Welcome To The Jungle, You’re Going To Die.

November 30, 2012 //

I work from home and when I pursued the position I was hoping it would mean my house would never be dirty, my laundry would always be done, dinner would suddenly become easy, and my children wouldn’t even know I have a job. In reality, I am tied to my desk from 8:30-5:00 and by the end of the week my house is a disaster, my kitchen cabinets are empty and my daughter is complaining that I “always have to work!” And, because I don’t have to go to an office it often takes a dental appointment to even compel me to get dressed. I do have to drive my man-toddler to school every day and despite his dire warnings that I might run out of gas and have to walk home in my pajamas, I risk it everyday. I could probably leverage this potential embarrassment. “Get your room clean or tomorrow morning I’m going to get out of my van in my pajamas and hug you goodbye!” I have learned public humiliation is an effective bargaining chip with this age group.

Working from home can get lonely. I’m talking to clients all day and my boss is just a three digit extension or chat session away but there is no water cooler gossip or “Let’s go to lunch.” I was warned I would feel this way but the promise of a clean house and no child care needed made that seem like a fair trade-off. It’s not really turning out that way and sometimes I get a little stir crazy.

The following is a true story.

A few days ago I was doing some blah, blah, boring work stuff when I heard a loud PLOP! I turned towards my air conditioning unit, which is installed in the wall and not completely sealed from the elements, and standing on his hind legs with a triumphant expression on his face was a large lizard. He had a satisfied air about him that seemed to exude “TA DAAA!” from every pore. He immediately assessed his environment and that smug look was erased and replaced with more of a “WHAT THE….?!” I’m not sure what he was expecting but my office is cozy (small) with wood floors, a chair and a desk. So he PLOPS in with his “TA DAAA!” attitude expecting 92 lizard virgins or something and gets me.

I immediately scream for the Man Toddler™ to “FIX THIS SITUATION!” He proved useless. What is the point of testosterone if you cannot slay a dragon for your mother? The lizard was feeling less than welcome what with the pussy footed man-handling going on and he disappeared up the wall behind my desk and I shooed the boy out declaring his mission failed. He was very shouty about his apology.

About an hour later, the lizard pokes his head from over my desk and just decides to… what? Hang out with me?

Bold as brass, this one is. I posted this on Facebook:

You see how smug he looks? How ridiculously arrogant he comes across?

You might be thinking to yourself, “Co-worker? She was just crying about having no co-workers.” That’s not entirely true. This is my co-worker, Gracie.

She’s lazy, disappears for long stretches and “cleans” my desk regularly. “Oh, you didn’t actually want those things to remain on your desk, did you? Too bad. I knocked them all onto the floor. You’re welcome that was exhausting I’m going to nap.” But she keeps my lap warm when the weather cools so I keep her around. I decided she would probably enjoy my morning visitor so I went and got her. This is how it went down.

Me: Gracie, look! We have a friend.

Gracie: I need a nap.

Me: See!

Gracie: Yawn.

Me: (Holding her at eye level with that arrogant little reptile.)

This is when the lizard lost all his cool points! He screamed, and I quote: “SHITDAMNHELLBITCH!!” Then he tried to run but instead he did the Fred Flinstone thing where his legs were moving really fast but he wasn’t going anywhere all the while I’m going “THAT’S RIGHT! WHO’S THE BADASS NOW?!” And Gracie is all, “Seriously. Put me down. The bed is in the other room.” She flounced off, the lizard finally managed to gain some footing and I was left alone. All alone. Again.

I started to miss the little guy. I mean, he wasn’t much. He certainly thought he was all that which he clearly was not but all the same, he provided some company. I was afraid that I might have broken trust bringing in my co-worker like that though. I got a little sad and drowned my sorrow in blah blah boring work stuff. Then, about 20 minutes later, I see this…

See that!

And not ten minutes after that…

I was pretty sure all was forgiven. He seemed humbled even. More likable. But then I began to worry. What if it was just a ploy? Gain my trust, make me relax my guard. All so he could POUNCE at me causing an immediate heart attack and death! THESE THINGS HAPPEN! His little eyes… Boring into mine… Plotting…. He started to move and grow larger and I’m pretty sure he breathed fire so I screamed “SHITDAMNHELLBITCH!!” and clocked out for the day.

Stir crazy. Emphasis on crazy.

Tags cat, co-workers, lizard, work from home

Categories Work

A Love Story

November 29, 2012 //

My parents met in a bar. Mom was applying for a position and a guy at the counter yelled at her, “When you’re done with the interview, come over to me for the physical!” She thought he was a jerk and accidentally married him.

I’ll get back to that.

On their first date he invited her to play tennis. He was pretty good having played some in the Navy but this would be her first time. She was a young woman in her early 20’s, six feet tall, beautiful and looking to impress. Naturally she needed a tennis outfit. I don’t know exactly what she wore but I like to picture something like this:

This isn’t my mother by the way. It’s an image I stole off the internet. (Cool site Kristina!)

The point is, she was decked out and looked very professional for her first tennis game ever on her first date with my dad. He shows up at her door wearing Bermuda shorts, long white socks up to his kneecaps and a work T-shirt. He drove for a trucking company and its logo was proudly represented…

Subtle.

Mom opened the door, drank in the image… mismatched outfit, long socks, those words… and did what any normal woman would do in that situation: She laughed until tears started to form. Dad said, “Well. I’ll be a son of a bitch,” and hightailed it out of there. He left her standing in the doorway, tears of laughter streaming down her face thinking she would never see him again.

About 45 minutes later he showed back up. His intentions remained emblazoned across his chest but he was wearing long pants. It took her the better part of a decade to convince him she wasn’t laughing at his legs. Boys can be dumb. (Sorry, Dad.)

Their tennis date began and dad was lobbing balls at her nice and easy and she could tell he was bored. She was warming up and certainly looked hot in her cute tennis getup and undoubtedly wanted to impress him a little with her prowess so she boldly announced, “You can hit it a little harder. I won’t learn if you make it so easy for me.” The breath from those words hadn’t left her mouth when he hit that ball so hard that she never saw it coming. Unfortunately for mom, dad has great aim. The ball hit her square between the eyes, knocking her with such force that her feet flew up and she landed flat on her back. She was out cold.

He thought he killed her.

Two women from an adjacent court came running, “We’re nurses! We’re nurses!” Can you even imagine? They are lucky really, that they didn’t date after the rise of social media.

Mom’s Facebook Wall: So, I went on a first date with this guy and he shows up in a shirt that basically says “Hey baby, let’s get busy!” Then he swears at me and leaves for almost an hour! Comes back and knocks me TOTES UNCONSCIOUS with a tennis ball in the middle of our date! UGH!

Comment #1: OMG! Did you call the cops?

Comment #2: Girl, tell me you are NEVER going out with his sorry butt again! Gross!

Comment #3: I told you his picture looked creepy.

Happily, mom lived, it wasn’t the digital age and they managed to get married. Oddly enough, they never played tennis again. However, about a year later, my dad’s best friend was telling the story about mom applying for a job at that bar. He was recounting dad’s lewd comment and the air left the room as everyone caught sight of mom’s face. Apparently, that was news to her. She had no idea she’d married the jerk.

Mom’s Twitter Account: Ya’ll aren’t even going to believe this one. #MyHusbandIsAPervert

Sometimes, even when the universe is stacked against two people, and they seem to be actively conspiring against themselves, love manages to find a way.

Tags Love story, parents, tennis

Categories Love

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

November 19, 2012 //

I have an 11 year old male living under my roof. I know intellectually that I birthed this child but he wears men’s sizes, has hair growing over his lip and he is gigantic. The child I gave birth to looked like this:

Isn’t he cute? He is only one day old here and he looks perfect. I was in labor 29 hours and then pushed for two.He came out looking like a c-section baby. My daughter on the other hand WAS a c-section baby and came out looking like she’d been through war. I’ll write about her another day.

I can’t show the boy’s picture now because apparently when they become people, it is polite to get permission before you plaster their picture all over the internet. And I won’t even ask because I’m quite certain I know the answer. It’s very annoying. As is most everything about this 5’7″, 135 pound man-toddler living in my house. He is getting to the grunting stage. He takes breaks from grunting to yell things at me like, “I AM NOT YELLING AT YOU!” Recently, I asked Facebook for some advice on parenting books and one of my so-called “friends” wrote:

A good friend of mine is a middle school teacher and she says both teenage years and toddler years are developmentally appropriate stages of asserting independence. If you want to know how to deal with the teenage years, think of them as toddler years + 10; where 12= 2, 13 = 3, etc.

She said it so glibly like she didn’t just tell me I might as well check myself into the psych ward now. I remember very clearly that day when he was 3 and I was standing at the top of the stairs, my robe on, my hair crazy, screaming to my husband about our son, “ONE OF US HAS TO GO!” I’m not even ashamed of that moment. It was real.

And now we have to go through it again?! I’m just going to pretend that’s not true and see how that plan works for me.

Anyway, he is big and with a big body comes growing pains. He used to wake in the middle of the night crying in pain from all the hard work of becoming a giant and I’d get him a hot pack and rub his back and let him play with my hair and sing and it made it better eventually. It would be a little creepy for us both if I attempted that now, so after months of him complaining that his knee has been “HURTING FOR A WHOLE YEAR! I AM NOT YELLING!” I told him I would take him to the doctor.

Side note: My daughter had cancer. She is fine now but the only reason I ever go to the doctor is if I think it could possibly, remotely… be cancer. It’s not that I’m particularly worried it will be cancer, it’s just that I know it happens to people just like me and my kids. If you have a cold and a sore throat and a headache you can suck it up. We are not going to the doctor. Persistent knee pain? Let’s go make sure it’s not sarcoma!

So that morning he says, “YOU SAID YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE DOCTOR.” I promised him I would make an appointment after I dropped him off at school and that afternoon he was diagnosed with Osgood-Schlatter disease which is so boring I won’t even link the Wiki definition but it’s basically “knee pain in 11-year old boys”.

To be on the safe side though, an x-ray was ordered and the following conversation took place.

Him: AN X-RAY! WE DON’T HAVE TO DO THAT TODAY!

Me: Yes, we do.

Him: WHYYYYYEEEEE?!

Me: Stop yelling at me.

Him: I’M NOT YELLING AT YOU I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY WE NEED AN X-RAY!

Me: After the x-ray we’re going to go run errands.

Him: THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!

At that moment I remembered what my friend said about the teen years. How it’s the toddler years + 10. And suddenly I saw him like this…

And I thanked God once again that He made my son cute. Because some days that’s all he has going for him. For today though, it’s enough.

Categories Parenting