MaeHem At The Mall

Chapter 4: MayHem At The Mall

“Meet me at Towne Square for lunch. There are some great sales, and I don’t want to miss them, but I haven’t seen you in so long. We can do some shopping together. I’m bringing the kids. You bring yours.” Dana laughed.

“I’ll see if I can get Trent to get dressed.” Mae laughed back.

“Well, tell that giant teenager of yours to get going!”

“Yeah, but I don’t know that we’re in the mood for Show Me’s.”

“It’ll be quick. It’s a little early for lunch, so it won’t be crowded or anything.”

“Okay. We’ll see you there in a while.”

“Mwuah! Love ya!”

“You too!”

They hung up, and Mae shuffled into the living room. “Lunch and shopping with Dana and the girls, let’s go.”

Trent wiggled his toes high up on his recliner. “Do I have to?”

“Dana was right.”

“Dana? About what?”

“That you’re a great, big teenager.”

Trenton jumped up from his chair and chased Mae into the bedroom.. “You got that right! And you know what they say about teenage boys!” He tackled her to the bed, and they wrestled and laughed.

“Come on, it’ll be a good time. We haven’t seen Aisha and Alaya for a while, either.” Mae put on her puppy dog eyes and batted her lashes.

“Aw, don’t do that.” Trent grinned. “I can’t say no when you do that. Okay, let’s go.” He got up and changed from his comfy shorts and t-shirt into jeans and a sweat shirt that said ,’roadkill on the grill’. “There. Let’s go hug our girls.”

Traffic was light, and they rode to the mall in good time. Parking was a different story, though, and Trent circled the same four lanes several times, waiting for a good spot.

“We could’ve walked in, had lunch and shopped four stores by now,” Mae said.

“It’s my day off. I deserve to park close to the door.”

“There’s one!” Mae pointed.

Trent pressed on the accelerator a bit and hurried around to the next lane and pulled into a spot just before a teenager in a beater tried to grab it.

“Ha. Beat him,” Trent said, and put the shift in park, pulled out the keys and got out. He patted his tummy and said, “Hungry man. Let’s go.”

Mae rolled her eyes.

“Well, I can’t really say hungry teenager.”

Mae sidled up to him and they walked hand in hand into the mall. They had barely taken two steps in when they heard a voice call out to them, and two other voices squeal.

“Mae, Trent, over here!”

“Uncle Trent! Aunt Mae!”

The passersby stole glances to see who answered the call. Aisha and Alaya ran up to them and locked them in tight hugs. The glued-together group waddled to where Dana stood, smiling.

“Come here, you!”

Trent walked like a robot, arms out in front of him toward Dana.

“Not you, but okay,” she laughed and gave him a light hug. She let Trent go, and the girls swarmed him.

“I meant you!” She did a sort of stuttered, excited shuffle to Mae, and threw her arms around her.

They parted, and Dana said, “What do you think?” She did a little twirl and showed off her new outfit. Her mini skirt had a pleated section that flew up when she twirled.

“Nice. Been here long?”

The group joined together and walked into the restaurant. They were seated quickly. Aisha and Alaya were busy talking over each other, telling Trent about their week at school while Dana and Mae caught up with each other.

“I’m going with the chicken Philly,” said Trent.

The girls sat on either side of him. Aisha ordered a grilled cheese and a dinner salad, and Alaya ordered a cheeseburger.

“Y’all ready?” Their waitress smiled, beaming at the group around the table.

Mae gave a gentle kick to Trent’s shin. “Behave,” she said.

“Yup, we’re ready!”

The group ordered, and chatted while waiting for their meals.

“So then, Jamie, she said…. Dana, what are you looking at?” Mae followed Dana’s eyes to a set of broad shoulders and a trim waist sitting at the bar.

“Sorry, what?” Dana said without looking away from the eye candy on the bar stool.

“Do you know him?” Mae asked.

“No, but I don’t think I’d mind getting to know him,” Dana said and raised her eyebrows.

“You…” Mae said with a little laugh.

“Can’t blame a girl for window shopping. He’s as fine as Ghirardelli Chocolate. I, uh, have to go to the ladies room. No need to come with me, though,” Dana rose and winked at Mae. “I can take care of this on my own.”

Mae shook her head and watched Dana walk away.

As Dana passed the bar, she made eye contact with the man. He had a draft beer glass in his hand, and had just pursed his lips on the rim to take a sip when he saw her. Dana paused ever so slightly, did a little twirl and walked to the ladies’ room with her miniskirt swaying with her stride.

When she came out, the man waved her over. “Hey, good-lookin’. Can I buy you a drink or something?”

“Oh, I’ve already ordered, but thanks. I’m Dana.” She held out her hand.

“Jerome.” He took her hand in his. “You here by yourself?”

She shook her head. “We’re on a family shopping spree.” She nodded in the direction of her table.

“Ah. Well, how about you give me your number, and we’ll see about getting you here sometime by yourself. Or somewhere else. You like to dance?”

“Oh, yeah. Here.” Dana pulled out her phone.

“Jerome Elias Watson!” A harsh voice pierced through the restaurant, right into Jerome’s eardrum.

“Sasha?” He winced and pulled away. Dana turned to see a rather large, very angry woman stomping their way. Her fury shone through the dark skin of her cheeks like the glow of embers at dusk. Jerome’s face reddened, and he turned to the bar and picked up his glass. “Shit.”

“Missy, you can just keep going.” She pointed a finger in Dana’s face.

“Oh no, you don’t. You need to talk to this sorry excuse for a man, not me. He came on to me.” She turned to Jerome. “Tell her.”

“You can’t talk about my man that way!” The woman took a step closer to Dana.

Unintimidated, Dana stepped inward, too. “He’s the one picking up women right under your nose. How would I know he had an old lady?”

Jerome swung around on his barstool and stepped between the two women. In any other situation, he would have been safe, but even a six-foot-two bundle of muscles is no match for women who are riled up.

“Old lady? Go look in the mirror!” Sasha reached an arm around Jerome to slap at Dana.

Jerome swung his arm out to block Sasha, but when her hand hit his arm, he bounced back and smacked Dana’s shoulder.

By that time, Trenton was walking calmly toward them with a stern look on his face. “Hey, be careful with my sister. Let’s just be cool, okay?” he said.

Alaya yelled from the table, “Yeah, leave my mom alone!”

Mae put a hand on the table.

“She’s okay. Uncle Trent is there, and we’re going to just stay here and not make it worse, okay?” Mae saw the girls as they nodded but watched closely, ready to defend their mom, and she felt kind of proud, the way the family stuck together.

Jerome’s temper flared. “Keep out of this, kid!”

Trenton put a hand on Jerome’s arm and led him and Sasha away from Dana. “That kid, as you called her, can run you down and put you on the floor before you can say ‘outside linebacker’. Just cool this off. Okay?”

Sasha folder her arms and huffed heavily. She shot a dirty look toward Dana, but then looked up at Jerome. “Yeah, what the hell? Get your ass home, motherfucker.”

He dropped a bill on the bar and left with his head low, and his woman behind him scolding him the whole way.

Dana held her head high and sat down at the table and watched the leave with daggers in her eyes.

“Should have stuck to window shopping,” Mae said, trying to inject some humor into the situation.

“I just wanted to try, not buy,” Dana said.

She and Mae laughed at the same time.

“Hey, look at it this way. You didn’t end up as ‘the other woman’. I think that Sasha would have drawn blood.”

“Yeah, but dammit. I just can’t get a break.”

The waitress arrived with their food, and they dug in.

“Uncle Trent, will you take us to Scoops & Smoothies for dessert?” Aisha asked.

“You gonna have room?” he teased.

“Let’s all go. Then we’re going to look at shoes,” Dana said, and raised a glass. “To family.”

They all raised their glasses and said, “To Family!”

The Tradegy That Occurred On Our Fifth Wedding Anniversary

I had picked out the perfect outfit. I had gotten my hair straightened,  and my nails done. I wanted to look perfect for him. My husband Trenton.

Trent said he was taking me to my favorite restaurant The Miller House. Its the most expensive restaurant in town. Its well worth the amount of money you pay to eat there. Service is top notch and you get an AMAZING Appitizer called The Southern Sampler. It has fried cheese grits, fried green tomatoes, sweet potatoe chips, and delicious bree. The scenery is amazing and they play beautiful music in the back ground as you romantically hold hands. 

We were sitting there talking about our dreams for the next five years, we had ordered our tea and the southern sampler and it was all just -perfect.

And then –
Trent’s dad called. You see, Trent’s identical twin brother had been in surgery while we were there.

We had decided to go to the hospital and visit him the day before, so we could have our anniversary all to ourselves.  And we weren’t planning on coming to the surgery because, well, it was just a regular proceedure that they had done two other times that week.

It had gone fine the rest of the week. Heck, when Trent and I visited him the day before he was spelling people’s name on a piece of paper and he was VERY responsive.

We talked about their 30th birthday and how its about to be next month and Travis motioned that he wanted us all to get drunk.

So, we are sitting there at The Miller House and Trent answers his phone thinking that his dad is going to tell him that the surgery is over and they had him closed up.

Instead Mike told Trent he wad on his way to The Miller House and he needed to talk to him. I looked at my husband from across the table and I knew something was wrong. He had lost all the color in his face.

I started to cry and everyone in the restaurant was looking.  “Trent, ” I manage to muster from my throat. “What’s wrong, your starting to scare me…”

Trent hung up the phone and told the waiter he needed to pay because we had an emergency we had to take care of. He told me to go to the car.

I went outside and Mike was standing in front of the restaurant. 

Trent followed and the color still haden’t returned to his face.
Mike started,  “Travis had a really bad infection. They are putting him back into the ICU, they may or may not have to put in a trechea, and they putting him in a paralyzed coma.”

I stood there in shock. Trent fell on the ground in long deep sobs, “I know its scary son. Its okay to be scared, I am too.” Mike says.

We drove to the hospital. We waited until it was our turn to see him.

We walked into the ICU and we saw Travis. Trent held his hand, “Bubba, I need you to get better. We love you…” Trent broke down and started to cry.

We left the hospital around midnight.

We went to sleep and the next day we went to work and visited Travis at nine when we got off. Trent had dropped me off at the door and I actually went up to his room without Trent. Travis’ leg was hanging off the bed! I screamed for the nurse to get in there.
“Nurse! His leg is almost completely off the bed!” I said.
“Yeah, ” She says nonchalantly. “He’s been doing that all day.”

I pause for a moment, “Is that normal? With him supposed to be paralyzed and all?”

“We have given him as much pain sedatives as humanly possible,  he just keeps fighting it.”

I go and sit in the chair next to him. I hold his hand, “Hey buddy.” He opens up his eyes and opens his mouth. It looks like he’s trying to say something. It looks like he’s trying to say, “Help me!” I jump up startled. I sit back down and I grab hid hand.  “You’re okay Bubba. I need you to calm down and stop fighting this.”

I see Trent walking down the hall and I decide to keep it to myself what it looked like he had said.

Trent is holding his hand and I decide to give them a moment alone.

Trent meets back up with me at ten when visitation is over. He us just as disturbed as me at how restless he was.

I get home and talk to Dana.
“I’m a little fucked up after seeing Travis.”
“I know! Me too! It was like he was fighting it!”
Later on we are talking and she says that when she worked at the Nursing Home she only had three residents that had sepsis.
” None of them survived,” she said.
We talk about how he has his age on his side but each time we think something is going right, it has turned out horribly wrong. Should we be preparing ourselves for the worst? 

I go upstairs.

“Trent, we need to talk.” I say.
“Okay.” he responds. There is an awkward moment as if we ate both thinking the same thing but neither wants to say what that is.

“Trent. I think you need to get off from work tomorrow.  I am having a hard time processing my thoughts right now about this whole situation, so, I can’t imagine how you’re feeling with him being your twin brother. I don’t think working with the public is a good idea right now. I think you need to take tomorrow off and go be with him and…I think you need to really try and process what happening. Distractions at work are good, but after a while its going to hit you what’s happening, and you aren’t going to want to be there at that store.”

“What will we do about the bills? If I’m not working we can’t pay the bills.”
“Let me handle it Trent. I’ll pick up extra hours if I have to.”

Trent nods his head and says, “Travis opened his mouth when I was up there tonight like he was trying to say something …like he wad trying to say help me.”

“I know honey, he did that to me before you got in the room, I just thought it was my mind playing tricks on me!” I cried.

We both started to cry and hold each other and the release of the tears and of the uncertainty were the only thing that felt right in that moment.

Hagan Halloween Town Part 1.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be walking you through some easy and cheap things you can do to spruce up your House for Halloween.  The first thing we are working on is a graveyard for our front yard. We got the wood from my brother in law Travis, who works at Lowes and had just happened to come across some free planks of plywood.

Side note, Travis is about to go for his reversal surgery for his colostomy bag, and we could not be happier for Travis and Valery. It has been so hard on both of them and I prey every night for them that things start to turn around. The reversal is definitely a step in the right direction.

So, Trent, his identical twin Travis, and their father Mike used a regular old jigsaw and used a 4’x8 inch sheet of plywood and they got 10 tombstones out of it. I don’t know the first thing about tools of that nature, so if you have to just find someone more educated with tools to do so that has a jigsaw lying around.

Okay, so we got ten tombstones from it.

Next, we took the tombstones to our house and got the kids involved. I used a can of white paint and dumped it into a bucket. I then poured just enough black in there to where I could get a grey mix. Remember not to use too much black because then the writing will be hard to show up later when you go to write.

So I mixed the paint and had everyone pick up a paint brush. I had everyone make long stroke going up and down and it really did come out perfect.

Okay so it was about 6:00 pm by the time we got them painted. We let them dry and while they were drying we had everyone sit in a circle and brainstorm what we wanted on the tombstones.  The names,  the epitaph’s etc. One of the tombstone’s does have our wedding anniversary and names on it because it is part of my anniversary gift. I know it doesn’t go with the theme but its my graveyard and I’ll put what I want    😛

So, we were going to paint each of the names on there but I got to thinking, and not only would that have taken FOREVER, but there’s a HUGE chance that we would’ve had to keep scraping the tombstones and repainting them. So, why not a black Sharpie?  It actually worked was better! And I saved my black paint for my next project!

So, we go to set down and Trent can’t do the writing because he is left handed and he was afraid he would mess it up. And I can’t do it because my hand shakes so bad I would’ve messed it up. So, Dana and Jenn came to the rescue! 

A few of our tombstones were personal. The first one I’m going to show you is about our friend Mandy Schroeder.  Well, Mandy has a real quick whit to her and she always knows what to say to put you in your place if you’re being a bottom feeder. Well, Trent thinks of her as a big sister, and he always likes to mess with her and call her the Devil. So, of course Trent had a field day with this one. 

It says, “Here Lies Mandy Schroader. Went to hell so Satan could take a vacation.”

“Michael Jackson Hasn’t been this stiff since Macaulay Culkin spent the night at Neverland Ranch.”

“Coming soon…Lindsay Lohan. ”

“Here lies an atheist.  All dressed up and no where to go.” (I found this on the internet and thought it was cute,).

“Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston – Heavens gonna need more crack.”

“Charlie Sheen Overdosed on Tiger’s Blood. Winning.”

LOL sorry I just realized you can’t really tell what this picture says. I wanted to be a little political on one of them. “Here Lies Mitt Romney’s Campaign. ”

I hope you aren’t offended by any of my dead celebrities.  The truth is I was really heart broken when Amy Winehouse died and that really is my way of paying homage to her, and Whitney, and, Michael.

That’s all we have done for now but the next step is to buy some wooden stakes from Lowes for about twenty bucks to place them in the ground.  I also plan on borrowing a fog machine from my brother and putting spot lights on the graves at night. I have much more to show you so keep tuning in!

Dana Hagan Turns Farts Into Perfume

         Has anyone noticed how hard it is to make friends as an adult? Most of my friends I met in college, however, with most of them off at grad school and starting families I’ve been feeling kind of alone. So, I try and make new friends. Problem is- the only people you meet as adults are at church or bars. So you either have to hang out with people that don’t match your political views or total stinking drunks!
        I have lucked out though; Over the past year I have made a friend in my sister in law Dana. If you meet Dana- you can’t help but love her. She’s this really strong, funny, beautiful woman, and she’s so exciting you find yourself holding on to every word she says.
       The first time I met Dana Trent was bringing her over to the house. Trent had said Dana was his favorite sister so there was all this pressure on me to make her like me. Well, she walks in and it’s like a complete breath of fresh air. She smiles and is saying, “Hi, my name is Dana!” And I remember she had these beautiful shoes and this amazing tan and she just wasn’t afraid to be herself. I remember she kept looking at me like, why isn’t she saying anything back? The truth was- I was really nervous! I really wanted her to like me!
      Over the next few years I got to know Dana even better. She had these amazing funny friends, and these beautiful children. And she had this fascinating love life. But what I loved the most was – what you see is what you get with Dana. Dana looks out for you and she really does want the best for all of her friends.
       Dana not only treated me like a friend, but I also was given the same respect from Dana as a sister. I never had a sister and when you grow up in a house full of boys, a sister is the best thing ever! In fact I went from not even knowing how to match a t-shirts with jeans to knowing how to color coordinate a cute, stylish outfit.
      But the thing about sisters is- sometimes we fight. Sometimes I don’t even know why, but we do. But we always manage to find our way back to each other. This past time we had gone on vacation together and gotten into this huge fight and I didn’t think we were going to ever make up. We stopped talking to each other and everything just really
… sucked.
        I don’t know if I also explained that Dana and I also live very close to each other. Like I live in the apartment above Dana’s. Well a few weeks ago I had found out that I was laid off. I had also found out that Dana had some random ass hole Robert Downey Jr. her ass.
       Dana and the kids weren’t home one night and Trent and I was. Well, some guy came in through the front door and he was drunk and he passed out in Dana’s bed! The kids found him the next morning! How scary is that?
        But as scary as the story was I couldn’t help but laugh. It was something that would ONLY happen to Dana! And I had just been laid off a few hours before that, so, everything in my body was saying, YOU NEED TO TALK TO DANA! So, I did. It was weird and awkward but if felt like home.
        The next week I had went to call Dana and her friend had answered. She said they were taking Dana into emergency surgery and that there was an infection in her body. Trent and I went to the hospital and we waited patiently while the doctor came out and explained what was happening.  The doctor told us Dana was going to need all our help because the recovery from her surgery was pretty intense.
          Dana has never had to depend on anyone. In fact, most people end up depending on her.
        They wheeled Dana out of surgery and she still managed to look fabulous! Her hair was twisted to the side and she had these beautiful long orange nails. I said, “Hey,  rockstar!” We both  started to cry, and she said, “Hey. Come give me a hug.” I was afraid to though, I thought I was going to hurt her!
         Over the past week Dana was still Dana! Even though she was recovering from this intense surgery she still came up with the idea of having a scavenger hunt for one of her friends birthdays! It was awesome! 
         Dana comes home tomorrow and while this is really scary it is also really exciting too. I’m looking forward to having a diet buddy, and to having my sister back.