Rules of the Road

Last night I was driving my daughter home from gym.

"I had blood drawn today," I said.

"Did they give it back?" she said.

I looked at her. I shouldn't have. I couldn't help it. These days I take my life in my hands if I so much as glance in her direction. But she seemed unaware of my blatant disregard of etiquette. Meanwhile the wipers slapped maniacally through the rainy dark.

"It's your blood," she said. "They should give it back."

I checked the Sass-O-Meter. Nothing. The kid was serious. I snuck another look. How could something so lovely be so...unlovely? So clueless? I must be an even worse mother than we both agree I am.

A week ago we were in the midst of The Plague, despite which the bad grades and the bad attitude just kept on coming. When my temperature came back down and I could finally hear again, I'd had it.

"You're grounded," I said. Make that hollered.

Problem was, she didn't know what "grounded" meant. She thought it meant she was supposed to stay in one spot and not move until the time was up. So she sat in her room at her computer for eleven hours and watched reruns of "Zach and Cody." It was the quietest Saturday I'd spent in over a decade. She only ventured out when her ass fell asleep. And I slept like a baby til morning.

But you wanna know what drives me absofuckinglutely insane? Mothers who get along with their teenage daughters. I'm like sitting here trying to figure out how to score a busload of crack so as to make it through the next five to thirty years, and some happy little mother is texting me about some happy little shopping trip. Not only is this vagina texting me (I'm still trying to figure out the Xerox machine), turns out she went on this little retail hegira with her fucking fifteen-year-old daughter! And they had fucking lattes at Barnes and Fucking Noble afterward!

I don't know about you, but there's something downright unnatural about that.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally saw my daughter's school photos. For some time I'd been afraid she'd had a stroke or something and her mouth would be permanently frozen in a grimace. Turns out her face is normal. Even pretty. Who knew?

I used to be pretty. Now I'm pretty spent. Which is why I decided to get the once-over down at the corner Medical Center. Last time I went in for a lube job Bill and Hil were still running the lot.

"It's like my 'Check Engine' light is always on," I told the doc.

She immediately scheduled me for the whole enchilada, which included the aforementioned blood-letting.

Good news is I have blood. Bad news is it's 180 proof. But what's a mutha to do? Go shopping? Not on this little roadtrip, baby. It's all I can do to keep my hands on the wheel. Ten and two, baby, ten and two. Which, contrary to what my daughter thinks, has nothing to do with the number of times I looked at her without permission on the way home from gym last night. I'll be paying for that little breach for the next hundred miles or so. Or until we run out of gas, whichever comes first.

BINGO??

No, H1N1 is not a Bingo call. Whatever it is, I've got it. Drink lots of liquids, take drugs, stay in bed.

Sounds like the old days.

I'll be back...(she said, hopefully)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biq_zNakkfA

(Gone to find the lake...

...back next week)

Nothing But the Truth

And the lies just keep on comin'.

I had a doctor's appointment the other day, the first in many moons. How many? Since Shrub took his first oaf of office, er, oath. Whatever, you do the math. I've been a bad bad girl. I don't know why I never go to the doctor, I just don't. I know women who see their doctors as often as their hairdressers. They call their doctor by its first name.

"Yo, Bob, how's the family? The golf game? Oh, and I've been feeling a little fatigued lately."

Well who the fuck hasn't. No reason to overhaul the healthcare system.

So I'm filling out this questionnaire in the waiting room at the doctor's office (these days it's called a Medical Center), and I'm checking all the usual boxes and priding myself on pretty much telling the truth, when the question of alcohol use comes up. Being in Truth Telling Mode, I answer as honestly as I deem fit, that is, just over the border into White Lie territory: "12-15 per week."

It's only later when checking my work (advice I've always given my daughter when it comes to school and which she's always ignored) that I realize the question was how many drinks per week, not bottles.

Details, details.

On the question of lying, I acquiesce to my mother, R.I.P., the once-reigning Queen of Little White Lieland. It was at her little white knees that I was first schooled in the ancient art of embroidering the truth. No intricate cross stitch of the Golden Rule to hang on the bathroom wall for that broad, nosirree. My mother's idea of a sampler was having several different versions of the truth to choose from. Like multiple choice.

"I'm sorry, my daughter can't play with your daughter today because..." (Choose one)

A. She isn't feeling well.
B. She has to work on her "Unknown American Women" project.
C. Her doll died.

These were the options in Little White Lieland. In Honestyland, it was always True or False:

"My daughter can't play with your daughter today because your daughter eats paste." (T F)

My mother wasn't big on the truth. She thought it was overrated. In her world, learning to lie was an exercise in creativity. It smacked of imagination and depth. Why settle for the mundane when you could have the extraordinary? And learning to lie with aplomb was a rite of passage for girls, right up there with never telling your real age and making sure your lips and nails matched.

She did, however, make a distinction between a Lie and a Little White Lie, and I was weaned on the latter. Kruschev and people from Chisholm lied. People with breeding and manners told Little White Lies. And a Little White Lie was not only creative, it was often the kinder choice, the classic example being:

"That dress looks like sausage casing on you." ...versus... "My, what a nice color!"

So when I casually alter my answers on the questionnaire in the doctor's office, I'm defaulting to an instinct buried deep in my marrow. Why complicate my doctor's busy day any more than necessary? She has bigger fish to fry. What happens in my liver, stays in my liver.

Plus, I want to present myself well, it's what people with breeding and manners do. How would it look to admit I fell out of an outhouse in a drunken stupor and cracked a rib? After all, I'm a direct descendant of the royal house of Norway. At least, that's what Mom always said.

Lower Level Disturbances

How do you know when someone's lying?

I know when I'm lying. And I'll bet you don't. Know when I'm lying. That's probably what makes me a Geiger counter when it comes to lie-spotting. It Takes One To Know One. I've got serious lying credentials. I've been lying since the Eisenhower Administration.

Do they even have Geiger counters any more? I'm going to resist Googling to find out. I Google everything, just like you. I mean, I think I've come up with a phrase or idea that no one else in the history of life has ever thought of. Then I Google it and get 15 billion hits. So much for original thought. Not to mention original sin.

Speaking of which, I should invent a program to spot lies. Then I could save what little is left of my sixth sense for more productive ventures. Like figuring out if that asshole in front of me is having a heart attack or has simply stopped in the middle of the road to text her babysitter. Make that bookie.

Speaking of bookies, in New Jersey it's against the law to talk on a cell phone while driving. So what do you do if you're motoring down the turnpike and some asshole in front of you is blathering away on the ol' LG Dare? Call 911? On your cell phone?

(Note to self: Forget about moving to Jersey, just fuggedaboutid.)

But I'd like to move somewhere. Pretty much anywhere away from anybody remotely resembling a teenager. I used to be picky and persnickety about pretty much everything. A real headcase of oversensitivity. Like, if the wind blew, I got heart palpitations. To be honest, I've never liked the wind. Never trusted it. I always felt it was out to get me. Maybe this comes from having dumb hair. The kind the wind could blow right off your head, given half a chance.

These days I'm not so high on the picky-and-persnickety scale. Thanks to being the parent of a teenager. A state which puts everything else into perspective. There's "everything else," and then there's Hell. The state where you live.

Teenagers are like the wind. You can't control them. You can't trust them. They're out to get you. They make you feel dumb, and you pull your hair out. As an olympic-level lie-spotter and the parent of a teenager, I'm practically bald. I'm in a constant state of arousal. And not in a good way. These days my sixth sense is stuck in overdrive, texting its bookie, laying odds on whether I'll make it to next year. Make that next week.

Wanna lay odds on how many Google hits I'll get with "lie-spotter"? Here goes. Wow. Only 1,700. Nice round number. One of my more original thoughts, looks like.

Here's an original thought: I used to be a teenager. Many people think I still am. Not in the looks department, in the acts. Maybe that's why the ol' Geiger is working overtime these days: there's an adolescent in the building. And It Takes One To Know One.

Makes me want to move to Jersey. Or at least leave the building. These days I have to settle for just going outside. I mean, give me an upper level disturbance over a 14-year-old anytime. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss the wind. These days I'd give anything for a good hard blow.