The SCOOP on DOG POOP

Everybody’s got their vice. 

For some it’s fingers on a chalkboard, others dog poop.

I don’t mind me some dog poop.

Every time one of my dog poops, I’m reminded that I saved a life.

She used to defecate herself in a concrete cave of a life and wait for some Doggie Death Squad to show up and shovel it out.

So I don’t mind me some dog poop.

It reminds me of exactly what I have done to save another living thing’s precious gift called LIFE.

This dog who was literally lifted out of the depths of canine Hell now has a chance to poop under a nice shady tree, or a dewy meadow, or even on the random dandelion.

That doesn’t mean though, that I don’t pick up some dog poop.

I carry enough bags with me on my doggie walks to hit the grocery store on the way home.

Don’t overestimate me though.

Occasionally one of them gets the urge to plop a present on a lawn and I have either run out of bags or after working a 15 hour day forgot to bring one.

So a few times I may have been neglectful.

You, and many others, however, display a very different kind of neglect.

I see the dozens of plastic coffee cups thrown out windows onto our sidewalk.

I take caution around the glass a random drunk teenager decorated the driveway with and mind my business about your parking lot of a graveyard  that used to be a lawn.

In the winter, I ignor the exhaust you spew out of car all morning to melt the snow off.  

I use this new thing called a SNOW SCRAPER. 

I try to ignor your Christmas lights up twenty-four hours a day, too. 

Although it is nice knowing that we both celebrate the birth of Christ though.

You like to use him name a lot at me and in ways I’ve never heard before.

What was that you said that one night my Sylvia pooped a few feet in your yard and I had run out of bags, was it  “Christ, what kind of asshole person are you to let your dog shit all over my lawn and run off, Jesus Christ!” 

To think, we hadn’t even met before.    

How DID you KNOW I was actually Jesus Christ?

And my pup Sylvia was walking proud when you hissed at us that night.

Her poop was about the size of a small potato.

You really thought it was something though.

She thought her Alabaman ass won some sort of blue ribbon that night.

And me running off like that.  “Running” all the way down the road, into another neighborhood, all the way back, then past your house again, with three dogs in tote.  

If you call that running I must be more agile than I think.   When you finally found me in your truck that night,  I was actually standing across from your yard letting my pup Max pee on a stick in the woods.    

I must have needed a break from all that “running.” 

You must need a break from running around too.  You and your gal pal are living in your parents’ house. 

 

Car’s home all day and all night. 

I was glad that I gave you two something to do that day.    I had worked about oh, 12 hours that day and still managed to take my dogs for that walk even in the pouring rain and once the shit hit the fan, you signed right up.    

Must have been the highlight of your day.  

I like to help out when I can.

I’m glad, too that my paycheck deducts some of my pay to help you out while you stay unemployed.

24 year old veterans should definitely stay home and guard their yards.     

We have to take Homeland Security very seriously.

 

My dad was a veteran too.  One of those purple heart veterans that took a few bullets in the back before he returned home.   He had to find a job though almost immediately after the stitches came out and he worked at that job for about 45 years.

And when you said, what was that, “I served my country and don’t deserve to get shit on” that was impressive, too.

Especially for the eight months I estimate you served.

My dad served his country in Vietnam.

But his definition of serving his country didn’t include stalking women in their pickup trucks in the dead of night and threatening them.

Did you actually threaten that you were going to buy your own dog and come over and have him shit in my yard?

Please do.

That dog can poop all he want in my yard.  My grass is greener than the entire neighborhood. 
 
When you introduced yourself with the words, "hey you gonna' clean up the shit you left in my yard?"  I was apologetic.  I even told you I had run out of bags and that I'd come back when I dropped the dogs off to scoop the poop.  

You rambled on.  

I still came back to clean up our dog poop.

And yet our dog poop is still not equivalent to the kind of SHIT that comes out of your mouth when you throw a temper tantrum over it. 

I really don’t get excited over it like you do. 

You don’t look at it like poop on the ghost of a lawn that used to be there before you moved in.

You look at it like I did it personally.

You actually think I am pooping on you.    

Like I shit on YOU.

That’s right.  That’s what I do, you see.

It’s my scam.

I train my broken-down, tossed-out-in-the-trash, damaged dogs to squat and run.   Right there in your yard.  I only have two jobs so I have plenty of time to show them how to do it. 

It’s not because dogs got to go when they got to go, it’s because some day I hope to bring this circus act of designated dog pooping on the road.

Sylvia already has a few excellent references.

And I’ll ignor your temper tantrum even though you have an outdoor cat.

The same outdoor cat that roams about my yard killing all the cute chipmunks and bluebirds that feed at the birdfeeder I love to watch from my kitchen window.

That’s exactly why I put all the feeders out there. 

To  entertain your cat.

And I’ll also ignor that your outdoor cat uses the entire neighborhood as its litter box. Pooping and pissing all over the place.   

The scoop on dog poop is that people have become more self-centered and possessive than ever before. 

Their PROPERTY is more important than HUMANITY.

They’d rather take a knife to a neighbor, a baseball bat, stalk them in their pickup trucks late at night in the pouring rain than work out a solution in a neighborly way.

We have lost touch with what's most important, people.

And it's NOT poop.

Even though POOP is HOW the earth goes round.

That’s why the farmers fill up their tractor trucks with poop and plow it all over their fields to fertilize next year’s crop.  Earthworms eat most of the poop we create and poop that out to rejuvenate the soil.   

Gosh, in the 1870s, it was POOP that warmed the pioneers as they settled out west.

That was thanks to the almighty buffalo and his ginormous, flame-igniting poop.

Poop is how the earth goes round.  

You can all keep your PARKING LAWN and other neighbors can keep their precious museum of a yard that they NEVER play in and plant all the pretty flowers in your garden with all the fake poop you plant them in and watch out your windows on POOP DUTY just to catch the next squat and run.

It won’t be me. 

Because I remember what’s important about this life.

And it's not poop. 

It's actually junior mints.

New Hampshire Man Seeks Tranportation Gets Solicited for Prostitution; Wife Seeks Refuge in Walgreens

When we first announced we were planning our trip to the BIG APPLE, it was far from heartwarming.

"You are going to get mugged.  Or robbed," my mom warned as she instructed us that we would have to wear socks so we could stick our ATM card in it.

And the ever-anxious mother-in-law described in detail her dream about the four of us walking the streets of NYC falling victim to a gangster drive-by shooting.

Despite the drama, we packed up and two days into our trip we were across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal between Thursday night's finest thugs and a curb of Broadway's Late Night Ladies including Miss Shaniqua in her pink velour leotard and four inch stilts.

It was 11 or so PM after our visit to Times Square and it was time for the Husband to alert our transportation.   So with me and our two doe-eyed daughters in tote, said Husband rests at a corner and dials UBER.  I've been married to Said Husband for a few decades so I have mastered the 'reading of the lips technique' and mid-sentence I translated "WE NEED RIDE to HOTEL" to "GET US THE HELL OUT OF HERE STAT."

He was sweating something Philly-cheesesteak-like which could have been due to the threat of impending mugging, robbing, or drive-by shooting our mothers had threatened us about OR due to the 93 degree temperature reading even at the stroke of midnight. 

When I saw his hands begin his directional ballet, I squeezed my daughters' hands and assured them it would not be long.

UNTIL DADDY would be offered some WEED.

Well, first it WAS weed.

Then it was "the goods."

And finally, any girl he wanted.

Yep.  That's as good as it gets in Times Square if you don't leave before the clock strikes midnight.

So you watch from a few steps away, your groom of 18 years, making friends with a New York City PIMP.

It was very different than how you planned your marriage.  You anticipated a house and a few kids and probably even a trip to the BIG APPLE.

But you never imagined that man who promised you better or for worse to be offered any chick on a city curb or worse yet, Shaniqua who forgot to wear her tutu apparently.  Or a bra.  Or at least eyebrows.

About the moment the City Slicking Salesman announced "this is my block, Man" and "I can get you whatever girls you want, Man" and immediately after he placed his arm around my groom's shoulders, I became very jealous.

Of the people who were safely inside a Walgreen's pharmacy.

I didn't care if the father of my children canceled UBER and ordered Shaniqua instead.  I WAS GETTING MY DAUGHTERS OFF the STREET and into Aisle 11 pronto.

Which conveniently had very nice air conditioning.

So after all the killing and dying-on-the-streets cautions our mothers insisted on, our trip to the BIG APPLE would end like this.

My husband, a small town cheese-loving, backyard-living boy, walking arm-in-arm with Tito, Times Square Fast Talking Pimp and me distracting my daughters with Walgreen's Weekly Specials.

And damn-it-all, I was wearing flip-flops so I didn't even have my ATM card!

Only in Fayville 2014

Only in Fayville Take 2014.

Second day of school somewhere between rules and procedures and me needing a stretcher.

I had just picked the new Fayville kids up from the gymnasium and we settled into our seats to create some classroom rules for our new school year. 

Go figure the rule we discussed today was "How to Be Safe." An oldie, a goodie, and one we may need to visit a hundred times over. Especially with eleven eight year old boys in the coop.

Once we shared our ideas about hand washing, picking up litter, keeping aisles clear, keeping hands, feet and all bodily parts to our own selves even if he took your cheez-it from your desk, and cleaning up our community, we were ready to review this morning's activity titled "Get to Know Your Teacher."

We had just reached question #10 when I allowed some time to see if they needed to know any other pertinent information about me in which they tend to ask me "when is snack?" "how much homework do you give out?" and "do we have any field trips?"

I allowed one question, being that it was actually ABOUT me, and wouldn't you know it, three of the little rascals wanted to know how old I was. I advised them to try the math. Not because I'm a gifted teacher but because we were three hours into our seven ring circus and I just wanted to give them something to leave me alone for a few minutes already.

It was about the moment I announced 1972 when the principal walked by. She was greeting all the classrooms and tending to principalness when RALPH showed up.

There he was, about four ounces of fluff with his long ass tail trailing behind as he made a dash for the other side of the room.

RIGHT UNDER THE LAST ROW OF DESKS between the feet of all the new Fayville rascals! He darted in and out and in between all their new sneakers and glitzy flip flops but he safely made it across. IN ONE PIECE.

When I use the terms ONE PIECE I am not referring to Ralph S. Mouse. I had a principal at the door and twenty little wide-eyed pupils desperately scratching at the math between 1972 and 2014.

Which would be exactly 27 years by the way.

I mean ONE PIECE as in Mrs. Fay kept her cool and collected in check and carried on.

But the principal could not. From the doorway I heard one GASP! followed by a two hand raise to the face. There she was in her second day apparel, her school in TIP TOP shape and she was in complete distress.

I responded with "Oh, are you surprised I'm that OLD?"

With both hands still firmly cupping her mouth and nose, her eyes as big as half dollars, she nodded.

Luckily, the Fayville kids were still scratching away and Ralph had found himself a pile of goldfish somewhere beneath the boys' coat rack which is exactly the place to be if you are a rodent. It is a crumb buffet back there.

I didn't miss a beat though because I've been a resident of Fayville for several years now. I simply walked over to my administrator and asked if she would like me to walk those boys and girls, excluding Ralph, of course, down the hall and on some whim of an adventure so that she can call upon our pest control. That being the custodians obviously.

"Alright, nice job boys and girls! Mrs. Fay IS, in fact, twenty-seven but we don't have time to discuss it. Let's line up and come follow me for a surprise."

When you're a third grade teacher all you have to do is spit out is "Let's line up for a SURPR- - -" and they are there in three point two seconds. If you say "let's line up for an assembly," that takes about two and half hours.

So off we went down the hall, leaving Ms. Principal at the Fayville door, to our next adventure, which I had NO IDEA would be.

I proceeded down the hallway in search of a last minute filler. Something that would keep their attention. Maybe a magical place. Maybe a place second best to the playground. A really kid haven. It would HAVE TO BE THE NURSE'S OFFICE.

Why not? We had just discussed how to be safe and all, which coincidentally, was the perfect entrance for Ralph to show up. It was like he was a prop or something.

"Mrs. Nurse," I ask, "we have sort of an emergency of the rodent kind in our classroom. Any chance you can come on out here and introduce yourself to the new Fayville kids and tell them how we use your office?"

This nurse is no amateur. She's known me for a decade by now. Mrs. Fayville herself. Between the Pam Cooking Spray assault in the staff parking lot, the red-marker-on-white-pants incident, and all my emergency runs through her maxi pad stash, it was no surprise that if there were to be a MOUSE on the premises, it would only happen in Fayville.

For nearly fifteen minutes, the nurse spoke of vomit, bloody noses, diarrhea, eye pokes, bloody scabs and tick bites. My students were ENTHRALLED. They anticipated that third grade would be their best school year ever!

Right between boogers and body odor, the custodians happened to pass by. With a portable vacuum complete with a ten foot suction tube attached to his right shoulder resembling more of a Ghostbuster than a janitor. He brought along another custodian for backup. Unfortunately, my old Fayville alumnus, a summer custodian, Zachary, had already left for college. It's too bad, too. He would have known EXACTLY what to do with Chuck E. Cheese. He spent 180 days in Fayville after all.

My rodent-buster team spent nearly a half hour looking for Ralph with no success. I assume he was in my junior mint drawer and I panicked about what I might snack on during math class later today.

Then I turned the Fayville kids back down the hall toward Room 268 who-do-we-appreciate, expecting nothing less than a few dozen mouse traps all about.

And there they were, one in every corner, under my desk, and a few in the boys' rack amongst all the new shiny chairs, new lunchboxes, and backpacks. I was certain if they were to call an indoor recess they would become some sort of lego fortress or Barbie bunkbed.

I continued my plans for the rest of the day with one eye open for Ralph. He never made an appearance again. I'm sure he is making a nice little nest somewhere and becoming acclimated to his new home. Unless HE is a SHE. Then SHE is probably constructing some sort of mouse apartment building for her new mouse clan.

So there you have it. The SECOND day of school in Fayville. At least my principals have forgotten about evaluating me. All they want to know is if I've seen Ralph anymore.

I can basically teach whatever I want now. Oddly enough, I am supposed to review the How to Be Safe rule tomorrow and begin a science unit on animal habitats.

I figure I may have to change my choice in novels though. I had planned on "Because of Winn Dixie" and incidentally, there IS a chapter when puppy dog Winn-Dixie DOES catch a mouse in a church and delivers it to the pastor. But I am NOOOOO priest. And they have a NO DOG rule due to allergies at school.

Would have been a great asset to Reader's Theater though.

I think instead I will begin with a novel by the legendary Beverly Cleary. I suppose all I have to do is get Ralph a motorcycle. 

Game of Thrones

When you need a new toilet, call on Papa. After all, he's the one with the pickup truck and he sure does know his way around toilets.

So this week we finally invested in a plumber. It's been at least a year without upstairs plumbing and it's no fun sharing a shower with your live in father-in-law. Especially when you forget a towel.

Papa decides to meet you at Home Depot. He's going to let ...you pick his brain, use his 10% Veteran's discount, and the said pickup truck.

2pm you're in the toilet aisle with a Papa and a Panda in tote looking at "thrones."

There's something I need to address here. When you live on a budget, you're not EXACTLY browsing the selection. You're pretty much in the clearance section with a few things in check: your budget and your color choice.

You see, you moved into a house with its original fixtures. From like 1967.

That upstairs bathroom with no plumbing is not white. All fixtures are of the SANDSTONE or BONE or of the BISCUIT hue. Problem is, as you browse both the QUALITY items section and the I-GOT-EXACTLY-TWO-BUCKS-IN-MY-WALLET-TIL-SCHOOL STARTS section, all you see is a SEA of WHITE. 

 

If you were to buy a QUALITY item, you can expect this toilet lasting at least a decade. These toilets flush themselves. They come in every color, some have timers, they have special lids that don't slam down, one even had a nightlight on it, and I believe two were self-cleaning with an automatic candy dispenser. In my special section, you got a bowl that flushes and another bowl that flushes.

Papa doesn't have the same priorities. First thing he asks the Home Depot guy, "any brands you recommend?"

That immediately sent me into PANIC MODE. And had me envious of anyone that has cash and can just buy any old toilet at any old price and massages your ass.

See Papa doesn't understand. When you're a teacher and it's August, you're soup kitchen. You pretty much have a roof over your head but your fridge hosts a lone jar of pickles and three dozen eggs.

Home Depot Guy smiles. CHA-CHING! He's dancing up and down the aisle showing off all his best models and his expertise on shitters, Papa close behind, amazed at all the new gadgets, and there I am calculating how I will stretch my $130 budget to 198 bucks. THEIR CHEAPEST ONE THERE. Unless I wanted the toilet with the cracked seat four inches from the floor.

"Hey Sherry, you should see these! They're really nice and they are elongated!"

I nod my head thinking about what the upstairs bathroom would look like with a Korean toilet. All I'd have to do is remove the broken toilet and dig a hole there. I could even stick a nightlight there if I want to and a kitchen timer. Everything would just go right down the hole and I would never need to wear those neon yellow elbow gloves anymore.

So next thing you know, we're in a heavy debate. The topic? ELONGATED vs. ROUND. In the Sherry section, they are all round. There's no option. But in the "ANY BRAND YOU RECOMMEND?" section, they have all shapes and sizes - even trapezoid if you have a saggy ass.

This is where it gets a bit sticky. See, I'm a female. So is my Panda. Somehow these men were going to convince me to go ELONGATED without exploiting the birds the bees to a middle schooler.

I reply, "I don't care and I don't think my husband would care. Round is fine."

"Sherry, Rob is a big guy. He needs some room. That's what I would get," Papa says.

Sure. If you want to spent $248 and not feed your kids til September 10th.

Home Depot Guy, on his sale-of-the-month, says, "yeah, he'll want all the room he can get. What shape is your toilet anyhow?"

I don't know. Who the hell knows? It's toilet-shaped. It has a round bowl and I clean that flipping thing every week. But I still don't know.

Then I'm thinking, ROOM? He needs room? Don't we all just have a little hole and exactly how much room does a man need? Are you afraid he might miss? Will it be oval-shaped poop? Should we just go with the Korean toilet?

For the next few minutes you're all debating the ELONGATED vs. ROUND topic and men needing more room until they insist I call the husband and ask him. As if the little wifey can't take care of deciding on what geometric shape she wants to pee in.

I even bet those two men, even my own father, that my husband will not CARE the least bit what shape the toilet seat is as long as it's under 150 bucks. I even told them as a last resort, "look, I have lived with this man for 17 years of marriage. I have never seen him actually sit on the upstairs toilet. He does all his business on the first level." There are more magazines down there.

Panda was just about the shade of a tomato plant. I reassure her that Mommy needs to save a little money and she should know that Daddy only pees upstairs. She left for Korea by the time Daddy answered the phone.

I'm there on the phone, reassuring my husband that he doesn't need that much room (and it would save us 100 bucks) and he agrees. Meanwhile, Papa and his new BFF are shaking their heads in disbelief. Little did I know that this suggestion was not because of needing room for your waste. The "room" they were referring to was room for all their parts to fit.

Are you serious, MEN? Have you not seen my bicycle? I can't get off of that thing without a near colonoscopy. Appliances certainly aren't made to fit our womanly body parts.

The phone call resulted in the husband sending us a picture of our toilet bowl via TEXT. This was not my finest moment. Sitting there, in the Home Depot aisle, customers all about, men with their oval parts, my dad with his "any brands you recommend?" attitude, the Home Depot Guy with the gleam in his eye, and my empty wallet all looking at our toilet bowl on my Iphone.

 AMEN! That toilet was as round as a basketball! So long 248 bucks! Hello Economy Toilet for 198 and tonight we're eating spaghetti with actual ground beef!

For the next half hour a whole new debate goes on. Do we go white or do we go BISCUIT? Do I want my toilet to match the vanity, the tub, the wall tiles, the floor tiles and the window OR do I want that sparkly white toilet that is WAY more pressure to clean and I will wait 20,000 years to replace that vanity, that tub, those tiles, and the window to match that gleaming white?

DONE. We go with the ECONOMY toilet for 198 bucks in BISCUIT with a ROUND toilet seat. It doesn't come with a playlist or a remote control flusher, but it'll do. And it will. Especially when I have to pee at 2 in the morning.

We finally get up to the cashier and Papa's got his discount card out and the Home Depot lady convinces him to sign up for a Home Depot card and save 50 bucks on the order. Papa approves and I'm just about to cry. I was expecting a NINETEEN dollar and ninety-eight sense discount and here he is getting me a toilet for $148! Right in our budget range!

And just think! Tomorrow the plumber will arrive and I'll be able to brush my teeth under REAL running water and forget my towel whenever I want to. I think Panda even applauded. But she was already on the plane heading east.

But wait. Wait for it...

When we reach Papa's truck, I ask him for the receipt. He used his debit card so we could get his discount and I was prepared to pay him today. I'd need to zip to the drive-thru ATM and pay up. Next thing I know, Papa, who has poured his heart, time, and sweat into fixing our home and saved us from every emergency, says,

"No, this one's on me. I don't want your money," he said. And then in his Cliffy tone, that I'M-YOUR-FATHER-AND-YOU'LL-DO-AS-I-SAY tone says, "and don't you go getting me any or I'll be upset." No hug. No kiss. Just that stern look that makes you get in that car and do as he says.

We rode him in separate cars and helped one another carry our new Fayville throne inside. I did my best to compose myself. I fought every tear and just felt nothing but gratitude and how lucky I am to have all the blessings in my life. Especially my new toilet seat. No matter what shape it is.

And Papa DID get his kiss.

LUCKY?

For the hundredth time this year, I had to hear it. 

"You are SOOOO lucky. You don't know how lucky you are that your girls get good grades." 

I've learned to bite my tongue but I won't hold my fingers from the keypad tonight.

Luck? Are you saying their grades are LUCK? 

Luck like a lottery ticket? A lucky penny? Like finding a twenty dollar bill on the curb?

It's not luck. It's hard work. The hardest there is.

It's the kind of work that we've been working at since birth.

Reading BOOKS instead of CAPTIONS. Painting ABCs instead of DVDs. Playing BOARD games instead of VIDEO.

It's not luck.

We counted steps each time we climbed. We'd count them backward on the way down.

We sang rhymes and made them up. M-I-R-A-N-D-A That spells Panda's name. A-V-E-R-Y That spells Avery's name.

We'd count how high til the blocks collapsed, named every critter and creature on every walk, and hunted for ABCs on every ride.

It was not luck.

The homework papers, the study guides, the handmade projects; those were just the warmup to our nights. Once the papers were done and the glue had dried, they'd fight over which books to read and which side of my lap to sit on til we agreed on all of them and Mommy made room for two.

Schoolwork before sports and homework before fun.

Books before a movie and stories before snacks.

This had nothing to do with luck.

"You are SO lucky that you GOT smart girls." I was told.

God didn't GIVE us smart girls. He gave us the parts to make them. That's all.

It's not luck that your child takes her times about things. The teacher tells you "she never finishes in the time I give her." That's only because you told her good things take time.

It's not luck that her teachers tell us "she is conscientious, goes above and beyond, participates in class and gives her best effort." We told her you have to work for what you want. Don't sit the bench. Get out there and swing.

It's not luck when your little girl has set up a blanket on a sofa and has wrapped herself in a good book pleading with you to come sit with her and "read it with me, Mommy" like it was the air she breathed.

Good grades have nothing to do with luck.

And neither does God.

It took him seven days to create his masterpiece.

It'll take us a lifetime to create ours.

And we don't need luck if we have anything to do with it. Luck doesn't grow on green clovers in this house. And it doesn't come from a scratch ticket or a rabbit's tail or a coin we find on a curb.

The only thing that makes us lucky is that we were given this chance at all. And we are putting all our "money" down on the "table" for this one. (:

EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOSING OUR MINDS.

Robert and I have met our threshold this week. Him working two jobs, me juggling the circus act, neither of us getting any good sleep.
Last week we get a notice. Our THIRD grader's spring concert. Can't miss this event. To us, it's a cute little collection of nursery rhyme and blues, but to her, it might as well be SMALLTOWN IDOL.

But there's those fumes. They're running low.
You give your school a week notice. That ought to be enough time to find a substitute. And by golly, they find one. She will surely retire after this half day with the 3RD grade rascals. Some stupid bunny loaded them up on jellybeans and miniature chocolate eggs and I think they are all possessed by an evil entity at this point or at least kuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
I will note here that when a teacher requires a day off, it's done all online. By this idiot named Aesop. I swear he's the same Aesop that had that had a flipping tortoise beat a rabbit in a race. Aesop is now reincarnated in the form of an online sort of "signup genius" for the elementary teacher. You simply type in your date, the reason, and hit save. The system does the rest of the work for her. But remember here, this elementary teacher, the one that requested the day off, is pretty much off her rocker at this point.

Day before the concert you arrive at school. The hurricane that you are. The same old bun in your hair, wrinkled shirt that you hide with a glamorous scarf, and nikes. The nikes because you have pretty much surrendered to being the least bit stylish.
You walk over to your desk. You notice an unusual object sitting there. The object is faintly recognizable, in fact you used to use one prior to birthing children. Now you prefer any old plastic bag.
Next to the purse: your attendance folder, and someone's lunch. You walk out to the hall asking whose it might be. There's your team leader. She says, "Oh, Sherry, you're HERE." From her room, exits a substitute teacher. The very one the mighty Aesop assigned you. "Do you have your sub plans? I can't find them," she asks. I assure her that I am very much HERE and will stay HERE the entire live long day. Unless they call an indoor recess. Then I will locate the nearest escape hatch. "You must have the wrong day," I reply. "I'm out TOMORROW." Poor thing had gone senial. You help her collect her belongings and console her on the way back down to the office. You even suggest she has time to clean out her pocketbook or play Yahtzee before 'The View.'
She feels really bad for mixing things up. I mean, it's hard as you age, you forget things, you get confused. I had her feeling good by the time we reached the office. About aging. And about taking the blame for the wrong day and all.
Once we explain to the school receptionist what had happened, she looks for the original signup. Obviously she doesn't realize that Aesop is an idiot, so I wait. As long as it took that damn tortoise.
"Sherry, it says here, April 23rd. That's today. YOU typed that." I had typed in the WRONG DATE.
I had three options right about now.
1. I could leave and enjoy a morning at home.
2. I could stick around and watch my rascals give this poor soul the ride of her life or
3. I could check myself into the nearest facility for the mentally insane.

Fortunately, FIFTEEN teachers had also called in sick and they needed subs. Only difference is these other teachers were legitimately sick. I had faked sick but I faked it on the wrong day.
They ended up sending my substitute to the fifth grade. I proceeded to my classroom to prepare the day. I had exactly 17.5 seconds.In that mad dash to my room, I text Robert. His tank is empty, too and he has no chance to refill because he's at the high school working with students on a video presentation.
I tell him he won't believe what I did. I explain it in fifteen words or less, put my phone aside, and begin my teaching day. Now Robert is receiving the text by now. He's HALF reading though. He's two steps to comatose himself and he is working. All HE sees is "Avery's school concert" and "I mixed up the days" and "there's a substitute here."
Wait for it. Wait for it...
Immediately, he panics. He's got to keep his Father of the Year status. His Hollywood starlet is on stage! "I got to go!" he announces. "My daughter's concert is today! We mixed up the days!"
Fifteen minutes later, Robert arrives at Avery's elementary school. Sits in a folding chair amongst 100 other fathers and mothers and listens to a few nursery rhymes. He's looking for me. He even texts me, "where are you?" and "did you save me a seat" but by now I'm deep in my seventy-third lesson of verbs and not seeing any of his message. He even looks up at stage and says to himself, "these kids are really little." He's not seeing Avery, he can't find me, and he doesn't know WHO THE HELL all these parents are in that gym.
Suddenly, he looks down at the concert brochure. It reads "SECOND GRADE CONCERT."
With whatever brain cells he can conjure up, he realizes he is, in fact at the wrong concert. His daughter is a THIRD GRADER, her concert is TOMORROW and NOT today and his wife is a BLAZING MORON. (:

Let's BLOG I Made Them Believe in Fairies

It was magic.  

It's always been about magic.

My womb grew but a few months, but a few times, and by the wake of Spring  and the dawn of Fall, two darling girls appeared. 

Since infancy I made them believe in angels and that I was to be their first.  I would vow to protect them.  Promise to love them and my wings would be shelter in the sunlight and wind.

I walked them around the backyard.  Pointed out each buzzing bee and butterfly wing.  I made them believe in earth and all its promise of birth and life.  

Every dandelion would be chance to a wish.  Every ladybug would grant good luck.  And beneath each and every mushroom lived a fairy.  

I made them believe in fairies.

We'd walk paths through a forest, slipping in and out of trees, searching for wings.  Searching for a whisper, a hush, and a sprinkle of twinkly dust.

As they grew I told them about Santa.  The Easter Bunny.  The fairy that would collect their first teeth.

We looked for lights in the dark sky.  I made them believe each one a sleigh guided by reindeer.  

We left a carrot and by morning it had been replaced with a basket of treats and a hunt for treasures.

I made them believe in fairies.

Still growing I made them believe in me and their daddy.  That our magic, our destiny would be to guide them, walk beside them, and sometimes behind them to make their little girl dreams come true.

I told them about God.  And his angels. And made them believe that when they reached a bridge and a mean and selfish troll commanded they turn back, they could believe that He would be there inside them and help them across.

I made them believe in fairies.

Those two darling girls are eight and ten. That magic is still alive.

We make wishes on eyelashes and falling stars.  We leave cookies and milk and notes beside the tree.  Our hands still wake to pennies under a pillow and we take care of where we step on the forest ground.  

I made them believe in fairies.  So someday they could fly without wings.