An Embarrassment to the Profession

I am living proof that anybody can be a parent. You've got to have a license to buy a gun, drive a car, shoot, you even have to get a license to catch a fish . . . but anybody can be a parent. Even wimps like me.

Not once but twice--twice!--in as many days this week, I have screamed like a girl when . . . wait a minute. I am a girl! Well, that's something, I guess. Anyway, yesterday I was breaking down a cardboard box in preparation for recycling--I'm thinkin' green, y'all--and something fell out of the box on to my hand. I'm not sure what my tormentor actually turned out to be--a mouse? A roach? A styrofoam peanut? My money is on the latter but that doesn't mean I screamed any less shrilly. I think I even threw in a little dance and as you know, this girl can't dance. Ugh. I glanced around surreptitiously, praying that our neighbors weren't witnesses to my jig o'terror. The coast was clear.

So would you believe it happened again today??! Only this time I screamed even louder, because evidently I did want to wake up the neighbors! Still didn't catch the offender in the act--oh, it's a wily one, it is.

It is a minor miracle that my children are not afraid of every living, moving creature that has the breath of life in it. Sure, these two recent episodes were not witnessed by the neighbors (although I have to admit I haven't checked YouTube yet), but all of my kids were eyewitnesses to my behavior several years ago, behavior that was so shocking I'm surprised my title wasn't revoked! Oh, you know the one:



One day while the kids and I were in the middle of school, I decided to give everyone a break and I doled out the snack that any "World's Best Mother" would--M&Ms! What, you were expecting carrots and celery sticks? I remember the girls were going through a phase where they liked to put their snacks in tiny little containers, whereas Tyler's preferred method of snack consumption was pretty much to hold the opening of the bag directly above his mouth for optimum swallowing accuracy. So the girls had their little Tupperware containers of M&Ms, and since we were on a break I'm thinking I probably walked over to check my e-mail on the computer, the very same computer that was right next to our 90-gallon fishtank.

When we moved to Arlington, we did not transport any fish with us. There is a reason for that. Just file that away if you will.

Once upon a time we had some beautiful fish in that tank. Clownfish, neon tetras, bala sharks--very pleasing to the eye. But there was this one bala shark that used to drive. me. crazy. It was jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and every time anyone would go near the fish tank this shark would bolt from whatever part of the tank it happened to be in, and it would jump up out of the water and land with a huge splash. Shamu had nothin' on this shark!

I used to get very irritated when I would happen to be the one walking near the fish tank, because I don't particularly enjoy being showered with the same liquid that is the habitat of a bunch of freshwater fish. Because, ewwwww! What I'm saying is there was no love lost between Mr. Bala and me.

So back to my story . . . I went over to check my e-mail and this psychotic shark did his little halftime show for the audience and gave me a little shower for good measure. Only this time, instead of a splash, I heard a . . . thump. Hmmm, that's odd.

Wait, there it is again. Thump.

Thump.

It was right about this time that I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know what's coming, right? The shark had jumped OUT of the tank, the moron, and was thumping around behind it! Yes, behind the tank and directly against the wall. As my brain was slowly processing this information, suddenly I heard a sound that struck terror in my heart. I could have sworn the Jaws soundtrack was playing in the background as I heard this frantic fluttering--FLAP FLAP FLAP FLAP FLAP--and I knew that the shark was trying to extricate himself from the mess it had gotten into.

By this time I was doing a fair amount of fluttering myself, and the kids had come in to see what all the ruckus was. I'm sure at least one of them must have thought to him/herself, "I wonder why Mommy is curled up in the fetal position in the middle of the floor?" Did I mention I'm just a little a-skeered of fish? They're so slimy and scaly and slimy!

Seriously, I s-l-o-w-l-y crept over to the side of the fish tank and then, THEN, you would have thought that Norman Bates had just jumped out brandishing a butcher knife! That shark flapped its way all the way out from behind the fish tank and right into the middle of our computer room floor! I shrieked like I have never shrieked before (and this girl knows how to shriek, let me tell you) and hightailed it up to the girls' room, with four kids screaming bloody murder right behind me, and for good measure we stuffed a towel under the door. Just in case the completely helpless, oxygen-deprived creature should even think of flapping its way up the stairs where it would attempt to gum us to death. Yes, I admit it, I let the shark die. I'm not proud of it, but I'd do it again. Because, hello! Slimy.

I laugh when I think about it now (yeah, Randy doesn't really see the humor. Strange, huh?) but somewhere in some very, very small part of my brain it occurred to me that I needed to try to be brave for my children. Because that's what moms do, right? So I stopped yelling and jumping around and sat down on the bed, but after a few minutes I realized that Darcy was still weeping copiously. I felt so guilty and said, "Honey, I'm so sorry. I overreacted. Everything's going to be okay." And Darcy looked at me with eyes full of suffering and cried, "But I left my M&Ms downstairs!"

This is a girl with the proper perspective.