Tuesday, March 16, 2010

A Half-Empty Glass of Sour Grapes

Otherwise known as whine. This is what I've enjoyed to excess, oh, over the last week or so.

Another submission risked, nothing gained. Ha-ha! No, I won't say that. I've added another layer to the hide. That's definitely something.

The biannual (or should I say every-other-year) Bombeck humor-writing competition has come and gone. Gone, leaving talent in its dust. I can't imagine what the judges must have gone through themselves, but evidenced by these nonwinning but winsome submissions (http://lifejustkeepsgettingweirder.blogspot.com/2010/03/little-entries-that-couldnt.html and http://www.annsrants.com/2010/03/erma-bombeck-writing-contest-my-erma.html and http://joanie19.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/he-thinks-hes-human/#comment-27), they surely overlooked some, at the very least, honorable mentions! {If I've left you out, pleeeeeeeezzzzeeee let me know!}

Maybe the judges now have Montezuma's Writing Revenge. That is, they can only write like Faulkner or Joyce, some sort of verbal diarrhea. (If only!) Or perhaps they have contracted a horrible case of hepa-writis after a personality, er, I mean blood, infusion. Transfusion. Uh!

Dang, that was mean of me. But seriously, congrats to the winners. I always give it my best shot and am usually more or less happy with my work--all I can do is what I do and write about what I know. If the chips fall onto menopausal stories, so be it. Admittedly, I am not a Bombeckian--I know a few of her stories and books, but I'm no expert. An admirer, yes. A devotee--not yet.

Check out the self-proclaimed "leftovers" and see what you think. Oh, and here's my UNWINNING essay, too. I will celebrate it like I do an unbirthday--and, hey, since I stopped counting at 29, goodness knows how many submissions have tried and failed. Here's to another glass of Leigh's whine ...


Bombs away--my story was truly da bomb, not garnering even an honorable mention. So, I will dishonorably piss and moan here about it. There. I feel. Better.

If only I could call myself leftovers, too! For now, I'll just settle for a bad case of heartburn.

Cheers, y'all.
: )
---
My Bouncing Baby Boy Has a Little What?

Dr. Brusque groped. “Hmm.”

Dr. Brusque stroked. Then wiggled.

And finally declared, “It’s a bit small.”

She wasn’t our usual pediatrician, mind you. Dr. Bubbly was on vacation—and had apparently found a replacement with all the bedside graces of Dr. Frankenstein.

My mind raced. My face flushed. My heart clutched.

Then my hormone-ringed anger cup boileth over. (Think the salt on the mountain of margaritas I’d been holding off on ascending for nine long, saltine-studded months.)

“What do you mean ‘small’? As in abnormal? As in in-adequate?”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” she added, cavalier.

Hadn’t she ever heard the old maxim “Hell hath no fury like a momma scorned”?

I began to get the feeling that this doc would gladly tell Winnie the Pooh he’s a fat bastard. Or inform Elmo she’d just fed his piscine pal Dorothy to the cat.

“So what is it, anyway?” I continued, forcing a mom-frontation, however uncomfortable.

After all, no momma wants her new boy—her first—to be, um, underendowed. The nut, I mean butt, of locker-room jokes.

Holiday tunes tintinnabulated in my temporal cortex as she droned something about skull architecture.

Bells pealed as rage peeled back a fine façade of courtesy to expose . . . what?

More breakers of estro-testosterone hitting the shore.

And the fan.

To combat the disbelief surging in my brain, I composed a Christmas song on the spot in honor of Dr. Brusque, may she choke on her wassail.

To the tune of “Silver Bells.”

It goes something like this:

“Fontanelles”
--
Baby fingers, grasping fingers
Tipped with razorlike nails
In the air there’s a smell of poo-pee.

Children crying, adults sighing
Washing load after load
And at the ped’trician’s you hear

“Fontanelles, fontanelles
They’re very small on your baby
Ha-ha-ha, what a ma
Whose baby is less well endowed”

Stand-in doctor
Uncouth doctor
Saying just what you think
As the mommies rush
To shield their treasures

Hear the insult
Feel the tumult
This is Doc’s big scene
And above all this hubbub
You’ll hear,
“Fontanelles, fontanelles,
They’re very small on your baby
Tra-la-la, what a ma,
Whose baby is less ment’lly endowed.”
****
In the end, I was too exhausted from obsessing over my baby boy’s pygmy fontanelles to deck the halls—or the stand-in doc—this holiday season.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks Leigh for the "arf" and Jake says "Hi,"
    Joanie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing your leftovers!

    That doc should know better.

    Hey maybe we didn't win, but look at the bright side--

    NEW CHRISTMAS CAROL!

    ReplyDelete