Some Light Reading

I need to branch out in my reading material this winter. For some reason, I’ve been reading memoir after memoir, and I need a break from all that fuckedupitude. I remember once asking my father in law about his choice in movies, as he always went for the inane and eschewed all things deep and dramatic. “I go to the movies to be entertained,” he told me. “If I want to know about all the horrible things in the world, I could watch the news or read the paper. Why would I want to waste my leisure time depressing myself?” People read papers back when I asked him that. He had a good point though. The news is depressing as hell. Times are tough the world over, my friend.

So why spend my rare free time reading depressing memoirs one after another like so many burned potato chips? I love fiction, don’t get me wrong. Fiction is great stuff and offers us a wonderful escape or soporific, depending on what you want it to do. But lately, it isn’t doing either for me, so I find myself turning to memoir more and more in an effort to find something to hold my attention long enough to get sleepy. In fact, four of the last five books I’ve read were memoirs or creative nonfiction, and I’m worried my trend is a reflection of my watching too much reality television.

I just finished reading a memoir called The Burn Journals, which is about a fourteen year old boy who has a little thing about arson. He fucks up pretty good at school by intentionally lighting a pack of matches on fire, but then in a panic with the burning matchbook accidentally lighting a t-shirt and the locker it was in on fire as well. Fearing the very real possibility of expulsion, he goes home and attempts suicide by, you guessed it, setting himself on fire. This was not like a Tibetan monk self-immolating for his beliefs and religious freedom; this was an impulsive teenage boy in over his head. The book is mostly about the year of recovery after his suicide attempt, and much like burn scars, it ain’t pretty.

Before that book, I read a memoir by Alice Sebold. You might recall her name, as she is the author of The Lovely Bones, one of the most disturbing pieces of modern fiction ever written, about a girl who is raped and murdered, and the effect of her death on her family, all told from the victim’s point of view.  I remember reading it and thinking that she must have had some serious trauma in her life to create that kind of creepiness. Her memoir is entitled Lucky, and it is about her own rape and the aftermath on her family and her life, including the difficult court trial.  It seems I was right about her.

Prior to that one, I read a translated documentary novel called The Druggist of Auschwitz. I’m pretty sure you can guess what that was about. That’s right, three feel good stories in a row. No wonder I have trouble sleeping.

So I decided to try something different. Now I’m reading a book by Celia Rivenbark, a  columnist who is sort of a Southern Erma Bombeck. She writes humorous essays about nothing, only with more success and acclaim than, say, I do.

Anyway, here’s what I can’t get past. She writes a lot about her family, as do I, only she refers to her child as “The Princess” and her husband as “Duh-hubby.” Sometimes, she just calls him “Duh” but we get the point. She thinks he’s a bit of an idiot, and he is either too stupid to object or very secure and doesn’t mind.

I don’t write much about my husband, which he prefers. Once, back when I first started sharing my essays, I wrote one about him being startled by a snake in our backyard, and he was mad at me for days afterwards. So the understanding we have reached in an effort to remain friends (and also married) is that I don’t write about him without his permission or prior review (with the exception of right now).

Sometimes he is a main character in a story I need to tell, so I can’t leave him out entirely, although I am pretty sure he would prefer I do. He is not looking for his fifteen minutes of fame; he just wants to be left alone. This is an individual who is convinced Facebook is really Big Brother data farming us all, waiting to turn all of our pictures and thoughts and connections over for some sinister use.

The thing is, he’s probably right. The NSA has probably stored every email I’ve ever sent, every Facebook status I’ve updated, every meme I’ve texted. Yours too, by the way. All of ours. Somewhere in an underground bunker in Colorado is a team of extremely overworked government employees who can’t believe how dumb the rest of us have become.

But back to my point, before I went off on that conspiracy rant. I can’t imagine making a living out of smack-talking my spouse and still having one. Maybe my spouse is correct. Maybe we have become a culture of oversharing idiots who can’t take a crap or make a sandwich without wanting the whole world to know about it. If our moms didn’t cut the crusts off our sandwiches or our dads laughed at our sophomoric efforts in card making, we don’t need hours of therapy that result in a book deal. We need to maybe move on and get over ourselves.

It might be time to look at the New York Times Book Review and make a more appropriate reading selection, or maybe stop by the classics section of the library and expand my range. Hell, I could step into the other room and finish the copy of Jude the Obscure I never made it past the first fifty pages of in college. I’ll get right on that, after this TLC “Four Weddings” marathon is over.

Maybe We Need to Read More

How do you decide what is appropriate for your children to watch on television? Is it a conversation you have with your husband or with your children, or do you choose based on the TV rating system or word of mouth from other parents?

It’s easy when kids are young. They have a choice of preschool shows that are tied into toys and clothing at the local Walmart. You become instantly aware of what they like and don’t like based on what becomes an obsession, thanks to clever marketing. But as your kids get older, it’s not so easy anymore. What you find on kids’ channels might still be over their heads, or have a level of violence, or yes, even romance, that might make you uncomfortable. By the time they hit double digits, it’s even tougher. You have probably moved on from watching shows with them, opting instead to leave them to their own devices while you play on your laptop or iPad. Chances are good that if you sat down and watched their shows with them, you might not like what you see.

My kids grew up on a steady diet of SpongeBob Squarepants, which is still the default if nothing else is on. I stopped watching television with them when I could recite the words from all the episodes, and sometime between that moment and today, they have moved on from Nickelodeon to the edgier and more mature Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network used to show things like “Powerpuff Girls” and “Johnny Bravo.” Now, it’s “Adventure Time” and “The Regular Show.” Have you ever seen either of those? They aren’t shows for kids in elementary school; they are shows for college aged kids taking hits off a bong. Sometimes the plot lines disturb my tween, as she still has hope for a happy future, and that doesn’t always mesh well with a post-apocalyptic life in a world filled with talking cinnamon buns and tiny sexy elephants that bake apple pie.

But whatever, they’re kids’ shows, right? I don’t like to watch those shows with them, so lately we have been branching out into regular television. Even then, our choices are pretty limited in terms of what’s age appropriate, and it seems the more we watch, the more explaining I have to do.

“Modern Family” is popular in my house, because my kids love the gay couple. Remember watching “Happy Days” when you were a kid? They didn’t have a gay couple. They did have a philandering rebel with a penchant for dancing and show tunes, but I’m pretty sure Fonzie wasn’t gay.” Laverne and Shirley” also seemed harmless, even though Laverne was a floozy who only cared about getting laid. Wait a minute, maybe television was always bad for kids.

Sometimes, for variety, we delve into the world of reality television, which is generally where my discernment gets a little hazy. I don’t like to watch the dancing or singing shows, and I don’t want my kids to watch the dating shows. I can only force them to watch so much PBS or Animal Planet before they rebel.  Which leaves us with Discovery and The Learning Channel. 

The other night, my teen and I cozied up together in front of the television to watch a new episode of “My Strange Addiction.” This is a show that can vary from week to week in terms of how appropriate it is, but my own fascination tends to cloud my judgment. So there we were, watching a woman who is addicted to black market butt injections and a young man, most likely a virgin, who is infatuated with his entire collection of pool inflatables, one of which he considers his wife, a beauty of a yellow dragon raft. My husband walked in and wanted to know what I was thinking, letting her watch “that trash.”

Hmm, what was I thinking? Did I think it was funny that these people are obviously mentally ill? No, because if that were the case, we’d be watching “Hoarders” too. No, it’s more about the sensationalism, the putting themselves on display for the whole world to see. I might be addicted to chocolate and cuticle picking, but you don’t see me on television showcasing it for all of America. My teen is smart enough to get that, by the way. She knows it’s not right to make fun of people, but a lady who‘s had like forty butt injections is a sight to see. And honestly, her ass was still smaller than a certain judge on American Idol, so don’t tell me that show is more suitable.

The truth is, quality programming is a thing of the past. Now, it’s all about what’s cheap to produce, which explains the plethora of reality shows that cover everything from extreme sports to parking lot valets. At least we stay away from violence, like, say, professional football. Bad language isn’t even a deal breaker anymore, since my kids hear worse at school than what can be broadcast on TV. And to some degree, the more excessive and ridiculous the behavior my kids see on TV shows, the less they find such displays enticing. They realize so much of what we see is catty or demeaning or just plain stupid.

And when they don’t, I have to bring them back to reality. When I found out my teen watched an episode of “The Bachelor”, I counteracted it with a documentary about the oppression of women around the world, “Half the Sky.” When my tween sees women in a cat fight, I quickly suggest a viewing of “My Fair Lady.”

What I am suggesting is that you take a moment as a parent to sit down and watch a little television with your kids. Think about what they are seeing, what message they are receiving, what information they are storing for later, even into adulthood. Find out why they watch what they do when you aren’t around. Engage them. I like that approach much better than walking into the family room and declaring their shows crap or forbidding them from watching certain things.

And I still have plenty of time to teach them how to pronounce schadenfreude.

Help Us Find a Cure

I thought we were going to be immune from it, but sadly, no. Bieber fever has hit our home. It was bound to happen. I have two daughters, one thirteen, the other eleven. If that isn’t his demographic, I don’t know what is. Maybe pedophiles. And grandmas, if they don’t have to listen to him sing, but can just pinch his smooth young cheeks. Regardless, I have somehow raised a Bieber fan, a Bieleber, despite my good intentions and years of careful emphasis on quality music and intellectual grooming. I am living the Teen Beat nightmare.

At this point, the fever has only hit the teenager, but it’s only a matter of time before the tween catches it too. The teen, who has been playing guitar for three, almost four years, and piano for eight years, doesn’t mind listening to his overproduced bubblegum pop. She is normally very opinionated about music, and eschews all things popular with the masses, so it makes no sense why she would like little Justin. He looks younger than her, for Christ’s sake. He’s shorter than her as well. He’s also way more feminine than her. He probably got his period before she did. He’s a pretty young boy, don’t get me wrong, but hot? Hunky? Sexy? Nope. Nonthreatening is about the best I can come up with. He looks like he hasn’t come out yet, so he’s safe for preteen girls. He doesn’t look like he will give them HPV; he looks like he could do their nails.

But let’s get back to his so-called music. He’s certainly not the first pop star who is more a product than a musician, so I’m not judging him solely on the fact that he doesn’t write most of his music or the fact that it’s so overproduced that it’s virtually all created in a studio, devoid of talent.  No one is going to say in ten, twenty, fifty years, Wow, that Justin Bieber, what an artist. They might say, What ever happened to that little Canadian lesbian? But mostly, they will say what they are thinking now, which is, hey, Justin, better save up that money. My beef with him is the over exposure. Bieber on tv. Bieber on the radio. Bieber cologne. Bieber is everywhere. Does he have to be in my home too?

Normally, I wouldn’t give a crap about the current Justin Bieber or whoever used to be Justin Bieber or whoever will be the next Justin Bieber. It’s all back to my teen. She flaunts her love of him in front of me, taunting me, daring me to forbid her from listening to his music. I’m telling you, this is a teenage girl issue. You lucky fuckers with your sons, what’s the worst they can throw at you? Speed metal? Hard core rap? Try a little Justin. I’ll take Wiz Khalifa over JB any day, unless they have collaborated, in which case, never mind.

The other day while driving my teen to school, a Bieb song came on the radio and she forced me to listen to it while she sang along. “I feel that I have failed you as a parent,” I said to her. “Don’t say that, Mom,” she said. “Well, I must have done something wrong if you’ve turned to the dark side of the radio,” I replied. “Don’t blame yourself, it just is. These things just happen,” she said, and I swear she winked at me.

But they don’t just happen. My girls were too young to be Hilary Duff fans. They were the Miley Cyrus generation, and we came out unscathed. They both hated Miley, either as herself or the evil Hannah Montana.Even now, they could care less about One Direction or any other boy band. They will listen to Florence and the Machine over Demi Lovato. Hell, they spend hours combing the internet looking for new artists that haven’t hit it big yet. How does my teen reconcile her edginess and trendsetting with her love of Justin?

I’ve decided that the only way I can accept this from her is by declaring it an act of rebellion. She doesn’t really like him. She just says that to get under my skin. She knows it makes me insane to hear her squeal when his voice cracks on the radio. She forced me to watch his hosting of Saturday Night Live, sacrilegious on its own, so she could see his twinkly brown eyes and ridiculous six pack. Even that looks wrong, like muscles on a baby.

I’m trying to not complain too much, lest this painful phase lasts too long. If I go along with her and don’t put up too much fight, I figure she’ll lose interest and move onto to something else. Of course, that could be worse than the Justin thing I am dealing with now, even if I can’t imagine how.

Back in the day, I had a bizarre haircut and color phase. I owned a Suicidal Tendencies record. I took up smoking at fourteen to earn a little street cred.  None of it got much of a rise out of my mom, so I kept upping the ante without permanently jeopardizing my health or my future. With her, nothing worked, so I stopped trying. You can’t rebel against someone who doesn’t exactly give a shit.

 I’m not sure how much fight to put up against whatever my teen throws at me. Do I do just enough to let her know I still care, or do I ignore until it goes away?I’m at a loss, and until I figure out the right approach, I will have to endure that puny heartthrob, with his stupid sneakers and crotch grabbing.

No amount of grabbing down there will make your testicles descend, Justin. Just saying. So stop, because it makes you look like you’ve got a rash, and rashes, like you, aren’t sexy. Also, stop your Svengali mind fuck of my, nay, all of our teenage daughters. Go take some voice lessons, maybe do a Broadway musical or something equally obscure and unpopular with the 13-17 girl demographic. Then maybe I can have my daughter back.

Mail Call

The other day, I got my panties in a wad when my teen called me old in the Chick Fil A drive through line. I had made a comment about how young people experience déjà vu more often than older people, and she made some snarky comment that boiled down to me being old. I can’t remember the actual comment but it certainly offended me at the time. Why can’t I remember what she said? Because I’m too old to have functioning short- term memory.

I never thought I would be one of those people who would spend a great deal of time remembering how things used to be, mainly because that’s something that old people do.  Only I find more and more that I do wax nostalgic for things that I took for granted in my youth. Like Saturday mail delivery.

The US Postal Service has announced it will discontinue Saturday mail delivery service in an effort to reduce costs and remain relevant. The change takes effect in August, so we still have plenty of time to get those last minute bills in the mail on a Saturday morning. No mail on Saturday makes me sad. Am I the only one who feels this way?

I loved getting mail when I was a kid, not that I ever did. I would obsessively look out the window, waiting for that familiar boxy white truck to work its way down the street, stopping in front of my house. If I was really lucky, I might have a card from an aunt or, gasp, even my father, or maybe the latest Ranger Rick magazine. I never minded licking stamps, and for a very short period, I even collected them, although I have no idea where I got enough of a variety to fill a cigar box. Have kids today ever licked a stamp? Come to think of it, do kids today even know what a cigar box is?

I still get a little excited when I see the mail truck coming down my street, even if I’m the one that pays the bills that are delivered now that I’m old. er. Older.   I have even, in the past week, stood at the end of my driveway so the mailman (can I still call him a mailman, or do I have to say postal worker?) can put the mail directly in my hand, as if I were awaiting the sea monkeys I ordered from the back of my comic book. I never outgrew my love of receiving mail, in the same way I still get a little excited over the ice cream truck, summers out of school, fat snowflakes falling from the sky, or when the cat settles down in my lap. Simple things are sometimes my favorite.

I’ll stop myself before I break out in song like Maria in “The Sound of Music,” but honestly, I fear that mail delivery is on the same road to obsolescence as CD players, tape players, record players, telegrams, chamber pots, and iron maidens.

Think for a minute.  No more mail. No more thank you cards. No more love letters. Instead, we can get electronic bills, ecards, and tweets of our loved one’s genitals. No wonder they don’t teach cursive anymore. I’m one day my future grandchildren won’t even learn how to write.

I have an eReader, but I rarely use it. I want to hold a book in my hand. I want to turn the pages. And if I liked it, I want to lend it to my sister or my friends:  Here, read this. It’s really good.

On Sundays, I occasionally persuade my younger daughter to sit with me and read the paper. She only picks up the crappy comics, but she reads Blondie and Garfield every time, and every time she wonders why she reads them because they aren’t funny. If we only read the newspaper online, we could scroll directly past Blondie and Garfield. And we could each be on a different iPad or tablet, and we couldn’t interact at all. If we had no newspaper, what would the cat sit on and attack?

I understand that the United States Postal Service is a dinosaur with a giant meteor aiming for it. But it’s more than just the snail mail. It is one of the last carriers of written human interaction. It starts with no Saturday delivery and forty five cent stamps, but where will it end?

I pay my bills online, I shop online, and I read online. But every so often, I stop what I am doing, put on a pair of shoes, and walk down the driveway to the mail box. I open the black door, and pull out a stack of papers, of possibilities. Most of it is junk, trash, wasted trees, but sometimes, it’s a little treasure, an invitation, a thank you letter from my nephew, a refund from the doctor’s office, a small package from my friend in Colorado. In that moment, I remember what it was like to be a child, to be the one to get the mail, which seemed like a privilege so many years ago.

Does that make me old? No, my age does that. It makes me pause. The world is changing so quickly, even before our eyes, and sometimes it takes an insult in the drive through line to remind us that teenagers are a real pain in the ass, and also how much of the world has evolved  in each of our lifetimes.  Some things I can’t wait for, like zero calorie chocolate and noninvasive knee replacement surgery. And others, like the possibility of no more mail, just make me wistful.

 Also, according to my teenager, only old people use words like wistful.

Murder Was the Case That They Gave Me

“How was school today?” I asked daughter, S, when she got in the car.

“We had some people come to talk to us today. Well, just to the fifth graders,” she said.

“What about?” I asked her.

The possibilities were endless. You never know what the school has planned. Sometimes it’s a virtual field trip talking with an astronomer in New Mexico. Sometimes it’s a dance troupe that performs in the cafeteria.  You know, something enriching or educational.

“It was about making choices. They brought in some inmates to talk to us about drugs and stuff.”

“Wait, what? Inmates? How did you know they were inmates? Were they wearing orange jumpsuits?”

“No, Mom. Orange is for the detention center. These people were in khaki jumpsuits. But don’t worry; they had a couple of cops with them."

Yes, that made me feel much better.

“Exactly how many inmates did you listen to? And what was the ratio of inmate to cop?” This story needed more details before it could even get started.

“There were four of them, and two police officers. Three men and a woman,” she said. “Now, be quiet so I can tell you about them.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I am all ears.”

“They started by telling us why they are in prison,” she began. “The first guy was in jail for seven years for drugs. He had some drugs in his car, and he lied about it to the police, and then he went home and the police wanted to search the car and the house cause they thought he was lying, and then he let them and he had the drugs and the police could have taken the car and his parents’ house. Now he is in jail for seven years and he was only seventeen.”

“So I guess he shouldn’t have lied?” I asked.

“No, Mom, he shouldn’t have the drugs. They don’t send you to jail for lying.”

“Have you heard of perjury?” I asked her.

“No, but do you want to hear this story or not?”

“Of course I do. Please continue.”

“Well, stop interrupting,” she instructed me. “The next one had drugs and sold them. I think he got eleven years in jail.”

“Sounds like a bad choice to me,” I said.

“The next one was kind of sad. It was a woman, and she sold drugs too, but she said she only did it so she could take of her kids. She has two kids, and their mom is in jail for twelve years. She is younger than you, Mom, but she doesn’t look like it.”

“Thanks,” I said.  “I’m glad I look better than a drug dealer in prison.”

“Younger,” she clarified. “Then the last one spoke, and he was in jail for murder, Mom. Can you believe they brought a murderer to an elementary school?”

“Um, no, I cannot,” I said. Especially not after Sandy Hook. Who thought bringing a murderer to talk to fifth graders was a good idea?

“So, anyway, he had drugs too, but then he got in a fight with this other guy, and something happened, and he ended up stabbing him.  And the guy died. He’s in jail for twenty-three years.”

“That’s pretty messed up,” I said to her.

“They talked about how bad life is in jail too. They said for breakfast they have to eat grits, and they’re yellow but they don’t have any cheese or butter in them.”

“They’re made from yellow corn. That’s not so bad.”

“Well, they also have to eat scrambled eggs that have eyelashes and fingernails in them and stuff,” she told me.

That’s a little worse,” I said.

“For lunch, they get a hard biscuit and a wet piece of lunch meat. They said they can wring out the juice from it.”

“That’s pretty nasty,” I agreed. “What about dinner?”

“I don’t remember except they said they get gravy and it’s green. I could not eat in prison,” she told me.

“Another good reason to not go there,” I told her.

“Anyway, when they left and we went back to class, a bunch of kids were all sad, talking about how they felt sorry for them, but I told them I didn’t feel sorry for them at all.”

“Not even a little bit?” I asked.

“No. Nobody made them do drugs, and certainly nobody made them sell drugs. They made a stupid choice, so it’s their own fault. I feel sorry for that woman’s kids, but not for the people in jail.”

I thought about launching into a conversation of unfair jail sentences for non-violent drug offenders and the flaws in our legal system, but I thought that might undermine the intention of the little talk, namely for the children to stay away from drugs and make good choices, like staying in school, and if possible, staying ten forever.

“I still can’t believe they brought a murderer into school,” she said. “We’re only in fifth grade.”

Good point, my child. What are they going to do next week? Make them watch “Silence of the Lambs?” At least they didn’t pack up the whole fifth grade and cart them off to a maximum security facility. Or take them to a crack house. Or the morgue.  Still, the last thing you expect your child to tell you is that her school chose to bring drug dealers and murderers to school for a little pep talk. Maybe in art class tomorrow they can learn how to make shivs out of their cafeteria sporks.

We Don't Come From the Land of the Ice and Snow

Snow days in the South are a blast. You can stay home and watch the beauty of the fat, white flakes falling gently to the ground. At some point, if you are lucky, the snow will start to stick, covering the bushes and the trees and grass with a cottony softness, until the whole neighborhood glares pure white. Children will bundle up in their warmest coats and gloves and hats and scarves and pour out of their front doors. From inside, you can hear their yells of delight as they sled down driveways and throw snowballs and pile up what little snow there is into something resembling a snowman, complete with stick arms and maybe a spare scarf and hat. After everyone is icy wet and red cheeked with cold, they come back inside to warm up with a movie and a steaming mug of hot cocoa. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Only we don’t get snow days all that often. Instead, we get the clusterfuck known as the ice storm. I don’t know how you Northerners deal with ice storms, but here in the way down South, we like to run around like decapitated chickens. First, we have to do a bunch of speculatin’. Will it or won’t it? When’s it going to start? How long is it going to last? You would think the Great Blizzard was coming, threatening to trap us inside our homes for weeks as opposed to the potentially twenty-four hours we might have to remain inside our largest investment, the one place we are supposed to be the most comfortable and relaxed. We don’t have ankle monitors or house arrest, we have unsafe roads. We need to get over ourselves here in the land of cotton.

Today is one such day. Last night across the South, we all fretted about the amount of milk and bread and eggs, whether school would be cancelled or not, if the storm was in fact a storm or a bunch of hype. In my house, we started the day with the realization that we forgot to set the alarm, followed by the shock that it wasn’t Saturday, which gave way to the panic that we had to leave in a half an hour for school, which had not been cancelled despite an eighty percent chance of sleet and freezing rain with high’s in the low thirties.

By some great miracle, the children were ready for school, dressed appropriately and breakfast eaten, in only thirty minutes. School began for my younger daughter, S, at eight, and for the older one, E, at eight-thirty. At 9:15, the school board decided to rub their three brain cells together and cancel school at ten. Forty-five minutes doesn’t allow much time for school buses and parents to figure out how to get kids home. Luckily, we had told both of our daughters to ride the bus home if school dismissed early, and they both checked to make sure they had keys, so we had our plan.

I decided to not stand out in the sleet to wait for S’s bus, figuring since she had a key, she would just walk the one lot's distance from the bus stop to her house and let herself in.  Instead, she called from one street over. It seems that since I didn’t wait for the bus, she figured I wasn’t home, and instead of letting herself into her own home with her own key, she would go to a friend’s house and call my cell phone.  Way to problem solve, eleven year old child of mine. I can see how that Montessori education has paid off with your ability to think through a situation and of course your independence.

The teen, even more resourceful, texted me at ten to let me know that school was dismissed. I reminded E that she was to ride the bus, to which she replied she was “just checking.” Then she asked where her father was. I texted back he was getting his hair cut, so she tried him next, texting him that school was out and in total chaos. He didn’t fall for it either and reminded her about the bus.

I should mention at this point that there was maybe a little frozen drizzle. We are not talking branches knocking out power lines and thick ice accumulating on roads. The town was not a skating rink.

Around 10:40, I texted E to find out where she was.  She texted back that the bus never showed up and she was still in class with the other neglected children whose parents refused to pick them up at school. I hopped in the car and drove, turning at a side road that heads to the back entrance of the school. The road was blocked by a cop car, two ambulances, and a couple of fire trucks. After being detoured through a neighborhood, I drove the other way to her school. On the bridge in that direction was another accident, less severe in that it didn’t block the whole road, but still it involved two trucks, one of which no longer had a rear axle. I was able to pass both these accidents safely because I, a woman who learned how to drive in Florida, slowed down and did not jam on my brakes. I picked up my daughter and drove back home without incident. 

A little while later, one of E’s friends texted her to see if she was hurt. It turns out that first accident I saw was E’s bus, on the way to her school. It skidded off the road and landed on its side, and luckily there were no children yet on it, although the bus driver may have been injured.

So now trapped inside, as we knew we would be, boredom has free reign. Three fights have already occurred and a giant bag of popcorn has exploded all over the floor. The laundry has been washed, but the piano remains unpracticed. The iPad needs to be charged so it can be fought over again. According to my children, there is nothing to do. According to me, there is a ton to do, and if they don't stop complaining, they are going to have to do it. The whole ton.

On the plus side, I have just witnessed a thirteen year old have an actual lying on the floor kicking and flailing and crying tantrum. It looks a lot like when a three year old does it, only with black tears from the massive amounts of caked-on mascara. I had to issue a time out, but not until it was declared that I don’t understand and I don’t care, which is kind of true. I don’t care. It’s sleet. Go practice for the SAT you might not be taking tomorrow. Go read a book. Go take a shower or text your friends or learn how to masturbate. There are LOTS of things you could be doing if you got off my floor and acted your age.

Anyway, it’s sleeting. I can hear the little icy pellets bouncing off the windows.  Tomorrow it is supposed to be sunny and in the fifties. And all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I better go hide all the axes.

Mom's Morning Out

If you have a teenager, when was the last time you spent a full day alone with it? I had that misfortune last week when my daughter had three doctor’s appointments, and let me tell you, I don’t plan on doing that again anytime soon. My daughter, E, is now thirteen, only she thinks she’s sixteen. While she still occasionally wants a hug or to have a conversation with me, she has decided that she knows everything and therefore doesn’t have to listen to her parents or teachers anymore.

Since there is nothing left to learn, she finds the world a pretty boring place, especially the part of the world in which she spends most of her time. Her family is boring, her school is boring, her friends are boring, there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, blah blah blah. I can’t even understand half her complaints because she has taken to mumbling full time. If I don’t respond to what I can’t hear, then she adds sighing and eye rolling. Three year old tantrums are starting to be a reminder of the good old days, when I could at least pick up my child and cart them off to another room for a time out.

 We started the morning at the orthodontist’s office. E has been wearing orthodontia of some form since she was eight. She’s had four rounds of expanders and has been in braces for over two years now. You would think she’d be pretty eager to get them off, but sadly, no.

It all comes down to rubber bands. Every six weeks we go to the orthodontist, and he gives her a couple of packs of rubber bands which she is supposed to hook in various versions of cat’s cradle inside her mouth. She is to wear them at all times except during meals. She chooses not to.

Instead, she hides her bags of rubber bands in my car or in my purse.  Which means that the braces she should have had removed over a year ago are still hanging out on her teeth. I didn’t realize she could have been train track free for that long because she has forbidden me from joining her for her orthodontist exams, since I talk too much and therefore embarrass her. I wanted to ask her doctor specifically what she needed to do to get those braces off. He said, as politely as he could, that if she would just wear the rubber bands, she would be finished with the braces.

When we got in the car, I said to her, “You want your lecture now or later?”

She said, “I’ll take it now,” and proceeded to lecture me about why she still has her braces on, about how it’s not her fault and she forgets and they hurt and they shouldn’t make that much difference anyway and who cares if her teeth are straight.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “it doesn’t work like this. I am going to lecture you, not the other way around. You are the one who has to sit there and listen.”

I went off on what a waste of everyone’s time it was to continue to go to these appointments if she wasn’t going to do what she was supposed to do. I made her find every package of rubber bands and hold them in her hands to illustrate how many days she has been noncompliant with her treatment. I pointed out that she must really like braces since the only reason she still wears them is because of her. And I raised my voice some, because the more I talked, the better it felt to say everything louder.

 

 

That is a pile of rubber bands, not rubbers.

 

We went home. She stormed upstairs to her room, and I stayed downstairs and took out my frustration on Facebook.

Next it was time to go to the pediatrician. She refuses to see any doctor except the one she has gone to since she was a baby. He now practices on the other side of town, so I indulged her by driving twenty five minutes to get to his new office. She was measured and weighed and had her hearing checked, which, shockingly, was completely normal.  Then the doctor came in the exam room and attempted interaction. He has a thirteen year old daughter as well, so he knows a little about the breed.

He did the usual stuff and then reviewed her growth over the past year. She declared herself fatter than her friends, which is infuriating. She wears a size three jeans, and she is 5’7”. Plus, every afternoon when she gets home from school, she raids the pantry of all its chocolate. Seriously, even the chocolate chips I buy for cookies are half gone, the bag wide open, I might add, just like the pantry doors, which is how I can tell she had been looting. Anyway, she isn’t fat, which the doctor told her in a professional and tactful manner. She interrupted him several times to argue about why she thinks she’s a porker, including bringing up her 80 pound friend who is severely underweight as an example of normal. He ended every sentence with, “What do I know; I’m just a doctor.”

The same thing happened during their argument over the effectiveness of ibuprofen on menstrual cramps. The teen mumbled. The doctor patiently explained how ibuprofen works. Then the teen argued about it some more, with mumbles, until the pediatrician said a variation of his other line, “Well, if I were a doctor, I might know what I am talking about.” Clearly she feels comfortable with him, at least enough to treat him like an idiot, much like she does with her father and me.

Then we drove home again. On the way, she had to tell me when to switch lanes on the interstate, as if she knew what she was talking about. I ignored her and told her what options we had for lunch. Bagels, soup, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, veggie burgers. She rejected everything and went for a giant bowl of Fruity Pebbles when we got home. Those don't make you fat at all.

After lunch, it was time to go to the dermatologist. I told her I would stay in the waiting room, but this time she insisted I go back with her. She seemed to have lost her will to fight, perhaps because she was sleepy, so she just mumbled at him but kept the arguing to a minimum. He asked her if she had any concerns, and she said no, so I reminded her she was worried about some new moles that had appeared on her youthful milky white skin. He examined them and told her they were looked normal. She glared at me for speaking.

After that appointment, I didn’t drive home. I drove to school.

“Where are we going now?” she mumbled at me.

“School,” I said. “The day’s not over yet.”

“Why can’t I just stay home? I’ve missed most of the day anyway,” she said to me.

“It’s not yet sixth period,” I answered. “If I drive faster, I can get you there in time.”

She mumbled at me and turned to face the passenger window to let me know she was mad at me, again.

The day was all about her, but she didn’t see it that way. She didn’t want to be at school, but she didn’t want to be home. She didn’t want to go to the doctors’ offices. She didn’t want to go back alone, but she didn’t want me there either. She didn’t want to hear what any of her doctors had to say, and she didn’t want to do what she was told to. She doesn’t know what she wants. She wants to be treated like an adult but wants to act like a kid.

No wonder she is tired all the time. That shit is exhausting.