Labels: Africa, columns, humour

As summer winds down, I would like to share with you several things that have perplexed me.

Why is it that when it’s a gorgeous outside, stores and restaurants insist on setting the air conditioning to sub-zero temperatures? We leave the house donning shorts and T-shirts, and yet when we step foot into a mall we need a sweater. Perhaps it’s to lure us into buying fall clothing, but the cold keeps me away—and keeps me from spending much money—in these summer months.

Instead, I spent this summer avoiding malls in three provinces and four states on various roadtrips. And during these car excursions I found something else that confused me: road signs.

In residential areas all over Maine and New Hampshire anyone with a disability is singled out. “Blind Person” and “Deaf Person” signs abounded. I suppose it helps us drivers be more mindful, but it reminds me of those taunting children in middle school laughing at the kid who’s different.

Nevertheless, I understand that these signs, though they may be read suspiciously, are a public good. The “Slow Children at Play” signs, though, seem to take mocking to the extreme. Isn’t that a little insulting of these poor kids? We hear in education circles how we’re not supposed to label children, and yet here the government is, pointing out where “slow” children play.

Perhaps you think I’m misunderstanding the sign. The “Slow” must be a verb! As in: “Slow! Children at Play”. Your interpretation may be plausible, but I know the government would never do something silly like leave out an absolutely essential punctuation mark, thereby completely changing the meaning of their sign. The government is an entity with which we trust our tax dollars, and we know that they care for us ever so well.

As perplexed as I was by the slow children, though, I was even more flabbergasted at Maine’s insistence that we “Handicap Children”. Do we get extra points if we run down kids? Americans must have very different values than we Canadians do. Or perhaps it’s a golf term?

Again, there is another explanation. They may have meant, “HandicapPED Children”, but I doubt it. The government would never print up thousands of signs where they used a verb instead of an adjective, thereby altering their well-meaning sign into something rather malicious. You must have more faith in government than that!

One of the weirdest signs I saw, though, was: “Reduce Speed in Inclement Weather”. I assume they’re telling us that when the weather is bad, you shouldn’t go too fast, but you’d have to be an idiot not to know that. I think we can rule out the idea that the signs were aimed at idiots, though, because idiots would not understand the world “Inclement”. Have you ever used that word in a sentence? And how do you say it, anyway? IN-clement? In-CLE-ment? Who knows?

But the government stuck that word in there, so obviously the sign is not aimed at the intellectually challenged. And it can’t be aimed at smart people, either, because smart people don’t need to be told to slow down. Therefore, it must simply be aimed at themselves. After all, if public servants think we should handicap children and mock kids who don’t learn real good, then perhaps they also need to be reminded to hit the brakes in a snowstorm.

Luckily, those snowstorms are still a few months off. But if you’re missing the winter, head to a mall. Just please be careful not to handicap children on the way.

Labels: columns, humor, humour

Two young boys walked into a pharmacy one day, picked out a box of tampons and proceeded to the checkout counter.

The man at the counter asked the older boy, "Son, how old are you?"

"Eight," the boy replied.

The man continued, "do you know what these are used for?"

The boy replied, "not exactly, but they aren't for me. They're for him. He's my brother. He's four. We saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to swim and ride a bike. Right now, he can't do either."

Labels: humor, humour

Labels: blogging, book giveaway, humor, humour, speaking, twitter

Labels: humor, humour

Bra shopping has never been a hobby of mine. Perhaps it comes from being so anatomically tiny that nothing ever really fits. I finally bit the bullet and went to one of those posh lingerie stores, and had a proper fitting, and the woman there was so nice.

She told me I wasn't actually an A cup.

After reviving from the faint, I heard the reason. The best thing to do was to go down a band size or two, and up a cup size. And everything would fit better! So I'm actually closer to a 32B. I said Hallelujah.

Well, the time has now come when my daughter is bigger than I am. She is a 32C. And she is lovely. My younger daughter also needs something more than just an undershirt. She needs a real bra, too. So last night I finally decided it was time and we went shopping.

But here's the problem. THEY DON'T MAKE BRAS IN 32 ANYMORE. This is realy frustrating.

It seems that according to the bra companies all chests begin at size 34. There may be some 32s, but they're 32As, which may be okay for my younger daughter, but not for the older one.

She's skinny. She's not even really a 32. She's more like a 30. But she is definitely a B or C cup. And you just can't find those.

We started at Zellers in the teen section. They make undershirts, and then you can buy teen bras in 32A, 34A, 36A, or 38A. No B cups there. Even the 32A didn't fit my youngest daughter well. They're just too cheap.

So I said, "we'll go to the adult section!". And with enthusiasm we crossed the aisle. Only to find no 32s.

So we went to Sears. We found a few 32As, and the occasional 32B, but nothing that fit well. The woman, though, was very helpful. Try La Senza, she said. (That's a Canadian lingerie store). I hesitated. They tend to have little Santa outfits with white boas in the windows. But we went there.

(Comment from youngest daughter: "why would anyone wear that anyway?". Mother replies with nervous laughter and tries to change subject).

Luckily, La Senza did indeed have plenty of bras in 32. Unfortunately, they were all the "Extreme Push Up" variety, where you add about two cup sizes. Since that really wasn't my intention, we walked back out.

We tried a few more stores before heading back to Sears, and buying the first ones we saw, which were not ideal, but were the best we could find.

The only good news is that they will eventually grow. But there's no way Rebecca is going to be a 34 for ages. Her ribcage is too small. She is a 32. Life is just not fair.




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Labels: humour, parenting, puberty

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Labels: blogging, humour

I hope you can read it! I tried to crop the best I could, but I'm not sure I did a great job! Anyway, I thought it was funny!

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Labels: aging, beauty, humour

Labels: blogging, humour

Labels: general, humour

I love children. At least, I love my own. But as much as I love kids, I really don’t understand them.

For example, why is it so important to know who farted? As soon as the odor becomes obvious, kids immediately start asking the “who did it” question. I’ve witnessed four-year-olds crawling around on their hands and knees smelling each others’ bottoms just to uncover the offending creature. I still fail to comprehend why this is worthy of such detective work. Wouldn’t people’s energies be better spent by opening a window?

I also don’t understand kids’ coordination issues. Why is it that children who can
balance on a gymnastics beam or skate on one leg can’t remain in a chair for an entire meal without falling out? I don’t fall out of chairs. Do you? And my kids have better balance than I do. Yet children are forever toppling off of furniture, especially when they are overcome by fits of laughter after somebody farted. Perhaps the two are interrelated, and the balance part of the brain is linked to the olfactory senses. Whatever the case, it would be lovely to enjoy a meal where everyone sat still occasionally.

Relating to the balancing issues, I’m also at a loss as to why preteens fall up stairs. I can understand falling down the stairs, but my daughter is forever landing on her behind as she moves along an upward trajectory in our home. Maybe this is common to this age group; my nephew, who is also thirteen, falls up the stairs quite frequently, too.

Perhaps it’s because children’s nerve endings don’t develop until the age of eighteen. If children did have nerves, wouldn’t they feel cold occasionally? Yet as soon as the snow melts little ones demand to turn on the sprinkler. I'll be shivering and my 10-year-old will want to wear shorts. On any given winter day, look outside a high school and you’ll see kids who are woefully unprepared for whatever the weather has to dish out. The oddest, to me, are the Catholic schoolgirls wearing their skirts hiked up way higher than regulation in the middle of January. Who wants bare legs when it’s -15 out? Yet fashion takes precedence.

And now that swimming pool weather is upon us, children also reveal their lack of nerve endings by assuring us that 68 degrees is plenty warm enough to frolic underwater. To add further indignity to this aberration of nature, they then insist that we should join them, as if the fun cannot be complete unless Mother’s lips are turning blue as well. I suppose I should be flattered by the attention, but I’d really rather read a book.

Not only do children not mind the cold; they also make the heat worse. Any time I’m feeling miserably hot and sweaty, it’s almost guaranteed there’s a child nearby who has decided that the best way to deal with the heat is to lean up against me. Don’t they realize this just makes them more hot and sweaty?

Perhaps this is also a male failing. When I’m hot and sweaty, I don’t want my husband touching me, either. But heat doesn’t deter him. Come to think of it, very little deters the male gender. My husband is also the one who will gladly jump in a pool when it’s 68 degrees. Actually, he also laughs at the kids when they fall out of chairs, and participates in the conversations about who farted.

Now that I think about it, that explains a lot. It is not that I don’t understand children. It’s that I don’t understand men, either. At some point a switch must go off in little girls’ brains to turn them into women who aren’t amused by farts, tumbles, or extreme fluctuations in temperature. Yet nobody else seems in possession of such a switch. So we mothers will forever be the party poopers in our families, while our husbands egg the children on. Maybe that’s just the way it was meant to be.

Labels: columns, humour

Labels: humour, parenting