Well, you are not my mom's butt.

I was three years old and it was the first time I actually remember the feeling of embarrassment. My mom had dragged me out on a shopping trip for something lame like, well, anything that was not toys for me. While my mom was looking at some items against the wall of the store, I was doing what every child does in a boring women's clothing store; hiding inside of the free standing racks of clothes. On the floor under one of the racks I found something really cool. (Ok, it was like a button or something). And I had to go over to my mom and show her my treasure.



I ran up to my mom, whose back was to me, and she was slightly bent over to look at something on one of the lower racks. I was so enthralled by the item in my hand I was not looking at my mom when I started to smack her butt and say, "Mom, Mom, Mom, look what I found! Mom! Mom! Mom!" It was after about the 5th or 6th "Mom" and about the 100th spank on the rear that I heard my ACTUAL Mom say from the other side of the store, "Um, Heather?"



Horror came over me as I looked up at the face of a woman who was not my mom, and then at the hand of mine that had been smacking her ass.

My advice: Be careful on the highways.

Modarres Highway / Tehran by Hamed Saber (Hamed Saber)

My late Great-Grandmother was full of great one liners. Some of these included:



"That girl was thinner than a bar of soap with a weeks worth of wash on it!"



OR



"That child was slower than molasses in winter!"



Besides these, she was known making some inappropriate comments that only a 95 year old women can get away with saying. One, for example, was the time she unknowing thought that "lesbians" were "Lebanese people." Awesome.



She also gave me some of the best advice. Every time she would write me a letter or talk to me on the phone she would say, "Be careful on the highways." What better advice is that? And what better place to be extra careful? Since she lived in West Virginia, it was her way of making sure we were mindful drivers. Well, mindful drivers that hopefully will not be influenced by those crazy San Francisco "Lebanese."

My fear of Santa Claus

Let me paint you a little picture:



It is Christmas Eve and it is time for bed. You need to make sure you get in bed early and fall asleep in plenty of time so Santa doesn't skip over your house. Why, who is this "Santa" person you speak of, Mother? Well, he is a giant, overweight man, dressed in all red velour that is going to come down your chimney into tonight while you are sleeping and leave you gifts under your Christmas Tree.



So, basically what you are telling, Mom, is that this "Santa" character will be breaking and entering into my house and you, dad and the rest of the world apparently, are ok with all of this??



Christmas Eve nights were always pretty restless ones for me as a child. I remember very clearly, the Eve where the unthinkable happened. I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. Here is the bargaining that went on in my head:



1. Fall back asleep and hold it until morning. (Unlikely to happen, the more you think about not peeing, the more you actually have to pee.)

2. Call for mom and dad. (But then Santa might hear me!)

3. Pee the bed. (Looking like my best choice at this point.)



Well, I didn't pee the bed. I risked it all and fearfully walking back and forth from the bathroom to my room, convinced I was going to come face to face with Kris Kringle himself.



Don't get me wrong, I was always excited in the morning. The gifts were always worth the night of sheer terror. Still, I would have preferred if the story went something like this:



"...and all year long, Santa Claus makes toys with the elves in his workshop in the North Pole until finally on Christmas Eve, he has his elves arrange that all the gifts for the good little boys and girls of the world be delivered via FedEx and dropped of on your doorstep in a completely non-scary and non threatening way."



That is my kind of Christmas miracle.

America needs Jessie Spano

Jessie Spano
She's a hard worker, smart as a whip and will do what she needs to do to get the job done. Just make sure you keep the caffeine pills away from her.

Ina Garten
Someone needs to keep the President and all his peeps full and happy with dishes like her famous beef bourguignon, pumpkin mousse and antipasto platers.

John Stewart
Because I think he is the only one that really gets what is going on.

Larger Than Life

P1010035 by Cyron

The gift came from my Mom's second cousin, making him my third cousin? Or my second cousin, once removed? You see how this is already bizarre that we were getting a gift from this person at all.



Now, I should preface by saying that I was very young when I got this gift, probably 7 or 8. So, my memory of how large it was may be slightly skewed. I remember the box being the size of a refrigerator and inside was a giant stuffed koala bear that was at least 5 feet tall. If my memory hasn't failed me, I think my distant cousin entered a contest where he had to guess how many jelly beans were in a jar and he guessed correctly. The Grand Prize? This strange eye-sore of a toy whom we named "Rudy"



My sister and I were stoked. My parents were less than thrilled. At the time we were living with my Grandparents so we had very limited living space. My sister and I shared a room and there was no way this giant bear was fitting in our tiny room. The only place we had room for it in fact was in the back bonus room of my Grandparents house that my family used as a living room.



Rudy sat there, watching TV with us for quite a long time. I am sure it drove my mother crazy, being the decorator that she is, that this disgusting koala was messing up the feel of the room. She finally convinced my sister and I to donate Rudy to a better home. In this case "donate" may have been code for "dumpster."