Tag Archives: education

Steve Soto coins the phrase “Dramatacus” which sparks a semi-serious conversation at 3am

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Let me start by saying Steve Soto swears he coined this phrase… and I’m okay with giving the sassypants credit but, if someone has a “beef” with it… take it up with Soto…  he’s somewhere in Europe right now hosting a “sausage fest” (his words…. not mine) as Punk Rock’s favorite nice guy in his band The Adolescents.

I wish I had coined that phrase…

NOT “sausage fest…”

but “Dramatacus.”

I really do.

Steve was brilliant to think of it and now… it is one of my favorite non-words, that HAS become a word, and I pray that someone will add it to Webster’s Dictionary next to GIANORMOUS… and SWAG.

Now… I’m sure we can agree, that we have all been guilty of being a “Dramatacus” at some time in our lives… yes that’s right people…. each and every one of us… don’t even try to deny it.

And…anyone that knows me… knows… that I can definitely be the BIGGEST “gladiator” of dramatic play when provoked…

or sometimes… just because I’m bored.

Being a high school teacher alone cranks the drama-meter off the chart on a daily basis:

“Ms. Wood, so-and-so… told so-and-so… that I was pregnant with so-and-so’s baby.”

Or…

“Ms. Wood, so-and-so… likes so-and-so… but I’m SO in love with so-and-so… I don’t know what to do.”

Or…

“Ms. Wood, so-and-so… told so-and-so… that I was the one that crapped on the floor in the locker room and now so-and-so won’t ask me to Prom.”

See what I mean?

Drama.

Now, add in a daughter that likes to pick up dead bodies for a living…

A son who is a cross between Phil Spector and Brian Eno…

An X who is working on years of recovery… (a Dramatacus in his own right) that’s at the house once a week playing music in the garage…

Throw in a couple of band projects, book projects, and a few sober bad boys in need of reform… and you’ve basically got yourself a “Circus Maximus” of Dramatacus fun.

Now at times… I really like being a Dramatcus… it amps up life…. and adds to the excitement…. but when you are in a relationship with someone… it’s really not a good thing.

You basically go from being their beautiful statue on a pedestal, their reason for living…. to a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS in a matter of minutes.

And the worst thing is… you just can’t stop yourself…

It’s like you’re possessed…

You know you are acting like a total idiot…

That you are making the situation worse…

That you are the engineer of your own train wreck….

But you just keep going…

People could be running from you… screaming in terror… looking back over their shoulder at you as if you are GODZILLA about to destroy them… and yet you will still chase them on and INSIST that you MUST EXPLAIN WHY YOU ARE BEING A DRAMATACUS… which only makes them run faster and further as they pray to God that he will “EXIT” you from their life FOREVER.

Sigh…

So it was while Steve and I were both dealing with major emotional upheavals in our worlds…. and trying VERY hard not to both go into Dramatacus mode at the same time… that we started having our  “late night” phone conversations.

Problem is… “late night” to me is around 9 pm, especially on a school night…

And “late night” to Steve Soto is somewhere around 3 am.

We fixed the problem by meeting somewhere in the middle with Steve texting around 11 pm with an “Are you up?” message and if I was… I would call and we would chat.

Now I have known Steve for years… and he has always been able to make me laugh… but one night when I was on the phone howling over someone who I felt had “wronged” me and reading him an email from this person that had caused me to be terribly upset… he stopped and asked,

“Wait… was their sex involved in this relationship?”

I paused……

“No,” I said quietly.

“You guys weren’t like going out right?”

“No,” I said quietly again.

“Well, that seems like a LOT of drama for a non-sexual relationship.” He paused for a moment and then said, “What a Dramatacus.”

It stunned me…

He stunned me…

What a wordsmith.

I was impressed.

I knew that he was speaking about the person in the email… that they were being a Dramatacus in writing… but it stopped me long enough to recognize how DRAMATIC I was being about the entire situation as well.

I was being totally ridiculous.

Someone expressed their feelings to me in writing… That’s it.

I didn’t need to get all bent about it.

Maybe I could for once just bring it down a notch… which I did… waited to respond… and the friendship survived the episode.

The next day I was out walking with my friend Margie when I told her about Steve’s word and the event that lead up to it.

The day after… I was a bit late arriving to her house for our daily walk…. and as I pulled up…. the text alert beeped on my phone and I saw “McLate-acus” flash across the screen.

I looked up to see Margie… giggling from her front porch.

Steve and Margie really know how to make a point when they want to… in the best artistic sense of the matter.

I hope they add McLate-acus to Webster’s as well.

Tom and Lexi “Meet Cute” While Picking Up A Dead Body Together

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A good friend of our family, Bobby Sepulveda, worked as a Removal Driver for several years.

What is a Removal Driver you may ask?

Well… it’s a person who picks up dead bodies.

From homes.

From Nursing homes.

From the hospital.

From the beach.

From the store.

From parked cars at the football stadium.

Really… wherever you decide you want to punch your final ticket you’ve got someone to take you on that “last call” cab ride home: A Removal Driver.

Now… if you have a problem with dead people or removal drivers… please don’t read any farther.

Trust me.

You won’t like it because it’s about to get good… in a really, really bad way.

Bobby always had great stories about people he picked up.

He called me once from the morgue… and I said, “Where are you? The phone connection is really echoing.”

and Bobby said, “I’m with Donna Reed.”

“Donna Reed?” I asked… a bit confused… not “getting” the big picture…

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “She passed away today and I’m with her at the morgue.”

I felt my face drop.

I had always really liked Donna Reed… ever since she played Jimmy Stewart’s sweetheart in It’s a Wonderful Life, and I wasn’t really sure I wanted my last memory of Donna Reed to be “hanging out” with Bobby Sepulveda in the morgue.

If you knew Bobby Sepulveda… you would understand… I swear you would…. but since you don’t… just picture this…. one of the guys from Jackass in the morgue with Donna Reed.

See what I mean?

It doesn’t really seem right now does it?

Sorry Bobby… but you KNOW it’s true.

So… anyway…

Lexi, my daughter, was very interested in working in the medical profession when she graduated high school.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to do at that time… and so she decided to talk to Bobby about becoming a Removal Driver.

“Why the hell do you want to do that?” I snapped at her, my own fear of being a Removal Driver getting in the way of my child’s one true dream.

“Because I want to know if I can handle being around dead bodies,” Lex said.  “I don’t want to go all the way through medical school and find out I don’t have the stomach for that type of work.”

It was a good answer… A reasonable answer and so… I backed her choice.

Our friend Bobby was happy to get her a job… in fact, I’m sure he was amused… he probably thought an 18-year-old who looked like a Victoria’s Secret model and was often mistaken as a show girl when we went to VEGAS… probably wouldn’t last a day picking up dead bodies… but he was wrong.

Lexi got the job, and reported to her first day of duty wearing a nice tailored black suit.

She looked stunning… a TOTAL GLAMAZON on a mission to care for the dead.

I waved goodbye to her, proud as I watched my daughter drive off to her first job… so excited to meet her “Removal Driver Trainer.”

But later that afternoon… Lexi called me on the phone and sounded a bit emotionally distraught.

“Mommy?” she said.

“Yeahhhh?” I said a bit hesitantly.

“I want to come home and see you for a minute is that okay?” She asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said even though inside I was really saying, “Oh Jesus God please don’t come home because you’re gonna smell like a dead body or something and I’m gonna freak out.”

But… when you are a parent… you have to make sacrifices and if that means you have to support your child by smelling dead bodies all over their clothing… then so be it.

She rolled in about 5 pm with a good looking young man named Tom, from Boston, and his accent killed me.

I  love that South Boston accent… I’m a PUSH OVER for a “Southie” I really am… a guy could be the biggest tattooed criminal from the East Coast and walk up and say something to me all flirty like “Ah Dee….  you’re wicked smaaaart.” And I would probably BEG him to marry me… and run off to be a little toonie… living with my townie… somewhere down around Charlestown or maybe Dorchester hiding assault rifles in my dresser drawer and wildly in LOVE. (East Coast Irish boys being my fatal weakness of course)

Tom and Lexi were just adorable together you could absolutely feel the “spark.”

Their conversation popped back and forth with witty banter that could’ve given Kate Hepburn and Spencer Tracy a run for their money back in the day… and I couldn’t help but pray that these two would end up together just so I could tell people how they met….

Tom, sweetheart that he is, had brought Lexi home to see me because unfortunately… the first dead body Lexi ever saw… was a pretty bad one.

Now… maybe you think all dead bodies are pretty bad… but I think I would prefer someone who was fresh and had died in their bed over what Lex had to witness.

She walked in to meet Tom, her trainer and soon to be “love” interest, and found him in the morgue with an old guy they had just brought in…who had been dead… for over a month.

He had died about 30 days prior, had been laying out in the backyard naked decomposing… until one of the neighbors peeked over the fence and got quite a bit of a shock… and so when Lexi got her first look at him she said that she actually thought he was wearing a plaid bath robe and then felt like she wanted to vomit.

“He was naked,” she said….

(and I wondered what the hell he was doing out in the backyard naked… but I didn’t ask)

“but his body was all red, blue, and green… with these weird patterns on him from where the blood pooled,” she cried before running over to me, begging for a hug.

I swear to GOD I almost pushed her away.

I wanted to run to my bedroom door and shout, “It was nice meeting you Tom… but Lex is ALL yours now! You two have fun with your dead bodies! Mama needs a nap and a valium!”

But I gave in… holding my breath the entire time… before she pulled back and smiled at Tom while I tried to get a good gulp of air… hoping that their little flirtation would keep my antics from being obvious…

And then watched as she batted her eyes at him and said, “Thanks for bringing me to see my mom.” And I loved it.

I knew right then and there… that Tom was a good man.

Later that night, Lexi returned home… excited and chattering on about how she couldn’t stop looking at Tom… how even over the dead guy’s body she couldn’t help but flirt with him…

and that after their shift was over, he had taken her upstairs to his apartment, which was of course, over the morgue, and they had shared their first kiss.

It was SO romantic.

The two of them… over the dead bodies and the refrigerated body drawers… having a moment while everyone lay there…. waiting… doing nothing really.

And I thought…Ahhhhhhhh…. young love… Nothing can distract it. Not even dead bodies.

Tom and Lex became quite the “serious item”  for awhile and I can only imagine how many fond memories they’ve shared retrieving dead bodies together…

But… young love is young love…. and often doesn’t last…

Tom is back on the East Coast now… running his own funeral parlor… while Lexi of course is still out here working on her medical training…

And though Lex claims they are both now “just good friends” I pray often that someday they will end up back together… working as a team… Lex helping people to live… Tom taking care of all the ones that got away…

And me…. sitting on the front porch swing… their children on my lap…. telling them the story of how their parents “Meet Cute.”

Thanks to Everyone for Reading: New Stories Post EVERY Wednesday and Saturday…

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The Day Tim Grobaty was Screwing Around and Almost Took Off My Legs

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To this day, Tim Grobaty tells his daughter, Hannah (Who happens to be one of my favorite students and so… as my little educational minion… has no problem spilling all of her father’s secrets to me) that… Mr. Grobaty, columnist of the Long Beach Press Telegram, refuses to admit, yes actually DENIES, that he ever tried to break both of my legs after hanging out with me on the porch, one summer evening, many moons ago… while dicking around behind the wheel of his car.

But I am here to tell you… that he did.

Of course… If I were Tim Grobaty… I wouldn’t admit that I almost tore Ms. Wood’s legs off in a freak accident either.

Ms. Wood, Beloved High School English Teacher maimed by Beloved Long Beach Newspaper Columnist… it would just be bad all the way around… worse for Tim because he may have a shit load of readers following him but I have a veritable Dumbledore’s Army at my command…. 20 years of teaching… averaging over 1,000 interactions a year, with young adults who have pledged their loyalty to their favorite teacher until DEATH (mine obviously) and you can see why Tim would be in trouble.

Serious Trouble.

If Grobaty HAD actually taken both my legs off… and left me as a little bitter stump of a woman… I would still be able to roll around… (much like Johnny Eck in the 1932 film Freaks)

barking commands…

bossing people about…

controlling my young adult army

and basically making sure that the rest of Tim Grobaty”s life was h*ll.

Lucky for Tim… my legs are still intact.

So…

Back to my story…

Tim and I had become fast friends after meeting accidentally during a bar show at the Blue Cafe.

I still remember when I first opened my mouth to sing… Tim turning around slowly on his bar stool and watching me quietly. I think I was the only member of my family he had not seen perform or written about…

We didn’t talk that night… but the next day in the newspaper… I opened the entertainment section and saw that he had written a full page article titled I’m in LOVE with D.D. Wood…

Thankfully, Jane… his wife, better half, and definitely the most reasonable person in the relationship, was not bothered that Tim titled his article this… OR that he decided to post this on the date of his actual wedding anniversary…

Jane, as always… takes these things in stride and I love her for it… I really don’t know how she does it.

If my husband had written an article about Jane on our wedding anniversary… I probably would have crumpled the piece up with fury… tried to stuff it down his gullet, before walking outside and beating his favorite 59 Ford Fairlane with a bat…

You could say… that I’m a bit of a hothead.

My mother of course showed the article to everyone and I figured… it would probably be a good idea to get to know a man who was supposedly “in love” with me… and so Tim and Jane, me and my husband started getting together for dinner, or a visit on my front porch swing, on a regular basis.

These were lovely times….

Great music…

Great company…

We spent summer evenings laughing together… our children all very small… Hannah actually just a baby then… Dylan and Ray still little enough to be into toy guys and camouflage… until one night Tim and I were alone on the front porch playing guitars…

My husband must have had a show… because he was absent from this scene… and I’m sure Jane was already in bed… all cozy and comfy reading a good book… all of our children fast asleep…

While Tim and I were jamming away until our 10 o’clock curfew came around… and it was time for me to go inside and for Tim to go home.

Neighborhood rules.

Tim and I packed up our guitars before I walked him out to where he had parked his Jeep…directly behind my car…

and for some reason…

I decided that I needed to grab something out of my trunk. Now, to this day… I can’t imagine what I obviously felt I HAD TO HAVE out of the trunk of my car at 10 o’clock at night but, that isn’t important.. what is important… is THIS is when all of the trouble began…

(Although some would argue that the trouble began when Tim Grobaty wrote that he loved me in a local publication.)

I walked between the space of the two cars as Tim waved goodbye and climbed into his Jeep.

We shared a quick smile as he pretended that he was going to put his car into gear and run me over.

I laughed the “ha ha ha you’re so funny” obligatory laugh, then turned back to pop the trunk when I heard Tim’s car lurch forward and felt a sudden hard hit to the back of my legs…

My spine pitched towards the trunk, my knees buckled and pinned beneath the rear bumper of my car, and if I had been just an inch or so taller, Tim would have snapped both of my legs right then and there… and this story wouldn’t be quite as funny as it now is…

My hands slammed onto the hood of the trunk as if a police officer had just knocked me down and told me to “spread em”… the pain was intense.

I looked back at Tim in utter horror.

His face was one of shock… and I could see him fumbling to shift the gear stick and free me from my misery when we both had a moment…

A “cosmic” connect I guess you would call it…

A moment where Tim suddenly knew exactly what I was thinking….

Me: Please God don’t let Tim shift it into another forward gear and break my legs.

and I knew exactly what Tim was thinking…

Tim: Oh my God, what if I shift it into a forward gear by mistake and break her legs?

I freaked out.

“Tim!” I shouted. “Jesus Christ, what are you doing?”

Now… this probably didn’t help the situation but I have to admit that I was under duress and not thinking clearly…

Tim shifted the gear into reverse and backed up about four feet as I felt my legs release. I took a moment before letting go of the trunk and trying to stand full weight on my legs afraid of what I was left with and wondering if they would even work.

I looked down… no blood… no protruding bones… I was fine… a bit agitated… but fine.

I hobbled over to the driver’s side window and leaned in… “Are you insane?”

Tim was already laughing…. laughing as he ignored me and turned the wheel tight before peeling out for home….

I watched as he screeched past me… his tail lights heading into the night…. and I thought about getting into my car and chasing him down to make him acknowledge his part in this fiasco and demand an apology but… I didn’t …

10 o’clock curfew had come and gone….

My husband would be home soon…

Jane would be waiting on Tim…

and our confrontation would just have to wait until another late night jam session on the porch… or maybe on stage, in the middle of a set, the audience witness to our brawl.

I’m sure Tim will post a rebuttal to my tale… maybe an I HATE D.D. WOOD article will appear in the paper some time in the next few weeks but I doubt it… we share a love of writing and music… and that is a bond that can withstand anything.

Getting Naked with Ryan Ballance and Erik Prosser the Night Before the Wilson Ten Year Reunion Resulting in a VERY Bad Swim

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Something you must know about people who swim or play water polo.

We tend to get naked a lot.

Why?

Because when you spend a life time running around in a bathing suit… changing behind towels at meets, at the beach, somewhere in public… you stop caring who sees you.

And… back in the day when we were all swimming, playing water polo or whatever…. our bodies had no wobbly bits… no bouncing blobs of fat… just nice sleek tan taught muscle.

It was lovely.

Ryan Ballance and Erik Prosser two of my high school friends, were both polo players at Wilson… I of course was a Millikan girl…. you weren’t SUPPOSED to like the Wilson boys…. but we often did…. maybe because it was “forbidden” fruit… going against school spirit to want to make out with the “red and the gold.” How extremely unsportsmanlike.

It didn’t matter to me… I adored them both.

Erik and I had a friendship that went back and forth from friends to boyfriend and girlfriend for years… and I still miss him today… I hate that he is gone from this Earth… a fluke accident.. leaving all of us to miss the beauty of his spirit…

Ryan… was always my buddy… maybe a casual flirtation here and there… maybe a moment of sexual “wit”… but nothing more than that…  and today… I take great joy in seeing photos of him in love and happy in Florida where I imagine he still runs around in speedos, mostly naked, with his girlfriend probably shaking her head as she says to herself: “Christ, everyone must think I’m dating a European.”

Anyways… it was the year of Wilson’s 10 year high school reunion, and Ryan and Erik invited me to a night before “pre-party” at Ryan’s parent’s place down on the Peninsula.

Now… I remember that Ryan was dating someone at the time…. but I cannot for the life of me remember who… but… if you are reading this… I’m sorry we were such complete idiots that night. You must have been mortified and by the way… “Well done you!” for taking the high road and not smacking the shit out of all of us drunkards.

Yes.

Drunkards.

I don’t drink often… I really don’t… but with Ryan and Erik… I don’t remember much of that evening except that we thought it would be a really good idea to strip down to our skivvies and go for a swim in the Bay sometime around 2am.

Okay everyone… listen up….

1. Don’t swim drunk. It is probably one of the stupidest things you can EVER do…

2. If your last name is Wood… don’t swim drunk… do you really want me to bring up the whole Natalie Wood incident? I don’t need people running around Long Beach using me as the butt of their driftwood jokes… I’m sure I’m already the butt of so many Long Beach jokes that we don’t need to add another. And Tim Grobaty… if you are reading this… DON’T get ANY ideas.

3. As you are stripping down to your skivvies don’t prance around and prattle on about your body… and how you STILL have it… you just sound like a COMPLETE AND TOTAL  conceited MORON and… nobody likes a show off.

AND…. 4.

Don’t go out in the Bay at 2am.

People will come.

And not in the cool Field of Dreams sort of way…

They will not pay money to watch you play and frolic in the water… as they sit satisfied… content in nostalgic memories of their own high school reunions… no… they won’t…

They will call the cops.

They will have you arrested.

You will be cited for Disturbing the Peace…

Drunk and Disorderly…

Indecent Exposure…

YOU NAME IT…. their ON IT at 2 am when a bunch of yahoos wake up the Peninsula.

The ENTIRE Peninsula.

Now, I do remember Erik went in first and he was half way to the buoy before I shot in after him… we were always competitive so I busted my ass… or what I believed was busting my ass… who knows what I was really doing… probably floundering around in circles believing that I was somehow moving forward and catching up to him.

I looked for Ryan… who started to follow but then seemed to pause and disappear… either he stopped because he had a moment of clarity and thought better of it or his girlfriend grabbed him and forced him to the ground….. either way…. he never made it into the water which ended up being a really good thing for him.

Erik and I frolicked about from buoy to buoy laughing and screwing around up and down the tow line, spitting water at each other, slap fighting waves,  until someone turned on their porch light and stared us down…it was a BIG SOMEONE… a hulking MAD MAN SHADOW of a SOMEONE… ready to call the cops… we reverted back to high school…. hid behind a buoy whispering God knows what,  until he went back inside and turned off the light, leaving us to giggled as we backstroked our way over to the beach grabbed our towels and headed back up to the house.

We were about to enter the gate when I grabbed the pull string… realized the latch was stuck… pulled harder and watched as the string broke, and the metal washer that had been weighting the end flew straight at me and cut a half moon slash right between my eyes.

Erik didn’t even flinch… he just started laughing at me which of course led Ryan’s father to become involved.

He wiped off the cut, told me I would live and then insisted on me spending the night… and rightfully so… here is another thing you NEVER do after a 10 year high school reunion pre-party:

YOU NEVER… EVER… DRIVE HOME DRUNK.

EVER.

Do you hear me children?

EVER.

I slept on the couch until about 5 am, when I woke up in a Homer Simpson moment and shouted “DOH!” before I rushed home in a plain white over-sized man’s t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans.

I knew I had more clothes somewhere… but I couldn’t figure out what had happened to them.

I drove home at an alarming pace, all windows down, blowing the stink off, praying to GOD that my husband didn’t see me and think the absolute worst because… if he would have seen me… no matter how innocent that evening had been… I would have paid for it over the course of a lifetime.

I looked like I was heading home from a “walk of shame” and you don’t want your wife showing up at home… 5 am… no shoes… another man’s t-shirt on her back and a crescent moon shaped bloody cut in the middle of her forehead… EVER at 5 am… trust me people… it looks bad.

Now, I learned a lot by being sneaky in my youth and I knew that if I cut the engine as I crossed the Cohn’s house… I could coast up to the front of my childhood home (where we all still lived) in complete silence…

I cut the engine at the appropriate time, and let the car roll easily to the front walk.

I jumped out, quietly shut the door before I crept up the steps, into the house and lay down on the couch to wait and see if the coast was clear.

After about fifteen minutes… of shallow breathing and twitching at every little noise… I knew I was safe… no one was awake.

I tip-toed into the back of the house and found my husband asleep with our son…

I went into the bathroom, washed my face, brushed my teeth, cleaned the wound on my head and covered it with make-up before putting on my nighty, that was hanging on the back of the bathroom door.

I was going to have a hell of a hangover day and I had to get some time alone to recover.

I knew what I had to do… I had to find a way to get my husband out of the house and his love for surfing was my ticket.

I went back into the bedroom and shook my husband gently…

“Babe,” I said in my sweetest voice. “Babe?” I whispered again.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“The surf is supposed to be really good today,” I said.  “It’s 5:30. Why don’t you get up and go catch some waves… I’ll watch the kids.”

“Okay,” he said as I climbed into the bed and he exited out the other side, grabbed his car keys and flip flops, before heading out for the day.

I’m surprised he couldn’t hear my sigh of relief from the driveway. In fact… I’m surprised he couldn’t hear it from the Huntington Cliffs for that matter.

I slept my stupor off for several hours before heading off to load up my system with a lot of greasy junk food and coca-cola and was right as rain by the time my husband was back home.

I returned to the Peninsula later that afternoon in search of the rest of my clothing… and that is when Ryan’s father informed me that my cowboy boots, my black t-shirt, my jacket and my belt had been strewn in a long path across the bay in front of a block of his neighbor’s houses… and that he had to gather them up, apologizing for our behavior, before he placed them in a brown paper bag which… he was now handing to me… as if it were a bag of something dirty… secret porn… and I took it with my eyes cast down, embarrassed and ashamed, as I rolled the top of the bag over and hurried towards the door.

“Oh,” he said. “By the way D.D….”

I turned back to look at him.

“You and Erik might like to know that the Bay was closed yesterday due to bacteria contamination. So… you were basically swimming in shit. Probably wasn’t such a good idea to go for a swim last night… right?”

I suddenly felt like I was seventeen again.

My face flushed red and my mind flashed back to Erik and I swigging mouthfuls of dirty Bay water and spitting it at each other…

I was sure for a moment… that I was going to vomit… but I didn’t… I just nodded my head slowly and said, “Yes Mr. Ballance. I completely understand Mr. Ballance. It will never happen again Mr. Ballance.”

As he looked at me…. fatherly sternness radiating like laser beams from his eyes… Ryan standing behind him…. laughing his ass off.

Erik and I didn’t get sick from our late night misadventure…it’s amazing really that we didn’t… and I’m just glad that neither one of us drowned that night.

I don’t regret it though… I really don’t… it’s a good story… contaminated… or not and it is one of many great memories I have of Erik and of Ryan…. most of which involve some type of inappropriate activity.

Evangelic-ed

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I heard them.
Outside my house.
Preparing to come up my walk.
Jehovahs.
Six women, different shapes and sizes, all dressed in thin polyester pastel summer blouses and floral calf length skirts.
Much like the Mormons that had been stalking our house for several years obviously, there was news that the devil was rumored to be living somewhere in our home. There must have been an all points religious bulletin sent out that said we would need several different brands of religious zealots to eradicate him from the house.
I was in the back writing when I heard Lola begin to bark, annoyed, I went to the bedroom and told her to be quiet and then I saw them out the window. I ducked, hoping that the thin bamboo blinds camouflaged my Spongebob pajama bottoms and my braless breasts bouncing past the screen.
They paused.
They had heard me scold Lola and now they were wondering why I had never answered the door. My mom still answers. She shuffles over, listens to them quietly with the door pressed tightly across her chest. Head nodding gently as she waits to pass them her $1.50 in change so that she can buy their newest edition of ‘The Watchtower’ before she can return to Regis and Kelly and highlights from Dancing with the Stars and American Idol.
I do not open the door. Today, I didn’t even hear them until Lola barked. Caught up in a new story idea related to Harvey Keitel’s penis, I was enthralled with pictures of H.K. in ‘The Piano’ and the ‘Bad Leuitant’, really, enough to make anyone deaf for a matter of minutes, not even realizing they had been at the front door.
Then, the herd of women moved away and all was quiet again. Lola stopped barking, mom went back to the blue chair, and I went back to Harvey’s penis.
5 minutes passed when Lola was at it again, this time, her bark was different, immediate, vicious, she was off the bed, out the dog door and tearing at the fence before I could even get to the window to see what was wrong.
Outside, I saw a police officer creeping passed my fence, tip toeing up to my neighbor’s back gate. Three cop cars were parked in strategic locations about the corner of my house. What the fuck had the Jehovah’s done now?
I snapped at Lola to come back in the house, she popped through the dog door, eyes up, ears back, as if protecting our house was a bad thing. I grabbed her collar and closed her in the bathroom.
I crept outside and now saw four different police officers tip toeing up to my neighbor Linda’s house. I ran back in the house, grabbed my cell phone and called her.
“Hello?” she said.
“Linda,” I said, “Are you in your house right now?”
“Why?” she asked, “What has Sophie done now?”
Linda is a big dog lover and I mean big as in BIG dogs. She has two Irish wolfhounds, Maggie and Sophie, and a greyhound named Joe, who are all taller than me when they stand with their paws on my shoulders. So I tell her what is going on.
“Can I talk with them?” she sounds concerned.
I run outside, “No, their guns are drawn.”
“What?”
“I’ll call you back.” I say as I snap the phone shut and run outside to check on the police.
The cops are ready to make their raid to the backyard. They are signaling me to be quiet but I ignore the signal.
“She has big dogs,” I shout, “Really big dogs. Don’t go in there!”
They stop.
I can see them peek through the front window to the backyard before they call off the raid and back up and over to my fence.
“Sorry,” I said, “but I knew it was just the dogs.”
Now there were four cop cars and I wondered how these cops ended up at Linda’s house. Did she have an alarm? I don’t remember one. I had been taking care of her house for the last few years while she was away on trips and she had never said anything about the alarm. So I asked.
“What made you guys come here? Did an alarm go off?”
The oldest cop said, “No the Jehovahs called us.”
Fucking Jehovahs. I should have known it had something to do with them.
I looked down the street and I could see them three houses away. Huddled up in a tight knit little group, hands securely tightened around their leather purses, ‘Watchtowers’ held tightly under each arm. They were looking at the commotion they had caused and I swear I wanted to step past the cops flip them the fucking bird and yell “I’m the DEVIL and I LIKE IT!”
The oldest cop continued, “They told us that they knocked on the door but no one answered. Then they heard a disturbance and knocked again but no one came to the door. So they called us.”
He ended this informative narrative with his hands on his leather gun belt, adjusting it in a manly manner and then shifting his weight from one hip to the other to add emphasis.
I thanked them for their time and then returned to the house. By this time the two younger cops were already ogling Lex. It isn’t often that you end up at a crime scene and find a six foot blonde with a body that can be seen in Playboy, wearing a t-shirt that reads “I’m six feet of heat”. I felt bad for them. I wished I could think of a reason for them to come in and search our house, get a closer look at Lex. Maybe they could look for the devil and report back to the Jehovah’s that all is well in the Grisham-Wood household.
By this time, Linda had called back on my cell and asked me to stop the cops and have them go into her house with me and just do a double check that there really isn’t anyone inside.
I pause for a moment, wondering if I should just have Lex take the two younger cops on an inside search of Linda’s home but then a bad porn movie comes to mind and I tell my daughter to go back inside as I approach the older officer in my Sponge bob’s and my braless t-shirted chest, with my arms crossed firmly over my cleavage and ask him if he will please come back with me and just do a quick check of the residence.
I can see after looking at me, no make-up, short boyish chopped black hair, chubby lump in my k-mart pajama combo that he is thinking of a bad porn movie as well but something more along the lines of “Big dykes bang cops” and is weighing the odds about going with me back into Linda’s home in case I have any ideas of taking him. I raise my eyebrow and cock my head and he sees that I am all business and not of the sexual kind.
We walk up the front steps and he gives me a demonstration of how an intruder could easily slit the screen and climb in the open front window. I nod slowly and seriously, trying to give off the effect that I understand the seriousness of this matter.
I open the door and step to the side. The two younger cops have followed behind us and when they see that Maggie, Sophie and Joe, look more like a herd of camels than a pack of dogs, the younger cop says, “Holy cow! Those are dogs?”
The dogs, wag lovingly hoping that the new group of people will stay and play until “mom” gets home but the cops start their search and I must leave the dogs to answer the cops questions.
“Has this window sill always been chipped up like this?
“No,” I reply, “Maggie ate that sill during the Winter of 07”
Maggie seems to smile from the back porch window.
“Has this mirror been broken like this?”
“No,” I reply again, “Maggie broke that when she rolled off the bed in Spring of 08.”
Sophie and Joe both seem to be looking at Maggie now, as if to say, “We would never do anything as bad as you do Maggie.”
I am not fooled.
The cops finish the search, I lock Linda’s house, and thank the officers once again for their time.
“Tell the Jehovah’s thanks for calling,” I say as I walk back to my gate.
In my mind I really want to tell the Jehovah’s that when they hear rustling going on inside of a house but no one comes to the door, to mind their own fucking business. It’s probably just people trying to hide from them and their stupid fucked up religion.
I mean, who would want to be a Jehovah? The chosen ones have already been giving a spot in heaven, the rest of the followers are fucked, and you can’t celebrate Christmas or your birthday any more.
If they think the draw of poorly made floral clothing, and copies of the ‘Watchtower’ are going to pull us in they are sadly mistaken.
I will write. I will live with the Devil. I will wear my Sponge bob pajamas and I will celebrate whatever heathen holiday comes to mind.
I will not however, ever stop Lola from barking at the Jehovah’s again. I will open the front door, let her run wildly to the fence, fierce pitbull teeth bared and blasting, and watch them all run, run down the street and off to a new location far from my world where Linda and my “hell hounds” are on their trail.

Playing Quasimodo with Dylan Resulting in a Trip to the Emergency Room and an Awkward Moment with the Police and Child Protective Services

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Dylan believes that Joe and I bordered on the edge of abusive while raising him.

Not physically… but mentally.

He seems to think games like “Goat Man” and “Sanctuary” and “Mean Mommy” and “I’m Blind” were meant to torment him, but we try to explain that they were just good fun or in some cases… meant to protect and educate.

Dylan was prone to taking off his clothes and running away when he was a baby so Joe, my X, invented “Goat Man” basically, “The Boogie Man” so that whenever Dylan ran away he could shout, “Goat Man! Goat Man!” and Dylan would scurry to the safety of the house. You don’t want your child running around the neighborhood naked. It may have been good fun back in the day, but now…. that’s a big no.

We didn’t think about the lasting effects of “Goat Man” … a monster that would now live forever in our child’s imagination. We just thought “Goat Man” would live until Dylan was old enough to understand that we created G.M. just to protect him. No… we were wrong. Dylan is now 22 years old and if I stood outside in the dark and yelled “Goat Man! Goat Man! Goat Man!” Dylan would still scream and scurry for the safety of the house afraid that a little hoof footed evil man was about to nab him in a matter of seconds.

“Mean Mommy” was one of my games and it was my way of letting Dylan know what was in store for him if he should so happen to cross the line and break Mommy’s rules. Any time he would do something terribly naughty, I would make crazy eyes at him, switch my voice into a high pitched tone and say, “Mean mommy” and Dylan would freak out and beg me to stop afraid that I had gone crazy and might kill him.

I was 26 when I invented this game, not much more of a baby myself… but I would still invent it again right now if it meant Dylan would turn into the great person that I believe him to be today.

So…. the day I invented “Sanctuary” I never thought anything would go terribly wrong…. I just thought it would be fun to beat Dylan with a yellow plastic stick ball bat while shouting “Sanctuary!” dragging my right leg behind me as I pretended to be the Hunchback of Notre Dame while Dylan scurried along the floor screaming “No Quasimodo! NO!”

We were half way through the living room, then rounding the corner of the hallway with Dylan crawling on his hands and knees, while I smacked his butt with the yellow plastic bat as he squealed  and giggled with delight and tried to escape me.

At that time, we still had carpet in our home but it was old and worn and in some of the door frames, sharp carpet nails had become exposed due to the many years of heavy foot traffic.

Dylan rounded a corner to hide in a bedroom when the top of his fat, soft, pink baby Fred Flintstone foot, caught on one of the large sharp rusty nails which ripped his foot wide open.

He flipped over, covered his foot in shock and terror, little arms shaking in pain and anger before he looked up at me and screamed, “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME!”

His face was that of ultimate betrayal.

I thought he was being overly dramatic until he removed his hand and I saw the damage: exposed meat and a fat gaping mouth of a wound.

Joe had come running when he heard the commotion and after seeing the injury, and then giving me a look that could have frozen hell, placed a clean towel over Dylan’s foot, carried him to the car and we rushed him to the emergency room.

They took us straight in and in a matter of minutes, Dylan was sitting on a hospital bed as they took our information and a nurse went to get the doctor.

When the doctor arrived, he asked that Joe and I take a seat in the chairs against the wall and wait while he spoke to Dylan privately. I did not know that this was normal practice, that doctors often speak to children alone to check for child abuse. A police officer from child protective services was also called in to listen. I’m not sure if they just hang out at the hospital waiting for these types of cases or if they called him in specially.

I could see Dylan’s little rounded back… he was still sniffling as children do after a hard cry and his shoulders would pulse up and down every few moments as he tried to catch his breath.

The doctor pulled up a chair and sat down facing Dylan. Because of our location, we could view the doctor’s face, the officer’s face… but nothing of Dylan’s expression.

The doctor said very calmly, “Dylan. Tell us exactly what happened.”

And Dylan replied in broken sobs, “My mom… was BEATING ME… with a Baaaaaattttt.”

You can’t even imagine the look on the doctor’s face… I don’t know if I can even describe it… he looked at me like I was the biggest moron in the world. I swear… it wasn’t a “You are obviously a child abuser” look it was a “How the hell did you come up with such a stupid game like Sanctuary Quasimodo you idiot?”

The child protective officer looked at Joe like he was the devil and I could feel shame radiate from Joe’s entire being before he looked at me and whispered, “We’re so going to jail.”

But we didn’t go to jail. We never went to jail for raising Dylan. They stitched up his foot and sent him home with the crazy woman and the devil after Dylan through broken sobs explained while having his foot stitched up that it was just a game… and that he loved his mom and dad very much.

Thank God.

I’m sure if Dylan is reading this now… he wishes he could go back in time and give us a taste of our own medicine. Maybe a game called, “Send Mommy and Daddy to Jail”

Sound good Dylan?

Choking on Nuts While Watching Gandhi

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If you were to come to Long Beach, California. And… if you were to meet the many students I have taught… you would find that they have all been trained to remember two things:

1. That Ms. Wood wants to die in a way that is as entertaining as she lived and…

2. That they… my students… are to steal my body after my death, bring it to the top of the football bleachers (Which I have always been deathly afraid of falling down) and kick my body down the steps, roll it onto the football field, light it on fire, and shout “Valhalla!” dancing with glee, before they must run away… prior to the cops arrival at the scene. I have reiterated many times, that I prefer they wear political masks: George Bush, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher… although Dick Cheney would be nice… but whatever they all agree on… is fine by me.

I swear that I am NOT exaggerating.

Go ahead.

Ask them.

Seriously.

They will say, my little educational minions, that, “Ms. Wood wants to be as entertaining when she dies as she lived and I’m to throw her down the football bleachers.” They may or may not say the word “Valhalla” correctly, but… someone from AP or Honor’s English will have written down the directions word-for-word in one of their highly organized little notebooks and saved it for years, just so the plan should go off, I imagine, without a hitch.

A+ for everyone!

Mortality is something I often like to remind them of… it’s  just my way of keeping life in perspective. Just a couple of nights ago in fact, at graduation, they were all talking about how much they were going to miss me after they left school. “No you won’t,” I said. “Oh you say that now, but you will all go off into the world, begin to live your lives, and I’m the one that’s left behind. And then one day… you’ll think to yourself, I wonder what happened to Ms. Wood? and you’ll Google my name and find out that I’m dead.

“Nooooooooooo!” They all cried in horror, their shock at my statement palpable as I laughed hard and made jokes about how by the time I was ready to die, the genetic engineers of the world would have created some type of scientific wonder that would just surgically transplant my brain into a new younger version of my body. They sighed and giggled and seemed relieved to believe that I would live forever… but that’s just not the way the system works. You may think I’m being cruel teasing them… but honestly… I want them to keep the idea of  “infinite” time in perspective.

So, it was no surprise that one day during Period Five, God decided to give me a taste of my own medicine.

We had been talking about civil rights beginning in the 1800’s with Thoreau… moving to the early 1900’s with Gandhi… and ending with MLK and Cesar Chavez’s civil rights work.

I had decided that it was imperative that they watched the film Gandhi and to my surprise, my students were actually into it.

They were all focused intently on the large movie screen… watching… silent… as I quietly sat in the back corner behind my desk enjoying an afternoon snack of salted almonds. I was mid-bite during a scene that showed Gandhi wasting away on one of his many well-known hunger strikes, when I choked and while sucking in a big breath of air to recover, actually lodged a salted almond in my windpipe. There was a moment of silent panic when I realized I really was choking and I was going to have to be Heimlich’d.

Now, something  you must know about young adult education: any and all words or thoughts that resemble anything close to bathroom humor are remembered forever. So though we all appreciate the idea of the “Heimlich” maneuver in high school… “the hind lick” is of course, it’s comic counterpart.

Now, add that to the fact that Ms. Wood is in the corner, choking to death on “nuts” and you can see how this situation is becoming comically tragic. Even in my desperate moment of complete panic, I felt the world stop. Suddenly… my mind imagined a gigantic Jesus, shining in all of his glory, looking down at me with a wry smile on his face saying, “You wanted to be as entertaining in your death as you were in your life remember? Well, how do you like this scenario now, Sinner?”

My panic intensified.

Damn it.

Jesus was right.

Now I was going to be remembered as the teacher who “choked on nuts because the hind lick didn’t work.”

Fuck.

I rose quietly and quickly from my seat, as to not disturb my class, and rushed through the back of the room and slipped silently out the classroom door.

My room, a bungalow with a ramp and a rail leading up to it, led me to believe that if I could just get to the railing, I could Heimlich myself without disturbing my class and everything would be fine.

I readied myself as I held my fist tightly against my abdomen and jabbed upward several times sharply while slamming myself full force against the railing. After several seriously painful blows, the almond flew out onto the asphalt and I vomited the rest of my snack while hanging over the rail, drool dripping in long strings as I spit and worked to catch my breath.

When I looked up, I saw that there was a student standing out on the ramp of the bungalow across from mine, totally calm, not even disturbed by what he had just witnessed, texting rapidly to, I have no idea who but, being forever the teacher, afraid that I had just scarred a pupil for life, composed myself as I wiped my mouth and said, “Sorry about that. Are you okay?”

His head didn’t even come up from his task, “I’ve seen worse he mumbled.”

I shrugged my shoulders to myself thinking, Yeah… me too as we both stood there in silence for several moments… me recovering my composure and the student, intent on his work.

After a bit, I righted myself and moved towards the door.

“Hey,” the student shouted out. “What did you choke on?”

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Yes,  I could have ignored him. I could have said any number of foods. But… I felt that I needed my suspicions confirmed and so… I answered honestly.

“Nuts,” I said.

He raised his head up from the text, trying to keep his amused expression from breaking before he laughed… which can only be described as a “Beavis and Butthead” guffaw, and said, “Nuts? I’m sorry Ms. Wood, but that’s fucking funny.”

I rolled my eyes and went back into my classroom where thankfully, Gandhi’s hunger strike was coming to an end, my students were totally engaged in the action on the big screen and still had no idea that I had exited the room, let alone almost just died, on the bungalow ramp.

And to be honest, if they had known, they would have been quite angry with me because I have made a deal with them. Yes… a deal. Basically, an amendment to the Ms. Wood Death Clause.

The amendment states: that if I die in the classroom, during class time, they are allowed to roll my dead body under the large table in the back of the room, hiding it, so that they can have a party “sans adults” until they have to report my death to the office at the end of the school day.

I think that’s fair.

I mean really… they should be allowed to unwind a bit if a teacher actually up-and-dies mid-class.

I walked back to my desk and thought… How beautifully ironic: Me, choking on nuts as Gandhi’s hunger strike comes to an end.

Could the story have been any better?

So at the end of the period, I broke down and knew that I had to share it. I told Period Five the truth and as I predicted they were totally in shock that all of this had happened during their class time and that they had missed it.

Of course… they also made me call Nurse Erlandson to make sure that I really was okay. She suggested that I might want to see the doctor after school to have my windpipe checked, which, I actually did.

And now, today, I wonder… is the moral of this story, “Be careful what you wish for?” or… “Stop eating so much, get a fucking clue, look at Gandhi?”or… “Be prepared… know the “Hind Lick?”

I’m not really sure… in the grand scheme of things maybe it really wasn’t a big deal: I’m just glad that today… I’m still here.

And what about the student who witnessed my near demise? Well, I spent the remainder of that year running into him in various odd locations of the campus; as if God was putting him in front of me purposely to remind me of my little prank.

Each time I would see him, he would wave, smile, as if we were the best of friends and then… just when he was whisper close he would say, “Nuts” and then giggle like an idiot as he shook his head and walked away.

I loved him for it: I truly did.

Little bastard.

Totally loved him.

A Conversation while watching Little Women during Period 4

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Students: “Why does Jo like Professor Bhaer? He’s way too old.”

Me: “Gabriel Byrne is hot. Watch the movie.”

Students: “Ick.”

Me: “Watch the movie. Look! The guy who plays Teddy is Batman!”

Students: “Oooooooooh!”

Me: Sigh.

Students: “God, Ms. Wood. Don’t get all butt hurt about it.”

Me: “Watch the movie.”

Students: “But he’s so old!”

Me: “Jesus.”

Students: Sigh.

Precious

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Okay…. My students convinced me that we should watch the film Precious. I wanted to, I really did. I’m not a prude in any way and if you ever do read my blog you will figure that out pretty quick.

5 minutes in, my stomach was sick and turning from the cussing and verbal abuse. 10 minutes in, I was thinking, “Wow this is a modern era re-write of The Color Purple. Precious as Celie, Her step father replaced with a biological father who once again rapes the main character. (Two babies to follow) Blu Rain, Precious’s beautiful teacher who loves to sing aka Sug Avery.

I felt annoyed and decided to stop watching and read the book PUSH before continuing with the film…. so stay tuned.

Right now I’m watching Moulin Rouge…. a re-write that isn’t bothering me at all because it is SO beautiful to watch.

Full of spaghetti and cake.

Okay…  days later I finally finish watching Precious. The second half reminded me of Sharon Flake’s, The Skin I’m In. I wish someone would make Sharon’s book into a movie.

I like the lead actress that plays Precious, I’d like to jump into the screen and kill Monique, and if I had my way, we would have seen Precious graduate college with Mongo in tow.