Category Archive

Last night we went through a drive-thru for a late dinner. I handed my son in the back seat his meal. I sat my husband’s double cheeseburger in my lap so he could reach it. I left my single cheeseburger in the bag because I planned to eat my fries first.

Soon a voice from the back seat said, “It has pickles on it!”

I said, “Just throw the pickles out the window and eat your burger.” So Eric threw his pickles out the window.

I then said, “I better check to see if there are pickles on my burger too.” I unwrapped the burger in my lap and began flinging pickles out the window. After all the pickles were gone, I noted that there were also onions on the burger so I threw them out the window too. I sent as much of the ketchup as I could with the pickles and onions.

After that I mashed the burger as flat as I could. I always mash hamburgers before eating them. A flattened burger is easier to fit into one’s mouth. My kids mash their burgers too.

Then I took a big bite out of it.

That was when my husband said, “Where did my sandwich go?”

And I realized that it was his burger in my hand, stripped of vegetables, smashed, and with a bite out of it. I shrugged, handed it to him, and said, “Well, it will still eat.” And I will never hear the end of it.

Today I borrowed my husband’s car to go to the bookstore. When I got out of the car, I noticed that my son’s pickles were stuck to the car, embedded in dried ketchup. I guess he didn’t throw them hard enough.

I imagine this was funnier if you were in the car and saw the look on Shannon’s face when I handed him his burger but I had to tell the tale anyway.

This afternoon I was in the kitchen washing dishes while my daughter was watching Animal Planet.

She came in, as she often does, talking and waving her arms around, telling me all about the mating and reproduction methods of anglerfish. It went something like this:

“The female is ten times bigger than the male and when they mate, the male bites into the female and sucks blood from the female. Each day she absorbs more of him and eventually gets pregnant. Then after she has the babies he is just a lump and he stays there forever. And they stay that way for life. For life, Mom! Then he dies but he’s still there on her back for all eternity and she has to go get a new one.”

“Now, how would you like that, Mom?”

I am somewhat disturbed that my daughter seems to have some idea that reproduction is supposed to be enjoyable for the parties involved.

I just Googled anglerfish and found her account to be mostly true. From Wikipedia:

Some anglerfishes of the superfamily Ceratiidae employ an unusual mating method. Since individuals are presumably locally rare and encounters doubly so, finding a mate is problematic. When scientists first started capturing ceratioid anglerfish, they noticed that all of the specimens were females. These individuals were a few inches in size and almost all of them had what appeared to be parasites attached to them. It turned out that these “parasites” were the remains of male ceratioids.

With a title like that I bet you’re expecting some kind of deep, philosophical, serious article. You aren’t going to get it. This is another one of my kid stories.

On Easter my daughter came out of her room with a gift for the young man she has a crush on. The envelope was sealed and had hearts drawn all over it. A package of candy was taped to the outside of the envelope.

Every day she asked me several times a day when we were going to deliver her gift so I figured it must be something special. I hoped it wasn’t something she was going to be embarrassed about later, but I decided not to pry so I did not ask her what was inside.

A few days later I saw my friend, Ellynn, who happens to be the mother of my daughter’s crush. I gave her the envelope to pass on. The next day Ellynn called to tell me what was inside the envelope.

It was a picture of the Grim Reaper. My daughter had drawn the picture. I’m told it was an accurate depiction with the robe, hood, and scythe.

We don’t know what to think. I’m sure the recipient doesn’t know what to think either. I did tell her the Christian story of Easter so perhaps this was a religious sentiment, “The Grim Reaper took Jesus!”

That’s all I’ve got.

This is not really a political article. I’ve had a rotten, terrible day from hell with power outages, hours-long loss of internet service, torrential downpours, children from hell, and so on. My life sucked today but a couple of things made me laugh tonight and I’m here to tell you about them.

About 6:00 p.m. I drove to my polling place. The lines were long. Very long. I didn’t mind the long line; I think that’s great.

Finally, I get my ballot. WTF? Kucinich is on it. So is John Edwards. Didn’t they drop out of the race? “How many people that are uninformed are going to waste their votes on people that aren’t even running anymore?” I think to myself as I fill in my oval for Obama. I also noticed a line for “Uncommited” on my ballot.

Shortly after the polls closed my husband logged onto our local newspaper website to check the returns so far. Sure enough, many people had voted for John Edwards and Kucinich. I have to wonder if these voters knew that those guys weren’t even running. Oh, well. Then we noticed the really funny part, the part that leaves me asking, “Who are these people?”

A great many people had gotten into their cars and driven through a torrential downpour and even occasional hail on flooded streets and driven to their polling place. Those same people then stood in line for half an hour only to cast a ballot for…

Uncommitted.

Who are these people? Why not just stay home?

I originally sent this email to our local homeschool group on 12/14/06.

Go ahead and laugh at me now because you will be as soon as you read this. Add to your list of famous last words, “I wonder what that tastes like?”

Several few months ago we were given a very large cactus. Our neighbor was moving to Florida and couldn’t move it. It spent the summer and fall outside. When it got too cold out I brought it inside. Well, the dog was chasing the cat and knocked the thing over. It shot out this milky fluid all over the place when it hit the floor. And I say, “I wonder what that tastes like?”

Turns out it tasted bad, very bad. It was downright painful, burning like fire, swelling up my mouth and throat. Nothing helped. Not water, not milk, not mouthwash. Then I got dizzy and developed a migraine-like headache. I was sick for 24 hours.

Upon googling I discovered that it is not a cactus at all but a succulent of the Euphorbia family. It is highly toxic. Some euphorbias are used to make poison arrows. I have to get rid of it. We have six cats, one dog, and two small children. This thing is only suitable for a home without pets or small children.

It is a lovely plant and I really think it’s too beautiful to simply put out in the garbage. It is in the laundry room under a fluorescent light until I can find a home it. I had to rescue it after my husband evicted it into the bitter cold and I hid it in there. He’s bound to find it and evict it again. So if you have no pets and your kids are older please take it.

What does this have to do with homeschooling? Not much. Sorry about that. But homeschoolers do have a natural curiosity that could cause a story like this to be told.

My daughter’s ninth birthday is the day after tomorrow. We were looking at cookbooks together tonight choosing a cake to bake for her birthday when I remembered the year of the Broiled Birthday Cake.

I said, “There’s a Gather article.” Then I said, “There needs to be a group for these kitchen disasters.” And now here we are.

My daughter was turning three years old that year. We had invited friends and family over for a birthday party. Because of this, we cleaned the house. Thoroughly. Part of cleaning the house thoroughly involved removing all the knobs from the stove for cleaning.

Then we made the chocolate cake. It went into the oven less than an hour before the guests were supposed to start arriving. We set the oven dial to “bake” and the temperature to 350 and put the cake in the oven.

Shortly after putting the cake in the oven to bake we began to smell smoke. We opened the oven to find the cake being broiled. The house was full of smoke, the cake was ruined and the guests would start arriving any minute. How did this happen?

Whoever put the knobs back on the stove put the oven dial on wrong so that when we turned it to “bake” it was actually on “broil.” That’s how.

It’s been six years so I don’t remember enough details to make this story as good as it should be but I wanted to share it anyway. I am now leaving for the store to buy ingredients for the chocolate cake she chose out of the cookbook. Wish me luck.

Originally published at Gather on 1/19/08. 

I received three boxes of Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs Nutter Butter Chewy Granola Bars in the mail for review purposes. I did not receive any other compensation or consideration unless Nabisco is so stunned by my review that they offer me a posh job writing ad copy. Hey, it could happen.

I’ve never written a product review before but I figure there are two important things: 1) Do the kids like it and would they ask me to buy it, and 2) Does mom think buying it when the kids ask is a wise choice? Of course, there is also the manufacturers record on environmental issues, their political and charitable donations, and all stuff that to consider.

1) Do the kids like it?

It would seem so. Two of the three boxes are already gone. The only reason the third box isn’t gone is that I hid it so I could get some photos of the product for my review. My eight year old daughter would have preferred to review the Oreo and the Chocolate Chip variety that were pictured on the back of the box but she did like the Nutter Butter variety. My four year old son probably ate more of these than my daughter did, but he didn’t have any words of wisdom for this review. He did leave crumbs in my new keyboard. I hope they don’t draw ants.

My kids are not of the variety that will eat anything they are given, although I’ve heard such kids exist. Mine are more likely to suggest that I mail the rejected food to the starving children who would kill to have whatever food they have deemed inedible.

2) Does Mom like it?

Well, I’m a slacker mom. If the kids will eat it and it doesn’t have a skull and crossbones on the label, then I will buy it. I don’t sweat the small stuff like calories, sugar, fat, artificial colorings, or preservatives. Because of this, I might have been the wrong mom to ask. Or the right mom, depending on how you wanted this to turn out.

The fact that these granola bars only have 100 calories each is wasted on me. I don’t care. Maybe you do. I wouldn’t even have known if it weren’t splashed in large purple letters across the top of the box. I hear childhood obesity is a real problem these days though, so I’m sure this a good thing for many moms. Which brings us to…

3) Things good moms will care about:

• There are six bars in a box. Each bar is .98 ounces. Yes, that is less than one ounce.
• Each bar contains exactly 100 calories. This may explain the odd .98 ounce weight.
• Each bar contains 1.5 grams of total fat of which 1 gram is saturated fat. I can’t figure out what kind of fat the other half a gram is. The rest all say 0. Maybe someone at Nabisco is bad at math.
• No cholesterol. I think cholesterol is a bad thing so it’s good that it isn’t there.
• Each bar contains 120 mg of sodium. I think that is salt.
• Each bar contains 21 grams of carbohydrates. I think that is a good deal less that a plate of spaghetti, but what do I know. These carbohydrates are broken down into 2 grams of dietary fiber and 6 grams of sugar. That’s only 8 grams. Again, someone must be bad at math.
• Each bar contains 2 grams of protein. I don’t know if this is good or bad. I know these are much easier to get a kid to eat than beans are.
• There is no vitamin A, no vitamin C, and no calcium. I find this is not unusual for granola bars. After all, they aren’t fruit.
• There is 2% of the Daily Value of iron. Again, I find this is not unusual for granola bars. They aren’t spinach.
• Nabisco is owned by Kraft Foods. According to opensecrets.org, Kraft Foods Global Inc. PAC contributions for the 2008 cycle so far break down as 58% to Democrats and 42% to Republicans. In case you care.

4) Conclusion

I will buy these. I probably won’t buy them for breakfast food since they are too small for my kids’ big appetites but I will buy them for quick and easy snacks. It would be great to keep a box of these in the car to cut down on trips to fast food joints. You know how it is; every time you get in the car and drive a few blocks, “Mom, I’m hungry. Can we go through a drive-thru?” It’s nice to have snacks in the car at all times.

You better buy them too so I can get that job at Nabisco doing math.

I used to work in a grey cubicle as a payroll clerk. Two cubes away from me sat the Tampon Lady.

I don’t remember the Tampon Lady’s name. I only remember how much I hated sharing work space with her. She was nice enough. She did her job and had no annoying habits that I recall. There was, however, one issue, and I never figured out how to address it. They just don’t cover stuff like this in business college.

She kept a super-size box of Playtex Deodorant Tampons in her desk drawer. It had to have come from Sam’s Club to be the size that it must have been. I never saw the tampons but I know they were there and I imagine every person that worked on that floor knew the tampons were there.

Playtex Deodorant Tampons have a distinctive odor. If you have ever smelled one, you will always be able to recognize the sickening, flowery scent that they are saturated with. I can smell them in a strange woman’s closed purse when she walks by me at the grocery store. And I could smell them in my co-workers desk.

Monday through Friday, I smelled them, week after week. She kept them there all the time, not just at her time of the month. I was assaulted be the tampons as soon as I arrived at work each morning and I left work in the evening with the scent apparently stuck to the hairs inside my nose. I was not free of it until I had been out of the office for several hours in the evening.

I will admit that I have a more sensitive sense of smell than the average person. That’s surprising since I have been a smoker for many years. Still, the tampons were a menace and made for a hostile work environment if there ever was one.

I am allergic to flowery perfumes. I can’t walk through the perfume department at a department store without becoming ill. I can not read magazines that have perfume samples in them. I used to take the stairs instead of the elevator even when I worked on the 16th floor of an office building so that I wouldn’t be in a crowded elevator with someone who had marinated themselves in perfume and spend the rest of the day with a migraine.

So this was a problem for me and I didn’t know how to address it. Luckily, I got pregnant and had to quit my job. I wonder if the Tampon Lady still works there.

This article was inspired a blog entry I read earlier today.

Were you ever the last kid picked for kickball? Do they even still do that in schools? If they don’t, then maybe I’m homeschooling my kids for no good reason. Oh, yeah. I do have a few other reasons but kickball is pretty high on the list.

A post I made earlier today got me to reminiscing about always being the last kid picked for kickball. I do not look back on this time of my life with angst.

No, I remember the pathetic child that was me, always chosen last for kickball, and I have to laugh. The kid that was me was a “looser” with a capital L. It was not yet fashionable to protect a child’s self-esteem at any cost so no one tried to convince me that being a klutz was a gift. Kids weren’t raised to be praise junkies like they are today in this age of self-esteem run amok so I learned to see myself the way I really was and it wasn’t always a pretty sight.

I sucked at kickball, so of course no one wanted me on their team. At the time that seemed important. There I stood with the dregs of my class waiting to be picked. I stood with the dirty, smelly boy that no one would sit next to at lunch and the fat girl that we all threw rocks at and called names on the playground. I usually at least got picked before they did.

I always missed the ball completely when I went running up to kick it. Think of Charlie Brown, Lucy, and that football. Except no one was making me miss. I was just that clumsy.

One day I ran up and kicked and my foot actually made contact with the ball. I couldn’t believe it. Neither could anyone else. My humiliation was not ended for good like I thought for a nanosecond that it might be.

I ran the wrong way. I took off for third base instead of first. After that I was always picked dead last, not even beating out the smelly boy or the fat girl.

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’d like to amend that to whatever doesn’t drive you to suicide makes you funnier.

I now look at most anything that I screw up as a source of amusement and something to write about. I wonder if I would still be able to do that if some nice adult had rescued me from ridicule back then.

There’s a reason I don’t have many local friends. I have found that friends are generally more trouble than they are worth. The main reason friends are more trouble than they’re worth is that they invite you to parties.

I’m not talking about parties that are actually fun. I’m talking about being invited over to listen to a boring demonstration and then guilt-tripped into paying too much for shit I didn’t want in the first place.

It might even be tolerable if it ended there but it doesn’t. After spending money you don’t have on stuff you don’t want you are then pressured to host a “party” of your own and pressure your own friends and family into buying stuff that they don’t want so the cycle of abuse can continue.

Odds are that once this starts in your social circle it isn’t going to end any time soon. At some point one of your friends will sign up to be an “independent consultant” for one of these outfits. At that point you can kiss your friendship good-bye because you will never have a conversation about anything else again. I’ve lost friends to Mary Kay. I’ve lost friends to Tupperware. And so on.

I once fell for this myself and signed up to be a consultant for Usborne Books at Home. I was a miserable failure only selling books to myself because I would not badger my friends and family or spam my entire email address book with my wares.

Then the sex toy parties came along. It was amusing to see some of the goody-two-shoes types in my local mommies group buying anal lube and giant talking dildos. Still, it grew tiresome eventually. I’ve since left all the mommies groups I once belonged to but that’s another story.

According to my local rag, the latest rage in home parties is taser parties. Yes, you read that right. I almost wish I were still in the mommies group. A taser party with young children under foot has great potential for amusement.

Today is my wedding anniversary so I thought I would take a moment and tell you about our wedding. Those who know me will not be surprised at how it all went down. There is something here for Type A personalities; we got ‘r done. There is something here for the frugal; we didn’t spend much. There is something here for the practical; our reasons were nothing if not pragmatic. But mostly there is something here for those with a sense of humor as the entire event was about as unorthodox as it gets.

We weren’t married before our wedding day. We were living in sin with a bastard son. This was good because the son was able to provide the entertainment at the wedding for a price we could afford. We also had my daughter who was half-orphaned due to a deceased father. This was good too. She was able to act as a wedding consultant and stand in for my mother who wasn’t there to tell me what to do. You see, my mother didn’t know it was happening or we wouldn’t have gotten away with not spending any money.

It was Friday, December 30. It was getting ready to be a holiday weekend and places were closing early. Places like courthouses. It was also getting ready to be the last day of the year for tax purposes. My significant other, Shannon, was at work supporting us. I was in my pajamas, on my lazy butt, in front of the computer at home. Read the rest of this entry »

I was again perusing my cookie ingredients deciding what to bake this year when my husband made a startling discovery. Read the rest of this entry »

Dog:

Dogbert – Easy to identify; should be the only dog here. If this is not the case, please call. Food is stored in the feeder itself. Just lift the top part off. Will jump the fence if left outside unsupervised for too long.

Cats, Male:

Yellow Cat – Large, elderly orange tabby with a cauliflower ear and a crooked head. Needs to take his Clindamycin twice per day. It is on the kitchen counter in a bag with Pill Pockets. Is not fooled by Pill Pockets but it’s worth a try. Recovering from abscess on face that needs to be watched. Can go outside and will probably crap in the floor if he doesn’t get to. Conveniently, the pile of crap will be right in front of the back door so that you can’t open it to let the dog out without either smashing the crap or cleaning it up first. Yellow Cat can probably be found on the bed in either the master bedroom or Eric’s room depending on who forgot to turn off their electric mattress pad. Read the rest of this entry »

Here it is barely past lunch and we’ve already had an eventful day.

It is a beautiful day in Southwest Missouri. the sun is shining and it feels warmer than it really is. Since my family has spent four out of the last five weeks sick with one virus after another, I decided it was time to enjoy the weather and get outside.

Our back deck and yard needed cleaning up so I started by rounding up all the empty Fresh Step buckets that accumulate out there so I could stack them neatly and list them on FreeShare. You’d be amazed how many people want those buckets.

I had four buckets neatly stacked when I saw a fifth one turned on its side right by the dryer vent so that the warm air from the vent was blowing into the bucket. I picked it up and immediately screamed and threw it back down. Something was alive in there. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been quite the month and when I ever have time I’ll be writing an article titled October, the New Monday, but I must share this little tidbit with my Gather friends without delay.

I had purchased a costume several weeks ago. It was a Renaissance gown and my daughter actually chose it. I’d have never chosen purple. I finally tried it on a few days ago to discover that it was itchy and made my chest look even flatter than it is. The costume had to go back.

Last night I returned it and the clerk at customer service asked me if anything was wrong with it; I presume she wanted to know if it was still saleable. I answered that there was nothing wrong with it but that it itched and I couldn’t tolerate it. My daughter then piped up  in her voice that she only uses when saying something embarrassing in public, the loud voice that carries for miles. She wanted to share that the real reason mom was returning the gown was that it smashed her boobs and made them look littler than they are, which is pretty little.

With the itchy, unflattering costume returned, I went in search of a different costume. I could not find one at that store since I am so picky. I have to be able to wear my silk thermal underwear underneath it since it could be 30 degrees when we take the kids trick-or-treating. It has to be acceptable to wear to the homeschool Halloween party. It can’t be itchy. I’m picky.

My husband insisted that we head over to the costume shop as he did not want to go to every K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Target, etc. in town with tired, hungry kids in tow only to go home empty-handed. I was initially against the costume shop since it is so much more expensive than the discount stores but I saw his point and we headed to the costume shop.

On the way there the conversation turned to boobs when I addressed the concept of TMFI to my daughter who is just beginning to develop breasts. At some point we spoke of implants and the fact that I’d get them if we could afford them so that I could actually buy bras and bathing suits that fit me. My bras are the Almost A cup size and I can’t even fill them up. My husband said that maybe someday he would be able to buy mom some boobs.

We wandered about the costume shop and eventually found ourselves in a little back area by the fitting rooms. Unnoticed by me, this is apparently where the more adult costumes are.

Remember that voice I told you about? The one that kids only use when they are saying something embarrassing in public? This time it came from my four year old son.

“Look Mom! Don’t you want to buy some boobs?”

Up on the wall, well above eye level, was a pair of huge strap-on rubber boobs with large, hot-pink nipples.

At first the silence was deafening. Then everyone in the store began to laugh.

I’m still considering buying the boobs when I go to return the costume that I bought last night. I don’t have enough boobs to fill it up.

Maybe this happened to me, or maybe it happened to a friend of a friend. I’m not saying. Regardless, this tale shall be told in the first person.

You will either find this pretty funny or you will be offended that I would write about such personal matters. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Your back button should be in the upper left corner of your browser window.

A week ago I had to shave so that I wouldn’t be embarrassed by hair hanging out of my  bathing suit at a pool party. I almost wrote an article about that horrific experience but decided it was too personal to share. There’s just something about standing in the shower with a razor and your husband’s shaving cream wishing you had a mirror to straddle and hoping you don’t cut your clitoris off that makes a person feel foolish. Thanks to these handy little bikini razors I found at the store the annual shaving event went better than expected.

Then yesterday my period started. I usually wear pads even though they are gross and I hate them. I wear pads because tampons feel like fiberglass to me. They hurt going in; they hurt coming out. I do keep them on hand though for when I have an allergic reaction to the adhesive on the pads. I’m allergic to some adhesives. It’s on my medical charts after an especially bad reaction to surgical tape when my daughter was born. A brand of pads that did not cause me any grief last month did this month. They must have changed their adhesive. The fact that I also had razor burn and might have been allergic to my husband’s shaving cream couldn’t have helped either. Or maybe they changed the formula in my laundry detergent or fabric softener and I was now allergic to it. Regardless, something was wrong.

I was on fire. I could barely sit down. I was walking around bow-legged all day.  I needed to go to the store and get a different brand of pads and some there’s-something-wrong-with-my-twat cream.

I was going to go as soon as my husband got home from work but that didn’t work out and it was 8:30 that evening before I finally got to go. My husband offered to go for me. I said that he couldn’t because I didn’t just need pads. I needed some my-pussy’s-on-fire cream and I preferred to pick it out myself.

So my poor husband asks me to pick up some lubricant while I’m there. No, not WD-40. He wanted to take care of his own needs while I was indisposed. I was not previously aware that men needed lubricant to do that.

I only needed three items. Each of those three items are embarrassing alone but the three together was just too much. I remembered Vicky’s article about looking at what’s in other shopper’s carts to see what you can tell about them. I wondered what a cart with only maxi pads, twat cream, and KY would bring to mind.

So I called my friend Ellynn to go to the store with me. Ellynn can almost always be counted on to run a fool’s errand with you. If you don’t believe that, remind me to write an article about the church yard sale. I figured she could buy the lubricant for me. Unfortunately she was not home so I had to go alone.

I decided to get a few things to hide my embarrassing items under in the cart. I picked up a huge package of toilet paper and put it in the cart. I needed something to prop the toilet paper on to make a little cave to hide my personal stuff in so I went to electronics and got a wireless USB adapter.

I head off to get my pads. Then I head over to the twat cream. It’s a tough choice. There are products for chafing, for itching, and for burning itch. I finally decide on the cream for burning itch. I put the cream in my little cave under the toilet paper. I note that a couple is perusing the condom selection so I wait a discreet distance away until they finish. Then I head over to get my husband’s lubricant.

What happened to KY jelly in tubes? There are at least twenty different lubricants to choose from. Tingling, warming, mist, liquid, etc. I begin to read labels to see if there is anything especially for male masturbation. A steady train of young men begin to come through picking up supplies for the weekend. I make a game out of guessing which ones will actually get to use the supplies they are purchasing. Then I called my husband and explain my dilemma. I begin to describe the many varieties of lubricant on the shelves. He tells me to get the cheapest one. I also tell him that they have vibrating cock rings and inquire if that might help. He asks how much they cost. There is no price on them. I’m not about to be at the check-out and have it yelled out, “I need a price check on vibrating cock rings on Aisle 8!” so I tell my husband thanks for sending me on this fool’s errand and hang up.

Meanwhile, an older man has arrived in the condom aisle. He had overheard part of my conversation and asked what I was looking for. It turns out his wife sent him to get a box of condoms and he has the same problem. There used to be two kinds of condoms, lubricated or not. Now there are over twenty. His wife just had her six week check-up and they need something to use until she gets her shot on Monday. I tell him how lucky he is to only wait six weeks. My husband had to wait ten months. He tells me how it just seems wrong to buy Equate personal lubricant and recommends the KY warming liquid. And so on…

By the time we parted ways I was sorry that my husband was going to be taking care of himself. Something about discussing these deeply personal things with another embarrassed old married person had somehow turned me on. Is that cheating?

I decided to go through self-check so that I wouldn’t have to show my burning itch cream and my warming KY liquid to a cashier. The combination just seemed too odd.

I checked out and headed out the door. The alarms went off. Remember the wireless USB adapter? You can imagine how it went from there because I’m tired of typing this.

On another note:  Why was I embarrassed to buy these items but I’m not embarrassed to blog about it?

If you happened to read this post, then you know how much I look forward to Mondays. My dog apparently read it, unknown to me at the time, and decided to take matters into his own hands today, or more accurately, into his teeth.

It all started before I had dressed, put my contact lenses in, had my morning coffee, or even checked in at Gather. I made a mistake. I answered the phone. It then spiraled so rapidly out of control that it can only mean there is a God and He hates me. Every time I thought it might finally be over and breathed a sigh of relief something else, or more accurately, someone else happened.

Before I begin to tell the tale I must state that beginning next Monday the kids and I will be evacuating the house as if Katrina, the tsunami, and Mount St. Helens were all occurring simultaneously in our back yard. We are not early birds so we will no doubt get car sick as we drive off away from the sunrise in the car with no air conditioning, but no matter how many times we have to stop and puke by the side of I-44, it will beat the alternative of staying home and allowing Monday to happen to us again. Not that my kids had an especially bad day today; they seemed oblivious to the utter chaos around them. The kid that went home missing part of his face may have a different opinion.

There is no force powerful enough to make me endure another Monday in my home. In fact, I am calling my realtor tomorrow to begin the process of selling our house in the city, conveniently located less than ten minutes away from the library, my bank, the grocery store, and the Wal-Mart Stupid Center. I am telling him to find me a house in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a one lane dirt road, with no neighbors closer than two miles, and impossible to find. I don’t know what else to do. My very life depends on it. It is sad that one must flee civilisation in order to get away from uncivilised people. It is even sadder that we will likely have to forgo indoor plumbing to make up the difference in what we will be spending on gasoline for my husband to continue to go to work.

Until the happy day that we unload this house of horrors we will evacuate at dawn every Monday and leave our phones behind.

I feel that this tale will become long and unwieldy so I may have to break it into parts. They will be as follows:

1. A crazy woman, her three kids, her dog, and her shit covered car arrive on scene. Things go to hell and stay there, culminating in my dog biting a child that wasn’t my child.
2. A downpour occurs and my car windows won’t roll up.
3. A neighborhood heathen spawn-of-Satan child shows up and things rapidly get worse just when I thought it was finally over.  Strangely, my dog did not bite this child.
4. My husband arrives home from work, runs off the spawn-of-Satan child and cooks dinner. Things are looking up, right? Wrong. We don’t even get to eat the dinner because…
5. My daughter’s loser uncle shows up with some loser woman right when my husband is putting dinner on the table. He has very bad news that he seems to think is good news. He’s rented a house two blocks away. Just kill me.
6. The neighborhood brat returns like Jason or Freddie Kruger or something unspeakably worse.
7. I yell. I cry. I vow to send my kids to public school and get a job working 120 hours a week. The dog looks confused.

A funny thing happened this morning, or right after I got out of bed which may have actually been afternoon. You should know that I have very bad vision and can’t see a foot in front of my face without my contact lenses.

I stumbled to the coffee pot blind and got myself a cup of creamer with some hot coffee in it as is my habit.

I then stepped outside onto the back deck so I could smoke and drink my coffee. I was not dressed yet but the neighbors are used to that and it isn’t a very important part of this story except that there was bare skin involved.

As I lifted the cup of hot, steaming caffeinated beverage to my lips the funny thing happened. My cup fell, emptying its contents all down my bare skin and landing on the toes of my right foot before bouncing off and shattering all over the deck. This seemed weird to me since I still had the handle of the cup in my hand.

I’m standing there still holding the handle of my coffee cup and wondering if I am in fact out of bed after all. This seemed a bit surreal.

The cup fell off its handle. That’s weird. My life is weird. If anything can go wrong, it will.

I hate Monday. You wouldn’t think that I would since I don’t work outside the home. It should just be another day but somehow it never, ever is.

I don’t especially like kids. I love my own kids. Sometimes I even like my own kids. But if I’m smiling at your smelly, bawling baby you can bet it’s a fake smile. If you are showing me your hundreds of crappy photos of your kids you can bet I’m planning my escape. If you’re bragging about your “gifted” child who knows their ABC’s for the 127th time this year I’m probably choking back bile in an effort to not puke on you.

I’m not answering my phone today. When the phone rings on Monday it’s because someone that has me on their speed dial list for free, short-to-no notice babysitting is calling. It’s always because they are having a bad day or because they have so much to do that they can’t get done with their kids underfoot or because they’re in the middle of the 42nd emergency requiring child care this month.  Why, oh why, did these people give birth if they can’t stand the thought of actually spending an entire day with their own kids?

I am having a bad day. Not answering the phone was ineffective since we still have a door and people know where we live. I somehow have a child here that is not my own even after I thought I had made my stance pretty clear. At least it’s only one this time. I figure they knew that a) I was not going to answer the phone, and b) once they were at the door my kids would make my life a living hell for the rest of the day if I sent their unexpected “play date” away.

I’m not stupid. When you call it a play date, telling me what a great opportunity it is for my poor lonely little homeschooled kids to socialize, but then flee my house leaving your brat behind on your way to go enjoy something I probably haven’t got to do in years, that is not a play date. It’s babysitting.

I have lots to do. eBay auctions that I do for a third party who pays me money are over a week late. My house is filthy. My daughter’s schoolwork is behind. I need to balance the checkbook and pay bills before we incur late fees. All but one of these things would be easier if I could pawn my children off on someone else for the day. They would at least be possible if I only had my own two children under foot. I haven’t been to the doctor or dentist in years. I can’t go and take two small children with me. I haven’t been out with my husband, just the two of us, in several years.

I’d rather be having a root canal than babysitting someone’s kids today and probably any other day.

My husband has forbidden me to ask anyone to babysit for me under any circumstances since I would then be expected to return the favor tenfold. He’s tired of coming home from work and finding a houseful of other people’s kids instead of getting to relax with his own family. He’s tired of having kids still here, not picked up on time, well after midnight on nights when he has to get up early to go to work the next day. He’s tired of having our life disrupted.

I’m thinking of starting some horrible rumor about myself in hopes that I can avoid being coerced into babysitting in the future. It needs to be bad enough that no one will want me watching their kids but not so bad that I end up getting my own taken away pending an investigation. Any ideas?

I tried forwarding my phone to the Child Care Referral hotline last week but my husband got freaked out when he called and left work to see what was wrong at home. I’d hate for my mother to drive seventy miles to check on us if she were to get the same results when calling my phone. Besides that won’t help with the “play dates” at the door that don’t call ahead.

It felt good typing this rant. Perhaps I will make Monday Rant a regular feature. I’ll probably lose all my connections when they find out what a disagreeable curmudgeon I actually am.

Coming soon: Customer Disservice Hotlines