Chain Chat: Ralph's Lives Up to Its Name

In which I blow off bullet points for an astounding real-life encounter with supermarket kind.

I tend to avoid Ralph's supermarket. We have a lovely small grocery store nearby (a smaller chain called Fresh & Easy) that rocks my little world. And we have Trader Joe's, too! But every once in a while I end up at Ralph's, either to get a missing ingredient or because I happen to be in the neighborhood. Well, after today, I won't be going back for a looooooooong time. (I want to say never, but never say never, right?)

I should have seen the weirdness coming when my progress was blocked multiple times by carts parked smack in the middle of the aisles. Usually, this doesn't happen in every aisle, but today was special. The old lady muttering mild expletives under her breath in the bread aisle was another omen I ignored after giving her a suitably wide berth.

When the time came to check out, there were only two lanes open, and as the salty-tongued lady was at the end of one, I chose the other. The fresh-faced young 'un manning the register waited too long to inform me she was closing the lane after the next customer, so I strolled back over to the ever-lengthening lane behind Old Mrs. Potty Mouth. I was about to unload my groceries, when the manager came over.

Now, the manager was at one time one of my favorite checkers at this establishment. She was always quick and polite and funny. But as manager, she's an imposing woman. Loud, large, and no-nonsense authoritative. Before I could place my chickens and eggs on the conveyor belt, she personally escorted me to a lane that she said was just opening up. Of course, it was just the same lane I'd been to earlier--the little chickadee must have been told that going on break in the middle of a cash-register rush is not store policy.

Anyway, there was already a guy in line--a fortyish athletic-looking fellow who'd spent the better part of his time in the grocery aisles taking up more than his fair share of space. But that doesn't mean he deserved what followed. To my chagrin, the manager boomed him out of the line. "THERE WERE PEOPLE WAITING," she shouted.

"But I was waiting, too," he noted calmly, and not improperly.

But she would have none of it. She badgered him loudly until he put his cart in reverse. Suddenly, I found myself in front of him, too disoriented and embarrassed to remember to do the proper thing and let him ahead of me. When I finally realized what I had done, most of my groceries were already on the conveyor belt. I made myself look him in the eye and say, "I'm so sorry about that. That was so confusing."

He met my eyes, not unfriendly at all, and said, "That's OK. They should have more checkers." He continued to make me feel better and worse at the same time by being extra sweet to baby G, who was happily playing with the Cheerios box in the basket.

After that, the experience kept going downhill. Little chickadee coughed dramatically all over her hands before giving me my receipt (sigh), but the weirdness wasn't over. Just as I was about to peel out of there with the packed cart, the frail little employee who bagged the groceries stepped in front of me. She had surprising stamina for her appearance--it looked like the effort of hefting just one soup can into a shopping cart would be enough to overwhelm her.

I stopped the cart, adjusted the baby on my hip, and moved my wallet to my free hand.

"That wallet you have," she said. "I saw it on TV."

I should mention that the wallet in question is a handy all-in-one number with a key-chain, a cell-phone pocket, and a zipper pouch with pockets for ID, credit cards, etc. But it's not particularly unusual looking. It's a pretty shade of red, but that's its one real distinguishing feature. And I'm pretty sure she didn't see this particular wallet on TV--my wallet-giving benefactress doesn't watch infomercials.

Uh-oh, I thought. This is not going anywhere good."It... it was a gift," I mumbled, hoping this true tidbit would get me out of the conversation in a hurry. The last thing I wanted was to prolong my Ralph's experience by chin-wagging about wallets with the bag clerk.

"$19.99," she said, awed. She turned to the baby in my arms. "Your mamma has good taste."

Good meaning expensive, I could see. Mortifying.

"Can I see it? I think it's the same one," she said, reaching out her hand. "With the pocket for the credit cards..."

While technically, the touch of one cart wheel would have felled her, I couldn't do it. Pretending not to understand, I turned the wallet over in my hand, just showing her the back of it. "Yeah, that sounds like it."

"Well," she said conspiratorially. "Your friend got it on the Internet."

It is rare that I find myself at a loss for words, but rack my brain as I might, I could not come up with the proper, expedient response. "Oh," I said finally, practically doing a wheelie with the cart in my 180-degree getaway maneuver. "You have a good day, now."

"You, too!" she called after me, in a voice that said she knew my secret and would keep it forever.

There are tons of reasons not to go to this Ralph's. Like the time I saw the customer sneeze liberally all over the open vegetable displays. Or the day the rotting produce oozed out all over the floor of the fruit section, tripping up unsuspecting elderly customers until I practically had to sit on a manager to get a clean-up on aisle one already. And there was the time the staffer didn't know what barley was and showed me white rice after a 20-minute wait. But this really takes the cake. They won't be seeing this wallet again for a looooooooooooooong time. Preferably never.

Professional Ironies

Confessions of a freelance writer.

Being a freelance writer is great. Give us an expert to talk to and an Internet connection, and we writers can deliver any article you want with all the authority of an industry insider. Lucky for me, this is also a private profession. Because so often my personal reality directly contradicts my subject matter.

Take tonight, for example. Here I am putting the finishing touches on an article about summer fashion trends while sporting the world's weirdest outfit: a Hawaiian shirt, brown cords, and argyle socks. As my mother would say, quite a giddyup.

This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last. Here are a few favorite ironies past:

• Writing a sidebar advising new moms on how to avoid wrist injuries the year before I became a new mom with a wrist injury.


• Penning a piece about the psychological benefits of hot-tub ownership while actively seeking to trash our broken one.


• Transcribing so many interviews on living with hearing loss that my ears were still ringing long after I removed the headphones.


• Scarfing down a giant bowl of ice-cream while polishing up that article on dietary supplements.


• Staying up all night to finish a profile on a sleep lab.

Wonder what's next. Does anyone else have days like that?

Tot Time: Easy Entertainment

Who knew everyday things could be so much fun?

Before baby G arrived, I always figured we were the world's most boring household for kids to visit. Sure, we could muster up a stuffed animal or two, but most visiting tots had to make due with the toys they brought. Otherwise, they had to be content testing out our doorknobs or having staring matches with the dog.

Now that baby G is here, we are much more kid-friendly. There are bins of toys to rummage through and mats to play on and plenty of kiddie lit to read. But while baby G enjoys all of these things, some of the most entertaining items in the house were things we had all along. Who knew?

But before I tell you what they are, let me lead with a disclaimer: Obviously, all children have to be supervised when playing with anything so that they don't hurt themselves (or anyone or anything else). The most harmless-looking magazine can be a paper dagger in the wrong hands, after all!

Now that that's out of the way, here are five household items baby G can't get enough of:

1. Laundry. If you think that age nine months is too early to get your child excited about chores, think again. Pulling out the laundry basket turned out to be a really fun way to entertain baby while getting some housework done—an almost unthinkable combination. At first, baby G contented himself by pulling out the items one by one (socks and washcloths are still favorites). Then as he got older and bolder, he was able to empty the basket at lightening speed (progressing to challenging items like our jeans and bath towels). The basket itself serves as fort, walker, and toy-collection bin. (Look out! He also tried to use it as a step stool once.) Of course, baby G soon figured out it was also fun to unfold the laundry. But for the most part, I can work around the sabotage by putting the piles up higher (like on the back of the couch). So, it's still a lot of fun for both of us!



2. Greeting cards. Since birth, I've been an incorrigible pack rat, which means I've got enough old birthday cards and holiday greetings in the garage to start a museum. So, I was just delighted when baby G took an instant liking to the Valentine sent from his clever aunt. She knew that he would be mesmerized by the hologram on the front. We're talking 10-minute stretches of total concentration while he turned it over and over in his hands. Luckily, that fascination transferred to the two-dimensional variety as well, and we now keep his birthday and holiday cards in a stack for him to look through now and then. Of course, we keep the very special ones out of reach, as there are occasional casualties, and we also have to look out for paper cuts and any ingesting of corners or torn pieces. But for the most part, baby G is very careful with them. He's also a huge fan of the musical/talking ones. He loves puzzling over opening and closing them to make the sound start and stop. Those especially require supervision, of course, as the wee speaker system is loaded with tiny parts that could easily find their way into baby's mouth.



3. Plastic bins. This should have been a no-brainer for me, as many of us grew up rummaging through our parents' Tupperware cupboards. But I didn't realize how much fun babies can have taking toys out of a bin and putting them right back in again. This activity has not only given me hope that baby G somehow got the tidy gene that I don't carry, but it has also encouraged him to be even more mobile. To fill a bin to the brim, he will go to great lengths, including a crawl across the room to find just the right toy. Then he'll pick up the toy and either stand up and take a few steps toward the bin, or he'll do this rather strenuous-looking knee-walk to get where he wants to go. It's pretty fun to watch!



4. Magazines. Like many households, we get a stream of magazines and catalogs in the daily mail. Back issues are a great way to give baby G something to look at. Sometimes when he's sitting at the breakfast table with his dad, they'll both be flipping through their own magazines. It's adorable! Anyway, the photos in magazines like Parents or Real Simple seem to catch his eye, and he's a huge fan of the detachable magazine subscription cards. For the most part, he's very careful turning pages, and sometimes I'll hand him a magazine when he's in the playpen so he can be entertained while I'm catching up on e-mail on the adjacent couch. Of course, there is the occasional rip fest, at which point, I generally take the magazine away and replace it with a board book or something that doesn't have edible pieces. In addition to the safety concerns, I'm not excited about him learning to rip up pages, as I fear for our books and other important papers. But, a magazine packs easily for visits to friends' houses, and baby won't miss it if you accidentally leave it behind.



5. The dog's collar. This was an accidental discovery. One day, the dog was sleeping on the couch next to the collar that I must have removed but forgot to put away (see pack rat reference above). When baby G came up to the couch to visit the dog (always an adventure for both parties), he noticed the collar, picked it up, and began jingling it like a baby rattle. He had a huge grin on his face the whole time. So funny! He also held it up to the dog and giggled like crazy when she sniffed at it. This had the added benefit of keeping him distracted from the dog's very pullable ears. But, when he gets too exuberant and the metal license on the collar becomes a blur to the naked eye, I worry for his teeth and those of anyone within a three-foot radius. So, this is definitely something we only let him play with once in a while and with hawk-eyed supervision. Still, it's pretty hilarious to watch him crack up over it like it is the best and funniest discovery on the planet.

These were some fun discoveries for us, but surely there are plenty of everyday delights we've overlooked. Any suggestions?

Weep Watch: Three Surprise Tear Jerkers

Why I now carry a hankie everywhere.

Maybe I'm in denial, but I never thought I was a weepy person. Sure, I cry over things, but certainly not every other day. Except for this week. This week, I found myself boo-hooing behind 3D glasses, in my car at the gas station, and in front of my parents' TV. I'm telling you, I'm probably dehydrated now. Here are the culprits:

1. The "Songs Around the World" project.


2. Pixar's Up.


3. This part from President Obama's D-Day speech:
   I know this trip doesn't get any easier as the years pass, but for those of you who make it, there's nothing that could keep you away. One such veteran, a man named Jim Norene, was a member of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Division of the 101st Airborne. Last night, after visiting this cemetery for one last time, he passed away in his sleep. Jim was gravely ill when he left his home, and he knew that he might not return. But just as he did 65 years ago, he came anyway. May he now rest in peace with the boys he once bled with, and may his family always find solace in the heroism he showed here.

For my fellow wimps out there, here's a song for you.

Tube Talk: Kiddie TV

How to earn those square eyes early.

Baby G and I caught whatever bug was going around a couple of weeks ago, and so I took the opportunity to introduce him to the Magic Box. Passive entertainment isn't such a bad thing when everyone is cranky and congested. Not that baby G hasn't been exposed to what I like to think of as "second-hand TV." When we watch "The Daily Show" or "Nightly News with Brian Williams," baby G is in the playpen right beside us. But now that he's starting to do a Jon Stewart-inspired exaggerated shrug and chuckling with the studio audience, we might have to be more careful. Which is why we started watching programming made for kids—the following three programs in particular:

• Sesame Street. I loved, loved, loved "Sesame Street" as a child (and looooong after)—but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the neighborhood is still the same after all these years. Sure, there are new people and monsters on the street, but Oscar still lives in his trash can and Maria and Luis still repair toasters at the fix-it shop. And, of course, it still has an unabashed alphanumeric agenda, with fun songs and commercial parodies featuring the letters and numbers of the day.
  
  I had forgotten how clever Sesame Street is—the writers do a good job of keeping parents engaged, too, with parodies like "Law and Order: Missing Letters Unit," "The Adventures of Trash Gordon," "A's Anatomy," and "The Amazing Alphabet Race." Also, at least one celeb features prominently in each episode. This morning, I cracked up when James Blunt and Telly Monster sang "My Triangle", a parody of the singer's ubiquitous "You're Beautiful." I appreciate this because I now know who James Blunt is, which I'm pretty sure knocks 5 years off my age. I also love that Sesame Street isn't afraid to throw in $10 words, like when Cookie Monster's favorite snack broke in two and left him feeling "slightly lachrymose." How often does "lachrymose" appear in a laugh line? So great.
  
  Probably the biggest change is that the last 15 minutes or so are now a segment called "Elmo's World" starring the red-felted Muppet with the Jar-Jar-like voice. Luckily, this little monster is a lot less annoying than he was back in the day. "Elmo's World" is geared for the youngest viewers, and baby G does perk right up when "Cat"—his word for Elmo, and any Muppet, for that matter—appears on the screen. Elmo explores one theme every day—usually anatomy like feet and eyes, or activities like jumping and helping. Sure, I have some beef with the creepy mime bit and the annoying ending song where Elmo plinks out the tune to "Jingle Bells" and sings the word of the day over and over. ("Eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes"—yeesh.) But it does get the message across: After the segment on "teeth," baby G was pulling back our lips and shouting "chooch!"—a word that now serves for both "tooth" and "couch."
  
  Anyway, it's pretty great that baby G and I have something to watch that we both enjoy. After 40 plus years, "Sesame Street" is still the gold standard of children's programming. *****

• Yo Gabba Gabba. When my brother called to tell me about this show, he said he didn't know if it was the greatest thing ever or the worst acid trip for kids he'd ever seen. You get the indie/emo flavor from the intro of this Nick Jr. program, which you can check out here. The show opens with the host—a young guy called DJ Lance who sports Buddy Holly glasses, a fuzzy orange Cossack,  and a matching jumpsuit—grooving across a white screen with his boombox. ("What's that?" The kids are going to want to know.) He opens the box to reveal what looks like a set of five grodie Gumby figurines that magically come to life (as people in full-body suits) when he lifts them out.
  
  The characters have babytalk names—Muno, Foofa, Brobee, Toodee, and Plex—and their neon color palette comes straight out of a highlighter set. The character voices aren't as shrill as the Chipmunks, but they have a similar timbre—maybe more like a higher-pitched version of the little green aliens from Toy Story. In other words, they hover close to annoying, but are fairly watchable. To frenetic beats, the characters sing about being polite, going to sleep, the seasons, the dangers of crossing the street, etc.—and the show is broken up with little segments of kids dancing or bizarre interludes such as Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh teaching kids how to draw or DJ Lance making funny faces.
  
  The problem with "Yo Gabba Gabba" is that the imperative prevails! Dance! Smile! Play! Every song is a command, and has maybe 10 words in it. After what seemed like the billionth chorus of "Don't give up, don't give up!" I wanted to rebel and quit everything. This is the kind of show I imagine kids have to watch in dystopias like the one in 1138. Dance! Like it! Or else.     ***



• Dora the Explorer. I was prepared to love Dora. After all, she's a smart, bilingual girl protagonist with cute gear that all the kids seem to love. Girl power! The 30-minute cartoon airs on Nickelodeon, and I set the DVR to record every episode.
  
  Boy, was that a mistake! It is absolutely unwatchable. Dora and her friends—a monkey and a map—have such obnoxious, shrill voices (or is it the same voice?), that I'm pretty sure they can pierce small ear drums. The show format is a lot like an activity book maze. In each episode, Dora and friends must solve a problem by getting from point A to point B through a variety of obstacles. To stay on the right path, the characters break the fourth wall and ask the viewers to shout out answers to questions, such as "Should we go LEFT or RIGHT?" While Dora and pals re-shriek the question over and over, an arrow icon hovers on the screen for a very long time before clicking on the right answer. How lame! And this happens over and over again. It is interminable. Even baby G turned his back to the TV.
  
  I was most disappointed by the bilingual element—there seemed to be very few Spanish vocabulary words, and the ones they used weren't reinforced well. One segment of "Sesame Street's" "Murray Has a Little Lamb" introduces more Spanish vocab than three episodes of Dora combined. So, I bid adios! to the tot icon and turned on Magnum P.I. Hey, there's only so much kid stuff a person can watch in a day!     **
 

Growing Pains: Aging Alert!

Five ways to tell this spring chicken is now a summer fowl.

1. I watch "Nightly News with Brian Williams."


2. I hyperventilate over $9 tickets to a matinee.


3. I get all wistful when I hear that song from The Breakfast Club.


4. I give my neighbor the hairy eyeball when her boyfriend roars up the street on his hog.


5. I call a motorcycle a "hog."

Reel Time: Required Viewing

In which the Schoolmarm of America goes all multimedia.

No curriculum is complete without the multimedia element. And by multimedia, I mean the old-school '90s definition: the VHS tape. (This was before every student was hooked up to a series of tubes called the intarweb.) Sure, I guess the principals of the era counted the overhead projectors and blackboards as "media"—but it was really the portable TV cart with the attached VCR that made their hearts swell with pride.

We students also thrilled at the sight of the TV cart. Not only did this mean an hour with no lecture, but it was also guaranteed that the teacher would spend a good 15 minutes treating the VCR like an exotic animal he had never seen before. After gingerly attempting to jiggle the wires, press every button, and cue up the tape, he would throw up his hands and threaten to lecture—at which point, the one techie kid per class would leap to his aid and have the video playing in no time.

The substitute teachers, however, had it down. They understood that their sanity depended on dulling our senses with whatever magic light show the teacher had provided, which meant it was up and running the minute the bell rang. In high school, our health teacher was the most regular sub, and she was no nonsense about the VCR. After pressing Play, she would plant herself at the teacher's desk (where she could not see the video) and periodically glare at us over her book. I'll never forget her livid face when our European history class erupted at the orgy scene during Caligula, the PBS series we were watching as a supplement to our lessons on the Roman emperors. She had her back to the TV when she threatened us to settle down or else—so she didn't see the guys in togas playing the Roman equivalent of spin-the-bottle behind her. For us Catholic school girls, whose in-class videos were usually about martyrs in South America, this was funniest thing we'd ever seen! And you can bet that we remembered this scene from Caligula long after we forgot the succession of emperors.

All this is the long way of saying that if I were magically to become Leader of the World (as posited in the last post), I would supplement my subjects' required reading with some required viewing for extra indoctrination. Here is what would play on the VCRs across my domain:

• A State of Mind. This eye-popping British documentary follows two young girl gymnasts who are preparing for the Mass Games, a massive-scale pageant in honor of North Korea's Kim Jong-il. They train for hours every day for months to prepare for this one event. The film, released in 2004, provides an intimate look at family life in one of the world's most enigmatic dictatorships, and the disturbing devotion the people of North Korea have to their Dear Leader, despite the terrible conditions (especially food shortages) that plague the people. In one telling scene, family members pause to curse the United States when the electricity goes out during a routine blackout. North Korea isn't known for open access to journalists, so this might be the closest any of us gets to the viewpoints of its citizens.


• Hell House. Lest anyone believes that scary brainwashing only happens on the other side of the world, welcome to Hell House, a chilling look at one iteration of fundamental Christianity on our own soil. This 2001 documentary follows the young members of a Baptist church outside of Dallas who put on a graphic, haunted-house-style pageant depicting what happens to those who don't live their version of a Christian life. Visitors to Hell House go from room to room to witness horrifying skits featuring "un-Christian" choices and subsequent damnation—at the end of which, each attendee is offered a conversion opportunity. It's jaw-dropping. Make sure you have a light comedy on hand for a chaser. You're going to need it.


• Koppel: Iran, The Most Dangerous Nation. Ted Koppel is basically the man. In this 2006 documentary for the Discovery Channel, Koppel plumbed the source of tensions between the United States and Iran by (gasp!) actually speaking to people in Iran. The range of interviews and perspectives he gets from people of all walks of life there is truly enlightening. We need more journalists like Koppel, who delves into the complexity of the problem rather than just regurgitating the propaganda from both sides.


• Koppel: The People's Republic of Capitalism. Koppel's four-part series on modern China, which aired on the Discovery Channel right before the Beijing Olympics, focuses on the economic boom in that nation and how it affects our own economy. With the same balance he brings to his series on Iran, Koppel talks to everyone from farmers and industrial laborers to business moguls and American factory workers. He also spends a fair amount of time on the rising middle class. Did you know that a black Buick is the ultimate status symbol over there? I didn't. This series captures China at a pivotal point in global history—and it serves as an invaluable primer for those of us who don't know much about today's Chinese culture.


• The Hobart Shakespeareans. Some titles on this list left me whimpering in the fetal position; others just made me anxious—but this 2004 documentary warmed the frigid cockles of my heart. Under the guidance of Rafe Esquith—author of the excellent book about his unorthodox teaching methods, Teach Like Your Hair Is on Fire—the fifth graders of Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in Central Los Angeles put on a full-length Shakespearean play once a year. For most of these students, English is not the primary language spoken at home—so their perfect, passionate delivery of the Bard's dialogue is truly moving. The film also highlights the many ways Esquith goes above and beyond in the classroom: extra math lessons before school begins, guitar classes at recess, and even a field trip to Washington, D.C. Esquith puts all of his energy into helping his students become hard-working, courteous, independent thinkers who refuse to be held back by the sometimes harsh economic realities of their childhood. It's a continuing story of hope and a must-see.

Anything else I should add to the list before I put on my world-domination tiara?