SuperSized Kind of Life

A billion years ago, I was the drive-thru girl at a McDonald's on the Evansdale Campus of WVU.  There was a little television so you could see the person or persons in the vehicles. 

I loved being the drive-thru girl.  Loved it.  What I loved the most, was looking at the people placing their orders.  Not going to lie, I loved messing with them.

On those hot, sunny days, when a Mom in a mini van pulled up, as smooth as silk, I would utter these words, "mom, sure seems like a great day for chocolate sundaes." 

"Mom, can we have a sundae, please mom, please?" I kind hear those kids in the background and I loved it. 
 
"We will have five sundaes please."  Supersized!  Bam. 

Loved it.  Mission accomplished.  It wasn't about increasing sales.  It was about kids getting sundaes on hot, summer days.

So easy then.  So simple.  A sundae from the Golden Arches and they were happy. 

Last week, my girl friend told me that her daughter's first friend to marry is now with child.  The fetus still looks like a rice krispie and the reveal party, the baby moon and the "Pushing present" have already been decided. 

"Pushing present?"  What the hell is a "Pushing present?"

"Oh, that is when you get a big piece of jewelry for pushing out the baby."

"What?  ARE YOU FLIPPING KIDDING ME?"

What about your baby?  Isn't that the gift?  A gift from God?  Isn't that enough? 

WTH?

And what if you have a C-section?  Do you not get a pushing present?  Do you get a bigger present because you were cut open like Julius Caesar's mom to get the baby out?  Are you kidding me? 

"It is all the rage."

My present was being able to poop and leave the hospital with my baby.    No jewelry was needed.

Are you kidding me?  A present?  There is a baby at the end of the push, the greatest joy ever and that isn't enough?

I know so many woman that would have done anything to push out a baby, anything.  And now you get a gift?

Monogrammed diaper covers and a themed rooms trump the biggest surprise of your life. 

I don't get it.  When did we get so supersized?

Walker is getting ready to end middle school.  He is not graduating from anything.  He is just going to high school.  Thus, we need a party.  A new outfit.  A party.  A party for leaving middle school.

When and how did we get so wrapped in the event that we have discarded the meaning and the reason?

My eighth grade "graduation" was an assembly, awards passed out, American Legion Award winners presented, and done!  My parents were there, my grandparents as well.  And that was it.  No party, no dinner, nothing.  I am sure I had to go home and fold laundry and  scrub the garage door.  No big deal.  I survived.

My girl friend contacted me about the party.  Of course I am having a party for a bunch of smelly 8th grade boys.  Look, I am proud of their successes. And things to change in high school, I get it.  But why the party? 

Why is EVERYTHING so Supersized?  Over the top proms, parties, bachelor parties and baby reveal and baby showers, when and how?

I was married in our backyard, partied under the stars without any of the glitz.  Eighteen years of marital bliss and we did it all without the Pinterest Parties and destination bachelor parties. 

One of my clients has a set of twins who are both graduating from college.  His gifts, each is getting a condo.  A condo?  Really, a condo?  I got towels.

When my brother and I were little, on Friday nights, only on Friday nights, if we had been good, my dad would bring home Lays Potato Chips, Hellava Good Onion Dip and Coca Cola in bottles.  Even better, we were allowed to eat out of the kitchen and sit at the fireplace hearth.  We would watch Gomer Pyle.  All week, we waited for that all week.  And we were happy. It was a simple reward.  But it worked.

I am sad that females think they need a "pushing present".  I will never forget the first time I felt my baby kick.  And I will never forget how they both seemed to get crazy in the womb at certain times of the day.  My husband did not get that experience.  There is not a gift in the world that could take my breath away like that first kick.  No way. 

I know it is a different time and place, maybe not a better time.  I remember getting my  first "note from Pup D."  He would hand it to me as we went inside from recess.  I would love reading his "notes" to me.  I still have them.  Sometimes he sprayed them with perfume.
Text messages don't smell like your grandma's bath water and the font is from a machine, not from your boyfriend's hand.

Too Supersized.  Everything is way to Supersized except for meanings, they have shrunk. It isn't the sex of the baby that matters, it is the person they become.  It isn't the number of carats in the ring, it is the commitment. 

We have all heard the expression, "Good things come in small packages."  I would like to believe that folks still buy into this verse.
I would rather watch my baby sleep than gaze at earrings. 


Tonight on the way home, I asked Addie and her friend if they wanted to stop at the Fuzzy Peach for yogurt.  I had a coupon.

"No thanks, we had a big day.  We are good.  Thanks though mom but we are good." 

That is what you call Supersized.