Scream and Shout ( a lot)

"And how are YOU?" the cashier said with a sympathetic smile.

I liked him for not NOT liking me.

Why? Because my sweet Angeldoodlehead, H4, had just thrown a fit worthy of an Academy Award in the middle of Old Navy.   In fact, I could still the screams echoing off the concrete walls filled with images of non-terrified souls in brightly colored parkas.  These were in sharp contrast to the people filling the aisles who were still not breathing after my pride and joy was heaved-hoed over my husband's shoulder and carried through the mall and out the door.

"He's two.  And he's milking it," I smiled and handed him a credit card.
"Oh, it's not signed? I'll need to see your ID."
"Okay!" I said brightly. I was happy. The kid was with the husband and I was thisclose to owning a mint green zip up sweater that was sooo cute and --
"He'll have to come back in and sign for this."
"What?" My good mood evaporated as I stared at the pre-pubescent, tattooed, Adam Lambert-wanna-be who just asked for the impossible.  He may have asked that I simply walk into Mordor, that was the scale of this nitwit's request.

I didn't like him.

"He was just here? Just carried out the crazed kid? You saw him," I was trying to be reasonable and I shook my Disney card in front of his eye-linered face - just in case the Kohl was blocking his damn view.
"Yeah, but he has to be the one to sign it," he said. "But I can hold it for you!"
"No.  No need.  I won't be coming back," I said.
I was proud of my maturity.
Proud of the fact that I was SEETHING on the inside but managed to keep my gaping maw closed - for once.

Happy Fucking Christmas, Glambert, I thought as I pushed my empty stroller toward the door.  "And thanks for the GIANT FUCKING INCONVENIENCE!"

Okay - maybe I didn't quite maintain my high level of maturity for too long.  :)

Ready or Not...

"Hey - can you be ready in ten minutes?"

These words are enough to put me in a bad mood for the entire weekend yet my husband, without fail, utters them to me every Saturday morning as I am emerging from the shower. 

This is from the same man who can take up to twenty minutes to decide on a pair of shoes.  Or thirty to decide on the perfect undershirt-and-t-shirt combo.  

So as I sit here in full attire, wet hair and a face lacking any tidbit of cosmetic enhancement I plot my revenge...   

Suggestions are welcomed.  :)

I am Super (Sand) Man

If I were given a wish to have a super power that could be anything in the world - I would not hesitate to seal my fate.  In my younger days I'd have wished for Teleportation power or Telepathic power, or even the power to be able to calculate a 20% tip in just seconds (this is my husband's power - one he flaunts every time we go out to eat). 

But now that I'm a mom, and I'm old, and I am sleeping in storage (the renovation is nearing it's end! yay!) I wish for just one Super Power ---

To be able to fall asleep instantaneously.  

I would love to be able to say "Hey! It's 10pm and the kid will be up at 6am! I need to go to sleep!" and then drift seamlessly off into Dreamland to meet up with Nathan Fillion and Jeremy Renner on a fluffy cloud pillow in the sky.  Nakeys.  

But I digress.  

A lot.  Mmmm.....  :)

Ahem. 

Ever since my kid was born it's like I can't get enough of the good stuff - that REM sleep that turns people into true humans and separates the Perky from the Petulant.   I'm pretty sure that, at one time, I considered myself "too bored to function" and would nap just for the hell of it.  I used to spend hours just lounging in bed doing nothing but dozing until the clock would roll from single digits to double and back to singles again.  That girl could sleep in a car, a bed, on a couch, and even, on the rare occasion, at her desk at work.  :)

I hate that girl.  

Now I go to bed by 12am, knowing that I will drift off into the Land of Total Exhaustion by 2am.  If I go to bed earlier - I still don't clock out until 2am.  

Get up earlier?

2am. 

It's like my body is trying to rid itself of all possible energy before hitting the internal Snooze Button. 

But why?

I have a kid to take care of!

A house to pretend to clean!

Laundry that must be sorted and never washed!

A bathtub and toilets that must be noted to clean "later"!

I think I'm just reverse aging.  My body is slowing down but my mind is speeding up.  Like some kind of cruel twist of fate, I am destined to be the smartest person I know (ahahah! ) but have the reflexes of a half-dead turtle.  

Maybe someday I'll be granted those awesome Super Power of Sleep  --- or a prescription for Ambien. 

You know, whatever comes first! :)

Daddy Dearest

"Remember the time that your sister in law and her doctor-to-be husband came over for the first time and Dad tripped over the baby gate at the end of the stairs, flipped, barrel rolled and then stood up and said, 'I'm okay.'?"

"Hey - remember when he tried to move the metal chairs from the upper deck to the lower deck but didn't want to take the time to move the chairs into a recline so they kept smacking him on the head - but he just kept moving them?"

"And then when he fell into the pool, slipped under the cover and kept popping up while I held on to one end? He kept yelling 'Drema, keep talking! I'll follow your voice!' but I was too busy laughing to say anything?"

"He called me once when I was working at the law firm to tell me he fell out of bed.  I had to sit there and try not to laugh so loud I would disturb the room full of lawyers next door as he told me how he fell out of bed, rolled into the closet where you had just put up new curtains and then couldn't get out because he was tangled in them!"

"And then that time when Matt Elixon called me and said 'hey - I'm here at the gas station and your dad is hanging out of the window, trying to jump in.  All I can see is his butt.' And I had to say, ' Yeah - he does that sometimes..."

"Remember that time when he cut a GIANT hole in the ceiling so that he could screw a vent in it to cover up the tiny hole he accidentally put in it while mopping the floor? How the hell did he do that in the first place?"


These stories are all about my dad.
He is unintentionally hilarious, which, we all know, is the best kind of hilarious.

Clean 'em and Weep

"I'm going to need you to clean the mirror in the bathroom," my mother said to me, trying to look extra pathetic while quickly whipstiching a ribbon to the top of my son's "STAY PUFT" hat.  "Oh, and the cabinet windows, the toilet, the lamps, the entry hall mirror and the sink."

I stopped in mid-bite of my delicious and super sinful Cam's Sandwich and stared at her.

"What? I laid the Windex out on the sink in there. Oh, and get the webber, too. The bug man said that the webs were key to keeping bugs out..." and with that she went back to her sewing.

My mother truly is an amazing person.  Rheumatoid has wracked her body, left her shortened, close to invalid and yet she still rules with an iron fist.  At 30(Plus) years old I am still bereft to know if a decision I have slaved over is "correct" until she tells me, her Branchland, WV twang, barely concealed, what I "should've done." But she truly is amazing.  The hill people to which she is kin have mastered the art of manipulation throughout the years.  Think Devil Anse and Charles Manson but less icky and scary.  So when she nodded her head to the left I knew that I had no choice.

She was like the Borg.

Resistance was futile.

So I did as I was told and cleaned the surfaces that were deemed my duties but, seeing as how she can't really turn her head very well, I failed to mention the fact that my 2.5 year old Angel had spent the hours following my cleaning spree standing in front of the hall mirror carefully, and meticulously licking it and rubbing a glazed donut in a large two by two square.

She may be an expert in manipulation but H4 is a master of Destruction.

Game, set. Match.

:)

"TWINSIES!"

Ever since my sister and I were young babes (as in the literal sense, not the centerfold sense, ewwww) people would ask my parents "are they TWINS?" even though I was almost two years younger and a shade or 50 darker than my near-albino-blonde-older sister.

Now that we are swirling around our 30's, we've begun to look even MORE alike.  For example, while shopping at the local Jump and Dump (AKA "Gabriel Brother's Discount Store) my lovely sister, Summer, went to go try on a few pairs of pants while I continued to circle the clearance rack for things that weren't too irregular or too holy or too --- much.

"Hey, go sign up for a card - it's like a rewards thing.  Like a Kroger.  In the dressing room," Summer said to me as she placed her prized pair of six dollar cords in the buggy.  I stared at her for a few seconds until my brain comprehended her rapid-fire-assault-like speech and then ran (ha! Just kidding! I haven't ran since --- wait - have I ever ran?) to sign up.

"Hi!" I said to the plus-sized woman in Reeboks that stood guarding the rooms.  "I was told I could sign up for some sort of rewards card here?"

"Uh, yeah," she said and then gave me a look.  A look like I had done gone and lost my mind.

I knew that look well.

"Well - can I sign up for one? What do you need from me?"

"I just signed you up, right?"

"No," I said, slower and more enunciated.  "No, I am signing up now." The poor dear.  Now I knew why she was assigned the dressing room duty roster for the day.

"I just took your information. You were JUST back here!" She said, looking a bit spooked and a bit like she was going to head for the hills.

"Oh, wait! Ha! No, that was my sister!"

"Really? Are you twins? You look JUST ALIKE!" She said and then, finally, took my email address and handed me a lovely plastic card to add to my other stack of plastic cards.

TERRORIZING THE WAL-MARTERS AND TRYING ON HAIR FEATHERS

If only we could use our TWIN POWERS for good instead of evil... :)

Listen Up!

"You never listen to me!" The irony of my husband's complaint is not lost on me. In fact I can remember a day in the recent past when I painstakingly told him which crack to seal in the newly-raised sidewalk and, instead, he went out and shot his caulk (sniggggger) all over the place and then whined "But YOU SAAAAAID!" and I hadn't. Not at all.
So as I sit here and painstakingly rub at the freckles and speckles of black paint that dot my arms and hands, I think about how maybe I should have waited for him to help me. Maybe I should've had him stir the paint and roll the rollers as I seem to have painted myself more than the wall. And seeing as how this paint is magnetic there is a good chance I'll be unable to leave the house due to the giant metal entry doors pulling me and my painted self back inside.
My house will try to eat me.
Which would make a great horror movie.
Wait? Hasn't that been done - to death?
Hahahha
"You don't listen, do you? Holly?" Big Harry was on the other end of the phone, apparently talking to me.
"Sure I do. Suuuuuure," I said and then tuned him out as he threatened to do something involving me, the car, hurting me and ----- buying me a pony.
I think.


Well - I wasn't really paying that much attention. :)