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One doesn’t typically run into others on the street wearing bathrobes, but I do live in Missouri. Now that the weather is cooling down, I’ve started running a little later on the weekend mornings. This put me on a path around the neighborhood a little after 10 a.m. As I rounded a corner, I noticed a woman standing on her porch wearing a bathrobe. As part of my usual protocol, I prayed that she would hold the robe closed as she bent to retrieve her newspaper or whatever. I was totally unprepared for what happened next.

The woman opened her bathrobe with both arms and began shaking what her mother gave her. She danced to the beat of “Dynamite,” which I was listening to on my iPod at the time. I was initially kind of mesmerized, but was then kind of freaked out. It was reminiscent of my childhood neighbor “Barbara” who used to begin stripping as she walked down the street. Upon returning home, we’d progressively notice shoes, then socks, shirt, pants, etc., and we’d know Barbara was having an episode. She later ended up burning down her house, so things didn’t end well there. Anyway, I noticed current crazy neighbor’s attention was directed across the street from where she stood. I quickly surmised that this was a show for the mailman. He was doing a good job of walking to the next house without failing over. He did not miss a beat.

Based on his non-reaction, I’m guessing this must be a daily or weekly dance. So not only do I have to resume getting up early to run, I now have to know that every Saturday morning my mailman is getting an eyeful. I wonder if this is a popular route? The crazy woman didn’t appear to be attractive, but you never know with men.

Regardless, it seems that I’m the only sane one (or least crazy) around here. And that’s why I’m starting a petition to make bathrobes illegal. If she didn’t have a bathrobe, I’m pretty sure that woman would never bare herself to the world. Postal workers have enough to deal with as it is. If you care about your mailman, please sign the petition. You can never be too safe.

A long, long time ago not so long ago, I had a womanly issue that required the purchase of something that rhymes with “on a cat.” This is not a fun shopping excursion, and I wanted it over with as soon as possible. I had it all planned out. Walk briskly to the back of the store where all the medicines are, snatch up a three-day solution (who buys the seven-days anyway?), hurry to the pharmacy registers so I don’t have to wait in line at the front where I’m pretty sure everyone is eager to ferret out what’s in my hands as I try to hold the box in a way that’s not legible.

Well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans. It turns out I don’t know even where these products are located. They are not with the medicines. They are with the non-reproductive items. And boy did I get an eye-full. I didn’t even know there were advances to be made in this area. Vibrating condoms, really? I wanted to see what other contraceptive contraptions were out there, but I had to stick to the plan. I grabbed the Walistat and made a beeline to the pharmacy. No one else was there, and things were looking good. The tech asked if that was all, and I thought “isn’t this enough?” Then she asked if I needed a bag. “No,” I told her, “I’ll just put it in my purse.”

My heart rate started going down at that point. I was in the clear. I walked by all the suckas standing in line up front and sallied out the door. ALARM! ALARM! My first thought was “run”! I could see the car. But in that split second the following scenario ran through my head: I jump in the car and take off, not even putting on my seatbelt. The woman now yelling “ma’am, ma’am” and jumping over the counter takes down my license plate. In my terror to flee, I pull out in front of a dump truck. It slams into me, and I am ejected halfway over the hood of the car. The police arrive and are about to put me in an ambulance when the Walgreen’s lady screams “That’s her! That’s the thief!” And then they handcuff me instead and put me in jail where I die. So I decided to stop my escape and face my accuser.

“Ma’am, you’ve set off the alarm. Do you have something?” At that point, with every ounce of my being, I wanted to just pretend I had stolen a pack of gum. Instead, I pulled out the ointment with my receipt, turned to everyone and said, “Yes, I have a vagina. Are you happy now?” I didn’t really say that last part, but that’s what it felt like. In reality, the lady just said ok and let me go.

So, what did I learn from this little episode? Whenever buying an embarrassing item, always steal a smaller item that can be used as a decoy. I didn’t plan ahead enough, and the worst happened. Or I could also have a sex change. You can never be too safe.

For my daughter’s 11th birthday I somehow agreed to take her and a few friends to the City Museum. The “museum” is really a house of horrors. Every “exhibit” promises possible death. It made my job as guardian of these miniature David Blaines excruciatingly stressful. Every time they entered a cave I was in total panic mode keeping my eye on the exit door ready to pounce on some kidnapper who could somehow manage to capture four tweenage girls and escape without notice. After awhile, they’d reappear in the ductwork above my head shouting “Look at me! I don’t think I’ve had a tetanus shot and I’m crawling all over rusty rebar!” 

When we first arrived at the death trap, the attendant asked if we wanted the rooftop upgrade. I turned to the girls, and they were all emphatically shaking their heads yes. So I paid the extra five bucks thinking I recalled something about a big slide up top. It couldn’t be all that bad. I decided to take a peek up there and was horrified to discover an ancient Ferris wheel perched on the edge of the 11th floor as if designed to roll off the roof killing all passengers and streetwalkers in its path. It is quite possible that it’s the original Ferris wheel made more than 100 years ago. I returned to the first floor and announced to the girls that there would be no Ferris wheel rides, so don’t even bother to ask. They looked at me like whatever and returned to their previous task of contracting infectious disease.

As the evening was winding down, the girls decided it was time to hit the roof. While trying to prevent hyperventilation, I decided to confine myself to the center of the roof and avoid looking at the Ferris wheel. However, I then lost sight of the girls while they climbed the rope to the second level and was forced to find a way up there myself. The girls rushed me as soon as I emerged from the stairwell yelling for me to hurry up because they needed parental permission to ride the spinning wheel of fatality. I said what part of you will never ride the Ferris wheel until your death did you not understand? But that was over an hour ago, my daughter explained. Now that we’ve seen some survivors the possibility is open once again.

Apparently I have not made myself clear enough to my children. Anything that seems fun will probably kill you. This should probably be the first thing I say to them every morning and the last thing I say to them every night. Come to think of it, I might want to invest in those subliminal message tapes to play to them in their sleep. You can never be too safe.

I’ve known something was not quite right with my son’s speech for some time. I mean, not everyone refers to the duck as wa duck . I’ve had him tested a few times, but they always said he was age-appropriate. Now that he’s reached 8 years and 7 months, he’s been deemed inappropriate. Finally.

At first I was a little worried he would feel awkward about being pulled out of his regular class for therapy each week, but it turns out he enjoys the attention. It kinda makes me wonder if he’s spent the last few years working on his stutter as a ruse to pick up 28-year-old women who wear sweaters year round.

I am seriously worried about the labels. I previously didn’t know what an IEP was, but I was pretty sure it was tantamount to an IED. Standing out is not good among 8- to 18-year-olds in the entire world. I don’t want the other kids thinking he’s stupid unless he’s still talking about Pokemon when he graduates.

So, anyway, I’m preparing myself for a life as a mother of a stutterer. This involves finishing school, crown placement classes and learning how to deal with hemophilia. At least this is what I’ve determined after watching “The King’s Speech.” You can never be too safe.

I’m the first to admit I can be a bit overzealous. The online auction for the school involved hundreds of donated items. Now, this is a school in a very wealthy area with parents who can throw some money around. For example, one of the items was “Spend a Day as the Principal,” and the bidding was up to $800. So when I spotted “Five-Day Vacation in Cancun” valued at $1,500 with a current bid of $380, I thought I’ll just throw in a bid of $400 so I can feel as if I participated. My maximum bid was to be $500.

As the days went by, trips to Aspen went up to $3,000, a kitty luxury basket was up to $375, and yet the Mexican vacation was stationary at $500. I started to get a bit concerned because not only did I not have $500, but I narrowly escaped death on my last visit to Mexico and didn’t really feel like reliving the experience. So there I sat with my zanax and a bottle of tequila watching the seconds tick away until the auction closed. Within minutes I received an e-mail congratulating me on my winning bid and promising to contact me to arrange payment.

I pictured myself having to tell the PTA moms I didn’t have the money. They would beat me with their tennis rackets and somehow arrange for my kids to ride the short bus. And then something even more terrible happened. I got the money (Uncle Sam is really picking up the pace). But I still couldn’t figure out how I even got myself into this mess. I consulted my boss who informed me that the other parents live in bubbles and believe that anyone who goes to Mexico will be beheaded by the drug cartels. Lightbulb moment: I was going to die.

I’ve watched Breaking Bad, so I know that this really happens. My head would be removed and placed on a turtle wandering the desert. And this all could have been avoided. Next time I will know to leave the bidding to the parents who care enough to only wear this season’s tennis skirts. You can never be too safe.

My child is obsessed with Pokémon. He has millions of cards, action figures, tv-show recordings, books, and, yes, video games. I previously supported his habit as it encouraged his reading. He couldn’t sit still for the first five minutes of gym class (as was reflected on his report card), but he could occupy himself for 60 minutes with a Pokémon book. I got  past the back cover being the front cover and how the book is actually read back-to-front all for the sake of his education.

Several weeks of anticipation led up to this past weekend. It was the big release of Pokémon Black and White. He had me research the closest video game store and find out what time it opened. So there we were at the mall at 11 a.m. Sunday morning (God’s name was invoked several times, though probably not in the same way most of the other people were using it that morning). I’m pretty sure the guys at the store thought we were crazy. I got the feeling we weren’t considered big “gamers.”

Anyway, while I purchased the game, one of the employees downloaded some special, new Pokémon character onto my son’s Nintendo DSi (he yells if I don’t include the “i”). I think it was called Celebrex, or maybe that’s what I was supposed to be taking. Upon returning home, the woman side of me forced me to read the directions. They said we had to connect to the Internet through his DS in order to obtain the mystery gift. We tried to connect to the Internet but were not successful, thus more directions were read. The Nintendo Web site instructed me to enter a MAC address somewhere in the bowels of my router’s being. At least this is what I think I was  instructed to do. I hit “save,” and the whole router crashed.

I then spent the next hour on the phone with tech support. Although I told them exactly what  I had done, we had to go through the entire lineup of possibilities from the script. I had to turn off the computer, unplug the router, and re-enter my password as if I was an idiot who hadn’t tried all this before making the dreaded call in which I yelled out my phone number 10 times and said “yes! yes! no!” to some automated voice before being connected to the stupid help line. Because that’s always my first choice.

I ended up signing over control of my computer to the overlords so they could go (surprise, surprise) to the exact place at which I’d made my fateful mistake. He unchecked a box and everything was ok again. My son even connected to the Internet and got his stupid victory Pokémon. In my head I was thinking “You better be grateful,” but in real life I said “Yea for you! That is the greatest mystery gift ever! I’m so glad I spent the last few hours of my life getting this for you!”

If you enjoy talking to those automated phone systems and those wonderfully entertaining tech-support guys, by all means, get your child as many Pokémon (Pokémen?) as his heart desires. If you, however, enjoy having your hair attached to your head along with relatively stable blood pressure, then do everything humanly possible to keep your child from discovering Japanese animé. This quite probably means home-schooling them and locking them in the attic. You can never be too safe.

Last week, my 8-year-old son left his pajamas on the floor. My daughter was sick that day, so I took my son out to the bus stop. He then realized he had forgotten his library book. Being a stickler for due dates myself, I ran back into the house to beat the distant sounds of the approaching bus. I snatched the book (“How to Draw Dinosaurs”) in time, only to be foiled by pajamas. As soon as I stepped on the pajamas (which also had dinosaurs on them), I knew I was in trouble.

My movements seemed to be in slow motion, though there wasn’t any time to do anything about it. I had been moving straight ahead, and then I wasn’t. I was moving down and to the right at a comical speed. My hand hit first, then my elbow and then my head. After the first wave of nausea, my first thought was how to get this book turned in on time. My daughter jumped to my aid. “Are you alright?” she asked. “No,” I said. “But we must get this book to the bus stop.”

She delivered the book while I lie writhing on the floor. I had become the old lady from the commercial. You all know which one I’m talking about. “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” became my mantra. After awhile, I got to my feet and decided I hadn’t died. Then I headed to work.

Did you all notice something here? First of all, I left my sick daughter home alone, and second of all, I did not call an ambulance or poison control. All this time I’ve thought I was getting healthier, but I turns out I’ve been letting the danger win.

It was not until after my co-workers insisted I’d need to use my left arm at some point and that maybe a 103-degree fever was a sign of illness in my daughter that I decided to head to urgent care the next day (oh, also I woke up in the middle of the night and threw up from the pain). Yes, according to medical professionals who were not myself, my daughter had strep throat, and yes I needed painkillers. Later that evening, the doctor called to inform me that I did indeed have a broken arm.

I had always wanted one. As a child, I envied the other children who climbed trees without seeming to care about their lives. Their rewards were broken bones with casts upon which all sorts of well-wishes could be imparted. I wanted to be a walking billboard too. I was envisioning this life-long dream when I heard the doctor say, “You’ll just need to be in a sling for a few weeks.” A sling? A sling is for wussies.

All was for naught. There would be no cast. I would just be the pathetic woman for whom her mother had to cut her dinner, her daughter was concerned enough about her driving to volunteer to take over the vehicile, and for whom a little old lady wanted to open the door. NO! I wanted to shout at them. I am one of those kids who is not afraid to climb trees, or jump off the swing while it’s still in motion, or to sleep in a bunkbed. I can cut my own damn meat, drive my own damn car, and open my own damn door. But instead I said thank you and glared at my meshy nylon sling.

I will never be fearless. But I will never again be taken by surprise. The fear is back on, and I’m starting with dinosaurs. Their extinction means nothing. You can never be too safe.

As some of you may recall from the cat-on-fire incident, our household typically has pets of the feline variety. As you may also recall from the cat-on-fire incident, cats are sturdy creatures. Thus the “nine lives” rumor lives on. I’ve never heard anything about fish having nine lives, but I figured a week-long life wouldn’t be too much to ask.

The kids wrangled me into getting them each a Beta fish after returning from their dad’s house last weekend. Apparently he had gotten them “cool” pets like Hermit crabs and turtles, and mommy only had “boring” pets like cats. They first asked for hamsters and gerbils and other animals easily eaten. After repeated denials on my part they demanded to know what they could get. I figured saying “fish” would get them to stop asking. So I said it, and they immediately went into fish mode. So there we were, two fish, two tanks, and two boxes of supplies later (and minus $40). We were now a “cool” fish family.

I set up the fish in the kids’ rooms and thought “what’s the worst that could happen?” I briefly considered that the cats would knock the tanks off the dressers and consume the fish, but then I remembered that one was fat and lazy and would only eat the fish if they landed directly on her head and the other one turned her nose up at canned tuna. This would not be likely. But now the only rational worst thing that could happen has happened. The fish is dead!

The kids are at their dad’s, so I went in to check on the fish only to find one belly-up at the top of the tank. What do I do?! What do I do?! I really just want to go buy another fish that looks similar enough to pass for the first. Is this ethical? On one hand, it will save my daughter the pain and anguish of having her fish dead. She won’t have to be the one to flush it down the toilet (or feed it to the lazy cat). But on the other hand, I’ll be lying by omission.

I am really picturing myself putting the dead fish in a Ziploc bag, bringing it to the pet store and comparing it to the other non-dead fish. I don’t think she’ll notice it’s not Fluffy Jr. (yes, that’s what she named it). But I also don’t want to be the worst mom ever.

From now on we are only getting electronic pets. Either that or I’m going to become the crazy cat lady and have like 30 cats. When one of them dies, they will hardly notice. Plus the stentch of the other cats will cover up the decomposing body smell of the dead ones and we won’t even have to flush anything down the toilet. You can never be too safe.

The trip began with a drive to Kansas City, then on to Oklahoma City, then Phoenix. We apparently really wanted to go to Mexico. So the night before we leave for Mexico, my sister decided she might need to find her passport. She can’t find it. We then proceed to spend the entire night tearing up her apartment trying to find it. (I also found out way much more than I wanted to know about her while digging through her trash and closet.) The thing was just plain lost.

After a tearful phone call to my dad, I explained that I couldn’t go if she couldn’t go. He suggested I call the border patrol and find out what would happen if someone didn’t have a passport as they entered back into the United States. So I called, and that guy was very nice. Said it would be no big deal if she had a passport on file. They would just have to look it up.

So we went ahead and had the most fun trip with minimal fear factors. However, crossing back over the border was a different story. My pregnant sister was driving and my Hispanic cousin was next to her. I was in the back seat with my two “Hispanic” children. When we first pulled up to the gate, the guard admonished us for pulling ahead without a wave from him. There was no sign that indicated we should do that, but whatever. Then he started asking all these questions about where my sister bought her car, as if we’d stolen it. When she produced her paperwork, he finally gave up on that line. Then he asked for her passport, and she explained that she lost it. He said she couldn’t go back into the country without proof of citizenship. She explained that we called and was told he could look it up. Then he went on a rant about how she shouldn’t have decided to go to Mexico if she can’t remember to pack her passport and that he was sure she remembered everything else. I wanted to bust in with my list of forgotten items (big cowboy hat, tons of cash and fireworks) but I figured now was not the time. This guy literally thought he owned the country and apparently had nothing else to do but lecture us.

So he finally looked up her passport and moved on to the rest of us. He requested that we all hand our passports over and that I roll down my window. He started asking me questions about when my photo was taken and if I was sure it was me. I thought for sure he was going to detain me. Then he says, “What’s your name?” I tell him, and he says, “Oh, this isn’t even your passport.” !?@?!? Obviously, we have our top people on border patrol.

Then he gets around to the kids. We have some disbelief that I’m their mother. Then we have some questions about the validity of their passports. He actually questioned my son about knowing his name. I thought he was going to accuse me of smuggling children into the country. Finally he accepted that they seemed to know me. My cousin had the least trouble getting in. He just glanced at her. I thought we were finally ready to pass the gate, but he wanted to give my sister one more lecture: she needs to have her passport the next time or he could pull her out of the car, handcuff her in front of her family and take her into a holding cell. As if my children have been scared enough, now their eyes are about ready to pop out of their heads. I wonder if that would be cause to detain them? Glad we didn’t find out.

So in the future I’m going to skip the whole  passports/border crossing thing and hire one of those human smugglers to get me into the country. It sounds like a lot less hassle. You can never be too safe.