Valentine’s Day and Tough Love

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, February 11, 2011
Valentine’s Day is around the corner. Hopefully you’re a great planner and have everything lined up. Otherwise, you can show your sweetheart, with a few clicks, that wonderful gizmo you are ordering on Valentine’s Day itself. Disclaimer: this is not the recommended method.


There are so many forms and degrees of love, but I’ve decided to go with a tougher topic. I know you’ve grown accustomed to some hardcore, hard-nosed journalism here every week, so I don’t want to disappoint you, especially before the big day, V-Day. Valentine’s Day is all about love, but that can come in as many varieties as there are types of chocolates, flavored coffees, or kids’ cereal. Let’s be decisive and restrict ourselves to one kind: tough love.


Tough love is so called because it is not pleasant to receive, and is equally unpleasant to mete out to your beloved child. Life, I believe is built on a very pay-now or pay-later system. Either way, you’re going to have to pay, so the only decision is whether to put it off for later or to deal with it head-on. While I am a confirmed and avowed procrastinator in most things, when it comes to my children, I prefer the pay now method.


About a month ago, our doorbell rang in the early hours of the night. A father was desperately trying to collect the last hundred dollars to bail out his child from jail. Ordinarily I don’t have much cash on hand – I know, I know, I REALLY need to put together an emergency kit, with cash in it, for crises like these – but oddly enough, I had taken exactly that amount of extra cash out of the bank that very day.


I know the man who was at my door. He promised to return the money in two days as soon as he got paid. My husband says I’m gullible, and while it’s true, I had no expectations of ever seeing that cash again. Isn’t that how we’re supposed to lend things? So far, my expectations have not been disappointed. Neither have I, to be honest. Certainly, I haven’t skipped any meals or opted out of filling the gas tank because of it.


I’m more amenable to this type of solicitation than people pitching pesticide programs on my doorstep. This distraught dad offered me his cell phone number. I said no. I trust him. Obviously, he knows where we live. That’s good enough. I have no attachment to that cash. If it never comes back, it’s okay.


I’m going to tread carefully, because I might hurt some people’s feelings, specifically, three. Considering that might account for a significant chunk of my readership, I’ll try to target only those thirty toes.


I’m also going to guard myself because I have children of my own. We never know what life holds for us around the corner, and we don’t really have the power to control any being other than ourselves, no matter how necessary it might feel. Forget about controlling others; sometimes we can barely control ourselves: Infancy, toddler-hood, early childhood, the ‘tweens, the teens years, young adulthood, midlife, and old age seem to stand out as phases of life that pose such difficulty.


Tomorrow my child might shame me. Then you can toss out my advice along with the paper. Until then, please allow me to pontificate.


Bringing up children is all about carefully watching that bubbling pot. You have to keep adjusting the temperature, stirring things up a bit, and occasionally suffering a burn or two. You can’t turn off the heat, though, or it will just sit there, bored and stagnating. At times you have to sweeten things; other times require bitter herbs. Should you adopt a hands-off philosophy (let the pot do the cooking), you will enjoy brief, carefree moments followed by the risk of having a big, scorched, mess. At overflow, the mess tends to be more public than pleasant.


I don’t know all the details of this parenting fiasco. Granted, some children are harder to rein in than others. There is the occasional child who proves immune to parental guidance and correction. Did this child bypass time-outs in the formative years? Did s/he exempt the exam on the section that says certain actions have negative consequences? Or was this child genetically hard-wired to inflict headaches and heartaches upon the parents? I don’t know. I doubt many people do. The Nurture versus Nature battle rages on.


Was it all those summers when the child was technically old enough to be left alone all day, and was, that might have played a role in this degenerate behavior? Was it the result of marital problems in the parents? Was it lack of spiritual counsel and moral guidance? Was it the influence of peers that outweighed the influence of parenting? The questions can be fired more rapidly than the answers.


Next week, we’ll tackle the other twenty toes. It’s an incredulous thought, but I suspect that neither party mentioned reads this column. Do me a favor. Just this once, don’t tip them off.

The Perils of Potty-Training

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend January 21, 2008


With brilliant foresight, our youngest and eldest children were born nearly fifteen years apart. Many people congratulate us on timing things so that the babysitters are built-in. But this timing also necessitates teaching the one to drive while training the other how to use the toilet. Stop being silly. You know which kid is learning what. Either way, I live in fear that one of them might “have an accident.”


 I have potty-trained five kids. I chant this to myself like those little motivational cheers that consultants charge hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach to corporate cubicleoids. (Cubicleoid: a lifeform that dwells in cubicles, typically on weekdays, 9 to 5.) The consultant comes in. Everyone drops their meetings and schedules and whatever real work is normally accomplished in between the two. The consultant teaches everyone to hold a polished stone and meditate while releasing negative energy into it. By week’s end, that stone is holding so much negative energy that the cubicleoid is fantasizing lobbing one Sacred Soothing Stone at the unsatisfiable boss’s head or pushing it down the throat of the catty coworker who keeps stealing the credit.


So I chant this refrain, “I have potty-trained five kids.” I do not hold any stones. I do not pay $5,000. Those five have remained potty-trained. (Won’t that impress their friends at school?) Why am I having trouble with this youngest, my sixth trainee and most recent graduate of Mama Ribeiro’s Potty Training Academy?


The problem couldn’t have been the timing. He had just turned two. Ever since he was sitting up at six months old, whenever I knew he needed to go, I would hold him on the potty insert that fits right on the toilet seat. (I hate to admit it, but my husband was the one who discovered these $10-wonders years ago and came home with one for each bathroom. You would not appreciate this restraint unless you knew how gadget-happy this man is…ask him to bring bread from the store, and he brings bread AND a breadmaker. If you see him in the grocery store, you will know things are dire at home. Please feel free to reach over and remove any electronic items from the basket. I will thank you later.) Who wouldn’t want to trade bundling up a bio-hazardous diaper for a quick flush? This March, three members of our household were overcoming the flu, so we were already isolated, homebound, and contending with germs. What better time to potty-train?


Since he already knew what to do, things went very well, and within days, we were done with diapers. I got the best tips from my sister-in-law years ago. She always made sure her tots were well hydrated during the training period (not that she let them shrivel otherwise, but it is harder to get results), and she set her microwave timer for thirty minutes. Every half hour, we visited the toilet. That’s right, you might as well cancel your other plans – you are not going anywhere or getting anything else done in those 29 minutes in between.


There is a very anti-sugar contingency in mothering. Let it be known that I store all kinds of treats and bribes to get a kid to the toilet. I used to give them only as a reward, but with this latest model I found it was easier to show him an M&M and walk toward the bathroom. He could have one just for sitting there, and a couple more if he actually peed. The Pavlovian pee-pee response to seeing M&Ms is now so strong, I am afraid to take him through the grocery store checkout.


And speaking of going anywhere, those first outings are an exercise in tenuous, tension-filled brevity. Any location you visit, especially those without public restrooms, will be met with the happy announcement from your little one, “I hafta go to the bafroom.” What can you do? You are held hostage by that tiny bladder, and I have the cowardly philosophy in public: “Better safe than soggy.” You comply with every request while they wield their newfound Power of the Pee. When you walk into the store next-door just twenty seconds later, look upon the shining face of your little one. They cannot resist checking out the facilities, no matter how many times you have to plead with a clerk to find yourself scrambling over boxes of inventory to get to the Employees Only restroom.


Recently I had taken my two youngest to the play area at McDonald’s. I know we are not supposed to admit to feeding our kids there, but the French Fries do have an addictive quality and when the weather is not its best, they can still enjoy running around in the company of other children. Until Bladder Boy sounds his call, that is. Then you pick up your belongings, get the kids to locate their shoes and put them back on. Like any assemble-it-yourself project, this always sounds easier on paper. You make the dash all the way around the building to the other side (where it dawns on you that the play area must have been an afterthought) where the ladies room is.


The little one, after all that effort, produces about 5 ml of liquid. You are caught between needing to praise him for his efforts but wanting to punch him because of all yours. Don’t worry; the maternal side wins. But by the fifth trip around the building during the 90-minute stay, the maternal side is getting dangerously weaker. You find yourself yanking the other child in sock-feet through the obstacle course of yellow easels warning of the odd spill. You find yourself a little less thrilled by this teaspoonful. You find yourself packing up to go home.


All this can lead you to long to return to the Day of the Diaper, which is the philosophy behind Pull-ups, which is why I never bought them…until recently, for the convenience, I suppose. But the message that a Pull-up sends is completely contrary to the message sent by pee-pee running down the legs. I just wanted to avoid dealing with that particular broadcast message. But I have re-realized that the sooner I get rid of the Pull-ups and we end this on-again, off-again relationship, the sooner my youngest son will be totally trained. Until then, all I have to do is resume my little chant and avoid public places.

Bedtime stories and the tales they tell

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend edition February 4th, 2011

This week, I’ve been reading a story to my two youngest at bedtime. It isn’t relevant that it’s Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. The most significant thing, to me, is simply that I’m reading to them, because it’s been ages since I’ve done that.

It’s hard to have to admit that, considering that bedtime stories were vital when I was younger and newer to this parenting thing. Nightly reading was a must. It was a delicious time to bond together and to talk of the things that really mattered, to explain what words meant, and to go over life’s lessons. It was a time to delve into the next chapter and to hear how the Ingalls family had fared during The Long Winter. Or, for my young and male pyromaniac, I would read Matches, Lighters, and Firecrackers are not Toys by Dorothy Chlad. It never mattered then how tired I was.

Naturally, the children were never too tired for a bedtime story. They always seemed to be full of energy no matter what, and they relished this time. It was not to be taken from them. I now understand why kids have so much energy and we don’t. They sap it directly from us, right through the pores or something. Consequently, parents tend to be short stocked while the children have an ample supply – an overabundance, really.

Having the time and the leisure to read to my younger children (much less just for me) has been one of the “collateral damages” of my working outside the home. It has, sadly, fallen by the wayside. There just isn’t the time to squeeze everything in, because those 24 hours are as fixed and rigid in any given day, no matter how much you plan to accomplish.

Having been a stay at home mom for seventeen years, I almost felt like a professional at it. Granted, it had had its darker and duller moments. I had had those moments of self-doubt, but more often, it had had its supreme joys too. I feel that the time invested in the children then was something that has had a tremendous impact for them.

Apart from the cleaning, laundry, and cooking, I had loved being a stay-at-home mom. I know it’s not sophisticated to admit this, especially if you have set aside a specific training or education or have forgone a potentially lucrative career. I had come into stay-at-home-dom after having been the “working mother.” I use quotes to affirm that no matter whether you work outside the home or not, you’re pretty much always working.

For two-and-a-half years, I had left my firstborn child in someone else’s hands, right from the time she was six weeks old. I had hated every day of the separation. On occasion, when I got to work and got a whiff of the spit-up smell that was coming from my shoulder and hair, I realized that our separation was not quite as neat or complete as I had imagined. I used to swallow that lump in my throat every morning after dropping her off at the babysitter. I would pray bitterly, “Okay, God. Is this how You want it?”

Our move from Long Island to Northern California, where we lived for almost nine years, allowed me to be a stay-at-home mom without even feeling a financial pinch. When God answers our prayers, He not only meets our needs, He so often exceeds them.

It didn’t occur to me that my daughter would remember what had seemed part of the distant past. When she was four or five, I had pulled out my long dress coat from the netherworld of the back of the closet. Her eyes brightened when she saw the coat, “You used to wear that to work, right Mommy?” I was curious. I asked if she remembered that time. “Yes, Mommy,” she said. “I used to cry for you from the door.”

It is so tempting, especially in a country where material things are easily attainable, to think we need to give our kids this and that, when what they really need from us is our time and our love. You must weigh what you want for your child. If you want them to grow up with lots of things at the expense of training, you miss a tender time in your child’s life when you have the ability to help mold their character.

I feel the two biggest things you can do for your kids: be there for them, and be content in doing so. Success can be gauged daily: if your child has learned something and has a grateful heart, the day has been a success.

I can’t say whether I’ve been or am a successful mom or educator. Kids are like baking a cake that takes 15 years to cook. While I might feel that the aroma coming from the oven is a good one, I am reluctant to say too much lest the cake flop, burn, or undercook. Only time will tell - but that’s no reason for me to let it slip away.

How I got Even with that Oddball Microwave

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend Edition, January 28th, 2011

I would never have believed that my appliances could be of such interest, but this may say more about the lack of salacious activity in Fauquier County than it does about my microwave. Here’s one indicator of the activity-deprivation: Last week, I used the puerile term “booger” and got a chiding email. While such verbiage might pass the editor’s desk, it doesn’t mean it will be acceptable to readers.

When we left off, it was Thanksgiving, and the 5, 7, and Auto/Defrost buttons on my microwave had put themselves into early retirement.


We have the home warranty that covers built-in microwaves. They declared the microwave unworthy of repair and sent us a check for the replacement cost of the microwave (but not for removing the old one, or installing the new one, or the $50 deductible that delivered the damning verdict.) Sometime over the summer, that check got consumed in our normal expenses.


Anyway, I reasoned, it wasn’t as if the microwave was completely unusable. Don’t say I’m inflexible. If you take away my odd numbers, I know how to get even. If you take away my auto defrost button, I won’t have a meltdown. After all, I had my handy and loyal “Quick Defrost” button that could be pressed repeatedly. It had not abandoned me.


We are, despite the accusations of older generations, not completely spoiled. We are used to suffering in our own sort of way, even though their cataracts don’t allow them to see that in us. For example, I once forgot to take my travel coffee mug to school, and I actually had to drink coffee from a gigantic Styrofoam cup! Yes, it was a plain cup and didn’t even have a cover, so by the time I got down to drinking the coffee, it had reached that reprehensible state of tepidity.


And who hasn’t had to put up with zones where their cell phone reception is as dead as your social life? We are not merely acquainted with suffering; sometimes we are best friends with it. Just put me into the Great Depression and you’ll see what kind of dandelion soup I can whip up. Don’t accuse me of being an alien to suffering. I’ll put a booger on you.


The penultimate occasion to the microwave’s death was when the Clear/Off button died. Without the Clear/Off, we were gonners. Now, if we meant to heat something for 34 seconds (not 35, of course), but we accidentally pressed the three-minute express button, we could not simply press “Clear/Off” and start again.


Now, we had to be vigilant and quickly open the microwave door as soon as the requisite time elapsed. In this new, “unclear” way of microwave life, it was safer to use the main oven’s timer to remind us when to yank open the microwave. The remaining time, which would be something like “2:25” was left on the microwave, so the next time we wanted to heat something, we just shut the door and pressed, “Start.” If you needed more time, when the 2:25 were expended, we could (finally) start anew.


Over Thanksgiving, at the height of our microwave misadventures, my incredibly sweet sister-in-law from Alaska accidentally punched in 90:00 into the microwave. Yes, ninety minutes of micro-waving pleasure, and no way to clear it. We laughed and challenged each other to use up all of this “banked” time. There was the occasional overflow of milk when we forgot to set the other timer, but no one cried over it. Instead, we rejoiced at the reduction in the sentenced time.


It felt like we were on a shopping spree in “Wheel of Fortune” and had ninety minutes to spend. “For one minute and thirty seconds, I’d like to heat up this mug of milk…for another two minutes, I’ll warm up this plate of leftover brown rice and chicken curry.” It was hard to be a big spender in the microwave time world. And also, it took a lot of time.


We cheered as if we had finished a marathon when we were ushered out of the nineties.


One fiercely windy morning a month later, our power failed, effectively resetting the microwave. It returned with a vengeance. It usurped power and demanded that we press “Clock” to set the time. Of course, the Clock button was now nonfunctional, rendering the entire beast unusable. We had no way to clear it. So we finally decided to issue the death certificate.


At Christmas, a quick trip to Tolson’s Appliance, which has been in business longer than any of us, squelched our microwave misery. It’s been a great way to start the New Year.

Regrets of the Snow Day

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, January 21st, 2011
If you were looking for something funny and uplifting, it won’t be here today. Sorry. I’m in a bit of a mood. Perhaps it was that snow day we had this week. I should be grateful, right? At least it was a mutual snow day, where I had the day off as well as my children, and that should be a blessing: being home, baking cookies, all that sort of good stuff, right?


That’s how your mind’s eye sees things, and sometimes that is a huge problem, that irritating mind’s eye. It sees and records things, all sorts of unreasonable things, and then it tries to control the rest of your being to get everything to fall into line that way.


I remember the time I had to run into the model home in our subdivision where the builders and/or developers were trying to peddle the last of their overpriced wares. I accidentally walked through – okay, lingered and lusted after – the interior of the model home. People with six children, a dog, and piles and piles of laundry that are rivaled only by the piles and piles of paper that are inherent with any schooling activity, should not be allowed to enter a model home. Period. It’s unhealthy and downright depressing to see all the perfection of such a place. The hyper decorated and uber-matched everything assaults your dignity when you realize that the only thing that is decorating your own white-walls-only home is assorted boogers left to dry on various walls …some walls more than others, and I’m not going to say where.


Of course, you realize as you go through the model home that the place is completely sterile – there is no one sleeping in or jumping on the beds. There are no toys, no books, no music, no life. There is nothing but canned perfection. Most annoying of all was that cleaning van dutifully parked to scrub that house every week. Forwhat? Cleaning the house was the only activity in that house. There was no life in it.


So you return to your home, trying to bolster yourself with self-righteous thoughts of how much life and activity you have in your home. Yours is a REAL house, because there is joy and laughter and there is bound to be a batch of freshly baked cookies. When you get home, there is bickering and teasing and the only activity seems to be generating more laundry and papers and possible “decorations.” Then you remember that, of yeah – none of us should be eating cookies, we’re supposed to be eating apple chunks and carrot slices, remember?


Why have some people still not brushed their teeth? Who is letting the dog, with her adorable yet sheddy self, slouch on those blankets you just spent a day washing? Before you know it, your aspirations to be that wonderful parent are drowned out by your own nagging and shouting.


Why couldn’t you have shut off your mind’s eye? Why can’t you shut your mouth? Why is it so active and envious? Why weren’t you strong enough to be joyful to come home to this and to give thanks that you have four walls, at least you have children, and least you have been given today. Because people are getting on your nerves, that’s why.


So this past snow day started out with the whole laughter-and-love theme, and it ended in a bit of bickering. I’ve heard various solutions to the bickering issue. I knew a lady who had only daughters, and when any of the daughters argued or fought with each other, as they tended to do in pairs, they were made to go and remain together in small, confined quarters until they were ready to forgive and forget each other. Oh, sorry – only forgive each other – I think it was the argument they were supposed to forget. (I don’t think the mom meant putting them in a broom closet and then forgetting that she had instructed them to stay there.)


I have done the “do not play with each other” technique in which the bickering duo is absolutely banned from any interaction with the offending party. This usually works like a charm, because kids can handle almost anything other than boredom: even battling each other is enormously more entertaining than the silence and loneliness. Sometimes I think this is the philosophy nations adhere to as well.


I know you might be familiar with that old “Arbeit macht frei” slogan of the Nazi camps – you know, that work makes you free, and I’ve sort of employed the same philosophy, except here it’s the children working that makes me free. If anybody’s going to waste time arguing and fighting, I have my simple “arbeit” solution. I put them to work. Things get done, people are occupied with something slightly more productive than annoying each other, and they get a little more careful about how they spend their free time.


Tomorrow might be another snow day. I hope to use it better. Maybe we’ll forget everything else. Maybe we’ll just play chess and make those cookies after all.

Gadgets, tools, and handy husbands

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, January 14, 2011

Many of us can confess to having some partially functioning appliance or gadget (and we’re not even going to discuss humans here) that we have learned to accept and work around. We really don’t consider its defects until it’s time to hand it over to someone else to use. Even then it doesn’t dawn on us to mention that the dryer starts as soon as the door is shut; there’s no need to press the “Push to Start” button. Others may view this as a defect, but over the years, you have come to see this as a time saving feature.



Haven’t we all had that experience where someone offers us a ride, and only when we’ve been tugging on the door handle to get in, do they remember that, “Oh, the door on that side doesn’t work; you’re going to need to creep in from the window or climb across the driver’s seat.” This also could be a feature, depending on who the driver is, and who is accepting the ride.


I grew up in a household in which our “toolbox” consisted of a small plastic bin atop the dryer. Into this, sundry tools were tossed, including the butter knife-cum-screwdriver. My father never regarded mechanical issues to be of great import, and there were times when we would travel places with the car battery in a corroded enough state that the butter knife was practically a part of the key chain. Car won’t start? Open up the hood, scrape the terminals, then jumpstart the car. (Remind me, by the way, not to clip out this column to send to my parents.)



My husband, on the other hand, grew up in a household with an Erector (Meccano) set that had spanned a few generations. Under their father’s guidance, the three boys, and sometimes one of the three girls, would make actual, working models of clamshell excavators, automatic transmissions that shifted gears as needed, and other such “small and simple” projects. He and his brother even made, from Meccano, a ventilator that they actually used on a patient in India. See what alternatives are available to the family that grows up without a television and a car?

I remember one of the first times my husband-to-be visited my parents’ home in Columbia, South Carolina. While there, a number of maintenance projects began to pop up like daffodils at the end of winter. I believe this is a phenomenon that typically occurs when the son-in-law comes visiting, and it may be more acute prior to marriage, during the time when it may be necessary to impress someone, whether it be the erstwhile in-laws or the future mate.


There was some issue with the lawn mower at my parents’ house (as there usually was every other summer), and Eldred asked me where we kept the oil to be put into the mower.


“Oh, no, no, no,” I explained in my superior, I-grew-up-in-America voice. This man had only just come to the United States in his mid-twenties. He had grown up in a series of flats in Bombay (now Mumbai) where they barely had a patch of grass, much less need of a lawn mower. “We don’t put oil in our lawn mower, Silly! We put gasoline in it to make it run.” It was obvious to me that he had grown up in a family without a car.


Needless to say, I learned a little something about lawn mower maintenance on that day. I also picked up some clues as to why our lawn mowers seemed to always need resuscitation. I wish I could to excuse my ignorance by saying that I was nineteen at the time, or that I was never gifted mechanically, but these would just be excuses.

Before we got married, I taught my husband how to drive, although I rarely like to advertise this now. It’s not that he’s a bad driver per se; it’s just that he always seems to be focused on something else.

What amazed me then was that although he had never driven a car in India, and rarely ridden in one there, he knew and understood everything that went on under the hood. We bought an old, mileage-ridden car. Back then I thought we were buying that car because we were college students and that was all we could afford. Now that I reflect on it, I realize that our first car, that old 1977 Mercury Marquis that we bought off the gas station parking lot, was really an excuse for my husband to begin acquiring tools in earnest. Lots of them. And not of the butter knife variety, either. How many college students have an air compressor and air impact tools in their apartment?

My husband is still obsessed with tools and gadgets. I’m really glad to have him, defects and all.

Medicine Man comes calling...Let it Snow! Part II

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on January 22nd, 2010.


Last week's column was about the stooped old man who cleared our driveway of snow. His accent made him difficult to understand. After his exertion in the cold, I invited him in to warm up with a cup of coffee, and my sons (aged 14, 11, and 4) and my 7-year-old daughter introduced themselves. (My husband and teenaged daughter were busy watching something on History Channel upstairs.) The old man's topic of conversation made me uneasy.

 He learned we were from India, and he mentioned he knew several Indians, one of whom had owned a business and suffered a violent end due to unpaid debt. Or, at least, that was what I could gather from his accent and garbled speech that made him sound like he was speaking with marbles in his mouth. 
 
He pointed his index finger right between his own eyebrows to simulate a pistol going off. I glanced at my four-year-old. Lord, let him not pick up and repeat this gesture. (I knew the kids were somewhat insulated; no one else could understand him well.) Repeating this gesture would be risky at school where his sweet, sweet, teacher had once asked that he refer to killer whales by the less violent term, “orca.”


Then, my teenaged daughter came down, introducing herself as I like the children to do. The moment she arrived, the man's face lit up. Way up.


He promised reduced-rate services. His voice rose and he drew his words out long, so everyone, unfortunately, could understand him. “How old you?” he inquired enthusiastically. She said “seventeen,” and his response was, “Dang! I thought you 21 or 25 or sumpin'.” He proceeded to make smacking sounds as if he had just consumed some delectable dessert. Even if my precious, flesh-and-blood had been 25, that would still make her about 40 years too young for him, I wanted to say.


He asked that I cool his coffee with a little half-and-half, which I hurriedly did. He himself could have used a little cooling off, I thought, as he continued to look my daughter up and down. She had been doing homework and college applications all day, and was thankfully shabbily dressed with no makeup and a sloppy ponytail. My daughter crossed her arms high over her ample bosom, in what she terms the “protective stance.”


“Tevy,” my high-pitched voice came from behind gritted teeth encased in a fake smile, “why don't you go get your FATHER?” I emphasized the father part, because that would take my too-delightful daughter out of view and replace the lovely sight of her with someone bigger, grouchier, and loaded with angry testosterone.


My daughter disappeared, and the man prepared to leave. (He had wanted me to cool his coffee so he could drink it and get out of our way.) He had suffered partial paralysis in 1991, he told us in the foyer, after being hit in the head with a baseball bat. I wonder whose daughter he had been checking out then, and why that lesson hadn't been enough the first time around.


He felt compelled to corroborate his story by showing his epilepsy medications. His good hand fished around inside his jacket, and he produced a water bottle to prove that he had to swallow his meds. Then he continued fumbling in his jacket before producing a bottle. Unfortunately, the last time he had taken his medications, he must have forgotten to close the container or perhaps he had used his bad hand, because right then, tiny pink and white capsules tumbled all over the floor and inside of his jacket. We immediately crated our little dog Betty Lou.


“Doan wan y'all thinkin' Ahm no drug attic nor nuthin'.” Yes. A pedophile on prescription drugs is so much more tolerable than a child molester who is also abusing drugs. By this time, my husband partially descended the stairs and was on the scene. I helped pick up the man's medications, and when he was unable to retrieve the capsules from inside his jacket, I was in the uncomfortable position of having to delicately pluck them off his person without touching his body. Remember that game called “Operation” where you had to remove bones with the forceps without touching the metal and making the buzzer go off? This man's buzzer had obviously already gone off quite enough.

 
I spied my daughter hiding in the darkened living room, and gave her a fierce eyeball. This was her cue to hold her position till the coast was clear. Once the man got back onto the porch with his shovel, he promised to return the next time it snowed.


My husband, who had only come down at the end of this meeting, just glared at me and went back upstairs in complete silence. The poor man knows that anything he says, can and will be published in a future column.


As I write, we are expecting 20 inches of snow in the worst storm in decades. I'm scared – and it's not of the snow.