Four Little Words

I have no children. 

This has been the axis on which conversation turned for the better part of the past 20 years. There was a good shot that the subject would come up if I were in the company of people with children, but the chances would double if there were young women nearby who very much wanted children, and triple if there were older women in the room. Aunts and stuff. Not even necessarily mine.

Take it as read that I am what my generation has dubbed a "serial monogamist." This means that aside from a brief gallop through a garden of new penises in the beginning of the millennium, I've been in long-term, steady relationships with two perfectly healthy stud muffins since 1992. Not at once. First one, then the other. Serially. So I've had two dances with the "where's my grandbaby" devil.

They leave you alone for the first few years, especially when you're in your twenties. Because obviously you're not ready to be somebody's mother yet. You're not even married yet. Also you ate breakfast at two in the afternoon today, and it consisted of leftover fried wontons and three slices of something orange called "cheese food product." You're accessorizing with safety pins and rubber O rings, your car's bumper is held on with duct tape, and you're going back to a shitbox apartment where your bed is an old futon mattress set on a sheet of plywood that's resting on cinder blocks. All other things being equal, no one wants to think of grandbabies conceived on plywood and cinder blocks. When Hub's older brother had his first (of three) babies, he was totally casual about it, citing "Eh, you don't need a lot. Baby can sleep in a dresser drawer." That's great. If you have a dresser in the first place where you keep your clothes, you can empty a drawer and use that for a crib. How do you feel about stealthily purloined Cumberland Farms milk crates, can a baby sleep in one of those? I just have to find another place to put my underwear.

After awhile, someone was always either telling me that I should be pregnant or asking me why I wasn't. Sufficiently satisfied that there was no grand manifesto detailing a compendium of reasons, no fiercely defiant soapbox in support of any pressing social, political or economic cause, no rigid self-imposed policy shaped by the bylaws of any external structured belief system, sacred or profane, and nothing physically misaligned that would prevent me from getting knocked up and squeezing out a shortie, it was then that I would often be pressed to provide a reason.

Over the years I've offered various responses to these inquests into the current and possible future condition of my vagina. Depending upon how magnanimous I was feeling that day or how undecided on the whole baby thing anyway, these responses would range from willingly engaging in a hearty discourse on the subject of names, to smartass rebuffs.

"I was not aware that I would need to bring a note from the principal."

"I'm told that you can't just put down big bowls of food and water and go away for the weekend, is that right?"

"Did you buy me a house without telling me?"

"Was there a ruling on that?"

They want reasons. But there are no reasons. Or rather, there are, but they are the simplest things. Too simple. So much so that they're anti-reasons. I like quiet. I don't like messes. I like sleeping. Not a fan of germs. Or shrill voices. Or Disneyland. I like staying up late. Monster movies. Swearing. But you can't really say these things. Although it is the truth, people can't handle it. Especially the new parents, the ones still in awe, exhausted yet wholly and completely transported into parenthood, fully in love with their baby and feeling like their whole life leading up to parenthood was just driving on the practice road, and now they have merged onto the freeway and hit the gas. I get it. To a person in that mindset it sounds impossible to believe that I don't want to go down that same road, and it's only because I want to be free to sleep for three days in case I get the flu, remain blissfully ignorant of anything whatsoever that may happen inside of a mall, and say "fuck" whenever the fuck I feel like it.

People are quick to make assumptions though, the primary one here being that I don't like kids. That's not the case. I put myself through most of college on babysitting money, and by all accounts I was every kid's favorite sitter. You can ask them, they're adults with kids of their own now and also my Facebook friends. I enjoy spending time with most of the kids I know. Although every single one of them is a total wackjob. Loony tunes. Kids are koo-koo bananas, this is no secret. But they're cute and they make you laugh and they are always genuine.

Mary's little girl pulled a nutter recently, one morning before school. They were all going downstairs, but the kid went ballistic because the cat went downstairs first.

Lorraine's kids won't eat soup. Any kind of soup, doesn't matter. It would seem that they don't like their foods intermingled.

These small people are bonkers.

My favorite "crazy but genuine" kid story by far is about one of Alabama Jen's twins. I flew down to visit my old college roommate and best friend after nineteen years of wondering where she was living and how she was doing. Nineteen years melted away the moment we hugged at the airport, and we had a fabulous four days together. I got to meet the rugrats, and boy, are they ever loud. The twins are as weird and fascinating as twins tend to be, and really cute, and they have an older brother too, an unusually brainy little guy named Jake. We had a great time swapping superhero stories. Turns out Wolverine is both of our favorites.

So you're talking three little boys under the age of five.

And one Wii.

With two controllers.

I know. You're thinking that this can only end in tears. Just wait.

"Wii time" is a specific time in the day, set by the kitchen clock and timed by the kitchen timer. The timer counts down five minutes while two of the kids play the Wii, one waiting his turn. When the timer dings, it's time for the next guy to play, one tags out. Five more minutes, then the next guy tags out. At all times, two are playing, one is waiting his turn.

Now, this all sounds perfect to me. To my mind, Jen's got it down. Five minutes, switch. Five minutes, switch. Sounds perfect, right? Well then how come every time, somebody cries? Only Jake relinquishes the controller with any degree of decorum, and even with him there are problems. But the twins! Fucking hell!  "Wii time" can be, basically, depending on how high emotions are running that day, five minute bouts of caterwauling interspersed with five minutes of Lego Batman at top volume. The timer is basically set to "this is how long until mommy snaps and goes batshit crazy."

God deliver me from Wii time.

Well, one afternoon before Wii time, in the minivan after we finished up a shopping trip (an entirely other "crazy kid" story), Jen called out to the back seats to make some forewarning mom-like proclamation. First she gets their attention, which can take a few tries because Jake is usually chattering on about something. Kid stuff, you know. Like the fall of Rome, Occam's razor, and the inherent flaws in the expanding Earth theory that he believes can be dis-proven with further study of tectonic plates over time. Once she has their attention, she makes the announcement about Wii time. This is usually something like "if everyone is good during Wii time you can have a shot of Old Jack" or whatever moms say down south. Maybe it wasn't Old Jack, it was probably a cookie, but you get the idea.

Well as soon as the pre-Wii proclamation got made, right away there's an outcry. Who's going first, is it going to be Lego Batman or Lego Indiana Jones or Lego Legos or what. One of them just simply started to wail. Already there's unrest, and it was at this moment that Miss Michelle (that's what they call me, Miss Michelle) has to stop everyone and ask a question.

"Hold on, hold on," I said. Everyone stopped making noise, even the one wailing, which for a single beat was stunning, but hey, they just passed me the ball so before the cacophony could resume, I ran with it. I directed my question to the twin who had started to wail. The thoughtful one, he's also the quickest to despair. His favorite mode is "pout." This little guy acts so surly during times when most kids would be thrilled that we now call him "the world's youngest Little Old Man." You people just piss this guy off big time, and the kid is only three. He's already nailed the "sending food back to the kitchen" thing and is well on his way to scolding the TV, yelling at people to get off his lawn and wearing his pants belted just below the armpits.

When I met him, he was going through a phase ("I'm afraid this is a long phase," laments Jen) where he hates everything. When I say everything, I mean even treats or toys that he asked for, or activities he loved doing as recently as yesterday. You could offer him his favorite chicken fingers, a pony ride, an afternoon at the beach, doesn't matter. First the pout. Little rosebud lips pooched out, eyebrows drawn together like a basset hound.

"I hate chicken fingers!"

"I hate ponies!"

"I hate chocolate!" Wait, what? I'm telling you, totally bonkers.

So this is the fella I'm asking. "How come," I say, turned around in the passenger seat so that I could see his expectant little face, either still in mid-pout from the last offense he endured or freshly re-pouted in anticipation of what I'm about to say. "How come you cry so much during Wii time?  You KNOW that every guy gets five minutes to play. You know how long five minutes is, right?"

*sniffle sniffle* "Yah."

"You had fun on YOUR turn, so now it's five minutes for the next guy. You know that in five more minutes after that, it's your time to get five minutes, right?"

*sniffle sniffle* "Yah."

I felt like I was really on the home stretch now. I have set up the syllogism, the premise has been presented, and now I'm ready to reveal the conclusion. In about sixty seconds I'll have introduced logic by example, and transformed these twins into non-crying turn-takers, then I can fly home to Boston satisfied that I'm a Twin Whisperer. So I went for it. "So then," I said, "There is no reason to cry. Your five minutes is coming. So why do you cry?"

"Becauuuuuuse! Because I...I hate Jake's turn!"

We got back to the house, while Jen and I made dinner, there was Wii time. There was crying, there was yelling. One of the kids shit his pants because he didn't want to stop playing long enough to go use the potty. Logic my ass, I was in way over my head here.

"I hate Jake's turn" is a story I've told a half dozen times in the year since it happened, and it's great because it serves several purposes.

First of all, Alabama Jen instantly became my all time favorite low budget superhero. I could go on for days about this woman, who for some reason has never known how much awe I feel in her presence. Watching her with these three kids was like going to a rodeo -- you can't believe this nut is deliberately getting on this wild beast, it looks bad from here, my head would be split open by now if it were me, but with all the bucking and heaving, somehow the fucker stays on. Those three kids lucked out, they're all going to grow up to tell stories about their awesome mother.

Secondly, "I hate Jake's turn" renewed my affirmation that kids are crazier than a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, but that people should listen to them. When I was babysitting every day I learned a lot about people, just from seeing the world through the eyes of these kids. "I hate Jake's turn" was a genuine thought that makes a certain kind of sense. It's not schadenfreude, exactly. It's more like...well think about it. You're in a rush, you stop for coffee, you've never needed your double coco crappacino so bad in your life, but the guy in front of you is ordering, apparently, enough complicated coffees for a bus full of picky cheerleaders. Don't you just, well, HATE that guy's turn?

But finally, "I hate Jake's turn" is the tip of an iceberg. In sixty seconds that child put me in my place, cut me down for trying to use logic where it does not belong. Asking "why" like I did? I brought a geometry theorem to a bullfight. Not only is there no "why" in his game, but he reminded me that someone has to shape these little personalities, people who have already grown up have to now guide these completely open, fresh brains towards a belief system, defend a moral code and in every way possible prepare them to live in this world. And I got nothin'. I know full well that Jake's turn sucks, little fella. Really I do, but how would I fare in showing you how to...how to wait? I know how to wait, but I don't know how to teach someone how to wait. I don't even remember how I learned how to wait -- I should have paid more attention but I didn't know there would be a quiz.

And I definitely don't want to listen to that caterwauling. You're cute and all, but Christ on a cracker, dude.

Motherhood is just one of those things that's for Other People. Like competing in a tractor pull, going into outer space or living on a raw diet.

Come to think of it, the only person who never asked me when I'm going to have children is my mother. When I say "come to think of it," I mean I literally just thought of it this second, so I'm gonna let that noodle bake awhile. That's a whole 'nother topic.

The final word, from two more of my favorite low budget superheroes. 

Pond? Rock? Puck?

I need better DrawSomething partners. Dudes. Seriously. I know you're using your finger on a screen, lotta times it's just an iphone. But if you're gonna play it, at least give me a fighting chance to guess what you're drawing. This kid just put a black blob in the middle of the screen. I tried everything I could think of but then I had to pass. Turns out it was MEATBALL.

Made me appreciate the one I had yesterday who just spelled out "meatball."

I do have a handful of excellent partners. Shouts out to the ones who're up over fifty turns already!

Boy.

When it comes to finding new ways to waste my time, I am a champ, I tell ya. A CHAMP. 

"What am I, an asshole?"

Growing up, my mother had a colorful lexicon of expressions she'd use a lot, and only now that I've opened the door to my 40s have I gotten an appreciation for them.

"What am I, an asshole?" she'd say incredulously. Despite the phrasing, this was not a question, but a declaration. Loosely translated, "I'm not some doormat, a servant, some idiot here to cater to greedy people at the expense of me or my family."

"What am I, an asshole?" came on whenever someone acted inconsiderate or rude, or took advantage of her hospitality, or tried to pull one over on her by lying to her face when they weren't aware that she knew the back-story already. "What am I, an asshole?" might be incited by one of her husband's family members, a fairly inconsiderate lot to begin with, but one that she tolerated over the years despite their talent for pissing her off. For example, by bringing four people unannounced to one of her dinners.

"What am I, an asshole?" would sum up a rant about the offender, it would be the suffix to the egregious nature of their offense. "Can you believe her? What balls. I've never in my life. Who does that? Without even asking? What am I, an asshole?" This could go on for hours. A whole afternoon could pass without a word as she went about the house, cleaning this, sweeping that, only the extra-loud slam of cabinets and the ruthless attack on the baseboards with the vacuum showing that she's still stewing over it. She might not have verbalized for hours, yet on her way past the table where Louie was reading the newspaper, out of nowhere she would begin "ALSO," as though appending a sentence she'd just said a moment before. "ALSO, she never even THANKED ME! What am I, an asshole?"

Now, a rant like this had stages. At first it was about the act itself, then it would evolve into sub-topics. At first anyone could relate, because yeah, who DOES that? In this early stage, you're on board. You can offer all of the empathy in the world.

But if the event itself, the dinner fiasco, was the stone heaved into the middle of the pond, the ensuing sub-topics were the concentric rings on the water.

You're on board with the rock -- fuck her and her friends!

You're even on board with the first few rings, too. "When do they ever invite US over?" or "SHRIMP IS EXPENSIVE, YOU KNOW!" "Yeah!" you say. "It's true. I've never seen the inside of their house, yet they're always here eating!" And yeah! I like shrimp and I only got three. Who were these strangers in our home eating up all the shrimp? We were looking forward to that shrimp all week, now some random friend of someone's friend is here stuffing his fat fucking face just because he's too much of a loser to have anywhere else to go on New Year's Eve? What are we, assholes?

But by the time the last ripples are lapping the shore, just when you're realizing that rock wasn't so big, really. More of a pebble, when you stop to think about it. You're all, "Welllll...we DID have fun, and those guys did bring pot, and it's New Year's, the more the merrier, right?" That's when it gets really intense. By this time, no detail would go unexamined, however far off topic. "AND she wore those red shoes, she only BOUGHT those shoes because she saw them on ME, and how did she know I wouldn't be wearing MINE? I should have KNOWN not to tell her where I got them! Who does that! And did she think I wouldn't notice? What am I, an asshole?" While you were certainly on board with the baseline offense -- the unexpected requirement to feed four strangers and act cordial while doing it, now you're being asked to be mad about red shoes with her.

I couldn't get quite that far down the rabbit hole, mom.

"You can't bullshit a bullshitter."

"Oh, PLEASE."

"My fucking word!"

"You don't know because you haven't lived." Oh, how that would rile me. This came out in my pre-teen years, of course. Right after Barbie dolls, but before dating. Eleven, twelve. You know, that time in our lives when we know absolutely everything about everything? "You don't know because you  haven't lived" would throw gasoline on my fire, usually just as I was sounding off about some social issue. We lived in a pretty rough neighborhood in Waterbury, Connecticut. My mother was trying to shield me from making mistakes, mostly concerning which people I should trust and which people I should avoid, or if not avoid, at least be wary of; naturally, being an expert in all subjects the world over, having met at least, oh, 68 or 70 people by then and having traveled in the backseat of the family car over 75 miles away from home one time, I would haughtily tell her she didn't know what she was talking about.

Turns out she knew was she was talking about.

Which, if you think about it, is astonishing. She got pregnant with me when she was sixteen fucking years old. She was a baby when she had a baby. Mid-20s and she was dealing with two kids, serious money problems, family on both sides crazier than ten lunatics riding pink elephants in hell, and on top of it all, that bitch came over with four extra people and gobbled up all the shrimp, AND SHE IS WEARING THE SAME RED SHOES.

It's amazing how the older I get, the less I know. Without any kids, I've had a lot of chances to fuck up, learn something, move on, try again, fuck up again, move on...my mother never really had those chances. She might have fucked up a lot of shit, but here I am. I'm educated, I'm well-read, I have the best friends a person could have, I have the courage of my convictions, I have a strong work ethic and a rock-solid belief system. That doesn't just happen, does it?

In my forties, I know for a fact that I would have stumbled a lot more if I'd had to walk a day in her red shoes. Stumbled, shit, I would have fallen flat on my stupid face. Every day.

She did a decent job after all.

No mom, you're not an asshole.

Those shoes, by the way, they were more of a deep burgundy, with a gold heel. Stiletto. Christian Dior. I know she should have paid the oil bill or the rent instead of buying them. But they were fucking fabulous.

Sooooo? What Have We Learned?

If you work 21 days straight, and you feel a little bit off and think you might be coming down with a sinus infection, GO TO THE DOCTOR.

She's Lump

Presidents of the United States of America had this hit in the 90s, and the lyrics to that song have long been a source of amusement. To me. It's a great nugget of pop goodness, but the lyrics are mystifying. I'm sure there's about a kajillion Google results if one were to search for "She's Lump meaning." But I have never done this search, because I just need some things to remain points to ponder.

Outnerded

After yesterday's talk of the "ring in the sour cream" incident, which, by the way, I would like to clarify was not intentional -- I really meant to hold Joe's rings, not toss them into the nachos -- I started to think about whether or not our story can be parlayed into a tale that I could write. You know, a mystical tale with quests and virgins and prophecies. It would be the story of our union, but allegory. Like the way E.T. is a Christian allegory. And The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a Christian allegory. And West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet, and A Simple Twist of Fate (the Steve Martin movie) is Silas Marner.

"She's a Keeper"

I make no apologies nor offer any excuses for what I just did, right before dinner. I got home from work around 8:30pm, sat down to eat the dinner that Joe had cooked us, and though I was ravenous, I took one look at the juicy, steaming plate of slow-cooked pork ribs he put down in front of me, one look down at the dress I'd worn to work today, and then, friends, I excused myself from the table so I could go change into my rib eatin' shirt. "Hold on," I said, "I gotta go change into my rib eatin' shirt."