The Amazing All-Purpose Wooden Spoon.......It Will Stir, Mix, Discipline Your Child And Act As A Makeshift Microphone

There's a family that lives in our neighborhood who suffers from an extreme case of suburbanitis. You know, they look the part, and act the part with their 3 children, mammoth SUV, nice 2-story brick home with a Chemlawn manufactured yard, and endless conversations about getting their toddler into the "right" pre-school. We actually live in the low-end spectrum for this area so the most they can hope to achieve is the title of Ghetto Debutantes.

So, they have a 6 year-old son with an interesting Widow's Peak hairline named Logan. I have a 6 year-old son with an interesting Widow's Peak hairline named Logan, too! We see this family pretty frequently at the neighborhood pool during the summer months and have since both our Logan's were tiny little boys.

The Middle-Class Socialite wannabe Mom absolutely fascinates me. She can go from sharing her favorite meatloaf recipes with her poolside gal pals to shrieking at her son and threatening to beat him with a wooden spoon in seconds flat.

I know, a wooden spoon. Wooden Spoons: The spanking instrument of choice for Betty Crocker devotees everywhere. You can whip up a cake and whip up your kid all at the very same time!

I always figured that the wooden spoon paddling was just an empty threat because I employ the use of empty threats myself. I always tell my mini-Infidels, "Don't make me take off my belt because I'll burn your little butt with it," and then they start laughing uproariously because they know that:
A. Fat woman pants don't usually have belts hence my elasticwaistbandlady screen name.
B. The only belt I own is silky and scarf-like. It would be akin to getting a pounding from a paddle made of dryer sheets. Yeah.
Imagine our surprise when one day the lady stopped her bellowing and actually pulled a wooden spoon out of her purse and gave her son a butt-whooping right there at the pool. (Nothing severe. I don't sit idly by while children get abused. This was just a couple smacks on his rear end for being disobedient.)

I'm working on this theory that ardent environmentalists out devoting their entire lives to saving trees from destruction have ulterior motives. I think they got wooden spoon whippings as children and now dedicate themselves to tree preservation work in an effort to bring the wooden spoon manufacturers to a screeching halt. I wonder if young Logan will grow up to ban wooden spoons from his home like Christina Crawford has likely banned all padded hangers from hers? I wonder if Logan's wife will offer to "spoon" with him and will be baffled when he runs from their marital bed, screaming?

Anyway, it's hot time, summer in the city once again and that means seeing the Wooden Spoon Whipper Family down at the pool. I know this is so wrong but the intrinsically devious part of my mind wants to bring my own wooden spoon to the pool so I can (jokingly) threaten my mini-Infidels with it in front of that family just to gauge a reaction. I have these wild thoughts of maliciously brandishing the spoon and twirling it above my head like a lethal weapon. (Think Indiana Jones and his leather whip)

We saw a 3-pack of wooden spoons at the Dollar Store. They were teak and of fairly high quality for Dollar Store merchandise. Yep, these spoons should carry an endorsement from The Wooden Spoon Whippers Society of America promising that they will never break or crack while being used to correct an errant child. Upon seeing the wooden spoon threesome, that intrinsically devious part of my mind whispered to me again and told me I should buy those spoons and wrap them up with pretty ribbon and leave them at the door of The Wooden Spoon Whipper Family's house.......So far, I've resisted but I don't know how much longer I can hold out.

An Infidel Quickie!

You know that this Infidel, well usually, 'she love you long time.' Yeah, that basically means that an abbreviated blog rendezvous at The Smiling Infidel's red-velvet wallpapered headquarters rarely happens because my posts tend to run long. Really long. Ridiculously long. Looooooonnnngg. But not today! My Fat Melody is obsessed with Christmas because she knows her birthday lies somewhere around that magical date. She coyly asked me all summer if it was time to put up the Christmas tree because that's her sneaky little way of gauging time in correlation to her birthday. Fat Melody thinks she's the center of the universe and that all time stops and starts based on the annual marking of her grand entrance into the mortal coil. She's our baby, so Papi and I have never told her any differently.

We went swimming yesterday and as I floated around the pool ferrying Fat Melody like the Grand Poobah Princess she is, she asked me what I wanted for Christmas knowing full well that the conversation would evolve into birthday talk.......again. I told her that I only wanted everyone to be happy. Melody smiled and persisted with, "Me gonna buy you a necklace!" I made my neck disappear under my considerable chins kind of like the guy in the picture is doing and I laughingly told her "Oh, so sorry. I don't have a neck to put a necklace on." Melody thought for half a second and brilliantly declared, "For Christmas, me gonna buy you a new neck!"

See, blog quickies can be a satisfying experience because it's all about quality; not quantity. So.......was it good for you?

*I'm Not A Mommeeeee Blogger. But I Play One Sometimes On Teh Internets.*

Melody.......Grand Master Of The Tit-For-Tat Game!

My Melody got a cute new fishy bathing suit courtesy of the end-of-summer-clearance onslaught going on at all the local stores. As if. We wear flip-flops and shorts in Houston 9-10 months out of the year. Yep, we're just one long continuous season. One long continuous HOT season interspersed with a few hurricanes and tornadic activity, that is. Yeah, Richard Marx was definitely singing about H-Town in his song, 'Endless Summer Nights.' So, what goes better with a picture of an adorable girl than an adorable story?
As I sat on the sofa, talking on the phone with my mom and fending off nosy Melody with my free hand, she mentioned something about Melody's chubbiness. I put the phone to my shoulder, and teasingly told Melody that her Grandma said that she had a fat butt. Melody blinked her eyes, and asked, "What Grandma?" I told her it was my mom. Melody smiled and blurted out, "Oh, your mom? The one who pooped her pants?" I couldn't stop laughing, and at that point my mom sighed mightily as she hung up and asked if we were ever going to let the story of her dire misfortune go.

No, we probably never will.

My Mom Says That Blogging Is Dangerous, And Stupid Too!

I used to regard every word that sprang forth from my mother's saintly mouth as the gospel truth ................. but not anymore. Mama always told me that I needed to exercise fiscal caution with my allowance because money doesn't grow on trees. However, the existence of a veritable orchard of Dollar Trees spread across these great United States proves her wrong. Very wrong. Then I started wondering where else she might have led me astray because my mom also told me:

• "Don't do that, or you'll go blind!"
• "Always put on clean underwear when you leave the house in case you get into an accident."
• "Don't pet stray animals or you'll get rabies."
• "Stop picking at yourself. You'll get a scar."
• "If you don't wear a brassiere, your boobs will hang down to your knees like the tribal ladies on the pages of a National Geographic magazine."
• "You have to sit out of the pool for 30 minutes after you eat or you'll get cramps and drown."
• "Don't talk to strangers or accept candy from them."
  

Well, no more. Today's the day that I defy all that my mother taught me. I'm going to disprove each and every one of her Mom-isms and show the world that Mommy doesn't always know best. So, come on all you strangers- Talk to me! Send me candy! My rebellious spirit welcomes the exhilarating danger! I may have a little trouble typing a response back to you though because I'm spending the day with my eyes crossed and my tongue hanging out to show that my face will not freeze this way forever, and ever.

Show Your Newspaper Carrier A Little R-E-S-P-E-C-T And In Turn We Won't Pee On Your Paper

I'll never win the coveted Newspaper Carrier Of The Year Award, but that's okay with me, because revenge is sweeter than some crappy little trophy with my name scrawled across it. The photographer obviously used newspaper carrier stunt doubles, because, believe me, I've never seen anyone smiling like that down at the warehouse.

Some Houston Chronicle subscribers feel the need to whine, cry, and moan incessantly about their newspaper. You would think that people had actual lives outside of complaining about a home delivery service that they get for mere pennies a day, but no. Every day customers in the district call in to the complaint hotline using their snottiest voice, "I want my paper tied to the front door handle because I'm a laaaawwwwyer." WTH? Who cares if you're a doctor or a lawyer? Why do you have such low self-esteem that you need to lord your title over a little peon newspaper carrier? During Hurricane Rita last year, I promise this is true, people called in hysterical that they didn't get a paper. Ummm, Houston received dire predictions and an evacuation order to clear the city. Just north of here, people died, and had all their worldly possessions ripped away from them, and you're worried about a frickin disposable newspaper? This district has a lot of economically privileged people living in it and the constant barrage of asinine requests tend to reflect that. I swear some of them won't feel the warm glow of customer satisfaction until I march their paper right into their over-priced, under-insulated, mini mansions, and plop down at the kitchen table to read it to them and show them all the pretty pictures.

One particular guy on my route wins the 'A-Hole Of The Year' Award. Of course, the most demanding subscribers also never give a word of praise or thanks. They never give a tip at Christmas, and they never smile or wave cheerfully at you when you pass by. I started this route to help out with the bills when Papi went back to school a few years ago, and this butthead sobbed his little eyes out at the time that he absolutely HAD to have his paper by 5:00 A.M. That's a full 30 minutes before the allotted weekday delivery deadline of 5:30. So really, I made him a favour out of the kindness of my heart. Last October, a tornado touched down a mile from my route while I was still out throwing. The wind and the torrential rains proved severe enough to flood out the streets of the neighborhood, thus stranding me for about 30 minutes. Mr. A-Hole called in 6 times to complain that he hadn't gotten his paper at 5:00. Seriously. Okay, impassable streets, whirling tornadic activity, one sad and pathetic, dripping wet newspaper lady stuck in the middle of it all, and he's only worried about HIS newspaper? Where do people find this misguided sense of entitlement that they should have everything they want, when they want it, and damn everybody else? I began throwing his paper whenever I felt like as a form of protest, but he took his endless complaining to the boss of my boss. In a perfect world, they would have told him to screw off because he signed a contract that promised him 5:30 delivery and nothing more. We don't live in a perfect world, and they acquiesced to his demands.

I suppose that poor unfortunate souls like me, stuck in crappy circumstances because we depend on the money that our menial labor provides, just sucks up the negative and learns to bear it. However, I've started extracting revenge in small doses that satisfies the primal urge in me that wants to go and toilet paper his house and spray paint salacious things on his truck. I'm greeted every day by him standing outside scowling at me with his arms crossed. If it's 5:01, he impatiently taps his watch and shakes a disapproving finger at me. He requested sidewalk delivery. I make sure to throw it as far as possible from wherever he's standing so he has to move his mean azz to go and pick it up and feel the sting of inconvenience. It shows him that he's not the boss of me, no! I'm a wild flower of the night that can't be controlled by his dictatorial ways. The top of each bundled section gets rumpled and ripped, so I usually discard them because it really isn't fit for delivery. Well, it's fit enough for his delivery. I save them all especially for him in a neat little stack on the dashboard. I guess he made such a fuss about what time I delivered the paper, he doesn't want to hassle looking even more petty by whining about the actual physical condition. It's readable, I suppose, if you smooth out the wrinkles, and you don't mind shredded paper hanging off the corners. I get a sick sense of pleasure knowing I'm giving him the worst of the worst, bright and early, every single day.

I told my mom about all this. Understand, she's more demented than I will ever be. It just so happened that she was driving through the main thoroughfare in the neighborhood and she asked which house Mr.A-Hole lived in. I told her, and she started laughing really hard. Apparently, at that very moment, she felt the burning desire to gift his front yard with her Chik-Fil-A trash. Oh, she's so very bad. She now makes it a tradition to pass by his house and throw something whenever she's in the area. I love my mom.

Take heed and treat your newspaper carriers right or suffer the consequences!

If It Wasn't For My Mother And Failed Contraception I Wouldn't Be Here Writing To You All Today!

You see all these naughty kittens? It's obvious they lost their mittens, and now they shall have no pie. Why do you think creepy mommy cat is smiling? It's certainly not due to the furry fruit of her pussy loins ceaselessly squirming and crawling all over her. No. It's because she knows that she just scored herself an entire pie since she doesn't have to share with her ungrateful mitten losing spawn. What, do they think kitten mittens just grow on freakin kitten mitten trees?

So, what does a destitute Smiling Infidel give to her own Mama on Mother's Day? Well, I broke out ye olde DJ Infidel turn tables and scratched up a trio of specially mixed CD's just for her! And then to make the gift seem more personal, I took time out of my busy, busy schedule to print some pictures off the Internet to stand in as custom CD case covers. What a good daughter am I. In all fairness, The Ghost Of Mother's Day Past knows that I used to put forth more effort, but this year I have my Papi finishing his last two semesters of college (no student loans!) and homeschool/pre-school curriculum and tuition for 6 kids to pony up.(no student loans!) I did pick out tasteful music even though I secretly wanted to burn 'Bootylicious,' and 'Hollaback Girl,' onto the CD's. I thought better of it when I realized that a move like that would likely jeopardize my birthday gift status one week from now.

And finally, what Mother's Day gift would be complete without precious memories of your children encapsulated in keepsake pictures? I am my Mom's only daughter and oldest child, after all. My Mama delights in recounting tales of how monstrous I behaved as a child, so I thought it only fitting that I send her my absolute best 'Grudge' pose to frame and prominently display on the coffee table. I found a great glow-in-the-dark hockey mask at the dollar store too, but I'm saving that little beauty for next year. Won't my Mom feel proud when she tells visitors to her home that yes, her daughter is indeed the Bride Of Jason!

To All You Mother's, Mommie Dearests, Baby Mamas, Big Mommas, Mami Chulas, and Mother Truckers Out There........................Happy Mother's Day!