The funeral story

It’s been pouring rain here. My kids are about to go on winter break, and it’s cold, windy and pouring.

One day My High School Best Friend and I were home from school on a day like this. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t break.

We were kneeling against of the back of the couch, watching the rain for boredom, when we saw black-clad people begin to file out of the church across the street.

What terrible weather for a funeral.

We started guessing who the people were. One of us grabbed the newspaper, and learned it was a 48-year-old man being mourned.

We went like this: That must be the wife. I’m thinking those are the parents, and that’s his sister, Lily. Everything we needed was in the obituary.

After about 15 minutes the funeralgoers made their way to their cars, where an attendant was putting neon ‘funeral’ stickers on windshields.

My Best Friend said, “Let’s go.”

OK.

We raced up to my room and changed into black dresses, then jumped in my car. We drove across the street and around the block so we could come in the back of the church lot. As we came toward the front, we got a neon sticker.

We inched our way to the cemetery toward the back of the procession. When we got there, we put on our somber faces and made our way to the gravesite, heels sinking in muddy ground and rain pelting our hair. It occurred to us we should have grabbed an umbrella.

By the time the service was over, we were both depressed. It felt like we knew the guy.

We joined in the post-burial mingling, offering condolences to the widow — called it — and her family. We hugged cousins, co-workers and the guy he played racquetball with.

Back at my house we changed out of our sopping clothes and cried.

We heated up some canned soup and tried to get over the loss of whats-his-name.

The Christmas tree story

Today we got our Christmas tree.

This is one of my favorite parts of the holiday. I always make a pot of spiced cider, (which turns into hot buttered rum for my husband and me), and put on my Cyndi Lauper Christmas CD. When she sings the Christmas Conga, we abandon our ornaments and conga around the house.

This one was my 24th tree. Which leads me to tell you about my first.

When I turned 18 I got an apartment in Riverside with two of my girlfriends. One of them was dating a paramedic named Chip.

We got a call. Chip was volunteering at a Christmas tree farm in Rancho Cucamonga for one night. If we went there, he would sneak us a free tree.

Sold.

We listened to the radio as we got all cute, which seemed important at the time. The radio told us to stay home.

“There are record-breaking winds blowing trees out of the ground and cars off the road. Unless you absolutely have to go somewhere, stay home.”

Unfortunately, we absolutely had to go steal a tree.

We climbed in Kelly’s Volkswagon Rabbit and held on tight as we made our way across the overpass. We were strugging to stay in our lane as we banked, high in the air. We had to shout to hear one another for the battering roar of the wind.

As people do, we picked out the biggest one we thought we could fit under our ceiling. Chip chopped it down and strapped it to the Rabbit’s roof.

We had an even harder time getting home. By then the winds had reached 90 mph, and we had the windows slightly open for the ropes that Chip had wrapped through. That one-day storm was whipping right through the back seat.

Through the power of our screaming, panicking and making unfullfillable promises to greater powers, we made it back to our apartment. We even managed to get that tree up the stairs and into the warmth, where we collapsed on the floor, all of us amazed to be alive.

The salad dressing decision

Last night we went to the annual Feastings events at my mom’s church. It’s a warm evening of dinner and choir performances that really puts us in the holiday spirit every year.

On and off again my mom is a part of the dinner making. She ran a catering business on the side for many years and is the go-to for many events around here still.

One of these years when she was involved, she was measuring out the walnut oil for the salad dressing when it occurred to her some attendees may have nut allergies. She stopped herself pouring it in and substituted canola oil.

That night, while eating his salad, a man had a stroke. His face pitched right into the radicchio and an ambulance was called. It wasn’t until after the event they learned what had happened to him.

I wasn’t there that year, but I got a call from my mom to hear about it. She was panting with relief.

“I was on the verge of changing my mind and going ahead with the walnut oil.” The road not traveled had gotten under her skin.

“I would have thought it was my fault. I would have thought I had made the wrong call.”

Whew. It would have made her nuts.

My daughter is paying attention

One evening when I was picking my daughter up from her piano lesson, the instructor gave her some kind of certificate. Across the top it said, “Reach for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

I’ve seen this phrase before. I’ve never found it particularly inspiring.

When we got in the car my daughter said, “What a dumb certificate.”

I looked over at her. She had it on her lap, and wasn’t wearing any expression on her face.

“You don’t like it?”

“The moon is much closer to us than the stars.”

Oh yeah.

The eyelash gluing story

My friend Linda sent me a with-and-without-makeup e-mail showing beautiful famous women looking like regular folk. I zoomed in to see what the trick was.

I found it: eyelashes.

In every after picture, the women had false lashes prettying them up.

I went straight to the Longs and bought a bunch.

Last night I went to a dressy deal, so I glued a pair on. I looked old. All I needed was a cheetah skin purse and some off-color foundation, and I could have passed for one of those 50-somethings in denial.

Still I’m glad I tried it, because I remembered the story about Aunt Frances.

Aunt Frances isn’t technically an aunt. She grew up with the sisters, and by the time I was born I couldn’t tell the difference. She has always been one of the aunts.

And she has always worn false lashes.

Now I got this tale third hand at least, and it seems unbelievable, but everybody says this is the way it happened — and by everybody, I mean Mom.

Aunt Frances one day grabbed the wrong tube off the counter and super-glued her lashes. Her lids sealed closed, and she couldn’t open them nohow.

She groped for the phone and rode in an ambulance to the hospital, where they had to use a razor blade to slit her lids apart.

We’re in Southern California. If I were that doctor, I would have done a no-earthquake dance, spun around and spit three times, just in case.

My cousin knows me too well

Today is my baby cousin’s birthday.

I call her my baby cousin, as if I have some kind of seniority. She’s prettier, thinnier, richer, smarter and a better athlete. She puts the word ‘doctor’ before her name because she earned it, and she commutes to work in Washington, D.C. from her home on the beach in California.

My only seniority is being six years older, which isn’t as exciting as it was when I was in my 20s.

Today is her birthday, but because I’m egocentric, I thought I’d talk about my birthday, and how she brightened it.

As you know, I turned 40 only just. I said in my head, I spent my young, firm-body years wishing I had the courage to get my belly button pierced. I’m fast becoming an old hag. I’m on the cusp of its being ridiculous. It’s now or never.

So I made an appointment with a plastic surgeon, who put me under to do it. This is how big a sissy I am.

The man couldn’t help but notice the toll five years of lactating took on the breasts he had to tie out of the way to do the piercing.

He urged me to get a boob job. I stood firm – you know, figuratively — and just got the piercing.

Here’s where my baby cousin comes in.

She sent me one of the two funniest birthday cards I’ve ever gotten, (Fred Bauman sent me the other.) It showed two blue-haired wrinkly old biddies playing poker.

One of them has a speech bubble that says, “I’m thinking of piercing my belly button.” The other says, “Really?”

On the inside she replies, “That way I can put a hook in it to hold up my bra.”

Nailed it.

click here for photo

Never do this

When I was editing obituaries, I used to have to sit with the original form submitted by the family, and make sure everything in the story matched what was written in pen by the bereaved.

It was an extra big deal to make sure obituaries were accurate. To this end, I had to call survivors, even on anything the family itself may have written wrong.

One night I was doing the math to make sure the birth and death dates made the lady 90, when I realized both dates were the same, but with different years. If she was 90, it was only for a few hours.

It would be an easy mistake for a grieving son to write the death date on both lines absent-mindedly.

The family said, “Yep. It was her 90th birthday.”

Oh no. “Were you with her?” It was OK for me to be nosy. At least, I always told myself that.

“Yes, she died at her birthday party.”

I scanned the form. She died of a heart attack.

Good Lord, they couldn’t be that stupid.

I had to ask. “Was it a surprise party?”

I’m of a firm mind it’s wrong to startle the tar out of old people.

He hung up on me, which was fortunate, because I was crass enough to fall into a fit of laughter.

Idiots.

The dinner party surprise

There was a guy who came to work at the Daily Camera when I was there. We hit it off right away.

After he was there a couple of weeks he came over to my desk.

“I’m not coming on to you.” For the record, this is never a good thing to say to me, because it makes me wonder why the hell not. “But I gotta tell you that you feel familiar to me. I feel like you’ve been my best friend for years. It’s weird.”

We became great friends. He got along with my husband. We shared a lot of laughter, and when he met the girl for him, I gave him advice behind the scenes.

One night they came over for a dinner evening. We thought it would be fun to make it a formal event.

I cleaned and decorated. I made a tremendous meal. I fixed up a beautiful table.

But when we were having wine and conversation in the library, my 4-year-old son came in and stood near the center of the visiting.

“I think I found a clue,” he announced.

He was looking down at the center of my Oriental rug.

There was a big dead mouse there that none of us had noticed. It had cat-teeth punctures in its side.

Scott made a face of considering. He nodded, “No, buddy, I think you’ve solved this one.”

That was it. The playing grown-up had cracked. We burst into laughter, and in my gown and rhinestones, I scooped up the mouse and burped.

My grandparents’ song

On the morning of my grama’s first anniversary after my grampa died, she walked into the kitchen and turned on the radio.

She was stunned to hear “If I Loved You” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. It was their song.

Who’s ever heard this song on the radio?

The last time she had heard it, Grampa was singing it to her on their 50th anniversary, seven years before to the day.

Today would have been their 69th.

Lying to the kids

My husband used to give the kids broccoli stems, and tell them they were albino carrots.

He only just came clean.

Death upon death

By request, I’m writing about a death.

In January I told you about the time My Best Friend and I happened upon her boyfriend’s dead body.

She fared poorly in the aftermath of that, and the gaggle of us girls donned our blacks and skipped school to support her through the funeral.

David’s friends were supporting one another, too, lined abreast in their pew, trying to look tough despite their suffering.

After the service, we girls went out to lunch. We laughed and hugged and ate.

I’m not sure what the boys did, but My Best Friend was feeling strong enough to join them in late afternoon.

At eveningtime she asked them to take her home. They were mourning by drinking, and she was emotionally exhausted.

From there they got on the freeway to cross town. There were four of those boys in the car. The windows were down and the music was blaring.

They took a tight curve on an offramp at 113 mph.

When the car flipped, Conrad went out the rear window, and the car crushed him as it rolled.

One group of friends saw two boys die within four days, not even a week into 1987.

My gaggle of girls made it to today, though, and when the time comes for me to grieve, I know they’ll put on their blacks and hold me up.

The piano in a paper bag story

When I visited my biological father in San Francisco, he was just moving into an outrageous penthouse home above Ghirardelli Square.

The building was old — in a good way. It was grand. It took my breath away.

From the penthouse terrace we could see the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, and Alcatraz.

This whole building was vacant. My father had been hired to design and oversee a parking structure under it. The digs were provided at no charge.

On this day I arrived he had to go do a thing.

My job was to meet the piano delivery guys. Their job was to get the shiny full-grand piano up to the top floor.

They came in scratching their heads, sans instrument.

“We’re gonna have to bring it up the stairs.” Duh. Were they expecting a larger elevator?

I stared at them, waiting for the point. The staircase was plenty wide.

“We need more guys.” Ah.

“I’m sorry. I’m visiting. I don’t have any guys.”

They laughed at me. I guess they weren’t asking for guys. They said they’d come back tomorrow.

When my father came back he looked around and made a little between-the-brows squeeze.

I remembered my mom said that when they lived in that fourth-floor walkup at Harvard, he carried a piano up in pieces, using paper bags.

So I said to him, “They’re coming back tomorrow. They wanted to buy some paper bags to bring it up in.”

“Hey I did that once!” This is my favorite part of this story. He thought that comment was a coincidence.

His bride made a between-the-brow squeeze. Oh goody! I was going to hear the story first-hand. I’ve known this story about 15 years longer than I’ve known him.

We settled in around the table and heard it told.

My father had visited a shop around the corner from his Irving Street apartment, and gave the owner some amount for an old piano.

He had neither vehicle, nor dolly, nor money for a mover, but he had a screwdriver and a lunch bag.

He dissassembled the whole thing and walked back and forth to the fourth-floor walkup, first with the bag full of keys, then hammers, then strings. He carried the frame in parts too.

My mom opened the door to find pieces strewn all over the floor, and her husband standing over them with a squeeze between his brow, trying to figure out how to put it all together.

He did, replacing ripped pads and chipped pieces in the bargain.

He moved that whole piano all by himself, but the professionals? They needed more guys.

The Christmas shopping story

Back in the day, San Bernardino was the shopping destination for anyone in or near my town.

It was a 15-minute drive, depending on traffic, and there was a foul sewage smell that let me know when our offramp was near.

One year my mom and I had a disastrous trip to there.

It started out fine. We pulled into a great spot in the Toys R Us lot and spent an hour or more tossing goodies into the cart with wild abandon. I always say things should be tossed into carts this way. Sometimes I even do a little foot-lift thing.

We stopped at the automatic glass doors leading out. It was pouring rain.

There’s nothing worse than a Southern Californian in the rain, (unless it’s one behind the wheel of a car). (Bonus bad if that person is my mother.)

We leaned over the booty to effect a shelter and made a run for it.

We loaded the goods and jumped in, sopping despite our rush.

Click. Click. No juice. My mom had left the lights on.

After some dramatic exhaling we ran back into the store and borrowed their phone to call for a battery jump from Triple A.

It occurs to me that several of my stories would be non-stories if they had happened in the age of cell phones. This one is doubly obsolete, because now headlights turn off automatically.

Triple A took a long time. I was a kid, so however long it took, it was longer in kid years. It was, like, a hundredth of my life. Who knew there was a circumstance under which I wanted to not be in Toys R Us?

The dude came. Clip, turn, rev. We were all set.

Mom left the engine running for warmth and battery charging while she climbed in the tow’s cab to do the paperwork.

Naturally she locked our car, so no one could steal it or the presents.

Naturally we didn’t realize this was a bad idea until the guy had driven away.

Back in the store we went to call and wait all over again.

After another 100th of my life had passed, we were on the road.

I think we moved four blocks before we ran out of gas.

In the moment an hour later, when I walked dripping and hungry into my home, I had never been and would never be so surprised not to have gotten a flat tire.

Follow-up post

My sister tweeted that Tiger Woods had a karma accident.

Stairway to Heaven

Tonight the kids and I sat glued to the radio.

The station had solicited listeners’ top 10 rock songs of all time, compiled them by duplicate and played the top 1,000 in order, starting Wednesday morning.

We made our lists. We made predictions. The disc jockey would say, ‘Coming up next, a song by Queen,’ and we would all guess which it would be. Once, he said, ‘After the commercial, you’ll get a song that was written for a boy whose parents were divorcing, that’s become a popular sing-along.’

I totally guessed it.

We were in and out of the countdown for meals, sleep, and Thanksgiving, checking online to see what we missed, but today we turned it on for the top 40 throughout the house.

At number 19 I had to go grocery shopping. The kids had to call me each time a song came on while I was in the store.

Only one of the songs on my top 10 was in the overall top 10 — Back in Black by AC/DC, at No. 8. My son hit with No. 7, Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd.

All of us predicted Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin would be No. 1. It was — which brings me, finally, to my story of the day.

One year we were at our friends’ poolside on the Fourth of July. I was doing an acrostic puzzle. I love an acrostic puzzle.

The clue was “He wrote Stairway to Heaven,” 10 letters.

Ten letters? Don’t they mean nine, or 11?

I worked out the whole quote and transfered the letters. The answer: Neil Sedaka.

No way.

I showed it around, because by now everyone had been trying to think of someone with a 10-letter name who could have written it.

My husband said, “No way.” The Bonadimans said, “No way.” Guess what the Booths said.

I tucked that bit of astounding trivia in my brain and pulled it out occasionally, so I could hear people say, “No way.”

Then I got in the car with my mom one day, and NPR was interviewing songwriters. Steven Tyler was talking. Oh boy. My favorite.

Next up, the interviewer said, the writer of Stairway to Heaven.

“Oh, I know who that is,” I told Mom. “Neil Sedaka.”

“No way.”

She got to look right, because some other dude came on the radio and talked about how the song came to him.

I stopped pulling out this astounding trivia tidbit.

This year I was listening on another station to the author of “Sounds Like Teen Spirit, Stolen Melodies, Ripped-Off Riffs, and the Secret History of Rock and Roll.”

It turns out — and I know people are gonna start e-mailing me — but it turns out Led Zeppelin was a cover band.

Here’s where they stole Whole Lotta Love, and here’s the original version of the No. 1 rock song of all time.

The final word: Randy California wrote Stairway to Heaven.

That’s all the thinking I want to do about this song and its writer. I don’t even like Led Zeppelin.

Where’s that from?

I love to play guess-what-this-line-is-from.

When I was a teenager, my best friend and I would make lists of lines from songs and present them to each other in first period study hall. I remember in my sophomore year chewing on the line “Strangers making the most of the dark” all day.

I could hear the melody and hum the next line, but it wasn’t until dinner that the answer came to me.

That’s my idea of fun, for sure.

I also play this with movie quotes. There was a poster at Blockbuster –101 famous movie quotes, can you name the films? — that I wanted bad. I would have put it on the wall and then thrown a party to see how many people gathered around and tried it.

But this was when I was subbing, and no way was I going to spend $15 on a poster, knowing I didn’t have the money to throw me a see-who-gathers-at-my-new-poster party.

I found it online for $8 plus shipping, but I still won’t buy it. That’s how cheap I am.

Today I’m sharing a movie quote challenge that I have chewed on for years — and even Googled, which I frown on as the height of cheaterpantsery — and can’t find the answer to.

In 1999 my husband and I rented a VHS movie with the following line: “Yeah, but if less is more, think how much more more is.”

I thought this was the funniest ever. I don’t remember what movie it was. I thought it was American Pie, so I rented it and watched it again. No dice.

Now I’m setting the spinner to All Play.

If you know the answer, you win.

And because the chewing will finally end, I’ll win too.

Exterminator tents

When we were little girls, My Oldest Friend was always interested when we saw houses being fumigated.

I used to tell her that those homes, encased in big striped tents, had kids there whose parents had rented them a private circus.

It’s My Oldest Friend’s birthday today.

Happy 40th, Tia. I love you so much, I would rent you a private circus today if they existed and I had any money.

The die story

A few Thanksgivings ago my baby cousin Sterling and his girlfriend came down from Washington. At dinner, they announced their engagement.

Wee hooo! I love a big announcement on a holiday.

After dinner, we pulled out the party games. We were going to play one of my favorites, Scattergories. Sterling’s affianced had never played before.

For this game, you have 12 categories, and a letter. You have to think of something in each category that starts with that letter.

Fun stuff. I always win.

I started passing out pencils and category lists, and we realized the die wasn’t in the box. I had left it in my bag of tricks for the Journalism Club I ran at the elementary school.

Alison said, “No worries. I have a die in my purse.”

We tried to stop her. “It’s not a regular die. It’s a many-sided die covered in letters.”

She kept walking toward her purse. Sterling’s fiancee doesn’t listen, I thought.

She came in rummaging through her little purse. Me, I carry a backpack. Between my canister of Wet Ones and my novel, I have no use for Louis Vitton.

“Here’s a die!” she said. I shook my head at her.

She pulled out a hand-carved wooden 26-sided die with letters on it.

My son yelled, “Welcome to the family! You pass.”

click for photo

The Christmas thief story

Last night I watched the Lewis Black special on surviving the holidays. People talked about believing in Santa Claus, and it reminded me of a call I once got.

The newsroom phone had been ringing, and no one was around, so I answered it. It was a news tip call. The rule on these was the receiver had to type the tip into the computer on the Newstips document.

The caller was an old man. His news tip was a Christmas memory. I knew they wouldn’t use it, but I set to typing his story.

When he was a little boy in New York, his family was poor. They lived in a tenament apartment on the third floor, and he went to sleep Christmas Eve with only a couple of gifts under the tree — nothing big enough to be the train set he wanted.

It was a one-bedroom pad, so he slept on the living room couch.

He woke up as a man in Santa garb clambered through the window.

He watched the man crouch under the tree and reach for the two sorry packages under the unadorned limbs.

“What are you doing, Santa?”

The man swore.  He hadn’t noticed the child on the couch. “Just making the rounds.”

The little boy began to cry. “I didn’t think you were going to remember us. I’m so happy you came.”

“Tell Santa what you want for Christmas.” Softie.

The burglar rummaged through his booty for a train set and left it under the tree before going back through the window with another curse.

The caller said his parents were thoroughly confused the next day when he pulled the set out of its box.

He told me a string of burglaries was later reported on the news. Among the items reported stolen was an expensive train set.

I feigned outrage. “You’re reporting this NOW?”

Jaws

Beatle George has an 8-year-old son. They were over for Monday Night Football tonight.

My son discovered with an outburst that the child has never seen Jaws.

How does this happen? I’ve insisted George bring the boy to me Wednesday so I can fix him.

To my mind, 4 is the right age for Jaws watchin’.

This decision came by happenstance. Uncle Jer and I were upstairs in the Boulder house, flipping through the channels on a Saturday afternoon, when we saw that the movie was about to start.

We looked at each other with excitement. “Pop some corn!”

Then my son wandered in.

Badda bing badda boom. Four was the right age.

We initiated him carefully. We told him what to expect. “Hear the music? That means you’ll see some red spots in the water. Here’s a scary part.”

Then I couldn’t wait for The Baby to turn 4. I stood by the set with the unpopped corn counting down the days from her third birthday.

We had left Uncle Jer behind in Colorado, but acquired the flick on VHS. My son and I popped corn and brought her into the club.

Now it’s Bennett’s turn. 

My kids know the routine by now. We’ll pop the corn, give the warnings, and as one, we’ll shout, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”

I’m thinkin’ since the kid’s 8, we’ll have to watch it twice.

A return favor

We just drove home from Bakersfield. On the way through the Tejon Pass, there was a woman pressing three small children against her legs in the wind, standing in the dirt on the side of the road. The hood of her car was up.

My husband and I agreed we should stop, so he pulled off at the next exit. It was a rest stop with no onramp the other direction.

As long as we were there, my husband went pee.

We went to the next offramp, got off and headed back the other direction, but missed our offramp.

By the time we got back to the damsel in distress, a tow truck was there.

That reminded me of a story, which Mike will be pleased I told, since I hung him out to dry with The Favor post.

One Thanksgiving my college roommate and I decided to show up in Southern California for Thanksgiving and surprise our families. We took my car from Boulder and dropped her first in San Clemente. It was Wednesday.

Never drive on Southern California freeways on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I could have walked faster.

Round about Yorba Linda my car began to smoke. Here’s my engine savvy. I pulled to the median and distanced myself from it in case it was set to explode.

A car pulled up next to me, a sedan, with about nine people in it. They bade me dive in across the six laps in the back seat, scooted me across the five lanes and dropped me at the call box.

The call box phone didn’t work.

From there a nice lady drove me down the offramp. She told me she had never picked up a hitchhiker in her life, but that I cut the most unthreatening figure she’d ever seen.

She left me at the Carl’s Jr., where I borrowed their phone and called Mike.

Michael jumped in his Sprint, with the ‘Don’t laugh, mister. You’re daughter might be in here.’ bumper sticker, and sat in the holiday traffic for hours to get me.

During the years I was logging frequent passenger miles in that car, my father never commented on that bumper sticker.

Mike put water in my overheated radiator and handed me the keys to the Sprint. I followed him at a creep to my parents’ house, where they were cozily watching a movie with a fire going.

 I had to walk in and say, “Surprise! Dad, can you fix my car?”

He had grace not to say, “You’re home. What a treat,” as he pushed himself off the couch.

I hope I’ve redeemed Michael’s reputation. The truth is, if he called me at 2 a.m. again, I’d go.

The girl with the gun

I was in the newsroom when this story came over the police scanner.

Four officers had opened fire on a teenager. She was dead.

These details are not disputed:

She was drunk and stoned. She was passed out in a locked car with music blaring inside. The car was running. Police could not rouse her by banging on the windows. She had a semiautomatic pistol in her lap.

These details are murkier:

She was frothing at the mouth. She snapped awake when officers broke a window. Her hand moved toward the gun.

As the story gained fame, so did the side picking. Everyone sat in judgment over somebody in this story.

I’m on the side of the officers, who fired 27 shots into the Nissan Sentra and hit that 19-year-old with 12 of them.

Here’s why. This kid drank booze, smoked pot and went to a public convenience store with a loaded gun.

Using the same roads my loved ones and I use with babies in the back seats, she drove a vehicle so under the influence that she passed out and was unwakeable.

She sat armed and mentally altered where I might have been stopping with my children.

I’m going to come right out and say it. When someone makes those choices and becomes that level of a danger to the community, the officers should fire. Her rights, I believe, ended when she tried to take away everyone else’s right to safety in public.

I call open season on drunk people at gas stations with guns.

Apparently I’m in the minority.

I was also in the newsroom when the wire announced the four officers lost their jobs.

Code words

When my grandparents didn’t want people to know what they were saying, they would talk in Spanish.

Mostly, it was my grandpa telling Nana not to meddle. He would murmur, “No te metes.”

At some point this morphed into “No tomatoes,” which he didn’t have to murmur.

This is English to us now, for ‘butt out of those people’s business.’

Every New Year’s Nana announces her resolution is remind herself no tomatoes.

She can’t do it. There’s no stopping her from tomatoes.

The terrified cell-phone salesman story

In April of 2006 my husband took me downtown to replace my cell phone before I left for a road trip to Sacramento.

The 20-something ringing up my new Back in Black Razr looked anxious. I thought he had to pee.

He said to my husband, “You’re a teacher, you said? I need some advice.”

No one ever said this to me. Instead people say, “You’re an editor? I don’t ever want to talk around you or let you see something I wrote.”

But I’m not bitter. Try to stop me from giving advice.

The kid proceeded to tell us that a friend of a friend had cornered him in a bar the night before asking to buy 999 of the $10 pre-paid cell phones, cash. He asked for anonymity. The would-be customer was Middle Eastern.

I asked the kid if large transactions raised red flags, triggered investigations.

Yup, any sale $10,000 or more attracts attention.

The kid started sweating and shaking.

“What should I do? I think I need to call the FBI, but if he gets caught, he’ll know it was me.”

He was making me nervous.

“Have you talked about this with your mother?”

Yes, she told him he should do whatever he thought was right for him.

Thanks, cell-phone mommy who made it my problem. Next time remember I never want to be a knower of this kind of business.

I told him I thought it was his duty to report anything he thought was suspicious. I implored the child to imagine how responsible he would feel if something went down because he kept mum.

My husband said, “Yeah.”

We left.

At the post office, our next stop, I was playing with my new phone, which wasn’t working.

We went back.

The kid was pacing behind the counter, and his hair was pasted straight up with sweat.

“I did it. I called the police,” he said.

My eyes went wide. Good for him, but now I wanted to get lots of distance between us.

“I used a pay phone and didn’t give my name, but he’ll know.”

The guy looked positively rabid. I said something about not wanting to stand in front of the windows and earned an elbow jab in my side.

My husband was calm. He said, ”The Razr won’t make calls.”

I gotta hand it to this kid. He was the AT&T Employee and Mr. Hyde.

“Let me see it.” He gave it his full attention – even chuckled when he realized he hadn’t put a SIM card in it.

I told him he was the bomb. No one thought I was funny.

I don’t know what became of the boy or the call, but when I got back from Sacramento, the business was gone.

The Ranchero

I have a 1958 Ford Ranchero. I’m not an old-car guy, and I’ve never driven it, but I love it, and I almost lost it.

The truck used to be my grampa’s. On Saturdays until I was about 6 he would take me with him to the dump, which is about the only time he used the truck.

He would open the driver door so I could crawl across the bench seat, and he would always say, “One of these days you’re going to get in through your own door.”

Occasionally he would use it for an errand. I heard him more than once come home and say, “I got another note on the windshield,” as he tacked a piece of paper to the kitchen bulletin board.

The notes all said the same basic thing: I want to buy your truck. Call me.

These put a hardness in the pit of my stomach. Forget that new car smell; I was sentimental about 25-year-old Ford cab smell. 

When I was a teen-ager, Nana said, “We’re re-doing our will. If there’s anything you want to be sure to get, speak up.”

I didn’t hesitate. Tap tap my truck.

Later my grandparents said, “It’s just sitting there. We don’t even use the thing. Why wait for us to die?”

I was married then. I can’t tell you how my skin crawls when my husband refers to it as his Ranchero.

A few years ago my Uncle Sonny started asking around, “Where’s Uncle Albert’s Ranchero?”

He wanted to fix it up. A bunch of old-car guys were fixing up cars together. 

My husband said he was planning on fixing it up in a father-son project. Then it would be what our son drives.

Yeah, my son’s going to get sticky, dirty stuff on his hands. Didn’t my husband read The Birthday Cake Story?

This never came to pass. So in 2003 I told Uncle Sonny he could take it, work on it, do the car show thing, but not have title.

Everybody was happy. I was about to get around to getting it over to his house.

Does the name Uncle Sonny ring a bell? His other mention was the story about how his house burned down.

If I hadn’t been so lazy, it would have been a carbecue.

For now it’s just sitting there. We don’t even use the thing.

But when we do, I’m going to breathe in deep as I crawl across the driver side.

Stats

My son and I just read through all of the stories in the My Son category. My old stories are so much better than my latest ones.

From there I clicked on the Top Posts button I have backstage here, to see what posts have been read the most.

The numbers surprised me.

Of my 313 posts, The Comma Argument is in first place. This is not even close to being my best post.

The recent A New Expression is tied for second with The Refrigerator Story. I understand why the Fridge made it so high. I wouldn’t be surprised to find other people telling the story on their own blogs.

Breaking up is one click behind those, but I accuse Miss Julia of pushing that number up singlehandedly. J’accuse, mon petite fromage.

Archery, possibly my favorite, is in fourth place, and Pets are Nasty rounds out the top five.

Some of my stories have high points because of hot words. For instance, My Mother-in-Law’s Story gets hit constantly. There has not been a day since I posted it that someone hasn’t Googled the words ‘naughty mother-in-law.’

Mike Tried to Get Me in a Catfight enjoyed the same fame, because people worldwide are hungry to read anything with the word ‘catfight.’

The Special Day Class, which tied for the win in my best-post poll, ranks in the bottom third.

And most of the rest of the content from the Best of SO’M category sits below that.

There are posts I wish no one would read, because they’re just me complaining, like The Home Showing Disaster, The Favor Story, The Horrible Person and I was Dismissed from the PTA. These have more clicks than they should.

Only three people have clicked on Tormenting, but 25 have clicked on Pulp Fiction. I think that’s backward. Tormenting is a much better story.

And Even in Pain, I’m a Smartass joins The Mac n’ Cheese Story and six other worthier posts with one click each.

I can’t figure you guys out.

Why I love my husband

Yesterday my husband was walking around shirtless in baggie cords, which slung low on his waist. He had them rolled to mid-calf, like cabana pants.

He looked scrumptious, but that’s not why I love him.

“I like those pants like that.” I gave him a lecherous look.

“It’s my Tom Sawyer look.” I like the Tom Sawyer look.

“I was hoping someone would come along and see how much fun I was having cleaning the shower.”

That’s why I love him. He’s well Twained.

The spider story

My son has always been a sensitive little thing.

When he was 5, he helped me paint his room before we moved into our first house in California.

We stood side by side on his desk while we readied the window up high. I reached into the corner with my brush and cleared out a spiderweb.

“Oh, Mama!” He pointed to a spider on the wall. “He just watched you destroy his home!”

So I picked up the newspaper, rolled it and smashed the homeless spider.

“There. Now he’s not sad anymore.”

Are you all glad I’m not your mother?

To Hell with keeping it clean

My friend, the Dirty Old Man, is also an amateur stand-up comedian. He performed at my recent birthday party.

He really is too admirable for the moniker I’ve given him. Please read the name dripping with respect.

As he took the microphone, Scotchie yelled, “Keep it clean, Fred!”

Frown from Fred at Scotchie, then “Do you know why Jewish men are circumsized?”

Perfect.

He went to that mike to perform three times between tribute stories – most of which involved my mooning or flashing someone.

He kept my guests in stitches, even as they told how I don’t stay in mine.

The home showing disaster

Today I had lunch with two friends, one of whom is a Realtor.

My Realtor friend said of this site, “When you read her blog, it’s like looking in a mirror. You can see yourself in her stories.”

I hope he doesn’t see himself in this one.

I used to be a licensed Realtor myself. I was especially bad at it. Possibly I was cursed.

This was during the two-year period my husband was the stay-at-home parent. I was concurrently working at the paper.

I achieved my license through the sponsorship of my broker, who promised handholding throughout the career launching.

I got a desk and a nameplate and the code to the office lockbox key.

One afternoon a man, woman and baby came into the office and told me what they were looking for in a house. I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like “We would like a big, expensive house, please.”

This was it — my first commission was about to happen.

I made an appointment to take them looking at several addresses the next afternoon. I called the sellers to have them leave the houses vacant and clean.

In the meantime, I bought a new suit, rented a nice car and printed a list of homes that met their specifications.

I had a meeting with my broker for advice. He handed me the lockbox key, which was like a cell phone keypad. His advice: Don’t tell them you’re new at this.

I met the family at the office.

We were off.

At the first three houses I couldn’t get the lockbox open. The husband was getting that wants-to-flee look.

I couldn’t reach the broker by cell phone, so I apologized to the family and drove them back to my office for support. No one was there.

I went to the brokerage across the street and asked for help. They checked my key and said the code’s activation had lapsed.

One of the agents showed me how to reactivate it by phone.

We were off again.

It still didn’t work.

The next day two things happened. The family called to thank me for my time. They wouldn’t be needing any more of it, however, becase that evening they found a house with another agent and bought it.

And the broker ripped me a new butthole for outting his breaking the rules. Turns out, brokers aren’t allowed to let staff agents use their keys, which he knew.

The helpful agent across the street had reported him.

At that moment and this one, I hated him. I hated that I had invested money I didn’t have on a doomed mission. I blame him thoroughly.

My broker was forced to discontinue providing a key for new agents, and was forever angry with me about it.

This may be a result of my having a small fit.

I got a key of my own, but seldom had opportunity to use it — me being an especially bad Realtor, and all.