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The Six Million Dollar Mom

Squirt: So, you know, I got in trouble and got sent to the office today.

Alert! Code RED! All hands on deck! Blood pressure: rising! Temperature: fluctuating! Adrenaline: flowing! THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Bonnie: WHAT?!?! Omigod, why?

Squirt: Oh, nuthin’.

Systems at HIGH ALERT! Heart pounding! Face flushed and bright red! Focusing eyes… focusing eyes! Lasered in on offspring… stay on target… stay on target…

Bonnie: Don’t play games with me, young man! WHY. DID YOU. GET SENT. TO THE OFFICE?

Squirt: Aw… (sniffs modestly)  Just because I brought two guns… (flexes his biceps) and a six pack to school (pats his belly).

Hubby: Ha, ha, HA! Mah BOY! (they give each other high fives)

False alarm! Repeat: THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. Stand Down! Stand DOWN! Cut adrenaline! Slow heart rate… steady… steady… Remove hand from telephone… steady… Plant bottom back in dining room chair… steady… steady…

Bonnie: (twitching and mumbling)  Grrrrrrrrrrrr…. mayhem… so help me… dismemberment… just wait…

Squirt: Had ya goin’ Mom, didn’t I. Yup! Mom?

Hubby: Honey, you look pale. Squirt, maybe you shouldn’t play these kinds of tricks on your mom, although that one was REALLY GOOD! (they give each other high fives again)

Damage reports coming in: pulse and respiration rapid, stress levels elevated, took several hits to the digestive system.

Recommendations: Tums. Tomorrow, grill Squirt in front of friends about the condition of his underwear. Better yet, about that time he ran around naked at the family 4th of July Barbecue.

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Driving me crazy

His first word (after “Da” and “Ma”):

TIGER: Car!

His usual exhortation whilst I towed him and his baby brother in a bike trailer:

TIGER: Faster, Momma! Faster! Faster!

At age 5, playing by himself with his Hot Wheels:

TIGER: (high voice) We’re driving too fast! (low voice) Ha, ha, YES! We’re driving very fast! (high voice) We’re going to crash! (low voice) Yes! I’m driving fast enough we’re going to crash! (high voice) AieeeeEEEEE! (more sound effects) CRASH! CRASH! BOOM! KAPOWWWW! (imitates the sound of an ambulance siren) Errrrrrroooowwwww, eeerrrrrowwwww!

His back seat advice to me at the age of 10:

TIGER: Get in front of that guy! Faster, Mom! Faster!

His views at age 12 on the facilitation of traffic flow:

TIGER: The horn is the answer to EVERYTHING, Mom.

When he was 14 and somebody cut us off on I-5:

TIGER: Hit him, Mom! Pull up beside him and swipe him! I’m kidding, Mom! Maybe you could just tap his bumper. A little.

When he was 15, and I reminded him of that story:

TIGER: I was KIDDING. I wouldn’t actually do that. Hey. Speed up! Don’t let that Volkswagen get in front of us!

At age 16, waving his completed application for a learner’s permit:

TIGER: Today’s the day, Mom! 9:35 am! Oceanside DMV! Let’s go! Faster, Mom! Faster!

I’m not just taking one 16-year-old Tiger to get a learner’s permit; there’s a whole bunch of younger Tigers who are coming along, too.

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If it’s squirting zombie blood, that’s okay

I think it’s safe to say anyone would get a little punchy after several hours of close contact with teenage humans, especially those teenage humans who just wiped off all their sweat on my car seats.

Me: Hi, sweetie! Hey there, Eddy. How was school?

Eddy: Hey, Mrs. Wren! It was good.

Squirt: Eh.

Me: You guys… Oh, my. (sniffs cautiously) … Well… um… you just got out of P.E., hunh?

Squirt: Yeah! Dodgeball, Mom, it rules! That is the best game, ever.

Me: Aha, yes. Excuse me while I roll down the windows.

I spend a lot of time in my van, what with swim team practices, two different school schedules and two carpools. One day last week I clocked in just under 4 automotive hours between 1:20 and 6:30. To pass the time, I either listen to the radio or the Sweaty Teenager Show.

Guess which one’s been featuring a bunch of dead baby jokes lately?

Squirt: Hey, Mom! What’s the difference between a pile of dead babies and a car?

Me: Uh, er… wait! Um… Oh, I give up.

Squirt: I don’t have a car in my garage.

Me: Unh hunh. Maybe you shouldn’t repeat that one in front of the school counselor, okay? I bet she already knows you’re the one who wrote that comic book. You know, the one with all the machetes, machine guns and squirting blood in it.

Squirt: Aw, Mom. It was squirting zombie blood. I keep telling you that. (rolls eyes)

Between the oxygen deprivation and the squirting zombie blood, I have to say my sense of humor isn’t what it should be. In my defense, I never understood the charm of dead baby jokes when I was a kid, either. When it comes to “with it” parenting, I am definitely without.

Squirt: Mom! You’ll like this one better: What’s the difference between a truckload of dead babies and a truckload of bowling balls?

Me: Ugh, one is a truck… filled with bowling balls?

Squirt: You can use a pitchfork to unload the truckload of dead babies.

Me: Yeah, keep that one away from the school counselor, too.

Eddy: I got one! Why did the dead baby cross the road?

Me: I give up.

Eddy: Because it was stapled to the chicken.

Squirt: HA! That’s a good one!

Me: Both of you should stay away from the school counselor. It’s just best, you know?

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Living dangerously at the bookstore

“Woo hoo, Tiger! Woo hoo! I’m a talkin’ to you hoo!”

Tiger smiled weakly and went back to his book. I knew what he was trying to do: ignore me, but not so blatantly that he’d get penalized for Mother Abuse. He’s getting really good at this lately.

Of course, I can’t resist tweaking such heroic manliness. Just ask Hubby.

I held up a paperback. “Hey, Tiger!” I said, “do you think the founding member of the Zombie ‘Surviver’s’ Club would be interested in How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion?”

“Eh.”

“Eh” could easily mean no, but I was in a sunny mood. When Squirt showed up I handed him the book.

“Please, Mom,” he protested, “like a robot invasion could ever happen…”

My mouth fell open.

“…within the next 50 years.” He tossed the book back on the table. “Wah!” he gasped, grabbing another book, “The Official Ninja Book! Now THIS is what you call useful.”

I snapped my mouth shut.

Tiger snorted. “Hey, Squirt, maybe you’ll get lucky and there’ll be a zombie AND a robot invasion.”

Squirt’s eyes got a faraway look in them. “Man,” he said. “That’d be cool. On one hand, we probably prefer the robots to win, because the zombies, well! The zombies!” He paused to reflect. “On the other hand,” he continued, “The robots might start fighting the zombies! Holy crap! They could vaporize the zombies!”

He focused suddenly. “Tiger! Who would you rather fight? Robots or zombies?”

Tiger narrowed his eyes. I winced and awaited the inevitable. 16-year-olds might be able to restrain themselves from slamming their annoying parental units, but their younger brothers—especially younger brothers with overactive imaginations—are nothing more than free game.

Tiger stared coolly at his brother. Then he spoke.

“Zombies. Less organized. Easier to defeat.”

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Reach out and touch some Christmas bulbs, will you?

I’ve gotten some interesting recorded messages on our answering machine, but last night’s message was sad.

[BEEP]

Hello! This is a friendly reminder from Blockbuster! Perhaps it has slipped your mind, but you have several overdue DVDs —

Ooops! Wrong recorded message. Okay. Here’s the right one…

[BEEP]

Hey, Bonnie, what is that in the envelope?

Some… pictures of… Christmas bulbs? And that’s all? No note or nothing?

Call me. Bye.

Pictures of some Christmas bulbs? What?

Picture of the card I sent her
The Christmas bulbs.

Oh! That sounds like our Christmas cards, the ones I didn’t get a chance to mail out, so I used them as thank-you notes instead. (Hey! I may be a procrastinator, but I am a frugal procrastinator.)

My mother-in-law left the message. Her voice gave a little quiver during the “no note or nothing?” part, like she was a bit upset and the recorded message she really wanted to leave would’ve sounded more like this:

[BEEP]

I certainly don’t understand this, but perhaps in today’s modern world a picture of some Christmas bulbs is all that’s necessary to express thanks anymore.

Well, I’ll take what I can get, as long as it’s supposed  to be thanks. Don’t want to misunderstand any subtle but important messages, you know.

Call me. Bye.

My mother-in-law’s vocal quivers are extremely expressive.

As I played that message, the boys looked up in concern. “Mom! Grandma’s upset!” said Tiger. “She sounds like she’s about to cry!”

“Yeah, Mom,” said Squirt. “How come you sent her some pictures of Christmas bulbs instead of a thank-you note?”

Please note that Squirt hasn’t written a single thank-you yet. Tiger wrote up a bunch, but has issues with putting them into envelopes and addressing them off. And Hubby never sends notes out at all, just calls and gives people thanks over the phone.

Therefore, I am THE ONLY ONE who’s already mailed out the bulk of my thank-you notes. Before the postage increase, too. (Frugal!)

I still have a few to finish; some of my friends may get theirs in February. Tiger’s probably won’t go out until April and we’ll be lucky if Squirt gets his out by June. But at least I’m smart enough to send my mother-in-law’s out first.

And I KNOW I wrote a note to my mother-in-law. I remember writing it, addressing the envelope, stamping it and sending it off. Perhaps I put my mother-in-law’s card back in the box and sent her an empty one? My brain—is it that bad?

Mental dysfunction or no, I had to discover what I’d done. So I gave that dear lady a call:

MIL: That was very strange, those Christmas bulbs.

Me: You mean there wasn’t anything written on that card? Nothing at all?

MIL: It was a card?  No. It was not.  It was just a piece of cardboard, with some Christmas bulbs on it.

Me: It was a card! Open it up and see!

MIL: Oh, all right. Hmmm. You’re right! It is  a card. Hmm! And I even showed it to the rest of the family—nobody else could figure it out, either! We all thought you’d sent me a piece of cardboard with some Christmas bulbs on it.

Me: (squirms)   Oooh.

MIL: It must have been squished too hard by the post office. Heh! Sorry! Thank you for the card! Well! You’ve probably got lots to do. I’m going to finish my crossword puzzle. Bye!

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I’ll see your big beefy and I’ll raise you one flark

SQUIRT: Flarking is one of the funnest decks. Scott put together a deck which made flarking even more deadly. It was like, Super Flark.

TIGER: Yeah, well, want to hear what else I’ve done? Say I’m out of everything, except this. (holds up a card) And oh, no! You’ve got an even bigger guy out! So now… I play AURA THIEF!

SQUIRT: Aura Thief! ATTACK! What are you going to do, hunh? Hunh? Block it? Ha!

TIGER: And I got Leaf Play, too… the most awesome card I’ve ever seen. It boomerangs!

I have no idea what they’re talking about. All I know is Tiger ordered a bunch of Magic: the Gathering cards that arrived this afternoon. And now he and Squirt are acting like Christmas came for the second time in two weeks.

TIGER: Just wait until I play Jeff! He has Platinum Angel—a four-point flyer!

ME: And that means—? Speak English, boy.

TIGER: It means your opponents can’t win the game, and you can’t lose the game. But this card… this card! It allows me to look through Jeff’s deck, and grab it. And take it. And laugh at him. It’s a requirement.

SQUIRT: This is a strategy game, Mom.

The Wizards of the Coast have a good strategy game all right, something those dudes on Wall Street would call an excellent business model: keep manufacturing cards with a little more oompf in them than previous editions.

And I don’t know about you, but to me, “strategy games” mean chess, or poker, or even Risk; a game in which somebody out-maneuvers somebody else with the resources he’s been given, not with the resources he bought with his Christmas money.

SQUIRT: I’m going to have to buy some squirrel cards, so I can kill you with squirrels.

TIGER: So you’ll beat me with squirrels? Ha! I’ll take your squirrels and laugh in your face.

SQUIRT: Basically it’ll be a bunch of squirrels running around, nibbling your opponents to death.

TIGER: That’s a slap in the face, getting beat down by squirrels. Heh!

HUBBY: You guys are nuts.

Hubby can schmooze with the best of them, even if he doesn’t speak the lingo. But he’s a man who sets stock by his mutual funds, not by little cards averaging about 75 cents a pop. And from the way he’s wrinkling his nose, I can see he doesn’t buy the strategy bit, either.

HUBBY: You’re both trying to make it sound like it makes sense, but it doesn’t.

SQUIRT: (patiently) Dad, when you think about it, “indestructible,” that was a stupid thing! But—hey, Tiger, how come you doubted the Squirrel deck?

TIGER: Heh! Jared got trampled by a squirrel! Four/fours, I think. Yours would be zero/ones, or one/one. Heh!

HUBBY: Oh, yeah? I’d be like a ten/ten.

SQUIRT: HA! Ten/tens! Dad! They’re big beefies! Giant leviathans that level cities!

HUBBY: That’s me, all right.

SQUIRT: Ha, little do you know. Instead of having a big beefy as a rare, I’d rather have little weenies.

HUBBY: So instead of a big beefy, you’d rather have a little weenie?

TIGER: Busted!

SQUIRT: Like you don’t have little weenies in your deck! You guys suck! And Mom? You can stop writing right now.

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Christmas 2005

Santa plowed right into Squirt’s foosball table last night.

All last week the foosball table was an integral part of the Anti-Bulldog Christmas Tree Protection System created by Squirt and Tiger—a protection system which not only proved useless, but which provided much amusement to the bulldog.

Yesterday morning I told the boys the battle had been lost the day we brought Mojo home, so we might as well put the furniture back. I also asked Squirt to move his foosball table elsewhere because really, it was just too much to have a foosball table in the living room with a Christmas tree, too.

So Squirt relocated the foosball table to the entrance to the bathroom door. Why he chose this location, I have no idea. Probably it has something to do with how much 14-year-olds love obstacle courses—just look at Squirt’s room and you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, Santa apparently needed to use the facilities and in so doing busted his shins in a most spectacular way. In fact, if anybody had the right to explode on Christmas Eve, it would be Santa, but no, he held it all in like a champ. He just moaned in an aggrieved sort of way, and then moved on to do his business.

What a trooper, that Santa. Mrs. Claus is one lucky woman—I expect she’ll help him ice it this morning.

Here are my two favorite gift tags this Christmas:

To Tiger
From Squirt
Happy holidays, butthead

…and…

To Mothar [Squirt’s nickname for his mother, based on a Mike Meyers sketch]

From: Zombie Beheadding Master # 1, Squirt (you must be so proud!)

My favorite “just like his dad” moment went like this:

TIGER: What’s this strap for? I can’t figure it out.

BONNIE: What does the manual say?

TIGER: (disgusted) I don’t read manuals! Hmmm, I bet it goes this way.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to help a certain someone with an iceway ackpay.*


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Little Lego Jesus says, “Back off, dog!”

When Squirt was three, he ate all the homemade sugar-and-egg-white ornaments on the Christmas tree—or rather, all the ornaments he could reach. The ornaments were older than he was and kind of dusty, but he didn’t care.

Not to be outdone, our standard poodle, Casey Dog, ate all the plastic red apple ornaments he could reach—only he threw them up on the carpet later. I’d say Squirt won that little bout of ornament eating.

Turns out Casey Dog had a thing for little red plastic apples, because the moment he had an opportunity he ate all the little red plastic apples he could reach on my brother-in-law’s Christmas tree. Thank goodness my brother-in-law had wood flooring.

Then there was the year Casey Dog took the baby Jesus out of the manger in our nativity set and ate him, too. He could’ve eaten a camel, or a sheep, or even one of the Wise Men, but no, he had to eat the Main Event.

Picture of the Lego Jesus
Little Lego Jesus, asleep on the hay. Sort of. He’s standing up because he’s got to stay alert and fight off household pets.

I told him, “You may be going to hell because you ate the baby Jesus.” But he didn’t care, just sat there and licked his chops, like he was remembering how extremely tasty Jesus was and how easy He went down.

Now we use a little Lego man for our Jesus in the nativity set. Sure, we laugh about it, mainly because you know, these things happen sometimes.

Besides, Squirt finally came to understand the inherent wrongness in eating old sugar-and-egg-white ornaments, and we’re clean out of little red plastic apples that might tempt our Casey Dog.

Then Squirt said something today that brought my Christmas complacency to a crash:

Squirt: What are we going to do when we finish wrapping our presents?

Bonnie: Put them under the tree, of course.

Squirt: Mom.

Bonnie: Squirt.

Squirt: Mojo, Mom.

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Santa Baby

I only occasionally had to translate Christmas carols when they were little. They might have wanted to know what a figgy pudding was, or mistletoe, or frankincense, but for the most part they just accepted it all as it was: Christmas music, to be heard at Christmas time.

Of course, that was before they heard an Eartha Kitt Christmas carol.

Eartha: Santa Baby, just slip a sable under the tree / For me / Been an awful good girl, Santa Baby / So hurry down the chimney tonight…

Tiger: She wants a Ford?

Squirt: Under the tree?

They’re young men now and the mysteries of figgy pudding are behind them, replaced by the newer mysteries of what women really want, especially women who sound as good as Eartha does.

Eartha: Santa baby, a ’54 convertible too / Light blue / I’ll wait up for you / dear Santa baby / so hurry down the chimney tonight…

Tiger: So she does want a car.

Squirt: Under the tree!

I guess some things don’t cross the generational divide like you’d think they would, like sables. And then there are those things that just leap across it, like Crasher, the Hormonally Charged Teenage Reindeer.

Eartha: Think of all the fun I’ve missed / Think of all the fellas that I haven’t kissed / Next year I could be just as good / If you’ll check off my Christmas list.

Bonnie: Ahem. This song is old! From, what… the fifties?

Squirt: That’s not so old.

Picture of Eartha KittBonnie: Eartha Kitt sings it.

Tiger and Squirt: Who?

Bonnie: Uh, you know, the old lady witch in Ernest Scared Stupid?

Tiger and Squirt: Her? Really?

Eartha: Santa baby, I want a yacht,
And really that’s not a lot / Been an angel all year / Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.

By the looks on their faces, I’d say Eartha’s message not only survived the test of time, it survived her role in Ernest Scared Stupid, too.

Eartha: Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight / Santa cutie, and fill my stocking with a duplex / And checks…

Tiger: She wants Legos?

Bonnie: Not Duplos… she wants a duplex. They’re like condos.

Eartha: Come and trim my Christmas tree / With some decorations bought at Tiffany’s…

Bonnie: Tiffany’s is a famous diamond sto—

Tiger: Shhh, Mom! We know what Tiffany’s is!

I’m doing this translation stuff for free, so you’d think there’d be some gratitude for the service I provide! Still, if they can’t appreciate me for my excellent recollections of interesting old-timer babes, at least I can cram a character lesson into the last few bars of Eartha’s routine.

Eartha: Santa Baby, forgot to mention one little thing / A ring / I don’t mean on the phone / Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight…

Bonnie: She’s really a little golddigger, isnt’ she? Most girls aren’t like that. I hope you boys don’t ever date girls like that! In fact, if your girl gives you a list of stuff she—

Tiger and Squirt: Shhh! MOM!

Then again, maybe not.