Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

It all started with a picture. There I was having a blast, delicious adult beverage in one hand, cigarette in the other, laughing at something I’m sure was hilarious. But looking at the picture did not bring me joy. Instead I felt more than a little horrified. I looked at the woman in the picture and did not see my normal chubby self. What I saw was a big, giant blob of diabetes with a cancer chaser in each hand.  Damn.

As many of you know, food and me, well we’re not so secret lovers. I’m not just talking about junk, it’s all of it. Bright, delicious fruits and veggies, fresh soft breads, nuts, seeds, yogurt, ice cream, chocolate, foreign, unpronounceable cheese, sea creatures, land creatures, you name it, I love it. And I eat it. A lot of it. Now in the past, I have been able to drop 20 or 30 pounds in a week or two. The shock value and water loss alone is usually a good five or six pounds the first day. I’m a good dieter… short term. So imagine my surprise when after the first day of my new diet I stepped on the scale and I had only lost 2 pounds. What the hell? So we’re gonna play it like that are we? I don’t need a calendar to figure out that my body has decided that it’s too old for this nonsense and has decided to hold onto the chub-a-lub with a death grip. This can only mean one thing. This one’s for good. Sigh. So with one week down (and nearly nine pounds gone) and a lifetime to go, it’s time for me to get real with myself.

1.      While it is true that the camera adds ten pounds, it does not add fifty. While everyone takes a horrible picture every now and then, you will not pacify yourself with lunacy.

2.       You will not use your menstrual cycle as an excuse to eat crap. It’s an easy out, and you know it. Just stay away from sharp objects and suck it up.

3.       The food you eat while making food counts. Stop it.

4.       You will not eat things just so they don’t go to waste. They’ll do you more good in the garbage than on your ass.

5.       Adding things to coffee (chocolate, caramel, peppermint candy, schnapps, etc) does not erase its calories. They’re still there, even if you choose to dismiss them as food accessories.

6.       You will not justify eating bad food by telling yourself that it’s better than worse food. A peanut butter and honey sandwich may be better than a hamburger, but you still need to put it the hell down.

7.       I will not explain away poor choices by telling myself that I deserve a “treat.” You know damn well that the real treats will be accompanied by balloons and a theme song, not eaten at midnight while hiding behind the refrigerator door.

I’m sure there’s more, but you get the idea. No more excuses. Here I go; turning the page. And I know, I’m working on the smoking. Let’s focus on one trauma at a time.  

Wretched Friends

I spent the afternoon helping Wendy clean out her future mother in law's pond. It was disgusting, very hard work, but tons of fun. After creating a sizable heap of what I dubbed "mermaid hair" on the bank (I don’t know, it was some kind of curly stuff that resembled green Spanish moss), we decided to call it quits. We cleaned up our mess and headed back up to the house, both covered in mud and some sort of silt that clung to the hairs on our bodies and made us look like we had strong, burly man hair. Everywhere. Realizing that we were not making much headway with the garden hose and noticing that I have mud in places one should never have mud, I asked Mrs. Bonds if I could jump in the shower. She obliged. About halfway through the shower, I started to feel dizzy and nauseated. I knew from experience that I had gotten too hot and needed to sit down before I passed out. I turned the water on cold only and sat on the little shower bench. The feeling intensified. I knew I had to get out of that hot little room, so I threw on my clean clothes and headed out into the living area. Wendy, having seen this particular combination of symptoms before, takes one look at my clammy pale face and asks, “Oh no. Are you going to throw up?”

“I think it’s passing.” About that time another wave of nausea hits me and I quickly look around for a proper receptacle. The bathroom is not an option, it’s too far away and the doorway is blocked by Randy and his dad with computer parts strewn about. I’ll never make it. I only have one option. I run to the kitchen and arrive just in time to wretch in the sink. Wendy and her mother in law are a mere 20 feet away, and although they are making sympathetic noises, I know they must be repulsed. I try to apologize, but another wretch pulls the words from my mouth, this time it’s deeper and is accompanied by a repulsive guttural burping sound. Lovely. 

I notice Wendy has gotten up and is rifling through some snacks on the counter. She holds some up and asks, “You want some fig newtons? You like fig newtons. I don’t really get it, but I guess you like what you like.” I try not to laugh and heave again. “No? Maybe a granola bar. There’s some granola bars with chocolate. Looks taaaaasty. Wanna 'nola bar? Do ya?” She dangles the granola bar by the corner of the rapper.  Finally my cheese grits from this morning make an appearance and I know I have to be nearing the finish line. “I think I’m going to have one of these chocolate thingies. Maybe two. You know if you’re hungry you shouldn’t be shy. They don’t mind if you have a snack. You really should eat something.”

I manage to squeak out, “I’m gonna punch you in the neck.” While I rinse out my mouth and sheepishly clean the sink with cleanser I found under the sink. 

Why No One Wants To Play With Me

During a recent discussion with Dewie regarding games we played as children, it suddenly dawned on me that I never had a lot of friends growing up. I still don’t. I usually have a main friend, maybe two and then a gaggle of people I just know. As I look back, it probably has a lot more to do with me than moving around a lot or any of the other ten excuses I can come up with.

When I was a mere whippersnapper, one of the games we often played involved raking piles of leaves or pine needles into a floor plan of a house. Although I preferred to play this game alone, sometimes a brave friend would attempt to put up with my need to control everything and offer to play.

Let’s take a ride in the way back machine, shall we? As I’m happily sectioning off the kitchen, cabinets and a roomy pantry in which to store our stick and rock food, I realize with a start that I have forgotten to add a bathroom. I address the little friend who has up until now busied herself with collecting cook-worthy acorns, a job I undoubtedly assigned her, “Hey! I forgot the bathroom. Why don’t you add one?”

She looks at me, excited that I have given her a task that requires more skill than a squirrel, “Ok, yeah! Where should I put it?”

“I don’t know, where ever it makes sense.”

                I turn my attention back to my awesome pantry and soon hear the scratchy sounds of the rake arranging leaves. After a few minutes I walk over to check her work. I am horrified.  “Why in the world would you put the bathroom in front of the front door?!” I squat down to point at the offending bathroom, my long braided pigtail bouncing against my knee.

                “I don’t know. I didn’t know where to put it.”

                “If someone were to visit, do you think they would want to pass someone sitting on the toilet to get to the living room? Does that make sense to you?”

                “Ummm, it’s a leaf house. I don’t think anyone’s going to visit.”

                I take a deep breath, stand up and put my hands on my hips. I calmly address my little friend, making sure to speak slowly so that she understands. “Are you playing make believe or not? I’m going to make believe that the Queen of England is coming over for tea in a few minutes. Then I’m going to make believe that you really had to use the bathroom. Then my make believe Queen of England is going to walk past you pretending to pee on your leaf toilet. Is that what you want?”

                The little friend sighs and picks up the rake. “Where do you want the bathroom?”

                “I point to the hallway. Right there, off the hallway. Be sure to put the good towels out. The Queen is coming.”

Shower Dance

Ever since the great flood, we have been chasing creepy crawly uninvited guests out of the house. I understand that they are just seeking shelter, but this one is occupied. They really need to move on. 

So yesterday I had just stepped into the shower and as I starting working the water through my hair I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. I focused on the blur and there it was, between the shower curtain and liner. A roach the size of my thumb. I’m totally not exaggerating. Hold up your thumb. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Hold up your thumb and picture two giant waving antennae growing out of the top of it. Gross, right?  At first I couldn’t move.  I was shocked out of my paralysis when it started to inch up the curtain. It was nearly to the top and the last barrier between me and that vile creature was quickly diminishing.

“DEEEEEWIE! HEEEEEEEELP!”

“What?”

“HELP ME! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”  She runs in the bathroom.

“Giant roach coming over the curtain. I don’t know what to do. I’m naked and wet and it’s gonna get me!” She peeks into the shower.

“Ooooh yeah. That’s a big one.” Why is she talking all calm like that? This is an emergency!

“GET IT!”

“Where’s Sgt. Swat?”

“On top of the fridge. HURRY!” Dewie disappears. The roach reaches the top of the curtain. “DEWIE! IT’S COMING OVER THE TOP! IT’S COMING OVER THE TOP! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO! WHAT IF IT GETS ON ME?” The roach hangs there with its little sticky legs hanging over the top, waving its gross long antennae menacingly.

“Well at least turn the water off. Why are you saying everything twice?”

“I DON’T KNOW! ” Dewie draws back like she’s going to smack it. “YOU CAN’T SMACK IT THROUGH THE CURTAIN; YOU’RE JUST GOING TO FLIP IN ON ME! IT’S GONNA GET ON MY LADY BUSINESS! OH GOD WHAT IF IT GETS ON MY LADY BUSINESS?!?!”

“Just be still and get out of the way.”

“How can I be still AND get out of the way? Put a towel down so I can get out of..” Dewie smacks the roach. It tumbles into the tub, still very much alive. Panic moves my ass. While releasing a squeal I’m not particularly proud of, I shove Dewie out of the way and tear out of the shower, dripping water all over the place. As I stand there making a puddle I start channeling the Cobra Kai Sensei. I can’t stop yelling, “FINISH HIM! FINISH HIM!”

Dewie recovers from the shove and smooshes that bastard on the bottom of the tub, and then throws him in the toilet.

“Flush it twice, just in case.”  She flushes the roach down the toilet.

“You ok?”

“I’m not sure. Beat the curtain and make sure there aren’t anymore.”

“It’s fine. Finish your shower.”

And I did. Nervously. I did almost bust my ass when I saw the little magnet thingy in the bottom of the liner. But I recovered. Barely.

Drunky Drunkerson from Drunktown

Thanks to a vague reference by one of my best friends on a facebook post, I have been fielding messages regarding one of the most ridiculously stupid, humiliating nights of my life. So here it is, laid out there for everyone to see. The whole story. The story of the night I beat the living hell out of myself.

It happened a while back, maybe 7 or 8 years ago. My good friend Wendy and someone else we worked with at the time whose name is also Wendy, and I left work and headed off to a hole in the wall bar where the drinks are strong and cheap. It was hot that day and I gulped down three screw drivers right off the bat. I admit, this was stupid, but I was thirsty and it was happy hour. This means that the drinks that were normally $2.50, already an amazing deal, especially since the drinks were heavy on cheap vodka and light on orange juice were now $1.25. I mean the drinks are so strong they’re translucent.  After my initial thirst quenching binge, I was averaging about four an hour. The price was right and I was just in the mood to drink. Feeling that I was nearing the point of no return, I handed Wendy my wallet for safe keeping. You may be wondering why I did this. Let me explain. Apparently when my brain is swimming in liquor it believes that I am a very wealthy person and everyone is my friend. I am a bartender’s dream. Being the good friend that she is, when it appears that I am channeling my imaginary trust fund, Wendy holds my wallet. She’s awesome like that.

After several hours, I noticed that Wendy is missing. Apparently the party was moving to a different bar and I was riding with fake Wendy, but I was unaware of this. I turn to fake Wendy and ask her where Wendy went. She looks confused.

“Umm. I’m right here.”

“Noooooooo, fake Wendy. Where’s MY Wendy.”

“Oh, we’re heading over to Rodeo. She just left.”

Here’s where I panic. I know she has my wallet and I also know that if I arrive home without it, Dewie is going to murder me. I run out of the bar just in time to see Real Wendy getting into her car. As I step down out of the doorway my flip flop gets caught on the metal grate door mat thingy and I fall face first into the concrete. I actually knock myself unconscious. When I come to, the owner of the bar is kneeling over me. He was a biker type fellow with long, gray, wavy hair, and the porch light was shining through his hair creating kind glowing halo around his face. In my barely conscious, drunken state I looked him in the eye and muttered, “Oh my God, was I wrong? Are you Jesus? Am I dead?” To which he laughed hysterically and continued to hold a wet towel to my bleeding mouth. Meanwhile, fake Wendy is horrified and real Wendy who is barely visible behind Weegie (the bar owner) has fallen to her knees with frenzied laughter. My head slowly clears and I realize what just happened.

Fake Wendy says, “Maybe we should just take her home.”

To which I stupidly reply, “Nah, I’m fine. Who’s driving me?”

To which real Wendy says, “Go get in my car. I got this.”

 I slowly get up and head in that direction.  On the ride over to Rodeo it suddenly dawns on me that I can’t feel my teeth. Thinking I left them on the front stoop of the bar, I turn to real Wendy, smile really big and ask her if I still have all my teeth. She recoils, which scares me until she says, “Don’t bleed in my car.” And I realize that the face was a reaction to my BLOODY teeth, not missing ones.  We arrive at the new bar and real Wendy turns to me before we get out, hands me a napkin and says through giggles, “You still have blood on your face. Oh and fix your hair.”

As we walk up to the door, real Wendy is walking a few steps behind me. The door is glass, but blacked out with some sort of tinting which my stupid swimming brain registers as “open.” It was not. I walked right into the door. I don’t mean I bumped it. I walked into it with all the confidence of simply walking over a threshold. With my face. I vaguely remember the bouncer snorting with laughter before I once again, you guessed it, lost consciousness. I had managed to knock myself out twice in one night. Real Wendy is actually shaking with laughter and can barely stand as she “helps” me into the bar and parks me at a table.

 I remember very little from that night after that point, other than there was a strange step up into the bathroom that once again caused me to bite it, but that time was physically unharmed, not that I would have noticed an extra bruise or two. 

**RIP Weegie. We miss you.**

Drive Me Crazy

I drive like an old lady. I totally get how that’s irritating to a lot of people. I’m cautious… very cautious. I rarely take yellow lights. I always leave at least a cars length between me and the car in front of me, well, truthfully much more than a car’s length. I change lanes blocks before I actually need to just in case I can’t get over. I rarely go more than 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. I’ve been in a lot of car accidents, but only one of which was my fault. I am all too aware that I cannot control what others do, so I hyper-control myself. I’m afraid of stupid drivers and I’m annoyed with inconsiderate drivers. I know I’m not a perfect driver, or even a good driver, but compared to a lot of people I should be teaching a national class or something. It amazes me that people complain about other drivers doing exactly the same thing they’re doing.

For example, I have ridden with a particular person (who I will not embarrass with mentioning names, but it starts with a “D” and rhymes with chewy) who has complained about being tailgated while leaving approximately three feet between her car and the car in front of her. Really? You find that rude and dangerous? Hmmm. Interesting. It occurred to me that maybe some people don’t realize that they’re being douche bags. I feel it’s my civic duty to educate. So here they are:

Molly’s Rules of Non-Douchey Driving.

1.       Driving ridiculously fast in residential areas or downtown.

 Residential neighborhoods are full of oblivious children and pets and the streets are fairly short.   Unless you’re driving a DeLorean with Michael J Fox riding shot gun, there’s no reason to attempt to generate one point twenty-one jiggawatts between stop signs. It should also be noted that this produces no results in a city environment either; the most obvious clue being when I pull up beside your “badass” self at the next red light. No matter what the movies tell you, driving fast does not make you cool.

2.       Shopping Center Entrance Etiquette

When entering or exiting a shopping center or mall parking lot, the people entering the parking lot always have the right of way. If you look really closely, they do not have a stop sign. However, the people exiting do have a stop sign. Do not turn into the entrance and stop. Keep going. It is not a four way stop. You don’t take turns. If you are exiting the parking lot, you wait until the light changes and people stop coming in to exit. Yes, you might have to wait a few minutes, but that’s why we put music in cars. Chill.

3.       The turn lane is not a parking space

This one is specifically for truck drivers. Don’t get me wrong, I know they’re doing a job and I’m down with that. As a matter of fact, I often go out of my way to help them on the highway. I move so they don’t have to slow down and I slow down to hold up traffic when they need to get over. I've got no beef with the big rigs in general, BUT it is never ok, not for any reason at all, to park your giant vehicle in the turn lane and “run in” to anywhere. Especially a Waffle House. Those emergency flashers don’t create a parking space and your immediate need for smothered, covered and scattered hash browns does not constitute an emergency. If you don’t fit in the parking lot, go somewhere else. Which brings me to my next point:

4.       If you don’t fit in the parking lot, go somewhere else

This problem may be unique to Florida. Huge, bigger-than-a-Greyhound Winnebago’s, driven by people who clearly have no special driving skills, just rolling through town, crushing everything in their wake like King Kong on wheels. Your insatiable craving for some chicken McNuggets or a stuffed crust pizza is not reason enough to park your rig sideways in 8 parking spots or worse, in the middle of the parking lot, completely blocking the drive thru. I’m sorry that those parking lots do not accommodate your vehicle, but you know those wobbly things that catch you when you finally exit your fortress? They’re called legs and they can carry you for more than 10 feet. Park somewhere else and walk. Also it is never acceptable to pull across and block three lanes of traffic when making a left hand turn and wait for the traffic to clear in the other direction. You’re the one driving that ridiculously huge vehicle. You get to be accommodating, not the other way around.

5.       When merging, slow down, don’t speed up.

If two lanes suddenly turn into one, the world will not implode on itself if the person beside you merges ahead of you. It would just be horrifying if that person goes slower than you would like and causes you reach your destination 3 minutes later. Small children may suddenly take ill, puppies and kittens will die, and rain forests will burn brighter and hotter. All because that guy in the other lane pulled in front of you when you merged back there. Bad things happen when you’re not first. You. Must. Be. First…because you’re a douchebag with control issues.

6.       GET! OFF! MY! ASS!

I brake suddenly for squirrels. Real and imaginary. Back off. 

UGH!

I knew something was wrong when I took a three hour nap two days in a row. I don’t sleep during the day. I make fun of people that sleep during the day. My favorite game is something I call “nappin’ stack.” The object of this game is to stack as many handy things on top of the napper as possible without waking them. A good session provides 10-15 minutes of hilarious amusement. My point is that I’m just not a napper. Then the very slight nausea started. It was barely there at first. I wasn’t even sure if I was just hungry or my stomach was upset. Maybe it was just stress.

I soon found that the addition of solid food eased the nausea… and added excruciating stomach cramps. A very generous dinner of smoked ribs at my favorite barbeque joint courtesy of my visiting parents resulted in an evening of feeling like my stomach was trying to strangle itself. The next morning I felt a little better but didn’t chance anything more than coffee and water. When Dewie got up a little before noon (she worked the night before) she talked me into drinking some Ovaltine. I was nervous, but it settled surprisingly well, so she talked me into some toast. Mistake. I headed for the bed, holding my stomach where I proceeded to roll around and whine expletives. I hear Dewie come in.

“Your belly hurting again?”

“YESSSSSSSSS.”

“Maybe it’s your gall bladder. You remember that gall stone you passed a couple of years ago. You thought you were dying.”

“Owwwwwwwww. I didn’t think I was dying, I thought I was going to give birth to something. This is different. Bloody hell!…I may be dying this time.”

“Maybe it’s your appendix.”

“Son of a…  motherfu… owwww… it’s not my damn appendix. It’s not my gall bladder. It’s not my intestines. I don’t have to poop. It’s not some vague pain in my general abdominal area. It’s my actual stomach.”

“Well, you have to eat.”

“I got this from TOAST! What the hell is lighter than toast? Little capsules of air?!?! It feels like my food stirring monkeys are trying wring out my stomach. UGGGGHHHHH. ”

“Maybe some broth.”

“Gaaaaaaah! I’m not drinking hot water. It’s dumb. I think I can afford to go a couple of JESUSSSSSS! days without food. I’ll just drink plenty of water. Like a new diet program.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, probably some kind of HOLY SHITBALLS!! OWWWW stomach virus … with an unfortunate Tourette’s side effect. “

“If you don’t eat, how will you know when it’s over?”

“I’ll know I can eat when the HOLY HELL! UHHHHH! water gives me diarrhea. I just hope my immune system knows that this is not a job for the rabid moneky squad. It better break out the pirates.” 

Streaming Pile of Television

Streaming television is a fantastic thing. I love watching an entire season of a show consecutively without being tied to any kind of schedule. The drawback is that occasionally Dewie will flex her age difference muscle and force me to watch some awful show from her youth. Admittedly, I got into Dark Shadows, mainly because the over the top dramatics cracked me up. We still use the “Barnabas stare” as a punch line. Bewitched is entertaining enough, especially if it’s an episode featuring Endora. Her condescending, snarky attitude makes me feel better about douche-y Darren saying things like, “I forbid you to get involved!” and “I expect you to concentrate you efforts on keeping this house!” The westerns are tolerable on a periodic basis, though I had to develop a song to tell them apart. It is set to the tune of the Bonanza theme song and goes like this, “Little Charles Ingalls on a show as Little Joe it’s called Bonanzaaaaaa! It was on a long time ago, and it’s not in black and white (that’s Gunsmoke).”

However, recently Dewie has been watching this show called Adam 12. The writing and acting is painfully horrible and the plots are predictable within the first 3 minutes of the show. There is only one way to fight these shows. Pick it to pieces. It goes something like this…

“So… why is no one named Adam?”

“The car is called Adam.”

“So the show’s about a car?”

“Ugh. No. The show is about Jim and Pete.”

“Does the car have special powers or something?”

“No! It has nothing to do with the car.”

“Then why are they saying Adam 12 every 30 seconds?”

“It’s the name of the car!”

(Pete wrecks his car and is apparently injured.) “Did he just announce that his spleen is ruptured? How could he possibly know that? Does the car double as an MRI? Is that its special power?”

“No. The car is not an MRI and it does not have special powers.”

“Wow. Jim just told that other coppy guy that they had to find Pete because they were close. Real close. 

This show is pretty homo-tastic. I think they’re like share a shower close.”

“That is funny. I never noticed that as a kid.”

“Yeah, in the last episode they were buying potholders and doilies from an old lady.”

“The pot holders were for Jim’s wife. He’s married.”

“I think he bought them to so he can make breakfast for Pete. After they share a shower.”

Dewie giggles. “Maybe.”

“Look at how close they are. I think Pete is gonna kiss him. Look at him!”

“I think I would remember if he kissed him.”

“Yeah. Probably.” The next episode starts. “Oh. Come on! You’re telling me a 78 year old woman remembers those kinds of details when a burglar is waving a gun in her face. He was on smack? Are you serious? The old granny not only knows what heroine is, but knows its street name in 19 sixty whatever?”

“Maybe she’s just a sharp old lady.”

“Hey! Look! That must be the bad guy. Six feet tall, sandy hair, green button down, gray slacks, brown boots. Just like the old lady said. Wait up… he doesn’t appear to be on smack. It may be a case of mistaken identity…”

Dewie giggles. “Shut it.”

“Look at how he’s wrestling with that guy. I think the ambiguously gay duo was based on these guys. These guys are so Ace and Gary. Well, gracious me! There’s another guy that looks like he could be the bad guy. Six feet tall, sandy hair, green button down, gray slacks, brown boots. Oh and wait a minute…I think he may be on the smack.”

“We don’t have to watch this.”

“No. I love it.”

Part of This Nutritious Breakfast

Ok, so I kept telling myself that it was none of my business, but I’ve been asked to weigh in directly at least 4 times. Here it is. The Time magazine cover with the breast feeding three year old creeps me the hell out. I understand the point. I really do, but in its haste to get people’s attention, they have crossed the border into vigilante mom land and no one but other vigilante moms can tolerate being there for even a miniscule amount of time without breaking into seizures of eye rolling that persist until you spontaneously and repeatedly yell, “Shut the F@#$ up!” like some crazed Tourette’s soaked mental patient.

Now, admittedly, I have to turn on my cerebral brain when I witness anyone breastfeeding an infant. Frankly, my emotional self is just uncomfortable with it. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I don’t have children. Maybe it’s because I have never viewed breasts as meal receptacles. What I do know is that this is my problem and no matter how weirded out I am by it, there’s nothing wrong with it. I do have issues with people that glare at a restaurant full of customers as if they are daring someone to say something as they plop their engorged boobie on the dinner table. I know it’s natural, but if there wasn’t a baby attached to it, that same woman would go to jail.  Have a little class. Throw a blanket over your shoulder. Or better yet, don’t schedule dinner at the same time as your baby’s next feeding. We get it. You’re all maternal and what not.

The specific problem I have with the magazine cover is the age of the child and the pose of the mother. If that very same woman was wearing a hooters uniform, those same vigilante moms would have already organized a posse to hunt the responsible party down like a scared animal. I’m not buying the whole “nutritional value” crap either. That kid probably spent the morning playing Xbox followed by a lunch of Crustables and cheese doodles. If your kids eat three meals a week at McDonald’s you don’t give a rat’s ass about his nutrition. This leaves one of two possible scenarios. Either the mother refuses to admit that the child is no longer an infant (he probably also drinks out of a sippy cup and has a pacifier in his mouth while he stomps hookers to death playing Grand Theft Auto) or she is getting some sort of emotional fulfillment out of it. Either way, it has nothing to do with the kid or what’s best for him. Call me old fashioned or anti-woman or whatever, but a kid shouldn’t have to run in from recess to breastfeed. 

Can You Hear me now?

I walked out of Weezie’s Salon when I’d just had my hair cut. As I was opening my car door, a man in the passenger seat of a car parked two spaces down from me caught my eye. He was looking right at me. His scraggily hair and trucker hat perfectly accessorized his grease stained pocket t-shirt. All of his windows were down and there was a teenaged boy in the back seat. He was also looking at me.

The man yells in my direction, “You know where Weezie’s is?”

The front door of the salon is no more than 30 yards from where he is parked. Confused by his question, I point at the door. “Um… Right there?” The boy in the backseat starts to giggle.

“To the right of it?”

“To the right of what? It’s right there.” I point again. The man pulls his eyebrows together in confused aggravation. He stares at me like I’m an idiot. The boy in the backseat is emitting a full on belly laugh.

“You know where Domino’s is?”

I point to two doors to the right of Weezie’s door. Now I’m getting annoyed. “It’s right there. Is this a test?”

He looks angry now. Maybe I insulted his (ahem) intelligence. He turns around to look at his son who is now having convulsions in the back seat. As he turns, I catch a glimpse of his left ear. He is wearing a bluetooth. It takes me a full 5 seconds to realize that not one word of his conversation was directed at me. I look at his son who is now so hysterically tickled that he is drooling on himself. As he meets my eyes. I grin at him.

“Thanks a lot, buddy.”

He manages to form the words, “My pleasure.” between gasps for breath. Giggling, I get in my car and head home.