Are those people on the phone or are they just crazy?

As you may know, I have been mall-walking which has given me the opportunity to make some astute observations. With that in mind, there is something I just have to get off my chest.

You know those earpiece-type phones? They are causing me to become neurotic. Let me explain.

As I walk around the mall I notice that there are quite a few people that are sitting on chairs, couches, and even window shopping who are talking in a very loud, quite animated manner – to themselves. For instance, I noticed this one woman, who was sitting on a couch, having a lively conversation, hands waving, eyebrows twitching as she was looking at what I thought was a person sitting on the couch across from her – and there was no one sitting there!!!! WTF.

I’m not kidding. It appears that they are talking to imaginary friends or in the world of psychiatry it would be known as “hearing voices” - ever see A Beautiful Mind? This seems to have become an affliction of epidemic proportion.

I have tried to convince myself that they are talking into one of those cell phone earpieces. But I now figure it’s safer to just assume that they are crazy and in need of some strong anti-psychotic meds. I could take a chance and move in close to check it out. However, if it turns out NOT to be an earpiece the person may think I’m bothering their imaginary friend or challenging their hallucination and get seriously pissed.  On the other hand, if I go up to a stranger and perhaps move her hair away from her ear to have a peek and discover that there IS an earpiece, I will most likely end up being thrashed by a Michael Kors handbag and then be chased through the food court by a mall cop on a Segway. I’m screwed either way.

So I've decided it’s best that I give these people a very wide berth - like 50 feet. That way if they are certifiable and happen to get angry at the “voice” and decide to throw a shoe at it from The Foot Locker display, I should be safe from getting hit. And if they are not crazy and in fact talking into the earpiece, I will not be able to hear the annoying conversation, which no one should have to listen to anyway. It's a good safety plan.

Who knew the mall could be so dangerous? I think I need to send the bill for my anti-anxiety meds to Bluetooth.

What do donuts and toilets have in common?

The easy answer is “a hole”. The actual answer is that middle school boys have a fascination with both. Read on….

I have been working diligently on the manuscript for Caught in the Middle and have neglected preparing a post for the blog. Sorry about that guys. I’m at the point where I’m almost ready to send some chapters off to a few literary agents. It’s intimidating to send your work out there for others to judge and honestly I’m a bit nervous. I have no idea if this is marketable or not but, even if it is not published, I can honestly say the writing has been cathartic for me. I know my pals at the middle school appreciate these ramblings and rants because I write the truth, albeit in a humorous way – but it’s nonetheless the truth.

I hope you get a chuckle out of this excerpt from the chapter entitled Crime and Punishment.

I like to call this next incident “The Donut Box Caper”.

One morning upon arrival at school, Johnny Losthismind and Ted Flushalot decided to buy some donuts. Because they bought six, they were given a nice square, cardboard box to hold their purchase. It took them a whole three seconds to inhale the donuts and hence were left with the empty box.  Normal, sane people would throw the box away and move on. These two boys actually did that. They threw the box in the boy’s restroom and moved on. Now this wouldn’t be a “caper” if it ended there, would it? You can always count on middle schoolers not to disappoint. After wandering the halls for a bit, one of them came up with a scathingly brilliant idea. They decided to go back into the restroom, pull the box out of the garbage, and stuff it down the toilet. Why??? Who the hell knows??? We’re not talking fully developed frontal lobes here. They then proceeded to flush said toilet to see if their little prank would flood the school and thus create pandemonium.

With crack detective work (and the help of cameras in the hallway) I figured out Johnny and Ted were the offenders and began the interrogation.  In order to save his own buttinski, Ted threw Johnny under the bus – which, by the way, is what usually happens. Good cop, bad cop works incredibly well with middle school students. We should have our own detective, police-type show. We could call it “School and Order”, or maybe “Middle School Vice”, or in this instance “The Potty Squad” – it’s a thought.

Anyway, this is the parent conversation that followed this incident:

Me: Hello Mr. Losthismind. I’m sorry to say that Johnny decided it was a good idea to stuff a donut box down a toilet at school today.

Mr. Losthismind: sigh…I trust you will punish him accordingly. You have my full support.

What????? A parent that gets it????!!!! I almost fell out of my chair. 

If you are a parent reading this book and have or will have a middle school child, listen carefully. The school is NOT your enemy. Teachers and administrators are trying to help you raise a productive, law-abiding citizen. Trust that they have done their due diligence and that your son or daughter had a momentary lapse in judgment and indeed acted like a moron. It happens. And here is the clincher. If they think you (parents) are going to believe them instead of the school – get ready for a shocker ... they are going to LIE! Like a rug – like a liar liar pants on fire – like Pinocchio – like a politician. You get the gist.

If this gets published, you will have to buy the book to read about Sierra Pottymouth. Let's just say... her parent DIDN'T get it. A knee slapper for sure.

They say it takes over a month to hear from an agent. I will most definitely keep you posted! 

Is Valentine's Day a minefield?

Answer: Absolutely – for guys. There is a reason why the moniker “St. Valentine's” is either followed by the word “Day” or “Massacre”.

Listen - this holiday is all about the female population. A guy could care less about receiving a gift for Valentine’s Day and he only buys gifts to placate the woman in his life. I would imagine if someone did a survey of the male population in regards to which Hallmark days to remove from the calendar, this particular day would be number one on the list, and right behind it - wedding anniversaries. Think of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally and the scene in the deli. You know – faking the big “O”? Well, men fake Valentine's Day and rarely do they nail the romance like Meg did the orgasm.

Women put a lot of emphasis on romance and equate Valentine’s Day with just that. Romance is definitely connected to the female sex glands, but for guys - not so much. In their defense, many of them put up a good front and give it their best, but it's really a stretch and just not in their DNA. To be honest, I kind of feel bad for men. It's like we are asking them to do something that is not natural. Mostly, men could care less about love songs and scented candles and pretty much just want to get to the sex part. 

Typical example of woman vs man:

For Valentine’s Day a woman fixes her man his favorite meal served by candlelight and has bought some very sexy lingerie to surprise her mate après dinner. The guy however, purchases a bread-making machine at Target.

He’s thinking, “Who doesn't like bread, right?”

And when the woman sees the bread machine????

Let's just say the guy may eventually may get the bread - but not the nooky.

During this holiday, the gauntlet and potholes that men usually encounter change depending on where they are in the relationship, which alone is enough to confuse the most intelligent male. The following is my Valentine's Day advice to men:

Relationship #1 

You have recently met and have gone on a few dates. Valentine’s Day is approaching. Do you give her a gift or not? On the one hand, if you give her a gift you better be ready to take the relationship to the next level, because in her mind you have just sealed the deal. If you don’t give her a gift, you can forget about having that first romp in the sack for a while. You’ll be starting at date #1 all over again. Kind of like “DO NOT PASS GO– DO NOT COLLECT $200”.  Pick your poison.

Relationship #2

You have been dating for more than a year and here comes Valentine’s Day. I’m telling you right now she is looking for that ring in a box and I’m not talking about a nose ring either. So, don’t show up with the box of Whitman’s chocolates you bought at Walgreens that most likely is left over from last year. You know the kind of box I mean, with the little legend that gives you the type of candy that’s in each square? If you are going the candy route you better buy Godiva so when she throws the box at you, the candy will probably be fresher and not like miniature projectile missiles. And with Godiva you can at least enjoy the chocolates that didn’t fall out of the box as your butt is being kicked out the door.

Relationship #3

You have been married for a while – say 10 years. All I can say is….see bread machine example. If you value your sex life, do your best to stay away from any gift with a plug. Appliances have never screamed romance. And for god’s sake don’t buy her tickets to an NBA game because YOU love your team when she doesn’t even know what a foul shot is. That’s just plain suicidal.

Relationship #4

You have been married 20 years or more. The wife is probably going through menopause so this is automatically a no win situation. Leave town for a week and maybe she will forget. Forgetfulness is actually a characteristic of menopause, along with biting the heads off anyone that gets in her way, and possibly eating her young. Be afraid – be very afraid.

You can understand why February 15th is the best day of the year for men. It means they have 364 pressure-free days until the next Valentine's Day fiasco.

Now, I’d selfishly like to add a postscript to my husband:

You have a “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE” card in regards to Valentine’s Day for eternity. The way you took care of me during my hip replacement surgery and hip rehab was priceless and precious to me. THAT is true love. After 29 years of marriage, the pressure’s off babe.

Happy Valentine’s Day Phil!

And Happy Valentine’s Day to all my readers!

Are we just a bunch of Astros?

When I was 22 and living in Florida, I made the decision to join a gym. This particular "health spa" had a pool, showers, sauna, all the bells and whistles which included, for no extra charge, the icky smells that come with unsanitary shower stalls teeming with foot fungus, mold and previous sweaty bodies. When I was given the grand tour, the very convincing sales person (a gorgeous hunk) was all smiles and full of tales of how this place can transform a member into an Adonis or Aphrodite.
Being 22, I was thinking, "This place is SO cool. Where do I sign????" 

One itty bit of information they neglected to tell me is once my John Hancock was on that piece of paper it was like signing a pact with the devil. Although, it would have been easier to work your way out of Hell than this particular contract.

During this time, I had a change in jobs (my choice) with a significant decrease in salary which meant the health club had to go. It was either that or eating cardboard forever.

I thought, "That handsome guy who signed me up will understand. He was so friendly when I signed the contract."

Let's just say this experience ended up with a collection agency stalking me for years and had me absolutely paranoid I was going to spend the rest of my twenties in a high security prison. I was finished with gyms.

But as time goes on and memory fades, one touches the burner again. When I was 50 years old, I guess I was concerned that all my body parts seemed to be sinking to my knees. I joined another gym that had all the same amenities as the first one. There were plenty of ways to keep in shape and lift those muscles that were heading south. I used the elliptical, joined a step class, and used the pool.....for about a week. I found it was just too difficult for me to keep this up after mentally exhausting days at school. I found the last thing I wanted to do was go to a gym and struggle through a workout watching the young, fit, gym rats lift 500 pounds or run 50 miles on a treadmill or complete a gazillion laps. Pinot Grigio sounded much better.

So I find myself at 60, retired, with no collection agencies pursuing me, and without a valid excuse to avoid the gym. I succumbed.  I joined the one where my husband is a member. In the two years since he joined, he has not come down with any communicable disease or a disgusting fungus so I figured it was safe. It's not a fancy schmancy kind of gym. There are just machines and weights. In other words - it's cheap. Just my style.

 To be honest, my focus at the gym is to increase my upper body strength. Why? So I can help more with the heavy lifting during renovations. I'm serious. Plus, I would like to be able to point my arm with authority and not have my triceps come back and slap me in the face. You know how in some of those African tribes how they place things in the earlobes so the lobes stretch to their shoulders? That, to me, is what my triceps resemble only there is nothing bringing them down but gravity. So I bit the bullet and I started my journey towards Nicole Curtis arms.

The first time I entered the facility I felt like the new kid in the classroom. Embarrassed, shy, and totally out of place - like everyone was looking at me and my very uncool workout clothes - which was anything I could find in my drawers that were clean. My husband was great and took me around to the different machines to help me get started. Just looking at those things was intimidating enough let alone actually using them. To me, they resemble torture devices that might have been used during the Spanish Inquisition.

The first machine we visited was for my shoulder muscles, the deltoids (I am SO enlightened). The seats are basically formed like a bicycle seat but that did not stop me from doing the following (I am not making this up):

Husband: You're sitting on it backwards.

Me; Oh, hahaha, my bad. (I wanted to crawl in a locker, and was searching the room for anyone snickering at my faux pas).

I survived the first attempt at working out with the machines, so I moved on to the treadmill. I still love walking outside way more, but as long as I was there I figured what the heck.

Observations:
There are 10 treadmills and most of the time they are full of people walking, who are not going anywhere. While they walk, they spend their time reading the closed captions on the TVs posted around the room, which they need to do because treadmills are SO BORING! As I was walking with them, I was reminded of the old cartoon series "The Jetsons". Remember the dog Astro? He took his walks on a conveyor belt outside their space-age home. That's what we all looked like - a bunch of Astros, which really sounds like a**holes if you say it 3 times really fast. I think we should start a treadmill club called "The Astros". You could refer to each other like, "Hey Astro - you need to wipe down the machine when you finish!" or "You're such an Astro.", or "That Astro just changed the channel!" And my favorite, "Get off your cellphone while you're on the treadmill, you Astro!"

I also noticed a lot of people pay large sums of money for other people to make them miserable and cause them pain. These people are called personal trainers. I now understand why weights are called "dumbbells". I just don't have anything to add to that.

Well - I'll keep you posted on any gym happenings and progress on the formation of "The Astro Club". Astros unite!