The summer before my oldest child started Kindergarten his school sent us a list of supplies to bring with him on his first day of school. I studied the list and copiously followed its instructions. Securing the specific supplies made it necessary for me to make trips to multiple stores. It seems that while our grocery store carried things like gallon-sized, easy-zip plastic bags and boxes of 250-count, white tissues I had to look elsewhere for the more elusive jumbo glue sticks and dry erase board cleaner. My five year old and I etched his initials on every item he took to school and packed them in grocery bags. On his first day of school he looked like a pack mule.

Since I was a gung-ho volunteer back then, I signed up to help out in the Kindergarten classroom one day a week.  It didn’t take me long to observe that my nitpicky care in gathering supplies was thrown to the wind. Pencils, crayons and markers were dumped into community pots and in a few weeks’ time the supplies became a motley assortment of broken pencil nubs, dried out markers with missing caps and opened glue bottles that bled over everything nearby. None of the supplies came home; they couldn’t be separated back to their rightful owners and were in a shape too terrible to return.

In second grade the school added antibacterial wipes to their lengthly list so the students could clean their own desks off every day. I had become somewhat jaded by then and splurged for one container. I figured the school could come up with a better solution – like a custodian.

I wasn’t sure what a fourth grader needed with five different colored highlighters and three sizes of sticky notes. I sent one yellow highlighter and one sticky note pad. There weren’t any negative repercussions and I scored a small victory over THE LIST.

The years progressed like a Chinese calendar with every year being known for a different item only instead of the year of the rat or the dog, we had the year of the $85 graphing calculator, the year of USB memory card on a lanyard and the year of color-coded classes.

“Mom,” my son told me, “I need a blue notebook, blue highlighter, blue folder, blue pen and blue book cover for this class. For this class I need yellow, but they don’t make yellow ink pens…”

I surveyed our supply cabinet. “Here’s black. Your teachers will live,” I told him. And they did.

This past summer I played hardball. I walked brazenly past the half-wall of supply lists at Walmart without picking one up for the school district I live in. I purposely avoided the back-to-school aisles and told my kids I wasn’t buying so much as a packet of paper until I received all of their teachers’ class syllabuses. But I discovered that high school is a whole new animal. Read: light and disposable. Evidently the life of a modern-day high school student is unencumbered.

“Do you need anything for school?” I asked my son. He pulled a mechanical pencil out of his back pocket and wagged it at me.

“What about locker shelves or a stainless steel water bottle?”

He rolled his eyes up and thought a moment. “I could use some hair gel,” he said. “But nothing too smelly.” He started to walk away and stopped, “Oh. And don’t write my name on anything, okay Mom?”

“Right-O. Complete anonymity it is.” I smirked at him.

At 0-dark thirty the following morning I packed my son’s inconspicuous lunch in a plain, brown lunch sack. I followed his wishes not to pack anything too smelly (like a tuna sandwich) or anything that would leave his fingers discolored (like cheesy puffs) or anything that would stick in his teeth (like fruity chews). It was the perfect lunch for a John Doe.  And it made me almost long for the years of color-coding and initials on every crayon.

Just before he left the house I had a wild thought.  I tucked a note into his lunch bag. It was worded just elusively enough so that it would never be cause for public embarrassment if it fell into the wrong hands. My son never said a word about it.

A week later I carried clean laundry into my son’s room and plopped it onto his desk. Something tucked into the corner of his desk blotter caught my eye and I saw it was the note I had put into his lunch bag.

“Dear You,” it read. “Have a great day. Hugs, Mom.”

I smiled. I guess there is one ‘school supply’ you never outgrow.

Has anyone noticed that store receipts are getting longer? Yesterday I purchased toothpaste and mechanical pencil lead and my checkout receipt was 16 inches long. Maybe I should feel privileged that my local drug store is offering a free 8×10 digital photo if I spend $20.00 or savings points to use on more than twenty seven hair care brand names. However, the irony has not been lost on me that stores are using voluminous amounts of ticker tape to send messages promoting responsible recycling and earth-friendly products.

Using the medium of checkout receipts to communicate with the consumer is nothing new. Thanks to National Cash Register’s technology – that enabled stores to print on both sides of the register tape – merchants have been putting advertisements and coupons on the back of their receipts for years.

PCC Natural Markets, a Seattle-based organic grocery store and co-op began using registers just over two years ago that print on both sides of the receipt tape and reportedly cut their grocery chain’s use of receipt paper by up to 35 percent. That amounts to hundreds of miles in receipt tape each year. Chalk one up for communication ingenuity and a great use of resources and available white space. While I may grumble at the price of fresh produce during the winter months I can turn my receipt over and be consoled by the coupon for a $5.99 car wash or a buy-one-get-one-free tanning session.

Large conglomerates have taken communication to the next level by printing additional information on the bottoms of their receipt. Case in point: besides the date, time and items purchased my cashier –Whitney – was happy to serve me; I have the opportunity to win a Caribbean cruise; I’ve been invited to participate in a valuable survey; I am pre-qualified for a credit card; I may call the store manager with questions or comments and my opinion counts. Still, something must be said about waiting longer for a two-foot receipt to wind its way out of the cash register than it does to ring up the handful of items purchased in the first place.

To be fair, not every retailer is bombarding their clientele with lengthy receipts. Digital gas pumps still ask to print receipt at all. A ‘yes’ answer results in a tiny summary of purchase not much bigger than a standard business card; no hype, no gimmicks. Other companies have set a paperless precedent with online billing. With a few computer clicks the customer can remit that same bill online. Not a scrap of paper ever exchanges hands. It would seem that supermarkets, pharmacies and the like would follow suit and phase out physical receipts but that concept is still easier said than done. Aside from the fact that not everyone has access to a computer is the monumental task of devising a way to email a great volume of store receipts securely so as to safeguard the consumers’ personal data. And what of the customer who prefers to pay with cash?

In the not-too-distant past a stray register receipt might have slipped out of someone’s bag and fluttered around the store parking lot like a displaced goose feather. Now a discarded serpentine receipt writhes its way across the asphalt until it reaches a grocery cart and coils around the wheels like a boa constrictor. Considering the dumb luck that at least one out of four shopping carts has wheels that are already dysfunctional, jamming them up with paper just adds insult to injury.

Heaven forbid that same receipt should encounter a rain storm. I once rushed across the parking lot from my vehicle to the grocery store in a downpour and began shaking off my umbrella when a woman tapped me on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” she began awkwardly. “I believe you have toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”

“Really?” I craned my head around to look behind me. A first glance it certainly did look like TP on my heel but a closer look revealed a soggy advertisement for a $1 savings on a dozen doughnuts. I took the receipt into the store and held it under the powerful hand drier on the bathroom wall. The doughnuts were delicious.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/retailreport/2004474358_retailreport13.html

http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/why-paper-receipts-wont-die/

While spring has long been a favorite season to work outside in the yard sprucing up the landscape spring is also the season to “manscape” as hyper-conscious men go to unusual lengths to spruce up their own appearance. No longer do women have the market cornered on primping; the male gender has unabashedly entered the game. 

While wandering the aisles in a well-known department store I did a double take at a gadget that possessed a sort of space-age intrigue. It is called a Mangroomer and is as pretentious as it sounds. It is, in fact, a back razor for men. It features a telescoping handle angled at 135 degrees, for ease of use, and measures nearly two feet in length with a blade at one end to shave even the remotest areas of a man’s vertebral region. At the risk of sounding cliché, it looks so easy to use even a caveman could do it.    

I’ll admit I’ve seen some hairy men in my day but none that I’ve ever mistaken for a caveman. The concept of manscaping is a little over the top. It used to be that all a man needed was a blade to scrape the scruff off his chin and tweezers to yank the nose hairs that fluttered out from his nostrils like party ribbons. The twentieth century ushered in the practice of keeping men’s ear hair whacked to a manageable length as much for muffled hearing as aesthetics. But beyond that men are supposed to be hairy; it’s one of those things that set them apart from women and creepy Sphinx cats. 

One argument for back shaving is the amount of hair that clogs the shower drain. A few bucks and a trip to the hardware store will remedy that problem with a lint filter to place over the drain to catch any stray tresses before they disappear down the pipes. Other men believe that back hair is unsightly to women. It’s a slim argument at best; few women sit around appraising men to the extent that men evaluate the fairer sex. As a side note, any man with a steady job who isn’t tied to his mother by her apron strings is automatically in the running. Add a decent aptitude for conversation and a woman can even fall in love with man whose back could double as a bear skin rug. 

Still, some men are simply self-conscious about their furry shoulder blades. For these men a contraption like the Mangroomer, which retails for around $40, is a bridge to the chasm between beauty and beast. 

For those fastidious gents who can’t shake the notion that less is more, the operative word is stubble. Imagine ten times the stubbly surface area of a man’s face hanging up on a nylon blend shirt or silky sheets. Lying next to a giant sheet of sandpaper in definitely not something the ladies like.

 If an expanse of stubble isn’t deterrence enough then titanic razor burn might be. Shaving the posterior regions is a commitment to lengthy precision. No man wants to risk a hurried graze over the ole’ back only suffer the consequences of red bumps and itchy irritation later on. 

Finally, keep in mind that what one shaves one must keep lubricated. Scaly skin runs a close second to stubble. 

On the quest for a hairless back keep in mind that every grail comes with a price. Choose wisely.

There is a diametrical opposition to the way men and women pack for a trip. Whether they’re preparing for a two-week vacation or a short getaway, the male versus female versions of what will be needed to enjoy the same trip are as similar as the positive versus negative poles on a battery.

A woman plans a different outfit for every day. The possibility also exists that if her itinerary includes sight seeing in the morning and dining on the town at night then she’ll need two outfits in one twenty four hour period. Conversely, her male counterpart will wear the same pair of khakis every day of their week-long vacation. The only quandary he’ll encounter is whether to bring the brown loafers or the black. A man can go from casual to dressy by adding a tie and a sport coat to his khakis and loafers. Tell a woman to dress for dinner and she’ll need a garment bag to keep her “little black dress” from wrinkling and an evening repertoire of undergarments, hosiery and stilettos.

A woman carefully chooses earrings, necklaces, scarves, belts and bags to accessorize her clothing. A man pats himself down to make sure he hasn’t left his wallet, keys and iPhone on the kitchen counter next to his wedding ring.

Even a trip to the pool magnifies the difference between the sexes. A man’s bathing trunks weigh approximately six tenths of a pound and take up no more room than a flattened brown paper lunch sack. A woman packs a one piece and a bikini. The bathing suit she actually wears will depend on how she feels about her body that day.  Additionally she’ll require a bathing suit cover up, a cutesy pair of flip flops, sunglasses, Coppertone, a stylish floppy hat, a book to read and a brightly colored linen bag to carry it all in.

I should take this moment to interject that I am married to a professional traveler. Patrick is an international pilot who has honed the art of packing into something freakishly functional and devoid of all enjoyment. On our honeymoon, I stuffed three Samsonite suitcases to their hinges. My new husband showed up with little more than his shaving kit.

My neighbor’s husband has his own theory about this packing battle between the sexes: a man makes a commitment to wear everything he packs and only what he brings whereas woman wants options. Translated, that means if the only shoes a man has packed are white Nikes, he’s not going to obsess somewhere in the middle of the vacation about black wingtips. A woman wants to entertain the possibility of lounging around the hotel room so into the suitcase go her flannel pants, fuzzy slippers and terry cloth bathrobe. A man can also take an impromptu day to lie around the hotel room because he’s perfectly content wearing Jockey shorts, clutching the television remote.

I used to think this packing phenomenon only existed between adult couples until I had children; both a son and a daughter. In packing for a spring break jaunt my pre-teen daughter came lumbering down the stairs with an oversized suitcase, a pillow, her favorite stuffed animal and a bag containing various electronic games. My son descended the stairs right behind her with his backpack slung over one shoulder.

If ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ then what is a bird in the toilet worth? 

Since moving into our new home almost two years ago, we have had intermittent plumbing issues with our downstairs commode. The porcelain in question is situated in the half bath on the main level and is usually only frequented by visitors. We’ve been fortunate enough to avoid any embarrassing moments with our company plugging up the pipes but keeping a vigil for potty malfunctions does grow tiresome.

 The coup de gras on my longsuffering arrived when the super-duper, long-handled plunger guaranteed to suck anything up failed to dislodge a rather stubborn clog. My plunging resulted in a detestable ‘soup’ and much gagging on my part. I approached the dirty job again with more vigor and discovered that it’s possible to turn a plunger inside out, much like an umbrella in a wind storm. Unfortunately, just like an umbrella in a wind storm, the plunger also has the ability to snap right side out again. This action caused a cesspool tidal wave and resulted in a stinky time out for me.

 The sewer water in the toilet receded during the night and if the “Out of Order” sign I hung on the bathroom door didn’t convince my husband, Patrick, to investigate further then the sign on my forehead that said “Out of Sorts” most certainly did. He unscrewed the floor bolts on the commode and carried it outside. A few moments later he came back into the house with an odd look on his face. “Have I got an article for you,” he said.

 I didn’t want to see the john, much less write about it, until Patrick tipped the toilet up to reveal a cluster of black feathers and two orange feet. I was stunned.

 “Is that….a bird? It was indeed a fine feathered friend. The feet were followed by two wings and head with a yellow beak.

 “How..?” My voice trailed off as my brain fired in fourteen different directions at once and hit a dead end at every one of them.

 “At one time, the only things you worried about finding in sewers were alligators,” reports an April 2009 article in http://www.dailycognition.com  on the weirdest things ever found in sewers or drains. The article goes on to say that Roto-Rooter – the international plumbing and drain company – has rescued everything from false teeth and iPods to live cats and prosthetic eyeballs.

 In an even more bizarre story: “A woman in Germany put an end to her troubled marriage by chopping up her husband and flushing parts of him down the toilet, authorities in Brisbane said on January 9, 2008.”

 “‘You won’t find him, I’ve flushed him down the toilet,’ is what she told [her children],” said Andre Hartwich, a spokesman for police in the western city of Duesseldorf.”

 A quick search of those things that are safe to flush down the sewer pipes turned up multiple lists of things NOT to flush. Among them are such things as dryer sheets, coffee grounds and food scraps. I suppose if people are that idiotic they should also be told not to stuff toilet paper down their kitchen disposals.

 I don’t know where the bird in our toilet pipes came from or how long it had been there but I daresay that the moral of the story is: Those who flush foolishly may end up getting theirs in the end.

Some years back, Hollywood released a movie called Pay It Forward. The premise of the movie is a boy who is given a class project to complete by his social studies teacher. His task is to come up with a plan that will change the world through direct action. The boy devises a plan to do a good deed for three people who must, in turn, each do good deeds for three other people, creating a pyramid of kindness. The act of kindness is not paid back but instead paid forward to another person. Hence the term: ‘pay it forward.”

 I tried my own hand at paying it forward not too long ago and had my hand slapped. Since then I’ve been mulling the situation over in my mind wondering what the consensus would be if other people found themselves in the same situation.

 On a quick jaunt to downtown Dayton I parked my car in a lot where instead of taking a ticket on the way in and paying for the amount of time on the way out, I prepaid for a specific amount of time. It was the paper equivalent of a parking meter.  My business in the city took no more than thirty minutes but I had purchased three hours worth of time. On my way out of the lot I approached a man who was purchasing his own ticket. I offered him my ticket and said he was welcome to use the balance of my time. He could simply add more money for any additional time he needed. He smiled and accepted my ticket when another man standing nearby spoke up and squashed my good deed.

 The second man was the owner of the lot. He made it clear that sharing time was not allowed and he would issue a parking violation to the man who accepted my kindness if he used the balance of my time. I was stunned but managed to point out that I had already paid for the time. I asked him what the difference was between the way he ran his parking lot and the way people ‘share’ parking meters on the street. Isn’t it expected that any time left on one person’s meter will be used to offset the next person’s parking fee? Would anyone intentionally wait until the time in a parking meter expired before putting their own coins in? He told me he’d lose money if he allowed people to share time. I told him he was charging double and triple the time for one space.

 This “do good” concept didn’t originate with Hollywood. It is a little known fact that the idea was described by Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Benjamin Webb dated April 22, 1784:

 “I do not pretend to give such a sum; I only lend it to you. When you [...] meet with another honest man in similar distress, you must pay me by lending this sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro’ many hands, before it meets with a knave that will stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.”

 In sociology, this concept is called “generalized reciprocity.” The Bible phrases it as “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

I don’t know the end of the story because I wasn’t ready to die on that hill. I shrugged to the first man, acquiesced to the owner and left the parking lot in a disgusted state. I had tried to be kind. Oh well. Apparently we’ll have none of that.

I have always loved the smell of coffee. For me, coffee conjures up brisk fall mornings, lazy Saturdays and my mother preparing a thermos of java for dad to take to work on the graveyard shift. Yet for all the wonderful associations I remained a coffee virgin until well into my marriage. My husband repeatedly invited me to accompany him to coffee shops but I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just stir up a cup of instant Folgers at home.

 “I want to get away from the house, the phone and the chores for a while,” he explained to me.  “Besides,” he said tossing a little guilt into the pot, “aren’t I worth a few dollars?” I don’t remember if I played the dutiful wife or if Patrick finally wore me down, but whatever the reason I finally accompanied him and a coffee shop habit was born.

Once I sampled my first frappuccino it wasn’t long before I turned to the dark side. In actuality I’m not a true disciple of the bean; I need cream to take the edge off. Patrick, on the other hand, will drink a straight triple espresso that looks like motor oil and dissolves the end of the spoon.

Coffee shops have a heady aura about them. One can, in fact, keep completely to oneself while still being in the thick of the action. I think it’s akin to being an extra on a movie set while the Director – or in this case, Barista – barks out instructions: “Grande, iced Americano; one raw sugar with room.”

If one is an observer of human behavior a coffee shop is the ultimate laboratory. Set two people down opposite a little round table with with foaming cappuccinos and it’s like listening in on a therapy session. The whole of life and love can be solved over a single latte. In the movie, “You’ve Got Mail,” Tom Hanks makes a great summation about coffee shops: “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what [in the world] they’re doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self.”

Of course there’s nothing like frequenting a coffee shop to level the playing field. People of all ages and walks of life congregate having at least one thing in common. That thing, alone, is enough to break down an approachability barrier that might be insurmountable in another setting. Conversations are started over straws and stirs and intensified by the electric thrill of bumping hands while reaching for the skim milk at the same time. Two people can make a face-to-face connection and share a few billable hours sipping mocha breves with their laptops open – no strings attached. Move over chat rooms and on-line dating services; coffee shops are the 21^st century meat markets.

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name – or at least your drink. Savvy shop owners capitalize on this. There’s nothing like being greeted by name and asked if you’re having ’the usual.’ The icing on the cake is drinking ‘your usual’ with a table of ‘regulars.’

Coffee shops aren’t just about the coffee. They’re about an entire sensory experience; an active participation in connection and community. Refill anyone?

     It began the day I gave birth to a baby girl. Since Maddie was born with a head that resembled a creamy, pinkish cue ball my friends and relatives made it their mission to gussy her up with headbands and bows. A glitter-encrusted swatch of elastic was stretched around her noggin and a love affair with all things sparkly, twinkly and flashy was born. For my daughter, that is.

     I, on the other hand, have grown to loathe the iridescent specks that follow me around the house sticking to everything. Glitter is my nemesis, my Kryptonite, my modern day Moriarty. Turn glitter loose in your house and it will be harder to get rid of than black mold.

     “Close your eyes,” my husband murmured to me over a table at the coffee shop. He blew a gale force breath of wind onto my face. Did I have a stray eyelash? It didn’t feel like the romantic gesture that Hollywood portrays in the movies.

     “Uhp, it’s still there. Close your eyes again.” I could hear him inhaling. I ducked out of the way of Hurricane Patrick and put one hand over my cappuccino.

     “What are you doing?!” I demanded.

      “You have something shiny on your face. I think it’s glitter from Maddie’s sparkly mittens…or coat…or hat.” He spit into a napkin and leaned toward me.

     I held out my palm like a crossing guard. As a kid, I couldn’t prevent a spit-shine from my mom but as an adult I draw the line washing my face with espresso and biscotti saliva.

     When the weekend arrived I came down the stairs dressed in a black skirt for church. A few minutes later my son stood behind me looking panic stricken.

     “Are you wearing that?” he asked. The translation being, of course, that for some reason if I were to leave the house wearing that particular skirt his teenage life would be over.

     “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is my zipper broken? Slip showing? Hem unraveled?” My son could not speak. I bellowed up the stairs for my daughter.

     “Your rump is twinkling, Mom,” she told me. It was the dreaded glitter, alive again like the undead in a Dracula movie.

     I decided to take inventory of all shimmering objects in my daughter’s possession. It amounted to one third of her wardrobe including her pajamas, stuffed animals, craft items, hair accessories, body lotion and shoe laces. No wonder the devilish particles were everywhere. If I washed Maddie’s pajamas with our pillowcases then waking up with dazzling nasal hair was a no-brainer. I dusted my daughter’s room from ceiling to baseboards, beat her stuffed animals with a broom and vacuumed every other visible surface. I tossed the vacuum filter, scrubbed the underside of my fingernails with a bristle brush and gave myself a total body exfoliation.

     Three weeks later my husband was giving a routine ‘when-you’re-an-adult-you’re-going-to-have-to-think-of-these-things’ lecture to our kids (as parents are wont to do). They stared at him unblinking. After they left the room my husband turned to me.

     “Do you think I got through to them?” I looked at him, and then did a double take.

     “I’m sure your words sunk in,” I sighed, “after they were able to see past the fleck of glitter stuck to the end of your nose.”

I can recite the telephone number our family had when I was growing up but the address of the home my husband and I shared as newlyweds escapes me. Some may blame it on short term memory loss. I attribute it to the sheer volume of information a twenty-first century adult has to contend with daily. We are bombarded with choosing a username, PIN and password for just about everything we do online. Add to that a keyless entry, alarm code, locker combination and bank account. The threat of identity theft is too great for us to actually write the information down anywhere. Thank goodness all I have to remember is that the answer to my security question is my great aunt’s blood type and the bank will email me a new password that I’ll have to verify three different ways.

 If you add children to the mix, the information one needs to call to mind increases exponentially. The problem is further exacerbated by facts that are important but not used often. Sadly, the intermittent stuff is lost in a web of tangled brain conduits waiting to hitch a ride to the right place.

 For this reason, I have resorted to making up my own mnemonic devices. You know what they are; we learn them as kids to solidify particular bits of information in our heads. They are things like acronyms, rhymes or sing-songy phrases used to jog our memories. I suppose a few nerds out there would instantly know that the month of May has 31 days, but most of us would take two seconds to silently recite “Thirty days hath September, April, June and November…”

 What are the colors of the rainbow? Just ask Roy G. Biv. The letters in his name stand for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. Why did we learn that “Every Good Boy Does Fine” in choir and band? Because E, G, B, D, F represent the notes of the lines on a treble clef scale.

 When we moved into our new neighborhood, my kids had to catch the school bus on the corner of our street and one that begins with the word “stone.” The problem is we have both a Stoneridge and a Stonehenge street within walking distance. Fortunately I came up with a mnemonic device that is fail proof. The bus stops in front of the corner house with three flag poles on which are flown a number of alternating flags. For some reason the flags remind me of a pirate ship. So my train of thought goes something like this: English pirates, England, stones, Stonehenge. Stonehenge is the corner where my kids catch the bus.

 My husband thinks this kind of reasoning is nutty. I insist that these crazy associations work.

 In order to remember the name of the cute little theater near the parking garage in Dayton’s Oregon District, I thought about parking my dodge neon in the garage near the theatre; The Neon Theater.

 “You drive a Jeep,” my husband said.

 “But it isn’t the Jeep theater, it’s the Neon,” I protested.

 Mnemonic devices can also be used by assigning characteristics to things or people. The principle behind this is that the human mind remembers spatial, personal, humorous or meaningful information more readily than something arbitrary.

 Kaylee, one of the gals that work in our favorite coffee shop, is taller than me. I imagine her CALLing down to me. I call back up and tell her my order is oKAY. Kaylee calls. The other gal is Shelby. Shelby’s mom works at the YMCA so at any given time she’ll be at the Y; Shelby. My husband picked up my coffee cup and smelled its contents after I tried to explain that one.

 My girlfriend is engaged to a neat guy with a simple last name. I know it’s only four letters but which four? Since he’s also quite tall, I think of elevators and come up with the four-letter name “Otto” for the inventor of the elevator.

 “Don’t you mean Otis?” asked my husband. “It says ‘Otis Elevator Company’ in just about every elevator I’ve ever been in all over the world.”

 I gave him the evil eye. My word association was clever. I didn’t want to change it but I was, in fact, referring to Mr. Otis. I made a mental note to correct myself on the inventor of the elevator.  I neglected, however, to come up with a new mnemonic device. A few weeks later I made mention of my girlfriend’s upcoming wedding to someone else. I thought about her fiancé’s height and related that to an elevator.

 “She’s marrying a really neat guy,” I said. “His last name is Otis.”

If you asked me to bake a cake, I’d need a Betty Crocker box mix and a bowl. My neighbor, Debbie, bakes with something called The Cake Bible.

 For Debbie, it’s not about feeding a family but rather a food experience. The creations that come out of her kitchen are almost holy, and why wouldn’t they be with cooking manuals that sound as if they’ve been sanctioned by deity?

 “Come over for coffee while I make a pie,” she said to me on the phone. I sat at her dining room table sipping a latte while she cut nine pumpkins in half and put them in the oven. Forty minutes later there were pumpkins cooling on every available surface in the kitchen. Debbie was whirring pumpkin into orange mash in the Cuisine Art and her copy of  The Pie and Pastry Bible was being studied like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

 “Did you know that you can buy a can of Libby’s pumpkin at the grocery store for a dollar twenty nine?” I asked.

 “Oy!” Debbie shook her head. She isn’t Jewish but she can “Oy” with the best of them.

“You can even pick up a ready made pie in the frozen section.” I was goading her but I couldn’t help myself.

 Debbie stopped whirring and held up her index finger. She blinked slowly and waggled her finger side to side.  

 “You need to stop,” she said.

 I snickered and took another sip of my latte.

 Debbie should be on television. Visualize “My Big Fat [Assyrian] Wedding” meets Food Network. Forget Rachel Ray’s cutesy ‘EVOO’ (extra virgin olive oil). There’s a new gal in town and the word of the day is “Oy vey!”

Even though Debbie cooks with ‘sacred’ recipes, there are the occasional miscalculations. I remember a zucchini marathon in her kitchen that ended up with eight loaves of bread, three dozen muffins, a boat load of cookies and a gallon-sized Ziploc bag of grated zucchini for yours truly.

 “Uh, why don’t you freeze this grated zucchini for later?” I asked. I envisioned my family turning their noses up at zucchini patties every night for a month.

 “I don’t have room.” She pulled The Dessert Bible off the shelf and unwrapped a pound of butter.

 “How could you be out of room? Your deep freeze is bigger than your mini van!”

“Jim bagged a deer last season. And, of course, there’s all that pumpkin puree.” Debbie dumped a bag of powdered sugar over the butter and set the Kitchen Aid to ‘whisk.’

 “By any chance is that frosting for the zucchini bread?” I asked.

 “Butter cream.”

 “They sell that in the store too. Sometimes it’s on sale for ninety nine cents and has a picture of a cute little doughboy on it.” I poked the bag of zucchini.

 “Wendy Bauder, TELL me you’re kidding!”

 I raised my eyebrows and looked at her. Debbie sighed and measured out three teaspoons of vanilla.

 “So what are you making for dinner tonight?” she asked.

 “I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to consult my fast food bible,” I grinned.

 “Oy vey.”