Better, Stronger, Chompier

Sometimes, in life, you get abroken front tooth. That’s not a metaphor. Last week, a beautiful, sweet dogwas overcome with excitement to greet me and rammed my face with his face,resulting in a large chunk of my front tooth going missing.

The result was visually quiteunfortunate, but relatively pain free, until I went to the dentist. Theprocedure itself was ok, since I’d been shot quite full of Novocain, orwhatever. In fact, I had a pleasantly rubbery face for quite a while after Ileft. Turns out, I should have seized that pain free hour, because by the timeI stopped dallying around, so had the drugs.

Unfortunately, I still had a stopto make. And since I was tired and a little achy around the mouth it took allof my limited strength of character not to dart in front of the old man who wascreeping toward the door as I approached from the parking lot, because I reallywanted to get in line before he did. I actually have that urge all the time; sofar I’ve managed to suppress it. I could be an amazing douche if I let myself.

Anyway, the door in question wasthe AAA door, where you can go instead of going to the DMV, and in most ways itis infinitely preferable. However, what I can say for the DMV is this: peopledon’t go there for directions. Directions. Yeah. It’s called Google maps, oldpeople. Or even regular maps. I know you know about those. Or you could tryyour luck with your GPS. I’m pretty sure Cadillac has those. Sorry old people, asI write this, I’m still in pain. And I’m not prejudiced. I’m practically one ofyou.

I’m waiting my turn, counting thenumber of inane questions per minute (it’s three), and the numbness is reallywearing off and this is reflected in my mood. I have to remind myself thatthese other people are people too, that they matter as much as I do, even ifthey are ninety and have apparently pilgrimaged to AAA for the sole purpose ofinsisting that they are excellent drivers (which inherently means that they arenot), they deserve their turn. Their long drawn out turn.

There’s a lady who has got to beeighty, who’s  worried that herhandicapped license plate is going to, “alert the cops.” She has alreadyextolled her driving skills. I’m rolling my eyes politely to myself and tryingnot to let my jaw clench because I’m in more pain every minute and I’m not surewhy they didn’t send me home with something for that because surely, this couldhave been predicted by the professionals, but it was not. Or else they wantedme to suffer.

 And I’m cranky and feeling guilty for all therude thoughts I’m having about everybody else in the waiting room and bad aboutthe fact that I’m reminding myself that they’re people too, because who has toremind themselves that other people are people? In my defense, I don’t have todo this every day. But full disclosure, this wasn’t the first time either.

When it’s my turn, I draw theshortest of sticks, meaning a trainee who doesn’t know how to do what I needdone. He assures me he knows how to do other things, and lists some of them. Iheroically refrain from leaping over the counter. A brief wait later, I amrewarded for my patience with a full-fledged employee and we manage to wrap upmy errand so I am free to rush home and self medicate with tequila.

Flash forward two weeks, when I goback to have a permanent veneer put on. The doctor tells me that they usuallydon’t need to use anesthesia for this part. I prove to him that I am a specialcase by whimpering the minute he touches me with an instrument.

Some tugging, and filing, andflinching, and gluing later, I have a brand new pearly white. They have rebuiltme. They have made me better, stronger and chompier. Or at least restored me toa state of dental symmetry. Now everything is fine, except the pain is back. Sofor the rest of the afternoon, I will be on the couch watching GoT andwondering why no one will step up and (SPOILER ALERT!) murder Joffrey. AlthoughI’m only on the second season, so perhaps by now someone has. Happy thoughts.

Flying the Shrieking Skies

I had to wait to write this until I could calm myself and be reasonable. I didn’t want the entire post to be profanity; because it was that bad. Some people may be offended and judge me, and that’s ok. But here’s the thing: babies should not be allowed on planes, because they’re horrible. Babies, not planes.

By now you probably think I hate children. I don’t. I have a nephew and he’s awesome, partly because he never shrieks at the top of his lungs. And it’s not just about being greedy for the pleasure of screech-free flying, although I am. There are health issues to be concerned about. I’m referring to headaches, deafness, (which ironically would be a blessing) and the stress that is caused by suppressing one’s natural instincts; namely the urge to fling peanuts, SkyMall catalogues, or whatever else is within reach at the offending baby.

I get it parents. You like your babies. You like to take them with you. But you have to balance your, I have to use the word “selfish,” want against what you’re putting other people through. If you do insist on taking a baby with you on a plane, (a small enclosed space where people are trapped with your horrible baby) then bring shit to entertain it. Please don’t rely on it being enchanted by the nozzle of the air conditioning vent. As I know from personal experience, that fascination is fleeting.

Pack a toy; and maybe some Nyquil, the airline will provide the booze. And yeah, all that stuff is for the baby. “Oh no,” you may be thinking. “I don’t want to drug my baby when it’s not even sick, that’s horrible!”  It’s not that bad. People used to put brandy right into the bottle, and drink and smoke while pregnant. And breastfeeding. The human race survived. And so will your baby. Probably. I’m not a pediatrician, but probably.

Well, maybe. I mean, there’s really no way of knowing what will happen. But I do know that sobriety is no guarantee of a safe childhood. Anything can happen. Besides, I believe they make Nyquil just for children. And if something is made specifically for children, then it would be bad parenting not to give it to them. It would be like denying your baby vitamins. Because drug companies care.

And if your child is shrieking and giving someone all the way across the aisle a headache because it’s so damn loud, don’t smile around as though you think it’s cute, and don't expect anyone else to think it’s cute. Shut that kid up. Screeching is not adorable. And when you act like you expect me to find it adorable, I want to hit you in the face.

Airlines: don’t let babies fly for free. You’re just exacerbating the problem. Make them pay at least full fare, perhaps with an additional noise hazard tax of 100%. And consider turning one or two of the bathrooms into soundproof penalty boxes for particularly rowdy babies. Better that the rest of us have to hold it, than have to listen to some rowdy infant scream as though it’s being skinned because it dropped a pacifier.

It also wouldn’t hurt to penalize the parents of bad babies. Perhaps a modest fine could be imposed on those that allow a baby to get out of hand. Like a dollar. Per passenger. Payable every time their baby shrieks. Or cries. Or stinks. Incidentally, if that policy had been in effect during my last flight, my next flight would have been paid for. And that would have been justice.  

Please remember airlines, that frequent flyer perks aside, you have an obligation to treat your passengers equally and fairly. If I behaved like a certain baby named Quinn*(whose parents passed out earplugs and candy at the beginning of the flight, which I should have taken as a sign of end times instead of mistaking it for a courtesy) you would fly me over Guantanamo without passing GO and push me out a hatch. Fair is fair.

To the babies: Just stay home. Ask for a babysitter. Remember, anyone who cares will come to you. I’m talking grandparents. Yeah, that’s it, just grandparents. Everybody else is waiting until you’re a little older and less terrible. It’s ok. The rest of the world will start to warm to you when you can say words and poop in the toilet. And babies? One more thing: It’s bullshit to scream when you’re upset, and then scream when you’re happy. Get a grip.

*Seriously, she’s the devil. (Whom I didn’t even believe existed until this kid sat behind me for two hours.)

For "Ease" Read, "Holy Shit this is Hard!"

Nobody died. And it was amazing. And no one made fun of anyone else. Except me. I made fun of one girl. But I didn’t make fun of her because of any sort of physical ineptness, because that would be mean. I only made fun of her insistence on whining during such a spectacularly fun occasion. It was discrete mockery too; for the ears of my sister only.

In spite of the ominous lawyerese on the release form it was abundantly safe and so much fucking fun that you need to go do it. Right now. Call in to work, whatever it takes.

            Fair warning, the back of your legs will look like this:

And this can happen to your pants:  

             And it’s a lot harder than it looks. For me. There is something horribly wrong with my body that prevents me from getting my legs over the damn bar in the normal way, so I had to learn an alternate way. Which they say is harder. I didn’t know if that was true or if they just say that to make people feel better about being sent to remedial trapeze school. But I proved to my satisfaction that it is in fact more difficult, by immediately getting my leg tangled in both the trapeze and the safety line, which no one else was able to do. Hence the pants. Anyway, I finally managed it.

             However it’s hard to catch up to the others when you get sent back. To remedial trapeze school. Like I did. So by the end of the session, I was losing my mind. Half the people had crapped out, and the other half had managed to perfect their timing, and were being instructed on how to do the catch. I was pretty much left to go again and again.

             In my crazed determination to perfect my timing, I was forgetting all the safety rules and had to be reminded once by a fellow student and once by an instructor to hook up my safety lines. The instructor actually made me climb down the ladder and take a moment to breathe and calm myself, so I was probably pretty much a wreck by then.

             I didn’t get to do the catch because I totally fucked up my last turn, and I had been warned there was some concern that I might crash into the catcher and injure us both. I was so hyped up that I was totally prepared to take a head injury, but they are a bit overprotective of their staff. So fine.

Here is what I did on my final turn:

And here is my sister doing it properly:

                                           

             So it was awesome. And the people who were good were very sweet and encouraging to those who weren’t. By the end that was just me, because everybody else had quit. So I got to be the plucky girl who didn’t give up, even though she sucked. Which is not what I was planning; but it wasn’t so bad. 

With the Greatest of Ease

Saturday morning I will be flying through the air with the greatest of ease; or else I’ll be dying, probably also with the greatest of ease. Trapeze school is finally upon us, and no, you didn’t miss anything, I haven’t mentioned it. I imagine myself doing flips and catches and whatnot, and in my mind I’m suddenly endowed with the grace and coordination that is noticeably lacking in my usual interactions with the physical world.

 Hopefully that actually happens because apparently (according to the terrifying release I’m supposed to sign) in the world of trapeze there are consequences for physical ineptness, “…could result in physical or emotional injury or death. I understand that such risks simply cannot be eliminated without jeopardizing the essential qualities of the activity.” Ok. I get that they can’t guarantee no injuries when they’re letting you swing around like monkeys and the only thing keeping you from falling is the untrained and sweaty hand of another trapeze school newbie, but I have to question the idea of emotional injury being unavoidable. Are they going to make fun of us if we don’t do well? Post photos of us fearful and sprawling on the internet? Surely, some restraint could be shown there. Falling on your ass is bad enough without the professionals making fun of you for it. And if I do fall on my ass it will be because I wasn’t properly instructed, so heal thyself, trapeze guy.

And there’s not just the danger of me falling; there’s the possibility that shit will fall on me. “The risks include…being struck by objects dislodged or dropped from above.” Well, perhaps we don’t need to keep so much clutter on the trapeze platform. Seriously, what the fuck do they keep up there? And dislodged could be accidental, but dropped? Sounds like someone up there is out to get me. 

Then there are the trapeze people. “…employees have difficult jobs to perform. They are not infallible.” Ok, that’s kind of a given, albeit not something I necessarily want emphasized right before I literally put my life in their hands. But even though they’re not perfect, they are surely highly trained and as close to infallible as is humanly possible.

Except for the part where they’re not particularly observant. “They might misjudge the weather or other environmental conditions.” Really? Because the trapezing actually takes place outside. In the weather. What I’m hearing is, “If we don’t kill you by flinging bricks at your head from 100 feet up, the lightening will finish you off because we’re not properly trained to look at the sky.”

And it seems that’s not all they’re not properly trained to do. “They may give incomplete or inaccurate instructions or warnings.”  You’re starting to sound lazy, guys. How about taking a little pride in your work. Consider how nice it would be to go home and say to your wife, husband or cat, “No one died today, and there were only a few close calls, because I had the initiative to tell people to hold on tight.”

“The equipment being used might malfunction.”  How much can a new trapeze cost? It’s essentially a rope and a stick. Maybe I should bring my own. Except I don’t know where to get a trapeze on short notice. But, I might know where I can borrow a sex swing.* Those things are pretty much interchangeable, I believe.

“I certify I have adequate insurance to cover any injury or damage I may cause or suffer while participating...” I wish I could, but I’m sure they won’t check. At least not until after one of the aforementioned unfortunate incidents has occurred.

In spite of the eager specters of death, paralyzation, and embarrassment, I’m excited. I’m a little worried that the trapeze people will see this and not let me on. But I can’t post it after, well, maybe I could, but it’s not certain. And because I’ve gone to the trouble of writing it, I don’t want it to be a wasted effort if I die. Speaking of dying, if I don’t make it back, would someone please feed my dogs?

*I absolutely do not know where I can borrow a sex swing.

Sweat the Small Stuff

Last night at the grocery store, I noticed that the sign above the speedy checkout lane that used to say, “Fifteen items or less,” now says, “About fifteen items.” As far as I can see, this can only mean one thing, and that thing is that people are douchy enough to count other people’s items and yell at them if they have sixteen items. Or seventeen.  Sometimes, twenty. Not that I haven't been tempted to comment shrilly when someone has eighteen items, because I have. But I make an active effort to be less of a douche than the person who has nineteen items when they should have fifteen, in fact, that’s my goal in life.

So I don’t yell, because yelling about it seems slightly worse. It’s possible that some of these people just can’t count. But I love that others are not so restrained. I really do. I love that the store had to change it to, “about,” to prevent bloodshed. Because there’s nothing better than living amongst people that are prepared to come to blows over that sixteenth item. I’m not judging. I’m not so entertained by this because I would never do such a thing. I’m entertained by this because I can barely restrain myself from doing such a thing.

 We (you) have to act now. Time is running out. Soon all the grocery stores will cave in and replace their set in stone, enforceable checkout rules with guidelines. I’m not a lawyer, but I feel like fewer checkout altercations would go to trial if the victim could be accused of breaking a rule, a grocery law if you will, instead of merely having committed a shopping faux pas. Also, there’s nothing like a good brawl in the checkout line. So raise hell about that extra item. Be righteously indignant. Take action. Speak up. Throw things. Throw a punch, throw an apple, throw your own sixteenth item, (how the hell did that get in there?) so you don’t look like a hypocrite when it’s your turn to checkout. It makes no difference what you throw as long as you get involved.

And if someone has fifteen items and tries to add a pack of gum at the last minute, don’t let them get away with it. These bougie assholes need to know that the rules (or polite suggestions) apply to them. Let them know that their aspirations to minty breath don’t make them better than everyone else. Go forth and make your mothers proud. 

A Rock and a Sad Place

The other day at the park my nephew had a wreck. He was jumping off the side of the slide (because as any fool knows slides are not just for sliding down) when he was sabotaged by a glitch in coordination.  It wasn’t a bad fall; he only had a couple superficial scrapes to show for it. But there were a ton of people around.

After we clean him up, he decides he wants to do one more slide before we leave, but he chooses the smallest slide and goes down halfheartedly, and it’s all very sad. On the way to our next stop we discuss whether it still hurts, which he tells me it does not, and whether he’s embarrassed which he also denies.

But he’s still tremendously sad.

Eventually it occurs to me that “embarrassed,” may not be a word most people are familiar with when they’re three, so I ask him if he’s sad because all those people saw him fall and he says, “yes.”

Now I’m pissed off at those people for existing, because I feel like Z wouldn’t be upset right now if they didn’t, and what right do they have to be wandering around the park with their eyes anyway? On the other hand this is hideously unreasonable, and I’m really just pissed off at myself for not catching him.

“It’s ok,” I say to him. “None of those people were laughing at you. Everybody falls. I fall, and your mom and dad fall, and Ben falls, and all those people at the park have fallen too, I promise.”

Pointing out the misfortunes of others is perhaps not the most inspiring method of comforting a child, but it’s what came to mind. And still, he was bummed.

We get to the arts festival, but only kind of, because we have to park far away. We start walking, well I start walking, and I’m carrying a sad three year old, a heavy, sad three year old, and I think the sadness is making him heavier than usual. When we finally get there he doesn’t want to go in. He says he wants to sit. So we sit. On the curb outside the arts festival.

He says, “Don’t look at me, please,” and I oblige.

 He picks up a rock. I ask him about the colors in his rock. We discuss that for awhile.

So there we are, sitting on the curb, not looking at each other, discussing rocks instead of feelings. It’s like I’m participating in some kind of weird male bonding moment. I didn’t know three year olds could have such man moments.

I texted his mom for backup. She suggested an uplifting lesson on what the word “embarrassed,” means. That sounded promising, he likes to learn new words. Like “evolution.” But embarrassed is not a fun word to learn when you are.

He would seem better for a while then get sad again. That happens to me too, but I get to drink. And if he was twelve I would have offered him one.  

It turned out that his arm is sprained. When I found that out, I had a guilt headache for two days. But I’m better now, and more importantly, so is he. Feel free to call me with babysitting requests.

Delusions of Me

(Excuse the drawings. I'm trying something. My sister dared me. The drinking makes it seem like a good idea. I did all these with only two pens.) 

I often think about getting mugged. Usually, when I’m walking to my car at night. I’m not worried about it. I’m anticipating it. Because I’m ready. I’ve been ready since I took that self defense course in college. I am so prepared to stab a mugger in the eye with my car key. People who have keyless entry, I don’t know what you’re going to use to stab your mugger in the eye. You should give that some thought.

         

I’m sure if it actually happened it would be kind of a bummer, scary and all that, not to mention all the blood and eye goo on my keys, but I’m such a badass as this plays out in my mind that I can’t resist. I wonder if this posting will entice a mugger out of the darkness to accost me, after all, he could actually use the “she was asking for it,” defense, if muggers read, but I don’t believe they do.  And if they do, they’d probably choose someone who’s not prepared to stab them in the eye.

Although, I recently read that the key thing actually a bad idea because you have to let the mugger get close to you in order to reach their eyes. You’re supposed to hit your mugger with something bigger, like an umbrella. But I live in the desert, so 355 days of the year an umbrella is just a pain in the ass. Besides, once you get your heart set on stabbing an assailant in the eye with your keys it’s hard to let that go.

On an even more morbid note, I want to find a dead body. Not that I want anybody to be dead, but since sometimes people have to be dead anyway, why can’t I find one of them? Because according to a lot of my reading, finding a dead body leads to hijinks and adventure. Obviously, I’m assuming murder. Yes, I’d be opening myself up to suspect status, but obviously I would suss out the real killer and all would be well. Unless there were maggots. I guess I only want to find the fresh bodies.

And why does no one have a heart attack when I’m around? I know CPR. I could be all decisive and heroic, and the victim would regain consciousness and thank me and the onlookers would applaud and later I would be adorably modest on the evening news. But I’m going to need the victim to be hygienic and have recently brushed and flossed because these days, I’m not comfortable putting my mouth just anywhere. Although I suppose I would have the option of only doing the chest compressions. But that doesn’t match the visual in my head, which would be disappointing.

I imagine what I would do if there was a fire, which is kind of weird because this is one of my biggest fears, and also, I feel the worst about this one, because my pets would be traumatized. (So no cartoon on this one because that would make it worse.) I’m sure that to most of you it seems worse that I’ve let people be mentally murdered, suffer imaginary heart attacks, and get stabbed in the eye with my keys but I don’t know them, and anyway they brought those things on themselves with their lives of crime and unhealthy eating habits. With the possible exception of the guy who got murdered. I’m not sure what happened with him. Yet.

Anyway, in the fire I heroically round up and whisk to safety my five pets three of whom are dogs and two of whom are cats, unless you’re my apartment manager in which case two of them are fish. In my imaginings four of the rescues go pretty easily but then I have to go back for Agatha whom I couldn’t get on the first trip because she was hiding under the bed. However at the last possible moment I snatch her from the flames and we live happily ever after. Of course, now we have no stuff, but I know someone who had a fire, no pets, only children, and they’re fine, don’t worry. My point is, that if you get on the news because all your shit burned up, everyone sends you free shit. The people I know got so much free shit that they had to give a bunch of it to charity. And they didn’t even have heroic pet rescues to modestly recount during their exclusive interviews. So I could be a hero and give to charity too which is good for everybody.

            This all probably means that there is something deeply wrong with me, but I hope, in the nicest possible way, that there are others out there with the same horrible self-aggrandizing affliction. Because I’d like to think that these tendencies to play out mental disasters are part of some simple human longing rather than a psychotic indicator. I mean really, who doesn’t long for the occasional parade in their honor?