LBA

I can assure you the above mentioned subject is not a new professional sports league although, at first glance, one might call me a liar. I will tell you that it is a group of people that get together to discuss issues, a lot like congress. From what I ascertain, the gatherings are about as productive as legislative sessions are. LBA is in fact an acronym. It stands for.....wait, let me say something first.

I have this girl I know. She is about, I dunno...3 years old. She owns more chapstick that cowboys do chaps. That says a lot. Chaps are a staple for the cowboy wardrobe. She doesn't know why she has it, or really what it is for, but she knows where it goes. Chapstick, for adults, goes on the lips. Chapstick for a 3-year old goes in the lip area, and I confirmed with her this evening that the lip area is right around here . I tried to help her narrow it down to a smaller area, to no avail.

I had gone upstairs for about 3 minutes to change my son and bring him down for lunch. When I arrived, I saw a shiny, happy face with little hands that held a tube of chapsick rolled out about two and a half inches. I had to take another look as I thought I was being robbed by MINI ME in a plastic mask. Her bangs were curled under ala Clark Kent in the original Superman. "HI DADDY," she said. My initial thought was, where is my child, and who replaced her with this shiny-faced oompa loompa? But there she was, toting this tube, along with a furry purple purse filled with other vials of crack....err...tubes of CHapstick. I had her dump it out on the floor and it resembled Ally Sheedy's purse in The Breakfast Club. If you haven't seen that movie, imagine a 20 gallon trash bag filled with....meaningless trinkets, papers and pens falling onto the floor. Now, shrink that down a tad to fit the 3-year old frame and there you have it. If Chapstick tubes were water, then Niagra Falls came out of her purse. All kinds of flavors and colors. SOme had caps, some didn't. Some begged to be euthanized in the sun. You know how lobsters or crabs scream when they go in hot water? Or how Nemo didn't like that dentists niece? These tubes did not want to be part of the purse party. I heard the grape one say, "kill me." I am sure of it.
LBA stands for Lip Balm's Anonymous. This group is for people addicted to Chapstick. Some parents fear that drugs, alcohol or sex will take over their child's life. My child is a walking tube of chapstick. If she doesn't have it, she wants it. If there is none on the way home from day-care, then she spends the next 18 minutes shivering in her car seat until we get home. Methadone clinics beware. You have competition. Chapstick zombies. They start early. In fact, they are filming an episode of INTERVENTION at my daughter's day-care tomorrow.

I'll let you know when it is aired.