Category Archives: RANTS/TIRADES!

Mom, don’t read this, as I say ‘FUCK’ a few times.

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Today, I ventured into Wal-Mart with my brood at prime time for getting an errand done–past the lunch and running amok, and right before naps. I wish that I had, instead, stuck flaming pins into my eye.

Yes, I freely admit that I stepped into a Wal-Mart. A friend of mine who shall remain nameless, although her first name begins with ERICA, convinced me that this cool Wal-Mart in Reidsville has all the things I want, and cheap. Because of past experiences in Wal-Mart, and because I’m just a tad elitist, I’ve avoided the chain and haven’t suffered any horrible consequences thus far. But I figured I’d give it another shot. So there I found myself. In Wal-Mart. In rural North Carolina. On a Saturday. Now, maybe Wal-Mart is always like this. Or maybe I just happened to venture into this store on field trip day for all the crazies in all the state’s mental agencies.

One woman stood in my path when I was wrestling the 2.5 year old back into the seat in the cart while holding the 4.5 year old on my hip. She smiled crazily and said, “Oh, aren’t they pretty,” and I swear she was about to pinch their arms to see if they were fattened up enough to throw into her oven.

At this point, the kids become possessed. I have to battle my way through the toy section, detaching clutching fingers from trikes, threatening time outs, blackmailing, cajoling with promises of treats. I think there must be something in the vents at Wal-Mart. Some toddler consumerist stimulant piped in through the air conditioning, that made my normally very well behaved children act like spoiled ranting minions straight from the loins of Satan.

Sweat is starting to accumulate on my forehead and under my arms, and I can feel myself grinding my teeth. I lose my sense of direction in the vastness of this so-called SuperCenter, so I stop to ask a Wal-Mart associate for the location of the handbags. I think she may have been a zombie. Truly. There was this dead look in her eye as she pointed the way. And she could barely communicate the location, having, perhaps no word in her vocabulary like “aisle” or “row.” I expected her to all of a sudden come at me screaming “brains!”

So I’m off, after receiving some vague idea of where to go. But the voyage is long and wearisome. Where do these people come from who frequent Wal-Mart? Blocking my way in the aisles are people who walk side by side, in no particular hurry and completely unaware that there are, you know, OTHER people in the store who may have to travel in the same direction. People who stand in the middle of the aisle while reading the ingredients on a product, either ignoring me and my efforts to steer my cart full of wailing children around them or just being plain evil.

And THEN, as I’m coming out the door with tears streaming down both children’s faces, the 41 pound child in my arms and the 24 pound one clinging to my arms from the seat of the cart (barricaded in via the cart’s blessed leash), I see some woman CRAMMING two carts between her van and my Cherokee. I mean, PUSHING the carts between the two vehicles, scraping my truck! And when I finally get there, as I’m trying to get the lump of sobbing four year old into her seat, I see her back up and ALMOST HIT THE FUCKING CART MY BABY IS SITTING IN! Now, my cart was parked behind my truck, so she had to actually angle her behemoth of a van like a villainous idiot to even threaten the same latitude as my cart. So I run to save the child as the driver stops. I think, “Hey, she’s going to get out of her car and come apologize.” No. She stops, evidently to hand her elderly mother (in the passenger seat) a napkin FOR HER ECLAIR.

NEVER AGAIN, Wal-Mart. You keep your crazy. I’ll be saving my sanity in the Target around the corner.

What the flock are you talking about?

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A flock of spastic flamingoes, chasing a black-and-white spotted ball around a field. That’s what my child’s soccer team is.

And Kelsey is basically the team cheerleader, disguised as one of the players. She follows around after the kids who have the ball, on whichever team, just to be in the fray, in the moment. Just digging the grouping, flocking herding of like-sized bodies, the craze of inexplicable direction changes (The ball? Where’s the ball? What ball?). She stops to hug a teammate. She asks a fallen opponent if he’s OK. She looks to the sideline and gives me a thumbs up! I melt and laugh and wish I had video.

Next spring it’s T-ball. And then, next fall I’m thinking cheerleading. Because, really, every sport I put her in is going to end in cheerleading, whether it’s conscious or not. Because my child is the cheerleader. And since I am her driver, as my father-in-law so sensitively informed me, it appears I’m going to be a cheerleader mom. I can see my future. I’m sure it involves a minivan. But, damn it, I’m keeping the long hair, the hippy skirts and the hemp necklaces. I might get a tattoo even, to proclaim my uniqueness in this new cookie-cutter community that wants to make me just another bland sugar cookie.

I am NOT a cookie. I am a fantabulous trifle. Or a T-licious sundae.

Just kidding about the tattoo.

Rah, rah.
Number 9

Keep your legislation away from my bra

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There’s a stunningly provocative piece of journalism appearing in today’s CNN.com archives. You can read it here, but be warned; you will see a boob.

CNN has apparently discovered that breastfeeding is a divisive issue.

And BabyTalk Magazine has received more feedback than ever before after the magazine featured a cover showing a close-up image of a baby nursing. Many women were appalled at the cover, which could fall into the hands of their children, and THEY might discover what a boob is made for *collective gasp*. According to the CNN article, many women are against breastfeeding in public because they are afraid of their husbands seeing other women breastfeed and getting sexually stimulated.

Imagine the horror. Visualize the rampant public erections.

OK. Can we just stop letting the stupid people give quotes in our national media? Really, those frustrated moms in Texas are making our country look like a bunch of yahoos. I imagine a society in which we become enlightened to the fact that our bodies can serve more than one function. Breasts can be functional AND sexy. Imagine that.

I swear, women in other cultures around the world are looking at us and scratching their heads. Social evolution, folks. Time to rise above the victorian silliness.

Can you figure out which side of the issue I might be on? I know it’s difficult. I’m so hard to read.

Truly, I think it’s completely moot to make any law that GIVES a woman the right to nurse in public in this country. It’s not something that I believe requires legislation, thank you very much. We’re talking basic human needs here. Do we need a law that says we can eat a sandwich in public? Is it necessary to get a permit before indulging in a Big Gulp in the middle of the playground?

I’ve got your Big Gulp right here, baby. Big, lovely, milk-engorged, sexually stimulating twin peaks of baby/toddler/preschooler nutritional goodness.

Hey, lactating women — SHOW US YOUR TITS!

This blog entry stinks

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I just realized something.

ALL I TALK ABOUT IS SHIT!

Either I am eternally 12 years old, or my life stinks, literally.

Gone are the days when I’d write incredibly erudite papers on literary criticism, or when I’d write articles to be published in high-circ travel/tourism magazines and newspaper inserts.

Now, my writing is full of shit. Well, maybe it was ALWAYS full of shit, but not the literal type of shit. The brown, stinky, type. The type that I seem to be specializing in these days.

My husband and I often discuss the color and consistencies of the shit in the training potty or in the diapers of our children. It’s an actual topic of discussion. We converse about shit more often than we discuss literature, tourism, publishing, politics, art…pretty much anything.

Hee hee! I said SHIT six times while writing this. No, make that seven. SHIT SHIT SHIT. There. Done. For now.

Yep. I’m 12.

You know, I feel so dirty when they start talking cute

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OK, you are allowed to make endless fun of me for this.

My first rock concert: Picture a skinny, freckled 16-year-old girl wearing faded blue jeans with a double-wrap-around slim white belt hanging down over her hips, and one of those cotton pastel shirts with the snaps and the mesh pull-down shoulder, hair feathered and teased and sprayed to the degree that it no longer moves in any discernible way when the wind blows.

The year is 1986, and I’m rocking out to Rick Springfield in the Pensacola Civic Center in Pensacola, Florida. ‘Til Tuesday opened for him (the only song I even remember from TT is “Voices Carry”). Every boy there is wearing Polo. And — a little bit of weird MotherMirth trivia — somewhere in the throngs of sweaty, Rick-crazy teens is my future husband, whom I didn’t know and wouldn’t have glanced at twice in those years anyway because, well, he wasn’t blonde.

It’s standing room only, and it’s late in the show. A very sweaty Rick Springfield shakes his head around, and the sweat goes flying into the masses of girls-who-wanna-carry-Rick’s-baby crowding the stage. Some sprinkles my way, and I promise never again to wash the shoulder where I felt those magic, sexy sweat drops land.

Go ahead, giggle away. I deserve it.

Yes, I rocked out to Rick Springfield. And now, this evening, 20 years later, VH1 is telling me that I can get “Jessie’s Girl” the acoustic version, along with many of my other 80s favorites, all on one CD. It’s probably $19.95, but I was so flabbergasted I didn’t note the price. One word kept replaying in my head. Acoustic.

Now, I haven’t turned on VHI in probably 6 or 7 years. But tonight, we were too tired for a movie on DVD yet wanted some mindless entertainment before retreating to our respective computers to check email and then drag our sad carcasses to bed. Because a little slumber is nice before the older one wakes up with the inevitable full bladder or nightmare. Thus, Allen was flipping through the channels, and he landed on VH1, where a video was just ending with gyrating scantily clothed dancing women singing something about buttons. We then groaned our way through Rod Stewart’s video “Passion” –which is apparently all about the fact that Rod wasn’t getting enough passion and… uh, wanted more?

But, back to the point: VH1 knows that the kids who rocked out in the 80s are RIGHT NOW sitting on their couches, massaging their tired feet, watching a little TV after putting the kids to bed. There’s a bullseye somewhere on my forehead, and that always freaks me out a little bit when I’m watching TV and being targeted for marketing. It’s also one of the reasons I don’t WATCH TV. But that’s a whole other blog entry.

So. 80s music, acoustic versions. It’s like they’ve hunted down and skinned the fierce tiger that is my rock soul! They’re curing the striped pelt and manufacturing it into cute stripey bunnies and puppies, with pink bows and lace. They’re taking my rock and SUBTRACTING the rock, injecting it with calm, and reprocessing it into neat little packages of folk music.

My current playlist on itunes is much heavier on the Dave Matthews–Ben Harper–Jack Johnson type of music than anything contemporary that might be the parallel to what 80s rock was for me in the 80s. Sure, the 36-year-old self is now attracted to stuff the 16-year old would look at in disgust. But c’mon. I also get laid regularly and own a house. But I still rock, don’t I?

Acoustic 80s rock. Part of me is appalled. The other part of me? Really, is it any surprise that I’m getting out my checkbook?