M.L. Hamilton's Blog

My youngest son graduates high school in two weeks. Two months later, he leaves for college and I will be an empty nester. What a horrible term! In what way has empty ever meant anything good? I think that we should change the term empty nester to Professional Parent. It sounds so much more positive.

At 48, I realize I’m young to be an empty nester. One of my students told another classmate the other day, “Oh my God, do you realize I’ll only be seventeen when I graduate?” I wanted to say, “Oh my God, do you realize I’ll only be 48 when I become an empty nester?” Of course, I knew 48 would sound the same as if I said 135. “Oh my God, did you know she was so OLD?”

People ask me all the time how it feels to know I’m going to have an empty nest. The answer varies from day to day, probably hour to hour. I already miss the baseball and soccer games, the dinners where we all sat at the same table, that moment at night when you know they are all in their beds asleep and safe. The next moment I think that if one more Golden Retriever brings me a filthy, dirty sock from one of their rooms I’m gonna throw a coronary. I don’t miss baseball games where the coach’s son pitches to a 20 to nothing loss, or that vague anxious feeling you have when they’re out late, waiting to hear the garage door go up. See, it’s a mixed bag. I miss them, but I don’t miss the hyper-vigilance, the hyper-awareness, or that overwhelming dread that everything they do will either lead to death, dropping out of school, or drug addiction. Yep, parenting’s fun.

I like where I am with them. I like our adult relationships. I like seeing the men they’ve become and knowing that they can make it on their own – that my job is done. I like being a consultant, rather than an active participant with too much skin in the game.

And yet I worry about silly things. Like who’s going to open that damn pickle jar? I mean what if I really want pickles. Or who’s going to dig that whatchamacallit out of the back of the cabinet over the refrigerator – you know the one that is both too high and too deep. And then there’s cats.

Have we ever decided exactly how many cats someone needs to have before she becomes a cat lady? When my son’s cat comes to live with me for the summer, I’ll have four. Does that push me over the line?

Bottom line – I just don’t know how I feel about it, but I know this. For the first time in my life, the path isn’t clear. I don’t have a set road I have to follow. The future can be anything. I can actually explore, try things I normally wouldn’t, discover new hobbies, new adventure, a new me.

And I’ve figured out what I’m going to say the next time someone asks me, “Are you an empty nester?”

I’m gonna smile and lift my chin. “Nope, dude,” I’m gonna say, “I’m going pro.”

I have three sons. My oldest just turned twenty and has moved back into the realm of sanity upon leaving his teen years behind. Well, mostly. Occasionally, there’s some backsliding, but for the most part, I can talk to him like a rational human being and receive rational responses back again. Oh, how I cherish those moments, because, you see, my other two boys are still teenagers.

Driving home today, I listened to an interview on the radio of a playwright whose latest movie was being released on DVD. The movie (which I won’t name) has a scene between a teenage daughter and her mother, and they played it on the radio. The mother asked a simple question, like “How do I look in this dress?”, which apparently opened her up for a ration of vitriol from the daughter. Repeatedly the mother kept saying, “Why are you talking to me like this?” I found myself saying to the radio, “Tell me about it, sister.” Not a good sign. I was glad the boys weren’t in the car with me because I’m fair certain that talking to the radio would be grounds to have me moved immediately to a home.

The sad fact is I said the very thing myself last night. I stood in my middle son’s room and shouted at him, “Why are you talking to me like this?” What prompted the spewing vomit of verbal abuse – his test scores came in lower than what he’d expected. Now, I didn’t take the test, I didn’t even write the test, but somehow I am responsible for his performance on it and in his hormone-sauced mind, I caused his less than stellar results. To further demonstrate his pique, our golden retriever, who always sleeps in his room, was banished last night. When she crawled onto my bed with a weary sigh, I said to her, “So you’re being punished too?” As of now, he’s still not talking to me. I’ve been reduced to communication by text message and you know what, I’m good with it.

However, my youngest son wanted his turn at the Mommy punching-bag this morning. I asked him to help me cart a load of books to the State Fair where I will be selling them the following day. He agreed, but once we got there, he decided to stack all of the boxes on top of the hand-truck at once. When I suggested we might want to strap them down, I got the death-stare. Like a deer being hunted, I can scent an impending explosion of verbal gun-fire, so I watched with raised eyebrows as he muscled the entire, precarious pile onto the wheels and headed for the building without even looking at the load. Of course, the boxes slid off and burst open. As he’s picking up books and tossing them willy-nilly back into the box, I said, “You know, those are sort of money for me.” Cue the insanity. Not only was I wrong because I thought we might slow the pace just a little and cause less damage, but then he shouted at me, “Who the hell puts books in boxes!” People walking by our literary road-kill looked over as I stood there just staring at him, wondering if there was even an answer to that bit of verbal madness.

Now I don’t want to give the impression that my boys are always so unreasonable. As a general rule, they are the best sons a mother could have. They’ve never given me a moment of trouble, are excellent students, and contribute to their community. It’s just that sometimes…sometimes, the teenage brain goes haywire and logic is non-existent.

Today, as I stood there amid the detritus of my writing career, feeling embarrassed as my teenager yelled nonsense at me in front of my peers, I soothed myself with the thought that I too could have revenge. I too could get even. According to him, I am far more embarrassing than he is. I envisioned myself standing in the bleachers at his baseball game as he comes up to bat, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Who the hell takes a called strike! Hit the frickin’ ball, damn it!” But instead, I’ll just sit in my chair and mutter quietly under my breath, praying with every ounce of my soul that he’ll get a homerun.

Ah, parenthood. It’s a freakin’ joy, ain’t it?

The holiday season is exciting, but it is also rife with annoyances and short tempers. So much to do and so little time to do it. Not to mention being forced into close proximity with other people: crowds in stores, crowds on the roads, crowds in lines. This season requires a person’s utmost patience and good will to survive.

I thought I’d lessen some of the craziness by ordering some of my stuff on-line. I placed an order for Christmas cards with a big box chain through the internet and received an email telling me my cards were ready for pick up. I filed the email away with a cursory glance and decided I would get the pictures when I made my weekly shopping run at the same store.

Of course I forgot. So while my son unloaded the groceries into the car, I went to pick up the photos. Even here there was a line, so I waited patiently while the young man behind the counter helped a woman who was trying to put a picture into a locket.

She had a million questions and really wanted him to copy the picture for her, but this was a self-service photo center, so he refused to do more than give her cursory instruction from behind his counter. He wouldn’t even walk over and show her which of the many machines to use.

Immediately, I knew that I would likely get little help from this quarter, so I began looking around to see if anyone else was working the photo center. No such luck.

When she moved off in frustration, I sidled up to the counter and told him my simple request: I have greeting cards to pick up. He rolled his eyes at me and said, “When did you place the order?”

I was expecting to give my name, so I just blinked at him. I couldn’t remember when I placed it. “After Thanksgiving?” I stammered, then added, “I think.”

Another eye roll accompanied a very weary sigh. This young man couldn’t have been more than 21, but he had a world-weary attitude. I guess working at a big box store wasn’t all he had imagined when he filled out the application.

He went to the file cabinet and opened it. My eyes widened at the disarray revealed in the drawer. “What’s your name?” he asked me, rolling his head back on his neck and looking up at the ceiling.

I gave him my last name. He went to the “H”s, which I counted a good sign, and leafed quickly through them. Then to my amazement, he moved over to the “A”s and started searching. Behind me grew a line of customers. I looked over my shoulder and smiled, mouthing sorry. Most of them cocked their heads to the side and pursed their lips. I was only making their life harder.

I got to worrying that he didn’t know how to spell “Hamilton”. I repeated my name, slowly. He swiveled his head around at me and just stared. His fingers continued to leaf through the packets. He was now up to “F”.

I looked down and shifted weight. The line grew longer behind me.

He finished the alphabet, then opened the next drawer down. It was also bursting with packets. Again he started with “A” and went to the end. Shutting the door, he turned to me and said, “Ain’t no Hamilton.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

He gave me a frown that said I was daft. “Ain’t no Hamilton.”

Yeah, I got that the first time.

“But I received an email saying they were in?”

He moved to the counter and leaned on it. “I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am.”

Ma’am? Sigh. Like many women my age, I don’t know when I became a ma’am, but I hate it. I know it’s a title of respect, but when said by someone younger than me, it sounds so condescending.

“I paid for those. What do I do now?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am.”

“Are you sure you looked for Hamilton? H…a…m…”

His eyes went beyond me to the growing line. “I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am.”

“But I received an email?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am.”

“Can I have a refund?”

He shrugged. Shrugged. I could feel my face heat with fury, but I was well aware I was drawing a crowd and my son was waiting for me. In my mind, I envisioned myself reaching across the counter and grabbing him by the shirt collar, yanking his head lower than mine. “Listen, punk,” I’d say, “if you tell me you don’t know what to tell me again, I’m gonna go buck-wild on your ass.”

Instead, I backed up. “Okay,” I said, drawing a deep breath to still the rage. “Okay.” Then I turned on my heel and stormed out of the store. I was fuming, but I’m pretty sure no one noticed.

When I got home, I immediately went to my email to find the one about the cards. I was still furious. I promised myself I would never shop in that store again. I told myself I should have demanded to see a manager. I vowed I would put a review on-line….

Until I saw that I had sent the cards to the wrong store.

You know how you feel when the blood is pumping hot and furious through your body. Your face is flushed and your adrenaline is surging. Well, imagine it all leaving you in a rush. I slumped on the couch and stared at the address on the email. I sent the cards to the wrong store.

All those people waiting behind me. The young sales clerk searching through two whole drawers, looking for my pictures. I envisioned the crazy woman who pepper-sprayed someone at a Black Friday sale over an X-box and here I was, no less crazy.

Suddenly, I could imagine what that young man thought. I could see myself through his eyes. Customer after customer demanding things he just couldn’t deliver. I am what retailers hate about the holidays. I am the idiot throwing a fit over a bunch of pictures.

I owe all of those people an apology, especially the young clerk. Well, him I owe lunch or college tuition or something. And really, when I think about it, I deserved to be called ma’am. Truthfully, I deserved to be called a lot worse.

My eleven year old, blind dog has bested me. She is a sweet, beautiful American Eskimo with a full, stunning white coat. We have had her since she was a seven week old puppy. At a year, she tore her ACL and had to have surgery to fix it. At three years old, she began having seizure. There followed a lifelong dose of Potassium Bromide. At nine years old, she went blind. After a couple falls into our pool, we bisected the yard with a fence and learned to live with the fact that we don’t dare move any furniture. Through all of her health problems, she has maintained an indomitable will to live.

She always slept in my room on a bed in the corner; however, about a year ago, she became a little lax in her toilet habits. She hasn’t become incontinent; she just doesn’t always choose to go outside. Meaning if it’s raining, she might not see the need to void where it is cold. If the Goldens bother her, she might not see the need to void where she is being annoyed. Or lastly, if she’s mad at me…well, you guessed it. Now before you non-dog people tell me I should just put her down, let me remind you, she has been a faithful companion for eleven years. You don’t end a loved one because she’s become inconvenient. My relationship with her has lasted longer than my marriage.

Beyond the unpleasantness of occasionally having to clean up after her, I also began fearing the stairs. She would wander around upstairs in the dark while I slept and I had nightmares of waking in the morning to find her crumpled at the bottom in a small, white pile of fluff. So I banished her to below-stairs. Easier said than done.

At first I had the brilliant plan of putting her in the downstairs bathroom. I gave her a bed, I gave her water, I even put a few toys in there to keep her occupied. It lasted about a month. Then she decided she wasn't going to stay in there. It started as a small rebellion. When I would call her to go to bed, she would begin walking ever so slowly toward the stairs. I’d warning her, “Pepper, don’t do it. Pepper, don’t you dare.” The minute my feet hit the hallway to the dining room, she would break into a sprint and dash up the stairs to her bed.

So I stopped announcing what I was going to do. At some point, I would pick her up and carry her to the bathroom. She learned to tell time. When it approached 9:00PM, she would begin edging toward the stairs. Sometimes I wouldn’t even realize she was gone until it was time to get her.

I then bought a barrier to block off the great room from the rest of the house. That ended the sneaking, but it created a bigger problem. As soon as I went upstairs, she started scratching on the bathroom door. Not tentative little scratches. No, I mean huge, long incessant scratching that went on, sometimes, all night. You’d think that eventually I wouldn’t hear it. I was operating under sleep deprivation, right?

I heard it. I’ve always been sensitive to white noise. I still hear the train that goes by at 2:00AM every single night.

I admitted defeat, but reasoned she would be happy just staying in the great room. She would have the run of the family room and would be able to go into the kitchen to get water whenever she wanted. Best of all, the whole thing is tiled, so clean up would be easy.

I got another month. She then started chewing the barrier. I would hear her gnawing away in the night and scream down the stairs, telling her to stop. When she found she couldn’t chew her way out, she started pushing. She learned a little pressure on the left side would create an opening a small dog could slide through. Now here’s where I admit my own stupidity. She escaped a few nights in a row and wound up in my room. I assumed the cats were letting her out. They love to jump the barrier, but sometimes they miss and kick the whole thing down. I braced the barrier with their cat tree, but I still woke to Pepper snoring away in my room.

Eventually I discovered the left side trick, so I moved the swim towel bucket to the left side, the cat tree on the right. That would solve it, I was sure. Of course, you’re sitting there thinking, what about the middle? How could you forget the middle? I’m going with sleep deprivation and sticking with it.

The last two nights she’s escaped by squeezing out the middle at the bottom. She must press at just the right angle to lift it enough to get out, yet not send the entire thing crashing down on her. Last night at 1:00AM, I added a kitchen chair. The entrance to the great room looks like some crazy movie where people are piling furniture across the doors to keep the zombies out.

I don’t like my odds. If I can’t keep one small, white, blind dog in the great room, how the hell am I ever going to survive a zombie apocalypse?

Jack LaLanne died.

Every year, we lose a host of celebrities, but I give most of them less than a passing notice. When Jack Lalanne died, I felt sad, deeply sad. I won’t go so far as to say I mourned, but for days, I would think about him at odd times and feel this sense of loss at his passing.

Why? I’m not sure I fully understand myself. I’m not a fitness buff. Really, I wouldn’t exercise if I wasn’t afraid I’d permanently fuse with the sofa. And let’s face it. He was old – 96 at his death. He’d lived a very full, active life.

But still, I was sad.

Reflecting on my sadness, I discovered a lot of it was tied to my childhood. One of my earliest memories is of my mother doing her Jack LaLannes with a chair in our family room before the television. Honestly, I’m not sure she did this more than a few times. Like me, Mom isn’t exactly an exercise fanatic, but I distinctly remember watching her and Jack workout early in the morning.

As I grew older, I remember seeing pictures of him swimming from Alcatraz to Fisherman’s Warf. As a San Franciscan native and a swimmer, I had to admire a man who could do that. For people in the Bay Area, Alcatraz holds a certain sinister mystique and anyone who has swum in the Pacific off the San Francisco coast knows how bloody cold that water is.

Still, there is something about seeing Jack in his trademark jump suit that transports me back to a simpler time. He conveys a wholesome vision of a bygone era where mothers stayed at home and baked cookies, where children walked to their neighborhood school and played outside until called in to dinner, and where the American dream still seemed a reality -- everyone would be able to own a modest home and on Sundays, take a drive down the coast to Half Moon Bay and get an ice cream.

Now obviously, I realize that no time in history is truly idyllic. Even then I knew there was trouble in the world. We lived under a constant fear of nuclear war from the USSR. And in the Bay Area, we were inundated with refugees from Cambodia, fleeing Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. I went to school with traumatized children who escaped the Killing Fields. My parents weren’t the sort to shelter us from the reality of our times, so my brother and I knew about our Uncle Johnny, who had never been the same since returning from Vietnam -- a gentle soul who I could never look at without wondering what horrors he’d seen.

And still, I mourned for Jack LaLanne. I guess I mourned for that beautiful, brief span of human life where our parents seem invulnerable, where our greatest responsibility is picking up our toys, or including everyone in a game of Red Rover, even the socially awkward kid with glasses, when school was a few annoying moments between recesses and playing tetherball. I miss the simplicity of being a kid, of sleeping through the night, exhausted from play, not lying awake worrying about layoffs or debt or whether the American dream is dead.

I wish I could go back to a time when seeing the flag put a lump in my throat and singing the National Anthem, loudly and off-key, brought tears to my eyes. I wish I didn’t know that there were Republicans and Democrats, or who was Speaker of the House. I wish the government was still the protective umbrella I used to imagine, and I wish I didn’t know it was populated with people as human and flawed as I am.

I guess I miss the time when my world could be contained in one house – all of the important people and things, and I didn’t have to worry about what was happening across the planet from me. I miss the self-absorbed child I was who thought I had all the opportunity in the world and the only thing standing between me and greatness was me. I guess I miss my own ignorance, which brings me back to where I began.

I miss Jack LaLanne.

I’m in a strange position as an English teacher. I truly love the language in all its complexity, but I am fully aware that it is a schizophrenic language that often doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. When teaching grammar to my students, I add the following addendum to every single lesson: “Although this is a rule, there is an exception…” It doesn’t take long for one of my clever students to ask why?

For instance, while teaching about verb tense, we come across the two words lie and lay. The rule is that lie doesn’t take a direct object and means to rest or recline. Lay takes a direct object and means to place something somewhere. For example, you lie on your bed and you lay your head on your pillow. The problem arises when you change it to past tense. Then lie becomes lay. Why? I don’t know.

When you read a book, eventually you will have read it, which must not be confused with red, which is a color, or reed which is a type of grass. A rose by any other name is still a rose, unless you mean the past tense of the verb rise, which is rose. The brake on my car might break if I press too hard, which will mean it broke and paying to have it fixed will make me broke. And should you meet the queen, you will bow and probably wear a bow tie, which shouldn’t be confused with bough as in the branch of a tree or bow as in weapon.

And don’t even get me started on see. You see me, but in the past tense you saw me, which shouldn’t be confused with saw as in tool. In the past participle, you have seen me, which isn’t anything like the scene in a play, and really, thinking about it makes me want to take a trip to the sea.

But not in a boat, because if it springs a leak, I will have to bail unless I have a hay bale to plug it or a pail to fill, which all makes me feel a little pale. None of which is bail, that you’ll need if you ever go to jail. Do you hear what I’m saying here? And don’t even get me started on there. Or their. Or they’re.

Madness, this. And yet, each year I have a student who says, “Why do I need to take English? I’ve been speaking it all my life.” I smirk and say, “Each day we will spend part of our hour to learn a language that bears close study because I can’t bare your ignorance. You will need cloths, not your clothes, to wipe away the tears as you tear through the information I will provide. At the end of the course, you will realize how coarse your knowledge has been and then raise your hand in praise as you go to the principal on principle to ask that I be given a raise.”

Whew!

Every year I have my 11th grade students read Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Mystery of Heroism”. The tale involves young Collins, who decides to cross a Civil War battlefield after water on a dare from his comrades, even though the company has plenty of water. Collins makes it across the battlefield unscathed and fills his bucket; however, upon his return, he comes across a dying officer trying to take a request for reinforcements to his superiors. The dying man begs Collins for water. Collins initially runs away, terrified for his life, but he suddenly stops and turns around, returning to the officer’s side and easing his death. In that trek across the battlefield, Collins learns the meaning of heroism. Not in the acceptance of a dare from his fellow soldiers, not in risking his life needlessly, but in returning to the dying officer’s side, despite his fear, and easing his passing.

Now this may not be an obvious or dramatic example of heroism, especially when we know that every day men and women risk their lives for our country in lands far from home. When we know that each hour a police officer responds with heroism when stepping between a civilian and a criminal. Even as I write, a firefighter walks into a burning building to save a child. No one denies their heroics, no one questions their sacrifice.

I always ask my students to question themselves. Are they certain they have it in them to be heroes? They always nod vigorously because as humans, we truly want to believe we do. We want to believe we will run toward the smoking car to pull someone out, rather than away. We want to believe we would step between an attacker and his victim, rather than dive for cover. But we can never know for certain. We can never be sure until we are faced with that situation.

But what about heroism in its smaller form? Not the dramatic kind that we all recognize, but the subtle kind, like Collins, overcoming his fear in order to give a dying man water. Can those acts, however, unimportant, be indicators of future heroics? Absolutely not, but are they examples of character, strength, determination…are they examples of mettle, a lesser form of heroism.

I think of two situations in my own experience that lead me to believe that mettle, while less than heroics, is more than determination. One happened years ago. My oldest son played clarinet for his school’s marching band. They were participating in a field show competition, a set of intricate movements performed to a series of interrelated songs. This particular competition happened on a storming November weekend. The rain had come down in sheets all day and when they finally got to the field, it was a soggy, boggy pit of mud.

I stood at the top of the stadium, huddled under an umbrella. The stands were too wet for me to sit and the wind whipped the rain back under the umbrella, drenching me. I watched the band take the field, slogging through mud, slipping and sliding to their spots. I remember thinking there was no way anyone could play, let alone perform in such mess, but they struggled to their positions and waited for the signal to begin.

And they played. They played their hearts out. The sound rose from those cold, wet instruments and chased back the driving rain. They executed their moves with precision. One player lost his shoe, but never missed a beat, marching through mud and sludge barefoot rather than let down his band mates.

I stood in the cold and wet and gathering dark with tears running down my cheeks, watching this group of teenagers create magic out of the worst possible conditions, watching them persevere despite a messy, awful environment, and for that brief period of time, I knew that the world was a better place because of their determination. Because of their mettle. Was it heroics? Absolutely not. Was it important in the greater scheme of life? Obviously it wasn’t, but still, it was something more than average.

My second example happened a few weeks ago. My youngest son is on a very talented basketball team. During this particular game, only five players showed up, which meant they had no substitutes. Now, if you know anything about basketball, you know that the game moves so quickly and the action is so intense, you need a minimum of three to four subs. The other team was a team that had taken the championship last season and beaten them three times. They had four subs sitting on their bench, ready to play.

During the first three quarters, the lead moved back and forth between the two teams, never rising beyond a two point differential. Both teams were excellent, running their offenses with precision and holding the line on defense as only truly great teams can. However, my son’s team was tiring. With no one to sub in and out, fatigue was setting in. They knew they had to make a move, so they managed to eke out a six point lead heading into the last quarter. The more tired they got, the more determined they became. I can still hear the coach yelling, “We’ve got to have that rebound,” and each time one of them would come down with it, pushing through bone-numbing weariness to fight for position in the paint.

Then the unthinkable happened. Their shooting guard fouled out. Everyone in the stands held their breath. We weren’t sure what would happen. Would the referees allow them to play with four players or would they have to forfeit the game? And if they had to play with only four players against five, that six point lead sure didn’t loom large when faced with exhaustion and nearly four minutes of playing time left.

Basketball is measured in seconds. Critics say you don’t need to watch a game until the last 30 seconds. I have seen a 20 point lead evaporate in a ridiculously short amount of time. Truly, most games are not decided until that final buzzer. Playing four minutes with only a six point lead and one man down are not good odds.

The referees allowed the game to continue. I sat in the stands for the longest four minutes of my life. Every painful rebound made my heart pound faster. Every mad dash down the court had my hands shaking. I felt sick inside as I watched them labor back down the court on offense. And when the coach shouted, “I need that rebound,” I held my breath as they leapt into the air, scrambling for a ball that seemed as slippery as soap and as small as a pea.

Once again, I found myself with tears in my eyes as these four young men fought a battle to keep the other team from scoring, moving with frantic, purposeful motion from player to player, hole to hole, throwing up their hands at the exact moment to block a shot.

It shouldn’t have been possible. The odds were so much against them. The lead was so small, but they clung on, scraping and fighting and clawing for that little bit of painted floor. And when the final buzzer sounded, I couldn’t help the shout of triumph that tore out of me with the rest of the crowd or the tracks of tears that ran down my cheeks.

I will not say they were heroes because that wouldn’t be proper. That would profane the true meaning of the word. But damn it if they didn’t have METTLE.

Perhaps it is a sign of the times, but even I have had a brush with post-9/11 security measures.

It began innocently enough. As I was entering the courthouse for a mediation appointment, I readily complied with all of the security measures in place to protect me and my fellow Americans from lunatics carrying weapons. I placed my purse sideways on the conveyor belt to be x-rayed and moved in an orderly fashion through the metal detector. Behind me, my mother did the same.

I’ll admit to being somewhat distracted, but I never dreamed I was about to violate the security codes. As I exited the metal detector, I reached for my papers and walked to the conveyor belt to gather my purse. Unfortunately, my purse was no longer on the conveyor belt.

A stern-faced bailiff was holding it at arm’s length by the first two fingers of either hand. I glanced in alarm at my mother, and was further alarmed to find that she was already snickering. Apparently she had heard the code red that had gone out as my purse passed through the x-ray machine. I had not.

The bailiff demanded to know if the purse belonged to my mother (I suspect he thought she had the look of a criminal about her), and my mother, the woman who gave birth to me, said, “Oh, no, no way. That is not my purse!” accompanied by a rather dramatic waving of her hands.

Still uncertain as to why the bailiff was carrying my purse as if he was afraid it might go off, I did the right thing and laid claim to it. It was then he told me that I had a metal fork in my bag.

Yes, a metal fork.

He very helpfully informed me that I would need to remove said fork post haste. My mother, unhelpfully, continued to snicker. I began frantically searching for the offending utensil, somewhat annoyed that the diligent man-in-blue couldn’t tell me where the dang thing was since he obviously knew better than I did. At the same time, my mother asked me in a rather condescending tone, “Why do you have a metal fork in your purse?”

A number of sharp retorts came to mind. I didn’t know it was illegal. I didn’t know it was metal, I usually pack only plastic. Blast it, you’ve found me out, I have a fork fetish. What actually came out was something close to “I had lunch.” I know it was less than clever; however, I had just been handed a document by my stoic guardian-of-freedom that I assumed outlined my violation and the consequences of “packing heat.”

I am sure you’ve had moments when everything seems a little…well, surreal. Your thoughts aren’t exactly appropriate for the moment, and you have the strangest feeling that you just might be dreaming. This was such an occasion for me.

Here I was, trying to carry on a clever repartee with my mother regarding silverware, read a treatise on the dangers of fork possession, and attempt to find the blasted thing without getting arrested. It is at this moment when it occurs to me that not only did the courthouse have a fork document, but my tax dollars had gone to pay for it.

Eventually, I found the fork and handed it to the bailiff. He reached instead for the fork document and used it as a shield for his hand to keep himself from contact with my weapon of mass destruction. Then, in the voice I assume he only reserves for shameless felons, he informed me that he would not be able to hold the fork for me upon my return. What else could I say but “Of course, I understand,” when, in fact, I understood precious little of the last few moments.

As I slunk away in humiliation, my mother began to laugh in earnest now. Later she will tell me she raised me better than that. Thanks, Mom, and I won’t forget that when it came down to it, you had no trouble rolling over on me – “Good lord no, that is not my purse! I am no mindless fork-wielding-fiend! That purse belongs to my daughter!”

The boys got great enjoyment out of my brush with the law. My oldest son did lament that after all the time he’d put into scrubbing that very fork, to have it confiscated by the law was unfair; then he added that it did account for the fact that so many forks were missing from our drawers.

Everyone’s a comedian.

When all is said and done, in an age of rainbow-colored warning systems and a war on terror, I have to admit it – I forked up.

I was the kid in school who always sat at the back of the room, did my work, pulled As and Bs, and kept my head down. I felt that if I didn’t make eye contact with the teacher, he wouldn’t call on me to answer a question in front of the class. It worked. Brilliantly. If any of my teachers knew my name, I’d have been surprised.

I grew into adulthood with a crippling fear of public speaking. Whenever thrust into the role of having to speak before my peers, I would turn red, break into a cold sweat, and get nauseous. And the feeling didn’t end when I could hide once again. I’d remain in a state of nervous anxiety for hours after any public speaking episode.

I never had a problem with speaking to students, which baffled me, but even after becoming a teacher, I was panic stricken if I had to address more than one of my peers at any time. In a career where you are forced into meeting after meeting, it was an untenable situation.

Thankfully, my district began forcing me into more and more public speaking roles. I was asked to be on committees where I was forced to respond, then I was asked to train other teachers. I will never forget the first time I faced a room full of my colleagues. I actually saw black spots dance in front of my eyes and thought I was going to vomit on my podium, but I had no choice. I wasn’t going to be allowed to hide anymore.

Halfway through a daylong training session, I realized I wasn’t trembling, my voice was steady, and my face didn’t feel like it was on fire. Yes, it happened that suddenly and that fast. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I’m not going to tell you I don’t have a flutter of nervousness now when I speak before my peers, but it doesn’t last more than a flutter. I’ve been cured.

The student who so feared being seen by the teacher is herself a teacher who demands participation in her classroom. I may not be able to force my students to do their homework (although I try very hard to encourage them to do so), but I tell them that once they cross the threshold of my classroom, they will participate in class.

I do not want another student to spend thirty years of her life fearing public speaking, so I start small. I have them stand by their desk and tell something about themselves, but I start on the first day of school. Then it’s a group presentation before the class, many group presentations beginning the first week of school. Finally, we work our way up to an individual speech.

It is simple to get kids in front of the classroom. Most teachers do a warm-up at the beginning of class; some teachers call it bell work. When my students enter the room, they have a warm-up on the overhead. I have them attempt the short activity on their own, then I have a student correct it with the entire class at the overhead. I take volunteers at first, but after the more gregarious students go, I call on the students who are reluctant to participate. The student who is being the “teacher” is provided with the answers when he gets to the overhead. I want this to be a positive, successful venture. This student is in control of calling on the class for answers and recording them on the transparency. Most students admit it is a fun experience. They seem to enjoy having that authority over their fellow students. Some even admit that they might think of going into teaching themselves someday.

Last year I had a student lament that he was taking over his father’s cement pouring business and therefore would never need to give a speech. It was one of those perfect, teachable moments. Another student raised his hand and said, “You never know what you might wind up doing. I thought the same thing myself…until last year when my brother got married. He picked me to be his best man.”

I just smiled and let the moment speak for itself.

Every once in awhile, I am made aware that I am surrounded by atypical teenagers. It’s bad enough that my own sons are geeks, but many of the teenagers I work with are as well.

Yesterday, one of my students named Jessica, came into yearbook and showed me a little vial on a necklace, which she proudly declared contained her DNA. She had been wearing it around her neck all day. Another student, one of the typical variety, stopped and said, “Why in the world would you have that?” Snarky teacher that I am, I answered, “In case she commits a crime, she’ll now have the evidence to solve it for herself.” Typical student turns to Jessica and says, “Really?”

Then last night, we went to purchase Kyler’s cap and gown. Miranda and her father were in the line behind us. When she came up to say hi, my son didn’t respond in the typical manner. No “Hiya, babe, whut’s the haps?” for Kyler. Nope. Kyler says quite naturally, “Why are you still wearing your DNA, Miranda?” And she responds with equal gravity, “Because I like it.” I felt like I was in a science fiction world where everyone carries their DNA around in a vial tied to their necks as if it were a diamond.

This is not the end of the DNA tale, however. Last night I was closing the curtains in the living room when I noticed Figaro had something dangling from his mouth. When he saw me, he dropped it and I bent down to pick up a small, clear vial on a string. Ignoring the fact that my cat carries odd objects in his mouth, I shouted up the stairs, “Kyler, Figaro has your DNA.” What mother says this? Other mothers find vials of questionable substances in their children’s rooms, but I would bet money it isn’t their son’s DNA.

Even odder still, this isn’t the first time that I’ve found strange things coming out of my mouth. When I was a teenager, the cops were always showing up at our house to answer a neighbor’s complaint about the noise from my brother’s heavy metal band. That is normal. That is typical teen behavior. Not for me. How many mothers have ever yelled the following down the hallway at night:

“Turn down that damn JAZZ, Kyler!”

NOTE: Initially written May 2010.