IV. The Trolley

I exhaled when the trolley arrived and it was less than half-full. The teachers took care of the fare while the chaperones herded all the children and me into the back car. Chooch desperately wanted to sit with the kid whom he’s always getting in trouble with, but I pushed him into a seat with Luna, and then used my big ass as a bookend to keep the kids plugged into the seat.

In front of us sat two boys and the one boy’s mom; she is one of the least offensive moms in the class. I was thankful to sit behind her because she talked to the children the way all real moms do while I tweeted, texted and took pictures with my phone. However, I did stop and pay attention when some of the parents began pointing out things to the children and considering I don’t know shit about my hometown, I rested my chin on my hands and looked out the window, listening along with all the other kids.

Don’t worry, I already forgot everything we learned.

Surprisingly, the kids were extremely well-behaved for the entire ride downtown. I guess it takes about 25 minutes or so, I never really paid attention on the occasions where I ride it to work considering I’m usually being distracted by grown adults pissing their pants, inner-city kids flicking switchblades, and my deep-rooted panic about getting off at the wrong stop.

The Law Firm is located directly across the trolley station downtown and Chooch made a big to-do about telling all of his friends that’s where I work. They all looked up and said, “Whoa.” I was like, “Yeah, that wide-eyed wonderment gets old real quick, friends.” But at least now the other parents don’t think I’m a stripper.

V. Erin’s Umbrella Quandary: A Tangent

When we emerged from underneath the city, it was raining pretty heavily. I actually was somewhat of a responsible mom and tucked an umbrella in my purse before leaving the house that day. Luna had a nice, raindrop-retardant hood on her coat and said she didn’t need additional protection, so I gave the umbrella to Chooch who then impaled half of downtown Pittsburgh with it. This left me unprotected from Mother Nature and looking like a goddamn drowned hood rat. The only upside to this is that it washed away my “OMG I’M IN CHARGE OF CHILDREN DOWN IN THE CITY” perspiration.

Since the umbrella was now eye level with me, I was able to notice that not only was 3/4 of it stained, but the top was not very securely fastened to the stick. A cigarette butt being flicked several yards away could have caused enough change in atmospheric pressure to make it wobble and sway precariously above Chooch’s head like a toy top.

All around me were crisp, clean and unbroken umbrellas. It made me so sad. Also, it made me feel like a hobo.

I have kind of a poor track record with umbrellas. Mostly I just never have one with me, and if I do, there’s usually something broken about it. Sometimes I have two umbrellas and they are both broken and I don’t find this out until I have a crowd of parents watching me. This is a true story from last year’s pumpkin patch field trip.

Since then, Henry has fixed one of those umbrellas (or so I thought) and I had been given a pretty black and white damask one from my Grandma Kelly, but asshole Henry broke off the handle, probably on purpose. My house is where umbrellas go to die. It’s a goddamn shame.

That night after the field trip, it got me thinking: I have never bought an umbrella. They have always been gifted to me by various grandmas who don’t want me to get sick from the rain and then expect them to make me some goddamn soup. So while I was sitting on the couch with Henry, I started shopping on my phone for umbrellas. I found a real majestic “Goth picnicking in the graveyard” one and showed it to Henry who got all irritated and said, “That’s a parasol, idiot. Good luck using that in the rain.” And then we had this big discussion about the time I was 5 or 6  and got a My Little Pony named Parasol for Christmas and my mom, with the video camera running, asked, “What’d you get, Erin?” and I excitedly speech-impedimented, “Pawasowl!” Henry made me repeat it over and over because since I am so near-perfect, he doesn’t often get a chance to ridicule me. Now he’s on the hunt for this video.

I hit a low point in life when I allowed myself to Google “Jonny Craig umbrella,” which apparently doesn’t exist, although it did bring up some pretty images of that ginger douchebag wearing Umbrella clothing.

I’m not buying an umbrella until I find one that really speaks to me. And then I’m going to buy an impenetrable bubble to keep it in on sunny days so no one will make it look like it belongs to a poor person even though it belongs to a poor person.

If anyone wants to make me an umbrella emblazoned with Jonny Craig’s mug(shot) for Christmas, I would not re-gift it.

VI. The Fucking Symphony

Thank god our class was dumped off into one of the small side balconies. We were the only school occupying that space which made me feel relief. I had been having nightmares of being downstairs, surrounded by hundreds of screaming and thrashing children. Luckily, the only screaming and thrashing children I was surrounded by were two boys from Chooch’s class who were sitting behind me and whined about wanting to leave the entire time, which only made my own kid want to turn around in his seat to see what they were doing, at which point I would have to physically force him to face the front because GOOD GODDAMN STOP WORRYING ABOUT OTHER KIDS.

There was a row with only three seats in it, and that’s where I ushered Chooch and Luna. It was cozy and the entire row in front of us was empty, so I was able to get my body temperature to chill out a little.

My sopping wet hair also accommodated that goal.

It took a good 25 minutes for the symphony to start, which is good because there were bathroom trips to be made. All you men out there love to rag on women for going to the bathroom in groups, but what the fuck is up with little boys, good god? One has to go and then seven others are like, “ME TOO” whether they have to pee or not. Of course Chooch waited until the dad I hated took a horde of boys to the restroom to say that he too had to pee as well, so I had to take him myself, that fucker.

One of the boys behind us waited until .003 seconds before the show started to tell his mom that he too had to pee, so then after those two left, the other boy she was responsible for (who was actually paired up with me at the last field trip was really good on that one but decidedly not so fucking wonderful on this one) suddenly had to pee and I was reluctantly going to take him but then it occurred to me that he was on the same potty parade as Chooch just minutes before this and what the fuck, kid. None of the girls were pulling this shit! Momesis, who was sitting behind me with her daughter and the girl she was in charge of, said very diplomatically, “Neither of us can take him because we have our own kids that we’re responsible for, so he’s going to have to tell a teacher.”

I like her more and more as this school year progresses. She is so good at this shit.

So we sent Pee Boy a few rows down to snag a teacher, who then took him to the bathroom while I kicked back and took in the goddamn symphony.

So this is a concert series that Heinz Hall does for kids; it’s 30 minutes long and full of uber-popular songs that you’re likely to hear on Little Einsteins. An older broad in a bright red dress sat on a stool at the front of the stage and introduced each song in overly-excited, pre-pubescent layman’s terms. There was some stuff from the Nutcracker and Beauty and the Beast (Chooch raised his hand when the broad asked how many of the kids have seen that movie and I can assure you he has not but now I’m going to make him watch it and he’s going to wish he never raised his hand when he realizes there are no zombies or boobs) and most of the kids automatically raised their arms and pretended to conduct. I even caught Chooch doing it every now and again, but then the jerk-boys behind him would start being dicks (the one kept yelling, and I do mean yelling, “BOO YOU STINK” every time a song ended and the other kid kept loudly complaining about being bored and wanting to leave) and this would provoke Chooch to turn and kneel on his seat to check out what they were doing and I would have to physically right him.

I’d reel his attention back to the symphony by asking him questions like, “Can you find the harp? How about the asshole playing the triangle? I bet I can play that shit better.” That seemed to keep him engaged.

Meanwhile, all the chicks were enrapt.

“Are you crying?” Chooch said to me at one point.

“What? No!” I lied, wiping my face with my sleeve. LIVE MUSIC MAKES ME EMOTIONAL, ALRIGHT? I will pretty much to sob to anything, even Katy Perry, but that’s only because she’s such an abomination.

The boys behind us never really shut the fuck up and at one point the usher said to the mom, “If you can’t get them to be quiet, you’re going to have to leave” and I was like, “Why the warning? Just do it.” I wanted to enjoy me some fucking orchestra, and they were really fucking that up for me.

VII. The Return Trip

I was really impressed with how smoothly our departure went. There was no mass exodus of city school children; rather, it was organized and relatively uneventful. It was still raining outside so that was stressful for me, trying to hold the umbrella atop my son’s dome while dragging Luna with my other hand. When we passed my work, I actually looked up at it longingly and wished I was there, warm and dry at my desk.

Then one of those bastards jumped into a puddle when I was directly behind him. I saw it all go down in slow motion but I had no motivation at this point to even attempt to move. WHAT’S A LITTLE MORE WATER, RIGHT.

We made it to the trolley station just in time to catch one heading back to Dormont and the kids were mostly quiet on the way back, except for the two I was in charge of, who never stopped talking the entire time and the poor Asian couple in front of us kept turning around and smiling wearily.

After the T dropped us off, we still had to walk back to the school. My pant legs were soaked all the way up to the back of my knees and I kept murmuring, “We’re almost there, we’re almost there.” It was the longest walk of my life. I so desperately wanted to not be holding hands with children any longer.

Back in the classroom, the teachers handed out donuts to the kids. Seriously? Where the fuck is my donut? The chaperones got nothing, not even a Valium. I made eye contact with two of the moms, and they started laughing.

“What? Do I look that bad?” I asked all self-consciously.

“It was a long day,” one of them said sympathically.

Then some kid asked me to carry his donut down to the cafeteria for him and in my head I replied with a hearty, “Fuck you” and went home, where I peeled off my clothes, put on my PJs, turned on Dance Gavin Dance real loud and curled up in bed. I wanted to start crying but I was too emotionally vacant at that point.

At least I got to see the fucking symphony.

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It’s really tempting for me to type this whole thing as a CAPSLOCK extravaganza, but I am going to try to write like an adult. (Well, my version of “adult,” anyway. The XXX kind.)

“So then stop chaperoning these field trips if it sucks so bad, dumb ass.” Right, that’s what you’re thinking isn’t it? But there are a couple reasons I keep grudgingly raising my hand.

  1. I live right across the street from the school and pretty much do fuck all during the day. There is no good reason for me to say no. Stating that I “hate kids” wouldn’t fly, I don’t think. And I kind of like that the teachers think I’m all sweet and naive. Besides, my bonbons and “Gossip Girl” will still be there tomorrow. (Because Henry doesn’t delete my DVR’d shows like I do to his.)
  2. I want to experience these things with my fucking kid, OK? Even if it means having my blood pressure skyrocket to the point that it sounds like high school marching band bass in my ears. Also, if my kid’s being a dick, I want to know about it.
  3. This particular field trip destination was Heinz Hall for some kid symphony bullshit, which inspired some kind of angel/devil round table in my head and in the end the devil was all, “Look bitch, I want to see the goddamn symphony.” Especially when it’s FREE.

I. Parents

I got to the school yesterday at 10. Before I even got to start the kid-hating telethon in my head, I had to first recognize my disdain for other parents by being sequestered in a room with the other chaperones. There were only four other moms there when I arrived, two from Chooch’s class, and two from the 1st grade class, but they were all involved in some momish discussion about being active in their children’s education and I have nothing to contribute to that so I slid quietly into a seat that was far enough away that I couldn’t contract any domestic viruses, but not too far away that it looked like I was being an elitist.

Even though I’m clearly an elitist.

There ended up being thirteen of us in the end. Three were for the other class, and this time there were two dad chaperones for Kindergarten, as well. I immediately hated one of them, but considering I got busted for my last field trip post (it ended up not being bad, but still), I am going to try this new thing called “Name Withheld,” but if Henry were here reading this he would make crumbs cascade from his twitching moustache and bark something akin to, “HOW ABOUT YOU JUST NOT WRITE IT ALL?”

But seriously, this dad had a tiny nose and was wearing a sweater from the IMMAPRICK catalgue. That is all I needed to see to know that he is a rich, entitled financial manager who drinks scotch at night while wearing $100 slippers and watching Fox News and then masturbates in the morning to one of those fucking gratuitous motorized neck tie carousels from Sharper Image. He also has some kind of small, yippy dog that he kicks when the kids aren’t looking.

I know all of this based on his creepy nose, I’m not kidding.

Soon, everyone was talking to each other except for me and a mom wearing a baseball cap tugged low over her eyes.

“I hate this shit,” I said to her.

“Oh, me too!” she agreed, and then OMG I HAD A SHORT, SELF-INITIATED CONVERSATION WITH A PARENT. And like me, she had no idea what the fuck was going on.

“I mean, what are these people even talking about?” I laughed, and then she laughed, and I think this is how normal people do that “small talk” thing. I made sure to tell my Diary later that night.

Then we went back to looking at our phones and never spoke again during the field trip.

II. My Charge

For this field trip, I was responsible for Chooch and this girl who Chooch told a few weeks ago, “My mom hates you” which is just really fantastic and I hoped that maybe she wouldn’t remember that. I mean, he wasn’t too far off base, but I’m kind of like, “Bro, what mommy says to you after drinking 3/4 of a bottle of tequila stays between you, me and the fucking commode, OK?”

This girl, who will henceforth be known as Luna because she reminded me of Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter with her endless strings of flighty non sequiturs, took my hand in her pink mitten and never stopped talking from that point on. She had this real lackadaisical inflection that made her (thankfully) hard to hear over the roar of traffic as we paraded 20 kids down the street and to the trolley station, a walk that would take me about 5 minutes on my own but with my arms being wishboned by two gabby children who refuse to walk in a straight line and have to treat every fucking curb like a balance beam, I swear it took nearly 20. Every now and then I would just bear down and drag them because I was so afraid of losing the group ahead of us and being responsible for crossing the street with two kids ON MY OWN.

And we all know that shirking responsibility is what I’m best at in life. That and giving Henry gray hairs. I’m good at writing my name, too. God, I just have so much going for me, it’s hard to pick which one I’m best at.

Meanwhile, Luna is going on and on about Hello Kitty.

“And I have Hello Kitty tights but I can only wear my Hello Kitty tights if I’m wearing my Hello Kitty barrette but I’m wearing my Hello Kitty barrette today so I also put on my Hello Kitty tights which is good because I’m also wearing a Hello Kitty dress and sometimes I like to drink the rain.”

It was all of this and more. For hours. And then she and Chooch would argue about things, really stupid shit that I didn’t care about, and then they would both look at me to play judge and I’m like, “I don’t fucking care, I’m trying to tweet, you assholes.”

At one point they argued because we have a frog named FRANCIS! which can’t be, because she has a cousin named Francis, and I was about to ask, “Francis, or FRANCIS!?” but that would require me getting involved and other than murmuring a few “Wow”s and “Oh really”s here and there, I try to stay low-key as far as “doing shit” goes.

I also learned that Justin Bieber is her biggest fan. I was about to correct her, but who the fuck cares. Let her mommy do that. There were a few other times too when she would say that something was her biggest fan, like Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty is her biggest fan, you guys! That is how awesome she is!

Back to Bieber: She was horrified to learn that Chooch was zombie Bieber for Halloween. HORRIFIED and REPULSED.

“Justin Bieber is not a zombie,” she stated firmly.

“Well, he was on Halloween, kid,” I muttered dryly.

And then something alarming happened: She’s droning on and on about Bieber, about how he is the best singer in the world and like, so dreamy and shit, and I’m thinking to myself, “Fuck, this sounds familiar. Why does this sound familiar? WHY DOES THAT DOPEY SMILE ON HER FACE LOOK FAMILIAR??!!” And then I took a step back and realized, “Holy shit, this is me, talking about Jonny Craig. I AM THE EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT OF A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL.”

And it makes sense too because I would totally wear that Hello Kitty barrette.

III. Chooch’s Mouth

We finally make it to the trolley platform and I’m having heart palpitations from all the kids rough-housing so close to the yellow line and NO ONE IS STOPPING THEM from toppling over and onto the tracks. Chooch kept trying to join them, but I’d grab him by the nape of his pea coat and pull him back to the bench I was forcing him to share with Luna. Some of his little buddies came over and sat with them.

One of the boys, a kid who used to cry every morning last year and it was supremely awkward for me because he and Chooch were always the first kids to arrive and we’d have to stand there stupidly pretending like we weren’t watching his dad or grandma yell at him for crying, which is always how you want to get a kid to stop crying, by yelling in his face. So I would try to be sensitive (no, really) around him and I’d make it a point to say hello and remark on his Agent P shirt or whatever other stupid cartoon character he was boasting on his chest that would make me whisper, “Who the hell is that again?” to Chooch before saying anything. This year seems to be going a lot better for him, and he always (often solemnly) says good morning to me.

We’ll call him Sad Baby.

On this day, however, he’s sitting on the bench and I’m standing in front of him shooting daggers into my kid who looks like he’s about to bust out some parkour action, when I feel Sad Baby’s eyes on me. I make contact with them and he kind of gulps and says, “You’re really—”

Now, time kind of froze for me as I braced myself for him to say something degrading because you know, everyone is trying to turn me into a cutter.

But instead, Sad Baby says, “—-pretty” and then sheepishly ducks out. So I’m standing there, having this really great heart-swelling moment, my ego is just about ready for blast off, when my asshole child rolls his eyes and chimes in with, in the exact tone Henry would have used, “Yeah well, she always says she’s FAT.” And pretty much every chaperone on the trip is standing right there, pretending they hadn’t heard and trying not to laugh. So my moment of hair-flipping, angels-humming-from-Heaven vanity-stroke quickly ended with a slow-fade into me protectively hugging my big gut and burying my double chin behind my hair-scarf.

Thanks for bringing me back to earth, son.

[More to come.]

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Goddammit, all I wanted to do was go for a nice, leisurely family stroll around our crappy town, but dum-dum Henry left the keys in the house and started flipping out about how it was my fault because I rushed him out of the house.

I was like, “Why can’t we just go for a walk and worry about this later?” which apparently was not a Great Idea based on the look of utter incredulity Henry flashed at me.

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Chooch and I carried on like cackling assholes while Henry tore apart the garage for suitable items to MacGyver a battering ram. I mean, I guess if he hot-glued together all of his old porn VHS tapes from the SERVICE, he might have something to go on.

He ignored my suggestions of calling the landlord or heaving a cinder block through the window and instead considered using a can of gasoline to burn down the front door.

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I’m surprised he didn’t go next door to ask Hot Naybor Chris for a breaking and entering consultation, considering those two once helped the gas man break into our neighbor’s house in order to shut off his gas before our house exploded.

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Yeah, this has promise.

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“What? I coulda done it. If only I had remembered to eat my individually-wrapped prunes today.”

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“NOW I HAVE HEDGECLIPPERS! THESE WILL HELP! I WILL MANICURE THE WEEDS INTO SILHOUETTES OF MY REPUBLICAN HEROES WHILE STARING LONGINGLY INTO OUR FRONT WINDOW.”

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These are some of the things Henry said while Chooch and I buzzed around him like flies on a bear:

  • THAT’S ENOUGH!
  • YOU’RE A LOT OF FUCKING HELP.
  • GO SOMEWHERE AND PLAY!
  • THIS IS ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT. I DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO GO FOR A WALK!
  • FML FML FML FML FML
  • YEAH, THIS IS REAL FUCKING FUNNY.
  • AND I JUST KNOW I’M MISSING “SHE’S CRAFTY.” MOTHER!
  • YOU ASSHOLES CAN JUST STAY OUT HERE! I’LL FUCKING WALK TO WORK. AT LEAST I HAVE THOSE KEYS.

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Oh God, Chooch. DON’T POKE THE BEAR!

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…or KICK the bear. Henry almost gave Chooch “orphan” status after this.

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Meanwhile, I found this fucker in the garage. WTF kind of creepshow is this!? I wish I had had it for my Murder Desk at work.

I was trying to chronicle this episode from all angles, which did not please the man one bit. He made like he was going to grab my phone off me and beat me with it, enlightening me on what it must be like to work for TMZ.

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After fifteen minutes, Henry succeeded in prying open the window with a pair of pliers. Now you know how to break into my house and steal our cats. Seriously, it’s all we’ve got in there. Cats galore.

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Just don’t forget to bring a small child to catapult through the window. (I mean, at least he’s going IN a window and not falling OUT of a window, right?)

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You know that fucker is going to go to school tomorrow and tell his teacher about how his burglar parents made him shimmy up the side of a skyscraper.

Moments later, the house keys came whaling through the window straight at Henry’s face. Chooch rules.

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“ENOUGH ALREADY.”

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Reassembling the window.

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And he did it all so he could go on a walk he did not want to go on in the first place. In this picture, I think he’s texting his boss: OMG I IS A HEROE. I NEED DAY OFF.

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I kind of always wanted to get summoned for jury duty. Not that I think it’s glamorous or fun, but fuck–what a prime opportunity to people-watch, right? And that’s kind of my thing.

A few weeks ago, I got my official notice in the mail, filled it out immediately and tucked it back in the mail slot for the mailman to retrieve the next day. When Henry came home from work that day, he saw the torn-open notice and asked, “Where’s the rest of it?”

“In the mail slot, already filled out!” I answered all incredulously, like how was this not his first guess? “I REALLY want to do this!”

“You’re fucked up. No one WANTS to do jury duty.” (Too bad at least TEN people have told me otherwise in the last day.) And then Henry dampened my parade by explaining to me the ins and outs of jury duty, how I would need to check the website on a designated date to see if I was even summoned in the first place.

Well, that day was yesterday and OMG I was!

But my joy soon turned into panic. Do you guys know me at all? I’m pretty much helpless. And now I’m expected to be turned loose into the real world, to ENTER A COURTHOUSE without setting off five alarms, to find a particular room without crying….

“What room is it?” Barb asked me and I told her it was 3-something. “OK, so take the elevator to the third floor—”

“BUT WHERE ARE THE ELEVATORS, OH MY GOD BARB?!”

There better be attendants at every corner, waiting to point me in the correct direction.

“Will I have to talk to people?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Barb said. “You might get asked questions.”

“IN FRONT OF PEOPLE?” I cried.

And then I found out that this doesn’t even mean I’ve been chosen? I have to sit there all day, in a room I may or may not find, waiting to see if they want me?

Talk about my life story.

Henry agreed to drive me down there tomorrow morning so I’ll have one less thing to worry about, like: WHEN SHOULD I GET OFF THE TROLLEY? AND THEN WHAT?! And then he tried to explain to me how to walk to work afterward. Seriously. I do not understand downtown Pittsburgh. There are roads and people and buildings; lots of them.

Today on the way to work, I pointed at every building we passed and asked, “Is that the courthouse? What about that one?”

“We’re not even on the right side of town,” Henry mumbled exasperatedly.

“You said you were going to show me!” I wailed, about to get hysterical. I have lots of…complexities, we’ll call them…when it comes to going somewhere alone for the first time. I like to over-think things until I’m sure that I’m going walk into a building for the first time and promptly fall into a hole to a land of Katy Perry-soundtracked church sermons and food overrun with crunchy onions because how would I know that it was there when I HAVE NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE.

“I am going to show you,” Henry said. “Tomorrow morning when I drop you off in front of it.”

Then he tried to explain to me how to get to work once I’m released.

“This is too confusing,” I sighed as he was trying to point out landmarks. “It’s a good thing my phone has a compass.”

“Yeah but do you even know what direction to go to begin with?” After his question was met with silence, he said, “Didn’t think so.”

I was starting to feel OK about it at work as my co-worker Cheryl said, “Oh you’ll be fine! You mostly just sit around. And then you break for an hour and a half for lunch—”

An hour and a half? NINETY MINUTES?? What the fuck am I going to do for ninety minutes? Find a bathroom stall in which to tremble and cry?

Barb did her best to comfort me. “I’m trying to think if there is anywhere to eat inside the courthouse,” she mused, knowing full well that if I attempted to stray outside, I might never find my way back and wind up having to change my address to:
Someone Guy’s Occupy Pittsburgh Tent Some Random St.
Pgh (I think), PA.

“If you need to, you can just call me. I’ll come find you,” she promised, and that made me feel like maybe I could survive this day.

“Just stand outside and shine a mirror into the sun; I’ll follow the light signal,” I said, trying to complicate this into some failed Choose Your Own Adventure book.

But then Wendy came over and said, “Fool, just walk outside the courthouse and look up. You can see our building, duh.”

Why does this have to be downtown? Why can’t it be on a farm that’s easy to find and full of boughs pregnant with apples. (My apple obsession is still going strong. More on that later.)

So that’s where I’ll be tomorrow if you need me, walking around in circles and looking up at the sky. I should probably take that bloody pie server thing out of my purse first, though.

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Today is apparently All Saints Day, which never would have had any bearing on my life except that now my child is in Catholic school and they parties for this shit. The paper he brought home a few weeks ago said something about costumes being optional, and I thought it was a joke. Kids actually dress up for this shit?

Besides, Chooch has been in 4 different costumes  in the last week, so I opted out on his behalf.

And what the fuck do sinners know about saints, anyway? I only know St. Francis, and that’s because I’m a spoiled brat who got to go to Assisi four times as a child, though all I really learned there was:

  1. don’t piss off monks, particularly monks near chains
  2. the hot chocolate there sucks
  3. when you break something in a gift shop, run

So, short of strapping a bird bath to the front of Chooch, I really had no other clues and sent him to school in his street clothes.

Two kids in his class were already there when we arrived this morning: one girl was wearing basically a white potato sack with gold ribbing along the collar; her mom is one of those broads who has to have her hands in everything so I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “Of course she’s dressed up.” Another kid hadn’t put his on yet. Chooch was looking at me with these sad eyes and asked, “Why don’t I have a costume?”

“Because we don’t do saints,” I whispered, pretending to lovingly smooth out his hair but really that’s our secret code for “STFU before you embarrass mommy.”

I am hard-pressed to believe that every single child is going to come trouncing into the classroom in some ridiculous robe. You can’t have saints without sinners, right?

I had Henry bake cookies last night so I’d have something to contribute to the party, thereby acknowledging that this is a day to celebrate fictional Biblical characters. Hopefully chocolate chip and sugar cookies will suffice. I don’t know what these crazy Catholic schools do and as long as there aren’t any goats or rams being slaughtered on stone tables, they can have a fucking ball over there playing saint-related games and singing Biblical ballads. I just don’t need any detailed accounts.

“He could have been zombie Jesus,” Henry said when we were on the phone a little while ago and I think he was only semi-joking. I also think he doesn’t know that Jesus isn’t actually a saint.

Maybe we’ll pull that one out for the Easter party. They already know we’re fucking idiots.

[ETA: Apparently there is a feast involved in this holiday and now my interest is officially piqued. Maybe next year.]

[ETA pt. 2: The teacher told Henry that when the priest went around asking all the kids what saints they were dressed as, Chooch said he was God. Also, judging by all the shit Chooch brought home, all the other parents treated this as a Halloween party. NICE TO KNOW. There needs to be a handbook for heathen parents who send their kids to Catholic school.]

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It was pretty stupid.

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Or: How Barb Found Another Way To Ruin My Life

Or: That Fucking Tomato, The Sequel

Before Barb left work on Monday, she had to go and fuck up my whole world by offering me an apple. I just smiled and said thanks, but what was really happening at that moment was that a vignette of cumulative  botched apple-cutting situations began whirring around in my head,  my inner-wrists started tingling at even the suggestion of wielding a paring knife, and my teeth were curling back inside my gums at the thought of biting into a whole apple.

Meanwhile the ghost of Johnny Appleseed openly mocked me from above my desk.

It just sat there all night, to the left of me, this glowing red/yellow orb of temptation. If I had been the original Eve, the Bible as we know it (and I don’t really know it) would be drastically altered, because I have a feeling Adam would have been too busy exploring holes with his dick to cut a fucking apple.

We might all be walking around nude right now.

Eventually, I tossed it into my purse, thinking I would just find some way to eat it at home. And by that I of course mean Henry would put a Gerber bib on me and slice the apple into Erin-appropriate wedges.

That night at work, I ate peanuts and Halloween candy instead. Fucking apple.

***

I forgot the apple was in my purse until the next morning and Henry had the audacity to not drop everything and come home from work wearing his produce armor to cut my fucking apple.

“Where did you get an apple?!” he asked, probably thinking I was trying to eat random growths from neighborhood trees again.

Gee, I don’t know, Henry. An old fucking lady brought it up to my cottage window while goddamn bluebirds sang Disney songs behind her.

“Barb gave it to me last night and I put it in my purse! Don’t act like you don’t go through my purse!” I answered defensively, like I was trying to deny an affair with a bait shop owner.

(This all happened via Facebook; look at me, making it appear that Henry and I have real life conversations that don’t take place via the Internet, text, and Post-It Notes!)

Seriously, when will apples shake their stigma? WE NEARLY BROKE UP OVER THIS.

I had people on twitter sending me tutorials but the first I watched said I needed a melon baller and I started to break a sweat because I was pretty sure we don’t have a melon baller and also because I think I used a melon baller as a torture device in a short story I wrote a long time ago.

I decided to just wait for Henry to come home from work.

***

Henry hadn’t yet had a chance to get both feet through the door before I was blocking his path and shoving an apple-fist in his face.

He looked tired and disgruntled.

“Give me the fucking thing,” he said, snatching the apple from my hand. As he disappeared into the kitchen, I heard him grumble, “You’re pathetic.”

Nice to know he worries about my safety and the possibility of apple-induced arterial spray.

He practically frisbee’d a plate of shoddily-cut apple wedges at me before storming out the door to pick up our son, who will have to learn how to cut his own apples if he ever so much as dreams of eating one when Henry is away from the house.

This was definitely the product of a pissed off man with a knife. I call it Henry Sliced the Apple: the shocking conclusion to How Will Erin Eat Her Apple?

***

When I got to work later that day, I regaled Barb with the horrors of what had come to be known as Applegate. I did a lot of hand-wringing to further illustrate the distress her stupid apple had put me under.

“Oh, honey,” she said in her Babying Erin Voice,  which you might have figured gets a ton of use. “You should have just used the apple corer we keep here.”

WHAT APPLE CORER.

I took a picture of Barb demonstrating, so I could look back on it for reference.

That night, Barb left me another apple, the apple corer thing, and an assignment: to try it by myself.

I waited until everybody but the late shift people had gone for the day, just in case I wound up causing a scene. You never can be too safe. My first attempt propelled the apple with great force against the kitchen wall, knocking over the paper towel holder. (Speaking of the paper towel holder: The roll was empty the other night and I put a new one on all by myself. So now no one can say I haven’t helped out around there.) I think I didn’t have it properly centered because I might not have been paying attention.

My second attempt sent me lurching into the kitchen counter, but I did reach some low level of success. I couldn’t get the blades to split the apple the whole way through and wound up having to break it off the corer thing, but this was a win as far as Things Erin Tries To Do In The Kitchen goes.

Then I happily ate my apple, while  saying, “I did this myself!” to everyone who walked by. (And by everyone, I mean just Carey.)

And that is how I learned to cut an apple at work.

(You should see me with an orange.)

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All you really need to know about me before jumping into this is that I hate doing shit with kids, so for the sake of my fingertips, let’s just pretend for a minute that there are already four paragraphs written in my usual long-windedly verbose style illustrating my hate for the pumpkin patch/kids/being around kids/riding school buses/moms/being a mom.

I somehow got suckered into being a chaperone for this year’s field trip. Last year it was mandatory that one parent accompany each preschooler, but they only needed 9 Kindergarten parent chaperones. I heard my disembodied voice saying, “Yes,” to the teacher’s aid and then vaguely recall her scrawling “Mrs. Robbins” onto the list of condemned parents.

(Never mind the fact that I am MISS KELLY not MRS. ROBBINS.)

A. The Sweetest Ginger

I arrived at the school in time to be cast out from the other chaperones.  I’m sure I wasn’t missing much there, as I picked up pieces of their extreme Yinzer-garble. Most of the parents just kept their backs turned on me. I was OK with that.

As the kids began filing out of the classroom and ran over to their respective parent, the teachers began handing off the rest of the kids so that some parents had an extra child to be responsible for. I assumed (stupidly) that the teachers are hyper-aware of my utter irresponsibility, but apparently my facade translates to strangers as Put-Together Woman Bursting with Empathy because they paired me up with Nate.

Normally, I don’t know shit about the kids Chooch goes to school with, and I like to keep it that way. But Nate is notorious because his parents died in the beginning of the school year, one right after the other. Totally traumatic and devastating; I actually cried when I read the letter that the school sent home about the mom and hoped it was a mistake when there was another letter a day later about the dad. I never learned the details, but a Google search brought up their obituaries and they died a day apart from each other in the hospital so I imagine car accident is the safest assumption.

Good job giving this poor kid to the most socially awkward mom there, you guys. Good fucking job.

Nate put his pudgy little hand in mine as we walked out to the bus together. Some little girl said, “Nate, sit with us!” but he opted to sit with me and was a friendly little chatterbox for the whole 30 minute ride.

“I think I know where we are!” as we passed a grocery store. “My mom used to shop there!”

I smiled awkwardly, the diarrhea-face kind, hoping that topic would go DOA.

While we compared animal crackers with other (the owls were our favorites), Nate looked at me innocently and, in a way that was remarkably upbeat, asked, “Do you know where my mom and dad are?”

OMFG YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. SERIOUSLY? TO ME, HE’S ASKING THIS, OF ALL FUCKING PEOPLE? I desperately yearned for a can of that liquid rubber shit to plug up my tear ducts.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. If I were my friend Lisa, who went to school to learn how to talk to people about death, I’m sure I would have reacted in such a way that made lilacs spring up from a meadow. But me being me, I just whispered “No…” in a frightened tone and then bit my thumb.

“They’re in heaven,” Nate answered nonchalantly.

I do not hate this particular kid so I acted like that was the most wonderful thing, to have parents in heaven. I was three when my own dad died from a car accident, but I don’t really have much memory from which to draw any life lessons. I don’t even remember when I first really understood that my dad was dead. What did my family tell me back then? Knowing my mom, she acted like nothing happened.

I sat there in silence, trying to process all of this while Nate quietly sipped from his Capri Sun beside me.

We talked about Halloween costumes for awhile (he’s going to be some train-friend of Thomas’s that I don’t care about) and then he dropped this bomb on me:

“Do you think there will be big pumpkins at the pumpkin patch?”

I pretended to consider this. (I think that is what you have to do when dealing with children: pretend. A lot.) “I imagine there will be pumpkins of all sizes,” I said.

“Well, I want to find the biggest one and throw it up to my parents in Heaven.”

WHY. WHY WHY WHY WHY.  The fissure forming on my heart reminded me that, OMG—I have a heart, and I suddenly felt inspired to give up my hateful blogging, love Jesus and adopt 18 orphans.

You guys, this kid kind of made me feel a little bit human.

B. The Worst Best Friend

My own kid sat with the boy who, one week ago, said to me, “I wish there were no Rileys in the world,” in a mean tone, in front of my kid, prompting me to have a little talkie with the principal because I’ll be damned if I’m paying to send my kid to a school where hate is something that kids can get away with. If he’s saying shit like that when he’s FIVE, what’s he going to be doing when he’s FIFTEEN? You can tell me I overreacted, but I’d rather nip that shit in the bud than blow it off and have something worse happen down the line.

(You should know that I’m not one of those moms who get all up-in-arms every single time someone blows a hair on my kid’s head.)

This kid, Anthony, is such a motherfucker that the principal already knew who I was talking about before I even said so. His mom was made aware of the situation (as well as the mom of another kid who appears to be Anthony’s sidekick in hate) and profuse apologies were made all around.

Now Chooch is calling him his “best friend” and wanted nothing more than to sit with him on the bus.

“Sit with Nate and me,” I pleaded.

“Anth is my best friend,” Chooch shot back, sliding into the seat across from me.

Anth? You have got to be fucking kidding me.  This Anthony kid is such an ADHDick. Several times, I was forced to lean over Nate and hiss at Chooch to knock it the fuck off because Anthony’s mere presence was making him act like he was running on Pixi Stix and Starbucks. I really need to get him away from this Anthony kid before he starts verbally denigrading other children worse than I do to Henry.

Anthony’s mom is much older and has a weary face that screams, “I AM SO TIRED OF YELLING AT THIS FUCKING DICK ALL THE LIVELONG DAY.”

I kind of feel for her.

As soon as the bus pulled into the farm’s lot, Anthony was out of his seat and pushing kids out of his way, provoking one of the teachers to open her mouth and blow him back into an empty seat with nothing more than her militant tone.

It was fucking awesome. Everyone paraded past as Anthony (and his sidekick, who actually wasn’t doing anything wrong other than associating himself with this delinquent) sulked in his seat.

Somehow Chooch avoided punishment even though I’m pretty sure I witnessed him being a pushy asshole. It’s obviously because he’s a cracker.

C. Father of the Year

Henry met us out there this year and I was so thankful. Since I had Nate obediently clutching my hand, Henry kept an eye on Chooch, who was following Anthony like a puppy. Several times, Henry tugged Chooch back to us by his hood and gave him low-pitched yet stern talks about how he needed to not worry so much about Anthony.

Kindergarten and this shit is happening already. KINDERGARTEN.

Meanwhile, Henry completely skirted the $10 admission and not once did a farmhand approach him and ask around a straw of hay, “Sir, you ain’t wearing a sticker on your breast. Why?”

D. The Stupid Pumpkin Diorama Tour

I hate this part of Triple B! It is row after row of fictional characters with pumpkin heads. WHO THE FUCK CARES. And then they throw Moses floating downstream in a basket just on the off chance some douchey Catholic school kids happen to stroll on through and all the parents clap and laugh happily and it is so obnoxious.

“OMG Bible shit, you guys!”

This may have happened when I was there.

Nate loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so I took this photo for him. I figured I’d have it printed for his grandparents who bring him to school everyday, adding some shine to my halo. (Or, if I were Barb, I guess you could say my halo might then be all TRICKED OUT.)

It kind of made me sad how few of the dioramas he was able to figure out.

Which brings me to….

E. Aging Hipster Dick

One of the girls in Chooch’s class was behind Nate and me with her dad.  I hadn’t been paying much attention to him until we approached the one diorama that stumps me repeatedly.

“Oh look,” he said to his daughter, “Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub!”

I laughed to myself because it was so obvious. Over my shoulder, I said laughingly to him, “I totally could NOT figure this one out last year!”

“Oh,” he said in this tone that was steeped with a bold combination of ambivalence and superiority. “I guess you just learned something then.”

No, this tone just did not sit well with me.

“Yeah….I guess,” I mumbled, and from that point on, motherfucker was on my radar.

From then on, nothing I did could drown out his ridiculously uber-serious reciting of every fucking nursery rhyme diorama we shuffled past.

Every time I was near him after that (which was pretty much always; god, go stand with your WIFE), I had to fight the urge to heckle-cough “Douchebag” in his general direction. Fuck off with your lame short-sleeved flannel. Go sit in your hybrid and listen to some Iron and Wine and leave the pumpkin-picking to the fuckers who care. (I am not one of those fuckers but I assure you I’d rather pick a fucking pumpkin than listen to anything on his iPod.)

On the hayride, he all but SAT ON MY LAP and proceeded to shout over the dirge of the tractor’s engine to his wife who was sitting FIVE PEOPLE away from him about how much he spent on apples at another farm.

“$8 for 8 apples! That’s practically $1 an apple!” he shouted in his deep dick-swallowing voice.

That’s not “like” a dollar an apple; it IS a dollar an apple.

Sometimes his wife would snap, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Because, you know, not everyone is trained to hear bored, husky tones over top of a chugging tractor pulling 35 screaming children.

He was so close to me that I feared I would disembark the wagon with the sudden druthers to wear a belted (vintage) tunic and swap out my photos of Jonny Craig for Colin Meloy. (Whom I do enjoy on occasion, but still.)

(Hopefully I don’t offend my hipster friends who are neither aging nor dicks.)

Meanwhile, I found myself having an enjoyable conversation with Momesis, and considering we also ran into each other at the playground in August and wound up chatting for 90 minutes while our kids played, I suppose I should just call her Amy. Besides, I now have a Dademy to replace her.

***
Henry and I had story-time about this later.

“I decided to tell him about how I didn’t know that was Three Men in a Tub last year. I was just trying to keep it light-hearted, you know how I do.”

“No,” Henry said. “I don’t.”

And this is why I don’t often initiate small talk.

F. The 5-Minute Hayride

Just like last year’s 5-minute hayride, now with an Aging Hipster Dick sprouting out of my torso.

Yes, Nate; that is exactly the look of fucking disdain I too would have if Anthony were hugging me into him.

 “Mommy, can I have a hoodie that says Sinister all over it like Anthony?”

G.The Pumpkin Picking

After sitting through the SAME EXACT program about DIRT put on by Mrs. B. in the School Barn, we finally got to head out to the small, forlorn patch of puny pumpkin rejects that’s there specifically for school field trips. I guess $10 a person only promises the adoption of a pie pumpkin.

This is my favorite part because it means it’s almost time to leave.

Nate was off getting his picture taken by the teacher, and Henry was too busy checking out the other moms bending at the waist of their mom jeans to be of any assistance, so I had to tiptoe through the mud while Chooch kicked disinterestedly at a pumpkin that maybe he might have wanted, who knows, what did he care. He was still sulking because I wouldn’t let him sit next to Anthony during the dirt assembly.


 

Nate came back from the school photo-op and Henry decided to actually pull his eyeballs off the MILFs’ applebottoms long enough to drag Chooch to the entrance while I assisted Nate in choosing a pumpkin. Of course, he picked one whose stem that was still attached to a 10 inch-thick vine and I unfortunately shorted the remote that turns my right arm into a hacksaw. Sorry, buddy.

He picked a comparable gourd and proceeded to immediately break the handles of the plastic bag he was given. I kept offering to carry it for him, but he stubbornly cradled his bag-swathed pumpkin in his arms, dropping it every three feet. It was fine. I wasn’t getting agitated.

No really, it was fine.

Just fucking dandy.

H. THE FINISH LINE

Henry got to drive home in the nice, quiet, CHILDFREE car while I was shackled to my chaperone status for one more bus ride into the horizon. I got to sit alone at least, while Nate, Anthony and Chooch all crammed into one seat. Nate quietly looked out the window the entire way home while Chooch leaned forward with his forehead pressed against the back of the seat in front of him. They were clearly tired. As were all the other children, except for Anthony, who was practically sitting upside down in his seat, singing “Georgie Porgie*” the entire way while his mom bitched about not having time to shop.

(*Seriously? My kid must be the only one in that class who doesn’t give a shit about nursery rhymes.)

When we got back to the house, Chooch threw up and I was really pissed off because that’s what I wanted to do.

I. Henry’s Day at the Farm

I decided to try and act like I genuinely cared about Henry’s pumpkin patch experience, but he replied to my initial text inquiring of his favorite field trip moment with a misspelled and curiously punctuated: “Your [sic] not interviewing me again?”

“No, just wondering,” I texted back. “Also, what kid did you hate the most and what mom was the most MILFish?”

Henry: “LOL, most MILFish.”

Me: “Seriously, answer me. Which mom-bitch did you want to poke with your pumpkin stem?”

He kept ignoring that particular question, which makes me believe it was Aging Hipster Dick he had eyes for. And he told me later that he “doesn’t hate any kids.” What the fuck is wrong with him?

Me: “When you pick pumpkins, what are things you look for?”

Henry: “Size and color.”

Me: “Like when you’re looking for dicks on the Internet? When you were in the SERVICE, did you ever cut glory holes into pumpkins?”

Henry: “Interview over.”

Me: “Did you leave some of the pumpkin guts inside to give it a nice, squishy vaginal effect?”

No answer. Obviously that means yes.

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One of my co-workers called out to me from her office, “Do you like tomatoes?”

That’s a loaded question. I suppose I do like tomatoes, but only on certain occasions, in certain foods and sliced in certain ways.

But this was coming from a co-worker that I’m not very close with; not wanting to engage her any further by revealing intimate details about my dietary habits, I settled for a simple, “Sure.”

And then there she was, standing before me with a carton of cherub tomatoes.

“Here, take one!” she said eagerly, arms extended like she was handing me a birthday gift. “It’s like an explosion of flavor in your mouth!”

Stunned, I stuck one tentative hand beyond the plastic covering of the carton and right smack into the warzone of small red torture devices.

Never do I just EAT A TOMATO. Oh, I know all about you fools who shake some salt on those motherfuckers and eat ‘em like a goddamn apple. But that’s not for me. Put it on a grilled cheese, for sure, but someone gives me a whole entire tomato and it’s getting chucked for fun.

What a Normal Person Might Do:

  • Politely decline.
  • Pretend to have gum in their mouth.
  • Puncture their breast implant and run.

What Erin Does:

  • Accept the challenge.

I felt backed into a wall by then, anyway. My hand was already instinctively in the carton (actually, by this point, it was stuck in the carton; have you seen the gargantuan rings I wear?) so this was definitely the point of no return; and she was standing there all excited and wide-eyed, waiting to become Tomato Bros with me. I was willing to tell her what she wanted to hear just to make her go away.

It was the size of a fig, the one I withdrew. Instead of biting it, I sighed heavily and popped the whole thing into my fake-smiling mouth.

My molars squished into it and sent guts of the tomato gushing through my mouth; the wet, gelatinous texture made my sad tongue curl back in terror. This was definitely not a good time for my taste buds, or my gag reflex for that matter. I’ve had an easier time getting through reluctant, obligated blow jobs.

That’s about when the tang of bile began to slowly crawl up my throat like a geriatric geyser. I was still chewing and smiling while she stood there expectedly, praying that she doesn’t notice I’m dry heaving with zipped lips. And then of course, a veritable reel of disgusting images played out inside my mind, because why wouldn’t I want to think about:

  • snakes engulfing writhing rodents,
  • Snooki’s kooka engulfing writhing rodents,
  • Sarah Palin as President, and
  • Grandma Cleavage modeling her new Irish Snuggie,

while I’m hosting what I can only describe as Satan’s sour semen on the bed of my tongue.

The short version: It was yucky, you guys. :(

My body was trying to reject it into my cupped palms but she just wouldn’t walk away.

Someone else walked by and she turned to offer them their own cherub (who tossed it into his mouth like he’s some Huck Finn motherfucker, I might add; I might also add that his name is MITCH, the worst Facebook friend in the whole world, and you know why I can add that? Because HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THIS EXISTS BECAUSE HE NEVER CHECKS IN WITH HIS STUPID FACEBOOK FRIENDS.), affording me a few seconds to openly cringe and emulate the No Bueno! grimace a baby makes when being force-fed organic mashed peas. I definitely didn’t want to swallow, so I tucked it behind my teeth, under my tongue, if I could have dripped it down into my bra, I would have; and then I choked out a strained, “It’s really good, thanks!” Like it would have killed her if I told her the truth, as if she grew this bitch in her own goddamn garden from seeds extracted from her loins. And then I couldn’t hold on to it any longer—I swallowed. I mean, it might as well have been a load of ejaculate so why the hell not?

“An explosion of flavor, right?!”

Yes, something like that.

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Chooch: “What does ‘selfish’ mean?”
Me: “When you only think about yourself.”
Henry, at the same time as me: “Erin Kelly.”
**********
Apparently, we’ve only been doing what I want to do, but hello—if I left our itinerary up to Henry, I’d probably be in a tent right now, unable to update my blog.

Gross.

We did agree on one thing though—Clingman’s Dome. It’s an observation tower about a 45 minute drive up into the higher elevations of the Smokies. We decided to wake up early to do this in case Bill and Jessi had any plans for us in the afternoon.

This entailed waking Chooch up. When it comes to slumber, Chooch is a little divo. You let him wake up on his own, else you’ll have a snapping piranha on your hands.

Which we did yesterday morning. However, at least we made it to Thursday before our child to returned to his old ways of being a noncompliant asshole. What a great run we had.

The whole way up the mountain, he made his presence known in the backseat as he bucked and kicked at the back of my seat and allowed Satan himself to use Chooch’s mouth as a death threat portal. There were several times I had legitimate chills.

If you’ve ever seen Back to the Beach, think of Bobby in the backseat, only younger and way more sinister than sarcastic. Henry even turned around a few times a la Frankie Avalon and threatened to bust him in the mouth. IT WAS AN AWESOME JOYRIDE UP THE SIDE OF A FUCKING SCARY MOUNTAIN YOU GUYS. My nerves were not shot at all.

We saw another bear though!

“Oh shit, that’s a cub. Bye!” Henry yelled, flooring it.

It only got worse when we reached our destination and freed him from his cage. Thank god there was barely anyone there when we arrived because he was being so loud, so disrespectful, so spoiled-5-year-old that I came very close to making him a permanent fixture of the Smokies.

And this was before we realized it was a half-mile hike uphill from the parking lot to the tower. Oh, how he wept and shrieked, “MY LEGS HURT OMG IM DYING!” after taking two steps.

The elevation was 6600 feet and we quite literally had our heads in the clouds. It was so hard to breathe to begin with, and then you add in the accelerated heart rate that Chooch had given us and we both were sure we were going to go into cardiac arrest.

He finally stopped screaming near the top, only because two hikers emerged from the woods and Chooch is extremely vain just like me. But he refused to go all the way up to the tower because there were about 8 people there, opting instead to hang back on the curved ramp with his arms crossed and the surliest visage I think I have ever seen on him.

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And of course we couldn’t see shit through the clouds, but despite that and the fact we have an asshole kid, it was still cool to be there, inhaling clouds.

Chooch was fine after that because we were leaving which is what he wanted.

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Captain Surly-Sack.

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This will probably be the only thing about this vacation that Chooch remembers when he grows up, creating a vitriolic aversion to Tennessee. I’ll be sure to blame it on Henry.

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I never realize how much of a jerk parent I am until I say things out loud to co-workers and their fingers involuntarily look up the number for Child Protective Services.

The other day, Sandy and Barb were complaining about a co-worker who was coughing and sneezing all day.

“There goes Typhoid Mary again,” Sandy said, all annoyed.

“Oh, I know what you mean. Yesterday, Chooch sneezed like eighteen times in succession and I was like, ‘God, get a life!’” I said, feeling a real sense of camardarie.

“You told him to get a life?” Barb reiterated.

“Well yeah, because he was annoying me. I mean, who needs to sneeze that much?”

They both laughed, but I guess I kind of saw how maybe I could have chosen my words better. Or, you know, offered him a tissue instead.

***

I hurt my back today. I started to notice it while I was exercising, but I’m on an intense “I’m Fat and Should Die” kick so I sucked it up and continued through the pain. By the time I was done, I was laying on the floor, whimpering and unable to stand up.

Chooch took no pity on me.

“Stop being a crybaby,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt that bad, let’s go outside.”

So we went outside, where I writhed on the front porch and reminded him every 3 seconds of the excruciating pain I was in.

Then he scraped himself and got all Wounded Animal on me, but I scoffed. “You didn’t care about my back, so I don’t care about your scrape!”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. I only found that out when I came to work and told Barb and Kaitlin about how much of a bastard my own son was being to me while I clearly have a broken back.

“Erin!” Barb exclaimed. “Who’s the adult here?”

“But he hurt my feelings!” I argued.

“Yeah, but—he’s five!”

I mean, at least I’m not hitting him in the face with hot frying pans, right? Is that not good enough?

Well then, I guess tonight if you need me, I’ll be sitting in my room working on the parent rosary.

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I don’t normally buy those exorbitantly-priced photos taken at the most inopportune times on roller coasters because they can make even Jennifer Aniston look like her fourth chin is giving birth to an alien flesh-sac with crossed eyes. But after I saw the one of Janna and me on the Sky Rocket, I started laughing so hard that I had to use my thighs as bladder-tourniquets. Janna had this intense look of “Please don’t buy this” in her eyes, almost as if she just knew what was going through my mind.

“I have to have it,” I blurted out to the guy working the photo booth. Suddenly, $10 seemed cheap for a memory that will last a lifetime. I couldn’t stop laughing the whole time we waited for it be printed. Janna seemed considerably less amused, but every so often I’d get a nervous laugh out of her.

I couldn’t wait to show Henry when we met back up with him and Chooch. I began laughing all over again, that insane staccato chuckle I’m notorious for when things have reached the Apex of Giddy. I even cried a little; people were looking at this point.

Henry looked at the picture and just frowned. He was probably angry that I had the audacity to spend my own hard-earned money on such frivolties instead of Desitin for his sweaty summer balls.

This picture is so fucking bad, it’s amazing.

  1. If I look like this on a ride that isn’t even scary, I can only imagine how I’ll look if I ever find myself hunted in an Alaskan* forest by Michael Myers carrying a boom box that’s a’blast with Katy Perry’s Worst Misses. Coincidentally, this is also what I look like when Henry makes me have sex with him. :(
  2. This was taken .002 seconds after Janna cupped Josh Groban’s balls and then died of happiness. What a peaceful corpse she makes.
  3. Someone once told the guy in the front seat to treat every moment in life like it’s a deodorant commercial.

I have more pictures and shit to say, but this was the definite highlight of my day. I hope that when I’m on my death bed, someone shows me this, because that’s really how I’d like to peace out.

(*Alaska scares the shit out of me.)

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I bought Chooch some Aquasaurs for his birthday, this intriguing kit of “prehistoric water pets.”  We apparently can’t have normal pets in this house. The first batch of “eggs” I dumped into the water never hatched. I bitched for awhile about how they were duds, but then Henry tried the second half of the batch and the eggs flourished, so of course it was all my fault and he gloated about it for a few seconds before I kicked him in the stomach.

At first, the baby Aquasaurs were little flecks, the same way sea monkeys start out in this scary world, but after about a week they pretty much began doubling in size overnight.

Every night.

There are some in the tank that are so gigantor, I have to turn away in fear, cupping my hands over my mouth in case the dry-heaving escalates to something more fruitful. (Literally; I have been eating a lot of melon these days.) One is at such a maximum girth that I promise you he casts a shadow over the room when he swims to the front of the tank.

The fact that I’m so freaked out over these bastard sea monsters only makes Henry and Chooch like them even more. Last week when I was at work, Henry emailed me a video he took with his phone. I assumed it was going to feature our child doing something douchey, I mean adorable, but no. No, it was the FUCKING AQUASAURS.

I coughed deeply and violently, swallowed my tongue briefly, and then deleted it.

THEY ARE EVEN BIGGER TODAY. I didn’t believe Chooch when he said, “Mommy they’re even bigger today!” BUT THEY ARE EVEN BIGGER TODAY. Some of these fucking nasty, slimy, forked-tail pieces of sea-shit are rivaling the size of standard goldfish. (I JUST SHUDDERED AND I CANT EVEN SEE THEM FROM WHERE I AM SITTING.)

MY FEAR AND DISGUST OF AQUASAURS VALIDATES MY USE OF CAPS-LOCK.

The only bright side to this whole pet debacle is that at least this isn’t something that can be extracted from the tank and thrust at my face in a taunting fashion. I mean, I think Chooch knows that. I HOPE Chooch knows that.

I was in Wendy’s office earlier tonight, trying to explain to her these obnoxious “scientific delights.” She went to YouTube and proceeded to find the most revolting Aquasaurs videos known to man.

Like this one:

Some of my work friends are grossed out by the sea monkeys on my desk but I guarantee, once they watch this video, the sea monkeys will seem like cuddly kittens to them. I very honestly do not even have my feet on the floor right now because I’m so afraid one of them is going to escape and slurp up my leg and turn me into an incubator for a new species and OMG NOW I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT.

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Many years ago, when I was friends with that crazy lady Cinn, she was dead set on making her own absinthe.

“I found a place on the Internet where we can buy wormwood!” she squealed. She said “we” when she meant “you” because I was the one with mommy’s American Express. I was nineteen, extremely impressionable and essentially learning how to be a better Goth from this strange fiery-haired lady I met in a chatroom called Darkchat. Apparently making our own absinthe in a cauldron was imperative to be legit in the scene and might even negate the fact that we bought our dresses for the Dracula’s Ball at Hot Topic. (Remember when Hot Topic was “goth”?)

But then Cinn found another Internet stranger to distract her with marriage proposals and faux-fang bite marks, and our homemade absinthe never came to fruition. Which is probably for the best, because Cinn couldn’t even drink a fucking glass of Manischevitz wine without trying to grope me. I could only guess that with veritable crazy juice in her system, she’d try to grope and Van Gogh me.

I never really thought about it since then. But last week, Sandy sent me a link to a new gastro-pub called Meat and Potatoes that opened up downtown and said we should try it some night after work. It’s a prohibition-style bar and they have absinthe!

Then I saw that they also have poutine, and I believe that was the point where I officially became obsessed with going there. I’d like to say I was only borderline annoying about it, but I’m sure if you asked my co-workers, they’d swap out “borderline” for “motherfucking.”

It was too crowded Friday night, so Sandy promised that we would go the next time she worked late shift, which was this past Tuesday. I pouted internally for a little while but at least Sandy had given me something to look forward to. It’s almost like Henry has been feeding her tips. It was all for the best anyway because a certain co-worker was with us that night (if we work together and you’re reading this, it’s obviously not you!) and her mere presence had the ability to mar my very special experience. Totally didn’t want to be sharing this particular memory with her. She might think we’re friends.

I was bouncing in my seat all Tuesday night. Work seemed to go so slow. But by 8:30, Sandy had rounded up two other analysts to join us—Regina and Mitch—and we finally got a table at Meat and Potatoes. (Though I didn’t appreciate the uncertain face-scrunches the hostess was giving us when we asked for a table that could potentially seat five in case another co-worker showed up.)

I don’t know why I looked at the menu; I already knew what I wanted. But there were two different sorts of absinthe–a domestic and one from France. So when I asked our waiter which one he preferred, he said they had an “absinthe guy,” and went to find him.

“You know this isn’t the real stuff,” Mitch said to me, and I was a little insulted. Thanks, dad!

“It’s really foul,” Mitch added, but I ignored him. Later I would learn that Sandy shared his sentiments but didn’t say anything to dissuade me. I’d like to believe that’s because she wanted me to make my own mistakes, but I have a feeling the reality is that she was interested to see how this scene would play out so she could make fun of me at work every day.

My personal absinthe sommelier then arrived and I was immediately seduced by his Eastern European accent and fashionably-gapped teeth. He explained that the only difference about the absinthe in America is that it’s only 90 proof. That was fine by me, because I’m sure Henry will agree that even 90 proof is way too much for this little psychotic lightweight.

“Would you like to watch me prepare it?” he suggested and he could have been saying, “Would you like to watch me watching the 700 Club?” and I still would have said yes, because hello, this guy was totally my new boyfriend. (Sorry, Jonny Craig.) I stood up so fast, I almost knocked over my chair. It did scrape loudly against the floor though, which wasn’t at all embarrassing. (Sorry, Meat and Potatoes floor.)

I couldn’t hear half of what Absinthe Expert was saying over the din of the bar as he set a pretty glass underneath some medieval water torture device. He then placed a slatted metal thing over the glass—-which I should know the name of considering I was the star student in bartending school, class of ’99 bitches—-and on top of that he stacked a sugar cube. He then turned one of the valves on the water contraption and I had to stand there for unlimited minutes, watching this water slowly drip the fuck out, not hearing/understanding a single word this man was saying to me (I can only assume we are now betrothed, considering I shook my head affirmatively to everything). Except you know what I did hear? I heard, “Do you like the taste of anise?”

“Yes,” I said with a smile. FUCK NO I DO NOT LIKE THE TASTE OF ANISE. Not even a little bit. Not even if it was infused in the heart of my worst enemy and offered up for me to take a huge, ravishing bite. Not even if it was Jonny Craig’s all-time favorite flavor and he agreed to marry me only if our wedding cake was one giant tiered, fennel-frosted seed of anise.

And I knew this! This was not a surprise twist to my personal absinthe story; I knew it was probably going to taste like black licorice passed through Satan’s ureter like a flaming kidney stone, but I guess I hoped the addition of the sugar cube would help to cancel out some of those flavors I absolutely can’t stand. I mean, sugar makes everything taste better! (Or is that cheese?)

Besides, absinthe is such a pretty emerald color! (Newsflash: there’s a reason absinthe is the same color as antifreeze.)

Absinthe Specialist, whose accent was becoming less and less charming, made me stand there as I took my inaugural sip in front of him. It tasted like radioactive black Twizzlers in a cup laced with Ipecac. So, not too bad at first. I pried my lips back from against my teeth long enough to smile at him and say, “Mmm! Great!” but my voice came out all strangulated. I took my cup back to the table where everyone was waiting expectantly and probably not at all placing bets on how long it was going to take me to throw up.

What sorts of superlatives does one use when they want to lie about the fact that what is inside their mouth is secretly trying to kill them? “Exquisite” and “splendid” seemed a little over-the-top, so I went with “good.” It was between that and “God’s own fruited ejaculate,” but you know I don’t like to be crude.

“I really like it,” I lied. I tried to sound convincing, but I was sure I could hear my actual voice itself crying its own tears after being drenched in poison.

Maybe Sandy, Mitch and Regina bought it, but considering they had all tried it before, they probably recognized the anguish in my eyes.

I couldn’t stop staring at the pretty, fruity drink sitting in front of Regina. She’s so lucky, I thought to myself, as I forced the tip of my tongue to take the world’s weakest lap of absinthe before chasing it with copious gulps of water. But the water did little to put out the bonfire in my belly. I had heartburn once when I was pregnant. Whatever was going on in my esophagus on this particular night was way worse. It’s a wonder Van Gogh stopped at just his ear.

After awhile, it was like drinking a cupful of Seabreeze from your sixteen-year-old self’s bathroom sink, with an entire pizzelle factory ground in. I was afraid I was going to suck my entire face off with the vigorous flinches even the tiniest sips were forcing from me. After every drink, my cup seemed to refill itself. There was no way I could keep up my charade, and the waiter wasn’t filling my water glass fast enough, so I finally admitted to everyone that I hated it. And you know, I give them credit for not going the “I Told You So” route (that’s OK, because Henry did enough of that for all of them later that night), but they all that smug, knowing look on their faces as they enjoyed their pretty, sane-people beverages.

(Oh my god, I just tasted it again from memory. Please hold while I swish with horse piss.)

At one point, I noticed my Absinthe Boyfriend sitting at the bar with some other bitch and I felt so used. Coincidentally, the absinthe began to taste even more toxic and loathsome after that.

Did I mention there was sweating involved? Well, there was. Profuse sweating. Like I was on trial for lying about loving absinthe.

It didn’t make me sick, but I was left with this uncomfortable, heated sensation in my gut for the rest of the night, like it had birthed anise-infused fireballs and angry fists. Psychologically, the effects were worse; it made me think I was for real going to die, that I had been poisoned. But that could also be because I’m super melodramatic by nature. And also because Henry tried to poison me once. Add a few sips of lore-packed alcohol and I’m ready for my padded room. I can’t even smoke pot without wanting to roll out of a moving car, which is why I haven’t done that in over ten years. I excel at psyching myself out.

I’m pretty sure there are still-smoking track marks traversing the course of my gullet.

That night, unable to rinse the taste from my palate, I had flashbacks of being 16 in a jewelry store in Greece, where the owner was passing around cups of Ouzo (ingenious sales tactic, really) and the taste was so liquid-black-jelly-bean-on-LSD that my throat closed up, completely refused to let this libation from Hell pass through, so I kept it pooled in my mouth, burning ulcers into my cheeks. “It burn sins out, yeh?” the shop owner said to me in broken English, slapping me on the back and nearly causing me to drown on the Ouzo which had now made my mouth go numb. I remember thinking I’d stick to old-fashioned Confession, thank you.

I have not had Ouzo since.

Adding absinthe to my personal prohibition list.

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I wasn’t looking for love at Soul Skate. It was hotter than Snookie’s kooka in that joint and really all I was focused on was not melting into a flesh-puddle while rollin’ to Justin Timberlake’s “Summer Love,” which I never realized just how truly anthemic that song really is until I had quads laced to my feet. (Also, Alicia Key’s “I’m Ready” made me almost consider giving Henry a sex-coupon, which never would have happened outside of a roller rink.)

And then I saw him: the rink lights bouncing off his smooth-shaven pate, the slick way he b-boy’ed around the rink with the best of the soul skaters, spinning tricks and commanding attention.

Holy shit, he was exactly my type! Which is: not Henry.

AND THEN HE DID A SPLIT, YOU GUYS.

To put it simply, motherfucker had it going on. (Does anyone still say that, other than En Vogue fans circa 1993?) I started imagining all the scenarios in which we paired up for couple’s skate, our roller passion so undeniably palpable that disco balls and T’Pau records birthed between us.

Of course, I told Henry immediately. I always alert him when there is someone within close proximity that I want to reverse-rape. He has the extreme misfortune of not only being my boyfriend, but also best friend, and sometimes those lines get a little more than blurred.

Since the rink was doubling as a sweat-tent, I had to take generous breaks to stand by the open side-door and wring out my tank top which was already the sheerest material I could morally get away with wearing in public, but skating around that rink on a ninety-degree day made me feel like I forgot to leave my burqa at home. I was sitting on the bench, across from the open door, tweeting faux love notes about this totally skilled skater when I looked up and saw him.

He was standing across from me by the door.

He smiled.

I smiled back.

He said something indecipherable, presumably about the heat, and I laughed and nodded, which is my go-to when I have no clue what’s going on. In my mind, I pretended he was wondering out loud why a hottie like me was ringless. And in my mind, I was saying back, “You think you’re sweaty now, baby?” The next thing I knew, Henry was sidling up next to me and my prey skated away.

“DID YOU SEE HIM TALKING TO ME?” I squealed.

Henry rolled his eyes.

“If he asks me to skate with him, will you let me?” I pleaded, adopting my best whiny-daughter tone.

Henry’s reaction is as follows:

We were still sitting there when Roller Crush skated by backward. He smiled at me, and I smiled back coyly then buried my head in Henry’s belly to smother my laughter.

“You know he’s been going out of his way to skate near you,” Henry mumbled. NO, I DID NOT KNOW THAT! God, Henry is a good wing-man.

So that was fun for awhile, making eye contact and then looking away bashfully, like suddenly I was in 3rd grade again with my big blond ponytail, flirting with boys from other schools at skating parties. (I was decidedly not cute at all anymore after third grade, so good thing I got in all that pre-teen flirting while boys could still look at me without vomiting.)

But about 45-minutes later, Henry and I were taking another break when Roller Lover came over, stood right beneath the pulsating speaker, and started talking to me as though Henry was completely invisible. (Which is completely acceptable, actually.) Again, I could barely hear what he was saying, but I heard enough to make me want to punch all those lustful feelings right back up into my ‘gina. He opened his mouth and braggadocio projectiled out on waves of squirrel-voiced bullshit. Through snaggled teeth, he told me about how he can “skate with the best of them” and how he and his ex-girlfriend were basically the King and Queen of shadow-skating. (Minus-87,000 points for bringing up an ex-girlfriend in the first sentence. Christ, that was annoying, a total turn-off.)

(Oh, look at me, acting like my boyfriend of 10 years wasn’t sitting right next to me.)

He said he goes to all of the Rollers’ parties, but this was the first time I have ever seen him.

And then he splashed sweat on me.

Henry at this point had completely checked-out of the conversation and was staring wistfully over my shoulder. I kept trying to make eye contact with him so he could bail me out, but I have a feeling he was purposely ignoring me. He does that sometimes, like all the time.

“You know what song I love to skate to? Return of the Mack,” Roller Disappointment said, almost smugly, like he was hoping to stump me.

“Um, yeah, that’s only like the best song ever to skate to,” I returned in my own smug tone.

“I’m going to see if the DJ will play it for us,” he said excitedly, and skated off. I was going to mention that Roller DJ ALWAYS plays that song and shouldn’t he know that since he comes to all of the soul skates, but I let him go because that was my way out. I slipped back onto the rink so fast, I almost fell backward. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Roller Braggart was now sitting down by the rest rooms, changing t-shirts. I imagine his other one had to be half-dry by then, since he wrung most of it out on me while we were talking. A drop of his sweat even got near my lip and just typing that out made me dry-heave all over again.

Now that my skating goggles had been forcefully adjusted, I began to see that he actually had no rhythm at all. Sure, he could stunt better than most of the guys on the rink that night, but he had no flow whatsoever. Total skate-jam foul. (Look at me, like I’m some fucking Beyonce-replica on quads.)

Roller Doof sniffed me out later when I was standing by the door, letting the breeze blow under my shirt. During this painful conversation, I learned that he’s from Wheeling, which is apropos because it’s “WHEELing, GET IT? ROLLER SKATES HAVE WHEELS?” he shouted at my face. Yeah, I got it, Roller Perspiration, now back up off me.

Henry was clear on the other side of the rink, looking at the skate display that hasn’t changed since we started going there in January.

“Return of the Mack” came on just then.

“There’s our song!” he yelled, smiling all goofily. And that is how I ended up skating with a man who was not Henry. I can’t not skate to “Return of the Mack!” That’s the epitome of roller skate theme songs. So if it just so happens that some crazed man is skating alongside me, then so be it. I put myself in my Professional Skater zone and cruised along, muttering several “I bet!”s every now and then in reply to his tall tales. Then I noticed Henry back on the rink so I slowed my pace, and Roller Creeper kept going, not noticing my absence.

“What the fuck!” I yelled to Henry when he caught up with me. It was like he just came back from an “I Told You So” facial. Every last inch of his visage was silently admonishing me. Finally he said, “You asked for it.”

The rest of the night turned into a cat and mouse chase. Roller Stalker would literally cut across the rink just so he could skate beside me, causing me to panic and increase my pace, wedging a wall of soul skaters between us. I’m totally going to just stick with the black people from now on.

Here he is, in his third t-shirt of the night. My hand-drawn heart oozes sarcasm.

We could have taken the night, been a tour du force under the rainbow track lights, and then rode home together on the back of a Ke$ha-sponsored unicorn. If only he hadn’t opened his mouth.

And now I leave you with Mark Morris’s seminal hit “Return of the Mack.”

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