Give me some crack, sister!

It's now 2011, I'm 28 and my sister loves me.

But Jana did not love me until around 1997, when I was 14. This happened to be the age that I stopped going through her stuff and following her around incessantly begging for affection and for her to feather my bangs.

She is 7 years older than me, and 6 years older than my brother. Therefore, we worshipped her and she wanted us to get eaten by a bear.

My brother Matthew and I shared a room until the fact that our genitals were different made that situation unsuitable. My parents then uprooted me from where I was wanted and replanted me where I was most certainly not. My sister was 15 and hot. I was 8 and had a piercingly-loud voice, which I used for talking in large volumes, but also for singing showtunes and crying. The small room we shared had two beds, one dog that liked her more than me, a poster of a white kitten, and an abundance of hostility.

I went through different stages, each one more intolerable than the next. After watching "Rescue 911", I was CONVINCED our fire alarm was going off and I was going to be a smoking pile of ashes and crooked teeth. I was convinced of this EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for the better part of a year. I would wake up in a state of awkward hysteria, screaming at everyone to get out of the damn house. Actually, I don't know if I was at all concerned with my family's safety. I think in reality I would wake up and scream on my way out the door in fear of my own perishing. My parents finally figured out it was the air-conditioner whirring and clicking when it turned on, and they had someone fix it so they and my siblings could get more than 35 minutes of sleep at a time. I think they also started giving me lethal amounts of benadryl.

I (am) was also a slob, and Jana was perfect. I was perfectly happy with sleeping amongst a pile of unwashed clothes and popsicle sticks covered in ants, but she wanted everything pristine. This confused my brain and this confusion in-turn caused me to morph into an evil must-have-mess gremlin. I would frequently throw my trash or wipe my nose on her side of the room, then study her reaction trying to understand her mutant-teenage ways. One day, when I thought I had finally come to understand her, I took action in forcing a de-escalation. While she was gone with her 37 year old boyfriend, I cleaned the entire room, including her side. I used windex to clean her wooden bookshelf and sprayed glade cinnamon air freshener all over her sheets. I cleaned off her mirror with her sun-ripened-raspberry lotion, and I even put a teddy bear I had bought at a garage sale that morning on her newly-made/cinammonly wet bed. I sat and waited for her to get home, knowing this would be the act that turned us into best friends. I imagined sitting at a New Kids on the Block concert with her and her cool friends, all of them high-fiving her for having such a magnanimous little sister.

When she got home I grabbed her hand and tried to drag her to our room. She then had to wash her hands because I had had something sticky on mine, but after that we walked into our room and....

She immediately kicked me in the face and told me to NEVER go on her side of the room again. I asked her to please be reasonable and at least smell her sheets before making such a rash demand, but she had already thrown the smelly flea-ridden teddy bear in my face and turned off the Collin Raye tape I had playing for ambiance. We went to bed that night not speaking to each other.

I laid there, in the dark, thinking about witches. "....Witches are fucking scary. I wonder if there are witches in here. Witches want my brain, I think. There's totally an ugly manly witch in my closet right now. I can't see anything, but I know there's witches everywhere in here....." I stand up and walk to the door and open it about 6 inches, so light floods my bed. I crawl back into bed, safe from witches and almost asleep when I hear.....

SLAM. Jana has slammed the door shut and gotten back into bed.

"But.....but....but.....but....there's brain-eating witches in here, Jana!"

"Like I'm going to sleep with the door open. Psssshhaawww."

I wait until I hear her sleeping and I creep out of bed again. This time I open the door the tiniest amount that a door has ever been opened. I can now see that there aren't any wart-faced spell-casters surrounding my Aladdin bed and I drift off to sleep when...

SLAM. Jana slammed the door shut again.

"Please, Jana. Just a crack. Please. You got the pretty hair, the thin legs, and the fast metabolism, just give me a crack!"

"MARY. I have to win scholastic awards and have naturally pretty teeth tomorrow. You're keeping me awake and I am going to pulverize your neck if you don't stop."

"cry....sob.....heave.....snot....melo-dramatic statement 'everyone hates me' or 'I just want death!'....cry cry cry"

"NO CRACK. NO CRACK FOR YOU. JANA NEED SLEEP. ROOOAAAARRRRR"

"Mom, can you please tell Jana to open the door just a little so I don't get boiled in a cauldron? Please?"

"MARY GO TO SLEEP THIS IS THE 13TH TIME YOU'VE WOKEN YOUR FATHER AND I UP AND WE CAN'T WAIT UNTIL CATHOLIC CAMP WEEKS COMES AROUND HERE'S SOME BENADRYL AND A CAREBEAR ROOOOOAAAAAAARRR"

"Sorry.....cry.....everyone.....cry.....I'll....just....cry.....cry.....cry..."

I laid there all night crying and feeling sorry for myself. Occasionally, I would get on my hands and knees and call to my ex roommate brother through the air-conditioner vents. He promised if they ever let us share a room again we could build a mickey mouse and snow cone circus tent full of floodlights. I was about to be comforted and able to close my eyes when my Dad, awoken again, screamed through his air-conditioner vent.... "GO TO BED ROOOAAAAARRRRR"

Being scared of scary things is normal.

I am afraid of tornadoes. Mostly, because they pick up houses and kill people.

So when I awoke yesterday to the Oklahoma meteorologists telling me that tornadoes were going to circumcise our state at 3 o clock, I was a little unnerved. I had feelings of hatred for anyone who wasn't a little unnerved and my insides felt like I ate some bad turkey gravy.

I came to work and attempted normalcy. I typed some stuff, picked up the phone and said stuff, counted stuff, etc. But my mind was on one thing and one thing only: How to keep myself and the people whose lives I enjoy away from a giant spinning satan wedge of shitstorm.

To make myself feel better, I stupidly watched the weather online like some type of porn fiend whose unattractive wife was out of town. When my boss came out to show me how to use my new webcam for conference calls, my cankles started sweating as he closed my doppler radar. When I told him I was in hell, he laughed for a good six minutes. Oh Mary's so funny and silly!


I decided I would use my lunchbreak to go get the little munchers and bring them back to work with me. I stupidly thought this would take my panicness from a 10 to a 6. Once I had them in my car and we were heading back to my work I found I wasn't shaking or cussing any less. This was a problem. Now adding on to the nauseating fear and known pending torturous doom, I had two mildy cute children who wanted annoying things like water and reassurance.

I had the plan to keep my branch open until the tornado was close enough that I could justify closing it and running like an ostrich to my car without any shoes. Adrian was pretty tough for a six year old whose mom was acting and looking like Courtney Love. He would occasionally remind me he was scared and finally sighed and made the blatant obvious statement, "I hate today." I hugged him and told him I was more scared and to stop being so self-centered.

Just kidding.

When my employer finally told us to leave, I was stuck. I was going to go to the public tornado shelter in the city I work, but I had been told it was full. I could not go home because there were tornadoes joyfully frolicking all around my neighborhood. My husband had already called and informed me that our house would probably be gone and I should go ahead and just start crying, heaving, and vomiting. My ex-husband called me to check on me, and told me to come to his parent's house. They had a storm shelter and his dad had vacuumed out the spider webs and scorpions, so it was in tip-top form for his ex-wife and her children.

When I started driving south towards their home, I was trying to listen to the radio so I could hear exactly where the tornadoes were, but it kept interrupting the weatherman for a national alert from the weather service. Let me explain how frustrating this was. I had a man in a bedazzled tie telling me EXACTLY where the tornado was. I had a man in a helicopter above the tornado telling said man in tie where it was going and what time I would die if I was in that spot. These men had radar they were reading to me about what kind of injuries I could expect to have to my body of sternum. They interrupt this wonderful information for "CHHHHRRRRRR CHHHRRRRRRR BEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEP this.....is....the.....national.....weather.......station......in......norman......oklahoma....at.....4:24pm.........the.....
national.....weather......service.....issued.....a....thunderstorm.....warning......for.....the......following....counties....
......camadoromak.....giradelphia.........kankangomoby......CHHHRRRRRRR BEEEEEEPPP CHHHRRR BEEEEEP...." Really, asshat? What was my first clue that there was a thunderstorm? The tornado sirens going off, the giant chunks of ice putting dents in my Mercedes, or the fact I was desperate enough for safety that I was DRIVING TO MY EX HUSBAND'S HOUSE IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CITY?

While I am on the subject, is there any noise in the United States of America that is more suicidal than the national weather service notification? It sounds like a busy signal and a mutant alien had a premature baby and it hasn't been fed. And we're listening to it in 1945 over a transistor radio. With a hearing aid. That's turned up too loud.

There are cars everywhere headed south away from the tornadoes. I am screaming at everyone what ridiculous dumbasses they all are for driving, even though I am behind the wheel in an SUV full of kids, pillow pets, bottled water, and poor decisions. I finally get there without incident and we run inside, where the house smells like cookies and homemade bread.

My ex-mother in law has made cookies and grilled cheese for the kids. I'm surprised she hadn't called in a caterer. It was so sweet. I had trouble being appreciative because I wanted to fast pitch my kids into the shelter and raid their medicine cabinet for something with the words "may cause drowsiness" or "do not mix with alcohol".

The kids had each taken one bite of their food when the sirens went off. We ran down into the shelter where my ex MOL insisted on laying out blankets for me and the kids to sit on. She also made her husband go back into the house, in the middle of a tornado, to get the kids a DVD player and some cookies. The sirens went off non-stop for over an hour. I was in a 6 foot space with my two children, my ex-husband, his mother and father, and some bananas and cookies. At one point a giant piece of hail somehow got through our breathing vents and fell onto Adrian's lap. You would have thought that piece of hail was a sinning ball of cow dung on fire the way he and I jumped and screamed.

When it finally quieted down we came out to no damage other than a lot of broken tree branches and leaves everywhere. Considering how other people in the state were hit, what we went through was nothing. My home and my families homes were unharmed. The only thing that was in a state of injury was my soul. Somehow, after we got home and my husband bathed and put the kids to bed, a hot bath, a muscle relaxer and American Idol even cured that injury. Gosh. Tornadoes are assholes.

The thrifty fifty!

In honor of having 50 blog followers (yay!) I have decided to bless each and every one of you with one dumb thing I have said in my 23 (shut up) years of living.




"Give me scissors, I'll cut one of my curls off"




"Give me scissors, I'll take a chunk of hair off the back of my head. YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME?!?"

"Lisa, move your car back..I'll just kiss the Taco Bell drive-thru worker and I'll bet he'll give us free tacos"







"They've been together since they were 17? Are they ugly?"








"I hate engagement pictures. I'd rather just send everyone a picture of us having sex, it would make everyone as equally uncomfortable"







"You remember hearing our kid's pre-natal heartbeat? Aw that's sweet. Was I there?"








"Officer, can you please take us to McDonalds?"








"Hi, I'm Mary. Like the virgin."








"Hello, Wells Fargo? Hi. I'm not going to pay you for a few months."









"I love you too, let's get married." ****








"My Dad is a famous corn farmer, so I'm way out of your league"








"I don't give my number to people with sharpies instead of cell phones"








"Hey, come here, homeless guy, take a picture with me!"









"You should totally date him, there's no way she'll care!"







"What do you call a Mexican with a rubber toe? No offense, guy. Oh, you're Japanese?"








"Kelsey, don't come in tomorrow. I have the authority to get people off"








"Hey, you, large male over there. I've been working out. Punch me in the stomach as hard as you want."








"I can't go out with you anymore because you have an old man back."






"Hi, yes, I'm here to buy the 2000 Landrover with 98,000 miles..?"








"When you get married, does your credit card debt just go away?"








"We don't have to wait until they go to bed, they won't come in here! They're watching Spongebob! I'm sure they won't come in!"








"No, I don't like me with brown hair. Just dye it black."








"Let's go to Hawaii without birth control!"








"You don't want to hang out with me? Then eff off and die!"









"Are you laughing at my singing, ugly lady? I will kill you in your face!"








"Hey husband, what would you say I am, on a scale of 1-10 on looks alone?"








"Pass me that tanning oil, I'm going to put it on my face every summer from now until I start to look like a catchers mitt"








"You're silly, husband. Officer, our house got broken into because we left the garage door open, not because they kicked in the door. Silly husband!"








"Hey, thief, I'm going to leave my Gucci bag right here in my brand new Mercedes with the door unlocked okay?"








"Asia had a baby? What kind of political statement is that? Oh. Asia's an elephant"








"We just went to Optimus Prime for our anniversary. What? That's a transformer?"












and last but not least....


"Yes, is this the employee hotline? No, I'm not thinking about suicide. I'm drunk and sad. What's up witchu?"












****referring to the 2002 speaking of these words

Mary at Murray

Every summer from fourth grade to twelfth grade, for one week, I would sweat my face off in the name of the Virgin Mary.

It was also known as Catholic Summer Camp at Lake Murray, where the cabins were made of armadillo shells and scorpions, and you only paid $100 to be there for seven days.

A lot of my friends liked going to "Kannukuk". Just because they had water rides, hot air balloons, and formal dances. I would take a sweatstache and a 'smore any day over that elite nonsense.

Our days would begin at approximately 6am, when the good kids would go to morning prayer. Most of us bad kids stayed asleep until it was time to eat breakfast, which was around 7am. We would all stand in a circle and sing songs about Jesus to the tunes of our favorite TV show theme songs.

(Sing this to the tune of "Meet the Flinstones)

GOD IS
GREAT GOD IS
GOOD LET US THANK HIM FOR OUR FOOD
GOD IS
GREAT GOD IS
GOOD LET US THANK HIM FOR OUR
WE THANK HIM FOR OUR
WE THANK HIM FOR OUR FOOD

Then the attractive male counselor in charge would pick who got to go first based on which female high-school camper was the hottest. Then she would start the line and we would all walk through and get something horrible to eat.

That's one of the things that was so great about camp once I turned 13 or so. I would drop a good 15 pounds the week of camp from all the exercise, sweat, prayer, and lack of food.

One year, whenever I was 8, they accidentally gave my table a jug of bleach water. I took a big chug then spewed all over the table. I was extra skinny in my koala-bear bikini that year.

After breakfast we would walk about a mile in 116 degree heat to a pavilion where we would have another morning prayer. Usually the counselors would do a skit of some sort. They were excellent at getting everyone involved who was in it for the faith, but also getting those of us who were there for the boys and tan up on our feet as well. This morning prayer was followed by some sort of quiet reflection at the end, when I would sit there and think about which counselor I would try to get in trouble by sitting on his lap.

We had morning activities, which were EXACTLY the same from 1990-2001. Your choices were fishing, canoe, arts and crafts, hiking, or four square. Let's break these down:

Fishing: you had to bring your own pole. And, they provided no bait. We would catch grasshoppers in the field and spear them onto our hooks. Then we would toss them into the water, and spend the rest of the time trying to get as naked as possible to get the most attention from male counselors. (they were in high school, I don't want you readers to think they were middle-aged janitors from the church or something)

Canoeing: Most safety-unconscious canoes in the history of water-activities. If there were some sort of safety regulations for camps, they would have burned our camp creator on a cross while poking them with a stick after inspecting/smelling our canoes. I think we made them with popsicle sticks from the arts and crafts table.

Arts and Crafts: Popsicle sticks, buttons, and glue. Do what you do. Get at it.

Hiking: Here's a fun idea. This is the one activity that does not involve water or shade. Nobody ever picked it, unless it was me, the hiking instructor was a male counselor, and we were going to be alone. Then I'd tough it out.

Four Square: We took this seriously. I cried a lot.

After our morning activities we would have free swim. But first we would have to pass a swimming test. This involved jumping off the dock and swimming to the most attractive male counselor you could find, treading water while talking about inappropriate things and swimming back. Once you passed the test you got to participate in free swim.

We were allowed to wear the skimpiest bikinis we wanted. There would always be one guy counselor who would have a throwing station. Throwing us involved aligning my hot 15 year-old body over his hand in the water, and him pushing me out by the ass into the air. Sometimes, they would have "hand check" which seemed a little ridiculous to me. Nobody was interested in where our hands were when we congregated outside of the showers each evening and gave each other intense, pg-13 back rubs. There's a lot those crazy kids could do while still waving their hands out the water.

We would have lunch, another choice of activities, another mile walk back to the pavilion for afternoon prayer, then an evening activity.

They were my FAVORITE. We had scavenger hunts, played capture the flag, had a talent show, and on the last night had a dance. (Where not a christian song could be found, we seriously listened to the Nelly album one year). I loved scavenger hunts because they involved boys and being alone in the dark. I loved capture the flag because it involved boys tackling me. I loved the talent show because I am a SHOW OFF. and I loved the dance because we took. that. shit. seriously.

We all looked like pound puppies all week. But on the day of the dance we almost didn't speak to each other because we were all busy trying to catch our man with what we "really" looked like. Except, I didn't "really" wear backless shirts and lip liner with no lipstick. That was all for those hot little alter boys.  We would dance all night. Then, we would go to confession. Then we would all cry in the mess hall after confession and eat brownies and ice cream.

The most intense part of the week was the "list". I promise you, I am not just getting this from a made-for-tv Disney movie about overcoming obstacles and being yourself. This actually happened. Every single year.

All the girls, including the counselors and staff, would get together and make a list of the top ten hottest guys at the camp. The boys would do the same for the girls. This list would be a mixture of campers and counselors. I remember one year they gave a girl an honorary number eleven for being really funny. I would have probably crucified myself. I saw people's lives destroyed from this list. I once tried to spread a rumor about a girl at the top of the list that she was actually 17, not 14. I don't know why I thought this was such a cruel thing. It didn't really take off on the rumor mill and then I had to miss watermelon to confess about it the next day.

I learned a lot at church camp. I learned how to throw a water balloon with a christian aim. I learned how to get stung by a wasp. I learned when my kids go to church camp so I can have a week of peace and loud relations with my husband, to send sunscreen and morals.

The turtles inspire inappropriateness.

If you're anything like everybody, you remember when you learned about sex.



You remember when you learned about it in some form of educational institutionalized way, you remember when your older next door neighbor with the fringe bangs told you her form of what it was, and you remember when your parents, their voices dripping with the dread they'd had for ten years about having to do this, awkwardly stumbled through the anatomy of it.


Which one came first?

I sure as hell know which one shouldn't have come first.

 When I was in 1st grade, my 2nd-grade neighbor asked me about sex. I said I knew all about it, even though I thought it had only to do with turtles. This is simply because we had learned about turtles having turtle babies. I thought everything else got a mini-version of themselves in their stomachs because God loved them.

Here's how this went:

Neighbor: I think we should awkwardly talk about sex and hope my parents aren't listening. (That's probably not really what she said, but I have trouble remembering how the conversation initiated)

Mary: Yeah, it's not nearly as much fun to talk about as ice princesses, though.


Neighbor: Are you kidding? It has to hurt.


Mary: No it doesn't. Their shells don't even get in the way.


Neighbor: I don't know anything about shells, but girls have a mouth down there and boys have to pee in it.


Mary: ...........................................


Mary:....................................


Neighbor: Do you want to swim in my pool?


Mary: Not really, because it's not an in-ground pool. I think my mouth is on my face...?

This conversation continued until I stopped asking questions, realizing this girl was out of her mind and no amount of goldfish crackers was going to fix that.

 This information was kept in the files of my memory until one time, a few years later, I was watching TV with my mom when two people started going AT it on Cinemax. My mother about lost a limb trying to find the remote when I said,  "They look like they're happy and having fun and stuff but I think it's gross. I'm glad you and Dad don't do that." My mom responded with "Uhhhh......maybe we'll talk about that sometime."


What? Talk about it sometime? Talk about WHAT sometime? If my mom is honestly going to tell me that we have another mouth, then I'm moving to Canada, where nobody has private parts. The end.

Flash forward to fifth grade, ten years old. My teacher lets us know we will be learning about our bodies tomorrow and our parents need to sign a permission slip so we can laugh at cartoon penises.

I would rather eat manwiches than give my mom that permission slip. And by manwiches I mean sloppy joes, not some kind of misconstrued innuendo pertaining to the subject at hand.

I avoided the sex talk at all costs. When we had long car rides together I would talk incessantly, because if there were any long pauses in the conversation my mom may start talking about private mouths and I wasn't ready for something so nightmarish. I still folded my socks down and watched David the Gnome, so my bubble of the world did not include pubic fur.

After I attempted forging my mom's signature for six and a half hours, I grudgingly gave up and headed to the kitchen to give my mom the permission slip.

Mom: Wow, you're in fifth grade...time sure has flown by and we probably need to have a talk. Here's some pamphlets. Why don't you read them and we'll talk about them when you're ready, okay?


Mary: I think I would rather just eat some chicken enchilada casserole and then put on some chapstick. Maybe i'll follow it up with a twix.


Mom: Don't change the subject, Marigold. Don't be embarrassed. I've been trying to talk to you in the car for the last three years, but every time I try, you start talking about giraffes or the Softball Hall of Fame.


Mary: I'll just read the damn pamphlets. Let's not talk. I know you'd rather be watching Stevie Nix videos than doing this awkward  anyways.

The next day was sex-education day. I wore my best Limited Too t-shirt, rocking the no-belt-tuck into a pair of shorts I'd rolled up.

It started with a girl with a side-tail AND a headband making fun statements with the kind of enthusiasm I saved for a slip-n-slide (again, no pun intended) :

I SAW MY MOM TODAY!
I TOLD MY MOM THERE WAS SOMETHING A LITTLE BIT FUNNY ON MY UNDERWEAR!
MY MOM TOLD ME THAT BOYS HAVE PENISES!
I TOLD MY MOM I LIKED BEING A GIRL!
I STILL LIKE CHEF BOYARDEE EVEN THOUGH MY BODY FEELS MORE FUN!

Then there were some cartoons of genitals. Is there anything funnier in life than that? I know for a fact the people that made that video are still high-fiving and pushing each other into the bushes over the hilarity that someone took that movie seriously.

I didn't learn very much from any of the sources I was offered. I really didn't even understand how things worked until last year. I've been confused for a while.

I wonder where side-ponytail headband girl is now. I'm on a mission to find her. I'll keep you advised.

Please notice the shape of her earrings. I may have embellished

Here's your sandwich, Dad.

My dad was by far the best athlete in the history of the universe. Including Zeus and Jesus.

This is what my brother and I thought, growing up. To us, he was 9 feet of pure basketball perfection. He could make it to first base in .785 seconds. He could smack a racquetball so hard, it would take our priest's beard off. His golf swing would make supermodels weep with its beauty. He was better-looking than Tom Selleck, and when he told me his muscles were bigger than a tornado's muscles as I sat shriveled in my closet in fear of the drizzling outside my window, I believed him.



He somehow always ended up coaching my sports teams, even though he never signed up to do so. It was as though when some other kid's dad was showing us how to catch a ball I would think, "Listen here you BMI-challenged pathetic excuse for an eight year old basketball team's coach,  my dad can catch a baseball outside of his glove AND he has a mustache. Why don't you go back to frolicking in the daisy field and leave this shit to a real man, okay?"

When I would talk to my dad about the elementary training I was receiving, he would ask questions about the coach's technique, get irritated, offer the unfortunate coach some tips, and inevitably end up in a t-shirt with a cartoon character on it and "coach" on the back, yelling "REBOUND!", "GO TO 2nd", or "MARY STOP CRYING" from the sidelines.



( I always cried when I was taken out of games so the other, not as athletic and not as attractive children could have their "turn")



(I also fouled-out of nearly every single basketball game I played in. I specifically remember kicking an overweight ginger as hard as I could in the gut in a desperate attempt to bring the My Little Ponys to a 1990 victory)



I took my dad and his advice so seriously I did the following activities during my athletic adolescent career:



I slept with a basketball every single night. My dad said it would help me get a better feel for the ball. I felt like it would help me get a better feel for what a sleepless night would feel like it if I married a really fat man with a hard, perforated gut.



In the dead heat of the Oklahoma summer, whenever it was 116 degrees, I would wear a jacket in between pitching innings to "keep my 'pitching' arm 'warm'". It also kept my 11 year old face drippy and delightfully 'warm' as though to ensure I would not have a boyfriend until I was 16 and had outgrown softball and opted for something much more awesome. Like choir.

We would play "Knockout", which was a fun game and helped me to be the most aggressive and physically -abusive ball stealer in the YMCA's history. My dad, brother, and I would all dribble our balls on the court and try to knock each other's out. When yours got knocked out, you were "out". However, mine always got knocked out first, so I would continue to play and try to get my dad's and brother's balls out by any means necessary. Sometimes it included kicking or slapping. It always included crying. If they got on to me for not playing fairly, I would get Mom involved and she would tell them to let me cheat.


But what takes the cake is after every sporting game my dad would ask us to give him a "sandwich". A "sandwich" consisted of saying:

Get it? It was fun to do when you had a good game, but my brother and I weren't the best athletes so most of the time our sandwiches consisted of defeated scripts like this:



Dad: Okay, I know you're hot and sweaty and we refuse to spend money on capri-suns, but let's do a sandwich.



Matthew or Mary: I don't really want to. I just got my ass kicked by the cool kids and I need to use my sexy asthma inhaler.



Dad: Sandwiches are good, come on, we have to learn something from every experience we have.



M or M: Something I did well is that I was nice to the other team, I need to work on batting, fielding, running, and catching, and something else I did well was I hustled.



Hustle: To proceed or work rapidly and energetically.



Brother kicking with a little too much glee.





We ALWAYS used the word "hustled" either at the bottom or the top of our sandwich. I don't even think we knew what it meant, but it always got a positive reaction from my dad and was easy to say. It was one word, two syllables, and made my dad smile and think we would definitely be going to the University of Oklahoma on full athletic scholarships.



I'll finish this blog with a sandwich:



I wrote well and conveyed my message and love for my dad

I need to work on not cussing and being funny and famous

I hustled

Just whip it out!

I try really hard not to post about my kids since this is supposed to be an inappropriate blog. However, they can sometimes be blog-worthy.

Rarely. Most of the time they take any ounce of coolness I have and get pink-eye or eggo waffles all over it.

Anyways.

I decided to take them to the park in our neighborhood. It's only about an eight minute walk, and the little panda bears always want to go. Most of the time I say, "No playing outside. Go find something to clean or curse at." But I decided to make an exception and walk to the park with a crazy 2 year-old daughter and her sweet/whiny  6 year-old brother. At 5 o clock. After they'd been at daycare for 9 hours. And they hadn't eaten anything.

Sometimes, when you're chasing that title of "Good Mother", you make stupid decisions.

We walk to the park. Whenever you ask Ellis to hold your hand when you cross the street she acts like you've just told her, "If you put your hand in mine, and we skip alongside each other, we will both explode when we reach the other side of the road". So it turns into more of a dragging/shoulder ripping out.

We brought a cup full of dog food, lucky charms, cough drops, and bread. Because I don't know what the hell ducks and turtles eat in 2011. We sit at the bottom of the dock and they start throwing my recipe into the water. Then Ellis notices there are lucky charms in the cup and eats a handful. Did I mention the other stuff that's in the cup? I said "No No! That's yucky", she did the equivalent of a toddler's f-you and waved her hand in my face with a look on her face like she was trying to make my eyeballs fall out. As I tried to rescue Adrian from turtlenapping the giant creature joyously  munching on a bone shaped treat, I turned around to see Ellis pulling a marshmallow out of the water and putting it in her mouth. Her hand was all black by then, and being that we are Caucasian this was a cause for concern.

I tell Adrian to throw the rest of the food in the water, but Ellis kicks him and tries to throw him overboard so she can get the cup and eat the last piece of dog food.

They have each gone down the slide one time when I feel rain drops. Obese ones. I look up and see a tornado. Or. What looked like a tornado, anyway.

Usually, when you have kids at the park, you have to ease your way into making them leave "Okay, guys, 10 more minutes" might decrease the chances of a stage-4 meltdown 10 minutes later by 13-14%. This rainstorm forced me to give no warning. Remember, we are at least 10 minutes away.

I grab Ellis and yell at Adrian to start running home. Ellis starts screaming her version of obscenities (generally "no" and "mine") and kicking her legs. I ask her if I put her down, can she run her little wet ass home as fast as possible? She seems obliging so I put her down. She sprints back for the ducks with a vengeance. I pick her up again and start running home.

Adrian is ahead of me, getting neglected because I am getting kicked by Ellis in the kidney. I notice he's holding himself inappropriately. I yell at him to slow down and wait for us, and he yells back that he has to pee. I yell at him that he can't get into the house without me. While we're arguing from one block away and Ellis is screaming I finally catch up. We are in plain view on the busiest intersection of the neighborhood. This is how our conversation went.

Mom: Come on, let's run. You can pee when you get home. Until then, get your hands off your goods, son, the neighbors are staring.

Adrian: I think they're staring because Ellis sounds like an alien train. Why is she still crying?

Mom: RUN, Adrian. Come on. We're about to get lifted into a tornado.

Adrian: Okay. Mom. This is an emergency. I have to go now. There are no cars coming, can I please just go?

Mom: Adrian no, we're 8 houses away and anyone can see you!

Adrian: (dancing like he has cerebral palsy)

Adrian: (hands all up in his shorts. still not running)

Mom: Okay, can you whip it out?

Adrian: (drops his pants and underwear and tries to kick them off)

Mom: ADRIAN! DO YOU KNOW WHAT WHIP IT OUT MEANS?  PULL YOUR PANTS UP. AHHHHHHH! THERE ARE TWO CARS COMING!

Adrian: Whip it out? What?

Mom: There's a hole in your pants and underwear, you didn't know that? You have a penis that fits through that hole. Use it.

Adrian: (pulls his underwear and shorts back up) (Tries, horribly, to use the aforementioned hole in pants and underwear)

Mom: Okay. Adrian just sprint home. When you get home find somewhere in our yard that everyone can't see and let it flow.

Adrian: (already 3 houses away with both hands on crotch)

Ellis is still crying and pointing to the direction of the ducks by the way. At one point, while I was arguing with Adrian about holes in male clothing she got away and made it halfway down the cul de sac screaming gleefully at a crow and yelling "DUCK!" and throwing imaginary crumbs out of our empty cup at it.

But. Aren't they cute when they're not flashing neighbors or terrorizing flying animals?

Hygiene sucks most of the time.. like pretty much always....

Is there anything worse than dental work?

The answer is no, kind sir.

 Dental work sucks. Which is whyyyyy I always put it off as long as I can. A little bit of tooth pain? Nothing an m&m cookie can't fix. I'll crunch those m&ms right on that mangled tooth until I feel better about my life.

I love flossing, I think it's fun. But when those bastards at the dentist floss me, it's like they're trying to rape my gums with their rubber elephant fingers. It's hell. Then what's the next logical step after trying to reach the inside of my nasal cavity with some minty flavored string? Let's go ahead and take a Satan spike and poke me in the gums. Then, you can high five the dentist for making my mouth taste like blood and making me a sad girl.


The thing is though.....taking fast action when you have dental problems is....what's the word I am looking for?


Ah yes....fucking important.

Because you see, I had a tooth in the very back of my mouth that chipped about 5 years ago. I had the dentist file it down so it wouldn't cut my tongue but that's all I did. I had about 25 fillings between 1986-1994 so I avoid them at all costs. That particular tooth was almost 100% filling. F Mary's life in 1994. I woke up to my face more swollen than a monkey's uncle. (I tried really hard to think of something funny that was swollen, but my face hurts and I'm on hydrocodone so sometimes I say things that don't make sense. Driveway) I had to go to the dentist. According to what he said, this is what he saw..











 The dentist kept referring to my tooth as though he had a little personality. An infected, painful, train-wreck personality. "Wow that little guy sure is angry. He won't let me in there at all!"

Me: Okay, I have a great idea....why don't you give me 3 more shots then shoot me in the face?

Dentist: Okay, open wide....this one's going to hurt like a mother fucker.

Me: Wow, that one did hurt. Good thing we're done, because my tongue just disowned my body and I need another vallium.

Dentist: You're so silly! We're not done!

Me: Yay! more shots!

5 shots later, the dentist broke up with me. I don't know if it was because I told him I personally thought he was a horrible human being, or if it was because on shot number five followed by him attempting to rape a non-numb alien tooth with a ginormous drill I yelled cuss words and pulled my knees to my scalp.

It's going to require surgery. I have an appointment with a surgeon on Monday. I will probably not let anyone know how it goes, because I know none of you actually care about my dental hygiene. But I wish you all years of not only brushing, flushing, tooth cleanings and tongue scrapings, but also that your teeth are sweet little teeth with kind personalities and a love of Jesus.