I don't know if anything sums up these last chaotic weeks more than the contents of this bag. Truly it has been the repository of my nutty-- sometimes fun--but mostly blurry existence. It has kept a running record of every batshitcrazy moment. And up until I let it all explode on the floor, I'm sure there were sedimentary layers that would have told my crazy history in a more ordered fashion. No matter. Before I disperse/dispense this crazy and put it behind me for the summer, let us take a little inventory and let the contents reveal all:
- An almost-empty bottle of advil-no further explanation needed
- An empty pack from shoe laces bought under duress at Sams because just one (?!) of A-man's laces on his sneaks decided to rot off. He was walking around downtown with a partial lace wrapped around his ankle like some kind of waif gladiator. Homies in the 802 know my pain--who wants to unexpectedly herd two kids into Sams via Main St., collecting the free popcorn on the first floor because god forbid you ever walk in there without availing oneself of the free popcorn before cat-herding down to the shoe dept., scattering said free popcorn all the over the goddamn place. It's true: crazy.attracts.more.crazy.
- My last bag of Yogi brand St. John's Wort tea. Should have bought a case. (BTW you know you are overly stressed out when you find yourself arguing with the inspirational quote on the paper thingie attached to the string. So what smug yogi tea employee decided to include "The art of happiness is to serve all" huh? Well, fuck you, yogi tea, the art of happiness is not needing to mainline your goddamn tea because you feel so goddamn fried every second of every day. Are they just making this shit up? There's no attribution on these tags at all. It's just some asshole in Marin who only eats macrobiotic raw food and makes up excuses for their incessant infidelity by claiming they are just "more in touch in with the universe that way."
- Other assorted shit cuz I gotta wrap this up: free samples from a facial Flap Dude won (last September!) in one his many local races that I finally got after exchanging no fewer than seven voicemail with the facialist. One got cancelled within an hour of the apt. b/c she had to rush her old lady neighbor to the ER. And the whole thing wasn't as relaxing as I had hoped because a goddamn eyelash fell in my eye and I couldn't wipe it out because she had dipped my hands in hot paraffin and then wrapped them in plastic bags and I just didn't know how to tell her that I was in agony. Still, she's the best in the area and it was all worth it. There are also samples from a goody bag from yet another race Flapdude won a few weeks ago. I hope all these little tubes of goo don't just kick around the bottom of my bag until they get all softly tattered and then one day gently spooge out and cover over all my pens and hairbands and coupons and tic tacs and flashdrives and nine-dollar chapsticks. There's crazy, and then there's coated crazy, ya know?
There we were last Monday evening, suddenly realizing time had melted away and we had less than ten minutes to get to Flappette's Kindergarten Kulmination Celebration or somesuch. Now, we live one mile from the school, but with only ten minutes to get there and not one member of the Flap household wearing shoes, that ceremony might as well have been in the Yukon. This household needs a solid thirteen minutes for shoe location, retrival,and donning. And I knew Flappette had outgrown her fancy shoes we refer to as "click-clacks", and that most of her other shoes had not surfaced in these last weeks. The only thing I could dig up in these tense minutes was a pair of tattered T-straps that she had outgrown. One of them had a detached sole and the fake patent leather had worn away on both shoes.
When I showed them to Bob he said "Oh, I can fix those, no problem!" And I wanted to believe him as he tramped down cellar to his "workshop" but deep down I knew we were all doomed. For when Bob goes downstairs to "fix things" he generally channels his nutty Dad who also has a knack for patching things up in ways that are too complicated and bothersome in proportion to how much that object is actually worth in terms of one's time or money.
As the minutes ticked by, Bob shouted up from the cellar vague, but encouraging things like "This won't take long at all" and "I know what I am doing" and "Just get everyone in the car, I will be ready in ten minutes."
"But we need to be there in four minutes. " I thought to myself in a small, desperate voice.
I dutifully got the kids in the car and got behind the wheel, ready to roll the second Bob sprang from the house. And he did in a shorter time that he originally claimed. He bounced in the car holding the uh, repaired shoes. They were now covered in what I think was some kind of high-VOC roofing tar, and the toe of one was held in a clamp. He tossed them proudly on the dashboard and said, "These just need ten minutes to dry!"
It is my deepest regret that I was unable to record the image of those stinky shoes in a vice riding on the dashboard. Too busy, too late to snap a photo. But somehow we found her good old brown shoes floating somewhere in the car. We made it on time. I watched my child sing cute songs while my heart almost exploded with joy as I let myself realize that this wonderful child was my own daughter. Turns out I don't need a teabag to tell me about happiness.
