My book,
Will the Real Anonymous Mother Please Stand Up? is available at the following locations:
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Will-Real-Mother-Please-Stand/dp/1583852026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239138477&sr=1-1 Barnes & Noble:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Will-the-Real-Anonymous-Mother-Please-Stand-Up/Julia-Lee/e/9781583852026/?itm=1Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi:
http://www.squarebooks.com/Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, Tennessee:
http://www.landmarkbooksellers.com/ 
Bacon Wars We reach a point in life where eating becomes a hobby. Lucky for us, we live in an area of the country where new restaurants sprout from the earth as if the land has taken fertility drugs. Even if it is a chain restaurant that we have been going to for years in another location, we get excited because we haven’t been to the new one yet.
So my husband and I recently traveled north to the new restaurant that is cozy and nostalgic and has an old country store inside. It had only been open for two weeks, so it was definitely new. There were people waiting on us every 30 seconds to warm up our coffee or bring us more biscuits. He ordered the Grandpappy Sampler and I ordered the Granny Platter, and between the two of us we wiped out one of the five remaining farms left in the county.
The new waitress, ever eager to please, took our order and wrote down everything my husband wanted, and then she poofed into the kitchen. Meanwhile, a young male appeared, saying that he would now be taking care of our food. Suddenly the waitress was standing beside him, and right before our eyes they got into an argument over my husband’s bacon!
“Sir, have you got your bacon?” he said, sweat beading up on his forehead. “I’ll get it for you, sir, because I’m taking care of you now! Your bacon will be here any minute!”
The young waitress staked her claim and stepped forward. “I’m taking care of the bacon,” she said, giving him the bacon glare of the century. “This is my table.” And then they both poofed into the kitchen.
“Isn’t this great?” I said to my husband. “We’ve never had anybody fight over us before. I just love it!”
“You would,” he said. “Just calm down. This is a new restaurant and they’re still getting the kinks worked out.”
“Well you can be mature if you want to,” I said, “but I am going to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’ll probably get a free pork chop out of this one.”
The young waiter reappeared, his entire head glazed with sweat. It was evident that a matter of epidemic proportions had encompassed his being.
“Sir, have you got your bacon yet?” he asked. “I’m sorry about the mix-up, Sir. She just doesn’t know what she’s doing. You can complain to management, Sir. I will get you that bacon if it’s the last thing I do!”
“Don’t worry about it,” said my husband. “Everything is fine.”
The waiter slumped his shoulders and said, “I’ve been working here for two weeks and it feels like two years. I need a vacation.”
A nerve was hit, deep within the core of my soul. At this point I realized this young man’s greatest desire did not involve the perfection of my food or its service. But he didn’t notice, because he was in full whine mode, unaware that there were no violins playing.
Long after he’d worn out his welcome, he sat down beside my husband and said, “Man, I feel really bad about that bacon. I’m going to get it for you, I promise.” Suddenly the kid was our newly adopted son. He looked at me with his hair hanging down over his eyes and said, “You know, I’ve noticed that when people start to get full, they begin to eat real slow.”
I leaned over and gave him a bacon glare. “Yeah, it kind of works that way,” I said.
My husband gave me a killer look, and our new son stood up and stretched and yawned.“Well, I guess I’d better get back there and check on your bacon, Sir. It’ll be out here any minute.”
As soon as he disappeared, the young waitress popped out from behind a plow. “Sir, I brought you some bacon! And I’m sorry he took over my table. I’ll take care of everything, Sir.”
With absolute predictability, our new son appeared.” Where did you get that bacon?” he cried. “This is not fair! I have been working here for two whole weeks, and this is my table! Sir, I’m going to get management right now!”
“Don’t worry about it,” said my husband. “We’ve had plenty to eat, and everything was fine. Goodbye.”
On our way to the car I noticed the new clone restaurant next door, with a packed parking lot, but somehow the thrill was gone. A full stomach will do that to a person.
* * * *
Calamity of the Day Cyberspace imitates life. We have the cloned gazillionairre from Brazil who informs us that we have won the lottery if only we will provide essential information such as bank account numbers, addresses, home phone numbers and such. These people are distant cousins of the door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman.
Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman in a long while. Perhaps they have moved upward and outward into Cyberspace, where numerous opportunities await while their prey sits at the click of the mouse in an attempt to escape the real world.
Another disappointment in Cyberspace is the forwarded e-mail that contains “the unexpected calamity of the day prediction.” We have the picture of the woman whose right ear was blown off her head while talking on her cell phone on her way to a lingerie party. Hovered in a corner, sucking his thumb in a fetal position, we have the 90-pound man who ate Spam Soufflé after heating it up in the microwave with plastic wrap on top.
The other night I grew weary of such mindless tales of woe, and I entered Television Land on the couch with my husband, where horrific events were taking place by the nanosecond. The oceans were boiling, Yellowstone National Park had erupted and liquefied into a molten stew, and dinosaurs were running amok. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect was that cockroaches had taken over Buckingham palace, some of them headless but still running around in search of a jeweled crown and a pomegranate.
“What is this?” I asked.
“This is what will happen after the human race dies out and the animals take over the world.”
“Don’t we have enough to worry about in the here and now?” I asked. “Do we have plenty of peanut butter and crackers? And have you checked the fried okra supply lately?”
Why don’t you go watch “True Blood”? he asked. “You went to sleep last night before Bill bit Sookie, and you will not be disappointed.”
So off I trotted to the bedroom to watch my favorite TV show, “True Blood,” truly the best show in the history of the world. I shamelessly admit that I am so hooked on this show that “Dexter” is fading on the horizon. I watched Bill bite Sookie with sweet vampire passion, and I drifted off to sleep and woke up at 4:00 a.m. and returned to cyberspace where the calamity of the day was waiting silently for me.
On that day I had received an e-mail from a friend – a video of Anne Murray singing “How Great Thou Art,” and while listening to Anne sing I simultaneously read about the man in San Diego who stuffed six live lobsters down his pants. The contrast of the hymn mixed with the lobster tale had seriously intrigued me, and just when I got to the good part my husband stumbled into the room.
“You havin’ church in here?” he asked. Turn that thing down!”
And so I did, without a word, and he quietly went back to bed and I went back to my calamity. Turns out the lobsters were the kind without pincers, so other than the man getting arrested and having his picture plastered on the walls of Cyberspace, he was unharmed. Whew.
Life is full of close calls – some of them real, some of them imagined, and many of them completely fabricated by the limitless opportunities of Hollywood and Cyberspace.
* * * *
My Chimney Sweep The Christmas season came and went, and we enjoyed the usual traditions, with the exception of the cozy fire-in-the-fireplace scenes. Oh, we tried all right. We bought the wood and we opened the damper and lit her up. Problem was, the smoke went in the house rather than up the chimney.
“What will Santa Claus do?” I asked my husband. “We can’t expose him to all this soot!”
He just stood there and stared at me with that “Will you always be like this”? look on his face.
And being a man who believes that things fix themselves, he said, “Don’t worry. I heard the fire marshal say that if you keep a big roaring fire in the fireplace every day, it cleans out the chimney all by itself, creosote and all.”
In years past, the chimney has indeed stopped smoking and started drawing on its own, but not this year. Every attempt to light a cozy fire and snuggle up on the couch resulted in opening doors and windows and turning on fans in 20-degree weather.
“So what do you want to do now?” my husband asked me one night.
“Well now that we’ve barbequed the children, I guess we could go to a movie,” I said. “Or perhaps we could call a chimney sweep.”
“A chimney sweep?” he cried. “Why do we need a chimney sweep? After a couple more fires, everything will be just fine. You’ll see.”
Two days later, things were still smoking, and the only thing good about it was that my husband was wrong.
“I’ll look in the yellow pages and call a chimney sweep,” I said. “You just go back to work and I’ll take care of it.”
I had never called a chimney sweep before, and because of the Mary Poppins influence, I was a tad excited about talking to one. I looked in the yellow pages and saw only two listings, so of course I called the one with the larger ad. To my surprise, a woman answered the phone, and I explained our dilemma to her.
“What?” she screamed. “Do you mean to tell me you have lived in your house for 12 years and have never had your chimney cleaned? Why, you’re lucky you haven’t burned down the whole neighborhood! Besides that, we’re booked and can’t see you till the last week in January.”
I wanted to scream, “Oh, go feed the birds!” and slam the phone down, but I was at her mercy. “Do you know any other chimney sweeps I could call?” I asked in a meek voice.
“Yes, I do know of one,” she said. “Be sure to tell him I recommended him.”
And so I called the second chimney sweep, and once again his wife answered the phone and listened to our dilemma, minus the lecture. She even said he would be over in two days!
Sure enough, the chimney sweep and his assistant arrived right on time, and cleaned out our chimney in less than an hour. The assistant stayed up on the roof, but the chimney sweep stayed in the house, whereupon I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions.
“I’ve never met a chimney sweep before,” I said. “Do you get a lot of references to Mary Poppins and ‘Feed the Birds,’ and all that?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, laughing. “But it’s all a lot of fun.” There was a twinkle in his eye and a smudge of soot on his nose, and with his assistant up on the roof, I wondered if together, they might be Santa Claus.
When he finished the job, I was sitting on my hearth and he got down on one knee and handed me his card. “I am your chimney sweep,” he said, “and I always want to be your chimney sweep. If anything ever happens to your fireplace or your chimney, I want to be your chimney sweep forever.”
I just thought that was the cutest thing I ever heard, and I immediately said yes. In my mind, I envisioned future bullies coming up to me, and I would spew, “Back off or I’m gonna call my chimney sweep!”
Thanks to our chimney sweep, we now have cozy fires in the fireplace without opening the doors and turning on the fans. Now if that’s not a true Mary Poppins moment, I don’t know what is.
* * * *
The Wringer Washing Machine Recently my husband and I stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Jackson, Tenn., after visiting a fun place in the Delta Region. I ate my usual buttermilk pancakes and he ate his usual Big Boy Cardiovascular Country Sampler, and we left the restaurant. As we walked by the nostalgic memorabilia in front of the store, I spotted a wringer washing machine and surprised even my own self by bursting into tears. “Oh, look at that wringer washing machine!” I blurted, both laughing and crying at the same time.
“It’s OK, honey,” said my husband, also laughing at the unexpected nature of the outburst. “I know what it means to you.”
I know what it means to me, too. A few years ago when the family farm was auctioned off after my grandparents’ deaths, their house was torn down and I wrote this true story about my granny and her wringer washing machine. I have come to realize my experience had nothing at all to do with the wringer washing machine, and everything to do with a grandmother’s love.
* * * *
I am a child, seven or eight years old. It is mid-June, and I am spending two weeks with my maternal grandparents.
Outside the grass is wet with dew and the humidity is high. It is around nine o’clock, and I am goofing around in the yard. I go look at the Black Angus cows through the fence. They look back at me with dull, blank expressions in their eyes, and then walk away. They do not know me.
I go to the front yard and examine the trees. The pear tree is loaded with tiny green pears, and the walnut tree over in the corner has lemon-shaped walnuts on it. The other walnut trees are normal.
I walk back to the kitchen door and turn to see a truck pulling in. It comes up the long gravel drive and parks in front of the house. Two men climb out, let the tailgate down, and unload a large box.
Perplexed, I go in the house and tell Granny two men are bringing a large box up the driveway.
Granny steps outside and smiles. “Right in here,” she says.
“All rightey, Ma’am,” the men say. “We’ll fix her right up.”
In no time, they have installed a brand new washing machine on Granny’s back porch. It is white, shiny and square, and fits perfectly into the corner. Granny sets a box of Cheer on top and beams.
They roll out Granny’s old wringer washer, load it onto their truck, and drive away. Just like that, it is gone.
I go into the bathroom, confused. What is happening to me? Why can’t I stop crying? This is stupid! They took away the wringer washing machine and my heart is breaking. Granny and I used to have so much fun with that washing machine. She put the clothes in and I pulled them out. That was enough for me.
Granny gently opens the door and sees my tears. I feel ashamed.
“What’s wrong, hon?” She asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “I’m OK.”
Granny does not push me, and I offer no more explanation. But she knows. She knows and understands much more deeply than I do.
Through the years, Granny makes an occasional, sweet reference to the day I cried when they took away the wringer washer. She mentions it to my mother, and she mentions it to me.
She doesn’t mention it often, though, because she knows I will cry all over again. Granny respects my feelings, and that is why I love her so.
May every child be so blessed.
* * * *
