Following the rules.

I am a lifelong rule follower.

I don't know what exactly made me this way.  I don't have particularly vivid memories of either one of my parents being obsessive rule followers, or having particularly strict rules I was expected to follow at home.  I do remember being pretty young - maybe six or seven - and wondering why some of the other kids in my class were always acting up or doing things that the teacher said not to.  It made me nervous watching them misbehave, even when they didn't get caught.

Weird kid, I was.

But from some of my earliest memories, the whole concept of rebellion and rule-breaking just didn't make sense in my head.  "But the teacher said to not talk when she left the room," I would think to myself - not out loud, of course! - and my righteous indignation at all the little rebels would swell up in my chest until I felt like bursting with it.

Some things never change.

I'm still a rule follower.  And maybe I've learned to hide it a little better than I did at six or seven, but I still get a flash of righteousness whenever I see someone blatantly disregard a rule.

I have little use for people who don't obey traffic laws.  Speeding is for losers.  People who don't use their turn signals should be shot on sight.  Speeding up to beat a red light?  What a horrible person that must be.

There are few things that bring out my passive aggressive tendencies like someone who cuts line somewhere.  "Oh no, YOU go right ahead." I think. "CLEARLY you are more important than the 30 people who have been waiting for a turn LIKE GOOD CITIZENS."  But I only think it.  Of course.   Sixteen items in your basket in the "15 items or less" lane?  Don't think for a minute that I'm not counting them silently to myself as you put them on the conveyer belt.

A few months ago I read an article about some McDonald's manager somewhere who called the police on a mom who refused to make her kids put on socks in the restaurant's Playplace.  I don't remember all the details of exactly what happened, but I do remember the general tone of the comments, which was rousingly in the mom's favor to the tune of "Good for her!" and "It's MY choice about whether or not to put socks on my kids."

Hmmm...

I beg to differ.

It IS totally your choice about whether or not to put socks on your kids - at home.  Or a lot of places that don't have a no-sock rule.  It's also your choice about whether or not to let your kids play in a McDonald's germ-covered-bug-infested-ketchup-smeared Playplace (I do let my kids go there occasionally, by the way, against my better judgement) but all my hairs were standing on end as I read comment after comment giving kudos to this mom for yelling and cursing at the manager there, who was, for all intents and purposes, just doing his job.  Well, up to calling the police.  That was a bit much, I think.

Maybe it's just my natural rule-following tendencies.

Maybe it's all the years I spent as a retail manager enforcing so many rules I lost count, even when I didn't really think they were smart or good or useful.

But really?  Either play by the rules, or go home.

Is the "you must wear socks" rule a good one?  I have no idea.  I don't know it's origins or if there is some underlying reason for it or if some corporate bigwig just thought it up over a power lunch one day.

But I do know that it's not a rule I'm willing to risk possible arrest over.

My kids seem to be going in opposite directions on this "rule-following" business.  Zachary has never met a rule he didn't try  to find a way out of, around, or over.  Cooper gets worked up over the littlest perceived deviations from what is "right," like if he sees me sit down at R's computer for a minute I will immediately get chastised. "Mama, that's DADDY'S 'puter.  You NEVER use Daddy's 'puter.  You unnerstan me?"

So yeah, I guess we've got some work to do on what the rules actually are, huh?

How about you?  Are you a rule follower?  A bit of a rebel?  Something in between?

An open letter to the lady I was rude to in Wal-Mart.

Dear Lady,

First, I'd like to thank you for taking SUCH an interest in my little family.

Yes, I'll agree with you - I have two very cute boys.  And yes, they have a LOT of energy.

How wonderful for all of us that we were able to cross paths down EVERY SINGLE AISLE, even when I went out of my way to try to avoid you.

Also, I'l like to take a moment to thank you properly for all the unsolicited parenting advice you had to offer.  Clearly your wisdom in raising children knows no bounds!  I think it's a wonderful thing that your boys -spirited little scamps at that age! - were able to calm right down when given a little task or chore to help their grocery-shopping Mama out.  How wonderful for you that having your boys pick out which pork-n-beans to buy - one big can or two little ones, Mama? - made them into such well-mannered little children while you shopped, but I'm afraid my boys, one of whom I cannot catch and who has knocked down three displays and two people, and the other of whom is strapped into the cart, throwing his entire body violently backwards and yelling "HELP! HELP!" at the top of his voice in an effort to extract himself from the cart, may be beyond the "choosing which marshmallows to buy" stage.  But you're right.  It's excellent advice.  I'll certainly consider trying that next time we shop.  Which, of course won't be HERE, because I'm pretty sure we're going to be asked to leave and never come back if zj breaks anything else...

Anyway, is that your son with you, all grown up now?  How wonderful that he takes time out of his busy day to take his Mama to the grocery.  Such respect!  Oh, he's not that busy because he still lives at home in your basement, is unemployed, and spends his day looking at porn on the internet and playing World of Warcraft?  Well, still, it's nice of him to bring you out.

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to you for acting so rude and snappish after I was nice to you for the first 15 times you butted in and I'd also like to apologize for telling your to mind your own damn business.  We're in this together, you and I.  Raising boys is a tough business sometimes, and I certainly shouldn't have snapped at someone who was so CLEARLY on my side.  I was just a little stressed out at that moment, trying to get the bottle of syrup out of cj's hand, since he had somehow managed to open it, and to try to catch zj before he ran into the elderly gentleman with the walker and oxygen tank again. 

You understand, right?

And surely you forgive me.

We Mamas of boys have to stick together.

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility."

The title of this blog post is a quote from Peter Parker's (aka Spiderman's) Uncle Ben.  If you don't know what any of that means, you just might want to move along now...


This is how it started.

RJ came home from his weekly visit to the local comic book shop all a-glow.

RJ:  "Guess what I just bought?"

Me: Oh, shit. "Uh, what, honey?"

RJ: "Well, this guy who works there had a bunch of comic book figures for sale and he was really short on cash and he gave me a great deal."

Me: "How many did you buy?"

RJ: Looking dumbfounded that I would have to ask. "Well, I bought them all, of course."

Use your imagination and insert some words here: passive-aggressive drivel from me about "finding a place for them SOMEWHERE" and super-cajoling "But they're really cool!  And a good INVESTMENT!" from RJ, until a compromise was reached.  I would sell them all on eBay, return the initial blue-gazallion dollar investment to RJ, and  pocket the profits as my own, to buy vodka, wine and cute shoes with.


Easy-peasy, no?

Uh, no.

Because when I saw the boxes and boxes of things that looked like this:

It's kinda possible that my head blew completely off and I seriously considered tossing the entire lot in the trash, "investment" be damned and I was unsure where to begin.

See, in case you were unaware of this, in order to sell things to comic book geeks online, you must be able to correctly identify them.  And not only must you be able to identify them, you must know what if they're a variant,  or possibly a limited edition or what series they were part of.  Oh. Dear. Lord.  I could get as far as naming some of the figures.  I knew Ironman, and Wolverine, and even some more obscure ones like Apocalypse and Blob.

But this guy (and a million more like him)?

Not a flippin' clue.

Zj just happened to wander by as I was Googling "red and purple guy with spikes" - don't ever do that, by the way - and muttering under my breath about investments-my-ass, and yelled "Mama!  Where did you get that cool Onslaught figure?"

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Suddenly all the hours I basically ignored zj and let him watch YouTube videos of comics book figures while I was busy playing on Twitter were going to pay off!

He grabbed it from me and started to talk about things like the details of the spine, and the "rotation and articulation of the torso," whatever the hell THAT meant.

So I put his little ass to work.

Several hours later - hey, I feed and clothe the kid, it seemed like a small price to pay on his part - we had correctly identified many of the figures, and my eBay store was exploding with what could only be described as a Geek-gasm of epic proportions.

And when it was all said and done, I saw that it was going to be a breeze to recoup the initial "investment" with plenty of wine-fund money left over for me.

I paid zj for his time in random figures.

And I don't think he minded one bit.

What Not To Wear: The Amusement Park Edition

The J Family recently went to Holiday World for a day of riding rides, eating overpriced ice cream and funnel cake, splashing in the water park, having a variety of meltdowns (me, not the kids), and playing games in order to spend $20 to "win" a $.47 stuffed animal.

Good times.

Before we left, I checked the weather.

92 and sunny.

Ya know, hot.

I dressed the kids in their coolest clothes and slathered them with sunscreen, then spent way too long stressing about what I should wear.  It's gonna be hot so I'd like to wear something cool, but cool usually equals low and short and skin and I don't want to look TRASHY, ya know, like somebody who should be featured on the People of Wal-Mart, except this time I would be The People of Holiday World and OMG what if somebody creates a website JUST to make fun of me and I'm like the inaugural post or something?


I finally settled on this:

Before we left I asked RJ no less than several hundred a dozen times if I was showing too much skin, or if I looked trashy, or if maybe I should go put a REAL shirt on.  And some pants.  I'm an 80 year old prude trapped in a 37 year old body, y'all.

Once we got to Holiday World, I could see pretty much immediately that I  even though you could see my ARMS, for goodness sake, I was still on the conservative side of the dress code.  And even though I am no fashion plate and I have struggled with dressing myself my entire adult life, I saw many, many, many, many people who were dressed in such a way that I became frightened, ill, and on one memorable instance, blind for about ten minutes.

So this is my gift to you, world.  If you are planning a trip to an amusement/water park in the future, here are some things that you should absolutely not wear.

1)  Full safari gear.

Shortly after entering the park, I saw a woman, probably in her 70's, in a full on safari getup, complete with hat, netting and gigantic camera around her neck.  I thought at first she was a park employee of some sort in costume, coming to take our picture for us.

Uh, no. 

In reality, she was just a really overly dressed 70 year old woman in danger of having a heat stroke.  

Uh, lady, I'm pretty sure you're not going to have to stalk and catch any wild animals here, mmmk?  Unless you want to be in charge of my children.

2) Formal attire.

To the lady in the red sequined evening gown who also was not part of the entertainment: What. The. Hell?  Really?  When you got up this morning, did you think "Well, I feel pretty today.  I think I'll wear my prom dress from 20 years ago to the amusement park.  It will be perfect for the Water Log ride."  

3) I don't even know what to call this:

Ok, imagine this.  Imagine this look, except with those louvered window-shade looking sunglasses and a hat of questionable origins.  Kinda fedora-like?  Anyway, upon further consideration, I'm going to give this look a pass, because the only reasonable... reason someone would ever even leave the house dressed like this is that he or she has some hideous deformity that is even scarier than the look itself.   I feel bad for you, and I'm sorry I made fun of your outfit. Ok, really I'm not that sorry. 

4) Wife-beater shirt tucked into cutoff denim shorts, with a belt.

Sir, this is an undershirt.  It is sold in the same place in the store as the underwear.  Tucking it in and putting a belt on does not make it dressy enough to wear in lieu of an actual shirt.  Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Later in the afternoon, we went to the water park area, and I'd like to throw this disclaimer out there first.  I saw many, many people of every size, shape and gender who were dressed in flattering bathing suits that were totally acceptable and appropriate, even to an old prude like me.

But then I saw things like this:

and so much of this 

mostly on adult men who should, at the age of 40 plus, have gained the ability to pull their pants up when they feel them slipping down, that I actually went blind for a while.

It's ok.

The blindness was a blessing.

Really, don't you people look in a mirror before leaving your house?  Or maybe TRY ON your suit to make sure it still fits, even though you've lost and/or gained 50 pounds since last year?  

It's common sense, right?

Ok, guess not.

Good thing you've got me to set you straight.

You're welcome.

I had the coolest gadget in the house, for about a minute.

Last week, I got a new cell phone.

I have had a cell phone since the days of the ginormous ones that were roughly the size of a loaf of bread.  However, I have never, ever paid more than $20 for one.  I usually take the "free with contract" one.  You know, the really crappy one with bad reception and the loose pieces that fall off after a week or two?  Yeah, that's my phone.  Or at least it always had been.

But in yet another effort to cut expenses in the J household, we recently dropped our home phone line, making our cell phones our ONLY phones.  I know people are doing this, but it was sort of scary to think that the boys would grow up and would probably never remember that phones used to have to be - GASP! - plugged into the wall to work.  If they do remember it, it will be fuzzy and retro, sort of like my recollection of 8-track tapes.

Anyway, my old $0.99 cell phone wasn't going to cut it for Primary Phone Status.

I did a bunch of research (read: Googled it) and came to some conclusions.

1.  I didn't want a smart phone, because I didn't want to pay extra every month for the data plan; and
2. I wanted a cool phone.

I picked out a phone I liked from my provider's website, but it was around $80.  Since the whole point of this endeavor was to cut costs, that seemed steep to me.

So I showed it to RJ in passing, and mentioned that I liked it, but that I thought it was a bit pricey.

Of course, he took me into the cell phone company the next week and we left with it.

I LOVE it.

Of course, I don't really know how to use it very well, and have missed several important calls.  It took me three days to figure out how to check my voicemail, and the whole texting sideways with my thumbs has made me look sort of like a foolish 14 year old.  Whatever.  It's cool.

RJ told me over and over and over that he was fine keeping his old phone.  It did everything he needed.  Sure, it wasn't fancy, but it didn't need to be.  It was a phone, and it could make calls.

Two days later, he came home with this: