Browsing the aisles of a fashionista discount store, I look up to see a small 6-or-so-year-old boy coming at me around the corner. As soon as he spotted my body -not even making eye contact at this point, he spouts a hearty, singsong "Hi there!" at me. He is closely followed by a pair of tall, thin, smirking parental units who immediately chime in a "he's so CUTE" tone of voice, "Atticus!" over the top of my smiling, even-toned "Hi" reply. There is so much to take in all at once as they round the corner away from me that I don't get a good look at them -but, I will be able to follow their progress throughout the store for quite a few minutes.
OK, I'll just say it -who names their kid Atticus? It rang pompus in my ears on their initial utterance, and that thought continued to escalate unabated as I heard again and again, "Atticus!, Atticus, Atticus!" My mental picture of those smirking faces remained strong and my annoyance grew in tandem with their insatiable desire to loudly utter his name repeatedly. I imagined them grabbing him from behind under his armpits and hoisting him high above their heads Lion King style, parading him around the store for all to see while simultaneously chanting that arrogant name -in effect, shouting "Look -we named our child Atticus -he's Atticus! He's special! He's precocious -really, how many 6-year-olds do you know who greet you with the adult-talking-to-a-toddler statement, "Hey, there!" Yes! We have an Atticus -a real life little big man Atticus! He's Atticus, Atticus, Atticus!"
Maybe I've grown cynical in my middle age. I must admit I was a tad aghast when my son named his newly acquired (from me) female kitten Artemis, after having been previously dubbed Roxy, short for Roxy Raccoon, which she strongly resembled, by my husband. It's a mouthful and sounds masculine. But, after all, it's a cat, now living miles away in Brooklyn and I can always slip a few Roxy's her way and no one will be the wiser. But that kid's name paired with the incessant repetition of it by his parents throughout the store was too much.
Some words of advice: if you are naming a child, rest assured that choosing Atticus will ensure he's the only one on his block, in his preschool, in his college and probably on the planet with such a unique name. Which usually translates into drawing extra attention under normal circumstances, but might snowball into a synonym for a cuss word given enough questionable acts on his part in any given social circle. Do you really want to see eyes roll every time his name comes up? Think about the inevitable nick names -Atti? Cus? Ticus? Tic (never pronounced Teek, no matter how hard you try to enforce it ). Buck up and pick something more substantial. For the sake of all of us, don't name your boy Atticus! And if he needs correction in a public place -just softly tell him what you want him to do -or just give him "the look." It's just too stressful for the rest of us otherwise.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Driving With Dad
Dad cut his fatherhood teeth on me, the eldest of six kids. This was never more apparent than one day when he was teaching me to drive in the family station wagon. It was a huge white Plymouth without power steering, so it took a good amount of muscling to get it to go where you wanted to go when you wanted to go there.
We were sailing down North West Street Road at the allotted speed limit when Dad told me to turn right at the next country intersection. “OK,” I said, heading straight down the road with the intention of turning as Dad had requested. I cautiously glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed another car following me quite closely. I accelerated a little bit, and so did it. I accelerated a little more, and it did likewise. “Turn right at the next intersection,” came the calm reminder from the passenger seat. “I’m going to!”
Suddenly, the intersection was upon us and so was the car behind us. “Turn right,” Dad reminded me strongly –and I did. The big wagon lurched right, flying around the corner with the right side wheels leaving the ground, followed by the car slamming back down onto the pavement and me wildly sweating, grunting and pulling the steering wheel this way and that, managing to stay on the roadway with Dad screaming, “Christ Almighty!” and diving under the dashboard beside me. This was in the days with no seat belts, so I’m not sure what he clung onto, but he remained in the car and had no visible heart symptoms until years later. Oh yeah, I broke Dad in for the other five just fine that afternoon.
His only other response after catching his breath, crawling back onto the seat and looking around in amazement, was “WHY didn’t you slow down?” To which I replied, “you didn’t tell me to.”
We were sailing down North West Street Road at the allotted speed limit when Dad told me to turn right at the next country intersection. “OK,” I said, heading straight down the road with the intention of turning as Dad had requested. I cautiously glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed another car following me quite closely. I accelerated a little bit, and so did it. I accelerated a little more, and it did likewise. “Turn right at the next intersection,” came the calm reminder from the passenger seat. “I’m going to!”
Suddenly, the intersection was upon us and so was the car behind us. “Turn right,” Dad reminded me strongly –and I did. The big wagon lurched right, flying around the corner with the right side wheels leaving the ground, followed by the car slamming back down onto the pavement and me wildly sweating, grunting and pulling the steering wheel this way and that, managing to stay on the roadway with Dad screaming, “Christ Almighty!” and diving under the dashboard beside me. This was in the days with no seat belts, so I’m not sure what he clung onto, but he remained in the car and had no visible heart symptoms until years later. Oh yeah, I broke Dad in for the other five just fine that afternoon.
His only other response after catching his breath, crawling back onto the seat and looking around in amazement, was “WHY didn’t you slow down?” To which I replied, “you didn’t tell me to.”
Confessions Of An Intimidated Shopper
I never could go garage sale-ing. I didn’t have the guts. It somehow felt like trespassing to wander up a strange driveway, and voyeuristic to browse through other people’s items. It seemed judgmental to ponder the worth of the tagged prices and the condition of the items. But most of all, it felt downright insulting to wander through someone’s offerings and walk away without buying anything. I felt obligated to buy. Otherwise what was I doing there in the first place? Why’d I even come if I wasn’t a serious shopper? And what if I inadvertently bought something that some poor person who came haplessly behind me really needed? After all, I didn’t really need anything at all, really.
I especially hated to come upon a sale that involved “multiple families,” where all those family members sat en masse and collectively stared at you staring at all of their offered items. How could you possibly share a comment or a look with all that going on around you? And some things just demand vocal or facial comment. I also resented the overly ambitious garage sale hosts who felt compelled to tell you the story behind each item and its great, magnified worth based upon whatever imaginary original price they had dreamed up as plausible when they sized you up during your approach.
So, how did I manage to end up with two fooseball tables, two pairs of downhill skis, a kids play table, two storage bins of toys, hockey sticks and skates and a pile of various other garage sale items too numerous to mention, as well as a dining room set and lamp for my parents, a small one-cup coffee maker for my son and an AbLounger for my other daughter ? Well, chalk it up to spending a little time with a shameless daughter and some latent family tendencies toward addiction and hoarding.
I started accompanying my daughter mainly as a sidekick to watch over my grandsons at each sale site. In the beginning, I bought nothing, but I learned a lot through observation. My daughter greeted each sale host with a smile and comment as she arrived –something I never thought to do, so caught up was I in my ruminations on mandatory buying. She had absolutely no qualms about foraging through things, picking them up, asking questions about them, then buying nothing and guiltlessly moving on. I was amazed. But I did notice she would smile and shout, “thank you,” as she walked away empty handed –and they would smile back, nod and look satisfied –truly amazing.
I first bought toys for my two grandsons that I had no doubt they would like, as I’d had to pry them from their tight-fisted little hands to pay for them. We acquired plastic little person bikes for when they visit us and for my parents house. I branched out into other recreational items –and even though the hockey sticks turned out to be left-handed and the skates flew apart on their first run around the icy lake, they were still good buys because I got them for a song, albeit buyer beware. While I have no true obligation to buy, the sellers have no obligatory law for disclosure. And I’ve discovered garage sales are plentiful in every community –if I buy what someone else needs, there will be another one at another sale. Sellers get rid of things they no longer need or want and buyers take a chance on items they’d like to try out without forking over full retail price for them –everybody wins. But watch out –there’s something a little addictive about the thrill of the hunt in garage sale-ing and unintentional hoarding could result. You must be willing to walk away from the steal of the century find if, well, if you truly don’t need it. Period.
A final tip –here’s how to tell if it’s a good garage sale –if the seller feels like s/he’s giving it away and the buyer feels like s/he’s stealing it –it’s a good sale! And rest assured, there will always be another garage sale on another day –always.
I especially hated to come upon a sale that involved “multiple families,” where all those family members sat en masse and collectively stared at you staring at all of their offered items. How could you possibly share a comment or a look with all that going on around you? And some things just demand vocal or facial comment. I also resented the overly ambitious garage sale hosts who felt compelled to tell you the story behind each item and its great, magnified worth based upon whatever imaginary original price they had dreamed up as plausible when they sized you up during your approach.
So, how did I manage to end up with two fooseball tables, two pairs of downhill skis, a kids play table, two storage bins of toys, hockey sticks and skates and a pile of various other garage sale items too numerous to mention, as well as a dining room set and lamp for my parents, a small one-cup coffee maker for my son and an AbLounger for my other daughter ? Well, chalk it up to spending a little time with a shameless daughter and some latent family tendencies toward addiction and hoarding.
I started accompanying my daughter mainly as a sidekick to watch over my grandsons at each sale site. In the beginning, I bought nothing, but I learned a lot through observation. My daughter greeted each sale host with a smile and comment as she arrived –something I never thought to do, so caught up was I in my ruminations on mandatory buying. She had absolutely no qualms about foraging through things, picking them up, asking questions about them, then buying nothing and guiltlessly moving on. I was amazed. But I did notice she would smile and shout, “thank you,” as she walked away empty handed –and they would smile back, nod and look satisfied –truly amazing.
I first bought toys for my two grandsons that I had no doubt they would like, as I’d had to pry them from their tight-fisted little hands to pay for them. We acquired plastic little person bikes for when they visit us and for my parents house. I branched out into other recreational items –and even though the hockey sticks turned out to be left-handed and the skates flew apart on their first run around the icy lake, they were still good buys because I got them for a song, albeit buyer beware. While I have no true obligation to buy, the sellers have no obligatory law for disclosure. And I’ve discovered garage sales are plentiful in every community –if I buy what someone else needs, there will be another one at another sale. Sellers get rid of things they no longer need or want and buyers take a chance on items they’d like to try out without forking over full retail price for them –everybody wins. But watch out –there’s something a little addictive about the thrill of the hunt in garage sale-ing and unintentional hoarding could result. You must be willing to walk away from the steal of the century find if, well, if you truly don’t need it. Period.
A final tip –here’s how to tell if it’s a good garage sale –if the seller feels like s/he’s giving it away and the buyer feels like s/he’s stealing it –it’s a good sale! And rest assured, there will always be another garage sale on another day –always.
Patches
It was a blisteringly hot summer’s day when he walked into my life. Staring absently out the family room window at a discarded kitchen pan filled with muddy water in the side yard, my chest tightened as I witnessed him first lap that retched water, then hone in on an abandoned paper plate full of leftover buttered bread crusts, which he hungrily gulped down.
He was big, and beautifully marked –a mishmash of a white background with various patches of greys and blacks, a long grey and black striped tail to match – and the poor thing was starving. What awful hardships would drive a full grown cat to consume such things in the middle of a dog day afternoon? I knew I’d have to be quick and I’d have to be especially quiet if I were to have any hope at all in saving this obviously suffering creature. There was no way Mom would even begin to see the reality of the situation.
Mom had never been a cat person, and with having had four children by the time she was 23 and Dad working second trick, and adding in the next two children with Dad still on second shift, I guess we were all animals enough for her. I’d have to be quick and crafty, to say the least.
What ensued, however, could never have been predicted, much less planned, by a young teen girl.
Seeing no one near me at the moment, I raced through the family room and kitchen, yanked open the screen door and bolted down the cement back stoop, then stopped cold and began to stalk the handsome cat. I inched closer, talking softly to it, eventually getting close enough to pet it. It took an immediate liking to me, purring and rubbing against my legs. I slipped into a nirvana of soft happiness as I lolled in its good graces.
I would name it Patches, good for a boy or girl, and really, what other name could possibly exceed it? Visions of my very own, warm, soft, purring cat to sleep on my bed, come when I called, be my own personal pet swam in my fantasies.
Wearing nothing but my swimsuit, I started making surreptitious trips to and from the kitchen, likely slamming the screen door with each coming and going. I began by hosing off the dirty pan, then washing it and refilling it with cold, clear water. Then I got a clean paper plate and some kind of food, most likely lunch meat, but not the deli kind we all buy now, the squashed hot dog-like pre-packaged stuff, like olive loaf, we blithely consumed back then.
Exactly how it all unfolded is now a blur, but it entailed a discussion of a disgusting flea bag with God knows what diseases who was not to be fed or encouraged in any imaginable way whatsoever somehow running into the house when Mom wasn’t looking. I certainly did plan that she would never, ever know this had happened. I’d just quietly take care of it, after chanting, “I know, I know,” to each of her diatribe declarations. And, it would have worked, but for one unfortunate thing.
The cat ran upstairs faster then I’d ever seen anything run before. I followed in hot pursuit knowing time was of the essence as Mom would be on my heals in a flash if she noticed me gone and the cat missing. I sprinted up the steep, narrow steps, grabbed the cat from behind, spun around to go back down and turned the cat to face me as I stepped forward to descend. The cat was very heavy and I had him under his front arms with his legs dangling over the stairwell and my arms straight out in front of me. Maybe it sensed we were off balance, or maybe the stairs and all that open space between them and us looked threatening to it. At any rate, the cat suddenly lurched forward and sunk all ten claws deep into my outer upper arms. Simultaneously, as the pain of being clawed hit me, I ripped his paws out of my arms and those long, curved talons did some damage. I emitted a piercing scream and dropped the poor thing, whereupon it bounced down the stairwell, seemingly hitting each step along the way.
Mayhem broke out putting my non-driving Mom into a frenzy. I remember lots of shouting. I think the cat left on his own sensing better odds outdoors than the hades he had unwittingly fallen into inside. I know I somehow got taken to the emergency room, had my arms bandaged and undoubtedly received a tetanus shot, but the best part, the part I remember well, is the emergency doc telling my mother, “You must keep the cat around for at least 10 days, to make sure it doesn’t have rabies and I’d recommend you take it to a vet to have it checked out, just to be sure.”
And that, is how I got my cat –my beloved Patches.
He was big, and beautifully marked –a mishmash of a white background with various patches of greys and blacks, a long grey and black striped tail to match – and the poor thing was starving. What awful hardships would drive a full grown cat to consume such things in the middle of a dog day afternoon? I knew I’d have to be quick and I’d have to be especially quiet if I were to have any hope at all in saving this obviously suffering creature. There was no way Mom would even begin to see the reality of the situation.
Mom had never been a cat person, and with having had four children by the time she was 23 and Dad working second trick, and adding in the next two children with Dad still on second shift, I guess we were all animals enough for her. I’d have to be quick and crafty, to say the least.
What ensued, however, could never have been predicted, much less planned, by a young teen girl.
Seeing no one near me at the moment, I raced through the family room and kitchen, yanked open the screen door and bolted down the cement back stoop, then stopped cold and began to stalk the handsome cat. I inched closer, talking softly to it, eventually getting close enough to pet it. It took an immediate liking to me, purring and rubbing against my legs. I slipped into a nirvana of soft happiness as I lolled in its good graces.
I would name it Patches, good for a boy or girl, and really, what other name could possibly exceed it? Visions of my very own, warm, soft, purring cat to sleep on my bed, come when I called, be my own personal pet swam in my fantasies.
Wearing nothing but my swimsuit, I started making surreptitious trips to and from the kitchen, likely slamming the screen door with each coming and going. I began by hosing off the dirty pan, then washing it and refilling it with cold, clear water. Then I got a clean paper plate and some kind of food, most likely lunch meat, but not the deli kind we all buy now, the squashed hot dog-like pre-packaged stuff, like olive loaf, we blithely consumed back then.
Exactly how it all unfolded is now a blur, but it entailed a discussion of a disgusting flea bag with God knows what diseases who was not to be fed or encouraged in any imaginable way whatsoever somehow running into the house when Mom wasn’t looking. I certainly did plan that she would never, ever know this had happened. I’d just quietly take care of it, after chanting, “I know, I know,” to each of her diatribe declarations. And, it would have worked, but for one unfortunate thing.
The cat ran upstairs faster then I’d ever seen anything run before. I followed in hot pursuit knowing time was of the essence as Mom would be on my heals in a flash if she noticed me gone and the cat missing. I sprinted up the steep, narrow steps, grabbed the cat from behind, spun around to go back down and turned the cat to face me as I stepped forward to descend. The cat was very heavy and I had him under his front arms with his legs dangling over the stairwell and my arms straight out in front of me. Maybe it sensed we were off balance, or maybe the stairs and all that open space between them and us looked threatening to it. At any rate, the cat suddenly lurched forward and sunk all ten claws deep into my outer upper arms. Simultaneously, as the pain of being clawed hit me, I ripped his paws out of my arms and those long, curved talons did some damage. I emitted a piercing scream and dropped the poor thing, whereupon it bounced down the stairwell, seemingly hitting each step along the way.
Mayhem broke out putting my non-driving Mom into a frenzy. I remember lots of shouting. I think the cat left on his own sensing better odds outdoors than the hades he had unwittingly fallen into inside. I know I somehow got taken to the emergency room, had my arms bandaged and undoubtedly received a tetanus shot, but the best part, the part I remember well, is the emergency doc telling my mother, “You must keep the cat around for at least 10 days, to make sure it doesn’t have rabies and I’d recommend you take it to a vet to have it checked out, just to be sure.”
And that, is how I got my cat –my beloved Patches.
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