I have a schedule. In my daily planner, I write down everything that must happen that day, and at exactly what time it should happen. The rest of the day then becomes a knock-down-drag-out battle against the universe to stick to that schedule.
Today, the universe won.
I write this now, camped out on the living room floor. As we wait for Bill to return from a week away on business, we are eating the world’s laziest dinner – hot dogs rolled up in crescent rolls. No vegetables. The kids are drinking orange soda. On the white carpet. I don’t care. I have succumbed to this day. I probably don’t have to tell you about the class of wine that is balanced rebelliously on my computer. If you’ve been reading this blog for any meaningful amount of time, you already knew it was there.
Today’s disaster actually begins a few weeks ago. As you know, we were suckered into buying Freakin' Hamsters for our daughters at the end of the summer. Around the same time, I received another pleading email from the soccer concession stand coordinator. For some reason, this time, her guilt trip worked and I agreed to work in the stand a few times. (Because I didn’t already dread soccer enough …now I get to make hotdogs and walking tacos all morning!)
These two decisions collided as I walked in this morning for my first day as a volunteer. I learned how to make hot pretzels and find every imaginable color of Gatorade. I learned how to determine the difference between the bucket of regular gummy worms and the sour ones. I learned how to work the hot chocolate machine (because where I live, it is 40 degrees on September 17…). I did not, however, learn to successfully make change. There’s clearly a reason I’m an English teacher, not a math one.
Any way, about 15 minutes into my shift, my phone rang. As my new friends – the other guilt-tripped mommies – laughed at my Brady Bunch ringtone, I slipped out and answered the call from home. It was Emily. It was about the Freakin’ Hamsters. Now, I have received hysterical Freakin’ Hamster-related phone calls about once a day since we first gave in to the ridiculous idea.
“One got out!”
“They all got out!”
“Mine’s stuck in the tube!”
“They’re fighting!”
“Hannah said mine is ugly!”
“They’re out again!”
But this phone call was the worst. One of those stinkin’ rodents just up and died on me. Great. My first thought, I will admit, was “Three to go…” but that’s only because I was exhausted from staying up all night wondering if hamsters could climb bedskirts – the latest one had been lost while having a semi-supervised adventure in my bedroom. Freakin’ Hamsters. This, however, was a tragedy of new proportions.
I calmed the children, encouraged them to get ready for their soccer game and quickly returned to my soccer-mom duties at the popcorn machine. A few minutes later, the kids arrived at soccer in pleasant moods, encouraged, perhaps, by the idea that now Mommy was BEHIND the counter, and therefore couldn’t possibly say no to a treat. $40 later, I left my post and joined them on the sidelines to watch the big girls freeze their butts off while trying to play soccer.
After the game, I had 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to the grocery store, the mall and home before returning to the field for soccer pictures (because I need another $13 team photo that looks exactly the same as last year but with a different colored jersey). We raced through the grocery store, picking up a week’s worth of groceries for eight in less than 25 minutes. Of course, I also spent about twice as much as I planned... but at least we were fast.
Then, we ran into the mall. Gabby has a great week planned at preschool next week – they are learning the colors! This is very exciting and means that she gets to wear a new head-to-toe color each day. Great! Except our child does not currently own head-to-toe outfits in every color of the rainbow. As the children and I raced through JC Penney looking for green pants, an orange pair of socks and yellow shoelaces, my phone rang. Since all of the children were with me and the three surviving hamsters can’t dial a phone, I braced myself. Turns out they had pushed soccer pictures up by 15 minutes.
Forget the socks. I’ll just paint her toenails orange. We’re outta here.
We raced into the soccer field with 36 seconds to spare. Thankfully it was colder than the refrigerator out there, so we didn’t have to worry about the groceries going bad in car while we waited for ten 9-year-olds to smile at the same time.
We went home afterward and unloaded the groceries. Inside the kitchen, we were surprised to find a bee, which, being the only adult in the house at the time, I was obliged to kill. I chased it around for a while, screaming like a girl, until finally, it landed in the sink. Seizing my opportunity, I drowned the sucker in the garbage disposal.
Taking a breath, I thought, there is definitely a reason this parenting thing is supposed to be done in pairs.
Facebook – I just put my Special K cereal in a bowl of ice cream. That counts, right? #thatkindofday #fiveoclockyet?
As I finished the thorough house cleaning I had begun earlier in the morning, I noticed another bee - this one downstairs while starting the dryer. Weird that bee season is so late here, I thought, but I’m still getting used to this climate, so I went with it. This time, though, I just closed it into the laundry room and ran away. Sounds like a pretty good reason to stop doing laundry if you ask me!
Back upstairs I noticed that there was something weird spread all over the backyard. Upon closer examination, I realized that it was an archery target completely destroyed by the stupid dog.
Facebook – Dear Bill, Just out of curiosity, how much does one of those stuffed archery targets cost? And, hypothetically, if something – let’s say a dog – were to EAT the stuffing out of one, would it be toxic? No reason, just doing some, err, research…Love Jody (and, perhaps, Brady?)
Back inside after cleaning up the destruction in the back yard, I heard a shriek from upstairs. My daughter, dressing for her second soccer game of the day (because of course there were two) had been stung by a bee on her foot. Without enough time to calm her, treat it AND get to soccer, I texted the coach – sorry: we’re out.
I treated the wound, hugged and kissed the wounded, and tried to get my day back on track. There were still at least nine things on my to-do list that hadn’t been tackled yet.
Then I saw another bee.
And realized this wasn’t a coincedence.
And then we found the nest.
Facebook – And because we’re having SUCH a stellar day, bees have built a nest inside my house. Yes. You heard me right. Bees. Inside.
I gave up. I had only enough strength left to roll the hot dogs into the crescent rolls and open the bottle of wine.
That’s when I heard the crash upstairs. I ran into my bedroom to find the light fixture hanging from the ceiling.
Facebook - Dear Bill, Something happened. Time to come home now. Love, your frazzled wife, lunatic children, 3 (not 4) hamster, two naughty dogs, and about 2,000 bees.
Facebook The Next Morning - Today is shaping up to be much better than yesterday! After a day of dealing with dead hamsters, indoor bee's nests, and broken light fixtures, I woke up this morning to find Bill home! Today he gets to bury the hamster, kill the bees and fix the lights. Me? I'm gonna write a story about it.
Copyright © Jody Hoffman 2011
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