Pinterest.  It took Nancy awhile to catch on to the craze.  But today she fully understood it.  She opened up her repin and starred at the suggestions.  Sixteen Way to Flirt with Your Husband.  She leaned across the bed and breathily whispered into Ned's ear "do you want to pick out my panties to wear tomorrow?" Ned looked over his reading glasses, turning his head to her.  "Ummm.  Ahhh.  What did you just ask me?"

Nancy, out loud, pushing his glasses up his nose for him: I said do you want to pick out my undies, I mean, my panties to wear tomorrow?

Ned: Ummm I got my own thanks.

Nancy: NO!  For ME to wear. To work. Do you want to go into our closet and riffle through my granny panty basket-slash cat bed, pick out a pair, and I will wear them tomorrow?

Ned: Ummmm, WHY?

Nancy: I AM FLIRTING WITH YOU!!!!!

Middle Child: This is just weird.

Ned: (to middle child) Go watch t.v. in the living room. (to Nancy) Not really.

Nancy: Why not?  I quote, 'If your husband picks out your panties he will be picturing you in nothing but them-all day.'

Ned: Ummmm that really doesn't work that way.  What are you reading?

Nancy: Pinterest. Sixteen Way to Flirt with Your Husband.  Would you prefer I leave you sticky notes in unexpected places? Set up a cozy love nest for watching movies??

Middle Child: I WANT TO WATCH A MOVIE!

Ned and Nancy: LEAVE THE ROOM!!!!!

Middle Child: You guys are so weird.

Nancy: Kiss in the car at stoplights? Have a secret code phrase like 'Are we due for an oil change'??? Grab some flesh???????

Ned: Why is it every time I go to read, you start talking?

Nancy: I'm flirting?

Ned sighed and turned back to his book.

Nancy repined homemade recipe cleaners and DIY rabbit cages.

In the morning, amidst a steamy shower a secret hidden message appeared to Nancy on the bathroom mirror.

"We are due for an oil change...!"

Nancy smiled. And scribbled her own message into the mirror.

"Pin that!"

Seven long, draining years ago, Nancy Drew Nickerson woke out of a deep sleep.  She thought she had tinkled a bit.  It must have been her imagination because her giant granny panties were dry.  She got out of bed and sat in her favorite chair, picking up one of her many pregnancy related books.  She read for a bit and then stood up.  And that is when it happened.  Her water broke. It was a flood of unending, disappearing placental fluid, gallon upon gallon that absorbed quickly into the carpet and Lazyboy recliner. Nancy freaked. She did what any woman would do who's water broke 6 weeks early. She tiptoed past her sleeping husband, grabbed the portable phone, and called her friend.

Nancy: "BESS! MY WATER JUST BROKE!"

Bess: "What? Ned needs to get you to the hospital NOW!"

Nancy: "Ned is sleeping."

Bess: "You call to tell me your baby is on the way before you tell your husband???? Wake him up! Call your doctor! Get to the ER! This baby is going to come fast!"

Nancy hung up the phone. She glanced at Ned. He looked so peaceful.  She didn't have the heart to inform him before 7:00 a.m. that child number four was about to arrive.  She dialed her doctor instead.  She prefered to labor at home.  She had yet to complete a true natural child birth and this was her last shot. She was informed to immediately go to the hospital, DO NOT DELAY, get to the hospital ASAP. The old hospital. Not the brand new, plush, exciting, hospital of her dreams that she had been coveting having her final-attempt-at-natural -birth at. The hospital with the freshly built walls and pristine wooden floors and made-to-order restaurant-style on-demand-meals that all the cool, hip, trendy, enlightened people were giving birth within. She was told to go to the old downtown hospital. The one with cement walls and 1950s linoleum. The one with the level 4 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Nancy was having a premature baby.

Nancy was pissed.  Tomorrow, of all the days, was the actual day that Nancy had put on her anal calendar two months ago as the day to pack her bags to be ready for the hospital.  She was simply not ready for baby number four to arrive yet.  Nancy called her father, Carson Drew who flew into a panic.  Just yesterday Nancy assured good old Hannah that she could indeed go on her trip to New York City.  Hannah was not allowed at Nancy's previous births and this made her very, very angry.  Nancy agreed to let her be present for this birth and even take photos.  Nancy thought it was quite safe and reasonable to think Hannah could travel half way across the country a month and a half before her due date.  Who knew?  Apparently that was very bad advice.  Carson set about bringing Hannah home in a 24 hour traveling ordeal from hell.

 

Nancy rallied the troops. She woke up her husband, grabbed the two older boys and the 21 month old daughter, alerted neighbors, relatives, and friends, sent up the smoke signals. 

Nancy insisted that Ned take her to the New Hospital. Ned, knowing better, delivered her frothing, dripping, gushing, screaming, contracting body downtown, where they checked in to the old hospital in a rush and flurry. A rush and flurry that came to a sudden mind numbing halt.

Nancy did not deliver her premature baby for another excruitiating, agonizing, hideously painful 26 hours later. Hannah had arrived with just hours to spare and that next morning, a tiny, teeny little bitty bundle of gooey white and red flew out of Nancy's giant stitched and restitched epiduraled hoo hoo into the arms of the mean doctor that sent her to the old hospital. The baby boy was grabbed and poked and prodded and whisked off. Nancy was left alone in a room with dead legs and a burning newly stitched-again hoo hoo. Hannah left to develop the crotch shot film. Ned went with baby boy to escort him to his new NICU home. A home filled with loud annoying nurses and buzzing and beeping machines and hospital interventions that lead baby boy to be stabbed in the head with a giant needle, pumping fluids through his tiny, unprepared body.

 

Nancy called her friend George and insisted she come immediately to the hospital to take black and white dramatic photos of baby boy with the horrific needle shoved into his brains.  Unfortunately for Nancy, George's husband had just walked out on her, leaving behind their decade marriage for a tattooed troll and George was in no mood to embrace premature life through photography.  No matter how dramatic. 

Nancy demanded to breastfeed. Everyone ignored her. "They" knew better. They filled baby boy with supplements and specialty formulas and told her to rest and not worry. But Nancy knew better. She knew baby boy belonged on her boob. The hospital set about hooking up machines that go bing and ordering expensive useless tests to determine why on earth this darling boy arrived early. The come-to-find-out unnecessary antibiotics that were forced into his body through the brain syringe ended up giving him a horrible diaper rash. That lead to a yeast infection. That lead to thrush. That Nancy herself diagnosed at 3:00 in the morning on day 12 of his NICU incarceration when a harried Nurse ignored his squirting poop and diapered over him anyway, leaving his raw, newborn skin to rot in acidic formula excrement.  Upon Nancy's insistance, an oxygen machine was ordered and his bare butt had round the clock fresh air blowing away to dry out the chaffed infected skin. The formula was stopped and he was given appropriate medication to cure him of everything they inflicted upon him.

Nancy was not fond of "standard of care" hospital initiatives. Nancy knew better. Nancy knew best. She demanded meetings with social workers, wrote angry complaint letters, whipped her boob out in front of sissy male neonatal doctors, and kangaroo cared her baby boy. It took 21 days before Nancy was able to parole baby boy from the evil NICU. It helped that Nancy moved her 21 month old in to the NICU with her and there they holed up, creating quite the scene.  They were all personally escorted from the old hospital on Thanksgiving Day, Nancy's Birthday! 

 

Later that evening, Nancy showered and gave birth to Baby Boy's twin.  It was  a 6 pound blood clot.  Ned and Nancy wondered if they should name it and apply for a social security number.  They wondered if it was legal to flush it or if they should bury it in the backyard death garden.  It was digusting.  The sound of the SPLAT on the shower floor will forever haunt Nancy way more than the trauma of her 26 hour labor and the ensuing years of Hannah's gripes about being told it was fine for her to travel.

Seven years later, on the eve of Baby Boy's Golden Birthday, Nancy asked Baby Boy "So why DID you come early?"

Baby Boy responded: "I am a superhero. I was sent from the Planet Compass Rose. My mother Rebecca had 26 children and we are all Super Heroes who have been sent to other earth's to save them. It was my time to come. I came to save the world."

Seemed reasonable thought Nancy. None of the $42,000 worth of lab charges could ever show any reason for Baby Boy's early arrival. Obviously. He was a Superhero from Compass Rose.  Nancy wondered what sort of birthing care Rebecca encountered with her 26 children.  She also wondered what sort of stitiches she had and if HER lazyboy had a "certain" smell.

It is 60 years in the future and Nancy Drew Nickerson has just been committed to an assisted living facility by her children.  Five children and not one of them stepped up to take the poor old 104 year old Nancy into their homes.  After all those years of breastfeeding THIS was her repayment.  Nancy sighed.  It wouldn't be so bad.  She had an assigned seat in the dining hall next to an oddly familiar woman; thank goodness too, because that nasty old crusty Chrissy tried to steal her mashed yams on her first night at the facility. 

Hunched Lisa was 94 years old and Nancy's newest luncheon friend.  They spent hours talking of the pill girls who came in multiple times a day to deliver their meds.  Nancy mentioned to Hunched that she really needed to get her hair done but the salon didn't have openings for another week.  None of Nancy's children bothered to take her to her personal stylist before admitting her to the home.  Hunched told Nancy she noticed the gray roots.  Nancy said it had been 6 weeks since she last had the hair dyed jet black.  Hunched commented that there was not much hair to dye.  She recommended a wig catalogue.  What? cried Nancy??  Yes, said Hunched.  You don't think this is natural do you?  Nancy quickly set about circling her favorites and called her oldest daughter.  BUY ME A WIG.  Nancy demanded but it sounded more like WHY ME A PIG so she put her teeth in and demanded it again.  BUY ME  A WIG.

Old Nancy had captured the apple of Big Ed's eye upon move-in day.  She sat demurely in a corner while her great great grandchildren moved in her turn of the century (2000s) furniture.  Ed hit on her.  He was in to her.  Ned had long since passed leaving Nancy a lonely old sad widow.  Ed had started to spark something in her she hadn't felt in years.  Or maybe that was just gas.  Nancy mentioned to Hunched about Ed.  Oh him! she retorted!  He hits on all the freshman.  Don't get your hopes up.  He has full blown dementia.  He'll make you promises and forget them the second from his lips.

So Nancy spritzed on another hit of her White Shoulders perfume, wheeled herself back to the dining hall and took her assigned seat.  She watched and waited as the other wheelers and rollers made their slow glide down  the hall.  She was sporting her new wig.  She had in her teeth.  She was ready to be the one Ed remembered.

 

***addendum commentary from current day Tall Lisa:

 

 

1.       Why does it have to be “Hunched Lisa”…that’s crap…well, maybe I should start drinking milk.

2.       This hair IS and ALWAYS will be real!!!  I’ll just use the wigs as accessories as my arthritic feet will not allow for the hooker heels anymore.

3.       WHY AM I IN THE NURSING HOME BEFORE YOU!?!?!  Again, that’s crap.  I will NOT be the veteran in the nursing home when you are admitted!!!  On second thought I do hear they host a mean happy hour.

4.       Speaking of happy hour, at 94 friggin years old I will not be your lunch buddy, I will be your happy hour buddy.  I expect us to be well manicured, real hair wig wearing, accessorized to the nines, lipstick wearing, alcoholics.  Period.  End of discussion.  Give me something to look forward to.

5.       And finally, Hunched has already had Ed.  He was a good ride, but nothing she would go back to for seconds.  She now only has relations with the hot, much younger orderlies.

 

Signed, Tall Drunk and Soon-to-be Hunched Lisa

Nancy glanced at the skies for ominous warnings.  Today was her wedding anniversary.  It had not rained once since that fateful day years and years ago when Nancy said "I do" to Ned.  Their wedding was a wash out.  Literally. 

Nancy dreamed of an outdoor wedding, on a stage of course, amongst all God's woodland creatures.  She had rented an amphitheatre at a state park for what seemed to be a perfect outdoor wedding day.  Not one drop of rain in the history of that date for all eternity. 

But on her wedding day it rained. And it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained.  It flooded her amphitheatre. She had to resort to plans A, B, C, D, and E before finally throwing her hands in the air and stating "Send the horse and carriage home!"

Frugal Ned, on the other hand, realized they had already paid for a horse and carriage and there were no refunds.  No, he insisted, Nancy would still have her grand, dramatic horse and carriage entrance. 

 

The wedding party lined up, umbrellas in hand, with the Irish Bag Piper leading the caravan piping away traditional Irish wedding tunes while the douched troupe rounded the Lodge parking lot.  The Lodge had windows on all four sides so it made for a remarkable image in the dark.  The haunting sound of bag pipes, the neighing of horses, the clomping of wagon wheels, the bitching of the wedding party.

As the horse and carriage rounded the final corner, the carriage door popped open and all the water that had been ballooning on top of the covered carriage drained right onto Nancy's beautiful wedding gown.  The gown with the long beaded and sparkling train that was never seen by a soul. It had to be tacked up from the get-go to avoid damage from exiting the carriage and entering the Lodge during a thunderously stunning wedding entrance.

Nancy sighed.  She heard signs of rain on a wedding day meant fertility.  Five children in, she believed that now.  And also that signs of rain might be a warning straight from God himself.

Nancy kept glancing at her watch.  She texted, she emailed, she phone called.  She was patiently waiting for their eldest son (the one with the expensive new cornea) to come home from college for the night so that Ned and she could have a free babysitter and go out to dinner to celebrate their big day.  The boy was not responding.  She texted again. "DO I NEED TO CONTACT STATE PATROL?????"  "WHERE R U?????"

Nancy called the neighbor girl to come babysit.  She was a great babysitter; but this was going to cost them $10 an hour and $38 worth of delivery pizza for the kids. Off the couple went to a new restaurant, still wondering where the college boy was, and lamenting the increasing price to celebrate wedded bliss.

A lovely dinner was had.  The restaurant delivered a bouquet of roses to their table when they learned it was their wedding anniversary.  The couple reminisced.  Ned reminded Nancy of how he had called her early on the morning of their wedding to let her know that he went to get the oil changed in his car and was involved in a slight motor vehicle accident and broke his ankle and was being transported to the hospital by EMT's right at that moment.  Nancy reminded Ned how his little joke was not funny at all, ill-timed, and insensitive when she had already spent hours that morning decorating an amphitheatre in the rain and had her wedding cake arrive WITHOUT the sparkly promised sugar. Ned made Nancy cry on her wedding morning.

But years and years and years later, the lovely couple sat across from each other at the restaurant, smelling fresh cut roses,  being satiated on steak, lobster, crab, and carrot cake when their bill arrived.  $278.47. Ned looked at Nancy.  Nancy looked at Ned. How in Hades had they spent nearly $300 on dinner for two was beyond their imagination.  They didn't even drink!  They decided to cut their losses and head for home. Home within two hours, they would only owe the babysitter $20.

As they pulled into the driveway, College boy arrived.  "Where have you been?" demanded Nancy, "Why have you not responded????"  The College boy laughed.  "It's a long story but my phone ended up lost under the car seat.  I couldn't find it but kept hearing you call.  The state patrol text made me laugh when I saw it."

 

Hrmph thought Nancy, she was about to let the College boy have it when all the children and babysitter came running out of the house screaming.

"Your kitchen sink is backing up.  The drain. Sewage. EVERYWHERE!" Yelled the babysitter over the bedlam.

Nancy looked at Ned.  Ned looked at Nancy.  The plumber was on speed-dial. It was a weekend. It was evening. It was the most expensive anniversary. EVER.

But not a drop of rain in sight.

Nancy was struggling.  She looked around. Five children, three dogs, four bunnies, one puppy, five cats, and one bird had taken a big toll on their home over the last decade.

She thought about her shark-bitten, broken-air-conditioned mini-van parked in their cracked driveway with the dented garage door.

She reflected on the front door knob had been missing for the last eight years.  It was an older, custom door, and new door knob parts just didn't work. 

The back patio door knob was in place, but pulled free each time it was grabbed.  It too was a custom piece and the only way to fix it was to install a new door, estimate $2,000.  For that cost, she could fix the van's shark bite and air conditioner! So for the last nine years, Nancy learned the art of opening the door and keeping the knob in place.  Evil Baby liked to pull the knob out.  Usually while the family was lounging in the back yard, which resulted in family being locked out and Evil Baby rampaging inside the house.

That wasn't a problem though, because all of the sun porch windows were broken and missing screens from when dogs bolted right through the open windows.  It was very easy to access the house through the windows.

The parquet flooring was water damaged, scratched, rubbed, bubble gummed, and thoroughly worn. 

The family room carpet, just replaced a mere 4 years ago with industrial restaurant grade carpet, was disgustingly dirty and worn.  So much for its promise of high traffic-ability.

The stair wall had a giant hole in it where Nancy went flying into the wall when she tripped late one night over the black 40 pound cat who slept soundly on the middle step.  Ned had already patched and repaired the hole once, he was in no hurry to do it again. Though, now that the 40 pound cat had died over his food dish, perhaps it was a safe time to begin repair.

Every single wall in the entire house was dirty, grimy, finger and booger stained. 

Her kitchen cabinets, which were painted a lovely crème when they first moved in, now revealed streaks of brown stain from her constant scrubbings. 

The new stove had drip marks BETWEEN the two doors and Nancy had no idea on earth how to get that clean. 

The third microwave in four years, had a fresh broken handle.

The backdoor into the garage would blow open because for some reason the door no longer latched. 

The older boys bathroom had urine curdled floor tiles that had absorbed years of bad aim.

The ceilings all showed signs of former roof leaks.

Her back sliding glass door had no R factor as it had to be hurriedly replaced when, during the dead of winter, when baby number four was prematurely born and family was in crisis, and the toked up neighbor boy pushed it off its very tracks and shattered the entire sliding half. Nancy and Ned had never yet had the time, money, or energy to properly replace the entire unit.

In fact, Nancy and Ned had let all of these issues slide over the years, only doing the minimal that their limited wallets and energies allowed.  Back-to-back babies and medical issues had held their attention for the last seven years.

Nancy wasn't sure where to begin. Or how. So much needed to be rebuilt, repaired, redone. Ned had wooed her with his siren songs of handy-dom in their courting days, but he really was more arm-charm than a handy-manny.

The couple had decided long ago that this would be the house they would retire in. It wasn't a big house. It wasn't a new house. It was the house that saw the life of their family grow.

Nancy's oldest child was in college.  Her youngest just started preschool. She looked around again.  She added up the cost to live in the home she dreamed about; the house that was on the cover of magazines. She thought about the amount of work and energy it would require to bring life back to the old house.

Maybe now is not the time thought Nancy. Do I really need Pella windows and Honda Pilots and Bamboo floors?

Instead Nancy thought she would continue to live with her house of decrepit chaos. It was truly filled with plenty of life, albeit broken and dirty and sometimes blood tinged. 

A magazine house was probably not something she would have today or even in the next decade or maybe even, well, EVER.

She didn't have a glorious house but she had a home, five children and a handsome, dedicated, loving husband.  She had hope. She had pets nearing the end of their life cycles (except for that damn puppy but odds were good it could be hit by a car.)

Nancy reflected.  It had been one crazy-ass ride. She always seemed to have just enough to do enough. Maybe that was ultimately more important than a driveway without cracks and weather resistant windows. Besides, if she fixed the screens, the new puppy would surely run through them anyway.

The 2012 Olympics were about to close.  The Nickerson family, consisting of five children and two exhausted parents, sat together watching the final ceremony.  Ned told Nancy about the female runner who was part male and the surrounding controversy regarding if she should be allowed to run.  Their big-eared eight year old listened with intrigue.

During the Spice Girls performance, the eight-year old questioned her mother, wondering how a girl could be part girl and part boy.  Nancy attempted to explain how sometimes people can be born with boy and girl parts.  The eight year old's eyes grew huge. 

Then Nancy said,

 Honey, I think it is time your father and I told you something.
You were born with a penis.
(long pregnant pause on Nancy's part)
But I had it chopped off. 
You know how much I wanted a girl, right?
So I had your penis chopped off and turned you into a girl.

The father continued to watch the Spice Girls. 

The eight-year old stood up, put her hands on her hips and declared:

MOTHER!
You are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo inappropriate.  
I'm EIGHT YEARS OLD!   You don't tell an 8-year old stuff like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nancy laughed and laughed and laughed.  Some days it was all worth it.
Ned continued to watch the Spice Girls.

Nancy boiled. She was out to screw the insurance company.  She shook her head in disgust at herself.  How had she gotten to this point?  Nancy Drew would NEVER screw anyone, especially a nice insurance company.  Nancy wasn't even supposed to boil! It was completely contrary to her nature, but she had reached her limit.  Well, she had far exceeded her limit actually.

Ned and Nancy Drew Nickerson had paid out over $12,002 in out-of-pocket medical expenses in the first 6 months of this year.  She was sick and tired of medical bills and all things medically related.  Then Ned had to go and complain about his eyesight.  He had always had perfect vision.  Better than perfect.  But last October he found out he had a slight near and far sightedness vision problem that could be corrected with bifocals to bring him back up to the level of better-than-perfect eyesight.

Ned purchased his first pair of glasses-bifocals-but had a very hard time seeing out them.  Especially at night.  He thought his eyes had gotten even worse over the last several months.  So Nancy called the eye doctor to set up an appointment.  She was told that they had to wait one full year before Ned could come back in for his free yearly eye exam.  Nancy refused to pay one single more cent on any medically related item.  She was infuriated.  She put her foot down. How could an insurance company call the shots???  She begged and pleaded with the eye doctor.  Ned begged and pleaded to go get his eyes checked out.  He couldn't see for the love of God! Finally, the insurance company gave in; he could get rechecked at 10 months out.  Gee, how generous of them, thought Nancy sarcastically, chastising herself for thinking sarcastically.

Ned went to the eye doctor and came home.  His eyes HAD deteriorated. But the doctor told him for a middle aged man he still was considered to have 20/20 vision.  Ned went ahead and bought himself a new, non-bifocal pair of glasses. Nancy backed away from Ned, clucking quietly to herself.  She picked up the phone and called the eye doctor.  Normally she would not have any of her younger children's eyes checked, but she was so enraged over the waiting of the free yearly exam and the fact that Ned had 20/20 vision and bought new glasses, she wanted to make sure each and every single one of her children had their eligible free yearly eye exam. Thus, in Nancy's mind, "screwing" the insurance company. They would be charged for something they would not normally have been charged for had they played nice with Nancy.

And that is when it all backfired on her.

It turns out the Evil Baby, the only healthy child of the brood, had bad eyes.  It certainly explained a lot.  Like why she didn't watch t.v. or look at books, or know her shapes. Evil Baby needed glasses.  Big, expensive glasses.

Nancy resolved the only screwing she would do in her future was to her husband, using multiple forms of birth control, with his new glasses on, or off.  She really didn't care anymore.  She quietly went to her desk and increased her out-of-pocket medical expenses from January to August to $12,346.79.