my invisibility cloak in suburbia

I feel blessed to live in suburbia.  I love my neighborhood.  I love my street.  I have amazing neighbors who are funny, interesting, intelligent and incredibly diverse.  I love driving through the gates into my community and seeing the perfectly manicured lawns, which are topped off with matching black mailboxes at the end of the brick paver driveways.  I love seeing the women who have the uncanny ability to run carefully on a sidewalk while simultaneously pushing a double stroller and booking their lunch dates via Bluetooth on their blackberry phones.  I look forward to the time of day when the good looking men perform their shirtless jogs and bike rides among the blooming Crape Myrtles; offering us 30ish/40ish women our daily dose of eye candy.  I love that no matter what time of day it is or how many degrees above 90 it may be, there are always women practicing on the clay courts at our park.  I love my neighborhood so much that I don’t even mind the husbands who are a little too touchy or the men who hold a “hello” hug just a millisecond longer than necessary.  In fact, they flatter me.

There is one thing I do mind though. It is the few women in my community who bring about the unannounced appearance of my invisibility cloak.  You see, this unsolved mystery is now finally solved.  I had the “aha” moment after my middle child coerced me into reading the first book of the Harry Potter series – okay, I really never finished it but my child does not need to know that.  So anyway, Harry has an invisibility cloak and so do I.  The difference is that Harry puts his cloak on at will.  He is a wizard and has special powers therefore he has the magic ability to see his cloak.  Since I am not a wizard, well, you get it… 

Mystery solved.  My cloak follows me everywhere but only covers me and renders me invisible at certain times.  I could never figure it out before.  This cloak randomly appears at a neighborhood party, the bus stop or in the aisle at my favorite Target store.  The only link is that it always coincides with the appearance of a certain type of woman.  I suddenly just disappear.  She just cannot see me.  I attempt to say hello to a woman I have previously met.  No matter how hard I try to politely make eye contact, she is not able to see me. 

I now need to point out the obvious – I HAVE BRIGHT RED HAIR!  I am easy to spot.  In an earlier chapter of my life as an outspoken teenager, I got into lots of trouble because of my bright red hair.  I was always noticed in a crowd.  And by noticed, I do not mean in a “Bruce Springsteen pulls me out of the audience to dance on the stage” kind of way.  I mean in a “20 rowdy kids are talking in class but I am the only one who gets detention” kind of way.  I cannot even count how many times I missed my favorite daytime soap of the 80s, Santa Barbara, because of unexpected after school detention for talking too much.  Why couldn’t TIVO have been invented back then?  Our kids will never know how lucky they are to be born in this time of great scientific advancements.  I am not talking about the chicken pox vaccine; they are so lucky to have DVRs in every room. 

But I digress…  Back to the cloak. 

I think you get my point.  Whether you like me or not, you most likely do remember meeting me.  I have red hair, blue eyes, and pale skin.  I kind of look like Ronald McDonald’s long lost sister.  Of course, without the big shoes or happy meal royalties and – thanks to a recent procedure performed by a fantastic cosmetic surgeon, much perkier breasts – oops, that story needs to be saved for a future blog entry. 

So, come on lady in the aisle at Target.  You know you remember meeting me.  Why can’t you make eye contact, say good morning, or just tell me my VPLs are way too noticeable today? Something.  How much energy would it take to say “hello?”  Despite what Dr.R may have told you, I promise, your botox will not last longer if you forgo smiling for the next 3 to 6 months.  But instead, this woman pretends to be so engrossed in deciding whether she should be buying the super plus tampax with the politically incorrect plastic applicators or the environmentally friendly cardboard applicators.

So there I stand, wanting to tell her that no matter what Al Gore thinks, she should go plastic.  I mean, we all know the comfort of our girly parts is so much more important than the future of our planet.  I can’t tell her though because my invisibility cloak has a built in mute feature as well! 

Now, if only I could figure out a way to put my cloak on when all three kids, the husband and the labradoodle need something from me at the same time!  If you figure that out, please let me know!