Belle Weather (10 page)

If you plan to travel with children during the holidays, there’s about a one-zillion-percent chance that you’ll spend at least some part of “the most wonderful time of the year” in the urgent-care outpost of some town you’ve never heard of.

I’d hoped to avoid this feverish truth by demanding that everyone in the family use hand sanitizer roughly eighteen to twenty times a day during the month of December. Sadly, it didn’t work.

As we sat for hour after hour in the Doctor’s Immediately Urgent Prime and Emergent Medicinal Care complex, I pondered the hollow nature of those words: “urgent” and “immediate.” I also comforted myself with the image of the
Silkwood
-style hot shower I would take the moment we got out of there. Gawd, who would’ve thought there would be so many sick people in this place?

A few snarkily mentioned that they’d had time to write their wills during the wait and one claimed to have asked the receptionist to be his witness.

I’d worked so hard not to be here with the Princess, who sat silent and beet-red, occasionally rousing long enough to mutter the word “brandy” over and over. In fact, she had awakened me the night before to simply say “Brandy” and I just thought she was having some weird dream about that skinny singer with the so-so pipes and snotty attitude. It’s not like we have a house full of snifters and ascots for shit’s sake.

Because I’m a superstitious sort, I wondered if I had brought this misfortune upon us by failing to send Christmas cards this year. Out of time and patience, I’d announced that when it came to the whole buying, stamping, mailing thing? Over it. Duh-hubby said he’d do the Christmas cards this year, which was funny since he, like every other man I know, hasn’t mailed a Christmas, birthday, or any other greeting card since the “I do”s were spoken. Women do all that stuff, even when it’s
his
relatives. We’re brain-dead that way.

Not sending Christmas cards was deliciously liberating.

I know I should’ve felt guilty about it but I just couldn’t. When I think of all the years that I have agonized over our family Christmas card photo, I feel silly. There’s real tragedy in the world, people. Cate Blanchett is down to, like, eighty-five pounds, y’all. Now that’s something to worry about.

The Princess squirmed in her seat while I filled out the required paperwork and continued to wonder if my selfishness had somehow jinxed our holiday.

I had to giggle when I realized that one of the many forms I was filling out asked if my daughter,
the fourth grader,
was married.

“Should I fill this out?” I asked the receptionist, from behind the turtleneck I had neurotically pulled up over my nose.

“Oh, no. You’re special,” she said. “The forms are for all the
other
people to fill out.”

Oh, snap!

“Brandy” came a small voice from across the room.

I returned to the plastic seat that had been factory-molded to most comfortably accommodate a chipmunk’s ass and dutifully filled out the forms detailing my daughter’s imaginary marriage and work history.

Yep, I was in some sort of Purgatory, that much was clear. It was because, this year, I hadn’t “kept Christmas” as Aunt Sudavee used to say. I mean, not even close. She used to chide me when I was jealous of another kid’s toy on Christmas morning.

“Envy is a sin. Get a cup o’ Jesus!” she’d say, which sounded like good advice but still left me without an Etch A Sketch.

I was paying for not keeping Christmas. It was true. This year, for the first time, I didn’t bake a single cookie for other people, yet had happily received plenty of cookies, including those fabulous little butterscotch haystack things you make with chow mein noodles, plus a big tin of rum balls that I had to fight off my yard guy to keep.

It wasn’t all my fault. A lot of friends and family members had said they were taking steps to de-stress Christmas so I was just going along with others.

My sister-in-law had suggested that we skip presents altogether and spend more “real time” together doing meaningful things like constructing a gingerbread house together, singing carols around the piano and, in general, acting as if we were all Dickensian orphans trapped in a world without Neiman’s. Sis-in-law had read a book about “unplugging the Christmas machine” and it made not doing stuff you didn’t want to do sound almost noble.

Out of respect for sis-in-law’s wishes, I didn’t buy her a present but I hoped that she, in turn, would respect my wishes. For an iPod Nano and some really expensive chocolate, not those trifling Hershey Krackel bars everybody got last year.

Had my greed brought this plague unto our household? Verily, I thought so. Guilt overwhelmed me and I lowered my turtleneck, which had caused more than a few mean stares.

One hour later, the doctor was ready for us. I don’t want to say he was young, but I could’ve sworn he’d trick-or-treated at my door in a Power Rangers costume just a couple of months earlier.

He stuck two cotton swabs into my daughter’s precious nostrils for a flu test.

“Why’d he do that?” she asked groggily, after the tiny doctor had left the room.

“I don’t know, honey, but in some countries, I think it means you’re engaged.”

After another fifteen minutes or so, the itty-bitty doctor returned and announced that it wasn’t flu but “just, uh, some kind of, like, virus or somethin’.”

“Righteous,” I said. We left with a prescription for something that tasted exactly like, what else? Brandy. Out of the mouths of babes, I thought.

With her fever hovering around 103, I bundled the Princess back into the car and we headed to the drugstore before returning to the rest of our Christmas “vacation.”

To tell the truth, the curse I had brought upon her had spread to me by this time and I was feeling increasingly lousy. I decided to get some Sudafed while I waited for the “brandy” bottle to be filled by a pharmacist who also looked younger than half the stuff in my medicine cabinet.

Oh, I got it. It was the day after Christmas. Everyone who had actually graduated from med school or pharmacy school was on vacation. We had been left to deal with the second string.

Whatever. Where was the damn Sudafed? And then I remembered that it’s behind the counter these days. You have to show a picture I.D. and sign in before you can buy cold medicine because it contains pseudoephedrine, a fabulous decongestant that is a key ingredient in homemade methamphetamine. Think of it as the cream of mushroom soup of meth-making.

This is so unfair. Just because Meemaw has given up cooking chicken and pastry in the doublewide in favor of cooking up a big ol’ batch of meth and biscuits, I get to be treated like some kind of
junkie
for trying to get a little cold relief?

Besides, you know what they say: When they outlaw Sudafed, only outlaws will have Sudafed.

I’m worried that it’s going to get even harder to get the stuff. Will I have to prove that my cold is severe enough for Sudafed? Will I need a note from my parents? What if my watery eyes and red nose aren’t good enough? Will I have to buy it in a dark alley behind the drugstore from someone named Knuckles?

I’m sure meth is a huge problem but I do wonder why so many towns seem almost eager to call themselves “The Meth Capital” of whatever state. The way they carry on about it, I expect it won’t be long before you see it on city limits signs (N
OW
W
ITH
E
VEN
M
ORE
M
ETH
L
ABS
P
ER
S
QUARE
M
ILE!
). Will deputy sheriffs say, “You call yourself a meth capital? Don’t make me laugh!”

Next year, I’m going to make more of an effort when it comes to Christmas.

And part of that is that I’m not going to call it “the holidays.” Nope, I’m just going to call Christmas what it is. If anyone finds that offensive because it doesn’t include any reference to their particular celebration of the season, if any, (and it is certainly their right not to celebrate anything at all although I should point out that there are some amazing prices on those circular diamond pendants along around late December), then that’s just tough tinsel.

I’m weary of trying to be politically correct about Christmas. This doesn’t mean I’m anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Buddhist, anti-Kwaanza, or anti-Perspirant.

While waiting for the “pharmacist” to fill our prescription, I remembered a funny thing that had happened the week before at a kid’s birthday party.

Some of us were standing around talking about last-minute gifts we still had to buy, when one of the guests in our little circle stopped the conversation dead in its reindeer tracks with a terse, and rather loud, “I’m Buddhist.”

I suppose this was her rather ham-handed way of reminding us that we were excluding her religion, which, up to this point, could’ve been the devout worship of Little Debbie Raisin Creme Pies for all I knew. They’re cheap but soooo good so anything’s possible, right?

And you know how some people do everything they can to avoid conflict because they’re just Really Nice People?

And how others, meaning me, just feed off conflict like a roomful of cats on a week-old corpse?

Coupled with the sad fact that I’m not Really Nice at all is this awful personality defect that makes me crack a joke at the worst possible time.

I know! Completely inappropriate but come on, a little funny, right?

Buddhist girl just sighed and walked away, presumably to find a quiet place in which to meditate about the ignoramus with the Little Debbie crumbs stuck to her sweater.

In December, people who don’t celebrate Christmas must feel like the kid with the peanut allergy who has to eat lunch in the school library every day.

I do get it, and I’m sorry. But I ain’t giving up my joy. Or my butterscotch haystack thingies.

Because I didn’t just fall off the parental turnip truck, I’m now ready to share with those of you who may be new to this parenting thing, the single most valuable piece of advice that I could ever give you.

And, no, it’s not that mushy stuff about how you should always make time for your kids because nobody ever says on their deathbed: “Gosh, I wish I’d spent more time at the office.”

That’s one of those things they really can’t prove. It’s just something that people say all the time, nodding sagely and acting like they just thought of it. But the truth is, who really knows? I mean, what if your kids are assholes? It happens. Maybe you really wish you had spent more time at the office.

So, no, I’m talking real wisdom, the useful shit. And here it is. Write it down somewhere, commit it to memory, do what you must but always remember these words:

That’s it. I know it sounds simple but you can plan to sign up your kid for camp, and then life and Pilates class and a random affair with the guy who grooms your poodle gets in the way and, before you know it, all the good camps are full and all that’s left for your kid is “Yes, You
Can
Become a Mortician” and “Summer Fun with Actuarial Tables!”

Trust me. You have to jump on this camp stuff early or the only skills your kid will learn this summer will be how to Krazy-glue a cadaver’s eyes shut or guess the exact day you’re going to die and what’s going to kill you. Neither of these is the kind of thing you want them practicing once they finish their week of camp and you’re hanging out at the pool sipping mojitos with your grown-up friends.

(“For the love of God, get your kid to stop talking about what he could do with my dead mouth and a jar full of cotton balls. It’s cuh-reepy!”) Your kid ends up going to loser-camps like that and he becomes Walking Buzz Kill.

Speaking of which, here’s a true story: My mother-in-law says that when my husband was three years old, he would count to 500 for any grown-up he could corner. He was scary-good at this and while the entire family was understandably proud of this prodigy-like behavior, I have to say that I feel nothing but pure empathy for the sap who got saddled with listening to a three-year-old recite “One hundred and eighty-nine, one hundred and ninety, one hundred and ninety-one…”

Still, it is famous family lore and everyone tells the story with great pride, including my husband (who, incidentally can now count all the way up to 600), but I just weep when I think about those poor, tortured souls who were cornered on the church steps or at the post office while he dutifully chirped “two hundred and twenty-one, two hundred and twenty-two, two hundred and twenty-three. Hey mister! Where you going? I’m not done yet!”

My point is that Walking Buzz Kill can start at an early age. You have to make sure your kid gets in the cool camps to avoid this horrible phenomenon.

Let me put this in terms you can understand: Summer camps are the lifeboat on the
Titanic
to a frazzled parent. You remember the movie, don’t you? Let me spell it out for you: With summer camp, you’re Kate Winslet, laying up there hogging the only piece of wood that’s big enough to keep your fat ass afloat until help can come and cart you off to the big, warm boat where there will be blankets and hot tea.

Without summer camp, you’re Leo DiCaprio, stuck with three-quarters of your body submerged in the frigid ocean water and your purple hands hands clinging to a tiny corner of that same piece of wood. Nobody’s going to rescue your ass. And now you’ve got nothing left to do except wonder how long before your eyelashes frost over completely and you, finally, sink to certain death.

Scared yet?

If you’ve waited too late and everything, even mortuary science camp, is filled up, there is still a solution, sort of. You could be like my slacker friend, Barb, who has cagily enrolled her three kids in every Vacation Bible School in a seven-county radius. I don’t approve of Barb’s methods, but I have to admit that she knows how to make the best of a bad situation.

“Hmmmm,” I said to Barb when she showed me a list of all the VBS locations she’d scheduled for the summer. “I didn’t realize thee were Mennonite.”

“Whatever it takes,” she huffed back. “We’re on a budget and this Bible School stuff is free.”

“Yes, but you’re not even religious, I mean, are you?” I asked.

“What difference does that make?” Barb snapped. “The snacks are killer and I’ve got three-plus-hours of free babysitting every day. If I play my cards right, which I will, I won’t have to buy junk food for three whole months. The Presbyterians last year? They had
yogurt-covered pretzels
for snack one day. Do you have any idea how much those cost? My kids thought they were in heaven. So see, it really was a religious experience.”

I must’ve looked horrified because Barb shot back: “Don’t look so shocked. It’s not like your kid isn’t doing VBS.”

“Yes, but just for
one
week and at my own church. You’ve got your kids going from Pentecostal Holiness to Episcopalian.”

“I know,” she said a little ruefully. “Last year, by the end of the summer, they didn’t know whether to speak in tongues or demand wine with dinner.”

“And don’t you feel that you should give back a little?” I asked. “I don’t want to get all sanctimonious on you, Barb, but you really should offer to help out at these things if you’re going to send your kids to them.”

“Oh, yeah? What are you going to be doing when your kid goes?”

“I’m doing the snacks one day.”

“Oh, yeah? What’re you bringing?”

“I’m making little tuna fish sandwiches and Goldfish crackers for Jonah and the Whale Day.”

“Sandwiches? For real? Kids, get in here. There’s been a change of plans. Y’all are going to be Methodists next week.”

It didn’t take long for Barb to figure out that about a third of the churches offer nighttime VBS.

I knew this but didn’t tell her because I knew she’d enjoy it too much.

But when the Baptists hung a banner out front advertising nighttime VBS from six to nine, Barb couldn’t believe her good fortune.

“You realize what this means?” she asked me one day.

“You can go to a movie with your husband and not have to pay a sitter?”

“Damn straight,” she said. “Or out to dinner. We haven’t done dinner or a movie since Ray Junior was born.”

It was true. I kind of felt sorry for Barb because she told me the last movie she’d seen in the theater was
Men in Black
and that had been, like, a decade ago. She’d never even seen
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,
which I consider a pure-T tragedy on account of it’s the funniest movie ever. Every time I think about Will Ferrell jumping out of that car in his underpants, thinking he’s on fire and screaming, “Help me Jesus! Help me Tom Cruise! Help me Oprah!” I just wonder to myself what the Academy is thinking when they ignore that kind of talent.

Instead, they always give the Oscar to somebody who made some incredibly depressing movie. When’s the last time Hilary Swank made you laugh? I mean aside from that scene where she plays the boxer who gets paralyzed from the neck down and tries to kill herself by chewing her own tongue to pieces. Yeah, that one cracks me up every time.

With a script like
Million Dollar Baby
Pamela Anderson could have won the Best Actress Oscar.

And who was I to judge Barb, anyway? If the Lord helps those who help themselves, clearly Barb was doing the Lord’s work.

Of course, some of my mom-friends have said that I shouldn’t be worrying about day camps because it’s time to send the Princess to (shudder) “sleep-away camp.” Many of her friends have already done this for a couple of years, but I just can’t stand the thought of my Precious spending weeks away from home.

“It’s time,” my friend Carol-Ann told me. “It will teach her how to be self-reliant. Sleep-away camp is fun for her and you, too. Think of all the quality time you’ll have with your husband.”

Yes, think of it. Four hundred twenty-six, four hundred twenty-seven, four hundred twenty-eight…

Carol-Ann wasn’t giving up without a fight. Her daughter had been going to sleep-away horse camp for three years already and was training to compete in the Olympics.

“Yeah, what’s up with that, anyway?” I asked. “Why doesn’t the horse get the gold medal? He’s doing all the work. Shouldn’t he get the medal, a romp in the hay with a willing filly, and all the carrots and sugar cubes he can stand?”

“Don’t change the subject,” Carol-Ann said. “You just don’t want to let go of your baby. I get that. But there comes a time in life where you have to love her enough to let her go.”

OK, that’s another dumbass thing to say like the thing about spending too much time at the office. Why does everyone talk like a Scholastic Book Fair poster these days?

Look, the only piece of parental wisdom you really need, I’ve already given you. The rest is just, well, Olympic-size horse poo.