Wednesday, October 24, 2012

I'll Try Anything Once

Psst, hey, you got anything?

Yeah, man, check this out.

Whoa. What is it?

An oldie but a goodie. Hot right now.

What's it do?

Aw, you have no idea how good it is. Will lay you flat for hours. Don't expect to be operating any machinery anytime soon, know what I'm saying? 

Sounds awesome. But, like, is it alright?

Totally. It's natural, you know? People been up on this shit since caveman days. You got receptors built just for it; can't argue with Mother Nature, that's what I always say. He he.

So how do you...?

Easy man, you just slip one under your tongue, maybe two once you build up a little tolerance, let 'em dissolve and hang on for the ride.

Seriously?

Yeah. They say Hendrix used to put it under his headband some nights but I never tried it. I figure why mess with what works.

Yeah fer sure. So, uh, how much?

Hey, man, you gotta ask that you can't afford it, he he. I can give you a couple to try right now, no charge. Wait 'til you're home before you dose. Don't want you tripping out on the road.

Sweet, thanks. Can't wait.

You like it, you can get your own stash. Like, twenty bucks at Costco for a big jar.

Awesome. Thanks for the tips, Yvonne. I'm so excited to try treating my chronic insomnia with melatonin!

No problem. Hey, got any more of those cookies?

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Aw, He's So Grown Up!

Based on *certain* life experiences I have long held the belief that men are pretty much giant whiners whenever they're sick, and I recently unearthed on the interwebs some incontrovertible proof that this is in fact the case - and likely always has been.

If you clicked on those links you'll have seen this theory online in two places, which must make it true, but if by some feat of exceptional skepticism you remain unconvinced I present the following as further evidence for this compelling theory:

"I have a headache and a nose ache and a mouth-aaaaaache."
"I want my mommyyyyyy."
"Nobody liiiiiiikes meeeeee."
"I'm going to diiiiiiiiie."

Nope, not even DH [this time]. All that quality drama (and more!) has been provided free of charge courtesy of Small Fry. Don't fret - it's not as Ebola/black plague/cholera dance mix as he would have you believe. His only symptoms, aside from some rather dire monologuing, have been heavy snot production and a mild fever. By all accounts he seems to be experiencing his first Man Cold.

Which makes me wonder, can the phenomenon accurately be dubbed a 'Man Cold' at all if occurrences have been reliably documented in human males as young as four-and-a-half? Should it rightly be termed the 'Male Cold' instead? And is it even a cold at all, or just a handy catch-all term for every minor affliction experienced by men, ever? Either way, 'Man Cold' is an unforgivably sexist and, like, cold-ist term. I'm going to have to give it a way more euphemistic name so I can keep tossing it around in a socially acceptable manner.

The treatment of Small Fry's Generalized Consolidated Minor Male Afflictions Syndrome has been largely the same as that deployed by females everywhere on their respective male charges, (apparently) for centuries: mind-melting amounts of TV and endless assorted coddling. Easy! The tricky part will be later this week when whatever pathogens Small Fry has been aerially bombarding the household with have settled in in the rest of the family. Thank goodness Medium Fry is female: guaranteed she'll be sick, too, but at least she'll still be able to help me out with babysitting DH.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Happy Misgiving!

My fellow Canadians: ask not whether the turkey fits in the roasting pan, ask whether the roasting pan fits in the oven.

Or maybe ask both things, but I recommend doing so in rapid succession so you can intercept yourself early on in the dinner preparation process.

While you're at it, ask those big emmer-effer black basement spiders why they persist in colonizing the roasting pan during the off-season. (Do you really want to die alone inside a vacuum cleaner? Huh, tough guy, do ya?)

And for the ten thousand dollar grand prize finale question, ask yourself what is the number-one top cause of marital strife in the month of October on a certain street in northwest Calgary. I'll give you a hint: Thanksgiving dinner. In-laws invited. DH at a conference in Texas for the week prior to the date.

I have done positively Herculean amounts of cooking, cleaning, cross-country running team carpooling and spider-vacuuming this week. Not that Hercules had a vacuum, but you get my point. In addition, I managed to hold down a wee bit of a job, plus a little parenting gig in my free time. All these things together would be enough to cause most mortals to snap, but they did not make me snap. Creating a gluten-free Thanksgiving feast to appease DHs delicate digestive tract did not make me snap. Even the in-laws arriving a day early due to a miscommunication on DHs part did not make me snap.

Know what made me snap? The spider in the roasting pan.

While I cried and vacuumed spiders, it all became very rationally and logically clear to me, as things are wont to do while I'm insane: this is your fault, DH. All of it. You owe me forever for this dinner from hell. Do you have any idea how long forever is? Let me illustrate:

One day soon, you're going to press start on the washing machine then stand around waiting for the hero cookies to start rolling in and I am going to say, "Gluten-free cornbread stuffing - from scratch!" and just walk away, and you will hang your head and know that you deserved no such cookies. One day a few years hence, you will think to yourself how nice it would be to eat turkey again sometime but I will hear your thoughts and whisper menacingly to you, "You said they weren't coming until Saturday night," and you will mourn anew the loss of gravy stains from your life. One day many years from now you will be tweezing my prodigious old lady chin hairs and sigh, and from my wizened lips will come a croak, "That fucking spider was huge," and you will understand that you have still not lived down that fateful day in 2012 and probably never will.

So I hope you really, really enjoy those two kinds of gluten-free pie tomorrow, and that you hold the memory of them close to help you through the tough times ahead. 'Cause I'm gonna grow me a lot of chin hairs.