Daddy Needs A Drink

When I spot the red lacrosse ball under the pine tree by the road, I worry I may have forgotten the entirety of Easter.

Even after extensive online research, my daughter Poppy cannot figure out the market price of her 18 Bratz, hundreds of accessories and a case the size of a carry-on bag.
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I can tell when my son London is sleepwalking because of his excessive yawning.

I use the word "Lotsa" in the headline of Poppy's Craigslist ad because I think that's the kind of language probable Bratz buyers will respond to.

How do you name the category of sadness that comes when a lovable character named Bopper leaves The Amazing Race before leg 11?

After Poppy complains about how much she hates my penne pesto, tomato soup and shish kebab, I know exactly what her birthday meal will consist of.

I feel too tired to see Public Enemy at the local college but regret not attending the show as soon as the Hipstamatic prints are posted by strangers on Facebook.

Now I understand why my father only wanted two things for father's day: quiet and for all of us to get along. When he said quiet, I think he meant gin.

No one is biting on the Bratz deal. I check obsessively.

My Bulgarian neighbor won't take down her bird feeders even though pigeons are dropping custard all over our cars because "pigeons only eat corn."

I spy no cornfields in my little barrio.

I think of buying a BB gun to kill the rats with wings but crop dust the Bulgarian's bird feeders with Chimayó red chile powder instead.

Watching the second episode of Girls at work is a big mistake.

The teen at my grocery store's customer service desk is so over everything that he shrugs when I write "bags=suckage" under the reason why I am returning a box of trash liners.

I have a dream that the plane I'm on is crashing and in the dream I try to figure out if the plummeting is real by how it compares to other dreams I've had of dying in a plane crash.

I so want to be like Uncle Rondo in Eudora Welty's "Why I Live at the P.O.": wearing a bathrobe, highball in hand, happy to sit in my backyard, no matter what state it's in or who is jumping on the trampoline with the jammed zipper.

I recommend my gym to everyone but I don't want to go anymore.

I keep running into people with exotic places as last names: Poppy went to Dr. Palestine for malaria pills and Rafael Albuquerque is coming to a comic book store near me.

From the driver's seat of my Honda Accord, I see a drunk guy stumbling near Blake's. When the traffic clears, he emerges as a clumsy hipster (tripster) on roller skates.

When Anna Gunn's assistant texts me that she is almost out of church, I cheekily ask her, "Is that code?" She replies, "Code for what?"

When I purchased them, the clerk swore to me that, one day, Bratz would be collector's items.

Should I be happy or discouraged that none of my students knows what a paternity test is?

I wake up at 4:30 am worried about: a) Poppy's overdue student council application, b) how I will teach Lydia Davis short stories to teenagers, and c) affording college when I have no extra money now.

I wish those goddamn Bratz would sell.  

Santa Fe Reporter