Building a Better Mousetrap

There's a mouse in our house.

As Chris has already mentioned, the mouse was a gift from one of our cats. HIS cat, to be more precise. On Wednesday night we were sitting on the couch happily enjoying an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Chris heard a hairball-type noise and got up to let Sam (the cat formerly known as "The Assman") in from the deck. I glanced at Sam as he came in and thought to myself, "hmm. . .what's that on his face?" Then Sam lowered his head to the floor and the something on his face became a little brown mouse on our living room floor.

"Oh, ewww, aaaaack, oooooohhh, MOUSE!" I shrieked as I moved from a sitting to a standing position on the couch. And then two things happened: A) the little brown mouse scurried across the living room to take refuge under a bookcase, and B) I realized how dopey it was to be shrieking and waving my hands around from the top of the couch in the face of something as mighty and fearsome as a little brown mouse.

So I hopped down and said something to the effect of, "Here, little mousey," and then Chris and I spent the next forty minutes or so trying to capture the poor little guy (could be a girl. . .I really don't know). It didn't work. For one thing, Chris is afraid of mice. I noticed him flinching every time the mouse poked his little head out from under the bookcase and I promptly relieved him of his mouse-catching bucket. "What? I just don't like mice," Chris responded. "Think of him like a hamster," I said, "he's really cute." I'm pretty sure Chris shuddered.

Anyway, Chris kept trying to scare the mouse out of his hiding place and I kept trying to reason with him (the mouse, not Chris). "I just want to help you, little mousey," I explained. But neither of us was successful. Every time the mouse ran out from under something I became more focused on not squishing him than on actually catching him, and eventually the mouse ran into a hole under our kitchen cabinets. "He'll have to come out eventually and one of the cats will get him," Chris said, relieved. "No!" I exclaimed. After all, if I wanted one of the cats to get him I wouldn't have just spent forty minutes chasing his cute little mouse ass around the house.

My mom told me recently that my dad had discovered two dead mice in a fabric-covered wastebasket in his study. They reckoned the mice had scrambled up the outside and fallen in, and then were unable to scramble back up the slick plastic inside. I figured this could work to our advantage, so I emptied our bathroom wastebasket, wrapped the outside in a towel, and placed it near the hole. Then I sprinkled a trail of cheese from the hole up the towel and into the wastebasket. Then I went to bed, worrying about the poor little mouse stuck under our cabinets. "He must be so scared," I said to Chris.

In the morning, there was no mouse in my trap and the trail of cheese appeared undisturbed. (Probably because I used shredded taco-flavored cheese -- it is a well-known fact that mice abhor monosodium glutamate.) So I dismantled my mousetrap and hoped that the little mouse had somehow found his way outside. Yesterday passed without incident, and today was fairly uneventful until I sat down to write this post, at which point I saw the mouse run across the living room.

Now, a mousetrap is obviously entirely out of the question. I don't even like killing wasps; I'm certainly not going to kill a cute little brown mouse who is probably more upset about being in my house than I am about having him here. No, we have to SAVE this little mouse.

So when I saw the mouse run across the living room this afternoon, I barricaded off the rest of the house and sequestered the cats. Then I overturned the couch and the cushy chair, leaving only the TV to hide behind (see, if we didn't have that TV, this mouse would be gone by now. yet another good reason not to own a television). Finally, I reached behind the TV and tried to catch the little mouse in a plastic cup. But he kept scurrying out of reach. I sighed and kneeled down near the little mouse. "Come on, buddy," I crooned as I gazed into his little beady eyes, "come on out of there."

But my little buddy did NOT come on out of there. Instead he wedged himself somewhere so far out of sight that, well, I can't even see him anymore. I know he's still back there, though. For one thing, I made it nearly impossible for him to get out of that corner without my help. Also, a few hours ago I put a bit of cheese (smoked Gouda this time) behind the TV, and the cheese has since disappeared.

So now what? I considered ordering this no-kill mousetrap, but it's Friday and even with expedited shipping we wouldn't have it until next week. I will most certainly run out of Gouda before then. Fortunately, my Google search for a live mousetrap turned up this:

So I've emptied the bathroom wastebasket (again) and rigged one up behind the TV.

Chris says if I actually get the mouse outside I get a BIG surprise.

I hope it's a cute surprise. I hope it's a pet mouse.

A Bloody Bad Day

My day began normally enough: I got up at five and did an hour's worth of schoolwork before showering. But then I decided it was absolutely imperative that the bathroom wastebasket be emptied into the kitchen trash between the schoolwork and the showering, and since the kitchen trash was itself almost full I also found it necessary to reach into the can and press down on said trash. Which if I'd remembered the broken juice glass I'd tossed in there yesterday I probably wouldn't have done.

Needless to say, I sliced the shit out of my finger. And needless to say, I yelled, "FUCK!," mostly because it hurt like hell but also because I don't have time for that sort of thing in the morning. I have time for maybe one contingency, and that contingency is usually a line at the copy machine.

"That's probably gonna need stitches," I thought to myself as blood soaked through the tissues I'd grabbed in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Then I got in the shower.

Now, I've never seen Psycho, but I hear tell it contains a bloody shower scene where some chick gets hacked to death, possibly by an axe-murderer. My bathroom probably looked something like that this morning. (Minus the dead chick, of course.) Blood spattered against the shower walls as I washed my hair and oozed over the bar of soap as I washed my person. It swirled around my feet as it made its gory way down the drain, then took up residence on my towels (which, inconveniently, are white). It soaked through bandages and dripped into the sink as I combed my hair and applied my makeup.

Okay, so there was a lot of blood. Need I go on or shall I just skip ahead to the part where I take my bloody self to school to stand in line at the copy machine?

Fine.

There I was, there I was, there I was IN the copy room.* Actually, I was in my classroom because there wasn't a line at the copier this morning. To be more specific, I was in my classroom with 29 kids, 22 crappy laptops, and one student-centered internet-based lesson plan. (Oh, and one bloody finger.) All of which would have been fine if the internet connection had been working, but it wasn't. I know this because my kids told me 50 billion times.

The first student who attempted to log on to the internet announced, "My internet's broken." This announcement was followed, then repeated, by 28 other similar announcements. One girl even recorded herself saying, "Miss [my last name], the internet isn't working" so she could simply press a key on her computer to replay the message incessantly while I checked connections and tried to figure out why the internet wasn't working. Which I couldn't.

Oh, and if you're thinking my finger had stopped bleeding by this point, you're wrong. Still bleeding. In fact, my finger bled all day and well into the night (I'm just guessing here based on the fact that it's 10:15 and it hasn't quite quit yet). Shortly after lunch (which I was too busy to eat, by the way, and blood loss + no food = bad scene) I and my bloody finger consulted the school nurse. I knew the school nurse couldn't do much for me, but I wanted to know if I needed to go get stitches after school. "Oooooh," the nurse said, grimacing as she examined my wound, "they can't even stitch that. It'll bleed a little for a while. And it will hurt a lot. Take some Tylenol." Then she gave me some gauze and sent me back to my internet-connectionless classroom where my kids were happily engaged in the business of doing nothing.

So. It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that.

*This sentence, while serving as a fine transition, is included for the sole purpose of making my brother laugh. If you're not my brother all those extra "there I was"es probably sound pretty stupid.

Forget My Heart, It's My Boobs That Need Blessing

Note to my real-life guy friends: You might want to skip this one. Or not. I don't care. But no talking shit if you decide to read it.

I went bra shopping this afternoon. At Nordstrom, a place I typically do not frequent. I rarely wear a bra and I can't remember the last time I actually bought one, as I pretty much gave bras up at the height of my second hippie phase (hippie phase number one began my sophomore year in high school, but then I went through an inexplicable preppie phase in college, even going so far as to A) match things and B) tuck my shirts in. I don't really like to talk about this period of my life, but I'd recovered by my early twenties).

Every now and then I TRY to wear a bra, but I always end up sneaking into a bathroom to take it off within a few hours. Bras are uncomfortable. Plus, I teach high school -- sexy is not exactly the look I'm going for.

But then Lulu started posting pictures of her boobs (for a good cause) and when I mentioned that I had boob envy, she assured me the secret lies in the right bra. Which is exactly what my friend Kate who runs a chic-chic lingerie shop in Charlotte lectures me about almost every time I see her. So I emailed Kate and she sent me to Nordstrom.

And that is where my heart got blessed by the bra lady. After she measured me (because did you know that 85% of women are wearing the wrong size bra? the horror!), brought me some bras to try on, and checked them out to discover that none of them were working for me, the bra lady said, "Well bless your heart!" as she rushed off to find ten or twelve more bras for me to try on.

"Bless your heart," for my readers in The North, is what Southern women say to indicate that they feel sorry for you. Most of the time, they really do feel sorry for you and "bless your heart" is a genuine expression of sympathy. Some women, however, use "bless your heart" to disguise bitchiness. As in, "You look like you've gained about 50 pounds, bless your heart."

I think the bra lady meant it nice. But still. "Bless your heart" is not exactly what you want to hear when you're trying on bras. It kinda makes you feel like your boobs might be, well, fucked up.

As it turns out, my boobs are not fucked up (or at least that's what I'm gonna keep telling myself). It's just that on those rare occasions when I do wear a bra. . .get this. . .I've been wearing the wrong size. Like by a lot.

So I bought a bra. A LACY bra, for the love of god. And I think I might even like it.

There you go. One small step for Wacoal, one giant leap for patriarchy.

A Birthday Present That Sucks

I returned a call from my mom yesterday afternoon. I debated whether I even should, because I figured she probably wanted me to measure something to assist her in her never-ending mission to redo the beach house. She is currently occupied with making her "white vision" a reality.

The white vision in its original incarnation involved, as you might imagine, varying shades of white. Then my mom decided that was a little too boring so now blue is allowed. But only light blue. Nothing too crazy. You still get an overall white impression, unless you go into my room where you will find both *gasp* yellow and *double gasp* paisley (which I know is not a color, but which is also totally not in keeping with the overall cabana stripes theme).

Anyway, I don't mind measuring things, but inevitably my mom wants me to measure something that A) I've already measured 14 times before or B) is impossible to measure by myself. But I called her back anyway because, well, I was raised Catholic and I figured there was a strong possibility that I'd go to hell if I spent the weekend in my mom's beach house but couldn't so much as measure something for her.

"What up dawg?" I said when my mom answered the phone, mostly because she often responds to that greeting with "what up dog yourself?" and I find it amusing. Yesterday, though, she responded with another favorite, "who is this?" "It's your daughter," I answered. "Which one?" she asked. "The good one," I said jokingly. "Oh hi, Laura," my mom said happily. And I laughed even though I'm not entirely convinced she was kidding. I USED to be the good daughter, but then I started voting Democrat and liking colors and stuff.

Mom: Are you still at the beach?

Me: (hesitantly) Yes.

Mom: Oh good.

Me: Why? Do you want me to measure something for you?

Mom: (indignant) No. I want to give you something. A birthday present that I have there for you.

Me: Oh cool. Thanks.

Mom: You know how you said you like that little vacuum that I have there?

Me: Uh, yeah. . .

Mom: Well, I hate that vacuum so why don't you just take it with you when you leave?

Me: (laughing) Happy birthday, here's an old vacuum I don't want anymore?!

Mom: Well, you might as well have it.

Me: Okay cool, thanks. But when Laura gets a new car for her birthday you are definitely gonna hear about this.

Mom: (laughing) Oh, I'm sure I will.

She won't, actually.

I'm pretty stoked about my birthday vacuum. It's small, it's quiet, it's light, it doesn't freak the cat out, it gets things clean. . .what more can you ask of a vacuum?

"What are you going to do with your old vacuum?" my mom asked. "Give it to poor people," I answered immediately. "Why don't you keep it as a back-up vacuum?" my mom suggested. "Who the hell has a back-up vacuum?!" I ranted, working up to a full-on tirade about decadence. But then I remembered I was talking to a woman who finds it necessary to have both an upstairs vacuum AND a downstairs vacuum, so I just said thank you for the vacuum and explained that I didn't have the space for a back-up.

Support Your Local Independent Everything

I really don't have that much against Starbucks. Well, okay, ordinarily I make a concerted effort to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks (since I'm often a pedestrian myself), but I refuse to stop for people waiting to cross the street to Starbucks, and my Starbucks-going friends wisely use the euphemism "coffee shop" around me when discussing experiences they've had at their friendly neighborhood Starbucks. Or their OTHER friendly neighborhood Starbucks. Or their OTHER friendly neigh -- okay, fine. I think we can all agree there are a lot of fucking Starbucks. Which is sort of my problem with them. Holy ubiquitous, batman.

I know it's really cool and hip and edgy to wear a lot of black eyeliner and hate things like Starbucks these days, but I'm not that kind of cool and I don't look good in eyeliner. So it's not that. You won't find me at the next IMF protest (because, you know, people throw stuff at those), but if there's a local option you definitely won't find me at a chain.

Never have I been more glad of this policy than I was this morning. There are two coffee shops within a block of my house. I can see Fair Grounds, my local indie, from my bedroom window, and Starbucks is across the street from that. I go to Fair Gounds. Obviously. But I usually don't go to work as early as I have been this week so I've never concerned myself with what time they open.

They open at 7:00, which I discovered at 6:45 this morning when I opened the door and found the coffee shop girl (I think her name is Kirsten) just a few steps ahead of me on the darkened stairs. "Uh, I guess you're not open yet," I said glancing across the street at the brightly-lit Starbucks and contemplating selling out. "We open around 7, but what can I get you?" Kirsten asked as she flipped on lights. "Well I wanted some coffee, but. . ." (PS, of COURSE I wanted some coffee, I was AT a fucking coffee shop, right? But that's the best I can function without caffeine.) "It'll take me three minutes to make coffee. Are you coming up?" Kirsten asked while I stood in the doorway wondering whether it would be worse to go to Starbucks or to go without coffee or to disturb Kirsten before she was even open. "Uhhhhh. . .are you sure that's okay?" I asked. "What size do you want, sweetie?" said Kirsten.

See, I bet they don't call you "sweetie" at Starbucks. And when I asked for a medium, Kirsten didn't make me repeat myself in some stupid elitist yuppie code. She just gave me a medium coffee. Kirsten ROCKS! I can tell you this: nobody's even allowed to talk to me for the first 20 minutes or so that I'm at work. I even have a sign on my classroom door indicating that I am not to be bothered until 7:15 at the earliest. And here's Kirsten happily brewing me coffee and calling me sweetie a mere three minutes after she's walked in the door, before she's even OPEN. You gotta love that girl.

And it's not just Kirsten and Fair Grounds. According to the Andersonville study, local businesses reinvest THREE TIMES as much money in their communities as corporate chains do. Why why WHY would anyone go to Starbucks when Fair Grounds is right across the street?! Is the carmel macchiato really that good? Is the fate of your soul really that trivial?

Things Are Getting Pretty Weird Around Here

Last night I returned home just after midnight to find my next-door neighbor's door wide open and her cats in the hall. I shooed the kitties inside and asked them where their mom was. That didn't get me very far, so I knocked on her open door repeatedly, then stuck my head into her apartment calling "Hello? Hello? Anybody home?" Then it occurred to me that I should probably call the police. In retrospect, everything I'd done up until calling the police was pretty stupid. "Hello? Any ax murderers in there? Could you maybe try not to let the kitties out?"

90 seconds after my call to the police, three officers arrived. That's a pretty speedy response. I live in a fairly safe, fairly white section of the city. I wonder how long it would have taken the police to arrive on the scene in the ghetto just a few blocks away. Anway, the police came and checked things out and I guess they didn't find any ax murderers or murderees because they simply left, shutting the door behind them. Case closed.

But THEN I stepped out of my apartment this morning to go to work and was greeted by the EXACT same situation: door wide open, kitties in the hall, and no neighbor. Since I was running late -- as usual -- I decided to deal with it once I got to school.

Only I couldn't get to school because Tropical Storm Ernesto is dumping 4.1 inches of rain an HOUR on Southeast Virginia and the streets are flooded out. Not flooded like there's a few larger-than-normal puddles, but flooded like there's two or three feet of water on the road. I got halfway to school (which, since I live five blocks away, is really not that far) and had to turn around. Then I called Steve's cell to see if he'd been able to get to school. His wife answered, which confused me.

"Uh, hey Jen. I thought I called Steve. Did I accidentally call you?"

"No, you called Steve, but he's sleeping."

"What? He's sleeping?"

"Oh. We probably should have called you. School's closed."

Note to self: perhaps owning a television might not be such a bad thing.

But see, it never occurred to me that school might be closed today since yesterday I sent an email to my principal saying I'd heard a rumor that school might be closed tomorrow (which is now today) and asking if there was any truth to it, and he sent me an email back that said, "RUMOR!!!!!!!!!!. . .see you tomorrow." You mean I could have stayed out later and had more to drink last night? I could have caught the ENTIRE Lovesick Cousin (or, as it appeared on the marquee last night: Love Sickcousin) show instead of just the first two sets? Bastard.

So anyway, I came back home, tried to reach my landlord about the neighbor situation, and then called the police again. This time it took them ten minutes to get here, which isn't bad considering the aforementioned flooding and the non-emergency nature of the call. They asked me a few questions and said they'd check it out.

It's kinda freaky to watch three big-ass cops enter the apartment next-door to you with guns drawn. I mean, nobody said anything like, "Cover me. I'm going in," but they were definitely prepared for some sketchy shit to go down, and it was still kind of a weird thing to see.

I absolutely hate guns. Just the thought of guns creeps me out a little, and seeing them in person literally makes me tremble (and not in a good way). The police officers' guns didn't do that to me though. I can't go so far as to say I was comforted by their guns -- they certainly didn't make me feel any safer. But I sort of felt glad for the officers that they had guns, like if they had to go in there and face the bad guys at least they had some leverage.

Which pretty much goes against everything I believe in and is going to take some getting used to.

It turns out there weren't any bad guys in my neighbor's apartment, and so far her door has remained closed. But there's definitely something weird about the whole situation, and I really don't like bothering the police every 12 hours or so. Even if some of those officers ARE pretty cute.

School? It's Just Right Across That River Styx Over There.

Today was the first day of school for teachers. Incidentally, it was also 96 degrees in Norfolk and the air conditioning at school was broken. Oh, and my classroom is on the fourth (i.e., top) floor. My day pretty much involved wondering if it would be inappropriate to remove any more of my clothing than I already had. Answer: yes.

Around 1:30 I had a visit from some of the students who have been calling me all summer. I told them last week to stop calling me and get a life, so I guess they figured if they couldn't call they'd just stop by. Not exactly in keeping with the "get a life" approach to life, but whatever. At least they're respecting the "stop calling me" part of the plan.

Anyway, I was dripping with sweat and definitely not dressed appropriately for greeting ANYONE, let alone 16 year-old male students, unless you consider an exposed midriff appropriate teacher attire. One of these boys wrote "you are my dream woman" on the VERY first assignment he turned in to me last year and then got progressively creepier until parental and administrative intervention was required. Today his only comment on my appearance was to ask, "Hey, where's your necklace? You always wear a necklace."

So see, we've made progress.

Actually, I do pretty much always wear a necklace, and to notice that is still a little creepy. But to look at your dream woman's bare midriff and note only that she is missing her signature accessory is indeed progress.

And I was so impressed with this progress that when he asked me if I needed help with anything, I handed him my car keys and sent him and my other kids out to my car to unload some boxes of school crap that I'd taken home over the summer. He looked ecstatic. He looked like he was up to no good. There are all kinds of legal issues involved in giving kids the keys to your car and asking them to go get you something. I know this. But it was a hundred fucking degrees and I really needed those boxes.

"Do NOT get in my car," I stated emphatically. "I have a license!" he whined. "No. Look at me. This isn't like the time I said 'do NOT order pizza and have it delivered to class' and you did anyway. This is like dead serious. Do NOT get in my car." I raised my eyebrows and put my hands on my hips for good measure, and I'd long ago covered up my midriff. "Okay, okay," he conceded. And then as he was walking out the door he said, "I'm gonna have to, like, reach in there though. You know, to get the boxes out?" "If I see you get in my car. . ." I threatened.

See, this is my big downfall as a disciplinarian. I can never think of anything good after. . . .

Fortunately he didn't get in my car. He did, like, reach in there though. You know, to get the boxes out.

Livin' In A Powderkeg And Givin' Off Sparks

Believe it or not, last night's short and simple post on happy music took me fuckin' forever to write. I blame it on Bonnie Tyler.

Some background: The other day my pal Meaghan and I did a little CD swap and I scored, among other things, a sweet 80s compilation that includes "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Now, I have loved "Total Eclipse of the Heart" since it first came out in 1983. I even had it on 45 -- my sister gave it to me for Christmas when I was 8 and she was 6. (I gave her "Eye of the Tiger," also a good song.) Anyway, last night I threw a few CDs in the CD player, pressed random, and sat down to do my internet thing. You see where this is going.

So I was just sitting here, typing away, when "Total Eclipse of the Heart" came on. I started to sing along absentmindedly, but then I realized "Hey! 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'!" so I turned the CD player up almost as loud as it would go -- which is pretty fuckin' loud, as it turns out -- and continued with my singing and typing. I also added a wee bit of swaying. It soon became rather difficult to type, as Bonnie's 11th "turn around" had prompted me to grab the CD player's remote for use as a microphone and I was concentrating on not dropping it while flinging my abundant hair around as I sang. By the time Bonnie got around to "and I need you now tonight," I was out of my chair with microphone in hand. "Together we can take it to the end of the line" found me clear on the other side of the house, right in front of the drape-less sliding glass doors, in fact. As Bonnie screamed, "I really need you tonight," I relinquished my remote/mic to free up both hands for the lifting of hair and the always necessary above-head hand motions. And if you think when the song ended I sat right back down and commenced typing, without pressing repeat even once, you obviously don't know me very well.

It's a good thing nobody was around. Except the cat, and she's no stranger to such performances.

A detective examining my recycling bin might conclude this was all the result of a now-empty bottle of Tanqueray, but truth be told, the gin had nothing to do with it. This is just how I was brought up.

And even though I was also brought up not being allowed to watch MTV, here's the "Total Eclipse of the Heart" video. Just don't tell my parents I let you watch it.

The Thomas Jefferson Nerd Barometer

If you decide that the three different collections of Thomas Jefferson quotations you stock at the bookstore are woefully inadequate, then special-order yourself the definitive 576 page Quotable Jefferson and eagerly await its arrival, then spend most of the day it's due to arrive repeatedly asking Meaghan, "Is my Jefferson book in there?," "Did you find my Jefferson book yet?" as she unpacks the shipment, then snatch up the book and hug it once it finally appears, then hunker down with it for hours saying "Huh?" and staring blankly at people when they try to talk to you, if you later force another friend to peruse the Jefferson book until she finally pronounces it cool and tells you that all her friends laugh when she tells them she knows someone with a favorite president, and you hear yourself saying, "No no, Thomas Jefferson is my favorite founding father, but FDR is my favorite president" in an effort to correct her, there is absolutely no doubt that you are a nerd.

If you are looking forward to a major reorganization of your bookcases that will involve devoting an entire shelf to Jefferson books, you are most definitely a nerd.

If you frequently find yourself engaged in debates about whether Thomas Jefferson is cooler than Abraham Lincoln, or opining about how unfortunate it is that Jefferson got stuck on the nickel and Alexander Hamilton, who sucks and wasn't even a president, gets the $10 bill, you are also a nerd. (I know, I know, Hamilton founded the National Bank. I don't care. He still sucks.)

Even if you think Lincoln is cooler than Jefferson, you are probably still a nerd.

If you can name more than five Jefferson biographers off the top of your head, you are most likely a nerd.

If Thomas Jefferson's name evokes Monticello, UVA, the Louisiana Purchase, Sally Hemings, and Paris, you may be a nerd. Or you may just have been raised in Virginia.

If you actually attended Jefferson's UVA, you are probably a nerd. Unfortunately, there's also about a 90% chance that you are a pompous, pretentious collar-popping and/or pearl-wearing jerk.

If your knowledge of Jefferson does not extend beyond an association with the Declaration of Independence, it is doubtful that you are a nerd.

If you believe George Allen when he claims to be a "common sense Jeffersonian conservative," you are not only not a nerd, you are also very stupid.

Sleeping Arrangements

Okay honey, here's the deal. There's my side of the bed and your side of the bed. I know you can sleep damn near anywhere, but I can't. I don't sleep well on your side and I don't sleep well when you're on my side. Usually you're pretty good about this, but over the past few weeks you've been slowly encroaching on my side. Until early EARLY this morning, when I rolled over and discovered you had completely taken over my pillow, leaving no room for me. And I know I pushed you and whined, "get back on your own pillow" as you yawned and stretched, and I know that was pretty bitchy. But did you have to get up and go sleep on the couch?


I was so lonely.

Wow, Caring About The Environment Really IS Inconvenient

Just as I was closing the bookstore tonight, a lady came in with her two little girls. Five minutes later they brought their purchase up to the counter: An Inconvenient Truth. I chatted with the lady as rang her up and waited for her credit card to go through.

Lady: I didn't realize this was a book too.

Me: Really? Have you seen the movie?

Lady: No. I really want to but I live in Richmond. Have you?

Me: I haven't had a chance.

Lady: Do they show it down here?

Me: (laughing) Um, no.

Lady: Well people are a bit more liberal here than they are in Richmond. It's supposed to be a great movie.

Me: I've heard it's very powerful.

Lady: Apparently once you see it you want to run right out and start recycling or something.

Me: Yeah. (looking at the book) Poor Al Gore. He has such a good heart but nobody really pays attention to him because he's such a nerd.

Lady: I just love Al Gore.

Me: Me too. Do you need a bag for that?

Lady: Yes please.

See, Al Gore called his truth "inconvenient" because after you learn it you're supposed to modify your life in ways that make it, you know, less convenient. Like maybe not carrying your book on environmentalism home in a plastic bag.

I SO hope she recycles that bag!

Where You At Bitch?!

Last week's gangsta rap neighbors have been replaced by a younger crowd, and while the absence of gangsta rap is refreshing, this week's neighbors are actually worse. For the last two days, I have awoken to the sound of a child repeatedly yelling, "Mom?" from outside his house. This goes on for ten minutes at a time while I lie there wondering A) why the hell the kid doesn't just go inside and find his mom, B) why the hell the woman doesn't come outside and tell her kid to shut up, C) what the hell he wants so goddamn early in the morning, and D) where the hell people leave their brains when they go on vacation.

Because you know if I can hear the kid inside my house, his mom can certainly hear him inside her house. And she's really starting to piss me off. Answer your kid lady!

This morning I got so irritated with the kid yelling, "Mom?" that I actually sat up and opened my window in preparation to do a little parenting by shouting, "Hey kid! Stop screaming!" But he'd already gone back inside, presumably to find his mom.

Later though, as I was reading the paper, he started in again with this incessant and ineffective attempt to locate his mother. After about ten minutes of, "Mom?" I thought, "What the fuck is wrong with these people?!" And then I thought, "Maybe this kid is retarded or autistic or something and that's why his mom is ignoring him."

So I stepped out onto the deck and looked next door to assess the situation. I didn't see a kid anywhere, but I could still hear him calling, "Mom?" I stood for a minute listening to him yell, "Mom?" and waiting for him to show himself.

He didn't. But as I was waiting, I noticed something strange on my neighbors' deck. A cage. With a parrot in it. And when I yelled to the parrot, "Hey parrot! Shut up!" the parrot yelled back, "Mom?"

Gangsta 4 Life, Or At Least Until Something Cooler Comes Along

It was 8:30 this morning and if I hadn't already been up, the mellifluous sound of gangsta rap drifting up to my bedroom window would certainly have done the trick.

I say "drifting" because we all know that's what mellifluous sounds do. We also all know gangsta rap isn't mellifluous. So it wasn't drifting. It was more like pounding on my window. It was actually an awful lot like some motherfucker kicking down my door and shouting, "it's 8:30 in the morning, I'm up, and I don't give a fuck about the rest-a-ya'll."

Ordinarily I wake to the sound of birdies chirping, so I was curious as to who was kickin' it P-Diddy style at such an ungodly hour. I looked out the window.

I should have known.

Look, I know being gangsta is all the rage these days, but if you're a 15-year-old white boy from Delaware, it's unlikely you are gangsta no matter how many Spike Lee Joints you've heard people mention on MySpace. And if your family is dropping 5000 Washingtons a week to rent a vacation "cottage" in Corolla, there's a distinct possibility you are not gangsta. Most importantly, if you've gotten up at eight-fucking-thirty in the morning to float around your own personal in-ground pool on a Sponge Bob raft, you are almost certainly not gangsta. Gangstas might dig Sponge Bob, but they sleep late -- they've been up all night doin' crazy-ass gangsta shit and pouring a little out for their homies.

Next time, try a little Jimmy Buffet. I won't like it any better, but at least it will make sense.

Zach Attack!

I sort of got someone fired at the bookstore. I say "sort of" because the person in question, who we'll call Zach for obvious reasons, has spent the entire summer almost getting fired. Those of us who are not Zach have spent most of our spare time at work trading Zach stories and asking each other "Why don't we just fire him?"

After Zach nearly ran over the owner's entire family while driving 45 mph down the hole-ridden dirt road that leads to the bookstore and still didn't get fired, it became clear that our question was merely rhetorical. But we kept asking it anyway.

I personally asked it first thing yesterday morning, but with a new twist. As we put away the 50 or so new books Zach hadn't felt like putting away the night before -- despite the fact that that's his job -- I whined, "Why don't we just fire him? I mean, on principle."

So we did. Or rather, Bill the owner did as result of Meaghan's impassioned pleading.

Since I'm the only employee who's ever sent anyone to the principal's office, which is apparently almost exactly like sending someone upstairs to get fired, I was charged with the task of delivering the cryptic "Bill wants to talk to you" message when Zach arrived for his shift at 1:00. Then I went and hid in the bathroom until he was gone.

What, you may be wondering, was so bad about this Zach character? What could one possibly do to get oneself fired with only 9 shifts remaining before one's return to college?

I'm not exactly sure what made Bill finally decide to fire Zach, but here are some things I do know.

1. He never let us listen to The Very Best of UB40.
   
   In addition to selling books we also sell CDs -- mostly classical music and smoooooth jazz, with a handful of adult contemporary artists thrown in for good measure. I know UB40's not the greatest band ever, but if your choices are Tchaikovsky, Dianna Krall, the same Jack Johnson CD you and every other store on the beach have been playing for the last week, or UB40, you choose the goddamn UB40. C'mon, cherry oh cherry oh baby?!



2. Premeditated pigeon theft.
   
   I have it on good authority (he told me and Sara himself) that Zach was plotting to steal our beloved pigeon. "That pigeon would look great in my dorm room," he said, "if it's still here when I leave for school, I'm taking it." "You mean buying it?" we asked. "Taking it," he clarified.



3. Excessive snacking. And not on carrot sticks.
   
   The first time I worked with Zach, I courteously asked -- as I usually do -- if anyone wanted anything at Winks (a convenience store) when I went on my break. Sometimes people request a soda or a bottle of water or a small bag of chips. Zach presented me with a list of the following items: a frozen cheeseburger, a bag of chips, a candy bar, and two Vault sodas.
   
   When I returned to the store and handed Zach his stuff, I sort of expected him to save it for later seeing as how he'd just arrived at work. Instead, he immediately microwaved the frozen cheeseburger and devoured it -- along with the chips, candy bar, and one Vault soda -- while sitting behind the counter. Oh, but first he complained that I'd gotten him Vault Zero (diet Vault) instead of regular Vault. Three hours later he petulantly announced that he hadn't taken his break (!), left the store, and returned with an ice cream cone. Which he proceeded to eat behind the counter while attempting to ring up customers.
   
   As it turns out, this was not an isolated incident.



4. He hates people. And horses!
   
   It's bad enough that Zach always sighs as loud as humanly possible when customers approach him with a question or, god forbid, to purchase a book. Or that whenever you work with him you feel like you're in some weird good cop bad cop routine. But what's worse is when he actually tries to engage people in conversation.
   
   As he was ringing a customer up one day, he announced -- apropos of nothing -- that there were two things that could make him leave the country: if Roe v. Wade was overturned and if they passed an amendment banning same-sex marriage. Dude, I totally feel ya, but you don't go around picking fights with customers at work.
   
   Remember that day a guy came in wearing a t-shirt with a picture of an aircraft carrier and the caption "here comes 90,000 tons of diplomacy"? Remember how I just found him a book about F-14s and sent him on his way without throwing even a single bucket of blood on him or forcing him to look up "diplomacy" in one of our many dictionaries? That is the appropriate way to behave at work.
   
   The not-so-appropriate way to behave at work is to routinely tell customers who drop spare change into the Corolla Wild Horse Fund donation jar that the public library is much more deserving of their coinage and that horses are only good for glue.



5. Did I mention that he doesn't put the books away? Or that when he does, he deliberately puts them in the wrong place? Or that that's really fucking annoying?

So Zach is no longer with us. I'm mostly happy about that, except for the fact that my mom says it's not nice to make fun of people -- as I just did -- coupled with the possibility that I'll have to start taking out the trash now.

Daydream Believer

I am not an outdoorsy kind of person. I do not like hiking, rock-climbing, skiing, camping, or any of your typical outdoorsy activities. That being said, there are few places I would rather be than outdoors. But I just like to sit there, preferably with a drink or a book (or both) in hand. I love love love being outside. In fact, most of the restaurants and bars I frequent were chosen primarily for their outdoor seating. Given an outside option, I will almost always take it.

As a kid, I was the kind of girl you'd find staring out the windows longing for fresh air. I am now the kind of teacher you'll still find staring longingly out the windows on particularly beautiful days. When I taught at a school that didn't suck, I was even the kind of teacher who planned her September - October and April - June lessons around the premise that those lessons would be delivered outside and who confidently left notes on her door that read "Miss [my last name]'s class is outside enjoying nature," knowing that anyone who needed me would easily find me in my usual spot.

I mention this because today was one of those heartbreakingly beautiful days on which it pains me to remain inside. The sky was bright blue with big puffy white clouds, there was hardly any humidity, and the water temp was 70 with an onshore breeze. And I had to work. Inside.

I spent the day expounding on my theory that nobody should have to do anything when the weather's this nice. It's a theory I genuinely subscribe to. In my ideal world, a beautiful day would mean a day off for everyone. I know it's totally unrealistic, but I think on a gorgeous day the world should just stop so that everyone can enjoy it. The lady at the pizzeria pointed out that this is impractical. "My mortgage company don't see it that way," she lamented. I tried to explain that in my world, her mortgage company is sitting on the beach too, so it's kind of a wash. She didn't seem convinced.

So I went back to the bookstore and immersed myself in Calvin & Hobbes for the rest of the day. If I couldn't be outside, at least I could be among like-minded cartoon people.

Two Confessions In One

I dye my hair. Actually, I pay someone else to do it for me, so maybe this is more like three confessions in one. Once, when I was young, my hair was the color I now pay someone to dye it. But in high school I started noticing a gray hair here and there, in college I started noticing several more, and by the time I was 22 I had what I considered to be an unreasonable amount of gray hair for a 22-year-old. My friends assured me you couldn't even tell I had gray hair. They were lying.

I know this because one day, as I was doing some grocery shopping, I realized that the guy stocking the produce section kept looking at me. Not looking at me like checking me out, but looking at me like he was confused. I caught his eye and he said, "I'm sorry I keep staring. Do you mind if I ask how old you are?," to which I replied, "22." "Yeah," he said as if that settled it, "you have such a young face but then you have all that gray hair." "You don't talk to women much, do you?" I huffed, and then I went straight home and made a hair appointment.

This hair-dyeing thing takes a while too. You have to sit there for about 30 minutes to let the dye sink in, or do whatever it does (I think it penetrates the hair shaft, but that was really just an excuse to use "shaft" and "penetrate" in the same sentence, because, really, why should cheesey romance novelists have all the fun?). Anyway, I used to take a book with me to the hairdresser so that I'd have something to do during the penetration portion of the procedure. Then I discovered Glamour magazine.

I subscribe to several publications: Rethinking Schools, The Believer, and occasionally Utne or Mother Jones. I'll often pick up a random copy of National Geographic, Time, or Newsweek. All of which is to say, I'm not really a Glamour kinda girl. No one I currently know would describe me as glamorous, nor could that term have been accurately applied to me at any point in my life. Cute, maybe, or crunchy, but definitely not glamorous.

Glamour bills itself as the magazine "for young women interested in fashion, beauty and a contemporary lifestyle." I'm not even remotely interested in any of that shit. If you looked at my Friendster profile, you know that I hate both electricity and modern conveniences. And although Glamour offers me to the opportunity to vote for things like my favorite naked actor, I'm not the kind of girl who even has a plain old favorite actor, let alone a favorite naked actor.

None of this, however, prevents me from enjoying the hell out of Glamour magazine while I'm getting my hair done. I once even bought my own copy (make that four confessions) after I skimmed through an article at the hairdresser entitled "This is the Year You'll Get a Great Body." Unfortunately, as it turns out, getting a great body requires that you actually do something (only 15 minutes of something, to be fair to Glamour), and I'm not nearly that displeased with the body I already have.

I had a hair appointment last week and I was looking forward to my Glamour fix. But, horror of horrors, Glamour wasn't in the magazine rack. My hairdresser noticed my distress, but mistook it. "Most of that's smut," she apologized, "let me get you something better" and handed me Gourmet. I sort of read the Gourmet, but mostly I glared at the other women when they weren't looking, just in case one of them had my Glamour. Gourmet wasn't bad, in fact, it had some pretty good recipes. It's just that none of them were for how to get the most out of your little black dress, 12 little things that make sex so much better, or how to eat like a man and still look like a woman. By which I mean that it sucked.

Know Your Audience

The bookstore I work at during the summer recently opened its third location on a part of the beach that gets more year-round, local traffic. This means we now have a store with enough regular traffic to support carrying magazines. My friend Meaghan was working at the new location yesterday, and I swung by to meet her for drinks after work. Together we perused the magazine section, which is extensive. We have a ton of magazines on all manner of subjects.

“Hey, do we have porn?” I asked Meaghan. “Just gay porn,” Meaghan replied. “Whoa, I was only kidding!” I said as Meaghan pulled several plastic-wrapped magazines off the shelf to show me. The first few looked like regular old magazines that just happened to have hunky naked guys on the front. The only way you could tell the magazines were geared toward gay men and not straight women was by their headlines (“Big Balls and the Men Who Love Them,” for example). But the last one Meaghan showed me made me blush. “Oh my GOD!” I gasped, covering my eyes, “why do we have this?” (For the record, I’m a bit of a prude – a couple engaged in heterosexual intercourse on the cover of a magazine would have elicited the same response.)

Here’s the conversation that then ensued:

Meaghan: Bill [the owner] thinks we need to reach out to the gay community.

Me: By selling them porn?!

Meaghan: Apparently.

Me: Isn’t that just perpetuating the stereotype that gay guys are nothing but sex-crazed deviants?

Meaghan: Pretty much.

Me: Wouldn’t having a gay and lesbian literature section be a slightly better way of reaching out to the gay community?

Meaghan: I’ve already had this exact argument with Bill and gotten nowhere. It’s like arguing with him about the Women’s section.

Me: Don’t get me started.

Because we’re talking about a man whose Women’s Studies section includes Dr. Laura’s The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands (which I always put in Humor); an entire shelf full of books devoted to looking good, with patriarchy-busting titles such as How Not to Look Fat, Dress Your Best, Makeup Makeover, and What Not to Wear; and nary a copy of The Feminine Mystique.

At least he got the gay community some porn. I’m stuck with Put on Your Pearls, Girls.

Basic Instinct

My cat is quite possibly the friendliest cat in the world. She loves me best, but she also loves strangers. When someone knocks on my door, she runs to the door and sits there meowing until I let them in, at which point she rubs up against them and flops down at their feet waiting to be pet.

Today, however, she took one look at the air conditioning repair man and darted behind me, peeking at him around my legs. He began speaking and she bolted downstairs where, minutes later, I found her cowering under the bed. And she's a cat, so it didn't even mean anything to her that what Mr. A/C had said, while leering at me, was, "So. . .are you all alone here?". She just has an instinctive fear of creepy guys.

Imagine if we all came equipped with that feature. And imagine if we could deal with creepy guys just by hiding under the bed until they went away.

Attention Bookstore Customers

When I ask you if you want a bag for that, you're supposed to say no. You're supposed to pause for a moment and ponder the small ways in which we're all destroying the planet. I'm only asking if you want a bag because I've already determined you don't need one. If you did, I would just place your purchase in a bag without asking.

I mean, when you reach into a purse the size of a small country to pay for your one postcard, it seems you would also notice that there's plenty of room for the new postcard in there. Imagine how silly you look walking around carrying a gigantic purse while holding a bag full of one postcard.

Likewise, if you're only buying one book, you don't need a bag. You can just carry the book around. You'll look cool, hip, literary. People will think you're smart. Unless, of course, you just bought a Nicholas Sparks book. In which case I would've given you a bag, no questions asked.

And while we're on the subject, if you're buying a book for each of your twelve children, all of whom want their own bag, it's time to have those big talks about sharing and karma. You get one bag. Your kids can take turns holding it or -- better idea -- go bagless. Let each kid carry his/her book, and explain to them how environmentally unconscionable it is to place each item you purchase in a separate plastic bag. That will also afford you a perfect opportunity to talk to them about peak oil and to start planning your vegetable garden.

A Sign Of Things To Come

A very nice old man came into the bookstore today and asked me to help him pick out books for his two-year-old twin grandsons. One of the boys, he said, likes Thomas the Train books and the other enjoys the Pottery Barn catalog. "It's the pictures or something I guess," said Gramps, slightly bemused but otherwise not too terribly concerned.

We settled on a Bob the Builder book for the Thomas the Train twin (branching out a bit) and Hop on Pop for the Pottery Barn kid. Because, really, what the hell do you do with a two year old boy who likes to read the Pottery Barn catalog? If I'd had it handy, I would have offered him my Ikea catalog -- a bit of a step down from Pottery Barn, sure, but a lot hipper and way more ethical. And all the while, Gramps was chuckling and describing to me how the twins couldn't possibly be more different. No shit, Gramps. You had me at Pottery Barn catalog.

After we got the twins taken care of, Gramps asked me, "Do you have anything on the French and Indian War?" and explained that he was a reenactor. "Of the French and Indian War?!," I blurted out, "I didn't know anyone reenacted that one." "Yeah, the Civil War guys get all the glory," he replied sadly.

Amazingly, we did have something on the French and Indian War, two somethings in fact, right there on the Revolutionary War shelf of our Military History section. (The history buff in me often thinks about overhauling our extensive History section, organizing it chronologically by war and alphabetically by author, but other history buffs always seem to find stuff I didn't even know we had, so I figure something must be working for us.) While I hunted for French and Indian War books, I learned a lot about said war from Gramps. Mostly that it's a shame the way History teachers just gloss over the poor French and Indian War.

Since I'd developed sort of a soft spot for Gramps by this point (how can you not heart a guy who reenacts the freakin' French and Indian War and has not yet realized his two-year-old grandson is gay?), I didn't mention that I am one of those glossy History teachers.

Here's the extent of my coverage of the French and Indian War in 11th grade US History classes: "So, it's called the French and Indian War not because it was fought between the French and the Indians, but because the English fought it (on behalf of the American colonists) against the French and the Indians. Over beaver hats." Then I go into a bit about historiography, which nobody finds interesting but me, and I end with a brief reminder that waging war is not cheap. This leads me to the question, "So let's say you're England and you just fought this long-ass, expensive-ass war to protect your colonists in the New World. How are you gonna get that money back?" "Uh, tax the colonists?," someone inevitably guesses.

And there you go, we're on to the Revolution and considerably more fun. There's no beaver hats, but at one point all these pissed off Bostonians dress up like Indians and turn the Boston Harbor into a nice cuppa tea. What's not fun about that?