Mommy with a Penis

Dear Store Owners and Kiosk Keepers, I have endured brightly wrapped candy, promising explosions of sugary goodness, awaiting me and my two tykes at every grocery checkout. After exiting the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, I have suffered dragging my kids through the Pirates of the Caribbean store overstocked with overly priced and cheaply made swords, hooks and buccaneer hats. I've even pulled my children screaming from displays of Fruit Roll-Ups, Chips Ahoy and Lays Potato Chips after gymnastics and swimming. (BTW, gymnastics and swimming, why at a place of fitness do you insist on hawking sugar and empty calories to kids? Paging Michelle Obama! ) Now, this by no means, is an old practice. When I was eight my family vacationed in Hawaii, and we were in some store and I was seduced by foil-wrapped glimmer and the promise of minty goodness in the form of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum. I begged my father to buy me a pack. Because for some reason, it was very important at that particul...

I am not one who needs to visit his past. But Michael relishes finding wayward family members and reconnecting with Frick and Frack who he bartended with in his Chicago days. He even has an almost manic desire to go to his high school reunion. And to make matters worse he always asks me to accompany him. Year after year (or maybe it's five years after five years) I have dodged this bullet, because really, aside from ingesting Borax in mass quantities I can't think of anything more heinous. That's not to say I don't understand my husband. He is an actor after all. Showing off is part of his stock and trade. And none of his other class mates defected to the West Coast, guest starred on numerous episodics from Criminal Minds to Monk , and have a current Lowe's commercial running. To put it simply, Michael wants to saunter into the chlorine-smelling conference room at the Alton, Illinois Holiday Inn and have folks unabashedly gush. Another thing about Michael, he...