Let's look at your average Saturday:
1. Neighborhood garage sale
2. Kids want to play
3. Kids have lemonade stand
4. Potential lunch date with hubby
5. Neighborhood BBQ
Now let's see how it looks on the Harmoan (as grandma used to say) Express inside my head:
1. What? The neighbors are having a garage sale and they didn't invite me to sell my stuff?
a. Everybody hates me, nobody likes me - you know how it goes...
2. What? My Ellie can't play with your kids because you're having a garage sale?
a. What's wrong with my kid? Everybody hates me, nobody likes....etc.
b. Announce to Mr. O We are moving from this place, this time I MEAN it! We are going to find a neighborhood where everyone wants us to join their garage sale club (nevermind that we don't have anything to sell) AND let our kids play with their kids. I just can't do this anymore! This is when Mr. O tells me it was his idea for the kids not to play together so the ladies can concentrate on selling their wares. Oh. Well then. Maybe I won't put the For Sale sign up just yet.
3. The dishes are piling up. The kids have left me and are selling lemonade?
a. Why, the lazy little...am I the only one who does anything around here? The answer to that question is, of course, no. And also they are not lazy but industrious as evidenced by their entrepreneurial spirit in selling dyed sugar-water in the 85 degree heat for a mere pittance - BUT remember, we are not talking rational thought processes here.
4. Mr. O decides to spend quality time golfing with Spielberg instead of taking up with my suggestion of going out to lunch. Which means NO date for us. And I even did my hair and put on make-up and EYE LINER (which I have not done the whole week due to my battle with Herculean allergies). AND I put on pants with an actual zipper. Just for him.
a. Not even my husband likes me.... (can you hear that? it's the sound of a tiny fiddle...oh nevermind).
5. Neighborhood BBQ. Yay! A chance to socialize. With "big people."So exciting! I'll just run to Walmart and get the goods to make a corn salsa to share. While I'm there I might as well buy a new camp cot for Ty to lay/lie (?) on at the BBQ. This is going to be so fun. Arrive home to empty house. No one comes running to help me get the food next door and What? Ty is still here? (granted, it takes two of us to put him in the chair and only one of us was home and they are just next door).
a. I can't believe no one is helping me. Chop, chop, chop! the tomatoes.
b. Not only did Mr. O ditch me to play golf, he is ditching me to play with the neighbors. Slice, slice, slice! the avocados.
c. Where the devil is that strainer? What!!! The dishes did not miraculously do themselves while I was out buying foodstuffs? GRRR! Rinse the beans and corn and bang, bang, bang! the strainer. Text Mr. O - Pls Help
d. No response for like, ever. Or 5 minutes. Whatever. Shake, shake, shake! the dressing for the salsa. Walk over, set bowl of salsa and chips on BBQ table and return home without making eye contact. Slam! the door. Yank! open the dishwasher. Scoop, scoop, scoop! the bowls out of the dishwasher and ever so FIRMLY place them in the cupboard. Slam this, slam that!
e. Up to this point everything had been thought, but now I am muttering. Aloud. To NO ONE. "Am I the maid?!?" (children have left the remnants of the Koolaid sales/sticky for ME to clean up). "I AM the maid! I did not sign up for this, what kind of mother am I that my kids do not clean up after themselves AND do their chores without me asking? A lousy, no good mother - that's what. What kind of wife am I that my husband cannot magically read my mind and KNOW I need help?" There's that tiny fiddle sound again.
f. At which point Mr. O walks in. And a verbal lashing races full-steam ahead out of my mouth while my brain is frantically trying to put on the brakes - Mrs. O, this is seriously NO BIG DEAL. STOP!!! Please, STOP!!!
g. He explains, calmly, that he was watching the meat. You know, so that it wouldn't burn.
h. Somehow this escalates things, because now I realize how crazy I am. That I am on that stupid Harmoan Express and I want to get off, but as it turns out I have a non-stop, one-way ticket to the End of the line.
i. Mr. O offers to help which makes the Express train JUMP right off the tracks. I refuse his offer and start playing martyr, which is required. It actually says it right there on my ticket to Crazyville.
j. I tell him I am not fit to be around just now (only in not quite so nice of terms). He is wise and departs.
k. I think, I will show him, I will not eat his stupid, delicious, non-burned meat. Hmmph!
l. Cast out plea for help to the Universe.Twitterverse delivers. Have chat with friend who helps remind me to Simma Down Na! (thank you muchly, B)
m. Miraculously avoid mental implosion. Put Ty in his chair and take him over to sit and visit and have a pleasant evening with the neighbors.
And just think, we get to do this all again next month. Yipee!
