Please Refrain From Tickling the Ivories

Some people are game for anything, and some people, like me, just aren’t. I don’t really have a bucket list of things to do, like sky diving or BMX racing or auditioning for American Idol. Chances are pretty good that if I haven’t tried it by now, I must have a reason. My reticence for new experiences isn’t limited to wild or dangerous activities. I have no interest in eating a “belly” or anything contained therein, but that doesn’t make me boring. If I’ve made it this far without developing a taste for offal or lake fish or even rutabagas, and I’m good with that. I don’t need to hear the right country song to convert me, because it just doesn’t exist, and even if it did, it would still be country music, and I would still change the channel, and that’s okay. I don’t need to think outside the box; the box is quite cozy, thank you. If boxes aren’t comfy, then why do cats always try to sit in them?

My attempt at living on the edge, of going outside my comfort zone, was going to a piano bar. I know, I know, it wasn’t like I hand fed an alligator. Still, I had never been to a piano bar before, and I didn’t feel like I had been missing anything. But it was my good friend TA’s birthday, and it was an evening out with the ladies, and so I went along. It’s called “being a good sport.” Did I mention sports are another thing I know I don’t like? I like my friend, and I like birthdays, and I like music, and so I thought, I’ll try to have a good time.

Turns out, I don’t like piano bars. Now, I would never have known if I didn’t go, but now I do, and I won’t be making that mistake again.

We arrived to a full house, tables mostly full, facing a small stage with two grand pianos with a few other instruments scattered about. Our table was of course right up front by the stage, and we all ordered drinks to liven up our mood as we waited for the show to begin. Near us were some other large parties, some of which also were there for birthday celebrations, which led me to believe this was more a special event thing than a regular night out, kind of like going for fondue. The drinks were pricey, the tables were crowded, and the noise was loud. I was already regretting my decision to come along, but tried to remember it was because I love TA. 

That’s when the pianists came out and took the stage. The two men seated themselves at each piano, and then they engaged the crowd with an opening song and a little explanation of how the piano bar concept works. Basically, each table has a collection of slips of paper and little golf pencils. Patrons are encouraged to write down the names of songs they want to hear, and then take it up to the pianos along with some money. If the musicians were familiar with the song or if the price was right, they would play it, a living jukebox of sorts.

Immediately, the people at the tables dove into their pockets and purses and produced wads of single dollar bills. Singles were everywhere, more like a strip club than a piano bar. People slowly started approaching the pianos, but before long, they were making it rain all over that stage, single dollars flying everywhere. While one pianist would play a song, the other would look through the request slips, deciding what he knew or liked, and what he didn’t want to play he would toss onto the other piano. The money collected went into a gigantic tip jar. The whole process was frenetic and odd.

So what did people want to hear? Bill Joel. Lots of Billy Joel. Sometimes some Beatles, maybe a little Jimmy Buffet,  an occasional Don McLean, but Billy Joel was the man. The piano man.

I’m not much of a Billy Joel fan, to be honest. My father was a huge one, and whenever we went to visit him, we could expect to hear at least one album a day, to remind my sisters and I how lucky we were that he didn’t have custody of us. What made all the Billy Joel worse was that I knew all the words, singing them in my head against my will.

I decided to make a hasty retreat to the bathroom, if only to get away from the crowd, who also knew all the words and sang along drunkenly to every song. The music was more muffled in the restroom, but as I entered my stall, I noticed a thoughtless lady patron at some point in the evening had attempted to flush her tampon, with no success.

It wasn’t just gross; it was also ridiculously stupid. In every woman’s restroom in America for at least the last twenty years, signs are posted about not flushing feminine hygiene products. In fact, every stall has its own little waste basket mounted on the wall specifically for your disgusting used pads and tampons, because they don’t flush, and if they accidentally do make it down the pipes, they will fuck up the plumbing something awful. It is common knowledge to not flush a tampon, ever.

I had a dilemma. Did I pee in that stall and let the next person think I was the bleeding idiot who left my tampon like a buoy floating in the bowl, or did I leave that stall for another, opening myself up to judgment from the other women waiting to go?

After I returned to the table, I settled down and tried to have a good time. That ended the minute the crowd began putting their arms around each other’s shoulders, swaying in time to the next Billy Joel song, singing along loudly, pausing only to have another sip of whatever intoxicant they were ingesting. I also don't "sing along." It's one of the things I hated most about going to camp. I don't want to sing along, and I don't sway, and I also don't want to clap when instructed. I am not there to be part of a show. I just want to be left alone, with my thoughts, in the middle of the crowd.

I leaned over to one of my friends and said, “I think I am ready to go.” 

“No!” she said. “Just a little longer. I paid good money for them to embarrass TA.”

That was another thing money could buy you: a little public humiliation. A few other people in the crowd were also celebrating birthdays, and for a Hamilton, the pianists would call up the birthday boy or girl and make them do stupid shit. Two women had to act out the timeless classic “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” which devolved into some sort of lesbian groping display, much to the delight of most of the men and a select few of the women. Another woman, Rhonda, also was called up to the stage, but she angrily and adamantly refused to participate. I liked Rhonda. She has moxie.

During a Chuck Berry song, an older gentleman from the audience approached the stage and offered twenty dollars if he could play since he knew that song. The pianist obliged him, and he sat down and really rocked it out. Bolstered by the crowd’s support and the sense of entitlement that comes with spending twenty bucks on nothing, he decided he was going to play a few more songs, even going so far as dedicating one of them to someone at his table. There was no getting this man off the stage. During his pretty adequate rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire,” the pianist, who had nothing better to do, poured a shot of liquor on the piano top and light it up. The crowd went wild. I was at my limit.

When the next Billy Joel song started, I got up and said goodbye, nicely I hope, but I just had to get the fuck out of there. As I left, the bouncer asked me if I was planning on returning. “Never,” I said to him. “Never again.”

 “One!” he yelled to the people in line behind the rope, waiting to get in. “I got room for one!” A rope, with people waiting, in my town in South Carolina, to get into one of the circles of hell. 

What I Did for My Summer Vacation

The short answer?  A whole lotta nothing.

After seven weeks of not writing, I am ready to have a creative outlet again. It’s not so much that I had a busy summer or even that I’ve had nothing to say; mostly, it was a little of both.

Summer wasn’t supposed to be busy because my kids had very little camp time and we had no big trips planned.  It was a lackadaisical kind of a thing, a day to day existence without rhyme or reason or routine. Somehow, without anything significant or major to occupy our time, we passed week after week going from one town to the next like renaissance minstrels, rather than the vaudeville kind. We started and ended the summer with beach trips, and managed to fit two more beach trips in between. We visited family, we went to a concert, we traveled around the tri-state area (pick any three states; it really doesn’t matter). The whole time, it rained almost every day and the temperatures never soared above a temperate mid 80’s. This clearly was not our typical summer.

As each week went by, we got more and more used to doing less and less. I went to the gym less. I put on less makeup and made myself less presentable. I exercised less self-control when it came to cartons of ice cream and things covered in chocolate. I was less strict about enforcing bedtimes. It seemed less important to get out of bed early, especially if it was raining. I stopped caring if everyone ate less healthy at less regular intervals.

My daughters took full advantage of our simplified summer.  Less rules. Less piano and guitar practice. Less shopping and crafts and organized activities. As the summer went on, they spent less time with friends, and the end result was they fought with each other less. Sure, they were less social, but there was less reason to be.

And the best part is I couldn’t have cared less.

Yes, I had less time for me, but sometimes less is more. The more time I spent with my kids, the more I enjoyed them for who they are. The less I did, the more I relaxed. The less I yelled, the more we all laughed.

It wasn’t like we were hitchhiking across the country, stopping in towns and washing dishes in diners and sleeping on strangers’ floors until we saved enough to go to the next town. In fact, it was nothing like that, as there was no anonymous sex or drug use involved. But still, it was as close to vagabond as we’ve ever been, my over-protected upper middle class suburban children and I. Maybe next summer I will take it a step farther. I’ve give them each a stick with a bandana on the end and a can of pork and beans and drop them off at some railroad tracks and tell them to not come back for eight weeks. Wait, then I’d see them less, and I’m pretty sure I would miss them after the first month.

We're Out of the Special

I am ready to go on strike.

I have always enjoyed cooking and baking; it's how I show my love.  Lately, though, cooking has become, well, a chore.  It seems every day my husband or my teenager is on a new diet. Add that to my other daughter who is allergic to half of all the food and hates the other half, and you try making one dinner everyone will eat. If these people I live with refuse to agree on some foods in common, then I am going to start just making what I like. And I like some pretty weird stuff.

I remember those Hamburger Helper commercials from when I was a kid. The Helping Hand was cute as hell, but his food sucked.  Who needs all that extra salt and fat, or worse, who needs a box of Hamburger Helper when there is a perfectly good box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?  I also remember the Chef Boy R Dee pizza mix, and that was a treat. I suppose that was before Hot Pockets and Totino's Pizza Rolls and Bagel Bites, when people wanted a pizza but had no way to acquire one, hence the need for a shelf stable version.

Yeah, I don't make any of those things for my family. I make them real food, from real ingredients. I shop the perimeter of the store. Generally speaking, I cook from what’s known as scratch, and I do it happily. Only lately, not so much.

My husband, in an effort to lose ten pounds, the same ten pounds he has wanted to lose for years, has decided he is going to low carb it until he reaches his goal. Fine, whatever. The problem is, I don’t eat red meat, not even the other white meat, and I also don’t cook it. He, on the other hand, won’t eat any eggs or tofu, and also hesitates when the main protein is beans. Which leaves us fish and poultry. My teen is on an anti-poultry kick and read somewhere that soy is bad for teenage girls, so she is off tofu and all fake meat products.  My baby girl won’t eat seafood. She also won’t eat eggs, tofu, beans, or red meat, which leaves poultry. So much for a main course everyone will agree on.

OK, there’s always lasagna. Except the teen won’t eat dairy right now because it makes her acne worse. And the baby girl gets heartburn from red sauce.

You try cooking for these people.

Vegetables present a whole other issue. Three of us will eat salad unless I put cheese or beans or carrots on it. One will eat cucumbers if nothing else touches them. Two eat broccoli, one eats squash, and no one wants any more cabbage because I made it too often since I thought it was something they all liked.

Starch? Forget that too. The man is off of starch in any shape or variety. One likes rice or couscous, but won’t eat potatoes, not even the sweet ones. The other one is the opposite.

I keep trying to remind them that Mama ain’t running a meat and three, but it isn't working.

When my husband was growing up, he had to sit at the table until he cleaned his plate. He would sit there for hours, having a staredown with the green beans, seeing who would cave first. My mother played it a little differently. She would make things that no kid in their right mind would want to eat, like fried chicken livers or some sort of chicken fried cube steak, the tough overcooked version. If you didn’t eat it, she didn’t make you sit until it was gone; she made you leave the house. If you weren’t going to eat her nasty cooking, she didn’t want to have to look at the shitty expression on your face, so outside you had to go. Many a night I would sit on the back steps of the house, staring at my dumb dog who wanted to be outside with me on the other side of the glass sliding doors, waiting for the meal to end and the smell to dissipate. Why I never learned to just feed my crappy meal to the dog under the table, I'll never know.

What I mean is, back in the day, you ate what was put in front of you or you went hungry. If you ate at a restaurant, you had what was on the menu or you had a hamburger. There was no such thing as a kids menu.  There was no choice of chicken fingers or a grilled cheese sandwich, nor did everything come with fries. And guess what, my house doesn’t have one either. Now we are so concerned about overeating we don't make kids clean their plates, but we also forgot we aren't short order cooks.

Those people I live with are wearing me out. Don’t make something I love to do into a chore. Just eat the damn food.

My grandfather, Pop-pop, used to tell a joke about three cowboys out on the ranch. One of them had to be responsible for the cooking, and they drew straws to see had to do the chore. The loser told the others he would cook, but if they ever complained, that would be the end. So day in and out, the other two cowboys would go out, herding the cattle, and the loser would stay back and prepare the evening meal. Days turned into weeks, with never a complaint about the food. Finally, the cowboy was tired of it. He waited one day for the other two cowpokes to go out riding, and then he gathered up a bunch of cow patties. He floured them up and fried them in the cast iron skillet, even made a pan gravy, and served them up for dinner that night. They all sat around the campfire, the two cowboys chewing and swallowing but not saying a word. Finally, the cowboy asked, "How's dinner?" and one of the cowboys said, "Tastes like shit, but good!"

That joke is the basis of my cooking philosophy.

I’m thinking about going to a seven meal rotation, you know, meat loaf on Monday, tacos Tuesday, Spaghetti Wednesday, grilled chicken Thursday, and Fish Stick Friday. You don’t like what I make now; just wait until it’s meatloaf every Monday. You’ll be begging for some black bean soup or a lovely tofu stir fry.

Or here’s another idea. Make your own damn dinner.

Cast a Wider Net

Once a week, my teen has a guitar lesson at a music store that sells both new and used string instruments, guitars, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, as well as song books and accessories. Usually, I park myself in the very small waiting area while my daughter has her lesson.  I take a book along but just pretend to read it because the people that come and go in the store are more entertaining.

It’s nothing like when my daughters have piano lessons at a studio down the street that is frequented by home schoolers or Jesus freaks from the local unaccredited Christian fanatic educational institution. When I have to wait there, I am surrounded by breeders with a minimum of four children, none of which they attempt to control, and it’s the same people every week.  At guitar, you never know who will walk through the door, which lends an air of mystery to the whole experience. Plus, the waiting area is too small for large families, and they teach, gasp, rock music, so it’s not the same crowd at all.

One day, as I sat there with my younger daughter listening to the teen play the same chord over and over in the other room, the door burst open and in strode a young man wearing a shirt and tie, full of purpose. He shouted, “Hey, man” to the guy working behind the counter, then turned to where we sat and apologized to us for startling us. We were startled, honestly; it was so peaceful before he rushed into the room with such drama. I assumed he was friends with the guy behind the counter because his greeting seemed so personal somehow, as if the salesman had been waiting to see him all day.

He walked up to the counter and said, “Hey, man, do you know anyone who likes makeup?”

That wasn’t what I expected at all.

The guy behind the counter is new to the guitar shop, and clearly he has had no previous experience, both with working retail and with interacting with people. He doesn’t know how to do a credit card sale. He doesn’t know where they keep the guitar stands. And he doesn’t know how to answer the phone. He is definitely not trained on how to deal with make-up salesmen.  He wore a blank expression on his face, but with his head tilted just enough to indicate his confusion, much like a puppy.

“Um, my mom, I guess?” He answered the question with a question. He wasn’t really sure his mom liked makeup, but she was the only woman he knew.

“Well, listen,” the salesman said. “I have an incredible deal to offer you on a makeup kit. It’s got everything you need right in one convenient set up.”

My daughter and I sat there, mesmerized. I couldn’t believe the balls on this salesman. Who just walks into a store and tries to sell stuff to the guy behind the counter, who is, in fact, also there to do sales? Even odder, who walks into a guitar store and tries to sell make-up to an adolescent boy? Why didn’t the kid tell him no, or, better yet, try to sell him a guitar?

He continued on with his make-up spiel, about how useful and affordable it was, but it was clear he lost his audience, if he ever actually had it. The counter boy just stared at him, confused.  The odd part is that I was the only woman there, but the salesman never addressed me, only the teenage boy. Maybe he is authorized to sell make up to the employee of a retail establishment but not the other customers there.

When the salesman finished, he asked If the teenage boy might be interested in buying the kit for his mom, at which point the boy answered, “Um, not really?” like he wasn’t really sure but he should probably say no.

“Hey, no hard feelings, man,” the salesmen said. “Maybe not today.” And he flew back out, much as he did when he came in, like a blonde tornado.

We sat there in the silence, until the boy behind the counter said, “Well, that was random.”

Indeed, it was. It was one of those “did that just happen?” moments, one that leaves you more puzzled than amused. He certainly didn’t look like the Avon lady or Mary Kay. Who hires a twenty something straight blond man to sell make-up door to door? He never even indicated the brand of cosmetics, so maybe the whole thing was a ruse, but why? And why didn’t he try to sell it to me? Did I already look so good I didn’t need any make-up, or was I a lost cause that even his product, while fabulous and a must-have, couldn’t fix?

Little did he know, he lost two sales that day. Not that I would have bought his crap. But still, it feels good sometimes just to be asked.

Beware of Dog

Have you seen the Russian tampon commercial? Hopefully if you had not, you clicked on the link and caught up with the rest of us. Two of my male friends sent it to me, which is oddly flattering, although I hope it has more to do with my sense of humor than the desire that I die by shark attack during that time of the month. The part that makes it even funnier, funny ha-ha not funny weird, is that last week I was at the beach and, lucky me, I had my period.  Now, before you go thinking this falls into the Too Much Information category, just stick with it a little longer. I promise not to get all descriptive.

Anyway, one of these aforementioned friends, JM, had asked me if I was scared to go in the water while I was on my period because of the risk of shark attack. It is not important to know why he asked me that. Let’s just say it was happenstance that he had some sort of period/ocean curiosity at the same time I was menstruating at the beach, and so his question was unassuming and yet very timely. I explained patiently to him that I was a woman of my forties and knew my way around a tampon, and that I did not double as a chum bucket.

But is it a valid question, knowing that sharks can detect the scent of blood miles away? The Russians sure think so, and hell, are there even sharks in Russia? Let’s take a quick Google break. Okay, the short answer is there shouldn’t be, but because of the global warming hoax which apparently the sharks are in on, there are now.

So anyway, JM and I had discussed the likelihood of period related shark attack while I was at the beach, and not a day later, it was like a scene from “Jaws.” Not one of the good scenes when people get bit and die; rather, one of those scenes where everyone overreacts and it’s super annoying and you want them to get eaten by a shark just to make them shut up. Yes, I do root for for the shark.

My daughter and I were walking out to the beach when a man came up to us and asked us if we were going to the beach. That stupid question irritated me immediately, seeing as I had a beach chair in one hand and a bag of beach towels in the other, and I was wearing a bathing suit. No, idiot, I’m going to the Queen’s coronation, and I sure hope I’m not under dressed.

I remembered seeing this Einstein on the sand a few days before because at the time he was wearing an odd outfit, a green tank top and green swim trunks, the kind of green that makes you think this person must be colorblind. I politely told him that yes, we were in fact planning on going to the beach, and he said we needed to be careful because they had seen a shark that morning not even five feet from the shoreline. I asked him how big it was, and he said, again, five feet. He also told me that he had already informed the sheriff’s office, which would have reassured me if they were planning to arrest it.  I thanked him for his warning, and my daughter and I continued our way through the sand dunes to a lovely spot not too far away from the water line.

"Who calls the sheriff to report a shark sighting? That's like calling your dentist when you want a divorce," I said to my daughter.

As we opened our chairs and put down the bags and buckets, a woman walked over to us. She must have been the wife of the colorblind idiot town crier because she was also dressed oddly, in a Gidget style double knit one piece in red, white, and blue stripes. That suit had to be older than me, and I am not young. Come to think of it, I may have seen a picture of my grandmother in that suit, possibly with the same hair style. She asked us if we planned to go to the water, which made me wonder if this was the first time these people had been to a beach in the summer. Then she told me, get ready for this, that they had seen a five foot shark not five feet from the shore. Did they have a tape measure with them? I thanked her as I had with her husband, and she returned to her spot.

“Did they really see a shark?” my daughter asked me.

“I’m sure they did. They both think so, anyway,” I told her.

We sat there in our chairs, scanning the horizon and seeing, well, just a bunch of sand and water.

Another family stepped through the dunes, and before they could even get their flip flops off, the woman in the unintentionally vintage bathing suit swooped over to them with her warning about the shark and all the stuff about the five feet.  This family actually picked up their articles and left.

The colorblind man joined his retro wife under their umbrella where the kept a vigilant watch on the not even five foot waves lapping against the shore. Every so often, he would stand up with his camera and walk to the water, ready to document and possibly tag the man eating beast.

My daughter and I watched him watch the water and his wife warn other beach goers for about fifteen minutes, but then I got hot, so I stood up to walk to the water.

“Are you really going to go in there?” my daughter asked.

“Sure, aren’t you?”

“But what about the shark?” she said.

“I have news for you, honey,” I told her. “Every time we go in the water, there is a shark there. Where else are sharks going to be? Flying overhead?  That’s where they live, in the ocean. Let me ask you this: do sharks generally eat people? ”

“No,” she said.

“And what do they eat, seals?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said.

“Well, you are wearing a lime green bathing suit and you have long blond hair, and I have never seen a seal that looks like that. Plus, we’ve been sitting here for a while, and nobody has died yet. I think we’re good. And it’s hot, so are you coming or what?”

We bravely put our feet in the water, and then for good measure, I stepped out knee deep. And guess what happened? I got wet, and I cooled off. I didn’t even step funny on a shell and hurt the sole of my foot.

By the time the rest of my family came outside to join us, I had already decided to not tell them about the shark, not because I secretly want them to die, but because I didn’t want to seem like I was overreacting like the shark couple. I started to wonder if they were even real, or maybe, just maybe, they had been victims of a shark attack at that very spot, and now they haunted the beach, appearing only on the anniversary of their tragic deaths, waiting to warn families of the dangers lurking beneath the waves.

Later, I spent some time researching, and I didn't find anything about a fatal shark attack on that beach during the 1960's. In fact, it turns out that sharks do kill more people a year than tampons, but that's by accident. Sharks aren't even attracted to human blood. Sharks also kill less people than hippos. Hell, even more people are killed by their own dogs than sharks in any given year, and they are supposed to be man’s best friend.

Fear not the large fish with the rows of razor sharp teeth that is billed a killing machine. It’s just not that into you. And that goes double if you are on the rag.

Writer's Block

I want to write but it’s been so long since I’ve recorded a thought that I don’t even know where to begin.

I am starting by glancing out the window every time I hear a loud truck noise just in case it’s the UPS man. I don’t even think I am expecting a package, but I have a very Pavlovian response to the sound of a UPS truck. Maybe whatever I forgot I ordered is finally here, or maybe someone thought of me and sent me a little treat. Usually, it’s neither of those, nor is the UPS truck for me. More likely, it’s for the neighbor across the street. I’m convinced something illegal is going on over there, based on the frequency of the UPS truck stopping in front of their house. The UPS man isn’t even hot; I am really in it for what’s in the truck.

After that, I inspect the front yard for colorful birds. Today, it’s just a female cardinal, and not even male cardinals can get excited about that fugly bitch of the animal kingdom. Dukey brown boring bird. If I were a male cardinal, I’d be gay.

I also like to listen for the carpenter bees systematically dismantling my downstairs window. I am waiting for the glass to just fall out. Maybe the bee will shout “timber!” when it happens, and it is going to happen soon. It’s the worst sound, too; that bee’s chewing through wood sounds like children with loose teeth eating corn on the cob.

I next inspect my three flowering hydrangeas outside my office window. My husband planted them for me last year, and wonder of wonders, they have lived to see another season. Not only that, but they grew and have actual flowers actually blooming on them. Unfortunately, the heat of summer is making them all sad and droopy. I’m tempted to water them, but I’m also tempted to stay inside the temperature controlled house all day. I wouldn’t want to look like my hydrangeas.

In the other room, my teenager, E, is downloading music to her new iPod. Her last one died about a week ago, and in a fit of generosity, I offered to replace it. She’s especially bummed because whatever version she had contained a camera, which the new one does not. No more selfies that no one will ever see. I even spent an hour trying to find a refurbished Nano of that generation for her, but to my amazement, it must be some sort of geek collectible because it costs about fifty bucks more than a brand new one.

So I ordered her a new one. Did I mention it has an 8-pin thingy instead of a 30-pin thingy? This means about as much to you as it does to me, but the important part to understand is that it means none of the chargers, cords, cables, or speaker docks that we currently own will work with the new iPod. Brilliance on the part of Apple, as they continue to enslave all of the music and phone call making people of the world along with the Chinese child laborers who actually make their products.

She has the new iPod and is downloading music, one song at a time, which requires her shouting out the name of the band or singer, then playing it, then singing along with it, before finally downloading it to the damn thing. She is two hours into the process and is only on the D’s. Do you know how hard it is to concentrate when Teen Grandmaster Jazzy Fresh Princess is mixing her favorite one thousand songs within earshot? Maybe I should rethink the no computers in the children's bedrooms rule.

I have a cat tail on my keyboard, which also makes writing difficult. The minute I sit down to open my laptop, in walks one of my cats, who likes to sit next to me while I work. He thinks he is my  muse, but his incessant purring is very distracting, as is the way he tries to fit between the desk drawer and my lap. After he gives up on fitting his 14 pound cat body into a one inch space, he plops down on top of the desk and flicks his tail on the keys, while simultaneously getting his head stuck in the blinds and launching buckets full of unattached cat hairs in my general direction. There is a fine blanket of stray fur stuck on my monitor, enough to make a tiny sweater for, say, a chipmunk.

Writing isn’t easy.

Animal Enrichment

When will I learn to stop saying yes? This time, my daughter Sugarplum’s (this is for JM, who complained about me using initials in my blogs; I named my child for you, JM, but I am not naming you) teacher called after school. I immediately assumed my daughter did something bad, as if that sort of thing occurred frequently, but no, she called to ask a favor. The class had a field trip the next day, and two of her chaperones backed out at the last minute.

She already knew of my reputation, so no doubt she called me first, knowing that I would agree to fill in, as I did. My rationale? Well, Sugarplum is in the fifth grade, and next year she moves on to middle school. How many more field trips would I be able to chaperone? My older daughter, Edwina (again, for you, JM) has no interest in me stepping foot inside her school, let alone settling into a seat on the bus and accompanying her  and her friends anywhere. What if Sugarplum turned on me too? This had the potential to be my last field trip ever. So I said yes.

Plus, the field trip was to the zoo. I love animals, not in that creepy way, but more because I just like to see them. I drive through my neighborhood in the early evening sometimes in the hopes I might catch a quick glimpse of a bunny. At the zoo, animal sightings are all but guaranteed, and the possibility that those animals might do something weird or disgusting was worth the part where I had to go with other people’s children.

I wasn’t even chaperoning my own child; rather, I had a group of five kids, from first grade through fifth classes, whom I was to escort. This wasn’t just a run of the mill zoo trip either; the kids from all five grades had been working as a group on a research project. Each group was assigned a different animal to study, which culminated in observing that animal in the zoo habitat and comparing it to the wild habitat that they researched. The chaperones were then responsible for videotaping the group making a presentation about their animals, with a script that the group had prepared prior to the field trip. In between the observing and the recording was some free time to look at all the other animals and a quick thirty minutes for lunch.

The morning of the field trip, I woke up with what I thought was a cold, complete with sore throat, sinus congestion, and the flop sweats. Rather than also back out, I parked my car in the school lot and went inside with Sugarplum, where I sat outside the classroom waiting for the big song and dance. That’s when the teachers threaten the children with their very lives, that they will behave if they ever want to see their families again, before we boarded the buses.

I forgot that school buses don’t have air conditioning or seat belts, except for the driver, and what made him so special? Before we even left the school, my shirt  was stuck to my back from that dark green vinyl seat. Only about three of the windows could be lowered, the rest having broken about fifteen years ago. I blew my nose and tried not to complain even as my hair grew three sizes in volume and I developed a sweat bead mustache and goatee.

Once at the zoo, each chaperone held up a sign with their group’s animal, so that the kids could get into their groups. I was assigned the lion, which was so much cooler than some shitty snake. One by one, all five kids walked up to me. It reminded me a little of the Golden Ticket winners from “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” only none of these kids were going to win anything. There were two little girls, two medium sized boys, and a girl from Sugarplum’s class. And it was not just any girl; it was Sugarplum’s nemesis. This is a kid who had spent most of fifth grade making sure my Sugarplum felt badly about herself. She called her stupid and mean and fat and even developed a nasty little anti-Semitic streak, which I’m sure made her parents proud. I wasn’t going to let my feelings towards this mean girl get the best of me, but I also had no real interest in helping her succeed.

Immediately the third grade boy, a rather tall kid whom I had never met, grabbed my hand as we walked into the zoo. When your kids are young, you don’t think anything of holding another child’s hand, but that was some time ago, and this boy’s hands were bigger than mine.  We walked, hand in hand, toward the lion habitat, the rest of the group straggling behind us.

Once there, I encouraged the children to study the space and how the lions interact, which was pretty stupid on my part. The lions, two young males, slept atop Pride Rock from “The Lion King,” and the rest of the relatively small enclosure looked like someone’s overgrown backyard. There wasn’t a whole lot of interacting going on, unless you count the occasional stretch or swatting of flies with lion tail. After the kids burped and pounded on the glass, we walked around the rest of the zoo, my new little boyfriend’s hand in mine.

We walked past several animal exhibits, the animals staring at us with complete and total boredom, which was the same look the kids gave back. After stopping at every water fountain so Sugarplum's nemesis could have a sip, we worked our way to the farm animals. Our zoo has a small area of farm animals: evil goats, a disgustingly frothy mouthed black pig, some fancy chickens, and regular ducks. My little boyfriend read the sign about the chickens, which are unusual and thus zoo worthy because they have a crown of feathers atop their heads that they toss around like a wig when they peck at bugs in the sand.

“Plush chickens,” he read to me.

“Actually, they are Polish chickens,” I said.

“What makes them Polish?” he wanted to know.

“I guess they came from Poland,” I said.

“You sure do know a lot about animals,” he said, and his hand sweat all over mine.

The other kids started screaming, which is an annoying thing children do frequently. I looked and saw a black snake slithering its way along the fence behind the ducks. It was a good five or six feet in length, and the kids wanted to know if I should inform a zookeeper that the very lives of the water fowl were in danger. I pointed out that the zoo had many black snake crossing signs and they probably already knew about a snake in these here parts.

The snake bypassed the ducks and went straight for the water bowl and began to drink, not unlike Sugarplum’s nemesis. Have you ever seen a snake drink? It’s disgusting, about as gross as the inside of a turtle’s mouth, which looks like a portal to the Underworld if it were conceived by Tim Burton. The snake hung its head limply into the water dish, like a broken bendy straw. I gathered my group and headed for the picnic table farthest away from the snake.

By the time we sat down to eat, it was around ten thousand degrees. All the kids were actively sweating which just enhanced their natural musk, not yet covered with more pleasant deodorant fragrances, which reminded me I forgot to encourage them to wash their hands before lunch. I sat down and sipped from my plastic bottle of water, the cold long gone from it, when I realized Sugarplum's nemesis had nothing to drink. She ate her mushed sandwich and chips, staring longingly at my water bottle the whole time. So I did what any other parent would do; I offered her my bottle. I disclosed that I had taken a few sips, but she was desperately thirsty, took it from me without a thank you, and drained it.

Is it a good deed to share your water with a thirsty child? Possibly. But what if the child is horrible to your daughter and you have a cold and drank out of your water bottle first? Is it still a good deed? To me, it seemed like the right thing to do, on many levels. Besides, how many colds have you gotten from other people’s children?

After lunch, we went back to the lion enclosure so my group could practice their little performance before I was to videotape them. After a bit of food, though, they were all over the place.  One of them literally tried to climb a wall. Don’t tell me that Oscar Meyer Lunchables don’t have a little something-something in them. A couple of run-throughs later, they were ready for me to start taping.

Now, I’m no Martin Scorsese, but even I knew these kids needed some direction. After the first take, I had to remind them to speak clearly and loudly, to look towards the camera and not the floor or the sky, to not talk backstage while we are filming, and to stay still before I got motion sickness. During the second take, which was by far the best, an old redneck grandpa interrupted the last line of the whole thing by shouting “Lookit that there lion!” while walking in front of the camera. The third take involved one of the lions stretching, and then getting up to pee. The fourth take had the remaining lion on his back atop his rock, his hind legs splayed, revealing what was the poorest excuse for male lion anatomy. My neutered house cat could put him to shame, but that didn’t stop him from getting aroused during the taping. Which meant that the fifth take was of five kids flubbing their lines with a lion boner over their left shoulder in the background. They voted on attempting a sixth and seventh take, and by the eighth take, I said no more.

“It’s not going to get any better, guys, so why keep trying?” I said. “Can't you edit from the footage we have or something?”

Like I said, it’s probably my last field trip.