Category: Fambly

Wherein I tell stories about my clan.

New Feature: Ask the Avid Bruxist

Reader Rachel asks

Today I’m consumed with the question: even though it’s so staged, corny and shameless that it causes me actual physical pain, why do I keep watching The Bachelor?

The Avid Bruxist answers

If I had TV*, I would watch it because doesn’t a size-2 girl with straight, white teeth and shiny hair—a person with no cellulite whatsoever—get rejected each episode?  Good stuff.

*I don’t have TV.  I mean, I have a TV set and DVD player that my friend Angie lent me when she moved temporarily to Spain, and I NetFlix the hell out of some shows, but I don’t get, y’know, channels.  Somebody told me recently that I could just connect my computer to my TV set and, voila, programs!  Here’s why I’m NOT going to do that:  I grew up without TV.  I came from parents who thought TV rotted the mind.   And my folks were right, of course, but the complete prohibition of it creates TV JUNKIES.  Exhibit A: there was a time in my childhood when the gods sent HBO(?!) to our 13-inch, black and white TV, and my siblings and I absolutely gorged ourselves on “Fletch” and “The Legend of Billie Jean” when my parents weren’t around.  We must have watched each of those movies 25 times.  (I can go note-for-note with Pat Benatar on ‘Invincible’.)  To this day, I have no governor on my TV consumption.  If I were to have unlimited programming, I’d probably be watching a rerun of Maury when Mr. Povich and his gang showed up to film the episode “It’s Official…I’ve Grown into My Couch”.

My Father, Part 3

My dad has a thing about fruit juice.  He drinks gallons of the stuff.  These days he goes for, you know, actual juice from actual fruits, but for a long time it was “fruit juice” with, you know, actual fruits in the picture on the carton.

A few years ago, I watched my dad remove a jug from the fridge and pour himself an icy-cold glass of bright red liquid.  He fell into his easy chair to drink it and read and pontificate to anyone within earshot, as usual.  Dad sipped the “juice” over the course of about 15 minutes, grimacing after every swallow and commenting, “Dreadful stuff!” before hoisting himself up and heading back to the kitchen.  Curious, I followed him and watched him take the jug out of the fridge to serve himself another glass.  It tweaked my brain a little that the label said ‘Indian River’ and had a picture of an orange on it, but I wanted to ask him something so I didn’t stop to think about it.  “Hey, Dad, why in the world are you getting more of that juice when you just finished saying it was ‘dreadful stuff’?”

My mom looked up from whatever Laura-Ingallsy task she was doing, probably baking bread or pressing grapes for jelly.  “Leighton!” she said, alarmed.  “I told you yesterday, that’s hummingbird food!”

That’s my dad.  PhD from Cambridge University and everything.

They Can Never Take Away Our Freedom

I was 16 years and 3 months old when I got my driver’s license.  My dad took me to the DMV.  I drove the nice DMV lady around the block in an ’89 Nissan Stanza and then sat waiting for 20 minutes while they printed up my card, stuck my Polaroid onto it, and slid it through the laminator.  I could feel the glow of that plastic rectangle through my purse as I drove my dad and me home, but I didn’t really get it until I was in the kitchen.  Nobody else was home.  Dinner was a couple of hours away.  I didn’t have any homework.  And I had my driver’s license!  I didn’t have to have an adult in the car with me anymore!  I turned to my dad and said, “Can I go to the mall and get David a Christmas present?”  He looked about as excited about the prospect as you would’ve expected him to, but to his credit, he handed me the keys and said, “Watch out for the other guy.”  I kept giggling to myself on the 10-mile (yes, 10-mile) trek from my house to the Boone Mall.

Let’s be frank.  The Boone Mall is a piece of shit.  I mean, nowadays there’s an Old Navy, so it’s slightly less of a piece of shit, but back then we’re talking JCPenney, McCrory’s, and K&W Cafeteria.  The most exciting retail outlet was either the Walden Books or that place where you’d buy ridiculously over-priced gummi bears and jelly beans just because they were displayed tantalizingly in those jars under the glass counter.  I don’t remember whether I bought any gummi bears that day, but I did buy my best friend David a Christmas present, a truly stupid, stupid Christmas present:  a toy saxophone from the K&B Toys.  Anyway, my point is, despite the fact that it’s a piece of shit, because it was the destination of my first solo trip ever, the Boone Mall still feels like freedom to me.

My friend Sean has a similar association.  His older brother was driving the two of them home from school one day, and when they paused at a light, his brother said, “Do you feel like going through the drive-thru at Taco Bell?”  It had never occurred to Sean that they might be able to divert the car from the school-home track, and to this day, freedom comes in the form of a Taco Bell bean burrito.

Going hiking is my dogs’ favorite thing in the whole wide world.  Of course, watching them be happy makes me happy, AND letting them off the leash is simultaneously nerve-wracking for obvious reasons.  I take a pocketful of goodies whenever we go, so they’ll have some incentive to come back to me.  And I bet if Violet and Redford could talk, they’d tell you that freedom tastes like chopped up hot dogs.

What says freedom to you?

Not Nine Days

At 3:15am, I was driving through a deluge to Durham.  My sister and brother-in-law, looking a little shell-shocked, packed up and headed for the hospital, and I lay down on the couch.  Ah, blessed sleep.

MMMMRRRRRRROW.  That was what their old, deaf, blind cat started shouting at me about 45 minutes later and kept shouting at me until 6:15 when I heard the pitter-patter of little feet coming out of the kids’ room.  The little feet stopped short at the sight of the little feet’s parents’ room, which was empty of course.  I called out to my nephew, and he came running into the living room.

Him:  Did Mommy and Daddy have to go to a meeting?

Me:  No, honey, they had to go to the hospital because they’re going to have the baby!

Him:  That’th tho exthiting!

Me:  You wanna snuggle on the couch with me?

Him:  Yeah.

He pulled the cover over him and then yanked it right off.

Him:  Now I’m weady fow bweakfatht.

A little later….

Him (nodding):  Mommy will be home latew today.

Me:  Not today, buddy.

Him (still nodding):  But maybe tomowwow.

Me:  No, probably three or four days, buddy.

Him:  But not nine dayth.

Me:  No, not nine days.

3:00AM

Wanna know how cool I am?  Friday night, I stayed out until MIDNIGHT.  That’s right, the MIDDLE of the NIGHT.  And I’m 34!

Well, by Saturday night, I was so full of myself that I was PARTYING in RALEIGH until 3:00AM.  OK, “partying” might be too strong a word…more like standing around at a bar eating cheese fries and watching the freaks go by…but I got home at 3:00am!  Then my phone rang…?

My sister:  Hi.

Me:  HI!

My sister:  Why do you sound so awake?

Me:  Because I am awake.

My sister:  Were you already awake, or did you just wake up really fast?

Me (proudly):  I’m STILL awake because I just got home!

My sister:  Well, can you stay awake a little longer?

Me:  Sure.  Why?

My sister:  Because my water just broke.

Mom

Warm and soft, and even though she hasn’t used musk lotion since probably 1989, I can still smell it on her.  She envelops me in loud hugs.

She rejoices in singing, in reading a good yarn, in dandling her grandbabies on her knee, in filling a garden with mulch.

And when I complain about life, she says, “Do you want me to listen or do you want my advice?”