wanna take a ride?

You'll be safe, even if we go in your car. I am a proud card carrying member of the Triple A Motorist Club. Yep- me, Dave, and your grandparents, hittin' the road with our trip tiks and racking up savings at such establishments as Lenscrafters, the Econolodge, and the Reebok outlet, to name a few.

I have been aiming to be a bit more adult, now that I am almost thirty and I have a baby. And a husband. And a mortgage. And a car. And a pension. And crow's feet. I check my bank balance daily, call the branch office if I have a discrepancy or question about my account, and omit the middle eight numbers of my credit card number on the memo line when I write a check to pay my debt.

I am doing laundry every day and wearing clothes that come out of the dryer or a drawer, rather than put on something from the floor that smells halfway decent and walking through a cloud of Febreze mist. I am doing dishes each night before Jake gets his bath in our kitchen sink instead of putting the dirty ones on the counter before he jumps in. I even bought drinking glasses at the store instead of going to the bar and stealing more pint glasses. Ditto on the coffee cups. Purchased for a dollar a piece from the Family Dollar rather than heisted from the Diner. I am even considering buying an ironing board and a full set of matching steak knives.

I am cooking dinner once a fortnight rather than once every blue moon. I am a good cook, I just hate to do it. Actually I hate to eat what I cook. After seeing everything all raw and vulnerable I kind of lose my appetite. Seeing uncooked meat naked and quivering on the counter just doesn't do it for me. I'm okay with the frozen veggies just as long as they are cooked before they melt and re-freeze in a frosty lump in a bowl on the table. I prefer food that is ready to eat in its natural form. Like apples and ice cream.

Next step- conquering the grocery store. It isn't always the store itself, but the ultra disgusting customers who are hovering over and poking at my vine ripened tomatoes and baby carrots. And I get so mad when I look in other people's carts and see what they are willing to feed their families. Does your fat son need the Fudge Stripe cookies, Oscar Meyer's wieners, and Pringles? No. There are other ways to console him when he comes home from school crying each day because he got beat up again. Sometimes it is the store itself, that smell of curdled milk, spoiled meat, and old fish that wafts through the air vents on the day before the cleaning crew comes in to swab the back room.

What is a girl to do? Thankfully I live in a town full of corner stores and street side produce vendors where you can only point to what you want rather than touch and smell everything in sight. After all, I'd rather have SEPTA exhaust and oil refinery smog on my grapes and peppers than the breath of a toothless vagrant who happens to accidentally stumble into the Acme looking for a toilet.