Snobby McSnobbersons

The phone rings.  It's Meredith.  She's playing at her friend Daniel's house. Daniel is a nice boy. 

Daniel's family has one of those weird living arrangements where various members of the family live in different locations. Daniel lives with his aunt and one brother and his parents (I'm not sure if they are the original set) live with another brother elsewhere because the brothers don't get along and they have an assortment of mangy animals and our beloved yappy mongrel Spike Da Neutered Ladeez Man

was the result of an illicit summer romance between a chihuahua and a dachshund belonging to somebody in the family and I would be willing to bet one thousand dollars that he is the only dog from his litter who has been shot, neutered and dewormed but anyway Daniel is a nice boy and he and Meredith enjoy their time together so there you have it.

"Mom, can I have ten dollars?" she asks.

"No," I cheerfully reply.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to give you any money," I again cheerfully reply.

"How about a check?" she asks.

"Sorry, the bank is closed," I reply, a little testily.

"Mom....um.....could you loan Daniel's parents some money?"

I stare at the phone as if it had suddenly become radioactive.

"Huh?" 

"Could you loan Daniel's parents some money?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm disabledandunemployedandyourdadisretiredandonlyworks parttime" I hastily reply, using buzz words that I know will generate a spark of understanding.  "I might as well take the money and use it to light a cigarette rather than loan it to perfect strangers who would use a nine year old child to beg for money," might sound a little harsh, I'm thinking.

"Um...mom..."

"YES?"

"Could they maybe meet Daddy when he comes home from work and get some money?"

"NO, sweetie !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I reply, gently.

"But he loaned Julie's mom some money last year," she argued.  Meredith would make a fine lawyer, but strippers make more and probably have health and dental, so there you go. 

It's true.  Julie's mom needed $20.00 to go buy some lifesaving medicine and he loaned it to her and she paid it back and then two weeks later she needed $20.00 to buy gas to meet her son who was stranded somewhere and Sucker McSuckerson loaned it to her, and she did pay it back.

"I'm sorry, sweetie, but we can't loan any money now," I reply once more.

"Okay, bye!" she replied. Click.

Two adults that I have never met, nor has Roger except for a quick hello twice,  asked their ten year old son to ask our nine year old child to ask her mother to borrow money.

I don't want to repeat the words I used to describe this incident to Roger, who agreed fully with my decision and suggested that Meredith not be allowed to visit the trailer where the parents live any more and I agreed with him in a rather loud, intemperate tone, considering we had four slumbering beasts lying around us:  Madeleine, Meredith, Spike and Callie.

Please don't use your child to ask me for money.

It's...okay maybe I'm just a Southern girl who was raised by her mama and daddy with certain rules of behavior...and maybe I'm too snobby for my pathetic britches but I have one word for this...

tacky.

Orlando, Ho!!

At six tomorrow we will rise,
Wipe the sleep from our baggy eyes,
And drive Madeleine to middle school,
To go to Orlando for her four day Honors Orchestra trip
& I'll cry like a fool.
Thank you for helping her dream come true
Wonderful people all of you

No Child Left Behind

It was a Tuesday last week and Madeleine was in Charleston for her latest orthodontic appointment.   When you get braces for half the price that private orthodontists charge, you take the appointment time they give you with a smile.    To defend myself, I had absolutely no idea that I was taking both girls out of school during one of the (a sacred hush permeates the room)  PASS test days.

If you do not have children or do not teach K-12 or do not have even the most rudimentary interest in the process molding our fine young people of America, than what I will say may come as a shock.

But apparently all happiness hereinafter and here on this planet depends on the children performing well on the standardized tests given at the end of the year to students.   Teachers are supposed to IMPROVE the tiny minds entrusted to their care, and apparently the only imaginable way that the bewrocrats (I attended school before No Child Left Behind and as a result I have no idea how to spell that word and I'm also too lazy to look it up and it's my blog neener neener neener) have devised to measure whether a student, class, or school is making acceptable progress in the process of education is a three day multiple choice test administered in May of each school year.  Yeah, I think it's stupid too.

"I'll need an excuse for both girls," I said, batting my eyelashes helplessly at the dental hygienist.   I had brought Meredith along feeling that a 3rd grader probably was too young to engineer her own pickup and delivery at school,  let herself in the house, cook supper, do her homework, and entertain herself till 10:00 at night when her father would be off work.

Here's another thing people--schools don't trust parents anymore.  I dreamed of one day grandly writing excuse notes as I changed diaper after diaper and shoveled mouthful after mouthful of pureed canned peas into recalcitrant mouths.   One day I could set pen to paper and take my kids to a burlesque show if I chose--all I had to do was write that they had a "stomach virus" and they would be excused from school.

Not so fast.  Today you have to have proof.   Thank you all you lying son of sea cook parents out there.

"She doesn't have an app..." the hygienist started to say when she was interrupted by my pitch, windup and delivery.

"I know but Dr. Jo said that if I brought her on the next appointment she'd take a look," I said, batting my eyelashes and grasping the chair desperately.   The gracious and kind orthodontic professor did indeed take a look at Meredith's baby teeth braces, needed to correct wayward adult molars, and announced that she'd need adult teeth braces too. 

But I got the excuse!  Meredith got told to brush her teeth as the ortho gloomily predicted three or four more years of braces and the thought of $3600 laid out for adult teeth braces for Meredith was presented to me in concrete form for the first time, leaving me to conclude that my husband had better get an extra job delivering papers or open an escort service.

But now I come to my manifesto, and it will be ignored and even laughed at by the PhDs currently populating whatever Presidental commission is now determining standards of education.  But that is all right.

People have been laughing at me (not with me, alas) for longer than most of you have been alive, missy, or mister.

I BELIEVE THESE THINGS:

1.  Children are our future.

2.  Learning to love yourself can certainly save a lot of anguish and money spent on worthless boyfriends, and costs only pennies for batteries.  Ergo, it is the Greatest Love Of All.

3.  Children should be able to sew.   See that white dress up there?  Mah deah old momma sewed it for me when I was named a Junior Marshal for being one of the top ten students in my junior class and asked to distribute programs at graduation.  I can sew a little, but you'd probably feel better wearing a "Lorrie" if you fortified yourself with a few healthy shots of bourbon.

4.  Children should be taught to scratch cook.  Yes, I SAID SCRATCH.   Take a raw chicken, a potato in its original skin, sour cream, a head of lettuce and some oil and vinegar and prepare a meal that will have your guests wiping their lips with a linen napkin and begging for more instead of wiping the toilet bowl after ingesting salmonella.  Sorry for the visual.

5.  Advance cooking courses would include how to prepare a nourishing, tasty meal with 3 eggs, some popcorn, a bottle of mustard, 47 packs of "FIRE!" seasoning from Taco Bell, 38 packs of Splenda that I liberated from Chik-Fil-A under the rationale "they charge so much for their food they DESERVE this!" a partially empty container of Sugar Free Cool Whip and some overripe bananas, which coincidentally happen to be the contents of my pantry at the moment.  Roger could do it.  Roger is a gifted chef, and I am not kidding.  I could only stare at the ingredients and weep helplessly with only my salty tears for sustenance.

6.  Children should be taught how to change a tire, change the oil, and text while going 75 miles on the freeway. (I'm including the last one out of simple desperation after seeing many kids doing it.) 

7.  Advance course includes how to cry your way out of a speeding ticket.   Let me know.  I've never had any luck.

8.  Children should be able to unclog a sink, change a HVAC filter, maintain a swimming pool, repair plumbing, lay a tile backspash, and redo a bathroom from the ground up.  I admit that most of this one is inspired by my complete inability to a.  do the work or b. pay someone to do the work.

There now.  If I knew how to do ANY of the above things, I know I would be better off.  My trigonometry course has not enriched my life in any way.   

"THEY TOOK AN VERY ORDINARY GIRL AND CHANGED HER INTO A PHI BETA KAPPA"

Oh my GAWD.


I obviously did not suffer from a lack of self confidence back when I was 20, unlike today, when I'm convinced that there are probably five or six people in the world who are better human beings and more talented writers than I am.


I found this last night while going through some old papers in the Family Bible looking for some more information on James Callison. I did find he was born in 1830 in County Armagh, Ireland, and his family name was James McCallison. Like many immigrants his name got shortened somehow. Who knows? It says he arrived in America in 1845. We Callisons have always been able to recognize when it's time to hit the road, because I think I read the Irish Potato Famine started about that time and got worse until 1848? I'm too lazy to look it up..oh, OKAY.


But anyway back to my incredible awesome wonderfulness. I was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and had to write some little blurb for the program. So, presented for your wincing squirming pleasure, is my epistle:


I was born in Richmond, Virgina and grew up in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. When I was ten, my family moved to South Carolina. I have thoroughly enjoyed my three years at USC. (ed. note: I graduated early)


Majoring in journalism has given me the opportunity to file stories for a newspaper, radio and TV station, and contribute to a book. (Ed. note: I have no IDEA what book I am talking about here). I have also derived great benefit from my political courses and experience as a legislative intern.


I suppose it is customary to thank a teacher for academic encouragement. (Ed. note: Really! Ya think?) However, I must give all credit to my parents, Ruth and Grady Callison. They gave me the most priceless gifts in the world-love, encouragement, and self confidence. (Ed. note: Really? Ya think?)


It is impossible to put into words what they mean to me. Let me just say that two extraordinary people turned a very ordinary girl (Ed. note: Really? Ya think? Yeah) into a Phi Beta Kappa.


Okay. (cringe) Yowsa! I merely want to state for the record that I am adopted. And I merely want to state for the record that I was gosh golly gee whiz-bang lucky.


And I still feel that way. Happy Mother's Day Mom.


Wish you even knew it WAS Mother's Day as you sit in your wheelchair in whatever world the demon called Alzheimer's has taken you to.


(And yes, even though I'm a very ordinary Phi Beta Kappa, I'm ending that sentence improperly. My copyediting professor would not be pleased).

FUTURE WORLD DOMINATOR

Madeleine made this picture using some application called Picnik.  I had nothing to do with it.   I just found it on my computer one day.

It just might be the most awesome picture of all time.

Note the deceptively sweet face, yet the hint of menace in the eyes.

The kid hit the ground running.  By the time she blew out the candles on her 6th birthday cake she had finangled herself a full scholarship to a private school.  Soon she started a blog.  I typed up her entries. 

Shh!!  The maestro is composing!  P.S. I went over and "monetized" her blog. Every future dictator needs a stash of moolah in a country that doesn't allow extradition. 

Little Meredith wonders if Sissy will allow her to be Vice-Dictator when Sissy takes over the world.  Don't hold your breath, kid.

 Then she began acquainting herself with firearms. I started calling her "Tania"...

Patty Hearst's nom de plume when she was a Symbionise Liberation Army Warrior.  And yes, I totally had to look up the spelling.

I dunno, this was some part of our steam cleaner.    And of course every villian needs an evil sidekick, so she started training her pet monkey in the fine art of weaponry.

Let us hope she uses her powers for good.