THE LIST

Today was not a typical Saturday.

Although I am not sure I actually have a "typical" Saturday to begin with.

For starters, I slept in late. I barely sleep in late on my days off. Usually I'm up either with the birds or shortly thereafter. Next thing I noticed was the rain clouds in the Western sky, then the rain came. For a brief moment in my life I thought I had woke up in Indiana again.  I quickly realized such was not the case, when I walked out the patio door and saw my beast staring at me from under the carport.

Damn.


I had a whole list of things to do for today. I'm utterly exhausted and was even more exhausted yesterday when I wrote the list.  Lists themselves are exhausting...period. Thinking about lists is exhausting enough, and writing them, is even more exhausting.  Following through on lists...forget it. I'd rather procrastinate, or conveniently "lose" the lists if I had a choice in the matter.

On my list of things to do today was:

*Pay Cable
*Pay Gas Bill
*Mail out student loan and medical bills(sadly, with payment)

I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone when the other line beeps. I pick up and it's my ex and he is chatting away.


I  have my right ear glued to the house phone with my friend still hanging on listening to my half of the conversation with the ex, and my cell was on my left ear and he kept on talking. I was trying to tell my friend that I'd call her back, and he thinks I'm talking to him so he says bye, and I say "no wait!" and she says "okay" and I say to her "No, I'll call you back" and she laughs and says, "Oh, okay" and finally my brain is able to comprehend what is going on as two conversations are not something my poor little mind can handle these days. 

He called to tell me he was going to take a short jaunt(work-related) and bring the kids along with him on the five-hour road trip. Wow, good luck with that trip, nothing but desert highway with the occasional tumbleweed or dust-devil for a kid's entertainment. I give them two hours before the kids are playing with, fighting over the radio and the boys are throwing elbow jabs into each others rib cages. Followed by the standard, "Are we there yet?" coming from all three of their mouths.  Or my daughter chiming from the back seat, "Daddy I have to pee."

Fun times.

So my ex asks me if I got everything on "THE LIST".

Crap.

I forgot about adding school supply shopping to my to do list.

Dammit.

So I tell him I was planning on going today(not really a lie, I was planning on doing it, I just forgot I was planning on doing it and adding it to MY list) and told him what items are necessary and what items really aren't. Sure I can empathize with the teachers and their crappy budgets and spending money out of pocket, and yes I understand a lot of them are parents too, however, I am just so broke that if I bought every damn thing on that list, they'd be paying me back in the form of their taxes paying for my food stamps that  I'd have to apply for after getting everything on that damn list.

I don't want to go on food stamps.

Been there.

Done that.

Not fun.

So I thanked the ex for reminding me about the list, hang up with him, call the friend back and we start gabbing.  Next thing I notice the skies are getting darker and I tell her "I really have to go to the store to pay these bills and mail out this stuff and get the stuff on the list." We finally hang up and no sooner did I get to the store the H20 show begins as big droplets of water are pounding on my windshield at a slow, intermittent pace.

I run as fast as I can to get into the store in order to pass up a man and his daughter walking. I didn't want to run them over, poor kid wasn't moving very fast, and I know what it's like to have(I assume) a 3 yr old attached to your hand. It's like pulling an anchor out of very deep wet sand.

I get to the counter and finally pay my bills. I saw the guy with the girl behind me and she is playing with the swinging door that goes into the customer service booth. I am giggling at this and smile at the little girl and her dad. I tried to stay as far away from all the people around me, because truth be told I hadn't showered since yesterday morning. No joke. I probably smelled pretty. Like mold smells pretty. Or the bottom of your trash can smells pretty.

You get the sarcasm here right???

I pay my bills, snag some sushi for lunch, pay my rent on the way back and realize I am not going to make it to the Walmart out here anytime soon for "THE LIST"  because, as luck would have it the rain kept coming and I hadn't seen the sun in the distance anywhere.

Went home, ate my sushi, drank my soda and watched tv. Finally the skies cleared up and I ventured out to the van. Got in and drove off to get the stuff on "THE LIST".

This list is like a scavenger hunt.

The second I walk into Walmart there are binders, folders, spiral notebooks and other items galore, and I thought to myself "Awesome! I can find everything in the main aisle right here by the door!"

No such luck.

Got the spiral notebooks. 21 of those suckers to be exact. I'm not kidding. 21 spiral notebooks for three kids. What the hell? I think I will have my kids account in a log for every time they use a sheet of that spiral notebook paper.

I head on over to the seasonal aisle....chock full of messy shelves with crayons where the markers go, and lunchboxes and post-it notes where the folders should be.  Speaking of folders, I saw a blood red folder on the floor beneath my feet as I looked down, poor thing, may it rest in peace. It was stomped on, rolled over with carts, trampled by children, it just lay there with shoe prints and marks and bends in it.  I never saw a folder as red as that one. No kidding. I'm telling you, that poor thing was bleeding to death.

And what I found rather comical, was all the other mothers standing there with their LISTS too. Some on pink paper, one woman had one she printed out online, another mom had a green sheet with her LIST.   I felt a comradeship with these women. We were all there for the same reason....we were all too damn lazy to shop during the summer and we procrastinated and now we were panicking because we couldn't find a damn thing on "THE LIST'.

I finally found a very friendly stock guy there who was very happy to accommodate my bombarding him with the standard "Where is...(fill in the blank) located?"  He was so personable and laughed with(Or at) me and I wished him a wonderful day.

He was probably so chipper because he just started his shift. Think I'll go in there in about another hour or two and see if he's still smiling and cheerful.

Probably not.

I headed to the grocery section as I needed just a few things from there as well. I was walking in the meat section and there was this woman there, make up well done dressed nicely as were her children, however, when I looked at her (I'm laughing because I can still see that look on her face...priceless) she was yelling at her son and daughter to "stop it already! I mean it, stop it right now" as the kid was pulling on the cart and saying something to his sister who was whining back in his face. The woman and I made eye contact and her fierce, angered face went from fiery red, to a gentle smile when I smiled at her.

I smiled because I knew exactly how she felt. And I wanted to approach her and tell her "Believe me honey I have been where you are right now. And although I haven't showered in 24 hours, this is the most zen moment of my life. Here, let me give you some chocolate."

But I didn't, I kept right on moving my cart filled with school supplies and mini chocolate ice creams from Hagen-Dazs. I knew I was going to relax this evening, not so sure about her though.

Then I walked towards the frozen foods and this poor little girl, about  6, was sitting with her bottom wedged in the bottom of the cart enjoying the free ride. Her mom bumped something and she literally bounced out of the bottom of the cart and her little bum hit the floor. I couldn't help it, I laughed so loud and the mom looked at me and smiled and the little girl, dying from embarrassment I am sure, picks herself up, brushes off her legs and says "MOM!!!"

I grinned at the little girl and she is giggling and grinning at me and I kept on going.

Never a dull moment at Wally World.

I just sent an email to Walmart. Complimenting the stock guy and the cashier who waited on me. My luck had changed a bit as I was standing in line behind a family with the cart PACKED FULL of groceries a little Asian woman, very friendly smiled and said "Come this way ma'am", I looked behind me to see if she was talking to someone else, but no, it was in fact little old me she was talking and smiling to.

So I walked, no pranced, no skipped and hopped to her line.

Yay! No waiting.

Guess that was Karma paying me back for the email I was going to write when I got home. Who knows. Or maybe once in a while I can get a little blessing or two in my life. A little "normal" for once.

Normal is nice when it comes to visit.

I Heart Normal.

Okay... I have things to do.

It's already 7:00 here. I started cleaning my dining room, but then I wanted to blog.

So I blogged.

Now I'm going to clean.

Then I'm going to bathe.

Then.....I might even blog.....again.