Lisa Smith Molinari

Posts Tagged ‘humor’

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I only have eyes for you, Dear. Whether you like it or not.

In marriage on May 6, 2012 at 11:05 pm

One busy weeknight while chewing the last bites of pork chops and boxed macaroni and cheese, I asked my husband, “Did I tell you about my conversation with the sixth grade math teacher today?”

Gnawing a particularly tough piece of meat, my husband shook his head with a familiar glazed look in his eyes. After 18 years of marriage, he knew that I could take a good 20 minutes to describe cleaning the fuzz out of the lint trap, so he settled into his seat and braced himself for excruciating detail and superfluous analysis.

“Well, I called him about the semester project,” I continued, “and do you know what he said?”

“No. What.” my husband robotically replied, staring blankly into space.

I went on, in great detail, to describe a mundane event in my daily life as a stay-at-home Navy wife and mother of three. However, many years of housewivery had taught me that I could give our regular dinner conversations a stimulating dose of drama and suspense if I merely embellished my otherwise ordinary stories with exhaustive descriptions, exaggerated voice intonation, and vivid facial expressions.

I told my husband all about my phone call with the math teacher, but it came off more like a thrilling off-Broadway play. During a particularly expressive point in my story, my husband, tired and irritated after a long day and a mediocre dinner, interjected sardonically, “Oh, please, do that again with the bulgy eyes. That’s really attractive.” Fully intending to add insult to injury, he mocked me by imitating my Marty Feldman-like eyes, while I sat, stone-faced, glaring at him.

Although his deep-set eyeballs could never mimic the natural prominence of mine, my husband nonetheless contorted his face to look as ridiculous as possible. As I watched his discourteous display and doggedly gripped my fork on that weeknight at the dinner table, our entire marriage passed before my genetically protuberant eyes.

What’s happened to us? I wondered. We used to be so lovey dovey, and here we are pelting each other with insults over Shake & Bake. Is our marriage hopeless? Does he think I’ve become unattractive and annoying? Well, I don’t recall anyone dying and making him God’s gift to women. Hrmph.

Bitter, I finally interrupted his facial contortions, “So, who are you over there, Robert Redford or something?” With blatant hypocrisy, my husband took immediate offense to my sarcasm and scowled.

We sat in silence, sucking the macaroni from our teeth and avoiding eye contact.

Unable to remain mute for more than a minute, I spoke weakly without looking up from my plate, “I can’t help that my eyes bulge, you know.”

My husband’s irritation was suddenly replaced with sincere remorse. “Oh, Honey, I’m sorry,” he said, moving in closer and placing his hand on mine. “I don’t think your eyes bulge. I think you’re bulgy in all the right places.”

His awkward flattery softened my ire, and I released the death grip I had on my fork. Glancing up from the remains of my pork chop and into his deep-set eyes, I realized that, even if we get a little mad from time to time, we’ll always be madly in love.

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365 days and counting

In Humor, parenting on April 30, 2012 at 9:50 am

“You think you got it bad now,” other moms cautioned when my kids were young, “just wait ‘til they’re teenagers.”

Like the weird sisters of Macbeth, they’d give each other knowing glances and chuckle, as they watched me nearly amputate a foot while trying get my screaming toddler’s stroller onto the escalator at the mall.

I thought those moms were too old and summarily dismissed their annoying prophecies. Besides, back in the “olden days” kids played outside unsupervised all day while their mothers lounged around in crinolined skirts, smoking cigarettes, polishing silver, and watching “I Love Lucy.”

No wonder their kids turned out to be horrible teens. I firmly believed that whatever stage of parenting I was experiencing was the worst one, and no one was going to convince me otherwise.

This month, my eldest child turned 17, and it occurred to me that only one year of his childhood remains. I’m not sure if I should celebrate or burst into tears.

The first time I held my son in my arms, I felt an awesome sense of love and purpose. In an instant, my own needs shifted from my top priority to a distant second, and the funny thing is, I couldn’t have been happier about it. I can’t take credit; it was merely a consequence of animal instinct, and like any mama bear, squirrel, or flamingo, focus on my own survival automatically switched to the endurance of my offspring.

Although it is initially a joy to put our children’s needs ahead of our own, over time the task of parenting gets bothersome, frustrating and let’s face it, downright terrifying.

Nowhere does this fact of life become clearer than in parenting teens. I hate to admit it, but those cackling witches at the mall were right as rain.

When my son turned 13, his head didn’t spin, his eyes didn’t roll, and foul expletives didn’t burst forth from his mouth. No, he was the same kid he’d always been. When he turned 14 we saw subtle changes – his first shave, a deepening voice, reluctance to accept affection. How cute, we thought.

We drifted contentedly into our son’s teen years, comfortably secure that our teenager would never be a problem, because we were good parents and had raised him right.

But soon after the candles on our son’s Rubik’s Cube-shaped 15th birthday cake were extinguished, a new period of parenting ensued, which might best be described as “Armageddon.”

Suddenly, the bathroom door was permanently locked. Our son stopped making eye contact. A foul smell hung like a green fog in his bedroom. He snickered secretly into the phone behind his barricaded bedroom door. When we managed to come face to face with him, he was always asleep.

In what seemed like an instant, the sweet boy we had known all these years turned into a smelly undisciplined stranger who, apparently, hated our guts.

At night we lay in bed, our minds racing with anger, frustration, guilt, and panicked thoughts of our son’s future. Desperate, we listened to other parents of teens, and found out that the hell we were experiencing was actually quite common.

Apparently, just as new hairs sprout from a teen’s body, a budding new attitude develops in the teen brain. The once dependent, reverent child suddenly thinks:

“There’s nothing that I don’t already know. I will now run my own life. I find you totally embarrassing, and reserve the right to roll my eyes in pure disgust whenever I see fit. I will, however, continue to associate with you so that you can buy me a car, electronics, clothing of my choice, pizza for me and my friends, and a place to sleep until two in the afternoon. Oh, and don’t forget to save upwards of $100 K to send me off to college so that I can reenact ‘Animal House’ at your expense.”

With one year left before my son leaves the nest, you’d think I’d be chilling champagne and making plans to fumigate his room. But ironically, I’m melancholy and must resist the urge to become one of the witches, warning young moms to appreciate the days when their biggest problem is getting the stroller onto the escalator at the mall.

Instead, I’ll remind myself that every day of parenting a child is precious, and I’ll savor the next 365. And counting.

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How many idiots does it take to fill out a 1040?

In Humor on April 15, 2012 at 4:03 pm

“Oh crud, we need to do our taxes,” I recently told my husband as I do every year around this time.

After exhausting every reason to procrastinate – cleaning out the vegetable drawer, perusing old Hickory Farms catalogues left over from Christmas, clipping toenails, surfing E-bay for vintage bar signs, napping – we finally had to face the music.

Coffee and a folder haphazardly filled with paperwork in hand, my husband and I reluctantly plopped down in front of our computer to complete the dreaded annual tax forms.

We haven’t had the best luck preparing our tax forms over the years, and are conditioned to avoid the experience. Despite my law degree and my husband’s master’s degree in financial management, neither of us ever grasped the simple concepts relevant to our personal income tax forms.

In law school, I took a Tax Law course and could write a scholarly paper on whether the federal income tax is a direct tax or an excise tax based on the Sixteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Pollock case, but I struggled with my 1040EZ.

My husband’s master’s thesis was entitled “Congress, Defense, and the Deficit: An Analysis of the FY 1996 Budget Process in the 1O4th Congress,” but he couldn’t tell the difference between short and long term capital gains if his retirement depended on it.

But every year, we begrudgingly spread out our paperwork and somehow fulfill our obligations as taxpayers.

One year, we wanted to act like grown ups, so we hired an accountant while living in Virginia Beach. He was a charming southern gentleman with blue eyes, silver white hair and a matching tidy moustache. He called me “ma’am” and politely sat with us one balmy evening in the early days of spring. Over the season’s first lemonades, we casually chatted about our finances, and he gathered all the information he needed to prepare and file our returns. It was so easy, we wondered why we hadn’t been doing it this way all along.

The next year, we tried to contact our charming accountant to do our taxes again, but strangely, he never returned our calls.

We soon found out that he couldn’t call us back because he was locked up in the big house. Turns out, our southern gentleman was politely holding himself out as a CPA without a license, embezzling from clients, and obtaining money under false pretenses. Oops. Back to the drawing board.

Since then, we have been using Turbo Tax, a seemingly idiot-proof program which leads the user through a simplified series of questions designed to accurately calculate all income and deductions.  Somehow, my husband and I still have no idea what is going on.

“Do we qualify for the child tax credit?” I asked, as my husband slurped his coffee. “Hell if I know . . . just do whatever we did last year, that seemed to work,” he said nonchalantly.

“I forget, do we have Roth IRAs or regular IRAs?” I said a few minutes later. Riffling through a pile of papers, my husband found our statements, which might as well have been written in Chinese. “Roth, but what the heck is a recharacterized contribution?”

My eyes started to cross as I tried to decipher our mutual fund papers. “Is cost basis the same as purchase price?” I said, searching my faded memory bank. “I don’t know, just punch in $200 and see what happens,” my husband suggested.

After four hours, two pots of coffee, three calls to our financial manager, and at least a dozen choice expletives, we finally got it all figured out and dutifully sent our forms off to Uncle Sam.

We won’t get our return check for several weeks, but rest assured, we’ve already spent it, and lost the receipt. When our bank statements arrive, we won’t know how to balance the checkbook. And next spring, we’ll be back in front of our computer, dazed and confused all over again.  Apparently, a few more things in life are certain aside from death and taxes.

[Hey, if you're having deja vu, don't worry, you've probably read this before. I posted it last April, but the newspaper that publishes my column -- shout out to my Indiana Gazette peeps -- didn't use it until THIS year. So, here it is again so my newspaper followers can find it. Stay tuned this week for some "fresh meat!" -- LSM]

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The Dirty Secrets of Property Ownership

In family, Humor on April 1, 2012 at 8:56 am

When asked by friends recently what my family was doing for Spring Break, I declared boastfully, “Oh, why we’re going to our beach house, of course.”

Leaving a pregnant pause, I hoped my friends would ask for more details, so I could brag that “my family” has owned a beach house in North Carolina’s windswept Outer Banks since the 1970s. I hoped that my explanation would conjure up visions of Kennedy-esque old money, and me lounging on a sun-soaked chase overlooking the sea, wearing a nautical-striped boat neck top, large sunglasses and a silk scarf blowing in the cool ocean breeze.

Little do these friends know that, although I am one of 12 extended Smith family members who own a beach cottage, our ownership experience is nothing like Jackie’s and John John’s days spent carelessly frolicking the grounds of their estate on Maaahtha’s Vinyaahd. I’d say our family vacation property ownership experience is more akin to what might happen if the Hatfields and the McCoys went in together on a timeshare on Lake Winnipesaukee.

There’s no question about it—the benefits of co-owning a vacation home must be balanced against the reality of sharing the property with relatives.

When the house was first built in 1979, I was most likely humming “Muskrat Love” in a pink halter-top while sipping Tang from the banana seat of my yellow Schwinn, so I was happily ignorant of the practical ramifications of my parents’ decision to invest in a vacation property with our quirky relatives. All I knew was that we had the grooviest beach house ever, and I claimed the loft bedroom with the gold shag carpeting at the top of the mod spiral staircase as my own.

It wasn’t until I bought my own share of the beach house in 1992 that reality slapped me hard in the face. I soon realized that “my” beach house was not really “mine.” I was sharing this place with a bunch of strange relatives, many of which harbored long-standing family rivalries, and some of which thought the upstairs loft bedroom was theirs too.

This was not the beach house ownership status that I’d envisioned, and I soon became aware of the secrets families who co-own keep.

Like, that owning an “equal” share does not necessarily mean sharing equally in the responsibilities. One owner might stain the entire deck on his vacation, while another might sacrifice only the amount of time that it takes to pencil into the beach house repair log, “New light bulb needed in bedside lamp.”

Like, that no co-owners’ cleaning standards are alike. One owner might think it completely appropriate to dump all the Scrabble tiles, Happy meal toys, and a few used cotton swabs into the utensil drawer, while another owner will spend an entire day of every annual vacation reorganizing the toys, linens, tools, cookware, games, cards and cleaning supplies. Oh, and she will spend a few more precious minutes wiping the splattered daiquiri someone left on off the wall behind the blender. (Not that I’m bitter or anything.)

Like, that co-owners never own up to breaking anything, and will think nothing of propping the foosball table up with the leg their kid just broke off, knowing full well that 150-pounds of wood-laminate-covered particle board might come crashing down on the next vacationing owner’s foot.

Like, that co-owners will take items that would not sell in their garage sales and unload them at the beach house. Ours has no less that 13 small pans that are meant for sautéing shallots, a plastic plant, seven used bedding sets in every floral pattern imaginable, nine toothbrush holders, and five Thanksgiving-themed tea towels.

Like, that co-owners will vote on strict Rules and Procedures prohibiting pets and smoking, but will do whatever they darned well please, believing the rules to only apply to the other owners, and knowing full well that no one will be able to pin the inhuman black hairs imbedded in the carpet on them.

Like, that co-owners never bother throwing anything away. Our house has a drawer full of owner’s manuals from every alarm clock, toaster, microwave, grill, washing machine, VCR and fan we have jointly owned since 1979. We also have over a dozen clickers that don’t seem to work with any TV. Additionally, our shared storage closet contains a discarded shoe, a bicep curl apparatus, an empty DVD case, a curtain rod, old saltshakers, a can of coffee that is at least 15 years old, and a bottle of cheap Asti Spumante.

Despite these dirty (and sometimes sticky, cluttered and tacky) little family secrets, we all feel fortunate to have something most people only dream about – vacation property ownership. And just like the defunct TV clickers and old saltshakers, no one will ever take that away.

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Bracing for Bankruptcy

In Humor, parenting on March 25, 2012 at 1:30 pm

I’ve done just about anything you can think of while sitting in our orthodontist’s waiting room. I’ve balance my checkbook. I’ve applied concealer to the dark circles under my eyes. I’ve watched “Toy Story” eight times. I’ve torn recipes out of magazines when no one was watching. I’ve discovered an old cough drop in the bottom of my purse, picked the lint off it, and eaten it.

With three kids in braces, I spend half my life in the orthodontist’s waiting room, and unfortunately, half our combined income too.

You’d think the orthodontist would have the decency to pluck a few bills from his mountain of insane profits to provide me with a reclining lounge chair or neck pillow for my waiting room naps. Alternatively, a nice cappuccino bar and mini-fridge with ice cold cans of Diet Coke would provide me with caffeine, obviating the need for naps. A desk and free Wi-Fi would enable me to do more multi-tasking than cleaning out my purse and catching up on women’s magazines. I mean, that’s the least he could do, considering.

Considering that my kids’ teeth never really looked all that crooked to begin with, but somehow, they ALL need full orthodontic treatment to include preparatory extractions, palate expanders, bands, brackets, adjustments, headgear and retainers.

My intuition told me there was a wide-spread conspiracy between our dentist, oral surgeon, orthodontist and insurance company to swindle me out of as much money as possible. But they knew that all they had to do was use big words, show me some murky x-rays, and put the fear of God in me that my kids’ mouths would soon become veritable train wrecks of snaggleteeth. They knew I would cave, and that’s exactly what I did.

Has it always been this way? I don’t think so.

Today, braces are a fashion accessory, as cool as a cell phone in kid’s jeans pocket or a Vera Bradley lunchbox. Conversely, when I was a kid, the general attitude toward any additional hardware such as orthodontics, glasses, orthopedic shoes, and back braces, was that they were instant fodder for ruthless bullying, and as such, should be avoided if at all possible.

I had the unfortunate experience of having braces while in the 5th grade in 1978. My orthodontist didn’t have to use his powers of persuasion to convince my parents to pay. To the contrary, my parents were begging on bended knee to please, for the love of God, do something about my teeth, which were spread so far apart, my brother had started referring to me as “The Rake.”

Unlike today’s trendy braces with their inconspicuously glued brackets, colorful bands and thin sparkling wire, every tooth in my 11-year-old head was cemented with gun-metal grey steel bands welded with cumbersome brackets connected by thick wire. I went from looking like “The Rake” to resembling the villain “Jaws” from 007’s The Spy Who Loved Me.

And of course there was the dreaded headgear. I remember picking the red-bandana patterned neck strap from a bin at the orthodontist’s office, which was a wholly inadequate consolation prize for the utter humiliation I felt when wearing the slobber-producing device in public.

There was no question about it – the only reason I suffered the embarrassment of braces in the 1970s was because my teeth were seriously screwed up and my parents were only too happy to pay for someone to fix them.

Nowadays, not only are the professionals trying to sell you on the latest orthodontic procedure to correct the most minor flaws, even the kids pressure you to sign on the dotted line just so they can pick bands to match their school colors. They won’t listen to reason. You can’t convince them by pointing out that Jay Leno would be nowhere today without his characteristic under bite, and Jewel would be slinging burgers at McD’s if she didn’t have that fang poking straight out of her face.

So here I sit, in the orthodontist’s waiting room, picking stuff out from under my fingernails, while somewhere across town, money is automatically being withdrawn from our dwindling checking account to pad the overstuffed coffers of our orthodontist.

And as we careen ever so slowly toward financial ruin in the name of orthodontic perfection and middle school fashion sense, I comfort myself with the knowledge that, with all this waiting room time, my purse has never been more organized.

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Have Life’s rules changed?

In Humor, modern culture on March 18, 2012 at 8:27 am

Parking my yellow convertible on the seventh square, I read the words aloud,

“’Inherit shrunken head collection. Pay $10,000 for museum to accept it.’ Aw, man!”

“Pay up, and quit yer whining!” my brother snickered with sick satisfaction. No matter what game we played, my older brother always appointed himself the banker, setting an immediate tone of domination. The Game of Life was no exception, and he snapped the brightly colored bills out of my hand with a greedy sneer.

Growing up in the 70s with only three television channels and one mind-numbingly monotonous Atari Tennis game, my brother and I relied heavily on board games for entertainment when we weren’t outside chasing each other with sticks. We played Monopoly, Sorry!, Risk, Payday, Clue, Masterpiece, Stratego, Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Battleship and other games expressly intended to reward the rich, the ruthless, the lucky, and the intellectually superior.

There were no consolation prizes for the losers – if you lost, you suffered complete destitution and utter humiliation, and we liked it that way. After all, if losing wasn’t so unbearable, why bother winning?

One recent weekend, my kids were draped lazily over our sofa whining, “We’re BORED!” I reminded them of the myriad of bikes, scooters, and athletic equipment lying dormant in our garage, and they sighed. I reminded them of our four televisions with over 200 channels each, and they sighed. I reminded them of the Wii game system complete with guitars, microphones, electronic dance mat, steering wheel and drum set, and they sighed.

Finally, I marched up to their playroom and scanned the stacks of neglected games on the shelves. I spied the current edition of The Game of Life, and plucked it from the pile. Cajoling them with the promise of unhealthy snack foods, the kids agreed to play the game. A few minutes later, I heard their banter at the dining room table.

“’Cycle to work.’ Ooo, I got $10,000.”

“’Support Wildlife Fund.’ Ha! I got $5,000!”

“Wait a minute? What game are you guys playing?” I interrupted. There on our table lay The Game of Life with its characteristic segmented pathway, rainbow spinner, and white plastic buildings. However, upon closer inspection, I could see that this was not the game of my youth.

“What’s this – ‘Countryside Acres?’ What happened to The Poor Farm? And are these minivans? No more convertibles? You get money for recycling now? What’s going on?!”

Determined to alleviate my confusion, I called my mother, who like me is unable to get rid of anything with remotely sentimental value. Sure enough, she found the Game of Life my brother and I used to play in the basement of the 1950s brick ranch of my youth. I asked her to carefully open the brittle old box and read to me from its faded game board.

“Big day at the races. Collect $80,000.”

“Pay $5,000 for toupee.”

“Find Uranium deposit. Collect $100,000.”

“Tornado blows you back to start.”

“Buy raccoon coat. Pay $500.”

“Uncle in jail. Pay $500 bail.

“Buy Rolls Royce. Pay $16,000.”

“REVENGE. Collect $100,000 from any player.”

With each square, fond memories of rainy days spent trying to crush my opponent flooded my mind. Back then, the Rules of Life were clear – get a good job, take care of your responsibilities, make as much money as possible. Sure, every player had to deal with the hard knocks in Life like tornadoes, jury duty, poison ivy, and poor relatives. But if you could manage to get rich, there was no shame in rewarding yourself with yachts and trips to Monte Carlo. To the contrary, wealth was respected and necessary to win at The Game of Life.

Nowadays, players in The New Game of Life get money for planting trees, having family picnics, returning lost wallets, joining health clubs and even making new friends. Nobody goes bald or inherits a skunk farm anymore. Gambling and revenge have been outlawed, and players have ample chances in Life to “Spin again if not in the lead.”

To make matters worse, the old game’s daunting “Day of Reckoning” has now been replaced with an anti-climactic choice between a government subsidized retirement community called “Countryside Acres,” and watered-down Millionaire Estates. No more Poor Farm or risk-taking Millionaire Tycoons. Everyone’s a winner. Frankly, I’m surprised the game doesn’t come with trophies for every player.

Sadly, I said goodbye to my mother and hung up the phone. “Isn’t it bad enough that we no longer have a clear vision of what it means to live the American Dream, but now our children must face the same milk-toast sociology in their board games? What is this world coming to?” I thought to myself.

Just then, I heard a commotion in the dining room, and rushed in to find my son holding his sister in a headlock as she screamed, “You’re just mad ‘cause I beat you again! I’m richer than you are!”

“Whew,” I thought, and was relieved to see that some things in Life will never change.


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Here we go again

In blogging, parenting on March 8, 2012 at 1:39 pm

Last year, my readers were instrumental in voting my blog the #1 Top Military Family Blog of 2011 on Circle of Moms website (see, “We’re Number One”  May 2011.) They faithfully voted day after day, week after week, until my blog was on the top of the list and I won the whole freaking thing. I was truly touched.

Since the hubbub over that contest, some have asked me, “Hey Lisa, what did they give you for winning?”  For those of you out there who are fellow bloggers, you already know the answer to that question, but many non-bloggers do not, and I’m always afraid to disappoint them with my answer. The fact is, online magazines and websites who run contests like these do not award trophies, medals, ribbons, cash, crowns, sashes, or even an Applebee’s gift card. There are no ticker tape parades, no banquets with chicken cordon bleu, no bouquet of foil balloons, no giant stuffed animal.

No, the reward for winning these contests is solely in the free marketing benefit of being listed on their websites. Whoopdeedoo, you might be saying to yourself, but actually, I need the free marketing a heck of a lot more than I need a French Dip Slider from Applebee’s or a life sized plush gorilla like the one at the Pingpong Fishbowl Stand at the County Fair.

No, the publicity I got for being on the Circle of Moms’ list did not land me any book deals. King Features has not offered to syndicate my column across North America. No Hollywood producers have requested the rights to my life story for a mini-series starring Drew Barrymore (the goofy one in “Never Been Kissed” not the Covergirl model.) But the Circle of Moms contest last year really helped me attract new readers and subscribers, and even a few freelance deals, so it was worth all the shameless trolling for votes after all (see, “I kinda suck, but will you vote for me anyway?” May 2011.)

This year, Circle of Moms has announced new contest categories, one of which is “The Top 25 Funny Mom Blogs.” If you have read my stuff and are inclined to help a struggling stay-at-home-mom to make it in the world as a humor columnist, click the pink circle above and throw me a bone. Your votes (you can vote up to once a day until March 21st) will not win me a lifetime subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club, and Ed McMahon will never show up at my door with a giant check, but it will publicize my blog to the six million users of Circle of Moms website and might help me break into the big leagues one day.

Thanks again everyone!

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Sentimental Sofa

In marriage on March 4, 2012 at 2:06 pm

When I met my husband almost 20 years ago, he had a couch. It was his “bachelor couch,” and even though it may have looked cool back in 1990 when he bought it to furnish his bachelor pad, the upholstery pattern on that piece of furniture can only be described as a cross between a Bill Cosby sweater and the wallpaper in a gynecologist’s office.

However, I came into the marriage without a couch, so on our limited budget, I was thankful to have one at all. For the first couple years of marriage, the couch was a useful piece of furniture, despite her crisscrossing shades of teal, gray and mauve, and the outdated honey oak embellishments on the armrests.

Moving with the military every few years, I thought my husband’s bachelor couch would eventually be jettisoned like other outdated items from our past – my black and white TV, his old girlfriend’s wine glasses, the kids’ worn out stuffed animals, my stirrup pants – somehow that old bachelor couch just never went away. Sure, we bought other furniture, but the old bachelor couch stuck around in a spare bedroom, or waited in a storage unit until we could find another use for her.

More than a decade into the marriage, I suggested that we donate my husband’s bachelor couch to charity. “But she is so well built and still has so much use  – we can’t get rid of her!” he replied, incredulously. I never brought it up again, and as I sit here in my office writing this column at my desk, that 22-year-old bachelor couch sits just two feet away, made tolerable with a striped slipcover.

I could feel threatened by the fact that my husband has had a longer relationship with his bachelor couch than with his own wife; in fact, when I am alone in the room with his couch, I sometimes feel her mocking me.  But I have learned that, as much as I dislike her distasteful appearance, my husband’s bachelor couch symbolizes something for him, something with which he is not yet willing to part.

Perhaps, the couch that my husband purchased in his mid-20s reminds him of his youth, his virility, his long-gone full head of hair and former waistline. Or perhaps, she reminds my husband of buddies from his squadron days, who sat upon its sturdy cushions to watch football in unspoken camaraderie.

And as much as I don’t like to think about it, perhaps she reminds my husband of old girlfriends, who were probably tacky, wore too much make up, drank wine coolers and did God-knows-what with him while lying on her garish upholstery.

I guess I can’t blame him for grasping onto bygone virtues. Heck, I have two file boxes out in the garage that contain a useless jumble of high school yearbooks, photos, diaries, artwork, playbills, swimming ribbons, and even the bronze Junior Firefighter Badge I sent away for from a Smokey the Bear advertisement in the back of Highlights magazine. If anyone tried to throw those file boxes away, I’d turn from middle-aged housewife into vicious cage fighter faster than you can say “aggravated assault.”

Why? Because those scraps of crumpled paper and corroding metal symbolize a simple, carefree time. A time when my greatest worry was curling my bangs right or whether my parents were going to let me have the car on Friday night. So, on days when the minutia of my middle-aged life as a housewife and mother of three bogs me down, it’s nice to know that I still have in my possession, in two moldy file boxes in the garage, the hope that life can be simple and carefree again.

So, I will not begrudge my husband his reminder of days gone by, even if his “little memento” has had a longer relationship with him than I have and takes up eight feet of wall space in my office.  Besides, she has provided the rest of the family some consolation by facilitating many an afternoon nap.

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In Pursuit of Panache

In Humor on February 26, 2012 at 1:44 pm

I’m sure many things have been said about me, both good and bad, but there’s one thing I can be certain nobody will ever utter in reference to me, and that is: “I like her style.”

Why? Because, I have no style. Never have, never will.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those non-conformist types who protests social norms by allowing her hair to tangle into dreadlocks, eating organic lentils, playing instruments made out of gourds, and driving a rusted out van containing children named “Rainbow” and “Leaf.”

To the contrary, I’ve always wanted style. I just simply can’t figure out how to get it.

As a kid, I was definitely fashion-challenged. This disability might possibly have been triggered by my mother, who forced me to wear thick yarn hair ribbons, saddle shoes, white knee socks, and polyester dresses topped with white cardigan sweaters until I was in the seventh grade.

By adolescence, any burgeoning fashion sense that may have developed in the recesses of my brain had withered and died, apparently asphyxiated by those stifling cardigan sweaters. I had to master the basics if I was ever going to survive high school, so I armed myself with simple color matching skills, lots of denim, and a pair of brown shoes. My most fashion-forward outfit was an orange wool sweater, a knee-length denim skirt, matching orange knee socks, and my brown shoes. That was as good as it was gonna get.

But this lack of style was not confined to fashion. Try as I might, I could not seem to muster any distinctive flair for music, interior decorating, or culinary skills either.

In an attempt to develop taste in music, I plagiarized my older brother’s favorite mix tapes. But while my peers were shoulder-shimmying to Pat Benatar and moon walking to Thriller, I was too busy trying to decipher the confusing lyrics of songs by Rush and Jethro Tull.

When I was shipped off to college, I couldn’t wait to decorate my first dorm room with my Kliban Cat bedspread and poster of a kitten hanging from a tree that read, “Hang in there, baby!” Little did I know that I’d been randomly matched with a stylish, wealthy, well-traveled roommate who would cringe at the juxtaposition of my décor with her sleek modern bed linens and poster of Château de Chambord.

After marriage, I still seemed be the last one to clue in to the latest trends amongst my peer group. While the other wives were toasting pine nuts, wearing distressed jeans, painting their walls “Claret,” installing aged-bronze fixtures, and listening to Alanis Morrissette, I was obliviously content in my shoulder-pad-reinforced sweater, drinking a Zima over my Williamsburg blue Formica countertop while humming Juice Newton’s “Playing with the Queen of Hearts.”

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t find my own sense of style. Just when I thought I’d discovered the latest trend, it was already on a clearance rack at Big Lots or on the buffet at Golden Corral.

Mercifully, I have entered Middle Age, the time in life when a sense of style is certainly admired, but optional nonetheless. I can finally stop the fruitless search for the perfect pair of sunglasses and the trendiest wines, and just concentrate on keeping my jeans from creeping too far north of my belly button.

In a way, all my years of lagging behind the latest trends has supplied me with a certain panache that’s totally unique. I’d like to think I have an eclectic “vintage” vibe with a comfortable no nonsense charm; however, I’m certainly aware that others interpret my style as garage sale frump with a touch of interstate truck stop.

It’s OK. There’s more to life than style, and I’m fairly certain that when my time on this Earth comes to a close, I won’t wish I’d cooked with wood sorrel or quinoa. I won’t regret having never owned a pair of ankle boots or harem pants. My dying wish won’t be to hear the latest Black Eyed Peas single. And I certainly won’t long to finally install cork flooring.

I’ll continue happily perfecting my meatloaf recipe and wearing my brown shoes, because, ironically enough, having no style has a style all its own.

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Riding the Gravy Train

In Humor on February 19, 2012 at 1:43 pm

They don’t want to clean your toilets. They don’t want to watch your kids. They don’t want to do your laundry. And they certainly don’t want to give you a sponge bath.

After major medical events such as childbirth or surgery, most neighbors want to help out in one way – by cooking food.

They cook banana bread and baked ziti. They cook chili and chicken casserole. They cook potatoes au gratin and pork chops. They cook and they cook and they cook.

The idea is simple — the neighbors take on the responsibility for feeding the family so the mother can recuperate – but hidden below such seemingly uncomplicated philanthropic events are surprisingly complex group dynamics.

As soon as my neighbors found out about my recent surgery, they quickly mobilized. Like Ralph in Lord of the Flies, one energetic neighbor assumed the roll of leader, and blew her proverbial conch. By the time I emerged from the hospital and my Percocet-induced haze, there were people assigned to bring us ten days of meals. Thanks to the unbridled generosity of my neighbors, I’ve been lazing around like a slug for days, just like the doctor ordered.

This is not the first time neighbors have cooked for us after a hospitalization.  After the birth of my second child, the wives of my husband’s command insisted on providing two full weeks of dinners. I tried to tell them it was completely unnecessary because my mother had flown in and my husband had taken two weeks of leave, but I was told by these military wives, “This is what we do. You have no choice in the matter.”

So they cooked, and they cooked and they cooked, and we got used to it real quick.

There were chicken enchiladas with all the fixins. There were baked potatoes with chili, cheese, and corn bread. There was beef bourguignon with cream puffs and chocolate sauce for dessert.

As the days passed, we started growing accustomed to having home cooked meals delivered to our door. We started checking our watches and saying things like, “Where the heck are they? I’m getting hungry.”  We started scrutinizing and comparing each meal. By the middle of the second week, we were secretly ranking the meals with an intricate rating system based on quantity, taste and creativity.

It may have been thirteen years ago, but I will never forget the meal that received our worst rating. It came in three 8 x 8 foil pans, which we knew right away could not hold enough food for our gluttonous appetites.

Upon peeling back the foil from the first pan, we noticed that it contained a meager casserole consisting of an unseasoned layer of white rice, topped sparingly with crumbled ground beef and green pepper strips, adhered together with what appeared to be cream of mushroom soup. From its weight, we thought the next pan was empty but found that it held a salad of sorts made of the thick colorless center leaves of iceberg lettuce, some carrot disks, and more of those sad green pepper strips.

But the worst was yet to come. The last foil pan contained “dessert.” While it is true that a great dessert can compensate for a bad meal, this poor excuse for a dessert was merely the nail in the coffin. Inside the pan were a dozen pre-fab shortening-laden canned cinnamon rolls. How that qualifies for dessert, I’ll never know, but to make matters considerably worse, they were burnt on the bottom

Without so much as a nibble, we threw the whole meal out onto our compost heap and dug happily into the remaining chicken enchiladas.

Thankfully, our newfound smugness dissipated as quickly as the leftovers, and we realized how fortunate we were to have been treated so indulgently by our fellow military families.

About a year later, another military wife had a baby, and I offered to cook. Apparently, this particular wife was quite popular, and had been inundated with calls. I was referred to her “meal coordinator,” who told me that the schedule was full. I did not make the cut. “Are you kidding me?” I thought, “I can’t even cook a flipping pan of brownies?”  I felt lost and rejected, and secretly dropped off a bundt cake, just to ease my own suffering.

These experiences taught me that there is a basic human need to cook for women who have been in the hospital. The cooking is both healing for the recipient of the meals, and cathartic to the concerned cookers.

So if you have been in the hospital and your neighbors offer to cook, accept their generosity and be grateful. The gravy train doesn’t come around often, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

Potatoes au gratin by sa

Image via Wikipedia

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