Tag Archives: humor column

February 6, 2015 · 12:00 am

Tete-a-tete: How Mom and Dad saved Christmas (and a hamster)

Teresa’s note: I realize this topic is a bit unseasonal, but sometimes strange things happen to my family and I simply can’t wait 12 months to share them. Thank you for bearing with me, and please enjoy.

Everyone is called upon to save Christmas at least once in their lives. Sometimes this entails snagging the impossible-to-find toy of the season, salvaging a burnt turkey, or squeezing in a trip home to visit relatives you haven’t seen in years.

And sometimes, it involves performing CPR on a hamster.

This Christmas was our first without Cleo, our beloved family feline who, as I mentioned in a previous column, passed away over the summer at the ripe old age of 22. It was also our first Christmas with Jinx, the hamster 15-year-old Younger Sister convinced Mom and Dad to acquire to help ease our heartbreak. I’m sure Cleo would be less than amused to know that our current pet is, from her perspective, an appetizer, but I digress.

As a Christmas gift, Jinx received a large seed treat molded into the shape of a bell. She nibbled on it for a moment and then lost interest, so Younger Sister put her into her hamster ball to get some exercise. The majority of the family gathered around the kitchen table for a card game while Jinx scooted around the first floor, occasionally bumping into feet and furniture.

It was late and the card game was running long, so Younger Sister (who claimed fatigue but was also bringing up the rear in terms of points) decided to drop out and play with Jinx in the family room. She took the hamster out of her ball and reclined on the couch.

A few minutes later, we heard a terrified scream: “Mom! She’s not breathing!”

Mom bolted up from the kitchen table and Dad pelted down the stairs, converging on a sobbing Younger Sister and an unresponsive ham-ham. The rest of us remained around the kitchen table, frozen in near silence.

None of us wanted to verbalize the thought that was on all of our minds: If Younger Sister’s hamster – the “replacement pet” for our dearly departed feline – dies today, this will officially be our Worst Christmas Ever and Younger Sister is going to need counseling.

In true wifely fashion, Sister-in-law turned to Oldest Younger Brother and asked him if there was anything he could do. Oldest Younger Brother, who works in computer software, did the only thing he could under the circumstances and Googled instructions for how to revive a hamster. I simply sat and prayed that we wouldn’t be taking yet another family pet to the animal crematorium.

Joyful sobs suddenly erupted from the family room, and we all realized that we, too, had stopped breathing. Mom hurried in to the kitchen to share the details of the successful resuscitative efforts.

Mom had gently taken Jinx from Younger Sister and was cupping the insensible hamster in her hands when Dad, who we had thought was upstairs resting, raced into the family room and started barking orders at Mom like an army drill sergeant walking a new recruit through rodent resuscitation.

As though he had been in this odd situation numerous times before, Dad confidently instructed Mom to press on Jinx’s chest with her fingers and blow in the hamster’s face in a scaled-down version of CPR. Mom did so, adding a mini Heimlich maneuver by allowing Jinx to dangle slightly in case anything was stuck. Suddenly, Jinx started breathing again and, after a moment, impatiently indicated her desire to get back in her ball.

Upon entering the ball, Jinx ran a short distance and then stopped. Mom, Dad, and Younger Sister had exchanged a terrified look, thinking the CPR had been unsuccessful after all, and then realized that Jinx had paused to vengefully devour the rogue seed from her Christmas gift that had been dislodged during the resuscitative process.

How lovely. So had Jinx expired, it would have been because she choked to death on her Christmas present. What a wonderful holiday memory Younger Sister would have had to share with her own children – and a therapist.

The seed bell went into the garbage to avoid any future near-death experiences, and Jinx continued to roam around her ball, enjoying her second chance at life. We returned to our card game, shaken and emotionally drained but exceedingly grateful for our Christmas miracle.

Saving Christmas is not about creating a holiday celebration that puts Norman Rockwell to shame, with picture-perfect food, gifts, and family interactions. It’s about going the extra mile to show our family and friends how much we love them, just as God showed how much He loves us by giving us the gift of His Son, Jesus.

Sometimes love is driving to a dozen different toy stores to find the only gift your child asked for for Christmas. Sometimes it’s scraping the burnt skin off a turkey and eating it with lots of gravy to show appreciation for the first-time cook who prepared the holiday meal. Sometimes it’s putting up with the stress of taking time off work and traveling just to see your relatives smile.

And sometimes, love is putting your heads together and doing everything you can to save a small, furry life. Love does what needs to be done, no matter how hopeless – or ludicrous – the situation may seem.

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published Feb. 5, 2015.

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January 31, 2015 · 2:07 pm

Tete-a-tete: Having trouble keeping your New Year’s resolutions? It could be “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” Syndrome

A formidable foe lies in wait to derail your New Year’s resolutions. It’s not a lack of willpower, a lack of self-discipline or your warm, snuggly bed. It is “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” Syndrome.

“If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” is a popular children’s book that, as the title implies, chronicles the complications that ensue when you offer a cookie to a mouse. First, the mouse wants a glass of milk to go with his cookie. This leads to requests for a straw, a mirror (so he won’t get a milk moustache), nail scissors (so he can give himself a haircut) and a broom (to sweep up his hair clippings).

The story continues, with the mouse pursuing items and activities that are further and further removed from his original intention of eating a cookie. Everything eventually comes full circle, however, leading the mouse to ask for – you guessed it – a cookie.

Just as the mouse gets sidetracked by things that are only tangentially related to his original intention, we, too, get distracted from the primary purpose of our New Year’s resolutions. Some of the things that come up do need to be dealt with in order to accomplish our goals, but we need to keep those goals in sight and not become mired in the details.

Let’s say, for example, that your resolution is to exercise regularly. You decide to start with the most obvious step: joining a gym.

But joining a gym means exercising in public, which means your stained sweatpants will most likely not be appropriate attire. So you go online in search of new workout gear.

You notice that the site from which you’re buying your new track pants also sells sneakers. Remembering that your left knee sometimes aches after you run, you do some research to find out which sneakers are the most effective at absorbing impact.

Then again, maybe a knee stabilizer would be better. You could buy one at the drug store, but these are your joints we’re talking about – you can’t be too careful. You call your doctor for advice and realize that your children are overdue for their annual physicals. After scheduling their appointments, you decide to check in with the dentist as well to make sure the kids are up to date with cleanings and X-rays.

You go to mark these appointments down on the family calendar, only to discover that the kids left the caps off the markers you use to color-code the calendar and the markers have dried up. An emergency trip to the office supply store is in order, and you might as well pick up the dry cleaning while you’re out.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t there something specific you were going to do today? You drive past the gym on the way to the dry cleaner’s, and the sight rings a faint bell.

That’s it – you were going to join a gym! And instead, somehow, you are picking up dry cleaning and buying new markers.

Here’s another scenario. Your resolution is to finally clean out and organize the junk drawer. You’ve avoided this daunting task for many years (since you moved into the house, come to think of it), but this is it. This is the year it happens.

You take out the first item to be dealt with: a screwdriver that tends to wedge the drawer shut every time the drawer is closed. Easy enough – that goes into the toolbox, which is right outside in the garage.

Next to the toolbox are a few cans of dried-up paint, left over from painting the porch last summer. When is the next hazardous waste collection day at the dump? You go back inside, look up the phone number for the town offices, and call to find out.

You mark the date on the family calendar with your brand-new markers and notice that the cat has kicked some of her food into her water dish again. Before you can wash and refill her dish, however, the breakfast dishes need to be taken out of the sink and loaded into the dishwasher.

Oh, except for that one. That mug needs to be washed by hand.

Your hand stings from the soapy water and you realize you have a cut on your finger. Ten minutes of rummaging in the upstairs bathroom produces a Band-Aid and the antibiotic ointment, which expired in 2010. It’s been a while since your last tetanus shot and since you don’t know what caused the cut, you’re off to the pharmacy for antibiotic ointment.

While you’re out, you might as well pick up the dry cleaning. And there goes your day of cleaning out the junk drawer.

I don’t think “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” Syndrome can be completely avoided – interruptions are a part of daily life, and everyone gets distracted from time to time. Being aware of the syndrome, however, can help you to be more aware of when you’re getting off track and you can then choose to return to your original task.

If you get so distracted that you miss your opportunity to work on your resolution on a given day, don’t berate yourself or give up. Instead, take a cue from the mouse: have a cookie and start over.

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published Jan. 29, 2015.

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December 19, 2014 · 4:59 pm

Tete-a-tete: When Christmas starts before Thanksgiving (a reflection on temporal discombobulation)

Since mid-November, I’ve felt unusually off-kilter. I feel awkwardly situated, as though I’m in the right place but at the wrong time or vice versa.

This is, I’m afraid, the direct result of having gone to the mall two weeks before Black Friday and discovering that Christmas had already arrived.

The mall itself and all of the stores were completely decorated, with holiday music piping over the speakers and a bored-looking Santa posing for selfies with his assistants because parents with small children had yet to get into the festive mood.

I am accustomed to a certain amount of chronological disorientation due to the nature of my work. I worked in the Telegraph’s newsroom for about ten years, and it was just a fact of life that you never knew what day of the week it was. You’re not only writing articles for the next day’s paper; you’re also working on pieces that will run a few days from now all the way up to a month or more in the future. Concepts like “Tuesday” only exist as deadlines, not actual states of being.

Now that I work for a magazine, it has only magnified my confusion in regards to time. Newspapers typically plan ahead in increments of days and weeks; magazines work several months ahead. I edited the December issues, with all of their Christmas content, back in September. Now that it’s finally December, I’m editing the March issues and mistakenly believing that warmer weather is just around the corner.

This temporal discombobulation is nothing, however, in comparison to the retail world welcoming Christmas before Thanksgiving. Younger Sister and I had ventured out to the mall to pick up Christmas hand soaps for a gift basket for a silent auction, and I must confess that our errand took longer than necessary due to my bewilderment. I simply could not get my mind around what I was seeing, and I kept stopping to gape at decorations and displays.

Entering the bath product store that sold the hand soaps was even more mind-boggling, with special holiday scents and gift sets having already taken the place of the non-seasonal inventory. There were so many Christmas items to choose from that I had to double check with one of the clerks to make sure I hadn’t overlooked any of the options.

The clerk was very helpful, but she looked as overwhelmed as I felt. I asked her how she felt about the premature holiday influx, and she admitted that it was a little disconcerting. But that, she said, is the direction retail is taking—getting the holiday merchandise out to shoppers as soon as possible, even if it means skipping another holiday in the process.

Don’t get me wrong—I adore Christmas. The spiritual significance of the holiday is paramount to me—my family’s Christmas dinner includes a birthday cake for Jesus (though we blow out the candles for Him). I also love the decorations, the lights, the music, and the emphasis on generosity and goodwill towards others that accompany the holiday.

But I also believe that the anticipation of a good thing is part of its enjoyment. Part of the reason that Christmas is special – indeed, that any holiday is special – is because it’s only celebrated for a limited period of time. If the celebration of Christmas was a year-round event, the ornaments and the prevalence of red and green would become a bit tiresome, just as even the hardiest New Englander welcomes a change of season after six months of snow.

Given the economic climate, however, and the fact that brick-and-mortar stores are trying to remain viable in the face of their online competitors, it’s hard to imagine Christmas returning to its normal time frame if these tactics prove successful. As someone who was able to assemble a Christmas gift basket for a silent auction two weeks earlier than anticipated, I must admit the early sales do have a certain usefulness.

So what, then, is the best way to combat the temporal disorientation that results from this bypassing of Thanksgiving?

When I worked in the Telegraph’s newsroom, we had metal racks labeled “Monday,” “Tuesday” and so forth that held the newspapers for that particular day of the week. My coworkers would walk over to the racks to get the day’s paper and, more often than not, freeze in confusion.

And so, I made a little sign that said “Today” and, after double checking the date on my computer, clipped the sign to the appropriate rack. Problem solved, at least in these particular circumstances.

I therefore propose that when stores set up for Christmas before Thanksgiving, they require their staff to wear large pins shaped like turkeys—the animal, that is, not the Thanksgiving dinner staple. That way, every time you interact with a store employee, you will be reminded that even though you’re buying hand soap that smells like gingerbread and candles that smell like holly wreaths, you still need to think about turkey with all the trimmings before you start trimming the tree.

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published Dec. 4, 2014.

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· 4:49 pm

Tete-a-tete: Sizing up a new family pet, or the difference between a cat and a hamster

Welcoming a new pet into the family is always an adjustment. Every animal is accompanied by its own particular routines, needs, and idiosyncrasies, and it takes time to acclimate.

Following the conclusion of 18 years of cat ownership, we’ve brought a hamster into the mix. And though it sounds a bit ludicrous to spell it out in this way, the thing that’s giving us the most trouble is that hamsters are much smaller than cats.

Cleo, our winsomely cranky family feline, passed away in July at the ripe old age of 22. That’s 22 in human years – in cat years, she was a supercentenarian. Over the years, our vet told us that Cleo must really love us to have persevered in the face of so many medical challenges. This is a kitty who stubbornly taught herself to walk again after suffering a stroke and insisted on navigating through the house on her own in spite of having become deaf and blind – conditions we were not aware of until the day Mom vacuumed around her and barely got a reaction.

Sadly, the hot summer weather proved too much for Cleo’s elderly ticker, and that stubborn little heart of hers finally gave out. She died at home, in Dad’s arms and surrounded by much of her family.

Seeing as Cleo was part of the family longer than 17-year-old Youngest Brother or 15-year-old Younger Sister (a fact I would occasionally point out when they complained about her stealing their spot on the couch), you can understand why we didn’t want to adopt another cat right away. Dad has also mentioned that if we got another cat and it lived as long as Cleo did, it could very well outlive some of us human family members and there might not be anyone to care for it.

The majority of the family had resigned itself to a petless existence, but Younger Sister was not so easily daunted. She is, to put it mildly, a tenacious and resourceful individual and took it upon herself to research cute, furry animals with relatively short life expectancies.

Which is how Younger Sister became the somewhat smug owner of a tan and white hamster named Jinx.

Since we are all rather starved for furry companionship, Younger Sister tends to draw an audience when she takes Jinx out of the cage to play with her. Such was the case one recent evening when Mom, Youngest Brother, Friend of Youngest Brother and I congregated in Younger Sister’s room to watch her clean the cage and let Jinx roam free in her little plastic ball.

At least, that was the ideal. In reality, Mom cleaned the cage while Younger Sister played with the hamster.

Mom asked if she could hold Jinx and attempted to cradle the hamster in the crook of her elbow, the way we used to do with our cat. Cleo would snuggle in this position briefly and then climb her way up the arm of whoever was holding her, ultimately coming to rest on their shoulder and burying her face in their neck or their hair.

Jinx, being much tinier in comparison, viewed this not as an invitation to cuddle but as a launching pad to freedom. She leapt out of Mom’s arms and into the void.

I happened to be occupying the airspace across from Mom at the time, holding the plastic hamster ball in one hand and the lid to the ball in the other. With Jinx hurtling toward me, I knew I only had one option.

Since my life is not an action movie, this option was not catching the hamster inside the ball. Fearful of accidentally squishing our newest addition, I instead permitted her to ricochet off my shoulder and onto Younger Sister’s futon, from which she was rescued – completely unharmed – before she could further broaden her horizons.

Jinx’s brief adventure led to a discussion as to who was ultimately at fault: Mom for attempting to cuddle the hamster in her arms, me for failing to catch the flying hamster, or Younger Sister for taking the hamster out of her cage in the first place. The consensus was that we’re simply not used to having such a small pet.

In Cleo’s younger years, we would often find her curled up in a dresser drawer or squeezed into some narrow crevice between a piece of furniture and the wall. Though it might take us a while to figure out where she was napping on any given day, we never worried that she may have gotten lost inside the house. Stuck somewhere, possibly, but never lost.

Jinx, on the other hand, is in a potentially perilous situation the moment we take her out of her cage. The house is unfamiliar territory to her, and she’s not big enough to really have a perspective as to which room is which. There are also far more places where a hamster can get stuck than a cat. We never had to be concerned, for example, that Cleo might get stuck in an empty mug that Younger Sister left on her bedroom floor.

It’s definitely going to take some time to adjust to the smaller size of our new pet and to learn how to handle her accordingly. In the meantime, we might want to distribute catcher’s mitts to anyone who happens to be in the vicinity when we take Jinx out of her cage.

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published Nov. 6, 2014.

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September 25, 2014 · 7:15 pm

Tete-a-tete: Family game night can leave you drawing a blank

Whenever people gather to play a group game, there’s always one person who is, for lack of a more affectionate term, a liability. The game will progress smoothly up until this person’s turn, at which point things hit a snag and the outcome of the game begins a hopeless – and often hilarious – downward spiral.

It could be an elderly aunt whose refusal to wear a hearing aid regularly derails your games of Telephone at family gatherings, or an elementary-school-age cousin who has no idea who Charles Dickens is, much less which of his novels you’re trying to act out in charades.

In our family, the liability is 16-year-old Youngest Brother and his unique way of perceiving the world.

We recently vacationed with a group of family friends and played a game that was a hybrid of Pictionary and Telephone, introduced to us by the mother of one of Youngest Brother’s friends. Each person wrote down a phrase on a piece of paper and passed it to the person on their left, who then drew a picture of the phrase on another piece of paper. They then passed the papers to the person on their left, with the drawing on top.

This person had to write on another piece of paper what they thought the drawing was and pass the stack to the next person with their description on top. The process continued, alternating between people writing what they thought a drawing was and drawing a description, until each person received their original phrase back, along with a stack of papers detailing the evolution of what had initially been written.

Everyone took turns to share their stack with the rest of the group, laughing over the more extreme discrepancies between the original phrase and the ending phrase. It wasn’t long, however, before we began to notice a pattern: in nearly every single stack, the chain of communication broke down at Youngest Brother.

Here’s one example:

Mom started off with a lyric from “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by The Smashing Pumpkins: “Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.” My youngest siblings and their friends listen to a fair amount of alternative rock from the ‘90s, so she thought it was a reference both the teens and the adults in the group would understand.

This led to a drawing of a rat in a cage and an angry face, which was misinterpreted as “hot rat.” This produced a drawing of a rat with wavy lines coming off of it, which became “stanky dead rat.” The next drawing quite accurately reflected this, and was described as “dinosaur (dead mouse).”

The reason for this description is that one of Younger Sister’s friends had noticed a dinosaur-like silhouette against the ceiling light in the cottage where the girls were staying. The silhouette turned out to be caused by a dead mouse stuck in the light, and Youngest Brother and his friends were summoned to assist in the removal process.

The next picture, drawn by one of Youngest Brother’s friends, thus depicted the boys and girls staring up at the rather morbid shadow puppet in the ceiling light, which happened to be located above one of the beds.

Youngest Brother apparently had no recollection of this incident and wrote, “Children being sucked from their beds into a crack in the window.”

I, unfortunately, was sitting on the other side of Youngest Brother, and did my best to create a drawing according to his specifications. This was interpreted as “dream,” which was the last phrase in the stack.

Now, I was willing to give Youngest Brother the benefit of the doubt on this, as the illustration he had to work from was a bit confusing. When I went through my own stack, however, I realized that we had a problem.

I had chosen “Iron Man” as my phrase, figuring that pretty much everyone would be familiar with the superhero who has been featured in so many recent movies. Instead, it led to an illustration depicting the Ironman Triathlon. This became “Muscle Man Triathlon,” followed by an accurate drawing of the triathlon events, which was in turn described as “strong swimmer, bicyclist and runner.”

The stick-figure illustration of these concepts was summarized as “Many stick figures doing various activities: skating, standing sideways, sitting on someone, wearin’ cool top hat.” This was drawn accordingly and somehow became, “Swag ‘Hunger Games’ on Rollerblades.” As such, the next person drew a stick-figure girl with a long braid shooting a bow and arrow.

You may be taking note of the various snags and misinterpretations that took place along the chain of communication and wondering how Youngest Brother could possibly be blamed as causing the ultimate breakdown.

That would be because, after examining the drawing of the stick-figure girl with a long braid shooting a bow and arrow, he wrote, “Girl’s brain falling out of her head while poking the letter ‘D,’” and proudly handed me the completed stack.

I’m still not sure if the issue is that he interprets pictures very literally – he was by far the most skillful illustrator in the group, drawing detailed pictures that matched the descriptions – or if he just likes to throw a monkey wrench into things. It’s likely a combination of the two.

One thing is certain, however. As much as I love our little liability, I will be positioning myself as far away from him as possible during the next group game. I think it’s only fair that other people get to experience the joy, wonder and utter confusion that comes with having to draw “there is only one girl left in the bubble and she is running from all the men.” (That, by the way, was originally “Octomom.”)

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published Sept. 4, 2014.

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August 28, 2014 · 3:48 pm

Tete-a-tete: When you have a really good reason to skip class

Though it seems impossible that this much time has passed this quickly, it has now been ten years since I graduated from college. I attended my reunion and they had a nametag for me, so it appears this is an incontestable reality.

Although academics are intended to be the main focus of the college experience, reminiscing with friends reminded me that some of my fondest memories have little to do with what went on in my classes. Indeed, one particularly special memory has to do with quite the opposite: skipping class.

Skipping class is a relatively normal occurrence for many college students. My school, however, was very academically-focused, and the overwhelming majority of students prioritized class attendance. As part of that majority, I also had the perspective that I was paying for an education. I didn’t understand why someone would invest good money in a class and deliberately choose not to attend.

I found out one day during the second semester of my junior year.

I had switched to an English major at the beginning of the academic year, and I was taking mostly literature classes. All of my courses had very interesting-sounding topics, such as gender and ethnicity in modern literature and writers of the American Renaissance.

One unfortunate day, however, the readings for all of my classes fell under the heart-wrenching topic of Horrible Things That Happen to Women in Various Time Periods and Geographic Locations.

My first afternoon class would feature an in-depth discussion of “Comfort Woman” by Nora Okja Keller, a novel based on the real-life experiences of Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. I had already cried my way through the book once for another class the previous semester, and I was not looking forward to doing so again.

My other afternoon class would focus on “The Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic tale of adultery and hypocrisy in Puritan New England. Having spent most of my academic career in New England, I’ve read “The Scarlet Letter” several times, and each time I just get angrier at the townspeople and at Reverend Dimmesdale.

I expressed my anguish to my friend during lunch, asking her why the English curriculum focused so extensively on such harrowing subject matter – to the point of repeating it in multiples classes – and why it didn’t include uplifting, meaningful material that didn’t center on suffering and despair.

My friend empathized and articulated her own lack of desire to attend her science class, an introductory course in which the professor taught directly from the reading assignments. As a Japanese Studies major, the class was not particularly useful to my friend – she needed to take it to fulfill a graduation requirement – and she was frustrated at putting so much time and effort into a class that she was getting so little out of.

Speaking in hushed tones over our hamburger wrappers in the student center, we discussed doing the hitherto unthinkable: skipping our afternoon classes. And not just going back to the dorm and watching a movie, but taking the campus bus into Boston and doing something lighthearted and fun.

Neither of us had done anything like this before. The only reason we had previously missed a class was due to illness. But there are times when the need to preserve your mental and emotional health outweighs your academic obligations, and this was one of them.

And so, in spite of our initial trepidation, we took the bus into Boston, went shopping (which, for us, meant going to places like the anime store and the sci-fi bookshop) and ate sushi.

It ended up being just what the doctor ordered. We were able to return to our regularly-scheduled academic lives feeling refreshed, revitalized and ready to take on the challenges of distressing subject matter and rote learning.

In addition to being an enjoyable experience, it was also an important reminder that taking a break when you need it is not only OK, it’s beneficial. This was an easy reality to forget on a campus where some students prided themselves on their overloaded schedules and regular all-nighters.

For those of you who will be starting or returning to college soon, I offer you the following advice. Study effectively, learn well and get a good return on your investment of time, energy and money. This will make it a little less painful when you have to start making payments on your college loans.

When college starts to get overwhelming (as it sometimes does), take a moment and consider how the situation that’s troubling you will affect you ten years from now. If it’s something that needs to be dealt with, ask God for strength and guidance – He never failed me during college, and He still hasn’t failed me now.

And if it turns out it’s time to take a well-discerned break, take it. Choose a safe and fun activity, enjoy it and return to your academics refreshed. You’ll have a great memory to share with your friends at your reunion, ten years later.

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published Aug. 7, 2014.

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July 6, 2014 · 6:55 pm

Tete-a-tete: Say it with flowers – just don’t say where you got them

Recycling is a way of life here in New England, and it goes beyond separating out your paper and plastic. We pick up used CDs and DVDs at the flea market, buy dishes and furniture from secondhand shops and antique stores, and scour the giveaway table at the transfer station for anything else that might come in handy.

Yankee thrift can get a trifle odd, however, when you’re dealing with non-New Englanders who do not necessarily take this concept of reuse to the extremes that we do—a discovery Mom and I made while visiting family in upstate New York.

During the coffee hour following the service at my grandfather’s church, the pastor mentioned to my mother that there were several floral arrangements left over from a funeral held earlier that weekend. The gentleman who had passed away had been quite well known in the community, and there had been a plethora of flowers to decorate the altar and the church hall.

Even after the church had distributed flowers to the local nursing homes and group homes, there were still half a dozen arrangements remaining. Due to an upcoming holiday, there wouldn’t be anyone at the church to take care of the flowers, so they would most likely perish in the interim. Since the family did not want the remaining arrangements, the pastor asked if Mom would please take them.

Pleased at the prospect of having fresh flowers at my grandfather’s apartment—though somewhat apprehensive as to how we would accommodate all of the arrangements—Mom acquiesced to the pastor’s request.

Lest you start to think this is a bit creepy, permit me to offer a description of the flowers in question. In my experience, which is fairly considerable in this matter, funeral flowers typically look like, well, funeral flowers. They have an expansive look about them, with lots of ferns and a bow of some kind and maybe a plastic sign that says something like “With Deepest Sympathies.”

These flowers looked nothing like that. They were gorgeous, fragrant arrangements such as you might see as a centerpiece at a fancy dinner party or on the bedside table of a woman whose husband initially forgot her birthday. Taking them home and giving them new life was a no-brainer.

I should also mention that my family is far from squeamish when it comes to funerals. Though we love and miss those who have died and we grieve their passing, we also know that they have gone home to be with the Lord. Having this perspective enables us to treat funerals as celebrations of life rather than as sad and solemn occasions.

So really, in our book, it made perfect sense to bring one of these floral arrangements to the family party for our cousin’s 18th birthday. After all, we were only taking them from one celebration of life to another.

The flowers, I should clarify, were a supplementary gift, not a substitute one. Because our cousin loves flowers and is an avid gardener, we wanted to share our bounty with her. Even though she is not a New Englander, we were confident she would appreciate the opportunity to participate in the rescue and recycling of an otherwise doomed floral arrangement.

In retrospect, we probably shouldn’t have told her so readily how we acquired the flowers, but we wanted to explain why we had brought such a lush (and expensive-looking) arrangement when others had brought wildflower bouquets. Besides, that’s part of the Yankee thrift experience—there’s no such thing as a good find without a good story.

And once our cousin had heard the entire story—how the flowers would have perished without our intervention and were now instead on her family’s dining room table, awaiting her loving care—her poorly camouflaged expression of shock faded and she was able to enjoy the flowers’ beauty.

After the party, Mom admitted to me that, now that she thought about it, bringing a floral arrangement that had been used in a funeral service to a teenager’s birthday party was a little odd. I reassured her that it was the thought that counted.

The intense New England proclivity towards recycling may not always translate well outside of the region, but its heart is in the right place. If there’s still some use—or in the case of the flowers, some life—left in something, why throw it away? Making it available to others as a gift or a giveaway or at a reduced price reduces clutter in our landfills and strain on our wallets.

In order for those who are benefiting from this recycling process to fully enjoy their repurposed items, however, it may sometimes be best to spare them a detailed account of the items’ backstory.

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published July 3, 2014.

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June 9, 2014 · 7:39 pm

Tete-a-tete: Shockingly true tales of my Herculean, heroic great-grandpa

There’s a nigh-mythic quality to the stories that family members tell of days gone by. Whether it’s a clever prank a relative pulled on one of their professors that went down in college history or the tired tale of walking to school in the snow — uphill, both ways — that gets trotted out every time you ask for a ride to the bus stop, the accounts of yesteryear seem a little more vibrant, a little more epic than the goings-on of today.

Even though I greatly enjoy hearing these stories, I tend to take them with a grain of salt. As someone who has been unintentionally guilty of revisionist childhood (to use my father’s turn of phrase), I understand that the passage of time and the differing perspective of our younger selves can paint the past with more majestic strokes than were initially laid on the canvas.

And then, just recently, my grandfather on my mother’s side unexpectedly came across a treasure trove of newspaper articles about his father that not only back up the family stories, but flesh out details that make my great-grandfather the real-life equivalent of folk heroes like Paul Bunyan and John Henry.

Great-Grandpa Batty, or “Raging Reg” as he was referred to in the headlines, stood nearly six and a half feet tall, tipped the scales at 260 pounds and wore a size 17 shoe. He served in the Army during World War I and went to college after he was discharged from the military, so he was 22 or 23 years old when he enrolled as a freshman at Yale University. This age gap of a few years between Great-Grandpa and his collegiate peers, in combination with his enormous stature, led his fellow students to nickname him “Pop Batty.”

While Pop earned his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, he wrestled and played football for Yale. As the captain of the wrestling team, his stature landed him in what was then known as the unlimited class. Based on the newspaper articles we have, it seems as though the numbered weight classes ended with 175 pounds, meaning Pop wrestled opponents ranging from 176 pounds to behemoths even larger than himself.

He was named the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling champion in his class after winning a grueling 14 minute and 40 second match, and he always insisted that his fellow wrestlers play by the rules. He once threw his opponent out of the ring — as in, heaved him bodily — for biting his ear during a match. And if Pop threw you, you stayed thrown.

Speaking of throwing people, collegiate football had to introduce a rule specifically to keep Yale from having a consistent advantage over the other teams. The rule? You cannot score by throwing your teammate, who is holding the ball, into the end zone.

Until that time, one of the Yale football team’s favorite plays had been to get the ball to the one of the lighter players and steer that player toward Pop. The player would step into Pop’s waiting hands and Pop would launch him up into the air, over the heads of the opposing team and right into the end zone. For variation, one player ran up Pop’s back and leapt into the end zone.

Pop’s unique grasp of football strategy came in extremely handy, however, when the Rialto Theater in New Haven, Conn. caught fire in November 1921. He rescued five women from the burning building in quite an interesting fashion.

To quote the newspaper article, “He seized a woman in each hand and succeeding in getting them to the door, at the same time pushing another one before him. Returning, he dragged out the fourth by the leg, and the fifth by the collar of her coat.”

Pop himself escaped without any injuries, which was a miracle and a mercy. He had assisted in putting out another fire during his time in the military, but had fallen through the roof and had had to be rescued. It took two men to drag Pop out of the burning building, one of whom Pop reconnected with later in life. Pop’s rescuer remembered him as “the man who almost gave me a heart attack,” because it had been such a struggle to carry someone of Pop’s stature.

Researching Pop has been quite an adventure. The newspaper articles my great-grandmother saved and passed down to my grandfather have provided a real-life foundation for a larger-than-life relative whose epic accomplishments could have been written off as mere family folklore, like the labors of a modern-day Hercules. Nothing makes a story better than finding out it’s really true.

I am concerned, however, that this could be the start of a worrying trend in which other relatives start digging up news coverage to support their own stories. Should Dad ever produce rock-solid evidence that he did indeed walk to school in the snow — uphill, both ways — it will be much harder for my youngest siblings to negotiate for a ride to the bus stop on drizzly days.

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published June 5, 2014.

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May 9, 2014 · 12:50 pm

Tete-a-tete: For goodness ‘sakes – generational namesakes can confuse

In many families, it is traditional to pass down names from one generation to the next. Among other things, this practice perpetuates the memory of those who have passed away by preserving their names for the future.

Unfortunately, this practice can also tax your memory, which leads to phone conversations like this between Grandma (Dad’s mom) and me.

Grandma: “So, John said to Joe – ”

Me: “Is John in this case Grandpa, your brother or my uncle?”

Grandma: “This would be your grandfather.”

Me: “OK. Is he talking to his brother Joe, your brother Joe or one of my cousins named Joe?”

Grandma: “His brother Joe.”

Me: “OK. Continue.”

Grandma: “So, John told Joe to get Paul – ”

Me: “Which Paul is this? Hold on, let me get a pen. Wait, is there going to be a Larry involved? Let me get a pencil instead.”

On Dad’s side of the family, counting everyone from in-laws to cousins, those four names belong to roughly two dozen individuals. According to Dad’s estimates, there are nine Johns, six Joes, five Pauls and four Larrys. Understanding who’s who in a family anecdote often involves interruptions for clarification and the occasional diagram.

Even after sitting down with Grandma and putting together a simple family tree of the last three generations, I still have trouble keeping everyone straight.

I am, however, one step ahead of Younger Sister, who only recently realized that Grandma’s youngest brother and Grandma’s son (our uncle) were both named Paul. Grandma’s stories about having adventures with Paul when she was a little girl now make a lot more sense.

Mom’s side of the family passes down names a bit differently. An individual’s first name is the handed-down family name, and their middle name is the name that their parents really wanted to give them and the name they actually go by.

Grandpa, my uncle and my cousin, for example, all have the first name Harold, but you’d never know unless you looked at their address labels — all of them go by their middle names. They all have the same middle name as well, but each of them goes by a different shortened version of it.

I have never been confused as to who’s who when listening to stories about Mom’s side of the family, but this method of passing down names does pose its own unique challenge, which Mom discovered when she attempted to help Grandpa get all of his paperwork in order.

Every official bit of paper has a different name on it. A credit card might be under his first and middle name, an insurance policy might be under his first initial and his middle name and a bank account might be under the shortened version of his middle name. It took months to get everything straightened out and filed under a single version of Grandpa’s name.

It seems as though Mom and Dad have both learned from the naming traditions of the previous generations, as my siblings and I were successfully named after relatives in ways that will (most likely) not cause confusion in the future.

Oldest Younger Brother and Youngest Brother both have first names that do not belong to any other relatives and middle names that are family names, so they’re all set. Younger Sister’s first and middle names are both family names, but they haven’t been used in that combination before, making her distinctive as well.

I like to think that the way in which my parents chose to name me was a particular coup. I was named after a specific relative, but instead of giving me the exact same name, they switched the order. Her middle name is therefore my first name, and her first name is my middle name. Sneaky, huh?

I fear, however, that Mom and Dad’s efforts to make our names stand out may be for naught, since, like most parents with multiple children, they have a hard time keeping us straight anyway. My favorite instance of name confusion was when Dad nearly tripped over the cat and, in frustration, yelled Younger Sister’s name instead of the cat’s.

In spite of the confusion they can cause, I do like the concept of family names. They give you a stronger sense of belonging and connect you to the previous generations. For the sake of future generations, however, I suggest you get creative with nicknames and name order to minimize confusion within the family, and to always file your paperwork under the same version of your name to minimize confusion for the rest of the world.

– Teresa Santoski

www.teresasantoski.com

Originally published May 1, 2014.

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February 25, 2014 · 12:00 am

Two common mistakes columnists make

I’ve been writing my award-winning humor column, Tete-a-tete, for nearly six years, and I previously worked in a newsroom for a decade. As a result, I have been privy to the work of many lifestyle and humor columnists, as well as reader and editor reactions to these columns.

There are two significant mistakes that lifestyle/humor columnists commonly make, both of which affect the way their work is received as well as the longevity of their columnist careers. Continue reading →

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