent lawn chairs.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned:

1. One baby goat cannot eat an entire forest covered in kudzu. Sure, any kid will do its part for a greener America, but like the small bottles of Coke, it can only hold so much. Also, if you try to burn a field of kudzu, the resulting blaze will attract the attention of a passing bicyclist in flame-retardant latex, a herd of motorists blinded by smoke, and firefighting personnel from three different districts.

2. If you pass out in your driveway surrounded by more beer cans than Paris Hilton has miniskirts, the neighbors will notice. Eventually a representative of the group will venture over to see if you’re dead, with the pretext of helping you up. Lay there long enough and they’ll either decorate you for Christmas or shave off one of your eyebrows.

3. If you’ve made a woman mad enough to slash the tires on your truck and smash the windows into a tinkling pile of auto-glass potpourri, you don’t need to call the Sheriff. You may as well reserve a deluxe suite at the morgue, because your body will arrive there in more pieces than M*A*S*H had martinis.

I don't anticipate putting any of these interesting facts to use in my everyday life. But they do serve to make my tendency to harrass the geraniums and torture the tomato plants seem a bit less severe.

Keyboard Quandary

There are days when everything in my life zips along like waxed skis on new snow. Then there are the days I search aimlessley for my gifts and talents like a doggie dumpster-diving for a lost ham bone.

“Accounts Payable?”
“Trial Balance?”
“Bank Reconciliation?”

None of these terms were on my final exams in English Poets or American Contemporary Literature when I graduated from college. I really didn’t see the use to indulge in them now. Except I was deeply interested in getting paid.

I attended a small Southern university and graduated happily with a degree in English and a cunning little sticker on the corner of my diploma that represented a prestigious honor society whose admiration I welcomed, but whose meetings I never attended. These accomplishments, along with the fact that I knew somebody that knew somebody, and that God mixes miracles and humor like Michaelangelo mixes paints, got me a job as secretary-in-charge-of-everything at a local church. Excited by the opportunity to serve as editor-in-chief (a colorful term meaning entire staff) of the church newsletter and to support my grocery addiction, I accepted the job offer without further exploring the job description.

This zeal for employment accounted for my present distress. Seated at a one-horse computer, I desperately searched my remaining little gray cells for some clue that would translate the foreign language my instructor was speaking into something easier to understand, like Gullah or Swahili.

Motivated by greed laced with liberal splashes of panic and terror, my hand went from adding machine to keyboard as I computed the totals of the numbers he read out to me and then entered them into the database. Back and forth went fingers more accustomed to creating exhilirating expository essays concerning Yoknapatawpha County. Adding machine to keyboard. Keyboard to adding machine. I indulged in the prayer of the selfish. “Please God, at least don’t let me look stupid.”

Suddenly, in a turn of events that provided definitive proof of instantaneous answer to prayer, the computer malfunctioned. None of the numbers I typed showed on the computer screen. I pounded on the keypad. The computer had rebelled! I was free from electronic oppression!

“The computer won’t take this information.” I turned in the chair to see what miracle my mentor would supply. “It won’t accept the numbers.”

“I think,” he said slowly, moving my hand from adding machine to computer, “it will work out better if you’ll use the computer’s keyboard.”

I learned my lesson. Be careful what you ask for. God is the ultimate practical joker.

Beware (With apologies to Jenny Joseph)

(For my husband, Bill, who has a Very Important Birthday coming up)

When I am old I shall wear Speedos
With sandals and black socks
And a Hawaiian floweredy shirt.
I shall collect old electrical appliances
That no longer work and are missing buttons.
And keep spare screws and washers
In jelly jars on a shelf.

I shall wear striped shirts and plaid shorts together
With the waistband under my armpits
And an old felt hat
From 1947.

But for now I must hold down a job
And go to church
Even Sunday School
And buy milk by the gallon.

But maybe I should buy bicycle pants for now
So people who know me won’t be surprised
When suddenly I am old and start to wear Speedos.

Short Skirts to Stretchy Pants

Sunday, on a whim, I wore high heels to church. The next time I have a bright idea like that, I’ll just go ahead and slash my Achilles tendons with a machete and drive tenpenny nails into my feet.

There was a time I could keep up with the latest fashion trends, but now that I’ve discovered stretchy pants and flip flops, I shy away from clothing choices that cling tighter than a six-year old in the cereal aisle. When I was in high school I had skirts so short my daddy put police tape around the bottom. I wore halter tops that showed more skin that a whole bucket of the Colonel’s original recipe. And I had pants tight enough to cut off the blood supply to my boyfriend’s heart. I knew I was ready for school every morning when Mom clutched her chest and shrieked, “Are you going to wear THAT?”

No, Mom, this outfit was designed to throw off the paparazzi.

Now that that I’ve reached the age when I have to consider the possibility that bending over to tie my shoes could result in the use of my health insurance, I don’t feel the need to indulge in garments that would garner the interest of bondage enthusiasts. I’m just thankful if my clothes cover any body parts that might be offensive to passers by. I also take into consideration whether pictures of me dressed for the day might inspire a record number of hits on You Tube or win the big money on Funniest Home Videos. In that case thong underwear would just be cruel to those who love me most.

Granted, you’re more likely to find my signature look on a donations jar than splashed across the pages of Cosmo, but as long as I don’t frighten small children or incite stampeding among wandering herds of mall rats, I’m not likely to check in with the Queer Eye guys for fashion tips.

This morning I appeared at breakfast dressed for work. My gray stretchy pants took a marked detour around my midsection, causing them to stop a bit short of Son One's soccer socks, the only pair I could find that matched. If I hadn't left my trifocals in the dishwasher again, I might have noticed the gravy stains forming a connect the dots pattern in the shape of a pork chop on my shirt before the dog sniffed my sleeve looking for a snack. And as long as I leaned forward a little, nobody could tell I’d had a C-section.

Son Two’s cereal spoon hovered in midair like a Southern mosquito on a summer afternoon. He regarded me gravely, “Mom are you gonna wear that?”

“Since when do you take an interest in my clothes?”

“Since you decided to wear Pop's shirt, Ryan's socks, and my sweatpants.”

Well, thank goodness. I was afraid it was MY clothes that were out of style.