Waking up isn’t easy. In the past, people used wind-up alarm clocks until electric clock radios came along. These days, people use their cell phones for everything, including as an alarm clock. But I’m an old-fashioned soul when it comes to coming out of a deep sleep. I like hearing the soothing voice of Steve Inskeep on National Public Radio first thing in the morning.

            Years ago, my mom gave us a clock-radio alarm clock as a Christmas gift, and the dual-alarm setting has come in handy. But over time, the volume knob developed a short and recently would only play at an ear-splitting level or at a whisper.

            Being a sound sleeper, I chose the loud level.

            Finally my husband said waking up to that decibel of doom and gloom that only NPR can deliver was enough.

            So I headed to Target and scanned the shelves for a digital clock radio. I was delighted to see that one of the few clocks offered had a dual-alarm function and an easy-to-read digital display. I came home, plugged in the new clock and attempted to set the time.

            I pressed the buttons. The time never budged from blinking 12:00. I tried pressing different buttons. Still the 12:00 blinked on and off. I got the directions out, read them and tried again. Still no change from the 12:00.

            Defective, I thought, so I returned it to the store and got a different brand. I brought it home, plugged it in and tried to change the time.

            Nothing.

            Every time I pressed the hour button, the radio station changed. After hearing the same rap song a dozen times, I figured maybe the radio needed the batteries installed to effectively change the time.

I hunted around and scrounged up two AA batteries. I put them in and tried to change the time again.

            The numbers 12:00 kept blinking.

            Frustrated, I went for the big guns – my engineer husband. I told him I couldn’t figure out how to change the time on the clock radio and asked if he’d set the time.

            Twenty minutes later, he told me he couldn’t get the time to change either. I headed back to Target and returned the clock radio. I’d exhausted all the models of clock radios they had so I drove over to Best Buy. I found a clock radio but, this time, I stopped at the Geek Squad desk and asked the associate to humor me.

            “This is the third clock radio I’ve bought in three weeks,” I told him and then related the story of my bad luck. He plugged in the radio and set the time, showing me the two steps he used to get rid of the blinking 12:00.

            “Easy,” he told me. “You’ll have no problem.”

            So I rushed home and plugged in the clock radio before I’d forget how to reset the time. The clock blinked 12:00, and I pressed the buttons, just like the Geek Squad guy did.

            Nothing.

            Twenty minutes later, I gave up and reached a logical conclusion.

            I’m going to join the 21^st century and use my cell phone as an alarm clock. I know it works, I know it keeps up with daylight savings time and I can choose from 20 different alarm sounds. As I unplugged the old alarm clock, I couldn’t bring myself to toss it in the trash after 20 years of faithful service.

             So I gave her a place of honor on the night stand where she’ll still display the time while her modern counterpart sounds the alarm.  

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

             

Recently, I saw an online photo gallery featuring the fashion choices Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, has made since she’s come into the royal spotlight.

Fashionistas ooh and aah over her made-to-fit coats, designer dresses, tailored jackets and diamond-studded tiaras that look quite regal atop those long, thick brunette locks. Reporters gush about how Kate has embraced looking absolutely stunning every time she steps out of the royal limousine.

Well not all of us can be a duchess or a princess, but I also dress for different occasions. The main difference is my fashion choices aren’t reported in the news. Also, I don’t think my fashion choices are on the same level as the duchess.

So here’s the Queen of Calamity – it’s just me – reporting on the fashion choices the queens of calamity and clumsiness make as we blunder and stumble through our day.

Here I am at the grocery store on a cold day. The grey sweat pants match quite nicely with the black knee socks – don’t mind the holes — that coordinate with the sweatshirt and the LSU hoodie.

The spaghetti sauce and Ivory Linen paint stains make a nice pairing with the make-up-free face and the “I Believe in Bigfoot” baseball cap.

On summer days, life for the queen is a lot easier. It’s khaki shorts with 99-cent flip flops and a white or red T-shirt. No need to overdress when it’s 98 degrees outside.

Then there’s the go-to-work look. The Queen of Calamity has a variety of beige pants in her closet. She thinks they match everything, so she either wears the khaki-colored pants with an elastic waist or the tan Capri slacks with any shirt or sweater in her closet.

Let’s not forget the going-to-the-movies look. The queen does manage to switch out the khaki pants with the sweat pants for this outing.

Not the same stain-filled sweat pants but the baggy black sweat pants. That’s because they coordinate with the black T-shirt and oversized black purse. Her purse is probably considered vintage since the queen has lugged that suitcase around since the late 1990s.

Since we mentioned the purse, let’s talk accessories. The queen favors that huge black imitation leather purse because she can haul around the essentials – three notebooks for when an interview or the need to write down a grocery list pops up, two boxes of Tic-Tacs and 15 pens. A writer always needs an extra pen, and reporters can’t resist free pens from the credit union.

Queens of calamity also need shoes to match every outfit. There’s the white tennis shoes to wear to work. Then there’s the dirty white tennis shoes to wear with the sweat pants.

There’s also the grease-stained tennis shoes to wear to the grocery store. The queen said that, in all fairness, she must admit that there’s really only one pair of tennis shoes in her closet. She just labels them differently for different occasions.

Special occasions take the fashion choices to a new level. The queen favors the minimalistic look – no fancy jewelry except for a pair of gold hoop earrings. If they were good enough in 1985, they’re good enough to wear today.

Vintage, you know.

In fact, the vintage look encompasses quite a bit of the queen’s wardrobe. There’s the 2012 T-shirt with the kitten on the front. Cotton gets pretty soft after all those years, and who wouldn’t love a soft cotton shirt with a kitten on the front?

There’s the whole selection of holiday T-shirts, from garish orange shirts for Halloween to the red and green Rudolph T-shirt that’s acceptable from Nov. 29 all the way through Dec. 31.

And, for simplicity, there’s a couple of white T-shirts, red T-shirts and black T-shirts that coordinate with every single holiday. All come with stains because the queen of calamity is quite clumsy.

So while Kate Middleton makes headlines everywhere she goes, the queen of calamity goes about her day in quiet anonymity. But if you want to find her, she’ll be the one wearing a stained white T-shirt and that Bigfoot baseball cap.

The queen’s tiara’s at the cleaners.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

 

Every Saturday morning, my husband had a ritual he followed without fail – run, shower, eat breakfast and then check the oil, tire pressure and windshield wiper fluids in my vehicle. I have a priceless photo of his legs sticking out from underneath the car accompanied by a 2-year-old’s legs – our youngest boy who followed his dad everywhere. Our 5-year-old grandson follows his father everywhere and is starting to help out with chores, doing things just like he sees his father.

Parents are always teaching their children skills they think they’ll need in life, passing down knowledge they learned from their parents. Most of the time, we parents don’t think the lessons are being absorbed.

But children do watch and learn, and I did the same with my parents.

My dad was a resourceful parent, always full of surprises and bursts of imaginative ways to do almost anything. There were only three things Dad needed to fix anything – black electrical tape, duct tape and a hammer.

My brother likes to tell the story about a lawn mower we had that stopped working one afternoon.

A little background – my Dad never bought anything brand new. A born salesman, Dad loved haggling with someone to get the best deal possible. Hence the reason we always had second-hand lawn mowers and vehicles.

One afternoon, the old mower stopped working. My brother tinkered and sweated over that mower, and then Dad came over to see what was going on. He said he needed a hammer to fix the problem.

Long accustomed to Dad’s ways with hammers, my brother thought the old guy would come back from the tool shed with one of his beat-up hammers.  Dad did better than that – he came out with a sledgehammer, gave the lawn mower a ringing blow and, low and behold, the mower started.

Inventiveness was Dad’s strong suit, and most of the time, he’d solve the problem. But sometimes, his ideas were off the chart.

Years ago, my parents lived on a corner lot with lots of trees. There was an old pine tree near the driveway, and one of the bigger branches, in Dad’s opinion, needed to be removed.

The branch was high up, so Dad hauled out his rickety metal ladder, pulled his van up underneath the branch and then put the ladder on top of his van.

I glanced out the kitchen window and saw him sawing on that branch and realized what was going to happen – when he finished sawing all the way through the branch, the heavy branch would fall directly on his windshield.

Instead of going outside and sounding the alarm, I called my sister, barely able to tell her what was going on because I was laughing so hard – seeing my Dad on top of his van standing on a wobbling ladder as he sawed away was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen.

But I realized I needed to tell him what the end result would be, so I ran out, stopped him and explained what was going to happen if he kept sawing. He looked at the branch, looked at the tree, looked at his windshield and agreed I was right.

So he leaned the ladder against the trunk of the tree, moved his van, tied a rope to the branch and told me to pull hard as he went back to sawing.

I did exactly what he told me until I realized that when he sawed all the way through, I’d be pulling on the branch and that huge hunk of wood would hit me square in the face.

I immediately yelled at him to hold up, and he thought I’d lost my mind for stopping him on while carrying out an incredibly good idea.

Once again, I explained the laws of gravity. He saw what would happen and then grudgingly agreed to let the branch fall to the driveway on its own.

I thought about that afternoon when I was standing on a kitchen chair last night and grabbed the hammer to use the claw end to retrieve something from the top shelf in my closet.

My dad would be so proud.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

            Our niece is getting married this summer, and there’s a wedding shower in a couple of weeks. Like most brides these days, Kayla and Nolan are registered at a gift store, so I checked the registry to see what they needed and wanted.

            No surprise, my niece is going for a clean, crisp look. The appliances and items she’s chosen are pretty, practical and useful. I’ve shopped on this site for other couples requesting $50 salt-and-pepper shakers and shook my head in dismay, thinking that couple’s in for a rude awakening.

            Starting a family is expensive. New couples need everything, and not just big items. There’s the little things we take for granted after years of being married, but new couples start from scratch.

            Spices, condiments, drinking glasses, cleansers, trash cans, foil, breakfast cereal, frozen pizza – the list goes on and on. So helping a young couple get on their feet is a tradition most of us embrace and do our best to get them set up so they don’t have to worry about eating from take-out containers because there’s no plates in the cabinet.  

            As I looked over their list a little more carefully, I realized the things new couples really need aren’t listed on any registry and can’t be found in any store.

            Trust. A man and a woman who take their vows to love, honor and cherish for the rest of their lives have to trust that the other person really means what they promise at the altar. They also have to trust that if one breaks the covenant and asks for forgiveness, forgiveness will be given.

            Friendship. Husbands and wives have to be friends, not just lovers. Friendship in a marriage allows you to plan a vacation together so, at the end of the week, you’re still talking. When you’re married to your friend, you know if there’s a problem at work, your spouse will be there. They’ll patiently listen to you whine, complain and gnash your teeth about a situation they can’t fix.

            Tolerance. Let’s face it – we all have habits we don’t realize could cause someone to raise their eyebrows and question your upbringing. These include clipping your toenails while sitting on the living room couch, reading magazines in the bathroom and leaving facial hair and leg hair all over the bathroom floor.

            A blessing on all spouses who overlook the little annoyances.

            Amnesia. We all make mistakes, and nobody wants to be reminded of those mistakes for the next 50 years. Forgetting that your wife lost the debit card on vacation and never reminding her about it is gold in the bank. Casually forgetting that your husband bought an expensive video game he never plays is one of those purchases you need never bring up.

            Teamwork. Marriages are often described as partnerships. In a true partnership, each partner gives 50 percent and each partner contributes something different to the entity to make it work. In a marriage, it’s never even. Sometimes one will be giving 100 percent while the other regroups. Perhaps his job’s overwhelming, the kids are demanding or other family members need your wife’s attention. A functioning team understands that the team often works like a see saw, but in the end, balance is always sought and usually restored.

             Laughter. When the toilet’s overflowing and you’re both mopping as fast as you can while the buzzer’s going off in the kitchen, the phone’s ringing and your 2-year-old waddles in with a dirty diaper, you can either scream at each other or laugh. Take my advice on this one – laugh then cry and then laugh some more.

               The stuff – pots, pans, towels and coffee makers – are what you need to set up a household. The intangibles – trust, laughter and tolerance – are what you need to set up a home.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

           

            I stumbled across a show on the Do-It-Yourself Network, “Texas Flip or Move,” and I’m hooked. The premise is that land prices around Fort Worth have gone through the roof, and developers are rejuvenating old neighborhoods with new, pricey mansions.

            Standing in their way are old homes that need to either come down or get moved. Enter the Fort Worth flippers who drive in, bid on a house, move it and then renovate the house. After the rebuild, the house goes up for auction.

            The characters have Texas stamped all over them. There’s the no-nonsense Snow sisters whose whole family is in the house moving and renovating business.

There’s the crafty “Lone Wolf,” also known as Randy, whose goatee, mustache and ability to come in and undercut the others is legendary.

            Cody, the “Young Gun” is no longer on the show, but his appearances the first couple of seasons are worth watching. He has all the bravado one would expect in a brash entrepreneur, and he’s a whirlwind of confidence and mishaps.

            Seeing these flippers take a dilapidated house, rip everything out and turn the disaster into a cozy and livable space is fascinating. I watch each episode with envy because I used to dream of taking an old house and turning it into a true treasure.

            But my skills are somewhat lacking.

            Let’s be honest.

            My skills are woefully lacking.

            The first house I owned needed some work. I imagined wallpaper in the bedroom, mostly because my mom owned a wallpaper store. I’d never hung wallpaper before, but as a 20-something, I figured I could handle the task just fine. Besides, free wallpaper was a lot more attractive than buying two gallons of paint.

            I read the directions, wet the wallpaper and hung it on the wall. I didn’t wait the prescribed amount of time, figuring 10 minutes was a lot better than waiting a half hour. By dinnertime, the entire room was wallpapered, and I felt quite proud of myself.

            Until 2 a.m.

            I woke up to a noise in the room, and I couldn’t figure out what was happening. It sounded like a soft ripping and then a plop. I turned on the lamp, and saw half the wallpaper was in puddles on the floor.

            I watched with horror as piece after piece neatly rolled down the wall and landed in a pile on the floor. I couldn’t watch the massacre, so I got out of bed and ripped the rest of the paper off the wall in an angry snit.

            Three hours of scrubbing wallpaper paste off the wall, some spackling and two gallons of paint later, the room looked great.

            I’m not that fabulous with paint either.

            When I was a teenager, I had the brilliant idea of painting the walls in my room white and the trim a bright blue. Red, white and blue were the fashion choices of the day, and I thought mine and my sister’s room would look great in those patriotic colors.

            I remember holding a pint of bright blue enamel paint in my left hand while painting the trim with my right hand. I was standing on a folding chair and when I leaned a little too far to the right, we all came tumbling down.

            We never could get that blue paint out of the carpet, and we had to use primer to cover up the blue that spilled all the way down the freshly painted white wall.

            I think my sister’s still mad at me over that one.

            There were a few projects that turned out better than I thought. A friend told me to wet the sandpaper and sand my kitchen cabinets that desperately needed refurbishing. Some elbow grease and a can of high-gloss varnish later, I had kitchen cabinets that looked brand new.

            So as I watch these Texas flippers turn trash into treasure, I’m amazed at their ingenuity. I did notice, however, that none of them ever hangs wallpaper.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

           

            In the 1977 “Star Wars” movie, the film’s high point is when young Luke Skywalker turns to The Force to help him guide his one-man fighter so he can destroy the Death Star.

To get to the target, Skywalker has to maneuver around laser missiles, tall towers and enemy fighter planes. Trusting in The Force, Skywalker closes his eyes and gets a precise hit to the reactor system, destroying the station and scoring one for the good guys.

            I feel a little like young Luke when I’m driving through Fort Bend County.

            Let’s start with Avenues H and I in Rosenberg. If “Orange is the New Black,” we’ve got that covered. At almost every intersection on the west end, there’s at least eight orange cones blocking the roadway to keep people from going the wrong way.

Then there’s orange signs warning about the new one-way direction and orange sand bags holding down the signs. For good measure, there’s orange words painted on the road.

            If that’s not enough of a distraction, there’s piles of ripped-up concrete and now-silent mud-splattered earth-moving machines along the route. They’re about the only things that are quiet as people blare their horns at drivers who take their lives into their hands to cross the avenues.

            And don’t even think you can sneakily get around those cones. They won’t damage your vehicle, as I found out yesterday when making a turn onto Avenue I a little too sharp, but they will scare you half to death when you hit one.  

Rosenberg’s not the only place where construction equals progress, or as many of us would attest, construction equals headache. Highway 59 from Rosenberg to Sugar Land is a nightmare. The lanes are narrow, there’s concrete barricades on every side of the road and, no surprise, orange cones that seem to stretch for miles.

There’s always a road under construction through Houston, and I-10 is an orange-cone buffet. We’ve been driving back and forth to Louisiana for over 25 years on I-10, and I have yet to go through Beaumont without stopping for road construction and, yes, orange cones.

As bad as the cones are, they don’t hold a candle to the concrete barriers road crews put up on either side of the road when they’re working on the shoulders.

I know they’re for safety, but those walls are intimidating because they seem to be about six inches from my fender.

A writer once compared driving along those types of roads to being shot out of a pin-ball machine. For me, it has to be what being shot out of a cannon feels like.

Officials tell us the orange cones and street demolition are temporary. At the end of the Rosenberg project, people should be happily humming along down the one-way streets, wrecks will be non-existent and the birds will be chirping away in the trees.

Until then, the sounds we’ll be hearing is music blaring from car radios, people honking their horns at drivers texting on their phones, oblivious to the traffic, and screeching tires from motorists who somehow forgot that those two avenues are now one-way streets.

But until that magic day arrives, which will probably be in the year 2050, we’ll have to hope The Force is with us as we grip the steering wheel and wind our way through the orange-barrel Death Star corridors.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

 

When looking through our old movies on the shelf, I saw one from the 1980s, “Uncle Buck.” The movie, starring the late John Candy, was about a bachelor uncle who came to stay with his nieces and nephew for a week.

Chaos reigned in that house as Uncle Buck learned how to make breakfast, juggle the laundry and take on the task of chaperoning a rebellious teenage niece.

The children, of course, came to love Uncle Buck, and that movie reminded me of how important uncles are in the lives of children lucky enough to have uncles.

I learned important life lessons from my uncles, even though they had no idea they were teaching me anything. They were simply being themselves, and that’s the first lesson I learned – be myself no matter who was around.

The best example of that creed was my Uncle Howard. He was a man of few words, but I loved the times he told us stories about his escapades with my dad.  

Uncle Howard loved the beautiful swamps of Louisiana and he never let a tall tell go untold. He taught me how to bait a crab trap and how to properly eat a crawfish, skills I always thank him for every time I sit down to a crab or crawfish boil.  

The first time I saw my Uncle Lionel, I thought I was looking at my father. Of course, my dad didn’t wear love beads, but the resemblance was uncanny. From Uncle Lionel, I learned to dress how I felt on the inside, not how society told me to dress. From my Uncle Dukie, I learned to stand my ground and follow my own path.

My Uncle Ray always let me count the money in his Liberty Bell bank on Sunday afternoons. It was a slick way to give money to his nieces and nephews, and he taught us a little sneakiness is just fine.

My Uncle Vinnie taught us that even uncles could be singers in a nationally touring rock-and-roll band, move to Las Vegas and begin a second career as a university professor. My Uncle Bob showed me how to take life as it comes and not stress when things don’t go my way.

My mom’s youngest brother, Marshall, died when he was only 21 years old from kidney failure. His nieces and nephews seemed to aggravate him, so we usually steered clear.

One Sunday we were all at a parade and he called me over. He gave me $5 and told me to buy everybody a treat. He must’ve seen the doubt on my face.  

“Just remember I once did something nice for you, okay?” he said. He taught me that one small kindness can plant a seed that blooms for decades.

My Uncle Jim had and still has a tremendous impact on me. I first met him when he started dating my Aunt Bev back in the 1960s. I remember a shy, quick-to-blush young man who put up with my grandmother’s insults because he loved her daughter.

Uncle Jim was a high school science teacher, and he spent his summers renovating houses. I used to watch him rip out walls and porches, climb ladders and paint until late in the night.

No matter how busy he was, he always looked out for us. On our visits to see my grandparents, Uncle Jim checked our car from top to bottom and washed it before we got on the road.

He’s been in love with my aunt for over 60 years and took care of my grandparents without complaining, including showing up early in the mornings to shovel the snow from their sidewalk year after year.

From Uncle Jim, I learned that love is unconditional, it includes looking past the little annoyances and the payoff at the end of a tough job is always worth working for.

Without realizing what they were doing, my uncles have had a tremendous positive impact on all of us, from picking up Tasty Pizza at 10 p.m. to singing in a rock-and-roll band to sitting on the end of a dock, pulling up crab nets, hoping I’ll be as lucky with that catch as I am in the uncle department.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

When trying to decide what movie to see, my husband and I compromise. I like Matt Damon, he likes intelligent movies, so we’ve watched the Jason Bourne movies over and over. Watching “Hidden Figures,” we both won. He loves math. I love movies where women are able to realize their full potential.

For those who haven’t seen the movie, Taraji Henson plays the main character, Katherine G. Johnson. In real life, Johnson was a mathematical prodigy who found her way to NASA as a human computer – a person who double checked the numbers NASA engineers generated.

Octavia Spencer plays Dorothy Vaughan, a woman who has a natural ability with machines and taught herself computer programming. Janelle Monae plays Mary Jackson, a young woman who’s bound and determined to attend engineering school.

Although this story is about black women in the 1960s, there are parallels for all women. When I was in high school in the early 1970s, girls were steered toward careers in nursing, going to secretarial school or learning how to sew and cook.

The boys were advised to go into engineering or the petrochemical industry, especially because we lived in the shadows of so many refineries and chemical plants.

There were some who broke out of the mold and made their way to bigger cities and bigger dreams. But so many of us didn’t realize how big a world it was out there. Some, like the women in “Hidden Figures,” not only saw that dream but broke down every barrier to achieve them.

I was lucky in that my dad believed women could accomplish anything they wanted. Unfortunately, I didn’t see those possibilities until I saw the glass ceiling for myself.

When I was 18, I was working as a summer Kelly Girl in the purchasing department of a paper mill. One of the older ladies in the office knew everything about the company, and was the “go-to” person.

When a promotion came up that she was perfect for, Anne was turned down because she was a woman. More than that, she had to suffer the humiliation of training a fresh-out-of-college boy who didn’t know a paper mill from a pepper mill to do the job she’d been doing for years.

I thought about Anne when I was watching “Hidden Figures,” knowing the struggle women have cuts across culture and color lines. But as we see women making strides in the world, it’s easy to overlook that the struggle is still ongoing.

The “Chicago Tribune” reported on a study of 3,000 respondents stating that women are often the ones in the office who are looked at to plan birthday parties. When a co-worker announces she’s going to have a baby, it’s usually a woman who organizes the baby shower.

Not that men aren’t just as capable of these tasks, but we still live in a world where there’s “women’s work” and “men’s work.” These divisions of labor based on one’s gender is particularly customary in developing countries, but the United States still has a long way to go.

As always, education is the answer. Parents, teach your daughters that they can achieve anything their hearts and minds can imagine. Tell them to break down the doors that stand in the way of their becoming all they can be. And teach your sons to not be the ones holding the door shut.

Grandparents, tell and retell the stories of bigotry and prejudice from your childhood days and remind your grandchildren that the only way to stop inequality is through education and acceptance. And that starts with them.

Hopes are that the movie “Hidden Figures” can open up conversations between generations about appreciating how far women have come, who we have to thank for going through the doors first and how far we still have to go.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

           

In the world of politics, one should never be surprised at how far politicians and their handlers will go to spin a story. But the latest words out of Donald Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway hit a new “are-you-kidding-me” note.

Conway said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer used “alternative facts” when he claimed the crowds at newly-elected President Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony the largest ever.

Conway backed up Spicer’s claim and said the Trump camp was using “alternative facts” instead of facts the press was reporting.

Thank you, Kellyanne Conway. I now have a way to explain most of the mishaps and misunderstandings in my life. I can simply use alternative facts.

Let’s go back to when I was 14 years old and trying to learn how to drive in reverse. I was practicing in the driveway when I misjudged the distance between the back bumper and the house.

My dad was furious, but if I’d had Kellyanne around, I could’ve simply told my father he was looking at the fact that the sheetrock was cracked. I could’ve said the alternative facts were that the jagged line in the sheetrock from the ceiling to the floor was simply settling of the joint compound. We should, in fact, sue the builder for using faulty materials.

Kellyanne could probably help me with the degrees I’ve earned. When I was 18, I completed an associate’s degree in office administration. Thirty years later, I went back to college and earned a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies.

With Kellyanne’s help, I could say I’ve been to college on two separate occasions and earned two degrees. People could assume I’m talking about a master’s and maybe even a doctorate. After all, the truth is I did earn two degrees. Kellyanne doesn’t have to say which degrees I earned.

Now to that speeding ticket I got in Woodworth, La. The speed limit on one stretch of Highway 165 drops from 65 to 45 almost instantly. Changing speed limits happen in every state, but this happens in what seems like 10 feet of uninterrupted highway.

If Kellyanne would’ve been around, not only would I have gotten out of that ticket, but Kellyanne could’ve probably gotten the police department to send a letter to my insurance agent demanding the company lower my rates because I pointed out such an egregious way to extort money from unsuspecting drivers.

Where Kellyanne could really help me, though, is with the numbers in my life, since that’s what Spicer is accused of exaggerating. I literally own 15 pairs of shoes, some of which are over 10 years old. I’ve never paid full price for a pair of shoes in my life, but Kellyanne could help me appear chic and modern.

If I use Kellyanne logic, I really own 150 pairs of footwear. And while we’re at it, Kellyanne, drop my shoe size from an 8 to a 6. Oh what the heck – make it a size 5. Narrow if you please.

And if we’re lowering numbers, let’s talk about body measurements. I don’t weigh what the scale states – that number is incorrect. It’s actually lower. A whole lot lower, right Kellyanne?

Now on to height. The ruler states 5 feet 2 inches. I’d love to be at least 5 feet 10 inches tall, and that’s only stretching eight inches. What’s even better is that in Kellyanne’s world, that would make my weight absolutely perfect for my height.

And my age? If I use Kellyanne logic, I could subtract 20 years from my age and be within the limits of telling the truth.

Because we wouldn’t be saying untruths or lies. We’d be using alternative facts.

Ain’t the political life grand.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.