​   At this stage of my life, I am not considering a career change unless it would be a restaurant critic who gets to eat for free all around town, a booking agent for a new Hawaiian bed and breakfast where a requirement is that I HAVE to stay on the island site, or of course President, because…well, you fill in the blank.  I also might consider being a detective, as I have acquired a set of CSI like skills since becoming a mom.
     Granted, I am not solving murders, and most of the time, no punishable crime has been committed, other than to offend my sensibilities or generational morals. Despite the fact I have never trained professionally, little eludes me when solving the many mysteries in my world. I just use the brain God gave me, my finely honed five senses, and a little common sense.
     First, I have a pretty good sniffer.  My once petite nose has grown to Karl Malden like proportions as I have aged, and the benefit is it works pretty well.
     Colleagues and co-workers will say to me, “Do you smell that?  What is it?” and a simple sniff allows me to supply an answer.
    “The burner was left on too long under the coffee pot again,” I say, yawning, and not even looking up from the computer to see if I am right, because I am.
     No blood hound from here to the Mason Dixon line can sniff out something better than I can. When my husband and I recently returned from a trip to the store, our daughter had been alone for approximately 40 minutes.
     The smell hit us when we hit the door. “Oh, geez, what is that?” my husband gasped. 
     “It’s either nail polish remover or embalming fluid,” I say. She had not had enough time to plan anyone’s demise, and she isn’t into undertaking, so we deemed the smell safe.
      To be fair, I have had a bit of practice with the old nose. When my daughter was younger, she would often read a book and try something she had read about. Her interpretation of what she had read sometimes produced amazing results. Other times it produced horrific smells.
     “Mom, smell this,” she said, at about age 8. “I bet you cannot guess what three things I combined to make invisible ink.”
   I was no closer than six inches from the container when I said, “Windex and milk—no wait, 2% milk to be exact, and lemon juice—not fresh lemons, the squeeze stuff.” She shrugged in resignation and walked away before I could even ask if the ink worked.
     Some investigative work is done just by observations, as noted by a recent set of orange crumbs ground into the carpet of my car, impossible to vacuum out.  I immediately compiled a list of prospects: Hot Cheetos, Goldfish, Cheez-Its, and as an outlier, the inside of a Butterfinger bar.  Since my husband wouldn’t ever leave a Butterfinger bar uneaten, I know who owns the mess, and I call my daughter down for clean up on “aisle car.”
     Just Tuesday, a red splotch appeared on my counter top, and it didn’t go away with my microfiber cloth and elbow grease. Like lightning, three possibilities flash through my mind: Kool-Aid, marker, blood. A little detective footwork shows me the Kool-Aid packs are still in the pantry and there is no sign of sugar spilled on the floor. No one has disturbed the first aid kit for a bandage and left its contents spread all over the bathroom counter, thus no blood. Deduction? The splotch is marker, no doubt the result of my daughter testing her school supplies that I paid approximately $6 million for last week.
   Some of my skills would be really good on an FBI resume.  I can decipher almost any handwriting and its owner at a glance.  Here I have a distinct advantage, since I was a school teacher. A random note on the driveway? If there are no capital letters, I know it likely the work of my daughter or a friend, who seem to have no respect for proper nouns. A downhill slant to the letters?  Probably my neighbor, a lefthander of an age.
     I have a photographic memory for most handwriting as well.  I can clearly visualize the handwriting of my 4th grade teacher, a former boss, and like all good Americans, John Hancock.  I literally once interpreted my doctor’s handwriting for the pharmacist, who of course, called to verify the prescription with the doc. The pharmacy manager offered me a job on the spot, but I prefer to focus on things a little closer to home.
     I am not a busy body, but as an amateur detective, I track habits of my neighbors like Gladys Kravits watched the Stephens’ family from Bewitched.  One day last winter, I asked the lady next door how her husband was feeling. She answered that he was better--- then she stopped mid-sentence and asked how I even knew he was sick.  I did not confess that I had not heard his ‘alarm clock’ truck start up in the driveway at 5:45 a.m. for his commute in the middle of the week, so I just assumed he was ill. I smiled mysteriously and just said, “Oh, I just knew.”  She hasn’t stopped by for coffee lately, likely fearful of my supposed physic abilities or that I have a thing for her sickly hubby.
     I mimic the actions of television show detectives if I have to dig a little deeper to solve a mystery. I am not above driving carpool just to pick up a sliver of a conversation to provide a clue.  I will friend another mom on Facebook temporarily just to see if my daughter’s bad mood is the result of being slighted an invitation to a party or event.  I have donned exam gloves and a flu mask to check out the dog’s poop if we fear he has devoured a Lego.
     I play both good and bad cop in interviews with my niece, whose mom swears she never tells her anything, but who sings like a proverbial canary to me.  “Are you having fun in college?  I loved my sorority date parties,” I say. 
     “I love our date parties, too.  We had one where we dressed like the 80’s,” she shares.
      “Did you and your date both wear neon?  Now that was an 80’s wardrobe staple,” I reply.   
     “Evan wouldn’t wear any neon except for sunglasses,” she laughs, and I have all I need.  Not only did she have a date, his name is Evan, and I already don’t like him, ‘cause no self-respecting man would take a chance on being photographed in neon sunglasses.  I hit up her Instagram, find the 80’s party, and there he is, Neon Sunglasses Man.  I Google search his image, and I find he was captain of his school’s debate team and was a National Merit finalist.  I like him a little better now.
     Sometimes I have to be a little tougher with my niece to crack her.  When she was little, I tell her, I thought she would never get in any trouble, because she was so sweet, but I guess I was wrong about all that. I shake my head and glare at her with just the right amount of irritation and no information whatsoever that she has actually done anything wrong at all. 
     “It wasn’t that big of a deal,” she says.  “No one at the frat house even saw us tip over the pool, and we would have totally gotten away with it if Chloe hadn’t bragged to somebody.”  Bam! Snared like a jungle animal, right into my net.
   On very rare occasions, I have to combine my full set of skills for a diagnosis.  Case in point, my husband’s best friend is at our house a lot, and on a recent trip he wore a jacket with a stain on the right cuff.  In the entryway, out of what he thinks is my hearing range, my husband bet his friend $5 that I could guess the origin of the stain, and his friend took the bet.
     “Honey, look at the stain on Pete’s jacket. What do you think it is?”
     I step back into the family room to glare at them both before I make my pronouncement. I noticed the stain when I hung up his coat, deduced from the size that it wasn’t an actual spill but just a drip, and determined it must be dairy-based due to a crusty ring around the stain’s edge, formed between two to three days earlier. 
       “It’s Chik Fil A sauce,” I say, insulted not only that our friend has no faith in my abilities, but also that my husband only put $5 on that action. Pshaw. Beginner’s work.
     Cathy is a retired public school English teacher and Public Information Officer.  
 

​     If I didn't know any better, I'd say I heard them calling my name, like a Siren song, wooing the ancient Greek sailor.  I stood quietly, trying to focus, willing myself not to move toward them.  
     They were beautiful, unlike anything I had ever seen before, and when I finally reached out to grab them, the initial contact was electrifying.  Before you label me as a weirdo, let me assure you this has happened to many a woman, some right there that day in the same place as me. And while we may be just a little ashamed or embarrassed, we cannot help ourselves.  We are shoe addicts.
     Let me say up front, if you have never bought a pair of shoes and then built an outfit around them, please quit reading right now and skip to the weekly police report, ’cause Sister, you won’t be able to relate.  However, if you don’t count flip flops or boots when your husband asks how many pairs of shoes you have because they are not really shoes, then stay with me! We are kindred spirits.
     Truthfully, I don’t have an accurate count of my shoes, but I can tell you it is too many. When I go to line up the browns, and I have four different shades, I probably have too many.  When I can create actual categories besides just flats, heels, and tennis shoes, I probably have too many. When I am looking for a pair of shoes to wear, and I pull out a pair I don’t even remember buying, I for sure have too many.
     I scoffed at an article that popped up online the other day.  Ladies should only own 12 pair of shoes, it said, one pair each of: classic white tennis shoes, ballet flats, summer espadrilles, classic black loafers, neutral evening heels, over the knee boots, something whimsical or with personality, flat sandals, office appropriate pumps, a pop of color, walkable heels, and classic black ankle booties.
     Clearly, the disillusioned blogger forgot multiple other categories: fuzzy boots with which you may or may not wear socks, ones that match something your daughter owns, just in a bigger size, something with such a high heel that you only wear them when sitting down, and rain boots in multiple colors, to name a few.
     The good news about being a shoe addict is that I know I am not alone. I once helped move a friend whose shoes numbered over 100 pair.  And when we got her all settled, we celebrated by visiting – you guessed it—a shoe store.
     I imagine meetings for those of us with a problem might start like this: “Hi, I’m Cathy and I am an addict.”  “Hi, Cathy,” my fellow shoe junkies would say.
     “This week I found myself in a new city on a business trip, and I just happened to find a shoe boutique,” I blurt out.  My friends comfort me and applaud me for going home with just one pair.
     I also know it is a problem because there are shoe memes, like the one that says “I make shoe contact before I make eye contact” and “There’s no shame in my shoe game.”
     And there are too many famous idioms and quotes about shoes, also. ‘If the shoe fits, wear it (or in my case buy it)’, ‘Mama needs a new pair of shoes’, ‘Give a girl a new pair of shoes and she can conquer the world’, or ‘Change your shoes, change your life’. And maybe my favorite, ‘Life isn’t a fairy tale.  If you lose a shoe at a party, you probably have another pair almost exactly like it in your closet’.
     I have drawn the line at shoes that cause my feet too much pain.  I have seen the pictures of supermodels’ gnarled feet, caused by wearing sky high heels 2 sizes too small for their runway walks.  I have, however, purchased a pair of shoes with the promise to myself that they will stretch a little bit, and a couple of Bandaids later realized that maybe they won’t.
     I have had one serious shoe injury, that happened when I was in high school, but I still remember it well, and have a little scar to help me.  I wish this was the story of a beautiful shoe I wore to prom, and I was running to make curfew after one last kiss with my date when the heel snapped off. But the real story is not nearly as cool.
     Adidas tennis shoes, made of real leather, with stitched on stripes were the rage when I was about 14.  I just had to have a pair, and I finally talked my mother into letting me add some babysitting money to her contribution to have enough money to get them.
     A friend and I bought matching Adidas, with dark red, almost maroon stripes, ones that closely matched our school colors.  We were headed to band camp with our new kicks, sure to impress some fresh-faced sophomore percussionist.
     Day one at camp we learned a marching high step, which required us to drag our feet up the inside calf of the opposite leg.  The stripes on the Adidas worked nearly as well as a razor, scraping away our flesh with each step. 
     By about mid-day, I could no longer drag my leg over the open wounds anymore.  Neither of us brought another pair of shoes to camp, so we marched in sock feet on 100 degree pavement.  Not even a sophomore percussionist would be impressed by that.  The scars on my right leg are hardly noticeable anymore, but the memory is pretty fresh.
     Look, shoes are about the only thing in our wardrobe that doesn’t have to be sensible, that lets us rebel against the old Buster Brown oxford school shoes, and truthfully, when your clothing size is not as small as you would like it to be, shoes still fit.
     My theory is this: When life gives you lemons, sell them, and buy shoes.
 
     Cathy is a retired public school English teacher and Public Information Officer.  
 

     I commute to work, so I am in the car a minimum of 45 minutes a day, as Eddie Rabbitt would say, ‘Driving my life away’.
     Sometimes I sing aloud at the top of my lungs to oldies, and practice my next karaoke solo (which shall be the topic of a full column another day). That’s generally on Fridays or only once a week, because I don’t want to get too good at singing and have to decide between my family and a life on the road.
     Other days I catch up on phone calls.  For you younger readers, that is the thing where two people converse with one another using their voices and not texts.  I have a mental list of five minute all the way up to 20 minute phone call friends, who like me, actually like voice to voice contact.
     Most days, I listen to the radio. Lately, I have heard some of the most bizarre stuff on talk radio, and it has me thinking with our unusually damp spring, that some people have indeed taken a little water on their brains. In fact, the whole world may be going mad. 
     On a recent morning drive, the first radio story was about turophobia, which is the fear of cheese.  Turns out this is usually based on a childhood trauma with cheese as one of the main players. 
     I have had a couple of bad grilled cheese experiences, now that I think about it, where the cheese leaked out of the bread or I didn’t slather enough butter on the top slice, but nothing too memorable or scarring.
     The talk show hosts shared that people who suffer from turophobia generally have the most aversion to parmesan and limburger cheeses, which have distinct smells, and the least aversion to mozzarella, which has a more neutral presence.  Sadly, there was no mention of  Colby-Jack, my personal cheese favorite, and also what I might have named a baby boy if I had married a rancher.
     The impetus of the story was a young lady who had been fired from her job as a waitress for her unwillingness to deliver meals with cheese to her customers.  Is it only obvious to me that maybe waitressing, or in fact anything to do with the food industry, might not have been her best career choice?
     The hosts quoted the turophobic lady (look at me using my newly learned word) as saying that in extreme cases, where she encountered a block of cheese, she had such an adverse physical reaction that she would faint or become violently ill.  I can’t help wondering what she eats with sausage and crackers or what her safe food is at a questionable potluck.
     The hosts moved on to say that apparently turophobia extends to pets as well, as a related story they were sharing was about a dog who is scared of sliced cheese.  His family found out about his malady when they were doing the Cheese Face Baby challenge, an Internet sensation from earlier this year.
     For the challenge, people toss pieces of sliced cheese at baby’s faces to see how the baby reacts.  Once this family gauged their baby’s reaction to having cheese thrown at him, apparently they moved on to their dog.
     For the record, I would like to say I don’t think this family should even have a dog if they are throwing cheese at their baby.  Or maybe they shouldn’t have a baby if they are throwing cheese at their dog. You decide.
     On the same talk show later that same week, I heard a story about two female astronauts doing a spacewalk together outside the International Space Station.  As the show hosts shared the story, they talked about the historical significance of the walk. I practically swelled with pride for my sisters in space.
     But alas, the hosts said, the walk had to be postponed. “We will tell you why after the break,” they intoned, insuring I would be hanging on through the commercials.
     My mind was racing. I bet they got in some kind of dumb cat fight about who was going to go first.  Maybe they couldn’t properly accessorize the suits for photos or were having a collective bad hair day, I surmised. Maybe a recent 23andMe test had revealed they were twins and their mom put a stop to it, afraid of a space accident that would injure both of her newly-reunited daughters. I could hardly wait for the answer.
     The hosts launched immediately back into the story, but cleverly took calls from listeners guessing why the women couldn’t make the walk.  Men called and said tacky things like, “They probably had to get their nails done and couldn’t squeeze it in” or “The walk was too long and it would have made them late to pick up the kids from school” or “Maybe their therapist told them this was their husband’s job”.
     After about ten minutes of nonsense, we found out NASA postponed the walk because they didn’t have two spacesuits that would fit the women, both size medium.  I could hardly catch my breath after the big reveal.  Didn’t they measure them before the mission?  Is this a case of ‘Dude, you had ONE job?‘.
     Turns out the women themselves problem-solved, and one astronaut who wore size medium and one woman who wore size large made the walk.  Poor other size medium lady astronaut!  She acted heroically in sacrificing her 15 minutes of fame for another female.  Now I have a new reason not to diet.  Turns out there wouldn’t be a spacesuit in my size.
     The third item I heard may just be the one that takes the cake (or that may be something I did, since I am no longer worried about being a size medium…).  Just like fashion comes out with new lines of clothes and new styles provided by designers, so too are there new lines of textiles and home décor, including items for bedrooms and bathrooms.
     One online retailer really stepped up its game to provide customers with something truly unusual: a full line of linens that look like they have come from the scene of a horror movie, complete with bloody handprints.
     The show hosts laughed, but I was repulsed.  Bloody handprints? A company spokesperson said people like to decorate for occasions, and the recent bent has been more toward the ‘macabre’.
     What Bed and Breakfast would be using these?  I can hear their tag line now: “Come For a Romantic Weekend, and If You End Up Killing Each Other, We’ll Never Know!”
     Originally marketed with the company’s Halloween line, the thread counts for the sheets is 800, and the design is washable on the delicate cycle and dryer safe. Why go to that much trouble? This is the stuff the rest of the free world is trying to get out with stain removers.
     FYI: With a special order, you can also get the word REVENGE on the top sheet and HELP on the fitted one.  The kicker? The set has sold out once and is on backorder.
     This final story gave new meaning to the words of Poet Henry Brown who said, “This whole world has  gone mad.” Apparently maniacs abound. I had really had about enough of talk radio for that day, so I switched over to the oldies station. 
     Playing at that exact moment was Misty Blue, by Dorothy Moore, and I was instantly flooded with fond memories, as it was the song to which I had my very first slow dance. I was in 7th grade, and I danced with Ben Horine, who as far as I know, had no aversions to cheese, and would have fit nicely at the time into a medium sized spacesuit.
 
Cathy is a retired public school English teacher and Public Information Officer.    

     I have been slightly obsessed with Jeopardy lately, due to a new champion, James, who has amassed great amounts of money.  I either tune in or watch it from the DVR, almost daily.
     By the time you read this, he will have crossed the 2-million-dollar threshold, yet to be upended by a quick-thumbed speech therapist or airline pilot or mountain climber. He might be on his way to 3 million, but either way James’ knowledge base is impressive. He has got me thinking about my Jeopardy skills.
     There are days when I shout out an answer (of course in the form of a question) which has come from the deep recesses of my generally untested brain.  I silently thank my junior history teacher Anthony McCord for sharing with me that FDR was the first sitting President to fly in a plane. I raise a hand to my Sunday School teachers for helping us memorize the books of the Bible in order or bless my dad for his love of an ice sport which makes it easy to recall that Gordie Howe’s nickname is Mr. Hockey.
     I have had some notable success in playing the game against my husband. I once “ran” the category Parts of Speech.  I am a former English teacher so frankly, it would have been embarrassing not to. But then he smoked me on Billiard Games.  There were lots of pool halls in his small hometown where he apparently hung out as a kid. Go figure that would come in handy in a hotly contested Jeopardy game.
     My daughter has joined in the quiz fun, primarily shouting out Pop Culture answers that someday her own children will call ancient history. “Who is Lady Gaga?” she says when the video comes up of the star in a Christmas tree headpiece.
     Oddly, she also knew most of the answers under Amphibian Anime as well.  Those Geico gecko commercials are working, I think.
     Suffice it to say that categories like European Family Dynasties, Classical Music, Russian Literature, and Opera Arias are not my bag.  Neither are World Geography, Scientific Mysteries, or Modern Artists. What’s left, you say? Well, I need a little different type category to succeed.
     I would be a master at the Never Make these Recipes Again category.  Clue: ‘Orange in color, sweet in taste, this yam-based dish made your family puke.’ Answer: “What are sweet potato bombs?”
     In the category Pinterest Fails, the clue would be: ‘Excellent medium for children’s play and a tasty after school treat’ . Answer: “What is edible slime?” In the category I Would Never Do That Again, the clue would be ‘Packaged in boxes by approximate color,’ and the answer would be, “What is a home hair highlighting kit.”  Don’t ask.
     I would run the category Stuff We Will Never Understand About Middle School Girls.  “I’ll take Middle School for $400, Alex.”  Clue: ‘Mgrblhnphnph’. Answer: “What is her first unintelligible phrase of the morning?”
     Possibly in the same category the $600 clue is ‘Currently going through any middle schooler’s head‘ and the answer is “What is I am being raised by wolves?” Maybe for $800 the clue is ‘5 weeks’.  I hope that is the Daily Double, ‘cause I am betting it all. Answer: “What is how long is it since you have seen the floor of your room?”
     And I might just need a different host than good old Alex Trebek.  I want a sassy 40-50’ish Melissa McCarthy look-a-like woman who appears to have washed her hair on Tuesday and this is now Friday. 
     Maybe she would be wearing an Old Navy shirt from about 2006 with some unidentifiable stains because it is comfortable, and she never comes out from behind the podium because she is wearing yoga pants with a hole in an awkward spot and house slippers.
     If I stay out of the negative in the single Jeopardy round, she winks at me and says, “You go girl.”  In the category of Things You Would Like Them to Say to You at the Doctor, where the clue is: ‘Wow’ and the answer is “Why are you are so thin?!,” she hollers, “I know that’s right!”
     My Final Jeopardy Round would need to be a working mom category and include something like Driving Multiple Places on Nearly No Gas Because I Know My Car, or Thawing Meat on the Dashboard While Driving Multiple Places, or What Do You Mean You are Out of Lunch Money? for me to make any cash and not go home in a respectable second place, broke as a joke.
     Just so you know, in the category of Dreams Deferred, the clue is ‘Not tomorrow, not the next day, and not ever,” and my answer would have to be, “When is Cathy headed to Jeopardy?”
 
Cathy is a retired public school English teacher and Public Information Officer.