I was “Karened” by a Karen!

I first became aware of the term Karen just a few months ago. I was complaining about getting bad service at a McDonald’s on Facebook.

Someone told me to “be a Karen” and report it.

I was confused about the use of the name, so I looked it up. No one seems to know the origin of the moniker, but it is possibly attributed to a Dane Cook comedy routine. Then I was faced with the task of looking up who Dane Cook was. So there I was, in the dark about both “Karen” and Dane Cook. Woe is me!

In all of my research, it became apparent that “Karen” and “entitled” white women were synonymous.

Apparently, racist white women…

The trials of parenting a teen

From the bottom of his expensively sneakered foot to the top of his scowling face, he reminds me that I am a failure as a parent. I’ve been down this path three times before. He is the fourth teen to live in my house.

Parenting a teen is a special kind of hell. With every slam of a door, he reminds me that if teens came into the world ahead of babies, the human population would become extinct.

There are those dreaded words, “Hey, mom.” I cringe. I know what’s next. Spoiler alert: He’s not going to say, “I love…

It was a Friday afternoon. I waited in the car pick up line in front of the high school. My 16-year-old son was due to get out of school at any moment. The final bell rang, and students streamed out of the high school. My son was not among them. Frustrated, I called him. He would often sneak off to the parking lot to talk to his friends and leave me to wait. That would turn out to not be the case this time.

He answers the phone and tells me that he and a friend were hiding behind the…

Tales from a Starburst spitting middle school teacher…

Bless that poor students’ heart!

Count down till school starts. It’s year seven without me. I retired after 32 years. It was a good run but I’m all “runned” out. I have a drawer full of funny stories. Here is one of my favorites.

You know teachers keep candy in their drawers. The purpose supposedly is to reward students but I confess the person who gets rewarded the most is the teacher. I can claim this habit along with pre-Michelle Obama school lunches for the beginning of my weight gain.

So in…

Go to the group! Connect! I didn't even know that there were online writing groups.

I spent the afternoon helping my adult son with a job application. It was for a job with the Federal Government, so the app was more complicated than most. It was a looong afternoon fraught with raised voices and mini temper tantrums. Most of them were from me.

My son had a difficult time in school. He didn’t like it and wasn’t interested in making good grades or even learning. Eventually, not being interested in behaving went on that list. We finally took him out of public high school and placed him in an online high school. It was one…

I first realized this media platform last year (2020) while reading Newsbreak. The same author’s names would appear over and over, and I finally followed the yellow brick road to Medium.

I even attempted to write a few stories of my own. I had little success and was quite amused to receive a text that I had earned $.01 for my efforts. I know now that I wasn’t following the guidelines.

My sister and I wrote memoirs last year. We published through an organization called Storyworth. It brought us closer together. It also got me in the habit of writing…