How cool is this?!

Whoa!

Have you seen it? 

Mommie Dearest II

Seriously.

You would think I fed my kids moldy bread and rusty, leaded tapwater, in between wire hanger beatings.

Some weeks ago, we saw Boy's sheer joy over the arrival in our home of a bag of pretzels. Pretzels! Not even Doritos or Cheetos or Fritos, for goodness' sakes. Just plain ol' pretzels.

This week?

I was too exhausted to come up with a dinner plan after one particularly bad stint at my day job as chauffeur to children with back-to-back evening piano lessons and a ballgame, and so I said, "You know what? I'm just making mac n' cheese. From. the. box. The blue box, even. Not the purple! (What? I hear it's done. All the time! Leave me alone.)

Boy's eyes would only have shone more if I'd said he could have a BB-gun.

"You?" he asked. "Would do that?

"For ME?"

It's just bad on so many levels. I wonder if the Department of Social Services has ever had anyone turn themselves in?

It's the "For ME?" part that's gonna haunt me.

Well, for a second or two, anyway.

Now, where did I put those wire hangers?

Kidding!

I use plastic. I mean paper, of course. No, plastic. Paper. Plastic. I forget. Did you ask me something?

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The folks over at humor-blogs do not have wire hangers in their closets, let me tell you.

This much I know is true

It occurs to me that, as a mature 42-year-old of some worldly experience, I should occasionally publish a stupid blog post share with the world some of the vast wisdom I have gained over the years.

This little nugget here, for example:

It turns out that, if you are an homo sapiens of the female variety, you can count on one thing for absolute certain: If you happen to drop your purse/handbag/knitting bag/ski bag in a public area - say, for example, a ski lodge full of punk surly teen snowboarders during February vacation - it will always come to pass that a tampon will roll out.

No matter what kind of pretty little demure pouch you've purchased in which to tuck them away, no matter that you thought you'd zippered them into a side compartment. Those buggers have a mind of their own, and, like toddlers hopped-up on Motts, will manage to squirm their way out of anything, and run on down the road.

An interesting and important corollary to this is that the larger the crowd of witnesses, and the more... um, male, the bigger the tampon that will fall out.

(The absolute only exception to this rule is when and if you actually need a tampon, in which case you could drop three entire suitcases off the Eiffel Tower in front of a gang of tattoo-ed bikers and... nothing.)

Anyway. As I was saying, provided you do not actually need a tampon, one will always roll out.
And, as I was also saying, because apparently along with talking a lot I like to repeat myself, the larger the group of male audience members, and the more testosterone permeating the air, the larger that tampon of shame will be.

In fact, you are quite sure that this tampon, the one now rolling between the legs of some fancy plaid-coated, zit-encrusted but too-cool-for-words 16-year-old, this ginormous tampon McGyver could've used to staunch a burst aorta, is sooooo big it cannot even be one of yours. You, after all, only buy those skinny demur ones that come in a pretty flowered wrapper. This one, however, is clearly an elephant's.

How did it even get into your purse? you wonder, and your head starts mentally cataloguing the possibilities, instead of focusing on important things, like getting that sucker back into hiding, and getting your passport in order so you can flee into exile. But your urge to deny it all is so great, you cannot stop yourself. Maybe Susie asked you to hold it for her? Oh, puh-lease! That tired excuse? You were using that in high school to explain the cigarettes in your room.

Still, it is NOT YOURS, and the urge to disassociate yourself is so strong, you will actually find yourself looking around the room to see just who else happened to drop their purse at the exact same time because there is no other explanation... only to find yourself looking into a sea of horrified punks and their equally horrified 45-year-old dads (Do moms not go skiing?!) and realizing that unless punk snowboarders or their fathers have discovered a cool new use for tampons, it must have come from your purse after all.

Still, though.

No.

You refuse to accept it. The urge to deny continues to be so strong, you will find yourself saying, "But it can't be. I don't even have my..." except that even as you are saying it, even as you are crawling on the disgusting sand- and grit-coated floor of the ski lodge with your butt in the air to retrieve this Elephant tampon that is so not yours, the words will flit through your head first and you will stop yourself right there young lady because it occurs to you that telling people you don't even know that you don't have your period does not actually help anything, and you will stop in the nick of time.

And you know what?

Despite everything - despite the gigantic butt in the air and the escaping Elephant tampon and the humiliation of crawling on your hands and knees to retrieve this not-yours tampon, you will be just the teensiest bit proud of yourself. Just for knowing to stop talking. And doing it. For maybe the first time in your life.

Sometimes it's important we celebrate the little things, you know.

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The folks over at humor-blogs never drop their bags.

SorrySorrySorry!

Aw, thanks, guys! You're all very sweet.

But I am fine, not stuck in a snowbank, not inundated in some bizarre yarn avalanche, not suddenly swept into the real world workforce by an obviously desperate employer.

There is, I'll admit, a touch of the February going on, but mostly it's the February school vacation that's to blame. There were children around, and it requires most of my intellect and all of my energy to entertain and feed them keep them from burning down the house and I had little to spare for blogging between that and the standard tour of Boston kid museums perp walk.

So. That's all, really.

I'll be right back.

Watch a little TV or somethin'.