30 Things I’ve Managed to Accomplish by 30

On this Holy Day of 2010, your one and only favorite blogger is turning 30. (No, not that one - me, damn it!) And so, for my big day, I’ve decided to make you all a list. A fabulous list of 30 Grand Life Accomplishments that I’ve succeeded in completing, all in less than 30 years.



1- Lived happily in four distinct regions of the US. A non-accomplishment but what I’m saying is I’m not one of those bitchers and whiners constantly complaining about something that’s "just not like [enter home state here]" and I’m damn proud of it.

2- Got a darn good degree from a darn good university that I’ve actually gone on to use. Ha! That’s a good one.

3- Without racking up huge student loan bills. (Despite depleting the savings I had solely because my father died so young…but hell, that IS what it was there for.)

4- While there, wrote several essays and a couple short stories in a foreign language. Even if I couldn’t begin to PRETEND to read them now, I still did it.

5- Found a career I like (most of the time), using the degree I actually got (it’s a science job and science is the degree and even if it’s not biochemistry/chemistry, you all don’t know any better), AND I’m actually good at. Most of the time.

6- Found myself somewhat accomplished in said career, including a first author paper that was featured on the cover of the kinda good journal it was published in! (Even if I am destined to never be fully respected as I do not have a PhD, STILL.)

7- Not yet really regretted not getting my PhD. Most of the time.

8- Drank beyond my limit enough times to learn my limit. Until I got pregnant and had a kid and even the idea of tolerance flew completely out the window, at which point one sip was beyond my tolerance, which doesn't seem to be enough to preclude me from accepting drinks from a cute guy at a bachelorette party, even if I did already tell him I was married, and learning all over again, ten years later, what drinking WAY beyond one’s limit really means. But that’s beside the point. I learned it when it was important.

9- Never been fired (despite #8). And while they might have been contemplating firing me at Round Table Pizza back in college, they were contemplating firing everyone all the time – and either way, I quit before they could make up their minds. Besides, that barely counts as a job at all.

10- Saved a life. Well, no, okay, probably not.  But I rode around in an ambulance in the middle of the night with reflective tape declaring “EMT” on my back and got pissy that I’d been woken up AGAIN, as a VOLUNTEER, for a darn stomachache, but I’m sure someone thinks maybe I was some help to them and that’s an accomplishment, right?

11- Managed to remain (mostly) on speaking terms with my entire family, despite me being me and them being…them.

12- Birthed one beautiful baby boy and have grown half way to completion a baby girl and despite this not actually being something I really had anything to do with and being something hundreds of morons do every day, I’m still calling it an accomplishment.

13- AND I did the whole birthing thing with NO drugs the first time around. Granted it wasn’t really my idea, well, no I had that idea BEFOREHAND, but no one knows what the hell they’re talking about beforehand...point being, if I’d had the opportunity during the whole shindig, I would have shot MYSELF up with an epidural, chance of paralysis be damned, but either way, I did it all naturally and that’s an accomplishment.

14- Maintained a few good lasting friendships and a shit ton of Facebook-worthy friends. We all know how much I love Facebook, and Facebook just wouldn’t be Facebook without the 400 friends.

15- Not created (to my knowledge) any lasting enemies. If you know otherwise, just don’t tell me till tomorrow, k?

16- Not killed or physically maimed anyone who may have become a short term or long term enemy, despite any inclination I may have had to do so. With my temper, this is definitely an accomplishment.

17- Managed to get two men to fall desperately enough in love with me to marry me, and only one regretted it. So far.

18- Got divorced before the VAST majority of my friends had even gotten married. Or engaged. Wait, is that an accomplishment? Right, I got that whole “starter marriage” crap out of the way, so you know, that was nice. And learned how the court systems work in three different states along the way! And how shitty divorce really is, in all three states. (Only got divorced in one state, geez, can’t you follow me here, people?) K, let’s just call this an accomplishment and move on.

19- Broken a heart. Or two. Or ten. And had my heart broken back once or twice. Or, more like a dozen times. I like to know the variables on these things.

20- Racked up massive credit card debt (I blame the ex) AND managed to pay it all off again so I have none today. It’s the accomplishment we’re concerned with here folks. If I hadn’t had the debt, I couldn’t have paid it off, now could I have?

21- Actually maintained a savings account that is (finally) staying above the monthly minimum, AND not only that, is increasing! By like, at least $1.27 a month!

22- Begun a retirement fund that would allow me to live somewhere other than the local underpass for my final years…so long as I keep adding to it for the next 50 years or so… and the cost of living doesn’t excessively spike…and the stock market doesn’t crash…again…

23- Started a college fund for my little boy. He’s GUARANTEED to be able to attend at LEAST one semester of college, TOTALLY covered. (Besides books, supplies, rent and probably food.) Totally covered.

24- Bought a beautiful house in a beautiful neighborhood with a mortgage that is actually affordable and I absolutely love. And better always love, because according to my sweet and loving and supportive husband, if I ever want to move again, he’ll kill me.

25- Maintained good (albeit not always great) credit throughout it all. Obama thinks it’s an accomplishment.

26- Gone parasailing despite my fear of heights, ridden a motorcycle despite my fear of speed, constantly tried new things despite my fear of failure AND, most importantly of all, ridden my bike to work daily (in the warm-ish months) despite my ENORMOUS fear of an untimely death by a big rig while biking to work one sunny summer morning.

27- Realized my massive personality flaws (at least a couple of them) and vaguely attempted to do something about them, which never really worked because my biggest flaw is being so damned stubborn even I can’t get through to myself.

28- Ran two marathons and one half-marathon and didn’t do too terribly at them, even if I never will win my age bracket. Or the 65 plus age bracket who always has some hippy-type crazy runners thrown in just to piss people like me off, usually running barefoot as an added insult.

29- Wrote a novel. I haven’t done anything with it, but hey, I wrote it. There’s gotta be something left for the next 30 years, you know.

30- Created a STELLAR blog with even MORE stellar followers. ‘Cause I’m awesome.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive...Occasionally

Here’s the thing. When you’re having your first baby, (especially if first baby happens to be the first grandchild cubed, and the first great-grandchild quadrupled), you barely have to spit out the “p-word” before the gifts start rolling in. Everybody and their brother and their brother’s mother is excited for you. Everybody wants to give you something.

The gifts range from the extreme (a couple hundred bucks worth of goods from some distant friend of the family whom neither of you have ever met) to the extremely heartfelt (knitted homemade blankets and croqueted homemade blankets and quilted homemade blankets…and throw in a knitted bonnet or two for variety…) When I finally stopped counting I believe the Energizer Bunny had 14 homemade blankets, including the one I naively chose to labor hours and days and weeks over myself before realizing it would be joined in the laundry basket coated in spit up and by a permanent smell only a mother could love, by 13 other equally heartfelt and quite possibly better constructed homemade blankets, 17 brand-new store bought blankets and 12 hand-me down blankets. Not to say I don’t love every one. Of course I do. There are just a lot… Because a lot of people care. A lot of people are excited. And everyone wants you to know.

In stark contrast, there’s the poor neglected second pregnancy. You know, it’s not like no one cares, it’s just they ALREADY told you this. They already tossed you a couple hundred bucks for your first baby and they still haven’t even seen the kid. They already spent hours and days and weeks pouring love into a teeny tiny baby blanket that you so carelessly allowed to be spit upon and chewed on and torn at the seam and in the measly, pitiful three months that you actually bothered to use the beautiful creation in which they weaved a tiny piece of their soul, you only managed to get one picture of it in use (out of the 15327 pictures you took…after all, it was your first baby) and that can only mean you really didn’t FULLY appreciate the amount of effort and love put into the homemade blanket to begin with… So why the hell would they make another one? Why the hell would they buy another gift?

Fact is, they won’t. But it’s not that they don’t care. They do. It’s just maybe not quite as much. And even if they did care as much (which they don’t, not quite, no matter what they say), you’ve still GOT all the shit from the first one. What could you possibly want? Much less need?
But I DOOOO want things. And NEED things. No, really. Desperately need. All right, not a desperate need like an air conditioner in the Sahara Desert but more like a desperate need for a raise when your bills are already covered, you’ve got plenty of food on your table and you’re putting 10% in savings, just not enough for all the fun things you want to do. So you know, good ol’ fashioned American desperation for more stuff.

But we’re not going to be able to buy EVERY thing we (and by we I mean the baby and by the baby I mean mostly me) desperately need. And there’s no politically correct baby shower for the second baby. There aren’t oodles of friends to buy us oodles of things so we don’t have to spend every penny we’ve managed to save in the last three years on all the new desperate needs that we have (which is approximately 5 pennies anyway.)

So we asked. Against my better judgment, we put a politically incorrect not-quite-request out for more desperately needed shit. Hoping, hoping, hoping, that maybe we’d really get some of it. That someone would care just enough to fill in one or two of the huge gaping gaps in our already overstuffed nursery.

And someone did.

The most fantastic Female PILL ever (and most of us either have one, had one or are one, and let's face it, there still aren't many we can call fantastic) bought the fantastically overpriced (but new! and exciting! and patented…) sit-n-stand stroller for the second child. This baby will be overjoyed to know that her paternal grandmother really did care that there was yet ANOTHER baby coming along. At least she’ll know there’s one.

The Guilt Trip in a Nutshell

My little family recently had the vast and undeniable pleasure of being secluded in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny cabin, with no recognizable escape, with my mother – The Walking Guilt Trip, and my brother – The Mooch. Now, to clarify, this is a family “reunion” of sorts – in which the brother who lives with me, and the mother who lives 4 miles from me are confined to even smaller quarters, while the sister who lives 3000 miles away and therefore might be enjoyable to see for at least 57 seconds has backed out.

For my part of the duties while isolated in the wilderness with said loving relations, I had the joy and pleasure of doing something completely new and exciting. Cooking. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. New. And exciting. Don’t get me wrong, I love cooking. It’s just, you know…vacation… (please add sufficiently annoying whiny voice.)

Standing in the kitchen while the chitlins splashed and played in the lake and on the boats, I slaved away at yet another meal.

The Walking Guilt Trip, needing to pee, enters said kitchen through the side deck door. Perhaps some of her own guilt trippage slipped into her beverage that morning, because on return to the fun area of life, she asks, “Could I help with anything?” While her swimsuit drips on my toes.

This is quite an unusual offering. I internally debate my options. Deny her and be made to feel ungrateful for everything she has offered and provided throughout the years? Or accept and have to hear how she “helped cook” all week, and probably all year, long? I chose the latter.

“There’s some bacon to crumble and chives to chop over there if you want. Otherwise, I think I’m fine.”

She stares at me with that blank stare of hers while I pretend to ignore her and contentedly cut my tomatoes.

Without a word, she walks off and organizes her stuff in the living room.

When she returns, she watches me put my cute little tomato cubes on bread slices for a minute or two. “Do you need help with that?”

You’ll Thank Me Someday

One beautiful sunny morning I am happily singing along in the kitchen to show tunes or something equally cheesy, cheerfully chopping veggies and spices for our crock-pot dinner so I won’t spend the gorgeous evening hours cooped inside cooking and yet my perfect little family will still have a fantastic home-cooked meal made by none other than me.

As lucky as I am to be blessed with such a loving and wonderful family, and home, and food, and summer (and any other crap you can add to the list) let’s not forget I am also lucky enough to be joyfully pregnant. And by pregnant, I, in this case, really mean immunosuppressed. ‘Cause that’s right folks, I’ve gotten every fuc*ing illness you can think of in the past 19 weeks, 6 days and 8 hours.

So I’m happily chopping away at a jalapeno or two, singing a show tune or two, when, not surprisingly at all, my nose begins to twitch. To quiver. To, maybe, just a little bit, run. My memory SWEARS to me I finished the chopping, tossed the jalapenos in the slow-cooker, rinsed my hands and grabbed a tissue from the bathroom.

But I’ve been known to suppress a memory or two.

Back in the kitchen, I move on to the green peppers. Chop, chop, chop. ABBA song lyric.

My nose twitches again. My first thought? A simple “stupid runny nose.” And then, the twitch became more of an itch…maybe a little bit of a sting. Maybe even a burn. And before I had time to wonder “What the FU*K?” My eyes were watering from the searing pain of what could only be a jalapeno acid burn.

Shit, shit, shit.

I rinse with water. Repeatedly. Soap. Up my nose. As much as I can get. No effect.

Finally, in desperation, and I could only ever admit something like this in a most desperate form of desperation, I yell to the Unsupportive Louse a demand for cures possibly including a burst of offensive language. Completely unlike me.

He suggests vinegar. Vinegar, he claims, neutralizes lye burns. Lye and jalapeno might, perhaps, maybe, possibly, be in the same category. Kinda. I hastily pour half a bottle of distilled vinegar up my nose. As if the Unsupportive Louse planned it, the burn instantly INTENSIFIES. Beyond belief.

I further swear at the louse and demand information from the internet, a clearly more reliable source. Google knows everything.

While I await his quite pointedly unhurried web search, I have an epiphany. Baking soda. Sodium bicarbonate. Used in undergraduate chemistry laboratories across the country to neutralize the pH of countless solutions before pouring the shit down the drain. This is a BRILLIANT idea.

I expeditiously make a paste through my pain. Shove it up my nose. Gag, snort, sneeze. And realize the burn has decreased NOT AT ALL.

“Most of these pages just say to avoid getting the oil on your skin to begin with.” My very, very, very helpful husband calls from the other room where he has yet to push his ass up out of his lazy-boy, not even to reach for his laptop. I feel the concern oozing from his every pore.

I’m quite certain I called him a name or two.

Unfazed, he patiently waits for my tirade to end before lackadaisically mentioning, “Wait, this one says to try milk. Maybe?”

There is just no easy way to pour a gallon jug of milk into your nose. With yet another Einstein-ian idea I fill a bowl full and dunk half my face in. I come up sputtering, dripping, gasping for breath. And still breathing fire.

My only hope is to inflict serious injury on the Unsupportive Louse in order to decrease my own pain. I swear it works. It’s kind of like voodoo.

So I storm to the living room imagining the various instruments I can torture him with, visualize myself dumping the whole crockpot on his head – imagine where the jalapenos might land! Because misery truly does love company.

Not even aware his very life is threatened, he barely saves himself with just one more suggestion. “This person swears by sour cream.”

At first, the thought of shoving sour cream up my nose only makes me want to cause him greater agony and torment. But you can only imagine someone else’s pain to decrease your own for so long and the very fibers of my nose were shouting, screaming, pleading to be helped. And so I did it. I tried one last thing. I thrust some sour cream up my nose.

Relief. Sweet, sweet, instantaneous relief.

And so, my friends, one day, when you have been negligent enough to chop a jalapeno pepper (or worse!) without wearing your rubber gloves…and if, by chance, you carelessly rub a more sensitive area of skin with the tiniest tip of a finger before you thoroughly wash away the oil, you, on that day, will thank me. On that day, you will never be happier to force sour cream up your nose.

I say in advance: You’re welcome.

Whacha Makin?

Some days…okay, every day…when the Mooch saunters lazily into the kitchen, conveniently (and completely uncomplicitly) catching me in the middle of dinner preparations and asks, “What’s for dinner?” I really just want to yell, “None of your god-damned business!”

Which is completely at odds with the nice little family scene that will take place at the kitchen table just 20 minutes from then when we all sit down with our cloth napkins and calmly ask each other, one and all, “How was your day?” and considering he will, indeed, be eating said meal-in-preparation with us and it therefore, maybe a little bit, IS kind of his business.

So, why, I ask myself, do I still have this overwhelming NEED to curse him out of my kitchen? A part of it is more obvious – that he makes little contribution to the household and if he’s lucky enough to get a homemade dinner to eat, he’d better just shove it and eat without complaining.

But, unfortunately, I must tell you, this is only a small part of my reasoning I discovered during my deep soul-searching.

For the other part, I can only blame my mother. You see, the other part is my concern, my worry, my FEAR that, perhaps, just perhaps, my big brother won’t actually LIKE what I’m making for dinner. That he won’t APPROVE of my choice.

I’m concerned that my older brother, who lives with his little sister, in her house, with her husband and kids, might not approve of my meal.

That my big brother who leaves my good wedding china in his room until the food is dried and caked on so effectively that it has to soak for days before it comes off might not like what I’m cooking.

That the mooch who makes a bigger mess around his plate than our 3-year old every night and has never once, in two years, cleaned a single dish* much less the table, might dislike my choices.

That my big brother who quits jobs and avoids new ones like they’re STDs** might disapprove of ME.

That my big brother who never bothers cleaning up those nasty little pubic hair looking shaving remnants from around the sink, who goes for weeks without using toothpaste because he forget to write it on MY grocery list and couldn’t possibly buy any himself (because, after all, he didn’t NEED to go to the store in all that time), who misses the bowl and blames it on the toilet leaking might be judging ME.

This kind of concern can only be blamed on the guilt trippage of my mother (as clearly, all things must be blamed on SOMEONE). And I believe I lived with my mother far too long for therapy. I am beyond all help.



* he does occasionally claim to “do the dishes” which involves him putting (generally without rinsing) his own single plate and possibly his glass as well into the dishwasher. He has not yet once started the dishwasher, nor has he put any dishes away to my memory.

**did you know they’re called STIs now??

What You Just Might Have to Look Forward to if You're Not Good

Try something for me. It'll make this just a teensy bit more understandable for you. Close your eyes and try not to move your eyeballs or twitch your lids even just the teensiest tiniest little bit at all. For a whole minute. Think you did good? Now try it for a whole day. Think you're still doing good? Now imagine putting the barb from one of those really annoying plants that gets caught on you clothes and takes froever to pick out under your eyelid so that if you actually DO move your eyeball just the minutest amount or wiggle your eyelid ever-so-slightly, you'll feel it. And it'll hurt like hell. I mean, those little fuckers have prickles all over them and their fucking little barbs get caught in everything.

K, but you're not done yet. Now, put that barb-y planty thingy in there, then add a light-sensitive dimension to the pain - every time you look at light, or every time the intensity of light changes - say the sun goes behind a cloud or someone turns off a light down the hall, or your neighbor's motion sensor light flips on and off every time the wind blows that god-damned tree branch in front of it? any time something like that happens, the barb gets squished in your eye. Like, someone huge shoves their fist in your eye and holds it there for 15 or 20 seconds.

Now, the day this first occurs, add an emergency room visit, with fucking brilliant fluorescent lights and constant flashes and inconsiderate arrogant assholes opening and closing flimsy curtains designed to keep nothing out and constant loud noises (which attract your attention and FORCE your eyes to move...really, try it) and only a dentist's chair to sit in.

Stay in that emergency room for a minimum of 7 hours, until 4 in the morning, ensuring that you WILL NOT get a good night's sleep.

For fun, throw in a nurse's warning that the numbing drops they've been pouring profusely into your eyes for the past 7 hours (causing burning and stinging sensations just before your eye goes mindlessly numb and your head begins to spin from some weird side effect) WILL MELT YOUR CORNEA if you use them too much. But not tell you how the fuck too much is too much, of course, and you KNOW she has no idea how many medical students and residents and attendings and specialists and opthamologists and janitors have come in and dumped some of the shit in your eye in the last 5 hours. So now you've got a nagging worry in the back of your mind. Just a little one. After all, you have one good eye.

Now stay in bed for two days, unable to read, unable to watch TV (cause THAT fucking hurts) unable to have conversations (you'd be shocked that you can't just keep your damned eyeball still while you talk), unable to pee because you can't find your way to the bathroom, unable to eat because the food can't find it's own damn way to your mouth, unable to cry because it hurts like a bitch.

Then have the brilliant 83 year old opthamologist tell you he's not happy with the way your special little 3-yr old's finger hole in your eye is healing, and have him SHOVE gauze in your eye (which, PS, hurts), tape it on your face with approximately 67 pieces of surgical tape (which isn't SUPPOSED to come off), in what he calls a "pressure patch." Now stay like that for another day. Peel the tape off, because you're NOT ALLOWED to just leave it on there until the stickiness just fades away, you've got to peel it out of your eyebrows and sideburn fuzz. Because that's what hell is.

And here is the reason why you need to eat your vegetables and mind your manners and not chase girls and be nice to animals and clean up your room and not waste your food and all those other things that your Momma always told you you should do. Because this could be just one of the many versions of hell that you may have to look forward to in your afterlife. And believe me, you don't want it.

That’s It. We’re Suing.

A little over a year ago, we had some good friends who were moving out of town, selling their house and moving into an apartment for awhile. As their move coincided closely with the beginning of our first spring in our new house with a gloriously huge backyard, these friends were nice enough to donate, free of charge, their lawn mower to us.

Which was fantastic. And we used the lawn mower all last spring and summer and fall on our gloriously huge backyard and all this spring and… then the fucker broke down. Approximately ¾ of the way through the yard. Which, I might add, makes the yard look fantastically terrible.

Of course the Unsupportive Louse spent hours letting it cool and checking the oil and triple-checking the gas and unclogging the blades and re-priming the primer-y thingy and yanking on the cord-y start-y thingy. And nothing worked.

And of course there was all sorts of swearing and all sorts of “shits not made like it used to be” yells and “good money” curses thrown in to unintelligibly mumbled screams. Of course, it wasn’t OUR good money, but I’m sure SOMEONE paid good money for it.

When slightly calmer, the Unsupportive Louse decides that we should opt for a hand powered push mower in the future, rather than rely on machinery that’s bound to die or need repairs in no time at all, and being the environmentalist hippy that I am, I think this is a great plan.

The next day, he purchases our first hand mower. And painfully (oh so very painfully) puts the thing together. Because it seems hand mowers, like all of Santa’s best toys, don’t come assembled. Once we’re happily back in the land of cursing and yelling, the damn thing is pulled and dragged and kicked and manhandled into the backyard to finish off that last crappy looking bit that now has massive dandelions that are actually bold enough to laugh out loud at the new mower…and with good reason.

The thing blew. Some spots The Unsupportive Louse went over a dozen times before it looked vaguely trimmed. And even then, the dandelions would simply pop back up and spit in his eye before spewing their seeds across the rest of the lawn.

So it gets thrown into the back of the very manly cruck and driven right back to the store (possibly with a few corners taken a few miles too fast just to teach the damn thing a lesson) and returned. With no replacement purchased. I refrain from asking any questions.

But the grass is growing fast this rainy season and I can’t stay too quiet for too long. And my very own little old lady of a mother used a hand mower for years while she lived all alone and lonely after we’d all deserted her in California. They can’t all be terrible. So back the cruck goes to a different hardware store and home comes a new hand mower, assembly required.

Yelling, screaming, cursing ensues, lawn mowing is attempted…and you guessed it, the lawn wins again.

And so now we must discuss what our plans are, because clearly we (and by we, I mean he) cannot purchase, assemble, and return a hand mower EVERY week for the rest of the summer.

We’ve come to a decision. We’ve decided to sue the friends who gave us the lawn mower that broke down in the first place. After all, this pain and suffering and loss of valuable family time and gas money and mental anguish is truly their fault for giving us, free of charge, such a shoddy lawn mower in the first place. I think this is a fair and reasonable decision. (And as an added bonus, will place us firmly back in the sphere of “Californians” rather than “Midwesterners” which we’d really prefer not to be considered, 'cause, dude, they're weird.)

So – you know who you are. The next time your doorbell rings? You’ve been served. And it serves you right.

PLEEEASE, Mommy?

It was one of THOSE mornings…

One of those mornings when I overslept and I’m already running late and everything is going wrong and I keep forgetting things and the Energizer Bunny is doing everything he can to slow down the process and then it happens.

He declares he wants me to stay home. “Alllllll day, forever and ever and ever.”

And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I’d just gone from being really late to might as well have called in sick ‘cause you didn’t have any time to get any work done anyway late.

Commence Energizer Bunny crying. And what kind of a mother would I be if I left the Energizer Bunny crying for his Mommy? And what kind of a wife would I be if I simply left it for the Unsupportive Louse to deal with? And so, of course, like all good mothers and wives would do, I stayed.

Half and hour later, the Energizer Bunny was physically holding me down (I’m sure I could have thrown him off, but this takes us back to the “what kind of a mother would I be if…” question and really, this isn’t a question I want to have to ask myself more than once in a day), all while holding my bike helmet hostage to be certain I won’t be able to leave, even if I do attempt a violent escape.

Having tried everything else, I put on my sternest grown-up voice and say, “Bunny, I AM going to work RIGHT NOW, so you need to let me up and give me a kiss goodbye.” I can’t be ALL mean, geez. And I get up. And he seems to be okay with this. And then he runs off with my helmet. Dammit.

So I track him down and try to convince him it’s really a better idea for me to have my own helmet than his tiny yellow frog-speckled helmet, as, after all, it doesn’t fit me.

And then I did it. I am ashamed to say… I used a tactic my mother would have used. I tried to guilt him. I’m hanging my head. It was a last ditch effort, the only thing left that I hadn’t tried. But you’re right, it was terrible none-the-less. But never fear, in the end, I got what I deserved.

You see, my father used to ride his bike to work, and my father (who wore a helmet every time he rode) was hit by a truck and was killed. On his bike. On his way to work. It’s a terrible story. But the little, sweet, innocent, conniving, manipulative Energizer Bunny who is holding my helmet hostage has heard it before. So I simply reminded him that sometimes, only sometimes, people driving aren’t careful, or if a biker isn’t wearing their helmet – a helmet that fits them well- maybe, just maybe, something terrible could happen. Say…that person could die. So please, pretty please, may I have my helmet to wear to bike today?

The Energizer Bunny screams “NOOOO! I WANT you to DIE!” I told you I got what I deserved.

I closed my eyes to control the milieu of emotions coursing through my head and simply said, “Sweetie, that’s a terrible thing to say.”

He screws up his face in concentration and then, as he’s been so well taught, asks in a calm and rational voice, “Please, Mommy, can I take your helmet so you can die?”