Memo to Good Morning America

Dear GMA,

I know we've grown into an increasingly voyeuristic culture. With little starlets running amok every time you turn around, and millions of people desperate for any shred of evidence proving that they are in fact better than highly paid celebrities, it's easy to see why the media business is booming and the paparazzi are even more in-your-face than ever before.

But please, GMA, you don't need to feed the beast by making it a point to ask excessively private questions when you interview Brad Pitt. The man is an actor and an activist. That's all I want from him. I couldn't give two shits about what his bedtime routine is with his little bundles of joy. Let him talk about his new movie or whatever cause he's supporting. If you really feel like putting him through the ringer, ask him how he can claim to be some big eco-warrior and yet still use massive amounts of air-polluting fuel when he takes private jets all over the globe.

To repeat: I don't care about Brad Pitt's personal life and what he does with his kids. When he starts actively seeking a new wife, then maybe let me know, because I have several beautiful single cousins who would LOVE to be Mrs. Brad Pitt. Other than that, leave it alone. I can see the neatness and symmetry of displaying a loving father who behaves responsibly opposite a rehab-happy white trash pop star who can't be bothered to learn how to operate a car seat (yes, I mean Britney, and no, I don't want to hear about her either). However, I'd really rather hear about what new projects Brad's working on that might actually have some kind of impact on my life. If I want parenting advice, there are magazines, websites, books, teachers, pediatricians, and veteran mothers across the street. I don't need Brad Pitt to set an example for me.

So, Good Morning America, please go back to your exposes on why everything is the government's fault and your cooking demonstrations. Otherwise, I'm just going to do what I did this morning: change the channel.

All the best,
Me

"How To" Series

I'm pleased to introduce a new feature here at "Sleep? What's That?" Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the How To series, in which I discuss creative solutions to problems both abnormal and mundane.

Today's topic:
How To Get a Glue Trap Off a Toddler's Bare Foot

1. If the trap is also stuck to something else, get that thing off first. Rip that sucker off, but be sure not to yank the child's leg when you do this. Also, if the glue trap is also stuck to the floor, please remember to maintain a firm grip on the toddler's ankle, but DO NOT pull by the leg. Pull from the edge of the glue trap.
2. Carry your toddler to the kitchen sink. No, not the bathroom, trust me on this, everything you'll need will be in the kitchen. Sit your child on the countertop with his/her feet in the sink.
3. Press record on your video camera.
4. Pour some cooking oil (preferably the cheapest stuff you have) onto the foot. Using a back and forth motion with your finger, work the oil between the sole of the foot and the glue trap to separate them. Be gentle, and do not try to yank the trap off, lest you take some of your child's skin off. Continue applying oil as needed. Once you have completely removed the trap and discarded it, there may still be a large amount of glue remaining on the foot. Proceed with steps 5 through 9.
5. Using a clean hand or utensil, scoop out a handful of smooth peanut butter and apply it to your child's foot. Using your hands only, rub the peanut butter onto the glue. You may need to scrape some of it off, so use either a fingernail (please not a sharp one) or a spoon.
6. If the peanut butter method still has not removed all the glue, move on to very warm water and dish soap. Be careful with your water temperature, lest you cause skin burns. Once again, scraping will likely be necessary.
7. If, after the soapy water method, you still have not removed all the glue, just use a DRY spoon and fingernails.
8. If you still cannot get all the glue off, you might try rubbing the glue with an ice cube. Be aware, your child will scream. Once the glue is hardened by the cold, it should respond to scraping with more of a flaking reaction.
9. If that doesn't work, please take your child to the emergency room. Don't forget to take the video camera.
10. Call your exterminator and demand a refund, especially if you noticed teeth marks or rodent hair but no actual rodents on the glue trap in the first place.

Best. Prison. Ever.

Dude, if I ever commit a crime and must be incarcerated, deport me to the Philipines and send me over to THAT prison. Reformation never looked so fun.

Traits

I enter the bedroom, plop down on my husband's stomach, and start kissing his face.
Me: *smooch smooch smooch*
Bizarro Dad: Okay, okay, I get it. You love me.
Me: Of course I do.
BD: It's all a front.
Me: What is? My kissing you?
BD: Your loving me. You only love me because you love my beautiful-baby-producing ability.
Me: So you're saying I only love you because I... love you? And because we made pretty kids?
BD: Yep, that's right. You said, "I think that's the one with the right genes."
Me: (giggling) You got me honey. I sat down and made a Punnett square and determined that all your most desirable features that I liked would be dominant, and all the ones I didn't like would be recessive to my dominant ones. Thus we would reproduce highly attractive offspring.
BD: I knew it.
Me: Unfortunately, Sia accidentally inherited your tiny-butt gene.
BD: Well, they can't be perfect.
Me: And it's probably better that way. Can you imagine how much trouble we'll have with her as a teenager if she has a big ass?
BD: Terrible, I tell you.
Enter Sia, who climbs onto our bed.
Me: Hi sweety.
BD: Poor baby, what did I do to you? You don't have a butt.
Sia: (putting hand on her butt) It's right here, Daddy.

Hamburger Hinderer

I hate Hamburger Helper.

The smell of it cooking makes me want to vomit. Its lumpy, slimy texture in my mouth makes me think I am vomiting. Besides which, cheeseburger and macaroni together are just unnatural.

I used to love the stuff.

Cheeseburger Macaroni was probably the last meal I fixed for my ex-fiance. In this very kitchen, no less. He was ecstatic. He said it was his favorite. He told me I was "such a good wife for making it."

The following week he started complaining about our weekend routine (I drive an hour to spend the weekend in the same town as him, we hang out, we have dinner and watch a video, we make out on the couch, he goes home and I drive an hour back to my college town). Then he started complaining about a lot of other things, all of which he insisted were my fault. Then he said he wanted to date a fifteen-year-old girl. She was a plus and I was a minus.

I hate Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper.

My husband loves it, and insisted on buying a package last time we went grocery shopping.

I can't even stand looking at the box. It screams at me silently, and I can hear it in every room of the house.

"You are inadequate!"

Lex Luthor: Moron

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to see Lex Luthor:

• Wear a track suit instead of Armani suits
• Talk like some kind of VJ
• Look like he's obviously uncomfortable talking like a VJ, but do it anyway
• Not know the socially acceptable behavior for any given situation (i.e. whether or not he should remove his shirt in a parking lot in the middle of someone else's face-off)
• Make up stupid answers to direct questions and expect to be taken seriously
• Not be able to hang on to everything he wants just because he has money
• Get served
• Get told that he has a small dick
• Have hair

Please rent Kickin' It Old Skool, starring Jamie Kennedy and featuring Smallville's Michael Rosenbaum (a.k.a. Lex Luthor when he was young and handsome and not played by an old fart).

Photos courtesy of about.com. Apologies to Michael Rosenbaum, who is totally hot in real life, ESPECIALLY when he's bald!

Grammy Mammy Pants

There are two things that run in my family along the matriarchal line: diabetes, and storing all our fat in the front of our stomachs, resulting in that six-months-pregnant look throughout the year.

Grandma, a diabetic of many years and a great lover of Dr Pepper and Mexican pastries, has finally reached the point of requiring insulin shots. It's kind of sad, but at least it's a tiny needle attached to a self-measuring device that looks like a pen, rather than the giant nail stuck to a glass tube her sister and mother used back in the day. Naturally Grandma has to worry about the usual related ailments, like slow-healing cuts and bug bites, shakiness, confusion, hypertension, and those whacked-out mood swings. Perhaps the strangest symptom of her diabetes has been her constant annoyance at anything squeezing her.

I wish I could count the number of times she's repeated "Diabetics don't like having anything pressing on us." She means things like the shoulder straps of purses, anything with a tight waistband, and overly tight socks (you've not been truly disturbed until you've seen a centenarian in leg warmers and flip-flops). But most of all, she can't stand to wear pants. In fact, I think it would not be a stretch to say she's probably never worn a single pair of pants in all of her 78 years. Elastic waist, jeans, slacks, belted stuff, things held up by suspenders, it doesn't matter, if the thing has a separate hole for each leg and is not a skirt or dress, she won't wear it, clamoring "It hurts, it hurts, I know it hurts, even though I have never tried it on, ever, I know it hurts."

However, for reasons that are bathroom related and are too gross to share with you, my grandma has now been forced to wear pants when she visits doctors' offices and labs.

Just as Grandma was worried about the possibility of giant needle-nails big enough to crucify with, she's also been concerned about the vice-grip waist of the slacks of yesteryear. She seems to forget that modern weighty women do not bother with the girdles and pointy bras of 50 years ago or, so help me, corsets. We would rather buy a larger size with a smaller number and feel comfortable while they trick ourselves into feeling thin.

Be that as it may, Mom and I were still worried that the elastic waistband of some stretch pants might still be too tight for my delicate little old flower of a granny. In fact, I thought it very likely that she'd let my mom buy the pants and then just not wear them. And of all the things that run in my family, the most powerful is the sense of pissed-offed-ness that comes from spending good money on something that isn't going to be used at all.

And then inspiration struck.

Since I inherited the looks-like-a-beer-gut gut, I've found that the easiest way to be comfortable without tossing on sweats is to put on my old maternity jeans. The elastic is a good two inches wide, so I don't have a narrow piece of rubber slicing into my belly, and it rests higher up on the abdomen. There are no drawstrings to stand there and mess with before I sit on the Throne. And the pants actually look nice while still being designed to expand as I need them to. I told Mom all about it.

I wonder if Grandma knows that she and I are basically wearing the exact same preggo pants without either of us actually being pregnant?