Wasn't That A Party

I've got a song running through my head:
Coulda been the whiskey;
Mighta been the gin...
Coulda been the 2-4 six pack, I dunno
But look at the mess I'm in.....

Except its so NOT that. More like:
Coulda been the aborted grocery shopping attempt last night...
(more on that later)
Mighta been the kids..
(I swear the daycare kids multiplied overnight, plus thought it was "bring a friend" day or something...)
Coulda been the two extra bags for birthdays this week, I dunno;
But look at the mess I'm in....

My back is like a fire ball, I think I'm gonna die....
Tell me, me oh me oh MY!

Oh, isn't life a party?....

Yeah, well. I signed up for this stuff, so I wonder if I'm allowed to whine. Kind of like when people say that if you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain. Well, if you are one of those people, then stop reading right about now.

Now.

Here's how some of it went down.
I happen to like grocery shopping; even when I desperately don't. And this week is $30 off at Superstore, so I was super pumped about shaving off a portion of the cost of carbs that we shovel down our cake holes on an hourly basis. Write a list. Print off a coupon. Finish work. Sneak out fifteen minutes early when I am down to one kid napping on the couch. (I didn't leave her alone; silly. Brian was here). Remember that I was also going to a book launch at Aqua Books, and doing a bag hand-off there. Remember to grab the bag. And the bags (recyclable, fabric, environmentally superior grocery bags), and my bag, plus the other bag with the mending in it that I had to find thread for. Peal out of the driveway super optimistic because I left ahead of schedule, and that's no small thing. Drive, blissfully alone, all the way to the big old city, all the way to Superstore on St Anne's Road. Reach behind me for the bags. Oh, there were bags back there, all right, but about at that moment I remembered that my wallet was in the stroller in the driveway in Niverville where I had so desperately needed it in case there was some irresistable fabric at the thrift shop. Which there was not. And now, here I was, without.

"Take a deep breath, self." I told myself. So, my self did the thing it always does when it doesn't know what to do. It cleaned. It went senselessly through the entire van looking for hidden one thousand dollar bills, and meanwhile stuffing slurpee cups, wadded gum, spitz seeds, and granola bar wrappers into a garbage bag. It's how I cope- I clean stuff.

Then my wits came back to me.
I put on my best scammer expression and drove over to Karla-with-a-"K"'s house. She once called me "friend", so I figured it was high time I capitalized. I sulked in there all droopy and sad like and offered to sell them a rocking chair for a couple of thousand dollars. I figured that after that; a few hundred wouldn't be too much to ask. Besides, the gas light had come on in my way into the great 'peg and I knew I could always haul them out onto the street to bear evidence to my utter destitution. Besides, that would be the perfect oppurtunity to showcase the rusty bits speckling the white-ish sides of the ol' family-obile. Couldn't hurt my cause any.

I walked in on them having dinner. Something gourmet that their children dug into with straight-backed manners, and "thankya ma'ams". It was going to be a lot easier to look pathetic than I could possibly have planned. After all, they had already met our surly and ungrateful offspring, Plus,I was wearing my favuourite hand-me-down patched and shredded cargo pants that had sprouted a new split shortly after the gas light had gone on. If I had thought this through thoroughly, I would have left the bra at home. On second thought, that would have simply frightened them.

Well, I fleeced those do-gooders for $60- just enough for some gas, laundry soap, and a crispy chicken snack wrap with hot sauce from McD's. A truly guilty confession- I love those darned things! And when I make my get away from the dirty masses that call me mother and caregiver, I wrap my lips around one of those babies and all my cares just melt away.

Had a fabulous time over at Aqua Books. Holy sha-moley, if you love book stores, and cool stuff, and people, you have to check this place out. I went to my very first ever book launch. I don't think I even embarrassed myself my raising my hands and shouting "Halleluia" or anything.

After getting home earlier than I'd expected, with my bags and bags of, well, nothing.... I remembered that we'd have to eat the next day. And that there was no school. Which meant that I'd also have to listen to the masses complain about the whole lack of food situation.And that I still had two bags to make, due to a birthday party and the whole raging, raving, blood-thirsty bag groupies banging at my virtual door in the wee, wee hours of the morning.

So, I went ahead and tried to get it all done. And tuck in the girls with a couple of heart-to-hearts to boot. Then climb into bed with old gropey-gropes (real sneaky like) to get some shut-eye before the merciless alarm of five and a half bells.

Which brings me to the (revised) song about the gin and the whiskey and all that.
Because so far today, I had some very silly boys turn on the garden hose and run through it (IT'S OCTOBER!!), a certain beautiful boy eat purple crayons and ingest a pink marker (Hope his dad isn't colour-phobic); have a leaky water bottle repeatedly squirted and hucked aross the living room floor; a toddler slip upstairs into restricted zones not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES; a kid cry about not being able to ride a two-wheeler; three toddlers poop their pants; a camping game set up on the front lawn, which included a pile of gravel from the driveway (not great for the lawn mower); and a large box of styrofoam packing popcorn get blown off the front step into the front lawn. Which brings me to 2:00 pm.

Still have that birthday bag to complete.
And snack time; without groceries.
Plus I owe Karla some money.

Oh, me oh me oh my....