Tag Archives: My Cars

"Suburban Moms Are So Annoying"

This is not what I think (boy wouldn’t that be a sign of self loathing). This was a search used to find my blog. Someone who works for Pfizer in New York City finds us annoying and actually went to the trouble of conducting a Google search for related information on the internet. Like there are websites that offer resources for the poor urban people that have to put up with those irritating suburban moms.

And if there are, it appears that my blog is one of them!

The Big Piece of Cake was selected because of a line from my old Babies are the New Black post: “That’s what suburban moms who read Us Weekly do. We judge. In our stained sweatpants.” This link made the cut due to the fact that it included the words “suburban moms” and “so.” Not surprisingly, the researcher spent “0” seconds on my site. And who could blame them since all they saw that day was a misleading blog name promising baked goods and a post about my obsession with dolls. Sorry to disappoint.

Initially, I just had a little laugh over those crazy keyword searches that people conduct, and conceded that the search could have been for information less obvious than the selected words would indicate. It’s possible that my friend at Pfizer didn’t actually need data on annoying suburban moms and was really just looking up a movie quote or a funny story they read in the news.

You never know with internet searches. I’ve certainly conducted some weird ones myself. Just yesterday I wrote an entire post about the most beautiful blog family I’ve ever seen, only to discover that I lost the link to their site. My solution? See if I could locate the blog in a targeted Google search of course. The key word combinations I came up with were pretty bizarre. Here is a sample: “Mormon blog with four beautiful daughters.” Is that creepy sounding or what? One would think that I’m a psychopath putting the finishing touches on my homemade girl cages. Yikes! But in reality, I was just writing a funny post about not believing that such a beautiful family could possibly exist. I’m still peeved about spending time on that post for nothing. So if you are incredibly good looking, have four Nicole Eggert look-alike daughters and once linked to my Mormons Are Funny post, please comment so I can be in touch.

Back to my point – this odd keyword search made me think. Are suburban moms annoying? If I’m just speaking for myself, I’d probably choose “off balance” over “annoying” – but you know, semantics. If we’re going to take the search literally and go with the actual definition of “annoying,” “causing vexation : irritating <an annoying habit> <annoying questions>,” I’d have to say yes. We are annoying. And there are several points in favor of this conclusion.

First, we are rather pampered by the ease of our suburban lifestyle. Even though we don’t live in the city, we’re also not in the country and have pretty much any retail necessities that one could imagine in close proximity to our homes. And unlike urban families, we can drive everywhere with very few worries over traffic. While I am the first to complain about the hour it takes to get my group out of the house and buckled into their car seats (a sure sign of an annoying suburban mom), I also know that I’m much happier tooling around in the comfort of my own vehicle than trying to navigate the public transportation system.

Secondly, we don’t have as many opportunities to parallel park, so we irritate downtown drivers with our geriatric parking style – often pulling out completely to start all over again when it’s clear that we overestimated the amount of space we had. And pulling up to the car parked in front of us? Why would we ever do that? It’s not like city street parking is hard to find or anything. Oh – it is? Well how the hell would we know that? The shopping centers and strip malls we frequent all have parking lots.

And let’s talk about those vehicles we drive. I’ve already written about my own tank, but it’s pretty safe to say that most suburban moms drive some form of a minivan or SUV. I can defend this choice based on my own inability to find an economy car that accommodates three car seats – but I already covered that in the other post I mentioned above. The bottom line is – necessary or not, we drive big cars. And people can’t see around us on the road. And we’re usually so distracted by our children fighting, crying, puking, etc. in the back that we really don’t notice that we’re weaving, driving too slow or confusing people with the blinker that has been on for the past five minutes.

So based on our driving and parking styles alone, you can imagine how much other annoying suburban mom fodder I could pull together. But I’ll close with the obvious. The annoying suburban mommy bloggers.

What can I say about us…? Well, we’re kind of whiny. Whether we call ourselves career women or work at home moms, we do A LOT of complaining on our blogs. Of course we also exclaim over the daily joys of motherhood and the angels that were sent to us in the guise of offspring. But seriously, we do our fair share of kvetching. You think you don’t? Comment and I’ll come visit your blog to check it out. You’ve obviously discovered some nirvana that remains hidden from the rest of us. Please – disclose your secret.

And on the flip side of our communal bitchfest, we also torture people with syrupy sweet anecdotes about our children. We are SO proud of our little monsters that we fully expect to win awards for world’s cutest kids (which by the way is a title that was most likely already given to the world’s most beautiful family referenced above – sorry). Even when we are complaining about them or recounting amusing stories about their bad behavior, you know that we’re secretly pleased by what little characters they are. GOD we’re annoying.

I have based pretty much all of these observations on my own subjective experience. So if you’re feeling a bit ruffled and misrepresented, just let me throw a disclaimer out there. I am quite possibly one of the most annoying people I know. I have numerous flaws that rub people the wrong way, and I write about them all the time. My annoying habits related to my status of “suburban mom” are such a small part of the truly irritating person that I am.

And when I say “I am” – I really mean, that “we all are.” Come ON Pfizer employee in New York City (I’m back to assuming that the search was intended for evil). Do you really think that you’re any less annoying than the rest of us? Of course not. It’s all so subjective. I was once a city kid that had never even heard of my current neighborhood. I’ve done my fair share of eye rolling and guffawing over the suburbs – but now that I’m on the other side, I see that it goes both ways. No one is safe. We’re all annoying. And on a good day, we choose to call this state of affairs “diversity.”

*Before commenting on this – please read the “Pfizer employee’s” comment and my response (I think we’re #22 and #23). Thanks!

First Month Wrap Up: Perverts and Haters and Mormons – Oh My!

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Well I’ve been blogging for a little over a month now – so I thought I’d do a write up on the experience.

First – I am proud to announce that even with a post titled Peeping Toms and Sex Perverts in Thailand, I still haven’t gotten all that many creepy key word searches. In fact, most seem to be cake-related. Which makes me feel bad because I kind of gave up on working in any cake-related content to accompany my metaphor… So my apologies to those people who got here thinking that I had fabulous recipes on offer.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t get some weird ones… I still wince when I think about that “how big is a piece of poop” search I mentioned in the post referenced above. And there was also a very suspicious one for “big peince” that seems to have originated in Thailand. Something tells me they weren’t looking for cake. I also still get a lot of Darth Vader searches (sorry Star Wars fans). But my personal favorite from yesterday was “a famous mom blogger funny.” Really? After just a month? I’m now famous? Not quite. I clicked on the link to see what Google listed and – surprise – I’m not there. BUT Meghan, the creator of one of my favorite sites, AllMediocre was at the top of the list. So that was nice (you know – in a really happy for you – maybe I’ll live vicariously through you kind of way).

I also got to experience my first round of hate mail comments. Who knew that writing about how you don’t like driving a big car would make people so angry. I don’t get THAT many comments – so I’m really only talking about a handful of haters. But still, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sting a little.

I would like to commend Mr. T in DC for providing an opinion, but stating it without actual venom. It made me want to read what he said and think about it – not flinch as if someone had slapped me. I said it before and I’ll say it again, “there aren’t enough Mr. T in DCs out there…” Anonymous – you know how I feel about you, but I won’t stoop to your level of meanness.

And I’d like to take this opportunity to point out to the people that say “my parents had three children and never needed such a big car,” that your parents were raising children when car seats were removed once a child could sit up on their own, and the “way back” was considered an area for additional seating. Until you try to jam three car seats across the back seat of a sedan or smaller SUV (or a “station wagon” no less), please refer to Mr. T in DC’s comment for more realistic alternatives to suggest.

Really – it’s been great aside from the few assaults on my pornaphobic sensibilities and tender feelings. Feelings that are still a little hurt, by the way. As Rizzo from Grease said when she sang, There are Worse things I Could Do, “I can feel and I can cry – a fact I bet you never knew.” Okay – that’s not actually true – I’m over it. But I really like to quote musicals. Just ask my husband (I’ll have to write a post on that…)

The better moments have included getting crucified by my friends for thinking mommyhole.com was a harmless sounding domain name, learning how to do domain name searches as a form of entertainment (you play solitaire – I search domain names), crucifying my husband (payback for the mommyhole debacle) for being a creative slob, visiting my parents in Key West, drinking too much wine and not dancing responsibly, taking pictures of my son’s Star Wars underwear, and getting to tell off my friend’s ex-boyfriend Mayank online.

But my FAVORITE blog-related experience to date? Meeting the funny Mormons of course! I thought I was writing a post that only my other friends that didn’t know any Mormons would read, and to direct them to a Kacy‘s wonderfully funny blog, Every Day I Write the Book. It never occurred to me that Kacy would COMMENT. I literally shrieked like a teenage girl when I saw it (and I wasn’t one for shrieking when I WAS a teenager). It was both hilarious and horrifying at the same time. I quickly got over my embarrassment though since all of the comments that I got from Mormons (particularly Kacy, Rachel, “Vern”, Lisa and Bek) were incredibly warm and gracious. And informative – did you know that Jon Heder is Mormon and that there are all kinds of jokes in Napoleon Dynamite that only Mormons get? ME NEITHER!

Anyway – not only have I found some new online friends in the Mormon community, I’ve also been invited to guest post on Light Refreshments Served. I was instructed to keep it clean for the nice ladies that read it. And after slashing all of the curse words and pornographic imagery, I was able to come up with something that I think everyone can enjoy. I’ll be featured next Friday, August 1 – so put it on your calendar. And I’ll post a reminder next week.

So – 31 days….it’s hard to believe. It feels more like 40. Well – here’s to 40 (or 4,000) more! Thanks for reading me and COMMENT so I can read you too!

Why I Hate Being a Truck Driver

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Now that I’ve got your attention… I don’t really drive one of the big rigs. I drive a Ford Expedition. SUV owners are either saying, “Eh – My Tahoe is just as big,” or “Oh yeah – my Explorer is quite big enough, thank you very much.”

The truth is – I’m just not a “big car” person. They don’t suit me. I don’t know how to gracefully enter or exit them, I can’t park them to save my life, and if I didn’t have a little alarm that lets me know when I’m getting too close to something behind me, I would have taken out any number of trees and bushes by now.

Obviously this truck was not my choice. After almost a year of cramming three car seats across the back seat of Chris’ Jeep Liberty, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we really needed something roomier. Like any other proper suburban family, we initially discussed minivans. Chris was very against this idea. He practically broke out in hives at the thought. But I could have cared less. I’m not much of a car person in general.

I think my disinterest in cars was cultivated early when as a teenager, I drove a 1985 used “Red Renault Alliance.” I put this in quotes because that is generally how people referred to it: “the Red Renault Alliance.” Here is a picture:

My parents purchased this when I got my drivers license so that I could drive myself to school (at the time I had a very inconvenient public transportation commute from Capitol Hill to Georgetown). My father seemed to believe that I was incredibly lucky to have my own car to drive instead of sharing theirs. I of course, knew that “lucky” better described my friends who were getting new Suzuki Samurais and Cabriolet convertibles for their sixteenth birthdays. Seriously though, I now agree with my father. Upon the Red Renault Alliance’s demise just two short years after we bought it, my brother did have to share a car with my parents. Which in his sixteen year old opinion “sucked.”

The next car that I had was purchased after I got my first job out of college. It was a little blue Toyota Tercel. And in my own twenty-two year old opinion, it “sucked.” But it was all I could afford. And after the dramatic explosion/car flipping/burned feet drama of the Red Renault Alliance, I was not interested in buying anything used. My tiny Tercel had vinyl seats that burned the backs of my legs in the summer and no power steering. This completely destroyed the amazing talent for parallel parking I developed in my parents’ crowded Capitol Hill neighborhood. But just like the Red Renault Alliance, the Tercel was not a status car, and I continued to view cars as simply a means of transportation.

Eventually, I had other larger sedans (Saturns, a Camry), but my interest level never increased. I liked driving a shiny new car, but had no inclination to actually maintain it.

When I met Chris, it was clear that he wasn’t not a car person either. In fact, when I first started dating him, I always drove. His car was a hand me down from his grandparents. I don’t remember the make, but it was white with maroon interior (I believe his friends called it the “maxi pad”) and it had started emitting fumes that made him light headed after about 15 minutes of driving. He moved on to a very basic Jeep Cherokee and shared my apathetic attitude toward maintenance.

So fast forward eight years, three kids, several mediocre cars and a suburban commute later…and we were at a loss as to what we wanted. One weekend, Chris went out to test drive some minivans he had researched online, and instead came back with this:

I was speechless. It was huge. I had to step up onto a running board in order to hoist myself into the front seat. This was by far, the biggest vehicle that I had ever tried to drive. But it’s now been over a year, and like anything else, I’ve gotten used to it.

Reasons why I hate driving it include the following:

Like I said, I’m terrible at parking it. And I don’t even mean parallel parking. I walk out of the grocery store and locate my car by looking for the big truck parked on a diagonal. No matter how carefully I try to get into a space, I usually end up crooked or right up against one neighboring car and a mile away from the other. I’ve even been keyed! And I often end up with some man trying to help direct me in – like those airport guys on the tarmac helping planes pull up to the gates. It’s just humiliating.

Additionally – I find that people are mean to me. Maybe they see my big truck and think that I have an aggressive personality to go with it. All I know is that I have the hardest time getting people to let me change lanes in traffic. It’s like they’re in their little economy car thinking, “Oh no you don’t, you big gas guzzling bully – you’re not cutting in front of me.” If only I could install a sign that said, “I am not driving this car by choice – I have too many children to fit into an environment-friendly compact car.” I doubt anyone would care. They’d probably just key my sign.

Finally, we just don’t match. I don’t look like a big car person. Not only is it not my style, but I don’t have the attitude to pull it off. I’m not particularly petite, but I’ve seen tiny girls climb out of trucks bigger than mine looking like they own the parking lot (they, of course can park without taking up two spaces). This will never be me.

So what car SHOULD I be driving? Most would answer this question with their idea of a dream car. Something eye catching, fast, vintage, expensive… But I’d rather spend the money on my house or a great vacation.

Someday my children will get their drivers licenses, and they’ll be the ones envying their friends with fancy new cars. That’s right – they’ll be driving whatever junkie jalopy we give them. And they’ll be damn lucky to have it!