Mississippi Chainsaw Massacre

      It was obvious she didn't remember our last family foray to a haunted house when she asked.

     "It'll be fun, Mom," she said.  "And besides it's a performance.  What kind of mother would miss a child's performance?"

     This one, I thought.

     Her evil pushing of my buttons yet another sign of the poor nature of this particular idea.

     I'd taken them two times before, to a haunted event in Mississippi.  The Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Museum Fall Festival which was a family friendly, not even scary to my run through haunted houses with eyes sewn shut, knocking over poor unsuspecting actors self, event.

     By the second trip, I was lulled by my own bravery.  I'd peered into the horse drawn hearse with no fear of jumping heebie jeebies.  I'd walked through the haunted graveyard.  The only thing I felt remotely nervous about was the fact they were using inmates. 

     The inmates were a staple thrill of the Ag museum.  They kept the grounds, took the tickets and generally turned up in dark, quiet corners of the indoor portion of the museum.  Likely trying to catch a nap or feel free for a second.  On a normal day, they didn't bother me...much.  But the Friday the 13th theme music haunting through the grounds and the far off screams were making me feel like the dumb girl who just has to go back into the house. 

     They were all low risk bad check writers or non-ticketpayers.  But, what if one of them had just started their life of crime and was a serial killer at heart?  And what if, the teeming throng of 'it's all fake, just calm down already' "victims" and the combination of rampant bloody gore pulled the so called trigger on their latent tendencies?

     I smiled at them politely anyway and thanked them for the "oh my God, an inmate is driving us off into the dark woods on a train" ride.  Which was, I must admit, wholely uneventful.

     Surely after surviving that, I'd thought, a haunted walk would be nothing. 

     And it was, at first.  The children, who were quite young at the time, laughing at the bloody heads hanging from the trees and skipping merrily in front of me.

     I, who was not at all thinking of the likelihood of inmates running amok, trailed along behind.

     I'd just relaxed when I heard it, the engine revving buzz pulled again and again as the screams faded away from us.  The children stopped dead and turned in unision to look back at me.  I stared above their heads at the man in the is that Jason or Michael Myers mask, with the "dear God I'm going to be deaf for a damn week" chainsaw and the orange jumpsuit peeking out of the collar of his coat.

     I ran before they did.  Backwards against the oncoming hoard, screaming "RUN" at the top of my lungs.

     The inmate, who I fondly refer to as Jason Myers, had not a lick of sense.  I was sure haunted walk training did not involve chasing stampeding back to the entrance guests.  Especially guests hollering decidely un-family friendly words at a family friendly event.  But he did anyway.

     It was in that moment I decided this sort of thing wasn't for us.

     "You'll like it, Mom," she said.

     And while the idea of humiliating her by tackling anyone who came at me with a chainsaw did hold some appeal, I politely declined.

3101- The Name Says it All

I'm not sure if this blog title fits me anymore.  I'm going by another last name now.  I am still neurotic and obviously still a mom. 

I'm a bit of a freak about names, titles and such.  I've liked a person because of a name, bought a book because of the title.  Think all Jennifers were meant to be my best friend forever, probably because like Tiffany it is an entirely 70s and 80s baby name.  And we sound like alumni of the high school pep squad when we are together.  We just need a Libby and a Britney along. 

This blog has no point, if you haven't guessed yet. 

So to stay on xanga (can people comment who don't belong to xanga?)

And to change or keep the name

Those are the questions.

Anyone?

3100 Days

That is a long time.  I wish I had stayed as prolific as I was in the early days.  I really want to start blogging again.  I'm not sure if xanga is the best platform anymore.  Thoughts?

Roller Girl

“Mama, you’re way too old,” Henry said as I laced up my skates.  But he didn’t know I held my own with Melanie Whitehead, 1985 Euless Skate-N-Play Roller Skating queen in her Crayola #108, sky blue roller girl costume and her personally owned white lace-up skates. 

She could twist and twirl or skate backwards around the whole rink twice to Stayin’ Alive replete with disco moves, but I was fast. 

Which is why 20 plus years later, I ignored him.  I zoomed past the little children all along the edges of the rink including my own.  Their pudgy fingers sealed in a death grip to the rail, staring at me as I passed. 

“If you put one foot in front of the other when yer’ turnin’ you’ll have more balance,” a balding, elderly man in sweatpants called to me as he glided by backwards.

I was the last person in attendance who needed his skating tips but I thought I should be nice.  Who knew, one day I might decide hair pulling and fist fights were my leisure activity of choice, sign up for roller derby and suddenly find myself in great need of his sage advice.

So I smiled and ignored him too.

“Mama, how’re you doing that?”  Henry yelled at me over Donna Summer, entirely impressed with my mad skating skills.

“Because I rock.”

And I did.  At least for a few minutes, whirling around the rink waving at the poor children still barely scooting along between falls, and their not brave enough to venture out parents.  These same parents who watched like vultures wanting to feed on my broken carcass from the sidelines and prayed for one of their children to fall in my path.

“This is great, we should do this every weekend,” I shouted to Hannah who could now let go of the wall for 2 second increments.  She looked to be having slightly less fun than I was but smiled in agreement anyway. 

Only 11 dollars for five hours of reverting back to childhood complete with MC Hammer blaring over the speakers and only missing Melanie Whitehead in her sequined
glory, how had I ever passed this up?

At least until they played the Macarena.  They had skipped the limbo and the hokey pokey but some genius thought surely children could Macarena one handed. 

And they could, with some coaxing.  My own coaxing because didn’t I know everything after one hour of skating in 23 years.

So I suppose it was inevitable.  The last wiggle of my hips enough to throw off my moment of grace.  My arms pin-wheeling, the floor looming entirely too close to my ancient and fragile bones.  The final nail in my, for God sakes stupid woman no one should try to be cute over the age of 18, coffin as I slammed my knee into the only a little more forgiving than myself floor.

The rink held its collective breath, perhaps waiting for my defeated scream of agony.  I did not wail.  A girl can flounder around on the floor with a bit of pride.

I really wanted to though.  Big fat, lusty cries of ‘I broke my knee’ like I hadn’t sung since I was at least 12.  Far too long if you ask me.

But I only thought it.  Beads of sweat dripping over my carefully held together smile as I pictured myself rolling around on the floor wailing.

I wasn’t going to let them win.  Not my kids, who had somehow decided 37 was old or the other parents who had forgotten what it feels like to fly.

I unlaced the skates and pulled them off.  Gritting my teeth to haul myself from the floor without groaning. I prayed to the gods of self humiliation that I would not fall as I limped off.  Surely once was enough for the day.

“That was some kind of fall, Mama.  I’d be crying,” Henry said, helping me to a bench.

“Nah,” I grunted, plopping myself down and glaring across the room at the other parents, who quickly turned away.

“Think you could teach me,” he asked.  “But you should probably get some knee pads…and maybe a helmet.”

Not Just my Nanny

“Up until high school, I thought girls got pregnant by sitting on a boy’s lap,” she said.

 My grandmother, a spry and proper 81, who has more of a social life than I do and never speaks so frank.  I wish she would more.

 I’ll admit, I don’t want to hear about Edna’s gall bladder surgery or Martha’s 42nd knee replacement. My mind wanders off when she’s telling me a story involving 52 people I don’t know and attempting to explain how I might know each and every one of them in a 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of way.

 “Well, she’s the sister of Becky’s mom’s stepsister’s husband’s cousin. Becky who was in your 6th grade Sunday school class.  Don’t you remember Becky?”

 Becky, who I do in fact vaguely remember as a sullen, dark haired girl who didn’t like me much. Perhaps if the story was about Becky running off to join some hippie commune out west and having 16 babies with the long haired prophet leader instead of being about her 515th cousin twice removed, I’d be mildly interested.

 But I do want to hear about my grandmother.  Where she came from and what makes her tick and why she saves a teaspoon full of corn when we’re cleaning up after dinner.

 We’d been discussing some parents in Keller having a fit over their child reading Skeleton Creek in the classroom.

 I was ranting about parents intent on shielding their precious babies.  The same precious babies who have already learned everything there is to know about the world from a classmate who learned it from his brother’s best friend, who learned it from his 13-year-old cousin, who learned it from South Park.

 “I’d read this book,” she interrupted. “A book about a man and a woman.  I remember everything about it.”

 I could perfectly imagine my 15-year-old Nanny in 1945 with her knees tucked up underneath her, nose buried in a book.

 “The woman in this book, well, she kept sitting on this man’s lap.”

 I saw a flash of her indignant 15-year-old, still reading face, the uncomfortable adjustment of her legs as her 81-year-old self chuckles.

 “I swear, every 10 pages she was sitting on his lap and then she was pregnant.”

 I laughed, thinking of my own 14-year-old girl who knows and shares more than I’d ever care to know in my whole life with a matter-of-fact directness all the while wrinkling her nose at the mere idea of it.

 “I was sure it was from all that lap sitting,” she said.  “I wouldn’t sit on a man’s lap til college.”

 I didn’t really blame her.

 “A whole big group of us would go out on Fridays and I’d sit on the floor of the car rather than sit on a boy’s lap.”

 It was one of those moments, nothing really, a small memory in a long life.  Yet, a moment I wished I could capture between cupped palms and cork sparkling in a glass jar.

 A moment for later when I know I’ll wish I’d taken the time to talk more or even listened to details of Myrna’s bowel issues.

 A moment when I saw my grandmother as a woman, as a girl, just like me with hopes and dreams and a whole life ahead of her.  Not just my Nanny.