No, thank you. NO, thank you. NO, THANK YOU.

In the spirit of Halloween: Did you hear the one about a skeleton who walked into a bar and ordered a drink and a mop?

By far, one of my favorite jokey, non-jokes. Most people don't get it the first time they hear it, so you get to watch the lines in their forehead wrinkle, their eyebrows knit together and the gears in their brain grind. THEN they go "OH." Very rarely does anybody laugh. They just acknowledge that they GET IT.

But, do they really?

I, for one, know I fain understanding sometimes just to get out of a situation. Like the one at Tom Thumb the other night.

I was purchasing a 36-pack of water bottles. I had lifted the bottles off the bottom shelf and carried them to the conveyor belt myself. It wasn't a back-breaking experience and, actually, I needed to work out my arms, so I was glad to carry them*.

Once I got to the head of the line, the kind checker asked if I wanted a cart for the bottles. "No, thank you" was my response.

Then the inquisition began.

"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Thank you."

Enter our handy bagger. Who happened to be deaf, God bless her. She pointed to the cart area and said something I couldn't understand. I smiled, doing my best "I totally get what you just said" look.

It was clear she thought I needed a cart, too. And she wasn't giving up easily.

Me, hoping I was about to respond to the unitelligble statement correctly: "No. Thank you."
Bagger: "Need cart."
Me, waving my arms and hands like I was a line judge at the Super Bowl: "No. That's OK."

Then the bagger stopped an elderly gentleman. A co-worker. "Cart", she commanded. And pointed at me.

I'm sure the confluence of wrinkles on my forehead could have held pennies in it. I just couldn't believe how insistent these people were. What did I look like, a 90-year-old with arthritis and no muscle tone**?

At this point, the gracious thing would have been to accept the cart. But, by golly, it had became a matter of principle. I just wasn't in the mood to deal with GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE and these people needed to back the heck up!

By this time, my handy credit card had posted the $4.99 charge and mutiny was about to start in the line behind me. Who could blame the other line-dwellers? Here I was with one freakin' item and you'd think I was buying an elephant and leaving without peanuts. Or a big shovel.

Deaf bagger person continued to insist I needed a cart as the checker handed me my receipt. I reached to pick up the water bottles, saw the 80-year-old savior, with MY cart jetisoning toward the checkout stand. I did my best peripheral blindness imitation and passed by him.

After I got to the car, I couldn't help but think about how this would have panned out at Walmart. I would have picked up the bottles, drug them to the checkout stand, the checker would have slung them up on the merry-go-round-for-plastic-bags and, if I was lucky, said "Have a nice day." Or grunted goodbye, depending on the hour and the checker.

And, you know the strange thing? I prefer the Walmart experience. Because I really hate to try to reason with strangers or explain my point-of-view to people I don't know. That's hard enough with people I know intimately.

So, Tom Thumb. Thanks for the water. Best of luck in the grocery wars. When I can't find something I need at Walmart, I'll be back.

But I damn sure won't be buying anything heavy. Or bulky.

Unless I'm in the mood to accept that forsaken cart.




*Over the Summer I attempted to pull myself out of the pool by the arms, without assistance from the legs. I found myself flopping back into the pool like an epileptic fish. Let's just say, when you are laughing at your own lack of strength, it's not a good idea to try this stunt a second time. Best just to use the ladder.

**Don't answer that.

Now hiring...

Pool boys are supposed to be cute, charming, and accommodating. They are supposed to serve you drinks on command. Drinks with little pink umbrellas in them. If you believe anything you watch on TV, they "service" more than the pool.

Our Cabana boy is impossibly broken. Beyond repair. Ready for the dump. And I'm left to wonder: could it possibly be because we are CHEAP?

Back when we acquired the new house, we hired the least expensive, highly recommended company that promised "chemicals only" service on a weekly basis. That meant all the "heavy" work--cleaning, emptying the strainer basket, keeping the filters up--was OURS.

Of course, we'd never owned a pool before then, so we figured, being CHEAP, that we could do the bulk of the work and leave the chemicals to the pros.

Then our "pro" arrived.

He fit the poolside macho profile: young, tan, cute, and buff. He didn't arrive with drinks, but I figured that was a $20 a week premium I wasn't ever going to be willing to pay anyway. So he got a pass to enter our backyard without tequila and paper umbrellas. Frankly, if he had pulled out a condom I would have laughed in his face*.

When our chemical-dumping dude opened his mouth, we knew trouble had a new last name--and it wasn't N-O-W-E-L-L.

This fit young thing thought he should inform us our gate was locked. And that we were his last stop of the day. And that he was tired**. And demanded we unlock the East gate to save him 50 feet of walking and hauling his supplies.

Mike informed Mr. Man that the East gate was, indeed, going to be locked EVERY TIME he showed up because it was broken and, when unlocked, provided an escape for the fab-two***. And that it wouldn't be unlocked because we were knee-deep in remodeling inside the house and didn't have time to deal with a gate that was perfectly good as long as it was locked****. Besides, Mike reasoned, the West gate was totally accessible, 24/7. Cabana boy left downtrodden.

Fast forward a week and Studly returns. Now, I'm in the kitchen, completely within view of the the dude, so he brings his sad plea to me. Little did he know that I had already decided to plead complete ignorance on the issue and leave it to the He-Man in my life to duke it out.

He reasoned that the gate only needed a new spring, as best he could tell, and that he'd be glad to provide the BOLT CUTTERS to take the current lock off. All we'd have to do was buy a new spring and a new lock and then install the new spring. Easy-peasy-fresh-and-squeezy.

'Cept, according to plan, I wasn't playing along, and referred him to The Mister. He exited the backyard more downtrodden than the first time.

The following week he arrived to find our "save-your-children-from-drowning" pool net in its rightful place atop the pool. Truly not mechanically inclined, he had no idea what to do to move the net. So he left. Without dumping chemicals in the pool.

A bit later our more mature, paunchy-bellied, semi-bald, non-complaining pool boy showed up. Not only did he service the pool through the WEST gate and know exactly what to do with the net, but he didn't try to tell us when and how to fix the other gate. He didn't even knock on the door.

It appears that customer service has been shot about four dozen times, is bleeding profusely, and has arrived at the ER, but it isn't YET dead.

In the meantime, however, I'm still on the prowl for a non-condom-carrying cabana boy who will serve drinks and pour chemicals, all with a smile and a very low monthly fee.



*As IF! I'm SO TOTALLY HAPPILY MARRIED, stud-boy.

**Lost me there, boyfriend. I get whiny all day from the under ten-set. Sure ain't taking it from a "grown" adult.

***Tex and Doug, the Houdinis of the dog world.

****In other words, we're too cheap to fix it right now.

School Days, School Days

We are sub-seven days away from school starting up for the boys of the Nowell house and, as far as I can tell, everyone is ready for the routine of Fall to kick in.

Except me. I'm lamenting the fact that school ushers in early mornings. With early mornings come earlier bedtimes and with earlier bedtimes, I have to be an adult again.

WHINE.

Why, you ask, would I have to become an adult AGAIN? Did I lose my status somewhere along the way? Why, YES, I think I did.

In retrospect, I've been a "pseudo-adult" all Summer long. Case in point:

1. I usually wake when the kids come padding into the room, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, to see if I'll cave in and let them watch cartoons "just once"*. I can USUALLY be relied upon to actually get OUT of bed within a half hour of them entering the room.

2. If the kids return to try their cunning negotiation skills on me again, I firmly refuse their TV request and delay breakfast for another 15 minutes because, in my mind, it's Summer and we shouldn't be on such a rigid schedule**.

3. On more than one occasion, the doorbell has gotten me out of bed, as some contractor has shown up sub-9am, sending me into a dressing frenzy that looks like a cross between the Tazmanian Devil and a model backstage at a designer runway show***.

4. Breakfast has recently slipped into the uncomfortable time slot of brunch, during days that DON'T start with "S"****.

5. Cleaning? I have but one, worn out excuse: every day, new people enter this house to work on some sort of renovation. They always produce dust, dirt, or general odors. No sane person would clean in this environment.

6. I resolved to try to save the environment this year and, accordingly, am only using my "real" everyday china. Therefore, there are always dirty dishes in this house. Why try to keep up with a never-ending proposition?

7. Lunch? Well, let's just say, it's on the fly and occurs sometime before dinner. On more than one occasion, it has resembled a heavy snack on an airplane.

8. Afternoons. Can you say "catch-up" time? Budget work, blogging, laundry, blogging, driving kids to destinations, blogging*****. Need I say more?

9. Our house now has cocktail hour by the pool. Since the kids like to swim almost every afternoon, I sacrifice and enjoy a tasty beverage, poolside, while playing fully-clothed lifeguard******. Can someone help me get the song "Cocomo" out of my mind? HA, ha. Now it's in yours, too.

10. Laundry. Oh My Jeepers. I used to complain because it took so long. Now, it finishes too FAST! I can't keep up with all the laundry in the baskets that is clean. If this is supposed to be efficiency, I'm a monkey's Aunt.

10. Dinner? Dinner-schminner. It's been on the table before dark-thirty every single night since school let out****. And, it's been balanced, thank you very much; I've made sure each munchkin knows how to carry his plate with BOTH hands.

11. Bedtime. Well, let's just say that, if the kids make it to a horitzontal position before 8:30pm, Mike and I are doing the happy dance. We, on the other hand, are asleep in front of the TV by 9:15pm and actually get up to brush our teeth between midnight and 3 a.m. on a regular basis.

What has gotten into us? We used to have sticks up our posteriors. Did they break? Have the fair Nowells gone mad?

I'm not sure. THAT'S for sure. I hope not; I hate surgical procedures. NO--I don't THINK so.

What I do think is a feeling of being "home" settled into our bones once Summer actually began. The house was no longer so foreign; it was ours. Even though it wasn't perfect or perfectly finished, it finally wasn't in the way of our "routine". So, we let down our guard and sunk into the process of letting go of our lives on Heathermore Drive and took on this new life on Briar Cove.

And, we love it. For the first time, in a long time, we've had lazy afternoons, unscheduled periods of rest, and the ability to say "yes" at the last minute. It has felt really good.

But, just around the corner, the routine machine is kicking into high gear. I hope it doesn't suck me into it's grips quite as heavily as it has in years past. We've worked on keeping our after-school activities to a bare minimum and I hope this will add sanity to our lives this Fall.

Now, if I can just figure where to hire a cabana boy and how to have cocktail hour, poolside, year round, MY school days will be PERFECT.



*Truth is, I'd probably agree to letting them shave my head bald if they'd let me sleep ten more minutes. Let's just keep that OUR little secret, though.

**Maybe, just maybe, my prayers will be answered and someone will slip in the front door with a breakfast buffet and I'll be spared morning kitchen duty.

***HUGE emphasis on the Tazmanian Devil in this sentence. Need I admit: uncombed hair and unbrushed teeth. I really should pay these guys a premium.

****This is SO uncharacteristic of me I can't even describe it. I've always been the three square meals and a bag of Oreos in between kind of girl. BRUNCH is NOT part of that equation.

*****I think someone in this house might lose his mind if this doesn't become a PAYING gig. It's somewhat of an obsession.

******And, in case you don't think a clothed lifeguard can save a life, I dove in earlier in the Summer to save a swimmer who was precariously slipping under water well above his head. Scared the living crud out of everyone in the pool, including the potential drowning victim.

****Though I BARELY made it one particularly fine July evening when the margaritas were flowing.....

Funny sayings 101

When you have kids, you hear funny sayings all day long. Problem is, they leave your brain at warp speed. So, I've decided to blog them as a way of "curing" my ever decreasing memory capacity.

Just today we were in the pool*. Correction: little one is in the pool and I am working on the computer beside it. Little one is swimming with "sharks". I kid you not. Throwing stuffed animals at the deep end, claiming they are killing the man-eaters. Poor little stuffed dogs.

Anyhoo, I'm listening to the story he is weaving while talking with a friend who is waiting for a plane to Boston. Intermittent to our telephone conversation are the pleas "Don't put Doug in the pool"** and "NO! Don't throw the chair in there."***
She, of the other end of the telephone, is cracking up and states conversations with me are always punctuated by the funniest statements yelled at my kids.

Yes, this is my life...a series of funny comments screamed to a short crowd of would-be men.

Mid-adult conversation, he, of the wet-set, exits the pool, after just about drowning the dog.

I ask "Did you kill all the sharks?"
His response? "No."
Logically, I retort, "Then get another animal to throw the shark's way and get back in the pool!"
Him: "I can't do that, he'll SHARK me."

Genius, sheer, genius. Anybody who has ever see "Jaws" knows EXACTLY what that was intended to convey***. I'm mentally lining up the SAT score that comes with such brilliance.

Then I check the pool and confirm that there IS a huge Great White in the deep end. In agreement, we grab a towel, and he dries off for the evening. Thus ended swimming for the afternoon.

Score for the day? Pool Sharks: one. Boy and stuffed animals: zero.



*One of my favorite poolside signs ever: "OOL. Notice there is no P in it." A crack-up every time.

**Lucky dog to have me as his protection. Only his back legs got wet. This time.

***It was completely spared.

****In case you were too afraid to watch "Jaws", he meant KILL. Now, get up the nerve and go rent it so you can be deathly afraid of large bodies of water like the rest of us in the Americas.