Bite Me: My Very Short Career As A Dental Assistant

There was a time, as a young college student, when I thought I had found the perfect career as a Dental Assistant.  Somehow, I landed the job without any experience whatsoever.   Looking back, that should have been a HUGE red flag.  But I was optimistic, naïve and convinced that any job that did not require filing paperwork had to be an elite career choice.  And really, just how hard could it be?  All Dental Assistants do is hand the dentist the tools he needs and move that suction thingy around in people’s mouths.  Right? 

I was so excited, I could hardly wait for my first day.  I even bought one of those medical smocks covered in bright smiley faces with toothy grins.  This was going to be fun!  And I knew I would be a success, after all, I am friendly and love to talk and the patients were going to love me.  I could hardly sleep the night before my new career started.

When I arrived at the office, I was assigned to Linda.  Linda was tasked with mentoring me and showing me the ropes, which started with sanitizing the examining rooms.  Linda carefully showed me how to disinfect all of the surface areas.  She efficiently moved through the room polishing the stainless surfaces and explaining all of the tools and equipment that needed to be cleaned.  In a mere five minutes, the room sparkled.    Linda explained that I would be in charge of disinfecting the three examining rooms in-between patients.  And further, she warned that I needed to become efficient and fast because we would likely be rushed in the afternoon.  No problem.  Running a little alcohol swab over surfaces and laying out the dentists tools, this job was going to be a breeze.

The patients arrived and I kept busy cleaning the examining rooms, chatting with the clients, fetching dental charts, taking x-rays and making sure that the dentist and the other dental assistants had everything they needed.  At then end of day 1, the dentist announced, “Tomorrow Janet, you can begin assisting me with a patient.”  See, I knew I would rock this job.

Day 2 - got off to a bit of a rocky start.  The night before, I had carefully placed all of the dentist’s tools into little sanitary bags and put them in the “Autoclave.”  The Autoclave was this super hot ,drying, sanitizing wonder-oven that basically cooked all of the icky mouth germs off of the tools so that they were safe to use on the next patient.  And I followed the instructions EXACTLY like Linda showed me.  Only I forgot one teensie weensie detail.  Turns out that the Autoclave has to have a timer set for 50 minutes, and if one forgets to set the timer, then the Autoclave continues to cook the tools until someone manually turns it off.  Linda arrived first and turned off the oven.  By the time I arrived, she had already pulled spare instruments to use for the day as the ones that I had fried were still glowing.  I was fascinated by what happens to a sanitizing bag when it is cooked in a high pressure oven for hours.  The paper bag maintains it’s form, but when poked with a metal tool, the paper literally vaporizes into a cloud of tiny particles.  It was so cool!  I tried to show Linda, but she refused to watch.  She must not be a morning person, she was awfully grouchy.

I practically skipped into the examining room to assist with my first patient.  I introduced myself to Bob and explained how excited I was to be working with my first patient.  I explained how I’d never worked on any patient before and that he had the honor of being my very first!  Bob wasn’t nearly as enthused as I thought he should have been. He actually looked quite uncomfortable and even a little sweaty.  But no matter, nothing could ruin my mood. The Dentist came in and I flounced into the little whirly stool on the other side of Bob.  Earlier, the dentist had showed me secret hand signals that he would use to communicate which tool he wanted me to hand him.  This is one of those super secret dentist tricks that they use so that they don’t have to announce to the patient, “Assistant please hand me the long sharp probe followed by the eight inch needle.”  I was concentrating so hard on making sure that I handed the correct tool to the dentist that I completely forgot that I was supposed to pass him the tools under the tray and away from the patient’s view.  Oops! My Bad.  But seriously, Bob jumping out of the chair when I handed the dentist the syringe was a bit melodramatic.  He was a grown man.  And demanding that I leave the room was particularly cruel.  It was my first time working with a real patient.  Looking back at the whole episode, he really should have been more tolerant. 

Day 3 started out marvelously.  I wasn’t allowed to touch the Autoclave anymore, so all of the tools were bright and shiny, and ready for the next patients.  The dentist told me that he was giving me another chance to work with the patients and I was determined to do better.  Surely I would get someone much nicer than Bob.  And sure enough, I did!  Chuck Jones was my first patient of the day.  Chuck was very chatty and we had a great time visiting while waiting for the dentist to come in.  And then when the dentist started working in Chuck’s mouth, he let me run the suction machine and suck up all the extra saliva and everything!  And Chuck was such a great patient to work with because he didn’t have very many teeth, so there was lots of room in his mouth to navigate the tools.  But I still managed to suck up his tongue with that suction tube a dozen times.  You’d be amazed at how hard it is to avoid tongues and cheeks with those suckers. 

After my success working with Chuck, I think the dentist was convinced that I was ready to be on my own, because Linda seemed to be purposely avoiding me.  He must have told her to give me some space and let me prove myself.  I was determined to exceed their expectations.  While the dentist walked Chuck out to the waiting room, I raced around cleaning and disinfecting the room.  Remembering what Linda had told me about the need to be fast and efficient, I created some of my own time-saving tactics.  I am an accomplished multi-tasker, so I decided that I could work twice as fast if each hand cleaned a separate area.  While my right hand wiped down the overhead dentist chair light, I grabbed the suction tube with my left hand and turned the machine on.  I guided the suction tube around the dentists tray sucking up all of the fragments of fillings and metal left over from Chuck’s exam.  I bet Linda never thought of using the suction machine to suck up all of the metal debris.  Looking back now, I probably shouldn’t have tried to do so many things at one time.  Because if I had done one task at a time, then the suction machine trick really would have been a great time saver!  But when I reached up to scrub off a smudge on the overhead light with my right hand, the suction tube I was guiding with my left hand accidently landed in the dish that was filled with hundreds of tiny cotton pellets.  The entire contents of the jar disappeared into the suction tube with a loud slurping sound and of course, became instantly lodged.  And when they became lodged, the pressure building up behind the tiny cottonballs created an extremely loud screeching whistle.  And the rest of what happened is really not my fault.  Because who wouldn’t panic when an ear-piercing screeching sound is coming from the very expensive machine that you weren’t really supposed to be using for vacuuming up dental debris?  I mean, wouldn’t you panic?  And wouldn’t you think that the best course of immediate action would be to stop that awful screeching?  Well, that’s exactly what I did.  I grabbed a hold of the suction tube with both hands and pulled on the plastic extension tip as hard as I could.  And it did separate from the suction machine.  But it also propelled hundreds of tiny cotton pellets over the entire room.  It literally looked like it was snowing indoors.  And the next patient was arriving in mere minutes.  Linda called tentatively from the other room, “Janet?  Is everything okay?  What was that awful sound?” 

“Oh…nothing.  Um, do we have a vacuum cleaner?  With a really long extension tube? And maybe an extra bag?   Or two?”  

Day 4  -I was feeling less enthused.  Linda wasn’t speaking to me.  I still wasn’t allowed near the Autoclave.  The dentist seemed very jumpy around me, and patients returning for follow-up care seemed to want to work with the other assistants instead.  This Dental Assistant job was a bit harder than I had first anticipated.  No matter how hard I tried, I could not figure out how to hold that suction tube in a patient’s mouth without sucking up their tongue, their cheek and I even sucked up the dentist’s pinky once.  The dentist had me work on making denture casts, which I thought I’d be really good at.  After all, I’m an artist, so surely I could make a casting of someone’s teeth.  But that purple gooey paste was hands-down the most sticky stuff I have ever come across in my entire life.  I bet you could use that stuff as ceiling grout in a pinch.  And I have no idea how it got in Mrs. Smither’s hair.  I really don’t.  And I still don’t believe that it had to be CUT out of her hair.  I mean, did her stylist even try to get it out?  I’ve heard that vegetable oil can get chewing gum out of hair.

I was starting to wonder if maybe this wasn’t the career I thought when Linda called me over to give me a final task for the day.  She was smiling.  Huh, for someone who was so grouchy all week, she finally was coming out of her funk.  Smiley Linda explained that my last chore was to clean the suction trap.  At first I didn’t quite comprehend what I was supposed to do.  So Linda broke it down for me, step by step.  See, all of that saliva and stuff that the suction machine sucks up has to go someplace.  And because the stuff it sucks up contains germs and potentially bio-hazardous stuff, it can’t just be discarded down plumbing or sewage pipes.  Instead it gets collected into a little trap in the floor and waits for the rookie dental assistant to come clean it out.  Linda further explained that I would have to wait until all of the patients had left for the evening and everyone was gone because the smell was so horrific and disgusting that no one would be able to enter the room for several hours after the cleaning without retching.  She handed me a flimsy paper mask and a spatula.  And that is when I made up my mind.  I was not a Dental Assistant.  It was not a job that leveraged my strengths, and there was no way in hell that I was even going near that suction trap.

It would be years later when re-telling the woeful tale of my short dental career that a dental friend of mine explained to me that the traps actually are self-contained and that one simply has to lift the sealed trap out of the floor, place it in a biohazard bag, seal and dispose.

“You mean there is no retching or horrific smell?”

“No Janet.  No bad smell, no puking.”

“And you really don’t have to clean it out only on Fridays so that the place can air out and the smell can fade.”

“Nope.”

Somewhere, there is an evil Dental Assistant named Linda preying on the dreams of promising future dental professionals, and I bet she is still smiling.  Bitch.

Bear Scares and Other Creepy Crawly Things

         Recently I visited New Mexico on business, and while there I learned about the local Tarantula migration.  Yes, you read that correctly….a SPIDER migration.  And these are not just any spiders; we are talking big, hairy, scary tarantulas.  Now I live in Alaska, and we have plenty of scary critters here, but give me a pack of foaming grizzlies any day over a swarm of hairy spiders.  EWWW!  I have permanently scratched off New Mexico as a potential retirement location.

I suppose that wherever we call home, we learn to tolerate the ‘critters’ that reside alongside us.  After 25 years of living in Alaska, I really do not care for bears – but I’ve learned to live with them.  No, I do not like it when I take my trash outside, turn the corner of the house and practically smash into a bear dining on treasures that he is selecting out of my dumpster.  But I recover, albeit with lots of screaming and tossing of lawn furniture as I scramble back towards the safety of my front door.   I’ve learned to live alongside bears, but it has taken years of close bear encounters to reach this level of tolerance

One of my first summers in Alaska, my husband and I decided to take a road trip down the Alcan highway.  We were a young couple with lots of dreams and just starting our life together.  Determined to enjoy an adventurous trip in the wilderness, we decided to drive from Fairbanks all the way to Salem, Oregon to spend a week with my family.  We didn’t have much cash to spare, so we opted to save money on lodging and instead camp in our pick up truck alongside the road.  Afterall, our truck had a canopy on the bed, so we figured we would be quite comfortable.  We climbed into our old Ford pick-up truck along with our Black Labrador pup and one very patient cat, and headed out into the Last Frontier.  Mountain goats and Dall sheep were the first wildlife we saw on our first day of driving.  By the time we reached the Canadian border, we had seen all kinds of critters, were grinning and feeling like experienced road wanderers.  After all, it was 2am, the sun was setting and we had driven across Alaska all by ourselves.

Our plan was to spend the nights at rest areas and camp grounds along the way.  However…we didn’t realize that in North Western Canada, a rest area generally consists of a slight widening of the road accompanied by a garbage can. Undeterred by our meager accommodations, we settled in for the night at one of these humble pull-outs.  My hubby, Burke and our puppy curled up in the back bed of the truck.  They were protected from the weather and warm under the covered truck canopy.  I opted to sleep on the bench seat in the front of the truck along with our cat, Wimpy.  I fell asleep listening to the sounds of an occasional log truck rumbling along the road.  But I wasn’t asleep for long.  At first I thought that the truck was rocking back and forth because Burke and the puppy were rough-housing in the back of the truck.  I even mumbled a few choice words under my breath about how SOME people were pretty darn considerate at 4AM.  But as I slowly opened my eyes, I noticed my cat was backed up against the driver door and her eyes were huge.  She was staring at the passenger window, which was directly over my head. Yawning and stretching, I rolled over to look out the window and see what had caught Wimpy’s attention, and came nose-to-nose with a large black bear sow!  She stood on her hind legs and had been scratching at the cab door while rocking the truck in hopes of a kitty-snack.  Well now the truck was really rocking as I screamed and threw all of the contents of the cab at the passenger window and the bear behind it!  Startled by all of the noise created by the maniacal human in the front cab, the bear pushed off of the truck and scampered away on all fours.  Thankfully my screams awoke Burke and he was able to view the large bear trotting off, so I at least had a confirmed witness of the encounter.

That first road trip bear sighting is just one of many in a long list, which has led to my current categorization of bears as ‘way scary’ and ‘critters to be avoided at all costs’ -  just behind spiders and snakes.  Another April is coming to an end, the snow is melting, and that means the bears are coming out of their dens and will be showing up in my yard again, any day.  But I love Alaska, in spite of bears.  So I will carefully sack my trash, look to make sure the path is clear when I go outside, and if I cannot avoid being in my front yard when it is dark outside, I will sing and make tons of noise to keep bears, and boogie men away. And I don’t really care if my neighbors think I’ve lost it and yell at me to be quiet.  That’s why I live in Chugiak and not Anchorage, no covenants out here – just try and sic a homeowners association on me.  And I checked, there are no municipal regulations against singing loudly “Go Away Bear, I would taste terrible,” - in fact, I’m pretty sure that I have a strong argument for self defense.  Happy Spring!  And you all be careful out there.

Of Mice and Men and Mom

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, except for that @#!&* mouse!

Last holiday season, I decided to try something different and put the Christmas tree up in our loft.  That way, it could be viewed from the Great Room below and the twinkling lights would be visible through the front windows of the house.  Humming holiday carols, I lugged the heavy boxes of decorations from our outdoor shed and struggled up three flights of stairs toward the loft.  By the time I reached the landing with box number two, my calves were on fire and I was regretting not spending more time at the gym!  I quickly revised my plan and dumped all of the boxes in our master bedroom.  The bedroom is much larger than the adjacent loft, so I figured it would be a better ‘working’ room to untangle lights, wrestle with the tree and organize ornaments.  And besides, I didn’t think my legs could go much further. 

As I peeled open the cardboard flaps of the large Christmas tree carton, a pungent aroma wafted up through the plastic evergreen boughs.  Can artificial trees go bad? I thought to myself.   Fake trees weren’t supposed to smell, and this tree smelled nasty!  Hopeful that it was just musty from eleven months of storage in that cold dark shed, I optimistically fluffed the branches and tried to shake out the odor.  The tree was at least ten years old, so I expected that some of the needles may fall off, but this tree was beginning to rival Charlie Brown’s.  It appeared to have a bad case of the Mange; large bare patches of too-green wire peeked through the scantily clad limbs.  

                I turned the box over to shake out the last remaining parts of the tree, but along with the musty evergreen pieces came a bundle of loose plastic needles woven together with Christmas tinsel.  Upon the lumpy nest rested a small grey mouse.  He appeared to have just awoken from a nap and was now glancing around trying to get his bearings.  After a couple stunned seconds of staring at one another, we both screamed and scurried in opposite directions.  He headed under the bed, and I raced downstairs.  Slowly my mind began to piece together the clues…the bare patches of branches were really chewed needles being used for mouse bedding, and that nasty scent was an aroma of plastic evergreen laced with mouse poop.  Ewwww!  I made the decision right then to buy a new tree, but that didn’t solve my larger problem.  I now had a mouse, loose in my bedroom.

Being the mother of two preteen boys, I immediately placed a bounty on the mouse.  Whoever successfully trapped the rodent and removed it from the house would get an entire week off from chores.  Soon my bedroom was a maze of small wooden traps filled with peanut butter, cheese and one even used a small cookie for bait.  My husband joined in on the hunt with a complicated trap involving some string, a bucket of water and some sort of mini mouse diving board.  After two weeks, my three wise men were outfoxed by the rodent and running out of ideas.  The guys had caught our poor bloodhound’s ears in the traps at least 6 times, the bucket of water was overturned twice and I had bought enough peanut butter to last most families six months, but the now chubby mouse seemed to be in one piece, and was becoming quite skilled at stealing bait from traps.  The boys did learn however where the mouse was living, he’d taken up residence in my underwear drawer.  I had hidden some chocolate for the boys Christmas stockings in that drawer because I knew they wouldn’t be caught dead rifling through women’s undergarments.  But apparently, the mouse didn’t have those same scruples.  He’d made a nest out of a particularly pricey pair of black satin bloomers and had polished off most of the holiday chocolate while lounging in his comfy nest.  Leaving the black panties in place, I removed the rest of the articles from the drawer and replaced them with three wooden traps, but this time I used chocolate for bait.

After two more weeks, the now chubby diabetic mouse was still living in my bureau and enjoying the array of food and chocolate that would magically appear on the small wooden trays for him.  His nest was positioned at the back of the drawer, so no matter how quickly we tried to open it; he always seemed to have ample time to jump out and hide.  We’d find evidence of his nighttime excursions as he polished off the gum and breath-mints in the bottom of my purse, or tried to steal cinnamon flavored dental floss for his nest.

I was beginning to accept the reality that I may have to share my bedroom with this mouse all winter.  I tried to look on the bright side, after all, spring was only four months off and surely he would move out then.  I was so used to the sound of snapping mouse traps that I no longer awoke in the middle of the night when they’d spring.  And since all of my underwear was now crammed into one drawer with my stockings and slips, it would be great motivation to downsize and get a jump start on spring cleaning.  Some people actually have mice as pets, so surely they must have some endearing qualities even if they were not readily apparent to me thus far.  And didn’t Psalms say something about treasuring all of God’s creatures?  With this new positive outlook, I began to return to my normal routine and tried to forget about the small mouse that lived in my dresser.

One Monday morning I was running behind schedule.  Clad in my robe with my hair up in curlers, I raced around the bedroom trying to brush my teeth with one hand.  I yanked open my only dresser drawer and leaned over while I pulled a knot of stockings out.  As I jerked the pantyhose, a small grey object sort of sprang down the front of my robe. With the toothbrush still in one hand and the stockings in the other I glanced down to my cleavage and could see a small lump under the fabric and a tiny sliver of light grey fur peeking between the lapels of my robe.  The lump was warm, and soft for the most part, except for some scratchy pieces which I imagined were his tiny clawed feet.  He wasn’t moving, but I figured it was either an act and he hoped I didn’t notice him, or he was stunned and any minute would come to his senses and begin frantically clawing to get out.  Tolerating the mouse in my underwear drawer was one thing, having the creature down the front of my robe, was quite another!  Immediately I threw the stockings and the toothbrush and began madly shaking my robe trying to dislodge the little rodent while hopping on both feet and screaming at the top of my lungs.  My poor husband, oblivious to the recent events, raced into the bedroom convinced that I was either on fire or had somehow accidentally electrocuted myself.  At precisely that moment, the small object in my robe fell out and rolled onto the floor.  It was a hair curler.  Granted, it was a warm grey fuzzy hair curler I reminded my husband as he fell to the floor with tears of hysterical laughter streaming down his face while I tried to defend myself and piece together what was left of my dignity.  The boys also found my ‘encounter’ equally amusing when their father told them about the episode in great detail over breakfast that morning.

We lived through last Christmas with that mouse, and even shared Valentines and Easter with him too.  The boys named him “The Incredible Hanes Hershey Houdini” for his affinity for chocolate and undergarments, and his uncanny ability to escape every trap known to man or mouse.  Eventually the snow melted, spring moved in, and Hanes moved out.  By August, I even mustered the courage to slowly relocate some of my underwear back into the top dresser drawer. 

Life has returned to normal, but now with another holiday season approaching, I’ve found myself wondering about Hanes and his winter housing plans.  When I put my new tree in storage last season, I sealed it in a sturdy rubber tote constructed out of  ½ inch plastic that the clerk assured me was mouse-proof.  But last week I was putting away flower pots in the shed and a familiar odor wafted up through the floorboards of the shed.  I wonder if anyone will mind if I set-up the tree outside on the deck this year?

Been There, Survived That

– My Top Ten Tips For New Moms in the Trenches

I know God has a sense of humor: I have proof living in my house! Their names are Jeffrey and Patrick, and they're the reason I invest in Clairol #5 every six weeks.  I have no idea what God was thinking when He placed two little boys in my care. I know nothing about boys, I grew up with a sister and a bunch of girl cousins. On occasion, when I would see a little boy up close, I would marvel at him with the fascination of a rubberneck driver observing a car accident.

When that wonderful moment of life began and the doctor announced I was the new mother of a beautiful son, I looked into that adorable face (the baby's, not the doctor's) and I was filled with hope.

How hard can it be? I thought.

That optimism faded the first time I changed a diaper without taking evasive action.  And when my second son arrived shortly after, it was obvious I was outnumbered and out-of-my-league. I turned to the experts and read every morsel I could on what it takes to be a mother. Ha! I would've been better off turning in my Dobson books for full bodysuit armor! Forget those Super Mom theories and self-help books; here are my top ten tried-and-true tips for new moms:

10. Quiet isn't necessarily a good thing. Quiet children are acceptable at nap time and bedtime. All other instances must be investigated. I remember one time when my two toddler sons were in their bedroom with the door shut, not making a sound. Intrigued, I walked over to the door and listened. I heard whispers and then soft giggles. How nice, I thought. The boys are playing together.

Gently I opened the door so I could observe them in their innocent play. My three-year-old sat perched on top of the bunk bed, wearing his pirate hat, and holding onto the magnetic strip of a cassette tape. As I watched, he tossed the cassette into the air, held onto the magnetic strip, and giggled as the roll of tape lofted upwards and unraveled out of the case as it headed to the floor. His younger brother sat on the bottom bunk (the dungeon), imprisoned by bars of unraveled magnetic tape strips. Thirty-five children's cassette tapes were hung all over the room. Quiet isn't necessarily a good thing.

9. Be wary of small gifts. Children delight in sharing treasures with the ones they love. Nothing warms the heart like a limp dandelion from the chubby fist of a toddler. But beware. One day my two-year-old came running up to me with a huge grin on his face and an outstretched arm. "Here, Mommy! Here!" he said as he dropped an odd-looking piece of lint in my hand. He then stood by to marvel at my appreciation.

"Why thank you, Honey, what a beautiful . . . gesture," I said, trying desperately to figure out what it was. It looked like a tightly wadded roll of cotton thread with one loose string. I leaned closer to the unknown item in my hand, and that's when it moved. It took every ounce of restraint to keep calm and not fling the unknown thing against the wall.

I looked at my son, who was still standing there with a huge grin on his face, waiting for his praise. "Spider, Mommy!" he said. I finally realized what I was holding: a daddy longlegs with only one badly broken leg remaining. Whoever said good things come in small packages obviously has never received a gift from my son!

8. Pictures speak 1,000 words (most of them inappropriate for small ears). Photos of the grandkids are a must for every proud grandparent's coffee table. Getting a good photo of the child, however, isn't as easy as it looks. After spending three days battling traffic at the mall and ending up with a photo of a skinny Santa and two terrified, screaming toddlers, I decided to take our own family portrait. I dressed everyone perfectly, positioned each in front of the brightly lit tree, and set the camera on automatic. One child standing, Daddy in the middle, myself sitting. I even had the foresight to set the youngest on my lap where I could whisper sweet threats into his ear so he would smile. We took all 24 pictures; then I rushed them down to the one-hour developer and started signing Christmas cards.

I should have known something was wrong when my husband returned from the photo store and the boys vanished. Twenty-three photos of the kids sticking out their tongues, crossing their eyes, and making goofy faces. Only one photo where the children flashed angelic smiles . . . and I had my eyes closed.

7. Washable markers are the only markers. I never was concerned about making sure my kids used only washable markers for their art projects. After all, our kitchen table was old, and they had plenty of play clothes that could handle a few stray marks.

Big mistake. HUGE. Two days before preschool graduation, my two angels decided to color . . . each other. I still have a graduation photo of my son with bright green circles on his cheeks, a large orange rectangle on his forehead, and a purple triangle on his chin.

6. Give specific directions. If you say, "Go take a bath," be sure to add "and use soap, and fill the tub up with water, and take off all your clothes before you get in." You'd think these are obvious, but I've learned they aren't.

We live in a small Alaskan town that gets several feet of snow every winter. One winter day the boys asked if they could sled in the backyard. I thought for a minute about every possible danger, and came up with nothing. Smiling, I helped them into their snowsuits and went to make myself a nice cup of tea. I was enjoying the quiet (refer to tip #10) when I heard the strangest sound: crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, wham, SHWOOOOSH . . . WHOOOMP! It seemed to be coming from the attic.

Curious, I took my cup of tea and stepped out onto the back porch in time to see my four-year-old diving belly first on his sled from the top of the roof! He flew down the side of the roof, went airborne for several seconds, and landed on a big snow pile, giggling hysterically. Needless to say, I threw a fit! But the kids were completely mystified, and technically they were right—the roof is in the backyard, and I didn't specify they couldn't shinny the drainpipe to get to it. Thank goodness I'd made them wear their bicycle helmets!

5. Let them pick their nose. Every mom has a horror story about taking her kid(s) to the grocery store. My 18-month-old toddler was sitting in the cart, grumpy because he was late for his nap. I was eight months pregnant and struggling to maneuver the toddler, groceries, and a cart with one sticky wheel. Nearly done with my shopping,  I noticed little Jeffrey had pulled a rather nasty booger from his nose and was playing with it. Disgusted, I pulled out a tissue and wiped away the slimy treasure.

That was the final straw for Jeffrey; he threw a full-blown temper tantrum. Between screams, his only distinguishable words were, "Booger! Back!" Of course there was a huge line at the checkout, and none of my sweetly whispered threats had any affect on Jeff. Finally, out of sheer desperation, I said, "Oh for Pete's sake, Jeffrey, just get another booger!" He stopped crying immediately and sat there contently digging in his nose. I was able to complete all my shopping in relative peace and quiet (if you don't count the hysterical laughter of the 40ish mother who stood behind me in line observing the whole ordeal).

4. Buy the warranty, no matter what. In 2000, my husband bought his dream truck, complete with leather interior and all the techno-gadgets. On Day Two of owning the truck, a certain four-year-old crouched behind it in a very long game of hide-and-seek. Said four-year-old grew bored of waiting and decided to pick up a rock and write his name on the tailgate of Daddy's new truck. Won't Dad be proud to see he can spell his name? My husband came home to find 12-inch-high lettering spelling "PAT" on the tailgate of his new truck. We managed to buff most of the scratches out, but on a sunny day you still can see a hazy rendition of Pat's masterpiece. My husband now buys every warranty available.

3. There's more to potty training than meets the eye. I thought I'd taught my toddler everything he needed to know about the potty. But apparently I'd forgotten to mention that the bathroom is reserved for doing his business, not for monkey business. One afternoon, my girlfriend and I sat chatting on my living room sofa, enjoying hot coffee. Our two toddlers were contently playing together. It wasn't long before our quiet visiting time was interrupted by squeals of laughter. And why did we hear water running? Following the trail of giggles, we walked through our bathroom door just in time to see a Spiderman action figure shoot out of the toilet propelled by a volcano of water. Apparently 11 Matchbox cars and 1 action figure stuffed into a toilet bowl will create enough pressure to propel the six-inch Spiderman five feet. That commode still doesn't work right!

2. Teach them to pray. Yes, it gives them a way to communicate with God, and teaches them to take their troubles to Him, but it also gives them an example to follow. Then maybe when they're asked to give the Thanksgiving prayer at the church fellowship dinner they won't say, "God, I sure hope you have a nice turkey dinner. My mom dropped our turkey on the kitchen floor when she took it out of the oven. Please keep us safe from germs, in Jesus' name. Amen." The congregation still teases me every year by sending me disinfectant cloths at Thanksgiving.

1. Enjoy them. All of the gray hairs, broken china, and temper tantrums fade when you hear their first prayer, watch them share a cookie with their sibling (even though no one told them they had to), and when they say "I love you, Mom. You're the best mommy ever."

Originally published in: Today's Christian Woman, 2004, May/June, Vol. 26, Issue 3, Page 63

HR is Not For Sissies

A radio disc jockey once told me that I had the worst job on the planet.  He said he would rather scrub floors at a manure farm or be Monica Lewinsky’s dry cleaner than have my job.  I am a Human Resources Manager.  In other words, I hire, fire and discipline employees.   Hiring is the easy part.  It’s the rest that is tricky.  In my college courses, they never covered what to say to a worker that steals a roll of toilet paper from the company bathroom every day, or how to handle a male employee that has a bad habit of holding onto his privates while he talks to others.  But through trial and error, I muddled my way through and eventually figured it out.  Now I can even give the dress code cleavage discussion and clarify the exact number of inches of breast to breast contact that is appropriate to reveal. I’ve conducted dozens of workplace investigations, delivered over a hundred terminations and had lots and lots of difficult and uncomfortable conversations.  But after a dozen years in this profession, it still amazes me how every week on the job I can run across a new case, more bizarre than the last.  I often share these tales with girlfriends over glasses of wine (changing the names of the guilty of course), and they’ve begged me to write a book dedicated to these weird workplace scenarios.  Only problem is, they are too weird.  I don’t think anyone would believe me.

For example, take the case of “Bob.”  My employee, Bob, was a high level technician who was very skilled at his craft.  But unfortunately Bob’s personal life had a way of spilling over into the workplace.  Bob liked the ladies.  Bob’s wife did not.  After enduring one too many indiscretions, she finally had enough of Bob’s flings, and packed her bags.  She flew to another state and shacked up with her own new lover.  Bob didn’t take too well to his wife’s turnabout play.  He was insanely jealous and obsessively researched his wife's new friend.  Of course he conducted his many hours of internet studies at work, during the night shift and on the company computer.  Bob’s diligent research paid off and he discovered that his wife’s new guy was an avid patron of single chat rooms.  This gave Bob a brilliant idea.  He decided to join a chat room, make up a fictitious female profile and pose as a young twenty-something hottie.  His plan was to try and seduce his wife's new lover.  Bob figured that if he could lure the new boyfriend into racy discussions, he could print the chat logs and then show them to his wife as incriminating proof that her new boy-toy was a cheating louse.  Of course Bob carried out his plan, at work, during his shift and on the company computer. 

Meanwhile, the new boyfriend started receiving e-mail messages from a hot internet co-ed that was throwing herself at him and seemed to know an awful lot about him.  The hot co-ed also appeared to be from the same town as his girlfriend’s estranged husband.  Suspicious, he asked his girlfriend if her husband might possibly be behind this chat room hottie.  Bob’s wife read the soliciting e-mails and agreed that some of the verbiage sounded awfully similar to phrases her husband routinely used.  So the two of them decided to have a little fun and engaged this co-ed in a racy discussion.  You can imagine Bob’s delight when he started receiving encouraging e-mails from his wife's lover.  He fell for it hook, line and sinker.  Bob eagerly responded with details about his fictitious hot body parts.  Bob’s wife and her boyfriend were just as giddy, thinking that they were pulling one over on ol’ Bob, they typed back steamy responses to see how far they could get Bob to go.  It worked, Bob got bolder and sent some naked photographs of an attractive young woman claiming that they were ‘his’ and begged his wife’s boyfriend to reciprocate and send some racy photos too. Remember, this was all done at work on the company computer. 

When Bob finally thought he had enough 'dirty evidence' gathered, he called his wife and said that he needed to see her and would fly down on his next week off.  The wife was pretty sure she knew what Bob wanted to discuss and agreed to meet him.  It’s important to note that this story takes place in Alaska during the month of November, and travel is not always reliable, especially during the winter months.  Bob was working in a southern Alaska location, and his flight was cancelled due to a snow storm.  He sent an e-mail to his wife to explain that he couldn't fly out due to bad weather.  Bob’s poor wife had heard a lot of excuses and lies from Bob for a really long time.  She didn't believe his story of a snow storm and accused Bob of lying yet again just to spend a weekend with some tramp he picked up.  This time Bob really was telling the truth!  And to prove it, he forwarded his wife a copy of the company corporate e-mail that announced the storm conditions and informed all of the employees that outbound flights were cancelled.  Now this is where the story gets good.  Bob’s wife read the corporate e-mail and noticed that it was written by an administrative assistant who just happened to have the exact SAME name as the young hottie co-ed that had been seducing her boyfriend!  (instead of using a fictitious name for his Internet profile, Bob had used the name of a real person!).  Confused by the fact that this Internet hottie might be real, the wife and boyfriend tried to figure out what was going on.  Was Bob innocent?  But how could that be?  This internet girl knew things that she couldn’t have known.  Bob had to be working with this girl. Bob’s wife and her boyfriend decided to find out.  SO, the boyfriend calls the phone number listed on the bottom of the corporate weather announcement memo and then tells this poor girl that he is an F.B.I. agent!  He claims that she is in big trouble because they know that she has been using her work computer for inappropriate messaging and that they have naked pictures of her. 

This is where I enter the story.  I have returned from a morning staff meeting with a hot refilled coffee, just digging into paperwork when this hysterical admin. assistant comes flying into my office sobbing and blabbering something about the F.B.I. having naked pictures of her!  I had to trace back the entire ordeal through that phone call from the “F.B.I.”  Several hours later, when I finally figured out what had happened, I called the employee and told him he better come see me...Now.  Bob worked in a location on the other side of town.  He had already gotten a phone call from his wife warning him that his employer knew about the chatting, so needless to say, my employee was very nervous.  Obviously, I fired him - after making him give an apology to my traumatized admin.  But the story doesn't even stop there!  That night I finally sat down to dinner with my family and my husband (who is a cop) says, “You know, the strangest thing happened today.  I stopped this guy for speeding; he was flying.  He was doing at least 80. I gave him a mandatory court appearance ticket and he looked at the ticket, looked up at me and asked if I was related to a Janet.  When I told him you were my wife, he shook his head and said, ‘man this is just not my day.’”  My husband gave Bob a ticket for speeding while he was on his way to be fired by me!   And get this...when he lost his job, his wife felt sorry for him and took him back!   Do you see why I can’t write a book?  No one would ever believe this stuff.  It’s just too weird.

Halloween 1976...A Memoir

"I'll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween."  ~ Author Unknown

I saw my first penis on Halloween night, 1976.  Gerald Ford was President, gasoline was .75 a gallon, the Bionic Woman was the hottest woman on television, and I had just turned seven years old.  My little sister, Mel and I were supposed to be in bed asleep, but instead we were hiding at the top of the stairwell, concealed by shadows and huddled under the comforter we had dragged from our bed.  We had been careful not to make any noise as we tiptoed to our hiding spot.  We even remembered to carefully step around the squeaky board in front of the bathroom that squealed every time Dad got up in the middle of the night to pee.

No one had heard us creep to our secret spot.  And they didn’t hear us move Mom’s planters so we could be camouflaged by the leaves, but still able to peek through the stair railings.  In fact, Mel had spilled the lime green Tupperware container filled with M&M’s that we had smuggled upstairs earlier.  The bright candies made a surprising amount of noise when they hit the hardwood floor.  But no one heard the candy scatter.  They also didn’t hear me smack Mel in the arm for dropping the M&M’s and nearly exposing us.  Nor did they hear Mel screech in pain and call me a “Poopy Butt.”   There was far too much noise coming from our family room downstairs. 

Every year my parents threw a huge Halloween party.  It was the event of the year for the residents of Freemont Street.  Folks planned their costumes in secret, and some of the disguises were incredibly extravagant.  One year, our neighbor Mr. Robinson dressed as a lady popping out of a cake.  His costume included a giant cardboard cake and he even added fake nylon clad legs draped over the sides.  Mel and I had overheard the adults chatting about the party for weeks, but mom had warned us that this was an “Adults only” party and that Mel and I would be fast asleep when the guests arrived.

My mom is the most beautiful woman I know.  In 1976 she looked just like Jackie Kennedy, only with better breasts.  On this Halloween night, she was dressed in a hot pink skin-tight leotard with shocking pink tights and a long slender tail.  She even had the cute fuzzy round ears on top of her head just like the cartoon version of the Pink Panther, although I don’t remember that cat having such a shapely figure or a revealing cleavage.  My dad was dressed as a very short version of Inspector Clouseau.  While my mother stands at a graceful five feet, ten inches in height, my dad is five feet four inches on a good hair day.  (I swear that he straightens his blonde curls to stand straight on end purely to add an illusion of height).  But on this night, his unruly wild locks were tucked under the smart brim of his inspector hat and he was racing around the family room filling wine glasses and encouraging folks to check out the buffet. 

From our perch on the stairs, Mel and I inhaled the amazing scents arising from the spread of food below; warm cheddar cheese fondue and fresh baked bread taunted my nostrils.  My stomach growled and I grabbed a handful of M&Ms.  Mom had shooed us into bed after a quick dinner of macaroni and cheese.  It had seemed far too early for bedtime, but I didn’t recognize any of the programs on television, so it must have been late.  (Years later my mom confessed to tricking us by switching the television to UHF mode so that we wouldn’t recognize any of the shows and think it was later than it was.  Clearly children back then weren’t nearly as tech savvy)!

Mel slid her head through the wooden slats of the stair railings to breathe in the warm steam of the buffet below, her shiny white blonde hair fell forward, hiding her round face.  I jerked her back hissing, “dweeeeeeb.  They will see you.”  Mel stuck out her tongue and slid her head again through the railing. I inched a little closer to the railing as well.  Every adult from Freemont Street was wandering around our family room below.  There were witches and vampires and all of the traditional Halloween costumes.  Mr. Weathers was dressed as Elvis in a long white satin jump suit that was stretched so tight across his beer tummy that we could see the outline of his belly button even from our lofty perch.   I pointed him out to Mel and we stuffed our fists in our mouths to drown the giggles. 

And then we noticed Mr. C.  Mr. C was the father of my best friend Martha Charles.  Mel and I had plenty of sleepovers at Martha’s house, and had seen Mr. C dozens of times.  But he had never looked like this!  He appeared to be dressed as some sort of giant insect.  He was enclosed in a long cylinder covered in peach fabric.  He looked like a chubby flesh colored grub.  Mel elbowed my ribs and hissed, “What is he?”

            “I think he’s a worm.”

            “But then why is he wearing that funny hat?”  I shrugged my shoulders.  Mel was right.  It was a funny hat.  And it certainly didn’t look like anything a worm would have worn.  It had a wide brim that extended past the width of his shoulders.  And it appeared poofy, like it was made of fabric and stuffed into a rounded mound that swallowed Mr. C’s head.  From our vantage point high on the stairs, I could see that in the center of the weird hat was a large hole.  I had just opened my mouth to point out the gaping hole to Mel when something shot out of the top of Mr.C’s hat!  Several women in his vicinity screamed.  Mel and I flattened our bodies against the cold wood floor, our eyes wide.  Mr. C roared with laughter and aimed his violent stream of silly string at a crowd of women who screamed and raced away laughing.  I turned to Mel and our hands flew to our mouths.  We raced to our bedroom, desperately trying to hold back giggles.  Mel’s snorts punctuated every slap of her feet on the floor.  I closed the door gently behind us and we both collapsed in a heap of laughter.

            Mel hopped onto her bed and hugged her knees tight to her chest.  “Did you see Mrs. C when Mr. C hit her with the silly string?  She looked like she was going to hit him!”

            “I know!  And why did he keep saying ‘Open wide?’ doesn’t he know that silly string tastes nasty. And I think it’s even poisonous.”

            “Dunno.  Was he an alien worm?”

            “Maybe. Where those hula hoops in this costume?  He looked like a giant peach-colored slinky.”

            “He mustva been an alien worm.”

It would be a couple years before I realized what Mr. C was really dressed as that Halloween night.  In a dimly lit classroom, slid down in my hard plastic chair, I watched the fifth grade movie titled, “Your Body” and blushed as the cartoons danced across the screen and my classmates giggles rippled through the room.  I raced home from school that day and burst into the house, “Mel! He wasn’t an alien worm!”

Mel stared at me with a mouth full of Hostess Zinger, coconut and raspberry filling dripped down the front of her chin, “Who wasn’t?”

“Mr. C!  Remember that Halloween party when Mr. C came dressed in that funny hat and squirted silly string at all of the ladies?”

Mel chewed slowly.  “Yeah.  So?”

“Well he wasn’t a worm.”  I crossed my arms and smiled.  “Guess what he was supposed to be?”  I couldn’t wait to see the shock on my sister’s face when I revealed the disgusting details of what Mr. C was dressed as. 

“He was a penis.”

I stared at Mel!  “What? How did you know that…when-?”

“You mean you didn’t know that he was a penis?  This whole time you thought he was an alien worm?!”  Mel sputtered chunks of Zinger across the room.

“Well…yeah, I guess so.  I hadn’t really thought that much about it.” I stammered.  “Besides, how do you know what a penis looks like?  You are only in the second grade for Pete’s sake!”

“Tony Richards.”  Mel licked her fingers and stared at the ceiling. “And school is nearly out, so technically I’m practically a third-grader.”

I gaped at my little sister.

“You saw Tony Richard’s winkie?” I gasped.

“Sure, lots of times.”

I continued to stare and tried to calculate exactly when and how my sweet little sister had become a hussy. 

            “Oh stop.”  Mel hopped onto a kitchen stool and folded her arms across her chest.

            “You’re telling me to stop?  I’m not the ‘third’ grade slut.”

            Mel rolled her eyes.  “I only SAW his winkie.  Mrs. Richard’s babysat me while you were in school, remember?  And Tony liked to pee in the swimming pool.  I caught him red-handed!  He was treading water with a cloud of yellow water floating all around him.  The dummy tried to tell me that it was the dye coming off of his swim trunks.  I told him he better not pee in the pool again or I was going to tell Suzie Carmichael that he had a doll and even slept with it.”

            “Did I miss the winkie part?”

            “I’m getting there!  So anyway, Tony freaked about the whole doll thing and promised not to pee in the pool anymore.  But you would not believe how often that boy pees.  He pees more then a new puppy!  And most of the time he couldn’t even make it to the house, so he would jump out of the pool, run over to the bushes and pee right on Mrs. Richard’s roses.  And she thought it was the aphids that were killing her roses, Ha!”

“Ewww.  He peed in front of you?”

“Yup.  After a while he didn’t even bother to cover it up. He just pulled it out and let loose.”

“Gross.”

“Tell me about it.  He even tried to spell my name with his pee.  Boys are so disgusting.”

I nodded and grabbed a Zinger. “I can’t believe that my little sister has seen a real winkie and I haven’t.”  Mel laughed so hard she snorted Zinger up her nose.  Despite my 19 months and 28 days of seniority; when it came to boys, I was always running to catch up with Mel.  She first kissed a boy long before I did, and throughout our entire childhood she always had a swarm of guys vying for her attention.  They were drawn to her.   And Mel loved the attention.  One boy rode his bicycle seven miles in the rain, just on the off chance that he might catch a glimpse of Mel in our front yard.  He rode in figure-eights in front of our house for over an hour, but didn’t have the nerve to walk up to the front door.  My dad finally hollered to Mel, “For Pete’s sake, just go outside and say a couple words to that boy before he makes a rut in the road.  Damn kid is making me dizzy.”  Mel flipped back her shiny blonde hair, shot dad a wicked grin and said, “If he don’t have the guts to ring the bell, then he sure as heck can’t handle me.”  I looked out the window at the boy riding in circles, sopping wet and staring achingly at the front door.  I wished a guy would ride his bike seven miles for me.  And if he did, I wouldn’t have ignored him and left him out there for an hour.  My mom finally made Mel go outside and talk to the boy.  He nearly fell off his bike when she stomped outside and slammed the front door behind her. I couldn’t hear what she said, but he blushed and smiled a lot.  Mel sauntered back into the house and the boy stared after her.  He waited a full ten minutes after she left before he tore his gaze away and slowly pedaled home.  “What did you say to him?” I quizzed.

Mel flopped onto the couch and grinned, “Nothing.”

“Yeah right, that’s why he was grinning like he just won the Publisher Clearing House Sweepstakes.”

Mel smiled softly.  “Really, that’s all I said.  I just told him that my Dad said he needed to leave and I would see him at school on Monday.”    She smirked and fiddled with the hem of her shirt.  I knew she was lying.  But it was clear that I wasn’t getting any details.  I could tell she didn’t really care about the boy.  She never fell for the nice guys.  With her stunning looks and razor wit, she had her pick of suitors, even in grade school. But Mel had a weakness for bad boys.  It was her Achilles’ heel.  Years later, it would nearly cost her everything.  Looking back, I wonder how different things would have turned out if Mel had paid more attention to the kind of boys willing to ride seven miles in the rain just to see her.

(in progress Memoir...more chapters to come!) 

The Legend of the Toof Fairy

“Hey Everyone! Check this out!” My husband called out cheerily as he laid a small plastic sack on the kitchen counter.  Our two young sons bounded over and stared intently at the tiny little white stones in the bottom of the bag.

 “What are those Daddy?” Jeff asked, tentatively poking a finger at the small oval rocks.

“Those are my wisdom teeth,” Burke replied proudly.  Jeff and Patrick oohed and aahed, obviously impressed.

“Why are they so tiny?” Pat asked.

“Not much wisdom, so he doesn’t need very big teeth,” I responded dodging and running out of Burke’s reach.

“Funny.  Actually they are so small because these are the seventh and eighth wisdom teeth Daddy had removed.  Most people only grow four teeth during their life.  My dentist said five or six wisdom teeth are rare, but eight is practically unheard of.”

Pat and Jeff oohed and aahed again.

“Wow Daddy, I bet the Toof Fairy is gonna leave you a lot of money for rare teef!” Pat marveled as he turned the bag gently over in his little palm.

Buke smiled and grinned at me evilly. “You’re right Pat, I bet the Tooth Fairy will pay me a lot.  Why don’t you go place this under my pillow and we’ll see what I get in the morning.” 

 Jeff and Pat raced from the room.

“That was mean.” I hissed.

“Whatever do you mean, Dear?” Burke asked widening his eyes.

“What are they going to think when there is no money there in the morning?” I demanded.

“Well then, either there will be money there in the morning or your two sons will no longer believe in the ‘Toof Fairy.’ And by the way, I prefer small bills,” Burke laughed as he ran from the room just missing the dishtowel I had thrown at his head.

He had me.  I love the magic of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.  I couldn’t bear the thought of the kids giving up that fantasy.  But I wasn’t about to pay-up either.  There had to be a win-win solution.

At five-thirty the next morning, Patrick and Jeff swung open the door to our bedroom and leaped onto the bed.

“Did the Toofs Fairy leave you money Daddy?” Pat asked with wide eyes.

“I don’t know,” Burke said sleepily, “Let’s see.”  He sat up and moved his pillow out of the way.

The small plastic bag was gone.

On the mattress was a silver envelope with glittery edges.

Pat and Jeff both gasped as Burke picked up the sparkly package.  “What’s this?” he asked smiling widely as he felt the outside.  “Hmmmmm. Feels like there is money inside.”

“Open it, Daddy!  Open it!”  Jeff pleaded.

Slowly Burke ran his finger along the seal and lifted out a folded piece of paper.

“It’s a note!” Jeff squealed.  “The Tooth Fairy wrote you a real note!”

“The Toofs Fairy wote to my Daddy!  The Toofs Fairy wote to my Daddy!” Pat giggled and bounced up and down on the bed.

Burke narrowed his eyes and looked sideways at me as he unfolded the small paper.

I just grinned.

“Let’s see what this says,” Burke cleared his throat and read out loud.

Dear Burke,

I received your two wisdom teeth that you left under the pillow tonight for compensation.  However, according to my records, you have already submitted six wisdom teeth and been compensated for them.  The first four were left under your pillow March 13, 1984 and two more were left on July 18^th, 1987.  Unfortunately, each child is only allowed compensation for a maximum of four wisdom teeth.  Therefore you were incorrectly paid for two extra teeth.  I paid you.50 for each tooth. Interest accrues at a rate of .10 per month.  Since it has been nine years, since that payment, you now owe me 10.80 per tooth for a total of $21. 60.  For your convenience I’ve left an addressed envelope under your wife’s pillow.  Please leave the money in the envelope tonight and I will return to collect.  If you fail to submit payment, I’m afraid that I will have no choice but to stop visiting the Waldron household until the debt is paid in full.

Sincerely,

The Tooth Fairy

Patrick and Jeff stared at Burke with wide open mouths.

“Wow, Daddy,” Jeff whispered.  “She sounds mad.  You better leave her a tip.”  Patrick nodded his head vigorously in agreement.

Burke grabbed a pen off of the nightstand and started scribbling furiously on the invoice.

Jeff tried to read over his shoulder, “Kiss……my….”

“Nevermind!” I interrupted as I ripped the paper out of Burke’s hand.  “Of course Daddy will pay.  It’s not right to keep something that isn’t yours.  And yes Jeffrey, I think leaving a tip to say he’s sorry is a really good idea.  Now who wants pancakes for breakfast?”

“I do!  I do!” Jeff and Pat squealed as they ran for the kitchen.

Burke glared my direction.  “Oh that was funny.  You’re freaking hysterical.”

“Buster,” I called back over my shoulder, “That wasn’t even my best stuff.  So don’t even think about messing with the Toof Fairy again, and Lord help you if you go after the Easter Bunny.”