Okay, Where Did I Take a Wrong Turn and How Do I Get Back?

This is a re-post of my only post from my failed attempt to start a new blog on Wordpress. Since it's just the one post, I thought I'd put it here, so no one could miss out on any of my brilliance. 

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[Originally posted May 1, 2012.] 

Today started out well. It really did. 

Got CT to school, came home and fed AJ some breakfast. We sat and watched a little "Phineas and Ferb" (Best show EVER!) It was a very pleasant morning. Anyway, after breakfast, I wanted to take my newly purchased bike (that I actually purchased MONTHS ago, but since Mother Nature seems to think that Utah is her own personal playground for throwing ALL kinds of weather at a single place in a short period of time, I've never taken it out before today) for a ride. I told Ty my plan, and he expressed an interest in joining AJ and me on our expedition.

The bike ride was fabulous. The weather was perfect. My favorite type of weather, in fact. Overcast with grey clouds, not cold, not warm, and just a little bit windy. We rode around the neighborhood. Then we stopped at the park and let AJ play on the slides. She had her first ever encounter with a spiral slide AND a tunnel slide. She was a little timid about the tunnel slide at first, but once she tried it, she wanted to go over and over again.

We all went for another little jaunt around the neighborhood on our bikes, making a nice, circuitous path home. AJ would ask "What was that?" every time I went over a bump in the road (she was in one of those bike trailer/stroller things). When we got home, we had lunch. I actually got AJ down for a nap (becoming more and more rare these days, sadly enough). Ty went to work, and then after a while I had to wake AJ up so we could go and pick up CT from school.

I brought the chiddlers home, and CT did his homework while I put together a grocery list. I allowed the boy to go out and play with a friend for a while before we had to go to the store. I went and picked him up, and the kids and I went grocery shopping.

This is where things took a left turn at Albuquerque and never really found their way back.

The chiddlers LOVE those big, bulky carts where they can sit in the little plastic car and pretend to drive while I shop. It's harder for me to steer than a normal cart, but I don't mind too much. It keeps the chiddlers happy, and for a mom, an hour of peaceful grocery shopping is worth just about any minor inconvenience.

Anyway, I start driving this big cart around the store, and suddenly feel this painful jolt in one of my feet (I'm wearing sandals). It seems like a fluke, so I ignore it. 

As I'm walking around, I adjust my hands on the cart handle a bit and end up touching the metal part of the handle. I get ANOTHER painful shock. I had no idea what was going on, but I figured my list wasn't very long, and surely it was just static electricity and it would figure itself out.

Oh no. Of course not.

For an entire hour, from one end  of the store to the other, every single time my skin made contact with metal, I got that same horrible shock. Over and over again.

Now, I'm not one to swear in front of my kids (often). But as the shocks kept happening, and seemed to be getting worse, I have to admit that I let loose with a few choice "holiday words", becoming louder and more furious with every jolting shock. Fortunately, the chiddlers were happily driving their green plastic car and didn't hear me. If they did, they had the good sense not to mention it.

Finally, I finished the shopping, and made my way directly over to the Customer Service Center to tell them about the Evil Electrocution Cart from Hell. Luckily, I already had an in. It's Ty's department, and he was working tonight. I told him the problem, and he immediately got some people to start working on it. His theory was that the security system that is attached to every cart at the store to stop shoplifters was shorting out somehow and basically giving me free electro-convulsive therapy. 

Fabulous.

I went home with VERY tender, tingly, pain-ridden hands. I put away the groceries and wanted to start making dinner. Unfortunately, the pan that I needed in order to boil the tortellini was dirty. Also, the sink was full of dirty dishes. Oh, and ALSO the dishwasher was full of clean dishes.

Hey, I never claimed to be particularly "on the ball"  in the housekeeping department. 

Anyway... in order to make dinner, (which was already running late) I had to empty the dishwasher of clean dishes. Then I had to put the dirty dishes into the freshly emptied dishwasher, and THEN I could wash the pan and start cooking dinner. I did all of this in resigned silence. I mean, the  whole situation was so ridiculous already, and I was just too tired to be upset anymore.

While I was waiting for dinner to cook, I decided to do something productive, so I sent CT upstairs to take a shower, set AJ up with an episode of Phineas and Ferb, and started cleaning out the fridge. I started taking out all of the old, nasty food that we would never eat and put in the garbage. I also pulled any dishes out of the fridge that needed to be emptied of old leftovers and put them on the counter. I pulled out a jar of spaghetti sauce and put it on the counter so I could put it on the pasta I was making for dinner.

By this point, the garbage can was VERY full. I started getting the trash bag tied off, but in order to close the bag I had to shake it a little bit. As I shook the bag, and tied it off, I noticed that something was dripping out of the bottom of the bag.

There was a massive, sticky puddle of primordial ooze (or something like that) getting all over the freaking tile! So, I put the bag back into the can to avoid spreading the ooze and took out the trash. I came back inside and pulled out my fabulous Swiffer Wet Jet device to clean up the mystery puddle. When I was done mopping, I leaned the Swiffer against the counter and let it go. Apparently, it wasn't balanced well enough, so it started sliding sideways, where it hit the GLASS jar of spaghetti sauce and knocked it to the floor.

I watched, as though in slow motion, letting loose with one more furious "holiday word" that I'm pretty sure that my 2-year-old daughter heard very distinctly. (I wasn't exactly keeping my voice down.) 

Miraculously, the jar managed to stay intact, and my kitchen was spared the trauma of a marinara shower. Phew.

I finished making dinner, and decided to go downstairs and veg in front of the TV while I ate and fed AJ. Trust me, I was DONE with the whole evening.

I sat on the couch, and was enjoying some fabulous pasta with my daughter. I had a big cup of ice, and a nice can of Dr. Pepper. I set my bowl of pasta on my bent knees (you know how they are when you tuck your feet in and your legs look like triangles from the side? Yeah,that was the surface that I chose for balancing a big bowl of pasta) then I started pouring out my drink.

Unfortunately, that bowl of pasta did NOT like the idea of staying steady up there on my knees, and instead decided to go careening down the slope, spilling marinara sauce all over me.

Sigh...

Sure. 

Why not?

I asked CT to grab me some towels, mopped myself up as best I could, took of my jeans and shirt and threw them down to the laundry room in the basement. Then I sat back on the couch (in the t-shirt I had under my defiled t-shirt) and my underwear to finish my dinner. I put a blanket over my legs, hiding them in order to avoid traumatizing the chiddlers. I finished pouring out my Dr. Pepper and guzzled it.

What else could I do, really?

Oh, and the floor is still sticky. I've mopped it twice now.