But I Didn't Throw the Poop

Walking with three dogs is a slow business thanks to the generally unsynchronized sniffing, and lifting, and squatting. While we were stopped for a squat, a woman messing around in the trunk of her car shined a flashlight in my face. I tried to assume it was an accident, but then she did it again. And again. We had to pass her to get home, although to be completely honest, we would have gone over there anyway, because I was really annoyed, and because it’s everyone’s duty to stand up to inappropriate flashlight behavior when they see it.

And as we approach she shines it in my face again. Now, we are not out in the country. There is the ambient light that one gets in any city, not to mention the actual streetlamps. It is not that damn dark.

Me: “Could you not shine that thing in my face?” I’m thinking: What the fuck is your problem?

Her: “Sorry, Ma’am, I couldn’t see who was there. It looked like you were hiding behind a tree.”  Although she technically said the word “sorry,” it was not in any way an actual apology. And in case you missed it, she called me Ma’am.

Me: “I’m just walking my dogs.” This is a phenomenon she should be familiar with since there are probably almost as many dogs as people in my neighborhood.

Her: “Well, I’m sorry, Ma’am.” (Again not being sorry at all.) “I have bad eyes and I can’t see at night.”

Me: “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be out at night.” Grown women who are afraid of the not-really-dark should stay inside always.

Her: “Do you know how many times my car has been broken into?” Probably never while you were guarding it with that wicked flashlight.

Me: “Well, it wasn’t me any of those times.” Is she implying I’m a car burglar?

Her: “And did you pick up your dog shit?” Not that it’s any of your business but…

Me: “Yeah. Do you want to inspect it?”

Her: “Ugh. No, I don’t think so.”

I’m thinking:  Are you sure? Because I’d be happy to throw it at your head.

Her: “I can tell just by looking at you that you’re the kind of person who doesn’t pick up their dog shit.” That is so judgmental. And so incorrect, since…

Me: “I’m holding a bag of dog shit right now.” Don’t call her a cunt. Don’t.

Me again: “Why don’t you stop being so judgmental and fat?”  Dodged the C-word. Good for you.

Her: “I’m pregnant.”

And now we’re in a bad sitcom.

Her again: “Why are you such a cunt?” It’s called the moral high ground, lady. Come join me.

            Me: “It’s too bad that whoever knocked you up doesn’t care enough to come help you with that box.” There was a box. It was big. She dropped it, which was probably really embarrassing. I may have enjoyed that part.

            Her: “Your dogs are ugly.” Which is ridiculous. My dogs are beautiful. She was projecting.

So that was my night. And I hope she’s still fighting with her husband or whatever about how he didn’t help her with the box. Other than that, I’ve let it go. 

Better, Stronger, Chompier

Sometimes, in life, you get a broken front tooth. That’s not a metaphor. Last week, a beautiful, sweet dog was 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 quite unfortunate, but relatively pain free, until I went to the dentist. The procedure itself was ok, since I’d been shot quite full of Novocain, or whatever. In fact, I had a pleasantly rubbery face for quite a while after I left. Turns out, I should have seized that pain free hour, because by the time I stopped dallying around, so had the drugs.

Unfortunately, I still had a stop to make. And it took all of my limited strength of character not to dart in front of the old man who was creeping toward the door as I approached from the parking lot, because I really wanted to get in line before he did. I actually have that urge all the time; so far I’ve managed to suppress it. I could be an amazing douche if I let myself.

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

I’m waiting my turn, counting the number of inane questions per minute (it’s three), and the numbness is really wearing off and this is reflected in my mood. I have to remind myself that these other people are people too, that they matter as much as I do, even if they are ninety and have apparently pilgrimaged to AAA for the sole purpose of insisting that they are excellent drivers (which inherently means that they are not), they deserve their turn. Their long drawn out turn.

There’s a lady who has got to be eighty, who’s  worried that her handicapped license plate is going to, “alert the cops.” She has already extolled her driving skills. I’m rolling my eyes politely to myself and trying not to let my jaw clench because I’m in more pain every minute and I’m not sure why they didn’t send me home with something for that because surely, this could have been predicted by the professionals, but it was not. Or else they wanted me to suffer.

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

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

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

Some tugging, and filing, and flinching, and gluing later I have a brand new pearly white. They have rebuilt me. They have made me better, stronger and chompier. Or at least restored me to a state of dental symmetry. Now everything is fine, except the pain is back. So for the rest of the afternoon, I will be on the couch watching GoT and wondering why no one will step up and (SPOILER ALERT!) murder Joffrey. Although I’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.