"If You Give a Mom a Margarita"

Last week, in my ongoing effort to quiet the familiar voice in my head that chants IMPOSTER! every time I hit the “Publish” button, I attended my first “real” Writer’s Group meeting, a place where we all can share our writing and existential anxieties together rather than alone in a dark room with our dog.

Anyway, this small, intimate gathering of eclectic writers ranged from those who had already been published and were on their third sci-fi, dystopian, fantasy, young adult romance novel (which seems to be all the rage right now) to a woman who I believe only wanted to get in from the cold when she saw the light on at the bookstore judging by how she closed her eyes throughout the whole meeting; perhaps she was contemplating her character development?!

After we had all sat down, the group facilitator, who luckily had her eyes wide open, introduced herself enthusiastically as a local children’s author who had written a series of books that was an alphabetical celebration of Gray’s Harbor towns and fun facts. Think “A is for Aberdeen” and the much-loved classic “B is for Bitch, How Far Did You Say I Have to Drive from the Airport to Visit You?!” or something like that, I can’t exactly remember.

Once we had finished going around the circle citing our real and/or pretend names

(sleepy author was briefly awake for this part), we were invited to read a bit of our own writing with the covert hope of even one word of the praise our fragile writer egos need to keep going. We began with one of the more glamorous-looking writers in a big furry Cookie monster coat (we all have our imposter writer personas to keep us in character). She had written a humorous telephone exchange between an organic mattress purchaser and the customer service agent he called to complain to about his mattress. The dialogue was clever and outrageous and relevant, for who hasn't had a strange exchange with customer service at least once? Although, these days, my guess is that the majority of the stories would more likely fit into the horror genre?!

She finished, and we all murmured encouraging sounds. I guess we didn't clap for fear of waking the sleeping author. Then the facilitator brought the attention back to herself and her books, as facilitators are supposed to do, and said “I’ve always thought it would be fun to write a bedtime story for parents”, and we all laughed in agreement, remembering those either long past or very recent nights of exhaustion when we finally got the kids tucked in and began turning the pages of our favorite books. If we were lucky, our kids would fall asleep before we did! And if it was the first time instead of the hundredth time reading the book, we may even have kept turning the pages to see what happened to that baby elephant, right?!

And so, the meeting continued, around the circle we went, all of us taking a deep breath of stale, old bookstore air for courage to shyly share our own variations of the poetry and stories we had crafted. Except the sleeping author, I think she was still working things out…

On the way home, I smiled to myself as I remembered the bonding laughter we had shared over the idea of an adult bedtime story and thought, why not?! So as a dedication to all of you moms (and primary care-giving dads!) who have either been in the trenches, have your own daughters (or sons!) in the trenches, or are currently wading deep in the trenches yourself, I have re-written a classic children’s book you may be familiar with, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”.

You may already be familiar with this story, but the gist of it is that a precocious mouse asks a young boy for a cookie, but as we read on, we realize that like most insatiable toddlers, just a cookie isn’t enough to satisfy his restless spirit and the mouse goes on to ask the accommodating boy for one seemingly related thing after another until the poor boy is exhausted. Sound familiar?!

So, with this in mind, my bedtime story is called “If You Give a Mom a Margarita”. And again, with no intention of being caregiver gender-biased, please substitute dad for mom, whiskey for margarita, or grandma/pa and warm milk to personalize this for yourself!

Here goes. And while this may look like a poem, it's not, so just imagine each line as a page in the book with illustrations; you can click on the picture to link to the original children's book.

“If You Give A Mom a Margarita”

If you give a mom a margarita she’s going to ask for a cozy chair to sit in

that doesn’t have any unfolded laundry on it.

When you give her the margarita

she’ll probably take a big sip.

When she’s done, she’ll ask for your attention so you can talk about her day.

Then she’ll look in your eyes

and notice you’re still reading emails

and not really listening.

So she’ll ask you to turn it off

and you’ll have to find the right button on your IPhone

because you’ve never done that before.

When you’re finished, she’ll look at you again.

Turning your phone off will remind her of how you used to look at her

before kids and TikToks.

She might start to cry

because her margarita needs more salt.

Then she’ll ask for a Kleenex to blow her nose.

She may even wipe away all her makeup.

And you realize she looks exhausted

so you tell her

so she knows that you care.

But she starts crying even harder

even though her margarita

doesn’t need any more salt.

When she’s done crying and drinking

she might want to take a nap

so you’ll have to carry her through the maze

of toys and books and sleeping pets

and find a place on the couch

that is empty of unfolded laundry.

Then she’ll close her red eyes

and ask if you remember the good old days

when it was just the two of you

and life was simple

and there was no minivan or carpools or college savings.

And she’ll ask you to find the photos of when you met.

When she looks at the pictures

she’ll get so excited that

she asks you to quit your job

so you can move to a farm in Canada

and make a fortune raising chickens

and she can write poetry and drink margaritas and homeschool the kids

but maybe not in that order.

So she will ask you for her IPhone

to look for a farm for sale.

Looking at the alerts that pop up

will remind her that it’s Friday

and your daughter is at gymnastics and your sons are at soccer

and it’s not her day to carpool!

And chances are when she realizes that

she’s going to want another margarita

to celebrate her life just the way it is

and laugh at the crazy idea

that she could ever homeschool her kids!

The End! Have a wonderful "Alentine's Day", with whatever letter you choose to enjoy it!