We All Have Secrets

A very close friend of mine was very upset and I was trying to explain to her that no family is perfect. No matter how perfect it looks, every family has secrets. She shouldn’t sink into sadness, thinking her life is defective, because, in reality, everyone’s life is defective. We just can’t always see where the defects are.

Imagine when looking through the glass at the beautiful window displays in a fancy store. All we see is the rotating figurines, the sparkling floss snow, the colorful, fanciful world that was created to view through a flat, glass pane. We don’t see that underneath all that floss is a plain plywood table held together by gray, steel bolts. And many of those figurines are glued and taped to the display, only meant to hold for a few short weeks. But the store keeps those things secret.

Every Friday I gather with the other moms at the middle school and we sell candy to the kids after lunch. It is my favorite time of the week. I get to be with other women that have similar lives and we all flap our gums about husbands and kids and whoever else is doing anything naughty within 200 miles of home. I learn whose husbands are on Viagra, whose diamond rings are really made of paste, whose neighbor got arrested, and whose mother-in-law is an overbearing nightmare. It is a weekly consensus that all mothers-in-laws fit that category.

But then there are even more secrets. There is the mom on the No Carb Diet and does aerobics faithfully 10 times a week. She stumbles into the concessions stand, starved and glassy eyed as she dives her head into my mountain of freshly popped corn and eats about three bushels of the buttery scented fluff. And her husband, her trainer, and even Oprah Winfrey will never, ever know. Now, we all forgive her weekly weakness because I do make very good popcorn. It is rated as some of the best popcorn in the nation by four out of five people surveyed. Of course, I do the survey. But did I mention it is very good corn?

Then there is the mom that is the Starburst addict. Constantly stating her pants are too tight, she never lets her husband know she sways from her diet by purchasing dozens of Starburst and sits back in a sugar induced haze every week while learning all the weekly news from those of us still fully conscious. I always make sure to bring my dental floss so she has clean, Starburst free teeth before leaving. No one is ever the wiser to her secret Friday Starburst benders.

And then the mom that just can’t resist the bags of M & M cookies stacked so colorfully on the counter. She empties her wallet every week, stocking up on the cookies until she can return to my concession stand once again. We all help her sew them into the lining of her coat, so no one will know that a mom eats even more cookies than her kids. And her husband just thinks she loves fluffy down coats, and always appreciates her delicious sweet scent when wearing that very same coat on chilly winter days.

But upon looking into the concession stand while standing outside, one can see a group of devoted mothers, smiling happily as they provide a sweet Friday treat to hundreds of Cope kids. All chatting happily with the children and each other while earning a few dollars for the good of the school.

And as I stand in the office turning in my bulging, green money bag, I watch as one mom is on the phone with her trainer, patting her popcorn bloated belly, telling him she needs a day off due to distress from eating far too many alfalfa sprouts that day. I watch another wave good-bye as she is checking her smile in her little mirror from her purse. And I get a happy "good -bye" from the last while pulling on her bulky, sweet-smelling coat. While the principal takes my bulging money bag and compliments me on how well I know the children and how my sales have been higher than any previous mom. She pats me on the back and tells me how valuable I have been.

I smile very big and give her my big, bulging bag. She does not know that much of my huge profits are due to selling some excellent popcorn to some very hungry moms. But, then, I like my back patted, and I do love the kids. And, after all, I need to have a few secrets, too.