Don't Laugh, It's Paid For

Pam: Once again, one of my solutions has created a problem.

Ann: Come judgment day, let’s hope we get credit for good intentions or you’re sunk.

Pam: Tell me about it! This time I came up with what I thought was the resolution to an ongoing squabble between the kids. You know we’re a four car family. Because Bret, Ross, Kate and I all have jobs and volunteer work that keep us running in four directions at once, we have to drive four beat up, used cars instead of one or two nice ones.

Ann: Hey, there’s a money-making venture for you. When the kids are away at school you can run your own Rent-A-Wreck operation.

Pam: Yeah, maybe then I could break even on the repairs. That’d work out because Bret and I drive the better two of our four ‘paid-for-but-still-running’ cars.

Ann: So you let the kids duke it out over who gets the better of the worst two?

Pam: There’s no Ross’ car or Kate’s car. Bret and I tell them that, as the parents and the ones who paid for them, all four cars belong to us. We just let them use the rent-a-wrecks when they’re home from college. Hey, we don’t even charge them. But we just call them ‘the Camry’ and the ‘Grand Prix’.

Ann: Do they fight over the Grand Prix? That’s a much cooler car. And it’s a lot newer too, isn’t it?

Pam: Yep. When they first came home this summer, it was ‘first come, first served’ on the better of the worst. That led to the infamous key hiding incident. Let me tell you, it got ugly. After that, they agreed to both carry copies of both car keys. But swapping cars constantly led to the arguments about who used up whose gas. It just wasn’t working.

Ann: Have you considered arbitration? Then again they say we learn to negotiate by growing up with siblings.

Pam: In that case mine should be ready for the United Nations diplomatic corps! Finally, I suggested that every Sunday after church they swap cars for a full week. They could just fill up the gas tanks before they swap and that would solve the ‘who-used-what-and-who-bought-how-much-when” arguments.

Ann: That actually sounds like a great solution. How’d it backfire?

Pam: This is where it takes a twist. Before my brilliant suggestion, Kate, being more charming, or at least more devious, had been driving the Grand Prix quite a bit since they got home a few weeks ago. That was the car all her friends had seen her in so far this summer.

Ann: I’m sure that’s the way she wanted it. When she did drive the Camry, she probably wore Groucho glasses, mustache and all.

Pam: I wouldn’t doubt it. So last Sunday we officially instituted the weekly full-tank car swap treaty. That put Kate in the old green Camry for the week.


Ann: Don’t you hate being Judge Judy? But it seems like a fair deal and I know how our kids still think life should be “fair”.

Pam: Wait ‘til you hear. Kate’s friends decided to mess with her and Sunday night they came over and dumped flour all over the Grand Prix and wrote on the windows in white shoe polish. Ross came out in the morning and was furious.

Ann: I know I shouldn’t laugh but that’s kind of funny. Did Ross get Kate to clean it up?

Pam: He tried, but she was already at work so he called her. She thought it was hysterical, which made him even more steamed. She told him, “It’s your car this week!” He was running late so he had to drive across town trailing a white cloud of flour with “Sexy Girl” and “Honk if you think I’m pretty” all over the car!

Ann: The least Kate could have done was tell him where she keeps her Groucho glasses.

Pam: Are you kidding? I already borrowed them. Have you seen my van lately?

Disturbing The Peace

Pam: There are volumes written about how to cope with the empty nest. Why doesn’t anyone write a book about the suddenly un-empty nest?

Ann: Having both kids home from college is a real adjustment isn’t it?

Pam: I finally began to discover and appreciate the little perks of having my beloved children hundreds and hundreds of miles away. Mainly that the house stays just as I left it. Then they’re suddenly back and I feel robbed…literally.

Ann: Robbed of what?

Pam: Headbands, razors, restaurant leftovers, short slips, umbrellas, toothpaste, cell phone chargers, you name it! I miss the kids desperately all year long but I sure did love having things remain right where I left them.

Ann: You’re right. It gets worse after they’ve been away at school. I guess it’s the culture in a dorm or in a shared apartment. It’s pretty much what’s mine is yours and visa versa. They get used to just taking what they like.

Pam: That’s true. I remember when Ross left for school. Kate was still in high school and she was just at the age where she started to ‘borrow’ a lot of my stuff without permission. Bret wasn’t very understanding about how frustrating it was for me.

Ann: He thought it was no big deal, huh?

Pam: Yep. Then when Ross came home after his first semester away, suddenly Bret’s black socks, golf balls, white undershirts, and shaving cream started to disappear. Suddenly he was ready to lay down the law.

Ann: Yeah, I remember when Troy used to come home in the summers. It would take Hannah and me weeks to readjust to having him back in the house. He’s our neat-nick. He’d constantly be cleaning up and it really annoyed us.

Pam: You’re complaining because he tidied up too much?


Ann: I’m not talking about doing a load of dishes or taking out the trash. I swear he was compulsive. I’d get up to answer the phone and when I came back the, book I was reading and the tea I was drinking would be gone…swept away in a cleaning frenzy. It really was irritating.

Pam: Yeah Ross is my cleaner and Kate is my messy one. She leaves what we refer to as ‘Kate droppings’ everywhere. If Troy is your neat one does that mean Hannah’s messy?

Ann: You have no idea! We have a new phenomenon around here with Hannah. I call it the ‘abduction scene’. I’ll come home and there in the family room is a big dent in the middle of the couch surrounded by a whirlwind of random items. It’s as if she was there one moment and in the next she was suddenly plucked up by aliens.

Pam: Oh I know it well. At first I found it pretty frustrating. I’d think, ‘Why the heck can’t this girl pick up after herself?’ But then I learned the value of the clues an abduction scene leaves behind.

Ann: What do you mean?

Pam: Okay…For instance, what was left at Hannah’s last abduction scene?

Ann: Let me think…A half eaten Taco Bell Nacho Bell Grande meal and an empty soft drink cup, the TV remote control, a cordless phone, a bunch of makeup, nail polish, the newspaper’s weekend guide spread out all over, both of her brown purses, and her keys.

Pam: Well that’s easy. It’s as good as a handwritten note…

Dear Mom,
I won’t be home for dinner. There was nothing on TV so I made a few calls and got a hot date. We’re going to the movies. By the way, I borrowed your brown purse.

Love, Hannah

P.S. You’ll know I’m home when I wake you with doorbell.

Ann: Wow! That’s amazing.

Pam: (Sigh) Years of practice.

Etiquette For Guys Who Wanna Get Some

Pam: I was watching that Jane Austen chick flick Sense and Sensibility. Wouldn’t you love to live in that time when men had such beautiful manners?

Ann: You do realize that’s just a Hollywood fantasy version of how things were back then, right? Besides, that story’s about the very upper crust of society. I’m sure the common folk back then behaved just as badly as we do now.

Pam: It’s the little gestures that intrigue me. All those little bows and curtsies are so…well, civilized.

Ann: Sure, in those movies we see the men gallantly placing their coats over a puddle for the ladies to step on. What they don’t show is later that day, some poor woman washing and scrubbing those coats, desperately trying to get the mud stains out. How civilized is that?

Besides, we still have those little courtesies now. Men here tip their hats and hold doors and chairs for us.

Pam: Doors and chairs yes. But come on! When was the last time a man tipped his hat to you?


Ann: Actually fully tipped it? It’s been a long time. But they still do that sexy touch the front of the brim and nod kind of thing all the time. Don’t ya just love that?

Pam: Yeah, I’ve got to admit…that’s cool. And I love it when they sort of steer you through a crowd with their hand on the small of your back. It’s so gentle and so powerful all at once.

Ann: That little move has weakened my knees more than once. If men only knew how easy it is to wrap us around their little fingers. I don’t know a single woman who isn’t a sucker for a sweet-talker with beautiful manners.

Pam: I say forget the expensive meals and diamonds. All he has to do is open my car door and offer me his hand as I step out, and I’m hooked.

Ann: I don’t know…I’d bite for the manners but to be hooked I need the fancy meals too! After all, it’s not just the way to a man's heart!

Pam: I loved teaching Ross all those little things that separate the real men from the mere “guys”. By thirteen he had absolutely beautiful manners. But somehow they’ve seemed to fade away a bit during the years since that time. I think it was when he went away to college and realized he was the sole charm school graduate.

Ann: They probably all were taught proper etiquette. But none of them wanted to be the first one to do it and be the odd man out. Sort of an Emperor has no clothes kinda thing.

Pam: I think you’re onto something there. Once I saw Ross at a table of nine guys and a very buxom girl walked up and he was the only one to stand. They razzed him pretty good.

Ann: He should have just told them he was going for a better view!

Pam: Then I'd have to do the razzing. Anyway, that’s about the time when he started to drop some of the manners.

Ann: He still seems pretty gallant to me.

Pam: Not like Troy. I don’t know what you did to make those things stick over the long haul. Here he is in his early twenties and he’s absolutely perfect with his girlfriend.

Ann: That’s what makes the difference. We teach them all that stuff and then it seems to go into hibernation for a while. As soon as the right girl comes along, everything we taught them comes back full force.

Pam: It’s like that song, "I Like It, I Love It" by Tim McGraw. He says his parents tried to teach him courtesy, but “it never sank in ‘til that girl got a hold of me. Now I’m holding umbrellas and openin' up doors”.

So you think Ross will get back to those refined manners with women as soon as the right inspiration comes along?

Ann: I think so. And you’ll know it’s happened when he comes home from school with a laundry bag filled with cloaks covered in mud!

Cooking Up Some Date Bait

Pam: My mom was the worst cook since the invention of fire. Let me tell ya, when she went into the kitchen to cook, the onions started to cry.

Ann: But you can cook. How’d that happen?

Pam: I had to learn, or starve to death! But don’t be fooled, I have been known to blacken a few dinners in my time.

Ann: Hey, what you do is called burning. To “blacken” takes a professional.

Pam: Very funny, but I come by it honestly. Nothing my mom made even looked like it was supposed to. Her meat was gray, her gelatin molds were just thick liquid in the bottom of the bowl, and her mashed potatoes were actually stringy.

Ann: I’ve heard of lumpy, but stringy?


Pam: Don’t ask! And worst of all she put saccharin in everything. Remember before they had powdered saccharin? They had those tiny little saccharin tablets. She would crush ‘em up to use anywhere a recipe called for sugar. You’d be eating and suddenly bite into a chunk of one of those things and the salivary glands under your tongue would go into spasms from the tart sweetness. It was the worst.

Ann: I was lucky. My sister and I actually used my mom’s great cooking as date bait. I guess it’s true that the way to a guy’s heart really is through his stomach.

Pam: You’re just lucky they didn’t fall in love with your mother instead of you.

Ann: Yeah, but it would have been nice to go out to dinner once in a while.

Pam: My mom’s cooking was helpful in my relationships too. Whenever I wanted to end it with a guy, all I had to do was bring him home for dinner. I never saw him again.

Ann: Do ya think our meals are “bait-worthy”? Do your kids like it when you cook?

Pam: They like it when I cook but not necessarily what I cook. Ross is my carnivore. If I make just spinach casserole or a fruit salad, he’ll say he didn’t climb to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables.

Ann: You should hand him a club and tell him not to come back with anything less than a saber tooth tiger. And when he does, make him grill it up himself.

Pam: Don’t laugh. My kids are actually both pretty good cooks when they’re in the mood. But most of the time they’re not in the mood.

Ann: What do they say “Not tonight mom, I’ve got a headache.”?

Pam: That line never works for anyone.

The kids were home for spring break and Kate was complaining that there was absolutely nothing to eat in the house. I knew it wasn’t true because I’d made a trip to the grocery store to stock up just before they arrived. I told her to check the pantry. She opened the door and stood in front of it and actually told me, “There’s nothing to eat. All we have is ingredients!”

Ann: Did you remind her that if you mix them together, they miraculously become a meal?

Pam: Sure. But I'm supposed to be the miracle worker. How about your kids? They ever cook?

Ann: Well Troy gives it a try once in a while. But his idea of cooking is--if at first you don’t succeed, order pizza.

Pam: Yeah, if you turn to Ross’ favorite recipe in the family cook book, all you’ll find is directions to the neighborhood Mexican restaurant.

Ann: Pizza and burritos. When the boys are in charge of dinner it sounds like our stomachs are in jeopardy.

Pam: Alex, I’ll take Alka Seltzer for $200…