Forget Flu (sung in the style of Cee Lo Green's "Forget You")

Ever had a bad day? A bad week? A bad month? For the past nine days, I have had a horrible head cold, or more than likely, flu bug. Among other stresses, like the death of my 94-year-old grandmother, cars breaking down, sliding backwards down a hill on ice in my truck in the pitch dark in the middle of the road with my eleven year old terrified daughter, and some eBay mayhem, this was very unwelcome. But in true humor writer form, I lay in bed languishing one morning and this song came to me. I've always wanted to write song parodies like Weird Al Yankovic, so here is the latest concoction of my brain functions for your entertainment:

Forget Flu

(in the style of Cee Lo Green's "Forget You" - clean version, of course)

by Cindy Brown

I see you got into my head
Forcing me into bed and I'm like,
Forget flu,
Oo, oo, oooo

I guess the Kleenex in my pocket
Wasn't enough, I'm like,
Forget flu,
And forget colds too!

If I was any sicker, I'd still have to be a momma
Ha, ain't that some shh (ain't that something)
And though there's pain in my chest
I still wish you the best with a
Forget flu
Oo, oo, oooo

Yeah I'm sorry, I can't afford a doctor,
But that don't mean I can't get well myself.
I guess you're a cougher and I'm more of a hacker,
But the way you're stayin' well ain't fair.

I pity the foooool that gets this stinkin' flu, now
(It's a grave digger, just thought you should know, sugar)

I've got some news for you
Yeah go run and tell your little virus!

I see you got into my head
Forcing me into bed and I'm like,
Forget flu,
Ooh, ooh, ooooh

I guess the Kleenex in my pocket
Wasn't enough, I'm like,
Forget flu,
And forget colds too!

If I was any sicker, I'd still have to be a momma
Ha, now ain't that some shh (ain't that something)
And though there's pain in my chest
I still wish you the best with a
Forget flu!
Oo, oo, oooo

Now I know that I'll have you tomorrow,
And days and days and days on end
Tryin' to throw me, tryin' to disease me.
'Cause flu bug, you and me ain't friends.

I pity the fool that gets this stinkin' flu, now
(It's a grave digger, just thought you should know, sugar)
(just thought you should know)

Ooooooh (cough, cough)
I've got some news for you
Ooh! I really hate your kind right now

I see you got into my head
Forcing me into bed and I'm like,
Forget flu,
Oo, oo, oooo

I guess the Kleenex in my pocket
Wasn't enough, I'm like,
Forget flu,
And forget colds too!

If I was any sicker, I'd still have to be a momma
Ha, now ain't that some shh (ain't that something)
And though there's pain in my chest
I still wish you the best, with a
Forget flu!
Oo, oo, oooo

Now illness, illness, illness, why'd you wanna wanna hurt me so bad?
(so bad, so bad, so bad)
I tried to tell my mamma but she told me
"this is one for your dad"
(your dad, your dad, your dad)

Uh! Whyyy? Whyyy?
Whyyy flu bug? Oh! I hate you!!
I still hate you!! Oooh!

(hack, hack, cough, cough, blow nose, ugh)
I see you got into my head
Forcing me into bed, I'm like
Forget flu,
Oo, oo, ooo

I guess the Kleenex in my pocket
Wasn't enough, I'm like,
Forget flu,
And forget colds too!

If I was any sicker, I'd still have to be a momma
Ha, now ain't that some shh (ain't that something)
And though there's pain in my chest
I still wish you the best, with a
Forget flu!
Oo, oo, oooo

Vitamin C, Suppositories, or Heroin, I Can't Really Be Sure

Recently, I got up to find another infamous note on the kitchen table. It said, "Honey, look at these Vitamin C pills. They don't look like the ones it shows on the bottle and the size doesn't match up."

Number one, I was shocked to know that my husband had taken the time to even pay that close of attention to the pills in the bottle, much less that he knew to look on the label at the example pill graphic, so I was already in a state of shock and dismay. But when I opened the bottle, I was really in for shock and dismay. Inside were no little white round tablets or anything resembling any Vitamin C supplement I've ever seen.

The bottle was stuffed to the top of the rim, which was unusual in itself, with very large, brown, strangely shaped unmarked pills. My first thought was that the contents had gone bad and bloated way out of proportion and I was looking at pills which were light years beyond their expiration date and possibly exposed to toxic chemicals somewhere along the line. But one quick glance at that handy-dandy example graphic proved that theory wrong. This was a gelatin-like casing and the pills which were supposed to be in the bottle were solid and shaped like a Twinkie. These were shaped like overstuffed kidney beans, and nearly the size of an actual Twinkie. Well, that's an exaggeration, but they were certainly huge honkin' horse pills that I wouldn't want to swallow!

They were obviously not Vitamin C, the hub was quite right there. So what were they? So many questions! Had my mom given me these? Were they from Uncle Darvin and Aunt Ethel's estate? Had they been in my possession for twenty years? Between my husband and I, we came up with some good theories and some crazies as well.

1) The pills had come from my mother's house and they were actually home made herb capsules from my brother-in-law, who is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Check. Feasible.

2) They had come from Aunt Ethel and Uncle Darvin's stuff and they were suppositories, which my husband thought they had possibly been embarrassed about and had hid in a Vitamin C bottle. They are both dead now, so who would ever know, really? Check. Also feasible.

3) A drug smuggler packed a bottle full of heroin packets and it never reached its intended destination, but instead mysteriously landed in my medicine cabinet. Check. Crazy.

These theories led to many possibilities. If we took the mysterious pills, would we lessen muscle pain or help heal an ulcer? Would we poop really well? No, you don't take suppositories orally, you put them gulp, well, you know! Would we go on a psychedelic trip, become addicted and paranoid that the FBI had planted them in our house, and go searching the streets in a whacked out daze, seeking "More 'Vitamin C', man," as though we were using code for an illegal drug?

In the end, all three theories were thankfully ruled out. I did a quick Internet search and determined that they were antioxidant pills, maybe anyway. Still, I wasn't taking any chances. I told the hub to throw them away, and he did... only after putting one in a glass jar and poking into it with a knife to see what was in there. An oily, white substance came out that was gross enough to make him walk away. I'm pretty sure they really could have been suppositories. Or heroin. Either way, I'm glad they went in the trash. Who knows what they were or how they got there? It's just one of life's mysteries that make a day in the life of Everyday Underwear very, very interesting.

Have you ever found an unidentifiable pill in your home? I once found a "pill" in my teen daughter's pocket while doing laundry that after an exhaustive Internet search of medications, turned out to be a mint. Sheesh. Boy did I feel dumb. But my breath was sure minty!

I Eat Chocolate Behind My Kids' Back (and other guilty pleasures)

Okay, some of you probably think that's cruel. Not me. I admit it openly, even in front of them. I will hide chocolate from them and eat it when they're not looking. No, not because I think I'm fat and I'm compelled to secretly shove sweets into my mouth like a fiend when left alone. And no, it's not because we're trying to eat healthy and I'm hiding the fact that I'm cheating. And it's certainly not because I'm some sort of sick, pathetic, strung-out chocolate hoarder. It's simply because if I don't hide the chocolate, they will devour it before I get any.

Let me give you a perfect example of my recent experience with mysterious chocolate disappearance, and yes, I'm quite sure it had nothing to do with the aliens! I received a bag of my very favorite, most yummy and delicious, melt-in-your mouth chocolates for Christmas, Lindt Lindor Truffles. There were probably at least twelve of the individually wrapped lovelies in the bag. The saliva manifested just thinking about them. I brought them home and put them in a special pretty wooden bowl so that I could pluck one from the bounty whenever I wanted to give myself a treat. Understand that these are my indulgence, my guiltiest pleasure, one of the few things I can always think of to ask for at Christmas. I think I ended up getting to enjoy two measly pieces.

Now tell me, is that fair? Because I don't think it's fair. I think it's rather unfair. You might be calling me selfish right now. Well, go ahead, make your own day, Clint Eastwood! I feel justified. I don't give a hoot. It was my chocolate and they took advantage of it. Gross and unfair advantage! Yes, I said I would share it with a lovely lilted tone of, "Sure, you can have one, honey," but then they were all gone in a flash. I got robbed by every 'honey' in the house!

My husband felt bad and said he would buy me some more (meaning I could pick them on my next trip to the store) and so I got my very own bag and didn't tell a soul. I hid them in my purse and kept my purse at my side and snuck them when kids or any other living and breathing organism in the house remained very far, far, far away. I enjoyed probably half the bag over a few days and felt like I was in Heaven. My own private Heaven. Then I sat down at the computer to write one night and was completely immersed in my craft when I heard the patter of little feet sneaking away from my office chair.

I glanced down and to my horror, the chocolates bag was sticking out of my purse OPEN! Someone had just robbed me of my precious chocolate while I was sitting right there! "HOLD IT!" I demanded to the unknown and unseen stealth thief, without so much as turning around. Turns out, it was my eleven year old daughter, who giggled in reply, "Whaaaahahahahutt?"

I shot at her, "How on earth did you even know those chocolates were there? I didn't even tell anyone I had them!" and she laughed back at me, "I saw the bag poking out of the top of your purse." I was furious. I mean, really, how dare she? But I also thought it was cute at the same time, so in order to avoid prison and keep the peace in the house, I stopped short of committing a murder and decided to laugh and shake my head in disgust instead.

I've decided that I'll just hide them better next time. Odd thing is that this particular child has a way of finding things I've hidden immediately, sometimes even by pure accident. She won't even know I'm hiding anything and still she'll bee-line right to it like she has a homing device. It's like a sixth sense she has, honestly. I could have Godiva hidden in the garage under a tarped riding lawnmower and she would burst into the house going, "Mom! Look what I found when my ball rolled into the garage just now," and there I'd be, without chocolate... again.

Just in case you're wondering what other guilty pleasures I hide from my girls, I also go out to eat without them sometimes, go shopping without them sometimes, and visit friends without them sometimes. And if I'm feeling particularly like I need some extra me-time, I go to our favorite cafe and get treats just for myself sometimes. Yeah, I can be evil like that. Evil, evil parent. Take that, insolent children!

Not Another New Year's Post (I'll Cry at the Chinese Buffet If I Want To)

While everyone else on planet earth blogs about New Year's resolutions and ushering in the new year, I tell a different tale tonight. A tale of woe, heartache, and pain told in my usual "laugh at myself" style. My life is awesome. I laugh a lot. I'm overall happy as a person. But this afternoon, my 13-year-old made me cry at the Chinese buffet.

You're probably laughing already. I laughed at myself just thinking about writing this blog post because I know that if you've raised a teenager with an attitude and you are a soft-hearted person, you can totally relate to my story. I know I'm not alone. Teenagers everywhere make their parents cry. Not usually at the Chinese buffet, but they do it, nonetheless. And you're just too embarrassed to tell your story, but not me. Noooooo, not me!

So, we are boring this year, having given up some bad habits and matured, and no I'm not exactly sure why we matured, but that's another story, so anyway, we literally are doing nothing for New Year's Eve this year but staying home and doing our normal stuff and so we decided to use a gift certificate we had gotten for a Christmas present and head on over to the Hibachi Buffet with our kids, eleven and thirteen year old girls. That was to be our big New Year's Eve hurrah.

My girls are as different as night and day. My youngest is full of sunshine and beams it from ear to ear and coast to coast everywhere she goes, wakes up smiling, sings in the shower, and her middle name is literally "Joy." The older of the two, well, I don't really know how to describe her, but I do want to clearly state that I love them both. Dearly. The older one is at... that age. Yeah, that age. Be it hormones, confusion about who she is in this screwed up world, testing her boundaries, or whatever, I seem to be the main target of her bad moods. Well, to be truthful, it's me, her sister, and her father, so I'm not alone here, but I'm talking about me here.

I do understand when people are having a hard time or are in bad moods that they take it out on the ones they love the most. Those words of wisdom came from my late boss, Lowell D. Samuel, and I will never forget the method by which I learned that lesson. He snapped at me one day and I was undeserving. He later called me in and apologized and explained to me that it wasn't me, but that he was in a bad mood and sometimes when you're in a bad mood, you take it out on the ones you love the most. I was the unlucky recipient. But I understood what that meant and it spoke volumes. He valued me and trusted me with his bad mood. He knew that I knew him and that wasn't like him and that I would forgive his bad mood because I respected him.

Through the years, I have seen this played out many times, sometimes poorly and sometimes very well. There are good ways to handle it and bad ways. My daughter hasn't figured out the good way yet. So today at the restaurant when she came back at me during casual and light-hearted conversation with a particularly snippy response, I just lost it. I was literally so mad and hurt by the sharpness of her tone that I felt weak in the legs. "You'd better cut that attitude right now, young lady," I whispered loudly as I pointed a finger at her "I don't deserve that!" Now, normally, I would just huff and go on about my day. But today, it just cut me. It cut me to the core for some reason.

The funny thing was that at that moment, when tears began to well up in my eyes, I wondered if it was my fault. Had I been a bad parent? Had I taught her to act this way? Did she hate me that much? Did I really deserve this treatment? Maybe I'm bad. Just a bad old rotten egg. Not a good mother. Not even a good person! Thankfully, sitting right beside her was little miss ray 'o sunshine, looking woefully at me as though I was a wounded baby deer. I had raised that one too. "I'm not bad. It's not me!" I thought enthusiastically as I considered the juxtaposition of the two offspring.

I was shocked at how deeply my eldest had hurt me. Then my husband noticed I was crying. "Oh no, are you really crying at the Chinese buffet?" He patted me on the leg and sent the offending child to get him some more food. "Good riddance," I thought. Stay gone long time, grasshoppa. I can giggle at myself now, but I tell you that at that moment, I just hoped the buffet would somehow swallow her and I wouldn't have to look at her again for a long time. She had really hurt my feelings!

The ever-trying-to-fix-things hubby tried to ask me what was wrong and tell me that she was just thirteen and it wasn't me and then when she came back to the table he tried to make her apologize to me. Well, that just made me mad. A forced apology isn't heartfelt, even though I taught my children to apologize by force at a young age when they had done wrong. There's that bad parenting at work, because that certainly wasn't the answer this time. "Don't even bother making her!" I blew into my napkin. The meal continued, I composed myself and finished my flied lice and there was no more incidence to be had. However, I do admit that my thirteen year old deflated me in one fell swoop of a sharpened tongue today.

The moral to this story is that you need to call your mother right now and apologize for your youth. Apologize just for being thirteen. I apologize to my own mother for my past transgressions frequently. It's quite cleansing. You should try it. I'm already waiting for the phone to ring 20 years from now and to hear my 33 year old daughter say to me, "Mom, remember that day at the Chinese buffet when I made you cry? I'm really sorry." I'm pretty sure I will cry again.