Category Archives: total chaos

I Will Learn to Whistle

So I went on an outing yesterday. This is unusual behavior for me because I don’t like getting dressed or people.

One of my best friends called me early in the day and I guess because I wasn’t really awake yet I agreed to her scandalous plan of riding in the van of someone I barely know to a town far away for the entire day. It could have been disastrous.

On the long ride I learned that my close friend whom I have known since the second grade “really likes the smell of diesel.” But she’s pregnant, so really “diesel” could have been any other word. At one point she said, “those things, on the sides, that hold clothes together?” and I said, “yes, the seams” and she said, “yeah, the seams and the material that’s made from a plant?” And I said “cotton” and it was like this crazy guessing game all day long because apparently the baby she is carrying has stolen her words.

The driver of the van was a nice lady who I kind of know but I had never put my life in her hands before and by that I mean I had never ridden in her van while she drove. She did okay except at one point she exclaimed, “I’m really not this bad of a driver, it’s just this squash.” And then proceeded to pull a giant squash out from under her feet.

squash

We went first to a repair shop where the pregnant lady and I refused to pee so we danced around madly in the parking lot holding our vaginas. Just kidding. We waited sedately in the van and bitched about how bad we had to pee.

Then we went to a thrift store that sold giant pairs of mens underwear and smelled like the customers looked, which was dirty and kind of poopy.

After that we went to Walmart just for a minute and I learned a new trick from an unkempt-looking lady standing in the front of the store. As we walked past her she put her hand to her mouth and whistled an ear-piercing whistle. From somewhere in the depths of the store came an answering whistle and I surmised that these not smart looking people had devised a genius plan. I will never again search a Walmart for my loved ones. Instead, I will learn to whistle and it will be amazing and effective. Also, I guess I should not assume that people who smell bad are not that smart because obviously these stinky people have street smarts or at least grocery store smarts and who am I to judge. Maybe I smell bad. (I don’t. I don’t smell bad at all.)

Lastly we went to TCBY because my pregnant friend was having a meltdown for some frozen yogurt and I asked what did TCBY stand for and they said “Thank Goodness It’s Yogurt” and I said okay, that makes sense. Once we were inside I got some samples that were just adorable and if you haven’t had tiny samples of yogurt in tiny little cups you haven’t lived. It was good, even though my pregnant friend told the yogurt man that he could “surely do better than that” after she saw her cone.

It was a fun day full of learning about people and squash.


Halloween is Stupid.

Halloween, I’ve decided, should be an adult-only holiday. As a parent, Halloween is just a giant pain in the ass. Kids stuffed into costumes that are itchy or tight or too hot or too cold, driving to a subdivision and then walking for miles in the freezing cold to get candy that I’m either going to sneakily eat myself or throw away because it’s “bad.”

And I didn’t have it any better as a kid.

In this picture, I had just cried out, “Don’t hurt him, Pop!” But I was talking about the pumpkin, not my little brother who is clearly about to lose a hand.

pumpkin carving

And here’s me as the saddest black cat you’ve ever seen:

sad costume

Or maybe I was supposed to be a pumpkin. I’m not really sure what the hell that was.

Then there was the year of the butterfly. As far as I know, no pictures exist of The Butterfly Costume.

That year my mom bought a yard of the most beautiful, shiny fabric for my wings. Then, instead of making me wings, she draped the fabric over my shoulders and sent me on my way. I was a kid in black tights wrapped in a yard of satin, more cocoon than butterfly.

I believe that same year my brother wore, taped to his chest, a piece of yellow paper from a legal pad with an ‘S’ drawn on it.

Then you’ve got pumpkin carving. I always start out with such high hopes. Then I spend an hour pulling gooey strings out of 5 pumpkins and I remember that I hate pumpkin carving. This year my oldest kids didn’t even participate and my youngest spent most of the time crying because we wouldn’t let her use a knife.

Next you try to actually carve the damn things and realize that pumpkins were not meant to be carved.  They are hard and dangerous and I don’t even know why this is a thing. When you’re finally done, your pumpkin ends up looking like the jackass no one wants to hang out with and the other pumpkins are giving him the side eye.

Guess which one's mine.

Guess which one’s mine.

Before kids, I used to leave haunted houses laughing and shrieking as the chainsaw-wielding clown chased us out. The last haunted house I went to, I had a kid wrapped all the way around me and I was literally yelling at the actors to “LEAVE US ALONE! WE ARE DONE HERE!” I almost got into a fight.

This week at school my daughter gets to dress up EVERY DAY. The school wants me dead, I just know it. She’s already been to one Fall Festival and has two more left. The boys have parties to attend. And of course Friday we will load up and go trick or treating.

If Halloween were just for adults, I would have exactly one event to attend. I would only worry about my husband’s costume and whether or not it was offensive. I would drink beer by a large fire and not eat any candy. I wouldn’t knock on a single door or attend any Fall Festivals.

I wouldn’t hear my children laugh as they dunk for apples. I wouldn’t take a picture of my daughter smiling proudly by three half-assed jack o’lanterns. I wouldn’t pick my oldest up from a party and listen to him laugh about all the fun he’d had. I wouldn’t hear a sweet little voice say, “Trick or Treat!” and “Thank You!” at every house. I wouldn’t watch them dump their candy bags in the floor for inspection and theft. *sigh*

At least there’ll be candy.

Are you dressing up this year? What was the worst Halloween costume you ever wore?

 


And This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

I’m really, really, incredibly clumsy. I have tried and tried to tell my family that it is a syndrome and not something I can control. They insist on mocking me nonetheless. My goal in life is to own a blowtorch for jewelry making purposes but I persist on this path of self destruction and humiliation and I can tell that it is just never going to happen. If it did, I would probably burn my own face off.

break2

 

This past week alone I have amazed myself and those around me with my gracelessness.

First I was in Walmart, where bad things always seem to happen, just minding my own business, when I saw a clearance sticker. I am a sucker for a good deal. The items on sale were syrups used in making those crushed ice drinks. My daughter had gotten an icee machine for Christmas last year and we’d let her use it about none times since then, because it’s loud and messy and generally a pain in the ass. But. The syrup was on sale. And I thought, she’ll be delighted to finally get to make an icee with flavoring since the one I let her make was just ice with Koolaid poured over the top. I know, I really outdid myself there. Anyway, they had grape and cherry and whatever flavor blue is. I reached in for a red one and KABLAM knocked over about half the display. They really weren’t stacked well, if you ask me. SPLAT! Purple sticky disgusting syrup EVERYWHERE. Now, because I used to work at Walmart about a million years ago, I remembered from their indoctrination tapes that if Jose stole something you should report him, unions are a no-no, and if there’s a spill you have to stand guard over it so no one is injured. So I stood there. And stood there. And stood there. Finally one of those tiny old ladies who surely shouldn’t be working any more wandered by and I corralled her to stand guard while I went to get someone who could actually carry a mop. It was a damned mess, all caused by yours truly.

Next on my list of things to destroy was my brand new tablet. I’ve been moaning for years because my kids have ipods and ipads and galaxy whatevers and I have none. My dad finally took pity on me and surprised me with a Surface tablet. I was so excited. Yesterday I ordered a fancy case for it, because I know myself well. I’d only had it about two weeks and was just finally figuring out how to work it when disaster struck. By ‘disaster’ I mean me. I don’t even know how it happened. One minute I was holding it, reading Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness, and the next it was facedown on the concrete floor. I hoped that all was not lost, but sure enough, that fragile bitch was all cracked up.

These are not the only times that my clumsiness syndrome has caused me to injure myself or break something. Oh, no. There was the time that I dropped something while making pancakes and accidentally stuck my forehead to the pancake griddle. And the time I attempted to jump over a hedge while wearing platform wedges and a fancy dress. That didn’t end well, let me tell you. I once fell down my front steps in the rain while carrying my middle child. He was a baby at the time and somehow I protected him but cracked my tailbone. I’ve broken more toes than I care to count, and I broke my wrists so many times as a child that the hospital started taking me back alone to make sure I wasn’t getting beat up at home. No, sorry, I’m just a goddamn accident waiting to happen.

My mother-in-law knows I collect green glass and she used to give me glassware in that shade, but I would break them one at a time until they were all gone. Now she buys me plastic glasses in a pretty green and I still manage to break those too.

I used to smoke and my friends would always walk on the side of me that did not have the cigarette because I was really bad about burning people, and I have a scar on each finger from burning myself with cigarettes. I guess in light of all this I should be glad about my husband’s “No Fire” policy, but I really feel like he is stifling my creativity.

Are you accident prone? Do you want things even though they might be bad for your health? Do you think a blowtorch is an unreasonable request? We have insurance.


 


Free Birth Control

Alternate title: Top 5 Disgusting Things That Have Happened in the Last 24 Hours

So, I love my family to pieces, I really do.

But they are so gross. It’s unbelievable, really.

Here are the top 5 disgusting things I’ve had to deal with in just the last 24 hours.

1. Lunch boxes. I don’t know how these kids can destroy a lunchbox like this, but here is what greeted me last night when I went to make lunches:

A nice banana-chocolate pudding surprise.

A nice banana-chocolate pudding surprise.

2. My daughter hardcore blew her nose into her own hair. It was a sight to behold and I wish I had thought to take a picture because I totally would’ve shared that with you.

3. My cat just ran over acres of hardwood flooring to puke on a calendar that is for some reason laying in the floor. I actually learned something from this, and that is that I can lay any random piece of shit I don’t care about in the floor and as long as it looks like something I do care about, my cat will puke on it rather than the floor. I had thought she was purposefully puking on my carpet, but now I see that anything she thinks I love will do just fine.

I blocked it out because I love you.

I blocked it out because I love you.

4.  I went outside because I wasn’t ready to clean up cat puke and this was the first thing I saw:

A dog. Licking his penis. At 7 a.m. And it's not even my dog.

A dog. Licking his penis. At 7 a.m. And it’s not even my dog.

5. This morning Thing 3 was blowing her nose again, this time thankfully with a tissue, but each time she blew she would wipe up her nose instead of wiping like any normal person would. So she was getting snot all over her face. I felt like I had done enough in the snot department last night when I spent 30 minutes trying to wash boogers out of her hair, so I tried to tell her the right way to wipe. This led to many tears and much more snot. Not exactly what I was going for.

I thought my house was messy yesterday, and I knew it smelled like I was raising a herd of gerbils, but at least it wasn’t covered in snot and cat puke and chocolate pudding. Ah, motherhood. I can’t wait till they get home from school. Maybe someone will shit on me and really round out my day.

Do you think they are trying to break me? (They obviously don’t realize who they are dealing with.) Do your kids/pets test your mettle in the most horrific ways they can think of? Is this your dog?


Housekeeping Resignation, Effective Immediately

This week has been really painful. I mean literally painful.

It all started when I was washing the dishes the other night. I was being very industrious and getting a lot of crap washed, instead of just throwing all the dishes away like I wanted to. So, yes, I was proud.

That may have been what did it. I was too prideful in all my homemaking glory. My head was simply to full of warm fuzzy self-love that I never even saw the knife coming. Seriously, I never saw it until it had already stabbed me.

That’s right folks. A dirty, nasty, MEAN knife jumped out of my sink and into my foot.

I’ve never been so glad to own 18-year-old cutlery.

I know. It's hard to believe I can still walk.

I know. It’s hard to believe I can still walk.

Even though I had just been viciously assaulted, I carried on. I kept on keeping on. I did my dishes anyway. I showed that knife what was up.

The very next day I sat down to pay some bills. This is a dreaded chore and it took great fortitude and courage to even attempt it.

Once again, my pride blinded me to the dangers I could be facing. I didn’t expect to be attacked ON THE FACE by an envelope, but it happened. Do I blame all envelopes? No. Every envelope is different. This one was an asshole, but that doesn’t mean I have to forsake all envelopes for all time.

So in two days time I suffered a poked foot and a paper cut lip, all in the name of housekeeping. I feel like these events were portentous, and far be it for me to ignore the symbolism. I will no longer be participating in such ill-advised activities. I will take into consideration all the hazards inherent in clothes washing, bathroom cleaning, vacuuming, and, heaven forbid, floor mopping. These things are clearly too fraught with danger for me to attempt.

I am no daredevil to be putting my safety in jeopardy like that.