Random Tuesday thoughts: Looking behind

When I told Chuck I was heading upstairs to blog just now, he reminded me that I blogged last night too. Then he said that blogging two days in a row is overkill. Some days I feel like he's my manager—the kind I’d like to fire.

We vacuumed and cleaned tonight because Chuck’s having surgery tomorrow and will be spending the next few weeks in bed, and I don’t want to trip over dust balls as I tend to the patient. He stocked his man room with new DVDs and video games. He joked that he needs a little bell to ring so that I know when to bring him snacks. Some days I feel like he's a real pain in my ass—the kind for which I’d like surgery.

It’s a good thing I have health insurance through my job because I’d be really pissed if something like Chuck’s derriere bankrupted us. Things in Mulletville are unglamorous enough without having to explain that to the bank. “We were doing fine, sir, until my husband’s hiney started acting up…”

My mother is spending tomorrow night with us so she can help with Junior while I assess Chuck’s progress. She’s intent on calling him the Butt Patient instead of the English Patient. Some days I feel like I did something to piss off the universe.

I’d like to put the jokes behind us now and wish Chuck a speedy recovery. He’s nervous as hell, but I know the surgery will be a slam badonkadonk—I mean dunk. I love you honey, and when you’re all better, we’ll celebrate with a nice big toast. Of Metamucil smoothies.

Thanks, Un Mom. I'm glad I wasn't the only one with a Tuesday predilection towards posteriors. (Oh, come on. I'm trying to be mature about this whole butt issue, but it's hard coming up with eloquent words for anus. There I said it. Ew.)

When I got home I found dinner rolls in my pockets

I hate small talk. I hate making it. I hate listening to it. I hate nodding.

But there I was yesterday at Amye’s bridal shower, stuck at a table with aunts and cousins I'd never met. We were the low men on the totem pole (we were sitting under the coat rack) and no one was talking. Not one person. We were a collection of the most stubborn—or socially awkward people—ever.

Having psychically intuited the sucky table thing, I had shot-gunned a beer in the parking lot (thank you, Chuck, for leaving that 6-pack from your camping trip in the trunk). The beer, along with the large glass of wine I slammed upon sitting down, made me uncharacteristically friendly. In honor of my socially adept husband, I said, “Hi, I’m Mrs. Mullet. I am a friend of Amye’s. How do you all know Amye?”

Then I smiled real big. I had given up an entire day with Junior to go to the stupid shower, and I was not going to sit there in uncomfortable silence. I was going to make friends, dammit.

We went around the table like a bunch of kindergartners and when we were done, it sounded like this:



So I kept firing. What did everyone do? Wasn’t Amye going to be a beautiful bride? Wasn’t the salad delicious? Did anyone else’s ass hurt from the chair? Was anyone at the table actually alive?

Nothing.

I bet you didn’t know it, but similar to grieving, there are steps to the I’m-in-bridal-shower-table-hell. They go like this:

1) Denial
I clung to the naïve hope that my table would improve. I also tried to ignore the facial pain that came from smiling at nothing.

2) Acceptance
I finally accepted that my table would always suck.

3) Acclimation
I maintained my wine intake. Then I said pedestrian things like, “I think it’s raining” just to hear something other than Amye’s future mother-in-law shout, “Rick-yyyyyy loves his Am-yeeeeee.”

4) Anger and belligerence
I began an internal dialogue mocking people. I found my internal commentary hilarious. I laughed out loud.

5) Pain
I realized the room was spinning.

6) Reliance on friends
I excused myself to the parking lot to drunk dial my enchilada cousin, Lauren. I professed my love when she offered to bring me to her house to sober up.

7) Revisit grief before moving on
I went back inside to say good-bye. I tripped over people at my sucky table as I tried to get my coat off the coat rack, accidentally pulling hair and elbowing breasts. When no one protested, I realized I was, in fact, sitting with zombies (that’s for you, Keely).

So yes, um, even though I had a pounding headache at 3 p.m. because of all the sulfites in the cheap boxed wine, I had a lovely heart-to-heart with Lauren.

Turns out she didn’t want to get her tubes tied after seeing Junior. It was all a big misunderstanding. We laughed. We cried. We ate cold nachos. I could have done without the nail that sliced into my foot as I walked through her house, which she’s in the middle of gutting, but you know what? At least I wasn’t at that table. Although I did miss the look on Amye’s face as she opened her present. No, it wasn’t my vagina. It was a chenille throw and candle set from Restoration Hardware. I do have some class, youse knows.

It bothers me that he looks so at ease in his mullet

I took Junior to the park in Mulletville yesterday. What stood out: A man who was losing his pants dashed across the playground to stop his seven-year-old from pulling down his pants and taking a tug (too late). A mother yelled at her daughter for $#%*ing touching the fence because it "had bad shit that could kill" you. Another woman snuffed out her butt on the edge of the swing set.

I felt depressed.

Today my father and I took Junior to visit my brother, Teddy, in Boston. Chuck was home suffering from a condition I'm not supposed to blog about (he's having surgery on Wednesday). We took Junior to the park. What stood out: A nicely coiffed man and his toddler son let Junior play with their inflatable ball, which was covered in pictures of cheery animals. A woman played pretend airplane with her kids and didn't use the words "youse" or "fuckhead" once. A group of smiling mommies befriended me and after talking to them, I felt the opposite of depressed.

Junior, the time to trade your mullet locks for a proper haircut is getting really, really close.



P.S. I know there are flashers, spitters, cussers and germaphobes in Boston, too, but this is my pity party so for now let's just pretend the sun shines everywhere else but in Mulletville? O-freaken-k?

This post is full of goo...d stuff

Ever since this post I’ve been thinking a lot about my friend, Sarah. She moved to England a year ago to be with her British soulmate and I miss her, mostly because she’s weirder than me and I didn’t think that was possible.

Before she moved, Sarah and I worked for the same company. She lived with The Wendy in Stamford, where our office was, and I lived in New Haven, which was 35 miles away.

You would think a 35-mile commute would take 45 minutes tops, but if you’ve ever driven on I-95 or the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut during rush hour, you know I am not exaggerating when I say it took me two hours to get to work. Each way. Add rain or snow and you’re talking four to six hours.

The commuter train might seem like an attractive alternative, but:

1. The bar car served piss poor beer

2. The 5,000-carat diamonds that adorned the hands and wrists of Fairfield County women took up all the seats

3. After I got off the train I had to walk two miles to work through the ghetto, and for some reason my walk always coincided with the methadone clinic’s field trip

So into the car I went.

Understandably, I was obsessed with traffic reports. I needed to know at all times what was happening on the highways. When I had friends over, I didn’t play music—I put on the traffic channel. When I met new people and they asked me what my hobbies were, I said "traffic."

I also had terrible road rage. During my commute, I daydreamed about pimping out my car with destruction devices, like machine gun headlights. I drew up plans for Go-Go-Gadget legs for my car that would enable me to drive above my fellow commuters while spewing out acid and rockets to destroy them.

So there I was, plotting highway homicides, and there Sarah was, trying to escape The Wendy. It made perfect sense that our after-work routine became this:

1. Stop at Sarah’s apartment for overnight bag

2. Stop at liquor store for Mrs. Mullet’s nightly fix

3. Have Sarah drive Mrs. Mullet’s car back to New Haven while Mrs. Mullet drank and mooned/shouted drunken obscenities at fellow commuters

4. Make up couch for Sarah

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Then one night during the winter, Sarah slept over with the following stipulation: She had had a gyno exam that day and desperately wanted to shower when we got to my apartment. When we got back to my place, however, there was no hot water. I called my landlord and he assured me that in the morning, the pipes would be unfrozen and the hot water would be plentiful.

Mwaahahaha.

Not only was there no hot water in the morning, there was a terrible accident on the highway. The roads to work were gridlocked; we had to take the train. Sarah was sort of a good sport about having greasy hair and an…amply lubricated hoo-hah until the conductor came on to say that the tracks ahead were frozen and we had to get off the train at the next station and wait.

That's when I really started to feel bad. It feels disgusting just sitting in the car after the gyno—they use enough lube to coat a rhinoceros—never mind going two days without a shower, then standing on a crowded train platform for an hour in sub-zero temperatures—all in an effort to get to work.

And we hadn’t even been heckled by the crackheads yet.

The moral of the story is this: Cars should have secret death rays and showers. And tinted windows. And gurgling fountains of Stella beer. Hold the K-Y.

Life can be such a bridge

Chuck’s been laid up in bed the last two days with kidney stone issues—do I need to take him in more often for servicing?—so the ex-nanny came yesterday. Her son grew a buttload of crooked teeth, giving him a distinct Ferengi look, but I was pleased Junior’s nickname is still intact.

As she was packing up her stuff to leave, Diana told me that Junior was saying the…[here she paused, looking for the right word]…darndest thing.

“Yes?” I asked.

“He was saying, ‘Come on…bitch. Come on, bitch’.”

“What???”

“When he was playing with his Thomas the train set—”

“—Bridge! He meant bridge. That’s how he says bridge.”

“Oh! Of course. He was trying to piece the tracks together to make a tunnel, but they wouldn’t fit. Ooooohhhhhhhhh.”

We had a good wholesome chuckle then. Still, as she dragged her child and cheese and loaf of bread to her car, I couldn’t help but wonder what she’d been envisioning all afternoon before we cleared the matter up: Me smacking Chuck’s ass in front of Junior and nodding towards the bedroom, saying, “Come on, bitch”?

Oops, I mean my Chuck slapping my ass.

Mrs. Mullet, you are not the dude.

I'd like to buy the world a Coke

Oh my, I just about peed my pants. After I wrote that I have yet to meet a Wendy that wasn't “a little nuts”, a Wendy wrote a post on her Wendy Channel blog asking all the Wendys if they thought they were crazy.

Hoards—ok, six—Wendys stopped by to say that they aren’t nuts. Isn’t that cute? (Except for the one who slammed me for not wanting to give my kid someone’s chewed-on sippy cups. I’m a member of Freecycle too, FYI. I also pick plastic bottles out of garbage bins to take them home to recycle—my boss yelled at me for doing this during a work function—so don’t assume I don’t care about my planet. Did you not read my letter to Dixie?)

Ahem.

Since the majority consensus is that Wendys are nice, normal, skinny people, I’d like to tell you about the craziest Wendy I knew and then we can all move on. And be friends. And drink from crusty, gnawed-on cups together.

(I’m kidding, Wendy!)

Remember my friend, Sarah? The one whom my dad thought I was running away with when really I was trying to tell him I was prego? Her roommate was The Wendy of All Wendys.

The Wendy was about 6 feet tall with Bon Jovi hair. I only ever saw glimpses of her buxom khaki bottom. To me, she was like Sasquatch. To Sarah, she was Satan. The Wendy hated Sarah. If Sarah stacked ice cube trays on top of each other, The Wendy would freak out because she said the dirt from the bottom of the tray contaminated the water. She smoked (i.e. inhaled carcinogens), but no, the ice cube microbes could kill her.

If The Wendy was in the kitchen making dinner, she did not want Sarah in there cooking. If The Wendy was about to go into the bathroom, she did not want Sarah anywhere near the bathroom because once, the wind blew a bookcase over and it made the bathroom door jingle while The Wendy was taking a bath, and The Wendy was convinced Sarah was trying to break down the door. The Wendy did not like her tub time rushed.

This went on for months.

One morning, as Sarah was putting her things into her car before work, she looked around the cute neighborhood in which she was a renter and thought to herself, For $495 a month, I can live with The Wendy. The birds are chirping. The kids are waiting for the school bus. I feel safe, and my commute is short. Life is good.

And then, from an upstairs window came the voice:

“You’re a LEEEEEEEWSER.”

Sarah looked around. She thought maybe one of the neighbor’s kids was yelling at a kid at the bus stop.

Then, louder: “LEEEEEEEEWSER. You’re a LEEEEEEEWWSER. LEWSER LEWSER LEWSER.”

The voice was coming from Sarah’s apartment. The Wendy had opened the window and was yelling at the top of her lungs. It was 7:30 a.m. Kids snickered. Parents waiting with their children looked away.

“Big fat LEEEEEEEEWSER. You’re a stupid LEEEEEEEWWSER. Sarah’s a LEEEEEEEEEWSER.”

Sarah moved out a month later. Sarah saw Wendy once in town when we were driving; she tried to point her out, but she looked just like this:



(Except that The Wendy was getting on a bus and not running through the woods.)

So look, I’ve only known three Wendys—four if you count the fast food chain—so yah, I was talking out of my ass about all Wendys being a little off. But experience is relative. And look at the source. I decided to give my friend my vagina for her bridal present. If that doesn’t mend fences you’ve just proven me right.

She doesn't even eat bagels

I’m tired of texting. Especially after typing all week at work. I’d like to, you know, talk. But I understand that some of my friends—friends like Amye who don’t read this blog and therefore will be oblivious to the fact that I am unabashedly writing about them oh God it feels so good to be free of polite constraints yes! yes! yes!—prefer texting, so I do my best to accommodate.

(Although I will not text you back if I call you first and instead of answering, you text me “what’s up?” Pick up your damn phone, that’s what’s up.)

Ah, modern technology.

Yesterday, after I wrote about Chuck’s “no pants Friday,” I texted the abridged version to Amye. Amye is getting married in two months and is having her bridal shower next weekend. I was at the mall with Junior shopping for her gift when she texted me back: “Chuck needs 2 get a job.”

Great, Larry’s back. With breasts.

I put down my phone to peruse Amye’s registry and was delighted to see that like many soon-to-be newlyweds, she had registered for a bunch of overpriced, useless shit like Ralph Lauren Spa Organic bath towels, a Two-In-One Citrus Juicer and Bagel Biter. Come on people, you were able to squeeze limes by hand and cut a bagel with a knife before you got married—what makes you think you won’t be able to after you say “I do”?

Oh right, you’ll be too busy bickering about who didn’t fold the laundry to squeeze that lime the old fashioned way. Of course.

I refrained from writing something snarky and texted the obligatory “LOL” and “Chuck needs 2 put his pants on.” To which she responded: “Would be happy if my man didn’t have pants on but am not married w/kid yet.”

Oh Amye, you sly little fox. I’ve decided that instead of buying you your precious citrus pulverizer and bagel guillotine I am giving you my vagina. Apparently I don’t need it anymore and heck, with the hours you’ll save prepping in the kitchen you could probably use another one.

It got me wondering, what would happen if we tried this at work?

Yesterday when I got home from work, Junior was hanging out in his diaper and Chuck was lounging in his underwear. When I inquired as to why no one was dressed, Chuck told me that henceforth, Friday will be known as "no pants Friday."

Kinda makes Hawaiian Shirt Friday seem tame. Kinda leaves me speechless.

I'm the nice one, dammit

Work is kicking my butt lately. So is microwaving sponges. You know what else has been keeping me busy? Setting out to prove that when you’re in a relationship, it’s more stressful to be the neat one than the sloppy one.

Apparently Suzanne Britt is the only person who’s tackled this topic, and her conclusions suck. Neat people are not lazier and meaner than sloppy people. I know that because I’m a neat person, and I am nice, reasonable and hardworking. And attractive. All I ask is that:

a) when I lay my head on my pillow at night, my kitchen counters be crumb-free
b) there be no garbage pail overflow
c) wet towels not be left on the floor
d) seasonal décor be banished to the basement in a timely manner
e) canned goods be alphabetized and sorted according to height
f) the clothes in the closet face the same way

Kidding! (About e.)

Now that you know all about me, let me tell you about how I suffer:

Me, at 9:00 p.m.: “Remember it’s garbage night, sweetie? I love you.”

Chuck: “I’ll do it.”

Me, at 9:45 p.m. “It’s getting late. Honey.” (Note the small increase in my stress level as the neat person who’d like to go to bed and know that all rubbish has been allocated to its rightful spot.)

Chuck: “Yup.”

Me, at 10 p.m.: “Shall I take out the garbage?” (Note the attempt of the neat person to remedy the situation. Also note that the neat person is starting to get pissed off.)

Chuck: “Relax.”

Me, at 10:01 p.m.: "You lazy, rotten piece of shit. I ask you to do one simple thing and you won't. What is wrong with you? Why won't you get up and just take out the garbage?"

Chuck:"Relax."

Let’s pause here for the introduction of some crucial information: If I ask Chuck more than three times to do something, he actually starts adding hours to the ETC (estimated time of completion) of the task. Which means that if he was going to take out the trash at 10:15, he’s now going to wait until 11:15 p.m. just to make me suffer.

You think I’m kidding? There have been entire months where that man has pushed the garbage to the curb at 1 a.m. just to prove his point. Do you have any idea what it’s like to try to go to sleep knowing that your husband is sitting on the couch mindlessly dropping crumbs on the floor, not taking out the garbage just to mentally torture you? You: The nice neat person, the doer, the one who gets things done!

And do you know that after he’s done—finally!—taking out the garbage, he throws his pants on the floor—even though the laundry basket is sitting right next to it—before he climbs into bed? Then he has the nerve to immediately fall asleep.

Quick recap? Case study #1: Garbage night. Me: Ire-incited insomnia. Chuck: Unperturbed slumber.

This is my first installment of “The Woes of the Well-kept.” Tune in next time for Case Study #2: "Still pissed about Garbage night."

Random Tuesday thoughts: The Sponge

I think I am officially obsessed with this meme. I'm starting to look forward to Tuesday as a day to clear out the mental cobwebs, and I have this woman to thank.

I wasn't aware of how little I was paying attention to the woman who popped into my office today until she pointed toward my file cabinets and asked, "Is that an armadillo?" She was so certain, I had to turn and look. Turns out it was my overturned sneaker. After she left I made fun of her, but not myself.

My grandmother's mother-in-law was determined to turn her into a proficient pie maker. Even with the lessons, my grandmother botched them all up. When no one was looking, she’d bury the inedible pies in the backyard. I guess I officially know from where I got the "I suck in the kitchen" gene.

You know that commercial where the mom wipes a counter with a raw chicken and it’s supposed to illustrate how your sponge is a cesspool of germs and flesh-eating bacteria? That commercial makes me think of my mother because when she’s at my house—like she was on Saturday night so Chuck and I could go out—she uses my sponge for everything. Still, I never imagined this (she swears she accidentally brought it here after she did the dishes, but I have my doubts):



The booger is gone. The "walking?" comments have ceased. If it's true that once I blog about something it rectifies itself, then my next post is going to be entitled "My jeans are tight and I don't have a pool boy."

There should be a "I blog broke up with you because..." form letter. It would come in handy for those times when you think one of your biggest fans has just been MIA from the blogosphere but you stumble upon her comments on every site you visit and then it hits you, you've been blumped (or dumpogged, whichever you prefer).

Maybe I'm just bitter. LY honest

Oh me, oh my. I really needed a good laugh today. You see:

a) Junior’s been up since 5:30 a.m. and

b) My office is closed because of an electrical tripped wire cable axle triple wedgie something or other so even though I was exhausted, I stood in for Chuck at Junior’s story time. Don’t worry, this post isn’t about story time, although I will say this: That circle of women is hard to infiltrate. And this ain’t no Country Club. It’s the Mulletville public library. If you’re sportin’ pilled sweats and a greasy mullet you should be smiling at the world (i.e. me) just because.

So here I am, slugging back coffee, trying to recover from a weekend of socializing and a morning of snooty mulletheads when I got a message that this blogger is following me on Twitter.

I’m pretty certain she’s not a humor blogger, but when I read her tweets I laughed out loud:

The power of birth strengthens me. I am not afraid.

I will give birth without complications.

I trust in my ability to give birth naturally and easily.

Ah, shit, that’s some funny stuff.

If you had a blissful, 100% natural labor and delivery you might wonder why the hell these comments are so funny, but you have to understand, I was in labor for four months, had 27 epidurals and was shot up with horse tranquilizers.* When Chuck removed my teeth from his hand as I went into hour 40, he suggested I go to my Happy Place, and do you know what I pictured? I pictured myself standing in the middle of the road outside the hospital getting flattened by one of Connecticut’s big, blue commuter buses.

It was the only image that brought me any peace.

I know there are women out there who think labor is a walk in the park**—I’m friends with some of them—and if that’s you, I’m honestly very happy for you and not at all jealous or spiteful. But to my dear friend Jen, who’s due in August and so brilliantly decided that she is taking her pregnancy one day at a time and not freaking out about labor until she has to, I have one thing to say: Don’t be a fuckhead—take the epidural if you need it. If you wait too long you may find yourself hunched over, sobbing and vomiting into some nurse’s FFF breasts while envisioning yourself being creamed by this:



*Slight exaggeration

** Please don’t leave me comments that Jen shouldn’t take the epidural. This is my letter to my friend. If you’d like to tell Jen something directly, click here.

If I start to grow facial hair I'm gonna be pissed

I’d like to switch gears and talk about a serious matter—a matter called “What happens when you and your partner switch roles so completely you no longer know if you should pee sitting down or standing up.”

Let me be clear: I am in no way suggesting that my husband is any less of a man because he is the one who’s home full-time with Junior. He’s 100% certified man beef.

But.

Chuck’s going into month #3 of being a stay-at-home dad, and some days I feel like the dude. Take yesterday. I called home to see if he and Junior would be up for a lunch date. When Chuck told me Junior was still napping, I said, “Well, I guess it’s silly to come home.”

To which Chuck replied, “So I guess it’s silly to come home on your lunch hour just to see your husband. I made stew. Harrumph.”

(I waited for him to try to lure me home with sexy attire, but he wouldn’t take the bait).

And that night! I walked in the door, ripped off my shoes and just Wanted.A.Beer and he started telling me about the utility repair guy and Junior’s new word and the weekend forecast, and when I told him I needed a minute, he got all hurt and said he was sorry: He hadn’t had any adult conversation all day and just wanted to talk.

My husband wanted to talk.

With words.

Oh, you sneaky universe you! You just handed me a big ass plate of What I Wanted in a Husband and well, honk my hooters, I think—heh heh—I’d like a side of This Feels Somewhat Strange to go along with it.

The thing is, I like Chuck as a stay-at-home dad. When we’re home together, he’s quicker to pitch in because he knows Junior better (and I don’t mean better than me, I mean better than the Chuck who worked 65 hours a week). He’s made dinner a few times. He even did a load of laundry (I said one; let’s not call in the clowns just yet). But he catches me off guard with his mommyisms. Like when he tells me we need to monitor Junior’s poo because it’s a little too pellet-like (duh, he has CMD). Or when he recommends we go to the other grocery store because they’re having a special on grapes.

Not to say that only mommies know about their kids’ turds or weekly circulars but, let’s be honest, for a long time they have been the ones at home in the throes of, well, turds and weekly circulars.

And last year at this time I was the one who was home full-time and I was the one who wanted to talk. So there's a little bit of See, this is how it feels to be cooped up with a kid all winter. But now I know how Chuck felt when he walked through the door after a long day at work and he didn't want me to hand Junior to him before he'd gotten a chance to take off his coat.

Blah, blah, blah. If you’ve nodded off or clickety clacked elsewhere already then good, I can say something private to my husband:

You’re doing a great job. You’re the best dad in the world. I’m sorry the moms at story time won’t let you into their circle, but I don’t want you talking to other women anyway.

(This post was 100% certified by Chuck. I didn’t want him thinking his manhood was under attack by me; he gets enough of that from this man.)

Hi, is Banana Republic there? Yeh, hi...I kind of owe you $150

Something terrible happened today.

I went to the mall in search of a dress to wear to a fancy dinner party Chuck and I have been invited to on Saturday night. Pre-Junior I was a size 6. Post-Junior I am a size...

Oh, what the hell does it matter?

The only thing that matters is that I barricaded myself in the dressing room of fricken Banana Republic in the hope against hopes that I could get one of their flouncy, flirty, made-for-sticks spring dresses on to my pasty body, and I did!

But I couldn’t get it off.

No really.

I actually tried bending over so I could stretch my hands behind my back and hoist it over my head and that’s when all the material fell forward and I started suffocating in a sea of green silk. Sweat was pouring. My heart was pounding. The material had no give my God I was trying to hog tie myself.

Then I had a vision of my accidental asphyxiation and how I’d look if the salesclerks found me in a tangle of half nude, half green battle. I’ll tell you how I’d look: like a human molting experiment gone terribly wrong. And you know how they are—those snooty Banana salesclerks—they’d take one look at me and tsk, tsk my inability to recognize that someone larger than a size 2 could not possibly slip into one of their trendy dresses without some kind of epic throw down.

They’d pick up their snooty little phones and call Headquarters and say, “Another fat one bit it. Poor dress.” Then they’d take my picture and hang it on their corkboard dedicated to “people who have died trying to wear our clothes.”

So you see, when I say that I had no choice about what to do next, I am not lying. I knew that dress looked terrible (how could it not? It pinched and pulled in places I didn’t even know I had malleable flesh). There was no way in hell I was wearing it out the door just because I couldn’t get it off. My reputation was at stake.

So like Bruce Banner, I gave one giant snort and busted through the seams.

If you must know, I lay there afterward in the fetal position and wept.

Then I got the hell out of there.

(Psst, Chuck? This is why when you asked, “I thought you were getting a dress the party’s in two days?!” I threw my shoe at your head.)

[It's still] Tuesday Random thoughts

I dreamed last night that I was at a party and that every time I sat down, Jason Segel from Freaks and Geeks would sit on my lap to prevent me from standing up. Now I don’t like him.

When my coworker and I walk on our lunch hour, why do fellow workers feel the need to lean out of their cars and call out, “Walking?” Isn’t it obvious? And why doesn’t this compulsion to comment extend to other acts? Why don’t they ask, “Eating?” when I’m sitting in the lunchroom with my sandwich? Or “urinating?” as I’m about to go into the bathroom?

Why does it have to be so much fun to fib to little kids? Chuck gets mad when I suggest we tell Junior we’re Wolf People and that on Sunday nights we howl at the moon. I’m dying to see if Junior would do it. I think Chuck is scared to leave me alone with Junior.

I don’t like how everyone has been saying “I’ll reach out to you tomorrow” instead of “I’ll call you tomorrow.” This isn’t Message in a Bottle; dial your damn phone and stop being such a freak.

Why am I such a bad judge of character? My first impressions of people are always completely wrong. I think it’s related somehow to my backwards sense of direction. Maybe if I walked on my hands, my brain would process things more accurately. Of course, then people would ask, “Hand-walking?”

I wonder if Keely is sick of Tuesdays?

And finally, the sight of this empty plate today felt like the end of a very long journey.



RIP you sons of bitches.

I thought I handled the butt segway quite nicely, though this post is a total pity party

It’s been a month since this fiasco, so I wasn’t surprised when I woke up Friday and felt the urge to birth another culinary piece of shit (I told you, it comes on like PMS).

I could see the cupcakes in my mind: moist, chocolate, piled high with frosting and handcrafted purple flowers. Huge.Ass.Cupcakes. They’d be perfect for the going away party my friends and I were throwing our friend, Jen. (She’s decided to join the movement of Mrs. Mullet’s friends who get pregnant and move far away. Sniffle.)

My mother, Linda, offered to come up that night and help since Chuck was camping all weekend and she knows it’s impossible to pour a bowl of cereal in the company of a toddler, never mind bake.

By 10 p.m. we were the proud parents of 18 Huge.Ass.Cupcakes.

I thought Linda might hit the road but instead she told me she would spend the night since we hadn’t decorated the cupcakes and she could not bear to have the cupcakes adorned with anything other than her beloved Mary Oliver frosting. I had no idea who the hell Mary Oliver was but according to my mother, the recipe (below) was far too complex for a beginner like me.

Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Let cool. Mix in remaining ingredients. Place bowl in pan of very cold water and beat until creamy.

(I can’t imagine why I suffer from feelings of gross inadequacy.)

So we Mary Olivered the cupcakes Saturday morning. I won’t lie: by then, I was sick of the stupid cupcakes. I didn’t care anymore about topping them with handmade purple flowers. The fact that they were edible was enough for me.

But Linda. Always the Martha Stewart, she wouldn't let me send them out into the world without some kind of decorative flair. So while Junior and I visited my grandmother at the old folk’s home, Linda set out to find The Perfect Topping.

Fast forward to Sunday, the day of the party. I met my mother in a commuter parking lot so I could get the Perfect Topping toppers. She had looked high and low for something flower-like, but all she'd been able to find were pastel nonpareils shaped like lopsided breasts. She had put them on ice in a cooler like she was a paramedic transporting an organ.

By then I hated the cupcakes. I think she did too.

Minutes later, I arrived at the party only to discover that—gasp! sputter!—the table was covered with desserts: chocolate fondue, chocolate cheesecake with chocolate chips, brownies, cookies.

Wahwahwaaaahhh.

By then I wanted to cram the cupcakes up my butt and launch them across the room (speaking of which, there was a mother at the party whose seven-year-old thinks her vagina is actually part of her very big butt crack and the mother doesn’t intend to enlighten her. I can just imagine what surprises lay ahead when a boy tells the girl she can’t get pregnant if they have butt sex. D’oh!)

When all was said and done, I ended up taking 10 of the 18 cupcakes back to Mulletville. When I passed my mother’s exit, I chucked one out the window in her honor.

The cupcakes spent Sunday night in my car. I had planned on bringing them to work this morning and sharing them in all their Mary Oliver glory, but I took the wrong car to work so they sat in my driveway all day.

And you know what? I had a really crappy day. And I kid you not—I really was craving a fucking cupcake.

The end.

I got nothin'

Chuck's been camping all weekend. Junior's been waking up at 6:30. I'd like to shower. But most of all, with every cell of my being, I'd like to get this song out of my head.



Can anyone help me?

(Doesn't Percy look a little like Dan Akroyd?)

They made me do it

I always promise myself that I will not blog about work, but I can’t help it. People keep doing stupid things.

Like this morning, as I was walking to the bathroom, I overheard one of the new, young guys talking to another new, young guy (hey, at least my company isn’t outsourcing overseas) about my skinny-but-thinks-she’s-fat co-worker former friend, Danielle.

Boy A: “Yah, she’s hot.”

Boy B: “Mmmmhmmm.”

Boy A [looking at Boy B in complete seriousness]: “The problem with chicks is you never know which ones are crazy.”

News flash #1: She’s one of the crazy ones.

News flash #2: You think women are crazy now, at the age of 21? Just wait until you’re married and have a kid and your wife has gotten 0.3 hours of sleep because you’re sleeping downstairs because you have to go to work in the morning and you finally answer her calls for more formula after making her scream at the top of the stairs for an hour and you come up the stairs and rub your eyes and ask why she’s so upset and she hucks a bottle at you and it ricochets off the wall and she laughs maniacally because she was going for your eyeballs and wishes she had knocked you unconscious.

Later that afternoon I had the privilege of sitting in on one of the meetings of the Higher Ups. On the agenda: “Designated breast pumping quadrants."

Really? Quadrants? Because we work on Deep Space 9?

The short version of the story is that there’s a new mom in the office who wants someplace quiet and private to pump (i.e., not the germy bathroom that oftentimes reeks of poo because of this woman). So the company president appointed a Breast Pumping Committee of 70-year-old men who were charged with establishing a breast pumping area and guidelines. The meeting went something like this:

“How much time will the mother need? A few hours?”

“Er, on each, er, um, br…br…how much time, exactly?”

“Let’s put her in the room with the photocopier.”

“But people will have to get their copies.”

“We’ll put a sign on the door.”

“What should the sign say?”

“We don’t need to go into specifics. How about ‘meeting in progress’?”

“Yes, but what about the photocopies? People will want their Xeroxes.”

“She’ll need a chair to sit in. There’s no chair in there.”

“Ask Tony in Purchasing for a furniture catalog—”

“—I’m still concerned about access to the copier…”

“Now what type of chair should we get her?”

They all looked at me then; I just shrugged my shoulders.

“We’ll get her a recliner.”

“Yes, a recliner.”

News flash #1: If you put a recliner in a secluded office, it's highly probable that Dennis from IT will fall asleep there with his hands down his pants, which, in my opinion, makes a secluded bathroom stall quite attractive.

News flash #2: I’m beginning to think that I am a crazy one in a very vast, looming sea of crazies.

At least I didn't throw my bra. That's the good part, right?

The last time my mother came to my house, she wanted to talk again about the bitchy enchilada and I had had enough to drink that I was receptive to a night of rehashed family drama; the next thing I knew I was making up the spare bed for her. In the morning, she asked if she could borrow a pair of underwear. (If you like the word panties just go away. It’s underwear.)

I have no problem loaning underwear, but:

a) I don’t ever want it back

b) after you’ve borrowed it, I don’t want you to tell me how comfortable/soft/nice it is because then I will have to picture you in it and that would probably make me vomit

I thought my mother knew about a & b.

Alas.

There I was at the pediatrician’s this morning, listening as he explained that Junior does not have Fifth Disease, he has a fixed drug eruption. You have to understand, after the “doctors” we've seen, I was so very grateful for an informed diagnosis. I said “thank you” a million times. I mean, Jesus, I was one knuckle short of giving him a hand job when I reached into the diaper bag for something to wipe Junior’s nose with and pulled out...

...pale blue bikini underwear.

Which I unraveled and looked at questioningly before realizing what the hell they were.

Pale blue bikini underwear.

Do you know what he said? “Mrs. Mullet, this isn’t a rock concert.”

Looking back on it (oh shut up, you'd look back too), it was probably the most appropriate thing he could have said.

When I got home I called my mother. She told me that after washing the underwear she stuffed it into the bag most conveniently located to her purse—which just happened to be Junior’s diaper bag—when she and I met at my grandmother’s.

I hung up after she snorted.

If you’re a doctor and you’d like to know more about Fifth Disease because you keep misdiagnosing children whose parents are an absolute wreck about the health and welfare of their child, click here. If you can’t keep track of your underwear, click here, you’re home.

Random Tuesday thoughts

Why do I like this meme so much? And how the hell does Tuesday keep coming up so fast?

I played Jesus in a church play when I was 11. I didn’t want to. I was the new girl at church and someone else got the part I wanted: the bush. At the time I thought Pontius Pilate flew airplanes.

What happened to the man who always wanted to shovel our driveway? Chuck bitched all yesterday morning about his aching back so we wrote “yes” on an index card, but he never showed up. I hope his crooked, wobbly leg didn’t cave in underneath him. You’d think Chuck wouldn’t want someone with a gimpy leg shoveling, but he likes it when other people do his yard work—especially the old Polish guy who mows the lawn and prunes the bushes. Chuck looks out the window and says, “I hope he doesn’t croak” but then tells him to come back in a few weeks. What’s up with Chuck? When we bought the house he said he loved yard work. And why when I wrote “yes” on the index card did I feel like at any moment someone might knock and ask me how much I charge?

Why did I dream last night that I was in a horror movie and that I was the only one who knew it? No one listened when I said that all the classic elements were there: a pool party, teenage chicks in bikinis, blaring music, someone walking around with a knife. For once, I was actually glad the cat woke me up with his meowing. Chuck wasn’t glad when I dug my nails into his thigh and told him if the cat didn’t stop I’d remove his vocal chords with my bare hands.

Speaking of cats, when did Chuck become the Cat Whisperer? No sooner had we brought the first stray he’d been feeding to the shelter than another three show up at our door. I don’t want to be the cat people. Maybe that’s why the shovel man didn’t come over—maybe he couldn’t see the index card over the tops of all the stray cats my husband is feeding. Or maybe he saw all the cats and didn’t think he could climb over them with his gimpy leg to get the shovel. Maybe I should write “the shovel’s by the road” on the next card.

On behalf of the 50,000 people participating in this brilliant meme, thank you Keely.

Another post that somehow comes back to booze

What a fucking day. I have met the cousin and spawn of the two idiot doctors I mentioned in my last post.

The Benadryl wasn't working so early this morning, Chuck and I took Junior to see the doctor who was on call for Junior’s regular doctor. She was about four feet tall; at first I thought a child had wandered into the room. She looked at Junior’s torso, which was covered in a bright red rash, then said, “Your child has a rash.”

Let’s take a moment to talk about relief. To think we had brought our child into the doctor’s knowing he had a rash and that we were able to leave with the peace of mind that comes from knowing that yes, he had a rash.

Huge sigh.

So we brought our rash-ridden Junior home, put him down for nap, then Chuck walked down the street to get pre-confirmed (have I mentioned he’s becoming a Catholic? That’s a whole other post). Falalala. Typical Sunday. Midget doctors and religious conversion. Somewhere in there I had a beer and ate a cookie.

An hour later I heard Junior stirring, so I went into his room to get him and my God it was like something out of a horror movie. His face and ears were covered in bright red bumps. I grabbed him and ran down the street to the church to tell Chuck we needed to go to the emergency room. Unfortunately, the church was packed and Junior wouldn’t stop yelling "bus" and "truck". People scowled at his red, blotchy face and then at me for bringing my child out in his grotesque condition. I felt like a gypsy with a leper child. Plus, I couldn't locate Chuck's bald head. So I stuffed my wayward urchin into the car and drove to the ER.

After waiting for hours to graduate to the “convenient care” waiting room—Chuck finally joined us, good on-the-way-to-becoming-Catholic boy that he now was—we were seen by Doogie Howser’s girlfriend, who thought Junior was “soooooooooooo cuuuuuuuuute. Omigosh!”

She looked Junior up and down and told us she’d be right back. A few minutes later she reappeared with a printout.

“It’s what I thought,” she said. “But I googled Fifth Disease just to be sure.” She showed us the picture of the pimply baby that resembled Junior. “Looks just like him. He’s soooooooooo cuuuuuuuuuute.”

Poor Junior.

My dad came over for cake and Scotch afterward for his birthday. Number 66. Because I have been taking notes on what it is to be a good doctor, I assessed his state without any actual interface then googled “tipsy.”

Shit, I was right on the money.