“You can’t win it if you’re not in it.”\
That’s Petey’s response whenever there’s a lottery jackpot that nears a billion dollars and I start mentally spending it. And I’m never in it—I don’t know how to buy anything other than the automatic computer-generated ticket or even its price.
But we do both make the occasional appeal to Lady Luck in the form of entering the odd drawing, both online and in person.
I once won a Lindt milk chocolate Easter bunny. It was delivered in a huge Styrofoam cooler the size of the trunk the Astor’s took on the Titanic. The candy was the size of my hand. It was delicious.
Years ago, the convenience store near our house had a drawing for a child-sized, pedal-powered Oscar Mayer wiener car that Petey entered, and won. It was just like the one in the commercials that they drive around the country. But shrunken down for a kid the size of a three or four-year-old.
Unfortunately, The Kid was seven or eight. Our poor child looked like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stuffed inside a Smart Car. Can you smell what the Rock is driving?
So, we gave it to the three-year-old daughter of a close family friend. You should have seen her zooming around the neighborhood in a seven-foot hotdog—it was a sight to behold.
A few years later, I was in a Hallmark shop and registered for another drawing. It was for a very large stuffed dog, modeled on Coconut, from the American Girl dolls collection.
In a shocking twist, I won it.
Then the fun began. This thing was honestly the size of a Shetland pony. Getting it in the car was an adventure accompanied by much struggle, sweat, and many PG13 to R rated words. Driving home, we looked like we were trying to smuggle a fat white buffalo. Then, The Kid had to find a place for this behemoth, although at thirteen or so, my poor child was actually kind of over stuffed animals, even fluffy ones that took up as much space as a circus calliope.
Finally, a few years later, The Kid was able to pass it on to a patsy, I mean a friend, with a much younger sibling who loved owning it.
Which brings us to my latest win.
A few weeks ago, Petey and I ran into our local Panera. In the summer, I down gallons of their green smoothies. They’re healthy, tasty, filling, and I feel particularly virtuous drinking them. In the restaurant’s entrance, they had a jar for business cards from which they would periodically draw a lucky winner.
So, I tossed in one of mine.
Last week, catering manager Jamonda called and informed me I’d won, and the prize was lunch for my entire office. Since I work from home, my normal officemates are couch, dog, and Petey. So, today I gathered together in Greensboro, many of the friends and family that regularly donate time, elbow grease and expertise which facilitate getting this column into print.
And I took up a little something from Panera. A little something contained in two love seat-sized bags; drinks, soups, sandwiches, salads, crusty baguettes, and a variety of their freshly baked pastries. It was a crazy generous bounty, and everyone ate like it was Thanksgiving dinner, with leftovers that Petey and I have been snacking on all evening.
So, to sum up; unless somebody wants to give me three quarters of a billion Samolians, I’ll take the Panera spread every time.
Or maybe the chocolate—the chocolate would be good too.
Thanks for your time.
Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.
Almost a hundred times a day I tell Petey, and anybody else who’s not quick enough to run away that I am not at all pleased with the way summers go around here. I have threatened for years to file a complaint.
I am writing today to express my dissatisfaction with the summers you and your association have recently been distributing to humans. In the next seven days, the high temperatures for North Carolina range from 90 to well over 100 degrees. Today in Kuwait it was over 120 degrees. This week in France the mercury has risen to over 110 degrees.
The heat is relentless. It seems as if there is a personal, malevolent component to make everyone miserable and grumpy. Morning, noon, or late at night, being outside for more than ten minutes results in flushing, sweating, and frizzy hair. Everything and everyone is limp and lacks energy and enthusiasm.
The result is no one wants to do anything except hang out in swimming pools eating ice cream. But people have obligations they must attend to, only a small population has access to pools, and a diet solely consisting of ice cream would quickly have a deleterious effect upon one’s health.
Temperature: From May until late September the average high temperature should be no more than 80 degrees with most days being a comfortable 74-77 degrees.
Rain: We need it, so I’ll leave it in your experienced hands, but the heat that causes soupy steam to rise from paved surfaces is completely unacceptable. I’m a North Carolinian so I understand that hurricanes are a fact of life, but tornadoes are unnecessary and just seem mean-spirited.
On a personal note; as one woman of a certain age to another I am sure you can understand the discomfort I have been experiencing and the poor humor which then results. I unfortunately do not have the power to strike with lightening the most aggravating with whom I must contend.
I look forward to your reply concerning these horrible summers that humanity has been enduring. I understand that you are a busy woman with a large territory under your purview which could make a timely and satisfactory conclusion problematic. Because of this I feel a fair resolution concerning this untenable weather should be achievable within ninety days.
Well, I feel better anyway.
Until 1982, Disneyland issued ticket books to visitors. Each ticket was lettered A-E. The “A” tickets were for easy, sedate rides like the merry-go-round. The “E” ticket was good for a go on scarier rides like Matterhorn and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Monday night, on returning from visiting my parents, we discovered our phone and internet had gone out. We hoped it would be back up in the morning.
I was digging in, when I felt something hard in my mouth. I had bitten down on a piece of the granola and broken a big chunk off one of my molars. Awesome.
Before I could react, it crawled deep inside and we both started freaking out. The invader flapped and fluttered, and I danced around like an electrocuted ballerina going, “Oooooh Nooooo! Oooooh Jeeeeeez! Oooooh colorful-but-unprintable-interjection!”
I needed to visit a medical professional, but the cable guy was coming. Alone, I headed off to urgent care while Petey waited at home. Awesome.
I put the object in a bag, and Petey rushed me back to the dentist. Once there, we discovered the crown in place, but my tech had no idea what the object was. She went to get the dentist for his opinion.
As I sheepishly left with my laughing spouse, I could hear the dental office in the midst of similar side-splitting merriment.
Thanks for your time.
Are you old enough to remember that? Every time I went to Belk Tyler’s and JC Penney’s with my mom, she’d get a small bag of cashews. They were kept in a small, lightbulb-warmed, glass-fronted case that sat on the wrap desk. The nuts were scooped into little lined paper sacks that made a delicious, anticipatory crinkly sound when the sales lady filled them.
Looking back, when I was a kid there was a lot of stuff that went on that didn’t make a lick of sense. But at the time, those things seemed perfectly reasonable to everyone.
I was in junior high before our family car had seatbelts. The only baby seats were the laps of adults. I and every kid I knew regularly napped in that shelf between the back seat and back window. In the mid-seventies, our family owned a VW bug, and when there were more people than seats, I sat in the tiny space behind the back seat. If we’d ever been rear ended, they would have had to use tweezers to gather me together.
I’m not sure if we had toys or potential exhibits at the manslaughter trial. Lawn darts: sure kids, here are some metal darts with tips sharper and more lethal than the arrows headhunters use. So make sure you throw them into the ground and not at your little brother.
Slip & slide? More like slip and call the insurance company and see what our deductible is for personal injury. Older children with a scientific bent were given chemistry sets—basically child-sized meth kits.
Our Halloween costumes came in boxes; cover-alls that tied at the neck and plastic face masks that stayed on by a thin elastic thread. If we behaved while trick-or-treating and Mom was in a good mood, we’d get to wear them to bed. We had choices like Barbie, GI Joe, and Underdog. But these suits were so flammable it was like we were running around the neighborhood wearing shiny, colorful explosives.
Upset tummy? Every home medicine cabinet had a bottle of Paregoric, which settled even the worst stomachaches. The reason was it was chock full of morphine, which effectively paralyzed our innards. A cold with a cough was treated with a heaping spoonful of medicine full of codeine. A scraped knee could give you a touch of brain damage when the antiseptic dabbed on it was Mercurochrome, a mercury-laden wonder drug.
Thinking about the vast difference between my childhood and kids of today makes me think. I wonder if, in thirty years, parents will be shocked and appalled that when they were little, they were actually allowed to walk in the scary, dangerous outdoors on their own two feet, they used their teeth to chew potentially harmful solid food, and they hadn’t even invented bubble wrap suits yet.
So, it looks like slumber parties are quickly becoming a thing of the past for many. Because of the threat of disastrous social media postings propelled by the poor judgement of children combined with nervous helicopter parents, many families are opting out.
As best as I can tell, slumber parties became a mostly American thing after World War II. Madison Avenue sold the whole “suburban, two kids and a dog, backyard cookouts, summer vacations, car in the garage, wifey in the kitchen” scenario. Parents who just a few years earlier had learned that life can be changed forever in a moment wanted to live that safe and comfortable ideal.
Pajama parties declared to the world there was enough room, food, and fun to share. That here was an average middle-class families that belonged. Just like Donna Reed, Leave It To Beaver, and Ozzie and Harriot; they were neither different nor unconventional.
I grew up going to and throwing slumber parties. I consider myself somewhat of an authority on the rituals of mid-late 20th century pre-adolescent overnight accommodation festivities.
The guest list is usually populated from classmates. But there are always one or two kids that the host knows from scouts, or dance class, or somewhere else. This child will know no one else and unless of unusually strong personality, feels like a duck at an armadillo farm.
There will be a sad sack. This is a child with little or no sleepover experience who is both timid and quiet. Often the child’s presence on the guest list is at the mom’s behest and will be cousin, younger neighbor child, or child of a parent’s friend. 
The glamorous child. This kid is possibly a bit older, but definitely more sophisticated. In a room of tweens, she will be the only one with a bra and a boyfriend. Pajamas will be silky rather than snuggly and lip gloss will not be clear. Almost always gets her own way when she declares something is “lame”.
The suck-up. This is the same kid that in school reminds the teacher she forgot to assign homework. This kid is kind of a pill and will strongly object to most of the dares in “Truth or Dare”. But she will get help if things go south, and her mere attendance will keep the shenanigans from going from mischief territory into felony-ville.
At least one person will get their feelings hurt and there will be tears—often from the sad sack, but sometimes it will be the young hostess. Emotions are high at these parties, and the hormones flow like beer at a frat party. Normally the rest of the invitees will then go into protective mode and tissues, “I love yous”, and promises of undying friendship will abound.
There’s also a high probability that at least one child will call their parents to be picked up. Homesickness is the most desirable motivation, but much more likely will be the result of upset tummies and unsightly fluidic eruptions.
Thanks for your time.
But at the very end of the show, Monty and his lovely assistant Carol Merrill would roam the audience. They’d pick a woman, and award $50 or so if she could pull a random item from her purse. It could be almost anything; a bobby pin, a spoon, a band-aid or a postcard.
When my dad asked me about upcoming columns, I told him I was toying with the idea of an inventory of my bag.
So what follows is a heavily redacted list—but only because of space constraints. The items may be numerous but are definitely not a risk to national security. Not top secret, just overly abundant.
I have approximately forty thousand consumer loyalty badges collected on a keychain which also holds a brass penguin and a souvenir fob from JFK airport that has the New York skyline on one side and DEBBIE on the other, which perpetually flashes off and on, thanks to a very reliable photocell.
There are many other objects, both sacred and profane in my old curiosity bag. Every time I reach into the black hole that is my tote, I find something that I’ve either forgotten about or is so unexpected I’m sure it must have been placed there by ghosts.
Thanks for your time.
Gentle Reader, I listen to music constantly; ear buds in, I wrap myself in the musical arms of whichever style and artist I’m in the mood for. Often, and alarmingly, I sing along, although my dulcet tones would sound more appropriate coming from rusty machinery or a bag of broken glass thrown out a window.
But there’s something about live music. The give and take between artist and audience. The shared affection of large groups for performer. Nuance and spontaneity that cannot exist in recordings.
Last weekend The Kid and I went to the Ritz, in Raleigh, to see 
The next band was 
During their first song, I decided they weren’t bad. Then they went into their second number, and along with the entire crowd, I watched it with my jaw on the ground. These guys were amazing. I could feel the delighted astonishment that flowed through the crowd. We were all musical Madame Curie’s and they were our discovery—we were instant fans.
Cochran had an endearing charm, the cheeky good humor that drummers are famous for, and the ability of the best classic rockers. Gorman’s guitar riffs and electronic sound manipulation had us all cheering and gasping in near-unison. Their singing and performances were glorious and so full of emotion, that at one point I was afraid the boys might have a stroke. Their cover of Neil Young’s Vampire Blues was so exciting and intense I wanted a cigarette when it was over.
They’ve recently been signed by a major recording label which will soon release the first single. I will keep you informed with date and info.
As musical “All About Eve” scenarios faded from my head, Graves played his first song, 
He played songs like
I just smiled and nodded my head along to the music.
bull city mom 