Sometimes When I Open My Mouth, My Mother Comes Out.

So I was eating some pretzels I had brought to work, and I finished them, and I turned around to throw the empty Ziploc into the trash can, and I stopped, and this was my mental monologue:

"I shouldn't throw this away. I can wash it out and use it again. It's one of the good slide-close bags. I only used it for, like, an hour. It's a waste of money to throw this away. Oh, sweet Jesus, I am thinking about WASHING OUT A ZIPLOC BAG AND USING IT AGAIN. I AM TURNING INTO MY MOTHER. This is terrible. I have to start a blog about myself now. [pause] I can't make myself throw this away. This is what Phyllis feels like all the time. I have an emotional connection to this bag now. I'm going to save it and make my family bury my ashes in it. I have to throw this away. I can't do it. It's a SLIDER BAG."

Finally I realized that I had been hovering over the trash can clutching a dirty Ziploc in a death grip, and I dropped the bag in and broke out in a cold sweat. This must be how Mom feels when I clean out her Tupperware cabinets. Mom loves Tupperware. She has Tupperware that is older than I am. She has giant Tupperware that she puts little Tupperware inside. If the house needs a new roof, she can build one out of mismatched Tupperware lids. When KFC started putting side dishes in these things:

Mom thought she had died and gone to container heaven. She lovingly placed her tiny KFC Tupperware with her Cool Whip and Country Crock containers, taking care not to start an avalanche of Gladware lest she be buried alive in reusable plastic. "My God!" the paramedics would have said. "Get one of the rectangular lids to dig her out! No, not that one, that's square. No, the good sturdy rectangle. Not the flimsy one. That one doesn't fit anything, but don't throw it out because she might have lent it to someone and it could turn up and then it would be lidless. I know, spaghetti sauce stains are impossible to get out of clear plastic, but it IS clean. It just LOOKS dirty."

But I'm no better. I can't stop thinking about my poor discarded Ziploc. I guess I know how I'm spending my evening:

Next on my list will be ironing aluminum foil so it looks like new, and then I plan to kill myself.  

Voices

I have grown up with a liberal coating of animal hair covering my life. At the present moment, my family is the proud owner of half a dozen rescued dogs with a matching accompaniment of rescued cats. And they all have voices.
It's not like we hear voices inside our heads and are then compelled to drench ourselves in chicken blood and sprint around the mall. It's more like an ongoing improv class. Each animal has its own personality: Leroy talks like Mr. T and is obsessed with the time he fell in the pool, Cashew is a redneck country boy and calls everyone "Maryann," and Taffy is obsessed with gourmet muffins and has a terrible pottymouth. 

My favorite dog is, of course, my Min Min. Her full name is Minerva Elizabeth, and she is the most beautiful dog in the history of the world. Unfortunately, she is also the proud owner of a single-digit IQ. Min Min was found in Mississippi with a crushed hip, severe anemia, and lacerated eyeball; she was inches from euthanasia when she was saved by the Alabama Pug Rescue and came to live with me at Auburn University. We've been together since 2006, and Min Min has insulted me every day since. She has a British accent in the style of Stewie from "Family Guy" and a rapier wit. She's absolutely hilarious and I often find myself laughing hysterically at something she says to me. For example:

ME:  Min Min, come back inside!
MIN MIN:  Well, I would stay out longer, but you're so fat that your gravity is pulling me back in the house.

My husband worries about me when he's in another room and hears Min Min and I having a conversation that ends in gales of laughter. And yet, he can't help but join in. The crazy is catching. He even came up with our cats' voices. Caractacus talks like a 1940-era gangster, and Wilhelmina talks like a four-pack-a-day smoker, calls everyone "Cutie," and loves fish sticks and beef jerky. Andy came up with her voice one day when he walked into a room to find her sitting like this:

What other voice could she possibly have?

Even the baby talks to the dogs and cats. He makes us stand nearby and do their voices while he tells them about his day and asks them questions. Poor child never had a chance.

Anyway, just wanted to share our deep dark family secret with everyone and reassure our neighbors that, in spite of what you think you hear, there are not a dozen different people living in our house. It's just us, and our multiple personalities. Nothing to see here!

Thrifty Regifting

So Mom decided to buy some new underwear, but she didn't want to buy the "expensive" kind that are loose on a shelf and that you can, with proper precautions, try on at the store. Instead, she got the Hanes 6-pack from Wal-Mart. She tried on one pair when she got home and apparently they did not meet with her expectations; she and Dad met Andy and me in the church parking lot last night and she shoved this opened package of underwear into my hands:

 I was looking at them, trying to figure out if she was intentionally insulting me, while she explained. "I don't like these boy shorts underwear. You see if you like them. I'm wearing the bright yellow pair and they're not comfortable." She must have seen the look of disbelief on my face, because she snapped, "They are PERFECTLY GOOD. I just don't like the way they fit. And don't you DARE throw them away. If you don't like them, give them back to me. I paid good money for them." I was still just staring forlornly at the ripped-open package when she added the clincher. "If you really like them I'll wash this yellow pair and give them to you!"

I shouldn't have been surprised. Once, she found a hair clip in a parking lot. In a PARKING LOT. She ran it through the dishwasher and gave it to me. I am not joking. I am also not joking about the fact that she still has it, because it's "perfectly good."

To summarize: I love my mother and she is a wonderful person. If she gives you a present that does not have a tag on it, wash it before use.

Stealing : The Ultimate Thrift

Out little town has recently experienced a near-deathly level of excitement - we got a Publix shopping center, complete with Red Brick Pizza and Cheeburger Cheeburger. You should have seen the kerfuffle on opening day of Publix; there were crazy coupon ladies as far as the eye can see, mingled with the curious, the lonely, and those of us who just wanted to be somewhere that isn't Wal-Mart.

Cheeburger opened a couple months after Publix, and we were all pretty darn psyched. Most of the restaurants in our town are geared towards fried chicken, so fried beef with a side of fried potatoes and onions was a refreshing change of pace.

Andy called me one day right before lunch to ask if I wanted to go check out the new restaurant with him and his bosses. I said yes, mainly to make sure Andy didn't attempt to get his picture on the wall for eating the one-pound cheeseburger. Andy said they weren't certain that the restaurant was open, but we'd meet there and if it was still closed we'd head down to the pizza place.

When we got there, we noticed that the restaurant was pretty empty, but there were people eating, so we discreetly high-fived and then walked in the door. A manager met us at the door and asked if he could help us. I thought he was a little abrupt, but I put it down to all the onion ring fumes. Andy told him that we were meeting someone, while waving at several people we knew behind the manager. People were calling out to us and waving back, and as the manager escorted us to a table, we stopped several times to chat with friends.

Once seated, we noticed that the menu had an insert in the front that said something about a "VIP menu presented with compliments," and listing just a couple choices. I told Andy they must just be serving a limited menu for their first day to get the servers acclimated. I said this very confidently, based on my one and a half months of waitressing at Ruby Tuesday in college, and Andy nodded thoughtfully. We put in our orders and even decided to treat ourselves to milkshakes, since everyone in the place had one.

We waited for quite some time for our food while demolishing our shakes and chatting with people at other tables and wondering where Andy's bosses were. Finally, almost an hour had elapsed and we had no food and were still alone. Feeling rather irritated, we informed the manager that we had to go back to work and would just sit at our desks and starve to death (we get very melodramatic when we are hungry). He managed to scrape together our order as we were heading for the cash register. We took the to-go boxes with haughty civility and then Andy got out his wallet to pay. The manager waved his hands and said, "No, no, you don't pay for this since you were invited to our Complimentary VIP lunch." Then he held the door open and ushered us out to make room for the mayor, who was coming in with his entourage.

Andy and I stood in the parking lot for a minute, staring at each other and trying to come to grips with the fact that we had just defrauded a restaurant out of lunch. It turns out that this was a soft opening, with invitations sent out to a select few for a free meal, and we had waltzed into the middle of it like the White House gate crashers. When Andy got back to work, his bosses told him that they had been turned away at the door and were down at Red Brick Pizza, saddened by their unpopularity, while we merrily lunched with the cream of society.

Like my dad always says, walk in with an air of confidence and nobody will think you don't belong. Next week we plan to have dinner at Bill Gates's house and then go backstage at a Jimmy Buffett concert.

Pugs on Parade

* NOTE: This post has been a while in coming, mostly because I have spent the intervening months trying to get the smell of nervous dog crap out of my car.

Pugs on Parade 2012 was a resounding success for the Alabama Pug Rescue. We raised a good amount of money for the rescue and humiliated ourselves in true Crazy Pug Lady fashion. We also came very close to having the Alabama State Troopers called on us.

Picture it: Interstate 85 on a glorious Alabama spring day. Dad, Phyllis and I are riding in my little SUV with Mason the enormous black lab mix, Minnie, the dumbest but most beautiful pug in the whole world, Cashew, whose eyes point in different directions so he looks like a furry chameleon, Wilson, who is pretty much just a crusty bundle of emotions, and Taffy, the pug-terrier mix with a bark that feels like spikes being driven into your eardrums. We're cruising down the road after a quick stop at Starbucks and a round of tidbits for the dogs. Looking back, handing out pieces of Gouda cheese to our little pack was a horrible, terrible idea.

We made it about fifteen miles up the road before Taffy suddenly vaulted over the back of the seat and started frantically spinning. I thought she was being ridiculous and pushed her back over the seat. (Please note that even though we were driving in my car, I was the lucky one who was sitting in the back with the dogs.) She jumped over again and, irritated now, I shoved her back. Peace and quiet reigned for a good forty-five seconds before I was slapped in the face with the foulest, vilest stench I've experienced since the time my son ate a whole jar of mango baby food that didn't agree with him. Horrified, I whirled around to see what had died in the backseat and was treated to the sight of a lake of dog diarrhea spreading over the dog bed we had thoughtfully brought along. Taffy, obviously refreshed by voiding herself of fifty pounds of poop, was wagging her tail in the corner while Mason looked disgusted and the three pugs tried their best to get as much crap as possible on their little bodies.

Luckily, I am very good during stressful situations. I calmly began to gag, spilling some of my latte onto my lap, while telling Dad to pull over. By this time the smell had reached the front seat, and Dad, who has a worse gag reflex than I do, began horking so hard I thought he was going to throw up on the fashionable leis I keep hanging from my rearview mirror. Mom, as is her wont, immediately began to laugh so hard that her eyes crinkled into nothingness and she had to cross her legs to keep from wetting her pants.

Eventually we made it to the side of the freeway, bouyed along by a tangible wave of stink. Dad elected to stay in the driver's seat and throw up in his mouth. Mom hobbled back to the hatch of my SUV, still with her legs crossed so she wouldn't be streaming with pee as well as tears, and I turned around and grabbed as many collars as I could to keep our dogs from committing hara kiri on the interstate. Mom's first reaction upon opening the back door was, "Oh, my GOD!" Dad and I, between retches, yelled at her to throw the damn dog bed out and leave it on the side of the road. But no. Thrifty Phyllis strikes again. She used Starbucks napkins to wipe up the chunkiest poops, then scrounged a couple baby wipes and began to wipe pointlessly at the atrocious liquid that still saturated the bed to a depth of half an inch. Keep in mind that Dad and I were still gagging, Mom was still dementedly laughing, and the dogs were all hoping to be hit by a semi so that the embarrassment would end.

Eventually, Mom decided that she had done what she could with the baby wipes. My car still smelled like a particularly ripe Calcutta sewer, but Mom was congratulating herself on doing such a fine roadside cleaning job. She instructed us to look for other cleaning implements to cap off the endeavor, but all I had was a Tide pen, and that would have been like hurling Kleenex at a Panzer tank.

Mom decided, against the wishes of Dad, me, and the dogs, to simply throw a blanket over the dog bed and continue on our merry way. So, for the next hour and a half, five dogs and me were crammed into the backseat, engulfed in fumes, with Dad still treating us to the occasional gag and Mom twisted into a pretzel to keep from emptying her bladder and adding to the general horror that was my car.

When we made it to Pugs and Kisses, we all piled out and French-kissed the asphalt, weeping with joy and thanking God for our deliverance. Mom insisted on bringing the dog bed into the fundraiser so the dogs would have somewhere to lay. I tried to surreptitiously set it on fire, but was too weakened by the chemical warfare to operate the lighter.

The high point of the day was definitely winning the costume contest - Mason dressed up as a bull and the little dogs wore white shirts and red sashes. Dad played Spanish music while Mom and I trotted up and down in front of the crowd. It was "The Running of the Pugs at Pamplona." We won some nice prizes and then we got to take our picture with Miss and Mrs. Alabama. So, there we were, two sweaty, smelly pug ladies, covered in funk and dog hair, posing with perfectly polished blonde pageant queens. Not one to frame.

I would like to point out that a dog psychic was at the fundraiser. She did a reading with Mason and told my mom that he was a little unsure about being part of our family. I know she meant that he was experiencing insecurity due to being an abandoned rescue, but I couldn't help thinking that he was probably having second thoughts because of all the crazy.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

It's finally winter here in southern Alabama, and my dad has icicles forming on his eyelashes because Phyllis thinks it's "too expensive" to turn on the heater. He just called, with frozen tears on his blue cheeks, to tell me that she told him to "just keep his coat on." I fear he will soon begin to burn Christmas decorations to survive.

Which would be okay, because over the years, my mother has amassed an extensive collection of handmade and/or hideous Christmas ornaments and knick-knacks. Every year, my brother hauls up several enormous Rubbermaids full of Yuletide crap and the family forms a grim parade, trudging up to a beaming Phyllis as she proudly hands out glitter-covered pinecones and construction paper Santas and then depositing these treasures throughout the house. A lot of families keep their kids' ornaments, and now that I have a child I understand how precious these little objets d'art are to a mother. Some of this other junk, though, just kind of blows our minds. I had to take pictures to prove that some of it exists. Let's start with an old favorite...

CHRISTMAS PLANK

My little brother made Phyllis this plank in 1999. It is a piece of plywood sawed into a roughly square shape with a heartfelt message ("Merry Christmas Mom Christmas '99") printed on computer paper and glued to the front. I helped Adam braid some scraps of fabric (attractively secured, by the way, with a purple hair tie and some scavenged fabric holly berries) and then Adam used a full roll of Scotch tape to attach the braid to the plank. This beauty has had pride of place on our tree for 12 years now, even though Lucy the Labrador gnawed on one side. We feel this only adds to the ambience. When I first showed my husband Christmas Plank, he almost spewed egg nog out of his nose.

LIFESAVER MAN

Mom made Lifesaver Man in Campfire Girls back in about 1832. One of her brothers ate the Lifesavers out of him at some point. Mom still harbors deep resentment.

TINY CAROLER



Here is a tiny caroler. If you ever need a tiny carol sung, she is your tiny woman. Seriously, she's about an inch high. Mom doesn't even remember where she came from, but when she pulls her out of the ancient, crumbling shoebox and unwraps the decade-old newspaper from around her, she gasps and cries, "Tiny Caroler!" in a rapturous tone, as if she is greeting a long-lost loved one. (To be fair, she does this with every single ornament she unwraps. It's like really  bizarre Tourette's: "Soccer Ball Santa! Bunco Dice! Paper Plate With Glitter On It! Cinnamon Stick Santa!")

HIPPO IN A BIKINI

Nothing says, "Unto you is born this day a savior who is Christ the Lord" like a hippopotamus wearing a bikini.

BASSET HOUND IN HALF AN EGG

PHYLLIS: Sam, you should have this ornament since you have a Basset Hound now!

ME: No.

PHYLLIS: Why not?

ME: Because it is fug.

PHYLLIS: Hey!

SNOWMAN WITH HAIR





We voted. This is the scariest ornament on the tree.

VARIOUS HANDMADE PIECES OF CRAP

There just isn't room for all of our priceless handmade ornaments and decorations, but you can see that tissue paper, contrary to popular belief, does not improve with age. 

I suppose I should give credit where credit is due. When my brother and I got married, Mom distributed several pounds of ornaments to our new families. She has gotten her ornament stash (just the ornaments for the tree, mind you) down to one Rubbermaid, prompting Dad to congratulate her on being "Old Phyllis One-Bucket." So it was really a banner year for Phyllis. To top it off, my little boy is old enough to be semi-aware of what's going on. You can see the joy on his chubby little face at being able to participate in the Ornament March:

Maybe, in his two-year-old mind, a snowman with hair makes sense.

There are dozens more treasures I could list, but this is the cream of the crop. I wish I had time to tell you about the Happy Meal ornaments, and the Dead Dog Glazed Milkbones to commemorate the passing of our various pets, and the year Phyllis made my brother and I paint plastic to look like stained glass. She sits on the piano bench every year and reminisces while we gaze at the holiday splendor that is our Christmas tree. I do poke fun, but it's honestly impossible not to feel the spirit of Christmas when you're presented with beauty such as this:

That's right. Two twisted pipe cleaners and a red pom pom ball.

Hallelujah, Christ has come.

Camper, Oh Camper...

For some reason, my family really likes to camp. "Yes," we frequently say to each other, "let's drive several hours away to enjoy primitive plumbing and uncomfortable sleeping arrangements." Our camping hobby began with a tent, which my little brother attempted to set on fire by cramming his pillow into the space heater that was struggling futilely to keep us from developing frostbite. Those were the good old days, stuffed into a nylon hell that smelled persistently of Dad's socks, experiencing Togetherness and Love whether we wanted to or not. I can still smell the s'mores singeing and feel the sharp rocks digging into my spine.

Later, we moved up in the world. My parents purchased a pop-up. For those of you who are not campers, first of all, I commend you on your choice, and secondly, a pop-up is the result of a tent mating with a trailer. You wind a handle and the top of the pop-up expands upwards, extending nylon sides. This way, you get  to feel slightly superior to the "Tent People," as Phyllis calls them with a disapproving sniff, while still having the joy of walking in the dark to the communal campground bathroom, which is usually carpeted with angry frogs.

The pop-up inspired my dad to write his classic hit, "Pop-Up, Oh, Pop-Up." The lyrics are quite moving. I have reproduced them here in entirety:

Pop-up, oh, pop-up, a twelve-foot pop-up
Queen size bed on one end
Pop-up, oh, pop-up, a twelve-foot pop-up
Won't you go camping, my friend?
[Repeat endlessly]

Eventually, our population of dogs outgrew the pop-up. We decided to make the leap to a real camper, with a real roof and a bathroom. Dad had to rework his song for this step up:

Camper, oh, camper, twenty-eight-foot camper
King-size bed on one end...

The first camper my mom and dad picked out was a real beauty, decorated in shades of teal and featuring a bathroom so small you had to shave your legs by standing in the shower and extending one leg into the sink, teetering precariously over the miniscule toilet and desperately attempting not to topple through the flimsy door and into the dog-packed living area.  This camper also featured bunkbeds that were nearly completely enclosed. You clambered into them through a two foot-wide opening, covered with a pleated curtain, and then spent the night imagining the coffin-like walls closing in on you. There was, to be fair, a six-inch wide window, through which you could watch the parade of Tent People march to the bathroom for more water to extinguish their space heater fires.

Luckily, a couple years ago, Mom and Dad got into the big leagues and bought a new camper with a slide-out section in the living room which expands the area marvellously, from a cramped space into a slightly less cramped, awkwardly shaped space. This camper has a larger bathroom, featuring a shower that my brother can almost stand upright in, and a dining table that converts into a bed. It is almost, but not quite, one tenth as comfortable as just staying at home.

Phyllis loves camping. Her thriftiness extends into the rustic wild; for example, Dad grilled steak one night, and Phyl discovered that she had no Tupperware or Ziplocs in which to preserve the last cubic inch of steak that we didn't eat. She couldn't bear to part with this prize, and so she carefully wrapped the scrap of meat in a plastic salad bag and squirreled it away for the next day. I'm sure she felt an immense glow of pride when she ate that half-bite of beef for breakfast.

But the ultimate best display of thrift has to be the Camping Pillows. Mom has a special set of houseware for camping - plates, cutlery, linens, etc. The Camping Pillows are pillows that were so flat and pitiful that nobody would sleep on them in our actual house. Dad wanted to throw them away. But don't worry! Mom saved the day. She cut up some foam egg-crate material and stuffed the pieces into the pillows. Dad was so impressed he had to take a picture.

Another successful money-saving venture. Let's all go camping!