A Close Shave

Back in my day when men carried wallets instead of purses, it was commonly thought that if a man had enough spare time to shave his back, he was either a ward of the state or he was living off Mama’s welfare earnings while she made pot roast and homemade yeast rolls with cream puffs for dessert.

Any man caught moisturizing body parts that Nice People couldn’t see would be subject to ridicule and excommunication from his bowling team. In extreme cases, license to own and drive muscle cars would be suspended. I know of one man who shaved his body to satisfy the whim of a roller skate waitress at the new drive-in. She was later caught pulling on the pony tail of a Harley biker at the drive through.

I come from a section of the country where any male over the age of 21 who doesn’t have a scar that precludes hair from growing on some part of his body is considered a Mama’s Boy and is subject to exclusion from all-you-can-eat wing night with the guys. Show me a man who shaves his face, waxes his chest, tweezes his eyebrows, and has his legs lasered, and I’ll show you the next winner on Project Runway.

Really, I’m just being self serving about the whole thing. In these days when it’s the fashion for men to keep their body slicker than an icicle, there’s nothing to keep the surface temperature at a desirable level once frost dusts the peaks and points. I like a man with some heat conductors left intact. When winter comes and my behind is colder than a Butterball turkey the week before Thanksgiving, I want to know that I’m snuggling up to somebody who doesn’t think of defrost exclusively as a microwave activity.

But for now it’s warm and winter is way beyond the horizon, so I'll just while away my time watching all the Hollywood hunks in the summer movies. I’ll start with Wolverine.

A little hair of the dog never hurt anyone.

Key Issue

This afternoon as I fished hysterically in my purse for my stupid car keys that were hiding from me on purpose, I had an idea.

For me, having an idea is a bit like giving birth to a ten pound porcupine. It’s a tedious process, fraught with peril, but quite sharp in the end. What I need is a Global Positioning System that can tell me where in my Super Organizer Bag to find my car keys.

That way I won’t be late for the school pick-up line while I thrash around unsuccessfully in my purse for twenty minutes sifting through stale M&M’s and used Kleenx before attempting to unlock my door with a Number Two pencil and a Twinkie wrapper.

The GPS KeyFinder is sure to be a moneymaker if properly engineered, using language that normal people who don’t factor pi for a hobby can understand. None of this “proceed north past the checkbook for 6 centimeters, turn east at the lipstick, circumnavigate the compact” sort of thing.

My basic concept of direction is this: North is up, South is down, East is left, and West is right. My WWII Navy Dad cringes whenever people ask me for directions. He says if I were in charge of Japanese navigations, Pearl Harbor would have remained untouched. But those elves at the North Pole would still be rebuilding reindeer pens.

I need basic directions. “Plunge hand into the middle compartment with the zipper that’s jammed with the soccer sock. Bypass the garage door opener and orange TicTac, turn left at the chewed cinnamon gum wrapped in foil, continue for the length of the nail file, then shake purse twice firmly. Keys are affixed to the melted Snickers bar by hardened caramel.

I’m not even going to charge the GPS people for this millionaire-making idea. A simple thank you and the knowledge that mommies everywhere will make it to school pick-up on time will be my reward. That and some pizza coupons. And a car with keyless entry.

Now, if I could only find my cell phone, I’d call and tell them. I know it’s here somewhere in my purse. . .

For Whom the Phone Rings

A cell phone is an incredible invention, designed with amazing technology by intellectual minds, so that our children, who normally count screaming “Front seat shotgun” as they race to the car as interpersonal conversation, can talk to us in the bathroom even when we're not at home.

With high hopes for a goal of widespread family communication in the new year, I finally submitted to the cell craze and bestowed the most basic instruments upon the family, admonishing the kids that these phones should be used only in cases of dire emergency such as a vehicular crisis more severe than a broken radio knob, physical injury resulting in the use of the family health insurance, or an unbelievable shoe sale at the mall.

Minutes later I received a text message from my oldest son who was located directly across the kitchen table, typing furiously on his new phone’s keypad. During several attempts to read the message, I managed to call myself twice, change the screensaver, and turn on the speakerphone function.

“Mom, just press this button,” the Alexander Graham Bell of the electronic age reached across and tapped the keypad. With a resounding beep, the message leaped to the screen.
“Pass the potatoes.”

New rule. No more text messages between people who are close enough to cut each other’s meat.

On my next trip to the mall, I visited the convenient restrooms thoughtfully located in the luau-themed food court. Hanging my purse on the pineapple, I assumed the classic public restroom hover-squat recognizable to health-conscious women everywhere. Suddenly, the unmistakable sounds of Beethoven’s most famous four notes exploded against the ceramic walls. DA DA DA DUN! I wanted a ring tone I could hear. I picked one that climbers sheltering from sudden storms on Everest could hear. I looked up. My purse hung tantalizingly above my head like an overripe coconut on a palm tree.

If I could kick the bottom of the bag, I could knock it from the hook to the floor and retrieve it with the toe of my imitation leather flower-bedecked thong sandal. I reached out tentatively with one shoe and immediately appreciated the disastrous results of stretching further.

DA DA DA DUN!

An attempt to use the spare roll of toilet paper as a projectile also failed.

DA DA DA DUN! Beethoven played on, more insistent with every note.

In desperation, I lunged for my purse, grabbed it off the hook and fell back in place just as the automatic flusher sensed evacuation and commenced operations. I pulled the phone from the depths of its nest and flipped it open with a flourish. The caller was my firstborn son, obviously in some turmoil that only his mother could resolve.

“Hello?”

“Mom, do we have any clean spoons?”

It figures. To me, crisis avoidance is saving my skirt from the self-flusher. To him, it’s getting a snack before CSI comes on.