Update: Let's see ... what else ...

Well, there's still no word from BCBS about the hypnotherapy, but we're having a cold spell, so the wasps are laying low. I did hear back from Northwest Airlines about the breast pump that they somehow managed to mangle beyond recognition. My last letter began, "Hello again. Have you ever met someone willing to write 147 letters about a broken breast pump? Well here I am, it's nice to meet you and no I’m not weaning my child for quite a while." OK, so I didn’t really write that. The letter was very professional and thanks to my lawyer friends it used phrases such as "damage to personal property" and "tampered with by agents and/or representatives of Northwest Airlines." I figure if a breast pump can survive what mine went through last Christmas, then it should be able to take a measly little trip from Nashville, TN to Jackson, MS without being destroyed. In an attempt to “pump and dump” after a little too much eggnog, I plugged the pump into the end of our Christmas tree lights and nearly blew out the power in a seven-county radius. It caused more damage than the ice storm. But I do think that the Nashville Electric Service employees could've been a little more understanding about having to come out on Christmas Eve to restore our power. You just can't get good help these days.

On a more positive note, I would like to take back some of my disparaging words about the hairy visitor that I so openly maligned in one of my previous entries. Come to find out, his mother was a Vegas Show Girl who once slept with Elvis. So I'm going to be a good little southern belle and just say, "Bless his heart, that explains it."

Let’s see … what else …

Oh, another favorite topic: my parents. We just returned from another harrowing trip down to their house which ended with my dad asking if we were going to “Come back in a couple weeks for the Pace family reunion at Turkey Creek” and B saying, “Yeah, and pigs will fly out of my ass.” The only good thing about the Pace Family Reunion is the homemade lemonade, fried chicken, and getting to know long lost cousins with names like “Kermit” and “Dorothy Jean.” My dad is the founder, organizer, and lemon squeezer of the annual get-together and I know it hurts his feelings, but there are some events that just don’t justify a potential nervous breakdown on my part. Two years ago my uncle started violently clanging a plastic gravy dipper against a garbage can lid because he thought an African American family was about to “set up camp in our pavilion.” No matter that we didn’t need 45 picnic tables and a stage, he was determined that what we paid for was ours until 4:30 p.m. and that no “confounded blacks were gonna move in on our territory.”

Besides the family reunion though, my dad is just hard to deal with these days. If he’s not trying to start conversations with B about midgets and how they’re comical, then he’s wanting me to show him how to create picture slideshow screensavers on his computer or fix his printer (which has apparently put its foot down and now refuses to print anything related to Ole Miss football recruiting). I'm afraid to turn my back on him when he's holding The Goose because (a) he's not steady on his feet and (b) he does ridiculous things like let him "pet" Clementine the Cat (who promptly reached out and scratched the child, provoking a crying fit). My mom then blamed the cat, who I believe was innocent in the whole matter. Of course I didn’t want the baby to get scratched, but I do see the cat’s point on this one … she was a little bitter about this creature that had invaded her domain and taken everyone’s attention away from her. Then the creature awakened her from a nap by loudly babbling, “BABABABABABA” and pulled her tail as directed by my father, who thought the whole scene was hysterical.

Meanwhile, my mom was on the phone attending to her wifely duties, which apparently include keeping up with who is in the hospital and what procedures they have had done to them and finding out whose “body is out at the funeral home.” I don’t see how my parents have any friends left since every time we’re there, someone has died or is in the hospital. And don’t even get her started about the search for a new preacher since the old people in the church “ran that other one off.” She does all of this on top of working full time, doing EVERYTHING for my dad, and taking care of her 89-year-old father, my Pappaw … a person who my dad would obviously just rather die and quit embarrassing the family with his poor driving habits (“Just because he’s old don’t mean he cain’t stop at the dadblame stop sign.”) And that doesn’t win any points with me, because Pappaw is one of the loves of my life. My son is named after him. I choose to ignore it when Pappaw says, “She sure is a perty baby and I don’t never hear her crying,” rather than repeat ad infinitum that the child is male.

This is a man who has spent 89 years EATING Vicks Vap-o-Rub whenever he has a cold. When he has to be hospitalized for routine tests (he has leukemia) he always asks the nurses if they want to go home with him. He keeps his house heated to approximately 103 degrees throughout the year, and when I was in 2nd grade he let me watch the forbidden shows, “As the World Turns” and “Golden Girls” everyday after school while chowing down on cheese balls and coke (and keeping an ice pack under my butt to prevent heat exhaustion). And the best part of all is that Pappaw thinks that my dad is stealing money from his deep freeze to pay for his shiny new red pickup truck. He thinks my uncle is stealing his butter beans out of there, but he saved the role of money-thief for my dad. Classic.

Let’s see … what else …

I have again started working for the Center for Talented Youth through Johns Hopkins University. This is a distance education program for “gifted” kids who ace the SAT before 5th grade. My job is to teach them grammar and writing, which involves answering their precocious questions such as, “Is ‘air’ a concrete or abstract noun? It’s everywhere, and you can feel it when the wind blows, but you can’t draw a picture of it.” I also have to deal with their obsessive, overbearing parents who are all Ps, VPs, chief anesthesiologists, etc. and live either in the Northeast or California. These people are scary, let me tell you. But the job is great for me since I can work while simultaneously picking small objects out of the baby’s mouth.

I wish I had something funny to leave you with that is actually related to the topic of this blog, but I’m proud to say that I’ve been doing better in the HE department and so there are no stories to be told. I finally confessed to Husband about this little project. I believe I said something like, “I have a blog,” and his response was, “Are you going to be OK?” He thought it was some combination of a “blockage” and a “clog.” After he discovered that I’m fit as a fiddle (and in no danger of dying and leaving him alone to take care of the Tiddy Rat), the idea of me airing our dirty laundry on the Internet didn’t seem that bad, and he rolled over and went to sleep, which is what I need to do instead of going on and on about my boring life. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Dear Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee,

This letter is to inform you that I find it appalling that your company refuses to cover hypnotism as a form of psychological therapy. It has come to my attention that this treatment is a very necessary and useful technique for mental patients such as myself. Allow me to explain.

I have a condition called spheksophobia, or fear of wasps. OK, I mean Fear of Wasps. Well, maybe it’s FEAR OF WASPS. Let’s be honest, it’s really more like,

FEAR OF WASPS.

Recently I visited a licensed provider of psychoanalysis—a doctor who is listed in the handy dandy Directory of Providers that you sent upon my enrollment in your Point of Service health insurance plan. I told the doctor The Story (see below), and she recommended that I undergo hypnotherapy to cure myself of this condition. I inquired as to whether or not this would be covered by my insurance plan. The doctor suggested that I call the number on the back of my insurance card. So I called. Serena, at BCBS in Knoxville then informed me (after stifling a giggle) that hypnosis was not covered under my plan, but electric shock treatments were.

I find it inexcusable that an outdated practice such as EST is covered by a prestigious company such as BCBS. Not only is hypnosis less invasive, but also it is an up-and-coming practice in the world of psychotherapy. Not to mention the fact that it involves a lot less equipment. Truth be told, the overhead on hypnotizing someone is zero, as long as you have one of those watches that dangles from a chain.

Serena then proceeded to ask me what in the world I needed hypnosis for, which is really none of her business, but I told her The Story anyway (see below).

The Story

You know those cup holders that are right next to the handles on most baby strollers? Well, they are the perfect size for cans of Budweiser or Foaming Wasp and Hornet Spray. I take a can of each with me on my outings with my prize baby, who people think is a girl on account of his long eyelashes, but really he is a boy with a penis and everything, just like his dad. In fact, right after he was born, the first thing his dad said was, “OMG, his balls are as big as mine!” They were swollen due to the pressure of being expelled through the birth canal. Even when I dress him in blue outfits covered in tractors, people still think he is a girl. Let’s call this baby The Goose, just for the sake of The Story.

One day I took The Goose outside for his usual late-afternoon stroll, and discovered that the stroller was not in its customary place. Rather, it was in the trunk of the car. So I set the baby down about 10 feet from the parked car in order to retrieve the perambulator and stock it with diapers and wasp spray.

I purposely set him AWAY from the car because of its proclivity for attracting wasps. I had extracted the stroller and was in the process of putting the diapers in the underneath storage bin when the pest came torpedoing out of the sky in a desperate attempt to commune with our license plate. Ever the prepared and dutiful mother that I am, I immediately popped the top off of my Foaming Wasp and Hornet Spray can and began to douse the beast in extermination foam. But even though I had just returned from a trip to my parents’ house in Mississippi, where I practiced shooting a 22-gauge rifle at coke cans (with much precision and grace, I might add), my aim with the spray can was less than accurate.

The brute then came flying at me wildly, stinger erect, and attempted to assault me, as all wasps in my vicinity will eventually do. At this point I was just a tad unnerved and continued to spray the foam into the air frantically, forgetting that there was a Babbling Baby Boy at my feet.

Does The Story really need to go on? The child looked like he had been at a slumber party where they spray those cans of foamy string at each other. And just before he started to lick it off of his fat little hands, I scooped him up and ran screaming into the house like a mad woman, muttering about how unfit and insane and spheksophobic I was and damn that heathen wasp for causing me to nearly poison my own child. The Goose was deposited into the kitchen sink and saturated in cold water and Baby Magic soap while he screamed (presumably it was curses at the stork who deposited him with a crazy).

So that’s why I think I have spheksophobia. And that’s why I need hypnotherapy, which you recklessly do not cover, causing child endangerment.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Becker

p.s. After I told my husband about this incident, he responded, “Kim, you know that they won’t bother you if you’ll just calmly ignore them.” Does he know the definition of phobia? IRRATIONAL TERROR. So I ate him, and thus he won’t be needing health coverage anymore. It gave me a stomach ache, and now I’m seeing a gastroenterologist who wants to run some tests. Will that be covered?

p.p.s. If you CC this to my mother-in-law I will personally murdelate Serena and file a libel suit against your company. Yes, that’s a threat. Remember, I ate my husband so you better take me seriously.

Good Intentions: How I Became a L-H-C-D-C MEM

We have a friend in town for a few days. A very large, hairy, meat-eating friend who isn’t married, doesn’t have kids, and doesn’t want them. Apparently part of his duty as a guest is to participate in our musings about why our child is going through a somewhat fussy stage right now.

As we endure a few minutes of pre-nap wailing, we all sit in the living room contemplating the possibilities …

I speculate, “Could it be that he’s gotten a little spoiled since he was sick for a week and we held him a lot? Or maybe he’s starting to feel some separation anxiety. Or perhaps he’s just learned a new cry and enjoys causing his vocal cords to make the sound of a fire engine.”

The husband imagines that it’s probably just because of the time change.

The hairy carnivore hypothesizes (aloud, as he chomps on a bag of beef jerky), “Maybe he’s hungry? Or the other thing is that he could be teething. Did you check his diaper?”

After this incident I began to deliberate on all of the well-intentioned conversations I’ve had with various people about my son. There’s the grocery store check-out clerk, who, as baby begins to fuss in the cart, says (in sing-song voice) “Oh my goodness, Mommy, it’s time for my nap!” And there’s the secretary at my husband’s work, who always asks my child if his mother has fed him enough today. And then there’s my mother-in-law, who wonders whether he may be suffering from Lyme disease as the result of a microscopic baby tick falling out of a tree, landing on his head, and lodging there without our knowing about it. The list could go on.

Why do people think it’s OK to give me advice about my job? Do I appear to be that unqualified? Would these people EVER give recommendations to people who work outside the home? I know you think this is ridiculous, but I stayed up for several hours last night brooding over this.

Would they ask a doctor, “Hmmm, have you checked the thyroid?” Or, “Possibly the patient is suffering from chronic meat-eating and has clogged arteries.” Or, “Maybe he’s just a pompous know-it-all whose brain has gotten too big and stretched out his head.” OK, maybe not, because doctors study long and hard to attain their status and usually they know more than your average, furry, childless, deer-sausage-eating male.

So, let’s think of people who don’t necessarily study for years in order to do their jobs …

Imagine a bank teller who is wondering why her money isn’t balancing out. Would these same well-intentioned guidance counselors EVER ask whether or not she’s checked the nickel drawer? Or question whether perhaps she hasn’t put back that dollar she borrowed for her afternoon snack? Or, worse, could she have possibly spent the entire day absent-mindedly pocketing the money?

Now, maybe this bank teller has read What to Expect When You’re Expecting Your Drawer to Balance or The Happiest Banker on the Block, or maybe she’s even gone to community college for a couple years. But can we honestly say that she knows more about counting the money in her drawer than a mother knows about her own child? Yet I doubt that even a hirsute know-it-all would venture to offer her suggestions about how to do her job.

Why are moms different?

My husband says they’re not. He says that people offer him advice about his job all the time. I said like what. He said they always offer to help him out when his state-issued non-four-wheel-drive truck (yeah, that’s really helpful for a park ranger) gets stuck in the mud while he’s trying to rid the Overton Hills of the invasive species Asian Bush Honeysuckle.

That’s very different! That’s offering help, not suggestions. If those same helper-outters said, “What you really need to do is feed the hurt, captive birds-of-prey free-range mice rather than those icky, white, pink-eyed, pre-killed, frozen lab rats,” then that would be unnecessary advice. That is an annoying suggestion which, to me, is akin to asinine questions such as “Is the baby hungry or wet?”

Contrary to popular belief, I actually feed AND change the baby before putting him down to nap AND before going on outings (I know, I know, I’m superwoman). And not only that, but I have also read lots of books about babies. Sleeping, teething, sign language, nursing, and starting solids are just some of the topics on which I am considered to be pretty well-read. But apparently people don't consider this before opening their big, fat, blood-dripping, albeit well-intentioned, mouths.

On the other hand, these baby advice-givers never say, “Oh, can I help since you’ve got your hands full there trying to nurse the baby while opening your purse to pull out the debit card and still keep your boob out of sight from the perverted grocery-bagger boy?” Or even, “Let me get that door for you.”

Well, what goes around comes around in this house.

The abovementioned male guest at our house arrived on the day after I became the final person in our family to live through the awful stomach virus that has been going around. (I got it just after it mutated into something close to amoebic dysentery.) The guest was fore-warned about the virus, but came to visit anyway, and claims “to have a steel stomach” … to be “unable to contract airborne viral infections,” and he acts like I’m a total hypochondriac wimp who has dreamed up the very concept of contagious disease. Ironically, he is an EMT, a park ranger with Wilderness First Responder credentials, a person who reads textbooks about quantum physics in his free time. (I know quantum physics isn’t directly related to communicable disease transferal, but my point is that he’s a smart (-ass) guy.)

But he will rue the day he comes down with the virus because I will sit outside the guest bathroom door while liquid toxins spew from his orifices and jeer loudly:

“Maybe it’s all the deer sausage in your diet.”

Or …

“Perchance you have Giardia lamblia, Entamoeba histolytica, or Cryptosporidium.”

Or simply …

“Na-na-na-boo-boo, you got the poo poo flu flu.”

Just call me a L-H-C-D-C-MEM (large-hairy-carnivorous-divorced-childless Man Eating Monster).

Predators

A recent day in the life ...

K.L. and bird-watching husband are out for a stroll with the baby. Husband has baby in backpack carrier. Baby is showing signs of needing nap. K.L. says, “Let’s go home now so baby can get good nap.” Husband says, “OK, but I’ve almost got this one identified.” K.L. waits patiently. Baby’s signs are increasing. K.L. is getting edgy. Baby begins to get insufferable. K.L. wonders, “How can Husband continue to peer through binoculars at unknown bird while baby declares jihad on the backpack carrier?” Baby gets more and more out of control. K.L. begins to morph into the HEM, giving one more warning and finally pouncing, snatching off backpack with baby, and storming home alone determined to let baby get good nap.

At home the HEM discovers that the H has the keys and she’s locked out. She knows that the H is out on the trail, snickering to himself. Furious, she scrambles up onto the roof and opens a window, removes the screen, and climbs in. Baby gets nap. HEM is happy and morphs back into K.L., sort of like the Incredible Hulk.

K.L. closes window but forgets to put screen back. Husband comes home later, asks if she’s done with her tantrum (yes, thank you very much). Husband then goes upstairs to check on baby (still napping!), thinks it’s stuffy up there, and opens window (not noticing that the screen is gone). Now upstairs window is open with no screen (unbeknownst to all involved).

Now I must interrupt myself here and say that we live in a state natural area and there is at least one pack of coyotes and numerous other known baby snatchers (white-tailed deer, bunnies, possums, and all manner of voles, moles, and mice) living on this land with us, not to mention the bugs (grub worms, ticks, wasps, ladybugs, etc.)—all waiting to ambush the baby. One night I woke up because the hair on my neck was standing up. Coyotes were howling in time to a distant fire engine siren and I started thinking … can they get on the roof and into the baby’s room? I tried to wake up husband, but he just mumbled something incomprehensible about getting too close to the river and rolled back over to bask in his REM sleepland.

Anyway, back to original story about the window …

The day has come to an end and John is in bed for the night. We are downstairs playing cards with my in-laws when my mother-in-law says, “I heard something. I’ve heard it twice now.” Husband gets up and gets state-issued gun which, along with handcuffs, a baton, and some OC spray, is part of his park ranger outfit (I’m not quite sure why he needs all of this paraphernalia, but it makes for a great uniform). Husband goes outside and roams around in the yard (gun drawn) causing all of the motion detector lights to come on. Now this thing about the lights is really an insignificant detail except that we live in the middle of 1,200 acres of natural area, so all of our motion detector lights being on at the same time could cause planes to mistake us for a small airport. Husband looks up on the roof and notices the open window. He comes to the door and yells, “Kim, go upstairs and close the window – the screen is missing.”

My mind is reeling:

“Window open? Screen off? Oh yeah, I was locked out earlier! Oh, I forgot to put the screen back on.” I’ll have to climb back out and retrieve it off of the roof.

OH MY GOD THE WINDOW IS OPEN WITH NO SCREEN AND THE NOISE WAS A COYOTE AND NOW HE’S IN THE NURSERY TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET INTO THE CRIB TO GET MY BABY! WHAT WILL I USE TO KILL IT? BRIAN HAS THE GUN AND THE CAST IRON SKILLET IS STILL HOT FROM THE CORNBREAD I COOKED FOR DINNER AND I CAN’T PICK IT UP WITHOUT AN OVEN MITT AND THE OVEN MITTS ARE ALL IN THE WASHER BECAUSE THEY HAD SOME DISGUSTING RED STUFF CAKED ALL OVER THEM AND WE DON’T HAVE A BAT. IF I WAS A PLEISTOCENE ERA HUNTER-GATHERER WOMAN I WOULD JUST USE MY SLING TO THROW A ROCK AND KILL THE BEAST. OH MY GOD WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?

(Now I’m running around all over the house looking for a weapon—how could I have forgotten about all of Brian’s park ranger toys and an entire set of self-sharpening steak knives?—and then it occurs to me that time is of the essence when a coyote is after your baby so I quit looking and prepare myself to inflict all manner of amateur martial arts moves on the marauder.)

Then I pass the Mag-lite in the hallway on its charger. (Have you ever held a Mag-lite? They weigh about 10 pounds and are just as good as a police baton, I’m sure. In fact, the Mag-lite is part of husband’s park ranger outfit as well.) I seize it, hold it out in front of me like a gun, and scuttle into the nursery, sliding across the wooden floor in my socks and nearly crashing into the crib where I see that the baby is sleeping soundly. But I’m not convinced that everything is OK. So I proceed to use the flashlight to check every nook and cranny of the upstairs for coyote scat, deer tracks, or yellow possum eyes shining out at me. We were lucky this time. No trespassers had found their way inside.

Who do I blame? You got it. He’s the one who was dilly dallying being an amateur ornithologist, he’s the one who withheld the keys (OK, maybe I did forget to ask, but that’s beside the point), and he’s the one who opened the window without noticing that the screen was off.

But …

He’s also the one who was simultaneously acting out a Miami Vice scene in our driveway while I was running around the house wondering how I was going to karate chop a coyote. He’s such a good protector. So because of his skill at safeguarding, he was spared yet again from an HE feast. Aren’t I tolerant (and smart, cute, and skinny)?

Predators (and husbands) beware. Now that I’ve had a practice run, I’m more dangerous than ever.

Headline

The Domestic Terrorist Kim Laden Attacks the Terrarium

Yesterday at approximately 4:27 a.m. central standard time, the much-feared domestic terrorist Kim Laden carried out a deadly assault in a terrarium in Nashville, Tennessee. The victims included one nameless cricket and an anole named George the Lizard. According to her husband, Kim Laden was provoked by the cricket’s incessant chirping during the middle of the night.

The crime was perpetrated with a self-sharpening steak knife which had been partially blunted by a mishap in the dishwasher’s pots and pans cycle. The cricket was a farm-raised, medium-sized, $0.99/dozen variety, who hailed from The Aquatic Critter on Nolensville Drive. Kim Laden allegedly used the steak knife to decapitate the cricket and in the process nicked the tail of George the Lizard, also from the Aquatic Critter Store on Nolensville Drive.

An officer investigating the crime scene described it as “a bloody massacre.” A neighbor who refused to identify herself explained that there was already a petition in circulation which would effectively banish Kim Laden from the neighborhood. The woman also said that the petition originated from Kim Laden’s husband.

Authorities in Nashville are saying that this is the only time that Kim Laden has successfully carried out any of her sadistic attacks. According to NPD records, the police have been called to her home numerous occasions at the request of her husband, whom she has been attempting to eat since the birth of her son.

Currently, Kim Laden has been released on bail posted by her parents and is staying in a cave inside Radnor Lake State Natural Area. She has in her possession three Reba McEntire tapes (and a battery-powered jambox), a jar of peanut butter, and a manual breastpump (her electric one was demolished beyond recognition by Northwest Airlines and besides, there are no electrical outlets in caves). A nameless non-profit organization is accepting donations for the family and organizing volunteers to hike to the cave and retrieve the expressed breastmilk. For more information, log onto http://www.savekimladensfamily.org/.