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.”

Sweet Revenge

I won a recipe contest this week. Melissa Hart, a writer from Oregon whom I’ve had the honor of studying under, held a recipe contest to coincide with the release of her new book, Gringa: A Contradictory Childhood. And I won!

It’s amazing, really, my recipe-contest win. Because if someone were to inspect the contents of the refrigerators at either of my homes, that person might reasonably conclude that I don’t cook and the people in my house don’t eat. Right now, my refrigerator is chilling two bottles of Pellegrino, a pound of butter, a jar of powdered Acai berry, two cartons of yogurt, sixteen blueberries, one egg, and a bag of apples purchased last Saturday in Ellijay, Georgia.

My mother worried before I got married that I didn’t know how to cook. And she was correct. I didn’t. But I said to her, “Mom, I can read and follow a recipe. It can’t be that hard. All you need is good recipes.”

So I spent the next fourteen years of my life collecting recipes and perfecting my cooking skills, even going so far as to attend cooking school.

Ursula’s Cooking School is owned and operated solely by an older German woman named Ursula, who years ago achieved a bit of celebrity in Atlanta, having catered for Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter when he was Governor of Georgia. She’s taught from her home on Cheshire Bridge Road for nearly forty years, dispensing a dash of advice and a cup or two of humor along with every recipe she demonstrates in her classes. For example, stuffing a raw turkey, according to Ursula, is a recipe for food poisoning. But here’s how she puts it: “If you ever want to see your friends again, cook the stuffing and the turkey separately.”

Her feelings on condensed soups? A little cream added to canned soups, she says, hides the canned flavor. No one will ever know. But she adds, “Hide the cans deep in the garbage, and don’t tell your mother-in-law.”

Of all the things I learned from Ursula, though, probably the best advice is this: “You are the boss in your own kitchen.”

I found out my husband was cheating on me while we were building our house in McDonough. Armed with Ursula’s advice and a massive dose of being pissed off, I equipped that house with some hideously expensive appliances, including a steam oven, five refrigerators, three icemakers, and a built-in Miele coffee and cappuccino machine, despite the fact I don’t drink coffee and my ex-husband has probably never learned how to brew a pot of coffee.

Given that the ex-husband is gone, one kid is away at college, and the other two are teenagers with extremely active social lives, I’m now the culinarily well-educated boss of a fancy schmancy kitchen that gets about as much action as I imagine Hillary Clinton does.

And that’s why I was surprised to win the recipe contest. But I’ll let my readers be the judge. Here’s my winning recipe, which I, as the boss of my own kitchen, made up all by very own self:

CHEATING HUSBAND BROWNIES

1 box of brownie mix (buy the cheapest you can find)

the egg, oil, and water called for by the mix

1 box of Ex-Lax, chopped fine

1 bottle of your choice flavored liqueur (I like Kahlua for a South-of-the-Border flair, but Chambord is good, Grand Marnier rocks, and Crème de Menthe pleases the palates of the York Peppermint Patty fans)

Directions:

Combine the brownie mix, oil, egg, and water according to package instructions. Stir in the Ex-Lax and ¼ cup liqueur. Drink the rest of the bottle while the brownies bake, and then serve the entire batch to the cheating husband.

The Blame Game

The only reason I’m not in the jail cell formerly occupied by Michael Vick is that my dogs lack the opposable thumbs necessary for them to dial the number for the SPCA, PETA, or the federal prosecutor who sent Michael Vick to jail.

According to my dogs, I’m guilty of doggy abuse. But it’s really not my fault.

And apparently, I am responsible for the fact that my kid is failing math. But I also contend that it's not my fault.

The insurance company providing my homeowner’s coverage would very much like to make it my fault that the water heater burst, flooding my basement and causing approximately $50,000 in damage.

When I called to make the claim, the adjuster asked, “What did you do to your water heater?”

Now, I’ve been told I have an inappropriate sense of humor. And there are times when, if I were limber enough to get my foot into my mouth, that’s where it would be. But this was not one of those times. I wisely refrained from saying, “Aside from going downstairs and beating it with a hammer every afternoon? Nothing.”

I was stunned. What do people “do” to their water heaters that would make the insurance company ask such a question? It’s not like it’s a microwave and some idiot put the cat into it to dry her after a bath, then called the insurance company to report that the microwave was ruined beyond repair. It’s a water heater, and, as I told the adjuster, I don’t know how they work or even how to attempt messing one up.

Speaking of the cat, it’s my fault that parasite-ridden pussy needs a new home. After I decided to move to Florida and my kids chose to stay in Atlanta with their father, Lauren’s dad, who bought the cat, refused to let the cat live in his house. To his credit, he offered to put up a fence in his backyard. I know because I heard him tell Lauren over the phone that the cat could come live with them after he put up a privacy fence. I snickered, only my snicker was loud enough to qualify as a snort. He heard it and demanded to know why I was laughing at him.

Lauren said, “Because everyone knows a fence can’t keep in a cat, Dad.”

But that wasn’t really the reason I was laughing. I think it’s incredibly funny that he’s spending even more money to contain an already stupidly expensive pussy. Then again, it’s not the first time a pussy cost him a fortune. The other one cost him millions, and come to think of it, he’s still spending money trying to contain her, too.

Still, I find it hard to accept that I’m to blame. In my defense, I’d be thrilled if Lauren and her cat came to live with me in Florida.

The insurance adjuster’s next question was, “What have you been using your water heater for?”

“Ummm. Heating water?”

Evidently, my answers were correct, because the insurance company cannot find a way to blame me. They are paying for the damages.

My son’s math grade is perilously close to failure because his dad can’t manage to get him to school on time. He’s missed too many first period math classes. They’d like to blame me because I moved to St. Augustine, but I stand by my offer for Hunter to live with me in Florida.

That leaves the dogs. So how, you ask, am I abusing my dogs? It’s because I refuse to provide a place for them to lay their little heads at night.

I’m tired of buying beds for them because they tear them up. And those little bed shredders took it to the next level last night.

They sleep in my laundry room. On either side of the sink, there are open shelves lined with pretty decorative twig baskets. One basket holds light bulbs. One contains a hammer, nails, tacks, hooks, and various other small pieces of hardware. And one holds all the dogs’ toys.

I walked into the laundry room to wake the dogs up this morning to find their bed in a million little foam pieces. And generously sprinkled on top of the foam bits were a couple of broken light bulbs, the twigs from a mutilated basket, and approximately eighty-nine nails.

They literally slept on a bed of nails.

Since it was one of their own making, I refuse to replace it with a nice, new bed. And since they couldn’t report my alleged abuse, they retaliated by crapping on my porch.

So this is what I would like to say to my kids, their dad, the cat, my insurance company, and the dogs: Quit trying to blame me. You made your bed, now lie in it.

Fooling Around with Proof

Twice in my life I have received a letter ending with the words “govern yourself accordingly.” The first was a citation from the neighborhood association concerning a noise violation caused by the dachshunds’ barking. I complied with the demand that I bring them inside before ten at night, even though the letter technically should have ended with the words “govern your dachshunds accordingly.” It was, after all, their behavior that was offensive and not mine.

The second letter was from my ex-husband’s attorney, who deemed the more salacious details of my story to be “provably false” and threatened to sue me for slander if I told it. I analyzed the assertion that my ex-husband’s antics were provably false and decided that his attorney could not, for example, prove that the man had never paid for sex. To be fair, I can’t prove I wasn’t a crack whore sleeping with thirty-dozen Hell’s Angels while married to my Prince Charming. I can say it didn’t happen, but I can’t prove it. And by the same token, my ex-husband can’t prove he didn’t try to fool around with the turkey thawing in the refrigerator on or around Thanksgiving 1999. Now, I’m not saying he actually did anything illicit with that frozen turkey; I’m just saying he can’t prove he never did.

The inability to prove a negative, according to my third cousin’s brother-in-law, an ambulance chaser who studied law in Surinam, is covered in the first semester of law school. Evidently, my ex-husband’s attorney missed that part. And yet I applaud his ability to exploit my ex.

My attorney responded to that letter by telling him to save his arguments for something valid, lawyerspeak for “up yours.”

In response, my ex and his attorney demanded that I submit a copy of everything I write for their review. The lawyer was offering to read it and circle all the mistakes in red ink, and the fees for this editorial process would be charged to my ex-husband. Tempting, I’ll admit. I thought about asking him to be on the lookout for any dangling participles or split infinitives while he searched for the provably false. I’m always up for a free edit.

In the end, however, I decided to take my chances and insist they pay for anything of mine they wish to read. I can use the money, and his edit wouldn’t be worth much anyway. After all, any attorney who can’t spot an error in logic probably wouldn’t be able to differentiate a dangling participle from other little danglers.

I did, however, give my attorney a Cliff Notes-version of my story to forward to my ex and his minion for their review. Titled “My Story in a Narcissistic Nutshell,” it goes something like this:

“Once upon a time, there was a drug-addled sex addict who spent every sober moment attempting to bully and intimidate the people around him.

“One day, his ex-wife told him to go screw himself.

“Being a sex addict, he thought that sounded like a good idea. In achieving that sexual position, however, he tied himself into a narcissistic knot so tight that, now, every way he turns, he is faced with his own ass. THE END.

The man really does not want to mess with me. He won't win.

Driving While Under the Influence of Children

The National Distracted Driving Summit was held in Washington, D.C. this week. In a speech today, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “Texting, using hand-held and hands-free cell phones, talking to passengers, and even programming your GPS while driving can be life-threatening distractions on the road.”

Senator Charles Schumer of New York also spoke, urging the administration to support his ALERT driving bill – Avoiding Life Endangering and Reckless Texting.

I have a couple of questions for Mr. LaHood. Since he’s concerned about driver distraction occurring during a simple conversation with passengers, I’d like to know how he feels about talking your four-year-old son through the process of peeing into a McDonald’s milk carton while hurling a Honda minivan down an empty stretch of highway.

Or how about this? A small voice in the backseat of the brand-new BMW announces, “I have to throw up right now – bleeech.” Does that qualify as driver distraction, and should the administration be considering a bill to ban underage automobile barfing?

I’d like to suggest a couple of bills an ambitious senator could introduce as legislation. For starters, let’s try SWIFT – a ban on Spanking While In Fast Traffic. I’ve done it, attempting to swat at someone in the back seat while negotiating a hairpin turn. It’s as effective as a hands-free cell phone is in getting the message across.

There ought to be a FART bill passed, a ban on Fighting And Riding Together. I’ve witnessed some serious swerving going on in automobiles, and it’s usually quite obvious that the occupants are fighting. In some instances, they’re doing something else they shouldn’t be doing in the car. The acronym for that activity could remain the same -- Fondling And Riding Together.

Movie’s Over – Van’s Endangered: this bill, MOVE, actually makes it a crime for a parent to allow a movie playing in the vehicle to run out while the vehicle is in drive. A parent must anticipate the end of a movie and stop to change the movie well before all hell breaks loose in said vehicle.

A few years ago, I rode from St. Augustine, Florida, to Atlanta with my sister and her four preschool-aged children. The twins were in the very back seat of her Ford Excursion, and the two younger children were in the middle row, all buckled into their massive car seats with an empty seat separating them. I happened to glance back at the twins just in time to see Faith bend over the side of her car seat and reach down to grab something. And then, without warning, and certainly without provocation, she lifted a stick into the air and smacked her twin, Grace, across the top of the head with it.

“Hey! What are you doing?” I yelled at Faith, just as Grace let out a hideous wail. “She just picked up a stick and hauled off an hit Grace with it,” I reported to my sister.

“Where did she get a stick?” she asked. Then, “Faith, where did you get that stick?”

“In Grammy’s yard,” Faith admitted in a tiny voice. She had actually smuggled a large stick from my mother's yard into the car and kept it hidden for four hours, waiting for the perfect moment to beat the crap out of her sister.

“Why did you hit your sister?” Holly demanded.

“I don’t know.”

Holly and I debated for just a second on what to do. Should she wait until they got home to discipline Faith? There was no good place to get off the Interstate, so the safest thing would be to wait, we decided.

Then the two began struggling over the stick. Someone was going to end up bloody if we waited to do something. Holly pulled over onto the median, put the car into park, and then looked around for something to use as a paddle.

“Use the stick,” I suggested.

“It’s too big. It might really hurt them,” she said, hesitating.

Here,” I said, pulling off my flipflop and handing it to her.

She climbed into the back of that monster truck, pulled Faith out of her car seat, and used my all-time favorite flipflop to mete out punishment. Then she confiscated the stick. The rest of the trip, any time a kid let out a squeak, she held up the stick and said, “I’ll use this on you next time.”

When we got home, I stepped out of that Excursion and turned my ankle, causing the strap on the world's greatest flipflop to snap. Faith saw it happen. She grinned, picked up the stick that her mother had thrown into the yard, and carried it into the house.