Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Parenting | Tags: adulthood, cicadas, family, humor, insects, Marriage, Middle-Age, mom, parenting, parents, south, southern, teenagers
The other day over the rising din of the cicadas, Daughter #1 commented that they don’t have much of a life—they sleep and grow for seventeen years, eat themselves silly, mate, and die after leaving a new generation to come forth seventeen years later. Now I wasn’t touching the mating part of it with a ten-foot pole, but the more I thought about it, I realized we really aren’t that different from those red-eyed, bug freak shows.
For the first seventeen years, we humans sleep and grow in our rooms. We morph and change in our childhood shells, protected form the world, often only emerging for basic sustenance, especially in the latter portion of our incubation. When we do crawl out from our teenage lairs, we eat…and eat…and eat…and mate (or try to). Some of us bring forth the next generation right then. Others never find that mate despite our best singing. The only difference between us and the cicadas is that we don’t die immediately afterward. We go through the cycle at least two more times, with slight variations.
For the next seventeen years, we sleepwalk through college and grad schools, finding that first job, hating that first job, and changing jobs. We try to sing, but we aren’t developed enough yet to find the right mate. Then, somewhere in our mid-thirties, we wake up again. That biological clock begins to tick, pushing us out of our sleep and into the world. We begin to sing in earnest. Many of us find our mates, procreate, and feel like a part of us is dying afterward as our toddlers get their tenth ear infection (a part of us is—the single, care-free part that slept through our twenties).
Seventeen more years of unconsciously suppressing our own desires and needs as we care for our kids (a.k.a. sleeping) passes, and suddenly the children are gone. We are in our early fifties. We emerge again, this time with less desire to mate, but just as much desire to sing. Sometimes our singing does result in mating (hooray—the kids are gone!) and the occasional new generation, or mating occurs with a subsequent divorce, but mostly we just want to sing—and we do, as we travel, go out to restaurants that don’t have crayons on the table, and look at all the pictures on the wall, wondering where the time went.
So, before you step on that crusty shell, or flick that gross-looking cicada off your towel at the pool, remember—we’re a lot like them, only cuter.
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: Middle Age, Parenting | Tags: cars, driving, humor, Marriage, southern, tailgates, traffic martyrs
You’ve all seen them as you’re stuck in a hideous line of traffic going from four lanes to two, or as 20,000 people are trying to leave a stadium at the same time. Either way, somebody farther up is LETTING PEOPLE IN. That person is a Traffic Martyr.
Sacrificing your spot in line for a Slider (a.k.a. the I’m-going-to-try-and-get-over-even-though-I-saw-the-line-backing-up-a-mile-ago-guy) not only rewards rude driving, it has historically caused an immeasurable and unrecorded rise in health care costs. The lemmings behind the Traffic Martyr have to up their Lipitor dosage, or risk having their hearts explode as their blood pressure escalates faster than the General Patraeus sex scandal.
If you are, or ever have been, a Traffic Martyr, maybe you’re one of those genuinely nice people who believe in letting Sliders in once a day. I’ll bet you even do it with a smile and a wave. And you probably believe in unicorns.
But I doubt you’re really that nice, down deep inside. Letting Sliders in your lane probably made you feel good, maybe a little self-righteous, and definitely a little superior. After all, you were the nice one. I’ve been there myself. And in the right situation, Traffic Martyrs can be useful, like when they slow the pace down enough to let you safely whack your teenager with a “punch-buggy-no-punch-back” hit while driving with your knees.
But if there’s one thing people hate more than Traffic Martyrs, it ‘s Sliders.
When Hubby encounters a Slider attempting to invade his driving space, he usually creeps up until he’s one inch behind the car in front, blocking the Slider. It’s as effective as a girl saying “let’s be friends.” Hubby’s move usually results in lots of honking and bird-flipping. But recently, in a rare act of being a Slider, Hubby ran into the ultimate Slider Hater.
Literally.
At the horse races last week (the same ones where the Irish news interviewed me), Hubby was trying to leave the infield with 10,000 other wind-burned, inebriated tailgaters. Having thoughtfully parked on the end of the aisle, facing out, he was quickly ready to merge into the line of stop-and-go traffic. One driver, however, was very upset that Hubby was going to be allowed to join the vehicular Conga line so soon. But instead of quietly cursing the Traffic Martyrs and like most people, Slider Hater called out to Hubby:
“You can’t just get in line! I’ve been waiting here for a half-hour.”
Hubby, having already gotten permission from the Traffic Martyrs around him, answered in typical Slider fashion, “Seriously, you’re not going to let me in? We’re all just trying to get out of here.”
Slider Hater: “Hey Buddy, I’ve got my kids in the car back here. Now you can do the right thing and let me go first, or you can do the wrong thing.”
Now, to be fair, Hubby had gotten permission from all the other cars around him,and Slider Hater had probably been sitting there for a while. Tempers were flaring. “It’s a rental,” Hubby yelled back. Daughter #1 cringed.
Hubby then attempted to merge. Misjudging the width of the rental car, Hubby took out the front of Slider Hater.
Yep, that was fender-bender #3 for our family in nine days.
Karma….freakin’ chipmunk.
Filed under: Misc. Humor | Tags: Eighty-percenter, humor, Marriage, painting
I have a new word– “redundies. ”
“Redundies–” the act of repeatedly dropping and picking up the same pair of underwear over and over when you are carrying a load of clothes to the laundry.
Apparently, I do not learn from doing things incorrectly the first time. Or the second. Not only do I repeatedly stoop and pick up the same pair of underwear when it drops over and over on the way to the laundry room (instead of shifting the pile or actually placing the load in a laundry basket), but I do the same thing with the piece of lint that the vacuum won’t pick up. I look at it, stoop down and pick it up, then place it on the floor again to see if the vacuum will work better this time. Do I bother to just toss it in the trash? Of course not.
For years I’ve been doing things like this. Cleaning the house is one giant “redundie” for me. Why else would a person vacuum, mop, wipe and dust a place that in ten minutes will look exactly the same? And yet we do it over an over and over!
But a couple of years ago I finally learned how to use this trait for good.
A friend once told me his wife said he was “an Eighty-Percenter.” That meant that whenever there was a project to be done, he was happy as long as it was eighty percent done, or done eighty percent correctly. I’m more like a Sixty-Percenter. Especially when it comes to painting. I just want color. I don’t particularly care about ceiling lines and chair rails and bannisters.
But Hubby does.
One day, it dawned on me that if I only did my usual Sixty-Percenter job on a project, he would HAVE to finish it. A Ninety- or One Hundred-Percenter cannot stand it if something is done less. So, periodically I would threaten to start a project, knowing Hubby would never be satisfied with my half-assed job, and would be compelled to finish it. Hubby never seemed to recognize this pattern.
Recently, I tried it again. I threatened to start a painting job we’d been putting off for months (ok, twelve years–we still had builder’s grade white paint on a few of the walls in the house). Hubby, the One Hundred-Percenter, panicked. He went to the fancy paint store (no Lowes or Home Depot for the One Hundred-Percenter) and purchased two gallons of paint in some flavor of “sand.”
There was nothing sand-colored about it. It was yellow. Margarine that has been sitting on the counter three days too long yellow. We stood staring up at the one painted corner unitl 7:00, then decided we should get something else. So, it being a holiday and the store already closed, we kicked back with our drinks and vowed to go back the next day. (And no, it never crossed our minds to get the little sample sizes, slap them on the wall, wait several days while we observed the light at different times like modern-day Michaelangelos. We are people of action. Watching and waiting do not become us.)
The next day, in we went back to the fancy paint store with Daughter #2, fresh from the stable and under protest in her stained and smelly jodphurs and boots. Daughter #2, never paralyzed with decision-making like some members of this family, marched over to the paint swatches, yanked one out and pronounced, “This is the one you want. Can we go now?”
Sure enough, it was pretty darn close to what we’d talked about. Victory was within my grasp. The house would be painted, Hubby would be house-bound for days to keep me company, and I wouldn’t have to do any of it!
Then my plan totally backfired.
I was not only allowed to tape the edges of our work space, but I was also allowed to actually use the roller and paint the big spaces. But despite the fact that I would have to re-wire our entire relationship in my head, my heart sang, my spirits soared, and I went to work with great gusto. Why? Because I knew a small miracle had happened in our Subourbon home.
After being together for twenty-two years, we had GROWN as a couple. There was a new level of trust in our relationship. Not only was I being allowed to paint, I was being allowed to paint the foyer, the very first place people will see when they walk in. My One Hundred-Percenter had trusted ME with such an important space. Naturally, I was on the receiving end of ample instruction on how to use the roller, how to hold it, where to start rolling, how to smooth out the globs I’d left behind, when to inhale, when to exhale, etc.
But hey, it’s a baby step.
Any miracles after twenty-two years should be celebrated. Maybe I’ll embrace the “redundies” and clean the house this weekend!
Subourbon Mom 