Just a Crappy Day at the Beach

Today was day one of beach trip number two. Number two was a theme for the day, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Yesterday, we drove here to Garden City, near Myrtle Beach, from our home in the upstate of South Carolina: the two kids, the husband, the hamster, and me. The cats don’t much care for car rides and therefore had to stay home, where they will engage in all sorts of mischief while we are gone, including knocking over their food container, chasing each other all over the house while simultaneously scratching the hardwood floors, and chewing up all the house plants and puking them up on the scratched hardwood floors. The hamster was a last minute packing decision, based on my younger daughter S’s big watery puppy dog eyes and the fact that we had room for his cage in the back seat. It turns out that hamsters don’t really much care for car rides either. Maximus, the dwarf hamster, hiccuped vomity burps for the rest of the night. If you Google “hamster smells like vomit,” you will end up wondering if you should take the rodent to the emergency vet clinic or if he will be dead in his cage by dawn’s early light.

Maximus was fine this morning, feeling frisky and biting anything that was shoved in his face, especially fingers and lips. S felt confident that he would survive, so we got all sunscreened, grabbed our chairs and buckets and books, and walked out to the beach. My husband and older daughter, E, were not ready to leave the confines of the 800 square foot condo, what with the pleasures of unmade beds and iPads calling them, so S and I were solo. We half-heartedly made wet sand castles and jumped waves until our mouths and eyes were salt rimmed and burning. My spouse came out, and we all went back in the water. We waded to about our knees when a wayward jellyfish floated close enough to us to make all of us run back to our chairs, as if it could consciously chase after us and not just bob along with the tide.

E chose that moment to join us on the sand, right when we decided we had enough of the grainy stuff, so we left the beach and went up to the pool. About twenty rednecks and their inbred offspring were screaming and splashing around in it, so E decided she would rather go back to the condo. I walked with her because I had to pee; the jellyfish sighting thwarted my plans of answering the call of nature while wave jumping. As we walked past the stairwell towards the back of the building, the most horrible stench wafted up, assaulting our nostrils with a smell so bad we both started gagging. It wasn’t the kind of smell you wanted to smell again to determine its origin. It was the kind of smell that made you wonder if someone’s grandma had been missing for a few weeks, only they forgot to check the family vacation home.

After using the facilities and smelling the Febreze spray to cleanse my nasal palette, I walked back to the pool alone, this time open-mouth breathing. When I made it past the stairwell again, I discovered the source of the foul stink. On the concrete, under the stairs, was a humongous turd, a turd so big there was no doubt it was not a cat’s or dog’s or even a child’s. That thing was man-sized, and from the looks of it, was a long time coming.

I appreciate the fact that when you gotta go, you gotta go. But the stairwell? It’s not a port-a-potty, or a public restroom, or even a bush. It’s the stairwell. People walk up and down the stairs to get to their units. In fact, all the condos have two toilets, which meant that whoever the public crapper was had access to not one but two separate commodes in which to lay that pipe. I know, I know, walking up the stairs is such a chore, especially when there is so much fun to be had at the beach. Or when you have to take a dump really badly.

When I got back to the pool, my husband decided he had had enough of the sun and went inside to get some lunch. I sat on a lounge chair watching the redneck children throw water balloons in the pool and yell at each other in some bastardized version of the Queen’s tongue. S decided that she was done as well, so we rushed past the poop and back to our unit.

We dined on frozen food and sandwiches and organic strawberries, fed tiny bits of romaine to Maximus, scanned the crappy cable channels, and generally got on each other’s nerves until we were ready to attempt another jaunt down to the sand. After reapplying sunscreen and refreshing the water bottle, we walked back outside.

Luckily, someone had kindly cleaned up the human waste, although I doubt it was its owner, but at least the sun-baked excrement and the resulting stench had cleared up. When we got back to our chairs, we realized the tide had come in faster than we expected it, so we had to pick up all of our stuff and move it back twenty paces. We settled in the chairs but then realized that the wind had also come in, so we had to reposition ourselves with our backs to the gusts. That way the stinging sand could embed itself in our scalps instead of our eyes.

When we were finally comfortable, we heard the unmistakable sound of summer: thunder. Loud, booming cannon fire thunder. The kind of thunder that makes you scream like a little girl. We sat still, just in case we heard wrong, but we hadn’t. The thunder boomed again, louder this time, and when we looked towards the building, we could see massive gray clouds sneaking up behind it.

We packed up everything. I grabbed the beach bag and a chair. My husband got his cup and the other chairs. S bent down to grab the buckets and shovels while E picked up the beach umbrella. Unfortunately, they stood up at the same time, and E clocked S right above her left eye with the sandy end, resulting in tears from both of them. By the time we hosed off, stacked the chairs by the door, and fought over who could take the first shower, the thunder had stopped.

I’d call that a successful first day at the beach, wouldn’t you?

Circus Maximus

We have a new addition to the family, and like many new additions, this one was unplanned. He is a dwarf hamster, which is his actual breed and not a derogatory term, and he is about the size of a quarter cup of almonds. He belonged to the daughters of my friend BD, but they needed a new home for him. Let me tell you that little story first, before I get to the part where he moved in with us.

BD’s home is like a three ring circus on any given day, but more so now that they have an actual menagerie. They started with the usual dog and cat, but this past Christmas, Santa, who must have been high at the time, brought the girls a turtle and a hamster. The turtle, Bob, does his turtle-y things in his tank and is fun to watch, but the hamster, Leroy, was a delight to the whole family. They loved Leroy so much that they decided they needed another hamster, so they went out and procured Jortsey, cleverly named after the uber popular denim shorts that all the kids are wearing.

Jortsey and Leroy are both males, and instead of starting a bromance, they declared full out hamster war on each other. The hamster habitat became Thunderdome; two hamsters entered, and only one was going to leave. As disappointing as it was to the entire D family, it was clear that there was no way that Jortsey and Leroy could live together under the same cage. Leroy was there first, so he had squatter’s rights. Jortsey had to pack his hamster ball and leave.

Now’s the part where my family comes in. My younger daughter, S, is in love with every hamster she has ever seen, and has spent many a day oohing and aahing over both Leroy and Jortsey. BD’s daughters decided if Jortsey had to go, then he had to go to S. BD worked hard on me, explaining how easy hamsters are to take care of, how little attention they need, how they don’t smell, and please just give it a try.

Against my better judgment, I agreed to let Jortsey move in with us. I secretly purchased a cage, a bag of treats, a bag of food, some chew toys, and a cardboard tube filled with fluff. I brought them home and showed them to my husband, who was barely on board with the plan.

“Why did you buy a bag of rat food?” he asked me.

“I didn’t. It’s hamster food,” I answered.

He held up the bag, pointing to the word rat.

“Well, I guess I have to take that back. It looked like a hamster on the bag. I guess I can’t tell a hamster from a rat.”

“How much was this toilet paper tube with the dryer lint stuffed inside?” he asked me, holding up the tube.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s going to love it.”

“How much?”

“It was less than a plastic igloo, which all the other hamsters at the store had,” I said. He put it down and stopped asking me questions.

We told the girls about the hamster a week before we got him. He was to be S’s graduation present. She finished her last year at her school and will be starting a new one in the fall. E will be starting a new school as well, but we got her an electric guitar for a graduation present. Just a tip: don’t buy your child an electric guitar unless you don’t mind listening to him or her play it.

Before we picked up Jortsey, I returned the rat food and got hamster food, and S picked out some tunnels for the cage as well as a yellow hamster ball, her favorite color. We got his cage nicely lined with wood chips, filled his little food dish and water bottle, and attached all the tunnels to the cage. Then we went over to BD’s house and brought home our little fluffy bundle of joy.

S laughed out loud the whole way home. She would giggle, then laugh, than smile, then repeat. She could not contain her pure joy. My older daughter, E, was less excited, and instead came up with all the ways the hamster could die in our home. The cats could eat him. He could get crushed under someone’s foot. He could get diarrhea from eating rat food. He could fall to his death. He could get sick and never recover. S finally asked her to stop, since she didn’t want to have nightmares about her new pet’s horrific demise.

Jortsey has adjusted well to his new cage and family. We might have confused him at first, since we changed his name to Maximus. Jortsey was a D family name. We needed a name that reflected our family, and irony is a hit around here. He has lived with us for a week now, and the novelty has yet to wear off. He is the first one S greets in the morning, and the last one she kisses good night. She is totally in love, and it appears to be mutual. When she opens his cage, he always comes out to see her. He does not do that for the rest of us. The rest of us have experienced the powerful force of hamster jaws clamping down on a finger tip.

Maximus’s turn-ons include: the nest he made by weaving wood chips into the dryer fluff; kisses on the nose; sunflower seeds; the yellow hamster ball; and pooping in E’s hands. His turn-offs include: being pulled out of his tunnel; being pulled out of his nest; being pulled off of the hamster wheel; and being placed in a plastic bin so he can sit on the couch with the family and watch TV.

The cats love to watch Maximus in his cage. They will sit outside of it for hours, staring and waiting. They have not yet turned against him and seem more curious than hamstercidal. They are not the only ones who sit and watch him. Every night, after the kids go to bed, I slink into the room where we keep his cage, sit on a stool, and watch him sleep. He senses me there and pokes his little nose out of the fluff. Sometimes he will waddle over and say hello, and sometimes he reburies himself. It is better than a television show. Usually, my husband joins me, grinning much like S did on that first drive home. He always wanted a hamster, but his mom wouldn’t let him have one.

That cardboard tube with the fluff? That was the best $1.99 I ever spent.

Off the Beaten Path

My husband recently celebrated his birthday, cementing the fact that for a few months, he is in fact older than me. He decided, like most of us, that working on his birthday constituted cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore, he took the day off, sticking it to the man. Since he is self-employed, he is just sticking it to himself, whatever it is, but a day off every once and again is a good thing, or so I have heard. I asked him what he wanted to do with his special day, and he decided he wanted to go hiking with me. The kids would be in school, and we would have a few hours to enjoy nature and each other’s company. Why the fuck not? I thought, and agreed to the plan.

Of course, I had to alter it just a bit to satisfy my own needs for the day. After all, it was a Monday, the stay-at-home mom’s Saturday, and while I wanted him to enjoy his special day, I didn’t want to give up mine. So I gently encouraged him to sleep in so I could do one class at the gym before our date with the great outdoors began. I left him snoozing happily, drove the girls to school, and sweat my ass off in combat class, trying my best to not hit like a girl. I returned home by 10am, just in time to freshen my water bottle and slide into the passenger seat of my husband’s car.

We drove to Paris Mountain State Park, paid our admission fee sanctimoniously, as state budget cuts have done away with gate attendants, and headed towards the parking lot near our favorite trail head. I know there are plenty of other trails in the park, but we always come to this spot, where the reservoir is, and sort of meander until we decide we have had enough. Generally speaking, that means an hour of hiking, enough to work up a dewy sweat and feel like we deserve whatever crap we decide on for lunch. I was still full of energy and endorphins following my combat class, so we hustled our way along the trail, past the water feature, over rocks and tree roots and muddy patches, until we got to where the trail splits.

One direction headed toward the former fire tower; the other direction headed towards another loop that would mean a good two hours of hiking on an unfamiliar trail. My husband checked the GPS on his smart phone and decided the fire tower trail was the way to go, so we scampered off in that direction, reaching the ruins in little time. I was starting to get hungry, and we had finished most of our water bottle, when his phone rang.

There is something odd about having a phone conversation in the middle of the woods, especially by the remains of what was once a fairly isolated ranger post. But it was his birthday, and the call was from one of his oldest friends, and so my husband began chatting, catching up, accepting birthday wishes, making plans, that sort of thing. Feeling a bit bored, I texted for entertainment on my dumb phone, walking along behind him, as he was deep in discussion about finances or futures or whatever I was no longer listening to.

We followed what we thought was the trail. A few trees had fallen down over the pathway, which I thought was odd, since this was hardly an isolated or unused park. We stepped over logs, found more forks, tried to decide right or left, and continued walking until it was perfectly clear that we were not only no longer on the fire tower trail, we were not on any trail at all.

I was so certain we weren’t on a trail anymore because we appeared to be in someone’s back yard. We weren’t on anyone’s actual lawn, but a row of large custom-built houses were well within walking distance. I doubted we were still in the park. More likely, it was neighborhood easement property, the buffer between those yards we espied and state owned grounds. I stopped texting, my husband ended his phone call, and we looked at each other. We were lost.

I didn’t want to ruin my husband’s birthday by freaking out on him, but seriously, we had been hiking for an hour and a half, after I had already exercised for a good hour. It was lunchtime, I had to be in the car pool line in less than two hours with snacks and piano books, and we had no fucking idea where we were. Let me rephrase that. I had no fucking idea where we were.

My husband had an inkling, and, as you may recall, GPS on his phone, which he may have forgotten to consult while chatting but now was free to use. Only reception, you know, is not always what you would like it to be while in a remote part of the park, off the trail. He attempted to access the trail maps on the park’s website, but who had that kind of time to wait for a download? Instead, he oriented himself, a skill I do not possess, and we began walking in what he felt was the right direction. I can’t say I didn’t believe him, only that I had no fucking idea which was the right direction, so I did what he told me to do.

I didn’t want to yell at him, because why was it only his fault that we were lost? Oh wait; he was the one with the GPS. Well, I didn’t want to yell at him because it was his birthday. So I cried silently to myself as I stumbled behind him, imagining every worst case scenario my overactive mind could produce. We were out of water. We had no food. He had a general idea of where our car was, but I had no fucking idea. And we had an hour to get there before my carpool deadline. Clearly, that plan of a smugly indulgent post-hike lunch was out of the question. I only hoped we would not have to resort to cannibalism.

I imagined one of us falling off the mountain. I imagined us wandering around until dark, our children waiting solemnly at their schools, wondering why Mom didn't pick them up when all the other mommies picked up their children. I imagined who would raise them if we were never found alive.

Despite my worst fears, my husband successfully steered us back to a trail, way off from where we thought we were or meant to be. We had a good hour to go until we would reach our car in the parking lot. That jovial mood we begin our hike with morphed into all the joy of the Bataan death march as we worked our way along the trail back to the main road, which we then followed back to the parking lot. My legs shook for the last half hour. Combat and getting lost during a hike do not mix. My husband knew I used what little strength I had left to not lose it, and for that, he was truly grateful.

We made it home in time for me to grab raw food out of the fridge, shove it in my mouth, and chewing it while in the shower. I got in the car pool line with all the necessary items a mere ten minutes before the school bell rang and the afternoon activities began. Meanwhile, my husband enjoyed his quiet afternoon at home alone, relaxing after a long birthday hike.

Next year, I am suggesting a movie.

Saving Face

All I did was show up at 5th grade Field Day with sunscreen. I wasn’t dressed like a clown or a slut. I didn’t trip, burp, fart, or curse. I was discreet, even. I did a little wave at my daughter, then reached into my purse and pulled out a tube of Banana Boat kids SPF 50. I held it up for her to see and beckoned her with my finger. I didn’t scream, “Sweetie, we forgot sunscreen! You don’t want to get burned, do you? It’s so gosh darn hot today, and we want to protect your precious widdle skin fwom the sun’s mean old nasty rays, don’t we?” I let her apply it herself, so I didn’t have to touch her in front of her classmates. See, I didn’t even begin to embarrass her.

My father, when he was the age my older sister is now, died of skin cancer, of melanoma. That was back in the eighties, when melanoma was not a well known form of cancer. It was relatively unusual for someone to have deadly skin cancer, and there was no cure. He had a giant tumor, attached to a mole on his arm. It was cut out. And then the doctors waited to see if he would die, which he didn’t for a number of years, until one day he found a lump under his arm. It had metastasized to his lymph system, in essence, a death sentence. At some point, he tried some experimental treatment, which served to prolong his suffering for another year or so. It was in his liver, his blood, his brain. I was seventeen years old when he died, and I was the first person to lose a parent while I was in high school. There is still no cure for melanoma.

People didn’t use sunscreen then; they used suntan oil. You thought you were doing some good for yourself with an SPF of 4, and 8 seemed extreme. You would coat yourself up good, smelling of coconut, reapplying only when you flipped yourself like a hotcake. A dark tropical tan resembled a piece of golden fried chicken, and no wonder. Your skin was cooking, just as if you took a dip in the hot oil fryer instead of the ocean. What people can’t understand is that there is no such thing as a healthy tan. Crispy skin is good on a Thanksgiving turkey, not your back.

When I realized that my oldest daughter E went to school today, on Field Day, without sunscreen, I thought for a moment, well, it’s only a couple of hours, she won’t get too much sun. Then I thought about how abnormally hot it has been this week, and how the school yard has no shade, and how beautiful and fair her skin is. I grabbed two bottles of sunscreen, the waterproof kind for her body, the oil-free kind for her face, and tootled up to the school. She was in the back of the school yard with her class, a sea of dark red t-shirts and white bandana headbands. I made her apply sunscreen to her arms and legs.

“This is so embarrassing!” She whined. The boy with the Justin Bieber hair that is kind of sweet on E watched us, laughing a little. “What's the big deal if I get a tan?”

“Dude, just put it on, or would you rather I do it for you?” I responded. “Don’t forget your neck.”

“I can’t believe you did this to me,” she complained. Her classmates milled around us, fascinated by the spectacle we created.

I turned to one of them and asked, “Is this the most embarrassing thing that can happen to you?”

“No,” the boy said. “Getting spanked is worse.” He clearly knew of what he spoke.

“See, E? It’s not the most embarrassing thing. Now put on that sunscreen or I will spank you.”

She finished and shoved the tube back in my hand before running back to her classmates. She spent the next few minutes giving me the stink eye, so I said goodbye to her teacher and left. I would have liked to stick around to watch, but frankly, E’s behavior was, well, embarrassing. I was just like a superhero, swooping in to save the day, refusing all thanks, before flying away to the next catastrophe. Okay, maybe not like a superhero; it was only sunscreen.

Medicaid Day At the Allergist's Office

My baby daughter S is allergic to everything that grows in our town. If it is has leaves or spores or roots or buds, it sets her to wheezing and itching and coughing and dripping. Every year, she seems to get worse, and we recently sought the help of an allergist, who of course recommended allergy shots, so we added weekly injections to our extracurricular activities. It is almost as big of a time commitment as soccer practice, if you think about it. My older daughter has braces, so between them, our weekly checkups with the orthodontist or the allergist are like two extra activities. Each office carries about the same germ risk as spending time in gymnastics or softball, only the offices are air conditioned and, for the most part, the waiting rooms are quiet. If I had to make a choice between sitting in the sun watching my bored child avoid kicking a soccer ball or sitting in a waiting room, texting and reading a book, well, I am pretty sure you know which one I would pick.

Last week, S and I went for her injections on Thursday morning before school, like we normally do. We saw the usual people who arrive before us, the middle schooler with the gorgeous curly hair, the plump businessman with the ankle length pants, the older painfully thin real estate agent. S got her injections, one in each arm, and we settled into our chairs for the mandatory half hour wait that follows the shots. You never know when a reaction will occur, and I would prefer not to have to deal with anaphylactic shock on the drive to school.

While we sat, S quietly coloring, me reading and trying not to fall asleep, two women came in the office waiting room. They each carried a baby car seat with them, and one of them had two other children following her like ducklings. The oldest one was a boy, about three or four, and the other one was a little girl who could not have yet turned two. Both of the car seat babies looked too young to sit independently. I couldn’t tell why the whole gang was here, unless it was for moral support, or possibly because “The People’s Court” doesn’t start that early.


The one mom, who it turned out was not the mother of the two older kids, pulled out the waiting room toys, spread them all over the floor in front of where S and I sat in the injection waiting room, and parked the kids. All that bending over provided S and me with an excellent view of both her tramp stamp and her ample ass. Then she joined the other mom in the main waiting room. They were not close enough to supervise the children without yelling at them, which wasn’t a problem because the two kids ran back and forth from the moms to the toys. S looked at the kids and then at me, as if I had the power to make them move, or at the very least, make whichever mother claimed them as her own to be responsible for them.

I was now more interested in what was going on in the waiting room than in my book. The actual mother walked over to the kids to tell them to be quiet. She was not small, but her shirt was, and her large stomach hung out the bottom. After fussing, she settled herself in a waiting room chair, removed her baby from the car seat and laid her out on top of her lap, at which point the baby began to cry. At first, I thought she was going to start nursing, which, while something I did not care to see, was a reasonable thing to do, even in a waiting room at the allergist’s office.

Sadly, I was mistaken. She undressed her baby and proceeded to change its diaper across her lap, right in the waiting room. And no, it wasn’t just a wet nappy. She used that soiled diaper to wipe her child’s tush, then used an actual wipe to finish the job. A small corner of the wipe floated gently to the ground in front of her chair. I couldn’t look away. Of all the places to change a dirty diaper, my lap never occurred to me. It struck me as lazy efficiency at its finest.

When she finished, she got up to find a trash can. I know you are hoping she left to find the rest room and wash her hands, but no, she wasn’t gone long enough for that. I am pretty sure she tossed that crappy diaper in the nearest trash can, a surprise for the lucky office staff. She plopped back in her chair, stuffed her arm into her diaper bag, and with the hand that just wiped her baby’s bottom, she grabbed a handful of Nutter Butter Bites and shoved them in her mouth. Did I mention it was 8:15 in the morning? I found that a little early to make a meal of poo-laced cookies, but then again, I haven’t walked a mile in her shoes.

I watched her chew open mouthed and stuff more cookies in her pie hole when finally her son’s name was called for his doctor visit. She picked up the baby and the diaper bag and hollered for her son to follow her, instructing the not yet two year old girl to stay in the waiting room until they returned. That other mom could have been there to watch her, but she looked pretty busy flipping pages of a four month old People magazine to be bothered with supervising the child.

Unfortunately, S’s thirty minute wait was up. She got her arms checked by the nurse, who gave her all clear to leave. We stared at the two year old and the other mother on our way out. In the parking lot, I pulled out my hand sanitizer and S and I liberally doused our hands and arms with it. I spotted what had to be their SUV right next to my own, the one with the custom paint job, the back seat lined with boosters and car seats, the front seat lined with food wrappers and other garbage.

“Well, that was interesting,” I said to S.

“Where did she put that diaper?” S asked me.

“I have no idea. We might not ever know.”

“Can I have some more Purell?” S asked.

“As much as you want, baby. As much as you want.”

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

Mother’s Day is not always as predictable as it would appear to be. Sure, it usually involves sleeping late, which for mothers means past eight in the morning, woo hoo. The sleeping in is followed by a breakfast, lovingly cooked to imperfection. The day is then spent on a variety of family togetherness activities, unplanned by me and subjected to constant threats to get along. We typically wrap it up with the obligatory dinner at the in-laws, although we pick something up instead of me cooking. Most Sunday nights, I cook dinner for my in-laws, but even I get a night off from cooking for Mother’s Day. I generally enjoy my day because hey, it’s Mother’s Day, what’s not to like. I get a few homemade cards, some dark chocolate, and maybe a gift card for a massage. I don’t ask for much, and I am pretty easy to please; I just like to be remembered. While an entire day off sounds like a great idea for Mother’s Day, it isn’t necessary. I just don’t want to have to do as much as I normally would, and it would be nice to hear a please and thank you. The absence of arguing is like icing on the cake.

This past Mother’s Day, however, was odd. Really odd. It began with both of my children spending the night somewhere else, a pretty rare occurrence. My children are not known for their ability to sleep, let alone at someone else's house. E was with my friend MJ’s daughter, AJ, and S was at a sleepover party. That left my husband in charge of the sleeping late and breakfast duties. Now, I love my husband, and he has many skills, but cooking is not one of them. That’s all I am going to say about breakfast, except thank you, dear.

I did have the opportunity to enjoy the Sunday paper relaxing on the couch, instead of how I normally read it, by skimming it on Tuesday while making dinner, after driving to art and dance, and then chucking the whole stack in the recycling bin. When my husband went to pick S up from the party, she and her friend convinced him that he should leave her there to go to the movies. He came home childless, and by then it was time to go get E.


We drove to MJ’s home, a cute as hell mountain house tucked in the woods, yet right off the main drag. It has high ceilings and wooden beams and lots of windows, and when you sit on the leather couch, the big dog at your feet, the little dog by your side, you forget for a moment where you are. My husband and I had just missed brunch, but I was still full from that adequate breakfast, thanks again, dear. We, meaning MJ, MJ’s ginormous fetus, MJ’s baby daddy PS, my husband, and I, hung out on the couch while E and her friend AJ ran up and down the stairs and did things that eleven year old girls do, like change their clothes a billion times and say OMG! and squeal and stomp around and forget to close doors followed by slamming them.

Somewhere in the conversation, PS announced that he had a zip line in the back yard and that we needed to go check it out. While E and AJ continued their assault on the door hinges, the four of us, the fetus, and the two dogs slipped out and trudged through the pine straw and leaves of the back yard to where the zip line was located, between two trees on the property and over a little creek. PS, who I should mention is quite physically fit, demonstrated how easy it is to use by swinging himself over the creek, climbing up the makeshift ladder on the taller tree, and then zipping back to our side of land, stopping before he crashed headfirst into the other tree to which the rope was tied. This was by no means a ropes course with crotch harnesses; it was a one cable zip line, with little handles from which you flail.

It’s easy,” he announced. “Here, Amy, you try it.”

Easy is in the eye of the beholder. My eyes don’t see anything as easy, especially not swinging from a zip line above a creek. The first thought I had was that there was no way that thing was going to support me. I rationalized that surely I don’t weigh as much as PS and he did it perfectly safely. Then I thought about how I was going to fall, not to my death, but surely to my maiming, and how I didn’t care to spend my Mother’s Day in the emergency room explaining to some Indian doctor how I sustained that broken arm, and, no, I was not drinking. Then I thought, why all the negative thoughts? It’s just a back yard zip line for Christ’s sake. Just do it.

“Ok, I’ll try,” I said, walking over to where PS stood, near the edge of the shallow stream.

“Here, you just jump across the water and climb up that tree,” he said, standing behind me so I couldn’t chicken out.

I don’t jump across streams. I am old with a bum knee and short legs. Jumping is not one of my approved activities. I peered at the stream, trying to figure out the easiest way to get to the other side of the bank without getting my sneakers wet. I stepped down into a firm patch of mud and squatted a little, deciding where to step next. PS, still behind me, gave me a shove. I fell forward, catching myself before I face planted in the creek, but not before one shoe went under water. I am pretty sure it was a shove of encouragement, but my blood still boiled a little.

“What the hell?” I shrieked.

“You’re taking too long!” PS said. “Come on, you can do it, just jump.”

I stepped up on the bank, into what became a big smear of wet clay, and then slid back into the water. Now both my shoes were wet.

“My shoes are full of leeches,” I said.

“There aren’t any leeches in this creek. It’s freshwater. Come on," PS said again.


“I am pretty sure leeches live in fresh water,” I began to argue, taking the hand PS offered me and pulling myself up. I stomped wet footed over to the tree with the boards nailed to it like a ladder. The top rung was higher than my face.

“Good, now climb up and grab hold of the handles.”

I climbed up as I was told. Climbing is another thing on my list of things I don’t do. Right after jumping. When I got to the top, PS shoved his shoulder under my rump and got me to turn around so I could grab both handles of the trolley.

“Okay, now hold on tight, don’t let go. It’s fun!” PS said. PS would make a great drug dealer or serial killer. His enthusiasm makes you think everything is going to be okay, even if you end up with a broken arm, a wicked addiction to heroin, or ten years trapped in a basement dungeon.

I grabbed both handles, looked across the woods to where my very pregnant friend and my husband stood, laughing, and I stepped off the tree ladder. And guess what? I didn’t fall. I flew.

I whizzed past the trees and over the creek and reached the other bank, where I realized that PS was so busy trying to figure out how to get me started that he forgot to tell me how to stop. I was too scared to grind my heels into the ground, but even more terrified of flying face first into the big tree that was blocking my way. I stuck my feet down, stumbled a little bit, and stopped.

MJ was doubled over with her camera, laughing so hard she was crying. “I got pictures!” she cackled. “This is the best Mother’s Day ever!”

“I don’t know about that,” I retorted.

When she stood up, I noticed a pile of leaves under her were wet with a reddish fluid.

“Oh my God, your water broke!” I screamed.

PS jerked his head around, no longer smiling.

“No, it didn’t,” MJ said, still laughing. “I just spilled the vitamin water.” The big dog ambled over and began licking all the wet leaves.

My husband attempted the zip line next, which was even funnier because he couldn’t get across the creek either. He tried to swing across, holding onto the handles, but then dangled right over the water since he didn’t build enough speed to get across on the cable. I laughed at him. I earned that right.

I do believe I earned that massage. And a nap. Maybe next year we can go BASE jumping or BMX stunt riding or bull semen collecting or something equally out of my comfort zone. Whatever it is, it has to be better than that breakfast. Which reminds me, thank you, dear.

No Ill Will at the Goodwill

Anyone who thinks we do not have a caste system in America has not been to Walmart or Goodwill lately. Not that there is anything wrong with either of those places, just that I don’t want to buy my clothing at either one of them. I am lucky. I don’t have to. I can afford to buy my clothing at Target.

I didn’t grow up upper middle class, but my mother liked to pretend we were, so I have a lifetime of looking down my nose at other people, even while wearing hand me down underwear that had already been used by both my older sisters. I have a real hang up on hand me down underwear.

I had to go to Goodwill the other day to buy a whole bunch of crap for a special relay for my daughter’s Fifth Grade Day at school. This field trip to a local park is a day for all the fifth graders to blow off steam, because the life of an eleven year old is very demanding and high stress, what with having to remember to take your backpack to school and find your sneakers in the morning. The event I am coordinating involves each class dressing their teacher in a variety of articles of clothing, and the first class that is finished adorning the teacher wins. Allegedly, hilarity will ensue.

I was on a mission to find shirts, skirts, necklaces, bracelets, scarves, ties, belts, hats, and shoes, all on a budget of roughly one hundred smackers. It might sound easy, but finding about fifty things for one hundred bucks is, well, not. I don’t think the other moms have realized that we cannot afford to get an item for each member of the class, so some kids will be stuck with putting on one shoe or one sock or one glove, just to stretch the clothes and our budget.

I decided to go to the Goodwill clearance center, which is very different from a regular Goodwill store, to look for the roughly fifty things we need. At a regular Goodwill store, the clothing is organized in some sort of fashion. Belts, purses, ties, and hats hang from pegs on the walls. Clothing is categorized by gender and almost even by size. Shoes are in racks, and house wares and toys have their own area as well. It’s a bit like a TJ Maxx or Marshalls, except all used. Really used. They like to say gently used, but it looks like the difference between making sweet love and getting fucked hard in the dirty place.

If going to the regular Goodwill store is on the dirty side, then going to the clearance center is like sucking homeless guys’ dicks for a chance they might share their crack. Nothing is organized at all. Instead, it is all bins, rows and rows of bins of smelly, used, dirty clothes that wouldn’t sell at the regular store. Instead of a buck here or three dollars there, all the crap is sold by the pound, and it’s way less than the cold bar at Whole Foods. $7.99 might sound like a lot for marinated tofu cubes and orzo and spinach salad, but $1.29 for a scoop of shirts is a lot less appealing. I’ll take the orzo salad, please.

I walked around the bins, touching the clothing gingerly as if it were all covered in lice, which it probably was. I stopped touching when I thought about the lice thing, and just circled the bins as if the articles I needed would magically spring forth and fold themselves neatly before my very eyes. The other patrons had big tubs on wheels, lined with clear garbage bags, and were filling their bags in earnest. I looked around and thought, what am I doing here? This is not my neighborhood at all, and stepping out of my comfort zone was only serving to make me uncomfortable.

I gave up trying to pretend I was going to buy anything, even though everyone else knew I wasn’t. I went out and sat in my car, then coated all my exposed skin with an entire bottle of hand sanitizer. So, yes, I am a classist. One of those Obama elitists. A socio-economic snob. I do not relate well to the common man. I don’t want to eat a burger and fries. I don’t want to drink a Budweiser. I don’t want to drive a Chevy. I don’t want to watch a NASCAR race. I do not want to “Get ‘Er Done.” And I especially do not want to scrounge around in bins of clothing detritus looking for a bargain for the PTA.

I waited a week before I attempted again to go to Goodwill , this time a traditional store, which was less disgusting and also encouraged bilingual communication. I tore through that place, grabbing as much as I could find in fifteen minutes or less. I had my friend SF with me, which was great because we doubled our frenzied efforts and made it out in record time, which really impressed the old ladies in line behind us. We didn’t even have to hold our breath to not smell anything, although the hand sanitizer at the end was still a necessity.

I had my share of trips to Goodwill in my younger years, for Halloween costumes or what I perceived as vintage clothes, but I never had to shop there because I didn’t have a choice. I recognize that even in the lean years, I was lucky, and I am still lucky. Goodwill is there for a reason, and it isn’t just to amuse our children, in honor of them passing fifth grade and leaving elementary school.

And seriously, we don’t pay our teachers enough to dress up in used crap. If I were a teacher, I would refuse to have one of those hats on my heads, not to mention the used shoes shoved on my hoofs. Just writing this essay made me get up and wash my hands twice. I even scrubbed under my nails.