JOYRIDE III

My wife Kris is a member of a secret society, actually several. Until recently, Kris was weathering the trials and tribulations of being a stay-at-home mom. When you have four young kids, staying at home makes working look like a holiday in the Caribbean.
About a year ago, Kris rejoined the corporate working world as an international financial analyst at Campbell Soup. Now, instead of conversations with preschoolers, she’s talking to factory managers across the globe.
But during her years at home, Kris hopped on a volunteer carousel. As far as I can tell, she became a member of every volunteer organization in South Jersey. Some of these organizations are like the mafia, once you join, there appears to be no getting out.
Sometimes I felt like Kris was part of a clandestine government agency. Every Wednesday night, she would disappear for her weekly twins’ clubs meetings. Actually, the official name is South Jersey Mothers of Multiples (which cleverly abbreviates to SJMOM’s).
The meetings were held in a nondescript town several communities away from us. While Kris would occasionally mention the names of other members, It all felt a bit cloak and dagger.
In my mind, I always pictured a bunch of women sitting poolside drinking pina coladas. Lord knows, as mothers of twins and triplets, they could probably use a drink or several for that matter.
One day, Kris came home from a meeting with several boxes of books. “What are those?” I inquired. “Oh, I’ve become the librarian for the club so I’m in charge of all the books.”
“Books about what?” I asked. “Twins of course,” she answered in an incredulous voice. Books, huh? “None of those books had helped us much in conquering our own twins, but it was plausible they could help someone else,” I thought.
Every once in a while, the twins club would hold an event that the whole family would attend, breakfast with Santa or something similar. I always wondered if these events were like mafia-owned bakeries, cooked up to convince outsiders that the organization was legitimate.
But recently, I had to give up all my conspiracy theories about Kris’ covert activities. The twins club held a party. While there were no kids there, all the “names” that Kris had mentioned over the years were suddenly attached to real people.
They all turned out to be pretty engaging people and I had to admit that they really existed. They had jobs and husbands and photographic evidence of their offspring, multiples of course.
It turned out that the nondescript town was actually where the party was held. In fact, it was such a good party that even if they had been spending all those meetings arranging the festivities, it would have been time well spent.
But while they were not sitting around poolside as I imagined, everyone appeared to be holding a drink in their hand. “Wait a second,” I thought. “Maybe this is one of their meetings.”
Keith Forrest an assistant professor of communication at Atlantic Cape Community College. His late mother Libby Demp Forrest Moore wrote the Joyride column for this newspaper for 20 years.