The Sandy Hook Gun Debate is a Red Herring

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

After Friday, everyone’s Facebook feed is flooded with the comments of friends both for and against gun control. In fact, if I had to count, I’d say that gun control comments outnumber tributes, memorials, poems, or prayers for the victims of Sandy Hook by probably 5 to 1. As families bury their children and God only knows how they try to come to terms with their loss, “we” beat our chests on Facebook and tout what we know is the cure to end these types of tragedies. It is appalling to minimize the complexity of the situation by boiling it down to “gun control”. It is naive to think that gun accessibility was the sole contributing factor. And it’s crude to use the victims’ deaths as your soapbox.

A quick look around at the world outside our backyard shows that children are the victims of horrific violence on a daily basis. Humans are a brutal lot, prone to genocide, human trafficking, suicide bombings, and other bizarre acts of violence. Sandy Hook feels like an isolated incident, one that could and should never happen “to us”. On a global scale, Sandy Hook is – I’m horrified to say this – neither uncommon nor outlandish.

The gun control debate is a red herring that detracts from the overwhelming tragedy of Sandy Hook, and in that sense is serving its purpose well. We turn away from the broken families and cast our gaze on the proverbial silver bullet that will cure all of this madness. This is not compassion. To be honest, I think it’s fear and discomfort of registering the pain and anguish of the victims and their families. At least by jumping on some solution bandwagon, we can feel like we’re doing something to fix this.

The gun debate is a distraction, not a solution.

Some helpful organizations that directly benefit the victims’ families and the residents of Newtown have been established:

You might also visit the Facebook pages set up for some of the victims of the shooting:

Miracles

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

“There are two ways to live your life – one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

The other day on Facebook, a friend posted that quote. It’s one I’ve loved for a long time, and it reminded me of something I wrote in my journal years ago. I went and dug up my journal to re-read the entry. It’s churned around in my head since.

I can think about my mother every day, and usually do, and accept she’s gone. But for some reason on her birthday I walk around on the verge of tears. Until I get home, at which point I tend to fall apart. Today was her birthday. Right now I’m bawling. It’s fine.

Besides that, today was also one of those days where you question the rationality of your emotions. Like, where exactly is the line between “justified response to a situation” and “holy shit she’s bat-shit crazy!”? I counted it as great success to get through the day without throwing anything.

Tonight I thought about that quote, and about my mom, and about the journal entry I wrote, and about my day. It just seemed related. Here’s the bit from my journal:

“A miracle would live knowing every minute of life is a gift. A miracle would live searching for more miracles, ever hopeful there are more out there, hidden under rocks and behind benches. Miracles would explore, test, question, seek, build. Miracles are thankful for their many talents, and spend their sacred minutes developing them. Miracles love with hearts cracked open, spilling light. Miracles know that even their desires and wants are gifts and they live their lives exploring them. Miracles remain focused, knowing that they are worthy of success. They know they are worthy of success because that is what they were made for. The exact set of talents, gifts, desires, knowledge they have is exactly the recipe for their success. People who live like they are miracles are people who never lack.
The question isn’t whether or not I’m a miracle. The question is whether or not I accept it.”

Easier said than done, right? I’d do well to read it more often.

G’night. And Happy Birthday Momma!

Haunted Houses – Take 3 “Attack of the Killer Tomato”

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

The last in the “haunted house” series. Also, the last haunted house I ever went into. Ever.

My mother borrowed a hand-made pumpkin costume for me. I put on black tights and black patent-leather shoes, then stepped into the pumpkin costume. Mom wadded up old newspapers and stuffed the costume so tight that it tested the tensile strength of the fabric of which it was sewn. In the world of pumpkins, I would have been a genetic mutant, the kind of pumpkin that you didn’t want to mess with.

The neighbors held a Halloween party every year for neighborhood kids. The party had every element of a successful party — candy, kids, music, and completely senseless games. And a metric crap-ton of dry ice.

My pumpkin year (I might’ve been 10) they held a haunted house. Actually it was a haunted barn. I stood in line, wedged in line between the Smith girls. (Smith isn’t their real last name.) The Smith girls were the types who, even at the tender ages of 12 and 14, viewed Halloween as the perfect excuse to fully engage their inner ho. I think they dressed that year as “slutty nun” and “slutty cat”. Their costume repertoire consisted of “slutty (insert anything here)”. Incidentally, these girls did not fear a haunted barn, and instead viewed it as a potential make-out locale. I really didn’t belong between them, or anywhere near them. I was of the more conservative, shy, wet-your-pants-if-a-boy-speaks-to-you-directly brand of girl.

So there I was, in a narrow corridor of a dark haunted barn, with a micro-skirt bedecked nun in front of me and a hormonal, slightly zitty cat girl behind me. First, the Smith girls were frightening enough on their own. Second, my pumpkin costume made it hard to navigate the maze of the haunted barn without getting stuck from time to time. Every once in awhile a slutty nun or whoremonal cat would have to pull or shove me to keep the line going.

At one point, when the whoremonal cat and slutty nun were trying to dislodge me, probably from a hog-feeder, a haunted house haunter jumped up from somewhere near my feet, thinking it was PERFECT TIMING on his part. In most cases, this would’ve been quite clever. However, he hadn’t accounted for my being a.) wedged in the hog feeder and b.) borderline panicked. He lunged toward me, reaching for my skinny little leg as the slutty nun planted her foot against the back of my costume and the sex-kitten tried to yank me free by the arms. The ghoul, there at my feet yet far beyond my scope of tolerance, suffered the brunt of my panic as I began kicking with both feet at his arms, face, and torso. With the costume holding me in place, I could let both legs swing freely and quickly in a series of sweeps and tooth-jarring kicks.

The ho-Smiths continued to focus their energy on freeing me, probably noting that my frenzied terror was marring the face of an eligible bachelor, and my frantic leg action seemed to help their cause. The ghoul screamed and spat, only contributing to my panic, and soon I popped free of the hog-feeder/vice grip and ran the rest of the way out of the haunted barn.

On its own, the event scarred me enough to never want to step foot in a haunted house again.

I spent a fair amount of time in the bathroom after that, mostly crying, trying to get my wits about me before returning to the festivities. When I finally rejoined the other kids in the basement, I found myself standing next to a young man who apparently came to the party as an “abused child” or some such thing — he had blood and bruises all over his face, and held a bag of frozen peas to one eye. He stood next to his mother, who carried off the look of “pissed off mom” quite well. It was an impressive costume, if only for collaborative effort.

He made single-eye contact with me out of his one good eye, which first widened, and then narrowed to barely a slit.

“IT WAS HER!” He screamed, yanking on his mother’s arm and pointing at me, “THAT STUPID TOMATO KICKED ME IN THE FACE!!”

At first, I looked behind me, expecting to see someone dressed as a tomato. Then I realized that he was referring to me. And that I’d left a terrible mark on him, thereby negating any Smith-girl action for him AND thrusting him into the over-protective arms of his mother. I had single-footedly ruined his Halloween.

Good. Because for starters, I was a pumpkin. A big fucking mutant pumpkin. And you don’t mess with a big fucking mutant pumpkin.

Haunted Houses – Take 2 (aka “Happiest Place On Earth?”)

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

I grew up in a pretty frugal household. We recycled cans not to save the planet, but to pay for cereal. So, it was a pretty big deal when my Dad’s employer sent him to Los Angeles for a month for work. Somehow, we must’ve scrounged up a damn lot of cans, because mom and us kids were going to join him in L.A. and go to Disneyland.

The first two days I puked in our cheap hotel room toilet while a family friend took my older brother to Disneyland. The friend was Canadian. I thought that meant “cannibal,” so puking in the toilet was a far better option than anything my brother endured. I also really wanted his bedroom when we got home.

My parents thought it was an awful waste of money to be sick on vacation, when I could’ve vomited at home for free. So, as soon as the green began to fade from my cheeks, my family and I struck out early one morning with the Cannibal for the world’s most cost-effective tour of “the Happiest Place on Earth!”

We navigated the park in a frenzied pace, determined to get the most bang for our can-money by visiting every attraction in the park, even the cheesy ones like that submarine.

Pirates of the Caribbean, check. A quick sprint to The Matterhorn, check. Slap the kids into the Dumbo ride, drag them over to the Teacups, and while they’re still dizzy herd them over to It’s a Small World: check, check, and tiny little check. It wasn’t even lunch time yet. Oh yes, we navigated that park in record time. You could practically hear my parents amortizing the cost of every ride. “Just 14 more rides and it will only have cost us 48 cents a ride! RUN!”

Everyone wanted to go on the Haunted House ride, including the Cannibal. I knew three things: first, I wasn’t going anywhere in the dark with the Cannibal; second, I wasn’t going anywhere near any more haunted houses; and third, I was starting to feel woozy again. My family, not wanting to waste precious time (effectively jacking up the cost of the rides to 48.5 cents each), quickly ushered me to a park bench and suggested I take a nap. Alone.

I awoke some time later, not sure how long I’d been on the park bench. My family and the Cannibal were nowhere to be seen. I imagined that the Cannibal may’ve had something to do with their disappearance. For the first time since landing in L.A. I got hungry. Across from my little white bench, framed by palm trees and bougainvillea, I beheld a pirate ship. Pirate ships have food. Everybody knows that.

I rubbed my tired eyes, and weaved through the throngs of happy families toward the ship.

I walked into the belly of the ship. It was better than I imagined. First, it was a cafeteria just like Roy’s Chuck Wagon, which was my favorite. You just grabbed a tray and could load it up with ANY. THING. YOU WANTED! I did what any 6-year-old would do: I loaded a tray full of chocolate pudding, assorted pies, and ice cream, by-passed the cashier, and wandered up to a deck, where pirates waited tables and poured large glasses of iced tea.

I figured I’d satisfy my sweet tooth, maybe go on a couple of rides that didn’t have height requirements, and then I’d find my family. In my small town, you just didn’t lose your family. Even if you wanted to. I had no fear of being lost, because where I’m from, everyone knows you and knows where you belong.

I wove between the tables, carefully balancing my over-loaded tray and trying to find an empty table. That’s when I heard my name being called from across the ship’s deck. There, sitting at a table with the rest of my family and the Cannibal, sat my mother, waving to me. I turned toward the table, narrowly avoiding tipping my ice cream sundae and struggling to keep my pies and ice creams intact as I shuffled toward my family.

They sat hunched over a table, doling out pieces of fruit and sandwiches my mother smuggled into the park in her purse. The Cannibal chewed a piece of beef jerky that looked suspicious. In retrospect, I’d expect them to have been more alarmed that a.) I was missing, or b.) I found them. Either one was perfectly logical. Maybe they thought that the park bench was close enough to the pirate ship that they could nip in to get a bite to eat (and not have to share their paltry rations with me).

As I reached my family, I could see their expressions change from that of recognition to abject horror. The look of someone mentally calculating how many recycled cans your blueberry pie cost is similar to that of a baby filling its diaper. As my parents and brother tallied the contents of my tray, it was my mother who vocalized their collective terror when she gasped, “Teresa Michelle! Who paid for all that food???!!!”

How I Overcame “Retardation”

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

I had a pet chicken. His name was Chuck. We spent quite a bit of time together the summer before first grade started. Of all our chickens, Chuck was the kindest. I guess you don’t really think of chickens as being “pets” and especially as “kind pets.” Chuck was a cute, plump little guy with red and gold feathers and a short red comb. He had those red squishy blobs of skin under his beak, also, what are those called? He barely supported his portly little self with two grass-blade thin legs.

At 6 years old, my shoulders were barely wide enough to support my disproportionately huge head, let alone support Chuck in the manner I wished: as a parrot. Because what 6 year old doesn’t want a shoulder-perching, talking, pirate parrot-chicken?

Chuck’s obesity may have been a direct result of my food-based training regimen. I taught him to come when called by using the age-old trick of bribing him with food. I dabbled a bit in chicken hypnotics as well, holding his beak against a seam in the concrete patio until his body went completely limp and he stared at that seam, tripping in chicken fantasyland like a stoner in the chip section of Walmart. After coming out of a hypnosis session and shaking his head a couple of times, he always looked a bit peckish to me, so I fed him then, too. (I’ll admit, when I put him under hypnosis, I tried to convince him he could talk. This never worked.)

As Chuck’s weight increased, his willingness to follow me on a leash decreased. Soon, he could barely carry his own weight, let alone lift his head with the old halter rope I managed to loop around his neck. Getting him to sit on my shoulder became a necessity.

I found an old rake handle, put it across my shoulders, and through a combination of chicken hypnotics and cracked-corn bribery, trained Chuck to ride on the rake handle.

The obvious next step in his progression toward Captain Flint status was to teach him to squawk, “Pieces of eight!” Then I knew we’d probably have to take our act on the road.

The beginning of first grade thwarted our progress. The hours I’d invested in Chuck’s growth — intellectually and physically — were replaced with my own growth.

There were other stressors to our relationship too. The day before first grade started, shortly after mom put the finishing touches on my bowl-cut, my brother took me aside.

“Look, I have to tell you something but you can’t tell anybody I told you.”
“Okay, I promise!” I was beside myself with anticipation. My brother, 5 years older than me, knew EVERY THING! Getting in on one of his secrets could give me a competitive edge in virtually any arena!
“Do you know what “retarded” means?” he whispered.
“I think so, isn’t that when you’re really dumb?”
“Sort of.” he confirmed.
“Oh, so, is someone in my class retarded?” I asked.
“Yeaaahhh.” he drew the answer out, lingering on the word, watching my expression as the gears in my head slowly spun.
“Really? WHO?”
“Well, you promised you wouldn’t tell anybody, right? You especially can’t tell mom or dad. Promise?” he made me promise again.
“OKAY!! I PROMISE! JUST TELL ME!” I hissed back at him.
“Okay, well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but it’s actually you. You are retarded. And mom and dad don’t want you to know.” he put his hand on my shoulder, the same shouder where my chicken-parrot would’ve perched on his rake handle. “Everybody knows, and they’re going to try to be really nice to you at school about it, but you’re actually the oldest kid in your class.”
“What? I thought I was the youngest!?”
“Mom’s just telling you that so you don’t find out that you’re retarded.”

My mind was reeling, even though this did fit in nicely with the adoption theory that I’d been mulling over for a few months. I felt that I couldn’t possibly have any blood-relation to the people I lived with. Mental retardation added a new twist to the mix. Things were fine when I didn’t want to be related to them. I felt it was pure benevolence on my part to put up with them until I could cut bait and get out of town, which would happen around the time I hit age 13 (or, my REAL, horse-loving family came to their senses and took me back). What if it was pure benevolence on their part to keep me?

I carried the burden of my condition stoically for the first week of school. I viewed every smiley face on my handwriting practice with skepticism. Other kids’ attempts at friendship were met with a dull gaze and shrug of the shoulders. I just wanted to go back home and hang out with Chuck.

After several “frowny face” evaluations of my handwriting (I chose to draw chickens instead of the letter a), my mother cornered me.

“Teresa Michelle, I thought you were excited about school. Why do you keep drawing chickens instead of practicing your handwriting?”
“I don’t like school.”
“Why not? Aren’t you making friends there?”
“I guess.”
“What about the other kids on the bus, are you making friends with them?”
“I guess.”
“Do you like your teacher?”
“She’s okay.”

After about 30 seconds of interrogation, I snapped (for the record I am the worst secret-keeper ever. The only thing that makes me any good at it now is that I can’t remember shit).

In the end, it took my parents a fair amount of time to convince me that I wasn’t retarded. It was also a trying period for my teacher, who daily had to coax me out of the coat closet where I’d taken up residence, too embarrassed to come out and join the class.

Eventually I was able to assimilate comfortably with others, right around the time I hit legal drinking age.

Haunted Houses — Take 1

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

There are 3 Haunted House incidents that I believe dictated the trajectory of my future. By “trajectory” I mean, “flat-lined mental maturity somewhere around 10 years old”.

Haunted House, October, 1976

I was 6. My older brother was 11. He wanted to go to the haunted house hosted by a radio station (which was apparently staffed by some seriously sadistic motherfuckers, I have to say). I could only go with a guardian, so my mother accompanied me.

My brother always had an air of theatrics about him. He couldn’t just go to the haunted house in sneakers, jeans, and a sweatshirt. He wore a cape. He also wore an old Frankenstein mask that he enhanced by melting crayons over the mask and letting them drip onto it. He really had the “nuclear holocaust victim” look nailed. I lacked the confidence to to go in public looking like Ground Zero (on purpose) and went with the less attention-getting jeans, sneakers, mom ensemble.

My brother went into the house well before mom and I did — citing such things as “not looking like a loser” and “coolness”. Mom and I followed in shortly after. And that’s where things really went south.

The first “stop” in the haunted house involved a lady on a hospital gurney being sawn into bite-sized pieces by the Texas chainsaw massacre-er. My mother and I rounded the corner to see this play out before our eyes.

I froze.

Mom tried to re-assure me, “it’s just make-believe, it’s fine!” she patted my shoulders.

Oh hell noes. I was having NONE of that. Unfortunately, we were packed into a single-file line. Our only option was to go forward, through the rest of the haunted house. Or so they thought. Amateurs.

The chainsaw -wielding psychopath waved his saw in front of us, lurching toward us in what was probably a good-natured “boo!” I heard it as, “I’ll cut a kid in HALF and make a necklace out of her INTESTINES!” to which I objected. There we were, a line of people in front and in back, my mother trying to soothe me so we wouldn’t stop traffic, and a chainsaw massacre-er stepping into my personal bubble (which is significantly larger by several feet when dealing with psychopaths).

I screamed.

And turned around.

And shoved people out of my way as I made like a line-backer through the throng of people and bolted for the door. No one was safe. I was swinging, punching, kicking, and biting. I was in a panic of epic proportions. My mother trotted along behind me, apologizing and probably handing out tissues to mop up the blood I spilled. I was like that saw-blade in woodshop that cut off Curtis Fellmore’s left thumb – nothing was stopping me, not even the screams and pleas of those whose blood I drew. I had a door to get to and they were in the way.

When I finished throwing up, we waited in the car for my brother, who described the haunted house as ‘awesome.’

Next time: Haunted Houses — Take 2, aka “Screw Disneyland!”

The Monopoly on Awkward

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

The closest thing I had to body awareness during my adolescence (which lasted roughly 34.5 years, wait make that 38, I just found a zit) was when I wrapped my entire torso in an ace bandage in the hopes of not growing boobs. Currently supporting a double-D (of which at least a D and a half is back-fat), I can assure you that when boobs sprout you’re probably better off ignoring them in hopes they go away on their own. The bandage suppressed nothing, but it did allow me to continue my decade-long affair with the fashionable “hand-me-downs-from-my-brother” look. I rocked the brown Toughskins, plaid shirt, and originally-white-but-now-brown Converse sneakers with an abandon that left many referring to me as “son,” “little boy,” and as I got older, “young man.”

The reason I wanted to maintain my charade as “Pat” stemmed from multiple encounters with those who could most appreciate my awkwardly budding form — teenage boys. It wasn’t a Jodi Foster moment where I transformed from a dirty Tonka-Dump-Truck riding tomboy to a delicate flower of femininity glowing under the soft moonlight. You know that scene, where the cutest, nicest boy in school suddenly sees his tomboy friend as a … ~gasp~ … woman. Or at least a shorter, zittier version of a woman. In that scene, the female gracefully slinks through puberty and into full-blown woman-hood with nary a bad home perm or facial blemish. That didn’t seem to be happening to me, so I strapped my boobs down until I could figure out an alternate way to deal with what was happening.

Besides that, it is just mind-blowing to me that you start out life with one body, and just when you think you have that one all figured out, IT GROWS MORE PARTS! Seriously, what the fuck is that about? And, frankly, I didn’t do a great job of managing the parts I already had. Something was always getting scraped or skinned or damaged. I wasn’t even sure that a rack would survive my lifestyle of dirt-biking, horse-riding, or constantly tripping.

The scene that actually prompted the boob-strappage involved me, 3 boys, and the neighbor’s red pinto. I was about 12. The only reason I even hung out with those boys is because we were sort of neighbors living sort of close to each other on the outskirts of a small town. I didn’t particularly like the boys, but, like the last malformed Cheerio in a bowl of milk, I clung to whatever other Cheerios were left. These Cheerios had a Pinto and were going to town to buy a Slurpee with the oldest Cheerio who, at age 16, had a license and probably at least one DUI.

I sat in the back seat, slumped down, barely able to see out of the tiny triangle of a window. I tried to make jokes, to engage in conversation with these guys. I thought maybe we could all be a little gang of friends who bonded over this car-ride to town and formed a super-popular clique when school started again. In Teresa-land we were the perfect cast of characters — the career sophomore with a driver’s license and encyclopedic knowledge of the band Van Halen, the career 7th grade spin-the-bottle champion, the bad boy in a leather jacket who cheated off the homework of the nerdy-yet-surprisingly-pretty-if-you-caught-her-on-the-one-day-of-the-month-when-she-brushed-her-hair chick. (This misunderstanding of popularity speaks volumes about why I WASN’T popular in school, probably. There may be other reasons.) I thought my Jodi Foster moment was probably scheduled for sometime around Christmas. Of 2024.

Just as I imagined the dress I’d buy myself with the money I made from selling all of my Tonka trucks and G.I. Joe figurines at a yard sale, we approached a female riding a ten-speed. She clearly already had her Jodi Foster transformation, and touted it with impractically short shorts that show-cased her long, tan legs. Her blonde, professionally-permed hair fluttered behind her as she pedaled along the street ahead of us. Immediately, my cast of “the most popular clique known to all” was rolling down their windows. Initially I thought it was to get rid of the smoke that had accumulated in the car from the joint they were passing around. However, as we drove past the girl, the Cheerios hung out the car windows, beating on the sides of the car, and alerting her of their approval with shouts of, “oh yeah, baby!” and “OW!” and “HOT!”

“So”, I thought, “That’s where the Jodi Foster Transformation leads, huh?” Being a stress-eater, immediately jammed the last 3/4 of my Snickers bar into my mouth. Or maybe I just had the munchies from the second-hand smoke.

Three things became clear to me. 1.) I was invisible. 2.) invisibility seemed a better option than the kind of attention the cyclist garnered, and 3.) I was the captive member of a clique of dicks.

Honestly, I found it terrifying.

The only thing worse than being rejected by a clique is being rejected by a clique who you have already rejected before you told them you rejected them. We returned to the Head Cheerio’s step-mom’s house and tumbled out of the car. I walked the remaining quarter mile to my house, checking out my shadow for any attention-garnering lumps or bumps.

When I got home, I rifled through my make-believe veterinarian kit and pulled out a long bandage. I dusted off the dog-hair and introduced the bandage to my regular rotation of Toughskins and flannel shirts.

I also quit eating Cheerios. Yuck.

Dream Big!

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

My brother and I wanted to write a book. Every time we got together to work on the book, we discussed how great we’d be on the Ellen show. I know what you’re thinking. “What? You get along with him even after that time he locked you in the chicken coop?” or, “You still speak to him even after that time he convinced you you were retarded and you quit talking for a week?” Look. I’m willing to put these things behind us and move forward. What happened last month is in the past, man.

It became clear to us that our real dream wasn’t to write a book, it was to be on the Ellen show. So, we skipped all that boring character-building crap in the middle — hard work, dedication, starvation — and got to work on our Ellen debut.

She’s Not a Tramp, She’s “Popular”

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

Turns out, my old email with my maiden name is ~quite~ common. I base this on the fact that I receive frequent maintenance requests for my Ford Taurus from Findlay Motors of someplace, Arizona. I also am “allegedly” the fine-ower (finee) of several overdue books from University of Syracuse or some other place. I’m nothing if not absent-minded.

I have never owned a Ford Taurus, nor attended the University of anything east of WSU. I definitely have, and probably still do, owe overdue fines for books. I like books. Once I get them it’s really hard to part with them.

I also “allegedly” worked for a firm in Florida. I’m not sure what I did, but I got a lot of corporate-ish messages from someone who said things like, “can you set up an appointment with the blah blah blah client so we can discuss blah blah blah?” First, what the hell am I, your secretary? Second, if you’re such a high-roller, why are you contacting your admin via a GMAIL account? Third, you just reek of douch-baggery.

I started responding with things like, “I called blah blah blah client, but they couldn’t meet due to the fact that one of their children sprung a leak. Drool everywhere. Their Italian leather sofa is RUINED! They are having a burial next week. For the sofa, obviously. The child is still alive, but they mentioned re-homing.”

Another time I explained to him what “el Nino” is and why it made for great skiing. And also that was the reason I couldn’t respond right away. Then I attached a photo of myself skiing. Why not one of my bare butt? Well, that’s just not the kind of photo we want out on the WWW, is it?

Today, I received three messages. “David” sent me two (thankfully clothed) photos from his iPhone. David was a nice looking guy, and clearly the messages were meant to give the recipient an idea of his nice-looking-ness. Because the messages and photos were of an un-nasty tone, I thought I should let him know he had the “other” me:

Very sharp, David. You are a nice-looking guy.
That said, I’m positive you’ve sent these to the wrong teresaoliver@gmail.com. I occasionally get overdue book notices for a teresaoliver from Syracuse University or someplace like that. I’m betting that’s the Teresa you’re looking for. (Which, in spite of her inability to return books on time, is still a good thing. It means she didn’t intentionally give you a hokey email address in hopes of ditching you. But, it does bring up another point — is she kind of ditzy? forgetful? Something to think about in case you guys are dating.)

Since you’ve shared a little of yourself though, it’s only fair for me to return the favor. Besides, this will confirm for you that I’m not the “other” teresaoliver, just yanking your chain.

First, I’m married. He’s a great guy. As one person described it, he’s “funnier than a fart trapped in a space suit.” I can’t attest as to how funny that would be, but any comparison of my husband to a fart makes me laugh.

Second, I can yodel. No shit. In my car I’m pretty much a reincarnate of … of … of some famous female yodeller. Oh, that’s right… there aren’t any.

I’ve shoplifted before. I know, it wasn’t a proud moment. I was with my best friend and we each stole a candy-bar from Payless (back when Payless was a store and not a shoe-store). We stole it, hopped the bus, and rode the bus to the police station (which just happened to be where my mother would pick us up so that she could drive us the remaining 10 miles home — we lived in the middle of nowhere). Anyway, so we felt pretty bad-ass to sit in front of the Police Station eating our stolen candy and TOTALLY GETTING AWAY WITH IT! I think if I’ve shoplifted since then, it was probably by accident. Like your TeresaOliver, I can be a little absent-minded.

I had a pet rooster when I was growing up. His name was Chuck. I trained him to sit on an old broom-handle that I would put across my shoulder. He was too big to sit on my shoulder because i was just 4 or 5. Anyway, I tried to teach him to talk like a parrot, because, hello, what kid doesn’t want a pirate-parrot-chicken that can say dirty words? The closest he ever came to speaking was… well, actually, he never did anything remotely similar to speaking. But, i could hypnotize him. So, sometimes when he was in a trance I tried to TELL him he could talk, and that when he woke up he’d be a talking chicken. Sadly, this didn’t work.

I gave up on the whole talking-chicken thing for two reasons — 1.) it was too hard to walk around with an eye-patch on and 2) my older brother convinced me that I was “retarded” and that everyone was keeping this secret from me. I really felt that the non-talking-parrot-chicken and constant tripping/falling due to the eye-patch were evidence in support of my brother’s assertion. Chuck was put back in the coop with the rest of the non-talking chickens and I converted the eye-patch to an arm-sling for my cat.

You are correct, cats don’t have arms. However, I felt certain that with one leg in a sling (like a person with a broken arm) that the cat would heal from her limp.
Her limp was a result of getting partially run over as a kitten. Frankly, the sling was just too little too late to help her with the limp, given she’d been run over at least a year before I devised the eye-patch-sling. While I certainly had the enthusiasm for vet medicine, I really never had the practical sense to go into that field.

So, best of luck tracking down the “other” teresaoliver. Hope she likes your pictures.

For most, a response like this achieves multiple goals:

sets a clearly uninterested tone.
points him in the direction of his intended Teresa
makes it bleeding obvious that this Teresa is of a “certain type” — a type that is probably just left alone.

I hit “send” and actually felt smug. I let him down gently, I very kindly told him he had the wrong number, and dammit, I was funny about it!

“David” wrote back — “You seem cool, can you send a picture? And no, we are not dating.”

Look David. You just crossed the line into dick-dom. I had high hopes for you and the other Teresa. I envisioned you two meeting online, and the photos as a precursor to a meeting at a martini bar. Then I hoped that you two would really like each other. Maybe even enough for that damn woman to change her email address and STOP USING MINE! And maybe, with an email like yours (CFO44? really?) you could help her with her overdue book fines and get her out of that miserable job with “Bert” from Miami. Trust me, he’s full of himself for someone who can’t appreciate a full explanation of “el Nino”.

It Turns Out, Sucking is a Choice

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Teresa M. Owen

Who knew, right? Serious as a judge, you do not have to suck. Today I wanted to write about the ONE THING that is (in my anecdotal studies conducted while surfing the web, sipping wine, and peering over the top of the laptop to watch Entertainment Tonight) the difference between success and failure. (Hint: it’s not talent or genius.) As I absorbed the “Makeup Secrets of the Stars” from the t.v., I got a message in Facebook from my buddy Liz. It was contained a link titled, “Stop Sucking and Be Awesome Instead.“ Ironically, it’s an article that takes my message from this weekend, but says it a lot better. In fact, it’s awesome. (One could take that a step further and assume that means my blog post sucked, but since that’s just a choice now and not a fact, I’m choosing to say it did NOT, in fact, suck.)

My favorite line? (there are a lot) “”It’s better to be safe than sorry” is such crap. You know what’s better than being safe? Being awesome.”

It just takes three steps to quit sucking. Time to get busy.