You might have had too much wine last night if …

A series of close calls

I swear I’m listening, it’s just that I’m also thinking about:

• the last time the baby pooped was when? We might have introduced oatmeal too early, now he’s shaped like a football and growling like a current president eating a Big Mac.
• what it would be like to have made a different decision in 2007 when I opted to move back home. I’m sure I’d still be depressed and slightly overweight, but in a more populated city with foot traffic and legible street signs.
• whether I forgot to let the dogs back in the house before I left for work. It’s 24 degrees outside; I’m sure they’ll be fine.
• whether the 5-year-old’s up-to-date on his vaccines. He was playing with scrap wood in the basement, and I’m pretty sure he was “scratching his back” with a rusty nail.
• the last episode of Vampire Diaries and how it was so confusing who survived, but I can’t talk to anyone about it because I’m in my 30s and I often ignored my children to watch the show.
• how many hours of sleep I’ll get tonight because the baby’s teething. For the last week, it’s been an average of four total. You think we’d have adapted to sleep deprivation over centuries, but no. Darwin?
• my cramps, and if that means my IUD failed and I have an ectopic pregnancy.
• if I’ll get fired tomorrow.
• if I lose my job, what can we not pay and for how long?
• what body part, organ or piece of furniture I can sell for grocery money if I am jobless.
• intrigued by the thought of not having to go to work or shower and just spend time with boogery kids every day.
• my game plan to suck up to boss so I don’t lose job.
• whether it might be the right time to go to graduate school and how I can find a coupon code for free classes.
• if we have enough milk for tomorrow.
• the state of the Women’s Movement and how I need to be a better feminist when I’m not so sleep-deprived and stuck in a third-class city with limited opportunity and upward mobility.
• cheese sticks.

I’m sorry. You were saying?

 

 

 

Let ‘er flow

Like any Thursday evening, I’m in the tightest corner of the kitchen where the stove awkwardly opens against the side cabinets, and of course so is everyone else. Two annoying Terriers, a black kitten that I suspect is somewhat slow, two adorable, needy children and a husband staring at me while I cook taco meat, still in my tight af work clothes.

The taco meat is organic or grass free or grass fed or some shit, not sure, something really expensive that I wouldn’t have purchased had it not been on clearance at Walmart. We’re an 80% beef kind of family, pink slime and all.

“You get what you get,” as they say.

My husband’s complaining about work as usual, a spoiled girl who always seems to get ahead while he always seems to get the short end. “No use worrying about something you can’t change,” I tell him again, tapping the spatula against the side of the skillet.

My eyes wander a few feet to the right, focused on the wine chiller. Mecca. I’m wondering if the bottle of red has one of those easy screw caps or a cork and if I can open it before I have to stir the rice blend that no one will eat.

So I pop that bottle open and let ‘er flow like a fountain of heat lightning into my favorite “Gym Girl” mug. I haven’t been to the gym in 6 years.

Half a mug in, I can’t remember if I took my Zoloft this morning. Post-partum depression surely is a bitch, because 1. it killed my post-baby buzz; and 2. the meds shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol. So I’m left with a choice daily: anti-depressant numbness during the day, or wine numbness at night. Tricky, right?

The pill helps me coast through the more challenging parts of life, to stay just enough disinterested my blood never reaches a boil and my patience never tested enough to tell someone the F off. Too much of the dose, my creativity wanders like a high fairy — but I’m content with irresponsibility. Lost my pants? Who gives a shit! Forgot to pay a bill? Whatever! Nobody else pays their bills anyway …

I plate some of the tacos for my husband and our oldest son, and they eagerly crunch away. I pick up the baby from his bouncer, and he nuzzles into my neck while I take another sip.