Kelly Poe Wilson

In our house, the children’s bedrooms are right next door to each other. Believe it or not, this seemed like a good idea at the time. In retrospect, however, I realize that this makes about as much sense as placing India next to Pakistan. It also makes me the Peacekeeper—the UN of the house, as it were. Actually, that’s a fairly good analogy for what I do, because, just like the UN, my arrival on the scene is usually a signal that things are about to get a whole lot worse.

My biggest problem is that—just like the UN—I usually have no idea what caused the dispute in the first place. In fact, in my experience the true root of the problem usually lies so far back in the depths of time that no one actually knows what started it. (In the case of India and Pakistan, this might mean one guy stole a goat from another guy back in 1534 C.E. In the case of my children, however, this usually means something like one child snuck in and stole the pillow out from under the sleeping head of another at five o’clock that morning). Either way, one thing is certain: nobody’s getting the real story now.

What this means is that—again, just like the UN—my role is not to solve problems but simply to keep the two warring parties as far away from each other as possible. However, since my kid’s rooms are not only right next door to each other, but also on the opposite side of the house from mine, this works out about as well as trying to keep peace in Asia from an office in New York City.

Here’s a typical scenario: A door slams shut in the middle of the night. A howl of protest (calculated to pierce a sleeping parent’s subconscious) arises. I stagger out of bed and make my way through the kitchen, the dining room and the living room, where, like a negotiator who has just hopped the red eye out of New York and is now standing bleary-eyed on the tarmac at the Islamabad Airport, I try to make the whole thing go away.

“She–,” says Pakistan.

“Me?” splutters India indignantly.

“Both of you please just go back to bed. Leave each other alone, just for one night.”

“You always take his side.” India slams her door.

“Can I sleep with you?” Pakistan sees this as just another opportunity to worm his way back into the UN’s bedroom. It has taken the UN eight years and numerous bribes involving Spiderman sheets to move him out, and the UN doesn’t want to backtrack—but it also doesn’t want to have to stay up any longer. “Please?” Pakistan puts on his angelic face, making the UN’s decision a little easier.

“Okay. But only for tonight. And–”

“I knew it!” India screeches from her doorway.
Pakistan sticks out his tongue.

And the nuclear clock ticks one minute closer to midnight.

At times like these it’s hard to remind myself that one of the reasons we had two children was so that they could enjoy each others’ company. Nowadays I just remind them that if one of them should happen to kill the other one, the surviving child will then have to bear the burden of my long-term care by themselves. “If you kill your brother at the pool today,” I’ll remind Clementine, “you can forget about taking that twenty-fifth anniversary trip to Italy.”

Of course, here is where the UN analogy falls short, since it would appear that no one is ready to take responsibility for the UN in its dotage. Or maybe that just makes the analogy more apt; after all, Clementine has been awfully interested in Sarah Palin’s “death panels” lately.

Pop Quiz: What’s the best way to get a message to me?

A) Stick it in a bottle and toss it into the Rio de Flag (and then wait for it to rain).

B) Write it on the back of a Martanne’s tortilla on any given Saturday (and then slip it back into the pile next to Anne).

C)Put it in the “personals” section of the Arizona Daily Sun. (Just address it to “Rick”–the “honey” or “darling” part is optional.)

Or D) Call my house.

The answer, of course, is “A, B, or C”–anything but “D.” Never “D.” I wish that people understood this; I wish that they understood that by calling my house and leaving a message with one of my children, they have essentially just released that message into the Great Void of the Universe, where it has about as much chance of finding me as I have of winning the lottery (and I don’t even play). Sometimes, if I’m very, very lucky, and the gods are feeling very, very benevolent, when I get home there will be a piece of paper left for me (usually someplace convenient, like behind the refrigerator) that says, “Mom. Someone called. A while ago. Call them back.”

Even though I know it’s hopeless, I’ll follow up on it.

“Who called?”

“I dunno. Some guy.”

“It was a man?”

“Or a woman. I couldn’t tell.”

“When did they call?”

“A few days ago. Or maybe this morning. I forget.”

I try to tell myself that if it was important, they’ll call back, but the problem is, it was, and they did, and I didn’t get that message, either. Recently a friend of mine came to town and tried to get a message to me–since he had been in New Zealand for the last six months, and was getting ready to move to Australia, my window of opportunity for seeing him was very tiny. Of course, it got even tinier when I never received any of his calls.

The worst part of it is that these days, with cell phones, texting, instant messaging, twittering, and email, people expect you to get their message, and therefore assume that the reason that you are not getting back to them is because you’re blowing them off. But, the thing is, I’m really not–my kids are.

Of course, heaven forbid that my kids should be so slack when a telemarketer calls–the same kids who couldn’t be bothered to look for a pen if the King of Sweden phoned to tell me my Nobel was ready will track me down relentlessly if a telemarketer asks for me by name.

“Phone!” they’ll shout, thrusting it into the shower with me. “For you!”

“Take a message,” I’ll say.

“But you’re here. And it sounds important–I think they’re calling from India.”

Ooh–India.

Still, at least that means that there are actually four ways to get a message to me–bottles, tortillas, the personals–and now, calling from India.

[Newsflash: Since I recently decided to join the 21st century, there are actually now three more ways to get a message to me. You can contact me through my website,
kellypoewilson.com, follow me on Twitter, or waste time with me on Facebook. Just don’t try and call me on my cell phone–I still refuse to get one of those. For now.

The other day there was an article in the paper about a guy who got caught hiding in a Pennsylvania family’s attic; he had been living there for a week before they caught him. It seems that every day, after the parents went to work and the kids went to school, this guy would come down out of the attic and steal a little bit more of the family’s stuff: a pair of socks here, a piece of pizza there, maybe the crossword puzzle–you know, little things to make his stay more comfortable. And then he’d “disappear” back into the attic.

When I first read this story all I could feel was an overwhelming sense of relief. “Of course,” I thought. “The attic. That explains everything.” And then I started beating on the ceiling with a broom handle.

“Hey!” I shouted. “You can keep the socks. Just bring back that Doc Marten–I’ve been looking for it for three years.”

No response.

Still, I didn’t completely give up hope until my husband came home and pointed out that 1) we didn’t have the type of attic that people could actually live in (we’ve got one of those “insulation and exposed wiring” models), and 2) how could a one-legged guy get into the attic in the first place? (I refuse to give up on my theory that it was a diminutive one-legged man who stole my daughter Clementine’s VERY expensive shoe.)

Of course, giving up on the idea of an attic-based thief meant that I got to go back to my old theory–that there is an unregulated inter-dimensional vortex located somewhere inside my house. Because how else would you explain things like a shirt disappearing less then twelve hours after I bought it? After all, Clementine assured me that she had looked absolutely everywhere for it. (The same way she looked everywhere for the missing Doc Marten.) The way I see it, there’s either some guy up in our attic wearing a size three Doc Marten and a flowery beige tube top, or we’ve got a bad case of inter-dimensional vortexism.

Obviously Clementine must have come to this same conclusion, which is why she only wasted thirty seconds looking “everywhere” before she gave up in defeat. I must say, however, that she dealt with the possibility of either a guy living in our attic, or her room containing a doorway into a new dimension, much more calmly than I did: it surely is a sign of her mature demeanor that she shrugged off the whole incident by saying, “My new shirt’s gone. Can we go back to the store and get another one?” Que sera sera, indeed.

I just wish that I had the same unflappable sanguinity. “Gone? What do mean ‘gone’?”

“Like gone gone. Like I’ve looked everywhere, and now I need a new one.”

“Oh my god,” I said. “Don’t you realize what this means?”

“No,” she said, starting to sound suspicious.

“It means, “ I explained, “that there might be an inter-dimensional vortex in your bedroom. Don’t you get it? This means I’ll never have to run after the garbage truck again. This is huge.”

Rolling her eyes, she said, “Why do you have to make such a big deal out of everything?”

“Wait–just tell me this: have you heard footsteps above your bed at night?”

“Just forget it, okay?”

“Because ‘some guy living up in the attic’ doesn’t help me with the trash.”

As it turned out, however, it was neither: it was actually just a simple time warp, as evidenced by the fact that the shirt reappeared again in the bottom of the laundry basket a few hours later.

Which is a pity. I really could have used a hand with the trash.

Earlier this summer, while waiting in line at a local bookstore (I probably shouldn’t say which one) I decided to kill some time by both thumbing through a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and eavesdropping on a conversation between a mother, her teenage daughter, and the bookstore employee who was waiting on them. Despite the lure of a Shaolin-trained Elizabeth Bennet and a ninja Mr. Darcy, the conversation won out. Here’s why:

Mother: (looking at piece of paper in her hand) Can you help us find these books that are on my daughter’s summer reading list?

Bookstore employee: Sure. What are they?

Mother: Well, the first one’s Native Son, and the second one is . . . (peering closer at her paper) Hamlet.

Bookstore employee: No problem. Was there a particular edition of Hamlet you needed?

Mother: (looking at paper again): The one by . . .Shakespeare.

Bookstore employee: Actually, all of our copies of Hamlet are by Shakespeare. Was there perhaps a certain editor . . .?

Teenage Daughter: Do you have it in English?

At this point the employee (who, I think, should be given that store’s customer service of the century award for keeping a straight face throughout the entire conversation), led the mother and daughter away. (And no, he didn’t take them out back and bludgeon them to death with a copy of Twilight for the good of humanity–or at least the gene pool–because I saw them leaving later with a copy of No Fear Hamlet. Obviously The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Shakespeare was all sold out.)

Later, after I had put P & P & Z back on the shelf ( I already owned it) I started pondering which would be worse–to have to watch your zombified best friend gnaw on her own hand during another interminable dinner with Lady Catherine be Bourgh, or to have to teach the classics to a bunch of high school students. And then I had a little epiphany (see Joyce, James–also in English). A ha, I thought, this is why schools close for the summer. Not to give the students a break. Not to reboot all of the computers. Not to give the maintenance crews a chance to finally steam clean all of the vomit out of the kindergarten classrooms and update the graffiti in the bathrooms (“For the last time, it’s ‘for a good time, text Mary at. . .’”) No, the real reason schools close during the summer must be to give all of the teachers a chance to regain at least some of their sanity.

After all–I only had to experience the “Shakespeare in English” question in passing–I can’t imagine if it was my job every day. (The mind boggles. And then goes out, has a beer, comes back, and boggles some more.)

This is why, with another school year almost upon us, I propose that we all take one moment to stop doing the Happy Dance in the “Back to School” aisle at Staples, and instead pause and give thanks to the people who, after having spent six years (at least) in college, are now forced to confront having to explain to yet another batch of children (and their parents) that, in fact, Shakespeare wrote all of his plays in English.

Ideally, we would thank them with cash, but, if that feels awkward, then I’m sure that dry erase markers by the bucketful will do very nicely, too. And of course, there’s always liquor.

For example, if anyone out there knows who is assigning both Native Son and Hamlet for summer reading, please: buy him or her a drink for me. Make it a double. Something tells me they’re going to need it this year, and then some.

And while you’re at it, get one for Oliver at Barnes and Noble, too.

In most parts of the English speaking world, pleonexia refers to “excessive or insatiable covetousness.” In this part of the world, however, it is just one of the stages of childhood. For children in this country, simply being between the ages of six and sixteen (sixty, for some) means that the drive to acquire new stuff is as strong as the drive to eat, sleep and reproduce is for the rest of us. For them, “want” and “need” are not merely siblings, they are Siamese twins: one cannot go anywhere without the other.

Think about it: children never want anything; they need it.

“Can we got to Kohl’s this weekend? I need some shirts.”

“What’s wrong with all of your other shirts?”

“I can’t find them.”

(This is a particular subset of pleonexia–excessive or insatiable covetousness for the things you already own but cannot find because they are buried underneath all of your other stuff. I call it re-pleonexia: the excessive urge to acquire the same thing twice.)

For my kids, re-pleonexia is especially prevalent in the summer, when sleep overs become so common that I begin to forget exactly which children–and therefore which posessions–are mine. (The answer is usually the same for both: the bad ones.). I don’t understand it: there are always the same number of kids in my house (I think this is part of the Fire Department’s two in, two out rule), but the names and faces keep changing. Sometimes, in fact, I can only tell which children are not mine by asking them a simple yes/no question. (The ones who respond with a “please” or a “thank you” are definitely visitors.)

The other way to tell if a child belongs to me is by asking them if they are currently in possession of a toothbrush, a pillow, or a swimsuit. Again, only visiting children will answer in the affirmative. My children, on the other hand, will just shrug their shoulders and say, “I dunno. I guess I need a new one.”

I’ve heard that some Appalachian Trail through hikers shave down the handles of their toothbrushes to save a few ounces of weight on the 2000 mile trail. To them I say: ha! That’s nothing: my kids shave their toothbrushes down to non-existence for a trip around the corner. Of course, my kids also shave down their pillows and swimsuits to nothingness, as well.

Which is why they need new ones.

In the winter I’ve often been tempted to purchase gloves by the truckload and airdrop them across the entire city, thereby assuring myself that at least one pair will find its way onto the hands of one of my children.

Curiously, I have never been tempted to do the same thing with the possessions that go missing in the summer. Maybe this is because I know that, with most of the missing items, this method would be disastrous. Take swimsuits, for example. With gloves you’re only trying to cover your hands. With swimsuits–well, you see the problem. (Or you would.) And then, of course, there’s people’s reactions to finding bikini bottoms dangling off of their balconies and car antennae. Id’ hate to be the sole cause of the divorce rate doubling overnight.

And as far as a toothbrush drop–I can’t even get my kids to use a toothbrush once it has fallen on the floor, let alone the ground. (Of course, have you seen my floor lately? Yeah, me neither).

That just leaves a pillow drop. Which actually sounds like a good idea. And kind of fun. Meaning, of course, that it is probably neither.

Kind of like pleonexia itself.

If my kids ruled the world, every summer morning would begin with me dancing into their rooms in top hat and tails, doing high “chorus line” style kicks and singing “Let Me Entertain You” in an Ethel Merman vibrato. And then I would turn into a big pile of money.

With car keys.

Although my kids now know better than to say “we’re bored” when I’m around, they aren’t above standing by my side while I’m doing a mountain of laundry and saying things like, “We should go to the movies. We should go out to eat. We should go to the mall.” Or, for the more worldly one, “We should go to the beach. We should go to the Green Day concert. We should go to London.”

“Shoo,” I’ll say. “Go find something to do. And, for the last time, pick up all of your crap.” (The latter statement, unfortunately, being the end result of having made the former statement the day before, since, for some reason, my kids hear “go find something to do” as “go drag out every book, toy, and game you own, open them up, and leave them in a long, snaky pile that stretches from the middle of the living room to somewhere just north of Ecuador.”) Some days the trail of half-played games of “Sorry,” half-read books, and half-finished bowls of cereal stretches out like the juvenile version of the Boulevard of Broken (or at least Abandoned) Dreams.

“They should just go play in the woods. That’s what I did when I was their age.” This is what my husband says when he gets home from work and they descend upon him like a plague of bored locusts (or rather, an invasion of Ennui).

“Yes,” I remind him, and that’s why all of your childhood stories either end with ‘and then the ER doctor said,’ ‘and then the cop said,’ or, worst of all, ‘and then the ER doctor said to the cop.’ No thanks.”

But by the end of the first week of summer I’m ready to send them out into the woods myself; after all, everybody gets stitches eventually, don’t they? And lots of people get arrested, too. (Or maybe that’s just my family.)

The thing about the whole “boredom” issue, though, is this: it’s not that they’re bored that bothers me–it’s not even the fact that I, myself, haven’t been fortunate enough to experience boredom since 1996. It’s that they expect me to do something about it. What I want to know is: who died and made me Julie McCoy, Cruise Director? I mean, if I have to be somebody from The Love Boat, then I want to be Isaac the Bartender. Heck, if pushed I’d even agree to be Gopher, the yeoman purser (boy, talk about things that sound dirty that aren’t)–anybody except Julie.

Just look at how she turned out–all coked out and washed up before she was thirty. (Or is that coked up and washed out?) Anyway, while you might think that it was living the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle that did it to her, you’d be wrong. No: partying every night with the likes of Shelley Winters, Don Knotts, and Charo didn’t do it to her, it was the stress of being Julie McCoy, Entertainment Maven, that did.

Just think, for a minute, about what that means. If simply playing an “Entertainment Director” on TV is enough to drive someone to drugs, then imagine what it must do to people who have to do it in real life. Actually, I don’t have to imagine it; I’m living it.

Which reminds me: just where is that Isaac, and what did he do with my Mai Tai?

The other day when I came home from work The Devil was in my kitchen. She had her head stuck halfway in the fridge (maybe she came straight from Hell), and was tapping one of her hooves impatiently on the floor. With a burst of sulphur and a hiss of steam she slammed the door shut and turned on me.

“Why isn’t there ever any food in this house?”

“Wh-wh-what do you mean, Your Evilness?” I stammered. “There’s some tortillas, and-and-and, some b-b-eans . . .” (Suddenly I remembered the sulphur smell, and back-tracked) “. . . I mean, and some cheese. You like cheese crisps. . .”

“WE’RE OUT OF CHEESE! I HATE this house! There’s NEVER anything to eat! Or to DO! Why can’t we live somewhere ELSE?!” And then, tossing out exclamation points like pitchforks, she was gone, to spread her sunshine elsewhere.

“Whew,” I said. Just then I noticed my husband leaning against the kitchen counter–I must have missed him while I was dodging thunderbolts.

“Welcome home,” he said. “How was work?”

“In retrospect, much too short,” I replied. “What’s up with Beelzebub?”

“The usual. Got up on the wrong side of the Lake of Fire.”

We both glanced into the living room, where we could hear the screams of a tormented soul (A.K.A., The Devil’s little brother, Clyde) echoing off the walls.

“Run, Clyde!” we shouted. He didn’t have to be told twice; in a heartbeat he was out the door and headed for the park. Of course, this meant that we once again became the subject of the Devil’s scrutiny. Slowly the Eye of Sauron rotated and fixed its fiery gaze on us.

“So,” the Devil said, “Are we doing anything today?”

I glanced at the calendar, and saw with relief that The Devil had a Young Jammers workshop from one to three. (The Devil, appropriately enough, plays bass.) It was only noon, but I figured that if I drove really slow, maybe I could make the mile and a half drive last . . .ten minutes. I sighed, and resigned myself to joining the ranks of the Eternal Damned–or at least the Temporarily Damned–for the next thirty minutes.

Finally it was time to go; gathering up all of the little pieces of excoriated skin that had been flayed off of me by The Devil’s sharp tongue, I dropped The Devil at the Center for the Arts and proceeded to enjoy my two hours of bliss. (Sir Thomas More says that to qualify as true bliss, something must be more then the mere cessation of pain, but I disagree. And if he had to live with The Devil, he would, too.)

Driving back to pick her up I felt just like one of the minor characters in a horror movie–the ones you always scream at when they go back into the blood-soaked cabin. But what choice did I have? The Devil hates to wait.

As I put The Devil’s bass in the car her teacher came up to me and said, “I just want to tell you how much I enjoy your daughter; she’s wonderful.” And no: she wasn’t being sarcastic (I can tell–it’s one of the perks of writing a humor column).

I looked over at The Devil then, and I saw that it was true–she had pulled her horns in and tucked her pointy tail up under her hoodie. In fact, I could almost see the faint glow of a halo hovering somewhere above her head.

It lasted until we were back on the road, and then, with a whiff of brimstone, The Devil was back.

“So. Are we doing anything ELSE today?”

I once had a friend named Tom who wouldn’t eat any food that he had touched. When he ate a sandwich, the part that he had been holding got left on the plate. When he ate french fries, a quarter inch of each fry was rejected. And his toast was always nibbled right up to the crust, and then discarded.

Of course, in his defense, he was crazy.

I was thinking about Tom the other day when I was cleaning up my kitchen and noticed that every single glass we owned was missing. A quick search revealed that not only were all of them tucked into various nooks and crannies scattered throughout the house, but that each one had approximately one inch of milk left in them. Every single one. Remember that scene in Signs, where the father is picking up all of the used water glasses? It was like that, but with milk. (And without any chance of those glasses appearing in a pivotal scene involving Joaquin Phoenix, which is too bad, because I think I could put up with the milk if it led to an appearance by Joaquin Phoenix. Without the beard, of course.)

But I digress. (Mmm, Joaquin Phoenix.) The point is, though, that for some reason, my kids are incapable of finishing a glass of milk. Now, bear in mind that in no way am I forcing them to drink milk; it’s not like I’m pouring these big, tall glasses of milk and then standing guard over them, threatening them with future osteoporosis if they don’t drink up. No, they pour the milk. They decide how much they want. And how much they want always turns out to be one inch less then they realized.

“Pour less,” I’ll plead. “Pour half a glass, and then go back for more. But quit leaving an inch of milk in the bottom of all the glasses. It’s waste of money for me, and a waste of time for the cow. How do you think Bossy would feel if she knew that she could have knocked off work one squirt earlier the other day?”

Alas, the threat of a disgruntled bovine doesn’t carry as much weight as it did when I was a kid. Maybe that’s because I grew up with cows, and know all too well the agony that can ensue when a person comes into contact with an unhappy cow–especially when one of you is wearing flip flops and the other is wearing hooves. My kids, however, are ignorant of that particular pain, and so the lactose abuse continues.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they did it with water. I could just pour that out on the nearest plant (although doing that to the pothos in my kitchen recently caused it to send up the white–or rather yellow–flag of surrender). I also wouldn’t mind if it was liquor. I mean, it’s not like either one of my kids smoke (much), and so the chances of my gulping down a hidden cigarette as I clean up after their cocktail parties are practically nil. No, I wouldn’t complain one bit about having to take care of all of their leftover scotch problems. “Oh, look: the poor little dears couldn’t finish their Glenmorangie again. Well, waste not . . .”

But milk; bleh. I’m not even that big of a milk fan when it’s fresh; when it’s been sitting in a glass for a few hours (or days), slouching its way towards cheesehood, I’m even less of one.

I’m sure that all of the vegans out there are snickering as they read this, but let me assure you: it’s no great treat to find an ancient glass of soymilk behind a dresser, either.

In fact, pound per pound, I’d say that fuzzy soymilk is right up there with Joaquin Phoenix for pure creepiness–with the beard, of course.

There is a certain advantage to living in a house filled with cynical children. Take Easter, for example: my children understand that, in all likelihood, the Easter Bunny isn’t going to bring them squat. However, they also understand that three days after Easter, when all of the leftover chocolate is on sale, they’ll make out like kings. (My only religious belief is “Blessed are the Very, Very Cheap, for they shall inherit all of the 75% off candy.”)

True, this type of Easter celebration does lose some of the charm (because, really, who doesn’t like the idea of a rabbit running around your house leaving behind little chocolate versions of himself?), but it also cuts down on the hypocrite factor, since, as atheists, we can’t even claim to be resurrecting a lovely old Druidic ceremony like celebrating the vernal equinox when we celebrate Easter. No, the truth is, in our house we celebrate Easter for the same reasons we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, or Cinco de Mayo; the only difference is that, with Easter, the motivation is chocolate, while with St. Patty’s and Cinco, it’s Guinness and Tecate.

Still, there are certain disadvantages to living in a house filled with cynics as well. Take the tooth fairy. Owing to their cynicism–and the fact that, being freaks of nature, neither one of them lost their first tooth until they were well past the age of seven–my kids have never for a moment believed in the tooth fairy. And yet, they still expect the cash. (I can’t say that I blame them; after all, it is fairly distressing when parts of your body start leaving you–who wouldn’t want a little cold, hard cash to ease the pain? As I get older, I know that I would certainly appreciate even a symbolic monetary gift from the bifocal fairy, or maybe the orthopedic shoe insert gnome. Something, you know, for the effort.)

And speaking of “something for the effort:” it would be nice if, at least as far as the Tooth Fairy was concerned, my kids tried to fake it. But alas: they see no point in pretending to believe in something just to collect their cash. And I must admit, I can’t really blame them. After all, they’ll be in the workforce soon enough, where they’ll have to pretend they agree with nonsense every day just to collect their paychecks–why rush it now? And yet, I still can’t but help but feel a little melancholy about the way it’s all turned out.

Here’s how it usually goes down. The tooth falls out (usually at school, the result of showing the kid sitting next to them the old “swinging gate” trick one too many times), the nurse (or her stand-in–remember the budget cuts) puts it in a ziploc (the generic version; again–budget cuts), and the tooth is then brought home to me, where it is unceremoniously exchanged for a crisp new dollar bill (actually, a handful of change–there are budget cuts at home, too).

There is no reaching under of pillows, no stumbling in the dark–nothing. It has all the charm of a drug deal. And not even an illegal drug deal, which at least has a certain illicit thrill. No, this is more like buying medical marijuana. From a Republican.

Of course, at least this way I don’t have to hide the teeth. (Yes, I keep them. I paid for them, didn’t I?). And my kids don’t have to wonder, when they find the bag of teeth in my underwear drawer, if their mother is a secret serial killer.

Well, not much, anyway.
And besides, someday when they are both Goth teens getting chased out of Heritage Square they’ll be able to impress their fellow loiterers with their groovy tooth necklaces.

That is, if all that 75% off Easter candy hasn’t rotted them all away by then.

So there I was, looking up an article about the Vatican’s chief exorcist (don’t ask), when I came across a list of some of the possible ways that people might become possessed. These included practicing magic (such as using a Ouija board), being a Freemason, a habit of blaspheming, and “maledictions by close family members.”

I am completely safe on the first two counts. Even if we had a Ouija board, my kids would surely have lost the pieces by now, thereby saving me from the torment of demonic inhabitation. Come to think of it, maybe that’s been their plan all along, and that’s why they have also lost the pieces to every other board game we own. It makes sense, in a twisted “kid logic” sort of way: although the Vatican hasn’t officially come out against “Sorry” or “Celebrity Taboo” yet, why take a chance? ( And as for Freemasony, I think I’m fairly safe there as well, since I’ve heard they’re a pretty exclusive bunch. Except for the Shriners–they’ll drink with anyone.)

When it comes to the second two, however (maledictions and blaspheming), I am totally screwed. (Although you would think that if you can become possessed both by cursing someone, and by being cursed, then, eventually, possession would become so widespread that after a while it would become the norm, and the people who weren’t possessed by demons would be the ones seen as weirdos. Sort of like the way people look at me now when I tell them I don’t have a cellphone. “What do you mean you’re not possessed? You don’t have a demon? How do you even function? I mean, you can’t look at the middle of your back without a mirror or anything.”)

The hard truth is that if cursing (both in the active and passive sense) really is the “gateway to demonic possession,” then it’s all over for me. I’m totally @#$%. First, because I swear a lot. (See @#$%, preceding sentence.) But even if I didn’t swear at all, even if I said “gosh darn it” more often than Sarah Palin, there’s still the little matter of my daughter, Clementine. Because Clementine curses me all of the time–sometimes three or four times before breakfast, even. (Or, as they say down in Vatican City, she frequently “maledicts” me.) It’s worse than living with a grumpy gypsy.

She maledicts me when I won’t drive her and her friends to the mall, when I won’t pick her and her friends up from the mall after they have taken the bus to get there, when I won’t give her money so she can go to the mall, etc. (Come to think of it, maybe I misread that article; maybe it wasn’t malediction but mall-addiction.)

In fact, it’s rather shocking that with all of her maledicting and blaspheming, she isn’t the one possessed. Especially since when I did some follow up on the whole malediction thing I found that the four absolute worst groups you can curse at are God, parents, authority figures, and the deaf. (The latter presumably because it is a waste of time.) Again, I’m two out of four right there. (I’ll let you guess which two.) So why isn’t she possessed yet?

Unless, of course, she already is. Ah. That would explain everything.

It would explain the two feet of clothing that carpets the floor of her room (all the better for hiding that Hellmouth in the corner); it would explain why she refuses to wear socks with even the sweatiest of shoes (all the better to hide the sulphur smell); and it would explain why she refuses to brush her hair (all the better to cover up the horns, of course.)

It might even explain why we go through beer so quickly in my house: it’s either that, or there’s a Shriner with a Ouija board around here somewhere.