Single in Sandpoint: Summer is a cruel mistress… smoke gets in your [kids’] eyes

Thank the Lord it’s over. Winter is officially out the door wagging its middle fingers at us like an eliminated reality contestant. Spring is going to hang around longer than it should like a rebound relationship that you let go on for way too long. And soon summer will be here for a brief fling, like the hook up you had on spring break 1994, only a bit longer.

     Do I have to mention fall? Fine. Fall is like the high school friend your mom always wanted you to marry but you couldn't bring yourself to date because there was no chemistry.

     And yes, my relationship with the weather is highly dysfunctional. 

     In other regions the passing of seasons is closely tied to calendar months and there is a bit of predictability involved. You know that if you’re going to go to Las Vegas in May to lay out by the pool you’ll be able to fry like a piece of delicious bacon in the sun's mighty rays.

     If you try the same thing in Sandpoint you just have to take your chances; you might get a little bit of sun, or you might get snowed on.

     It's more accurate to gauge Sandpoint seasons by their events. If you want to know when spring starts just start looking around for people driving restored classic cars.

     Lost in the ’50s weekend is the only way to tell whether or not it’s actually spring. You can always wear shorts and a t-shirt to Lost in the ’50s, and regardless of the actual temperature others will be dressed the same.

     There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that Lost in the ’50s is a place where you will be drinking beer outdoors and activities like outdoor beer drinking go hand-in-had with summer attire. Look it up, it's like death and taxes.

     True story. Lost in the ’50s is off the hook.

     This year I was enjoying not being pregnant and the good weather during the parade by taking my kids on a stroll through town. I don't allow them to stay downtown later than 7:30 p.m., though. I find that all the people who started drinking at 5 p.m. are primed at that time and also related to us; I like to spare my children that kind of adult attention if you know what I'm saying.

     So therefore I’m the “mean mom” who sends her kids with a babysitter before the "street dance" even starts. I'm not going to apologize. I GAVE THEM LIFE.

     Anywhoo, we’re strolling around and we come up to a major intersection where we’re going to cross the street. There are about 25 people waiting at this intersection and it’s a bit crowded.

     This is where things get a little weird.

     The lady standing next to us is wearing a front-backpack with an infant tucked inside. In her hand is a lit cigarette. She proceeds to smoke it.

     Now I’m not the type to begrudge someone for smoking. I'm not going to preach to a smoker about their habit any more than I’m going to smack a cheeseburger out of a fatty's hands.

     We all choose our own vices, but really? Smoking? With an infant on your chest? 

     I mulled over my feelings: Disgust mixed with fascination over her complete lack of regard for one of society's most ingrained social standards.

     Smoking around infants and other people’s kids is generally frowned upon, right?

     Then she casually dropped her hand and swung that cigarette about three inches from my 9-year-old’s face and right into my 7-month-old son’s stroller. 

     GET YOUR CIGARETTE OUT OF MY SON'S FACE.

     I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I screamed those words, I more or less hissed them through clenched teeth.

     She sort of looked at me paralyzed, then my 9-year-old daughter yelled at the top of her lungs: "MOM, I'm trying so hard not to inhale."

     People all around started chuckling and the smoking mom looked stunned. I guess she didn't need to cross the street that badly because she turned on a dime and walked off.

     I don't know. The whole thing seemed a bit ridiculous. Was I being judgmental?

     I was wearing cargo pant Capris at the time, and this was an atypical outfit for me as I associate that type of pant with people who stock up on boneless chicken breasts and wine at Costco. I like Costco but I'm not really ready to cash in my chips and become a full-time member of that crowd.

     In fact, I've been a smoker before. I just always thought smoking was something you did in the smoking section, dive bar, college road trips or in an off-site shack next to your workplace. NEVER IN A KID INFESTED ZONE.

     Now I was irritated. That smoking mom made me act like an uptight uber-mom Capri cargo pants-wearing bitch – and I even had a tiny little henchwoman with me. One who was so thoroughly trained that she was holding her breath because she'd rather pass out than breathe second-hand smoke.

     Boy oh boy would I like to be a fly on the wall in her therapy sessions one day.

     I tried not to let the irritation ruin my night as I loaded my kids into their grandma's car. You see, I like to do my partying when my kids are at a secure smoke-free location. I don't think that makes me better than anyone else. At least I like to think I don't. Growing up is hard to do. Especially at my age.

     The moral of the story here is that the weather is getting warmer and there will be several more public events throughout the summer. We all need to co-exist in order to fully enjoy the season because, like I said earlier, summer is a real heart-breaker.

     She swoops in quickly, has her way with you and then disappears without so much as a goodbye.

     Prepare yourself for the season. Brazilians and spray tan optional!

Scarlette Quille

Workplace Farting Incidents Rising

WORDS: 1277

Single in Sandpoint:

     The new job is going great. In fact, most days I look forward to going to work. However, this job is not in a cubicle and I don't work with your run-of-the-mill office types. 

     My co-workers do not wear Dockers and nibble Lean Cuisines at lunch. My co-workers – on the whole – are far more likely to wear Carharts and discuss their latest interaction with a wild animal (an interaction that typically ends in death for the animal). 

     That's how they roll. And yes, I find it almost excruciating when no one wants to discuss the latest episode of “America's Next Top Model” and there’s no Starbucks within a 25-mile radius. 

     I work in a very rural area – 33 miles away from my front door. I'm not going to get all specific with the details because that's how people get fired. Suffice to say, we also have no cell phone service, which is unfortunate because my cell phone is actually critical to my functioning as a human being. 

     For eight hours a day I don't know what time it is. I send and receive no texts. I'm pretty sure there are thousands of people who need to, but can't, reach me and I can't take any pictures with my fantastic Droid camera. 

     I am cut off from cell world and that fact alone is single-handedly responsible for a new ulcer growing in my guts. Ugh. 

     Anyway, I’m not really a rural type. These new co-workers are not my people. I know this. They know this. They treat me as though I’m the "special" cousin visiting from some depraved place, and I view my interaction with them much like Jane Goodall and her silverbacks.
     I say silverback with the utmost respect; remember, Jane loved those apes. 

     I've had to do several strange and foreign activities at this job, like bottle feeding lambs, hiking, constant exposure to fresh air, playing capture the flag and interacting with chickens. I was cool with all of these things – seriously, I may not have liked some of them, but my desire to earn a paycheck makes it possible for me to at least fake it. 

     Like I said, the people I work with and for are actually a lot of fun. They find my general lack of skill in the outdoor arts comical and I don't mind being the object of amusement. 

     Lately, however, I’ve found myself assimilating into their culture. I bought a pair of trail shoes and began to appreciate walks in the forest. But just when I was considering purchasing an item from REI for the first time in my life, it happened.
     I was sitting in the "office" at my new place of employment. This office is typical in the fact that there is a desk, computer and telephone; however, it is shared by all employees. 

     I was furiously scribbling away at some mandatory paperwork when one of the female silverbacks entered the room. She is clearly the alpha female of the pride. She knows how to cook, hunt, hike, track animals, change oil and drives a giant pickup. I cannot compete with her on any of these levels, though I've been working on befriending her. Sadly, my lack of any practical skills or ability to cut an animal into pieces and then eat it makes me fairly unimpressive to her. 

The alpha female walked past me toward the water cooler, water bottle in hand. Without so much as a "what’s up" she sauntered over to get herself some water; and despite our close proximity, I took her lead and didn’t utter a word. 

     She bent over to catch the stream, and then an ungodly sound ripped through the air: "RRRRRRRREEEEEEETTTTTTTPPPPTTT!!!!!"

     It was a deafening, thunderous clap so loud and earsplitting I couldn't possibly have controlled my instinctual reflex to turn toward the sound. I was looking the alpha female straight in the eye, head tilted slightly. I now know how a deer feels in the instant that it’s looking down the barrel of a hunter's rifle. 

     I couldn't immediately place the somewhat familiar sound, and then while locked eye-to-eye with her I realized that she had cut ass. 

     Right there, in the office. In front of me. In public. 

     I had witnessed a work-place farting incident of fairly epic proportions.
     It was one of those moments that will forever stand still in time or space for me; a moment when I had to make a choice about who I am and where I stand. 

     Having never been in that situation before, I didn't know how to react. The alpha female looked up from her water bottle, waved her hand back and forth in front of the offending orifice and then stated: "Now that's old school." 

     She then turned for the door. 

     Oh, hell no. This lady was going to trap me in a small space with a fart that broke the sound barrier and then walk out to leave me trapped in a cloud of confusion and methane. 

     No. I'm not a public farter and there is no way I was going to stay in that office and wait for the next silverback to walk in and ASSUME that it was ME WHO FARTED IN THE OFFICE. 

     I already have enough strikes against me at this job; I'm not going to be known as the chick who craps herself while doing paperwork. 

     I jumped up from that chair like there was a one-hour shoe sale at Nordstrom’s and ran to the door. Once I hit the door I booked it out of there, refusing to make eye contact with anyone or anything.
     What the hell had just happened?
     I like to consider myself a modern woman. I do. If I had to describe myself to someone I’d use words like "liberal" or "free spirit.” I know that a lot of people think farts are funny, and I’ve laughed at a fart or two in my time, but damn. I’ve never even considered farting un-provoked in the presence of a stranger – let alone a co-worker. 

     In fact, the only time I ever fart in the presence of another human being is out of self-defense against a family member or on accident. Case closed.
     I was pacing briskly up and down the halls of our workplace, trying my hardest not to burst out in a mixture of laughter, horror and perhaps something like admiration. 

     What did this mean? Was it an act of disrespect? Was it her way of saying, "Hey, you’re good people. I’m so comfortable in your presence I think I'll just pass some gas?"  

     Or was it merely an accident and the "old school" comment just a clever way of hiding her inner pain? 

     Even more concerning: Do they all fart around each other? Can I expect several more awkward moments and crop dustings in the future?
     I've been contemplating this last question for over a week. I may never have the answers, but I do have a deeper empathy for Jane Goodall now. No matter how much I admire the ways of the silverbacks, I can never truly be one of them. In order to fully embrace that culture I would have to give up my specific social boundaries. 

     I’m not a hunter or gatherer, I’m a shopper. I leave the farting to the lesser species like... men. 

     Nonetheless, I’ll have to work harder at getting them to accept me for who I am. Maybe I can teach them a thing or two about tweezers and the difference between Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson? Maybe.

Committed to keeping my gas leaks private,

Scarlette Quille

SIS | Conquering Whitesnake, Grey Goose and The Bull: Scarlette returns

My “Layoff List.” Do any of you remember it? It was a list of things, much like a bucket list, that I wanted to do while laid off. I started it two years ago [SPR 08/13/09] with lofty expectations, completed five out of 10 items, got pregnant and the list went on hold, much like the ability to wear my pants and say no to donuts.

     Any-babies-make-you-fat-and-neurotic-way, I still have five list items to complete and a problem. Boy, oh boy, do I have a problem. January rolled around this year and I realized that I’m broke. Just flat out, plain and simple broke.

     The kind of broke where you only pay your bills when the pink envelope comes and you live in constant fear of the student loan head hunters. Pay your student loan late just once and they will call you every day three times a day until you have to put your phone on vibrate and hide it because the mere sound of an incoming call fills you with so much anxiety and guilt that you sprout three zits and slap your husband simultaneously.

     I am a creature of comfort; I like nice shoes and expensive booze. I enjoy being a photographer; but, unfortunately, being a photographer in Sandpoint, Idaho means that you will have a "slow" period every winter. Couple this with the shitstorm of an economy and our small population and, well, I'm sure you see where this is going.

     I needed to get a job.

     And my job requirements were pretty simple: I would need to become employed somewhere where I didn't have to sit in a cubicle all day and I would never have to utter the words, "Would you like a baked potato, fries or a house salad with that?"

     It seemed as impossible as checking off the last five items on my Layoff List: ride a mechanical bull, be a groupie, get another tattoo, take over a dive bar and participate in open mike night.

     Who the hell wrote that list? I’d like to find her and kick her ass.

     Nonetheless, I started the job hunt and decided to knock something off my list that very week: The Mechanical Bull.

     I've been stalking that albatross in The Dive for months now. My initial plan was that I was going to have a baby, recover for a few months, fit into my normal clothes again and then saunter into The Dive, cue the DJ and ride that bull into the pages of history.

     Three months post-baby and I still couldn't button my pants, but I needed to make a comeback. I can't just stay on the sidelines, depending on my distant memories of past fun to keep me warm.

     Sure I’m a little out of shape and my wardrobe consists of fat pants and "forgiving" sweaters, but I still deserve to have a good time, right? Soon, I would find a job and then my fun times would have to be scheduled.

     Then the perfect opportunity came: I was invited to an ’80s party. There was no way in hell that I was going to dress up – as a general rule I don't dress up when over my ideal weight. Call me vain, call me sane, whatever I have set these boundaries for myself, and in the age of digital media one can never be too careful. My plan was to get drunk at the party then head on over to the bull and meet my destiny.

     Um, yeah.

     Let’s discuss what really happened. I left the kids with my husband then ate a huge guilt sandwich and washed it down with a cup-full of feelings of inadequacy. I met up with my friends and proceeded to wash the pain away with glass after glass of Grey Goose.

     When my speech and judgment showed marked signs of impairment, I attacked the dance floor. My moves were so dangerous that people had to give me a 4-foot radius in order to avoid injury.

     After working up a sweat, cussing out the DJ and doing a couple of chair dances, I became unbearably hot. Apparently I walked over to a table, grabbed someone's full beer and dumped it on my head while dancing to Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again."

     (Fun Fact: That song was not playing. I just wanted to head bang with long, wet, stringy hair, "like Whitesnake.")

     It was at this point that I walked over to my cousin and informed her that it was time for me to go. She agreed. What she didn't know was that I was ready to leave the party but had no intention on going home – or to Betty Ford. I was ready to ride the bull.

     I walked into the beast's lair. There were maybe six people there. Not much of an audience, but I had worked up the nerve and wasn't going to back out now. I pulled off my boots, climbed into the puffy orange ring and patted the big fellow. He reeked of peanuts and broken dreams. I tried to mount the beast but the first few times I just fell off. BEFORE IT EVEN STARTED.

     Luckily, there was no one else in line, so the bull operator allowed me several tries. On about the sixth mount, I rode the bull for about four seconds.

     Oh but it was an exhilarating four seconds. With Def Leppard playing in the background, and in my haze, I realized that I had finally conquered the bull.

     If a pudgy girl in her mid-30s could re-create a Whitesnake video and ride a feral bar beast in one night, there was no limit to her potential.

     I walked into a job interview three days later and walked out with a job.

     Booyah, bitches.

     As for the last four items on my list, don't worry, I’ll get to them. Remember, I'm the married person who writes about being single. I don't give a bull's horn about having a job and completing a layoff list. It's not where you start, right? It's how you finish.

Still finding random peanut shells all over my house,

Scarlette Quille

Old love-soldiers never die, they just keep writing ‘singles’ columns anyway

Happy New Year!

    OK, I know, we’re two weeks into the New Year – how many of you have kept your resolutions?

     Don't feel bad. I actually set some sort of record this year. I wrote a list of my resolutions and promised myself I would really get things straightened out. Then – this is not a joke – I DIDN'T EVEN START THEM. 

     Yep, not even one day. I am officially the duchess of Loserville.

     I would like to say I have an excuse, but really? There are dudes stuck out in the wilderness sawing off their own arms in order to survive and I can't even organize my closet. 

     Well, part of my problem is the fact that I have a Ph.D. in Procrastination and the other part is that I’m exhausted.

     Ever since Emperor Napoleon was reincarnated as my infant son, my days and nights are all a jumble of blown-out diapers, vomit down my shirt and the never-ending quest to do things that please him.

     He’s generally a good baby, but he demands to be entertained; and, much like a frat boy, he prefers to stay up until 1 a.m. and sleep until noon. Unfortunately, my college days are over and I can't sleep till noon. This fact evades him.

     He also insists on drinking his meals straight from the source (a boob, for those of you who can’t read between the lines). Anytime we try to feed him via bottle he looks accusingly at the perpetrator.

     This look clearly communicates: "Get that silicone nipple out of my mouth. Who do I look like? Brett Michaels?"

     I am convinced on a regular basis that he is a genius; then I see him do something like try to nurse from the comforter on my bed.

     This whole “nursing the comforter” thing really bursts my bubble because it suggests to me that my son sees me as nothing more than a squishy warm entity, and two, he thinks comforters have nipples.

     I don't know. It's all very disturbing, and I ponder these things instead of completing my to-do lists or starting my resolutions. That's what my life has become.

     Maybe that's my problem. I don't know who or what I am. Am I a comforter? Am I a mother? Am I the court jester?

     Also what about the whole "Single in Sandpoint" thing? The title of my column suggests that I am "single.” This was a very fitting title 5.5 years ago when I started writing this column.

    Damn me. Damn my lack of ability to see the future. Why didn't I name my column something that wouldn't change with time, like “Singled-Out in Sandpoint,” or “Shit-faced in Sandpoint” or “Situated in Sandpoint”?

     Now I have people writing me and saying, "Well, you’re not really single anymore.” To those people I say: “No shit I'm not single.”

     I like to consider myself a single-sympathizer these days. I've been out there in the dating world; I know what a scary, complex and occasionally hilarious place it is.

     It’s like surviving a war. I am a veteran of being Single in Sandpoint, and you’d definitely take advice from a veteran of war, right? Why is dating any different? It’s not.

     Sure I’m no longer in active duty; I’m the old, crotchety soldier that’s left on the base to prepare the young soldiers for war.

     Yes, that's it. I’m a soldier of love. I play the role of wing-woman, accompanying my single soldiers out on their quests, but I no longer make the kills.

     Basically, I’ve earned the Purple-freaking-Heart of dating in Sandpoint. So I'm not going to apologize for continuing to write a column – that plenty of people enjoy – because five years ago when I moved back to this town I didn't ever think I'd be married with another kid.

     I have plenty of other transgressions to apologize for; writing the column that I invented is not one of them.

     Plus, writing on a regular basis is probably the only resolution I will even come close to keeping. Thus it is the only one I will admit to. The others will remain my hidden, dirty secrets. Maybe by next New Year I’ll be able to make and keep resolutions. But that’s then. This is now.

     Well, now that I have that out of the way: cheers to Sandpoint, cheers to no longer being pregnant and my sympathies to those who are.

     Thank you for continuing to read my column – and this paper – and good luck fighting the good fight.

     2011, I'm not ready for you, but you came anyway.

Sincerely,

Gen. Scarlette Quille

LOVE CORPS, Ret.

Scarlette Quille, aka, Rack Attack, aka, The Re-Caroler

     If you’ve been reading this column for the last five years, you know a few things about old Scarlette Quille:

1. She loves vodka. The expensive kind. (So if you were planning on getting me a Christmas present, please send vodka. Grey Goose or Kettle One will do.)

2. She hates holidays in general, but Christmas the most.

     Yes, I just said it.

     I feel guilty for admitting I don't like Christmas, but last year’s pregnancy and unemployment have given me the opportunity to watch thousands of hours of daytime television.

     The message that I have received from all these chat-fests is that you have to be "true to yourself.” You have to learn how to admit your faults. That, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck is definitely Satan's half-sister.

     So I don't like Christmas. Does that make me a bad person?

     Still, I celebrate it. I wrap presents, eat too much, spend more money than I should, endure long awkward hours with family and I decorate my house. In the grand tradition of mothers all over the country I do these things to make "other" people happy.

     Oh yeah, please, don't tell me you never had a Christmas guilt trip; when your mom was screaming at you while over-doing some Christmas related task.

    You were like, "Mom, if you don't want to embroider and hand sew every one of our teachers a Christmas present, you don't have to."

     And then your Mom was like, "I do this for YOU, so YOU can have a good Christmas, and this is the thanks I get? A daughter with a smart mouth.”

     Speaking of moms and Christmas... what kind of “Christmas Mom” did you have? Was she an insane Christmas drill sergeant forcing you to dress in sadistic formal holiday wear for her own sick pleasure, then parading you around town to various pageants and Santa sightings?

     Or was your mom the kind who baked for two weeks straight and then used her children as slaves to assemble cookie packages for EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING SHE EVER MET?

     Or maybe you had the obsessive decorator type – the one who had a specific place for ever single holiday decoration, including holiday tree ornament placement. (You know, the type that even has holiday bathroom decorations.)

     I loved going to my friends’ houses during the holidays so I could see what kind of crazy their moms were; it made me feel lucky to have my mom, who was certainly holiday-crazy but no deranged maniac – like some "people" I know.

     I'll be honest here: I've tried picking up a holiday habit to obsess over. I’ve tried all of the abovementioned things and more.

     One Christmas I made candles out of baby food jars. They sucked.

     As you might suspect, I lack the dedication and desire to achieve any sort of notoriety in the domestic arts. Unfortunately, Christmas is the holiday when the domestic goddess rules and the rest of us feel inferior.

     The real problem I foresee is this: How will I guilt those kids of mine into coming home for Christmas when they’re in college? The sign of a good mother is whether or not her kids come home for "the holidays," right?

     Well, I merely dabble in baking, decorating and pageantry. I can't see my future-self calling one of my college age children – who wants to have Christmas in Cancun with her boy toy – and telling her I made four-dozen of her favorite cookies and am sitting next to our perfectly decorated tree crying my eyes out.

     My kids will know I'm full of reindeer excrement. They’re my kids, after all, so what kind of power will I have over them if I don't develop some sort of Christmas persona?

     Maybe that’s my problem; I have no Christmas persona. Or maybe I have one, but I just don't know what it is.

     I’m sure there’s some sort of quiz on Facebook that could give me the answer to "What is my Christmas persona?" but I don't like those quiz things. I don't really care what Hollywood starlet I most resemble or what my “Jersey Shore” name is.

     (I take that back. My “Jersey Shore” name was “Rack Attack.” That was a quiz well worth my time.)

      So I’ve been soul searching. What is it that I do EVERY Christmas that no other bitch on the block can do?

     Then it came to me: I can re-write a Christmas carol in a flat second.

     Why just the other day I went out for drinks, and, while it was a little early in the season, the people at the bar already looked depressed. Luckily I had “Silent Night” stuck in my head. (Thank you every single business on earth for playing Christmas music for six weeks straight.)

     Anywhoo, I've been singing the usually whiny and somber "Silent Night" with my own words for the last couple of weeks.

     Here goes:

Silent Night, bo-ring night

At the bar, shirt's too tight

Bon Jovi streams from speakers above

Pe-ople toast to get-ting a buzz.

Everyone in here looks Bo-red

Everyone in here looks bored.

Silent night, big girl fight.

Her boobs are fake, it's quite a sight

Bon Jovi streams from speakers above

People toast to get-ting a buzz

Everyone in here looks bo-red

     Feel free to add your own verses.

     So that’s it, Rack Attack's Christmas Persona is: The RE-CAROLER. I take Christmas carols and make a mockery of them, whilst encouraging young children and drunk people to do the same.

     Future guilt trips to my children will have rich material. There is a Santa after all.

     Cheers to you, the baker, the decorator, the Christmas stage-mom, and those of you who are still searching for your Christmas persona! I salute you.

Catch you in the New Year,

Scarlette Quille