Sharp Corners

Michelle tagged me to write about my top five idiosyncrasies, oh, about a week ago. Sorry for taking so long Michelle but here they are:

Idiosyncrasy: structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an
individual or group

Peculiar? That’s me.

1) For some reason, I have never been able to drink the last inch of so of milk from my glass. With any other beverage, I nearly topple backwards in my chair to drain every drop but, milk? Nope. Can’t do it. I am pre-wired to never finish the last swallow or so. Don’t worry, I don’t understand it either.

2) Whispering hurts my ears. Most people adore have sweet nothings whispered to them but I’d rather have shish-ka-bob skewers poked into my ear canals than have anyone put their face close to mine and whisper. Stop. STOP!

3) Socks. Hate them. H-A-T-E them.

4) I can overlook nearly any housekeeping issue but show me an overflowing kitchen garbage can and I turn into Medusa. My boys (being boys and all) will stuff papers and trash into our kitchen trash can with complete disregard to whether there is actually room for what they’re trying to cram in there. I usually don’t discover that the can is full until I have a dripping meat wrapper in my hand and pork juice running down my arm. By then, I could spit nails (but there’d be no room in the trash can for them either).

5) I am habitually prompt. In fact, I do not know how to be late for things. Tardiness should be punishable by stoning as far as I’m concerned. Now, don’t get me wrong: unforeseen or unavoidable delays don’t bother me a bit. Need to swing through the pharmacy to get tincture for that sudden zit you developed on your way to my house? Fine. Ed McMahon called as you were walking out the door and you needed to make arrangements to get your million dollar check? No problem. Leave me waiting somewhere because you got engrossed watching Dr. Phil and chances are I may never speak to you again.

A weird list of idiosyncrasies, yes? I prefer to think of myself as eccentric. That has a much nicer ring to it.

Writing about my cast seems so predictable but, oh well. It’s what I feel like talking about. I’m infinitely frustrated at being impeded like this. It’s proving to be a serious strain on my independence but I’m learning some pretty creative workarounds and becoming ambidextrous in the process.

Some of the things I’ve learned to do one-handed (or left-handed):

• Wash my hair – though styling it still leaves me looking like a giant vulture has nested in my tresses

• Chop vegetables -  I don’t even have to use my chin to hold the carrot steady anymore

• Flip pancakes – the first few ended up on the ceiling, on my foot or between the stove and cabinet but by pancake number 112 I was on a roll

• Write – though I did feel compelled to let my son’s teacher know the chicken scratch in his daily homework planner was, in fact, my signature and not a feeble attempt at forgery by Son One

• Apply makeup – three words: Tammy Faye Baker

• Brush my teeth – I think my dentist will want to have a word with me about the lack of attentions my molars are getting, however

• Fold laundry – the sight of me wrestling with a king-size corner sheet must have been something

• Text message on my phone – that’s really not as hard as it sounds

• Eat – of course, I end up wearing half my meal but I’m getting better every day. The first day I wore this at dinnertime but now I can get by with this.

• Type – I’m actually managing this with a hand and a half and it’s proving to be quite entertaining. I can see a lot of progress in this area since my first attempt looked something like this: "Adfhio owienntg fjj lsehhtg linvi2 oao. BUGS!"

• Driving – when people spy my fiberglass-encrusted hand on the steering wheel, they tend to give me a wide berth so I can’t take all the credit for driving well. There’s been no one near me to run into.

Now if I could just figure out how to roll over in bed without conking myself on the head, I’d have it made.

In a bizarre accident involving a toothless wolverine, a pencil sharpener and a potato bearing an odd resemblence to Andy Warhol, I am sad to report that I have broken my wrist. I now sport a fashionable leaden blue cast, complete with the optional thumb immobilizer. I am supremely fine but typing is, shall we say, an uniquely arduous task. I tried using my toes but my bunion kept pressing the caps lock so I will relearn typing by hand the old fashioned way: practice. Keep checking back to make fun of my progress.

This post took 9 hours and 318 epithets to write.

All right. Who stole my post? The other night I wrote about the Car Conga, does anyone remember? I searched my files, I searched my pending posts, I searched my other blog. Nada. Granted, I wrote it at 3 in the morning but, still… I even remember seeing it online later that morning. Where did it go?

If it suddenly pops up somewhere and a lot of what I say here is redundant, forgive me. Maybe this one will be funnier since I’m writing it in the light of day?

Nah.

*****

Last year I used to bitch and whine about waiting in the student pick up line to gather the boys after school because the process took about 20 minutes. Now I long for the good old days.

The boys attend a new school this year that has triple the amount of students and six hundred times the amount of vehicles picking them up. In fact, I’m pretty sure some dummy cars have been slipped in just to fatten up the line and make sure we are there for the maximum time allowable by law. I’ve seen fewer cars at a Rolling Stones concert. If every person on the entire Asian Continent suddenly showed up in my driveway all driving Subarus, there would be less traffic than there is at 2:30 in the school lot.

Since attendance at this school is highly sought after by parents within the district, most families have to apply to get in. Many come from quite a distance and are therefore ineligible to be included on the bus route. This makes for quite a long car line and quite an exasperating process if you plan on getting your kids home before 1 a.m.

For safety reasons, each child must be personally deposited into each vehicle by an adult so we wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. I’ve thought of bringing a portable grill and some beer to help pass the time but school officials might frown on that. So I killed time flinging spitballs at other cars instead (kidding!).

In fairness to the school, they understand this is a hardship for the parents. In an effort to show their appreciation for our patience, they passed out flyers today telling us that we’ve done such a good job following the pick up rules that they were able to dump kids into nearly two hundred cars yesterday in an orderly fashion. Two hundred! 200!

As it stands now, from the time I reach the school campus until the time I leave is roughly one hour. Add transit time to the school, then going to pick up my youngest from preschool and then driving home and we’re looking at over two hours every afternoon spent ferrying children.  Since there’s no waiting in the morning, the whole process takes only an hour.

At the end of this week, I will have spent more than fifteen hours just getting my kids back and forth to school. Since I really don’t mind because the school is 100% worth the hassle (so are the kids, when I think about it), why am I telling you this? First, I want sympathy and lots of it. Second, if I don’t laugh about it, I may hang myself with the seatbelt.