Oh! Oh! Oh My God!

This blog is for all those parents whose children are young, little kid young. You might be tired of diapers or potty training or structuring your day around naptime or the pre-dinner melt down hour. You might be sick of answering the question “why” with “because I said so.” You might be over singing lullabies or waking up to prepare yet another bottle. You’ve got your hands full, no doubt about it.

I can say that because I’ve been there, and I remember how it felt when a child who used the potty successfully for three years was so busy playing that she forgot she needed to take a shit until it happened in her jeans. I also remember the arguments over tasting the dreaded green bean or the tears when the door bell rings and it’s the babysitter. And I definitely remember the first time my daughters asked me where babies come from, and how the answer to that question changed as they aged and understood more.

Sometimes you feel trapped by your child’s developmental stage, and you wonder if it will get easier or better. You might have even asked friends with older children, and they probably told you it’s not better, just different. As my rabbi said to me today, bigger kids, bigger problems. He’s got a point. Shitting in one’s pants is nothing compared to a positive pregnancy test or an arrest for underage drinking. While picking out a good preschool seems like a big decision, you have to remember it is nothing compared to picking out a college.

This afternoon, I had a fun conversation with my twelve year old daughter E as we drove to her doctor’s appointment. She was getting the second in a series of vaccine shots to protect her from the HPV virus, you know, the one that causes genital warts and cervical cancer? She had mentioned to me last night that she wanted to ask me a question but she was too embarrassed to ask it. I suggested she write it down and I would answer her question on the note, and that way we wouldn’t have to actually talk. Of course, she forgot to do that while my words still hung fresh in the air, so I asked her if she wanted to talk in the car since we weren’t able to have eye contact.

E: This is kind of embarrassing.
Me: Just ask me. You know you can ask me anything.
E: I feel like I should know this, but what is an orgasm?

Oh my Jesus, my twelve year old daughter asked me what an orgasm is. I am convinced that conversations with teenagers in the car cause more accidents than driving while texting or under the influence, combined. I swerved to avoid a head-on collision.

Me: Where did you hear about orgasms and why do you think you should know what they are?
E: Some kids at school were talking about it. I was too embarrassed to say I didn’t know what it meant.

Thank you, Higher Power, for that sign, that my tween daughter doesn’t know about orgasms yet.

Me: In what context? Could you not figure out what they meant?
E: Look at you, Mom. You don’t want to answer me. I can tell.
Me: No, I was just curious how orgasms come up in conversation in the sixth grade. Never mind. You remember how I told you about the man having a pe…
E: Ew. Do you have to use medical words?
Me: Yes, yes I do. The man has a penis, right? And when he and a woman have sexual intercourse, you remember how he has sperm, and semen?

E learned all about semen in her science class. Plant semen. Not quite the same thing.

Me: Well, when a man and a woman have, hmm, er, sex can be for making babies, right?
E: Yuck.
Me: It can also be pleasurable.

If it’s done right. I didn’t tell her that part. I also didn't tell her that she didn't need a man to have one, or that making a baby was the last thing most people think about when they are going to have an orgasm. I didn't tell her about riding a bike or a horse  or her sonic toothbrush or the washing machine. I kept it as clinical as I could. Yay, me.

Me: So when the man and woman are having sex and maybe enjoying it, sometimes they have a rush of hormones and endorphins in a big physical response, and that is how the sperm is released, through the end of the penis, and that is called an orgasm. It’s how the sperm gets into the vagina.
E: Please stop.
Me: Women have orgasms too, but they don’t shoot sperm everywhere.
E: Gross.
Me: Instead, when a woman has an orgasm, the walls of her vagina will contract, because it’s just muscle, right? And the contractions help the sperm reach the cervix and the uterus where they will eventually encounter the egg. So when a man and a woman both have an orgasm, it makes it easier to make a baby.
E: Are you through?
Me: The actual moment when all that happens for either a man or a woman is what is known as an orgasm. And it’s supposed to feel really good. Have you ever heard anyone eat a piece of cake and say it’s orgasmic?
E: I’m not listening anymore.
Me: Well, that’s a joke, obviously. That the cake is so good, that when a person eats it, she will have an orgasm.
E: That’s just disgusting, Mom.
Me: Sometimes cake is really good. So now you know all about orgasms. I still want to know why they were talking about it at school.
E: I don’t know, Mom. The boys are just pigs. They talk about all kinds of gross stuff.
Me: Do you want to know anything else?
E: No, I wish I never asked. Why do kids my age want to talk about this stuff, let alone do it? Some kid in my class got in-school suspension for bringing a condom to school.
Me: Do you want me to tell you about condoms?
E: No! I already know about those.

I decided against telling her a cute story about when she was two or three and found one of Daddy’s condoms, still in its little foil pack, in his nightstand. She cried because I wouldn’t let her have any of Daddy’s special gum.

Me: Anything else you want to know?
E: No, I’m good. Or I was before this conversation.

So the next time your child throws herself on the floor at WalMart because you won’t get her pretzel Goldfish crackers that she doesn’t even like, cherish that moment. The same goes with a little Sharpie on the wall or wet sheets in the morning. I bet you my sister would rather wash sheets covered with her son’s urine than her son’s nocturnal emissions.

Not easier or better, just different.

What To Do, What To Do

I did not masturbate today. I did, however, scoop the kitty litter. Yes, that’s right; masturbation is something I keep on my daily to-do list. It doesn’t always get done, but it’s a good day when you are able to cross something off that list, isn’t it? There is a real sense of accomplishment that comes from a completed task, even if it’s just getting one’s rocks off.

When I was a child, I developed a love of list-making. Maybe it stems from the annual letter to Santa, when I could write down anything my heart desired and if I was good, Santa would bring it to me. About the time I realized that Santa was actually the same bitter mother who also wouldn’t give me what I wanted for my birthday, I realized that I couldn’t rely on anyone, not even a fictitious benevolent fat man who allegedly brings gifts to good little boys and girls. I might have given up on the letter to Santa, but the list making stuck with me.  

One of the few ways I could bring order to my day, and thus my life, was to make a list of things that I needed to do. The feeling I would get when I crossed items off that list was such a high. It was as close to validation as I got when I was a child, so much so that my lists became ridiculously mundane and detailed. They would include such things as wake up, go to the bathroom, get dressed, and brush teeth. I would set my list on my nightstand, and that way when I got up in the morning, I could start crossing things off the moment I first opened my eyes. By the time I was ready to head out the door, I had already accomplished a good five or ten things on my list. And you thought the Army did more before nine o’clock than most people. 

As I grew up, I didn’t give up on my list making. I made lists in college, at work, and at home. There were lists for vacations, the grocery store, holiday shopping, New Year’s resolutions, get rich quick schemes, and possible inventions. When I got engaged, I realized that the best part of planning my wedding was the multiple list making. I had an entire D ring binder devoted to lists, er, I mean ideas for the perfect wedding and reception on a very tight budget. with so many details, how could anyone keep them all straight without a list or two? I should have registered for Post-it notes.

Becoming a mother brought about a whole new opportunity to create lists. I had to plan for my childbirth, which is insane if you think about it, but there I was, making a birthing plan, a list. What control freak thought a pregnant woman could decide how childbirth was going to go? My list should have had two things on it: 1. Give birth to a healthy baby, and 2. Don’t die during 1. But no, my list had things like what I wanted to wear, what music I wanted to listen to, who I wanted in the delivery room, and to remember to say no to an enema. The only thing on my list that happened was I had a baby. That enema enforcing nurse was not as big a fan of lists as I.

Being a parent meant more lists. I needed to remember so many things, from developmental milestones to which foods to introduce when. As my kids grew up, my lists changed. My list of preschools changed to the list of supplies for school projects which gave way to signs of puberty. No matter what life brings, I am bound to write a list to prepare for it. I might not work outside of the home, but trust me, there is more than enough to do around the house and managing my family's activities to provide multiple list-making opportunities. With each item I check off, I get that feeling of completion that is so hard to find in everyday routine life, a sweet taste of success. So what if it only means I scrubbed a toilet. Did you scrub a toilet today? I didn’t think so.

Do I really have a list with scoop kitty litter and masturbate on it? Hell yes, I do. That kitty litter isn’t any more likely to scoop itself than I am to spontaneously orgasm. If it isn’t on the list, it just won’t get done, and if it matters, then it better be on the list. So far today, I’ve been to the gym and the library. I did a load of laundry and unloaded the dishwasher. I argued with the insurance company, successfully, I might add. I researched bat mitzvah planning (yes! More lists!!), took my daughter to the doctor, drew a diagram of the three branches of our federal government, and, you remembered correctly, I scooped the kitty litter. 

I guess that means tomorrow I better clear some room on the calendar, huh? I've got some things I didn't get around to today.

Mammaries, Like the Corners of My Mind

Which is worse, bathing suit shopping or shopping for new jeans? Oh wait, what about shopping for a nice dress, that’s pretty rough too. Men can’t relate. Buying jeans and dress shirts is like buying lumber at Home Depot; it’s all about the measurements.

The only thing women buy that is based on an actual measurement is a bra, but even those aren’t exactly standard because boobs aren’t standard. One is always larger than the other, and where they sit on the chest is different for every woman. Some are close together and create a nice cleavage and a good line in sweaters. Some are far apart like magnets repelling each other. Some are nice round mounds. Some are long tubular flappy appendages. Some sit high and salute the sun. Some are sad and hang their heads low  in shame. Some are pert and sassy. Some are tired and worn out.

And bras aren’t what they used to be. When my nana unhooked her bra and released her ginormous ta-tas, she practically needed an engineering degree. Each contraption was made of reinforced material with support beams and a series of hooks that looked like an apartment door on “Good Times.” There was no breaking into that thing.

Now, bras are supposed to, well, titillate. They push up what you have. They accentuate your nipples if that’s what you want, or hide them coyly behind concealing petals. They have full cups and demi cups, not unlike Starbucks. They have convertible straps or clear straps or no straps, and they come in more colors than a box of Crayolas. They are made of bamboo or spandex or Egyptian cotton and are designed for under t-shirts or to be worn on stage. They have no padding or so much padding that your blind date is going to want his dinner money back if he gets to second base.

So back to the original question of which is worst: bathing suit shopping, jeans shopping, dress shopping, or bra shopping. Wrong, it’s none of them. The answer is bra shopping with a twelve year old girl.

When you go bra shopping for yourself, you pick out a bunch of different styles to try, take them in the dressing room, fondle yourself and judge your half dressed body, and then decide which ones don’t make your boobs look like pancakes or rocket nose cones and buy those. When you go shopping with a twelve year old girl, it is a highly covert operation, and you didn't get the proper security clearance. It’s even more like a government agency than you think because you don’t actually get to see what you have spent your money on, you just have to trust it’s going for a good cause and will be used appropriately.

When my tween child first needed lingerie, shopping was not a traumatic experience. I ran to Target, picked out some cute little starter bras in a variety of colors with shit on them like butterflies and frogs, and brought them home for her to try on in the comfort of her bathroom. They worked and that was that.

But over the past few months, it occurred to me that she had not asked for new ones. Every time I looked at her, my eyes were drawn to her chest and the fact that she had one. There was no way those tiny little starter bras were holding the small handfuls I couldn’t stop gawking at. I had to take action. I confronted her with the need for bra shopping. She loves going to the mall, so I figured she’d be thrilled. You would have thought I was sending her to military school.

It boiled down to this: she didn’t want new bras because she didn’t want boobs at twelve. She was upset about developing. I pointed out that boobs were nice, that in moderation they made your clothes fit better, and at some point in the not too distant future she would be pretty damn happy to have a nice set. She wasn’t buying it.

We bypassed Victoria’s Secret and headed for a store called Aerie, which is like a tamer, more teen friendly version of Victoria’s Secret. My tween has been frightened of VS ever since she saw displays of thongs in their store windows and understood what they were. We peeked inside while walking by, and the bright colors, slutty ho-ware, and hordes of lurking men brought on a whole new level of terror. We continued until we got to Aerie, and I told her to go to the back of the store where the sale racks were.

Then I walked up to a sales clerk and said, “Don’t make eye contact with me. There is a tween in the back of the store, and she needs to be fitted for a larger bra. Please help her in the dressing room area, but don’t let her know you are fitting her. You have to make it look like nothing is going on.” She turned to face me but I stopped her with “Eh, eh, eh. We didn’t have this conversation. You never spoke to me.”

She nodded at her shoes and walked back to the store, found my kid, and corralled her into the dressing room area. I browsed around for ten minutes before heading towards the back of the store. I stepped in the dressing room area and called my daughter’s name. She grunted at me from behind a door.

“Open up,” I said. “I need to know what kind you like.”
She unlocked the dressing room door with tears in her eyes. 
“I’m a B,” she wailed. “I knew it!” I shrieked. “How can you try squeezing into those old bras?”
“Stop it, you’re embarrassing me,” she yelled.

She handed me one style, shoved me out of stall, and slammed the door. I went back to the same sales clerk. “We need two of these,” I told her. I paid for them and waited outside the store for my tween to slink out.

She did not wear one out of the store. Instead, she gave me the stink eye from there to the car, where I informed her that we would now be heading to another store like Target or Kohl’s to buy some more, since we knew her real bra size. 32 B. Oh my Jesus.

She stopped glaring at me long enough to roll her eyes, then muttered,”Target.”
“Perfect!” I exclaimed.

We found two more bras in her new size there, and I was satisfied for the moment. I knew her size and her preferred style, so next time, I can just pick up a few by myself and she can either approve or veto them from the privacy of her own room. When we got home, I told my husband how it went, and showed him our purchases, because what if something happened to me tomorrow and he would have to take over maneuvering the tween years solo?

“Good lord,” he said. “You got her red? What is she, a whore?”
“After the mortification she experienced today, I can safely say no one will ever see that red bra again" I said. "I call that a job well done. Now fix me a drink with an Advil chaser.”

She is twelve. She wears a seven and a half shoe, except when she wears an eight. She has a B cup and knows what the F word means. If you say the word balls in front of her, she laughs. She is not a baby anymore. Given the choice of shopping for new jeans or a bra for someone I used to hold in my arms and sing to sleep, I’ll take the personal humiliation of trying to disguise my fat ass and muffin top in some industrial strength blue denim. That only makes me feel fat.

12 Drummers Drumming: Twelfth Blog

Christmas is over. The decorations are packed up and stowed in the attic. The house has been swept clean of fake pine needles; yes, fake Christmas trees also shed their plastic needles, adding both that touch of realism and the potential for your children and pets to ingest some extra lead. The house is so bare and devoid of festive touches, it looks like it’s been robbed. All that remains are the memories of the holiday season, and nobody can take those away from you. Hell, no amount of hallucinogens will erase those. How about a little holiday wrap up? Here you go, my own top ten list. Only it’s twelve, for the twelve days, er, blogs, of Christmas, and it’s not really a "best of" list, more of a random list, and I’ll stop now and let you read:

12. Holiday food is very tasty. What other time of year do you have at least four different kinds of made from scratch cookies in containers on the counter, not to mention candy and cakes and even just for the holidays ice cream flavors and non-dairy creamer? Is there any food that hasn’t been sold out to make a holiday buck? And it’s all in my house in quantities that could feed a third world country for a month. You know what else comes along with all the yummy food that you eat and eat until pants seem superfluous? About five to ten pounds. How is it even possible to gain five pounds in two days? I’m not eating for two nor swimming in the Olympics. No way did I consume over ten thousand calories in two days. And even if I did, I moved some, didn’t I? Doesn’t the act of chewing burn a few calories? What about getting off the couch and walking to the pantry? I hate all the holiday food that I ate because I love it so much.

11. My older daughter gave me a Christmas gift this year that she knew I would love: a pedicure kit. She gave me one of those callus razors and a three sided foot grater and a bottle of pale purple nail polish. I love to get pedicures and go about every three weeks to a nail salon to have my toes painted in a color that would never be appropriate on the fingers of a grown woman.

She was definitely thinking along the right track, but the execution, well, nice try, kid. When in her twelve years has she ever seen me give myself a pedicure? I don’t want to scrape my own feet; that’s why I pay a Vietnamese woman to do it. If I had a fish tank of those fish that nibble the dead skin off your heels, I might reconsider. Until then, I plan on risking a fungal infection by paying someone else to refurbish my trotters.

10. Don’t most people wish they could spend more time with their families? Everyone is so busy these days; even children have to pencil in playtime on  their day planners. The holidays are the perfect time for everyone to relax, take a break from their jam-packed schedules, and just enjoy quality time together. Sounds great for about three days. After that, we all start to hate each other. This one chews with her mouth open. That one rolls her eyes every five seconds. And really, can you not excuse yourself and go to the restroom if you have to do that? Do you have to do it in front of me? Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Constant smothering attention topped with the demand to be fed and entertained is just irritating. Isn’t it time for you all to go back to school and work? I might have given birth to two of you, and enjoyed conceiving you with him, but if I have to look at any of you for one more day, I am going to punch you in the side of the head.

9. I love giving gifts. I go out of my way to try to get things for the people I love that are either something they would really love or something they would really need even if they didn’t realize it until the wrapping paper is ripped off. With my daughters, though, Christmas is getting to be a challenge, and it is sucking all the fun out of my perfectionist gift giving over achieving. When one kid believes in Santa and the other doesn’t, it ain’t easy to perpetuate that lie. Here’s another version of the same problem. One kid asks for clothes and shoes. The other one wants toys and games and stuffed animals. (And sheets. What the what?) How do I or Santa make that fair? It’s a lose-lose, and someone invariably ends up disappointed. This year it was S, my younger daughter. She had left a two page list for Santa, but she still was shocked that she didn’t get everything she wanted. The rest of us were treated to her bad attitude and pouty face for the rest of Christmas. I don’t remember asking Santa for that.

8. With the kids out of school and my husband off from work and my sister’s family visiting, I had to adjust my usual daily gym routine. I tried to embrace this fitness hiatus as a chance to allow my body to rest and heal, and then I tried to see the break as an opportunity to start fresh and enthusiastic in January. What really happened was that I got crabby due to the lack of daily endorphins.

You know what else? Things feel better when they are used regularly. After a few days off, I can barely walk up and down the stairs. Getting off the couch takes a forklift. Is someone playing with bubble wrap? No, it’s just my knees. I spend so much time being sore from working out that I didn’t realize how bad everything hurt when it doesn’t move. Which means that January I will have the joy of both sore muscles and sore joints. Rest and heal, my fat ass.

7. I love when my family comes to visit, well, when some of my family comes to visit. What I don’t love is getting ready for them. All that cleaning and finding homes for all the crap that sits on the counters. Planning meals and sweeping up the dust bunnies that I would normally step over. Making sure the toilets look like they were freshly installed. Removing the homes of ten thousand spiders in all the corners and on the ceiling fans and light fixtures. All that deep cleaning makes no sense, because it’s not like the visit starts with a surprise military inspection. Generally it starts with everyone taking off their shoes and hiding them somewhere that they can’t remember when they go to look for them five minutes after the time they planned on leaving.

Everything gets done, though, and I can “relax” and enjoy the visit. And then when they leave, I am sad to see them go, but I am also sad to see the eight loads of laundry, the three extra bags of garbage, and the candy wrappers hidden under my couch. I’m only saying this because I know my sister feels the same way. In fact, we all do, we just don’t say it out loud. I love to have you come, but I hate all the work I have to do before and after.

6. The best part of the holidays is having nothing you have to do. There’s no where you have to be, no structure to the day. If you want to sleep late, sleep late. If you want to eat lunch at three in the afternoon, bon appétit. And chances are good that all the shopping and wrapping is done by December 24. All the prep work is finished and the big day arrives. Everyone is happy.

Then, about 2:30 on Christmas, the realization hits that there is nothing else that needs to be done, and what now? What are we going to do for the next week? I’m bored, my husband’s bored, the kids are bored. I become the cruise director, yet no one wants to do any of my suggested activities. Instead, they choose to complain about how bored they are while lying upside down on the sofa watching the same episode of The Regular Show that they have seen for the past three days in a row. I can’t threaten to call Santa. All I have in the arsenal is to make them practice piano or scoop the kitty litter. How much do my kids hate to practice piano if it is on a par with scooping cat turds out of gravel? We live our lives by our routine. When you take that away, it’s becomes pure survival mode, as if Christmas Day were the apocalypse. I am pretty sure my older daughter has stockpiled drinking water and canned food in her closet.

5. Turducken. Ever try it? It’s a Cajun thing, or so I’ve heard. It’s this thing where you take a hen and shove it inside a duck which is then shoved inside a turkey. In between each layer is some sort of spicy stuffing, sausage or cornbread or some other weird stuff I can’t pronounce. The bones are removed from each bird except the turkey’s legs, so it becomes this giant wad of meat with two drumsticks. And while the bones are gone, all the fat and skin is left intact. You don’t actually put it together yourself, unless you are into taxidermy or serial killing. You buy it prestuffed and it’s expensive as hell.

It’s also a waste, since not everyone, including me, has any interest in eating that unnatural entrée. You take it home and bake if for about five years; it takes a long time to cook through three animals. You know what it smells like when it bakes? Ass. Spicy ass.

We aren’t Cajun, we’re Jewish, well, some of us are, but it’s not like we grew up with Turducken. My husband and brother in law decided a few years ago that the concept of eating animals shoved inside animals was something they would like to explore further, and thus a new family tradition was born. It’s a good thing Christmas only comes once a year. I’m still trying to get the smell out of the curtains.

4. Hanukah overlapped Christmas this year, as it does every three years or something like that. Hanukah is a mysterious holiday. Not only does no one know how to spell it, but also no one knows when it is. Christmas is arbitrarily on December 25, but Hanukah skips around. Add to that the fact that it starts  at sundown the night before, and even the calendar makers can’t tell us when it is. Is it sundown on the twentieth or does it start the twenty first? The reason it’s never on the same date is because Hanukah follows the lunar calendar, or as I like to say, your period. Also, if you can’t find it, you can’t forbid it. It’s hard enough to make Hanukah feel like a real holiday on its own without throwing Christmas into it. I much prefer when it is at the beginning of the month, so I can give my children socks and underwear without them seeming so paltry compared to what Santa brings.

3. You know what’s special? Homemade gifts. One year, when I was about nine, I forgot to get a present for my grandfather. I had no money, so I looked around my bedroom to see what I could make for him. I chose an empty turtle bank I wasn’t using. It was green and purple and had sleepy eyes, and on its shell was the coin slot. I took a few plastic violets (I was a big fan of the five-and-dime when I was a kid) that I had lying about and stuck them in the coin slot, and voila! A turtle bank with fake flowers blocking the hole. “What the fuck is that?” my grandfather asked when he opened it. He looked at me like I was crazy, and I am pretty sure after he left I took the violets out of the bank and put everything back in my room.

I get homemade gifts too. None are as special as a turtle bank with plastic flowers, but most of them make me think something my grandfather would say aloud and then try to find a place to display it without offending the budding artist. This year I got a poem that rhymed for the first half but then switched to free verse. It was glued to a piece of cardboard that had been covered with old wrinkled wrapping paper. Yes, I love it. But what the fuck am I supposed to do with it? Put it in the pile with the water bottle fish and the misshapen yellow pinch pot?

2. You know how happy you are when you get something you really wanted? And then you know how you feel when that something breaks the first time you use it? That sucks, doesn’t it? This really was not S’s year. Not only did she not get all two pages of what she wanted from Santa, what she did get was made by incompetent elves. Her cat face fingerless gloves lost an eye the first time she wore them. Her walrus pajamas split down the seam thanks to the piss poor sewing of some third world elfin child. Her light-up thing- do requires some weird sized battery only available at the North Pole. Half her brand new goodies had to go back for replacements. How am I supposed to help boost the economy if every piece of crap I buy is, well, a piece of crap? And of course, after her new stuff breaks, she slips into a horrible mood. See #9.

1. If I see one more “Jesus is the reason for the season” car magnet or church sign, I am going to carbomb Christmas. I don’t want to think about the religious implications of Christmas. I just want to watch Rudolph and hang a stocking and decorate a tree and put out a plate of cookies and milk for Santa. Sure, the whole idea of a fat man dressed all in red who loves children so much he sneaks into their houses while they are sleeping to leave them gifts is a tad creepy. But is it any creepier than a woman getting pregnant by some unseen higher power and then giving birth to this superbaby in a barn? At least I don’t believe Santa is going to die for my sins. I’m not knocking anyone else’s religious beliefs (well, I am, kinda) but why not allow me to keep Christmas in my way and you keep Christmas in yours? If I want to take one day a year to spend thousands of dollars buying crap my family and friends don’t need as an excuse for overeating, what business is it of yours? Everyone else is doing it too. So get over yourself, preachy Christmas people. Excess is an American tradition.

Whew, I made it, another year of twelve blogs crammed into one month’s time. Happy New Year, dear reader. Yes, I mean you. I am pretty sure you are the only one reading this anyway, so happy New Year to you. Now it’s time to get on with 2012. Why not start with that credit card bill from December?

11 Pipers Piping: Round on Both Ends and High in the Middle

If you want to teach your children about the consequences of overindulging in alcohol, I recommend you take them on a ride on a subway train on New Year’s Eve. To quote Whodini, the freaks come out at night, and they were all taking public transportation on one of America’s many holidays devoted to getting drunk. And really, kudos to the responsible drunks who knew the condition they would be in after midnight and had the foresight to opt not to drive. Still, it appears that even on public transportation, a designated driver type is needed, if for no other reason other than to keep the rest of the group from getting themselves killed, not by an accident but by the other passengers.

My sister’s and my families attended a New Year's Eve concert, and we had decided that rather than dodging the drunk drivers on the road, we would take the train into the city to see the show and leave our cars in the ‘burbs where they belong. When we left the show a little before one in the morning, we walked to the station but got trapped behind a couple of women in tight short skirts and platform heels. Walking in platform heels is challenging for most women, but after one too many cocktails, these women could barely support themselves on their little foot pedestals. They teetered along, and we watched them, hoping one might fall off her shoe. Instead, the taller of the two with the more muscular legs saw a friend on the street and greeted him. The deep baritone voice that emanated from those painted lips let us know this was no regular gal. My nine year old daughter spent the rest of the walk asking us repeatedly in her loudest voice, “That was a man?” My thirteen year old nephew later would boast how he saw his first tranny on New Year’s Eve.

At the station, we went through the turnstiles and waited by the tracks, clutching our purses and our children close to us. Christmas carols warbled through the tinny speakers, and a group of men who either just got off work or had nowhere else to go were sharing food out of a Styrofoam container. After a short wait, the train arrived and was packed with bowl game fans and late night revelers. It was more than standing room only; it was standing and squeezing and some people sitting on other people’s laps. It was the kind of sardine can packing that makes you think you will be sexually assaulted, mugged, and have your children kidnapped all before the next stop, without you even knowing any of it.

If the look of the other passengers wasn’t enough to scare us, the smell that assaulted us was. Luckily, it was mostly a combination of Axe body spray for men, cigarette smoke, the entire contents of a liquor store, and unwashed sweaty armpits. There was not a single hint of vomit or garbage in the air, and for that, we were very thankful. Because of the way we had to force our way onto the train, we were not able to maintain a human chain of both families together.

My baby girl found an empty seat next to an intoxicated and disgruntled University of Virginia fan who looked like an upstanding citizen with his gray hair, collegiate tie and button down shirt. Unfortunately, he also had the mouth of a sailor and just enough alcohol in his system to forget you don’t say the F word repeatedly to a nine year old. My other daughter was trapped in the mass of humans that stood and hung onto the railing overhead. She was not confident enough to force a hand hold for herself and instead relied on her fellow standing passengers to prevent her from falling whenever the train lurched into motion or screeched to a stop.

I don’t even know where my husband was, but I found room near one of the doors and held onto a pole that was being shared by a husband and wife that were roughly the same little size. He was clearly drunk, but she was on the wrong side of drunk, the blurry side, the side where anything can happen at any time without warning. I held tightly to the pole with one hand because there was no other way to brace myself when the train moved.

When the doors opened, the wife would ask the new passengers boarding if they were from Ohio. She was from Ohio herself and very proud of it, and felt that it might be possible that every other person out on New Year’s Eve in Atlanta was also from Ohio. She found one person who was and immediately shared her life story up to that very moment. Next to her, a woman in her late twenties stood barefoot on the train. Barefoot. On a subway train. Her toenails were painted lime green. Her evening companions, much like my daughter’s seat mate, were fond of the F word, and of shouting it loudly whenever anyone tried to stuff themselves onto the train.

While I was observing the bare feet, I felt a hand grasp mine around the pole. It belonged to the drunk woman from Ohio, who must have thought my hand belonged to her husband. I flinched and wiggled my fingers in a passive attempt to get her to let go of me, but she was beyond the capacity to interpret subtle signals. I moved my hand lower on the pole. She rested her breast on it.

We swayed while the train stopped, and after someone got off, I was able to move my hand to an overhead railing. Unfortunately, her face was dangerously close to mine, and I could smell the entire contents of her gurgling stomach emanating from her gullet. From the smell of her, it was a big night for Kentucky’s finest sour mash, and I do mean sour. Her eyes were beyond bloodshot and open just a hair, and her head slumped on her neck. She looked like she was going to pass out any second, but my money was on her upchucking before unconsciousness.

Next to the railing, a Hispanic man and his wife were seated, with their two teenage children seated on the opposite side of the train. He too observed the intoxicated woman from Ohio. We made eye contact and he raised his eyebrows at me as if to say take a look at that one. About that time, she leaned over the railing and asked him if she could sit on his lap because she really needed to sit down. “I don’t speak English,” he answered her, in perfect English.

That’s when I decided to move away from the woman from Ohio and her obnoxious short husband. I checked on my older daughter, who looked horrified, or, as my sister said, her eyes got huge and her mouth disappeared. My younger daughter was too exhausted to be disturbed. The next stop was ours, and nothing happened before we disembarked. It was a Christmas miracle, only a week later.

New Year’s Eve night on the subway train was more effective than any Scared Straight program. I bet my kids won’t even want a drop of Manischewitz on Passover after that display. And I want to thank that woman from Ohio. She might not be able to hold her liquor, but she sure did a bang-up job of keeping it down. While I might not win Parent of the Year for taking my kids to a concert on the biggest party night of the year, at least I could educate them on the dangers of intoxication. Scarring them for life is one way to get a lesson to stick, isn’t it?

10 Lords a'Leaping: The Same Goes for Basketball

I was bored and I thought, why not write a blog? My husband and one of our friends, MR, sat on the couch next to me, but they weren’t bored. They were happy because it’s bowl game season, so while I tried to write, I was forced to watch football. I don’t believe in football. It is against my religion.

MR told us about starting a lemonade diet cleanse for the New Year. You know, that thing where you mix together some lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup and water, swallow it, and then the mixture pours right out of your rectum. You don’t do it just once; you drink that swill all day for up to ten days, unless you die before then. If you last for at least three straight days, your intestines will be so clean you won’t even have to mix up a fresh batch anymore. You can just swallow it, hold the glass under your ass, and then drink it again.

Another great thing about this cleanse is that you get to drink more than just the lemonade. You start the morning with a refreshing quart of salt water. Just pretend you are at the beach. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t drinking salt water what makes people lost at sea lose their marbles? That’s why they stick to hydrating with their own urine. You also get to relax every evening with a nice cup of laxative tea. Who could sleep knowing they are going to shit an ocean in their bed?

I checked out the website which, in addition to providing a cockamamie rationale for this insane cleanse, also has a lot of testimonials from people who all claim to try this diet not because they want to lose weight quickly but because they want to clean their intestines. Excuse me? Clean your intestines? It’s not like your intestines are floor board mats or a wool sweater which require helpful hints from Heloise. Intestines are sort of self cleaning; they don’t require any assistance from you. How clean do you want them to be? So clean they are spotless? So clean you can eat off them? So clean they pass the white glove test?

I made a joke to MR after reading the website. I have since forgotten the joke, which sucks because it was pretty funny, but at some point I referred to his cleanse as the Mrs. Butterworth diet. MR said that would make a great Saturday Night Live skit, where a life size Mrs. Butterworth comes out, her hands together in a western style prayer position/ eastern style Namaste hands, and scoots around a kitchen table, and laughter ensues. I’d like to see that shit.

I watched the game for a minute and one of those pretty blond sports reporters interviewed an injured player on the sidelines. Behind them, in the stands, was this guy who realized he was on the Jumbotron, so he squatted down and waved so he can see himself on camera. What an asshole. It makes sense if a nine year old does it because he is just a kid. You, on the other hand, have a car payment and descended testicles. It’s just not that big a deal for you to be on television. People your age get television coverage all the time when their mug shots are featured on the local news. Just sit the fuck down already. And that old man in front of you agrees with me. Can’t you see how angrily he is chewing his gum?

While we are on the subject of football, could someone please hire a speech therapist to work with Lou Holtz? He sounds like Dick Clark. I could have sworn we were rocking in the New Year.

I asked MR if he was going to make it a full ten days on the Mrs. Butterworth cleanse. He said he would be lucky to last a day, which seems like a waste of perfectly good maple syrup to me. “Why not just eat some Chinese food? A little Mu Shoo pork will have the same effect and you only have to eat it once,” I said.

I appreciate his plan to try to get healthy for the New Year, but crapping yourself silly for a week or even a day doesn’t sound like the way I want to start anything. But if it works for him, well, then good for him. At least he is doing something. Me, I think I’ll stick with food, just maybe eat less of it. Instead, I’m going to give up watching football. That’s one resolution I know I will keep.