Location: American Gladiator: The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire-So You Think You Can Dance Edition
Announcers: Meredith Vieira. Nigel Lythgoe. Some guy named Bob.
Contestant: Me.
BOB: Today, we have a very special contestant…the American mother. We are honoring endurance of a different kind. The endurance – and hilarity – of intense sleep-deprivation in another human being.
You will not see chiseled biceps. You will see a mother prepared to beat the living sleep into her child. Prepare to be awed, ladies and gentleman, as she forcibly hoists her son into the straight-jacket of a two-hour nap.
Please welcome the lovable hot mess…Mother of The Chalupa!
NIGEL: Nice turnout. Lovely arches. Hands like spoons.
MEREDITH: That spandex is not flattering.
BOB: And boy, do we have a mean lineup of Gladiators chomping at the bit to keep our contestant locked in the hell of 5 a.m. wake-ups and 45-minute naps!
Please enter Thunder Molar! Business Trip Beat-down! Sickness-Sympathy Cyclone! And last but not least, Soul Crusher! Also known as Mo-Fo-Co-Sleeping!
The bell rings. The competition begins.
BOB: And she’s off! A rather slow start. Seems a little sluggish, but she’s approaching her first challenge with gusto! A modern ballet against Thunder Molar!
NIGEL: It’s choreographed to the obscure Turkish instrumental number “Your Sleep! My Foible! Shut the Hell Up!” Oddly enough, the sweatpants are endearing. Allows for movement. Was that a grand jete? Did she trip? She’s spinning blindly around Thunder Molar. He’s getting confused by her erratic pas-de-je-ne-sais -quoi. What panache! Love the Highland’s Teething Gel Adagio. Thunder Molar is throwing off a slight fever, but generally unimpressive today.
BOB: Having escaped the clutches of our first Gladiator, mom climbs to the next level. The Chalupa is screaming nonstop at the top of our tiered-matted-gymnastic-like structure. His mother seems thrown by the screaming.
Whoa! The Sickness-Sympathy Cyclone came out of nowhere! The two are circling each other. Mom obviously thinks her kid has the flu. She’s wavering. Is she gonna abandon everything and let him nap with her?
MEREDITH: (looking up from “O” Magazine) She has decided to Phone-A-Friend, the first of her life-lines. Smart move. Let’s listen in.
ME: “Mom- oh-my-god, he feels a little warm and I think I gave him my cold and he just keeps crying and crying and I can’t take it anymore and if he naps with me this once-”
MOM (over the loudspeaker): Get a grip, honey. Medicate him. Sit with him in his room and soothe him. DO NOT FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY BRING HIM INTO YOUR BED.”
ME: Right. I can do this. I can do this.
MEREDITH: Final answer?
ME: What? Oh. Yeah. Final answer.
MEREDITH: (muttering) Katie never had to do this shit.
BOB: Onward and upward our young heroine goes, hardening her heart and defeating the Sickness-Sympathy Cyclone! She’s seems tired. Exhausted, in fact. Does she have enough energy for the Business Trip Beat-down? Does she, folks? Nigel, what do you think?
NIGEL: She’s on her own here. Husband’s gone. She’s at her most vulnerable and her son knows it. Ah, the music is beginning. A hip-hop piece to Britney Spears’ “Piece of Me,” where the she and the Gladiator will dance to the death.
Oh, dear. Is that a karate chop? It looks like an attempt at Asian street-fighting. I can’t stop watching. It’s Jackie Chan-tastic.
BOB: With Business Trip Beat-Down struggling but not entirely out, our contestant is daring to tackle her biggest challenge yet, Mo-Fo-Co-Sleeping.
MEREDITH: Does that mean the crying will stop?
BOB: Here he comes! How will this go down? Aaannd…she crumbles like a ton of bricks, sleeping with her kid in 3.7 seconds flat. Pathetic. Let’s go to a commercial!
20 minutes later.
BOB: Okay, she’s up and looking like a piece of Chicken Fried Shit. That’s gonna be a big infraction and Mo-Fo-Co will be on her tail the rest of the way up.
She’s climbing to the next level and looking frantically for Mo-Fo-Co. He’s getting closer. Closer. Ah-ha! She’s indicated that she will use her last life-line to Ask the Expert!
MEREDITH: Okay, yuppy jerk, we’ve got toddler sleep consultant, Varna Schlossberg on the phone. You have 30 seconds.
ME: Help! Co-sleeping! Out-of-town! Molars? Sick? Mid-nap hell! Early morning hell!
VARNA: One word. Extinction. Make zee baby cry until he falls asleep. I sense zee temperament is hyper-aware, very sensitive, by brinking him into zee bed you create -
MEREDITH: Time is up. Seriously? Didn’t your mother just tell you the same thing? Final answer?
ME: Extinction. It’s the only way. And I’m going to start right now.
BOB: Jesus. Cut to commercial.
**After an hour and a half of screaming…
The judges look dejected. Meredith is rocking back and forth.
BOB (halfheartedly): Well, look who just showed up. The husband. This should make for painful TV.
Okay, the two are exchanging words. It appears there’s a differing of opinions! Frustration! Desperation! Confusion! The mother is saying something…
ME: Honey, I didn’t stand a chance! They call him the Soul Crusher for A REASON!
BOB: It seems that a suspicious, tentative agreement has been reached but I can’t be sure. The screaming has reached psychotic levels.
The contestant is now working with her husband as a team and the two have at last reached the final level, with Mo-Fo-Co nipping at their heels.
A quick conference! The contestant is breaking the code of Extinction and checking on the baby.
ME: (holding up a shit-filled diaper for all the world to see) A POOP! ALL THIS CRYING BECAUSE OF A GODDAMN POOP!
Diaper changed, the Chalupa clings to his mother.
The father tears them apart. Forces crying wife into the American Gladiator wimp-cot.
MEREDITH: left the building fifteen minutes ago
BOB: beating head against wall
NIGEL: (perfectly composed) Full of emotion. Powerful. Loved the Broadway motif – a little West Side Story, a little Chicago, a hint of Wicked.
But if I have to be totally honest, Disco would have been the way to go.
I just tweeted this AND i’m stumbling it again.
you need to write for TV. or be shel silverstein jr.
too awesome.
Shel Silverstein, Jr.? One can dream, Liz. Thank you.
I.love.you. No seriously! I cannot get enough of your blog! You are hilarious!
Hi-lar-ious. Thank you. Although my children are older, I so clearly remember the Business Trip Beat-Down.
My favorite part:
BOB (halfheartedly): Well, look who just showed up. The husband. This should make for painful TV.
This has been my favorite part of the day….and thus concludes Wednesday in Princeton. Thank you.
I’m jealous that your Wednesday is over already.
And business trips – why does everything fall apart when the husband leaves, making me look like an incompetent fool?
I’m with Liz, Missy Girl, you all needs to be bigger and beyonder than this here blog of yours.
Cable TV? absolutely. I have to tweet this out b/c more than just your readers need to see this….
Like I always say, I wish I were you.
I’d better get started on my piece, “The Chalupa? You can’t touch her.”
xoxoxoxo
Will I be wearing Hammer pants in your piece?
And how can I write for cable tv when I don’t have time to watch it? Sigh. I miss my cheesy, reality-based shows.
really, i should just stop blogging.
Don’t even think about it. I will hunt you down and put fingers to keyboard, if necessary.
You are a phenomenon, I wish I had half as much going on in my head as you do and clearly sleep deprivation, sickness and husband out of town does nothing to dim your genius. I’d agree with Tiffany except that if I were to stop blogging I’d never get to read such incredibleness and I will add I just did read this breaking my no blogging vacation rule but am very glad I did
No-Blogging-Vacations are very hard to accomplish!
And you’re so sweet, Jane. Thanks.
I could quote so many of your dead-on lines. You are seriously a genius. Jackie Chan-tastic I love your blog. Hard.
Love ya right back. When are you gonna get email subscriptions? Can’t do RSS feeds on this dang computer!
Please tell me that you can’t add or subtract single digits without the use of a calculator, that you haven’t tweezed your eyebrows since the Clinton administration or that the dustbunnies ate your takeout dinner, otherwise that’s just a little unfair…
1) I have never been able to do math.
2) I have never tweezed my eyebrows (god bless Scandinavian heritage).
3) I own quite a large gathering of dust bunnies. I let them roam free and feed them crumbs.
I think I just wet myself laughing. Wait, no. We’re good. Adding you to my reader.
WOW…hot mess & foible!
Thank you, Jenny! And I just checked out your site – great stuff!
Creativity at its best! I totally dig your style, and I’m always entertained by your posts. Hope you get some sleep soon!
And for WOW…foible and hot mess.
Only you can make sleep deprevation funny
You somehow made the horrors of a screaming, sleep deprived child and mother funny. Don’t know how you do it.
Humor is the only way to go, Cecelia. Either that or lots of sedatives.
Okay, this was the best thing I have ever read. Ever.
foible and hot mess.
Ok, this is some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever read. Meredith and Nigel just MAKE it. Love it, love it, love it. And, yes, I have mucho sympathy for the mother of the flying chalupa (um, Soul Crusher).
Isn’t Nigel just fantastic? Must be the British accent.
You deserve a heart hug.
Also? I watch way too much Weeds.
I think perhaps I need to start printing your blog and gifting it to new mommies.
KLZ – not a good idea. Human race would become extinct in no time.
Reading this made me feel so happy about being done with babies…
Oh, I agree with Bethany on that being done thing…..this took me back so much I think I squirted some milk.
A heart hug sounds wonderful. And…this was the funniest series of comments. Squirting milk. Always hilarious.
I love love love your blog! You are an awesome writer!!
I LOVE this…as usual Chalupa, you are the greatest. You almost make me want to join Twitter, so I can tweet you (twit?). Liz has it right; there should be a bigger stage for you.
Dude! Join Twitter! I’m like the nerd in the school cafeteria and I don’t know who to tweet with!
Chicken Fried Shit.
I now have a new blog name.
Meredith Vieira was cracking. me. up.
Has there been a re-match? If it did, I would assume you took to annihilating the diaper situation (aka your arch nemesis) first and foremost.
This was soooo great. It sounds eerily familiar, though… I think I’ve had that dream…
I’m so done with the diaper situation. Is a regular poop schedule too much to ask for?
What a performance! Bravo! ::roses being thrown on stage:: There’s so much going on in your mind, it’s mind boggling. I wonder if the lack of sleep is contributing to this.
Hello, I’m your new stalker. Hilarious stuff.
So hilarious!! Seriously when is your book deal gonna happen??
Hokay I confess that I saw this post a couple fo times and thought, “Ooh, I must read that when I have a second”, but I haven’t really had one, what with all the travelling and Spaniards and Chinese vodka. Never mind.
I am currently kicking myself for putting it off (ouch. f*ck) as this was one of the best damned pieces of blog I have ever come across EVER.
It may even be better than mine.
I know. Stabilise.
You are my hero.
- B xxx