Suburban Goddess

It’s amazing what sticks in my head. Years & years & years of movie quotes, song lyrics, trivial information that makes me deadly in a game of Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary…. I am a formidable opponent…

If only I could parlay that into an ability to retain USEFUL information. Like stock quotes. Company information. Sports statistics. How to count cards. But no, my head is filled with wonderful tidbits like, “Tommy used to work on the docks”, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner”, and “Who’s your favorite Little Rascal; Alfalfa, or SPANKY?”

Certainly there has to be six-figure job out there somewhere whose only requirement is being able to name any hair band song in five notes….

Last Sunday, Alex and I participated in The March of Dimes. I got her all psyched up for it; every day I would show her the brochure with the preemie baby on it and tell her, “This weekend, we’re going to save the babies!”

She would echo me in true monkey fashion. “Save babieeees….”

It was the cutest damn thing.

So all week, all I hear out of this kid is, “Save babies, Mommy, save babies!” I would nod encouragement in that maternal way, that I’m-so-proud-I’m-raising-a-thoughtful-child nod. She would walk around the house, dragging Elmo by the foot, mumbling like a deranged homeless person, “Save babies, save babies, save babieeeeesss….”

So the morning of the walk dawns, and we prepare ourselves, loading up her stroller, grabbing life sustaining items (ELMO!), and packing up the little necessities. When we arrive to find my group, I was completely ready to show off my socially-minded princess.

“Tell everyone what you’re doing today, baby…” I say proudly, waiting for that AAAWWWWW moment to ensue.

Silence.

I tried to coax it out of her for an entire hour, 3 miles total… NOTHING. In fact, she didn’t say ANYTHING, leaving me to wonder who this deaf mute child was. So after we made the 3 mile trek, everybody disbanded and I headed back to the car. I lifted her out of the stroller to buckle her back in her carseat, and placed the stroller in the back of the car. As soon as I put the key in the ignition, I heard it, completely unprovoked…

“Save babies, Mommy.”

And it was still the cutest damn thing.

In my life, I’ve been part of just about every socio-economic group you can be part of. I started poor, moved up to middle class, back down to poor, back to middle class, back to poor, jumped to upper-middle class, rubbed elbows with the upper class, and have migrated back down to comfortably middle-class… and I have made some pretty interesting observations along the way.

Poor people understand the true meaning of family. They have to; they don’t have anything else. Their holidays are heartfelt, honest, and caring. Yet they always wonder what it would be like to be on the other side… and that can make them jealous & bitter.
On the other side, people tolerate their families. Sure, there’s love, but the overwhelming need to possess & preserve stuff seems to be the focus. (I always think of George Carlin and his rant about STUFF.) The funny thing is, all the stuff doens’t fill the empty void left when you don’t allow yourself to connect completely with your family.
In the middle, there just seems to be a lot of irritation; irritated that they don’t have enough stuff, and irritated that they have to spend time with family. Seriously, do you know any middle class people who LIKE getting together with their family? It just seems like they’re always complaining about the things they don’t have, how to pay the bills on the things they DO have, and GOD DAMN IT, do I have to spend time with these people AGAIN???

I found myself on the high side again this weekend, and as I eavesdropped on various conversations, I was disappointed in the things I heard. What is it about money that gives someone the feeling that their time is more precious than yours? Or that their opinion matters more? Especially if you didn’t MAKE that money, but had it given to you by a dying relative or rich spouse? Is your human worth more than mine? Sure, your net wealth may be better, but in speaking of the soul, does your checkbook make you a better person than me? Does it give you the right to talk down to someone, to insult them, to make the entire world around you miserable so that you can fill the emptiness inside of you?

I found myself feeling sorry for some of these people, these beautiful, glittery, sparkly people who seemed to be missing the point of the whole evening. It was more like a car show, people throwing their money around trying to impress one another… occasionally I would overhear a genuine conversation, true friends talking about something meaningful, and it would give me hope…

I guess it was just disappointing to me. I’m trying to find real, honest people to surround myself with, people with conviction & heart, & substance, people who don’t hold back or put on false faces…. I don’t know if it’s me being extremely judgemental or if it’s just that those people are so few & far between… perhaps I should lower the bar a bit. I guess I was thinking wealth would lead to enlightenment, but I was wrong. Some of those people were just as trashy as the rednecks who lived in the trailer park… they just had better clothes…

“What the hell are THOSE?”

“Stripper boots.”

“Were you a stripper?”

“No, I just like the boots.”

“My God, those things are HUGE. You must be, like, 6′3″ in them…”

“Uh huh. 6′4″, actually.”

“They look like they hurt…”

“They do. Hence the reason they’re covered in dust…”

“Oh, and I thought you were just on hiatus…FREAK.”

This morning I was late. It’s no different from any other day; I’m consistently late. And there’s really no excuse for it; the problem is, after waking up at a quarter to five, I work out for an hour, take my shower, then climb back into my bed for a fifteen minute catnap before getting up to get ready for work.

All I have to do is NOT climb back in the bed.

For some reason, every single morning, that’s just NOT an option. So today, like every other day, I climbed back in the bed, snoozed for fifteen minutes, and woke up late. Again. And the daily routine of running around frantically began again, just as it does every single day. Blow dry the hair. Get dressed. Brush teeth. Grab Alex. Change diaper. Get her dressed. Fix her hair. Brush her teeth. Find shoes. Grab lunch. Gather bags… etc., etc., etc…

But today, when I reached the day care, I noticed one boot was looser than the other. I lost a small piece of rubber on my right heel yesterday, so I didn’t pay too close attention to the fact that one heel seemed slightly lower than the other… Unbuckle Alex. Grab diaper bag. Rush inside. Lean down. Give hugs and kisses. And that’s when I noticed, one tip of my boot was rounded, while the other one was pointy.

I was wearing two different shoes.

You hear about this happening to scatter-brained moms and laugh at them; that could NEVER happen to you. Well, let me just be the first to say, YES IT CAN. So now I was faced with a dilemna; do I go to work and hope no one will notice, or do I risk the wrath of my boss and be even LATER than usual?

Are you kidding me? There’s no way in HELL I’d be caught walking into work with two different shoes on! So I ran home, got caught in traffic on the way back, and walked into work thirty minutes late with matching shoes.

A girl’s got to get her priorities straight….