My mother has always been one of those overprotective, ultra-prepared, ready for any emergency types of people. Over the past few years, she discovered the Internet, and now forwards me every Internet hoax story about some woman who reportedly was abducted from her back yard, along with tips on how to defend myself against attackers.
• Act like you’ve fainted and he won’t be able to carry your body weight.
• Hold your car keys like brass knuckles and jab them into his throat.
• Pretend you want to kiss him, and then pop his eyes out with your thumbs.
These were my bedtime stories growing up. There was no Goodnight, Moon or Where the Wild Things Are. My mom read me passages from a survival book on edible roots and berries, just in case I was ever lost in the woods. Instead of Rock-a-Bye Baby, I was lulled to sleep by the theme song from Cops. It was a little like having Linda Hamilton from Terminator 2 as my mother, except without all the explosives and tank tops.
I thought this might end when I went away to college, but it only got worse once I was no longer under her watchful eye. When I lived in the dorms, she wanted to buy me a rope ladder for the window so I could escape in the event of a fire. That might have been a good idea if I hadn’t lived on the 19th floor. Yeah, that’s great, mom. Once I climb out on that rope ladder, I’ll only have to plummet seventeen stories to my death instead of all nineteen.
For Christmas a few years ago, she gave both my brother and me some sort of homemade survival kit for our cars. It consisted of a Ziploc bag that contained:
1. Big wad of dryer lint
2. Waterproof matches
3. Candle
4. Two pieces of kindling
5. Empty tin soup can
“Wow, mom. That’s really… wow! I mean, gosh. You… shouldn’t have?”
I still don’t really know what the purpose of this voodoo kit is. Am I supposed to start my car on fire as a flare if it breaks down on the side of the road? Cook up some roadkill raccoon while I wait for the Forest Rangers to arrive? Nevertheless, I indulged my mother by thanking her and putting the bag in my trunk. I don’t have the heart to tell her that the candle melted all over everything, so I had to throw the whole kit away.
For all my reluctant participation in my mother’s madness, you would think I would reject such overprotective behavior in my own life. Quite the opposite, I’m afraid. I recently spent time with my nephews who are six and four years old, and caught myself spouting out random pieces of fearful advice like:
“Don’t run with a sucker in your mouth! You’re going to choke on that!”
“Swimming? No, you just ate. We can’t go in the pool for another two hours or you’ll drown.”
“Hold onto Aunt Jenny’s hand. I don’t want some bad man to kidnap you and make you work as a carnie!”
All my years of dismissive eye-rolling and cries of, “Awwww mom!” did nothing to prevent my hyper-cautious DNA from kicking in. I knew it was time to surrender when, for her birthday last year, I bought my mother the ultimate gift from Hammacher Schlemmer: a combination seatbelt cutter/flashlight/windshield smashing tool to be used in case you accidentally drive your car into a lake. You just can’t fight genetics.

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The other night as I was watching a rerun of Law & Order: SVU, the ever-magnetic Mariska Hargitay was probing a witness for a description of a suspect to the latest crime of the week. The witness, although visibly shaken, was able to provide her with a pretty tight description of the individual: height, weight, age, ethnicity, tattoos, limp.
This got me wondering: just how good would I be if called to describe a crime scene? I started thinking about all the places I had been in the past week, and the people I had encountered. Store clerks, laundromat clients, postal workers, teens on subway, neighbors. And what I soon discovered is that, much to my disappointment, I would make a horrible witness. I’ve always thought of myself as an observant person, but this exercise made me realize that I only notice the most obscure of details.
I imagined the eager police officer and sketch artist, prodding me for something to go on, and frustrated that they had yet to even draw a head:
“So this man who stole the victim’s purse, can you describe him?”
“Did I say it was a man? Well… I guess it, uhh… yeah it was definitely a man. Well, I noticed that he had been eating Big League Chew earlier on the train. I didn’t even know they still made that! And he folded his newspaper in a weird way. He made it into a really small square, which I guess was just polite since it didn’t take up so much space. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Or a Cubs tank top maybe. Wait, no, that was the guy who sat there before him.”
“Mmmm hmmm… okay, ma’am, do you remember anything else? Anything more concrete, say?”
“Oh yeah! I almost forgot – his laugh sounded exactly like my friend Ryan’s!”
So now I’ve decided to treat every interaction in life as if I were walking into a crime scene. I check my watch every fifteen minutes, make eye contact with each person as they enter or leave a room, and jot down mental notes of any distinguishing characteristics or suspicious behavior.
July 1st – Barnes & Noble Bookstore, Chicago, IL
4:29pm: Caucasian blonde woman, mid-40’s, 5’3”, 135-145 lbs enters store. Grabs copy of Food & Wine, lets subscription card drop to floor, and doesn’t pick it up. Continues reading almost entire issue of Us Magazine before exiting fifteen minutes later.
4:42pm: Hispanic female clerk, early 20’s, shaved head and “What Would Joan Jett Do?” t-shirt steps behind counter. Proceeds to argue with male co-worker about who was supposed to re-shelve unclaimed pre-orders of Bill Clinton’s My Life. Takes sip from bottle of Sprite ReMix – Berryclear Flavor and complains that having to take an Econ class in the summer “blows.”
5:04pm: Caucasian male, late 60’s, 5’10”, 150 lbs slowly crosses street to enter bookstore. Suspect is wearing sandals with white socks and sweatshirt with wolf head on it. He’s carrying a plastic bag from Quizno’s that appears to contain a sandwich and bag of chips. Picks up copy of Tom Clancy’s Clear and Present Danger, flips to last page, and sets it back down. I follow him out of the store.
This time when Mariska comes knocking on my door, I’ll be ready.

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I get really frustrated when people ask me if I’m working yet. Uhh, excuse me? What do you mean, yet?! What exactly do you think I’ve been doing for the past two months – playing Connect Four with my cats? I cannot believe that in this day and age, people still don’t get the concept that being a stay-at-home-mom-without-children is hard work. Personally, I consider it to be one of the most challenging and noble of all professions. And coincidentally, also the most underappreciated.
I don’t have the luxury of punching out at 5:05pm every day from my casual Friday wearing, ID badge sporting, Corner Bakery lunch eating, cushy job, and leaving it all behind for the weekend. Being a stay-at-home-mom-without-children is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year job. We don’t get paid lunches, or long Memorial Day weekends. There are no fancy blue cubicles, or supportive managers to tell us we’re doing a good job.
Just once I’d like to hear someone say, “Hey, Jenny, way to shop wisely at the Jewel this week!” Does anyone even care that with my Bonus card and two coupons from Sunday’s newspaper, I saved $7.09 on my last grocery bill? I can show you the receipt if you don’t believe me. And is it too much to ask that someone tell me, “Wow! You really do a nice job of keeping the litter box clean! I can hardly even tell you have cats!”
I’m not looking for gold watches or pop can cozies emblazoned with the company logo. Just a little respect and recognition. That’s it. That’s all I ask.
Realizing that this respect is not going to be handed to me anytime soon, I have decided to go out and reclaim that which I am due. Really, I’m not just doing this for me, but for all stay-at-home-moms-without-children. In order to raise awareness for our cause, I’m working on putting together a demonstration, the likes of which this country has never seen. I’m tentatively calling it The Million Stay-At-Home-Mom-Without-Children March On Washington. I say tentatively because it’s a little hard to fit that all on a t-shirt, but I’m working on it.
I see the Internet as my greatest tool to reach like-minded SAHMWC’s such as myself, and am using my keen marketing background to target the prime audience. So far, I’ve started message board threads on key websites such as: www.recipes.com, www.wisk.com, and www.friskies.com. I’m reaching out to any woman who, like me, feels her contributions to society are being dismissed. You can either have a job, or have children, but god forbid you should have neither!
So far, my requests for support from the Rosie O’Donnell camp have gone unanswered. Apparently Ms. O’Donnell’s definition of women’s rights doesn’t include the rights of the SAHMWC’s of the world. I realize that people like me don’t have a voice in society – that’s why I went to her for help. If anyone would understand discrimination, I thought it would be Rosie. So disappointing.
But don’t worry about me – I’m not letting this minor setback shake my passion for the cause. The SAHMWC is everywhere – she’s your sister, your friend, your aunt, or your neighbor. And she deserves to be heard. So please – anyone who’s reading this right now – help the SAHMWC’s in your life rise up and be counted. Not because it’s the popular thing to do, but because our mission is just and good, and because we matter.

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I haven’t driven my car in a while, and when I got into it yesterday, it smelled like cat pee. Gross, I know. I’ve heard that cats sometimes crawl underneath cars and sleep on the engines for warmth, but it has been almost 85 degrees the past few days. I can’t imagine there are too many shivering strays running around right now. Or maybe some cat just liked my snazzy Honda Civic so much that he wanted to mark it as his own. I may never know.
In any case, I’m stuck with a car that smells like a Port-o-John. I thought it would go away if I just drove around for a while with the windows open, but no luck. I stopped at a gas station to pick up an air freshener, but the only scent they had was musk. I’m no chemist, but isn’t musk the same thing as sweat? So my option is to have a car that smells like pee, or like pee and sweat. Just throw in some sour wine and it’ll be like driving around in the Paris subway.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with a smelly car issue, so you’d think it wouldn’t upset me so much. A few years ago when I went on vacation with some friends, I parked my car in my parents’ driveway for the week. My parents live on a 3-acre wooded lot, so they had the room. When I got back from vacation and drove my car home, I immediately noticed that something just wasn’t right. There was an odd smell coming from the vents, and every time I turned the fan on high, I heard a kind of thwapping noise.
This odor wasn’t a faint, “Hey, do you smell popcorn?” type smell. This was thick and rank, and not going away. I actually remember thinking at the time, “This smells like death.”
I dropped my car off at the auto repair shop to have them check out the problem. When I picked it up the next day, the mechanic tried hard not to crack a smile as he handed me my keys, along with an invoice for $175 that said: Removal of mouse debris. As it turns out, a little country mouse decided to climb up into my car and get cozy. Maybe he was ill, maybe he was in debt, or maybe he simply dreamed of a better life in the city. Whatever the reason, he chose my car as his final resting grounds.
As tragic as his passing may have been, I really had a hard time accepting that it could cost $175 to fix this little problem. Removal of mouse debris? I imagined the mechanics in full surgical scrubs, with tweezers and gauze in hand, like some warped game of Operation: “Take out his spare ribs for $100! It takes a very steady hand!”
In reality, I’m sure they just turned a garden hose on full blast and sprayed it under my hood a few times. Then they probably high-fived and butted chests, laughing as they wrote out the bill for $175.
This time around, I don’t plan on seeking expert intervention to investigate this smell – I’ve chosen to tough it out. And I just picked up a new air freshener: Country Apple. I think the mouse would have liked that.

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Sitting at Starbuck’s yesterday, I overheard some 20-something girls sharing stories of their most embarrassing moments. They didn’t seem to reveal anything too earth-shattering from where I was sitting. You walked in on your father-in-law in the bathroom? Yawn. Is that really the best you can do? I went back to enjoying my iced decaf grande skim latte with Splenda when I started thinking: just what exactly would I claim as my most embarrassing moment?
Life is filled with so many little gaffes and fumbles along the way, that it’s hard to choose just one. I guess there was the time I tried to give myself a bikini wax and almost blacked out from pain. Close, but probably not one for the record books. Locking myself out of the house? Too mundane. Wearing my shirt to school inside out? Who hasn’t?
No, when I look deep inside myself, in the dark, tiny corner where I cram all my painful memories, I’d have to say it was The Great Dirty Joke Incident of 1979.
Here’s how it went down: Lincoln Elementary School playground, 3rd Grade, Spring 1979. I was tired of playing four-square, and the tether ball was occupied, so I decided to see what all the boys were talking about by the drinking fountains. Turns out, they were telling jokes. Dirty jokes. The kind 3rd graders learned from 4th graders, who learned from 5th graders, and so on. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t care. I wanted in.
There were two particular jokes going around that day. One kind of rhymed and was peppered with swears, the other was full of dirty sex stuff. I, of course, chose the dirty sexy one as my own. I’m not sure I really even understood it, but it felt so empowering to say the words. It was such a rush to see the shock mixed with delight on the other girls’ faces as I told them the joke.
I wasn’t indiscriminate about who I shared my joke with – I selected my audience carefully. Or so I thought. After recess was over, I saw our janitor, Mr. Bruce, stop my teacher in the hall. Hmm… that’s odd, did someone throw up? Does Miss Labrador need him to fix the sink in our classroom? Oh well.
“Jenny, can you come out into the hall please?”
“M-me? You want me to come out there? Umm… okay.”
Ohmigod, what’s going on? I’m Jenny the Straight-A Student. I get to do special smart projects while the other kids are reading about some dumb girl and a horse. Teachers write that I’m a pleasure to have in class on my report card. I get to grade everyone’s spelling tests! I don’t get called out into the hall!
“Jenny, Mr. Bruce informed me that you were telling a joke during recess. A very bad joke.”
It was at this point that I started to feel a little dizzy, and my stomach tightened in on itself.
“Jenny, Sara B. told Mr. Bruce the joke, and said that you were the one telling it to all the girls outside. Is that true?”
Et tu, Sara B.? Et tu?
“Uhh. I… well, I umm, there were some people saying some things, and umm. Well, I just told a joke that I heard.”
“Tell me the joke, Jenny. I need you to tell me what the joke was.”
My eyes started to glaze over, and my tongue suddenly felt very dry and thick. My palms were dripping. Am I breathing? I can’t breathe. My mind was racing frantically, playing the joke out over and over in my head. How could I change it? Make it not so dirty? Quick – replace all swear words with innocent ones: shit becomes poo, piss becomes pee. Oh god, what word can I possibly use to replace that horrible four-letter one for the male member? The real word is worse than the swear!
Think, Jenny, THINK! Act like you don’t remember it all! Pretend you didn’t get it! Make it shorter, forget the punch line! For the love of god, Jenny, make yourself faint! MAKE YOURSELF FAINT!!
While fighting back tears, and desperately trying to catch my breath, I did it. I told the teacher a dirty joke. It was without a doubt, the most humiliating moment of my entire life. When I opened my teary eyes, I was amazed to see that this unprecedented shame hadn’t turned my body to dust.
Miss Labrador quietly led me back into class, and never said another word about it. Clearly, she understood that having to tell her this joke was worse than any punishment known to mankind.
I’m sure some of you are wondering if I still remember the joke. Yes, in fact, I do. Not the whole joke, really. Mainly just the punch line – sometimes it haunts me on quiet, stormy nights. So, no, you won’t hear the joke from me. I’ve learned my lesson – you’ll have to talk to Sara B.

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There’s something I’ve wanted to write about for a while now, but I still hesitate to type the words. It’s something that very few people know about me, and I don’t really even talk about it with the select friends who do know. It’s kind of like we have an unspoken understanding.
I was afraid to tell my parents for years, not because I thought they wouldn’t love me. I just worried they would look at me, well… differently. But now it’s just becoming more and more difficult for me to keep this a secret so I need to let it out: I am completely and dangerously addicted to infomercials.
I love watching TV, but I don’t have cable. I am weak, and get sucked into bad television shows very easily, so I cannot allow myself to live with the temptation of 127 channels. Sure, this has meant sacrifices. I have never seen Sex and the City, The Sopranos, or Six Feet Under. Without MTV, popular bands remain phantom voices over the radio. I may have eaten lunch next to the lead singer from Coldplay last week, but how would I know?
Without cable, I’m left with eight working channels including Telemundo and the Jesus channel. In between all the Sabado Gigante variety shows, the Jerry Springer transvestite brides and the Maury Povich who’s my baby’s daddy episodes, my only refuge is the welcoming embrace of the infomercial.
There’s something so familiar, so unpretentious about the infomercial. Whether they’re selling tighter abs, smoother skin, or the perfect rotisserie chicken, I feel like they’re speaking just to me. Like they somehow know exactly what I need, and can see inside my soul.
I remember exactly where I was the first time I saw the Ginsu knife commercial. Are you insane? You can’t cut a tomato after you just tore through a tin can with that knife! But by god he did. He sliced through that ripe, tender tomato like a hot blade through butter. I still get a little tingly thinking about it.
I didn’t see any of this as a problem, until one Thursday afternoon a few weeks ago. I had just learned how to save hundreds of dollars a month in groceries by vacuum-sealing my own meats when I flipped on a few minutes of Dr. Phil. The topic of the day was addiction, and Dr. Phil was holding what he likes to call a “structured intervention” with a 20-year old drug addict and his family.
At first I just rolled my eyes, but as I listened more carefully, I started to recognize some similarities between this junkie and me. The cravings, the denial, the late-night phone calls, the shame. Suddenly I started to wonder what would happen if my family and friends ever tried to stage one of these interventions with me:
Dr. Phil: “Now Jenny, your family wrote to me for my help in getting you to recognize your addiction. I’m here to help you hold up a mirror and look at what your dependence on infomercial products has done to you and your family.”
Me: “I don’t even believe this (bleep). This is private stuff. Mom, why did you have to talk to me on national TV? You lied to me to get me here, and now you want me to trust you?!”
Dr. Phil: “Mom, Dad. You’re not dealing with your daughter right now. You’re dealing with the addiction.”
Mom: “Honey, we love you, but you do have a problem. We have your credit card statements, and in the last month alone you’ve spent over $1700 on George Foreman grills and accessories. And just look at what we found in your hotel room!”
One of the producers would drag out a giant box on stage. With a dramatic flourish, Dr. Phil would pull the black cloth off the top of the box, revealing my secret stash:
1 Jack LaLanne Power Juicer
1 Ab Roller
2 Ultimate Choppers
1 Showtime Rotisserie Grill
1 RonCo Food Dehydrator
4 Pocket Fishermen
1 Flowbee
3 Tubs of Nads Hair Removing Gel
1 Hairigami
1 Thighmaster Gold
2 Nail Dazzle French Kits
I’ve seen enough Lifetime dramas starring Meredith Baxter-Birney to know that admitting you have a problem is the first step. But where do I go from here? Is there some sort of Suzanne Somers Rehab Center for the Infomercially Dependent? And if so, do I get a money-back guarantee? A free solid flavor injector?
And what exactly would I do there? Maybe they would teach me how to function without the aid of revolutionary infomercial products: I’d re-learn how to chop vegetables with a regular kitchen knife, do sit-ups with my feet under the couch, and cut my hair without the use of a vacuum cleaner.
This all probably sounds silly to people who’ve never had an addiction. But I have to admit, some nights when I’m having trouble sleeping, I still like to think about genius inventor Ron Popeil’s sweet, loving voice saying to me, “Just set it… and forget it.”

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I need to get a job really soon. I’ve been unemployed for more than two months now, and I’m starting to lose my mind. Sure, there are some definite perks: my house is immaculate, my bills get paid on time, nobody complains anymore when I don’t wear pants. But all of these benefits combined still don’t outweigh the unbelievable stress that comes from being in a one-bedroom apartment all day long taking care of twin four-year-olds. That’s right, I’m talking about my two Siamese cats – Punch and Judy.
Unless they’ve owned a Siamese cat before, it’s hard for people to understand what I’m talking about. Most cats meow. Some just mew. I’ve even heard stories of cats that just kind of silently mouth the word “meow”. Siamese cats, on the other hand, scream. They yell, they demand, they shout. All the time, and for no apparent reason.
I’m starting to worry that my landlord is going to evict me. Other tenants give me dirty looks in the hallway, people let the laundry room door slam in my face, and somehow the Chinese takeout menus and political flyers always end up in my mailbox. In fact, I find myself wishing that the neighbors would hold loud parties, or take up the drums, or have fussier babies. Anything to take some of the focus off of me.
At one point, I actually took Judy to the vet to see what was wrong with her because I thought this just could not be normal behavior, even for a Siamese. She does this thing, pretty much every night, where she frantically paces around the living room like a dingo’s got her baby, and every time she passes the fireplace, she screams. Not just a quick meow, but a long howl that gets progressively louder with each second.
I did some research online and diagnosed her as having hyperthyroidism. She has all the classic symptoms. It was the vet’s first guess as well, so I was pretty excited at the idea of just slipping some Synthroid into her tuna fish every day and regaining my sanity. But unfortunately, when the blood test came back, the vet had to inform me that she was perfectly healthy. Damn.
The vet’s only suggestion was Valium. While I weighed this option aloud, expressing some concern about developing a dependency, the vet clarified that she meant for Judy. So my choices were to either have a cat with ADHD sprinting around my apartment all day, or live with some sort of crank addict jonesing for Whiskas liver snaps. What to do, what to do? I chose the drug-free route, but it’s comforting to know that I do have the option of getting her some meds in the event of an impending eviction.
When I first started spending more time at home, I wondered if maybe the cats were just yelling all the time because I was there. Maybe they didn’t do this during the day when I was away. Once I went back to work, they’d settle down and go back to their normal routine, right?
I hung onto that naïve belief for a few weeks, until one day when I was leaving my apartment. I thought I heard my cats yelling goodbye to me, but then realized that the sound was coming from the neighbor’s door.
“MEEEEOOOWW! MEEEEOOOWW! MEEEEOOOWW!”
Then I heard my neighbor’s voice:
“Who are you talking to, sweetie?”
“Kitties!”
Apparently, my neighbor’s two-year old daughter has been crouching by their front door, conversing with my cats for the past several months. This poor child’s first word may have been “meow” and it’s all my fault. I need to get a job really soon.

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My upstairs neighbor hums – ALL the time. I can hear her right now, humming something that sounds like it might be a song, or the alphabet. Before I get into analyzing that, let’s just talk about how unbelievably thin these walls must be. How can you hear someone humming clearly through an entire floor? There’s only so loud you can hum, I mean, c’mon!
Every time I hear her hum (which, since I became a stay-at-home-mom without children, is every single day), it makes me wonder how much of my life she can hear. Not that there’s a lot to hear – most of my conversations happen inside my head – but still, it’s a little unnerving to think that she can hear every word or sound I make.
I’ve also realized that almost no one in my building has a job that requires them to actually leave the building. What is that all about? I have an excuse for not leaving – I’m unemployed. Don’t they understand that sometimes I want the building all to myself without humming and creaking and baby cooing and breathing?! Damn bunch of get-to-work-at-home people.
I think my upstairs neighbor is a therapist of some sorts. Or a hooker. She has some shady business type name on her mailbox, and I hear her buzzing people in pretty regularly throughout the day. Once she buzzes them in, though, I never hear talking. Honestly, I’m really not trying to listen. It’s just that if I can hear humming, I could certainly hear some sort of muffled conversations. So why do people keep coming over and not talking? Either because they’re undergoing hypnotherapy/childhood regression procedures, or are bound and gagged and tied to the bed. Oddly, the latter scares me less.

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I didn’t always hate pigeons. Like most people, I pretty much paid no attention to them. As a young child, I think I even may have liked them. I remember in 2nd grade for Show-And-Tell, my friend Scotty brought in a stalactite he had found under the Lincoln Park bridge. Mrs. DeLeo looked a little heartbroken when she had to inform him that his geological treasure was really just a collection of pigeon poo. I told him I still thought it was neat.
So you see, I didn’t always want to drop-kick pigeons. For me, the turning point was when I moved to Paris for a year during college. Like any big city, Paris is home to a lot of pigeons. In fact, by my rough estimations, I would say there are approximately 14,259 pigeons for every human being living in the city. And while I haven’t spent a lot of time with, say, New York pigeons, or even Chicago pigeons, I would venture to guess that Parisian pigeons have the most annoying and aggressive attitudes in the world.
Almost every flat building surface in the entire city of Paris is covered with row upon row of 4-inch spikes to keep the pigeons from landing. And any surface that isn’t protected is covered with about 4 inches of pigeon crap. So I guess all the constant circling around in search of somewhere to land has made them particularly irritable.
Most birds are somewhat afraid of humans, except in big cities where for some reason, tourists think it’s really neat-o keen to feed the birds and have their pictures taken covered with diseased plague carriers. Thanks. Thanks for taming our vermin. And we wonder why the French hate Americans.
I was able to tolerate all of this, until about my sixth month in Paris. After a particularly long and stressful class on La Literature Francaise, I stopped into a bakery to pick up my favorite lunch of a camembert sandwich and some Orangina. I scoped out a spot that seemed free of fowl, sat down and started to unwrap my sandwich. The moment I took that first huge bite of soft cheese and crusty bread, it arrived: the ugliest f**ckin’ pigeon I had ever seen in my entire life.
For starters, it only had one eye. It had remnants of a second eye, kind of like a water mark. When it turned its head a certain way, you could see where the eye might have been. Then this pigeon probably had, at best, a dozen feathers left on its body. I can only assume that it was plucking them out in a vain attempt to disguise itself as a rat. Finally, I noticed that it was kind of hobbling toward me, not the confident stride of most Parisian pigeons. When I got the courage to look down, I realized that it had a club foot. No lie, my friends. This bird’s left foot looked remarkably like a stick shift.
Within seconds, I felt my throat closing around the partially chewed piece of sandwich. The muscles clamped shut and I just couldn’t swallow it. That bird knew exactly what he was doing – he was a pro. His own hideousness was his ticket to unlimited food. I coughed out my bite of sandwich, tossed the rest of my lunch at his one good foot, and knew I had been beaten by the best.

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A guy threw up in tap class last night. Not on the floor – he made it to the bathroom, thankfully. It was about 112 degrees in the studio and I guess all the shuffle/ball/changes finally got to him. Unfortunately for all of us, the fencing class is held in the studio right before our tap class, and let me tell you, those fencers sweat like pigs. It’s really kind of disgusting – they take off their masks to reveal purplish red faces, with their hair all matted down and stuck to their bloated heads. I hate fencers. I hate them so much. Why don’t they all go back to the Renaissance Faire where they belong?!
So about 30 minutes into the class, Gary shuffled his way out the door and ran to the bathroom to puke. After I got over my initial disgust, I admired his commitment. He actually came back into class, but just sat on the sidelines sipping water. The teacher offered him some cheddar flavored Goldfish. He wisely declined.
Gary’s kind of an odd duck. Nice enough guy, but he is a little spastic in his dance style. I’m always a little afraid to stand next to him, for fear of being clothes-lined. And he has this annoying habit of practicing while the teacher is trying to show us the moves. I’m learning that it’s so important to listen for the correct rhythm when you’re learning new steps, otherwise you just make a stream of nonsensical noises. So when this guy keeps tapping while the teacher is trying to teach us something new, it has the same effect on me as when my brother would tease me by repeating everything I said:
“Matt, did you take my dollar?”
“Matt, did you take my dollar?”
“Shut up! Give it back to me!”
“Shut up! Give it back to me!”
“Stop saying everything I say!”
“Stop saying everything I say!”
“Quit it – I mean it!”
“Quit it – I mean it!”
“Mommmmmm!!! Matt’s copying me!!!!!!”
“Mommmmmmm!!! Matt’s copying me!!!!!”
Well, at least my brother wasn’t into fencing…

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