Capital P

I agree with the Sham part, it’s the Wow I’m having trouble with

While I was gone last weekend (Have I mentioned I was gone? Will I ever quit talking about it?) Caroline and P spent some quality time together.

My first clue that they’d watched some television shows of the hunting and fishing genre came when I called to let them know that I had arrived at the airport. Caroline answered and said, “Mama? Is your plane here?”

“Yes. Are y’all coming to pick me up?”

“We’re on our way. Mama! YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT. I SAW SOME PEOPLE ON T.V. CATCHING FISH WITH A BOW AND ARROW!”

Call it intuition, but I was pretty sure that Dora and Boots hadn’t spent any time spear-fishing while crossing through the lollipop mountain and the chocolate forest.

Although how awesome would it be if one day Dora told Boots that in some countries he’d be considered dinner so maybe he should just look at the map and keep his mouth shut?

No? Just me?

Forget I said anything.

But of all the things she saw this weekend on the various outdoor programming, she found one thing that has left her completely enraptured.

The ShamWow.

Apparently the ShamWow appeals to folks who enjoy the hunting and fishing programs.

Later on that night, the ShamWow commercial came on. Caroline heard it, stopped what she was doing and ran into the living room.

“OH MAMA. YOU HAVE GOT TO SEE THIS!”

“What is it?”

“SHHHHH. Just watch. You’ll never have to buy paper towels again. It’s only $20.00. It lasts FOR YEARS. IT CLEANS UP SPILLS FAST!”

For the next three minutes she repeated every line of the ShamWow commercial back to me while P just smiled.

I have a feeling that someone in my house may have ordered the ShamWow while I was gone.

And y’all know he didn’t just order one.

Because the ShamWow can be used to dry your car.
Next up: P will pull a rabbit out of his hat

Wow. I don’t just have a few ideas for books for my vacation, but for the rest of my life. I think Karen Kingsbury was the clear winner. Her publisher couldn’t have come up with a better way to get some free P.R.

Anyway, I headed to the library this afternoon and chose three books for my trip. I’m not going to tell y’all what they are, but I will let you know my thoughts as I finish them. I’m really not trying to be all secretive but I’m afraid that I’ll share my choices and then get about twenty comments telling me it’s a horrible book and how I will hate it with every fiber of my being which will cause me to become horribly jaded before I ever even begin the first chapter.

I can’t handle that kind of pressure.

Just know that two of my choices were recommended in the comments and the other I chose on my own. Also, none of them are by Karen Kingsbury because I am a rebel at heart.

Seriously, thanks for all the suggestions. I’ve already read several of the suggested books which served as some sort of validation that I’m not completely out of the literary loop, in spite of the fact that In Style magazine is what is most often on my bedside table.

Of course I’m not entirely sure that the Shopaholic series counts as literary greatness, but the first two books in the series did make me laugh out loud at a time when I was completely sleep-deprived and hanging on to my sanity by a thread because Caroline was about three months old. However, after the third book in the series, I reached a point where I had a hard time believing anyone could continue to be that fiscally irresponsible.

And that is a strong statement coming from someone who regularly overdrew on her bank account from 1990-1994.

So, now that the book decision is settled, I’m trying to get everything else ready. I spent the rest of yesterday doing laundry and buying travel-sized toiletries at HEB. I am a sucker for travel-sized toiletries. I bought things I don’t even use at home just because they were available in little bitty bottles.

Then last night as I was cooking dinner, P and I began discussing a few details of our trip. I told him I had borrowed two big suitcases from Mimi and Bops so we’d have plenty of packing room. He informed me that he wasn’t going to take one of the big suitcases because why would he need all that room?

Here are the respective bags we will be taking on our trip.

No, that’s not a carry-on. That’s what P is taking as a suitcase.

Apparently I am married to the David Copperfield of packing.

This was the ensuing conversation.

“You can’t just take a backpack. You have to pack your suit.”

“Well, I’ll just put my suit in your suitcase.”

“Um, NO. THERE WON’T BE ANY ROOM.”

“How much are you packing? We’re going to be at the beach. What will you possibly need other than a bathing suit?”

“How long have you been married to me?”

“Seriously, how will you fill all that space?”

“Minimum five pairs of shoes, hair products, multiple outfits, and vast amounts of beauty products. I require maintenance. In the words of Dolly Parton, ‘It takes some effort to look like this’.”

Eye roll.

Not him. Me.

All I know is I’m not taking up precious room in my suitcase for his suit. He’s going to have a heck of a time getting out all the wrinkles after it’s been stuffed in a backpack for the better part of six hours.

Although I may still bring the other suitcase because I could totally fit my three favorite pillows and a sound machine in it, which would officially make it THE BEST VACATION EVER.

And if there’s room for his suit among my pillows, I’ll consider letting it in.
And with this I’ve reached new levels of excitement

I came home yesterday after I dropped Caroline off at school and spent the next few hours procrastinating. I knew what I had to do, but I wanted to live in denial just a little while longer.

So the first thing I did was let the dogs drag me around the neighborhood for about two miles while I tried to maintain some sort of dignity by pretending that I always run at a dead sprint down the street with my arms flailing wildly and screaming at my dogs to STOP! SLOW DOWN! I AM GOING TO SELL YOU TO THE NEXT PERSON WE PASS!

When the exercise portion of my morning was over, I decided to iron some clothes.

That’s right. I said iron.

I am the same person who got out the ironing board about three months ago causing Caroline to come up to me and ask, “Oh Mama! What is that?”

Oh honey, that’s just the devil in the form of a collapsible board covered in an ugly floral print.

I needed to iron because I purchased a few new shirts for P this week. He’s decided he’s a big fan of the short-sleeve button down shirt because he gets too hot in knit polo-type shirts. And if I had to sit next to him in a Mexican restaurant one more time and listen to him talk about how his knit shirt was SO HOT that he was going to have to take another shower by the time we got home, then one of us wouldn’t have survived.

So I bought him a few shirts to ensure that he wouldn’t spontaneously combust from the heat caused by his Gap knit polos.

I think he looks really good in the color blue so I looked for a blue shirt and found a great one on sale at Macy’s. As soon as I pulled it out of the bag to show him he said, “That looks just like my other blue short-sleeved shirt.”

“No it doesn’t. It’s TOTALLY DIFFERENT. They couldn’t be MORE DIFFERENT.”

“Okay. Whatever.”

Later that night, Caroline and I were watching T.V. and he came in to try on the shirts to make sure they fit. When he pulled the blue one out of the bag, Caroline said, “DADDY! THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE YOUR OTHER SHIRT!”

I think it was a set up.

Here are the shirts.

Clearly they could not be more different.

He felt the need to wash the new shirts immediately because that is what he does. He washes brand new, perfectly pressed clothes.

I do not understand this. Why would you wash an article of clothing that is brand new?

Truth be told if I had caught him in time I never would have let him put those shirts in the washer. I would have done what I’ve always done which is hang them up in his closet and pretend like I had taken them to the cleaners. He never would have known the difference.

But since I was too late and they were already clean, I felt the need to go ahead and just iron them. Because that is the kind of wife I am.

Plus, I knew I needed to iron a few of Caroline’s dresses because the last time I made her iron them she didn’t really get the wrinkles out. It’s like her heart wasn’t in it.

But at the core of my ironing frenzy, however, was my need to put off the inevitable.

I had to take an online defensive driving course.

Oh the horror.

I’ve put it off for months but it could wait no longer. Unless I wanted a warrant issued for my arrest.

So I spent four hours of my life, four hours I will never get back, trying to finish a defensive driving course before it was time to pick up Caroline from school.

The last time I took defensive driving I remember watching a piece of classic cinema entitled “Blood Runs Red on the Highway”. It was the feel good movie of the year. Yesterday I learned that it has been traded in for an even more upbeat version (if that’s possible) called “DEAD IN FIVE SECONDS”.

The Department of Transportation really has no sense of humor. Nor do they seem to realize that a film called “DEAD IN FIVE SECONDS” shouldn’t last for twenty minutes and fifty-eight seconds. It’s just bad marketing.

I’m sad to report that as of this moment I still haven’t finished my course. I have to complete two more exciting units on ROAD SIGNS and WHAT TO DO IF A HUGE ELK JUMPS IN FRONT OF YOUR VEHICLE.

I just can’t bear to finish right now.

So I’m off to iron another one of P’s new shirts. It’s a nice yellow linen shirt that I bought to go with a pair of his plaid shorts. Although he just informed me that he “muffin-topped those shorts” about three years ago.

This is why I love him.

In spite of the fact that he thinks knit polo shirts are too hot.
I dream of P with feathers in his hair

P and I are sitting here spending our Saturday night watching one of the true cinematic classics, “The Electric Horseman”. He’s never seen it which frankly is a travesty and makes me wonder how we ended up together.

And I hate to say this but I think he may be mocking one of my favorite movies of all time.

Granted, it is slightly unbelievable that a man on a horse could outrun a band of police cars and several police motorcycles.

Without losing his cowboy hat.

But back in 1979 when I was a ten year old girl wearing some sweet cowboy boots from Weiners, something in this movie spoke to me deeply. I just knew I wanted to spend my life out on the range with wild horses.

Unless I decided to spend it trying to win cross-country races disguised as a nun in an ambulance with Dom Deluise as Captain Chaos and Burt Reynolds as J.J. McClure.

And if you were born after 1980 you have no idea what I’m talking about.

Tragic.

But, most importantly, watching “The Electric Horseman” and seeing Robert Redford’s lightly feathered hair has triggered a memory that P has never shared with me. In 5th and 6th grade he used to blow dry his hair using a brush attachment to achieve that winged-back look.

This piece of information has made my Saturday night complete.
I’m sure Mr. Prada was a lovely person

We’re sitting on the couch watching a constant rotation of various hunting and fishing shows, when P looks at me and says, “Next week I might get to meet the guy who is basically the person who invented the blah, blah, blah.”

Except he didn’t actually say blah, blah, blah, but that’s what I heard because it had something to do with guns or firepower or ammunition.

So I said, “Oh, cool.”

Which translates to I’m trying to be excited but I have no idea what you’re talking about.

He said, “I don’t think you understand how great that is. It would be like you getting to meet Mr. Prada.”

“Yes, it would. Except that Mr. Prada has been dead for thirty years.”

But thanks for playing.

And I do love him for his attempt to speak my language.
Valentine’s Day, brought to you by Hallmark and the popcorn industry

Back when P and I started dating, he wasn’t exactly a ladies man. I mean, not that he’s a ladies man now, but I think it’s safe to say that after ten years of being married to me, he understands women a little bit better than he did before.

BBM (Before Big Mama), P would have been content to live on a ranch somewhere with his vast gun collection and perhaps a bag of Cheetos. In fact, for the first six months we dated he broke up with me everytime I cried because he was sure it meant I had some kind of mental instability.

And if you’re a woman (which, let’s be honest, I’m betting I don’t have a ton of male readers) you can do the math and know that six months of dating means I cried at least six times. Once every month. I blame the hormones.

My point is P was headed straight for bachelorhood and multiple gun safes filled to the brim to keep him warm at night.

But then I came along and reeled him in with enough charm and feminine wiles to overrule my emotional instability. He honestly told me one time that he didn’t know girls cried.

Then he met me.

And now he has a daughter, which is proof that God has a tremendous sense of humor.

I realized I was dating a true Casanova when our first February together rolled around and I was secretly, anxiously awaiting my first Valentine’s Day present from the man I was sure I was going to marry. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to think it might even be an engagement ring!

My bubble was burst when P asked me on February 13th when Valentine’s Day was and did it fall on the second Tuesday in February? I guess he thought it was like Easter or Thanksgiving, as opposed to a holiday made up by the greeting card industry.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize he probably hadn’t done any diamond shopping. Oh, but he did have time to go pick out a giant-sized tin of caramel popcorn.

I cried. And, of course, we broke up due to my emotional instability and lack of appreciation for caramel-coated popcorn in quantities large enough to feed my entire apartment complex.

The other night, P and I were watching T.V., although I can’t for the life of me remember what we were watching since NOTHING is the only thing that’s on right now. But we sit and watch anyway because otherwise we might pick up a book and read or something.

A Valentine’s Day commercial came on. Y’all know what I’m talking about, the ads that are targeted to people who apparently have vast amounts of disposable income to spend on diamonds to remind her you’ll love her today, tomorrow and forever.

P reminds me he’ll love me today, tomorrow and forever by taking out the trash and working to support me in the style to which I’ve grown accustomed. It’s much more practical.

He looked at me and said, “When’s Valentine’s Day?”

I said, “The second Tuesday in February.”

“Oh yeah. That’s right.”

“No. No it’s not. It’s February 14th!” I said, as I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“Why did you roll your eyes?”

“Because we’ve had this conversation every February for the last 13 years.”

“What does it matter what day it falls on? Being married to me is like having Valentine’s every day.”

Who can argue with that?

I just hope he doesn’t forget to order my industrial-sized tin of popcorn.