Leanna Kay

The kids and I were taking our dog, Maria to a nearby park for a walk. We drove past a particularly fragrant bit of road kill and Maria went wild, running around the car and sniffing like she was in dog heaven. This prompted my marketing genius in the back seat to come up with the next newest product.

DREW: “Mom, why don’t they make perfume for dogs?”

ME: “Uh, cause dogs don’t have money.”

DREW: “What if they did? Then what kind of perfume would they buy? Dead mole scent?”

CHRIS: “No, dogs want to smell like poop. Can you bottle poop smell, Mom?”

ME: “Dear Lord, I hope not.”

LAUREN: “Maria loves cats. I bet she’d want to smell like a cat.”

DREW: “No, Lauren. Maria rolls in dead stuff. You’d have to make the perfume smell like DEAD cats.”

LAUREN: (Tearing up). “That’s mean. Cats are my favorite animals.”

After much debate, we decided that the best selling dog perfume would be a combination of dead animal (but not dead cats), mole, poop and LIVING cat scent.

Actually this smell might have been an improvement because during our walk, Maria hopped into the edge of the Ohio River and bathed herself in muddy, rotten stink water which she promptly shook off on the holder of the leash (that would be me). So we both went home smelling like wet dog. And trust me, no one wants to bottle THAT scent.

The kids recently put on shows for us. Think CATS or LES MISERABLES without the costumes, choreography, stage settings, acting talent or singing ability. Basically it was just the three children taking turns playing with their stuffed animals in front of us.

Five star entertainment in my book.

When it was Lauren’s turn, the boys were less than impressed with her theatrical interpretation of girl playing with dolls. As they started to grumble, I fully expected Lauren to run from the room crying.

I was wrong.

When the boys complained that they were bored, Lauren switched up her scene. Instead of two dollies getting ready for bed, the scene changed to two dollies with excessive gas. Once she started making them fart loudly, the audience went wild with approval.

Which makes me wonder about the lesson my daughter has just learned.  That lesson being - boys like farting. I can see it now. Fast forward twenty years and Lauren is on her first date. Make that thirty years (no sense in rushing things). Conversation lags and not knowing what to do, Lauren lets loose with…. well you get the picture.

You gotta play to your audience.

Bob was recently flipping through the television channels at warp speed when he stopped on ESPN. They were televising the international rock, paper, scissors competition and we were instantly riveted by this sport we’ve played since we were kids.

The conversation went something like this:

ME: “Are they really playing rock, paper, scissors?”

BOB: “Sure looks that way.”

ME: “Is it the same game the kids play to decide who gets the last slice of chocolate pie?”

BOB: “That’s the one.”

ME: “But it’s on television!”

BOB: “Yep.”

ME: “Where’s the chocolate pie?”

There was no pie. But there was a cash prize and a large arena filled with spectators.

ME: “Why would all those people want to come and watch this?”

BOB: “I have no idea. But they all have bottles of beer in their hands. That might explain it.”

Obviously rock, paper, scissors is only interesting if you’re drunk or there’s pie involved. We had no beer and no pie. We were about to change the channel when the announcer mentioned the competitive bets being placed in Vegas on the outcome of this championship.

Let me get this straight - people bet money on the outcome of ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS? Money? Not pie. Bob and I decided that some people are just crazy. He changed the channel to something more riveting - the paint drying channel, I think. I left to surf the Vegas betting sites.

Speaking of which, I gotta go. I put all of my kids’ college money on SCISSORS. If I’m right, Harvard here we come. If it’s ROCK or PAPER, it’s community college with loans for them.

GO SCISSORS!!

Stop with the sympathy cards. By now you know I usually exaggerate. So here goes…

As I sit here, I’m recovering from a horrible accident that happened right here in my very own home. I was biting into a cheese hot dog when the melted cheese squirted from the inside of the hot dog and splatted onto my cheek.

Okay, so it’s a small burn which the kids swore they couldn’t even see. Probably because the area was covered with molten lava cheese. I swear they should put warnings on those hot dog packages.

When heated, this product will actually become hot. REALLY, REALLY hot!

Something like that to warn innocent consumers like myself.

I really should sue to protect other innocent hot dog eaters from cheese burn injury. But then I’d have to publically admit I was burned by biting into a cheese hot dog. There are just some things you don’t want people to know. I think I’ll just slink away and heal quietly.

Lauren giggling during prayer time at church.

ME: “Shhh. We’re talking to God.”

LAUREN: (still giggling) “It feels like God’s tickling me when we pray.”

So her disrupting church is GOD’S fault? Hard to punish her if the Big Guy is responsible, now isn’t it?

You know you live out in the country, when the front page story in the local paper involves a hay bale fire. As our newspaper reported this week, an errant cigarette was the cause of a blaze which destroyed two round bales owned by a local farmer. The sad twist on this tale was that this same local farmer suffered hale bale loss from fire just last year.

Oh, the humanity.

The hale bale fire made the front page. The jury verdict from a local shooting didn’t. This item was buried on about page three. Obviously not as compelling of a read as the loss of hay.

According to the court news, the man was found guilty of shooting his cousin. The crime apparently occurred after the men’s grandmother phoned them with an emergency plea for toilet paper. (No, I am NOT making this up.) The newspaper didn’t add details, but luckily my brother was here reading the paper so we added the details ourselves.

We’re thinking the conversation went something like this:

“You take the toilet paper to Grandma.”

“No way. I ain’t going over there. She had beans for lunch. You take the toilet paper to Grandma.”

“No way. I took Grandma toilet paper last time she ate beans. You do it.”

“Do it or I’m shooting you.”

And then the tragedy unfolded. All of which could have been avoided by one little roll of Charmin.

Oh, the humanity.

I recently read that Burger King will no longer deal with suppliers who are cruel to animals. Apparently this is a move to be more socially conscious and to attract consumers of like mind.

So let me try and understand this. They’re doing this so I can feel good about myself as I consume my fried cow flesh? I’m supposed to buy into the fiction that it’s mean to pen up an animal and not let it roam free, but it’s perfectly acceptable to slaughter it so we can feast on it’s flesh?!

Does anyone else see the irony here?

Now don’t get me wrong. I like beef. I’m not going to be voted Favorite Human in any bovine elections any time soon because I eat meat regularly. I’m willing to admit that my mouth waters as we light up the grill. I enjoy a good hamburger the same as most other Americans. But I’m willing to acknowledge that eating meat is not particularly *kind* to animals.

If this is a cruelty to animal issue, why would a person eat at any restaurant that serves fried animal flesh? Does Burger King think that I’ll suddenly pass by McDonalds to purchase a hamburger from the ‘nice’ animal killers instead of the cruel ones?

At the end of the day, a hamburger is still a hamburger and so I’ll take mine without the side of irony, thank you very much.

We took the kids to see the fireworks this week. The boys are fireworks pros having gone last year with their Daddy while Lauren and I stayed home and played with her naked Barbies. But this year, since she’s now six years old, we decided it was high time Lauren took part too.

I was so excited to be part of this American family tradition. I just couldn’t wait for Lauren to watch the sky in anticipation. I wanted to see her little face filled with awe as the lights exploded into fireflies and flowers. I had it all planned out. I was going to stand in the middle of my children, breathing in the night air as I watched all three of their precious faces during the beauty of the fireworks.

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

We parked the car and hopped out just as the first firework exploded with a bang loud enough to send Lauren scrambling back into her car seat screaming. With the next explosion, she let out such a high pitched squeal of terror that she summoned a pack of hyenas and a minivan filled with social service workers.

Well not quite, but you get the picture. People from all around the parking lot were turning to make sure she wasn’t being abducted by aliens.

She was screaming in such terror that I quickly hopped into the van and climbed into her car seat with her - no small feat for a fully grown woman who exceeds the safety limits of the seat by a few dozen pounds. I shut all the doors and windows in the van so the bangs were muffled.

Finally in the stuffy heat of the closed van, we were able to enjoy the beauty of the fireworks display. Lauren leaned back into my sweaty arms and looked at the exploding lights.

“Mom! Look at that. It looks like a purple flower!… And there’s another one. And another! Did you see it? Mom, did you see it?”

It was pretty hard to see anything considering I had her face smooshed against mine and she was leaning so close, it was hard to tell where I stopped and she began. But her blue eyes were filled with such wonder, that even though I was crammed in the tiny seat in the hot car, I had the best seat in the house.

“It’s my best day ever,” she said as another firework exploded.

“I thought Disneyworld was your best day ever.”

“I have lots of best days, Mommy. As long as I get to spend them with you.”

It’s days like this that make it easier to forgive her when she hits me because she’s tired and I told her to brush her teeth. And it’s moments like this that I will tuck into my heart to pull out when she’s a teenager and tells me she hates me. It’s days like this that I will cherish when she’s too brave to be scared by fireworks and too big to fit in my lap anymore.

“It’s my best day ever too, Lauren,” I said.

Nope, this isn’t the start of a racy joke. It’s just an apt description for our family weekend activities. Please don’t call social services on me - again. We were just geocaching or as my husband calls it - wandering aimless through weeds and poison ivy looking for junky toys.

Even though I’m making it sound about as appealing as an annual pap smear, it really is addicting. Trust me. We spent about three hours hiking through the woods and found two boxes filled with toys. One of the boxes even had some hand sanitizer and lotion inside.

Lauren was absolutely thrilled to find one of the boxes had three small Barbies. The only problem was, these dollies were butt naked. I don’t even want to think about why they were cavorting together in the middle of the woods without their stylish dresses and plastic high heels. Nary even a tiny pair of cotton undies in sight.

But Lauren didn’t seem to mind. She traded for the dolls anyway, making sure to hide them in her hat as we walked back to the van so the other hikers wouldn’t see their nakedness.

Now we have to go geocaching again in search of tiny Barbie clothes for the naked dolls. Somewhere hidden in the woods there must be a box containing only tiny prom dresses and plastic shoes.