his "what" is showing?

Another excerpt from the Penis Factor…

“This goes much deeper than failing to ask for directions or putting the toilet seat down.  This is deep-rooted in the male genetic makeup.  It is something that crosses racial and cultural lines, for at their core, men are still just men.” 

When an otherwise intelligent woman utters something that can be construed as stupid, the common phrase is to say her “roots” are showing.  Regardless of whether or not the woman in question is a blonde, this expression is meant to convey the message that under there somewhere she is a “dumb” blonde. 

So, would it be fair to say in comparison, that when a man is caught in the act of doing something decidedly “manlike”, that his penis is showing?  It’s basically the same thing.  We’re defining the action using a physical tag line.  Men behave the way they behave in essence due to the presence of their penis.  Over the years, the penis has gotten more press than any other body part.  Sigmund Freud devoted much of his practice to defining the envy of this self-same body part. 

I mean, let’s face it, men come in different shapes and sizes, different cultures and races, from different places all over the globe, but the one common thread between them is the penis.  It is what defines a man as being a man, his veritable manhood.  They derive great pride in extolling its size and magnificence, drawing the line only at displaying it as artwork above the fireplace, and I have no doubt they would if they could. 

The penis is said to be the man’s true head, the true brain of the operation.  Dictating the direction the man takes in almost every aspect of life. I wonder sometimes if the size of a man’s penis has some direct correlation to his intellect.  Like, for instance, the smarter he is, the smaller his penis is.  Wouldn’t that make for a fun rumor?  If I leaked it out that there was some medical study done that proves that a well endowed man is less likely to score big on the IQ scale?  I think men everywhere would suddenly pretend to be dumb.  It would be just like the way men treat women with big breasts.  The bigger the breasts, the dumber she is thought to be.  I want to start that rumor over the internet.  Doctors and lawyers of the world beware.  Hide your Harvard degrees in the closet or risk losing your manly man status.  I would like to start that rumor, but somehow I feel as if it would back fire on me.  Somewhere a very smart man would find a way to toss me into a jail and throw away the key.  Beware of a penis scorned, and all that.

And where the male penis is concerned, it’s not just his own penis that we’re talking about.  Parental pride abounds in our male species.  I remember when my son was born,  the look of gratification on his father’s face at his son’s splendid little package turned to disappointment when he discovered that the enormous package this tiny infant was sporting was merely a hormonal condition left over from life in the womb.  In other words, his little bits and pieces were just swollen, and they would revert to their normal baby size within days.  The grown man was as deflated as his tiny son’s testicles soon would be. 

So I ask again.  When a man is doing his manly things, can’t we just say, “His penis is showing”?  It would explain so much in so few words.

As much as I would like credit for coining such a phrase, I dare say, maybe not.

The difference?

Exposing ones roots, as it were, rarely elicits horrified mothers everywhere diving to cover the impressionable eyes of their young offspring, or frantic calls to 911.

So, you heard it here first, but don’t say you weren’t forewarned if you land yourself in hot water by saying “his penis is showing.”

 

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

keeping up with the joneses

It was a beautiful day in Atlanta.  The skies were blue, the air was warm, and the windows in my house were wide open!  If they hadn’t been open, I may not have heard the voices carrying over the wind.  At first I thought I was imagining it.  I even looked at my dogs to see if they were talking to me.  They weren’t.  So I stepped out the side door to investigate.  That’s when I saw the smoke.

The neighbors across the street, (let’s call them the Joneses) were sending up smoke signals from their back yard.  I stood on the driveway as giant plumes of whitish gray smoke billowed into the sky and I listened as the sound of their laughter filled the air.  If I didn’t know any better I might have suspected they were into ritual sacrifices back there, dancing naked around the fire with a goat on a spit or something.  But, I did know better, and the truth is, out of all the neighbors on my street, they are in a very select few that I actually like.

I sort of wished I was back there throwing giant limbs onto the fire along with them, you know, burning things in effigy (a personal favorite of mine.)  Instead, I urged my husband to build a fire pit in our yard so that we could set fire to things too.  I wanted to watch things burn.  Like steaks maybe.  I haven’t had a good steak in a really long time.  My husband is convinced that cows are the root of all evil and we should not support their existence by eating them.  That may be a gross exaggeration of what he actually said, but when I’m hungry I tend to be cranky. (Not to mention the fact that he’s standing over my shoulder as I write this.)

My husband has his work cut out for him if he is going to build a fire pit as grand as the one at the Jones’s house—their backyard is the envy of the block—so it’s a good thing we’re good friends.  I can actually get the inside scoop on how it was done.  It’s no surprise that I “borrow” many of her decorating ideas.  I tell her flat out when I’m going to play copycat.  I’m certain she doesn’t mind—she’s good about that—and I’m sure she has borrowed many of my ideas too.  I just haven’t figured out which ones yet. 

Because of her unmatched expertise at throwing a party, Mrs. Jones is the unofficial leader of our neighborhood book club (and if they’re reading this, it should be said that I like everyone in the book club.) Mrs. Jones takes book club very seriously.  She is an extremely picky reader.  That is one reason I let her read my book, “To Katie, With Love”.  I knew she would be honest in her critique.  Lucky for me, she loves it!  Of course, her taste in books is typically more serious than my little romantic comedy.  Mrs. Jones went through a phase where she was only reading books about the Holocaust.  And so the book club read a book set during the Holocaust.  When we went to her house for our meeting, her coffee table was littered with several serious books set in that time period.  She got so involved that she began to think of herself as a Holocaust survivor.  She was drawing the Star of David in the fog on her shower door until her husband told her she was freaking him out and she had to stop.  She finally got the hint when her best friend/gardener left a chalk swastika on a rock in her flower bed.  The man has an unusual sense of humor, and if you ask me, somewhat of an undefined orientation…if you know what I mean.  I’ve decided that an in-ee or an out-ee doesn’t always refer to a belly button! 

Mrs. Jones’s next obsession was the civil rights movement. 

The book club has already read two novels depicting race relations in the late sixties. Mrs. Jones became so entrenched in the struggles outlined in the books that she tried to hug a large black woman working in the Waffle House, just as a sign of solidarity.  I’m sure the lady looked at this tiny blonde haired blue-eyed woman and thought she was crazy, talking about being sisters and all that.  So now she’s looking for a march to go on.  She may be a few decades too late, but if she can find one, I have no doubt she will be carrying a sign promising that “we shall overcome.”

I wonder if I should be worried that my choice for book club was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  It was a fun twist on the Jane Austen original, but if Mrs. Jones gets too wrapped up in that story, I may need to wear make-up on the weekends too.  Otherwise she may mistake me for dead, and try to lop of my head with her katana.

Lucky for me, our next topic is India. 

I fully expect her to start cooking curried goat and jasmine rice and dressing in a sari with a red dot on her forehead.  Some people might assume she was making fun, but I know Mrs. Jones, and she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.  Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of flattery!

My husband has told me that if she does make curried goat, he’ll be having dinner over there that night.  Now that he doesn’t eat beef anymore, I’m starting to worry about my dogs.  We all know he doesn’t love them, so if any of them turn up missing, I will be searching the fire pit for bones.

Until the next time…I will be hiding my copy of Twilight from Mrs. Jones!

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

life isn’t all fun and games after all

So, I was riding in the car with my husband today, and neither of us was speaking.  We had argued about something…or rather nothing.  I say nothing because I still don’t know what the argument was actually about. Isn’t that always the way? He shot me a cross glance, I used an unkind tone…and boom!  It was like the ninja kitty smack down in the middle of the living room. Teeth bared and claws extended.  

We climbed into the car with stony faces, and spoke not a single word.  I was scratching notes into my journal, and he was driving.  We were heading to Home Depot to buy garden supplies because today was the first nice day of year.  The sun was shining, the air was warm, and the space between us was positively vibrating with irritation.  It was at that moment that I knew I should have just gone to work.  My Saturday was officially ruined.

An SUV full of young men pulled up beside us at a light and the sounds of rap music, laced with profanity, peppered the air around us.  Why is it that a bunch of guys in an Escalade can blast profanity from open windows and I can’t drop the f-bomb when I step on something sharp? 

I think I may have been a sailor or a pirate in a previous life because I know all the good cuss words, and I’ve even made up a few of my own. 

And in my own immortal words…today was a fuck-sandwich!

Is it any wonder that I write? Life is filled with unbelievably impossible moments and sometimes, the only escape is in the form of a creative explosion.  And I was unquestionably ready to explode!  The pen, as they say, is mightier than the sword—and it has been known to cut deeper and with greater precision than a surgeon’s blade. 

So who or what shall I burn in effigy today?  Dare I even put it into words for fear of repercussions?  Probably not.  Maybe I can just blame my ill-timed anger on hormones or lack of sleep.  Perhaps, misunderstanding or failed communication.  Can I just blame dairy products or caffeine? I certainly can’t blame alcohol, because no one was drinking at my house today.   Oh to be Hemingway and blame the dreaded drink.

I once wrote an entire book where the antagonist, (you know, the bad guy) was loosely based on my ex-husband.  The exercise allowed me to take out my frustrations and purge him completely from my system.  But what do you do when the object of your frustration is something you cannot or will not purge?  If you’re me, you quiver with irritation and devise all manner of retaliation. You put pen to paper to go on the attack only to retreat.  And then you remember that it’s just one Saturday in a sea of Saturdays.

I think I’ll just blame planting season, and Planet Green.  I don’t want to be a vegetarian—or an activist.  I just want to entertain people with my mighty pen. 

I wonder if Freud would argue that my pen is nothing but a phallic symbol—my whole motivation simple penis envy.  After all, I did write “the penis factor.”  But I can promise you I am not imagining the male member when I put pen in hand.  No, my ideals in that field are far loftier than even a Mont Blanc! 

Sometimes I wonder if it is possible to be too pissed off to be funny.  Or could I be able to squeeze the humor out of any situation, no matter how dire?  It’s often better if I don’t even open my mouth.  But my pen—my mighty phallic pen—always knows the right thing to say. 

Irritation aside, my husband was on a mission today.  To build raised planting beds in the garden.  His goal—to have a self-sustaining ecosystem where we are no longer dependent on others for our food.  He accepts his limitations.  He isn’t expecting to build a wall around us to keep out the angry villagers (not yet anyway); he just wants to grow his own fruit and vegetables.

It is moments like this when I realize the deep similarities between my husband and my father.  They are both fighting a battle for their freedoms.  Their paths may be different, but their missions…their enthusiasm…are frighteningly alike.

I managed to take a two hour nap while the construction raged on in the rear of our property.  I was blissfully unaware of nails pounding into board…of dirt being shoveled…of seeds being sown…instead I lay dreaming of blogs yet to come…stories yet to be told.  Ultimately, I love my life.  It has its moments—I do fall down a great deal.  Yet, I wouldn’t change a single minute…wouldn’t give up a single day.  Every dark cloud is filled with the rain that nourishes the flowers…every bad mood is an opportunity to invent new profanities. 

Even a fuck-sandwich can be washed down with a glass of warm milk.

Until the next time…I’ll be making up with my husband!

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

it's all in the genes

In the course of my day today, I had occasion to run from inside the bank, through the doors to the parking lot and up to a car to speak to someone before they drove away.  The specific reason for that trip is not in the least bit important.  The important part of this tale is that my assistant manager (we’ll just call him Phil) was apparently taking bets inside the building that I would fall down somewhere between the lobby and the car. (I didn’t.)  After I came back inside, he took the time to tell me how proud he was that I didn’t even trip once!  That said something to me.  First of all—people really do pay attention to what I’m doing throughout the day, and second—I must trip often enough that it seems like a safe bet to take.  I don’t mind really.  I feel like we should turn our negatives into positives, and my trouble with equilibrium is positively funny.  Even to me.  The time I ended up sprawled flat out on my bedroom floor, struggling to catch the breath that was knocked out of me when my stomach hit the hardwoods with a resounding thud; bowl full of ice cream in my hair and a small army of dogs trying to lick it off my head, wasn’t funny at the time but made for a very entertaining story around the water cooler.  I didn’t even wait until the bruises healed to tell the tale.  And I had some serious bruises that time!  I actually sprained my boobs on that fall!  I had no idea that something like that was even possible!  Despite all my bumps and bruises, amazingly enough, I have never broken a single bone!  I think it’s because I’ve become quite proficient at falling, and I let myself relax, knowing it will soon be over and bruises do eventually heal.

But I have decided that I am not alone.  There is a very scientific reason for my catastrophic lack of coordination, and I believe the root cause lies somewhere in my genes.  This has never been more evident than since I started writing this blog.  In the past three weeks, I have had multiple family members writing me with stories that they think I should include in a blog somewhere down the line, and after reading these stories, it has become glaringly obvious that I come by this affliction naturally! 

We have established that my father is a revolutionary who guards his home in his underwear with a laser armed defense system and a phaser that is never just on stun!  But, unbeknownst to me, apparently my mother is practically a fugitive from justice!  Rumor has it that not only did she kill someone’s gold fish by putting them in a toilet bowl while cleaning their fish bowl, but she knocked her older sister unconscious with a frying pan JUST for refusing to get off the telephone (this was obviously years before cell phones were available.)  My sister has a doctorate in education but I am reminded of the time we were on a mini road trip and out of nowhere she asked me what they taught in a Dwee school.  I wasn’t familiar with that particular school so I asked for more information.  “You know…a Dwee school!”  She insisted as she pointed to the shopping center we were passing.  I turned to look and started laughing hysterically.  “That’s not a Dwee school!  It’s a DUI school!” 

If I need to explain that any further, we are obviously related!

I honestly believe my entire family lives in mortal fear that I will one day share any one of the countless stories detailing their own individual afflictions and they will be forced to go underground until the whole thing blows over.  Lucky for them, it is unlikely that I will run out of stories of my own and probably won’t need to dip into their personal libraries. 

That being said…

I didn’t fall down today.  I didn’t walk into any walls.  I did bump into my husband and knocked his Blackberry out of his hand and under the bed.  He said I’m no longer allowed to approach him while he’s holding his cell phone, but I think he was joking.  I probably should be embarrassed by my tragic lack of grace, but I’ve actually made friends with it.  I’ve decided to accept myself as I am—flaws and all—with no apologies.  I truly do believe that there is a positive side to everything if you just take the time to look. 

Until the next time…I’ll be looking for the positive side to gray hair!

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

lucy, you’ve got some splaining to do!

I am officially banned from not just the fireplace, but now the kitchen too.  I suppose that’s fair.   I did flood the stove making dinner. 

Maybe I should back up just a little. 

It was a relatively boring day today—nothing much to write about really.  I woke up late like most mornings and rushed around to find something to wear.  I got dressed in my closet to save time, and managed to wear my underwear inside out for the third time this week, which is actually an improvement for me!  I also ended up wearing unmatched socks because I figured that a) no one would notice, (which they didn’t) and b) they were both the same color, if not the same shade.  Nothing exciting happened at work.  I did my usual Tuesday client visits with a business partner.  We worked for a while before having sushi for lunch—yes, I had the beaver roll, and yes, I ate it with chopsticks!  We had to eat somewhere good, because my coworker was so hungry she swallowed a twig while scarfing down the nuts that spilled out onto the floor of her car and nearly choked to death!  After lunch I worked some more.  Then I went home to get the girls and sat, paralyzed with fear, in the passenger seat of my car as my sixteen year old daughter drove me around town.  After I dropped them off at a friend’s house, I stopped to shop for a minute.  (Can’t discuss what I bought or how much I spent as my husband reads this blog too.)  Then I had this brilliant idea to go home and surprise Mike with a home cooked meal.  Me, the restaurant queen, was going to cook dinner.  Before you gasp with amazement, I do actually know how to cook.  I may not use them often enough, but I actually have some skills in the kitchen.  Because Mike loves to cook, our kitchen was fully stocked, and I didn’t even need to make a grocery run before heading home. 

When my husband and I built our house, we incorporated a gourmet kitchen into the plans.  The kitchen has 2 sinks—one in the island for prep work and one in the counter for large pans—and a pot-filler faucet above the six-burner stove.  A pot-filler is nothing more than a faucet installed above the stove.  There is no drain below that faucet; it’s just for filling pots.  This is precisely why I should have stayed right by the stove while I was filling the pot to boil the pasta.  I should not have stepped away to let the geriatric dogs back in.  And I definitely should not have paused to answer the phone after that (even if it was my mother!) 

I don’t know how long I was away from the stove when I heard the sound of running water. (The kind of running water that is pouring from somewhere it should not be pouring from and splashing against a surface it should not be splashing against.) I ran back to the stove to find the stock pot overflowing and water spilling over the burners, disappearing somewhere inside and then seeping out of the oven door below.  My reaction was a hearty, “OH CRAP!” as I, first shut off the faucet, and second, rushed around trying to find something to soak up the water that was literally everywhere!  I was cursing myself loudly because I had not ordered the ShamWow that I had seen on late night TV just recently, because if I had gotten a ShamWow, the flood would have been instantly absorbed into the magic cloth!

I realized right then that I was a modern day Lucy Ricardo and I was going to be in a lot of trouble when Ricky got home! 

And that brings me back to the beginning. 

I am no longer allowed to use the stove or the fireplace.  I had already almost set fire to the house on three separate occasions while building a fire in said wood burning fireplace, which is why I am forbidden to play with matches.  But, who floods a stove?  In most houses that’s not even an option.  Not even possible! 

Only I could flood a stove.  

Now I will never be allowed to cook either.  And I had been doing so well.  I was almost incident free…in the kitchen anyway.  I had a slight mishap the other day with a grilled cheese sandwich, but that was just minor—a lot of smoke, but no fire.  I was only given a warning that time.  And come on…admit it…it’s easy to get distracted when you have teenagers, and pets…and a daily blog to write! 

Until the next time…I’ll be ordering Chinese takeout!

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

I waxed the pole at pole waxer's university

I hit the snooze bar on my alarm clock a record eleven times this morning.  I was exhausted! I had tossed and turned most of the night due to a lethal combination of caffeine and nerves.  I stared at the time on my Blackberry before pulling the blankets back over my head for just a few more minutes.  I wasn’t looking forward to getting out of bed this morning, and not just because I had to go to work.  Today was the day that I had agreed—against my better judgment—to go to a stripper pole aerobics class with two of my best girl friends.  I had tried to put it off twice already without much success, and after all…a promise is a promise, no matter how dangerous it might be to one’s health!

It was all my fault, really.  I was the one going on and on about getting on a diet and exercise regimen to get a jump start on spring.  I was the one complaining about my pants being too tight.  I should have taken the initiative to plan something else.  Instead, I left it all up to Vivian.  And she’s such a good planner too. 

Since we were going to be exercising the evening away, we decided we had better get dinner together first. 

Two bowls of cheese dip, three baskets of chips, and one round of margaritas later, my fears were somewhat allayed.  And the tip of my nose was somewhat numb.  So we piled into Melissa’s SUV and set out on our little adventure. 

The Pole Waxer’s University was located in one of the less than savory sections of town, and I don’t know why I found that surprising.  It was sandwiched between a vacant lot and an auto body shop on a narrow alleyway near the highway.  The ideal place for a small group of unarmed women to find themselves after dark!

We walked in and were immediately greeted by an older woman at the desk who took our money, and directed us to a room in the back to change.  We stole looks at each other without saying a word.  We were already dressed in what we were planning on wearing.  Like the others in my group, I was wearing loose fitting yoga pants, a t-shirt, and a sneakers—typically gym wear.  No one told me that everyone else would be wearing their underwear and five inch platform heels.  Oh, and one girl in underwear and thigh high shiny black spiked heel boots.

Right off the bat, the woman from the desk instructed us to grab a rag from the rack and wipe our poles down.  That should have tipped me off right away that there may be some sort of residue on the pole that I might not want my body to come in contact with, and that little rag (lacking of any sort of disinfectant) was going to do very little to remedy the situation. But, no sooner had I polished the length of my neon pink fireman’s pole when the older woman flicked a switch and the room was bathed in nothing but the glow from several black lights, and hip hop blasted from the giant speakers in every corner.   It was dark, and loud, and I was surrounded by strangers in their underwear, and now the music was shouting at me to pop my…what???

I gripped the pole with both hands and waited for further instructions. 

It is absolutely no secret that I have a catastrophic lack of coordination, so it should have been no secret that I could not under any circumstances wrap my leg around a  pole and use it to pull myself up and off the ground, let alone do it in rapid succession.  The names of the moves were suspiciously similar to the names of the sushi I had eaten only days earlier.  I was able to keep up with the body rolls—they didn’t require my feet to come off the floor—but the sun wheel, the bam, and the fireman fly were another story.  The instructor—a woman who had obviously seen her share of stripper poles over the years—tried showing me how I was supposed to wrap my ankle here, and tuck my knee against there, and then using my arms on the pole above my head, I should be able to hoist myself up and spin around the pole using my crotch as the axis.  I wanted to laugh out loud, but instead, I nodded politely until she turned away and proceeded to jump up and down in front of the pole as if I was actually attempting the move.  I gripped it tightly with both hands and let my body spin around it like a maypole for the next exercise.  I jumped and spun and leaned and rested and basically pretended to be an uncoordinated stripper for the better part of an hour until the class was finally over!  Oh she tossed a few sit ups and push ups into the mix so that I will likely be a little sore in the morning, and she promised us that we would have the symptoms of whiplash after spinning around the pole for an hour.  And my arms just might hurt from my failed attempts to pull myself even slightly off the ground to wrap my legs around the pole—a feat I did not even come close to mastering.  The girls in their underwear with the five inch heels continued to climb and spin on the poles long after the rest of us had stopped to marvel at the sheer absurdity of the situation.  Who did we think we were attempting to become junior strippers for an evening? 

We had a nice ride back to our cars where were all promised to plan another outing in the very near future.  One of our group even toyed with the idea of going back to the stripper academy.  I was just in a hurry to get home so I could wash my hands in really hot water with lots and lots of antibacterial soap.  Someone suggested perhaps next time we could go bungee jumping after a few margaritas.  I think it would take a whole lot more than a few margaritas to get me on the edge of a bridge with a giant rubberband strapped to my ass.  Maybe we could go rock climbing, or organize a dodgeball tournament.  Something a little less life threatening.  After all, suffering for one’s art is just an expression …not a challenge.

Until the next time…I’ll be giving up aerobics for Lent!

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

Valentine’s Day (observed)

I got flowers today.  Orchids.  Everyone knows I love orchids. Unfortunately, these orchids were dead.  There is something very tragic about receiving dead flowers.  Of course, they weren’t supposed to be dead—who sends dead flowers?  (Outside of the Godfather or something?) No, they were supposed to be alive, and they were supposed to have been delivered on Friday—for Valentine’s Day.  Friday was going to be my Valentine’s Day (observed).   

The problem with Valentine’s Day falling on the weekend is you can’t get flowers at work, and I knew I was getting flowers at work.  How did I know?  Because my husband is very well versed in how women’s minds work.  He knows that we want our flowers to be delivered where there are the most possible witnesses.  If a woman gets flowers at home when no one is around to see them, did she really get flowers at all?  So the flowers were coming to the office.  How did I know I was getting flowers at all?   Easy, I saw the charge in my husband bank account.  It was an accident—I wasn’t snooping—I was just checking on something.  We have to check on things sometimes, don’t we?  And sometimes while checking on something in a completely innocent fashion, we find something we weren’t meant to find.  It’s sort of like that time I found all those wrapped packages under my mother’s bed when I was in first grade and I had to unwrap them…very carefully…to see what they could possibly be!  It was just an accident!  So, I accidently found out about the flowers I wasn’t supposed to know about, and throughout the day, I was desperate to call my husband to alert him that they had not arrived, but I couldn’t—they were a secret!  A secret that I could not let on that I knew about.  Are you anywhere near as confused as I am by that convoluted logic?  Good!

The snow started falling around one o’clock in the afternoon, and it was quickly becoming obvious that this was not just a mild case of the flurries.  The weather was rapidly adding to my anxiety about the flowers, because I knew there was a good chance that we would be closing early so we could all rush out to buy bread, milk, and toilet paper in case we were snowed in for days on end.   My anxiety was compounded by the fact that the flower delivery guy had already been to the bank several hours earlier and despite my thorough interrogation, he had no knowledge of any flowers being addressed to me.  So, by the time the bank closed at four, I was more than just a little bit disappointed. 

I was distracted for the next hour while I foolishly drove my daughter to her friend’s house in a blizzard.  Hey I’m Yankee girl living in a sweet tea and grits world…I wasn’t afraid of a little snow! 

It was very scary snow!  They don’t have plows and salt trucks down here!  It’s like going commando with your car.  The worst part is realizing that the person driving beside you had probably never seen that much slush outside of a margarita glass! 

I made it home safely only to be greeted by my husband at the door.  He looked at me expectantly, waiting for my response to the undelivered flowers, and I had to play dumb.  I wasn’t supposed to know about them, remember?

“Well…?” He started.  I tried to look innocent.  “It’s snowing!”  I said.  “Did you get anything special at the bank today?” He pressed.  “No.”  I said with feigned confusion.  “Was I supposed to?”  His face fell.  His disappointment was almost as severe as mine.  “I sent you flowers!” 

Now we were both bummed out.  What do you do on Valentine’s Day (observed) when you’re totally bummed out and there is a blizzard raging outside? 

We strapped into the Honda and held our breath as it slid down the length of the driveway to settle gently on the street below.  The best part of going out to dinner in a blizzard is there was absolutely no waiting for a table!  I found it amazing how many restaurants were actually open that night.  Every other store in the area, including Wal-Mart, had closed early.  We had a nice dinner and braved the icy, slushy roads back home.  We put the missing flowers out of our minds while we enjoyed the extra long weekend.  Monday was President’s Day (observed). 

It was a back to work day today, and amazingly my flowers arrived before two.  As I said before, they were very dead.  The UPS people decided to put my tropical orchids in the freezer over the weekend to keep them nice and fresh!  I called the flower company myself to make them aware of the “little problem” with the orchids.  I’ll be getting new flowers tomorrow—at the bank, where there will be the absolute most possible witnesses.  It doesn’t really matter what the calendar says.  I’ve decided that tomorrow will be my official Valentine’s Day this year, because Valentine’s Day can be any day when your sweetheart sends you flowers. 

Until the next time…I’ll be picking a better day for Mother’s Day (observed)

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

has anyone seen my dongle?

“Has anyone seen my dongle?”

If you are like me, you’ve just made a perplexed face and had visions of pay per view porn.   Imagine the face I was making when my teenage son came storming through the room, bellowing that question at the top of his lungs, and proceeded to pick through every drawer, basket, and assorted container in the public areas of the house searching for said “dongle”.  I had no idea what a dongle was, but I was fairly certain if I had seen one, I would have known!   “Mom, seriously…I left my dongle in here and you must have moved it!”  Red flags were flying up behind my eyes faster than corn popping in a hot skillet.  I wanted to say, “Maybe you should have kept your dongle where it belongs!”   The smart ass in me was struggling against the urge to make some snarky comment about the appropriateness of having one’s dongle out in public, but this was my son, and as funny as that may have been…I was fairly certain it had nothing to do with a dongle.  At least not today.  So, I asked the question you are probably asking right now, “What the hell is a dongle? 

According to Wikipedia, a dongle is a small piece of hardware that connects to a laptop or desktop computer—or in our case, connects a Playstation 3 to a Rockband guitar.  And apparently ours is missing. 

I knew what a Rockband guitar was.  I had seen it in various places throughout my house on any given day.  It was a smaller plastic version of a Gibson electric guitar.  It was also relatively expensive for a guitar-shaped video game controller—essentially what it was.  It was a video game controller that only worked when remotely connected to this dongle thing. 

After hours of searching with no luck, the solution seemed fairly plain to me. Simply get a replacement dongle.  How much could the little cord thing cost?

The little cord thing costs exactly the same as a whole new guitar…because you have to buy a whole new guitar to get one!  They don’t sell a replacement part!  The internet is littered with searches for replacement dongles and the response is the same on every search.  Not available.  The Playstation people don’t produce spare parts.  Apparently people who play Playstation don’t mess around with their dongles!

And so the quest began.  My son works at a video game store, so he had the inside track on any dongles at large.  As it turns out there are infinitely more guitars in need of a dongle than there are dongles in need of a guitar, so we were back to square one—the internet search.  EBay was no help.  Neither was Craigslist.  I even scoured the bin of lost cords at the Goodwill in hopes of finding the Holy Grail of video game equipment.

Three strikes and I was out.

At this point we had given up all hope of finding a new dongle and we would have no choice but to spend the money and buy an entirely new guitar.  But I wasn’t ready to give up hope that we would find the missing dongle somewhere in our house, and frankly, I wasn’t willing to pay $80 for a new guitar!   

That was over a month ago, and still no dongle.  Which brings us to today.   Mike and I were on a completely different quest—to find a car for the teenage drivers in our house.  I’m sure they will make for countless entertaining stories in the future, but not today.  Today was all about the car. 

Today was all about Guitar Center. 

We gave up the quest for a car and settled on a quest for guitar strings for Mike’s accoustic guitar.  It was less expensive for sure, but hardly as exciting.  We perused the fancy guitars for a while, picked out strings, listened to the future rock stars on their borrowed instruments, and then it was time to go.  As we were standing at the checkout aisle I saw something familiar out of the corner of my eye.  A rockband guitar—on sale—at the real guitar store!  It even came with a game. The best part was that the cost was less than what I would have guessed I would pay for the little dongle, if it was possible to buy just the dongle.  And it even had a whole guitar with it.  There was only one left, so of course I bought it.  I may regret it before long.  My house has been vibrating with the sounds of the Legends of Rock since I got home this afternoon.  Oh well.  That’s what they make cotton balls for, right?  As it happens, I still have an extra guitar if anyone has a spare dongle and no guitar to go along with it.  I may put an ad in the paper. 

Wanted—one slightly used dongle…will pay premium price if dongle is in good working order…can’t seem to play without it…discretion essential.

I know…I could get arrested for that ad, but it would definitely make for interesting blogging!

Until the next time…I’ll be looking up words that rhyme with dongle.

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

and the name of the game is…

Popularity.

Who doesn’t want to be popular?  Even if it’s just a small taste.   A tiny flicker.   And I’m not referring to the superficial popularity of a beautiful face, but rather the feeling you get when someone makes you feel special.  It is perhaps as simple as having something about you that is unique and different from the rest of the crowd—in a good way. 

I feel extra special today, because I got a new friend request on Facebook.  I got really excited…the same way I always do when I get a friend request.  It’s like a special delivery from a secret admirer showing up on my doorstep.  I absolutely LOVE getting friend requests.  Except for the times when I click on it to discover that it was a random person looking for friendship with total strangers.  I don’t like those, and I never accept them.  That is sort of like being picked for a beauty contest out of the phone book (remember phone books?)  How do they know I’m even worth it?  What makes them think I would be a good friend?  No, I want someone to pick me who has at least some basic knowledge of me—someone who knows who I am, (and how quirky I might be) and still wants to be my friend.  It means I’m popular…sort of.  It reminds me of that feeling I got in grade school when we were choosing teams in gym class.  I never got picked.  I was awkward, and shy, and lacking in charisma and personality.  Or maybe I just hadn’t learned to cultivate it quite yet.  Either way, let’s face it, picking teams for dodgeball was almost always a popularity contest more than anything else.   But every now and then, I would get picked early by someone who wanted me on their team, and it was pure elation.  Now that I’m grown up, I realize that nothing has really changed.  Life is still just one big popularity contest.  Anyone who has recently interviewed for a job, or gone on a date could attest to that.  So, when I get that friend request it means that someone wanted ME on their team!  I’m not nearly as shy or lacking in charisma or personality as I was in high school.  In fact, I’m brimming over with charisma and personality to the point that it’s almost an affliction…but that is definitely part of my charm.  As far as awkward goes, my inability to walk through a room without tripping over something is legendary, but that has much more to do with balance than social graces, and again…it’s part of my charm.  These days I don’t have to worry so much about being picked first for teams—my new found popularity has made me somewhat of a captain—but that doesn’t mean I don’t light up when I see the glowing icon on the screen that signifies a new request to be friends.  I have even been known to seek people out, and it is an excruciating wait while they decide if they want you in their cyber circle.  Emotions run the gamut between, “do they remember me?” to, “if they remember me do they even want to be my friend?” I have requested my son to be my friend over ten times, only to be rejected every time.  The acute pain of rejection doesn’t lessen with time, and I keep trying, hoping that one day he will hit the accept button by mistake and I will be let into his inner sanctum.  He assures me that will never happen, but I refuse to give up hope.  Until that time, I continue to seek out old friendships to rekindle.

Recently, I have been reconnecting with friends from many years past.  Friends I haven’t seen in several decades—and it almost feels like I’ve discovered a means of time travel.  Not the sort of time travel that occurs in a DeLorean or a shiny space capsule—I’m talking about the time travel that occurs right here on the internet.  On the social networks.  On Facebook.  I hear people talking all the time about how we’re too connected—too entrenched in the technology.  I often joke about how we may actually be living in the Matrix, but every time I feel a twinge of panic when my internet goes down, or when I can’t remember where I left my Blackberry, I come face to face with the fact that I am inextricably immersed in what some call the loss of human interaction.  While I don’t completely disagree—I am fairly certain I spend far too much time interacting with cyber chickens and the sort—at the same time, I have conflicting emotions.  Without this hyper-connection…this complete submersion in the technology…I would have never reconnected with all the people, friends and family alike, that I had completely lost touch with over the years, people that were once part of my day to day life but for countless reasons had slipped away into virtual obscurity.  We don’t live near each other; our lives would not have intersected by the natural course of things.  No, it was purely thanks to the miracle of modern technology that we have found each other again, as if we have each stepped into a time machine, pulling us back to a place we have all been before.  So to all the people that are now very much present in my life after so many years away, I’m very glad I stepped inside this time machine with you.  It has been a wonderful trip!  And now that we’ve found each other, let’s not lose touch again.  Time travel is somewhat expensive.

Until the next time…I’ll be polishing my DeLorean!

Erica

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

and the plot thickens

I was a nervous wreck after writing yesterday’s post.  I was unsure as to whether or not my father would be irritated with me for poking fun at him.  Now that I’ve gotten the green light from both Dad and my step-mother, I can take a huge sigh of relief!  In fact, not only can I breathe more easily, I was gifted with a surprise in my email.  My step-mother informed me that I “have no idea” how many weapons were actually in my father’s arsenal!   She proceeded to send me a detailed list of the weapons close to my father’s heart so that I could craft that information into another humorous tale.  So…in the spirit of honoring thy father…I shall not disappoint!

Dad’s weapons of choice:

Glock 19-9mm      

Glock 26-9mm     

Mossberg 500 12 gauge pump shotgun 

Kaltek PF 9mm    

Ruger LCP .380 automatic

Smith and Wesson Tactical Military and Police 3 1/2 inch switchblade    

Apparently, all weapons are loaded and hidden at home or carried.  My step-mother carries a loaded Walther PPK .380 and keeps it by her bed at night.  She also keeps a pistol crossbow by the bed because it’s, and I quote, “silent and deadly.”  They have thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition.

I think she was trying to make me feel safer, but I’m not sure it worked.  I was really poking fun at Dad last night.  Oh well…he lives pretty far away, and I doubt he’d get any of those through airport security!  I would be in bigger trouble if he hadn’t sold his private plane a few years back.  I don’t think they make you go through security if you’re flying your own plane.

Of course, I’m kidding.  My father is as gentle as a pussy cat…or as we like to call them in my house…a ninja kitty.

Initially I was shocked by Dad’s sudden fondness for weapons and involvement in the NRA (I even heard a rumor that he has an autographed poster of Charleton Heston hanging in his basement arsenal, but I’m not sure I believe it.)  Back when I was a child there were subtle hints of his fondness for weapons that I am only now picking up on.

The Bats.

It was the summer of 1974 when I first saw one.  My father was remodeling the bathroom, and the old tub was sitting along the side of the house waiting for its final ride to the landfill.  My sister and I were playing in the yard when we heard a strange sound coming from the tub.  We were young, no more than five and eight, so our danger meters were not yet fully functional.  What we found was a funny mouse.  My sister stood guard while I ran to get our mother.  We wanted to keep the funny mouse, but we needed permission. 

I’m sure you’ve guessed that it wasn’t a mouse.  It was a bat!  It had somehow landed in the tub but couldn’t get out.  Mom hustled us away from the potential rabies donor and yelled for Dad.  This is where I imagine him running out of the house like Rambo, chest bared and a white bandana tied around his temple, carrying a M60 machine gun in one hand and a huge combat knife in the other, with a loaded ammo belt strapped across his chest. 

That may not be exactly how it happened.

It was dusk when Dad strolled out to the driveway carrying his shotgun, loaded with birdshot, and picked off the bats one by one as they swooped out of the attic vent.  It was like shooting skeet, until the local sheriff showed up to arrest him.  He didn’t actually get arrested—my father is a very smart man!  The sheriff said Dad couldn’t shoot the bats, to which my Dad said, “I didn’t know they were an endangered species!”  “Well, they aren’t in season!” The sheriff countered.  Of course my dad argued that there is no bat season, and that bats are a danger to life, health and the general wellbeing of the family, etc.  My dad is an electrical engineer, so of course, he calculated his way out of that predicament with ease.  I don’t remember what happened with the bats after that night.  I imagine there was an exterminator that was called in to eradicate them somehow.  But I’ll never forget the night Dad shot bats in the air like they were winged enemies, out to take away our freedom…now I’m imagining him in blue face paint like Braveheart.  It’s funny what the mind does after thirty odd years. 

Until the next time…I’ll be calling my Dad to tell him I don’t write a blog anymore so don’t bother reading!

Erica

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

viva la révolucion

The groundhog was unequivocally correct.  Winter has indeed decided to stay a while longer.  I can’t say whether or not it will be six whole weeks (although in deference to my diet, I certainly hope we have at least that long) but winter is most assuredly here right now—even in the northern suburbs of  Atlanta, Georgia where I live. 

When the threat of a snowstorm was just a whisper this morning, my coworkers swore it wouldn’t happen.  It doesn’t snow like that in Atlanta, a city that frequently goes by the moniker of Hotlanta.  Well, the only thing hot in Atlanta tonight is my fireplace.  In the ten years that I have lived in Atlanta, this is only the second time I can recall seeing this much snow.

So much for Global warming.  Or perhaps it is evidence in support of Global warming.  I’m not here to argue science or politics, but I could introduce you to someone who gladly will. 

My father.

I have an FBI file.  I can only imagine what it says, but there is no question in my mind that it exists.  My phones are probably tapped.  My house is probably being watched by one of those spy satellites that stalk dangerous people.   My name is probably one of the favorites on an international watch list at all of the airports.  Why?  My father, who I love dearly and have the utmost respect for, is one of the co-founders of a subversive patriots group formed by Tea Partiers in Pennsylvania.  He goes on marches.  He has meetings.  I don’t know what they talk about at these meetings, but his wife says she can’t understand them, so I’m guessing they don’t speak in the same language regular people speak in.  He is a card carrying member of the NRA with a permit to carry a concealed weapon (and apparently, he never leaves home without it), because he is certain that we are only moments away from the next revolution.  And he even thinks Sarah Palin is smart!  I’m not certain, but I think he may have built a self sustaining bomb shelter in his basement, where he is cranking out elaborate artillery disguised as reproduction furniture.  I’ve seen the pictures of him using a sewing machine, but he can’t fool me.  Those were not chair cushions he was building, those were missile casings!

Dad thinks everyone should be armed—sort of like the old west, I imagine.  Back in the day when you could shoot a man for looking at your horse funny and it would be considered a justifiable homicide.  Although, back then there were more horses than women, so that just might have been your wife!

My step-mother also has a permit to carry a weapon, and she carries her gun just in case my dad goes nuts and she has to take him down.  I can’t imagine what sort of scenario would have to occur for that to happen, but I’m sure she would be up to the task if it came to that.    

I don’t know exactly when my father became so politically involved, but I’m not surprised by his “all in” approach.  He has always been a believer in the philosophy, “if you’re going to do something, you may as well be the best at it.”  I have always strived to be the best at everything I do, and I’m sure that is something I learned from my dad.   I’m a good singer, a pretty good writer, I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie, and I can’t be beat at trivia.  However, none of these things require me to carry a gun, and that’s probably a good thing, because I’ve never been very coordinated, and I would probably shoot my toes off or something.

Just for the record,( listen up all you FBI guys out there,) I don’t belong to any groups or clubs, other than my neighborhood book club (but just ask anyone, I never even read the book.)

Maybe I should get more involved, but for now I’ll leave that up to my dad.  He’s semi retired now.  He has more time to storm the Bastille than I do.  But take my word for it; if you see him coming, you’d better get out of the way!

Until the next time…I’ll be hiding in the bunker!

 

 

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

and the countdown begins

I started over today.  With my diet that is.  Now that the whole chopsticks thing has been proven a failure, and my lack of willpower to stay away from diet Coke and candy is legendary, I have made up my mind that a radical change is needed.  My first indication came when I decided to wear a skirt to work today.  I don’t know what made me choose that particular article of clothing.  It had been hanging in my closet since the last time I’d worn it back in the fall and I had no reason to think it wouldn’t fit me as well as it had that last time, so I pulled it off the hanger and lay it across my bed so I could wriggle into a pair of tights.

It was a cold day or I would have forgone the tights.  In retrospect, I should have just worn pants, but then I may not have known how serious my dilemma had become.

I opened the new package of black tights and shook them out to clear the wrinkles.  I slipped one foot in and then the other and began the awkward dance known to all women who wear panty hose on a regular basis. 

I struggled to tug the unyielding hose up over my knees, but the waistband was way too tight. As I fought against the stretch to yank them up my legs, my circulation was cut off each time I paused to get a better grip. I suppose I should have given up and changed, but I was committed to the decision, and so I forged on. 

Once I managed to secure the tights into position, they didn’t feel so constricting.  In fact, with the exception of the waistband, they were actually comfortable, and I rationalized to myself that the waist would stretch out as the day wore on.  It would have to, right?

Wrong.

After a week of mulling over the ramifications of the groundhog seeing his shadow and dooming us to six more weeks of winter, it occurred to me that if winter had six weeks left, that meant that spring was only six weeks away.  Five at this point.  And with only five weeks to shed my winter coat, I would need to get with the program without delay.  Now, by winter coat, I am not referring to the hair on my legs, which is easily shaved away.  Instead, I am referring to the undercoat that was built up with Christmas cookies, sweets, and other assorted winter indulgences that are hidden beneath the thick clothes of cold weather.  Today was to be my first official day of healthy eating.  I had oatmeal for breakfast and with each bite, the sensation that a rope had been tightened around my waist increased, until the noose was cinched ever tighter. 

I tugged on the waistband throughout the morning, determined to stretch it out, and release the strangle hold on my midsection.  The more I pulled, the more it snapped back, and if possible it was getting even tighter. 

By lunch time , even after having nothing more than a salad and ice water, the discomfort was almost unbearable.   Because at this point, on top of everything else, I had to pee.  I was afraid if I got the tights off, I would never be able to get them back on.  But at this point it was only one-thirty, and I didn’t think I could hold it until four-thirty.   

I don’t know who said, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” but those tights were a mother, and I needed to come up with some sort of invention to alleviate my suffering. 

Scissors.

I pulled out the large pair of scissors in my drawer, and without leaving my office, proceeded to snip the waistband at the top just enough to give it some slack.  It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do.  I was ready to brave the restroom, and the possibility of being stranded without my tights.

I don’t know how I managed to have so many problems in restrooms lately.  I have officially given up soft drinks, and still I couldn’t wait until I was in my own home to use the bathroom.  Luckily for me, the only complication today was due to the fact that I was still operating with a 75% inside out rate—which is to say that I am somehow putting my underwear on inside out 75% of the time.  I don’t even know how that is possible, especially now that I am aware of the situation.  It only seems logical that now that I know, I would be more careful.  Yet no amount of checking, or looking, or analyzing seems to help.  Once I put my foot in, they somehow flip.   I’ve just learned to let it go and move on.  As for the tights…the sliced waistband operated as expected, and I was able to wriggle back in and finish my day. 

The first thing I did when I got home was to shed the torture device and toss them straight into the trash.  I have never experience as much euphoria upon removing an article of clothing in my life.  

I definitely think tomorrow will be a loose trousers kind of day.  I would wear sweatpants if I could get away with it.  But, I may have to push my diet start date back just one more day.  We are having an “I hate Valentine’s Day” potluck at work. (Not my idea, but who argues when the entire group wants to bring food?) 

Until the next time…I’ll be eating carrots dipped in chocolate!

Erica

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

the anti-day off

 As my alarm went off at 750 this morning, and I grumbled myself awake enough to shut it off, I contemplated (ever so briefly, as I was not yet fully awake) what exactly it means to have a day off.  Today was supposed to be mine, so as I dialed into the mandatory eight AM conference call from my bed, I took the time to look it up in the dictionary.   

Noun

1.

day off - a day when you are not required to work; “Wednesday is her day off”

 

I was only slightly consoled by the fact that I was able to call from home and therefore didn’t need to shower or change out of my pajamas, especially after forty five minutes of listening to information that I was already infinitely familiar with.  I could have stayed asleep! And to top it off…I had a migraine.  It was one of those sorts of headaches that I rarely get, but almost completely disable me.  So of course, I got up and proceeded to do all of the “day off” activities that I had planned. 

Stop one – the high school.

The only bright spot of any trip to the high school is when I can do or say something to embarrass my teenagers.  Perhaps it was the throbbing behind my eyes, perhaps it was my twisted sense of humor, but I proceeded to pretend I could see lines of code in the drop ceiling of the guidance office.  I know, recycled Matrix joke from last night’s blog, but they didn’t know that.  The genuine pained look on my face was what sold the gag.  I wasn’t concerned about the other teenagers thinking I was certifiable, but my daughter has never moved faster in her life than she did when we were finally able to leave the building.  It didn’t help my headache any, but definitely improved my mood.  And I was one step closer to the payback I promised my children from some past embarrassment they set upon me. 

Stop two – lunch.

What could be better on your day off than having lunch with friends?  Having lunch with friends when you don’t have a migraine?  Too bad for me.  But, bright spot…got to see friends for lunch.  And because, while trouble shooting the root cause of my headache, it was suggested that perhaps my recent ban on caffeine could be the culprit, I decided to drink a diet Coke to reverse the horrible withdrawal.  Three diet Cokes later I still had the headache AND I had to pee really bad, which brings us to…

Stop three – the DMV.

Never—and I mean never—pee at the DMV.  I don’t mean on the floor, but of course, you should never do that either.  I mean never use the ladies room at the DMV.  I think they may actually plant nasty things in the restrooms to discourage people from using them.  As if all the unnecessary flushing costs too much for their budget.  I don’t believe I have ever seen the volume of pubic hair on a toilet seat that I saw today.  Was someone shaving as they stood over the toilet?  I suppose it’s not impossible.  The DMV is never located in the nicer parts of town.  Perhaps people don’t have proper facilities where they are.  But could you at least brush it off the seat and flush it?  I mean…seriously?  Yuck!  But after three diet Cokes, I didn’t have much choice.  I grabbed a wad of paper to wipe off the seat and I did what any self respecting woman would do…I hovered.  And I washed my hands for five full minutes.  I even managed to get out of the room without touching a single surface with my clean hands.  And now my daughter has a drivers permit! 

Stop four – shopping.  There were a few stops in between, but due to the pain in my head, I can only barely remember them.  By this time, it was dark and I was with my husband.  We ate dinner and set off on a shopping expedition looking for laptops and potting shed—two completely unrelated needs at our house. 

Men are so strange.  When I exclaimed that I was having fun shopping, Mike said it wasn’t fun it was a chore. He said SHOPPING is a chore. What? A chore? Shopping? How could that be? Shopping is fun! I love to shop. Sometimes I don’t buy. In fact, I frequently don’t buy. I just like to shop. For example: purses. I love purses. I didn’t used to. I used to just buy the cheapest purse that matched my needs. But now I feel compelled to own the finest bags. Like Coach. I have 4 Coach handbags, and I have my eye on a fifth. But I don’t buy from the Coach store or even the Coach outlet; I buy from Girlfriend’s Consignment Boutique in Kennesaw. Because when I buy Coach from Girlfriend’s I’m spending a fraction of the cost. And I’m ok with that. Do you have any idea how much a Coach bag costs when you buy it first hand? I could eat at a nice restaurant ten times for what I would spend on that bag. And that’s on sale! If I buy consignment, I can eat out 9 times and pull my wallet out of a really nice bag!

But we weren’t even looking at purses.  We were shopping for man things—electronics and garden sheds!  I just don’t get it.

Final stop - back home.  I still have the headache, but it’s lessened.  And it’s time to go to bed again, so maybe if I’m lucky I will wake up without it tomorrow morning.  And tomorrow is Thursday, which is only one day from Friday, and Saturday is Valentine’s Day, and if my husband bothered to shop…oh wait.  My husband hates to shop!  I can still look forward to the weekend I guess!

Until the next time…I’ll be taking an aspirin and calling you in the morning!

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

is it time for bed yet?

I have come to the conclusion that if one continues to burn the candle at both ends, one will eventually get burned.  And so I have.  I fell asleep writing my blog last night.  It was in the middle of detailing my night at book club.  The writing was going slowly, not because I didn’t have anything to say, but more because I couldn’t keep my eyes completely open.  I would alternate closing one eye and then the other, squinting at the screen until the words blended into one another.  My genius solution was to close both eyes, but just for a minute. 

It worked.  Within moments, the ideas were flowing.  What I wrote was a deliciously funny entry that would surely entertain all of my readers for days on end.   

And then I woke up—laptop still open on my lap, the cat on my shoulder, notebook on the floor, my blog barely written at all, and an early morning meeting that would require me to leave the house an hour earlier than normal.  That means I had to get up an hour earlier.  And I’m already NOT a morning person.  I was doomed.  I quickly typed up a flawed entry for last night’s blog and submitted it without a single edit before rolling over and slipping back to sleep for the few hours I had left. 

What could be worse than having to go to work when you’ve been up too late? Having to go to work an hour early when you’ve been up too late. 

I have discovered that sleep is actually more important than originally thought.  My husband has been imploring me to sleep more, to which I have said,” Nay-nay…I will not!  I must stay up until my blog is finished.”  But it appears that the lack of sleep has finally caught up to me.  What does this mean for my blog, you ask?  Surely the show must go on!   Well, fear not.  The blog will not suffer.  I have decided that I can cut out other non-essential activities to add more time back to the day.  For example: More time eating out equals less time cooking dinner!  I can write my blog while I dine.  Perhaps if I have dinner delivered so I can stay home and work on writing, I could shave even more time off the clock and leave me more time for my favorite profession.  Oh, and there’s more.  I have an entire list!  For example, if I stop cleaning the house, I can spend all that time writing, etc.  I will deliver the list to my husband tonight. 

Item 1: Takeout meals.  Restaurants who deliver will be placed on the top of the list.  Time saved not cooking means more time for writing.

Item 2: Housekeeper.  I will specifically look for someone who does both dishes and laundry and isn’t afraid of large quantities of cat hair, or changing doggy diapers.

Item 3: Chauffer.  Imagine all the time I would save if I wrote while riding in the backseat of the car rather than having to pay attention to the road.  I have already proven my ability to multi-task, now I would be able to take that to the next level.  Could type much faster if didn’t need any hands on the wheel.

Item 4: Massage.  Not time saving, but would definitely be relaxing and may replace sleep as I could nod off while having sore muscles rejuvenated.  Typing is very hard on the tendons after all. 

I gave my list of demands to Mike.  The ransom note for my affections, if you will.  A bit dramatic perhaps, but I was trying to make a point.

Mike perused my entire list in silence before smiling and saying.  “You’d better write faster and sell a book if you expect all of that!”

So I don’t sleep, I write.  Its cause and effect.  Right?  And even if I had time to sleep, I couldn’t sleep.  I seem to have pinched a nerve somewhere in my back that causes my leg to hurt when I go to bed.  Isn’t that nice? It only hurts when I lay down.  So if I could sleep in some sort of suspended animation, everything would be perfect. 

I was sharing all of this with a friend earlier, about my blog, and my hip and the fact that I can’t sleep for various reasons and she said I needed therapy!  I was just a little put out by that statement, and I said, “Am I really that bad?”  To which she laughed, and I realized instantly that she meant physical therapy, not mental.  That just goes to show you how my mind works! 

So back to my day today…

Did I mention how important it would be to bring extra napkins to an early morning corporate meeting so that when you fall asleep you can wipe up the drool before anyone notices you were drooling?  You could “accidentally” spill your water—that does work—but just being prepared goes a long way.  I tell my kids that all the time.  Be prepared!  And hide your cell phone—another good piece of advice while at a corporate meeting.  Much like in high school, texting in a meeting is a major no-no.  That’s not to say I abstained.  I can’t seem to go more than a few minutes without checking my email, or answering a text.  I’m so connected I think I might actually be in the Matrix!  I started noticing things, like déjà vu, and wondering if I just caught a glitch in the code.  When I was supposed to be paying attention to the droning in the front of the room I found myself watching for strings of code in the drop ceiling instead.  I didn’t see any, but I wasn’t completely convinced they weren’t there.  Then again, I may have just been so bored that I was sleeping with my eyes open.  For just a quick second, at the most mind numbing moment, I imagined Godzilla crashing through the drop ceiling and grabbing the speaker by his head.  I laughed out loud, briefly interrupting the quiet, but waking me up enough to make it through the rest of the meeting. 

Thankfully I have Wednesday off.  I can wear pajamas all day long, and I just might do that.  It should create an interesting stir at the DMV while I’m there renewing my driver’s license.  But moments like that are what keeps you coming back to see what on earth I’m up to now.  Right?  I promise not to disappoint.  I may even steal an hour or two and get that massage after all.  If I can manage to stay awake, it might make for interesting reading.  Then again, it might just make for a better writer.  After all…rest is important to the mind.

Until the next time…I’ll be sleeping upside down in gravity boots!

Erica

 

 

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

february book club

Bookclub. 

We have it only once a month and I have thirty days to read the book before we have our meeting. I never actually read the book.  In fact, most months I spend more time researching the book, reading the Cliff’s Notes and the studying the online summaries, than I would have spent actually reading the book itself.  I have become an expert at book research and Cliff’s Notes.  If I was back in school I would be quite popular with the kids willing to pay for book reports.  But, I’m not selling book reports to lazy high school English students.  Instead, my intention is to show up at book club and somehow fool everyone into thinking I’d actually read the book of the month.  It’s become a challenge.  This time the book was The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, and as usual I didn’t read the book, but this time I didn’t even have time to find the Cliff’s Notes or online summaries, or even Wikipedia.  I did take five minutes at lunch today to read the summary from the online movie database.  Apparently the story was so good it was made into a movie.  I could lie and say I will read it later, but I probably won’t.  I’m too busy writing my blog.  But, I’m not too busy to take a few hours out of my evening to spend with friends and assorted treats, including red wine and frosted cupcakes, to discuss the book I didn’t bother to read.  It’s always a fun time, but this month would be especially fun because it involved a road trip.  Just a short one, but it meant carpooling to Marietta.  Our book club consists of seven regulars, five of which live in my neighborhood, and two who live about thirty minutes away.  So the plan was to stuff the five of us into one Honda CRV for the ride.  And since I wasn’t driving, I needed to be ready by six-thirty.

I got home from work at the usual time, and set to work catching up on email and Facebook before getting ready to go.  My husband cooked homemade vegetable soup, so I decided to have a bowl of that while I multitasked and texted.  The soup was pretty good, and I was hoping it would ruin my appetite for sweets at the meeting.

I don’t know how long I was working before I realized that I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry.  I made a mad dash for the bedroom and quickly shed my business attire for something more casual…and fun.  Book club crowd had not seen the hot pink fur sweater as of yet, so I decided that would be perfect! 

Armed with my signature dish (spinach dip and pita chips) my notebook, and my purse—and wearing my crazy sweater—I headed down the stone steps that went from my front porch down the hill to the sidewalk below.  The carpool was supposed to stop at the house across the street to pick us up, so that was where I would wait. 

It was strange, how dark the house was.  The neighbor’s dog was barking at me through the glass door, and I could see that no one was even coming to investigate.  That too was strange.  I wondered if I’d missed a message.  Perhaps we were meeting at a different house.  I pulled out my blackberry and scrolled through the messages until I found the one detailing the plans. 

Nope.  Everything was the same.  Pick up was set for six thirty, and it was only just…wait.  I looked at my messages again and sighed. 

It was only five thirty!  I swear I do not do these things on purpose!

I trudged with my fancy bowl of spinach dip, and my notebook, and my purse, and my bag of pita chips, back up the stone steps to the front porch.  I closed the door behind me, secretly wondering if anyone had noticed my strange behavior. 

That’s when I knew this would make for a perfect entry for tonight’s blog!  Everything happens for a reason!

I have an early morning, so I should really get some sleep! 

Until the next time…I’ll be sleepwalking through my day!

Erica

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

oh when the saints go marching in

Its official…the chopstick diet is a complete failure.  I went from eating everything I wanted as long as I used chopsticks, to eating anything I thought was possible to eat with chopsticks, to just eating anything…screw the chopsticks.  My husband is now overseeing everything I eat to ensure that I comply with my self-inflicted goals.  I can’t complain, because his willpower is stronger than mine when it comes to sweets.  Then again, I have to constantly remind myself how much I love my husband to avoid snapping and turning into a flesh eating zombie.  That reminds me…I’m dying for a hamburger!  And a Coke.  I’m trying to pretend my salad is a Happy Meal, but it’s just not working.  My mouth starts to water at the mere mention of McDonald’s.  And I don’t even like McDonald’s that much.  If that’s not bad enough, tragically, I bought way too many cupcakes for my son’s birthday party and we have more than two dozen uneaten cupcakes within the walls of my house.  I hate to see them go to waste, but I have been forbidden to eat any.  I have already managed to sneak two since breakfast, but I fear my husband will start counting them at random intervals and I will be caught!  My willpower is slipping and the cats are starting to look very appetizing. 

Will not eat cats. 

Thank goodness my husband is such a good cook.  We ate every meal at home again today.  I find that I do actually like home cooking despite my arguments to the contrary.  Super Bowl Sunday should have been an excuse to indulge in left over snack foods from Spencer’s birthday, but Mike threatened to throw all treats away if he caught me with Doritos again.  I know it’s for my own good.  Doritos are bad for me.  And apparently like crack, because the more I ate, the more I wanted, and I was resorting to devious means to obtain them.  If only the kids had been home to eat them.  Snacks would not have lasted past the lunch hour.  But the kids had other plans today.  And their plans included Super Bowl parties. 

I find it curious that individuals, who would ordinarily prefer being subjected to all manners of torture rather than endure a single quarter of televised football, will gleefully swarm to any manner of football related gathering on Super Bowl Sunday.  Mike and I ventured out during the game (a game we avoided strictly on principle) and found ourselves at a Starbucks that is typically packed on Sunday night.  The usual crowd—a veritable orchard of Apple Macbook users—was conspicuously missing in action.  Could it be that even the computer nerds that inhabit the local Starbucks on a nightly basis could be having a Super Bowl party?  A theme party perhaps?  A Lord of the Rings themed Super Bowl party?  The grid iron battle for middle Earth?  Hmmm.  It’s possible. 

I personally get nervous in a room filled with football fans.  They don’t sit still.  And they shout at the television as if the referees can actually hear the obscenities they are directing at them.  My ex-husband used to dress in a regulation football uniform complete with cup to watch his beloved Cowboys play.  I stayed barricaded in a bunker in the bedroom with the children, where we took shelter until the game was over.  If the Cowboy’s won, we would come out right away.  If not, we stayed in there until the coast was clear.  Can’t be too careful when TV remotes and other assorted objects are flying around the room. 

This year’s game is over and the family is winding down for the night.  The children have finally discovered the snack foods—thank God—and Mike is surfing the cable channels looking for something either music or Planet Green related. 

As for me?  I’m exhausted.  I’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately, and running out of places to put my fingers.  I am enjoying the glow, however, so don’t expect me to blow out the flame any time soon!  I’ve discovered that keeping up with a daily blog is like having a second full time job, but lucky for you…this one is my favorite!  As long as you keep coming back for more, there will be more to come back for.  Sounds like a plan to me…how about you?

But for now, I need to hit the sack.  It’s been a while since I’ve gotten more than five hours of sleep, and I may actually be able to get in six or seven tonight! 

Until the next time…I’ll be dreaming of cheeseburgers!

Erica

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

fembots, zombies, and hot pink fur...

 

It was a regular work-day Saturday for me today.  The anti-weekend, if you will.  Saturdays are short days in the banking world, but working on a Saturday completely negates the good feelings one gets on a Friday night.  And believe me, I was feeling pretty good Friday night.  I drank three diet Cokes before bed again, so I was wired by the time I posted at midnight, and I woke up with a caffeine hangover this morning.  Yes, you can get a caffeine hangover…and yes, it’s very unpleasant.  I wore the crazy hot pink fur trimmed sweater again, in an attempt to shield myself from bad energy.  It worked.  Mostly.  It’s extremely difficult to take a grown woman seriously when she’s wearing hot pink fur and black lace…in a bank.   It was mission accomplished, as far as I was concerned.  I could feel the negative energy bouncing off me in an almost constant current throughout the morning and early afternoon.  Finally it was time to lock up and leave.  Survived another perilous day and I was ready for lunch. 

So much for chopsticks. 

I am truly a fan of my chopsticks diet, so don’t think too harshly of me for admitting that I have almost completely abandoned it.  Hot wings are almost impossible to eat using chopsticks, but they are almost required on a Saturday after a harrowing day of banking.  My husband, who had ventured out on what was supposed to be a grown up outing with the three girls (see his blog for the complete story, http://www.mdeanmusic.com) had returned just in time to meet me for lunch, and since we needed groceries anyway…wings.

My favorite place for wings is a little sports bar in Kennesaw, not too far from home and the bank.  Good food.  Interesting staff.   I have come to the conclusion that three quarters of the waitresses were created in a factory.  Is a woman truly considered attractive when she has had every body part replaced with aftermarket parts?  I’m not saying I’m completely against plastic surgery, but they aren’t using plastic anymore.  They’re using titanium!  And I thought I needed nipple armor!  These girls needed steel tipped bras.  They even looked alike.  They must have come from the same assembly line.  I wonder if the owners just order online when they order their kitchen supplies.  As if they fill out an online form for plates, napkins, blonde blue eyed large breasted fembot.   It’s not that I’m jealous, mind you.  I have my own impressive stats, but I wasn’t built by Skynet!  No matter.  Lucky for me my husband pretends not to notice, and he’s gotten quite good at it.  I didn’t catch him looking once.  But the minute I find somewhere that makes wings even half as good, I’ll stop going there just on principle.   I’ve seen all of the Terminator movies.  I know what could happen if we let the machines take over the world!

Lunch was my last semi quiet moment of the day.  We ditched the girls at their friend’s house for a sleepover just in time to come home to find my son preparing for his birthday party.  So, I managed to trade three girls for a house full of assorted mini-adults.  My son is officially twenty years old, and he has an entire group of similarly aged friends that descended on my house en masse.    At what point do parents stop hosting birthday parties for their adult children?  And since when are cupcakes uncool?  I find cupcakes extremely cool.  Especially the two bite size with swirls of snowy white frosting and multicolored sprinkles.  Those are perfectly suited for chopsticks!  But I digress. 

What do thirty 18-20 year olds have in common with a pack of flesh eating zombies?  More than I care to compare.  The coke can carcasses and cupcake wrappers have left a lifeless trail throughout my poor house.  And the last partiers were strewn about the furniture like corpses.  Thank goodness for the hot pink fur trimmed sweater!  And that was my Saturday in a nutshell.  All I can do is hope that I can squeeze every drop out of Sunday before the week starts over again Monday morning. 

Until the next time…I’ll be sleeping in my hot pink fur sweater.

Erica

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

22 hours of labor

I woke up at three o’clock this morning with the strangest sensation. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I was left wondering…does the body remember as much as the mind? Because while I was rolling over, trying to find a more comfortable position, it occurred to me that at that exact moment twenty years, ago I went into labor.

It was February 5, 1990 in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and there was a snowstorm raging outside. I was lying in my bed, on top of the covers, with the windows open—curtains blowing madly in the wind—and a small drift of snow was building on the sill. At three am I still hadn’t fallen asleep. Despite the snowflakes falling around me, I was hot. Pregnant women have messed up internal temperature regulators, and mine was on full blast. I continued to search for a more comfortable position but with a midsection that extended at least two feet in every direction, I wasn’t having much luck. My then husband was burrowed down under several layers of blankets and a down parka trying to stay warm. He had given up trying to negotiate for closed windows and heat weeks prior. You don’t argue with a hormonally challenged woman in her final days of pregnancy.

My due date had passed three days earlier, and I was beyond ready to have my baby. My bag was packed, an entire box of popsicles was at the ready in the freezer, and the names were finally picked out. And I had insomnia.

And there was a blizzard in my bedroom.

Flash forward to twenty years later, and my water breaking is just barely a memory. I do remember the harrowing two mile drive to the hospital in the near whiteout. But I’m not sure if it was the weather or my ex-husband's bad driving that was the scariest. I don’t remember checking in at the desk, but I do remember everything about the birthing room, including the wallpaper, the beeping monitors and what was showing on the TV. I know David Bowie was on Joan Rivers that day, because when I told my ex-husband that a contraction was coming he informed me that he was busy watching said program, and could I manage my contractions on my own for a while.

Important qualities to have in a Lamaze coach:

1. Coach should attend all Lamaze classes and remain awake all the way through class.

2. Coach should not treat contractions as first down and ten to go during the final quarter of a closely played championship game. (absolutely no shouting “push harder…you’re not trying!”)

3. Coach should not complain about how much sleep they are missing and how uncomfortable the hospital recliner in the birthing room is.

4. Coach should not remind you of how long it has been since you were able to shave your legs or comment on how swollen certain body parts have become.

5. Coach should not disappear for long periods of time and reappear with crumbs on their shirt and breath that smells of fried foods.

Thank god for my mother! I can’t recommend highly enough having a mother who is trained in obstetrics. Lucky for me, my mother was a head nurse in the same hospital. When your mother is head nurse, they can’t throw her out! She actually paid attention in Lamaze classes, and she wasn’t grossed out when I needed help in the bathroom.

After several failed epidurals, one smashed IV, puking on the anesthesiologist, the father of my child being kicked out of the delivery room by my mother, and generally being naked in a room full of strangers, (although after twenty two hours in labor, I would have flashed the janitor if it would have moved things along faster) I made it through labor relatively unscathed. I finally had a baby boy!

My ex husband took one look at his son’s impressive little package and exclaimed, “That’s my boy!” To which my mother quickly burst his bubble by telling him it was just swelling from the hormones.

As I watched the clock inch towards midnight, and my son’s birthday was just minutes away, I looked back at the crazy day I brought him into the world and smiled. I would do it all over again to be lucky enough to get a baby half as wonderful as my grown up boy has become.

Just maybe not today!

Until the next time…I’ll be keeping my legs crossed!

Erica

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

my name means WHAT?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare

I think Shakespeare missed the target with that line. Names ARE important. A rose by another name might smell the same, but it wouldn’t be a rose anymore, would it? No, it would be a daisy, or a petunia, or a gardenia….or it might just be a fart! And, who wants to get a bouquet of farts on Valentine ’s Day? Some of us might end up getting little more than that anyway, but it wouldn’t exactly be on our wish lists, now would it? Seriously...a name can define who you are! It says a lot about you. It could even steer your path in life! How many lawyers do you know named Taffy? Right…zero! There are just certain names that go with certain positions. I doubt we’ll be hearing stories about President Billy Bob anytime soon. A person’s name should be able to carry them from infancy to old age with a seamless transition. Some names just don’t do that. Baby Mildred isn’t going to be the center of the sandbox social club with a name like that! And there are a lot of Brittany’s out there who made cute little girls, but how well will that name carry them into old age? Someday, someone will be referring to that formerly cute baby as Grandma Brittany! When I was pregnant with my children, I spent every day of each nine months, laboring (no pun intended) over what name I would bestow upon my unborn child. I tried to imagine every stage of their lives with that name, every possible nickname that could be created from their proper given names, and how the name would roll off the tongue when combined with the middle and last name. And one can’t forget about the initials! I had to be sure their initials didn’t accidentally spell out something horrible, like ASS (which wasn’t likely as their last name started with an L). But you just can’t be too careful. My father’s initials are PU. Sometimes people just don’t think about the consequences of their choices! As for my name, my father picked it out. As the story goes, he met a girl named Erica while he was stationed in Germany back before he met my mother. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get the whole story. How my mother let that one slide I’ll never know. Despite its origins, I had issues with my name from the beginning. It was unusual back then. When I was little, no one had heard of my name, so no one knew how to pronounce it. I had teachers that called me Ureka…Ursula…Ahreeka. My grandmother decided to just call me Rikki, which was fine and dandy except that it was a boy’s name. I asked my mother once why they called me Rikki, and she told me it was because they thought I was a boy at first. To a six year old that seems like an actual possibility! And it suddenly made perfect sense why I had a toy tractor. As I got older, I began to grow into my name. Not right away mind you. I had a very awkward start. I was 17 before I could actually fit into the sexy category that the name demanded. There’s a certain pressure that comes with having a sexy name, and the minute I broke free of my mother’s fashion chains, I was able to live up to those expectations. I learned how to suppress the crazy hot pink sweater inside of me and channel the outward power of the name. I have run across a few Ericas in the course of my life, but never in my immediate circle. so, I have always felt unique. I was always one of a kind. So I was excited when I saw the newest trend on Facebook. It was the chain letter du jour. A cut and paste status experiment, if you will. The instructions were to go to Urbandictionary.com and do a search on your first name and take the first definition and make that your status. I was up for that challenge. I had a distinctive name. I had looked it up before. It means Eternal ruler in its Norse origins. It was a powerful name. And I had seen the other definitions on the statuses of my friends and family. Julie was fair-haired and loved by all, Louise was popular, and June was hot like a summer day. I would be something wonderful too. How could I not be? I was an “Erica”. And “Erica” means something grand. So I opened a new browser window with an air of vanity…ready to show them all. I typed in my name and hit enter with a jolt of sudden pride. And then I just sat there…dumbfounded for a minute or two. I couldn’t post this on my Facebook status! First of all, who would believe me? Who would believe I had actually discovered this without any interference on my part? After all…they all know me too well. And I couldn’t have aspired to have a definition as unique as this. It was priceless. It summed up in one short line what I would have taken several paragraphs to convey. “Erica: the term used for the exact moment a penis enters the vagina.”

Until next time…just call me Alice!

Copyright © 2000-2025, Erica Lucke Dean. All rights reserved. Any retranscription or reproduction is prohibited and illegal.

the crazy sweater experiment

I got a pretty good night’s sleep last night so I woke up almost cheerfully. I say almost because I still growled my way through my morning rituals the same as every other day, I just wasn’t yawning quite as much. The plain and simple fact is that I am not a morning person. No amount of sleep, or sunshine, or Cap’n Crunch is going to change that fact. It was a Wednesday, and because I’m usually off on Wednesdays, (unless I’m off on Saturday, which I was this week) I typically spend the day doing my laundry for the week. So when I do have to work on a Wednesday, it’s always a challenge to find something to wear. This is not to say that I don’t have a lot of clothes. I do. But it’s just over a month since Christmas, so I’m still wearing my “post holiday” pants. I have several pair, but they are all varying shades of black. So what goes with black? More black. Or white. Or cream. You get the picture. But, it was Wednesday, and I don’t know why, but I wasn’t in the usual, “woe is me, I have to go to work” mood. I was feeling bold, and confident, and…dangerously defiant.

Cue the crazy sweater.

Perhaps I should start with the back story. I know you love back story! I have a client who owns a clothing consignment shop in town. It’s a very upscale place catering to women with discriminating tastes. Like me. So I was in her shop a few weeks ago doing a client visit and I ran across this outrageous sweater. Well, I thought it was pretty outrageous. It defies explanation, but I’ll give it a shot. It is a long black button down sweater with hot pink ribbon running through the length of it, silver beaded bows, black satin and lace trim, and thick hot pink fur around the cuffs, the collar, and the bottom. I tried it on and immediately thought of Lady Gaga, Studio 54, Donna Summer, and a platinum blonde wig. So of course, I had to buy it! I took it home with the express intent to wear it long enough for my husband to demand that I immediately take it off and never put it on again, and then I would hang it back up and tuck it into the closet until next Halloween. I can’t help it; I like to stir the pot sometimes. But as crazy as I may occasionally be, I had no intention of ever wearing this ridiculous sweater for any reason other than “dress up”.

Fast forward to Wednesday…today. As I was digging around in my closet for something to wear that met with my PMS charged mood, I ran across the consignment store sweater. And because I’d gotten a good night’s sleep, and maybe because I was tired of wearing the usual drab business attire, and maybe even because I wanted to stir the pot just a little, I took it off the hanger.

I stood in front of the mirror and looked myself over. I wore my black “post holiday” pants, a fitted black knit shirt, black shoes, and the hot pink and black sweater. There is something about hot pink fur that just changes a woman, and I felt supercharged. I ran out of the bathroom grabbing my purse and my phone and my keys because, as usual, I was running late. I didn’t pause as I passed my husband, so I can only imagine the double take he did when he saw me wearing the crazy sweater. “You’re funny.” He said. “But aren’t you going to be late? You’d better hang that ridiculous thing back up and get out of here.” I just smiled. It was going to be a good day. “Nope. I’m wearing this to work.” I shot back. “You’re kidding, right?” He said with marked skepticism. “Nope! I’m suffering for my art!” I said with a wider smile. “This is going to make for great blogging!” And I was off.

I managed to get to work relatively on time. I was the second person through the door. The first person didn’t even mention my sweater. I chalked that up to him being a guy. He probably didn’t even notice what I was wearing. I ran to my office to log in so I could run back to the lobby for everyone else to arrive. As the others filed in one by one, I did get a reaction, but it wasn’t the one I had expected. The joke was on me! I was suddenly getting rave reviews on my sweater. Not, “great joke”, not “you crack me up!” No, it was more along the lines of, “I LOVE your sweater! Where did you get it? You look so girlie! You never wear pink, it’s your color!” My sweater was a hit, but for all the wrong reasons! I even had a few requests to borrow it. I had no idea I was so fashion forward! I did get a few tips on what I should pair it with next time…short skirt, hot pink tights and silver boots, was my favorite suggestion. Not that I own any of those things…yet. It’s a good thing my husband doesn’t actually READ my blog, now isn’t it?

All day long my sweater was given lovely little compliments. Even the men seemed to like it. Was it possible that it was just SO ugly that it came back around to cute? I’ve seen puppies like that…so ugly they are cute. But a sweater? It could happen! Somewhere in the middle of the day, my manager approached me out of the blue and stood back to get a long look at me, twisting her lips to the side and furrowing her brows as if deep in thought. “I’m not sure what I think about your outfit today.” She said after a minute. Finally! Finally someone with the reaction I expected when I put the sweater on this morning! “You look somewhat like the madam in a fancy brothel.” How she knew what a madam in a brothel looked like was beyond me, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask! I just nodded and walked away. That’s one thing I love about my job. I can wear crazy sweaters as long as I’m not wearing open toe shoes with it. The other things I love are the fact that I get paid to go there every day. I work less than two miles from home so I don’t have to drive in traffic. I get to eat restaurant food for lunch every day, because it’s only half a mile to the food and its two miles to home. And I have a really big window in my office so I can still see the sunshine all day long.

It was a long day at work, but somehow my crazy, ridiculous sweater made it so much more fun than I expected. I decided that no matter what I wear on the outside, on the inside I am that crazy hot pink fur trimmed sweater, and there is no reason why I can’t let that side of me see the light of day every now and then. As I strolled into the house at five oh one, and threw my purse and my keys on the table, my son walked past me and stopped just long enough to ask, “What the hell is with that hideous sweater you’re wearing?” “My blog.” I answered and he nodded as if that explained everything. After all…what’s could be more important than suffering for art?

Until next time…I’ll be searching for a platinum wig!

Erica

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