I kind of always wanted to get summoned for jury duty. Not that I think it’s glamorous or fun, but fuck–what a prime opportunity to people-watch, right? And that’s kind of my thing.

A few weeks ago, I got my official notice in the mail, filled it out immediately and tucked it back in the mail slot for the mailman to retrieve the next day. When Henry came home from work that day, he saw the torn-open notice and asked, “Where’s the rest of it?”

“In the mail slot, already filled out!” I answered all incredulously, like how was this not his first guess? “I REALLY want to do this!”

“You’re fucked up. No one WANTS to do jury duty.” (Too bad at least TEN people have told me otherwise in the last day.) And then Henry dampened my parade by explaining to me the ins and outs of jury duty, how I would need to check the website on a designated date to see if I was even summoned in the first place.

Well, that day was yesterday and OMG I was!

But my joy soon turned into panic. Do you guys know me at all? I’m pretty much helpless. And now I’m expected to be turned loose into the real world, to ENTER A COURTHOUSE without setting off five alarms, to find a particular room without crying….

“What room is it?” Barb asked me and I told her it was 3-something. “OK, so take the elevator to the third floor—”

“BUT WHERE ARE THE ELEVATORS, OH MY GOD BARB?!”

There better be attendants at every corner, waiting to point me in the correct direction.

“Will I have to talk to people?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Barb said. “You might get asked questions.”

“IN FRONT OF PEOPLE?” I cried.

And then I found out that this doesn’t even mean I’ve been chosen? I have to sit there all day, in a room I may or may not find, waiting to see if they want me?

Talk about my life story.

Henry agreed to drive me down there tomorrow morning so I’ll have one less thing to worry about, like: WHEN SHOULD I GET OFF THE TROLLEY? AND THEN WHAT?! And then he tried to explain to me how to walk to work afterward. Seriously. I do not understand downtown Pittsburgh. There are roads and people and buildings; lots of them.

Today on the way to work, I pointed at every building we passed and asked, “Is that the courthouse? What about that one?”

“We’re not even on the right side of town,” Henry mumbled exasperatedly.

“You said you were going to show me!” I wailed, about to get hysterical. I have lots of…complexities, we’ll call them…when it comes to going somewhere alone for the first time. I like to over-think things until I’m sure that I’m going walk into a building for the first time and promptly fall into a hole to a land of Katy Perry-soundtracked church sermons and food overrun with crunchy onions because how would I know that it was there when I HAVE NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE.

“I am going to show you,” Henry said. “Tomorrow morning when I drop you off in front of it.”

Then he tried to explain to me how to get to work once I’m released.

“This is too confusing,” I sighed as he was trying to point out landmarks. “It’s a good thing my phone has a compass.”

“Yeah but do you even know what direction to go to begin with?” After his question was met with silence, he said, “Didn’t think so.”

I was starting to feel OK about it at work as my co-worker Cheryl said, “Oh you’ll be fine! You mostly just sit around. And then you break for an hour and a half for lunch—”

An hour and a half? NINETY MINUTES?? What the fuck am I going to do for ninety minutes? Find a bathroom stall in which to tremble and cry?

Barb did her best to comfort me. “I’m trying to think if there is anywhere to eat inside the courthouse,” she mused, knowing full well that if I attempted to stray outside, I might never find my way back and wind up having to change my address to:
Some Guy’s Occupy Pittsburgh Tent Some Random St.
Pgh (I think), PA.

“If you need to, you can just call me. I’ll come find you,” she promised, and that made me feel like maybe I could survive this day.

“Just stand outside and shine a mirror into the sun; I’ll follow the light signal,” I said, trying to complicate this into some failed Choose Your Own Adventure book.

But then Wendy came over and said, “Fool, just walk outside the courthouse and look up. You can see our building, duh.”

Why does this have to be downtown? Why can’t it be on a farm that’s easy to find and full of boughs pregnant with apples. (My apple obsession is still going strong. More on that later.)

So that’s where I’ll be tomorrow if you need me, walking around in circles and looking up at the sky. I should probably take that bloody pie server thing out of my purse first, though.

Today is apparently All Saints Day, which never would have had any bearing on my life except that now my child is in Catholic school and they throw parties for this shit.

The paper he brought home a few weeks ago said something about costumes being optional, and I thought it was a joke. Kids actually dress up for this shit?

Besides, Chooch has been in 4 different costumes  in the last week, so I opted out on his behalf.

And what the fuck do sinners know about saints, anyway? I only know St. Francis, and that’s because I’m a spoiled brat who got to go to Assisi four times as a child, though all I really learned there was:

1. don’t piss off monks, particularly monks near chains
2. the hot chocolate there sucks
3. when you break something in a gift shop, run

So, short of strapping a bird bath to the front of Chooch, I really had no other clues and sent him to school in his street clothes.

Two kids in his class were already there when we arrived this morning: one girl was wearing basically a white potato sack with gold ribbing along the collar; her mom is one of those broads who has to have her hands in everything so I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “Of course she’s dressed up.” Another kid hadn’t put his on yet. Chooch was looking at me with these sad eyes and asked, “Why don’t I have a costume?”

“Because we don’t do saints,” I whispered, pretending to lovingly smooth out his hair but really that’s our secret code for “STFU before you embarrass mommy.”

I am hard-pressed to believe that every single child is going to come trouncing into the classroom in some ridiculous robe. You can’t have saints without sinners, right?

I had Henry bake cookies last night so I’d have something to contribute to the party, thereby acknowledging that this is a day to celebrate fictional Biblical characters. Hopefully chocolate chip and sugar cookies will suffice. I don’t know what these crazy Catholic schools do and as long as there aren’t any goats or rams being slaughtered on stone tables, they can have a fucking ball over there playing saint-related games and singing Biblical ballads. I just don’t need any detailed accounts.

“He could have been zombie Jesus,” Henry said when we were on the phone a little while ago and I think he was only semi-joking. I also think he doesn’t know that Jesus isn’t actually a saint.

Maybe we’ll pull that one out for the Easter party. They already know we’re fucking idiots.

[ETA: Apparently there is a feast involved in this holiday and now my interest is officially piqued. Maybe next year.]

[ETA pt. 2: The teacher told Henry that when the priest went around asking all the kids what saints they were dressed as, Chooch said he was God. Also, judging by all the shit Chooch brought home, all the other parents treated this as a Halloween party. NICE TO KNOW. There needs to be a handbook for heathen parents who send their kids to Catholic school.]

It was pretty stupid.

Or: How Barb Found Another Way To Ruin My Life

Or: That Fucking Tomato, The Sequel

Before Barb left work on Monday, she had to go and fuck up my whole world by offering me an apple. I just smiled and said thanks, but what was really happening at that moment was that a vignette of cumulative  botched apple-cutting situations began whirring around in my head,  my inner-wrists started tingling at even the suggestion of wielding a paring knife, and my teeth were curling back inside my gums at the thought of biting into a whole apple.

Meanwhile the ghost of Johnny Appleseed openly mocked me from above my desk.

It just sat there all night, to the left of me, this glowing red/yellow orb of temptation. If I had been the original Eve, the Bible as we know it (and I don’t really know it) would be drastically altered, because I have a feeling Adam would have been too busy exploring holes with his dick to cut a fucking apple.

We might all be walking around nude right now.

Eventually, I tossed it into my purse, thinking I would just find some way to eat it at home. And by that I of course mean Henry would put a Gerber bib on me and slice the apple into Erin-appropriate wedges.

That night at work, I ate peanuts and Halloween candy instead. Fucking apple.

***

I forgot the apple was in my purse until the next morning and Henry had the audacity to not drop everything and come home from work wearing his produce armor to cut my fucking apple.

“Where did you get an apple?!” he asked, probably thinking I was trying to eat random growths from neighborhood trees again.

Gee, I don’t know, Henry. An old fucking lady brought it up to my cottage window while goddamn bluebirds sang Disney songs behind her.

“Barb gave it to me last night and I put it in my purse! Don’t act like you don’t go through my purse!” I answered defensively, like I was trying to deny an affair with a bait shop owner.

(This all happened via Facebook; look at me, making it appear that Henry and I have real life conversations that don’t take place via the Internet, text, and Post-It Notes!)

Seriously, when will apples shake their stigma? WE NEARLY BROKE UP OVER THIS.

I had people on twitter sending me tutorials but the first I watched said I needed a melon baller and I started to break a sweat because I was pretty sure we don’t have a melon baller and also because I think I used a melon baller as a torture device in a short story I wrote a long time ago.

I decided to just wait for Henry to come home from work.

***

Henry hadn’t yet had a chance to get both feet through the door before I was blocking his path and shoving an apple-fist in his face.

He looked tired and disgruntled.

“Give me the fucking thing,” he said, snatching the apple from my hand. As he disappeared into the kitchen, I heard him grumble, “You’re pathetic.”

Nice to know he worries about my safety and the possibility of apple-induced arterial spray.

He practically frisbee’d a plate of shoddily-cut apple wedges at me before storming out the door to pick up our son, who will have to learn how to cut his own apples if he ever so much as dreams of eating one when Henry is away from the house.

This was definitely the product of a pissed off man with a knife. I call it Henry Sliced the Apple: the shocking conclusion to How Will Erin Eat Her Apple?

***

When I got to work later that day, I regaled Barb with the horrors of what had come to be known as Applegate. I did a lot of hand-wringing to further illustrate the distress her stupid apple had put me under.

“Oh, honey,” she said in her Babying Erin Voice,  which you might have figured gets a ton of use. “You should have just used the apple corer we keep here.”

WHAT APPLE CORER.

I took a picture of Barb demonstrating, so I could look back on it for reference.

That night, Barb left me another apple, the apple corer thing, and an assignment: to try it by myself.

I waited until everybody but the late shift people had gone for the day, just in case I wound up causing a scene. You never can be too safe. My first attempt propelled the apple with great force against the kitchen wall, knocking over the paper towel holder. (Speaking of the paper towel holder: The roll was empty the other night and I put a new one on all by myself. So now no one can say I haven’t helped out around there.) I think I didn’t have it properly centered because I might not have been paying attention.

My second attempt sent me lurching into the kitchen counter, but I did reach some low level of success. I couldn’t get the blades to split the apple the whole way through and wound up having to break it off the corer thing, but this was a win as far as Things Erin Tries To Do In The Kitchen goes.

Then I happily ate my apple, while  saying, “I did this myself!” to everyone who walked by. (And by everyone, I mean just Carey.)

And that is how I learned to cut an apple at work.

(You should see me with an orange.)

All you really need to know about me before jumping into this is that I hate doing shit with kids, so for the sake of my fingertips, let’s just pretend for a minute that there are already four paragraphs written in my usual long-windedly verbose style illustrating my hate for the pumpkin patch/kids/being around kids/riding school buses/moms/being a mom.

I somehow got suckered into being a chaperone for this year’s field trip. Last year it was mandatory that one parent accompany each preschooler, but they only needed 9 Kindergarten parent chaperones. I heard my disembodied voice saying, “Yes,” to the teacher’s aid and then vaguely recall her scrawling “Mrs. Robbins” onto the list of condemned parents.

(Never mind the fact that I am MISS KELLY not MRS. ROBBINS.)

A. The Sweetest Ginger

I arrived at the school in time to be cast out from the other chaperones.  I’m sure I wasn’t missing much there, as I picked up pieces of their extreme Yinzer-garble. Most of the parents just kept their backs turned on me. I was OK with that.

As the kids began filing out of the classroom and ran over to their respective parent, the teachers began handing off the rest of the kids so that some parents had an extra child to be responsible for. I assumed (stupidly) that the teachers are hyper-aware of my utter irresponsibility, but apparently my facade translates to strangers as Put-Together Woman Bursting with Empathy because they paired me up with Nate.

Normally, I don’t know shit about the kids Chooch goes to school with, and I like to keep it that way. But Nate is notorious because his parents died in the beginning of the school year, one right after the other. Totally traumatic and devastating; I actually cried when I read the letter that the school sent home about the mom and hoped it was a mistake when there was another letter a day later about the dad. I never learned the details, but a Google search brought up their obituaries and they died a day apart from each other in the hospital so I imagine car accident is the safest assumption.

Good job giving this poor kid to the most socially awkward mom there, you guys. Good fucking job.

Nate put his pudgy little hand in mine as we walked out to the bus together. Some little girl said, “Nate, sit with us!” but he opted to sit with me and was a friendly little chatterbox for the whole 30 minute ride.

“I think I know where we are!” as we passed a grocery store. “My mom used to shop there!”

I smiled awkwardly, the diarrhea-face kind, hoping that topic would go DOA.

While we compared animal crackers with other (the owls were our favorites), Nate looked at me innocently and, in a way that was remarkably upbeat, asked, “Do you know where my mom and dad are?”

OMFG YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. SERIOUSLY? TO ME, HE’S ASKING THIS, OF ALL FUCKING PEOPLE? I desperately yearned for a can of that liquid rubber shit to plug up my tear ducts.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. If I were my friend Lisa, who went to school to learn how to talk to people about death, I’m sure I would have reacted in such a way that made lilacs spring up from a meadow. But me being me, I just whispered “No…” in a frightened tone and then bit my thumb.

“They’re in heaven,” Nate answered nonchalantly.

I do not hate this particular kid so I acted like that was the most wonderful thing, to have parents in heaven. I was three when my own dad died from a car accident, but I don’t really have much memory from which to draw any life lessons. I don’t even remember when I first really understood that my dad was dead. What did my family tell me back then? Knowing my mom, she acted like nothing happened.

I sat there in silence, trying to process all of this while Nate quietly sipped from his Capri Sun beside me.

We talked about Halloween costumes for awhile (he’s going to be some train-friend of Thomas’s that I don’t care about) and then he dropped this bomb on me:

“Do you think there will be big pumpkins at the pumpkin patch?”

I pretended to consider this. (I think that is what you have to do when dealing with children: pretend. A lot.) “I imagine there will be pumpkins of all sizes,” I said.

“Well, I want to find the biggest one and throw it up to my parents in Heaven.”

WHY. WHY WHY WHY WHY.  The fissure forming on my heart reminded me that, OMG—I have a heart, and I suddenly felt inspired to give up my hateful blogging, love Jesus and adopt 18 orphans.

You guys, this kid kind of made me feel a little bit human.

B. The Worst Best Friend

My own kid sat with the boy who, one week ago, said to me, “I wish there were no Rileys in the world,” in a mean tone, in front of my kid, prompting me to have a little talkie with the principal because I’ll be damned if I’m paying to send my kid to a school where hate is something that kids can get away with. If he’s saying shit like that when he’s FIVE, what’s he going to be doing when he’s FIFTEEN? You can tell me I overreacted, but I’d rather nip that shit in the bud than blow it off and have something worse happen down the line.

(You should know that I’m not one of those moms who get all up-in-arms every single time someone blows a hair on my kid’s head.)

This kid, Anthony, is such a motherfucker that the principal already knew who I was talking about before I even said so. His mom was made aware of the situation (as well as the mom of another kid who appears to be Anthony’s sidekick in hate) and profuse apologies were made all around.

Now Chooch is calling him his “best friend” and wanted nothing more than to sit with him on the bus.

“Sit with Nate and me,” I pleaded.

“Anth is my best friend,” Chooch shot back, sliding into the seat across from me.

Anth? You have got to be fucking kidding me.  This Anthony kid is such an ADHDick. Several times, I was forced to lean over Nate and hiss at Chooch to knock it the fuck off because Anthony’s mere presence was making him act like he was running on Pixi Stix and Starbucks. I really need to get him away from this Anthony kid before he starts verbally denigrading other children worse than I do to Henry.

Anthony’s mom is much older and has a weary face that screams, “I AM SO TIRED OF YELLING AT THIS FUCKING DICK ALL THE LIVELONG DAY.”

I kind of feel for her.

As soon as the bus pulled into the farm’s lot, Anthony was out of his seat and pushing kids out of his way, provoking one of the teachers to open her mouth and blow him back into an empty seat with nothing more than her militant tone.

It was fucking awesome. Everyone paraded past as Anthony (and his sidekick, who actually wasn’t doing anything wrong other than associating himself with this delinquent) sulked in his seat.

Somehow Chooch avoided punishment even though I’m pretty sure I witnessed him being a pushy asshole. It’s obviously because he’s a cracker.

C. Father of the Year

Henry met us out there this year and I was so thankful. Since I had Nate obediently clutching my hand, Henry kept an eye on Chooch, who was following Anthony like a puppy. Several times, Henry tugged Chooch back to us by his hood and gave him low-pitched yet stern talks about how he needed to not worry so much about Anthony.

Kindergarten and this shit is happening already. KINDERGARTEN.

Meanwhile, Henry completely skirted the $10 admission and not once did a farmhand approach him and ask around a straw of hay, “Sir, you ain’t wearing a sticker on your breast. Why?”

D. The Stupid Pumpkin Diorama Tour

I hate this part of Triple B! It is row after row of fictional characters with pumpkin heads. WHO THE FUCK CARES. And then they throw Moses floating downstream in a basket just on the off chance some douchey Catholic school kids happen to stroll on through and all the parents clap and laugh happily and it is so obnoxious.

“OMG Bible shit, you guys!”

This may have happened when I was there.

Nate loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so I took this photo for him. I figured I’d have it printed for his grandparents who bring him to school everyday, adding some shine to my halo. (Or, if I were Barb, I guess you could say my halo might then be all TRICKED OUT.)

It kind of made me sad how few of the dioramas he was able to figure out.

Which brings me to….

E. Aging Hipster Dick

One of the girls in Chooch’s class was behind Nate and me with her dad.  I hadn’t been paying much attention to him until we approached the one diorama that stumps me repeatedly.

“Oh look,” he said to his daughter, “Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub!”

I laughed to myself because it was so obvious. Over my shoulder, I said laughingly to him, “I totally could NOT figure this one out last year!”

“Oh,” he said in this tone that was steeped with a bold combination of ambivalence and superiority. “I guess you just learned something then.”

No, this tone just did not sit well with me.

“Yeah….I guess,” I mumbled, and from that point on, motherfucker was on my radar.

From then on, nothing I did could drown out his ridiculously uber-serious reciting of every fucking nursery rhyme diorama we shuffled past.

Every time I was near him after that (which was pretty much always; god, go stand with your WIFE), I had to fight the urge to heckle-cough “Douchebag” in his general direction. Fuck off with your lame short-sleeved flannel. Go sit in your hybrid and listen to some Iron and Wine and leave the pumpkin-picking to the fuckers who care. (I am not one of those fuckers but I assure you I’d rather pick a fucking pumpkin than listen to anything on his iPod.)

On the hayride, he all but SAT ON MY LAP and proceeded to shout over the dirge of the tractor’s engine to his wife who was sitting FIVE PEOPLE away from him about how much he spent on apples at another farm.

“$8 for 8 apples! That’s practically $1 an apple!” he shouted in his deep dick-swallowing voice.

That’s not “like” a dollar an apple; it IS a dollar an apple.

Sometimes his wife would snap, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Because, you know, not everyone is trained to hear bored, husky tones over top of a chugging tractor pulling 35 screaming children.

He was so close to me that I feared I would disembark the wagon with the sudden druthers to wear a belted (vintage) tunic and swap out my photos of Jonny Craig for Colin Meloy. (Whom I do enjoy on occasion, but still.)

(Hopefully I don’t offend my hipster friends who are neither aging nor dicks.)

Meanwhile, I found myself having an enjoyable conversation with Momesis, and considering we also ran into each other at the playground in August and wound up chatting for 90 minutes while our kids played, I suppose I should just call her Amy. Besides, I now have a Dademy to replace her.

“I decided to tell him about how I didn’t know that was Three Men in a Tub last year. I was just trying to keep it light-hearted, you know how I do.”

“No,” Henry said. “I don’t.”

And this is why I don’t often initiate small talk.

F. The 5-Minute Hayride

Just like last year’s 5-minute hayride, now with an Aging Hipster Dick sprouting out of my torso.

Yes, Nate; that is exactly the look of fucking disdain I too would have if Anthony were hugging me into him.

 “Mommy, can I have a hoodie that says Sinister all over it like Anthony?”

G.The Pumpkin Picking

After sitting through the SAME EXACT program about DIRT put on by Mrs. B. in the School Barn, we finally got to head out to the small, forlorn patch of puny pumpkin rejects that’s there specifically for school field trips. I guess $10 a person only promises the adoption of a pie pumpkin.

This is my favorite part because it means it’s almost time to leave.

Nate was off getting his picture taken by the teacher, and Henry was too busy checking out the other moms bending at the waist of their mom jeans to be of any assistance, so I had to tiptoe through the mud while Chooch kicked disinterestedly at a pumpkin that maybe he might have wanted, who knows, what did he care. He was still sulking because I wouldn’t let him sit next to Anthony during the dirt assembly.

Nate came back from the school photo-op and Henry decided to actually pull his eyeballs off the MILFs’ applebottoms long enough to drag Chooch to the entrance while I assisted Nate in choosing a pumpkin. Of course, he picked one whose stem that was still attached to a 10 inch-thick vine and I unfortunately shorted the remote that turns my right arm into a hacksaw. Sorry, buddy.

He picked a comparable gourd and proceeded to immediately break the handles of the plastic bag he was given. I kept offering to carry it for him, but he stubbornly cradled his bag-swathed pumpkin in his arms, dropping it every three feet. It was fine. I wasn’t getting agitated.

No really, it was fine.

Just fucking dandy.

H. THE FINISH LINE

Henry got to drive home in the nice, quiet, CHILDFREE car while I was shackled to my chaperone status for one more bus ride into the horizon. I got to sit alone at least, while Nate, Anthony and Chooch all crammed into one seat.

Nate quietly looked out the window the entire way home while Chooch leaned forward with his forehead pressed against the back of the seat in front of him. They were clearly tired. As were all the other children, except for Anthony, who was practically sitting upside down in his seat, singing “Georgie Porgie*” the entire way while his mom bitched about not having time to shop.

(*Seriously? My kid must be the only one in that class who doesn’t give a shit about nursery rhymes.)

When we got back to the house, Chooch threw up and I was really pissed off because that’s what I wanted to do.

I. Henry’s Day at the Farm

I decided to try and act like I genuinely cared about Henry’s pumpkin patch experience, but he replied to my initial text inquiring of his favorite field trip moment with a misspelled and curiously punctuated: “Your [sic] not interviewing me again?”

“No, just wondering,” I texted back. “Also, what kid did you hate the most and what mom was the most MILFish?”

Henry: “LOL, most MILFish.”

Me: “Seriously, answer me. Which mom-bitch did you want to poke with your pumpkin stem?”

He kept ignoring that particular question, which makes me believe it was Aging Hipster Dick he had eyes for. And he told me later that he “doesn’t hate any kids.” What the fuck is wrong with him?

Me: “When you pick pumpkins, what are things you look for?”

Henry: “Size and color.”

Me: “Like when you’re looking for dicks on the Internet? When you were in the SERVICE, did you ever cut glory holes into pumpkins?”

Henry: “Interview over.”

Me: “Did you leave some of the pumpkin guts inside to give it a nice, squishy vaginal effect?”

No answer. Obviously that means yes.

One of my co-workers called out to me from her office, “Do you like tomatoes?”

That’s a loaded question. I suppose I do like tomatoes, but only on certain occasions, in certain foods and sliced in certain ways.

But this was coming from a co-worker with whom I’m not very close; not wanting to engage her any further by revealing intimate details about my dietary habits, I settled for a simple, “Sure.”

And then there she was, standing before me with a carton of cherub tomatoes.

“Here, take one!” she said eagerly, arms extended like she was handing me a birthday gift. “It’s like an explosion of flavor in your mouth!”

Stunned, I stuck one tentative hand beyond the plastic covering of the carton and right smack into the warzone of small red torture devices.

Never do I just EAT A TOMATO. Oh, I know all about you fools who shake some salt on those motherfuckers and eat ’em like a goddamn apple. But that’s not for me. Put it on a grilled cheese, for sure, but someone gives me a whole entire tomato and it’s getting chucked for fun.

What a Normal Person Might Do:

• Politely decline.
• Pretend to have gum in their mouth.
• Puncture their breast implant and run.

What Erin Does:

• Accept the challenge.

I felt backed into a wall by then, anyway. My hand was already instinctively in the carton (actually, by this point, it was stuck in the carton; have you seen the gargantuan rings I wear?) so this was definitely the point of no return; and she was standing there all excited and wide-eyed, waiting to become Tomato Bros with me. I was willing to tell her what she wanted to hear just to make her go away.

It was the size of a fig, the one I withdrew. Instead of biting it, I sighed heavily and popped the whole thing into my fake-smiling mouth.

My molars squished into it and sent guts of the tomato gushing through my mouth; the wet, gelatinous texture made my sad tongue curl back in terror. This was definitely not a good time for my taste buds, or my gag reflex for that matter. I’ve had an easier time getting through reluctant, obligated blow jobs.

That’s about when the tang of bile began to slowly crawl up my throat like a geriatric geyser. I was still chewing and smiling while she stood there expectedly, praying that she doesn’t notice I’m dry heaving with zipped lips. And then of course, a veritable reel of disgusting images played out inside my mind, because why wouldn’t I want to think about:

• snakes engulfing writhing rodents,
• Snooki’s kooka engulfing writhing rodents,
• Sarah Palin as President, and
• Grandma Cleavage modeling her new Irish Snuggie,

while I’m hosting what I can only describe as Satan’s sour semen on the bed of my tongue.

The short version: It was yucky, you guys. :(

My body was trying to reject it into my cupped palms but she just wouldn’t walk away.

Someone else walked by and she turned to offer them their own cherub (who tossed it into his mouth like he’s some Huck Finn motherfucker, I might add; I might also add that his name is MITCH, the worst Facebook friend in the whole world, and you know why I can add that? Because HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THIS EXISTS BECAUSE HE NEVER CHECKS IN WITH HIS STUPID FACEBOOK FRIENDS.), affording me a few seconds to openly cringe and emulate the No Bueno! grimace a baby makes when being force-fed organic mashed peas. I definitely didn’t want to swallow, so I tucked it behind my teeth, under my tongue, if I could have dripped it down into my bra, I would have; and then I choked out a strained, “It’s really good, thanks!” Like it would have killed her if I told her the truth, as if she grew this bitch in her own goddamn garden from seeds extracted from her loins. And then I couldn’t hold on to it any longer—I swallowed. I mean, it might as well have been a load of ejaculate so why the hell not?

“An explosion of flavor, right?!”

Yes, something like that.

Chooch: “What does ‘selfish’ mean?”
Me: “When you only think about yourself.”
Henry, at the same time as me: “Erin Kelly.”
**********
Apparently, we’ve only been doing what I want to do, but hello—if I left our itinerary up to Henry, I’d probably be in a tent right now, unable to update my blog.

Gross.

We did agree on one thing though—Clingman’s Dome. It’s an observation tower about a 45 minute drive up into the higher elevations of the Smokies. We decided to wake up early to do this in case Bill and Jessi had any plans for us in the afternoon.

This entailed waking Chooch up. When it comes to slumber, Chooch is a little divo. You let him wake up on his own, else you’ll have a snapping piranha on your hands.

Which we did yesterday morning. However, at least we made it to Thursday before our child to returned to his old ways of being a noncompliant asshole. What a great run we had.

The whole way up the mountain, he made his presence known in the backseat as he bucked and kicked at the back of my seat and allowed Satan himself to use Chooch’s mouth as a death threat portal. There were several times I had legitimate chills.

If you’ve ever seen Back to the Beach, think of Bobby in the backseat, only younger and way more sinister than sarcastic. Henry even turned around a few times a la Frankie Avalon and threatened to bust him in the mouth. IT WAS AN AWESOME JOYRIDE UP THE SIDE OF A FUCKING SCARY MOUNTAIN YOU GUYS. My nerves were not shot at all.

We saw another bear though!

“Oh shit, that’s a cub. Bye!” Henry yelled, flooring it.

It only got worse when we reached our destination and freed him from his cage. Thank god there was barely anyone there when we arrived because he was being so loud, so disrespectful, so spoiled-5-year-old that I came very close to making him a permanent fixture of the Smokies.

And this was before we realized it was a half-mile hike uphill from the parking lot to the tower. Oh, how he wept and shrieked, “MY LEGS HURT OMG IM DYING!” after taking two steps.

The elevation was 6600 feet and we quite literally had our heads in the clouds. It was so hard to breathe to begin with, and then you add in the accelerated heart rate that Chooch had given us and we both were sure we were going to go into cardiac arrest.

He finally stopped screaming near the top, only because two hikers emerged from the woods and Chooch is extremely vain just like me. But he refused to go all the way up to the tower because there were about 8 people there, opting instead to hang back on the curved ramp with his arms crossed and the surliest visage I think I have ever seen on him.

And of course we couldn’t see shit through the clouds, but despite that and the fact we have an asshole kid, it was still cool to be there, inhaling clouds.

Chooch was fine after that because we were leaving which is what he wanted.

Captain Surly-Sack.

This will probably be the only thing about this vacation that Chooch remembers when he grows up, creating a vitriolic aversion to Tennessee. I’ll be sure to blame it on Henry.

I never realize how much of a jerk parent I am until I say things out loud to co-workers and their fingers involuntarily look up the number for Child Protective Services.

The other day, Sandy and Barb were complaining about a co-worker who was coughing and sneezing all day.

“There goes Typhoid Mary again,” Sandy said, all annoyed.

“Oh, I know what you mean. Yesterday, Chooch sneezed like eighteen times in succession and I was like, ‘God, get a life!'” I said, feeling a real sense of camardarie.

“You told him to get a life?” Barb reiterated.

“Well yeah, because he was annoying me. I mean, who needs to sneeze that much?”

They both laughed, but I guess I kind of saw how maybe I could have chosen my words better. Or, you know, offered him a tissue instead.

***

I hurt my back today. I started to notice it while I was exercising, but I’m on an intense “I’m Fat and Should Die” kick so I sucked it up and continued through the pain. By the time I was done, I was laying on the floor, whimpering and unable to stand up.

Chooch took no pity on me.

“Stop being a crybaby,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt that bad, let’s go outside.”

So we went outside, where I writhed on the front porch and reminded him every 3 seconds of the excruciating pain I was in.

Then he scraped himself and got all Wounded Animal on me, but I scoffed. “You didn’t care about my back, so I don’t care about your scrape!”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. I only found that out when I came to work and told Barb and Kaitlin about how much of a bastard my own son was being to me while I clearly have a broken back.

“Erin!” Barb exclaimed. “Who’s the adult here?”

“But he hurt my feelings!” I argued.

“Yeah, but—he’s five!”

I mean, at least I’m not hitting him in the face with hot frying pans, right? Is that not good enough?

Well then, I guess tonight if you need me, I’ll be sitting in my room working on the parent rosary.

I don’t normally buy those exorbitantly-priced photos taken at the most inopportune times on roller coasters because they can make even Jennifer Aniston look like her fourth chin is giving birth to an alien flesh-sac with crossed eyes. But after I saw the one of Janna and me on the Sky Rocket, I started laughing so hard that I had to use my thighs as bladder-tourniquets. Janna had this intense look of “Please don’t buy this” in her eyes, almost as if she just knew what was going through my mind.

“I have to have it,” I blurted out to the guy working the photo booth. Suddenly, $10 seemed cheap for a memory that will last a lifetime. I couldn’t stop laughing the whole time we waited for it be printed. Janna seemed considerably less amused, but every so often I’d get a nervous laugh out of her.

I couldn’t wait to show Henry when we met back up with him and Chooch. I began laughing all over again, that insane staccato chuckle I’m notorious for when things have reached the Apex of Giddy. I even cried a little; people were looking at this point.

Henry looked at the picture and just frowned. He was probably angry that I had the audacity to spend my own hard-earned money on such frivolties instead of Desitin for his sweaty summer balls.

This picture is so fucking bad, it’s amazing.

1. If I look like this on a ride that isn’t even scary, I can only imagine how I’ll look if I ever find myself hunted in an Alaskan* forest by Michael Myers carrying a boom box that’s a’blast with Katy Perry’s Worst Misses. Coincidentally, this is also what I look like when Henry makes me have sex with him.
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   :(

2. This was taken .002 seconds after Janna cupped Josh Groban’s ballsack and then died of happiness. What a peaceful corpse she makes.
3. Someone once told the guy in the front seat to treat every moment in life like it’s a deodorant commercial.

I have more pictures and shit to say, but this was the definite highlight of my day. I hope that when I’m on my death bed, someone shows me this, because that’s really how I’d like to peace out.

(*Alaska scares the shit out of me.)

I bought Chooch some Aquasaurs for his birthday, this intriguing kit of “prehistoric water pets.”  We apparently can’t have normal pets in this house.

The first batch of “eggs” I dumped into the water never hatched. I bitched for awhile about how they were duds, but then Henry tried the second half of the batch and the eggs flourished, so of course it was all my fault and he gloated about it for a few seconds before I kicked him in the stomach.

At first, the baby Aquasaurs were little flecks, the same way sea monkeys start out in this scary world, but after about a week they pretty much began doubling in size overnight.

Every night.

There are some in the tank that are so gigantor, I have to turn away in fear, cupping my hands over my mouth in case the dry-heaving escalates to something more fruitful. (Literally; I have been eating a lot of melon these days.) One is at such a maximum girth that I promise you he casts a shadow over the room when he swims to the front of the tank.

The fact that I’m so freaked out over these bastard sea monsters only makes Henry and Chooch like them even more. Last week when I was at work, Henry emailed me a video he took with his phone. I assumed it was going to feature our child doing something douchey, I mean adorable, but no. No, it was the FUCKING AQUASAURS.

I coughed deeply and violently, swallowed my tongue briefly, and then deleted it.

THEY ARE EVEN BIGGER TODAY. I didn’t believe Chooch when he said, “Mommy they’re even bigger today!” BUT THEY ARE EVEN BIGGER TODAY.

Some of these fucking nasty, slimy, forked-tail pieces of sea-shit are rivaling the size of standard goldfish. (I JUST SHUDDERED AND I CANT EVEN SEE THEM FROM WHERE I AM SITTING.)

MY FEAR AND DISGUST OF AQUASAURS VALIDATES MY USE OF CAPS-LOCK.

The only bright side to this whole pet debacle is that at least this isn’t something that can be extracted from the tank and thrust at my face in a taunting fashion.

I mean, I think Chooch knows that. I HOPE Chooch knows that.

I was in Wendy’s office earlier tonight, trying to explain to her these obnoxious “scientific delights.” She went to YouTube and proceeded to find the most revolting Aquasaurs videos known to man.

Like this one:

Some of my work friends are grossed out by the sea monkeys on my desk but I guarantee, once they watch this video, the sea monkeys will seem like cuddly kittens to them. I very honestly do not even have my feet on the floor right now because I’m so afraid one of them is going to escape and slurp up my leg and turn me into an incubator for a new species and OMG NOW I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT.

I wasn’t looking for love at Soul Skate. It was hotter than Snookie’s kooka in that joint and really all I was focused on was not melting into a flesh-puddle while rollin’ to Justin Timberlake’s “Summer Love,” which I never realized just how truly anthemic that song really is until I had quads laced to my feet. (Also, Alicia Key’s “I’m Ready” made me almost consider giving Henry a sex-coupon, which never would have happened outside of a roller rink.)

And then I saw him: the rink lights bouncing off his smooth-shaven pate, the slick way he b-boy’ed around the rink with the best of the soul skaters, spinning tricks and commanding attention.

Holy shit, he was exactly my type! Which is: not Henry.

AND THEN HE DID A SPLIT, YOU GUYS.

To put it simply, motherfucker had it going on. (Does anyone still say that, other than En Vogue fans circa 1993?) I started imagining all the scenarios in which we paired up for couple’s skate, our roller passion so undeniably palpable that disco balls and T’Pau records birthed between us.

Of course, I told Henry immediately. I always alert him when there is someone within close proximity that I want to reverse-rape. He has the extreme misfortune of not only being my boyfriend, but also best friend, and sometimes those lines get a little more than blurred.

Since the rink was doubling as a sweat-tent, I had to take generous breaks to stand by the open side-door and wring out my tank top which was already the sheerest material I could morally get away with wearing in public, but skating around that rink on a ninety-degree day made me feel like I forgot to leave my burqa at home. I was sitting on the bench, across from the open door, tweeting faux love notes about this totally skilled skater when I looked up and saw him.

He was standing across from me by the door.

He smiled.

I smiled back.

He said something indecipherable, presumably about the heat, and I laughed and nodded, which is my go-to when I have no clue what’s going on. In my mind, I pretended he was wondering out loud why a hottie like me was ringless. And in my mind, I was saying back, “You think you’re sweaty now, baby?” The next thing I knew, Henry was sidling up next to me and my prey skated away.

“DID YOU SEE HIM TALKING TO ME?” I squealed.

Henry rolled his eyes.

“If he asks me to skate with him, will you let me?” I pleaded, adopting my best whiny-daughter tone.

Henry’s reaction is as follows:

We were still sitting there when Roller Crush skated by backward. He smiled at me, and I smiled back coyly then buried my head in Henry’s belly to smother my laughter.

“You know he’s been going out of his way to skate near you,” Henry mumbled. NO, I DID NOT KNOW THAT! God, Henry is a good wing-man.

So that was fun for awhile, making eye contact and then looking away bashfully, like suddenly I was in 3rd grade again with my big blond ponytail, flirting with boys from other schools at skating parties. (I was decidedly not cute at all anymore after third grade, so good thing I got in all that pre-teen flirting while boys could still look at me without vomiting.)

But about 45-minutes later, Henry and I were taking another break when Roller Lover came over, stood right beneath the pulsating speaker, and started talking to me as though Henry was completely invisible. (Which is completely acceptable, actually.) Again, I could barely hear what he was saying, but I heard enough to make me want to punch all those lustful feelings right back up into my ‘gina. He opened his mouth and braggadocio projectiled out on waves of squirrel-voiced bullshit. Through snaggled teeth, he told me about how he can “skate with the best of them” and how he and his ex-girlfriend were basically the King and Queen of shadow-skating. (Minus-87,000 points for bringing up an ex-girlfriend in the first sentence. Christ, that was annoying, a total turn-off.)

(Oh, look at me, acting like my boyfriend of 10 years wasn’t sitting right next to me.)

He said he goes to all of the Rollers’ parties, but this was the first time I have ever seen him.

And then he splashed sweat on me.

Henry at this point had completely checked-out of the conversation and was staring wistfully over my shoulder. I kept trying to make eye contact with him so he could bail me out, but I have a feeling he was purposely ignoring me. He does that sometimes, like all the time.

“You know what song I love to skate to? Return of the Mack,” Roller Disappointment said, almost smugly, like he was hoping to stump me.

“Um, yeah, that’s only like the best song ever to skate to,” I returned in my own smug tone.

“I’m going to see if the DJ will play it for us,” he said excitedly, and skated off. I was going to mention that Roller DJ ALWAYS plays that song and shouldn’t he know that since he comes to all of the soul skates, but I let him go because that was my way out. I slipped back onto the rink so fast, I almost fell backward. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Roller Braggart was now sitting down by the rest rooms, changing t-shirts. I imagine his other one had to be half-dry by then, since he wrung most of it out on me while we were talking. A drop of his sweat even got near my lip and just typing that out made me dry-heave all over again.

Now that my skating goggles had been forcefully adjusted, I began to see that he actually had no rhythm at all. Sure, he could stunt better than most of the guys on the rink that night, but he had no flow whatsoever. Total skate-jam foul. (Look at me, like I’m some fucking Beyonce-replica on quads.)

Roller Doof sniffed me out later when I was standing by the door, letting the breeze blow under my shirt. During this painful conversation, I learned that he’s from Wheeling, which is apropos because it’s “WHEELing, GET IT? ROLLER SKATES HAVE WHEELS?” he shouted at my face. Yeah, I got it, Roller Perspiration, now back up off me.

Henry was clear on the other side of the rink, looking at the skate display that hasn’t changed since we started going there in January.

“Return of the Mack” came on just then.

“There’s our song!” he yelled, smiling all goofily. And that is how I ended up skating with a man who was not Henry. I can’t not skate to “Return of the Mack!” That’s the epitome of roller skate theme songs. So if it just so happens that some crazed man is skating alongside me, then so be it. I put myself in my Professional Skater zone and cruised along, muttering several “I bet!”s every now and then in reply to his tall tales. Then I noticed Henry back on the rink so I slowed my pace, and Roller Creeper kept going, not noticing my absence.

“What the fuck!” I yelled to Henry when he caught up with me. It was like he just came back from an “I Told You So” facial. Every last inch of his visage was silently admonishing me. Finally he said, “You asked for it.”

The rest of the night turned into a cat and mouse chase. Roller Stalker would literally cut across the rink just so he could skate beside me, causing me to panic and increase my pace, wedging a wall of soul skaters between us. I’m totally going to just stick with the black people from now on.

Here he is, in his third t-shirt of the night. My hand-drawn heart oozes sarcasm.

We could have taken the night, been a tour du force under the rainbow track lights, and then rode home together on the back of a Ke$ha-sponsored unicorn. If only he hadn’t opened his mouth.

And now I leave you with Mark Morris’s seminal hit “Return of the Mack.”

Henry’s mom Judy babysat Chooch for us last night while we were soul skating. As soon as we came home, Judy said in a worried, apprehensive tone, “There’s something you should know.

”

Apparently, Chooch had a lovely conversation with our neighbor Toya (the Mr. Wilson to his Dennis the Menace — he is seriously all up in that woman’s grill while she’s trying to garden).

“He told that nice woman over there that you painted a picture of her,” Judy said, looking nervous.

My first thought was that Toya probably thought I was in love with her. That I had some grandiose portrait of her above the bed and made out with it every night before stirring my vat of black market love potion.

“She asked him if it was a nice picture, and he said no,” Judy continued.

“Chooch!” I yelled. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s a monster,” he reasoned.

Judy said Toya was all, “OH REALLY??” And then Chooch tore the house apart, trying to find it.

“I didn’t know what to say!” Judy cried. “I couldn’t think fast enough. So I just told her it probably was very nice and that she should come over and ask you to see it.

”

Three years ago, when I was on that monster-painting kick, I had just finished one and it needed a name. So I asked Chooch to name it. He had just got done pestering Toya from the side window, so naturally he wanted to name it after her.

THREE YEARS AGO.

But Toya probably thinks I have some hideous interpretation of her, hanging on my wall, and that maybe sometimes I fling cat shit at it to relieve my deep-rooted frustrations.

So now I’m going to have to seek her out today and show her this stupid painting of a stupid monster and explain that no, I don’t think she’s a monster, or looks like a monster, or acts like a monster; that my SON is the one who named the fucking thing in the first place.

It doesn’t help that she and I started off on the wrong foot when she moved here 4 years ago.

Still, this is decidedly not as bad as the time he told our other neighbor that I hate her. (Truth.) Thanks, son.

The fact that Henry was in charge of purchasing the decorations for Chooch’s party made me nervous. I mean, he’s Henry of the Non-Descript T-Shirt Tribe, after all. I hear his people like to transcend their non-descript persuasions upon parties, too.

So I wasn’t surprised when my friend Janna and I arrived at the pavilion an hour before the party started and I found in a bag one (1) Star Wars table cloth and five plain black ones.

What did surprise me was the Jaguar parked next to the pavilion, owned by a family of yuppies frolicking around the nearby playground under the overcast sky.

Let me rewind to 7AM when I woke up and panic immediately staked out a home in my chest. In my mind, this was the most sloppily-planned party to date and I was running around swearing, barking orders, threatening cancellation and stinking up the house with Yankee Candle’s brand new BITCH scent. Plus, it was raining. I was anticipating this, as the weather had been calling for 24:7 rain for Saturday all week long. Henry, who had been in the kitchen cooking army-sized batches of rigatoni and potato salad, came out and said, “I got this. Just sit down.”

So I put on Bring Me the Horizon super loud and changed my clothes eighteen times.

I was still shaking beneath my skin by the time we got to the pavilion, even though Henry promised me the food situation was under control. So when I saw Mr. Jaguar and his douche-brood, I pretty much snapped.

“They better fucking leave before the party starts,” I growled, and Janna assured me they probably would once they realized the pavilion was spoken for. (I gave it a promise ring the night before, after all.)

There was one bag of white balloons. Who buys one bag of just white balloons unless they’re celebrating virginity? I called Henry and yelled about this.

“Well, they didn’t have any black!” was his excuse. After hanging up, I noticed that the streamers were black and white. What the fuck, were we having a fucking Over the Hill party?

I was in the middle of holding Janna at the mercy of my rant about the lack of decorative color when Mr. Jaguar himself approached us.

“Did you guys rent this pavilion or something?” he asked with one of those sharky smiles you’d expect from a small-statured Jaguar owner. He kind of looked like Billy Joel.

“Yes,” I said figuring he would then leave.

“Hmm,” he murmured, sharky smile losing even more of its friendliness. “I’m pretty sure I rented this one, too.”

My fingers involuntarily dropped the bag of balloons. Adrenaline began pumping through me and the morning’s panic was back and better than ever.

“Woodland Crest?” I probed.

“Pretty sure that’s the one,” he said, and we both moved over until the pavilion marker was in our sight. It clearly said Woodland Crest.

There was a moment where the atmosphere birthed babies of awkwardness right on our faces. I started wringing my hands. What if I had the wrong pavilion? I wasn’t with Henry when he rented it, but I was sure I triple-checked the paper work before sending out the information to all the guests. I had a vision of Jaguar banishing us from the premises like the poor raggedy folk we are, and all of Chooch’s friends showing up and being taken under the wings of the mini-Jaguars while Daddy Jag spoon-fed them all caviar on the swing set. They were going to steal my party.

I wanted to stay for that party.

“How many people you got coming?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Like, at least 30.”

His eyes widened and he said, “Wow, that’s a lot. Well, I certainly don’t want to be the bad guy here.” And I thought, before he walked back to the playground, that he said he’d back out. But they all stayed and continued to run around in their riches and scream delightfully.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I squealed to Janna. “He rented this entire pavilion for his family of five?”

“Maybe he thinks that just because he was here first, that means it’s his,” Janna offered, trying to keep me from hanging from the rafters.

I called Henry in a panic and he flipped out. Of course, he didn’t have the permit in the car anymore, and even though he was nearly to the pavilion, he turned around to get it from home.

“If that motherfucker is still there by the time I get back, I’m punching him in the fucking mouth and calling the police!” Henry shouted, which made me laugh because Henry has never been in a fight before, unless you count the time as a kid when he fought a five-year-old girl over a Barbie sundress. I couldn’t even imagine him kicking gravel at the guy’s car. Meanwhile, Janna had gotten hold of someone at the park office who confirmed that the pavilion was indeed in Henry’s name and that we could always stop by and have a copy printed off.

“She also said to call the police if he doesn’t leave,” Janna, looking all important for being privy to this information. I’m all for confrontation, but not when my child’s birthday party was expected to start in thirty minutes. I’m already such an outcast among the school moms, imagine if they showed up with their children just in time to see the South Park police prying me off this rich dick, and I mean that in the least sexual sense possible. (For once.)

However, once I had confirmation that we were legally in our rights to be there, I instructed Janna to finish decorating. Let us not forget that she is the help.

While I blew up white balloons and Janna stapled them in trios around the corners of the pavilion, a guy on a bike skidded to a halt next to us.

“Hi!” he said cheerfully, wiping his brow. “I’m having a party here—-”

Detonating nerves shot stomach acid up to my esophagus like a geyser. If the inside of my stomach right then was a comic book cell, it would have KABLOOEY stamped across it.

“—in two weeks, and my wife sent me here to count the picnic tables.”

Janna and I looked at each other and started to laugh. The biker was too busy counting to question it and instead said, “Have a great party!” We thanked him and laughed harder as he biked away.

We had a few bags of animal twisting balloons for Bill, and Janna suggested adding one to each cluster of white in order to give it a shot of color.

It was a nice phallic touch, and we agreed it was a good thing there were three balloons in each cluster, and not just two.

“Should I stick with red and green?” she asked. We were basing the color choices off the colors in the lone Star Wars table cloth.

“I’d use other colors too, otherwise it goes from an Over the Hill party to some Italian guy’s Over the Hill Party.”

At 1:40, the Jaguar-brood loaded up in their car. (Not before discarding a drink tray onto the ground; the environment thanks you, litterer-fucks. Don’t worry, I threw it away.)

“Thanks for letting us intrude on your party,” Daddy Jag joked, and I couldn’t help but wipe his sleaze off my face.

“No problem,” I said with a tight-lipped smile.

And then Henry’s son Robbie arrived with his girlfriend Karen, who dutifully twisted and hung the black and white streamers. Karen was really concerned with getting the streamers to look prom-ready, practically fashioning a yardstick out of tree roots to measure the proper length, but I was like, “Please. Look around. This party is already halfway down the path to Cousin Jim-Bob’s Prison Release hoe-down, BYO-Moonshine.” 

Ain’t no one dancing to Forever Young beneath the streamers on this day, friend.

Anyway, I like Robbie and Karen because they laugh uproariously at everything I say. Good audience. And because I basically whaled the streamers at them and they asked no questions.

Right before 2:00, a cop car crunched down the dirt path to the pavilion.

In my head, I was screaming, “FUCK I DON’T HAVE THE PERMIT. WHERE IS HENRY WITH THE PERMIT. HE’S GOING TO THROW ME IN THE POKEY WITH ALL THE OTHER PARTY DEVIANTS. CAN ANYTHING ELSE GO WRONG RIGHT NOW. ANYTIME YOU WANT TO MAKE IMPACT, METEOR. I’M READY.”

But really, he was just there to smugly tell Janna she couldn’t keep her car parked in the dirt. Seriously? That may have been the most eventful hour of the whole day, and the party hadn’t even kicked off yet. It was like there was a beacon above our pavilion, alerting everyone to go fuck with the short-fused party host.

And don’t even get me started on the staple gun.

On my tombstone, please have engraved: “No, the universe was not fucking kidding you.”

I was already on the fact track to Pacemaker and hadn’t even been faced yet with the torturous chore of making nice with the preschool moms. And then it started to rain.

I think one of the worst feelings for me is having all these things I want to write about, but being sick for the fortieth time this year has left me with the mental energy for little else but catching up on my DVRd CW shows. (Whoever thought I would like Hellcats?) Seriously considering home-schooling Chooch so he’ll stop bringing preschool slime home with him; he and I have been sick so much this year and it’s never been like this until he started SCHOOL.

His party is Saturday and I have no idea how I’m going to get anything done and I’m freaking out.

Thursday night, I outright lost my voice at work. It returned the next day, only to go AWOL during the show that night and even now it’s only at about 60%. (I love making up percentages. I guarantee that they are inaccurate 96% of the time.) I sound like an emphysemiac* trying to converse while J-Woww’s boobs plow-drive my chest.

(*Totally not a word.)

As the #1 Hater of Erin’s Voice, Henry is not complaining.

Speaking of Henry! He did fuck-all for me on Mother’s Day. His excuse is the same one he’s been slapping me in the face with for the last 5 years like a raw, bleeding steak: “But…you’re not my mother.”

Oh OK, well then I guess our son can just call himself a cab to drive him to whichever store he decides to shoplift my gift. Good job, Henry.

Not even a card. I couldn’t even look at Facebook at all on Sunday because I didn’t want to be reminded of the non-family I have.

This latest let-down will get filed in between the Black Forest Cake ball-drop of 2010 and the thirtieth birthday that blew by like a dejected balloon, except a balloon would falsely imply that there was some sort of celebration planned in my honor.

Which there was not.

I think I have bronchitis.

I have no shame in being a whiny sissy lala. Cheer me up, please.