The Worst Kind of Turd is an Honest One, Volume: Step Mom

One of the first bike rides we went on as a step-family happened to be a 68-mile round trip from our house to Wisconsin and back. Which of course took hours. And made for a nice opportunity for conversation. 

The 14-year-old and I were riding side-by-side at one point, and he said to me: "Out of all the girls in my life I've ever met you're the only one who doesn't complain about her weight."

<Insert AWWWWWWWWWWWW here>

My heart got so warm. My head got so big it almost exploded. Every feminist bone in my body shone brightly --- finally! Somebody noticed and appreciated my "realness". I thanked him for noticing and responded by saying that it's important to be healthy and riding bikes is one way that I try to stay healthy, and blah blah blah....but then my mind retraced his comment..."complain about her weight" 

I asked, "wait. are you saying that it's surprising because I'm also like the one girl in your life who's not skinny?"

"Well. Yah," he said, "you're actually kind of fat."

Gonna be a long ride.

The Wooden Part

I had a friend who was begging her Little Turd of a daughter to rub her feet. And then the Little Turd said, "OK. But only the top part. Not the wooden part."



This led to a years-long joke about the wooden part of a person's feet - you know the calloused part that the lady at the pedicure place has to SCRAPE and SCRAPE and you get really embarrassed?

Fast forward to my new life of living in my one room home with my lovely husband his two teenage boys. It's not ideal. If anybody farts the whole house hears it. And smells it too. The place is an open floor plan loft-style home. See what I mean?

(I designed it while I was planning to die alone.)

ANYWAY, Zach has been growing quite a nasty wooden part of his own on his heel all summer from working. He's OBSESSED with it and makes me touch it all the time. 

Well: the other night at bedtime Zach and I were getting ready to fall asleep, whispering and snuggling and otherwise falling in love, the usual. He grabbed my hand and made me touch his nasty wooden heel. I laughed and said, too loud, (in baby talk I might add): 

"ARE YOU MAKING ME TOUCH THE WOODEN PART AGAIN?"

His face dropped.

I gasped.

We died, while hoping beyond hope the kids were already sleeping.

What Does That Mean?

My little nephew Miles was playing with a toy snowman like a little action figure. He was speaking for it, and my sister overheard him say,

"I'm a whore!"

She was shocked of course, but tried not to let it show when she asked tiny little Miles, "What does THAT mean?"

And in his tiny little voice, he responded, "It's short for horrible."

PHEW! Yes, Miles, Yes it is.

Gettin' a Big Head. For No Reason At All, Vol. 2

The other day I was really excited when I received a package addressed to me. I opened it up and found a really awesome Ryan Gosling coloring book, but didn't remember buying it for myself. There was no note, and no return address -- it came straight from Amazon.

Every once in a while I get a lil' present from a faithful reader, and sometimes they even come in the mail. I admit, I get a big head over it. 

I started trying to figure out which FAN of mine sent me this coloring book. Which one of my thousands and thousands of fans...

And then my sister Keri saw it on the table and she goes, "oh! you got Mom's present!"

Thanks Mom! (For the coloring book and for keeping me humble.)

Miyo, We Hardly Knew Ye'

I am very sorry to report that my seven-year-old niece Miyo has run away. It seems she just wasn't "right" for my sister Kasey and had to take her leave. 

She left nothing behind, save for this note:

I'm relieved that she did it in such a dignified way. Not laying blame -- or taking any, for that matter. Rather, she just made it clear that it was time to part ways. No hard feelings. 

I suppose it's for the best, really. I'm not sure how she'll manage in such cold weather, but, better not to think about it. I prefer to recall the happier moments, though I'm sure that with time we'll all forget her completely.

"You know what? We tried. We really did. It's just not working out."

The Station Wagon, Vol. 2

Our family's ugly Station Wagon had a window that rolled down on the hatch back. On afternoon when I was three years old, my mom was driving us down the road when she happened to look in the rearview mirror to see me, outside the car, hanging on. All she could see was my white hair and my little knuckles.

She slammed on the breaks.

I was three. I guess I decided to climb out the back and ride on the bumper.

It's a miracle I'm alive today.

A Glimpse Into the Mind of a Lonely Old Lady

Some people might watch this video clip and go "awwwwwww that's a cute dad and his little girl." I watched it and I started bawling because in my mind this is exactly what my imagined husband (I'm really into redheads) and my little girl (I'm really into owl pajamas and tiny pink ukuleles) would get up to after some fireworks happened in the neighborhood. It's something to do with 36-year-old ovaries and hormones and it's really strong and there's nothing you nor I nor my therapist (if I had one) can do about it. I don't even really truly want a little girl but if I did she would definitely be wearing little skinny jeans and a girly white tank top with a tiny pink flower decal at the neckline and her name would definitely be June but we would call her Junie. She's convinced I can really remove my own thumb and put it back on (but it's just a slight of hand trick). Also when she loses her first tooth we would secretly put it in her dad's coffee hidden inside a spoonful of sugar and then everybody would laugh and laugh. Her sister would surely be named Louise, Lou for short and I would definitely be pregnant with their brother Hal. The kind of skinny pregnant where my nose never gets too wide and people say "you're ALL baby" and they really mean it. Childbirth is "amazing" but I would never say that out loud because I would't want any of the other pregnant ladies to feel bad and I for sure would never lose my patience and certainly not my temper like I do with my nieces and nephews. I digress. Watch the video. You'll die.

Garbage Pail Kid

When Kasey and I were kids, the Cabbage Patch doll craze was in full swing. Of course our family had no money for Cabbage Patch dolls, so we could only dream of them and stare longingly at our friends who cradled theirs and dressed them up and framed their Adoption Papers boasting names like Corey John and Beatrice Celeste and signed by none other than Xavier Roberts himself! They would bring them to school and enforce nap times. Kasey and I knew we would never know this true joy, but we got close enough to smell it and on several occasions my friend Tera let me hold her little Randall Alexander.

I have mentioned that our family managed an apartment complex on the wrong side of the tracks in South International Falls, Minnesota. I may have even mentioned that the kids in my family were forced to do manual labor for as little as $2 per month. 

But did I ever mention the best day of our lives? The day my dad came running into the house with a bald-headed Cabbage Patch doll in hand? He beamed proudly and gave it to Kasey and she squealed with delight. Her very own Cabbage Patch doll!

I was so excited I wrote about it this letter to my Auntie Julie, claiming full ownership even though my dad gave him to Kasey.

Never mind that Ethen Nathanial was dirty, naked, from the dumpster and had a noose around his neck.

Now That's Good Parenting.

Now That's Good Auntie-ing

Little Miyo, Puddin 'N Pie. Said my truck was "old fashioned". And then she only ate two bites of her $8.00 Cherryberry Frozen Yogurt Sundae. Back in the olden days she'd a been cruisin' for a bruisin'. But today is 2013 and you can't physically harm a child legally, so...

...Instead I made her carry all of my Bed Bath and Beyond purchases (I bought an over-door shoe holder for my shoes and also a fan! since my apartment has no A/C. And some Barkeeper's Friend because, well, you know.) And I wouldn't help her. Not for the entire quarter-mile walk back to Ol' Blue across the world's largest Urban Sprawl parking lot. (I also bought her a book -- James and the Giant Peach -- at Barnes and Noble and since she had no space to carry it I shoved it down her shorts.)

That'll learn her!

Does This Forehead Make Me Look Visible?

Daddy-Daughter Time, Northern Minnesota

Hal and Dianne

So I left Minneapolis. Again. I spent one night with my sister Kim and my niece Hanna (where we laughed and laughed over Hanna's dream journal) and then I drove all the way up to my parents' place in Roosevelt MN.

When I drove up the long driveway, here is what I saw:

...and suddenly everything was right with the world. I forgot that I'm leaving the country in 9 days and haven't really made any plans. I forgot that I am completely homeless and most of my worldly belongings are in my car. I forgot that I just left my job and won't have any income for at least six months.

After just 24 hours here, I've already:

Had a few Vodka Tonics

Took the four-wheeler with my dad out to see a toilet in a pond

Watched the Northern Lights dance across the night sky

Checked a deer carcass padlocked to a tree for signs of bear interference

Sighted and identified at least fourteen different roadkill species

Eaten at Perkins AND Red Lobster, because we:

Brought my mom to Grand Forks for surgery

She had to visit the lady doctor to have a little something removed from my old apartment her uterus. Anyway after the fact, here is a text she sent to my sister:

"I'm fine. Unfortunately your little sister did not make it."

Motherly Love

I suppose if you're going to have seven kids you learn a thing or two about raising them.  Take my mom, for example.


She had an amazing ability to NOT play with us.  "Mom! Come here! Play with me!" (or whatever).  "I can't!" she'd reply. "I have a bone in my leg!" And then she'd make us feel her shin bone and we would feel so so so sorry for her with that bone in her leg.

Another thing she'd do is turn it around on the tattle-teller.  For example, if I came running up to her complaining that Pete had just hit me, she'd get super sympathetic and say, "Oh, poooooor Kaaaaady. Now you go and tell him you're sorry."  And I would!

And you know how when you hurt yourself, and you run up to your mom and say, "it hurts when I do this?" and then you bend your finger or whatever? She would always say, "well, stop doing that."

Now, THAT'S good parenting!

Hal's Response to My Feature on Forbes.com

I called my mom so we could freak out together about my Forbes.com interview, and my dad hopped on the line.

"You're endelved* on MY heart, Kady.  Screw Forbes."

Then my mom told me about how she had to explain my Angelina's Leg photo to him and he didn't get it, even after five minutes of explanation.  He piped in again.  "That's a raunchous* lie.  It was more like 18 seconds.  And just because I don't agree with crazy people doesn't mean I don't get it."

*Glossary:

Endelved:  Engraved, written permanently, or something.
Raunchous:  "Excessively great", according to my dad.

*Please be amazed at my ability to spell properly the words my dad makes up.

Now That's Good Parenting

When I was growing up, my family managed an apartment complex in South International Falls, Minnesota. All of us six kids had chores to do, including mowing the lawn, shoveling the sidewalks, picking up trash, etc. As a family we painted each unit between renters. My job was to scrub with a Brillo pad the plastic baseboards to remove any paint splatters that happened while the older kids paint-rolled the walls.

In addition to all of that, once a week we were each responsible to tidy the common areas of one of the buildings. This meant picking up cigarette butts, vacuuming hallways and stairs, sweeping and mopping the laundry rooms and wiping walls and laundry machines as needed. You can read about our compensation for this work here.

One day my dad came into the house, brandishing a fresh, crisp $20 bill. "Kady!" he called, "Look what I found behind the washing machine in your building!" I immediately began spending saving that money in my mind. For an actual minute I really thought he was going to give ME the money he found in MY building. Ha.

Instead, he folded it slowly and dramatically placed it in his wallet. "If only you had done a better job of cleaning, this could have been yours", he said, and shrugged his shoulders as if it really weren't his decision to make. (Remember that $20 when I was eight is the equivalent of about $1,000 today.)

You better believe that for the rest of my tenure as a cleaning person at the South Falls Apartments, I was scouring that laundry room with a toothbrush, hoping for another cash money windfall that never came. It was only last week that I asked my dad on the way to ice fishing if he really found that $20 bill behind the washing machine in my building.  

"I never found a $20 bill in my life."  He said.

Now THAT'S good parenting.

"Just take out your anger on this target Kady while I protect my hearing."

Speaking of Pickled Pig Lips...

The story of the Pickled Pig Lips reminded me of my mom.  Apparently it reminded her of me too, given her comment to that post:

 Mom said...

That is the second time your lips touched those kind of lips.

September 12, 2011 1:05 PM

She loves that one.  When we were growing up, if Kasey or I ever got lippy (pun intended), my mom would yell at us:

"You just remember what that mouth grazed while you were being born."

Me and me marm.

Now THAT'S good parenting!

I Was Such a Cute Pre-Teen. Ew.

All this talk about deer hunting reminds me...

The following story comes from 1989, when I was 12 years old.  If you're offended at a story about a 12-year-old accidentally getting drunk and it kind of being her dad's fault: STOP READING. 

OK.  When I was 12, I shot my first deer, and so my dad told me I could have a shot of whiskey.  Right of passage or something?  So he left with the three-wheeler to go and get the deer and I stayed at the shack and had my shot of whiskey, and maybe another one.  And maybe another one.  I have no idea how many because that was over 20 years ago.  I do remember I was smart enough to replace the missing whiskey from the bottle with water so that he wouldn't know.  Jeez.  Anyway, I suppose I was curious.  Whatever. 

He came back with my deer and then he informed me that we had to go back out and hunt some more.  I was like, "WHA...?"  Because I thought I was done hunting, maybe forever.  Nope.  Anyways, I was pretty shnockered but I didn't want him to know that!  So I did my best to pretend I wasn't a completely drunk 12-year-old while we walked like what seemed to be 16 miles through the woods (and by the way, I was probably wearing my brother's boots and wool pants which were way too big), and finally we sat down on a downed tree.  You were supposed to be very quiet when hunting, and so in my mind I leaned over and barfed to the side so stealthily and so silently that there was no way my dad, sitting right next to me, would ever ever find out.  I wiped my mouth and looked straight ahead, and then heard my dad laughing. 

He laughed some more and said, "You went and got yourself drunk, didn't you?"
I couldn't BELIEVE he found out!  How could he possibly have known, with how quietly I barfed one foot away from him?  I was busted though.  "BLAaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.  I don't feeeeeeeeeeeeel gooooood."  He put his arm around me and said, "Now isn't this fun?  Isn't drinking wonderful?  Let's quit hunting and go back to the cabin and have some more.  I'll pour you a glass.  We can drink ALL day."

Now that's good parenting.

Now that's Good Parenting

When my older sisters were little, the family lived on a farm, and of course, they was po'.  Unpleasantly, one weekend it came time to slaughter the chickens.

Apparently Keri and Kim went into school on Monday and shared their experiences with some classmates and got teased pretty bad.  They came home dejected, tears streaming down their faces and told my dad about it.  "The kids at school say they get their chicken from the store!"

My dad's response made their little faces perk right up, proud-like.

He said:
"Girls!  Not everybody can afford to have their own chickens.  Let's not make them feel bad by telling them stories about our life here on the farm."

Now that's Good Parenting

When Keri was a little girl, my mom said that she got off the bus one day and was very sad because all the kids had a nickname but her.  And the bus driver would say hi to each kid's nickname ("Hi Moose, Hi Crazy-Hat", etc.)

So my mom said, "you have a nickname!  Keri IS your nickname!" 

And Keri got so excited and she beamed and asked, "but then what is my real name?"

And my mom said, "Carrot."

Allowance

My family managed an apartment building when I was growing up, in exchange for free rent in a 3 bedroom/1 bathroom townhome. There were 8 of us. But I digress. We also got paid for things like painting between tenants and such. Our duties included cleaning the common areas in the buildings, mowing and shoveling, collecting rent, etc. And my dad ran a tight ship. I rememeber being very tiny and picking up litter like cigarette butts to keep the grounds nice and clean. This place was huge too, it took days to mow the lawn. Once it was finished, it was time to start up again. And the shoveling. It pains me to think of the miles and miles of sidewalks that needed clearing, at ungodly early hours in the morning.

One day when I was like 7 or 8, an old man found me shoveling sidewalks. He was surprised at how little I was, and exclaimed, "I hope you're getting paid for this!"

"Yes, TWO dollars." I answered. He must have decided that really wasn't worth it.

Misreading his reaction, I added, "Yep! And I get it EVERY MONTH!"

This was after our family meeting where mom and dad sat us all down at the dinner table and explained that we were about to start receiving allowance. Imagine our excitement! No longer performing slave labor, but actually being compensated for our hard work! Kim was to receive $30 per month, Keri $25, and on down the line, ending with me and Kasey receiving $2 each. "But," dad continued, "Kim, you'll pay the electricity bill. Keri, you'll pay the water bill," etc. I swear you could actually hear the sound of our hearts being crushed.



Now THAT'S good parenting.