Filed under: Parenting | Tags: blizzard, diary, family, humor, mom, preschool, prison, snow, south, southern, subourbonmom, toddlers, weather
In light of the coming Snow-Mageddon, I thought you might enjoy the following diary, apparently written by a five-year-old “cellmate” during a snow/ice storm that kept him out of school for a week.
Day 1: Snow and ice storms have suspended the education-release programs until further notice, and have shut off all possibilities of tunneling out–the ground is too hard. The Day Warden, an attractive woman who smells like coffee and flowers, emerged as the Night Warden left in what is the only vehicle available for transporting us prisoners in snow. She has begun spending all hours with the television on, waiting for news of a break in the weather.
My younger cellmate and I are edgy and excited. During the storm, the Day Warden allowed us to put on our outside uniforms (puffy jacket, mittens and boots) and go into the exercise yard. I tried tunneling to escape, but broke one shovel before the Day Warden declared it was too cold and returned us to our cell. It took twenty minutes for her to change us back into our regular uniforms (Garanimal pants and shirt, designed to humiliate us and keep us from desiring to go out in public). She broke the rule about using foul language, but I guess for Wardens there isn’t any punishment. Good behavior (she didn’t see me tunneling) was rewarded with hot chocolate.
Day 2: The Night Warden returned last evening and brought with him dire predictions of more snow and ice. I try to keep my hopes up for an opportunity to escape, but it’s looking less likely each day. The Day Warden now alternates the news on television with mind-altering shows to mentally break us down. A small, yellow sponge and a pink starfish are especially effective. I can’t think or move when they are on. My cellmate has created his own indoor skating rink and glides on it in his socks. He has been to the infirmary twice for an ice pack after falling on the hardwood floors.
Day 3: The walls are getting closer. Made three shivs out of a pick-up-stick, a toothpick and a broken tinker toy. Left them in the couch cushions for the Day Warden to sit/step on. Results better than hoped for. Sent to solitary confinement, but totally worth it. Hoping Night Warden will bring in more opportunities for weapons. Star Wars and Transformer brands are preferred.
Day 4: My cellmate and I are climbing the walls. Literally. And the bookcase, the counters and all the squishy furniture. The walls also display prisoner artwork depicting our captivity—showing Harold and the Purple Crayon movie was not a smart idea on part of the Day Warden. Her response was “art therapy,” but making the gingerbread house was a colossal failure. The Day Warden didn’t know regular icing won’t hold the walls or roof together. My cellmate ran in circles after consuming fistfuls of “mortar.”
Solitary confinement again for giving cellmate “prison cut” with Day Warden’s sewing scissors.
Day 5: Food running low. Spent two hours in solitary for stealing food from cellmate. Meals now consisting of only canned vegetables, crackers and toast. Pretty sure mind-altering drugs are being given to us under the guise of “Benadryl.” Having trouble staying awake. Day Warden has begun carrying around a sippy cup filled with something she calls “Mommy Juice.”
Day 6: Beginning to fear for Day Warden’s sanity. She has begun to smell, and has changed from her normal uniform of jeans and a shirt with buttons to a Garanimals outfit similar to ours, but without the animals. The Day Warden also sent herself to solitary confinement. Heard the television blaring, but got no answer when I knocked. The Night Warden started his shift and tried to talk the Day Warden into coming out, but she locked her door and shouted “I can’t do this anymore! Shovel the damned driveway so I can get my car out, or there’s going to be less people in The House.” I hope she didn’t keep the shivs.
Day 7: The Night Warden announced that mind-altering television and drugs would be suspended until further notice. The exercise yard was cleared this morning, and the Night Warden stayed for day shift; the Day Warden took the specialized vehicle for the day. While she was gone, the Night Warden instituted a work release program. We worked in the laundry, the exercise yard (shoveling), and the kitchen. Sent to infirmary and solitary again after testing knives. Kitchen duty suspended. Mind-altering drugs and television resumed.
Day 8: Education-release program resumed today. The Day Warden sang as she drove.
Filed under: Sports | Tags: family, football, humor, Mall Cop, Marriage, Middle-Age, NFL, playoffs, Redskins, southern, tailgate
Can I just say again that I love football? Even though my team lost on Sunday, and RG3 is hurt way worse than anyone dares to even whisper, there is something about the game that brings out the inner wolf in me that stalks its prey and joins in the gory gluttony after the kill. It makes my mouth open and emit visceral screams that have no meaning, but sound something like “DeeeeeeeeeeFeeeeeense!”
It also makes me sink to a pre-game aggressiveness that puts me only slightly higher than tripping a blind man with a cane—taunting mall cops.
That’s right—I taunted a mall cop as a Playoff warm-up.
As if his job wasn’t bad enough, sitting in that Fisher Price pick-up with the not-quite-a-cop yellow lights flashing in the (now) HH Gregg parking lot.
For over a decade, my family has met in the Circuit City parking lot near the stadium to coalesce into one window-flag-waving, magnet-bearing metal container of Redskin enthusiasm. This Sunday, Hubby and I met Big Brother to continue the tradition. As usual, we waited for His Greatness, The Lateness, fretting over the possibility of losing a good parking space because of the delay, and texting our impatience in a steady stream (never mind that Big Brother had bought and assembled a new fire pit and remembered to bring wood, a lighter and newspaper—thanks, man!).
When he finally arrived, we leapt out of the car and rapidly began unloading our gear into his truck. As we did, I noticed Paul Blart, Mall Cop, sitting across the lot, watching us through his C.H.I.P.S. shades and scowling.
“Dude, I think he’s watching us,” I reported, as my status of Little Sis, a.k.a. Lookout, required.
“So?” Hubby replied. “We’ll just park somewhere else.”
After a brief discussion of where to leave our car (while I gave Mall Cop the stink-eye the whole time), we agreed to meet a couple of blocks away. As we began to pull out of our space, Mall Cop began to follow us, just to make sure we were not leaving one of our cars. I could practically see is hands twitching, ready to punch in the tow truck number.
“We should drive around a while,” Hubby said, grinning and looking in the rearview mirror.
I looked at my watch. Precious tailgating minutes were passing by, but sometimes in life, there are moments just require a sacrifice.
So off we went, Hubby and I, a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, cruising through the HH Gregg parking lot. Mall Cop followed us at a crawl, lights flashing. We circled the lot, meandering between rows, carefully looking as suspicious as we could.
Finally, Mall Cop got wise and stopped. We stopped, too. He waited at the end of a row for our next move.
We paused for a moment, hoping he would move and we could follow him around the lot for a while, but time was short. Dan Sneider would probably have noticed that one space in the stadium lot was still empty, and sold it.
Disappointed, we left Mall Cop stewing and met Big Brother far away from Mall Cop’s prying eyes. We piled into Big Brother’s truck and proceeded to the game. It was a great day, no matter what the end result was. The Skins had done better than anyone ever expected, the tailgate food was delicious, the fans were upbeat (even after the game), and we were home by 11:00pm.
But there was one, small cloud left hanging around—I taunted a mall cop, who was probably a fan, and got stuck working on Playoff day. So for that, I’m just a wee bit sorry…but if he’s there next season, I’m putting on my Eric Estrada sunglasses, tan leggings, and boots, and following him.
Filed under: Parenting | Tags: Bath and Body Works, Christmas, cologne, family, humor, Middle-Age, perfume, shopping, southern, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens
What is it about the Bath & Body Works store that attracts the pre-teen crowd like Christmas shopping attracts bad drivers? It can’t be their low prices—seriously, $10 for a candle that smells like ashes from my fireplace? Or, $3 hand disinfectant that leaves your steering wheel smelling like stale cookies? This summer, one of the girls even purchased a candle called Mahogany Teakwood that, I swear, smells like Drakkar Noir. Remember that? Or, for you youngsters who may not be familiar with that scent from the 1980’s, the candle smells like teenage boy who’s just discovered cologne. I think I might borrow it, just for the trip down memory lane. Maybe I’ll watch Top Gun while I burn it.
All of these things I can live with, because it’s a place where my kids can shop that doesn’t sell clothes for hookers in teen-age sizes, and doesn’t get them all hopped-up on caffeine. And, being a pre-school teacher, I’m all for the disinfectant. I just wish they sold Lysol in flavors like Warm Vanilla Sugar and Japanese Cherry Blossom.
HOWEVER…I have come to loathe the scents the teen girls seem drawn to…the cloying, heavy sprays and lotions so sweet and thick, they must have been inspired by a mortuary trying to cover up the scent of formaldehyde. Sleepovers are the worst. In the morning, the downstairs has a miasma of “Twilight Woods” drifting amid the sleeping bags and piles of clothes and hairbrushes. You can practically see the blue haze, like a layer of smoke from a speak-easy in the 1920’s. I can only imagine this must be what a brothel would have smelled like before the age of deodorant and sanitation.
But, I think we may have finally emerged from the darkness. This morning, Daughter #2 came up to me with a glass of milk and said, “Mom, this glass smells like Bar-B-Que.” Now, normally, I would say dump it out because it’s 7:30, we’re already running late, and no I don’t want to smell your sour milk; but, since we’ve begun buying organic milk, I wasn’t about to toss out $4 worth of white gold. So I sniffed it while she held the glass up.
It smelled like her Bath & Body Works perfume.
“It’s your perfume,” I said.
“No it’s not. It’s BBQ.”
I took the glass away and gave it to Hubby. “Does this smell like BBQ to you?”
“Nope,” Hubby answered.
“Now sniff her hand.”
He did. “It’s your perfume, Cutie,” he said.
Horrified, Daughter #2 looked at us and shrieked, “You mean I smell like pork loin?”
Sorry, Bath and Brothel Works, but I think it’s safe to say we might be moving on to the other teen scents, probably with catchy marketing names “I Can Drive,” or “SnapChat Me.”
But I might go get one of those Mahogany Teakwood candles and put it in my stocking.
Filed under: Sports | Tags: coliseum, football, Giants, gladiators, humor, NFL, Redskins
I love football. I was at the Giants/Redskins game on Monday night, and I loved every minute of it—and not just because I’m a Redskins fan (but how awesome was that? RG3 is being hailed as the Second Coming).
I love watching men grunt and throw each other to the ground. I love the superior athleticism on display as they launch themselves into the air, or chase the quarterback to the ground like lions after a wildebeest. I love the rhythm of the game, as the fan noise swells and crests, only to fall again as a play disintegrates. I even love the referees’ shrieking whistles and drunken bellows from the crowd. I’ve learned a lot of new insults over the years, especially sitting in the cheap seats.
But most of all, I love the visceral, instinctive reaction within myself that makes my stomach clench and my fist pump in the air as I scream at my flat screen. As much as I’m ashamed to admit it, I can’t turn away when a player gets hurt—the worse the better. Inside, I feel terrible that this man’s career is probably over, and his wife and family will have to help him find a new career, or even spend months in rehab with him, but I still watch the replays and cringe when a leg or arm snaps like a twig.
Watching football is probably about as close as today’s polite society will ever come to feeling like a Roman citizen watching the Gladiators battle to the death in the Coliseum.
The similarities to our Roman ancestors are interesting (and a little disturbing):
• The players are giants among men, trained and fed for one purpose: to defeat their opponents in violent contact while fans watch;
• Players have sponsors and backers, although their rewards are money and adulation, not just favors to make their meager lives as prisoners and slaves more bearable;
• Fans can be roused from sitting quietly with beers cradled in their hands to raging heart-attacks-waiting-to-happen with spittle flying from their lips within a matter of seconds;
• 80,000 fans chant the names of their favorite players, much like the fans of old chanted the name of their Ceasar. Did anyone hear the fans cheering for RG3? There is something eerie about hearing so much humanity calling one name—it gets into your blood until you find yourself chanting right along with them, even though you know it’s only a game, and the guy isn’t saving the world, just your playoff hopes.
• Calls for blood still ring out from the stands;
• Even our stadiums still resemble the old Coliseum—tiered seats, the arrival of the combatants from beneath the stadium, and beer and food hawked from the stands, and the elite still watch from a polite distance in their box seats; the peasants peer at the show form the nosebleed seats;
• But most disturbing of all is that we haven’t changed. We still love a good fight—UFC, boxing, football, even tennis (have you heard the constipated grunting? What is that?). We love a good fight.
None of this changes my Sunday routine—church (how hypocritical is that?), snacks and football until my eyes bleed. Maybe it’s a good thing, this blood-letting may even absorb some primal energy we have, preventing some violence further down the road. Why yell at your kids when you can safely yell at your tv?
Tomorrow night is Thursday, the new Sunday in the NFL—Are you ready for some football???
Subourbon Mom 