Category: Uncategorized

Hockey Mom

My mom at her top height was about 4’10”, and it would be a mistake to think her size made her anything but mighty.  Corralling six kids on a daily basis gave her nerves of steel, and each one of us can tell you stories of Mom going C.R.A.Z.Y when we were misbehaving.  And I use that term loosely because my three older brothers tended to swim in and out of the delinquent pool on a regular basis. 

Growing up, they all played hockey.  In the burbs of Chicago, hockey is King.  Most hockey games can get out of hand, even for the amateurs, and we were watching one rough match when a player from the opposing team shoved the butt end of the stick into my brother’s face.  First, that is a low class, dirty move.  Second, he broke my brother’s front tooth.  We witnessed all this from the stands and my parents were mad as hell.  Fortunately, it happened near the end of the game before a major brawl started.

My mom was worried there might be a fight near the locker rooms, so she told my dad they should head that way just in case.  As the opposing team started filing down the hall, my mom spotted the tooth-breaking, butt-end-of-a-stick-player, grabbed him by the jersey, threw him against the wall, and went C.R.A.Z.Y.  To the point, where my dad had to pull her off and get her out of there before a major brawl started. 

The ride home was especially quiet, and the Thought Bubble that hung over every head in the car was some  version of, HOLY SHIT!!!  WHAT HAPPENED IN THERE???  After a very long time, The Little Boxer spoke with a cracking voice, “It’s just that of all you damn kids, he had the best teeth.”

That was the night I learned the value Mom put on our choppers, and that if you dared to mess up one of her kids, you were going to answer to her.

Wrapping Up Crazy

I know about OCD.  When my brother was getting some counseling while going through a divorce, the  Perfection Gene we all inherited was discussed.  The therapist suggested that he let some things go, starting with the checkbook.  Don’t worry about the color pen you’re using, just write down your entry in whatever is available.  He told me this like it was some kind of breakthrough for the entire family.  No, no, no.  Neat.  Perfect slant to the handwriting.  Same color pen.  Every entry.  It’s the anal foundation this family was built on.  She says it will set us free.   What would Dad say?  Dad who taught us how to line up baby food jars of screws on his bench like North Korean soldiers, and semi-annually scrubbed the garden hose.  You need to try it.

I never did.  It was too much to ask.

I also know about thumb sucking.  My mom was under the impression that she shamed me into stopping at the age of 12, but it was closer to 13.  I spent a year hiding in the closet taking a thumb hit every day after school.  Which explains the overbite. 

I read in the paper about a guy who had an extreme case of OCD.  He was 34.  He sucked his thumb every day, but first wrapped it in Saran Wrap to avoid the germs.

This is a mingling of mental disorders which can never lead to a good outcome, for there is no comfort to be had in sucking a thumb wrapped in plastic.  It has to be skin to mouth.  Alone.  In the closet.   Anxiously waiting every day for the mosquito bites to blossom right out of that training bra.  And praying for the boys to notice the quiet, freckled-face girl that was on the verge of some kind of wonderful.

The Skank Meter

I think Herman Cain is an experienced, habitual groper.  I think everybody around him has probably been aware of this for years.  Oh, that’s just Herman being Herman.  I think there’s too many women to name who have been a victim of his, likely since middle school when he tried it, got away with it, and emboldened him.

This week, we have a stay-at-home mom who has had experience with Herman being Herman.  In the detailed account she gave in front of dozens of news cameras, did it matter that her kids were also hearing the graphic description of her encounter?  I’m all for nailing this guy for the farce he is, but this will sure make the next PTA meeting awkward.

Behind her during this accounting was Gloria Allred, who made a legitimate career of defending women until her train jumped the track and she started chasing every ambulance in town.  Now she calls more press conferences than the President, and I wonder what’s in it for her.

There’s all kinds of Five Minutes of Fame Pie to slice in this year before the election, and the list of characters sending The Skank Meter into overdrive goes on and on and on.

It makes me miss Joe The Plumber.

72

Kim K. and her Forever Love are calling it quits after 72 days.  Well, she is, anyways.  He doesn’t seem to know much about it.  Does a husband ever know when anything is wrong? 

It was a fast courtship she had, not like The Big Daddy and I who dated for five years before we got married.  I knew EVERY SINGLE THING about him.  A day after we promised to love, honor and obey tolerate, we went to the beaches of South Carolina, where we rented a condo for a week.  And EVERY SINGLE THING he did drove me nuts.  The way he held a knife.  The way he chopped.  The way he’d cook with a flame so high I thought he was going to burn the place down.   The way he left every utensil he used on the counter instead of putting it in the dishwasher.  The amount of dressing he’d douse on a salad.  The wet towels on the floor.  The exhaust fan in the bathroom that droned on and on.  The way he ate his cereal.

Because it made me nuts, I had to comment on all of it.  Back home, we cut on an angle.  Back home, we simmer.  Back home, we clean as we go.   Back home we put our towels in the hamper.  Back home, back home, back home.   After the third day, he looked at me with stone cold eyes and said, “Well, you’re not back home any more, are you?”  And those dead peepers of his kind of scared me.

That’s when I understood that this marriage thing was more like legalized kidnapping.  Of course I knew at times that I could escape, but Stockholm Syndrome set in and I learned to love and depend on this man who took me away from everything in my life that made any sense.

Every now and then, though, I’ll watch The Big Daddy out in the yard, throwing clods of dirt and cussing at the squirrels and think………

I should make a run for it.

Slum Lords & Pirates

The Boy Child has had some issues concerning the apartment he lives in at school.  The end of August, he wrote a rent check that did not clear, and he made repeated calls to check on it so as to avoid late fees.  After leaving many messages, The Slum Lord finally called back and told him it was never received.  He wrote another check and took it to the office, asking that if the original check shows up to call him and he’d pick it up. 

Two months after the fact, The Slum Lord cashed the original check.
He called her and remarkably, she did not return his call.  In the meantime, his account has taken a significant hit, so I told him I’d handle it.  I made a call to The Slum Lord and she said gee, I guess I forgot about that, yeah there was a conversation about a lost check, I guess it was here in the office the whole time, it must have been put with the October deposits, I’ll just put it towards the rent for November.  He’s paid for November.  Oh, she says, did that check clear?  Yes.  Well, then I’ll put it towards the rent for December.
Ummm, no you won’t I said.  You’ll write him a check and he’ll be at your office Monday morning to pick it up.  The SL got High and Mighty after that, telling me she was going above and beyond even having a conversation with me since I wasn’t her renter.   
  
I was retelling the story to The Teacher Girl who cut right to the chase and asked me if I called her a bitch.  I was about to and she hung up on me.  “Well, Mom,” she said, “if you do have to talk to her again, you tell her she’s nothing but A Dirty Pirate Hooker.”
I guess there’s no need for me to lay awake at night, kinking my curls over that one getting taken advantage of by anybody.

.


Walking With Eskimos

From the archives of The Big Daddy Bad Behavior File……………..

I walk every day.  Sometimes I ask The Big Daddy to accompany me.  He does not.  Walking is for girls.  He likes The Biking that requires gear.  Thump-the-chest-look-at-me-I-wear-gear.  Walking requires gym shoes.  How lame is that?

On a cold, snowy day that wasn’t suited to biking, I convinced him to go for a walk.  This was the perfect weather to wear his dad’s Standard Issue Army Parka from back in the day.  He loves to haul out the parka.  He has gone in the basement during dinner parties to bring up the parka for Show and Tell.  That’s nice, honey.  Now put that away cuz we have guests here. 

Off to the park we went and he couldn’t hear anything I said because he had his parka hood on.  When he’d turn to look at me, his head would still be inside the hood because it was so big, so then he couldn’t see or hear.  It was walking, yelling, and The Big Daddy saying, “WHAAAAAAAAT?”  Why, oh why, did I ask him to come along?

We got to the park and up ahead there was a guy walking towards us with a little dog.  We walked off the sidewalk to avoid a dog altercation, and as we passed, the guy said, “Thanks, I appreciate that.”  To which The Big Eskimo Daddy said, “WHAAAAAAAAAT?”  And gets his face lost in his hood.  Again.  Next thing, I hear a yelp and BD’s boot is in the air with a dog flying off the end of it.  I do not know you.  I’ve never met you.  Do not walk with me.  The Big Daddy is looking around in his hood saying, “What happened?  What happened”  Well, ya kicked the guy’s dog in the ass, that’s what happened.  

The guy scoops up his whimpering dog and gives The Big Daddy a big dose of stinkeye.  Which he couldn’t see, what with the hood on and all.  By this time, Henry and I had walked on, the guy was carrying his crippled dog home, and The Big Daddy is standing all alone in the park in his Standard Issue Army Parka, shouting into his hood, “Hey, hey you guys, wait for me.”

We did not.