Fitting in with the misfits

Kids give us an excuse to be as ridiculous as we want to be. And that is how I justify an otherwise disturbing scene that encompassed a recent Monday evening.

Bettie Anne, 19 months old, was wearing her favorite outfit: a plastic pirate's hat and her pink rain boots that are four sizes too big. She was also wearing her pajamas, which are not "pajamas" by anyone's definition other than hers: her ubiquitous pink bow and her pink-and-white polka-dot jacket. Yes, that's what she likes to sleep in.

 And I let her. Because I am the mom who, including at this particular point in time, wears a white wig for no reason. Bettie thinks I look better with white hair, based on her requirement that I wear this wig at all times while we play trains, but not when we play dolls or read because, gosh, duh.

 I've got it easy. Bettie thinks her dad looks better with blue skin. Which explains why, on this fateful night that I hope Bettie never remembers out-of-context in a psychiatrist's chair, he was stuck in a head-to-toe blue spandex Morphsuit. Not sure what a Morphsuit is? You're luckier than my neighbors. Which might explain why no kids ever trick-or-treat at our house, not even when we stack mountains of those addictive little pumpkin candies on our doorstep with a sign that says, "Take this, for my saddlebags' sake!"

 The neighbors might be terrified of us. But my daughter has no fear. Other than of normalcy. She screams in disgust when her dad takes off his stretchy blue legs to do things such as go to the bathroom or shower or go to the grocery store. If Bettie Anne had her way, every day would be Halloween.

Ah yes. That's my little mini.

 Sure, silly little things like the "alphabet" and "numbers" are neat. But what really fills me up with pride when she covers her feet with sidewalk chalk or paints her cheeks with watercolors or builds virtual pants on her little legs with hundreds of Band-Aids. Bettie laughed while we painted my bunny mask with fake blood, and it was her idea to decorate daddy's taxidermy hammerhead shark with thick silver necklaces. Her favorite toy is a realistic-looking, feather-covered black crow.

 Her creativity is as wide as the universe. It hasn't yet been smushed and boxed by peer pressure, self-consciousness and judgment. And as far as she knows, all daddies have blue spandex flesh, all kids wear pirate hats to breakfast and every day really is a special occasion to dress up. She can be anything in the world for no reason -- only limited by her imagination. And as her mom, it's my job to wind that up, let it whirl and get out of the way.

 Plus, it makes Halloween easy. She already has her costume: a pirate with a black crow on her shoulder. And no ghosts and goblins could possibly scare her. Not when she's used to a mandex-clad dad.

Photo by Larry Sullivan.
 
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Real rewards

One of the prominent qualities of a true fashionista is the ability -- nay, the instinctual need -- to one-up.

You wear a feather in your hair. I wear an entire ball gown made out of feathers. To Walgreens.

You wear a trendy patch of lace on your sweatshirt. I wear more lace than a Mexican quinceanera: a purple seven-layer(-dip) lace skirt, black lace leggings, a gray lace corset-style blouse and a gray scarf. Too much? Nah, I scaled back and I left the lace wrist-length gloves at home. Ridiculous? Only if you're boring. I prefer fearless and fun.

So needless to say, when my husband achieved the master one-up on me, it sent me into an identity-crisis tizzy.

He put the card in my pants. How? How did he do it? And more importantly, how could I ever beat that?

The challenge began about a month ago in the queue at Big Lots in Longmont. Despite the Hub's intimidating appearance -- he towers above Too Tall Jones like a 7-foot-tall tattooed totem pole -- he, like most huge beasts, is extremely gentle. So much, in fact, that he could not say no to the elderly cashier when she asked him to sign up for a Big Lots Buzz Club Rewards card. Just spend something like $200 a Big Lots and you can redeem your 20-percent-off reward.

Gee whiz.

I understand a Walmart rewards card because it's impossible to walk out of that war zone without dropping $2,000, even if you just "run in" to "grab some batteries."

But is it even possible to spend $200 at Big Lots? I don't think the entire store of dinged-up junk amasses to 50 bucks. And if we were to somehow blow that much cash at Big Lots, 20 percent off is a totally sucky prize. I mean, isn't the premise of the store that everything is already discounted? So, what, after spending $200 I can get my toilet paper for $1.40 instead of $2 discounted from $5?

Obviously, I had to make fun of my husband, because I am as short as he is tall and everyone knows that short people are generally evil. To rub it in, I sneaked the Big Lots card into his car -- "Just in case you need it, sweetie."

Later that day, I found the card in my wallet. So I put it on his key chain. Without saying a word, he wedged the card into my lipstick.

Oh, hell no. Not the lipstick.

It was on.

He nearly choked on the card while popping sunflower seeds on our recent road trip. I nearly vomited when I found it at the bottom of my beer. Then it appeared stuck on the inside of my sunglasses, in the leg of his surfing wet suit, under his scrambled eggs, wedged inside my apple pie, in the left cup of my bra.

The card made it inside my book, inside his shoe, under my pillow and in the bag for my white Halloween wig.

I was impressed when he managed to affix it to my bobby pin while shopping in Vegas without me noticing. When he grew suspicious of my actions, I enlisted a friend to slip it in his right shorts pocket while we were dancing on Halloween. I thought the superlative was when I found the stupid card taped to my back; it had been there all day.

But then I found it in my pants.

This brought up all kinds of complicated emotions for me. How oblivious must I be to my surroundings if A) He had managed to accomplish this, and B) I had not noticed for I don't know how long. Not to mention the gross factor. He swore he'd disinfected it, but after the scrambled eggs and wet suit, I felt a little violated, I did.

Which brings us to today. I've been paining over how to get back at that sneaky freak of mine.

With the full acceptance that some things just can't be one-upped -- like, say, Gaga's dress made out of raw meat -- I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't at least try.

Dear Husband, I hope you enjoy your lunch. I made that pizza just for you. Pick a slice, any slice. I call this game Russian Rewards Roulette.

Have a heart

Photo by Tres Benet.

I didn't have the heart to tell the man at Shooters Grill and Bar that the autopsy-style y-cut stitches on my chest were just makeup, not a real tattoo.

Wait for it.

Didn't. Have. The. Heart. Zing. Groan.

Someone punch me.

"It takes real kahunas to get a tattoo like that," he had said, and far be it from me not to accept an undeserved compliment.

It took real, albeit slightly smaller, kahooties to wear the temporary markings out to the Boulder bars, too. I could have washed off my zombie makeup, after my performance with the Dollhouse Pole Studio's dance fundraiser. But beyond Halloween, how often do you have an excuse to wear neck stitches and fake blood out in public?

That's a rhetorical question.

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