Outside the Baby Bubble

You call that a last hurrah?

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The end of every summer brings with it a crashing realization, followed by an adrenaline-starved sense of urgency: I need one last hurrah.

My target: Staples, Simsbury, CT.

I slinked in with my accomplice. Together we wove through aisle after aisle, casting furtive glances from left to right until we reached the back of the store. There, we spied our coveted cache: a table overflowing with spiral notebooks, in every color of the rainbow. Fastened to the table, a sign: “$0.25 each. Limit 30 per customer.”

I leaned in to my accomplice. “OK, Mom. Here’s how this is going to play out. You take 30 notebooks, see? Then you get in line at register 3. Meanwhile, I’ll take my 30, and I’ll go to register 1. I’ll cut you a check when the deal is done. Remember: BE COOL. We’re not together. We don’t know each other from Adam. Got it?”

“Got it, Boss,” Mom said. She stole away with her cart full of booty, wheels screeching at every turn.

I casually strode over to register 1, the back-to-school music competing against my racing heart. I dropped my contraband, made from 100% recycled paper, onto the counter with a thud.

The conveyor belt began to roll. There was no turning back.

The cashier began counting the notebooks, one at a time.

One…two…three…

I glanced at my mom. She was chatting airily with the cashier, looking nonchalant.

…eight…nine…ten…

Around me, the drone of conversation. The beeping of scanners. Fluorescent lights searing into my brain.

“…seventeen….eighteen….nineteen…”

Suddenly, the cashier stopped counting. He drew his price gun to his side and stared. We locked eyes. His eyes narrowed. I inhaled and waited.

“Ma’am, did you realize some of these are college-ruled and others are wide-ruled?”

“It’s cool.” I exhaled. “Just count the notebooks and put them in a bag, and no one gets hurt.”

He pointed his price gun at the next notebook and resumed.

“twenty-two…twenty-three…twenty-four…”

Euphoria began to set in.

“….twenty-seven….twenty-eight…twenty-nine…”

We did it! We actually pulled it off! Sixty notebooks for $15, and they were mine–all mine! I spied the nearest exit and prepared for our getaway.

Suddenly, from across the store, I heard the call like an air horn blasting through hypnosis.

“MERRI, HON, DID YOU KNOW SOME OF THESE NOTEBOOKS ARE WIDE-RULED AND SOME OF THEM ARE COLLEGE-RULED?”

The music stopped. The counting ceased. The conveyor belt came to a grinding halt.

Never entrust your mom with your last hurrah.

When Stop & Shop went on strike

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Every few years, consumers are struck by the newest craze where demand exceeds supply, resulting in apocalyptic, pre-hurricanesque hysteria. In the ‘80s, the Cabbage Patch Kids ignited mayhem, and adults stampeded toy stores across the country like herds of cattle. In 1996, it was Tickle Me Elmo, whose limited supply incited violence in the aisles of Toys “R” Us, and sellers were pricing them at $1,500 apiece. With each debut of a Harry Potter book, mobs of enthusiasts pounded on bookstore doors hours before they opened.

Ten minutes ago, I pried the last container of 50/50 salad mix from an old woman’s hands in the produce aisle of Big Y.

New England shoppers within three miles of their local Stop & Shop…Godspeed.

Hello, Cuz.

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The most useful thing I learned last year was that the best antidote to stress is gratitude. It’s been scientifically proven that it is impossible to feel stress and gratitude at the same time.

Naturally, when we think of what we’re grateful for, our minds make a beeline for family. Go ahead and try it the next time anxiety creeps in. Think of how lucky you are to be surrounded by people you love, and watch your stress evaporate like the conspiracy theory of the week. Can I hear an Amen?

Last Christmas, my mother-in-law presented me and Doug with a DNA ancestry test kit. “Who’d be dumb enough to do this?” Doug scoffed after pulling off the wrapping paper. “He ya go, FBI! Help yourself to my DNA! Go ahead and frame me for whatever the f*ck you see fit!”

(Where one conspiracy theory dissolves, another is born.)

I, on the other hand, was intrigued. There are three good reasons for this. The first is that family is important to me, and if there are hidden members to my clan, I think it’d be cool to connect. Second, my great-grandmother once had her family tree professionally drawn, and although I can’t be certain about the reliability of family-tree research at the turn of the twentieth century, it revealed her origins in the Algonquian tribe with direct lineage (cover your ears, Mr. President) to Pocahontas. If there’s a single drop of Native American princess coursing through my veins, I want immediate confirmation of it. Third, as far as family trees are concerned, I think everyone ought to know how many degrees of separation exist between themselves and Kevin Bacon. And so, I promptly spit in the vile, licked the envelope and sent it off to Ancestry.

When the results came in, my family tree didn’t look like anything I’d expected. Pocahontas wasn’t even a leaf bud dangling from a branch (although the reason for this, I’m convinced, is because she never got around to registering with Ancestry.com. Kevin Bacon was nowhere in sight. However, the kid who sat next to me in Biology class from September 1988-June 1989—the same kid I bantered with as we inspected our twin DNA under a microscope but were too dumb to see the similarities—the same kid I once backhanded after his offhanded remark, to which Ms. Simpson sternly admonished, “I never want to see that kind of animosity in this classroom again”—was.

Back to the topic of family and gratitude. Scott Santa Maria, my long-lost fourth cousin with whom it’s highly likely that I share a pair of great-great-great grandparents—I am so, so, SO very grateful that we never dated.

Amen.