The List or "How I Ruined My Sister's Christmas"

Every year I write a Christmas list of things I would like to have for my mother and siblings to shop from. It started when I was seven years old and I realized there was no point in writing to Santa.

There I was, a little kid, asleep in my room. Like any kid told to go to bed at 7:30 on Christmas Eve to stop bugging their parents, I slept lightly. A pin dropping to a carpeted floor could have awoken me. You see, it was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. My stocking was hanging from my bedpost complete with Santa Alarm to wake me so I could see the big guy.

Instead I was awoken by a clatter of a different sort. The dogs were barking, there was a crash on the front porch and a loud "GODDAMMIT!" I leaped from my bed, and sneaked down the hallway to catch Santa in the act. Instead of finding a jolly, red-faced, rotund man, I found my father. He was red-faced, definitely not jolly, but sort of rotund. He was also trying to get a freshly put together bicycle through the door.

I was shocked. And saddened. It was true. Santa Claus didn't exist. It was my mom, there sticking wrapped gifts under the tree, and my dad putting handlebars on another bicycle. I crept back to bed and went to sleep. Not only did I know what to expect under the tree, but the whole fantasy of Christmas was gone. I did not wake at the normal pre-dawn hour. My siblings called me out of bed, "BIKES!" "SANTA CAME!"

I couldn't tell them the truth. There was no way. I dutifully crawled out of bed and went to see which bike was mine.

There was not a bike for me under the tree. Three bicycles, none for me. I had a Barbie and clothes. Clothes! I spent Christmas sitting on the porch steps watching my siblings ride up and down the driveway on their brand new bicycles. And I decided I should obviously have been a little more direct in what I wanted. No more, "I've been good, I would love new toys!"

Since then, the list has pretty much determined if I have a good Christmas in terms of the presents received. Good Christmas = getting things from the list. Bad Christmas = someone deviating from the list.

When I was in Junior High, I had a horse named Tiny. I bought her with my own money I had saved from babysitting when she was just a foal. About Christmas time, I had started working with Tiny on learning to stand tied. Tiny didn't like this idea and things weren't going well.

That Christmas morning, I ripped open my gifts to find nothing from my list. Socks. Socks! And a gigantic bungee cord.

"It's so you can teach Tiny to stand tied! This way if she sits back, she won't tear the barn down," my mother responded to the look of disbelief on my face.

What a crappy Christmas, I decided. A little while later found my older sister and I sitting in our room. Our beds sat directly across from each other. She sat on her bed, I sat on mine. Between us stretch the bungee cord with its heavy duty snaps on either end.

"What a crappy Christmas," I said.

"It could have been worse," she responded.

"At least you got cool stuff," I replied. "All I got is this crappy bungee cord."

We stretched the bungee cord and unstretched it. Stretched and unstretched. At some point, I decided to spice things up and would loosen my grip when the cord was stretched and catch it back before it slipped through my hand.

I let it slip, and caught it. Let it slip, and caught it. Let it slipped, and missed.

The heavy duty snap hit my sister right in the eye. She wailed. I apologized.

"She could have lost her eye," my mother scolded me later. "You could have blinded her!"

"I just wanted a make-up kit!" I replied. "I didn't want a bungee cord!"

I spent the rest of the day in my room. My sister had a black eye. And that's why you shouldn't deviate from the Christmas list.

I am a terrible driver.

I will fully admit that I am an awful driver. This will tell you why.

To start with I never took Driver's Ed. I waited until I was 18 and sat down in a dingy DMV and took a written test over a book about those namby-pamby rules of the road that I didn't read and passed by the skin of my teeth. I drove around a bit and then borrowed my sister's 1992 Ford Taurus and winged my way through a driving test. I was probably 4 feet from the curb during parallel parking and at one point my tester yelled for me to slow down. Yet, he passed me. God Bless Texas.

I had a license. I was UNSTOPPABLE. I ended up with my first vehicle, Clooney and drove terribly for over a year.

I killed Clooney.

I drove so much on that old truck that when it became an issue, it would have cost more to fix Clooney than we originally paid for Clooney. I sold Clooney for cash and ended up with my new car, Eve. Eve is a 2008 Dodge Caliber.

The interesting thing switching from a truck to a soccer mom mobile is that you go from being above everyone else to below everyone else. The other hard thing to deal with is the sun.

When I drive to work in the mornings, I drive East. When I drive home, I drive West. I also have poor vision. So, on the days I wear contacts I'm fine. On the days I wear glasses, I have a problem.

The sunvisor goes down and promptly blocks out the entire windshield. I lean my seat back so that I can see out the windshield. Now, I am driving leaned back, one hand on the wheel, and squinting into the sun. I look really tough.

The problem with this is that I also can't see out of my mirror. So I have to lean forward to look into the mirrors and hope I don't hit anyone.

I say mirrors. I should say mirror. Because I hit the other one off on a pole.

An Update

So, it looks like I abandoned this thing for a while. Like, a year. Well, over a year. Sorry.

Basically, I was caught up doing other stuff and kept saying "I'll write on the blog later....I'll do it later..." Kind of like what happens when I get a jury summons and realize that it was supposed to be faxed in at noon the day before and it is now 4:00pm the day before.

I suck. I know.

What have I been doing...

To start with, after leaving Dollar Tree I went to work at an after school program. That was a pretty sweet gig except being poor.

So, I worked and worked and worked. And then I worked some more.

And then, I landed a job. A real job! A job I'd actually applied for and interviewed for once and was second best. And I love it. I love my job! And I love having health insurance again.

And I moved out of my parents' house! I'm now chilling in the back apartment of a house built in 1912 and divided into three apartments. It is tiny. I still have a ton of decorating to do. But I love it!

I also added a new dude to my life.

Isn't he the cutest? His name is Snuggles and he is basically amazing. In fact, right now he's serving as a foot warmer. Such a useful little guy! You will hear a lot about him, I'm sure.

Hmmmm.... sadly that is pretty much it! I worked a lot, I rode my ponies, I searched for jobs, I landed a job I hated (more on that later), I landed my dream job, I got the cutest little ball of fur ever.

Again, sorry for the disappearance. I will try to keep this thing updated from now on. :)