That’s right, I hate the Wii.
To be fair, I don’t hate it any more or less than I hate any other video game device. But people’s reactions to my distaste seem to indicate that my dislike of this Revolution in Gaming means that the terrorists are winning.
Now, my distaste is two fold. Part one: I just plain suck at video games. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not enjoy doing things I cannot show at least some passable skill at. I don’t want to be the best, I just don’t want to be the worst. I feel awkward and self conscious, and it kicks off some internal conversation in my brain that makes me feel MORE awkward, which pisses me off, which makes it harder to concentrate, which makes me suck even more. Now, given that hand-only video games make me visibly angry and prove my digital incompetence quite obviously (stupid Frogger frog! Always running into traffic!), how on earth would a video game platform that actually requires full body movement be considered an upgrade to me personally? No. Please don’t call 9-1-1. I’m not having some sort of full body convulsion. I am simply trying to hit the soccer ball and avoid the freaking panda head. (Panda head? This is fun family entertainment? The severed heads of cuddly zoo animals flying at me?) So yeah, I suck. I can cop to that.
The secondary part of my distaste is a general ‘ick’ about video games in general. I grew up in an adamantly non-video game household. My parents were of the “Go read a book! Go outside!” hippie bent, so my only exposure was at friends houses, and my friends all wanted to go play outside when we went over to play since they had 24/7 access to video games when they were by themselves with nothing better to do like play kickball with friends. I did internalize that message, though, which was “Go DO something. Don’t sit in front of a screen and pretend to do something.” I am mature enough (ha!) at this point in my life to see that there is nothing inherently Evil about moderate gametime, that it can be nothing more than just mindless fun, but there is a part of me that still internally cringes to see my not-yet 3 year old ‘bowling’ with his father. Because, you see, he’s not really bowling. He’s standing in front of the couch. The first time he played, I thought “A whole generation of pasty white kids is going to grow up thinking they are good bowlers, but the first time they get to an actual bowling alley, they are not going to have the physical strength to pick up the damn ball!” Yeah, yeah. It’s overdramatic. (Hi, I’m Julie. Nice to meet you.) So I keep my mouth shut, I enjoy that my kid and his dad have a ‘thing’ they do together and enjoy, I run over to watch when Drew comes to get me, shouting “ook, me, mama! Ook! I boowing!” and I cheer him on when his daddy helps his get a strike, cause that’s just freaking adorable. I even play when asked. I can enjoy his enjoyment. But I’d be a liar if I said it was the most fun I ever had.
We have the Wii Fit, too, and I hope that after this baby comes I can find some use for it to get back into prebaby shape (which would mean ever-so slightly less round than I am right now :P) and maybe that will warm me up to it. Hell, if it got me into better than pre baby shape, I’d recant this entire diatribe and marry the damn thing.
What IS awesome about the Wii, specifically? That little song they play when a bowling game is finished. Drew loves that song, and immediately hops up to dance his funky little stomping dance, arms held out behind him like non-flapping chicken wings, circling the living room with a most determined look on his face. That’s almost worth the money.
Almost.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Ashes, ashes, we all spontaneously combust
Someone at work today made a joke about spontaneous human combustion . It totally freaked me out.
When I was a kid, probably 10 or 11, I got a book from who-knows-where that was based on stories from the then-current TV show, Ripley’s Believe It…….or NOT!! You read that correctly. As if the world needed further concrete, scientific proof that I was the uber-nerd, I didn’t even watch the dorky show. I read the even dorkier book they based the dorky show on.
The book was full of people who did crazy-ass things, but it also had paranormal stories in it. There was an entire chapter on spontaneous human combustion. That’s SHC for those in the know, by the way. The stories always were about people who lived alone, hadn’t been seen in a few days, and when neighbors or family searched for them, all they found was a pile of ashes and some personal effect that was miraculously untouched by flame. Usually a cane tip or the soles of the poor victims shoes, sometimes the very chair the poor victim had been sitting in. There was always some quote along the lines of “My God! It was as if he just burned up where he sat!”
Holy. Crap.
Look, I was well aware at the time that the world was a dangerous place. I was in FIFTH mother effing grade. I had seen some shit, you know? But now, in addition to worrying about the fact that next year I was going to have to manage a locker and changing classrooms at school and that my training bra technically had nothing to train, I had to worry about my body turning on me entirely — to the point of bursting into uncontrollable flame?? I fretted about it for weeks. I took extra special care not to get overheated. I worried it, as my mother is so fond of saying, to death. Since I was a pretty anxious kid in general and prone to worrying about random things, they generally left me alone to obsess over things for a while, but apparently eventually I set off even their blunted “What the hell?” meters and they were compelled to ask me what was up. So I told them.
My poor parents. Every parent prepares themselves for the moment their kids asks “Where do babies come from?”……….a precious, unlucky few have to be faced with “I am afraid I am going to burst into flames in the middle of the night and the only thing you will find in my bed come morning is the plastic-y decor left over from the decals on my Wonder Woman Underoos.” (Whatever! You had some, too! You know you did!) Well, my parents tried to blow it off. It’s all legend, it’s silly, that doesn’t really happen. Unfortunately for them, even at the age of 10 I was going to need something more than their lame platitudes and reassurances. After about a week or so, where my position was firmly backed up by a book compiled by interns who worked on a crappy late night TV show while my dads position was backed up by………..his word and nothing more, my dad got serious. Now, this was looooong before the internet, wikipedia, or anything that allowed you to research things instantaneously. My dad, a very rational man of science and an engineer, had to go to the local library, ask a stranger for help, and look up books and articles on a subject he knew was bunk. I assume there was probably even microfiche involved. But he doggedly compiled his own dossier on SHC, and brought it home to me to look over. It appears that, long story short, the victims are almost always long term alcoholics and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that they were all smoking at the time of the incidents. Umm, yeah, even at 10 I was able to make the connection between a pickled human being and an open flame. Mostly. I won’t say I was totally convinced (hello! I read it in a BOOK! Books don’t lie!), but it reassured me enough to get a good night sleep without being afraid my blanket would overheat me.
So far, Drew is a happy go lucky sort of kid. Then again, I am not certain I was showing an awful lot of evidence of my worry at that age, beyond needing to know my Weebles were taped down at night so they could get a good night’s rest. Which, incidently, still seems pretty reasonable. I was feeling pretty good about that, that Drew might manage to escape the not alltogether fun burden of a mind with the ability to ruminate and obsess over Potential Doom. It only occurred to me today, when my coworker said those words, that this baby will be a whole new ball of wax. If this kids a worrier like I was, will I be able to handle it like my parents — for the most part calmly and rationally? Or will Cliff come home one day to find us both curled up in the corner, worried and anxious about………….oh, hell. Really almost anything. High fructose corn syrup, melamine in food, moldy peanuts, chemicals leaching out of plastic into our hot chocolate?
Wait………..
When I was a kid, probably 10 or 11, I got a book from who-knows-where that was based on stories from the then-current TV show, Ripley’s Believe It…….or NOT!! You read that correctly. As if the world needed further concrete, scientific proof that I was the uber-nerd, I didn’t even watch the dorky show. I read the even dorkier book they based the dorky show on.
The book was full of people who did crazy-ass things, but it also had paranormal stories in it. There was an entire chapter on spontaneous human combustion. That’s SHC for those in the know, by the way. The stories always were about people who lived alone, hadn’t been seen in a few days, and when neighbors or family searched for them, all they found was a pile of ashes and some personal effect that was miraculously untouched by flame. Usually a cane tip or the soles of the poor victims shoes, sometimes the very chair the poor victim had been sitting in. There was always some quote along the lines of “My God! It was as if he just burned up where he sat!”
Holy. Crap.
Look, I was well aware at the time that the world was a dangerous place. I was in FIFTH mother effing grade. I had seen some shit, you know? But now, in addition to worrying about the fact that next year I was going to have to manage a locker and changing classrooms at school and that my training bra technically had nothing to train, I had to worry about my body turning on me entirely — to the point of bursting into uncontrollable flame?? I fretted about it for weeks. I took extra special care not to get overheated. I worried it, as my mother is so fond of saying, to death. Since I was a pretty anxious kid in general and prone to worrying about random things, they generally left me alone to obsess over things for a while, but apparently eventually I set off even their blunted “What the hell?” meters and they were compelled to ask me what was up. So I told them.
My poor parents. Every parent prepares themselves for the moment their kids asks “Where do babies come from?”……….a precious, unlucky few have to be faced with “I am afraid I am going to burst into flames in the middle of the night and the only thing you will find in my bed come morning is the plastic-y decor left over from the decals on my Wonder Woman Underoos.” (Whatever! You had some, too! You know you did!) Well, my parents tried to blow it off. It’s all legend, it’s silly, that doesn’t really happen. Unfortunately for them, even at the age of 10 I was going to need something more than their lame platitudes and reassurances. After about a week or so, where my position was firmly backed up by a book compiled by interns who worked on a crappy late night TV show while my dads position was backed up by………..his word and nothing more, my dad got serious. Now, this was looooong before the internet, wikipedia, or anything that allowed you to research things instantaneously. My dad, a very rational man of science and an engineer, had to go to the local library, ask a stranger for help, and look up books and articles on a subject he knew was bunk. I assume there was probably even microfiche involved. But he doggedly compiled his own dossier on SHC, and brought it home to me to look over. It appears that, long story short, the victims are almost always long term alcoholics and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that they were all smoking at the time of the incidents. Umm, yeah, even at 10 I was able to make the connection between a pickled human being and an open flame. Mostly. I won’t say I was totally convinced (hello! I read it in a BOOK! Books don’t lie!), but it reassured me enough to get a good night sleep without being afraid my blanket would overheat me.
So far, Drew is a happy go lucky sort of kid. Then again, I am not certain I was showing an awful lot of evidence of my worry at that age, beyond needing to know my Weebles were taped down at night so they could get a good night’s rest. Which, incidently, still seems pretty reasonable. I was feeling pretty good about that, that Drew might manage to escape the not alltogether fun burden of a mind with the ability to ruminate and obsess over Potential Doom. It only occurred to me today, when my coworker said those words, that this baby will be a whole new ball of wax. If this kids a worrier like I was, will I be able to handle it like my parents — for the most part calmly and rationally? Or will Cliff come home one day to find us both curled up in the corner, worried and anxious about………….oh, hell. Really almost anything. High fructose corn syrup, melamine in food, moldy peanuts, chemicals leaching out of plastic into our hot chocolate?
Wait………..
Monday, February 16, 2009
They seemed so happy together
Last night it was a trial to get Drew to go to bed. Usually, we hop into his bed and chat for a few minutes about his day, and then I ask him whose turn it is to close their eyes first and he decides it’s his turn and closes his eyes. (Clever, clever! See how I did that? It’s a competition, and yet I ALWAYS win even though it’s NEVER my turn to go first! :P ) I close my eyes, too, and he thrashes around for a few minutes and might try to talk to me but I feign sleep and within 10 or 15 minutes he’s drifted off to dreamland. Oh, sure, I have fallen asleep, too, but that happens whenever I stop moving. Sort of like a shark. Feeding frenzies included.
Last night, though, thanks to a very late afternoon nap courtesy of dad being in charge while I grocery shopped, Drew just wasn’t having it at bedtime. I closed my eyes and lay silent for a good 30 minutes, and he thrashed around and talked to no one and made shadow puppets and poked my eyes. “Mommy! Mama! Wake UP!”
I finally open my eyes and ask him what was going on.
“Why can’t you calm down and sleep, buddy? What’s the deal? It’s bedtime!”
“Mama, my toes are fighting. They are keeping me awake.”
“Your toes are fighting?”
“Yeah, mommy. They need to work it out.”
“Well, then, what can we do?”
What we can do, apparently, is take off the socks, for starters. And then I can lay down and enjoy the crazy person ramblings of an almost 3 year old helping his toes work out their differences. It was a complex situation, from what I could tell, having to do with the fact that some toes are smaller and some are bigger, and none of their “twin toes” are on the same feet. The big toes do all right, seeing as they meet up face to face when he puts his feet together, but the little piggies are small and lonely, way out there on the ends. And sometimes Big Toe doesn’t WANT to go the market (whoa, boy, do I know where you are coming from, Big Guy!), and that is a problem, too. I’d say it took about 10 minutes for peace to reign in ToeLand once again. And once it did, true to his word, Drew drifted off to sleep.
Wonder if Obama needs any help with that whole Middle East thing. I know someone who can give him a hand.
Last night, though, thanks to a very late afternoon nap courtesy of dad being in charge while I grocery shopped, Drew just wasn’t having it at bedtime. I closed my eyes and lay silent for a good 30 minutes, and he thrashed around and talked to no one and made shadow puppets and poked my eyes. “Mommy! Mama! Wake UP!”
I finally open my eyes and ask him what was going on.
“Why can’t you calm down and sleep, buddy? What’s the deal? It’s bedtime!”
“Mama, my toes are fighting. They are keeping me awake.”
“Your toes are fighting?”
“Yeah, mommy. They need to work it out.”
“Well, then, what can we do?”
What we can do, apparently, is take off the socks, for starters. And then I can lay down and enjoy the crazy person ramblings of an almost 3 year old helping his toes work out their differences. It was a complex situation, from what I could tell, having to do with the fact that some toes are smaller and some are bigger, and none of their “twin toes” are on the same feet. The big toes do all right, seeing as they meet up face to face when he puts his feet together, but the little piggies are small and lonely, way out there on the ends. And sometimes Big Toe doesn’t WANT to go the market (whoa, boy, do I know where you are coming from, Big Guy!), and that is a problem, too. I’d say it took about 10 minutes for peace to reign in ToeLand once again. And once it did, true to his word, Drew drifted off to sleep.
Wonder if Obama needs any help with that whole Middle East thing. I know someone who can give him a hand.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
A Day In The Life
Ok, not even a WHOLE day, but man, I am ready for bed already.
It has been a tough week or so at the ol’ homestead. Cliff has an infected wisdom tooth that is causing him some pain and therefore making him cranky like a wounded bear. Drew as developed a horrific, bleeding diaper rash that makes him walk like John Wayne and resist diaper changes. Have you ever seen someone try and catch a greased pig at the rodeo? It’s a lot like that. He also developed a nighttime cough that has been keeping him (and thus me!) awake for the past several nights. As for me, I am roughly 67 months pregnant, giant and unwieldy, have heartburn that could strip the chrome off a bumper, have not slept in weeks, and umm……….am mildly hormonal. And when I say “mild” I mean “cries or rages every 8.9 seconds, whether needed or not”.
So……last night started out well. Got Drew into a baking soda bath for his poor bum, then let him have some naked TV time in an attempt to help it dry out a bit. Bedtime was a breeze – a huge thunderstorm rolled in right when we layed down, so we listened to the rain together and I got to hear his awesome commentary about rain and lightning. He has always had an affinity for thunderstorms – I wonder if it is just an inheritance from his weather obsessed father or if it has anything to do with the fact that he was born in the middle of a violent storm. His cough was a little less persistent, and I had great hopes that he’d sleep through the night. And he did!
Alas………….I was up most of the night struggling with pregnancy induced stomach tempests. How totally unfair is THAT!? 2:15 am found me crying, begging, and asking the Universe “WHY??!? The Kid is SLEEPING!!!!! Why won’t you let me sleep, too!???!” There was no answer, but I swear I heard an evil, otherworldly chuckle or two.
This morning, I gathered Drew’s clothes and a clean diaper and prepared for Diaper Dash IIV. I gathered my baby washclothes (softer than disposable wipes), my diaper area cleansing spray (theoretically less stingy than the wipes on a sore bum, and for $15 it has freaking better be downright soothing!), my diaper disposal bag (capable of containing a Level 4 nuclear rated pair of poopy pants), and a $13 tube of organic, environmentally friendly, probably edible diaper rash cream for The Slather manuever necesary to coat the rash. As I approached him (from the rear, you don’t want to spook them!), I noticed with increasing horror that there appeared to be a………river? stream? ooze? of poop coming out of the back of his pants and headed down his leg for the floor.
RED ALERT! RED ALERT! POOPAGE UNCONTAINED!!!
In a move considered by many to be impossible for a 67 month pregnant lady (in a skirt!) to pull off, I grabbed a wipe and launched myself at his ass, simultaneously wiping the chunk of poop about to head for the floor. Frankly, I was impressed with myself, both for getting there in time and for the sheer physicality of the move. I felt like Kerrie Strug pulling off that vault on one leg, albeit larger and more out of breath. Drew, on the other hand, was alarmed. Hard to blame him, I think I’d probably be scared by both the visual of my huge mother launching herself at me and her exuberant “Boo-YA!” of victory as she sat up holding a wipe full of poop if I were a toddler, too. It was also the first time he realized there was something leaking from his pants, so he reached back and grabbed………two handfuls of poop. He then brought his hands to his face and realized there was POOP on them. Utter and total panic set in. He began to cry and shake his hands about, flinging poop all over the place. My only alternative, as both a mother concerned about the bacterial properties of fecal matter AND the owner of a relatively new set of living room furniture concerned about upholstery, was to tackle him and contain the biohazard.
Once he was down, the diaper change that took place can only be described as “barbaric”. He wailed, he cried, he thrashed, his father held him down and I pried his buttcheeks apart to make sure I was getting all the irritating poop out, then slathered about $5 of cream on his bum. New diaper thus installed, we held each other and cried. Then a hand wash, a banana, and out the door to school. God bless the automatic garage door opener (“Hey, Drew! Do you want to press the button to open the big door!?!?!”) and the theme song from Higglytown Heroes. Drop off was easy, breezy, beautiful………not quite Cover Girl, as Mama looks like hell, but at least there was no Drop Off Drama.
……………….and that brings us to about 8:15. What else does the day have in store? Hopefully (mostly pregnancy safe) pharmeceuticals. Please?!??!
It has been a tough week or so at the ol’ homestead. Cliff has an infected wisdom tooth that is causing him some pain and therefore making him cranky like a wounded bear. Drew as developed a horrific, bleeding diaper rash that makes him walk like John Wayne and resist diaper changes. Have you ever seen someone try and catch a greased pig at the rodeo? It’s a lot like that. He also developed a nighttime cough that has been keeping him (and thus me!) awake for the past several nights. As for me, I am roughly 67 months pregnant, giant and unwieldy, have heartburn that could strip the chrome off a bumper, have not slept in weeks, and umm……….am mildly hormonal. And when I say “mild” I mean “cries or rages every 8.9 seconds, whether needed or not”.
So……last night started out well. Got Drew into a baking soda bath for his poor bum, then let him have some naked TV time in an attempt to help it dry out a bit. Bedtime was a breeze – a huge thunderstorm rolled in right when we layed down, so we listened to the rain together and I got to hear his awesome commentary about rain and lightning. He has always had an affinity for thunderstorms – I wonder if it is just an inheritance from his weather obsessed father or if it has anything to do with the fact that he was born in the middle of a violent storm. His cough was a little less persistent, and I had great hopes that he’d sleep through the night. And he did!
Alas………….I was up most of the night struggling with pregnancy induced stomach tempests. How totally unfair is THAT!? 2:15 am found me crying, begging, and asking the Universe “WHY??!? The Kid is SLEEPING!!!!! Why won’t you let me sleep, too!???!” There was no answer, but I swear I heard an evil, otherworldly chuckle or two.
This morning, I gathered Drew’s clothes and a clean diaper and prepared for Diaper Dash IIV. I gathered my baby washclothes (softer than disposable wipes), my diaper area cleansing spray (theoretically less stingy than the wipes on a sore bum, and for $15 it has freaking better be downright soothing!), my diaper disposal bag (capable of containing a Level 4 nuclear rated pair of poopy pants), and a $13 tube of organic, environmentally friendly, probably edible diaper rash cream for The Slather manuever necesary to coat the rash. As I approached him (from the rear, you don’t want to spook them!), I noticed with increasing horror that there appeared to be a………river? stream? ooze? of poop coming out of the back of his pants and headed down his leg for the floor.
RED ALERT! RED ALERT! POOPAGE UNCONTAINED!!!
In a move considered by many to be impossible for a 67 month pregnant lady (in a skirt!) to pull off, I grabbed a wipe and launched myself at his ass, simultaneously wiping the chunk of poop about to head for the floor. Frankly, I was impressed with myself, both for getting there in time and for the sheer physicality of the move. I felt like Kerrie Strug pulling off that vault on one leg, albeit larger and more out of breath. Drew, on the other hand, was alarmed. Hard to blame him, I think I’d probably be scared by both the visual of my huge mother launching herself at me and her exuberant “Boo-YA!” of victory as she sat up holding a wipe full of poop if I were a toddler, too. It was also the first time he realized there was something leaking from his pants, so he reached back and grabbed………two handfuls of poop. He then brought his hands to his face and realized there was POOP on them. Utter and total panic set in. He began to cry and shake his hands about, flinging poop all over the place. My only alternative, as both a mother concerned about the bacterial properties of fecal matter AND the owner of a relatively new set of living room furniture concerned about upholstery, was to tackle him and contain the biohazard.
Once he was down, the diaper change that took place can only be described as “barbaric”. He wailed, he cried, he thrashed, his father held him down and I pried his buttcheeks apart to make sure I was getting all the irritating poop out, then slathered about $5 of cream on his bum. New diaper thus installed, we held each other and cried. Then a hand wash, a banana, and out the door to school. God bless the automatic garage door opener (“Hey, Drew! Do you want to press the button to open the big door!?!?!”) and the theme song from Higglytown Heroes. Drop off was easy, breezy, beautiful………not quite Cover Girl, as Mama looks like hell, but at least there was no Drop Off Drama.
……………….and that brings us to about 8:15. What else does the day have in store? Hopefully (mostly pregnancy safe) pharmeceuticals. Please?!??!
A Day In The Life: Part 2: But wait! There's more!!!
That’s right. I have reduced the entirety of yesterday into a ginsu knife infomercial.
Picking up at 8:15, where our little melodrama left off, the Universe amped up the stress at work. Imagine sitting in your little cube, whilst whispers of your Little Boss, his Big Boss, and his BigBig Boss swirl around you. You hear references to an account you manage, a failed audit, and most incriminatingly, your name. No one addresses you directly, but it seems clear that there is a problem, and someone (who!?!?) thinks it is because of something you did or failed to do. Makes you feel confident and secure, particularly in this stellar economy, no? (By the end of the day all is well, the problem is linked to a software error, I was exonerated and there were many apologies for freaking me the hell out, but it was quite a workday nonetheless!)
So I bail. I have to pee like mad, but frankly am just thinking about getting the hell out of the building, so I just get in the car and drive off. Tooling down the highway at 65ish MPH (perhaps faster, though I cannot commit to that here because I will not confirm my alleged lead-footedness in writing), I felt a quick shimmy of the steering wheel, then feel and hear a huge explosion, and then lose control of the car. I slowed down and wrestled the car over to the shoulder to compose myself and take stock. Well, that was the plan, but I soon realize that the shoulder of a highway at the beginning edge of rush hour isn’t exactly the safest place for that sort of thing. I can’t even get out of the car safely, much less do anything about the situation. So I flip on the hazards, gingerly head across the divider to the exit ramp, and limp the car over to a shopping center under construction and pull off to the side. Have I mentioned my abject fear of car problems and my terror of driving a somehow disabled car yet? Or that I spent the entire drive shouting “DO you not SEE that my car is BROKEN!” at the cars whizzing by me?
I start to call…………well, everyone. Cliff? No answer. My sister and mom are working out, so no answer. Cliff again, no answer. Text him with an admittedly dramatic “Tire exploded. Call ASAP” in an effort to spur action on his part. Yeah, it was ridiculously over the top, but I didn’t go with the heartstopper “Think I am in labor” so I’m giving myself a pass on it. Call my other sister, who works across the highway, to see if she can send a coworker to help me with the spare. She is headed into some mandatory meeting with all her officemates, so no luck there. Call Cliff again, no response. (Yeah, the incessant calls probably were obnoxious. But typically I am more than capable of throwing on the spare tire and was frustrated to need to rely on rescue, plus I was more than a little freaked out by the whole event, plus I STILL had to pee, plus with everything else going on, I felt like the sheer fact that I wasn’t crying in a heap on the side of the road a real accomplishment.)
BTW, where are the Good Samaritans, you are probably asking yourself. Umm, the WHO? I was on the side of the road for about an hour, near a busy construction site where probably 100 (presumably handy, mechanically able bodied) men drove past me, slowing down to gawk at the gigantic pregnant person and her obviously disabled car, and the ONLY person who stopped was some sort of foreman or something who came by on his little golf cart to ask me to move the car. Not to offer aid, not to change the tire, not even to offer to call someone for me. Just “Hey, can you move the car.” He’s damn lucky he was too big for me to stuff his body in the wheel well where the spare was. Damn lucky. Do people just not care anymore? Do they just assume someone else helped? Was it the cankles that scared them off? Do I even want to know?
Cliff finally returns my call(s). He gets me hooked up with the number to roadside assistance, and assures me he’s on his way. It will be about an hour because he’s across town, but he’s coming. I call Geico, and I have to say, they could not have been nicer. First things first they made sure I was ok.
“Ma’am, are you injured? Are you medically stable?”
“Well, I am 8 months pregnant and stranded and I have to pee, so I wouldn’t say stable.”
That poor 17 year old boy working the call center. He took that in stride, dear boy, and got me hooked up with Pop A Lock to change the tire instead of making me wait like 2 hours for a tow truck, which was his original plan. They show up in like 30 minutes, were wonderful, and leave me to drive on the freaking donut (have I mentioned my loathing of driving disabled vehicles?) to the tire place where I get some bladder relief, Cliff meets me and takes over the car situation and I grab his keys to get Drew from school.
Get Drew, get Cliff, pay $500 for 4 new tires, meet Cliff’s cousin and her son for dinner (yeah, on top of everything, wrestling a 3 year old in a restaurant! Yay!), get home, pass out.
Picking up at 8:15, where our little melodrama left off, the Universe amped up the stress at work. Imagine sitting in your little cube, whilst whispers of your Little Boss, his Big Boss, and his BigBig Boss swirl around you. You hear references to an account you manage, a failed audit, and most incriminatingly, your name. No one addresses you directly, but it seems clear that there is a problem, and someone (who!?!?) thinks it is because of something you did or failed to do. Makes you feel confident and secure, particularly in this stellar economy, no? (By the end of the day all is well, the problem is linked to a software error, I was exonerated and there were many apologies for freaking me the hell out, but it was quite a workday nonetheless!)
So I bail. I have to pee like mad, but frankly am just thinking about getting the hell out of the building, so I just get in the car and drive off. Tooling down the highway at 65ish MPH (perhaps faster, though I cannot commit to that here because I will not confirm my alleged lead-footedness in writing), I felt a quick shimmy of the steering wheel, then feel and hear a huge explosion, and then lose control of the car. I slowed down and wrestled the car over to the shoulder to compose myself and take stock. Well, that was the plan, but I soon realize that the shoulder of a highway at the beginning edge of rush hour isn’t exactly the safest place for that sort of thing. I can’t even get out of the car safely, much less do anything about the situation. So I flip on the hazards, gingerly head across the divider to the exit ramp, and limp the car over to a shopping center under construction and pull off to the side. Have I mentioned my abject fear of car problems and my terror of driving a somehow disabled car yet? Or that I spent the entire drive shouting “DO you not SEE that my car is BROKEN!” at the cars whizzing by me?
I start to call…………well, everyone. Cliff? No answer. My sister and mom are working out, so no answer. Cliff again, no answer. Text him with an admittedly dramatic “Tire exploded. Call ASAP” in an effort to spur action on his part. Yeah, it was ridiculously over the top, but I didn’t go with the heartstopper “Think I am in labor” so I’m giving myself a pass on it. Call my other sister, who works across the highway, to see if she can send a coworker to help me with the spare. She is headed into some mandatory meeting with all her officemates, so no luck there. Call Cliff again, no response. (Yeah, the incessant calls probably were obnoxious. But typically I am more than capable of throwing on the spare tire and was frustrated to need to rely on rescue, plus I was more than a little freaked out by the whole event, plus I STILL had to pee, plus with everything else going on, I felt like the sheer fact that I wasn’t crying in a heap on the side of the road a real accomplishment.)
BTW, where are the Good Samaritans, you are probably asking yourself. Umm, the WHO? I was on the side of the road for about an hour, near a busy construction site where probably 100 (presumably handy, mechanically able bodied) men drove past me, slowing down to gawk at the gigantic pregnant person and her obviously disabled car, and the ONLY person who stopped was some sort of foreman or something who came by on his little golf cart to ask me to move the car. Not to offer aid, not to change the tire, not even to offer to call someone for me. Just “Hey, can you move the car.” He’s damn lucky he was too big for me to stuff his body in the wheel well where the spare was. Damn lucky. Do people just not care anymore? Do they just assume someone else helped? Was it the cankles that scared them off? Do I even want to know?
Cliff finally returns my call(s). He gets me hooked up with the number to roadside assistance, and assures me he’s on his way. It will be about an hour because he’s across town, but he’s coming. I call Geico, and I have to say, they could not have been nicer. First things first they made sure I was ok.
“Ma’am, are you injured? Are you medically stable?”
“Well, I am 8 months pregnant and stranded and I have to pee, so I wouldn’t say stable.”
That poor 17 year old boy working the call center. He took that in stride, dear boy, and got me hooked up with Pop A Lock to change the tire instead of making me wait like 2 hours for a tow truck, which was his original plan. They show up in like 30 minutes, were wonderful, and leave me to drive on the freaking donut (have I mentioned my loathing of driving disabled vehicles?) to the tire place where I get some bladder relief, Cliff meets me and takes over the car situation and I grab his keys to get Drew from school.
Get Drew, get Cliff, pay $500 for 4 new tires, meet Cliff’s cousin and her son for dinner (yeah, on top of everything, wrestling a 3 year old in a restaurant! Yay!), get home, pass out.
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