Sick

“Please turn the channel. I’m begging you.” It was horrifying, the vision before my eyes. It was a car wreck, a train wreck, an infected scab I couldn’t stop picking and I had only just realized I wanted nothing to do with it.

“MOM! I want to watch this! Do you want me to hang out with you?” My 8-year-old had stumbled into my room whilst I lay on what clearly was my deathbed. Struck down by food poisoning or flu or some sort of 72-hour cancer, I’d been holed up and bedridden so long I’d forgotten what the outside world was like. And when my sweet, cherubic baby girl came to sit with me, I was so glad to have company (in the way that the dying so often are), I agreed to watch the horror that was now scarring my brain.

Toddlers in Tiaras.

“Sydney, seriously, this is so awful, so wrong—we’ve got to turn the channel. It’s making me–” but then the four-to-five year old group was up showing their “outfit-of-choice” segment. This was beyond what anyone could have anticipated. I know 4-year-olds. I’ve raised 4-year-olds. These outfits were clearly not chosen by 4-year-olds.

“What’s so wrong about it?” Syd’s question was so blunt it caught me off guard and I huff in silence like an apoplectic fish as I search for the words to explain. “They’re dressed all—and make-up—they have hair extensions…” Eventually what exactly does bug me about it finally leaps from my throat: “They’re dressed up like adults, acting like grown women!”

But inside my brain is screaming, They’re flirting! And how do I begin to explain to my little girl that being flirty is akin to solicitous behavior, a sexuality—in her naïveté (thankGAWD)—she has absolutely no way of grasping? That these girls are making a display of themselves as objects, and that she—as a female—is not simply a flirty object but a critical-thinking INDIVIDUAL? That this behavior isn’t cute, it isn’t innocent, but rather, terribly sad?

Instead of saying all this I sat in a pained and huddled lump and begged her to give me the remote. And that’s when one of the 10-to 13- age group girls pops in her veneers and struts across the stage. Veneers?

What is this focus on artificial beauty? I don’t understand it. Each of the show’s segments portrays mothers who are strong willed and who clearly want the best for their daughters—but child pageantry comes off as a ridiculously misguided attempt at showing little girls how to achieve the things they want. “Yes, it’s hard work, but if you wiggle and smile just so, you’ll win in the end.”

Why are we sexualizing our little girls? If you think we’re not, take a stroll down ANY Halloween costume aisle. As my niece, Allyson, put it: “Hi, welcome to any Halloween store! Oh, you’re a teenage girl? Your choices are ‘look like an idiot’ or ‘look like a whore.’ Which would you like?” This, from a 15-year-old girl.

We tell them to beware the monsters that lurk in the hearts of strangers, and yet we constantly show them images of female-as-coquette, female-as-object, and we turn them into eye-candy their very predators desire.

Just as she hands me the remote, the credits begin to roll. I am sick throughout—physically with the flu, and emotionally with humanity. I was ready for something more civilized.

“Oh good! Extreme Hoarding is next.”

The long dry season

For those of us in blended-family land, it’s been a long, long summer. I never exactly know how to feel about this particular season. My husband and I are the primary parents to our massive brood of kids; but come summer, visitation schedules change, culling our herd. How would I describe it?

By the school year’s end I am ready for his change. Not ready to say goodbye, per se; just ready for the hubbub of studying and finals to end and for the kids to laze and the sun to shine and watermelon to be had. But after a week or so, when everyone is sunburned and waterlogged and filled to contentment, it is time to say goodbye to my boys. The slight reduction of my cooking load and of my laundry tasks and of grocery lists are all enjoyed immensely for at least the first 3 days they’re gone.

I loll. I read. I make a point of doing absolutely nothing, hopefully in the sun, with some kind of flavored tea in a cool glass by my side. The birds tweet, the grass grows, the world around me seems fresh and new. Peaceful. Slower.

And then something weird happens. I don’t know whether it’s my head clearing from the lack of Axe fumes or my vision clearing after folding less laundry; eventually, I sense the slow creep of melancholy easing in. I’m sated and complete, knowing I’ve had my fun. I’ve relaxed a bit: I’m now officially ready for my boys to come home.

And it’s only day 4.

Over the ensuing two weeks, my senses dull; my interest in activities wanes. By day 14 I just want to crawl into bed and read…

…and then it hits me. What am I doing? I have to get ready! Because the boys are coming home soon! For a visit! And I am so overwhelmed with joy and anticipation that everything I say! Or do! Deserves exclamation points! And LOLs and :^) and life is good and filled with all good things like cotton candy and crackerjacks and baseball…

…and then they leave again. And I relax. And by about day 4…

I guess the word I’m searching for to describe my summer is “bipolar.” I’m excited for the summer; but I tire of it so quickly. And then my boys return, and I want time to slow—like it does when they are away—so I can enjoy the blips and glimpses of them as they move about with such purpose in their own teenage lives. And by the weekend's close, I feel guilty cursing the perfectly fine weather and wishing it would rain instead.

This past summer, due to mixed schedules and overlapping vacations and general oddities, I saw my boys once in a 9-week period. I feel slightly broken, like some overly loved and rapidly discarded toy. Like, my brain just doesn’t work right.

I am completely and utterly out of balance.

Except! Except they come home tonight—my sons—they come home for good!... at least until next week, when my oldest goes off to his freshman year of college.

“Woe unto them who have children.” If that’s not the saying, it should be.

Those people

Dear Rude Woman:

I understand that sometimes in life unanticipated things happen. I understand by your agonized tone that you are frustrated and, in not knowing where to turn, you were passed to a person or two before hitting my line. And ultimately, when you did get transferred to my desk, and because I work for a company that provides a product, and because you are our customer, you think it is within your rights to ply me with your bad behavior. You think that through telephone osmosis, I deserve your anger and hostility.

I don’t.

I’m just the person that picked up the phone that literally wants to help you. Snapping at me, berating me, treating me like I am beneath you because I have this job at this desk and have the ability to assist you? What was your mother thinking when she let you leave the house, and go out into the real world with that attitude?

In the blink of an eye and the lashing of your tongue, you have gone from “annoyed individual” to “loathsome human being.” It takes everything in my soul to muster up the desire not to reach through the phone and throttle you. I try to ply my voice with the appropriate measure of patience, but your verbal assault fractures my vaguely rose-tinted veneer, and a hot steamy lava of annoyance threatens to seep through the cracks.

Within a mere 30 seconds of experiencing your cutting words and rude demeanor, in my mind’s eye you have officially moved from “reasonable customer” to the pile I call, “those people.” And honey, just so we’re clear: Nobody likes to be thought of as one of “those people.” Because they’re HORRIBLE.

As anybody can tell you, “those people”

… spank their kids in public and smoke with all the car windows rolled up, despite the toddler in the car seat behind them;
… complain that the food is terrible AND that the portions are too small, besides;
… ride their bikes without a bike helmet;
…always cut in line at the grocery; and
…give back-handed compliments like, “You aren’t as fat as you usually are.”

(As a side note, my mind has dressed you in a tattered, hot pink polyester bathrobe with curlers adorning your fried-pewter hair, both of which you wear everywhere. ALWAYS.)

Rude woman, I am angry at you. I am angry that you dripped your bad attitude all over my otherwise delightful day. But soon my personal embarrassment has slid from anger to sorrow. Was I rude back? I think I may have been. I know, in my heart of hearts, I wanted to rip the curlers form your head and throw you into an ice-cold lake so your hot head could cool off. And if you somehow heard those thoughts in that tiny pea-sized brain of yours? Well… I am sorry.

But moreover, I’m sorry you were rude to someone—all the someones here at my work—who tried to assist you, and didn’t measure up to your standards. I do promise we’ll try harder for the next person.

Neighborly aversion

I hate my neighbor.

My friend Susan scolds me when I use such language, stressing that “hate” means “want dead.” Over the years I have tried to mellow out my tone, instead saying things like, “I strongly dislike” or “I feel extreme hostility towards” my neighbor. The truth is I don’t want him dead. I just want to strangle his fatty neck a little bit. (And by “strangle” I mean “yell at him with my horrible coffee breath” and by “a little bit” I mean “for a good 15 minutes.”)

This whole thing goes back to about a week after we moved in. Our three dogs bark. I get that. The neighbor called the animal services (AS) department and complained. I felt horrible about annoying our new neighbors and tried to do things to stop the barking: had the kids take the dogs for a walk after school; then have the dogs loaf in the house until bedtime.

This solution worked well… until we got another complaint. I was dumbfounded. I’d been keeping such a close eye on them and they were absolutely docile by 6:00 p.m.! That’s when I learned that the barking issue was not an evening event, but a daytime one. D’oh!

Mortified, I looked into solutions and ordered a sonic anti-barking device. It’s a simple contraption: Plug the box in; each time a dog barks, the box emits a high-pitched-only-dogs-can-hear-it sound that dogs hate. Pavlovian behavior control. Eventually they stop yapping. While not a fan of such things, I had no way of personally keeping them silent while I was at work. Far as I knew, it was my best option.

I then went around the neighborhood and apologized to all those nearby—most of whom didn’t have an issue with the dogs. In fact, only one family admitted to being bothered. Whatever. I apologized profusely and sincerely, took full responsibility and swore to fix the situation. The sonic box was supposed to arrive soon and take up to 3 weeks to have an affect. I begged for their patience. Then I called AS and repeated my mea culpas; I begged for their patience, too.

Later that night a different neighbor, Mr. Nice Guy, came to our house to warn me about that complaining family: “The sheriff’s in town,” he said. I was confused; he clarified: “Look out; (the grandfather) will (grouse) about EVERYTHING.” He then tallied the whole host of that family’s flawed-personality traits. I tried to take his warning in stride while apologizing again, but he waved it off. He was fine, he said. Just watch out for Old Grumpy.

When the sonic devices arrived, I set about checking on the animals on my daily lunch break. They appeared incredibly calm, borderline docile. It was amazing how great this thing worked!

..Except that the next week we got another slip—this time with a fine assessed. GULP! I called animal services again. They understood my plight. Attempting to enhance my credibility, I told them the story Mr. Nice Guy told me: apparently I’d moved into an area with Old Grumpy on watch. AS understood—they’d experienced a whole host of Grumpys over the years—and kept trying to work with our situation.

“Keep the dogs on one end of the yard,” AS suggested, “away from the complaining neighbor’s yard.” So we did. Or tried to anyway. Didn’t matter. The complaints rolled in. Soon I was on a first name basis with a gal at AS, receiving personal phone warnings whenever Old Grumpy complained. “The problem is the big dog,” she said. “The little dog is fine.” Next we did a checklist sort of thing: Sonic bark device on? Check. Tested? Check. Dog kept away from the northwest corner of the property? Chec—what? Wait. Old Grumpy lives near the southwest corner of the property. The northwest end backs up to--

And then it hit me. Mr. Nice Guy was a big, fat liar. He was the one who complained. He went out of his way to blame Old Grumpy. Worse, HE was partially to blame for his own misery! Instead of keeping the dogs away from his yard, I’d fenced them closer to it!

Animal services was frustrated. At this point, 2 dogs became day-time indoors pets. This guy had called and complained-- NO JOKE-- 17 times since we’d moved in. Mr. Nice Guy hears a bark from anywhere in the neighborhood, Mr. Nice Guy points his accusatory finger at us-- even when it was impossible. Each time AS had to come to the neighborhood to listen for 15 to 20 minutes. They had given me written warnings during the times they actually heard something. The other 13 times… nada. The next complaint meant a $200 fine.

...That complaint came yesterday, when someone accidentally forgot to bring the big dog into the house after her morning wee. Else, to my knowledge, it’s been weeks without issue. Didn’t matter. All those times they came out and there was no issue? Taxpayer cost. Mr. Nice Guy can complain away-- and not have to pay.

And while I do agree with Susan and I’m not a fan of the word “hate”… I currently feel extreme aversion for Mr. “Nice” Guy.