The Burden of Being Atlas Jr.

publlished in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on April 29, 2011

The issue of weight has been weighing heavily on my mind. It has been weighing heavily on other parts too, of course, but we’re not here to talk about me. Notice how my photo cuts off before the wide-angle lens is required? Be thankful for good editorial insight: they know when and where to truncate things.


I don’t want to succumb to the pitfall of obsessing over my weight. The diet and weight loss industries are doing well enough without my chipping in my two cents into their billion-dollar bins.


Even so, weight is often on my mind. My youngest boy (recently turned six) is as scrawny as ever. He’s acting like adding even one ounce to his bony frame would be tantamount to adding to the burden of Atlas Almighty. Just tell me whether Atlas was still riding in a car seat after he turned six because he hadn’t reached forty pounds YET.


It’s a good thing little Atlas Junior is my sixth child. That way, I don’t have to get bent out of shape when someone sees him and asks if he is four years old. He is, after all, still comfortably wearing size 4T, as long we can classify comfortable as the elastic inside the pants’ waist being yanked to its tightest setting and his belt being set at maximum strength so that I only have to remind him fourteen times a day to pull up his pants. Why should I be offended? It’s not a crime to have a child of petite stature, even though we live in America, home of the super-sized portion. Admittedly, no teenaged boy is going to want to be classified as “petite,” criminal or no.


For many people, this Size-of-my-Child thing is a matter of supreme parental pride. They gloat over the percentile of their child’s height (or infant’s weight) as if it were a score indicating the child’s abilities or the parents’ competence, whether by way of being genetic contributors or as nutritional providers. “Why, little Frankie is in the 97% percentile for height,” they gloat, “but we don’t know where he gets it!” I want to warn them that the oxygen might be a little thinner up there where Frankie’s elevated brain resides, but I resist.


Even though it’s not a crime to have a child that’s on the left end of the bell curve, it still feels like a blemish against the maternal record for producing such a puny person in the first place or for allowing him to remain one. Were you eating enough protein during pregnancy, or were you busy putting down slabs of chocolate cake? What kind of lousy nutrition have I got my family engaged in? 

Or should I blame genetics?  Forget genetics.  Genetics is for people who can’t own up to their own faults. “You know, Little Sammy here might have been so much more productive, except he’s got that Excessive-TV-Watcher’s gene, you know?”


Because he is my sixth child, I am at least spared the self-doubt and insecurity when the grocery store clerk comments on Atlas Junior’s size after complimenting his cuteness and inquiring his age. The clerk gasps, “Oh, really? Jeez, my son is only three and he’s already this high.” She motions just below her pendulous bosom, and all I do is smile. All I CAN do is smile. Sometimes, smiling is as much a weapon as it is a defense. I want to say, “That’s great for you. Maybe next year your preschooler can bring you to work on piggy back with his massive self.”


So why can’t or won’t my little man pack on a pound or two? And then, a brilliant idea occurs to me. All over the media and marketing, we get pointers on what is contributing to our obesity. If I reverse the logic, couldn’t I impose on him all the things we are supposed to avoid in order to help him pack on the pounds? Or even ounces? I could be happy with ounces, you know.


Special K promises that people who eat breakfast tend to weigh less than people who don’t. Great. Make the kid skip breakfast. That should help him put on pounds.


Apparently, people who have regular bedtimes, as opposed to night owls fueling themselves on hard cinnamon candies, also tend to weigh less. I don’t know how much more productive night owls are, but they can certainly claim, in addition to the extra pounds, more cavities as well as a cranky need for caffeine in the mornings.


Also, people with sedentary lifestyles, especially those “engaged” (entranced?) in lots of TV-watching, also tend to carry excess weight. So here’s part two of my master plan, a double-jackpot: the sedentary night owl. Strap the boy down and force him to watch late-night TV. He might possibly gain weight, but he’s definitely bound to gain some worldly wisdom.


Then, when he’s tired and cranky the next day, especially after I make him skip breakfast, I will give him a doughnut, which he will ravenously wolf down. I’d add coffee to this regimen, but that might stunt his already stunted growth.


Ask me in a year whether I’ve achieved success. Or, just look for me around town. I’ll be the one riding piggyback on Atlas Jr.

Sugar, the Easter Bunny, and Spiritual Health

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on April 22, 2011

Sugar is to your physical health as the Easter Bunny is to your _________.  Just thought I’d mix things up with a little analogy. Sugar has been multitasking lately: It’s been in the news almost as much as it’s been in your food. Oh, please! Don’t act like you didn’t know it was in your salad as well as in your ketchup. And please don’t tell me you’ve been putting ketchup on your salad.

I also remind you that it is the season of standardized testing. Easter is here too, even though it took its sweet time. Had it arrived any later, retailers would be juxtaposing pastel candy eggs with red-and-and-blue paraphernalia. Maybe Easter decided to be Indian this year.

Good job trying to dodge the question. So, how would you complete this analogy? Sugar is to your Physical Health as the Easter Bunny is to your _______________…

a) Mental Health

b) Dental Health

c) Spiritual Health

d) Worldly Wealth

Let me help you a little. Immediately, you can cross off Mental Health and Dental Health because those choices rhyme. Test makers don’t want you getting cutesy with them; so don’t expect them to be cutesy with you. No rhymes.

You can cross off Worldly Wealth because there’s way too much alliteration going on, and this is no poetry contest. It’s a test. Remember? Also, you will notice that it is the only one that wavers from an ending of “Health” into “Wealth,” so that should alert you automatically that it must be wrong.

So, by sheer elimination, the correct answer must be c): Spiritual Health. Sugar is to your physical health as the Easter Bunny is to your spiritual health.

Walking through the store this week, I found myself increasingly annoyed by all the sugary treats crowding the aisles. Correction: I am annoyed with myself, and my face probably showed it. I couldn’t smile. Not completely. That’s because my face was still half-numb for the fillings for my cavities. I know. I have shown off about having a sweet tooth. Now I can show off about having decaying teeth.

I deserved it. This school year, I have kept myself awake at odd hours with little “injections” of sugar – mostly that hard cinnamon candy that isn’t the greatest for your dental health or your waistline. What waistline? I know. Yes, there comes a time to pay.

So, I’m walking around, metaphorically and literally in a state of semi-numbness. I am surrounded by chocolate bunnies, marshmallow peeps, pastel-wrapped chocolates, malted eggs, jellybeans, and chocolate crosses, of all things. And these things are jeering at me. Want some more candies, little girl? Or not-so-little girl?

I’m annoyed with myself for being annoyed. I feel like the Scrooge of Easter, but what’s going to be next? Are manufacturers going to give us pastel pasta sauce with which to celebrate the season? How about some cross-shaped noodles?

And again, I’m annoyed at my annoyance. Half way around the world, people are reeling from the after effects of violent earthquakes, aftershocks, tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns. In North Carolina, people are suffering heartache over lost lives and lost homes. I am concerned about the abundance of Easter candy.

The very fact that I can go casually to the store to select foods that are available in abundance, can raise my eyebrow at the ever-inching price of gasoline, (but not to the point that I’ve ditched driving), and can contemplate the price difference between nectarines and peaches, neither of which are local or in season here, is a little dismaying.

How can life be like this? Why do we live in a world with such a dichotomy?

And now I realize the root of my annoyance. I have a myriad of reasons to be overflowing with gratitude. I should be thankful for the Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. I should be thinking of His sacrifice and the crucifixion. Even if I am displeased with the ubiquitous nature of the Easter Bunny, I, too, have become distracted by him/it.

The Easter Bunny is our spiritual equivalent of sugar. Filled with calories that provide a quick rush of pleasure, he leaves out any nourishment – there is no message, no hope, no Good News. By the time the plate with the nutritious stuff rolls around, our bellies are achingly full and our teeth are smarting with the sweetness of the world’s pleasures.

No thanks. We really don’t want to hear about some dusty old preacher who revolutionized some dusty old place.

How much better the instant sugar rush that comes with the new dresses, shoes, and pastel purses. So it is with the Easter Bunny. He hops in and hogs the spotlight away from the meaning of Easter. He is not confrontational. He does not ask you to make any decisions or to rethink your life. Why think about Jesus when you are busy posing with the bunny?

My advice – cut the rabbit out of your Easter diet. Go lighter on the goodies, and seek the Good News. Spend time with the loves of your life, and Happy and Holy Resurrection Day. May you be blessed by its true meaning.

Reflections on the Art of being Late

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on April 15, 2011

I’m going to stop announcing a series of columns unless I write them all in one sitting, because sometimes, I have trouble revisiting topics.


A few weeks ago I had launched a diatribe against school fundraisers. The single-part “series” got interrupted because the next week I ran out of time and “recycled” an old column. The week after that, time ran out on me, meaning that I missed the column deadline. By fifteen minutes. But I missed it nonetheless, and that was the one about my middle son’s birthday.


I am often late for things. This is neither a confession nor gloating on my part; it is merely a sad observation. People are kind and say, “Yes, but you have six children,” as if I has just been caught up in childbirth, and could not make it on time like everyone else. They say it with sympathy, as if “Sixkids” were some chronic condition that requires you to take a treatment at the very moment you should be leaving the house.


I wish I had excuses, but the truth of the matter is that I have run on that fifteen-minutes-late clock all my life – pre-children, pre-marriage. Although I am often late, I am rarely too late like the time I missed the deadline.


Being five, ten, fifteen (name any multiple of five) minutes late, as an Indian-born person tends to be an accepted fact of life. My friend Becki is generous, organized, punctual, and always good for a chuckle. She is also American-American, for lack of any other ethnic label to pin on her. Becki was once invited to an Indian birthday party, and she arrived promptly at 4 PM, just as the invitation stated. Let’s just say that she ended up decorating for the party and keeping an eye on the birthday child while the hostess went up to get showered and ready. All the other invitees were Indian. No one else was going to show up until five o’clock, at the earliest. I guess being fashionably late, if you are Indian, might mean not showing up at all.


I tell you that story so you can understand my background. I’m tempted to say it is a cultural handicap, but I’m sure that out of the billion of so Indians, there must be a few punctual ones. I mean, there is a military in India, and people in the military are notorious for their painful punctuality. There are newspapers in India, too, and airplanes and trains that all have definite schedules and deadlines. Surely, there is an entire crop of disciplined Indian people. I should know, because I know one of them intimately. I’m married to him, and we get on each other’s nerves every time we have to go somewhere.


I was going to continue my rant against school fundraisers from a couple of weeks ago, and I still plan to - eventually. I’m not sure if it’s the frequency of fundraisers or the proliferation of them that bothers me, but they bother me.


In an ideal world, our children would be able to go to school and sit with a stick, some string, and a floor filled with sand, and the children would come up with some geometry that could take the Eureka out of Archimedes. The reality of the situation, though, is that if your child shows up at school with a stick, it would have to be confiscated as a weapon. The string could be used in vandalism, and forget the sand, because there is bound to be some poor, hyperactive-immune-system kid who is allergic to the stuff.


The last time I had felt real ire over selling of school things was back in 1995 – when my eldest daughter had entered kindergarten for all of five or six weeks. Now that I reflect on it, I can see that maybe, just maybe, I was a slightly obsessive parent. (Naturally, we can see I have recovered from that affliction!) There are a lot of things I did differently in parenting then than what I would do now.


In many ways, I see it as the difference between the way God the Father is portrayed in the Old Testament and God the Son is portrayed in the New Testament. (Now, you are welcome to email and correct my theology, because I have email and am used to being corrected. I have children, remember?)


Having six children in the space of fifteen years gives you time to mellow and rethink your strategy. You are not all wise. You are not that smart, either. At some point you realize that you are not going to win the battle. You just want to emerge from the fray somewhat mentally intact and having inflicted as few psychological wounds on your little loved ones.


I was strict and saw everything in black and white. Now I feel that I make more allowances. There is room for a little grace. I’m tempted to tell you, “more on this later” but we realize that could mean much, much, later. Right?

Happy Birthday, Niles

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat (Weekend Edition) on April 8th, 2011

I was going to continue my rant against school fundraisers, but last week I ran out of time and ended up recycling an old column, and this week, it happens that my middle son Niles is turning thirteen. He missed being an April Fool’s Baby with only minutes to spare. (Wait, if he had been born on April 1st, would that have made me the fool, since he was the baby? Thanks. Like I needed biological confirmation.) I had labored all day before that child was born, and even with the aid of Pitocin to speed the contractions along, it seemed to take forever. By the time you get to your fourth child, according to folklore, that child is supposed to practically deliver himself.


“Ooh! Hurry to the hospital…” or hurry and get your midwife to your home, because that child is going to be as easy to deliver as opening a pop-top can of soup or pineapple chunks. Gone is the need for a can opener – electric or otherwise.


Incidentally, does the term “midwife” sound antiquated to you? Nurse midwives are medical professionals who are highly trained and skilled. Yet, the term midwife conjures a Medieval image of calling in the woman up the street who has numerous surviving children. Furthermore, nurse midwives have all the training of nurses and then some. My nurse midwife in Ohio actually held a Ph.D. as well. Sadly, in the clinical setting she was not referred to as “Dr.” because of the possible confusion between academician and physician.


I know there are a number of male nurses. I’m not going to give you any statistics, because that would require work from me to dig up this information, and you, being a newsprint-reading sort of person, are probably the inquisitive and intellectual sort who is all too eager to look this up for yourself. I would not want to rob you of that simple joy.


All I can say is that during my husband’s twelve days of hospitalization last fall, I recall at least three male nurses who took great care of him. Now the question is, can a man be a midwife? I am sure there is some practical, gender-neutral term for the man who decides to undertake this profession. Is it a midspouse?


Anyway, what was the hold up in the delivery of my boy? I wouldn’t have been able to tell you then, but now that I’ve had thirteen years to get to know him, I know the exact cause of his in utero delay.


I suspect that this child was giving a lecture of some sort even back in the womb, and he just could not be interrupted from his oral delivery to participate in the delivery of the other kind. This child is just about the most talkative person I know. Right after, or possibly along with, my second daughter. Make that after my husband. And maybe after a couple of the other kids. OK – there’s really only one of the six children who hasn’t a lot to say, but of the other five talkers, I would say that Niles is the most talkative.


I realized this early in his youth, and knew that it would have a lifelong impact even when he was just a tot. When he was newly potty trained, he would wander into the bathroom, door ajar, and plant himself on the potty insert. All the while he was getting himself settled, he had hardly interrupted his flow of speech. We’re not going to talk about any other flows here, because that could embarrass my child, and we know that I am always so judicious about what I send to my editor’s desk. (Except that time I talked about boogers.)


There’s nothing wrong with being loquacious. In fact, it is always a good complement to a laconic individual. My only problem is that it really interferes with my own plans to impart knowledge, wisdom, and other vital instructions such as: "Unload the dishwasher! Dump out the trash!"


Once, when he was in second grade, just moments before heading off to bed, he leaned against the railing, cocked his head, and began a sort of monologue before he got the burning question that lay on his mind, “Mom, supposing that you happened to have something in your ear, like paper, or something…how difficult would it be to get it out?”


Yes, he has always used the longest words possible. When he was less than two, and wanted to talk about rubber bands, he called them rubber Band-aids. When he was looking at a plant, he even had to string that out to a “planet.” The worst was when he was telling a dinner guest that he had watched me preparing the chicken curry I served that night. He told them that he had seen me cutting the “raw-ten” chicken.


At the end of his ramble, it turned out that he had lodged a small wad of paper into his ear while trying to demonstrate a magic trick during recess. The resolution, after lots of home remedies, involved a trip to our wonderful pediatrician, Dr. Margaret Jeffries-Honeycutt.  Happy Birthday, Niles!

Beware the Modern Day Peddler

Originally published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat on April 20, 2007 and again on March 25, 2011.

The other day, an effusively smiling young man showed up outside my front door with a full 2-liter bottle of Coke. Was he a drug dealer pushing “coke?” Was he an admirer wooing me with sweet words and soft drinks? Or was he a criminal wielding a potential explosive?


I knew instantly he was pushing a particular line of vacuum cleaners, because last year they were handing out boxes of chocolates with a promise to return with a brief demonstration. If, like me, you declined the demo, they were happy to reclaim their bait box.


I’ve had that demo already – back in the days when I was younger and even more gullible. In nearly fifteen years of stay-at-home-dom, I’ve encountered many a salesperson. Most can be categorized as:


A. Sellers of candy, wrapping paper, or pledges so the children in their organization aren’t forced to play on equipment older than they are.


B. Sellers of candy or magazine subscriptions so they can stay off of drugs, out of gangs, fund their way to college, or win a trip to Europe.


C. Those selling cleaning appliances or cleaning agents, not to earn a living, but just to helpfully point out that, despite your best efforts, your home is a breeding ground of germs and microscopic insects.


I wonder if modern day peddlers are using the system once employed by hobos. Depending on the reception they had received, hobos would leave a drawing near the entrance of a house. Like a Nielsen rating of the occupants, the sign might be a warm apple pie, a fierce attack dog, or the muzzle of a shotgun.


I think someone has left a code on our doorstep: SUCKERS. Most of the time I can ward off those the peddler with a bawling baby or other convenient domestic excuse, but one day I fell victim to my own schemes.


The day I became a sucker, it was a Category C seller. Normally, when I open the door I don’t just let the character in, but as my husband was home I was a bit bolder. "Are you the Queen of the Castle?" the man with the spray bottle of cleaner queried as he oozed his rehearsed charm. “Queen of the Castle? QUEEN OF THE CASTLE?” I shrieked hysterically in my mind. Did this man step out of the 1950’s?


I don't know about QUEEN: yeah, I make the royal beds and do the royal dishes. Before I had a chance to respond, his spiel began. (I'm sure this steamrolling technique has a name and is taught to these folks who have the unenviable situation of earning a living this way.) His citrus cleaner, he boasted, even diluted to the millionth, was caustic on every stain known to man, yet safe for the environment and children who were into tasting cleaning agents. He rushed to a rust-stained segment of the sidewalk, poured some of the watered down stuff on it, scrubbed with a washcloth, and presto! The rust was magically gone. Then he took a lick of the stuff to prove his second point.


I had allowed myself to listen. I had listened! That was my first mistake. Whenever I get a Category C “Cleaning Peddler,” I harbor this evil thought. Let these people run all around my house with their cleaners, demonstrating how great their products are while I encourage them to remove this stain and that until my home is polished and sparkling. When it’s time to buy, I could conveniently forget how to speak English.


Then I had a stroke of genius. My husband had long ago stained his favorite shirt. The stain was in a spot that could be concealed by a sweater vest, so it was still in the closet. Also, we had used it to ward off other peddlers. I brought out the shirt - a little too gleefully, I admit. But this was the Master of Shrewd. He sealed the bargain, "So if I get out the stain, you'll buy it?" Others had attempted to scale this mountain of stain and failed miserably, so I accepted. My glee and delusions of genius should have been my clue.


Before too long this man attacked my husband’s shirt: pouring capful after capful on the stain, half-scrubbing with the washcloth and half-scraping the fiber off with his extremely long thumbnail. In the end, he held it up to the light. Most of the stain (and some of the fiber) was gone. I was stuck buying a $29-bottle of citrus cleaner.


I shouldn’t complain - the cleaner did resurrect my husband's favorite shirt and has since rescued a pair of oil-stained pants. But mostly, I am relieved to have the "shirt challenge" retired.


Not long after that incident, a young lady came selling the same stuff. She pointed to my partially cleaned rust stain on the sidewalk. “I know, I know,” I said wearily. “I bought the citrus cleaner from the last guy.” She looked puzzled. Why hadn’t I bothered to clean the rest? Forget the rust stain, I am looking to remove our SUCKER code.

School fundraisers: guaranteed to raise blood pressure and hackles

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on Friday, March 18th, 2011
 So, to continue from last week, do you know what else gets on my nerves?


I am sorry to sound completely self-centered. I should talk about the crisis in Japan: earthquakes, aftershocks, tsunamis, and nuclear meltdowns. But you can read about that in those “other” papers – and don’t pretend you don’t. I’ve seen you behind your Washington Post’s around town. So let’s just save ourselves the awkwardness and continue.


I can’t say that it’s the crying baby in the seat behind you when you are flying on a plane, because first of all, I have been the parent of that crying child. Trust me; it gets on the parent’s nerves too. Possibly on their last, and very frazzled, one. Secondly, it’s been about a decade since I was last on a plane – not for a matter of fear or choice, but that’s the way it has worked out.


I can’t say it’s obnoxious, pushy parents because I’ve been (am?) one of those too. We each have our time and place to get ugly. Some of us stay that way. (And I don’t mean physically.)


There are many contenders, but I will try to restrict my vacillations. People who flaunt big words are not in the running; I like that. Anyone who can stretch my vocabulary is welcome, because my belly, budget, and patience have all had to stretch too.


What gets on my nerves? School fundraisers. School fundraisers REALLY, REALLY, get on my nerves. The only kind of thing those raise for me is the hairs on my back. And please don’t be picturing my hairy back. I’m not picturing yours; so kindly do not be visualizing mine.


What I say now, I shall say with the greatest of care and trepidation. In case you haven’t noticed, the schools and this newspaper haven’t been on the friendliest of footing lately. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. If you refuse to dance with each other, that’s one way of avoiding treading on toes, I suppose. (Oooh! I made a rhyme.)


I have experienced many types of schooling with my six children in 20 years of motherhood: home schooling, public schooling, and private schooling. I was never brave or confident or foolish enough (take your pick) to do the “unschooling” thing. My “baby” just turned six a couple of weeks ago, so years of schooling loom before us. Incidentally, this week he recited pi to 50 decimal places, edging out high school students to win our school’s “A Pie for a Pi” contest. It was his idea, and his own motivation. I barely have two seconds to give to my own children any more.


It doesn’t seem to matter whether you are in public or private school: fundraisers are the common affliction of schooling. I am probably scarred from a childhood of selling cleaning supplies, light bulbs, citrus fruits, and Christmas wrapping paper. Ah, those were the good old days when you went door to door with that gigantic white envelope marked by gridlines on which to record the orders. There was only the occasional creepy character who answered the door and leeringly looked you up and down as you smiled stupidly and continued your sales pitch.


School fundraisers get my hackles up. I work for a school now, and certainly I can see the need for many things. Would higher salaries attract and retain better teachers? Positively. Would better equipment make life easier and more efficient? Probably. Can you teach some things without all the gadgetry? Perhaps. .


I understand that classrooms need things and special projects need funding. I understand the collective desire and/or need for more money. We live in America, and more is better, right? I’d prefer my kids not be involved.


You want them to study? Me too. You want them to develop good character, be good citizens who contribute to society? So do I. I just don’t see how selling Christmas wrapping, pricey fruit baskets, and auctioning off specialty baskets enter into that equation.


Are we teaching them about capitalism? I love those special projects they do at the elementary school, where all day long the students barter for things they have mutually cleared out of their parent’s closets, garages, and basements. What a symbiotic experience!


Have you attended Mountain Vista Governor’s School’s World Fair? The Warrenton campus at Lord Fairfax Community College is opening its City of Tomorrow to the public on Thursday, March 24th from 9 am to 10:45 am. Visitors receive “money” to invest in the most promising inventions. Middle school and 5th grade GT groups can contact DeAnne Wilmore at 347-6237 or at dwilmore@lfcc.edu to schedule a group visit. There must be myriad other examples, but these are ones I know about.


The latest fundraiser involves handing over to the school of choice your friends’ or families’ names, addresses, and contact information so the school can send out letters seeking donations. Sorry. I’m not selling my friends. I’ll have even fewer then. I don’t like it, and I’m not playing that game. More on this topic next week.

Home Parties and Buying Stuff you Don't Need

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, Friday, March 11th, 2011
Do you know what really gets on my nerves?  No, not home parties in which people try to pawn products off onto their embarrassed friends who attended only so that they could


A) Socialize with friends


B) Munch on goodies that were sequestered from the host family’s appetite


C) Escape from their own domestic duties


D) All of the above


Rarely is the purpose of attending such a party to buy unnecessary things at exorbitant prices, all the while looking casual and carefree while wondering behind your smile how to tell your spouse that it wasn’t good enough to get away the whole evening; you also squandered next week’s grocery money.


Incidentally, have you ever noticed how these home parties spread among friends, like bread mold or some viral or bacterial infection, rippling from an inner circle out to unsuspecting friends and acquaintances? This is where the term “hosting” a party conjures not hospitality, but a biological organism who unwittingly serves as a medium for pathogens to thrive on.


There are home parties for cookware, Tupperware, silver, jewelry, make-up, decorative things, and women’s undergarments in which you are guaranteed to be fitted so that your cup neither runneth over nor saggeth under. Of course, I know there exist other, racier home parties, but I haven’t been invited to any of those. Thank God. Let’s keep it that way.


The wildest I have ever gotten with these sort of home parties is Tupperware. It wasn’t the Tupperware that was so wild, it was the idea that I thought I could or should host another party of my own so that the hostess of the infecting, I mean, original, party could get bonus points, deeper discounts on her own purchases, and that mega, three-cooler picnic set as a thank you gift.


In order for the hostess to get the gift, the other parties that were spawned from her original, had to be executed within a couple of weeks, like some punishment for an offense before the dust from all the evidence settles.


The thing about gifts is that the very term implies that it is free. Last time I checked, a gift was something given willingly, and something that the recipient did need not to prove his or her worth for. Oh wait – let me save this thread for the Easter column.


Anyway, the time that I tried to host a home party was back in the 80’s. The 1980’s, thank you, in case you had some image of me picking cotton and then returning from the fields after dark to host some sort of Pewter-ware Party. Yes, I am taunting readers for feedback. You haven’t been writing to me, so I must goad you.


There were a couple of fatal flaws with my grand plans to host a Tupperware party. First, I had pretty much the same circle of friends as the hostess. In fact, if anything, mine was a subset of her circle – at best, it was a smaller ring, like a dartboard target, when compared to my pastor’s wife who was, at the time, the young mom of a preschooler and a newborn. So naturally, my guest list was going to happily include these same lucky women to come attend a duplicate party in rapid succession.


The second fatal flaw involved my few, extra-circle friends. These friends were fellow students, both undergraduates (overworked) and graduate students (underfed), whose only interest in Tupperware was what it might contain and whether it might still be consumable. They did like parties, of course, but Tupperware rarely featured in them.


And what did Tupperware parties lack? Glossy brochures were pressed upon us so we could look at, and long for, the kind of life in which Mom molded Jell-O letters so she could spell out each child’s name on his or her dessert plate.


“Games” were played in which you might find yourself the lucky winner of a tangerine-teaser, which was a variant of the orange opener, which itself was a specialized form of the citrus peeler. If you won all three, there was a special snap-on ring onto which each of your spoons could be affixed. You probably already had all these tools amongst your battalion of kitchen gadgets, not including your own God-given fingernails and teeth, which had once, before the arrival of Tupperware, been foolishly believed to be effective in the war on citrus fruits. Clearly, that was a generation of vitamin-C deprived individuals who were deficient in their thinking.


On the day of my own Tupperware party, it dawned on me that attendees would be deficient. I called the representative so I could spare her time and I could spare my shame. Perhaps I was more vitamin-C deprived than I had believed. I think then I made a solemn promise to not be embarrassed into hosting a party with this childish chant: “cross my heart, hope to die, stick a citrus peeler in my eye.”


Good thing, though, that it’s not home parties that really get on my nerves. More next week.