Dollar Short The Bottom Dollar Girls Go Hollywood

Menstruation, menopause, mental breakdown. Ever notice how all women's problems begin with men? -- Comment overheard under the hair dryers at Dazzling Do's Chapter One It isn't every day a movie star steals your husband. Chiffon Butrell certainly wasn't expecting such a major upheaval in her life on that nippy Tuesday in January. Instead, she was grappling with more trivial aggravations, such as hunting down a pencil for her eight-year-old daughter, Emily.Her oldest child stood near the front door, fully dressed, her light brown hair gathered up into a neat ponytail. Wearing a mask of quiet stoicism, she kept glancing at her Hello Kitty wristwatch.Chiffon, her blond hair snarled into rats from sleep, rummaged through the junk drawer of a battered desk. "You'd think that somewhere in all this mess there'd be one lousy...Ick!" She snatched back her hand as it touched something sticky.With her thumb and index finger, she picked up the offending object, a Hulk action figure, covered head to toe with peanut butter."Dewitt, whatisthis?" she asked her five-year-old son, who was slicing the air with a series of karate chops."It's a spearmint," he said, continuing to deliver blows to an invisible assailant."What?" Chiffon said, bewildered."An experiment," Emily said matter-of-factly. She was a frequent translator for her younger brother. "He likes watchingBill Nye, the Science Guy.We'd better go. The bus will be here any minute.""I just can't believe -- Wait a second." Chiffon picked up her pocketbook from the floor and scrabbled inside. "Aha!" she said, handing Emily a pencil she'd fished from the bottom. "Here we go, baby."Her daughter examined it with large gray eyes. "Mama, this is an eyeliner pencil.""It won't do in a pinch?""I'm taking a standardized test today. I need two sharpened No. 2 pencils."Chiffon vaguely remembered signing an official-looking letter from Emily's school about an upcoming test. And Emily, being a responsible child, had almost certainly mentioned that her pencil supply was running low. Unfortunately, Chiffon had completely forgotten about both."Don't worry, Mama," Emily said in an even voice. "My teacher will probably have some spare pencils. Come on, Dewitt, let's go."Emily opened the front door, letting in a gust of frigid air. Chiffon shivered and gripped together the lapels of her skimpy leopard-print robe. The local morning TV show had said it was 28 degrees outside, uncommonly chilly for Cayboo Creek, South Carolina, even in winter."Stay warm!" Chiffon hollered after the pair. They waved at her with bare hands already pink from the cold as they crossed the frozen lawn, which looked like it was covered with a layer of powdered sugar."Shoot," Chiffon said to herself as she sprinted barefoot across the freezing wooden floor. "I should've made them wear mittens." Trouble was, when she'd looked earlier, she hadn't been able to find a pair anywhere in the house. Yesterday there'd been a light snow, and the kids had had to wear their daddy's athletic socks on their hands to make snowballs."Gotta go to Goodies and get some mittens," she said to herself, adding to a mental list of errands she needed to accomplish today. Tuesday was her day off from her waitress job at the Wagon Wheel steak restaurant.Gabby, her six-month-old daughter, who up until now had been amusing herself with a plastic spoon, screwed up her face and let out a cranky cry."Hey, kiddo," Chiffon said, scooping up the baby from her walker. "Yeesh. Your diaper's sopping."On her way to the nursery from the living room, she banged her hip against the corner of her husband Lonnie's pool table. "Dang it," she said with a grimace, knowing a vivid yellow-blue bruise would soon blossom there. She didn't know how many women would put up with a deluxe-size pool table smack dab in their living rooGillespie, Karin is the author of 'Dollar Short The Bottom Dollar Girls Go Hollywood', published 2005 under ISBN 9780743250115 and ISBN 0743250117.