Christmas Update

The scene at my house last weekend:

What Kind of Finch am I, I asked myself?

"Today, we're taking down the Christmas tree," I announced to my family. It being January 6th, and all, my neighborhood hadn't even a teeniest reminder that Santa swooped through, leaving mounds of cardboard boxes in the green recycling bins, barely 12 days prior. No indicators of Christmas past, that is, except my house, where my children continued to dutifully plug in the dancing lights each evening.

A collective, "No!" erupted from my spouse and children. "Please, please, Mama, can we keep it. Just one more week," begged my 12 year-old. "Please," chimed in his siblings and father.

This is it, I told myself, we're going to be like the Finches, with a dead, brown, decorated tree in our living room well into the off-season; all of us walking past it day after day no longer even bothered by its presence, and the kids even snacking on candy canes harvested from needleless branches. I refer to the Running with Scissors Finches, of course, as opposed to the To Kill a Mockingbird Finches.

(If you have not read Running with Scissors yet, spare yourself from it, and read If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny instead. If you have, are, or plan to read it, then you must also read If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny to reassure yourself, post Scissors, that crazy isn't necessarily pathological and funny doesn't have to be shocking.)

Well, I found myself faced with a serious decision to make. Would I be an Atticus Finch, sticking to my resolve, my morals, my scruples, my sense of right and wrong, or would I be an Agnes Finch, losing complete control over my household and the people in it?

Call me Agnes, because I caved. The tree stands downstairs right now, lights flashing like a Vegas disco. Shoot, the next thing I know, the kids will pound a hole through my kitchen ceiling and I won't even glance heavenward for help. Agnes incarnate, I won't know I need it.

The scene in my house this evening, January 12:

All children, spouse included, have been assured the Grinch, the pre-roastbeast-carving Grinch, will steal Christmas and dump it off of Mt. Crumpet (or at least drag it out to the street). Because I would rather be a Grinch than a Finch any day.

Crown and Cookies, Sally?

Selling a newspaper humor column isn’t easy for a non-assertive, thin skinned, painstakingly polite woman like myself. But I spend a lot of time walking into the offices of editors and publishers, anyway, unexpected and unannounced.

When I get a face-to-face with the chief in charge, I’ve got under 5 minutes to give my spiel and shove my marketing package into his or her hand. Five minutes doesn’t give me very long to convince a tired, worn out, crotchety guy to add my contribution not just to the overwhelmingly tall stack of papers on his desk, but also to his publication.

Aside from calling back, calling back, calling back, and calling back some more, I’ve learned a few other sales rules that I stick to without deviation:

1) Close the deal sooner rather than later. Whether the answer is yes or no, getting an answer allows me to redirect my energy to the next sale.

2) Visualize hearing the right words. I call upon the café scene from When Harry Met Sally. In my mind, I cut and paste the editor’s face onto Meg Ryan’s body and listen while he pounds his desk and screams, “Yes, yes, yes!”

3) Humor increases the odds. Always make ‘em laugh. Sometimes I take one of my children along. My youngest son, on one such adventure, wound up face down, spread-eagle under a publisher’s over-stuffed golf bag. As his little legs and arms waved helplessly, like a box turtle someone held at eye-level, my newspaper column got accepted.

4) Put them in a position in which they cannot say, “No.” (See #3 above.)

5) Take a gift. I’ve perfected my own recipe for chocolate-chip grits cookies. Editors and publishers, being of the dispositions that they are, respond favorably, especially when I serve their snack with whisky.

Now that Palm Tree Press released my new book, If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny, I’m using these same five principles to get it into the hands of the public.

So . . . Crown and cookies, Sally?

To the Tune of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer - (And, Yes, This Did Happen)

Lucy fell into a sewage drain
Walkin' home from Charlotte’s Tuesday eve.
She kept from breakin’ her glass Santa.
As she plunged and dumped her purse into the street.

She'd been drinkin' a little eggnog.
And her husband said that she should go.
So she gathered up the children,
And staggered out the door into the road.

Her son called out a feeble warnin’,
At the scene of the attack.
She had asphalt on her knuckles,
And incriminatin' splatter on her back.

Lucy fell into a sewage drain
Walkin' home from Charlotte’s Tuesday eve.
She kept from breakin’ her glass Santa.
As she plunged and dumped her purse into the street.

Now Lucy’s awfully miffed at Charlotte.
She's not takin' this so well.
Charlotte built a front walkway,
That ends at a drop-off straight to Hell.

Lucy dusted off her daughter,
Whom she dragged down into the crack.
And Lucy just can't help but wonder:
Should she re-gift Charlotte’s present or send it back?
(Send it back)

Lucy fell into a sewage drain
Walkin' home from Charlotte’s Tuesday eve.
She kept from breakin’ her glass Santa.
As she plunged and dumped her purse into the street.

Now the note is on the table,
Accusing Charlotte of negligence.
And a lawyer signed the bottom,
Demanding Charlotte’s dollars and her cents.

Lucy’s warned all her friends and neighbors.
"Better watch out for yourselves."
Charlotte’s known to pull the trap door,
And your Christmas guests will all yell, “What’s that smell?”

Lucy fell into a sewage drain
Walkin' home from Charlotte’s Tuesday eve.
She kept from breakin’ her glass Santa.
As she plunged and dumped her purse into the street.
(Sing it Charlotte)

Merry Christmas

Lights of the South

As a kid, I never understood why my mother got so disgusted with my father and us kids at Christmas. We would stand back admiring the twinkling, giant, multi-colored bulbs strung across the front porch eaves. My mother would grit her teeth and clench her jaw. My daddy, I think, got special joy out of that part.

Because we only almost fit in with our surrounding rural neighbors, my brothers and sister and I wanted to take it to the next level and outline all the windows and the air conditioning unit with Christmas lights. We wanted a long, extra strand, with nowhere to go, to hang off the side of the roof. We wanted our daddy to pull the boat to the front yard and string it with lights, too. But I think he refused us because he knew he could go just so far in crossing our mama; especially during the holidays.

Last night I came home to my otherwise undecorated house to find two columns with garland crudely twisted around them. The garland had lights knotted in it and a thousand pastel pink, blue, and green shiny bells hanging from it. Someone had even collected a couple of sprays of nandina berries and plugged those in along the winding route.

My children met me at the door, saying, "Did you see? Don't you love it?" I tried to relax my jaw and managed a weak smile at my proud husband standing behind my brood, all of whom said, in unison, "Let's show her, Daddy!" They dragged me by the hand out to the front yard, and, as my legs hardly worked at this point, turned me to face the house.

"Ready?" called my groom. "Ready!" our offspring shouted. Suddenly the left side of my house lit up with the brightest white lights man has ever made. But they didn't twinkle. They shuddered and jerked and flashed and chased and did a routine that looked like an emergency SOS signal to overhead aircraft. "There are 13 options for light patterns," my husband explained. "We'll have to tweak it some."

New neighbors moved in down the street last weekend. By Sunday night they had their tree up, decorated, and lit in the bay window. The Jones' have got perfection. I've got two columns on the left side of my house that, during the day, look like debris caught on them in a heavy wind and, during the night, send motorists into seizures. I've got slow moving traffic coming down my street to view authentic lights of the south. And I've got an expression on my face that looks just like my mother's once did. And I've got a husband who hopefully knows it would not be a good idea to cross me much further during the holidays.

Just the Right Insult for the Occaision

As every southerner knows, male or female, insults must be tailored to the occasion. And as Thanksgiving is pecking at the door, I thought I would give you one to pack in your bags and take to your relatives, who by Thursday afternoon will have sufficiently annoyed you enough to break it out and leave on ice as you depart.

All good, decent, upstanding, moral southern women currently stand in kitchens, dining rooms, and butler pantries all over Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, the Carolinas, Arkansas, Kentucky, and other less desirable places to which they have been unfortunately relocated, polishing, along with their silver, their tongues. They rehearse, in private, how they will tell Uncle Bubba to smoke out on the porch, and Aunt Viola to stay out of the kitchen, and other things of that nature.

All good, decent, upstanding, moral southern men currently stand in driveways all over Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, the Carolinas, Arkansas, Kentucky, and other less desirable places to which they have been unfortunately relocated, with their leaf blowers revved, thinking how they will run interference between their side of the family and hers. They blow leaves in and out of the driveway for a very long time.

By Thursday at noon, extended families will have piled into cars and driven to the homes of hosts and hostesses, for the lunch to end all lunches. Some will cope by imbibing liquor squirreled away in secret stashes. Others will survive through psychological or physical withdrawal. At any rate, nerves will rub raw by 6p.m. and you, my friend, will have the ultimate survival technique, gleaned from these pages. You will have an insult tailored to the occasion:

Say, confidentially to the family gossip in hushed whispers, "Good heavens, can you believe ___________? She acts like a guest in her own home!" Then kiss Thanksgiving good-bye, because as all good, decent, upstanding, moral southerners know, Thanksgiving is a designated fighting holiday.

Georgia on My Mind

Last Sunday, my husband confided in me, after a long period of silence, "I've been doing some number crunching in my head, and a lot of things have to happen just right, but I think I've got it figured out. Georgia still has a chance to play for the NCAA National Championship." I nodded and smiled at him, like I was taught to do in my Abnormal Psychology class at the University of Georgia.

Last Saturday the Dawgs beat Troy State, and, more importantly, the Saturday prior to that, they whooped up on Florida. The residual euphoria still coursed through his veins, reintroducing the season of optimism, temporary, but welcome all the same. And as of yesterday's blackout in Athens, I believe we might well ride the tide of sagunity all the way through December.

Which leaves me wondering, as I enjoy the fringe benefits of my husband getting wrapped up in delusional happiness and excitement (forget the convoluted reasoning behind it), why so many women don't embrace football and all the black magic that comes with it.

Housewife Gone Missing

Whenever I hear about a housewife gone missing, I always wonder if anyone thought to check for her under the dirty laundry. I mean, seriously, tugging one white sock from the mountain of darks could easily cause a dangerous jeans slide. If I'm ever on the missing persons list, please alert my family to the very real possibility that the never ending clothes pile might have finally killed me, just like I always said it would. And make sure my children know it was the neatly folded, never worn, clean shirt shoved in with everything else that finished me off.