Another Open Letter:

To My Dachshunds: I really hated putting you back in the car for the drive to Atlanta. I honestly thought we’d be in St. Augustine permanently. And I sincerely apologize for being so discombobulated by the news that there was water pouring from the basement of the Atlanta house that I mistakenly gave everyone Shirley’s thyroid medication instead of Benadryl. (They’re both pink, an easy mistake to make when you’re upset). Laverne and Squiggy, the vet assures me you’ll have no lingering effects.

To the Nice Policeman: I know my story sounded ridiculous, but I guess you were persuaded by the fact that I did have three dachshunds and very little luggage in my car. Or was it because I had apparently foregone the shower? Surely I had to be telling the truth about throwing the dogs in the car and leaving for Atlanta quickly when I heard about the water damage of epic proportions. Whatever your reason for giving me a break, I do know it was not due to the rumor that you let beautiful women off with just a warning. Because I looked and smelled like the south end of a northbound mule train. You were very kind to tear that ticket up.

To the Damage Restoration Guys: Sammy, Drake, and Tony from Servicemaster, you are my heroes. Thank you. And thanks to my neighbor, Diana, and my lawn girl, Kim, for noticing the water flooding from under the basement doors.

To my Insurance Company: No, I did not go down to my basement every afternoon and bang on the water heater with a hammer. No, I did not try to flood my basement on purpose just to get a new treadmill. A new one would not make me love running, believe me. The old one worked perfectly for watching a dachshund jump on and get thrown off. And no, your argument that my policy excludes standing water damage does not apply. The water was running out from under the basement doors.

To the Other Policeman: I swear I wasn’t checking my Facebook while driving 90 in a 55. I was Googling Servicemaster.

To My Dachshunds: Biting the Servicemaster guy was completely uncalled for. He is our friend.

To Drake, the Servicemaster Guy: I apologize for the dachshunds. They’re cranked up on thyroid medication. The vet said there are no lasting effects, but then again, this is the vet who can’t be certain whether or not he effectively spayed the cat.

Grandad's Tooth

I greeted my grandfather with a quick hug and then slid into the booth opposite him at our regular Friday lunch spot. As a young man, he was a fiery redhead with the proverbial temper to match the hair. Now, at eighty-six, he has the same amount of hair that he had fifty years ago, only it’s as white as the porcelain veneers replacing his top front teeth. And his temper must have vanished along with the hair color, because in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never once seen it.

“How’s it going, Grandad?” I asked, and when he opened his mouth to reply that everything was “alright,” I noticed he was missing a lower front tooth.

“Grandad, what happened to your tooth?” I asked, horrified. We meet for lunch every Friday, and the Friday before, there had been no gap.

“Aww, that tooth was bothering me, so I took a pair of pliers and yanked it out,” he shrugged.

Good Lord. Somewhere, a dentist is cringing, and a Tooth Fairy is impressed enough to waive the age limit and contemplate payment for that lost tooth. But it begs the question of why on earth an eighty-six-year-old man would pull his own tooth.

I’m tempted to say it was money. A child of the Depression, Grandad remembers barely having enough money to buy food, much less money to pay a dentist. Toothaches were cured with a swig of homemade corn whiskey and a pair of pliers.

He and my grandmother married during World War Two, and they had two sons. After the war, he tried farming, but the farm failed. Paying a dentist would have been low on the list of priorities at that time, probably akin to paying $4 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks these days. Unable to make the monthly payment on the farm they were renting, he was forced to look for work in Atlanta, a half-day’s drive from the place where he and his wife had been raised.

He found work at the Army Depot in Forest Park, and they moved to the south side of Atlanta with their two young sons. He opened a vending machine business on the side. The business prospered, and they lived happily and comfortably, enjoying their children and grandchildren. They even caught up on the dental care they’d neglected in their younger years. Grandmom had extensive work done to save teeth damaged by childhood malnutrition. And Grandad replaced several top teeth with those beautiful veneers.

In their retirement, they were able to purchase a second home on a lake in the valley where they had grown up. They were married fifty-nine years, three months and one week, and then my grandmother died of pancreatic cancer. He still wears his wedding band, and to this day, his eyes fill with tears at the mention of her name.

Several months after he pulled his own tooth, during our regular Friday lunch, conversation turned to how much money he had lost in the recent stock market declines.

“Nearly eleven thousand dollars,” he lamented, adding that the stock market would eventually come back but that he probably wouldn’t be around long enough to see it. Then he said, “I paid that much for a set of teeth one time, so I guess it’s all relative.”

It wasn’t the money, then. He had enough money, certainly, to pay a dentist to pull that tooth.

And it’s not like he didn’t have access to a dentist. Our family dentist is also a close family friend who on occasion makes house calls. For instance, my little niece Kate fell and nearly knocked out a front tooth when she was two. Her mother, my sister, called Dr. Al, who immediately jumped on his jet ski and came across the lake to look at her tooth. Early the next morning, he did an emergency root canal on a two year old to save a tooth that will soon fall out on its own. Why? “Because the baby needs to be beautiful,” he crooned in his sexy Cuban voice.

He would have done exactly the same thing for Grandad. So it wasn’t the lack of money or lack of access to dental care that prompted him to pull his own tooth. I wondered it perhaps the pain had been so intense Grandad couldn’t wait to see the doctor.

I don’t think so. Historically, our family members have possessed an extremely high pain threshold. My six-year-old twin nieces, Faith and Grace, recently discovered they each had a first loose tooth, so newly loose, in fact, that the movement was barely perceptible. The twins are competitive, though, competitive enough that Grace locked herself in her gandmother’s bathroom the next afternoon and worked that tooth until she had it out just so that she could be the first to lose a tooth. Of course, we all laughed that we knew where she’d gotten the idea to pull the tooth out herself, and we offered thanks for the fact that she hadn’t had access to any pliers at the time.

But again, what would possess the man to pull a tooth with a pair of pliers?

I stared at the hole between his front lower teeth and realized that before me sat a man who had, as a child, wondered if he would go to bed hungry. He had marched into liberated concentration camps at the end of the Second World War and been assigned the gruesome task of helping bury the stacks of bodies. In his lifetime, he has experienced pain in many different forms.

He pulled his own tooth precisely because he was not afraid of the pain. Seven years before, he had helplessly watched as the love of his life suffered with pancreatic cancer, and that’s the kind of pain that gets to my Grandad, the particular pain he simply has no threshold for.

Wouldn’t it be nice if that kind of pain could be solved with a pair of pliers and some corn whiskey? Compared to the pain of losing Grandmom, pulling his own tooth was nothing. Just like he said, it’s all relative.

Karmic Kitties

My friend Jan adopted a stray cat several years ago and very responsibly took the cat to be spayed. Unfortunately for the cat, the vet cut her open to perform the surgery only to find that she had already been spayed.

Several months later, Jan came home from the grocery store and, after bringing in one load of groceries, got distracted and forgot to retrieve the rest. When she remembered, she went outside to discover her cat dangling from the closed trunk by its leg. Apparently, the cat had jumped into the trunk hoping to find something yummy, and the defective spring on Jan’s trunk had given way, closing the trunk on the poor kitty’s leg. Jan’s husband, an emergency room physician, insisted that the major artery feeding the leg had been irreparably damaged and that the leg would have to be amputated. But Jan, responding that he was a “people doctor” and not a “cat doctor,” insisted they try to save the leg. Following a $1300 surgical attempt to salvage the limb, the vet called to tell Jan her husband had been correct. The leg was amputated.

The cat went on to live a relatively happy life, I guess, despite two unnecessary surgeries and the hassles of balancing on three legs. When she developed rectal cancer, there was an unsuccessful attempt to remove the tumor before she was mercifully sent to kitty heaven.

Jan called me several days after the cat died. She was annoyed because the vet had sent a sympathy card reading, “On the death of your four-legged friend.”

“They didn’t even know my cat!” she complained. “They’re the ones who removed her leg. Of all people, they should have known my cat had three legs!”

I tried not to laugh, but it was just too funny. And I’ve told that story often, usually commenting that I wonder what the cat did in a previous life to deserve that kind of existence. Whatever you want to call it, that idea that we get what we give, it’s a fact that sometimes karma’s a real bitch. Somehow, what we put out there always comes back.

I should know, because I laughed at Jan and her cat, and here's what happened: in the past month, my son’s dog had a leg amputated, and Lauren’s Bengal cat, the one who had already been spayed, was in heat.

I called the vet, who claimed it was “impossible” that she was in heat. “We take out BOTH ovaries when we spay,” the receptionist said when I called to make the appointment.

“But she’s trying to escape the house, and there’s blood,” I answered. So they told me to bring her in. And in the examination room, the vet began making strange chirping noises.

“What are you doing?” Lauren asked.

“That’s the noise they make when they’re in heat,” he explained. “I’m trying to get a reaction out of her.” And that was the extent of the examination. He shrugged and said, “We removed both ovaries, so she can’t be in heat. The blood must be the result of a rectal issue.”

So the $1000 kitty with malodorous diarrhea (see the August 26 post for an explanation) is now constipated. And Lauren's daddy, the man responsible for giving me this tainted pussy, now refuses to take the cat until he can get a fence built in his backyard. Apparently, the idiot is hoping to build a fence that will contain an exotic wildcat who may or may not be in heat.

But I'm not going to laugh at him. I'm afraid he might come back to me.

Collecting Sweatshirts

I cleaned out my closet recently in preparation for my move to Florida. I knew it was time to get rid of some things when I realized I couldn’t see the Bon Jovi poster hanging on the wall. I started with my stack of sweatshirts that I no longer wear, since living in Florida means I won't need so many.

There was the U.S. Open sweatshirt from way back in 2004, the year Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Elena Dementieva for the women’s title and Roger Federer began his domination of the hard courts in Flushing Meadows. I put it in the pile to give away but then pulled it out. That trip was just too good a time to part with the only memento I possess.

I have a green sweatshirt from New York University. My daughter, Morgan, brought it back for me when she made her campus visit. My girl left for college last week, and given how proud I am of her, I will never be able to part with that NYU shirt.

The same goes for my grey University of Hawaii sweatshirt. Several years ago, my family hosted an exchange student from Lithuania. Petras now plays basketball for the University of Hawaii, and last December, my mother and I spent a week together on Waikiki Beach. We enjoyed great books and pina coladas during the day and cheered for Hawaii in the evenings. Unfortunately, Hawaii lost the Rainbow Classic tournament despite all the spirit I showed by purchasing a University of Hawaii shirt. But the shirt reminds me of a well-spent week with my mom, and it also speaks to how someone from the other side of the world can so quickly become a permanent family member. I’ll have it until the sleeves fall off it.

I also have a grey Oxford University shirt, one I obtained by accident. I took my three teenagers to England two summers ago, and we boarded a bus early one morning for a trip to Oxford, Windsor Castle, and Shakespeare’s home. To my complete consternation, we were hurried through our tour of the Oxford. I actually had to beg our tour guide to give me ten minutes to buy my kids each an Oxford University shirt. Somehow, I also ended up with the sweatshirt the guy in line in front of me paid for. I didn’t notice until our tour bus broke down an hour later and we were stranded on the side of the road in the chilly rain somewhere between Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. I opened the bag to hand my kids their sweatshirts and found the extra one, which I gratefully pulled over my tank top. A serendipitous sweatshirt that was free – life doesn’t provide many of those, so it’s surely a keeper.

By now, you might be wondering if I found one with which I could actually part.

I pulled out of the pile a navy blue sweatshirt with a banana on the front. Circling the banana are the words, “This sh*t is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S,” two lines from a Gwen Stefani song that was popular about four years ago. I bought it at her concert in November 2005, the same week I filed for divorce. It became my divorce uniform, my protest against the whole situation. I even wore it to my attorney’s office on the day I signed the settlement agreement that ended my 19-year marriage.

That’s the one I put in the give-away pile. Sometimes you just know when it’s time to let something go.

An Open Letter to Those Who Crossed My Path Today . . .

To My Dachshunds: We’re moving to Florida today. Although your brains are the size of walnuts, I have to give you credit for the incredible intelligence you’ve shown in choosing to move with me. Trust me, Benadryl will help you sleep comfortably during the drive to St. Augustine. And for your future entertainment, the new invisible fence is configured so that the UPS guy will have to get by you to reach the front porch.

To L’Donna in the fancy fuschia Cadillac: Your car is lovely, and I’m envious of the vanity plate with your name on it, but I feel compelled to tell you that driving 80 miles per hour on I-75 while scratching your braids with those 3” nails and talking on the cell phone leaves no hands on the steering wheel.

To My Children: I love you. I stayed married to your dad when I knew he was cheating on me because I didn’t want to break up your home. In the years since the divorce, I’ve tried to keep as many things in your life the same as always. But as much as I try, I can’t live in your father’s path. I’m afraid for my health if I don’t get out of his orbit. It breaks my heart that you’ve chosen to live with him, but I understand that you want to avoid change. All you need to know is that the day you call and tell me you want to come live with me, I’ll be in the car on my way to get you.

To the Rednecks in the jacked-up F-350: Today’s race is at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, not on I-75.

To the Woman in the Hyundai Santa Fe: Violently yanking your steering wheel while trying to change lanes at 90 miles per hour is what’s causing your SUV to careen onto two wheels. Ease into those lane changes, sweetie, and you won’t flip that damn piece of aluminum.

To the Woman at the Chick-Fil-A- in Tifton: Asking for five orders of bacon at a crowded fast food restaurant is not going to win you any friends. And saying to the sweet teenager waiting on you, “I want five orders of bacon, and don’t interrupt me until I finish giving you my order,” made me want to yank all the hairs off of your head. Here’s the problem: Chick-Fil-A doesn’t have “orders of bacon” on its menu. They cook bacon for their Club Sandwiches. Buy five sandwiches and take the bacon out of them if you must have bacon. You want only bacon? Marry a pig. Chick-Fil-A doesn’t have someone in the back cooking bacon just for some nitwit on the Atkins Diet.

To the Teenager Who Ran His Car off I-10 into a Swamp: Can you please talk to the lady in the Hyundai? She’s about to do what you just did.

To My Ex-Husband: I kind of understand your wanting a younger, tighter, stupider woman. She makes you look smarter and wealthier. I also kind of understand your hiding money in Costa Rica so that you don’t have to pay me the settlement I deserve. But here’s what I don’t understand: you got what you wanted, so why can’t you leave me alone now? Why do you torture and harass me more than two years after the divorce was final? You remind me of the woman in Chick-Fil-A today, someone with irrational and unreasonable ideas of how other people should accommodate you. Here’s the deal, you stupid man: I have bacon. And it’s good bacon. But you can’t have it, not at any price. It’s going to someone who wants the whole club sandwich, someone who will appreciate the value of a combo meal. Someone who doesn’t ask for the bacon in exchange for a little sausage.

To the Dachshunds: I told the UPS guy you can be bought with bacon.

Stories from Church

The lavalier microphone was invented in the late 1950s and first used nationally during television broadcasts of the 1960 Republican and Democratic conventions.

The device was named after a particular pendant worn by the Duchess de la Valierre, a mistress of Louis XIV, because it is most often clipped at the neckline.

The church purchased its first lavalier mic in the 1980s, thus freeing the pastoral staff to roam the stage while speaking. Dad loved it. The ability to forget about speaking directly into the microphone and the freedom from being confined to a two-foot square during a forty-five minute sermon seemed to add a new vigor to his sermons.

It also gave a certain music teacher the freedom to strut down the aisle dressed in a red, white, and blue sequined and starred vest singing Neil Diamond's “We’re Coming to America” while backed up by sixty elementary-school children.

But with great freedom comes great responsibility. Unfortunately, the lavalier was so tiny one might occasionally forget it was attached and that it was turned on.

During a four-year-old-kindergarten graduation program a few years ago, as the children were filing in and filling up the stage, the young emcee, wearing a dark suit and a lavalier mic, leaned over to the boy next to him and, not knowing he was “on,” whispered, “This is BULLSHIT!”

Needless to say, Dad was completely aware of the dangers of having the equivalent of three megaphones four inches from his face. For nearly twenty years, he successfully avoided doing what we once saw depicted in a church cartoon. A pastor leans over to his associate pastor following a lovely operatic version of “O Holy Night” and whispers, “The fat lady has sung. Can we just go home?”

But early one Sunday late in his career, as the choir and orchestra were rehearsing for the morning performances, the unthinkable happened. Over the speakers came a tinkling sound followed by the unmistakable “whoosh” of a flushing toilet. He emerged from the restroom to hear uproarious laughter coming from the auditorium, and he immediately realized he was “on.”

Thankfully, he had remembered to wash his hands.

Color Coding

One of the things I love about little kids is the lack of inhibition when it comes to what they say. But I only love that trait in other peoples’ kids. Mine regularly embarrassed the hell out of me when they were young.

Morgan, for instance, was enthralled with black people. When she was only three, my brother, Beau, and his new wife, Kim, wheeled her in her stroller up to the Chick-Fil-A at Southlake Mall to order lunch. When they reached the front of the line, Morgan stood up in her stroller, pointed at the server, and shouted, “Look, Beau! She’s chocolate!” My new sister-in-law was mortified.

Two weeks later, Morgan and I were in the elevator right in the middle of Southlake Mall. The doors opened, and a young black woman entered, pushing her baby in a stroller. Morgan turned to me, and pointing back to the baby, said, “Mom! That baby’s chocolate!” Fortunately, the mother had a sense of humor. She burst out laughing and said, “You’re right, sweetie. He IS chocolate.”

How do you explain racial etiquette to a young child? I wondered how to tell Morgan that she couldn’t call people “chocolate.” I knew what she would say – “But they are chocolate.”

I finally just started telling her and her little sister, Lauren, that it is not good manners to talk about what color people are. Some people have darker skin than others do, but we’re all people, and God loves us just the way we are. I said it enough that Morgan finally stopped calling people “chocolate.”

Lauren handled the situation a little differently. One afternoon, a friend of her father’s came to our house. After she warmed up to him, she grabbed him by the hand and led him to the glass door that opened out to our backyard. Knowing she would get in trouble for talking about his skin color, she pointed to our little dachshund and said in her most matter-of-fact voice, “That’s my dog, Betsy. She’s black, too.”