Super Bowl - Clean out his crap....

Here it comes, the one weekend I looked forward to every year I was married. Stupor Bowl weekend, especially Stupor Bowl Sunday. Here is it, the one chance a woman truly has to eliminate undesirables in her environment. While your man is totally engrossed in a mindless ballgame featuring millionaires in spandex, here’s what you can accomplish...

First, make sure you pre-shop ahead of Super Bowl Sunday so you can quickly replace whatever you subtract. He won’t notice anything that is missing from the closet, but he will notice empty spaces where his ratty stuff used to be, so fill those holes as you go.

Dig out every ragged “but I still like it” shirt and jeans, bag ‘em, drag ‘em to the burn barrel or get them tucked in a yellow town bag. Rout out the sneakers, whose only remaining resemblance to sneakers is knotted laces and slim pieces of fabric that connect all the holes. Keep the beer flowing and while he’s yelling in the living room, get rid of everything he thinks he can still wear from high school.

Underwear. Why do men think that underwear can be worn from date of purchase till the wearer’s natural death? Men have underwear that is ten years old and more. Waistband’s all stretched out, tiny tips of elastic gasping for air popping out all over. No fruit left in the loom at all except for the nuts that occasionally visit. It doesn’t matter how big a man gets, if he can still squeeze into one of the old size 34 briefs he wore during his wrestling years in high school, that is his size forever. If he buys new underwear, it will be size 34, and you will see him use WD-40 on his rump and a shoehorn for the rest, to prove to you that his size 42 self can still fit in a 34. He will stretch and wring out the fruit of the loom so completely, he will smell like Sangria. It’s up to the gals, or guys, in his life, to sneak new underwear into his life. Sometimes you just have to save people from themselves.

Papers. Find all the paper; bank statements from before 2000, credit card offers from previous years that he insists on keeping, “Don’t throw anything out until I have time to look at it.” The Super Bowl is your only chance for his distraction level to be high enough to get all this useless paper out of the house. Never mind recycling it - he might spot it on his next trip - bag it and drag it with all the wet garbage. I know it’s against the rules, but live on the edge once in a while.

Just like the leg lamp in A Christmas Story, this is your opportunity to break any ugly cup of lamp that needs to leave. I was once able to dispose of a set of four cups with deer heads on them during the Super Bowl. I put new hefty mugs in their place, and he never noticed the switch.

They say honesty is important in a relationship. Don’t you believe it. Stealth and a poker face will do more for your relationship than you know. I learned that from my husband who could tell me he attended a fly fishing show and only spent $75 on new equipment with a straight face and direct eye contact so perfect, he could have won an Oscar. I learned I could pursue the much over rated truth, or simply estimate what he really spent and give myself permission to spend the same on my next shopping day, plus interest for him lying to me in the first place. It must have worked, because we never argued about money, or watching the Super Bowl.

We're in Hot Water Now!

Skool Boiler....Big News!

Recently there was some really big news on Shelter Island. An event of immense proportion with a potentially explosive outcome...the school boiler was on the fritz and the whole school had to be evacuated.

Imagine the shock and horror to students who were about to take a test. Or those just waiting to turn in their homework in the next class. I think of all those poor, innocent, impressionable young souls, just longing to spend hours and hours in class, looking pensively out of huge windows into the bleak January cold. Imagine the panic and sorrow they experienced when they heard the announcement that the school would be evacuated.

Many students were heard to shout , “Thank God!” “Hallelujah!” “Free at Last!”. I figure that those were the more sensitive and devout students. They probably formed prayer groups on the lawn of the school and prayed for the old boiler. They prayed a cure would be found soon so they could return to their classes.

Some, okay, many, other students were heard to whisper profanities - yes, right here on Shelter Island, there are young people who know profanities. I believe it most likely the shook of being torn from their concentrations that caused so many to curse. They were probably contemplating topics for their future doctoral thesis when the boiler event happened.

I think of all of them standing in the cold, wondering, will school be closed early? Will they be sent home? The thought of early release, being forced to raid their refrigerators at home ahead of schedule and play extra hours of video games....those poor darlings.

Years from now, they will all recall the event at high school reunions, and remember what they were doing the day the boiler broke. The big event my generation had was the middle aged teacher who married the eighteen year old student right after graduation. That was a huge scandal then. Of course, today, when students and teachers have affairs all the time, our scandal wouldn’t have even hit the radar. But it was a great scandal then, real Peyton Place stuff. Love conquered all, including age, common wisdom, and public opinion. It taught me to always remember; “Love is blind, but the neighbors ain’t.”

It all proves what I’ve always said, Shelter Island is an exciting place to live. It moves and changes with glacier speed through time. The unique Island, where generations of third cousins marry and as a result, all the men are handsome, all the women smart, and all the children are gifted.

My Redneck Hampton Vacation

I know it’s traditional at this time to write about all the New Year’s resolutions I won’t be keeping, but something else has come up that is really more important.

The CMT channel has a new “get rich hick” show that begins with a batch of very newly rich (the ink isn’t even dry on the money) hicks coming to, or rather invading, the Hamptons. The previews look like a bunch of unruly three year old's running NASA for a week. Their behavior is so crass, it makes me looks like a Duchess. I don’t know how they got passes to come the East End, but this has to be the one and only trip for the single toothed, two digit I.Q.ed people who still think flaming flatulence is funny.

I’m not, and never will be rich. I’m just a regular gal. Most people who are rich, got there via inheritance or their own hard work. And with a few exceptions, they appreciate their good fortune and are extremely nice and well mannered people. We have plenty of rich people on the Island and we sort of corral them into homes on Shelter Island Heights and on Ram Island. This is for their own protection. If something too shocking happens, we can block access to these areas easily. We need them for employment and their very generous support of the Island causes. Sometimes I get envious of how easy their lives look, but then I remember that money only creates options, not happiness. Rich people get lonely, depressed, and just as scared as the rest of us.

The thought of the Island being over run by rednecks from beyond the sticks is horrifying. We’d have to secure all the rich so they didn’t have seizures, while the rest of us held them off.

The regular guys on this Island could go toe to toe with anything that could be dredged up from any bayou. They wrestle alligators. Big deal, we catch Great Whites off of Montauk that eat alligators for chicken fingers. They like to show off their big biceps in ragged sleeveless shirts. We got guys who work jerk rakes all day in the bay, they crack walnuts in the crook of their elbows. The hicks love their banged up trucks. We live in salt air, our trucks aren’t just banged up, what ever rusts and falls off is replaced with plywood - which does not rust - and as long as it drives, it lives. The hicks think it’s a big deal to dip tobacco. They thrill to grossing people out when they spit the chew. Most of the people on this Island can eat clams and oysters on the half shell, so don't tell me who can put worse things in their mouths.

I feel bad for the nice Hamptonites who will be made to look like snobby fools on this upcoming show. I just want to tell all of them, it’s not you. You were probably doing your job and you couldn’t possibly be prepared for the invasion of the Cro-Magnon people. It’s all right. We all love you anyway. However, just to be safe, you might want to keep a crowbar handy in your desk from now on. This way, if they come again, you can hit them and drive them off, or hit yourself in the head so you can understand them.