That Awkward Age

No Question About It: Hickeys Suck When You're 59.

There's nothing quite as embarrassing as having to wear turtlenecks to cover up the red marks on your neck.

No, they aren't passion marks.

And if we should run into each other and you notice red marks on my forehead, face or neck, don't fear that I am a victim of domestic abuse.

Nor have I been working as an extra on Twilight, The Vampire Diaries or True Blood.

They're all self-inflicted accidental curling and/or flat iron injuries.

It's been years since I've had enough hair to use these barbaric tools of female beautification. But in the past few months, my hair has grown out long enough that my former styling method -- wash, dry, gel and go -- just doesn't cut it any longer.

So I'm back to heating up these implements of torture and wrapping strands of my hair around them in an effort to tame my unruly mop into some semblance of style. While the iron is rolled up next to my scalp, it inevitably touches my tender scalp, forehead, cheek or neck, leaving a hickey-like mark behind.

It's been more years -- OK, decades -- since I've had a real hickey. It's just as hard now to cover them up as it was when I was a teenager. There's wearing the turtleneck -- even in July -- and the orangey makeup on the neck, making it look soooo natural.

As a teen, the final technique was adopting a certain pose while sitting at the dining room table that involved leaning forward so my hair fell into my face while scrunching my shoulders up and pulling my neck in. This position, one that a cat might assume when trying to cough up a hair ball, was sure to draw no parental attention.

"What's that on your neck?" Mom would ask.

"Nothing."

"It doesn't look like nothing to me," she'd say. I'd scrunch up tighter.

"It's nothing, really."

"Warner, tell her that's looks nasty."

"Mom, it's nothing."

"What is it?" my brother wanted to know.

"It's nothing!"

"You shouldn't let boys do that," Mom would say.

"Do what?" my brother would say.

"Nothing!" I'd say.

"Warner -- aren't you going to say something?"

"Pass the peas," he'd say.

Thankfully I don't have to endure that mortification any more, but it brings back memories when my grown sons ask, "Hey Ma, what's that on your neck -- a hickey?"

"It's nothing," I tell them. 

Photo by bjornmeansbear

Not Gone, But Forgotten

Most women say they know they have come full circle when they realize that they are hearing their mother’s voice when they open their mouths. In my case – and to my horror – in the past two weeks I realize that I have become my mother-in-law.

My husband often has compared me to his mother, and not at the times one would want to be compared, as in: “Your cooking reminds me of the wonderful Currier & Ives childhood I had, when we all gathered around the fireplace, toasting marshmallows and swapping ghost stories.” 

But more as in: “You nag me just like Hilda did,” or “Don’t try to make me feel guilty. I had enough of that for a lifetime from my mother.”

 To which I would always retort, “I am NOTHING like your mother. Don’t even use the words 'you,' 'just like' and 'Hilda' in the same sentence with me.”

His mother had a special way of letting him know that he wasn’t giving her enough attention, including objecting to his wasting time doing other such things as, oh, say, getting married at age 39. For the second time. To me.

Bob’s standard routine was to call his mom in Southwest Virginia every Sunday afternoon, but sometimes things came up and he would skip a call. Should that happen, there was hell to pay when he did phone.

Once while we were dating, he went two weeks between calls, and he got a postcard from Hilda on which she had drawn a tombstone and written her name, along with the epitaph: “Not gone, but forgotten.” At the time, I thought it was hilarious. Later I would learn that it was vintage Hilda and much funnier at a distance.

Fast forward 30 years.

My kids live across town, but they might as well live across the state as often as I hear from them. They don’t call unless they want something. They don’t answer their cell phones when I call – I suspect I’m being screened. I leave messages, and they don’t call back.

So last week, after calling Abram for the third time, I pull out the heavy artillery. Getting voice mail once again, I say, “Don’t worry about us. We’re just the old folks at home. We could be dead and buried, and you wouldn’t even know about it until it’s over. Maybe if you aren’t too busy, you can read about it in the paper. WE’RE NOT DEAD, BUT FORGOTTEN.”

OMG! Where did THAT come from! I’m channeling Hilda!

“I told you that you were just like Hilda,” Bob says, when I confess to him.

I glare. “In that case, go to your room.”

Photo By Tammra McCauley

 

 

 

 

 

Living With Four Men is Living in a Toxic Waste Site

What is it about men and elimination? Why do they find the whole thing such a sacred ritual? 

Women do their business with the least possible fanfare and would prefer to forget that even the queen herself must go No. 2. In fact, it was not until Oprah brought that motor-mouth man, Dr. Oz, on her show that we, as a gender, publicly acknowledged that we even did "it." 

Men, on the other hand, would like a parade in their honor for a successful doody. As the only female in a household with four males (five, if you count the dog), I had to listen to the daily poop report as though it were as necessary as the weather. "Today's humidity was 98 percent, and tomorrow will be constipated." 

When he's over with his daughter and girlfriend, Abram finds it necessary to let us all know when he's "going to drop the kids off at the pool." 

I'm convinced it's a hormonal thing. Even when they were little, the boys were fascinated with their colonic accomplishments. "Mommy, I did a BEEEEG ONE!" Jordan would announce. 

Nathan apparently felt he was losing a part of himself when he flushed, and would wistfully say, "Goodbye poo-poo!" as he waved his little chubby hand at the swirling water in the toilet. 

And the toilet a throne? Hardly. It's a shrine! What do they DO in there so long? They've got stacks of magazines and books to keep them entertained, but why would anyone want to sit there to read for 45 minutes when there are much more comfortable chairs in the house? I don't get it. 

So last week, the plumber paid us a visit to install a new toilet in the master bathroom (read: Bob's bathroom). Our old one had a slow leak in it and had caused problems with the dining room ceiling underneath for years, so after two years of nagging, Bob finally got it fixed. 

Yes, I could have gotten it fixed much sooner, but I wasn't permitted to do so, because he wanted a specific kind of replacement toilet -- a much bigger one -- and he didn't think I was capable of selecting it. Now, this is a man who is so skinny that he almost needs a potty seat to keep from falling in, but he wanted the biggest, baddest toilet that would fit in the tiny circa 1960s-style bathroom. 

Finally installed, he was more thrilled with his toilet than he would have been with a new sports car. And what does a man with a new toilet do? Why, he has to share his good fortune with another man. I was putting clothes away in the bedroom when I heard him talking in the bathroom (the door was closed, of course ... it's necessary for the ritual). I put my ear to the door to eavesdrop, and I realized he was talking to Jordan on his cell phone.

"I'm sitting on my new crapper RIGHT NOW, and it's wonderful!" Bob was boasting. "I'd like to officially invite you to come over and try it out sometime." 

"I'm going to blog about this," I yelled inside. 

"You wouldn't," he said. 

Photo: juliegomoll

Picture Perfect

The most stressful day in our house is not April 15, Dec. 24 or report card day; it is the annual Family Christmas Card Picture Day. This is a tradition that began simply enough when the youngest of our three sons was a baby. Three boys – ages 9, 3 and 5 months, all dressed in red shirts, their eyes twinkling from the photographer’s flash – made an adorable picture to include in the 100-plus Christmas cards we mail every year. That went so well, we decided to do it again the following year, shooting the younger boys in a little red wagon, while our older son fingered a soccer ball. They were darling.

Thus began a tradition of the family Christmas photo.  Since then the whole family has been snapped in various spots all over town – a gazebo behind an office building, in a park with ducks, on a wooden play gym, in front of the fountain at CNU and on the downtown Hampton Carousel. 

We’ve worn Santa hats and flannel shirts and perched under the Christmas tree in our own living room. We’ve worn matching red vests that I stitched over a period of months. Sometimes our outfit is very simple – such as jeans and black turtlenecks – but the rule it, it must always match, it can never repeat and, preferably, the colors are Christmas-related.

Every September, I begin discussion of the family Christmas card picture in a democratic fashion. Where would the family like to go this year? What would the family like to wear? They all groan and glare at me as if I’d just asked them how they’d like their tofu served. They have no ideas of their own, of course, and I end up pulling it all together myself.

Every year I vow never to go through this ordeal again. While many on our Christmas card list express their enjoyment at seeing our spit-shined family as it grows up, I question whether the family trauma, personal stress and annual expense are worth the effort. But just like “they” say about childbirth, I seem to forget how bad the pain was by the following fall, and I’m ready to do it all again. 

Last year’s Christmas picture outfit was selected in early August to match a beautiful forest green velvet hand-me-down dress passed to our new granddaughter Cheyenne by a cousin. I found matching forest green sweaters for husband Bob and sons Abram, 24, and Jordan, 14, at the first store I checked. 

In August I lost my job due to downsizing. With all the extra time on my hands, I decided to sew simple velvet dresses for daughter-in-law Tiffany and me to coordinate with Cheyenne’s dress. And I was sure it would be no problem to find a forest green sweater somewhere within a 20-mile radius for 11-year-old Nathan. I’d already found the spot for our photo, too – an old, weathered brick archway in a Newport News park. I announced all the plans to the family at Sunday lunch, and everyone agreed. I was sure this year would be a breeze!

October rolled around, and I decided I’d better get cracking on those dresses. The pattern claimed, “make me in two hours,” but I was suspicious. I spent the better part of a day cutting out two dresses and most of the next day sewing mine. It looked huge. I tried it on. It was huge – which meant I needed to take in all the seams. Meanwhile, my new freelance business was picking up, and I had new clients calling who needed work done right away. I piled the unfinished dresses on the dining room table and put them off for weeks.

Halloween came and went, and it was November. I had to get those dresses made! I called my photographer friend Elliott to set a date for the pictures. We finally agreed on three o’clock Saturday before Thanksgiving. After numerous refittings, I finally finished my dress, hemmed it and sewed on the lace medallion at the neckline. I modeled it for my family. 

“It makes you look – ah – wide, Mom,” said Nathan, never one to pull any punches.

“But I’ve lost weight,” I said.

“I guess not enough,” he said.

I was ready to throw out the dresses and buy sweaters like the ones I bought the guys. Which reminded me – I hadn’t found anything for Nathan to wear! 

I combed the stores in three malls for a forest green sweater, and there wasn’t one to be found. The closest I came was a choice between two olive green sweaters in sizes small or medium. The small was too small, the medium was too large and neither matched the forest green the rest of us were wearing. Too tired to care, I bought the medium. 

On Sunday before the picture was to be taken, I took the boys for haircuts and gave Abram the money to buy a pair of new khaki pants to wear with the sweater. 

“Is it OK to wear an undershirt with the sweater?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, “No problem.” 

Tiffany tried on her dress and it, too, was huge. It required refitting, reseaming and another try-on during the week. Meanwhile, I’d picked up three more demanding clients and I was working 12-hour days. By Friday, I was exhausted and the dress still hadn’t been hemmed. The next morning I was up at 7 a.m., coloring my roots, pressing pants and hemming Tiffany’s dress. 

“The next time I have the idea to sew something to wear for the Christmas picture, I want you to tell me I’m crazy,” I told my husband.

“I tell you that all the time, and you don’t me pay any attention,” Bob said.

I called Tiffany and Abram to remind them to meet us at our house by two-thirty so we could get to the park by three. 

“I’m not sure Cheyenne can still wear that green velvet dress,” Tiffany said, innocently.

“You stuff that baby in that dress,” I said, exasperated. “I don’t care if it buttons in the back or not – she’s wearing it.”

Saturday is grocery-buying day at our house. Bob is the grocery-buying person. I had made the list early so he could get to the store early and come home in plenty of time to get ready for the picture. True to form, he waited until noon to leave, shopped in his leisurely, price-comparison fashion and returned at two-fifteen. I was not happy.

“You’re late, and you’re hair is greasy.”

“I’m not late,” said Bob. “And my hair is no greasier that usual. I showered last night.”

“You are late AS USUAL and your hair is greasy AS USUAL.” I was not my usual, sweet-natured self. “I wanted you to come home in time to take a shower so your hair would be fluffy.”

“It’s fine,” he assured me. “Relax. All I have to do is put on my sweater.”

While Bob was shopping, I dressed Nathan. My plan had been for the guys to wear sweaters without shirts. Nathan said his was “itchy” and refused. I reluctantly allowed him to wear a turtleneck under his to keep him from crying.

Abram and Tiffany arrived. Tiffany couldn’t find her panty hose. The baby had a cold and was fussy. Abram was wearing clod stompers. 

“Don’t you have better shoes than that?” I asked.

“No, I only have work boots,” he said. “Besides, are our feet going to show?”

“They might,” I said, edgy.

“Be careful,” Bob said to Abram, voice lowered and eyes rolling in my direction. The ‘B’ is out.”

The guys went upstairs to put sweaters on while Tiffany dressed in the bathroom. Bob emerged with his sweater over a light green Oxford shirt. Abram’s undershirt was showing from the neck, while Jordan looked perfect.

“Hey, ya’ll,” I said. “Bob, take off that green shirt. Abram, take off the undershirt.”

“You said I could wear an undershirt.”

“I didn’t know it would show.”

“I’m not going out there without an undershirt. It’s cold.”

“I’m not taking off the shirt,” said Bob. “I’ll loan Abram a shirt.”

“I can’t wear your shirts Dad – they’re too small,” he said. “I’ll just have to wear the gray one I had on.”

“But nobody will match!” I protested. “Nathan will have on a white turtleneck, Bob will have on a light green, Abram a gray, and Jordan doesn’t have any of those colors or styles.” 

I was about to cry, but I didn’t dare. It had taken me too long to put on my makeup. “I put a lot into this, and you all are screwing it up!” I caved and order Jordan to put on a white polo shirt. 

Tiffany came out of the bathroom. “I’m lop-sided,” she says, glancing down at her chest. One of her boobs was noticeably larger than the other because Cheyenne would only breastfeed from one side.

“I can fix that,” I said. I reached into my closet and pulled out a small, plain white box. I opened it and two shell-pink breasts – with nipples – sit perkily in their plastic nests. 

“Hey, cool!” Tiffany said. “Where’d you get these?”

“I ordered them from QVC but I never had the nerve to wear them,” I admitted, as we popped one of the polymer puppies into her bra. 

At three-fifteen, we pulled up to the park, which surrounds the Peninsula War Memorial Museum. We were supposed to meet Elliott at an old train engine a quarter mile from the parking lot. We passed several weapons of mass destruction, including a tank and a Howitzer. 

 “Hey Mom – why don’t we sit on the tank?” Abram asked. “Peace on earth, good will to men and all that stuff.”

“Over my cold, dead body,” I said, glaring. “That’s not EVEN funny.”

We met Elliott and proceeded to the brick archway. “So we’re going to do the picture right here in front of God and everybody – right here on Warwick Boulevard?” Abram asked. 

“Gosh, Mom, all my friends can see us here,” said Jordan, pulling a roll of toilet paper and a fifth of bourbon from behind the bushes. “Did you know the homeless people use this place to sleep?” He had learned that useful tidbit over the summer when working as a teen volunteer at the adjacent YMCA.

“How do you want to do this?” Elliott asked. We have worked together on public relations jobs for more than 20 years, and we go through the same routine every time.

“You’re the photographer, Elliott,” I reminded him. “Just make us look good. And don’t make us look bunchy. I want this to look like an environmental shot. Like we just sort of casually walked up together in this park and leaned on this archway. Make it a three-quarter-length shot. Don’t get shoes, since Abram doesn’t have decent ones on. And don’t get that tank in the background. Make me look thin. Other than that, use your own judgement.”

He began meticulously placing us in and around the arch, propping Bob and Abram against the sides, flanking them with Tiffany—Cheyenne in arms—and me. He wedged Jordan and Nathan in the middle. Before taking Cheyenne’s coat off and exposing her to the cold air, Elliott took a few trial shots. 

Finally, we were ready for the shoot. “Say poo-poo.” Elliott says, dancing and wiggling his hands over his head, trying to get the baby to smile. “Abram, stop looking so constipated. Nathan, don’t look at the baby, look at me.” 

“Are my eyes too squinty?” I ask through my photo smile. “My eyes are always too squinty when I smile. I need an eye lift.”

“No, you need a brain lift,” Bob says, to which Elliott guffaws as he snaps away.

“OK, I think I got it,” Elliott says. “Wanna see?” He showed us the series of pictures through the back of his digital camera. 

“I don’t know Elliott,” I said. “I’d like to see another pose.”

“Well, what do you want?” 

“You’re the photographer,” I remind him. 

“OK. Let’s put Abram and Tiffany and the baby on the left; Bob, Jordan and Nathan on the right; and Gail, you put one hand on the left side of the arch and the other hand on the right side of the arch . . .”

“NO, NO, NO! I’ll be the most dominant thing in the picture if we do that!” I protest.

“Don’t you want the picture to be realistic, Dear?” Bob said, showing off for Elliott again. I elbowed him in the side.

“Could ya’ll hurry up – the baby’s nose is running,” Tiffany urged.

“Nose break,” Elliott yells, while we all dig for Kleenex. “We gotta go, Mom – she’s not going to stand for much more,” Abram said.

 “Can we leave now, Mom, before somebody sees us?” Jordan pleaded.

“Never mind,” I said. I could see that I had used all my tokens for the day. “We’ll go with this one.”

A week later, the proofs were ready. A number of them were surprisingly good, even though my eyes were squinty on every single one. Nathan’s olive green sweater stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, so I asked Elliott if he could possibly adjust the color digitally to make it match our forest green outfits. He wasn’t sure, he said, but he would try. 

The prints were perfect. Nathan’s sweater matched ours, Abram’s shoes barely showed, Cheyenne’s nose was not running and everyone was smiling. It’s impossible to tell that we had been sniping and whining just moments earlier. 

I know the image of the family I see in our Christmas photos is a myth. But for 1/200 of a second every year, we look like the almost picture-perfect family. 

(From the Year 2000 files)

Inheritance is insanity. You get it from your family in a cardboard box.

Did you feel the earth move over the weekend? It wasn't your sex life or the tectonic plates sliding, it was the weight shifting when I crossed over the North Carolina-Virginia line with a carload of stuff my mom sent home with me.

When I say I had too much junk in the trunk, it's not about my booty, though that's also the case. I'm talking about hauling everything Mom insists that I need -- housewares, Christmas decorations, old pictures, crafts, used clothes, even pilfered snacks from the cafeteria at the assisted living home where she lives. 

Since moving out from under my parent's roof and going to college 40 years ago, I've been leaving home one box at a time. At first it was mementos -- my first dolls, saved essays from English class, love letters from first boyfriends. 

Over the years as all of that was cleared out of the basement and Mom sorted through her own stuff, she began sending old dishes from my grandparents ("your grandmother always served mashed potatoes in this"), a planter shaped like a banana (the one that Mom always grew aloe in), yellowed newspapers marking important dates in history ("this will be worth something some day"), my Dad's books and Bibles (he always made notes in the margins -- thumbing through them is like a visit with him) and other bric-a-brac collected over six or seven decades of housekeeping. All of it is worthless; and, at the same time, priceless.

She came by this trait honestly. I remember her mother, my grandma, sending us old Christmas cards tied up with butcher string via Mom "to look at." When Mom gave them to us, I recall asking just exactly what we were supposed to do with them. I also remember getting a "just be grateful and don't act like a spoiled brat" look.

When Mom had to move into an assisted living facility three years ago because of Parkinson's disease, we went through her stuff one last time and cleared out everything before selling her house. We even found the hospital and doctor receipts from when my brother and I were born. Watching her stuff go for yard sale prices was almost more than Mom could bear, but my brother and I and our families had absorbed all that we could. When somebody met Mom's price for my dad's old jeweler's bench, she lamented that she hadn't asked enough for it. With that last purge, I was sure that I finally had everything that Mom could possibly send home with me.

Wrong. Now she goes to arts and crafts classes generating stuff for every holiday (turkeys from pine cones, bunny rabbit door hangers for Easter) and wins used clothing donated for prizes at the weekly bingo games ("try this sweater on -- I'm sure it will fit"). And now that her living space is a 10-by-15-foot room, she has to give it away as fast as she acquires it so that she can make room for more. 

Telling Mom you don't need or want something is like telling your Italian mama that you aren't hungry. "Just how do you think that makes me feel?" she asks, yanking the guilt chain. 

"But I don't have room, Mom," I tell her.

"In that big house?" her eyes rolling in disbelief. 

Sending it to the granddaughter is her other strategy, and she wants a report. "So how did Cheyenne like the book/basket/craft/toy/pillow/decoration that I sent?" There had better be a reaction suitable to the item sent. 

After spending days last week cleaning out Mom's closets, packing my car trunk full and deflecting as much as possible, Mom hugged me and shook her head as I left. "I wish I had something to give you," she said with a sigh.

So by now I've unloaded the trunk and made calls to my kids.

"I've got some things I want to give you," I say. 

"I don't have room, Mom," Abram responds.

"What do you mean, you don't have room?" I react in horror. "These things have been in the family for generations! Your great-grandmother served mashed potatoes in this dish ..."

Photo: EraPhernalia 

I'm stuck in Folsom Prison ... and time keeps draggin' on.

I spent five-and-a-half hours in time out last Sunday. No, I hadn’t been naughty. Well, maybe I had, but that wasn’t why I was in time out.

I accidentally locked myself in my brother’s back porch. Without a computer, cell phone or book. Not even a pencil.

When I visit my mother in my hometown in North Carolina, I no longer get to sleep in my old room decorated with the bad paintings and macramé hangings I gave her back in the ‘70s. Because of her advancing Parkinson’s disease (yes, both my mother and my husband have P.D.), she moved to an assisted living facility a couple of years ago, and the old home place has been emptied out and put on the market. Now when I visit, I stay with my brother and sister-in-law, who live nearby.

Alvin and Debbie left for church Sunday before I got up, and I thought it would be lovely to enjoy my coffee and muffin on their screened-in porch before I dressed and headed over to spend the day with Mom. Still in my jammies, I propped my feet on the wicker furniture and gazed out at their beautifully manicured yard and an expanse of thick woods behind the house. A fountain installed directly under the porch, about 15 feet below, burbled peacefully like a mountain brook.

Ah. Five minutes communing with God and nature, and I was ready for the day.

But nothing messes with your Zen-like state more than finding yourself on the wrong side of a locked door. Make that three locked doors and a window, all locked from the wrong side.

My brother, the most talented and hard-working person I know, built their custom dream house himself, so extra details, such as being able to enter the porch through the kitchen, family room or master bedroom, were not spared. But since the porch is so high off the ground, there’s no outside exit.

I felt like the fiddler crab we brought home from the beach in a cage when the kids were little.

I pried the screen off the window with the end of the spoon I’d used to eat my yogurt. Not only was the window locked, but there was a storm window, just as there was on each of the windows in the doors. Breaking in meant shattering a double-sized storm window in addition to a smaller window pane, if I could have even managed that without some small heavy object to lob at the window. Since I was barefooted, there was a good chance I’d cut myself trying to tiptoe through broken glass. I scratched that plan.

There was nothing left to do but relax.

It was hell.

With the burbling brook making the only sound, within five minutes I had to pee. I started looking around for something to use and realized the only containers were the shallow plastic shell the muffins came in and the coffee cup. I really hated to use one of Debbie’s good dishes, so I decided to practice mind control while exercising bladder control.

I thought about exercising, but I wasn’t wearing a bra or shoes. The porch floor surface was covered with the rock-and-epoxy covering that my brother’s business puts down on driveways and around pools. It was just rough enough to make an uncomfortable surface for exercising with bare feet.

I decided to meditate and spend the time really paying attention to God’s showcase outside by concentrating on the display of nature visible from the porch. After an hour of staring at the trees, I finally saw one squirrel run out on a limb. Except for two Monarch butterflies that fluttered by hours later, it was the only sign of life I saw. Nature can be very boring.

Rattan furniture looks nice, but it isn’t constructed for long-term sitting. After a half hour, it makes little hash marks on your legs and cuts off the circulation to your feet. So I took all the cushions off the furniture and laid them on the floor end-to-end to make a sort-of bed where I could stretch out.

I eventually was able to take a nap, but skinned my knee on the rock floor when the phone rang in the kitchen, startling me and causing my leg to slide off the cushion. I heard my mother’s voice on the phone, leaving a message on the answering machine, though I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I knew she was calling to find out where I was.

I turned over on the cushions to relieve my chronic hip pain, repositioned the cushions so that most of my major bones were padded and found myself facing the space under the rattan love seat. To my glee I saw a spider web with some dirt caught in it –- the first spec of dust I’ve ever seen in my sister-in-law’s otherwise spotless house. It made getting locked out worth it. Almost.

After sleeping all I could on every side, I got up and spent the rest of the time on the love seat (that's when I saw the butterflies). The phone rang several more times, and each time I heard my mother’s voice. Sorry Mom. It’s not personal.

Typically I’m pretty good at estimating time, and I figured it was around 1:30, which would mean Alvin and Debbie had gone out to eat lunch after church. Finally I heard them come in through the garage, and I pounded on the door to get their attention.

“You do know that this is funny,” Alvin said, cracking up.

“I’m sure it will be –- tomorrow,” I said, running for the bathroom.

I glanced at the clock -- it was 2:30. I couldn't believe I was off by a whole hour. If I'd known it was that late, I would have used their coffee cup.