Diabolical commerce

We have a zillion costumes. I keep them around for sentimental reasons.

Cat burglar, cheerleader, fairy princess, scary fairy princess, peacock, shark, man-eating shark, gorilla, mermaid, mermaid-gorilla, bat, pirate, gumball machine, fireman, deer, deer in the headlights, spaceman, zombie, Ron, Herobrine, "Steve."

Not to mention lion, dragon, Egyptian cat, the Headless Horseman, a spider, and a hotdog complete with a squiggle of shiny mustard that the pets have sheepishly worn for my entertainment, poor things.

Okay, maybe not a zillion costumes. But a wardrobe of weirdness nonetheless. Clustered together, testing the strength of the zippered bedding bags I've repurposed to contain them, they pop out to surprise me throughout the year.

Someday, I tell myself, I will sell them. Or give the costumes to charity. Or hand them down to my eventual grandchildren.


I have always loved this season. I even love that the retail calendar lights its fuse in August just as back to school sales are wrapping up. 

More time to comparison shop for Styrofoam tombstones and plastic skeletons to add to our front (grave) yard, I say. 

Of course, there was a time when time was not as plentiful. The kids would change their minds about being Draculas or damsels and decide, instead, that they needed to be a Humpback whale or a character named Angela from a book I'd never read. This would all happen roughly three days before Oct. 31st.

If I were lucky, they'd be satisfied with cardboard, slapdash, and Goodwill. Nothing I make would ever be ready for Pinterest.

The kids are not kids anymore. They don't harbor dreams of the fanciful things they can be on a single night of the year. They are more interested in their careers as teenagers and the capital that endows. They will decide to go out if they can convince a friend to go with them.

If they dress up for this new door-to-door ritual, they'll figure out something ... without too much of my help.

It's weird being on the other side of that creaky old door. 

The side where people discuss in emphatic tones how old is too old to participate in the annual parade of candy. 


As if those diminutive Milky Ways were worth their weight in gold. Or if every teenager that approaches comes with a grocery list of mal-intent: Eggs, toilet paper, shaving cream …

There will always be people who hurt, whether they do so actively or passively. 

I suppose it's fitting that the awkward stages of adolescence and advancing age should meet for a battle of wills on a night that is custom made for such diabolical commerce.

In its own way, that's a perfectly acceptable disguise.

My daughter wears it like a frown sometimes.

I know that will turn around.

Everyone has a gap in their willingness to put themselves out there. Eventually, the teens will slip back in quietly as their social circles rotate.

I will be in my own disguise. Maybe I'll be a Gorilla Magician, sitting on the front porch with a banana daiquiri, handing out candy.

All are welcome to stop by.

Tethered

I was stuck. My family had zipped away through the treetops, and I was stuck. 

No matter how I tried, the contraption wouldn't unlock. Not long before being trussed up into a harness and set loose in the woods, we'd hunkered down in front of an instructional video on a ski-lodge bench with about a half-dozen other off-season adventurers.

You "twizzle" one carabiner to its locked position, and the other carabiner attached by a spliced cable magically unlocks. Climbers are then free to attach both carabiners to the same lifeline and continue through the next obstacle. The disembodied voice assured us that this safety mechanism was foolproof.

Another woman looked a little stricken as the video ended, and our guide asked us if we had any questions.

I knew what she was thinking: "I won't remember any of that." I also knew that I would be the fool they hadn't counted upon.

"Don't worry. There will be plenty of staff members to help you."

But I was worried. Trudging up a hill (that was probably one of the green trails I could barely traverse on skis in the winter), I felt my lungs working harder and my breath growing short.

This is more work than I'd envisioned when I promised the kids we'd go ziplining.

I had pictured a more relaxed tour with guides attaching us to the wires and pushing us off, waving into the afterglow as we cast away through the uppermost canopy, through the forest, and over farmland until we floated down to the base of the mountain, landing with grace and a light touch.

Instead, I was alone on a rickety platform built for three. Safely and seemingly permanently attached to the trunk of a tree while the rest of my family zipped onward.

The red flush of embarrassment was already washing over me when the panic began to set in.

A lady behind me chuckled a little, offering help. She fitted the clip into the magnetic slot and tested the one that should spring open.

Still. Locked.

A wave of relief cooled some of the shame. See? It wasn't just me, I thought. Although a few more tries on her part would eventually prove successful. 

Perhaps the good news was the journey wasn't as daunting.

I'd side-stepped the wires with ease. I'd balance on teetering logs. I'd climb up and down rope ladders that swayed to and fro.

But the double-locked safety devices stopped me in my tracks.

"Just call for help," I remembered from the videotape.

A few jovial teens wearing the vests of safety and ski area insignia – appeared with a ladder. They climb up to unlock my carabiner with a laugh and some advice: Make sure the cables don't get too twisted."

I wanted to hate this.

It was taking too long. We had already been here for an hour and could still see the place where we started. Small, non-biting bugs were flitting around my face. And every "twizzle" lead to my feelings of a fizzle as my own family zoomed ahead while other families piled up behind me.

This was worse than every terrible game of miniature golf I'd ever played.

And yet, the actual effort of the journey had been remarkably smooth.

We were out of the house on a beautiful fall day, finding that walking on tightropes between trees and flying squirrel-like through the forest made us seem graceful and athletic, though none of us could honestly claim those titles.

There was only one precarious moment when I felt I would fall off a log and not be able to scramble back. A long moment passed when I imagined myself dangling awkwardly from the harness, waiting bunglesome for an attendant with a ladder to climb up and save me.

But that didn't happen. At that same moment, I regained my composure and balance and continued to the next perch, where my youngest was waiting.

I wasn't prepared for his panic, though I had just gone through at least twelve stations where panic had tapped at my shoulder. 

His carabiner had stopped working, too, and like a deer in the treetops, frozen in fear. And his terror only increased as I flew toward his platform. He couldn't get free and was sure I would slam into him as I glided toward the landing pad.

For the first time all afternoon, I felt calm and capable.

And without looking into his tear-stained eyes, I told him everything would be alright.

I knew exactly how to help in this situation, and so I told him: "I've been failing at this very maneuver all day." 

And while such practice may not make perfect, it gives you enough experience to persist.

Eventually, we would be free.

And maybe we would turn around and start again.

Bed bugaboos

The walls around me seemed to be vibrating. It was loud. And, I knew from experience, the vintage chandelier hanging in the room below ours was flickering. I just hoped plaster wasn't raining down on the floor along with the dust.

The creaking, softening bones of this old house under the weight of a new bed was a possibility I hadn't counted upon when my husband and I spent the better part of an otherwise pallid Sunday, staring at the steel-girded ceiling of a furniture store, trying our best to decide on a platform on which to slumber for the next ten or so years of our lives.

We had been there, testing firmness and comfort, cushion and resilience, for hours. Our resolve to be shrewd shoppers melted away as the minutes ticked past lunchtime.

I'm not sure how it happened exactly, maybe all that was needed was the gentle vibration of some new-age magic fingers against the back of our growling stomaches to cajole us into handing over the checkbook and scribbling out several hundreds more dollars than we'd planned.

We waited a week for a truck to deliver the sleep the store's mattress match promise had made.

Not that I had much faith in a pseudo-scientific sleep delivery computer app that rang some bells and blew some whistles, and finally arrived at "Firm for him and Softer for her" out of a grand total of four possibilities.

Why is picking one of them so hard?

I hadn't imagined the dog bolting from the room like a rocket-propelled tennis ball as the bed started to come to life in the showroom.

But I had thought about the cat and the likelihood of one of two scenarios coming to pass: either her being caught in the works, or reducing the new contraption to matchsticks. The latter being more likely.

I definitely hadn't planned on the muted but diabolical childish laughter currently rolling out from underneath the covers next to me as a joy that might revisit us from some bygone era of toddler parenting.

Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrr heralded the smooth pressure of a metal armature raising the edges of our new, "hybrid" mattress. As it folded us in half like a taco, our youngest rolled around in sheets of laughter. 

My heart was warming to this nostalgic return. It had been ages since our son had climbed into bed with us, seeking the comfort of parents.

"Look at this! It lights up the floor! This. IS. SOOOO. COOL!"

Though, the attraction to the novelty of remote control and under-bed illumination should not have eluded my tingling senses of the potential for practical jokesters.

Not to mention the fact that, in the boy's hands, the automatic lift of our new pillow-topped rollercoaster was reaching fun park speeds. 

As any boy below the age of 49 and three-quarters might be positively giddy at the novelty of this king-sized contraption, his father was teetering on the edge of a new understanding.

The show goes on

Should I tell him?

The boy has missed the first installment of a month-long, biweekly schedule of rehearsals leading up to a community theatre extravaganza, the date of which has yet to be fully determined.

And it's my fault.

As I skimmed the lengthy missive that's main attraction was a full-page, fine print cast list, looking only for the boy's name and the name of the part he would play, i didn't think to read the part -- stuck somewhere in the beginning -- that clearly stated: "rehearsal begins TONIGHT."

Tonight had come and gone. I was waiting for the coffee to drip into my cup as I reread the email the realization that it was now TODAY. 

That. Sinking. Feeling.

He won't be pleased.

I wonder how many other parents glossed over the details and went on with their evenings: Watching Netflix, making dinner, sleeping ever-so-soundly. 

I imagine the number was in the single digits, possibly even just a single, solitary parent: Me.

I don't want to tell him.

He has friends in the production. When he gets to school, they'll ask him where he was? Why didn't he show?

I'm picturing it now: He will cock his head. His mouth will constrict. His face will turn pink and then red.

He will furrow his brow and think of me. He will Seethe with prepubescent rage.

A "Why didn't you ..." accusation teetering on the edge of an emotional explosion.

I could pretend I didn't know.

I could remind him that ultimately, he is the most responsible for keeping track of his own schedule. Now that he's 12.

But it seems disingenuous, especially since his emails filter through mine and routinely get lost in the maze that is the electronic filing system. How can I expect him to keep up when I clearly can't? 

I start every day headed in multiple directions. It generally astounds me to arrive at any destination on time, although I rarely get through a day with perfect attendance.

"I got all the way to flute lessons before I realized it was tap dance today."

"Uh ...Mom? What year are you in. … I take the trumpet."

I'm only exaggerating slightly. But I feel that I am drowning in a sea of multi-color handouts with thousands of words in small print, not to mention scrolls and scrolls of electronic messages that require more attention than I am capable of giving. And let's not forget the unconscious need to refresh my social media browser every six seconds to keep track of which elected officials are engaging in what seems akin to pouring gasoline over their careers and lighting them on fire. 

Have I mentioned how many cat videos are out there, just begging me to click on them?

None of these things are valid excuses.

Of course, I will tell him.

He will make the face I don't want to see, and then he will go silent. 

He will blame me for the rest of the day or until lunch (if there's pizza).

But it won't be the end of the world. The show will go on.

I just hope I don't miss it.