Caught With a Knife

Parent-teacher conferences for Youngest went better than I had expected.  His teachers are simply flabbergasted at his intelligence and easy nature.  He is the perfect poster child for Easy Teaching 101. I had told the teacher on the first day that he would enjoy our son as a student, but since I hadn't heard anything from the man, except some behavior problems like, "talking out of turn" or "cleaning out his desk when he should have been paying attention," I wondered if the kid were on the good side of Mr. K and Mrs. G.  I felt better after conferences when they raved about him.

So it was a shock to receive a phone message from the principal that they had confiscated a knife from Youngest today in school.  He had earned it through selling popcorn through Cub Scouts, and without my knowledge, took it to show the other boys his cool new reward.

I'm glad they don't throw parents into jail for such transgressions, though I could use a vacation. This would have been my fourth trip to jail!  And we are really quite fortunate they didn't suspend or expel the Cub Scout for bringing a lethal weapon to school.  I didn't think to warn him of the fact that it is not allowed in school.  He had been caught last year with a pen knife in his pocket.  The little terrorist. You'd think he'd learn.

It reminded me  of a conversation that I had with one mother in the school hallway last year as we waited for the final bell. 

"My Oldest got in trouble today for bringing a present to school. " I told her. "It was a mult-tool, and I don't know what I was thinking to even have it as a Gift for a Boy (Christmas Gift Exchange.)  I just thought it was cool, but Oldest took it right to the principal." 

She made sympathetic noises.  "It would have been a great gift for a boy," she agreed.

"The thing is, I carry a knife in my purse."

"I'm pretty sure I have about three or four on me somewhere,' she admitted.  "I use them all the time during the day."

I nodded.  "I think my husband married me because I carried a knife on me most of the time.  I'll bet I've misplaced a storeful since we tied the knot 15 years ago."

She laughed and we discussed how many times a week and in what ways we use pocketknives.  "I understand why they have to have rules, but you can't blame boy for carrying them when he's been out doing chores in the morning," she said. 

But today my heart beat wildly as I listened to the voice message from the principal. Youngest could be tossed out of school!  I dialed The Man Who Puts Up With Me.

"Our Youngest is in trouble,' I said, almost shouting with excitement. 

"I know, I already got it taken care of."

"You did?  Did he get his knife back?"  Notice that I didn't ask if the kid had been kicked out of school.  Looking back, I wonder where my priorities are.

"Oh yeah."

And then I felt VERY guilty.  I had failed to tell him to leave it home, that they don't belong in school, even though there's one in my purse every time I enter the building.  Of course, there's dental floss in there, at least one toy green soldier, six pens and a partridge in a pear tree. But those aren't weapons.  Unless the toy soldier came to life and shot someone. 

"Is he in trouble?"

"Naw.  They understood it was a Cub Scout reward. He turned it in to Mr. K. as soon as his teacher asked for it."

I sighed. No jail for us today.  It was probably a good thing since I was busy anyway.  I wonder how many knives they can find on my Oldest before he graduates in the next five years.  Will he ever graduate? Does my knife carrying influence them in a negative way?  Will Youngest be subconciously drawn to the theme song "Mack the Knife?"  These and other burning questions ramble around in my head.

Someday I can look back on these days and utterly forget them. But for now, I need to repeat every morning, "Pat the kids down before school.  Teach them to say "no" to knives.  Have them repeat, "School-good.  Knives- bad." If they look in the No Men Allowed Land of the Purse and find my hidden weapon of choice, (my multi-tool) tell them some strange person dropped it in there.  That would be the truth anyway.

Old News

I rarely look back.  The Man Who Puts Up With Me, however, is willing to be retrospective often. When I got up one morning recently, I found him rereading my PNN posts from last year.

"No one commented on them," he said sadly.  "I don't think anyone even read them at all."

I glanced at the list over his shoulder.  "Which ones are you thinking about?" I asked.

"Pirate Lessons," he sighed.

"Huh."  I thought about this.  After dilligently writing at least one blog a day unless life was too crazy, I hadn't looked back. 

"Do you think they'd go back and look them over and make comments?" he asked.  I heard hope in his voice, and I smiled.  He is as crazy about reading comments as an author would be. 

But soon I realized that I was collecting my life and that of my family's.  Someday when the boys are older, or we have grandchildren, they can look back and see what trick or treeting was like during the dinosaur period.  My descendants can see how I secretly longed to be a Jedi Knight.  It was fun to remember what was happening in our life on the day I wrote that essay.  It was fun to see how my work has changed.

The Man Who Puts Up With Me feels an intimacy with his family through the words I share here.  And as I reread them, I wondered whether someday when I am through editing my sci-fi novel, done with my Dad's biography, and finsihed with that play that I have written all the way through Act II, if there might not be enough in my archives with which to write a book of essays. It would cover being a Mom, slave to a couple of cats, and the dumbfounded wife of a man who does strange things. There's got to be a book in here somewhere.  But first I have to live it, and I guess I'm doing that through the eyes of the women I have come to enjoy:  the PNN crowd. 

So if you do go back for a couple of laughs and feel inclined to leave a few comments, I'll let the Hubster know so he can head back there too to see what you think.  In the meantime, I move ahead to another day.  That's just because I'm the one in the family that always moves forward.

A Scary Experience

"Pick up some tea for me, would you please?" asked The Man Who Puts Up With Me .  He told me two teas to buy and i scribbled them on a piece of paper.

But that was several days ago, and today when I went into the grocery store, I figured I would recognize the titles of the teas he needed. One had orange in it and the other sounded like Pico.  I was not prepared for what I was about to encounter.

It was the most frightening mission I had ever endured.  Within moments my eyes had glazed over from the sheer volume of choices. I found several orange teas: one that was green tea, and some orange black tea.  There was Earl Gray, if I spelled that correctly.  Then there were a half dozen others made by other companies.  There were fruit flavored and mint.  Nothing looked like Pico but there were kinds I cound't pronounce, and a few that made me wonder if I had entered another planet where tea leaves rule.

I wanted to pull my hair and scream. If it would have helped, I could have tried fainting. There was a Sleepytime tea, and a "Zinger" tea.  I would assume that would be like having a downer before going to bed, with an upper to get your sorry body moving in the morning. There were at least three variety packs.  There was Chai tea, whatever that is, and almond tea.  There was herbal tea and if the rest aren't considered made from a plant, then I would wonder what kind of tea they really were!. 

The more I looked at the shelves, the more frightened I became. What if I bought one pack and he didn't like them?  Would I really make it back to this store with a receipt or without the box getting smashed?  What if I bought green and he only likes black?  What if, what if?

You never really know how little you know about a lover until you have to go buy their tea.  It wouldn't be so bad, I guess, if he had a favorite and the copy of the box had been stapled to the front of my head.  I am a coffee drinker; tea drinkers were considered odd ducks in our family.  Coffee is easy: regular or decaf, and what brand do you want? 

I slowly backed out of the tea aisle, afraid just a little that tonight I would dream of little packets of tea chasing me around the bakery, shrieking, "Take me!  I'm his favoirite!" In my worst nightmare, those little packets would be followed by bigger boxes howling, "Don't listen to them.  He like us best." Yikes!

I tell you, shopping can be bad for your psychological health. Too many choices can not only overwhelm you, they can leave you wondering how fast you can get out of the store alive! Thank goodness there are easier tasks in the world.  I think I better stick to the much easier challenge of choosing one kind of Crest toothpaste.

Killing Vampires

"That's it!" exclaimed Youngest in the backseat.  "They eat garlic and that's it.  They are dead."

I had been daydreaming as we drove on the highway, but these words pulled me right back into focus.  How had I missed this enlightening conversation? 

"No," said Oldest firmly.  "It just makes them really sick. You need a stake to kill them."

"A steak?" asked Littlest One.

"Yeah.  You have to hit them with a stake."

"Oh." He pondered this a moment.  I was trying to get up to speed with the conversation and decided this was one of those times when the Five Minute Rule really would be wise.  "I don't see how a steak can kill them."

"You pound it into them, and it' hurts so bad it kills them."

"Kills who?" I asked.

"Vampires!" they chorused.

"How does a steak kill them?" asked the very puzzled son from the back seat.

"Honey," I said, in one of my better mind reading moments.  "A stake is a piece of wood that is pointed at one end."

"Yeah," added Oldest.  "You stab 'em with it."

"No," I said patiently.  "You drive it through their heart."  They both paused as if to reflect on the gravity of this information, and then looked at me with a little bit of awe.  "But vampires aren't real," I added quickly, hoping to avert an 11 p.m. nightmare from a shivering kid looking to share my bed again. 

"How do you know?" asked Oldest.

"Because..." my voice just tapersd off.  How the heck did I know?

"I'd say," Oldest said confidentally, "that there aren't alot of them around. Maybe only 10% of the population."

The mere idea of 10% of the population being vampiric was hair raisiing.  "Where on earth do you get that number from?" I asked.

"I just know these things."

I insisted that vampires weren't real, and that neither were werewolves. 

Oldest snorted.  "Of course, werewoves aren't real.  I mean, everyone knows that.  But vampires..."  Then he shook his head as if to snap out of a dream.  "Anyway, you can always shoot them with a gold bullet."

"Silver," I said, wondering suddenly how I knew all these odd vampire facts.

"Gold is for werewolves," said Youngest, with a knowing in his voice.

"And garlic doesn't kill vampires," I heard this wisdom coming from my mouth, even though I was still wondering how I knew all of this about vampires. "If garlic killed people, there would be an awful lot of dead bodies around, because lots of people like garlic."

"Ug," said Youngest.

"Well, anyone who eats it raw wishes he were dead anyway," insisted Oldest.  "Or at least the person who smells their breath does."

Vampires have gotten to be a little too hot of a topic around our house.  Youngest reads the "My Sister is a Vampire" series.  Oldest is now begging to go see "Twilight."  I contemplate how old I was before I saw a show that scared me to death.  I think Jaws had that honor, and it ruiined my swimming in lakes.  Sometimes when I'm out there, I think of it and get the creeps so badly I have to go in.

My silence must have made Oldest think I wasn't going to let him go.  "I'm old enough to see the show," he said again.  "And I really want to.  Please, Mom?"

I hate the thought of a movie that will terrify him.  But there is something about shows like this that is a rite of passage.  That first one needs to be endured so that you can tell others in the future that you are grounded, even though you aren't, if they invite you to a similarly scary movie. It is the one to tell you that scary movies are not for you. 

"We'll see what the rating is," I assured him.  "If it's PG13, you can go with a friend."  He was so shocked that he couldn't say a word; his smile said it all.

Poor kid.  He has no idea what he wants to do. The one thing is for sure:  he'll come back from that movie with more information about killing vampires than we ever needed to know.  Now if I could just get him to understand that vampires are not 10% of the population!

Two Little Pictures

While going through the hundreds of pictures in my mother's drawer full of everything important and otherwise, I have come across a few that have no connection to my life.  Several were of people in North Dakota that were remotely related to my grandmother.  The other pictures were of my grandfather's sister and her daughter. 

I have been sending most pictures back to the people featured in the pictures.  But when folks have died, i've been looking for the child or grandchildren of the person in the photograph.  In the case of this great-aunt, I mused to my father, "So who do we give this to?"

"Well, her grandson owns the lumberyard over in a small town close to here."

It was a date.  Old Man and I headed off to have lunch in that nearby town. We knew the owner of the cafe in town, so made it a point to have lunch there.  The owner was washing dishes in the back. Soon she came out to chat. I looked at her face, and her faded blue eyes seemed notably more tired. 

It was not a well known fact that this woman had borrowed money years before from Old Man at a time in her life when her fancier restaurant was failing.  Now she owned a small greasy spoon in this little out-of-the-way town.  But she always gave Old Man a hug and a free piece of pie.  We left the diner feeling good and headed to the lumber yard.

As I parked the car in the parking lot, I suddenly felt overcome with shyness. What if he scorned this photo of his grandmother from 1952?  What if this whole trip was a waste of time? How would I feel if he told me to throw them?  What if he thought I was a kook?  Was I a kook?  My heart beat wildly in my chest and I took a deep breath as I entered the office.

"Hello," I said.  "Are you the owner?"

"Yes," he said warily. 

"Do you know this woman?" I asked.

He looked carefully at the black and white photo and then nodded solemly.  "That's my grandmother," he said.  Then he glanced back at the door to see if anyone else was going to walk through.  Was he expecting cameras or something?

"She was my great-aunt," I explained.  Then I introduced myself, explained who my father was and how we were returning important pictures to various famlies.

"Who is this one?" he asked, as he looked at the other picture. Then he glanced at the back to read the name of an aunt he had never known.  "Oh, yes.  She was my aunt, but I've never seen her before.  Now I know what she looks like."

He didn't strike me as a man who showed delight often, but he looked please. Then he followed me out the door, and stopped to speak to the Old Man.  They shook hands and the lumberyard owner thanked both us for bringing the picture by.

"These old photos can be very precious," he said.

I was beaming as I drove away, even more sure that returning these old pictures and letters were the right way to handle valuable memories.  Just two little pictures, true, but to him the chance to gaze upon the face of a relative he had never known.  And while it wouldn't have changed his life in a significant way,  it lends to the little things that brings richness to one's existance.  That is a very good thing indeed.