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Beware Old Men with Sporting Goods

Travel with my family is never uneventful.  There is always a story to tell, and usually a pretty good story, too.  Living it isn’t so great, but the telling is good.  I am going to have to take a trip soon, to Anaheim, for a synchronized ice skating competition.  I’m remembering last year’s trip to Anaheim, and thinking maybe I should just stay home.  Holy smokes, that one was for the record books!  Read on, and you’ll be glad we are not related (unless you, the reader, are a family member, in which case it’s too late for you).

          I made friends last year with a very nice Japanese lady, whose daughter was skating on the beginning synchro team.  Even though Chizu has lived in the U.S. for many years, her English is still halting, and she struggles sometimes for vocabulary.  Chizu’s family lives in the same city as mine, and we carpool to the ice rink, which is a 30 minute drive on a good day.  She asked me about travel plans to Anaheim, and I told her just Julia and I would be going, not the whole family.  She decided to book the same flight so that we could travel together, since I was the veteran skating mom.  I was renting a car, and I also offered to transport her to the hotel.

          We met at the airport gate around ten in the morning.  I had my Starbucks, a book, and a magazine to pass the time.  I was an old hand at this.

          “I am so nervous,” Chizu told me in her heavy accent, “I check Ayane suitcase many time for skates!”

          I smiled reassuringly, and as I flipped through my magazine, thought back to my crazy morning.  I remembered hurrying to cut new skate guards to fit Julia’s blades.  She had lost so many pairs at the rink that she rarely used them anymore, but they were needed for the competition, where the skaters would have to walk a good way from the locker room to the ice.  My boys had been interrupting me every two minutes, and I was pulling my usual super-mom routine (which has been steadily going downhill), trying to do everything for everybody, all at one time.

          I pictured in my mind Julia’s skate, and dropping it into her suitcase along with the new guards.

          Wait.  I could only picture one skate.  I put the other one in there, too, right?

          We have to pack the skates with our luggage, because they usually won’t let you take them on board, although I hear some security agents are more lax than others.  To be safe, we unload the skate bag into the suitcase for travel.  I was sure I had packed both skates, but of course now I had to worry about that, because it wouldn’t be a day in my life if I didn’t worry about something.

          Just to be sure, I called my husband.  He was returning from a trip to the batting cages with the boys (sheesh, they didn’t waste any time starting their bachelor weekend, did they?).

          “Just check Julia’s skate bag and make sure both skate pockets are empty, okay?  I left the bag in the kitchen.”

          We boarded, and the plane was being pushed back from the ramp when my husband called.  I wasn’t supposed to be using my phone, but I had left it on hoping he would call before we took off.

          “Yeah, it’s here,” he told me calmly.

          “What?!!, “ I cried.  “It’s there?  There’s a skate in the bag?  A skate there at home?”

          “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

          “Oh, crap! Oh my God!  Jerry, you have to get that skate to Anaheim.  You have to find a way to send it down overnight!  I need that skate!”

          “Can’t she just rent a pair?”

           Okay, how long has this guy been a skating dad?  Does he pay attention to anything the females in his household do?  No, you big oaf, you cannot rent a pair!  Skates are fitted precisely to your feet, and it takes weeks to get used to a new pair.  Get with the program!  We’re in full blown panic mode!

          “NO!  NO! No, she has to have her skates, or she can’t compete, and the whole team will be in trouble!  She has to have that skate!”

          By this time, my husband was really annoyed.  Hey, he didn’t expect the ladies to take a trip without somehow involving him, did he?

          “Fine, get off the phone so I can figure out what to do.”

          That was the worst flight of my life.  I cried like a baby almost the whole way, because I just couldn’t believe how stupid I was.  I was so tired, and I worked so hard, and here was the result.  Total meltdown.  Chizu offered me tissue, and kept looking at me with a worried expression.  That poor woman.  Her Japanese upbringing just didn’t teach her anything about overtly emotional Greek-Italian peri-menopausal women.  I can’t even imagine what she was thinking.  Okay, I can, and it’s not pretty.

          As soon as we landed and were rolling toward the gate, I pulled out my phone and called home.

          “Okay, it’s taken care of.  Your dad is on his way with the skate.”

          What?  My dad?  Was he kidding me?  What about Fedex, or UPS, or what about my husband flying down with the skate, or loading the kids in the van and driving it down?

          “Nobody will do it overnight, I tried everybody.  I panicked, okay?  I couldn’t think of anything else.  He’s already in the air.” My husband’s tone was turning nasty.

          “Okay, okay,” I backed up. “Thank you.”

          My poor dad was 76 years old, and walked bent with a cane.  Not that he wasn’t up to the challenge, but making him rush onto a plane for us…well, it just wasn’t right.

          My daughter hadn’t spoken to me since I told her we only had one skate.  Now at 13 years old, she really could have checked for her own gear, but I was the one who had made the mistake, and I couldn’t have felt worse.  Her attitude, however, was making the mom police come out in full force.

          “Wipe that snotty look off your face!  Your poor grandfather is flying your skate down!  You’re old enough to pack your own gear, for heaven’s sake.  Everybody’s doing what they can to fix things.  Stop being such a brat.”

          Julia stomped off like she usually does when she’s ashamed, and walked ahead of us as we all headed toward baggage claim.

          I found our bags, and looked for my daughter.  She wasn’t there.

          “Where’s Julia?” I asked the air in general.

          “I think she went to the bathroom,” one of her skating friends said helpfully.  “Upstairs, before we came down here.”

          Great.  Julia was still by the gates, and we were downstairs by baggage claim.  You can’t go back up once you come down.  Well, you can, but security gets very uptight and takes you away to a locked room where they do a cavity search.  Or something like that.

          I knew my daughter had not been paying any attention to what we were doing or where we were going.  She never pays attention.  She probably had no idea where we were, and I couldn’t reach her.  She didn’t have a cell phone, and pay phones are alien to her generation.  Now what?

          By this time I was hyperventilating.  I mean, come on, was this a hidden camera stunt?  Wasn’t the day bad enough already? Nervously, I crept part way up the stairs.

          “Excuse me”, I called to the guard.  “Excuse me!”

          The guard turned.  “Get back down, you can’t come up here!”

          “Okay, I know,” I said, backing down a step, “but I need help.  My daughter is up there and she doesn’t know where I am.”

          “Get back down the stairs!’

          “Okay, okay, but can you help me? “ Tears sprouted again.   “I’m separated from my daughter,” I said chokingly.

          “Get down!”

          I backed to the bottom of the stairs, and looked imploringly up at the security guard.

          She relented, looking annoyed, and called another guard over for assistance.

          Just then my phone rang.

          “Hello?”

          “You have daughter, Julia?” a heavily accented voice asked.

          “Yes!”

          “Mom?  Mom, where are you?  Why did you just leave me?” Julia’s voice came on the phone.  Apparently she had looked distressed, and a stranger had taken pity and lent her a phone.

          I told her where I was and how to get there, and soon Julia was back with us, no longer glaring, now acting silly with Chizu’s daughter.  Wish I had that kind of rubberized rebound in me.

          Deep breath.

          “Okay,” I said.  “My dad is on the next flight.  I need to get you to the hotel because Ayane has off-ice practice,” I said to my patient traveling companions.  “Then I’ll come back for my dad.”

          “Your father come next flight?” Chizu asked.  “We stay for when he come.”

          “But I’ve made such a mess of things already,” I protested.  “I don’t want Ayane to be in trouble because of me.”

          “We stay, okay?   We stay your father.”  Chizu nodded her head, smiled encouragingly, and reached for the tissue in her handbag just in case I started up again.  I thought she was being nice, but in retrospect, she was probably afraid to get in a car with me until I had that skate and had calmed down!

          So we went and got the girls a snack, and when it was time for my dad’s flight to arrive, we returned to baggage claim.  I saw his flight number come up on the carousel light, and people began coming down the stairs, waiting for the baggage to be off-loaded.  My ordeal would soon be over!  I didn’t see my dad, but I figured he probably was waiting for others to get off first, to make it easier for him.

          The luggage started arriving.  I watched each bag, but never saw my daughter’s skate bag.  Soon there were only a few left, and my dad was nowhere to be seen.  I checked the remaining bags, but none had his name.

          And where was Dad?   Oh my God, please don’t tell me something bad happened while he was trying to bail me out!   Like a traffic accident, or a stroke on board the plane!

          I called his cell phone, but there was no answer.  Panic rose again in me.  Had he even made the flight?

          I tried his cell one more time.  This time he answered.

          “I’m here,” he said.  “I’m in the airport.  I’ve got a little problem, but I’ll be there soon.”

          “Are you alright?” I asked anxiously.

          “I’m fine, I’ll explain later.  It’s kind of funny, actually.  Just stay put.”

          Well, I was relieved he was okay, but I knew my dad.  If he had fallen or had some sort of accident, unless it was life threatening, he was going to make light of it.  I put my head in my hands and silently berated myself once again for my harried, hectic ways.

          We waited, and about 20 minutes later, my dad slowly limped down the stairs, carrying my daughter’s skate bag.

          Well, that was unusual.  It never occurred to me to tell my husband you can’t take skates on board, because he already knew that.  I had no idea during that first panicked call that somebody else would be in charge of the skate.

          “I have the skate!” he said proudly, holding the bag high.  “Sorry it took so long, I was arrested.”

          “You were what?” I exclaimed.

          “I was arrested by the TSA,” Dad explained.  “When we got to the gate, the pilot asked us to remain seated because there was a passenger issue.  Six guys in suits came on board, and asked for Mr. Caldis.  I got up, and they escorted me off the plane.  I was being searched and questioned when you called.”

          No way.  No way!  Arrested?  For what?  For not checking the stupid skate bag? Come on, what was he going to do?  I could picture my dad standing crookedly in the aisle of the plane, all 5’ 6” of him, leaning on his cane and waving my daughter’s skate above his head.

          “Everybody sit still and nobody will get hurt!  I’ve got a skate, damn it, and I’m not afraid to use it!”

          I must have woken up in the Twilight Zone that morning.

          As my dad explained, I learned what really happened:

          He barely made it to the airport on time.  He went through security, they took out the skate, examined both the skate and the bag, then put the skate back and returned the bag to the conveyer.

          My dad’s gate was the farthest it could be from security.  He could walk it fine, but he needed to run if he was going to make his flight, so he paid a skycap twenty bucks to grab a wheelchair and hightail him down to the gate.

          He made it as the flight was boarding the last passengers, and rising from the wheelchair, he saw that the skate bag was not hanging off the back as he had thought.  The skycap told him to get on board, and he would run back and get the bag.  Soon the flight attendant was putting the bag in the overhead storage, and they were on their way.

          Well, apparently a skycap running full speed, grabbing a bag from security, and taking off again full speed is not a usual development for the TSA folks.  They didn’t like that.  They didn’t know which bag that was, and were not sure if they had checked it or not.  So, they made a report of a passenger boarding with a bag that had not gone through security.

          But here’s what I don’t get.  If there was something dangerous in that bag, what good does it do to wait until the plane has reached its destination?  I mean, if the bag had explosives or something, the plane would never have made it to its destination!

          Still, it’s comforting to know we will never be hijacked by an old man with an ice skate.  Blown up by a guy with a bomb in his underwear, maybe, but we’re safe from old men with a single skate in a pink and purple skate bag

          Good to know.

          To continue in style, I got completely lost on the way to the hotel because the freakin’ LA freeway system is so difficult to navigate.  Fortunately, Chizu used to live in Anaheim, and she was able to get us back on track.  Can you believe she not only still talks to me, but even carpools with me?  She’s a strong woman.

          So, I hope you see why I’m a little nervous about this year’s trip, although I think I can guarantee that forgetting a skate isn’t in the cards.  That fiasco could only have happened to my family, and I swear, every word is true.  We’re goofier than that funny cartoon dog, and this is the crazy kind of life we all lead.  This is just one example.  I’ve got a million of ‘em.  Give me time, I’ll write them all down.

Do You Smell Something?

My life stinks.  Literally.  I am assaulted daily by the malodor of my life.  My home emits odiferous breath where there should be none.  You will not sense soothing ocean breezes or cinnamon wafting from my Glade Plug In.  Far from it.  In fact, if you plan to visit, I suggest you bring a clothes pin.

To begin, there is an unholy funk coming from my laundry room.  Dirty laundry by definition should smell dirty.  Our laundry, however, surpasses all expectations.  The first problem is the sheer mass of it.  I have a six section sorter and a hamper in the laundry room, but you’d never know it.  They are completely buried in a mountain of clothes, which spills over and out the door.  Unfortunately, my children have a habit of tossing wet towels anywhere on the pile, which inevitably get buried by more dirty stuff, and  begin to stink.  However, I consider my self fortunate that they at least now know that laundry goes in the laundry room, not on the floor, hanging off the back of chairs, or even, heaven forbid, behind the couch.  I’ll keep working on the towel issue, but I’m keeping the kids, so I guess I own this one for awhile.

The next problem with the laundry room is the cat.  I have a 17 year old male cat who has developed some very unpleasant ways of expressing his dissatisfaction.  He yowls, and he pees.  He pees on laundry.   Clean, dirty, he doesn’t discriminate.  If his litter box is not just so, or he is not happy with the catch of the day, he will pee on the laundry mountain.  If he’s really unhappy, he pees in baskets of clean clothes, which then become peed-on dirty laundry in the laundry room.  

You might be thinking, “Close the door, idiot!”, but I can’t.  The mountain spills out the door, remember?  You should see us pushing and cramming the beast back through the door when we are expecting guests.  The laundry, I mean.  Not the cat.  He’s a pain, but he’s been my friend longer than my husband, and I love him. 

Speaking of the cat, there’s a nasty scent that comes with kitties of all ages, which is the litter box.  We have two kitties, hence twice the volume.  The old guy is showing his age, drinking more, which means peeing more, and his poops have developed a truly pungent aroma that is almost visible in its intensity.  I can tell immediately when I walk in the door if there’s a Boo-Boo poop in the box.  But we’ve discussed that; he’s old, and he’s staying. 

My son, on the other hand, is only 10.  He’s very athletic, and just at that age where his body is starting to produce new things, like BO.  Holy Crap, that kid reeks!  He’s got the kind of BO that snakes out from him in a hostile coil of invisible gas that both clings and spreads at the same time.  After soccer practice, I usually have to open the car windows and run the air conditioner full blast just to get home without suffering brain damage.  I know, I know, deodorant is the key, but try to get that into a 10 year old’s head!  He just doesn’t get it, or care, that if you use deodorant after taking a shower at night, you still need to put it on again in the morning!  And if you used it yesterday morning, it’s not going to tide you over until the weekend!  He’ll figure it out when he starts noticing girls, and realizes they don’t like boy stink.  But in the meantime, he’s my smelly guy, and like the cat, he’s staying.  

So you can see that there really is no quick and easy solution to these problems.  I’m not getting rid of the cats, or the kids, or my husband, whose own particular brand of rankness doesn’t make for good story telling.  I love them all, and so here we are in one big, happy, reeking group hug of rancidness.  Because, like the song says, love stinks.  Yeah, yeah.

The Commode’s Its Abode

I believe we have a poltergeist living in our toilets.  There is no other explanation for the irritating, yet overall harmless happenings associated with using our loo, except coincidence, and everybody knows there is no real coincidence.  After seven years in this home, and endless aggravation from the porcelain, I am forced to come to the conclusion that there is some other life force responsible.

 Oh, I see that skeptic look on your face.  I know what you’re thinking.  “She’s a nutter.”  Maybe so, but as long as you’re still reading, I’ll explain.

At first, we thought we had moved into a house with the worst plumbing imaginable.  The toilets were endlessly clogging and overflowing.  We must have had Roto-Rooter, Rescue Rooter,  Pooter Rooter, and every other rooter out here a million times, and they could never find a reason for the constant blockages.  Well, one time there was a plastic Barney stuck in the toilet, but other than that one episode, they just kept telling us to use less paper. 

So we made some adjustments.  To begin, we do a preliminary test flush, to make sure there is no unseen clog.  Then, when we’ve done our thing, we flush again, before using paper.  With each piece of paper in the water, we must flush.  California is always suffering a drought, and this seems like a terrible waste of water, but what choice is there? 

Fighting back, we bought the toilet that’s supposed to be the mother of all toilets, the Toto.  Supposedly this sucker flushes golf balls without a problem.  Now whatever you might say about any of us being full of you-know-what, we are not full of anything as solid as a golf ball.

But would you believe it?  That mother clogs all the time.  And it’s not in the pipes under the house, it’s the toilet itself! 

I know, you’re not convinced, but there’s more.  Every time I take a doo doo, the phone rings.  No, really!  At first I thought it was just Murphy’s law, but honestly, after seven years of pooping and ringing, I’m at a loss for any other explanation.  It seems my taking a poop makes the phone ring.  I don’t know how our resident mischief maker does it, but it’s really kind of creepy. 

Then there is the electronic scale.  Normally, all other things equal, if you drop a few good ones, you unload at least a pound, wouldn’t you say?  Not here.  I’m not kidding.  In our house, if you let loose and then weigh yourself, you will weigh 3-4 pounds more than you did before going.  Honestly, it’s true, and it happens to all of us, not just me! 

So what else am I to believe?  There’s something rotten in our toilets, and it’s not biological.  Something does not like our solid waste, and it makes no bones about it! 

It’s really unclear why anything, even a mischievous spirit, would want to hang out there, but I don’t believe we are the first to have this experience.  After all, J.K. Rowlings had Moaning Myrtle living in the girls lav in the Harry Potter books, and where do you think she got that idea?  Came up with it all by herself?  Did you know that a quick google showed most cities have a J.K. Plumbing?  Another coincidence?  I think not.  She’s had personal experience! 

I’m not sure how to get rid of a poltergeist in the toilet.  We are probably just going to have to live with it, and I suppose there are worse things that could be wrong with your house.  There are certainly more expensive things.  But I wonder about what it will do to our home’s value, if we ever decide to sell.  Don’t you have to disclose everything that’s wrong with your home when you put it on the market?  How do you tell your realtor that there’s an unearthly trouble maker in your toilet?  

On the other hand, who’s going to sue?  “Your honor, the previous owners knew about the bogey in the toilet.!” 

C’mon, what kind of nutter’d believe that?