Dinnercraft helps bring your (and our) protracted adolescence to an end. Our authors cover topics ranging from cooking and eating, to home and garden, to crafting and DiY, and all the rest of the things you find yourself caring about these days.
Why I Write Under a Pseudonym
On my husband Joel’s computer, which sits opposite mine in the office we share, is a single sticker. It features a yellow cartoon rooster proudly crowing the phrase “any cockle do.” Below the rooster, it says “Cock Ring Warehouse.”
No, it’s not a real warehouse. It’s a logo from a parody commercial on TV’s late, great “Mr. Show.”
“So?” You might be saying…
So our office is at home. The same home where our kids live.
Somehow, Joel and I managed to become parents of a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old while remaining mental 12-year-olds. We still laugh at fart jokes. We still love Will Ferrell movies. We still listen to Ludacris and Missy Elliot and happily sing along…to the words we actually remember. Most of which happen to be four-letter words.
And no, we don’t do it in private, behind locked doors. We make absolutely no effort to hide our true, sick nature from our boys. We actually share it with them.
I know conventional wisdom says you’re supposed to “grow up” when you become a parent. I think the minute my mother had me, when she was 23, she left whatever coolness she might have had on the delivery room floor. But there was no magical transformation for me when I gave birth – except the 15 extra pounds I carry to this day. No matter how hard I tried to be good, to sit through that episode of “Veggie Tales,” to sing lullabies when I felt like an idiot, I just couldn’t pull it off. And Joel was even worse.
So we decided that, for lack of a workable alternative, we would remain ourselves.
So far there have been no major adverse effects, except the time A.J. showed one of his kindergarten friends the episode of “South Park” where Cartman thinks his right hand is Jennifer Lopez (still a favorite, by the way). We haven’t seen Thomas since then.
But beyond that, you would never know our little secret. My boys are perfect and well-behaved. They are polite with adults, considerate of their friends, and only occasionally slip up and let an f-bomb drop.
In front of my mother-in-law.
Of course, I’m not planning to let my secrets out anytime soon. The other moms in my neighborhood think I’m one of them. I volunteer in the kids’ classes, bake cookies and host play dates.
And I almost always remember to turn my music down.
