Debra Galant Explains the Universe

Not your brother's lemonade stand

My friend Karen and I were cruising Montclair with a video camera today, looking to record signs of spring. Driving down Grove St., we came upon two boys holding up what looked like signs advertising a lemonade stand. I pulled the car over and we jumped out with the camcorder, but before we could roll, the boys ran off. Karen, though, managed to read what was on the signs:

"Fart" and "Kick in the Ass: 25 cents"

You've got to admire their entrepreneurial spirit. I mean, who wouldn't want a kick in the ass for 25 cents? Too bad a couple of cute girls in a minivan scared them off.

Let's do the Time Warp again

Who says that it's inappropriate for sixth graders to sing a song from the 20th century's most famous celebration of transvestism and weirdness? Well, two kids in Noah's class say so ... but we won't name names. Let's just say that these Polly Puritans objected to the words "pelvic thrust" in the song "Time Warp."

And it had already been approved by Miss Nissim!

I had thought it a little strange - though refreshingly liberal - when Noah announced that his class was planning to perform the song. Then one night Rocky Horror was on TV. We sat together and watched it, just like your typical American family. "The movie was extremely weird and pretty perverted," Noah admits. "But I really like the Time Warp."

I must say, watching Noah do the jump to the left and the step to the right is pretty darn cute, perversion or no perversion. And we do live less than 15 miles from Greenwich Village, so it's not like the kids haven't been exposed to this sort of thing. It's not like we live in Ohio or something.

Noah is already planning a little playground cabal to gather up enough support to convince Miss Nissim to bring the "Time Warp" back. Let's hope it works. Otherwise, it could be "Free to Be You and Me." *sigh* Again.

Come on, Miss Nissim. Bring on the eyeliner.

Noah the vegetarian

Noah came home today with the news that he's thinking about becoming a vegetarian. He sounded a little like a politician floating an idea, waiting for the poll results.

"Why?" I said.

"Because it seems unfair to kill an animal just to give you a meal," he answered.

Yesterday, he came home with the news that he was going to become a hippie and grow a pony tail. That's fairly big news because for the past year he's sported a crew cut. He also reported that he wanted to go out and buy some hippie regalia, including tie-dye shirts and bandanas, and that his friend Tyler, who is a Republican, isn't going along with this hippie thing - although Andrew and Carey are.

Noah is 11.

I know that a lot of kids announce their plans to become vegetarians and few stick with it. Noah, however, decided when he was 9 to become kosher and has stuck to it. No one else in our family is kosher. In fact, the other night, when Noah got invited last-minute to a sleepover, I called Warren up, excited.

"Guess what? Noah's sleeping over at Rachel and Alex's. We can eat trayf. Pick up Chinese."

This doesn't mean that Noah's deeply religious. Just that he can stick to things. The other day, at synagogue, listening to all the prayers saying that God was great, terrific, wonderful, marvelous, etc., Noah said, "It sure sounds like we're sucking up to him."

I asked him later if he thought God had a sense of humor.

"I hope so," he said.

He says he's going to try the vegetarian thing for about a week, and if it's not too bad, he's going to stick with it. It will also make being kosher easier, he pointed out.

I countered with the fact that it will make cooking family dinners harder.

"And besides," I said. "You might have to eat some vegetables."

Noah, who hates vegetables, thinks they should call it something else then. He wants to be a carb-o-tarian.

I, meanwhile, signed up today for the South Beach Diet - on the recommendation of the rabbi's wife Marilyn, who I saw at temple Saturday, 30 pounds lighter than the last time I saw her. Which shows how religious I am.

It will be interesting to see who sticks to their diet plan longer, me or Noah.

My money is on the kid.

Mama Blog and her two baby blogs

Is it unmotherly to withhold google juice from one’s own offspring?

Let’s say, for example, the Child A has a website and Child B has a website, and that Child B’s website is wildly funny and Child A’s is not.

Child B writes, for example, this parody on parental translation:

Okay, now don't get me wrong, I think my parents are cool. But I do not appriciate it when they lie to me. And your parents will never get a lie past you if you read this translation page: If you say "When will we be there yet?" in a car, "Soon," means:"I'd tell you but I promised we'd be earlier than that." Take a shower, do your homework, make your bed, and other junk all mean "Get out of my face." Bed time is not when you get tired but when your parents haven't said anything for a while, and decide to say something. "I'll think about it," means "No," "Probably," means "No," and "It's your decision," means "No." That's nice," means, "I complimented you, now can I watch my show?" "I don't like the way you're complaining," means, "Stop trying to make a point." And what else I hate is that grown-ups think that kids will run around with pot the second they take their off them. And if in a shrink's office, if nothing they say leaves the room, why do parents get progress results? Aside from all that, grown-ups are usually nice. Usually...

Whereas Child A’s website is, well, let’s put it this way, a website only a mother could love:

Hey Welcome to the coolest website on the planet!!! My name is Margot and someday I'm going to be a star! I Love the theatre. Broadway rocks my socks! I like to sing, I like sushi, and rainbows!

Rainbows? Sheesh.

Now let us suppose that said mother put Child B’s website on her blogroll and that Child B soon discovers to his delight he has received a major infusion of google juice. In fact when he types the name of his website - “Your Average Midget” - into Google, it actually comes up. He's famous! A giant among midgets! And who does he have to thank? His mother, of course. (Actual conversation: “Who gives you google juice?” “Mommy gives me google juice.”)

Now Child A wants on the mother’s blogroll. Child A wants google juice.

So far this hypothetical mother has resisted, on the grounds of, well, standards. And she has started receiving, well, comments on her blogsite from Child A, and the comments are beginning to sound like ransom notes:

I luv you website Posted by: Margot at February 15, 2004 06:47 PM

I wanna be a link now Posted by: Margot at February 15, 2004 06:56 PM

A mother who puts her anonymous readership ahead of her own Child A would be a very, very bad mother, right?

OK. So let’s say this mother (ok, it’s me, all right), let’s say I offered google juice to Child A if she cleaned up her room. In other words, let’s say I offered to sell my readers out just for the momentary pleasure of seeing Child A’s floor clear of 18 million outfits. You would understand, dear reader, wouldn’t you?

But could I possibly be forgiven for giving the google juice away when the room is not cleaned up, just because Child A, asleep in her messy room, momentarily looks angelic? Would that not violate every principle of motherhood, blogrolling and negotiating with hostage-takers – not to mention teaching Child A that a mother’s bribes mean nothing?

Oh what the hell. What’s a little nepotism on the world wide web?

Sleep, dear Child A, and let me sprinkle a little fairy dust, um, I mean, google juice on you. Dream sweet dreams of being discovered, by a very special search engine.

Do you like to jump on beds?

If you haven’t been doodling around the internet as much as I have lately, you might not know about "purity tests," which are funny little quizzes to determine whether you’re a social retard , a jock or even just a nice person (You’re not.)

Part of my role as blog mom lately has been to waste not just my own time but my children's as well. And what could be a niftier time slayer than a cute little purity test?

So I was not too surprised on Friday when Noah started giving his friends a verbal purity test – for kid purity – during carpool. His friends, Tyler, Andrew and Caroline, added to the hilarity.

Some of what follows was suggested by Noah and pals. Some I've added. If you answer yes to only five of these questions, you're 75% kid pure:

1. Do you think you should be allowed to stay up later?
2. Do you think you’ll be a major league baseball player when you grow up?
3. A professional skateboarder?
4. A ballerina?
5. Have you ever lost your shoes?
6. Do you like to jump on beds?
7. In puddles?
8. Have you ever gone to McDonald’s just for the toy?
9. Since you were 8?
10. Do you like to draw on foggy car windows?
11. Do you hate green vegetables?
12. All vegetables?
13. Do you like piñatas?
14. Would you crawl around on the ground for candy?
15. Fruit-flavored candy?
16. Do you hate your brother or sister?
17. Do you like to draw with permanent marker?
18. Near good furniture?
19. Do you think brushing your teeth is a waste of time?
20. Do you think the main purpose of grown-ups is to make your life miserable?

The shadow of fear

What do you do when you find out that an 11-year-old girl abducted a few days ago has been found dead …. and when you find out, your own 11-year-old is snuggling in bed next to you? Do you spare your 11-year-old the disturbing news that evil preys on children his own age? Or do you play the video of the girl’s abduction and use it as an object lesson in not talking to strangers?

I kind of played the Carlie Brucia story both ways. I actually watched the video clip of Carlie’s abduction – even more heart-rending the way it turned out – but didn’t call it to the attention of my son. Then my 15-year-old walked in, saw the laptop and the headline, and said matter-of-factly, “Oh, she’s dead.”

My 11-year-old pretended not to have heard anything.

“You know,” I said. “All those times I worry about you…”

Silence.

“And you say, ‘Mom, don’t you trust me?’”

From under the covers. “Yeah.”

“And I say, “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s other people. Bad people.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you see why.”

Silence.

Lesson over.

When something like this happens, you hear about parents putting a tight rein on their kids – sometimes not even allowing them to go into their own backyards alone. But in our town, kids walk to school on their own, ride bikes on their own, visit friends on their own, play in the street on their own. And all this seems right. Even so, when my 11-year-old was late coming home from school twice this week, I felt like my heart had been kidnapped. Then he wandered in, oblivious to the drama that had been playing in my head, and plunked down his backpack. After which I could breathe again.

Should I go with the statistical odds and allow my kids their freedom? Or should I pull in the reins? Drive them everywhere? Arm them with cell phones and beepers every time they step outside?

I’m sure mothers everywhere are debating this very subject right now.

My mother never learned how to swim. When she was growing up, public swimming pools were places where you could get polio. Or so she told me.

On the other hand, my father, who grew up not too far away, did learn how to swim. In a lake. The sink-or-swim method, no less.

My grandparents’ caution may have prevented my mother from being paralyzed. And yet it led to paralysis of a different sort: a lifetime fear of boats and water.

Who knows what shadow we cast across our kids in the name of protecting them.

Did Carlie Brucia's parents fail to innoculate her against evil by insufficiently frightening her on the subject of strangers? Or was she simply the victim of evil, and really, really bad luck?

Snow Day!!!

There are two ways to make sure that school is cancelled when it snows.

11-year-old boy method: Wear your pajamas inside out.

15-year-old girl method: Call up the school system's telephone recording every 15 minutes until 2 a.m. and scream until they finally post a cancellation announcement.

Give my regards to broadway

© Debra Galant 2004

In my house growing up, whenever one of us came home and asked if anyone had called, my father always answered the same thing: “MGM.”

As if.

The truth was, despite the talent that coursed through our house like water gushing from a broken water heater, talent scouts rarely called. Actually, they never called. Nor did scouts for major league baseball teams, recruiters for the CIA, high-powered literary agents or the Beatles. If nominated we would have run, but strangely, the call to carry the mantle of our party never came.

In fact, the only calls from people who didn’t know us personally were from people trying to sell us something.

So please don’t mention to my children that while they were out the other day, somebody claiming to work for a talent scout called to see if they could audition for a TV commercial.

Unfortunately, the “booking agent” asked for my daughter’s name (and I said it) just as she walked through the door from school. I hung up so fast that I aroused said daughter’s suspicion.

“What was that?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“I heard my name.”

“Dentist,” I lied.

A search on the internet a few hours later turned up a website filled with sob stories from people who’d actually answered the siren call of television fame – from the same so-called talent agency – and found themselves parted from substantial sums of money.

Funny thing is, despite having signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry in September, I’m getting more unwanted calls than ever. And not just more calls. Weirder calls.

The other day, a doctor’s office called offering me a free physical.

A few months ago, when I tried to get rid of a call from a chimney sweep, the guy turned nasty. After I turned down his services, he actually threatened to report me to the authorities for having a dirty chimney. When I questioned his business ethics, he slammed down the phone.

He called about a month later. I recognized his voice, of course. To him, of course, I was just a phone number on a list. But the snarl in his voice had seared itself into my memory.

And I’m always winning free vacations in Orlando, a city I can’t stand.

So when the call comes from the MacArthur Foundation, offering me a genius grant, I’ll probably blow it.

Half a million dollars to reward my creativity? Yeah, right. Genius? Hold on. There’s call-waiting. I better go. Might be MGM. Just put me on your do-not-call list.