Sometimes a cigar is just a, ah, um

Seriously. Funny. If only they'd taken the next step and made them cherry-flavored.

Get yours here.

Got any more complaints?

I'm not very happy today. It's just a bunch of little things that should be nothing but aren't. The rain yesterday left me listless.

My right side hurts from my lower back down to my ankle. When I sit in bed (my desk), then my back hurts, too. And my neck.

I'm the oldest person in my class.

Nothing I eat is satisfying. I don't know what I want. Something hot and salty – get your minds out of the gutter. Something cold and chocolaty. Something hot and chocolaty. Something cheesy. Something chewy. Something crunchy. The problem with all those descriptors is that they largely apply to hip-enhancing foods. And I don't want to cook. Nor do I want to go out. I want to sit in my bed and watch a sappy movie. But then my back would hurt again.

Kelsey stayed home sick today. Not that she was especially sick. She wasn't. At least, she isn't now. She made a spectacular recovery at about 1 p.m. The living room is now full of animal houses, which she assembled in her newfound health. We have the farm, the dogs' house, the penguins' house, the gorillas' house, the birds' house, the elephants' apartment, the bears' apartment, and the cat house. I mean, cats' house. They fortunately have some shops to serve their needs – a sporting goods store and a sunglasses shop. Because every elephant needs a skateboard and shades, no? Oh, I forgot the horses. How could I?

Right now she's making a zoo on my bed with live animals. I just changed the sheets, too.

It sucked that I couldn't come home from school and just chill a little. I had to go instantly into attentive-mom mode.

At least they canceled soccer practice.

Bored yet? Me, too. What a whiner. And none of it matters. I can see my dad stomping his foot at me, saying, "Aw, quitcherbitchin."

Want to piss and moan? Go ahead. Sully my blog instead of your own. Global therapy. Whatever.

Cracks

While we were at Noodles waiting for our food, we watched a woman cleaning and restocking the beverage cooler. She was wearing some khaki pants that I liked. The more I looked, the more I liked them. They had a seam down the back, a straight leg, and a slotted cuff with a useless drawstring. They fit her close at the waist and around her ample posterior, but hung more loosely past the thigh. When she bent over, they stayed against her body. I never saw her butt crack. She stood and kneeled and squatted and bent and stretched, and through it all, her pants stayed secure. They didn't rise up her waist, seeking her brassiere and making a fault line up her rear; they didn't fall down past her hips, seeking her ankles. I was transfixed. She wasn't wearing a belt, and there was no elastic obvious. The rise seemed normal--not '80s-waisted or Brazilian-shave mandatory. What were these pants? I should have asked her.

Speaking of pants and cracks...

Kayleigh deposited a rather nice pair of jeans onto my bed this morning. "I hate them," she said. "They fit, but the rise is so low that it shows off my butt crack." I'm glad she doesn't want to show off her butt crack.

Which reminds me...

Many Christmases ago (my dad's last, actually), as we were decorating the tree at my parents' house, my mom bent from her chair to reach an ornament on the floor. Kayleigh, still a tiny thing, stood behind her. As my mom's body went forward, the back of her pants went downward. With my mom's great crevice spread before Kayleigh's wondering eyes, Kayleigh slipped her hand between those soft cheeks.

My mom rose slightly, a look of terror on her face.

"That's Grandma's butt crack," I said.

"Butt cack," Kayleigh repeated, sliding her hand out of my mom's abyss.

"Oh!" said my mother, and she started laughing. Believe me, we all did.

Eric says he'll never forget the look on my mom's face.

Honey Nut

Kayleigh is growing up. Yes, you see it in the lovely lady lumps on her chest. You see it in the pimply bumps on her forehead. You smell it when she neglects to use deodorant. You hear it in her laughter at "French & Saunders" and "Honey Nut Shetbags."

And tonight you could hear it coming from her mouth. We were playing one of those BrainQuest trivia/knowledge games before bed. She forgot what an antonym was and said, "I don't know what the hell they're talking about."

What's a parent to do? Especially one as foul as I am? I've not been a pristine role model, cussing up a storm and showing her things like the aforementioned Honey Nut Shetbags.

She immediately started to explain it away. "Everyone around me talks like that, even at school. I hear it all the time." Uh-huh.

I'm watching one kid trot off to the bus herself and listening to the other one invoke the underworld.

Eric shouted from the living room, "Dollar!"

You see, every time Kayleigh catches me swearing, I owe her a dollar. It's been an incentive to turn my potty mouth 10,000 Flushes blue tablet clean.

I laughed, of course, which is not the best reaction--or the worst. Although laughter might be seen as acceptance, no teen wants her parents laughing at her. I asked her what we should do. She said she'd give me a dollar. Hmm....

I told Kelsey to go brush her teeth and Kayleigh to go take a shower and wash her mouth out while she was in there. Kayleigh changed the subject. She's been avoiding us ever since.

P.S. If you haven't seen Kelly's "Shoes," the video about her Hollywood meeting (the one I called "Honey Nut Shetbags") will be meaningless to you. They're weird. The more you watch Shoes, the funnier it gets, until it's not funny anymore.