by Lisa Twombly

Created on: October 27, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

My confidence has been shattered, that I can't hide. This battle has left me bruised, battered, dirty and disillusioned. This is no place for me, I am too old for this stuff. I know the enemy can smell my weakness, like Dorito breath the morning after a ten hour SAW marathon.

It isn't the hand-to-hand combat that's killing me. In fact it's obvious to me (though my co-commander refuses to believe it) that the opponent has released some sort of neurotoxin that has reduced my intelligence to one step above being involuntarily committed and two steps below village idiot. I am so intellectually compromised that last week I slipped and adorned myself so as to incite utter humiliation onto my nemesis. (In my defense, it was 7:00 a.m. and nobody could see that I was wearing gray men's sweat pants, as I never got out of the van...AND she was the one who missed the damn bus anyway)

There are lulls in the bloodshed. Times when an accord seems imminent. Being my first time at battle, I naively succumb to these each and every time. I don't recall the chapter of the Geneva Convention that mentioned chores completed and homework done and phrases like "Mommy will you drive us to the mall. I love you." only to result in fits of uncontrolled laughter and Mountain Dew projecting from nostrils over country music on the car radio. (Brad Paisley is a very talented artist!) If there are no chapters in the Geneva Convention, that too I shall blame on the effects of the neurotoxins. By the end of this war, I'll be that lady who has 100 cats and wears a bra made of post-it notes and twisty ties.

This isn't a fair war anyway. What with the opponents younger, fitter and oh so very, very smart. I mean really you have to admit that they are the ones that discovered Johnny Depp, Led Zeppelin, black eyeliner and video games. Um, ever heard of Atari! We were the ones that had to trudge toward the battlelines with ten pound cell phones, floppy discs, console televisions and Aqua Net hairspray wearing rainbow leg warmers, parachute pants and shoulder pads. You have to admit the 80's have given us a slight disadvantage.

So here I stand, smoke settling along with the setting sun, the smell of ramen noodles in the air. I hear the anguished moans of my comrades but I am too battle weary to do anything but empathize. We sleep but with one eye open, quick to jump up at the sound of car wheels in the driveway or the refrigerator being left open. We hope that it will end but something deep down tells us that it will go on and on forever. As we slip into our fitful sleep we hear the rocking chairs, Beatles records and the tapping of platform go-go boots behind us. It seems this battle has been fought before.

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