Remember when Huey Lewis sung about it being “Hip to Be Square”? No? Well, he sung a lot of stupid stuff like that.

Thing is, I’ve decided it’s hip to be late. So, today I’m going to tell you about two of my favorite April Fool’s jokes:

Keeping Them Abreast

This happened when Michael and I first started seeing each other. My mom wasn’t sure how to feel about him and neither was my sister. I think it freaked them out a bit that I got so loopy over him so quickly and that I wasn’t shy about saying that I’d do anything for him.

So, being the terrible bitch that I am, when April Fool’s Day rolled around, I called my mom and told her this:

“Hey, Mom. How ya doing? Blah blah blah.

Yeah, I wanted to tell you something. I’m not too excited about it, but Michael seems to think it’s necessary. He wants me to have a boob job. I’m going to do it, of course. I mean, it’s not like he won’t love me anyway, but he says he’ll be happier with me if the doctors can get me to a D cup.”

Then I called my sister and told her the same thing.

Good times. Good times…

Being Like the Wrong Mike

This took place on the April Fool’s Day right after the infamous boxing match where Mike Tyson bit off the other guy’s ear.

I called Michael at work and told him this:

“Hey, Michael, Charlotte is fine*, but she got into a fight at school today. They want us both to come down and talk to the principal, because, apparently, she…she bit the other kid’s ear off.”

I was surprised he even went for this silliness, but I must have feigned distress pretty well. The worst part/best part is that he was basically just happy Charlotte had won the match. The story must have piqued his testosterone. I swear, I thought he was ready to take her out and buy her a beer or something.

I didn’t call anyone up and lie to them this year. Maybe I’m slipping.

Or, maybe – just maybe – I’m already planning for next year. Muahahahaha.

*I did say right up front that she was FINE. This is very crucial aspect of both emergency etiquette and fake April Fool’s Day emergency etiquette.

“Debbie is a great student. She’s a joy to have in class. But, when it comes to math, it’s as if the Debbie I know leaves and someone else takes over her body.” – My fourth grade teacher, in conference with my mom

Clearly demon possession was the only explanation for my exceptionally flimsy grasp of fourth grade mathematics. But, why did I have the misfortune of getting possessed by a demon kid who sucked at math instead of, say, a demon kid who was super good at kickball? Only my fourth grade teacher, in her infinite wisdom, would know the answer to a profound question such as that.

But, the reason this comes to mind after all these years is that my daughter is struggling with the very same demon.

She tries hard at math, but she just doesn’t get it. I didn’t either. My daughter and I have both turned in more than our share of math assignments stained with tears.

While everything else came easy for me, mathematics took a gargantuan effort, and sometimes I’d give up before I began.

That’s why my dear Michael gets the unenviable task of helping Charlotte with her math homework. Believe you me, this is for the best.

You see, I’m not much help when it comes to fourth grade math, because I was out of my body that year…

“Keep passing the open windows.” – from The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

Does this man ever fucking blink?

I lay there on the cool white sheets and tried not to look directly at his face.

His presence made me want to squirm. The fact that he seemed to think he had walked into a staring contest that he would be damned if he’d lose made it even worse. He was there to assess me, which meant I was going to have to speak to him.

Answering to people has never much been my strong suit, but there would be no way around it this time.

He seemed a no-nonsense kind of guy, and I didn’t feel like bullshitting him. But, this was a forced encounter, and my options were limited, so I told him exactly what I thought he’d want to hear:

“I won’t do it again. I didn’t really want to die.”

This was true in a sense. I didn’t want to die. But, had I felt more inclined to talk, I might have offered up that I didn’t want to live either. What I wanted was to sleep. Just sleep and never wake up.

He seemed satisfied with my answer. When he was done interrogating me, he pretended to forget I was there and said to my mother, “She’s a smart girl. Can I speak to you in the hall?”

If he had some magical secret that would make me want to live, why couldn’t he tell it to me instead of my mom? That’s honestly what went through my mind at the time. Pretty silly, huh? But, in my defense, I was more than a little groggy from overdosing on my newest anti-depressants. The sad irony of anti-depressants is that they make very effective suicide drugs.

Of course, there is a reason I’m telling you all of this. Today is the ten year anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, and I want you to understand that what I’m going to say is coming from someone who has been there.

The ugly fact is that I had to shit out the charcoal they fed me to absorb the drugs. That’s what they do when they pump your stomach. They feed you charcoal.

But, I was lucky – lucky I didn’t blow my brains out the way Cobain did and lucky to have had someone there to drag me to the hospital. I was doubly lucky to have someone there to fight for the life that I wasn’t willing to fight for. My ex-husband saved my life that night. Of all the fights we ever had, I’m glad he won that one.

I was humiliated and as depressed as ever after they pumped my stomach, but at least I was alive.

A couple years later, I gave birth to Charlotte, and I decided she was worth living for until I found a better reason. I still haven’t found a better reason than her, but I do have a long rambling list of additional good reasons to live. (It starts with apple danishes and ends with the zippers on my green jacket.)

So, when I think about Kurt Cobain in the sad lonely place he was in just before his death, I wish he had reached out and found that baby of his instead of the gun. Maybe he’d be alive now and that child would have a father. His daughter has only a tragedy to fill the space where her dad should be.

You have a big responsibility when you have kids. It’s your job to feed and clothe them and to try your damnedest to be there for them. In that split second, Cobain failed as a parent.

There’s a certain point in that downward spiral of suicide where you can catch yourself or let someone else catch you. If you find yourself there, please reach out and be caught so that the people who love you can celebrate your birthday once a year instead of mourning their loss on the anniversary of your suicide. If you give yourself a little more time, you might even find something to smile about.

*After reading this through a few times, I’m fearful that I come off as judgmental. This was not my intention, and I want to clarify something without actually reworking the post. /lazy

Kurt Cobain had an illness. Depression is an illness, and I’m not handing out a judgment. I just wish he had been able to do what I couldn’t do and see past his own self-loathing to what might have become a happy life.

Yesterday, while removing a load of laundry from the dryer, I found six stones. Stones in your dryer is preferable to stones in, say, your gall bladder, and yet it’s not something most people relish finding.

These particular six must have already been through the washer, and were politely waiting right inside the door when I opened the dryer.

A smarter person than myself might make more of a habit of checking pockets before doing a load of jeans. But, obviously, I’m not a smarter person than myself. Nope.

I do actually check pockets about half the time. The other half the time – if the clothes don’t crunch strangely when I grab them or weigh noticeably more than they otherwise would – any hapless rocks, credit cards, money or small sticks that lie in the pockets are going to get the ride of their inanimate lives.

We’re all guilty around here of forgetting to clear our pockets, but Charlotte is the worst offender by far.

She has a fondness for rocks that borders on obsession and is only surpassed by her great adoration of branches and twigs. Our back yard is twig paradise. We have eight trees back there that love to shed both large and small branches when it’s windy or rainy. Therefore, we have acquired quite a formidable pile of sticks that we keep off to the side of the yard and use for firewood.

But, the newly fallen branches still lying on the grass are fair game for my kid and her neighbor friend.

Out of motherly concern, I asked her one day if they were making a bad habit of hitting each other with sticks. She assured me that they just use them “like light sabers” but don’t really hit each other with them “too much.” That comforted me somehow. I told her to be sure not to aim at Allison’s face and the conversation was over.

It may seem a little odd, but the stick wars and stone collecting warm my heart in a way. She’s growing and changing constantly. She wouldn’t see Piglet’s Big Movie with me, because it’s too “babified.” She recently got her first backpack with no pop stars or cartoon characters on it. She even learned to ride a bicycle the other day.*

So, call me sentimental, but I cherish finding rocks in the dryer. Rocks in my dryer remind me that I have a few more years before my baby moves away from home.

I’m going to save them.

*I’d like to take credit for “teaching” her to ride, but it doesn’t work that way. You give a kid a bike, and nature takes over from there. She was pretty scared of falling off at first. I told her to just stand there and fall over with it just once. She did. Then I said, “So, you’re alive? Not crippled?” She looked up at me and said, “No, I’m fine.”

Soon after that, she took right to it like a yuppie to sushi. I was so proud of her and smiled so hard for two solid hours afterward that my face started to ache from grinning. No doubt I got a few new laugh lines that day.