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  I called a nurse and learned there was so much to do. I drove immediately to the store for lice-killing shampoo, finetoothed nit combs, and tea tree oil. I began what would be a ten-day assault on every live and gestating louse in the house. All soft surfaces received lethal doses of scalding water, bleach, and toxic sprays. There were endless loads of laundry, quarantines of stuffed animals, and nightly nit-picking. I combed my daughter’s hair into tiny sections under bright lights for hours every evening. When I called my husband, who was working a thousand miles away in Mexico, I made him itch.

  It was hell for days. It was exactly what I needed. Several months earlier, when my husband started working out of the country, I had quit my job. In limbo and not sure about which direction to take, I’d been feeling stuck and sorry for myself. The worst part was the inactivity. I watched too much TV, yelled at the kids, and didn’t want to talk to my friends. I’d gotten into the rut of having no purpose.

  Suddenly those lice gave me something important to do. They got my mind off of me and filled my hours with the meaning of simple tasks. I had to destroy every last louse, had to get them out of my daughter’s hair, out of our house, and out of her school. I didn’t have the luxury of wasting away in worry about what I was supposed to do with my life. I had work to do. And that was a blessing that proved to be the push I needed to climb out of my funk.

  People say God works in mysterious ways. I say sometimes God blesses us in ways that are just plain lousy.

  We Are Not The Joneses

  WHEN THE KIDS WERE THREE AND FIVE, WE MOVED TO A GREEN corner of Arkansas that is home to Walmart headquarters, crazed college football fans, and serious suburban bliss. Summer in our adopted idyllic corner of the world is filled with SPF 55, backyard barbeque, and Jonesin’ to be the Joneses. Decks are primed and stained, cars washed and waxed, yards tended like favorite children. We share banana breads and casseroles, watch each other’s children, and mill around one another’s driveways discussing grass.

  Like our 1950’s predecessors, we yearn for a pristine, Kelly green Lego lawn. We admire, compare, and criticize the patches of green that grace our cul-de-sac. We are astounded at the thick carpet of grass next door and suspect its owner to be a midnight fertilizer. We strategize ways to even out the bumps, wonder at the weeds that seem to defy the laws of poison, and share truckloads of sand to create level surfaces that last through one thunderstorm. Peer pressure in this block of green blocks should be a strong motivator, but the Davidsons are not the Joneses. Our lawn is not the envy of the lane; in fact, I am actually grateful that it is not the worst.

  The humble square of earth in front of my house is lumpy, won’t green up, and the edges never come out straight. It is rarely even with the adjacent yards and the unblown clippings accumulate at the edges, combining with the water from the automatic sprinkler to create a green sludge that is unwelcome in a tidy Mid-American subdivision. But the hard-bodied English major who mows it is more interested in his LSAT score than the proper disposition of my excess Bermuda.

  Therein lies the problem. A boy—not my husband—cuts our grass. And a boy can never love a lawn as a man ought to. However, the man I married would rather opt out of the Jones chasing altogether. He proudly proclaims to Mr. Jones, “I’ll make you look good.”

  Call it laziness, but he prefers well-adjusted. John simply has better things to do on Saturday afternoon than pamper the lawn and mother the mulch. Do I want to see him shirtless like the twenty-something lawn ornament? Maybe not. Then again, perhaps a little round-the-house with a mower would transform his upper body into something worth leering at.

  But I’ve gone off topic. The backyard is even worse than the front. John built a huge deck, but the stain he used turned out less than good. He likes to pretend it looks okay.

  “What did you put on it?” Mr. Jones asked. My husband mumbled something unintelligible, even to another of his own kind. When Mr. Jones begged his pardon, my Cro-Magnon only grunted.

  “No, really, I want to know,” Jones persisted, “So I don’t put it on mine.”

  By the next year, the varnish had flaked and the wood had begun to pucker and warp.

  “What are you going to do about it?” asked Mr. Jones. I couldn’t tell if he was concerned, sanctimonious, or simply disgusted.

  “I’m not going to do anything.”

  “You can’t leave it like this.” Yes, that was definitely disgust.

  “Sure I can.” John grinned. “When I’m ready to sell, I’ll slap on a fresh coat.”

  I told you we were not the Joneses. This year, at the beginning of deck maintenance season, Mr. Jones mentioned his weekend staining plans.

  “Again?” John asked. He still didn’t get that, like our anniversary, deck maintenance is an annual event. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll pay you not to stain your deck.”

  Mr. Jones took a deep, cleansing breath and replied, “Why don’t you take that money and hire someone to stain yours for you?”

  That’s not going to happen. We need the money for the lawn guy. And for the cute little tops I wear while he’s doing his sub-standard yard work. And possibly for marriage counseling if the lawn boy ever takes me up on my offer for fresh-squeezed lemonade.

  Puppy Love

  I’M NO DOG PERSON. I NEVER WANTED THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A puppy, certainly not a male dog. So you can imagine my surprise when I brought home a male puppy.

  It all started with an Italian Greyhound I met while waiting in line for my latte at Barnes & Noble. This dog was my soul mate, but the owner would not take a child in trade, so the search was on.

  After being denied by a rescue shelter because my children were too young for this supposedly fragile breed, I was nearly talked into a Chihuahua by a smooth pet store operator. Then I spied the ad for an IG puppy—and at only a hundred bucks, a mere pittance of his worth. The kids and I made the forty-five minute trek deep into the country in search of Dog. On the drive out there I reminded them we might not take him home.

  “Not if he’s not nice,” I said. “Or if he smells.” You know, like a dog. The moment we saw him, I had no trouble handing over the five crisp twenties. My precious skinny puppy, my miniature racing-dog peered into me with deep, blue eyes and I took in his gorgeous dogginess. We dubbed him Simon and rushed straight to the pet super store. Everything was cute and fresh, and smelled nice, like school clothes in September.

  Nothing is that easy. A week later I lived with a reeking dog bed, hair everywhere, and yellow designs in my carpet. He was worth it, though. We babied our new family member, but I set boundaries. No pet nannies, organic dog food, or doggy cashmere sweaters. No Juicy Couture track suits for this pup. And no dog was licking my face. Never-ever-ever. I would feed him, alter him, and immunize him, but no licking.

  There was competition, too. About ten minutes after I brought Simon home, two of my neighbors appeared with puppies. The cul-de-sac became a dog park. Now I’ve got to keep up with the Dog Joneses.

  “My dog never pees inside.”

  “My dog’s poops are small.”

  “My dog doesn’t chew the carpet– did I tell you about my new carpet?”

  They can brag all they want, but I know my dog is best because he loves me the most. I know this because when I let him, he snuggles in my lap, arches his visible spine, and places his long snout on my chest.

  A supposed watchdog, he barks for only one reason—when he wants me to come to the back door to play psych. It goes like this: “Bark-bark, please let me in, oh please won’t you let me in, open the door pleeeeeze.” And then when I open the door he prances back on the deck and I swear he smiles. Psych!

  He smells bad, has no manners, and he’s expensive. I just spent nearly twice his asking price to ensure he doesn’t bless anyone else with a puppy. My dog is a complete pain. But it doesn’t matter because he’s part of our family now. I’m committed. And that reminds me of all the people in my life I am bound to love, too, despite their occasion
ally annoying habits. Face licking is still out, but my dog has found a way to express affection. He looks at me with those puppy dog eyes and gently places one paw on my cheek, where I let it stay for half a breath before I brush it away.

  Surely that doesn’t make me a dog person.

  Garden Spiders Beware

  MY BACKYARD LOOKS SHABBIER THAN USUAL. I BLAME SPIDERS, one in particular. He had a big yellow abdomen with black stripes. He was, literally, a garden-variety spider. I’m not proud to admit that I made my kids throw rocks at the web while I watched from the safety of the kitchen.

  As most phobias do, my fear of spiders began in childhood. When I was a kid we kept chickens behind the garage and it was my job to collect the eggs. One morning I found a huge, dewy web between my breakfast and me. I marched back to the house and cried to my parents. They armed me with a plastic bowling pin and told me—not in so many words—to face my fears.

  I spent the next twenty-five years letting others kill the spiders in my path. After the move to Texas, I had let other people kill the scorpions, too, until one day, on my way out the front door, I met a spider the size of a Volkswagon. It was the blackest, hairiest thing I’d ever seen—a tarantula. I froze. When I backed into the doorway, Spidey took it as an invitation to crawl toward me on the fastest eight legs I’d ever seen. My heart could have jumped out of my chest and back into the house before I did.

  Inside, I peeked out the window. No big deal, I told myself. I’d just stay put until it left. One problem: I had a friend coming. She’d have kids with her. I couldn’t leave them defenseless against The Beast. Besides, I’d been a mother for three whole years. I was supposed to be tough. I couldn’t give in to a spider. I had to kill it.

  I filled an empty formula tin with water, opened the door, inched toward the spider, and doused it. Bad idea. I missed the spider completely, but startled it into racing toward me again. I hopped back inside and slammed the door, then slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor. I pulled my hair searching for a solution. You can do this thing, I told myself.

  I got a broom, figuring I’d trick the spider by approaching from the other direction. Creeping through the garage and around the house, I wondered why broom handles weren’t longer. Closer and closer, I gained confidence. Yes, this was going to work. Closer, just a little closer…

  Thwack! Thwack, thwack again. Smush, crush. “Die, you little freak!” The spider didn’t move. That’s one good thing about spiders. They wither up and die, not like some pests that play dead, only to skuttle away before you return with a tissue. For good measure, I swept the incapacitated monster into the flowerbed and covered it with dirt. Then I filled the formula tin again and flooded the spot, making a little puddle in the red clay. Bludgeoned, buried, and drowned. Dead for certain.

  I dug it up later to show my husband. “It was a lot bigger before I killed it,” I told him. He sort of believed me. You’d think after going medieval on a tarantula so many years ago I’d be over my fear of spiders. I’m not. So when you see my back yard looking neglected, you can blame that yellow and black striped garden-variety fiend. What’s my excuse for the front beds? That’s where we found the black widow.

  Top 10 Things That Could Go Wrong While Baking – A Cautionary Tale

  MAKE COMMENTS IN MY COOKBOOKS WHEN I TRY RECIPES—things like “Excellent,” “Needs more salt,” and “Kids loved it.” What I wrote after a recent traumatic cake baking experience is not suitable for publication. If my cookbooks survive me, it will be a testament to my descendants of their grandmother’s battle with baked goods, and her potty mouth.

  I don’t know why I torture myself with baking from scratch.

  I ought to stick with recipes printed on the back of a box with a red spoon in the corner. If you dislike baking—as I do—the baking knows it, and it messes with you.

  Still, me with my optimism, and the deceptively simply recipe with its butter and eggs…

  It was a pound cake. What could possibly go wrong?

  For the record:

  1. You could be out of flour. Turns out, this is a baking deal breaker. Who knew?

  2. You could decide to get some bang for your bake by doubling the recipe. However, now that you have flour, all those ingredients don’t neatly fit into your fancy mixer—the one that still matches your kitchen even though you haven’t it used since the last time you were delusional enough to bake something, which was a couple of Christmases ago.

  3. You could neglect to ask—before getting started—what exactly is a tube pan? 4. You could assume said tube pan is pretty similar to a loaf pan because the name of the recipe has “pound cake” in it, and you’ve seen pound cakes—plenty of them. They are rectangular, like a loaf pan.

  5. You could skim over the part of the recipe that says sift and whip egg whites until they’re stiff—whatever that means—and therefore underestimate the time effort, and skill involved in what you thought was going to be your basic dump-stir-pour operation.

  6. You could decide that instead of the handy mixer to whip the egg whites, you’ll do it by hand, which could result in a nasty cramp in your right bicep.

  7. You could ignore the visual evidence that the cake batter does not fit into the aforementioned loaf pan. In fact, you could fill it all the way up so that it’s almost spilling out before it even goes into the oven. Then you could be so grateful that the whole drama is in the oven that you don’t even mind cleaning up the unholy mess in your kitchen. You might even smile as you’re wiping down the last puff of flour.

  8. You could smell something familiar: smoke. 9. You could then spend thirty minutes cleaning the scorched batter overflow from the bottom of the oven and transferring partially cooked cake-like material into other pans of various shapes and sizes—none of which are tube pans.

  10. You could serve the cake, which despite your monumental incompetence is actually delicious, resulting in rave reviews and requests that you “make this more often.”

  By the way, in case you’re wondering, a tube pan is the same as a Bundt pan and it has a far greater capacity than your average loaf pan. Again, who knew?

  Car Trouble

  ON A HOT SUMMER DAY, WHILE UNLOADING AN OBSCENE AMOUNT of groceries, I noticed a thick, pink substance on the garage floor. Lemonade? Maybe, but it appeared to be coming from inside the car. After I got my dairy and frozen goods out of the heat, I dipped my finger into the pink mess. It didn’t smell like anything and looked about as worrisome as IHOP syrup, which threatens only my thighs.

  About an hour later I had to run an urgent errand. If I didn’t get that double tall iced latte, someone was getting tied to a tree. Because my husband was out of town, I had another car to drive, one which did not have pink goo oozing out of it. However, I chose to drive the leaky car. It started and drove fine, at first. Soon the thermometer light came on. I tensed when it started to blink, even though I had no idea what that meant.

  If I designed cars, there would be a light that said, “Pull Over.” And if you didn’t immediately comply, another light would come on that said, “NOW!” If you still didn’t get the hint, the car would turn itself off. But my car doesn’t have this handy imaginary feature. Still, despite the warning light, my trip was uneventful. I finished my urgent errand and drove home.

  The next afternoon, after loading the car with five children, four snorkels, two masks, a box of crackers, forty-five fruit snacks, a gross of beach towels, and enough juice to flood a small country, it wouldn’t start. I tried again while the children whined, hot and cranky. Clearly this was another urgent situation so I did what I had to do. I switched cars and went to the pool.

  Then I had to make the call. “Do you want to hear the bad news?” I asked my husband. I told him about the harmless smelling gunk, the flashing red thermometer, and the nonstarting car. Luckily I married a man who remains calm in the face of mechanical trouble.

  “Was the car leaking while you were driving?”

  “No,” I sa
id. “It was in the garage.”

  “And the light, when was that flashing?”

  Here’s where things started to turn against me. “Oh, well… . see…. I needed to go to the –”

  “You drove the car?”

  He is not so calm in the face of four-digit repair bills. I couldn’t feed his panic, but had to reassure him that there was nothing to worry about, just a task to accomplish. “What I need to know is whether I should have the car towed to the dealership or if you think we can put in some more of that pink stuff and drive it over.”

  My husband sighed from another state and I heard the hang of his head. “I hope you didn’t seize the engine.”

  “No.” I brushed it off. “I think it’s something else—something easy to fix.”

  Neither my husband nor the mechanic agreed that it was something easy to fix, but it didn’t matter. I may not be good with machines, but things always work out for me. For instance, my new car is very shiny.

  Rise of My Machines

  WE ARE DEPENDENT ON MACHINES: HAIR DRYER, COFFEE POT, television, thermostat, washer, dryer, Toyota, microwave. Too many to list. And sometimes— like after my family watches The Matrix for the 412th time—I wonder if we’re not getting a little too used to the electrical and mechanical conveniences, if we’re not getting too soft.

  Foe example, yesterday the dishwasher wouldn’t start and my phone froze. That was just the beginning. After working for two hours, my computer angrily displayed the message that I had better switch over to real power before my battery died. Afraid to lose any portion of the Important Masterpiece I had been writing, I immediately checked everything—the plug that goes into the computer, the black box it feeds into, and the wall socket. All plugged in. My machine made good on its threat and died. I switched outlets. Nothing. Over and over I powered up and the computer shut down, back into hibernation—trying, I assume, to save what little juice was left in its battery. Finally, it made a high pitched wheezing sound and gave up humoring me completely.