This is how NY does football...

This is the Bills/Colts game from yesterday.
The Colts aren't use to this sort of thing...
They were hilarious when they were interviewed.



You can't see ANY of the lines.
...and still...70,000 lunatics showed up to watch.
I was not one of them.
Nor would I be...

Not that I can even get out of my driveway at the moment.
My son, some random guy and his kid shoveled my driveway three times yesterday.

Looking out the kitchen window, it looks like another foot of snow fell.
AND IT'S STILL SNOWING!

According to this:
www.WHEC.com - Snowstorm blankets area
It looks like just under 3' of snow fell in total.
AND IT'S STILL SNOWING!

My poor daughter...
The bus was 15 minutes late.
It's 14 degrees out.
And yes, this is NY, of course she has school.

Her girlfriend's house is across the street from the bus stop. My kids have LONG AGO given up bothering to check if school is ever going to be closed in winter. The boy graduated, but the girl doesn't even get her hopes up enough to turn on the tv to hear the news.

So I get this phone call from her asking me to check if school is closed. We both know it won't be, but she asks me to check anyway because the bus is 15 minutes late.

While we're on the phone, the bus passes her friend's house; which they, of course, miss. All she could do was laugh.

She's safe and sound in her Physics class right now - thawing.
New York.
Gotta love it.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh...

My former husband came over today to sign some documents that needed to be addressed and what does my smart ass daughter do...

I knew it was coming too.
I caught the split second gleam in her eyes right before the golden moment.

What does my angel do?
The child I spent 21 hours in labor with...
The kid I let eat my food and sleep indoors?

She runs up to him and throws her arms around his waist, buries her face in his chest and drops her voice to barely a whisper before saying...
"Since you've been gone...she locks me in the basement..."
All I could do was laugh.

Kids.
Want mine?

Mother/Daughter interaction

Me: Pretty Girl.
My Offspring: You have to say that, you're my Mom.
Me: I have to do no such thing.
My Offspring: Yes, you do. Like you'd just yell out, "Hey, Ugly Girl!"
Me: No...
My Offspring: See?
Me: I'd say..."You look so smart today!"
My Offspring: Oh my God...
Me: "You have such a nice personality!"
My Offspring: stare
Me: "You make such a lovely tax deduction, honey!"

...then she just burst into laughter and tried to leave the room. So I followed her around the house for about 7 minutes yelling out all the things I'd say to her instead if I didn't mean exactly what I said in the first place.

Really, you'd think my kids would learn...

32 Flavors

My daughter did a media presentation for one of her senior classes. It was beautiful. If her picture wasn't in it, I would post it here. This is the song she used. It suits her. She's definitely my kid. I love her.



"32 Flavors"

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
and I'm beyond your peripheral vision
so you might want to turn your head
cause someday you might find you are hungry
and eating most of the words you just said

Both my parents taught me about good will
and I have done well by their names
just the kindness I've lavished on strangers
is more than I can explain
still there's many who've turned out their porch lights
just so I would think they were not home
and hid in the dark of their windows
til I'd passed and left them alone

And God help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
and God help you if you are a phoenix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying past

I've never tried giving my life meaning
by demeaning you
and I would like to state for the record
I did everything that I could do
I'm not saying that I'm a saint
I just don't want to live that way
no, I will never be a saint
but I will always say

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you might find you're starving
and eating all of the words that you said

*&$#*^% Animal Planet

My daughter taped the show Animal Cops or Animal Rescue (something like that) off the Animal Planet channel. We just watched all three episodes together and I'm mortified.

I don't know if I watch things that make me irate because I never want to forget that there are things to be irate about out in the world or because I really don't want to be ignorant of the things that are going on outside of my house or because I'm afraid I've seen so much that I'm petrified I'm going to get to the point where nothing fazes me.

I'm not sure.

What I do know is that I wanted all the people responsible for all the horrendous things done to these animals - to suffer long and hard.

I watched a story about a puppy so infested with ticks that the insides of this poor animal's ears were black from the colonies of them. His face and body were covered in ticks that were literally sucking the life out of him. His gums were white because he was so anemic. He was so weak, he couldn't move.

I watched a story about another puppy that a bunch of teenage boys decided to put a plastic bag over its head after duct taping it's face shut so it only had enough room for its tongue to be out - then duct taped its legs and arms together. Then left it to die in the heat with a 107 degree temperature.

I watched a story about another dog that had been beaten and HOGTIED, had broken teeth and a bloodshot eye - left to bleed and die in a garbage can.

I watched a story about a Mother dog with 8-9 puppies so malnourished from nursing her litter that you could see all of her bones.

I watched a story about a woman that had 90 cats in her house; complete with two litters of newborns buried so far under garbage in the house that she didn't even know they existed.

I could never be a Police Officer, a Social Worker or do Animal Rescue like these people do.

I'd need bail money constantly.

I'm not cut out for it. I'm a huge sucker and I'd have a house full of animals and kids and people living in my yard in tents because I ran out of room.

Couldn't do it.

That's when Roadkill* decided to trot over, drop her ball in front of me, sit, purr and look up at me patiently waiting for me to throw it for her.

Then I wanted all of those people that did that to those animals to suffer all over again.

Horribly.

women's bathrooms

You can always tell the sign of a good restaurant/party house/hotel by the condition of their women's bathroom(s).
That's just a fun little fact.

If you want to know if you should plan any kind of event at a place, send some random female into their facilities and just observe the look on her face when she walks out.

If she comes out with a look of total disgust - don't even think about eating there.
It's as simple as that.

The look is unmistakable too. It's that clenched jaw, eyes half closed, every muscle in her body is tense and there is usually some subtle, if not full on, sneer on her face - stance.

For the male gender who may not yet be informed, let me explain.

We take our settings very seriously. We expect it to be clean. We expect to be able to see when we look in the mirror. We expect all the locks on the doors to work. We expect there to be plenty of supplies at our disposal.

We expect room to move. We expect there to be somewhere for us to put our purses and whatever other junk we happen to have with us.

We expect hooks on the backs of our doors - even if some of us aren't comfortable throwing our stuff up on said hook because we also know how easy it is for someone to just reach over and yank our stuff up and out.

NOT THE POINT!

We expect to not feel like we need to shower when we leave a public restroom.
Yes, I said it.
We expect this.

I always crinkle my nose whenever a bathroom is a) some one room thrown together with no thought enclosure or b) co-ed. Bite me. I don't want to share a bathroom with a male in my own house, let alone a bunch of strangers.

No offense. You men are wonderful. I just don't need to know *that* much about you. I see no real need to bond with you in that way. Stop peeing in front of me for crying out loud.

Now, a really well run place who cares about it's guest/clients/customers will build a real bathroom for women.

This will include up to three separate rooms. A foyer, a waiting area and the facilities themselves - which is large and has stalls on one wall and across from the stalls will be an entire wall side to side of mirrors and sinks.

The sink dispensers won't have the equivalent of Lava soap in them. It will be something fruity or flowery, usually some Yardley something or other that you wouldn't bother to spend the money on to put in your own house.

There will be lights - everywhere, so you can actually see what you're doing when you go to fix your make-up. There will be a large garbage can with a swinging lid on it so you don't have to actually see the garbage in it (if not two - one on either side of the room).

There will be a hand blow dryer AND a paper towel dispenser. Half of them have a folding changing table for babies attached to the wall that you can pull down and make your life easier. There is usually a machine that you can get tampons and pads from if you pay the quarter charge or whatever it is these days.

Each individual stall has a metal box for tampons and pads to dispose of and there is usually a huge roll of toilet paper (and another one behind it) and most of the time there will be a dispenser for those toilet seat covers which are more trouble than they're worth. It's nice to know it's available anyway.

There is at least one handicap, over-sized stall. This is not like a handicap parking space. The same rules do not apply. It's acceptable for anyone to use provided that no one is wheeling themselves in to the room before you go to use it.

Our sitting areas contain couches and nice chairs and mirrors with elegant frames on them. Some will have tables that contain baskets with items such as: bobby pins, safety pins, hair spray, spritzer, nylons, handiwipes, cotton balls, Q-Tips, pads, tampons and sewing kits in them. There is art on the wall, low lighting lamps on the table (designed to make our jewelry sparkle, no doubt) and either carpeting in these rooms or very nice tiles; usually carpet.

This is the norm.

Our bathrooms aren't just bathrooms.
They're conference rooms.
and yes, we *are* discussing *you*...

Now, let me set the scene now that you have all of that information floating around fresh in your head.

We were driving from Maryland back to New York. We found ourselves in the middle of East Nowhere, Pennsylvania when we decided to stop at a Citgo.

Seems normal enough, right?
Wrong.

My daughter and I go in search of the restroom. It is, of course, a one room hovel that we both squeezed into.
Fine.

We made our comments and then I looked up at the wall thinking that the dispenser was the usual tampon/pad dispenser.
Wrong, again!

I pointed to the dispenser silently until she looked up at it. When it registered what it actually was, she started laughing out loud.

Condoms!
In all my years, I've NEVER seen condoms sold in a women's bathroom.

But wait!
Not just condoms - adult novelty items too.
That was on the left side.

On the right side was - aspirin.
Seriously, aspirin.

All for the low, low price of $0.75 each.
We found the cracker jack mother of all dispensers!

You may get a condom or you may get an adult item - how lucky are you feeling tonight?! The right side was solely aspirin, but the left side - total guesswork!
She is, unmistakably my child. So we did what anyone would expect us to do left in a situation like this -- We wasted $4.50 on crap we wouldn't buy over the counter and laughed our asses off every time we dropped in three quarters and turned the knob. We had the added bonus of the bathroom wall being 5' from the outside cashier counter too and a full line in front of it.

We didn't care. It was too much for our senses as soon as this dropped out...

Tattoos.
The Ultimate in Fun & Fantasy.

Clearly, I have a lot to learn if tattoos are the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy. I've been doing it all wrong then. I'm going to have to rethink everything!

Grant must have given up on waiting for us because we found him outside at the car checking the oil. We maintained our silence on our newly purchased stash of Black Magic condoms, tattoos and massage oil.

That is, until we couldn't take it anymore and started laughing again.
Then he made the distinct mistake of finally asking us what took us so long.

My daughter and I exchanged a bonding smirk and then I casually said, "Oh, we were buying condoms..."

He rolled his eyes.
Like he didn't believe me.
Then he must have taken a second to think about it.

Because he knows that if whatever I say sounds really off - there is a 99.997% chance that it's 100% true...

Grant: "Did you really buy condoms?"
Me: "Yes."

silence...

Grant: "You did not."
Me: "Okay."

silence...

Grant: "Why in God's name would you be in there buying condoms?"
The two of us in stereo, all excited: "Because we've never seen a condom dispenser before in our bathrooms! It wasn't JUST a condom dispenser either!"

more silence.. at this point I can see why he's confused... I've had my tubes tied for the last 14 years and my daughter is waiting until after she graduates high school at least... this is SO NOT THE POINT!

We produced our bounty so he could bask in our excitement with us.
He still wasn't getting it.

Grant: "You know those are the kinds of condoms you get when you want to get someone pregnant or take your chances of getting an STD from the condom itself from a place like this..."
Me: "DON'T RAIN ON OUR PARADE!"

a whole lot of staring at our excited little faces while trying to figure out what in God's name to say to us to get us to stop...

Grant: "I'm not sure what the big deal is - that's standard in our bathrooms."
Me: "Yeah, we went into your bathroom too (WE HAD TO!). You had a two sided dispenser too. One side, regular condoms. Other side, ribbed condoms, "for her" - no aspirin..."

a whole fuckload of silence...

That's when I felt it was time to break open the marital aid package with the massage oil in it, you know, to break the silence. And what did I get for my efforts?

NOTHING!
That's what!

The freakin' box was EMPTY!
Empty, I say!
What the Hell kind of rip off bullshit is that?!

I looked at my daughter and said, "I think we should go back in and complain!" - being my offspring, she was all for the idea of witnessing that.

Grant: "Get in the car..."
Me: "Fine. I'll write them hate mail instead."

If any of you B&I employees are reading this:

Dear Barnett International Corporation,

You suck. We hate you.
Oh, and you owe me $0.75

Signed,
A Disgruntled & Disappointed Dispenser User
And that, is my condom story.

Oh, and by the way - the tattoo box contained a scorpion and a cartoon kitten playing with a green tennis ball...I don't even want to know who thinks that's the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy...

I love this stuff...

I was doing a little light reading while my daughter and I are up at this ridiculous time of the morning talking about nothing in particular.

She's taking a break at the moment by blaring some song and singing. I love listening to her. She's got this rich voice designed for Jazz and Blues.

Thank God.
Give me some Renee Olstead, Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald any time.

Anyway, I thought I'd take this time to write a little.

It's been well documented that Grant is more interested in space and I'm more interested in our waters. That said, I ran across this:

10 Horrible Deep Sea Creatures
The Viper fish looks like something out of a horror movie. I am endlessly fascinated with our seas, but really - there's not a chance in hell that you would catch me down in some cage looking these things in the eye.

No, thanks - PASS!
I'm good with a picture!

We're not at the point where we could send a human being down that far to see a lot of things, but the day will come AND I WON'T BE THERE!

A 60 foot Giant Squid.
Good Lord.

That reminds me of an old circular puzzle that my Grandmother use to own. We'd spend a weekend putting it together when I was a kid. It was, hands down, my favorite one. It was SO detailed. It had everything.

It had to have been designed by an earth sign. If there was a way to make it more difficult, I couldn't think of one. It was even double sided. Perfect.

It was a drawing of an old map that had all the mythological creatures that seaman use to claim were out in the waters that no one really believed. It featured a big tentacle creature wrapping itself around a water vessle.

Who's laughing NOW?!

They FOUND the 60 foot squid that defied all logic to the average person. Can you imagine being out in the middle of east nowhere with no land in sight and then this creature pops out of the water that's bigger than your whole boat?

The only words you'd hear out of me is, "Well Bob, you can cross me off the list of EVER GOING ANYWHERE WITH YOU AGAIN!"

You tube had this on the Giant Squid.
I'm amazed they caught it.

And those Giant Isopoes...
What are they, the cockroaches of the sea floor with hyena stomachs?

Call me sick, but I want to meet the person who came up with the names Coffinfish and Vampire Squid (incredible). That person was either really, really tired at the time or was reading too much Anne Rice.

At the risk of sounding like a moron, I thought chimaeras were mythical. I didn't realize that we had some - or that they had noses like jets.

I'm going to refrain from making any kind of comment on the blob fish and the dumbo octopus other than to say - how can you be mad at anything that looks at you with that face?


Well, provided it doesn't gnaw your arm off or something...

What I want to know is... What do you have to do in life to have to come back as a BLOB FISH. Seriously. Is that for the people guilty of the sloth sin? "Well, Joe - when you had limbs, all you did was sit around on the couch and do nothing with them anyway...so, quit your complaining! Now you'll see what it's REALLY LIKE to just lay around!"

Oh my God, you can practically hear the sigh from that poor creature.

My daughter just came over and we just had a conversation about this... wherein she decided to re-enact BEING a blob fish. Complete with lack of hand gestures, balled up on the floor and with a giant frowny face... because she's sick and needs help.

It was funny as hell though.

Then we went through the idea that while it was in the water, it was probably SMILING - and then some ass went and ripped it from its home and made it ALL SAD. It's the Kilroy of the fish world!

That's just terrible.
And now the girl child won't stop being in my face with the blob fish face.
Again, because she's sick and needs help...

So much for me only making one comment about it.
Oh, I found this too:


Do they just supersize everything on the bottom?
Do we have natural steroids down there or something?

Everyone should see this as well. They've been so far down in our waters and away from any kind of sunlight for so long, they've had to create their own sources of light. It's better than any kind of laser light show that humans could come up with, that's for sure.


Slightly petrifying.
Completely bizarre.
Utterly fascinating.

À tout seigneur tout honneur

In order to go to the store by my house, I have to walk past the middle school my kids went to. Tonight a story from my daughter's last year there made me laugh to myself, so I thought I'd share it. Fortunately, I wrote about it the day after it happened (three years ago) so I had notes to refer to.

-----------------------
I got a letter in the mail from my daughter's school telling me she had an award ceremony to attend. When I asked the girl what she was getting an award for, do you think she had a clue why? No, of course not.

Me: "Any idea?"
Her: "None."
Me: "Way to stay informed.."

In sitting wayyyyy the hell in the back of the auditorium (see the "go to hell" post if that needs to be explained), my daughter and I rediscovered two things:

1) We really should sit as far away from other people as humanly possible so they don't hear us.
2) We have a lot of fun together.

Since we had no clue what kind of award she was going to get - every time they would announce something like, "this student is always a pleasure to have in class" or some other such kiss ass speech... we'd look at each other and one of us would go, "Well, that's obviously not going to you"...

We tried to keep our comments VERY low and limited to whispering into each others ear while everyone else was clapping for something or other.

We joke.
It's what we do.
She and I are NEVER bored together.

Of course, when it got to be closing in on the end of the second hour of this ceremony, we would have made fun of ANYTHING. It really did drag on.

This is how bad it got...

We made jokes about the Perfect Attendance awards - and how we were certain one of them wasn't going to be there to receive it and somehow that was one of the funniest visions. Perfect attendance, except to receive your Perfect Attendance Award!

.......and it DID happen!
We laughed our asses off in the parking lot walking to the car over that at the end of the night.

Then I leaned over and whispered to her...

Me: "Those are a prime example of kids who are hated by their parents..... What? You have Ebola? I DON'T CARE! GET YOUR ASS UP, YOU'RE GOING TO SCHOOL!"

Of course this is not true (er, most likely not true anyway), but it kept us from setting anything on fire. So...

Speaker: "This student always has a sunny disposition"..
Me: "Ah... so, you're not winning that award either, huh?"

We never got bored of this.

Me: "GYM! I bet your award is for GYM!"

My daughter hates gym.
She looked at me like I just sprouted a second head.
It was hilarious.

I was rummaging through her purse for some lip gloss and opened one of the compartments where I discovered 26 PAT certificates for chorus. She's in an All Girls Chorus that consists of a hundred and fifty 6-8th graders. They give out PAT certificates when you do something good in class.

Me: "Uh... think MAYBE you're getting the award in Chorus?"
Her: "I hope not!"

We thought it might have been in art because a pot she made was featured in an Art Magazine and on the local network access channel back in December of that year. No dice. Which worked out fine since she was hoping it wasn't going to be in Art either.

It turned out to be an award for Academic Diligence in French.

So, I have one kid that speaks Spanish.
I can fake my way through a conversation with him.

Normally his report cards garnish him a C in ENGLISH...all the while getting A's in Spanish.........
/stare...

The other kid speaks French.
I can't fake my way through anything with her.
There are times she will say something and I'll go, "DID YOU JUST SWEAR AT ME LITTLE GIRL?!"

Yet another child that does better in a foreign language than ENGLISH...

The only thing I really picked up from her is, "J'ai soif"...(which means I'm thirsty, fyi).

In any event...
My little french speaking lunatic and I had a great time.
She did a good job.

À tout seigneur tout honneur - Honor to whom honor is due.
À coeur vaillant rien d'impossible - Nothing is impossible for a willing heart.

kidney stone

So, the girl child was in pain Tuesday night for reasons we couldn't figure out. Then she started throwing up over the pain and being diabetic, that is a really bad scenario for her.

To the hospital we went.

I had flashbacks of labor because that's exactly what it looked like and she was sick the entire ride there.

They were phenomenal at the hospital. We were already getting seen before they had anything other than her full name and birthday.

The instant panic from the ER room was that she had an ovarian cyst or that something was twisted and blood flow was inhibited. Ultrasound proved differently. Then it was on to a CT and that seemed to indicate that she had passed a kidney stone at some point during her hospital stay.

Her right kidney and tubing were inflamed.

Which makes sense since the two doses of morphine didn't touch the pain for her at all.
They released her within 7 hours.

The second the pain eased up, she told a sick joke that even I wouldn't repeat. It was literally the first thing out of her mouth. Then she couldn't stop laughing while I continued to ask her what was the matter with her - like I always do when she says something no one on the face of the planet should utter.

Keep in mind that this is the same child who put on one of those huge over-sized, built for an amazon, ugly gowns for an exam at one endocrinology appointment...climbed up on the table and hugged her knees to her chest and started to slowly rock back and forth like a crazy person just to fuck with me because I was the only one in the room... I love that kid...

Since being home, she's only taken one ibuprofen and it's like she's good as new.

1-2-3

I've been brainwashing my kids for a long time now. They are *not* living in my basement at 40. Forget it. That's just not going to be happening.

So these are the rules:

You *will* graduate from high school.
Period.
After that, you have three choices:

College - if you're in college, you will be going to the one my ex-husband works at. It's one of the Top 10 colleges in America. Your tuition is free because he's staff. They have a phenomenal program in place - they're connected with close to 160 other colleges that they'll cover tuition for after you get a couple of years of schooling under your belt.

The stipulation from the college is that you have to be a dependent. You will still be a tax deduction. Therefore, I still own you. The rules of the house still apply. How lenient they become depends on your GPA - just like elementary, middle and high school. You should have the hang of it by this point.

If you don't wish to go to any of these schools, you better get some full scholarships because I'm not paying for any other school. Hell, at 40-50K per year, I couldn't afford to pay for this school if my ex-husband didn't work there. The books at this college alone are going to kill us. You are allowed to live on campus and leave all your crap here. This is still your home.

As long I stay married to my ex-husband (for this journal's purposes, I refer to him as my ex-husband since we haven't been together for the last two years and he lives somewhere else - however, we are still married because of the kids), you can go to college for free. The college extends this until the age of 30. You could conceivably walk out of school with a couple of Ph.D.'s worth close to a half a million dollars, if you apply yourself. I know you don't understand exactly what kind of tremendous opportunity he has ensured for you. You're going to have to trust me on this one.

I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of a career student. Pick a direction and work towards it. I'm all for bettering yourself, but you have to have some focus. You've got a year and a summer to get a grip on what that direction might be. Choose...something. You're not living here for 30 years, nor will you want to. Believe me.

Though, I go back and forth on this one...If you find you're exceptional at something and really want to go to school for years on end so you can specialize in it, we'll see about trying to buy a rental home by the campus where you can live and still benefit. I'll have to see if it's allowed. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It better be something worth-while though, no basket weaving specialist or anything like that.

Military - if you don't realize the opportunity in front of you as far as college goes and you want to join the Military - that's fine. The Military automatically emancipates you in the eyes of the law (just like marriage).

You can get your mail here, leave your stuff here and come home whenever you get leave. This is still your home. Subject to change should you decide to make the Military your career. You're not living here for the next 20 years.

Full time job - if you've decided to wave either of the above options, you've got one month after you graduate from high school to get a full-time job. This is what my Mom did with me. I'm passing it along to you. Congratulations.

You will not even entertain the idea of getting a job that doesn't offer medical insurance. You won't believe this is important, but I'm not playing with you. I will sit down with you before you go on your interviews and discuss the things you should be looking for. I don't expect you to just know.

You will pay rent. The rent you pay, I will let you believe is gone after you give it to me. What will actually happen is that I'll put it into an account for you. At some point you're going to want to buy a house and it'll be a nice portion towards the down payment.

You can do this for approximately a year. At which point, I expect you to be bright enough to think to yourself, "I'm paying rent and still have rules - why in the hell don't I pay rent on my own and not have rules?". I have faith in you.

---

Regardless of which option you choose, I expect you to do the best you can to think over the choices of your life. You will be picking your own branch of the Military (if you fail to make a choice, I will sign you up to the Army). You will be choosing your own classes and major. You will be finding your own job. Do your research.

I always said that you would each get a used car for your high school graduation present. Something checked by our mechanic and that I trust won't break down on you. I'm not asking your opinion on color or type. You get what you get. Be happy you're not riding the bus and you don't have payments to make on it.

You will be responsible for taking care of the maintenance on your car and your car insurance. We will pay for AAA. You will be less likely to be a jackass driving if you're paying for it.

You will be allowed one credit card that's solely in your name and you will take it out from your own bank. There will only be a $250-300 credit limit on it. We'll see how long it takes for you to fully understand, 'only use in case of an emergency' - you will screw it up, undoubtedly.

You will have your own savings and checking accounts. You should know how to manage your money by now, however, for the first few months, I'll sit down with you and help you with your bills/schedules so you don't do what nearly everyone else does and fuck your credit the first year you get it - which you probably will anyway.

If you are overseas, I will handle your car and finances for you until you get back to the United States. I'll also give you all the details about everything I did for you to double check to make sure there isn't something else you owe that you forgot to tell me about.

Do not ask me for a cellphone. I am not putting you on our plan. Neither of you can be trusted with a phone. My suggestion for you is to get a pre-paid deal until you can learn the value of minutes. There's a reason why I don't let you touch mine.

If you lose your mind and plan on getting married at an early age, you better make sure you have a home set up. If you can't handle things on your own - you should take this as an indication that you have no business getting married yet.

If you are really sick, have been in some sort of accident or are pregnant (being diabetic) - you are more than welcome home. I will take care of you.

You can always turn to me for anything. This does not mean that you'll get exactly what you want though. My job is not to become an enabler. My job is to guide you into becoming a decent, responsible and productive human being - one that I'll want to have dinner with out in public. I'm your Mother. I'll always help you in some way. It just might not be in a way you expect though. That's all I'm saying.

I recognize that you have to make your own mistakes. Trust me, you will. It's inevitable. I'll let you, too. Oh, I'll make a few remarks here and there to try to prevent you from doing whatever stupid thing you're about to do, but don't expect me to prevent you. Some things you just need to experience to get. This is a waste of time, but you'll do it anyway because you're young.

That said, if I don't see you correcting the problem and instead find you digging a deeper hole - I will be likely to step in and verbally smack you in the back of the head until you see what you're doing.

If you continue on with said stupid thing after I point it out to you - you're on your own. I will have done my part as your Mother. You can come tell me I was right later in life.

Welcome to adulthood.
Fun, isn't it?

one down, one to go...

toothfairy

This is a conversation I had with my daughter that she reminded me of tonight...she was 13 at the time...

The Girl: Hey Mom, I finally lost that tooth.
Me: Good deal. Seven more to go.
The Girl: Yeah, about that... I haven't seen the tooth fairy in a long time. She's been slacking...

stare

Me: The tooth fairy doesn't get paid until Friday.
The Girl: Doesn't the tooth fairy have to pay interest if she's late?

twitch

I know damn well this child knows the tooth fairy isn't real, we just went thru something similar with Santa Claus...which she won't flat out admit to not being real either because while she might be smart, she's also not willing to screw herself over either

Me: I'll have a talk with her and see what I can do.
The Girl: Cool. Thanks!
Me: It's time for bed...

she stands there and I can hear the wheels turning...this is rarely good, but almost always funny...

The Girl: Tell her I think I should get compensated for PAIN & SUFFERING too.

smart ass

Me: That is NOT a compensable damage. Now GO TO BED!

Here's a little tip: If you're going to study the law, don't share it with your kids. One of them might actually be listening and try to use it against you.

snippets

Actual bits of conversations that have taken place in this house...

one day last week waiting for the boy to come home...
Girl: Do we have to let him in?
Me: Yes.
Girl: Why? It's been nice and quiet...
Me: The law says I have to.
Girl: Why do we keep him again?
Me: Tax break.

---

conversation I had with my son one day...
Boy: Hey Mom - can I change my name to Bones?
Me without even looking up: No.
Boy: Man, I really thought you'd go for that too.

---

conversations I have with my kids when I'm out at the store...like they don't see me all damn day long...
#1)
Girl: When are you coming home?
Me: Why?
Girl: We want to know when to throw everyone out of the house.
Me: Very funny...

#2)
ring...ring...
Me: Is someone dead? Is there blood or brain matter splattered anywhere?
Boy: No.
Me: Then WHAT? I've been gone FIVE MINUTES.
Boy: Did you know that gasoline is flammable?
Me: I'm not finding you amusing..
Boy: COME ON, THAT WAS FUNNY!
Me: Is there something you want?
Boy: No.
Me: Oh my GOD - I'll be home in 10 minutes. Get off the phone!

#3)
ring...ring...
Me: Hello?
Boy: Where do you keep the alcohol again?
Me: What is wrong with you...
Boy: I'm just kidding. So, what's up?
Me: Don't you have any imaginary friends to play with or something?

#4)
ring...ring...
Me: Hello?
Boy: Is it bad when you see sparks coming out of the microwave?
Me: Seriously...

---

on moving out when the time comes...
Me: Two more years and then you're on your own!
Girl: You think you'll get out of it that easily? I'm going to stay with you FOREVER!
Me: Please, you'll be lucky if I give you the P.O. Box number of where I move to.
Girl: I will hunt you down! You can't escape me!
Me: DON'T MAKE ME JOIN THE WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM!

---

I am retentive about seat belts...if you're in my car, you better be wearing one or else you're walking....the conversation the night when my son, for the first and only time ever, forgot to put his on...
Me: Is your seatbelt on? Have you lost your mind?!
Boy: Awww...you love me...
Me: If anything gets to kill you, it's going to be me! Don't you ever forget it again!

---

the boy's 16th birthday...
Me: Want your present early?
Boy: ..........Yeah!
Me: Okay, I have to go wrap it real quick.
Boy: Mom - I'm a guy, I don't care if it's wrapped. My version of wrapping Matt's present was wrapping duct tape around the bag and handing it to him.
Me: Yeah, that was WRONG.
Boy: He didn't care! He only cared what the gift was!
Me: You really don't care?
Boy: I swear to God I don't.
he turns to the male in the room... "help me, tell her"...
Male: We really don't care.
Me: FINE!
putting a rubber band around the bag it came in and tossing it to the boy...
Boy: I LOVE IT!
Me: Good. Happy Birthday.
Boy: I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DIDN'T WRAP IT!
Me: I swear to God I'm going to kill you...

---

Me: Keep it up and I'll give you back to your real mother...
Girl: Think she's rich?


This is just a small sample off the top of my head. I'll be irritated in the morning when I think of 50 other things that were funnier.

go to hell...

a little story that came to mind...this happened a few years ago too...

My 10^th grade son is on the JV wrestling team. I went into the season truly not knowing a thing about wrestling. However, we always told the kids that if they joined something or wanted to do something, we'd support them. Which means, our collective asses were at our first wrestling meet a couple of weeks ago.

This is where I discovered I know absolutely NOTHING about wrestling.

I had the common sense and foresight to know better than to sit next to the other parents. My ex-husband and I made the decision to sit 5 bleacher seats behind the last parent and I made sure we were at least 5' away from the parents next to us. This means we have this decent secured amount of space from earshot.

This...is what I need to keep the peace, I know me.

I'm going to ask a lot of questions about the sport and I can't guarantee how pleasant I'll be if someone looks like they're hurting my kid. Granted, he's 15 and most of the time I want to choke him - but that's totally different than someone else doing it.

My daughter went to go sit with some friends in the first row because it was easier for her to see. So it was just my ex-husband and I in the upper left corner with 25 sq. feet to ourselves. I'm trying to grasp the idea of the game and figure out scoring, etc, when I hear some guy to our left screaming...

"GO TO HELL!"
blink......

Okay, maybe he's just an overzealous parent. I can understand slipping like that on accident, maybe his son is getting his ass kicked or something. Still, it was a little odd as he didn't seem the least bit unnerved that he screamed it out at the top of his lungs.

I look at my ex-husband and he doesn't seem disturbed by this as much as I am. Matter of fact, he didn't seem to notice at all, so I went back to watching the meet and trying to figure out what I'm actually watching.

I can't decide if wrestling is brutal or not.

It definitely has its moments though. There were a few times when the words, "that boy is never going to be able to have kids" came out of my mouth. On the other hand, I honestly don't understand wrestling. It's really not a girls sport.

I'm watching these two kids, one of them is behind the other - and instead of choking him around his throat, he's choking him around his mouth. Picture it! Someone is behind you and the crock of their arm is covering your mouth. Fuck that. I instinctively looked at my ex-husband all irritated and said, "why doesn't he bite the little motherfucker?!".

I know that was wrong! I told you I get caught up in the moment, this is why I can't sit within ear shot of anyone.

When my ex-husband was done laughing he explained that there really were RULES to the sport. I'm sorry, I don't care what the rules are, if you cover my mouth trying to cut off my air supply, all bets are off.

Then I hear it again...

"GO TO HELL!"
wtf.......
At least I'm quiet and segregated with my profanity.
What the fuck is this guy's problem...

I stared at him for a little bit trying to figure out if he was just an asshole or a competitive parent or if he had Tourette Syndrome....SOMETHING...

"GO TO HELL!""GO TO HELL!""GO TO HELL!"
I'm already ready to hit this guy for being so obnoxious.
No one seems to care either.
I don't get it.

Back to the meet...I am STILL trying to figure out if you can slap in wrestling. It would seem so, but I'm not sure I can think of any sport where slapping is acceptable. So, I'm not sure to this day if that's right.

I have to say this too, there is this...pained look that boys get during wrestling. They're on the mat, second round/period/not sure what they're called, and they're absolutely exhausted. One has his palm in the other kids ear, the other has the kid locked to his chest via his face.

I guess I really don't get it. That look is unmistakable though. It's the look of exhausted stamina. And they ALL have it!

My kid was up next, so we went and sat down in the first row with my daughter. We watched the boy and though he lost the first round, he did alright. I guess.

AGAIN...I hear...
"GO TO HELL!!!"
My daughter, who shares the same brain as me, and I stared at each other immediately. SHE HEARD IT TOO. I knew I wasn't crazy! I leaned over and said, "Did you hear that? Is that appropriate? Did he just say 'go to hell'?" and she busted out laughing uncontrollably and nods.

I KNOW this jackass didn't just tell MY kid to GO TO HELL.
I will fuck you up.....

This would be the point where my ex-husband leans over to us and says, "He's saying, "GO TO HALF".

Half.
Half.
As in...Half Nelson.

The girl and I both looked at him for a few seconds until it finally sank in. Well, if that's the case, that would certainly explain why he was shamelessly screaming it.

Er.
Well, alright then.

After we gathered the boy and walked to the car, my ex-husband starts laughing at me all over again. Then it became this free for all...

I merely looked over at the lot of them and said...

"go to half..."
I'm going to say everyone understood what I meant...

Saturday...

I wrote, "Saturday" because for the life of me, I haven't figured out how to make the dates work with this template...yet.

My daughter is out with Grant scraping the garage and shed to get it prepared for the big paint job they have planned for it.

That's not quite accurate.

It's the big paint job that Grant has been talking about for two weeks now. I just taught him to be an opportunist since he's never had kids. When you have kids, it's ALL about being an opportunist.

She wants to go to her best friends house and spend the night tonight. He needs help with the garage and I'm not doing it.

Hello?
Do you hear opportunity knocking?

I'm a mom, so I don't need opportunities. With me, it's simply, "you're not going anywhere until I can see the floor of your room again. I KNOW there's a rug under there somewhere, I vaguely remember the color."

This stance is non-negotiable.
Then again, I don't care if she likes me or not.

which is probably why we're so close...
and we're ridiculously close...

Grant, on the other hand, sometimes takes her hormonal teenage girl moody ways - personal.
Which is a fatal error on his part.

The funny part about it is - for a teenage girl, she's a piece of cake.
I've been around her friends, trust me, it could be a whole lot worse.

She's a pretty, pretty girl - but doesn't really get it yet. She knows she's not ugly, but she doesn't really care one way or another either.

I drilled into both of my kid's head that looks are not something you can bank on. Everyone is one good car accident from whatever looks they have being taken away from them.

It's the luck of the draw.
So you HAVE to have something to back up your existence.
to quote Judge Judy, "Beauty fades, stupid is forever"...

She couldn't be less concerned about her weight either.
Thank God.

My son tried his best to die on me when he was 27 months old. I lived in a hospital with him for five weeks, literally. I slept in what can, at best, be considered a critical care unit's parental closet. It consisted of a cot and the door was off of the visitor's lounge.

I mention this because the Critical Care Unit for his age didn't have any room for him. So they put him in the adolescent ward portion. Being there so long, you get to learn who the other patients are and their families because you're all in this horrendous situation together - where your kid is fighting for their life.

What I remember from the experience of being on that ward is that 90% of the kids on that floor were there because they were either anorexic or bulimic - and they were DYING because of it.

The age range was from 9-18.
Kids.
Little kids.

Nine year old's that thought themselves too fat and were literally starving themselves to DEATH over it.

Girls AND boys.

Let me say again that causing insecurities in the other sex does NOT make us even - it makes it equally WRONG.

To this day, I can recall how I felt when I heard that time and time again there.

That sealed in stone exactly how I was going to deal with my kids and weight and beauty. My daughter was only 5 weeks old at the time and I swore to God that there was no way in hell that either of my kids were going to grow up capitalizing on their looks to the point that it could turn into that.

The fact that they both turned out to be okay with how they are as people and don't place so much concentration on vanity is half me and half dumb luck.

I'm sure no parent wants that for their kid. So that's not a judgment call from me, that was just an awareness that I hadn't had before slapping me in the face while being in that ward.

You would be SHOCKED at how cruel kids are to other kids.

Even at the age of 11/12/13 - a lot of my daughter's girl friends were on diets. They're all rail thin too. It makes me cringe.

The sick part is it's usually over some comment that some boy has made to them.

That's another reason why I've drilled into my son's head that he's not to say a cruel word to a girl growing up - because we remember things like that. It sticks with us, forever...and at some point, you might want to date her later in life and you'll be cutting off your nose despite your face.

That and I will kill you.

I have to tell this story...

A boy tried to get my daughter to be self-conscious about her weight once. She's never been heavy. She's actually very petite. Tiny. He saw her with a purse full of assorted snacks though and said something about her weight.

She has a purse of assorted snacks because she's been diabetic since she was 18 months old.

It totally backfired.
By the time she got home, she was livid.
LIVID.

She informed said boy that he didn't have an ounce of authority over her, she didn't care what he thought and then proceeded to dedicate every forkful of food to him during lunch...and the whole following day.

I've never been so secretly thankful in my entire life.

Then I got pissed though and I thought, this little 12 year old boy knows exactly what to say to a girl to get under her skin normally. If he had said that to any of her friend's, they wouldn't eat again for a week and I could easily see them winding up on that wing in the hospital.

Yes, I did go to my son and tell him that story to reiterate that he can't do things like that.
Ever.
It's rude and damaging.

I have no idea why I told that story. It's just one of those things that still bothers me about society.

If you have a son, point that out to him!

If you have a daughter, make her feel like she never has to follow some media created ideal of beauty.

Here's the real kicker too, I polled my male friends and guess what? They're more attracted to someone with a shape versus someone that resembles a sheet of paper.

How's that for irony.

Even bigger than that though, it will ALWAYS be better to actually have a personality.

Be smart, be witty, be strong, be funny, be creative, be interesting, be honest, be dependable, be responsible, be a decent human being - be something lasting and worth-while.

That goes for both sexes.

Present yourself the best way you know how, definitely, but for the love of God - let there be something more to you than vanity.

The most angry I ever get at Grant is when he makes comments like, "You're beautiful, that's why you can do what you do."

I...fucking...hate...that...statement.
I hate it with a passion that you don't want to see.

Do not reduce me to how I look - like that's all there is and that's all that counts.

My looks didn't have dick to do with being trusted with tens of thousands of dollars running an International charity. It didn't have a thing to do with being able to run my own company of some sort since I was 18 years old. It didn't have a thing to do with having a 4.0 G.P.A. in college.

It didn't have a thing to do with being able to raise two kids that I would want to know if they weren't even mine. And it damn sure doesn't have a thing to do with being able to maintain friendships that I've had since I was 5 years old.

Infuriating.

I know he does this when we're fighting and he's just trying his best to piss me right off, but it sticks with me and it makes me hostile. I know he doesn't mean it because of the other 50,000 comments he makes to the contrary when he's not trying to get under my skin. It's still a stupid route to take with me.

Oh my God, what is this, purge day?

See, this is exactly the sort of thing that I never want my kids to go through. I couldn't be more happy that my daughter can have something like that said to her and it would just roll off her back like you didn't even open your mouth to speak.

More people should be made up of what she's made up of.
Hell, I wish I was more like her.
I adore that kid.

All that said, I'm not her friend and not interested in ever being her friend, really. I'm her mother and there is a food chain and I'm on the top of it.

I like her, she can always come to me with anything and that would be okay.

To this she always replies that I'm her BFF - because she knows that makes me insane. For those of you that don't read teenage magazines, BFF means Best Friends Forever.

She's constantly fucking with me about one thing or another.

She can't even help herself, it brings her too much joy to watch me roll my eyes and tell her that I'm not even going to give her the P.O. Box number of where I move to when she's finally out of the house.

Going back to being an opportunist, Grant wanted her to go to Lowe's with him to pick up painting supplies. She asked if she could be the one that drove them there...opportunistic move #1 on her part.

He said if it was okay with me, she could, but if she did, then she had to help him with the shed too...Good job, opportunistic move #1 on Grant's part, he's learning.

Once they got back, they negotiated that if she did one wall of the garage and the bottom of the shed (she's short, he's tall) - can she go to her best friend's house?

They're both playing the game like a pro now.

Then I looked at her and said, "your room..." and she said, "Oh, I know. That goes without saying."

And it does, because like I said...
...there is a food chain.
and it's good to be on the top of it

blood, guts and gore

My son is 18 years old now. He works. He's taking classes at an excellent college. He lives about 10 minutes away - and he's still always at my door or calling my cellphone.

He comes over and we go out for coffee or he raids the refrigerator. He runs the risk of me putting him to work, but he chances it anyway.

Not that long ago we were both sitting in the Florida room talking and going over stuff he did when he was a kid and I looked over at him and said, "There are days I can't believe I let you live..." and he said, "I know, my life expectancy in this house was 14!" - he makes me laugh.

That statement was accurate too.
He was a pain in the ass for three years.

If I had the energy to write all the stuff my son has done in those three years, I would easily be on Volume 17 or so and each book would be at least 300+ pages long.

We will NEVER run out of ways to horrify the boy once he starts seriously dating - and just WAIT 'til that child has kids...

I've had sole custody of my kids since they were one and three years old. Their father lives about five minutes away and has liberal visitation at my discretion.

Only one time in the last 17 years can either of us name a time when I said he couldn't take them when he wanted and that was over a trip I had planned for months to take them to see my mother for a week out of state.

I'm old-fashioned in that I believe my time is better served being home and raising my kids. So, that's what I've done - for 18 years now, two more to go.

I've been fortunate to be able to do that; especially in this economy.

When their father and I divorced, I went out and bought a computer and then learned HTML and started my own company. This allowed me to stay at home and covered extra expenses for 13 years.

Plenty of women work outside of the home and that's their choice and I don't really care what anyone does. That's a personal choice. This was mine.

In other words, I've been with both of these kids nearly every single day of their lives for the mass majority of their existence.

When you live with a teenage boy, as a female, your whole perspective changes. This whole experience has resulted in me not being phased by anything physical in life anymore.

There comes a point where you're just... so over it all. You can't even be moved to be horrified by anything. You've come to terms with the fact that your kid is going to do some really moronic things and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

It would be like trying to stop a train wreck.

The sooner you reach that point, the better - because those little heathens will totally use it against you if you don't.

Everyone has a role.

Their role is to try to get a rise out of you.
Your role is to not kill them for it.

Sometimes this involves tactics, maneuvers and mental warfare that would put the Army to shame.

I think this started to sink in with my son the day I saw him eating the decorative cinnamon sticks I had in the cupboard that I never bothered boxing after Christmas. He was 15 at the time.

The conversation went like this:

Me: "What on earth are you chewing on boy?"
The Genius: "Uh... nothing."
stare
The Genius: "Fine! This!"

as he shows me a half eaten piece of bark looking, mangled, wet mess

Me: unmoved..."You know those are poisonous, right?"

his turn to stare...I don't know what made me say it, but I'm an opportunist, so I went on...

Me: "Yeah, you're suppose to stir tea with those. Not eat them. I heard they were quite dangerous."

He spent the next couple of hours checking in with me to see if I was kidding him or not and if he was going to die.

Me: "I don't know. I'm kind of curious myself."

He stopped eating my decorations.

This is what my frame of mind has been reduced to as a parent.
IRONICALLY, this reverse psychology seems to... work.

Up until that point, I had spent 15 years trying to save his ass.

All that accomplished was keeping him alive long enough to allow him time to fuck with me about whatever it is I warned him about for all those years.

NOW, I tell him to do stuff all the time because quite frankly, no one can be that dumb - and if you are, after all this time on earth, we need to weed you out of the gene pool anyway.

If I'm to be honest, I didn't do it for the reverse psychology. I did it because he was driving me insane and it kept me from killing him.

Whatever works though.

It's a universal truth that guys will go out of their way to try to get other guys to do something sick, disgusting or stupid.

He accepts these kinds of comments from the males in his life without thought because they're guys and have their own understanding.

He never expects it from me.

However, when I tell him to do stuff now, he just gets nervous.
It's like poetic justice.

Another example would be when he spent a week picking up and putting down this nearly empty gallon of cranberry juice I had sitting next to my desk because I was obviously too lazy to get up and throw it out.

It's my desk, my only personal space in this whole house... I'll do whatever I want with it!

Again, he was 15 at the time.
What it is with boys at 15...

He had been wanting to drink it since he saw it because I spent a lot of time yelling at him to put it down and it totally grossed me out.

Then one day, I was just done.

Me: "FINE! DRINK IT! COME ON! ALL OF IT!"

because after a decade and a half of raising a boy practically by yourself, you're willing to spin the wheel a few times...

After he took a sip, I went on to list all the germs I could think of that could have been floating around in said cranberry juice.

He didn't get sick, but I did torture him with it for a few hours - which brought me great joy. I knew he'd be fine.

Know the funny part? I don't think he'll ever threaten to drink anything from on or around my desk again.

Battle won.

Side Note: After testing him the other day by telling him to finish the glass of pop on my desk - which he refused, makes me believe that he did actually learn something from that day! Okay, it was that and the fact that he flat out said, "I don't trust ANYTHING from your desk" - Right on. Mission accomplished!

Then one day...

I get handed a pair of bloody pliers that were locked into place by a grinning 15 year old boy who was all proud of himself for removing his own tooth.

staring at the ceiling

Really, what was I suppose to say to that? "Good job, honey!" - I think not. So I just gave him that, "I have no idea how you've managed to make it to this age without getting hit by a bus - I'm thinking about getting you head gear for Christmas" look instead and verbalized nothing.

The boy needed braces on his straight teeth that didn't need any braces because he had an impacted tooth.

Alright.
$5600.00 later...

Once the loose tooth (see above) was yanked out by my genius son, they scheduled his oral surgery.

This consisted of cutting a hole in the roof of his mouth to expose the tooth whose roots were hitting his sinuses (hence the impacted part of the equation).

They then attached a chain to the sinus offending tooth and to his braces to yank it slowly down into place (into the man-made hole that my son created).

Well.

Apparently, the two stitches holding the flap of skin that they cut into the roof of his mouth to expose the impacted tooth - kept falling out and it was bothering him.

I don't care if it's bothering you! Those stitches are keeping your brains from falling out!

Anyway, instead of saying something - what does my son do?

He takes the same pliers again and RIPS the piece of skin out of his mouth.

This all happened when I was in the Florida room. He was in the first floor bathroom off of the living room where my former husband was.

My former husband didn't even call me in.
I think he was trying to save the boy's life.

Ten minutes later, the boy comes out to sit next to me after and informs me of what he's done.

There was blood EVERYWHERE.

He did this while he was wearing white pants and a white shirt - and then had the absolute nerve to be mad that he got blood all over his clothes..

Obviously, he didn't anticipate blood SQUIRTING out of his mouth.

It took about 10 minutes for the bleeding to stop...FROM HIS MOUTH.

oh my GOD

.........and then he hands me the shirt and asks me if I can get the blood out of it.

Jesus Christ.

The shirt didn't need to be cleaned.
It needed to be BURNED.

I've seen accident victims with less blood on their clothes.

By this time he's laughing about it.

Really, this child isn't uneducated.
We don't have mold spores that could explain this.
We don't have lead in our water either.

I can offer no reasoning.

Know what I did?
I didn't even blink.
I just started...

.................................................You know you can get tetanus from pliers like that!

Then I proceeded to go over every blood borne illnesses I could think of.
No more pliers for him.

Kids should come with a warning label and a free box of booze.

And for today's science project....

For, whatever moronic reason, Grant said something to my son about him wearing a tampon.

...because that's the sort of insult men give to other men and for some God unknown reason, it makes sense to them... Yes, I bite the inside of my cheek and stare at the ceiling in horror...a lot...

I said that that would be one of the dumbest things any guy could ever do.

After that, for whatever other moronic reason, I suddenly had a captive audience.

Picture it.

I've got these two guys staring at me in awe asking about how they even work.

This was so turning into a conversation I never expected to have to have.

I'm trying to explain it and they're not getting it.
"For the love of God..."
So, I went to get one.

When I came back to the living room and sat down on the couch, you would have thought I was about to reveil the secrets of the universe to them.

They were that rapt in attention.

So, turning into a moron with the rest of the group...

...it was like being in 2nd grade all over again and it being show and tell time...

I passed it around.

They both were utterly perplexed as to how plastic would be beneficial.

At first I wasn't getting it. Then it hit me that they really thought that the plastic was the important part.

So, clearly, my job wasn't done.

Like an ass, I stood up and gave the demonstration portion of the speech. I made a fist and slide the tampon through my hand and pulled both removable plastic pieces off with one swoop, leaving only the string showing.

You can imagine how utterly ridiculous I looked standing there with these two with their mouths opened wide at the marvel that is Tampax.

You would think the questions would have ended there, right?
No...of course not!

They weren't getting how it stayed in, how it did anything, why it would work.

I didn't know what else to do, so I dipped it in a cup of water for a second and held it up.

...and you know how that goes, the thing freakin' exploded and expanded in all directions and held all the contents of the cup...within a second...

I really wish you could have seen the look on their faces.
Total amazement.

It was everything I could do to not burst out laughing just looking at them both.

This is when the Q&A portion came into play...

I answered question after question. Then I ended said speech with comments about Toxic Shock Syndrome and how that can kill us as a result of using them.

Let me just say...they're both happy to be male right now.

gender learning

I have learned a lot about boys over the last 6 years, watching my own kids grow...I'd say UP, but to be more accurate, should probably just say...taller.

Honest to God, I could have gone my whole life not learning how the male gender processes and learns stuff.

I will most likely be writing a lot about my kids. They're the source of my silver strands of hair lately.

It's...painful.
Sometimes, literally painful.

I am convinced that I will never really understand male relationships with each other.

Let me give you a classic example...

My son has a friend named Eric. He would weigh about 114 lbs if you hosed him down. My son weighed 158 lbs when he started training for wrestling. He was mostly muscle then.

After a couple of months on the team, he's a solid 148 lb rock.

His idiot friend takes shots at him all the time. Every time I turn around, he's punching him in the arm or smacking him or throwing something at him. I do not get this, because girls DON'T DO THIS.

To my dismay, my son takes this. His reasoning is that, he knows if he hits him back, he can hurt him. That, and he somehow gets that this is just play. All I can think of is, "GOOD! If you hit him back one good time, I bet his ass doesn't hit you again!"

Every now and then, when I'm beside myself that my son isn't knocking the crap out of this boy - I am compelled to say, "You know Eric, one of these days, I'm going to let that boy hit you back..."

This would be the part when he screams and says things like, "Nooooooooooooooooooo! He'll kill me with those big guns!" - which apparently is the term all my son's friends use to describe my son's arms. Which, in all honesty, are massive.

You have to understand. My whole family is, what my brother coined, the "get the rope" types. If you cross one of us, we find it perfectly acceptable to string you up and take care of you old school style (i.e.: take you behind the shed and smack the living crap out of you).

I am ADAMANT about my kids never being used as a punching bag. I understand this is the 'tolerant' stage of society, but really - if someone hits my kid unprovoked and he hits said kid back - good. I don't care how non-PC that is. By the same token, if my kid starts something, I will kick his ass myself.

Don't be a bully.
Don't be a doormat.

Unpopular sentiment, I know.
I don't care.

This is the part I REALLY don't get.

Eric was over. I walked into the living room. I see Eric with my boxing gloves on. I KNOW that no good can come of this. I'm kind of frozen in the archway between the dining room and living room when both of them announced to me that they're just playing!

Two seconds later, and I could see it as if it were playing out in front of me in slow motion... my son takes two steps forward and Eric swings with his right and makes contact.

::POW::
RIGHT in the temple.

They could NOT have choreographed it better in the ring.

I watched my son stagger two more steps. I screamed, "ENOUGH" and Eric dropped the gloves to the ground instantly.

My son said, "What was that?"
and I said, "karma!".

I KNOW that was wrong, but I couldn't have stopped it from coming out of my mouth if my life depended on it. At least I didn't add the rest that I was thinking, which was, "...that's for some shit you did that I didn't catch yet"

I do have some minuscule amount of restraint, I guess.

The two morons start laughing now. This throws off my entire sense of justice. At long last I was thinking my son was finally going to take a shot at him. No. I flat out say, "why.....are you....not beating the hell out of him right now?!".

He, Eric and my former husband all looked at me like I was from another planet and they all simultaneously said that it was against the rules to hit him back because it was an accident.

I can't even deal.

I have a best friend of 24 years, Anita. We've lived in several places and states together. We went to high school together. We're each others kid's Godmothers. We vowed that no matter how many times we get married, the other is the Maid of Honor. She signed my marriage certificate twice as my witness. I've lived with her family even when she didn't live there. The list goes on. But I can tell you this, if one of us clocks the other IN THE TEMPLE, the other person is getting hit back on the spot!

NO QUESTION ABOUT IT.
AND the hitter, would EXPECT to get hit by the HITTEE.

Your ass just has to stand there and take it because you deserve to be hit.
Accident...or not!

Why you might ask...

BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT WHEN WE PICK UP A POTENTIAL WEAPON, THAT SOMEONE CAN GET HURT AND IT'S UP TO THE PERSON WHO PICKED UP SAID WEAPON TO ENSURE THAT NO ONE DOES!

This is NOT a difficult concept! It is, however, a concept totally lost on 15 year old boys. And, to my horror, all of my male friends so far. No matter what age they are.

I made the distinct mistake of turning to my father for guidance. I told him the story and there was dead silence on the phone for a good 20 seconds.

I was patiently waiting for golden words of wisdom.

A nugget of truth I could carry with me that would magically make sense of all that transpired.

I don't know what the fuck I was thinking...

What I got instead was...
"You know, I once pushed your Godfather's head through a glass storefront window downtown"

dull glazed over stare...
Then the pain started again and I had to get off the phone...

financial training

A few years ago, we had a rough summer in this house. I did not know if my son was going to live through it. If I had to place money, I would have put it on me killing him. I'm still not sure if I should let him live or not, but he has a better chance of it these days now that he's 18.

One Friday night he was really grating on my last nerves. Spouting off about how he was all grown up, etc. He doesn't need college. He doesn't need anything. His grades don't matter. He can make it!

Mind you, at this time, he's only 14.

I spent from the time he went to bed until the time I went to sleep...just...fuming about the whole conversation.

When Saturday morning rolled around he was left with way too much time on his hands.

Oh, you don't know what to do with yourself?
NEVER say those words around me.

Fine.
I'll find you something to do.
Sit...down....

The girl child was wandering around the house doing nothing worthwhile either, so I called her into the dining room too.

"You're both going to learn something today!"

The boy sat there all sullen as I handed them both a piece of paper and something to write with.

"Today we're going to learn about minimum wage...Because that's what your brother is going to be earning if he doesn't shape up."

Now it's my son's turn to start fuming.

Good.
It's good for him.

My turn to give him a little aggravation.

Why? Because if I do this right, he'll be out on his own in three years. If I kill him, I'll probably get eight years in prison.

This is not the path of least resistance, but it is less time.

My miserable, unimpressed, wanting to be anywhere else on the face of the planet son just wasn't warming up to the idea yet.

After looking him straight in the face and telling him that he was going to learn what I had to teach him - whether it took him the hour it would take a normal person, or all damn day -- he WAS going to learn it. Because, lucky you, I have absolutely NOTHING ELSE to do today other than give you my undivided attention!

Do not trifle with me.
I assure you, if nothing else, I have more stamina.

I told the girl to write down what she THINKS she should be allotted to spend each month on: clothing, food, entertainment, the nice car she wants (she's dying for a yellow Porsche), the kick ass apartment she wants to live in, etc.

The list went on.

In her modest estimate, she came up with needing $8,000 a month to live how she would like to be accustom to living.

Good...Lord...

I was generous. I didn't even give them minimum wage jobs. I gave them $7.00 an hour and a full 40 hour work week.

Well, this is going to be especially painful for her.

The money to live on a month came to something like $1,030.00. Given with the warning, that a lot of places around here hire people at minimum wage or close to it and don't give a 40 hour week so they don't have to pay medical.

Then I went thru the costs of living actual life: Car payment, car insurance, health insurance, renters insurance, medications, food, gas & electric, rent, haircuts, clothing, furniture, day to day items, birthdays, Christmas, etc, etc.

I looked over at the boy who was just staring at his paper.
"Write down your 7-11 wages already. What are you waiting for?"

Man...if looks could kill.

But he can't look at me like that or his life might be over, so he had to settle for looking like that at his paper, grunting and moving his pencil...but he wanted to look at me that way! You could just feel it in the air.

This makes me feel better about torturing him.
I am doing my job.

"Fine, write down your McDonald's wages then. I really don't care where you work."

Meanwhile, my daughter is furiously subtracting figures from her start total. She's HORRIFIED. She was immediately $7,000.00 in the hole.

"Uh...You're going to have to rethink your money choices, little girl."

She was NOT happy.
It was like a two for one day.

When teaching it, reality is best served up cold and with a smile!

My daughter is actually taking this very seriously. She reluctantly gave up her Porsche and the enormous car insurance payment that went along with it. She settled for a Honda, I think. Her clothing allotment dropped down to nothing. She was just comment after comment talking to herself out loud.

It was hilarious.

My son, just to piss me off, announces he's going buy a motorcycle and live off the land.
stare

I swear to God, I could be a warden and run a prison just fine. I'm a leader. I motivate people. I could start a freakin' cult and have a thousand followers within a year's time. I could start a revolt! Yet, two children, of my own flesh and blood, insist on testing me...

"What land?! And we live in New York, you can't ride a motorcycle all year here."
"Behind the parking lot."
are you kidding me.....

"Really.  You want to live behind my car.  Well, this is as good a time as any to let you know that an acre of land out here goes for $100,000. It's....not....free....someone OWNS that land. You can't just put up a tent and call it HOME."

I threw a wrench into his whole plan.

By the time I turned my attention to the girl, she had a roommate and was splitting the rent and the utilities. This is where I informed her that that was a sound move. Then I gave her the bad news, "You know they'll be sharing the fridge with you too then, right?"

My daughter is 4'7" and 94 lbs at this point. She's at least a year behind in her growth between the Type I Diabetes and Celiac disease.

That said, she LOVES her food. That child out eats everyone I know. There is really no reason in the world that she's not the size of a moose. Bottomless pit. Our walking, breathing, garbage disposal. And she's PROUD of it.

Hey, more power to her...

The roommate deal is OFF. She has also decided that electricity was optional and ultimately unnecessary. She told me she would just light candles, her friends will think she lives in this exotic atmosphere.

"Well, you could go that route....but how do you think the refrigerator and microwave run?"
"AWWWW MAN!"
"Speaking of friends, where are they going to sit? You don't have any furniture."
"THEY WILL SIT ON THE FLOOR WITH ME AND THEY'LL LIKE IT OR LEAVE!"

She goes back to scheming and trying to Machiavelli her way thru her finances.

This went on for FIVE hours.

I leaned over and asked the boy how he was doing on his gas station wages - he was hardly amused, but finally participating. He didn't understand how people could survive like that. I told him that people do it every day and that's his future if he doesn't come up with a plan.

The girl's paper was scribbled on the front and the back, complete with footnotes and margin comments. Her final draft was a studio apartment by herself, either within walking distance from work or with a pocket full of bus passes, living on tuna fish and rice and begging to do her laundry at my house. She finally said out loud that she wasn't living like this, she's becoming a lawyer.

I asked the girl what she learned. She said...completely straight-faced and serious....




"...being poor SUCKS?"
There was NO holding back the laughter.

I asked the boy what he learned.
He said he learned he needed a new plan.
......................close enough.

nature vs nurture

In today's society, my parenting skills are considered rather...old fashioned. It's very direct with the clear understanding that I'm not one of your friends, nor should you ever look at me as a peer. There is a food chain and I'm on the top of it.

My kids are grown now, thank God. One out on his own and the other one, well, I'll put it this way...I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...

I often kid my own parents by telling them I got the worst traits from both of them.

They don't help by agreeing.

That said, I want to give you a small glimpse of my Mom. I say this because when I wasn't looking, I turned into her.

There are two stories in particular I want to tell about her over the course of time. Then, you'll understand better why I am the way I am.

I'll go with this one today...

We live several states away from each other and don't talk on a regular basis, but when we do call each other - we're looking at anywhere from 4 hours to 12+ hours. Literally.

So I get this call out of the blue one night last summer and she's all excited and flying high with happiness.

I generally know this is somehow bad for someone. I'm just glad it's not me, so I'm more than happy to bask in her story-telling.

The people that live across the street from my Mom never got rid of their son. He's in his mid to late twenties and still living there.

The neighbors pretty much just put up with: the music, the cars, the noise and the chaos.

My Mom doesn't say a word.

She figures, they're on their property, it's really not bothering her too much... Whatever.

though she did go on for a good 10 minutes about how my brother would have been kicked out on his ass ...sink or swim!

Then this idiot makes the mistake of making a game out of backing out of his driveway loudly - and while he's at it, gunning it and taking out my Mom's mailbox in the process.

Can you see how this is going to be bad?

She didn't know who did it the first time, but she suspected. The second time she lost a mailbox, she saw him do it.

Now, she's PISSED. She's waiting for him to say something to her about it.
Nothing...

this is where her voice elevates and she talks about the pluses of beating your children...

My Mom, my daughter and I are alike in that, if something bothers us and then STILL bothers us the next day - something HAS to be done about it or else our heads will explode. At least that's what it feels like and none of us want to test that theory because no one wants to clean up brain matter.

Needless to say, the next day - my Mother is still pissed. No. Not only is she pissed, she's even MORE pissed then the day before because he had the nerve to wave hi to her and still not say a thing about mowing down her mailbox.

this is where the "death tones" come into play...where she drops her voice to a near whisper and speaks very, very slowly...the plot thickens and you know the violator has just met his match, even if he doesn't yet...

I can hear a, "SON OF A BITCH!" lurking in her voice.
Of course, then she said exactly that out loud.
Our biggest fear is being misunderstood.

There are only two areas I'm creative in. One of them is revenge. I get that from my Mother. My daughter gets it from me. The rule is to never use it against each other.

My Mother decides, after thinking about it far too long, to make my step-father purchase a third mailbox and post - after digging a big ass hole in the ground to fill with cement.

I did make some off-hand comment about it being illegal. She was not moved by this knowledge in the least. She immediately ignored my side comment and carried on with her story.

We are, by nature, not a peppy or perky lot.

I did, however, for the first time in my life - get the word giddy defined for me.

She starts picking up momentum in her story telling!

It seems that a couple of days later, my Mom heard the guy's truck. She ran up to her bedroom to watch the festivities out her window.

She witnessed the idiot hauling ass out of his driveway, aim for her mailbox (which is diagonal from him, definitely done on purpose) and smash the shit out of the back of his truck hitting her mailbox.

Two thousand dollars worth of damage!
That's how much it costs him to fix his truck.

crescendo reached!

GIDDY
She was beside herself with happiness!
And she feels it's her joy to share - which is why she was calling.

He stopped hitting her mailbox.

she has since removed the mailbox altogether and gets her mail at the post office now...she doesn't care, she made her point...

So, as you can see...
I didn't have a prayer...