Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Pre-prologue

This isn't an official post. Consider it a test. More truthfully, it's something I wanted to share but wouldn't fit in my Facebook status or a Tweet.

My 10-year-old is not embarrassed (yet) by my inability to change out of my pajamas when I take him to school. Typically, this is how I leave the house:


  
However, I learned yesterday the dangers in being seen this way, when an attractive carpenter pulled up out front to fix something on my neighbor's roof.

For 25 minutes, I was a prisoner to my Bug, waiting for a moment I could sneak past this glorious specimen of man working magic with huge pieces of wood and power tools. 

As I walked up my steps, I refused to look in his direction.  It was that preschool mentality of "If I can't see you, I'm invisible."  But when his hammering stopped, I'd realized I'd been caught.  I could hear his inner thoughts:

 "What the FUCK is THAT?!"

"I am never having sex again."


"Maybe I should take my hammer and put that poor old lady out of her misery."


"I don't think this woman can see."


 I opened my front door, and went inside...covered in a thick dusting of shame, embarrassment, and the coffee I had spilled on myself hours before.

So today I decided to at least make myself somewhat presentable. 

I wore ACTUAL pants.  

I covered the fact that I refuse to put on a bra this early in the morning by wearing a fleece.  And even though there was a small stain on the right boob area, the contents of which I cannot decipher---could be chocolate, could be coffee, could be the vitamin paste for my geriatric cat---all in all, it was an outfit that I could have even entered the grocery store in.  

As a matter of fact, I felt dressed enough to stop in the 7-11 for a pumpkin spice coffee and a breakfast sammich. (And it was delicious.  I'm trying to try to quit smoking.  You're supposed to eat protein for breakfast.  Sausage, egg, and cheese is protein.  Nevermind that pack of cigarettes I also purchased...)

So when the carpenter pulled his van up this morning, I sat in my car finishing up my cigarette, unafraid to walk to my door and maybe even make eye contact.

What happened next was not only mortifying, but a metaphor for my thoughts on turning 30 in the next couple weeks.

As I walked up the front steps, I fumbled around for my house key.  I couldn't find it, so I had to stop.  At precisely the same moment, the carpenter stopped his hammering.  

And without hesitation, the loudest, longest, most disturbing gas demon escaped from the hell-mouth of my ass.  

It wasn't even something I could remotely control.  It just snuck up on me and unleashed its fury without my even having a chance to reign it in until I was ready. 

To me, that's 30.  It's going to happen regardless of what I say or do and there's just no stopping it.  And it might even offend some people around me.

I just pretended it didn't even happen.  For all the carpenter knows, I'm blind and deaf and didn't see him there.  

I do know I felt a lot better as I walked into the house.  

I'm scared for the neighborhood though.  That fiery ass banshee is now roaming block to block...surely destroying everything in its wake.

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