Every day my husband asks me, “Did you do any new blogging today?” And for the past couple of weeks, I’ve pathetically say no. I think I have a writer’s block. I’ve heard about those. I shouldn’t feel bad. Even the greatest literary geniuses have hit the pen and ink brick wall. In fact, Earnest Hemmingway was once asked what was the most frightening thing he had ever encountered. His reply? “A blank piece of paper.”
It’s not that I don’t experience things I could write about. Hell, I’m a mom of two teenagers—a daughter 13 years old going on 23, and a son 15 years old going on 4. I’m the wife of a guy who will scream to me that we are out of coffee creamer, but is too lazy to move the gallon of milk to see that we actually have two left. I’m the daughter of a narcissistic mother whom I’ve realized, thanks to my therapist, won’t be happy till she’s on every prescription drug they advertise on TV because she thinks she’s entitled to be. I spend more time at doctors’ offices than I do at Sephora, Wal-Mart AND Office Maxx put together. And you don’t think I have anything I could talk about? Ha!
The thing is, I don’t think anyone would believe half the crap I could write about based on what I experience during one day of my life. I, myself, often think that what I see while out and about is nothing but a pilot for a really bad TV series that only shows up on the cable channels your remote can’t even reach. The phrase “Oh that did not just happen!” flashes through my head each day more often than the memories of my 80’s high school years complete with big hair, Jordache jeans and my “Foreigner 4” album.
For example, let’s take a flash view of the breakdown of my day today:
6:00am – Get up to make sure my children get on the school bus without someone losing an eye. The morning routine begins: daughter hogs bathroom, son yells for her to get out, daughter slams door on his knuckles, son threatens to pee on her backpack if she doesn’t hurry up, daughter comes to me whining that she wishes I could have given birth to another girl instead of her brother. I have to remind her that he was born first and it was out of my control. She grabs her still-dry backpack and her I-Pod and storms out of the house. My son pats me on the back, tells me I should have just stopped at one, and leaves as well. I grab a muffin and a Xanax and crawl back into bed.
9:00am – I wake up again from my drug-induced sleep to see husband has left for work. I know this because his spot on the bed has been replaced by a shower-wet bath towel and a pair of dirty boxers. Oh yeay. I pull my aching body out of bed and crawl into a shower myself to loosen up the sore shoulders and knees. On my way to the bathroom, I step on a clothes hanger. Curse words fly.
9:30am – I’m still in the shower. I plan on staying in here all day now. There is no one in the house to bother me except the four cats, one of which must need water because he’s licking the water drops that keep rolling down the shower door from the steam. I’m in my own personal heaven.
9:40am – I now have run out of hot water and must rinse the deep conditioner from my hair by jumping in and out of the ice cold spray. More curse words. My feet begin to turn purple from the cold water pooling around my ankles.
10:15am – I finish getting ready, grab my purse, car keys and sunglasses and head to the car. I start the car. I turn off car. I take the keys and go back in the house when I realize I forgot my cell phone. I grab the cell phone. I go back to the car. I start the car again. I turn off the car again . I take the keys and go back in the house when I realize I forgot my datebook. I grab the datebook. I go back to the car. I start car the car for the third time. I realize I forgot my bottle of water. Screw it. I sigh and drive off.
10:45am – I get to my doctor’s office to have a past ear infection checked. The nurse asks if I’m better. I lie and say yes. The nurse takes my temperature. I am told I have a fever of 101. Oh great. The doctor says my ear still looks bad. In fact, the other one is now infected AND my lungs are congested. I am given a handful of antibiotics, a cough medicine, and some funky looking teapot. I ask the doctor if I am supposed to use the teapot to soothe my aching body with a nice cup of chamomile before bed. He tells me that the “teapot” is actually for my nose, so I can squirt warm water and baking soda from it up one nostril and let it run like a faucet out the other to flush my sinuses of nasty toxins. Are you freaking kidding me? The last time I experienced something remotely close to what he had just described was in high school when my best friend liquefied cherry Jell-O in her mouth and I made her laugh hard causing it to shoot out of her nose and onto the back of the cutest guy in lunch, who just happened to be wearing a white oxford shirt that day. The poor guy. Even to this day, I feel bad we did that to him. The receptionist schedules an appointment for me to come back in two weeks.and tells me to have a great afternoon. I give her a look that makes her so uncomfortable, she tells me I can keep the Viagra pen I was writing the check for my co-pay with. Nice…sick but still intimidating!
1:00pm – I arrive at my local Wal-Mart Super Center to pick up just the basics so my family can survive through the weekend till I’m feeling better to do “real shopping” on Monday. I begin my trip through the store by having an old woman drive up the back of my heel in the antacids department because she can’t see over the steering bar of the shopping cart. I grab Pepto for the house then back up to get a bottle of Motrin for the pain I now have in my foot. I head to the grocery department and see there is absolutely no line at the deli. I muster up the last bit of energy I have to make a mad dash to get sandwich meat for lunches. I am immediately cut off by a man in a sleeveless shirt that says “I Think Your Mom’s Hot”. He’s about 40. He looks at me, straightens his John Deere hat, sucks in his stomach and smiles. I have an urge to tell him my mom is 82 but I’m scared of the response I’ll get. I get all of my food and household items and make my way to the checkout lines. There are only two lanes open: the “15 items or less” aisle and the tobacco/Red Bull aisle. Even though I don’t smoke, my cart containing over 20 boxes of frozen foods alone exempts me from going to the short lane. I kill time by reading the latest headline about how Tom Cruise was abducted by aliens. I can’t help but overhear the woman in front of me on her cell phone talking to her BFF that she’s in Lane 19 and to meet here there so they can go outside for a smoke as soon as she’s done paying for her 40 packs of Ramen Noodles and a 12 pack of Bud. She begins to fight with her son, who I actually thought was her young boyfriend till he called her mom, never hanging up the phone on her BFF for a second. My head begins to pound, so I grab a Vitamin Water out of the nearby cooler and pop an Excedrin Migraine. The cashier tells me the bill for my “basics” comes to $168. I write her a check and pop a second Excedrin Migraine.
3:00pm – I get home, unpack the groceries and make myself lunch. Finally. While I heat up a hot pack for my now piercingly painful ear, I decide to call my mother. I should have waited for the migraine meds to kick in a bit more before I dialed the phone. This conversation was no different than any other daily check-in-with-mom phone call. “Hi mom…. yeah, I just got home from the doctor… oh, you’re sick too?… what’s wrong today?… you had that last week… oh, it’s different this week?… no, I don’t think my antibiotics will help with your new bout of diarrhea… maybe you should eat some applesauce… oh that gives you gas?…. I didn’t know that… gee, it’s nice that it is finally cooler outside… the cold weather makes your rosacea bad?… mom, I’ve gotta go. My husband is home from work early to help me stick hot pokers in my eyes… ummm, I said my husband is home early to help me fix the exercise ropes for my thighs… I’ll talk to you tomorrow mom.” I check the clock to see if I was able to take another Xanax. Dammit.
5:00pm – I officially declare my day has ended to all who are in the house, including the cats. I inform them that they are on their own for the rest of the night and I am not to be disturbed unless the house is ablaze or someone is bleeding to death. I remind my daughter of the words “to death” so she won’t bother me for her daily eight Band-Aid hangnail injury. I take my medicine for my ear infection, grab an ice pack for my new Wal-Mart Achilles injury, and go upstairs to lay down in bed. As I begin to drift off to a nap, I hear my husband call out that he can’t find the ketchup in the refrigerator. I smile to myself as I hear my our daughter tell him, “If you aren’t on fire, don’t bother. She won’t answer.”
See? Nothing special to write about here. Just another boring day in the life of Sassy Auburn.
**UPDATE** – After my husband reviewed my latest post, he feared that people reading it would think I’m a chronic pill popper. I jokingly said “What stay-at-home mom isn’t?” He didn’t find that so funny. So, for the sake of my health, his reputation and our sanity, please make the following changes in the posting you just read: a) replace all references to Xanax with the words “piece of fruit”; b) replace all mentions of the product “Excedrin Migraine” with the words “Tic-Tac”. Thank you.
Sassy Auburn's Diary Of A Glamour Junkie... 