In Today’s Episode of the Joys of Home Ownership . . .

The writing partner chose this time to go away on a much-needed vacation. My husband cringed.

Why cringe, you ask? Because when I’m not spending my weekends writing, editing and working on publishing projects, I have The List. And because I spend so many weekends on my writing projects, The List grows long.

Partner JJ, the husband is gunning for you.

This weekend’s list was grueling, but since Saturday brought snow and ice, the chores outside had to wait. The day was spent pursuing a level of cleanliness this home has not experienced during the very busy summer months. When I hit the ground running, the family had better hop-to, because Mama ain’t kiddin’.

So, each member of the household was assigned chores. Mama said, “No grumbling, or life as you know it is over.” The grumbling went on, of course, but by the time the dust had settled, I was almost satisfied with the shininess.

Almost.

Hey, I’m a woman. Nothing is ever clean enough—but we were close, and we were tired. I called a halt. You’d think the husband had been released on early furlough. Never mind that in the middle of the cleaning frenzy, he suddenly decided it was time to take a gallon of loose change to the bank to find out how much cash he could get. The kid acted like she’d been worked to death, never mind that while she spent much of her time cleaning her room; somehow the rest of the house was magically finished without her. Mama was done for the day.

That brings us to Sunday—and back to The List. Now, there are few things that frighten a husband more (at least in this household) than roof work. Yes, that’s right. Work needed to be done on the roof. Being a self-sufficient DIY-type gal, I feel small projects do not require a phone call to some handy-dandy repair dude that’s going to charge a hunny just to look at something.

No, this type of work could be handled by us—and by us, I mean me. This involves the man standing at ground level, holding the ladder, cringing constantly, spouting needless words of caution, running for tools I don’t have in hand, sighing constantly at having his Sunday disrupted, whining on occasion about how cold it is standing under the shelter of the house’s eaves, and generally driving me to the point of distraction. I have to point out that I’m on top of the roof, which is wet and slick, and the more he distracts me, the more danger I’m in.

He grumbles more, which makes me wonder if he wants me to fall and break my neck. It’s possible. After all, if I’m in the hospital or the bone yard, he wouldn’t be out in the cold watching me working on the roof.

Nah, he wouldn’t do that. That’s more my M.O.

Anyway, the work on the roof included clearing autumn from the gutter caps and cleaning the chimney. Ditch your romantic images of a Dickens chimney sweep. There’s nothing nostalgic or even competent about my abilities as a chimney sweep. It’s just something that has to be done and I fumble my way through it.

The flue cap has to be loosened and removed, the long chimney brush must be inserted and the flue scrubbed until I feel as if my arms will come off. Think really big butter churn that must be pumped about a hundred times while one is perched precariously on the apex of steep roof.

So, up the ladder I went. “Be careful,” he said before my foot was on the second rung. The long steel brush in my hand almost fell on his head while I thought, Actually, I was thinking of doing a swan dive when I get to the top. Do you think you can catch me?

I didn’t say the words—or the oh-so-vicious other things that came to mind—but it boiled down to: well, duh. Once at the top, I laid the brush on the shingles and pulled myself over the edge.

“Don’t kneel on the gutters,” he said.

Seriously? How stupid does this guy think I am? Of course, I asked him as much. Of course, he reminded me that I had married him. Point taken.

As I said, it had snowed the day before. As with most early snows in this part of Illinois, it was gone by the time I decided to embark on the miserable project. It didn’t mean the roof was dry, or that the wind wasn’t cold. It just meant no snow and ice on the roof. It was still slick. It was still wet. It was still freezing cold.

Now, normally, I do this chore a month earlier, but time had gotten away from me. I wanted to light a fire, but didn’t dare. The child whined for a cozy fire, so there I was, in the chilling wind, staring at a flue cap that was higher than my waist. With a morbid sigh, I looked the situation over.

There are layers of skirts that are held with tension over the top of the chimney. Think large Christmas tree with a table-like flat top. I’ve often thought it would be a good place for a picnic, but . . .

The tension comes in the form of two sets of brackets held together with screws, washers and nuts. The bottom skirt has to be loosened and lowered. The next layer has to loosened and the assembly can be lifted away.

As luck would have it, the bottom piece fell away easily. On to the next. The next was not such a sure thing. Now, don’t tell the husband this part, but while I was working on it, my foot slipped on the wet shingles and—just for the briefest of moments—I almost saw the ground coming up to meet me. Believe me, friends, this is not something anyone wants to experience. I righted myself, wiped my suddenly sweaty brow in the freezing wind, and took a deep, steadying breath.

There was nothing for it but to sit on the cold, wet surface so I could better see what I was doing and approach from an improved angle. My butt will never be warm again—even with a fire in the fireplace. Seriously, you could freeze ice on my ass.

So, now sitting beyond my husband’s view as he stepped backwards to look, he thought I’d fallen and yelled. Of course this freaked me out, so I dropped my screwdriver and it rolled off the opposite side of the roof. At that moment, I kind of wished it had dropped the other way and landed on his head.

Oh, come on. You all know I have a vindictive side.

So, there was a fair amount of cursing under my breath and a responding yell that I was fine. And not to worry, being my daddy’s daughter, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the spare screwdriver, muttered a few things about how I hoped he’d keep his mouth shut and went back to work. The screw wouldn’t budge. The nut was frozen tight. I reached for the wrench in my other pocket, but realized I’d left it on the work bench in the garage.

On my feet again, I climbed over the peak and down toward the waiting man. I told him what I needed. He answered by telling me to be careful and went to get the tool. He came back, handed it up to me and told me to be careful.

Back up over the top of the roof and back to work. But it didn’t work. I struggled, cursed, struggled some more. Back to the edge of the roof. “I need the W-D.”

He went for the spray lube and told me to be careful. When he brought it back, and I stood to go back up, he told me to be careful. I almost dropped the can on his head, and smiled at him.

I sprayed and worked, sprayed and fought. I hit the nut with the wrench a few times, sprayed it again and tried once more. (Hey, smacking it around works on the threads of pickle jar, so I thought it couldn’t hurt.) The head of the screw wallowed out to the point there was no way it was going anywhere.

He asked what was wrong. When I told him, he told me to be careful. Peeling my frozen posterior from the shingles, I made my way back to the ladder. He told me to be careful. I told him to shut up and hold the ladder.

So, it was off to the hardware store for new screws, nuts and washers, then to Harbor Freight to see what tools they had which might cut through the mess.   

Now, my husband likes tools. It’s a guy thing, I suppose. He has a nice, small array of tools. He’s proud of them and likes to show them off from time to time, but I’m the one who uses them most. The husband is brilliant at his job, is much-respected by those in the printing industry because he’s a true artist and craftsman.

What he’s not is handy around the house. Most repair work is done by his wife who isn’t afraid of it and has no qualms about possibly screwing it up. I do minor plumbing and electrical work, can drive a nail straight, operate power tools with a fair amount of proficiency and truly enjoy working with my hands. That’s my thing.

But his tools did not yield anything with the capacity to cut through a stubborn screw. At Harbor Freight we found a lovely oscillating multifunction power tool. I bought the cutting attachment and back to the house we went.

In the scant hour we were gone, the temperature must have dropped ten degrees. The wind had a real bite to it and I was not looking forward to getting back on the roof. The sun was lower, the breeze higher, and somehow, the shingles looked wetter. Bummer.

After assembling the tool and finding a bucket to put all the tools in I’d left on the roof, I started in on the squirming mass of extension cords kept so precariously piled in a corner of the garage. I think there were five of them tangled up together. This is where knowing how to curse properly really comes in handy. I cursed, I snarled, I slapped the husband’s hand when he reached in to help.

Poor guy.

Once done, I climbed back up, pulled up the cord and the bucket with my new power tool nestled in it. He told me to be careful and I whipped the cord out just hard enough to strike the side of his head. With a smiling apology, I walked up over the top of the slick roof and realized it was starting to ice over. Fabulous.

I sat my already-wet butt down and it froze to the ice on the shingles. Now, this new tool is a jim-dandy. When I turned it on, it sounded as if it would cut through a diamond. With a grin, I went to work, but the grin soon fell away. No matter how hard the thing oscillated, it wouldn’t cut through the screw.

He must have heard me drop the mother of all curses because he yelled up, demanded to know what was up. When I told him, he said he’d hire someone in the morning to come do it. Oh, hell, no. There was no way this thing was going to beat me—and no way I’m paying someone to do something I can do.

With a savage and barbarous battle cry, I went after the rusted nut. I drove the tool into it over and over until it disintegrated and dissolved away.

He heard my cry of victory and told me to be careful. I muttered something under my breath about where he could bite me and lifted the cap away. By this time, I was worn out. Fighting cold wind and frozen hands, I retrieved the heavy brush and started scrubbing the flue. He yelled at me to be careful. I almost kicked the bucket of heavy tools over to drop on his head.

He disappeared, but before he left, told me to be careful. When he came back out, he told me he didn’t see any soot falling into the fireplace. The glass doors over the hearth had been sealed with masking tape, so the soot wouldn’t leak out. I knew he wouldn’t be able to see it. Soot is blacker than midnight under a skillet, to quote a friend of mine from Texas, so falling into a blackened hearth would be nearly invisible. I knew the thing was getting clean, from the copious amounts of sooty dust flying out in the wind.

He told me to be careful.

I finished scrubbing, laid the brush aside and reassembled the cap. I had yet to do the gutters. There is only one area where the gutters have an issue. It’s a corner of the roof right over the door. When it clogs up, rain pours down over the stoop. It was next of my hit list.

After unplugging the multi-tool, I let go of the extension cord and let it slide down over the roof. Apparently, the husband thought it was me falling, whipped his head around and stared up at the top of the roof. I smiled down and told him, “Heads up.”

He was not amused. He told me to be careful.

As I handed the brush down to him, he told me to be careful. I let it fall and it almost landed on his head. He accused me of doing it on purpose. I smiled innocently.

He held the ladder, but I didn’t climb down. I went to work on the gutters. He told me to be careful. I growled at him as I sat down. My butt stuck to the frozen shingles as I worked. A large glob of sludge hit his glasses.

“Oops, sorry, honey.”

“Don’t step on the gutter,” he said. “You’ll break it. Be careful.”

Another glob landed on his head. Then the chore was done. I lowered a foot to the ladder and he stared at me. I put my foot on the ladder and gave it a shake. He stared at me.

“Are you going to hold the ladder?” I asked.

“Nope.” He grinned at me while picking the last of rotting leaves from his hair.

I cocked a brow at him and reached for the ladder. When he saw I meant to climb down without his help, he jumped at the ladder and held it steady. I handed him the bucket of tools and down I went.

Now, sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket with a heating pad under my frost-bitten ass, I’m wondering which of us will cook dinner. You know it’s going to be me. Sigh.

I need tequila.

Of Dust Bunnies and Other Domestic Horrors.

The plight of a working mother with two jobs is made worse with a choice. The choice was, do I continue writing, or give it up to be a better housekeeper, a better mother, a better wife. I gave it up—for almost a week. I found out I’m a better wife and mother if I can exercise my craft. I write, therefore, I am.

But that says nothing for my housekeeping. With only so many hours in the day—and night—something gets left out. Let’s face it, would anyone rather do housework than anything else in the world, say, even a root canal?

Each week, I squeeze out an hour or two to run the sweeper, man a dust rag and toss a few things in the laundry (only what’s absolutely needed to dress myself or my child) and spend the rest of the time in pursuit of the creative. Everything changes. Some changes are good.

Recently my day job offered the opportunity to work from home. I thought it over for a long time. It’s a lot to consider. Do I wish to always be in my own home, to never leave during the daylight hours, to not have coworkers surrounding me and laughing? As it turned out, I decided I could live with it. It was the advent of winter that sealed the deal. The thought of my pretty red sporty car on the snow and ice was enough to scare my hair white.

The things you discover when you’re in your own home twenty-four hours a day are mind-boggling. One of those things is that the housekeeping gene in my family is dominant. I thought it had skipped my generation. I thought it might actually be a disease that only affects those in my family such as my grandmother and my mother. We suffered through a childhood of demands, such as, “Pick up your shoes,” “Clean your room,” “Your turn to do dishes,” and “Is this where you found it? Clean up this mess!”

I now hear those words flying from my own mouth. I swore it wouldn’t happen, but it’s happening. The twelve-year-old princess is finding out what it’s like to live with a stay-at-home mom. I don’t think she’s pleased. Those chores do pile up.

For the first few weeks at home I tried to turn a blind eye. Then it hit me all at once. I’ve lost control of my life. There are things in my house that I’m ashamed of, other things I cannot find, and still other things so disorganized I cannot figure them out.

Then the new year hit. The Christmas decorations were stored away for another year and the place looked like a warmed-over version of hell. Still, I tried to ignore it. Nagging feelings of total chaos danced in my head. It even got to the point where I could no longer write. It’s too much chaos!

Things had to change, so, New Year’s resolutions:

1.       Clean this Mother Hubbard (censored expletive) of a house.

2.       Be kinder to myself and others.

3.       Wrestle back control of my life.

It came to a head one day while working at my day-job. I work for a call center, answer questions for those who call in and ask. There is no room for errors. So, as I researched the needed information, I was brutally attacked. That’s right, attacked. A small horde of vicious dust bunnies took flight and went for my eyes. Thinking fast, I put my caller on hold and went on the defensive, swatting and swinging until the nasty creatures were subdued.

After the call, I took my break and went on the hunt for that horrifying, unnatural being known as the domestic dust bunny. It was the dog who had flushed them from their hiding places. The evidence was quite literally written on her poor face in the form of fuzzy gray balls of fluff. She looked confused, upset and not a little terrified. Something had to be done. The malicious creatures had taken on life and were stealing the dog’s food and socks from the laundry monster. Unbelievable.

I was on a mission. Over the next few days I tore into each room, tracking and hunting, evicting spiders along the way as I sought out self-animated and self-aware dust bunnies. It was in the man cave where I found the breeding ground. I was at war and the stakes were high. At one point I even thought about using my husband’s old shotgun. I won’t tell you what I did about the thought, but the husband was not amused. The most difficult part was patching the holes in the floor, walls and door.

They’re all gone now.

Still, there were my goals for this year. There are things that stand in the way of such lofty goals—things such as the laundry monster and the mail beast.

The laundry monster is pretty well self-explanatory. We’ve all experienced such creations of our own making. The pile grows higher and higher until an avalanche threatens to destroy lives. After getting the many missing socks from the now-vanquished dust bunnies, the pile grew higher. I started on it straight away.

What to do while waiting for the laundry was to tackle the mail beast. This creature is a bit more rare. We don’t throw out our junk mail. We don’t have a shredder, but we have a fireplace. One does not fire up the fireplace in the heat of the summer, so one stores the mail until such time as a fire is feasible.

By that time, feasibility of a fire was not an issue. The mail beast was. It was too large to tackle. It was spreading its piles across the counters, reproducing asexually and making a bid for world domination. Cooking meals was becoming risky.

You see, it wasn’t a matter of scooping it off the counter and making trips to the fireplace. The problem was it wasn’t all junk mail. There were needed documents in the beast, documents that weren’t a priority, but needed to be sorted from the belly of the beast and filed away. Daunting at best.

So, while the laundry was going, and the dust was settling, the mail had to be sorted. I was well through it all, had most of it sorted into piles according to subject or into the flames when I ran across something startling—a letter from one of my best friends. It was dated July, 2013.

Chaos ensued and won the day while I stopped to read the coveted, rare, hand-written, post-marked letter. When was the last time you got such a rare treat? I nearly did a jig of joy. (Okay, I did the dance since no one was looking.)

The mail beast was left in its sorted piles while I answered the letter with five rambling pages of hand-written silliness. It had to be answered immediately. It had waited for an answer for six months.

The letter is now in the mail and when I glanced over, I saw that the beast was once more trying to retake it’s former shape, although much reduced in size. Meh, I’ll worry about it tomorrow.

Christmas ADHD

It was a rough Christmas. To be honest, the entire holiday season has been a whirlwind of furious activity. When September arrived, I finally started feeling better. After one week shy of a year from the time my heart went haywire, I was finally starting to feel like my old self.

My old self took a look around and discovered my home was a mess. I spent several weeks scrubbing, cleaning, spackling, painting and barking orders at the rest of the household. New furniture was ordered and the place reorganized just in time to feed the multitudes for Thanksgiving. It took a week to prepare the food that would be devoured in less than two hours.

The next day I rested. Then it was time to prepare for Christmas. The days flew; the husband injured his shoulder at work. He needed care. He needed meds. He needed a doctor but convincing him of such is like trying to pull teeth on a tyrannosaur. We argued. I threw up my arms in surrender and tried to carry on.

The project this year was bath stuff—you know, soaps, oils, gels, salts, powders—all the stuff needed to enjoy a decadent bath, complete with chocolate truffles. What’s a luxurious bath without amazing chocolates? All of it had to be formulated, made by a caring hand for the women in the family. I turned my dining room into a laboratory.

Men don’t really care about luxuriating in a hot bath with fragrant salts and oils. For them it would be baked goods. The kitchen was turned into a bakery. I had to spend hours creating goodies and slapping the husband’s good hand every time he tried to sneak a treat.

Treats are a favorite of most men. They wander through life looking for some tasty confection to shove into their mouths. Grandma always said, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” I think some women should aim their culinary weapon more carefully. Some of them tend to cook for the wrong men and end up with broken hearts and fatherless children.

Oh, yeah—the child. In the midst of flurry and mayhem, the princess fell ill. She came back from the annual cookie baking at Grandma’s with a stuffed head and a slight fever. On Monday, I left work early to take her to the doctor. The poor kid had a sinus infection—or so they thought.

Missing time at work, behind on the gift projects and still trying to find time to do the shopping, Christmas was just a week away. The work week ended, the child was not improving. I was in the final push when she began crying in the night. Fortunately, I was still up furiously working away at getting things finished. At this point, I was no longer looking at the calendar, but at the clock.

The husband was pressed into taking her to urgent care. They sat there for three hours while the smoke hissed from my furious hands. The oven fired non-stop, with the aromas of various cookies mixing with the scents of lilacs, lavender, jasmine, oranges and cloves.

The salts spilled all over the floor.

I love my floor, durable hardwood that shines as highly polished wood should. I believe I wrote about the odyssey of having it installed. Home repairs always come with their own special problems. No matter how well you plan, how organized you are, something always goes wrong.

I have yet to paint the kitchen and dining room. Kitchens need fresh paint regularly, at least in homes where kitchens are used. I cook. I cook a lot. My walls are a mess. I really must get them done. Maybe I should paint them green. Green is a nice color for kitchens.

Where was I? The phone rang and the husband informed me the princess had strep. She was indeed very ill. That’s just fabulous. As I contemplated this new development, I set my bare foot in the spilled bath salts. Oh, yeah. Clean up the salts.

The timer went off and I couldn’t remember why I’d set it. Was there something in the oven? Butter cookies.

My husband loves butter cookies. He’d eat his weight in them every day, if I could bake that much. I would have to hide them if I wanted any left for Christmas presents. I had yet to wrap things and the daughter would be home soon.

So, I wrapped. Still working furiously, I had paper and ribbons strung across the living room floor. When she got home, she found a pile of packages covered in pretty paper. I told her she could decorate them with all the ribbons and trinkets from the wrapping box and turned her loose.

The husband returned to town to fetch meds and toilet paper. Antibiotics have an adverse effect on the digestive tract. I also asked him to get yogurt. It’s essential while taking antibiotics.

The day ended, the child tucked in and the next day was a mess. Not a surface in the main part of the house was clear. There were still cookies to bake, soaps to make, gifts to finish and a kid who was up in the night with an ear ache.

Ear pain is the worst. The poor kid has dealt with this since she was three months old. There is nothing more crazed in the world than a mother with a sick kid. When she’s in pain, I’d kill to have her healthy again.

Another dose of meds and a glance at the abandoned vacuum cleaner and I tried to remember what I was doing. The husband complained of throat pain. I demanded he see a doctor immediately. He told me to . . . Never mind.

Focus. Christmas gifts. Cookies? Tinsel is shiny.

The day sped by. It was a day when I cursed the Mayans. If the end of their calendar had meant the end of the world at midnight on the 21st, I wouldn’t be struggling to finish crap up. The Mayans were an interesting people. So much technology, so much violence. I wonder what they would think of our modern Christmas rituals.

The cookies are burning. I don’t even remember putting then in the oven.

There was a loud crash at the back of the house. I didn’t bother to find out what it was. It didn’t matter. I still had to clean up bath salts.

Cookie sheets loaded with balls of raw dough were shoved in the oven. Melted soap had to be poured into molds.

The kid was screaming again. The pain was unbearable. Her regular doctor could get her in right away. Get dressed. Now!

The strep was drug resistant. They put her on something stronger and recommended complete bed rest. Well, duh. It was Christmas Eve and Christmas with the family was just canceled. While driving to the pharmacy, I made all the calls needed to inform family, blew up at my sister who didn’t want to help get the gifts to my mother’s—after all the hard work—and got the kid home. The concern now was her infected eardrum rupturing. It did, later that night. It’s the first time it’s ever happened.

Christmas Eve. I’m in a panic. There are things to finish. My brother-in-law generously offered to pick up the gifts for my mother’s party. I suspect it was because I blew up at my sister, then called my mother to tell her I would bring the things myself , then my mother probably called my sister to tell her to cooperate and now the entire family is angry at me. I don’t care at this point. I’m still walking in spilled bath salts. I grabbed a broom.

The broom lay forgotten on the floor while I boxed, bagged, wrapped and tagged. It was all done when the man arrived. He didn’t look very happy. I’m sorry for that. Truly I am, but I shoved the thought to the side while tending the child’s pain. I put a pot of soup on, tripped over the broom and skinned a toe on the bath salts.

The husband announced he was hungry. The kid wanted to unwrap gifts. The sausage we were supposed to share with the in-laws for Christmas Eve dinner needed to be cooked. Forgetting completely about the soup, I started a loaf of bread to go with the spaghetti I was now planning.

The lights on the tree are pretty. It would be nice if I could enjoy it. I sat down to gaze at it. The kid announced she was hungry. I had to feed her because she was losing weight from lack of appetite. I just put a tray in her lap when the husband returned with some of her favorite soup from her favorite restaurant. Excellent timing.

I was done. Finally. After stubbing my toe on the broom in a pile of bath salts, I cursed and began packing all my supplies. The husband complained about the mess on the floor, but didn’t bother to help clean it up. Instead, he made a bee line for the piles of cookies I’d failed to hide.

The sun was shining on the melting ice outside the window. Shiny. The cat ran through the room and skidded on the salts. I finally remembered to clean them up, finished packing the supplies, put the centerpiece in place and headed for the living room.

“Can we unwrap presents yet?”

The child was finished with her lunch, patiently holding the tray with its uneaten remnants of food. Dropping a handful of tissue paper, I took the tray and tried to find a clear surface in the kitchen to set it on. It was a mess. The cat found something to bat across the floor and right underfoot. The dog chased after the cat. I tripped and knocked over a jar of bath salts.

To occupy the kid, I let her open a gift. It was a sketch kit, complete with everything a sickly child needed to occupy her hands. She was overjoyed.

I stepped in bath salts while carrying empty tea things to the kitchen and went in search of the broom. I found something that needed to be wrapped and went back to the piles of crap in the living room. Ribbons and bows and tape and paper—all over the floor. Decorating gifts is a creative talent of mine. I enjoy it. I don’t use those cheap ribbons available only at holiday time. I go to fabric stores and buy the good stuff. I use lace and ornaments and candy canes.

The husband growled about gritty salt under his feet.

I abandoned the living room mess and went in search of the broom. The kid wanted water.

The sausage was burning.

The dog was chasing the cat.

The stockings were hung with great care.

The last batch of cookies were disappearing down my husband’s gullet.

I forgot what I was going to write about. Christmas rituals? Insanity. Ooo, that golden ornament is shiny. Nice.

That Vicious Mood

January 27, 2010

The mood comes upon us and we don’t even realize it.  We rise in the morning, look at the scary freak in the mirror, scratch our butts and start the day.  Then, while listening to Snap, Crackle and Pop over the din of morning news reports, barking puppies and screaming kids, it hits.  The Mood…

Oh, come on.  Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.  We’ve all been there.

The cereal tastes like crap.  The kid is on a tear, screaming because she doesn’t have a thing to wear in all the clothes you spent a king’s ransom on.  The dog just chewed through your best summer pumps, which she dug out of the back of the closet after depositing a fresh, fragrant gift next to your bed.  The sweet little trinket/bimbo on the tube is smiling brightly and giggling while she tells you—with great enthusiasm—that you better get out your long handles and snow boots because there’s going to be yet another blizzard in a long succession of sunless days.

Suddenly you’re envisioning that adorable puppy roasting on a spit over a blazing fire and watching the weather-twerp’s dyed hair dissipate, leaving her bald and screeching her humiliation in front of the camera.

Yep, that’s right.  It’s The Mood.

Beware, dear people.  This is not something to be taken lightly.  It affects Northerners far more frequently than Southerners—especially in the winter months—but no one is immune to its influence.

Your morning commute becomes a nightmare of knuckle-dragging idiots without enough glyco cells between them to make a decent primate.  (For you brainiacs out there, I know that’s not the correct usage of the terminology, but I’m being facetious.) 

The guy in the white Cadillac Escalade is back, taking up your lane as well as his while he juggles his morning coffee, his cell phone and the briefcase he keeps fishing crap out of.  What the hell?  Is it on auto pilot?

Oh, let’s not forget your favorite soccer mom, shuttling her kids, the neighbor’s kids and some vagrant who sneaked into her soccer-mom-prerequisite minivan.  She’s not paying attention either.  She’s singing along to the radio and studying her daily agenda while Junior and his buddies toss the ball around until it flies out the window and crashes into your windshield.  WTF?  Why do they have the window down?  Hellooo…It’s winter!

Then you get to work and your coworkers are doing that pretend-to-be-cheerful-so-they-think-you’re-a-stellar-employee dance with their big fake smiles and their jovial greetings.  You want to tell them all to stick it up their butts, but you smile and do your best to join the dance, or the supervisor gives you that look that says she knows you’re in The Mood. 

That’s where I found myself today—deep in the clutches of this nasty frame of mind.  I was too PO’ed to even fake the dance as I went about my daily grind at the lovely cube farm. 

My first call of the day was from an egotistical dork who took great pleasure in reminding me that I was there to serve him.  I’d like to serve him, all right, with a nice Chianti and some farva beans.  Slurp.

But I did my job, saying in a voice oozing saccharine, “That’s what I’m here for, sir.  I’ll be happy to take care of whatever issues you have.  Now, what may I do for you?” 

With a Star Wars Universal Translator the caller would have heard, “Yeah, let me take care of the problems you caused because you’re too dim-witted to figure out how to fill out the same paperwork you’ve been filling out in the twenty-two years you’ve been doing your job, you mindless sack of cow pies.  I’ll fix it with some arsenic.  You want that straight up, or on the rocks?”

It didn’t get much better as the day progressed.  Everyone, it seemed, was in the same humor.  They were ticked off at the world, and me in particular because I was foolish enough to take their calls.  By the time I was finished for the day, I was ready to (in the words of Arlo Guthrie in his famous Alice’s Restaurant—the long version) Kill!  Kill!  Kill!

Not having taken enough punishment for the day, I decided to stay after and call up member services to deal with a few of my own benefit issues before heading out into what was starting to look like a wicked winter storm.  There’s an employee program that reimburses us for money spent to get in shape, have well care visits with doctors and anything else we do for our own good health, but I can't get into the system.  I haven’t been able to since I signed up over three years ago.  I have to get the paperwork before I sign up at the gym in order to get the discount.  I’ve been trying to join a local gym for several weeks now and this is the only thing holding me up. 

So, I stayed late, on my own time, to talk to the people at the help desk, but because I'm an employee, they can't access my account and fix it.  I have to talk to someone in employee services.  Those people are only there during the same hours I'm on the phone and I have to have a computer in front of me when I talk to them on the phone, so I can't call them on my lunch hour because I'm not supposed to use my company computer or the company phone for personal business during regular business hours.  ARGH!

An hour and several handfuls of hair later, I headed into the eye of the storm—and I’m not talking about the weather.  I was fed up to the gills with the day, with the job, with the people around me and the world in general. 

It took time, and a great deal of personal restraint with all the knuckle-draggers on the road, to make it to the interstate.  As I headed for the on-ramp, my one goal was to make it before the salt truck/snowplow two car-lengths ahead of me got there.  I was just about to make my move when a Mercedes cut me off.  A big glob of sticky slush hit my windshield and left me temporarily blinded.  By the time my wipers had done their job, there were two cars on the side of the road, the Mercedes was behind me again and the salt truck was on the ramp.  With a few choice words for Mr. Mercedes, I followed the truck—at a safe and slow distance.

For those of you who rarely or never see a salt truck, this big thing on the back of the truck wings salt chunks everywhere, making it impossible to pass without damage to your car, so I had to stay behind it.  It was spraying rock salt, some chunks as big as my fist and the mix of raw salt, slush from the truck tires and the snow coming down caused a nasty film on my windshield that was near impossible to wipe away. 

I got into the left lane and tried to pass him, but the salt sprayer covers both lanes, so bits and pieces were hitting my car.  I got behind him again and stayed there.

Finally, the others behind me decided to slide around him.  The first was Mr. Mercedes and I had a wicked moment of malicious glee when a huge chunk hit the car causing something to break off the front end.  I had to swerve to miss it when it came flying back.  Oh, the perverse joy!  Then came several others, one in a big SUV.  I got on his back bumper and followed him around, using him as a shield.  I got past the big truck, got up to my exit, took the next ramp to my turnoff and ended up behind another salter. 

I pulled off the road, screamed profanities and waited until I was sure he was far enough down the road before I continued. 

Let me tell you, dear readers, there isn’t enough chocolate ice cream in all of Christendom to make a day like this go away or cure The Mood once it sets in.