Thank God that's over

My house looks like a Halloween hurricane blew through it.
I found out around 11 this morning that about 10 eighth-grade boys would be meeting at our house to begin the candy quest.
Then the twins ransacked nearly every drawer and closet in their attempts to put together a "costume," which to them means "hat."
Over the years we've collected two giant Rubbermaid bins full of costume parts, many of which were part of my work wardrobe in the '80s.
After trying on and rejecting most everything they'd pulled out, Henry wore a $10 vampire cape over basketball clothes and Mason wore an old lampshade from the attic on his head. He was a lamp. See what he did there?
Owen, on the other hand, had pointed out which costume he wanted when the Costume Express catalog arrived two months ago: the SWAT officer.
The costume sat waiting for him in the dining room for three weeks.
I had a really weird moment later after I drove Owen to my parents' neighborhood for a visit. My dad walked around their subdivision with us, and for a minute I felt like an 8-year-old with him walking next to me.
As I watched Owen walk up to ring a doorbell and heard my dad saying, "Be careful on the steps," I literally felt like it was 1977 and I was the one carrying the candy bag.
Instead of heading home to dump out all the candy I'd collected in my pillow case, I had to drive my baby home and then drive around our darkened streets picking up all those eighth-graders who had walked too far to make it back on their own.
They only had a couple of minutes to admire their candy before bed. It is a school night after all.
Yep, Halloween sure looks different from a 42-year-old perspective.
When the kids get on the school bus, I'll be able to clean a little in the calm after the storm.

Erin go blah!

I do not love St. Patrick's Day because it has always started off badly in my house.

Green is not a standard color in my family's wardrobe. That means my kids can't easily participate in the holiday's main activity (besides drinking beer), which is wearing green.

Therefore, you can always guarantee that I will begin every March 17 with a stressful dash around the house looking for any shirt in the green family.

Except for the years when I went to Snowden Jr. High School, where our mascot was the Greenies, I have always had to wear something with a green stripe or green letters or green checks.

I spend the day fending off pinchers by saying, "Nope, wait, see this? This little thread right here is green!"

My kids are doing it, too. My youngest, who was the most into the wearing of the green, had to choose between his older brother's too-big gym shirt from Brentwood Middle School or a too-small green T-shirt of his that I'd dug out of a Goodwill bag.

If I were smart, I'd go spend a little green on something green for next year.

Time for a pity party!

I have a personal standard of being about four years behind most cultural trends. It's not a written policy or anything. It just happens that way.

I'm aware of the stuff that's sweeping the nation, as they say. I just don't always participate in it, at first.

Especially books and movies. Whenever I watch the Academy Awards ceremony, for example, I've rarely seen all of the movies up for the big awards. I'm lucky if I've seen one. However, I can usually tell you more than you wanted to know about the plot, who stars in them, and who was killed or hooked up or broke up during the filming of said blockbuster because I read a lot.

I live my life like the perfect reference librarian, full of secondary information I can readily pass along without actually going into the stacks.

No, I'm more like a walking, talking Bible concordance, full of helpful names and numbers but no fulfilling scriptures.

Anyway, now that I'm out of literary analogies, I can admit that I'm not sure what sucked all the joie de vivre out of me (twins). I can't think of many "Jill" things I'd be excited enough about to wait in line for. I've waited in line for plenty of kids stuff, but not by choice. I think the last thing I literally waited for in a long line with anticipation was a coveted spot in the summer session of preschool. So, yeah. That's how bad it is. Now you understand why I get so excited when a new FreeCreditReport.com commercial comes on.

To combat this slow ossification of my life, I suddenly decided to read a best-seller. At least, it was a best-seller about four years ago.

I chose Eat, Pray, Love because I happened to read that its author's second book was coming out, and I thought, "Wow, I never even read her first book." I also saw where Julia Roberts was playing the lead in the movie version of that first book, which means it will get a lot of press, so I thought I'd at least try to be ahead of the trend game this summer.

As I slogged through the book, I got more and more annoyed. It follows this woman's journey to find herself across Italy, India and Indonesia. I enjoyed the Italy section pretty well because I can identify with a European vacation where the focus is eating.

In India, I got bogged down by all the ... meditating. I guess that's what got to me. For one thing, this woman had just spent four months in Italy eating. She then traveled to India for rejuvenation. She challenged herself at a remote ashram by meditating for hours on end, all in pursuit of a quiet mind.

I just gave up. I had to quit reading the book because I could not empathize with this woman. I kept wanting to yell out, "You don't need to find yourself. You need to find something to do! Have a kid or two, and you'll find out who you are real quick!"

But I didn't. I don't recommend self-discovery as a reason to have children. I'm also fully aware that having children is not an option for many. I think that's my point. Our worlds are so different that the person I am right now could only survive in hers for as long as she could thrive in mine.

I can see why Oprah fawned over this book so much on her show. It is so something that Oprah would do. She's all about finding your best self and living your best life, which is more than I can live up to with so many other lives to worry about.

I've always been surprised that Oprah, a childless billionaire, has so much influence over mothers in this country.

I stopped watching Oprah the day she recommended a $40 bottle of hand soap for my guest bathroom. I think I fed the five of us for three days on $40 last weekend.

Reading this book reminded me of the last few months of my Glamour magazine subscription. I used to love Glamour so much that I grew up wanting to work there. I even wrote it down as my first choice when I applied for the ASME internship while I was in college. I ended up interning for Guideposts, which I think was a little bit of God's handiwork because I think He wanted me to go deeper.

Those last few times I read Glamour, I would flip past more articles than I would read. I was married by then, and I didn't want to read about dating issues. I was not employed at the time, so all the career advice bounced right off me. Even the fashion items didn't appeal, so I let the subscription lapse. I missed Glamour as much as I missed Tiger Beat.

I haven't missed Eat, Pray, Love yet, though I may check it out again just to say I finished what I started. But I'll probably wait until my mind quiets down. One of my sources of inspiration was up at 3 a.m. feeling pukey.

As for rejuvenation, a short nap next to a big dog does it for me.

Another reason moms aren't boys

For the record, telling boys, "You're shaking the whole house," will not discourage them from doing whatever loud, thumping, crashing activity they're doing. In fact, if they're like my boys, they'll probably say, "Cool!" and assume you're cheering them on.

I know this because I work from home. My desk backs up to the wall on which their new Nerf hoop is located.

I cannot concentrate during a game of what they call "Contact Basketball" because they do shake the whole house, and I cannot edit a magazine about Glasgow, Kentucky, when it sounds like they are literally killing each other.

When I do get up and check on them through the glass door, they all pop up with innocent smiles. The youngest gives me a thumbs up, saying cheerfully, "We're okay!!!"

BTW, do not Google "basketball injuries" if you're queasy about bone stuff.

This week's Brentwood Home Page column

Our countdown calendar says fourteen days until Christmas, one day until Mom loses it.

Too much togetherness

Last Tuesday morning the Explorer wouldn't start. No problem, really. That's why we're a two-car family, right? We got Owen to school, then I took Tim back to work and left the truck sitting in the driveway to think about it and come back to me when it had a better answer.

When it still wouldn't talk later that night, Tim charged the battery for a while. Nothing. OK, no big deal. We weren't trying to pack it up and drive to Memphis for Thanksgiving.

Big John Deere hat-wearing boy comes with a tow truck on Wednesday morning and hauls it to Gateway, where I anticipate it will be fixed by that afternoon, maybe Saturday, since it's a holiday and all.

Get the bright idea to Google possible answers, since I self-diagnose all the time anyway. Internet thinks it could be anything from a spark plug to a fuel pump, since it's clearly not battery related. I mean, everything battery-related works. It just won't start. But I don't want a fuel pump for Christmas!!!!!!

Wait and wait and wait and wait to hear from Gateway. Drive past the parking lot twice during the week and see the truck sitting innocently. Wave.

By Sunday, when we're all tired of driving around with three boys sitting shoulder to shoulder in the back seat of a sedan that seats four "comfortably," we have this conversation:

Owen: (leaning over as Tim takes a turn too sharply) Whooooaaaaaaaaa!

Mason: (shoving little brother) Get off me!

Owen: It was an accident!!!

Henry: (leaning dramatically over onto both brothers) Weeeeeeeeee, I'm having an accident too!

Owen and Mason: Hey!!!!!!! Stop!

Tim: (frustrated) If you don't stop, I'm gonna have an accident on all of y'all!

Henry: (after pause) Eeeewwww.

And that, America, is why we drive an SUV with three rows of seats.

Pick up truck Monday afternoon with the bizarre news that there is not a thing wrong with it. Merry Christmas, Gateway and Lund's Towing.

Pull up a chair

The first Thanksgiving that my oldest nephew, Walker, sat down at the “adult table,” I didn’t know how to act.

It’s not like we were telling dirty jokes in the dining room, but it just never occurred to me that, at age 15, he’d want to be there with us geezers. He’d always seemed happy at the kids’ table in my mother-in-law’s kitchen with his two brothers, one sister and four younger cousins.

He’s a smart kid, like all his siblings, who must have outgrown the tedious mealtime banter with my then-fourth-graders and 3-year-old Owen, who had learned enough information to be dangerous.

Back then, for instance, you could just mention how good the Easter ham is, and Henry would randomly say, “The Inuits didn’t have to do anything to their food. They just buried it in the snow to keep it from getting spoiled.”

Then Owen would hold up his fork and add, “This is the Jaws of Life. If Nana’s house catches on fire, call 911. I’m a fireman.”

Why wouldn’t a high-schooler want to stay for that?

At my parents’ house, it’s easy. I’m an only child, so there was no kids’ table. We all fit at one table there and, as long as there are Sister Schubert rolls and Owen hasn't gotten up too early, holidays go nicely. At my in-laws’ house, it’s more involved. There are three sets of brothers- and sisters-in-law with eight grandkids. That makes for a lively kids’ table, though most of them aren’t kids anymore.

Now we have a house full of tweens, trapped somewhere between kids and teens, who are in holiday limbo because they no longer use the phrase “go potty” but they aren’t old enough to drive themselves home.

During my tween-year family gatherings, the only thing my adult relatives knew to ask me was, “How’s school?” Then they’d go back to discussing taxes or football and I’d hover over the dip bowl.

When my twins were 10-year-olds, they claimed they still preferred the kid’s table because, as Henry said, “I understand what they’re talking about.”

“Yeah,” said Mason. “I don’t have to listen to how Joe fired Betty today on The Bold and the Beautiful.”

Even Walker would agree that’s not all we discuss. Besides, if the kids move to the adult table, we’ll have a new audience for those old stories we rehash about the time David tried to stop the blender blade with his finger. Or Tim’s exquisite display of Boy Scout skills when he saw David cut his face on a fence and yelled, “Run home! Run like the wind!”

Both of them are still making oldest bro Steve pay for the year they had to wait to see what Santa brought until Steve took a shower.

Walker may start taking his plate out to the porch, though, because now we just grill him about college and, of course, girls.

HOW many days hath November?

So it's Nov. 23, and the little thingie on the right side of this blog says I've written 13 posts in November.

Hmmm, I'm not exactly following the NaBloPoMo rules of one post per day.

I could have done a few like this one on Fussy. SO funny.

Instead I'll blame it on basketball, because it has taken over our little house here. JV tryouts are tonight, plus Tim has agreed to coach a rec team the big boys formed, and you know what that means. I am the official administrative assistant of rec bball. Woo HOO!

I've been all about basketball to the point that I almost forgot about Thanksgiving. Eeep!

The zen of Mondays

I've grown to enjoy Monday because it's my chance to reclaim the house from the weekend pillaging that inevitably takes place when we're all home.

Putting away crayons, DVDs, newspapers, blankets and whatever else we left in our wake is all part of getting my mind set right for the week. And laundry...so much laundry to wash, dry, fold and put away. Every Monday, the hampers seem to hold enough clothes for a weeklong trip. My kids manage to change clothes at least three times a day on the weekends. Our weather being as schizophrenic as it is now, with cold mornings and warm afternoons, it's common to find sweatshirts mingled with shorts. Somehow, even when I think I've washed every thing in this house, no one can find that perfect hoodie or just the right shorts to wear to school.

Still, I perform this ritual every Monday, and it feels good. Katherine Paterson said, "What a gift of grace it is to be able to take chaos from within and from it create some semblance of order." That's how I like to think of my mundane Mondays, anyway, as I picture myself with a bullwhip and a stool facing down all that crap that didn't get put back last night. Even with our nightly prep-for-school routine, not everything is in its place.

Just cleaning out my e-mail inbox and emptying the refrigerator door of notices about events that have passed helps settle me down mentally. If I can accomplish that, I will have done the world a favor.

Read me read me read me

As I sent my husband an e-mail this morning, I did all the things I normally do to make it stand out in his inbox. At his work address, he gets approximately 117 e-mails per hour. I am not exaggerating. So I need to do all I can to make sure he sees my urgent messages. I usually type the subject in all caps, which in Internet-speak means yelling. I also don't ever include "Fw:" in the subject line because he has been known to skip over something if he thinks it's a frivolous chain letter I'm sending, which of course I would never do. As a last resort I hit the "High Priority" button.
Since he works approximately 117 hours a day and we have three kids at home who all want to talk to him at once when he does get here, Tim and I really don't talk TO each other that much. We rely on e-mail. I also recommend e-mail as a marriage-saving device as it allows you to "discuss" things without using a tone to which your partner may object.
The problem is that people are wearing out the "High Priority" button so that nearly every e-mail he gets has been designated a high priority. I mean, who's going to click on the "Low Priority" button? Why even send an e-mail if it's just a low priority?
Since everyone thinks their message is SO important, that leaves me just sitting here waiting around for him to tell me what he wants for dinner while he scrolls through and determines whether a work project really is falling apart or if he's just one of 32 people copied on a management manifesto.
Of course, I think all my e-mails should be of the highest priority to him. That's why I think there should be a "From the Wife" button similar to the high priority button. That way he'll know immediately what the next job is on his to-do list.

This week's Brentwood Home Page column.

Remember the Ns, Ss and Es on your elementary school report card? Well, the whole process has gotten a bit more complicated.

This week's Brentwood Home Page column

Read all about how picking up your kids from school can be so unexpectedly stressful.

Alone time

Rain magnifies things.
On rainy days, when everyone is home and we have nothing to do that night, no prior commitments to force us out of our comfy house, the rain makes us all feel happier to be together and thankful for each other and for time.
Even tasks like homework and dishwashing aren't so offensive because, thank you Jesus, we don't have to rush around town and get wet and frustrated with each other when this one won't hurry up or that one won't stop saying "pineapples."
On rainy days when I'm here working by myself, though, the weather forces me outward, mentally. It makes me think about the ones who aren't here.
I walk from room to room and notice things I don't see when the boys are there. I'd never noticed how Henry rearranged his bulletin board, so I sit on his bed and take note of what's important to him. In Mason's room, I roll my eyes at the perpetually unmade bed and see the collection of Coke cans he's started on the bookshelf. Their desk areas look more lived in as they settle into becoming more serious students.
At the end of the hall, so close to my bedroom it could be called a closet, is Owen's door. Last week he taped a paper medal to it, one his kindergarten teacher gave him that reads "Super Star Student." It's so weird to me because I've never thought of my baby as a student. He's a little old man trapped inside a little kid body, but he's not a student yet.
His room probably looks a lot like whatever's going on inside his brain, a very busy amalgamation of all the themes he has loved in his six years of life: farmers and tractors, fire fighters, Davy Crockett, soldiers, Indiana Jones and Star Wars. There are a lot of weapons in that room and a lot of depictions of battles pinned to the walls, but they're all arranged with a tender love and reverence by a little kid who respects hard work and can't tolerate puppets.
At the other end of the house is the playroom, where the floor is littered with remnants of their favorite thing to play together, "city." On a good day, all three boys get together and build a sprawling pretend world using parts from all our buildings sets, including wood blocks, Legos and old Thomas the Tank Engine tracks. The older boys are lucky they have a baby brother because it lets them remain kids a little while longer. The baby brother is lucky because he has two older playmates who are much more energetic and creative than his mom. They will move a couch out of the way of an oncoming Thomas track or construct a football stadium for the city from a shoebox, almost always happily. At least until he starts yelling out, "Pineapples!" again.

...And you smell like one too!

So it's FINALLY not Owen's birthday anymore. Next year, I must remember to plan his party as close to his actual birthday as possible.
This year Owen's birthday fell on a Wednesday. I scheduled his party for Sunday afternoon. Somehow Owen surmised that all the days between his actual birth date and his party counted as his birthday. All I know is that by Sunday, I was officially over this whole birthday thing.
I know, I know. I do this to myself. Birthdays are only as big a pain as I make them. But I wanted to make this birthday special for Owen because he has always been our "understanding" child. That really means we end up taking advantage of the fact that he is the third child, both agreeable and eager to please. The last two years we've had a family party for him. "It's just as fun as bouncing in some inflatable castle with your friends! Grandparents! And cousins! Cake! You'll love it!" We told him his present would be a family camping trip.
Somehow, between sports schedules, work demands and parental exhaustion, we did not make good on his birthday camping trip until this past July. Ten months later!
So I wanted this birthday to be like a "real" kid birthday. I let him pick the venue. He chose Glow Galaxy, mainly because he wanted to sit in the big throne in the party room and wear a crown. But the party wasn't until Sunday. To make up for his having to attend kindergarten all day on his birth date, I planned through the cafeteria manager to spring for ice cream for everyone in his class at lunchtime. They actually suggest this now as an alternative to sending in homemade treats, and I was glad to do it.
I prepaid for the ice cream and showed up to the cafeteria at lunchtime. I told everyone we ran into that day that it was Owen's birthday. He got to go to a middle school cross country meet to cheer on his big bro, and all the big kids told him happy birthday. So by Wednesday night, as my mom used to say, I had had too much birthday.
Then he woke up on Thursday with that famous quote, and I knew I was in for it.
He talked about the party all day, every day. It really did seem like it was his birthday 24/7. The mailbox seemed to overflow with cards containing cash. Neighbors bearing gift cards stopped by. I spent Saturday making a Star Wars-themed cake, which was for the better because it distracted me during the Tennessee football game.
Then Sunday finally showed up.
Glow Galaxy wasn't my first choice, but it also wasn't my birthday. His friends came, he got to wear a crown, and he sat on a throne. He also woke up the next morning with some random 102-degree fever and has missed the past two days of kindergarten.
Like my mom used to say, I guess he had too much birthday.

When did birthdays become birth weeks?

Owen turned 6 yesterday. He woke up this morning and said, "Day 2 of my birthday is off to a good start."

Not enough RAM

I’ve discovered a new twist on an old mom trick.
Sometimes when we're mad, moms will run through a list of names of everyone in the family until we remember which kid is standing in front of us. You remember the old Bill Cosby joke: "Come here, Roy, er, Rupert, er, Rutabaga... What is your name, boy?! And don't lie to me, because you live here, and I'll find out who you are."
This roll call is not limited to moms of multiple children. I’m an only child, and if I made my mom mad enough, she sometimes called me my dad’s name and even the dog’s name before she remembered who I was.
My twist on this trick is that I now apply it to the kids’ electronic stuff. They have so many portable electronic devices now, each with its own specific name, that I cannot keep them straight.
Say it’s mealtime, as it usually is in our house, and I need someone to set the table. I happen to stop whichever boy is running through the kitchen at that moment. I point out the small, black rectangular device on the table. It doesn’t go there, and we all know it doesn’t go there. If we want to eat and we don’t want to lose the expensive toy, it has to be put away WHERE IT GOES. So my kid waits while I run through our inventory.
“Mason, whose Gameboy, uh, DS, um, Ipod is that?”
My twins, who are in the middle of middle school, don’t have cell phones yet, so the list is not as long as it could be. Shameful, I know, but we’ve been using the Ipod Touch as a test to see how they’ll keep up with a phone.
Of course, whatever is on the table never belongs to whichever boy I’m addressing, so I have to continue holding the steaming hot whatever I’ve cooked and explain how, from the goodness of his heart, he needs to put it WHERE IT GOES. As usual, WHERE IT GOES is never near where they leave it.
I think it was also Bill Cosby who talked about “idiot mittens,” the kind attached by a long string that ran through your coat sleeves so they didn't get lost when you removed the coat. I’m not saying my kids are idiots, of course, but based on our summer experience with little electronic things, I may look into getting them a kind of idiot phone, something I won’t continually find all over the house. They have to keep up with it or else they get a Jitterbug.

One reason I'm usually a step behind

If Owen comes running into the house and says:

"Lucy just went kablooey on Catherine's GPS man!"

he means:

"The dog just barked like crazy at the UPS man next door!"

Footwear, above all

Since we took our family vacation early this year, I'm offering my helpful advice on how to go from an "after" to a "before" on your summer vacation.

1) Choose shoes based on looks, not function. I was so excited when I bought my adorable Crocs Patricia sandals. (Crocs also makes wedges now! I know!!!) I stood in Macy's and proclaimed, 'These shall be my Disney sandals!' because they are comfy, somehow very lightweight yet supportive. Also, they're Crocs, so it wouldn't hurt them to get wet since we'd be riding Splash Mountain and sitting in the Soak Zone at Shamu Stadium. I hurried home to plan all my Orlando outfits around these vaunted shoes.

I did not anticipate 95 degree weather in early May or the Florida humidity. These, coupled with a 12-hour car ride and many more hours standing and walking than I am used to, caused my feet to swell and the evil Crocs sandals rubbed a nickel-sized blister on the top of my left foot. Actually, I knew by the time we walked across the concrete prairie from our truck to the Seaworld entrance on our first day that my feet were in trouble. Of course, I'd packed Band-Aids in case THE BOYS needed them, but I used at least a dozen that day.

2) You might not think a blister would affect your look. That leads me to tip #2, which is the blister walk. I had to modify my walk to compensate for that blister as much as I could, so other Seaworld visitors must have thought I was smuggling baby sea lions out between my knees as I hobbled across the park. I resisted complaining audibly and instead chided myself for thinking I could be cute at a theme park. On Day #2 at Animal Kingdom, I still refused to succumb to tennis shoes and wore my bathroom flip-flops because they didn't rub the blister spot. After only an hour in the simulated jungle, my legs were so tired that I walked like the 80-year-olds. Actually the 80-year-olds were doing great on their scooters and Hoverounds. Between the motorized old folks and the stroller brigade, we were about the only people walking!

3) Ride the wettest rides first, so your freshly sprayed hair will get soaked and form an impenetrable crust that looks wet all the livelong day.

4) Drink much more lemonade and Diet Coke than you usually do since that's what you can get in your refillable Disney mug.

5) Accidentally leave your expensive face soap at the Hampton Inn in Cordele, Georgia, so that you have to use the super fatty Mickey soap provided by Disney resorts.

6) Slather sunscreen on your face, especially if you usually don't, then try to put on blush as you normally would. Coppertone does wonders for powder makeup, making the colors more vibrant and clownlike.

7) Finally, accept the fact that no one at the theme park except your youngest children ever looks at you. They are all just trying to survive the crowds with their own family members intact. Fashion is not a consideration. If you want proof, scroll down to the photo of my boys in front of the Animal Kingdom gate, click on it and look at the crowd in the background. That's what everyone looked like. See the grown man wearing Mickey's magical wizard hat? People wore that stuff all day. I saw dads wearing rhinestone-studded, princess-themed Mickey ears that their daughters had discarded on the Peter Pan ride. NO ONE cares what you wear. By the third day I did something I would never do in Brentwood. I pulled out the only pair of capris I'd brought and wore them with my tennis shoes, which mercifully did not hit the blister. And I walked from Pirates of the Caribbean all the way to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin with nary a limp.

8) Don't forget to pose for pictures without sucking anything in so you look pregnant. Clutch your giant lemonade as if life depended on it. Be sure to turn so that the angle showcases the fleshiest part of your arm. Ahhhh, success! I've included the above photo for demonstration purposes only. You results may vary.

The Happiest Place on Earth

...except for Henry.
We posed for this photo on the last day of our 2001 trip to Walt Disney World, when the twins were 5. I found it while looking for photos to show Owen, who now is 5 and will visit Disney for the first time when we go next month.
This picture perfectly displays the dynamics of that entire trip because Henry was not sad. He was PISSED. He did not want to go to that breakfast at Chef Mickey's because he was terrified of characters. We knew this and tried to be sensitive about it the entire week, not forcing him to get too close to any giant upholstered mammals. Fortunately the Disney characters are excellent at backing off when they see that a child is shy or scared.
On the morning documented here, however, I was bound and determined to get my photo, which was included in the pricey package we'd bought. By the time we posed here, Henry had already ignored Minnie Mouse and slid from the booth under the table as a man-sized Chip from Chip and Dale approached us. As we got to the picture area, there just happened to be a ginormous Goofy standing nearby in a chef's coat. Henry balked, I insisted strenuously, and I got my picture. I guess Henry decided he'd make me pay by ruining it.
But I think that face makes it even better. Click on the picture to see it in full effect.

Belly up to the feeding trough

If you want to know what the end of the world will look like, go to Golden Corral restaurant around lunchtime on a Sunday.
Sunday is when Golden Corral is most frighteningly apocalyptic because that’s when you’ll see the best mix of diners eating like it’s their last meal: from executives whose wives have warned them they’re not in the mood to cook to country folks who’ve roused themselves from the holler for a trip to “town.”
Usually, I have just two strict criteria for dining out. I want food I have to eat with a fork -- nothing wrapped in paper, please. And I want someone else to bring the food to me. That’s all. I don’t ask for much.
Golden Corral, which says it’s the “largest buffet in Middle Tennessee,” doesn’t meet one requirement since I have to get my own food. But it does have a whole lotta food, which works because we have one child who eats everything, one who takes one bite of everything, and another who eats only the bottom layer of the food pyramid.
Variety often trumps service in our family. When we just want everybody to eat something, we go to Golden Corral. Somehow, though, our family transforms into less civilized creatures the minute we hit the door. The change starts in the lobby, which at peak times resembles the waiting area at the Jim Warren Park driver license renewal office.
At Golden Corral, they like to throw you off by doing everything backwards. Right away you are dehumanized just a bit by being required to pay up front for food you haven’t even seen.
Once inside, you understand why it’s called Golden Corral as you get caught up in the stampede toward the buffet. All that matters is you and your plate, and all bets are off if the guy brings out the fresh tray of ribs.
Feeling obliged to keep up our end of the deal with the area’s biggest buffet, we’ll each pile up at least five half-finished plates on the table because we couldn’t decide what to get. That’s how you end up eating bizarre combinations like ham, potatoes and gravy, macaroni, pizza, chips and queso, cooked cabbage and sautéed mushrooms.
And banana pudding.
With half a frosted brownie.
Once I was heading back to the buffet for more fried chicken when I realized I was walking across the room while still chewing. Kids, adults, Harley riders in leather and grandmas with canes all scurry about like ants on a hill, darting in front of each other to grab the last hush puppy. In the face of such bounty, it’s like we never had manners at all.
The baby? Oh, he’ll be fine. He’s in one of those rolling high chairs. The crowd will drag him back around here in a minute.
Did they bring out any more hush puppies yet?