Taxes Not Included

By now you know that no visit to Mom’s is complete without a trip to Target.  Or an encounter with Odd Boy.  But I think GeekHiker jinxed me a few days ago by mentioning that Odd Boy would one day grow up to be Odd Man.  Well, yesterday I met Odd Boy’s future, and it is odd. 

I was sitting on the front porch reading — I know, I should just go read in the back yard, right?  Wrong.  It is a mosquito-infested bog.  And besides, the hammock is broken.  If I am going to be assaulted by West Nile assassins, I want to do it in luxury.  And although the sounds of frogs, toads, and other unidentified insect-eating amphibious creatures punctuate the night air disrupting my beauty sleep as they belch the alphabet, they have had zero impact on the mosquito population.  Zero. 

But this is not about mosquitoes.  Nor is this about the time earlier this week when I stepped out onto the back porch with bare feet and the perfect pedicure to let Dingo Girl out for her evening poop patrol and kicked a big-assed toad.  It had a J. Lo.-size ass and it wasn’t happy about having my size 8 ½ foot, (perfect pedicure or not!) imprinted on it.  He belched his protest and instead of hopping away, three more J. Lo. toads jumped onto the porch to back him up.  It was an ambush!  I was trapped! 

I screamed like a city girl and jumped away from my slimy attackers, landing five perfectly pedicured toes on a giant garden slug.  I am sure that I have never before heard the sound that rose from my throat.  I think it was a shriek garbled by vomit.  And so, that is why I don’t go into the backyard anymore unless I’m wearing my combat boots.  And it’s just entirely too hot to wear those this week.

So I sit on the front porch where the breeze kisses my face, the scent from what’s left of Mom’s flowers hangs in the air, and the “curse-said” (thanks, Mrs. Chili!) crop circle taunts me.  The front porch also makes me the prime target for Odd Family across the street.  I saw Odd Man pull his 1970’s-child-molester brown-on-brown conversion van into his driveway yesterday but I did not look up from my book or wave (in the South, y’all, you wave to everyone so look at what they have reduced me to!).  It didn’t stop him from coming over to talk to me.  Now, before y’all go thinking that I’m not neighborly, let me just say that Odd Family moved in a few years after I’d already left for college so I don’t really know them except from holiday visits home and phone calls conducted in hushed whispers.

Me:  Mom, speak up, I can’t hear you.

Mom (strained whisper):  I can’t.  Odd Family just pulled in across the street and I don’t want them to know I’m home.

Me:  They can’t hear you from across the street.

Mom (frantic):  Yes, yes they can.  They’re like bats!  They hear everything!  Well, darn it!  I left the porch light on, here they come.  If you don’t hear from me again, remember, you were always my favorite.  Always!

Me:  Mom?  Mom?  Moooooooommmmmmm!!!

Odd Man can talk the ears off a mule.  Except a mule would probably have the sense to walk off and leave Odd Man with his jaws a-flappin’.  I just sit there with a polite smile stuck to my face and murderous thoughts drifting through my head.  Although I truly believe, that even from six feet under, Odd Man would continue to talk.  He would be the one dead man to tell a tale.  And then another.  And then another.  So when Odd Man saw me sitting on the porch, I knew my peaceful afternoon had come to an end.  I immediately regretted shunning the company of my web-footed companions in the back yard.  At least if the big-assed toads annoyed me badly enough, I could seek my revenge with a frying pan and a pound of butter.  Odd Man has no such redeeming qualities.  His legs are knobby and hairy and should be kept hidden under long pants. 

Odd Man walked to the edge of the road and stood there for a few seconds.  Then he walked slowly up Mom’s driveway, stopping to smell the roses, before coming to stand in front of me.  And he started talking. 

Odd Man:  You reading that book?

Me:  Yes.  I don’t have a lot of time to read for pleasure these days so I —

Odd Man:  I have to read a lot too.  With my new tax business, blah, blah, blah…yaddah, yaddah, yaddah…snooze, snooze, snooze…so that’s why I have the docking station in the van.

Me (waking up):  You have a docking station in the van?

Odd Man:  For my laptop.  For when I go visit clients.

Me:  You see tax clients in your van?

Odd Man:  Yes, I make house calls.

Me:  Wouldn’t house calls mean that you go to their house?

Odd Man:  I do.  I park out front and then they come out to the van and that way I can show them stuff on my computer.

Me:  You have a laptop.

Odd Man:  *blink* *blink*

Me:  Why don’t you just take the laptop into their house?

Odd Man:  Ohhhhhh....  Say!  Didn’t you used to have a dog?

That Odd Man, nothing gets by him.

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Phone Company Grass

I’m headed to Mom’s again for a few days to help out around the house.  What that means for me is a lot of cougar training shopping yard work.  What that means for you is cougar training shopping Odd Boy updates.  Do you see all that I do for you?  No sacrifice is too great to keep you, my dear readers, updated on the Adventures of Odd Boy. 

Fortunately, the kids from Mom’s youth group came over this week to mow the lawn so all I have to do is some weeding and hedge trimming when I get there.  There’s much more weeding to do now that the phone company updated the underground fiber optic lines.  They ripped out Mom’s beautiful flowerbed by the front walk and, after they had finished, reseeded the area with grass.  But not just any old grass.  This Phone Company Grass is some of the toughest grass I have ever seen.  We’ve uprooted it, sprayed it, and cursed at it. Well, I’ve cursed at it.  Mom’s strongest curse is a half-hearted, “Well, darn it!”

No matter what we do to the Phone Company Grass, it keeps coming back.  It is the herpes of grass.  Osama Bin Laden may be made of this grass or, at least, hiding under it somewhere.  Meanwhile, where the phone company did not touch anything, there’s a giant bare spot in the front lawn that looks like someone has been making crop circles with battery acid.  I had better keep a closer eye on Odd Boy. 

Odd Boy, you see, has a fascination with Mom’s lawn.  He’s always offering to mow it.  My mom told me that he seemed genuinely hurt to discover that the kids from church were mowing her lawn this week.  He walked over to where Mom was dispensing iced tea and cookies to ask about her use of child labor.

Odd Boy:  Is that your lawn?

Mom: Um….yes.

Odd Boy:  Are those kids mowing your lawn?

Mom: Yes.

Odd Boy:  Do you pay them to do that? 

Mom:  No, they’re from my youth group.  They do it to help out.

Odd Boy:  Well, I would’ve charged you to mow the lawn.

Mom (always wanting to help and thinking he might need the money):  How much do you charge?

Odd Boy:  Sixty-five dollars.

Mom:  Sixty-five dollars!  That’s… hey, how come I never see you mowing your own lawn?

Odd Boy:  I’m not allowed to mow it by myself.  My dad has to watch me.

Mom:  So, how would you be able to mow my lawn?

Odd Boy:  My dad would come over and watch me.  Can I have some cookies?

Mom (handing him cookies): Of course!

Odd Boy:  I would still charge you sixty-five dollars.  My dad watches for free.

That Odd Boy, he drives a hard bargain.

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If Miles Were Measured in Donuts

I haven’t written much about my marathon training lately because most of it consists of things like, “Oh my holy hell, it’s hot y’all!” and “Someone talk me out of this madness!” But overall it’s going well.  I have about seventeen weeks until the marathon.  Yes, seventeen.  I had to make a wee change in my plans.  I am not going to Florence for the marathon.  Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, I am still running a marathon.  It’s just not in Italy.  It’s in Massachusetts. Cape Cod, to be exact.  Racing in Florence with a weak dollar and the cost of everything rising due to oil prices seemed like a big burden right now.  So, instead, I decided to race in Cape Cod, which is just like Italy with fewer popes.

Why Cape Cod?  Well, everyone knows that Italy is shaped like a boot, but did you know that Cape Cod is shaped like an arm?  Check it out on a map.  I am all into running in places shaped like extremities, so Cape Cod and Italy were the natural next choices after my first race in Manhattan.  Hey, if any of you are truly disappointed by this change in plans, I will reluctantly accept donations of cash, air miles, free drink coupons, duty free discount certificates or, hell, any old thing, toward the Send Dingo to Florence fund. 

The Cape Cod Marathon is sponsored by Dunkin Donuts because, you know, donuts and exercise go hand in hand.  I’m counting on them to have donut holes at every water station.  Or even instead of water stations. I can bring my own freakin’ water, but I want to make Dunkin Donuts put their “America Runs on Dunkin” money where my mouth is.

While my race training has gotten tougher and the hills don’t seem to be getting any easier, I have reached a running milestone.  The other day, I finally passed the old lady with a walker I see on the park track all the time when I run.  And I did it with style and only a small amount of gloating because I’m just humble like that.  When I first started running, Old Lady With Walker would kick my ass.  She would come out of nowhere and I’d think, “I may be slow but at least I can beat Old Lady With Walker.” Only, I couldn’t.  I could never catch up to her.

At first, I thought I had the upper hand.  OLWW is always dressed from head to foot in a white calf-length puffy coat — the kind you wear when the New York winter is at it’s worst and the mayor is telling everyone to stay home from work so the snow plows can do their job — and leather gloves.  She looks like the Michelin man, except I don’t recall ever seeing sweat stains under his armpits.  Anyway, I figured if I couldn’t catch up to her on my own power, she’d eventually fall out from heat stroke and I’d be able to hurdle over her prone body and claim victory.  Unless I was really tired from running.  Then I would have to step on her.  Gently. 

But I think OLWW has a tricked-out walker.  It’s sort of the Sports edition of walkers.  It has thick SUV wheels on the back legs and tennis balls on the front ones.  Tennis balls!  How could I compete with that?  She pushes this walker up and down the hills of Central Park like she just won a $5000 shopping spree at Tar-zhay and has only five minutes to reach the check-out line.  I thought, “Day-um!  I should be able to beat OLWW!” But I just couldn’t.  The distance between us would continue to increase until finally she came around behind me. 

And then.... this week, the impossible happened.  I passed OLWW.  I didn’t just pass her.  I passed her going uphill!  I was ecstatic.  Rocky Balboa couldn’t have been more pleased when he reached the top of those famous steps than I was at that moment.  I heard his theme music in my ears, danced a jig and did a couple of fist pumps in the air before becoming so out of breath my vision began to blur.  But I wanted to savor my victory.  So I turned around to see if she was choking on my dust.  Folks, I am just mastering the art of forward movement.  Running backwards is the Ph.D of coordination and apparently I don’t have that gift.  I tripped.  And fell. 

The world looks completely different when you are only six inches off the ground.  I did not relish having the Nike Swoosh tattooed onto my forehead by the approaching runners who did not stop.  Yeah, no one stopped.  They just kept on running although I think I heard one woman say something to her running buddy about stepping on me gently.  Through my haze of embarrassment, I swore I could hear OLWW’s wicked cackle as she anticipated leaving walker tracks across my outstretched body, so I quickly jumped up and continued my run. 

You would think making a complete ass of myself would dial back my snarkometer to acceptable leveIs, but you would be wrong.  The only thing that can make you feel better after an incident like that is to make fun of someone else.  It’s really not hard to do.  At my pace, there is plenty of snark material running right past me every few seconds.  The normal people pass me too quickly to fully engage my Bitch Vision, so all I’m left with is the freak parade.  Now, I know what you are thinking, and shame on you.  I am not a freak.  I just run like one.

I was not disappointed.  Two of my favorite runners appeared up ahead and instantly lifted my mood.  First there was the guy who runs like he’s on his way to a Broadway audition or the Extreme Cheer Challenge competition.  Arms bent at the elbow, fingers fully splayed, he has the perfect jazz hands. My internal iPod doesn’t know whether to start humming tunes from A Chorus Line or reciting dialogue from Bring it On: In It To Win It .  (Shush!  Don’t judge me! I’d like to see your DVD collection!) I always want to slap a Spirit Stick into his hands just to see what happens. 

Speaking of flashy numbers, did you know they make gold lamé running shorts?  Well, they do!  And my second favorite runner, Lame Lamé, has a pair for every day of the week.  Either that or she wears the same ones over and over again, but that’s just too nasty to think about.  Luckily, they make gold lamé running shorts in various sizes so you can choose ones that are two sizes too small, allowing everyone to see the shape of your girl bits.  I am glad I wear sunglasses because the reflection off her ass can scorch your corneas.  When she passed me the other day, the heat from her vulva-laser caused me to stumble, but I somehow maintained my balance.  Not only would falling twice in the same run have been mortifying, but it would be a sad day indeed if the last sight I ever had of this world was a pornographic baked potato and OLWW tennis balls approaching my forehead.

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I’m Just A Girl

I’ve been meaning to write this post for about a week.  Tara R. over at If Mom Says OK gave me a little push.  I’m honored that she asked me to participate in BlogBlast for Education. It’s a great idea spearheaded by April at It’s All About Balance.  So check out the other bloggers writing about their experience in education whether they are parents, teachers, students, or all three.  Hey, wait!  Where are you going?  Read my post first!

Those of you who have been reading this blog for some time (Thank you! I love you! Kisses! Mwah! Mwah! Are those flowers for me?) know that I use horror literature in my classes to address issues of gender, class, race, and poor fashion choices.  The discussions can get pretty heated.  Early in the semester one of my students claimed that a character in the novel didn’t have the smarts to avoid disaster because she was “just” a housewife.  That student thought that eating bon-bons all day while watching Jerry Springer is more interesting than fighting monstrous sea creatures, unless the sea creature is drooling chocolate while filming porn for her boyfriend’s brother’s website.  They just can’t be motivated to save their own lives if it means missing Oprah.  That’s what menz is for!  Perhaps Mr. Clean and that Brawny guy can help out if they are not too busy saving the world from — oh, yeah, that’s right! — common household germs and dirty kitchens.

The student who shared this gem about housewives wasn’t trying to be snarky or demeaning.  It was her sincere and genuine opinion.  Yes, I said her.  This sentiment arose from a young woman who, as far as I could tell, wanted a college degree so that she could marry well before she started poppin’ out the rugrats.  Yes, she wants to be a housewife!  She was merely sharing her own vision of her bob-bon-flavored future life of leisure and daytime television.  And she ain’t killin’ no friggin’ monsters.

Only one student challenged this woman’s characterization of housewives.  The rest just kind of shrugged their shoulders.  WTF?!  Not in Mistress Dingo’s class! 

There’s education and then there’s ed-u-cation.  Time for a lesson.  I made them talk about their ideas about men and women and it turned out to be one of the best classes of the semester.  We talked about beauty, sexuality, stereotypes, torture porn, the wage gap, cloning (one student’s bright idea was to clone women so that one woman wouldn’t have to do all the housework), and bad fashion choices.  We would have gone on and on but we ran out of time.  I had to shove them out of the door at the end of class.  I mean, I love my students but I am married to Happy Hour. 

The rest of the semester, things looked bright.  We dissected gender roles in the texts that we read and my students seemed to get it.  They brought in magazine ads and talked about commercials they had found offensive and harmful to men or women, gay or straight.  In fact, I was going to have a movie made of this story starring Dingo as the bright, hopeful teacher who motivates her inner city students to look beyond their bleak ‘hood and to challenge themselves to be the best they can be.  That storyline hasn’t been done yet, has it?

I was proud.  Hell, I was smug.  My students were thinking for themselves and I had played a role in their transformations. I was changing the world one awkward freshman at a time.  As the semester ended and the students handed in their final papers, I really looked forward to reading them! 

I was not prepared for this:

Men should not treat women as property and sexual objects because women are also useful in certain areas men are not, for example; cleaning, sewing, cooking, and nursing a baby.

That student had obviously never tasted my cooking.  Or seen my apartment.  Or my boobs.

Then, there was this sage declaration:

As a Confucius saying goes ‘having a woman rule would be as unnatural as having a hen crow like a rooster at daybreak.’

Damn it!  I was ready to hit someone over the head with my Swiffer! I try, y’all.  Lord, I try.  I believe that education is more than just book learnin’ but it appears that in some areas we fail miserably.  Even vampires can’t change thousands of years of stereotypes and generalizations overnight, and they definitely can’t do it during daytime.  Still, I am astonished that in 2008, smart, hip, progressive, and often hysterically clumsy young adults possess such archaic biases.  Sometimes I become so frustrated that I just want to cook those kids or sew them together.  Like paper cutout dolls.  That would serve them right!  But then I would miss Oprah.

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What’s Black and White and Green All Over?

The end of the semester is always a mad dash of papers, exams, grading and that end of semester rite of passage, the sob story.  Before I start breaking harsh on my students, let me say that for all my snarky and profanity-laced rantings about their ethics (or lack thereof), poor grammar, and naïve world views, I am a soft-serve with sprinkles in real life.  I’ve been known to be firm (but fair!) during office hours and then to break into tears as soon as the student is out the door. 

I hate giving students who have worked hard all semester poor grades that don’t reflect what they have actually contributed to the class because of one misstep, or an attack of the lazies — especially after I have just spent two weeks sitting on their ungraded finals on the couch eating M&Ms and catching up on Grey’s Anatomy — or some other trauma that has caused their fragile watercolor portraits of the world to run black and blue.  I can relate.  Hey, if there is one person reading this who didn’t use a sick day when you found out that Jericho had been cancelled or who hasn’t feigned deathly illness when the outfit you were planning to wear didn’t fit around your stealthily expanding waistline, you get a Twinkie.  Actually, you get a crate of Twinkies, and then when your work-wear doesn’t fit the following week, you’ll know just the trauma I am talking about.

So, if my students can provide excuses and have shown me all semester that they are engaged in the class, I will work with them on their grades — extra credit, extending a paper deadline, and bribery demeaning manual labor indentured servitude paper revisions are some methods I’ve used to help them along the path to enlightenment.  Of course, I make them beg first.  Always make them beg first.  Because what is the point of having power if it doesn’t make you tingle every now and then?

But sobbing always comes on the heels of my lording.  While I speak to them, I don my “serious professor face” and admonish them.  “I will have to think about bestowing my mercy upon you,” I tell them.  “Say three Hail Dingos and pray, PRAY!, for My Blessed Grace!  Now begone!” But, once they leave the office, I reach for the Kleenex and wonder whether professors who don’t give Second Chances also push old people into oncoming traffic and juggle kittens and laugh during Zales commercials.  What usually follows these meetings is a restless night worrying about my student.  Is she going to be okay?  Will she come up with the money to avoid losing the farm?  Will she find a kidney donor?  Did the governor grant the pardon in time? 

The next day, I am a hero.  I am Super Professor.  I give the extra credit assignment or extend the paper deadline and we both smile like we take Enzyte.  My class isn’t just about learning how to read and understand literature.  I’d like to think that it’s also about learning that laziness and procrastination are A-Okay that lying pays dividends from your mistakes.  My colleagues say that this benevolence will come back to bite me on the butt.  That’s not such a bad thing.  Anything that takes some of the junk from my trunk is fine with me.  Except mosquitoes. 

One thing that I cannot forgive, however, is plagiarism.  Zero tolerance.  I have too much respect for the students who work hard to improve their writing skills to accept plagiarism as a case of the lazies.  It is not laziness.  It is theft, and I will hunt you down like the Fugitive to make sure you are punished so severely for it that you wake up every night not only in a puddle of your own urine, but also the urine of the person whom you plagiarized. The Spanish Inquisition will seem like a Katie Couric interview when I’m through with you.

I am surprised that in this Google age — it is now the year 12 GE (Google Era) — students still try to get away with plagiarism.  In most cases, I talk with the student about what she did and discuss why she is receiving a failing grade in the class.  Although I have the option of referring each case to the Dean, it usually goes no further than me, the student, and the gradebook.  Usually. 

This semester, I had a case so egregious from a student so ballsy that I’m sure in a few years (if not already) she’s going to be in jail for check kiting, identify theft, or laughing at Zales commercials.  So, if you get bizarre comments on your blogs or inappropriate emails from me, rest assured it’s NOT REALLY ME.  Particularly if it’s not gut-bustingly hilarious.  That’s the dead giveaway.

Anyhoodle, one of my students, Patty Plagiarist, spent the entire semester in a catatonic stupor.  She never brought her books to class, never did the reading, and never turned in a single paper.  Although she completed in-class writing assignments, it was obvious that she hadn’t even bothered to use Cliff Notes.  I’m sorry but, no, Macbeth is not Ronald McDonald’s girlfriend’s name.  And The Shining?  Yes, that book was written by Stephen King, but it is not about his problems with baldness.  Couldn’t you at least have watched the movie?

You can imagine my surprise when Patty Plagiarist turned in the final paper of the semester and not only did it exceed the mandatory page length but it was freakin’ amazing!!!  A student who could barely muster a coherent sentence all semester was now writing about pandemics and trans-morphing and crap I had never even heard of.  A call to Mr. Google was in order.  Mr. Google made quick work of the paper and revealed that not one, not two, but seven — SEVEN! — web sites were plagiarized.  I emailed Patty and asked to meet with her about her paper.  Seven!

When she finally strolled in late to our meeting I cut to the chase and showed her the print outs I had of the web sites she’d stolen from.  I also presented her with a copy of her paper with plagiarized sections highlighted in green.  The paper looked like it had been written by Lawn Doctor.  Patty had the nerve to look surprised. 

Patty:  That’s not my paper.

Me:  What?  Yes, it is.  It’s the one that was attached to the email you sent to me.

Patty:  Well, that’s my paper but it’s not the one I meant to send.

Me:  Not the —?

Patty:  Yes, I plagiarized that paper but I called my brother and he said you wouldn’t fall for it so I wrote another one.

Yes, folks, her brother supposedly told her that the paper was so good that I wouldn’t believe it was hers.  Patty then said that she wrote ANOTHER paper that she meant to send to me.  There was a sob story about how she had stayed up all night to write it, blah, blah, blah, it was eight pages long, blah, blah, blah.  This would be a good time to mention that this other paper was supposedly a comparison between a book we read in class and a book she read on her own initiative.  Does Patty sound like a person with that sort of initiative?  No.  I called her bluff.  I told her that I didn’t believe her story and that I wanted to see this “other” paper within the next two hours.  She was definitely going to fail the course but I was still deciding whether to refer it to the Disciplinary Committee.

Here is where you need to picture the passage of time like in the old movies with the hands of the clock spiraling out of control until it grinds to a halt Seven. Long. Hours. Later.  Seven!  I received an email from Patty with this other paper attached.  Would you be shocked to learn that it was a two-page piece of crap?  Moreover, it was a two-page, crap, superficial comparison of two works we read waaaay at the beginning of the semester. 

I emailed Patty Plagiarist again telling her that I was going to forward her case to the Dean and recommend her expulsion.  Her response?  She apologized.  Not for plagiarizing but for accidentally sending me the wrong paper.  Again.  She somehow thought I wanted for her to send me the second paper of the semester — which had been due over a month earlier.  A paper that she had never handed in.  This girl should never apply to be a contestant on The Moment of Truth.  She also informed me that expulsion was too harsh and that she wanted another chance to send me the correct paper.  Um, no. 

My litigator instincts kicked in and, since I happened to have exhibit tabs left over from my days of practicing law — doesn’t everyone? — I wrote a lengthy brief (lawyer oxymorons still get me hot) and attached thirteen unlucky exhibits as evidence of her plagiarism and deceit.  Believe me, you have the condensed version of this madness.  Oh yeah, Judge Judy would be proud. 

This case is still making its way through the red tape and the black hole of the disciplinary process, but this student will not attend another class at my Institution of Higher Learning.  I have no doubt that, given the opportunity, Patty Plagiarist would do this again, maybe taking a hostage this time.

I try to make sure that my students learn more than just an appreciation of literature and writing in my class.  Unfortunately, I don’t think Patty Plagiarist learned anything in my class and certainly nothing about unethical conduct.  But she certainly learned this:  Don’t fuck with Dingo!  Dingo has enough stolen exhibit tabs to deal with your kind for years to come!

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