It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...Sooooooner Eeeeevery Yeeeeeeaaaarrrr

As a child and a teenager, the winter hollydays were my favorite time of year. Family gatherings at Thanksgiving wound into counting the days til the fat man was expected to deliver a bountiful harvest of Barbie dolls and cowgirl boots (and later stereos and Jordaches) under the tree. Living in the Deep South, I longed for JUST ONE white Christmas.

Being an adult and parent makes those joys move aside in favor of things like worrying over how Santa is going to afford that Wii system, and making holiday travel plans that now have to work around Mother Nature and her liberal sprinkling of white powder all over I-80. White Christmas, my eye.

But nothing, and I mean not even working in an ER (I'm guessing) will cure you of the sheer childlike joy in the holidays faster than working retail. There's the decorations for sale, which in our store were out before Halloween this year! The Christmas tunes on the overhead, which you'd expect to start getting peppered into the regular songs a day or so before Thanksgiving, maybe, this year made their debut November 14. They were joined by tunes on one of our local radio stations going all-holiday (just for the weekend so far, thank goodness), and bell-ringers at every mall entrance appearing like they sprang forth from the very pavement. The very cold pavement.

Mother Nature has obliged this holiday look, sound, and feel by making it very cold and dusting that aforementioned white powder all over the place. Which we mall employees get to enjoy all the more, since we often have to park at outlying store parking lots and trek overland to work. It's hard to look attractive and professional when you have major hat-head from bundling up like Nanook of the North just to schlep from the mini-van.

It's not all bad. The good thing about WMEE playing only holiday tunes after Thanksgiving means they have to be a little more creative in their digging for variety. I think there's an FCC law about how many times a day you can play "Do They Know It's Christmas Time?" (And if there isn't, there oughta be!) I derive endless amusement from this one lady who rings TWO bells at once during her shift at the red bucket, and singsongs over and over "God BLESS you, have a HAP-py HOL-i-DAY!" And with my firm belief that I was a cat in a former life, being attracted to red, shiny things makes the decorations not so bad.

It's just a case of too much of a good thing, yanno? I know folks who work in retail who WILL NOT have a tree in their own home, because they get enough of that at work. I will have a tree, but it will go up when it is supposed to - Black Friday - and not a moment before. Cause goodness knows I won't be caught anywhere NEAR the mall on THAT day!!

Copyright 2008 Cheryl Lee

Bad Valentine's Pome

Won honorable mention in the Southern Humorists' Yahoo Group 2008 BAD Valentine's Love Pome (sic) contest. Without even a bribe to the judge, or a flash of boob.

(Sung to the tune of The Beverly Hilbillies theme)


Come and listen to my story bout my boyfriend Joe
A feller you can't trust any farther than you throw
When we first met I believed his love was true
But all that got me was a pot of the Blue
(Ointment, that is. Rub it on. OOOH that stings)

Well the next thing ya know I showed him the door
Then he called up talking sweet like the way he did before
I soon found out that he didn't sleep alone
And he brought more than clothes into our happy home
(Gonorrhea, that is. Gift that keeps ON givin. Grrr.)

Now y'all don't worry cause soon we'll be man and wife
Joe will have to be faithful for the rest of his life
Cause the last time that he and I got into a tiff
I didn't sleep alone, and now we have the syph!
(Syphilis, that is. French disease. Don't worry, Joe, I'll take care of you.)

Don't Try This at Home!

Finished October 26, 2007
Don't Try This at Home!

Cheryl Lee

A southern girl's life is often somewhat sheltered, and mine is no exception. My mother was very strict, which didn't protect me from some cousinly exploration at a very young age, but did put an end to it when she found it out. I was mostly a good little girl, being a virgin until I was 18, in college, and engaged to the guy.

Boy, have I made up for lost time! My first lover/fiancé was a talented director in the bedroom (or kitchen table, or couch, or shower, or bent over the washing machine), and he taught me many interesting and fun things about staging scenes, from props to scenery to even bit players. It was mostly those bit players that made that fiancé never become a husband, as I told him to take that show on the road.

But the sense of adventure, exploration, and fun stuck with me. I have done many things that my mother never, ever wants to hear about. Most of them (my mother's opinion notwithstanding) I really enjoyed and remember fondly. This story is, unfortunately, not about one of those!

At the time of this tale, I was living with the man who would become my second ex-husband. But I'm getting ahead of myself, seeing as how he wasn't even my second husband yet. We met in the old-fashioned way--in a chat room. He soon decided that 750 miles one-way was too far to drive for a booty call, and as his job paid better than mine, I moved to where he lived. Eventually we married, created a couple of kids, spontaneously combusted, etc. That is another story, another one about too many bit players. But I digress.

We had lots of interesting friends, and we'd heard some of them talking about playing with food. It was intriguing, so off to Wal-Mart we went. We selected the chocolate sauce, the strawberry flavored ice cream topping, and some whipped cream…yanno, the usual. We also got some frozen melon balls. So we head for the checkout counter, and onto the conveyor belt went condiments, melon balls, and a 12-pack of flavored condoms. When the cashier, who was trying really hard to keep her eyes in her head and her mouth shut, told us to have a good night, he could not resist. "Looks like it, huh?" Poor girl turned eight shades of bright crimson. We laughed all the way to the car.

At home, the condiments were a VERY nice lead-in to the frozen melon balls. To make it extra-fun, he tied my hands above my head. He then inserted one frozen melon ball. Encouraged by my gasp and "ooh," he inserted another. My eyes went wide, so he kept going. He must have put 5-6 of those things in there. My oohs were gaining in loudness and intensity, and he finally realized there was some amount of desperation in my voice! (Note to guys: when ooh turns to OW, you've gone too far.)

He asked if I was okay, and I told him the area was numb and painful at the same time. He got all manly and said "Here, I'll warm you up," and put himself against me. I asked if it was in, and his eyes went wide and he said NO a trifle too loudly. I told him I was numb and couldn't feel anything. So he tried to retrieve the offending fruit. Yes, I said TRIED.

Do you know what happens to frozen things when you put them in a warm, wet place? They LUMP! And the new lump of frozen succulent fruit would not budge. It was stuck. I started freaking out, understandably, I'm sure. He tried to separate them with no luck. Finally I filled my hot-water bottle with warm water and attached the hose, and managed to flush some of them out. I asked for a count so I could be sure that we had an equal in/out ratio, only to be told he hadn't kept track. This was need-to-know information! I had visions of serious infections in my head. He offered to make it up to me by probing for them with a special tool. By then, though, my passion had cooled along with my nether regions. He did make it up to me later, after about a half-hour or more of flooding the area with warm water to be sure all was clear.

There's not really a moral to the story…I mean, why start now with the morals, right? But if there is a lesson to be learned from all of this, it is DON'T put honeydew on his honey-do list.

At least not if it's frozen.

Adventures in Parenting

(originally published on Multiply Dec 2007)

It's not for sissies, you know. The other day, I left work and went to pick up my younger two boys, ages 5.5 and 3.5. When we got home, I had to immediately do what I usually have to do upon arriving home.

I went to the bathroom.

As I am sitting there, I decide to go ahead and take off my work pants, cause the boys and I are about to do some picking up. But my legs are cold, so I'd like to go ahead and put my sweatpants on. I hear the boys in my room - right outside the bathroom - so I yell for one of them to please bring me my sweatpants.

"What?" I hear back.

"Please bring me my sweatpants. They're on top of the cooler in front of the TV dresser."

"Where are they?"

*sigh* "They're on top of the little cooler. It's on the floor in front of the dresser where the TV is."

(from the little one) "The cooler in the ba'ment?" Little feet pattering toward the basement door...

"NO! No, not in the basement. The LITTLE blue and white cooler. It's in MAMA'S ROOM."

"I can't see it."

"Of course you can't see it...my sweatpants are draped over it right now. Look for a black pair of sweatpants draped over the little cooler."

"What do they look like?"

"They're BLACK, and vaguely COOLER-SHAPED at the moment. Just look on the floor in front of the dresser!!"

By now I can sense I'm losing them, even if they COULD find it, now they're no longer interested. I finish the job, including the paperwork, and go out into my bedroom. They've vanished. I actually CALL them back in the room! I pick up my pants...shake them at the children, and point to the cooler.

"THAT little cooler!"

"OOOOHHhhhhh...." they both breathe. (middle child) "We didn't see it."

The little one pipes up, "That goes in the ba'ment."

D'Ya Ever Notice?

LOL No, I haven't died and come back as Andy Rooney. But seriously, did you ever notice that these days, there are more and more words that are combinations of other terms to mean something completely new? Like edutainment. Not sure where I first heard this term, but it's one of those that you may not have heard it before, but you get it immediately. It's educational entertainment. Then there's one of my personal favorites, constarrhea. Due to the IBS, this is one with which I am all too familiar. I cannot claim credit for it, but another one of those I cannot recall where I heard it. I CAN claim credit for introducing the term to my family doctor, who got a chuckle after asking me, "Did you just say CONSTARRHEA?" He promptly recommended daily fiber supplements.

I heard a good one on American Idol this past week: "guyliner." The guy thought it would help him look cool, but he looked as cool as an axe murderer. Maybe he also has a "mangina?" (from Deuce Bigalow) Leeuna shared "wasband" with us the other day. Never heard it put that way, but makes perfect sense. I got a couple of those myself :D

I was reading the paper the other day, and they had one of those "What's out, what's in" lists. Out is eco-tourism, in are "staycations." I also saw a variation on the theme on Corner Gas, where the main character, Brent, went on an imaginary trip through Europe and the Caribbean all while sitting in his lawn chair in front of his business. He called it a "staycation," too. Friends could talk to him, but only in the format of a postcard: Dear Brent: hope you are enjoying your vacation. Was wondering where we keep the extra receipt tape. Love, Wanda. And he would respond in kind. It was trippy. Wonderfully quirky show! If y'all haven't seen it, it comes on WGN at midnight EST, and is set in Saskatchewan, Canada, in a prolly fictional town called Dog River.

I came up with a shorthand for a "wintry mix" of snow and rain, or "snain." As in, "It's snaining again. Roads'll be slicker'n owlpoop come nighttime." Heard not a combo, but a term I hadn't heard in this context a couple weeks ago on Las Vegas. "Muffin-top," and the guy was referring fondly to his now-slim girlfriend's formerly juicy midriff. *grimacing* I didn't need ANY explanation on this one. If ya do, let me know. I'll elaborate.

Lastly (til I think of some more...LOL..this could be my "you might be a redneck" or "here's your sign"), I heard "Christmakkuh" on one of those teen/twentysomething shows. I added some more all-inclusiveness to it, and now the winter hollyday season is "Christmakwanzakkuhstice." Give me some time; I'll work Scientology in there somewhere LMAO