Ask Not-Martha, Part 1

Welcome, readers!

Today In Pursuit of Martha Points is happy to present “Ask Not-Martha!” All your burning, “How many points would I get for that?” or “How many points do I lose for that?” questions answered! Because, honest to goodness, people ask me.

And, well, this is all your fault because you give me an inch of any kind of authority and I’m going to take a mile, throw in a blog feature and make you all help.

Cause, well, that is what I do. And I’m damned good-looking while I do it, don’t you think?

And remember, before you answer, that I am handing out points here.

Our first question today comes from Roxane.

Excellent question Roxane. For those who missed the psychotic flurry of blog-posts and tweets, Roxane is talking about the famous Rainbow Cake.  Since I have personally experienced the making of this cake, and issued myself an award, this is an easy one. Roxane gets +25 Martha Points. And the penalty for letting the adorable one-year-old destroy it? Zero. It’s made to be enjoyed. And enjoy it she clearly did.

Our next question today comes from the lovely Kristin.

Yes, this is a regular dilemma. Sometimes the act of earning the points creates a circumstance that docks points. And as tempting as it is to tell ourselves that the mess doesn’t  matter, that the ends justify the means, if you will…that is not a road we want to start traveling down. Down that way is a slippery slope of rationalizations and the next thing you know you’re awarding yourself points for blatantly ignoring the soggy towels and mold factory in the bathroom just because you scraped the kids clean. No. We must have standards people. STANDARDS.

So Kristen, the answer is thus: each nutritious and delicious treat you make earns you + 10 points. Each day you can’t find your utensils under the flour-storm in your kitchen, you lose – 5 points. So just try to keep yourself coming out ahead.

Our next question about all things Points comes from Katie. Context, Katie. I need context. Did you spend your afternoon re-attaching the gardener’s severed limb with dental-floss? If so, then the fact that you still managed to get calories into the family at meal time is at least a +8. If, however, the afternoon was spent watching bad courtroom TV and eating whipped cream from the can, then you’re looking at a likely –10. So award for yourself accordingly.

Next, we have a question from the lovely Liz.

First, you get +3 points for allowing me to revel in the fact that this is not my life anymore. I so don’t miss that part of parenting. Secondly, I think we can say that this gets a solid +6, with a +2 bonus for being considerate of the general public.

And our final question of the day comes from everyone’s favorite au naturelle cosmetics guru, Leslie.

The homemade deodorant was last week, I believe, and we’re all waiting for the results. But for the making of the homemade deodorant… Well first, the scale maxes out at +/- 50 points. So 7 jillion? Nice try. But for the attempt, we’ll give a solid +10. Then, if the deodorant kept away  the dreaded B.O., we’ll give a +5 point bonus. If within days of the experimenting, your neighbors put their house on the market, that’s a -5 point penalty.

There were many more questions, so I’m going to break this into several posts over the next week. I think I may do some trending analysis on the questions. They’re a fascinating glimpse into the lives of parenticus modernus. I think with proper statistical interpretation, I can prove either that 1) contemporary western parenting philosophies are following a classically cyclic socialization trend, or 2) I am bad with math.