Daily Diatribes

It’s been a long time since I had a good fall. I think it’s because I’ve gotten so old an fat that I move more slowly and therefore, more cautiously. I step very deliberately, with great care, hoping to avoid plunging gracelessly to the ground. In my misspent youth, I was constantly falling. I have bad knees, bad ankles, bad balance and bad bladder control. It’s a recipe for disaster as this old post proves. But I seem to have grown out of it….or so I thought.

Yesterday I was folding laundry. This is an alien task for me. Usually I just let it pile up on the dining room table and invite my family members to rummage through it, foraging for clean underwear on their own. I am a very busy and important woman. I don’t have time to fold underwear. It cuts into my World Cup viewing. And my Facebook stalking. And, God forbid, my Pogo playing. I have rediscovered the joys of Pogo and it turns out I’ve missed a whole year of badges. So I have a lot to catch up on and I don’t need to waste time folding laundry. Oh, and sometimes I do schoolwork. When I absolutely can’t put it off any longer.

But sometimes, when the mountain threatens to push through the ceiling, I guilt myself into folding some of it. I can piously tell myself that my family comes first, even though we all know that Pogo comes first. June Cleaver NEVER let the laundry pile up. Of course, she also had a hired woman come in three times a week to help with the housework, thereby freeing up June to starch her aprons and buff her pearls. I don’t have such a luxury; thus my aprons go unstarched. Carol Brady had Alice. Mrs. Jefferson had Florence. If my life really was a sitcom, I would have a maid; instead, I AM the maid!! I guess that proves my life is more of a docudrama, even though it has a laugh track.

I reduced the mound of clothing quite a bit yesterday. When I get into the groove, I am actually fairly productive. I folded all my clothes and even spirited them away to my bedroom. I divided the children’s clothing into three separate piles. As I moved around to add some clothing to the goddess’s pile, disaster struck. I believe this happened in slow motion. It felt slow motion:

I pick up a stack of clothing
I begin moving around the table
I step on a large bouncy ball
As I step, my right ankle twists and excruciating pain shoots up my leg
The clothing flies up into the air
I begin to fall, arms flailing, mouth open, the word “FFFFFFFF****************KKKKKKKK emerging in a balloon above my head
One arm hits the table and several pictures fall over
I come down squarely on my left knee and now pain is shooting up both legs
I come to rest on the floor, both legs sending signals to the pain center

I lay there for several moments, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Ball….Ankle….Fall….Knee…..OUCH DAMMIT!!!! There was pain. So much pain. Ankle was swelling, throbbing. Knee was on fire. Butt hurt. Arm hurt from striking table. PRIDE HURT!!! Minimal urinary incontinence, THANK GOD!! I was prone for several seconds, cursing like a sailor. Finally, gingerly, I tried to get up. The pain was intense, but I managed to get to my feet. And promptly picked up the ball and threw it away from me as forcefully as I could.

It would make an even better post if the ball had hit the wall, bounced back and hit me in the head. Or if I had stepped on it again, twisting the other ankle and crippling myself for life. Alas, these things seldom happen in real life. Suffice it to say, I was wise enough to pick it up and stick it in a laundry basket, neutralizing its damaging powers. I spent the rest of the day hobbling around, cursing life in general and bouncy balls specifically. And the moral of the story? It’s far safer for me to sit on my butt and play Pogo!! Laundry is a dangerous occupation and I don’t get combat pay!!

So friend Nancy called me today and read me a blog post about soccer from a site called “The American Thinker.” I am going to see if can link it but you know how challenged I am by technology: Socialism

The author, one C. Edmund Wright, derides the assertion that soccer is the world’s favorite sport, challenging that is played primarily in countries where “starvation, archery, and badminton were the alternative activities.” Ouch. One wonders what those fans in first world countries, where soccer reigns supreme, do for their “alternative activities”? Darts? I can suggest an admirable target in Mr. Wright. Can an American be any uglier??

Oh, his post was entertaining enough, clever and well-written, but it was so incredibly snide and snarky that it was impossible to actually enjoy it. His post is the sort of thing that makes it easy to see why the rest of the world considers Americans such clods. Because soccer is a sleek, measured, sport played by athletes in top condition, a sport that requires all of its players on the field to participate actively, it’s apparently too boring for Mr. Wright to endure. After all, when you compare it to American football or basketball, it does seem like a silly sport.

I love to watch American football, but let’s consider the physical attributes of the players. Soccer is played on the largest field of any sport, a 110 yard field is the minimum length in international matches. The players never stop moving. They are constantly in motion, up and down the field, cutting, twisting and turning like fiends. American Football is played on a 100 yard field and the offense and defense take turns playing in short bursts. And let’s face it, American football is a celebration of our obesity epidemic, with 300 pound players being the norm, not the exception. They seem to topple over of heart attacks at an alarming rate…when they’re not being arrested for rape or dog fighting. I love American football, but in terms of sheer physical fitness and athletic prowess, soccer wins every time.

And I love that Mr. Wright claims soccer is only popular in dirt poor countries. In the US, it’s a somewhat elite sport, because there aren’t any city leagues. If a child wants to play soccer, he or she has to play with a club. Trust me, I pay big bucks for my kid to play. And if we’re going to make assertions that soccer is popular with the poor, how about basketball? How many players on US basketball teams come from privileged backgrounds? Oh, right, basketball FLOURISHES in graffiti-ridden neighborhoods, where lay-ups and gunfire go hand in hand. Soccer and basketball….two simple ball sports that don’t require a lot of fancy equipment or even a lot of specialized training. Two sports which one can find in any area where kids don’t have a whole lot of anything other than time and a desire to work out their frustrations on a court or a pitch. If you’re good, you’re good, and training will only make you better. Either you can do things to a ball with your feet that would make Pele cry, or you can’t. You can sink a lay-up or you can’t.

Mr. Wright assures us he is not a “redneck soccer newbie” because he played soccer in his prep school, which was one of the first places to embrace soccer. Wow, now he sounds like a real snot. So glad he clarified for us that he went to prep school and knows what he’s talking about. My kids only go to regular old high school, so I guess that’s why they play the hooligan, socialist sport of soccer. Yes, Mr. Wright claims soccer is a socialist sport and he’s absolutely right. It’s one of the reasons I love it so much and encouraged all three of my children to play. It’s one of the few sports where every single player can make a difference. It teaches kids about teamwork and patience, because yes, soccer IS a low-scoring game, although the North Koreans might beg to differ. It’s a heartbreaking, frustrating, nerve-wracking, nail-biting 90-plus minutes of agony, waiting to see if the ball is EVER going to make it into the net. And frankly, versus football which entails a whole lot of sitting around, or basketball, which only plays five at a time, the workout my kids get playing soccer is a whole lot better.

Mr. Wright is also scornful of the National Team ideal, saying that “they are the main sports focus of a nation” and that “it can’t get much more socialist than that.” Really? Nationalism is a bad thing since when?? Frankly, I find the idea of any sort of national team refreshing. It’s nice to see the nation come together and pull for a single team, even if it is a team playing a socialist game. Usually it takes a terrorist bombing to stir up our patriotic pride. I think cheering on Bradley’s Boys is far preferable to a 9/11 style bombing. But that’s just me I guess.

I know soccer is not everyone’s cup of tea. Neither is football, baseball, hockey, wrestling, etc. Each sport has its devoted fans, those who even as they die, will be proclaiming their team’s superiority. But what I do know is that Mr. Wright sounds like a snarky, self-important, whiny little frat boy who is missing college football right now, so he is taking it out on soccer. My suggestion to Mr. Wright would be “Change the channel and shut the hell up. I can’t hear the vuvuzelas over your big mouth!!”

Our sweet friends sent us a box of products from Omaha steaks. It’s the nicest thing anyone has done for us in a long time; we are usually the senders, not the recipients!! The steaks came in a nifty little cooler packed with dry ice. I removed the steaks and put them in the freezer. Then I picked up the bag of dry ice and squinted at the instructions, which read “DO NOT PICK UP DRY ICE”! Oops. I tossed it back in the cooler and set it on the back porch.

Also enclosed in the box was an envelope full of coupons. The outside of the envelope advised “It’s COOLER to recycle” and informed me that the styrofoam cooler could be reused. WHAT?? ReUSED??? You mean….gasp….when the dry ice melts I can….put things IN the cooler??? I mean, I had no idea that styrofoam coolers could be reused!! It’s like an environmental breakthrough!! Someone call Al Gore…no, wait, he’s on the line with his divorce lawyer!! But I can practically hear that hole in the ozone layer closing up!!

And there are TESTIMONIALS on the envelope from satisfied customers who have reused the cooler in new and exciting ways! This is extremely helpful because I’m not very creative and I would never be able to think of fun new ways to use a cooler. In the past, I thought they were just for beverages, but apparently I was very wrong. Styrofoam coolers: they’re not just for beer anymore! Awestruck, I read the comments.

“Perfect tackle box: It’s a great box for fishing trips; I stick my hooks in the lid!” Wow! You mean I could take the cooler and fill it with my FISHING GEAR??? And maybe even stick the dead fish in it after I’ve caught them?? Why am I only just now hearing about this STYROFOAM COOLER??? Another satisfied customer says “Great sewing kit: I use mine as a sewing box!” And she can stick her pins and needles in the lid! Brilliant. Simply brilliant! It’s as if a new world has opened up before me, a panorama of empty styrofoam coolers begging to be filled with my stuff!!

“No moths here,” a customer reports gleefully. “I store off season clothing in mine!” Oh my, what a cunning idea, one that appeals to my sense of irony: keep your SWEATERS in the COOLER! I GET IT!!! One extremely creative customer shares A REALLY GREEN IDEA: “We turned ours into a planter!” What a FANTASTIC idea!! I would totally turn mine into a planter except I think we have restrictive covenants in our neighborhood regarding the usage of styrofoam coolers as planters, even if you do decorate them with Barbie stickers and magic markers. Well, and I kill plants, but that’s another story. Another customer calls her cooler “A gentle toybox: it’s an ideal toy box for my grandson [because] the lightweight lid won’t pinch his little fingers!” Oh. My. God. That is soooooo precious!!! Let’s hope little Jimmy doesn’t discover he can wedge the cat into the box and hold down the lightweight lid, thereby suffocating Fluffy to death. I think that’s how Charles Manson got started.

Actually, now that I look at the envelope, one customer uses the cooler as storage for feral cats. “Keeps the Kitties warm,” he says, and then goes on to share the following charming anecdote: “My wife and I care for the neighborhood feral community of cats and have been using your shipping cartons as shelters in the rain and in the wintertime. The cats and we thank you!” Ok, so lemmee get this straight. They catch the wild cats and shove them into the coolers when it’s raining and the cats are good with this?? I’ve never met a cat that would willingly submit to being placed into a styrofoam cooler. Let’s call this what it really is: kitty genocide. Omaha Steaks is actually subsidizing the murder of millions of innocent cats with it’s free, reusable styrofoam coolers. Monsters!!!! That might just make that last bite of steak just a little bit harder to swallow!!

So, Chad and Amy, we thank you for the steaks. It was a thoughtful gesture and greatly appreciated. But the styrofoam cooler!!! That was just way too much! You shouldn’t have! We’ll have that cooler for years to come and think of you fondly every time we murder a stray cat!!

I have gotten out of the habit of writing and it hurts. Sometimes I feel the desire to write pulsing beneath my skin, my observations on humanity crying out for release, begging to be shared with the world at large. Mexi-Mullets!! Bad Drivers!! Mary Kay salesmen!! They are all there in my head, dying to be poured into a blog. Why DIDN’T I write about the woman at church who approached the altar dressed in an outfit that would have made Julie from “The Love Boat” jealous?? Or what about me breaking the IPhone and the blender within twenty four hours?? I should have made the time. Well, dear readers, it’s not just a question of time management. I have allowed my obsession with Bejeweled Blitz to distract me from my writing. Well, that and my full-time class load and the mountains of laundry my family produces on a daily basis. Sometimes, it’s all too much!!

So, in an effort to re-connect, with myself and with my readers, I am going to share the trials I have endured this week. You’ll laugh! You’ll cry!! You’ll THANK GOD that you are not nearly as stupid as I am! And maybe…just maybe….you’ll come away with a new appreciation for those people who have a sense of direction and can manage NOT to get lost in a square block.

Tuesday was the first day of summer semester. Mind you, I took a class during the mini semester, so I never had a break. The mini class was “Introduction to Theatre” (and make sure you spell that THEATRE!!!) and although it wasn’t a difficult class, it met every single day for two and a half hours. By the end of the three weeks, I was barely capable of coherent thought; it nearly broke my spirit. I had a whopping FOUR DAYS OFF and then started classes again yesterday, albeit in slightly better spirits because I am taking graduate classes again. The theatre thing was very humbling because I was by far the oldest student in the room. The professor kept inviting us to “PLAY”, because that’s what theatre is about, but it’s kind of hard to “PLAY” with people who could have watched “Blue’s Clues” with my own children. I felt a lot ridiculous. Although I did write one hell of a ten minute play about one student’s quest for the last gallon of milk. I heard Steven Spielberg is trying to option the production rights…

So while I enjoyed the class, it was a relief to get back into upper level classes with people who were closer to my age, 24 and 25 year olds. You see, I have developed a coping mechanism to ease my fears about going back to school. I am 41 years old, but I FEEL ten years younger, which makes me 31; therefore I am really only seven years older than most of my new college friends. That’s the great thing about being an English major: you can spin anything!! Actually, in the Master’s program, I am in the middle as far as age goes. There are twenty somethings and there are fifty somethings. As a forty something, I am neither the oldest nor the youngest, which suits me just fine.

Ok, back to the first day of class. Before going to class, I had to take Napoleon to the doctor for a recheck. He tore his ACL a few months ago (did I tell y’all that???) and he is still under the orthopedist’s care. This is a major pain in the rear for me because the doctor practices out of a hospital downtown and Napoleon does not like to drive downtown alone. I guess it’s because he’s my oldest, so he’s very cautious, or maybe it’s just his father’s genetic material, but the boy will NOT drive downtown alone. Stalin shares that aversion for the metro area, having taken a solemn oath to never cross the Shelby county line; after all, everything we need is in Shelby County! Why go anywhere else? Unfortunately, the hospitals disagree and they are all located downtown, in Jefferson county. Since Stalin has the paying job, it fell to me to take the boy to the hospital.

I got up early, made myself super-cute for my first day of class, and then Napoleon and I struck out for points North. Actually, that part was pretty uneventful. I did get the orthopedist to lecture the idiot child, telling him why playing soccer when you’re two months post-op from ACL surgery was a bad idea. On our way home, I called and made him a doctor’s appointment for that afternoon, because he needed a physical, and I reminded him he had ACT tutoring at 4:00; these were places he could drive himself to. I dropped him off in the driveway at home, then turned around and headed downtown for school, mentally congratulating myself for my efficiency. I arrived to class in plenty of time, and greeted old friends. The class was fine, but the professor kept us for the full two hours, and just as class ended, the skies opened up and it began to pour.

I’m not just talking about a summer drizzle. No, this was akin to the monsoons that sweep across China, or wherever it is monsoons sweep through. Rain was coming down in sheets and blankets and down-filled comforters, and naturally, I had no umbrella. Looked super-cute though!! With dread, I approached the door leading outside, stood for a moment staring at the downpour, then placing my backpack over my head, I rushed out into the deluge. Stoically, I trudged toward my car; no point in running while wearing flip-flops because that’s a recipe for a broken leg and traction. One of the many great things about UAB is that it floods immediately. In places, the water was already ankle deep. By the time I got to the car, I was drenched. Well, my head was dry, thanks to the backpack, but the super-cute outfit was soggy and dripping.

I sat in the car for a moment to compose myself, then roared away. The rain was still coming down very hard and driving was white-knuckle, since visibility was almost non-existent. It was while I was attempting to navigagte in these treacherous conditions that my phone rang. I saw that it was a call from home, so I answered it.

“Mom, my truck won’t start,” Napoleon told me.

“What do you mean it won’t start?” I asked, trying to see the taillights in front of me through the driving rain.

“It won’t start,” he repeated.

“Did you get gas?” I asked.

“No, I told you I don’t have any MONEY!” he said.

“WHAT??” I screeched. “Your father has been telling you for three days to put ten dollars worth in; you have that much in your account!! Why didn’t you do it when you went to the doctor’s office?”

He muttered something incoherent. “I’ll be home in a few minutes,” I snapped. “Tell MA to get ready for soccer and you better be ready to go when I pull up.”

I hung up and tried to concentrate on driving, but I was seething. It was already after 3, so we would be scrambling to get there on time. This was not how my afternoon was supposed to play out. Idiot child. I roared up the driveway, everyone got in the car and we roared away again. I immediately launched into a screaming session about the truck.

“I just don’t understand WHY you didn’t fill it up when you went for your physical!!!” I screeched.

“I didn’t GO for the physical today,” Napoleon said. “It’s tomorrow!”

Reader, my eyes rolled back into my head. His life flashed before my eyes as I contemplated ending it right there. I’m not proud of the way I handled it, but some moments defy self-control.

“WHAT THE *^*&%&^( DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T GO TO THE (^()#&)$*#)$*%*(^&(*& DOCTOR????????” Really, mere written words cannot adequately capture the depths of my rage.

“You told me it was tomorrow,” he said.

“NO…I….DIDN’T,” I panted, using heroic strength not to throttle the life from his body right then and there. “You HEARD me make the appointment and I TOLD you what time it was at!!!”

“Well, I thought it was tomorrow!”

Here I was, super-cute outfit drenched, make-up running, tense from having been in the car driving all day, and now THIS???? I could actually feel my blood pressure escalating into the danger zone. It was like a little cartoon playing in my head; I could see my heart pumping harder and harder and the needle edging up into DANGER: HEART ATTACK IMMINENT!!! Muttering, I called the doctor’s office back, apologized profusely to the receptionist, Jessica, (who loves me!! and I love her!!) and made him a new appointment. Then I concentrated on making it to the library in Mountain Brook, where the ACT tutor was waiting.

Fortunately I have a GPS, so I just entered the coordinates and followed the directions. But let me tell you something about the city of Birmingham: all the rich people huddle together in one little suburb together and defend it with their lives. Sorry my Mountain Brook friends, but you do! Imagine a fortress of old, complete with moat and turrets; that’s not really what Mountain Brook is like!! Instead, it has tiny, narrow streets and NO street signs, a feature which functions like a modern moat. Because if you don’t live there, they don’t want you to know where you’re going. You might get comfortable and decide to overstay your welcome. The city is designed to repel intruders; all streets lead AWAY from it. The fact that I drive a Ford was a further indictment of my character; I pointed out to my children that all the Fords we passed were coming OUT of the city. It was clear that we did NOT belong.

Anyway, the GPS got us within range of the library and that’s where the trouble started. Because I didn’t SEE a library. I turned where the GPS told us to turn and it took us down a narrow, residential street. Frantically I turned around before someone called the cops to report the strange Ford driven by the wet, stringy-haired, white lady with wild eyes. We drove back up toward the Main Street and tried to follow the GPS but there was NO library. I drove around the block two or three times, searching in vain for any building that looked like it might house books, but they all looked the same to me. And there were NO SIGNS!! Because frankly if you don’t know which one is the library, you clearly don’t have any business being there!!

As we passed the political polling area for the third time, I started to roll down my window. “NO MOM,” my kids shrieked. “Don’t you DARE ask for directions!!!!”

“What?” I asked innocently. “I was jest gonna axe ‘em ‘Hey!! Where y’all keep that ol’ LIBERRY??” We all started giggling because I was too pissed off to scream anymore. Finally, in great desperation, I called my dear friend Larry. He lives in the fair city of Mountain Brook and had agreed to pick up MA for soccer practice….if we ever FOUND the damn library.

“Larry,” I said when he answered, “WHERE IN THE HELL DO YOU PEOPLE KEEP YOUR DAMN LIBRARY??????”

“Where are you?” he asked.

I described my location and he started giving me directions. I finally pulled into a lot and he said “Now you should see a brown, Tudor-style building to your right.”

“Larry,” I said with great patience, “I don’t KNOW what Tudor-style means. What I KNOW is that to my right is a brown building with yellow, pokey-outy, sides. Is THAT what you mean???” In Shelby County, we don’t say crap like “Tudor-style”; we say things like ‘it’s that building right there next to the restaurant that serves the all-you-can-eat catfish buffet with those hushpuppies that would make your Maw-Maw cry!!!!’

Larry thought about it for a minute and then said “Yeah…yeah….I see what you mean. Yep, it’s the one with the ‘yellow, pokey-outy sides’. That’s the library!!”

I thanked him profusely, nearly sobbing with relief, and we leapt out of the car and rushed toward the building. Only we couldn’t find the door. That was when I dropped the F-bomb. “Where in the F**K do these people keep the F***ING door???” My kids started howling, and I looked around nervously because I am willing to bet there was some sort of city ordinance against using the F word in public. We finally found the door and got Napoleon up to his tutor. MA and I went back out, because we had an hour to kill. As we walked around who should we bump into but LARRY, my knight in shining armor!! The one who helped me find the “TUDOR STYLE BUILDING” that housed the library. I started to throw myself into his arms, but I restrained myself since there is probably also a city ordinance about PDA’s. He took MA with him, since they were going to soccer practice, and I grabbed my Kindle and went into the library to read.

It was when Napoleon was done and we were walking toward the car that I noticed the big sign at the entrance of the lot in which I had parked: MUNICIPAL LOT; CITY VEHICLES ONLY; ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED. Napoleon guffawed: “oh man, mom, it would be SO FUNNY if your car got towed!!!” I stared at him; was he really so stupid he didn’t realize he was flirting with certain decapitation???? However, it was the one small break I caught that day. Apparently all the cops were busy keeping the voters in line and couldn’t be bothered to tow my Ford. We got in and drove away really quickly before they noticed their oversight.

And so the day ended without me having a heart attack, being arrested, or killing my children. I know you’re all jealous, but let me tell you, that’s just a day in the life!! Every day with me is a new adventure in incompetence and sheer ridiculousness. Luckily I will always have my sense of humor because, without that, I probably WOULD be dead!!

This will come as no surprise, but I have a hard time behaving in Mass. I wiggle, I whisper, I openly stare at women who are wearing inappropriate clothing in the Lord’s House; I am like a giant three year old. I need to bring crayons and a coloring book with me to avoid distracting those who are there to worship the Lord because I am that much of a maniac. I love God as much as the next person, but with my limited attention span, it’s hard to sit through a whole hour of church! It’s one of the reasons I like being Catholic. Just when I’m starting to get bored, it’s time to stand up or sit down or kneel. Catholocism is the Jane Fonda of Christian religions.

One of the perks of being Catholic is Saturday night services and last night at 4:30, we arranged ourselves in the usual pew. We were behind a very nice man/boy who has an intellectual disability. That was a politically correct way to say it, right? Anyway, he is very sweet and friendly and he always speaks to my children. I like to sit near him because I feel he has a special relationship with God. And sitting near him during Pentecost seemed like a good way to get some extra Brownie points with the Lord. I’m always looking for a way to avoid my inevitable descent into Hell. So Pentecost….it’s when the Holy Spirit came to the disciples as they were huddled together fearfully, not sure what to do now that Jesus was gone. The Holy Spirit came in the form of a wind and and blew over them and they were inspired to go forth and preach the Gospel. It’s fitting that it was Pentecost and that we were sitting near the very nice man because the two juxtaposed nicely.

As a matter of fact, he seemed to be internalizing the Gospel, because I hadn’t been sitting there long, when a most malodorous smell assailed my nostrils. The mental cogs started turning and I categorized the offensive odor as a flatulent episode. And it was coming from the pew in front of me, the pew whose sole occupant was the very nice disabled man. He did not move or fidget; he just beamed angelically at the altar. And yet I knew, like a certain BP oil rig, that he was spewing foul gas into the environment. I looked at my family, but no one seemed affected but me. I waited for the goddess to shriek out “MOMMY….WHAT STINKS???” but she was whispering with Abby (church misbehavior is a family tradition). I decided either it didn’t smell as bad as I thought it did or that everyone else had a stuffy nose and therefore could not process the odor. I tried to turn my attention back to the Mass, I really did, but I kept getting distracted by people’s shoes. There are some UGLY shoes in the world and they seem to come out in full force at church!!

A few minutes later, however, the odor wafted over me again. This time Stalin looked at me accusingly and hissed “Was that YOU?”

Now reader, I was truly hurt. Ok, fine, I misbehave in church. Your average toddler is better behaved than me. But I have SOME class!! If I feel the urge to release pent up anal air, I will absent myself to the bathroom to do so. I will not disrupt the prayerful state so many manage to achieve during church with my horrendous bodily smells. I’m not saying I never pass gas; oh no, as a woman of a certain age, it’s an inevitable fact of life. I’m not even denying that occasionally I like to rip a really good one to horrify my family. But NEVER in church!! I don’t have many standards, but that certainly ranks up there at the top!!

“NO,” I hissed back. We stared at each other for a moment, eyes watering, and then both looked away before we exploded into gales of laughter. What elevated this from a “guy farted in church” story to a tale worthy of Saturday Night Live was the fact that it was Pentecost. Every reading was about Holy Wind. The entire Homily was about wind. The guy in front of us was BREAKING WIND!!! Do you see the humor???

The stench was bad, I’m not gonna lie. I have a strong stomach, but this was not only relentless, it was most foul. I kept holding my breath, hoping he would stop, but no such luck. And during the homily, Father kept inviting us to “INHALE” the Holy Spirit. There was NO WAY I was going to inhale!! I was doing everything I could do to AVOID inhaling the wind around me!! Because it was most UNHOLY!!!

I made it through Mass without saying anything out loud. I didn’t throw up in the pew. I didn’t run screaming from the church. I sat stoically and accepted it as my penance for being a bad person. I didn’t blame the man; sometimes you win, sometimes the beans win. It’s the human condition. But next week, I plan to sit on the other side of church from him. Just in case!

Recently some Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door. I cowered in my kitchen, trapped behind my counter, afraid to move because I didn’t want to be subjected to a sermon about my salvation. But even as I cowered, I admired their dedication to their cause. Who else gives up a Sunday afternoon to drive around and leaflet unsuspecting, Godless heathens in their homes? I don’t agree with their message, which states that only 144,000 chosen people will be going up to Heaven. Let’s face it, I have ZERO chance of being among the chosen and the Jehovah’s Witnesses should know this, being devoutly tuned in to the Big Guy’s plan. Still, I admired their persistence. They continued knocking on my door long after a normal person would have given up and they even left me a pamphlet depicting a happy African American couple frolicking with a moose and picking pumpkins. And it is written that “The negro shall frolic with the moose and he shall have an abundance of pumpkins to store up in Heaven…” Bible 101; everyone knows that verse!!!

So their dedication to their cause got me thinking about my own dedication, or lack thereof, and I decided to join a ministry right then and there. I browsed the internet, looking for a ministry to call my own. I checked out the Alien Resistance Ministries, which is dedicated to spreading the word of God to those in UFO cults. Since I was personally abducted by aliens last year and subjected to a thorough probing, I didn’t think this was the right ministry for me; especially since I birthed that alien baby that was beamed up to the mother ship right after it was born. I looked into the Mime ministry but I doubt seriously I could keep my mouth shut long enough to successfully pantomime a message to anyone. I really think I am a good candidate for the Ministry of Silly Walks, but since they operate out of the UK, and I hate to fly, I crossed it off my list. And it occurred to me I could create my own ministry.

My first thought was to create a ministry to share the word of God through the medium of bathroom graffiti. Many is the time I have been sitting on the potty at the convenience store, pondering a beautiful and uplifting messages about God’s love for me written right there on the wall. Even reading the basic “JESUS LOVES YOU” has deeper meaning for me when it is scribbled on the toilet paper holder at the Chevron station. What better way to make a difference in the world than to arm everyone I know with Sharpies and empower them to go forth and spread the gospel truth of God’s eternal love for humanity by writing it on the walls of toilet stalls??? Here are some sample messages our ministry could share: Flush If You Love Jesus! or Round the Bowl and Down the Hole/Jesus loves you Body and Soul! I feel these inspired words could truly change the lives of those who are struggling with their spirituality. Viewing a message of love and hope in the bathroom of your local truck stop is always uplifting. Together, we can make a difference, one Sharpie at a time!!

But I’m not sure I have the patience to start a ministry like that from scratch. It would take a lot of work, something I’m not necessarily into. I mean, I’d have to raise the money to buy the Sharpies and I’d have to recruit Christians with nice handwriting who aren’t afraid of public bathrooms. Raising the money will be easy. You can always find someone willing to donate money to spread the Good News. The Sharpies will be easy to buy, but the Christians are another thing. Even the most dedicated missionary might flinch when asked to go into the bathroom of the local Handi-Mart to proselytize. Sub-Saharan Africa is not at all frightening to these people because they can get shots for all those potential African diseases, but what shot exists to kill Handi-Mart germs? And I’d have to raise some serious capital in order to have bail money on hand in case my Christians are jailed for defacing public property. Which really wouldn’t be fair because isn’t it better to deface property with an inspirational message versus one like “For a Good Time Call Mandy”? (and no, Peter, I DON’T KNOW Mandy’s number!!!)

Reluctantly, I abandoned my idea and racked my brains for another. This one is kind of lame, but today on my Facebook Page, I wished everyone a Happy Thursday. Which got me thinking about just how disrespected Thursday is as a day of the week. No one ever says “Thank God It’s Thursday!” There’s no celebration when Thursday rolls around, no accolades, it’s just another day. Everybody hates Monday, but at least it inspires some emotion. Wednesday is Hump Day and Sunday is the Sabbath. Saturday is just awesome all the way around because it’s a day of endless possibilities. Even Tuesday gets some respect because it’s at the beginning of the week and people are still getting into their rhythm. But Thursday….Thursday is the Rodney Dangerfield of the week. It gets NO respect. Even in the poem, “Thursday’s Child has far to go…” which means you are out of luck if you’re born on a Thursday! Monday…fair of face! Tuesday…full of grace! Wednesday’s child is full of woe….ok that’s pretty bad, but STILL, Wednesday gets other recognitions!! But poor little Thursday!!!

So I will start a ministry promoting Thursday as the best day of the whole week! My first action will be to lobby to get that awful poem changed. I want the line changed to read “Thursday’s child is NOT a HO!!!” or better yet “Thursday’s child has LOTS OF DOUGH!” or maybe even “Thursday’s child is a worthy foe” but probably I will change it to “Thursday’s child is none too slow!” Regardless, ‘far to go’ is unacceptable. It’s not the image of Thursday we want to project. Thursday is a GOOD weekday. It’s powerful. When you reach Thursday, it means you’re a survivor. You’ve made it past Monday, you’ve coasted over hump day and now you’re on the downhill stretch. Thursday is full of possibilities. It means life is GOOD!! So yeah, Thursday ministries…a real possibility.

Then again, maybe I’ll skip the ministry thing altogether. While those Jehovah’s Witnesses were out witnessing on Sunday, I was hanging out, playing Pogo. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be shallow after all!!

There are lots of reasons for me to seek gainful employment. One reason is money. Napoleon will be going to college next year and I’m thinking he’s not going to be name Fulbright Scholar or anything like that. I suspect we’re going to have to help him pay for it. Also, a job is a good way to keep me from wasting my life on Facebook. I worry sometimes that I will be found dead in front of the computer, and even worse, have posted a low score on Bejeweled Blitz when I’m found. The headline crying “Local Soccer Mom Found Decomposing in Front of Computer; Her Family Didn’t Notice She Was Dead” would be bad enough. A score of less than 10,000 on the screen (probably the causative factor in the unexplained death) would be an insult that would follow me beyond the grave. So death and money are both good reasons to get a job, but ultimately, I need a job because for me, too much time on my hands equals too much thinking, something that is not good for me or for society as a whole.

When my last final was over, I was at a loss. I had three whole days to do with as I pleased, only I didn’t know what to do. I did some laundry. I played some Pogo. I generally goofed off. And then I made the fatal mistake of checking my kid’s grades. You see, in this wonderful age of technology, I can access an online grade book and monitor their progress in school. Before I started back to school, I would haunt the online grade book for hours, pondering their quiz scores, plotting inspirational speeches I could give the children when they came home, so they could improve their academic performances. Of course, these well-intentioned speeches were usually met with sighs of disgust and enough rolling of the eyeballs that the little darlings looked like epileptics, but I felt it was my motherly duty to try and instruct them. But taking four classes last semester put an end to that particular past-time. I was so consumed with my own grades that I didn’t have time to monitor their grades as well.

Imagine my shock, then, when I signed on and saw that Marie Antoinette’s grades were abysmal: 1 A, a couple of B’s AND A D!!! And in Law Academy, no less, an elective course in which she had excelled all year!! Immediately, the adrenaline surged. My heart started pumping, my nostrils flared and my eyes dilated. Because there before me on the computer screen was proof that she was strung out on drugs. I don’t know how I had missed the earlier signs, but the D was all I needed to assure me that she was ingesting mass quantities of illegal substances, possibly from my medicine cabinet.

It’s sad the things this says about me as a mother and as a human being. Normal people don’t look at a grade and assume their child has been sneaking out to meet her pusher by the subdivision sign. Normal people might actually wait until the child gets home and take a good look in her eyes before jumping to that conclusion. I’m sorry, did I say I was normal? Because it never even occurred to me that there was another explanation.

I got up and started pacing nervously, mentally composing my helpful speech. I didn’t want to come on too strong. I wanted to ease into the subject so she wouldn’t shut down. I decided to start with the obvious “Is everything ok honey,” segue into an “I’m worried about you,” and then carefully bring up the subject of drugs. I needed to know what kind and how much she was taking. I needed to know where she was getting them from. I needed to know if she was engaging in any indecent acts to fund her drug habit. And I needed to know why she was taking them and how I had failed as a mother. I pondered all these things as I waited for her to come home. “Stay calm,” I kept telling myself, “Stay calm and don’t scare her.”

Which is why, when she walked in the door, I screamed “YOU HAVE A “D” IN LAW ACADEMY AND WHY ARE YOU TAKING DRUGS?????????” I then fell on her, sobbing hysterically. Ok, that last is maybe a bit of exaggeration, but not much. I was freaked out and just looking at her little face, the face of the baby I had nurtured, the face of my child who was now taking drugs…it was too much to bear. “What’s wrong honey?” I asked plaintively. “Is it because I lose your clothes all the time?? Is it because I’m annoying???? Is that why you’re taking the drugs??”

Naturally, she stared at me like I was insane (which I am), sauntered over to the computer and pulled up her grades. She scanned them cooly and said “This is wrong. This grade is supposed to be a 45 out of 50, not a 4 out of 50. I’ll tell him to fix it tomorrow.”

Abruptly I deflated. ‘Well’, I thought to myself, ‘that was somewhat anticlimactic.’ To MA I said “So you’re not taking drugs?”

“No mother,” she said acidly, “I am NOT taking drugs.”

“Ok, then,” I said cheerfully. “Good job on the grades!!”

And the moral of the story is I need to get a job and spend as much time away from home as possible or I will drive my children right into a drug habit!! Oh, and I guess I need to actually HAVE SOME FAITH IN THEM instead of always assuming the worst!! But it’s in my nature to assume the worst because if the worst happens, I won’t be surprised!!

Ok, I’m not gonna lie, semester almost finished me off! People frequently look at me admiringly and say “I don’t know HOW you do it; you must not sleep at all!!!” and I lower my head and blush modestly. I would never admit that I sleep between 8 and 9 hours EVERY night and still manage to watch every episode of “House”. Sleep is not what has been sacrificed in this scholastic endeavor. No, it would be housework!!

Not that I’ve EVER put much effort into housework. One of the reasons I went back to school in the first place was to get out of doing the housework. I suck at it. I am perfectly content to sit on my butt in front of this computer for 6 to 8 hours a day, stalking people on Facebook and writing the occasional, pithy letter to the editor of the “Birmingham News” regarding some issue which has displeased me. The dust can rise up around me, but as long as I can still see the computer screen, I’m fine. I think it’s reveals a lot about my personality that, when I was in middle school and ordered to memorize a poem of my choosing, I chose “Dust” by Sydney King Russell, a poem which I remember to this day. I will quote it for you:

Agatha Morley all her life
grumbled at dust like a good wife
dust on a table dust on a chair
dust on a mantel she couldn’t bear
she forgave faults in man and child
but a dusty shelf would set her wild
she bore with sin without protest
but dust thoughts preyed upon her rest
Agatha Morley is sleeping sound
six feet under the moldy ground
six feet under the earth she lies
with dust at her feet and dust in her eyes.

Even at the tender age of twelve, I recognized that housework is an exercise in futility. There is always going to be dust, so why bother hauling out a can of Pledge and a cloth??? It’s just gonna get dusty again! Why make the bed? You’re just going to mess it up again?? Why pick up everyone’s crack pipes off the floor….well, you get the idea. Why should I exert myself dusting the house when there are so many other things I’d rather be doing? In the time it takes to clean a bathroom, I can play five or six hands of Canasta on Pogo. Or I can prowl through Facebook, looking for gossip. I don’t need to waste time cleaning. As we used to say when we were kids “God made dirt and dirt don’t hurt!!!” Dirt is practically holy. God might get offended if we disturb the natural order of things and far be it for me to offend God anymore than I already have. Lightning bolts are hurled at me on a daily basis as it is.

So housework ranks pretty close to the bottom in terms of priorities in my life. In fact, I have to laugh when I stay in hotels and people grumble about how dirty their rooms are. Trust me, any bathroom in ANY hotel is going to be cleaner than mine. For example, the maids at the hotel probably clean the toilet more than once a month. They probably actually move things on the counter when they wipe it down, instead of wiping around it. And they actually vacuum every day. These are not activities I pursue on a regular basis. When the toilet bowl begins looking like a petri dish and bacteria are actually reaching up out of the toilet to try and infect us, I might take a swipe at them with the brush. Or I might just ignore them, drop some toilet paper on their germy little heads, and hope that will squash their uprising.

As for vacuuming, well, um…yeah. About vacuuming. Right, so a few weeks ago, the vacuum cleaner wasn’t working…AGAIN! So I decided to fix it. I sat down to examine it and found the roller was being hindered by a large clot of dog hair. So I channeled my inner McGyver, straightened a coat hanger and went to work. I diligently dug out the entire dog hair clot and, in the process, destroyed the motor in the vacuum cleaner head. Apparently it’s bad form to root around inside the vacuum cleaner with a coat hanger. This is why I am going to teach English and not mechanical engineering. Needless to say, the vacuum is back in the shop again, and the part is only going to be $100. And the dog hair is threatening to overtake the house.

So today I am cleaning. In the spirit of spring and in the fear of contracting Cercopithecine herpesvirus 13 from my toilet, I am cleaning. If I get everything done today that I need to, I won’t have to clean again until mid-August!

Thanks for checking in with me; summer semester is going to be lighter, so I hopefully I can catch up on my blog reading and my blog posting!!

This week I have been extremely stressed. To deal with the stress, my subconscious decided to fixate on winkies. Suddenly, winkies were the dominant image in my head, and every thought I had was filtered through the winkie image. Two of my Facebook posts were about winkies. And yesterday culminated in the ultimate winkie event, although fortunately, no actual winkies were sighted. Believe me, had I seen a winkie, I would be posting this from the psych ward right now.

Winkie Fest began last Sunday, when I attended a pool party for one of the neighborhood kids. There I am, sitting at the pool, minding my own business while I gossiped about my neighbors, when I had my first winkie sighting. Sunbathing by the pool was a man in a Speedo. First of all, Speedos are icky. I realize they are all the rage in Europe, but this is not Europe. This is Alabama and appropriate poolside attire for males consists of a knee length pair of swim trunks, comfortably tucked up under the beer gut and emblazoned with either the Rebel flag or the number of his favorite NasCar driver. Speedos have no place in the Deep South. And yet there he lay, baking in the sun, with his weenie bulge out there for God and everybody to see. Naturally I was fascinated. I gawked at him, wondering why he was there at an 8 year old’s birthday party, flaunting his winkie. I wanted to throw a towel over him, but I’m sure the right to Flaunt Winkies is Constitutionally guaranteed and I didn’t want to risk a lawsuit. So I settled for mocking him quietly under my breath.

Two days later, I found myself in the library at UAB, desperately trying to produce twelve crappy pages for my literature class. The paper was not coming together at all. I flipped through the book, searching for any kind of meaning in the text. When I found a passage about Twinkies, I wrote the following: The twinkie is a pseudo phallic representation of the male dominated order…” Think about it and you’ll see the logic. Twinkies are winkie shaped and have a CREAM FILLED CENTER!! And look at the similarity in the root (phallic!!) word: WINKIE/TWINKIE. I know I’m right. I then proceeded to make quite a case of the Twinkie as an archetypal representation for the protagonist’s molestation at the hands of his aunt. This is why I’m an English major. You can say things like “Homoerotic symbolism” or “Pseudo Phallic” and your professors think you are a genius. I can make a case that ANYTHING is a phallus!! I won’t be a bit surprised when they ask me to write a dissertation, exploring the exploitation of America’s youth by the evil Hostess company. Hostess Snack Cakes: delicious dessert or the products of a perverted empire creating phallic snake cakes to corrupt America’s youth?

So my week continued. I got the paper written yesterday. It’s a crappy paper. I fully expect to make a “C” on the paper, if not a “D”. But it was a crappy and completed paper, so to celebrate I went to lunch with Sarah. We sat down and ordered, then I decided I needed to go to the bathroom before our food came. I had been consuming mass quantities of Diet Coke in order to stay focused on the paper. Humming a little, feeling good about my completed paper, I entered the bathroom. I found an empty, reasonably non-disgusting potty and did my business. I flushed, opened the door and was confronted by a row of strange little sinks. I thought it was odd that they were right there in front of the stalls. And they were so tiny. “Well, that’s odd,” I muttered to myself. “Who would put a row of tiny sinks….”

And that’s when it hit me. They were NOT sinks. No, dear reader, they were URINALS!! In fact, I had entered the men’s bathroom by mistake. The world abruptly went gray and I swayed a bit, overcome by horror. How in the HELL I had entered the men’s room without even noticing it escapes me. I guess I was so emotionally and mentally drained that I entered the first bathroom I came to without stopping to read the sign. It’s obvious that my subconscious mind, obsessed with winkies, had decided to direct me to a place where I might see an actual winkie! Thank goodness our God is a merciful God and there was no one USING the urinals!! I’m telling you, after the week I had, a winkie sighting would have put me in the hospital!!!

I took a deep breath, composed myself, and went to the BIG sinks to wash my hands. I walked out of the bathroom, muttering to myself “I can’t believe I used the men’s room.” An employee was apparently behind me because he patted me on the shoulder and said “don’t worry, no one saw you!” Um, no one except YOU I wanted to shriek!!!

It’s now Friday. I am about to go out for the day, but before I go, I will say the following prayer: Dear lord, please protect us from carjackings, nuclear missiles (phallic!!!) and from rogue winkie sightings as we shop today!!

Once upon a time there was a soccer mommy named Jennifer. She did not work; instead she stayed home, ignored her children and surfed Facebook all day. On rare occasions, she would wash a load of clothing or vacuum the floors (when she wasn’t actively breaking the vacuum cleaner). If she was feeling very June Cleaverish, she would whip up a batch of Hamburger Helper. It was a time of peace and prosperity; contentment ruled the land.

But Jennifer was bored. ‘There must be something more,’ she thought despairingly, ’something more fulfilling than washing underwear!’ She became brooding and unhappy. One day, while surfing TMZ, she was possessed by a desire to take the entrance exam for graduate school, just to see how well she could do. And so, one bright sunny day, she set out for the college campus where the test was being administered. When she arrived, she looked around the campus in awe. College life looked much as she remembered it: there was the group playing with a hackeysack; there was the giggly group of sorority girls meandering across the quad; there was the group of serious, stringy haired poindexters discussing the latest quantum physics theorem. She was engulfed by a wave of nostalgia for her lost youth, and the desire to rediscover it washed over her.

So Jennifer took the test and was surprised when she scored very well (although she shouldn’t have been since she is totally jazzed by standardized tests!!) and so she decided it might be kind of kicky to go back to school. Without really pausing to consider any of the implications, she went ahead and enlisted. The first semester, she only took two classes, wisely recognizing that going to school would have a somewhat negative impact on family life. She did so well that she decided to double her classload the following semester.

Oh wicked hubris!! Oh cruel ego, thou hast led me astray!! Because Jennifer discovered that not only had her youth left the building, she was actually bordering on nursing home material. Suddenly there were too many new concepts flying at her at once. Papers and projects and due dates were coming at her from all directions. And her family still expected clean underwear and hot, nourishing Hamburger Helper!! Her stress level abruptly ratcheted up 237 points.

Pretty soon, Jennifer found herself speaking nonsene. When asked a question by her family, she would respond “the pedagogical practices of Charles Dickens included a standard deviation of Victorian assessment measures” and other mumbo jumbo that made no sense. She began staying up late at night, surfing the internet, not for the latest pictures of Heidi Montag’s surgical procedures, but for sample tests on Beowulf and for thematic insights into the symbolism of farm animals of Victorian England (not what you’re thinking, get your mind out of the gutter!!!)

As finals approached, Jennifer found herself in a heightened state of confusion and despair. Names, dates and theories swirled about in her head, contradicting each other. Her slumber was disturbed by nightmarish visions of showing up for the final on the wrong day and visions of turning in a paper, only to discover that it was not the 17 page essay on “Jungian ideologies in ‘Anne of Green Gables’” she had slaved over, but was, instead, the operator’s manual for her washing machine. She was at the breaking point and the tiniest nudge would send her plunging into the abyss of eternal despair.

And guess what???? As of this writing, that’s where she is, perched on the brink of complete mental and physical breakdown!! She is considering abandoning the great school experiment and pursuing a career in the convenience store arts. Right about now, selling packs of Marlboros to multi-pierced drug dealers sounds much more appealing than writing a paper!!