Um. This is an ancient post. I have no idea why it posted here now. THERE’S A GHOST IN THE MACHINE.

I’m not the sort of person who’d been planning her wedding since the day I could walk. In fact, I always thought that the word ‘wife’ had a nasty sort of ring to it. My family also has also had zero interest in planning my potential wedding. In fact, they have threatened to show up to my hypothetical wedding wearing mascot heads and do ‘The Wave’ in the church. I am not and have never been mush-mush OR romantic in any way shape or form. That said, I must disclose a list of things that I believed would make my wedding ‘cool.’

First off, I wanted to dance myself down the aisle at the church to K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s ‘That’s the Way, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh, I Like It.’ What better way to approach the man I’ll be spending the rest of my life with? EVERYBODY loves disco.

In addition to this, I was convinced that the man who would marry me would be a certified Elvis impersonator. I would be married by The King, lip snarl, rockin’ pelvis and all.

Now lastly on my list of hilarious things for my wedding, I planned to have my first dance be extra memorable. I would have the D.J. cue up the beginning of a romantic and dramatic song, I’d meet my husband on the dance floor” and the sweet music would screech to a halt as the Y.M.C.A. would come blasting out. Yes, folks, that’s right, my first wedding song would be the Y.M.C.A.

Now everybody who I have mentioned this to has given me the most horrific look. ‘Aunt Becky, weddings are supposed to be SERIOUS.’ I can’t say that I’ve ever seen it from their point of view.

Dave thinks that I’m insane.

Just wait until he sees the ice cream machine I bought for the reception.

Back in 2003, The Daver, being The Daver, saw the Discman I used on the train to and from school. He felt sorry for me, my pathetic Discman and collection of badly scratched CD’s.

(don’t ever loan me a CD)

He kindly gave me this:

It was the first generation iPod, 40 gigs of swinging death in a neat, cigarette-box of a case. It was also WAY over my head. I had no idea what a “gig” was if it wasn’t a band show, and the idea of putting music in a cigarette box made me suspicious.

But I fell in love with it.

I had it until The Daver took it back for some reason or another (I’d probably scratched it or something). I replaced it with this:

They’d been out of the green iPod mini I’d wanted, so instead I got the pink one, waggling my tongue at The Daver, whose iPod was now twice the size of my sleek Mini.

Last year, I decided that it was high time for a NEW iPod; the Nano. A chorus of “what the fuck’s?” met me when I showed off my new purchase. I do, of course, have an iPhone which neatly serves as an iPod as well.

I waggled my tongue maturely at the nay-sayers and explained that it was mostly for working out. The iPhone AND the iPod Mini weighed like 97 pounds and really, I couldn’t charge the damn Mini anymore. No power cord.

I’ve used it every day since. Beaten the shit out of it. Planned to continue beating the shit out of it because, well, the first two iPods still work. They’re like magic. The Nano, I figured, would last me forever.

I pictured us running off into the sunset together, me and my Nano. That is, of course, until my crotch monkeys left it in a puddle of bubbles on Sunday, sabotaging our relationship. Possibly, my life.

Dona nobis pacem, Blue Nano.

Rest in Peace.

*cries*

*weeps*

*wails*

*flops about the house*

*mopes*

….

….

…

Oooh! I can buy a SNAP BRACELET HOLDER for the new iPod.

On second thought, maybe I’ll buy my kids a pony instead of disowning them.

On my recent excursion to The Target to pick up my McDonald’s Headset to finally go “hands free,” I realized that I was also in dire need of an additional filing system.

(pithy aside, my brand new house phone, the only one I’m able to use in my HOUSE, is Blue Douche enabled. Which means that I can talk on the EAR PENIS but not my McDonald’s Headset. This seems like a steaming pile of bullshit, or at least, a conspiracy)

One of the many things I miss about school is purchasing school supplies. Buying them for my children isn’t nearly as full of the awesome, because, well, obviously. Their lists always require things so specific that I drive all over town in an endless pursuit of a twelve ring, three binder, red, plastic-covered notebook, wide-ruled, until I give up, convinced it’s a typo. Then I see the OTHER parents have managed to find said item and wonder what I’m doing wrong.

I digress.

Getting my corp. taxes done reminded me that my filing system of “throwing things into envelopes” was probably not going to cut it, especially if I wanted to go all official Non-Profit-ish for Band Back Together, so I eagerly went to see what else existed to make my life, well, BETTER.

It was like the heavens opened up and shone down upon me. There couldn’t have been a better day for it. I’d just gone to the Anxiety Doctor for a medication recheck, gone to the Tax Man, and was staring down the Pharmacist From Hell.

But there it was: A SALE on OFFICE SUPPLIES.

*cue choirs of angels*

I grabbed three or twelve-fifty-niner of those weird folding file folder thingies, a sassy three-ring binder – practically a Trapper-Keeper – and folders for it, a new notebook, a bigger day planner than the one I currently use, a white board for Daver and an address book. You know, the ones you use your hand to physically write a name and number next to? Oh yes. I’m proudly regressing.

I’ve somehow been placed in charge of all the stuff coming into and going out of the house. It’s amusing to anyone who knows me and annoying to me, who knows me.

When we prepared for the Great Move of Aught Six from Oak (no) Park (ing)* I in charge of sorting, organizing and packing up our condo. Daver can’t get rid of anything. He’s descended from a Pack Rat, but he’s not one himself, no, he’s merely incapable of sorting out what can stay and what should go.

So he saves it all and overlooks the glaring piles of crap.

When I was packing/sorting/cleaning the condo, I came across a receipt. Curious, I picked it up and looked at it.

Pranksters, it was three years old. Figuring that anything saved for that length of time must’ve been something good, I glanced down at it. Four items: a plastic garbage can, beef jerky, Fritos and…wait for it, wait for it….

…..

…..

…..

kitty litter.

Thank the Sweet Lord of Butter that he’d saved a copy of THAT! Otherwise, I’d never have known exactly what he was buying at 1:42 PM on October 22, 2003.

What was most baffling and/or frightening was that this receipt had also managed to move to three separate apartments.

While Daver was raised by someone who is physically incapable of throwing anything away, my father recently got a label-maker for Christmas. I swear to you, eyes wide with glee, he tore into that label-maker like it was a brand-new laptop. Before the day was through, I was wearing a “Stumpy**” label, Daver had a “The Daver” label, the kids each were wearing their names, and he was upstairs happily labeling everything in his extensive file cabinet.

He takes Organization Very Seriously.

He also takes Getting Rid of Shit Very Seriously.

If he’s found something that is very clearly mine, he will happily march it out to my car the very moment I arrive, lest I forget it. Or swing it by my house. In the odd event that I do not claim it in his arbitrary time-line, he donates it to charity.

Stuff = Bullshit.

Organization = Not Bullshit.

The man has it right.

I do not happen to personally enjoy labeling things, because I have a feeling if I started, I’d probably never stop. I’d be up all night, every night, labeling individual cans of diet Coke “DRINK ME,” just because.

What, ME COMPULSIVE? Why, I never!

Also, make all the Abacus Jokes you want, but I have NO CLUE how to use the damn thing.

Also, Also: new shirt idea.

This?

Or maybe this?

Or maybe something else. I dunno. Need a new idear (because my shirts aren’t Zazzle and are awesomely eco-friendly, organic, possibly made from recycled banana leaves) and screen-printed, I pay upfront, which is why I ask you guys about this stuff. You’re my brain, Pranksters. MY BRAIN.

EVEN THOUGH ME AND MY ABACUS ARE ORGANIZED.

*inside joke for anyone knows Oak Park. Parking is BEYOND bullshit in Oak Park.

**My brother nicknamed me “Stumpy.” Because I was shorter than him. I’m not exactly short: 5 foot 5 inches tall; not like 3 feet tall.

If I were a smart person, I would not have used my real name on the internet.

If I were a smart person, I would not solve problems by shrugging my shoulders and saying, “eh, I’ll figure something out,” then eating an Uncrustables.

If I were a smart person, I would have a greater five year plan than, “don’t die.”

If I were a smart person, I would actually sell the things I find in my closet, rather than donating them to charity.

Smart has the plans. Stupid has the stories.

Since I’ve been undergoing the great Purge Fest of 2010, I’ve been shocked by the amount of shit that I’ve managed to collect. I don’t like excess crap because it makes me unhappy, sort of how I feel when I’m chased by a flock of geese or if I have someone gleefully point out that I have misused a word somewhere in my blog (a-ha! She has made an ERROR! Let us POINT IT OUT TO HER!).

I’m in the process of moving my computer area upstairs so that I may watch my singing warthog videos in peace and possibly find a way to start a “career” or something (ed note: WHATEVER). Moreover, I want a space that is my own since my crotch parasites have taken over everything else.

Even though I cleaned out my closet a couple of months ago, I decided that it was high time to do it again. Especially since I finally went and bought new beside tables, lamps AND A DESK. I’ve never actually owned a desk before. Now I can properly watch my dancing dog videos on this:

You’re overwhelmed by awesomeness, I know.

Anyway, my tastes are delightful, I can tell that’s what you’re thinking. You’re not thinking, “who gave that girl a credit card because she has tastes like an overgrown monkey?” because THAT would be a cold prickly, NOT a warm fuzzy, Pranksters.

My closet, well, it needed some removal of crap. Mostly clothes that no longer fit. I’m now within 4 pounds of what I was when I got pregnant with Amelia, which means that I’m within 15 of what I was when I got pregnant with Alex, and that? FULL OF THE WIN.

That means, though, that I had a lot of clothes that needed removal. I’d thought about keeping them for when I have my Love Child, but I realize that by that time, I’ll want new clothes anyway.

I was hoping that I’d find my missing whore pants, now MIA since July, when I went through my closet, but no such luck. Those whore pants are gone baby, gone.

Whenever I do a gigantic purge, there’s a tiny part of me that wishes that I wasn’t afraid of eBay. I might make a couple of bucks selling my old crap if I wasn’t such a pussbag. Charity, I remind myself, is good.

My closet seems to reward this.

The last time that I did a purge I found, I shit you not, a small bag of diamonds. They were, of course, my own diamonds, but still, diamonds. I also found a pair of patent leather Mary Janes that I’d forgotten that I’d bought.

INSTANT WIN.

(I don’t know what one does with a bag of diamonds besides say, “I have a bag of diamonds,” but you know)

This time, however, as I approached my closet ready to do battle, I was expecting a bag of poo. Certainly, lightening doesn’t strike twice and frankly, with the week I’ve been having, poo would probably be more than I deserved.

Instead, I found more diamonds. A pair of earrings. Certainly more useful than a bag of loose diamonds.

Then, I found this:

A coupon for a free pair of new Whore Pants.

Huh.

Guess I have a Closet Fairy.

Wonder if I can ask it for a smaller ass.

While many of you asked the cake redeemed itself in it’s deliciousosity, I regret to inform you that the burning hair smell put me off of it. Then, when I realized the fondant smelled exactly like I’d imagine the color Blue to smell, it further solidified my desire to never let it touch my delicate, refined, distinguished palate.

(the very same delicate palate that loves on Crunch Berry Cereal. Hard.)

So this, my friends, this is a requiem for a Cake Wreck:

Alas, I cannot submit my creation to the SITE Cake Wrecks, because they only accept professional cakes, and as we’ve all gladly seen, I am no professional.

Somewhere, a lone bugle is playing Taps for my sad, sad cake.

—————-

Yesterday as I was flitting about the house uselessly writing a couple of things that I had promised I would do, I noticed that my right ear was making an odd tapping noise. I have a cold, because it’s a day of the week that ends in “y” and I always have a cold, thanks to my three crotch parasites, and I chalked it up to odd inner ear congestion.

As the day wore endlessly on, the knocking in my ear continued, and as I was finishing up the last of my articles late last night, I had a horrible, awful thought that combined the most awful of my fears.

What if something had laid their hideous eggs in my ear canal and now it was hatching to eat my remaining three brain cells? Like an alien? Or a bug? Or an ALIEN BUG?

(what, ME neurotic?)

(shut up)

When I informed Dave of my fears, he rolled his eyes and laughed.

The Daver: “You do remember it’s January in the Midwest, right?”

Aunt Becky: “Yes.”

The Daver: “And that nothing is actually alive.”

Aunt Becky: “Yes.”

The Daver: “And that you’re being neurotic.”

Aunt Becky: “You’d be neurotic too if you were growing an alien bug baby in your ear canal.”

The Daver: (rolls eyes) “Clearly.”

Then I went and flushed my ear canal with water and hydrogen peroxide for a couple of minutes, figuring that it would kill whatever was eating my brain. While it fizzed merrily, I hate to report that my ear is still sort of thumpy today.

The alien baby CLEARLY is immune to hydrogen peroxide.

—————–

Today I am over at Toy With Me, where I am telling the not-at-all (SARCASM ALERT) embarrassing story of my bachelorette party. It involves a clogged toilet, a stripper, and balls on my face.

And, as always, if you’d care to vote for me in The Bloggies under best humor blog (voting ends in a couple of days), here is the link. I will love you all over in ways you never knew possible.

I never thought I’d get married. I really never thought I’d get married, squeeze out a couple of crotch parasites and move to the suburbs and become a housewife. I really, really, really never thought I’d get married, squeeze out the kids, rock the ‘burbs as a housewife and write.

Talk about a mindfuck.

Add a white picket fence and I’m June Cleaver with a dirty mouth.

Truthfully, I’d not given the idea of marriage much mind. I’d not planned out a puffy white dress or a first dance number and hadn’t planned out bridesmaids and while I thought that the idea of having “a man” around to help raise the other man in my life (who happened to be 2 feet tall) was a good idea, I didn’t think it would happen.

I’m just not the marrying kind.

I’m the go-go boot wearing, cell-phone bejeweling, disco-dancing kind. So I was genuinely surprised to find myself at the alter, pledging to love, honor and repay The Daver for taking me to be his lawfully wedded wife. He pretty much had to drag me up the aisle by my hair kicking and screaming.

I was pretty afraid that I’d lose myself in being someone’s wife. Someone’s mother. Someone else’s everything.

And I was right. For the first years, I did.

A sea of extenuating circumstances: thyroid storm, my mother’s alcoholism and subsequent rehabilitation (which, sobriety, YAY!), the incredible isolation of our first condo, the loneliness of being a parent when you have no other parent friends, post-partum depression, pre-partum depression, living as a single parent while my husband focused on his career; all of those to the me out of me.

It was so gradual that I didn’t even realize it.

Only recently did I realize that I had to unearth myself and figure out what’s what. Truthfully, I’ve been really afraid of what I’d find. Would I even recognize who I was anymore? Happily, I’ve come to realize I’m exactly the same as I was, with, perhaps, a white stripe in my hair now (yes, seriously) and the self-confidence that comes with being truly happy.

Maybe I’m still xx pounds fatter than I’d like (I have no scale) and maybe I’m still not writing for Playboy (a girl can dream) and maybe I still only see The Daver 3-4 hours during the week, but I’m finally moving. Not stagnating in a pile of my own filth feeling trapped and miserable.

Now I’m just stagnating in a pile of filth. Beaming merrily. As it should be.

——————–

Team Mimi is up and in Full Effect and walking for March of Dimes on April 25 in St. Charles (the details are behind the linkage or on my sidebar). Anyone is welcome to join. We’d LOVE to have you. If you’d like, you can form your own team as well. They’re forming all around the country.

——————–

I AM going to launch the community site, just as soon as I can get the kinks worked out with The Daver, and my site designer and figure out exactly how to set it up.

So far, this is what I’ve got on the docket for ideas:

*It’s got to have a variety of topics that we can all weigh in on and post about.

*Easily navigatible and not full of The Ugly.

*It’s just going to be a link from the top of my blog to a separate site, where hopefully I can do some promotional giveaways and stuff because according to you guys, people like free shit. So, if I can find people to give us stuff, we’re IN.

*I’m going to use the same software that Dooce’s community site uses because it’s a great example of a community site.

What else would make a community site Full Of The Awesome?

(I bought the domain www.bandbacktogether.com for the community site)(we still need to name the community site)

My friend Marinka went on vacation this week because she is a lazy slacker, so she asked me to fill in for her at The Mouthy Housewives. I’m all giving advice and shit (although this isn’t the Ask Aunt Becky column that I’ll be setting up)(it’s not ready yet)(because, obviously).

Below you, or click this link in your reader, you can see all the sweet ass places my business cards have been. Deadline for entries is September 8th, y’all.

Also, because I am trying to be more like Marinka in my laziness–especially if it gets me a vacation (bwahahahaha! Yeah RIGHT) what should I post about?

I’ll be back tomorrow with either a love letter to one of my television husbands or Aunt Becky as the Pioneer Woman.

The Daver works one of those jobs where he’s ALWAYS working. I don’t mean that in the flip sort of oh-my-God-I-have-to-work-until-6-PM-AGAIN kind of way; I mean it in the very real you-better-never-get-attached-to-the-idea-of-a-spouse way. It took quite an adjustment for me, who had been used to the idea that a job came with occasional overtime, but overall, after you clocked out, you were done.

Not so for The Daver’s job. At any moment in time, and I do mean ANY moment, work can send an email and he will have to drop whatever he’s doing and go fight some nerdy fire. Most often this occurs when I am having a meltdown or the kids are driving me insane (perhaps the two are related?) or at the MOST inconvenient time possible. I had to physically pry Dave’s Blackberry from his hand while our babies were born.

I used to be infuriated by this. How DARE they take him from me when I am having A Moment? How could they POSSIBLY know when the worst possible time to require the eyes of ONLY Dave was? Anger gave way to a quiet resignation several years ago and I now merely roll my eyes when work takes up one of my weekend days–the only time I am able to get shit done–and move the hell on with my life.

But the prospect of losing the hour of help each day that I have another human being who is capable of taking care of one of the children left me cold and in dire need of a meaty hug. I often can only get through the day knowing that by 7 or 8, I will have another set of hands to take over for me, should I have to do something as inconsiderate as taking a poo.

I know, how DARE I have to move my bowels?

In a stunning fit of brilliance, Daver asked my sister-in-law to come stay with us while he was away. This meant that now, rather than having to wait until late evening or weekends to Get Stuff Done, it’s now possible for me to go and plant the hydrangea that I couldn’t resist purchasing even though I had no real spot to put it.

(hello run on sentence! How I’ve missed you!)

It’s entirely safe to say that I have gotten more done in the past few days than I have in months. Years, maybe. I’d tell you what I’ve done, but you might die of boredom, so I will merely leave you with this cautionary tale.

The people whom we’d bought our house from three and a half years ago weren’t what I would call House People. They finished my basement and replaced all the doors, but didn’t see fit to trim the 3 lilacs in front or try and tame the Rose Bush of Doom in my back yard. This was made worse by the people whom they had bought the house from who were House People. Specifically, they were Landscaping People.

Bought, I’m sure when the bushes and trees were tiny, every single inch of the front of my house is neatly landscaped with variations of trees and bushes. Aside from a couple of the squat evergreen type-y bushes, I like it all.

Problem is that landscaping like that requires upkeep greater than simply watching as it overtakes the yard. So I inherited quite a mess when I moved in. The rose bush I eventually tamed could likely have been in the Guinness Book of World Records for Least Beautiful Rose On The Planet.

The whole house had taken on a look of being owned by some creepy recluse who was happy to have all of the windows covered by overgrown shrubbery.

Lest the people who drive past think that I am that creepy recluse (shut up), I’ve made a weekly effort to trim that fucker the fuck down. And I’m not sure that you’d notice, but the 12 or 13 bags of lawn refuse would say differently.

On Saturday before Dave left, he gave me the afternoon off so that I could take care of some business in the yard. Including taming this bush-tree thing that was beginning to resemble a koosh ball on speed.

But because I am short, it’s no easy feat. It requires that I essentially get the whole tree into a bear hug and pull down branches to trim several feet of length off so that it stops scraping against the house. As I was in the middle of doing this, I realized that with every lop of my choppers, I was being coated in a fine dust of…something. After I’d done most of it, I realized that the dust-stuff was causing my chest to erupt in a delicious constellation of hives.

And because I am not only stupid but a masochist too, I finished the damn job before I went inside to survey the damage. I lubed up my burning, itchy skin with some topical cream or another (thankfully, I was NOT allergic to that, although this would have made the story funnier) and tried to think non-itchy thoughts.

About 20 minutes later, we had to go across the street to a birthday party for Alex’s friend Zach. Praying that 20 minutes was enough time for me to look less diseased, I prepared for the best and eventually, thanks to the anti-itch cream, forgot about my delicate oozing chest situation.

It wasn’t until we showed up at the party and I began to receive decidedly cold looks as parents shooed their children away from mine did I realize that perhaps something was wrong with me. After I had Daver check for bats in my belfry (none present, sir), I was stumped. Then, sheepishly, Dave pointed out gently that maybe my weeping, red, crusty chest might have something to do with the looks I was getting.

He was right and we left immediately. To prove that I never learn my lesson, upon surveying that I had missed a patch on the bush of crusty, itchy doom, I grabbed my loppers and hugged that bush right up, further intensifying both my sheer stupidity and my histamines.

I’d say something like “you live, you learn” but obviously I do not.

————–

What can you not ever manage to learn, Internet?

Per my insurance company, I had to remain a full-time student while I was pregnant with Ben. Taking the opportunity to enroll in some fluffy classes like “Intro to Shakespeare” and “Intro to World Lit” and my biggest mistake in judgement “Jewelry,” I shlepped my ever-widening ass back and forth to school. The death of my grandmother weeks before this took place meant that I had a car that I didn’t have to borrow to drive, because I was full of The Trash.

As I turned the corner on my way to school one evening, I heard a loud bang and suddenly the car was harder to steer. The car in question was a Escort or something and not an old school Corvette without power steering or something, so this was highly peculiar.

At the soonest place I could turn off, I did so, into a subdivision of new construction houses, each looking exactly like the other. It reminded me of a science-fiction novel or something, like a Group Intelligence or something. Stranger in a fucking strange land.

I pulled my car over to the side of the road, still unsure of what had happened.

I pried myself out of the car with my arms and shuffled pregnantly over to the other side of the car. What greeted me was a completely flat back tire.

Fuck, I swore to myself. I didn’t have a cellphone because I had a pager instead (hey, don’t judge. My pager was all kinds of gold and sexy. And no, I was not a drug dealer) and the nearest gas station was several miles out.

Plus, thanks to Nat’s refusal to give me so much as a dime–he was still convinced I’d gotten pregnant to trap him. For his money or good looks, I asked him when he accused me. He didn’t like that answer–meant that I had no money whatsoever on me.

Stupidly, I’d not paid attention when my father tried to teach me how to change a tire, preferring, I suppose to groan and examine my nails while huffing about how I NEVER needed to know such a STUPID thing, DAD. Now, I was regretting it. Sorely.

I opened the trunk, an exercise in futility, I knew, because even if it had the proper things that one needs to change a tire, I was too large and in charge to sit on a curb and get a busted tire out. If I’d managed to get into the proper position, I knew I’d never get back up again. I’d be stuck in that creepy subdivision with the houses all the same until I birthed my baby, some months later.

I tried to reason that maybe this was for the best as it would prevent me from shoveling more bagels into my mouth, but even then, I knew I was full of shit. I needed help.

I began walking down the sidewalk, breathing a bit heavily from the panic that had now set in, and looking desperately for a house that had Real! Live! People! in it. As a child I’d noted that when people were home, they usually had their garage doors open, so I peered at each closed garage door as I passed it, my impending doom growing.

Finally, about a half a block down from my crippled car, I spied some wee pink bikes in the front yard of a house. Certainly whomever lived there had children and people who had children certainly wouldn’t slice and dice a pregnant woman to chunky pieces in their bathtub!

Still, though, I was nervous. I wasn’t used to relying on strangers for help, but I saw no other option. Waiting there for someone who knew me to stop and help was as futile as trying to win a limbo contest in my largened state, so I steeled myself and went to the front door.

I rang the doorbell and when a man answered it, I breathily spewed out the whole story. When I’m panicked, I tend to rush my words, speaking in one long word in a much higher than normal voice.

“Hi, um, my car broke down, and um, the tire blew out and um, I don’t, um, know how to fix it. And um, I need, um, help.” I squeaked out.

He looked at me, eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring. Could he be angry at me? Did I know him or something? Had I spit in his cheeseburger at some point?

I stood there dumbly, mouth agape and catching flies not knowing what else to do. If he said no, which was fine with me, I’d just go onto the next potential serial killers’ house. He was under no obligation to help me and we both knew it.

Finally, after summing me up, he rolled his eyes at me. He rolled his eyes, sighed deeply as though I was probably the most worthless piece of shit on the planet, and stepped outside, mute. He muttered something to his daughters to stay inside as he gestured that he was going up the street, and walked down the driveway toward my car.

When I sense that someone is upset with me, the stream of words that come out of my mouth goes to 11, and I began to babble earnestly.

“My car, you see, sir, is just down there and I just need someone to help me put the tire on it, and that’s all. Hahaha. I was on my way to school and I just blew a tire and hahaha, now I don’t know what to do because I don’t know how to change a tire.”

He walked a steady clip ahead of me, and I trailed behind like a chubby puppy, still spewing words like diarrhea. Finally, we reached my car and I showed him the spare donut tire in the trunk. He looked at me again, rolled his eyes so far back in his head, I swear they made a chink noise, and eyed me like the moron I was. Disdainful of my very existence.

Thankfully for us both, he took only a couple of minutes to pop the old tire off and put the new one one. I spent most of those minutes thanking him profusely. He didn’t have to help me, he owed me nothing, and yet he helped, I babbled on and on and on. Every now and again, he’d stop, seething, and give me another awful, withering look.

The man who hated me for I’m-still-not-sure-what finished putting the tire on and stood up. I thanked him with such honest sincerity that I nearly cried. I might have cried a little. Shut up.

He glared back at me, clearly angry at me. He grunted an assent, rolled his eyes at me once more, and walked away, hands balled into fists at his side.

I stood there, confused. What.the.fuck just happened?

Did you ever see those commercials, you know, the ones with the perfectly coiffed mother beaming a beatific smile at the camera as a couple of small kids play in the spotless white background? She’ll then reach for a bottle of some supposed anti-bacterial cleaner and lovingly spray the toys or the counter or Something Germarific and then the voiceover will make some comment about how this gently removes 99% of germs without subjecting the kids to horrible toxic chemicals.

I’m paraphrasing of course.

I’m also not That Person. You’d be more likely to catch me popping a rogue binkie in my mouth to clean it before inserting it back into the baby’s mouth. Or casually wiping up a spilled something with my sock rather than busting out The Big Guns. I regularly throw my kids outside to play in the mud and dirt. I don’t buy soap that’s guaranteed to kill 99.9% of germs and I only have hand sanitizer for those diaper blow outs that occur one after the other (God bless 2 in diapers).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid of a little bleach and I’m not a consummate slob. I wash my hands after I pee, but I don’t use my foot to flush the toilet, nor do I insist on using a paper towel to open bathroom doors. Hell, nowadays, if you were to come over to my house, you probably wouldn’t even think it was remotely dirty. My kids take regular baths, my floors are washed twice a week, and I even occasionally pay someone to clean my dogs for me.

But even as a nurse and someone whose immune system is one toke away from being technically “compromised”, I’m not a-scared of germs.

Unless (there’s always an “unless,” right?), of course, rotavirus comes to play.

Then, you’re more likely to catch me running for the Lysol as I run away from the sick kid, my hand over my mouth and gloves up to my elbow. I bust out the bleach, spray down every surface available with the strongest germicide I can get without a prescription, all while wearing a rebreathing mask and vinyl gloves (latex allergy). I wash everything the sick kid could possibly have infected on the scorching hottest setting my washer can go on and wash my hands until they’re raw and red.

Oh yes, I admit it, I’m an emetophobic.

But there are some things that do confound my utter fear of vomitus that can sort of make my behavior mildly more acceptable. Sort of.

See, my eldest, the one with a stomach as weak as my own, he barfs in his sleep AND THEN GOES BACK TO SLEEP IN IT. He also, thanks in no part to his autism stuff, puts his hands in his mouth constantly. And, being 7, just goes about his life touching things, his vomity fingers touching all of the toys and stuff of his siblings.

(I’ve tried to teach him not to. It’s not going well and hasn’t been for, oh, I don’t know, 6 or so years?)

Also in my Court of Craziness is the fact that when I get felled by the stomach flu, I get FELLED. I mean, I’m sick as an ever-loving dog for days on end, hugging the porcelain god like it’s my job. This does not a good parent make.

So today, oh family Reoviridae, I drink to you. To the horror that you have inflicted upon my house and my sanity just in time to host an Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt that my eldest could not participate.

The one solace I find comfort in today is this: at least you made it over to Ben’s father’s house. The one who always begs off on the weekends when the kid is sick because he’s able to actually decide when sickness is convenient for him to deal with.

Must. Be. Nice.

Cheers to you, you wily double stranded RNA bastard. You’ve earned it. Happy Easter to you, sir. Happy Easter, indeed.

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All right, Internet, let’s hear some of your weird phobias. I have several others that will make you go “dude, that bitch Aunt Becky is crazier than I thought!”

So Bring It ON, Internet.