The New DUI

My Sunday column for Westport Patch this week.  Already got an email from a local cop to thank me for pointing out the wide range of things that can distract people while they're driving. But for the record, it was not at all the police's fault that there was all that there was so much traffic that morning. Sheer coincidence!

"Driving while drunk? That's so 1990.

Forget intoxication. The motor vehicle infraction du jour is driving while…distracted. The state-wide law has been on the books for a while. But on Wednesday the 26^th police decided to crack down, snagging people all over town who were on their phones or PDAs.

The sting operation took place during the morning commute to the train station. They set up a checkpoint at Bridge and Riverside to screen every driver.

I thought it was a great idea, despite the fact that my husband missed the train that morning because of the traffic backlog. Driving while texting is ridiculously stupid and holding a cell phone is nearly as bad. Studies have shown that we're four times more likely to have an accident when driving while using a cell.

Throughout the day, the cops ticketed 132 people. Seventy were using a hand held device. Sixty-two were not wearing a seat belt. (That one surprised me. Who doesn't wear a seat belt by now? Is it too much effort?)

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how unclear this rule is. It prohibits you from doing "whatever distracts you" say the Westport police. Most often, that's something electronic. But the Connecticut State Police website says that this rule encompases more than just texting and talking. They advise not to drive while putting on make up, changing clothes, shaving, looking at maps, reading the newspaper. Hmm. No changing pants or reading the Times, eh? That sounds like a no-brainer.

But what about novels? They didn't say anything about novels.

And banning shaving while driving is something I can get on board with. That's an activity probably best left to the home bathroom.

But the make-up restriction, I don't know about that. See, there's a whole range of beautifying activities, some of which require more attention and mirror-time than others. Eyebrow plucking? Eyeliner application? Nail painting? Sure. I'm with you there. Not so safe at 60 miles per hour. But what about, say, a quick swipe of lip gloss? Who among us isn't guilty of glossing while driving? Sometimes you just really need your Chap-Stick even though you happen to be behind the wheel.

Here's another one: How about hand cream? That probably falls under the "personal grooming" category. I put on lotion at stop lights all the time. So is that a ticket-able offense? (Then again, there have been a few times that my hands have been so greasy it's been a bit of a challenge to keep ahold of the steering wheel. Oops.) Just wondering how that ticket might read: "driving while under the influence of moisturizer"?

I just remembered that a friend of mine once rear-ended someone while she was examining....her split ends. (It's a story I never tire of hearing.) So maybe the CSP has a point here with this ban on personal grooming.

The bottom line is, "distracted" is a pretty vague term. If you want to get down to what's reallydistracting, it's the KIDS!

Cellphones and pagers are nothing compared to a 2-year-old who's having a melt-down and kicking the driver's seat because she spilled her Cheerios. Or the five-year-old girl whose world is falling apart because her brother has taken control of the DVD player and loaded up Star Wars. Can the Westport police do anything to help us moms out with that little distraction problem?

Lightbulb! How about if the cops start handing out tickets to the loud-mouth kids, instead of the parents? The fine could be along the lines of a Barbie outfit, a few dozen Lego pieces, or ten Silly Bandz. Hit 'em where it really hurts."

http://westport.patch.com/articles/the-new-dui

What's Bugging Me Now

This was my Sunday column for Westport Patch a  few weeks back. I forgot to put it up here, but it was one of my favorites. What a great job this is. I get to rant and rave about whatever I want and they pay me for it! Who knew? I should have been getting paid for my (prolific and widespread opinions) going way back. Instead, I've just been unloading it all on Jarv, who doesn't seem all that interested. Too bad for him.

"Things get on my nerves a lot. But the upside is that the things that bug me change frequently. So at least it doesn't get boring.

This week, it's shopping interactions. These are just basic daily exchanges that seem to get all muddled up – and it baffles me.

Take Trader Joe's. I love the store and do most of my shopping there. The staffers are generally pretty friendly and helpful. But sometimes that goes too far, like when they feel the need to comment on every little thing I'm buying. The comments go something like this:

Oh, this cereal's really great. Have you tried it with yogurt?

Are these No Pudge brownies any good? I haven't made them yet.

Cake, cookies, chips. Someone's having a party.

I'm afraid to buy any personal hygiene products there for fear of the direction that might lead the conversation in.

Even more annoying than the comments on what I'm buying are the comments on how much I'm buying. I've got two kids and a husband, so I can fill a cart pretty easily. We go through a lot of cereal, apples, and eggs. And I don't really like having to explain myself.

Wow, you must be feeding a small army at home.

"Yep," I reply. "Hungry kids. What can I tell you?"

I mean, this is a town filled with families, I can't be the only one who goes in to stock up, am I?

Then yesterday, it went past commenting and became complaining. My checker was dismayed at how much I was buying, which was only five bags worth. (Child's play, if you ask me.)

            Oh, I just saw how much you have on the bottom of the cart, she said, after scanning everything in the basket. I shrugged.

            Wow, you've got some heavy stuff, she sighed as she pulled out the bottles of juice and mineral water.

Yes, it's true. Bottled drinks are heavy and a pain in the neck to buy, shlep home and put away. What's even crazier was that I was bagging all of these heavy items myself. (That's another thing that bugs me about Trader Joe's: no baggers.) But should the people who are selling me the groceries be complaining about the fact that I'm giving them my business? I realize it's not her company. She likely makes an hourly rate, whether she's handling bags of potato chips or cases of soda. But that falls most definitively into the category of: Not My Problem.

It makes as much sense as a guy who sells tires grumbling that they're difficult to install. Or a jewelry store griping that their necklaces are delicate and difficult to handle. 

While we're on the subject of the check-out process, here's another thing I've noticed: if you bring your own bag – which we're all supposed to do now, right? – the clerks won't always bag your items. This happens most often in places like CVS and Walgreens. First, the checker will usually try to scan my bag as if I was buying it.  After I have to explain what it is, they proceed to leave my pile of purchases on the counter. I awkwardly juggle my purse and shopping bag, trying to load up the Tide and the Listerine. The checker stands idly by watching and the person in line behind me taps her foot impatiently.

Why? Why? Is the bagging process any different when you replace plastic or paper with a reusable cloth carry-all? Maybe the checkers feel like they're intruding into my personal space – as if they were packing items into my purse. It doesn't seem to be a standard policy, since it doesn't happen every time. When Westport outlawed plastic bags, wasn't going the reusable route the whole idea?

Come on, CVS, don't stick it to us for being green. Don't be scared of the bags. They don't bite.

Okay, I think that's everything on the list for the moment. Thanks for indulging me in my Andy Rooney moment. I feel much better now."

http://westport.patch.com/articles/whats-bugging-me-now

Funny of the Day

This was funny, in a slightly scary way. During bedtime snuggle, Mopsy was talking about a friend of hers  and confided:

"I don't think she likes my style."

Her style?! She's five years old, for the love of Pete!

She was, of course, referring to the hair. I should have known. The "poofy" "crazy" hair which she's convinced makes her an outsider in the land of the silky, straight-haired girls.

I know where you're coming from, sweetheart.

Dancing, No More

I'm confused.
What's with all the dry ice on the Dancing with the Stars final? And what's with Nicole and Evan being dropped down on the dance floor in some sort of glass pumpkin, spherical thing? It's all very Solid Gold, and not in a good way.

And then Kate Gosslin ended her silly dance by jumping up on some sort of platform that raised her up above the floor. Baffling. Also, the camera must have been convex (or concave?) making her face look really weird.

I mean, come on. We've had fans and spotlights and feathers and people being lowered down from the ceiling. And were those plums of fire at the end? Or fireworks? Enough with the gimmicks, already. I liked it better when this was a dance show, not a cheeseball extravaganza.

And on the subject of Kate, I was so excited when I remembered she'd be back tonight, just because I evilly love to watch her botch up a dance. And she delivered on that. The opening number was hilarious! First, they had her bopping in place on the stairs. She wasn't even on beat. Then, at the end of the dance, all she had to do was walk up to the front of the stage and do a simple little backwards skip with her partner Tony. Instead, she clomped up toward the camera and just stopped, as if she was waiting for someone to tell her what to do next! Tony was pulling her backward, trying to get her to join him in, I don't know, actually performing some dance moves instead of stomping around the floor aimlessly. Priceless.  If you recorded it, you've got to watch that part again.

She did look pretty, though.

But Buzz might have been more embarrassed than Kate tonight. They put the poor old guy in a jumpsuit covered with rhinestones and had him "dance" to the Star Wars theme. Hard to watch, that one.

But Nicole. Nicole rocked it as usual. Anyone with eyes could tell that she'd be the winner within the first 3 seconds of her very first dance. Evan is graceful and smooth and coordinated, but there's no comparison.

The rest of the season has just been academic.

Crazy for Silly Bandz

My Sunday column last week for Westport Patch:

"If you have no idea what this headline means, I'm willing to bet my house that you don't have school-aged kids. Either that or you've been on an extended vacation in Reykjavík.

The "Silly Bandz" are little bracelets that most kids in town – girls and boys – are wearing. They come in a variety of colors and shapes — tons of them: coyboy hats, dinosaurs, ballerinas — you name it. There are even some with glitter, some with scents, and some that glow in the dark, which are not all that conducive to getting a 5-year-old to sleep, I've discovered. The vast number of different rubber band bracelets kids can buy is sheer brilliance on the part of the manufacturer and is particularly grating to parents, who are dragged to the toy stores repeatedly to pick up yet another pack of the buggers.

Oh, and did I mention that we're talking about rubber bands, here? Rubber bands, for Pete's sake! I'd love to buy an economy-sized box of the old-fashioned variety at the office supply store and call it a day.

Even though Silly Bandz have been around for a year or so, someone apparently decided that they were suddenly very cool and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Kids are collecting as many as they can (we're talking hundreds) then trade, swap and evaluate their collections for volume and product selection all day long. They wear so many they go from their wrists halfway to their elbow.

The wave hit our hood about two weeks ago. One day, a trend-setting 2nd-grader wore them. And about 24 hours later, almost every kid on the entire street had joined in.

The teachers probably hate them as much as the parents do. About a week ago, they faculty at our school started banning them class-by-class. The kids were way more interested in glow-in-the-dark doggie bands than they were in the difference between acute and obtuse triangles. My daughter assured me that in her kindergarten class, Silly Bandz were still permitted as long as the kids didn't play with them. Look, but don't touch, was the policy.

Then last Tuesday, word came down from above. Our principal sent out an e-mail blast announcing that the bands were no longer welcome at school. The principal himself sounds like he's fallen under the Silly spell as well, referring to the bracelets as "clever," "charming," "creative" and "whimsical" in his e-mail.

I don't know about all that. They're rubber bands!

The reason I don't like them? My daughter wants to spend all of her money procuring more and more of the blasted things. (And no, I'm not paying for any of these purchases.) No matter how many she gets, I doubt it will ever be enough. Some kid out there will always have more. Or they'll have cooler ones. Silly Bandz have even sparked a full-blown melt-down one day after school when I declined to drive her (again) to the toy store. For me, anything that produces a temper tantrum loses any remaining scrap of appeal.

So now, they're school-time contraband. Which is sure to boost their coolness-rating exponentially. What better than an official ban by the authorities to make them even more desirable?

But I have an idea. If all the parents started wearing Silly Bandz, the fad would surely be dead before the week is out. Anyone with me?"

westport.patch.com

Funny of the Day

This was Mopsy the other day when a neighborhood friend gave her a children's book written in French:

"Charlotte gave me a book and it's in a different English!"


And then yesterday, she mentioned there's a new kindergartner at school.

"In Mrs. Burns' class, they have a new customer!"


Customer. Student. What's the difference?

Time Warp

My column on Westport Patch today:

"I was going to go to the beach last weekend, to enjoy the crazy warm weather, until my neighbor reminded me that I needed a beach sticker. Say what?

Sure enough, Saturday was May 1^st.

It's May? Then someone else mentioned that school gets out in six weeks. That really threw me. How is it possible that another year has flipped by already? It seems not long ago at all that last summer was wrapping up and the kids were picking out backpacks and lunch boxes. I know to them the past year was probably an eternity, but to me it passed in a moment.

There was so much I was going to get done this past school year: Tackle those photo albums, sort through the kids' old schoolwork, organize that mess of an art cabinet. Haven't gotten to much of it yet.

Is it just me, or does it seem like as we get older, time speeds up? It's adding insult to injury.

I've heard a few explanations for this time warp phenomenon. The first is that if you're, say, 35, a year in your life is proportionally smaller than a year when you're 5. It's just 1/35^th of your life, as opposed to 1/5^th, so it seems faster. Makes sense.

Another rationale is that when we have repeated experiences that aren't all that different from ones we've had before (like, say Christmas at the parents' or summers at the beach) our brain doesn't take much note of them. It says, in effect, "Yeah, yeah. Beach, pool, camp. Already got all that stored away. No need to think about it again."

Completely new experiences, however, make a bigger impression on the brain and it stocks away new memories. Looking back on it, those new experiences won't feel like they evaporated into thin air the same way repeated events do.

So maybe the way to put a stop to this whole disturbing time issue is to take up a radical, memory-jarring hobby. BASE jumping, anyone?

Here are a few other things that have happened lately that make me feel, well, old:

-- Aghast at how fast kids grow, I've caught myself saying things like: "I can't believe how big you are! The last time I saw you, you were this tall!" I've turned into that annoying lady already?

-- I had to explain to my kids that when I was young, we didn't have computers at home. I wrote school papers on this antiquity called… a typewriter. They looked at me like I am, myself, an artifact.

--Later, my daughter asked me – with a straight face – if cars had been invented when I was born. Thanks, kid.

--I caught the Hansen brothers on TV. Those little boys who sang "Mmmbop" a few years back – are now married and have kids. A lot of kids.

--Maybe worst of all, next weekend is my 20^th college reunion. When I first got the invitation, I was certain someone had made a grave mathematical error. Must be the 10 year reunion. 15, tops. But no, it appears they were correct. I'm hoping that if I don't go, it won't count.

I know I'm railing against the wind here, I just wish I could do something to slow this ride down a bit. There is one consolation if the BASE jumping doesn't do the trick. I can always go into Fresh Market where they card me when I buy beer. Ah, I get a big smile on my face every time I'm asked for my license. Me? Under 21? You're too kind.

Just don't tell me that they card everyone, please."

www.westport.patch.com