BY MICHELLE EPHRAIM

I saw the hole in the car seat as I was pulling out of my driveway.

When I say "hole," I mean huge gaping cavity with tons of fluffy white stuff coming out of it. It looked like the seat had barfed.

I knew I'd be late for school pick-up, but it didn't matter. I needed to check this out.

Sure enough, there was another sign of trouble. Round black things on the seats that were not raisins. It was obvious what was going on: there was a creature in the car waiting to kill me and my family.

I shouldn't have been so surprised. Of course our car would attract a hungry animal. There are flaccid "Go-gurt" tubes covering the entire car floor. And over the "Go-Gurt" tubes, crumbs from our last 4,000 trips to Dunkin' Donuts. A dried-up river of milk runs the length of the car. Rainbow goldfish swim in it. It's completely disgusting. Someday, as soon as I can face them, I will hire professionals to make it all go away. I will roll my eyes and tell them that the kids did it. (Kids! Who can control them?)

But let me make something clear. My husband Marc and I are not victims; we asked for this. The car is the truest expression of our real selves. We are slobs. Sometimes I go to the gym and don't shower afterwards. And then I go to sleep. When I do wash my clothes, they rarely make it into drawers. At this moment, there is an expensive face cream wedged between my dresser and the wall. It's been there for months. It's leaking.

Marc is worse. When I met him, he slept with every single item of his clothing piled onto his mattress. He needed all his clothes to keep warm because it was February and his window was broken. The Styrofoam and duct tape he had used to repair the window, after some drunk guy broke it at a party three months earlier, didn't work. When we moved in together, he argued that we shouldn't clean the apartment. Ever. He said it just wasn’t worth it, not when we'd be moving out in ten months.

Now that we're married, with jobs and children, the car is the only place I allow myself to let loose. When I had my first child nine years ago, I had no idea my messiness would be a big problem in Mommy World. If anything, I pictured Mommies as slovenly leaky vessels carrying smaller leaky vessels. I was also unfamiliar with the term "executive functioning," and I had no idea that my executive dysfunctionality would most likely lead to bad parenting and, possibly, my children's lifelong struggle to self-regulate, stimulate sensory perception, and master social pragmatics while executing gross motor planning. I just didn't know.

Here's the thing about having children where I live. You don't have to be as clean as you were before having them; you have to be cleaner. Cleaner and more organized. My neighborhood is filled with these Fancy Moms -- the skinny, well-scrubbed urban mamas who love high-end athletic wear and environmentally friendly products, and who host charity events. The Fancy Moms inspire me: before I met them, I had no idea how good you could look after 40. There's so much pressure: the sports teams, the summer camps, the recycling projects. The hardest parental hurdle for me to jump through, though, is the neat and tidy one. I'm not just talking about bathing and clean underwear. I'm talking about how you must have a designated "mud room" loaded with labeled baskets and brightly-colored hooks for each child's coat. Plus, the mud room must be located in a prominent place, where everyone can see your glory.

There's a part of me that wants to be just like the Fancy Moms, and to be adored by them. So, I have drunk the Kool-Aid of The Container Store. I have bought things like some kind of lunchbox ecosystem at Whole Foods that cost $32.

This is why I need my car to let loose in.

At least, until it was filled with fecal pellets. Of course, the day I discovered the hole in the car seat we were giving a ride home to the daughter of one of the Fancy Moms. A stunning woman who maintains white home décor and who smells like lilacs. Her daughter, unused to bad smells and therefore more olfactorily sensitive than my own children, immediately contorted her face as she got into the car: "Something stinks!"

My reaction was to play it super cool and blame it on something my toddler left in the car to rot. I craned my head around and winked at my older daughter: "You got a crazy little sister, dontcha?"

As we drove, I glanced every other second in the rear-view mirror, expecting to see a creature grinning at me with an arm around each kid. A creature about to sink its teeth into my daughter's friend's shoulder, puncturing her beautiful white down jacket.

Back at home, having safely returned the girl, I knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath and Googled "animal poop in car boston." This was very helpful. I learned that some decent, clean, Back Bay residents who park near the dumpsters have discovered rat nests in their Lexus engines. None of the websites I looked at mentioned rat occupancy on suburban streets far away from mass accumulations of public trash. But apparently, explained one of my sources, if there is a car with an extraordinary amount of food remains, a rat will find it using his amazing "Junk-dar" powers. Once a rat selects his car, he is dedicated to it for life and will return to it even if you chuck him out the window in another state. The only way to reclaim your car is to kill the rat.

Initially, Marc would not believe that there was a live animal in our car. This was not surprising. When I get worked up about something, Marc tends to lie down and play dead. And that makes me spin completely out of control. But, humoring me, he purchased a rat trap and set it up in the car. He checked the car at midnight, and announced that there was nothing in the car.

"What about the hole and the poop?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Maybe there was something there, but it's gone now." I could see the large gears in his head churning forward; the issue had now completely left his mind.

After I dropped off our older daughter at school the next morning, I got a call from Marc. I had taken his car because I'd decided never to use my car again. No amount of Lysol and paper towels would convince me otherwise. "Come home now," he breathed. For a brief moment I thought: mid-morning booty call? But then common sense kicked in: this was a guy who kept a sack of food in his desk so that he never has to leave his computer.

When I drove up, Marc was standing on the sidewalk. First, he just pointed to the car. "The rat?" I asked, feeling a delicious tingle despite myself. Marc nodded slightly, staring at a distant point just beyond my shoulder. He looked like he had had the wind knocked out of him.

Finally, he managed to get the story out. He had seen the rat as he was getting our two preschoolers into the car. The rat's leg was caught in the trap, but he was otherwise in great shape.

Then Marc had run into the house, grabbed our entire collection of CVS plastic bags, and put them on his hands like giant mittens.

Then, back at the car, he whipped the door open, grabbed the rat, and hurled it onto the sidewalk.

As families strolled by on their way to school and work, Marc grabbed the ice-scraper from our trunk. (Here I like to imagine him breathing heavily, walking in slow motion toward the frantic rat, his CVS bags flapping like wings in the cold winter air as he let out a primal yell.) Then he used the ice-scraper to bludgeon the rat to death on the sidewalk.

Part of me was delighted and satisfied with this outcome. Marc always thinks that I'm exaggerating everything. Now Nice Marc, Good-Cop Marc, had murdered an animal, possibly in front of the fancy neighbors.

Marc and I looked in at the murdered rat, now shrouded in his CVS burial clothes in the passenger seat. Soon, he would be in a dumpster and it would all be over.

"Where are the kids?" I asked. This having just occurred to me. He tells me that he locked them in the house when he got the plastic bags. Two preschoolers in the house? Alone? For an hour? As I ran wildly to the front door, he yelled after me: "They're in the house! What can they do?" I could hear his eyes rolling. Marc will never learn how to panic.

I found the kids playing nicely in the living room, dressed in full snow gear. The two year old had pissed through her snowpants. But that's nothing after you've cleaned up rat shit. It was almost cute.

The rat incident ended happily. Luckily, we have a mechanic who enjoys screwing "The Man" and he managed to get our insurance company to pay for this "freak incident." It took two months to repair the car.

Even though that rat was uninvited, I'd like to thank him. Because of him, I've got nothing more to hide. I don't give a crap if people think I’m a slob or know our family, as some do, only as: "The People Who Had a Rat in Their Car."

But the truly amazing thing is that it's not just me. Ever since word spread about our rat massacre, the Fancy Moms have been telling me some of their own dirty secrets. One is finally starting on medication. Another one has a hemorrhoid that just keeps coming back. It turns out that the really pretty one who always wears white jeans is still traumatized by a bad waxing experience in 2000. "It's a mess down there," she says.

Because I am a filthy space, I am a safe space for them. The rat in his afterlife has become a kind of therapeutic object. A reminder that it's okay to come out of that organized closet every so often.

In his own little profound way, that rat forced us -- all of us -- to come clean.

Michelle Ephraim lives with her husband and three kids in Boston. During the day, she is Associate Professor of English at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her essays have appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, McSweeney's, Lilith, Tikkun, The Morning News, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Along with fellow Shakespeare Professor, Caroline Bicks, she writes a blog called Everyday Shakespeare: www.everydayshakespeare.com. Michelle is currently working on a book about Shakespeare and other stuff. 

BY BETH MOORMAN

When did the entire world go seamless? I admit that I have never been on the cutting edge of fashion, but I do take some pride in my personal appearance. Therefore, after a hiatus from regular clothes to bear three children, I was looking forward to updating my wardrobe. Years of shopping at Moo Moo Maternity had really set me behind -- no pun intended. However, my celebration to be back in a regular pair of pants was soon dampened by the news that you are a huge loser if any sort of a panty line is visible. An exposed bra strap, however, is in. Thank goodness for the tutorial of a blunt babysitter.

Suddenly, the routine task of buying underwear thrust me into unchartered waters. As I navigated my way around the lingerie department one afternoon, it wasn't long before I wished I were in a foreign country with no language skills. I would be mortified if someone I knew saw me trying to pick out the risqué undergarments necessary to achieve the seamless look. I blushed as a shoved a few thongs in my bag to take back to the fitting room. Weren't these the same as those controversial "crotch floss" bikini bottoms making headlines in beach communities a few years back?

In retrospect, it was not the wisest decision to place unpaid merchandise in my purse as a way to avoid drawing attention to myself. In fact, that strategy completely backfired. I jumped when I heard a gruff voice clearly directed toward me.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, I saw you take those V-Strings."

I spun around to see not only a tall saleswoman, but also several other shoppers looking at me. "Huh? The whats?" My answer revealed my lingerie IQ.

"The O-Ring satin extreme V-Strings," she replied tersely, then clarified: "In your bag."

"Ohhhh…these! These aren't thongs?" I whispered, confused. "I just didn't feel like I should be carrying them around the store, you know, in case I saw someone I knew. You know, like my daughter's kindergarten teacher or my husband's boss. Seriously, this is a terrible misunderstanding."

The saleswoman/undercover cop grudgingly gave me the benefit of the doubt and led me by the arm to the dressing room. There she stood over me, initially skeptical of my innocence, as I tried on the items. But it was soon clear that I was vindicated in the eyes of Tanya; first of all, a look at my current underwear made it obvious that I was not a slick sticky fingers attempting a five-finger discount to update my lingerie drawer. 

"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed as I changed. "I didn't even know they still made those!"

Secondly, my ignorance -- as well as my innocence -- was confirmed after I tried on the first item. "So, what do you think?" I asked her.

"Uh, Honey. They're on completely sideways." She shook her head with pity.

Additional mortification for me. As if the near-arrest and the fact that I was 90% naked in a 2'x2' cubicle with a total stranger wasn't enough.

"Sweetie, let's switch gears and work up top," suggested Tanya. "I think I know something that can, well, help."

My last shred of dignity was quickly out the door with Tanya. I wrapped myself in the curtain while I waited. She was back in a flash (again, no pun intended) with a contraption that looked like two jellyfish held together by a clip.

"A breast enhancement without the surgery," she announced cheerfully. "And so much more affordable at $79 a set. Perfect for special occasions and eveningwear."

"Well, we women sure have come a long way since wearing Band-Aids under a bridesmaid dress, haven't we?” I said sarcastically as I tried to arrange them on my body.

"Huh? Band-Aids?" This time it was Tanya who was confused.

"Uh, never mind." I had clearly dated myself, and I'm not even that old. "So. How do these look?"

"Ohhhhh," she replied, deflated. "I've never seen them do that before."

Frustrated, I leaned over to pick up my bags and leave. With that graceful gesture, I completely mooned poor Tanya in my new Old Navy jeans, which labels should state: We recommend trying gymnastics in these clothes prior to purchasing to ensure that the customer is not later arrested for indecent exposure.

"Do you want to look at the low-rises before you go?" Tanya offered weakly. She had literally seen enough of me.

"No thank you," I said. "I am finished with underwear and on my way to look for outerwear!"

Ponchos, in particular. 

Beth Moorman is the mother of three girls and lives in Richmond, VA. She can be reached at: robnbethmoorman@comcast.net

BY LIANE KUPFERBERG CARTER

I have an embarrassing confession.

Last week I was invited to a Tupperware Party. That's not the embarrassing part.

The embarrassing part is that I went.

It was an invitation I didn't dare refuse.

"Go or the other nursery school moms will talk about you," my husband said.

So, for fear that no other woman would ever call again for a playdate with my kid, I went.

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, ladies," our hostess Nancy said, welcoming us into her beautifully remodeled split-level. I dutifully admired the sleek new state-of-the art kitchen, eyed heaping plates of pastries, and slid into the dining room where Margie, the motherly Tupperware Representative, was setting up her display.

"No games," I warned her, "or I'm out of here."

"I promise, no games," she said.

"Once I was invited to a Shtupperware party," I confided to my friend Ilene. "Same concept, different wares. Very different. I won the door prize."

"What was it?" Ilene said.

"You don't want to know," I said. "And it was solid milk chocolate."

Fortified with coffee, pen, and catalog, I joined Ilene on Nancy's new white sofa. "The round seals are my favorite," Tupperware Margie said. "You can enhance your table with six-piece matching sets in popular rose and blue. See these elegant new organizers? The Signature Series with clear blue covers allows for easy identification of contents. They also snap securely when closed and remain in the open position for easy access."

"They had some clothes like that at the other party," I told Ilene.

"Shhh," she said. "I want to hear about the Maxi Cake Taker."

I kept quiet. We looked at casseroles, colanders, canisters, coasters, and condiment sets. Super Crisp Its, Jel-ette molds, Cereal Storers, Hamburger Presses, Holiday Stencils, Modular Mates, and more.

"This is my personal favorite," I confided to Ilene, studying the Velveeta Keeper.

"And yes, ladies, there was a Mr. Tupper," Tupperware Margie said.

"Did he marry Mrs. Ware?" someone called out.

A heckler! I perked up.

Margie told us Tupperware was celebrating forty years of Quality, Service, and Commitment. She had joined the company twenty-five years ago, when she weighed over two hundred pounds. "Weight Watchers," she said. "And I've kept it off all this time." Enthusiastic applause.

"Does anyone here do Avon?" a bored voice asked.

Tupperware Margie passed out order forms. "Well, I do need some measuring cups," I said doubtfully.
Ilene was writing busily on my right; so was Mona to my left. "I guess we have to buy stuff or Nancy won't get her hostess gift, huh?" I said. I thumbed the catalog. "It says here she can qualify for Six Rainbow Snackatizer Plates," I informed them. "Well I, for one, am not impressed. The Shtupperware hostess got The Midnight Special. With attachments."

"You have an attitude problem," Mona said.

She was right. I did. I was mortified to be there. Not that I didn't like the other nursery school moms; they were bright and funny, and I'd happily go out to dinner with them anytime. I didn't mind the carpooling or even the kibitzing (though I'd be happy never to hear another labor-and-delivery horror story that concluded: "So, after 43 hours, I told the doctor, 'Give me the knife, I'll do it myself!'"). But Tupperware was just a little too retro for me. I have yet to meet a man who has ever been corralled into one of these parties; yet no matter a woman's background, education, or taste, each of us -- suburban or otherwise -- has been or will be invited to one of these things. I'd come buoyed only by the thought of writing about it. What would be next? If I ordered so much as one Mix-N-Stor Pitcher, I could end up with a station wagon, a sheepdog named Tramp, or even...Ward Cleaver.

"Look, an Ice Tups set to make juice pops!" Mona said.

"My mother had those," I said, momentarily lost in remembrance of childhood desserts past. Nothing was ever so intensely tart and sweet as frozen lemonade-on-a-stick, swaddled in an oversized napkin. Didn't I want my sons to have the same memory thirty years from now?

"Put me down for that," I said grudgingly. "And maybe a Spaghetti Dispenser. And the Small Spice Shaker Set's kind of cute. And maybe the large Pick-A-Deli Container for my husband. And I guess the Pop-A-Lot Toy, and how about the Li'l Tuppers School Yard..."

How had I ever managed without the microwave Stack Cooker, the Memory Mates photo container, or Super Storer bulk containers? The siren call of ultimate organization lured me on.

"And it comes with a lifetime satisfaction guarantee," I said later that night to my husband, hoping to justify my moment of purchasing madness.

"And here I had figured all along you were the Waterford crystal type," he said. "Remember Invasion of the Body Snatchers?" he said "Everyone falls asleep and gets taken over by pods? You look like my wife, you even sound like her, but you must have dozed off. It only takes an instant."

I thought about how no one would dream of asking my busy professional husband to do more than ante up the office pool. I thought about how whether I had a degree in cosmetology or particle physics, I'd still have spent the evening exactly as I did. And I thought how unlikely it was that I would see a man hosting a Tupperware party before the next Harmonic Convergence. I sighed.

"Pods?" I said. "You know, that might make a super storage solution." 

Liane Kupferberg Carter’s work has appeared in the New York Times syndication, McCall's, Parents, Child, New Parent, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, The Westchester Review, Mom Writers Literary Magazine, Sotto Voce, Literary Mama, Memoir(and), Writers' Bloc, and Mr. Beller's Neighborhood. She is a 2009 winner of the Memoir Journal Prize for Memoir in Prose.

BY BARBARA JEAN TANNERT

Hindsight tells me I should have at least pretended to be from the East Coast, if not Eastern Europe, but the  girl looked so cute and normal (like the hostess at Red Lobster or Miss Amalgamated Corn Products) that I figured she was harmless, if a little too thin. I actually told her this when we met in the Designer Corner of the Act Two consignment shop. She was culling size zero black rayon cocktail dresses from the rack with the speed and precision of a woodpecker, while I selected my Talbots tartan jumper and a white silk bowtie blouse at a more leisurely pace. (I've a good eye for vintage finds and am savvy enough to know that that late '80's fashions are back). As she hesitated over a tiny wool knit skirt suit by St. John (cardinal red, trimmed with a wide band of cream), I just had to speak up.

"You're just the right size for the little suit," I told her. "Which means you're way too skinny! Seriously, that's such a bargain. I tried it on last week but it was way too small. It looked like a bathing suit on me but on you..."

At that moment, a burly little woman hurtled towards us brandishing an elaborate black lace gown. "Lacey, look at this!" she shrieked at the Corn Queen. "This is stunning!"

"Oh my God, Mom," Lacey shrilled, in a funny high pitched voice. "It totally is. But it looks like a wedding dress. Who would wear a black wedding dress?"

"A vampire," I offered.

They stared at me briefly, then Lacey informed her mother, "I'm gonna go try these on." Then she bolted herself into Act Two's only dressing room.

Lacey refused to model any of the cheap rayon cocktail dresses, which was a shame since I was waiting to try on the tartan jumper and bowtie blouse and wouldn't have minded a little diversion. So, to pass the time, I made small talk with her mother, who was still holding the black lace gown.

"That would make a wonderful Halloween costume," I informed her. "It's very Twilight..."

"Mom! Come in here!" Lacey called with some urgency, opening the door to the dressing room just wide enough to admit her mother and the black gown and then slamming it shut again. I was just contemplating if I should maybe take my jumper and blouse and try them on in the little bathroom with its tiny mirror when I heard Lacey say, quite distinctly: "She's a total stalker."

A tableau of images immediately scrolled through my mind -- a series of geographically and historically diverse memories -- with each and every one involving that weird compulsion of mine to make small talk with total strangers.

To the cheerful pot-bellied girl behind the concession counter at a Washington D.C. multiplex upon her presenting me with a "small" popcorn and a "small" coke:

"Oh my God! Are these considered small? We're doing like those natives did on Easter Island. It's like driving Hummers. Oh, and some Milk Duds, too. They're an essential foil for popcorn. Three fifty! They used to cost twenty-five cents! Of course, the box was smaller and this was back in 1975. I'm going to have to eat all this myself, too. My husband's too much of a Puritan to eat during a movie. That's him crouching over there behind that potted plant thing. Is that real?"

To an elderly couple at a McDonald's somewhere on I-95:

"Can you believe we have to fill our own cups? Everything's self-service these days. It must have been different in your day. I still wait for the gas station attendant to come out and fill my tank and squeegee my windshield. He doesn't though."

To a tollbooth operator on the Illinois Turnpike:

"We've been lost for an hour! We're so stupid! My husband here is having some kind of breakdown. We didn't buy a car with a GPS and I can't ever tell my left from my right! Is that SUV blowing its horn at us?"

To a young dapper Kennedy spotted ordering a Bud Light at the Beachcomber in Wellfleet, Massachusetts in 1984:

"And what bacchanalian revelries are you plotting this evening?" (My recollection is that he generously ignored my remark and was on the verge of inviting my college roommate and me to an after-hours party in Hyannis Port when Katie, a gin-soaked ringer for Marcia Brady, lost her own head in propinquity to celebrity. "You're one of the Kennedys!" she announced, accusingly, and the young man, who knew that already, recalled to his senses and evaporated into the crowd.)

My own darling children are also unsympathetic to this foible of mine, frequently informing me that I'm "way too chatty" and, when I defend my natural exuberance spilling out all over the place, proceed to make disturbingly precise distinctions between "chatty-normal" and "chatty-weird" and "normal moms" and "you."

Of course, my first instinct upon overhearing the "total stalker" remark was to knock gently on the slatted door of the Act Two dressing room and announce with a sort of exaggerated patience:

"I am not a total stalker. I am a part-time lecturer in English. My husband has recently published a book. I have a scholarly interest in vampires and vintage clothing. If the two of you were not so limited in your scope of the world, if you had had any experience beyond the tanning salon and the high school football game, you would have been previously exposed to eccentric and ironic and educated people like myself. I am not being classist here; there are many rude and horrible people in academia who are similarly narrow-minded and who, it is true, have judged me for wearing too much makeup and dressing in the style of the late 1950s. I have a small waistline and I enjoy feeling feminine. This does not mean that I am a Republican. In short, I am a mass of contradictions as we all are. I apologize for judging your limitations in manners, taste, and education. As I have often reminded my creative writing students, even stupid people can have complex emotions. I did not mean to imply that either of you are stupid. Merely that we, educated or not, are all struggling to express the truth of who we are without alienating those around us, and who understands this dichotomy better than we women? And yet, we are cruel to one another, yes, and that is why your thoughtless stalker remark is so upsetting. If you could see me now, you'd notice that I have tears in my eyes and that I feel like we're all back in the seventh grade and that I've been cast out for trying to make friends. I am a friendly person. I was just trying to be friendly. I was not stalking anyone. I am not a stalker. You are using the term incorrectly. If I ever see either one of you again, which is highly unlikely, I will run away from you very fast, screaming."

As I contemplated the best tenor for this address, I realized that conveying such albeit heartfelt and genuine sentiments aloud might also indicate that I had crossed that somewhat hazy line that separates chatty from crazy. My husband has many times assured me that I crossed this line some years ago.

"People don't want to talk to you," he snorts at me, exasperated. "Just stop talking to strangers. I don't ever talk to strangers and you never see me have any problems."

This is true. It is also true that he no longer talks to anyone, at all, period, and has become a hermit taken to yelling, when the phone rings: "Don't get it! It might be someone we know."

Happily, I have a benchmark for my sanity or, as I prefer, a "crazy meter" with which to gauge my interactions with strangers. It's simple. If they respond too eagerly or with a disproportionate desire to keep talking or, God forbid, continue a conversation, I will cut them off with a polite but firm remark. Most people understand this intuitively, like the woman on the plane who told me all about her exploding ovaries and her sexless marriage and her scented candle business, while I happily chimed in with my family history of alcoholism and husband's mood disorder but who, once the plane touched down, and thereafter in the ladies room and at the baggage carousel, as if by mutual and tacit agreement, cut me dead.

The incidental encounter with the stranger while shopping is, however, in my experience more difficult to gauge on the "crazy meter." Say, for example, you're in the grocery store and initiate the following conversation with a reasonably normal looking, middle-aged female shopper:

Me: "I hate to buy Frosted Flakes, but it's all my kids will eat. Who knows? It's probably healthier than this seven-dollar organic granola."

Shopper: "We make our own granola at home."

Me: "Oh, really? I bet it's delicious. I used to make my own bread, but I've gotten busy lately."

Shopper: "We make our own bread, too." (Shopper laughs eerily to herself). "We don't like store-bought nothing. I'm only here today because of the infestation out at the compound. My name is Enola."

Me: "How awful for you. Oh! I just remembered I need extra cat sand."

Thereafter, you bustle off to the checkout line feeling renewed and virtuous and normal, for, in this context you are not the over-sharing weirdo. Such reassurance is short lived if, at that moment, you cannot resist the urge to defend your groceries (say, four gargantuan boxes of Frosted Flakes, a package of roach traps for "medium to large roaches," a twelve-pack of toilet paper, and two two-liter bottles of wine) to the cashier.

"Well, this looks like a party, doesn't it?" you might say, jovially.

"I can't ring up all your alcohol," announces the teenage cashier, loudly.

Then, as you await the manager, old Enola Granola comes trundling behind you with a cart full of bottled water and unprocessed millet, looking like the soul of discretion.

I wish I could be the soul of discretion, but I'm afraid I'd go around all day and simply ignore people I don't know, which seems so unfriendly, not to mention lonely. Is it possible to sit and look through the pattern books at Jo-Ann Fabrics and not tell any of the assembled company that you are planning to sew your own bathing suit this summer? And let's say, for the sake of argument, that you do attempt to make it from a vintage pattern and that (for reasons you are still too traumatized to discuss) you fail so spectacularly that you grow sullen and defeated and grab the first department store suit you can find (black with a pink and lime and purple hibiscus print, a lattice work back, and an extraneous flap of material that is neither skirt nor ruffle), and when you finally wear it to the municipal water park and immediately spot another woman hiding in the shallows by the slide and geysers wearing the identical suit would it really be so terrible if you were to splash up to her and shout: "BUSTED!"?

In retrospect, I can understand her terror. As I exploded through one of the geysers it was not immediately clear that she and I were wearing matching suits, but once she understood that I was not bent on any type of physical assault -- once she got the joke that is -- you'd think she would at least have laughed.

"That lady might have laughed," my eldest son hisses through clenched teeth, "if you were, like, four years old. But, mom, you're forty years old or something awful like that. Normal people just can't cope with you."

Coping. Let me tell you about coping. It's been three days since the consignment shop incident and this is one total stalker still afraid to leave the house.

Barbara Jean teaches writing at Knox College in Galesburg, Ilinois. Her fiction has been published in various literary magazines, including Rose and Thorn and Paradigm. She can be reached at: bsmith@knox.edu.

BY CHRIS MONTGOMERY

It's Saturday, 4:15 a.m. An inhuman hour for some, yes?  For others, though, and I am speaking to you Good Parent, this could be the hour of freedom, the hour to rise from bed and sneak out to -- Walmart. Yes Walmart. It's open 24/7, and it's much more exciting than the Circle K. While some may rise to do the morning run without a stroller, or study the newspaper without being asked a "Daddy, can I..." every other second, I choose to evaporate from the house as silently as steam from a boiling pot of macaroni and cheese.

Leaving the house like a cat burglar is not as simple as one might think. One must maintain both calmness of mind and smoothness of motion (read: don't trip over things). Also, children's minds are not as cluttered with the noise (read: chaos) of the adult world, and thus they have the ability to sense when you're awake and planning to do something exciting. Something "without them."

Take heed: It is this last part that can wake the sleeping child quickly. Should your child sense that you are awake and going about business as usual (which usually means they will reap the culinary delights of pancakes or Honey Nut Cheerios), they may simply continue sleeping as though all is right with the world. However, Good Parent, should you become too excited about your adventure, should you begin to anticipate wandering endless aisles of holiday decorations, Tupperware, and sporting goods without the sounds of "Ohhh! Can I have? Can we get? OHH! I want thaaat..." then the child may suddenly realize what is about to happen and bolt awake. You'll know it when it happens. Though it may only be 4:30 in the morning, you will sense the sudden electricity in the air, the kind that comes just before lightning strikes. Quick! No time to look good! No time for mouthwash! If you can't find your shoes, wear your slippers! Get the keys and get out. Remember, the OTHER parent is HOME, so it's OK to leave. For the love of caffeine though, don't forget your wallet!

Note: You must clear the door before the child has spotted you. This is a safety issue since the child could try to chase after you and latch on. Once in the car, and safely two or three houses down the street, you can take a deep breath and relax your mind. Feel the rush of the open road! Let the silence of the morning, empty of bickering gnomes in the back seat whining for their sippy cup, wash over you. Ahhhh! Breathe! Life is quiet again.

I am not alone in my sneaking out of the house, and I can tell you this with full confidence. I know this because I wander the Walmart with other groggy-looking parents, power-walking retirees, and the wayward meth-head lurking in the cold medicine aisle. Like members of some secret guild, we share careful, knowing glances under lowered eyelids, not daring to stop for idle small talk at the cost of losing a precious moment of "me" time.

Somewhere in the annals of parenting books and magazines it is said (or it should be) that regardless of what "me" time you find for yourself, you will end up doing things for your kids, or, at the very least, thinking about doing them. When you wander down the aisles looking at new television sets, ten different kinds of chocolate bars, or cheap graphic design tees depicting cackling skulls with wings growing out of their ears, you will begin to think of the kids. At first you may resist this feeling, but you will be unsuccessful in your attempts. That flat screen HD television that comes with a discounted Blu-ray player will lead to thoughts of how much fun the kids will have playing the Wii Mario Kart. The chocolate? Forget about not buying extra for the kids; what kind of a neglectful monster eats chocolate without sharing it with the kids?

The kids do have clothes, though, so surely you can peruse the high-fashion items of the big-box giant without feeling like a selfish loser. Right? Hmmm. One look at those cute little mini-me tees with gems screened onto their fronts (such as: "I perform all my own stunts" and "I still live at home with my parents") and, without conscious assessment of the situation, you will find yourself back in full-parent mode, all thoughts of your "me" time gone. You will fold without even realizing you've thrown your hand.

Now, go quickly! You will need to sneak back into the house quietly so as not to wake the kids and ruin the surprises! Chocolate, donuts, new shirts? Make some pancake batter! I don't care if you put it together from scratch or pour it out of the Bisquick box, just don't forget the syrup! Pop for the pure maple, please, not that corn syrup chemical potion. Now, sit back and relax. The kids will be up soon (the smell of pancakes is a great lure), and you need some "alone time" to plan your next escape.

Chris is a 37-year-old stay-at-home Dad who quit a titillating career in decorative remodeling sales over five years ago to be the primary caregiver to the kids. Almost six years later, Zachary (6) and Hannah Grace (4) are still thriving. Mom is just glad she gets to go to work. Chris can be reached at: chrismont36@gmail.com.

BY CARIN WHITE

Bambi, Charlotte's Web, The Godfather: all movies that my children have never seen. There are just some things too terrible for their tender little hearts. Similarly, we don't have The Giving Tree or Old Yeller in our library. I remember my mother reading me a book called The Fall of Freddie the Leaf as a tiny girl to teach me about the neverending cycle of birth and death. These days, I cannot remember my phone number, anyone's name, or what I was looking for in this room, but I remember the horrible day that my mother read that book. This, friends, is where our story begins.

I love to throw huge birthday parties for my kids and go way overboard every year for Christmas. Because such serious piles of loot typically accompany these events, I always keep a very thorough list of who gave what to whom. I then send everyone some kind of correspondence assuring them that the item is now the favorite in its genre and that the recipient will no longer play with, sleep with, or wear anything else. Using this system, I have sent a thank you note for every last piece of gum that my children have been given in the past five years. That is, with one glaring exception. Within the last year, a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit (hereinafter "The Book") just appeared in my home; and to save my life, I have no idea where it came from.

"The Book" was placed on one of the two stuffed bookshelves in the bedroom of my two sons, Jed and Elias, and was never touched. I didn't exactly hide the book, but I also never suggested it, or even ever let on that it was there. Last night, Elias, my tough-as-nails three-year-old suggested it as our bedtime story. I thought: "What the hell. It's probably not as bad as I remember." It turns out that "The Book" is actually worse than I remember. Jed the sensitive five-year-old and I sobbed through the last two-thirds. Afterward, I put on a brave front and forced him to accept that "The Book" had a happy ending. I then read The Beginning of the Armadillos to soften the blow before tucking them into bed.

Within ten minutes, Jed was tapping on my bathroom door where I was attempting to unwind with a hot bath. He was crying about how sad "The Book" was and wailing about how no one wanted the bunny and how they were going to burn him. After a quick review of the germ theory of disease, and a brief talk about scarlet fever, I had done nothing to calm him down. I then turned Jed's attention to the top shelf of my closet where a mangy blue dog in pajamas and the tattered remains of a blanket sat. We talked for quite a while about childhood and love, and Jed finally fell asleep in my bed with a death grip on his sock monkey, Peter.

While I watched Jed sleep, I thought about the Christmas Day that I got that blue dog, and about how I've had the blanket so long that even in my earliest memories it was little more than a rag. I decided to tell my husband (who was out of town for this ordeal) that I wanted to be buried with my dog and blanket instead of cremated as I had planned. I then dove so deep into a bottle of wine that I am surprised that I got out without the help of the Coast Guard.

So, now, you probably want to know why I am telling this story. I am telling you this story as a warning. If I ever stop drinking, or get hypnotized, or start playing sudoku and get my memory back and realize that it was you who gave us "The Book," I am going to come to your house and show your kids The Elephant Man. 

Carin White retired from the practice of law in 2003. Once she got a taste of being a stay-at-home parent, she promptly opened her own business. In her spare time, she enjoys doting on her children and then wondering why she bothers. Carin has no formal training as a writer; she is just hilarious. Contact Carin at: admin@hazelboutique.com.

BY BETH MOORMAN

What is it about men and their attachment to old boxer shorts? Perhaps it is some sort of backlash from overbearing parents pitching a perfectly worn-in baby blanket. Probably, though, there is some sort of sadly mistaken ego issue involved. A man's affection for tattered boxers may stem from his misguided perception that his studly cargo has caused his boxers to literally burst at the seams.

Chances are, the most perfectly pressed, put-together-down-to-the-shined-Gucci-loafers kind of guy is probably held together by a thread underneath his leather belt and starched khakis. Like a badge of honor, the same man who takes pride in his car, his lawn, and his career is likely sporting a stretched out elastic band and a few shreds of material underneath his zillion dollar suit. After my husband fished a couple of shredded "old friends" from our dust rag bin, I gave up on the issue. Then, a rather strange turn of events infused several new pairs of underwear into my husband's supply.

On a recent visit to my parents' home, my mother generously offered several items she found while cleaning out closets. Among several coveted items, she set aside a stack of my father's discarded boxers. I will be the first to admit that, as a spoiled product of the 80's generation, this seemed a little disgusting to me. While I hate to waste money on boring items such as new underwear, at times a splurge is appropriate.

I politely refused when she mentioned the boxers the first few of times, but she was strangely insistent. For some reason, she was determined that those boxers were coming home with us. I finally relented. After all, you never want your parents to think you're doing too well! (Looking back, I now realize that this was the only way she was able to pitch them -- a charitable contribution to us!)

Rolling my eyes, I threw the boxers in our suitcase with a mental note to discard them later. However, in the usual chaos of traveling with three young children, that never happened. I completely forgot about, or perhaps blocked out, the bizarre transaction and never separated our "gift" from the usual stash.

Imagine the look on my face two weeks later when my husband, ranting about something else, finished his tirade with: "And by the way, WHOSE underwear have I been wearing?!"

"Um. Ugh. Well," I stammered. "You see. They're my Dad's."

Our prissy five-year-old daughter witnessed this exchange and chimed in, "Daddy is wearing Granddaddy's panties?!"

"YES!!! I have obviously hit an all-time low!" roared my husband. "I am wearing Granddaddy's panties! Get me some new underwear! Today!"

I didn't think I would hear those words for many years. But for a man who subconsciously felt it unmanly to don crisp, spanking, brand-new boxers, nothing was more of an affront to his masculinity as the thought of wearing his father-in-law's drawers.

Beth Moorman is the mother of three girls and lives in Richmond, VA. She can be reached at: robnbethmoorman@comcast.net.