Last month, a friend was talking about how she feels like she is losing control of so many things in her children’s lives. Her eldest son will be heading for high school in September, and she had just learned he had watched The Hangover and Wedding Crashers while at a friend’s house: two movies she didn’t think were appropriate for someone his age.
“But what can I do?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders. “He was at someone else’s house? I can’t control everything all the time, can I?”
Then she began to fret over how her younger son’s bus driver allowed his middle school-aged riders to listen to all kinds of music, much of which she considered to have inappropriate lyrics.
“Did your son’s bus driver let the kids listen to music?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. I mean, the topic had never come up. “Let’s ask him.”
We called Monkey over from where he was doing something Monkey-ish to ask him our mommy-questions.
“Were you allowed to listen to music on the bus this year?” I asked.
Monkey thought for about .3 seconds and then answered with absolute certainty.
“No.”
And then something happened inside my brain: a little click: that proverbial light-bulb warming to slow glow.
“Dude,” I smiled, “You don’t know what happens on the bus…” I paused for effect.
Monkey looked confused.
“You’re a walker!” I laughed.
Monkey smacked his forehead with his hand and wandered away laughing.
Our house is located about 200 feet from the back of my son’s school. Each morning at 7:13 AM, Monkey put his dishes in the sink, opened the sliding glass doors, and slid out back where he disappeared behind a bunch of pine trees and evergreens. We both know this. It was his routine for 180 days.
Google Images
Our simultaneous forgetting was a peculiar mother-and-son moment.
We used to do so much together. Everything. For years, he was like an extra appendage, wrapped around my leg or lying across my lap. Many times, I have answered a question that he had not yet even asked.
“Yes,” I would say.
“I didn’t even ask you anything yet?” Monkey would say.
“Yes, you can have dessert. Go ahead.” And then we would cozy up on separate ends of the couch with only our toes touching, eating small bowls filled with vanilla ice cream and rainbow sprinkles.
Back then, he thought I was magic.
For a period there, I was sure I would remember everything, each detail. The curve of his pinky as it curled around his blue blanket while he napped.
But you don’t; you forget things.
And it’s okay, I guess.
I love that he is growing older, growing into the person he will one day become more fully.
But there are some things I miss: like those Vulcan mind-meld moments.
So I guess I’m mourning something, too.
Who knew?
What things have you forgotten lately that you know you should absolutely know?
My friend Carl D’Agostino and I often have Vulcan mind-melds. This week while I was tapping away abouthow much my Monkey loves his Ticonderogas, Carl simultaneously posted a pencil related comic on his blog, “I Know I Made You Smile.”
Check out Carl’s funny here, then come back and tell me about a mistake that could not be erased.
I’ll start: Congressman Anthony Weiner’s decision to send photos of himself in his grey underwear via Twitter. Whooopsie! Good luck with that one, dude.
In 5th grade, Mr. Zych lectured all of his students about how to properly sharpen a pencil. He wasn’t messing around. His speech was not short, and he covered everything from how to properly grip the pencil to the cranking motion – how it should be smooth and continuous, not jerky. He even discussed the perils of over-sharpening, which could lead to premature tip-breakage. Mr. Zych turned pencil sharpening into a science.
Personally, I have had a love-hate relationship with pencils. I first learned how to print my alphabet in pencil and then I learned how to write in cursive in pencil. That was Paradise. Finally, a way to write all the stories stored in my head. Later, I preferred to write with pens – preferably ones filled with purple or green ink. But ever since my son started school, he has been forever in need of pencils; they seem to always be around, and so I returned to the yellow pencils of my youth. I had learned to appreciate the feel of a pencil in my hand again. I even started to like the scratchy-scratchy sound of the graphite as it dragged across the page. After I recently stepped on a pencil, I became suspicious of them again and switched back to pens.
Meanwhile, my son is still on a steady diet of pencils. In middle school, the kids seem to devour them: literally and figuratively. I know my son nibbles on his; I’ve seen the teeth marks. I’ve watched him crunch while he contemplates before committing to writing an answer on paper. But sometimes I wonder if he actually eats them, too. I mean, where do they go? How many pencils does one kid need in a school year?
A few weeks back, Monkey came home in a tizzy.
“I’m out of pencils again,” he announced.
Nonplussed, I told him there were under three weeks of school left and that I was pretty sure he could make-do with his nubs until June 20.
He started at me with contempt.
“Are you serious?” he questioned. “I have exams! I need pencils! Ticonderogas. Now!”
He was not messing around.
The next day while in the grocery store – to my horror – I found plenty of office supplies, but they were only generic pencils. And even I know that those erasers don’t do the job. You need another eraser to get rid of the smears those lame pencils leave behind.
So I made an extra trek, this time to Staples – home of the Ticonderoga pencil – and invested in the Bulk pack. (Because that was all they had.) Let’s be clear. Ticonderoga pencils are like platinum. They cost a fortune. The only way a pencil could be more fabulous would be if you printed your name on pencils. A Ticonderoga is the Hum-V in the wonderful world of pencils. Teachers definitely prefer them. Definitely.
I rationalized that I could spend $15.77 + nearly 9% tax on pencils because they are non-perishable, so it is not like they will ever rot or mold. And I figured whatever is left at the end of the school year, Monkey can use in 7th grade, thus saving me some back-to-school shopping hassle.
A few days later, a good friend of mine called me and reported that her son – also a 6th grader – had run out of pencils. While requesting to buy more, she said my name was invoked. Apparently her son said:
“Can you just be like Mrs. J. and get the Giant Pack of 72 Ticonderoga pencils?”
Apparently Monkey had been bragging about his new stash.
I laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it. Bragging about pencils?
And then I thought about how I had come full circle. Just one week before, I was cursing pencils as my husband dug around my heel with a needle in an attempt to get the lead out. (I know, I know. Pencils are made of graphite. I was going for the funny.) But now I found myself saying a silent prayer on behalf of all pencil-loving children everywhere. Uncharacteristically, I clasped my hands together and thought to myself:
Lord, may this be the worst thing my child ever desires. May this be his worst addiction. May he never see cocaine. May he never use LSD or heroin. May he avoid cigarettes and alcohol. May he avoid the ‘shrooms, the X, the meth. May he never huff. May he find the strength to avoid the Oxycontin and Adderall.
May he always be addicted to Ticonderoga pencils.
Because, honestly, I’ll happily help Monkey score his Ticonderoga pencils forever. I’ll even help him sharpen them. Mr. Zych schooled me on that a long time ago, and I feel confident I can help my son with his #2 pencil fix without any need for an Intervention.
To inspire my viewers and have some fun this summer, I am kicking off a contest.
We all work hard during the week, but it is important to relax whenever we can grab a moment. Every Saturday from now until September 3, 2011, I will post – videos of YOU, my beloved readers, doing the things you love to do! G-rated things. This is a family show, people! 😉 Think ziplines, epic water fights dressed as cyborgs, alligator wrestling.
Send me the link to your You Tube video at rasjacobsonNY@gmail.com anytime between now and September 3, 2011. Videos must be under 2 minutes and they should feature you doing something relaxing… that’s a little bit off-beat.
Between September 12-16, 2011, I will create a poll and ask people to vote for their favorite “Saturday Summer Screwball” video. If you mention this contest on your blog and link back here, you will receive an extra vote. If you Tweet an #SSS of your choice, you will also receive an extra vote. Just be sure to come back and let me know that you did!
To usher in the fall, one winner will be announced on September 21, 2011.
An uber-cool prize will be awarded.
You all know that I love to dance, so I’m kicking it off.
And, if you’ll notice, I’m kind of off-beat.
So here you are: for inspiration.
Seriously, it is a pity that you could not see my fabulous green wig in this video. I will have to spank Monkey talk to my tech guy.
The other day I saw a sign that read: “Free Babies Clinic.”
Which I thought was weird.
It was a warm day, and I imagined folks handing out babies like ice cream cones.
What exactly is going on? I wondered.
But as I got closer, I saw that the sign was actually advertising a “Free Rabies Clinic,” which made me wonder: Are we giving people rabies these days? And who would want that? Even for free?
I kind of remember A “very special” Little House on The Prairie episode where Mary or Half-Pint or Carrie (or maybe it was the Jack, the dog?) got bitten by something – a raccoon or a bat – and Ma and Pa and Doc were pretty freaked out, and Pa had to saddle up the horses and ride all the way to Mancato to get… um, I don’t know. Special shots? Pills? Now that I think about it, maybe Pa just had to shoot the dog.
I also might have completely fabricated that whole thing.
A few days later, as the stars aligned in the universe, I stumbled across the following video which features a child fondling a freshly killed squirrel, and I wondered: Have we stopped completely worrying about rabies to the point that we are now allowing our children to carry glorified rats wild animals around and snuggle them?
Don’t get me wrong. The video is fabulously, adorably morbid.
And I’m guessing this dad just got caught up in the moment the way his daughter did.
It is also probably why the aforementioned father repeatedly stresses the need for his wee dead animal lover to come in and take a bath.
I’m thinking little Thea might grow up to be a fabulous doctor. Look how caring she is.
Other options include taxidermist or mortician.
It’s good to have options.
I don’t know where I’m going with this. It’s Friday. See where poor eyesight and bad signage leads me? Tell me something you saw this week. Or thought you saw.
This year, Spring Break fell on the same week as Passover – the Jewish holiday which commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt. (Think Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments.) This year there seemed to be so many similarities between Monkey’s heinous April “staycation” in Western, New York and the oft-repeated, seemingly never-ending Passover story that I simply could not ignore it.
During Both The Exodus and Spring Break, People Got Creative: When Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, made a law that every male, infant Israelite be killed, Moses’ mother got busy. She wove a little basket, put her son into it, and floated him down the river, hoping he would be found among the reeds.
The first few days of April vacation were fine, but by Sunday evening, Monkey and I were done with our Game-a-Thon. We had played dozens of games, but after thirty-two arguments about his iPod Touch usage, Hubby and I decided to confiscate Monkey’s Touch for the remainder of the week. From that moment forward, we had conversations so similar in content, I was ready to stick Monkey in a basket and float him down the River Nile. They went something like this:
Monkey: Can I go on the computer?
Me: No.
Monkey: Can I Skype someone?
Me: No.
Monkey: Can I use my iPod Touch?
Me: No.
Monkey: Can I watch TV?
Me: No.
Monkey: Were you born this mean?
Me: No, I minored in mean in college.
In an effort to keep Monkey away from screens, on Monday, I took him to the library. We brought home Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane. I figured he would read while I rolled matzah balls for the chicken soup. After 40 minutes, Monkey set down his book and wandered over to me.
Monkey: Colin’s really good at Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
Me: Cool. Wanna help me cut some carrots for the soup?
Monkey: If I cut carrots, can I get my iPod Touch back?
During Both The Exodus and Spring Break, People Were Tested: On Monday night, we had the first seder. There were only nine of us this year. We got to the part about how God spoke to Moses in the form of a burning bush.
Monkey: If someone came down from a mountain today saying he had talked to a burning bush, that person would be considered insane.
Me: There has always been a fine line between mystical experience and mental illness.
Monkey: There’s this cool computer game called Portal. Can I get it?
Me: Not in the middle of the Seder.
Monkey: Well, can I show it to you on the computer after the Seder?
Two cups of wine later, Moses and his brother, Aaron, go to Pharaoh to explain to him that the Lord has commanded that he let the Israelites go. Pharaoh becomes furious, sends the dynamic duo away, and proceeds to treat the Israelites worse than before. At this point, Monkey announced to everyone: “Mom’s kind of like the Pharaoh. She won’t let me have my iPod Touch.”
Nice.
During Both The Exodus and Spring Break, There Were Bizarre Events: In the Passover story, after the Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, God inflicted ten horrible plagues on the Egyptian people, most of which involved weird supernatural weather. I mean, The Lord turned the water into blood; He made skillions of frogs hop all over the place; He brought on boils and swarms of locusts and – gasp – lice. He even caused the Egyptian’s animals to get sick and die.
Well, weird shizz happened here over the vacation, too. First of all, it was mid-April. Normally, by mid-April it is usually kind of warm. And by warm I mean, it is not ridiculously cold. But it was cold. Ridiculously cold. Over Spring Break, it snowed twice, hailed once, and – not for nothing – but it actually rained so hard that people’s basements flooded. The creek in our backyard (which never overflows) overflowed and nearly took out one of our trees, dragging a bunch of soil and mulch into our neighbors’ yard.
During Both The Exodus and Spring Break, There Was a lot of Hurrying: When the Pharaoh finally decided to let the slaves go, the Jews did not wait around. They grabbed what they could carry and got out of Dodge, guided by a cloud (provided courtesy of The Lord). When the Israelites reached the Red Sea, they saw that Pharaoh was pursuing them with a large army. The Jews were afraid, but God commanded Moses to raise his rod and the waters parted so the Jews could reach the other side in safety.
When the Israelites saw that they were safe, they sang a song of praise to God.
Monkey: Wanna hear a song that will get stuck in your head?
During Both The Exodus and Spring Break, People Complained: After the Jews escaped and had traveled for some time, they started complaining to Moses because he brought them to a land where they did not have enough to eat. (I imagine it was a little like Survivor without the camera crew. They probably formed alliances and wore buffs made out dust and rocks.) But God was good and sent the Jews quails and manna. And when the people were thirsty, God commanded Moses to touch a rock with his rod and water poured out of the rock, so the people would stop their bitching.
In our house, after several days of matzah consumption, everyone began to complain of gastrointestinal unrest. Such moaning, you would not believe.
Monkey: Do we have any raisins?
Me: I think we are out.
Monkey (moaning): Prunes?
Me: We can put them on the grocery list.
Monkey: How about my iPod Touch? Can we put that on the list?
During Both The Exodus and Spring Break, People Got Frustrated: Just as the Jews wandered the desert – in the heat, without showers, without a GPS to guide them – Monkey wandered the neighborhood looking for something to do and someone to do it with. It ain’t easy being Jewish during Spring Break. Especially when Spring Break falls the same week as Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Monkey was frustrated to learn that most of his friends had gone to visit relatives or jetted down to warmer climes. I got to hear about it.
Monkey (pleading): Can I please use my iPod Touch?
Please note, Monkey never once said that he was “bored.” He made this mistake once when he was in 3rd grade and he quickly learned that – if a person announces he is bored – well, there is always a toilet that needs a good scrubbing.
Anyway, the Jews wandered for forty years in the desert. Having sand in your underpants for four decades is enough to make anyone cranky.
During Spring Break, I tried to take care of Monkey’s needs just as God (via Moses) took care of the needs of His people. One day a friend called, and we discussed taking a road trip with our sons. (Read: My friend was going insane with the “staycation” crap, too.) On that day, we packed up our three boys and took them to the Corning Museum of Glass where they proceeded to act like the proverbial bulls in a china shop. During a short glass blowing demonstration, our children so pestered the artist, he actually dropped the delicate, glass elephant he had been crafting for fifteen minutes, and the little pachyderm broke into three pieces. Most people left the demo at that point.
Not us.
Monkey: Schnarf!
Monkey’s Friend : Can we wander around now?
Monkey’s Friend’s Brother: Can I have that elephant’s legs?
After being constant companions for nine days, Monkey and I maxed out on each other. We glared at each other from across rooms. K’Nex creations began to look like viable weapons.
During Both The Exodus and Spring Break, There Were Miraculous Moments: Spring break wasn’t all bad. There was one particularly endearing moment when Monkey and I were wrestling – something we like to do during commercials (especially during long vacations from school). Anyway, he’s getting stronger now that he is almost 12 years old. It wasn’t as easy to take him down as usual. But I got him. I managed a completely ridiculous totally smooth backward roll, and I pinned him to the floor. We laughed hysterically until our show came back on the air, and we returned to our couch-sitting silence. As my son adjusted his hair (good hair is very important at almost age 12), Monkey said, “Mom, you are a really good wrestler.”
It was a tender moment.
Kind of.
Both The Exodus and Spring Break Ended. And then suddenly, magically, it happened. Just as God said: The Israelites arrived at the Promised Land.
And Monday morning, the middle school in my backyard lit up like… well… like a school. And I thought to myself: Huzzah! The Promised Land. And as Monkey set off, I watched him until he disappeared around the corner of the brick building, then I took his iPod Touch from out of the cupboard, plugged it in, and thought to myself: Amen.
On the last afternoon of my son’s spring vacation, right when his annoyance with me had reached its apex and his blood sugar had bottomed out, I suggested that it might be a good time for him to get a jump-start on his next book report. The one that isn’t due until mid-May.
“Only 18 days to work on it!” I joked.
Except I wasn’t really joking.
Monkey agreed, if reluctantly, to work on his first paragraph. He disappeared for twenty minutes and then returned. I asked him if he would read his paper. He groaned, but he obliged. I suggested that his thesis could use a little tweaking and asked him to go and work on the paragraph a little bit more. He declined. Adamantly. I persevered. We locked horns.
I should have predicted what was going to happen next, but I didn’t.
He shouted.
I shouted louder.
Eventually, he screamed, got a little teary-eyed, and stomped off to his bedroom – ostensibly to revise.
After fifteen minutes, when he did not materialize, I decided I would check on his progress. That’s when I found Monkey. Under his bed. He had gone there to hide.
From the world.
From the work.
But, mostly, from me.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on my son’s rug. My cheek brushing against the carpet, I remembered how – as a child – I tried to cajole an escaped gerbil into coming out from its hiding place.
At first he wouldn’t even talk to me. After a while, though, he let me have it.
“I just don’t understand why it had to be perfect!” Monkey sniffed. “It’s just a friggin’ first draft! I have over two weeks to work on it.”
It was my “Oh shit!” moment.
And he was 100% right.
Which meant I had to apologize.
And so I apologized to Monkey for getting all up in his grill about his school work. Truth is, he is about the most organized person I know when it comes to time management. And I told him so. I also told him that sometimes it’s hard for me – especially when it comes to writing – to just let things be. I told him how “imperfect” is hard for me when it comes to English.
“Also,” I confessed, “I didn’t know that you actually revise.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “Geez! Give me some credit!”
I felt I had to offer Monkey something more than an apology. (More than the snack that he, also, clearly needed.) After all, I felt I had really underestimated him.
And then I got an idea.
“I would like to extend an offer to you,” I said. “Are you interested?”
“Maybe,” said Monkey, still facing the wall.
“The next time I say, ‘You just lost your iPod Touch,’ you have a free ‘Gimmee-Back-My-Touch’ card,” I said. “You know like those ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cards in Monopoly? Like that.”
Monkey rolled over to face me. The slats of his bed hovered a half an inch above his ear.
“Make me a card!” he demanded. “And decorate it insanely with icons from all the apps I like. And add lots of stickers and stuff. And put it in a cool font.”
Suddenly, I felt that I’d been duped. Somehow I went from apologizing to my son to negotiating with a terrorist.
“And no expiration date!” he said smugly. “That’s your homework,” said Monkey, smiling, letting me know everything was okay with us.
He grunted as he slithered out from under his bed.
He isn’t going to be able to fit under there much longer.
“Also, there’s a friggin’ huge, hairy-dust ball under there,” said Monkey, trying to see if I’d let him get away with his second friggin’ of the day.
I did.
“Yeah,” I said. “I kind of noticed it rolling around while I was talking to the back of your head.”
We both burst out laughing.
Thank goodness for hairy-dust balls.
“May I please go and ride my bike before vacation ends?” Monkey asked.
“Dismissed,” I said.
“Thanks,” yelled Monkey and, as he ran out the door he added, “I’ll expect your homework by dinner!”
Anybody have any good stories about apologizing to your kids?
I got this little gem from a colleague who was in the midst of grading three sections of English 101 mid-term papers. Upon completing one full section of essays, he decided to reward himself.
(I usually reward myself by eating a bag of Snickers.)
Anyway, he found this little gem and sent this around via department mail:
My colleague took pause to wonder:
Do you think if we “sexed it up” (as the British say), we could ever get everyone to use it?
Let me be the first to say that I am a Grammar Pimp and proud of it.
I use Grammar all the time.
And she has never failed me.
Ever.
Grammar is slick.
She is tireless, and she never lets me down.
She has never asked me for anything, and I have only benefited from my relationship with her.
Seriously, who wouldn’t want in on that kind of action?
Grammar, you have a bag full of tricks, you dirty girl.
You aren’t afraid of anything: noun-pronoun agreement, misplaced modifiers, dangling modifiers. Colons don’t scare you and – Grammar, you little trollop – you love when people use their hyphens properly.
Don’t you?
Yes you do.
Knowing Grammar is great.
But using Grammar is excellent.
I’m telling you: Use Grammar.
She wants you to.
If we approached grammar as if it were a reality TV show, do you think it would make kids more psyched to learn their grammar rules? Or would a whole bunch of teachers just get fired?
About 120 years ago, Hall established one of the first American psychology-research labs and supervised the 1896 study “Of Peculiar and Exceptional Children,” which described a series of only-child oddballs as permanent misfits. Hall concluded only children could not be expected to go through life with the same capacity for adjustment that children with siblings possessed. “Being an only child is a disease in itself,” he claimed.
Thanks, Granville.
You, like, totally rock.
And by rock, I mean suck.
While much work has been done to debunk the myth of the weirdo only child, most people still think one is the loneliest number. And, shockingly, strangers continue to ask me, over 10 years after my son was born, when I plan to have another. As if having just one is the worst, most unthinkable thing I could ever do.
You’re hearing it here first, folks: I’m not having any more kids.
The womb is closed.
Meanwhile, Hubby and I are doing our best to raise our singleton son, now 11 & 1/2 years old, and we think we are doing a pretty good job of it. I was recently thumbing through a journal that I kept when Monkey was very small, and I stumbled across an anecdote that seemed apropos to share here.
When Monkey was about 3 years old, he won three identical goldfish at a carnival. Actually, he didn’t win them so much as acquire them; the man at the booth said it was late in the day, that it was the last day of whatever festival we were attending, and he basically wanted to unload the fish. So when Monkey’s dart popped one balloon he became the “big winner” of the day and we came home with a plastic baggie o’fish.
Monkey promptly named the trio the best names he could think of: “Mommy,” “Daddy” and “Monkey.” And he fed them (sometimes). And he watched them swim (sometimes). And he disappeared when I cleaned the bowl (always). And for a while, things went along swimmingly. The fish were nice to have, but he didn’t seem very invested in them.
One morning, hubby and I awoke to the sound of Monkey screaming, “Mommy! Daddy! Mommy! Daddy!”
Husband and I jumped out of our bed and ran down the hall to find our son standing on top of his bed staring into the fishbowl.
“Mommy and Daddy are dead,” he announced.
Now these were three completely identical goldfish. There was absolutely nothing to tell them apart. no telltale spots, no interesting marks, no places where anyone had been chomped, so I had to ask.
“Monkey, how can you tell that it’s Mommy and Daddy that didn’t make it?”
My son looked at me like I was an alien. “Well, because as you can see,” he said, pointing into the tiny little bowl, “Monkey is right there. He’s fine.”
Duh.
Hubby and I looked at each other. Our child didn’t seem to be traumatized. In fact, when we asked him what we ought to do with the two fish that had gone belly-up, he replied pragmatically, “Probably flush ’em.”
Like most only children, Monkey has hung out with his cousins and turned his closest friends into pseudo-siblings, knowing it’s not the same as having real brothers or a sisters but not necessarily missing what he doesn’t have. For him, siblings are kind of like the floating goldfish we flushed away so long ago: they were nice while they lasted, but he prefers having the bowl to himself. He has seen siblings who get along beautifully, and he has watched siblings claw at each other like cats. He realizes that just because a person has a brother or a sister doesn’t mean that relationship will be a close one. These days, he also knows that being an only has its perks: No one will mess with his many collections, or go in his room to snoop around, or kick him unexpectedly in the twigs and berries. But he couldn’t have known this back then.
The day the fish died, my husband explained the bowl had been too small, that there had been too much urea in the water and not enough oxygen. He asked our son if he wanted to get a bigger tank, more fish.
“No. One is good.”
Recent studies show that only children are no more messed up than anybody else’s kids. In fact, only children tend to do better in school and get more education — college, medical or law degrees — than other kids. Source Material
So everybody can stop worrying.
The only kid is all right.
Where do you fall in the birth order? Has birth order impacted you? Do you think birth order matters at all?Or is it all a bunch of hogwash?
So this month I bopped in, said hello, made my way to the room where the warm massage table was waiting. I quickly disrobed, slid between the heated sheets, and spent a fabulous relaxing hour with Dean. (That sounds kind of naughty, but it wasn’t.)
I was so relaxed that I almost missed it.
I almost peed in my pants!
How much did I love that sign?
Those folks at Massage Envy not only got the sign right, but they had such a great sense of humor about the whole thing!
Plus they patiently waited for me to notice the sign – which had to be killing them.
I’m sure the girls up-front (not to mention the manager) wanted to smash my nose against it!
But they didn’t. They were professional and waited for me to notice it in my own good time.
And afterwards, they still let me eat a few fabulous dark chocolates wrapped in purple foil at the end of my session.
I was prescribed Klonopin for insomnia in 2005. Seven years later, after a slow, medically supervised wean, I became cognitively impaired, and after 30 months of intense suffering, I have been resurrected - a phoenix, come from the ashes, ready to battle doctors and big Pharma, while offering empathic support to those still suffering protracted withdrawal symptoms.
A perfectionist by nature, I'm learning to find beauty in the chaos. I'm the girl with the big ideas and the big hair. And words. Always words.
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