Monthly Archives: April 2019

There’s Something About Mary

by

When I was in my early-to-mid twenties, I was pretty entrenched in Mormon culture. I went to church in a singles branch, held various callings, church every Sunday, Family Home Evening on Mondays. Within our singles group, I was part of a smaller friend group. Just a group of early 20-somethings, going to college (or not), living on their own (or not), and trying to make the transition from teenage know-it-alls to adults: Mormon Edition

Kant, Hair, Line, Young Matthew, myself, and Mary.

Mary was an interesting sort. A few years younger than myself. Grew up the second child of 12. She was even my roommate for a spell. Mary and myself were as different as two people could be. She grew up in an intact family in church, my family was broken with just a whiff of Mormonism. My greatest drive was to go to college to get an education and not repeat the same trajectory as my parents. Hers was to find a nice priesthood holder to marry (in the temple) and have a big family much like what she grew up it.

I was jaded, and sarcastic, and fiercely independent. Mary was naive, soft, and hinging her whole life upon having a husband.

Living together only magnified our differences. As much as we got along like vinegar and baking soda, we both brought something to our small friend group. Despite her weaknesses, she had good qualities too. She liked to have fun. She had a smile for everyone. She was always the “young one” in the group, always careful about how she looked. The insufferable flirt, she would go through Peter Priesthoods like water through a sieve. One week, she would meet a guy and fall in love, the next week, she would have prayed about it and learned he was “the One”, and following week, it would be over because he “was a jerk.”

This pattern went on for so long, we started calling her Baskin Robbins with her Flavor of the Week. We didn’t hate her. We just wanted her to realize that she was more than whatever a life of Mormon culture honed her to be. A lot of her behaviors, we surmised, was her need for attention. I imagine that being in a family that large, attention can come in short supply.

Earlier this week, Kant sent me a message that Mary had passed away in her sleep earlier in the week. I had to pull the car over and re-read the message three times so I could understand just what she was saying. Mary dead? She can’t be! For starters, she’s too stubborn. Secondly, she’s too young.

She leaves behind four kids and a husband. My heart breaks for them. Mary may have been a pain in the ass, no one deserves to grow up without their Mommy or their spouse.

After the singles branch was disbanded, people moved away, went on missions, went on in their lives. Kant and I remained close, everyone just sort of drifted away. Mary seemed to be happy, but I don’t know for sure. She married and had kids. Her facebook page is full of “look how charmed my life is” posts. I really hope her life was amazing as she made it sound. I really do.

Her funeral is next week. Hair and I were going to go as we are the only ones left in town of our original group. True, neither of us had talked to her in 15 years or so, but she still belonged to an important part of our lives, however small it was compared the larger picture of our lives.

And we can at least honor that.

Like I said, she was a pain the ass. She liked to push my buttons (and knew exactly which ones to push), but at the end of the day, there was no one quite like her. My memories will always be of her when she was younger. Her on my family canoe trip sampling Rocky Road (i.e. my brother), her cleaning the apartment only when she was expecting a Flavor of the Week over for a visit. Her “Sausage Fondue” that was not fondue…it was a goddamn breakfast casserole. Her oh-so-delicious homemade banana cream pie (I have the recipe). Her almost burning down the apartment building because she didn’t know how a fireplace worked. Her shitty camp outs that I missed but had to hear about from everyone else. Her beautiful red hair, her sparkling blue eyes, and my jealousy because I thought she had it all.

I’ll carry you with me, Mary. You will not be forgotten.

 

 

TTT: Di$ney on Ice

by

Every year, Tiny Tyrant’s daycare has a field trip to see Disney on Ice.

This year was the first year that TT could actually go.

Oh sure, I could have taken her before. On our own, but I wondered how much she would get out of it. Even more to the point, would she get bored and have a meltdown because she didn’t want to stay in the same place for that long?

I just decided to wait until she could go and experience it with her classmates. As fortune would have it, I was off that day. So, I could go as well.

Tickets for the show were $20 per person. This is pretty reasonable, I thought, considering that tickets to anything don’t really cost under $20.

The day of, TT is all excited. She knows she is going to go see Disney on Ice. She knows she is going to ride the school bus. Whether or not she understands what that all means, is a different story entirely.

We get to the school. Other parents who are also going are milling around, waiting to ride the school bus. Kids are excited to ride the school bus. The adults are quiet, perhaps having horrible flashbacks of when they rode the school bus.

We all load upon the bus and away we go to the Sprint Center, where there is a shitload of children and parents milling about. Some wearing costumes. I immediately feel points deducted because as a nerd, I should know better to send a child into an environment like this without appropriate cosplay. I vow to do better.

I end up with TT and one of her little friends, who’s mother is my friend, who was unable to make it to the showing due to work. (And she is now known as Dainty Dictator…or DD for short) And also, another of TT’s friends, whom she says is her best friend (Who will now be referred to as Mini Monarch). And her mom. I just go with it because two moms and three kids seem like pretty good odds.

We find our way to our seats, and I see vendors a long the way, selling pretty much everything Disney-related. After the kids are settled, I haul ass to find a bubble wand TT was pining for since we hit the front door. And because I am a softy, and DD didn’t bring extra spending money, I decide I’m going to get her one as well. And because I would look like a dick if I bought for two girls and left one out, I decide to buy three, because they can’t be that expensive, right???? RIGHT????

Sweet baby Jesus. $100.

For plastic wands that light up and blow bubbles. I look at them closely. They don’t vibrate (you know, for the mommies). They come with a 2 year warranty, which I am sure doesn’t cover the cost of your child slamming it on the floor when it runs out of bubbles.

I go back to our seats, clutching these fucking wands as if they were forged in the blood of virgins (because they very well may considering how much they cost) dole them out to the three girls (and thankfully, they are grateful). The show starts, and I spend the majority of it with bubbles in my face. There’s smoke and fireworks, and I swear I’m going to have an asthma attack there in row 8.

Pretty soon our adorable little band of despots start complaining about being hungry and thirsty. The other mommy and I buy snacks. Cotton Candy, popcorn, and a plastic sippy cup with lemonade. $45. DD insists that she gets her own cup of lemonade, and I put my foot down because $15 is too much to pay for shitty lemonade in a cup you can’t put in the dishwasher because it will melt.

The show goes on, and somehow I end up with lemonade all down the front of my shirt. It’s sticky everywhere and I only have so many wet wipes. Here comes the guy with coloring books. $5 each. I get two because the asshole is taking too long to give me my change. DD gets a book. I figure if MM wanted one, her mom could spring for it. She was sitting right there.

You could easily pick out the noob parents from the ones who had been there before. They brought their own wands. And snacks. At one point, the daycare director chucked a Costco-sized bag of Goldfish into the crowd. TT found a bag of Veggie Straws and happily munched on them. All out of cash, and my debit card could be heard sobbing from my wallet, The Bank of GB was officially closed.

After the show, I perused Amazon and found the same wand for less than $10 (and my butthole clenched even tighter), and I told TT that she should plan on taking her bubble wand to college. She patted my arm gently because even she knew I was an idiot for shelling out $150 for one show. To her credit, she sat and watched the whole thing. DD, however, was like a blender with the lid off, and I am pretty confident she will not be able to recall one thing from the show, except the bus ride.

There was a point TT experienced some butthurt because they pulled some lucky kids from the audience and they got to ride around the rink in some sort of submarine looking thing. TT demanded a ride. I didn’t know what to tell her. Was there some sort of VIP experience that you had to take out a second mortgage on your house for? Was it random?? Were these children sold to go work in the sweat mines of Orlando to pay for their privilege of being part of the show??

Dick move, Disney. Dick. Move.

I am told, by persons with knowledge in such matters, is that this is just a taste of the Disney experience. Go to the House of Mouse on either coast, and you can expect have money slip through you fingers like water. Everything costs a premium, even the smallest, most simplest of things. You know, I’ve heard of families saving up money just to go to Worlds of Fun once during the summer. That might sound amusing to some (bordering on condescending for others), but that’s the reality for many. This Disney level of spending goes way beyond. Thousands of dollars. Because much like the ice skating program, you don’t just pay for the ticket, you pay for the experience…and that includes the $12 snow cone.

I don’t know when Disney became of rite of passage for children. The brass ring of childhood experiences. I never entertained the idea when I was a kid because I knew we could never afford it.

My family was one of those saving pennies to go to Worlds of Fun.