The Boys Are Back in Town

And there is always the back to school clothes shopping haranguing experience.

First, the boy.

The sneakers must be high-end and noticeable. (Hello, Outlet Mall?) I manage to get him to buy into a mid-range pair of Nikes in the outrageous colors of his school. (Crimson and Gold, Thy praise we'll ever sing....) That way, when he wears his gym uniform, his sneaks match. Because if he had the ones he'd first eye-balled, in the colors of the Minnesota Vikings, on Gym Day he'd look like he was auditioning for the Comic Section of the Mummers at the New Year's Day Parade.

And the shirts. They must all be T-shirts. No golf shirts, or rugby shirts or (clutch the pearls!) button down shirts. T-shirts. The more irreverent the logo the better. Another parent actually chuckles as I try to explain the Nike shirt that reads "My 'swoosh' is bigger than your 'swoosh' and why it will get Mommy called into the Principal's office if he wears it.

We are at a skater store looking at cool and unnecessary gear. My son wants a rubber bracelet a la WWJD and Livestrong, both of which I think have their place in the American social cause psyche. But this rubber bracelet, which he, in a very practiced defense, claims to be oh-so-very supportive of breast cancer awareness (hello, you're in 7th grade) reads:

"I heart Boobies"

Really? Will you be accessorizing that with the pink ribbon pin I just paid $5 for at the mall because I am sure the minute I don't donate is the minute the breast cancer whammy comes to get me???

He claims that the kids flip it around so that some other innocuous message can be read by little old ladies and priests and college admissions officers the world over.

Does he really think I am that dumb?

"Mom, Dad said I could get it!" he argues.

Honey, Daddy is lost in a haze of alcohol and prescription pain meds, and if you told him you wanted to wear Daisy Dukes and Manolo heels to school he'd nod and say you should live your dream, like his pathetic, self absorbed mother never allowed him to do.

I Mom up and refuse the rubber bracelet claiming that I don't give one good God damn what other kids wear, and their mothers obviously don't care about them either.

My God we've been at the mall for less than an hour. I need a chardonnay and an energy drink to get me through what my daughter has in store for me.

See You in September

When I was in school, Back to School purchases were minimal and consistent across the globe, so it seemed.

In the early grades – a school bag, a cool lunch box (my sister had a Twiggy one!), a 1st day of school outfit, and a pair of new shoes that doubled as church shoes (until you dragged the toes of them trying to stop the wagon careening down the hill and left the suede in shreds…Joe!). Sneakers and haircuts were on an ad hoc basis.

At 4th grade, the list expanded to include a 3-ring binder of our choice, loose leaf paper in any new-fangled color but blue, and a blue pen or two, preferably housed in an optional pencil case.

In both cases, we got set of two No. 2 pencils and a steno pad-sized tablet with ruled paper with a grayish cast at the outset of each new semester.

By Junior High the list was not a list at all but at the discretion of the kid who needed to organize him or her self during the chaos and mayhem that are puberty and increased responsibility.

All that freedom of choice has gone out the window. We are not free to be you and me. You can no longer have it your way at Burger King. There is no way to hold the pickle hold the lettuce.

Because stuffed in the backpack with all the year end projects, and workbooks, and HOMEWORK, and the final report card is a lengthy list of required items that need to materialize at school when we return in September. Sometimes the list bleeds into a second page.

The list is comprised of items such as:

A backpack which complies with the mandate that all super duper multitasking, ergonomically beneficial backpacks be restricted from use due to the fact that they won’t fit into the skinny little locker-ettes that have replaced the full-sized-can-stuff-a 6th-grader-into-it type.
A 3-ring binder that complies with the teachers’ union boycott of one particular type with too many bells and whistles.
A specific number of No. 2 pencils –sharpened at home, please.
Pens – specific colors and quantities, and not erasable, thank you.
Folders – specific colors
A clean white sock – for the clean white board. Thankfully there are plenty of unmatched ones that were divorced in the dryer and came out single. Clean but maybe not convincingly so, and I am not buying a new pair, thank you.
Erasers and compasses and rulers, oh my.
Fat markers, thin markers, colored pencils.
A minimum number of glue sticks.
Scissors – preferably the brand endorsed by the bargaining unit that bans the notebook type.
Loose leaf, graph paper, dividers with labels and pockets
Sticky notes – specific dimensions and any colors except neons
Crayons – no fewer than X and no more than Y
A couple of inexplicable metric measuring implements (Didn’t we decide in the 70s that this was pointless?)
3X5 cards
A pencil sharpener capable of catching the shavings (isn’t there one with a handle screwed into the molding by the door?)
Paper towels
No fewer than 3 boxes of tissues
Hand sanitizer
Disinfecting wipes (What is with all the germophobia?? Are we going to school in a Petri dish?)

And at the end, a little disclaimer.

It notes that this list is not intended to be exhaustive; my children’s teachers will provide an additional list of teacher specific required survival kit items.

There will be no pad and No. 2 pencils provided for free. Not in the school district budget.

But added with out my consent to mine.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

So Mom has fired a shot over the bough, and since it was a little scattered (more buckshot than cannonball) it was not a shot that inflicted any mortal wounds.

Good thing. I have Back-To-School to deal with.

Summer just isn't what it used to be for school-aged kids. Not only are they not careening around the neighborhood all day on bicycles (sans helmets, natch) without the burden of adult supervision or the overbearing reminders about sun screen, or without the threat of pedophiles, kidnappers, rapists or drug dealers who have infiltrated the suburbs, they are also not free from worry about cyber bullying, cell phone envy, West Nile virus, texting drivers, obscene television and prepackaged foods with killer trans fat.

Nor are they free to while away the hours laying on a freshly mowed lawn looking at the clouds taking on this shape or that, sweaty from a game of kickball and enjoying a grape soda loaded with red dye #2.

Because they have homework.

Reading - two to three books from particular genres, by specific authors and limited to a selective list of acceptable titles.

Projects - based on the reading! Usually a written project and some form of creative obligation. Like an artfully decorated cereal box depicting the characters and plot elements of one of the books. Preferably in 3-D. Using dry food products like macaroni or Lifesavers - but please no nut products so the allergen-free kids can be in the room when the projects are on display and not be constantly reaching for the Epi-pen.

And a Math packet - because nothing says "Summertime and the livin' is easy" like endless rows of challenging ways to solve for X.

And since the books on the list of accepted literature are rarely in the library, and since the books from last year's list are rarely if ever on the current list, thereby squelching one of the few advantages to having kids 13 months apart, we get to order them all on line and pay shipping to boot.

And since the kids are in camp now instead of being randomly supervised on a day full of nothing but fun, they are tired. It's like they have jobs. And who wants to read the biography of a pioneer after 8 hours of planned fun with kids you would have otherwise never befriended, and supervised by college kids with out sufficient talent to get better jobs?

So having taken the books on every long car ride and on every vacation, we are prepared to start the projects.

Safety scissors, contact paper, Elmers Glue All and markers in hand, we take tot he craft table to create something that is doomed to fall apart in the backpack on the way to school on the first day.

Mostly because it will be competing for space with all of the dozens of items we purchase dot satisfy the Mandatory School Supply List.

Operator, Oh Can You Help Me Place This Call?

I am not sure what compelled me to listen as long as I did.

It was an unforgiving rant about why on Earth I would ever create such a situation between my brother and sister. Why on God’s green Earth I would share the juicy little tidbit about my sister being described as a self righteous beyotch. Why I did this, and I did that, and eventually getting caught in a maze of meandering thoughts about various and sundry slights I’ve delivered to her personally over the last decade or so.

I am sure it comes as no surprise at all that I remembered nothing at all about the perceived slights.

One involved something about not making plans to visit the almost beach house of a favorite dead uncle some unspecified weekend in an undetermined year based on an idea she thinks she may have told one of us.

I didn’t listen to the whole thing. It gave me a throbbing headache along the side of my head…in the general vicinity of my ear.

And besides, she would have lost me at hello, if she had said as much. Because the lead off statement, the rallying cry for the big campaign was about my causing the current ruckus between my brother and sister.

A madwoman says what?

Recall if you will, that at the opening scene of the Open Door/XBox/Cat Poop debacle, I was sitting peaceably in my beach chair watching my children try to drown each other at our swim club, while the narcissist-posing-as-lifeguard took no notice whatsoever.

And when called upon to assist with a situation for which I was the most suitable candidate to be of assistance, I went, observed and reported. And yes, I did state the obvious, however unnecessarily in this case: My brother is an ill-mannered idiotic boob.

And in all conversations on the matter since, I was direct and honest and refrained from insulting anyone in my assessment of the situation and did not waver from my position that what my brother had done was wrong to have done, and at a minimum, an apology was due to my sister’s family. What has transpired between them since that time is none of my business. I have relationships, albeit very different relationships, with each of them, no horse in their race.

And yes, I did repeat the nasty comment my brother had asserted that he’d made and further claimed my mother had endorsed.

But she does not know that. Because when Charlotte called Joe to tell him his fight was with her not anyone else in the family, he offered up a repeat performance without solicitation.

How the finger came to be wagging at me is something I’ll have to look up in Dysfunctional Families for Dummies. I have no Earthly idea.

Party Line

Moments later, my phone rings and I scramble to get to the table in the hall where the phone sits. Or should sit. I have two pre-teens who can never quite grasp the idea that everything has a home and everything likes to go home after work, including the phone, and keeping it in your room where it gets buried inadvertently in a pile of stuffed animals is just mean.

I press the “find handset” button and race about the house, in my socks, sliding along the hardwoods my daughter so lovingly polished with Pledge, finding and turning off the alarm on each handset as it is located. I secretly long for the long, curly cord that dangled precariously close to the toaster from my parents’ wall mounted telephone. Olive green to match the appliances, natch.

I find the phone and see that I have missed a message from the squirrel guy, who is supposed to help me figure out if and how the squirrels are getting into the space between my floors.

Hoping that he’s left a message that he’ll be by that day, I dial into my answering system. (My parents never, ever had one. And they had a little spiral bound address book melting by the same toaster instead of a directory in the phone too. Loved the 70s. Shag hair cuts, Dr. Scholls and inferior technology. How quaint.)

Before Bucky the Squirrel Guy’s message cues up, there is one other.

The message from Mom.

I can tell from the opening “It’s Mom” that this message is not one of her “I put a little something in the mail for you” messages, or her “go onto this website and enter to win a lighthouse” advisories, or even a “I was going through some things and found a letter from you from when you were in college and it made me smile” communiqués. (Are you paying attention, sophomore nephew at college? Send your mother a letter. Not an email, not a Facebook message, not a text. A real honest to goodness letter. Written in your handwriting, not typed and printed. Years from now when you are a successful whatever jet-setting about the globe enjoying the fruits of your labor and unable to make it home for holidays, she will read it and smile knowing it was her sensational works of motherhood that placed your feet on that path, and make her smile. Smile, and reach for the Pinot Grigio.)

I brace myself. This is going to be a howler.

Popes in a Volkswagon

Apparently not finished with her pontificating, Madame RES Director zings off another e-mail to me. Not, of course, responding to my inquiry about to whom I can appeal her decision, but to further endeavor to make me feel as though I am in the minority with my opinions.

I highly doubt it.

She fortifies her position by stating that the Masses were requested by the families and approved by the RES Board. (There is a Board? Who, pray tell, comprises that merry little band of idiots?)

She notes that many families enjoy these special Masses. (Who are these families? They are either lying or are the types that also enjoy mosh pits, political rallies, riots and stampedes.)

She also writes that all of the (offensive, patronizing) information had been requested by the Board, the catechists and the families.

Really? They just stepped up and volunteered their opinions and spoke for all of us? And their voices count so much that in deference to them we’ll choose to insult the entire RES community because some idiot can’t remember that the Solemnity of Mary is celebrated on New Year’s Day and needs to be reminded in writing that he’ll need to plop plop fizz fizz and take his hangover to church?

I offer that I have been a RES parent for 7 years and I have never been consulted about such matters. I have never had my bright ideas solicited.

How is it that now that I have shared my opinion, she is choosing to discount it?

And while I am distracted by the Holy Wars, I am nearly unaware that the blinking light on my phone means I have a message waiting.

A long, haranguing message from none other than my mother, who is finally weighing in on the events of the weekend my brother came a-calling.

Heaven help us.

To Whom It May Concern, Or Offend

I begin to type my message.

I greet her.

I acknowledge receipt of the information.

I inform her of my decision to forgo the extra special Mass (for which we have all been encouraged to thank Monsignor) in favor of attending my regular 9:30 am Mass, complete with the choir and my regular ability to arrive at 9:28 and still get seats in the front pew where I can implore my children to behave humanely toward each other with a warning that Father can see and hear everything they do, inclusive of pinching.

I inform her that I fully expect to be able to retrieve my child's coveted classroom assignment from the rectory after Mass.

And then I call her on the insulting tone and content of her correspondence. I offer, reluctantly, and not very sincerely, that I am certain that it was not her intention to offend us. (Of course it was her intention. The whole thing is is intended to clobber us over the head with the the notion that she knows what we've been up to and the party is about to be busted by the cops.)

I tell her that it suggests that we do not go to Mass.

That we are oblivious to the dates and customs of the Holy Days.

That we don't know how to properly groom and dress for Mass (Has she looked in a full length mirror since the Carter administration? I wouldn't cast the first stone if I were her...)

I nearly argue that because we've chosen to school our children at home or at public schools we have not necessarily chucked our commitments to our faith.

I decide to turn the knife a different way and instead write that just because we have found an Our Lady of Condemnation education to be far inferior to our other choices and therefore must attend RES to make our sacraments, she should be careful not to make assumptions about our commitments to a faith-filled life. I offer that I am a public school educated person with a very strong commitment to my faith, and with very good reasons to attend the Mass I usually attend. And that there is no discernable value to the special Mass. Mass is Mass. There is not a lot of flexibility.

She, it turns out, is very practiced at the oh-no-you-won't answer that comes out sounding like complete agreement.

She very cheerfully responds thanking me for my note and offering that the RES children (spawn of Hell itself) may have a total of three absences before they are flunked for attendance and the two special inconvenient Masses will only add up to two, and so yippee! My daughter will have one left over (to see her through the full school year of exposures to other people's communicable diseases).

I immediately respond that I object to my choosing one Mass over another being counted as an absence and would like to know to whom (and to whose better senses) I can appeal the (hare-brained) decision.

Silence. She has probably gone off the grid to pray for my wretched soul.

I sit back and plot my argument for her enforcer.