Put yourself on a steady diet of fear

Lori Borgman

It’s hard to know what to fear the most – stifling a sneeze, germs on the remote control or teaching a child to walk. So many dangers, so little time.

Recently, a notice arrived concerning germs on the handles of grocery store shopping carts. The group spreading the fear was tickled pink that the Arkansas State Senate passed a bill encouraging stores to provide free sanitary wipes for their grocery carts.

Another state government hard at work. (Carry your own wipes, people!)

While you’re drafting your dangerous substance list, you might also want to add licorice. Warnings continue to circulate that licorice can cause high blood pressure, lung congestion and irregular heartbeat. The warning doesn’t say how much licorice -- two sticks, three pounds, a truckload or two tons -- just that it can.

You can also add the remote control, your computer keyboard, cell phone and ice from fast food restaurants to the list of things to fear because they, too, carry germs and bacteria. Truly, it is amazing that any of us are still able to function.

The author of “Why Your Toothbrush May Be Killing You — Slowly” argues that the toothbrush may be responsible for heart disease, stroke, arthritis and chronic infections. Makes you want to stop brushing altogether and just buy dentures.

If your killer toothbrush doesn’t leave you shaking under the covers, how about this: sneezing is hazardous to your health. A health watch group says that suppressing a sneeze may result in a percussion that can “wreak serious injury to the structures within our heads,” resulting in torn blood vessels, brain injury and possible death. (Perhaps the state of Arkansas can pass a bill recommending unsuppressed sneezing!)

Heelys, the tennis shoe with a retractable wheel in the bottom, popular with the older elementary set, have caused a wave of panic by shopping malls managers across the country. Many malls are banning the shoes. There have been no reports of serious injury -- but there could be. And really, is it ever too early to panic?

And here’s one you might not have seen coming: “Are you helping or hurting your child when they are learning to walk?” The publicist sounding the alert on this danger also reminds us we’re not all doctors. (So that’s why they don’t let me in the operating room!) The warning states it is common “to accidentally cause mishap for one’s child when pulling on their arm, and tightly gripping their waste (sic) when assisting their first walking steps.” Yes, indeed, a terrible situation.

Then there’s the news that taking a whiff of food will shorten a fly’s life, ergo, it may shorten your life. Although I don’t know how often humans sniff “yeast paste,” the favorite food of flies.

The most memorable “fear-chilling” moment from snow storms this past winter happened at 5:45 one morning. A meteorologist advised viewers to call family and loved ones who weren’t up yet in order to tell them that the weather was going to be bad and they should watch the station’s weather reports.

“Whom should we call?” I asked the husband.

“Let’s call the kid in Chicago,” he said, smiling. “He’s an hour behind us, that way he’ll have more time to worry.”

A car with no name is just a ride

Lori Borgman

The kid who has insisted on naming our cars for years, the same kid we told to cool it for years, has been vindicated.

According to an Associated Press – AOL poll, 20 percent of all drivers give nicknames to their cars.

Whoa, Betsy!

Actually, Betsy is the No. 1 nickname, followed by Nelly, Blue and Baby.

We may have named a few of our vehicles, but they were names like, “Money Pit,” and “Rust Bucket,” which were nowhere on the list.

The kid who names cars tends to select monikers with considerably more affection. When the green minivan developed a short in the electrical system that caused the interior lights to randomly flash and automatic doors to lock and unlock, she named the vehicle Shirley. It was hard to be dislike a vehicle named Shirley.

The 1993 Ford F150 pickup with the five-speed stick shift, custom speakers and deafening muffler she named Henry. It was a good fit.

The maroon minivan with extended back became Spencer. Her grandpa’s Expedition has been dubbed Eddie and the used Toyota Avalon that came into her possession a year ago, purrs to the name Ava.

Despite efforts to resist falling into her trap, we have occasionally heard ourselves saying inane things like, “Does Henry have gas?” Or, “Who’s in the garage, Ava or Spencer?”

The poll also found that three in 10 drivers think their cars have gender.

“How do you know if a car is a girl or a boy?” I ask our car-naming expert.

“Oh, you can tell by looking,” she chirps.

“And where does one look?” I ask. “Under the hood?”

“No, you can tell by looking at the car’s build. Spencer (the maroon minivan) is obviously a boy. Big, husky, good storage and has a firm idea of where he is going.” She explains this to me speaking very slowly, as though someone who has to ask how you tell a girl car from a boy car is a couple quarts low.

“Obviously,” I say.

“You can tell Ava is a girl by the fact that she is dainty and has a soft cream color. Plus, you can’t take Ava over the speed bumps the way you could Henry. Henry could take the speed bumps in second or third without a ripple, but Ava is delicate. You have to slow way down.”

I was with her in the car recently when someone gave us the international road signal. I looked over to see her response and she calmly said, “Just ignore them Ava.”

“Ava has no idea what just happened,” I said.

“Yes, she does, she’s very sensitive,” she said, patting Ava on the dashboard.

Colormatters.com may not agree that cars have personalities, but they do contend that a car’s color tells about the personalities of the people who drive them. Black reflects an aggressive personality and is the color car most likely to be in an accident. Silver means someone is cool, calm and slightly aloof. Green indicates hysterical tendencies. Yellow reflects idealism, and white is for status-seeking extroverts. Cream is self-contained, controlled and least likely to be in an accident.

I was driving the self-contained and controlled cream-colored Ava the other day and forgot to take the speed bump slow. Like Ava knows I took the speed bump a little too fast, I chuckled to myself.

By the time I reached the stop sign, the seat warmer had turned itself off.

Night nurse defeats purpose of parenthood

Lori Borgman

We had our children too early. We should have waited until now, when it is fashionable to hire “night nurses.”

A night nurse comes into the home from 9 or 10 at night until 6 in the morning to tend to the baby so that the parents can, well, sleep like babies.

My brother-in-law is questioning this idea, even suggesting to one such couple who hired a night nurse that parenthood, like marriage, should involve some suffering and deprivation in order to be real.

This brother-in-law has also warned me that if I quote his thoughts on this trend, I am not to cast aspersions on him as one of those dads who never got up in the middle of the night with the baby. By his own admission, he got up frequently – to bring the baby to his wife and say, “Here, he needs something.” Just kidding.

Night nurses for babies stay in the baby’s room, feed the baby, burp the baby and settle the baby back down. A night nurse does what a Mom and Dad used to do, but now Mom and Dad are paying something in the neighborhood of $250 to $300 a night for the privilege of sleeping soundly a few feet down the hall.

A night nurse could offer a wonderful reprieve for couples with multiples, a sick baby, or special circumstances, but, for the most part, these are healthy couples (one or both parents home on maternity leave) with healthy babies that the parents would simply rather not see or hear during the course of the night.

I always thought the primary reason we have babies is so that they can interrupt our sleep and help us discover what we are made of. Babies are the ultimate test of adaptability and stamina.

The fatigue, the exhaustion, the dark circles under the eyes, the near-trancelike state that overcomes you at 4 in the afternoon, have long been the badges of honor worn by new parents. The shirt on inside out, the socks don’t match, and the jacket that smells like baby wipes are precisely the ways we identify newcomers to the world of parenting. And now we want to pay someone else to have those joys.

I suppose we are also willing to forego those loving moments a new baby generates between a mom and dad.

“I hear the baby. You awake?” No answer. “I know you’re awake.”

Or, “I’ll get him.”

“No, I’ll get him.”

“No, I’ll go.”

“No, I’ll go.”

The banter goes on and soon the baby stops crying and returns to sleep.

What a shame to miss all the magic that happens in the night. There is nothing like an fussy baby that throws up and soaks you all down your front. You realize that this small hapless creature is totally and completely dependent on you -- and it is one of the most wonderful feelings in the entire world.

And then there is the satisfaction of quieting a crying baby. The baby begins to calm, snug against your chest, delicate face burrowed deep into your neck, heaving those last little sobs as she settles down and drifts peacefully back to sleep.

Those 2 a.m. encounters become the times you one day look back on with pride and satisfaction. They are the times that teach you that you do indeed have what it takes to make it as a parent – and that a little concealer does wonders for dark circles beneath the eyes.

The well-dressed bed

Lori Borgman

As a mother, I have had occasion to dress chickens, salads, children and a husband – “No, not that tie, that tie!” And now I am learning to dress the bed.

Dressing the bed is a phenomenon touted by the home fashion mavens. One no longer simply makes a bed, dah-ling, one dresses a bed.

Dressing a bed is sure to excite the male population almost as much as those tiny fingertip towels and decorator soaps shaped like seashells in the bathroom. (“Just look; don’t touch!”)

The key to the well-dressed bed is layers. Dressing a bed requires thin layers, thick layers, functional layers and ornamental layers.

Once you have your many layers in place, you pull up the sheet, the blanket, the comforter nestled in the duvet cover; then firmly grasp all layers and carefully flip them back a quarter turn.

You then place the bed pillows against the headboard, the European shams in front of the bed pillows, the standard shams in front of the European shams, the bolster pillow in front of the standard shams and decorative pillows and scatter pillows in front of those. Then, neatly fold a coverlet, lay it across the foot of the bed, and it will be time for lunch.

I have seen beds in all manners of dress.

Informal dress happens when the husband makes the bed. Everything is in roughly the right place, but the sheet dangles beneath the comforter and small ripples snake down the middle of the bed like tributaries shooting off the Mississippi River.

Our son’s style of dressing his bed would be classified as casual Friday. It was disheveled, rumpled and looked like he was still in it.

Our oldest daughter has always maintained a formally-dressed bed. Someone once commented you could bounce a quarter off her bed and suggested Uncle Sam could use her to train the military. We agreed, but 3 years of age seemed rather young to leave home.

Today, living on her own, she dresses her bed with layers and layers, contrasting textures, and complimentary colors, all perfectly folded and plumped and fluffed.

Whenever I am at her place I like to slip a tennis shoe or a hairbrush between a few of the layers just to keep things real.

I was a guest at a very swanky hotel recently and when I opened the door to my room, I laid eyes on the best-dressed bed I had ever seen.

If Goldilocks had been in a bed like this, that Three Bears story would have had a very different, and probably somewhat violent, ending.

The bed was a virtual cloud. I could have thrown all the bedding and pillows out the window, jumped from the 18th floor and been guaranteed a soft landing.

At 11 p.m., I slipped into the virtual cloud and prepared to float to dreamland.

At 11:20 p.m., I tossed off the goose-down comforter.

At 11:40 p.m., I kicked off the second sheet.

At 11:55 p.m., I threw aside a second comforter.

At 12:30 a.m., I knocked six pillows and three shams to the floor.

At 1:05 am., I awoke from a nightmare about an anaconda squeezing me to death. The duvet and the top sheet were wrapped in a figure-eight around my legs and a coverlet was coiled around my neck.

At 1:06 I realized it was a slippery slope from the luxury of a well-dressed bed to the torment of an over-dressed bed. I hoped all the home fashion mavens were having a restless night, too.