The High School Exit Exam Every Kid Should Have To Pass

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 25, 2016] © 2016 

I am totally in favor of a high school exit course that every high school student would have to pass to graduate. In fact, mine would be required of kids even before they were allowed to drop out since it would be too scary to unleash them on the general public otherwise. Here would be a few of the required topics:

(1) Basic credit card math. Let’s say you rack up $1,000 in charges on your 15% annual interest credit card buying In-N-Out Burgers and concert tickets before your parents confiscate the card. If you make only a minimum monthly payment of $15 until it’s paid off, how much would you end up paying back?  (Answer: about $2,200. And it would take you at least five years.)

(2) Apartment leases: How to read them. Important word here: read. Yes, you really need to (read it). Including the fine print. Especially the fine print.

(3) Basic geography. Sweden and Switzerland are not the same country. New England and England are different places. You do not need a passport to travel from Texas to California. Failure to know these facts are automatic fails.

(4) Laundry skills 101. Your mom always did your laundry, so how hard can it be? Separating lights from darks isn’t just a plot by washing machine manufacturers to make you run more loads. Clothes have something called “labels” in them recommending washing - and drying - temperatures. If you do not wish your favorite shirt to be reduced to munchkin size, pay attention. Also, when they say “dry clean only,” they really mean it.

(5) Laundry skills 210: Dryers. If you have access to one that isn’t in a laundromat there is something called a “lint filter” that needs to be regularly cleaned. The alternative is burning down the house. Easier just to clean the lint filter.

(6) Roommate math: Basic. You and three friends decide to get an apartment together that costs $1,500 a month to get out from under the thumbs of your annoying parents. (Free-dom! Free-dom!) What is your share of the rent when (a) one of them loses his job at Burger King and can’t pay (b) another one decides it’s cheaper to live at home despite the annoying parents, and (c) they’re both, like, “Sorry, dude”?

(7) Roommate math: Advanced. Developing the skills to avoid deadbeat roommates: priceless.

(8) Survey of world religions. There are lots of different religious beliefs in the world. Misinformation about them leads to a lot of confusion. Sometimes even wars.

(9) Internet Education. Just because you read it on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true. In fact, there is a high likelihood it is NOT true. Apply a critical filter to everything you read. (Yes, you actually have one even if you’ve never used it.) Do NOT forward anything that says “Send this to everyone you know!”

(10) Scam avoidance. It’s not just old people who fall for these. That “free” ringtone you signed up for?  It’s now a hefty (and hidden) fee on your phone bill. On-line ads for cheap iPhones or luxury goods? Sorry kids, if it sounds too good to be true, it really is.

(11) Payday Loans (a.k.a. “Selling your soul to the devil.”). Do not EVER EVER EVER set foot into these places. We won’t even go into the math. They are just a truly bad deal.

(12) Tax Returns. The federal EZ form is really that. You can do it. Yes, you really can! It’s one page!  It’s tempting to go to one of those places that will do it for you and even advance you your refund, but be assured that they’re going to take a hefty chunk of your refund in the process.

 (13) Automobile purchasing: Caveat Emptor. That’s Latin for “Do not believe a word they say,” especially if it is a used car. No, it didn’t really belong to a little old lady who only drove it to church.

(14) Dishwashers. You should be so lucky to have one but they come pretty standard in rental apartments these days. Tempted to economize by using liquid dishwashing soap instead of the stuff made for dishwashers? Seriously bad idea. Everybody has to do it once but be prepared to find yourself standing in your kitchen knee deep in bubbles.

(15) Survival cooking skills. It’s really expensive to eat out for every meal, even fast food meals. It’s also really unhealthy. When I was in graduate school, we had something called “Po’ Boy Tomato Soup.” (Recipe: pour hot tap water over the contents of six McDonald’s ketchup packets. Stir.)  It’s totally gross. Learning to make five basic meals that do not involve Top Ramen noodles isn’t hard. Stay on the outside aisles of the supermarket when you shop and you’ll be fine.

And now…congratulations! Let the next chapter of your life begin!

 

 

 

Saving Your Own Life

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 18, 2016] ©2016

It’s a cruel twist of fate to be lucky enough to live in the Sunbelt but not be able to go out in it.

 

After Olof’s four surgeries for in situ melanoma - the less serious form that hasn’t penetrated below the top layers of skin – and my surgery for malignant melanoma – the type that has - we asked our dermatologist where we’d ever be able to go on vacation again. She replied, “Oregon in the winter?” 

 

Both Olof and I are of Northern European extraction, the preferred hosts for skin cancer. When I was growing up, not only were there no effective sunscreen lotions, but girls slathered themselves with a concoction of baby oil and iodine (early self-tanning product) then reflected  sun right onto their faces with homemade aluminum foil sun reflectors. (Do not try this at home!)  It is no wonder that in addition to malignant melanoma, I’ve had five Mohs surgeries for squamous cell carcinoma on my face and hands.

 

Regardless, I still walk on the beach every day, even in summer. But no matter how hot it is, the only part of me that is exposed to the sun might be my fingernails. And usually not those. Bikini-clad teens roll their eyes at me like “What’s the point?” From under the 6-inch brim of my sun hat, I try to beam back, “You have no idea what that tan is going to cost you.”  I’ve often thought I should get a beige beach-walking burqa made that says “Cautionary Tale” on the back.

 

The current theory is that melanoma comes from bad sunburns of one’s youth. I certainly had plenty of those. The first warm weekend of spring, usually Memorial Day, I’d get absolutely fried. But if that theory were true, my skin cancers should have been on my back where I got the worst of it, happily snoozing on my stomach in the warm sun after a long East Coast winter. But all my skin cancers have been on my face and forearms.

 

No, my theory is that what got me is all those weekend youth soccer and baseball tournaments in places that seem to have some unwritten law that there can be no shade within 100 yards of a youth athletic field. Despite a hat and heavy doses of sunscreen, and sometimes even a shade umbrella, I’d still get cooked on my face and forearms, the only places not covered.

 

It goes without saying that we have made our dermatologist a wealthy woman. In fact, every time Olof has an appointment with her, he’ll announce, “Well, time to make Dr. X’s Mercedes payment!” But given melanoma’s 100% fatality rate if not treated, better that she gets a nice car then we get dead.

 

I’ve personally known four people who have died of malignant melanoma, three of whom left young children, two of whom left infants. So I’ve always been diligent about scheduling skin cancer screenings. I was therefore genuinely surprised to suddenly see what looked like a slightly raised freckle on my forearm. It didn’t look anything like the grody melanoma pictures you see in doctors’ offices. But it met four of the five markers for melanoma: it was asymmetric, had an irregular border, was a little darker than freckles usually are, and most importantly, it hadn’t been there before. I called my then-dermatologist immediately. Sorry, they said, first available appointment is five weeks. I couldn’t get in with any other dermatologist any earlier as a new patient. “Everybody thinks they have melanoma,” soothed the receptionist at one.

 

When I finally did get in five weeks later, my dermatologist wasn’t initially impressed but biopsied it anyway. Eight days later, she called me on a Wednesday night, biopsy results in hand, and said, “You’re having surgery tomorrow.” The chunk they took out of me felt like a full arm-ectomy. “I hope you realize you just saved your own life,” the surgeon assured me. I tell the grandtots that the big Z scar on my forearm was from an altercation with Zorro. That I lost.

 

Of course, after this surgery, coworkers flocked to my office to consult on suspicious bumps or freckles. “Does this look like melanoma to you?” they’d want to know. I’d review the five classic signs of melanoma with them and then implore them to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist.

 

It’s been thirteen years since that surgery so I’m cautiously optimistic that whatever ultimately does me in is not going to be melanoma. But since May 22 is The National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention’s Don’t Fry Day, it seemed like a good time to mention it. I’m always happy to see that my five young grandchildren are slathered with sunscreen and wearing floppy hats when they’re in the sun.

 

As for that disfiguring scar? Don’t care. I’m here playing with the grandkids.

 

Nursery School Revisited

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 11, 2016] © 2016

Preschool is a whole new world since my sons went. Two of my grandchildren go to a preschool in L.A. that is not only very environmentally-conscious but also has a zero tolerance policy for sugar (bad for you) and nuts (someone could be allergic) on school grounds. (Knives would probably be OK.) 

I’m almost sure I remember my preschool sons being given ice cream from time to time, and certainly cupcakes for a classmate’s birthday. My daughter-in-law says it’s a challenge to find a treat you can bring in to school for a celebration. Or at least one that any of the kids actually want to eat.

I also remember that the curriculum at my sons’ preschool involved a lot of time in a Superman cape. Current events? Not so much.

That’s why I’m pretty dazzled at what my five-year-old granddaughter has already learned in school about environmental issues. We were down watching the sunset over the ocean, the pelicans gracefully coasting the wind currents overhead. I told the grandkids that if I could come back as something else, I’d want to be a pelican. I like fish and the idea of flying around with my pelican friends seemed like a pretty good life to me, especially if it was devoid of United Airlines and Time Warner Cable. (For the record, my husband Olof wants to come back as one of my sister’s cats. No creature on earth has a better deal.)

I asked the kids what they would like to be if they could.

My three-year-old grandson knew immediately: A cheetah because they run really fast.

My granddaughter knew right away as well: A polar bear. But then she got teary. “But I’d probably be all by myself since they’re nearly es-tinct. There might not be any others besides me!” She launched into a lengthy discourse about the plight of polar bears using terms like “global warming” and “Arctic” (she carefully pronounces it Arc-Tic) and has already made it her life’s work to save them. I consider this a good thing. But I was pretty amazed to hear her say it.

We still have all the Curious George books from when my kids were little, and my granddaughter asked me to read her the first one in the series. This is the one where George, the monkey, is captured in the African jungle by the Man with the Yellow Hat to bring to a U.S. zoo. My granddaughter was shaking her head in dismay the whole time. "You should never do that," she kept saying. "You should leave the animals where they are. They don’t belong in a zoo."  (Watch out, Sea World. She’s coming for you next.)

Interestingly, I have my own issue with Curious George. In the book Curious George Gets a Medal, George brings a box of soap flakes into the house along with the hose and creates a big soapy lake which, the author mentions in an afterthought/aside at the end, the (un-named! unseen! unpaid!) “kind woman next door” spends “hours” cleaning up. As a fourth generation feminist, I felt morally compelled to note to my granddaughter, “George and the Man with the Yellow Hat should have rented a shop vac and cleaned it up themselves.” She nodded.

I wonder what she would make of stories I grew up reading like Little Black Sambo which I’m sure has disappeared from children’s libraries. Unlike the unfortunately stereotypical fare of its era, it was the story of a clever, resourceful kid who outwits four tigers who are out to eat him. (The tigers ultimately do themselves in through no fault of Sambo’s.) Now that I think of it, it’s probably the Save the Tigers folks who have put the kibosh on this book. 

One thing that has absolutely not changed since my kids were in preschool: germ warfare.  Between two different nursery school classrooms and a baby in Mommy& Me, at least one of the grandkids is always sick. Our pediatrician used to assure us that these early childhood illnesses were building up the kids’ immune systems which would benefit them greatly later in life. So why are the parents’ immune systems, veterans of all those preschool ailments, getting regularly flattened with all these bugs as well? Or are these new breeds of microbes to which the folks – never mind the grandparents - have no defense? 

At least one grandkid invariably shows up with a runny nose and we are generally sick within days of the time the little germ bag leaves. At this point, we don't even try to avoid getting sick because (a) it doesn't work, and (b) we'd miss a whole lot of snotty hugs. Hugs are hugs, snotty or not.

Still, I might just be glad I got to go to school when we were allowed to eat cupcakes.

[Library’s ancient version of Little Black Sambo. I had the Golden Book version.]