Minus: The local water supply has been contaminated. The grocery store is out of bottled water.
Plus: But there’s plenty of Perrier!
Minus: Mr. H and the cat and I are exiled. Some of our stuff is in our cars. Some of it, such as the couch, is on top of the kitchen table back at our brand new scuba lair.
Plus: At least we aren’t That Guy.
A) Sort through three boxes of wires and cables that you’ve dragged along on the past two moves because Mr. H thinks they might be important
B) Deal with a client who says “Lighten this image,” and then turns around and says “No, I want it back the exact same way it was before.”
C) Interview pediatricians
D) Induce a diabetic coma with fun sized Three Musketeers bars while watching a saved America’s Next Top Model episode
It’s been an interesting few months living on an imaginary street. We park the car in a worm hole. No, really. The three-legged dog peed on my tire the other day.
Our street is a new, invented street which is basically a long driveway. The city refuses to put up a street sign even though they generated the address. The street does not show up in Google Maps. However, we are next to a fucking minor league baseball park and a landmark bridge, so most people can find it when you mention these things. The United States Postal Service can find my house. UPS can find my house. Fed-Ex can sometimes find my house. Last week, they delivered something one day, and then the next day they opted to foist an item back on the sender because my house had disappeared again. Whoops. It’s so hard to hit a moving target like a huge mill building. Verizon managed to hook up phone service in my house, except they have my address as “Building 17, Parcel something something” on another street entirely instead of the technical USPS-sanctioned address. The upshot is that people who want my money can usually make it by for a spell.
Last night we got shot down by a pizza place. A pizza place which must have previously delivered to this building since they managed to carpet the hallway with leaflets. They took our order, complete with an inquisition about directions and landmarks. Then the driver called from the car. He was down the block, and then he got sucked into the parking worm hole. He was so shaken that he had to turn around and take my food all the way back to the restaurant. Oh, nuh-nuh. He did! His GPS box on his dashboard said we were funnin’ him. The parasite put a foot through my esophagus in protest.
So I give up. I went to the damn store and bought “groceries.” I hate doing that. I hate being reminded of agri-business and seeing what other people wear to the store and place in their carts. I lugged the groceries home. I put them in the “fridge.” I hear this is how it’s done. Then I made a list to stick on the front of the fridge to let me know what was in the fridge. Opening the door is too taxing for someone who frequently gets out of the shower with conditioner not washed out of her hair. I need tool tips and maybe that little talking paper clip. I also cross-referenced the expiration dates to placate my old food phobia. You’ve won, Google Maps. See what you’ve done to me?
The parasite has decided to turn sideways again. This means I am supposed to hang upside down like a bat to encourage her to do the same. Seems contradictory to gravity, but so far it’s shoved her “this end up” a few times. She likes to torment by hanging out in the perfect position for weeks, then turning. For the uninitiated in the ways of parasitism: sideways means “can’t get theyah from heyah.” I would really prefer not to cap off nine months of existential panic with major surgery after all that planning on extruding her into a comfortable hot tub at my house.
In the natural birth world, any deviation from normal = It Must Be the Mother’s Fault. Surely I have been thinking bad thoughts or sitting wrong or not Trusting My Baby, Trusting My Body. In the medical world, any deviation from normal = There, There, Dear, a Doctor Can Fix This, Lie Back and Think of England. Can’t fucking win, as each option is equally insulting. Gonna move to that cave.
Maybe she flipped overnight because we watched that wicked traumatic “Grey’s Anatomy” episode last night that left both Mr. H and I weeping when the pregnant lady died on the operating table after a car accident. That lady’s baby came out early, and “didn’t look so good,” so clearly my parasite is digging in sideways and holding on until it’s really time. Yes, I know TV is for shit.
Or maybe she’s traumatized because yesterday we learned how to prevent choking by whacking a plastic infant on the back. I think I’ll just never allow her anything but a liquid diet. Hey, it works for Kirstie Alley. OK, I promise we won’t whack you on the back, you little potato. It’s not for sport. You’re not about to be born into “The Most Dangerous Game” or anything. Honest. Just try ass-end up for a while. It works so well for Carmen Electra.
Sure, it’s been a dirt dog of a week, but did I mention what a good sandwich I had? I had the good sandwich on Wednesday, Thursday, and again today. I tried to make Mr. H have a sandwich with me for dinner last night, so I could get in two good sandwiches in one day, but he didn’t go for it. He looked at me as if I were insane when I described the sandwich. “It doesn’t sound great to me, but I can tell YOU like it.” What’s not to like about 7-grain bread with flax, shmeared lovingly with mayonaise, topped with alfalfa sprouts*, an entire tomato, and all the different end pieces of cheese left in the fridge?
I saw a literal sign of the apocalypse yesterday. Forget invading Iran. Forget Mission Impossible: III. A strip mall outboard motor business with a pointless letter board saw fit to proclaim “I take my wife everywhere, but she keep’s [sic] finding her way back.” Keep’s. Yes, there was an actual plastic apostrophe used. I backed up to be sure. That officially makes it not a typo, which seems to be the excuse of most idiots and people caught making that mistake on the internet. No, the sign wrangler stood at the base of the pole, inhaled traffic fumes deeply, and opted to use one of those long handled tools to carefully insert that apostrophe into that verb. The surgical precision required to be so wrong is delightful.
*A potential listeria risk, according to books like OMG Your Baby Will Totally Die, but who’s counting! I eat sushi too**. Apostrophes are pretty risky, but you don’t hear enough about those, unless you live with me.
**It’s fucking flash frozen, ask your chef. I’d worry more about mercury exposure than foodborne illness unless you are eating it out of a grocery store dumpster.
It started with other people drinking before the sun was over the yardarm. Or maybe it started when Mr. H and I almost threw up on the plane. Turbulence. I don’t know.
At some point, I was asked if “THEY” were “satisfied” with the “progress” that the parasite has made. “No, of course not,” I replied. “I am having a weak and reedy child, sunken of chest. THEY feel I will have to heave a sturdy rock at its hideous visage shortly after birth.” Then there was a discussion of a custom closet system, not my first choice for conversation. “Did you MEASURE?” “No, of course not,” I replied. “Why would I measure to ensure custom results?”
Then there was the problem of more drinking and gross sexual harassment of a waitress and food covered in sauerkraut. I think that was supposed to be delicious. But again with the almost throwing up business. My primary tormentor wolfed down a plate of German potato salad and told a tale of meddling, which stemmed from describing a problem with her inability to gain satisfaction from the help file in Excel. “You have to know how to look things up!” Yes, yes you do. “I was in the checkout the other day, and there was this young kid doing the ringing, and he didn’t know what a Belgian Endive was. So I said ‘Look under witloof.'”
“Witloof?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s the Dutch word.”
“And this would help a checker in an American supermarket?”
“Well, I’ve seen it called that before. At Kroger!”
“Were you at Kroger?”
“No.”
“What were you doing with an endive, anyway?” I was suspicious, as it took this person nearly fifty years to try asparagus.
“It wasn’t mine, the lady in front of me had it.”
“So you injected yourself into someone else’s transaction and offered a bizarre foreign word to be helpful?”
“Well, she thought it was some kind of celery. So I said to try looking under Belgian Endive. And he still couldn’t find it, so I said he should try Endive Comma Belgian.”
“If you had been quiet, he would have entered it under either celery or general merchandise, and you would been able to leave two minutes sooner.”
“But that would screw up their inventory!”
***
It has taken me days to get over this trip. You really can’t go home again. Not without getting bombed back to one’s emotional stone age. There’s the judgment, the paranoia, the incoherent ranting about Big Pharma and how money will be worthless, the revisionist history of wrongs committed in childhood, and the great sucking need for connection that I don’t know how to answer. What does anyone want from me? What do I want from anyone? If someone likes me, is that enough reason to give my time to that person? What if you also owe that person $10,000 that you aren’t really good for? What if you are having a child, and someone assumes he or she will be a part of that child’s life, and all you can think of is how much you hope you don’t do to that child what was done to you? And the very prospect of repeating history keeps you up nights, in a soppy swamp.
I have a stupid. Ostensibly, I trained this stupid to do something marginally complicated a few weeks ago. The stupid was hired by my client due to professing knowledge in the technology selected for Project X. At the training hand-off, stupid again reiterated vast expertise. I said “Oh, that’s wonderful. Would you like to do the navigating in the tool while I run through the presentation?” I was thinking “Score, this is going to go so much faster.” Stupid declined, clearly not wanting to show off.
I went through the training exercise, and stupid frequently interjected “OH, that’s not how it used to be when I last used this FIVE YEARS AGO” or “THIS looks DIFFERENT!” Stupid sometimes asked stupid questions. I think my favorite was “Why does the company that sells this technology use proprietary markup?”
At the end of the session, I handed over a quick help document I’d written to cover troubleshooting, the manual to the technology, and all the support numbers for the company that makes the technology. I told stupid that the quickest answers would always be found in the documentation, and I was not available for continuing support per the contract the client had selected.
So far, stupid has called Actual Support several times, each time providing incorrect descriptions of the problem stupid created. Support tells stupid something that would work for what stupid actually described. The solution then doesn’t work, since stupid was wrong in the first place. Stupid then calls me. I screen stupid’s calls. So stupid pecks out an email, usually including a hilarious take on what the problem might be. These have ranged from “Maybe I need to clear my cache” to “Do you think the time change had anything to do with X not working?”
The answer to stupid’s problem is invariably the first thing I wrote in the quick help document, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS RIGHT AT THE TOP.
I have another pleading email sitting in front of me right now. Instead of cutting and pasting the section IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS yet again, I think I am going to cc stupid’s boss and tell her that stupid must have broken the flux capacitor. There is nothing to be done in the case of a busted flux capacitor. They’re going to have to close up shop and go home. Sucks huh.
Hello, Internet, hello. Last weekend I took a detour through Boringsville. The main export is bladder spasms and strong antibiotics. While there, we also managed to shop for furniture for the parasite. We actually purchased nothing. Was it because the salesman loomed over us and made disparaging remarks about the one thing we liked? We found that odd, but we’ve never let a hick stand between us and Swedish things that are expensive. No, when we walked out, I read the establishment’s slogan on the delivery truck. “Making things easier for Mom’s.” Something something. You can totally see where I tuned out and started muttering. Dead to me!
Let’s say that there is a lady who runs out of checks. She is a beautiful and kind lady. She has very healthy teeth. Full disclosure: she could use a pedicure. Anyway, this lady says “Hmm, I am out of checks. Although most of my bills are paid electronically, this could pose a problem.” She calls the check ordering company. They assure her that her checks will be there in a few days. They are not. So she calls back and complains. They blame DHL. DHL has never heard of these checks. So the lady waits a few more days, and then the lady has to pay her fucking federal taxes and quarterly taxes with money orders, like poor people. The lady waited til the last possible minute to get the cursed money orders, hoping against hope that DHL would come through. The lady comes home from mailing the money orders (which cost $3 each because she does not have a GOLD account). “Look,” says the friendly three-legged dog. There is a package from DHL! On the steps!
In other news, the teller at the bank thinks the parasite will be HUGE. The dry cleaning lady thinks the parasite will be TINY. Either I am a compulsive overreater, or I am starving the parasite. I can’t be sure. I should have gotten a third opinion from the grocery checker, but she was too busy drawing me in to a conversation on whether or not that was Eva Longoria on the cover of Scientific American. I asserted that it was. Because it was, and it also said “Eva Longoria” under the picture. She felt that Eva normally does not wear so much eye makeup, nor does she traffic in straightened hair. The bagger finally convinced her, and she mentioned that we could all change our looks so frequently if we had as much money as Eva. Damn the system. Some of us are just stuck being ugly.
“Any impute would be great.”
It would, wouldn’t it?
The condo management reminds us “owner’s” not to have any “boistarous” parties. Also, they approved that I live with a cat. The cat has lived in the building for almost three months now, as an illegal immigrant. To get approved, we initially had to submit a photo of the cat “clearly showing facial area,” a copy of her shot records, and a list of her turn ons and turn offs. Then a month or two later, they decided they would also like a copy of our personal property insurance policy. Never ye mind that this only covers OUR SHIT. The master policy for the building covers everything else. But it’s OK, and now I have permission to harbor a cat, and the cat has permission to mess up our shit as much as she sees fit.
I told her she was approved. She still doesn’t care to come out from behind the washing machine, because the upholsterer was here for about thirty seconds to attend to a blight upon the ottoman. This is traumatic for a cat, apparently. I think she’s stuck back there. It was traumatic for me in that he also told me the story of the Great Fire that occurred on this property some years back. Lo, the townspeople came and watched. I knew all about this because Mr. H was townspeople who watched. Maybe Mr. H stood somewhere near the upholsterer. Barrrrring. Move along.
Now someone outside is yelling “YEAH BABY,” Austin-Powers-style. I am totally liveblogging. I hate you too.