The Perfects and Poop Meatballs

Hey bitches,

Long time, no post.

So Hooligan #1 has developed a crush on one of the Perfects who live next-door. Her name is Littlest Perfect and she has her mother's last name. (I've discovered that all of the Perfect children have Mrs. Perfect's last name. No hyphen. No divorce. Mrs. Perfect simply wanted the kids to have her last name. I say whatevs. But my hubs is bothered and bewildered by this and dying to shake Mrs. P.'s emasculated mate and yell, "WHAT's the deal, man? Grow a pair.")

I like the Perfects. At least, I think I do. But we haven't hit it off famously and I can't put my finger on why. Maybe it's because Mrs. Perfect is currently in New Mexico at a leadership retreat so she can come back and impart her wisdom to the Girl Scout troop she leads, PTO she chairs, and small country she rules.

Back to Hooligan #1's crush. It was a rare morning. My house was clean. Mrs. P. was away. So I told Hooligan #1 he can ask Little P. over to play. This is their First Indoor Playdate. It begins swimmingly. Until Little asks for Play-Doh.

Fuuuuck.

But she's a guest. She wins. They make Play-Doh Spaghetti with Meatballs. I play some classical music. Mr. Emasculation comes over to check on his offspring. We're a vision of domestic bliss, a Martha Stewart wet dream.

"Eveything's A-OK!" I chirp. I even offer to watch Little while he shops or gets manscaped or whatever the fuck.

And then Hooligan #1's teacher calls. "Your son is doing terrific, but . . ."

But?

"But I'm sorry to report that your son has a weak hand," she tells me. "He writes his letters from bottom to top, not top to bottom. I'd like him to see an occupational therapist."

He's FIVE, I want to say. But instead I say, "Do what ya gotta do."

Then she says, "He also has a short attention span" and I drift off. . . .

I'm on the phone with her in the next room for all of TWO MINUTES when Little's Dad reappears. He is standing outside the sliding glass doors of my kitchen looking in on the once-serene kids who, in my absence, have gone apeshit. They are standing on chairs. They have changed the soft classical music to blaring Korn. They are throwing around the brown Play-Doh "meatballs" and yelling:

"POOP!" "POOOOOOOOP!" "POOP FIGHT!"

Hooligan #2 flings a handful of something at the sliding glass doors and there it sticks, a Play-Doh poop, right in front of Mr. E's horrified face.

Meanwhile, Hooligan #1's teacher won't let me off the phone. When I finally hang up and let Mr. E. in, I say, "I promise everything was under control. I just left for a minute . . ."

"The trick is not to leave," he says.

Then he grabs his kid and sprints out the door. And I feel shamed . . . until I remember that his wife has Bobbited his manhood . . . and I have a lot of cleaning to do. Play-Doh is a bitch. Whoever invented it did not have children. Ditto to the bottom freezer drawer.

So, what's new with you?

RENT-A-NANA

I have a plan that will make us MILLIONS. Millions, by golly!

*Sniffle*

I also have a cold. A hacky, sneezy, chappy, two-tissue box-a-day, nasty whore of a cold. (And riddle me this. Why do colds always give me a Super-Sized Afro? Does this happen to anyone else or am I the only one jamming snowball-sized snotrags, as well as a hair pick into my purse . . . or back pocket, if I'm feeling extra groovy.)


Runny nose + high temperature = Disco Fever

Although I do love me the Sudafed, Non-Drowsy and Drowsy, upping and downing more than fat Elvis in the bedazzled jumpsuit, I need something else. Or someone, really.

I need my mom.

Mom. I really need my mommy. To give me hot tea and buttered toast. To tuck me in snug. To turn off the lights and shut my bedroom door and gently tell my family, "You're mother's sleeping, sweeties, so please . . . STAY THE FUCK OUT!"

Instead I'm the mom, so there is no rest. My kids care about three things--eating cereal, saying the word "poop," and breaking shit. Not being Apple Jacks, excrement, or glass lamps, my cold is irrelevant.

Here is where my plan comes in. I'm starting a business. A service, if you will. People hire nannies, don't they? Well, let's push the envelope. Let 'em hire nanas. You know, sweet old ladies who come in and care for moms who are sick? These grandmas-for-hire will watch the kids, serve tea, and toast bread all at once! RENT-A-NANA is a granny goldmine, a white-haired windfall, a geriatric jackpot!

In fact, I've already begun the application process. As a test run, I'm choosing one of these lovely ladies to care for me. Who shall I choose? Let's take a peek.


She looks like a pistol, sure, but a bit chatty. I'm looking for silence, carbs, and an indecent amount of butter--not Crockpot recipes and "Judge Judy" play-by-plays. Pass.


Now this is better. An eager beaver, this one. She's already working on my cuppa.


Aw man, now this gal's gone and poisoned it. Yeah, I'm not falling for your tampered Tetley, lady. No thanks to the Earl Gray with two lumps of arsenic. After you, sweetcheeks.


Ah, this fine grandmama's a speaking my language: "Tea, dearie? Fuck tea. Nana's making you a hot toddy. Oh, and your toast needs waaay more butter. What are you, on a diet? Silly young girl. You can bounce a quarter off your tush." DING, DING, DING! We have a winner.

Yeah, RENT-A-NANA is going to make me millions. Just you wait. It will be huge. HUGE, I tell you. Ill moms everywhere will be thanking me for the clutch elderly hook-up.

Of course, lest we go the way of Annie Wilkes, there will always be a screening process. . . .

Here's the Part Where We Dance

You know how one day, you're driving in your car listening to Lite Favorites from the 70s and you hear a song you've heard a gazillion times but never really paid attention to, when suddenly it hits you -- you are listening to THE BEST SONG EVER and why didn't you realize its genius earlier? And you turn up the volume and roll down the windows and bust out some sweet moves in the bucketseat and sing at the top of your lungs and that song is never the same again?

Yeah. I love those moments, too.

Life is good.

Kick it, The Emotions.

A Mystery

The September Rules are limping along to the finish line. Needless to say, there have been digressions.

Sometimes a girl needs to drink at a U2 concert tailgate because a.)the beer is free, b.) she has become keenly aware of how sad it is to now belt out "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" as a middle-aged woman.(Smug twenty-somethings, you'll blink and be doing the same at the snorefest of whatever Coldplay-Deathcab for Crappy-Kings of Bland bunch of wankers you love.) Furthermore, c.) the beer is free.

And sometimes a girl needs to eat an entire BLT pizza and fries and three large DD iced coffees the next day so as to not puke in her Odyssey on the way to a PTO meeting.

But my hangover is not what I've come here to discuss. Have we forgotten my original mission to report on inner suburbia? To uncover the underbelly of Utopia? To unearth the secrets and lies hidden behind pretty little boxes on the hillside?

To set the scene, I live in Stepford Wife country. Activities include sailing, golfing, mowing lawns, and popping collars. In nearly every driveway, you will find a blue Volvo station wagon. In nearly every house, you will find a hyper-fit woman who does not work, as well as two to four brats with bowl haircuts. What you will NOT find is a man because he is in an office, bar, or woman two towns over.

This is a town that is full of overeducated rich white people driving luxury cars to the country club or yacht club or soccer/lacrosse/field hockey practice, and yet . . .

This is a town that once banned an ice cream shop from placing a statue of an orange cow on its property because the Council of Constipated didn't think an orange cow fit the town's character, and yet . . .

This is a dry town, and yet . . .

it is keeping a secret.

Behind a house a half a mile away from where I type this sits an illegal, after-hours bar called the Shack. The story is that some crazy guy who lives with his mom has been running a bar in the garage behind her house for years. Everyone know about it--cops, politicians, reporters. And no one says a word.

I had heard rumors about the Shack for a while. Having only a vague idea of its location, I tried to find it without success. I dismissed it as a suburban legend, a myth, an impossible dream. But this weekend, I met a drunk chick at the U2 tailgate party who has been to the Shack and told me the street name. (A longish street with a few side streets that cross it, but still . . . I can work with it.)

It is my destiny to visit this Shack. It is my quest. No cul-de-sac shall be left unexplored. No lane left untouched. The Shack is my personal Holy Grail, and rest assured, I will find it and report to you my findings.

Has Mama finally found a place to hang her hat? An escape from the Mr. and Mrs. Perfects? Has she finally found her beloved ruffians and thugs? Oh, where, oh where, can you be?????

People Like Crap and I Like Other People's Crappy Mail

There are two things I love about flying: Bloody Marys and SkyMall. I dig vodka and crap catalogs. And lucky me, my new suburban address is on the mailing list of every crapola catalog in print. The previous owner's junk mail has serendipitously defaulted to Current Resident--moi.

So, let's go shopping, shall we?

Crossword Men's PJs

What's a nine-letter word for "this man is not getting laid tonight"? We've come "across" a little number that guarantees its wearer nobody will be going "down" on him.

Wolf Bedding

This bedroom says, "I LOVE WOLVES!" and "I'M FUCKING CRAZY!" The most frightening thing about this bedroom set is that someone in the world actually owns it. And what luck! It comes with matching curtains.

Ginormous Travel Pillow

A SkyMall classic, the hugeungmous, neck-wrenching travel pillow. We are missing the "Before" photo, in which this gentleman spends 45 minutes blowing up said pillow using only his breath. Here we have the "After" shot, in which he's collapsed from the effort.

Open Letter to My Suburban Hairdresser

Dear Kooky Hairdresser Lady,

I like you, kooky hairdresser lady. Sure, you've been fired from four different salons. No matter. I've followed you to each and every dump. Even this last atrocity. You know, the nail salon in the strip mall that says nothing at all about HAIR on its signage?

Yeah, I've met you there. In the corner of Jazzy's Nails, where our hairstyling encounter was tucked away by a decrepit sink like some back-alley abortion.

And sure, you only take cash now because you say Jazzy doesn't "get" you, and it might be because when she sneezed you said, "Jazus, you even sneeze in Vietnamese!" right before you made me look like Robert Plant with foils and paraded me around the room like the Elephant Man, a giant frizzball stumbling blindly, arms outstretched, among a roomful of silky, sleek-haired Asian women.

And that's all fine. It's fine, kooky hairdresser lady. It's fine that no matter how I tell you I want my hair, you unfailingly give me a '90s Rachel shag. And it's fine that you impale me with scissors and stab my cranium with comb handles and burn my scalp with hairdryers.

That's fine. I will still follow you. Because you're cheap. And I like you, kooky hairdresser lady. I do.

But please, PLEASE, for the love of Pete, stop it with the old lady magazines. When you have a stack of Star and OK!, WHY do you give me the Ladies Home Journal? Do I look like a decoupager who makes American Chop Suey? Knock it the fuck off with the Good Housekeeping. That's just mean. And if you ever again give me Reader's Digest --the magazine my grandfather read on the can--I will cut you out of my life forever. Snip, snip.

Thank you for your time. Please keep me posted on your next place of employment.

Sincerely yours,
Sugar Mama

Cocktail Moms

A little Momversation, as posted on Stefanie Wilder-Taylor's blog Baby on Bored.

Confession: My first thought was that I'd love to sit down and have a glass of wine with these gals. Thought #2: I'd like me some Botox. Stat.