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    The Stuporwoman Files: Observations of an Overworked, Overwhelmed, Overjoyed Working Mother
    The Stuporwoman Files: Observations of an Overworked, Overwhelmed, Overjoyed Working Mother
    The Stuporwoman Files: Observations of an Overworked, Overwhelmed, Overjoyed Working Mother
    Ebook145 pages1 hour

    The Stuporwoman Files: Observations of an Overworked, Overwhelmed, Overjoyed Working Mother

    By Monica L. Lewis

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    About this ebook

    Newspaper humor columnist, public speaker, and playwright Monica Lewis' laugh-out-loud observations on motherhood, relationships, balancing work and family, and the quirks of everyday life, hit home on every page.

    On knowing you're too old to have a baby: "You know you're too old when, to you, a period is just something that goes at the end of a sentence."

    On the irony of giving your kids a time-out: "Most parents would love the luxury of taking an hour to just sit in our rooms. Hell, I'd even sit in the corner if it meant a moment or two of peace and quiet."

    On helping your child with math homework: "I'm hopeless at math. For me, Cardinal Numbers are the amount of red birds on the tree outside my bedroom window."

    On Santa Claus: "If Santa was a man, everyone in the universe would wake up Christmas morning to find a rotating musical Chia Pet under the tree, still in the store bag."

    On Not Cleaning the Refrigerator: "If food were human, I'd be considered a slumlord."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateMar 3, 2005
    ISBN9780595791743
    The Stuporwoman Files: Observations of an Overworked, Overwhelmed, Overjoyed Working Mother
    Author

    Monica L. Lewis

    Monica Lewis, longtime humor columnist for the Erie Times News, has also been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and several national magazines. A novelist and successful playwright, her latest comedy has been scheduled for performance in Los Angeles. The working mother of one daughter, Kelsey Applebee, she resides in Erie, PA.

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      Book preview

      The Stuporwoman Files - Monica L. Lewis

      Introduction

      The other day, I showed up at work with two different shoes on my feet. One was a black pump, the other a black sling-back. Thankfully, they were both mine.

      As I hurried out the door that morning, with just minutes to get to work on time, I had my briefcase, my purse and my daughter Kelsey’s science project in one hand. In the other were my car keys, my dry cleaning, and the arm of Kelsey, who was attempting to run back upstairs to grab her favorite CD. The cat was trying to get out, the dog was trying to get in, the phone was ringing, and my neighbor was on the sidewalk asking if I had change for the parking meter.

      I’m doing too much. This is nuts.

      I work full time, teach part time, take voice lessons, make fused glass jewelry, run a household, work out three times a week, write plays, act in community theater, cook, clean, help with homework, shuttle Kelsey to and from sporting and social events, and do my best at being a good mother to her. I get everything done, but some days I can’t even remember my name. In a single hour during one day last week, I had to transfer money at the bank, pick up a box of rice for dinner, take Kelsey to basketball, take our dog to be groomed, throw two loads of laundry in the washer and clean the cat’s litter box. It was only through the grace of God that I didn’t end up with a dog on the basketball court and an adolescent girl in the flea dip treatment tub.

      Once I discovered my mismatched shoes, I decided to stop home on the way to a downtown meeting to change them. When I walked in the front door, I discovered that the cat had shredded a sewing pattern I had laid out on the floor (Kelsey’s school play costume—due in two days) and had unraveled every spool of thread in my sewing basket. The cat was lying on her back on the floor, paws caught in a tangle of thread, trussed up like a bank robbery hostage. I freed the cat, cleaned the mess and was reaching for my second sling-back shoe when the Federal Express man appeared at the door. I signed for my package and, just as I was rushing out for my meeting, the phone rang. It was the long distance telephone company, calling to offer me yet another impossible-to-understand discount on my long distance service. I informed the telemarketer that, unless housecleaning, babysitting, chauffeur service and replacement of Simplicity pattern #2086 were included in the deal, he could stuff it in his headphones.

      I ran out the door, got into my car, drove two blocks, and realized my shoes still didn’t match.

      Maybe I should just wear running shoes.

      It is this type of insanity that led me to concoct the name of Stuporwoman, a term describing me…a woman somehow alternately superhuman yet exhausted,resourceful yet clueless. I am one of many Stuporwomen in this world, heroines all, and what follows are my heartfelt observations on a frenzied and frantic—but full and fabulous—life.

      On Being Female

      High Expectations for Designated Parking Spots

      Working mothers are totally underappreciated.

      I pulled into a grocery store parking lot the other day and couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere near the store. I parked about 100 yards away and hurried through a rainstorm toward the front doors. Just before I got there, I noticed one of those Reserved for Expectant Mothers parking spots, right beside the handicapped spot.

      This is nice, I thought. Pregnant women deserve this, I decided. Carrying a baby inside you and walking around for nine months like a flesh and blood Hindenburg is tough work.

      Then, I watched as a little red sports car pulled into the reserved parking spot. A young woman emerged. She was five, maybe six months pregnant. She had no toddlers in the back seat, no diaper bags to lug, no strained beans stains on her shoulder, no bald spots on her head from infant hair pulling. She was unfettered, unhurried, totally carefree.

      It was at that moment that I decided actual mothers deserve the prime parking spot much more than pregnant ones. After all, the real labor starts once the baby comes out. Fetuses don’t need their diapers changed, their laundry done, their bottles washed or their temperature taken with that special thermometer. Dealing with projectile vomiting isn’t an issue with a zygote. You don’t have to change the sheets for an ovum. And when was the last time you had to drive an embryo and its four screaming friends to soccer practice.

      To my mind, anyone who’s had to endure the diabolical torture of a breast pump should get first dibs on the good parking space.

      Inside the store, I took a look at my reflection in the glass doors of the freezer section. Pressed for time, I was hurrying down the aisle, grabbing frozen carrots and cookie dough ice cream off the shelves, pushing the cart like I was the tail man for the Olympic bobsled team. I was trying to get my grocery shopping done between going to my daughter’s school for a parent/teacher conference, picking up a prescription at the pharmacy, attending a quick meeting at work and being home by 5 to meet the plumber.

      And I’m the one who has to park in the overflow lot?

      Life is challenging enough as the working mother of just one child. What about working moms who have three and four? Not only do they deserve the 8 • The Stuporwoman Files

      good parking space, the store manager should come out and carry them on his back to the cereal aisle.

      Then again, maybe we should just make the men do the grocery shopping.

      Missing the "Miss

      The other day, when I was having my car serviced, the guy at the counter called me over to sign some papers.

      Excuse me, Ma’am, he said. I need your signature, please.

      I just stood there and stared at him.

      Ma’am? I asked incredulously, glaring at the poor guy as if he’d said, Excuse me, cow or excuse me, hydra.

      Since when did I become a Ma’am? That boy must have mistaken my laugh lines for wrinkles. He must have erroneously assumed my freckles were age spots. He must have wrongly surmised that the box of L’Oreal Deeply Brown hair color in the back seat of my car was to be used to cover gray, when in fact both my hairdresser and I know it is used to increase volume, body and shine.

      I don’t care what the auto mechanic counter guy says. I am not a Ma’am.

      I listen to rock and roll on the radio. I go barefoot in the summer. I wear bikini underwear, for crying out loud. These are not the actions of a Ma’am. I lust over Johnny Depp just like any self-respecting Miss would be expected to do. And my blue jeans do not, nor will they ever, have an elastic waistband.

      I am not a Ma’am!

      To make matters worse, I was referred to as Ma’am a second time just the other day, only this time in a foreign language.

      I was at a local Mexican restaurant with my mom—someone who, by virtue of being over 70, definitely qualifies as a Ma’am. I was minding my own business, ordering lunch. The waiter took my order, smiled, and said, Thanks, Senora. He did not ask me for I.D. before saying this, he just said it. I was chagrined, to say the least.

      Senora? I repeated back to him with discontent. "There goes your tip."

      I am not a Senora and I am not a Ma’am. I’m not. Technically, I’m single, so that officially makes me a Miss, right? Plus, the guy who guesses people’s ages at the game booth at Cedar Point guessed my age at 38 two years in a row and there was a stuffed Pooh Bear at stake both times.

      When I start collecting Social Security, you can call me Ma’am all you like. In the meantime, if Miss or Ms. doesn’t do it for you, I have an alternative.

      Hey you.

      At this point, it’s starting to have a bit of a ring to it.

      How About an Action Hero for Women?

      Action heroes have stood the test of time throughout the decades. From Superman to Robocop to Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers,

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