For Laughs

Sometimes being a good mom means making a fool of yourself in public

December 14, 2010

On Sunday, my husband and I took the girls to Merle Hay Mall to finish up some Christmas shopping. I know they were getting bored looking through the Craftsman tools at Sears, and heck– anyone gets bored after hours of shopping at a busy mall in December. The girls were getting bored, my husband and I were starting to get cranky. We were starting to snap at each other, and also were starting to snap at the kids… it was time to rally the troops and get ready to head home.

So what does a good mom do? She does her best to lighten up the mood in any way possible.

On our way out of the mall, we decided to make a quick pit stop in the women’s restroom at the Sears store. We were quickly disgusted that only one stall was available, as the rest of them were plugged up with either poop and/or wads of toilet paper. Thankfully, we were the only ones in the restroom, because I went into the one available stall, and started ranting about people not keeping bathrooms clean, and “just who in the heck does that kind of stuff” and “god, people are nasty…”

Then I stopped myself. Why did I have to be so crabby? I needed to get everyone back into a better mood, darn it! I needed to hurry up and bring back the smiles and laughter, right this minute!

So right there, while sitting on the toilet, I started singing. In my loudest voice…

You make me

feel like I’m living a

Teenage Dream

The way you turn me on

I can’t sleep

Let’s run away

and don’t ever look back

Don’t ever look back…

My girls were giggling, uncontrollably. I smiled, knowing that the crabbiness was forgotten. I had changed the mood. Mom had saved the day!

I pulled my pants up, zipped them, and flushed the toilet. With the girls still giggling, me still humming along to “Teenage Dream,” I flung the door open to the stall.

And standing right in front of me was a short Hispanic woman and her daughter.

And my daughters, laughing their pretty little tails off.

I refused to meet eye contact with anyone, as my oldest daughter hurriedly commented, “I’m gonna go wait outside.” My youngest went into the stall to use the restroom. I washed my hands and didn’t say a word, as the young Hispanic girl kept sneaking glances at me. She finally burst into laughter, while her mother made several failed attempts at shushing her. My youngest finally came out of the stall, and while washing her hands, looked up at me and said “Way to go, Mom.”

I walked out of that restroom, met the glance of my oldest daughter, and we all three had the best laugh of our lives.

And I will never set foot into Merle Hay Mall again.

Filed Under: Family Matters, For Laughs, Girls Will Be Girls

I know I hate to do laundry, but even this is excessive…

December 3, 2010

On Wednesday, my oldest daughter went down to the basement to start a load of laundry. She added the detergent, the fabric softener (we have a front loader), and then threw the clothes in. She closed the door, but when she pushed the power button, nothing happened. No noise, no light, nothing.

She called me to come downstairs. I checked the fuse box, I unplugged the washer and plugged it back in. I tried everything I could think of. I was frantic. This was practically a brand new washing machine. We had bought it in April of this year at Lowe’s– the Whirlpool Duet Steam Washer and Dryer.

(Here is a picture of what it looks like, and NO this is not my laundry room. GOD I WISH!)

Anyways, I thought maybe the outlet was bad. So I tried plugging two other things into the outlet, and both worked. It had to be the washer. My 7- month old washer! My dead as a damn doornail washer! I called Lowe’s and asked if they had any suggestions, because we had purchased a 4-year extended warranty on both pieces, and all they suggested was to unplug it for a while to see if it would reset itself. Wow, they are geniuses there at Lowe’s, aren’t they?

I tried that, to no avail. Since it was so new, the manufacturer’s warranty still applied, so I called Whirlpool directly. When I told them the problem I was having, the Customer Service Rep’s response was “Ma’am there is nothing I can troubleshoot.” After finally figuring out that it was a NEW washing machine (WHY DIDN’T HE ASK THAT RIGHT AWAY?) he told me he would send someone out to take a look at it and figure out what was wrong with it. We were lucky that they had an opening for yesterday afternoon, and he told us that someone would be at our house between 1:00 and 5:00pm.

Can I just vent for a minute on that? I understand that companies don’t know for sure when they will be here, but do they understand how frustrating and utterly inconvenient that is for people? That is an entire half day off of work for someone to sit around and wait! And you know darn well that NO ONE is ever at the the 1:00 end of that appointment time. We have always been at the very last tail end of it, no matter what company we’re dealing with.

Anyways, my husband sat around all afternoon waiting. And waiting. I finally arrived home at 3:45, and still no Whirlpool repairman. Finally, at about 4:00, my phone rang. It was the route manager for the service company. He was calling to tell me that our serviceman “probably wasn’t going to make it today” and that our appointment was being moved to the following morning instead.

Oh, HELL NO.

You can imagine the conversation that took place, as I made it very clear that my husband had sat home all afternoon waiting on someone to come to our home and that we were not taking more time off work to sit and wait around again. He explained that the appointment time before us was taking much longer than expected, and that the serviceman was having to run and get extra parts for their equipment. I told him that wasn’t my fault and maybe those people should be the ones to take the Friday morning appointment time to get their job finished so that I can keep my appointment time. I didn’t think it was fair to get shoved around and inconvenienced for something that wasn’t my fault.

Hey, I was sitting with a brand-new washer that went kaput. Forgive me if I was wasn’t feeling very accommodating.

Anyways, needless to say, a serviceman finally arrived at our house at 5:30 last night. He spent about 15 minutes looking at our washing machine before declaring it DOA. I heard him on the phone with his service manager requesting to order the new motherboard as an “emergency rush delivery” since we were without a washer, so I assumed maybe I’d go the weekend without a washing machine, which you know–wouldn’t really kill me.

I actually got a laugh when he came up from the basement to tell us that not only would we go the weekend without a washer, but that emergency delivery would take until the NINTH OF DECEMBER!!!

I’d hate to see what a NON-EMERGENCY delivery would be. We’d probably be talking JANUARY, people.

The really funny part was while he was looking at the washer, my husband asked him about lint screen on our dryer, which has been broken since we bought it. It works, but the liner keeps falling out. The serviceman ordered another one for us (non-emergency, of course!) and told us it will probably arrive before the motherboard.

Of course it will.

Filed Under: Around The House, For Laughs, On My Soapbox

Why you should hope and pray with all your might that McDonald’s cleans their balls…

December 2, 2010

This will be one of those stories that gets told re-told at my daughter’s high school graduation party, and will probably be repeated for good measure at her wedding rehearsal dinner.

It was early 1998, and my oldest daughter was a little over two years old. I was a single mother, and working full time. I dropped her off at the daycare at 7:30 every morning, and it was usually 5:30 in the evening before I picked her up.

Because we had such limited time together during the week, we made Wednesday nights our “Girls Night Out.” Those nights out consisted of dinner at McDonald’s (hey– I was on a limited income!) and an hour or so of her playing in the PlayPlace.

One Wednesday in particular, I had taken the day off because my daughter had been sick the day before with an ear infection. I hadn’t planned on having our Girls Night Out that night, but she had gone all day feeling much better (with no fever) so I figured it was safe.

We ate dinner, and everything was fine. So I decided to let her play for a little while in the PlayPlace to burn off some pent-up energy.

I was sitting and chatting with another mom, when all of a sudden I noticed that my daughter was running on the enclosed catwalk. Not a big deal normally, but this time?

SHE HAD NO PANTS ON.

I yelled up to her and asked “Where are your pants?”

“Mommy I poop-ded!” she squealed while she kept running through the maze of the germ-infested play area.

OH. MY. GOD. What?

As I saw her running around, I noticed something HORRIBLE. She had a onesie on under her clothes, and I could tell by the looks of it that her diaper had leaked. And it wasn’t leaking pee, my friends.

IT WAS POOP.

Have you ever seen the ugliness that is a kid’s poop when they are taking PINK Amoxicillin?

It’s THE NASTY.

Once she found out I was insistent on her coming down out of the playtubes, of course she wasn’t going to comply easily. She was getting such a huge laugh knowing that I couldn’t get to her. I tried climbing up through the filthy maze of plastic and netting, but couldn’t get to where she was at. I was also worried about getting stuck in there, so I wasn’t going to go too far.

The other people in the PlayPlace had figured out by now what was going on, and they all started getting their kids out of there, and I heard quiet whispers about “germs” and “bacteria” and “disgusting.” I was MORTIFIED, to say the least.

But that’s not the end of it.

One of the moms who apparently felt sorry for me, instructed her 6-7 year old son to go up there and bring my daughter down, who by this time had not only ditched her pants, but now had taken off her socks and was trying to unsnap the onesie.

By the time the little boy got up to her, she was sitting in this big spaceship thing where I could only see her head sticking out. Still, she was laughing– this evil, maniacal laugh that I knew was not a good sign.

The words that the boy uttered next still give me the heebie jeebies.

“Hey lady, your kid’s got no diaper on!”

Oh yes, friends… my child, whom I love with all my heart, left one hot mess in the McDonalds’ playplace that day.

One of the moms went to get the manager, and I had to do the walk of shame as I put a new diaper and outfit on my daughter while someone else retrieved the funky-smelling clothes and previously-worn diaper. The antibiotics had given her diarrhea which had leaked out of the diaper, through the onesie, through her pants, onto her socks, and finally, all over the mother-effin’ PlayPlace.

The manager made the comment that the entire PlayPlace needed to be cleaned, and I just pictured some poor teenage kid having to scrub each and every ball in that ball pit to make sure my daughter’s FECAL MATTER was erradicated from the building. The manager and his employees shut the PlayPlace down that night, and I am not even sure how long it was closed.

BECAUSE I NEVER WENT BACK.

Even though we lived on that side of town for almost 10 more years, after I had married and had another child… I never set foot inside that PlayPlace again. Oh, my kids went back… but never with me. I was so embarrassed and I was sure the people working there would remember me.

The only upside to the story is the joy I get from pointing out to my daughter every single time we happen to drive by that particular McDonald’s:

“That’s the PlayPlace you pooped in!”

Filed Under: Family Matters, For Laughs, Girls Will Be Girls

Boobs on a plate, weird dreams, someone stole my microwave, and starting the week off with a spark

February 1, 2010

I’m sitting here, munching on a bowl of Honey Bunch of Oats (with strawberries) this morning, thinking that one of the worst situations is having to carry on a conversation about the weather and your plans for the weekend when you are naked from the waist up and you have one of your boobs slapped on a cold metal plate while your arms are performing crazy contortionist tricks and you’re trying to hold your breath and wondering if the lady you’re talking to thinks you used enough deodorant today, or if she thinks that mole on your left boob looks weird or if she’s secretly mocking your back fat, and you’re wondering why they have that space heater set at 77 degrees but the chick’s hands are still ice cold.

So basically, my mammogram was uneventful. A few squeezes, and I was done.

On another note, I had a really weird dream last night. I was at Target with my mom and my sister. I had my purse in my cart and I was buying a microwave oven. I pushed the cart down an aisle because I was desperately trying to find a VCR for my bathroom (I told you this was a weird dream). I left the cart in the aisle, with my purse and the microwave and took off running through the stores, yelling at random customers that I needed to find the VCRs. When I returned, my purse was there, but the microwave was stolen. Someone stole my microwave, dammit! I remember running to the customer service desk, yelling at the employees that I needed to call 911 STAT! I really did say the word “STAT” too. And you know that weird thing we do when we dream when we’re running but its like we can’t move… we’re trying to run, but we’re moving in slow motion? it’s like it took me forever to make it to that service desk. And so I’m yelling at the Target employees, and I’m shoving them out of the way trying to dial 9-1-1 on the CASH REGISTERS because some dumb Target customer took my microwave out of my cart, and I was all upset and I was crying because I said I needed to get home and make lemon pepper (sidenote: WHAT. THE. HELL.) and I needed this microwave and I needed to call the police and why wasn’t this darn keypad on this freakin’ register working? Why weren’t the police coming? And as I keep pushing down on the keypad on the register, Iwatch my fingers pushing the keys and I start wondering to myself if I will ever get carpal tunnel? and if I will ever have to have surgery? and how long will I be off work? and then I started yelling at the employees that my wrists were hurting and they needed to call an ambulance and page my mom and find my cart and go get me a VCR and a new microwave. They started helping me over to the snack bar and asking me if they could get me anything. I started feeling faint and thought a pretzel or popcorn or maybe an Icee would help.

Then I woke up all sweaty, and holy cow.

So…Did I mention I’m weaning myself off caffeine? And that I”m taking some new migraine-preventing meds?

Um, yeah.

On another note… those new meds, giving up the devil Pepsi, and Spark People (try it, its FREE!), has helped lose SEVEN POUNDS in my first week of dieting. Go me!

Filed Under: For Laughs, Let's Get Physical

You’re Finally a Woman

November 23, 2009

How do you know when you are officially a WOMAN?

Puberty? Nope.

Marriage? Nope.

Giving Birth? Not even close.

There is a simple way to separate the ADULTS from the youngsters. The WOMEN from the girls. The PROS from the AMATEURS. It’s easy to pick one out of a crowd. As blatant and obvious as wearing a scarlet letter– or a Superman cape.

Yes, it’s the holiday sweater. Something that can only be worn for one month of each year, yet for some people, it seems you can never have too many. You purchase your first one, and it is one of the rites of passage to being a woman.

You slide your arms into the sleeve, and you can actually hear the Christmas music starting… you hear a faint melody in the background, bells jingling.

“Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin’…”

Then your mind start to play tricks on you.

Do I smell Christmas cookies baking?

Did someone say “Holiday Sale?”

Is anyone else hungry for fruitcake?

It’s the item that unites women, young and old. Rich or poor. No matter what your status in society, every adult woman in the free world owns a Christmas sweater. And we’re not talking a sweatSHIRT with Looney Tunes characters donning Santa Claus hats saying “Yah-be-dee-yah-ba-dee-Happy Holidays Folks!”

We’re talking SWEATERS. Reindeers dancing with snowmen. Stockings, wreathes, mittens, and snow. Some women go all out and sport a whole Christmas ensemble all the way down to the shoes with the little bells on them. (Yes, my mother actually had shoes like this, so I speak from experience.)

You can buy your holiday sweater at Wal-Mart, or you can go all out and wear a cashmere-blend sweater from a high-end store.

Just don’t dare get yours out of summer hibernation until after Thanksgiving. That will be when you see the holiday sweater phenomenon in gull force.

See a group of women out shopping together during the month of December? It’s a given that at least one, if not all of them, will be sporting some form of holiday sweater. It might even be a possibility that they will be wearing matching reindeer ears as well. (Again, I speak from experience. I saw a group of women like this on one of my shopping excursions last year.)

At one point in my life (OK, just a few years ago) I was guilty of owning not just one, but FIVE holiday sweaters. GAH! How sick and twisted is that?!?!? Because I refuse to wear any of them until after Thanksgiving, I feel I had to put them on some kind of mad holiday rotation schedule, so that they would all get worn. But I had to spread them out so as not to overdo it.

I know, I know– owning five holiday sweaters is already a tad bit past the threshold of OVERDOING IT.

There was the pretty black and white cardigan, with the fancy clasps all the way down the front. A black sweater covered in white snowflakes. It was so pretty, and I actually liked wearing it because there’s nothing CHRISTMAS-Y about it. It’s just snowflakes.

Also in my rotation was my sage green zip-up sweater. Lots of reds, browns and greens. It had a few snowmen, some holly, and wasn’t gaudy at all.

But, the eiptome of my holiday sweater collection has to be the one I referred to as “Just Some Scary Shit Going On Up In Here.”

Yes, it’s the Christmas Sweater From the Seventh Circle of Hell that I received as a CHRISTMAS GIFT a few years ago. Now, just who in the heck gives a Christmas sweater as a Christmas GIFT? Not only was it ugly, but it was a gift I had to wait a whole ‘nother year to even USE?

It was really fantastiaclly FUGLY. LIght blue, with scary snowmen on the front, it’s so “busy” with Christmas holiday and cheer that it almost makes you jump out of your skin when you wear it.

But the icing on the cake, er, sweater is the 4-inch tall SILVER SPARKLY LETTERS on the front (right across my boobs) spelling out “SNOW.” And if you can picture it in your mind, think of the four letters in the word SNOW, and you can imagine which two letter happened to appear right on my beautiful ta-tas.

Oh yeah. That’s right.

The sweater was worn the obligatory one time so the gift giver could see I actually had it on, and I swear to the Christmas sweater gods I was waiting for thing to start playing “Jingle Bells” and the silver letters to light up in tune with the music.

It was just that scary looking.

After the few hours I could stand to wear it, it was promptly hidden under the other sweaters on a shelf in my closet. Thankfully, last year I was able to send it off to the Goodwill for another worthy recipient, my excuse being that it didn’t fit anymore.

So, if you haven’t gone out and gotten yourself a holiday sweater, hurry up and get one. There’s only a little over a month left to get some use out of it this year.

C’mon… do it. Everyone else is! Join the ranks of womanhood everywhere!

Anyone else hungry for Christmas cookies now?

Filed Under: For Laughs, On My Soapbox, Random Stuff