Wild Things

Last weekend, I took a little trip into my past.  My favorite childhood book is Where the Wild Things Are; my dad used to read it to me all the time.  We were both very excited when the movie came out last year, but we could never find the time to see it in theaters.  So last Sunday night, my mom, dad, and I cleared our schedules to watch the DVD.  I don’t know if any of you have seen it, but, spoiler alert: it is pretty sad.  I think that my mom was the most affected.  She said that she still felt depressed the next day.  She just felt so bad for all of the Wild Things, and said that they really broke her heart.  While I shared her feelings, I was shocked that she was so sympathetic to a wild animal. Because my mother is not a fan of anything that crawls.  No, this was quite a contrast to her real world opinion of animals.  Maybe she loves giant furry monster-like creatures named Carol, but my mom is no friend to the everyday critter.  At all. 

My mom’s animosity towards the animal kingdom began a long time ago, before I was born.  Somehow, my dad convinced her to go on a camping trip with him.  And, being the roughing-it-experts that they are, they left s’mores out on the table.  You can guess what happened next.  They refer to that fateful evening as “the night of 1000 raccoons.”  Needless to say, my mom does not love raccoons.

The worst atrocity came about 6 years ago.  Again, the culprit was a raccoon, and this time the little devil had the nerve to die in our attic.  I mean, honestly, who does he think he is?  We figured it out when our home began to smell like a morgue, and it turns out that he had gotten himself so far in that we had to call the professionals.  That’s right, they had to cut a whole in our roof in order to remove the carcass.  Ew! So there goes strike two.

After that was the skunk. My mom read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a family in Highland Park whose house was completely ruined by a skunk who wiggled his way into the air conditioning system.  She thought about the horror for a full day, so it was only fitting that she should smell a skunk in our own yard 24 hours later.  My mom was not willing to gamble with our home, so she took no chances.  She called in reinforcements to cage up that bad boy.  Poor little guy, he never had a chance.  He was a goner. 

To bring the story full circle, our gardener informed my mom the other day that there were traces of an animal living in our backyard.  Immediately, my mom shifted into terminator mode.  She thought and worried about it for another 24 hours before asking the gardener what could be done to drive the intruder out.  He told my mother that sometimes sprinkling red pepper flakes does the job.  Before she even hung up the phone, my mom was digging through the spice cabinet looking for her hottest pepper flakes.  She shook them out all over the yard, and ended up using half of the bottle.  Take that, mystery Wild Thing.

I am going to be honest with you, there is no catchy or shameless way that I can tie this back to the bags.  So I am not even going to try.  But I will leave you with this: buy a bag. 

-Emma

Is This Seat Taken?

My father is a seat-saver. He loves to lord over his domain, and we
 find him staring fondly at his long row of seats with jackets, books, and other miscellaneous items strewn about them.   He is the guy who shows up 30 minutes early to a movie to ensure that he has the best seats.  I think the happiest I have seen him in a while was a few weeks ago.  He discovered a movie theater where you could actually reserve your seats online.  So when he and my mom showed up for the movie, their thrones awaited them, completely untouched.  When we go to temple, my dad is the one who has to go early to save enough seats for the whole family, enlisting my brother Jake’s support whenever possible.  My mom and I take extra time getting ready, and walk in to find him hovering protectively over his conquest, occasionally shooting someone a warning look if they get too close to his territory.

So what brings this discussion on?  Last weekend, my parents went with some friends to hear a concert in the park.  My dad, of course, got there early.  He did not have a blanket to mark his land, so he used folding chairs and their bags to block off a square.  As the park began to fill up, he was finally challenged.  Some man walked up and started to set up his chair in the center of my dad’s kingdom!  Dumbfounded, my dad mentioned nicely that he was saving seats for his friends.  The man sneered and responded that my father did not own this land.  And so began a battle of name-calling, until the intruder’s wife stepped in. “HAROLD! What are you DOING?”  She pulled him away, and so my dad emerged victorious. 

Proud of his win, my dad called my mom to brag.  He said that he could easily have taken the intruder, which was no big deal, since he was about 80 years old.  But when he was telling my mom and their friends the story, my mom froze.  She told him that Harold was the name of a client’s husband, and they were supposed to be at the concert that night. She asked him to describe the wife, who looked exactly like her client.  Freaking out, she looked around as soon as they arrived and found the couple. Luckily, it was not her client.  Phew, that was a close call.

So, if you find yourself needing to save any seats this summer, I have the perfect item to throw on a chair.  A bag! Large and bold enough to ward off unwelcome seat-stealers, and cute enough to carry around. 

-Emma

Shameless

Let’s talk about shame, or more specifically those moments when we forget about it and just do what we want to do. These are the moments when you do something that the average person would consider completely embarrassing and unnecessary.  And you do this without hesitating.  No justifications or dares or bribes.  You just do it.  Believe it or not, I come from a family that has absolutely no shame. You might not be surprised, as I voluntarily document my family’s weekly shenanigans and post them on the Internet for the whole world to ponder.  But this might come as a shocker.  This week, I would like to tell you about several of these shameless moments.

My first came about seven years ago, when my family was on vacation in Canada.  It was Christmas, and we are Jewish.  So rather than eat Chinese food and embark on our annual “Christmas Decorations Scavenger Hunt” we went to Canada.  We were in our hotel lobby chatting before dinner, when we saw a man dressed as Santa Claus walk in (or, if there are any children reading this, Santa Claus himself walked in!).  Something you should know is that we had a running joke that if I ever got to meet Santa I would ask him for a pony named Butterscotch.  And my time had come.

My dad told me to go ask him, and without even hesitating I waltzed right over to the big man himself.  He looked at me, a child of perhaps ten, and asked “What would you like for Christmas?”  I looked him in the eyes, ignoring the fact that he should really be making his rounds if he WERE the real Santa, and said, “I would like a pony named Butterscotch.”  Santa was a little taken aback, and knowing he could not supply such an entity, said, “Well, ponies make a lot of poop.  And they take a lot of care.  So maybe next year!”  I took my candy cane and left.

Next is my dad.  One year, when Jake and I were at summer camp, he and my mom went on a two-week vacation to Scotland and London.  I made one request before they left: that my dad would take a picture of himself in a kilt.  He laughed and said “yeah, right.”  But then, two weeks later, I received this picture in the mail.

My mom said that she has never laughed so hard in her entire life.  No shame.

The tradition of having no shame extends beyond the four of us.  Several years back, my mom’s side of the family went out for dinner.  My grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, all of us were there.  When we were finished, my Grandpa asked if they would wrap up his leftovers.  “Of course,” replied the kind waiter.  As he took the dish, my Grandpa asked, “Oh, also, could you throw some fresh bread in there?”  I kid you not, it happened.  And he got his fresh bread.  No shame. 

So what brought this discussion on?  As you know, I am a walking advertisement with my bag.  I carry it around in the hopes that people will ask me about it allowing me to tell them about the blog.  So this week, I was sitting outside a Starbucks waiting for some friends to come meet me, when a woman walked by.  She made a passing comment, saying, “I like your bag,” clearly expecting me to say thanks and allow her to keep walking.  But, having no shame, I stood up without hesitation and said, “Thanks! My mom actually designed it.  If you are interested in purchasing one, we sell them online at www.thetotebagchronicles.blogspot.com.”  I was upset that I didn’t have any cards with me, but it was the best I could do.  As I said, no shame. 

If any of you are reading this and thinking of your own shameless moments, please post them!  We would love to hear your stories.  

-Emma