Thursday, October 15, 2009

Women are crazy


As I was styling my hair the other morning, I thought of some of the crazy things only women do. When I say styling, I mean shampooing, conditioning, applying hair cream, root lifter (don’t ask), brushing with two to three different brushes, drying, straightening, curling, spraying and then finally giving up and reaching for a ponytail holder. It was at that point that I spotted my little blonde curly clip-on hair piece, and I couldn’t help but think, Women are crazy!

I would occasionally wear the faux hair piece whenever I was having a bad hair day or feeling just plain lazy. My teenaged daughter had one that she wore, too, until it fell off her head one day, and her brother stomped it thinking it was some type of creature. I wore mine to church one Sunday, and one of the parishioners went on and on about how great my hair looked. I said thank you but felt a little like a fraud in the Lord’s house and haven’t worn it since, although if hair pieces kept one from being holy, we’d have a lot fewer preachers.

So, without further adieu, here are few insane things only we females seem to do (feel free to add your own):

Pass off store-bought food as our own – I admittedly used to do this every tennis match with Publix pound cake. I would slice it and serve it on a crystal platter, smiling sweetly in reply to the compliments it received. Thankfully, no one asked me for my recipe. Just curious, has a man ever fretted about serving store-bought food to company?

Wear clothing designed to torture our bodies from high heel shoes, to jeans we can’t exhale in, to bras that defy gravity by squeezing and pushing, to Spanx, the modern-day girdle. You don’t catch men doing this. At least, I hope not!

Fret over thank you notes not written. I know every person I neglected to send a thank you note to throughout my entire life - everyone who gave me a wedding gift as we had too much libation and rashly opened the gifts without saving the tags, a friend who bought me a casserole after my son was born, and the moms who threw the end-of-the-year kindergarten party.

Moms also fret over whether or not their kids have sent thank you notes, no matter how old they are. In fact, my mom usually buys me a stack each Christmas as a gentle reminder. Btw, if you are reading this blog and haven’t received yours from me or one of my family members and are wondering whether we really appreciate what you did for us, particularly when my mom was sick, the answer is yes, and thank you so much.

Protect her child ferociously, especially if that child is a boy. Daddies look after their girls, and mamas protect their baby boys, even if his daddy says, “Leave the boy alone. He needs to toughen up.”

I once saw an ordinary-looking mother run out of McDonald’s at a breakneck speed and leap a four feet fence on top of a three foot wall in order to prevent a big kid from throwing balls at her younger one on the playground.

I myself am guilty of protective bouts, especially when it comes to bullies. Just the other day, my son came home dirty and frustrated. An older boy kept tackling him, not allowing him to leave the yard. I’ve been telling him to ignore him for months, years, even, until finally I could take no more.

“Just punch him one good time, and he will leave you alone,” I said, hoping Jesus was listening to his iPod, instead of shaking his head at my advice.

“In the face?” he asked, looking excited.

Now, as tired as I was of seeing my son hurt, I could not, in good faith, tell him to hit another woman’s son in the face. But the belly? Now that’s a different story, and I told him so. He grew unusually quiet.

“I can’t hit him, Mom.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“’Cause then he’d just hit me back. It’s better to just ignore him.”

And that was when I realized we girls might be crazy, but there is method to our madness.

1 comment:

My ADHD Me said...

Those "women are crazy" examples are 100% right!
Also, I hate bullies too. When my son (he's 18 now) was younger, I just knew he was going to be the one that the other kids would trip up on the bus etc. I put him in karate. Now he is a black belt. He has never been in a fight and doesn't even tell anyone about being a black belt. BUT he carries himself in a way that says......think twice!