It was true (if by my notary you mean my friend who I just found out was a notary, but he lives really close to me and he will be back in three days) it just sounds really uppity.

So I am thinking, well at least I won’t say anything that sounds weirder than that for a while.

But no.

Because when a restaurant I have been trying to get into for – well, forever – called me and said they had a cancellation tomorrow night at 9:30 I said “My babysitters are in Burma.”

My babysitters are in Burma.

Oh, I said it.

It sounds like a lie for so many reasons. One, who goes to Burma? Two, who has more than one babysitter in Burma at one time? Three, can’t you get another babysitter?

Well, yeah, but not one that wants to hang out my house until one o’clock in the morning. I have training babysitters for when the grandparents go out of town but they are really young and I feel like a jerk staying out too late.

I can’t wait to hear what I say next. I wonder if my accountant is out of town?

* * *

That title sounds filthy! Who lets me choose my own headlines?

He comes to the bathroom door. “Why do you ask?”

“Because somebody asked me last night.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, who asked you.”

“Some of the ladies at the party.”

“Why did they want to know?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

“When somebody asks you what color your nipples are your first question should be ‘Why do you ask?’.”

“You are probably right.”

“What kind of party was this?”

I think I need a color wheel or some paint samples.

* * *

Just me?

I have to tell you that I chickened out.

I said I wasn’t going to do it. I believe the reason I gave my husband was that I was “too pissy to sing a solo”, but then I went next door and my neighbor was auditioning for a different solo and somehow that made me brave so I did it.

When the director asked who wanted to audition, I held my hand up high.

I also noted that the only other three people were all in the select small ensemble that I didn’t even come close to getting in.

That reminds me of a story my mom told me the other day. My mom told me (and I have no idea why she told me this, my birthday is in like five weeks) that she bought me a birthday card. The outside has two girls and one girl says something like “Where is your birthday party at?” and the second girl says “You shouldn’t end sentences in a preposition.” On the inside of the card it says “Where is your birthday party at, bitch?”

Of course this is exactly the perfect card for me because it involves grammar rules and calling people names – both things that I enjoy.

Anyway, the audition was weird. We all had to stay late, so while I was very warmed up from having just sung for two and a half hours, my voice was also kind of blown out already. Most of the notes I sang were lovely, but the lowest one didn’t come out AT ALL. It was just an air noise. It was also just the four of us standing around a baby grand piano which seemed so much like a scene in a movie that it was distracting. I think if we had had some wine and cheese and weren’t competing with one another we could have had a lovely time or formed a barbershop quartet.

Whatever, I don’t think I got the solo — probably due to lack of the low note, which I totally normally have, it isn’t even all that low, I was just tired. I honestly think I didn’t get it because other three women all had very, very lovely voices and are in the blue-chip group, having already proven themselves worthy.

That being said, I am very glad I tried. I feel good about it and I appreciate all of you who encouraged me to do it. It isn’t so bad not being the one selected when this is the group she is choosing from.

I mean, it isn’t so bad not being the one selected when this is the group she is choosing from, bitch.

* * *

When I left the parade I was really hoping that Claudia would find her costume on the school bus on the ride home, but when she came off of the bus empty handed I knew we were in trouble.

I started walking over so that I could ask the bus driver if he had found a black cheerleader uniform with a skull on it.

That is when Ian got off of the bus. Sobbing.

When a little girl gets off of the bus crying it is usually drama. When a boy gets off of the bus crying it is usually an injury.

But he was crying about his costume ripping and custodians and lost and found and the school being locked. It was clear that I would be buying two new costumes that evening. I told the boy that everything would be okay and I wasn’t mad and I would address his issue right after I talked to the bus driver.

Claudia’s costume wasn’t on the bus either. Even four days later it would seem that the costume has been sucked into the ether, probably the same place that has claimed single socks, guitar picks and hair ties since the beginning of time.

And this is how I found myself driving to the party store in rush hour DC traffic on the Friday afternoon before Halloween.

I didn’t want to go to the stupid party store on October 28th at 4:30 in the afternoon. I thought I knew what awaited me if I ever made it to Party City before it closed. I figured it would be crowded and picked over.

I threatened the children in the car. You will take what we can find. We might not find the exact same costume. It will be crowded. You have to stay with me.

This was met with crying and whining. Which was in turn met with me losing my shit. There will be no whining and no crying from this moment forward. Is this what you think I want to do with my Friday evening? Go to the party store where I can spend MORE money on costumes that I neither lost nor ruined? I am trying to fix your problems!

Then I actually turned around in my seat like Dads do on tv shows from the ’70s. AND IF THERE IS ANY MORE CRYING BEFORE WE GET HOME NOBODY IS GOING TO GO TRICK OR TREATING SO YOU WON’T NEED COSTUMES ANYWAY.

It was pretty quiet the rest of the 38 minutes it took to drive like six miles.

I underestimated the chaos of the party store.

Fortunately, I also underestimated my children who were able to make fast decisions under duress and we got out of there in less that 15 minutes with girly pirate costume and a red ninja costume.

Halloween was saved.

I am sick of writing about Halloween costumes so I won’t even get in to how we had a party to go to on Saturday night and I wouldn’t let them dress in the new costumes for obvious reasons until Monday night and there were new levels of teen angst and drama reached by a 7 year old girl who wouldn’t wear a sweater because it looked better on the model on the website.

*deep breaths*

Nor will I go into depth about how much she enjoyed it when the costume she finally agreed to involved heavy eyeshadow, lipstick and teasing her hair.

What I do want to say is this – no matter what you think, your mother probably went WAY out of her way to make your life a better place and if she is still around you should call her right now and thank her. (Thanks Mom!) I know for a fact that my mom did all sorts of crazy things for me and I probably yelled at her a bunch while she was doing things to help make my life slightly better. I accept this as my payback. I just really, really hope that it isn’t just payback for second grade and that my recent parenting heroics (if you think it was bad parenting, just don’t tell me unless you want to drive me to the mental hospital)  make up for that whole teenage mess too.

This year Claudia was to be a cheerless leader and Ian was going to be a stealth ninja.

Did you notice the past tense even though Halloween is still two days away?

Yesterday was the “Fall Spirit Parade” (see: Halloween parties for the politically correct) at the Goon Squad’s elementary school.  Technically they were supposed to dress as storybook characters, but after three years we have learned how to work around this system. First you buy the costume, then you find a book with a ninja in it.

I am such a good role model.

Okay, I’m a terrible role model but I was so sick of fighting with them AND finding two costumes that I thought we could make this happen. You have to choose your battles and this year it was between the Halloween costume fight or the homework and chewing with your mouth closed fights.

I just said yes. You can wear that to school. Just don’t take any weapons.

Back to the Fall Spirit Parade! It is a huge parade around the field with every kid in the school and 70% of the moms in the neighborhood. The parade is insane. It is like a a 45 minute long Lollapalooza except the music sucks and most of us weren’t high or drunk. I know I was painfully sober. At our school we have a party in the classroom with crafts and games and treats and then everyone changes into their costume and goes outside for the main event.

As a parent of more than one child I have to volunteer in more than one class. My usual plan is to run back and forth between classrooms the entire time. It is stressful, but it usually gets me out of being in charge of the crafts and I loathe doing crafts. So yesterday as I make my way back in to my daughter’s classroom she is walking out of the changing area and saying “I forgot to bring in the main part of my costume.” We look in her costume bag. Is isn’t there. We look in her other bags.

Her costume is nowhere to be found.

She starts tearing up.

“Don’t worry.” I say “We’ll figure out something.”

She is starting to really cry. I know it is embarrassing to cry in front of your friends.

“Okay, let’s just take the pom poms.” (pom pons? whatever)

She shakes her head no. Then she says “IT ISN’T FAIR!”

I said. “Hey! Don’t yell at me. I didn’t lose your costume.”

But then I felt bad. I knew she was looking forward to this and I knew it was devastating for her. This is something they look forward to all year.

I offered to run home and see if it was there. But I could see her, feeling like a mess, embarrassed that she was so upset, but really really upset. So I asked if she wanted to run home with me to see if we could find it.

Keep in mind, this is 20 minutes until the party starts.

This post is already really really long, so I will just make you a list of the things that happened next.

• couldn’t find her teacher
• cleared the plan with another teacher
• found teacher
• explained plan to teacher
• signed her out of school
• ran to car
• got car out of very, very, very tight parking spot with daughter yelling “WE WILL NEVER MAKE IT ON TIME!!!”
• drove home
• ran inside and up the stairs

The costume wasn’t there.

Her costume wasn’t anywhere. My best guess was that is somehow ended up on the bus.

The following are ideas I came up with and were all rejected in the five minutes after the shocking discovery that the Tinkerbell costume from three years ago wasn’t long enough (all of it involving screaming and crying): Harry Potter, Hermione, a stormtrooper, a Tae Kwon Do student, a football player, a jedi, Princess Leia, a baby.

Desperate I scanned the closets (also where I found the other eight options) and saw the flower girl dresses.

“Do you want to wear a flower girl dress?” I asked.

“Which one?” she said.

“I don’t care,” I probably actually yelled “How about the green one.”

As I am putting on the flower girl dress from her Aunt and Uncle’s wedding over a year ago I notice the size of the dress which is a 4.

Claudia wears a seven or an eight. Thankfully she is tall and skinny and it zipped up even over the long sleeved white shirt we had to put on under it because it was 42 degrees out and windy.

She looked beautiful.

“Okay.” she said.

“Then run.” I said.

And we ran. And we drove and she cried “We’ll never make it on time! This isn’t fair! You don’t even like me!”

I remained calm-ish. I explained that if I didn’t like her I wouldn’t be doing any of this and how far out of my way I had gone for her and that I should be returning client phone calls but instead I was driving her back to the spirit parade which isn’t even that fun for moms.

I also told her that if she gave me anymore lip there would be no trick or treating on Monday.

We parked the car and ran – RAN – out to the field where the festivities were just starting. “We’ll never find my class.” she said very careful not to whine or cry.

But we did. We found her class easily. She almost started to cry again until her best friend turned around and said “She looks pretty.” and then “Claudia, sit here.” and then she made some space.

And all was well.

For about an hour and a half.

(The Halloween Costume Debacle – Part II to follow.)

So I did what anyone would do. I told twitter.

Later I thought, huh. Maybe I should explain that.

The story starts last week when my neighbor and I went to Costco. I had to buy a big pork loin for work.

Now, some of you are just nodding your head and reading. Some of you are wondering what kind of person has to buy a seven pound pork loin for work. I say, the kind of person who blogs about pork for money. I know my career path is not the normal one and I accept that. I think the neighbors view me as somewhat of a sideshow and I accept that too. I don’t know many other people that when asked how work was this week can say “Good. I got three people to go see Duran Duran in Toronto, I wrote an essay about losing a post, the redesign for the sports site is up, I made t-shirts for the elementary school’s drama club and I wrote a post about smoking some pork.”

Life is good.

Weird, but good.

Anyway, my neighbor and I went and bought a bunch of big things at Costco. When we got home I mostly unloaded my car. I didn’t bring in the two pound box of Cheez-Its or the massive 96 load thing of Tide.

Guess which one leaked.

I was pissed off too because that was $21.99 worth of laundry detergent. I’d say $ 7.50s worth is still in my trunk and the rest is in my yard.

Really, the neighbors adore me.

Even after my very, very half assed attempts to get the laundry detergent out of the way back the car has still the distinct and overwhelming smell of Tide.

Until today. I don’t know what rotted in there, but the car smells like Tide and farts. I’d air it out but it won’t stop raining.

I’m actually still a little bit puzzled as to how we walked around Costco for a good 20 minutes leaking something bright blue without noticing it. For now I will just assume that I somehow busted it putting it in the trunk and stop stressing out about the $21.99 that is killing my lawn instead of making my clothes smell like a mountain spring.

* * *

Related: Does anyone have any great advice on how to get soap out of upholstery?

]]> http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2011/10/27/laundry-detergent-and-farts/feed/ 7 http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2011/09/19/my-minivan-has-a-poltergeist/ http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2011/09/19/my-minivan-has-a-poltergeist/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:02:51 +0000 Goon Squad Sarah http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/?p=6606 My minivan has a poltergeist or possibly an electrical problem but either way I am freaking out.

I was at the grocery store (as I tend to be) and when I tried to get out of the car it was locked. That in itself is no big deal. I’ve also tried to get out of the car with my seatbelt on. I know how to fix the problem, one just unlocks the door to exit. Except in this case the door locked again before I had a chance to open it.

Then it locked on me again. And again.

A ha! I thought to myself. I must be mashing the lock button on my key fob. But I wasn’t. My keys were hanging off of one finger, no buttons were touching anything.

So I tried to manually unlock the car as if it were the ’90s.

But my car locked itself again.

It couldn’t be the safety feature that won’t let you lock your keys in the car because 1) I’ve already done that in this car and 2) I had already established that the keys we no longer in the ignition.

Then it locked itself again. And again.

And this is when I began to suspect the supernatural or possibly Ashton Kutcher.

But as much as I hate all practical jokes and Punk’d in particular, this one was too stupid too make it through even the least rigorous screening process. Plus I’ve never been in a boy band.

So this left me with two options – a poltergeist or an electrical problem.

On one hand this could cost me a lot of money. On the other hand my car might be haunted*. I don’t like either of these options.

What I do like though is that I think I finally have an excuse to call in to Car Talk.

* * *

Ghosts are REAL, Mike. Ghosts are real.

* * *

Remind me sometime to tell you why White thinks it might be the ghost of  former United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.

I have been in the shower almost long enough so that my hair is wet enough to put in the shampoo.

I wonder what he could have done to make her so angry in such a short period of time.

The screaming comes in the door.

“What happened?”

“IAN!” she gives her standard answer.

“Ian what?” I give my standard reply.

“He tried to choke me!”

“No I didn’t!”

Awesome. Now all three of us are in my bathroom.

“I HATE MY LIFE!” she yells. “YOU NEVER EVEN LOVED ME!”

I have been in the shower for three minutes. The seven years right before that I spent with her.

“I have always loved you.” I say.

And they exit.

* * *

I am standing in the shower and I yell “DAMMIT!”

Because I forgot to mow the lawn before I took a shower. Now I will get all smelly and have to bathe again before my fantasy football draft.

Who am I kidding? It is an online draft and the last time I got to take two showers in one day was… I can’t even remember the last time I took two showers in one day. Probably the last time a kid threw up on me.

* * *

I am standing in the shower rinsing the conditioner out of my hair.

“Mom?”

He is back.

“Do you think whipped cream would be good in a shake?” he asks.

“Sure. Wait! What are you doing?”

“I am writing a recipe for a shake.”

He is planning this evening’s milk shake competition versus his father.

“Do we have whipped cream?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” I can’t remember buying whipped cream since we had pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. It is August.

“In the fridge.”

“Check the date on it.”

I hear footsteps run down the hall.

I hear footsteps running back.

“It is sour cream.”

“Yeah, that would taste bad in a shake.”

* * *

I am getting out of the shower. It is quiet. Ten minutes have lapsed since I got in the shower.

I love my children.

I cannot wait for school to start on Tuesday.

You know, the song that they would play for you when you come up to bat?

Sports fans are nodding their heads and hitting the comment button. For the rest of you, think of them playing “Wild Thing” for Charlie Sheen in “Major League” when he came out of the bullpen.

Like these:

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

No, I haven’t been approached by a Major League Baseball team (although I am certain that is what you were all thinking) but I have been drinking beer with the guys from my husband’s job and when this subject was broached I knew I needed to really ruminate on it.

I must choose a batting song.

So as I do, I am turning to you to help me make this important life decision.

Here are songs on my shortlist:

Bad Reputation – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
South Of Heaven- Slayer
Twist Of Cain – Danzig
Ace of Spades – Motörhead
Dies Irae – Verdi’s Requiem
The Usurper – Celtic Frost
A Fifth of Beethoven (Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – Walter Murphy

Help me choose my batting song. Am I missing something really obvious? What would your batting song be?

* * *

Alice Cooper photo: David Guralnick