Sister Act Steals Mom's Heart

Sister Act Steals Mom’s Heart

I love the circus, and I even volunteered to be in a skit with a clown once. I didn’t know what I was getting into—kind of like motherhood. My three kids built a three-ring theater of chaos, creating a whirlwind of mayhem and magic. I’m Bozo with funny make-up and clothes, trying to force all of them and their gear into a tiny clown car, and sometimes trying to force them into my version of what the circus should look like. Both endeavors are usually unsuccessful.

greatclownportraits.com

Managing my teenagers is like herding the big cats into the main arena when they know the smell of the raw meat is not coming from anywhere near there. They know that if they remain distracted, they can make a mockery of the poor lion tamer and avoid doing any tricks in the center ring—or the laundry room.  

britannica.com

Actually, distraction is an art form they’ve perfected. Late one night I yelled upstairs and asked my exhausted, giddy girls for their soccer uniforms so I could wash them. They were lying on the floor upstairs, and from below, I could only see their bare feet kicking the bannister and hear their giggling. 

flickriver.com   shutterbug2188

Me (from below):  Go get your uniforms!  I need to wash them!

C:  Mooooommm, we’ll just wear them dirty.  I was almost asleep.

B:  Yeah, I was getting under the covers.

Me:  I want you to get your uniforms.

C:  I want a golden toilet seat. 

Me:  (laughing)  What jersey number are you? 

C to B:  Don’t make eye contact with her, you’ll turn into a (incomprehensible mumble).  Do you know what number I am?

B to C:  Why are you asking me?

C to B:  ‘Cause it’s your turn to keep me.

Me (hearing their conversation):  I'm gonna keep pestering you!

C:  Mooooom, you’re such a NAG!!

B:  Yeah,  go nag DAD!

This is the sweet stuff of my life. My kids sprinkle Gobstoppers and Gummy Bears into my single-scoop, vanilla world, and give me a delicious zest for life—and sometimes brain-freeze. They are the essence of bedlam and bliss, all wrapped up in sugar and sass and stinky cleats. 

fotocommunity.com  by Rix Weber

 I never had siblings so their relationship captivates me. Laughter and late-night whispering weave their teenage hearts together, forming a sacred sister-bond of private affairs and pinky swears. I marvel at the rhythm of their dance, an interplay in which they are as opposite as oil and water and as intimate as peanut butter and jelly.  

I love getting to watch them every day in their center-ring silliness. I don’t even mind being the clown. However, I’m pretty sure Bozo never nags.

A Sleighfull of Magic Memories

At Christmas my nostalgia rises like the aroma of Slice-n-Bake snickerdoodles wafting through the kitchen.  'Cuz I'm kinda like Peg Bundy instead of Martha Stewart.  

imasillymami.com

When my son comes home from college this month, I’ll pop a luscious Mrs. Smith’s pumpkin pie and Sister Schubert’s rolls in the oven to recreate the home-made aroma of Christmases Past, just like he remembers.  Nothing less for MY son.   

We’ll buy our live tree and decorate it together with the kids’ old handmade ornaments.  And like always, I’ll reminisce about the magic that permeated our home when little hands wrote crayon letters to “Santa Cwaus at de Nawth Po.”  

Dreaming of racetracks and toy kitchens with real sizzling sounds, my kids used to climb up on the mall Santa’s velvety lap.  One year, as I watched them there within the finger-licking scent of Cinnabon, I realized MY dreams had all come true.  

I stood in grateful silence.  Amid the chaos of scrambling elves and flashing cameras, I breathed an epiphany that grabbed my soul with both hands. It opened my heart like a sacred book, etching within its pages close-up snapshots of Dimples and Bashful in a smocked dress.  And the timid essence of a chubby little finger reaching for Santa’s beard.

thedailyjournal.com

The Jolly Guy gave them a treat as they slid from his lap.  But I didn’t realize I would turn around and their hands would clutch car keys instead of candy canes.

It seems like yesterday that three freshly-bathed kids, waiting for Rudolph, snuggled up to Dad as he read The Night Before Christmas.  My two girls with pink, chipped toenails peeking out from Barbie nightgowns.  And my son in his Star Wars t-shirt leaning in close behind Dad’s ear.  They hung on every word, and Dad paused at the end of each sentence so they could finish the rhyme.  

I never imagined listening to Dad would be so hard for them when they became teenagers.

Christmas Day meant the patter of four little feet in footy pajamas tearing down the hall and a wide-eyed, squealing baby girl toddling after the fun.  She was just happy to be puttering behind her brother and sister, learning by heart the meaning of Family and Forevers and Fa-la-la’s.  I was too.

petitlemblog.com

Toddlers in full-body fleece were long ago replaced by teenage girls in boxer shorts.  But I often stroll through photo albums and love on my sleighfull of memories wrapped in Silent Nights and Little Tikes.  

Leaping from fuzzy Polaroids, my snaggle-toothed Cindy Lou Whos bear hug me, and I forget the frustration of finding red icing smeared into the carpet and meltdowns in the toy department.  And sometimes it was the kids who melted down.

Once while Christmas shopping, I almost had a mental collapse changing a diaper under the raised tailgate of my SUV.  Unusually stressed, I fumbled with the sticky strips in drizzling rain while the other kids’ fists were flying in the backseat.  I felt a familiar twinge of bat crazy twisting from my stomach when a misguided Happy Meal toy smacked me squarely on the forehead and a Goodnight Moon book whizzed past my ear.  

Every inch of me wanted to scream, “I don’t deserve this!” but I tried to remember the awe of kneeling beside them after bedtime prayers and butterfly kisses.  That sense of wonder always washed away the spilled sippy cups of exasperation and every bit of drippy ice cream on new shoes. 

These days I am humbled when I steal into my teenagers’ rooms at night and kneel in the same holy spot I’ve knelt in for eighteen Christmases.  The sense of Extraordinary cleanses away the leaking Gatorade bottles of frustration and every ounce of dripping sarcasm on the phone.  It’s that magical moment of the day when I linger over their amazing, lumpy bodies under the covers.  My misty eyes trickle praises to the Creator and I marvel, “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

I Was No Coppertone Girl

“Why These Kids Can’t Be Mine” day

I Was No Coppertone Girl

pierjewelry.com

On fall break in Florida, I was surprised to see my daughter sitting on a beach chair covered from head to toe with a beach towel. 

Now as I posted yesterday, teenage girls are obsessed with tans.  Wrath is spewed if someone blocks their sunlight resulting in an inferior degree of crispiness.    

“I thought you wanted a tan?” I projected through the beach towel.

“I do.” (Of course, minimal information)

“Why are you covered up?”

“Mom, how do you expect me to watch Gossip Girl on my phone when the sun is so bright I can’t see the screen.” 

So I guess sometimes Gossip Girl trumps a tan.  I don’t know the rules anymore.

All I know is that when I was a teenager, tans were just as important as they are now. But I couldn’t go to a breezy beach at the drop of a hat so I “laid out,” as we called it, on a bath towel on the driveway. 

pinterest.com     DIY   by Brandy Garrett

Who remembers using this?

Just so you know, it was 1978, and baby oil was the potion of preference for the advance of the “Dark Arts.”  And according to the most recent U.S. data at the time, mixing it with iodine sped up the tanning process by 891%.  I mean, the U.S. was involved in a stagnant Cold War against the “evil empire,” but we were waaaayyy ahead of other countries in potions—like the Epidermal Crispus Mortem Potion, which is Latin for “potion for dead, crispy skin.”  By the way, literary journals agree that if you use “Cold War” and “Dark Arts” in the same paragraph, that’s really good writing.

Let me digress—remember the experiment in which sunscreen companies put two slices of bacon in the sun, one sprayed with sunscreen and one without?  The one without looks like it was blasted with radioactive matter.  The one with sunscreen looks like it has been in the microwave maybe ten seconds. The sunscreen protected the bacon, keeping the pork much cooler.  

Bottom line—before Mr. Coppertone, we got hotter when we “laid out” because we had no UV protection.  

To distract us from the infernal heat, we used our dial-controlled, AM radio that was never exactly on the station and only had one antennae.  The static was so bad you could barely hear Andy Gibb’s falsetto.  

My point is that it was BRUTAL.  Eight hours a day every summer until I was 16 and could get a job. 

But the damage had already been done.  I am now 75,000% more likely to get skin cancer, but more importantly, wrinkles.  This is why I require so much maintenance now, cosmetically AND mentally.  

According to reliable sources such as Cracker Barrel Magazine, long-term tanning with baby oil and iodine has been scientifically proven to diminish neutron activity in the brain.  I am proof of that.  I can’t remember anything, I repeat myself, and I say the first thing that comes to my mind, even if it’s vulgar.

But this is the “instant” generation.  Teens today don’t have the patience to brutalize themselves anymore like normal people.  However, I’m a little softer in my old age too.  Now when I’m on the beach, I embrace relaxation instead of pain.  Just give me shade, SPF 80, an umbrella drink, and a beach towel over my head so I can watch “Magic Mike.”

Girl's Fool-proof Argument for Fake Tan Wins Her Coveted Spot at Harvard Law School

“I Like a Good Rant” Wednesday

Girl’s Fool-Proof Argument for Fake Tan

Wins Her Coveted Spot at Harvard Law School

hollywoodspinster.wordpress.com

Many of our local teenage girls are members of a certain high school sorority.  In December, the girls in the sorority get to ask unsuspecting guys to a Winter Formal, at which the gentlemen must wear something other than gym shorts, comb their hair, buy a corsage, and take pictures at the pre-party house until all the moms with cameras pause their picture-snapping to pour themselves more wine.  

Necessities for the girls are an awesome strapless dress which must reek of skank, hooker shoes, Spanx,  jewelry, a second or third piercing in her ears, manicure (possibly acrylic nails), pedicure, a professionally manipulated hairstyle, a makeover, a limo, pouty lips and most importantly, a fake tan, which may consist of spraying or lying under really hot lights, whichever is her preference.  

The reason for this custom is that she must look good in the pictures.  If she stood between two friends at the prom and looked like the middle of an Oreo, her social swag factor would plunge like the economy under Obama, and you just might as well nail her coffin shut right now. 

Many girls must wheedle, cajole, or negotiate with parents to finance a fake tan because many parents disagree with its necessity.  

“I mean, I “get” the cartilage piercing, but a fake tan?  I don’t know, Ashley.  We didn’t do that before our proms.”

“Mom you didn’t have tanning salons back in the Dark Ages.”

“It seems as if you’d like to begin negotiations on the limo, which previously was a done deal, party girl.” 

Young ladies have become very sophisticated in their arguments for the parental funding of orange skin, detailing its many advantages.  However, I believe the best argument is one in which the prom “eeeww-I-look-like-Michael-Jackson” girl describes to her mother in detail what will happen if she DOESN’T get a fake tan.

What will happen if I do not get a fake tan:       by Ashley

If I don’t get a fake tan, I won’t look good in the pictures.

If I don’t look good in the pictures, people will make fun of me.

If people make fun of me, I’ll have low self-esteem and make bad grades.

If I make bad grades, I won’t get into a good college.

If I don’t get into a good college, I will marry down and have six Honey Boo-Boo babies.

If I marry down and have Honey Boo-Boos, we’ll be poor and I’ll have a ratty car.

If I have a ratty car, it will stall near my trailer park.

If it stalls near my trailer park, I might get abducted.

If I get abducted, you’ll go broke because you’ll have to pay my ransom.

If you go broke, then you’ll have to live in my trailer and pay my rent because I lost my job when I was abducted for so long.

If you live in my trailer and pay my rent, you’ll go in debt.

If you go in debt, you’re going to have to drink boxed wine.

CASE CLOSED.

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL.

11 Excuses Teenagers Use To Get Out of Doing Chores

"Don't Make Me Come Back There" Tuesday

11 Excuses Teenagers Use To Get Out of Doing Chores

11.  I have to get something to eat!  (Moan!)  You don’t expect me to work when I’m starving, do you?  (Surveying pantry) Why do we always have the gross low-fat Oreos?  Are you trying to tell me I’m fat?  Can you go get some real ones?!   

10.  (After eating) I have to go to the bathroom. (Take a school book.  When parental unit says, “Get out of the bathroom!” I say, “I’m not done, and besides, I’m doing my homework.”)

9.   When you asked me Friday if I had homework, I forgot I have three papers due Monday.  One’s about “work ethic,” or something stupid.  I’ve really gotta get started on them after I get something to eat.  Do we have any real Oreos?

joelsartore.com

8.   Uuuuuugghhhh!  Mom, I didn’t know there was a time limit!!  You’ve got to trust me to do it after I download these songs!  I have to make a CD to play over the speaker while we warm up for our soccer game.  So I have to text everybody to see what songs they like.  

     Parental unit says, “You mean you’ve gotta text the players?”  

     “Uuuuugggghhh! No mom!  You never listen!  I’ve got to text everyone because everyone’s coming to the game and I want them to like it too.” 

freestockphotos.biz

7.   (An hour later) I had trouble with iTunes.  I’m probably going to have to download my whole library of songs again, plus some more.  I'm going to need your credit card number, m'kay?

6.   Have you seen the workout our basketball coach gave us to do in our spare time?  I don’t have ANY other spare time because I’m meeting Ashley at 4:00 to get ready for the football game.  It’s NOT my fault!

5.   I’ve got to meet Ashley, Ashley, and Heather to work on our vinegar and baking soda car for physics.  By the way, you need to take me to get some vinegar and baking soda and a plastic bottle to use for a car, some wheels, and zebra duct tape and a feather to decorate it.  Those are the parts I have to bring.

4.    I was coughing all night and I have a horrible headache. (Moan) I’m probably getting allergic because you made me pull weeds yesterday.  Do you see my eyes?  I’ve got to get some rest before Ashley picks me up.  Why don’t we have any Ranch Doritos and where’s the freaking remote?

3.   Why do I have to do it?  I did all of it by myself last week when Bella (sister) was at that soccer tournament.  That’s not my fault.  She's gonna have to cut the back yard.  Do you see my eyes?  You’re so mean. (Cough)

2.  I have to go to Mary-Alexander Margaret’s house to give back her earphones because she’s got the most important game of her life and she has to warm up listening to music. (Don’t tell parental unit the game is tomorrow)

And the #1 excuse - I have to shop online for a Homecoming dress because you won’t take me shopping for one because I have to do all these chores.

. . . Welcome to my life.

Utah girls soccer player knees foe in face

Utah Girls Soccer Player Knees Foe in Face!!

*This is long, but the violence is at the beginning.  Unbelievable!

I don't even want to think what my girls would have done to retaliate.......

Sister Act Steals Mom's Heart

Sister Act Steals Mom’s Heart

I love the circus, and I even volunteered to be in a skit with a clown once. I didn’t know what I was getting into—kind of like motherhood. My three kids built a three-ring theater of chaos, creating a whirlwind of mayhem and magic. I’m Bozo with funny make-up and clothes, trying to force all of them and their gear into a tiny clown car, and sometimes trying to force them into my version of what the circus should look like. Both endeavors are usually unsuccessful.

Managing my teenagers is like herding the big cats into the main arena when they know the smell of the raw meat is not coming from anywhere near there. They know that if they remain distracted, they can make a mockery of the poor lion tamer and avoid doing any tricks in the center ring—or the laundry room.  

Actually, distraction is an art form they’ve perfected. Late one night I yelled upstairs and asked my exhausted, giddy girls for their soccer uniforms so I could wash them. They were lying on the floor upstairs, and from below, I could only see their bare feet kicking the bannister and hear their giggling. 

flickriver.com   shutterbug2188

Me:  Go get your uniforms! I need to wash them!

C:  Mooooommm, we’ll just wear them dirty.  I was almost asleep.

B:  Yeah, I was getting under the covers.

Me:  I want you to get your uniforms.

C:  I want a golden toilet seat. 

Me:  (laughing)  What jersey number are you? 

C to B:  Don’t make eye contact with her, you’ll turn into a (incomprehensible mumble).  Do you know what number I am?

B to C:  Why are you asking me?

C to B:  ‘Cause it’s your turn to keep me.

B to C:  Keep you doing what?

Me (hearing their conversation):  I am gonna keep pestering you!

C:  Mom, you’re such a NAG!!

B:  Yeah, NAG-a-ramus, NAG-a-pottamus

C:  NAGmeister, NAG me with a spoon

B:  NAG-a-delic

C:  SHAG-a-delic

Me:  Where did you hear that?

C:  The Austin Powers movie.

Me:  When did you see it?

C:  Dad let me. He’s fun.

Me:  Being fun is not my job.  Where are your uniforms?

C:  Mooooommm! Stop nagging. You nag ALL the time!

B:  Yeah, ALLLL. Dad doesn’t nag. He’s fun.

This is the sweet stuff of my life. My kids sprinkle Gobstoppers and Gummy Bears into my single-scoop, vanilla world, and give me a delicious zest for life—and sometimes brain-freeze. They are the essence of bedlam and bliss, a beautiful mess all wrapped up in sugar and sass and stinky cleats. 

fotocommunity.com  by Rix Weber

I never had siblings so their relationship captivates me. Laughter and late-night whispering weave their teenage hearts together, forming a sacred sister-bond of private affairs and pinky swears. I marvel at the rhythm of their dance, an interplay in which they are as opposite as oil and water and as intimate as peanut butter and jelly.  

I love getting to watch them every day in their center-ring silliness. I don’t even mind being the clown. However, I’m pretty sure Bozo never nags.

Kid's Bad Habit May Score Cat a Spin-off Show

“Why These Kids Can’t Be Mine” Thursday

Kid’s Bad Habit May Score Cat a Spin-off Show

Sometimes I say things I never imagined I’d need to say under any circumstance.   For example,  “Go get a mouse.  Slither needs to eat,” or “No, that is not the dog’s giblet,” or “There’s a mole on your bra.”

The last phrase comes from a situation that arose this morning.  My teenagers are extremely busy playing school soccer, acting like they’re doing homework, tweeting, not putting away clothes, texting, shopping on-line, going to social activities, and watching Gossip Girl.  

When they pack their soccer bags with practice clothes in the morning, they pull out yesterday’s school clothes and leave them on the back patio.  At night they are busy not cleaning their rooms so the school clothes remain on the patio where creatures gather at night to get high with the garden gnomes on my herbicide-laced, ‘roided-out lawn.  

I refuse to pick up the clothes so they will often stay there until some raccoon watches Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo  through our window and sees Glitzy, the pig, root around in the clothes on the beauty queen’s bed.  Because raccoons can be TV stars too, he’ll likely grab my daughter’s shirt and scamper away to negotiate a spin-off show and get his own tiara.  I bet Honey Boo-Boo’s family sometimes finds their clothes in trees too.

theclicker.today.com

This morning I walked out to the patio to feed our cat and glanced at the clothes still in the corner.  A cute, stiff little mole lay ashen on the colorful pile.  Either he had overdosed on some Ortho-licious trash can punch or the cat decided the mole was, well, a mole who tried to rat out the “funny fertilizer” backyard cartel.   

Anxious to board the cat-shaming band wagon, I ran to make a sign.  Unless they’re asleep, cats won’t cooperate like all those stupid dogs on Facebook.  

The deceased mole is on the pile on the left, 

behind her ear.

Of course, like the good journalist I am, I digitally documented the moment.  I texted my daughter, “There is a mole on your bra,” and sent her the picture.  

I’m getting ready to send this post to TLC.  Maybe they’ll give my cat her own show—Animal Cops:  Backyard Busts, Wrongly Convicted— If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened.

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.  

thefamilyvoyage.blogspot.com

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.

Imbringingbloggingback.blogspot.com

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.

José Cuervo May Move In

Prozac Monday

José Cuervo May Move In

I received a notice from my cell phone company that I owed $376—last month's bill and this month's.  I sent a check last month, but they don't have a record of it, and my service is in grave danger of being disconnected.

My daughters would be inconsolable if they knew because their phones are connected to my account.  If one goes, they all go. With no communication method (using house phones = social suicide, unthinkable), my teenage girls would scream and run blind-bat crazy to the corner of Savage and Psychotic like they did when I lied and told them that Netflix wouldn’t be carrying Gossip Girl episodes anymore. They’d never know if Chuck Bass and his girlfriend would ever find a suitable third for their threesome.  That tall tale was sweet revenge on account of them wearing my nice boots to the muddy Corn Maze.   

I’d rather get a bikini wax from Phil on Duck Dynasty than call the phone company, but my husband wrote on the bill in all caps to “TAKE CARE OF THIS.”  I don’t know why he feels the need to yell.

While I waited on hold fifteen minutes, I imagined that all the operators were returning from their “Margarita Monday” lunch at Taco Loco. 

“Margarita Monday” was likely how my check disappeared in the first place.  Some peon with a company ID probably used it to buy rounds of queso and Corona at Accounting’s last “Kiss My Assets” conference.

Charlene, God’s gift to Customer Service, finally came on the phone.

“ThisIsCharlene,MayIHaveYourNameAndPhoneNumber,” she asked without listening, just like my kids, but with more José Cuervo.  “Thank you. What’s your problem?”

“I got a bill for $376 from you, which is last month’s bill plus this month’s.  I already sent a check for $190 for last month.  My bank says it cleared a while ago by your company.”

By the crunch, I could tell she was finishing her nacho basket. “We do not have record of the payment, ma’am, but I will credit your account the $190,” said Mr. Cuervo.

“Really?” I said.

“Of course not,” said Charlene. 

“Well, I’d like to speak to your manager,” I said.

“She’s ‘in-disposal.’  Can’t come to the phone right now.”  I might have detected a slight slur in her speech.  “There’s nothing I can do, ma’am. There’s no way I can tell if it was really our company that ‘posited your check, IF you sent one,” giggled Charlene.

  I reached for my corkscrew.  “I’ve never heard an attitude like that!”  I said.  "Even when my computer broke and I had to talk to those condescending Dell techno-nerds in India!  I’m going to call your supervisor about this. What is YOUR name again?”

“Brenda.” 

        I tried again, and this time I got a nice girl from Georgia.  She listened to my story and wrote up an official inquiry, like a polite southerner.  

After the cell phone ordeal, I realized I’m too impatient to be in a Complaint Department.  On Mondays Charlene may spend her lunch hour with José Cuervo.  But if I were answering calls from mo-rons all day, he’d definitely have to move into my cubicle.