Praying (and Playing) for Forgiveness

Some of my readers, all of whom wish to remain Anonymous, have recently pointed out that they believe I’m severely lacking in the forgiveness department.

They could be right.

My kid made it to the finals in a tennis tournament yesterday. I can’t resist bragging just a bit because he’s fourteen, and he was playing in the 16-year-old division. So it’s kind of cool that he made it to the finals, right?

It was cool until his 16-year-old opponent, who’s ranked 10th in the state, made some really bad calls. He cheated my kid!

I wanted to pull a Tonya Harding on him with my kid’s racquet. But that would have ruined an expensive racquet.

What’s the kid doing still playing 16s anyway? He’s ranked tenth in the state and probably should move on up to 18s if he’s hoping for a college scholarship.

I thought about sneaking out to the parking lot and slashing his fat father’s tires. The only problem was figuring out which beige suburban with the “I Love Tennis” bumper sticker belonged to fatty.

I mean, seriously? You’re sitting there with a Bluetooth device in your ear conducting business while your son is cheating a kid nearly two years younger than he is, and you’re proud?

You’re disgusting, your kid is disgusting, and I know a juco coach in Skankbutt, South Dakota, who would be very interested in recruiting him.

I'd also be willing to bet a can of ProPenn hard court balls that the balls you're playing with have lost their bounce.

But I’ve got to forgive. Move on. Let it go. Thank your son for the valuable lesson he taught my kid yesterday.

While I’m not quite at the level of enlightenment that would allow me to do what Jesus would do, I can muster the largesse to do as the bumper sticker on my golfcart asks: “What would Jimmy Buffett do?”

I’m pretty sure Jimmy would pray for him. Or maybe slide a roofing nail under the tire of that Suburban.

Forgive me, Lord.

Whatever is a Girl to Do?

I almost lost a dachshund. If I hadn’t been wearing my red Baywatch swimsuit the other day when Shirley fell into the pond, she would have drowned.

I was sitting on my back porch enjoying a rare day of sunshine when I heard a strange-sounding “thunk.”

I looked up to see that Shirley was in over her head. And given the fact that her legs are two inches long, she was not going to be able to pull herself out.

Thank God I was there. And thank God I didn’t have to do CPR, because there’s no telling what she’d eaten that day. But God knows I would have done anything to save that little dog because I love her and because I need the great anecdotes she consistently supplies, especially since I’m apparently allowed to only write about my pets.

My kids have already extracted a promise that I will not write about them without first securing permission concerning the subject matter. In fact, my oldest daughter didn’t speak to me for several weeks after the Mt. Rushmorgan entry.

My ex threatened to sue me for writing about him. Since he realized that I’m not liable for pointing out that he makes Alec Baldwin look like Mother Theresa, he’s taken to having the kids beg me not to write about him. So I’ll lay off him for a while but with this warning, one of my favorite quotes (and one he abhors): “If you don’t want it told, don’t do it.” That, by the way, is courtesy of the great modern-day philosopher Jimmy Buffett. We’ll cross our fingers, kids.

I can’t write about my church, either. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually written about my church. Probably because this is not a blog about church. But I won't write about my church because I'm tired of silly people thinking my blog is an appropriate place to vent their frustrations about a place I love.

And according to the blog trolls, I can’t write about my divorce, my faults, addiction, my taste for beer, or Tiger Woods. Or sex. Especially not sex.

Thankfully, one anonymous blog troll was kind enough to tell me what I’m allowed to write about. The person wrote, “Can you shut the heck up and focus on talking about your dogs, a bengal cat or whatever?"

Whatever? I wish someone would tell me the topics included in that category.

So Shirley almost died. I pulled her out, dried her off, and fried her an egg to comfort her. She licked the plate clean, then looked up at me and said, “I need to warn you that if you write about this incident in your little blog, I’m calling my lawyer.”

“Your lawyer? Since when do you have a lawyer?” I asked.

“Since I read your blog the other day on animal rights’ attorneys. I called the real estate attorney who lives down the street. He’s got some time on his hands these days, what with the real estate slowdown, and he said it was only a matter of time before we could slap you with a libel suit.”

She looked around the kitchen. “Before long, I’ll own this house, and you’ll be the maid. And I’ll require two eggs over easy and two slices of toast cut into one-inch cubes every morning.”

“Dammit! What am I going to write about now?” I asked my dog.

She burped and said, “I’d write about 'whatever.' But I wouldn’t piss off that cat. She’s already trying to kill you for calling her a tainted pussy.”

Whatever.

Year of the Prom Dress

For her seventeenth birthday, my younger daughter asked me for a prom gown. She’d had it picked out for a long time, this dress of her dreams. But no store in the Atlanta area had the dress in stock, so we were forced to order it online.

I know that ordering a dress online when she hasn’t even tried it on is, well, crazy. But about this time two years ago, a smallish package addressed to her big sister arrived on our doorstep. Big sister called home from work to ask if a package had come.

“Yes, what did you order?” I said.

“It’s my prom dress!” she happily shouted into the phone.

I looked at the box. It was exactly six inches square and two inches thick. Obviously, she wasn’t going to be wearing much to the prom.

But when she got home and opened the box and held that dress up, a long white Grecian style made of silky-sheer organza, it was so breathtakingly beautiful that I wanted to cry. That's her, above.

Ordering a prom dress online worked out in the past, so I confidently took younger sister’s measurements and compared them to the chart before placing the order. I paid for the dress with my American Express card, knowing full well that my pals at Amex really, really like me and that if the dress isn’t delivered to my satisfaction, they will take my word over thepromdress.com’s. Plus, we had just over two months until the prom. What could go wrong?

That was January 23. One month ago. We still haven’t received the dress. And now I’m nervous about canceling this order because what if it takes a month to get a replacement dress? I would have already filed a complaint with Amex and told thepromdress.com people what they can do with their dress, but my girl has her heart set on this dress. So I called the company last Friday and asked what the problem is.

The problem, it seems, is the Chinese New Year. I swear to God, they actually said that Chinese New Year has delayed the dress.

2010, it seems, is the Year of the Bad Customer Service.

Now, I haven’t thought about Chinese New Year in years, not since I decided that I like Thai food and sushi better than Chinese and stopped going to the restaurants with the Chinese calendars for placemats.

I remember looking at those placemats when I was a kid and thinking, Wow! 1993 is twenty years from now. I wonder where I’ll be in 1993, if the world hasn’t ended by then.

In 1993, I thought, Wow! The new millennium is almost here, and I wonder if Y2K is really something to worry about. Will the world as we know it end because of a computer glitch?

In 2002, I thought my world had actually ended. I was a sad, sad girl, having found out about my husband’s affair. I remember wondering if we would still be together ten years down the road, and I wondered if I would still hurt so badly in ten years.

I don’t wonder -- or even worry -- so much about the future any longer. I’ve learned that while details are highly unpredictable, I pretty much can set my clock (and calendar) by the fact that I’m in for a great ride. Or, as the Jimmy Buffett/Martina McBride song so poetically puts it:

I’m just hangin’ on while this old world keeps spinning
And it’s good to know it’s out of my control

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all this livin’

Is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go

I do wonder, however, if I will live to see April if a prom dress doesn’t arrive in March. And 2010, incidentally, is the Year of the Tiger. Maybe he can figure out a way to use the Chinese New Year excuse.

A Different Kind of Conversion

Last year, I bought a used six-seater golf cart to keep at the beach house for the purpose of hauling stuff out to the beach. It’s carrying capacity has been pushed to the limit, and that limit is two surfboards, a large cooler, five beach chairs, and five people. And while I love that my golf cart is vital to our beach enjoyment, that’s not the vehicle’s best feature. My favorite thing about the golf cart is that it’s the vehicle I can freely plaster with every funny bumper sticker I come across.

I have one proclaiming the title of my friend Hollis Gillespie’s book, Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch. It’s on the top of the windshield, and when my sister’s kids are in town, we fold the windshield down so they can’t see the bad word. I have a Darth Vader sticker asking “Who’s Your Daddy?” I have one posing the question “What Would Scooby Doo?”

But my favorite is one I found several years ago at the Orlando Margaritaville with a line I’ve heard Jimmy Buffett say many times, one I think is profound. It says, “There’s a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.”

My son, Hunter, said to me the other day in regards to that bumper sticker, “Mom, that’s like in the Simpsons movie when everyone thought they were going to die. The people in the church ran to the bar, and the people in the bar ran to the church.”

And that reminded about the story of my uncle Wierdie, my mom’s brother. His name is Ed, short for Edward. Years ago, his siblings kindly changed “Edward” to “Edweird,” which got shortened to “Wierdie,” and the name stuck.

Wierdie is sixty-two years old, and he’s never been married. He’s a former military sharpshooter who lives on ten very secure acres south of Griffin, Georgia, with his dog, Sambo, who happens to love turnips. In fact, Wierdie rewards his dog's good behavior by saying, “Sam, go dig yourself a turnip.” And Sambo will run to the garden, dig himself up a turnip, and eat the whole thing.

Sambo also loves beer. In the late afternoon, Wierdie will pour a beer into his dog’s dish, then pop the top on his own beer, and the two will watch the sun go down together over a couple of cold ones.

But Sambo hasn’t always been Wierdie’s drinking buddy. He used to have a crowd of friends at his favorite bar, Doug’s, until Doug sold the place and the new owners closed the bar.

Doug sold the place to a church. So Wierdie’s bar, his home away from home -- his sanctuary, if you will -- has been converted into a place where he doesn’t feel quite at home.

He was invited to attend, of course, but he didn’t exactly want to be converted, just like he didn’t want his bar to be converted. Before, Doug listened with a sympathetic ear. Now, it’s a stranger telling everyone else what to do. Before, the place was open every day of the week. Now, the doors are open only on Sundays and Wednesdays. The bar itself has been replaced with a pulpit. Barstools are now pews. The pool table’s been replaced by a communion table.

The theme song from the old show Cheers expressed this truth about human nature: “You wanna go where everyone knows your name.” That’s exactly the reason why Wierdie loved Doug’s. And since no one at the church really wants to know his name, his real name, and never bothered to ask how in the world he came to be called “Wierdie,” he now drinks with his dog.

Jimmy Buffett is right about there being a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Because even though the bar is now a church, and everything about the place has changed, there’s one thing that has stayed the same. The sign out front still reads, “A spirit-filled place.”

Using My Diploma as A Paint Rag

I clearly remember the day when I realized I might get more use out of my college diploma if I turned it into a wet wipe.

Hunter was almost three, Lauren was five, and Morgan was seven. We were living in the basement of our house while the main level was being remodeled. I checked to make sure all three kids were engrossed in Rugrats and then jumped into the shower.

When I turned the water off, I heard Roger, the man who was working on the house, yelling at me from the top of the stairs. "Sandi, you gotta come up here now!" he hollered.

I pulled on a pair of jogging shorts and an ratty old Jimmy Buffett t-shirt bearing the words "I'm the woman to blame." My hair was still dripping from the shower as I raced up the stairs to see what was wrong with Roger.

"You gotta come quick," he yelled from the garage. I ran outside to find him and Hunter were standing next to my new red Ford Expedition. A can of white spray paint lay on the ground by Hunter's feet, and there was a line of spray paint all the way down the side of the vehicle. The gas cap cover was open, and the entire inside of the little compartment was painted white.

"I pulled into the driveway, and Hunter was holding the can," Roger said. "I asked him, 'Hunter did you do that,' and he said, 'No, my mama did it.'"

I turned to Hunter. "You painted my car and then lied to Roger about it?" I asked.

"No. I didn't do it. Roger did it," the kid brazenly lied.

"Dude, I am going to deal with you later. And you are in so much trouble, you have no idea what is about to happen to you," I said, picking him up and buckling him into his car seat in the Expedition.

While Roger watched Hunter to make sure he didn't get out of the car and finish the paint job, I ran downstairs, threw on a pair of flip flops, and herded the girls upstairs and into the car. Lauren paused in the garage to throw a fit because he'd not only painted my car, but he'd also taken the spray paint to her PowerWheels jeep.

We flew to Shorty's, a car wash and detailing shop a couple of miles from the house. I put the car in park, threatened the kids that they would die and Santa would never again come to our house if they got out of their carseats, and ran inside begging for someone to come quick.

A young teenage guy followed me out to the car. He whistled when he saw the paint. "Geez, lady, what happened?"

"My kid painted the car." The teenager started laughing. He walked back into the shop and came out with a couple jugs of Goof-Off and some rags. He started at the front end of the car, and I started at the back. It took us over an hour, but we got every bit of that paint off, except for the part inside the gas compartment. I left that as a souvenir.

Hunter still remembers painting the car. And he remembers getting in trouble for painting the car. I remember walking back into the house, looking at my college diploma hanging on the wall, and thinking that on that day, a couple old paint rags and a can of Goof-Off had been more useful.