The Smasher's Daughter

With the onslaught of the summer heat, the kids have been pestering me to take them to the local ice cream shack to buy them a treat. I have avoided the ice cream shack like the plague ever since I discovered it's existence.

The kids, however, clamor to be taken there, as it is the local hot spot for kids their age to gather and gossip. Boo spent many a dollar wooing his teenaged girl friends on the weathered benches out front and can't understand why I'm bucking so hard to avoid the place.

But for me, ice cream is meant to be eaten in the sanctity of one's home, straight out of the carton and preferably with out embarrassing one's self.

I had a mortifying experience when I was younger, involving ice cream and boys.

And it's all my dad's fault.

"Why, did he trip you or something?" Boo asked.

"No. Something much worse," I sighed and then proceeded to tell him the story of the Smasher's Daughter.

When I was sixteen, I hopped into my dad's truck as he was going to the gas station to fuel up and buy a pack of smokes. It was a sticky summer evening and I was hoping to twist my daddy's arm into buying me a cool treat.

I mean, how could he resist me if I batted my teal green eyelashes at him and whined non-stop about being hot, all the way to the gas station?

When we got to the gas station I was horrified to find a gaggle of boys I went to school with, loitering outside the front door of the store. Boys whom I thought were cute. Boys whom I was hoping to one day woo and entice with my wit and charm and shiny pink lipstick. Boys who took my breath away by simply existing.

I panicked. I was with my father, who was dirty and wearing ugly work boots, sitting in his ratty old truck and I hadn't taken the time to groom myself for any chance meetings with boys. Could I get any uncooler?

Suddenly, I didn't want a cool treat any more; in fact I no longer wanted anything more than the powers of invisibility or for my father discover he forgot his wallet at home and for him to immediately turn the vehicle around and save me from having to walk into the store along side my father.

Dad, however, after listening to me whine and needle him about an ice cream treat for the better part of ten minutes, was not going to let a few boys and my red cheeks interfere with my plans for mint chocolate chip goodness.

He ordered me into the store and with my head hung down to my knees I stared at my toes and ignored the snickerings of the cute boys around me. I felt like I had died and landed straight into teen aged hell. My father of course, was enjoying my discomfort immensely.

Sadistic bugger.

After getting our ice cream cones he yanked on my arm and tugged me out of the store and straight into the middle of the group of boys I was so desperate to avoid. If only I had known I would be seen in public with my dad, I thought, I would have put on some makeup and brushed my hair.

Dad, noticing my red face, did the unthinkable. He stopped dead in the middle of the group and took a big lick of his ice cream cone. He winked at me and started making "Yum, Yum," sounds as loud as he could. The boys watched the show my dad was putting on with great amusement.

He took another big lick and then grinned at me and grabbed my ice cream cone. He smiled at me and then he smooshed both ice cream cones into the brick wall of the gas station. I stood and watched in horror.

As the boys snickered.

Dad, satisfied the ice cream wasn't going to fall off the cones and onto the pavement by our feet, looked at me, looked at the boys and took a great big exaggerated lick while practically yelling, "Yummy!" He handed back my ice cream cone and smiled.

"Go on, take a lick. It won't fall off now," he grinned.

I looked at him, horrified by how he had just demonstrated his redneck ways in front of a group of cute city boys, and tentatively touched the tip of my tongue to the smushed scoops of ice cream now beginning to drip down the side of the cone.

"See, it's YUMMY!" he snorted and urged me to take a bigger lick.

Meanwhile, the boys all silently watched, grinning and feeding off my humiliation.

I took a big lick this time, anything to get my dad to move his feet which seemed permanently welded to the concrete at this point and get back into the damn vehicle. "Yum," I murmured as I wished for the ground to swallow me whole.

Dad, satisfied he had accomplished his mission to mortify his oldest daughter and turn her into a social pariah for the rest of her high school years, laughed and started his way to the truck.

Just as I was about to hop in and hide under the dash, my dad called my name out. All the boys turned with great interest to see what other horrors this father had in mind for his daughter, their school mate.

"You remember how I smashed the ice cream into the wall today. Next time it will be a boy's head if he ever asks you to lick anything of his," he growled at the boys.

Suddenly the snickering stopped and the boys all went kinda green.

None of them ever asked me out. Thanks Dad.

"And that's why I don't want to take the kids to go get ice cream. I was known as the Smasher's Daughter for three years! I wasn't COOL! If it wasn't for you, I'd have never had a boyfriend in high school and I would probably be single and living with a bunch of cats and a pile of used vibrators!" I told Boo.

Boo was busting a gut laughing, picturing my father threatening those boys and embarrassing me all at the same time.

"That's so awful! I can totally picture your dad doing that," he giggled. "No wonder you were such a geek back then," he laughed.

"Bite me."

"I have a better idea," he grinned and stood up.

"Hey Fric, how 'bout a father-daughter outing and we grab some ice cream?"

Looks like I'll soon have company as I eat my ice cream at home. I better buy a bigger carton of ice cream.

Chalk This One up For the Record Book

***Warning: This could happen to you. Just ask my neighbour.***

There are few things that annoy me worse than having a bad hair day. Chalk it up to vanity, low self-esteem or self-delusions, but I like to leave the house with a flowing mane that rivals Jessica Simpson's lustrous locks.

Of course, it would help if I didn't have fly-away limp blonde hair in desperate need of a cut and colour, and even on it's best days never ever resembles Ms. Chicken of the Sea, but I like to fool myself into believing I could give her a run for her money.

If I had a gay hairdresser as my own personal servant friend and a million dollars to spend on hair extensions.

I don't, so I just live in my happy world where unicorns run free and money grows out back on the pear tree.

Good hair equals great self-esteem and the ability to avoid scarfing down a triple scoop chocolate fudge sunday with whipped cream in order to drown out my self-pitying tendencies. The size of my ass and the state of my mental health all depend on me stepping out of the house and not resembling Nick Nolte's mug shot.





My hair looks like that as I type this. Cute, eh?

I used to depend on how good I stuffed my bra to make my rack look great but since I've indulged in one too many sundaes my rack has significantly expanded improved and I find myself depending on my hair to avoid focusing on the wobbling of my ass as I walk.

(I've had to make the switch to granny panties and boy shorts because I got tired of the chaffing and rug burn that accompanied thongs and my jiggling butt cheeks.)

I digress. Steering the ship back to bad hair and away from my ass-crack.

So the other day, I was standing in front of the mirror and fighting with my misbehaving locks. There didn't seem to be anything I could do, short of shaving it and pretending I was Britney Spears minus the million dollars, to make my hair cooperate.

I was running late and had to be at the kid's school to attend their awards ceremony. I hate being late more than I hate having bad hair, so I gave up on trying to imitate any B-list Hollywood starlet and just yanked my hair back into a pony tail.

Grabbing my car keys, I loped out to the car and noted that I still had time to swing by the local coffee shop to grab a Chai tea latte before I was held captive in the school's gymnasium, politely clapping for student's I didn't know and all of their accomplishments I didn't care about.

My car wouldn't start. Damn. I've been having problems with the battery and apparently, the battery decided to throw a hissy fit just when I needed my latte pick-me up the most.

Cursing my bad luck, I walked over to my husband's shed and pulled out his battery charger and hauled the lunky thing towards my car. After banging my shins on the damn thing and getting my pretty blue skirt dirty, I popped the hood and hooked the thing up to my battery.

(Aren't I a handy gal?)

I jumped back into the car and turned the key. Nothing. So I waited and tried again. Nothing. Nada. Damn. I jumped back out, cursing the world as I went, to check the connections. Maybe I did it wrong. Maybe I forgot to plug the thing in. Nope. Everything was where it was supposed to be.

So I got back into the car and tried the key again. Nothing. Frustrated and wanting to pull out my badly combed hair, I got back out of the car and kicked the battery charger. Cuz that always helps. It was then I realized I had forgot to plug in the battery charger. Oops.

Way to be a blonde, Tanis. So then I had to march back to the hubby's shop, locate an extension cord long enough to reach from my house to the driveway, plug it in, walk back to my car, plug in the charger and rinse and repeat.

All the while the clock kept on ticking.

This time, when I turned the key the car came to life. Hallelujah. Rejoicing with a few favorite cuss words, I jumped back out of the car, leaving the car running, and unhooked the battery charger. I didn't think twice when I shut the car door. I was just happy to get the damn thing started.

I was sweating by now and feeling more dirty than before I hopped into the shower, but by this time, I didn't give a flying rat's nest. If I pushed the speed limit, skipped the latte, I would still be punctual for the awards ceremony.

Sighing, I went to yank open the car door. It was locked. With my keys happily located in the ignition.

"ARE YOU FACKING KIDDING ME?" I yelled. I felt like banging my head against a tree. Great. Now what? I looked at my watch and noted the time and decided against phoning the local AMA driver. Mainly because he's my brother-in-law and I didn't want to listen to his ridicule but also because he was supposed to be at the same awards ceremony as I was. No sense on making him miss it because of my stupidity.

I ran back to the house to grab a coat hanger to break into my car. I've done it before, dammit, I can do it again, I thought to myself. (See how I'm delusional?)

Jabbing the wire down the window (and scratching my paint in the process) I realized I didn't have a clue as to what I was supposed to be doing. Frustrated, I yanked the hanger out and sat down in the dirt to cry.

I'm pathetic, I know. But sometimes life is made better with a good weep. As I sat there feeling sorry for myself and eyeballing my dirty tires, I remembered my husband had stuck one of those hide-a-key boxes under my car's frame.

The clouds parted and the sun came shining out and I got up and dusted myself off and proceeded to the front of the car. If I hurried I would only miss a few minutes of the ceremony and could sneak in to a seat at the back of the gym unnoticed.

Or so I hoped.

Planting my ass down in the dirt, and not caring if my skirt got dirty or not (vanity be damned at this point) I started feeling up my car, trying to find the magic metal box. Nothing.

So I bent lower and stuck my head under the car to see what I was doing. Just as I spied the box, I felt something. Something crawling up my legs and into my ass crack.

Then something bit me. In a delicate location if you know what I mean.

I grabbed the key box and smacked my head against the underside of the car in my haste to find out what the hell was wrong with my ass, which suddenly felt like it was on fire.

Standing up, I was horrified to find I had sat smack down on top of a facking ant hill. Red angry ants. So I did what any person would do. I screamed like a school girl and started smacking at all the ants that were crawling up my leg and in my shoes.

Realizing I had ants in my underwear, I lifted my skirt up as I stood in the middle of the driveway and ran around doing some funky chicken like dance while flicking ants off my ass.

Ever have a fire ant bite you on the petunias? Not fun people. Not fun.

So there I was, with my skirt up over my head, my underwear around my knees, hopping up and down trying to shake the little buggers off me, totally and completely skeeved out, when my neighbour drove past and stopped to wave.

Yep. What a show I gave that man. I have no idea how long he witnessed me in my half nekkid glory before he honked, and rolled down his window to ask if there was a problem.

Mortified, I dropped my skirt, hoping to cover the underwear around my knees and smiled and waved. "Nope, no problem!" I cheerily yelled as my face burst into flames. "Have a great day!" I called, hoping he'd move on and forget the image of me waving my ass cheeks at him like a freaking lunatic.

He smiled and nodded and just as he pulled out he grinned at me and called, "I always did love the site of a full moon," and then drove off laughing.

Great. This was just icing on the freaking cake, I thought as I unlocked my car door, straightened my skirt and headed into town.





I'll admit it, I got my arse kicked by life.

So I was late, had bad hair, ant bites on my ass, was wearing a filthy skirt and stuck searching for my dignity.

The day could only get better, I thought grimly.

Then I got to the school and another mom pulled me aside (thankfully before entering the packed gymnasium) and told me my skirt was tucked in the back of my underwear.

There isn't enough ice cream in the world to make the memory of this day go away. For me or for my neighbour who now drives slowly past my house in hopes of seeing a repeat performance of my very own moon dance.

The next time I have a bad hair day, I'm crawling back in bed and pulling the covers over my head. At least then I'm guaranteed not to have life bite me on the ass. For all the world to see.

It Really Was News To Me

When I was around my daughter's age, I was convinced I was going to grow up to be a musical superstar, shaking my hiney while belting out songs to thousands of my fans every night.

Because my parents drilled the motto "Practice makes perfect" into my head, I was determined to exercise my voice box as often as possible. I would prance around my room, wailing into my hair brush, torturing serenading my cat and my stuffed animals.

(Gawd, I was such a girl.)

My brother and sister would yell at me to shut up and I would ignore them and sing louder. Life was good.

One day I had my headphones on, the volume cranked and I was rocking out to Micheal Jackson's Thriller. While I was imitating my zombie moves, my dad had yelled at me to lower my singing voice. I was oblivious and happily kept singing.

My dad barked at me several more times to can it lower the volume, and I continued to wail in my room. My father soon realized I wasn't ignoring him, but just deaf while in the throes of the Jacko's thrall. He decided to teach me a lesson and resolve this irritating habit of mine all at once.

He taped my brilliant warbling. Secretly. Probably while peeing his pants, giggling. All right, maybe not, but I'm sure he grunted in amusement at least once.

Later at the dinner table, the subject of my caterwauling came up. My siblings being the whiney brats they were complained I was polluting the air with my musical talents.

I, of course, was indignant and filled with disbelief. After all, I wasn't deaf. I had ears. I could hear the notes coming out of my mouth and they sounded like pure magic. Arguing with my dolt-headed demon siblings, I turned to my father to act as the ultimate referee.

Dad just smiled and said he'd be right back. Within moments, he returned with a black tape deck in hand. With a grin, he pressed play and sat back down to resume eating.

Suddenly, this horrible tinny screeching vibrated out of the speaker. I was confused. I mean, I recognized the lyrics but who the heck was singing?

My siblings, however, recognized my voice and doubled over laughing after watching the look of confusion wash over my face.

Sudden dread filled me and I immediately jumped straight into the river of De-Nile. "That can't be me!" I gasped. "I sound, I mean that sounds-"

"Like a cat screeching in heat?" My dad finished for me.

I couldn't really argue with him, because the truth was hurting my ears at that very moment.

Since then, I sing only in my car, and only by myself or with small children who can't speak and are basically victims trapped in the same space as me. Heh.

Watching the video on CNN's News To Me brought back that memory. I sat there, opened mouth, gasping to my best friend, who was watching it with me, "I do NOT sound like that."

She mumbled something about me being delusional and then promptly fell off the couch laughing at me the video.

I can't blame her. The video was funny. Just like I knew it would be. Because some of you missed it, here it is. Click away.

The voices in my head are still trying to reconcile with the screechy voice telling y'all to "Pass the beer, quick!"

Advice I plan on heeding every time I ever have to watch this video again.

***Big thanks to Mike and Eric for being such great guys to work with. It was a blast boys.****