(no subject)

A $70 order, a photo and an email from one of my fans in Germany:

i´ll operate the moonshine-madness very frugal and so i think i´ll survive another 4-6 weeks. doesn´t matter...

by th way, your staff is not just excellent in bbq, but as well in other cuisine: yesterday it was raining so strong, my girlfirend relented me to prepare "gyrosz" and rice (this is special meal from greece: cutted prokpieces, not too "dry", onions, garlic, spices, herbs and so on). in accompany with the "bad daddys el diablo" this was a real grat event!

so you see the reason why i need some bottles more - all my friends got chiliheads as well ;-) ok, we´ve been before, but check out the poor offer as in www.chili-shop24.de <http://www.chili-shop24.de/> ... i don´t remember how i survived without the slowburn-agency...

we shouldn´t be afraid the post charge: when this will get too expensive, we´ll just order a contaner service... but, this is not possible as well, because i´m very looking forward to come again next september to your shop ;-)

so, at last i´ll send a photo (i´m in the left!) to you, so you can see who´s crazy for your stuff!

keep it hot! i´m very looking forward!

jürgen

But while we're doing our best to promote harmonious international relations, we should never forget that we are the Dysfunctional Family Poster Child for the International School of Monterey!

I thought things were getting slowly better but then one day I left my glasses in the freezer. The next, I drove to the beach with an empty car – I'd forgotten the dogs.

I'm spacing out. Dissociating.

The day after that I got a phone call from Mrs. Shepard, Robin's homeroom teacher: I'd forgotten to give Robin his bus money.

Well, it had been a busy morning. I was up at 4 to do circus stuff. Then did the dishes, worked the broom across the floor. Roused Robin at 6:30. Roused Robin again at 6:45. Put the pizza in the oven – it's the only thing he'll eat for lunch. Looked at the incredible stack of bills and invoices littering the floor of my office and felt despair. (Every night I vow to myself: I will organize this! Every night I'm too exhausted to do anything other than cook dinner and oversee the Robin bedtime ritual.)

Robin had drunk all the bottles of grape juice I'd bought for his lunch so we had to stop at the gas station so I could buy him some milk. We were running late. Robin had gotten to school at 8:25 instead of the proscribed 8:20 twice last week; one more tardy slip and I would be forced to have a counseling meeting with the Dr. Volenti, an officious woman who wears long granny dresses and likes to talk about feelings (like I have any.)

So I forgot to give him the dollar.

"Robin is telling me you gave him permission to walk home," says Mrs. Shepard's voice over the phone.

"Well, I did no such thing. Let me speak to him please."

Robin tells me eagerly, "Well, Mr. Spedding says it's only two miles and most of it is downhill!"

At Robin's age, of course, I routinely walked two miles each way to school across Central Park – my mother and I lived on West 74th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam, and Hunter High School was on East 80-somethingth and Lexington. But that was then in that-which-does-not-kill-you-makes-you-stronger Manhattan and this is now in Monterey where white people come to play golf and die (not necessarily in that order.)

I sigh heavily. "I did not give you permission to walk home, Robin."

"But I could! It's not far!"

"The issue is that I did not give you permission. I'll come and pick you up."

Later that afternoon I get an enraged email from Mrs. Shepard herself. There is a middle school retreat planned to Sonora for the middle of September but Mrs. Shepard does not want Robin to go. She doesn't think she can supervise him adequately and is concerned for safety reasons.

At this point all I want to do is board that plane to Thailand, max out my remaining credit cards for plastic surgery (enough to shave the crepe off my neck) and start over again, some place far, far away from hot sauce stores, high-spirited children, and dogs who do not materialize on demand when I'm near the beach. I come from hearty peasant stock. I have a good thirty years left…

Don't I?

Instead I email Mrs. Shepard back in her own language, a scintillating blend of psychobabble and burocratic cliché. Blah blah blah. Of course you can't be expected to assume responsibility for the welfare of a child if you feel uncomfortable about it. But really. Robin is only high-spirited! Give him another chance. I know – let's have a meeting and draw up a contract! Pre-adolescents really go for binding arbitration.

So Robin and I meet with Mrs. Shepard. Mrs. Shepard is another one of those women who wears granny dresses and long, straight hair well into unflattering middle age, and like all the International School staff a grande maitresse in the subtle art of passive aggression. I'd rather be getting a manicure at Abu Grahib than talking to Mrs. Shepard but as I've lectured Robin until I'm blue in the face, strategic alliances are what's important here, keep your eye on the goal and the goal here is to get her to relent and let him go on the trip.

"The thing is, Robin, not everything about growing up is fun," says Mrs. Shepard.

Boy, you can say that again!

"But you have to learn these skills. Organization. Learning how to give accurate information. Otherwise you'll never get a job."

While Mrs. Shepard is talking to herself and Robin is sitting on a chair fuming, I am going through his desk. Every paper he was supposed to bring home for my signature – there they are, crammed into a crumpled pile. Five empty folders with subject titles and a messy wad of handouts.

"You!" I say to Robin in my Baaaad Dog voice. "Sort!"

The behavioral stipulations Mrs. Shepard and I sign off on – Robin is kind of sitting in on the negotiations as a hostage at gunpoint – include no more arguing! If Robin has a disagreement with a teacher, he is to write the disagreement up and hand it to the teacher at a later date. His only response in the moment is to be an enthusiastic "Yes, sir!"

"Well, what if it's a woman teacher?" asks Robin sullenly.

"Then you say, 'Yes, ma'am'," says Mrs. Shepard brightly.

"What if it's a transgendered teacher?" asks Robin. "Someone who's had a sex change operation?"

"We don't have any teachers who've had sex change operations," says Mrs. Shepard.

"What if you hire one next year?"

"Robin!" I say.

"Do you think you can agree to the conditions of the contract, Robin?" asks Mrs. Shepard in a cheerful voice.

"Whatever," mumbles Robin.

"I didn't hear you!" sings Mrs. Shepard.

He looks over at me. I am glaring. Your Playstation 2 is practically in the trash! the subtitles would read if this were a French movie.

"Sure," says Robin.

It only took Robin 16 hours to get into another violent argument with Mr. Spedding.

Upshot: Robin won't get to go on the Sonora retreat.

And I'm at my wits end with him. I love the kid but he is too much work. I have absolutely no support systems and I am sinking.