In urgent situations, women have been known to post a guard and commandeer a men's room
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
The graphic art in the plastic surgery center's ad was what caught my eye. It was a large photo of Michaelangelo's David, one of the most exquisite and realistic depictions of the nude male ever created. In the ad, amateurish airbrushing over his groin area had rendered him anatomically neutered, as smooth and genderless as…
DOLLS IN THE TOY BOX
When I was a little girl, baby dolls didn't "do" anything. We dressed them in frilly clothing, carried them around (often by an arm or a leg), and pushed them around the neighborhood in a stroller. When we got bored with them, we tossed them into the toybox. In later years, manufacturers added features making…
Traveling with Mom: It’s Payback Time
I should have suspected Mom had an ulterior motive when she suggested a ladies-only trip with my two sisters and me. "I'll drive," chirped my sister Susie. "Won't this be fun? It'll be just like all those family trips when we were growing up. Two adults and five children in the car for nine hours.…
Caution: I’m Socially Inappropriate. You’ve Been Warned
I have no filter. A friend once gifted me with a pin to wear that said, "Caution...socially inappropriate." In baseball terminology, I have no on-deck circle. If a pitch comes at me, I take a swing at it. Sometimes it's a line drive and a home run, but sometimes it's a swing and a miss.…
Mom Gets Busted By the Cops
My mom once drove without a license for over seven years. She'd had a license in her home state, but when she and Dad moved to another state, she opted to risk getting caught rather than take the required exam. I'm surprised she got away with it for that long. Her driving skills were not…
Let Me Know When the Fun Starts
I went to high school in the late 1960s; the era of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, but all that passed me by. Because I believed my mom when she said nice girls didn't participate in any of those activities, I spent my teen years in my bedroom doing calculus homework and wistfully dreaming of the…
Flushed With Success
Ah, I thought as I pushed down the handle of the toilet and walked away. Now that I'd moved out of my childhood home, for the first time in my life I was secure in the knowledge that I no longer had to grab a plunger and hover anxiously as the water rose higher and…
Do You Know What Really Bugs Me? Bugs!
My brief career as an ant farner. Don't believe the hype about those lazy bast***s.
Not-So-Great Expectations
I grew up in the kind of small, sleepy, rural midwestern town that comedians joke about. You've heard the joke. "If I had only six months to live, I'd move there because the time would seem twice as long." There were few opportunities for employment, for teens or anyone else. The few small businesses in…
Horoscope or Horror-scope?
I need direction in my life, both figuratively and literally. Maybe using my daily horoscope as a life coach, rather than as harmless entertainment, is not a good idea. It told me months ago, "You'll get a stretch of beautiful mental clarity." I'm still waiting. Another day's horoscope read, "Be glad that you recognize your…
Ghostly Apparitions
My childhood home was a two-story old house with a wide front porch. It was shaded by mature trees perfect for climbing. In the side yard was a hugely overgrown shrub, with a bare space in the middle just big enough to climb into with a good book and be undisturbed. The yard was bordered…
Trouble’s Brewing
Surely it couldn't be that hard to brew your own beer, Dad thought A cold beer sure would be refreshing after a long, hard day at work. With five children and lots of bills to pay, there wasn't much leftover cash for nonessentials like beer. After studying beer brewing in the A-C volume of our…
Never A Patient Patient
Rest and relaxation aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. While juggling the responsibilities of home and office, you dream of days of leisure. Then you get them, and soon the thrill wears off. After having extensive surgery, I was instructed to take it easy for 4-6 weeks. The first few days, while I was…
Levity & Brevity 