Cats in the Belfry

My tainted pussy is at it again. The expensive Bengal cat that lives in my home became a major headache for my sister and her family this past week.

Three days before Christmas, my real estate agent called. An anonymous Washington Redskin player who already owns a home or two in Atlanta wanted to see my house the very next day.

I had to set my pina colada down in the Waikiki sand to call my mother and ask her to make sure my house was presentable for my potential buyer. That meant, of course, removing the cat and her litter box from the premises for the better part of three hours.

Lauren and my mom drove the cat to my sister’s house and asked if they could lock her in an empty room of their basement. In return, they offered to take Holly to lunch.

When they returned, Lauren went to get her cat. Only the cat wasn’t there. After searching the room and calling for Bella, Lauren heard a sound coming from the ceiling. Two ceiling tiles were missing, and Lauren quickly realized that her cat had jumped from a dresser to the top of the armoire and gotten into the ceiling between the main floor of the house and the basement. There was nothing to do but wait for the cat to come down on her own.

By the time Bella finally emerged – eight hours later -- Holly’s husband was beside himself, certain that Bella had left some souvenirs in the ceiling.

But he couldn’t really raise too much of a fuss. Not when their own cat, Liza, lives between the walls.

Several months ago, he had to knock a hole in a basement wall in order to repair some plumbing issues. Liza the cat, who spends her days hiding from the four children and only comes out when they’re in school or in the bed, discovered that hiding place, and since then, no one has seen her during daylight hours.

Liza’s plight got me to wondering about something. I understand the Christian faith’s skepticism about reincarnation. But I also think that God is creative and has a huge sense of humor. Simply sending a serial killer or terrorist to hell is way too boring. Wouldn’t it be more fun to turn a radical Muslim into a pig the next time around? Or sentence Saddam Hussein to be a homeless cat who gets adopted by a family of four small children who “love” him so much that he’s happy to live between the walls? I can hear God saying, “You liked harassing innocent people, so we’re going to give you a taste of your own medicine. And this next time around, your 'palace' is going to slightly resemble the hole you crawled into when you were hiding from US troops.”

Osama Bin Laden could return as Lady Gaga.

Michael Vick could come back as a fighting gamecock, and if he’s a good boy from now until he dies, he gets to strut around the sidelines at South Carolina football games.

The dude who just tried to bomb a plane by setting his own crotch on fire? God’s probably saying, “No reincarnation. I’m gonna go ahead and give you those 72 virgins you think I promised and let you spend eternity wishing you hadn’t blown your own dick off.”

And since my tainted pussy is, apparently, the difference between selling a house or not, in her next life, she is going to be a real estate agent.

A Scandalous Christmas

This morning at breakfast, as I sat eating fresh pineapple and looking out over Waikiki Beach with Diamond Head in the distance, an article in the The Honolulu Advertiser caught my eye.

Oahu, it seems, is experiencing a Christmas tree shortage. Hundreds of buyers got in line at 4 a.m. yesterday in hopes of snagging one of the trees being flown in at the last minute from Oregon.

For me, it brought back memories of the Great Christmas Tree Scandal of 1995.

In the late 1980s, my parents bought a condo on St. Augustine Beach, and they were there every chance they got. Of course, they always spent the week after Christmas at the beach, usually leaving the day after Christmas to get there.

From the time we kids first married and the issue of scheduling our holiday gatherings arose, Mom and Dad were always great about saying, “We want everyone together, but it doesn’t have to be Christmas Day or even Christmas Eve. Sometime in the week leading up to Christmas is perfectly fine with us.” Part of the reason, I think, was that preachers work on Christmas Eve. And if Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, they work on Christmas Day. Like most families, for the Adams, holiday flexibility is a matter of survival.

In 1995, though, we somehow managed to celebrate the Adams Family Christmas actually on Christmas Day at lunchtime. Mom and Dad were planning to leave for Florida after the celebration.

We loaded our children into the car and drove to Grammy’s house. Morgan was five years old, and Lauren was not quite two. As we pulled into their driveway, Morgan said in a horrified voice, “Why is their Christmas tree in the road?”

Their limp and lifeless and sad tree was already at the curb on Christmas Day, flecks of tinsel blowing off the tree and across their yard in the cold December wind. They never have, and never will, live it down.

This year, when it came time for me to decorate a tree, I understood how my parents felt. My artificial trees were ruined in the water heater flood back in September. Since I’m moving to Florida, I didn’t want to buy another artificial tree and then have to move it. But I didn’t exactly have a vehicle big enough to bring home a real tree.

I found a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina that would ship trees to my front door. I ordered a 6’ Fraser fir for the rec room and a 7’ one for the main level of the house. The trees arrived two days later, and Lauren helped me pull them from their boxes.

The 6’ tree was my height. And the 7’ tree wasn’t 7 feet tall. I grumbled, and Lauren laughed, but what were we going to do? Send them back?

After an hour of sawing off lower branches to get them into their stands, I was covered in needles and sap. I picked up the “6-foot” tree and made my fourth attempt to shove it into the stand. When it still didn’t fit, I began cursing and slamming the tree and stand against my newly-replaced hardwood floors while telling Santa where I wanted to put the trunk of that tree. Lauren’s eyes got big, and she said, “Mom, why don’t we take a break and go get some dinner?”

I went upstairs to grab a jacket and saw the 3x3 inspirational card I keep next to the mirror in my bathroom. It reads, “Attachment to the way things should be is the source of all your suffering.”

“Should” is a dangerous road. See, my family should be intact. My kids should all be home, and we should be decorating the tree together. I should be watching the man of the house wrangle with the artificial trees that never got ruined. My basement should never have flooded, and my beautiful house shouldn’t be on the market. “Should” is a recipe for misery.

So rather than sitting around and shoulding on myself, I’m in Honolulu to see Petras and Baptiste, the two boys from Europe who lived with us and are now a part of our family, play in a tournament in their last year of college. While Atlanta is enduring freezing rain, I’m sitting on Waikiki beach drinking a pina colada and listening to Bing Crosby sing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” I’ll be home on Christmas Eve to celebrate with my children, but because of scheduling difficulties, we won’t actually celebrate Christmas with my mom and dad and the rest of my family until the day after Christmas.

And since we’re leaving for St. Augustine after that celebration, my trees will be already down when all my nieces and nephews pull into my driveway.

They won’t be on the street, however. I’ve cut a deal with the guy selling trees in Honolulu. When I get home, I’m going to overnight him two slightly dry Fraser fir, and we’re going to split the profit. It will forever be known as the Great Christmas Tree Scandal of 2009.

Since that’s the way it is, that’s the way it should be. It should be a great Christmas.

Sexy on Display

Several years ago, I actually inspired an item for sale at Victoria’s Secret. Well, sort of.

My sister, Holly, and I were at the Mall of America in Minneapolis for our annual Christmas shopping trip. The mannequin in the window of the Victoria’s Secret was wearing a sexy little Santa suit, a red lace bra and panty set lined in white fur and completed with a Santa hat. I nudged Holly and said, “I bet Kevin would like that for Christmas.”

Her eyebrows shot up. Grinning, she said, “Yes, he would.” We entered the store and began looking for the little Santa suit. It was nowhere to be found, so my sister asked a sales associate, a spandexed and stilettoed twentysomething who was rearranging tiger-print bras, if they had sold out of the Santa suits. The girl looked at us with an expression that said, “Who let the nutjobs out of the psyche ward today?”

“It's for display only,” the little snot informed us as she rolled her eyes. We slithered out of Victoria’s Secret, somehow ashamed to have been asking for an outfit in the display window. Like we were some sort of perverts with a Santa fetish, some real-life ho-ho-hos. “It’s for display only,” I said, mimicking the snotty sales girl, “not for personal use.”

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who asked. Because the very next year, we walked into the very same store to see a mannequin clad in a fuschia-colored Santa suit. And behind the mannequin was a whole rack of the outfits just waiting to be taken home for personal use.

A pretty blonde approached and asked if we needed help. Holly said, “I want one of those Santa suits.”

“Aren’t they pretty?” the girl gushed. “It’s like Christmas, only pink! And it's accentuated.”

I looked at the padded hot pink bra. It was studded with tiny rhinestones and lined with the white fur. Accentuated, indeed.

Holly paid for Kevin’s gift and brought it home to Georgia. On Christmas Eve, after all the toys were put together and laid under the tree, they exchanged gifts.

Unfortunately, it was after midnight and they were both battling the flu. So the much-appreciated gift was set aside to be used at a more opportune time.

The next morning, after the excitement over their toys had subsided, one of the four-year-old twins noticed the box. “Mommy! It’s beautiful!” the girls said, obviously thinking Santa had brought the pretty outfit for her. Holly, already busy with the breakfast she was preparing for the extended family, quickly grabbed the box and stashed it in her bedroom.

Later that morning, as Kevin’s parents, our parents, the grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and two teenage exchange students sat enjoying the breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, and freshly-squeezed orange juice that Holly had so carefully prepared, one of the twins came running out of her parents’ bedroom with an open box in her hands. She headed straight for my dad, stuck the box into the space between his face and his breakfast plate, and excitedly said, “Look what Santa brought Mommy!”

The Santa suit was back on display. It was, I think, a new twist on the old saying, “Use it or lose it.” Because everyone in that room lost it -- except for Kevin’s mother, who somehow pretended not to notice.

On Monday morning, Holly and I are going to Lenox Mall to celebrate her birthday and to finish our Christmas shopping. At some point, we will pass by the Victoria’s Secret on the main level of that mall, and I will nudge her and snicker and say, “I bet Kevin would like a sexy little accentuated Santa suit for Christmas this year.”

And my sister will say back to me, “It’s for display only.”

Who's the Bobblehead?

My girl went back to college yesterday. She's nineteen, and she boarded an airplane bound for La Guardia all by herself. Once she landed, she got into a taxi all alone and made her way back to her dorm on Third Avenue in New York City.

Now, I didn’t travel alone until I was thirty-five years old. So hugging her goodbye made me nervous and proud all at that same time.

“Be safe,” I whispered to her as I hugged her. I wanted to say, “Don’t talk to strangers,” but I knew she had to talk to the man who checked her bags, the stranger seated next to her on the airplane, and a cab driver.

And speaking of cab drivers, I knew better than to tell her not to accept a ride from a stranger. Not because that’s the nature of the beast when you’re getting into a New York City cab, though. I couldn’t tell her that because she and I both know I’m guilty of violating that rule.

Several years ago, I had a friend named Ty, a football player who was a little too small for the NFL. Ty signed a contract to play for the Philadelphia Soul, a team in the now-defunct arena football league that just happened to be owned by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora.

“Ty,” I said to him one day in December 2004, “My girls and I were in New York City this past weekend. Tell your boss, Mr. Bon Jovi, that my girls went to Madame Tussaud’s but were unable to see his likeness. Apparently, he’s been fondled and kissed so much that he had to removed for refurbishing.”

“Why don't you tell him?” he responded. “Bon Jovi is kicking off the football season with a mini-concert doubling as a pep rally. I can get you front-row tickets, and I might even be able to get you backstage.”

Ty came through for me. In mid-January, Morgan and I flew to Philadelphia. We had a few hours that afternoon before the concert, so we did what all good tourists do. We took a cab to the corner of Ninth and Passyunk in South Philly and ordered a Philly Whiz at Geno’s. Across the street from Geno’s is its competitor, Pat’s, the restaurant credited with actually inventing the cheesesteak sandwich. The two have a long-standing rivalry, and each has its loyal fans who argue about which has the better product.

What we didn’t know when the cab dropped us off in front of Geno’s was that the establishment has no indoor seating. It was 17 degrees, and our hands were shaking as we inhaled our sandwiches.

After we finished our food, we began looking for a cab to take us back to the hotel. When it became obvious that we were going to have to call for a cab, I said, “While we wait, let’s go get a sandwich from Pat’s and judge for ourselves which one is better.” We marched across the street and ordered another Philly Whiz and we sat down outside to eat that sandwich.

We must have stuck out in our overcoats suited more for a winter in Georgia than one anywhere north of, say, Chattanooga. As we waited for the cab that obviously was not going to show up, a short, skinny man wearing thick glasses, a black overcoat, and a plaid wool scarf got out of a car and approached us. “I been watching from my car. I see that you’s freezin’, and I can’t watch ladies freeze like that. If you’ll pay me money for gas, I’ll take you anywhere you needs to go,” he said to me.

“No, thanks,” I quickly responded.

“Lady, look, it’s 17 damn degrees out here, and your kid’s cold. I’m a good, honest man who can’t stand to see people suffer. And Geno’s my cousin. Anyone in the joint can vouch for me.”

I started to refuse his offer for a second time. But Morgan leaned over to me and whispered, “Mom, please. I’m so cold.”

I looked at the man’s car. The dash was lined with six or seven Virgin Mary bobbleheads. Several sets of rosary beads hung from the rearview mirror. I couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or not. Was it an overt attempt to assuage a horrific amount of guilt, or was he simply a harmless nutjob?

I looked at the man. He was small enough, I figured, that I could take him, provided he wasn’t hiding a gun in the glove compartment under all those bobbleheads. He stuck his hand out to me and said, “My name’s Carlos Diego MacLauchlin. I’m the only Irish/Spanish/Greek/French Polynesian you’ll ever meet. Let me help you.” I don't know if it was the cheesesteak talking, but my gut told me to go with the nutjob theory.

We got into his wonderfully warm car. I dialed 9-1-1 into my cell phone and kept my finger over the “send” button. The Virgin Mary bobbleheads nodded in unison as he drove, almost an unspoken affirmation that I’d done the right thing.

And true to his word, the crazy man delivered his even crazier guests safely to our hotel. I thanked him with a generous amount of cash, shut the door behind me, and then said to my daughter, “Don’t you ever take a ride from a stranger, do you hear me? Not unless I’m with you.”

That evening, as Ty escorted us past security guards and we waited in the tunnel to meet Jon Bon Jovi, Ty whispered to me, “By the way, he agreed to meet you because I told him you actually bought his old statue from Madame Tussaud’s.”

The rock star came out of his dressing room, and my heart sank. Up close, he wasn’t as handsome as he is when performing on stage. He wasn’t much taller than I am, his face was covered in that awful orange stage makeup, and his teeth had obviously been overly refurbished – they were purple. When he realized I was the woman who had supposedly purchased his statue, he smiled and said, “Oh, thank you for being such a dedicated fan.” I know the man was probably thinking, This nutjob has a life-size likeness of me in her house, and I can only imagine what she does with it. The dash of her car is probably lined with Jon Bon Jovi bobbleheads. At least she looks harmless.

I stammered stupidly, “Don’t believe everything Ty tells you.” But he just continued smiling that famous smile and said, “I don’t mind.”

I left the City of Brotherly Love the next morning having learned a few things about life. First, never believe everything you hear. Second, don’t let appearances deceive you. Next, a rock star will always look better from a distance. And finally, for God’s sake, trust your gut, listen to your mother, and don't ever let a bobblehead be your guide.

What a Beach

As the saying goes, you never know how many friends you have until you own a beach house. Back when I was married and owned a fancy-schmancy condo in Destin, Florida, friends came to spend a summer weekend. They very thoughtfully left me a hostess gift – a hand towel printed with the quote about owning a beach house and an illustrated print titled “How To Be A Beach Woman.”

Back then, I appreciated the print because of its cosmetic appeal and because it made me laugh. I hadn’t mastered all of the prints recommendations, but I had a few of them down pat.

For example, the very first recommendation is this: "Lose the Uncomfortable Shoes." During those Destin-owning days, two of my friends and I went down for a beached-whale weekend. In other words, we lay on the beach the whole weekend, only pausing in our talking and drinking to come up for air. At some point one evening, one of us suggested we take our pretty selves to a nice restaurant for dinner. Donna pulled her cellphone out of her beach bag and called the restaurant to make a reservation. When she hung up the phone, she took another swig of her margarita and announced, “Six o’clock, party of three, and no close-show-toos.”

“Close-show-toos?” I said. “What’s that?”

“I mean close-two-shows,” she said.

“They’re closed for two shows?” I asked, wildly confused.

“Closed-toe shoes!” Ann said. “No flip flops allowed!”

We opted not to eat at that restaurant since the only closed-toe shoes in my condo were for playing tennis. I was already on my way to becoming a beach woman.

Next in the list of suggestions is “Come About.” When my friends gave me the print, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I assumed it had something to do with, “Come About six for drinks. We’ll go out to eat around seven.” Since I’d mastered that concept, I checked that one off my beachy woman list.

The third ingredient for becoming a beach woman is “smell like a coconut.” Given that I could eat my weight in coconut pie and consider pina colada mix a pantry staple, I didn’t even need Hawaiian Tropic for my pores to ooze coconut. Coconut smell? Check.

Not long after the print came into my life, my life fell apart. I filed for divorce. My ex-husband got the gorgeous condo. I got, among other things, the “Beach Woman” print and the dachshunds and enough money to buy myself a beach house in St. Augustine. The print now hangs in my St. Augustine beach house, and more than ever, I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom in its simple instructions.

“Pretend that you forgot how to work the oven and that the vacuum broke” is another step in the beach-woman transformation process. My ex got the expensive German Miele vacuum I’d purchased for the condo. But in keeping with the Beach Woman advice, I turned the job over to an eight-pound black and tan dachshund. Technically, I still have a German vacuum cleaner, even if it’s one that only works in the kitchen. For me, that's close enough to check off my beach-woman list.

There is one recommendation on the print that I always had trouble with, however. “Remember that the opposite of perfection is character” just sounded wrong to me. The opposite of perfection is chaos and disorder. It’s a middle-school field trip or a teenage daughter with a surreptitious tattoo.

And it’s also reality.

I’m slowly learning to ease my death’s grip insistence that life should be the way I think it should. Perfection, I'm realizing, is the opposite of character. And happiness.

And one more thing: I discovered that “Come About” is a sailing term. It means “to change course so as to be sailing at the same angle but with the wind on the other side,” which is kind of what my whole life has been about since I filed for divorce four years ago this month.

Which brings me to the final piece of advice on my print: “Be Thankful.” Today, for all the changes that have brought me to this porch overlooking the beach, for the imperfections and the flip flops and for the beachy woman I’m becoming, I’m grateful.

Oxymoronic Dicks

Rhetorical devices such as metaphor, simile, alliteration, oxymoron, and allusion are the little frills that make writing interesting. “See Dick play” becomes “See Dick play with himself” using personification (some may think this is a stretch, but personification is defined as “ascribing human qualities to inanimate objects.”) “Play hard, Dick” is an example of a pun (or an oxymoron, depending on Dick). “Dick did Deb,” -- alliteration. And to complete our little story, “Run like hell, Deb” employs the use of simile.

Of all the rhetorical pretties, my personal favorite is irony. There’s nothing like a little contradiction to perk up a story; in Dick and Deb’s case, we could add Donny to the mix. Deb could run like hell into the arms of Donny, who is creepier than Dick ever thought about being. That’s irony. And if Donny’s as horny as a hippo in heat, that’s alliteration, simile, and irony all at once!

One of the best examples of irony I’ve ever come across involves a friend of mine. She’s a beautiful woman, my friend, who also happens to be a hotshot in a huge government agency. The woman makes a lot of money, and on top of that, she's very thin. As often happens, her dumbass husband -- let's just call him "Dick" -- left her for a dimwit freelance aerobics instructor with bad skin and a nasty personality several years ago. That marriage lasted sixteen months.

Not long after that marriage failed, Dick reconnected with a woman he knew in college. It was a whirlwind romance, and it wasn't long before my friend’s daughter called her mother during a weekend visit with her father.

“Mom,” she whispered, “Miss Diana has clothes at Daddy’s house now.”

“Well, sugar, they're together a lot,” my friend said, adding, "They're probably going to get married.

“Mom, I went through her stuff,” her daughter continued, “and guess what?”

Before my friend could scold her child for going through the woman’s things, her daughter came out with this gem: “She wears Granny Panties!”

The lesson, of course, is the age-old "Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it." And I love the irony of Dick trading his beautiful wife for a couple of big asses. In fact, I wonder if he ever asks himself this question: "Does this ass make my dick look smaller?"

I Am What I Eat -- In What Year?

The Whole Foods on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta has a sign admonishing its customers to “only eat it if you can read it!”

That’s good advice, actually. Those yummy Pepperidge Farm Orange Milano cookies, for example, cookies I have no business eating, contain “interesterified and/or hydrogenated soybean oil.” Now, I’m not quite sure what interesterified oil is, but the very fact that the name includes a form of the word “terrified” kind of terrifies me.

The subject of scary foods reminds me of green Fruit Rollups. Years ago, back when I didn’t know about only eating what I can read, I thought Fruit Rollups were actually made of fruit. I now understand that they’re like having a little fruit with your psychadellically-colored chemically-based food additives. We owned a condo on the beach in Destin, Florida. Friends were staying in the condo, and their toddler, Anna, ate a green Fruit Rollup or two. Now, I don’t think the Fruit Rollup made her violently ill, but Anna barfing up that Fruit Rollup in six different spots on my white carpet made me violently ill. After that, my kids no longer enjoyed those little pancake-thin fake fruit thingies ever again.

But I wonder, is the reverse of the “if you can’t read it, don’t eat it” axiom true? Just because you can read it, should you eat it? I remember back to a time when I was a little girl and clearly read a food label for something that I would not have put in my mouth for all the Ding Dongs in Dallas.

My grandfather, my mother’s dad, was a World War Two fighter pilot who flew jets for a worldwide shipping company after the war. He retired in 1982 to a 300-acre farm in Milner, Georgia, where he raised what we now know as organic local grass-fed beef.

I was raised on that beef and on the pork from his pigs. And on my grandmother’s chickens, which were just as organic as Pa’s cows. And on those chicken’s eggs. And on vegetables from their garden and from my father’s garden, which might have been the most organic garden in three counties. I vividly remember how our yard smelled when Dad spread a load of stuff he got from the Clayton County Water Authority to put on that garden. He called it “sludge,” a kind of euphemism for what really was just sanitized shit.

Eggs, steak, beans, greens, pork – words a kindergartener can read. According to the experts, that’s what is healthy. And I’m pretty sure that’s why the people in my family have consistently enjoyed terrific health.

Back when Pa had the farm, he and my grandmother had a large chest freezer in the basement of that farmhouse. When my cousin Barbie and I got tired of playing in the creek and swinging on the tire swing and naming the cows, we used to go down to their basement and investigate the contents of that freezer.

I remember one time pulling out a package wrapped in brown butcher paper that had a three-inch strip of masking tape on the outside. The words “pork shoulder – 1965” were written in my Nanny’s perfect cursive handwriting. Barb dug her hand deeper into that freezer and came out with “beef ribs – 1963.”

“Ewwww!” we shouted in unison. It was around 1976, and I was probably nine years old, Barb ten.

“Eat it if you can read it?” We read those labels loud and clear. That shit was older than we were.

Nanny and Pa sold the farm several years ago and moved to a house with no basement. Pa died nearly three years ago, and Nanny will celebrate her 86^th birthday this month. That old chest freezer, now completely rusted over but still running just fine, sits in their carport, and I’m willing to bet there’s still some stuff in the bottom of it that’s older than I am.

I joke about staying on Nanny’s good side because I don’t want her to leave me that freezer in her will. But if she does, I’ll drive down to that house in Barnesville and dig through that old freezer. And I’ll laugh through my tears when I read her handwritten labels on packages that will surely remind me of the fun times I spent at the farm when I was a kid.

But there’s no way in hell I’ll eat any of it.

All That Candy is Going to My Head

The day before Halloween, my niece, Kate, came out of school carrying two bags of candy and the hat to her witch’s costume.

She was a cute little witch. But the best part of that costume, according to my sister, was the fact that they didn’t have to fix Kate’s hair that morning. Tangled, matted curls are part of a witch's persona.

Kate climbed into my car and immediately began rummaging through her candy. She pulled out a Twizzler and said, “Oooh, I like these!” before polishing it off in two bites.

She held up a Twix and said, “Want one?”

“No, baby, but that’s really sweet of you to share. You eat it,” I answered.

As she unwrapped the Twix, she said very matter-of-factly, “I know what too much candy doos to you.”

“Does,” I said, the English teacher in me feeling the need to correct. “What does too much candy do to you?”

“It makes your hair tangled.”

Someone could have told me that when I was a kid. You see, I have enough hair for three people, and when I was a kid, all that hair was a major pain in the ass.

I remember making my brother and sister late to school because both my mom and I were trying to tame the wild kingdom on top of my head.

It was so bad that my brother nicknamed me “Werewolf.”

Raymond Adkins, the boy who sat in the assigned seat behind me every year in school because Adkins came after Adams, loved to shuffle his hands through my hair and say during Bible class, “I bet this is what Gideon’s golden fleece looked like!”

Kate’s answer made perfect sense to me because I clearly have hair issues and I dearly love Milk Duds, Raisinets, and malted milk balls. In fact, my hair kinks up just thinking about Heath bars.

The next day, I received an email from Disney with this teaser: “Unleash Your Inner Disney Villain!”

I’ve already explained how the whole Disney princess thing turns my stomach. But I can do villains; they're more realistic, in my opinion. I clicked on the email, and to my great delight, Disney had provided a quiz to help me discover who, exactly, is my evil cartoon altar ego.

The first question was, “Your closest friend is . . .” The choices were (A) My hairstylist (B) My gym buddy (C) Anyone who would lend me money (D) I prefer henchmen or (E) I have lots of close friends.

Hmmm. I’m pretty close to my hairdresser. One can’t cope with hair like mine without a dedicated and competent hair stylist. Josh has been taming my mane every four weeks for nearly fifteen years, and in that time, he’s seen me through the birth of a child, a bitter divorce, and sending a kid off to college. He’s a friend and amateur therapist with enough dignity to consistently refuse my offers to live rent-free in my home in exchange for doing my hair every morning.

As for the rest of my options, I have no gym buddies because I prefer to do walking lunges alone. I don’t borrow money from friends. I prefer to pay my henchmen in order to guarantee their silence. And the “I have lots of close friends” option is a copout – that answer will surely result in some sappy “You can’t possibly be a villain” result.

Having eliminated the other choices, the answer to that question is (A) My hairdresser.

Another question: Do you have a fatal flaw? For me, the most appropriate answer is again the first choice, A, which reads, "Well, I do collect more than my fair share of speeding tickets."

And this: What do you worry about? The choices are (A) A bad hair day (B) Looking bad in front of my loyal fans (C) Getting outwitted (D) Nothing (E) Failing in my quest. Of those choices, unfortunately, my best answer is (A).

I tallied up my score to find that I’m not Ursula the Sea Witch, even though I am of German heritage and feel much better when I’m near the ocean. I’m not Maleficent or the Evil Queen or Gaston or, thankfully, Hades.

I am Cruella De Vil, thanks to my over-processed hair and horrendous driving.

It’s quite funny, actually. Three horribly mischievous dachshunds run my life, yet I’m cast as a villainous puppy killer. I finished the quiz and walked downstairs to put my dogs outside for the day. I opened the door leading out to my garage to find that during the night, they somehow managed to jump onto the seat of my golf cart and from there reach onto the shelf of my barbeque grill and pull down the large bag of chewy treats – doggie Milk Duds, if you will. They ate all the treats and then shredded the bag. And then they got sick from eating too much candy.

At least their short hair won’t tangle.

A Twist on Happily Ever After

I have finally figured out the whole Disney formula for happily ever after, and it’s not that complicated. Sitting in Cinderella’s Castle at Disneyworld eating a $150 breakfast one fine morning, I had an epiphany. Cinderella and Prince Charming approached our table, and my friend Ann looked at me and said, “Look at Prince Charming. Isn’t he gorgeous?”

“Yeah, and gay.”

“Nooooo!”

Prince Charming was, in fact, charming. He was, like Mary Poppins, “practically perfect in every way,” with his blue eyes, blonde hair, and too-perfect smile. But there was no missing that he was gay, unless you were Ann.

“He’s not gay. Look how good he is with children.”

I swear she said that.

So here’s my revised happily-ever-after formula: Go ahead and marry a gay man if he’s a fabulously rich prince. He won’t care about the thousand bucks you drop on a pair of Manolo’s. Come to think of it, as your stylist, he will probably insist they were practically made for the new Vera Wang you need for the State Ball. He wouldn’t dream of jumping you for sex in the bathroom just before the dinner with important heads of state. Why not? Because he did your hair and makeup.

A gay prince will pick up his own dirty socks. In fact, he’s neater than you are. He can cook, too, better than you can. Happily ever after, indeed. I can’t see the downside.

And it’s a helluva lot more realistic than the Princess crap we parents happily pay Disney to disillusion our daughters with.

Look at Belle, the young beauty whose love is enough to turn an ugly, brooding beast back into a loving prince. Hell, marriage is almost the exact opposite, don’t you think? Those loving princes turn into brooding beasts about six minutes after the honeymoon ends.

And don’t even get me started on Pocahontas. She’s a Disney princess who actually represents the Mouse’s attempt to portray a strong, independent heroine. But do they tell what happened to the woman after the movie ended? No. They forget to mention that John Smith, her prince in the movie, is not the man she married. Four years after she saved John Smith’s life, her father, Chief Powhatan, and the governor of Jamestown, Thomas Dale, arranged a marriage between her and a man named John Rolfe, even though she was already married to another Indian chief named Kocoum.

Did you get that? Her dad and a dirty politician basically annulled her marriage and gave her to another man. Pocahontas was a strong, independent woman who, as it turns out, had no voice in her own life.

She traveled to England with her new husband at the invitation of British businessmen hoping to use her to attract investors for development of the new colonies. While in England, she contracted smallpox and died.

Happily ever after for, what, a couple of years?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for having dreams and pursuing them with a passion. But teaching our daughters – or allowing Disney to teach them – that a man is the means for achieving their dreams is doing them a terrible disservice.

So dress your daughter up as Pocahontas. Let her be Princess Pocahontas for Halloween and every day for the rest of the year. But let her know that Pocahontas didn’t live happily ever after with Prince Charming, and that’s sometimes the way life goes.

Or sometimes, Prince Charming has some secrets she won’t discover until it’s too late for happily ever after.

A few months after my sister married her very redneck, absolutely heterosexual husband, a friend casually mentioned that they had heard a rumor that a former boyfriend of hers was actually gay.

Her husband slowly turned his head toward her and, with half a can of Skoal poking his lower lip out, drawled, “I jess hope to Gawd he was that way ‘fore he met you and you didn’t make him like that.”

Maybe that’s what happened to Prince Charming.

Horny Toads and other Dysfunctional Reptiles

Not long ago, my nephew Joe asked for a “wizard.” My brother, Beau, understood what Joe was saying, and a few days later, Spike the Lizard was on my sister’s doorstep, accompanied by a glass cage, a warming rock, and a bag full of live crickets.

Beau knew what Joe wanted because when he was about Joe’s age, he was fascinated with reptiles. He used to hang out around the creek behind our house and catch snakes, a practice I could never quite appreciate. Probably because I hate snakes.

So when my son asked for a ball python several years ago, I put my foot down. No way, no how, not ever would a snake become a member of my household.

His dad promptly bought him a snake. They brought Freddy (named for Freddy Krueger) home, and I had a fit. That thing would NOT enter my house. So Freddy went to live in the pool house. And every week, Hunter’s dad drove him to the store where Freddy was purchased, a stinky place called Randar’s Reptiles owned by a man named Spider, to buy little white mice for that python to squeeze.

Well, his dad drove him to Randar’s for mice until the week that he didn’t. And the next time Hunter fed Fred, the poor snake was so hungry that he bit Hunter’s hand when he struck at the mouse. Hunter yelped in pain and apparently ran from the pool house, leaving an opening between the lid and the tank just big enough for a ball python to squeeze through.

I'm just glad I insisted Freddy live in the pool house.

We never saw Fred again. After a few months, Hunter was hankering for another snake, and this time I really put my foot down. No way, no how, would we ever have another snake.

And we didn’t for a month or so, just until his dad went out and bought him another snake.

Fang just wasn’t as loved as Fred was. Hunter would forget to feed him for a couple of weeks, and I would find myself at Randar’s Reptiles buying little mice for the python because I felt sorry for a snake.

One Saturday afternoon, I was standing in line at Randar’s waiting for Spider to sell me mice when a guy in his mid-forties with greasy hair and bad teeth walked up to me and said in a very creepy voice, “What kind of snake do you like?”

“Uh, I hate snakes. My son has one, and I’m here to buy food.”

“Oh.” He grinned, then, “What kind of snake do you have?”

“Ball python.” I turned and pretended to be picking out the fattest mice.

After a brief pause, he said, “I like those.”

At that moment, a light went on in my head. I turned back to the creeper and said, “Do you want another one?”

His eyes lit up, and he said, “You’ll just give me a ball python? They’re worth about $80.”

“I know. And yes, I’ll just give you a ball python.”

He hesitated, then asked, “What about its cage. Can I have the cage, too?”

I was willing to give him the cage, the warming light, and – hell – a year’s supply of free mice if he would just take that damn snake off my hands.

Now, I know it’s never smart to let a stranger, especially a creepy one, follow me home. But I also knew I lived in a gated neighborhood and it wasn’t likely he would be able to get past the guards ever again. So I said, “If you will follow me to my house, I will give you the snake and everything that goes with him.”

And he did.

Not counting the Chinese Water Dragon Hunter purchased last October and then returned to Spider after a two months, our home has been reptile-free for a few years.

My sister’s home has become the new reigning reptile house, with the occasional frogs and turtles thrown in just for fun. In fact, Joe announced to the family last week that he was heading out. He had decided to walk to Mexico so that he could find an iguana to add to his collection.

Remember the old nursery rhyme about little boys:

“Snakes and snails/and puppy dog tails/That’s what little boys are made of.”

That may be true. But in all my dealings with the masculine species and their reptilian leanings, I’ve come to believe that perhaps the entire male species is simply suffering from A Reptile Dysfunction.

Acornucopia

My littlest dachshund has been acting rather squirrelly the past few days. And if I’m honest, I have to say that her nutty behavior is partly my fault.

When I was a kid, my mom used to make Pine Cone Choirs during the holidays. Members of the Pine Cone Choir had bodies made of pine cones with acorn heads glued on top. She painted little faces on the acorns, their mouths all in an “O,” as if they were permanently singing the first note of “Joy to the World.”

I remember looking for acorns to be used for the Pine Cone Choir people’s heads. The acorns had to still have their “hats” on, and they needed to be long enough and plump enough to have room for a painted face. Finding plenty of perfect acorns was sometimes tough, especially if we began searching after the squirrels had sifted through the nuts.

To this day, if I see a “perfect” acorn, I pick it up. It’s not like I’m going to make any Pine Cone Choirs, but I guess some habits stay with us forever.

And really, there’s a second reason I collect acorns.

In her 2006 best-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about the Zen Buddhist belief that there are two forces working at once to bring an oak tree into existence. The first, obviously, is the acorn, the seed full of the potential to become the giant oak. But the second force is the future tree with its desire to exist, a longing so great that it creates the seed from which it was born. According to Zen Buddhism, it is the seed’s potential along with the future pull of the already-existing tree that join together in helping that tree become what it was meant to be.

I love that. I love looking at pictures of myself as a small child and saying to that little girl, “It really is ALL good.” But even more, I love the thought of the woman I want to be. She's standing at the top of the mountain and yelling encouragement back at me: “Yes! You can do it! Things might be hard right now, but what you dream of becoming is absolutely possible, and I’m just waiting for you to join me.”

So I pick up acorns. My housekeeper must think I’m nutty because I have two or three acorns next to my computer so I can see them when I write. I have a few on my nightstand, a few on my bathroom counter, and a few on my back porch, next to my quiet place. I keep them to remind me that it’s not only possible to become what I was meant to be; it’s inevitable, as long as I don't give up.

My little dachshund is terrified by the sounds of weed eaters, mowers, and blowers. Yesterday, when the yard people were at my house, she followed me around begging to be held. She ended up in my lap while I was at the computer. And while I was typing, she noticed my acorns on the desk and decided she had to have one. Before I could stop her, she jumped from my lap onto the desk, grabbed a nut in her mouth, jumped off the desk, and ran.

I tried to get my acorn back, but she hid it, or more appropriately, she squirreled it away. It took me the better part of a day to find the remains of my acorn. Just like a squirrel, she’d cracked it open and eaten the meaty inside. All that remained were a piece of shell and the cute little hat.

I know. I’m nuts, and so is my dog. But that doesn't discourage me, because I keep telling myself that the mighty oak is just a little nut that held its ground.

Scoopid Knows Best

My niece, Kate, turned five today. She’s the youngest of my sister’s four children and also the youngest of my parents’ nine grandchildren. Kate often makes me think of the nursery rhyme about the “Little girl with the little curl/right in the center of her forehead/When she was good, she was very, very good/but when she was bad, she was horrid.”

Not that Kate is ever bad, much less horrid. But she does have that little curl in the center of her forehead, and on top of that, her curls are red, which I think helps a little bit to explain why Kate never has and never will take crap off of anyone.

Now, those of you who know my family also know that, for over thirty years, my dad was the pastor of a very large church.

As a young child growing up in the Christian school, I can remember looking out the windows of many different classrooms and seeing my dad holding a large Styrofoam cup of coffee and trudging across the church parking lot, crossing the street, and disappearing into the woods that were part of Reynolds Park in Clayton County. He went to the woods every day of the week to escape the barrage of telephone calls and meetings inherent in his work so that he could, as he put it, “talk to God.”

I always thought those hours in the woods must have been more about God talking to my dad, because he always seemed to know exactly how to handle everything. I realize this is the opinion of a devoted daddy’s girl, but, simply put, my daddy was perfect. As I remember things, Dad always knew best.

Several years ago, I was asked to describe my dad by completing two sentences. The first sentence was, “On a good day, my dad was always . . .” The second sentence: “On a bad day, my dad was always . . .” I used the same words to complete both sentences. On a good day, my dad was always right. And on a bad day, he was (still) always right.

During the early days of the church, someone hung a cartoon on the door to his office. It depicted a man with his behind missing and looking as if it had literally been chewed off. The caption read, “Nothing serious, just a little chat with the boss.” Everyone who passed through the office laughed about it, and that cartoon hung on his door for years. No one -- and I mean no one -- ever had the nerve to cross the man.

My brother, sister, and I certainly never had the nerve to dispute him. We three children gave them nine grandchildren, and the first eight never had the nerve to talk back to him.

But then came Kate.

When Kate was three, the whole family managed to spend Spring Break in St. Augustine. And for the first time since my sister had four children in less than three years, the whole family went to a nice restaurant together. We had a lovely meal. The children behaved, the adults shared a couple of bottles of J. Lohr Cabernet, and we ate steamed oysters while watching the sunset over the Intercoastal Waterway.

After dinner, as we made our way to the parking lot, Kate’s brother, Joe, picked up a stick and started swinging it at two of his cousins. Dad saw what was happening and moved to grab the stick from Joe, ordering in his sternest “chat-with-the-boss” voice, “Joe, don’t you do it!” And as we have done our whole lives, my sister, brother, and I stopped to watch him take care of the matter.

But Kate was having none of it. She saw him heading for her brother and apparently did not like the look on his face. She reached down and grabbed two handfuls of sand and threw them at him. Then this fiery little curly-headed, red-haired powerhouse yelled at the top of her lungs, “You shut up, you scoopid!”

Dad stopped. And then my mom, all ninety-five pounds and five feet of her, threw herself in between the two of them and yelled at my dad, “You’re bullying a little kid. You go get in the car right now!

And he did.

That is not the man I grew up with. Or at least, it’s not how I perceived the man as I was growing up in his house.

This man was stopped by two furious females with a combined weight of 117 pounds. I was stunned. And so were my brother, his wife, my sister, her husband, and most of his grandchildren.

What happened? Is the Type-A personality permanently gone, washed away with retirement like the sandcastles we build on the beach? Or has he simply mellowed, maybe as a result of trading the coffee for cabernet?

Or did he finally, after all these years, have a little chat with someone who hadn't gotten the memo that he was supposed to be the boss?

Animal Addicts Anonymous

Yesterday at lunch, a friend related one of the funniest stories I’ve heard in a long time. Her friend, who we’ll call Liz, was planning a party, and in preparation, she went to the liquor store and purchased several bottles of wine. She stored them in a cool part of her basement.

Several days later, Liz noticed a foul odor in her garage. After an intense search, she discovered the source of the odor. A raccoon had found a way to gain access to her basement through the garage and got his little raccoon paws on the wine. The clever little critter had broken the bottles and consumed the wine. She found him lying on his back in a drunken stupor. His eyes were rolled back, and he wore the grin of a happy drunk on a high. But still, what was causing the odor?

The raccoon simultaneously farted and belched, and Liz had her answer.

She called animal control. To the woman who answered, she said, “I’m sure this is going to be the strangest call you’ve ever received, but I have a drunken raccoon in my basement.”

The woman at animal control laughed uncontrollably and then admitted that, yes, it was probably the strangest call they had ever received. An agent was dispatched immediately to rescue the ripped raccoon.

Several agents actually arrived at her home, all eager to witness the spectacle. As they put the sloshed little stinker in the truck, someone remarked, “This is really bad. This guy isn’t going to be able to function in the wild for a while. He’s going to have to be rehabilitated so he can re-learn the skill of foraging for food."

Did you get that? The drunken little bastard had to go to raccoon rehab.

Can you imagine the scene at that joint?

ANIMAL REHAB

Counselor (a wise old owl): This meeting of Animal Addicts Anonymous will come to order. We’ll begin by going around the room, stating our first name and last initial and the nature of our addiction.

Wolf: Hi. I’m Phil U., and I’m a sex addict. The nature of my addiction has been such that I have illicit sex with – well, let’s just say I’ve been with some who aren’t my kind. In particular, three goats, a pig, and a foxy little vixen who . . .

Owl Counselor, loudly clearing throat: Um, I think that will suffice, Phil. Who’s next?

Python: (Shyly). Hi, I’m Rosie O.

All: Hi, Rosie.

Python: I have an eating disorder. My problem is ssssswallowing my victims. I get them down, but then when I ssssee the big bulge in my belly, I just get ssssso upsssset that I regurgitate them.

Wolf: Hehe. I guess you could say she ssssspits, not ssssswallows.

Owl: Phil, if we have another inappropriate comment from you, I’ll have to ask you to leave. Thanks for sharing that painful truth, Rosie. Next we have . . .

Dachshund: Hi, everyone. I’m Sigmund F., and I have the opposite problem from Rosie over there. I eat anything I see. I think I’ve finally hit rock bottom, because I was ordered to rehab after my owners caught me eating my own shit.

All except Owl: Ewwwwww!

Owl: Now, everyone, we need to remember that shame is what keeps us in our addictions. Siggy – can I call you Siggy? -- is admitting some pretty harsh realities to us, but we need to remember the old adage, “There but for the grace of God and the dogcatcher go I.”

Dachshund: Thanks for that, Owl. Anyway, this is my last chance. If I do it again, I’m going straight to the pound.

Raccoon: Hi. I’m Ricky, and I broke into a lady’s house, stole some wine, and got drunk as a skunk.

Skunk, tail in air: Hey, pal, that’s uncalled for! I oughta come over there and . . .

Owl: Sal, remember your anger management skills. Spraying someone because of a perceived insult only reinforces the powerful hold your temper has had over you.

Skunk, lowering tail: Sorry, Sigmund. I lost my tail for a minute. By the way, everyone, I’m Sal, and if you haven’t already guessed, I was ordered to anger management classes after an unfortunate incident. And actually, it involved a dachshund. Not Siggy over there. Another dachshund.

Dachshund: Let me guess. He thought you were a squirrel. We dogs are color blind, and you skunks do kind of resemble squirrels, who are the bane of our existence. Boy, what I would do to catch a squirrel. I’d tear it limb from limb and then eat . . .

Owl: Ahem! Let’s move on. Step Two of the Twelve Steps states, “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Would anyone like to share with the group what serves as their higher power?

Dachshund: The dog catcher?

Counselor: I can see that. Anyone else?

Raccoon: For me, I guess it's Animal Control. All I can think about is that sweet nectar in that woman's basement, but if they catch me drinking again, I'll never get back to the woods.

Wolf: Pamela Anderson does it for me.

Counselor: Okay, Phil. That’s it. I need to ask you to leave.

Wolf: Whaaaaat? I’m not trying to be funny here. My therapist told me that a higher power is whatever gives you a radical reason to change. I hung a poster of Pamela in my den, and everytime I’m tempted to go after some fox or a coy little kitty, I look at Pamela and tell myself, “Hold out for the big prize, Phil.” It works for me.

Counselor, hanging head in defeat: Our time is up. Let’s stand and join paws. Rosie, just wrap yourself around Phil, why don't you? Let's repeat the Serenity Prayer for Animals.

All: “God, give me the serenity to scavenge the things I cannot stalk, to courage to stalk the stuff I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”