A shorts story that's kind of long: For better or WORSE

"First we'll mow the lawn. Next we'll trim the hedges and then, finally, we'll bed down the gardens for the winter," Brad announced, ticking off the items on his fingers while simultaneously ticking off his wife. This was, obviously, a nightmare. But as my slave labor had sloughed off to San Diego in a genius maneuver of getting out of chores, I was the one left holding the bag (of lawn clippings). "I did (idiotically) say for better or worse," I muttered as I adjusted my bright pink headphones before yanking the lawn mower cord fifty times. Brad abandoned his own mower and approached mine, pulled the cord once, and gave me a thumbs up. "Thanks," I yelled sarcastically over the sound of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody drowning out my shuddering mower. I also offered Brad's back a finger of my own. For some unfathomable reason, in Brad's opinion, completing household tasks together (ugh) falls into the for better category. Not eating a vat of chocolate pudding together. No. Mowing the lawn...together.  That's for better? Is he crazy?!? Well...as always, the blog speaks for itself.

I have to admit having a groovy new phone has really improved lawn mowing for me. Rather than chanting I hate this fifty ka-zillion times in between calculating how much it would cost to gravel my lawn before realizing it would just be cheaper to hire a hit-man, I am instead chanting I hate this in between choruses of 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. And thank God for Queen. I had over half of the front lawn done (crooked because I was enthusiastically head-banging blind for most of it) before I realized the song was about my life:  Bismillah! No, he will not let me go (inside) - let me go! Will not let me go! Let me go (never) No, no, no, no, no, no, no! I didn't dare air guitar because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get the mower started again and couldn't emotionally bear another cheerful thumbs up. I'll show him where to stick that thumb. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. I love Brad Mosiman.

A downside of the headphones that no one told me is a medical condition called swamp-ear. It was like my ears were maple sap sweat spiles. Oh how I wish that my oddly-shaped ear canals could anchor those cute little buds! Without the necessary funds for corrective ear canal surgery to straighten out the mysterious labyrinth that is my auditory chamber, I am resigned to wearing musical ear-muffs. It is the cross I must bear until my gofundme comes through.

My lawn mowing finale was cut short when I was chased by a snake. "Time for lunch," Brad announced after finishing both of our sections.

Maybe he'll forget about the rest of his list, I wished fervently through lunch as we watched Barney parade a pageant's worth of perspective suitors for Andy through his living room. We were surprised to learn that neither of us ever thought that Helen was the right choice for Mayberry's sheriff. "I always liked Ellie," I said. "Me too," Brad agreed. Wow. Thirty years of marriage and we're still learning important things about one another. "Okay," Brad began, "time for those hedges." Oh no.

Shouldn't that be a one-person job? I mean, it's not like we can BOTH hold onto the hedge trimmers. But no. I was assigned the important role of rake master. "What are you doing?" Brad asked as I stood at the ready, holding the rake. "I'm holding the rake," I told him. "You're suppose to be raking along the bushes so I can see if I missed any parts," he said. "Really? Rake the bushes?" I was befuddled. He has to be making that up. Trimming up the forsythia bush, we encountered some limbs too thick for the hedge clippers. What to do? IGNORE THEM, I screamed in my head.  Brad was already on his way to collect another power tool. "The lilac bush could use some shaping," Brad mused as I moaned. I was now wrestling branches bigger than me into my wheelbarrow. Wait! Where did this wheelbarrow come from? The sun was beginning to set. "Where are you going?" Brad asked. "I'm dumping the wheelbarrow," I told him. "We have to dump it over the hill," Brad explained. I looked at our overgrown field to the hill in the distance. He nodded. Tears welled in my eyes. "We'll have to get the trailer," he smiled.

"What are you doing now?" I asked, squinting as dusk shaded him from his precarious perch in the pine tree. With a power tool. Balanced with one leg on the rail of our trailer and the other leg braced against the tree, Brad wrestled a branch down. And then another. And then another. Until he realized that I hadn't latched the trailer's hitch to the 4-wheeler properly. A small "who's-at-fault" debate almost concluded the evening's activities until Brad realized what was happening and accepted blame for his near-death experience so we could continue working...by the light of the flippin' moon, y'all!!! The font might be arial but the tone was pure Southern outrage. So with enough lumber to keep a saw mill busy for a week, we loaded up the trailer and headed for the hills. My job was to sit among the wood to keep it steady for the ride. I was, in all actuality, a human-kabob. When we reached our destination, Brad had to extract me like I was a little marble from a Ker-plunk game. A sudden sound, like a tear in the space/time continuum gap, had us both freezing in place. "Was that your pants?" Brad asked slowly. I stared at him, wide-eyed (by the light of the flippin' moon, y'all) and nodded. "Are those your favorite shorts?" he asked. I nodded. "I think we're done for the day," he said.

Joan's perfect gift: What's your spirit animal?

"You do realize, don't you, that you guys have been searching for your so-called chapstick cozy for over forty-five minutes?" Savannah sighed, incredulously bored yet admittedly fascinated regarding the lengths Sydney and I will go to acquire Joan the perfect present. A present that reflects the perfect balance of we care about you and we want to make fun of you. Following Joan's recent chapstick catastrophe, we knew we had a winner. 

"Do they even sell chapstick cozies?" Sydney wondered, doubting me as usual. "Of course they do," I responded confidently. This time, I actually WAS confident as I had remembered sporting a ski jacket with a handy little chapstick cozy dangling from my zippered pocket. It was plausible that I was hallucinating this memory as I don't ski but as Jimmy states in Blades of Glory, "If you can dream it, you can do it!" Buy a chapstick cozy, that is.

It turns out that there are a LOT of chapstick cozies out there. One to match any person's style or personality. Doilied, embroidered, bedazzled, glittered, plain, fancy, sophisticated, understated, and yes...leather-crafted. Score!

Our enthusiasm almost limited our vision when we stumbled onto the handmade cowhide snap-close containers with a spirit animal etched lovingly upon it. And while we were disappointed that it didn't have a retractable zip-line attachment, we decided that that wouldn't be a deal breaker. After all. according to the product description, the tube shape holder perfectly holds your daily vitamin pills or your personal secrets. "Does Joan have chapstick-sized personal secrets?" Sydney wondered. "Well...now she has a place to put them!" I said happily. Who needs a retractable zip-line when you have a place to stash your personal secrets?

Our argument narrowing down color selection was brief as Joan is more of an earth-tone girl. "Teal's too flashy," I insisted, "unless she's taking it to Vegas." But was Joan's spirit animal more hawk or bull? Do we honor her agrarian roots or her soaring spirit? Her work ethic and fiscal responsibility or her predatory nature and excellent eyesight?  Savannah, demonstrating admirable restraint, was refusing to contribute her opinion to this mind-boggling decision. We needed a break. "Are you kidding me?" Savannah gasped. "You've been debating this for almost an hour. Just CHOOSE one!" Ignoring her, we amused ourselves by reading customer comments, questions, and reviews. We were really struck with the precision employed in the craftsmanship of this product.  When asked about the dimensions of the interior, the seller responded, "Chapstick-sized." But it was while we were enjoying our little brain-break that we inadvertently stumbled onto a THIRD spirit animal! The giant panda! Despite Joan's confrontation with the docent at the San Diego panda enclosure, she LOVES this animal! It was as if fate had intervened. "Thank goodness," Savannah said as we clicked Buy Now. "Remind me never to go with you guys when it's time to buy a car."

"Wow," Joan said a couple of weeks later. "This is...great." I beamed, showing her the features. Snap enclosure. Chapstick-sized interior. Leather craftsmanship. "You can attach it to a zipper," I told her. She examined her gift happily, fiddling with the top. "What are you doing?" I asked her. Joan paused, eyeing the key chain. "I was just thinking that maybe I could add a retractable clip."

Planning your first time

Since the advent of the smartphone, I have spent the bulk of my life pleading others to take a picture before begging, "Please send it to me." From there, I would transmit the image to Brad who would then transfer it to my email (AOL--Hey! Don't judge! It's coming back into fashion.) where I would download it to my hard-drive, save in my picture file and then upload to my blog. It's a labor of love, for you, faithful blog followers.

"Don't you think that maybe it's time to upgrade your phone?" my husband asked, frowning as I vigorously shook my little blue flip-phone, Old Trusty, in an attempt to get it to work. He took the annoying apparatus away from me. "It isn't an etch-a-sketch, you know." I sighed. I'm not one to embrace new technology. I'll take an abacus any day. But during our recent failed quest to join the rest of the world mesmerized by teeny-tiny technology, Sydney and I were horrified to discover that our antiquated phones would soon no longer receive cellular signal.

So we agreed that, during my visit to San Diego, we would...sigh...try again. "Millions of able-bodied adults of more or less sound minds have bought phones without problem," I told my daughter, "We can do this." We arrived promptly when the doors opened on Saturday morning, interrupting the store manager's breakfast of yogurt with granola. Armed with a list of stupid questions, I assaulted Nile with my unique blend of charm and idiocy. Four hours later, Sydney and I were assigned the officious position of in-store greeters, had taken a smoothie break across the road,  purchased a McDonald's hot apple pie for Nile, bought two complicated phones, determined a plan best suited for my lifestyle, added Nile and his associate Gary to my Christmas card list, and was given a tutorial on something called a hot-spot. After pushing a series of buttons in a sequence that certainly must mirror the pass-code key to gain admittance to the Pentagon, Nile thrust the contraption at me. "Now you try," he encouraged. "Before I do that," I said, "could you remind me how to turn my phone on again?" It took three staples to hold my billing statement together. Nile and Gary were sorry to see us go. I reminded them that we'd be seeing them over Thanksgiving.

Sydney was snapping photos before we'd even made it to the parking lot. I shook my head sadly. Somewhere along the line, I'd failed her as a mother. "Your first time should be special," I told her. I, myself, had been planning this moment for a long time...practicing all week.

My friend Joan and I had installed a hummingbird feeder on Sydney's balcony and immediately lured in a little hummingbird named Luigi. Nasty little bugger with the heart and soul of a terrorist, attacking every other hummingbird that dared to draw near. "He's black and white," I complained. "I wanted emerald. Translucent jade. Shimmering sapphire. Instead I get a black and white bird intent on the genocide of his species." But still, he was a hummingbird, nonetheless. For a week, I sat feet from his feeder, acclimating him to my presence. Then I raised my arms, my hands close together, framing his portrait.

With phone in hand, I rushed into the apartment and stationed myself on Syd's balcony like a National Geographic photographer. Sydney flopped down on the nearby sofa and scoffed. "This is never going to work," she told me, "a hummingbird can fly up to fifty miles per hour."

"How do you know that?" I asked incredulously.

"Snapple fact," she muttered. 

Maybe she was right. Maybe I should just have wound up my lips for a selfie duck pout in the parking lot and just gotten it over with. Maybe I'm old-fashioned thinking that one's first time should be magical. And then it happened. My hummingbird hovered near. I held my breath, heart hammering. With outstretched arms braced, my thumb flicked the button. And I was forever changed. My black and white world exploded into vivid color.

Part Six of Joan and Amy's Adventures in San Diego: Four Dollar Toast is Fabulous

"Good morning, my name is Bobby and I'll be your server today."

"Good morning, Bobby," I replied, "We'll be having a kayak rental's worth of breakfast today. We'll start with 2 four dollar and fifty cent glasses of your freshly-squeezed orange juice and an order of your finest four dollar toast, my good man."

Joan and I had decided to spend the day at La Jolla (NOT pronounced with a J--WHY did I decide to take French in high school?!?!!) to tour the sea caves and frolic with the seals and sea lions via kayak tour. Sounds pretty magical, right? Sigh. Never believe the interweb.

So Sydney nervously dropped us off on her way to work. "Are you sure about this?" she asked, "Nine hours is a long time." We assured her that we were excited about our upcoming adventures and not to give us a second thought. We decided to check out the seals first where Joan conducted an extensive scent analysis.

"They smell horrible," Joan grimaced.

"You're from Wyoming County," I said accusingly, "You grew up on a farm."

"Cows and chickens smell like a rose garden compared to this," she gasped.

I was undeterred. "Take my picture," I begged. As we had arrived at the break of dawn it was just us, sleepy sea lions, and insane swimmers. "A little to the left..." Joan advised as a man emerged from the Pacific and stomped towards us. Let's just say there was NO resemblance to Daniel Craig from Casino Royal. Yes, I interrupted my writing to quick watch the clip from Youtube. Judge me all you want. He (the insane swimmer, not Daniel Craig) warned us about getting too close to the seals. The man who was SWIMMING with the seals was warning us about the dangers of seal proximity. I thanked him (the insane swimmer, not Daniel Craig...but remind me later...I DO need to send Daniel Craig a thank you note), high-fived my sea lion friend and marched off. Kidding. I also saw the video of the sea lion who practically ripped off that little girl's arm to drag her to the murky depths of the ocean floor so I have a healthy respect for sea lion proximity.

After Joan lost her second pair of sunglasses (I think they're with all the partner-less dryer socks on some remote island in the Philippines), we headed around the cove to find the kayak rental place. The walk gave us some perspective. "What is the width of the water?" I wondered, "One? Two hundred feet?" We watched as the tour guide stopped the group well outside the sea cave entrance. "Don't we get to paddle INTO the sea cave? I asked. "What's with the dumb helmet? It's not exactly white water rapids out there." We located the venue and were pleased that there were several openings. We were NOT pleased that the cost was comparable to a ticket to Disney. "It's cheaper if we rent a tandem kayak," I told Joan. "Don't even think about it," Joan scoffed, "I know how that story would play out." We decided to head to breakfast instead. "Can we just sit here for nine hours?" I asked Bobby.

"Just rent a kayak and go out by yourselves," Bobby advised, loading us up on Belgium waffles topped with bananas, candied walnuts, Chantilly cream, and REAL maple syrup. We gave Bobby a brief tutorial about real maple syrup. "Vermont is sending you their dregs," Joan explained, holding up her tar-colored container of syrup. Bobby nodded, obviously concerned. I had read the signs about paddling out into restricted waters and was scared of being arrested by the water police. "We're going to hike Expedition Way to see the secret swings," I told him. Bobby looked alarmed. "That's a long hike," he said. I nodded, taking a bite of the most delicious four dollar toast in the world (Did you see the picture?). "I think they took those swings down," he said desperately. I frowned, disappointed. "But it was on my list."

"List? What list? Let me see." Bobby scanned my paper and began muttering, "No...no-no-no-no." He turned back to me. "Can't you just hang out at the beach?"

I spotted a young man zipping by on a one-wheeled motorized skateboard. "Where can we rent those?" I asked excitedly. Bobby pulled a set of keys from his pocket and thrust them at us. "Here. Hang out at my apartment. I have Netflix."

But no. Instead we decided to hike the seven miles of coastline back to the sea cave. Joan was impressed with my endurance. "I think I see shade ahead," I'd gasp and lurch forward. At one point, we shared the shade of a telephone pole in our attempt to escape the sweltering sun. We arrived at the entrance of the sea cave where we first argued about the purchase of water. "It's tepid," I complained, my face flushed fire-engine red. "It doesn't matter," Joan said, wrestling the bottle from my shaking hands. "I will NOT pay two dollars for warm water," I stated emphatically, my vision blurring a bit. "You just paid four dollars for toast," Joan responded. I was feeling light-headed. "It had Nutella on it," I yelled.

Re-hydrated and no longer experiencing hallucinations ("Was I hallucinating or did I pay two dollars for warm water?" I asked Joan when I regained consciousness on a park bench later. "Let it go already," she sighed.), we made a decision about the sea cave based on an informal poll. "Don't go down there," a man with three kids who had just emerged told us, terror blanketing his face. Sydney called on her lunch-break, offering to pick us up but we assured her that we were having a marvelous time. "What are you going to do now?" she asked. We heard her friend Kasey in the background screaming NOT to go into the sea cave. The reported one hundred and forty-five steps decided it for us. "That's one hundred and forty-five steps down," I said, my voice shaking, "and one hundred and forty-five steps up." Joan and I stared out in silence, over the ocean. "That's a lot of steps."

"What did you do next?" Sydney asked later, horrified by our recounting. "We took a nap in La Jolla park and began rationing our Wether's Originals. "You slept in a park?" Sydney gasped. "Yup. On my Winnie-the-Pooh towel." We'd walked the beach. Were lured into a restaurant by a sign promising gelato cookie sandwiches but turns out it was a bait-and-switch and only served healthy teas and smoothies with names like butt-buster promising to sooth my chi. Chi/schmee. Naturally, we stormed out. We ended up soothing our chi with strawberry milkshakes before Savannah saved us...er...I mean picked us up from La Jolla. We have GOT to learn how to Uber.

What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? Amy who was a nervous wreck: Boogie:board failure

"Let's go boogie-boarding after church," I suggested to Sydney, thinking to myself, How hard could it possibly be? There are seven year olds and grandmas out there doing it, for Pete's sake. My friend Joan and Sydney had already boogie-boarded twice during our visit to San Diego and, now, with Joan gone (Don't be sad, friends, she's in a MUCH better place now--Wyoming County), it was my turn to step up to the plate as Sydney's adrenaline-junkie boogie-boarding partner. "Mom, the waves will barely reach your knees," Sydney clarified, "I'm not sure how much adrenaline is going to play into this little adventure of ours."

Before I proceed, allow me to explain that there were several factors against me here, beginning with my admittedly unreasonable but hysterical fear of sharks. "Why would you wear that to a beach?" I snapped at a man sporting a tank top emblazoned with Jaws. It's like Smokey the Bear wearing a snazzy t-shirt advertising matches. Second, there is the matter of my limited vision. My optometrist once requested a special consultation with Brad. "If she ever loses her glasses in the woods," he told my husband, "tie a rope around her immediately and tether her to you." We laughed. He didn't. He even made a little note of it in my file Frequent followers of my blog are already well-acquainted with my marked lack of athleticism so I don't think we need to re-hash that topic.

Add to these well-established factors, a new one: What the hell is a riptide? That's all anyone talks about here aside from bragging about their grass-fed beef. You know those dooms-sayer prophets who stand on street-corners proclaiming the end of the world?I took up residence screaming about how ALL cows are grass fed. "Hay is grass, people!" I shouted to passing cars. "Silage? Guess what? Grass! You're living in a commercially-induced fantasy world designed to force you to pay four dollars more for your hamburger!" A nice man gave me a dollar for my cause. "Don't even get me started on reverse osmosis water," I told him.

So, with my heart hammering wildly, I walked blindly into the ocean, tethered to my boogie-board. I swished my ankle around in the Pacific. "What are you doing?" Sydney asked. "I'm testing the water for a rip-current," I told her. The first wave knocked me down. "That was actually more of a ripple," Sydney reported, picking me back up.

"Normally I'm a big fan of your excellent posture," she told me after she'd picked me up three more times before we'd even gotten in to knee-high water, "but maybe you should spread your stance out a bit and lower your center of gravity."

Oh my goodness, Syd must have sucked in too much of that reverse osmosis water. She was going California-kooky. "You can't change your center of gravity," I informed her as I was almost swept away in a rip-current. "You think apples are going to start falling up now?" 

"Try bending your knees," she sighed.

We finally made it out where we could catch some gnarly waves. "I think that's a shark over there," I whispered to Sydney (so as not to catch the attention of the Great White lurking nearby). "That's another swimmer," Sydney said. She clarified that the thirty sharks surrounding us were ALL swimmers before beginning my boogie-boarding lesson.

"I love your sunglasses," I said, squinting at her.

"Thanks, they're perfect for boogie-boarding because they stay flush to my face."

Well...let's just say they WERE perfect.

"Mom," Sydney sputtered, "it works better if you jump WHEN I say jump instead of AFTER I say jump."

It was a rip-wave if I've ever seen one...well, if I could have seen one. It crashed over the top of me, grinding me out like a human cigarette on the ocean floor. Sydney had to make a choice: Her sunglasses or her mother.

"I think we're done for the day," she said, brushing buckets of sand out of my hair before leading me back to my corrective lenses laying safely hidden in my shoe thanks to the unwritten code of the beach. We watched as a lifeguard pulled up in his fancy golf cart and announced to the ocean the presence of a rip-current. Sydney and I scanned the ocean for evidence. How do they know? Is it a different shade of blue? I've helpfully decided to google this so you'll know: The website was titled Learn How To Identify a Rip Current So You Don't Die On Spring Break. Very reassuring. Apparently there are tell-tale gaps in the water (Like Moses-Parts the-Red-Sea gap?). Look for discolored water (like yellow?) and an alarming line of seaweed going in the wrong direction. 

I apologized all the way back to the car. "I'm sorry I ruined our fun time," I told her as we paused to watch two Monarch butterflies playing? Locked in battle? Oh...we blushed and hurriedly moved on.

"Don't you dare be sorry," she scolded, "You tried really hard. I bet you'd be a great boogie-boarder if you could see...the sea." Who knew that my fear of sharks and rip currents would make me consider corrective laser eye surgery?

Part Five of Joan and Amy's Adventures in San Diego: Going to the beach (in a caftan) is the pits

Aside from the sand, the sweltering sun, and the seaweed...I love the beach. I even purchased a swimsuit caftan, anticipating that I would be spending time seaside along San Diego's sunny shores. But, because of my height and width, the plus-size cover-up barely covered my plus-size posterior. (pronounced boo-taye in the Mosiman house. "Not by me," Brad corrected. "Or me," Savannah added.).

"I think it's cute," Sydney reassured me, "I love the orange fringe at the bottom." "I look like I'm wearing a set of drapes," I complained. Joan shrugged, "If Scarlett O'Hara could do it...why not you?" Thus bolstered, I squared-up my shoulders and, with chin held high, slogged through ankle-high sand to claim our spot on the crowded beach.

"Isn't it just called a cover-up?" Sydney asked as we wrestled beach chairs, boogie boards, backpacks, and coolers across a seemingly endless desert, "I've never heard of a caftan." "You also never heard of a hassock but we had one in our livingroom for your entire childhood," I gasped, heat blisters forming along the bottoms of my tender feet. "Is it pronounced caf-tan?" Joan wondered, walking like a cat with tape on her feet, "or caft-an?" "Is it ka like the Egyptian god or ca as in catapult?" Sydney added with interest. She was mastering the art of beach navigation by mimicking the familiar movements of a marching band drum majorette. I was really beginning to regret this purchase.

We finally set up our spot. Unable to at first trust the unwritten code of the beach, Joan initially stood guard over her $12 watch and my cell phone from the early 80s until the lure of the sea was too much. I stayed out in the water until the ocean knocked me down. Returning to my beach chair, I read and mindlessly consumed cherries, placing each stem and pit carefully in my sandal. "A lady NEVER lets her pits show," I told Sydney, bestowing yet another timeless nugget of priceless womanly advice upon my daughter.

I watched benignly as Joan and Sydney whooped it up in the Pacific. We were easily the loudest ones in the ocean. Suddenly, a stomach cramp of epic proportions came upon me like a rogue wave and I was tossed from my beach chair like so much flotsam. I went fetal on my sand sheet. "Mom! Are you okay?" Sydney yelled, having spotted my sudden disappearance from the sea. "Too...many...cherries..." I moaned.  Of all the ways I'd imagined going, a fruit overdose hadn't even made my top one hundred. Sydney and Joan immediately began packing up.

"Wait," Sydney said, "Mom's saying something."

Joan leaned over my prone figure, pressing her ear close like my head was a giant shell and, if she listened hard enough, she would be able to hear the ocean AT the ocean. Living the dream.

"What is it, Amy?" she asked, "What can we do?"

"Don't forget my caftan," I whispered.

Part Four of Joan & Amy's Adventures in San Diego: The Chapstick Catastrophe

 "I don't have enough laundry for a whole load," Joan announced mournfully. "First world problem," I snapped at her. My schedule was already packed with a full day of television watching. I did not have time for her inability to do nothing. "Surely you must have some laundry," Joan said wistfully. "For Pete's sake," I yelled, "Fine!" I stomped into my room.

We'd been some years away from a coin-operated washing machine but we managed. Forty-five minutes later, after I'd watched three-quarters of an episode of "Shameless" and Joan had made all the beds in the apartment, done the dishes, and made Rice Krispie treats, we were ready for the transition. It looked like a ticker tape parade had marched through our laundry. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment. "I'm so sorry," I apologized to Joan as we began grooming our wet clothes like baboons at the zoo. "I must have forgotten to check my pockets." A dollar later had our dainties dancing away in the dryer.

Forty-five minutes later, after I'd finished one episode of "Shameless" and began another while Joan adjusted Sydney's screen, assembled an oscillating fan, hammered up a hummingbird feeder, and made her own unique blend of sugar water, "It's an old family recipe," she told me. "Shhh..." I answered, we released our laundry from the dryer.

"What the hell!?!?" Joan screamed. I am rarely this passionate about my laundry so this was fascinating. "What?" I asked, pretending to care. "My clothes are covered with stains," Joan screeched, "My favorite capris are ruined!" This certainly was a mystery. Ordinarily, clothes tend to come out of being washed cleaner than when they've been put in. I peered into the dryer. A-ha! Or is it Eureka? There, in the cavernous chamber, lay our complimentary veterinary clinic chapstick container. It had been both a bane and a blessing in our lives. "Here you go, Amy," the receptionist had said, smiling. "Maybe you could knock a buck off the bill and keep your complimentary chapstick," I suggested. She giggled (because I'm so funny). Then, on the plane, among her long list of other complaints, Joan lamented the loss of her own chapstick. "Here," I'd said, feeling generous, "take mine."

"How is it that YOUR laundry doesn't have any stains?" Joan complained. It was rather miraculous. Think parting of the Red Sea-type of event. "Don't just sit there (watching Shameless)," she screeched, "Google something." Can do. A few keywords later, I began reading helpful suggestions to Joan who was elbow deep in Dawn dish detergent bubbles. "Helpful Suggestion Number One," I read, "Check your pockets before doing laundry."

"Funny, Amy," she snarled. I showed her the screen. "It's a little too late for that," she stated, "What else does it say?"

"Helpful Suggestion Number Two recommends vodka," I told her.

"That is helpful," Joan agreed, "Find me some vodka and a glass. Anything else?"

"How about butane?"

"Also helpful," she agreed, scrubbing her stained clothes vigorously, "as I am going to have to burn my entire wardrobe if these stains don't come out."

The stains didn't come out.

I subtly replaced our fallen comrade with a keylime-flavored chapstick while Joan stomped around San Diego in stained clothes. As she packed to go home, I insisted that she take it as a parting gift. "Planes suck all the moisture out of your skin," I told her, "You don't want to end up with raisin lips." I'd already made sure that she wasn't wearing white socks with her black sneakers. I didn't need the airplane people labeling her with a cruel nickname. Raisin Lips would be hard to shake. "They're going to be too busy staring at all the stains on my clothes to bother noticing my lips," Joan assured me before disappearing into the airport. Meanwhile I was already pursuing Amazon for Joan's upcoming birthday present. Suggestion Number Four was a keychain chapstick cozy.