Category Archives: Articles Archive

The other night I was over at a friends house and we needed to figure out how to shrink and copy an image before printing it. Why? What difference does it make why? We just needed to, okay? Fine. Whatever. We were crafting. Satisfied? Anyway, we were both stumped as to how to do this, so we did the only logical thing we could think of: we called her teenage son over to help us. I explained the problem we were having in as clear and precise terms as possible (“We can’t make the thing do the thing. And we need the thing”), and he, in the aggrieved manner of Marvin the Robot from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy being asked to use his immense brain power to pick a piece of paper up off of the floor, made a few clicks on the computer and showed us how to do it.

Then he showed us how to do it again five minutes later, when we forgot.

And then five minutes after that.

Then he left the house, which was odd, because up until that point he hadn’t mentioned having any plans to go out. That’s when my friend turned to me and said, “Yeah, he’s mentioned before that he’s tired of being the IT guy for the entire house.” She then shrugged and said, “ I told him I can relate: I’m tired of being the maid.” And then we went back to crafting (there might have been some drinking involved as well.)

After I got home I couldn’t get the IT guy comment out of my head, mostly because I know that my own personal teenage boy, Clyde, has expressed similar frustrations to me when I make him leave his disgusting midden (AKA bedroom) to creep out into daylight and show me how to work the TV. He makes it clear in no uncertain terms that he can’t believe he is being forced to teach the same set of very simple steps to the same simpleton over and over again; when am I ever going to learn to do it for myself?

And I feel his pain, and his frustration. I really do. Of course, I might feel it more if I hadn’t, in the not so distant past, spent nearly a year teaching this very same grumbling IT guy how to wipe his own ass. And not stick forks in the electric outlets. And to never, ever, stick your head in the ball return at the bowling alley, even if you really want to “see where the balls come from.” (Okay, I’ll admit I might have been a tad late teaching him that lesson. What? He survived. And I’m sure he’s almost as smart as he once was.)

When our kids were much younger, and more frustrating (or rather: frustrating in different ways than they are now), my husband and I would fantasize about the way we would treat them when we were old and reliant on them to take care of us. “I can’t wait to throw my dinner on the floor!” I’d say. “Yeah. It’s going to be impossible to change my diaper,” he’d add. We were certain of two things: one, that we’d have to wait a good fifty years or so to get our revenge. And two, that said revenge was going to be sweet. We were wrong about the first part—it took fifteen years, not fifty. And the revenge was had not in the form of toddler-esque tantrums, but rather in making our kids show us over and over again how to use instagram and photoshop. But we were oh so right about the second part.

It has been so, so sweet.

There are a lot of things I worry about when my children go out into the world without me: I worry that they won’t look both ways before they cross the street (still), I worry that they’ll agree to carry that mysterious package in their luggage on their next trip to Turkey, and I worry that they will fall victim to financial scams like payday loans, adjustable rate mortgages and lottery tickets. In other words, what I worry about the most when it comes to my kids is that they are going to make foolish choices, because, unfortunately, the right to make choices and the ability to make reasonable choices don’t always arrive together at the same birthday party.

So yeah, I worry about them. I also worry about the things they have no control over whatsoever, like whether or not the plane they are flying in falls out of the sky, or if the economy will be strong enough for them to have jobs, or even if there will be enough clean water left for their children to drink. In short, when it comes to kids there is no shortage of things that we, as parents, can worry about. Except that there is one thing that has never once crossed my mind to worry about. I have never, not for one moment, worried that my kids would ever get shot by a cop. Because why would I? My kids are white.

That’s a hard thing to write. It’s hard to acknowledge that me and my children are part of a privileged class, that simply by virtue of something beyond our control we get a better deal than other, equally deserving folk. It’s also hard to realize that this is not something that I ever taught my children, but rather something that they needed to teach me.

My daughter Clementine taught me by pointing out each time I was inconsistent with my world view—each time I made excuses for what, in hindsight, were inexcusable actions. (If it’s not okay to shoot someone for drawing an offensive cartoon, it’s also not okay to shoot someone for stealing a candy bar.) My son Clyde, on the other hand, taught me simply by being a fourteen year old boy; in other words, by being exactly the type of person who is capable of making the foolish choices that, in another city, in another skin, could get him killed. (Would Clyde be the type of kid to bring his new pellet gun to the park? Without a doubt.)

It is a terrible feeling to be grateful for something that isn’t available to all parents everywhere, and I can only hope that the same people who have taught me that the world is not as fair as I once thought it was will be the ones to one day remedy that situation. Because, as parents, we already have enough stuff—both real and imaginary—to worry about. It’d be nice to think that none of us have anything more to worry about than any other.

Back when I was in my college, I had a friend whose mother described his visits home thusly: “We love to see him come. And then, we love to see him go.” I was thinking about this the other day as I watched my daughter, Clementine, try to make some cream of wheat in my kitchen. As she held the box up at eye level to pour the tiny grains through the ragged hole she had torn in the top of the box (into a quarter-cup measure she was holding somewhere around her knees, mind you), I asked her if she’d like me to go get her a ladder so she could make an even bigger mess.

“I’ll clean it up,” she snapped in irritation, which was unfortunate, because the irritation caused her unsteady pour to become even unsteadier, and the stream of cream of wheat that had been hitting the counter shifted to the open drawer next to the counter. And then to the floor. I sighed and turned away, muttering “three more days, three more days,” under my breath as I went. And wondered why in the hell colleges think that a month long winter break is a good idea.

We were all so happy to see her come home. There was the joyful Love Actually-esque airport reunion, followed by the happy Welcome Home dinner, followed by the celebratory Martanne’s breakfast. And then the first week was over and the laundry started to appear. Everywhere. And the plates and coffee mugs began to make their slow migration to the guest room. And my guest room. My poor guest room will never be the same.

It was the same for her. After a week of seeing old friends and hanging out at the old spots she began to speak longingly of her new best friends at college, and the great coffee shop down the street from her dorm, and how warm it is there, all of the time, even when it’s cold. (I have to agree with her there—after this last three feet of snow Atlanta sounds damn nice.)

But most importantly, when she refers to “back home,” she is no longer referring to Flagstaff. Surprisingly, this doesn’t upset me at all. Probably because I felt the same way when I first left my “home” and moved to college. I loved my new friends, the weather (there was snow!), and the fact that such a thing as a coffee shop even existed (it was the 80s—most people still bought their morning coffee at the gas station.) And it didn’t take me long to start referring to all that as “home.” And also to start seriously annoying my parents on my first visit back to my old stomping grounds.

I know, I know: one day all too soon Clementine won’t be coming back for school breaks at all, and then she’ll start to skip Christmas Day, and that, eventually, the time will come when the only way we can really be assured of seeing her is to go to where she lives. And that when that day comes I will probably look back on these visits and kick myself for not living fully in the moment and enjoying them more.

Or at least I will, until I open up one of my kitchen drawers and look inside. Because I am pretty sure that even then there will still be some cream of wheat stuck in the corners.

The meeting with my editor at Live went just about like I’d expected it to—unfortunately. (Just once I’d like to hear the words, “We need to talk,” and have them be followed with good news, if for no other reason than to shake things up a bit.) Anyway, as you’ve probably all guessed by the fact that I have directed you to my website to read this column, Flag Live has decided to no longer carry The Mother Load. Which is fine with me. Really. The number of times I have been told over the years that “your column is the only thing I read in Flag Live,” has more than clued me in to the fact that Flag Live’s target audience and I parted company some time ago.

Still, even though I agree with their decision on the whole, I do take issue with the reasoning behind it: you see, the reason The Mother Load will no longer be running in Flag Live is that my kids are too old. “Clementine is in college now,” were the exact words.

I’m not sure if the thought behind that sentiment was that kids only “say the darnedst things” up until a certain age, or that after a certain point people don’t want to hear you talk about your kids anymore, but I must say that I take a bit of an exception to both of those arguments.

There is no age at which your children stop being your children. And, therefore, there is no age at which they stop being interesting. Or funny. Or frustrating, or endearing, or whatever the flavor of your relationship is that day. This is because, bottom line, the parent/child relationship will always be a relationship between people who so often don’t understand each other at all. Which, if you think about it, describes every relationship, ever. The difference between the parent/child version and other versions however, are, for one thing, the amount of grief we’re expected to take from our kids (it’s about quintuple what we’d be expected to put up with in a normal relationship,) and for another, the fact that for some reason we’re supposed to know what we’re doing when it comes to our kids. Which is laughable.

Hence the column. The continuing column. The one about my kids.

Think about it: there is no other relationship in our lives that we are expected to “get over.” No one expects comedians to stop riffing on their significant others, or their jobs, or even their customer service experiences. We all accept that these are ongoing, and often frustrating (and therefore funny) relationships. When it comes to your kids, however, there seems to be a certain point where you are supposed to “move on.” Embrace the “empty nest.” Return to your previous, “normal” life, now uninterrupted. And, of course, write about other things.

A few times I have been asked, “Do you really think the world needs another Mommy Blog?” (Strange, isn’t it, that poets are never asked if the world really needs “one more poem.”) And to that question, my reply has always been same: “I dunno. Guess we’d better leave that up to the world to decide.”

So here it is world, my latest column. You can decide for yourself if you need it or not.

Dear Children (both my own and those who might as well be my own based on the deep and abiding spiritual bond you seemed to have formed with my couch),

I’m not entirely sure how the phrase “please clean up the living room” came to be translated into “please pick up two of the ten glasses covering the coffee table and call it good.” Maybe it was my accent. Or maybe it was just a really bad application of Google Translate. In any event, do you really think that the intent of my request was for you to sift through the layers of crap covering my coffee table (and all flat or semi-flat surfaces near it) and only grab those items that could, guaranteed, be associated with your epic Skyrim sojourn in my living room? Or do you maybe think that the intent of my request was to actually get the living room clean. Hmm? I ask merely for information and edification, the same way I might ask a man who collects vintage shoelaces to explain to me what, exactly, his motivation is.

Another question: at what point did clearing off a table require DNA testing? Seriously: I really don’t care whose pizza crust it is that is wedged between the box and the floor, and I have less than zero interest at all in the various ways you can prove to me that it doesn’t belong to you, but rather to your brother. Enough with the timelines and witness statements. People have been convicted of murder with less evidence than you are presenting. Not to mention the fact that in the time it has taken you to explain to me how this pizza crust is yours, while that pizza crust is theirs all the pizza crusts in the known universe could have been picked up and put in the trash. (I know this to be true because I’m pretty sure that at least half the pizza crusts in the known universe are currently within a five foot radius of our PS3 controllers.)

This summer I have come to the conclusion that asking a group of teenagers to clean up the mess they created together is like trying to split a restaurant bill with a group of cheap friends. The arguments and negotiations over who had the nachos vs. who had the calamari at Chili’s have got nothing on the bickering about who, exactly, dropped the cookies on the floor and left them there vs. who subsequently stepped on them and ground them into the carpet. And, unfortunately, both scenarios seem to turn out remarkably the same: in the case of the bill, one person usually ends up putting in far more than their share, and in the case of the living room, one person usually ends up cleaning far more than they should. In both cases, the one person is usually me.

Of course, maybe I should be grateful that you’re trying to get out of cleaning up your mess by blaming it in someone else. At least that tells me that you are aware that there is, in fact, a mess to be dealt with. This is in stark contrast to the way you react when I ask you to clean up your room, which is more along the lines of “What seems to be the problem, Officer?” than “I was just holding that for a friend.” Maybe, though, that’s just because there is someone else available to blame. When it’s your dresser that is covered in spilled blue slushy it’s “not a big deal.” When it’s the coffee table, however, it was your brother that did it, and therefore, a travesty.

At least until he can produce the security footage showing that, in fact, the Exxon Slushy was all on you.

A few weeks ago I mentioned in this column that my daughter, Clementine, had gotten her first job. (There may have been some vague threats about tearing her first paycheck into tiny little pieces in front of her and then stomping on them as some kind of cosmic revenge. My lawyers have asked me not to comment on whether or not that actually happened.) Since then she has learned many valuable lessons about life in the working world. She has learned that school actually starts later than most jobs. She has leaned that the worst part of customer service is, in fact, the customers. And she has learned that some people are just one apocalypse away from turning into cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers.

It all comes down to the lettuce. Or rather, the lettuce box. The empty one sitting on the shelf in the walk-in. The one that is empty because the last person who went in to grab some lettuce took the last head out of the box and then left the empty box on the shelf for “somebody else” to deal with.

Or maybe you don’t work in a restaurant. Maybe you work in an office and have come in to an empty copier time and time again. Or maybe you work in landscaping, or construction, and can never find the tool you need because the person before you neglected to put it back where it belonged. Regardless of where you work, it is your first job that makes you first realize that there really are some people out there who possess the sort of moral turpitude you previously only thought existed in comic books and children’s literature.

Too much, you say? Am I really comparing the guy who didn’t take out the empty lettuce box with Magneto and Voldemort? Actually, yeah, I am. I am saying that the only thing stopping the lettuce box slacker from attempting world domination is the fact that they lack any useful superpowers, and if one day, through chance, they happen to acquire some super powers, it will spell doom and destruction for all mankind. In other words: Peter Parker would have broken down that lettuce box.
Broken it down, carried it to the recycling bin, and then gotten the new box of lettuce down from the top shelf so that it was easier for the next person to use.

It has been said that it is the things you do when no one is watching that proves the kind of person you really are, and nowhere does that statement hold more true than in the workplace. And the worst part of it is that I’m not sure that being a lettuce box slacker is the kind of moral fault that can even be fixed. How do you teach an adult human being to be a good person? It’s like, theres a window of opportunity to learn these things, and past a certain point that window just closes. Past that point all you can do is teach them how to fake it better. Again, though, maybe I am being too cynical.

All I know is that one day I may get the chance to see Clementine accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. One day I may see her being sworn in as President as the United States. And one day I may see her on an afternoon talk show describing her latest tell-all book entitled Growing Up with a Really Terrible Mother. But none of those events will make me happier than her answer when I asked her, after she told me about the empty lettuce box scenario at work, what she did about the box after she found it.

“I broke it down, of course.”

Well, then, I thought, my work here is done.

In a few months, my daughter, Clementine, will be leaving for college. And when I say “leaving,” I mean really leaving: she is going to school over 1700 miles away. (Apparently she is under the impression that I will no longer be able to write columns about her if she moves that far away, which is ridiculous: I wrote about her when she was doing a study abroad her junior year of high school, and she was on an entirely different continent at the time.)

Many people have given me all sorts of advice about how to deal with the fact that one of my children is leaving the nest. Some of the advice has been directed towards the apparently inevitable depression that follows, but by far the most advice has been how to deal with the stress that occurs when she (also apparently inevitably) moves back in. In other words, I have had plenty of people warn me that I should be prepared for Clementine to “bounce back” home. (This phrase has always seemed rather foreboding to me, since logically the only way something can “bounce back” to you is if you threw it away in the first place with significant force—something I don’t think anyone really recommends you do with your children.)

In any event, people have been helpfully telling me all summer that I should hold off on turning her room into a sewing room (as if), or a den (do people still even have those anymore?), grow room (way too ambitious) or even a guest room. I should instead just “wait and see.” To them I reply that there is no need to set up a contingency plan: I have everything under control. I am absolutely positive that after this summer, Clementine will never want to spend a significant amount of time in this house again. How, they ask, can you be so sure? It’s actually very simple.

I bought her little brother a banjo. One that he really likes to play.

Did I mention that their bedrooms share a common wall?

This may seem, at first blush, to be unnecessarily cruel. It may seem to be complete overkill, just as it was when the little old lady swallowed the horse to get rid of the fly. And, I will admit that this may be true; after all, no one has ever accused me of “too much subtlety.” It also, however, is completely necessary.

It’s not that I am so against the idea of Clementine moving back home that I am willing to do anything to keep her away (I didn’t buy him bagpipes, after all). It’s just that I think moving back home should always be your last option, and I’m more than willing to help make that be the case. Can’t stand your new roommate? Your little brother plays the banjo. Cafeteria food is disgusting? Your little brother plays the banjo. Someone took your clothes out of the dryer before they were done? Your little brother—you get the idea.

Look, all I’m saying is that, even with the constant threat of me writing about her toilet paper buying habits hanging over her head, it still takes a lot to to trump the free laundry, internet, and fully stocked pantry that comes with living with your parents. And a banjo-playing little brother might be just the edge I need to tip the scales from “barely tolerable” to “completely intolerable.” It might be just the catalyst that she needs to help her not only leave the nest, but actually fly.

And if it’s not, then there is always Plan B. After all, I’m sure it can’t be that hard to get Mumford and Sons to play a house party at your house.

Every night.

The other day I asked my daughter, Clementine, if she would pick up some toilet paper while she was out. Happily she agreed, leaving me free to lazily spend the rest of my afternoon drinking wine and watching Netflix on the couch, all the while smugly congratulating myself on my foresight in having had a child eighteen years ago. At least, I was smug until Clementine came home with the toilet paper. After that, I was worried.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” I asked her.

“No,” she calmly replied. Perhaps too calmly.

“Are you sure,” I pressed. “Did, perhaps, my doctor call? Or your doctor?”

“No,” she said again, not so much calm now as puzzled. “Why?”

“Because,” I said, holding up the four-pack of single-ply toilet paper she had brought home, “I can’t imagine any reason other than my imminent death to explain why you would only buy a four pack of toilet paper. Unless it’s your imminent death, and you’re trying to dilute my future grief by adding in annoyance.”

“You know,” she said. “there are ways to communicate other than sarcasm.” And then she went into her room, where I assumed she mentally slammed the door. (It is impossible to literally slam the door anymore: she slammed it off of its hinges three years ago.) Slamming door or not, her disappearing act left me all alone to ponder the thought processes of someone who would buy a 4-pack of toilet paper for anything other than an overnight camping trip.

It would make sense if I had asked her to spend her own money—in that case I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had returned with a single roll of toilet paper, or even an armful of loose TP she had purloined from the nearest gas station. But I had given her my bankcard, which, in theory, meant that she was free to buy all the toilet paper in the store.

It would also make sense if she had gone to some tiny little convenience store where four-packs were all they offered in the way of toilet paper—and you were glad they did. But I saw the receipt—she had gone to one of those big box stores where they sell soda in 55-gallon drums and toilet paper by the pallet. How she even managed to find a four-pack in a place like that is beyond me.

I suppose I could chalk it up to youthful optimism: the sincere belief that whatever is coming just around the corner is going to be so awesome that it would be foolish to tie yourself down with meaningless material goods. In other words, why buy a giant pack of toilet paper when this time tomorrow you’ll be waking up in Paris? Or better yet, waking up in Paris to the news that scientists have found a way get around the need for anyone to ever need toilet paper ever again. (Perhaps there will be an App for that.)

Or maybe it’s youthful pessimism: the sincere belief that even if we do get to wake up in Paris, it will most likely be a post-apocalyptic Paris where toilet paper will be the least of our concerns. (Although I would argue that after the apocalypse—when all the toilet paper factories are defunct—is especially when we need to be worried about toilet paper.)

Regardless of whether it was a case of youthful “TP roll half full” or “TP roll half empty,” I’m pretty sure that youthful something or other was at the root of such short-sighted thinking. Maybe even something as simple as youthful stupidity.

But then again, that’s probably just the sarcasm talking.

Recently, in the dark and scary confines of my refrigerator, two very good ideas came together in a very bad way. The first good idea was putting your name on your food. Yes, I know that this is an idea that seems more suited to living in a college flop with seven under-employed dirtbag roommates than a single family living in a single family home, but trust me: if you had had to break up all the fights over who drank the last of “the Sunny D that I bought with my own money!” that I did, then you, too, would encourage people to write their names on the foods they hold dear. Of course, somehow this rule has morphed into “write your name on anything you want/think you deserve more than anyone else in the family.” In fact, I’m surprised that summertime doesn’t find names being written on the sides of ice cubes as soon as they come out of the trays. So, yeah, in the interest of minimizing conflict between people (well, sort of people: children), I decided that it would be a good idea for people to start writing their names on food.

The other good idea I had was that we should all try to reduce the amount of waste we generate in the kitchen, either the kind that gets recycled or the kind that gets thrown away. Which meant, in this case, making a brief foray into the world of reusable bottles. Specifically, reusable milk bottles. Even more specifically still, reusable mocha milk bottles.

And now we arrive at the conflict.

Milk is usually one of those foods that can belong to everyone. We either have plenty of it, or we have none. (Occasionally we have both at the same time. This happens when I have neglected to buy enough “good” cereal and the milk has gone bad from disuse, in which case while there is still plenty of “milk” in the fridge, there is no milk there that anyone wants to use. Of course, no one tells me that the milk has gone bad. They just leave it in there, letting me assume we still have plenty of milk, when actually we have none. Heaven forbid the person who discovers the bad milk should actually pour it out. Heck, even taking the time to write “BAD” on it would be enough for me. But, as usual, I digress.)

Anyway, here’s what happened: the other day I brought home a bottle of mocha milk, delicious chocolate coffee flavored milk that just so happens to also come in a reusable glass bottle. The idea is simple: you pay a deposit for the bottle, and when the bottle is empty you return it, get your deposit back, and buy a new bottle of milk. With luck the same bottle can be used hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Unless, of course, it is unlucky enough to come into my house, whereupon it will be immediately seized and claimed by a Sharpie wielding mocha milk fiend.

And not just claimed with a name, but also with dire threats of painful death to future milk thieves, including a specific request for a particular thief in question to perform an anatomical impossibility upon themselves.

Did I mention this was in Sharpie?

And that was how this poor bottle—a bottle that had probably been filled at least five hundred times—suddenly reached the end of its useful career. The permanent graffiti on its side meant that the chances of it ever being filled again and sold to a different family—a nice family—were now nil.

Right along with the chances of me ever being to shop in that store again—at least after I returned that particular bottle.

Finally, after nearly eighteen years of anticipation, my daughter Clementine is getting a job. This is incredibly exciting for me, and not just because she will finally learn the meaning of hard work. I have never doubted that she knew the meaning of hard work, and I’m sure all of the groups and organizations she has volunteered with over the years would agree with me on that score. No, the reason I am so happy about her finally achieving gainful employment is because I absolutely can’t wait until she brings home her first paycheck. I can’t wait to snatch it out her hands, rip it up into tiny little shreds, throw it on the ground and then jump up and down on it for good measure, all the while gleefully chanting, “Welcome to MY world!” That will be one of the happiest days of my life.

Okay, so I might have a slightly unhealthy fixation with revenge. But in this case I think it’s justified: Clementine and I have always fought about the best way to spend my money. As in, she just can’t understand why I am so reluctant to spend it. Or rather, why I am so reluctant to waste it. Why I get so mad over little things (in her view) like leaving a brand new box of Cheez-Its out in the rain. Granted, I may have gone a little overboard in my response to that one. Taping up a picture of the ruined box inside the cabinet with “This is the only way you’ll ever see crackers in this house again,” written across the bottom in red ink might have been just a little too Mommy Dearest. But still. A brand new box of Cheez-Its. In the rain. Of course I needed to get revenge for that. And with the introduction of a paycheck into her life, hopefully she will begin to understand that feeling.

Hopefully she will understand exactly why I kept muttering, “Cheez-Its. Real Cheez-Its. Not even the store brand.” Now maybe she’ll understand her father’s oft repeated lament of “Do you know how many holes I had to dig to buy that (fill in the blank)?” (Although in her case she’ll have to translate it to “burgers I flipped, macchiatos I made, or pizzas I tossed.”)

After all, it wasn’t until she got a car of her own and started giving her friends rides that she understood why I didn’t want to drop her off in Baderville “on my way” to picking up her brother from a sleepover in Kachina. Or why I was so irritable when I had to make five trips in one day between our downtown home and her school in Cheshire after she forgot both her lunch and her homework, but didn’t realize she had forgotten the one until forty-five minutes after I had dropped off the other.

Hopefully the same sort of epiphany will occur to her after she realizes, viscerally, that Cheez-Its (and other luxuries) cost more than just money—they cost time. More than that, though, they represent choices about how to spend your time: the choice about how much of your time you are willing to spend doing something you don’t really love in order to get the things the things you want. I know, I know: it’s just a box of Cheez-Its. (Trust me, I heard that plenty after making that box the star of my kitchen’s “Most Wanted” poster.) And yet, it’s really never just a box of Cheez-Its. Because it is what we choose to spend our money on (as opposed to our parents’ money) that defines who we are. And Clementine will finally have the chance to start filling in that definition.

I’m guessing already that her part of that definition won’t include too may boxes of rain-soaked Cheez-Its.