Sans Mom

According to my second favorite news source (E! News holding the #1 position-embarrassingly enough) Yahoo News reports that a new reality show is in production. It seems we as a society just can't quench our desire to lurk into the lives of total strangers. The reality shows fill a void the soap operas can't, adding a new dimension-the This could happen to you element. And there is very little grey area within the world of reality TV. People's lives are either a train wreck or fabulous beyond your wildest dreams. Strangely enough, I'm more apt to tune in to those who's lives are in ruin or have some element of tragedy coursing throughout. I guess on some unconscious level I gain a sense of satisfaction when I see just what a curse all that fame, fortune and beauty can be.


I'm betting that this is precisely what the producers of this new series are hoping to hone in on. The show chronicles the lives of the men and children left to survive on their own when the entire population of women leave. Yes, they send all of the women off (to a resort) and watch to see what happens when men are left to deal with the children entirely sans mamma!


I've never left my children alone with the husband for more than 3 or 4 days, but feel that that's ample time to gain at least a glimpse of what will take place in the show, and in reality, it makes for a better comedy than any other genre.

I'm fortunate, The Husband has always played a very active parenting role. In fact, he took on night duty when our first was only weeks old, since I was going back to work and had to be up by 5:00am. He also dressed and hauled both children to daycare each morning without any assistance from Moi. So I really never doubted his abilities when I did have to leave them alone for more than a couple of days. I was confident that things would be just fine, and they were.

As a teacher, I could always tell when Mom was out of town. Little girls would show up to class with twist ties in place of ponytail holders or clothespins in lieu of barrettes. And while this may not have been in the best interest of fashion, it seemed practical. Ahhh.....good ol' male practicality...entire industries have been built on this quality.


So, on the day I picked my kids up from daycare and my son was wearing his footed pajamas backwards, I just reminded myself (and the caregivers) that Daddy dresses them in the morning and on his behalf, added that it was probably still dark when he did. And again, when I received my daughter's school pictures and hardly recognized her due to the lack of attention The Husband gave her hair in their morning routine (it wasn't that big of a deal, all things considered, she had been dressed, fed and properly kissed goodbye) I shrugged it off and tucked the pictures away in desk drawer. And so what if my house reeked of bacon and my children's new favorite food was now hot dogs cooked in the fireplace when I returned from a weekend away.


The reality of it is, they can survive on their own. They may appear a little less coiffed and the house may have a slightly less appealing aroma than when you left, but, for all practical purposes, things will be just fine.


I'm betting that this new show doesn't make it. Not because it's not a tantalizing topic, but because it's just not tragic enough. Besides, He's usually in charge of the remote control and I'm guessing that he'll just flip right by this one.


That's reality.

Lucky Duck

He was anticipating my return, waiting at the door with an expression I couldn't quite decipher. Pride? Excitement? Yes and yes.

"Look Hun...won't these look great here?!

The these that he was referring to are two mounted ducks and the here he directs my stunned gaze to is the front wall of our formal living room.

"Ok...well...maybe...but....", I stammer, trying not to verbally paint myself into a corner.

The ducks had met with their untimely death last fall during a weekend of coastal hunting. They had been recovered, cleaned and stuffed by an expert taxidermist and they now sat perched on pieces of driftwood; their cold glass eyes staring at me without feeling.

"Don't you think maybe they might look more...uh...ummm...appropriate at your office or even the deer lease?" I ask trying to sound encouraging without being too pushy.

"No, they would never last there. It's too hot and dusty."

"But they're already DEAD sweetie- they can't suffer anymore," I say in my most empathetic voice.

I could tell by his deflated body language that was disappointed, maybe even a little hurt by my recommendation. This discussion was taking on the tune of a bad country song with a title something like...My Wife Is Gone But My Ducks Ain't...or...This Ain't Duckin' Fair! I didn't feel good about moving in for the kill when he seemed so vulnerable, but it had to be done. I had to finish the job. Like a hunter putting a wounded animal out of its' misery.

"I really, really, REALLY don't want those hanging in here-they just don't go with the rest of the decor." There, I had administered the lethal dose that would put this discussion to rest with all the swiftness and precision of a sharp shooter. A twinge of guilt bubbled up inside me. I am no friend of PETA. I don't condemn hunting, fishing or circus trainers. I'm more than a little proud to carry a leather handbag and adore the supple, hand-tooled leather on a pair of Michael Kors peep-toe pumps. But these unfortunate fowl with their fixed expressions do nothing to stimulate my artistic senses. Especially here, in the formal living area of my abode.

In my dream house, I would have a special room built just for him. He could do as he pleased there in his sanctuary of testosterone. I imagine that there would be pieces and parts of once living creatures crowding the walls. Trophies brought back from great hunting expeditions, lit by flashing red neon. A pool table centered under a Budweiser-Clydesdale themed light fixture and a urinal in the corner for convenience sake. Vintage Smokey and the Bandit posters will give a visual to the Jerry Reed theme song on continuous play blasting from the coin-operated jukebox on the opposing wall. And a 10 inch thick security door installed to contain the smell of a deep fryer, preventing this and other offensive odors from permeating the rest of the house.

But at the moment, this dream house is a pipe dream. So we do what we must to ensure the future of our 22,995 (but who's counting) days of marriage. We compromise. Our feathered friends will reside at his office and I will keep the title of Interior Decorator. In return for his sacrifice, he is granted unlimited excursions to his make-shift sanctuary of testosterone. He may take his weekly sojourns to Dodge City with his buddies at his leisure. All the while, collecting more relics to one-day adorn the walls of his sanctuary.

The sport of compromise must be practiced and concessions have to be made for a relationship to endure. In this aspect, I am one lucky duck.

Analyze This

"It's muddy out here. Did you wear some shoes you can get muddy?" The Husband asks. "Yep, I'm good." I say, glancing down at my boots. "Oh, you've got your Ropers on." He detects the slight change in my accent. He had coined the term- Plainview Marcy- years ago, long before he would earn the title of The Husband.

It's amazing how others who know you well can see things about you-things you yourself don't. We think we know ourselves, we believe we have an accurate picture of how we look, act and sound. Then, we hear ourselves on an answering machine or catch a glimpse of ourselves in a reflection and realize the picture we have painted for ourselves is a little -off- . Sometimes we don't even recognize the image staring back at us.

My hometown is small. Its' simple name derived from topography. Life there is simple as well. Streets are laid out alphabetically and in numerical order. Church bells still chime from the steeples and parts of old downtown are paved with brick. There are systems in place to provide structure for its' citizens. You know folks because they know you and your family. You know what church they belong to and they know who your grandparents are. There is really no need for the yellow pages; you know who to go to if you need a tire changed or a specific nut and bolt. People recognize you and speak to you with a sincere interest in your life away from there. You are part of the landscape that makes up the town.

The Husband had explained his theory on Plainview Marcy to me after we had gone to visit my hometown. "You act a little different, more small-town" he had said. "Your accent gets thicker too." he added, with a little smile that said he had me figured out. I was sure he was mistaken. I most certainly didn't act differently based on who I was around or the location I was in. This was ridiculous. In the least, his theory seemed to point out a weakness or minor flaw, a lack of self-awareness. At the most a borderline personality disorder, which immediately triggered my defenses. I was, however, curious to discover if his observations held any merit, so I began to pay closer attention to my words and actions. And, over the years, I've decided that he may just be right about this.

After all, where and how you are raised must play into who you are and how you behave based on your beliefs. It's absurd to think that it doesn't. We are not hard-wired at birth-our beliefs and morals are shaped and molded during our formative years and we act on them, not fully aware of the possibilities that exist elsewhere. Just look into the eyes of any parent sending their child off to college for the first time. It's there. The hope that their child will make good choices, that the other 'possibilities' out there will not seem so attractive. And the values and morals that they were raised with are firmly rooted. But humans are reactionary creatures. We succumb to forces, sometimes without awareness. We react to situations in order to blend into the environment and we create personas based on the feedback of others. Could this be what The Husband had alluded to in its most simplistic form? Was I really just a Country Mouse playing dress-up in City Mouse's wardrobe?

The 'phenomenon' that I had so defensively denied is no longer. The source of change exposed rendering the term phenomenon inaccurate. Anytime I am exposed to bits or pieces of my hometown, a real change occurs. It's now just another rung on the wobbly ladder of Self-Awareness. I'm no longer offended by his observations and I never should have been to start with. It should have dawned on me the day he told me Andy Griffith was his all-time favorite show. Plainview Marcy was enduring, an asset really. She was a being on the verge of extinction. An affect of small-town Texas that had been buried under years of metropolitan-relocation. I perceived myself as a City Girl, able to hail a cab and secure a job by parlaying a more sophisticated urban dialect. The West Texas drawl all but vanished from my accent, substituting phrases like 'oh most definitely' for 'I reckon' and 'yellow' for 'yella'.

The Husband had pushed the envelope so to speak and forced me to preform a kind of pseudo-socio-scientific experiment on myself, observing changes in my mannerisms, behavior and speech patterns. In the end proving his theory true.

I no longer question this theory, Plainview Marcy exists. She is the proverbial Cinderella, but instead of a glass slipper to spark her transformation into a white-gloved princess, a pair of brown ropers (worn slick on the bottom from many a Saturday night Presbyterian church dance) provide the source. Her court is not regal, they are just hometown folks with good manners and a vested interest in her well being, providing an accurate reflection of her true self.