Michelle's Madness

I'm feeling silly today...

You lay there acting innocent
But I know that you’re faking
Watching, waiting, plotting
My sanity for the taking
You act nice ‘til I get to work
And then you get all crazy
I could plead and fight with you
But, damn, I’m just too lazy
You frizz and poke me in the face
You stick out all over the place
I get so tired of battling you
You sure aren’t any fun
But as I sit here with a ponytail
Just know today I won!

I am extremely tired today. I can barely keep my eyes open, and I’m feeling a bit cranky. Here are some things that are pissing me off.

I don’t get how somebody can work in a pharmacy, surrounded by medications, doing nothing but working with medications, all day every day, and not be able to pronounce or spell even the simplest of medication names. I understand that medication names can be very tricky, and I don’t always get them all right, but if you work in a pharmacy, you should at least be familiar enough with how medications are pronounced and spelled, and familiar enough with the medications themselves, to understand what medication name I’m telling you and be able to at least take a stab at spelling it.

One day last year, I took the boys to a place in a neighboring city called “Someplace Fun”, which is a big indoor play place with the big blow up bouncy slides, and a carousel, and little go carts and video games. When we went last time, Logan was still a little too small to really do everything. Well Brian is working this weekend, so I decided I wanted to take them there again, now that Logan is better able to keep up with the big boys. So I looked up the number in the phone book so that I could call to get hours and prices, and the number is disconnected. I looked up the place online and it doesn’t seem to exist anymore. And even worse, I found a similar place about 20 minutes away that would also be perfect and it’s only open during the week. They only have private parties on the weekends. How in the world can you have a play place that’s not open on weekends? Some of us do have to actually WORK during the week, you know.

I’m mad at caffeine for not working. Seriously, I could drink a cup of coffee, or a coke, or a cappuccino with extra caffeine and it does nothing to wake me up. Nothing. Suck it, caffeine!

I HATE grain moths (aka meal moths). For those of you who have been lucky enough not to experience these most wondrous of god’s creatures, let me give you the scoop. These things love grains. Where in the house does one keep grains? Oh yeah, in the kitchen. They burrow their way into even the tiniest crack in a food package, lay eggs everywhere, which then hatch into larvae (little white wiggly worm thingies) which then leave little white fuzzy cocoons everywhere, and then you have these moths fluttering around your kitchen and lurking in your cabinets and drawers. And, despite what the name implies, they don’t like just grains, though grains are their favorite. No, they also seem to like raisins, so if you have any boxes of raisins anywhere that aren’t in a Ziploc bag, they will infiltrate said boxes. The eggs are little brown speckles, so in a box of raisins, you can’t see them very well. :::Insert puking here::: And speaking of Ziploc bags, I have found the cocoons inside the tops of sealed Ziploc bags. So they didn’t quite get to the food, but they are now blocking the exit hole for the food. Nasty. I’ve found them in my salt, in my brown sugar, in my rice. And good luck getting rid of them. You have to pull all the food out of the cabinets/drawers, chuck whatever isn’t sealed, thoroughly clean the cabinets/drawers, and start buying containers to keep your food in, which isn’t cheap. The cost of all of those containers really adds up, not to mention the food that had to be thrown out. So guess what I have to do this weekend? Yup, you guessed it: I have to pull all the food out of at least one of my cabinets, toss a bunch of stuff, and clean the inside of the cabinet. Since the drawer above this cabinet is also affected (the drawer has the boys’ snacks in it), I will probably have to pull the drawer out completely to clean the bottom of it. I’ve already cleaned the inside of it, twice, and tossed the food that was affected, but they are still lurking in that drawer, though everything is now sealed. Fortunately, most things I have in the cabinet are also sealed, like all of my baking stuff, but there are some things that are not, like chips. Needless to say, I do not look forward to this chore.

People on the phones are generally annoying me today, either interrupting me constantly and talking over me, or simply not listening to anything I say. I told you we handle ALL of these requests by fax, so don't ask me "You don't do it by phone?" or tell me "No thanks, I'd rather do it now on the phone". I did not give you an option, so take it or leave it and get off my line.



Okay, this day has already been too long. This is the kind of day where I have a strong desire to run away, go home, curl up on the couch in my sweats with a blanket and a movie and a vat of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream, and forget that the rest of the world even exists.

Wow, I’m so lucky my head hasn’t rolled away, or been plucked right off by a hungry seagull, because clearly it’s not attached to my body this week. And it’s only Tuesday…

Let’s see, where shall I begin? I’ll go with the most notable oversights and mix ups of the last few days. Granted, they aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but they are enough to make me feel like I should be saying “Oh my gawd!” like a valley girl while twirling my hair and snapping my gum. Keep in mind these events are in addition to all the little tiny things I tend to space out on, like forgetting my book when I left for work, defrosting something for dinner, or calling off that hit on… well, you get the idea.

Every Tuesday Jacob gets an envelope with his homework for the week, and it’s due back on the following Monday. According to the teacher, this is so working parents have some extra time to make sure the homework gets done. We appreciate this greatly, as we are especially busy and spacy on weekday evenings. This week, however, we apparently started in on “lazy time” too early, and we forgot to have him complete his last math page and write his last sentences for the week. And this morning, TUESDAY morning, the day AFTER the homework is due, I discovered that it was still sitting on our kitchen counter. Of course our kitchen counter is an avalanche waiting to happen what with all the papers on it right now, so it is completely understandable that the homework got buried and forgotten about, as this is almost a daily occurrence. We are taking steps to remedy the situation, but that will take a lot of sorting and some time, and maybe a magic wand or a voodoo priest. A little tiny tornado would probably be the most effective remedy to clear the space and start from scratch. Wouldn’t that be handy? “Need to get organized, but don’t know where to start? Wish you could just start from scratch? Well now you can with Whirlwind Wow! It’s easy! Just set Whirlwind Wow on top of any unholy mess that’s taken on a life of its own and in minutes you’ll have a nice clear surface, ready to be organized! But wait! Act now and we’ll send you a second Whirlwind Wow ABSOLUTELY FREE!” But I digress…

Prior to the forgotten homework discovery, the morning started as usual. I smacked my snooze button umpteen times, dragged my sorry ass out of bed, snarling like a cat who was swung through the air by the tail… and I’m so tired and rummy that the visual created by that statement is making me giggle just a bit. Okay, a lot*. I think I need one of those "Clocky" alarm clocks that rolls off the nightstand after you hit the snooze, so after one chance you are then forced to get up and chase it around blindly in order to shut it up. The makers of that alarm clock are GENIUSES and I am most definitely in their target market. So what’s keeping me from buying it? Well, I don't particularly want to commit to chasing a clock every morning. Oh, and $50 for a newfangled alarm clock just isn't in the budget. Every day I summon immense willpower to get up, prop my eyelids up with toothpicks, and attempt to transform myself from a tired growly lump with a monosyllabic vocabulary to a somewhat coherent human, suitable to be allowed to mingle with the rest of society. So then I took my shower, started to do my thing in the usual order, washed my face, shaved my legs, all that good stuff. It was only when I was struggling more than usual to get a comb through my evil hair that I realized I forgot to wash it. I got it wet, then proceeded to skip from face washing to body washing, and completely disregarded the hair washing step that usually takes place in between. Okay, no big deal. It’s just going up in a ponytail anyway, right?

So I was messing around with Jacob’s homework stuff, and leaving a note on it for his teacher (“Sorry this was late, but Jacob’s mommy is a fuckwit this week”), then I almost walked out of the house without some of my stuff, including my lunch and my cell phone. I DID walk out without the book I wanted to bring. I then drove to the gas station to go into the AM/PM to get a cappuccino, where I attempted to bring my lunch bag inside instead of my purse. I don’t suppose they would accept a granny smith apple in exchange for a cuppa joe? Yeah, didn’t think so. So I got my cappuccino (extra caffeine anyone?) and went to pay. It was $1.49, and for some reason my brain thought I was going to get 49 cents back as change, so I offered to give the guy a penny so that I could just get 2 quarters back. D’oh! That doesn’t make any sense, now does it? Granted, I’m no Mensa candidate at 5 o’clock in the morning, but it’s bad when even the most basic math escapes me. The guy behind the counter just laughed at me. I took a verbal bow (I’ll be here all week) and got the hell out of there before causing myself further embarrassment.

On to the rest of my day, which actually hasn’t been as bad as I expected given this morning’s antics. I’ve forgotten to do a few basic things at work (I really hope that call does not get monitored…) but other than that :::knock on wood::: it’s been alright. But the day is still young. I have yet to discover everything I can forget today!



*No cats were harmed in the making of this blog.

I had the opportunity to watch this show briefly several nights ago (for about 5 minutes) and I have to say that it is hilarious. Not the show itself, but simply the fact that it exists. I probably would have watched for longer, because everyone loves a good train wreck, but Brian changed the channel. On retrospect, that was probably for the better. I can’t afford to sacrifice brain cells.

For anyone who has not seen this show, let me explain. This is a show where 2 teams with goofy names like “The Six Packs” and “The Beer Bellies” are dressed in these strange silver full body leotard type outfits (excellent visual with the beer bellies) and helmets, and they look kind of like they are wrapped in tin foil like a baked potato. So then this wall appears with a human shaped hole cut into it, usually in some strange contorted position. The person who is up (or people in some cases) stands on a mat which basically drops off like a cliff at the end into a pool of water that is nuclear-waste-green, and the wall moves toward the person and the person has to contort themselves into whatever weird lotus-downward-dog-I'm-a-little-teapot position the hole is cut into and the objective is for them to pass through the hole as the wall moves past them, without getting knocked into the toxic spill beneath the cliff.

The funniest part? From what I watched, the leg holes are often much much shorter than the contestants' actual legs. They must have used 10 year old kids as models for the holes. So it looks like the contestant is going to fit through the hole, but no, his leg is too long and he gets bonked on the foot and into the ooze for him.

WOW. I really wish I could have been around for the brainstorming session on that one. They aren't even trying to come up with semi-intelligent game shows anymore.

Yesterday was 9/11, and I usually try to avoid all the news coverage of the anniversary. So I didn’t intend to watch any 9/11 stuff yesterday, but Brian stopped on the History Channel briefly and we both got sucked in. We watched the show “102 Minutes That Changed America” (I think that’s what it was called – I know it was 102 minutes). It was 102 minutes of continuous video footage and recordings from multiple video cameras around the area (the news and various people in different parts of the city looking out their windows, or in NJ looking across the water, and even from on the ground by the WTC). Also included were recordings from police band radios and walkies. It was still so surreal to watch, maybe even more so now because the footage they always showed on the news was just from the news helicopters, which were required to stay 5 miles away. Nothing like this, with all of the video from on the ground, showing the huge cloud of ash and debris that shot between all the buildings, and people just covered from head to toe in grey ash.

So Jacob started watching with us for about the last 45-50 minutes, and he had nothing but questions the whole time. “How did this happen?”, “Why did this happen?”, “Why don’t the terrorists like America?”. We figured that he can’t avoid seeing and hearing about it at this time of year that it was okay for him to watch so we could talk to him about it. He kept saying, “When is the other building going to fall?” like it was a movie, and we kept telling him it’s not a movie, that this is real. He was having difficulty wrapping his mind around this happening in real life, and why it happened, and I can certainly understand. It’s tough to wrap my mind around it too. He asked some very good questions though, and in his mind he processed the “why” to be “…because we have all the cool stuff.” Not a bad interpretation of such a horrible event by a 6 year old who was still in the womb when the event took place.

When I was helping him get ready for bed, he was still asking questions and he asked, “How do you become a good person?” So we had a discussion about that. He’s got a pretty good head on his shoulders already, not bad for a 6 year old. We talked about how good people care about other people and help other people and do good things (I used the fact that I gave blood the day before and how much he helps his brother as examples). He seemed good with that.

I can only imagine what he’s telling his classmates about the tv show he watched last night…

First off, I just want to say: Suck it eBay!

Now, on to the ramblings…

I am giving blood tomorrow. It’s been ages since I’ve given blood, and I’ve only done it twice, about a decade ago. I never do it simply because it takes forever to get the blood out of me. Seriously, while I’m sitting there dripping my pint into the little bag, two or three people come and go in the chair next to me. I hope the blood mobile has room for two, or I’m going to mess up their schedule. But I am A negative, and that’s not a very common blood type, so I’m sure they could use my blood. I just hope I get someone who knows what they are doing and not the obligatory resident vein mangler.

Our breast cancer walk is next month. I’ve got a whole $20 donation so far, and that is from my husband. Jacob will be joining me this year, so that should be interesting. It’s a 5k walk, which is about 3.1 miles. I hope he doesn’t complain about the walk being too long. But I think he’ll do okay. I want to bring Logan too, but we no longer have a stroller, not even the umbrella stroller. We haven’t used one in about 2 years. And there is no way he will be able to walk that distance. And even if he can, he is slow as molasses in January. He loves to just meander (walking or riding his bike) and take in the sights. Which is all fine and dandy, but there is a place and a time, and that place and time is not during the breast cancer walk with my coworkers. Sorry Logan, I love you. You are going to have a daddy day while Jacob and I go walk.

Okay, I can’t figure this out. Why is it that on weekends, if I sit down on the couch anywhere between 11 am and 1 pm and watch TV, I can’t keep my freakin’ eyes open? But at night during the week, when I’m exhausted because I’ve been up since 4 am and have worked a full day and driven 45 miles each way to work and back, having the TV on in my bedroom keeps me awake. I am so tired from getting to sleep too late every night. I stopped at the AM/PM at the gas station this morning because they have pretty good cappuccino and I got a “mocha alert” which is a mocha with extra caffeine. I guess it’s working. I don’t really feel any more awake or alert. In fact, I could really go for a nap right about now…

I just had a member tell me that the sooner we go out of business, the better off the medical profession will be. He didn’t stick around long enough to hear me tell him that the same things happen with ABC Insurance company and XYZ insurance company, and every other insurance company out there. Instead he hung up on me mid-sentence. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore anyway. And of course he is more than welcome, encouraged even, to switch to another company where he can play by their (similar, if not the same) rules.

My day was okay until I took a 30 minute phone call from someone who wanted to scream at me, not listen to me, talk over me, have a conversation that went in circles, and make me repeat myself at least a dozen time. Ever since, I’ve wanted to bang my head on the desk each time I get a call, even an easy one. That probably wouldn’t help my headache much though.

More rambling coming soon…

• Those fake testicles people hang from their truck bumpers. Seriously? It's not enough that you're basically driving a giant penis, but you need to actually hang balls from the back of it? I'm sure those guys don't have a sense of humor that extends beyond fart jokes.

• Dogs that fit in purses. That’s not a dog, that’s chew toy for my cat.

• Va-jay-jay. WTF? That just sounds childish. I, as a self respecting GROWN UP, refuse to use such cutesy euphemisms.

• (Speaking of stuff on people's cars): Those cute little stick people families I see stuck on the back windows of many family-mobiles. They are very cute. They also make me think of the pedophiles who may be using that as a personal “menu”. “Oooh, this family has 3 girls, what a nice selection. I think I’ll follow them home!” Uh, yeah, so not safe.

• Robot Chicken. Why does this show even exist? Who's the genius who greenlighted this piece of crap?