sunny side up

totally hosed

At the gas station yesterday, Jade and I were treated to the spectacle of a man and his black Escalade driving away with the fuel hose-and-nozzle contraption still attached to his vehicle.  Perhaps the contraption did not especially enjoy its connection to the gas pump, because it seemed pretty eager to run away with the hose-napper. However, the station manager came out before the thief got away, forcing him to pull over and return the hose contraption. And this he did, quite gingerly laying it to rest next to the pump to which it was once attached.  The clipboard-wielding station manager would not let him escape until he filled out some paperwork, which I assume involved compensation for the damage he hath wrought.

Now I've heard tell of people driving away with the fuel hose and nozzle but only just witnessed it firsthand yesterday.  As with those teenage girls who never knew they were pregnant and end up giving birth in a bathroom stall during the prom, I ask you, how does this sort of thing happen?  When I pump gas, I insert the hose, then busy myself cleaning the windows until I hear the click of the pump tell me that my tank is full.  I walk over to the hose and top off my tank until the pump hits a price on it with a 0 or 5 in the ones column (very important).  Next, I remove the nozzle from my gas tank and return it to its rightful place, screw on the cap to the gas tank, and get a receipt.  Then--and only then--I drive away. 

Is there any other way to conduct this transaction?

sometimes things are not what they seem

Remember when I thought Exubera sounded like something we should all want to take?

Whenever I hear the term "waterboarding" I always first think, "Wheeee! I'd love to try that!," but then I realize the subject is actually torture, not water sports. 

Similarly, every time people speak of the Janjaweed, my mind initially goes to some sort of happy plant that people smoke rather than to those slaughtering militiamen in Darfur.

Does that happen to you, too?

the truth may set you free, but it's gonna piss off some folk

It was bound to happen.  Recently Kai peppered me with a lot of questions about how exactly this Santa Claus fellow could be real when the story just didn’t add up. When he finally came out with “Is Santa real?” I just couldn’t lie to the kid.  Sure, I tried to dance around it.  But then he asked, “Is he real like Superman and Batman are real?” 

“I guess you could put it that way, yes.”
“Oh, so he’s not real,” he replied. 
“That’s also a good way to put it.”  Then Jade assured him that the presents are real, so he was totally cool with our conversation.

For those of you who don’t know, we don’t preach Santaism in our home.  Even before we had kids, Bell and I agreed that we would not affirmatively lie to our children about Santa Claus.*  Of course, in their minglings with peers on the playground and in school, inevitably they would hear tell of The Man, and if they believed these stories, that was okay.  However, we refused to go out of our way to craft a little white lie, then build it up with other lies, only to have to tell them the truth later on and expose ourselves as, um, liars.  It just wasn’t the type of role modeling we had envisioned for our kids.  Why set your own pants on fire?

With Jade, this turned out not to be a problem because she never believed in Santa Claus in the first place. In fact, for several years she was outright hostile about The Man/The Myth, and we would have to direct her away from Santa’s House at the mall and depart the annual Christmas musical when He arrived in order to avoid a confrontation. Around this time every year, we told her that she must not speak of The Truth to her friends.  We told her that some kids believe in Santa and it was not her job to shatter that illusion, and it would probably upset them.  Plus, it was up to the parents to decide the proper time to be exposed in their lies. (Okay, okay, I’m being snarky here, and surely I have offended some of you Santa-ists, for which I sort of apologize.)

Annnnywho, after my conversation with Kai, as with Jade, I specifically told him that even though Santa isn’t real, most children believe he is and so he was not to tell them otherwise.

The next morning at school as the kids sat in circle time, Kai raised his hand. “Miss J?  Santa Claus isn’t real.” 

He couldn’t just pull one or two kids aside and share his secret under the monkey bars; no, he had to wait until 23 kids ranging in age from 4 to 6 (Santa’s primary target market!) were gathered.  Hey everyone! Can I have your attention, please? There’s a rumor going ‘round and I’d like to clear it up once and for all: Santa’s not real!  Any questions? Thank you, and Merry Christmas!

The teacher apparently came back with, “Yes he is.” [Good one!]  But that was not the end of it. Many kids went home to their parents and told them what Kai had said, and apparently several cried.  This pissed off the parents, who complained to the proprietress, who told the teacher to talk to us about it.  So now we are the Black Sheep of Montessori.  How awesome is that?

Jade pointed out that we are probably no longer welcome at the eleventy-three upcoming birthday parties for which we just received invitations. I don’t know many of the other parents (since Bell is usually the one to drop off and pick up Kai), but I can see it now—we will walk in to a party and suddenly a silence will fall over the room.  Then people will look down at the floor or into their drinks, slowly dispersing like we’re carrying something contagious (like, THE TRUTH!)  Never in my wildest imaginings did I think I’d be so self-conscious about saying, “Hi, I’m Kai’s mom!”

Incidentally, Kai felt really bad about all this. He asked if he should apologize to his teacher, then he started crying and said, “I shouldn’t have asked you the question!”

“You mean about apologizing to Miss J?”

“No, the question about whether Santa was real.  I shouldn’t have asked you that, then the other kids wouldn’t have cried,” he said. Oh, my little truth-seeker, no!  You should never be afraid to ask a question (because as my auto shop teacher once said, “The only stupid question is the unasked one”)   I explained that the problem was not in asking the question but in sharing the answer with his friends after we had told him not to.

Remember that episode of "The Simpsons" where Maggie gets sent to school at the Ayn Rand School for Tots? Sigh.  If Kai attended the Ayn Rand School for Tots, this would not be happening.

__________

*My parents never made a big deal of Santa, taking the same approach Bell and I have taken, although probably for different reasons. My mom, who was very religious, objected to anything in pop culture that smacked of the mystical or magical.  Thus, she prohibited us from watching “Bewitched,” and “I Dream of Jeannie,” and she wasn't even keen on "The Flying Nun" (and she had been in the convent!  Isn't that just wrong?)  She banned the Ouija Board from our slumber parties and refused to even play along with predicting her day based on the signs of the Zodiac. No way was she going to trumpet the story of some fat guy with flying reindeer.  I think she wanted to make sure we used all our faith for the things that (she believed) mattered most. But even without The Myth of Santa, Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays.  The only time it lacked the “magic” you Santa-ists wax on about was the year my dad was away and my mom, in some sort of Jews-for-Jesus experiment gone awry, hung a giant star of David in the window and decorated it with silver garland and a picture of a manger scene in the middle. Oh yes, and remember The Year They Stole My Vanity? Not so magical, that one. But I can’t blame the lack of belief in Santa.  My parents bought the goods, and my parents took them away.

the kindness of strangers

Today as I waited for my cappuccino to come up at the bar, a man came up to me and said in some kind of Euro accent, "Excuse me Lady? You are gorgeous. And I love your shoes." I thanked him, but then I worried that my doing so might be mistaken for an invitation to join me when I sat down.  Instead, when he got his drink he said, "Goodbye, Lady" and he walked out the door.

Not to get all hippie on you, but how about we all go forth and disseminate random compliments to strangers today?

klept-o-MANIA!

About eight months ago Jade complained to me that Kai was stealing her stuff while she was at school.  He stood right there and let the accusation fly past without any hint of denial.  He wasn't whistling, but he might as well have been.

"That's ridiculuos!" I poo-pooed.   "No, he's not. He knows he's not to go into your room when you're gone."

"Yeah but he still does it, and he takes things!"

"Oh come on! No he doesn't," I tried to assure her.  Then I turned to Kai.  "Kai, do you go into Jade's room and take her things when she's not there?" I asked mostly so Jade could hear it from the horse's mouth.

"Sure!  Yeah!" he said, a little too enthusiastically.

"You do?" I was dumbfounded.  "Like what?"

"Hold on! I'll show you!" he said, and he ran quickly to his room.  He returned with a sparkly jewel.  "See!" he held it up proudly.

"I KNEW it!" Jade chimed in and grabbed it from him.

"Is that all you've taken?"  I asked.   He ran back to his room again, this time returning with some post-it notes.  I was shocked, to say the least.  Just to be sure, I asked one more time--"Is there anything else?"  This sent him back to his room, only to return with more of Jade's things--shiny things, papers, stickers, a little piece of yarn--a collection worthy of little Templeton the Rat. Geez!  Finally, perhaps tired of all the running back and forth, he said, "Come in my room, I'll show you what else," and he led us to a box of treasures he had picked up during his travels to his sister's room.  And the worst part (well, the third-worst because the worst part was that he had stolen in the first place, and the second-worst part was that I had wrongly assumed Jade was being dramatic and just trying to get Kai in trouble) was that Kai acted as if stealing his sister's things was the most rational thing in the world, something he was rather proud of, something he would have shown me sooner had I only asked.

I made him return everything, and we talked about why it is wrong to take someone else's things without asking, just because you want it for yourself or someone else ("because then you're like a government.  Ewwwww!").  I felt confident that he had learned his lesson. 

Recently, Kai was bemoaning the fact that he has been losing things lately, where "things" really means these little cards that plug into his faux laptop and allow him to play in different subject areas. I tried to be encouraging, telling him that he found the music one recently and that I was sure the one for math would turn up.  It's somewhere in the house.  All the while, he shook his head.

"No, no.  Mom?  I'm beginning to think that Jadey is stealing my things," he accused.

"What?"

"Yea, I lose things and I think Jadey's been stealing them." 

"Why on earth would you think that?" I asked. It's not as if 1) Jade has any interest in Kai's "things" and b) even if she did, she'd just play with them. No reason to steal them when they are freely available for use.

"Because," he said quite matter-of-factly, "I steal her things."

"You do? Like what?" I asked, rather shocked. (Again! You'd think I'd learn.)

"Well, you know those kitty post-it notes? I take those. But I only take them one at a  time, so she won't notice.  And, I don't know, things I like. I put them in my room where she won't find them!  And . . ."

Here we go again. Something tells me I had better go check my jewelry box.