Germaphobe

Hi, my name is Jessica, and I’m a germaphobe. Yes it’s true. I swear I have super powers that enable me to see these nasty little buggers whose whole purpose in life is to make me sick. (Adam tells me I’m insane and what I’m really seeing is just dust.) Do you know what’s not good to have when you have a problem like mine? ….KIDS!

Kids are freaking gross. I’m not kidding. Who in their right mind is ever ok with green, germy boogers hanging out of their nose? Kids. Who has no qualms about teething on the handle of a Walmart cart? Kids. Who finds a delectable treat in their nose on a regular basis? That’s right….kids!!

My own children are no exception to the norm. As horrifying as it may be, I have seen these little people that came from my own womb pick gum up off the ground and try to eat it. I’ve also caught them licking their runny noses, writing hieroglyphics on their bedroom walls with their own feces, splashing merrily in a toilet full of urine, and trying to eat it their own vomit. In fact, my daughter Jovie was quite angry with me when she puked up pizza and I wouldn’t let her eat it. Who knew Aldi made such a good pizza! I have lucked out considering my mother-in-law found Adam eating someone else’s poop from out of the toilet when he was little. There he was, two logs in his hand and a proud smile with the nasty all through his teeth. It gives real meaning to the phrase, s*#% eating grin! That story always makes me retch a little in my own mouth.

Lesson 7: Eating someone else’s fecal matter = white trash

Thank goodness for Costco. It’s the perfect place for people like me. There I can buy bulk paper towels, cans of Lysol, Chlorox wipes, and the biggest tubes of Airborne I ever did see, all for a great price.

When we go out in public I always have hand sanitizer and Chlorox wipes on hand. Adam is embarrassed by my obsessive wiping of shopping carts. He doesn’t think I need to sanitize every little piece of the cart, but I never know what part they are going to grab or what disgusting, runny nosed kids had just occupied it.

I wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t until I had more than two kids. Do you know how long it takes for a sickness to circulate through our house? The months of January and February 2008….gone, due to a stomach bug immediately followed by a nasty cold. May 2008….gone, quarantined to the house. I swear we all had swine flu. So do you should see why I’m a little maniacal about the sanitizing? When I see one of my kids with a runny nose, I sigh and prepare myself for at least a month of illness.

Now, some of you may disagree with me, but my kids are sick right now, and I’m tired of wiping noses, distributing vile after vile of antibiotics and ibuprofen (Not to mention, holding Jude down and forcing him to swallow the pink liquid that smells like crap), dry cracked hands from perpetual washing, and my house being in a thick cloud of Lysol. So in honor of my current situation and based purely on the fact that I loathe them:

Lesson 8: GERMS ARE WHITE TRASH!!

Baby Smackin' Purse

The families on our street are big breeders. (We fit right in!) We all joke there is something in the water on our hill. No family has less than 3 children and some families have up to 8! It’s great for our kids since it’s never hard to find someone to play with.

As most of you know, all children are completely different. Some are full of energy, while others enjoy sitting around and coloring. A good majority of them on our street are very outspoken, and the rest just follow their demands. We adults (Jackie, Adam, our occasional basement dweller, and myself) find it quite amusing to watch these little personalities interact with one another.

One particular day I had three of my neighbor’s younger children over to play with my three younger boys. So I had six kids in my back yard from ages 2-5. That kind of scenario requires more than one adult, so I summoned my basement dweller at the time, Brett, who is my first cousin and had inhabited my basement for a year.

The play-date went smoothly. The kids got along great as they usually do. My oldest son, Marky, who is 9, used to be really good friends with our neighbors 8 year old daughter. They were close when they were younger before the boy/girl lines were drawn. Back then there was nothing too girly or too boyish for either of them to try for the sake of the other. Unfortunately, after they began school, they drifted apart. Marky became more interested in video games, and she became enthralled with fashion and flirting with boys. It breaks my heart to see them interact now. She compliments him on his hair or clothes while batting her eyes, and he returns the gesture with a monotone, “Whatever.” What happened to the two kids laughing hysterically as they raced their Big Wheels down the hill?

Anyway, their parents had obviously sent her to retrieve the younger kids, because here she came, strutting down my driveway, hand on her hip, toward the back yard like it was some sort of catwalk. She burst through the gate and struck a pose. She was decked out in leopard print slip-on shoes, stretch pants to match, a white sweater dress that was gathered in the middle by a gold chain belt, and enormous gold hoop earrings. Her older sisters must have gotten to her, because her hair was done up for a ball and she was wearing more makeup than the Joker.

She looked at her brother and sisters and shrieked in her best diva voice, “Kids! Get down to the house before I smack you with my purse!” The kids stopped playing and looked at her. “I’ll do it!” she reaffirmed, shaking her head from side to side with attitude.

Brett and I both burst out in laughter. “Man, it just got real ghetto up in this piece.” Brett chuckled. She immediately shot him a nasty look.

As the kids hurried out the gate I asked Marky’s old playmate, “So, you have a baby smackin’ purse, huh?”

She turned and gave me the evil eye, and for a moment I was scared she was going to use that dreaded bag of magical powers on me! Her 5 year old sister was just about to leave the yard, but turned to quickly address me. “She really does. She has a purse.”

Miss Thang gave me a vindicated look and followed her siblings home. As soon as they were out of sight, Brett and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Wow."

Lesson 6: Eight year old girl with a baby smackin’ purse will someday = white trash

Thank God for Good Neighbors

When we moved into our home six years ago, I was very lonely. Adam worked all the time and the only person I had to converse with was an infant who had nothing stimulating to talk about. My mother frequently received crying phone calls about my plight. “You’re just going to have to get out and make some new friends.” she lovingly told me.

A desperate laugh was my usual response. We could only afford one vehicle and it was always sitting at Adam’s place of work, so the prospect of me taking off to make new friends was not a realistic option.

After enough complaints my mom told me, “Well, then you’re going to have to pray and have God send a friend to you.”

Knowing God would have to bring me a friend from somewhere close by, I immediately thought about the lovely lady who called me white trash. She was the only person on my street close to my age. The thought caused me to cry hysterically.

“There’s nobody here!” I wailed.

“Just give it a try.” My mom insisted.

“Fine.” My tone emphasized my annoyance with being given a task and not a means to get me immediate results.

The house to the left of us had been unoccupied since before we moved in. Our neighbors told us the person who lived there had abandoned it, causing it to go into foreclosure.

About a year later, we started to notice prospective buyers coming to look at the house. Months went by with no taker. Of course I don’t think we helped the situation.

As I said before, our house needed some definite love. We went right to work when we moved in, tearing up floors and painting. The project we were working on during the showing of the other house was what became our current eat-in kitchen, which had originally been an extremely small, closet like kitchen, (that doesn’t fly when there is a chef in the house) and a dark, dreary dining room. To accomplish this extensive feat, we had to take out the wall separating the two. We had removed the wall; but couldn’t afford a dumpster, so a large pile of wall chunks lay scattered in my driveway, next to our broken down Caravan that had the classic wood strip. A total eye sore, not exactly something you want to see when you look out your window.

Lesson 4: driveway full of wall chunks and broke down vehicles = white trash

There was one particular couple that we knew we scared away. My husband had invited his best friend over the night before, which always involves beer drinking. I know this sounds bad, but when we are strapped for cash I make Adam get a $2 forty instead of a case of beer. So, in the morning, I found that the guys had left a couple of forty bottles on our front porch. (That’s where they drink because no one is permitted to smoke in our house.) I decided to go outside and clean up. At that time I still occasionally smoked and had decided to indulge myself in an after coffee cigarette.

I walked outside and lit my cig just as a very nice SUV pulled up in front of the vacant house next door. I walked over to the little table on my porch and picked up the two empty forty bottles. I turned around, forties in hand with a cigarette hanging loosely from my lips to see a couple with the real estate agent looking at me.

I smiled and waved the best I could while holding the awkward bottles. They didn’t wave back or smile, a look of horror on their faces. Realizing what I must look like, I quickly extinguished my square and disappeared into my house hoping that they didn’t look out their living room window down on my driveway full of garbage.

About ten minutes later I hear Adam yelling from out in the back yard. I ran outside and found him and Seth frantically swinging a two-by-four and a running leaf blower in my garage. The leaf blower was so loud they had to scream to communicate. Adam glanced in my direction and screamed, “There’s a @*#! bird in here! Do you want me to kill it?!” Just then I feel someone staring at me. I look over to find the unknown couple had come outside to admire the beautiful deck, and instead they got an earful of obscenities and a bird slaying.

I was mortified. I knew we had ruined any chances of this couple making the neighboring house their home. No matter how beautiful it may have been, living next to us had to be the last thing they ever wanted to do. I chuckled to myself at the ridiculous situation as I watched my husband and his best friend try to slaughter the poor bird. The couple and their agent watched too out of pure shock. Then, if it couldn't get any worse, something else caught my eye. There, in our yard, was our dog Jasper, heaving until he puked up some weird fluorescent yellow foam. I turned and look at the couple who were now running away.

Lesson 5: smoking while cleaning forty bottles off your front porch + killing birds with two-by-fours and leaf blowers + dog puking up toxic waste DOES IN FACT = white trash

Anyway, a few months past and finally a single lady named Jackie moved in. She told me later that we weren’t home when she looked at the house. (Luckily!) Four years later, she’s not only my best friend, but an adopted family member, and Godmother to my one and only daughter. I’m very thankful God answered my prayer!

A Chef and His Lawn Mower

My husband, Adam, is a gifted chef, and when someone hears of his occupation their immediate reaction is, “Oh, you're so lucky.” Their dreamy tones and smiles of admiration make it hard to destroy their visions of me being served three scrumptious meals a day by my attractive man (who looks like a thirty year old Nick Jonas). Unfortunately this is not the case.

In reality, I’m quite lucky to have him home for a meal, let alone cook me anything. So for those who don’t know, being a chef’s wife is not for the faint of heart. A chef’s schedule is much like that of a doctor or police officer, but without the glory, respect, or paycheck!

Adam leaves at 10:30 am everyday, (There is a lot of prep work that goes into the lovely meal you devour at a restaurant.) and he usually doesn’t return until 11 pm, if not later. On weekends it is always much later. He works every weekend, every holiday, and on average, six days week.

You are probably thinking, “Hey, he has time to make a great breakfast.” Again, I am laughing on the inside. I hate to tell you, but the man doesn’t wake up until 10!

I don’t want to make it sound like he’s never home. He does have one day off a week, and on special occasions, two; and those are the days he makes up for all the time he’s gone. He’s an attentive father and loving mate. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that also require his manly attention around our house. Like the grass for instance, he refuses to let me run the lawn mower, but he is rarely home to manage our tiny patch of lawn. This summer there were a few times I looked out back and expected to see a tiger popping its head out of what looked like its natural habitat. On multiple occasions I caught disapproving glances from neighbors as they scanned over my untidy yard.

Lesson 3: unruly grass = white trash

Truthfully, I wasn’t too bothered by the jungle. Sorry neighbors, but I will always pick quality time with my husband and kids over mown grass any day!

Why White Trash?

Hi. I’m Jess, a 29 year old, lower-middle class American citizen, who, for some reason, has been dubbed “white trash”. White trash…..why am I white trash? At first, I didn’t know. To figure out this enigma, I researched the actual definition.

White trash: Ignorant, lazy, poor white person.

This confused me. First off, I am educated. I graduated from a private high school with honors. Moving on, I attended Saint Vincent College, where I majored in chemistry. I dropped out a year later to pursue a family. I have since then acquired an Associates Degree in accounting. Do I have a fancy degree in chemistry? No, but I’m definitely not unintelligent.

Now the poor part I can understand. We don’t have a lot of material assets or a savings to speak of; but we are not on welfare, and that’s saying something for a family of seven living on one income.

I have been referred to as white trash on a couple of occasions. There had to be something more to this white trash business than the actual definition. I’ve spent years trying to figure out this mysterious formula. These are some of my own personal findings:



The first time I was referred to as “white trash” was right after my husband and I purchased our first house in 2003, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Being a young couple, just starting out, the amount a mortgage company was willing to give us was not much. With only three options, we settled for the only one that didn’t reside in, what seemed like, a suburban ghetto.

Our new home was, by far, the most neglected on the street. Built in the early 1930’s, the original owners had bought the house new, lived there their whole lives, and died just when we started our house hunting, and they obviously had not done a thing with the place since the 1970’s.

Perched at the near top of a most inconvenient, yet typical Pittsburgh hill, it stood in close proximity to our neighbors. The two-tone structure of maroon and dingy white had a beautiful porch (I was excited) decorated with piles of garbage. Broken chairs, a glider frame topped with a blown tv, and a dry rotten American flag, among other things, littered what I saw as something with great potential. To top off the outer visage, a broken down car rested in my teeny-tiny back yard.

The inside was no better filled with a fluorescent pink refrigerator, peeling 70’s wall paper held up with duct tape, dirty wall to wall shag carpeting, and way too much wood paneling. The paneling was so thick we felt as if we lived in a tree. The dark and dreary paneling was in every room except for two bedrooms and the bathroom, (We did come to find, when we replaced the floors in the bathroom, that they had used wood paneling as a sub floor under the carpeting. I kid you not!)

A couple of days after moving in, the surviving children of the deceased came and removed the car. My husband, Adam removed all the garbage from our porch leaving it clean and full of possibilities. I couldn’t do much moving since I had just had our first son, Jagger, three weeks prior.

This leads me to being white trash. At the time we had a dog named Jasper. Jasper was eleven years old, but he still acted the same as he did when he was a puppy. (He could be a real pain in the butt!) The first night my husband had to go back to work I was alone with the baby and the dog. I put the dog out to use the bathroom after a day of dreary rain. By the time I went to retrieve him, he had completely covered himself in mud. Looking at my white German Shepherd, who now looked more like a normal shepherd, I thought of my options. We didn’t have a hose yet, so I couldn’t spray him off. I had just had a baby and was not permitted to lift more than the weight of my son, let alone a hundred pound dog, without the possibility of hemorrhaging and dying, and Jasper never got into the tub on his own. The only option was to wait for Adam to get home.

Adam returned from work at eleven pm to find a muddy barking dog tied to the laundry pole out back. He promptly brought him in and cleaned him. The ordeal was over. Or so I thought.
The next afternoon, Adam had left for work and I took the baby and dog out to sit on my new, clean front porch. A few minutes later a young lady, no more than five years older than me, approached me from a neighboring house with her toddler son. I became excited, hoping to make a new friend. I smiled wanting to seem friendly and open. She met my smile with a scowl. This took me back. What did this lady want? I had only been here for a few days. What did I do?
She reached me and said in a snide manner, “So this is the animal who was making all the noise.”
“Sorry, he got muddy and I…” I began, but she wasn’t going to let me explain.

“You need to do something about that dog or we’re going to have a problem.” she yelled. With that, she turned and began dragging her son back up the hill. “White trash.” I heard her mutter as she walked away.

I sat stunned with tears in my eyes. She never even let me explain. She didn’t give me a chance to speak at all. How did she know I was white trash?

The more I thought about it, the less it bothered me, especially after a few years of watching her interact with other neighbors. We’ve been here for six years and I’ve never even seen her smile.

Lesson 1: barking dog = white trash

The second time was a little more bothersome, as it came from my own brother. My brother and I have quite different views on the definition of success. He believes success is measured by the amount of money you make and assets you have. He has never been able to understand why I have chosen to be a stay at home mom. I’m a great disappointment in his eyes. His belief is that I should have had only one kid, dropped him off at day care and got a job like all other respectable people. So when I found myself pregnant with my son Jude, he lovingly asked me, “Why do you want to be white trash?”

Lesson 2: stay at home mom + more than one child = white trash