“He what?!” I flip my laptop closed and lock him in the stare of perpetual truth-telling. “Tell me everything you know.”

“I dunno. Sarah said that Alicia said that Carlie said that Amanda said that Indi kissed a girl.” He flashes a fiendish grin. Getting his brother in serious ka-ka is a full-time, full-contact sport.

“So we’re talking a rumour here?” I ask hopefully.

“Nah, he told me it’s true.”

I roll my eyes and begin a series of toe-tapping exercises. Normally, finking on his twin brother is punishable by discipline just short of death. I despise a tattle-taler. I close my eyes and do painful mathematical computations in my head. Keeping track of the boys’ “girlfriends” is about as easy as nailing Jell-O to the wall. “So who’d he kiss?”

“Tasha.”

“Tasha? But I thought his girlfriend was Carlie?”

“No, Carlie’s my girlfriend now.” Eden peels off his socks and throws them at the coffee table.

“I thought you were seeing Kacy?” I shake my head— my synapses are starting to misfire.

“Nah, we switched.”

“But he kissed Tasha?” I scrutinize the flow-chart I’ve compiled for exactly this purpose and give him a blank look. It just doesn’t add up.

“Sheesh Mom,” Eden snorts and addresses me like I’ve just come out of a coma, “His girlfriend was Michelle… but he dumped her so he could go out with Kacy… but she dumped him, so he kissed Tasha… and now he’s back with Kacy again.” He slides off the couch and heads for the computer. “Get with the program, Mom.”

“Get with the program?” My heart flips a double-beat and I make a mental note to file for an unlisted number. The last thing I need is to be charged with aiding and abetting the de-flowering of an 11-year-old girl’s garden. “Nobody answer the door or the phone,” I yell panicked. “Her parents are going to kill me!”

“Kill who?” Indi has one foot in the door, the other apparently lodged somewhere up my backside.

“Kill you! What are you doing kissing girls? You can’t be messing with girls, Indigo. Do you have any idea how complicated your life is going to be?”

“Huh?!” He nails his still-tied runners to the back of the closet and heaves his backpack on the floor.

“You kiss a girl and you’ll be a target for at least the next thirty years! Girls are complex, complicated creatures, son. There’s drama and emotions and expectations and jealousy and demands and game-playing and manipulation and guilt-trips and drama and emotions and expectations and… and…” I take a deep breath and wipe the foam and drool from my lips. “Don’t do it, son. Don’t be a slave to love!”

Indi gives a full-body shake and stomps to the kitchen to beat the “tale” off his brother.

“Trust me, I know. I’m a girl!”

So what do you do when your pre-adolescents think gob-swapping is a legitimate after-school activity? Hell if I know. But according to my husband, the “curiosity” kiss is really nothing to be concerned with.

“The boys are just curious,” he says without looking up from the paper. “I mean, there was no ‘over-the-sweater’ action or anything.”

“No over-the-sweater… what?” I throw myself on the floor and will myself to breath. “No over-the-sweater action? How would you know?”

“He told me, yesterday.”

“Indi told you about the kiss?” I couldn’t feel more left out if I was an Eskimo at a toga party.

“Ya, he asked me not to tell you because you get too…ummm… emotional?” He chooses his words carefully.

“Really.” I pull myself up from the kitchen tile and brush myself off. Got to give the kid some credit. Looks like he might have us girls figured out after all.

It is with deep sadness that I write this. Despite our brief relationship, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude for your many years of service.

Thank you for your loyalty. You were there at all hours of the morning, noon and night. Your presence at parties, gatherings, and family barbecues was deeply appreciated. You were there for the good times, bad times, and most importantly, when things got really messy.

It is for these reasons that I find it hardest to dismiss you. Nonetheless, I cannot overlook this morning’s explosion that sent forty liters of water raining down on the basement laundry room. Yes, the industrial size box of laundry detergent can be replaced, but the seven hours spent cleaning the soapy flood is an infraction I cannot forget.

So, it is with deepest regret that I banish you to the darkest reaches of the garage. The hole in my kitchen cupboard is daunting. Despite the fact that in your later years you missed a spot here and there, I cherished you still. Your contribution to maintaining my sanity will be sorely missed.

Sincerely,

Arlena de Bruin

“What are you doing?” My husband stands at the bedroom door as I frantically pack a suitcase of basic family necessities.

“Packing…”

“Packing? Why?” His face is twisted like a question mark.

“Well, we’re going to a motel, of course,” I say decisively. “We can’t be expected to live in these sub-standard conditions until a new dishwasher arrives, now can we?”

Mark shakes his head and crawls back to the kitchen and the dishing disaster. Apparently his measurement of sub-standard is distinctly different than mine. I don’t expect him to understand. How can he even begin to comprehend the magnitude of my loss? Live without a dishwasher? I mean really, this is a partnership here… can we not have more realistic expectations?

I head back to the kitchen only to be caught by a flailing water hose that’s now power washing the ceiling, walls and hall carpet.

“What… the…heck…?” I blurt out between dodges.

“Quick, grab the hose so I can turn off the water!” My husband is crammed between the partially evicted dishwasher and the kitchen sink in a desperate attempt to turn off the water. After a heated discussion on the degree of intelligence it might have taken to paint over the shut off valve, the crisis is over. I look around at the dripping mess. If only there was a dry towel left in the house.

Don’t get me wrong, a dishwasher explosion may not be the most critical catastrophe in Kelowna today. In fact, it might not even make the evening news. But for a girl who’s never washed a dish by hand? The dishwasher isn’t the only thing having a meltdown.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Mark says as he puts down the phone. I brace myself. “Good news is it will only cost a month’s salary to replace the thing.”

“That’s the good news?”

“Bad news is we can’t get one until Tuesday.” He ducks his head and prepares for another hosing.

I sink to the floor. That’s not bad news. That’s a prelude to Armageddon.

“Next Tuesday? Are they crazy? Did you tell them my sanity depends on it?” Mark looks at me like the issue of saving sanity is past the point of salvation.

“Sorry, hun… that’s the best they can do.”

I slink off down the hall to do some deep-breathing exercises. Today’s Sunday. Like I’m going to survive until Tuesday.

My Dearest Frigidaire,

It is with deep anticipation and enthusiasm that I welcome you to our kitchen. Every time I gaze upon your shining, stainless steel countenance, I know I am going to be okay. Your 5-Level Precision Wash System, NSF Certified Sanitize Rinse Option, and BIG Tub Design were once but a fantasy of mine.

Please know that your presence is both a strength and comfort. I look forward to a deep and meaningful relationship with you, and would like to express my deepest gratitude for bringing peace and joy back into my life.

Sincerely,

Arlena de Bruin

P.S… my Therapist thanks you too!

“Why?” she asks me, lips pouty with that distinctive Merlot tinge, “Can I not have my cake and eat it too?”

It was a legitimate question. In fact, legitimate enough for me to ponder for days. What do you do when you have the cake clearly in view but you really want to eat it too?

First of all, whoever coined the phrase “can’t have your cake and eat it too” should be catapulted to the top ranks of the Sisterhood of Martyrdom. I mean really, think about it… what kind of self-sacrificing, self-deprecating statement is that?

Let’s reflect on this contradiction a bit further. I have some cake, but I really shouldn’t eat it because…?

It’s a legitimate reason to ponder.

Why must we insist on wallowing in a trough of self denial? Because cakes (not unlike crusts) were never meant to be eaten; they’re only a garnish? Because the Dingdong/Twinkie empire is merely a front for diet-drug conspirators who morph us into pill-popping, metabolism-boosting junkies? Because somewhere in Vanity Fair it says eating a slice of triple-layer, butter-icing, pound cake will net us a rump like Roseanne?

My opinion: if you’re an enterprising and savvy enough woman to get your hands on a chocolate éclair, why wouldn’t you eat it too?

Perhaps I should put this into perspective. Would you pour yourself a glass of Robert Mondovi Reserve Chardonnay and then use it to re-root your spider-plant? Would you sell your first-born for a pair of Jimmy Choo Panther slingbacks and feed them to your dog? Would you pre-order the Pay-per-View Sports Action channel for the honeymoon suite on your wedding night?

According to one source, the adage “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” was actually a proverb that was recorded in the book of proverbs by John Heywood in 1546. (Apparently Mr. Heywood has never had a spiritual experience gorging on chocolate fudge cake with six-inch layered icing.) And according to my research, it appears that the saying has continued to evolve over the past few centuries. For example, some variations have been: You can’t eat your cake and have it too. (Well, that’s kinda stating the obvious!) Eat your cake and have the crumbs in bed with you. (When applied to dating, this might have considerable influence.) Or my personal favorite: Why not just bake two cakes?

Case in point: some cakes are absolutely magnificent to look at… a six-tier wedding cake; a replica of Louis Vuitton handbag sculpted in birthday cake; a confectionary centerpiece of art. Then there’s cake that you just want to slam your face into and inhale like a Hoover Self-Propelled WindTunnel™ Upright. It tastes good. It feels good. And if you can make it to the end of the day without going into diabetic coma then you’re doing, in my sticky opinion, what God had intended.

To be truthful, I’m really not one to talk. I found my cake. I moved in with my cake. I married my cake. I pick my cake’s dirty socks off the bedroom floor. I wash my cake’s toothpaste gob out of the sink. I understand that my cake’s idea of foreplay is watching a rousing 4-3 win hockey game in double overtime.

So, is that an argument for patisserie-pounding abstinence? It’s clearly a reason for pause. I turn to my girlfriend and knock back the rest of the Merlot. “I feel your hunger, girlfriend, but sometimes cake is best left to the realms of window shopping.”

And don’t get me wrong, there’s probably some days in the month when I really wouldn’t mind drinking coffee with curdled chunks in it. Today just wouldn’t be one of them.

I look at the expiration date on the jug and groan. According to the psychics at Dairyland, the milk was scheduled to go off yesterday. That would be one day after the day my husband bought it at the store. I head out to the garage where he’s married to his latest purchase, a circular saw with state-of-the-art laser tracking. He displays his pile of creativity proudly. Who would’ve thought you’d get 4173 toothpicks out of a foot long piece of two-by-four.

“Mark… the milk’s gone off.” I hand him my curdled coffee.

“And you’re telling me this because…” He gives me a soured look.

“Exactly.”

It’s not that I don’t fully appreciate the fact that my husband will brave the hordes at the supermarket to do the weekly shopping. And it’s not that I don’t fully appreciate that most of the time he even gets everything on the list right. But curdled milk in my morning coffee? He’s either purposely passive-aggressive or it’s a clear indication of shopping sabotage.

Let me introduce you to the Expiration Date Debate.

“Did you check the due date?” I ask slowly. Obviously, extra emphasis on the ‘check’ part.

“Ahhh, come on … you know I don’t read the small print.”

I pick up the box from his new power tool. “Uhuh. Well then tell me this, Tim the Tool Man, what’s the blade diameter of your new saw?”

“7 ¼ inch.”

“Maximum bevel angle?”

“54.5 degrees.”

“No load speed?”

My husband looks suspiciously suspicious.

“Five thousand RPM?”

“Ah ha! Don’t read the fine print, eh?” I dump the curdled coffee in the box and stomp back to the kitchen to make myself an herbal tea. Easy for him to say, he drinks his coffee black.

So I ask you this, guys…what part of ‘expiration’ don’t you understand? If this was an isolated incident, I’d be the first to admit I’d have to drink my lumps. But this is an epidemic of much larger proportions- a sickness that has infiltrated the ranks of brothers, fathers, husbands, and sons. I understand that nature has never programmed men to make any date particularly important (My birthday’s in September, Mark…) but what part of ‘due date’ is not perfectly clear?

I think back to episodes of stale bread, moldy yogurt, and blue muffins (and no, they weren’t berry!) and decide if there’s any hope of changing my husband’s shopping habits, I’m going to have to do some research first. Unfortunately, my first Google hit is a recent study from London’s Brunel University that claims shopping habits are directly linked to evolutionary roles.

I scoff at the study’s opening line: “It’s official – men are better shoppers than women”, but read on. According to the 14 country study, females shop or ‘gather’ by searching and comparing alternatives. In contrast, men go ‘straight for the kill’ and in true hunter style, their heart rates even quicken during the moment of purchase.

I give it some thought. According to Dr Charles Dennis, the hunter-gatherer relationship has existed for 98-percent of mankind’s evolutionary lifespan. As lifestyles evolve, we simply adapt our behavior to suit our new environments. Can I really take offense to a million years of evolution?

Ah ha! So I’m having a light-bulb moment… If shopping can be equated with hunting, why wouldn’t men assume that ambushing a jug of milk on the grocery shelf would mean it had to be fresh? Maybe in the back of their evolutionary hunter-style minds, they can even still hear the cow ‘moo’!

I slink back into the garage to humbly take back my lumps.

“Hey babe, sorry about making a scene. I didn’t realize you were hunting. Who am I to argue the implications of your evolutionary roots?”

Nose to the grindstone, Mark’s abandoned the toothpicks and is sawing a legion of wooden spears.

“Scene? What scene?”

I breathe a gracious sigh of relief. Fortunate for me, my husband’s need to hold a grudge has a short expiration date too.

After a six month respite to both market my book and question the intelligence of the Universe, I’m finally back to what I truly love… writing. Not that writing is necessarily easy to prioritize in my life. For some reason, cleaning out my Inbox, dusting the light fixtures, and filing my grocery receipts seem to have a far greater emotional pull. Perhaps because my Inbox, light fixtures, and grocery receipts have made it abundantly clear they have very low expectations of me. They’re not asking for perfection. They’re not even asking for my heart and soul. Apparently, this works for me. It’s a relationship based on the mutual need to be productive without feelings of attachment or disappointment. Sheesh… I must really be afraid of commitment.

Writing and publishing a book has left me more open and vulnerable than a bullfrog in a blender. It’s left me hanging on the words and feedback of complete strangers and has shaken my belief and understanding of Self. It’s made me realize that the relationship with myself has been embarrassingly tied to the thoughts and opinions of others. And I don’t wear insecurity well. Dress that up with a pair of black socks and sandals and you might as well call me certifiable.

Not that my book has been met with criticism. In fact, the feedback I’ve received has been nothing but favourable. Believe me, I’ve grown. But I think every author goes through a process of deconstruction and rebuilding when they first release something as personal as a book—especially if it’s been a life-long dream. Reality is rarely conducive to the fruition of a thirty-year fantasy. Patience that surpasses all understanding becomes a daily, weekly, and monthly mantra.

So what does that have to do with my column? I guess it’s just a prelude to the awareness that as I have changed and evolved over the past six months, so has my message. What has become intrinsically clear to me is that writing a column for the past four years hasn’t been a one-way conversation. Unbeknownst to me, it’s been an exercise in building relationships with each and every one of you. At book signings and other gatherings over the summer, it has been a humbling experience to meet people who know me personally, and yet I know nothing about them. I want to know more about you and your life experiences. I would love to make my column more interactive and an opportunity to answer questions, comment on feedback, and get to know you better. And I promise to do that with the same wit, sarcasm, and insight I have shared in the past. I’m better for it.

So if you have questions or stories you want to share regarding relationships with others or Self that you believe would be suitable for the entertainment of all, please contact me at arlenadebruin@hotmail.com and if appropriate, I’ll use your input for future columns.

I look forward to your questions, comments, and wild and zany tales!

I’ve been a wet and wrinkled mess ever since!

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I have an unhealthy, co-dependent relationship with my laundry machine. That kind of admission would require a level of counseling I currently can’t afford. No, over the past five months, I’ve had to separate myself from our daily interludes and accept that my husband is now wooing the appliances instead. Do I feel like the “other woman”? Perhaps. Am I ready to call off the sick and twisted love triangle? Absolutely not.

You see, having a husband who’s actually willing to pursue a relationship with an appliance, of any sort, is a wild and wonderful thing. Why would I discourage personal growth like that? In fact, since he’s become the wash-and-dry philanderer, I’ve felt nothing but sweet, unconditional love for them. Needless to say, though, when the dryer went belly-up in the midst of a torrid, tumble-and-dry session last Friday, I felt as if my freshly laundered world had come to an end. Heaven forbid their affair should end now! They have so much more to learn from each other!

The next morning, Mark calls a repairman to revive the deceased and the prognosis is grim. Seventy dollars and a new switch later, we’re no better off. As far as the tool-man is concerned, the surgery’s cosmetic. His advice: take our 20-year-old model and trade it in for a new one. (Call me overly analytical, but there’s irony in that, I’m sure.)

“Can’t we just make do with the old one?” I ask.

“Only until she gets too hot and burns out again.” (Call me overly analytical, but I’m sure there’s irony in that, too.)

“Ah-huh.”

I slink back upstairs to break the news. “Apparently, she’s getting too hot.” I say defiantly. “Maybe you two should cool it down for a bit.”

Three days later and the dryer is dead again. What can I say? My husband’s relentless. She really didn’t have a chance.

“What are we going to do now?” I whine as I root through dirty laundry for something to wear.

“I guess we’ll have to buy a new one.”

I groan. This is the second major appliance we’ve had to replace in a year and we’ve only lived here for a year.

Mark unhooks the dryer and shoves it towards the door. “Give me a hand. Before we buy a new one, we have to get this one out.”

Two hours later, the dryer is as unyielding as a bunny-wielding mistress. It’s still on the wrong side of the door.

“Heaven and hell in a hand-basket…” I snap. The love affair is well past its usefulness. I want the cursed thing out. We try sideways, frontways, backwards and upside down. We try everything short of smashing the cursed Kenmore to pieces. (Believe me; it wasn’t from lack of trying!) No matter how we turn it, we can’t get the dryer past the furnace and out the door. “How in heaven’s name did they get this trollop in here?” I give it a swift kick to the rear and wipe my furrowed brow. “This family can’t live on a washer alone. There’s got… to be… a way.”

Another hour and pending separation later, the light-bulb goes on. “How old did that repairman say the dryer was?” I ask suspiciously.

“I don’t know. Twenty years?”

“And when did they say they finished off the basement?”

Mark’s face turns three shades of purple. “Two or three years ago…”

“Good grief!” I slump to the floor and convulse as if physically maimed. “You mean to tell me they built the walls of the laundry room AFTER they put in the appliances?”

WANTED: A hundred pounds of dynamite, pocket-sized dryer, and address of former owner. (…and no, not necessarily in that order.)

“Mom, can I…”

“…have…”

“…have…”

“… some-ICE-CREAM?!” (Shrieked in perfect unison.)

“JINX!!”

Don’t let me understate it. Imagine the latter screamed at a decibel that rivals a bomb going off in a bathroom stall. I mean, the competition couldn’t possibly be as effective if verbalized in a tone conducive to the hearing of the rest of the world, now could it?

Let me introduce you to the world’s most annoying game… in stereo. Recite these words along with me and I’ll show you how it’s done…

“Say…what… I… say…”

“JINX!!”

It’s really as annoying as that.

Now for some of you, any acoustic device that comes in stereo (surround sound, at that) might be considered an attractive feature. That’s because you don’t have twin ten-year-old boys with an obsessive-compulsive addiction to the “Jinx” game. Call me the Mother-of-all-party-poopers, but this game’s only slightly less hazardous than Russian roulette. Cock another noun or verb in that chamber and odds have it, mommy’s head will blow off.

Apparently, the aim of the game is to say something in unison with another person and be the first to yell ‘JINX!’, thus putting a hex on your dialoguing rival that can only be lifted by uttering that person’s name three times. In the meantime, your rival has been rendered mute. Now normally, having one of two screeching children muted, even momentarily, would be considered a good thing. In fact, a fabulously wonderful, extraordinarily favorable, historically significant, good thing.

Instead, take into consideration the ends to which a ten-year-old will go in order to get his poor, bedraggled mother to utter his name three times. Putting expletives and appeals to the heavens aside, it doesn’t take much. And therein lies the problem. Release the detainee in a series of hysterical reprimands… (eg. Indi get down! Indi get down! Indigo Arie de Bruin! … get off that table NOW!) and you’re back to the never ending banter of ‘who’s jinxing who?’

Did I mention I’m getting annoyed?

That being said, and fully appreciating the strategic advantage one might gain from this exercise, I decide to apply the game to my own miserable existence. “Imagine…” I conspire to myself, “…having the power to mute anyone at will!”

And so I lie in wait for my husband. I anticipate his every thought and move. I scrutinize his face and his features for the most subtle nuances and then, Boom! like that cannon in the bathroom stall, it’s here! I know exactly what he’s going to say…

“Arlena!” his face is contorted in a shaving creamed scowl, “Did you…”

“…use my razor again?!” I nail him in perfect unison, then follow-up with a clear and resounding…

“JINX!”

“Huh?” He shakes a bloody jaw.

“Eh-eh-eh! You’re not allowed to talk. If you get ‘Jinxed’, you’re muted until someone utters your name three times.”

“Ah-huh.”

“Eh!” I wiggle the finger of doom. “Abide by the rules.”

I slide out the bathroom and down the hallway. The power is intoxicating, exhilarating. I check my watch. I just saved myself a ten-minute dissertation on the complexities of a smooth, hackless shave. My mind is a whirlwind of muting ideas. Can you imagine? The possibilities are endless…

Husband’s getting on your nerves? JINX! Don’t like your best friend’s advice? JINX! Mother-in-law’s wearing you down? JINX! Boss is on your back? JINX! Think your politician’s full of…….. JINX!

Ha! I called you first!