Best Answer to "How Was School Today?"

Mommy who?

We are now two months into preschool and the girls run off into the building gleefully like I am yesterday's news. I have a long history of being treated like that by men, but my own children? I don't think so! I am a vengeful sort so I started plotting how to get back at them for disposing of me so easily. "If you can so callously be without me for 2 hours and 45 minutes," I thought, "then let's see how you do if I go back to work full time and you only see me two hours TOTAL per day! Maybe you'll miss me then!" Of course that would require me to actually work and we all know how against that I am. Alas, I am still scheming. Preferably I'll come upon a plan that punishes them but doesn't at all negatively impact me.  I'm not even sure I'm still employable as I have trouble making pleasant conversation with other adults. Unpleasant, certainly. But from what I vaguely recall that doesn't fly in the workplace.

So every day I ask the same tired question I assume all mothers across the world ask: "How was school today?" Usually I get mish mash of toddler gossip like someone wet their pants or another bit an unsuspecting fellow pupil who dared to grab a purple crayon or similar. But one day. Ah, one day I got this courtesy of Lulu:

"I was afraid to ask the teacher for a tissue so I wiped boogers all over my dress."

I'm so against the word boogers that I didn't even know how to spell it. I had to look it up. So you can imagine if I don't like writing it how I felt about knowing my daughter's dress was covered in them.

In other news, my mother came to visit as she does quite often and we took a pleasant sojourn to the park where we overheard a father tell his daughter that if she didn't put on her shoes the police would come and take her away to jail. That was two months ago and my mother was so horrified she's still not over it. Whenever she calls, she'll ask, "Have you seen that no-good father who threatens his three-year-old with jail?" I got sick of saying no so last time she asked that question I said, why yes, in fact I saw social services hauling the kid away as she exclaimed happily, "Thank you for saving me from my awful mean father!" I think mom can now sleep at night.

During that same park excursion, there was some dumb kid sitting right under the monkey bars where he could get hit by swinging feet as his dumber mother stood there saying things like, "You have two choices. You can get out of the way or you can get hit in the head." After several minutes of this, I told Moxley she could go ahead and swing on over him and if he got a concussion so be it. Shortly thereafter, another dumb kid wouldn't give Lulu a turn on the slide and he just sat there blocking it. I told him to move it and he tried to give me an explanation, one that started with, "Well, I am waiting for my sister blah blah blah" to which I replied, "I don't care if you're waiting for God himself. Move it!" at which point my mother said to me: "You seem awfully angry. Why are you so angry?" My question is why did it take her 40+ years and a jaunt to a park filled with annoying children for her to notice this about my personality?

Speaking of God, my kids are beginning to ask questions about him. Except they think his name is Ga-Gon for some reason. "Why does Ga-Gon live in the clouds?" they asked. "Who?" I replied. "Ga-Gon. He is really nice and lives in the sky." "Oh," I said, "you mean God?" "No, Ga-Gon!" Then last night Lulu asked if Ga-Gon lived in a castle or if he got wet when it rained. Which, when you think about it, is  actually a very good question.

I also have some deep thoughts on the CMAs: Did the country music powers that be think that by putting Lionel Richie up on stage with Darius Rucker thereby having the only two African American people in the entire room in one place under one roof it would debunk the theory that country music is racist? "Look here!" the producers must have said patting themselves on the back. "Two black performers on stage AT THE SAME TIME! Who are they calling racist???" Dancing on the ceiling indeed. And while we're discussing dancing, might I point out that Faith Hill has no rhythm? Did you see her hop around the stage to her new song as though there was an entirely DIFFERENT song being played? Sheesh. Ask Tim to cough up some money for dance lessons, sweetheart! And get a new hairdresser while you're at it.

One more thing: I just came from Traders Joe's which I normally delegate to my husband because making undesirable small talk with the cashiers deeply upsets me. I by far prefer the surly rudeness of the  Jewel staff. But I think I finally figured out how the interview process works at Trader Joes. The first phase involves weeding out anyone who seems remotely normal. The second phase requires giving the applicant one simple command in the interview: "Tell us about yourself." If the person can talk nonstop for 30 minutes straight without coming up for air they get the job. Bonus points with a direct line to a managerial position if they somehow work in a story about their pet ferret.

I am going to start posting more. Really. This time I mean it.