Anna Wintour Doesn't Do Litter Boxes

Okay, so it's just about time for New York Fashion Week and there's one thing that keeps running through my head: Anna Wintour would not be dealing with this!, this being some annoying fill-in-the-blank.

If you're sitting there thinking, "Why do you care what Anna Wintour deals with?" you're clearly a healthy person and have no business reading this column.

But long-time readers know my "foibles." They also know it's been a very long time since I've written a Football Widow column. The best excuse I can find is that when my daughter, Cara, went off to college last year, I think I fell into a bit of a depression because our autumn and weekend routines were suddenly so different without her. Even though my son still -- albeit begrudgingly -- went on weekend jaunts with me while my husband, Mike, did his sportswriter best to watch every NFL game that was broadcast, it was hard to find the funny for my weekly rant, err-uh, "humor column."

Then, this year, Ryan started his freshman year at the local high school and decided that being seen sharing the same airspace as me would wreck the brand he's creating for himself, that brand apparently being "Moody." He'd prefer Uber parents, Uber in this case meaning, "Parents who show up when called and immediately leave, preferably without any interaction."

So, he and I would go on weekend jaunts while Mike worked, but it was less, "Momma, look at all the punkins!" and more, "When can we leave? It's hot. I have homework! Why did we do this?!?" See? The funny was sort of buried.

ANYWAY!  When 2015 kicked in, a bunch of NYC  trade shows began. And that's when I got inspired to post again. You see, professionally I write a fashion and retail column. It's great, especially because it provides a means to pay for everything my kids lose, break or have stolen on a weekly basis. But I also get to go attend the New York Fashion Week runway shows.

So, starting about two weeks before the shows, I start ruminating about important, fashion-related things. Like, "Why did I eat a billion calories between Halloween and the Super Bowl?" And I think, "People like Anna Wintour and those designers and fashionistas never break their diets -- they are so not worrying about losing a three-month binge in two weeks!"

Of course, I also worry about what I'm going to wear to Fashion Week because my regular work clothes won't cut it. I work from home so my regular work clothes predominantly consist of "loungewear" (aka, sleepwear, aka, 20-year-old sweatshirts) or gym clothes. Not that I even hit the gym every day. But I like to believe I'll get it together and work off those billion calories, and reward myself with a fab new outfit. Inevitably, I end up thinking, "Imagine being one of those people who already has amazing outfits and matching shoes.... Outfits that actually FIT! Because they didn't take it upon themselves to spend the last month and a half figuring out which flavor is the best flavored PRETZEL CRISP!"

Then as Fashion Week gets closer, I start thinking about annoying things like, "Is there enough cat food in the house so Mike doesn't start texting me in the middle of a show asking what to give Tux and Molly?" And the little voice runs through my head saying, "People like Anna Wintour have people to worry about this...."

But the biggie, the thing that gets me EVERY NIGHT when I come home from a day spent watching glamorous fashion shows, talking to people who have fabulous careers that take them fabulous places where they wear fabulous clothes and fabulous shoes and party with other fabulous people -- the thing that gets me is that EVERY NIGHT when I come home from Fashion Week, I have to clean the cats' litter boxes. And EVERY NIGHT during Fashion Week I think, "I don't care how cute Tux and Molly are, this is sooo not Fashion Week right.... I'll bet those designers aren't doing crap like this. And for damn sure, Anna Wintour is not cleaning litter boxes!"

You might say, "Oh. My. God. What is your problem? Who thinks about this kind of thing?" To which I reply, "You're clearly a healthy person! This doesn't concern you! Unless you want to clean these litter boxes...."

At Your Commando

There's so much laundry coming through the Salfino Laundry Service, it's kind of crazy that for a split second on one recent day, I actually sort of thought to myself, "Am I missing some of Ryan's underwear?"

See, I am the family laundress.  I know, I know, it sounds so quaint.  Yet pathetic.  The fact of the matter is, I never taught my daughter how to do her own laundry, nor, shockingly, has she shown any interest.  Mike's been pretty much banned from it because he'll throw everything in the dryer, let it shrink and leave it there to wrinkle.  And Ryan, well, let's just say he's doing his part by generating his fair share.

But of late, the workload seemed a bit lightened.  I recently found out why when Ryan and I were on line at a supermarket checkout.  I was blithely putting items on the conveyor belt, thinking about how many things I wouldn't be buying if Ryan wasn't with me.

Ryan, apropos of nothing: "Yeah, I've been going commando for a while now."

Me, snapping to attention: "What words did you just say?"

Ry: "I've been going commando."

Me: "What?!  Why are you saying this now?  And why would you DO that?!?"

Ryan: "It's comfortable.  It let's me be more free down there."

Me: "So... there really HAS been less of your underwear in the laundry lately!"

Ry: "Yeah, exactly.  See?  I'm helping you out."

Considering half the time Ry forgets his belt and his jeans are falling down, this latest development had me feeling slightly alarmed.

Me: "FYI, you're not 'going commando' anymore.  For god's sake, this can only end up with me getting a call from the principal's office."

Ry: "Okay, fine.  But it did cut down on the laundry.  Anyway...."

Ryan is a mastermind at distracting people from the main event.  And this time, the "Big Thing" was a fondue pot.  Apparently, Ryan felt like he hadn't really lived because we didn't own one.

His big break came as we were checking out a relatively new Fairway market near our house.  Boxes of fondue pots were scattered serendipitously around the store's fromagerie, fairly FORCING Ryan to put one in our cart.

This led to a cheese buying spree from which European nations are still reeling.

Me, looking at the box, waiting to check out: "Why am I buying this for you?  This is stupid."

Ryan: "Come on, you're not buying that for me. You're buying it for all of us."

Right.  Even though Cara doesn't eat bread or cheese, Mike doesn't eat melted cheese unless it involves something being parmagiana-ed, and I -- who WILL eat anything -- try to avoid things in the "Foods That Will Stick to Your Butt and Gut Longer Than You Thought Conceivable" family.  But sure, Ry, I was buying it for the family.

I stood online staring at the fondue box, flimsily making mental justifications for "investing" in this glorified saucepan and the accompanying bumper crop of cheeses.  I envisioned all kinds of reasons why it would "make sense" to  break out some melted dairy goodness: Movie night. Girls night. A decent report card.  A bad hair day.  Five minutes of being sad.  It was quickly dawning on me that in no time, my only apparel option would be triple XL muumuus.

                  
It was at this point that my son's sixth sense must have kicked in.  As I was picturing catastrophic weight gain and early onset heart failure, Ryan realized his dream of cheese-covered everything was rapidly melting away.

So, Ryan did what he had to do.  He pulled the emergency switch: "Yeah, I've been going commando for a while now."

Like iron bits to a magnet, my random and distracted thoughts suddenly honed in on one issue: "What?!"

And, just like that, I was the new owner of a fondue pot.

Yeah.  He's THAT good.