Welcome to Heidi - From Psychics to Skinny Chicks

Because I can’t leave anything alone if there’s a chance I can poke it with a stick and come up with another punchline, I’ve been pondering the Koo Koo for Cocoa Puffs chapter in Welcome to Heidi, the new Heidi Clements fictional (Sure, there’s a few embellishments. Nobody wants their life story to read like a peel-off coupon) memoir. 

After checking out the relationship with her psychic (“who may or may not kill things in order to make my dreams come true”), I can’t help thinking there are probably times in all of our lives when we would take a chance with somebody who could steer us to Prince Charming. . .or away from that investment in kitten ear muffs.  Or who could silence that coworker who orders personal products on her cell phone. In the cubicle next to you. During your lunchtime tuna salad break.

So here are a few times I could use a psychic to move things along. Don’t lie; you can think of a few times, too.  Remember when you were extra-pregnant and your brother-in-law said you looked like an overloaded washtub. . .

1.      I really need to pass the test to secure my major in Business Ethics and I’ve just discovered that downing tequila shots the night before is not a viable study aid.

2.      When I really need a raise to buy the dress that will make me look like Kate Upton on her best day and it would help speed things along if I knew the true relationship between my boss and the Vending Machine Supervisor.

3.      When my lifelong adversary is receiving the achievement award I’ve already written my acceptance speech for and I want to wear the same dress in a size smaller to the recognition dinner.

4.      When my ex-husband, The Defendant, is escorting the 24 year old beautician with the Taylor Swift hair to dinner at “our” restaurant and I want to know where he parked because I still have the spare key to his car.

5.      When the lottery is topping out at 500 million and I’m trying to decide whether to go for groceries or spring for the extra buck to Power Up the ticket I just snagged at the Zippy Mart.

6.      My niece/nephew/other impressionable child just heard my opinion of the driver who careened into my lane and put on brakes and I need to make sure he doesn’t share my views during tea with the Ladies’ Bible class.

7.      I’m on Let’s Make a Deal and don’t want to miss out on the Big Deal of the Day because I am in desperate need of a trip to Tahiti and a bass boat.

8.      I’m at my class reunion and can’t figure out who the skinny chick is who keeps harping on “that great time we had at Nag’s Head.”

9.      I can’t tell which clothes are in the “semi-soiled but still fits” pile and which is the “clean, but Twiggy couldn’t get in to it” stack and I don’t want to risk a deal-breaker by putting on a dress that could double as a personal massager.

10.  I want a chicken for supper and need somebody with experience in making that happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Legacy

As far as legacies go, my tastes lie with something simple, like a check. Or stock. Or heirloom china. Unfortunately Mama wasn’t the heirloom china type. What I got when she departed for the peaceful place where mothers don’t have to cook, clean, or say, “If I told you once, I told you a million times,” was not the inheritance I assumed was my birthright. What she left me was the very thing I was the least qualified to handle. Wisdom.

Giving me a lapful of life lessons is like tossing me a copy of the Atkins diet and a size six sheath dress and telling me the party starts at seven. You may as well shove the plans for building a biplane into my arms and tell me to be in Paris by midnight. When it comes to legacies, it’s best to just go ahead and hand me a gold bar.

Now that I’m in the stage of life where good advice usually involves a recipe loaded with fiber, I realize that what Mama left me was a handbook for life. Thanks to the seeds my mom planted in the rocky garden of my mind over the years, I’ve sailed through many of the stormy seas of life without having to evacuate to life boats. Turns out Mom knew best all along. Here are Mama’s Rules to Live By—along with some of my own observations for those who, like me, have trouble following directions.

1. There is something to love in every person. However, there are some people who hide that something really well. Actually, Mama just said that first part. I learned the second part from my sister.

2. If you rip a page out of your brother’s comic book, he can rip a page out of yours. This is a mother of four’s version of The Golden Rule. I learned to treat friends, family, and their possessions with respect. And I’ll never know what happened to Archie and Jughead that day at Riverdale High.

3. Give a child two cookies; one for each hand. This is a smart idea because it keeps the child busy for twice as long, diverts him from "helping" with your biscuit dough and prevents you from having to walk every morning for a week to work off two cookies that you would have eaten to relieve stress if your child had two hands free to plunge into the dog's food.

4. Don’t honk your horn at anybody. At first I assumed this was Mama’s version of traveling etiquette, but now I realize that she understood road rage long before anyone held up traffic trying to read road signs through the wrong part of skinny designer bifocals.

5. Always have a skill you can fall back on. By this, I know now that she meant a skill that will continue to be of service to the Community of Man. Unfortunately the skill I chose was typing, which caused typewriters to immediately become extinct.

6. If you’re not tall enough to see out the car window, sit on a pillow. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Even the Marines agree with her.

7. If something particularly unpleasant is happening to you, there’s probably a lesson involved. Wade through a puddle or two on the linoleum and you’ll remember to let the new puppy out. You’ll also remember to buy a mop.

8. Don’t sell things you can give away. That might not make sense in an e-Bay world, but knowing that someone who needs it will have a warm coat for the winter goes a long way toward offsetting the thrill of bagging $1.50 for your old hula lamp in an online auction.

9. Play to win. Unless that gets in the way of playing for fun. When playing Scrabble with an elderly woman who can’t see past her elbow, give her a break if she thinks she drew five blanks. Come to think of it, that’s how Mom always won at Scrabble, so there’s probably an extra lesson tucked in there.

10. Always take time to watch the birds at the birdfeeder. Time spent with nature is a peace of mind investment. And last winter, a tiny chickadee who muscled his way through a crowd of rowdy cardinals to have lunch gave me some great ideas for handling the next family reunion. And the big project due at work.

11. Don’t worry, it’ll get worse. This was my mom’s slogan. When I was three and ran to her with a skinned knee, she said it. 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, the problems that seem overpowering right now aren’t the end of the world. Things can also get better. So if teaching two teenaged boys to drive and adding them to my insurance is the worst life has to offer, I can handle it.

But I sure wouldn’t turn down a check.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Guns and Grandmas

When Southerners make the news it's never the "Mild-mannered College Professor Cures Cancer" type of story. It's not even the "Socialite Bequeaths Diamonds to Charity" type story. Oh no. When we make the news it's more of a "please don't put that on the front page and for goodness sake don't put a picture or say they're related to me" type of story. In which case I point out the happenings for the whole word to enjoy.

But in the sense of fairness, because this could have happened to anybody, I've left out Bubba and Junior's real names and supplied fitting character-generated epithets.

Here in the Redneck Capital of the World, a story made the newspaper that involved all the necessary ingredients of a made-for-TV movie—or a family reunion, depending on whether potato salad was served.

Seems Granny was unable to sleep what with pondering the whereabouts of her debit card, and woke up Nephew Number One to ask for his input on the matter. Meanwhile, Nephew Number Two, The Bad ’Un, wandered away from his plant-cultivating hobby, leaving his pipe on the kitchen table long enough to grab up Grandma in a choke hold, and poke the business end of a rifle into the throat of our boy, Rip Van Winkle. He takes a shot at the family Bible and sends Rip in to sit on the couch wearing nothing but his underpants and a plastic bag on his head.

But suddenly the plot twist kicks in. When Bad Boy turns to look out the door, Captain Underpants overpowers him, grabs the rifle, and hotfoots it down the street, where, despite his lack of fashion sense, he convinces a neighbor to call Emergency Services. (I have no proof, but I’m assuming he dislodged the fancy bag hat before the action sequence.)

If it weren’t for the Bible incident, I’d be leaning toward the Family Reunion story. But no Southern boy is going to take a pot shot that separates Matthew from Mark, Luke, and John in front of his grandmother and live to tell about it. Which leads us to the question: Where was Granny during the excitement? Any Southern Grandma worth her weight in blackstrap molasses would have pulled out a shotgun of her own and blasted the pants off Mr.Yuk. The whole tale smacks of “If you believe that one, then listen to this.”

As it was, reports state that Mr. Meanie was caught after a brief pursuit. From the descriptions, it sounds like they got their nephews mixed up because the briefs were last seen high-tailing it over the river and through the woods away from Grandma’s House.