Daily Diatribes

I cleaned out the refrigerator today and violated rule number 32 of the Happy  Housewives code:  Never Open a Container That Has Been In There For Longer Than a Month.

There was a container in my refrigerator that said Great Value Fat Free Sour Cream.  I knew I hadn’t bought it.  I don’t shop at Wal-Mart.  I never buy fat free sour cream.  Why anyone on the planet would buy it is beyond me.  I buy full fat everything and I will die happy, with my arteries clogged full of goo.  But that’s not the point.

The point is this container has been in my refrigerator for quite awhile.  Since I didn’t recognize it, I did what any self respecting homeower would do and I simply shifted it from spot to spot and cleaned around it.  I guess in the back of my mind, I was hoping one of you might come over and reclaim it. 

All this time, I have assumed it contained fat free sour cream.  What else would it be?  Jimmy Hoffa?  The Rosetta Stone?  Or something a bit more menacing?

Today I picked up the container and looked at it for the first time.  The sell by date was Jan 2007.  I don’t know if you realize it, but that was some time ago.  So I decided no matter what the contents were, it needed to go.  I set it on the counter and it stared at me.

I tried to continue cleaning the fridge, but I could feel it taunting me, daring me to open it and see what lived inside.  I kept cleaning, doggedly determined not to give in to its evil siren song.  I knew that to open it would be to open the gates of Hell, from whence an unholy stench of decay would issue forth.  So I ignored it.

But it persisted in taunting me, whispering “open me up, I am good….so good…you will love me….you want to see me….you know you do…..” and I felt myself weakening. 

“How bad can it be?” I thought to myself.  “It can’t be worse than the pancake mix of death.”  With those thoughts in mind, I slowly turned to face my tormentor.

There it sat, innocuous in its white and green container.  “Great Value” it proclaimed boldly to me, egging me on in my folly.   I moved toward it as if in a dream, a nightmare really, as helpless to stop myself as a slumbering child.  I picked up the container and tried one last time to resist.  With all my will, I tried to force it to the garbage can, but it was too much for me and I was defeated.  With trembling hands, I slowly pried the lid off and gazed in speechless horror. 

What was in the container?  Mere words cannot describe the horror within the white plastic walls.  Some sort of beige, lumpy, watery substance stared back at me balefully, pulsing with an evil life force.  “Stewed artichokes?” I thought wildly as I tried to process it.  No, I don’t buy artichokes, let alone stew them.  The smell was overwhelming and I fought back waves of nausea as I tried to force the lid back on while the contents snickered in unholy glee.

“you love me….don’t you?” it whispered evilly.  I was whimpering, trying to keep the contents from emerging, when I tipped it a bit and some of the putrid liquid splashed on my arm.  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” I screamed wildly, and I snapped the lid and staggered back, holding my arm. 

I was panting like a dog, still trying to fathom just what in the hell was in that container.  Hamburger Helper gone renegade?  Sour cream that had curdled into some unspeakable alien life force?  The world may never know.

I regained my composure and headed to the sink to rinse the goo of death off of my arm.  The container was safely in the garbage with the lid snapped tightly.  But even as I write this, a tiny voice calls to me, begging for freedom.  Thank God tomorrow is garbage day!!!

There are so many childhood rituals that have been tampered with or have just disappeared altogether.  Kids can’t play outside anymore thanks to CNN,  because we’re afraid they’ll be abducted by gypsies.  Thanks to Disney and Nickelodeon, the Saturday morning cartoon is a thing of the past.  Why would you plan your whole weekend around cartoon viewing when cartoons are available 24/7 on a number of different channels?  So for the love of all that is holy, can we leave Halloween alone??

I don’t know about you, but I started planning for Halloween months in advance.  The costume was always homemade.  There was never any question of buying a costume; who wanted to dress up in a cheap rayon outfit when your mother’s closet and makeup bag held such an endless array of costume ideas?  Black eyeliner, white pancake make-up and a little imagination were all it took to transform one into a spectacle frightening beyond belief. 

I have to admit, I’ve conceded that one.  Fine, I’ll go to Party City or Wal-Mart and fork over the cash for the shiny rayon outfit.  I did homemade costumes for a number of years, but now I am old and tired.  It’s a good day if I make Hamburger Helper for dinner, so don’t expect me to whip up Cinderella’s ball gown with some empty toilet paper tubes and glitter.  It just isn’t in me anymore.

But I absolutely refuse to succumb to the recent, politically correct, right wing, conservative, granola munching, liberal mania of handing out anything other than candy for Halloween.  Because it’s like this:  you go trick or treating to get free candy.  That’s the entire point of Halloween and it’s what makes it vastly superior to every other holiday.  One day a year you get to dress up and go outside and knock on doors and beg people for candy.  And they give it to you!  There are no massive credit card bills to face on November 1st and no long lines to return unwanted candy.  Just sick tummies and the possibility of extensive dental work, which is all covered by insurance!  

Today found Nancy and I wandering around the Wal-Green’s after our pilgrimage to Hacienda.  I was ostensibly looking for shampoo, but I love Wal-Greens and can spend large sums of money there without even half trying.  You can keep your bargains at Wal-Mart;  I like to go to Wal-Greens because they have an entire aisle devoted to As Seen On TV items.  But this is another blog.

Anyway, we hit the candy aisle and I witnessed a number of Halloween abominations.  In my humble opinion, nothing short of candy is appropriate for Halloween.  I, for one,  never understood Trick or Treat for Unicef.  I know there are poor people in the world and I know they need lots of things.  But on October 31st, I am not interested in the poor.  Jesus Christ Himself said ”we will always have the poor, but trick or treating only comes once a year.”  I am paraphrasing a bit there.  There is no Unicef for me; I want Snickers and lots of them.

When my kids trick or treat, they do not want pencils.  Keep your pencils and use them for kindling this winter.  And do not hand out Bible verses.  Obviously we are devil worshippers and are beyond redemption, because we are out on Satan’s night begging for candy.  So the Bible verses will just get thrown in the trash, as will the apples.  Not because we think there are razor blades in the apples, but because apples are a stupid thing to get on October 31st.  We want peanut butter cups, not stupid apples.

At Wal-Green’s, it is possible to purchase tiny bags of Doritos in Halloween packaging.  Well guess what?  Doritos are another stupid thing to get on Halloween.  Who rummages through little Johnny’s haul after the kid has passed out in a sugar coma and looks for Doritos?  No one in his right mind!!  You’re looking for the Milky Ways and the Three Musketeers.  And you can keep the bags of pretzels and the packages of microwave popcorn too.  Besides, if you give my kid popcorn, he might get popcorn lung and then I’ll have to sue you.  We thought razor blades in the apples were bad; who knew the popcorn would get you too??

And as far as the tiny, wrapped granola bars, you can imagine how I feel about those!  A granola bar on Halloween?  Why not throw in some cans of green beans and some asparagus?!  Even oreos are inappropriate in my humble opinion.  Only the sugary, trans fat laden candy bars and chewy, teeth rotting taffy like things and Pixie Stix, lots of Pixie Stix will do!!!

The only candy exception to my candy rule is the black and orange wrapped peanut butter kisses.  First of all, they are disgusting and suitable only for stopping up the cracks in the roof.  Second, nothing says “I am too cheap to buy real candy!!!!” like those nasty things.  I plan on collecting them this year and using them to pelt the squirrels who attack my bird feeder like senior citizens at the Golden Corral.

When you are shopping for Halloween this year, please bear in mind my advice and go for the miniature candy bars.  Anything else will just get thrown in your garbage and I will post your name in my Blog of Shame so you can be taunted by all humanity!  Buy the good candy!!

My phone rings several times a day with people seeking information that apparently only I can provide.  I am trying to figure out how to bill for my time, which is extremely valuable.  For example, I just whiled away the afternoon in Nancy’s basement watching an old movie.  Don’t waste my time.  I’m a very busy woman.

My phone just rang and it was our printing company.  The owner said “We’re printing some stuff for your husband and I need to know how to spell catechism.  We can’t find it in the computer.”

I found this extremely odd, as my husband is a veterinarian, not a priest or a religious teacher.  But, being the show-off speller I am, I complied.  I love to spell and I am very good at it.  I would have had a chance at the Scripps/Howard if it had been a big deal in my day.  I like to watch ”Akeelah and the Bee” because I can totally outspell Akeelah.  I kick her butt, but she always gets the big trophy in the end.  It’s not fair.

Anyway, I spelled catechism for Kathy several times and she thanked me profusely, then added “we are doing a letterhead for him with that medical emblem, you know the thingy with the snake.”

“Wait a minute,” I said.  “Are you talking about a caduceus?” 

“Yeah, that’s it,” she said nochalantly.  “The snake thing. Caduceus, catechism, whatever!”

Um, hello……..whatever my ass!!!  Two very different things you know.  Catechism is a collection of religious teachings and beliefs and caduceus is the staff with the snake wrapped around it!  A priest uses one and a doctor the other!

I corrected her spelling and then, on a whim, I asked her if my husband had told her to call me.

“Yeah,” she said.  “He didn’t know how to spell it, so he said just call Jen, she’ll know.”

I thanked her nicely and hung up, seething with fury.  This is how my husband regards me.  To him, I am nothing but a repository of hard to spell words and phone numbers.  Remember my trip to Huntsville, when he called me repeatedly to find out Nancy’s phone number?  Why dial 411 when he can dial me for free???  And he freely advertises my services without consulting me.

It’s not just him, though.  I must get ten calls a week from people asking for someone else’s cell phone number or home telephone number.  Ok, fine, so I do remember all those numbers.  I know all my children’s social security numbers too.  I can’t balance my checkbook, but I can remember how much money is in it.  (Besides, if I still have checks, I have money, right?)  But why can’t everyone call 411 instead?  Why  me?

If people have a grammar question, they call me.  I am the grammar police.  In fact, I would like to start an internet petition to have Fergie banned from using the English language, since she misuses it so blatantly in her music.  When Fergie’s latest hit, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” comes on the radio, I patiently instruct my daughter as to its grammatical failings.  There is one line in particular which causes me great distress:  “I miss you like a child misses their blanket….”  WRONG!!!  Child means one child, and it is SINGULAR!!  The correct possessive would then be his, her or its.  Their connotes a group of children missing THEIR blankets!  Or a group of teenagers missing their chance to get into college because of their atrocious grammar.

Ok, fine, I admit it, I am a useful person to know, and you can call me with a question, but I am afraid I am going to have to start charging for my services.  Here is my price list:

Spell a word……$1.00 per syllable

Phone number……..$3.00 and for an additional $2.00, I’ll connect your call

Grammar question…….$5.00 per minute and remember, some of those grammatical rules can be quite lengthy so make sure you have a real need before you call me.

Synonyms……..$1.00 per synonym

I hope this price list will deter some of you from seeking me out in the future.  Bellsouth (the new AT&T!) does not charge you anything to use the yellow pages.  Webster’s dictionary is easily accessible, as is the thesaurus.  Now I ‘m going back to playing Pogo, so leave me alone!! 

My twelve year old daughter is an amazing person.  She is a gifted athlete and a straight A student.  Everyone thinks she’s wonderful.  They don’t live with her.

We were driving down the road the other day and I lifted my arm to scratch my back.  She looked at me and said quietly “MO’ ther”.  I wish I could capture the tone in print; it’s a combination of pity, disdain and horror.  My other two children call me mommy, but to her I am “MO’ther”, a sad, embarrassing, pathetic specimen of humanity, someone who should never be allowed out into public. 

“What?” I asked defensively.

“You need to shave,” she said coldly.

Ever since those first three hairs appeared in her precious little armpit, she has been obssessed with shaving.  She shaves daily, sometimes twice if the moon is full.  I guess maybe I was like that once, but I certainly am not like that now. 

I wanted to look at her and say “listen up sister, I’m MARRIED!!  I don’t have to do anything to impress your daddy.  I have him.  If he wants someone clean shaven, that’s fine, but it’s gonna cost him half of everything to do it!  And frankly, I could have ten inches of hair growing out of my nose, but he would STILL be trying to jump me three times a day.  So why should I shave???”

I said none of these things.  I just smiled at her and kept driving.  She continued to moan and complain and suddenly she said “Just Shut Up and Drive.”

A haze of red descended over my vision and I imagined bludgeoning her with my cell phone charger and then driving to the landfill.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” I growled.

She looked at me innocently, a tiny smile playing about her mouth and said “Shut Up and Drive.”

“How Dare You Say That to Me????” I said thunderously and I was about to really lay into her when she said “Mom, it’s the name of the song.”

Yeah right, I’m so stupid.  Hairy and stupid, that’s me.  I punched the button on the radio and sure enough, it was Rihanna’s latest hit.  I hate smart ass twelve year olds.

I had to laugh though.  She knew exactly what would happen when she said it.  I hate to admit it, but she’s sharp.

Fortunately for both of us, I am incredibly thick-skinned.  When she turns her head and looks the other way if I acknowledge her in public, I’m ok with it.  When she forbids me to walk outside when the bus comes because she doesn’t want any of her friends to know she has a stinky, hairy mother, I’m good.  Because at the end of the day, she won’t go to sleep until I come upstairs and kiss her goodnight.  I might be hairy, but I still have my uses!

IT WAS VIRAL!!!!!!!  NO ANTIBIOTICS FOR THE BOY!!!!!!  TREAT THE SYMPTOMS AND CALL US IF HIS EYES ROLL BACK IN HIS HEAD OR HE STARTS SPEAKING IN TONGUES!!

 Today marks the one year anniversary of the death of my dear friend Jenny.  I still miss her every day; no one else appreciated the absurd quite like she did.  A group  of us were supposed to meet for breakfast today and then visit the cemetery, but alas, my life had other plans.

My hulking 14 year old son has  been stricken down by illness.  I honestly cannot tell you the last time he was sick.  It might have been in the previous decade.  So I will take him to the highly esteemed Dr. Renee this morning for her diagnosis of viral illness.  But, unbeknownst to Renee, I am sneaking the goddess in as well.  She has also not been quite herself this week, and I figure I’ll take her in with her brother and guilt Renee into a “twofer”.  God knows I don’t take advantage of my friendship with the woman; half the checks in my register are made out to her!  So since I’ve already made this month’s mortgage payment for her, she can look down the goddess’s throat!

Well, the very moment my twelve year old found out that her brother AND her sister would not be going to school, despair set in.  “IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” she was heard to wail.  Um, wait, I’m confused.  What’s not fair?  That her brother has a fever of 101?  That her sister has a shiny red nose, just like Rudolph?  I guess I need to keep a petri dish with some bubonic plague germs in it, so when everyone else is sick, I can make sure she gets it too!

And to further add to her horror, Wednesday is recycling.  Her one job.  It’s not a hard job.  One gathers up the newspapers and carries them down to the can and then pulls the can down to the curb.  She had even taken part of the recycling out on Saturday, so it was not the usual tower of papers and boxes.

She stomped over to the pile, stared at it and screamed “why can’t somebody help me?”  Of course I ignored her.  She picked it up and dropped it.  Picked it up again and dropped it.  The usual drama.  Her mind was seething, resentment a palpable aura around her.  Here she was, taking out the recycling, while her brother did not have to go to school.  She didn’t care that he had been vomiting since 4 a.m.    According to her, he  should still be going to school. 

Pretty soon, she was on the floor, surrounded by recycling, keening with despair because the world was treating her so badly.  I sat here at the computer, stoically ignoring her.  My husband is not gifted with the same patience.

“Get your butt up off the ground right now and get that recycling out or I’ll give you something to cry about,” he thundered ferociously.  I love that line because it’s so ineffective.  The only thing it accomplishes is to utterly piss off the parent uttering it because the child is so unimpressed. 

“No,” she said defiantly, tossing her hair.  “I HATE YOU!!!”

I am, by now, completely immune to that particular utterance, but it never fails to whip daddy into a frenzy. 

“GIVE ME YOUR PHONE,” he said, “AND YOU WILL NEVER GET IT BACK!!!”

The only reason he got her a cell phone was so he could take it away from her.  I have witnessed this phenomenon over and over again.  She got the phone in February and she has actually had it in her possession a total of 12 days.

He took the phone and she sullenly got up and took the recycling down to the curb.  She came back in and announced since she had no phone, she was not going to basketball camp.  Oh look out, I thought to myself, the gloves are off!  She knows we want her to try out for the school basketball team, so in her mind, this was an extremely low blow.

So off she huffed to the bus stop.  I waited a few minutes, then stuck my head out the door and hollered “if you change your mind and stay for camp, call me.”

“I can’t,” she hollered back.  “I don’t have my phone!”

“There are phones in the school,” I yelled back.

“No there’s not,” she yelled. 

For God’s sake, how stupid am I supposed to be?  I answered phones there every other week for an entire year!  The school is filled with phones.  It’s covered up with phones.  There’s a phone on every single corner.

I informed her of this and she yelled back “Well, we’re not allowed to use them!”

What kind of a prison camp are they running?  Next, she’ll be telling me they have to do homework and eat cafeteria food.  Gives me chills just thinking about it!

“Fine,” I yelled back.  “Do whatever you want; just call me if you stay after school.”

As I was closing the door, I heard her sing out “I caaannnn’t.”  Witch.

Well, I’m off to take the boy in for his diagnosis.  I hope it’s something curable because he can’t miss too much school.  And as it is, he ruined my breakfast and lunch plans.  I guess I’ll have to eat out twice as much next week to compensate!! 

Today found me in a mood to declutter.  Normal folks would start with the areas that people see, but that is too mundane for me.  I don’t mind things out in the open; I happily step around piles of junk.  What haunts me is the hidden messes no one can see, under my sink and in my closet.  I wonder what Freud would make of that?

Anyway, I decided it was time to see exactly what was underneath my sink.  I have an L-shaped counter on my side of the bathroom, and it is deep and wide….all you Methodists join me here:  DEEP AND WIDE, DEEP AND WIDE, MY BATHROOM SINK IS DEEP AND WIDE……Makes me want to hit a tent revival!  CAN I GET AN AMEN????!!!!

Anyway, there is ample room under my sink for all sorts of crap to lurk, so  I took a deep breath and plunged in.  My first pass revealed 47 bars of hotel soap and 38 bottles of hotel mouthwash.  What in the hell was I keeping all that for, I wondered?  I don’t even use mouthwash.  I also found five hotel showercaps.   I have never used a showercap in my entire life.  Ever.  Needless to say, it all hit the trash.

Next I discovered a baggie with some ugly jewelry in it marked “$22 for set”.  Now I know good and well I didn’t buy it, so where did it come from?  Are any of you missing a necklace of weird pink beads with matching weird earrings?  That you were selling for $22?  No?  Well, I can make you a good deal on it.  $18 for the set, and I’ll even throw in the bizarre gold ball earrings I also found under the sink, at no extra charge!

There was a hurricane globe with fall leaves around it.  Why did I put it under the bathroom sink?  The world may never know.  I chucked it in the garbage.  I was starting to have a good time.  There’s nothing like purging to get your blood pumping! 

Into the garbage went the three almost empty containers of dental floss.  “Begone”, I said to the torn hairnets.  “I shall not save you for a rainy day,” I said to the seven eyeliner pencils in ugly shades.  I was on fire, throwing things away that had been lurking around for years.  How about that nasty smelling perfume from a gift basket my husband won in a drawing seven years ago?  If I haven’t used it in seven years, it’s hardly likely to grow on me now!

I threw away mostly empty lotion bottles and nasty looking ponytail holders.  I accepted that the 1/8 inch of moisturizer left in the bottle would not regenerate and fill itself back up, so I tossed it.  Dried up nail polish?  Gone.  Three ancient tubes of mascara, guaranteed to transmit flesh eating bacteria right into your eyeball?  Gone.

I did find one sweet treasure.  Many years ago, on a trip up north, the goddess got her first hair cut and we wrapped some of her golden locks up for posterity.  I found it in a travel bag with a couple of bottles of hotel mouthwash.  I unwrapped it and stared, trying to remember when her hair was that soft and ferociously blonde.  I was pretty sure the golden tresses pre-dated the first time she said “I hate you!”

Well, I filled an entire garbage bag with the crap from under the sink.  I found four large tubes of toothpaste and twelve bars of soap, so I figure I won’t have to buy any until this time next year.  I can hardly wait to clean  my closet.  There’s no telling what I can unearth from in there!

I enjoy cooking most of the time and I am a reasonably good cook.  I can usually boil water without burning it and I can whip out Kraft mac and cheese with the best of them!  But  I wish I didn’t have to cook to feed a family;  it takes some of the enjoyment out of it.  Not because I don’t love my family, but it cuts deeply when you have slaved over a hot stove and someone takes a look at your hard work and says “Oh gross, I’m not eating that!”

And heaven forbid I should try to do something to improve their diets.  After listening to one mom talk about how she almost never cooks with beef, I cringed because I almost never cook anything else.  I decided to try and substitute ground turkey for ground beef.  I made tacos with it one night and my son accused me of trying to poison him.  “That was TURKEY????” he asked in disbelief.  “I thought it tasted rotten!”  Thanks babe!

I remember several people advising me not to waste my time cooking elaborate homemade meals.  “I used to make homemade spaghetti sauce,” one woman told me, “but my children actually prefer Ragu.”  What’s sad is she’s right.  The little darlings’ tastebuds are highly evolved and they have a fondness for anything with monosodium glutonate and xanthic acid.  Don’t try to pull that organic crap because they’ll be on to you in a heartbeat.  They dismiss homemade macaroni and cheese as “too chewy” and homemade mashed potatoes as “too lumpy.”  Heathens!!

Tonight I made a pot roast.  Ah pot roast, that most beloved staple of the middle class.  Does anything else say “home” or “comfort” in quite the same way?  With the roast, I did the obliatory potatoes and carrots, some broccoli, and Pillsbury crescent rolls.  Nancy M’s children were here as well, so I fed them too.  Her son ate two helpings and cleaned all the vegetables off of his plate.  He was truly a pleasure to feed.

When Dad came to pick them up, he admonished them to thank me.  “Thank you,” the 9 yo told me politely.  Then she added to her dad “and her rolls were AWESOME!!”  Ouch.  I seared the pot roast to lock in the flavor, I made homemade gravy and I even peeled potatoes.  But I am going to be neighborhood legend for my crescent rolls. 

I must modestly admit I do have a special knack with them.  The first and most important thing is to ALWAYS buy Pillsbury; anything else is just a pale imitation.  I know you might save $.30 buying the store brand, but it’s not the same.  Pay extra for the doughboy.  I keep them well chilled until I am ready to use them.  I unfold them just so, making sure to separate them carefully along the perforations.  I always preheat the oven, because a hot oven yields a better roll.  I am careful not to overhandle them when I twist; I use an economy of motion to achieve the classic crescent look.

I hope you are all taking notes.  Maybe someday you will be as highly regarded in the Pillsbury world as I am.  But for now, bragging rights belong to me!  My Pillsbury crescent rolls are AWESOME!!  Just ask any nine year old!

Today found me at the goddess’s school, prepared to take the class to lunch while her teacher went and enjoyed an hour of child free solitude.  The PTO sponsors this four times per year and it’s called “duty free lunch”.  Suckers….er, I mean, moms like me are drafted to come in and watch the class for the hour.

To make matters worse, I have yet another zit on my chin.  I believe I am in the process of transforming into a large pimple, a blight on society, a pustulent oozing growth from which no good can come.  This zit makes the other one seem like child’s play.  I cannot get it to come to a head and I have picked at it relentlessly so now it looks like a bing cherry is protruding beneath my lip.  I can’t leave it alone.  I am obssessed with it.  And I know everyone who looks at me is also obssessed.  It hurts and it’s ugly.  I think it’s a female zit because it won’t spew.  So we’ll call it Debbie….as in Debbie does Dallas.  Gotta keep my porno theme going here!

I walked into the lunchroom with my herd of first graders, and I swear there were audible gasps of horror.  At the very least, the people who stopped to greet me were staring at my chin.  I know they were.  I can’t even blame them because it begs to be stared at.

I got the kids through the line and they had just started tucking in, when a bell rang.  The kids all looked at me like I knew what it meant.  Or maybe they were looking at Debbie, I’m not sure.

Anyway, I told them to keep eating.  I figured if anything bad was happening, someone would let us know soooner than later.  Sure enough, a couple of minutes passed and then teachers started barreling through the doors to the cafeteria.  The scene took on the surreal quality of a war movie, with the teachers shouting for the kids to get moving and the kids throwing their hands up over their heads and trotting out into the hall in formation.  I stood there in bemusement, like the stupid extra who is going to take five or six direct hits and fall to the ground with eyes wide and staring, wondering what the hell just happened.

Finally I caught on that it was  a TORNADO warning.  Not sure how I missed the blaring sirens but I did.  I followed the class out the door and into the hall.  The kids were instructed to drop and assume the DISASTER POSITION.  This involved them going down on their knees, putting their heads on the floor and sticking their little butts up in the air.  Definitely a position for disaster, that’s for sure!!  They were conveniently stationed right underneath a large bank of windows and as I was opening my mouth the teacher said “well this won’t work.”  Hmmmm, ya think?

A conversation ensued and all the while the sirens were blaring.  They were debating as to whether to move them down the hall or into another wing altogether, when I pointed out the small hallway behind us and said politely  “How about here?”

They agreed that would work and we moved all the kids.  It was a tight fit, but they were safe from flying glass.  So there we were, wedged into a hall, with fifteen little butts wagging in the air.  I wondered how I had agreed to waste a perfectly good Friday in this manner, but it was too late.  The deed was done.  One little girl was losing her britches, so it was really fourteen butts and a moon. 

And so we had nothing to do but wait… wait to die… wait to live… wait for an absolution that would never come.  We were jammed in that hall for AN HOUR!!!  An hour, with fifteen wiggly first graders who were starving to boot!  Because their lunches were on the table, slowly cooling, slowly growing bacteria and becoming unfit for human consumption.  Or even first grader consumption.

Well, it was the longest hour of my life.  And the best part is the tornado was roughly about thirty miles north of us.  There was no chance of it touching down anywhere near the school.  But safety first!!  I guess I’m grateful, but I would have been even more grateful had I been elsewhere for the non event!  I know this for sure though; next time I go out, I will be wearing a zit concealing burqua!!

It chills me to the bone to think the fate of the free world often rests in the hands of men.  No disrespect to our servicemen; my daddy served three tours in Vietnam and my older brother served in the first Gulf Disaster…uh…I mean war.  But based on the behavior of the men living in my home, I shudder just a bit. 

Picture if you will, a “Saving Private Ryan” sort of tableau:  it’s gray and misty and our brave boys are about to storm Fallujah to bring democracy and toys made in China to the godless infidels.  As they prepare their offensive, the sergeant comes up to the CO and says “Sir, where is the ammunition?”  The ammunition is in a clearly labeled box in plain sight, but the two men waste fifteen minutes searching for it.  Finally, the lone woman in the unit walks up and leads them to the box.  Meanwhile, the enemy was preparing to  pick up and relocate to Pakistan, only they couldn’t find it and no one would stop and ask for directions!

Fast forward to my life.  Last week, my son could not find the mouthpiece for his horn.  The last place it had been seen was on the dining room table, which is, of course, where all musicians keep their mouthpieces.  I apprised him of this and he told me he had taken it up to his room. 

“Then it should still be there,” I told him.

“Well, it’s not,” he huffed.  “Someone took it.”

Oh lord, it’s the grassy knoll….someone waited on it, until he was out of sight, and then snatched his mouthpiece!  Because there is a high demand on the black market for horn mouthpieces!

He stomped around the house for about two hours, looking for the thing.  He would periodically stop on his way through the family room and gaze at the football game, eyes blank, a line of spittle snaking its way out of his slack mouth.  Then I would bark at him to find his mouthpiece and he would snap awake, and scurry away.

The whole time he was searching, I sat and watched him.  He whined.  He moaned.  He blamed aliens for coming down and taking it.  More amusing to me, he blamed the babies.  A few nights before, a couple of friends had visited with their toddlers.  Everyone knows toddlers are like crows and they can’t resist shiny things.  Surely one of the toddlers had pocketed the mouthpiece.

When he shared this theory with me, something within me snapped.  “SON,” I stated rather forcefully, “if the thing was on your desk, THEY COULDN’T REACH IT!!!!”

He looked at me sullenly and said “so what, I still bet one of those babies has it.”

It’s not a right wing conspiracy at all; it’s those BABIES!!  I thought I had fallen into an episode of ”Rugrats” and he was channeling Angelica. 

After two hours, I couldn’t take it anymore.  He was on the verge of tears.  I mentioned the possibility of borrowing another mouthpiece from the band teacher and he said he would get in trouble. I mentioned the possibility of sending him to military school and he glared at me.  Finally, reluctantly, I got up to help.

As we ascended the stairs, I looked at him and said “If I find this thing, you are in SO MUCH TROUBLE!!!”  I walked into his reptile scented room (does Glade have a plug-in with that scent??) and walked to the desk.  It’s not really a desk; it is a long countertop we got at Lowe’s for cheap.  He has covered it with an array of memorabilia, ranging from baseball cards to holy cards to alligator skulls. 

When I tell you I literally walked up to the desk, scanned for five seconds, and located the mouthpiece, I am not exaggerating.  It sat there in plain sight, between a picture of the Pope and one of Greg Maddox.  I thought for a moment I would actually swoon, so intense was the rage I experienced.  I plucked it from the clutter and held it up for him to see.

He smirked, but I could see the panic in his eyes; he sensed death was near.  “Wha….where….was it on the desk????” he stammered.

I handed it to him oh so lovingly and quietly said “I DO NOT WANT TO TALK TO YOU AGAIN TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!”  And I left the room.

So after that little episode, you would think he would know better than to bother me, but a few days later, I was driving to soccer practice and the phone rings.  “Mom,” he chirps, “Dad can’t find his boy scout scarf; do you know where it is?” 

“Tell him it’s probably behind the cheese,” I snapped and hung up.  Honestly, it’s a wonder either one of them manages to get through an entire day.  My husband operates on animals for heaven’s sake!  I’m waiting for the day he calls me and says “honey, I can’t find the left ovary in this pit bull, do you know where it is?”

Last night, his daddy asked him to get a coke out of the refrigerator.  I just rolled my eyes and waited; there was one left and I knew my son wouldn’t be able to find it.  Sure enough, he came back to the table empty handed.  “I couldn’t find one,” he said.  I didn’t say a word because I knew it wouldn’t be a nice word.  But thirty minutes later, I walked over to the refrigerator and pulled it out.  The only reason I didn’t do it earlier was because I was saving it for myself!

So I live in fear, knowing the day will come when he leaves home and goes off into the great big world.  I only hope he can find it!!