ArcaMax

"What did Joel get you for your anniversary?" asked my mom.

"Nothing yet," I replied. "But it's a big one, so it should be something good."

"Any time a married couple doesn't kill each other for another year, it's a big one," she said.

I laughed. My parents had been married for 60 years, so my mother was practically an expert at avoiding ...Read more

"WAIT!" I yelled as everyone started to dive into their entrees. "Don't eat yet!"

We were at the kind of fancy restaurant where the food isn't just served, it's strategically arranged on the plate and balanced precariously in a tower like a game of Jenga.

My husband stopped with his fork in mid-air and stared.

"Why?" he asked. "Is there ...Read more

When my hairstylist announced that she was expecting a baby and would be taking a three-month maternity leave, my reaction was like the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief.

First there was denial.

"Are you sure? How many times did you pee on a stick?"

Then there was anger.

"Nooooo! You can't leave me!!!"

Then bargaining.

"Tell you what, ...Read more

My husband and I both got sick at the same time, with the same cold and all the same symptoms. The difference was, I made dinner, went grocery shopping and did the laundry, while he lay on his deathbed hovering between a congested coma and near-certain demise by sniffles. While this vast pendulum swing between my cold and his might confound ...Read more

"Can you tell me what comes with the garlic chicken?" my husband asked our server.

"I can tell you," I said. "Bad breath."

My husband rolled his eyes at me. We were out to dinner at our usual place and decided the chef must have come into a surplus of garlic, because everything on the specials menu featured garlic. Good for garlic lovers. ...Read more

It sounded like a pop, followed by the sound of whooshing air, and then a flap-flapping noise. I knew immediately what it was.

"What's that, Mom?" asked my daughter, looking around the inside of the car for the source of the sound.

"I'm pretty sure that is one of our tires, and it's on its way to being flat," I replied.

I'd barely gotten ...Read more

I'm not a french fry snob. I'll pretty much eat any kind of french fry, whether it's shoestring, waffle or curly; from a fast food restaurant, a steakhouse or my freezer. Given the choice between a baked potato or french fries, I will always choose the fries, thunder thighs be damned.

There is, in fact, only one thing that stands between me ...Read more

Although some people are uncomfortable going out to a restaurant by themselves, I am perfectly fine with dining alone. Honestly, with the level of pandemonium we used to have in our house, I was always happy to have a quiet meal by myself every once in a while. I don't ask myself to get up and get some more water, I don't typically spill food ...Read more

About five years ago I started having a problem with airplanes. It wasn't a fear of flying or a fear of the plane food or a fear that the person in front of me would recline so much that I would be forced to look up his nose for the duration of the flight.

No, the problem was my feet.

For some reason, suddenly, my body decided that feet and ...Read more

"What's in the bag?" I asked my mother as she got into the car. She had just come out of the hair salon and apparently had been talked into buying some hair products.

"New shampoo," she said with some excitement. "My old shampoo was terrible. It really dried out my hair."

"What brand were you using?" I asked. She thought for a moment. She ...Read more

"What do you want for dinner?" I asked my husband.

"How about fish?" he replied.

I shook my head. "I had fish for lunch. How about steak?"

"I'm sick of steak," he said. "How about chicken?"

I nodded. "Chicken it is."

My husband went outside to light the grill while I jumped in the car to go get the food. I had planned to run into the ...Read more

I saw it out of the corner of my eye as it darted from under the entertainment unit in the family room, around the corner and into the kitchen. Of course, I wasn't really sure if it was anything more than a dust bunny. However, it's pretty unusual to see a dust bunny with a clear agenda, and this one seemed like it definitely had a destination...Read more

When I used to live in the city, I would use my lunch break from work to shop one-day sample sales. This had the dual advantage of keeping me slim (no lunch) and getting cool clothes at a bargain. Of course, there were no dressing rooms at these things, and I live in fear of the day a hidden-camera tape surfaces on the internet of me ripping ...Read more