Even the Cryptkeeper is Supposed to Retire

OK, so here' s my theory on humankind's evolutionary ability to manipulate a mother's wallet.



Cavemen started the whole thing. Gorg's luring the triceratops to distract his mother while he raided the bonepile was just the beginning.



Point in case....my 8 year old son. Never one to be outdone by a dramatic reaction (I could charge admission to the living room whenever he's told to do homework), even I was impressed by his "Gimme a New Bike" performance. Now I thought he looked really cute riding around on his old bike....maybe bore a striking resemblance to the Shriners, but still cheek-pinchable.



So my recommendation that he wait until Spring to trade up to a model that doesn't drive his knees in to his chin sounded reasonable, right? WRONG!



I was instantly met with a face that looked like it was being sucked in to a black hole while some pyrotechnic artist set a fireworks display to the music of him wailing about how he's going to sic Dr. Phil on me.



I decided he was old enough for the "You have to contribute in your way to this family" speech, which was met by a resounding "Pffft..." as he was already tipped off by his brothers that this essentially means giving up anything not sold at the Dollarama so Mom can afford the unleaded gasoline and brand-name ketchup.



Any event resulting in a school-aged child accompanying their mother to a toy store never ends well. For the mother. Or the guy that has to put everything in the aisles away at the end of the day. Or the janitor who forgot his gum-melter stuff.



So, armed with a credit card and a written list of punishments for various predicted crimes against adults, we hit the local bike-o-rama, and are met by a well-meaning salesman, Arnold. (Insert terminator jokes here....).



Now Arnold, being a seasoned kid-toy relationship builder, is confident in his ability to find any boy the perfect bicycle to launch him from boyhood into adolescence. Poor Arnold. Poor, poor Arnold. Little did he know he was dealing with the love child of Mothra and a poltergeist.



Following his well-honed homing device that gravitates children to the most expensive things in the store to break, my little ray of sunshine managed to find a bike that converts into a daybed or a lawnmower, and cleared his throat for his "I WANNNIT" rant. Noticing the glint of hope in the eyes of an I-Get-Commission style Arnold, I immediately position myself so he can't miss the fact that I'm dressed in dress pants and my husband's hunting shirt.



Sighing that "You're gonna make me earn my paycheck" sigh, Arnold points us to the discount section. Which just happens to look like an apocolyptic version of Wall-E. Ignoring the "You can't expect someone of my stature to ride one of THOSE" look oozing from my boy's face, I drag him to a bike that doesn't require me to mortgage the camper to buy.



Now begins the "I'll do extra chores around the house to pay for (insert unattainable toy here) .... I promise!". Having had goats invade my garage to forage in all the garbage that never made it to the curb, and having had shooed reporters off my lawn wanting to photograph the crop circles that formed because the grass was so high....I gave him the "Never-Gonna-Happen-And-Drop-It-Before-I-Trade-You-In-For-A-Dog" look. (Seldom used, very effective).



So Arnold sets about sorting through the jumbled mass of cheap bikes with the same amount of enthusiasm I suspect he reserves for root canals. All of which are met with a look from my son that would curdle milk. After about an hour, Arnold starts to show signs of fatigue while my son and I both maintain our "Never Surrender" demeanors. So something's gotta give soon.



And then it happens.....Arnold magically pulls out a shiny red contraption that instantly illuminates the room with its magnificence while a chorus of Angels sings in the background. Wiping the tears from his eyes, my son whispers "We'll take it." Smiling his most professional "Pay, Get Out, and Never Return" smile, Arnold gives a pathetic "I'll be back" as he leaves a vapor trail to get the credit card swiper thingie.



Patting myself on my proverbial back for sticking to my guns and teaching my son the value of bargain shopping, I realize with horror that something's amiss. There's a pricetag on the bike that surely blew across the street from the car dealership across the way. How did one of the daybed/lawnmower bikes crawl over here?



Enter Arnold, the sweat mopped from his brow and the linament applied to all the necessary muscle groups, ready to add to my growing list of creditors. Gesticulating wildly to him before he swipes that card, I realize with horror that he's intentionally avoiding eye contact with me. As my son strokes the tires and mumbles something about "My Precious", I snap my fingers in front of his face and firmly explain that unless Alan Funt is hiding in the back room, this bike stays with Arnold.



I'm not sure about you, but I have no defences against a sad little face. A trembling chin, a pained look in the eyes, and big shiny tears make me forget all the inimportant stuff like food and heat and a roof over our heads. So when Arnold gave me just such a look, I scribbled my name on the "Sign Here" line, and exited the store with my new liability, being comforted by the "Woo Hoo"s of joy I heard. Also from Arnold.



So please feel free to call me if you need your lawn mowed....or need to rent a place to sleep for a night....or a hunting shirt....



To be continued......

How to Kill a Cake

Little girls are supposed to know how to bake by the time they grow up, right? Well what if one of them happens to be infected with the Anti-Martha Gene? I happen to come from a long line of bad cooks, as evidenced by my scarred fingertips and outrageous insurance rates.

So....I'm supposed to make a cake for a "cake walk" for my youngest to take to school. The first order of business, is to ask "What the hell are you doing walking if you're gonna pound down a cake?". Just give up the day to the Plus-Size-Gods and be done with it.

Soooo...I troddle off (I walk like that now that I'm on the wrong side of 40) to the grocery store to see if I can find a cake mix that doesn't require a separate grocery order or a degree in interpretive language arts to put together. Simple task, right? WRONG! Add the blonde haircolor to the equation and watch the show....

The mix doesn't seem too intimidating...just add milk, eggs, oil, sugar, and flour (what exactly did I get for my $3?) and throw it in the oven for 45 minutes. In my defence.....NOWHERE on the box does it say to add the cake mix to the concoction. Luckily for me the dog I had on a trade knocked it over into the bowl just in time.

So now I have to "grease a 9"9 pan". What the hell is a "9"9 pan"? There's a roasting pan drying in the rack, so I count my lucky stars. Fill the pan up with this gooey, (oddly appealing), bruise-colored caloric bomb, and put it in the oven. Simple, right? WRONG!

The new oven I bought is so shiny and pretty...and matches the countertop so perfectly....and the girl on the commercial looked all happy and competent making a turkey dinner with all the trimmings all without dirtying her apron or mussing her hair. *sigh* But then it did what all applicances do when they smell my DNA...it morphed itself into The Starship Enterprise...and that smart Asian guy is nowhere on the bridge.

But all I need to do is preheat it to 350 degrees. Simple, right? (Fill in the blank here).

Soooo...I start randomly hitting buttons looking for a glimmer of preheatedness.....and voila! A red light comes on, and there's a reassuring hum eminating from the oven's core. In my defense, the button causing it to clean itself SHOULD BE CLEARLY MARKED. But alas, instead of getting warm, it just makes noises and spits at itself. Plus it locked me out of the oven, and I can't figure out how to turn it off.

But luckily for me...someone long ago figured out that shooting stuff full of microwaves changes its atomic matter into something edible. (Yay!). Pouring the goo out of the roasting pan and into a plastic bowl (I'm not completely daft, ya know), I'm congratulating myself on my sudden burst of smarts. And although I recycled the cakemix box...I clearly remember that it said to cook it for 45 minutes. (No flies on me baby!).

Sooo...I load the soon-to-be-masterpiece into the microwave, set it to annihilate the stuff, and walk away. And wonder why the dog is all of a sudden yelping and pawing at the door to get outside.

Ever notice how when you're waiting for something to happen (a pot to boil, perhaps) that it seems to take forever? Well apparently that guy who invented the microwave didn't. Because before the dog could make it to cover, I had one hell of a volcanic eruption right beside the breadbox that would impress any National Geographic subscriber.

Sooo...I troddle off (I walk like that now that I'm on the wrong side of 40 and have burns on the bottom of my feet from the eruption) to the grocery store and look for someone in the bakery I can either bribe or muscle to sell me a cake that looks homemade.

Ahhh...the things we do for our kids. To be continued......

Allrighty then, let's develop a sitemap of sorts for this blog thingie. This is the perfect place for me to dump all my weird-ass happenings due to the fact that I married the lovechild of Homer Simpson and Tim the Toolman Taylor, and neglected to chlorinate the gene pool. (Yeah, I said it).

It should be crystal clear to the reader why I subconsciously chose to specialize in Mental Health Nursing (not just for the access to the cookies), and how to safely bring this band of brothers into the 21st century. (Wait now...we're already in the 21st century now...aren't we? You should also have figured out my haircolor by now).

Rest assured that no animals were harmed in the making of this blog. Unless you count me threatening to trade a couple of the kids in for a dog...(legal, right?)....in which case you should fear for the dog. Or moreso the dog's previous owner.