Tag Archives: military spouses

The Bottom Drawer

military spouses May 12, 2013 Comments: 8
Forgotten, but not lost.

Forgotten, but not lost.

Ironically, there are benefits to moving so often as a military family. Every few years, we’re forced to go through all the used markers, pillowcases, snow boots, kitchen utensils, Barbies, tae kwan do trophies, tax records, and saucepans, and throw a bunch of stuff out.

As a person who attaches sentimental value to everything from seashells and matchbooks to stained bibs and hospital bracelets, this can be stressful. But the sands of time grind away my sentimentality, and eventually, I end up chucking out mementos that I formerly believed to be too precious to part with.

As we prepare for our next military move to Rhode Island, I’m reconsidering items I thought were useful or nostalgic enough to haul around for so many years. For example, Aunt Millie’s (may she rest in peace) old end tables, with the cigarette burns I thought I’d buff out one day, were relegated to the donate pile. Although I kept one file of my kids’ artwork, anything with cracked macaroni or yellowing glue was photographed and discarded. Similarly, clothing that has not been worn in the last five years – except for my college duck boots which I hear are coming back into style — has been delivered to Goodwill.

Some collections, however, get pared down with each tour, but are never completely discarded regardless of their current usefulness. For example, I’ve been adding to several tubs of old t-shirts for years, because someday, I WILL make each of my kids a t-shirt quilt before they go off to college. And, I have at least four boxes of old toys and books that WILL seed the fantastic playroom I envision for my future grandchildren. I WILL use that stuff someday, I swear.

And then there’s the stuff I recently whittled down to one bottom file drawer. It contains documents that not only took years of hard work to assemble, but cost me over $90,000 to acquire. When my husband and I first married in 1993, this collection was huge and took up at least a dozen boxes. But with every tour, the contents aged, became obsolete, and were thrown away.

Other than a few musty books which reside on our shelf just for show, the bottom file drawer now contains the only tangible evidence of my career as a litigation attorney.

The hanging folders in the bottom drawer have tabs inscribed with titles such as “Resumes,” “Transcripts,” “Licensing,” and “Writing Samples.” Even though none of these documents have been referenced since I quit working in the 1990s to raise our kids, I keep them all neatly filed in case I need them to land that six-figure partnership offer in a high-powered litigation firm one day.

Although I won’t readily admit it, I know down deep inside that these old documents, now yellowed and stained with spots of rust from ancient paper clips and staples, will never realistically serve to supplement any future application for my employment. But I can’t bring myself to throw them away, just in case.

Besides, the file drawers above contain my children’s birth certificates, report cards, physical forms, the deed to our first house, mortgage documents, college savings statements, the dog’s shot records, orthodontist’s bills, car insurance policies, passports, tax forms, orders and other essential documents memorializing 20 years of life as a military family.

Like my college duck boots, the tub of t-shirts, and those old toys, my legal career will stay packed away a while longer. I WILL get to them eventually. In the meantime, I’ve got other, more important things to do.

 

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Culture or Torture? Lessons learned while traveling with kids

military spouses April 20, 2013 Comments: 9
My column in the April issue of Military Spouse Magazine!

My column in the April issue of Military Spouse Magazine!

April is the month of Spring Break, and Spring Break is a time for travel!

The possibilities are endless: a Caribbean cruise, camping in the mountains, sight-seeing in Rome, hiking the Appalachian Trail, a B&B in the French countryside. Simple, adventurous or extravagant, a change of scenery takes you from the late winter doldrums into an invigorated spring.

But wait. Hold up. Just a sec . . . What about the kids?

Unless you have a team of well-paid nannies who will keep the kids entertained at home all week (not likely on a military budget) then the kids are coming along. And the presence of children during travel tends to change things a bit …. Ahem, that’s the understatement of the century.

Instead of leisurely lunching on brie and wine at a Parisian street café, you’ll find yourself at nibbling nuggets at the McDonalds on the Champs d’Elysie. Rather than braving class 4 rapids on Pennsylvania’s Ohio Pyle Gorge, you’ll be splashing the sticky cotton candy off your face on the log jam at Wally World. Forget about scheduling your couples massage at the spa, because you’ll be wading in a suspiciously cloudy kiddie pool at a motel off the interstate, asking yourself how this could be happening. Again.

BEEN THERE, ENDURED THAT

Take it from me, I know. While stationed in Germany, I planned family trips to Ireland, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, France, England and Scotland during our three-year tour. I wanted to jam-pack our time overseas with cultural and educational experiences that our kids would appreciate for the rest of their lives.

Problem was, I forgot. They’re kids.

Oh, yea. Bummer.

I soon learned that kids — my kids, at least, and very possibly yours — don’t want to wait two hours for traditional indigenous foods at an authentic local restaurant. They could care less about mountain scenery or sylvan country settings. And they absolutely hate lingering in art and history museums.

We discovered the hard way that, unless we were planning a trip to the Threshold of Hell, we’d better figure out how to keep the kids happy. First, we learned the Cardinal Rule of Travelling with the Kids:

LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS

Sure, you want to think positive. I’m all for that. But don’t envision life-changing authentic ambiance, edifying cultural experience, thrilling adventure, romantic interludes and indulgent relaxation. Family trips have the potential to turn out to be as relaxing and cultural as chaperoning a fifth grade field trip to Bowl-O-Rama. With that mindset, you’re bound to be pleasantly surprised.

Now, in order to avoid the brink of insanity while traveling with the kids, I’ll share some strategies we learned.

#1 Oh my gosh, gross!

My kids are so cultured, they have thrown up in six states and seven foreign countries. Nothing kills ambiance like the lingering scent of upchuck on your shoes, so keep gallon zip-lock bags and wet wipes in your purse at all times.

#2 Take appropriate steps, literally.

Bell towers, monuments, castles, forts and tall buildings are great places to run the “squirrelly” out of kids. Beware that you may need a portable defibrillator for yourself, but a coronary event may be worth it if it means your kids will be so tired that they’ll sit through dinner peacefully tonight.

#3 Kiddie comfort food.

Pommes fritz, furai, chips, papas fritas – whatever you call ‘em, don’t even think about sitting down at a restaurant that doesn’t have French fries on the menu.

#4 Space out.

No, I’m not suggesting that you take sedatives while traveling with the kids, but find wide open spaces where you and hubby can soak up local ambiance while the rugrats spread their grubby little wings and fly. You can nibble local cheese and bread while they scare pigeons in the piazza, or chase bumble bees in an alpine meadow, or roll in the grass at a city park.

#5 Wet them down while you wet your whistle.

When deciding where to stop for a glass of wine, look for a nearby fountain, stream, lake, pond, or tropical fish tank. If they can splash, throw rocks, feed ducks or tap on the glass, you have a decent chance of sipping your wine in peace.

#6 Capture the memories.

Be sure to take lots of photos, because no matter how torturous family vacations may seem, someday you’ll look back and wish you could do it all over again. 

Pick up a copy today!

Pick up a copy today!

I can’t wait to move!

military spouses March 10, 2013 Comments: 10
My column in the March Issue of Military Spouse Magazine!

My column in the March Issue of Military Spouse Magazine!

Well, first, there’s the heat. The year-round, thick, hot, humid, gnat-infested, sweat producing, Florida heat. The lousy palm trees certainly don’t do much to shade us from the relentless sun around here – I swear, it shines about 300 days a year! I don’t know how the locals can take it.      

And then there’s the sand. Not just any sand, but that fine, sugary Florida sand that you don’t feel until you’re back from the beach and you find out it’s all over your house. It’s a real hassle, I tell ya.

Of course, we can’t forget the local culture, and all its slow cooked “southern charm.” I swear, if another person opens a door for me or calls me “ma’am,” I’m gonna lose it! I’m sick and tired of sweet tea, cornbread, barbecue, fried chicken, coconut shrimp and tropical drinks!

Thank goodness, we got orders out of this place! Good riddance!

Part and parcel of the military experience is The Military Move. Every few years, we are forced to “pull chocks” – say good-bye to what has become familiar and settle in a new place. It’s tough, and sometimes we develop subconscious strategies to help us cope with the stress.

We settle our families into every duty station – be it Kentucky, California, Alaska, Arizona, Italy, Japan, or Florida. Even if it’s difficult at first, we eventually find our groove. The kids make friends, we get jobs, we find a pizza place and join bunco groups. As time passes, we incorporate local foods into our meals, we adopt local customs, we use local lingo such as “Yes Ma’am,” “You betcha,” “Prego,” and “Aloha.”

And just as we begin to embrace our new lifestyle, we get orders to someplace else. It never fails.

However, military spouses won’t allow themselves to wallow in self pity for long. After shedding a few tears – usually over a little wine and copious amounts of chocolate, or vice versa – we pick ourselves up and simply start seeing things differently. Our new orders may dictate that we must move from Paradise to Poughkeepsi, but somehow, we convince ourselves that we need a fresh start.

As for me, our new orders say that we have to move from the secluded southern beaches of Naval Station Mayport, Florida, and settle in the chilly north, at the Naval War College, Rhode Island. In the coming months before we pull chocks, I’m sure I will shamelessly blubber and hug my Mayport friends at a neighborhood fire pit. I will most likely feel no guilt as I gorge myself one last time on southern fried chicken and biscuits. And I’m pretty sure I will get misty when I take one last shell walk on what has become “my beach.”

However, to ease the pain, my subconscious mind will say, “This duty station is the threshold of hell, and the new one will be WAY better. Seriously.”

So, I can’t wait to move to Newport. The quaint little towns. The ocean-splashed cliffs. The lobster. The quirky New Englanders with their funny accents and old-school mentalities. The Technicolor falls and the frosty white winters.

I’m 100 percent certain. There’s not a doubt in my mind. No question about it: our new duty station will be WAY better than this one . . . [gulp, sniff] . . . Seriously.

Try these tips to ease the pain of constant change

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Look for my column about traveling with kids in the April issue!

Look for my column about traveling with kids in the April issue!

My gravy’s better than your gravy

military spouses November 18, 2012 Comments: 71

My column in the November issue of Military Spouse magazine!

We do it every year. We cut out recipes. We make lists. We go to the commissary. We elbow each other out of the way to grab turkeys, cranberries, yams, and mini-marshmallows. We jam enough food into our pantries to feed an Army, or Navy as it were.

Why? Because it’s the holidays, of course!

When our guests politely ask, “What can we bring?” we are faced with an interesting dilemma. On one hand, our brains are about to explode over all the details of hosting, so contributions would be nice. But on the other hand, we have envisioned holiday meals using our own family traditions, and what if our guests bring dishes that are weird and unfamiliar?

I experienced this phenomenon seventeen years ago, when we were stationed at Fort Ord, California. Unable to fly back east to spend the holiday with our relatives, we accepted an invitation to have Thanksgiving dinner at another family’s house on base.

“What can I bring?” I asked the other wife. “Uh, well, um….” she stuttered nervously, “I’ll get back to you on that.”

I fancied myself a pretty darned good cook back in those days (before kids turned my brain to mush and our staple food into mac-n-cheese, mind you) and was looking forward to contributing to the meal. “What? But, but, you’ve got to let me bring something,” I exclaimed. “Well, alright then, how ‘bout you bring frozen corn.”

Frozen corn? Are you kidding me? She wasn’t.

Over the next few days, I hounded the other spouse, offering my Sausage Apple Pecan Cornbread Dressing, my Guiness Gravy, my Swiss Onion Bread, my Waldorf Salad. She resisted, but finally agreed to let me bring a lousy pumpkin pie and a tub of Cool Whip.

I swallowed my disappointment that Thanksgiving — along with her bland stuffing and starchy gravy – and resolved to make what I wanted from then on.

However, year after year, the same dilemma kept cropping up, and I realized something. Whether a military spouse is the host or the guest, military spouses don’t like to give up their holiday traditions.

So, unless we want to spend holiday meals alone, we’d better learn to compromise.

If you are a guest, don’t turn your nose up at your hostess’ jellied cranberry sauce because you only make it from scratch. Don’t judge your host if he doesn’t brine the bird, and then make passive aggressive comments like, “Could you pass the canned gravy? I think I’ve got some meat stuck in my throat.” Don’t be bitter that you weren’t able to show off your Pecan Cheesecake with the Gingersnap Crust. Just eat whatever they serve you and shut your pumpkin pie hole.

If you are hosting, let your guests bring their Tex Mex corn dish even if it might clash with your Ambrosia. Who cares if your friend has a different take on sweet potatoes – surely, no one has ever died from not eating marshmallows. You can give up your stinking Parker House rolls just this once, and let them bring their Gammie’s Poppy Seed Loaf if it makes them feel at home. You’ll survive.

Besides, this is the time of year that we’re supposed to think about all the things we’re thankful for, and isn’t that being able to celebrate the holidays with our family and friends? NOT the Green Bean Casserole, for Pete’s sake.

Think of it this way: good friends and family are the meat and potatoes of life. The food? Well, no matter whether it’s canned, powdered, or slow cooked from the drippings, it’s just the gravy.

I give and give, but what do I get?

military spouses October 15, 2012 Comments: 2

Click on this photo to see a larger version of my column in the October issue of Military Spouse Magazine!

I’m going out on a limb here and say that the majority of you have a bottle of mustard, a can of cooking spray, a stick of butter, or some other food item in your kitchen that you did not purchase. No need to bother with FBI profiling, exhaustive research or statistical analysis. We all know it’s true.

You did not pay for that jar of Spanish olives or that bag of frozen meatballs, did you? Now don’t get your cammo undies in a bunch here, I’m not accusing you of being a thief. To the contrary, I’m merely pointing out what’s unique about us military spouses.

Unlike most in the civilian world, we military spouses are accustomed to people coming and going in our lives. Deployments, PCSes, and frequent change are part and parcel of our military lifestyles.

And every time your neighbor or best friend PCSes, she bestows to you memories of afternoons chatting on the patio during deployments, of the times she took care of your dog when you visited your parents, of the night you brought her wine and Dove Bars because she was crying over her husband’s new orders.

Finally, she bequeathed something that will last for months to come: that bottle of cocktail sauce she had in the pantry.

You really don’t need her half-used tub of margarine, but after all the support and friendship you gave each other, this was her final act of friendship. She gave these things to you because that’s what we do in the military. We support each other because we share a common experience and understanding.

So, every time you see that bottle of French dressing on your refrigerator door that no one in your family likes, you will remember that being a military spouse is about giving.

Give strength, community, camaraderie, and that is exactly what you will get back. Well, that, and a half bottle of ketchup.

Sure, the monthly potluck dinners can be a real bore. Yes, watching your friend’s kids while she goes to her prenatal appointments can be a real pain. No doubt, getting another phone call from a worried squadron wife right in the middle of the Survivor finale can be really annoying.

But think of it like this – The bottle of balsamic vinegar your fellow military spouse left you only cost about $3.75. The gas you spent dropping her family off at the airport set you back at least $7.50. However, the common understanding and support she offered you when you were in need was priceless.

Give and you shall receive.

Read the PDF version here: October Column.

Mamma’s Boy-Man

Humor October 2, 2012 Comments: 13

“Are you sure you’re gonna be alright?”

“Yeeess, Mom. How many times do I have to tell you, I’ll be fine,” my teenage son replied while impatiently leading me out the front door of our house.

“OK, OK, but don’t forget to feed Dinghy . . .” I said, stepping over the threshold.

“Yes, I got it. Morning and night.”

“ . . . and walk him . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, four times a day,” he interrupted.

“Two . . .”

“Two short and two long. I got it!” He snapped and nudged me onto the porch.

“Please eat some fruit with breakfast tomorrow, and don’t sleep in too late.”

“Mom — Dad and the girls are waiting for you in the car.”

“And when you shower, don’t forget to use a little extra soap on your . . .”

“MOM! GO!” my son barked, giving me one last shove off. I managed a hasty smooch, then headed for the car with my overnight bag.

As my husband pulled away, I honked the horn, waved wildly out the window, and yelled, “We’ll call you!” My son’s bulky figure diminished in the distance, and I sat back and closed my eyes.

My mind raced. We’d never left him overnight before, and even though he’s seventeen, I just couldn’t stop thinking of what might go wrong.

“He always leaves things on the stairs — what if he trips and falls? Or, what if he tries to cook a pizza and sets the house on fire? What if he stays up all night playing video games, then he’ll be too tired tomorrow to get his homework done? Worse yet, what if he figures out how to order porn on TV? Oh Lord . . . we need to turn around and go back,” I thought.

The landscape out my window was turning from swampy coastal scruff, to woodsy wetlands. I stared into the tangled vegetation rushing by, took a deep breath, and tried to calm my nerves. I made a mental note to call home every couple hours, and, somewhere along the way to Tallahassee, I dozed off.

“You have arrived at your destination,” our GPS announced with her assigned British accent, and I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

Ever since I met her at a swim team meeting in 9th grade, Patti and I had been best friends. Throughout high school, we were inseparable, and stayed in touch after graduation, even when my Navy life took us far away. Patti, her husband, and their two kids had just moved from Pittsburgh to Tallahassee, and we were excited to catch up after so many years of living far apart.

When you know people for that long, inhibitions tend to melt away. By eight-o-clock, we were acting like total idiots. Our kids looked on somewhat frightened, as we cranked 80s tunes and relived our youth. My husband channeled Modern English on a play drum set, and my best friend’s husband did a mean Roger Rabbit. The kids beat us in a merciless round of Right-Left-Center, and Patti and I cracked up over old photographs from high school. After midnight, we were racing across the pool in what we dubbed “The Noodle Olympics.”

Needless to say, we had a blast.

The next morning, we lazily sipped coffee and giggled about the events of the previous night. After lunch, we hugged, said our good-byes and piled back in the car.

About a mile out of Tallahassee, my cell phone rang, and I searched the bottom of my purse where it was buried.

“Hello?”

“Mamma, where are you guys?” my son asked with urgency.

“Well, we’re just heading out of Tallahassee – why, what happened?”

“You said you were going to call, but you never did. How long is it going to take you to get here? Can’t you hurry up?”

In that moment, I felt a burning sensation in my heart. I wasn’t sure if I was experiencing the twinge of separation from my almost-grown son, the guilt of having briefly forgotten he existed, or acid indigestion from the French Cruller I’d dunked in my morning coffee.

“Don’t worry, Honey, we’ll be there soon enough . . . And besides,” I said with a painful swallow, “You’ll be just fine without me.”

Feel free to soil yourself

Humor August 11, 2012 Comments: 6

When the kids were little, I used to be good at things. I was organized, talented, nurturing, patient, creative, hard-working, energetic, and my bust stuck out farther than my gut. I was a good Navy wife, homeroom mom, team mom, committee chair, and block captain. I gardened, made healthy meals, kept my checkbook balanced, exercised regularly, scrapbooked, sewed, and was generally a damned good housewife.

But after 10 or so years of that, I started getting kinda tired. Not only was my energy level diminishing with each passing year, but my enthusiasm for the mundane everyday details of homemaking was taking a major dive. Making the kids’ Halloween costumes just didn’t thrill me anymore. The lemony smell of a disinfected bathroom had lost it’s luster. I bought a box of Hamburger Helper for the first time in my life, and felt not a twinge of guilt.

To make matters worse, my once lovey-dovey cuddle bug kids were no longer running out of school with their arms open wide yelling, “Hi Mom!” No, they were getting older and had effectively demoted me from “Center of The Universe” to “That Lady Who Feeds Us.”

I found myself seeking out activities that gave me a feeling of self-worth. I leafed through an old High School Physics text book I found in my in laws’ basement, and became hell bent on reading Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Brian Greene. But I soon realized that no one at Bunco or Book Club was interested in chatting about String Theory and Quantum Physics.

I tried to fulfill a life-long dream by signing up for sailing lessons at the base marina. However, I almost drowned when I took a Lazer out during a small craft advisory, capsized, and nearly ran the boat onto the rocks.

Finally, while my husband was on a year-long deployment, I tried my hand at writing funny essays. I entered a “Guest Columnist Competition” through the Virginian Pilot newspaper, and although my entries made the semi-finals, I didn’t make the final cut. Despite an editor’s critique which will be burned into my brain for all time (“too sociological and a bit preachy”), I found the process of writing columns strangely rewarding.

My husband returned from deployment, and while we should’ve been getting to know each other again, we were packing up and moving overseas. After settling in to our new life in Germany, I sent one of my columns out to a few newspapers just to see what might happen, and don’tcha know it, The Washington Post published it. Yup, outta the blue. Pretty cool…. but now what?

I started this blog and began submitting my columns to newspapers and magazines, in hopes that I might actually become a legitimate columnist. It seemed that, the more driven I became, the more bad news I learned about the industry. “Newspapers are dying, magazines aren’t taking humor submissions, no one will pay you, the industry is saturated with bloggers, you need to know HTML, social media, and SEO or you will never amount to anything.”  All signs were indicating, “Turn around, go back, save yourself.”  I soon had enough rejection letters to wallpaper the bathroom, but I kept at it.

Why?

No, it’s not the “love of writing.” I once heard a true story about a syndicated humor columnist who was in a bar having drinks with his agent. He was approached by a prostitute who said she would do anything for $100. The columnist took a $100 bill out of his wallet, held it up and shouted, “Thank you, Sweet Jesus!” He then turned to the prostitute and said, “Now, go write my Sunday column.” That pretty much sums it up for me.

What keeps me going is not the writing itself, but the effect my writing has on others. I just write sappy little humor columns, so it’s not like I’m changing the world here, but if I make someone laugh, it absolutely makes my day.

Some of my best reader comments have been things like, “I TOTALLY relate!”, “LOL!”, “Snorted coffee out of my nose!” and “Just peed a little!” So I guess you could say that I write to make other bored housewives laugh at themselves, wax nostalgic, and lose control of all bodily functions. Perhaps the readers’ reactions serve as a replacement for the genuine appreciation I used to get from my kids …. or perhaps I just think it’s funny that you sprayed Diet Coke all over your keyboard. Either way, I’ll keep writing as long as you keep laughing.

If my columns ever made you soil yourself, please vote for The Meat and Potatoes of Life as Top Military Mom Blog on CircleofMoms.com.  Just click the pretty pink circle below.

Won’t Go Topless

Humor, military spouses July 26, 2012 Comments: 6

 

Listen folks, you really don’t want to see me going topless — it aint pretty…unless you think two fried eggs hanging from a hook is attractive —  so click the pretty little pink circle above and cast your vote for me as the bestest, most prettiest, hilariousest, most funnest TOP military mom blogger around.  These contests are purely promotional tools, but they really do help bring new readers to my blog. And it will help me promote my new monthly column in Military Spouse magazine!

You can vote once every 24 hours from any computer or smart phone from now until August 16th!!  Support the troops and help put my Top on — trust me, you want that. Really.

Eggs, sunny-side up, frying in a pan. Français...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mother’s Day – A real hoot.

Humor, military spouses May 13, 2012 Comments: 9

(Lee Forrest/Flickr)

“Hey Hon, so whaddya want for Mother’s Day anyway?” my husband inquired a couple days ago, much too late to actually plan anything decent.

My mind flashed to Mother’s Days past. I winced at vivid images of kitchens destroyed by my children’s best intentions. My lips puckered at the distant taste of cold burnt breakfasts in bed. Allowing my mind to reminisce a moment longer, I nearly gagged at the thought of pond scum.

Well, not exactly pond scum, but that scummy film that forms in the bottom of a flower vase containing week-old cut flowers. My uvula twitched at the thought of slimy stems breaking the algae-like skin on the surface of old vase water to reveal murky dregs and the pungent odor of rotting vegetation.

I never really liked cut flowers because of the pond scum, but my husband orders them almost every year. He makes a call to the florist and, voila! his job is done. One year, I delicately suggested he consider potted flowers for Mother’s Day. That year, I received a lovely hydrangea that bloomed in my garden for years. I thought my days of dealing with green slime were over.

The next year it seemed like a heck of a lot of work driving over to the garden center for another potted plant when my husband could simply call the florist from the comfort of his Barcalounger. Back to the pond scum.

I shuddered, and tried to focus on an answer to my husband’s question. Hmm, I thought, is there something that my family would enjoy that would not require me to clean the kitchen and wash out dirty vases?

I recalled Mother’s Day 2007. My Navy husband was in the 5th month of a yearlong deployment to Djibouti, Africa. I met some other “geographically single” military moms at an indoor play center to let the kids run off some steam while we chatted. A couple hours later, the kids, sweaty and sufficiently coated in invisible ball-pit bacteria, told us they were starving to death.

The mothers begrudgingly trudged toward the exit. “Ugh,” one mom groaned, “I really don’t want to cook.” “Me neither,” another chimed in, her lips stretched downward in an exaggerated frown.

After months of parenting alone, I seriously contemplated eating my daughter’s filthy sweat-dampened socks to avoid cooking another meal. “Hey, you guys wanna go out to lunch somewhere?!”

We huddled in the parking lot to plan a lunch outing, but our excitement soon turned to disappointment when we realized that, without a reservation, we’d be lucky to get Slurpies and Slim Jims at 7-11 on Mother’s Day.

We said our good-byes again, and slogged to our respective minivans.

Just then, a 150-watt bulb blinked on in my deployment weary brain with possibly the best idea I’d had in my entire life. “I know where we can go!” I blurted. The other moms and their offspring looked to me with hope in their hungry eyes across the quivering asphalt, and I bellowed with outstretched arms like their pseudo savior, “HOOTERS!”

Much as I had predicted, we had the whole place to ourselves, and lazily munched on wings and fries late into the afternoon. The waitresses seemed more than happy to cater to feminine clientele who don’t giggle nervously and ogle at their ill-fitting shirts, so the service was excellent. While I did have to wipe drool from my 11-year-old son’s chin a time or two, all in all, it was a perfect Mother’s Day.

“Hon, did you hear me?” my husband inquired impatiently.

“Oh, yea,” I said, snapping back to reality. For a fleeting moment, I considered suggesting a replay of that wonderful day in 2007, but I thought better of it when I realized that Mother’s day at Hooters only works when fathers aren’t around.

The taste of chilled scorched eggs and the smell of slimy vase water suddenly seemed appealing when compared with seeing one’s husband stare bug-eyed at a woman half his age while sucking down chicken wings and beer, so I said, “Breakfast in bed and a vase of flowers would be just wonderful.”

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