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.
Laugh
Showing posts with label magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label magazine. Show all posts
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
As happens in many crumbling marriages, a factor in the divorce of Madonna and her husband, Mr. Madonna (she’s the one with the killer abs and fishnet hose, he’s the one planning a peaceful existence of solitude in an ivy-covered 250 room cottage in the English countryside) is their 500 million dollar net worth. I can’t help but compare their battle to the one Bill Dear and I would have if we ever called it quits. Contentious points in our settlement would include:
Custody of the dictionaries. We’re word people. This makes for a tough battle. The air will be thick with nouns, and adjectives will cover the walls.
Responsibility for cleaning the kitty box corner of the marital duplex before the security deposit can be recovered. I’d rather take out fire insurance and torch the place.
Subscription to Mental Floss magazine. This one is in Bill’s name. It doesn’t look good for Albert Einstein finding a place in my new pad.
Access to the recipe for Apple Bread. Bill makes bread Sunbeam would open a new division for, so I wouldn’t demand physical possession of the recipe. I just want visitation of the results.
Responsibility of the marital computer tech to repair and update all estranged computers for free. Because the blue screen of death makes me sad.
Ownership of the Disney videos. I brought 101 Dalmatians into the marriage and I’m not leaving with less.
Continued relationship with the extended marital family. Bill has fixed my family’s computers, arranged for repairs on everything from telephone lines to plumbing, and, initiated emergency garbage runs to the dump during the great fruit fly outbreak of 2001. My sisters would pack my belongings in a steamer trunk and set me adrift off the coast of Charleston with a bucket of shark bait before they would let him get away.
Proprietorship of the family fortune--a three liter plastic jar once bursting with cheese popcorn, now awash in pennies collected painstakingly over an eighteen month period. There would be more, but we keep digging into the stash for important life-enhancing substances like candy corn and Easter peeps.
Three McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces, two of which were good for a free order of medium fries in 1998.
The cast iron frying pan. Seasoned by years of campfire cooking and bacon grease massages, it makes the best gravy in the continental United States, outlying territories, and Arctic ice floes. In the Southern United States, the family’s cast iron frying pan is passed from generation to generation with the same care as the family Tupperware. I’d sooner part with the children than the frying pan. The frying pan requires less maintenance and never asks for allowance.
Unlike Madonna’s breakup, media coverage might not whip the ordeal into a frenzy of transatlantic proportions. But the SugarTit News and World Report might give us a call to see if somebody’s going to extend the subscription when we split. In our tiny, kudzu-covered corner of the world, our cancellation could put that paper to bed for good. For the future of freedom of the press and media in America, I guess we’d better stay together.
Besides, neither one of us is willing to take custody of the cats.
Custody of the dictionaries. We’re word people. This makes for a tough battle. The air will be thick with nouns, and adjectives will cover the walls.
Responsibility for cleaning the kitty box corner of the marital duplex before the security deposit can be recovered. I’d rather take out fire insurance and torch the place.
Subscription to Mental Floss magazine. This one is in Bill’s name. It doesn’t look good for Albert Einstein finding a place in my new pad.
Access to the recipe for Apple Bread. Bill makes bread Sunbeam would open a new division for, so I wouldn’t demand physical possession of the recipe. I just want visitation of the results.
Responsibility of the marital computer tech to repair and update all estranged computers for free. Because the blue screen of death makes me sad.
Ownership of the Disney videos. I brought 101 Dalmatians into the marriage and I’m not leaving with less.
Continued relationship with the extended marital family. Bill has fixed my family’s computers, arranged for repairs on everything from telephone lines to plumbing, and, initiated emergency garbage runs to the dump during the great fruit fly outbreak of 2001. My sisters would pack my belongings in a steamer trunk and set me adrift off the coast of Charleston with a bucket of shark bait before they would let him get away.
Proprietorship of the family fortune--a three liter plastic jar once bursting with cheese popcorn, now awash in pennies collected painstakingly over an eighteen month period. There would be more, but we keep digging into the stash for important life-enhancing substances like candy corn and Easter peeps.
Three McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces, two of which were good for a free order of medium fries in 1998.
The cast iron frying pan. Seasoned by years of campfire cooking and bacon grease massages, it makes the best gravy in the continental United States, outlying territories, and Arctic ice floes. In the Southern United States, the family’s cast iron frying pan is passed from generation to generation with the same care as the family Tupperware. I’d sooner part with the children than the frying pan. The frying pan requires less maintenance and never asks for allowance.
Unlike Madonna’s breakup, media coverage might not whip the ordeal into a frenzy of transatlantic proportions. But the SugarTit News and World Report might give us a call to see if somebody’s going to extend the subscription when we split. In our tiny, kudzu-covered corner of the world, our cancellation could put that paper to bed for good. For the future of freedom of the press and media in America, I guess we’d better stay together.
Besides, neither one of us is willing to take custody of the cats.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Watertight
It’s not that I don’t get embarrassed. There’s a name for the special shade of red I turned when my youngest son jumped the communion rail at church. But after years of doling out sermons on the subject, I’ve done the unthinkable, and I have the decency to feel a bit bashful about my lapse.
But since I’m 48 years old, I feel that I have earned the privilege to balance my walker on the wild side. So when I was wheeling my buggy down the aisle of the local Super Duper Market, I grabbed a bottle of water that was on sale.
That’s right. I paid for water. If Jennifer Aniston can do it, so can I. We have a lot in common, after all. She shaves one leg at a time just like I do. Except that she can afford laser removal and will probably stay silky smooth all her life, and I’m at the age when random hairs shoot out of various body parts with alarming frequency, requiring a doctor wielding lasers like Jesse James with a pair of six shooters to keep up.
Later, as Bill and I unloaded the groceries together, a little bonding exercise I like to call Marital Freezer Burn, hubby dear took the opportunity to lighten the mood with witty commentary. I kept busy trying to hide the bottled water beneath the Brussels sprouts. He’s a good sport, but he’s listened to so many speeches about money wasted on water over the years, the man is afraid to throw a penny in a wishing well.
“You got liver.” He made accompanying facial gestures that either indicated disapproval or suggested he had his boxers on backwards.
“It’s good for you.”
“I don’t eat internal organs.”
“Oh, it’s not to eat. It’s for a possible donor situation.”
“Very funny. What’re you hiding under the vegetables?”
“I’m not hiding anything. There are no secrets in our marriage.”
“What about the Johnny Depp poster you’ve got stashed in your women’s magazine?”
Drat. I planned an undercover Depp relocation for later that evening. “That doesn’t count. Besides, you’ve got Penelope Cruz stuck in that National Geographic in the bathroom.” I started edging down the hall with the grocery bag.
“What’s in the bag? Did you get saturated fat?”
“Yes. I’ll show it to you later.” I gave him what I hoped was a come hither look. “After the kids are in bed.”
“Did you drop your contact in the cat food again? You’re making that scrunchy face.”
I sighed. The hall was inches away. Trying not to draw attention to the grocery bag, I turned to saunter nonchalantly away.
“So. Is it a member of the crunchy fried family?”
“Ummm, I’d say it’s more smooth.”
“So it’s not pork rinds? You never get me anything I like.”
“Last week I let you have turkey bacon.”
“I’ll alert the media.”
“I’m looking out for your health.”
Sensing junk food on the horizon, the kids appeared from their room, the land where video games go to die. Hearing the rattle of bags in the kitchen, the dogs rushed past the boys to get their shopping day surprise, knocking the bag holding my clandestine purchase out of my hand and sending the bottle of storebought water rolling across the floor.
“What’s this?” (Why is it that gleefulness can sometimes be more irritating than being swerved Scampi with shells still on the shrimp?) “You’re cheating on the grocery budget with. . .SmartWater?” He was happier than a Collie in a cow pasture with all day free to roll.
I had the decency to harbor a bit of embarrassment. “Okay, I’ve been drinking SmartWater. But so far, it hasn’t helped.”
But since I’m 48 years old, I feel that I have earned the privilege to balance my walker on the wild side. So when I was wheeling my buggy down the aisle of the local Super Duper Market, I grabbed a bottle of water that was on sale.
That’s right. I paid for water. If Jennifer Aniston can do it, so can I. We have a lot in common, after all. She shaves one leg at a time just like I do. Except that she can afford laser removal and will probably stay silky smooth all her life, and I’m at the age when random hairs shoot out of various body parts with alarming frequency, requiring a doctor wielding lasers like Jesse James with a pair of six shooters to keep up.
Later, as Bill and I unloaded the groceries together, a little bonding exercise I like to call Marital Freezer Burn, hubby dear took the opportunity to lighten the mood with witty commentary. I kept busy trying to hide the bottled water beneath the Brussels sprouts. He’s a good sport, but he’s listened to so many speeches about money wasted on water over the years, the man is afraid to throw a penny in a wishing well.
“You got liver.” He made accompanying facial gestures that either indicated disapproval or suggested he had his boxers on backwards.
“It’s good for you.”
“I don’t eat internal organs.”
“Oh, it’s not to eat. It’s for a possible donor situation.”
“Very funny. What’re you hiding under the vegetables?”
“I’m not hiding anything. There are no secrets in our marriage.”
“What about the Johnny Depp poster you’ve got stashed in your women’s magazine?”
Drat. I planned an undercover Depp relocation for later that evening. “That doesn’t count. Besides, you’ve got Penelope Cruz stuck in that National Geographic in the bathroom.” I started edging down the hall with the grocery bag.
“What’s in the bag? Did you get saturated fat?”
“Yes. I’ll show it to you later.” I gave him what I hoped was a come hither look. “After the kids are in bed.”
“Did you drop your contact in the cat food again? You’re making that scrunchy face.”
I sighed. The hall was inches away. Trying not to draw attention to the grocery bag, I turned to saunter nonchalantly away.
“So. Is it a member of the crunchy fried family?”
“Ummm, I’d say it’s more smooth.”
“So it’s not pork rinds? You never get me anything I like.”
“Last week I let you have turkey bacon.”
“I’ll alert the media.”
“I’m looking out for your health.”
Sensing junk food on the horizon, the kids appeared from their room, the land where video games go to die. Hearing the rattle of bags in the kitchen, the dogs rushed past the boys to get their shopping day surprise, knocking the bag holding my clandestine purchase out of my hand and sending the bottle of storebought water rolling across the floor.
“What’s this?” (Why is it that gleefulness can sometimes be more irritating than being swerved Scampi with shells still on the shrimp?) “You’re cheating on the grocery budget with. . .SmartWater?” He was happier than a Collie in a cow pasture with all day free to roll.
I had the decency to harbor a bit of embarrassment. “Okay, I’ve been drinking SmartWater. But so far, it hasn’t helped.”
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