Although I think Bun is cooler than I’ll ever be, he does have his moments. Actually, some of them are more like years. Well years is what it would seem like after he pulled a particularly “uncool” stunt with a kid who frequently visited our block.

Bun and I moved onto our street when we were in our twenties. This meant that Bun still had a little too much energy to spend on stupidly annoying things like showing a 16 year-old boy just who the alpha male was in our neighborhood.

Back then, a very nice lady and her two teenage daughters lived across the street from us. These two daughters had a habit of smoking with their friends on their pitch black front porch every Friday night.

Sure it was a little creepy, but it was none of our business, I would tell Bun. They weren’t harming anyone or anything. Although, their one friend, the previously mentioned 16 year old, would take it upon himself to honk at the stroke of 10 p.m. each eve of Saturday. And it wasn’t just one honk.

It was exactly six staccatos followed by one extra long note, rounding out into what seemed to be an eight-count measure.  “Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!” He’d repeat this cadence four times—a full phrase, which was followed by laughter and screeching as he pealed off down our street.

Unfortunately, our bedroom faced this side of the street with only a single-paned window shielding us from the festival of smoke and horns.  Sadly a recurring coincidence, 10 p.m. was also around the time when Bun  would fall asleep.

I must share that Bun is slightly dramatic when it comes to interrupted sleep and pain.

With each passing Friday, we were beginning to feel as if we were living through Groundhog Day Hell. Even Bun got into a routine. He would pop up in bed like a Jack-in the-Box, waving his hands like some sort of modern interpretive dancer. “Oh why? Why? Oh God Why?” he’d ask no one in particular, his face crinkled,  practically crying.

I admit, it was an unnerving five minutes and a bad way to start each weekend, but what could we do? For the next three months, the smoke, the dark, the horn-telegraph sequence, the Bun-in-the-Box performance, the laughter, the screech was what I’d come to expect—and dread every Friday night.

But on month four, something in Bun snapped. As the first horn measure was being laid out, Bun flung himself out of bed, ran to the kitchen and grabbed the industrial strength flashlight—you know the kind you’d use in a search-and-rescue effort or to scare off a large bear while camping.

We were experiencing the second eight-count of the honk symphony when I heard the front door hit the wall from being opened with such force.

Suddenly, the horn stopped and everything went eerily quiet. No laughter, no tires burning rubber, nothing. I noticed that the outline of our bedroom window was bathed in unusual luminosity. The light was similar to the kind the police use when they’ve pulled someone over.

I crawled under the window and cracked the drape back ever so slightly to find the honker perpetrator staring at the steering wheel where his hands were locked and frozen. The large scrutinous spotlight still blazed in through the passenger’s side of his car.

Funny, the boy was staring at the steering wheel but the light wasn’t piercing through his windshield. I didn’t see any officers. Had the police pulled him over from our side of the street? Were they in front of our house? We would have definitely heard the sirens.

How could the light be shining from the side? The side. Think. Hmmm. The side, as in across the street. Wait a minute, was it coming from the room next to ours, as in our house? Was the light really coming from our house?!

I crawled from the window, around our bed and peeked my head around the door frame to find a sight that still haunts me to this day.

“Honey?” I whispered gruffly.

“Don’t worry,” he answered triumphantly over his shoulder. “That kid’s never gonna bother us again. I taught him a lesson. I showed him.”

There, in all of his 6’1, 155-pound glory stood my husband at the threshold of our opened front door, wearing nothing but tighty whiteys, thankfully and firmly in place. He was aiming that fluorescent yellow flashlight the size of a miner’s hat at honky kid.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Bun was going to launch himself into the sky at any minute. The only thing missing was his cape. He certainly held the stance with the elbow bent and one hand on the hip.

Did he show that kid? You betcha. In fact, he showed everyone else that was across the street that night.

And as for lesson learned. It’s true that honky kid didn’t return the next week. He must have been on vacation because he made sure to come back every week thereafter. Even when those girls moved away a year later.

We heard from that kid for years and I swear I still hear him occasionally.  I can imagine him now. He’s probably about 26 and married with two kids.

I bet you he piles his family into the car and visits our street every now and then, honking and hoping for old Captain Underpants to shine his light just one more time.

Uncool, but at least in runs in the family.

My day began very abruptly one Tuesday morning. I had left my bedroom window open and was rudely(told you) awakened by the sound of the churning truck squeaking its rusty axles up to the curb. As I hurled an explicative under my breath and turned over in bed, it hit me. Snap! I forgot to leave the trash cans out the night before.

I bolted out of bed, retainer in mouth(I’m 40), wiping the drool from my chin,  hair in a feather duster pony tail on top of my scalp, red blemishes/white zit cream on face(again, I’m 40) and a Kliban Cat t-shirt from 1986 with cats dressed in leotards, leg warmers and head bands.

I  furiously raced out the door when I realized I wasn’t wearing any pants. Back up the stairs I went, jumping into the nearest bottoms I could find–flaming hot turquoise flannel pajamas with black and white kitties sporting  oversized heads who look like they are on LSD.

Shoes, shoes! Where the hell were they? I was wearing thick sweater socks, black and white stripes with embroidered flowers on each side but didn’t want to get them dirty. There was no time to take them off. The closest shoes were bright white flip flops by the front door. On they went. The Geisha look did not serve me well.

I flung the door open to find the trash truck pulling away, its screech was deafening. No wonder the trash guy was wearing earmuffs. I ran with as much vigor as I could muster, hurdling over the hedges in my front yard.

“Wait!! Pleath thop!” I begged, my retainer lisping any chance I had at words. No luck, he was almost two doors down. He could not leave our street or it would be hours, even days before he decided to come back and our trash was brimming.  I needed it to be gone.

Suddenly, the adrenaline took over and the next thing I knew, I was galloping across my front lawn to the side yard that houses the bins.  Pulling two huge trash cans behind me with the force of a sled dog, nothing was gonna stop me.

Nothing but the hot new neighbor who is about 10 years younger and had all the ladies in the neighborhood talking. Some admitted they couldn’t even look him in the eye because he was so devilishly handsome.

Unfortunately, that was no longer an option for me, as I stood there eyeball to eyeball with him. I had to stop since I almost mowed him down as he opened the door to his car.

Perplexed he asked, “Rough morning?” those blue eyes like earth marbles, hairdo that was nicer than mine at the moment. “Yeth!” I answered. “Thorry, but I can’t thalk. I hath to get tha trath guy bethore he ethcapes!” I managed to leap over three of the next house’s recycling bins, my trash cans rattling, barely clinging to the sidewalk and I just didn’t look back.  I only heard a huge laugh and a “Yeah, I can see that.”

In the end victory was mine, but not at my own expense. I found the trash guy, five houses down, but gave up dragging the cans at the third house. By the time I reached him, I was dripping with sweat when he agreed to reverse the truck and pick up our trash.

As soon as he got in his truck, out of eye shot, I shot my hands up in a huge “V”, my legs wobbled out the touchdown dance. In that moment, it was all worth it. The bad outfit, the retainer, the zits, all of it. Until the hot neighbor drove by, rolled down the window and said, “Glad things are going better now.”

Crap.

–Trash gone but still Uncool

As I mentioned, I have two kids who’m I lovingly call Stassy and Zell– short for Anastasia and Drizella. I have Attention Defecit Disorder, or at least I think I do and I mean that in the most compassionate way.

Stassy was diagnosed about nine years ago with it and boy has it been a ride. Not only have we had to observe her every action, be it at school or with friends, evaluations, teachers and on and on, it’s made me take a good long look in the mirror.  They say the condition is inherited. Why couldn’t I have just left her a large dowry? It’s hard to escape when I nag her to zip her bag closed and stop wearing her tennis shoes as mules while I am doing the exact same thing as we race towards the car on a Monday morning.

As I write this, I am supposed to be filling out a contract for a local Rec Center. Forgot to mention I own a very small fitness company where I certify instructors to teach this p.e. -style fitness class I created. It’s based on the way I played with Stassy and Zell when they were younger but that’s a whole other post. I merely mentioned that I am blogging instead of reviewing the contract as an example of how people with ADD have a hard time getting started on things like homework–in this case paperwork. Seriously, it exhausts people like us.

After years of struggling with it, I have learned to embrace it. If you have or suspect you have ADD, try breaking up your tasks into shorter pieces of time. The game Bejeweled and reality shows work great for me when I’m dreading something I find mundane. Honestly, if you use this method with a child that has ADD it can make for a calmer life–sometimes. Okay, maybe Bejeweled and reality shows aren’t appropriate choices when dealing with a child. Perhaps a timer would work better.

It might be that your kid has just gotten home from school and wants to run around or play a little before doing homework. Why not let him? Enter the timer. Sounds kind of Betty Crocker, I know but just try it.

Tell him to pick out one subject or project that he plans to work on when he is finished playing.  When the timer goes off, it’s time to hit the books. Set the timer for another 30 minutes and let him know he’ll get to take a break as soon as the timer dings. Tedious, kind of, but I know when I have done this, I am less of a nut job.  Works for a lot of stuff, like cleaning or getting your kids to be more active as well.  Although with a kid that has ADHD, that’s not usually the challenge.

Well thanks for reading. Back to the contract.