Thursday, June 28, 2012

Requesting A Do Over Of These Specific Times



I have one of the nicest jobs in my small town. I work catering, making some fantastic food in amounts large enough to ensure that I get a taste of the chorizo stuffed dates and skewered shrimp in mango chutney we prepare for some very appreciative clients.

I like the food sampling part of the job a lot. I also like the way I can stand behind my green cutting board with the perfect evening summer sun coming in through the picture window in front, the sound of my freshly sharpened knife chopping and dicing, while my mind wanders.

Most of my thoughts are sweet reminiscings of the day spent with my three children, but on occasion there has been the unpredictable mental wince that pops up out of nowhere, making me squint my eyes in emotional pain as my data banks cycle through like a roulette wheel and the memory dice land on a time where I wish I could have a Do Over.

Painful, humiliating, cheek burning recollections that come up and slap you in the face like some angry cuttlefish. I have had memories that come barreling in destroying the peace of an afternoon as an image of me is conjured up -- of times like when I was in the 8th grade and thought prepubescent me could somehow look good in a red tube top.

Want to know what a red tube top on a 5 foot 5 inch 94 pound thirteen year old girl looks like? It looks like this:

Subtract the men fighting for my hand and you've got a spittin' image of me at 13

I'd like a Do Over.

Of that end of school year day, when I walked into JCPenney's on Appleton Avenue and stopped at a display table in the Junior Department full of itty bitty 5 inch wide tightly cinched tube tops and said That's the look for me! I can ignore the 34B breasted mannequin filling in the prototype so nicely. This sausage encasing like fabric will look just as AWESOME on 28AA me. [a cup size that truly does exist. No matter what Victoria's Secret tells you]

And that's how it goes, one minute I'm at work, smiling as I slice ruby red Roma tomatoes and Vidalia onions into thin ringlets for tomato pie with a three cheese blend topping, and the next I'm almost slicing my finger off from the needle across a record scratch of a less than stellar moment in my life memory in my head.

I'd like a Do Over, a Do Over of so many moments when things seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Like when I thought I really had what it takes to haul an 18-month-old baby along with a three-week-old newborn with me for my annual tooth cleaning. Really?

Like that July afternoon when I attempted the community pool with a six-month-old baby and two-year-old toddler with the only words in the toddler's vocabulary being "let go a hand, mama ... let go a hand!..."

A Do Over, please, of the time I thought matte red lipstick, black mascara'd eyebrows, gold hoop earrings, and a spiral perm would NEVER make me look too ethnic. Nooo .... anyone can get shouts of "Hey! Maria! Is that you?" as they walk down a street.

Could I please also have that day back when I mailed a six-page-long hand written in my salty fat tears letter to my *one and only boy I will EVER love* telling him I understood what happened between him and Margaret after the party at Ronny's house on Saturday and I was all grown up and ready to forgive. Call me. Since this is 1982 and there is no voice mail, I'll be here all weekend. Waiting.

Can we turn back time to the hair appointment in 1983 where I said yes and let that two days out of Aveda beauty school hair "designer" talk me into hacking off five inches of lush locks for the Rosanne Rosannadanna? [especially this day, could we have back? This one still makes me feel like I can't breathe. I looked like an arrow]

And why? WHY can there not be for the love of all things holy a Do Over of the hour I wasted in my graduate school advisor's office while he MADE me listen to him practice his Shakespeare-In-The-Park for his community theater rehearsal that night? Like I didn't have other things to do? Do. Over.

And, finally, a Do Over, for the time I sat my college freshmen butt down at my can-you-believe-it-I'm-dating-a-grad-student!'s grandmother's house, while she served up a platter of I swear it's cauliflower! my favorite! that I excitedly heaped onto a pile in the center of my red apple rimmed china dinner plate, announcing, "These? I LOVE these!" with the dumbest smile possible as I shoveled gobfuls of cauliflower-looking rosettes of what was hand-whipped BUTTER into my pathetic mouth. [I still see your horrified face, Gramma Lucy, at your grandson's Latino girlfriend's mad passion for the oleo, which is why I'd like a Do Over. To explain.]

A Do Over, a start over, a repeat.

Just another chance to do it oh so differently. You know, like that first weekend in the summer of my thirteenth year, a Do Over, to whisper into my 8th grade ear as I picked up and tugged at the elastic puckering of the red tube top; a Do Over, to say, Get the ruffles. It's the sleeveless flowered chiffon number with the layers of ruffles hanging on the rack to the left that you want.


Image 

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**I'm over at CoffeeLovinMom's site today, shouting to the world about the one thing I just can't seem to do without: coffee. I hope you click over and meet Amy, I met her at Bloggy Boot Camp last year, and we were instantly comfortable with each other. Must be that Midwest thing.

37 comments:

  1. I've got more than a few of those myself!

    ReplyDelete
  2. thank goodness i never wore a tube top...smiles...but i got a few do overs i could take....

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  3. Oh I have so many moments I need a do over for!!

    Like the time I dated a weirdo for 2 months. *shudder*

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, I have some of those. Lots of those. I think everyone should get at least 5 do overs!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Five.

      AT THE VERY LEAST.

      SO good to see you. How is that beautiful mini you?

      Delete
  5. All of my do-overs have to do with breakups with men. UGH.

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  6. For me, shiny blue polyester zip-up shirt, worn to a Spice Girls concert.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See now? That...sounds like a BA move.

      No Do Over. Do Overs are only for screw ups.

      This was a ballstothewall life decision.

      Delete
  7. These cringe-inducing moments made us the sassy minxes we are today and we needed every single one of them...if nothing else, they became excellent blog fodder!

    p.s. your job sounds AMAZING!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lori: I have the best job in town. Every one wants it. They keep hoping I screw up but I NEVER DO.

      Kick ass, every freakin' time.

      I do bring it. Voila.

      xo

      Delete
  8. Oh, a do over for those poems I wrote that sixth grade boy when he broke up with me, claiming I'd never find another...and hush whoever whispered in my ear that only he would read them!

    Mulligan for the day my eighth grade self drank so very much...and everything that happened in the four hours after!

    Love this post dear sweet woman at the cutting board!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your comments are the best. Really. Your comments are better than my posts.

      Delete
  9. I laughed, wailed, and winced along with you to so many of those.

    The red tube top.
    The Roseanne Rosannadanna.
    The mouthfuls of butter. <---- psssst. I love me some butter so fiercely that I don't think I wold need a mistaken case of cauliflower to do that.

    This post was absolutely scrumptious. And not just the butter, I mean.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How you make me smile.

      You: so good for me.

      Thank you.

      Delete
  10. I am CONSTANTLY cringing over things I've done in the past. I don't know any other way to live.

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    Replies
    1. Yah. My therapist called it ruminating.

      Do Over, ruminating, tomato tomahto.

      xo

      Delete
  11. I'll take a do over for my partial perm in 1986. Just the right front quadrant. Yup.

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  12. there's an arm's-length list of boyfriends--each one a do-over, including the one I dated for 3 years and almost (shudder) married. had the ring and everything, and then thank god, came to my senses. On a less serious level? How about: I was a teenager in the late 70s & early 80s. Pretty much every single day was a fashion don't, and let's not even talk about the hair. Of which I had an extraordinary amount. Then there was the oh-so-hip haircut I got at teh Sassoon School in London...chopped off ALL the hair and what was left curled wildly. I looked like a human broccoli.
    But hey there, caterer extraodinaire. Why are there not RECIPES on this here blog? Cuz while I read this post, my mouth was watering...

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  13. I'd kinda like a do-over for the time I farted while showcasing my mad split skills during cheerleading tryouts. Then again, blog fodder and all....

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  14. Is there another way to live? Because if there is, I don't be knowin' it. I have elaborate do-overs IN MY HEAD, full conversations, change of mannerisms, change of outcomes OF COURSE. But then I'll always remember that this is not how it happened, it'll never be changeable and the other people involved to whom I made an ass of myself will always remember it correctly (even when I see them years later and I've convinced myself with one of my mental do-overs that it didn't happen that way. They still know. Bastards). We need one of those Men In Black continuum transponder (wrong movie? Eh.) things to erase people's memories.

    Specifically, the time I thought it'd be a good idea to accept a ride from a stranger who explained he couldn't take me straight home, he needed to make a stop first and that stop was a bonafide crackhouse 25 miles away from my house. DO OVER!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, A: we'll talk at BlogHer and do a bit more of the do over swap stories.

      In the meantime, I like to keep this place here "family friendly" with my life disclosures (ahem my children read ahem)

      Delete
  15. I can't tell you how many of those moments I have.

    What I really want to know is why these are entrenched in my mind just as clearly as 9/11. Because I can pull up leaving a poem and a rose in [name redacted]'s locker so that she'd see it, first thing in the morning on Valentine's Day . . . . and then everything that happened from there.

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  16. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy do I hear you on that haircut. I'm still cursing the last one I got.

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  17. "Good Day, Regular People" has been included in the Sites To See for this week. I hope this helps to attract many new visitors to here.

    http://asthecrackerheadcrumbles.blogspot.com/2012/06/sites-to-see_29.html

    ReplyDelete
  18. You are a fantastic writer. I chuckle, I cringe reading this. I can feel the emotions mixed up with my own 'yes-may-I-have-a-do-over-please' feelings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Mo. I think you have a certain charm to your words and would never confuse you with someone else.

      Your voice comes through, stronger each time: and you give off such a feeling of sincerity and true character.

      Thanks for being you.

      Delete
  19. Yes!! Do-overs! I could definitely use many of those. Oh my gosh - 'look like an arrow'?! I died laughing when I read that.
    This was just one of those perfect posts. Thank you for it, for you.

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  20. I can't believe it - I've always called them "cringe memories." But I don't know why - I haven't been plagued with those at ALL for as long as I can remember. I wonder where they all went? Or am I living a cringe memory on a day to day basis perhaps?

    I love the butter/cauliflower story.

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  21. You went to a dental cleaning with an 18 month old and a three week old? I.Am.So.Sorry. ;-)

    I'd like a do over of that moment when I told the hair salon lady to hack of the sides of my hair. Because "Bi-Levels" were in. Can you say girl mullet? I just cringed so hard thinking about it that I shivered.

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  22. The butter/cauliflower one cracked me up! Personally, I prefer butter to cauliflower any day.

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  23. I don't know how I missed this post the first time around, but I'm sure as heck glad that I've read it now. Love it, and good lord do I have a million things I could add to the list.

    But then again, if I had never done them "wrong," I would never know to do them different in the future ;) Well, actually, everyone should know NOT to crimp their hair and then try and cut it themselves, what whatever...live and learn.

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  24. Oh how I chuckled.

    The butter! BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!

    I would like a do-over.

    Of most of my twenties.

    CRINGE!

    ReplyDelete

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