Morning, Day 4 of Three-Day Weekend

First I stood in my closet staring at the vast array of choices (where ‘vast array’ is pronounced…hang on, must go count…six (6) pairs of pants [including the winning pair currently sagging around my waist], nine (9) shirts, and four (4) pairs of shoes) until I finally (almost literally) shouted at myself to Just choose something, dammit, we gotta go-go-GO!

But wait, there’s more. Which I shall now tell you in ‘picture this’ format.

Imagine if you will that you are my neighbor; and that, inexplicably, you are hanging out on your porch at about 4:33 in the morning when this crazy-haired, wild-eyed thing erupts out of That Hippie House dragging a reluctant “rolling” backpack behind her – only it isn’t so much “rolling” because one of the backpack straps has come loose from its “safety pouch” thingee and is wrapping itself under one of the wheels, causing tremendous instability and becoming effectively a brake.

She stops on the porch, drops her keys (for the third time that morning, by the way), picks them up, starts to lock the door behind herself, then WHIRLS! in an attitude of PREPAREDNESS! …because she’s pretty sure she just HEARD SOMETHING that was probably a BIG MEAN DOG that has gotten loose and is about to CHOMP on her CALF…(or possibly, it is the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse and the first of the diseased flesh-eaters is upon me…you know, either-or…)

And then this itty-bitty cat streaks across the lawn in a blur of fur and with its cute little collar going “tingle-ringle” as it goes. It’s just a cat, pretending to be a big, mean dog (or apocalypse-heralding zombie, either way) – which is a thing they do whenever it would make a human look completely idiotic, which is also a thing they do.

To which the harridan mutters, “{unintelligible} cats!” and almost shouts, “DON’T YOU POOP ON MAH GREEN BEANS!!!” after it as it claws its way into her backyard, but fortunately remembers that it is 4:33. Wait. 4:34. Crap-apples!

At this point, the grumbling hag starts lug-dragging the bag – still with the strap wrapped under the wheel because attention to detail is, like, the first or second thing on her resume – to the back of the car, across part of the damp-with-morning-dew-which-would-be-a-lot-more-poetic-if-it-weren’t-so-flip-flammin’-early lawn (this little detail becomes downright hysterical in a moment, trust me), pops open the trunk and throws her bag in there.

It stands there, upright, in stark defiance of the laws of mathematics, which state that a trunk with X” of clearance won’t be able to shut if an object (X + Y)” (where Y > 0) high is standing in it.

So she gives the bag a gentle nudge to tip it over. Which it does not do because please see references to “backpack strap + around wheel = brake,” above.

Eventually, she gives it a vicious shove and sure enough it topples over and also the car trunk playfully (and rather briskly) swings downward and whacks her on the back of the head, which is a thing it does in order to make her look like an idiot.

Which is obviously not that hard to do, if an inanimate object can do it – repeatedly.

Which the car does, about three times a week on average, with this same exact “ha ha, I swung my trunk shut unexpectedly on your head, ha ha!” thing.

Third or fourth item on the resume: Fast learner.

a-HEM. Moving on.

SO THEN, she picks up the keys (what, you didn’t  just know she dropped them again?!), rushes around the side of the car (4:35, GAW-DAB-BLAME-IT-ALL-TO-HECK-ARGH!!!) opens the car door, throws herself wildly into the driver’s seat, muttering and swearing and raising all kinds of Cain about broken-this and busted-that and crap-arsed-the-other and why can’t anything ever just work around here, cranks over the ignition, throws the car into Fly Gear, slams a foot on the accelerator and, as the car begins a rather enthusiastic exit of the driveway, is screaming inside, “…AND FURTHERMORE, WHY DOES THE ACCELERATOR FEEL…all…funny…?”

Well.

You want to know why it felt funny?

You really want to know?

I’ll tell you why it felt funny.

Because the idiot in question is NOT. WEARING. SHOES.

See?! I told you the fact that I’d stomped across the damp, morning lawn was funny!

Now, I can’t explain why it was that the cold concrete (1), and the damp lawn (2), and the more-cold-and-rougher pavement of the driveway (3) did absolutely nothing to penetrate the Cloud of Distraction that was apparently gathered around my bunions, but the weird ripply-feel of the accelerator under my socked foot was like a huge neon sign going “Warning, warning, woot-woot-woot, something is not right, repeat! Something! Is! Not! Right!!”

I can only say that I'm glad it did, because what I would have done if I had gotten all the way to the station and then discovered my lack of footwear...I really can't begin to guess. (But suspect that some form of hysteria would have been involved.)

So then I ran back into the Den, dropped my keys on the porch again, considered kicking the door in to save time but decided I’d probably only break a toe, picked up the keys, jammed one into the lock, shoved open the door, RAN up the stairs {thumpa-WHACK-thumpa-WHACK-thumpa-WHACK!}, grabbed the first pair of shoes that came to hand, ran back DOWN the stairs {skip-thump-skip-thump-skip-thump!} (<= that’s my bum hip, by the way – I go up stairs kind of heavy every other foot, but going down I use the banister like a cane and essentially ‘skip’ every other stair when I’m in a hurry, which probably looks damned funny), skidded back toward the door and WAITASECOND!!!!! {sound of tires screeching to a halt on painted concrete – schreeeeeeerrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkk-k-k-k-k-k!}

…that’s my coffee…!

Sitting on the desk!

Next to the door!


Where I cannot drink it after I have left!!

Well, THAT won’t do!!!! (Obviously.)

SO NOW, with much-needed caffeine in hand…I snatch the door open and charge out into the darkness again.

Still in my socks.

Keys held with excessive tightness in one hand.

Coffee mug in the other.

Shoes held by their uppers…in my teeth.

Because they had no laces to loop over a finger or something, and everything was tumbling to the ground because third hand had I none and it just seemed…safer…to carry them that way.

{face-palm}

Holy Mother of Mohair, as glad as I am there wasn’t any photographic evidence of this…if I got a penny for every YouTube hit I probably would have gotten from the Hidden Camera Footage on this deal? I could retire, like, tomorrow as a ludicrously wealthy woman.

NOW, if you’re a sane person (like my husband is), you are probably asking yourself, “Why on earth didn’t that lunatic put the shoes on her feet before she left the house again?!” WELL, BECAUSE! It was now 4:38, and the train is supposed to be pulling into the station at 4:49, and it usually takes me about twelve minutes to get from my driveway to the platform. Cinnamon-coated crap-apples!!!!

So I had reasoned (ha! ‘reasoned’! hilarious!!) that I would put on my shoes at the first inevitable stop light that turned red just to be spiteful along the way – which is why it takes about twelve minutes to get to the train station when it “should” take maybe seven or eight, tops.

So of course, none did.

Which is why I pulled into the station at 4:47, yanked them onto my feet (right foot, first time, woo hoo!!), spilled out of the car, dropped my keys (yes, again*), popped the trunk, grabbed my bag, got hit on the back of the head by the randomly-auto-closing trunk (…yes…again…) and then rushed up the platform and got onto the train and got to work.

Where I imitated a reasonably intelligent person most of the day.


I think I’ve fooled ‘em!, she said, sitting at work all "I iz so smarts!!" in a shirt that came pre-stained with Something.

Yeah.

Nine shirts to chose from, naturally I picked the one that had a big old splotch of Something all over one shoulder…

…honestly, why they let me out without a keeper is beyond me...



* OK, so, the dropping keys thing...that happens a LOT in the mornings because I have some nerve damage in the left hand from an old surgery; plus, due to hard-riding mileage I've put on the joints over time, I wake up with hands that FEEL like if I looked at them they'd look like great big overstuffed sausages - but they don't actually look that way. They just look like normal hands. But, they're also usually kind of numb / tingly / painful in different spots (HOURS of amusement, cataloging which parts 'hurt' and which parts are 'just numb' and isn't it curious that the FIRST joint hurts on this finger, but the SECOND joint one is just kind of tingly?), and they don't always actually have the grip on things they say they have until I've worked the life back into them with a bunch of stretching exercises (which come to think of it, must look really bizarre to other people on the train...heh...Invisible Piano! Now with Witch Claws and Kung-Fu Fists of Fury!). Which take too danged long, so I frequently am charging out the door before my hands have actually finished waking up, and hence - I am constantly dropping my keys, pencils, coffee mugs, jackets and anything else my hands have said "No, dude, I've totally got this!" and I was foolish enough to believe them at that hour. C'est la vie. But I do get a little tired of the crash-jingle of my key ring hitting the pavement at times...