A Bang and a Whimper

Because I didn’t have any armed artillery rounds to juggle, I decided to spend Sunday afternoon cleaning the boys’ room, a happy little corner of the world I like to call The Wasteland.

The guys were going to clean it out soon anyway, I’m sure. Back at the turn of the century I told Son Two, the Procrastinator, to straighten up his room if he wanted to have friends over to play pin the tail on the Pac Man. At the time, he was in fifth grade. He’ll graduate from college in the next few years, but I’m holding fast to my rule. So I know they were gonna take care of it sooner or later, but after the rusty nail incident I thought it was in the best interests of everybody to give them a hand.

I learned a lot of things this afternoon. First, I learned that juggling armed artillery rounds is easier than forcing jewelry on J-Lo compared to shoveling a decade’s worth of trading cards and sludge-filled Yoo Hoo bottles from the shag under the box springs in The Wasteland. The landscape around Chernobyl smacks of a trip down the yellow brick road compared to the terrain under those twin beds. (Flying monkeys excluded.)

Next, I learned that while the kids took my advice over the years, they applied a more literal translation of "save for the future" than I intended. Anyone who has ever spent three hours chiseling two dimes and a souvenir penny from a petrified Play Doh statue that has welded itself to a bookshelf with time and liberal applications of dust can feel my pain. I found enough change to pay off our church’s building debt and add a multi-sports complex out back, but I was afraid to touch any of it without notifying the Environmental Protection Agency. Both Obama and McCain say we need change. I’ve got it if they dare to come after it. But I'd advise they load up on oxygen masks, Kevlar gloves, and antiseptic wipes. A load of odor-eaters wouldn't hurt.

The third thing I learned is that a stray Cracker Jack will maintain its original form and composition no matter how much time passes or how many natural disasters come along to cover it with cat hair and dust bunnies. A Cracker Jack must be the basic building block upon which all other things are made. That and Easter Peeps. Which I found hibernating in someone's underwear drawer.

All the experience I earned today will stand me in good stead should I choose a new career as a hazardous waste transporter. But the most important thing I brought out of the Seventh Level of the Dirty Place was this: when an old woman slips on a decayed Snickers bar, careens off a peg-legged rocking chair, and lands with all of her the considerable heft on an ancient whoopee cushion that’s been repaired with duct tape and left to ripen for seven years, that cushion will still whoopee with gusto.

The sound will echo around the room like she’s been juggling live artillery rounds and dropped one. And as the previously empty space fills up with all the folks that neglected to help with the terrible task, she should drop the rest.

Camping's Out

Several years ago, Bill and I agreed to take our two boys on a camping trip. The boys, who owned more electronic equipment by the age of two than I have in my entire life, felt that they had been rudely neglected and possibly abused because they had never been camping. They’ve never skinned a chicken either, but that’s beside the point.
“And don’t argue the whole way.”
Bill and I exchanged a knowing look. “Okay,” we agreed. The last time they caught us in a discussion of escalating proportions, they locked us in the bathroom together overnight.
Early one summer morning, we arose in peace and harmony, swallowed our body weight in coffee, threw ourselves into the car and drove in silence and numbed goodwill for several minutes.
“Hand me the map,” my husband said, extending one open hand while juggling his travel mug, aspirin bottle, and steering wheel in the other.
“Map?” I asked, eyeing him quizzically.
“You didn’t pack a map?”
“If I wanted to pack something I couldn’t read, I would have just brought along War and Peace in the original Russian.”
He looked at me as if I had just suggested lining the bed of his truck with dotted swiss, jammed his foot down on the brake, and squealed into a gas station.
“Never mind. I’ll be right back.”
“Mom, is this an argument?” A puffy face blinked sleepily at me over the back seat. His mouth was ringed with chocolate milk and PopTart crumbs, and his hair looked like a weeping willow in a windstorm.
“Of course not, sweetheart. Pop just needs a map to find difficult locations like Asia or our mailbox.”
The boys exchanged knowing looks. “It’s a fight.”
Coffee in hand and map accordianed across the dashboard, we resumed our trip. “How much farther?” he asked, guiding the car steadily around a mountain curve. Some people just can’t be taught. I consulted the map and lifted my gaze.
“According to this, about a quarter of an inch.”
“Never mind,” he answered steadily, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. “Where do we go at the junction?”
“The Shady Rest Hotel?”
Snarling, he lunged abruptly for the map, drowning any final shreds of civility in a flood of hot coffee.
“Don’t overreact,” I said soothingly, blotting up caffeine with the Northeast section of Macon County. “I was kidding.”
My husband regarded me with the same intense stare I’ve observed on the faces of cheetahs watching sickly gazelle stragglers on Wild Kingdom. If he had one, I would swear I could see his tail twitching.
“Look,” I purred, wringing out the map. This chocolate drip is the campground. That potato chip grease is where we are now. All we have to do is follow this dotted line across those squiggles and we’re there!”
I don’t understand how some people can live with themselves the way they speak to other people who are trying to help.
“How was I supposed to know those squiggles were the Blue Ridge Mountains?”
“As long as you have the entire map of the United States unfolded in the front seat, try reading the legend.”
“Okay, but you know I get sick if I read in the car.”
“One quick peek won’t hurt anything.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
Later, when we finally found a service station with equipment to clean the upholstery, I heard the boys talking behind the gas pumps.
“Do you think we’ll get there alive?” one voice asked.
“I don’t know, but if we do, we’re gonna lock ‘em in the bath-house.”