Forever Frosty

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Right about now summer is sucking the life out of me. I don’t care if we managed to dip into the high 80’s for a couple of days because I’m still in a recovery program from when the heat index was 114.

I’d like to be one of those brave or crazy people who you see outside jogging when the temperature is hell adjacent. They mystify me. How do they do it? How do they willing journey outside to baste in sunscreen and sweat and then slowly grill themselves on the sidewalk?

Doctors call this “Hansel and Gretel syndrome.” It’s when people have a perverse need to be extra toasty. Okay, I just made that up, but seriously I think, I missed my calling by not going into the medical sciences because, come on, doesn’t’ Hansel and Gretel syndrome sound like it should be a thing? At the very least it’s kinder than calling someone insane.

I’m willing to admit that perhaps I also need a label. I’m certain I’m suffering from a sensory disorder called “Forever Frosty” because I’ve always felt the need for extra chill. I don’t even like to turn my heat on in the winter. I swear on the life of my XV20i TruComfort Variable Speed AC unit that family members have been known to wear coats and mittens inside my home. I don’t even feel guilty because it’s a cozy look and I’m always offering up hot chocolate.

The extremely good news is that I married another fellow “Forever Frosty.” I can’t imagine the level of conflict and suffering if a Hansel and Gretel hooked up with a Forever Frosty. The fights over the thermostat settings would be brutal and the F.F. would and should always win because to quote my mother “You can always add on layers to get warm, but you can’t march around stark naked in public to cool off.”

This means the H&G should put on a down coat, thermal socks, insulated gloves and just deal with it. Harsh, perhaps, but the logic is sound. And I’m warning you don’t you start questioning the wisdom of my mama.

That common-sense advice should also, in my opinion, be followed in any work setting. There should be no do-si-do’ing do with the thermostat. A recent study showed that 3 in 5 employees tamper with the office thermostat to make their surroundings warmer.

Beware Hansels and Gretals have taken over the work force!

I recently moved to an office where the ambient temperature was the corona of the sun. I was bewildered and downright scared about what had happened to make an office feel like I was a corn dog being fried in iffy carnival oil. After some impressive A.C. forensics it was discovered that the previous inhabitant(s) had dislodge a ceiling tile and jammed up the air duct.

Oh the humanity!

What fiendish soul or souls are that cold in the middle of a sweltering summer that they would without remorse smother the air conditioning delivery system? It was murder plain and simple. Death to a duct by asphyxiation.

I was certain no one would cop to committing the crime so I started a covert investigation on my own. My first clue was discovering who had space heaters under their desk spewing out sinfully hot air on a day when the temperature was one degree away from triple digits. This narrowed my suspect pool down to two. I then with some not very aggressive questioning got a full confession.

The perp was obviously in the throes of a full-fledged Hansel and Gretel psychotic break with temperature reality and I had nothing but sympathy and a hot beverage for them.

What else could I do? I may be a life-long Forever Frosty, but my feelings aren’t frozen.

Stalker – Sort Of

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If someone tells me they’re bored I usually assume that they’re just not curious. How can you be bored when there is always so much going on? And I’m not talking about world events or the latest in pop culture and technology.

I’m all about being intrigued with the minutiae of our daily lives. Trust me when I tell you there is a lot of weird stuff happening right in front of you. All you have to do is look up from your phone.

A good place to find a compelling character is the McDonald’s drive thru. A couple of mornings ago there I was waiting in line for my Diet Coke when I became so enamored with a fellow drive thruer, I turned into what might be described as a bona fide stalker. Because if you tail someone from McDonalds for miles that’s stalking right?

Don’t answer that question because the bigger query is how could I not have followed this person?

There I was minding my own business, waiting to execute a precision merge from two drive thru lanes to one when I glanced towards my right and I noticed a fascinating human. There was a woman, I’d peg her as late 30’s, doing some serious in car grooming with not one, but two pairs of tweezers.

She was a duel-wielding dynamo.

When I first started staring she was precision plucking her eyebrows. Then she totally raised the bar when she veered south and attacked her chin. The woman had to be ambidextrous because each hand was tweezing in unison with the other.

I couldn’t look away.

A part of me wanted to get her attention. I felt duty bound as a very middle-aged woman to shout, “Hey lady who doesn’t even look 40 I don’t think you need to worry about rogue chin hairs just yet. Give it ten years and then welcome to my world.”

I also want to get closer to her car because her tweezers looked professional or even medical grade. They were super pointy and I wanted the inside scoop. Were they even legal tweezers? From the looks of them they had to be a hybrid of scalpel and tweezers. Maybe they were scalpweezers (scalpel + tweezers)?

I had to learn more about this woman. Who tweezes with that much finesse, sheer artistry and enthusiasm in public. Because attention to all who inhabit planet earth. It’s not star date 2266. Your transport pod doesn’t have a cloaking device.

As soon as I saw her pay at the drive thru window while still tweezing I knew I had to follow her.

I didn’t even try to stay two car lengths behind because I was certain she wouldn’t notice the tail due to the fact that she was now driving and tweezing! Granted she was tweezing with only hand now, but still is was quite the road show.

Things got interesting as we went down a two lane road. At every stoplight she would grab her coffee and take a sip while still holding her tweezers. At this point I felt I like I was doing some sort of community service because one wrong move and she could stab herself with those scalpweezers.

Finally, she noticed me noticing her and it got awkward. I smiled and mouthed “nice tweezers.”

It didn’t go over that well. As soon as the light turned green she accelerated, gave me what can only be described as the middle scalpweezer and tore off.

I can only hope that she didn’t injure herself completing the trifecta of tweezing, driving and drinking coffee. Days later I’m still wondering about this woman. I’ve been keeping an eye out for her at the McDonalds drive thru because you never know what’s going happen while you’re waiting to get a Diet Coke.

It’s A Dorm Room Dummy

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* This blog post is inspired by the Dear Snarky letter I received about moms spending thousands of dollars on dorm room decorations.

There’s nothing I like more than dispensing unsolicited parenting advice and making fun of a current societal trend. Now, if I can combine both of those into a delicious two-fer I’m in my happy place. This means right now I’m smiling ear-to-ear because I’m about to share parenting wisdom while mocking the latest in collegiate stupidity – designer decor for your child’s dorm room. 

Perhaps you’ve seen the video that is being shared on-line via Southern Living (click here for video) about co-eds who go all out to make sure their dorm rooms are exquisite. I’m talking monogrammed linens, pricey area rugs, custom-built furniture to make the most out of the floor space, black out draperies and upholstered headboards that are, you guessed it, monogrammed. It’s like Pinterest swiped right and had a Tinder date with the Pottery Barn Teen catalog. 

I’m all for trying to disguise the yuck factor of living in a dorm, but I’m still slack-jawed from hearing that parents are paying thousands of dollars for linens and mattress upgrades and that there are dorm interior design businesses. Yes, for a boatload of cash you can pay a firm to not only design your child’s dorm room, but show up on move in day and do the “install.”

While I was pondering what’s motivating this trend – helicopter mamas who want to recreate the opulence of their child’s upbringing, social media (because long time readers know that is my “go to blame” for almost everything), or some sort of territorial one-upmanship I discover that in 2017 there are actual collegiate competitions for “best dorm room.” 

This means that the answer to “Why is this now a thing?” is all of the above.

On some level I get it. Dropping your kid off for their freshman year of college is tough and I’m not talking about the separation anxiety you’re having as a parent. I’m talking about the money you’re shelling out for your child to live in a room with smaller dimensions than a Kansas Department of Corrections prison cell. 

It profoundly affects you especially when you do the math about what you’re paying per square foot. But even if you take that bubbling rage and redirect it into making the tiny space feel like home I still don’t get the urge to spend even more money for the ultimate in dorm camouflage.

Here’s the hard truth from a parent who has gone through this journey. No matter how much money you spend nothing is going to eradicate the fact that your kid is a dorm. You could monogram every square inch and they’re still going to be laying in bed looking at walls that have been painted institutional beige since before the Eisenhower administration and iffy ceiling tiles while they inhale the ever-present odor of feet that not even a nuclear powered Febreze plug could eradicate.

Also, as the mother of a teenage girl let me share that if you do engage in a designer dorm room experience take a lot of pictures of that perfect room because chances are 24 hours after your depart it will be unrecognizable. All the pricey Egyptian cotton monogrammed linens, the plush upholstered headboard with tufted buttons, the imported wool area rug will be smothered by a volcanic-esque explosion of clothes and (my personal nemesis) wet towels. 

I strongly believe you don’t want to make the dorm room too nice. Your kid needs to do without the comforts of home so they appreciate what they have at home. There’s a level of character building to living in a dorm and sharing bathroom space and everything else with a multitude of humans. It’s called getting life experience and isn’t that one of the reasons we send them off to college?

Dear Snarky – I Went Off On Some Cheating Swim Moms

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Dear Snarky,

I feel like my son got ripped off at a neighborhood swim meet and now I’m being called names because I complained about it.

My son is seven and a super fast swimmer. He hasn’t lost all summer. At his last meet he swam his best time ever for the breaststroke. We were 100% positive he had won. 

Long story short, after all the heats he ended up not only not winning, but not even placing! That is very weird and to make it weirder I heard some of the moms who volunteer at the swim meet (i.e. Basically run it. They sit at a picnic table and tabulate the times as they are handed in) talking about how since it was the last meet of the summer they wanted to make sure some of the kids that hadn’t gotten a first place ribbon finally got one.

I went off on these moms. I told them it’s a swim meet. The fastest kid wins. It’s not about making everyone feel good and how dare they mess with the times.

Now, I’m being called a “crazy swim mom” and it has been suggested I not attend the swim team banquet this week. Am I not right? Shouldn’t it be about the times? And should I go to the banquet.

 Signed, The Fastest Wins

Dear Fastest,

To use a race analogy – it’s a marathon not a sprint. Pace yourself woman.

Yes, I think in a swim meet the fastest swimmer should always win. If these moms wanted to end the season on a feel good note than special ribbons should have been given for best flutter kick or something. If they did indeed mess with the times then they are huge a holes (and a part of me wonders if maybe it was their children that got the blue ribbons that day).

BUT your child is just seven and many more injustices are headed your way. Pick the battle. Mixing it up with some idiotic moms at the last neighborhood swim meet of the summer doesn’t seem worth it. It’s over. Sure, you got to rant, but trust me, it was a wasted effort.

I suggest your family goes to the swim banquet and attempts to have a good time. If anyone says something to you just smile and share that you can’t wait for next year. (That will have them worrying.) Meanwhile, I’d check into finding another swim program because I wouldn’t want to waste another summer on a team where volunteers think it’s okay to jack with the rules. 

*If you have a question for Dear Snarky – 21st Century Advice With an Attitude 😉 – email me at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com or PM on my Snarky FB page.

Meow!

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So it’s come to this. My life has changed in a way I never would have imagined. You know I had big dreams for my limited time here on earth. I was going to be amazing. I didn’t think I would be change the world amazing, but, at the very least, one of those people who has a wow factor.

I never, like never, ever, ever, in my wildest dreams imagined I would be spending a portion of every evening walking a kitty cat on a leash. Yep, I’m now a crazy cat lady, which, I have to stress, I was forced into under duress.

Full disclosure – I’m not a cat person. The last time I lived with a cat I was nine. I have always been a dog lover. I’m all about dogs. I’ve never met a dog I didn’t like. Dogs are everything that’s good about this world.  They worship you. They’re always excited to see you. They love hard.

Cats on the other hand are, um, none of those things.

A cat, or more specifically, the cat that I have now taken into my home, Max, a Russian Blue, thinks he’s far too superior to show me even slightest smidgen of approval. I have a cat that believes he’s way too good for me.

This is a problem. I live with teenagers and I don’t need anymore attitude in my home. Furthermore, I don’t need a cat judging me. And who does this cat think he is? He came from a small, dirty, okay maybe not dirty, but certainly not a tidy college apartment, that had the permeating odor of man-boy feet. Trust me, the cat’s new digs are a significant upgrade.

How do I know so much about the cat’s previous home life you ask? Let me answer that for you. The snooty cat is my son’s. My son is now in working in Ireland that means yes, you guessed it, I have will have this cat till death do us part.

I was very hesitant about this new family member. We already have two dogs. I was worried that our dogs would be ready to rumble. I was most worried about our Bishon, Gracie, because that dog is my baby.  I have been accused by my family of loving Gracie more than anyone else. All I have to say to that is, yes, you are correct. Gracie is my favorite family member – hands down. I wish I was ashamed to admit that, but it is what it is. The dog is perfection.

Our other dog, Tahoe, is a beagle (whom I also love, but truth be told, he’s in a pretty serious bromance with my husband). I was certain he could handle a cat. The way I saw it the beagle would maintain his dominance in the household and continuing running a tight ship.

I’m now chagrined to admit that my dogs, in minutes, perhaps not even 60 seconds literally rolled over and let the cat take charge. It was a harsh embarrassment to the entire canine species. The cat, after subduing the dogs by merely extending his paw, marched to top of the stairs, surveyed his new empire and with a solid meow pronounced it lacking.

This lead to me entering a troubled time in my life. I began trying to impress a cat. What was wrong with me? It was if I was back in middle school yearning to sit at the cool kid’s lunch table. For some reason, I needed this cat to like me, but he would have none of it.

He was full of himself. For sure, Max has it all. He’s super handsome, athletic and not the least bit humble. Basically, he’s the Tom Brady of cats. He struts around the house, swishes his tail and it’s as if he’s saying, “You’re not worthy of my awesomeness.”

He also talks a lot. That’s another thing I don’t need. Another family member that’s not shy to share their opinion. It’s meow this and meow that. I took him to the vet to make sure he was okay and the vet said Max was great and that his “chattiness” was a “sign of intelligence.”

Duh, I know he’s smart, but he’s also, dare I say, snarky? I put on a new outfit and he stared at me, meowed and then gave me a combo head and tail flip and strutted away. A cat was “fashion policing” me. I looked in the mirror and thought maybe he was on to something and changed. (I mean the pants did have a horizontal stripe, not exactly the most slimming of looks.)

In my continued effort to woo Max I found myself outside a pet store at 9:55 a.m. on a Monday morning waiting for it to open. There standing outside the doors were three other women – all cat aficionados. They were enthusiastically talking about a new kind of feline food. I introduced myself as a novice owner and was eagerly welcomed into the sisterhood of the crazy cat lady.

Here I didn’t feel ashamed admitting that I was fervently trying to get my cat to like me. They totally understood and with a kindness usually reserved for someone who works with the mentally fragile these women ever so gently explained that my cat would never “lower itself to abject human adoration.”

Bottom line – I would always be trying to please my cat.

They continued by sharing that I was using dog sensibilities on a cat and that’s just a “no can do” because in their words “cats are smarter than dogs” and need to be “respected and revered.”

After that I was grilled about my cat and it was determined, by a unanimous group consensus, that my Max needed to be walked and this is how I ended up with a top of the line, padded for extra comfort “Come With Me Kitty” leash and harness.

To say I was scared about putting Max in a harness would be a grave understatement. This cat puts on airs and I was almost certain he would think a harness was not up to his standards of deportment. I was also afraid he would show his displeasure by the giving me the cat finger – the extended claw.

I was extremely surprised when he didn’t resist the harnesses, but then again I did pay top dollar for it and it was a fetching shade of blue. When I hooked on the leash I got an over the shoulder look that said, “Let’s roll woman.”

And roll we did – all over the neighborhood. The cat enjoys promenading like a royal inspecting his kingdom. This now means every evening I get to walk a cat. Sadly, no one else in my family will walk with me because it “certifies that I’m a crazy cat lady.”

Really? Will someone please explain to me how people who have a wardrobe for their dogs so extensive that it requires two closets, dress up their fur babies in holiday themed attire, paint their canines nails, color their pooches hair, and push their puppies in strollers are called dog lovers and yet a woman who is simply walking her cat is crazy?

I sense a little pet discrimination going on. And just for the record I’m not crazy. Okay, yeah, I’m crazy. I’m going to own it. But I’m not cat crazy. To be more specific I’m dog and cat crazy and if that’s wrong, well, then I don’t want to be right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Snarky – My Daughter’s Roommate Wants Her To Spend $2,000 On Dorm Room Decor!!!

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Dear Snarky,

I feel like my daughter is being hustled by her new college roommate. My daughter is leaving for college in a month and at first loved her soon to be roommate. Then the girl and her mother went over the top on decorating the dorm room. They want customized linens with monograms, padded headboards for the beds and black out drapes from Pottery Barn.

All of this came in at over $2,000 for each girl! If that’s not ridiculous enough the mom suggested that I send her the money over a Pay Pal account and she’ll just buy everything so it “matches perfectly.”

I don’t know these people and I sure don’t want to send the mom over two grand via Pay Pal. Plus, I don’t have $2,000! I’m paying for college!!!!

How can I put a stop to this without making my daughter’s roommate situation miserable?

Signed, Worried

Dear Worried,

Give me a second to catch my breath. $2,000 to decorate a dorm room and a mom wants money via Pay Pal. Are you kidding me? Yeah, let’s just call all that a great big “Oh hell no.”

Now, turn that frown upside down because I have a fool-proof and super easy way for your daughter to emerge unscathed. All she needs to do is text her new roommate and blame everything on you. She should tell her roommate that you’re a little crazy and obsessively thrifty so there’s no way that she can spend that much on a college dorm room – ever.

Your daughter should then suggest cheaper alternatives for the look as in getting linens from Target or a Home Goods store and having them monogrammed. As for those padded headboards I just found some online for $39.00. Sure, they’re not top of the line, but, oh yeah, it’s dorm.

If the new roommate and her mother turn their noses up at the idea of bargain hunting then your daughter should just stand firm and suggest that her roommate does exactly want she wants for her side of the room and she’ll do the same.

The bottom line is it’s a flipping dorm room and no matter how much money you spend it’s going to smell like a dorm and feel like a dorm. Plus, you go to college to further your education not to win cutest dorm ever.

*If you have a question for Dear Snarky – 21st Century Advice With an Attitude 😉 – email me at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com or PM on my Snarky FB page.

The De-Clutter Challenge

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I hate social media. Okay, perhaps I don’t hate it. It’s more that I find it aggravating.

Go ahead and post 1,000 photos of yet another stellar European vacation or even your hot self wearing a bikini and killing it at age 50. None of that bothers me.

I don’t even care when the super moms of the world daily share about their kids breaking another sports record on the same day they received the “great, but totally expected news” that their teen genius got a perfect ACT score. Bring it! I’m all over hitting the “heart” and “wow” emoji for you.

What’s zapping my mojo is when people share life improvement tips that morph into a series of show off moments. The latest one is the 30-day De Clutter Challenge. For the record it’s bad, not as bad as the “Gratitude Posts” that sweep Facebook two years ago, but give it time.

At first I was all about it. There’s a calendar that shows what area of clutter you need to work on every day. I was excited and ready to actually take part in a Facebook group. I clicked on “join” and was raring to go. Count me in on being part of the Summer 2017 De-Clutter frenzy.

What I didn’t expect was all the humble bragging. For example, last week it said to “go through old shoes.” There should have been an asterisk next to that challenge stating “and by ‘go through’ we don’t mean posting on social media about your shoes.”

I get it. A sizeable portion of the female population has a shoe fetish. How else can you explain DSW? But, what I don’t get is fools who pay upwards of a $1,000 for footwear that resembles something a fashion forward Pilgrim would have worn boarding the Mayflower on a breezy fall day in 1620. (I’m talking to you Manolo Blahnik.)

Furthermore, who uses a de-clutter challenge as an opportunity to post about the heartache of deciding what four figure designer shoes to purge? Please, stop. Everyone knows there’s a better chance that these women would rather sell their blood plasma than get rid of single shoe.

The shoe show and tell then lead to closet tours which scared me because I didn’t get all goofy with storage lust. Is something wrong with me because I have no desire to remake a bedroom into a closet with a trio of chandeliers and a “hand bag bar”?

If you’re wondering right now what a “hand bag bar” is let me break it down for you. It’s basically a kitchen island in your closet where you display your purses on Lucite stands.

I’m so old school I still share a closet with my husband. The horrors! And if I was going to display something it would be the pair of jeans I’ve been trying to fit into for two decades. (That right there is what I need help with – letting go of things that will never happen.)

The next day when the challenge was to clean out your frig these same shoe women started posting pictures of their commercial size refrigerators. The appliances, the size of a Sasquatch, were so big I’m positive they would cause my home’s electrical panel to explode. One group member, I kid you not, shared a picture of herself inside her refrigerator. I’m afraid that was the final straw.

I decided to go rogue. I de-cluttered my life from these women. Yep, I dropped out of the group that had become less about home organization and more about overt show boating. Now, not that I would ever humble brag myself, but that’s what I call a very efficient life purge.

Dear Snarky – Does Wingman Duty Include Pretending to Be Married?

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Dear Snarky,

My girl friends and I like to go to the bars a couple of times a month. I usually act as my best friends “wingman” and help introduce her to guys. Last week, she asked if I would start wearing a wedding ring, when we hit the bars. (I’m not married or even really dating anyone seriously.) Her reasoning was that if guys thought I was married than I would be a better wingman because the ring would make me approachable yet still off-limits.

 I don’t know what to make of this. I’m not into picking up guys at bars so I have no problem being a wingman for a friend. But wearing a wedding ring when I’m not married not only seems wrong I feel like I could be jinxing myself from getting married.

 Am I overreacting by saying no to my friend? Please help.

 Signed, Confused

Dear Confused,

 You are not overreacting by saying no to pretending to be married. Seriously, how desperate is your friend? And I don’t know a lot about being a wingman, but I think wearing a phony wedding ring goes above and beyond the call of duty for that job description.

 As for the jinx thing – throw that out that window. Here’s some AMAA for you – Advanced Maternal Age Advice. The world is very small. What happens if you’re wearing your fake wedding ring at a bar and you ran into someone you work with or a friend of your family or even your boss and all of sudden you’re faced with the awkward explanation of why you’re pretending to be married?

Trust me you don’t not want to go there. At best people will think it’s weird and worst case scenario “you be crazy.” I don’t think any friendship is worth you sacrificing your credibility and a true friend would never ask you to do that. 

*If you have a question for Dear Snarky – 21st Century Advice With an Attitude 😉 – email me at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com or PM on my Snarky FB page.

The Uhaul Years

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Twenty-one years ago I thought being what the doctors called an AMA mom was no big deal. I admit to being a little taken aback when I was first referred to as “Advanced Maternal Age.” It was one of those “Who you talking about?” moments.

How could I be on the cusp of being too old to have a baby? I felt fabulous. So fabulous I was ready to throw down with any non-AMA mom to prove it.

Today, I couldn’t throw down with anyone or anything because I can barely get out of bed.

Being an older parent forces you to reflect on a lot of things. There’s the really depressing stuff as in you’ll have less time with your children because you’ll be dead. But, I always worked that to my advantage.

When my husband would freak out over the toys and other goodies I would buy I would pathetically reply, “It’s not like I’m going to live to see grandbabies. I have to spoil them because they’re twofers – kids and grandkids.”

That personal pity party worked for a while until we had problems walking through our home due to all the Thomas the Tank Engine trains. Finally, I had to acknowledge that my excuse was lame and quite possibly life threatening because those trains created dire tripping hazards.

Other worries being an older mom range from vanity to losing your youthful zeal. I was mistaken for being my children’s grandmother enough times for it to sting. Of course, this only happened in Texas where the average age of having your first child is 17. (Okay, I made that up, but it’s not 35 I can tell you that and there are people I want to high school with that have grandkids my daughter’s age. So there’s some empirical evidence for you.)

As for youthful zeal that was never much of a concern. I’ve always been high energy until a couple of days ago when being AMA finally bit me in the butt because there’s one thing missing in the all documents your doctor gives you to read concerning the downsides of being an older parent and it’s this: You’ll be moving a child in and out of dorms and second and third floor college apartments and it might kill you.

I consider myself a strong-ish person. Not to brag, but I have mad skills as in I can bench press a 50 pound bag of dog food and by that I mean haul it out of my car. So, I wasn’t that concerned about my son’s latest move out of one apartment and into another.

This was a fatal mistake.

I blame the stairs. They were deadly. The steps at apartment #1 were mountain goat steep and they were also crumbling. This upped the degree of difficulty because not only were you navigating basically the side of a cliff you were also perilously close to wiping out on concrete rubble. Now imagine walking backwards down these stairs holding the end of a desk that felt like it weighed as much as a Ford F-150.

Once you completed that strength and agility course it was on to apartment #2. Here wooden stairs with a plethora of nails sticking out greeted you. It was as if they were chanting, “I hope you’ve had a recent Tetanus booster.” Having to lug a full size mattress up and up the stairs while leaping over nails made the journey seem like you were playing hopscotch with one of Satan’s minions.

I cursed. I almost cried and then I did cry when my health app on my phone showed I had walked 103 flights of stairs. The next day I had the mobility of a Popsicle stick. I felt like I needed a new hip.

Next year my daughter will be going off to college. This means double the move ins and outs. I hope I survive it. If you see a woman walking while hauling a mattress on her back it will be this AMA cross training for the fall of 2018

 

Dear Snarky – Mean Moms Are Taking Over the Pool!

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Dear Snarky,

 There are a group of mean moms that have taken over the pool. They have one mom stay after morning swim practice and save 16 pool lounge chairs. Then when the rest of the moms show up they hang out for hours at the pool gossiping and judging all the other moms that aren’t them.

 I’m so sick of it! They don’t even care if anyone else can hear them making comments about so and so’s swimsuit or cellulite. It’s making me not want to take my kids swimming and we paid for a pool membership that was sort of expensive so please don’t tell me to go somewhere else to swim.

 How can I get these women to back off and shut up?

 Signed, Sad Summer Mom

Dear Sad Summer,

 Sigh, It seems like I get a letter like this every summer. So, here comes some vintage advice. As in any hostile situation with enemy combatants you need to take a direct attack. No wishy-washy maneuvers will get this job done.

I strongly suggest you begin a campaign of cannon balls off the side of the pool that will create a tidal wave worthy splash back on these moms. Then make sure to invest in some XL Super Soakers and engage in a very robust game that results in all of you accidentally on purpose hitting the not so charming ladies with water. Finally, enjoy teaching your children and their friends how to master their flutter and butterfly kicks and smile proudly as they joyfully churn epic amounts of water out of the pool and onto these catty lounge lizards.

 Will all this make the mean pool moms cease and desist? Probably not, but you’ll be happy and that’s exactly what I was going for.

*If you have a question for Dear Snarky – 21st Century Advice With an Attitude 😉 – email me at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com or PM on my Snarky FB page.