Might as Well Laugh About It Now Read Online Free PDF

hair looked like Charo, circa 1969. I pushed the “Charlie Brown” book in her direction. “I need Lucy and Sally. Is there a chance?”
    “Give me an hour,” she said.
    “I only have thirty minutes! I have a pot roast in the oven!”
    “Okay,” she said, taking up the challenge. “You know, you don’t want to dry out those precooked roasts.” She winked at me.
    I take it I wasn’t the first mom to throw polyester wigs at her like a maniac who needed a miracle.
    I had to fake the wigs because I had also promised to be in the school auditorium thirty minutes before the play started to save seats for about fifteen extended family members.
    As it turned out, by the time I got the wigs to the school dressing room, it was already thirty minutes before curtain time, and I still had to go home and get Rachael and the other kids.
    I had to fake being able to save seats, too.
    I looked at the people starting to enter the auditorium and saw a good friend of mine who was coming by herself to support my daughter in her school play. As soon as I saw her walking toward the door with her program in her hand, I shouted across the parking lot to her.
    “Help! Can you help me???”
    She turned, startled, and started jogging toward me, thinking I was in dire trouble.
    “What is it?” she asked. “One of the kids? Are you ill?” Then she read my face. “You want me to save seats,” she said knowingly.
    “See how well we know each other!” I said, delighted. “I need fifteen.”
    “Okay,” she said. She very calmly took stock of what she was wearing. “I’ve got two socks, a belt, my purse, three tissues, my program, a jacket, and my sunglasses case that I can use to hold seats. I can lay my body across the other four.”
    I take it I wasn’t the first mom to ask her like a maniac to strip down to mark out a territory.
    When I walked back through the front door of my house, my kids were finishing up their pot roast dinner.
    Rachael hugged me. “Mom, that was so good! Your best one ever!”
    “Wait until you see how cute the wigs are,” I said to her.
    I roused everyone from the table as I popped a baby carrot into my mouth to tide me over. “Hurry! Get in the car. The play starts in twenty minutes.”
    My seat-saving friend in the school auditorium, who was almost down to her bra and Spanx, was relieved to see me after her hectic half hour of answering questions like “Excuse me! Is this gum wrapper saving this chair?”
    When the extended family members entered the auditorium five minutes before the curtain, I was smiling and waving from the row of saved chairs. My children were happy from their favorite “homemade” meal, and the audience clapped when they saw how much Lucy’s hair looked like Lucy’s hair.
    As a parent, it’s important for me to keep my promises. I can keep almost every promise as long as there are other busy women in this world—women who know what the demands of being a mom are like, who multitask as often as they breathe, who can see what’s needed and jump in, no explaining, no complaining. Busy women who I can count on to help me fake it when I can’t make it.

I’d Rather Play the Toilet

    That’s right. Donny plays keyboards. Wayne plays guitar. I thought I had it bad playing the marimba, but my poor mom had to play the hot iron every day.

    I was playing guitar onstage, finally! It’s what I always really wanted to do . . . when I was twelve . Not anymore. I was certain the huge projection screens looming behind me were capturing a close-up of my fingers on the strings. Or, more likely, I was being caught with my fingers off the strings. I can only play four chords semi-well: G, C, D, and A-minor, the only ones I had the chance to learn as “a minor.” Oh, and Dolly Parton had taught me once how to bar chords, when we shared a backstage area on the country music circuit in the mid-1980s. She had learned that technique so she could play guitar and also keep her beautiful long