The most overlooked disease facing Mothers today is Loser Mom Syndrome.
LMS is a constant threat, a dark storm cloud lurking on the horizon
that threatens to undermine any fleeting feelings of control and peace
a mother can create for herself.
You may think you are impervious to LMS. You may think you have none of
the risk factors. After all, you researched the safest car seats, threw
away the Nalgene water bottles, and returned the permission slips way
before the deadline. But you forgot to purchase the
end-of-the-school-year gift for the Kindergarten teacher's aide. You
didn't even know that was the protocol, but it doesn't matter that you
never saw it coming. You're a loser. You have LMS.
The risk factors for developing LMS are being female and having
children. These are the biggies. Without these two risk factors
present, almost no one develops LMS. But if both of them apply to you,
watch out.
A
question people seldom ask me is "How did you get on the fast track to
success?" They don't ask me anything about success. They think because
I don't wear suits or have my hair cut by professionals they can't
learn anything from me.
Well, I got news for those people who think I'm a clod who doesn't have
any good fast-track or pursuit-of-excellence or megatrends talk. The
talk I do have is better. I've got better ways to get ahead than all
those management monkeys in their fancy underwear. And I'll share it
with you. No seminars, no fees, no hidden costs. No charge.
When you make a living as a writer and comedian
(if by "living" you mean "as much money as you'd make selling wormy apples by
the side of the road"), people have lots of questions. Instead of answering them
personally by phone or e-mail, I've decided to take care of a whole batch in one
fell swoop and fill my weekly word quota for this column at the same time! If
you were a writer, you'd understand. Really, you would. (See, that was three
extra words! And that last sentence added six. It helps to have math
skills).
Here we go:
Where do you get your ideas? I get up
at 6:00 a.m. on trash day and sort through my neighbors' discarded mail and
bills. You'd be surprised how many wonderful topics for columns and sets you can
get that way, what with all the lingerie catalogs and National Rifle Association
literature. And on the rare occasion that I trip over their stack of tequila
bottles in the recycling bin and wake the family dog, I can always write off
both my ER bill and bail money as a business-related expense.
I grew up in a relatively small town. Oh, it's downright metropolitan compared to the blip on the map where I live now, but as towns go it was relatively small. As I grew, so did the town and the last remaining parcels of farmland slowly became surrounded by schools, shopping malls and neighborhoods. Our house abutted one such parcel of land. An old farmhouse on a rectangular plot of roughly 3 acres. The field had long since been used for crops and for the most part stood unattended and uncut. The old farmer and his wife still lived in the farmhouse and he kept a mule, God only knows why, in the back yard.
Occasionally we would venture out into the field and build little forts and play war games, always cautious for there was tale that the crusty old farmer kept a shotgun loaded with rock salt and he would shoot any hoodlum kid that dared venture onto his land. We feared that old man. No one ever saw him, but we knew he was there and could almost feel his watchful eye as we crossed the fence. We knew we weren't supposed to be going into his fields but somehow couldn't resist. The thrill of adventure was just too great. And besides, we were never destructive (except for that one time that my brother set the field on fire). That, he says, was purely an accident and the fire department was unable to pin anything on him.
Records are meant to be broken. Just last month, a guy in Southern Chicago broke the record for eating the most hot dogs in an hour. I don't know if this is true, and it probably didn't happen at all. It just seems every weekend a contest is held to see who can shove more wieners down their throat than the last guy. Who will be crowned the king of gluttons? These kinds of records belong to Ripley's, and should not even be made a public event, in my opinion.
Other records are more legit. Take for example, all the swimming records being shattered at the Beijing Water Cube by Michael Phelps and Team USA. "I believe that boy is part fish," my wife commented after Phelps won his 9th Gold Medal. I added, "He's like the Shaquille O'Neal of the swimming world. He's 6 feet 7 inches tall, for Pete's sake! By the time he jumps in, he's halfway to the other side of the pool. That's like throwing a shark into a living room aquarium!"
You know how
some people are unflappable? I'm not one of them. I'm very flappable. I'm
flapping all over the place thanks to incidents that occurred during my sexy
hot trip to Southern California, which turned out to be a one-day jaunt to the
teeming and ever-busy Chicago O'Hare airport and back again to Cleveland, which
I was trying to get out of for a fun, relaxing trip to sexy hot Southern
California, if you follow me so far.
I had scheduled a
trip to Los Angeles, to stay four nights and three full days. This was a rare
and exciting thing for me, not to mention expensive. I left my home early on
May 20, hopping on the rapid. The ride to the airport was fine; indeed, it was
the best part of the trip. I gazed at the glum scenery and felt a wave of
affectionate condescension. "I'm going to be on the beach of the Pacific Ocean tomorrow," I thought, "and
these people are going to be grousing around on Triskett Road, which is too
bad. Heh, Heh."
A friend of
mine recently got WiiTM. Don't worry, it's not terminal.
Okay, you
haven't been living with a family of technophobes under a rock for the past five
years and you know that WiiTM is an interactive videogame that is only slightly
less popular than Barack Obama. In fact, I hear that the WiiTM people are
planning a new game that simulates voting and tells you how many calories you
burn every time you pull the lever. (Don't you just love the little TM ? I'm
going to start includingTMon
everything, including my nameTM just so I feel importantTM.)
As I was getting in my car the other morning, I noticed a most distressing sight. The oak trees lining the parking lot were displaying a palette of greens, and various shades of yellows and reds. “Seriously?,” I thought. “That early?”
Indeed, it was true. I closed my eyes, and in the time it takes to blink came the stark realization that Summer is coming to an end, and Fall is just around the corner. I do love Fall – it’s my favorite time of year; but I haven’t even stepped foot on a beach or – otherwise truly enjoyed the Summer. How can it possibly be the dog days already? Ya know?
I remember when my medicine chest was full of fun stuff like perfume,
eyeliner, and Rolling Stones concert tickets I was hiding from my parents.Today though, it's mostly full of
lotions and creams with the phrase "anti-aging" somewhere on the label (usually
it's the only thing in a type size I can read).
There in the right hand corner next to my hair
mousse (I use mousse instead of spray because saying "mousse" makes me feel hip)
are two bottles of stuff, one that guarantees to "reduce the signs of aging by
61% in one week" and one that guarantees "84% more youthful skin in three
days."The question is: if I mix
the two, can I actually turn back time and look like I did in a previous
life?Maybe when I was
Cleopatra?
As I was getting
my hair cut recently I looked down at the tufts of silver hair on the barber's
bib and thought in disgust, "They could have shaken that old man's hair off
before they put this thing on me."
Then I saw the
hair falling from my own head matching the scorned tufts. So this was it. The
beginning of the end.
I thought about
having to get brown hair coloring, like the guy on the Grecian Formula
commercial, who after dying his hair kept an unsmiling picture of himself with
gray hair on the mantle for comparison purposes. Where was I going to get a
picture like that? Did I have to get a mantle, too, or was it all right to put
the picture on an end table? And how gradual was the hair re-browning process?
Would my entire head turn an unnatural, Ronald Reagan copper-brown, and look
like I was wearing some dimestore wig.
Quirkee Voices 
The most overlooked disease facing Mothers today is Loser Mom Syndrome.
LMS is a constant threat, a dark storm cloud lurking on the horizon
that threatens to undermine any fleeting feelings of control and peace
a mother can create for herself.
A
question people seldom ask me is "How did you get on the fast track to
success?" They don't ask me anything about success. They think because
I don't wear suits or have my hair cut by professionals they can't
learn anything from me.
When you make a living as a writer and comedian
(if by "living" you mean "as much money as you'd make selling wormy apples by
the side of the road"), people have lots of questions. Instead of answering them
personally by phone or e-mail, I've decided to take care of a whole batch in one
fell swoop and fill my weekly word quota for this column at the same time! If
you were a writer, you'd understand. Really, you would. (See, that was three
extra words! And that last sentence added six. It helps to have math
skills).
I grew up in a relatively small town. Oh, it's downright metropolitan compared to the blip on the map where I live now, but as towns go it was relatively small. As I grew, so did the town and the last remaining parcels of farmland slowly became surrounded by schools, shopping malls and neighborhoods. Our house abutted one such parcel of land. An old farmhouse on a rectangular plot of roughly 3 acres. The field had long since been used for crops and for the most part stood unattended and uncut. The old farmer and his wife still lived in the farmhouse and he kept a mule, God only knows why, in the back yard.
Records are meant to be broken. Just last month, a guy in Southern Chicago broke the record for eating the most hot dogs in an hour. I don't know if this is true, and it probably didn't happen at all. It just seems every weekend a contest is held to see who can shove more wieners down their throat than the last guy. Who will be crowned the king of gluttons? These kinds of records belong to Ripley's, and should not even be made a public event, in my opinion. 
As I was getting in my car the other morning, I noticed a most distressing sight. The oak trees lining the parking lot were displaying a palette of greens, and various shades of yellows and reds. “Seriously?,” I thought. “That early?”
