Mental State of Emergency

    I look out the front window as I watch the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy unfold.  We had it no differently than anyone else in the Midwood section of Brooklyn last night; Transformers popping like fireworks and the constant cry of fire trucks circling the streets looking for live wires.

It isn’t a full 24 hours later, house shingles and stray branches scatter the sidewalks as people pop their heads out from a crack in the front doors like shy turtles.  I stick my head out too, but not to see if my car is still intact or whether the witch down the block is buried under her house.   I need to come up for air!

  Sandy has turned most of us mom’s into short order cooks, recreational directors, peace keepers, law enforcers, mind readers, and housekeepers.  Yes, I realize these are tasks that are usually scattered throughout our week, but these last two days I’ve been immersed in the many definitions of what mommies are to their kids.

  One look at Instagram also has me squirming.  Mothers baking, filling their freezers, arts and crafts time, dressed from 8 am and all toothy smiles.  I was proud to have canned tuna and corn niblets in the pantry, but after seeing all the social media displaying works of the Rachel Rays and Martha Stewarts, my once prided Duncan Hines cupcakes have me feeling more like Betty Caca.

   The need to post a Happy Life has turned into more pressure than having both kids (and husband) hanging over my shoulder asking ‘what are we going to do next?’

   Some are even posting their exercise schedules! Go figure.  In two days’ time I am feeling larger than life and have done nothing but enriched the rump on which I sit.  I can barely sneak off to the bathroom for relief without the knock, knock, “What are you doing in there mom?”  while just a few short blocks away there are Super Moms who have added a ten mile run in the rubble to their lists of ‘to do'-post natural disaster?!

   As I stand by the front door taking in a full gust of Sandy, I feel rejuvenated.  Until I hear Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement, that the NYC public school system will be shut for a third glorious day.   My left eye begins to twitch.  “What are you doing out there mommy?!”  I bite my lip. My kids-and their play dates have found me... again.

   I walk to the kitchen to find all of my untouched ingredients for making challah on the counter…only counter productive.  This is my boring life at 3:38pm. 

   I take a seat in the den; with a few throw pillows, my kids, and their noisy iPod games burying me deep into the foundation of the couch.  I find my calm after the storm.

  Alan is narrating his every move while right in front of me, Joey is peeping out between the wooden shades and making excuses to go anywhere that is not home with the wife and kids, and Joycee is propping herself on my right hip like it’s an ottoman so she can watch SpongeBob.  It’s these annoying little thingies that have me smiling. 

   The sweet digital ting of my iPhone disrupts my flawed perfection. 

Email received:  Late school OPENING. 

   Never, have three words sounded soooo harmonious.  

   I repeat the sentence aloud, and when echoed…have created a chasm in the serene mood of the room.  Alan and Joycee are now howling about school.  Joey is turning the volume up on the remote while simultaneously shouting in a melodic outcry-“WHY CAN’T I HEAR ANYTHING!!!”

  Call me evil, but if there’s any REAL honesty out there, in the next 24 hours, I hope to see the many INSTAsmiles of Super Moms and FaceBook frowns of all the kiddies on their way back to the normalcy of an eight hour school day.   

A nutritious breakfast before school has EVERYONE smiling!

Gimme a Little Credit!

    Twice a year I take the time to clear out my nightstand.  It’s always that thing on my ‘to do’ list that never seems to get crossed off.  It can be the most opportune time-kids at school, torrential rain storm outside, and just lazy enough not to care if none of my other errands are held off until I finish watching the movie Shallow Hal...again.  

    The drawers are stuffed with journals, business cards, and spiral notebooks where some story ideas have started…but not continued.  Buried deep underneath is an envelope that I’ve named ‘Dead Credits.’ 

    Each year I cringe as I rediscover the envelope stuffed with presents from family and friends.  Varied celebratory gifts from past holidays, from Secret Santa's at work, even some gift certificates from when I had Joycee.  It’s already been four years.  Some of these credits and ‘gift certificates’ had been received way before the world of ‘valid for six months or valid for one year,’ ever came to be.  Credit slips used to be to the advantage of the store-if you lost or misplaced it,  your credit was gone.    

    I on the other hand am this store policy’s worst nightmare.  In my dead collection are credits that date back to 1999, the year I was married.  Can I walk into a store 14 years later expecting them to honor my credit?  Or is the real question-do I have the NERVE to pull out the credit?

  “How long are these credits good?  I still have some gift certificates at home that I haven’t used.”  I asked after returning some things that I receive duplicates of after giving birth to Joycee in 2007.

“Credits from returns have a one year standing.  Gift certificates on the other hand are good for as long as you have them.  There is no expiration date on gift certificates.”  At the time the chipper and congratulatory clerk smiled.

   I only wished this particular store owner remembered her words when I came walking in four years later. 

  “We can no longer honor these.”  She said wafting past me, like I was a bad smell, and on to the next PAYING customer.  

 

   “It doesn’t say anywhere on the gift.”  I say. 

   “I’m sorry, we have no records to prove it.”  She said.   Somehow I don’t think that her answer would fly if it had been the IRS at her register, as opposed to me in my ripped jeans and un-manicured nails.

    I would understand,   I really could understand, if there were some proof of fairness.   For example, ‘Credits’ were from my own doing, my laziness to follow up on something.  GIFT certificates are a result of other people’s kindness.  Were the store keepers as kind to notify the purchaser that the gift was not used?  Were my generous friends and family given a credit or money back?  NO.  I don’t think so.

    I was two days late to cash in on my gift of a pedicure.  I wasn’t as forth coming with it as I had been with the baby gifts.  I mean what’s two days compared to four years.  With my feet in the water and the tiny, pale, Asian woman massaging at my stubbly legs, my heart began to pound.  With each nail buffed and shiny, we were almost at ‘this little piggy went wee wee all the way home’ when I cleared my throat. 

   “You pay now.”  She said in a bow.

   I slowly filed through my ‘dead credit’ pile handing off the expired certificate like it was a fake i.d. and I was 19 again trying to get into a club.

   She slowly made her way towards the register, speaking in mixed tongues.  But every time there was a heavy accent on ‘Niu’ the last word of each sentence, I knew she was referring to the cow with the pruned toes (and expired credit) in chair number three.  She didn’t address anything to me in English. 

   She came back and silently painted my toes in sloppy, heavy blobs of polish.  I think she did a fourth coat just to guarantee that I smudged a big toe on the way back to my car.  The credit was honored, I was not.

   So here I am at present moment.  Holding back on cleaning out my drawer out of fear that I will find someone’s kind gesture crumpled in between the pages of a spiral notebook or stuck to a lollipop stick that Joycee has discarded.  Today I found a check made out to ‘Prince Alan Chabbott’ for 75 dollars.  Alan will be eight this year.  

   Before I consider making a deposit via ATM machine I think of my cousin's face looking at his current bank statement mumbling, "you've gotta be freakin kidding me."  No. I'll take the high road on this one.

   Back into the overstuffed legal envelope, another present turned souvenir.  My heart hurts, but my dignity will remain intact.   With my cruddy polished feet and a children’s store I vow never to give my business again, I take the remaining mementos and place them back into my nightstand.  I dream of the day that someone slips and actually admits the credits are still good, that’s why I hold the envelope.

   I hold it, and hide it till next year, hoping to revive the dream.

  To date the dead pile consists of $679.66 in unused, unhonored credits.