December 29, 2005

The Game of Life

Finn played The Game of Life this summer, and raved about how much fun it was. He got the game for Christmas and he and his brothers played several games by themselves that afternoon while I cleaned up. I’d never played before, but I surmised that the game provided friendly competition along with a few lessons about real life.

I did not care at all for the game chatter I heard while they were playing.

“I’m not going to college,” Porter announced. “That just makes you have to pay more money. It does.”

Later, I heard Drew declare, “I don’t know why they even have those insurance cards. No one ever buys any.”

Then Finn yelled, “Darn! Hey guys, you wanna change the rules so no one pays taxes?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I told the boys that I wanted in on the next game.

“Great,” said Finn. “I get to be the blue car, and I get to go first.”

“No,” I said, “We’re going to play this game by the rules. I bet you roll or spin something to see who goes first.”

Finn lay back on the couch, sulking, while I carefully perused the rules. I decided I was going to guide the boys through a carefully
considered game, in which rules were followed and prudent decisions
about careers, marriages and spending were made.

The game began as many games dominated by males do. There was an immediate fight over which boy was going to be what color car, which was ultimately resolved with only one shove. I was the white car, because apparently white isn’t the color of any sports team that’s popular in our house.

At the beginning of the game I had to decide whether or not I wanted to go to college. If you do, you get to choose from three career cards. Those who skip college must pick and keep one.

“Of course I’m going to college,” I said. “Education is the most important thing you can invest in.”

“That’s a bad move, Mom,” Drew said. “None of us are going to college. Going to college just makes you owe money and then you lose.”

“Yeah, it’s like buying insurance,” Finn said. “There’s no reason to do it.”

“Yeah, and you won’t make more money, Mom,” Porter said. “You won’t.”

“You’ll see,” I said smugly.

Each career card was color coded so that it was eligible only for salaries of certain colors. I soon realized that the available salaries varied wildly. I watched as Drew picked the artist card and a salary of $80,000. Whenever anyone spun a “1″ it meant he sold a painting and that player had to pay him $10,000. Porter was the policeman and earned $90,000. When someone spun a “10″ it meant they were speeding and had to pay him $10,000.

Finn was the computer consultant and earned $70,000. Whenever the spinner came off the track, the bank paid him $50,000 to fix it.

When I graduated, I chose to be the accountant. I picked three salary cards but the only one I was eligible for color-wise was $40,000. When anyone landed on the “pay taxes space” they paid the taxes to me.

“What a crock,” I said. “That wasn’t worth going to college for.”

“Told you,” Finn commented.

It was immediately apparent that with our game, the computer consultant is the person you want to be. No matter how carefully each of us handled the spinner, it always seemed to become hung up, so we all spent a lot of the game handing over $50,000 bills to Finn, who piled them up gleefully on the table before him.

Being the policeman wasn’t so bad, either. Porter drew a hefty salary, and I swear he rigged the spinner to favor the 10, because there were a lot of speed traps along our game of Life.

Sometimes a person landed on a spot that marked a life event and you picked up a tile with “LIFE” on one side and an event and a dollar amount on the other. Presumably these were things you did in your life that were meaningful and resulted in financial gain. The first time I picked a LIFE tile I read it out loud: “Win Nobel Prize.”

I seized on the opportunity to enhance the game. “Guys, do you know what the Nobel prize is?” I asked, thinking about how I would explain Albert Einstein and Mother Teresa to them.

“MOM!” Drew shrieked. “You’re not supposed to look at it!”

“That can’t be right,” I said firmly, as I consulted the rules. He was right. All the tiles were to remain face down until the end of the game, when their monetary worth was calculated along with each player’s money to arrive at a grand total. Essentially, the momentous events described on the cards were worth nothing but the amount of money that accompanied them. The rules forbade me from telling the boys about climbing Mount Everest, or why the person who cures the common cold would get a lot of money, or what the English Channel is and why you would swim across it. So much for teaching the boys a little something. I checked the box to see who had manufactured the game. It seemed to me that Milton Bradley had missed an opportunity to market the Game of Life as a real learning experience by creating that rule.

As the game progressed, each of us had to get married. This was shown by adding a pink or blue peg to the shotgun seat of the player’s car. Finn and I got married without complaint, but the twins were adamant about the fact that they don’t like girls. Each chose to marry another boy, while Finn protested, “A boy can’t marry another boy!”

I just kept my mouth shut and refrained from discussing homosexual marriage and civil unions since that was apparently against the spirit of the game and would get complicated besides.

I continued to spin 10’s and 1’s and accumulate debt. Interestingly, in Life, the loans came with a set interest rate of $5000 for every $20,000 loan and there was no incentive to pay them back sooner rather than later. So I didn’t.

Instead, I used the little cash I had to purchase home and car insurance, and I made a big point of doing so. “You should always insure your home and your car,” I emphasized to the boys. Later I landed on a space where I wrecked the car, and I shouted with glee as I showed them that I did not have to pay for the damaged car because I was insured. Soon after, Porter, (who we were now all calling “the overpaid policeman”) lost his house in a flood and paid for his damage from his thick wad of cash without blinking an eye. The insurance lesson did not go as well as I had hoped.

Later in the game, there was a place where you came to a fork in the road and had to pick the path you wanted to take. I watched Finn as he counted out the spaces on each path and compared his landing points.

“Hmm, have a baby girl, or get a payday. That’s a no brainer! Give me my $70,000,” he demanded. My heart sank. I thought about asking him to reconsider– how many people get to choose whether or not to have a baby girl? — but then I realized that we’d already been playing for over an hour and we were nowhere near retirement. So I kept my mouth shut and silently mourned my lost granddaughter.

The game of Life seemed to drag on as long as a real lifetime. I realized that Milton Bradley must have tested his game and discovered that it lasted far too long, and then made the rule against peeking at the Life tiles to prevent all the questions and explanations that would result. After all, if we’d wanted to play a game that lasted for hours, we’d have just played Monopoly.

The boys got restless, and Finn started smacking Porter on the head to tell him it was his turn to spin. Drew farted and then jumped up and down for the sole purpose of spreading the stench about the room, and I called a halt to the game.

“I will not tolerate this type of behavior any longer,” I warned. “I’m not going to play anymore if you don’t shape up.”

“That’s okay, Mom,” Finn said. “You’re losing big time, anyway. We could all count up our money now and see who won.”

Porter won, and Finn was a close second. I was barely out of debt, even though my Life cards revealed that I had won the Nobel Prize and written the Great American Novel. I tried to tell the boys that even though I didn’t have the most money at the end, I’d still led a full life and made valuable contributions to society.

“That’s great and all, Mom,” Finn said, as he started packing up the board, “but in the Game of Life, all that matters is who has the most money, and that person wins. Those are the rules.”

He was right, of course. And Life, like life, isn’t always fair.

December 27, 2005

Getting Older, Getting Bolder

I recently heard that a friend is expecting twins. I was in the same situation in 1998. I cannot imagine Bill and me tackling that grand adventure at this point in our lives, because our family has made so much progress since then. The sippy cups and diapers are long gone, and the plastic potty seat is a faint memory. The boys blow their own noses and wipe their own bottoms.

I recently bought Finn Clearasil wash for his face, and he’s wearing braces and glasses. He checks his underarms daily for signs of hair, but so far his pits are as smooth as a baby’s butt. Porter has lost nine teeth, and we all know immediately if he fails to use his Odor-Eaters powder, because his feet are as stinky as those of a grown man. Drew draws for hours at a time, and has mastered the game of Solitaire, which I used to think was a game played exclusively by ancient, wrinkled babysitters. Apparently it appeals to small, pale first-graders, too.

The boys are not as picky about food as they used to be when they were younger. Porter craves sushi and artichokes, Finn has discovered the joys of grilled salmon, and Drew is a fool for fried shrimp.

Although the days have seemed excruciatingly long sometimes, the years really have passed quickly.

It was apparent at Christmas how far we had come. We were able to decorate the entire tree, not just the top half. No one burst into tears, ran a fever, threw up, or developed an ear infection on Christmas morning.

Even better, the boys could read the directions on their new toys. Bill and I sat back and enjoyed a few cups of coffee while the guys consulted each other on how to work their Target ATM banks:

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not living in a house of perfectly groomed and well-bred males yet. On Christmas Eve, I was checking the living room just moments before everyone was supposed to arrive for our 17 person gourmet dinner. As I walked by the Christmas tree, something white nestling in the branches caught my eye:

I was intrigued. Was it a new ornament– an angel, or a dove of peace, perhaps? I got closer to get a better look.

It wasn’t angelic or peaceful or even remotely Christmasy. It wasn’t even a true Christmas ornament. Here’s what it was:

If you were thinking to yourself, “Gosh, that looks like a pair of Drew’s boxers that were hurled into the tree as a joke,” then award yourself ten points.

December 22, 2005

Showdown at the Salon

I’m engaged in a territory dispute here in the Kingdom, in an unlikely place with an even more unlikely opponent. But my will is strong, and I will not be bullied into backing down.

I’ve seen many doctors over the past decade for my spine, liver and migraine problems. Most of my physicians have been nothing but wonderful, but I didn’t get along so well with one particular doctor several years ago. He seemed to view me as a medical chart, not a real person. After I experienced a complication that Bill and I thought was serious enough to warrant a visit to the ER, and that Dr. X apparently felt was minor enough that he could wait a few days before returning our frantic calls, I changed doctors. (That medical problem has now been successfully resolved.)

A while ago, I went to Athena Salon for an appointment with Teppie, my funky hairstylist, to color my hair and get it cut. She wasn’t quite finished with the client before me, and as I drew closer I saw that the person draped in the turquoise cape was Dr. X. It had been several years since I had last seen him.

I shuddered, and then I remembered my manners.

“Dr. X, is that you under that smock?” I asked sweetly.

“Yes,” he said, surprised. Perhaps he didn’t recognize me, but I couldn’t blame him. The last time I’d seen him I’d probably been a blonde or a redhead.

“Oh, you know Dr. X?” Teppie asked, looking at me strangely.

“I sure do,” I said. “We go way back.”

Dr X was sitting stiffly in the chair with a pained expression on his face. I bent down to his level. “It’s me, Anne Glamore,” I said. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

“Yes,” he said gruffly.

I made a couple of attempts at small talk but he was having none of it. When Teppie finished cutting his hair, she removed the blue drape and he was out of the chair in a flash.

I put on a purple cape and sat down in Teppie’s chair, which was still warm from Dr. X’s butt.

“Whoa, he’s a hard nut to crack,” Teppie said. “I tried to get him to talk, but I got nothing. He didn’t seem very happy to see you, did he?”

I told her he probably didn’t consider me his most successful patient, and then she and I got busy discussing my new look.

Later that day, my phone rang. It was Teppie.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “After Dr. X left the salon, he had his wife call the shop. She told the receptionist that her husband got a haircut today, and that his stylist had a client named Anne Glamore who came in after him. She asked the receptionist to make sure that you were never scheduled for his day again, because it made for “an uncomfortable situation.”

“Ha ha,” I said. “Why are you really calling?”

“I’m not kidding,” Teppie said. “He really had his wife call and ask that you two be kept apart. Apparently seeing you made him uncomfortable.”

“You’re joking,” I said. “I was extremely polite to him. He was the one who would barely talk to anyone.”

“I know! The whole salon saw you trying to talk to him and him practically running away. We’ve been hooting over it ever since.”

“Wow, I had no idea I was so intimidating,” I commented.

“Yeah, you’re real scary,” Teppie said sarcastically.

I forgot about it until several weeks later, when I called Athena to make an appointment.

“How about Friday morning?” I asked.

“Well, that’s when Dr. X is coming,” the receptionist said. “Can you do Thursday?”

“Sure,” I agreed, and I hung up.

Then I started thinking. Athena had just scheduled me on Thursday to accommodate Dr. X’s outlandish request! I tried to give Dr. X the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he believed I was equally ill at ease at seeing him, and that this arrangement would spare both our feelings.

If so, he clearly misunderstood the situation. When I
thought his medical care was unsatisfactory, I replaced him with
another physician within the week. Teppie, however, is irreplaceable. If Dr. X was serious about his desire to avoid me, I could think of a number of reasons that he should just find himself another salon.

First, I’ve been going to Athena for a long time, certainly longer than Dr. X. It was the first grown up salon my mom ever took me to. If someone’s going to stake a claim to Athena, my right would
clearly be superior to his, simply because I have established a pattern
and practice of going there since the Bicentennial, twenty years before
Dr. X ever moved to town. I even got my Farrah Fawcett haircut there. (I looked so sexy, if you could overlook my braces, glasses and back brace and just focus on my hairsprayed wings and my legs.)

I see my friends there, and my mother’s friends there. I know everyone in the shop. It’s like my second home, without the laundry.

Second, to put it nicely, Dr. X is of an age where he just doesn’t have that much hair. Teppie’s gotten rid of his comb over, and now it’s just a matter of maintenance. Anyone in town could do that. He doesn’t need to see Teppie for a trim. In contrast, my hair is my thing, and Teppie and I embark on great adventures with it together. I can’t just go anywhere for golden brown with chunks of blonde color, or for a cut called the “faux-hawk” that Teppie learned in Atlanta.

I wondered about Dr. X’s inability to handle uncomfortable situations. If my presence freaked him out so much, did I have a duty to call his wife and let her know my daily activities so she could make sure her husband wasn’t going to run into me and become nervous?

I could picture myself calling and saying, “Hello, it’s Anne Glamore. I just thought I’d let you know that I’m going to be eating lunch out at Brio today, which is very unusual for me, so you might want to give your husband a heads up on that in case he was planning on going there today. Then I’m running by Publix and the dry cleaners, and I may get gas and go to the fish store if I have time. I should be done with all that by 4:30, though, so if you need him to pick you up some swordfish, he could go by around 5:00 and I should be out of his way.”

If Dr. X thinks he’s going to drive me out of Athena, he’s going to have to get ready for a fight, because I must stay true to my roots, if not my natural color.

December 18, 2005

Lost In Translation

Some writers are gifted enough to just draft a post and hit “publish” but I rarely do that. I’m too anal. I like to sleep on a column before I let the whole world read it, and often I like to have at least one other person read a draft, too.

My best sounding board is my hip friend in L.A. He’s a writer, and we’ve known each other since college. He’s been with the blog before it was a blog. In fact, he gets credit for the birth of the blog. He always has good insight, so if I’m in doubt about something I’ve written, I’ll shoot a draft to him first and ask what he thinks.

The problem is, he’s so cool and far away that his lifestyle plus the time zone difference means that about the time I’ve tucked the boys in, written something up and am dying of exhaustion, he’s just winding up at work and beginning what I imagine to be his very exotic nightlife. Or maybe he unexpectedly jetted off to a foreign land. So if I don’t hear back from him in an hour or so, I conclude he’s hanging with the glitterati, and I look for another proofreader.

Usually my only option is Bill.

In some ways that’s good. He knows my characters intimately. Often he’s seen the activity being described, or was a participant, or got a crazed phone call from me while I was experiencing it. But I wouldn’t call him my average reader. Overall, he’s proud of me and my blog, but he’s not into the blog scene at all.

Some posts that garnered lots of comments didn’t impress him at all. His favorite posts are Hey Piss?, Tackled By Football, and of course, the sex talk. He doesn’t like the stories he thinks are “too chicky” like You Vamp and Waxing Woes: Product Review (”why would you post ugly pictures of yourself?” he wondered.)

Before I posted Elf Invasion, I got him to proof it.

“Would you mind reading this?” I asked, handing him the paper. “Even if you don’t think it’s funny, you’ll get a good idea of what two thirds of your children did today.”

“Hand it over,” he said, and he took it and reluctantly put down his Sports Illustrated.

I stayed near him while he read, but tried not to hover because he made it very clear a few months ago that he won’t proof if I’m hanging over his shoulder pointing out the lines that should evoke a chuckle from my target reader.

He started reading, and then he stopped and let out a big guffaw.

“Whoo!” he said, and started laughing. That’s all he could say for a while.

“What?” I asked, creeping closer, hoping I had written something really hilarious.

“Honey,” he said when he caught his breath, “why did you call the pile of presents from the Dollar Store ‘Christmas booty’?”

“You know– booty, like treasure or loot,” I explained.

“Honey, I know about ‘booty’ in the context of pirates, but when you stick that word in here without mentioning Captain Hook or pieces of eight, I think of a different kind of booty. It’s the kind you’ve got all year, but at this time of year I like to refer to it as ‘Christmas booty’,'” he said, trying to pinch my ass.

“Cut that out,” I snapped, slapping his hand away. “Have you even read the rest of the column?”

“No,” he said. “Once I started thinking about Christmas booty I couldn’t really concentrate anymore.”

Booty, holiday or otherwise, wasn’t on the menu that night, and it was with great difficulty that I got Bill to refocus on the story of his children and the elf. He finally made it through the story and said it was fine, but that he thought I should write a column using “booty” in its proper context.

“I’m not going to write about pirates,” I said firmly.

“I’m not asking you to write about pirates,” he said suggestively.

“You’re impossible,” I huffed.

“Hey, it’s not just me,” he protested. “You talk about these other guys, like MetroDad and Dad Gone Mad, and even though they’re bloggers, and into cyberspace and html and stuff, I bet when they get to the word “booty” they’re gonna forget all about the elf ornament and start thinking about JLo and Beyonce.”

I’d like to point out that not one of those men, or any men at all, have commented on the presence of “Christmas booty” in that post.

If you see a post titled “Have a Bootylicious Holiday” you should assume that Bill has hijacked the computer and taught himself how to blog. In that case, please send help immediately.

**********
Shout Outs- I’ve been meaning to give a shout out to my readers at Second Ponce! (Don’t worry OCP3, I’m not ignoring you.)

December 14, 2005

Elf Invasion

A while back, I vented about all the energy otherwise sane people are wasting by encouraging their children to believe in elves. As you may recall, the twins heard about a couple of mean and messy elves (smart moms!) and concluded that they did not want one anymore. I was off the hook.

A couple of days ago we set up the “children’s Christmas tree.” It’s a very special tree that stays in the basement. Its main purpose is to serve as a repository for all the handmade ornaments the boys make each year. Really, I truly cherish each new doily wreath and macaroni candy cane that comes through our door, but not when painted pasta and red hots are falling on my good living room carpet. That ruins the Christmas spirit faster than lumpy gravy. So we put the boys’ tree in the basement where they can fondle their ornaments as much as they like without sending me into a glitter-induced panic attack.

We keep all the handcrafted ornaments in their own special box, and when we unpacked it Drew was delighted to discover an ornament that my sister gave him a couple of years ago: an elf with a block for a body.

This elf has never been the object of much attention before, but we weren’t aware of the elf phenomenon in years past. Drew clasped the elf to his bosom and yelled, “Hey Porter! We got an elf! Let’s play!” and then I did not hear from them for a very long time.

I vacuumed and washed and sorted laundry (but didn’t fold it) and then I heard giggling coming from the living room. That room is strictly off limits except for boys who’ve gone through a detailed security check to make sure they are not harboring markers or nails or animals in their pockets, and that their clothes and shoes and hands are free from mud, chocolate and other stain-producing substances. I had not cleared any boys for entry into the living room, so I was quite apprehensive as I strode in to investigate.

Here is what I saw:

This wasn’t so bad.

I saw what you see: an ornament sitting on a pile of
presents, flanked by two wooden lions from the Animal Kingdom at Disney
World, and a yellow plastic thing that looks like a weeble, but isn’t.

(I wasn’t worried about the gifts. The only presents we had bought and wrapped thus far were the ones the boys had purchased for each other. Every year, we go to the Dollar Store and they use their allowance to buy each other copious amounts of plastic weapons, so while this may look like lots of Christmas booty to you, actually it’s about $16 worth of pretend guns and arrows.)

My take on the scene wasn’t quite right. Drew informed me that “The elf is the King, and the lions are his reindeer, and he’s sitting on top of his house. There’s more reindeer inside and we took some needles off the Christmas tree for them to eat. And the Wobbler came from my Froot Loops** and he guards the elf.”

(** You may wonder why I condone Froot Loops for the boys when I don’t let them eat Cocoa Puffs and the reason is that my mom let us eat the former, but never the latter, and we turned out okay.)

“Well, that looks good, guys,” I said. “Be careful in here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Drew said.

“Next we’re going to make the elf turn into Santa on a sleigh!” Porter said. “It’s gonna be cool!”

“Yeah, a fake elf is better than a real elf because he doesn’t mess up your room and you can make him do whatever you want,” Drew pointed out.

“Sounds great,” I said, concealing my dubiousness. “Let me know if you need anything.”

I went back to my chores and unloaded the dishwasher. As I did, the twins ran into the garage, and I heard them rummaging through the sports equipment. As they ran back in, I yelled reflexively, “No balls in the house!” and Porter said, “We know; we don’t have any balls” so I finished the dishes and started sweeping.

Later I went downstairs to write, and Porter came in with a very specific request.

“Mom, I need some of that red ribbon about this long,” he said, as he showed me with his hands how long it needed to be. “And I need two pieces like that. I do. Two pieces.”

I measured it out and cut it. “Thanks!” he yelled, and he ran back upstairs.

Drew visited next. “I need scissors and a yellow marker,” he said.

“Go look in the art box, but no coloring or cutting in the living room,” I emphasized.

“I know,” Drew said wearily as he went back upstairs.

I wrote a little longer, paid some bills, and read some blogs. By then I was growing ever more suspicious, because it is rare that I have an afternoon so unpunctuated by shouting and blood. I ventured back into the living room.

“Hey, look, Mom!” Porter said. “We made the elf into Santa in his sleigh with his reindeer. We did, Mom. We did.”

“Yeah, those look like lions but they’re reindeer,” Drew added.

I don’t have an artistic bone in my body, so I was pretty impressed with what I saw:

No, that’s not an ornament sitting on a shin guard with two lions and some raffia and tiny yellow pieces of paper! That’s Santa in his special sleigh with racing stripes and red reins decorated with tiny gold bells, pulled by two magical reindeer.

It is, Mom. It is.