Don't Dessert Me

Each year, my husband and I host a Christmas dessert party. We invite every single person we know and like within a 75-mile radius. Our guests are asked to bring a dessert to share. We provide the drinks and the ambience. And it is one big debauched hootenanny.

Because it has all the elements of a great party- plenty of alkie-hawl, a playroom for the kids (ensuring that there will be no tiny witnesses to tell mommy that "You said driggig was BAY-ud!"), and a shitload of calorie-packed desserts.

Some of the desserts are store-bought, but most are homemade. There's just something about the Christmas season that makes you want to try out that recipe for Great Grandmother Ethel's Banana Fudge Supreme Pie, you know what I mean?

And there's also a ravenous, greedy monster inside most of us that cannot resist the idea of a roomful of sweets.

As the hostess, this party is supposed to be my time to shine. I pour drinks, wear a chic new outfit, and whip up (i.e., slave over) a dessert guaranteed to outshine every other paltry offering on the table. After all, I am an Excellent Cook, and this is what Excellent Cooks Who Have Parties do.
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The first year we had our party, I don't even remember what I made. The truth is, I wasn't expecting any real competition. Most of our friends are Career People. Their cooking repertoire consists of Hamburger Helper and... Tuna Helper.

What I do remember is the appearance of Jim, our friend from work, and his wife Anne. Anne is serenely quiet. I expected her to show up with a tupperware of Betty Crocker brownies or something. Instead, she lovingly cradled a crystal cake stand in her arms that held the most beautiful, moist, creamily frosted German Chocolate Cake that I have ever seen.

As she gingerly put her cake down in the center of the table, I stood agape and forgotten in the corner while a pack of wolvish men made approving grunts and eagerly awaited the heaping slices she served them. Within minutes, the cake was gone. Meanwhile, my uh, was it candy cane cookies? remained on the table, growing staler by the second.

Fuck her. I thought, returning her smug smile with a bared-teeth grimace that would have to do. Fuck her!

"Boy, that Anne really let you have it this year," my husband said later that night as we were cleaning up.

"What do you mean?" I asked, stiffening.

"I mean, you're a great cook, but honey, Anne's cake was fabulous."

I didn't talk to Hubs for three days.

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The next year, I started early, combing dust-covered cookbooks for a double whammy recipe that would send Anne right back to the pits of hell from whence she and her stupid cake came.

Desserts were auditioned by my family and rejected. Too fluffy, too dry, too sweet, too ordinary. At the last possible second, I found an interesting-looking recipe from an obscure cookbook I'd picked up at a century-old boarding house in rural Tennessee. Hummingbird Cake. Looked pretty good. I tried it at Thanksgiving and the looks on my family's faces said it all. This cake clearly was the first thing served upon one's arrival in heaven.

Revenge would be mine!

This time, Anne came through our garland-trimmed door with a homemade strawberry cheesecake and a smarmy look on her face. She marched past me to the dessert table, then stopped short when she saw my Heavenly Hummingbird Cake, glowing with goodness, perched atop a brand new cake stand twice as tall as her own.

Oh her cheesecake was good all right, but...

"This year, you win," her husband gleefully said as he helped himself to more of my cake.

I'm sure she didn't talk to him for three days.

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Last year, she fought back with an Epicurious concoction called Autumn Trifle with Roasted Apples, Pears and Pumpkin Caramel Sauce. The bitch was going all out.

I countered with Chocolate Stout Cake, having wrangled her online recipe source out of her the year before after she'd had one too many glasses of chardonnay.

I call last year a tie because, while I had the popular vote as well as a whispered first place award from her husband (who had clearly learned his lesson and was operating covertly), my husband, traitorous traitor that he is, told me later he liked the trifle the best. The bastard.

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And that brings us to this year. This is where you come in. I need something show-stopping. Something spectacular. Something that will leave Anne gasping for breath in the downstairs half-bathroom or better yet, sobbing outside in her minivan.

Please, dear readers, please tell me you've got the recipe I've been searching my whole life for, the one that will make my party complete. The one that will crown me, Lucinda, Christmas Party Queen, 2005.

Anyone?

Fire(d)

I've never been fired.

But I have feared being fired all my life.

It began when I was seventeen and got my first job at a dry cleaners. I was one of three teenagers who worked the afternoon shift, after all the actual dry cleaners had gone home. We took in dirty clothes and put the clean ones in the trunks and backseats of cars. We chewed gum and sat on the back counters and gossiped about boys and parties. And one of us stole money out of the cash register.

It wasn't me. But the manager of the store couldn't be sure who was responsible. She just knew that money went missing on several different occasions during my shift. And so I was given the same grand inquisition that I'm sure the other girls received.

"They's some money missin' from the cash register and I know it was one of you girls. What do you know about that money?" The manager, an angry, skinny redneck woman with a bad perm, cornered me as I arrived at work one afternoon.

"I... I.... I don't know anything!" I stammered, my face reddening. Why was I blushing? I didn't do anything wrong!

"Well, I don't have any evidence as of right now, but you better believe I'm gonna find out who done it! I got my eye on you, girl!"

"I, um, okay," I said, inwardly reeling. I had never been accused of, well, anything before. The idea of me stealing money was simply ludicrous. I got a sizeable allowance from my parents and was only working because my mother thought I needed to have a job the summer before I went to college.

Throughout the remainder of the summer, I often felt guilty as I worked at the register in the afternoons. A security camera was installed and I would look up at it with what I hoped wasn't an I-done-it expression. Even though I knew I wasn't responsible, I felt like, somehow, I was.

I wan't fired. But I might as well have been for all the confidence I had in myself as an employee when I left that job.

Since that time, I've always had a nagging fear in the back of my mind that I could, at any moment, get the axe. I went from being a cashier to being a television news anchor and still worried that taking too many sick days or reporting something erroneous or not increasing the station ratings all could result in my ass getting canned.

It probably made me a better employee. I never said no to anything. But it was a hell of a way to keep a job.

Today, I work at home, raising my three girls, taking care of my husband and doing as much freelance work on the side as I can (or at times, can't) manage. I'm no longer in a position to be fired.

But sometimes, when I yell at one of the girls or get bitchy with my husband or forget snacks for the soccer game or don't spend enough time playing with the baby, I feel like I should be fired. And in those moments, I wonder if the only reason I'm not let go is because there's no one who could-- or would-- take my place.

*For some undoubtably earthier, more spiritual stories and photos about "fire" as opposed to my warped take on the term, please visit Mama Says Om.

Nap Flap

For most stay-at-home moms, naptime is the most anticipated time of the day.

During this hopefully-fingers-crossed-pray-to-God-at-least-two-hour time period, a mother is free to do whatever she wants, so long as she's quiet. She can read In Touch magazine, for example, or indulge in some long division. She can knit or blog or revise her treatise on achieving world peace. It is the only time of day in which said mom removes the shackles of motherhood and has a few quiet minutes to herself.

So when the sanctity of naptime is violated and precious baby is woken by Infernal Noise after only a few minutes of sleep, the resulting frustration is enough to make even the sanest mom run screaming into the cul-de-sacs of her subdivision without looking first for oncoming minivans.

I rarely question my own sanity (not counting my impulsive purchase of a Von Dutch trucker's hat two years ago, which I wore, redfaced, all of one time), but when I put Baby down for a nap, I swear I become a raving lunatic.

For one thing, I creep around the house like an unemployed mime, flinching at every noise I hear... My husband and stepdaughters have grown all too familiar with my mincing steps, pained expression, and elaborate, "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh... The baby's sleeping!"

I'm actually shocked that they're so good natured about the fact that I've become a Nap Nazi. Because we can be very unpleasant to have around.

Just ask the workmen next door who were doing a little termite repair carpentry in my neighbor's driveway a few days ago. As they laughed and hammered alongside Baby's window, I lifted the window in the next room an inch and put my lips up to the screen.

"Hey wiseguys, could you shut up!" I stage whispered.

"Wha???" one of them said, looking around.

"Over here," I said quietly, waiting until they located my mouth through the crack in the window sill.

"I've got a baby in here trying to sleep and you're not helping things."

"Hey look, lady, we gotta work," one of them said. I quickly realized I was going to have to up the ante.

"A... a sick baby," I clarified, feeling a little guilty about my whopper. No, wait, I, I mean Baby, needed complete quiet, dammit!

"Yeah, she's sick with a really bad cold. And she hasn't slept in three days."

"Three days?" the other guy said uncertainly.

"Four days!" I whispered frantically. "Maybe a week! It's hard to say. I just need quiet!"

The men exchanged worried glances.

"Maybe we'll just come back in a few hours, huh?" One of them finally said.

"Good. Great. Bye," I smirked, shutting the window.

Mission accomplished.

But I'm not always this successful. And that's when the shit hits the fan.

For example, our neighborhood trash men always choose naptime to visit my street. What's worse, the driver generally parks his garbage truck right in front of Baby's room before hitting the compactor button and prompting a five-minute grinding that could only be compared with the sound Godzilla made as he lay dying after a particularly gruesome battle with King Kong.

Within 30 seconds of this aural monstrosity, Baby is awake and crying.

One day, I'd finally had enough. Grabbing Baby, I angrily stormed out the front door and into my front yard.

"Look what you've done!" I fumed as Baby wailed in my arms.

Glancing over at me, the driver turned off his compactor.

"Whadja say?" he shouted.

"You bastards!" I shouted. "You've woken up my baby for the 3rd time in a month!! What is wrong with you?!"

The driver turned and fumbled in his passenger seat before leaning out the window and handing me a business card.

"You Nap Nazis are all alike," he said, shaking his head before putting his truck in gear and driving away.

Scowling, I read the card.

"PDC Waste Removal cannot be held responsible for waking babies during naptime. We thank you for your patronage," it read.

Clearly, I wasn't the first case of mommy rage these guys had encountered.

All right, all right. I can feel your disbelief radiating through the computer right now. I admit, I made the whole thing up. At least the parts involving strangers.

But you have to understand that this is what makes me a true naptime lunatic. Because even though I don't actually have these stand-offs, I fantasize about them all the time.

In my head, I've marched outside and sledgehammered lawnmowers. I've given Noisy Man across the street a piece of my mind ("Are you under house arrest or something?! Why can't you leave your damn yard when you want to talk to someone?!") I've muzzled dogs. I've established a no-fly zone over my house.

All in the name of a little peace and quiet. I'm sick. I know. But I'm not alone... am I?

Photo Fat

I've been looking for some motivation to go on a diet. And I find that the best weight-loss catalyst for me generally is provided, unintentionally, by others. In the past, an offhand remark has been known to send me from pushing chubby to pushing anorexic. And while I will never go that far again, I continue to seek divine inspiration from other carriers of a disease with which I'm on intimate terms: foot-in-the-mouthitis.

Yesterday, I finally received the vision I've been seeking, albeit in an unexpected form... It was an e-mail containing a picture of me (with Baby) at our Tuesday play group outing to the zoo.

The first person I noticed in the picture was actually my friend Margeret.

"Oh my God," I snickered. "She looks horrible! She would die if she saw this picture!" Slumped on a bench, Margeret seemed to sag in all the wrong places. In real life, Margeret's actually quite pretty, but you wouldn't know it from seeing her hangdog expression and bag lady posture on the computer screen.

Then, I glanced at the woman sitting next to her.

Wait a damn minute.

No, no, no, no, oh hell NO.

Was that.... me?

Hunched over like Margeret (was there a fucking gravitational pull coming from the toddler play mat?), I was first struck by the two sausages jutting from the legs of my capri pants. I quickly averted my eyes to my profile, where I saw the beginnings of a... a... a... double chin.

But the ultimate horror was centered dead in the middle of the picture. Plainly visible to anyone who happened to be visiting the zoo's new fat moms exhibit was a roll of frigging belly fat.

At first, I sat in disbelief. I had thought I looked good that day. My supposed friend who took the picture clearly had invested in some sort of circus-grade wide angle lens. The bitch! What the hell kind of stunt was this? She should've known better than to mess with me, the mastermind behind each and every family prank from rolling yards to setting off firecrackers in mailboxes!

I angrily looked at another friend in the picture for confirmation. She was going through a divorce and had lost a good bit of weight in the process. And on camera, she looked skinnier than ever. Damnation!

There was only one other possibility. I needed to lose some weight. I needed to lose ten pounds, pronto. And I needed to erase this photo from my e-mail before my husband saw it.

I did save the picture to my laptop, though, under the title "Why I Need to Lose Weight". Because I like to torture myself. You could call it a sort of hobby.

So join me (virtually, of course) in my weight loss journey, readers, as I struggle to lose ten pounds, even though I'm quickly approaching the Dieter's Bermuda Triangle more commonly known as Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many a dieter has disappeared when entering this realm, never to be seen again.

But I am determined to Overcome-- and to banish my belly fat... forever.

My Personal Assistant

When I heard her conditions, I couldn't resist. Available any time, day or night. Will accept room and board in lieu of payment. Promises to assist you in any and every matter. I hired her on the spot.

My personal assistant is so very dedicated, she literally has become my shadow. People even say she looks like me (besides her big, puffy derriere). Clearly she's taken cues from my own personal sense of style.

This is her first job acting as a personal assistant. Actually, it's her first job, period. So there are a few glitches, a few problem areas... We're working on them.

For instance, while she is very good about answering my telephone for me, "Dahhh ach ma goo," is not generally considered to be an appropriate greeting.

And although I appreciate her determination to remain within inches of me at all times, her insistance on running behind me with her arms flailing, crying out "UhhhhhUhhhhhUhhhhUhhhh" with each step-- is a bit much.

When I am busy and need help with, say, counting, she's a total loss. "Twoooooo.... Fweeee... Fyze!" simply does not do me any good whatsoever.

And forget about the focus staying on me... My personal assistant has irrevocably stolen my spotlight. No matter where we go, everyone only has eyes for her. Myself included.

You may ask why I keep her around. Well, ultimately, I consider her to be a valuable addition to my household staff.

She is utterly devoted to my every whim, whether it be the proper buckling of stiletto heels or the vacuuming of the living room carpet.

She has a great, slapstick sense of humor... You might find her wearing a tutu on her head, for example, or turning in circles while shouting "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" And heaven knows, I love to laugh.

Finally, she's not afraid to demonstrate her devotion. I can appreciate an assistant who's not afraid to give hugs. And while some might consider it inappropriate to let one's personal assistant sit in one's lap, for us, it works.

I would recommend my personal assistant to anyone. But I am afraid she's not for hire and won't be for quite some time. However, I hear that in general, personal assistants are not too hard to find... provided you're willing to endure the nine-month application period.

Teen Fashion Queen

I think my 14-year-old stepdaughter secretly considers herself to be a suburban Madonna.

And forget about Big M's Sex book, her decidedly un-virginal rolling around on a bed in concert, and her recent weird morph into a Maeve Binchey character.

I'm talking about Madge's uncanny, historically-documented ability to find and wear a trend a full year or three before it actually becomes fashionable.

Like Madonna, 14 takes great pride in being "the first" to wear a given look. But her predictions at this young age are still a bit hit-or-miss.

A few mornings ago, she donned the teenage uniform of denim mini-skirt and hoodie. Taking a cue from recent Lindsay Lohan sightings, she wore a pair of black leggings beneath the skirt.

"Is it Tacky Day?" my husband innocently asked while driving her to carpool. After all, the day before had been Dress-As-Your-Favorite-Teacher-Day. How was he to know she was making A Statement?

He learned soon enough.

"Daaaaaaaadddddddddd!!!!!!" 14 shrieked. If you're a parent, you know that nothing more needed to be said. The tone, length and quality of your name being shrieked by your child can convey volumes. But for those of you who don't have kids, here's a translation...

"What is that supposed to mean? Tacky Day??!! Oh my gosh, what is wrong with you? It is perfectly obvious that I am a trendsetter and these leggings are clear proof of my superior fashion predicting abilities and how dare you question them???!!!!"

She also bought a pair of legwarmers in LA over the summer. Hot pink legwarmers. She wears them to school every few weeks or so. No matter that legwarmers haven't been "in" since the early 80s. She, an 80s afficionado, is determined to bring the look back into vogue all on her own.

The reaction at school has been mixed. "What are those?" some have asked, eyeing them curiously. "Nice socks," is a common one, prompting a correction and quick fashion lesson from 14. The fact is, most teenagers don't know a thing about the 80s, so wearing legwarmers to high school would be like one of us sporting a 60s-era paper dress to play group.

I think the legwarmers are cool in a retro way, but when it comes to other Statements, it's hard for me to keep a straight face. Fresh off of Dress-As-Your-Favorite-Teacher-Day, 14, who had punched the lenses out of a pair of black cat-eye sunglasses in order to dress as her bespectacled History teacher, found the frames in her purse as we drove to the airport. She put them on. I laughed.

"Interesting look," I said, thinking she was joking.

"Yeah," she agreed proudly, misinterpreting my giggle as one of delight rather than derision. The frames stayed on.

Lens-less and proud, she made her way to her gate and onto the plane for a weekend visit to her mom. I shudder to think of the giggling that likely greeted her on her arrival.

Of course, I'm one to talk... I distinctly remember a pair of clear-glass red frames that I wore throughout junior high whenever I was feeling intellectual-yet-funky. I spent 6th grade with blue jeans on (french-rolled! [I believe that's "pegged" for you Yankees]) underneath my side-knotted prairie skirts, convinced that my look was indeed the wave of the future. I wore my cardigans backward, inside out, or purposely misbuttoned. As far as I know, I was the only girl wearing silver eyeshadow to school (Christian school!) each day.

And I distinctly remember blowing all of my souvenir money on a pair of clunky men's-style shoes while on vacation in Quebec City, proudly bringing them back to the hotel, and being laughed at by my disbelieving father and stepmother.

I don't want 14 to have that kind of memory.

So come hell or highwaters, I'm trying my best to support our future fashionista...

Unless she shows up in gauchos. Then all bets are off.

Baby Talk

At the tender age of 1 1/2, I can already tell that Baby is gonna be a Talker.

She spends all of her waking hours jabbering away, whether she's "reading" to herself in her room or playing with her toys or having long imaginary conversations on the telephone (but put an actual person on the line and she'll look at you like you've lost your marbles and how dare you stick that nastiness up to her ear).

Often, she'll march up to me and earnestly say something like, "Ah bum mum ack soo mee. Deh tum mah nat sum."

"Oh, uh huh," I'll respond, prompting her to give me a pitying look similar to what you might give a waiter who answers "Yes!" when you ask where the senora's room might be.

Lately, though, some of Baby's words are really starting to make sense. She's even figured out how to string a few of them together. Here is an abridged version of my guide to understanding Baby talk:

OH NO! Used in the event of an unpleasant surprise, i.e., a Teletubbies technical difficulty, a dropped Beece, or an overturned juice, the 'OH NO!' is to be said loudly and with extravagant consternation.

Peeeees! Strangers may think this 'please' is very polite, but in Baby's mind, 'Peeees' simply means "Give me that right now, you poopie head or I'm gonna throw a friggin' fit!'

AHHHH-tee. AHHHHH-tee. I haven't figured this one out, but she chants it quite often. I'm thinking it may be her own baby mantra. And who am I to mess with Zen?

WHOA! Baby's still a bit uncertain on her feet, but it seems everyone knows and understands this except her. Each and every time her legs give way, she emits a loud, disbelieving "WHOA!", and quickly looks around to make sure no one was looking.

Then there's the singing. Baby loves to sing. Never mind that she can't say most of the words. She replaces the words she doesn't know with the words she does. Therefore her favorite song, Kelly Clarkson's "Since You Been Gone" has become "Since You Been DOG!". Baby waits until the "DOG" part to shout out the word with soulful abandon.

"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" is another favorite, only because she loves the word "Apple". "Up above the world so high" is actually "Apple bove the world so high" in her mind.

Now that so many words are coming from her mouth, I've started holding long, involved conversations with her wherever we go. Conversations along the lines of, "Did you have a poopie? A poopie doopie? A poopie doopie, schmoopie?" Or, "Noooo. No down. You sit right there. Want some cheese? Cheese? Mmmmm!"

It's not exactly the kind of small talk that puts me on the A-list at cocktail parties. I've seen the sad looks I get from passers by and realize that to some, it would seem I've crossed over to the other side. The crazy-mommy-who-doesn't-get-out-much side.

But hey. At least now I have someone to talk to about it.

Going Gray

Ever since I moved to the outskirts of Big City, I've been deathly afraid of going gray.

And I'm not talking about my hair. I've got that covered, if you know what I mean.

I mean the kind of gray that's really hard to get rid of. The kind of gray that makes a woman replace her stylish wardrobe with a row of tracksuits, gain another 50 pounds on top of her baby weight and cut her hair super short and feather and spray it into place like an eighties game show host.

The kind of gray that is synonomous with suburbia.

What is it about the 'burbs that inspires so many Americans to seek sameness? Venture into a typical suburban neighborhood and you'll find identical houses, identical minivans, identical landscaping, identical Halloween decorations, even. See any pink flamingos or gay pride flags outside these homes? If you do, you can bet that neighbor has had hell to pay for his or her individuality.

I know, I know, I didn't have to live here. My city does have an eclectic old neighborhood where artists and musicians and Internet designers live side by side in happy hippie harmony. Unfortunately, it's right next to the projects. Every single person I know who lives there has been robbed, burgled, mugged or graffitied (well, their houses have been graffitied- I don't actually know anyone who's been personally graffitied without her express permission). Yet these people chafe at the notion of their neighborhood being known as a high crime area.

Actual conversation at a concert not long ago:

"Aren't you Lucinda? I'm Natalie Iconoclast! I live next door to Mary and Jim."

"Oh, hi. Nice to meet you."

"We just moved in and I have to say I'm pretty upset at all the negative attention our neighborhood is getting. It's a wonderful place with wonderful people! And nothing bad has happened to us... except for when we found a loaded gun in our front yard." (I am not exaggerating this conversation, people).

"A loaded gun?"

"Well, we called the police when we found it, of course. And the officer who showed up said someone probably dropped it leaving the scene of a crime. And he told us we should probably just not say anything to anyone and keep it in case we ever needed to use it."

"Huh. Imagine that."

Let me just say that this is a conversation that I will never ever have with any neighbors I run into at my suburban supermarket. And there's something to be said for that.

But the grayness! The boring old lukewarmth of every day suburban life is sometimes too much to take. I find myself in open rebellion, wearing a mini skirt to Wal-Mart, going down the tube slide at the park (not in the mini-skirt, of course), yelling loudly at soccer games... Anything to provoke a reaction from the Grays, even if it's a negative one. Anything to get the ho-hum looks off their faces.

Anything to keep from going gray myself.

My Own Private Laundrodrat

My husband has a very subtle way of reminding me it's time to do laundry.

"I think we're finally going to have enough money to get a digital Rebel," I'll say as we're chatting one day in the kitchen (that would be a camera, y'all, not a redneck robot).

"Yeah," he'll reply casually. "Now that we've got some extra freelance money, let's do it. Oh hey!" he'll laugh like he's on TV. "I'm wearing my underwear inside out."

"I'm really excited about being able to e-mail pictures of.... um. You're what?"

"Well, there are no clean clothes, so I have to wear my underwear inside out." Insert Crest commercial smile combined with slightly wounded eyes here.

"So why don't you get all your dirty underwear together and just do a load yourself?" I counter with my own Colgate version of the smile.

I'm met with a blank stare. The blank stare of manly manhood confronted with a domestic task.

"Okay." I say, defeated. "Bring all the laundry down and I'll do it tomorrow."

I'll be honest. I don't enjoy doing laundry. Because the moment I triumphantly place the last pair of socks atop a six-foot-tall stack of freshly folded clothes, another pile appears from a hamper somewhere upstairs, soiled and smelly, calling my name.

"Lyu-CEEE-YUN-DUH!" it calls, possibly like a drunken Boss Hogg (I've never given dirty laundry a voice before [not counting halftime gossip with the soccer moms], so bear with me).

"Get on over here, girl! I've got a grass stain the size of Dolly Parton's right one!"

"That was really uncalled for," I mutter, gathering up the pile.

"Hey!" It sasses back (Yep. Nothing sasses worse than a pile of smelly clothes. If that pile could, like, talk). "What's uncalled for, gal, is makin' the king of the pride wear his underwear inside out!"

"Did he pay you to say that?" I say, skeptically. "I've been really busy this week."

"You've been busy! I've been doing double duty on a man's ass!"

"That's a good point."

Without further adieu, I heave the Hogg pile into the washer.

If the dirties are a cracker sheriff, then my washer and dryer would be a set of buxom spinster twins. At the ripe old age of nine, (and I'd say washer and dryers age like dogs, which makes them 63 in human years), the washer is starting to have a real problem getting wet. And the dryer isn't half as hot as she used to be (okay, I just heard a collective groan ring out across cyberspace. Sorry).

But on the whole, for a pair who were known in their heyday as the cheapest dames ever to cross a Sears sales floor, they've aged pretty well.

Best of all, they occasionally tip me for good service. A dollar here, fifty cents there... Small change to some, but let me tell ya, it makes a difference, particularly when I don't want to leave incriminating evidence of my embarrassing Baby Bottle Pop habit on the grocery receipt.

All together, we're like the cast of characters in a Hunter Carson novel. Except that my coming of age has come and gone and I don't think Carson was actually known for giving voice to inanimate objects. Okay, so maybe we're more like the cast of characters in Sybil.

Suffice it to say that together, we get the job done. Today, my husband is indeed wearing a perfectly clean pair of underwear. Clean on both sides.

"So how do ya like them apples?" I said this morning as I shut the doors on a neat stack of clean clothes inside the laundry closet.

"Hey, thanks for doing the laundry," he replied. "You know, speaking of clean, it's funny- Have you seen how high that pile of trash has gotten in our bedroom? You can't even see the trashcan! Ha. Ha. Ha." He laughed uncertainly.

"Ha. Ha. Ha." I echoed like a cheap laugh track.

I'm on it, Chief.