The Gift of Gold

Dear Ms. F,

Please excuse the jBird from being tardy to school on Friday. You see, there was something in the air.
Surely you understand as both a teacher and a mother that I am constantly in awe of this little person who decided to take a chance on me. She is such an independent child, so surely you understand how I spend a lot of time trying to convince her to lay all her love on me.

I know that school is important, especially in this particularly competitive school where the winner takes it all. And she's a mild mannered child, without an attitude of gimme! gimme! gimme!, so I realize she may fall behind her peers, but I really doubt being a few minutes late will be her Waterloo.

And I'm sure you can imagine my delight in seeing her shining like the sun; dancing, having fun, feeling like a number one. She was the dancing queen, dig it, the dancing queen. I know she'll have a little extra work to make up, but I'm sure she'll be fine. She's a super trouper.

Again, I apologize for her tardiness, but please mark her excused because I have a dream - a fantasy - to help me through reality. I don't want my jBird to grow up and remember that she was on time every single day to school. I want her to turn to me and say: Remember that time in 2nd grade I was late to school because we had to have an ABBA Gold dance party?


Surely you understand.

Sincerely,
Tangled Up in Lou

The Gift of Really Good Advice

We received some completely unsolicited and wholly appalling marital advice the other day that said a whole lot more about the advisor than the state of our marriage. The aforementioned appalling advice has instantly become a source of gaiety and ribaldry with the Chief Lou and myself, but it also has kind of left me wondering. Why, exactly, did our acquaintance (I emphasize acquaintance here, because he really doesn't know us at all other than to say hello. He consistently calls one of our children by the wrong name) feel the need to impart this bit of wisdom to us? Was he excited to have stumbled upon it himself and just had to share with the first hapless victims that walked by? Has he been doling out this bit of hot information to everyone he knows? Or was there something specific to us that made him think we might need to know? Who knows, really?

Like most unsolicited advice, it was completely useless to us. But maybe it's useful to someone? There must be something about me that screams "completely lost" because I am the recipient of a whole string of these gems. Since they are useless to me, I'll pass them on because maybe they're just what you've been looking for. I doubt it.

On dating:

• You should bleach your hair if you want to find a boyfriend. Men like blondes better.
• If you would just tone down the smart thing, more guys would like you.
• You should date women.
• Men won't date you because you're so spontaneous. No one wants to date someone they can't control.

On marriage:

• Make your husband sign a pre-nup before you put him through law school. Once he graduates he will probably not be as interested in you.
• Don't let your husband see your dirty clothes so that you can "keep the magic alive".
• After your husband turns 40 he will start looking around. Keep an eye on his co-workers.

On children:

• Run the vacuum cleaner or turn the TV up really loud while your newborn is napping so they can learn to deal with noise.
• You don't really need to worry so much about their happiness. They need to just learn to deal with the fact that you're the boss.
• You really shouldn't hug your son so much. He needs to learn how to be a "real man".

I kid you not, these are a random sampling of things that people have actually said to me. Obviously, I know some people with some issues.

Sometimes people ask my advice about things. This amazing-but-true fact is one that leaves me scratching my head and wondering if perhaps all of their sane friends were busy. My go-to advice is usually: "Don't take people's advice very seriously." But last night during our family movie night, I rediscovered what will be my new all-purpose advice. If anyone wants my opinion about anything at all, I will smile knowingly, clasp their hands in mine, and deliver this sage bit of wisdom:

"Always let the Wookiee win."

Is there anything Han Solo doesn't know how to deal with? And honestly, it's about as useful as most of the advice I'm given.