Confessions – Page 21 – The UnderToad

Things To Do

Despite the fact that Labor Day was two weekends ago and all the public pools are closed, ladies in North Carolina are still wearing white and the weather is still set to summer. Today in the car Eliott asked, “Mommy, when does school get over?” I’m thinking, kid, today was your third day, what’s wrong with you? In reality, she was trying to get a mental grasp on the meaning of seasons.

From different half-hearted Mommy answers to any number of her one billion questions, she seems to understand that school starts in the Fall, that Fall means the leaves fall from the trees, and that she should be able to wear certain clothes that she’s been waiting to wear. What she doesn’t understand is how the trees still haven’t gotten the message to drop their leaves, nor why it is still “too hot for tights today.”

I’ve given up on the long answer to things, as I’ve discovered my children will pretty much decide to understand anything they’ve made up their mind to be interested in, and, well, they take a lot more at face value than most give them credit for. As a result, Eliott has now added “global warming” to her vocabulary list and has resigned herself to waiting until Mommy says it’s okay to wear tights to school.

Yesterday, when her teacher informed me that she had “forgotten to put on panties” under her dress, I had to bite my tongue from admitting that this probably wasn’t an accident. For the entire drive home, Eliott kept asking, “But why do I have to wear underwear? It’s hot outside. I want to be liberating. I like no underwear. It feels good. Why do we have to wear underwear, Mommy?” At a loss, I finally just told her, “Because Eve ate the apple, and you know what, underwear is the least of your worries.”

I too seem to be a little out of sorts with the delay in seasonal change, despite the change in our schedules. I can’t seem to get a grasp on my things to do list nor how to make the best use of my pre-school mornings. Though I complained about our summer schedule (or lack there of), summer has lasted so long that my body refuses to get into the mode of Fall.

I was recently recruited by a former colleague to assist in a Bible curriculum development project for Christian Schools International. Basically, we’re updating the textbook and teacher manual for a new edition and must be finished by December 15th. (Correction: she is updating the text; I am acting as a sounding board, idea machine, and big picture editor.) The task is by no means daunting, and I certainly have more than enough time to devote ten hours of my week to actual paid work, but somehow, every time I sit down at my computer to do what I normally do very well, I find myself immediately plagued by a mental list of hundreds of other things I need to do. I keep adding to my ever growing list of books to read, and requesting them at the library. As emails pour in announcing my holds are ready for pick up, I’m wondering when I’m going to have time to sit down and pleasure read.

I need to find a dentist and make appointments for the entire family.

I need to find myself a new doctor, and have my annual physical.

I need to go get my license renewed which expired on my birthday, a month ago.

I pulled about 4 years worth of children’s clothes from Eliott’s closet which need to be organized, priced, and tagged for a consignment sale next week.

I’m going to two weddings in the next month, one of which I have actual wedding party duties to attend to. I was chosen to host a house party for the same weekend as that wedding and am wondering exactly where I can fit Johnsonville Italian Sausage into the schedule.

So here I sit, rereading my Suburban Mom List of Negligibly Important Things To Do, and because it is only 3:30 and dinner is already planned, I think I’m actually just going to go take a nap. Why? Because it is close to 90 degrees outside, and my body can’t help but believe it is still summer time.

Carter, Confessions

How to Get Crayon out of Carpet

Was having a bit of trouble yesterday with the synchronization of my iPhone with some music on iTunes. (User friendly, indeed.) Needless to say, it had me a bit worked up, and as a result, I was upstairs, mostly ignoring the girls while they terrorized the downstairs. Before I had a chance to worry about what they could possibly be getting into without my noticing, Carter came up to me repeating, “I clean it–up. I clean-it—up, Mommy. I clean-it, up.”

Naturally, I assume she means the toys I had instructed both her and her sister to pick up so we could go to the gym (little did they know they would really have closer to 45 minutes to do this than the originally dictated 5). When I finally acknowledged her by saying, “Yes, Carter, yes, I hear you. You cleaned up. Good girl.” I looked down to see that she had remnants of pink and blue crayon stuck in her front teeth. “And you’ve been eating crayons again. Awesome.”

At about that exact moment I hear Eliott yelling from downstairs, “Mommy! Carter colored on the stairs! Well. Not all the stairs. Just one stair. Just one. The first one.” (How exact. Thank God for Eliott.) “Right on the carpet.”

At this announcement, Carter’s eye begin to show tinges of fear. I finally extricate myself from the frustration that is –what I thought– the simple act of putting some Lady Gaga on my iPhone to work out to, and go down to survey the damage.

There are about three spots ranging in diameter from 1-3 inches of blue and pink crayon on the first light beige carpeted stair. (I silently curse my mother for the Disney Princess glitter non-washable $1 crayons from JoAnn’s. And I curse JoAnn’s again for having them. And well, just for being JoAnn’s. Because we hate JoAnn’s.) As soon as I see it, Carter plants herself on the floor (protecting her bottom) and begins almost whimpering, eyes like a frightened doe, “I clean-it, up, Mommy. See? See? I clean-it, up.” Feeling the spots, I notice they are in fact, wet.

A little too confused to be immediately angry I ask, “How, Carter? Show me how you cleaned this up.”

She immediately stands up, puts her face to the carpet, and starts licking it.

Dear God.

My mind immediately flashes back to Fitzhugh, our family dog in Kansas whom we believed to have been abused by a former owner demonstrated in the way he immediately cleaned up after himself by eating his own poop.

What have I done?

I had to pause for a moment, just to hold her, and tell her it was okay and she was very responsible to try to clean it up all by herself, but next time, just come tell Mommy. Of course I honed in on the fear and really drove home the point that crayons do not belong on the carpet or anywhere else but at the table on paper.

When I got out the carpet spray and actually cleaned it up, she thanked me. Profusely. And rubbed my arm in support. I feel fairly confident the lesson was learned. She did repeat at least three times throughout the course of the day, “No crayons on the stairs. No no. Crayons (indistinguishable) table.” So at least there’s that.

Carter, Confessions, Eliott

A Lesson in Perspective*

I suppose I could preface this post with some sort of artistic commentary defining the brilliance of my 4-year-old. Unfortunately, I know very little about art.

In the way of introduction, all I really need to say is, keep in mind that what follows is an untouched, unedited, untitled, but certainly not unloved, gallery of pictures, captured by Eliott (and sometimes Carter) and downloaded directly from this:

*If The Blair Witch Project made you a little bit sick, consider yourself warned.

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Confessions

My Super Power

I finally figured out how to add birthdays to the Google calendar on my iPhone. (You have to add it as ‘extra’ info to individuals in your contacts list, FYI.) Whenever I’m outside with the kids, I need a mind numbing activity to make my otherwise malaise afternoons feel more productive, you know? So I went through my entire contacts list and added as many birthdays as I could remember. Don’t quote me on this as a hard and fast fact, but I’d like to report that of all my friendships, pre-marriage and definitely pre-babies, I could remember nearly every single birthday. I could probably recall about half of those who were added to my already-full-of-useless-information, post-baby brain. It dawned on me, about three-quarters of the way through this process, that if I can actually remember birthdates, why add them to my calendar? I don’t know. It felt productive.

For this reason (among so many others), I hate Facebook. By publishing and announcing in advance that one of my friends has an upcoming birthday, my “Look, I remembered your birthday,” has completely lost its value. One of the best things about birthday wishes is the surprise of who actually remembers and takes the time to announce it. And the thing is, it isn’t that I expect people to remember my birthday just because I can remember theirs. I actually just love being being that one person who remembers everyone’s birthdays.

I used to be the same way with phone numbers. I owned my first cell phone at the age of 22, and even then, it was on short-term no-contract* basis. I never even took the time to create or update contacts because I could remember everyone’s phone number faster than I could scroll through the list.

Today, though I have shared it, written it on a form, or typed it on a computer at least fifty times, every time I have to give John’s business phone number, I have to look it up. I know my father’s social security number, still, by heart, but I don’t even know what John’s ends with. Sounds crazy, but these are the kinds of numbers stay-at-home moms have to recall at important events like Pre-School registration and annual physicals. Truth be told, though she was born on her due date (the one date I had engrained in my mind for exactly 40 weeks), I still have to think about it when someone asks me Eliott’s birthday. February 8, 2007. (It’s so much easier to just write 2/7/2007 that I my mind has often mistaken this as the day she was born.

I haven’t completely lost my knack for numbers, however. I’ve simply replaced my memory for dates and phone numbers with a memory for prices. I’ve also become scarily adept at mental math, especially where percentages are concerned. I seriously need to be a contestant on The Price is Right.

*A friend from college was moving to an area that didn’t have Cingular coverage and still had four months left on his plan. This was obviously before the times of free cancellation if you move out of our coverage zone (or maybe we were all just too naive at the time to demand this). I kept the phone for about 9 months, then decided it wasn’t worth the $40 a month while I was working at Eckerd with no time nor reception for cell-phones. I didn’t sign my first real cell phone contract until I was 25, when I had to borrow the phone of a stranger after totaling a rental mini-van on the highway on my way to work. The rental was the result of a different not-my-fault fender bender with the one car I shared with John. 1st year of marriage: 1 car, 1 phone, no TV, no microwave, no kitchen table. And you call this America!?

Confessions, Eliott

Take a Number

People.

Old people? Crafty people? Or just people who work at JoAnn’s Fabrics?

I had a moment of creativity recently and decided to put my 8th grade home-ec skills to the test and make Eliott an apron which she can wear while painting or coloring with markers. It has a little pocket to hold things, and when unworn, ties up in to a neat little carrying case. I’m calling it an “Art Apron” and seriously considering opening my own little Etsy page (I know nothing about how this works so I probably didn’t even say that right) and selling these bad boys for $20 a piece. Seriously.

Anyway, I had one of my rare good-Mommy moments, and actually took Eliott with me to JoAnn’s to pick out her fabric. It was exactly as fun and exciting as you can imagine it would be for a 4 year old, and for once, I’m not being sarcastic at all when I say that. Anyway, the minute we parked, dark clouds rolled in and I realized we probably needed to kill at least 30 but maybe 45 minutes inside because I did not have an umbrella.

We were two of perhaps nine people in the entire store.

After fiddling through all of the random treasures on the clearance rack for far too long, oogle-eying the crayola section twice, and touching every single bolt of pink fabric that existed, the brief thunderstorm finally seemed to be letting up. Eliott settled on two surprisingly complimentary patterns and we were ready to go. Though this may come as a bit of a shock, I actually know my way around a fabric store and I’m surprisingly comfortable with the whole measuring and cutting before buying part. But I seriously wish I had been with someone other than Eliott to witness to the final order of events.

We approach the cutting table where one older scissor-wielding-woman is helping no one, but tidying up her space and talking to a younger, male associate (who, from his conversation and body language, seems to be as excited about the sale on some Cinderella blue fringe as Eliott would be). I approach the table and make eye contact with the woman, holding my two bolts of fabric, and start to say, “I probably only need half a yard…” when she interrupts me with, “Just a minute, ma’am. Did you take a number?” She taps the little red box with the number strips poking out the front, possibly for the purpose of demonstration.

My face clearly reads, “Is this a joke? I’m the only one here. Or, is there some line I’m somehow missing, made up of one of the other eight people in this store right now?” So of course I laugh a little. When her eyes go from slightly annoyed to straight stern, I pull my number and take exactly two steps back. She then informs me that if I have any other shopping to do (“Maybe you need some notions?”) I could take care of that over on aisle 14.

Clearly she’s unaware that my 4-year-old and I have already taken a mental inventory of the entire store.

“Nope.” I say, trying not to smirk because I feel like a 7th grader again. “Just need the fabric. I’ll wait.”

At this point, Eliott declares somewhat emphatically and with certainly no concern for volume control, “What are we waiting for Mommy? There’s no one here.”

“Excellent question, Eliott-my-four-year-old,” I comment to no one in particular.

I’m holding number 27.

Number 26 is lit up in red dots on the screen over the cutting table. The woman puts her scissors in her adult-sized Art Apron pocket (I knew there was a market for these things), walks around the small counter in the center of the cutting area, and the number clicks to 27.

“27?” She says a little too loudly, and actually looks around curiously. Her eyes slowly pan back to me (who hasn’t moved), raises her eyebrows and says, “Is that you?”

I swear to you I had to bite my tongue to keep from squinting at my number strip and saying, “Nope. Not me,” and intently looking around with her for the other number 27 in line.

: $20 Limited Edition

Confessions

First World Problems

As a general –but by no means written– rule, I try to avoid overly journalistic blog posts. As of recently, several people have commented along the lines of, “You blog. Awesome. Is it kind of like writing an online journal? I just think I’d feel weird letting the entire world read my diary, you know?” Of course I’m thinking, “Actually, no, that has always been my secret dream. To die, and have all of my old journals published and devoured by the mass market.” But maybe that’s just me. I don’t really blog in the same way that I journal or no one would read my blog. Meanwhile, I’m simultaneously aware that even my worst journal entry has a pretty high chance of being more entertaining than the average human’s best entry. Again, just me?

The truth is, most of my journals are actually pretty boring. I’m a lot more introspective than I let on (both in this blog and in my daily face-to-face conversations), and when I journal, I tend to be really wordy and emotional. (This surprises no one, I’m sure.) So forgive me, if this post isn’t written with my usual wit and whimsy. I actually worked out at the gym today (and sweated a little) and now I’ve just settled down with a plate of baked brie and something akin to a walker’s high in my veins.

I’m feeling a little introspective.

My neighbor and I sit at little outdoor bistro table in the “breezeway” between our houses almost every afternoon, watching not only our own children, but the children of at least three other families while they ~~terrorize~~ play with each other in the cul-de-sac . On many occasions, one of us (usually me) has just woken up from a nap. I’ve never really told her this, but I really love this afternoon ritual which has developed slowly over the past 5 or 6 months.

Often we spend the time complaining about our 1st world problems, which have recently included “The problems with crappy dental insurance,” “You paid how much to have a baby last year?” and “I didn’t get the 20% discount on my brie last night but it would probably cost $1.60 in gas to take it back and correct it, so whatever.”

I’ve been struggling with disappointment, discontentment, and lack of personal and social satisfaction lately, and I’ve been embarrassed to admit it.

Falling asleep last night I was stricken with The Undertoad (which turned out to simply be a final surge of PMS) and what was left of the rational side of my brain was scolding the other 90% with, “Will you just get over yourself already?”

There are entire groups of people who must go all the way to a 3rd world country to have their life-perspective turned upside down in order to be changed. Without signing up for a mission trip, I’ve decided what I need today is to count my blessings.

So I’m going to go do that right now.

Confessions, Eliott

Verklempt

I sort of hate watching movies with John.

I have a little problem with my emotional involvement in movies. It does not matter how dumb the story, how poorly made the movie, or even how bad the acting. I cannot remember the last movie that didn’t bring me to tears. In my life. Movies always make me cry. (There was likely at least one scene in “Something About Mary” and “Meet the Parents” that even got me watery, that’s how bad this problem is.) And here’s the thing. For the most part, I don’t mind it. I actually enjoy getting emotional over a movie. I don’t even care when it is a completely feigned emotion brought on by rainy first kiss scenes and heightened with teenage love music.

Obviously, when watching movies in groups, I prefer to be ignored, but I can handle the occasional snicker. I can usually even block it out when someone taunts me with, “Wait a minute? Are you crying? This is making you cry?” Now that I’m married, I don’t go to the movie theater much anymore, and since having children, I’m not watching movies with a lot of groups anymore. It seems like my secret would be safe in the comfort of my own living room. But does my own husband adhere to either of these unspoken social graces for me? When I get to the scene (on my one-hundred-and-tenth viewing) in The Little Mermaid, when she hugs King Triton on her wedding day and whispers, “I love you, Daddy,” does he laugh at me or just pretend not to notice?

No he does not.

Instead, he makes weird little affirming coos and exclamations of how cute I am. It is worse than being made fun of. On a normal movie night, with lights dimmed or not, it usually starts with a few sideways glances, then progresses to full head turns. A little smile (not even a smirk, but more like that endearing little smile a person gets when reading an unexpected love note) creeks into the corners of his mouth, and suddenly, I feel myself start to sweat. “Don’t ruin this for me,” I’m willing him through my glands, “And stop looking at me. Just let me have this moment to myself.” His receptors never get the message. If the mood isn’t completely lost simply through the knowledge that he’s gazing at me with the same affection given to Dalmatian puppies at PetSmart, he never fails to seal the deal with this: “Ohhh, honey. You’re crying? That is so cute.”

“Nope. Not crying. Just blowing my nose on my upper lip. For fun. It sort of tickles and I’m trying to see how long I can stand not to wipe it off. Just a little exercise in self-control, thought I’d take a moment to work on it, considering my current runny nose, and everything.”

This afternoon I watched Tangled with Eliott. Despite the fact that the 90 minute animated film –with a main character whose eyes are literally as large as lemons– was interrupted once by neighborhood kids at the door (and joining them for 30 minutes to ride bikes) and again by dinner preparation, it still managed to make me cry. But then the most wonderful thing happened. Eliott started crying too. And not crying about something else, or because she was scared, or angry, or bored. She was whimpering and oozing a real emotional connection to the characters on the screen.

And I did exactly what John does to me. I sort of hated myself for it, but I just couldn’t help it. It was the cutest thing, um, ever. She crawled into my lap and we cuddled through the lantern release, the old lady stabbing the hot guy, the dramatic hair cutting, and the tear that saves his life (which Eliott clearly didn’t understand, evidenced by her question, “Is she sad because she lost all her hair?”).

The emotional moment was short lived. A little later she came outside and we had this conversation:

Yeah, but how come he chopped all her hair off?

Well, her hair was magical and people were going to try to take her to steal the magic so he did it to save her life.

And he died?

Well. Yes.

So how did her tears make him come alive again?

Uh… Because he’s her husband. And she loved him so much that when she cried, he came back to life.

Oh. One day, my husband’s going to die.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. My husband’s going to die, and do you know how I’m going to save his life, Mommy?

(Would I ever like to know, Eliott.)

I’m going to take him to the doctor. Yeah. And he’ll be fine.

We may be emotional, but do not mistake that for stupid. No. Definitely no stupid here.

Confessions

Just One More Reason to Hate AT&T

I know it has been done before. In fact, I believe it has been written about and actually published and then endorsed by Clark Howard. But today it is my turn to complain on a strictly personal (and mostly economically, professionally, or otherwise academically uninformed) level. As if being the biggest asshole in the name of customer service wasn’t enough, today I have discovered yet another reason to add to my growing list of reasons to hate AT&T.

Reasons I Hate You, AT&T

You seem to hire predominantly incompetent and, generally speaking, rude people. I can actually handle rude. I can often handle incompetent. It is the two-for-one that gets me. You cannot be both stupid and mean at the same time. Pick one. Hell, be both, just consider rotating days.
Example: MWF = idiot days. TRS = asshole days.

When we signed up for $14.99/month Internet but no cable you charged us something like $52 for what was loosely labeled “start-up fees.” What this covered was the sending of a representative out to the house to check out our “DSL hookup capabilities.” I’m fairly certain the only thing he checked out that day was noting the fact that an actual house existed at the address provided. You then charged us the start-up fee for the first three months. (See complaint #1 for how those phone calls went.)

Dropped call percentage rate. No details necessary. Your entire wireless customer base would back me on this one.

Coverage area. I cannot understand how my phone seems to work with full bars in the gravel parking lot at church, but round the corner and hit some pavement and blammo, down to a half a bar if I’m lucky. There are no trees. The building is only one story tall. It’s like you’ve purposefully planted little AT&T black holes around the globe to secretly suck the soul from my cell phone at the exact moment I was considering complimenting you.

The fact that I have to locate and click “View Bill” on three different pages for a total of three times before I’m actually able to view my bill online, and then, I have to expand each individual charge area to read exactly why I have a new $0.86 charge this month that wasn’t there last month. Which leads me to today’s addition of…

Random charges which fluctuate monthly without warning nor explanation. Today I discovered the $3.74 Federal Universal Service Charge. *Aside: A little Google search taught me that this is a government mandated tax, basically, for the subsidizing of telecommunication fees to schools and libraries, and provision of affordable telecommunication for low income customers. In short, I have come to believe that you are a socialist, AT&T. (It could be noted here that the likelihood of your coverage area actually extending to within the walls of any public school on the planet is wishful thinking, at best. I’m also wondering why I’m not on the receiving end of such provisions.) You are also the only company actually charging customers a separate fee for this tax rather than simply building it in to the monthly service fee. This is like offering a salad as part of a meal then arbitrarily charging for croutons. And then changing the price of each crouton and varying the amount on the salad every month. Meanwhile, brother next to me is eating all the free croutons he can stomach and I’m apparently paying for it. All I’m saying is, not only will I pass on the croutons today, but I’d also prefer that I’m not hosting free-premium-salad-fixins-fest for a bunch of people who would be just as happy with saltines. Am I clear?

Rant for the day, over. Unfortunately, I can’t even speak personally to the upwards of three hours a week, four months in a row, wasted on the phone with AT&T over problems with our Internet bills. I automatically sic my professional bully on that job and once again thank my lucky stars that I married a man with the intestinal fortitude to handle it and the sadistic-sixth-bully sense to actually enjoy it once in a while.

Tomorrow, back to our regularly scheduled lighthearted posts, this time including reindeer.

Confessions

Big Plans for 30

Anyone who knew me in college knew that every Monday night at 8 o’clock central time, I was at someone’s house with a TV, eating their food and watching Ally McBeal. I remember the episode where Ally turns 30. The entire thing is mostly about gray hair, wrinkles, and her plight over getting old. Despite the fact that she has a fabulous career, a more fabulous apartment, a group of cool (enough) friends, and a nightly meet-up at a bar that only television could create, she is unhappy about turning 30. Why?

Because she’s single.

And she has no children.

At 18, 19, and 20, when my view of the world was a delicate balance between the truths of Ally McBeal and Baptist Youth/College Ministry, I considered myself pretty open-minded about that little phenomena known as the biological clock. I have to admit, the security that comes from accomplishing all of my most major life goals before the age of 30 is something that I never planned for and that I certainly take for granted. It probably helps that many of my close friends will be turning 40 before I’m 35. (Some already have.) I have mostly always felt like the baby of my peer group, and though I’m not complaining about that, I cannot express how excited I am to be done with my twenties.

It is probably in my favor that most people who do not know me very well generally assume I am already well into my thirties. This is because I adhere to the belief that the twenty-something decade is, for all intents and purposes, junior high #2. It is exactly as awkwardly transitional. And with a psuedo- sense of comparative inward security raging, most people in their 20’s are exactly as idiotic as they were during puberty. Unfortunately, the consequences are arguably more serious for what could basically be considered the same types of mistakes. As a result, non-twenty-somethings look at twenty-somethings with the same sort of half-pity, half-disdain as the entire world looks at middle school students.

With that in mind, and without going into gruesome detail of all of the mistakes I made in the last 10 years, I do have a few goals for the next 10 years:

Avoid totaling another mini-van.
If I find myself in a principal’s office as a result of…
– a “poor work or performance attitude” bordering on disrespect and “negatively affecting general morale”
– a broken nose resulting from a punch in the face
– a misconstrued Ellen DeGeneres comment
– several misconstrued comments resulting from a brief disruption of security on a well-known social media site
…make sure the meeting concerns one of my children and not myself.
Know when I’ve outgrown something, accept it, and move on (to include cars, houses, clothes, and possibly relationships).
Learn how to ride a unicycle.

On the positive side, looking at my biggest successes of the last 10 years, I might remind the future-me to consider the following:

More fully love and appreciate John. Consider allowing him to do all of the talking on my behalf at extended family functions.
Spawn more offspring.
Go back to school and/or teaching one day.
Learn how to ride a unicycle.

I’m not sure what Hallmark’s motto for 30 is, but I assume it has something to do with a hill. In running and biking, I always dread hills, tell everyone I hate them, and attempt to avoid them. Truthfully, I am really good at them.

♥HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY, CLAIRE, WITH LOVE FROM YOUR PRODUCERS AND EDITORS.♥

Confessions

Nevermind, Tina Fey

When I was teaching, I used to give a true/false quiz in the very first minute of class, all about myself. Besides the sadistic thrill of telling my honors classes it would “definitely count” (and never smiling) it was an easy way to get new classes seated and quiet, and then force them learn all about the most important thing in the room. I don’t actually remember what a typical score on this 10 question quiz looked like, most teenagers are exactly as dumb as they look when it comes to thinking practically or making inferences on an adult level. But I do remember one question that nearly always threw them:

True | False: Mrs. Wait enjoys staying up late at night reading books.

Of course they all assume that because I teach English I must love to read. (Fact.) And many of them who knew me or knew of me had heard for a long time that I did not own a TV. (Fact, for my first 2 years of teaching.) So naturally, most assumed that this meant I was up till the wee hours indulging my brain in the classics. (Opinion.)

The truth is, I’ve never been one who could read in bed (or really even on a couch for that matter, no matter what time of day it is, unless it is the couch in Starbucks, et. al.) and I’ve also never been one to sit down and read an entire book in one sitting.* I do like reading. And if I had my way, I would read a lot more, but as it is, perfect conditions have not presented themselves with regularity since I was in college. When I was teaching, Fridays were mandatory 45-minutes-of-silent-reading-in-my-classroom days, which allowed to me read about 7 books a semester (imagine, silent reading three times a day!), and when I commuted 30 minutes one way to work, I read several audiobooks in the car.

So despite my current lack of cable TV and the fact that I can basically be home, all day, if I want, the only time I really read anymore is at the gym. Yes, truthfully, I enjoy the couches in the lobby (and have been since my Gold’s Gym coffee and reading time LAST summer) but if I’m feeling adventurous, I’ll actually pedal a stationary bike and drink water with my book. For my $30 a month membership, what do I care whether I actually get a “work out” or not? This is $1 a day babysitting people. And there’s coffee.

I’m currently in the middle of Tina Fey’s book Bossypants.

Yeah, okay, it’s mostly funny.

I might have actually snorted and shot water out of my nose and onto the heart rate monitors yesterday.

So naturally, the kindhearted and friendly folks at the Jerry Long YMCA are curious. What could she possibly be reading that has her so giggly? On a stationary bike no less!?

Every single time someone asks me, “What are you reading,” and I explain that it’s Tina Fey’s book and “Yes, it’s pretty funny, if you think Tina Fey is funny,” I feel like I’m doing anyone over the age of 50 (which most of them have been, so far) a disservice by my failure to include the disclaimer: “But I might actually suffer from the maturity of a 13 year old.”

Today, on a small couch in the lobby, one social-security recipient asked, “Who do you think would enjoy that book more, me or my wife?”

Well that depends, sir. How much does your wife enjoy fart jokes?

I’m not about to explain that as I read Tina Fey’s book I feel like I completely understand her because SHE IS ME. Or I’m her, or whatever. But as I’ve said in the past, when I identify myself with a famous female sense of humor, Tina Fey immediately comes to mind. If I wrote a book, I’d probably do a little less name-dropping and butt kissing (I gather that her self-deprecating humor comes from a true sense of insecurity and not a feigned one), but I’m not sure that I’d do any less bathroom humor.

I do think what a person finds truly humorous does say a lot about that person and I’ve only found myself embarrassed of my sense of humor in front of a handful of people (Christian school administration comes to mind). But today at the gym, I simply couldn’t go on reading and giggling and promoting this book, knowing that this kind, conservative man, who was probably somebody’s grandfather might one day be privy to exactly what I was laughing at, and shudder.

Sorry people. It doesn’t matter how old you are. Farts are funny.

* With the exception of one book, Ender’s Game, which is exactly how I recommend it as my favorite book: it is the only book I’ve ever read in one sitting, as well as the first book I ever re-read, and the one book I’ve read the most times.