How Mom's Indecision Could Change History

“I Like a Good Rant” Wednesday

How Mom’s Indecision Could Change History

Since I'm frazzled, making decisions, even small ones, paralyzes me.  However, I’m quite talented at making decisions for friends.  

At the mall a friend asked me which running shoes she should buy—the cool, expensive ones, or the cheaper, boring ones with more reflective areas because she runs on busy streets at night.  

Without a hitch between bites of my giant pretzel, I said, “Hon, be safe. Get the cute ones.”

Let’s face it, tens of people look up to me, so making decisions regarding myself is complicated and the stakes are high.  

Let’s say I’m buying a dress for a charity event. My choices are:  a dress I LOVE in a department store or one I don’t love in a small boutique.  No one else at the event will likely be wearing the boutique dress.  But I might see four sluts women wearing my department store dress, and all those Real (Snooty) Housewives of the Heart Gala will think I shop at the “cheap clothes for cheap girls” store.  

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Deciding on paper plates is also a serious issue.  Dixie plates are more expensive than the store brand but Dixie has a few more in it.  If I can’t figure out the best deal, I become panicky with a prickly sensation, and my cart heads to the wine aisle.  Although the prickly sensation could be caused by squatting down to check prices in sweatpants covering legs that haven’t been shaved since Labor Day.  

Nowadays grocery stores label shelves with the cost per paper plate.  That’s a little condescending.  

        Do I look like I can’t figure it out on my own?  Well, I can’t because I have normal girl genes, and that type of calculus is hard for me, especially word problems.  But they shouldn't automatically assume that just because I walk around the grocery store aimlessly in pink pajama pants that I don’t know the paranormal algorithm of explicit percentages like boy people.  

        My left brain (along with the “fun” part, according to my kids) was destroyed by watching ’70’s TV shows and stressing about stuff like whether Carol Brady would discover that Marsha and Jan were hiding reefer in their room.

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Here’s how my brain works:

Me:  These store brand paper plates are five cents cheaper.

Angst:  How do you know they’re cheaper? Did you do the math?

Me:  Shut up.

Angst:  Last time that brand folded holding Coach Hubby’s spaghetti and meat balls.

Me:  Alright, but if I get the name brand, I’m gonna put the Dial soap back and get the Bored Simple brand.

Angst:  You need to put that cookie dough back while you’re at it.

Me:  No!  I never spend money on myself!

Angst: (Chardonnay coming out nose) Do you know how much wine you drink?

What’s with the explosion of store brands, anyway?  I mean, pretty soon stores will only sell their Bored Simple brand, (ahem, Kroger) and I’ll have no choices, and Communism will rule pockets of suburbia and will trickle up to Chicago and then to the whole Obamanation.  And then nobody will talk American anymore. There IS a lot at stake. 

Forget it.  I’m buying the “green” paper plates.  Faced with difficult choices, vacillating moms like me will go “green,” and eventually the whole country will eat nothing but granola and tofu and wear long denim skirts.  At least I’ll fit in with my hairy legs.

Bambie and Buddies Lovin' Life at My Herbicide House

Bambie and Buddies Lovin’ Life at My Herbicide House

A recent article in the newspaper gave tips on how to create a “wild-life friendly” yard.  The story suggested that one’s environment needs to become more eco-friendly.  However, there’s always such a menagerie outside my house it makes me wonder if the animals are getting a herbicide high every night with the garden gnomes from my chemical-laced crabgrass.  Come see if you want.  Bring traps or a bb gun.  Or a cat, unlike mine, that will actually hunt.  

Here are some of the newspaper’s suggestions to cultivate a space that attracts wild-life:

“Replace one’s sod with native plants and trees.”  

“Leave some dead trees or branches to provide insect food and cavities for nesting birds.”     And have plenty of black widow and copperhead anti-venom handy.

“Leave a section of your property messy with weeds, leaf litter and brush.”  Then Ms. Frozenface Snootybutt from the Homeowners association will be up in my bidness with a citation from the Germantown Gestapo of Ordinances.

“Use wood chips instead of dyed mulch.”

“Apply compost tea to your yard instead of fertilizer.”  Really?

And most important of all:

“Stop using chemicals on your lawn and pesticides in your garden.”

So, just to be clear, my family wins the neighborhood prize like every month for the best lawn on account of we have teenage slave labor.   

So, teenage slave labor + toxic chemicals = green, Lance-Armstrong-climbing-the-Alps juiced-up lawn.  

My grass is beautiful, and I can’t pronounce even one poison in that pre-emergent that I love and which is invisible in my drinking water.  However, my flowering shrubs leave something to be desired.  

Why, you ask?  Because every single freaking deer and their redneck Bubba cousin comes to OUR ‘roided-out, fertilized chickweed turf to graze at half past midnight every night.  There are even BUCKS chomping our suburban broadleaf.  I’ve seen them.  And every day in the morning dew you can see their sweet, graceful footprints after they’ve chewed up every azalea I have.  

There would be a lot fewer deer on my property if the crazy people in Germantown wouldn’t go ballistic and call the police every time they hear a gun shot.  Geez.  

Why do deer prefer my toxic edibles when there are perfectly good “green” democrats right across the street with lawns covered with clover and wild dandelions and nourished with tea compost?  Whatever that is.

That’s not the only wildlife my gorgeous, poisonous landscaping attracts.  We put every Weed-Be-Gone, triple strength, Nature’s Avenger, Round-up, Ortho-Spectracide concentrate you can buy on our vegetation, plus loads and loads of dyed mulch.  Yet, we have woodpeckers (and, consequently, holes) gracing our chimney, moles and chipmunks tunneling in our flower beds, ducks and frogs chillin’ in our pool, birds pooping on our porch, and squirrels wreaking havoc in our attic. And a stupid outdoor cat that obviously does nothing to keep them out.  Actually, she probably charges Admission.

So the way to attract wildlife to your grounds is obviously not to mess with all that “green” stuff.  I’ll gladly give you my left-over Ortho-licious fertilizer pellets and split a truckload of black mulch with you in order to create a pleasing pasture on YOUR property for my deer to graze.  I’ll spread the wealth, or manure, as it were, and even dump our grass clippings in your yard when my slaves empty the bag on the mower.  (Heaven forbid we would bring down the neighbors’ home values by not bagging our grass clippings on mowing day).  

I’ll even let you have rent my cat for a few months to do nothing in your yard.  After Bambi and friends move in with you, the cat could at least provide you with some natural fertilizer.  And feel free to keep the proceeds from Admission.