Narragansett No. 7

Preschool Parent Helper.

The very words fill me with a debilitating mixture of paralyzing dread and delight. I know, that’s confusing and slightly crazy sounding, but it’s true.

Ten years ago I would have been all sorts of excited to be the parent helper. I’d have bought in some kind of super-duper Martha Stewartish cupcakes or cookies with sprinklers and confetti bombs attached.

These days, we aren’t allowed to bring those kinds of snacks to school. We’re reduced to grapes, Cheerios and teensy cups of tepid tap water.

Sigh.

Any who… each month as my parent helper gig approaches, I fill with dread. The mere thought of three hours at the preschool reduces me to a frantic frenzied mass of anxiety. I get hung up on all the writing I need to finish, the books I need to read, and the deadlines I need to meet. For at least a few moments, it might even cross my mind that I’ll be wasting my precious writing time. I briefly resent noodle necklaces and doling out grapes to tiny tyrants, some of whom don’t like green grapes and they expect you to know they only eat red grapes, dammit!

Later, after I’ve finished thinking all of those selfish thoughts, I’m filled with remorse. I take a bath in a giant tub filled with guilt and maternal failure. I wallow in the stench of self-absorption and wonder what kind of mother gets all worked up about spending three hours at preschool? What kind of woman is so selfish that she’d dread three hours in the presence of her precious child and her burgeoning social set?

I’m told I’ll miss these years and I know I will. Really, I do. I already see glimpses of the Gwen who will be in high school in a few short years. She’ll balk at the thought of spending three hours in my presence. Her social life will hold an air of mystery. There will be secrets she won’t share with me anymore.

Sigh.

So on Parent Helper Day, when I find a Lilliputian-sized chair, sort through some blocks and immerse myself in their tiny wonderful world, I’m always so thrilled to be there. Seriously…and here’s why. Is there any other place on the planet that legally allows people to randomly pull down their pants to display the boo-boo on their privates? I don’t think so. You want to know the best part about that unabashed moment of sharing? It was that, at four years old, not a single one of those 13 kids raised an eyebrow. Hell, some of them didn’t even notice.

Thank goodness for preschool and the fantastic teachers who steer our children toward social norms. While I bit the inside of my cheek, drawing blood to avoid laughter, one of our teachers helped that kid understand that junk displays just aren’t acceptable at school. In her happy Mary Poppins voice, she hypnotized that boy and commanded him to pull up his drawers. I swear she did. She’s magical and thank goodness!

Who knows what would have happened if it weren’t for Miss Mary. Take the whole butterfly effect into account…had she not been there to intervene and I was the only ill-equipped adult in the vicinity, my laughter might have placed that kid at serious risk. He might have been destined for a future filled with flashing and let’s be honest, after the age of 5, that kind of stuff starts to get creepy.

Putting the flashing aside, my parent helper gig happened to fall on Cookie Swap day. The mommies all got together at a mommy’s house and swapped deliciousness while I was busy suppressing belly laughs as one of their kids pulled his drawers down in the middle of the classroom.

I was bummed to miss the Cookie Swap so I decided that I’d contribute anyway. I made these Martha Stewartish melted snowman cookies.

Okay, maybe they look more like something Martha Stewart would turn out if she was coming off a week long crack bender, but still… I tried.

Last year I’d have made them perfect. I would have made perfect sugar cookie dough, perfect royal icing and I’d have used all the right cake decorating tools to make my melted snowman perfectly perfect.

But then I started taking medication.

(No, seriously. I’m taking ADHD meds now and I’m way less psychotic about details than I’ve been for most of my life. It’s somewhat refreshing to not give that much of a shit what my snowmen cookies look like.)

So, last night I spent three hours making my melted snowman cookies because there’s still a little corner in my brain where the little psycho lady hides. She nagged, Make some cookies stupid or the other mommies will think you suck!

So I listened to her.

By 9:30, my eyes were burning and my hand hurt from squeezing tiny buttons, noses and scarves onto 36 snowmen. I simply stopped caring what the cookies looked like.

I let it go.

And when I sat in the preschool classroom with 13 little people, Kate and two magical teacher ladies, I laughed and I smiled and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Last weekend we spent approximately 10 minutes fervently interrogating our children.

If I had my druthers, I would have tied each of them to a chair and perhaps threatened the use of dental tools while a naked light bulb swung over their little heads. In my fantasy, David and I sound like Dr. Szell, our thick German accents threatening dental torture sans anesthesia unless…

You must tell us…who cut zee catz viskers?

Besides a vague reference to a movie filmed before my tens of readers were even born, this is 2011 and things like tying kids to chairs and dental torture are highly discouraged. Plus, I can only say a handful of things in German like, Mein geburstag ist am 15 Oktober or, Wo ist die toilette? and that old stand by, scheiße.

Frankly, it’s taken me quite a few days to write about the destruction that occured last weekend. I needed to put some space between myself and the havoc my children wreaked upon us, our pets and various pricey gadgets.

On Thanksgiving night, long after our guests had left for home and the turkey carcass was simmering, Joe was so hyper-focused involved in his game of Angry Birds that he couldn’t put the iPhone down. In fact, he tried to hold on to the iPhone as he took a leak and yes, the iPhone ended up in the toilet.

Somewhat coincidentally, the day before I’d read all about rice and cell-phones and batteries and sim cards, so I knew what to do. I know, weird right? It’s like I had some sort of premonition.

The iPhone was submerged in a bowl of rice promptly after Dave fished it out of the toilet. With fingers crossed, we waited 24 hours to see if the ol’ pee pee soaked phone could be saved.

It was.

But I’ll never touch it again.

Hours after we’d confirmed the effectiveness of rice for drying out cell phones, Joe spilled a glass of sparkling lemonade on the laptop. Evidently, he was so parched from his rousing game of Minecraft, his intense thirst led him to break the “NO FOOD OR DRINK NEAR THE COMPUTER” rule. Oh, but don’t worry. He partially wiped up that nasty spill with a paper towel, poured himself a fresh drink and continued playing…as the sugary lemonade decimated the innards of the computer.

This was happening right around the time that I picked up the cat and noticed that her ride-side whiskers had been trimmed. Not down to the nubs, mind you, just the tips so she’s okay. But still…seriously? After last summer’s round of safety scissor haircuts (Gwen’s is still growing out) you’d think they would understand that using the safety scissors to trim anything but paper was not cool.

NOT COOL!

Asking the children who trimmed Dirk’s whiskers became a convoluted inquisition. Gwen tearfully swears it was Kate, Kate cluelessly claims it was Joe and Joe flatly denies knowledge of anyone trimming the cat’s whiskers at all. I believe Joe.

Yet again, the safety scissors have been confiscated.

Later on Saturday afternoon, the computer began emitting a piercing series of beeping alarms. What followed was a long string of whispered curse words flowing from Dave’s mouth. Now, while I understood his frustration, I had to remind him that saying certain words, even in well-earned moment of anger, is a bad idea. Kate picks up on that stuff, you know.

Last month my mentor assigned Robert Wilder’s Daddy Needs a Drink. With reading assignments tailored to what I’m writing - in this case, humor – I approached Wilder’s book with an eye toward subject matter and paid attention to how his material compared to my own, especially in terms of gender.

Before I even placed the order for his book, I perused the reader reviews. What can I say? I was overcome with curiosity and needed to know how the average Schmo received “an irreverent look at parenting” in book form. That’s what I’m writing, right? Lots of irreverent pieces about my family.

For the most part, people loved the book. They laughed and appreciated the honesty of Wilder’s words, probably because they were knee deep in their own little kids when they read it. Either that or they maintain the ability to recall what it felt like to be a new parent and understand that toddlers are, at times, uncontrollable and challenging. Yup, the readers ate it up and appreciated Wilder’s irreverence.

But there’s always one in every crowd, isn’t there? The one who pipes in with a message of disgust that lets the world know that they are a smarter, better, more pious and evolved person than the rest of us. Wilder recieved a few angry reviews from these people and I thought, Well, I guess I’d better get used to the Beulah’s of the world writing angry reviews of my work if I plan on publishing. Then I thought, It says right there in the title, “An irreverent look at parenting” can’t these people read?

Today, approximately one month after reading those reviews, I experienced my own angry commenter. After 2.5 hours of sleep and nursing a fever, I opened my e-mail and found this response to Candy and Cussin’:

“What is wrong with wanting kids to be polite and well-behaved? Normally you’d expect kids to only take one piece of candy. You should thank that lady for trying to raise your child. And calling names? Thank goodness that it wasn’t my child, or that I wasn’t that lady. I’d be embarrassed if I where you” Eva.

Eva. Eva, Eva, Eva… is this even your real name? Fess up; its Beulah isn’t it?

I’ve never responded to hate mail before and don’t plan on doing so in the future but seeing as you’re my first, I’ll celebrate your angry rant. Allow me to answer you in the form of an interview.

What is wrong with wanting kids to be polite and well-behaved? Absolutely nothing. As parents, this is the goal David and I are working toward each and every day. In fact, our children know to say please and thank you and do so quite often. In addition, they are well versed in dining etiquette and regularly place their napkins on their laps before consuming their organic roasted asparagus and braised chicken thighs with cremini mushrooms.

You’ll have to forgive my two year old’s moment of indiscretion on Halloween night. You see…she’s two.

Bedtime was approaching and she’d been walking through a dark neighborhood filled with snow and a barrage of sensory experiences for an hour. I agree, most people do expect children to take just one piece of candy yet, in the family-oriented neighborhood where we were trick or treating, there were a whole mess of people encouraging kids to “go ahead and take two.” I don’t know about you, Eva, but I’d be hard-pressed to find many two year olds able to understand why some houses give out two and some just one. Also, if you see a toddler approaching and you’re firm in your “just one” policy, then pick one out of your bowl and hand it to said toddler to avoid confusion or strained candy budgets.

We’ve repeatedly tried to explain the collapsing world financial market to Kate, hoping she’d apply her knowledge on Halloween and approach candy collecting with some semblance of awareness. What can I say…my two year old is an idiot?

You should thank that lady for trying to raise your child. You’re right, of course. Clearly we aren’t doing enough as parents. The ballet classes, the art projects, , Mad Science, Jukado, reading to them for 30 minutes each evening, bathing them, feeding them healthy and nutritious food and trying to make sure they enjoy childhood rites of passage like trick or treating whilst clad in costumes that weren’t purchased from a discount department store makes us horrible parents. We simply aren’t raising our children properly, if at all.

That woman sitting on her lawn chair in a darkened driveway that grabbed my two year olds wrist and tried to pry her fingers apart did her best, dammit! She tried but let’s face it, Kate is doomed.

And calling names? Thank goodness that it wasn’t my child, or that I wasn’t that lady. Yes, Eva. Thank goodness! You seem to infer that if Kate was your child, you might have beaten her with a hot poker right there in that lady’s driveway. Are you suggesting that if you were that lady you might have physically harmed my two year old child or yelled at her? Well, Eva…again, thank goodness you weren’t that lady because you would have experienced my size 7 shoe kicking your ass. Yes, I just said “ass”.

I don’t know where you live, but in my neck of the woods (The United States of America) it’s generally frowned upon to beat children,not to mention, illegal.

For the record, I sternly reprimanded my two year old daughter, apologized profusely and said thank you to Stingy McCheapo. Personally, I’m not a member of the club that thinks pouring Tobasco sauce on your kids’ tongue is a good idea. Plus, I think Kate might be a bit young for that type of punishment. To each his own.

I’d be embarrassed if I where you – Somehow, your statement leads me to believe this was your first visit to No. 7. If you’d been around awhile, you might have some semblance of understanding that yes, I’ve been entirely mortified that our little girl latched on to a naughty word. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t be horrified but if I can’t look back at this phase with a bit of humor, then I’m in for a long ride.

By the way, it seems that by the end of your rant you were getting rather hot under the collar which led you to make two serious grammatical errors. You forgot a period and its “were” not “where.” Check yourself.

In the interest of time, for those of you (EVA) who don’t quite get the gist of irreverence, let’s brush us on some simple vocabulary courtesy of Miriam-Webster.

ir·rev·er·ent adj \-rənt; -vərnt\

Definition of IRREVERENT

: lacking proper respect or seriousness; also: satiric

— ir·rev·er·ent·lyadverb

Examples of IRREVERENT

He has a delightfully irreverent sense of humor.

<irreverent behavior during church services>

Origin of IRREVERENT

Middle English, from Latin irreverent-, irreverens, from in- + reverent-, reverensreverent

First Known Use: 15th century

Related to IRREVERENT

Synonyms: blasphemous, impious, profane, sacrilegious

Antonyms: pious, reverent

Sadly, while I can supply you with a simple definition, I’m unable to beat you over the head with it with the hope you’ll develop a sense of humor. In your case, I think its best if you forget Narragansett No. 7 entirely. You’re clearly a very literal person who read my humor piece and assumed that, at my house, we’re walking around dropping F-bombs and swillin’ cheap beer while our dirty unattended saggy diapered toddler eats nothing but hot dogs mixed in Wal-Mart’s generic macaroni and cheese and hollers “ahhssole” at…well, people like you.

While the above scenario would be mildly entertaining if one were watching a comedy (Randy Quaid’s family in Vacation and Talladega Nights come to mind) I too would be horrified to know that this is how people really live. There’s something nice about walking away with some understanding that I just watched a funny movie about fake people. I get it, Eva. I do. Some people have a hard time understanding satirical writing. It’s a complicated blend of reality, sarcasm, humiliation and humor. You get or you don’t.

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

This year Halloween was slightly hectic. Between snowstorms and grad school and parent/teacher conferences, we plain old forgot to carve our pumpkins. To be honest, the kids didn’t even notice. When we lived in New Hampshire, our house was smack in the middle of a tiny historic town that morphs into a ‘destination’ every October 31st. Newfields was an amazing little town that required tons of Halloween preparations in order to keep up with the Joneses. I wouldn’t have been caught dead with uncarved pumpkins!

Here in Maine, we live on a very private dead-end road where the neighbors are all well-aware of who’s coming and going (for the record, we all sport guns and vicious attack dogs so don’t go gettin’ any ideas about stalking.) Two Halloweens have passed and nary a kid has rung the bell asking for a treat. This is fine with me, because now I don’t fall prey to those last-minute “oh shit, I forgot to buy 30 bags of candy!” runs like I did in New Hampshire. I’m only slightly exaggerating by the way. Our candy budget was HUGE back there in Newfields!

This year’s Halloween preparation included schlepping into the attic to pull down the costume bin, calling the girls, taking off the lid and telling them to pick their poison. We’ve amassed an impressive assortment of costumes in this house. The first one we ever purchased was the year Joe was 2 and he was a tiny and adorable Frankenstein. He stomped his way through the neighborhoods of Brighton, Massachusetts cluelessly accepting vast amounts of candy from complete strangers. Candy that no two year old has any business eating but we were new parents and weren’t going to be denied the experience of dressing our new human in a ridiculous outfit to parade around the city.

Now, thanks to her older siblings, Kate has a Halloween wardrobe that rivals the best costume shops. Okay, not really… She has a choice of Marie from The Aristocats, Tinkerbell, approximately 5 busted princess dresses and that Frankenstein costume.

After I removed the lid, the girls leaned over the costume bin, squealing with delight and began hurling costumes into the air. Kate pulled the Frankensuit out and gasped. At first I was concerned, thinking maybe the black hairline and ghastly green pallor had somehow disturbed her.

 ”What this, Mommy?”

 ”That’s Frankenstein.”

 ”Oh…Fwankenthein,” she breathed, fingering the silver neck bolts with the same reverence of a grown woman who somehow stumbled upon the Hope Diamond among a box of crappy costume jewelry.

 ”I be Fwankenthein.”

Kate latched on to that Frankenstein costume with a vengeance. I truly thought she’d cast it aside for something pretty as the big day approached but took a step back and let her make the choice, because that’s what all the experts suggest, right? We should give toddlers a sense of ownership over their appearance to help them develop their independence. As if Kate needs any help in that area.

Halloween arrived and at lunch, while the girls stuffed their faces with grilled cheese sandwiches, I broached the subject of costumes to verify their choices and get a handle on the amount of face-painting I’d be performing at crunch time.

“I’m going to be a witch!” Gwen exclaimed.

“I be Fwankenthein, you knucklehead!” Kate declared, as if I was a complete fool, her tone implying, how many times do I have to tell you that, lady? Sheesh.

Having waited until the last possible moment to come up with Joe’s Bug-EyedVampire Mummy costume, I was happy the girls remained decisive. I spent the afternoon destroying a white king sized sheet to construct a mummy wrap. In the name of all things Halloween, I sacrificed one of our king-sized sheets for Joe’s costume, spent 20 minutes tearing it to smithereens, and then soaked it in the bathtub with tea bags until the wraps reached the appropriate level of faux mummy filth and decay. I ran the mess through the spin cycle, threw them in the dryer then spent 40 minutes de-tangling a ball of pricey tea-stained sheet strips that needed to be ironed. At the end of the day, Joe’s costume was awesome. His self-esteem got several healthy boosts during the evening as kid after kid stopped to gawk at him before declaring his costume, “awesome”, “really scary” and “That mummy looks sick!” Let me tell you something, there’s nothing better than watching your seven year old swell with pride after Harry Potter stops to compliment his ghoulish appearance.

But Kate…Kate was a sight to behold. She watched me paint Gwen’s face witchy green and apply several strategically placed brown warts and decided that she needed to look like a “scawy Fwankthein.” I plopped her on the kitchen counter and rubbed her face green, painted some black stitches onto her cheek and gave her a distinct black unibrow. She was thrilled. She added a bit of her own flair by picking her nose and making it bleed. At first I was appalled but then realized that the blood lent a dose of realism to her costume and left it intact.

We drove to the neighborhood that’s best for Trick or Treating and the kids piled out of the car. Kate tromped her little Frankenfeet along the sidewalks, climbed step after step and collected candy from house after house where the people naturally assumed she was a little boy. She didn’t care. Soon her little pony tails worked their way from under the Frankenstein hood and she performed her little Katie wiggle dance while singing “Twick or Tweat, smell my feet, give me sumptin’ good to eat!” Dave and I watched her with delight and smiled at each other as we soaked up her funny little personality.

With all the confidence in the world, Kate walked up driveways and climbed steps, helped herself to candy and sweetly called, “Twick or Tweat” after her helping of candy was safely tucked in her bucket. It was cold outside and the ground is covered in freshly fallen snow, but she didn’t complain once. After about an hour, Joe decided that he was cold and his candy collection was complete. Gladly, we began herding all three kids back toward the car, stopping at more houses along the way.

Kate spotted a house that Joe and Gwen missed. She made her way up the driveway to a woman in a lawn chair holding a giant bowl of goodies. My tiny Frankenstein, petite in stature with pigtails bouncing, stopped in front of the woman, sang “twick or tweat” and plunged her hand into the bowl of candy. She came up with a handful and moved to dump it into her stash when the woman began prying pieces from her hand.

 ”Just one piece,” she advised and looked to me for assistance.

It took a second for me to process that this woman with an enormous bowl filled with candy was literally taking candy from a baby. I laughed, assuming she was joking. Afterall, the trick or treaters were dwindling and clearly, she had a shitload of candy to get rid of. Not to mention, she’d engaged in battle with a toddler.

 She wasn’t joking.

 I moved to Kate’s side and said, “Just one candy, Kate.” I tried to pull some treats from her fist and keep laughing about it, but all the while I was thinking the woman would realize she was being a stingy jerk to a kid barely out of infancy.

 ”Sorry, but I have a budget,” she explained to Kate and plucked a bag of Twizzlers from her hand.

 Kate began crying, stomped her clunky Frankenfeet and crossed her arms across her chest in a huff. Stingy McCheapo made the mistake of laughing while simultaneously clapping her hands together in fake delight at Kate’s anger.

 ”You an AHHHSSHOLE!” Kate screamed.

 Thank goodness Stingy McCheapo was thrifty enough to have left her porch light off…she couldn’t see my smile as Kate and I joined hands and walked into the darkness.

Psssst. Are you there readers? It’s me, No. 7.

For all of you two people who still come over to read my sporadic posts, thank you. In the short attention span that comes with life in Blog World, I’m losing my audience in droves.

Sigh

I tell myself all of the hard work I’m doing is worth it. I’m in graduate school for cripe’s sake. I’m honing my skills and hopefully someday I’ll publish a book…that someone will want to buy. A girl can dream, right?

Let me give you a little background on my monthly requirements. Stonecoast is a low residency MFA program, meaning that we meet twice a year for ten days to workshop our manuscripts with faculty and fellow students, attend faculty and graduate presentations and engage in all sorts of debauchery in Maine. Last July was my very first residency at Stonecoast and I was terrified. Despite my seemingly endless supply of words and snarky humor, I get nervous when I’m required to spend 10 days away from home with complete strangers who will be critiquing my writing.

Frankly, after precisely 24 hours I realized that I’d finally found my tribe. Sure, I came home drained and needing to sleep for a month, but it was good and I’m excited for the January residency.

Between residencies, we work with a faculty mentor who does close readings our work on a monthly basis and tailors assignments and reading lists to help us improve our material. On the 23rd of each month since August, I’ve been submitting writing packets. The material varies each month, depending on what my fabulous mentor assigns. I’m in the creative non-fiction genre at Stonecoast and I tend to submit an odd collection of work. On the one hand, I’m writing humor pieces and you’ve probably read the first drafts of several right here at Narragansett No. 7. On the other hand, I’m writing memoir pieces, some of which are also in draft form here.  As my writing packets accumulate, my reading list has evolved to include several traumatic memoirs and fun ghost stories. Yikes…what does this say about my childhood?

So, as my blog sits empty, waiting for posts that no one shows up to read anymore, I’m busy writing to meet my monthly deadlines. This month, I also had to finish my manuscript for submission by November 1st. That’s the manuscript that my fellow workshop members and faculty leaders will critique at the January residency. With two different workshops, I was able to submit humor pieces for the first and the memoir/ghost story for the second.

I’m pooped.

Over the past 24 days I have read five books. I wrote somewhere around 54 pages of material and I tried to be an effective full-time mommy. Kate, in that very Kate way of hers, picked now to potty train. Right in the middle of my packet/manuscript crunch. Today I’m scrambling to create a mummy wrap worthy of Joe’s vision of a “vampire mummy”. Nothing like some last minute Halloween costumes! We haven’t even carved our pumpkins yet thanks to that rogue snowstorm that knocked out power yesterday afternoon. Come to think of it…this truly has evolved into one scary Halloween thanks to my frazzled nerves and lack of regular showers.

 Thank goodness for Dave. He drove over to the Stonecoast offices at USM this morning to drop my completed manuscripts off.

If you’re interested in knowing what I was busy reading fr0m September 25th through October something, here’s the list:

Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

Breaking Night by Liz Murray

Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale

Daddy Needs a Drink by Robert Wilder

Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell

If you’re wondering where I’ve been, now you know. Hopefully, I’ll have some time to catch up on some posts at No. 7 and still have some readers to enjoy them!

By the way, if you’re shopping for a low residency MFA program, I highly recommend Stonecoast.

Today ended up being what I refer to as a Quintessential Shit Show. Children or not, we all have them. I have retained some memories of my old one woman Shit Shows and I have to say, the Shit Show starring Harried Mother is way more entertaining. Unless of course, you’re playing the role of Harried Mother.

It all started out reasonably enough. Despite day number two of persistent rain, I was playing it cool. I had it all together. I have to thank Dave for the good mornings we have around here. Not only does he hear and respond to his alarm clock, he’s suited up and adjusting his tie by the time he rouses me from a corpse-like slumber.

I’m not built for Maine’s climate between October 1^st and May 15^th. Climbing out of bed in mid-October is something like Chinese water torture, mainly because that morning chill lasts for months. What makes the torture worth it? Well, for the most part, Mainers are a kinder gentler people. I’ve enjoyed living amongst them and find that my New York edge has dulled a bit. I don’t need it here.

Inevitably, I get a little miffed when the weather turns cold and rainy. My edge gets a little sharper during this period of climate adjustment. Today the old sharpening tool started doing its job right away. After the bus pulled away, I sat down to whip out an essay I’ve been working on. I began perusing the four pages of notes I’d taken while reading the book I’ve been assigned and noticed that someone had done a lovely job of hacking them up with safety scissors. Kudos to her developing fine motor skills. Really, it made me proud. That is, until I realized I would need to find some tape to puzzle my thoughts back together before writing an essay worthy of graduate school. My puzzle took just under an hour, slightly intruding on the time I needed to shower and make lunch before hauling Gwen to preschool.

I was bounding up the stairs for that shower when I heard Kate’s quiet babbling. From her tone, I was able to discern that she was busy. That quiet babble suddenly lent an ominous air to the second floor. Or maybe it was the intense smell of coconut wafting out of my bathroom. I rounded the corner and found Kate shampooing her dry hair with what looked like half the bottle of my pricey shampoo thus whisking away an additional 10 – 15 minutes of precious shower time.

Fast forward 20 minutes and imagine a freshly bathed toddler and her mommy with freshly splashed armpits. Gwen had 10 minutes to snarf down her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk before we grabbed a cookie for the road. Despite the crazed frizzy hair and naked skin highlighting my dull reddened complexion, we made it to preschool on time. My edge was just slightly sharper.

From there, Kate and I had approximately 2 ½ hours to swing by the beauty supply and pick up some much needed frizz color and before heading to the grocery store. No problem, right?

Wrong.

Sally Beauty was uneventful enough. I was only mildly annoyed by the woman with shocking pink hair who seemed oblivious to the fact that she was blocking an entire aisle with her ass… I mean, her cart. I dealt with it and moved on. I made my purchases, including Kate’s coveted tiny bottle of pookie pink nail polish, and we hit the road, bound for the nearest grocery store.

First, it wasn’t my grocery store. I don’t have the layout of the aisles memorized. They never have what I need and there are never enough cashiers working despite its location at one of the busiest intersections in South Portland. In the interest of time, I decided to suck it up and bite the bullet. Somewhere deep inside my inner voice screamed at me, Are you sure you want to do this? The last time you went into this grocery store you nearly lost your grip on sanity. I ignored my inner-voice’s annoying habit of turning a statement into a question and decided that such negativity was just plain silly.

It was all relatively uneventful. With our groceries piled in the cart, Kate and I made our way to the checkout where, lo and behold, there was but one lonely woman working. The line snaked around the impulse purchases and past the seasonal displays. I glanced at my watch and realized that time was running short. Then I spotted the four empty self-checkout kiosks. They beckoned to me. I assessed the contents of my cart and guessed that I’d fill about four bags. Sure, that pushes the envelope at the self-checkout out, but they were empty. Besides, there’s no rule declaring them a 14 items or less zone. Right?

Of course, halfway through the hell of checking myself out, the lanes filled up with others clearly copying my genius maneuver. At some point, I felt a slight breeze on the back of my neck. Moments later, I felt it again. I turned to locate the source of the gusts and saw her behind me. Bitchy McAsshole.

She was impatiently waiting for me to wrap it up. When I turned, I caught her performing the ever-tricky eye-roll and huff combo. Hell, she even threw in an exasperated weight shift, moving her mass of nastiness from her left foot to her right. I ignored her and continued rushing my way through the pile. I kind of understood her frustration because I despise the grocery store too. I become bitter at the mere thought of entering any building where I’m forced to drop $200 dollars on things like cookies, wine and hormone injected chicken breasts.

As I scanned and Bitchy McAsshole performed her complicated routine of huffs, eye rolls and shifts, Kate was happily babbling away about Mickey Mouse balloons, the crayons I was buying and mostly, her new bottle of nail polish. She was so thrilled that she proudly held the bottle up to Bitchy McAsshole and said, “See my new naiw powish? Ith pink!” Bitchy McAsshole sent another breeze in my direction and snarled, “Oh.My.God.”

By now, my edge had been honed to a state of razor sharpness. Suddenly, her toe taps and exaggerated eye rolls became infuriating. Deep down inside, my inner New York girl was roused from her slumber. She’s a person who can turn and unabashedly hurl profanities at subway gropers. She’s a girl who was once overheard singing “turn around tight eyes” set to the tune of Bonny Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, after her She-Devil boss got an eye-job. (Shit like that doesn’t float in law firms, by the way. I speak from experience and have a copy of my first unemployment check stub to prove it.)

Anyway, when Bitchy McAsshole’s disgusted response to Kate’s nail polish display happened, the dormant New York girl came alive with a hearty roar.

Slowly, I turned and caught her at the end of a dramatic eye-roll which was followed by the beginnings of a dirty look. Clearly she thought she’d be delivering that glare to the back of my head. Mild surprise passed over her features when she realized that I was looking at her. She was in the process of reassembling her mask of annoyance when New York girl spoke. No, that’s not true. New York girl yelled. Loud.

“You know what lady? I’ve got enough shit to deal with today without you throwing more crap onto the pile!” I turned back to the scanner, but New York girl wasn’t done. “Does it look like I’m enjoying this fucking party? I was poised to continue but quickly realized that Bitchy McAsshole had never had a run-in with a person who may or may not be slightly crazy. I’m not sure if it was the volume of my voice or the fact that I used the F word in front of my toddler, but she stepped back and her jaw grew slack. I reigned New York girl in just slightly and jabbed a finger toward an empty checkout lane. That’s all. I just pointed and raised my eyebrows at her as if she were nothing more than a petulant little girl. And you know what? It felt good.

Now THAT, my friends, is a lovely ending for a Shit Show.