I Should Have Known

We are all surrounded by stuff.  And there are certain things in life that always seem to be close at hand.  Empty boxes and ink pens and Ziploc baggies and scraps of paper and gas stations and Elvis impersonators. So prevalent that it seems as if you are marinating in them.

Until, that is, you desperately need one of those things.  Then finding one is akin to trapping a Sasquatch.

Not long ago, I was on a business trip, driving around for nearly a half hour one evening looking for a discount hair salon.  You know what I’m talking about.  The kind of place that bastardizes the English language by spelling everything with a “k”.  Kwik Klips.  Kid Kuts.  Kustom Kurlz.  The shops I like often feature incredibly low prices and beauticians with, shall we say…

Kwestionable Kredentials.

I finally found a spot tucked away in the corner of a strip mall next to a dollar store and a now vacant yogurt shop.

I should have known.

When I entered, the place was midway through a makeover of its own.  The carpet was torn and stained like they had staged it as a crime scene on an episode of Law & Order.  Some of the baseboards were missing.  The walls had been tattooed with scuffs from chair backs and swinging handbags.  There was even a streak of paint brushed on the wall to show what the new palette would look like.

Strangely, I couldn’t find the sign that said, “Please pardon our mess.”

I approached the register and signed my name to the list.  I was third in line.  I sat down with the other patrons and instantly adopted the anticipatory energy of the group, which hovered somewhere between “root canal patient” and “defendant awaiting sentencing.”  There were three stylists on duty.  The room was silent, save for one chatty clipper.

We had waited for a considerable amount of time before the one stylist finished with her client.  The customer walked to the register without fanfare and paid his bill.  She then called out a name, and one of my cell mates stepped forward to hear his verdict.  Now there were two of us.   The wait was long.

I started to get a bit irritated, having now invested 45 minutes in my quest for a cheap haircut.  My mood lifted a bit when the very perky stylist finished with her customer.  Though she tried her best to engage the guy, he said few words as he paid his bill.  As he left the shop, she called out,

“Richard!  You’re up!”

A young guy in his mid twenties was seated near the door.  He looked up from his cell phone at the stylist, paused, and then gazed in my direction.

“Um.  You go ahead.  I’ll wait for the next one.”

I should have known.

Crystal was a bundle of nerves, likely fueled by the 24-ounce energy drink I spied on the counter.  We made small talk as she wrapped the drape around my neck.  I’m in town on business.  Corporate consultant.  I have two kids.  She has two kids.  Blah blah blah.

“So, how do you want your hair cut?”

“It’s been a while, so take about a half inch off all the way around.”

“Do you mind if I just scissor cut the whole thing instead of using the clippers?”

“No problem.”

“OK.  Good.  Those clippers can be hard to use.  Some of the girls here like them, but I think it’s hard to get them just right.”

Huh?

The clippers she is referring to are the ones where you attach a guard that assures you cut every hair the exact same length.  You can choose a #1 guard, which delivers a buzz cut, all the way to a #8, which is leaves the hair about an inch long.  This is the same tool used by the groomers at PetsMart.

I know I have a limited haircutting vocabulary, but it sounds to me that in the evolutionary chain of barber shop implements, the sophistication required to produce a haircut with clippers is only slightly more advanced than using the Ronco Flowbee – that wacky contraption that you hook up to a vacuum cleaner to suck your hair up into a tube attached to a rotating razor.  For three easy payments of $19.95 plus shipping and handling, you can run your own home hair salon.

I should have known.

Crystal sprayed my hair with water, combed through my coif, and then went to work.  She seemed to have an unorthodox style, jumping from one part of the head to another, without much rhyme or reason.  A little from the side.  Then some from the back.  Then a clip right in the middle.  Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but I interpreted this in a positive way.  I pondered several thoughts:

Brilliant artists are known for throwing caution to the wind and ignoring conventional wisdom.  Doing it their own way.  With flair.

Meanwhile, Crystal chatted about her challenging children and her lack of sleep.  Then she moved to the delicate part of trimming around my ears.  I felt a sharp pain and winced.

Crystal reacted with, “Oh!  I’m sorry.  I just sharpened these scissors, but they just aren’t cooperating.”

She hadn’t cut me.  Her scissors were no finer than a butter knife.  When she had to trim very precisely, it felt like she was using her molars to chew the hair from around my giant ears.  Several hairs would get stuck between the blades, so when she pulled the scissors away, they would get plucked out by the root.  Crystal definitely resembled an artist now, in a crazy, Van Gogh sort of way.  I told her I would leave my sideburns “as is.”

“I’m growing them out,” I said.

The ear trim ended quickly, like getting a series of vaccinations.  She spent the next ten minutes “touching up” her work.  She ran her fingers through my hair, checking the length, making sure it was just right.  Paying special attention to my double crown and cowlick.  Then she handed me the mirror and spun me around so I could see the back of my head in my reflection.

“Is that short enough?”

“Oh yes.  I think that’ll be fine.”  At fifteen feet away it was acceptable.  I took a quick look at the job she did  on the front of my head, and it looked OK.  I was in a rush to get back to my hotel room after the ordeal.

Crystal poured copious amounts of baby powder on a big, fat brush and dusted my neck.  She then unbuttoned the drape and pointed me toward the cashier’s desk.  When it was all said and done, I had spent twelve dollars on the haircut, and three more dollars on the tip to feed Crystal’s Red Bull addiction.

 

When I got back to my hotel, I went into the bathroom to check Crystal’s work.  The bright lights surrounding the Marriott mirror painted a very different picture than the flickering fluorescents at the salon.  I let out a shriek followed by an audible gasp.  The hairdo staring back at me just two feet away was both comical and embarrassing.  I looked as if I had been attacked by prehistoric men using stone tools.

Maybe I just need to put some more stuff in it.

I stuck my head under the faucet and rinsed out the clippings.  After a quick dry using the towel, I reached into my travel bag and filled my palms with a generous helping of hair wax.  When I massaged it into my scalp, it only served to give my bad haircut that “just woke up from a long night sleeping in a food processor” look.  I hoped Gabby could help me to find the humor in this situation.  I took a picture with my camera phone and sent it to her.

I should have known.

The phone rang within minutes.

“Dannemiller!  How many times do I have to tell you?  You can’t trust those places!  Remember the time you came home and you could see the cut lines on your head? “

“Uh huh.”

“And the day before our wedding when you came out looking like you had joined the military, with your bumpy scalp showing through the close-cropped hair?”

“Yeah.  Ruined all of our photos.”

Then she put her foot down.

“You’re not allowed to waste any more money on bad haircuts.  If you’re going to look like that, at least I can be the one that does it,” she said with confidence.  “I know I can do a better job than that!”

Three weeks later, Gabby was hovering over me in the bathroom.  My shoulders were draped with a towel.  She had done her homework.  It’s amazing what you can learn when you Google “how to give a haircut”.  She supplemented her self-study course by asking my brother-in-law for some pointers.  He’s an expert at the craft who works at one of those high-end salons that offer everything under the sun to make you look fabulous, stopping just short of plastic surgery.

They don’t hand out balloons, though.

I was skeptical.  Filled with doubt.  And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that my first home haircut was an adventure.  Gabby was excited by the challenge, and I was intrigued by the novelty.  We had lots of laughter mixed with critique and questioning.  Second guessing.  Debates.  In the end, my head required some post cut touch-up, and I had to hold my own ears out of the way, but our marriage survived.

The second cut was an improvement.

Now we’re on cut number three, and my guess is that the general public is none the wiser, with the exception of the three or four folks who read this blog.

I never would have believed that I would now revert back to the old days, when mom used to sit me on the bathroom vanity and cut my hair, and be happy with the result.  And I’ll bet Gabby never thought she would actually enjoy doing it.  And it’s a welcome departure from sitting in front of the TV or working on the computer.  Who would have known?  Our little problem has been fixed, and we’re both a bit better off or it.  Who would have believed it?

But when I really take the time to think about it, that’s the usual outcome when we take a look at a problem situation, stop complaining about it, and start tasking action.  Whether it’s haircuts, the homeless, or human rights, when we get off the sidelines and finally get involved, the situation always turns out for the better.

I should have known.

Getting Lucky With The Other Woman

True confessions time.

I cheated on my wife on Valentine’s Day.  Got lucky with another woman.  I didn’t mean to do it.  It just happened.

I met her sixteen years ago when I was working for WorldCom.  I was a fresh-faced kid just starting out in the business world.  I looked like Richie Cunningham from Happy Days, only younger.

Susan was an ex-flight attendant turned counselor, consultant and coach.  She was… ahem… more mature than me.  Graduated high school around the time I was born.  Still, we hit it off instantly.  Probably because my youthful appearance matched her sense of humor precisely.

We worked in a downtown high rise together.  There were many days when we squeezed into a crowded elevator, riding up seventeen floors with eight or ten very business-like passengers.  We would all be standing there.  Every last one of us.  Silent.  Watching the numbers click by.  Inevitably, Susan would ask me a question in a voice hushed enough to sound as if she was trying to be discreet, yet loud enough so everyone could hear.

“Did the doctor ever diagnose that nasty rash of yours?”

“Were you able to get that stain out of your underpants?”

“Are you still gassy?”

With Susan, you got just what you might expect from someone with such a varied background.  The flirty, outlandish  flight attendant mixed with the sharp intellectual wit of the counselor.  She could joke about her days with Delta, busting passengers who were trying to join the “Mile High Club”, then instantly shift gears and talk about the latest organizational psychology that might help improve the management philosophy of the whole company.  She would spice up our department meetings, coming in dressed as a busty, crazed, church lady shouting “Amens” to the rooftops, then break character and offer carefully worded insights that would make us all wonder if she had a secret window into everyone’s soul.

You can see why everyone had a not-so-secret crush on her.

So, when I found out I had a business trip to her new hometown for Valentine’s Day, I had to call her.

“So Susan, it looks like I’ll be coming to town on the 14^th.  Do you have a hot Valentine’s date planned for that night?”

“Only you, Scott-man.”

“My plane lands at 4:30.  I’ll be at your place by 6:00.  Do I have the right address?”

“Yes, but I’ve moved to apartment 103.”

“OK.  See you then.”

 

On February 14^th, I landed in Dallas, picked up my rental car, and immediately headed toward Susan’s place.  I put on a sport coat to try and dress up my travel outfit, and stopped by the florist to pick up an arrangement of flowers.  I was in the lobby of her complex at 6:00 on the nose.

I passed by the downstairs restaurant filled with couples and families.  Many of the women were decked out in red in light of the occasion, talking across tiny tables.  I was a bit nervous about this encounter, so I walked right past, trying to look inconspicuous.  Then, I realized that trying to look inconspicuous tends to make a guy look more guilty than walking around in a bright orange jumpsuit.  I feigned being normal by stopping a woman in the hallway to ask directions.  She was dressed as a nurse.

“Where is apartment 103?”

Nurse Nancy pointed toward the end of the hall, “All the way down, then take a right.”

That was normal enough.

I found the apartment and knocked on the door.  I heard her call out, “Come on in!”

When I entered, I heard Susan’s muffled voice from behind a half-cracked bathroom door.  “I’m just doing some last-minute primping for our date.  I’ll be right out.”

I stood nervously and waited, picking at a wilted petal on a carnation.  Then I glanced at a picture hanging on the wall and noticed my reflection.  I used the opportunity to straighten the collar of my sport coat and check for food in my teeth, wanting to make a good impression.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.

A moment later the door opened.  She looked up at me with a big smile and said, “It’s so good to see you!  What do you think of my hair?  It’s going gray, isn’t it?”

“It looks fantastic!”

She reached up to give me a squeeze.  I bent deeply at the waist and gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.  You see, Susan has shrunk about three feet since our WorldCom days due to the fact that she now gets around in a wheelchair.

It all started a few years ago.  Susan went to see a doctor about some minor issues she was having, and he found something wrong with her heart that required an operation.  It was a serious surgery, but not an emergency.  She was expected to make a full recovery.  Around this same time, she tragically lost three loved ones in her life, adding insult to injury.

The surgery went well, but the recovery didn’t.  Susan picked up an infection that affected her spinal cord.  Since that time, she has spent months in hospitals, rehab centers and nursing homes, literally trying to get back on her feet, yet suffering countless setbacks.

Her body no longer cooperates.  She’s lost a lot of feeling in her hands.  Her muscles have tightened up.  She’s unable to do the work she loves.  Or work in her garden.  Or comfortably drink from a cup without a straw.  This is tough for anyone, but especially so for a strong, independent woman who had lived on her own, built her own consulting practice, and hiked the Grand Canyon on a regular basis.

Susan stood up out of her chair, opened the kitchen cabinet, and pulled out a glass to act as a vase for the flowers.

“I’ve made a lot of progress since I last saw you, Scott.”

She’s not kidding.  The last time we had dinner together was over a year ago.  At that time, her neck was so tight, she had trouble holding her head upright.  All of her movements were deliberate.  She could not stand on her own two feet.

“I can walk a quarter of a mile now!”

Then Susan’s exhibitionist spirit came out.  She was holding her arms above her head.  Lifting a weighted bar.  Pacing back and forth in the room with the aid of a walker.  If I squinted my eyes, I could see her running frantically through a corporate conference room dressed as that wacky church lady.  It was a beautiful sight.

I got lucky.  I spent the evening with a dear friend whose body was broken but her spirit was intact.  We reminisced about the good old days.  Talked shop.  She told me how she messed with all the old folks at the retirement home.  Especially the ultra-conservative Geraldine, who frequently prayed for Susan’s soul.  When she would come by and ask Susan if she would like to play a game in the parlor with the other ladies, Susan would respond,

“How about hide and seek!”

I laughed at the image of Susan hiding from a bunch senile folks.

She was the same Susan, just wrapped in a different package.  No.  Scratch that.   She was an even better Susan.  Even warmer and wiser, if such a thing was possible.

After a couple of hours, she told me she was pooped and had to kick me out.

“What?!  You mean to tell me I’m not going to get lucky tonight?”

“With these old bones?”  She came back.  “I don’t think so sonny boy.”

Before I left her room, she gave me her latest business card.  Her new title?

“Wellness Visioner.”

On my way out, I walked past the restaurant.  It was 8:00pm and the place was empty.  The halls were empty.  The lobby was empty.  I left the building without a soul seeing me.

I cheated on my wife on Valentine’s Day.  Shared my heart with another woman.  A woman whose spirit inspires and uplifts.  A woman whose smile brings life.  A missionary who serves others simply by being who she is.

I call that getting lucky.

Be A Moron

I recently took a business trip to Phoenix.  Not a bad place to have to go when it’s 35 degrees and rainy back home in Nashville.  Stepping out of the airport, I was smacked in the face by air so warm and clean it felt like angels draping me in invisible blankets fresh from God’s dryer.

And apparently, the Heavenly hosts use fabric softener.

Moments like this are best shared with loved ones, so I immediately called Gabby to tell her the good news.  When she answered the phone, she had just finished wiping backyard mud off our 14-year-old dog’s feet, which is almost as fun as it sounds.  Kids were screaming in the background.  I may have even heard a vacuum cleaner salesman outside our front door, begging to come inside and do a demonstration.

“How was your trip?” she asked.

Something told me she really didn’t want to know the answer.  In all honesty, I could have sat in the middle seat between two sweaty Sumo champions, had my right earlobe sucked into the tiny airplane toilet, lost all of my luggage, been strip-searched by the TSA, and we would still call it even.  Why?  Because she knows I get to eat dinner all by myself in a quiet restaurant while she tries to hold negotiations with the loudest kids on the planet over how they must eat every green bean on their plate if they expect to have even one crumb of a cookie.

“You sound busy.  I’ll call you back when I get to the hotel,” I answered.

Divorce avoided.

Proving that the universe is a balanced place, I got lost on the way to the hotel.  I have a keen sense of direction, so long as that direction is accompanied by a very polite woman’s voice on the GPS guiding me where I need to go.  I finally arrived 45-minutes later to a beautiful courtyard packed with orange trees.  Every branch was adorned with brightly colored, fragrant fruit.  I looked down on the ground in front of me and saw that one had just fallen from the tree, so I picked it up and took it to my room.

* My orange:  So perfect

Once I had unpacked my things and settled in, I peeked over at the table in the corner.  There sat my beautiful orange.  I picked it up and sniffed it.  Unbelievable!  It smelled like rainbows.  And pixie dust.  And fairies riding unicorns.

I started to peel the orange, and the juice immediately started dripping down my arm and rolling off my elbow.  I haven’t even taken a bite, and this may be the most amazing piece of fruit I have ever tasted.

I had it half-peeled, and the juice was already out of control.  Once peeled, I held the orange in my hand and bit into it like an apple.  A flood of juice passed over my gums and caressed my tongue.  Then my taste buds finally registered a flavor like none other.

It was like licking a lemon-scented car air freshener and chasing it with a shot of Windex.  I gagged and ran toward the bathroom.  Nearly puked.  Sixty seconds later, I lost the feeling in my lips.  I had a fleeting thought that I may have been deliberately poisoned, but then remembered that I wasn’t a medieval king or Simon Cowell.

No, this wasn’t an attempt on my life.  Apparently (as I would later overhear the concierge explaining to another hotel patron) there are edible oranges and ornamental oranges.  The ornamental variety are bred specifically for their bright color and fragrance.  The bonus?  Animals and pests leave them alone because they taste like the sludge pools at a chemical plant.  People who might pick the fruit either a)  learn their lesson very quickly, or  b) have already been weeded out through the wonders of natural selection.

So, the truth is, I’m just a moron.

Or more precisely, an oxymoron.

I finally called Gabby back, thinking that my numb lips might trump anything she had dealt with that evening.  She had a pretty good time with it, especially given one of my greatest phobias.

“How is it that you are deathly afraid of “food gone bad”, yet you’ll eat something right off of a tree, or even off the ground?” she laughed.

She’s right.  I have a morbid fear of eating food that is past the expiration date.  When I was a kid, I got really hungry and ate about two pounds of random stuff out of our refrigerator.  Apples.  Celery with peanut butter.  Macaroni and cheese.  French onion dip and potato chips.  I couldn’t quite satiate my belly, so I dove into the dairy drawer.  Tucked in among the butter and the eggs were a couple of tiny, foil-wrapped wedges of Hickory Farms gift basket cheese that had been in our fridge since the Carter administration.  They did me in.  I laid on the bathroom floor for the entire night.

Ever since then, I am maniacal about expiration dates.  It drives my wife crazy.  A day or two before something is set to retire, I get the shakes as the urge hits me to send it down the garbage disposal.  Back in 2002, I almost called off my pending marriage to Gabby after she inadvertently served what are now known in our house as “The Millennium Biscuits” – some Pillsbury buttermilk hockey pucks that carried a “best by…” date of 01/2000.

But I’ll gladly eat an orange right off the ground.  Or a chunk of granola bar I find sitting on the console of our SUV.  Or, just yesterday, a pock-marked old Smartie I found in my jacket pocket.

“It’s about the adventure,” I finally answered.

Eating random stuff is exciting.  You never know what you’re going to get.  It’s a bit like opening a book and reading the first page.  Sometimes, you get Dennis Rodman’s autobiography and page one makes you throw up in your mouth a little.  Sometimes you get a John Grisham novel – a pure page turner that keeps getting better and better.

I remember fondly the day I stood on a chair, hanging over the fence at Gabby’s mom’s house picking fresh blackberries off the neighbor’s tree.  I’m not sure if you’ve ever shoved thirty ultra-sweet, just-picked blackberries into your mouth all at once.  It’s like an explosion of summer in your mouth.  It was pure bliss.  A non-stop dessert-fest courtesy of mother nature for nearly an hour.

So, if I happen to eat a toxic orange on my way to another memorable moment, so be it.

But expiration dates?  What fun is that?  You know exactly when something is going to go bad.  You don’t even have to taste it.  The mystery is gone.  It’s pre-determined.

But now, as I reflect on my oxymoronic food rules, I think I may be missing something.  Something big.  There is this part of my life where I throw caution to the wind, let go, and experience life.  Sure, there are times when it doesn’t work out, but I’m still standing.  Breathing for another day on the planet.  Ready for the next challenge.  Lessons learned.

Then, there is this side of me that is filled with fear.  Afraid of the unknown.  It’s all about protection.  Protection from something that I know deep down won’t hurt me.  But in the rock-paper-scissors game of life, fear beats logic every time.  So, I sit back in a safe place, never seeing that the place I’m scared to go is the place God most wants me to be.

It’s time I follow my own advice from a song I recorded a few years ago.  I’ll start small.  Baby steps.  There is a tub of salsa in the back of the fridge that expired six days ago.  Maybe I’ll wait for lucky day number seven and dip a few chips.  I know it won’t kill me.

After that, Heaven only knows what adventures await.

My Love-Hate Relationship with Mary Kay

* Mary Kay Ash.  Entrepreneur.  Philanthropist.  Tormentor.

Today’s reports of over a foot of snow in my old hometown of Yukon, Oklahoma brought back a flood of memories. No doubt, there are kids bundled up, braving the -17 degree wind chills to enjoy the drifting bliss.  Frostbite is a small price to pay for a little taste of winter fun.

As a kid, a good, playable snowfall came around about as often as an invitation to an Independence Middle School dance.  Throughout most of my junior high career, I weighed 107 lbs. soaking wet, with at least 50% of that weight assigned to my giant head.  I’ll let you do the math to determine the probability of me luring the ladies.

As you might imagine, appropriate warm weather gear was one of the first items to fall off my family’s prioritized budget, coming right after “Japanese Kimono for Dad” and just before “Extra Magic 8-Ball Game In Case The Original Doesn’t Work Right.” I always managed to get a good, heavy coat each winter along with some gloves and a stocking cap.  Most of this stuff was second-hand from my older brother, which was fine because I idolized him.  The only drawback is that it was all 5-7 years out of style.  The silver lining is that I can personally take all of the credit for carrying  the “Starsky and Hutch” craze into the early-80’s.

Boots and snow pants were another story.   Several of my friends sported ski suits and moon boots, spurred by the fact that their fathers capitalized on the oil boom of the late 70’s.  I, on the other hand, made do with random stuff from my closet.  Tennis shoes.  Five pair of socks.  Three pair of jeans.  This stuff would keep you warm until it got wet with snow.  Then you would literally freeze and turn into a Popsicle, totally immobile from the neck down.  In the Oklahoma wind, this took about 25 minutes.

One snowy day, my mom saw me warming my feet by the fireplace.  My toes were bright red.

“Mom?”

“Yes honey.”

“I want some moon boots.”

“Why do you want moon boots?”

“Because they are really warm.  Barry and T.J. and Theron can play in the snow for hours without getting cold.  My feet get wet and then get all frozen.”

* Early 80′s Moon Boots:  Oh How I Covet Thee

I waited to see what mom’s reaction would be.  Had I sold her?

“That’s right.  You need a way to keep your feet from getting wet.”

Bingo!

“Exactly, Mom.  That’s exactly what I need.”

Mom thought for a moment, smiled, and said, “I think I can help.”

I envisioned this would be one of those movie moments, where mom would walk around the corner, then return with a gift-wrapped box.  One that she had been holding on to for just such an occasion.  A box containing the most beautiful moon boots I had ever laid eyes on.

And mom appeared from around the corner, just as I had imagined.  A smile on her face.

And in her hands?

Pink plastic baggies.

“These should work!” she said proudly.

Mom was a Mary Kay sales rep.  And she was darn good at it, too.  But this was not the first time I had been double-crossed by the makeup mogul.  One year earlier, I had been bragging to my friends at school that my mom was coming to pick me up in our family’s new car.   It was scheduled to arrive at the dealer that afternoon.

“She won it at work,” I boasted.

I waited outside after the final bell rang, only to see my mom pull up, proudly honking the horn of a flashy, PINK Buick Regal.  You can imagine the fun my buddies had with that one.

Now she wanted me to be the first-ever 9-year-old boy to serve as a walking billboard for a makeup conglomerate.

I immediately started whining.  “No, Mom!  Moon boots!”

* A much manlier version of my snowy footwear.  No vintage bag images available.

“But honey,” she pleaded.  “We can’t get out in this weather, and you want your feet to be dry.  These are the only plastic bags we have in the house that can fit over your shoes.  Besides, it’ll be fun..”

Mom continued with one of her textbook sales pitches, able to turn every situation into a fun, funny, exciting adventure.  But this time, I wasn’t biting.  I looked down at the pink baggies, emblazoned with hundreds of little maroon Mary Kay logos.

No way in hell.

Then I remembered the epic snowball fight that was set to begin promptly after lunch.  The baggies could prolong my fun.  But there was a genuine risk to my reputation as well.  Public ridicule of this nature could be on par with puking in the lunchroom with the whole school present.  It’s hard to recover from that kind of social setback.  In fact, many kids suspected that was the reason Michael Taylor moved to the west coast midway through the second grade at Surrey Hills Elementary.

I had to make a decision – and fast.

Maybe no one will notice, I thought.  My feet will be covered in snow most of the time anyway. In an instant, I had convinced myself that I could pull it off.

After lunch, mom double-bagged each of my feet, and secured them at the ankles with a couple of rubber bands twisted over on themselves.  I donned my coat and headed into the tundra.  I immediately noticed a difference.  My feet did feel warmer.  We were set to meet at a house down the street.  However, I made a quick stop at Barry Cunningham’s house, my next-door neighbor.

Barry was younger than me, and heavy-set as a kid.  This made him an easy target for verbal jabs from some of my neighborhood friends.  I really liked Barry.  We got along well, and I did my best to come to his defense, usually with my own shrewdly-worded comments, as my fists never were my strong suit.  Barry subsequently grew to be a muscular star athlete by the time he graduated high school, dating a super-hot cheerleader.  That said, I’m fairly certain that my subconscious was hoping that if I arrived with seven-year-old Barry, he might distract some of the attention away from me.

“What’s that?” he asked, standing confidently in his bright blue moon boots.

“What do you mean?”

I acted like I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You’re wearing pink makeup bags on your feet.”

“Oh.  Yeah.  Those.  Um… I just thought they might help to keep my feet warm and make me faster or something.”

Barry didn’t question my logic.  He threw on his coat and followed me to Brady Farr’s house.

It was evident from the outset that my decoy plan was backfiring. When we finally ran into the other guys, the few extra pounds that Barry was carrying around his midsection were no match for my shiny pink plastic feet.  I might as well have been wearing a ballet tutu and dancing on a giant, frosted cupcake.

Sure, there were a couple of insults that were both cutting and creative.  Fairy Boy.  Pinky Toes.    But most of the kids just stood in silence, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.  It wasn’t until their brains started to compute that I had indeed chosen to cover my feet in pink Mary Kay bags that they started laughing hysterically.  My toasty toes were now accompanied by my face, colored red-hot with embarrassment.

I fought back with humor, the only weapon I’ve ever had at my disposal.

“Yeah guys.  Isn’t this hilarious!  I thought it would be funny to come out here wearing these pink bags.  I had to steal ‘em from my mom.”  I pranced around and made a few kids laugh.  The barbs died down a little until the last couple of guys showed up.  The time for joking was over.

It was game time.

There is no real logic to a snowball fight.  The goal is simply to dish out as much punishment as you can.  The only rule is that you can’t throw slush balls.  They do too much damage, and as soon as someone starts crying, a mom inevitably comes out and cancels the match.  We stood in a loose huddle, and each kid made several snow balls.  Then, someone said, “Go!”  It was in that moment that I realized my mistake.

I don’t know much about the laws of physics, but I now know that friction can be a helpful aid when it comes to running.  Imagine jumping into a plastic garbage bag and trying to run up a theme park water slide.   That’s the situation I was facing.  I had essentially coated my feet with slippery plastic, and was trying to zig and zag all over a packed-snow field.

I was like a newborn deer playing ice hockey.

It took all of five seconds for the guys to realize I was the weak one in the herd.  I fought it for a while, managing to struggle to my feet, only to lunge quickly to avoid an incoming snowball, falling flat on my face once again.  A half-dozen kids circled around me, unloading snowballs at a furious pace.  That’s when I learned the second rule of a snowball fight.

Pelting a guy loses its appeal when the pink bags stop flailing.

I spent the remainder of the match curled in the fetal position, motionless, silent and still, largely unharmed.  I had feared for my life, both social and physical, only to find that silly foot coverings weren’t a death sentence.  And it wasn’t until I stopped fighting against my own shortcomings that the chaos cleared and peace found me.

‘Cuz we all have our pink bags.  Our bulging midsections.  Our old regrets.  Some are worn for all to see.  Some buried deep inside us.

The thing is, they are a part of us.  Part of God’s design.  Beauty in the mess.  To deny all of our junk is to deny the divine in all of us.  We have to give in.  Embrace the different.

Our snowball fight came to an abrupt end that day.  Someone got smacked in the face with a perfectly thrown ball and started crying.  In that moment, the warlords turned into nurse maids, trying to quiet the kid down lest we get busted for playing too rough.  But it was no use.  Someone’s mom came out and shut it down.

The physical activity came to stop.  Several kids started feeling wet and cold, and chose to go home.  Barry and I took that as our cue.  We set off toward my house.

The walk home along Carriage Dive was a few hundred yards down a slight incline.  I got a running start and headed toward the street.  There, the snow was packed hard.  I leapt off the curb and landed solidly.  When my feet hit, Mary Kay worked her magic.  I slid faster than anyone in moon boots could have dreamed.  Half way to my front door without even taking a step.

Still feeling warm.