Where There's Smoke, There's Ire

I openly admit to being perhaps the biggest second-hand-smoke phobe on the planet. As I’ve lamented in a previous post, I was raised by two chain smokers, so I already fear that I will end up like Dana Reeve and don’t want to add to the damage already done. Add to that allergies and a bit of asthma, and, well, it really rankles me to have to hold my breath while I run into places such as restaurants, office buildings, Target, Linens 'n Things, Office Depot, and grocery stores, where employees on breaks are puffing away ten feet from the entrances. I tell Laura to hold her breath too, and for good reason, as we all know. And I tell her why. We must teach our children with facts, and by example, not to smoke or to be around smokers. Children are expecially vulnerable to second-hand smoke. It is possible, however, that I may have engaged in a bit of overkill with these lessons. A while back my friend Helen was taking Laura and her two girls, Carolyn and Kayla, someplace or other. Helen told me that as they were walking across the parking lot toward her car, there was a man smoking near his car several spaces away. Helen realized that Laura had spotted him because they next thing she knew Laura ran toward Helen’s car screaming, “Aaaahhhh! He’s got a cig – a – rette! Run!” According to Helen, Laura reacted much like someone would if the man with the cigarette had instead been a postal worker with a gun. But still, I’ve made sure that my logical little daughter is empowered with facts on the topic of why smoking is bad. The following conversation demonstrates both her knowledge of the subject matter and her applied logical reasoning skills:

Laura: “If you smoke, your lungs are black. Right?”

Mom & Dad: “Yes.”

Laura: “If you are around smoke, your lungs will get gray. Right?”

Dad: “Yes.”

Laura: “If you don’t smoke, your lungs are pink. Right?”

Mom: “Yes. And pink lungs are the best.”

Laura: “Mom, are your lungs pink?”

Mom: “Yes, and so are yours.”

Laura: “And Daddy, your lungs are hairy, of course.”

Dad: “Why do you think my lungs are hairy?”

Laura: “Because you have hairs in your nose.”

When Six-Year-Olds Free Associate

The following is a conversation between Henry and Laura, overheard while they were riding in the back seat of my car yesterday:

Henry: “I have a sister and she has two kids. I’m an uncle.”

Laura: “When one of my sisters has a baby, I’ll be an aunt.”

Henry: “I have two brothers who have really important jobs.”

Laura: “What are their jobs?”

Henry: “They make snow.”

Laura: “Oh.”

Henry: “I have another brother who is married to my sister.”

Laura: “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Henry: “What?”

Laura: “I didn’t know brothers were allowed to marry sisters.”

Henry: “Well, he’s my brother-in-law.”

Laura: “Oh. Adam will be my brother-in-law when he marries Kristen.”

Henry: “My brother-in-law’s name is Patrick.”

Laura: “Like in SpongeBob.”

Henry: “Yes! If my sister ever gets rid of her husband, then wouldn’t it be funny if Patrick married Ms. Fitzpatrick?”

Laura: “No. She’s already married.”

Henry: “No, she’s not.”

Laura: “Yes, she is. She once told us a story about him and she called him her husband. Remember?”

Henry: “I don’t remember that and I probably never will.”

Laura: "Well, I remember."

Henry: "If my mom and dad move in with your mom and dad, we'd be brother and sister."

Swan Dive

Laura was practicing diving into the pool yesterday. I told her to put her arms out with her hands touching in front and then tuck her chin to her chest and look at her bellybutton. She did a pretty nice dive, but her chin wasn’t tucked. When she came up she said, “That hurt my face.” So I explained to her that if she tucked her chin to her chest and looked at her bellybutton, the top of her head would go in first and then her face wouldn’t hurt. She got out of the pool, leaned over, tucked her chin to her chest, and executed a lovely dive, head first. When she came up she said, “That one hurt my scallop.”

Petites Ya-Yas

I have it on good authority that the right dress will enhance your life. And that a pair of shoes can be so right they won't hit terra firma. Along those lines, I recently saw for myself that the right accessory works magic. Magic. Really. If you doubt me, keep reading. Laura’s new shimmery purse is a case in point. We went to Knott’s Berry Farm (which Laura referred to as Knuckleberry Farm before we corrected her) on Monday with Laura’s lifelong friend, AnaMarie. As we were walking away from the bumper cars, we nearly passed the Girl Power boutique. From the window displays, Girl Power promised to contain things too foo foo to be bothered with purchasing and carrying around an amusement park, but I directed Laura to it anyway. Somehow I felt pulled. Maybe I felt pulled because of the magic. Maybe I felt pulled because it was 127 degrees with humidity at 99.9 percent in Buena Park that day, and the boutique was air conditioned. Whatever it was, in we went. Almost immediately, Laura spotted it from the front door. It was hanging on a display rack. She ran to it. Thinking back on the moment, it was like she was running toward it in slow motion, the way that lovers run toward each other in an old movie. Laura pulled it from the hook on which other similar, but not nearly as fabulous, purses were hanging. She looked up at me with a countenance of pure bliss. It was similar to another look I recently saw on her little face, but even then her face wasn’t as poignantly and purely joyful as this. She didn’t whine. She didn’t beg. Not even so much as a “Pleeeeeeeeeeease.” She simply said, “Oh, Mommy, just look at this purse.” And in an unspoken understanding, a mind meld if you will, we walked straight to the cash register and bought that slice of shimmery heaven with a handle. Laura carried that purse all over the amusement park that day, which could have been a disaster if she’d lost it. Several times I invited her to put it in my backpack, but she declined my kind offers, preferring that it be draped in all of its sequined spendor over her shoulder. And then, lo’ and behold, it turned out to be more than just a purse, as Laura and I both somehow sensed prior to the point of purchase. Laura and AnaMarie were getting off of a ride when AnaMarie’s skirt came up as it caught on something. Laura was moving toward the exit where I was waiting for her, when she heard AnaMarie begin to cry from embarrassment. AnaMarie ran for her mother’s arms. Laura looked on with concern and then turned to ask me what happened. I told her. Laura said, “Mommy, I know exactly how to make her feel better. I’ll let her hold the shimmery purse!” Laura approached the tearful AnaMarie and offered her purse to her friend. AnaMarie looked up, placed the purse on her arm, and the tears immediately gave way to a big smile. So was it magic or the love of a girlfriend? Then again, aren’t those two things really the same?

The West Wing 2044

The last photo posted having been taken over two years ago, Laura asked me to post a new picture of her with her “cronies.”

Seated left to right:
Jonathan (Senior White House Interior Decorator); Matthew (First Gentleman); Kayla (Director of National Clandestine Services, Central Intelligence Agency); Laura (POTUS); Carolyn (Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court)


The rank-and-file party members around here understand that Laura has been declared here to be the future President of the United States for many reasons, not the least of which is because this is my blog. But the other appointments might require some explanation, at least to those constituents who do not (yet) know and love them as we do around here.

Although I devoted some thought to the possibility that Jonathan might be appointed Secretary, Department of Transportation, given his love of All Things Vehicular, it was only a passing thought. Jonathan’s real love is rearranging furniture. Never is any furniture on my back patio, Laura’s bedroom, his former preschool playground, or any other place Jonathan frequents in the same place that it was when he arrived. I had to draw a line in the sand during one play date when I found him trying to stack all of our other family room furniture on the couch. Sometimes Jonathan will move our patio furniture from one location to another multiple times in a single visit, and often he enlists his friends and brother to help him. Also, we already know that Jonathan is metro, so Senior White House Interior Decorator it is.

Way back in preschool, when Laura told me that she was going to marry Matthew, I asked her why. “Mommy,” she said, “because I love him and he’s my best friend.” She didn’t say, “Duh,” but her tone implied it, and, of course, those are two very good reasons to marry someone. Laura also thinks Matthew is very smart, very sweet, and very cute (even without all of his teeth). So because he is her stated intended spouse, who else but Matthew (or Henry or Brent or August)* would be the First Gentleman?

Kayla earned the nickname “Stealth Child” in preschool because of her uncanny ability to slip away unseen and appear elsewhere without anyone having noticed that she’d departed or arrived until she was gone or there. Now this trait wasn’t too much of a problem when we were hanging out on the enclosed preschool playground after school, but I used to get very nervous trying to keep an eye on her when it was my duty not to lose her during a play date with Laura. Although Helen would understand how it happened, it would, nonetheless, and understandably so, put somewhat of a major damper on our friendship if I’d lost her daughter. Anyway, add to Kayla’s stealth sKILLz the fact that she’s intelligent, self-sufficient, petite, pretty, and charming, and, well, you can readily see that she’ll have a successful stint in Special Ops leading up to her future role as a Director at the CIA.

Carolyn comes by the appointment of Chief Justice honestly, not just because she’s a crony. Carolyn loves to read, remembers every fact she’s ever learned, and a successful career in law would have her honorably following in the footsteps of her father and grandfather. Most importantly, however, she has already demonstrated that she can mount a legal defense quickly and effectively. Recently, I witnessed her getting caught running shoeless on the church courtyard. Her mother asked, “You know you aren’t allowed to run barefoot at church. Why are your shoes off?” Without missing a beat, and quite convincingly I might add, Carolyn replied, “I saw that Kayla had taken her shoes off and I thought you gave her permission, so I thought that it would be okay for me to take mine off too.”

So there you have it blog fans, the latest photo of Laura and the short list of her future political appointees.

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*Laura asked me to add the parenthetical after she read this post.

The Baddest Babe in the Whole Darned Town

When Laura is tired she can dispel the notion of the wonder child that we’ve created in our minds faster than you can say, “Nuclear Meltdown.” During the school year we were much better at getting Laura to bed at a reasonable hour and thus avoiding the meltdown that can come with exhaustion. But it is summertime, and while we can easily lure her to bed with a reminder that she can read with her itty bitty book light, sometimes we forget ourselves. Or we get caught up in the good time we are having with her. Or we get lazy. And when Laura hits the point of no return, we know that we’ve started too late the bedtime routine of feeding the fish, donning pajamas, flossing, brushing, and checking for loose teeth. On one such night Laura hopped up onto her toilet and began to jump up and down with a wild-eyed grin aimed for her dad. He scolded her and ordered her to immediately stop before she broke the lid. She looked him in the eye, smiled, and jumped again. He scolded again. I watched from the sidelines, knowing that I should be providing backup, but torn by my growing amusement. Laura hopped off the toilet, pulled down her pajamas, pointed her bare butt right at Tom, and said, “Spank me. Go ahead and spank me!” Now let me stop right here and give you a little background. Tom has never, ever, so much as even threatened to spank Laura, much less actually spanked her. Well, maybe he threatened her once, but that only caused her to break into a fit of giggles. For a fleeting moment I watched the look of temptation cross his face, but no way would he put a hand on her, and she knows it. So in a serious voice, he ordered her to get in bed. She, with her wild-eyed grinning face, taunted him further, “Daddy, go ahead and spank me!” I jumped into the fray chanting, “Do it! Do it! Do it!” I mean really, a serious voice. Is that all you’ve got? Then the look of temptation that had previously crossed Tom’s face was re-directed at me, so I threatened Laura with the most serious of threats: no television. Laura takes losing TV very hard, so it usually means she’ll get her act together, and she did. But the threat of no TV is really the funniest thing of all because she hardly ever watches TV save for the occasional Magic School Bus episode. It isn’t that I’m one of those moms who won’t let her kid watch TV. Laura just has other things she’d rather be doing, and she does those things, so the TV is rarely on (until she’s in bed, of course). On another recent night, we once again let it get later than we should have and Laura was obviously tired and getting unreasonable when Tom told her it was bedtime. Just as she was about to go upstairs, she did an about face and headed for the piano, announcing that she’d forgotten to practice earlier. Now she never has to be told to practice, and rarely has to be reminded, but that night she was getting that wild-eyed grinning face again, and so it was with some reluctance that Tom allowed her to go to the piano. She practiced her pieces, but then it dawned on Tom that she had begun fooling around, and so, in his serious voice from the top of the stairs, he told her it was time for bed. She protested. Again using his serious voice, he told her to come upstairs right now. The verbal volleyball continued for a moment or two more and then she mounted the staircase. As she passed him she said in her very best nanny-nanny-boo-boo tone, “I know that you wanted them in a triangle.” Triangle? Tom was puzzled for a moment, but quickly redirected his focus on the task at hand, getting Laura into bed. The next morning, Tom went downstairs, and as he passed the pool table, which is located between the piano and the staircase, and on which the balls had been previously racked, he realized what Laura meant when she'd goaded, “I know that you wanted them in a triangle.”



Mwah ha ha.

River Deep, Mountain High

Sending two kids off to college first required overseeing the loss of forty baby teeth, watching sixty-four permanent teeth grow in, paying for orthodontics to straighten sixty-four permanent teeth, and then nursing two teenagers through the pulling of eight wisdom teeth. With all of that oral history, one might think that I would have treated the loss of Laura’s first baby tooth as nonchalantly as Laura treated it. No chance. I’ve been a ball of emotion all day, beginning with jumping up and down, hugs, and photographing the place in her gums where the tooth used to be. I have been traveling down the pathos path ever since, wondering where it will take me next. I remember like it was yesterday, walking around the house with a little baby in my arms, saying, “I have a baby. I have a baby.” I had wanted to have her for so long, for years and years, and there she was, a little tiny ball of love. Then she talked. Then she walked. In that order. Then she went to Kindergarten. Now she’s losing teeth. And after sending my first two precious babies off to college such a short time ago, and just yesterday discussing with my oldest one her upcoming graduation next June, I know how fast time flies when you’re having fun. One minute you’re putting them down in their crib, and the next minute you’re leaving them in a dorm room. These things happen overnight. And so it was that when Laura went to bed last night, she had a very loose tooth, but we all decided that it could stay in until morning, at least. We said goodnight, left her reading with her itty bitty book light, and when we came to check on her later, the light was off and resting next to the closed book on her nightstand. She was fast asleep. I went to check on her in the morning and she was awake, but still in bed. “Mommy, the tooth fairy didn’t come last night.” I almost fell over. Stunned, I replied, “Why? Did you lose your tooth?” “Well, Mommy,” Laura said, “my tooth was very loose and so I pulled it out.” I asked her why she didn’t call me or Daddy to help her. She replied, “Because I didn’t need help, but now I’m wondering why the tooth fairy didn’t come.” So I explained to her that the tooth fairy checks in with kids at bedtime, and if there is a tooth, then she comes back later and leaves money. I added that since her tooth was still in her mouth at bedtime, the tooth fairy didn’t know it was going to come out last night, but that she could count on the tooth fairy showing up tonight. And you can bet that tooth fairy will be on duty tonight, because after this she only gets nineteen more visits, and she’s going to cherish every single one of them.

Double Dip Sunday

The first Sunday of the month was a double dip Sunday, and it reminded me of Father’s Day, which was only a single dip Sunday. On the first Sunday of this month we had two dips and one came in the form of us taking a swim, a dip, in our pool, which we do on most weekends. The other dip? Read on.

On Father’s Day morning, I told Laura that we would be skipping church so that we could spend the whole day with Daddy. Although Laura loves her Daddy like no other, she was peeved to be missing church and made her feelings known. I tried to appease her by offering up a trip to Krispy Kreme so as to atone for the sin of causing her to miss the doughnut she would have had with friends in the Fellowship Center after church. She accepted my settlement offer, but on the way to Krispy Kreme was still attempting to successfully negotiate a detour to church.

Laura (from the backseat): “Why can’t we go to church?”

Mommy (white knuckles gripping steering wheel): “Because it’s Father’s Day, and were going to spend the whole day with Daddy.”

Laura: “Why can’t we spend the whole day with Daddy after church?”

Mommy: “Because that wouldn’t be the whole day. That would be part of the day. And Daddy gets to have the whole day on Father’s Day.”

Laura: “Am I missing dipping?”

Mommy: “What?”

Laura: “Am I missing dipping? Is this a dipping Sunday?”

Mommy: “A dipping Sunday?”

Laura: “Yeah, am I missing a dipping Sunday?”

Well, now, I was perplexed. Dipping? A Dipping Sunday? Hmmm. Did she mean baptism? That couldn’t be. Although Presbyterians recognize all forms of baptism and baptisms at any age or in any church, Laura’s never seen a baptism by immersion. She was baptized, and has only seen baptisms, by sprinkling (aspersion), not dipping.

Mommy: “Laura, what do you mean by ‘dipping?’”

Laura (impatient): “You know. When they do the dipping. On some of the Sundays. Is this a dipping Sunday?”

Mommy: “Describe what dipping is like.”

Laura: “When you dip the bread in the juice. The bread represents the body and the juice represents the blood.”

Ah ha!

Mommy: “Laura, dipping is officially called communion. And it is usually only on the first Sunday of the month. So you won’t miss dipping today.”

Laura settled back into her seat and prepared for the next negotiation.

Laura: “Mommy, since I have to miss church, can I have two Krispy Kreme doughnuts instead of one?”

Blog This Mom, Pretty Please

This blog thing is reaching into the far corners of my household. Last night, Laura was doing a little trick of some sort or other in the pool. Tom and I were in the spa. Laura apparently wanted my attention, and figured out precisely what to say in order to get it.

Laura (very excited, from the deep end): “Watch me Mommy! Mommy! Watch the way I’m kicking my feet! Mommy! Look how my feet are kicking! Do you see this? Mommy, pleeeeease watch! Mommy, this is bloggable!"

To Bee or Not To Bee

It all started a couple of years ago at our old house when a swarm of bees took up temporary residence in the tree in our front yard. Apparently bees form a living ball around their queen to rest her while they are looking for a place to build a permanent hive. To show you what a bee ball looks like I posted a picture that I swiped from a random website because, not being a blogger back then, I didn't think to take a picture of our bee ball. Recently, my friend Nancy’s neighbor had one form at her house. Nancy emailed to tell me about it and I replied . . .

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From: Nancy
To: Cheri

I meant to tell you before that our next-door neighbors had a bee ball over the weekend. My neighbor called me all freaked out because her back yard was FULL of bees. I could see them from the window of our kitchen door. She was very impressed that I knew what it was and why it was happening. ;-) The vast majority of the credit goes to you, of course, but Matt knew quite a bit too from studying insects in school this year. I was impressed that he remembered as much as he did.

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From: Cheri
To: Nancy

Nancy, pass on the following information to your neighbor:


Tom’s 12-Step Program for Bee Ball Removal

1. Refuse to wait the three days you were advised it would take for the bee ball to move on its own.
2. Also refuse to pay the $300 you were advised it would cost to have it professionally removed.
3. Put out of your mind the time you watched your father try to remove honeycomb from a bee hive and end up in the hospital, and how you and your brothers still snicker about it at every holiday gathering.
4. Stand back, chuck a basketball at it as hard as you can, and run for the door that you made your wife stand there holding open.
5. When only some of the bees disperse, repeat step four.
6. When only a few more of the bees disperse, repeat step four.
7. When it becomes clear to you that the basketball method is taking too long and becoming too dangerous (largely because you keep missing the bee ball and have to run past it to retrieve the basketball), go and get the hose.
8. Turn on the hose full blast, and then curse, and then vow aloud that you will hire “someone” fix the low water pressure (which you never do, of course).
9. Aim the hose at the bee ball and squirt.
10. When only some of the bees disperse, repeat step nine.
11. When only a few more of the bees disperse, repeat step nine, but keep holding the water on the bee ball until you really start soaking the little buzzing bastards.
12. When enough of the bees get wet and fall to the ground (wet bees can’t fly), the dry ones will be forced to disperse to a nearby location (but NIMBY) in a heavy, brown cloud to protect the queen. At the very moment this begins to happen run like hell, again for the door that your wife (who for the last half hour has fluctuated between hysterical laughter and merciless mockery) is still holding open for you, at the risk of her own safety because you are, in fact, intended to be her last husband and she wants you alive.

The Mommy Wears Mossimo

I am definitely going to see An Inconvenient Truth. Not only do I know the message to be perhaps the most important one of the century for all of mankind, but I love, love, love the messenger. He is brilliant and wise. I’ve thought so ever since I read Earth in the Balance back in the early ‘90s. He is sexy and playful. I’ve thought so ever since I saw him engage with Paula Poundstone as she got on her belly on the stage of the Ford Theatre (also back in the early ‘90s) to take at close look at his cowboy boots, which he was wearing with his tux as he sat in the front row of the audience with Tipper and the Clintons. And every single day since January 20, 2001, I have wished he was our President. The world would be a different place, a better place. And Tipper never would have said "Hurricane Corrina." No way. If I ever see him in person, I’m going to try to touch the hem of his garment, so you can bet I’ll be seeing his movie. I just don’t know that I will have anything to say about it that is better than this or more eloquent than this. But instead of taking my daughter to see a message of global magnitude, we went to see The Devil Wears Prada. Now when Courtney and I get the chance, we go like to see a good movie together. Sometimes we’ll see a movie that I ought to be embarrassed to admit to enjoying at my age. And sometimes Courtney and I will be the only ones in the theater who are laughing at a particular movie. And so, in keeping with tradition, we went to see Devil. I went with zero expectations. I was not disappointed. The Devil Wears Prada was teeming with lines of literary significance like, “Size six is the new fourteen,” and “Python is in,” and “I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.” The far-reaching and important social message in this movie: If you’re going to get to the top by climbing in your Manolo Blahniks over the back of your friend, then give her the collection of haute couture that you got in Paris to make up for it. One redeeming thing about the movie was that Meryl Streep did miracles with the wickedly weak character she played and that helped to ease the pain of the plodding, predictable plot. And Stanley Tucci’s effort was a nice surprise too. But I would expect no less of Meryl, and who was her personal trainer? Wow. Courtney and I had read the book first. And it wasn’t a bad vacation read if you’re looking for escapist pap, which is what it was and which is enjoyable depending on your mood. I read it while we were vacationing at Disney World, during a humid and crowded spring break this year. (Why would I go such a place at such a time? That’s another story.) Reading about designer clothes in New York and Paris while in wearing Target apparel in Orlando somehow worked. So after the film I said to Courtney, “People always walk away saying that the book was better than the movie and that certainly holds true here.” Courtney summed it up best with her reply, “But Mom, the book wasn’t good enough to make into a movie.”

Red, Red Whine

After an amazingly stressful day on Friday, which culminated in an emergency visit to the pediatrician (mother and child are both fine), I was really looking forward to a Saturday BBQ and swim, but the saga only continued. I stayed home all morning waiting for the delivery of two chairs and an umbrella to complete the set of patio furniture that we’d ordered back in March, but from which two chairs and an umbrella were “missing” when the rest of the order was finally delivered in May. It took no less than 186 telephone calls since then to accomplish trying to find, not finding, and then re-ordering the missing items. Items we’d originally been promised we’d have in four to six weeks. Items for which we paid full retail cost. Items we ordered in “standard” colors rather than “custom” colors, so we could have them in four to six weeks. Or not. This time only the umbrella showed up. No chairs. Just the flippin’ umbrella. So I called the store, and, of course, neither one of the gals with whom I’d been working to get my order completed were there. But the original sales guy was, and so I recapped the last four months of adventures for him, prefacing it by saying, “Look, I know there are a lot of people in the world with problems a lot worse than missing a few pieces of patio furniture, so maybe crying over this is excessive, but . . .” Sniff. He said he’d track down the order. A few hours later he called back and said that he couldn’t find out anything, but he had an idea. It seemed that there was a duplicate set of furniture on their showroom floor, and if I could arrange to come pick it up, I could have their two chairs until they could find mine. Well, that sounded peachy. And it turns out that those chairs match my set perfectly and are in perfect condition, so they can take all the time they want and make 186 telephone calls to find mine, because I’m perfectly happy with theirs. But, no, it couldn’t have been as easy as that, no, no, no. Courtney went over to the store to pick up the chairs (her ride is bigger than my ride). As the dudes loaded the chairs into her car, one of them smashed her windshield. Now Courtney has been having a tough summer, complete with $500 worth of unexpected car repairs, the insurance company refusing to pay for the loss of all of her worldly possessions in a flood of the storage place they were in, someone stealing her debit card number and wiping out her bank account, and working 24/7. So this windshield thing sent her over the edge and she came busting into the house sobbing, where we were now entertaining one of Tom’s colleagues and his family. I’m pretty sure these people will never set foot here again because they probably think I’m a completely stressed-out shrew, instead of the partial one that I actually am. But my Super Mommy powers kicked in for Courtney, and with a couple of telephone calls I got her new windshield ordered, and it has since been installed. Also, the guy at the store provided Courtney with a copy of an incident report in which he accepted liability. (Go Courtney!) Back at the BBQ, when all seemed calm, and the food had been prepped and cooked, and the wine uncorked, I sat down to eat. I picked up my fork, and I swear to you that before I could get the first bite to my mouth, I heard an awful crash and the sound of glass shattering in the kitchen. There stood Tom, barefoot, and in a puddle of red wine strewn with shards of green bottle. I knew I’d look back on it and laugh eventually, but at that moment I was just trying to will myself to not bolt through the front door without so much as a glance over my shoulder. Courtney handed Tom his flip flops, we picked up all of the glass we could, sopped up the wine with towels, and I went to get the vacuum cleaner to get the teeny, tiny pieces. This is when I discovered that our one-year-old vacuum cleaner isn’t sucking, which sucks. Go figure. So Tom got to use the Dustbuster, which he pulls out so often anyway that Laura calls him Mr. Dustbuster. (As an aside, our Dustbuster is a Black & Decker 14.4 volt, so he considers it a power tool.) Anyway, I knew that it was an accident, but in front of our friends, I accused Tom of being a spiller, which he denied, and which denial I refuted with several key pieces of evidence in the form of “Remember the time we were at . . . and you spilled your . . . ?” And although my delivery was in a joking manner, and Tom already stopped paying attention to the content of anything I say years ago, it still wasn’t nice of me. The next day, Karma took a whack back. I dropped my just-opened, full can of soda smack on the same kitchen floor that had been doused with red wine the day before. Think of the jingle from the old Dr. Pepper commercial, but with these lyrics: “I’m a spiller, he’s a spiller, wouldn’t you like to be a spiller too?”

He Strikes Again

The Pied Piper of the Pool* also lures by example.

(Click on photo to see it enlarged.)


Tom:










Our friends Mike and Patty's daughter, Samantha:










And their youngest daughter, Marina:










'Nuff said?


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*see previous post