Per his request, this is what I strapped in and drove to Ethan’s third-grade class today for Show and Tell.

 Because my minivan wasn’t cool enough.

In case you’re unimpressed, might I suggest that this sweet-faced stuffed teddy is no small force with which to be reckoned?  It is hairy and heavy.  I hauled it from Ethan’s bed, down the stairs, into the car, out of the car, into the school, through the library (my special shortcut), and into Mrs. Smith’s third-grade classroom–all by my lonesome.  Upon seeing me in the hallway, Ethan shot up from his chair like a rocket, leapt over several desks (and kids) to get to me, wrapped his skinny arms around the wooly mammoth and drug it across the (awful, sticky, germ-ridden) carpet.  He made his way to the front of the room and introduced “Beary” to his already-infatuated classmates, smiling magnanimously at their enamored oohs and ahhs.  Every hand went up with questions about the Great Big Bear, but since only three are allowed to be answered at Show and Tell, Ethan chose his questioners carefully and answered them wisely, looking down on his subjects with the wisdom of Soloman.  His admirers wanted to know:  where did he get Beary, how much did she weigh, and could their Moms still find them one for Christmas?  Ethan informed them:  from my big sister who didn’t want it anymore, I don’t know–a lot, and I think your mom could probably get it at Costco.  (I didn’t have the heart to tell them this last one wasn’t true.  This bear is so 2011.)  The kids nodded, satisfied and impressed, and it appeared that Ethan’s lifelong dream had finally come true:  he had minions.

The balance of the hour was spent with Ethan, Beary and me sitting around a table in the wet area enjoying our lunch. I hung my volunteer badge around Beary’s neck and Ethan beamed through his pb&j every time a fellow third-grader walked by and said, “Whoa, check out that bear!”  Then, when lunchtime was over, Ethan did something so rare it was almost unbelievable: he gave me a loud kiss on each cheek and a hug, and then another hug, in front of his friends.  “Thanks for bringing Beary!” he said, still smiling, then hopped off to his classroom.  I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms, looked across the table at the Beast, and sighed.  This school year has given me one daughter starting high school and another navigating middle school–with all of the angst and drama that that implies.  I love my girls and I love their ages, but today I decided that what I really love is Show and Tell.  If only Beary worked on teens and tweens.  I’d strap him down and drag him anywhere.

(And speaking of dragging:  Do you think Beary will fit in the washer?  Yeah, me neither.  I guess Maude can lick him clean.)

Remember that movie, 8 Seconds, about the talented but ill-fated bullrider?  (Yeah, I don’t really remember it either.)  What I do remember is that the hero of the movie wanted nothing more than to stay on a kicking bull for a full eight seconds which, to me, didn’t seem like much time in which to fulfill one’s  destiny.  But last weekend, due to forces both within and out of my control, my admiration and sympathy for this aspiring bullrider exploded.  Eight seconds?  It’s a lifetime–for renegades like us, anyway.

It all happened on the boardwalk of Seaside, Oregon.  I have decided that most great things in life occur on the boardwalks of small beach towns.  Where else can you pay a dollar to look at the ocean (pay-per-view telescopes) five dollars for a piece of fried dough dunked in cinnamon (elephant ear), and ten dollars to spend eight seconds on a plastic spinning shark?  Remember that song, Under the Boardwalk?  Forget it.  On top of the boardwalk–that’s where I’ll be.  Eating elephant ears and riding the mechanical shark, recapturing my youth for under twenty bucks.  Hey, it’s cheaper than most things I’ve tried.

I did not plan on sharing this thrillride with you, but since the Hub put it on facebook without telling me, I now feel a little backstory is in order.  How did I end up risking my life on this scary shark?  Well, I:

1.  Walked into a store where loud music was playing and many unsavory individuals were standing around the shark, looking at it as though they wanted to ride him but were too afraid.  (Excuse the gender bias, but due to heir cruel and competitive nature, I’ve always assumed all sharks are male.  No offense, males.)

2.  Consulted with my mother-in-law and my conscience, then decided that I’d show said unsavory individuals a thing or two about Mormon Moms from the East side of the mountains.  (In the Pacific Northwest, unsavory West Coasters tend to look down upon us wholesome East Siders.  It’s a sort of West Egg/East Egg/Daisy/Gatsby/Jets/Sharks/Montague/Capulet/Soda vs. Pop kind of thing that I really don’t have time to get into right now.)

3.  Consulted with my stretch denim jeans, which had been worn for over three hours that morning and would thus provide the wiggle room necessary for the spread of my rear across Scary Shark’s spine.  This was both a happy and frightening realization, as it eliminated the last reason I had for not attempting Scary Shark.

And so, ignoring the tearful pleas of my already-mortified  daughter (tweens are so touchy!), I mounted the fiberglass mass.  And speaking as one of The Few who has done so, let me just tell you:  that shark wasn’t just scary, it was slippery.  Very slippery.  Sleek doesn’t begin to describe it; this beast had to have been rubbed down with Crisco by some Machiavellilan carnies who take perverse pleasure in luring Dorky Moms onto the machine, only to buck them off in a disgracefully short span of time.  What I’m really trying to say here is that my slow and awkward dismount from this spinning animatron was–as is everythin that goes wrong in my life–Really Not My Fault.  That fish was rigged.  I’m telling you.

And yet I clung to that scary, slippery shark with all of my motherhood might.  In fact, I’d like to think that my tenacity with the fish was a metaphor for my life.  (It’s a sort of Carpe Diem/Footloose/Life-Is-Not-Measured-By-The-Number-of-Breaths-We-Take-But-By-The-Moments-That-Take-Our-Breath-Away kind of thing that I really don’t have time to get into right now.)  And when, after a valiant struggle (and, I might add, some rather impressive cheers from the growing crowd) it was time for The Heroine to go down, I broke my fall skillfully and landed atop that rubber mat with an effortless grace that kept my dignity intact.  Watch:

Okay, alright.  I know it didn’t look like that shark was turning very fast, but as on of The Few who have mounted it, let me tell you:  it was actually spiraling out of control.  And I know that fall may have looked somewhat, um, slow, but as on of The Few who have fallen, let me tell you:  it was brutal.  And I know that my ride on Scary Shark may have looked short and safe, but as on of The Few who have ridden, let me tell you:  it was long and dangerous.  And slippery.  So slippery, in fact, that I’m proud of my 8 seconds on Scary Shark.  They can grease me down, they can buck me off, but they can never make me quit.  I paid ten bucks for these bragging rights, after all–that’s two elephant ears and one-third a bottle of Pearatin.  Do they think I’m stupid?

So last week, when I was answering the phones at school–

Wait.

Have I told you about this recent turn my life has taken?  See, this fall, I’ve volunteered to help in the main office of the middle school for two hours, every other Thursday, so the full-time secretaries can take their respective lunch breaks.  Now, I know what you’re thinking:  Two hours every two weeks?  That’s barely worth mentioning.  But let me let you in on a little secret, my secret-keeping sister (or brother):  the only job noisier, more exhausting and more grossly underpaid than that of a full-time mother is that of a full-time school secretary.  She works hard for the money honey.  And for four hours a month, so do I.  (Except I do it for no money, which is something I’ve developed quite a skill for doing over the last fifteen years.)

So there I was: signing sick students out, signing well students in, and listening patiently to parents who wanted to know, five weeks into the eight-week season, if it was too late to sign their daughter up for volleyball.  (True story.)  Amidst all this hubbub, I was also fielding bazillion phone calls, which is apparently the number of phone calls a middle school office receives in a two-hour period every other Thursday.  I’m telling you, that phone rings off the hook.  (And by that, I don’t mean the ring-of-the-phone is cool.  I mean, the phone rings constantly.  Did I just date myself?)  At any rate, I was flying from phone to parent to kid and back again, rockin’ and a-rollin’ way past my paygrade, when one phone call gave me pause:

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“Desert Hills Middle School.  May I help you?”  (I wish you could hear how freaking impressive I sound when I say this.)

“Hey!”  The man on the end of the line shouted through a crackly connection.  “Um…you there?  Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can.  How can I help you?”  (Smooth as hot honey.  Not to brag.)

“Yeah, um…is today Turkey Gravy Day?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Is it Turkey Gravy Day?  Are they having Turkey Gravy in the cafeteria for lunch today?”

“Oh, um, let me check.”  I checked.

“Yes, they are.  I mean, it is.  It is Turkey Gravy Day.”

“Oh, all right!  Listen, can you ask them to hold a plate of it for me?”

“Ask who what?”

“Like, the people in the cafeteria.  See, I’m on the school maintenance crew and I’m out on a job and won’t be back in time for lunch, but could they just make a plate of it for me and set it aside, and I’ll eat it when I get there?  I’ll pay for it and everything.”

“Well, um, let me check if they can do that.”  I checked.

“Yes, they said that’s no problem.”

“Oh, great!  Man, I’ve been craving Turkey Gravy for like two years, and I never know when they’re gonna have it, and so when I found out today was Turkey Gravy Day, I thought:  I gotta make sure I get a plate!”  The happiness in his voice was contagious, which is why it made me so happy to say,

“That was a good idea.  I’ll make sure they keep a plate for you.”  I hung up the phone a little exhilarated.  Oh, what power was wielded from the throne of the front desk!  No wonder these secretaries were always drowning in cookies and flowers; they are women in a position to Get You Things.

This gentleman’s passion for the Mother of All Starches reminded me of a similar episode that had occurred a few years prior, during this same daughters’ elementary school days.  I was eating lunch with her in the wet area one day, as all pathetic good mothers do, when a couple I knew came sauntering by, carrying pink plastic lunch trays loaded down with–you guessed it–Turkey Gravy.

“Hey Jen, how are you?”  The woman beamed at me as her husband caught up with her, both smiling and exuberant in the hallway.  I wondered at their giddiness as I set my ham and cheese sandwich down to smile back.

“Good!  How are you guys?  Here to eat with your daughter?”

“Oh yeah!  She’s been wanting us to come for awhile, but we kept telling her:  you have to wait until Turkey Gravy Day–we want to come eat on Turkey Gravy Day!”  They looked at each other and laughed, from merriment more than amusement.  They were obviously thrilled to be participating in what I can only guess will, at some point, become a national holiday.

“And may we ask what you are you doing eating a sandwich–on Turkey Gravy Day?!”  They threw their heads back laughing and then–I kid you not– broke into a spontaneous little jig across the shiny gray tiles.  Their balance of the loaded lunchtrays was impressive; not a drip of that gelatinous brew slid over the edge.

“Turkey Gravy Day, Turkey Gravy Day…we love Turkey Gravy Day…”  This was half-sung as they swung their hips and bee-bopped down the hall to join their daughter in a familial culinary bliss.  I looked at my quiet little sandwich and my quiet little daughter.

“Honey, did you want Turkey Gravy?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.  It’s disgusting.”

“I think so too!  Why does everybody love it?”

“Because, Mom–think how gross hot lunch is.  Turkey Gravy is like a tiny bit better than the rest of them, so people think it’s so good.  It’s like they are so used to gross food, they get all excited over something that’s a little less gross.”

I was impressed.  At the tender age of ten, my daughter understood the Stockholm Syndrome.  Give ’em the bad stuff, and eventually they’ll get excited about the not-so-bad stuff.  Sure, it may just be Turkey Gravy, but at least it isn’t a mess of sticky, tasteless monosodium glutamate and caramel coloring.

Wait.

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