Girl Attacked by Great White in Family Pool

    I didn’t read to my kids tonight.

There. I said it.  

  All three of my kids were at school all day today and I was frolicking around the house sort of doing laundry while totally watching X-files.  I didn’t have anyone asking me to open a cheese stick or trying to PUT IT ON THE CAT.  I didn’t wear pants for three hours and I certainly didn’t vacuum, sweep, or mop the floor as is written on my Monday list. 

That list can suck-it, by the way. 

  

I drank a cup of coffee.  Hot.  I asked the dogs hard-hitting questions and demanded real answers.  I took a shower, shaved, put on lotion and tried to braid my hair.  I didn't put any pressure on myself to waste the day doing housework when there was a stack of perfectly good books next to my bed waiting to be finished or started.  It was a glorious waste of an afternoon alone, I say.  And when I picked-up the kids I was refreshed and ready to be supermom.  

  When were driving home,  I looked at my hands on the steering wheel and noticed my engagement ring had this blackish/greenish/funky/dried snot looking stuff under the diamonds. Seven years worth of mystery funk. It looked gross and made me gag and resembled the stuff that came out of the straw of the sippy-bowl Cadence almost used for her cereal the other morning. (Think long booger.) 

So because I would never Google and drive, I asked Cadence to do it. How-to-clean-a-diamond-ring at home.  Soak, scrub, rinse, drop in disposal, repeat. 

  

  Okay. Some of that was obviously not in the plan, but soon enough that was me.  My hand in the garbage disposal plucking out carrot-tops and lemon peels looking for my ring. 

  Let me stop here and just say that if you can stick your hand down the garbage disposal without screaming to anyone stepping foot into the kitchen OH MY GOD GET OUT OF HERE DONT TOUCH ANYTHING MY HAND WILL GET CHOPPED OFF IF YOU EVEN LOOK AT THAT SWITCH...you're not real.  It’s just like swimming in an above ground pool and being terrified a shark will eat you before you can reach the ladder. It can’t happen.  But it will.  And you write the headlines while you’re flailing furiously to the edge:

GIRL ATTACKED BY GREAT WHITE IN FAMILY POOL Yep, It Finally Happened

  I pulled my hand out of sink oubliette  and it’s just gross because who remembers to put “clean the underside of that rubber flappy thing” on their cleaning schedule? If you actually did put it on there, you’re probably also actually doing the chores on the list. Good for you.  My giant claw was wet with black slime and I had no ring to show for it.  Back down the hole just as Annie comes in looking for her “widdlefingwiffdafedderonit”.  So I politely and quietly groan to her, “Mommy’s trying to find something down the stinky sink, so can you please ask someone else to help find the feather thingie right now,” while pushing her away from the counter with my delicately pointed toe just in case she go-go-gadget-arms the disposal switch and I DIE from manglement.  

AHA! Ring. 

  I set it on windowsill above the sink and washed my hands for ten minutes.  Then I rinsed goop of my goopy/notgoopy/goopyagain ring.  AND THEN

   I dropped it down the disposal again while rinsing it because I do dumb shit like that on the regular.  What was this mess even about? Oh, yeah.  I put on two episodes of Peewee’s Playhouse for my kids instead of reading books tonight.  I didn’t win any parenting awards, but my ring is really sparkly now and my hands are sorta red and blotchy.  And clean.  Two accomplishments NOT on my cleaning list- proving how a lackadaisical sort of day can spiral into a dangerous made-for-HGTV movie and then back to lackadaisical again. 

In the blink of a shark's eye.