See all that shitty snow? That’s the view from my house right now. Currently, we’re in a winter storm warning through tomorrow night and a wind chill warning from now until Tuesday. TUESDAY. It’s Friday, right now. It’s a balmy one degree outside right now. ONE. Wouldn’t be so bad if the wind chill wasn’t at -23. And tomorrow, the wind chill threatens to be -44. Looking forward to that — if only my sarcasm could melt snow!
Because of Mother Nature’s winter fury, the women’s wellness retreat at which I was supposed to be doing stand-up comedy tomorrow night has been CANCELLED. Cancelled. Not postponed. Flat out cancelled. All those hours of practice I put in for nothing.
Of course, cancelling it was the right thing to do because no one should be out driving in this shit storm — uh, I mean snowstorm. Oh, who am I kidding? I mean both.
However, I’m sad because I was really looking forward to it. While writing out one of the stories I was going to share isn’t quite the same as delivering it with perfect inflection while acting it out, I decided to type up a portion of what I’d planned to share with the women to share here with you instead. I’ve added a few things, but it’s essentially one of the stories about my younger years that I was going to tell — the bike pictured below is similar to the one in the following story.
Here it is:
I had this really cool, all-red ten-speed bicycle – a gift from my parents after I finally mastered the incredibly difficult (for me) feat of learning to ride a bike without falling over continually (see this past “Tomes and Topics” post: learning to ride). I loved that bike. It represented freedom, and I rode it all over town, but I probably rode it the most to the two swimming pools each summer. I loved to swim, and still do, so I went swimming every day that I could. I was in that ‘tween’ phase of my life where curves were starting to form, my boobs were growing, and my boy craziness was reaching new levels. There’s a reason it’s called being boy “crazy.” You do crazy things to try to impress them because you’re already out of your head from how crazy they make you feel. I split my swimming between Memorial pool and Liberty Bell pool – both of those pools are gone now and have been replaced by one large water park, which, to me, just isn’t the same, but nobody asked me. Anyway, some days I’d bike to Memorial, and other days I’d bike to Liberty Bell. Liberty Bell had the hottest male lifeguards, though, during that summer when I was no longer a child yet not a true teenager either. I really liked going to Liberty Bell to look at the teenage boys – oh, and to swim, of course. Sometimes, I’d see them checking me out, too – or I can tell myself that’s what they were doing; after all, this is my story. One day, after enough swimming and suntanning and ogling of male flesh, it was time for me to hop on my trusty ten-speed bike and head home. I sauntered out to the bike rack, wearing only my swimsuit and a pair of sandals, flung my beach towel around my neck and over my shoulders, kicked up the kickstand, and sailed away from the pool. It was pool check time, so the lifeguards were milling around the chain-link fence line with their buddies, and I knew they were there and that there was a good chance they might see me pedal past on the street. This knowledge was in my head as I coasted through the turn from the parking area onto the street. I cockily started pedaling, which caused my ass to raise up a bit from the seat as I put pressure onto the pedals and shifted the gears on the low-slung, curved handlebars. From the corner of my eye, I could see the bronzed gods milling about only a few yards from the street on the other side of the fence. Were they checking me out? Were they watching me bike past them on my way home? Well, if they were, they were in for a treat. Remember that towel I’d flung around my neck? Yeah, that one. Because I was leaning forward so far, it now slid from my back and snaked down the front of me where it struck out at my front tire and became lodged in the spokes. I’m sure you know what happened next but let me paint the picture for you anyway. The front tire instantaneously stopped. The back tire, however, did not. It continued its forward momentum up and over, catapulting me onto the street and forcing all the air out of my lungs in one grand OOOMPH! as I landed – hard – flat on my back. I lay on the pavement for what felt like hours but was more likely under a minute, the bike on top of me, that rear tire still spinning lazily. One end of the towel was firmly wrapped around my neck while the other was still stuck between the spokes of the front tire. I gasped uselessly for air and prayed that if I were dying to make it fast and spare me further humiliation because I knew the boys were certainly looking at me NOW. A kindly old man stopped his pickup truck and got out to help me up. By then, some oxygen was beginning to reinflate my lungs, so I was able to croak out a weak “thank you” to him before I got back on my bike and slowly, oh so slowly, began pedaling for home. I’m sure my cheeks were burning a brighter red than the red of my prized ten-speed bike. I didn’t go back to Liberty Bell pool for the rest of that summer.
How I wish it were summertime right now. If you’re feeling any of the winter blues, then I hope my story cheered you a little bit. I’m going to share one more humor piece that is only partially true but that is based upon the real experience I had of teaching my own children.
I didn’t homeschool my kids, but at a small-town school where I was the only foreign-language teacher, my kids were also my students. While teaching them had its challenges, the biggest challenge was figuring out how to conduct a parent-teacher conference about them. In my head, it went something like this regarding my son: Me in teacher mode (T): “Let’s start with Trevor’s test scores. Unfortunately, he fails more tests than he passes.” Me in mom mode (M): Sighing, “He’s just like his father. The only test that man ever got an A-plus on was a blood test.” T: “Hmmm. Well, he also has a problem listening when I’m speaking.” M: Sighing louder. “Just like his father. That man never listened to a word I said. Why do you think we’re divorced?” T: “I see.” Clears throat, searching for something good to say about the boy. “He is quite clever, though, and he has a wonderful sense of humor.” M. Beaming. “Oh, I know. He takes after me.” I couldn’t have a true parent-teacher conference about him because I would have looked like a crazy person sitting at my conference table talking to myself, and his father would never have attempted to have a parent-teacher conference with me about either of the kids, so my “conferences” were super-suppertime stealth-mode sneak-attacks on my kids. “Trevor, pass me the peas, please.” He does. “So, how was school?” Mumbling through a mouthful of his food, “Fine.” Raising an eyebrow ever so slightly. “Really? Are you sure?” Trevor slowly lowers his fork to his plate. “What did you hear?” Raising both eyebrows in a noticeable fashion as I tilt my head and look at him, an innocent expression still plastered across my face, “Should I have heard something?” He studies my face, but I can see the fear in his eyes. He shakes his head in an unconvincing manner. By now, his little sister sits transfixed, her eyes wide and darting from me to her brother, a fry suspended and dripping ketchup onto her plate. “No,” he says, yet the slight squeak in his voice gives him away. I narrow my eyes at him. His shoulders slump. He knows that I know. “Mr. Timm called me at the end of fifth period.” “Mr. Timm? Oh, that. That was nothing.” He digs into his food again. He’s right. It was nothing. Now for the bomb. “And Mrs. Hild called, too.” He audibly swallows his mouthful and picks up his glass of water, his hand shaking. Finally, he asks, “What did she say?” I lean forward. “Why don’t you tell me?” And that’s how I learned everything I ever needed to know to help correct my son’s behavior in school and how he learned that he could never get away with anything at a school where his mother was a teacher because the other teachers would tell me any time he misbehaved – and sometimes they wouldn’t but I’d pretend they had, but that’s not something he needs to know.
Fortunately, my kids were pretty well behaved in school, so these suppertime conversations were rare, but they did happen.
All right, I’ve cheered myself up and shared a couple small pieces with you today. Now, to finally get on with writing more of novel number seven — hopefully I’ll have a bit of that to share with paying subscribers next week or soon after. Consider becoming one if you’re not already. Thanks.
Tammy Marshall
Thanks for sharing your funny story. I'm tired of the cold, too, but I'm a little envious of the snow! We're running of time to get at least one decent snow here in Virginia.