The day I realized I'm really a 70 year old woman

who probably lives alone watching Wheel of Fortune and eating canned tuna with her 28 bajillion cats. (Yes, bajillion is the scientific term. Trust me.)

A few weeks ago I had gone to bed, like I tend to do prior to midnight but just barely. I was just slipping into the deep ocean of rest when the dogs started barking. Well, it was probably only one dog but after midnight they both sound the same to me. I stumbled out of bed, opening my bedroom door and hissed into the darkness "SHUT UPPPPPPPPPP". Silence followed.

I closed the door, laid back and bed and took a deep breath. Almost instantly I was free falling into the clouds of slumber when suddenly there went the dog again. I jumped up, angry and prepared to possibly beat something. The barking of course wakes me up and that's awful but it has the potential to wake Wilbur up. And a woken up Wilbur is WAY more terrifying to me than I am to the dogs. Obviously.

As I marched out into the living room I realized that my house was shaking slightly. I could hear music in front of our house on the street and loud voices of teenagers.

I stomped to the front door, flipping on my porch light and yanked open the door.

And this is where you have to really close your eyes and see this this in your minds. Because what the teenagers outside saw was me, with my long hair experiencing a mad case of bedhead and sticking out in all directions wearing a mint green nightgown with cats all over it that hangs roughly down to my knees and does nothing to hide the fact that I gave up my bar earlier in the evening. I also, for affect, was wearing red pajama bottoms with snowflakes on them, in flannel. And I was mad. Very, very mad.

I screamed something to the effect of "Turn that damn music down, I have kids and your going to wake them up. SHUT UP."

I might as well have waved a rolling pin and yelled "you damn kids get off my lawn".

All the kids stopped and stared at me. My blurry vision caught at least one kids jaw drop.

As the neighbor kid began to apologize I slammed the front door, locked it and turned off the front light.

I turned around to see Micah standing there, trying not to laugh and fairly evaluate the situation.

He should have hailed me as a hero because the noise from the street died instantly.

Instead he said something like "I didn't know you had turned 70 on your last birthday".

Whatever. Me and the cats are perfectly content. Now where is my Pat Sajack?

Young Man

The other night I was walking up the sidewalk and noticed my son peeking out at my from the window of his bedroom. It was dark, about 9pm and he was supposed to be asleep.

"Young man, you get down from there and get in bed RIGHT NOW!" I said in my best stern mother voice.

He laughed at me.

"I mean it. It is past your bedtime, you go inside right now and get in bed." I was now standing in front of the window by at an angle and he was giggling maniacally.

"I mean it. If I have to come in there and put you bed myself I will."

More laughter.

"Fine I'm coming in there but you are not getting another bottle!"

As I turned around to go in the house I heard to my left, "Are you talking to me?"

Apparently my neighbor's 18 year old son was standing on his front stoop, I have no idea why. He thought I was telling HIM to go to bed. Of course he couldn't see the baby on the other side of the window or hear the laughter, he just heard the crazy neighbor lady scolding him and telling him to go to bed. At 9 o'clock at night.

Perhaps that explains why those neighbors choose to mow their backyard at 7am on Saturdays.

They hate me.

Third child

"I think your son just ate something. Well he put it in his mouth anyways."

I look at him under the play structure bridge. I look around him and assess the possibilities.

"Hmm. Well, whatever it was, it probably won't kill him. Right?" I ask her.

"Probably not." She says to me.

I shrug and for a split second wonder if she's judging me. Then I decide I don't care.

Later on Will wanders over to her "side" of the playground. Her little boy is standing by the stroller digging goldfish out of a giant silver bag. In my son's mind I can hear him think "I didn't think this day could get any better and then it DID!" He loves goldfish. Especially other peoples. I lazily job over to intercede in the theft of goldfish but when I get there she says to me "He's welcome to them."

I smile and thank her and point out that we have some over on our "side". I offer her kids, via her, some juice drinks. She thanks me and lets me know she has some too.

Two moms, smiling, bonding at the park over stolen goldfish and children eating debris.

"Is he your second?" she asks looking around at the other children. I can tell she's trying to figure out if any others are mine.

"My third."

She grins "That explains it."

I'm not sure if she means the eating of strange objects or the stolen goldfish. I know it's because I'm far too relaxed about either to really care though.

"The leaves, I hear, are a good source of fiber." I say.

"My boys have been eating them for years" she replies.

Some days I really love the park.

I need a new pharmacy

This week has been the week of the Pharmacy. Better living through Chemistry as my mother used to say. I'm sure she meant her thyroid meds.

Anyways......

The baby needed two new medications for his asthma reactive airway disease. One is for everyday preventative use, the other is for emergencies. The emergency one works great, FYI.

Micah also needed something as he'd had a sore throat for 2 weeks and was over it. His Dr. prescribed what is affectionately known as KBX. It's basically a mix of Kaopectate, Lidocain and something else. I stopped listening.

Micah picked up his prescription on Tuesday and used it. It looked and behaved like a cough syrup only you swish and spit, you don't swallow it.

Wednesday it had turned to jello. Or a jello like substance. It was not able to exit the bottle and when you moved the bottle the blob just jiggled and plopped all over. What I'm telling you is that it wasn't consumable.

Because Micah has a sore throat and hates to return stuff I ventured out on Wednesday night to return it to the pharmacy.

I'm going to stop and tell you I've already had problems with this Wal-greens before. They shorted us on medication for William just a couple of weeks ago and it took me fighting with the pharmacy tech to get the "extra". So I'm predisposed to be grumpy but I decided I would kill them with kindness. And smile a lot. That seems to help.

Now imagine this. It's 8:30pm. I'm wearing a too loose halter top (it's what I sleep in) and black corduroy pants. I left the holy pajama pants at home. My hair is greasy looking after a full day of work and I'm 30 seconds away from "that time of the month". I'm bloated, broken out and missing the comfort of my couch. Oh, and I'm not wearing a bra because that is the highlight of my day, when I come home I get to take that thing off.

I show the pharmacy tech my bottle of jello. She agrees that it probably shouldn't look like that. She asked the Pharmacist who barely looks up from her filling of bottles (you can see them) and says to shake it. The tech tells me to shake the bottle and it will return to a liquid state.

To demonstrate she shakes it a little for me.

I take it from her, look at her and look at the Pharmacist. She hates me. I know it.

I tell them I will hang out in the corner and shake it for a little bit myself because I frankly do not believe it will return to it's liquid state.

And I shake it. And shake it. And shake some more.

And remember what I told you only a few paragraphs ago about my bralessness and my tank top?

Yeah.

So the pharmacy tech comes out and tries to shoo me out of the Wal-greens because OMG do you see what was happening there?!

I walk out to my car, call Micah, get my courage back, all the while SHAKING THE BOTTLE and then return to the pharmacy. I hand it to a new pharmacy tech and point out that I have been shaking the bottle for 20 minutes and my arm is tired. The inside of the bottle is coated with the stuff but the main portion of the medication is STILL a jello like blob.

To prove it I open the bottle and turn it upside down. The tech jumps back only to see that NOTHING comes out of the bottle.

I hear a loud sigh and the actual Pharmacist comes over. She closes the bottle. She shakes it. She opens it. She walks to the back of the Pharmacy and looks at a book ALL THE WHILE SHAKING THE BOTTLE.

She opens it again. She looks at it. She walks up to me.

Now at this point I assume it has magically turned into a liquid and I'm about to look like an ass. As if I was shaking the bottle wrong.

Instead she shows me the top of the bottle which is now completely jammed with what looks like yogurt but won't actually pour out of the bottle. She TELLS me it's kinda like yogurt.

"Yeah but he needs to swish it and spit it out. That's not swishable. It wont even exit the bottle."

At that point she concedes defeat and tells me that formulation is wrong. It's an old formula and should be MXB with has Mylox instead of Kaopectate. Whatever.

They told me they would have it ready the next day for pick up.

And they did.

I would like to believe it's the bralessness that did it.

I have no shame.

Obviously.