Belle Weather

by Celia Rivenbark

  To be fair, eating stuff like that isn’t all that weird except in America. Face it. We’re a pretty provincial bunch. But the truth is that millions of people dine on placentas and umbilical cords every day in this world. Sure, they think it’s the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich, but still.

  To borrow a word from “W,” Tom gets to be the decider on this sort of personal matter.

  And it is terribly mean of us to suggest that Suri was some sort of Scientology experiment, that emerged from Holmes’ rent-a-womb clothed in flowing white robes and reading a script for her first mindless sitcom.

  Brit, you know how cruel Hollywood can be, don’t you? So it was probably no surprise to you that when little Suri Cruise was only a few days old, people forgot about her and thought only of the long-awaited spawn of the Pitt/Jolie Nation. I refer again to baby Shiloh Pitt, lovingly called “just a blob” by Angelina, who had fervently hoped that, somehow, she would be able to physically give birth to a severely malnourished five-year-old African orphan instead of a stunning, plump blond American baby whose perfect bright eyes and smile merely mock everything her mother stands for.

  Meanwhile, Brad has been completely emasculated, unlike your Kevin. How many times have we seen photos of Brad and Angelina walking down the beach? Well, Angelina’s walking, with the Pacific breezes fluffing her perfect mane like a Pantene commercial, while former hunk Brad chugs dutifully behind, toting children, his fisherman’s-knit sweater covered in snot. She is proud and strident. He is, well, Gilligan.

  Whither People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive?

  Truth is, Brad is so eager to please his woman that he’s become Hollywood’s cutest drone, a hunky package of buzz kill who will no longer talk about his career “when, like, billions of people are starving to death.”

  This is certainly admirable to a point, but it’s gotten to the place where Matt Lauer can’t even offer Brad a cup of coffee without being subjected to a PowerPoint on the low wages of non-fair-trade bean growers.

  (At about the same time, Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn were cracking themselves up making pooty noises with their armpits.)

  Brad wants everyone to know that he is more than a pretty face. Yes, we see that. Angelina, with her mysterious and mighty powers, has somehow given him a big ol’ brain. Still, I suspect he’s riding for a fall. Angelina is not of this world. As she flies her own plane around the world, rescuing the downtrodden and sick, she is more like a really hot Mother Teresa. How could one man keep up?

  Brit, Brad is going to fall into that dark hole where all men go when they’re with women who are more famous or powerful than them. Should they marry (a mistake), will Brad become like Dolly Parton’s husband? Someone you think is still alive but you’re never quite sure?

  Brit, all this is by way of saying that I think the best hope you have to deflect all the awful criticism of your behavior is to point out that there are plenty of parents who are crazier than you. Create a distraction. Every time somebody photographs you with three cigarettes dangling out of your mouth at the same time, just say, “At least I didn’t want to eat my baby’s placenta, y’all.” Or “At least I never called my kid a blob.”

  Brit, it’s OK if you don’t always feel like a natural mama. These things take time and you’re having to do it all in front of the whole wide world.

  Truth is, I’m not that great at it. People often insist on showing me pictures of their babies until I dutifully recite, “Oh, isn’t she precious?” If this seems, somehow, insufficient, I’ll manage something like, “Oh, I could just eat her up!”

  The truth is, all babies look basically alike, except for Shiloh Pitt who, this just in, has won “America’s Top Model 2020.”

  Brit, here’s the way I see it. If you lay low, get sober, and tend to business on the home front, you can put all this unpleasantness behind you.

  It won’t be easy, girl, but you can do it. Just remember who you are and return to your Southern soul. Go home to the bayou; pick some okra and sing in the church choir.

  It’ll fix what ails you.

  Love,

  Mama Celia

  13

  (School) Uniformly Opposed to Everything

  The Super Mommies were at it again at my kid’s elementary school and they decided that nothing would do but that we start requiring the kids to wear uniforms.

  Their reasons sounded noble enough: If everyone dresses alike, no one will pick on anyone because their clothes aren’t as nice; if everyone dresses alike, students will concentrate on their studies, not on silly fluff like fashion; if everyone dresses alike, there’s a chance you could take somebody else’s better-behaved, smarter kid home with you and nobody would even notice for at least a couple of hours.

  OK, I made the last one up, but I still didn’t believe their arguments about why we needed to dress our kids in a mind-numbingly dull assortment of navy skorts, khaki pants, and white Polo shirts. And, let me revisit that first one: Skorts. This is like the creepy incestuous marriage of shorts and skirts. Get it? It’s a skirt in the front and pants in the back and ugly all over. Think of it as fashion’s cruel answer to designing one single garment as hideous as grown-up culottes for the grades K–5 set.

  I didn’t buy the argument that uniforms would improve grades because I did a little research and, turns out, that’s not true at all according to loads of studies by people who have devoted their lives to studying this important shit. The truth was, if you believed uniforms would improve grades, there was statistically just as good a chance that you’d believe a tooth will dissolve overnight when placed in a glass of Coca-Cola or that a toddler in Texas died from rattlesnake bites after playing in the ball pit at Burger King. In other words, face it: You’re a dumbass.

  I sniffed a wharf rat from the beginning. And then it dawned on me: The real reason they wanted uniforms is that way your public school kid will look like he’s going to private school and you’d look like a rich mommy as you hauled your matching children to the grocery store after school.

  “Oh, my!” people would say in the checkout line. “They’re sending three kids to private school. They must have lots of money. I want to be just like them.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Super Mommy Claire, when I posed my theory. “Only you would come up with such a negative motive.”

  Claire said that, truthfully, she didn’t care about the cliques or the grades or any of that. It’s just that uniforms would make her life easier.

  “With uniforms, it’s so easy and quick for them to get dressed in the morning,” she said. “No more fights!”

  “Great,” I said. “If easy is the goal, why not just make them sleep in their clothes the night before? That’ll really save some time.”

  Because we live in a democracy, despite the best efforts of Karl Rove, the parents were asked to vote either for or against uniforms and invited to speak out on why we were voting one way or the other.

  I have to admit, I wasn’t terribly articulate when it came time to debate the question, managing a less-than-compelling “Well, duh, they’re ugly.” It was a lightweight but passionate and strangely Valley Girl–sounding argument, but it was the best I could come up with on short notice.

  I was hoping for more of an “Ask not what you can do for your country” kind of effect but, alas, the words didn’t come and I sounded, well, whiny. I wanted to talk about the snuffing out of creativity and individuality and how this soul-sucking sameness will destroy their little spirits and turn talented teachers into the dress-code police for much of the day instead of allowing them to do what they do best—teach—but my mind went blank and I just said, “And in conclusion, like I said earlier, they’re ugly. Thank you America and, well, all of our Allies and all the ships at sea.”

  The ballots were quickly counted and I wondered if my dough-brained protest, which was only slightly more articulate than that of, say, Scooby-Doo, caused the parents to vote in favor of uniforms 2–1.

  I shoul
d be used to being in the minority. Rarely do I vote for a president who wins, except for Gore and I believe we all know how well that turned out. So, for a time, I felt ostracized at my kid’s school, mama non grata. I had become the poo in the punchbowl, the Mel Gibson at the bar mitzvah.

  “You’ll love these uniforms with time,” said Claire, who was one of the handful of mommies that would still be seen talking to me. “They’re practically indestructible. You could drop nuclear waste on these things and it would just bounce right off.”

  Hey, now that would make a great science fair project, I thought.

  There was only one way I was going to ever fit in with the Popular Mommies and that would be to make sure that they understood that even though I hated the uniforms, I was still a team player, more or less.

  The perfect science fair project would show that I was a truly committed parent, not just some negative naysayer who always showed up just a little bit drunk at PTA pizza night.

  Oh, shut up. It’s not like I didn’t have a driver and how else is any human expected to make it through the obligatory thirty-minute treasurer’s report, with its talk of fund balances and transfers and other things that I can’t believe I’m hearing instead of being home watching Deal or No Deal.

  With Precious wearing the odious skort at dinner that night, the three of us discussed her science fair entry.

  “I was thinking,” I started, feeling pretty confident, “what if we went to the mall and dropped a five-dollar bill on the floor and then saw how many people would return it to us and how many would just keep it.”

  There. That was awesome. I waited for hubby and Precious to applaud.

  And waited some more.

  Hubby: “That’s the dumbest idea I ever heard. That’s not science. It’s human behavior. Don’t you know the difference?”

  Me: (Silent)

  Hubby: “OK, how about this?” (His eyes were doing that shifty thing they do when he either has a great idea or has just farted in public. Which, I might add, is never a great idea.)

  Me: (Silent and pissed)

  Hubby: “Well, don’t you want to hear it?”

  Precious: “I don’t think Mommy’s talking to you anymore. Go ahead and tell me.”

  “I was just thinking that we could replicate an experiment that I read about in which you can actually change the molecular structure of a water crystal by exposing it to words, pictures, and even soothing music. Then all we’d have to do is photograph it with a special macro lens and using the research facilities of a major university we could develop some amazing slides that illustrate the aesthetics and the quantity of the crystals.”

  Our jaws dropped.

  Finally, I spoke.

  “You’re going to talk to water? Nobody’s going to believe an eight-year-old came up with that. Hey! I’ve got an idea. What if we all eat a bunch of beets and then write about how it makes your pee turn purple?”

  “Oh, great,” hubby sneered. “Why don’t we make a baking soda volcano? Now that’s something nobody has ever thought of doing.”

  “Tornado in a bottle?” I offered brightly.

  “Arrrrgggh.”

  “There’s no need to get snippy,” I said. “How about this? What if we spread a dirty rumor about somebody and then sit back and see how long it takes to get back to us?”

  “That’s not science!” he shrieked. “That’s Telephone.”

  His eyes were seriously dancing in his head now. I was afraid he was going to go all A Beautiful Mind on us and start writing shit on the walls.

  “Well, have you got any more ideas, Mr. Wizard?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” he said. “We could change carbon into iron or even build a homopolar generator.”

  I snickered. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “I said homopolar,” hubby snapped. “What are you? Two? Look, I have another idea. We could build an interferometer. It’s sort of a squealing wall.”

  “I think they’ve got some of those at Chuck E. Cheese’s,” I said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go talk to some Chardonnay and see if it has anything to say back.”

  14

  Slacker Moms Don’t Have a Ghost of a Chance

  The annual science fair came and went and the Princess actually made it to “alternate,” which meant that she was almost, but not quite, good enough to go to the next level of competition. As it turned out, we had settled on a fabulous experiment called “Is Daddy Making Us Sick?” which used petri dishes to determine that, yes, if Daddy drinks milk from the carton, there is a transfer of his mouth germs to the liquid and so we’re all basically just lucky to be alive.

  The judges praised her science project and, with the new “alternate” status, I sensed it wouldn’t be long before I was back in the good graces of the Popular Mommies, including some who were still smarting a bit from my anti-uniform rant.

  You’re probably wondering why I care so much about the Popular Mommies’ opinion of me and I will not lie to you.

  See, if you aren’t in good with the mommies of your kid’s friends, you can’t in good conscience call on them to help you with after school child care when you really need it. Or, as Hillary Rodham Clinton says, “It takes a village, assholes.”

  For instance, if you can only get a mani/pedi or hair color appointment at three in the afternoon, it doesn’t take long to realize that the whole picking-up-the-kid-at-school thing is going to screw that up.

  Oh. You thought I meant that I needed child care help so I could volunteer with the local bloodmobile or some such?

  Are you high? Y’all know me better’n that by now.

  Of course, I’m not above lying to make it sound more noble. After all, the mommies might not appreciate the truth, that I had TiVo’d every episode of Friday Night Lights and really needed some alone time to watch each episode.

  You can’t ask somebody to baby-sit your kid for free just so you can catch up on your must-see TV. That’s nuts. So you tell them something more palatable where everybody’s a winner. Something like: “Can you please take Precious home with you after school today? I have to donate an organ to a needy person, but I should be done with that by, oh, say six o’clock. It’s just a spleen or somethin’.”

  Of course, on another level, it gnawed at me a bit that my baby’s science project was only an “alternate.”

  It was like being the first runner-up in a beauty pageant or lieutenant governor or even vice president. These are positions that are historically lackluster. Why do you think Cheney shot that old man in the face? Every now and then you want it to be all about you.

  “What does ‘alternate’ mean?” Soph asked that night.

  “It means that if something happens to one of the six real winners, you get to take their place and advance in the competition.”

  “You mean like if they got sick or something?”

  “Yes, or if someone planted a rumor that they bought the whole project on the Internet and had it overnighted from some smart kid in Wisconsin.”

  “Mommy, you didn’t!”

  No, I didn’t. But it was tempting. Sometimes it’s exhausting trying to stay in good with the Popular Mommies, even if it is just for selfish reasons. They’re always coming up with new ways to stress me out.

  Standing outside our cars in the pick up line at carpool one afternoon, I overheard them comparing their teacher gifts, to be presented on the last day of school.

  Teacher gifts?

  I don’t remember that one when I was growing up. If we gave our overworked, underpaid teachers anything at all, it was probably an awkward hug and a promise to (snicker, snicker) “read a lot over the summer.”

  But the teacher gift is a Requirement now. It’s like the horrifically named “pushing gift” that is now presented from husband to wife practically at the moment the bundle of joy is being propelled into a world in which there are more votes for American Idol contestants than the U.S. president (sad) but of
fers 182 choices of presweetened breakfast cereal (happy). I have known women who clamped their thighs shut and refused to deliver their baby until their own duh-hubby had shown up with sufficient bling.

  Doctor: “Push, Mrs. Lardbottom! Push! It’s tiiiiiimmme!”

  Mrs. L.: “Right away, doctor. Just a minute. Darius, where’s my pushing present? This is when you’re supposed to give it to me. Darius?”

  Darius: “Huh? Pushing present? What’s that?”

  Doctor: “I can see the head now. This baby is coming! Push now. One…two…”

  Mrs. L.: “Oh, this baby ain’t coming into a world where his cheap bastard daddy didn’t even have sense enough to buy me a pushing present. Forget that shit.”

  Doctor (getting impatient): “Look, Mr. Lardbottom, just give her the present. (then, cheerily) This little one is ready to meet his parents!”

  Darius Lardbottom: “But, but, er, I don’t have anything.”

  Doctor: (removing gloves, paper gown, and hat) “Then I believe that my work here is done.”

  The Perfect, Popular Mommies look down their surgically altered noses at the loser mommies who don’t buy anything for the teacher at the end of the year or, worse, give Avon.

  It’s yet another area in which they get to do the Mommy Superior dance. They know that it’s equally crucial to get the teacher gift in on time and with a MVA (maximum viewing audience).

  See, if you get the teacher gift in too late, no one will know all the time and effort and expense you went to. Except the teacher, which, I realize, should be the point, but that doesn’t get you anywhere when it comes to impressing the Other Mommies.

  This fierce, and completely unnecessary, desire to be the best mommy is bigger than us. Why do you think so many of us are turning to meth?

  No, sorry. What I meant to say was, why do you think so many turn to professional party planners and life coaches and therapists and Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey eaten by the pint in the blue glow of infomercials for thirty-dollar spaghetti drainers hours after everyone else has gone to bed? Not me, mind you, but others I’ve heard about….