Because it really is personal…

Have you ever been doing just fine, be-bopping around tending to business and all’s well in your world when SPLAT like a bag of wet guts, a Bad Mood hits you? Not just a regular “gee I’m not entirely satisfied with my life right now” kind of mood, but a “I hope a jehovah’s witness shows up so I can convince them I am the spawn of satan and make them cry” kind of mood. really foul. Where’s my claymore and who’s head can I lop off with it? Do we have gas for the chainsaw?

I had a fine day, thank you. I got some things accomplished outside, the weather stayed cool, all the stuff I planted yesterday still looks happy. I had yummy food to eat, a pitcher of minty iced tea, and absolutely no reason whatsoever to feel like eating babies.

Yet, by 3 pm, I was in full baby-eating mode, unwilling to be encumbered by any sort of behavioral standards and desirous of (to quote)”a relaxed moral compass” tho not delightfully so.

I am reining it in, as best I can, because my children, they have done nothing to deserve the ripping of a new arsehole. My husband, he is traveling today and will wish to come home to a smiling wife and a glass of scotch. I’m pretty sure he’d rather see a Doris Day kind of smile rather than a Jack Nicholson smile. I’m feeling most Jack Nicholsonish. Think…the poster for The Shining…that kind of smile.

or maybe…the banjo player from Deliverance.

where’s that bowie knife when you want it? hm?

Down girl…get thee a xanax tut suite.

I guess this is what The Good Dr. H. warned me about. A Change when I was in my 40′s. Things rearrange, get scrambled, happen at unexpected times. This is not the time for this sort of attitude. I did this all last week. I should be happy and content and compliant.

Ridiculous. I’m going to Fake It Til I Make It.

In the mean time I shall fantasize about terrorizing children who misbehave, about running over undeserving young women in the Explorer, and hurling molotov cocktails into the dining room windows of the Country Club. Those people that eat there probably need something unexpected to happen to them anyway, so complacent in their lifestyle they are.

I have gas, I have some bottles, and I even have some rags.

If I weren’t so self concious I’d probably walk naked down Main Street right now, just to give pause. But I won’t because SD employs many people in this town and has a certain image to uphold. As his wife I am an extension of that image, and decorum is a must.

Sometimes, tho, I wish for chutzpah. Ren Ev has chutzpah and then some. While I don’t always wish for all that she’s got, sometimes I do wish for some of that nerve.

So, I’ll never really DO all those things I think about, with the claymore and gasoline and all, it is kind of satisfying to think about it, to fantasize about being Xena Warrior Princess

instead of Doris Day.

Once upon a time, oh, 12 or 13 years ago, we lived out in the country. This was not the housetrailer in the country, but our first house, set fairly close to a county road but with lots of land around. It was built in 1945, from scraps left over from another house built down the road. It’s not as bad as it sounds, it was a very solid, sweet little farm house and we loved it.

It came with a 2.5 acre yard, that needed weekly mowing. I took this over as my job, because when I mowed, SD watched the boys (then 5,3,2)and I got something of a break. I couldn’t hear anything over the noise of the mower, so it was a 3 hour treat.

One warm summer day, I was mowing, and SD was stretched out in his hammock, keeping an eye on the boys and working on a beer. Several men he worked with came by on their horses, assessed the situation, and congratulated SD on his fine choice for a wife. He was embarrassed, and I didn’t hear any of it.

About a month later, a hurricane was coming, and the roof of the garage needed some repair. SD spent the morning up there, nailing down shingles and patching with tar. It being late July, it was hot nasty work. So around noon, I bade him come down and gave him a glass of tea. I offered to go up and work while he cooled off, because we really had no time to spare. While I was up there, hammering away…here comes those men, on their horses. SD is standing at the base of the ladder hollering up directions, holding a glass of tea, while I work. The men, they whoop and holler and say “Hey Mistah, she gotta sistah?” He is, of course, mortally embarrassed and I think it’s funny.

So, the hurricane came through, and damaged 2 of our 3 pear trees. He gets out his Big Man’s McCullough chain saw and cuts the trees into chunks. I ask if he could show me how to use it, so he does. While I’m cutting up limbs, he’s standing there with a glass of tea.

(you know what happened next)

And the 4 guys on their horses come riding by. They stop, and stare, and say nothing. They just watch SD point and direct while I cut limbs, sipping on his tea and feeling like a real ass for being caught again. The men, they never say anything more, but SD swears up and down they treated him differently after that.

Really, I just wanted to know how to do stuff. You never know when roofing skills might be handy, or when you need to hide the body and it’s too big to manage whole.