When were your kids really potty trained?
I don’t mean when did they first poop in the potty. I want to know how old they were when you just stopped buying diapers or pull-ups for them completely. When did they poop and pee in the toilet every time, no more relapses and they could sleep all night in underpants. Be honest. If they were five years old – I can take it.
A couple posts back, Devra offered up some slightly cryptic information about Kool and the Gang and a flat tire. A lot of you were wondering what the hell she was talking about. In a guest post, Devra explains it all.
Maybe next time we can get her to tell the story about the time she was in her pajamas in the airport.
Without further ado, I give you Devra:
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1985. Summer. My mother at the wheel of our stylin’ Subaru sedan and we’re tooling up I-95 heading home to Connecticut after attending a wedding in New Jersey. All of a sudden, there is a big “pop” signaling the tire has blown out. Fortunately on the horizon is an “On Again, Off Again” McDonald’s. My mother slowly inches the car until we are in the parking lot. Without a cell phone in our collective imagination she tells me, “Hold tight, I’ll go in and call Triple A”.
(left: Devra pictured in 1985)
Considering I am a 16 year old with Saturday night plans, I’m not about to wait no stinkin hour and a half for AAA to show up. Prior to being allowed to drive my parents’ cars, my father handed me a lug wrench and stood over me while I changed all four tires, one by one. So, I can change a tire about as fast as a NASCAR pit crew. I tell my mom that I will go into McDonald’s, get out of the fancy wedding wear and into jeans so I can make it back to my social life,”Which you know nothing about anyway so just be quiet mom. Jeez!”
As I head toward the building, everyone starts pouring out of McDonalds because the fire alarms are going off and the place is being evacuated. I stand for a moment in utter disbelief as I come to the horrible realization, “Oh shit, I will have to change a tire wearing a poofy dress and Candies.” 
My mother stands next to me as I slide the jack in under the chassis. As I am trying to crank the jack, a man comes over to us and extends his hand to me saying “Let me.” I look up and see a guy smiling down at me and then he says to my mom “This won’t take much time. Let me help.” As he changes the tire, my mother goes to work on this unsuspecting man. ( This will ultimately be the one time where I found my mother’s normally annoying habit of asking tons of questions useful.)
Mom: Is that your stretch limo?
Him: Yes.
Mom: Are you famous?
Him: I’m in a Black singing group. We are on our way to a show we’re doing in Connecticut.
White Rolls Royce pulls up. Man gets out and comes over to talk to the guy changing our tire. The discuss how much longer the tire might take, the guy smiles at my mom and me and says “No problem. We’ll just wait on you.” and he goes back to the car.
Mom: Is that Rolls Royce with you?
Him: Yes, they are the main group. We are their opening act.
Mom: Who are you guys?
Him: (chuckling) I don’t think you’d know us.
Mom: Really? C’mon Try me. I’m a professor at a university, I teach sociology. I might have heard of you or your friends from my students or maybe my daughter has heard of you.
Him: Well, okay. I’m from Whodini and that guy who just left is from Kool and the Gang.
Mom: Of course! I know Kool and the Gang. Kool and the Gang! Devra, don’t they sing that song about Susanna?
Me: That would be “Joanna”
At this point, the tire is now changed and everyone is ready to go their separate ways. Thank you’s are made and then this kind stranger(yet a famous stranger!) gives us both a big smile and leaves us with a final thought, “I just know that if my mom and my sister were by the side of the road, I’d want someone to help them. So, I’m happy I could help you.”
His words have stuck with me all these years because he’s right. People should help other people.
Here is a question for you other bloggers out there:
Do you ever go to some boring everyday function (like a fundraising meeting or the
pediatricians office) and see someone looking at you funny and wonder if they know you from your blog or if they are just looking at you like that because you took a shower and went to sleep on wet hair and you look like Crazy Cat Lady?
Just me?
Fine then. How about this… have you ever been at a regular non-blogging function and been recognized? Or have you ever been somewhere normal and recognized another blogger?
I haven’t. Yet. But I look for you people at the grocery store… consider yourself warned.
For when you just don’t have the time to watch the movie. (Thanks Kaiser.)
Devra is working on a guest post to explain the whole Whodini/Kool and the Gang tire change thing, hopefully I’ll have that up soon, along with part two of my mailbag. (I’m still open for a few more questions.)Everybody knows that swag is really an acronym for Stuff We All Get, right?
_Nancy and Ali have done the meme too. Ali says she lost her virginity on her wedding night. I didn’t know people still did that. Did anyone else have sex for the first time on their wedding night?
Mr. Deity is killing me. Alison sent me a link to one, but I’ve watched them all. Good times. Plus, Jesus is kind of cute.
Oh, and Blingo is giving away a 42″ plasma tv this week, so if one of you could win one of those for us, that would be great. I’ve got the perfect place to put it.
Fine. It’s not really a mailbag. I told you that you could ask questions in my comment section in my last post. I must have been drunk when I wrote that one.
Fortunately, most of you were either too scared (like Bridgette) to ask a question, to polite to ask a question, or you just don’t read blogs on the weekend and I’ll end up doing a part two tomorrow. (I suppose the other option is that nobody actually reads my blog and it’s just my Mom clicking on my link 300 times a day because I told her I would get money from my ads if she did that.) But I did get a couple of questions, so here goes:
Andie D. (and yes I realize that her name is Andie, but I alwaays think of her as Grumppopotamus, and if I ever meet her I will insist on calling her that) asked: If you had to pick one celebrity to have sex with, who would it be and why?
If you would have asked me this question two years ago I would have said Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, but since those answers are boring and I wouldn’t want to get any of Angelina Jolie’s cooties I am going to say John Lynch. There is no way John Lynch has cooties.
Mom at Work asked: If you could choose one blogger to rake her lawn and freak her out, who would it be and what would she title the post about it?
Well, You know I am lazy, so I would probably pick someone who either lived in an apartment or had a lawn guy so that the actual work would be minimal. Maybe a New York City blogger. They don’t have lawns. Or a Florida blogger, they don’t have leaves… maybe I could hide in my house and my crazy neighbor would rake their lawn for me. We would call the post “I think Sarah’s crazy neighbor is raking my lawn.” That has a nice ring to it.
Erin asked: I’m sure it’s in your archives somewhere, but did you have the goon squad vaginally or via c-section? Having gone the c-section route for my 1 baby, I have a lot of respect for moms of multiples who “did it” vaginally.
I had a caesarian. Ian was head down, but Claudia was vertex. Most of the time (but not always) with twins if either one isn’t head down they will do a c-section so that you don’t end up having one vaginally and one surgically. It is too traumatic to the mother’s system.
Devra asked: Houdini, Kool and The Gang and me. Now come up with the question I am answering.
That is easy. Who changed your flat tire?
You people are going to have to ask Devra about that one. She also met DMX in an elevator in Baltimore, and Jared, the Subway guy on an airplane. She isn’t like other people.
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I guess that wasn’t so scary. You guys are way nicer than Beth’s readers.
