Daily Diatribes

Before I launch into my description of the final circle, I have to clarify that the circles are all pretty equally hellish in my mind. At different times, one circle might seem more hellish than another, but it’s all relative to circumstance. For example, I contend Chuck E. Cheese stands a bit apart from the others as especially demonic, but the waiting room at the doctor’s office can be just as unpleasant if your child is vomiting or you are sitting near someone who appears particularly germ infested and insists on coughing in your direction. And circles are obviously dependent upon the individual, with some of us adoring the Galleria while others of us find McDonald’s quite tolerable. It all depends on who you are and where you’re at in life.

My 7th circle is a child’s sporting event. Any sport, be it soccer, basketball, baseball, football, hockey or ninepins is rendered hellish when played by children. This is largely because of the parents, who think their little darling is destined to be the next Olympic great, soon to be gracing a box of Wheaties. I’ve never heard another parent say “well, Johnny is really no good at baseball, but he is having fun and that’s what matters.” Oh no, it’s usually more along the lines of “Johnny gets up at 5:00 a.m. every morning to work out with his conditioning coach for two hours before the bus comes, and then he has practice from 5 to 7 every night and three nights a week, he gets extra batting practice with a batting specialist”. This might not sound like much until you find out Johnny is 6 and has only just recently stopped sucking his thumb.

In my family, MA is the jock. She is reasonably agile and she’s small and mean, so she is much sought after by various coaches. She plays soccer in the fall and spring and she plays basketball, very grudgingly, in the winter. When I go to the games, I am very restrained, usually too caught up in trying to watch MA and to not kill the blonde goddess, to cause any problems. But it’s amazing to me how many parents take their children’s games seriously. I am glad to see my kid play well, and I hope she’s having fun, but most of all, I am glad she is getting her heart pumping. Of my three children, MA is the one most likely to sit in front of the TV all day in a complete vegetative state. I have actually had to pull weeds away from her before because she has stayed in one spot too long. We have thought about putting a shelf across the top of her head and using her as extra display space, but her head is not quite flat enough.

Let me enumerate the things I hate about my child’s sporting events. First, I have to take her to all the practices and all the games. Conveniently, these almost always fall when hubby is working and cannot help. Getting her to practice is challenging. She does not see why she has to practice since she already knows how to play. She wants to show up for the games and even then, they should be scheduled for her convenience, around her television shows. She digs in and resists for all she’s worth, hoping she can wear me down and I will let her skip. That never happens, because it costs money to play and I want my money’s worth. I want to sit in the bleachers and gossip with the other moms and eat nachos and popcorn and watch her sweat and run up and down the court or field. These are moments to make a mother’s heart a little lighter!

The games are always on Saturday and most often occur at the crack of dawn, when no sane human being is stirring. If we’re playing soccer, it’s usually cold and we have to drive 45 miles one way to get to the game. By the time we get there, I realize I don’t have a chair or a blanket and there are no bleachers, so the goddess and I have to stand for the whole thing. The goddess will have moaned the entire way “I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m hungry, I’m thirsty,” with MA peppering the litany with a staccato “shut up shut up shut up”! Never, ever question me if you see me at a soccer field at 7:30 a.m. with a flask. It’s medicinal, ok??!!!!

If it’s basketball, we have to drive to one catholic church or another in the greater Birmingham area and some of them are very hard to find. Since catholics are a minority in the Deep South, we try to blend into our surroundings and not be seen. This is so the Baptists won’t keep coming with casseroles, trying to convert us. MA has been playing Toy Bowl sports for three years now and I still have to call Kiki to get directions. The churches are always hidden on tiny back streets, masquerading as condemned properties. Again, good camoflauge to keep those evangelizing Baptists away. And I am not condemning Baptists; y’all make one heck of a casserole!! There are times we have driven around in circles for hours and found the church right as the starting whistle blew.

Once the game begins, the screaming begins. Parents are hollering left and right “knock her down” or “how did you miss that shot” or “no dinner tonight if you miss”. That last one is me, because I am trying to be funny, but no one is ever amused. They are too busy calling their child’s agent, trying to find out how many scores are needed to be seriously considered by the scouts. If I have the goddess with me, I like soccer better because it’s outside and I can usually sucker some older kid into playing with her so I can watch the game and take down MA’s stats for her portfolio. But basketball is awful because there is a concession stand and no playground. The goddess sits next to me the whole time, moaning for money so she can buy candy, driving me half mad!

I hate basketball. I don’t understand it at all. There are all sorts of obscure rules and they seem to change based on which way the referee’s toupee is pointing. The coaches scream out numbers which are supposed to tell the girls which way to run down the court. I can’t even follow who is supposed to have the ball and why, so I just watch MA. She almost always fouls out of the game, which I am told is a good thing, but I still cringe when I see her elbow some unsuspecting six footer in the face. I am slightly comforted by the fact that she is 4′10 and only weighs about 85 pounds, but I still feel bad when she drops some 160 pound girl to the ground.

Today was the first game for her. This morning we had a birthday party to attend at Recreation Station (which is Chuck E. Cheese without the big scary animals) and the game was right after it, so lucky me, I got to enjoy TWO circles of hell today! The goddess was in rare form, whining from the moment we got into the car until five minutes ago. She was mad because I gave Zac money for his birthday and she didn’t think that was fair because she never gets money for her birthday. Then at the party, she whined because she couldn’t play the games (hate those games!!!!!!!! I’d like to whack a manager, not a mole!!), she had to wear socks, her stomach hurt, she wasn’t getting enough tickets, she didn’t have 3500 tickets to win a stuffed animal and the list goes on and on! MA was mad because she didn’t want to be at the party and she did not want to play basketball because she hates basketball. I wish I had had a good case of mumps as a child; would have saved me a lot of future heartache. If you need explanation for the reference, ask Renee.

When we got to the basketball game, the goddess whined through the whole first half because she left her backpack in the car, even though I told her to bring it. At halftime I got it, and then she spent the second half whining because I left the can of slime she had won as a prize in the car and I refused to go back and get it. The gym we were at has the loudest buzzer I have ever heard in my life; I think it may have caused some damage to the hearing that remains to me after listening to the goddess whine all morning.

So all in all, I would rather endure a good case of shingles than go to my child’s basketball/soccer/baseball game. At least in my family, it’s no fun for anyone! I feel reasonably certain MA is NOT going to go pro after sixth grade; I am simply hoping I can continue to con her into playing something so she won’t sprout vegetables from her head!

Now that my blogs are in print form, where I can page through them at my leisure, I realize I have been remiss in some of my threads. A prime example is the circles of Hell; I listed five and then stopped. But today, I discovered the sixth circle and I am going to share it with you. The Sixth Circle of Hell is the McDonald’s Playland or any indoor playland where children, food, and plastic tube slides come together. Now I realize Chuck E Cheese was the second circle, but I believe I am right in saying Chuck E. Cheese, with it’s large, animatronic demons stands alone. McDonald’s is a separate hell in its own right.

I don’t care where the playplace is, whether it’s at McDonald’s or Chick Fil A or Burger King, they all stink. They all have an odor reminiscent of urine, mold and sweaty feet, with overtones of poo. You feel unclean the moment you step through the doors and the idea of your children playing there makes you shudder. Yet you go, because it is an opportunity to sit down, visit with another mother or to simply read the paper. You also go because it is a rite of passage every parent must endure.

A little bit about my day and how we came to be at the Playland: Today is Kiki’s son’s 6th birthday. He is the very dearest, bosom companion of the demon goddess. So we agreed to meet in Hell…um, I mean, McDonald’s, to let the young lovers frolic and cavort while we sat and bemoaned the wretched holiday break that brought us there in the first place.

But before we went, I took Napoleon over to a friend’s house, so I wouldn’t have to contend with him hulking around the playplace, sulking and/or tackling the younger children to amuse himself. The trip was in itself a mini Hell. Napoleon has recently discovered that he can send the goddess into a fury by whispering the word “monkey” to her. From the moment we got into the car until the moment we pulled into Kelsey’s driveway, he would look back over his shoulder at her, smile and then say “monkey”. The screams of agony that followed each monkey were truly ear splitting. I am not sure why the word “monkey” makes her so crazy, but she’s five and eats dirt, so who knows? All I know is it was one of the longest 15 minute rides of my life. I could not wait to get rid of my son. I may not pick him up again.

After we ejected him from the car, the monkey and I went on to Kohl’s to pick up a gift for Prince Charming. Some of my constant readers may remember an earlier entry where I described various inappropriate birthday gifts one could give to children. Well, the goddess picked a doozy today. We wandered through the toy aisle, and nothing captured her fancy. And then she saw it: pushed way back on a shelf, obviously not belonging in the toy department, was, well, a monkey, in a raincoat, wearing silk boxer shorts with hearts on them. On his chest was a large red heart emblazoned with the words “you make me bananas”. When you pushed his foot, his hips gyrated and he sang the “Move It” song from Madagascar (I like to move it move, you like to move it move it….). The goddess was enthralled and nothing else would do for her love. As a matter of fact, as she gyrated to the music down the aisle toward the cash register, she looked at me and said “Mommy, you must buy this for my birthday!” Please, please, don’t all rush out today and get her one!!

We paid and headed to McDonalds, with me having never really looked at this thing we had purchased, other than to note it was cheaper than the $40 Diego toy she originally wanted to buy. We got in to the restaurant, and she clamored for him to open it. It was opened and set on the table and she pushed the foot proudly. That was when I read the package….the advertising on the box read “it sings, it dances, it FLASHES a surprise….” Yes, dear reader, I am afraid I bought a Flashing Pervert Monkey for a 6 year old’s birthday present! Once he was out of the box, one could clearly see that, as the monkey was gyrating his hips, he was gradually opening his raincoat so everyone could get a peek at his boxers!!! Thank God he didn’t drop the boxers to show everyone his banana!!!!! I was mortified, but thank goodness it was Kiki and she has a sense of humor!!

After I got over the shock of having purchased a pornographic toy for a six year old boy, I settled down to eat my happy meal. This being the week of Christmas break, the play land was pretty full. There was one little tyke there, very cute, with a wild mop of dark curly hair. She was probably around 4 or 5. Well, she was cute until she came over to the table where our children were sitting, and started eating their french fries. Melissa, one of the moms with us, tried to shoo her away and she looked at Melissa and growled “Noooooooooo” in a very scary voice.

It was readily apparent there was something wrong with the child, so we chose to ignore her. I would hazard a guess that she was autistic, since she was not really articulate and was in her own world, not really interacting with any of the other children. So there we were, sitting at a table positioned right next to the playplace and I look up and she IS LICKING THE FLOOR OF THE PLAYPLACE!!!! Yep, something not quite right about that child!!!!!!

Now here is why I consider these places to be hell; it’s not the kids, it’s the parents who don’t watch them. It seems to me most parents use these places as a giant playpen. They assume their children are confined within four walls, so therefore they do not have to watch them. I don’t care how confined my kids are, my eyes are ALWAYS on them!!! Unfortunately, many other parents do not demonstrate this same courtesy. They assume their children are little angels and could never do anything wrong, so there is no need to watch them. I contend that children are capable of great evil and must be watched constantly because you never know when they are going to spit on another child or take a bite out of someone, or just take another kid down with a good old fashioned body slam!! So I watch my kids.

The father of this little girl was across the room, in a corner, where he could not see her cleaing the nasty, e-coli infested floor of the play place with her tongue. She started at one wall, then she moved to the mesh and tongued her way all around the interior. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, yet strangely compelling. Like passing the site of a train wreck with body parts strewn all around, it was impossible to look away from the horror. She seemed most taken with the area just inside the tube that connected to the area that was formerly a ball pit. Apparently it must have been good and salty there from all those sweaty feet.

I was already feeling a bit ill and then the licker started grabbing her bottom. By now, Kiki, Melissa and I were staring openly, making no pretense of our horror. She started at her crotch and then worked her hand backward, checking for heaven only knows what!! It was when she started taking her pants down that we had had enough. Yes, right there in front of us, she started to pull them down and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she was going to make a sacrifice to the gods of the playland, in log form of course!!

Well, Kiki sprang up and bolted across the room for the father. Melissa started telling the little girl no again (Melissa is so brave, having already been growled at by the child once!) and I just stared uselessly, my jaw hanging open. The father rushed over, ushered her out of the ball pit and took her to the bathroom to do her business. He offered no apologies and did not acknowledge us. They were gone for about five minutes, and then she was back again for more licking. Then she came back for more fries from our table. That time her dad saw her and he came over and grabbed her, again with no apologies. I understand she had a problem, but it would have been polite for him to have acknowledged that to us. But nothing.

We left shortly after that. Once you’ve been mooned by a four year old, there really isn’t anything left, is there? We went our separate ways, all of us wondering how long it would take before the little tyke started with the explosive, hemmorraghic diarrhea that is the obvious result of licking the floor of the McDonald’s Playland for twenty minutes. I just hope she does it at home and not in the restaurant.

So that concludes the 6th circle of hell. To recap, the 6th circle is any playplace attached to a fast food restaurant and filled with nasty children and their rude parents who don’t supervise them. It’s going to be hard to come up with a 7th circle to top this one, but I will!!

Moving right along through hell, the fifth circle is the family vacation. When I was growing up, my family took very few vacations. As with everything else in my children’s lives, I have over compensated in this department until all possible pleasure has been removed from these excursions.

We have dragged these children to museums all across the country, we have traisped through aquariums, we have been to the beach, to the mountains, and to the city. We have been to amusement parks and state parks and national parks and city parks. We’ve hit the zoos, the woods, the wetlands, the wildlife preserves and even the bayous. Frankly, there’s not much we haven’t done in the name of the family vacation.

And I absolutely loathe it. I hate the whole idea of a vacation for so many reasons, the main one being that planning falls under my realm of responsibility, along with scrubbing the toilet and forcing my children and the lizard to eat their vegetables.

First of all, I have to come up with a destination. This is not nearly as easy as it sounds. “Why don’t we go to Atlanta?” I’ll suggest to Tim. “I hate cities,” he’ll grunt in return. “Well, let’s go to the beach,” says I. “I hate the beach,” says Tim. “Fine, let’s go to Disney World,” I propose. “I hate Disney World,” he growls. “Fine, let’s go to the Cahaba, I’ll weight you down with those damn coins you collect, sink the car, collect the insurance and I’ll go to Paris without you!!” I say sweetly. “Fine, whatever,” he says.

So you see, we are already not off to a good start. After we pick the destination, then it is my duty to secure lodging. Tim would like to keep the cost around $5.00 a night, but it has to be air conditioned, have cable and HBO, be within 5 minutes of all activities, have an indoor pool, and have king size beds. And you know how fast those places book up!

Once I have the lodging, then I have to plan the activities. Let’s name all the things Tim hates to do. He hates to swim, he hates to walk, he hates to look at museums, he hates to drive, he hates everything that does not involve sitting in MY red chair and channel surfing. If we could find a museum that was filled with couches and plasma tv’s with separate remotes for each guest, he would be in heaven!! Otherwise, he is completely annoyed by everything. When I suggest to him that all activities do not have to be planned just to please him, he gapes at me like I’ve just suggested the sky is not blue. What, Tim not be the focus of the family vacation?? How dare I suggest we do something that entertains the children as well????

Ok, maybe he’s not quite this bad, but he really is pretty close!! Then there is the transport to the vacation spot. We will drive of course, because I don’t fly unmedicated and Tim does not want to supervise three children on an airplane by himself. So we have to pack the car full of everything we might possibly ever conceive of needing, including gear for extreme climate changes, such as parkas and tank tops, and a selection of 37 DVDs the children have only seen twenty times as opposed to two hundred.

Once we take off, the kids begin the fighting immediately. They don’t want to miss the extraordinary opportunity of close quarters to make my life a living hell. “Mom, Josh keeps hitting me,” moans Abby. “Well she put her feet on my seat,” he retorts as he belts her across the head. “I want to watch Sponge Bob now!!!” screams the demon goddess from her car seat. “I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, are we there yet????” Animals who eat their young at birth are much more sensible than any human. I will say the kids know better than to ask for bathroom stops; we actually had our children genetically modified to have iron bladders.

Then comes the dreaded stop for lunch. I am far too lazy to pack a lunch and Tim and I both feel that since it’s a vacation, we should eat out as often as possible. This is one area of total harmony for us. However, food starts a whole new shouting match. “I want McDonald’s,” sing out the children. “No, we have to eat in a sit down restaurant,” I insist. “But you can sit in McDonalds,” they protest innocently. Little tykes, should have sold them to that guy in the Wal Mart parking lot when I had the chance. “No fast food,” Tim bellows. “How about Cracker Barrel?” I suggest. “I hate Cracker Barrel,” moans Abby. “How about Hooters?” Tim says, at which point I pinch him very hard, right under the arm where it hurts the most.

Finally, we stop for lunch, and then we’re on our way again. When we get where we’re going, the unpacking of the car begins. Everything must be hauled upstairs, all garbage disposed of and the car generally cleaned out. The elevator presents a new set of challenges. “I want to push the button,” says Abby. “No, it’s my turn,” says Anna. “Fine, I’ll push the outside button and you push the inside,” says Abby. They agree and then when we get in the elevator Josh jumps over and pushes the button. Then Anna screams and then I scream and then we all scream. I love a good family scream!!

Once we get into the room, the argument over the beds begins. To liven things up, the kids begin their favorite game of “let’s jump from bed to bed and see how many times we can jump before we crack our heads open on the corner of the nightstand.” By now, I am fantasizing about taping them all together with duct tape, putting out the Do Not Disturb sign, and heading for the mythical beach in Mexico. We get the bed assignments made and then head for dinner. By now, everyone is too tired to complain so that’s pretty tame. Then everyone wants to go to the pool. Along with every other aspect of the trip, this is my job. I hate going to the pool. If it’s an indoor pool, the steamy chlorine smell makes me ill and the closed in feel makes me claustrophobic. Tim is always the first one to suggest it, but then he’s too tired to actually monitor them at the pool. So he gets to lay on the bed and flip through the cable channels while I keep Josh and Abby from trying to beat each other to death with the pool noodle.

Bed time is the worst, though, because it’s lights out, especially if we are in a hotel room together. Usually, we get everyone settled and then I go hide in the bathroom and read, while I wait for the Tylenol PM and Bud Light to work their magic. I will say, I sleep better on vacation than anywhere else. Mostly because of the mental exhaustion.

We spend the next several days seeing whatever it was we came to see and arguing all the way. The entire time, I am still providing meals, and doing laundry and watching children, so I am not really sure what part of it constitutes vacation for me. I think if I could have a full domestic staff go along, so that I don’t have to do anything, it might actually be a vacation for me!! When we finally go home, we have had enough togetherness to last for at least a decade. Or until the next time we are stupid enough to decide to go on vacation!!
Now if you’ll excuse me, we are leaving for the beach tomorrow and I have to go and pack everyone’s clothes!! Sigh!!

And Without Further Adieu, the Fourth Circle of Hell is…..The Galleria. Or as Gina calls it, the Gonorrhea.

How could I have forgotten how much I hate going there, or to any shopping mall for that matter? Target, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart satisfy all of my shopping needs; there is no reason to fight the traffic, circle for a space, find and memorize an entrance (ok everyone, we came in by the plus size girdles, don’t forget…) and then tromp for hours.

Last night I took all the girls in my care to the Galleria. I brutally refused to bring Napoleon, which was simply self preservation on my part. The girls included the 16 year old cousin, MA, her friend Gigi, and the goddess, who began the trip by whining all the way there because she was sitting in the back seat instead of in the middle. I should have gone with my gut right then and turned around.

But no, masochist that I am, I plugged on, determined to plunder the Galleria for retail riches. We arrived and scored a fairly decent parking space at Parisians. We went in (by the men’s shoes everyone…) and began our shopping odyssey.

We first headed for the food court. We had been at the pool all day (which is a whole other topic, but remember the Baby Ruth scene from Caddyshack???) and we were starving. But first, the goddess HAD to ride the carousel. The carousel used to be the highlight of a trip. When Napoleon and MA were little, it was a buck and you paid the little retarded guy who ran it. He did a great job and was always smiling.

Now it’s two dollars and you have to buy a stupid token. Well, all I had was change, so I had to borrow the dollars from MA and Gigi. It’s always embarrassing when you have to borrow money from 11 year olds, but payday is tomorrow! Well, then I spent five minutes, and I am not exaggerating, trying to force the money into the token machine!! It wasn’t just me. There was another lady there, and we were grunting and groaning and smoothing our dollars and making faces trying to get the stupid machine to take the stupid money. I got it to take one, but it just didn’t want the other dollar and the goddess is standing there the whole time, pulling on me and telling me she wanted to ride the carousel. I finally got the token and she was off!! She picked her pony and I went and stood by the exit to wait. I do not ride the carousel because I get motion sick!

While I was standing there, I noticed a Libby Lu birthday party in progress. That just may be its own circle of hell. And who should be at the party but my dear friend Margie?? I made eye contact with her daughter Mary Margaret first, the little cherub. She was so cute, she saw me staring and her eyes got really big like she was thinking “whoa, the Brunos are here”? She grabbed Margie who looked up and waved. I waved back, but then turned to see the goddess whizzing around again on her horse.

When the ride was done, we went to the Chick Fil A line to order food. We sat down to eat and I looked up and Margie was gone. We saw the goddess’s preschool teacher though, so we chatted for a few minutes. I found out later that Margie had to leave suddenly because Mary Margaret had a carousel induced meltdown. Margie, being a woman possessed of inordinate amounts of common sense, did not want to arm wrestle the machine for a token, and told Mary Margaret she could not ride. This apparently led to a meltdown worthy of the demon goddess herself and Mary had to be forcibly escorted from the building. Ah, the joys of the Galleria are too many to enumerate….

We ate our dinner and then the journey began. We headed to Belk’s and walked around for awhile and then MA wanted to go to Limited Too to spend a gift card. MA is at a difficult age because she has not defined herself yet and picking out clothing is agonizing. Any suggestion I make is completely disregarded or brushed off as stupid. I can’t wait to go back to school shopping!! Maybe I should rethink that Catholic school thing!! She spent thirty minutes flitting around trying to decide and finally I yanked her.

Along our way, I was accosted by a lovely Israeli woman who ruthlessly yanked me over to her kiosk. “I have to ask you a question,” she told me smilingly as she reeled me in. “Do you know what the Dead Sea is?” I literally could not get away from her and she forced me to scrub my hands, moisturize, buff my nails, etc. The whole time she was smiling and making relentless eye contact, but she would not let me go until I had gotten the full treatment. I think she was shocked when I rejected the one time offer of all these products for only $25, but she did finally let me go!!

We hit the escalator next, because the goddess loves the escalator. Those of you who are long time readers or simply know me well know I am, well, a bit of a worrier. Ha ha. I have a complete escalator phobia. I know my children are going to be sucked into it and mutilated beyond recognition. Before we get on, I always do a shoe check, I hold their hands, and make sure they step to the center of the escalator. At the top, we step off and I heave a huge sigh of relief, because we have dodged dismemberment one more time!

We walked and walked and walked and stayed for hours. We went back to the Limited, where MA finally spent her money on three pairs of socks and a pin. Then MA and Kara, the cousin, wanted to see the upper level shops. I was absolutely over it by then, so I told them fine, go ahead.

I sat at a table in the food court after forking over 1.47 in change for a bottle of water. The goddess and Gigi were bored, so they decided to go play on the escalator which very nearly did me in. At first, they were very careful, possibly because I was shrieking instructions from the food court. Then they got careless and started leaping around on it. After three trips, I had to curtail their fun, since I was hyperventilating. So they moved to the elevator, which is much safer and just as much fun. I contented myself with watching the gangbangers and the Goths congregate in various groups around me.

We left at 9 pm, with all of our limbs intact after the escalators and still reasonably financially solvent. I had a massive, pounding headache and it was time to go!!! We will return another day, with crisp dollars, shoestrings tied and gloves on to avoid the Dead Sea lady!!!

Ok, Renee threw it out there, and she is right. The third circle of Hell is any type of performance situation involving children, including but not limited to: piano recitals; dance recitals; plays; choir concerts; or band recitals.

Hmmm, which one is worse?? I would probably have to vote for band recital. The summer between 3rd and 4th grade, Napoleon talked about the trumpet constantly. I had to call the band guy, I had to find out about band, Napoleon had to play trumpet. So I called and got the info and we hooked him up with a trumpet.

After the first session, he came home so proud of himself he almost wet. “I can play a G,” he yelled. Then he proceeded to play a G. It sounded about like a cow finally succumbing to mad cow disease after months of agony. Or maybe it sounded like Pavarotti singing opera after eating bad fish. I am not sure if either of those sums up accurately the sound of my beloved firstborn playing the trumpet those first few weeks.

Then for fun, he played it over and over again. For weeks, this was all he knew how to do, and it was sheer torture. I was never so relieved when I finally learned how to play “Mary had a Little Lamb”; at least the lamb didn’t sound like it had irritable bowel syndrome compounded by gas.

So you can imagine my joy when I found out about the first concert. It was a Christmas concert and I’m not even sure what they played. I have blocked it from my conscious mind. Some people think Muzak is what Satan uses in Hell, but I know it is 9 and 10 year olds trying to coax Christmas carols out of musical instruments.

When MA decided she was also going to join the band, I thought I was ready. After weeks of listening to G on the trumpet, nothing could be worse, right? Oh no, MA had to play clarinet. Clarinets squeak. Imagine the cashier at Wal Mart with the longest nails and then imagine her running them slowly, exquisitely down a chalkboard over and over again, and you will have reproduced the sounds my fledgling clarinet player made. Oh what bliss to have two musicians in the family!

Ok, so band concerts are definitely pretty bad, but the piano recital was no picnic either. For starters, Napoleon never bothered to learn his piece all the way through. He liked the beginning, so he played it a lot, but he didn’t like the second part, so he just didn’t learn it. Imagine his horror when he found out his teacher was serious about him playing in the recital. I made him go, figuring it was a good life lesson. After all, I had nagged him to practice, so it wasn’t my fault he didn’t bother learning it.

After listening to a couple of the kids, I wasn’t so worried. One of the girls stopped right in the middle and just stared at the piano. I think she was hoping it would just pick up where she left off and finish the piece itself. Several kids had to turn back to the teacher for coaxing. When Napoleon got up there, I was a wreck. Sure enough, he played the beginning with great flair and panache; it didn’t take a musical genius to figure out where he stopped memorizing. He played the last part very slowly and deliberately, shaking his head a lot, but he never stopped and he never looked at his teacher. When it was finally over, he stood up and smirked as if to let everyone know he knew it was painful for them, but not nearly as painful as it had been for him. I was proud and let him know. After all, I told him, at least you sucked with style!!

Or how about those dance recitals??? I know Teensy will have oodles to say in the comment section!! You sit for hours so your child can have her (or his) 45 seconds on stage. It’s cute when they’re little, but as they age, it gets a bit tiresome. The goddess took dance when she was 3 and we only had to sit through ten numbers, which wasn’t too bad. But this one girl who was about 15 or 16 and downright porky did some sort of interpretive dance thing to “Fever” and it was almost obscene. I told Tim I thought she had a bright future as a pole dancer in a topless bar.

Dare I touch on school plays?? If your child goes to my child’s Catholic school, we are talking about full scale Broadway productions with bad sound. No matter the school, however, school plays are one more agony inflicted upon us by Lucifer. It’s fine when it’s your own kid on stage, and bearable when it’s a kid you like, but otherwise, school plays are like root canals without the anesthesia. Especially musicals, where the kids have to sing, only most of them really can’t sing, and you have to listen to them wail and miss notes and make banshees sound harmonious. And half the time you can’t hear what they are saying on stage. Closed captioning should be offered for those of us who cannot read lips from the back row.

I love my children and I attend all their performances and I smile during each one as if I am enjoying it immensely. I know Satan is snickering down in Hell for inflicting such excruciating pain on humans foolish enough to reproduce!

The second Circle of Hell is Chuck E. Cheese or any place where large numbers of small children congregate to scream their lungs out and demand more tokens.

The wonderful thing about having six years between your children is that you never get away from the aforementioned places. Just as you are taking a deep breath and start enjoying restaurants where your food doesn’t come in a box, you have to start all over again with the next child. So it is with the demon goddess. She feels right at home in Chuck E. Cheese.

There is no denying that Chuck E. Cheese was invented by the devil. It’s amazing how brightly the sun shines outside of the building. But as the doors slowly swing shut behind you, the atmosphere becomes dark and murky, almost sinister in nature. You are forced to go through a turnstile, where a helper demon stamps your hand with the number 666 so your child cannot leave with the wrong person. Like anyone would want to take her!

The farther in you go, the darker it gets. Many helper demons throng about it orange polyester uniforms, emblazoned with the image of the demon god Chuck E. Cheese. If you have the misfortune to be there for a birthday party, you will be stuck all the way in the back of the building, where it is darkest. A life size Chuck E. Cheese robot dude holds court in one corner, enticing the youngsters over to him so he can suck their souls out, replacing their sweet innocence with a demonic force which urges them to ask Mommy for another twenty dollars for tokens.

Many strange games abound, most of them evil by their very nature. For example, one game exists whereby you use a large mallet to pound small rodents back into their holes. An appallingly violent game designed to desensitize young children to the effects of violence. James Dobson has done a whole series on this topic on Focus on the Family. Another game would have you hurl wooden balls up a ramp and into circles of various sizes. No one ever hits the 10,000 point circle, but I am sure if they did, Lucifer himself would materialize and spirit that lucky individual straight down to Hell. It’s a direct portal, everyone knows this.

Each demonic game spits out tickets, two to three at a time. If you manage to collect several hundred tickets, your child might be lucky enough to redeem them for a small prize. It costs several thousand dollars to earn a prize that costs the Chuck E. Cheese people $.03 to buy. But there is something special about a pencil from Chuck E. Does anyone remember the old Fox tv show “Friday the 13th” about the antiques store with the cursed relics? I am thinking along similar lines for the prizes Chuck E. hands out to the little tykes!

Aside: I vacuumed up a monkey’s paw last week. I forgot to tell you all this. Sammy the dog ate a Barbie monkey (from the Barbie petting zoo) and all that was left was its little paw. I called Kiki immediately, because I knew she would truly appreciate the literary significance of such an event. Is it any wonder Gina had to perform the gray hairyectomy on the vacuum cleaner the very next week????? Ok, that only popped into my head because of cursed relics; sorry about that!!

Back to my story. There is no bright side to the Chuck E. Cheese Emporium of Exotic Games and Big Fuzzy Rodents. It’s loud and there are ten million children running around in a building with a max occupancy of 197. They frequently bump into you, and if your child puts her tokens down, they are gone before you can say “jack sprat” because some other little heathen has scooped them up, in order to EARN MORE TICKETS!!!!

There is a series of tunnels overhead, but no child ever enters the tunnels. The children are too busy spending Daddy’s paycheck smacking rodents on the head, or hurling balls. There are rides too. Each ride costs a token and it lifts your child up for about 1/10 of a second and then the ride is over. Obviously, it takes at least ten tokens before any level of satisfaction is achieved.

The entire time we were there, a man went around with a wrench, fixing the various games. He flitted from game to game, like a little bee gathering lubricating oil from various nuts and bolts. Or maybe he was reapplying the curses on the various games to ensure no child can win more than two tickets, thereby upping the number of tickets it takes to buy the plastic doohickey prize.

I actually equate a trip to Chuck E. Cheese to feeding Rocky the Bearded Dragon a mealworm. These two events are equally repulsive to me, yet they are things I would do only for my children. Which goes to prove I will go to Hell and Back for my children!!

I often refer to the seven circles of hell in this blog, so I though I might define one for you. I have never read Dante’s Inferno but I assume the circles worsen as you move toward number 7, or vice versa. But who really cares.

Once again, I just wrote this whole thing out and it disappeared. I am beginning to think I should write it all in Word and then copy and paste instead of typing on the net!! If only Bobby Willis had left the demons alone….

The first circle of hell is obviously the doctor’s office/dentist/orthodontist/veterinarian or whatever professional you may need to see. And no Renee, this is not aimed at you. This is a series of generalizations intended to amuse, not accuse!!

The chairs are always uncomfortable and the magazines are always out of date, if not downright boring. I love to be in an office where the only magazine choices are “Field and Stream”, “Hot Rods” or “AARP Today”. Choose between an article on the 10 Sexiest Fisherman Alive or the 10 Oldest Fishermen Alive. It doesn’t matter which one you choose because they will be equally compelling!!! Usually, there are multiple copies of the blue children’s book of Bible Stories. Has anyone ever actually bought a copy? Or do you know anyone who has a copy? Someone must buy them, but I don’t know who. I remember those books all the way back to my own childhood and I have never known anyone with a copy. Hmm.

But I digress. In the doctors office, there is inevitably some child there with a contagious, hacking cough and green mucous dripping out of various facial orifices. There is inevitably someone older than dirt who wants to strike up a conversation with me about the frequency and consistency of his or her bowel movements.

In the dentists office, there is always a child with metal teeth, which just freaks me out!! I will see a cute little moppet with a head of blond curls. I will smile at the little tyke and it will smile back and the light will gleam off the metal molars. Sends chills down my spine every time!! You know his parents put him to bed with a bottle of Mountain Dew every night until his teeth rotted out.

You wait and wait and then wait some more because the doctor/dentist/vet has been detained by an emergency. Yeah right. Likely, he or she is catching up on “Days of Our Lives” to see if Stefano is going to recover from his last electrocution. Or maybe he is playing one last game of solitaire before he starts his afternoon. Or maybe it really is an emergency. Maybe the doctor has been digging an impaction out of a 95 year old man with hemorrhoids. And in that case, are you really in a hurry to be the next patient?

But what exactly constitutes a dental emergency? “We need a root canal stat”….Bet you never hear that!! “We’ve got an emergency teeth whitening in room one; the patient is having senior portraits taken this afternoon and must look good”!! And all that time, you are stuck in the waiting room, listening to the whir of the drill and staring at the metal mouthed child and wanting to bolt from the room and take a Xanax.

Once you finally get back to the exam room, you climb up on the table and slowly take your clothes off. The hot young doctor walks in and closes the door and then takes off his white coat…Oops, sorry, wrong blog!!! So then you are stuck in the exam room where there are no magazines (not even a Body Builder Mag) and you have to wait longer. Either you are naked under a paper sheet, always fun, or you are waiting for the dentist to come in and your anxiety is mounting by the second. I hate the dentist (all of them!!) and I dread that visit. I am so glad I have good teeth. I particularly despise the hooky thing they use to scrape the goo from between your teeth. It looks like an instrument of torture the CIA uses in Guantanamo!! “Don’t touch my gums….I’ll give you names!!!” The longer I wait, the worse I feel!! But at least with a teeth cleaning you get resolution. Your teeth finally get cleaned and you can go home, free as a bird, with your new toothbrush and some dental floss, off the hook for six months!!

But the doctors office is a different story. The doctor walks in, takes a look, tells you it’s viral and you need to go home and wait it out. What??!!! Talk about a racket…you still have to pay your copay whether you have been healed or not. I think you should only have to pay up if your problem can be fixed. That’s how the lawyers do it. Make it double or nothing….if you can be treated, you pay double, if it’s viral, you go home and pay nothing!! I like it!

Or better yet, physicians can learn from veterinarians. My husband is a vet and he treats everything with antibiotics and steroids. Dog got a fever? Antibiotics and steroids. Limp? Antibiotics and steroids. Broken leg? Antibiotics and steroids. I don’t know why we had to borrow so much money for him to go to vet school because it only takes a couple of weeks to learn the treatment protocols for everything!! And I am so glad he doesn’t read this because he would not be amused!!!

Anyway, once you’ve received your viral diagnosis, just try to get out of a doctors office without paying your copay. There is no back door, so you have to go right past the cashiers office. There is no way to slink by without being seen; they will catch you and demand payment! There usually is a large woman named Helga standing by with a club, ready to bludgeon you should you refuse to fork over your $20 copay!!

So I would have to name the professional medical office as the first official circle of hell. The other six circles will follow as I ponder them and will include but will not be limited to: Chuck E. Cheese; the McDonald’s playland; and Wal Mart during the month of December!!

Oh, by the way, my pork loin turned out great last night. I was so busy writing about it, I couldn’t forget about it out on the grill!! Thanks for asking!!