Please Pass the Brain

Just a quick update before I get into today’s weirdness. Monkey did better with his flu shot this year. He didn’t hide under the couch, climb the walls, or kick anyone in the solar plexus. It was traumatic, yes, but we made it. Kory helped by making the boys laugh with his tough, pirate grunts and manning up for his shot first. Thank God for daddies!

Okay, now on to something completely different.

“Please pass the brain,” is one of my favorite phrases. Like so many things worth discussing, this expression is rooted in my teenage years and has to do with my brother and zombies.

Case had this game, possibly called Please Pass the Brain. I can’t remember for sure. But the premise of the game was this. All the players are zombies working in a fast food restaurant. In order to do your job—flip burgers, clean the bathroom, refill the salt shakers—you had to have the brain. Of course, there was only one brain and you had to roll for it. Highest roll gets to use the brain, complete their task, and get ahead.

Now even if you never got the brain, you could still achieve minimal success. There were cards with various cheeses on them, and you could substitute cheese for brains and sort of “get by.” The catch phrase went something like this, “You can use cheese in a pinch, but you can’t win the game with it.”

Lately, I’ve suspected that the space between my ears is filled with a glob of runny mozzarella. I’ve been engaging in relationships, nurturing my children, balancing motherhood, wifehood, and womanhood, and writing a book with nothing but cheese!

And so, if you’ll forgive me, I must loose this desperate cry. Would someone, for the love of all that is holy and decent, PLEASE PASS THE BRAIN?!

I need it!

I’m the mom who forgets she’s supposed to be volunteering in her son’s classroom and arrives breathless, fifteen minutes late. I’m the mom who forgets that people expect dinner every day. I’m the mom who puts a load of laundry in only to find it still in the washer, crunchy and stinky, a week later.

And what’s worse, I have two little boys who have not yet learned to get by with cheese. I have every hope that one day they will possess brains sufficient to win the game, but for now, let’s be honest; we’re working with sharp cheddar.



They need me, ME, to make sure they eat regularly, wear clothes out of the house, and go to bed before 10. And those are just the basics! There’s homework to inch through, music class to barely make it to, vitamins to take, social development to foster, ethics to teach, college to plan for. Folks, I’m doing the best I can with my hunk of oozing mozzarella.

I have the sneaking suspicion that other moms might feel the same way. Do you secretly suspect you’re a moldering zombie with limburger in your skull? If so, couldn’t we form some sort of co-op? We’ll steal a brain from one of those well-dressed, career women who give us dirty looks in the supermarket when our kids touch everything, sing loudly, and hit each other. Then we’ll share our prize. You can check out for a bit when your kids are at school and loan me the brain so I can make it to my dentist appointment. And when you have that PTA meeting, I’ll willingly lob the brain your way.

Who’s with me? Let me hear it, ladies.

PLEASE PASS THE BRAIN!