When last we saw Imelda, she was reciting "The Harp Song of the Dane Women" in the living room.* ("That's the poem she does that reminds me most of Anne Shirley," younger sister Joan commented thoughtfully.)
She went on to the state competition, though, with the two poems she'd recited in her school competition: "Richard Cory" and "Golden Retrievals," a poem which I must confess I had never heard of before but which seems to be turning into Melly's signature piece, she being an optimistic and energetic dog-lover.
She had three others in her repertoire; uncertain of which she should pick as a tie-breaker, "should one be needed", she enlisted the help of her English teacher, who had gotten her into th--provided her with this wonderful opportunity in the first place. Another English teacher graciously agreed to help out, and based on their advice and the majority opinion of a class of older students, Melly settled on "Death Be Not Proud."
She didn't get to recite that one.
As far as we knew, Poetry Out Loud was over for us for the year when we left the New York State Museum on the evening of February 3. Two winners had been announced, and neither of them was Imelda. (The regional competition was originally set for February 1 but had to be rescheduled due to inclement weather, which will come as a surprise only to anyone who has never lived in Upstate New York.)
Now, it turns out, she is going on to the state competition, also in Albany, on March 5.
If we were surprised, she was bewildered.
"Why?"
Nobody seems to know for sure. Her teacher phoned me, having received an email (and this to a school email account, while school was in recess for winter break):
"In reviewing the results... your student qualified to compete in the NYS finals...."
So we've been speculating. Somebody added points up incorrectly? (I certainly can sympathize with this; it's a pretty complicated scoring system, and involves, well, math.) They were supposed to pick three finalists, not two, and she came in third? So far, we don't know, and therefore can't tell her.*** But it's back to Albany on March 5.
And Jane-Clare, who had promised Imelda a fruit bouquet if she won, showed, or placed in the regional competition, now has to make good on that. Personally I'd be holding out for one with hand-dipped strawberries, but Imelda isn't all that fond of chocolate. Go figure.
And Imelda, who hates to shop, has to decide yet again what to wear. (Last time it was a shirt-dress Jane-Clare and I picked out for her while she was doing something else, boots identical but for the color to the ones Jane-Clare purchased for herself and asked Imelda's opinion about, and a little silk scarf I haggled over in Chinatown last August. Unless Jane-Clare objects, it'll probably be the same outfit again. Just a guess.)
She doesn't have to give any thought to which poems she'll recite, as the rules require she do the same three in the same order.
This is good, especially as she wound up with just a week and a half in which to prepare.
I got to thinking. Had Imelda not transferred from one small local school to another ** this past August, she wouldn't have gone to Albany for Poetry Out Loud even once, let alone twice. Her former school didn't participate. This means that she has the opportunity, rare for a younger member of a large family, to be a trailblazer. Her older siblings Bertille, Duthac, Matthias and Jane-Clare have received awards for creative writing; Peter and Duthac, for drama.
But not for reciting poetry.
It's certainly been a year for reflecting on how things develop, or don't.
Hmmm.
A person could probably get a poem out of that... let alone a blog.
*Well, okay, if you have been following the blog then technically you saw her last locating my buzzing cell phone for me, but this is all about Poetry Out Loud.
**names of both available upon request
***It's now official: they added up wrong, and she actually came in second. Apparently they should have a CPA looking over the score sheets.
Friday, February 25, 2011
"How DO you do it?"
I just read a brilliant little article at yourwisdom.yahoo.com entitled "5 things you can say to make another mom's day." And it got me thinking, which, surely, is what such articles are meant to do. I looked over the five things (go and do likewise), and decided that while four of them were guaranteed heart-warmers, the fifth is one I personally have heard several times too often.
"I don't know how you do it."
See, this has blighted more than one sunny afternoon for me, although (I hope) I have now learned simply to dismiss it. There I'd be, going pleasantly along, and then have someone shaking her, always her, head at me and saying: "I don't know how you do it." How I do what? I didn't just deliver a lecture on nuclear physics, or do a portrait in oils, or even win at mah jongg. I'm just walking along the street, for heaven's sake, or hanging out at the playground. And since you, Speaker, have encountered me, you are clearly doing the same.
This started when I had three young children and was enrolled in graduate school at a university perhaps an hour and a quarter from my home.
"I don't know you do it."
Seriously?
Here's what I should have said:
"How I 'do' grad school is to get into a nice quiet car, with nobody in the back seat who will have to go to the bathroom or throw up or have a dispute with a sibling mediated for the entire trip, and then I go to a nice room full of adults, one of whom is in charge and is not me. And I take notes, and have pleasant, uninterrupted chats with other grown-ups during breaks. Then I spend some time in a virtually silent college library, and when I am at home I spend a couple of hours reading after the children are asleep."
Yeah, it was hell, all right. I wonder whether anybody asked my husband how he did it. He, after all, was the one who got to serve dinner and put children to bed two nights a week after having worked at a demanding job all day.
Post grad school, while I worked part-time and had more children, the phrase came at me again and again.
You don't know how I do it?
Oh, c'mon.
Sure you do.
Because you do the same thing. Not identically the same, of course, but in essence the same.
You do what needs to be done, and relish doing the things that do not have to be done but that you enjoy doing, and you value the times when things are running smoothly (but you don't expect them to happen that way all the time), and you cherish the moments when things are wonderful (because you know darn well THEY don't impress themselves on you every minute, although perhaps they should), and then occasionally you feel overwhelmed, and have some chocolate and go on doing what needs to be done.
Hey, I might have liked to polish up my Superwoman medal, but I knew I hadn't earned one.
Eventually I hit upon the ideal answer:
"How do you do it?"
"I neglect my housework."
A lot of people who ask this, based on your being "so busy", figure you are neglecting something in your life, you see, and this is better than having them suspect it must be your husband or children.
Still, while having people suggest that I was carrying a heavier load than most might have been tiresome, it was downright irritating to hear the opposite. A former neighbor told my husband, "You are kicked out of the husbands' club for making the rest of us look bad. How does Marie have so much time to sit on the porch swing and read?"
Now, I knew the other wives living on that street, and I am confident they were not stuck down in the basement making soap or even brewing beer while I was (apparently) scandalizing the neighborhood with my porch swing and paperback Anne Tyler.
So what was that all about?
To my knowledge, though, that happened only once. Then again, based on my reaction, my husband may have, wisely, hidden other such comments from me.
Come to think of it, the one time I'd say it's wonderful to say "I don't know how you do it" is when you are honestly admiring a particular accomplishment. That lecture on nuclear physics would qualify. Or any artistic or athletic achievement, especially if it's one that really does have you awed. Or, of course, any volunteer activity which involved large numbers of children.
"I don't know how you managed to organize that Preschoolers' Opera!"
Granted, this will probably lead to the person's giving you a lot of information about just how she did it, along with stories about how it almost didn't happen at all, and a request that you help out next time. This, you see, is the test of your sincerity.
"I don't know how you do it."
See, this has blighted more than one sunny afternoon for me, although (I hope) I have now learned simply to dismiss it. There I'd be, going pleasantly along, and then have someone shaking her, always her, head at me and saying: "I don't know how you do it." How I do what? I didn't just deliver a lecture on nuclear physics, or do a portrait in oils, or even win at mah jongg. I'm just walking along the street, for heaven's sake, or hanging out at the playground. And since you, Speaker, have encountered me, you are clearly doing the same.
This started when I had three young children and was enrolled in graduate school at a university perhaps an hour and a quarter from my home.
"I don't know you do it."
Seriously?
Here's what I should have said:
"How I 'do' grad school is to get into a nice quiet car, with nobody in the back seat who will have to go to the bathroom or throw up or have a dispute with a sibling mediated for the entire trip, and then I go to a nice room full of adults, one of whom is in charge and is not me. And I take notes, and have pleasant, uninterrupted chats with other grown-ups during breaks. Then I spend some time in a virtually silent college library, and when I am at home I spend a couple of hours reading after the children are asleep."
Yeah, it was hell, all right. I wonder whether anybody asked my husband how he did it. He, after all, was the one who got to serve dinner and put children to bed two nights a week after having worked at a demanding job all day.
Post grad school, while I worked part-time and had more children, the phrase came at me again and again.
You don't know how I do it?
Oh, c'mon.
Sure you do.
Because you do the same thing. Not identically the same, of course, but in essence the same.
You do what needs to be done, and relish doing the things that do not have to be done but that you enjoy doing, and you value the times when things are running smoothly (but you don't expect them to happen that way all the time), and you cherish the moments when things are wonderful (because you know darn well THEY don't impress themselves on you every minute, although perhaps they should), and then occasionally you feel overwhelmed, and have some chocolate and go on doing what needs to be done.
Hey, I might have liked to polish up my Superwoman medal, but I knew I hadn't earned one.
Eventually I hit upon the ideal answer:
"How do you do it?"
"I neglect my housework."
A lot of people who ask this, based on your being "so busy", figure you are neglecting something in your life, you see, and this is better than having them suspect it must be your husband or children.
Still, while having people suggest that I was carrying a heavier load than most might have been tiresome, it was downright irritating to hear the opposite. A former neighbor told my husband, "You are kicked out of the husbands' club for making the rest of us look bad. How does Marie have so much time to sit on the porch swing and read?"
Now, I knew the other wives living on that street, and I am confident they were not stuck down in the basement making soap or even brewing beer while I was (apparently) scandalizing the neighborhood with my porch swing and paperback Anne Tyler.
So what was that all about?
To my knowledge, though, that happened only once. Then again, based on my reaction, my husband may have, wisely, hidden other such comments from me.
Come to think of it, the one time I'd say it's wonderful to say "I don't know how you do it" is when you are honestly admiring a particular accomplishment. That lecture on nuclear physics would qualify. Or any artistic or athletic achievement, especially if it's one that really does have you awed. Or, of course, any volunteer activity which involved large numbers of children.
"I don't know how you managed to organize that Preschoolers' Opera!"
Granted, this will probably lead to the person's giving you a lot of information about just how she did it, along with stories about how it almost didn't happen at all, and a request that you help out next time. This, you see, is the test of your sincerity.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Is Smart Phone an oxymoron?
I admit it. I have, over the years, abandoned telephone etiquette. Mea culpa.
I too was taught, once upon a long-ago time, to offer information upon picking up the receiver:
"Hello; Kirke residence."
This quickly began to sound affected: why? I don't know. But it does seem a shame, in light of our current practice of answering with a slightly suspicious, unornamented "Hello?" which offers no information to anyone.
Perhaps it's because we don't want to imitate (the surely inimitable) Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet). Possibly it's just that we don't want to admit anything to possible telemarketers.
But you have to admit that it is unhelpful, if not unfriendly.
Yesterday, during lunch, I looked around the kitchen to identify the source of an insistent buzzing sound, clearly designed to notify me that something was wrong with some appliance or other. The laundry room is next to the kitchen, but this noise was not one I identify with the washer or dryer (still, they are fairly new, so you never know).
"What is that?" I asked.
"Somebody's cell phone," Jane-Clare said.
"Right here," added Melly, who does not have a cell phone but likes to be helpful. "It's coming from your purse."
Well, that narrowed it down, to be sure. I retrieved my cell phone, which had been set on vibrate lest it ring during Mass, and flipped it open despite the utter unfamiliarity of the number displayed.
"Hello?"
"Hello," a female voice responded.
I waited. And waited.
"Who is this?" the voice demanded.
--Well, you called me, I thought but did not actually say.
"Is this Joanne?"
"No," I said, relieved to have a question I could answer so easily. "You must have the wrong number."
I could say this with some confidence. See, wrong numbers always happened. Some of my mother's favorite, and most often requested, stories dealt with her responses to inquiries from the well-meaning but ham-handed trying to contact Holy Family rectory.
Now as then, surely, the general response is "Oh-I'm-so-sorry," followed by a quick hangup and dial tone.
Not this lady, the unknown pursuer of Joanne.
"Do you have a cell phone you are holding?" she asked.
At this point I felt fairly certain she was a Verizon representative bent on urging me to upgrade to something with a QWERTY keyboard, and I winked at my daughters.
"Yes, certainly," I assured her.
"Well, it is MINE."
Now, my cell phone is several years old and has a lovely display photo of my husband and me at Pizza Hut following an All-County concert which, two--nearly three-- years ago, necessitated our early departure from my father-in-law's birthday party because Jane-Clare and Melly were both performing. Therefore I was able to reply with some confidence:
"No it isn't; it's mine."
Unknown Female Voice was not easily convinced.
"Is the number 434-5555?"
(Okay, I made that up. I'm sure anyone who reads this is just delightful to speak with in person, but all the same I am not putting out my actual number. Especially since yesterday.)
"No, it isn't. It's close, and you must have meant to dial that, but my number is just a bit different."
This, clearly, was a cue for UFV to back off, apologize, and hang up. Is anyone surprised that she did only Number Three in that sequence?
Presumably she redialed, and we can hope that she did so with more accuracy, but really this is all just speculation on my part.
Oh, once upon a time, children, telephones were black, and large, and fastened to the wall. If you wandered, you risked missing a call. Oh yes; I assure you, it was as I say. Princess Phones, given only to the pampered, came in pastel colors but were similarly anchored.
And we were taught (should the Pony Express fail) to speak the family name into that receiver, casting that information boldly and momentously into the information stream, which in those days could not have been more than a trickle.
Yes! It could have been ( I suppose) a stalker; or a truant officer; or even a creditor, although credit was less easily obtained, and less abused, in those far-off times. We were not cautious.
Great-Grandma had a maid who would announce, whether or not with strict veracity, that Madam was Not At Home. We have answering machines, and voice mail; so why are we still scrambling to deal with UFV and her ilk?
Could we (perhaps) return to those days of admitting which house has been reached, but then filter the calls by means of personal identity as seems fit?
"Hello; Kirke residence."
"May I speak to Marie?"
"Oh, I'm sorry; she isn't available at this time. May I take a message?"
See how lovely that is? Even if I am Marie (I admit nothing, nothing) I can easily decide to be unavailable "at this time." And why not? You, caller, may leave a message.
And if there isn't a message to be left... well, oh my goodness, aren't we all fortunate not to have wasted our time?
I too was taught, once upon a long-ago time, to offer information upon picking up the receiver:
"Hello; Kirke residence."
This quickly began to sound affected: why? I don't know. But it does seem a shame, in light of our current practice of answering with a slightly suspicious, unornamented "Hello?" which offers no information to anyone.
Perhaps it's because we don't want to imitate (the surely inimitable) Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet). Possibly it's just that we don't want to admit anything to possible telemarketers.
But you have to admit that it is unhelpful, if not unfriendly.
Yesterday, during lunch, I looked around the kitchen to identify the source of an insistent buzzing sound, clearly designed to notify me that something was wrong with some appliance or other. The laundry room is next to the kitchen, but this noise was not one I identify with the washer or dryer (still, they are fairly new, so you never know).
"What is that?" I asked.
"Somebody's cell phone," Jane-Clare said.
"Right here," added Melly, who does not have a cell phone but likes to be helpful. "It's coming from your purse."
Well, that narrowed it down, to be sure. I retrieved my cell phone, which had been set on vibrate lest it ring during Mass, and flipped it open despite the utter unfamiliarity of the number displayed.
"Hello?"
"Hello," a female voice responded.
I waited. And waited.
"Who is this?" the voice demanded.
--Well, you called me, I thought but did not actually say.
"Is this Joanne?"
"No," I said, relieved to have a question I could answer so easily. "You must have the wrong number."
I could say this with some confidence. See, wrong numbers always happened. Some of my mother's favorite, and most often requested, stories dealt with her responses to inquiries from the well-meaning but ham-handed trying to contact Holy Family rectory.
Now as then, surely, the general response is "Oh-I'm-so-sorry," followed by a quick hangup and dial tone.
Not this lady, the unknown pursuer of Joanne.
"Do you have a cell phone you are holding?" she asked.
At this point I felt fairly certain she was a Verizon representative bent on urging me to upgrade to something with a QWERTY keyboard, and I winked at my daughters.
"Yes, certainly," I assured her.
"Well, it is MINE."
Now, my cell phone is several years old and has a lovely display photo of my husband and me at Pizza Hut following an All-County concert which, two--nearly three-- years ago, necessitated our early departure from my father-in-law's birthday party because Jane-Clare and Melly were both performing. Therefore I was able to reply with some confidence:
"No it isn't; it's mine."
Unknown Female Voice was not easily convinced.
"Is the number 434-5555?"
(Okay, I made that up. I'm sure anyone who reads this is just delightful to speak with in person, but all the same I am not putting out my actual number. Especially since yesterday.)
"No, it isn't. It's close, and you must have meant to dial that, but my number is just a bit different."
This, clearly, was a cue for UFV to back off, apologize, and hang up. Is anyone surprised that she did only Number Three in that sequence?
Presumably she redialed, and we can hope that she did so with more accuracy, but really this is all just speculation on my part.
Oh, once upon a time, children, telephones were black, and large, and fastened to the wall. If you wandered, you risked missing a call. Oh yes; I assure you, it was as I say. Princess Phones, given only to the pampered, came in pastel colors but were similarly anchored.
And we were taught (should the Pony Express fail) to speak the family name into that receiver, casting that information boldly and momentously into the information stream, which in those days could not have been more than a trickle.
Yes! It could have been ( I suppose) a stalker; or a truant officer; or even a creditor, although credit was less easily obtained, and less abused, in those far-off times. We were not cautious.
Great-Grandma had a maid who would announce, whether or not with strict veracity, that Madam was Not At Home. We have answering machines, and voice mail; so why are we still scrambling to deal with UFV and her ilk?
Could we (perhaps) return to those days of admitting which house has been reached, but then filter the calls by means of personal identity as seems fit?
"Hello; Kirke residence."
"May I speak to Marie?"
"Oh, I'm sorry; she isn't available at this time. May I take a message?"
See how lovely that is? Even if I am Marie (I admit nothing, nothing) I can easily decide to be unavailable "at this time." And why not? You, caller, may leave a message.
And if there isn't a message to be left... well, oh my goodness, aren't we all fortunate not to have wasted our time?
Sunday, February 6, 2011
..and brothers
OK, guys, you knew you were going to come in for your share, right?
Given the makeup of our family (G,B,B,B,G,G,G,G) I no longer feel that I can say I am raising boys; rather, I have raised boys, and now have the peculiar pleasure of being the mother of grown men.
I don't think anyone will be startled at this date to hear that boys and girls are not the same.
There was a time, some years back, when I said that those who believe boys are easier to raise than girls are overlooking all of those trips to the emergency room. I don't retract the statement altogether, but I'm not sure I would make it today... possibly because the last time we had to take a boy to the emergency room was a while ago. Wait. It wasn't all that long ago. It was Christmas, the lad in question was nineteen, and he had just discovered the hard way that the pocketknife he'd received in his stocking did not have a safety catch.
See, this boys-vs-girls thing is a question anyone fortunate to have both sons and daughters is bound to encounter. As families have gotten smaller, it's become more common for parents to have the experience of raising sons or daughters, rather than sons and daughters.
Generally speaking, we all feel we have the toughest job, and do not like to be told otherwise. Parents like credit, which is understandable, but resent being told that they have it easier than anyone else.
Who has it easiest?
Cloistered Benedictines would be my best guess.
After one lively birthday party, given for a girl and attended largely by girls, my husband remarked, "At least with boys, you know where they are!"
Indeed. You do. Boys tend to stay in a group. Boys are in your living room, breaking your furniture. Girls, on the other hand, will scatter through your house, delving into closets and cupboards and trying on clothes and earrings.
Girls, bless them, will let you know how they feel. Sometimes at dinner, when you are tired; sometimes at 2 a.m., when you are exhausted.
Boys are often a bit tougher.
Our son Duthac moved from a cherubic babyhood and cheerful boyhood to a silent adolescence. It was anybody's guess what was on his mind. It's told of President Calvin Coolidge that a lady seated next to him at a dinner once told him, "I've made a bet I can make you say more than two words," and Coolidge replied, "You lose."
Duthac made Silent Cal look like a chatterbox.
The one safe bet, those teen years, was that the thought of food was never far from his mind. At 12, he accompanied me on an anxious trip to a medical center with his baby sister. As a thank-you treat, I took him to a fast-food restaurant afterward; after checking to make sure that he could (really? really!) have anything he wanted, he ordered a meal with a side of a second meal.
A couple of years later, I needed to take him on a clothes-shopping expedition, probably because of the way boys will sprout up several inches right after you have done your "back-to-school" shopping. I took the precaution of taking him right after dinner, on the theory that he was full.
He gazed wistfully at the Taco Bell across the street, and said, "I'm hungry."
I do believe it was on another occasion that I went into Taco Bell with him for lunch, and discovered the real reason that men are traditionally entrusted with the task of placing orders in restaurants. This had previously been a bit of a mystery; I mean, women do generally seem to be better at multi-tasking (sorry, guys, but keep in mind that being compared with a computer is at best a dubious distinction).
But who captures the waitress's attention better?
Duthac ordered some kind of taco party platter thing, and the girl at the register (about his age; perhaps a bit younger) gazed at him with the kind of fascination traditionally associated with snake-charmers.
"Are you going to eat all that?" she cooed. "That's a lot of food."
"Yup," replied Duthac, with a brevity Gary Cooper might have envied.
"I mean," she persisted, "that's, like, ten tacos and it's really for a few people...."
Could we ask for a better illustration of the difference between boys and girls? Name me a girl who would be flattered by the implication that her appetite is as the appetite of ten. Or even five.
Mom de Duthac, meanwhile, was leaning pleadingly against the counter saying, "Um, could I have a Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme? Please?"
Taco Bell, as of this writing, had done away with the Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme. Tant pis. Car-driving mothers of sons, I salute you.
Given the makeup of our family (G,B,B,B,G,G,G,G) I no longer feel that I can say I am raising boys; rather, I have raised boys, and now have the peculiar pleasure of being the mother of grown men.
I don't think anyone will be startled at this date to hear that boys and girls are not the same.
There was a time, some years back, when I said that those who believe boys are easier to raise than girls are overlooking all of those trips to the emergency room. I don't retract the statement altogether, but I'm not sure I would make it today... possibly because the last time we had to take a boy to the emergency room was a while ago. Wait. It wasn't all that long ago. It was Christmas, the lad in question was nineteen, and he had just discovered the hard way that the pocketknife he'd received in his stocking did not have a safety catch.
See, this boys-vs-girls thing is a question anyone fortunate to have both sons and daughters is bound to encounter. As families have gotten smaller, it's become more common for parents to have the experience of raising sons or daughters, rather than sons and daughters.
Generally speaking, we all feel we have the toughest job, and do not like to be told otherwise. Parents like credit, which is understandable, but resent being told that they have it easier than anyone else.
Who has it easiest?
Cloistered Benedictines would be my best guess.
After one lively birthday party, given for a girl and attended largely by girls, my husband remarked, "At least with boys, you know where they are!"
Indeed. You do. Boys tend to stay in a group. Boys are in your living room, breaking your furniture. Girls, on the other hand, will scatter through your house, delving into closets and cupboards and trying on clothes and earrings.
Girls, bless them, will let you know how they feel. Sometimes at dinner, when you are tired; sometimes at 2 a.m., when you are exhausted.
Boys are often a bit tougher.
Our son Duthac moved from a cherubic babyhood and cheerful boyhood to a silent adolescence. It was anybody's guess what was on his mind. It's told of President Calvin Coolidge that a lady seated next to him at a dinner once told him, "I've made a bet I can make you say more than two words," and Coolidge replied, "You lose."
Duthac made Silent Cal look like a chatterbox.
The one safe bet, those teen years, was that the thought of food was never far from his mind. At 12, he accompanied me on an anxious trip to a medical center with his baby sister. As a thank-you treat, I took him to a fast-food restaurant afterward; after checking to make sure that he could (really? really!) have anything he wanted, he ordered a meal with a side of a second meal.
A couple of years later, I needed to take him on a clothes-shopping expedition, probably because of the way boys will sprout up several inches right after you have done your "back-to-school" shopping. I took the precaution of taking him right after dinner, on the theory that he was full.
He gazed wistfully at the Taco Bell across the street, and said, "I'm hungry."
I do believe it was on another occasion that I went into Taco Bell with him for lunch, and discovered the real reason that men are traditionally entrusted with the task of placing orders in restaurants. This had previously been a bit of a mystery; I mean, women do generally seem to be better at multi-tasking (sorry, guys, but keep in mind that being compared with a computer is at best a dubious distinction).
But who captures the waitress's attention better?
Duthac ordered some kind of taco party platter thing, and the girl at the register (about his age; perhaps a bit younger) gazed at him with the kind of fascination traditionally associated with snake-charmers.
"Are you going to eat all that?" she cooed. "That's a lot of food."
"Yup," replied Duthac, with a brevity Gary Cooper might have envied.
"I mean," she persisted, "that's, like, ten tacos and it's really for a few people...."
Could we ask for a better illustration of the difference between boys and girls? Name me a girl who would be flattered by the implication that her appetite is as the appetite of ten. Or even five.
Mom de Duthac, meanwhile, was leaning pleadingly against the counter saying, "Um, could I have a Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme? Please?"
Taco Bell, as of this writing, had done away with the Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme. Tant pis. Car-driving mothers of sons, I salute you.
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