They Like Me! They REALLY Like Me!

So, it's New Year's Freakin' Eve, and honestly, I couldn't care less. In fact, it's currently 7:45pm and I am in bed. Legitimately in the bed. Under the covers, no socks, no bra. That's the litmus yet around here. Mom has gone to bed to stay when the containment apparatus has been removed. Because, and I will attempt to phrase this as delicately as possible, wrangling these things in and out of their trappings ought to qualify as cardio. Let's just say that Lucy and Ethel (I told you, I name things) are ample, and if I unleashed them on the public it wouldn't be pretty. Small children would run to their mothers for protection, the bravest of men would run for the hills, and the skeaziest of men would run to the bank for rolls of quarters.

But I digest...

New Year's Eve is not something I have cared much about since after about the age of 12. It was somewhere around there that the mystique of making it to midnight lost its luster. It turns out 12:00am is almost indistinguishable from 11:59pm. And if you lived with my particular parents, it just meant that you were going to be extra tired in the morning because they were going to wake you up, regardless. A practice, I might clarify, that my mom didn't adopt until I hit my teen years, when I neeeeeeded my sleep. Up until then, unless my dad was working some wonky shift, I was the early riser, and would quietly creep into the kitchen and make myself Nestle's Quik with tons of extra powder, and then sit in the living room eat-drinking my Quik with a spoon and watch The Great Space Coaster and reruns of Sanford and Son.

But, again, I stray from the point. No, really! I have one!

So, here I am in bed, Kindle in hand (Hey! I never named that!), devouring my second book this week, both memoirs by former members of the Church Of Scientology. Real feel good material. I have five of them in my library. Remember what I said about taking things a bit too far? And. It's. Quiet. One kid is elsewhere, which means he isn't riding the other kid, Mr. Wonderful is downstairs sleep watching football, and the dogs haven't even discovered that I'm gone. When I left them they were planted squarely in front of Daddy, watching the plate on his lap slip further down his legs as he drifted off, waiting for the right moment to strike and snork up the dregs of leftover dip. I cannot compete with leftover dip, so I am pretty sure I've made a clean escape.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Nope.

I'm not sure what happens, if it's some kind of alarm that goes off in their brains, but as soon as my family realizes that I have left the room, they need to find out where I have gone and why I would do such a thing. These are the same people who walk away from me mid-sentence when I am ANSWERING A QUESTION THEY HAVE ASKED. But heaven forbid I have chosen to, for example, relieve myself, an activity that I generally choose to do in the bathroom, preferably, but not necessarily, alone. I have played many a game of 20 Questions through the bathroom door.

"Where are you?"
"Ummm, in the bathroom, behind this closed door you're talking to."
"What are you doing?"
"Curing leprosy."
"Do we have any relish?"
"Did you look?"
"No."
"Maybe you should do that."
"Where should I look?"
"Well, where do we keep the food?"
"The fridge?"
"Yes, we do keep some in there."
"The pantry?"
"Also an option, yes."
"So, I should look in the fridge?"
"Sure."
"Or should I try the pantry first?"
"Well, you know, Forrest, life is like a box o' chocolates, just try one or the other."

...There are a few moments of quiet as the Relish Deficient Person goes in search of  the elusive condiment...

"I can't find--"
"I AM POOPING! GO AWAY!"
"Why are you yelling?"

Maybe ten minutes into my retreat, the kid walks in, sees me reading and asks what I am doing. On his heels is the Attack ChiWeenie, who leaps into the bed, stands directly on top of Lucy and begins her ritual nostril cleaning process. Her ritual, my nostrils. Not to be left out, Large Dawg bounds into the room, jumps, rather less gracefully, onto the bed, planting her giant head on Ethel. And, bringing up the rear, Mr. Wonderful, who was awakened from his slumber by the urgent need that strikes every healthy, red blooded American male: the need to wash some darks. Now, I am aware that some of you are thinking, "But...he's doing laundry! How can you complain about that?" Easy. I open my mouth and make complain-y sounds. To be clear, it's not the fact that he wanted to do laundry. It's that he had to do it right that second, that he didn't really have to do it, because I actually keep up with the laundry, and, also, I am lying. It's totally the fact that he was doing laundry, as any round girl will tell you. When your wardrobe is mostly black, things are hard to distinguish and there is always an article of clothing that goes into the washer a shirt, and comes out of the dryer a coaster.

But, yes, you guessed it, I am wandering again...

So, here I am, in the bed, blanketed by one dog, the other dog having wheedled her way all the way under and down to my feet, where she has begun the toe cleaning ritual (She has lots of rituals that mostly involve her tongue. If this were the 40s, she'd be the Bad Girl that sailors were warned about in those films they showed them before they shipped out). The kid is hugging me and I look over at Mr. Wonderful to see that he has put on a half-zip pullover sweater without unzipping it first, and is standing in the closet, his bald head barely poking out, looking like...well, like an "unaltered male member."

Laughter is the best medicine. This was a very healthy moment.

Some days I want my own apartment. And it would be great. For about three hours. But the fact is, I "hide" from these loons, safe in the knowledge that they're just downstairs. If  I really wanted to fly the coop, I would. But I don't. Because I don't wanna. And they aren't bothering me. They need me. They aren't as helpless as I have perhaps painted them to be. I do occasionally blow this joint and when I return, they have managed to successfully wash and feed themselves. But they're very happy to see me. Because, although they do tend to walk away when I'm talking (In their defense, I can go on a bit), I run this joint. I am the Nurse, the Driver, the Confidant, the Bestie, the Chef, the Answer Woman, and, when I need to be, The Heat. I am the Mom.

Hear me roar.