Are you there God? It's me, Mrs. Mullet. I really, really, really need to talk to you

I'm kinda freaking out right now.

Remember my personal mission bullshit presentation? You may have noticed I never wrote about it.

That's because I bombed.

It was awful. The jokes fell flat, the innuendo was stupidendo.

But at least it was behind me, right?

Wrong. I found out on Friday that my boss signed me up to give my presentation to a small business organization next week. Close to 80 people will be there.

Eighty people! I'll be looking out at this



I can see it now. My sweat will pool in my bra and spill down my stomach and it'll look like I peed on the floor. Or, what if I hyperventilate? Or vomit? Or vomit as I'm hyperventilating and sweating and people will rush the stage and all that'll be left of me is a pool of sizzling mess and they'll throw their chairs in indignant rage and shout, "We thought she was a marketing expert! She's nothing but an impostor!"

Riots. There'll be riots. Car fires and looting. Frail, old people will have to stay indoors. And the stray cats! Who will save the stray cats?

.....

.....

.....

Heh. Where was I?

Ah yes, I need your help. Desperately. Do you have suggestions on how not to freak out while speaking in public? The whole picture-people-in-their-underwear thing doesn't work. I need real tips. Real help.

In a real hurry.

Hah. Like I really take bubble baths

Dear Junior,

At one time, you slept like a butterfly in something my friend liked to call that sack.



You loved your Amby Bed sack, so much so that I worried you’d always need to sleep suspended in the air. But one day, after I learned that putting you to bed earlier—rather than later—made falling asleep easier, you spent the night in a crib. And there you’ve slept for a year and a half.



You never once tried to climb out of your crib, which surprised me. Isn’t that a rite of passage? Weren’t we supposed to awake one morning to see you standing by the foot of our bed?

I guess there’s plenty of time for that now, because your father found this on craigslist:



When your father told me it was a train bed, I didn’t make the connection. Or maybe I did and I just didn’t want to accept the fact that another piece of your life had fallen prey to that fat-faced train.

I’m happy Thomas brings you so much joy, but between the Thomas lamp, night light and train station set, our home is starting to resemble the Island of Sodor, and that freaks me out. Some days it bothers me because the Island of Sodor sounds a lot better than Mulletville, and I don't really want it to be my go-to place when I'm in the bubble bath.

Unless Sir Topham Hatt suddenly started looking like this:



Other days it bothers me because Thomas the Train seems like a big commercial machine. None of the other characters you could have chosen to embrace seem as heavily outfitted. Curious George doesn’t have a shed he sleeps in or a platform he puffs up to (one that retails for $19.99 anyway). And Clifford the Big Red Dog doesn’t even have a dog bowl—at least one that I’ve seen in the stores.

I want to be sure you don’t become the kind of kid who walks into a store expecting five new Thomas friends. I know that has a lot to do with us, your parents, but the Thomas the Train empire is the size of planet earth, and your father and I are the size of, well, just middle class Homo sapiens.

Everything seemed so much simpler when you were dangling from a metal spring. Your gray, creepy-faced train bed has made me realize that I'm not ready for you to be ready for a real bed. I had a lot of wine tonight and I'm really, really crumpled up over your sudden leap into big boyhood.

Could you please slow down? Could you please give me a second to absorb all this? Could James or Percy possibly talk to the Fat Controller about starting an exercise regime?

No? I didn't think so.

P.S. If you have an Amby Bed, the company did a voluntary recall in January. All the details are here.

Random Tuesday Thoughts: Nice try, lazy eye

My company's purchasing department hired Jim two weeks ago and he’s already been spoken to about inappropriate ogling. Since he’s not a construction worker, the three second rule doesn’t apply. From what I’ve overheard, he blames his wandering eye on the fact that it’s a lazy eye.

I find it hard to believe that a lazy eye would consistently be lazy in the same direction. From what I’ve seen of lazy eyes, they tend to shoot around or veer outward. Not breastward.

Junior has developed a sudden fascination with breasts. In the morning, when he sees me getting dressed for work he yells, “Are those your bellies? Can I TOUCH them, Mommy? Please? Can I SEE them?” Chuck has taken to correcting him. “Those are boobs, son.”

This all goes down while they’re lying in bed watching Curious George. “Are those your boobs? Can I TOUCH them? Can I SEE them? Can I TOUCH them?” (That’s Junior, not Chuck—most days anyway.) I feel like a lactating bush woman on the National Geographic channel.

According to the Journal for Sex Research, the average breast size in the U.S. is 35.9 inches, roughly equivalent to a 34B bra, which is the average bra size in America. The average bra size in Mulletville is 42QQ. It's all the Aqua Net in the water.

If a woman with breast implants dies, is she buried with her implants in place?

How to tell if you're an ogler really should be a college course. I nominate myself to teach it. First lesson, "Tactical moves = powerful clues":

#1: The Thinker (as in, I'm pretending to hold my chin in pensive thought but really I'd like you to stop staring at my rack)



#2: The Prayer (as in, for the love of God, stop staring at my hooters)



#3: The Book Block (paper, purses or office plants may also be used)



#4: The Barricade (the most obvious yet often most overlooked maneuver)



For more about headlight etiquette, head over to the Un Mom.

Are you curious about what I was doing at 3:30 a.m. last night? Hmmmm?

It figures. The one time I actually plan ahead and buy a friggen present for a kid's birthday party in advance, Junior decides to spend the night barking like a seal, and we miss the party.

According to the nurse in the emergency room of the Mulletville hospital, it's croup. (I told you we should get frequent flyer miles from them.)

If you're unfamiliar with croup, it doesn't like rain forest-like conditions, which is what Chuck and I did to Junior's room pre-emergency room visit (crank the heat! blast the humidifier on "hot"!).

It likes cold air.

Junior got plenty of that on the way to the ER. By the time we'd arrived, he was almost fine. Don't you love that?

By the time we left the hospital, it was 4 a.m. We managed to get a steroid-injected Junior back to bed without having to suffer through a middle-of-the-night viewing of Curious George's A Very Monkey Christmas (wow, pukefest flashbacks), which is a good thing. A friend recently offered to place the DVD by my tire and cheer as I ran over it; all I needed was one more night of that damn monkey and I was there.

But back to the kid's present. Have you been to Target lately? Have you seen this line*?



It's called Battat, and the box wraps itself, like this:



All I have to say is, finally. There's nothing worse than birthday party waste—or any party waste. And this gift was only $9.99. They get it.

Know who else gets it?
Cute as a Buggy gets to go to Starbucks on me.



Congrats.

* No one paid me to write this post. But they should have. I'm writing with my eyes half-closed for frick's sake. Four a.m.!

I've got a suggestion for you: Kiss my grits

I'm happy this week is over. It was the week of office suggestions, thanks to a few peckerheads who got their panties in a bunch over life’s minutiae. Seriously, folks, if you’re nit-picking the small stuff, do everyone a favor and get yourself a hobby. I don’t care if it’s putting your prize boogers in shadow boxes and labeling them with glitter pens. Just do something.

Ahem.

Monday’s suggestion: Anyone caught using an old planner will be tasered.
See this planner?



It’s the planner issued by the company. Everyone has one. It’s different from last year’s in that last year’s planner started on a Sunday. This year’s starts on a Monday. You’d think a minor detail like that wouldn’t be enough to derail a company but alas, it is.

Since January, everyone’s been playing the "I'm a day off" card. People are missing meetings left and right, and they're blaming it on the planner. So on Monday, it was suggested that we cease and desist from using the old one. New planners are being ordered; we get one when we turn in the old one, which will be recycled. They’ll be given out by name (i.e., you better get your ass to Purchasing and get your life back on track).

Sigh. It was such a lovely excuse while it lasted. I highly recommend it.

Tuesday’s suggestion: No one should be exposed to HPV against his or her will.
One of my marketing co-workers, Linda, was aghast to find a sticky note stuck to her computer. Not because of the message, but because the sticky note was a GARDASIL sticky note (GARDASIL is a vaccine for human papillomavirus, or HPV).

See, Roberta from Accounting is married to a pharmacist and she’s been unloading all his pharmaceutical freebies at work (where's the good stuff?). They finally made their way down to my department. Linda went to the Corporate Head and complained. She shouldn’t have to be exposed to words like papillomavirus. She doesn’t work at Planned Parenthood.

Voila, no more distributing drug paraphernalia at work.



I’m pretty pissed. I love my Abilify and Lexapro pens. They’re the real deal: heavy metal, impressive ink quality, aerodynamics and stuff. Sniffle, sniffle.

Thursday’s suggestion: What are you doing on Facebook at 9:15 a.m. anyway?
You know Facebook has taken over the world when your company needs to have a Facebook policy—about status updates. This is what happened: Co-worker Sue friended a bunch of younger male staffers, then was horrified to see some of their status updates (I know this because I’m “friends” with them too).

The statuses ranged from "Even though your face is huge, bus stop girl, I love the shit out of you girl. Crotchduster" to “Sick of people’s shit eatin grins (probably asshole eating grins) makes me want to punch them in the face.....especially their little golfing fairy status updates!”

Are they eloquent updates? No. Are they glimpses into the homophobic, drunken, shallow lives of 21-year-old boys? Yes. And what does Sue expect? It's Facebook.

I’m happy to report that in this case, the suggestion was for Sue—and others like Sue—to get over it. Sometimes reason can prevail...over herpes.

That should so be a bumper sticker.

The other toddler in my life

Happy blog anniversary to meeeee

Happy blog anniversary to meeeee

It's beh-hin two yeear-hears

Oh good-hoood-ness meeee.

Last year at this time I revealed my secret identity. This year, I'm giving away a $25 Starbucks gift card, which I personally bought myself—for you.

All you have to do is leave me a comment. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only, since I have to pay postage. Leave your comment by Friday, February 19, 9 p.m., EST. Unlike the giveaway for a tungsten ring, which was a complete hoax by this company, someone will actually get the damn card.

Thanks for reading.

Everything before 1 a.m. was awesome. Just awesome

I had a girls’ night out Saturday night—complete with a sleepover at a hotel. A random friend of mine from middle school came. She drank too much and ended up sharing the bed with me. (The last time we'd shared a bed was in eighth grade, when she came to Disney World with my family. Her braces were so thick—how thick were they?—they gave her fish lips.)

Even though it was the middle of the night, she kept turning to me and making casual conversation. Like, “I don’t feel so good. I think I might get sick.” Or, “Ugh, I just can’t fall asleep. I think it’s the stiff pillow.” At 5 a.m. she finally did get sick. I heard every bit of it, and let me tell you, it sounded like she vomited up an SUV. There were Oh, Gods and Nooooo, not agains.

Afterward she got in bed and said, “I just threw up taco salad and sushi. I feel much better.”

At 8 a.m. she woke me up and said she had to get going because her husband was home alone with their two kids. As she was leaving she said, “Great night!”

At that point I had the pillow over my face. My hand was waving good-bye but my mouth was screaming “YOUR TACO SALAD PROBLEMS RUINED MY NIGHT. I HATE YOU.”

Having a fellow mom sabotage your one opportunity to sleep well and sleep in is like having a fellow astronomer smash your telescope just as Halley’s comet is about to blow past. It just doesn’t make sense.

The next time I do a girls' night out, there’s going to be a questionnaire:

1. How many beers can you drink before the room starts to spin?

2. If the person next to you in bed rolls over, do you mistake this for an invitation to make conversation?

3. Do you understand that Mrs. Mullet never gets to sleep late? Are you going to fuck this up for her? Be honest.

At least Valentine's Day was lovely. I got a special surprise. I'd tell you all about it, but the cat just caught its tongue in the light socket. Now who would put tuna fish in a light socket? Maybe if I turn on the switch and throw some water on it...

Sticks of butter should not have teeth prints

Do you see this? It's my butter dish.



Our mother *#$^&ing mangy, fat cats have taken midnight kitchen thievery to a new level. No longer content to just snack on forgotten pasta or loaves of bread they drag down from the kitchen table in the middle of the night, the filthy bastards actually climbed the dishtowel



knocked the lid off the butter dish and ate almost an entire stick of butter.



I'm taking suggestions on what to do next. Things I'm willing to entertain include:

1. murder

2. opening the front door and pushing them out into the street

3. slathering them in bacon grease and inviting a Pit Bull over

4. murder

I'm also willing to ship them to anyone who wants them. And I mean anyone. I'm thinking a 50-pound postal carrier should do it. Added bonus: The puffy one picks up all kinds of dust and lint as he walks. Cuts vacuuming time in half.



He even does tricks



Just shoot me an email. You've got until midnight tonight. Then the fluff ball gets it.

Things I ponder when I actually have time to ponder

This picture is from a popular parenting magazine. Every time I leaf through the issue, I find myself staring at this picture. First, I snicker. Maybe because the little girl looks like a smug little snot. Or maybe because when my brother and I were kids, we were happy to find an old elastic band and gum wrapper on the floor of the car to play with, and this girl looks so...equipped.

Instead of leather seats, we had black vinyl seats that singed our asses during the summer. Belt buckles that had sat in the sun became weapons of torture. My dad's Subaru wagon didn't have air conditioning. Sometimes he passed gas. Even with the windows open, it was enough to knock you unconscious.

Then there were the Crystal Gayle cassettes:

And don't it make my brown eyes
Don't it make my brown eyes
Don't it make my brown eyes bluuuue-whooo.

All of this to get to Howe Caverns. (If you've never been, one visit is enough. Unless you've driven six hours in a car without air conditioning—then you'll want to tour the underground caves until winter hits.)

I digress. The other reason this picture grabs me is because I find myself thinking about my own car and what an absolute disaster it is. What if I could be that organized? What if I succumbed wholeheartedly to the compartmentalization that is pretty parenthood? Where everything had its place, and Nirvana ensued. What if?

But no. I don't want Junior to end up with a smug look on his face. I don't want to organize markers in individual, labeled slots. In a weird way, I like finding them under the seat, covered in schmuck and hair. Because I can say to Junior "The yellow is crud. You'll have to use green today."

And he'll have to: He'll have to deal and move on.

Amen. I finally got this off my chest. Now I can recycle the issue and stop staring at that creepy little kid. Thank you, blogosphere. Thank you!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

In 17 days, this blog will be two years old. I’ve written 400 posts. If I spent an hour on each post, that’s 400 hours that I’ve devoted to blogging, or 2.3 weeks. That doesn’t make me feel so bad about blogging. I mean really, what’s two weeks?

Chuck and I spent two weeks on our honeymoon. We went to Italy, rented a car and hit the road. No reservations, nothing. This is one of my favorite pictures:



We were in Genova. Chuck befriended a man, who invited us over to his place. He let us take pictures from the roof of his apartment. We stayed for espresso, and the man said he could read people's fortunes in coffee grinds. He told me my mother is high maintenance. Shocker. Still, I'll take that over hearing that I'm Amish and there's a dead sea caption drinking in my dining room.

This is after a lot of grappa:



One of my coworkers has purple-gray hands. We’ve been calling him Cadaver Hands. Sometimes when I’m tempted to snack at my desk, I imagine Cadaver Hands passing me a potato chip. It’s really quite effective.

Wow, man, 400 hours. If I’d used that time differently, I could have lost five pounds. Or given my notice.

What if aliens occasionally land on Earth to see how the human race is progressing? What if they keep landing in really unfortunate places? Like Paris Hilton’s house. Or the house of the Jersey Shore beef patties.



I can just see the aliens' memo to the Supreme Leader: "Cockroach still most intelligent form of life. Will try again in 3010.”

I know Paris Hilton is an easy target, but she still turns my stomach. I believe that people with wealth and power should do their part to better society. I bet if she sold her handbag collection, she could feed a small country with the profits. Maybe she needs a philanthropic advisor. If she gave me a million dollars to play with, I'd start a foundation that would enable mothers with shitty maternity leave to spend an entire year at home with their baby (assuming they wanted to). I would call it the Paris Isn’t a Total Selfish Douche Foundation. Thoughts?

I still haven’t stuffed anything. Because I've been blogging. Duh.

For more randomness, go see the Un Mom. She's blogged 400 hours today alone.

We can name him Dill

You know, I’m pretty amazing for having the self-confidence to admit that my own husband turned me down. Not every woman can hear “no thanks” without being reduced to tears. Never mind the heckling from the stuffed lamb.

I rock (just apparently not the bed).

As I suspected, there was more to Chuck’s abstinence than mere fatigue and a desire to wash dishes. After a weekend of barraging him with “You think I’m fat!” and “Admit it! You’re boffing the bonbon again!” he came clean.

Turns out Chuck is scared. Why? Because I recently had a barbaric, tortuous device known as an IUD extracted from my innards.

In case you didn’t know, IUD stands for I Understand Dying...Pain. I’m sure there are hundreds of you with IUDs who don’t have the faintest idea of what I’m talking about. If the ParaGard or Mirena people asked you to be their spokesperson you’d jump at the chance. Me? Never!

For one year that damn thing has caused me stabbing, crippling pain—pain that ran down my legs and up my sides. Seriously, it brought tears to my eyes. The doctor assured me the IUD was in the right place. Again. And again. I paid copay after copay, just to hear “Everything looks good, Mrs. Mullet. Great to see your hooch again.”

Two weeks ago, I couldn’t take it anymore: I got the damn thing out.

It was a beautiful feeling. (I actually asked the doctor if I could take it home and set it on fire, but apparently they sterilize them and reuse them. I’m kidding. So kidding! They sell them to summer camps for crafts projects.)

Before I left, the doctor asked me what I was planning to use for birth control.

“I’m going to cough really hard after sex,” I said.

She looked me in the eye and said, “You realize that after you leave this office, you could get pregnant at any time. Any time.” She gave me a second to digest the weight of her words, but all I could picture was a giant penis walking down the street and accosting me at my car. Bam! Prego in the doctor’s parking lot. I felt as fertile as a dewy daisy…

Then, the smackdown.

“Of course, you’re 35 now,” she said. “You’re in a different category.”

“What category is that?”

“The mature category.”

“But I’m not mature. I was just picturing a cartoon penis impregnating me on the hood of my car.”

“Sorry sister, your eggs are pickled from booze and crusty with age.”

“So I’m fertile, but I’d probably birth a geriatric gherkin?

“Exactly.”

You see, Chuck? There’s nothing to be scared of. An old pickle won’t keep us up all night or cry for no reason. An old pickle won’t cost us $200,000 to send to college. We'll be the happiest family ever. In fact, if the pickle comes out ok, we could even try for a Pepperoncini.

I know, I know, I'm pushing it.

Beware of what's lurking under your sheets

Mrs. Mullet: “So...Chuckster...you wanna?” Wink, wink.

Chuck: “That’s okay.”

Mrs. Mullet: “That’s okay?”

Chuck: “Tonight’s not a good night.”

Mrs. Mullet: “Why not?”

Chuck: “Junior was exhausting today. I don’t have it in me.”

Mrs. Mullet: “But I'm tired from working all day, and I'm willing to rally. What if I—”

Chuck: “No thank you.”

Mrs. Mullet: “Not even if I—”

Chuck: “[Sigh] I said no. I’m going to go finish the dishes now. I'm sorry.”

After Chuck got up, I reached under me and pulled this out



“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“I can’t be sure,” it replied, “but do you need a magazine and box of tissues? Cause that’s how most dudes handle this situation.”

Random Tuesday Thoughts: What happened to all the flashers?

I had my hair cut and colored on Monday. I'm now a saucy redhead with a "mom" haircut. Talk about an identity crisis.

The colorist who made me red assured me that she only saw one gray hair. Up until now, I’ve only ever found seven gray hairs. I plucked them all and put them in my change purse. I have no idea why. I think I may have contemplated taking them to a dungeon and torturing them.

They all came from the exact same spot on my head. I envision their creation like this: When something stressful happens and I have the “Oh shit, I can’t handle this” thought, all the stress juice shoots up to that one hair follicle, and out pops a gray hair. Much like you get a gumball when you stick in your quarter, I get my reoccurring gray hair.

I find comfort in that.

My QVC make-up came. I guess I ordered the kit for dummies.



Who knows where I might have put that if they hadn't labeled it.

Junior had tubes put in his ears this morning. I had thought they'd look like straws, but they're actually the size of pencil tips. The doctor said he had what they call "glue ear" (when the ear fluid is extra goopy). I think that will make for a really special entry in his baby book.

While Junior and I were on the recovery floor, a harpist played music. Not too shabby for the Mulletville hospital. When it was time to go I almost said "No thanks, I'll stay here a little longer. And could someone bring me a cup of coffee and some fluffy slippers?"

I found comfort in just imagining that.

I think Chuck, Junior and I should get frequent flyer miles from the Mulletville hospital—or at least a commemorative plaque. Between Junior's birth, Chuck's ass and kidney stones, my sprained ankle and busted neck, we must have earned two tickets to Hawaii by now? Or at least a roll in the hay with the harpist?

Hah! That's so my hair color talking.