Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Back To Normal

It was the first day of school. I was looking forward to life getting back to normal. There would be no more of this crazy sleeping in stuff and coincidental chore slacking and shocking PG-13 movie watching that went on past 9 p.m. You can see that, given these lax summer circumstances, my family was long overdue for a dose of the ordinary and mundane.

“So how was your day?” I asked the family at dinner that night. I waited for the usual and expected reports of teachers and homework and routine work projects.

The boy spoke first. “The kid sitting next to me had to go to the nurse today. After he got his cell phone taken away, he swallowed the lid of a Sharpie marker--on purpose. I was ok with that though, because he really, really smelled bad…kind of like our cats’ litter box. I hope the nurse gave him a bath.”

The teenager spoke next. “The Lawnmower Boy was at my bus stop this morning. Remember him? He was the kid from last year who stole a lawnmower on the way to school from someone’s backyard. When he got to the bus stop he tried to mow us all down and then tried to bring the thing on the bus. He was expelled. So, anyway, he ended up failing last year and is back again, now in my grade, still at my bus stop, and still talking about finding another lawnmower to mow us all down.“

The husband then informed us that he had spent the whole day with auditors from a very high level government institution who told him his work from the last 4 weeks was completely flawed. He spent the entire day defending his work, his confidence level and all that he knew to be true and right. Only at the very end of the day did he find out that it was the auditors’ fancy measuring equipment that was out of whack and was in dire need of repair. The husband’s work was fine.

And then it was my turn. I proudly announced, with great flourish, to my family, “Well, I can see that you all have had a very interesting day. But …I, I…have been nominated to become Miss Teen United States.”

As they ate their low fat stroganoff, I passed around my glossy Miss Teen United States brochure that had come in the mail that day. They stared at me in disbelief. The teenager gave me an obligatory, and by now perfected, eyeball roll. The boy asked if there was anything fried to eat instead of this “gross gravy”. The husband wondered, out loud, if it was too late to catch the national news.



And then it was the second day of school. I was looking forward to life getting back to normal. I was hoping there would be no more of these outlandish Sharpie eating, lawn mower chasing and government incompetence stories. “Have a nice day!” I called to the family as they left that morning, trusting that they would come home with the usual and expected reports of teachers and homework and routine work projects. And then I ran inside to start my day. After all, I only had 3 months to find an evening gown, practice my baton twirling routine and find a magic bikini that came complete with Spanx shapewear and that fancy double stick tape built in.



Check This Out!

The Slightly Exaggerated music review consortium has unanimously agreed that Paramore’s song Crushcrushcrush has won the song of the week award for the second week in a row. The Slightly Exaggerated sociological advisory panel has agreed that it is physically impossible to sit still while listening to Paramore’s song Crushcrushcrush. And the Slightly Exaggerated lie detector machine agrees that Paramore’s appeal has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that their music also appeared on the Twilight soundtrack, based on the Twilight movie which was based on the Twilight book by Stephenie Meyer which was all about……EDWARD...sigh. We swear. We just really like Paramore.

http://www.paramore.net/video/crushcrushcrush-3/

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Give that lawnmower kid a sharpie to swallow.

velvetjoe said...

YOu'd make a good miss teen united states. After all, the teenager has already taught you how to do the eyeball roll!

calimom said...

Come to my house for dinner. I can't get my family to talk at all!

Anonymous said...

That is a crazy story! The part I can't believe is that you sat down together for dinner! Shocking, these days.

mrsedwardcullen said...

Oh, don't kid yourself. It is because of Edward. At least it would be for me.