Accident Prone

They say most accidents occur at home. To be technical, they begin at conception. From there on out accidents accumulate like lice on a turkey farm.

There was the time my son accidentally slit his sister’s eyelid open with a pair of scissors, missing her actual eyeball but necessitating an emergency trip to the hospital where she had a plastic surgeon fix the damage with extraordinary precision and expertise.

Then there was the time my daughter decided to place her foot in the path of the mower and my husband decided to remain oblivious to that fact by running over it. Another trip to the emergency room. This time only minor damage. Most of the toe remains intact. No surgeon necessary. Luckily she was wearing tennis shoes made in China. I’m pretty sure the amount of lead involved saved her toe from complete destruction.

You get the picture.

Threaded throughout actual emergency accidents were:

Hundreds of broken things: glasses, crockery, windows, doorknobs, doors, and screens.

Thousands of spills: pop, juice, milk, soup, etc.

Many, many bruised heads, elbows, knees, chins, and egos.

And multiple times when someone couldn’t quite make it to the bathroom to throw up.

Accidents of life.

Or as I like to call them—children. It’s how we know we’re alive.

Some people are blessed with abundant hair, a high IQ, wealth, or the ability to touch their nose with their tongue. Others are blessed with children. You decide which is preferable.

I truly believe the little blessings are a gift from God, sent with a smile and a wink. After all, he calls them arrows in the Bible and says we should have a quiver full. As anyone with children knows, a weapon in the house is never a good idea. Arrows flying hither and yon will definitely lead to accidents. Someone will surely get their eye put out.

Unemployable

When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they're not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They're upset because they've gone from supervisor of a child's life to a spectator. It's like being the vice president of the United States. -- Erma Bombeck

I haven’t had a paying job for many years, but I never considered myself “unemployed” until recently. I’ve been a wife, mother, and full-time homemaker. I cooked, cleaned, gardened, canned, sewed, and whatever else came up along the way, all with the express purpose of caring for my family to the best of my ability and turning a profit in well-brought-up offspring to carry on for future generations.

But since my kids hit their 20’s things haven’t been running so smoothly. As CEO of the Brink motherhood, I find my duties dwindling. My authority is constantly questioned. My inquiries are seen as rhetorical if not ignored altogether. My position as mom has been relegated to maid, cook, and laundry fairy, but without the perks of whipping butts and declaring, “cause I said so!”

I am an unemployed Mother.

Where do unemployed mothers go when they have been demoted to kitchen help? Do we get a job at Perkins? At least there customers tip you in a show of appreciation. Or do we sit it out in retirement, taking up cross-stitching or bird-house building, in a pretense of staying busy?

Being unemployed means nobody listens when you say, “be home by ten,” or “clean your room—it’s a pigsty!” They may look at you and smile as though taking your declaration to heart when in fact they have no intention. Like a company taken over by corporate raiders, you no longer have any real authority. You’re just a figurehead. A Ronald McDonald or Colonel Sanders.

Where is the Unemployed mother bailout?

Unemployed mothers should band together, pool their wisdom, and find a way to get their advice heard. We may have to go on facebook or twitter, and blurp, vent, or tweet in the language of the generation we gave birth to. But in the long run it will be worth it. Cause I said so, that’s why!

What They Leave Behind

There have been a lot of random naked men in the news lately. It seems running around without their clothes on is liberating. Except that they tend to get arrested.

I call it dangerous behavior, but that’s because I don’t like sunburn, mosquito bites, or that strange reality show called, “How to look good naked.”

In Florida last week an ex-governor of Alabama was spotted wandering naked through a campground. He wasn’t out in the wilderness alone scaring squirrels—no, he was in a well-populated camping area scaring fellow campers. (The perfect excuse never to take your children camping)

Another man was stopped for speeding in Delaware and not only was he driving drunk but “driving commando” as well. He told the police he lost his pants. (A good example when teaching your children why they shouldn't drink)

In Connecticut a man showed up for his dentist appointment five days late and bare as a peeled banana. The receptionist screamed and called police. Obviously, he didn’t look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator,” but then who does? The police later found him at his house. He told them he’d been sleeping all day. “So, who was that naked man in the dentist’s chair wearing nothing but a spit bib?” the police may have asked. He’ll probably sue the makers of Ambien. People have been known to get up and eat everything in their refrigerator when under the influence. Perhaps it’s also possible they wander out to get their teeth cleaned. (Another good reason to teach your children not to sleep in the nude when taking sleeping pills) 

The Sound of Lawlessness

The Fourth of July has come and gone and yet bombs continue to burst throughout my nights. No—my marriage is not going through a mid-life renewal, complete with fireworks. I just have teenage neighbors that enjoy exploding things. They enjoy it so much they must have spent their entire year’s allowance on firecrackers.

The Fireworks Ban is just another of those annoying little laws that apparently nobody follows. Like speed limits and picking up after your dog. Some rules are just meant to be broken.

Of course we like rules that don’t pertain to us personally. I’m all for adding laws against people that wear spandex in public or ride bicycles in traffic. This isn’t Japan after all.

But don’t take away my right to drive a big old honking SUV and carry a six-shooter. I don’t actually have a six-shooter, but I want the right to!

As for fireworks exploding into my REM time, they will eventually peter out and my nights will once again be filled with snores and the swishing of the ceiling fan. The dogs will have nothing to bark at but the next-door neighbor coming home on his Harley, or one of my grown children sneaking in in the middle of the night. All will be as it was before we celebrated Independence from the King of England. 

Naturally Sweet and Creamy

Hair colors come and go, but faces slide downward into creases and jowls you can never get out of. Getting old stinks. That’s why God gives wisdom with age. Young people may have the looks but we’ve got the brains. Some of us anyway.

Of course, if you’re a celebrity your face may never sag. It will stretch tightly up and across with a severely pained look that erases all wrinkles but scares the living daylights out of small children and dogs.

Which brings me to the news of the week—Michael Jackson and his recent Elvis Presley impersonation. The self-proclaimed King of Pop died of drugs, heart-attack, plastic surgery, anorexia…who knows? He was a talented, mega-rich musician, but he couldn’t keep a lid on the insanity bug that bit him daily. He was weird in so many ways. Creepy weird. And yet his fans mourn him like he was Elvis’ son-in-law or something. Go figure. In Iowa they are serving up the King of Pop in butter. In spite of his flawed and insane personal life, State Fair officials decided an effigy of Michael Jackson sculpted in butter would set things right. Well, he’s been black, he’s been white, and now he’s butter.