Why are we going to bed when it’s still light outside? asked Mrs. G’s children when she was tucking them in. The sun is still shining and kids are still playing outside! Mrs. G. would shrug her shoulders and show them her watch which she had set forward an hour ahead and say I don’t know what to tell you, but look it’s 8:00. It says so right here. Both of her children looked skeptical as they crawled under their blankets, so Mrs. G. avoided direct eye contact and kissed them goodnight. Then she went upstairs and made herself a gin and tonic.

These are GIRL pajamas!!!! screamed Mrs. G’s four-year-old son when she handed them to him to put on. Maybe in this country, countered Mrs. G. in an effort to keep the hand-me-down train rolling, but in European countries, pink is considered a powerful and lucky color for everyone. German kings wore pink; it was the color of royalty. Are you sure? Mrs. G’s son asked. Absolutely! I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Now hop into these bad boys, brush your teeth and let’s get you to bed.

BUT IT’S NOT EVEN DARK OUTSIDE!!

I know what I’m talking about here, and you will not stand out. Every kid at art camp will totally have lentil soup in a Nancy’s yogurt container for lunch. Sandwiches are out. Bean soup is in. Trust me.

I promise this is not the bad stuff. This is the good stuff. It tastes exactly like fresh oranges. Just like an orange Popsicle. No, I swear, just like orange sorbet.

Sweetie, your glasses were super expensive, so I bought this pretty little chain for you to hook onto them, so you won’t accidentally lose them. Look at the pretty beads. All the elderly librarians kids are wearing them now. Oh, honey, look at me. You look fabulous. No, they certainly do not look weird. Take my word for it. You’ll be seeing these on more people in no time. You’re a trendsetter!

Reader, what lies have you told your children?

In 2001, one of Mrs. G’s students came up to her after class and asked her if she had read the bestselling book called Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand. He told her it was about this amazing true story about a thoroughbred that became a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression. Mrs. G. was so swept up that one of her students was using the phrase symbol of hope and referencing the Great Depression, that she didn’t bat an eye when he went on to earnestly tell her that the most inspirational part of this book was the fact that Seabiscuit had only three legs… that he was a three-legged race horse.

So, naturally, Mrs. G. went home and relayed the story to her family at dinner. When she got to the part about Seabiscuit having only three legs, the silence was deafening. Mrs. G. would like to point out that when she is not cooking and cleaning and educating her two kids, she spends a good portion of her week educating other people’s children and reminding them for the 2,345th time the difference between there, their and they’re and that ’cause is not a word. Yes, it would be hard to gallop with only three legs, but cut her some slack. And that student that punk’d her with this false information? She failed his ass. She didn’t really, but she wanted to.

bell bottoms jeans to go with the tube top she was not allowed to wear because her mom said only sluts wore tube tops. Mrs. G. also longed for…

one of these babies, because they were so fresh.

Despite spending many an evening with her Clairol hot rollers and Vidal Sassoon curling iron, she never achieved Farrah Fawcett hair, but Mrs. G…

used Farrah’s shampoo and conditioner. In between showers, she placed both bottles prominently on her dresser with the labels facing out. Mrs. G’s mother called them false idols and turned the labels facing in every time she came into Mrs. G’s room to snoop change the sheets.

After combing out her tangles with her cutting edge wide-toothed-comb, Mrs. G. would spray every inch of her body with…

a half gallon of this. When she got to school, away from her mother’s slut detector eagle eyes, she would slick her lips with fruit punch shellac Kiss Me Stick and pray she might someday walk on the beach…

with them. If she were forced to choose in a game of Truth or Dare, Mrs. G. would have picked Starsky. She was a big fan of the belted cardigan.

But what Mrs. G. wanted more than anything she had ever wanted in her life was …

a mood ring. For those readers who might be younger than Mrs. G. or who were living under one of those pet rocks, mood rings were made with this clear jewel-like stone that changed colors in response to your moods. One of Mrs. G’s co-workers (a science teacher) told her these jewel-like stones were actually thermochromic liquid crystals that respond to body temperature and have absolutely no connection to mood. Fine if science is your thing, but Mrs. G. thinks this teacher is a buzz kill mistaken and prefers to think mood rings are pure d magic.

Mrs. G. saved her pennies and finally bought her own mood ring at this classy store at the mall called Spencers. She focused on John Travolta happy thoughts so her mood ring would stay blue, the color that represented peace, harmony and passion. She wore it for three days until, one morning, the stone just fell off the silver band and landed on her shag carpet. In one fell swoop, a dream killed and $3.99 down the drain. Mrs. G. was majorly bummed.

Mrs. G’s grandfather heard about her mood ring tragedy and decided he could fix it as he was too cheap to buy her a new one handy that way. Mrs. G’s grandfather was a tightwad frugal. He lived through the Depression and never let anyone forget it as he wrung out paper towels and hung them up to dry for later use. She will never forget the time he called her at college and told her he had bought her a new winter coat. When it arrived in the mail, Mrs. G. opened the package to find he had bought her a neon orange hunting parka. His note said he hoped she liked it because it would be warm and help her friends easily spot her on the large campus. Oh yeah, because nothing says be my friend like a neon orange hunting parka. Consequently, this was the year Mrs. G. froze her butt off, and all the deer in Eugene, Oregon ran for their lives when they saw her coming.

Back to the story. Mrs. G’s grandfather decided that the trick to restoring the mood ring to its former glory was to get out his solder gun, set it to hot-as-hell and melt the metal on the back of the stone and the top of the band and hold them back together until the metals cooled. To his credit, Mrs. G’s mood ring never fell apart again. Unfortunately the heat of the soldering gun damaged the inner magic of the mood stone and it always looked

like this. Black. Angry, tense, depressed, nearing suicide black. There were some dark days for Mrs. G, but then disco hit, and it was all about the Bee Gees.

Google Image photos

It was just starting to get awkward when one of the boys in the class, busting with excitement, shot up like a rocket and bellowed I MET HIM THIS MORNING. HIS NAME IS HOWARD AND HE DOESN’T TALK MUCH. HE’S ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS! This morning? Best friends? It turns out Howard really doesn’t talk. Ever. He has a disconnect between his brain and his mouth. But Mrs. G. saw Howard breathe a sigh of relief and slide into the chair next to his new best friend. And after this stunning moment of grace, the discussion resumed.