Oh, Yes She Did

My aunt Mo and I are starting a business as trendsetters, or trendstoppers, if you will. When we sing something or say something, we notify radio stations and teen magazines that it is now uncool.

For instance, when we sing "Gold Digger" in harmony while we eat beef stew at a Waldo restaurant, the song is over. Move on.

When we respond to every comment with, "Oh, yes she did," people shouldn't say that anymore.

Why are we qualified to offer this service? Because when we ask, "Watcha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk?" the junior high kids in our family hide their faces in shame.

We started the business last night over chips and salsa and Margaritas. It was First Fridays in the Crossroads Districts, the art section of town. My cousin Addie has a fashion internship with a designer that sells clothes at Spool, a shop in the area. Addie was wearing a dress the designer made. So my mom, my aunt Mo, my cousin Hannah, and Evanni, their foreign exchange student, went to see her and walk around the galleries.

Afterward, we looked for someplace to eat. We passed crowded hot spots with names like Shiraz and Lulu's and found Los Tules. I don't think the art crowd knows about this place because it was practically empty.

My family, however, can find a Mexican restaurant anywhere. You could drop us off in Finland at noon and we'd be eating #20s--one tostada, one burrito, two flautas and a pork tamale--by 12:15. The babies would be licking the guacamole bowl like it was frosting on their first birthday cake and the grown ups would be on their third pitcher of Margaritas.

Last night, the waitress said the Margarita pitcher had 15 glassfuls in it. Even if she was exaggerating, we couldn't possibly, but then...Oh, yes we did.

So trendstoppers Mo and I, the only Margarita drinkers since everyone else at the table was either school age or driving, tackyified tequila.

As Hannah, Addie and Evanni laughed at Mo and my mom's stories, I remembered going to Paola, my great grandmother's hometown as a kid. My aunts and my mom would say funny things to people with straight faces, pretending to be in earnest, and I'd laugh so hard they had to make excuses for me.

"She's sick," they'd say. "Can't stop sneezing."

Between laughing and fake sneezing, I'd practically hyperventilate.

Last night, my cousin Addie, 15, called a radio station to promote my aunt and my new business. Hearing her sound like a real p.r. person stuck with the task of drumming up business for us two yahoos (stop saying it,) I could barely catch my breath to request "Gold Digger." We called again later, too. I don't think they ever put us on the air.

Addie assures Mo and I that our service is a valuable one. Radio stations call people like us all the time, she said. I think she's referring to the people d.j.s call to humiliate. Sounds fun. Exactly what I need to cheer myself up between changing diapers, cleaning up bacon grease and wrestling possessed washing machines back to their water pipes.

So the name of our business is "Oh, Yes She Did." Call us if you need to know if "That's hot" or "So March 5, 2005." If you want your daughter to stop idolizing people like Paris Hilton, we can take care of that, too, making her old news by just acting stupid.

For the owner of Los Tules, I'm sorry we made your restaurant so last week before you even had the chance to be trendy. Coming in throngs, the art crowd would have made you rich. Not that you are in business for the money alone. I ain't sayin' you're a gold digger, but you ain't messin' with no brokey broke.