When Anger And Gum Meet

After posting my last social blight, I think it only makes sense to keep the spirit with another.

I went to the grocery store around lunch a couple of weeks ago. Because of the lunch crowd, it was unusually busy. Almost all of the parking spaces were full. I'm not the type to avoid walking from the farther part of the lot (ok, sometimes I am, but was really not in this case), but rather I tend to look for the spaces that are closest to the cart returns. That way, I can both dump my youngest child into the cart on the way in, and easily dump the cart off on my way out. My goal is to avoid walking across the lot to return a cart with two distracted kids in tow.

I see a lone vacant spot that is 1) close to the front and 2) close to a cart return. As I pull up closer to it, I see that the reason this too-good-to-be-true space is vacant is because the doofus on the left has parked way over the yellow line. And just to make things even more difficult, the car on the right is very close to the yellow line. Whether you call it voracious determination or idiotic spite, I was going to park there. And, 15 minutes later, I did just that. Now the small matter of squeezing my family out. Somehow, by way of sucking in guts and lifting children over the roofs of Mustangs, we had succeeded. I certainly felt we were deserving of a pack of Twizzlers after all that maneuvering because of some selfish dumb-dumbs.

After our shopping was complete, I left the store and headed for our car. But before noticing the car, I notice the gaggle of construction workers staring at me with smirks. Truth be told, I thought I was getting the eyeball. And maybe I kind of even sort of liked it. My hips swung a little more than they usually do, and I tenderly held Fiona's hand as I smiled at these otherwise goofy men. What can I say, the last guy to check me out was a man who was restocking shelves at Walgreen's a few years ago. I was flattered.

Once my attention had returned to the matter of unloading groceries and children, I was greeted with a note stuck to my rear window, which read:

HEY ASSHOLE!
LEARN HOW TO PARK!
F--K YOU!

My boyfriends (a.k.a construction workers on their lunchbreaks) are now giggling like schoolgirls. They weren't checking me out at all. No, they had something to do with this note.

Me: "Hey, do you guys know anything about this?"

One of the gaggle: "Yeah, it was some real mad lady who was pissed she had to squeeze into her car."

Me: "Did she see the car that was parked like 3 feet over the yellow line on my left? I'm in the yellow lines!"

One of the gaggle: "No. That car wasn't here when she came out."

I look over, and sure as their Mountain Dew is flourescent yellow, the flippin' Mustang that was practically taking a nap in my spot had left. This, naturally, left my car looking as if to have been parked by a blind child.

Me: "Well, I know my car looks crazy, but I had to park it like that because of the other dummies that parked next to me." (I'm doing my best to use words like 'dummy' and 'stinker' in front of my kids, along with trying not to raise my voice.)

One of the gaggle: "She was mad. She asked us to stay here and tell you that she was the one who wrote that."

Me: "And you agreed? Do you know her? If I asked you to stay here and wait for her to come back next week and tell her that I was mad too, would you do it?"

One of the gaggle: "No. She was just yelling and stuff. And then she spit her gum onto the paper and stuck it to your car. We were all, 'Ohhhhhh!'"

That crazy hag of a woman attached her cowardly note to my car with her nasty DoubleMint gum! I even came down with a case of the angry lip quiver- the most embarrassing reaction to someone being mean to you ever. Before this grown woman, the same woman who still parked between the yellow lines although on a slight diagonal, started crying in front of her wide eyed children and pack of sub-eating, Mountain Dew-drinking monkeys, I felt it best to unload the groceries quietly... as if I was the calm sane beneficiary of some hilariously rediculous chain of events. Yes, I kept thinking, you are lucky to have experienced something so stupid, something funny to tell Terry on the way home. Dammit, lip, stop trembling!

When I returned the cart to the cart return, the gaggle still stood there, staring at me, while chomping on their mayonnaise-soaked subs. (Apparently the villains in my story love mayo, as I just made that part up.) This time I was pretty certain that my hip saunter had nothing to do with their stares. I was just one half of the abstract cat fight these men witnessed on their lunch break. I'm sure it was almost as good as watching female wrestling, give or take a few extra garments of clothes, the women actually coming in contact with each other, and some DoubleMint gum.

The kicker?

One of the gaggle: "She said that if she saw your car around town, she was going to go crazy on your shit."

Me: "What does that mean?"

One of the gaggle: "I don't know. She was crazy mad though."

Me: "Was she threatening me? What is wrong with this woman?"

The gaggle at large: (laughing)

Me: "Heh." (Dera, bite that wimpy lip before it starts trembling again.)

The carride home was silent. The various dialogs played over and over in my head, as I tried to imagine confronting the woman in the parking lot. Would I take the Ghandi approach, killing her DoubleMint gum notes with kindness? Or would I have said,

"Ho, you touch my car and so help me I will squirt you in the eye with this juice box!"

Once the fear of being seen by this psycho faded, once the fear of her "going crazy on my sh-t" subsided, and once my dumb baby bottom lip stopped shaking, I realized how funny the whole thing was. I'm also more cautious in assuming that smirking construction workers are out for my body. Especially when I'm wearing a sweatshirt, holding an enormous child, and lifting a 4 lb. Boston Butt out of my cart.

I Love My Little Bananas

I don't know if you can tell, but the last two clips were from a couple of months ago, and their faces were filthy. I can't remember why either. The first clip was from this morning. This is proof that Neve is crazy. This is a very common sort of exchange we share on a daily basis.

Message to the grandparents: the kid wants a horse!

I Speak Pervert

I've been mildly sick for over a month now. I've not felt so bad that it's slowed me down much, but I do have this nasty emphysema-sounding cough and raspy voice combo. I sound like I'm a 75 year old smoker. Other than my kids confusing me with Terry when I call them from another room, I haven't thought twice about the way I sound. Until yesterday.

~YESTERDAY~

My friend is currently sailing around the Caribbean with her husband, without her three children. Nice, right? With her newfangled iphone, I thought she may be able to receive texts from her sail boat. It was worth a shot, I thought. Let the texting begin: Me: "HAVING FUN?" To my surprise, I received a reply within seconds. 

Her: "WHO IS THIS?"  

Me: "ITS THE MAN CHECKING YOU OUT FROM THE MOTORBOAT. GREAT LEGS." 

Her: "IM CONFUSED" 

Me: "GET RID OF THE BEARDED CHUMP UR WITH AND GET WITH A REAL MAN LIKE ME" Her: "STOP IT" 

I'm a bit confused myself at this point. She has my name in her phone. Why wouldn't she know it's me? Maybe the iphone works from the sailboat, but is unable to display the caller's name. ??? Before she puts the boat in reverse for fear that she has a stalker in an unidentified motorboat, I better tell her it's only me. Actually, this thought makes me laugh even harder, wishing I could prolong it a bit more. 

Me: "ITS ONLY ME- DERA" 

My phone rings. 

Me: "Hello?" (In my man voice, remember?) 

An Asian man's voice is yelling from the other line, although my caller ID says it's my friend (who is not an Asian man). 

Man: "Who you think you, you, you are?! Huh?! You know who I am?!" 

Me: "No. I thought you were my friend." 

Man: "I f--k you up. Bad. I f--k you up, you ever touch my wife's legs!" 

Me: "No no no no. I'm a lady. I thought your wife was my friend. I was kidding about her legs too." 

Man: "You not her friend! I call the cops on you! Now!" 

By now, it's clear I have the wrong number. I'd been text-messaging my friend's old cell phone number, not her new iphone number. Apparently, her old number now belongs to the wife of the very understandably angry man. My voice is not helping my case either. The man either passes the phone over to his wife or has it jerked out of his hands.  Either way, a much calmer female voice (one that knows better English thankfully) greets me. 

Lady: "Hello?" 

Me: "Hi. This is a big misunderstanding. I'm a lady, but I sound like a man because I have a cold-" 

Lady: "Why were you texting me that stuff?" {Try to follow this doozie of a run-on:} 

Me: "I thought this was my friend who's in the Caribbean sailing around in a boat, so I pretended to be a pervert, but I'm not, I'm just her friend, and I thought it would be funny, and like I said earlier, I'm just a girl with a cold, which makes me sound even creepier." 

{Crickets.} 

Me: "Do you understand?" 

Lady: "Yes. You just crazy girl with cold." 

Me: "Exaaaaactly.  Just one bi-i-i-i-g misunderstanding." 

Lady: "Delete my number." 

Me: "You betcha. Have a great---" 

{Dial tone.}

•••

The Will To Live. Or Die.

On an already irresponsible outing to Whole Foods the other day, me and the gals decided to pop into the pet store next door. Although math says otherwise, the impulsive 50¢ snail we bought (as a pet, mind you) seemed far worse an idea than the $9.00 block of aged cheddar we bought at the grocery store.

1. The cheese does not have a heartbeat.
2. The cheese will be eaten.
3. The snail would knowingly die, and NOT be eaten. (We don't have a filtration system on our fish bowl, which apparently is needed to keep a snail alive.)
4. I let the girls name a living thing that I knew would die.
5. I was willing to maintain the lie that Delilah (her name) was alive, even after her passing, with the help of her vacant shell. They'd never make the connection that she'd died.
6. I was also willing to let our beta fish continue living in a small bowl with a dead snail, in order to perpetuate the #5 lie.

So, just as I expected, our aggressive male beta fish was caught on several occasions head-butting poor Delilah into an underwater spin of sorts. I imagine her scared to death inside her shell for about 2 hours, finally mustering up the courage to emerge again, only to have Samson (the fish) antagonistically head butt her into another shell-spin. I figured the only good thing about this whole scenario was that hopefully Delilah would recognize her poor quality of life and be ready for her life to be cut short with some inevitable shell fungus that could have been prevented with a proper filtration system.

While Samson was sleeping a few nights ago, Delilah quietly squirms up the side and out of the bowl, like a battered wife that decides to leave her husband in the middle of the night. She didn't realize what obstacles lay ahead of her, like deadly air. Motionless and very thirsty, she probably regretted leaving her wet home in her pathetic attempts to breathe. I picture Samson waking up, looking out of the magnified bowl to see her on her back, atop the credenza, shriveled up inside her shell, "Woman, get back in this house. You are gonna regret this! I'm the best thing 'ever happened to you!"

I figured Delilah's dried demise was all part of her unfortunate fate, ever since the day we bought her. I kept meaning to hide her until I cleaned out her guts and placed the empty shell back in the bowl. But after a busy morning, then afternoon, then evening, I went to bed forgetting about her in a cup on the kitchen counter.

Terry found her AN ENTIRE DAY LATER, and without question, put her back inside the bowl.

Dera: "Terry, what's Delilah doing in here?"

Terry: "Oh yeah, did you know that you forgot to put her back in, after you cleaned the bowl?"

Dera: "She was dead."

Terry: "Naw. She just needed some water to come back to life."

Dera: "I don't think it works like that. She's not moving. It's not an episode of Sponge Bob."

Terry: "She'll be fine. It's totally like Sponge Bob."

I kid you not, Delilah was found yesterday crawling up the side of her bowl again. (Probably trying to take her life, but whatever...)

In the spirit of Biblical-inspired pet names, I think the more appropriate name for Delilah would have been Lazarus. But then that would make Terry Jesus, and I refuse to believe in a God who would have ever used an episode of Sponge Bob as a metaphor for life. Determined Delilah.