Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Dear Army Guys,

Yesterday morning I stood in the doorway of Dylan’s room and asked him point blank if he’s the laziest person in the world. He considered the question for a moment and then replied,
“No, cuz there’s Charles. Charles doesn’t even get up until, like, nine o-clock in the morning.”
Charles, whom Dylan had just thrown under the parental comparison bus, happened to be standing right behind me at that moment, fully dressed and ready to begin a new day.
The two of us watched Dylan swing his skinny untanned legs out of bed and, sticking his hand down the front of his droopy boxer shorts, stumble off to pour himself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
I glanced at my watch. 10:35 AM. ‘Nuff said.

I, on the other hand, am a virtual dynamo of activity. Despite what you may have heard from our neighbors, I do NOT lounge around in a lawn chair all day reading books and smoking cigarettes. True, my activity has been somewhat limited this week, but I require several cups of coffee a couple of times during the day and coffee must be brewed by someone. Due to our unfortunate lack of household servants, that someone is me. I am also compelled to empty the ashtray regularly, and biology forces me to occasionally visit the bathroom and/or forage for food.

Much like the pesky requirement of sleep, the whole food thing sometimes seems outrageously inconvenient to me. Personally, I could live without it if only I could live without it. Eating is a nuisance, an intrusion, a messy way to spoil both a nice clean kitchen and the attitude of relaxed indifference I’m trying to enjoy this week. Dylan’s laziness is obviously haphazard and dysfunctional, whereas mine is cultivated and purposeful. Setting out to do nothing all day as a sort of mission in life is much different than accidentally blundering into it. Dylan’s laziness is a by-product of his disorganized lifestyle and lack of character development. Mine is a pure and noble experiment in nihilism.

Yet both Dylan and Rudy insist upon being fed, as if I’ve got nothing better to do than provide them with steaming plates of thoughtfully prepared menu items with which to accompany their compulsively scheduled 6 PM viewing of CSI re-runs on Spike TV.
Perhaps I encouraged them to believe meals would be served on a regular basis during the school year, but what part of “SUMMER VACATION” are these two selfish gluttons failing to grasp? Honestly, it boggles the mind.

Here’s the typical scenario: Rudy comes home from his not particularly stressful, and not at all physically demanding, workday at 4:00 PM. (Can you BELIEVE that? Shouldn’t he be required to stay at work until at least 5:30? How the heck am I supposed to read an entire novel AND make the beds by 4:00 PM? It’s outrageous.) This week I’ve taken to tossing a pile of the laundry I’ve repeatedly tumbled around in the dryer on and off all day onto the bed at about 3:55. The sound of the garage door opening is my cue to begin folding it so as to appear to be doing something constructive.

We exchange those inane “how was your day” comments, whereupon I am then freed by his daily exercise regimen to continue my own activities which, unlike his, do not require a change of clothing or the ridiculous pretense of physical fitness. At 5:30 PM he emerges from the Solo-Flex area of the basement and goes back upstairs to take a shower.

Dylan takes this as his cue to come out of his room and, for the first time that day, engage in meaningful dialogue with me, his mother. His repertoire is brief and does not include discussions of any of the many things he might’ve been pondering all day as he sat, unclothed and virtually catatonic, in front of a glowing video screen. His daily script is well-rehearsed and unchanging in its laconic delivery. He says, “What’s for dinner?” He says this as if dinner is one of those things that, like mail or Jehovah’s Witnesses, just show up at your house with no effort on the part of any member of the family. Rudy then strolls casually into the kitchen with a look of expectation and faint eagerness on his fatuously innocent face.

I am then expected to produce, out of thin air, fully cooked nutritious meals for these people, these parasites who call themselves my family. Usually I prepare myself for their demands by actually cooking something, but sometimes I’m caught off guard and have to improvise by throwing a few scraps of moldy bread and a bottle of ketchup on the table. On those occasions I like to remind them that I, too, have a life you know.
There’s something about the way their eyes meet then and quickly glance away that causes me to doubt they believe me.

Well never mind, because next week I will impress the hell out of both of them by energetically engaging in my planned BIG GARDENING WEEK production. Much like BIG CLEANING WEEK, my BIG GARDENING WEEK will be something to behold. I plan to tear up and replace entire sections of our faulty landscaping. I will perform high-flying feats of gardening that only the professionals on HGTV would dare attempt without a net. Sweat will drip from my forehead and various rashes of unknown botanical origins will break out on my arms and legs. Nobody will have the nerve to ask me for food at the end of my hardworking days as a filthy grubber of soil and compost, that’s for sure.

Much Love,

--An Army Mom