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The Right to Remain Silent in Bathroom Fixtures, Aisle 7

My old hand-held showerhead was a champ. It outlasted one dishwasher, two refrigerators, three cooktops and four kitchen faucets. Hubby and I weren’t the only ones using it, either: for several years it was the power tool I used to scrub the boys squeaky-clean — until the sad day they realized they could outrun me.

Now they’re lots stinkier than they were back when I was in charge of hosing them down. I think my old showerhead died of despair.

I needed a new one, but the Home Depot guy was getting kind of personal about it.

Continue reading “The Right to Remain Silent in Bathroom Fixtures, Aisle 7”

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Moo-ove Over, Danielle

There comes a time in every woman’s life when she’s got to decide whether or not she’s going to keep the vow she made when she was young and naive, back in the days when her head was full of hearts and flowers and her love life seemed like a juicy romance novel.

That time had come for me. What I was doing wasn’t working any more. The only option left was to go back on everything I’d ever believed and enter a brave, new world of excitement, thrills and dangerous liaisons.

But would Hubby let me?

“Get real,” he said, without even looking up from the paper. “The last time I tried to help you with your workout program you attacked me with a dumbbell. Thank God Rita held you back.”

“I’ve changed,” I said, hoping the tone in my voice showed how much. “I’ve seen the light. Rita can’t work out anymore and I can’t do it by myself. I need you.”

He grunted.

“Really and truly. According to our friends and family, your stellar pectorals make you a highly sought-out personal trainer. And I need one.”

The blunt approach always works best. Besides, it was the truth. I mean, why buy a cow when you’re married to the milkman? And he looks like Arnie Schwarzenegger?

His eyebrows rose over the top of the newspaper. “You’ll do everything I tell you to do? No complaining? No more flying dumbbells?”

“I promise.”

“And you’ll let me weigh you?”

I swallowed. Hard.

“Well?”

“Okay, OKAY!'”

He tossed the paper aside and jumped up, rubbing his hands together.

“Do you realize,” he said gleefully, “that in all these years of marriage I’ve never known how much you weighed?”

Like I was supposed to tell him? Where do men get these weird ideas?

“Onto the scale!” he ordered.

“I can’t weigh myself now!” I cried, appalled. “Why, it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon!”

He looked at me like I had asked him to read a few lines from the latest bodice-ripper. Like he really didn’t know that there is only one Right Way to Weigh Yourself, a universally-accepted procedure consisting of the following steps:

  1. Wake up, go to the bathroom.
  2. Brush the crud off your teeth. Be careful not to swallow any water. (Every ounce counts.)
  3. Take off all your clothes, including any underwear. (Again, every ounce counts!)
  4. Calibrate the scale. If it is even one hair’s breadth above the zero, the overage will be increased exponentially with every pound. (If the needle rests slightly below the zero it just cancels out ounces added by variables like wind direction and humidity.)
  5. Place one foot on the scale and slowly transfer your weight from the floor in a calm but deliberate movement.
  6. When the first foot is in place, lift the other foot and place it gently on the scale, too. (If you need support during the transition, hold onto the towel bar.)
  7. Let go of the towel bar very, very slowly.
  8. Exhale.
  9. Look down at the dial and note the weight.

Unfortunately, my man adheres to The Wrong Way to Weigh Yourself, an imprudent process practiced at health clubs and medical offices and consisting of the following steps:

  1. Get on the scale.
  2. Note the weight.

This wildly risky method has been known to startle a scale into reckoning you weigh 5 or 10 pounds more than you really do.

Like Hubby cares.

“I’m waiting!” he said impatiently.

I was pretty much forced to leap fully-clothed onto a poor, unsuspecting scale with breakfast and lunch under my belt. Naturally, the scale spooked. Big time.

In fact, it would’ve stampeded out of the bathroom if I hadn’t pinned it down to the floor.

“Holy cow!” exclaimed Hubby. I reached for the dumbbell rack.

“I was kidding!” he added hurriedly. “Really. It was a joke.”

Ha.

I guess all this means we are really and truly married now. And perhaps it also signifies a whole new chapter in our relationship–heck, maybe even a whole new romance novel!

I could call it… The Holy Cow and the Milkman.

Danielle Steele, eat your heart out.

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Norman Bates Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, So Get Your Own Towels

Bam! Bam! BAM!

Jeez. Can’t a woman take a shower in peace?

Not if she’s a mother.

“This better be important!” I hollered. “I’m talking blood! Or fire!”

The door pounding stopped and I resumed my shower.

As usual, I can never shower by myself. If it isn’t a knock at the door, it’s one of those noisy split-personality debates Hubby says I should never tell anybody about.

This particular debate was between the Mother and the Woman.

“What if,” asked the Mother, “the pounding stopped because a psychopathic killer entered the house and the child had to run for it?”

The razor skidded to a halt on my knee as I considered this.

“Ha!” snickered the Woman. “More likely the kid remembered you keep the milk in the refrigerator. Or maybe his brother threatened to feed oatmeal to the dog.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” mused the Mother. “Remember reading about that deranged drug-user who broke into a house with a shovel? Thank goodness the parents were home, heard their kids’ cries for help and saved them before he–”

“Come on!” groaned the Woman. “How many times do we have to stop showering, using the toilet or whatever, just so we can answer a pint-sized door pounder who wants to know ‘which is worse, eating a live scorpion or being attacked by killer bees?'”

The Mother chuckled. “Wasn’t that cute! They’re so imaginative, so young, so… defenseless… If there is a psychopath in the house brandishing a large garden tool, they’ll be –”

“They’ll be toast!” blasted the Woman. “Does Peter and the Wolf ring a bell? I refuse to answer that door! They’ve cried wolf too many times.”

“How cruel you are,” sniffed the Mother. “All you care about is shaving these legs which, by the way, have proven time and time again that they reforest themselves within 24 hours. But the grief and suffering of a bloody aftermath? That lasts FOREVER.”

When the Woman didn’t respond, the Mother pressed on.

“Interrupt our shower and what have we lost? A minute! But what’s a minute to two small boys, clinging to each other in fear, holding up their little arms in one last, brave effort to deflect the blows of a maniac wielding a pick axe?”

The three of us stumbled over each other in a crazed attempt to get out of the shower and throw on a towel.

“I’m coming, boys!” I cried, unlocking the door and rushing into the empty living room.

“Now that’s just great!” swore the Woman. “Just clue Mr. Maniac into the fact that you’re here!”

“No gore on the walls or the carpet,” whispered the Mother. “That’s a good sign.”

I grabbed my son’s chess trophy off the piano and crept up the stairs, my eye on the closed bedroom door.

It was too quiet. Throwing all caution downstairs, I burst through their door.

The boys looked up at me from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

“Yeah, Mom?”

The Mother sighed in relief. The Woman slapped her forehead in disgust.

“Who,” I asked through gritted teeth, “pounded on my door?”

They looked confused. Then the oldest brightened.

“Oh! That was me, Mom. I needed some underwear but then I realized you were taking a shower so I looked in my drawer and found some.”

“Hey, Mom!” said my youngest, poking at my shin with his index finger. “You got shaving cream all over your legs!”

As I embarked upon one of my loudest lectures (entitled, “Why We Save Pounding on a Locked Bathroom Door for Emergencies, Unless We Want to Hear a Lot of French”) the Mother began another internal debate.

“What if–”

“Oh, shut up!” snapped the Woman.

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Stray Cat Struts His Stuff

“Lookin’ good, baby,” said the hunk, but not to me.

I hadn’t visited Las Vegas since the 80s. Back then, Duran Duran was hungry like the wolf and this pool-side stud guzzled his bottles as fast as I could hand them to him.

A lot changes in 18 years.

“Baby, c’mere and meet my aunt. She changed my diapers.”

Meet my nephew, the Wolf. And that was supposed to be my line, but somehow it didn’t sound as funny as it did when I said it.

Grumbling, I smeared on 50+ sunscreen while Wolfie continued his running commentary on the prospective conquests floating by in rental tubes.

“Oh, yeah! Looking fine, baby. Come to ME, baby!”

It was hard to take him seriously, seeing as how I knew him when he barely came to my kneecap. But this boy wasn’t just talking big. Women were clutching at his trawling line as if it was a life preserver and they were going under for the third time.

“See that sexy older babe over there?” Wolfie sucked his breath through his teeth. “We went out last night. ”

I put on my prescription sunglasses to better examine this cradle-robbing senior. When I focused, I gasped. Older women were supposed to be… older… than me. But this gal was thirty if she was a day, and had a body that qualified her for Baywatch duty.

She smiled and winked at Wolfie.

“She’s twenty-eight,” he said reverently as he waved back. “She knows a lot.”

Sipping my mineral water, I carefully noted her leopard-print bikini, her deep, golden tan, her gravity-defying… Thompson Twins… just in case I needed to pick her out of a lineup of child predators.

“Yeah,” Wolfie added meaningfully, doing that breath thing again with his teeth, “I took her back to my room last night.”

The mineral water burst out of my nose. “You what!”

He frowned. “But Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me keep her.”

“Well, she’s not a lost kitten, for crying out loud!”

“No, she’s a German kitten. And in Germany, older kittens appreciate younger men.”

If any more kittens appreciated this young man he’d be classified as a Pet Shop Boy. “Do they appreciate getting tossed out of hotel rooms?”

Wolfie sighed, no doubt wishing he could get his money for nothing and his chicks for free. But Mom and Dad were paying for this trip.

“Oh, baby,” he suddenly said, and not to me. “You da bomb! Bomb, baby!”

Bomb Baby whipped around, her hands planted firmly on what couldn’t been more than 33-inch hips as she disdainfully surveyed the dude who dared lay lustful eyes upon her. Her eyes narrowed dangerously and I ducked.

Wolfie intensified his monologue. “Oh, yeah, baby, bomb! You vain, baby. You something else.” Not only was he disposing of all conventional verbs, he was growling. “Come on, baby, turn around! Gimme a look at that prime merchandise.”

“Stop it!” I hissed from under People’s “Where are they now?” section, where my zinc-oxided nose was smearing Boy George’s makeup.

“Oh, yeah, you fine! You bomb!” Wolfie threw back his head and howled.

I grabbed my towel, ready to run.

But Bomb Baby didn’t attack. Her head and shoulders began to bob, like one of those toy dogs in the rear windows of cars. A sly smile spread over her lips.

Wolfie’s head bobbed up and down, too. Bomb Baby bobbed. Wolfie bobbed. For a moment I was confused. Didn’t I just see this on Animal Planet?

Then Bomb Baby slowly turned and began to walk away, all of her bob-bob-bobbing along as she gave Wolfie the requested scenery.

“Oooohhh!” he moaned, “Oh, yeah. Ohhh yea-AAAAAGH!”

He fell back on his chaise lounge, spent.

“Are you through?” I snapped. “Do you want a cigarette?”

He popped up again. “You are so funny, Aunt Bonnie. You know I don’t smoke. But–” he used the tone he used when he was six and wanted a Popsicle from the ice cream truck, “how ’bout a beer?”

I didn’t care if the 80s were long gone. The only bottle I’d let this cub guzzle was root beer.

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Stuck in the Happiest Place on Earth

It had been over six years since our last visit to Disneyland, and the kids and I could hardly wait.

Unfortunately, we had to wait with Grumpy.

“Aaaargh!” Lines! Nothing but… LINES!” blasted Hubby. “We’ve died,” he informed us. “And this is Hell.”

I ignored him. Hubby is an engineer. They really hate to stand in line–it’s some kind of superiority complex thing they’ve got going. Besides, we hadn’t even passed through the Main Gate turnstiles yet.

“Cattle in a slaughterhouse,” said Hubby. “That’s all we are.”

Every Main Gate line stretched out endlessly, but at least the others were moving. Our ticket taker was a little too happy to be efficient. He whistled as the woman in front of us gave him her family’s tickets.

“Hey, LADY,” he said cheerfully, waving the tickets. She and her family stopped. Happy leaned forward, his elbows resting on his turnstile desk.

“These are COMPLIMENTARY PASSES,” he enthused. “You can keep ’em for SOUVENIRS.”

The woman nodded, smiling.

“Moo-oove,” said Hubby.

“But in THIS line,” Happy continued, “I have to RIP ’em. That’ll RUIN your nice souvenir tickets. Now, over THERE,” he pointed stage right, “they STAMP your tickets. Keeps ’em nice and pretty.”

He smiled broadly. “So, LADY. You want me to RIP ’em? Or you want THOSE GUYS” he pointed again, “to STAMP ’em?”

This woman obviously did not speak English, a fact that somehow escaped Happy. Yet even he should have understood her body language: she thought something was wrong with her tickets.

Hunching over her passes, she searched for the defect. Her family shuffled uneasily behind her. “Eh?” she asked.

Happy politely cleared his throat. Then he repeated his speech.

Loudly.

Hubby groaned. “Seven bucks. Just to park.” he said pitifully. “So we can walk a mile to a tram. To wait in a LINE.”

Maybe the boys and I could give him the slip once we got inside. I really wanted a nice family experience, but I doubted even Jessica Rabbit could’ve put Hubby in a decent frame of mind at that point.

“So, lady,” said Happy, slowly, deliberately and oh, so very loudly. “You want I should RIP ‘EM? Or you want THOSE GUYS” he pointed, “to STAMP ‘EM?”

The woman’s family craned their necks to look where he pointed. They didn’t know what they were looking at, but you could tell they hoped it was an explanation.

“Tell you what,” Happy annunciated. “I’ll call down THERE,” he pointed right again. “One of THOSE GUYS can come up HERE, and STAMP your tickets!”

Happy picked up his phone and dialed. The family discussed this latest development in hushed and worried whispers.

“Look!” Hubby gave an anguished cry. “If we’d gotten into that line, we’d be walking through the gate right now. But NO! We’re rats.  In a maze.”

The woman suddenly stiffened. She pushed the tickets forward, gently but purposefully, her eyes locked on Happy’s face.

Happy put his phone down, his buoyant brows now furrowed. Then he grinned.

“Oh!” he said. “You want me to RIP the tickets. Okay, lady, sure thing! Here you go!”

The entire line gasped in relief.

“Amazing!” said Hubby. “We’ve actually taken a step. It’s a miracle. Hello! Another step. Praise Mickey.”

Happy waved us through the turnstiles. Hubby didn’t wave back.

“Finally,” he said, power-walking down Main Street. “C’mon! Time to go wait in some more lines.”

It was coming back to me, the reason we hadn’t returned to the Magic Kingdom for over six years.

And we really had to scoot to keep up with him.

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My Chicharones

I was sweating like the proverbial porker. Crammed into a tiny dressing room with a 75-watt bulb set on stun, I attempted to stuff my hams into a casing the locals call a wetsuit.

“It’s supposed to fit tight,” Witt called out from behind the door. “Like a second skin.”

Second skin my chicharones. This baby was tighter than my first skin, twenty pounds ago. The truth is, wetsuits are nothing but full-body pantyhose on steroids. Continue reading “My Chicharones”

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La Difference

I do not believe that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. It’s absolutely impossible we come from the same solar system.

I was reminded of this recently when our friend Tony had surgery for a brain tumor. My hubby took the day off from work to sit with the family and provide them what assistance he could. His devotion knew no bounds. To prove it, he gave Tony the roasting of his life.

“Tony, those directions you gave me were terrible. What’s wrong with you? You got a BRAIN TUMOR or something?”

When Hubby recounted this and several other of the day’s witticisms to me he could hardly contain himself. I waited expectantly for the part where someone called security and hauled him off for a psychiatric evaluation. After all, Tony’s whole family was there, grimly awaiting the moment when Tony’s brain would be unwrapped with the medical equivalent of a can opener.

Yet Hubby claimed nobody tried to get rid of him. According to him, Tony shouted “You nutcase!” and they all bust their guts laughing.

Frankly, I think Hubby is lying. I’ll bet at least Tony’s mother had been on approach to whacking him over the head with the bedpan but caught herself just in time, when Tony indicated he knew the joker.

I do believe humor has its place in the infirmary. What I just don’t understand is the male tendency to poke fun at the wounded. What I find even harder to believe is how the male wounded like it, but they do.

Perhaps it’s just me. I never did understand my husband’s sense of humor. Take the time I lay writhing in the hospital with appendicitis. Hubby held my fingers with one hand, fiddled the TV knob with the other and said, “Just burp. You’ll feel better and we can get out of here before the playoffs start.”

Perhaps a better woman would’ve laughed and called him a nutcase. But I didn’t laugh and I used stronger language than “nutcase.” And if I’d known where it was, I would’ve hit him over the head with the bedpan.

He swears he was just being a supportive husband. I didn’t think so until Tony’s operation, when I began to see the whole issue in the terms of gender differences. Perhaps my man was being supportive in a man’s way, and perhaps I was stuck in my outdated expectations and didn’t realize I was married to my very own Patch Adams.

Who knows? At least Tony’s surgery went well. He is now recovering nicely at home, where Hubby and two other buddies spent an afternoon with him last week. They planned this visit for days.

First, they told him that he looked like he was going to recover… so they’d give him back the furniture they stole from his office.

Then they guzzled a couple of expensive beers in front of him, knowing full well Tony’s doctor wouldn’t allow him alcohol for weeks.

Finally, they played a game of hearts, the better to lay zingers on the poor guy when he took a bad trick, like, “Looks like they cut out a little more gray matter than they originally let on, hunh, old buddy?”

When Hubby came back from this good will tour, I asked him how it went.

“Fine!” he said, grinning fondly at the memory. “Tony said he had a great time. He called us a bunch of crazy chuckleheads.”

I left him to reminisce and called up my sister. I made her promise that if I ever had to be hospitalized, I wanted her there, armed with the bedpan.

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The Phantom

Sometimes a parent just knows.

When the doorbell rang, I just knew what nasty Halloween prank I’d find on my front porch. (Besides, it was dark and I could hear the perpetrator running away.)

I flung open the front door. My son screamed at the sight that awaited us.

“AIEEEE! We’ve been Phantomed!”

Just as I thought.

A paper plate of Halloween goodies rested on the ground with a flyer fastened on top. Outlined in black ink on the flyer wasthe mug shot of a benign-looking ghost.

My youngest rushed to see for himself. “Hooray! Now we get to Phantom somebody! Yippee!”

“Yeah,” I said half-heartedly. “Yippee.”

I hate the Phantom. Every October we receive a plate of treats and a cute Halloween chain letter threatening us with a curse unless we “Phantom” two more households within 24 hours. It’s like a supernatural hostage situation with multi-level-marketing.

“We’ve got to Phantom two houses,” insisted my oldest, “or we’ll get warts! Can we open the bags of tricker-treeter candy and Phantom with it?”

Oh sure. That’d protect them from the Phantom’s Curse, but then I’d be exposed to the Curse of the Halloween Candy Bag That Was Opened Too Soon. The first of this holiday season’s weight gain, courtesy of the Phantom.

“Thanks a lot, Phantom.” I snarled.

“Yeah,” agreed the kids, about to chomp down on goodies. “Thanks, Phantom!”

“Wait a minute!” I demanded, grabbing the plate. “You can’t be too careful nowadays.” I examined the treats: candy, two Halloween trinkets… and fresh-baked cookies.

Aha! Didi was baking today. Darn her and her cookies. No Chips Ahoy for that woman–she’s got to show us all up with authentic Tollhouse.

“Mom, let’s Phantom somebody tonight!”

“Yeah, Mom!”

“Not tonight,” I begged. “And instead of candy, let’s bake something.” Why ruin my neighborhood goody-giving reputation with some cheap Tootsie Rolls?

The next night the doorbell rang and a chill ran down my spine. I’d forgotten to bake cookies!

Even worse, I’d forgotten to put up the Phantom equivalent of a garlic wreath. Without the friendly ghost picture taped to our door, we were sitting ducks for more Phantoming.

“Hooray!” shouted the boys from the front door. “We were Phantomed again!”

“It’s not fair!” I cried out to the darkness. “We were already Phantomed! Take it back!”

A gleeful voice answered, its owner and her kids running away in the night: “Too bad! You shoulda put up the picture! HAHAHAHAHA!”

“Now we hafta do FOUR Phantoms!” crowed the oldest, giving his brother a high-five.

Darn! By now the entire neighborhood would be Phantomed. In fact, the odds of us finding an un-Phantomed door were decreasing rapidly, and we needed four. We’d be driving for miles.

Hubby watched us as we searched for the tape to put up the ghost picture.

“You know,” he said finally, “this Phantom is really a pyramid scheme.”

I was in a foul mood. “Tell me about it!”

But he was speaking to the boys. “Ultimately, people will run out of doors without Phantom pictures on it, and then what will everybody do?”

News of this impending tragedy left our boys gulping in sympathy.

“But if we don’t tape that picture to our door, not only will we protect our wood finish, we’ll provide a place for desperate people to Phantom! Why, it’d be like offering a needed
service.”

Then Hubby frowned. “The only problem is,” he said sadly–as if the boys would be upset to hear this part, “that you’d get lots of treats.”

Their eyes widened. “But the curse! We’ll get warts!”

“You won’t! And boys, if you really want to help people, don’t Phantom anyone else. You’ll free up even more doors.”

Under his breath he added, “and we won’t be guilty of extortion.”

The man was brilliant.

“Well!” I said happily. “What will it be? Providing aid to our neighbors and raking in the treats? Or living in fear of a silly warts curse?”

Somehow I just knew what their answer would be.

Besides, I also knew where to buy Compound W.

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Mr. Beefcakes Goes for the Burn

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  And sometimes a fancy workout machine is really just an oversized clothes hanger.  At least, that’s what I insisted as an employee from Scratch and Dent Fitness installed one slightly used Hoist 200 into our kitchen/family room.

I’m a fitness videotape kind of gal.  So was Hubby, until a few Hoist brochures revealed this gender blunder to him.

“Come on,” I said. “One reason we bought this house was because it had a walk-in closet. How much more clothes space do you need?”

“I’m gonna WORK OUT with it. End of discussion,” he said.

Two months later and he still hadn’t draped a pair of pants over it. When Didi came over to borrow some butter she caught him pulling down on the lat bar.

“Whoo-eee!” she squealed.

My head popped out of our refrigerator. “What?”

“Look at him! He’s working out!”

Hubby perked up when he heard this. He flexed coyly, a religious experience for Didi.

“OH MY GAWD!” she cried. “Look at those MUSCLES!”

I looked. He did seem kind of brawny in his sleeveless tee and shorts, and if he made one more pose I was going to have to throw a bucket of water over Didi.

Word travels fast in our little cul-de-sac. It wasn’t too long before my workout buddy Rita was itching to get some pointers from my newly buff husband. In a moment of temporary insanity I mentioned this to him.

“Great!” he said enthusiastically. “I’ll have both of you in peak form in no time.”

That night Rita and I stretched on beach towels in the kitchen/family room while he gave us a Navy Seals pep talk. He used sound bites like “terrify your muscles into submission,” and “forced to the end of your limits.”

I rolled my eyes like a punk in detention and glanced at Rita.  She was practically eating out of the palm of his leather weight-lifting glove.

I reconsidered. Hubby did have some incredible muscles. Should I dismiss this fitness visionary merely because I was married to him?

“Okay,” I said. “What do I have to do?”

He handed me a 40-pound dumbbell for some lat row exercises. Until then I’d managed to do lat rows with 15-pounders… and thought I was hot stuff doing it.

“No way,” I protested.

“Just do it,” he said.

I tried to pull the weight up but it wouldn’t budge. I peeked at Rita. Grimacing, she pulled hard on hers. It rested on the carpet, undisturbed.

Hubby winced.

Shaking his head, he brought us down to 35, and then 30 pounds. Finally, he said if we went any lower than 25 pounds we’d shame all of womankind. I pulled with all my strength but my elbow couldn’t make it past my back.

“Rita,” I grunted, “I’m seriously hating your guts right now.”

Hearing this, Rita hauled elbow on her dumbbell and managed to lift it. Not to be outdone, I doubled my efforts. The dumbbell inched upward. Soon we were sweating and snorting like pigs.

I suddenly remembered how much I disliked Hubby as my labor and delivery coach. Halfway through, he had dumped the Lamaze script to quote instead from Diatribes by Pat Riley.

“Work through the pain!” he had urged. “Rise above it! Use it! Stomp it! Mangle it!”

Somehow I made it through childbirth. But this Workout from Hell was going to kill me. How could I escape?  Probably I’d have to knock Hubby out–with one of the dumbbells I could lift over my head, a 12-pounder, maybe. It would be hard, though, unless Rita helped.

A cigar may be just a cigar, I thought while plotting my retreat, but the fitness visionary in my kitchen/family room was really just a frustrated Lakers coach with good muscle definition.