getting the bird

Each year, my mother swears that she will not be sucked in by the Post-Thanksgiving Day sales that start at 5:00 am and last for only six hours. And each year, during her Pre-Thanksgiving Day browsing of the sale ads, she always finds something that someone needs at a price that simply cannot be ignored.

“Look at this printer/copier/fax machine/scanner that’s on sale tomorrow!” she told me.

“Will it also toast bread and remove stains from the carpet?” I asked her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she chided. “Your sister could really use one of these. And the ad says that this printer is Photosmart, which is exactly what she needs!”

My sister recently had a baby, and her husband had been taking many megabytes worth of photos. So, obviously, a Photosmart printer would be needed…as a Photodumb printer would make her digital memories look crappy.

She asked if I wanted to be her co-pilot on this quest, but I told her that I valued sleep more than sales. So in the early morning hours on the day after Thanksgiving, my mother dragged my father out of bed and sped to Wal-Mart.

She arrived at the store long before the sun would make its appearance for the day, and navigated the Wal-Mart aisles with the skill of a seasoned veteran. My father, who was still a rookie in the world of value shopping, was left behind somewhere in the kitchenware section.

Mom made a beeline to the computer corner of the store, turned left down the printer aisle and, to her relief, grabbed the last remaining sale printer off of the shelf. Seconds later, a middle aged guy made the same turn that she did only moments before, and a look of great despair crossed his face when he saw her holding the last coveted printer/copier/fax machine/scanner/toaster/stain remover in the store. A look that says, ‘I was so close to winning! If only I hadn’t got tangled up in the baby apparel section that would be me holding the trophy instead of this lady.’

And, perhaps hoping for a holiday miracle, he asked my mom, “Hey lady, can I have that?”

My mother, generous as she is, did not wake up at the crack of dawn to turn over a highly prized piece of technology that easily. “No, I’m sorry. You see, it’s for my daughter.”

Overcome by frustration, the guy glared at my mom and responded, “Well happy holidays, asshole!”

“I was completely mortified,” my mom said as she retold the whole sordid affair to me later in the day. “I’m a grandmother now, for goodness sake! I couldn’t believe that he would call me such a name!”

“So what did you do?” I asked, fearing that the encounter would somehow end with this guy trying to strangle my mom with an Xbox game controller cord in the middle of Wal-Mart.

“I said Happy Holidays to you too. And once he turned around and started walking away, I stuck my middle finger up at him.”

“Well, at least you got the printer and you’re still in one piece,” I told her.

“Yes, but you know, now that I think of it, I’m not sure your sister will really enjoy this printer. I’m going to return it tomorrow.”

Next year, I plan on asking my mom to simply buy all of us socks.

when weather goes bad

I was driving home from work today when I heard a teaser on the radio imploring me to tune in to the 5:00 news because the Channel 11 ‘Severe Weather Center’ had important information regarding the conditions outside. Having just been outside getting into my car, I was quite certain what this information entailed. Namely, that it was cold. So cold, in fact, that as I was unlocking my door I’m pretty sure that I saw a snowflake drift past me. Apparently, this is what passes for ‘severe’ weather…though I really didn’t require an important news update to alert me to the situation.

But even more alarming then the severe weather that we were so clearly experiencing was the fact that the local news station actually had their own ‘Severe’ Weather Center. I had seen their news program before and had been enlightened by their ‘Regular’ Weather Center, but had been completely unaware that a ‘Severe’ weather center was also on site.

Most likely, I had been watching on either sunny or rainy days…wimpy weather that no self-respecting Severe Meteorologist would be reduced to reporting on. The station probably employs low QPA meteorologist graduates to cover weather such as this. Sissy meteorologists who most likely get taunted in the newsroom hallways, becoming unsuspecting victims to wedgies and spitball attacks at the hands of the Severe meteorologists.

And I couldn’t help but think of how cool it would be to have the word ‘severe’ in your job title. Being a ‘severe’ anything would definitely score major points with the ladies and prospective employers as well. And if cold weather with a single snowflake constitutes ‘severe’, then I’m sure that the criteria is quite low.

Take my job, for example. It’s boring. In fact, I would go so far as to call it ‘severely’ boring. Thus, I think that I would be within my legal right to pencil in the word ‘severe’ before my current job title on all of my business cards…making me a ‘Severe Billing Associate’.

Of course, the word ‘associate’ sucks. So I would probably have to white that out and add ‘Secret Agent’ or ‘Swashbuckler’ instead.

one night

I drove down to DC this weekend to visit my friend Randy. He’s had his eye on a co-worker named Beth for awhile now, and he made plans for us to meet her and a group of her friends on Saturday night.

As we walked into the townhouse that she rents in Annapolis, we were introduced to the half dozen people that were seated around the living room. Jim and Leslie were the couple on the cream colored sectional. Carolyn, Beth’s roommate, was perched on an Ottoman. And Keri, Carolyn’s friend who was visiting from Phoenix, was sitting snugly in the plush, matching armchair.

Beth asked us what we wanted to drink, a query that had only two options…beer or wine. Randy went straight for the beer while I inquired about the wine list. Beth told me that they had a selection of red or zinfandel, and while I was mulling over the dual choice that had been presented, Carolyn held out her glass to me and asked, “would you like to try a taste of mine?”

I’m no germophobe, but it’s been my experience that many others don’t share my non-segregational views toward other people’s germs. And it’s very possible that I was reading too much into the gesture, but it seemed like a rather intimate offer for someone you just met a few minutes before.

So I took a sip, went with the same choice of wine that Carolyn had selected, and ended up with Carolyn for the rest of the night…two people brought together by a shared sip of wine.

We talked over appetizers at a posh restaurant that overlooked the bay. We talked out on the dock while the moored sailboats bobbed up and down on the water in the crisp night air. We talked the whole way to a small local pub that had a heated patio, where we sat and talked some more.

We talked about how her “ass-bones” hurt from sitting on the chilled patio chairs and how, with all of our modern day technology, no one had yet invented a decent ass massager. We talked about my firmly held opinion that all food would taste better if coated liberally with General Tso’s sauce…tofu included…and she said that Tsofu would probably sweep the nation... microwavable Tsofu, Tsofu sandwiches, and Tsofu nuggets for those people that prefer their food nuggetized.

And while our conversations weren’t of the ‘where’d you go to college?’ and ‘how many siblings do you have?’ variety, I felt that I knew her better by the end of the evening than I would have if I had asked them.

The next morning, armed with a keg of coffee, I started on my 250 mile return trip home. But my mind kept drifting back to Carolyn the entire time. And I kept thinking of how much I would have loved to spend one more day, or week, or year with her.

I realize that I’ll never see the girl again, but even if she wasn’t a whole lot of miles away, chances are that however far the relationship would have evolved…considering that it was still in the amoeba stage…it probably never would have lived up to the promise of that first night.

And sometimes having only one rose-tinted memory is better than letting that same memory get dull around the edges and then shatter completely. Still, though, I keep thinking of how nice it would be to one day meet someone to share a lifetime of first nights with.

the finer things in life

Ever since my mother’s decision to paint the master bedroom a few months ago, she’s been on a home renovation kick. This phase of hers has now extended into the kitchen…though to achieve her grand vision, she quickly realized that she was going to need the help of professionals.

They were called in, and my mom outlined her plans to them. Plans which consisted of moving the refrigerator from one end of the kitchen to the other, moving the sink five feet to the right, re-tiling the floor with a much fancier tile than the stick on plastic kind which we had walked on for many years, and adding cabinets everywhere. Cabinets from top to bottom and all the way around. Cabinets that you could open up to reveal even more cabinets. Cabinets that, it would appear, decided to stage a revolution, and overthrew the kitchen government…thus, becoming a wood paneled nation with decorative little brass knobs.

The professionals listened patiently, then began ripping, pulling, and smashing their way right through my mother’s kitchen. Two weeks later, my mom was proudly calling up everyone that she could think of to come and tour her new kitchen.

I stopped by the other day and was ushered through the small paradise where her kitchen once stood. “Look at the new stainless steel corner sink! It even has one of those little hoses that you can spray the dishes with! I’ve always wanted one of those little hose thingies!”

And after having been privy to the contents of all the new, numerous cabinets…which one now housed the silverware, which one she felt that the seasoning would feel most comfortable in, and which cabinet she decided the glasses were best suited for…she sprung the big news on me.

“Your father and I even have a wine cellar now!”

My parents have never been wine connoisseurs, and their knowledge of fine wines are severely limited to those that come in a box. Still, I thought that maybe this was a new hobby that they were embarking on. Something which would occupy their minds and tantalize their taste buds well into their retirement years. So I let my mom lead me into the basement to show me where they were going to start storing and building an impressive collection of vintage wines.

We walked down the basement steps and turned the corner. And there before me stood the glorious wine cellar. Which, in truth, was less of a wine cellar and more of a $19.99 metal shelving unit from Lowe’s with three boxes of wine on it…one red, one white, and one blush.

“Mom,” I delicately tried to explain, “I’m not sure that this is what people mean when they talk about wine cellars.”

“Well,” she told me, “we have wine and we keep it in the cellar. So as far as the neighbors are all concerned, we’ve got a wine cellar.”

And with that, my parents made their arrival into high society. Perhaps a faux-high society, but a high society none the less.

kitchen showers

My rent went up by a substantial amount this past year. The reason, I was told, was for brand new elevators, brand new windows, and a brand new parking lot. The ‘old’ elevators had wrapped in green shag carpeting that covered the floor and walls. The renovated ‘new’ elevators had been stripped of this carpeting and had been installed with an annoying automated voice that tells you what floor you've stopped on.

The ‘new’ windows required all of my furniture to be cozily crammed into the middle of my living room. And while this meant that I could reach out my hand and change the television channel from where I sat on the couch, I would do so with the coffee table resting on top of me.

And the ‘new’ freshly paved parking lot meant that nobody was allowed to actually park in the parking lot for the week that it was being freshly paved. Everyone had to park in a nearby shopping plaza, but got a good deal of exercise from the mini-hike that had to be undertaken each day to reach their car.

Yet I weathered these inconveniences with grace. How could I fault a management company that so obviously cared about my comfort and well being? And I continued to tell myself this, even as I trudged up the stairwell with shampoo dripping into my eyes when the fire alarm went off last week because of faulty wiring in the ‘new’ elevators. But now I’m beginning to think that I might be mistaken.

This morning, like every other morning, I dragged myself into the bathroom in the hopes that a hot shower would wake me up. But unless there happens to be a cup of coffee waiting in the shower for me – which there never is – these showers don’t do much in terms of waking me up. They do, however, tend to help the overall quality of the air that surrounds me, thus I continue to shower each day.

As I turned the faucet on, expecting a gush of water, I was instead greeted with nothing. No stream, trickle, or single drip. And suddenly, I was wide awake.

To maximize my sleep intake, I have my schedule timed down to the exact second. Thus, any unforeseen delay is going to make me late for work. And no water certainly qualified as one such delay. The thought of simply going back to bed for an extra half hour briefly crossed my mind, but rolling into work unbathed and with my hair sticking up at odd and unnatural angles caused me to rethink this plan. So instead, I called the apartment manager.

After relating my story of a waterless morning, the manager told me, ‘yeah, I just had some guy on the seventh floor call about the same thing. We’ll get someone up there in about an hour to take a look at it. Check the kitchen though, ‘cause the other guy said that he had running water in there.’

Being that I now had to be at work in less than an hour, having water in an hour wasn’t going to be of much use to me. So I tried the kitchen sink and, sure enough, there was water. Out of desperation, I decided on drastic measures…the result of which is simply one reason that I’m glad I no longer have roommates. Because had anyone seen me standing naked in my kitchen, head stuck in the sink rinsing shampoo from my hair with one hand while attempting lather my armpits with the other, I would have been forced to move out due to sheer embarrassment.

But since I live alone, I simply wiped up the soap-sudsy drips that had accumulated on the tile floor, shaved over the garbage disposal, and headed out the front door.

Apparently, the raise in rent for the parking lot, elevators, and windows didn’t include 24 hour water service. So obviously, my rent will be going up again next year.

holiday hullaballoo

For years, my dad has been in charge of the ‘passing out the Halloween candy’ task at the house. And he takes this job very seriously. Not because of any concern for the dental hygiene and strict adherence to the recommended daily allowance for candy consumption. And not because of a militant ‘one piece, one person’ rule. Rather, he has turned Halloween into a marketing research bonanza. My father, who is neither in the marketing nor research fields, must, on some level, feel that he missed his true calling and spends this one night every year making up for it.

At the final doorbell chime each Halloween at 8:00, he would retreat to the den. And while most other fathers were secretly sneaking candy bars from their children’s stash, mine was hard at work crunching numbers related to the annual outflow of candy.

What percentage of kids preferred Kit-Kats to Butterfingers? Were Skittles a more popular choice than M&Ms? Statistically, do boys tend to prefer Reese’s cups over girls? And does this imply that boys may have a peanut gene that is missing in the female population? These are all questions that my father felt compelled to answer each Halloween. The results of which were gone over in pain staking detail at the breakfast table the next morning. And, feigning support, we would all pause in mid-bite to ponder the significance of these findings and the implications that they held for the candy eating world.

The information was then safely stored until the next year when, based upon the candy trends that he found, he would determine what brands to purchase and distribute. For me, however, Halloween was always the start of a two month long holiday bonanza. One which started with the collection of candy, had a large turkey dinner mid-way through, and ended with the unwrapping of glorious presents that sat, in waiting, underneath the Christmas tree.

One year when still very young, I headed out with mom in my brand new, still smelling of plastic, Batman costume to begin the holiday season with a healthy dose of candy. This happened to be the year when Hershey bars were preferred over Nestle Crunch bars by a ratio of three to one. In preschool the year before, my tiny brain had been fully saturated with all the various holidays during this two month span. In an attempt to multi-culturalize the class, we were introduced to Rosh Hashana, Kwanza, Ramadan, Chanukah, and many other holidays that I have never heard of since.

With all these holidays vying for attention in my head, it was only natural that they would all start blending and seeping into one another. And, at one of the many houses I visited that night, I started back down the front steps after selecting a Tootsie Roll from a large bowl of candy when I remembered my mom’s insistence on manners and how neither threats of tricks if not given treats nor ghouls walking around the neighborhood, were an acceptable excuse to be rude.
So I spun back around and shouted up to the lady in the doorway, “Thank you! Happy Chanuween!” before running off down the sidewalk.

And, while my study of Judaism consisted exclusively of dreidel spinning throughout my elementary years in school, I seem to remember that Hanuween was the ritual where the ancient Hebrews would dress up as golden calves and walk around for eight nights, knocking on the doors of the Egyptians and asking for slices of mannah. But my attention span was severely limited due to excessive amounts of sugar introduced into the bloodstream around this time. So I may be confusing this with some other holiday.