Adventures in Pain

Last Wednesday, we as a family purchased a family membership at our local gym. Hubby figured it would be something he and son could do together. Son likes it because he can work out and “get buff” with weights. I tag along in a state of grumpy martyrdom. Okay, I realize I need to do something to get my butt moving. I sit in front of a computer twelve hours a day. I got so stiff at one point I had to have physical therapy. I’m trying to figure out a way to write off massage therapy as a business expense. I’m 42 and I’ve gained thirty pounds in 2008 after having lost 30 pounds in 2007. It sucks.

My individual introductory session last week was conducted by a fellow I would term as a straight Richard Simmons. He was just WAY too bouncy and enthusiastic. He’s giving me high fives for making it two minutes on the treadmill without falling on my ass and I’m rolling my eyes behind his back. Well, I rolled my eyes until I realized the whole place has mirrors so he was actually seeing me roll my eyes behind his back. I decided that since he was “helping me stretch” (actually trying to dislocate my hip like a chicken leg from the carcass), I’d better be nice. I put on my “Oh! I’m so happy to be here!” face after that.

“Dick” took me through several stretches and ran me through the modern torture machines on the floor to give me an idea of what I should be doing to “loosen up my hips”. Yeah right. That’s gym rat code for shrink my butt. As I’m gritting my teeth and hoping I have lots of Advil at home, I’m thinking “You know, someone somewhere actually designs these weird things. Who sits around and thinks of how to mechanically move the human body in every possible direction?” Sicko.

Prior to running the resistance machine gauntlet, Dick (actually, I think his name was David but who cares) did this thing he called “foam rolling” on the large muscles of my legs. Essentially, this was like taking a rolling pin and rolling the muscles like biscuit dough. It was awful! I don’t have biscuit dough muscles and I’m pretty sure they weren’t ever meant to be rolled like that. I silently decided that was for the birds and those foam things would never get near me again. Dick didn’t realize how close he came to being beat about the head with a sweaty towel. Lucky for him I’ve been through natural childbirth and can endure high levels of pain.

One of the problems I’ve always had with gyms is that it feels like there is an “in” crowd at the gym. They wear all the right work out clothes, have the expensive tennis shoes, and are so skinny that you wonder why they are at the gym anyway. Then you realize they actually LIVE here and you feel even more like an out-of-town visitor. The gym rats are also all in their twenties and have perpetual tans. That means they have no kids and fairly stressless jobs (like waiting tables at Hooters) so they can spend lots of time at the tanning booth or by the pool. And at the gym.

I certainly don’t fit in. I’m over 40, 40 pounds overweight and dressed like I just stepped out of Goodwill. My shoes are Payless specials and I have no electronic “gear” such as an Ipod or a cell phone arm band. I’m thinking maybe I should bring my kitchen timer along next time and pretend it’s some sort of new, cutting edge heart rate monitor or something. I could duct tape it to my calf or something. You know – just to blend in with the crowd.

Saturday was my first “real” day at the gym when I could do what I wanted to without Dick following me around counting reps and saying sappy encouraging things like “Feel the burn!” or
“No pain no gain”. I did my stretches I learned in 1983 from my Jane Fonda album and then got on the treadmill. I knew enough not to stand on it directly to start it but beyond that, it was like looking at the dashboard of the space shuttle. Buttons, lights flashing, all kinds of gauges and indicators. I decided to risk it and started going through the preflight – flaps down, trim up, fuel rich, hit the starter…okay, it’s moving. Now to taxi out carefully. I stepped on it and held onto the hand rails for dear life as I watched the dashboard for anomalies.

I finally figured out that one indicator was time that was counting up – that tells me how long it will take for me to drop dead. The next indicator tells me what incline I’m walking out – set that puppy to 0! The next one is speed. And the one on the far right tells number of calories burned. Okay, I’m getting the hang of this so I increase my speed to 3.1 mph. Not bad. I’m a naturally fast walker so this feels okay. I still can’t let go of the handlebars, though, because I get dizzy but I’m feeling less like an idiot. Confidence is building. I chuck the speed up to 3.5 and now we’re truckin’.

I notice there are TVs in front of me hanging from the ceiling. One is on ESPN (of course), one is on a music video channel, and one is on Fox News. The only one I can hear is the music channel and it has some weird group on it so I try to watch the Fox News channel. I can’t hear it but it has subtitles. I then realize I can’t SEE the subtitles without my glasses. I don’t have my glasses on because they would slide off my face with the sweat that is rapidly building. So I decide to try to read lips but soon realize I can check that off as one more thing I can’t do very well, along with biscuit roll muscles.

My breath is coming shorter and I notice my attitude is starting to change. I’m no longer just grumpy. I’m starting to think evil thoughts such as “Whoever invented treadmills should be shot”, “Whoever invented that foam roller thing should be tortured and then shot”, and “Whoever invented small print subtitles should have their eyes poked out”. I realize I’m breathing really hard and I glance down at the dashboard. I’ve only been on the dang thing five minutes, I’ve walked three-tenths of a mile and I’ve only burned 15 calories. WHAT??? This was going to be worse than I expected and I expected really bad.

Slowly I begin to realize there is a guy in front of me on one of the shoulder torture devices who continues to look at me. Now I KNOW it’s not because I’m a hot babe – HA – I’ve not had a shower, no makeup, I’m sweating like a racehorse, and my face probably looks like the hind-end of a baboon. Then it dawns on me why he’s staring at me. In my ignorance of gym etiquette, I had neglected to wear an athletic bra and instead just wore my regular old, stretched out, comfortable Playtex. Newton’s Third Law of Motion – for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction – was in play under my “I gave blood” t-shirt. Oh brother.

I glanced at the dashboard and saw that I was halfway to my goal of 2 miles so I was darned if I was going to stop ‘cause my boobs were crashing around like ping pong balls in a gallon-size pickle jar. I’d burned a whopping 98 calories, dammit, and I was in the peak of the distance counter. I was going to finish this or die trying.

My only recourse was to give the guy my “evil Teacher Look”. Every teacher and most moms know this look, but former and current middle school teachers are best at it. It’s the look that says “I know what you are thinking and you are going to spend the rest of your life in detention if you don’t straighten up RIGHT NOW.” I leveled my gaze at him and fired away. It worked! Hah! It worked! He suddenly decided that his shoulders were shredded enough and decided to move across the room to the gorilla section.

Now that I was rid of Mr. Pervert, I decided to work on my attitude a bit. After all, I’m in sales and I know that attitude is more than half the battle. I’m also a pretty competitive person, especially with myself, so I decided to challenge myself to think positive thoughts. Positive thoughts. Okay. Think. What is good about this? My mental silence was deafening. It was so quiet that I could actually hear my ears ringing from the residual hangover of that long-ago Bruce Springsteen concert. I was a complete blank.

Suddenly, it was like God heard me and gave me inspiration. Miss Size 4 got on the treadmill directly to my left and started taxiing. I thought “Heh, I’ve got a head start on her! I’m already at a mile and a half!” As she’s tippy-toeing along at a leisurely warm-up speed of 2 mph, I kick it up to 3.7 and increase the incline to .5. I’ll show her! I’ve got this down. I used to be the fastest to complete a mile in my ninth grade gym class and that included the boys so I know I can beat her.

I glance at my dashboard and the heart rate monitor is flashing red. I wonder vaguely in the back of my mind if that is a bad thing. I wipe the sweat off my nose with my towel and keep going. I’m feeling confident then Miss Size 4 starts RUNNING! What is she doing? Isn’t there a rule that you can’t do that for safety reasons? You could get hurt or hurt someone else, right? I kick up the incline on my machine to 1.0. She may be running but I’m climbing Mt. Everest at 3.5 mph. Let’s see her match that!

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her treadmill start to rise at the front. My dashboard starts beeping loudly at me. I glance around for one of those portable defibrillators like they have now at airports because I’m starting to think I may need one. They do train these gym monitors how to do CPR, right? Just don’t let it be Dick that comes to my rescue. I’d rather die, please. Mr. Pervert can stay away, too. Just drag me out to the parking lot and let the Schwann’s truck run over me. That’s the way I want to go.

“Are you going to go into cool down or keep going?” It’s Miss Size 4 talking to me. She can run and talk at the same time? Holy cow! It’s Superwoman in disguise. I glance at her in oxygen-deprived confusion. “Huh?” I puff. “Your timer is going off” she says. I then realize the beeping sound of the dashboard isn’t the warning signal for eminent heart failure but rather that I’ve completed my assigned 2 miles and need to slow down to give my noodle legs a chance to recover before I actually try to walk on dry land.

I drop the incline on my machine so fast my ears pop and start backing off on the speed. I’m almost done, thank goodness. Mentally, I’m rummaging through my medicine cabinet for something more powerful than Advil because I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it. I glance up at the TVs once more and lo and behold – it’s Bon Jovi and their new video “Have a Nice Day”. Ah, Jon Bon Jovi! After all these years, he’s still hot and has great teeth.

Suddenly, I time travel back to 1984 when none of my joints creaked, Levi’s fit, and I could squat down without my feet going to sleep. I smile. I made it. Not only through this first two miles of pain but also through the last 25 years of life. I glance at Miss Size 4 and decide I wouldn’t trade places with her. I’ve learned a lot since I was a size four and endured more pain that this treadmill can dish out. My butt may be the size of a barn but my character is Olympic-class.

Now if I can just remember which locker is mine…

Driving Mrs. Crazy

Let me preface this post with an explanation (okay, it’s a blatant excuse) of why it has been so long since my last post. Every writer has a muse – some element on the inside that stirs thought and creativity and makes the words flow from the spirit to the page. In my case, my muse has been on strike from sheer overwork and has refused to produce for my personal blog due to the tremendous workload she carries for my normal job. I can understand that but it’s frustrating. As I write this, however, I am sitting in the Palm Beach International Airport awaiting my flight back to the real world. I am departing a weekend in Boca Raton where my muse has been wined and dined, sunned and oiled, massaged and pampered to the nth degree in our annual managers’ retreat. Now my muse is in a better mood and allowing ideas to flow again for this blog.

Transportation seems to play a big role in our family these days. Planes, trains and automobiles seem to be regular elements that touch the three of us. Hubby flies on a fairly regular basis to luxurious places like Boise and Omaha for work. I have the daily schlep to take the kid to school, run errands, etc. For our vacation in July, we tagged along with hubby to DC where we rode the subway daily.

Since September, son has added a new dimension to transportation because he received his learner’s permit. I have been surreptitiously giving him driving lessons for a couple of years on the Civic but now he is actually legal to drive so his territory for travel has expanded from the orchard and our country road to anywhere either hubby or I will let him take the wheel. The learner’s permit is one in several rites of passage ending, in my opinion, with becoming a parent several years down the road. Once you become a parent, you are truly an adult and for some mysterious reason your ability to stay up late, drink lots of alcohol, and see small print starts to disappear.

With the learner’s permit the perpetual “why?” of the three year old is now replaced with the perpetual “Can I drive?” of the fifteen year old. I have to give son credit – he’s a fairly good driver for a raw newbie. Of course, he’s never taken a driving lesson from his dad which I think has a lot to do with it. I’ve considered it MY job since fifth grade to teach this kid how to drive simply to do my level best to make sure he’s around to take care of me in my senile retirement. Allowing hubby to teach him how to drive would result in a minimum of one totaled vehicle within the first six months.

There was actually unspoken consensus that hubby would not be teaching son how to drive. Hubby has no patience and a lead foot. He also makes the monthly car payment when he pays the bills so it scrapes on his nerves when the kid gets behind the wheel of the new vehicle. He’s not worried about son’s life or the life of innocent bystanders but about whether the car will remain unscathed. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration but it’s definitely an element of concern.

Truth be told, I’d rather ride with my son behind the wheel than my husband. Son is still petrified of screwing up or putting a scratch on the car so he is extremely careful and follows directions. He acquiesces to the rule of no radio on while driving and doesn’t say a word when I say “Watch your speed”. On the other hand, if I even glance at the speedometer when hubby is driving he gets defensive and starts telling me to chill out. Hubby drives with his knees while dialing his cell phone or eating a burrito. Son cannot even open a bottle of Mountain Dew while driving so he keeps both hands at ten and two on the wheel and only takes a sip while stopped at a red light. I feel much safer riding with son.

Maybe part of my terror of riding with my husband is simply the fact that I’m getting older. I know the older my mother became, the more tense she was riding with someone else. I find myself gripping the door handle with the same white knuckles that she did and bracing my feet against the floorboard when brake lights ahead start coming on. I’ve discovered that I look further down the road than my husband. I can see cars starting to slow down long before he does. He sees nothing wrong with slamming on the brakes and swerving to the right to avoid ramming the car stopped ahead whereas I would have been braking a half mile earlier. His logic is that he’s never hit someone in the rear yet; there’s a fault in that thinking somewhere but I’m usually in such a state of terror that I can’t think of how to counter such a stupid statement.

Mapquest has had a huge impact on our family’s transportation. Usually, if we are going somewhere new, we Mapquest our destination prior to departure. Sometimes, though, we forget to run the search and end up a bit lost en route. In those instances, hubby pulls out the cell phone GPS service. When the cell phone appears, son and I know we are about to go from turned around to completely lost for hours. The cell phone is NEVER accurate in its directions but hubby puts his complete faith in the Phone. It doesn’t matter if the big huge signs all say turn right, if the Phone says turn left, hubby turns left.

Hubby’s undying belief in the Phone has led us to interesting discoveries of the swamps of South Carolina and small forgotten ghost towns in Florida. Son and I secretly call it the “Deliverance Phone” because we swear we hear banjo music in the background behind the voice on the Phone. We’ve discovered that one way signs can be ignored if the Phone says traveling the opposite way is the correct route. It must have some sort of traffic law-suspension powers. We have traversed the same stretch of road in both directions several times over because the Phone gets stuck in a “Recalculating route. Make a u-turn as soon as it is safely possible.” Of course, hubby gets uptight when son or I cautiously point out that we’ve now passed Larry’s Lounge and Bait Shop three times in the last ten minutes. Hubby simply contends that Larry must be franchised to multiple locations.

Hubby always wanted to be a jet pilot but he’s too tall. The Air Force would have required him to cut his legs off at the knees to be able to fly their planes. I think he secretly fantasizes he is flying a jet when he drives. I’m sure he is convinced a Honda Civic can achieve Mach 1 and heavy traffic conditions are just an opportunity to practice close formation flying. Like a Thunderbird pilot, hubby feels traveling 300 mph 7 inches from your wing man is a great accomplishment. I should note that Thunderbird pilots fly without anyone else in the cockpit. If they did, that person would be gripping the door handle and bracing his feet against the floorboard, too. I’m also pretty sure Thunderbirds have better navigation systems than the Deliverance Phone.

If we are going to be traveling far with hubby at the wheel, I’ve learned to double up on my beta blocker for my heart condition and add a dose of my anxiety medication to my normal dosage. I’m thoroughly convinced that if I WERE to start having a panic attack or heart palpitations, it would only cause hubby to drive faster; his logic would be that he sooner we reached our destination, the better.

Planes, trains and automobiles are definitely part of our family theme this year. I’m sure at some point “Throw Momma from the Train” has also arisen in some of the male minds in the household. Quite frankly, I think we are closest to “Crash” part of the time but most of the time it’s just “Driving Mrs. Crazy”.

No Binney and Smith

‘Tis the season and I’m definitely in the holiday spirit – the spirit of Back to School. As a former teacher, I always get the itch at this time of year when I see the displays of pencils and folders in the stores. I feel like I need to be running off worksheets, writing lesson plans, and filling out my grade book. I think I get more excited about Back to School than I do about Christmas.

As a child, shopping for Back to School was exciting. My dad would take me to TG&Y (this was before Walmart hit town) or to Redford’s Ten Cent Store and buy my tablets, pencils, and best of all – a 64-count box of Crayola crayons with the sharpener on the back. I loved the new book bag, paste, and pencils, but I LOVED that new box of crayons.

I was a prolific colorer as a child. I could plow through a coloring book in no time. Back in the 70’s, every grocery store had a twirly stand by the checkout with comic books and coloring books. I anxiously awaited the newest editions of coloring books, especially ones that featured animals or holiday designs. I would go through crayons like crazy and they always had to be Crayola. Off-brand ones just didn’t color right – they’d smear or not cover well.

This morning, I stole a couple of hours away from work to head to Target to pick up a few things on my son’s high school supply list. I was appalled that crayons aren’t on the list for freshmen. It had to be a mistake. Surely, ninth graders need to color something – maps maybe or something for a science project? What about the periodic table? That would look good done in crayon. You would have to use some colors twice because there are more than 64 elements but you could do the noble gases all one color and then all the radioactive ones one color. Surely, there was a need for crayons in high school.

Alas, no matter how hard I looked, no crayons were listed for high school – not for sophomores, juniors or even seniors. Gelatin, a slinky, latex gloves, and disinfectant were (I don’t even want to know what FOR), but no crayons. The closest things were colored pencils and we still have about 3 sets of those left over from sixth grade.

No, I had no written justification for purchasing the big 64 count box of Crayola crayons. So I decided to sneak a box. I'd shred the receipt so no one would know. Besides, I would just write in a different color every day in my Day-Timer for the next 64 days. Oh the smell! It’s better than chocolate chip cookies! That smell takes away all the stress of being a grown up and catapults me back to the days of knee-high socks, Stretch Armstrong, and bicycle banana seats. One whiff and I’m free of worries about bills, college tuition, the rising price of gas, and the gray hairs that are starting to make me look like a skunk. Some candle company needs to make candles that smell like school supplies – crayons, mimeograph ink, paste, pencil shavings, chalk dust, and the smell of a newly varnished gym floor. They’d make a fortune.

I smuggled my crayons home with all the other stuff I purchased and saved that bag to empty until last. Furtively, I snuck them into my office and opened the flip-top lid (you have to do it just right so it doesn’t tear). I was so excited about my non-toxic purchase! I started looking for my old favorite colors – midnight blue, cornflower, and sienna. As I was pulling colors out, I noticed that some of them were different – they had gray wrappers instead of wrappers that matched the color of the crayon itself. What’s up with this? I pulled out a neon pink one and read the name – “famous”. WHAT? Where did that come from? Famous what? The neon orange one right beside it read “fun in the sun”. These are color names? Whose idiotic idea was this?

I glanced back at the front of the box. Right there in the corner it read “8 New Kids’ Choice Colors – By Kids – About Kids”. I was appalled. They had changed the 64-count box! If they had added 8 colors, that means they had to remove 8 colors. It’s not a 72-count box so something had to be missing! Oh horrors! Threads of panic started to set in and I thought briefly of the nitroglycerine tablets I carry in my purse.

I started reading the names of the new colors. In addition to “famous” and “fun in the sun”, there were “best friends”, “awesome”, “super happy”, “happy ever after”, “giving tree” and “bear hug”. Who in the hell came up with those stupid names? Don’t the people at Crayola know that the only hope for boys to ever understand the difference between the color peach and the color apricot is through the 64-count box of Crayola crayons?? They are handicapping an entire male generation! At some point in the future, some poor woman is going to say “I think we should paint the garage gray” and her husband will say, “Gray? What’s that? Is that like ‘bear hug’?”

To make it an even bigger shock – Crayola is now printing the color names in three languages – English, Spanish, and French. Spanish I tolerate because everything caters to our illegal alien population these days but FRENCH? Now don’t get me wrong. I took two years of French in high school, lived in Europe for three years, minored in Spanish in college, taught beginning Spanish in middle school and have piddled with Russian. Some of the first things you learn in a new language are the names of colors. If we want non-English speaking children to learn our language in our schools, would it not make sense to put the names of the crayon colors in just ENGLISH?

By that time, I’d also discovered that light green is now “granny smith apple” (without capitalization, mind you) and I just couldn’t take it. I needed to write to Binney & Smith and set them straight. I hunted around on the box for the address, noting with relief that they are still made in USA, only to find that Crayola is no longer owned by Binney & Smith but by – get this – Hallmark. The genesis of those sappy color names became crystal clear. Hallmark is in on it and they've made gay colors.

As I was sitting staring despondently at my brand new 64-count box of Crayola crayons, my son walked into the office. He saw my forlorn look and asked me what was wrong. Tearfully, I moan “They’ve changed the colors in the box!” Being the true loving son he is, he came over, gave me a hug and said, “Gee mom, I’m sorry. Growing up is hard, isn’t it. Want me to get you a glass of wine?”

Happy Fourth of July

I realize it’s been some time since I last posted. Several of you that I saw in person over the holiday weekend reminded me of that so I’m stirring up the pot a bit and see what I can come up with over the next few days. Thank you for the poke in the butt to get going.

I like the Fourth of July. Believe it or not, it was always my favorite holiday as a kid, even better than Christmas, I think. The Fourth was usually a big to-do with my family and any kind of to-do with my family was unusual just because of the rarity of such. We didn’t do a lot of big get-togethers so I usually enjoyed those that actually occurred. Christmas was nice but the Fourth had two things that I really liked – homemade, hand-cranked ice cream and the danger of losing body parts in an explosion.

The ice-cream is self-explanatory only it wasn’t until I grew up that I figured out the physics of how the cranking and the cold actually made ice-cream. I just figured the cranking bit was something to keep us kids busy (which it probably was) and the ice was something to make the cranking harder to do.

See, my dad never bought crushed ice for the ice-cream maker. Shoot, I don’t think they even sold the stuff in our county. No, we had to make it with the regular kind of ice that was the size of rocks from a gravel road. Those things inevitably got stuck under the cylinder thing in the ice-cream maker and required a lot of reversals, banging, and poking with a long, flat-head screwdriver to get unstuck. It made an interminable process even longer.

The result was always worth it. Mom never made regular ice cream with eggs and cream. If it had to be cooked, Mom didn’t make it which was also the reason I spent most of my childhood eating out in restaurants. No, Mom made ice cream with regular milk, vanilla, and sugar. The result was very similar to snow cream and was fantastic. Of course, since we only got it once a year that made it even more special.

My other favorite thing about the Fourth is the threat to life and limb. There were two major ways to hurt yourself on the Fourth. The first was if you went to the Kiwanis fireworks show at the high school stadium and fell down the bleachers. I’ve done that – more than once. The risk of that happening went up if there was a sudden, unexpected lightning storm in the middle of the show that caused the entire population of the county to start running for their cars in a torrential downpour.

One of my most vivid Fourth of July memories is one of seeing my mom running in a torrential downpour in front of me headed for the car holding a program over her beehive hairdo. Lightning was snapping everywhere and Daddy had a death grip on my hand. We had made it to the back of the concession stand and were crossing the grass when Mom tripped headlong, face first into a water-filled ditch. Dad and I forgot the storm and doubled over laughing. Mom didn’t see the humor. I have to give her credit though – she saved the ‘do. The rest of her was a muddy polyester mess but that ‘do made it through. I suspect it was the build-up of Aqua-Net that made the difference.

Thereafter every Fourth, we always talked about the lightning storm when Mom fell in the ditch. It became a family legend. We have many family legends that revolve around the Fourth, mainly because my older brother has a condition that makes for an exciting experience – he loves home fireworks and he’s blind as a bat in the dark.

Brother is thirteen years older than I and has always worn Coke-bottle glasses. He can barely see in the daylight but in any dim light, he’s completely night-blind. He’s never seen a star. He has to be led into and out of the movie theater. When he was in the Navy, he was not allowed on the ship’s deck after twilight for fear he would walk off the side. He is completely and totally blind in the dark. That didn’t stop either him or my dad from putting on a massive fireworks display on our street every year. In fact, it added to the excitement!

The day before the Fourth, Dad, Brother and I would head down to the fireworks stand and load up two large grocery sacks (they were the paper kind back then) with all kinds of fireworks. It was cool because they usually let me pick everything out being the spoiled rotten baby girl I was. Of course, I’d get the girly stuff like sparklers and lady fingers but we’d also get Roman candles, showers-of-sparks, bottle rockets, regular Black Cats, chasers and whistlers. Cherry bombs, smoke bombs, and stink bombs were my brother’s favorites because they could be shot off before dark. M-80’s were Dad’s favorites and he had a stock-pile of them for years after they were made illegal. All total, Dad probably spent a hundred bucks on fireworks every year and that was when you could get a box of sparklers for a quarter and a gross of bottle rockets for two bucks. You can imagine the massive amount of firepower we had.

When I was ten or so, Brother was in on leave from the Navy for the holiday. We were just getting started and the lightning bugs were just starting to come up out of the grass. For those of you who live in the South, you’ll realize that means there was still some light, at least enough to see fuses without flashlights. Or so we thought.

Brother was attempting to light a mortar shot and had just gotten the fuse going when, being blind, he tripped and knocked the mortar over. Dad yelled out “Incoming!” and bolted. Ice tea cups flew and lawn chairs tumbled as family and neighbors evacuated the area. My best friend Laura and I took cover in a ditch. Mom passed us doing about 35 with her cigarette clamped between her lips in an attempt to get around the side of the house to safety. We’d never seen grownups move so fast in our entire lives. Brother stood stock-still while the entire neighborhood made for cover around him. He later said he figured his odds of not getting shot were better than his odds of not running into a tree so he just froze. Turns out the only casualty was the neighbor’s cat who got a singed tail and lost three lives out of sheer terror when the mortar round missed its ass by millimeters. I swear that cat flew like Superman.

Brother always had close calls with fireworks but it didn’t deter him and it made for great entertainment for the rest of us. One year he lit a Roman candle and was holding it out in front of him like all the safety experts tell you not to do. The fact that he was holding it out in front of him turned out not to be the problem. The problem was he had it turned around backwards and shot himself in the stomach. After two shots, he got a clue and dropped it. Burned a hole straight through his shirt and made a big red mark on his belly. When he dropped it, it shot off toward Mom who again passed us doing 30 (she was older that year) trying to get around the corner of the house.

The Fourth before his wedding, Brother had his fiancée Susan to our house for the holiday. Susan, bless her sweet Baptist heart, hates fireworks; she is absolutely terrified of them. But, in her attempt to be a part of the family, she compromised that year and decided to sit in the car in the driveway while we shot off the annual display. She settled herself into her yellow Datsun and felt safe with the windows rolled up and the doors all locked. All was going well and the display was good, if a tad boring. Susan, feeling a bit comforted, not to mention sweaty walled up in an enclosed Datsun in July in Tennessee, decided to crack her window about an inch. Brother lit off a chaser right about then and a legend was made.

That chaser did the absolute impossible and flew a beeline directly through that one-inch gap in that window and got in the car with Susan. I couldn’t see her face but I could see the chaser going round and round inside that car and the screams that emanated from the interior were those of someone in free fall without a parachute. She couldn’t get out because she had locked the doors. She couldn’t get away and she couldn’t hide in a two-door subcompact of the seventies. Those of us watching could just see fire bouncing off walls and windows, and see the Datsun rocking as she tried to fight the thing off.

Of course, none of us were any help. We couldn’t even stand up because we were laughing so hard. When the chaser finally burned out and she was able to unlock the door, that sweet Baptist girl emerged cussing like a sailor. Her denim skirt was burned in multiple places and her perfectly hot-rollered hair was smoking in several quadrants. For twenty years thereafter, Susan spent the Fourth of July locked in the window-less bathroom at our house from 4:00 pm onward.

After he was married and had children of his own, Brother was still fun on the Fourth. I was with him and his kids one year in an undeveloped cul-de-sac of their neighborhood as they were putting on their own homegrown display. Brother had just lit a chaser and was backing away when he disappeared altogether. We all ran over to see what had happened to him to discover he had backed away too far in the dark and had fallen into a six-foot ditch flat of his back. Lucky for him, it was full of muddy water or he could have been hurt.

You know, now that I think about it, the Fourth of July and ditches seem to have some sort of weird connection for our family. I bet Susan wishes she had taken the ditch instead of the Datsun. At least she could have run for her life like Mom did.

The fireworks bug has been genetically passed to my son but unfortunately, due to circumstances, we have yet been able to spend a Fourth with my brother since my son has been old enough to get involved in the annual fireworks display. Maybe next year.

I saw on the news this afternoon that 37 people were hurt nationwide by fireworks this year. Heck, that’s not bad. I don’t see what gets safety people into such a tizzy about fireworks. I survived 42 years of near proximity to a blind man with a punk in his hand surrounded by explosives. If I made it through unscathed, the odds are good that most other people will. Unless of course, you are stuck in a yellow Datsun with the doors locked.

Final Instructions

I warn you - this post might be considered irreverent by some people, especially if you are unfamiliar with me or my family; however, it's something that I think is rather funny in a weird kind of way so I'm going to share it.

First of all, I have to back up a few years to about 1999 (I think). We were living in Texas and my grandmother passed away. My mother was an only child and she and my grandmother did NOT get along. My grandmother had been taken care of by my brother and I for several years, but my brother took over when we moved to Austin. My mother did not have much involvement with Mommo (what we called my grandma) but when Mommo died, it was up to Mom to take care of the final arrangements because she was the direct next of kin.

My grandmother had always loved a good funeral. We called her a professional funeral-goer. She'd often go to funerals of people she had never met but were friends of friends. She just loved the socializing they offered. When my grandfather died, she made sure that the traditions were followed and she was in high cotton because at that funeral, she was the center of attention. She made the most of it, too. She could be a bit of a drama queen and a good Southern funeral was just the stage she needed.

Needless to say, my mother had little patience with all that. She considered it a waste of time and good money (Mom was cheap). Therefore, when my grandmother died, my mother didn't do the whole funeral thing but rather just had Mommo cremated (because it was cheaper), gave away her few possessions, and was done with it. When the remains (funeral professionals call them "cremains", I've discovered) were returned to Mom, she simply put the box in the trunk of her car. And that is where they stayed until last month. That's nine years, people. For nine years, my mother rode around with my grandmother in the trunk of her car.

Mom's original intention was to take the ashes to Alexander City, Alabama and have them buried next to my granddad but somehow she just never got around to making the trip. So Mommo rode around in the trunk of Mom's car for years. She even got transferred from one trunk to another when Mom bought a NEW car. It got to be a bit of a family joke, really. I always told Mom that if she was ever in an accident she would have a hard time explaining when the police asked her what was in the box - "Uh, well officer, that would be my mother".

In a way, it was rather appropriate (remember, I said you have to know my family) because my grandmother was a big traveler. She was always on the go and moved a LOT. Once she even moved from one side of a duplex to the other side - just because. We kind of figured she was having a good time sitting there next to the spare tire. I told Mom "what goes around, comes around" and that I had every intention of riding her around in the trunk when she died. Mom thought that was pretty funny.

Well, on January 5th Mom passed away. Her written directions were to be cremated. So now I was stuck with both Mommo in a box and Mom in a box. When we went to pick up Mom's "cremains" Scott carried the box out to the car for me. As we were nearing the Honda, he said, "Do you want me to put her in the backseat?" and I said "Nope. She goes in the trunk. I always told her I was going to ride her around like she did Mommo and I'm keeping my promise." And by golly I did - at least for a few hours. I brought her in the house at the end of the day and sat her box on top of Mommo's box on the floor under my desk with strict instructions to the two of them "No fighting, you two. I've had enough of your antics already."

A week after Mom died, we held a memorial service. Cremation is a relatively new thing for Southerners. We are accustomed to the traditional funeral process. You know - the visitation, the open casket, the service at the funeral home, the graveside service, and then the big dinner spread afterwards. People flood the family with casseroles and cakes. Everyone talks about how "good" the dead person looks, discusses the choice of flower blanket and casket, etc. It's a good gossip fest.

All Southern women can put on a funeral with little to no problem because we know the routine. Southern funerals are big occasions to see long-lost family, catch up with friends, eat big, and generally give the deceased a good send-off. When you have someone cremated, you can't really do that. What do you do? Put the box on the table at the front of the church? Remark how "good" it looks? The whole process is odd. I mean, really, I wrote a check for cremation services and they handed me my mother in a box in return. How weird is that?

I wasn't about to hang on to both Mom and Mommo for another nine years with both of them sitting under my desk. In my normal fashion, I was going to take care of disposal of "cremains" as soon as possible and move on. (How can people put their family members in an urn on the mantel? I just don't get it.) The day after the memorial service, my brother, my nephew, my son and I took both boxes and rode up into the Smoky Mountains where I knew of a good mountain stream that was easily accessible from the road. I figured this was as good a place as any to "bury" them both. Mommo could travel all the way to the Gulf of Mexico eventually and Mom had always enjoyed camping in the mountains in her younger days.

It was a very cold January day - clear, with temperatures in the teens. When we got to the spot, I was elected to do the honors. We decided we would start with Mommo first since she had been dead the longest. (We're making this up as we go along because we've never done anything like this before.) When I went to open the cardboard box she was in, I discovered to my dismay that Mom had taped her in. And I mean she had done a REALLY good job - she was being absolutely positive Mommo wasn't getting out. My goodness, she could have passed FedEx standards! I had to get my son's pocket knife to cut through the packing tape and once inside, I discovered she'd done the same to the plastic box on the inside! It took me fifteen minutes of hacking with a Swiss army knife to get in to the "cremains".

Okay, morbid curiosity abounds and I know you are wondering what it looked like. We did too. Basically, it looked like what you would expect it to look like - gray powder. I held the plastic bag out over the river and dumped it in. My son and nephew threw flowers in after. And the cloudy water just sat there. Without thinking about it, we had selected a spot where the current wasn't very strong so when dumped in, a big cloudy area resulted. Ahh, crap.

Learning as we went along on this, we decided it would be best to dump Mom a little further upstream and out a little further in the current. That meant me, the elected one, had to walk out on these slippery rocks over the sub-freezing temp water coming down from the mountains. I was saying a prayer - "please don't let me fall in" and then "please don't let me fall in after I dump Mom because that would just be too icky". Forget anything appropriate like the Lord's Prayer or the 23rd Psalm. I was concerned about myself at this point.

I made it to the appropriate place and opened the box. To our amazement, Mom didn't look like Mommo. Mom looked more like black volcanic sand. I commented "You don't think they gave us the wrong person do you?" but then I decided it was irrelevant at this point. I'm balancing my big ol' butt on a tiny, slippery rock over rushing freezing water and I was anxious to get this done and back to shore safely. We were going to dump SOMEONE even if it wasn't Mom.

I go through the same process and my son and nephew throw in flowers. I make it safely back to the bank and we stand there watching the stream. Now, this entire thing has been surreal from the start but here's where it gets really weird. As "Mom" and "Mommo" start mixing together in the stream, whirlpools start to form and the floating flowers actually start floating UPSTREAM. The three of us look at each other with eyes like saucers and we all exclaim at once "They're fighting again!"

Rapidly we backed up the bank out of the way and watch as the water seems to boil and churn and the flowers are going every which way but downstream. We are afraid we've created an EPA supersite or some sort of space/time wormhole by letting these two mix together.

We stood and watched for about 20 minutes, our noses turning blue and our breath freezing in the air until finally, finally, the flowers move on downstream and the waters smooth out. Not a word has been spoken. My son bends down and with a stick writes in the mud beside the stream "NO SWIMMING". I get the car keys out and say "Anyone up for Sonic? I could use some ice cream."

By the way, in case anyone needs to know, I've left written instructions for my burial. I want to be buried, in a casket, in jeans and a t-shirt, and I want chicken and dumplings served for dinner. And banana pudding. Just want to make that clear.

Plastic People Patrol on the Prowl

I suppose you've probably figured out by now that we are a bit of an odd family. It might have to do with having been military for so long and moving around so much that we have to make our own fun or at least come up with some innovative ways to entertain ourselves.

The Plastic People Patrol started several years ago when we lived in Texas. We were riding high on the dot-com bubble and were living in a fairly upscale neighborhood like all the other stock-option people in Austin. We had just finished hanging up our Christmas lights and were heading to the pool (Austin was 80 degrees at the time) when we walked past a house and were stopped in our tracks. The lawn (which was the size of a postage stamp in this zero-lot-line development) was absolutely FILLED with "internally illuminated" Christmas decorations - plastic people. How the communist-led neighborhood association had let this one get past their keen radar was beyond me! It was a sight to behold!

This family had the traditional nativity scene with Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus PLUS the wisemen, their camels, Santa and sleigh and all 9 reindeer (Rudolph included), Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, a full choir, an army of nutcracker soldiers, 3-foot-high candles, a snowman army, candy canes, and a Grinch. It was so red-neck, the ginormous modern house to which the lawn was attached was incongruent. It should have been a single-wide instead of a 5-bedroom, 3-car mortgage broker's dream. Even the Mercedes parked in the driveway now seemed out-of-place situated among the Plastic People population.

We counted up the number of Plastic People in that yard that year and came up with 34. The next year, the group had reproduced somehow (maybe Snow White and one of the dwarves?) and stood at 36. We started riding around the neighborhood and other developments in southwest Austin looking for another house that beat that record of 36 Plastic People. The Plastic People Patrol was born and a family tradition was launched.

That year in Texas, we decided the 36-count Plastic People home deserved a tribute for starting a family tradition so we printed up an award on Christmas paper, tucked a twenty-dollar bill in the envelope with it, and left it anonymously in the mailslot of the front door of that house. The Plastic People Patrol had awarded it's first annual recognition award!

Now, every year we go on Plastic People Patrol looking for the house in the county that has the most Plastic People included in their holiday exterior illumination display. Lighted things like Christmas trees, hanging icicles, and wire figures do not count. Plastic People have to be made out of plastic to qualify. With the advent of the blow-up holiday decorations, we've included them as qualifying Plastic People since they do contain some sort of petroleum-based or synthetic product in their covering and are illuminated internally. No matter the size, though, they only count once. A 14-foot inflatable carousel, while impressive, cannot count twice.

We've seen some interesting decorations in our yearly quest to find the winner of the Plastic People Award. The house that turned it's trampoline on it's side and put lights around the outside edge to make a 12-foot wreath was inventive. The house that just left up the Halloween decorations and added Christmas decorations to the mix was a bit schizophrenic. Some houses rival Clark Griswald's and you have to wonder what the electricity bill runs for the month of December.

It's been several years now that our Plastic People Patrol has been in operation. Families in two states and three counties have earned places in the Plastic People Award Hall of Fame and been awarded certificates placed in their mailboxes. Son has hit his teenage years so we are now making it a team effort among his group of friends. We'll be making our final enumeration tour one night soon. The boys will be piling into the Denali, hyped up on energy drinks while Mom (that's me), hyped up on Prozac to survive 5 teenage boys hyped up on energy drinks crammed into an SUV, drives them by all the houses they have noted as contenders. Head counts of Plastic People will be executed as a group and the contender with the highest population will win the coveted 2007 Plastic People Award and the cash award of $20 that accompanies it. A family tradition survives another year and perhaps will be passed on to future generations.

Are we weird or what?

What Would the Holidays Be without Firearms?

Ahhh, Thanksgiving Day has passed and the stampede on Wal-mart has passed for the moment. It is time to sit back and enjoy the essence of a Southern Christmas. Living in the bastion for the Second Amendment, firearms and the holidays have always been woven together around here.

For example, the Saturday after Thanksgiving is opening day for duck season. It's a wonderful tradition to be awoken at the lovely hour of 3:00 am as husband and son try to "quietly" gather all their equipment for a day of duck hunting. "Dad, did you get the Beanie Weanies?" and "Where did you put my socks? I laid them right here!" whispered sotto voice are common in Southern households everywhere. Once the dynamic duo are out the door and sleep mercifully returns, the annual recreation of the Battle of Chickamauga launches out on the river with shotguns blasting away at unsuspecting waterfowl. Said unsuspecting waterfowl get wise after losing a few of their comrades and decide to fly to other places less dangerous (like the wildlife refuge a half-mile away), leaving the ghosts of the Confederate Army (now dressed in camo and bright orange) to pretend they see a duck and just shoot to be making noise. The windows of the house rattle and the dogs hide under the bed all day. Yes, it's Christmas-time!

Another good example arose around here this past weekend after football games were over and turkey eaten. As I'm struggling to get the Christmas tree up and the decorations out, dearest son decides he's going to rid the household of that pesky varmint the skunk, affectionately known by me and our dog Buster as The Devil Incarnate after our little dustup a few weeks ago. Son has a complex plan of action. First of all, reconnaissance is required to determine just where the creature is sheltered using the highly developed olfactory sense. In other words, dear son went around the yard sniffing. He narrowed it down to several potential locations, with the two prime spots being the ivy covering the wellhead and the culvert under the road at the bottom of the orchard.

The next step of the battle plan is armament. Son spends some time on expedition inside his closet and emerges with his camo, paintball helmet, 20-gauge shotgun and 12-gauge shotgun. Pockets bulging with shells, he declares he's ready but explosives are needed. What's a good skunk hunt without being able to blow something up, right?

Son pulls the last remnants of his Fourth of July firecrackers from the box under his bed and is heard mumbling "Man, I wish I had some M-80s..." as he rummages through the junk drawer looking for the lighter. The Plan (note the capitalization because now we have form to this endeavor) is to flush the skunk out with the firecrackers and then shoot him with one of the two shotguns as he goes running across the yard. Bottle rockets were considered but rejected because of their unpredictability and proximity to firearms. In other words, mom (being me) said "no".

As dad and I stand at the back door - inside of course - watching the last male member of the family line stomp around the back yard looking like a skinny Rambo, we decided there was the potential here for side-splitting humor. We started wagering on which gun he was going to drop first in his flight from the skunk and which tree he'd run into during his getaway. There was no doubt in our minds that the skunk was going to come out on top if his Tora Bora cave was exposed.

Alas, the depth charges did not serve to flush out Mr. Stinky and son had to return to the house defeated and dejected, having used up all his explosives. However, the shotguns are handy and ready at the backdoor just in case the opportunity arises for battle. You can never be too well-armed, you know. The Battle of the Backyard shall continue another day.

And finally, it just wouldn't be a Southern Christmas without all the flyers arriving in the mail from Cabela's and Bass Pro advertising the latest and greatest in deer rifles, scopes, and intruder-deterrent pistolry. With Sharpies and ads in hand, the males of the species retreat to the "reading rooms" to make out their Christmas lists by circling the weapons of their dreams while taking care of other business. Man, if only I had some M-80s....