I am committed to living happy. To surviving the wish I made at seven of growing up to be happy. A simple wish. But life has a way to fuck you when you least expect it. I don’t know about you but I have a real hard time living with my feet in two different places. I just don’t function well, being of two minds. So when I work my version of the “the program” to be happy and someone commits an act so vile that it shakes you the core of your being- it’s hard to be happy.
Yes I have left a message for my therapist. Whose super secret personal line, the one it has taken me over ten years to finally get access to, has an out going message that says she will return the call “in a few days.” This is supposed to be my Bat-line. The one I call when I’m going down and going down fast- and her message to me and every other caller already has a disclaimer? Now I can add her to my list of wrongs. I’m angry and it’s ugly.
I’ve never had a garden. Sure I’ve bought potted plants and flowers, and organized them in some garden-like fashion, but I have never dug up dirt or put anything in it. I guess one could say I don’t like to get my hands dirty. I even eat chicken with a fork and knife, and to this day will not change a poopy diaper unless absolutely necessary.
Anyway, I was looking at the patch of grass we call a backyard and thought it was a good time to do something with it. So just like that I went to the Home Depot with the boys- because I thought it would be a good experience for them to learn that we have the ability to make something out of nothing (ain’t that the truth) or at least very little. They had no interest in the gardening department - picking seeds was a chore for us all. But when we got to the tools department, my goodness, it was like they had reached Valhalla. They knew instinctively what every thing could be used for… namely a weapon to inflict pain or death, or create a bigger vehicle for mass destruction. Somehow somewhere between picking seeds and flowers to plant and looking for a hoe my sweet innocent boys became ax wielding warmongers. Thank God their sister was not with us, as surely they would have “pretended” to torture her.
After strategically placing the shopping cart in the very center of the aisle where no five year old’s hand could reach makeshift machete, I stood there looking at all this stuff. Boy Stuff. How far we’ve come since sticks and stones. There are fancy things like electric screwdrivers because in the 21st century it’s just SO SO hard to “lefty loosie, rightie tightie”. It must be because of the all those Blackberry thumb injuries. But my favorite, and I admit I bought it, was the laser guided, self-sticking leveler. As Bob Vila is my witness, no picture in my house will ever be askew again! Sadly I get distracted easily, by shiny objects that promise to make my life simpler but require batteries…
Eventually I found the hoes. Did you know that there are almost a dozen types of hoes? The boys just wanted the biggest long one that could lay on the ground unnoticed then like a cartoon character on those retro networks, and someone could step on it and “BOING!” They all looked the same, and could pretty much do the same job just fine. But then if you liken them to the right pair of brown shoes, it’s a completely different story. To most men brown is brown and a high heeled shoe is a shoe with a high heel. But to us ladies, there is an entire world between chocolate brown and tawny café, and a high heel strappy sandal is not a high heel pump. This is why I stopped wearing any and all brown in 1998. Honest. Although I see color all around me I prefer to live in black and red. Simple.
Finally, the boys just wore me down, and I picked the one that was the same color of the gardening gloves and hat I had picked out, after all there was sowing to be done.
I have to say that this makes me laugh every time I see it. It's just wrong to video tape your kids on drugs and then put them up on youtube for people like to me to enjoy.
