You Look Mauve-a-lous!

It’s hot, it’s humid, it’s sandal weather and I had banged the pudding out of my big toenail. Not only had I bruised my toe, but my sweet, summer, strappy, sandals would have to sit lost and forlorn in the back of my closet until my nail healed. After two days of close-toed shoes, I had it. I slapped a Band-Aid on my toe and slid my foot into my favorite brown and bronze summer sandals. I wasn’t feeling it. The Band-Aid wound up sticking to the shoe, or sliding on my toe. Friction and Band-Aids don’t work well together. What’s a girl to do?

I slapped paint on the toenail, but it looked like a “Honey-I shrunk the big toenail” kind of thing. You know, great big toe…little bitty nail. That’s when I wound up on the nail care aisle of Wal-Mart. Never go alone when your toes don’t look their best, get a friend to keep you company and talk you down when you start looking at the false-toenail collection. You really need intervention in a weakened state. I, in all my foot vanity was ready to try it for the sake of pretty feet, enhancing pretty sandals. It’s not that I have a foot fetish or anything like that, it’s just that all my life shoes have been the one constant. They are only item of size that has remained the same size since high school. I have a lot of shoes.

I slipped into the house, snuck my false toenails into the bathroom like some kind of X-rated contraband, and proceeded to read the instructions. “Find the size that fits your nail bed best, gently file the top of your nail to allow for bonding with the new nail, open the nail glue squeezing out a small dab, and press nail on top of your natural nail. No one will know the difference!”  Sounded easy enough. It took me three tries, and a lot of nail polish remover to unstick my index finger from my big toe, but I finally found the correct size nail and had that sucker stuck to my toe like it belonged there. I shaped it, filed it and painted all my nails a pretty mauve, and the next day wore my strappy sandals without a care.

I marveled at the staying power of these nails. Anyone who knows me knows that I am quite particular about clean feet and nails. It’s my OCD. I kept checking on the nail, making sure that my own was not damaged in any way and was still healing. All was well. We all headed out the door to our next outing, me and my little family. My daughter looked lovely, my son looked handsome in his pressed button down shirt and khakis, the hubby was sharp as usual, and I was sporting my best wedges with the peek-a-boo toe.

It all went wrong in the middle of the church service. I actually heard a “Ping!” I really don’t think I’m over dramatizing when I say that mauve is such a lovely color when the jeweled tones of a stain glassed window shimmer over it. My mind went blank. My son looked down, my daughter’s eyes were the size of high-beam headlights, and all I could think was, “How do I pick this thing up without attracting attention?” Yes, in the middle of the sermon, my nail had flown the coup, skipped the light fantastic and landed in the middle of our aisle.

My son reached down with a lightening hand before I could say a word and YELLED, “This is a nail!” Then he said, in an extremely loud voice, “It’s your nail Mama!”

I grabbed it away as quickly as I could only for him plead, “Let me look at your nail Mama!” My daughter muttered under her breath, “Oh gross.”  If the floor could have opened up and swallowed her, she would have been fine with it. I had crossed the sacred line and embarrassed my teenager in public. It’s actually what I live for, but usually not in this particular fashion. Anyway, I struggled for composure, but just as we were about to bow our heads in silent prayer, it hit me.

I made the mistake of glancing over at my husband and I realized that he hadn’t missed a thing. I started shaking and trying in desperation not to laugh out loud. My husband had to actually turn away and my son kept asking “What’s so funny?” My teen girl looked more and more mortified and my shoulders shook harder from silent mirth. You know how it is; you’re in church for goodness sake! Here I sat at the age of 52 and I was shaking with glee in church like an adolescent. My kids have lost privileges for less, but I couldn’t help myself. It was funny. So it was a cheerful “AMEN!” that erupted from my lips at the end of prayer. I figure God was teaching me a lesson where vanity was concerned, and that a joyful noise can be found where we least expect it!

The Real American Horror Story

  I posted one of those funny e-card pictures on my Facebook yesterday. It was so totally me. The caption reads, "All spring and summer she was a graceful, classy lady...then football season started." I am a huge football fan. I've gone to games at my alma mater all my life - helps explain my choice of college when you find out that it was also my Daddy's alma mater. In fact so many family members went there we oughta have a wing named after us - except we ain't rich - especially after paying tuition. And when football season starts it's often like a family reunion. Parents, kids, cousins, grandparents all converge to watch a game. And it's probably like that at every college - a family event.
  I've watched the Jerry Sandusky horror show with horror. Part of my horror comes from the involvement of my favorite sport, part from the involvement of a school I have always admired, part from the involvement of a coach (Joe Paterno) I had always admired, but most of my horror comes from being a mother and a human being. How could anyone do this to a child? How could anyone not make sure the highest possible punishments were handed out to such a monster?
  My 14 year old son is off this week backpacking in the mountains. It's an adventure arranged by the Boy Scouts, and he's actually not with a single person I know until he gets picked up to return home. Talk about a leap of faith sending your kid someplace - this was it for me. I did try to talk to him about sexual abuse before he left. Of course when he was young, and through the years, we've always had the talks about appropriate touching. But I thought one more was in order. He very quickly assured me that he's read the articles, he's aware of the situation and nothing like this would happen to him. All assurances were given with that certain arrogance of youth, i.e. the eye roll, which was meant to assuage my concern. Yeah, right.
  We send our children to activities in the hope that they will meet friends, learn something, have fun...and to be honest sometimes to give ourselves a break. But these activities are mecca to the pedophiles. A large gathering of their potential victims, and they are predators. They know who to target, and how to target them. Every organization where youth gather has had this horror hit them - churches, youth groups, schools, and so on.
I do a fair bit of volunteer work. A couple of years ago, I joked that the State Bureau of Investigation might be getting tired of me. See I had three background checks done in the same month - Boy Scouts, our church, and our school district. I passed since they weren't interested in other housewives opinions of my clothing or how fast I drove at 18. I may have joked about it, but in reality it is no laughing matter. Background checks are a necessary evil because of the evil in society, and yet no background check would have picked up on Sandusky - BECAUSE HE HAD NEVER BEEN ARRESTED! It's also pretty easy to skirt the background check if you are the founder of the group, and perceived as a "good man". So many of the criminals have not been caught.
  I can, and have ridden on activity buses, spent the night chaperoning, driven youth group kids in my own car, and on and on. It makes me sound so unselfish when in reality, it's purely selfish on my part. Good luck getting to my kid when I'm there. I may be short, but I would take you down in a heartbeat, trust me. Along the way, I can also tell you that I'm keeping an eye on your kid.
  My hope is that out of this will come improved processes to prevent such abuse. The Boy Scouts now have processes in place which require yearly training of volunteers such as myself along with a requirement that NO leader is alone with a Scout unless that Scout is the leader's own child. I do not think that Penn State's football program should receive the death penalty from the NCAA (the NCAA is the governing body for college athletics and the death penalty ends the sport for the school). What happened there was not a result of payments to players or tutors cheating for players, and sadly what happened there could happen at any institution unless all of us work on stopping it.  
  Volunteer, know who is involved with your kids, watch, drop in unexpectedly, and pray. Each of us should have a responsibility here, our children deserve no less.