Thanks for the Free Parking
I used to love Monopoly. My sister Marla and I would play all day and half the night. We weren’t just addicts. Monopoly fiends, that’s what we were. We fought over a lot of things, but we never fought over who would be banker, who would count out the money, who would put the game up, who would get the game out from under the bed. We were professionals. I’m not sure that a $500 bill exists in real life, but if we had ever been asked to break one down, it wouldn’t have taken us 30 seconds to count it out — and to include bills from every denomination down to $1. But we did have our little quirks. Marla, aka, “the Quitter” would get “tired” whenever it became apparent that she was going to get strummed. Sharla, better...
Grandmother Leopard
Families have a tendency to cast each other in roles. When I was a kid, I was generally my sisters’ cheerer-upper. If my sisters were crying for any reason, it was generally thought that I, as the oldest, was somehow involved. Even if I weren’t involved, I “should have known better” than to let happen whatever it was that had happened. Crying meant something bad had happened, so I felt it was in my best interest to cheer up and make my little sisters quit crying in times of trouble. At least while my parents were around. But to be honest, we were a family who could stand trouble, but not sadness. The epitaph on my Grandmother Leopard’s headstone reads “She was always laughing,” and she was. A lot of people might have...
Daddy
I never thought that I had much in common with my dad. As one of four girls, we did not have much interaction with Daddy growing up. To be honest, we didn’t have much interaction after we’d grown up, either. In fact, I estimate that were I to take a trip listening to a recording of every conversation I’ve ever had with Daddy, I wouldn’t make it past Houston. Or possibly Cleveland. A 10-minute conversation could be excruciating. A 45-minute conversation? Unthinkable. What did we have to talk about? We just didn’t have that much in common. I was a journalist. He was a mechanic. I had a college degree. He had no interest in college. I had lived most of my life in the city and had traveled all over the country. He lived most of his life...
I’m not an argue box, you’re an argue box!
My mother says I should have been a lawyer. This is generally her way of ending an argument — if it’s one I happen to be winning. She says I argue too much. I think what she means is that I argue too well. What she calls an argument, I consider a discussion, a debate, an exchange of ideas that require the use of logic and reasoning. Arguments don’t have to make sense. In fact, most of them are downright silly, and when they’re all over, it’s a little embarrassing to talk about. Growing up with three little sisters, I am well acquainted with the difference between and argument and a discussion. An argument is what you have with your sister when she comes home wearing your favorite dress, the one you’ve told her a million times not to...
In Case of Emergency, Open Can
One of the items suggested by the Homeland Security Council for inclusion in an emergency preparedness kit is a manual can opener. Being the sort of person who is never prepared for anything, it is of great comfort to me to know that my Swing-A-Way can opener has been quietly guarding me from untold disaster for decades. I gave up my electric can opener nearly 20 years ago when the real estate boom of the 80s gained us a home with a kitchen the size of a walk-in closet. It had about three square feet of counter space and one electrical outlet, so when I spied a manual can opener on one of those store displays aimed at pushing slow-selling items to impulse shoppers, I bought it. It took up no counter space whatsoever, required no messy electrical cord, and no...
Of Wives and Housekeepers
I had an occasion to speak to a junior high school class this week on the subject of “planning ahead.” I am not now, nor have I ever been expert in planning ahead. Neither do I anticipate this will change in the near future, although it won’t be for lack of a serious effort on my part. I have read shelves of self-help books. I have bought every kind of diary, calendar and organizational aid available to mankind. I have journaled, listed, and prioritized my goals. None of this has worked, and I do not anticipate that any of it will, because I am missing the one key element necessary to an organized life – a genie. Actually, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a genie, although their living space requirements are pretty convenient. Any...
Meet the Arla Sisters
“I really hope this doesn’t offend you,” the lady from New York wrote, “but I think the fact you and your sisters are named Karla, Sharla, Marla and Darla is HILARIOUS!” “Yeah, we think it’s hilarious too,” was my reply. “Hi-larious.” Actually, it is. Well, maybe not hilarious, although I could see how someone from New York would think so. Having rhyming names does come in handy for those “Let’s share something about ourselves with the group” situations that seminar leaders are so fond of. Sometimes it becomes the subject of discussion. “Hello. My name is Karla, and I have three sisters, Marla, Sharla and Darla,” (the sound of amused murmuring.) “Our middle names kind...
Karla Jo
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