As I&rsquo;m driving a plane down the highway, airport control radio crackles in, &ldquo;Unit 332, you left&nbsp; the tarmac. Are you airborne?&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;
&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I reply.&nbsp;&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s a beautiful day for a plane drive. The sun is shining, none of the passengers are screaming&nbsp; yet, and there&rsquo;s no traffic. Most people fly planes because there&rsquo;s less traffic in the sky. I drive&nbsp; one because it only takes several hours longer&nbsp;and&nbsp;you don&rsquo;t need a license.&nbsp;&nbsp;
A drive-thru! Yet another thing they don&rsquo;t have in the sky. I signal to change lanes, and open up&nbsp; the emergency chute instead. I keep forgetting planes aren&rsquo;t designed for roads. Now, I have to&nbsp; change lanes and avoid all the passengers that just fell out. Luckily I&rsquo;m a good driver and planes&nbsp; have small, easily avoidable, wheels.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Sadly, planes have wings and this drive-thru is not wing-accessible. Row F is going to be so&nbsp; angry&mdash;I promised them a burger for winning license plate bingo. So I hand out some peanuts&nbsp; and pretzels and tell &lsquo;em they&rsquo;re plane burgers.&nbsp;&nbsp;
I intercept a trucker signal.&nbsp; &ldquo;Avoid Route 9. Some idiot&rsquo;s sledding in a plane&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;
I&rsquo;m a little offended because I&rsquo;m on Route 9, and the only one in a plane. Maybe my wheels fell&nbsp; off, but I&rsquo;m clearly driving.&nbsp;&nbsp;
I like to think of plane wheels as training wheels. Without them, we&rsquo;re really driving. This&nbsp; can-do attitude is what keeps me driving planes. It also helps that if anyone cuts me off I can run&nbsp; them over and win.&nbsp;&nbsp;
We&rsquo;re headed towards a body of water. Which is good because I was planning on a water landing&nbsp; anyway. Plus, I stopped being able to steer when the wheels fell off. Fortunately, there&rsquo;s enough&nbsp; time for the passengers to put on their life jackets and swimsuits. Plus the emergency chute looks&nbsp; kind of like a waterslide if you turn your head and shut your eyes.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Personally, I think &ldquo;Hero&rdquo; is a strong word. Sure, I got everyone out of the plane and into the&nbsp; hospital alive, but it&rsquo;s what I do every Tuesday.&nbsp;

As I’m driving a plane down the highway, airport control radio crackles in, “Unit 332, you left  the...

Driving a Plane

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Our patented technology detonates with a slow steady fizz that’ll clean your skin right off and repl...

Nuclear Bath Bomb by LUSH

Visit California

Thank you to the school committee for having me. You may know me as the woman whose son killed the math teacher. But I would rather you think of me as Marissa, your neighbor.&nbsp;
The pressure started in preschool. I told him I&rsquo;d take him out for ice cream if he got a gold star, and that if he didn&rsquo;t, I&rsquo;d beat his teacher within an inch of her life. A simple joke, I thought. But children don&rsquo;t get jokes. And I did buy him ice cream, I&rsquo;m not a monster.
In my son&rsquo;s defense, Mrs. Rice did tell the students to meet her after class if they had concerns about their grade. My son simply chose to meet her while she was sleeping, and vulnerable. Maybe if the school taught more conflict management instead of addition we wouldn&rsquo;t have to be here today. &lsquo;Conflict Management&rsquo; seems like an easy class. My son would excel at conflict.
I don&rsquo;t blame Mrs. Rice. But even when I hired someone to take my kids' tests for him he got the answers wrong. Sure, it was my boy&rsquo;s father, but he&rsquo;s street smart. You gotta be tough to get graded on a curve.
No, Mrs. Rice was as pleasant as she was afraid of grade inflation. And my son was equally afraid of not living out his wild Kappa-Gamma college dreams. How was I supposed to know Mrs. Rice only passed her favorites, the smart kids, in this day and age?
And so, mourning here today, let&rsquo;s not forget to celebrate. No more math, school gets out early. More time for Karate lessons, Krav Maga, knife art, or whatever your kids do. Though we are sad to see her go, Jefferson Elementary School treads proudly toward the future.
I apologize to the family for your loss. Thank you.

Thank you to the school committee for having me. You may know me as the woman whose son killed the m...

Apology

I walk in the door, yoga pants bunched tight around my middle-aged buttocks. My husband thinks I&rsquo;m going to my pilates class. My girlfriends know I&rsquo;m meeting with a group of insurrectionist suburban feminist moms, intent on poisoning their husbands to death using Red Dye #40.&nbsp;
It all started back in college, the fashionable thing was to eat organic and become a political lesbian. But me and my friends, we knew there was a better way to fight the patriarchy&mdash;by killing its members: Men. We married the most horrible frat guys we could find and used our feminist rage to slowly poison them with household carcinogens.
The instructor calls the meeting to order. She leads us through a set of double leg stretches to warm-up before reaching behind the elastic bands and pulling out the goods. &ldquo;Who needs a refill ladies?&rdquo; We shudder. So cancerous it glows in the moonlight: A bag of Twizzlers.
Lara, a painfully thin woman towards the back raises a trembling hand. How any husband could believe she actually engages in the grueling physical muscle-building exercise of pilates is beyond me&hellip;yet he suspects nothing in his dye-induced haze.
&ldquo;My husband&rdquo; Lara begins in a shaky voice, a voice no one would expect to be a killer, but would correctly assume is vegan, &ldquo;The doctor told us&hellip;he had a cancerous growth.&rdquo;&nbsp;
We all lean forward, ears pricked. After 20 years, could our plan finally be working? &ldquo;It was just the weird-looking mole kind though, they cut it out with ease.&rdquo; We were disappointed, but congratulated her for the years of sun exposure she had encouraged, and sunscreen she hadn&rsquo;t nagged him to wear. The instructor handed Lara the Twizzlers, hopefully they would help.
In my house, Doritos are for daddies only. Daddies and death, that is. Skittles are his favorite snack. They fatten up his DNA replication sequences for eventual biological slaughter. His water bottles are BPA extra. He keeps his phone in his pocket.&nbsp;
The fake butter at movie theaters? Yeah, he eats that. I even bought him some to eat at home. When they outlawed most trans fats, I stockpiled twinkies. For him. And does he ever suspect I might be trying to kill him? He thinks I keep him out of my &ldquo;crazy paleo-keto whoozit&rdquo; diets out of love. He thinks I put the wifi router on his side of the bed out of love.
We join our hands to close the meeting with a prayer for one of our fallen soldiers, Wanda. She got cancer and died. The doctors said it was a genetic predisposition, but I believe it was from second-hand exposure. Which is why I wear spanx&mdash;extra protection from the carcinogens radiating around my house. And also because instead of going to actual pilates class I spend my weeks plotting, which is not nearly as good for burning off the remnants of my last 2 pregnancies.&nbsp;
I get back in my minivan, ready to return home to my man. Dreaming of the day the only man I have to return home to is my son. And wondering about the day I&rsquo;ll teach my daughter-in-law to continue my legacy.&nbsp;
I stop by the grocery store on my way home. For my family? Kale Fauxlet mignon and cauliflower rice pilaf. For that man who lives in my house? Carbs, wonderbread.

I walk in the door, yoga pants bunched tight around my middle-aged buttocks. My husband thinks I’m g...

Red Dye 40

Growing up in the 70&rsquo;s was crazy&hellip;Bell-bottoms, Reagan was an actor&hellip; The thing that defined the 70s for me was that practically everyone was a swinger, including me and my parents. I grew up in the 70s going to a charter school where, every day, the kids would rotate whose parents they went home with.
Just like with sex-swingers, swinging with my parents gave me new experiences. For example, other parents had dogs! These dogs did not like random kids coming to their house every day. I got to experience 8 different dog bites, minor nerve damage, and many new friendships with the local ER nurses. They gave you a popsicle for finishing surgery! They gave me soooo many popsicles. If I only had one set of parents and one set of pets, my parents would&rsquo;ve gotten rid of the dog the first time he disfigured me. I would have only experienced one popsicle.&nbsp;
All the kids in my class had to share clothes. Luckily, ponchos only came in one size. Unfortunately, pants did not. Us early bloomers had to trade snacks for pants that weren&rsquo;t too tight to boogie in. Eventually, we had all grown enough that none of the clothes fit any of us. Not even the ponchos. No parent wanted to buy new clothes for a kid they were only going to see once a month. We went barefoot and wore long, loose fitting robes. We looked very classic 70&rsquo;s in our yearbooks!
Whenever I came home to my actual parents, which was bound to happen sometimes, they always seemed just a little bit disappointed. They did raise me for 6 straight years before I came to school. I don&rsquo;t blame them for being bored of me.&nbsp;
But, when I was with my own parents, I do remember getting this strange feeling walking into my old bedroom. The bedroom my parents had shared with dozens of other kids. Where they&rsquo;d kissed those kids on the forehead, and sang those kids lullabies, and read those kids bedtime stories. I&rsquo;d enter my old bedroom and start shaking with some combination of rage, fear, and jealousy until my parents called me down for dinner.
I never quite forgot that feeling. But I knew why we&rsquo;d done what we did. For middle and high school I lived with my parents full time, and 2 people&rsquo;s love was never quite enough.

Growing up in the 70’s was crazy…Bell-bottoms, Reagan was an actor… The thing that defined the 70s f...

Eileen Tucci.css-1xlpnei{margin:0px -15px 0px 6px;width:11px;vertical-align:-14px;}

Eileen Tucci