What is it about condoms that makes me giggle? Certainly not their importance or efficacy.
As a mom of three grown adults, I remember cringing more than laughing back in their teenage days, when Santa tucked a condom into each of their Christmas stockings.
“I’d rather you not need them,” I said. “But for heaven’s sake, if you’re going to do it, make sure you are safe.”
It’s been a lotta years since I—er, Santa—stuffed those kids’ stockings with golden protection. In fact, I haven’t walked down a condom aisle at the grocery store since, well, let’s see, maybe 2007?
So when I found myself on a mission recently—in search of unlubricated condoms, no less—I felt rusty about my skillset in picking them out. And, I confess, a little giggly, too. That’s why I asked the Riceman to help me.
“I am not going to buy your condoms for you,” he said in a huff.
True, the condoms were for me, or rather for my boat, which I was getting ready to winterize. Rice is a landlubber so I often ask our daughter Alex, rather than her father, to help me remove the battery for winter and wrap the remaining electrical cables in Ziploc bags.
“At my age!” Rice wasn’t about to let this go. “What will people think?”
I would’ve thought he’d be flattered, having the sales folks at Publix think of him and condoms in the same sentence. Especially at his age. Never mind, though. I’m starting to creep myself out. Let’s move on.
To Rice’s credit, when he came home from Publix, he told me he had, in fact, searched the pharmacy aisles while waiting for his prescription.
“No luck,” he said. “And before you accuse me of looking ‘like a man,’”—in our house, that means barely looking—“I went so far as to ask the cashier about them at checkout time.”
The cashier confirmed what Rice suspected. The grocery store didn’t carry unlubricated condoms. That’s Rice’s story, at least, and for the sake of family unity, I didn’t press further.
But…back to the post autumn equinox condom caper. I needed those condoms damned quick, as I wanted to winterize the boat the next day. So I texted Alex for help. After all, she’s the one who told me that unlubricated condoms are often used by audio operators working out in the elements. If they’re good for protecting audio cords, why not boat cables?
Our text thread follows:
Me: Dad’s having trouble (and moments of embarrassment) trying to find unlubricated condoms.
Her: That’s because they should never be used (outside of audio work.)
Me: So…where do you suggest I get ‘em?
Her: Are you asking your lesbian daughter where to buy condoms?
Me: Yes! Since she’s the one who suggested I get them in the first place.
After several minutes, she texted me back again.
Her: Called my audio buddy. He says they’re increasingly hard to find. He’s going to send me a number to an audio place that might know. But I wouldn’t stress if we can’t get them. I just thought they might work better than Ziploc bags.
The next day, Alex met me at the dock, five packs of unlubricated condoms in hand.
“What do I owe you?” I asked, wondering why we needed five.
“This round’s on me,” she said. “But just FYI, they’re available on-line in bulk. Fifty for fifteen bucks.”
Interesting, but most likely moot. This round I needed only two. At two per year, a bulk purchase would reap twenty-five years’ worth of condoms, likely outliving my boat. Or worse, they’d disintegrate before I could even try to give them away.
But…may I say this? Those babies worked like a charm. When I wrapped one around two electrical cables, they stretched out as needed, which was a lot. And when I wanted that same condom extra snug to form a seal with electrical tape around the cables…well, I felt more confident than I have in years.
“Will you have the same guys tune the boat next spring?” Alex asked as I wrapped the second set of cables.
“Probably,” I said. “They did a good job last year.”
“Do you plan to let them know what they’ll find when they go to put a new battery in?”
“They’ve probably seen it all before.” I shrugged. “But…I might tell them that if they like my water-safe set-up, then I’m their gal.” I grinned. “I know how to get those unlubed babies in bulk for cheap, after all.”
The other morning, I woke up slowly, more so than usual. My other half stood in the doorway to our bedroom, his grin wide, a glint in his eyes. Half-awake, I struggled to make out the clock and drag my sorry self into a sitting position. I squinted at Rice, suspicious.
“You must have had quite a dream last night.” He walked in and kissed me.
I returned his greeting with all the love I could muster. “Huh?”
His smile was now more of a smirk. “You let me snuggle up to you to get warm. We were all nice and cozy, and then you mumbled, ‘I hate people.’”
I squirmed. “I did not say that.”
“Oh, but you did,” he assured me. “You didn’t say it meanly. Just sort of under your breath, like how you get when someone makes a thoughtless comment or starts to act rude for no reason.”
Gradually, it started to come back to me. “I was trying to tell you something, but I knew I wasn’t making sense. And that’s what I hated. Not people. Just all the busy-ness in my head.”
“Well,”—he squeezed my hand—"speaking of busy-ness, she’s already here.”
I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant, accepting his unspoken gift with gratitude. A touch of quiet before heading downstairs to my 6:30 weekday morning routine. A sip of hot coffee while brushing my granddaughter Charli’s hair. A little more coffee while she ate her breakfast, then time for our game of Two Truths and a Lie.
Charli: “This morning I woke up, got dressed, and then fed my unicorn.”
Me: “I think the part about the unicorn might be your lie.”
Charli: “Ding-ding-ding. You’re right.” She giggled. Hard.
After that, she walked to the bus, checking out constellations with her Big Daddy. They passed the park as the day broke. Peaceful. On its own clock.
Alone again, my heart was full, as it often is. I’m thankful for that.
Yet sometimes my full heart leaves my restless soul hungry for even more quiet. Like a couple mornings later, when our ritual repeated.
Me: “Today I’m going to go shopping, have lunch with my Happy Hour, and go see the Barbie movie.”
Charlie: “I think the shopping part is your lie.”
Me: “Buzzzzzzzz. Good guess, but you’re wrong.” (It was a good guess as she knows I hate shopping.) “My lie was about the Barbie movie. I already saw it, remember?”
Charlie: “Oh, yeah.” She giggled. “I hope you have fun with your Happy Hour.”
I hoped so, too, because that lunch came during a week filled with busy-ness. Not just the routine stuff, but extras as well…for each and every one of us scheduled for that lunch. We squeezed it between appointments for haircuts and crowns. Around babysitting the grands and visiting doctors. Making time for another friend’s birthday dinner. An elderly parent’s fall.
It’s all good, though. That elderly parent bounced back well—yay, Rita!—and our Happy Hour did have fun. Plus, we didn’t just squeeze in one lunch. We made time for even more.
Granted, it took a special telephone call to make it happen. No emergency, thankfully. Just a "How 'bout I come to visit soon?" call from Debra, one of our Happy Hour foursome, which is still going strong after thirty-two years. Okay, we’re not quite as strong as back in the day. Lunch plans now require buying a round-trip plane ticket, dealing with TSA, figuring out who will brave Atlanta traffic to and from Hartsfield-Jackson, juggling schedules….
In other words, nothing earthshaking. Just life.
So…truth or lie: Life is just a big ol’ blob of busy-ness.
If you’re like me, you’re probably shouting, “Yes!”
Then again, it’s all good. Because sometimes, a little more busy-ness is just what it takes to keep our hearts full.
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Friendship. We all need it in our lives, no matter our age.
I’ve read that when we’re younger, our friendships are influenced by so-called life tasks (finishing school, getting a job, raising a family). As we age, we tend to develop more cross-generational friendships. Then come our golden years, which are less about building new friendships than sustaining old ones.
That all strikes me as true, although, if I’m honest, it’s hard to remember back when.
To jog my memory, I once asked my grandson Britton to remind me how young people make friends. Seven years old at the time, here’s what he said:
“Start to know them …and start playing with them. Start talking about yourself. Tell them what you like, and you tell them what you don’t like. They might have something in common. Then they might say, ’Let’s be friends.’”
If only it were always that easy, no?
But that was in 2019, when Britton hung out with a neighbor of ours who happens to be his age. Back then, Britton and Illyana would play for hours, laughing at the same tasteless fart jokes, making You Tube videos of God-awful science experiments, sometimes just trying to escape their younger siblings, who were ‘annoying’.
Jump forward to 2023. Britton and Illyana walk home from the middle-school bus stop on opposite sides of the street. God help them, accidental eye contact might deem them ‘a couple’.
Could anything be more heinous than that?
Granted, Britton still goes over to Illyana’s house, but only to see if her younger brother Camden would like to shoot hoops.
Ah, the complexities of friendship. Always evolving. Often in beautiful strands of rainbow-colored silk. But sometimes in coarse, fickle bunches of scratchy burlap.
Through the years, I’ve experienced more silk than burlap. Lucky me, my friendships have crossed not just generational boundaries but gender and ethnic lines as well.
Some of my most precious friendships continue to be with other women, some met through neighborhood gatherings, church, and work. Others through book clubs or friends of friends—or even my kids.
Who would have guessed my kids’ friends might have moms I like hanging out with? And who would have predicted we’d form a foursome we called our Happy Hour? You know, like the Spice Girls, minus one member. Or maybe the Sex and the City Girls, minus the city. No, make that Thelma and Louise, squared. (Just without that one last crazy ride in the convertible.)
Seems just like that, our Happy Hour has morphed into something more reminiscent of the Golden Girls. I don’t know how or when that happened. I just know that I miss my girlfriends!
These past eight months, I feel like I’ve stood a better chance of finishing a marathon in record time than getting together with my own sweet Golden Girls. I can’t remember the last time all four of us got together. Maybe in 2021? Shoot, even though three out of four of us still live within two miles of one another, out of sixteen attempts to meet up in 2023, only two have worked out. TWO. (Superbowl Sunday with our guys. And an August dinner—again with the guys—for who knows what reason. Maybe because we all had the same open date on our calendar.)
May I make a confession? More than once, I’ve fretted my now Golden Girl friends no longer need me. Or worse, they no longer want to hang out as much. And you know what? Both those things are both probably true. Because long-time friendships don’t just happen. They happen when people grow older. And growing older brings new complexities to the mix, like illnesses—our own, our spouses’, our extended families’. Stomach bugs and vertigo. COVID-exposure and surgeries and physical therapy. And let's not forget crises with extended family and aging parents. Last-minute requests involving the grandkids. Even good things, like time to finally travel, have meant a cutback on our once-upon-a-time frequent gatherings.
But while I miss my friends, I’d hate if you pitied us.
Long-term friends make room for the ebbs and the flows, for those pockets when gatherings become sparse, for whatever reason. True friends make efforts to sustain what they’ve built.
And let me tell you, that takes work. Sometimes it almost seems easier to develop new friendships.
Almost.
As I write this, I’m preparing to attend a writers’ conference in Chicago. I look forward to seeing some new writing friends I met at last year’s conference—and making some even newer friends this year as well. I’m excited. But I’m nervous, too. What if I pack the wrong things to wear and look like a misfit? What if I can’t think of what to say, or worse, blurt out something inappropriate?
I don’t know if anything could be more heinous than that.
But I take comfort in knowing this: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Friendship remains important, no matter our age or stage in life, regardless of our gender or ethnicity. Whether rekindling old friendships or celebrating new ones, what’s not to love about small kindnesses swapped back and forth and over again?
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