|
May 24, 2007 Welcome! Come on in, sit awhile, and watch my struggle for sanity. Goodness, summer is upon us already and I can’t decide if I’m happy with the prospect of sleeping in a bit more often and nagging less about homework, or if I’m crazy for thinking more people in the house all day long will be a good thing. I feel as though I am so overdue to sit down and write something that actually *means* something (As in, we’ll all pretend for a moment that Sherry has substance!) but when I do sit down, the key sequence my fingers hit seems to lean more toward “Oh my God what am I doing trying to run a household and write and parent and be wifely and…agghhhhh@#*&#@#”. Just like that, the “agghhh” trails right off into obscenity and then I look around wildly in both directions to see if anyone saw it…then I promptly delete and pretend I want to do the laundry instead. Sad, I tell ya. Do you know what else is sad? Meth addicts have doomed me to a life of sinus hell. These darn laws surrounding buying Sudafed and anything else containing pseudoephedrine are causing me all kinds of trouble. What used to take all of two seconds to throw into my cart, now takes waiting in line, showing ID, signing away my life, accepting a smaller package than I wanted to begin with (and they never tell you they don’t have the bigger one until you’ve already gone through the hoops required so by then you’re just at the “yeah, give me something – anything!” point), and the irrepressible need to feel as though I should slink out of the store, ashamed of my wanton needs. Seriously! The first time they finally started following the law I was caught off guard because I had been hearing about it but it was never enforced. I was used to having to get it from the pharmacist, and having to sign for it, but they never asked for ID. When he asked me, I didn’t have any on me and for some reason felt the need to tell him that they’d never asked me before. Then I immediately thought he probably thought that I was a freaked out Meth addict, so I felt the need to “prove” myself by leaving a cart full of stuff to go out to the car and find my ID. Didn’t want him thinking I wasn’t willing to go on record as needing a Sudafed hit. Then another time I tried to buy Sudafed AND some cold medicine for the kids and whoa, that’s a no-no. One or the other lady, but you can’t have both. So then I stand there thinking that if I buy the kids’ stuff which was really just as a preventative, “we’re out and it should be on hand in case” thing, then *I* would have a massive headache and be really bitchy about it for possibly weeks. However if I tell him to put the kids’ medicine back, I probably raise the “she’s SO hooked on Crystal Meth it’s not even funny” suspicions ten-fold. What kind of mother chooses to medicate herself over her children? A crack-head. For the record I took the Sudafed, over-explained why I didn’t really need the kid medicine, raised the suspicion level even more by looking guilty and jittery and probably afforded an excited pharmacist his first chance to put a check by a name for the authorities to “look into”. After that I kind of made it a point to “forget” to get it, that way my husband can be the thug most of the time. It’s been awhile now, and I’m starting to come to terms with the whole thing. I’ve tried the “new” kinds, which are free of pseudoephedrine and they’re nice, safe little buggers, but they don’t work. I also haven’t found anything else that helps me without side effects, so I soldier on. I keep one eye out for stakeouts in the neighborhood, just so I can at least clean up the kids’ dirty socks and underwear before they storm in. I keep fresh coffee and doughnuts on hand, just in case. Last week we went to the grocery store and I sent the husband up to the pharmacy to score some for us and he came back a few minutes later saying that he was told it would be ten minutes. I stopped, considered for a second, then mentioned that this had never happened to me before, why would you have to wait for something they can pick right up and hand to you (once you fill out your prison entry forms, that is)? I jokingly told him that probably ten minutes was the response time for the cops in a Meth abuse case. I asked him if they kept his license up there to which he responded that they had, and then I told him not to worry, I was just kidding around and I was sure we weren’t going through *that* much Sudafed. Realizing I have no idea just how much it takes, I promptly suggested he go check out while whiling away his ten minutes and I’d just run off to the car with the kids. Figured I’d have a better view of the cops’ arrival that way and ample time to make my get-away. “Daddy just has to spend a little time paying for this footloose and headache-free lifestyle we’re all living kids, he’ll be back soon I’m sure!” ****************************** Okay so, this is my dog, Cinnamon:
She looks all forlorn, petrified, and as though she’s trying to sink into the floor because she is, in fact, terrified of the camera. We adopted her when she was around four or so, no idea what happened to her in the past but she doesn’t like bright lights. That’s actually may be the best picture I’ve ever gotten, I’ve been working on assimilating her to the “Camera of Death and Doom” for months now, because I hate to see her so upset every time someone has a birthday or what have you. Anyway, Cinnamon sleeps in our bedroom at night and we close our door almost all the way, leaving it open a crack usually and that way the light we leave on for the kids doesn’t drive me insane all night. We have a nightstand that is just inside the door. When our smaller dog was still alive, she was able to walk up to the crack and stick her nose in it, pulling it open and they’d both go out and see the kids on weekend mornings (hoping to be let outside, usually to no avail no matter HOW many times I reminded). Since the other dog died, Cinnamon has been trying to step up and open the door, but she’s too big and she usually just manages to get her head wedged in between the nightstand and the door and then panics which results in practically knocking the furniture over and waking me completely up. A bright idea occurred to me, and I spent a few days teaching her to walk up to the door and use her foot, instead of her head, to open the door. She was resistant at first, and I’m sure everyone would’ve enjoyed watching me pretend to be a dog and use my front “foot” to repeatedly open the door, and then trot on out of it proudly. She finally got it though, and I was so impressed – with her as well. Fast-forward a month or so, and now it’s summer. One day I realize that I’m standing in my dining room with a puzzled look on my face staring at the open sliding screen door to my deck, for the third time in one day. After the third time I thought “you know, I *really* don’t remember leaving this open”, and then I pondered whether someone was messing with me. I was the only one home, never occurred to me that the dog was using her newfound foot skills to just come in or out whenever she wanted. I know it’s probably also sad that I didn’t notice that she was suddenly in after I had let her out, and vice versa, but she was sneaky about it, I swear. I’m up for solution offers, because I have no idea how I’m going to keep bugs, birds, frogs, etc., from just coming right on in behind her when she leaves it open. I considered putting a lock on it, but then she’ll just resort to what she used to do which was to push so hard on the screen that it starts coming off, then she just plows *through* it, which is obviously not a better solution. Before you think I must be leaving her out when she obviously wants in, you should know that she’s incredibly weird and freaks out about stuff out of the blue and thinks she has to come in immediately. God forbid someone start a bonfire in a neighboring yard, she’ll knock the damn door right off the track. A doggie door may be the only solution, I just hate to put one through the wall since we want to sell someday, and we don’t have a door that we can put it in that goes straight outside. In the meantime I’m
just trying to make my home as inhospitable a place for nature’s creatures
as possible. You don’t want to build a nest and raise your young in
here! Place is crawling with Sudafed addicts, we’re considering a special
door to just let the cops come in and out of as they please, and your
access will revolve around a dog’s need to pee – it’s no way to live, I’m
tellin’ ya.
Want More of Sherry's Work?
|
