Single in the Twilight Zone by Anna Maria Junus

Note: This was first published in 2005, so certain references to Tom Cruise & Brad Pitt are now obsolete, however, I'm still single and the chicken dance still exists.

I’ve been on my own for two years now, and divorced for six months.

It was time.

Yep, I’m getting married next week.

Hah! Made you look! No I’m not getting married. But I bet I got your attention.

I did something almost as monumental a couple of weeks ago.

I went to a singles dinner and dance.

You don’t think when you get married at twenty that you would be dating in your forties; sixties or seventies maybe, but not at the same time as your children.

I felt like a teenager again.

Only I weighed a whole lot less when I was a teenager and I didn’t have to color my hair to hide the grey.

My friends did my hair and makeup. I wore a dress that made me look fabulous. Correction. I wore a dress.

I showed up at the dance and was pleasantly surprised to find that the music was the same music I danced to more than twenty years ago when I was single.

I was transported into the Billy Joel, David Bowie twilight zone. I looked for Farrah hair, stirrup pants, and football shoulder pads. I wondered where the guy was who always jumped on stage and lip synced to Mick Jagger. I thought that Michael Jackson was just a really talented artist and all of his legal problems were just a bad dream and he was still black and had a nose. I got scary images in my mind of someone who called himself Boy George. And I just knew that they were going to play Stairway to Heaven for the last dance.

The people were the same too, only with some wrinkles, extra weight and grey hair. Oh yeah, and there were some old people. Not old people the way that teenagers think, which is anyone over the age of thirty. I mean people in their seventies, although anyone who is at a singles dance looking for romance can’t possibly be old.

There was the girl that looked great and danced every dance except the ones she wanted to sit out.

There was the guy who thought he was the best looking one there. You could tell because he kept checking out his image in every reflective surface around.

There was the group of guys in the corner who didn’t ask anyone to dance because they figured they were too cool. Apparently it’s cool to show up to a dance and then choose not to dance.

There was the guy who would circle around the room looking for his latest victim, and every girl would rush to the bathroom when they saw him coming to avoid him. This is the same guy who break danced during ballads and asked you to marry him before the song was over.

There was the group of girls who giggled and made comments about what people were wearing. They were the sister group of the guys who are too cool to dance.

It was high school all over again.

Fortunately they did not play the chicken dance. I will do the macarana. I will line dance. I’ll twist and jerk and bunny hop and get excited over Cotton Eye Joe, but I will not do the Chicken Dance. I wish someone would just put that chicken out of its misery. An axe kills chickens off nicely, people. I think that next time a deejay plays the chicken dance at any event everyone should hang him by his microphone cord. It would send a message out to all other deejays and chickens.

I kept wishing as I sat watching everyone that I had hung a sign around my neck saying “Although I look eleven months pregnant, I’m not pregnant at all. There’s just a whole lot of me to love.”

That might look good on a T-shirt.

But then I’m not really looking for romance anyway. I’ve just completely forgotten how to talk to the opposite sex and I would like to figure it out again.

Which is hard since I know nothing about sports, cars, or stupid human tricks.

I tell my kids that when I start dating again, as long as the guy is older than my oldest child, he’s fair game.

This has not gone over well with my 21 year old.

At least I’ve set some ground rules. Men in there forties will date anyone who can produce an ID. Any ID. Her mother’s ID.

I’ve asked my kids what kind of man I should see and they said “if it’s not going to be Dad, then he’s got to be funny.”

I like funny.

I also like someone who reads, is financially stable, hasn’t served time in prison, and laughs at all my jokes.

And if he looks like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise that doesn’t hurt either.

Come to think of it, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are available and my age.

Hmmm.

How Did I Get Ham Out of a Shrinking Violet? by Anna Maria Junus (first published in 2003)

Having seven children means a lot of school concerts.

And in the town I’m in where there are three schools for the elementary students, each school with only 2 grades, it means even more concerts since each grade has its own concert. This in some ways is better than other schools where they have one concert a year for everybody to show off, and I’ve had to sit through concerts where each grade had three numbers and the concert takes longer than watching the miniseries “Roots”.

School concerts are not about perfection. They’re about giving children the opportunity to participate in the performing arts. They’re about learning teamwork and skills that can’t be learned in a normal classroom setting. They’re about giving parents another excuse to bring out the video camera recording moments that they will later use to humiliate their children at family gatherings and date nights.

And to be completely honest, the only time we parents really enjoy these things, is when it’s our little darling up there performing. Parents won’t admit this. Parents will say they had a wonderful time and wasn’t everyone terrific, but they will be watching the clock and thinking “when is 'insert name' going to do his thing so we can get out of here.”

When my twelve year old son was in kindergarten, he spent the whole year with his hands over his face. His teacher didn’t know what he looked like until May. And it wasn’t that he didn’t like his face, he’s actually a pretty good looking guy, but he was just so painfully shy that I guess he figured that if he could cover his face, no one could see him.

As a child, he never sang. His sisters did all the time. But he didn’t. He rarely talked. He showed no musical interest whatsoever.

I was stunned when in the third grade he came home with a paper that he got on his knees and begged me to sign. It was for the choral group at school. He promised all kinds of things, even a clean room, if I would just sign the paper.

“I didn’t know you liked to sing.” I said as I got out a pen.

“Sing?” He looked surprised. “I thought this was for playing instruments.”

I laughed. “Choral is singing. Do you still want me to sign this?”

“No. Forget it. I don’t want to sing.”

But somewhere during some school concert, he discovered something. He liked being up in front of people. He liked to be seen. He liked to sing. He learned all the words to all the songs. When it was someone else’s turn up front he could be seen in the background, lip-syncing to all the words. Not just the songs, but even the dialogue. He started dancing in the choir. While every other child stood still and sombre trying desperately to remember the words and follow the teacher, my son decided that a little choreography was needed. Which isn’t easy to do when you’re standing on a narrow bench with kids fractions of an inch beside, behind and in front of you.

I spent many a concert tears rolling down my face, trying desperately not to laugh at his antics.

“You shouldn’t be doing that when you’re on stage. It’s called scene stealing and it isn’t a nice thing to do. The other kids won’t like it.”

“I can’t help it. I got the music in me.”

He started singing during class time. Teachers learned to put up with it and even started to encourage it. Quiet time for my son meant that the music was on and he was singing. He got his work done although I’m not sure if anyone else did. No one will tell me, but I suspect that they just started handing out earplugs for everyone. Not that he has a bad voice, he has a nice voice, but how many times a day can anyone handle the Disney Tarzan soundtrack?

When the school decided to put on “Annie” he wanted the part of Daddy Warbucks, and he got it, only to have the play cancelled due to a teachers strike.

The last school concert was a play about sports heroes. “I learned all the parts.” My son said to me, “Just in case someone doesn’t make it.”

I never knew people like Joe Dimaggio, and Arthur Ashe could sing, but according to the play they could. One by one the child representing an athlete, stepped out of sports card and stood on the edge of the stage, microphone in hand, singing a solo and hoping that the song would hurry up and end so they could get off stage.

My son got a part as a sports hero. He stepped out of his playing card, grabbed the microphone, and proceeded to tear up the stage with a rap number. No quiet little voice for him. He belted it out, dancing and moving to the music. It was like M.C. Hammer took possession.

The audience roared with appreciative laughter.

Later during the play he was brought on with the other players, mugging and clowning around the whole time. They couldn’t get the kid off the stage. When he wasn’t supposed to be on I saw him either dancing in the choir or poking his head through the curtains and smiling at the audience.

After the show he glowed so bright I had to put on sunglasses as people came up to him and told him what a great job he did. Of course he made sure that he stood by the door everyone used to leave by.

And I remember the kindergartener who walked around with his hands over his face.

You just never know.

Of Mice and Woman by Anna Maria Junus (first published in 2003)

I hate rats.

In fact I hate anything that somewhat resembles a rat. Even Mickey Mouse makes me a bit nervous. And you can’t tell me Mickey Mouse isn’t a rat. Mice don’t get that big. He’s bigger than his dog Pluto. That would be a rat. I don’t mind meeting the person dressed in a Mickey Mouse costume, but I would not want to meet the real Mickey Mouse. Would you want a six foot mouse coming to your door?

Right from the beginning I banned all rats and their rat like cousins from my home.

“Mom, can I have a hamster?”

“NO!”

“But I’ll keep it in its cage and I’ll feed it and you won’t even know it exists.”

“It will escape from its cage and spend the rest of its life following me around and tormenting me until I find it one day drowned in someone’s half drunken slurpee that they’ve left in their room. And then you would have ruined slurpees for me forever.”

“You never drink slurpees.”

“Hey, one day I could start.”

“What about a guinea pig?”

“Oh good, the rat’s bigger cousin. Let me think. NO! And before you ask, that would be NO to gerbils, mice, rats and anything else that is capable of eating off a baby’s face.”

“Rats don’t eat baby’s faces.”

“Oh yes they do. I’ve heard about it. You want to test it with your little sister? And while we’re at it, no to snakes.”

“You’re afraid of snakes too?”

“Not so much, but you have to feed them rats.”

I come by my fear honestly. I could tell you the story but it would send me into hysterics and that wouldn’t be funny for either of us. Just know that there is a reason.

I’m told that in Alberta, there are no rats.

So what is a musk rat? Isn’t that just a rat that provides some kind of weird odour to the the perfume companies? Look at the word. Musk. Rat. That would be a rat. It sure looks like one. It even has that long creepy tail.

Squirrels are rats too, admittedly cute rats with bushy tails, but rats. I don’t mind squirrels so much as long as they keep their distance. I can happily watch a squirrel up in a tree.

But I do not like the Stanley Park squirrels in Vancouver. Those things wear black leather jackets, travel in gangs, have switchblades and hold you hostage for food. They even talk like Marlon Brando. I was literally chased by one of those things. I kept backing up and it kept coming toward me. It ignored my laughing husband though, it only came after me. These things can smell fear.

Its strange the way people find my phobia so amusing. Not long ago a friend thought it was hysterical to suddenly thrust a hamster in my face while we were at a party. My screams certainly placed me in the center of attention. I excused myself, went to the bathroom and proceeded to have a melt down while I assured my hostess through the door that I was alright and to just go back to her party. When I came back out my friend laughingly said “Well you shouldn’t have told me you were afraid of it.” It took all my strength not to do something that would have sent me to prison for life. But I didn’t want to ruin the party.

I got her back though. Several months later I told her why I was afraid of rats. That was all I needed to do.

And although I don’t consider myself a cat person, I certainly appreciate what they do to keep the rodent population down, just as long as they don’t give one of those things to me as a present. So as far as I’m concerned, cats can come around and pee in my garden all they want, as long as they keep the rodent population away. I can live with dead flowers. I can’t live with live rodents.

And just to clarify things, gophers are rats too. Isn’t it nice to know that Alberta is the home of a museum that dresses up stuffed gophers as people? And someone is making money at this.
I guess gophers are good for something.

In the Beginning by Anna Maria Junus

Did you know that according to the Bible, Adam lived to be nine-hundred and thirty years old?

Can you imagine living to be almost a thousand years? Okay, it’s not a thousand, but lets face it, when you get that old does seventy years make that much of a difference?

Of course you wouldn’t age the same way you do now. You would be young for a really long time. Which sounds fine until you realize that you would have to be about a hundred and sixty years old before you would be allowed to get your drivers license.

On the other hand, think of all the things you could accomplish in a thousand years? You could be a doctor, lawyer, fireman. a stand up comedian, and still find time to feed the starving children in Africa. Plus you would be around for first contact and be able to travel to other planets.

In this millennium it might be fun to live so long.

But I’m not so sure it would be as fun in Adam’s time.

One thousand years of waking up in the same tent, every day.

I guess you could kill some time tilling the soil, milking the goats and shepherding the sheep.

And I’m sure that every hundred years or so, Eve would decide that she really needed a change and would move the furniture around in the tent.

Because Adam's a man, he wouldn’t notice things had been moved around until he went to sit down on his favourite cushion.

“Eve! Did you move my seat again?”

“Honey, it’s been in that same spot since the last century. I thought I would give you a different view.”

“As soon as I get comfortable with something, you switch it around on me. By the way, where are my slippers?”

“I had to throw them out.”
“You what?”

“Adam, they were over 300 years old. I made you some new ones. See?”

“They’re nice. But I liked my old ones. I had them broken in just right.”

“And you’ll break in these ones too.”

“Yeah, in about a hundred and fifty years.”

“Adam, do you ever get tired of doing the same thing, day after day, year after year, century after century? Do you ever want to do something different?”

“Why? Everything I want is here. My land, my goats, my sheep, my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren, my….”

“Yes, but I can’t help but think that life is too short to just make slippers and milk goats.”

“Eve, the last time you got restless and wanted to know if there was more to life, we found ourselves cast out of a perfectly nice garden and out into a forsaken country where I had to pull weeds and stand in thistles.”

“At least life got more interesting and I got to wear clothes.”

“Having pockets is nice. I’ll give you that one. But you really must learn to be more content my dear. The next thing you’ll tell me is that you want to fly to the moon.”

“One day, people will Adam. Maybe not us, but our descendants will.”

“It will never happen.”

“Speaking of descendants, our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandchildren are coming to visit.”

“Which ones?”

“Enoch and Rebecca. Joshua and Sarah’s children”

“Who are they?”

“Really Adam, you can’t keep track of your own grandchildren?”

“Not when they number in the hundred thousands.”

“Well, I manage to send out birthday cards from us every year. And let me tell you, it’s not easy beating bark into pulp to make paper. I think if I can remember birthdays, you should be able to remember names.”

“Eve, I have to remember all the names that I gave to all the animals. I can’t possibly remember every person on the earth’s name too.”
Eve sighs and shakes her head. “Men!”

Driving Me Crazy by Anna Maria Junus (first published in 2001)

Having seven kids means that you eventually learn to handle stress fairly well. You learn not to pull out your hair when kids draw on the walls. You don’t freak out at the first sign of blood. And watching two-year-olds walk along the backs of couches or four-year-olds climbing trees, doesn’t strike fear into your heart.

So I’m cool, I’m calm, I’m collected, and I’m in control.

Or at least I was until my sixteen-year-old got her learners permit.

To be fair, we’ve been after these teenage girls to get drivers licenses. Here in Alberta they can get their learners at fourteen. They can get their license at sixteen. I have a seventeen-year-old that still hasn’t made the first step. The sixteen-year-old finally has. I want my daughters independent. I want them to be able to drive themselves places instead of having to ask mom and dad or rely on unreliable friends. Most of all, I don’t want to have to get up at 6:30 in the morning to drive them to their scripture study class.

So I was happy she finally got her learners. And yes, I would teach her how to drive. I could handle this.

I can’t handle this.

“First rule,” I say to my daughter, “do not hold on to the steering wheel like a two year old does. It causes the van to sway all over the road.”

“I’m not going to do that Mom,” I know how to stay straight.”

“That would be fine if this was a straight road. But it curves.”

“So how am I doing?”

“Don’t look at me when you say that.”

“Mom, why are you pretending that you have a brake?”

“Why are you looking at my feet?”

“Mom, I’ve driven this road plenty of times.”

“You mean once.”

“No, three.”

“Three times is not exactly plenty.”

“Now wasn’t that a good turn?”

“Yes dear, it was the best turn in the entire history of the world, except for that car that you hit.

“Mom, there was no car there.”

“Well if there had been you would have hit it.”

“Well if there had been a car there, I wouldn’t have turned so wide.”

“That’s right, you would drive so much better with more traffic on the road.”

My husband came home from a driving lesson and declared “I’m never letting her drive again! You teach her.”

“What happened?” I asked smiling.

“She shone the high beams right into an oncoming car.”

“I couldn’t see.” My daughter said.

“Neither could the other driver.” My husband said. “He nearly drove into the lake.”

So it was up to me. Not only that, but it meant that whenever I picked my daughter up from work I had to take the clunky old van instead of the nice new car, so that she could drive home. There was no way she was going to be allowed behind the wheel of the car.

“Would you relax.” She said one day on the way home from her work.

“I am relaxed. I’m having a nice relaxing drive sitting in the passenger’s seat. The next time we do this, could you remind me to bring your brother’s bike helmet and the cell phone?”

“Well, at least you haven’t freaked out yet.”

“Not even when you shone your high beams into an oncoming car and almost drove into the ditch trying to shut them off.”

“Yeah, you were pretty cool about that.”

“I was speechless.”

“You know, if you want me to learn how to drive, you’re going to have to let me.”

“That would be logical. My brain understands that. It’s my body that hasn’t grasped the concept.”

So I am warning everyone out there as I uncurl my body from its fetal position. My daughter is driving. Please be patient. Mistakes will be made. And keep your fingers to yourselves.

Catrophy by Anna Maria Junus (first published in 2003)

I recently found out that in my town there is a cat bylaw. It took me four years and two cats to find this out.

The law states that you have to keep your cat on your property or you will receive a $50 fine.

Do any of these people who made the law actually own a cat?

Do they really think that if you tell a cat to sit and stay they will? Try doing that. Say “Sit Muffy! Sit!” Muffy will look right through you, yawn, and then walk away – and go wherever Muffy pleases to go.

Oh, yes, I know there are the pampered ones who sit around the house looking pretty and using litter boxes and they have never even taken a whiff of outside air. They eat expensive food that their owners grind for them, sleep in their owner’s beds because their own baskets aren’t good enough, and get no more exercise than a long stretch. Often these beings don’t dare go outside because they’ve been declawed, detoothed, and turned into teddy bears who demand attention. If a person did nothing but eat and sleep and look out the window at the world outside, we would label him depressed and put him on medication and send him to counselling.

But a real cat is a wild thing. They are the workers of the domestic world. Cats were created for a reason other than to give humans a live rubbing stone and little girls without baby brothers something to dress up. Cats were created to keep the rodent population down.

Yes, my dear friends, your cuddly furry friend is at heart, a bloodthirsty serial killer.

Some people would suggest putting your cat on a leash and setting him outside like a dog. But dogs don’t climb trees and they’re not very good at jumping fences. Try doing that with a leash around your neck. Muffy might make it to the top of the fence. “Okay, here’s my escape. I’m on the top of the fence and I just have to jump to the other side. Here I go…Hmppphhh. The leash is too short! I’m choking. Help.”

Then you’ll get an irate neighbour on your doorstep complaining about the dead cat swinging from the fence.

And have you ever tried catching a mouse when you’re tied to a tree? You really think mice are going to go right up to a tied up cat and allow it to catch them? They might figure out just how far the cat can go and then sit just outside of its reach. “Hey Muffy, come and get me! Hey everybody look at this! A cat tied to a tree!” Then all the mouse’s family and friends will gather around and shake their butts at Muffy and say “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you can’t get me.” Poor Muffy will be yanking on her chain, trying desperately to reach them, and finally collapse in humiliation. Meanwhile, the mice will enter the house and take out any groceries that appeal to them. “Hey guys, I found some peanut butter! Swiss cheese, my favourite! Do you want the whole grain bread or the white?

Of course Muffy could catch mice inside the house. That’s what every homeowner wants. The mice to actually enter the home and set up house before the cat can catch them. It would be like watching the Tom and Jerry show. And there’s nothing like seeing a fresh kill on your $400 duvet.

There’s great jubilation happening in Mouseville. The cats are in prison. Mice are now free to go about their business, terrorizing homeowners, and stealing baked goods.

And those who passed the cat bylaw can rest easy knowing they have rescued the rodent population.

Directionless by Anna Maria Junus

I have no sense of direction.

Oh, I can tell up and down, except when the ocean tides knock me off my feet in Puerto Valletta, Mexico, and if you give me a minute, I can tell you my left from my right. I just have to think about what finger my ring is on.

But don’t ask me about North, South, East, or West. Or any combinations of those.

I know I live on the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth, because North is up and South is down, except if you’re Australian, but they walk around upside down anyway and if you asked them they would probably say that North is down.

And I’m told that I live in the Western part of the world even though the Far East is west of me. But if you go east from where I am far enough, you will reach the far east and eventually come back to me. Which means I’m east of myself.

In my defense, I grew up on Vancouver Island. There is no east, north, south or west there. The island is on an angle and there’s water on three sides in Victoria where I was raised. There’s up island, and grab the ferry to somewhere else. People never talked about NEWS except in Social Studies class when we were looking at maps of Canada. We were in the west where our votes don’t count.

If you gave directions, you told people to turn right or left.

I had heard about people using the North Star or a compass when they were lost. I never could figure out which one is the North Star. And it seemed to me that a compass could only tell you where north was. It couldn’t tell you where you were or which way you needed to go. In order for it to do that, you would have to already know where you were and which way you needed to go. And people who can do that are the same people that you can blindfold, spin around a dozen times and they will still be able to face north anyway. So what do they need a compass for?

So NEWS never meant a thing to me. Until I came to Alberta. And even in the cities it was more often part a street name than anything else.

But rural Alberta is different. Everyone uses NEWS.

People in rural areas don’t have addresses. They live in the white house at the end of the rutted drive on the north side of the gravel road that you turn east onto after you’ve found the yellow dog on the corner of the township road just west of the bridge after the hog farm which is a mile south of the wheat field that belongs to Old McDonald’s farm who’s daughter gave birth in the stable during milking time, which is only three kilometers from the community hall after the bend in the road, which is six miles east of the major town of 300 just off the road from the secondary highway that goes north to Edmonton.

This also explains why I’m such a guy when it comes to asking for directions. I know I’ll never be able to follow them.

Living in the city is much easier. Give me an address and a map and I’ll eventually get there. I might make a few wrong turns or be sent off down the wrong highway due to not being in the right lane at the right time, but I will eventually reach my destination. I like a good map and I’ve even been known to be able to fold them up again.

But in the country, if I’m extremely lucky and the yellow dog hasn’t moved, I’ve figured out the bend in the road is actually the second bend and not the first, and there’s cows outside to let me know it’s a cattle ranch and not a hog farm, I just might find where I’m going.

If you get lost in the city, you can always use your cell and call for directions. “I’m at the corner of 81st and 1026th and there’s a McDonalds across the street and a Safeway behind me.”

Get lost in the country in the dark in the winter, and the conversation goes like this:

“I’m lost and stuck in the snow.”

“Where are you?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be lost.”

“What road are you on?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see any street signs.”

“What’s around you?”

“Snow and trees.”

“What kind of trees.”

“I don’t know. It’s too dark to see. I’m just guessing they’re trees. They’re tall dark shapes. I’m hoping they’re just trees. Please let them be just trees and not something that might start moving towards me.”

“What was the last thing you remember seeing before getting stuck in the snow.”

“My life passing before my eyes.”

There is some comfort in getting lost in the country. Eventually if you can get yourself out of the snow, you can drive until you reach a main road. That main road will take you somewhere. It may be Alaska, but at least it’s somewhere.