Spin You Round, Round, Baby Round, Round

Have you ever squished a spider in a tissue, not hard enough to kill it, just hard enough to incapacitate it then; tossed the tissue into the toilet and flushed only to see the startled spider scurry to the top of the tissue, waving its spider legs in a vain attempt to escape its certain fate?

I am that spider.

My personal spiral down the shitter began yesterday, when I almost choked on a Tic-Tac upon hearing that an hour-long Perceptual Evaluation at the Behavioral Ophthalmologist had just cost me $235. The entire forty-minute drive home the only thoughts playing in a mental loop through my brain were “We can’t afford to do this” and “We can’t afford not to do this”. One after the other, over and over.

I think that’s when the migraine started.

Back in Petticoat Junction, I dropped the Man-Cub off at school and made a quick dash for home where I took a nice hit off an Imitrex bong and settled in for an hour-long nap before picking the Cub back up from school and heading to wrestling practice.

For the record, Hugh is out of town, officiating at the State wrestling tournament. He had, however, assured me that his assistant coach would be at practice so I, and I quote “Had nothing to worry about”.

Which were also, I believe, Custer’s last words to his troops right before the scalps started flying.

The assistant coach? Never showed up. There was some whispered discussion among the parents, something about charges of insurance fraud and prison time and, I don’t know; between sweating bullets over what the hell to do with thirty wrestlers between the ages of 5 and 8 and how to handle the group of hostile parents staring daggers at me, I was really too busy to pay too much attention to the gossip mill.

In the end, I recruited The Girl and the Man-Cub to start practice off with some stretching exercises and a few laps around the gym to warm up. Then, God bless his giant heart, the Man-Cub suggested that we practice some of the moves that Hugh worked on last week. The Cub grabbed one of his classmates and demonstrated the moves, had the kids pair up to practice the moves and he, I, and a couple of moms who can be counted on to pitch in during a crisis (note: NOT the Hostiles), wandered the room, checking form and pretending to know what the hell we were doing.

It was the longest forty-five minutes of my life and it ended with the expected complaints from The Hostiles. Where are the coaches? Um, officiating at the State wrestling tournament, wrestling at the State wrestling tournament and, apparently, in jail, thanks for asking. Is this going to be an on-going situation? Um, no, the State tournament happens but once a year. Jail time, however, could be a trickier proposition but, we’ll keep you informed. And, my ultimate favorite; Are you planning to get any more coaches? Absolutely! Thanks for asking! Now, are you volunteering yourself or your husband?

I’m pretty sure you can all guess how that one went over.

The downward spiral to my ultimate doom continued after practice, when I got into the car only to have it start beeping at me all DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBBINSON, DANGER ! SERVICE ENGINE SOON! STABLITRAK OFF! TRACTION CONTROL OFF! SERVICE STABILITRAK! SERVICE TRACTION CONTROL! THE BRITISH ARE COMING, THE BRITISH ARE COMING!

A frantic call to OnStar for diagnostics did nothing to allay my fears; their advice being that I see my mechanic at my earliest possible convenience which, being a rational adult I translated into OH MY GOD, MY CAR IS TOTALLY GOING TO BLOW UP AND WE WILL ALL DIE.

The Girl, sensing my panic, launched into a wailing fit, “WELL, THAT’S JUST GREAT! NOW MY BIRTHDAY PARTY IS RUINED!” because, she’s no dummy and, if the car blows up, the trip to Neighboring Town to scope out cute boys in the mall blows up as well. It certainly didn’t take a $235 Perceptual Evaluation for her to see the handwriting on the wall.

Thus, I did what any woman in my situation would do; I drove the car home, parked the son-of-a-bitch in the garage and pretended it didn’t exist, la, la, la, what car?

Then, I drank a glass of red wine, stumbled upstairs and authored a letter to the parents of our wrestlers, apologizing for the situation at practice. It was a great letter, containing such lovely prose as; Doors are located to the east and north ends of the gym, please don’t let them hit you on the ass on your way out as we wouldn’t want to add injury to your insult and We will gladly refund your registration fee of $15, however, we have assessed a standard Complaint Fee and you owe us $50. See you next year!

As I said, it was a great letter and I felt better after writing it.

I'm no fool, though so; I deleted it, drank another glass of red wine and went to bed.

Today, the coffee pot over-flowed onto the countertop and floor, I lost the key to my car in the car and, the mechanic at the local dealership informed me that the problem with my car is probably just a wonky sensor (where have I heard that before?).

This evening I am supposed to decorate The Girl’s birthday cake and, already; I am envisioning tragedy.

If I were a spider I would totally be waving my tiny little spider legs at you and staring forlornly at the rim of the toilet bowl as I go

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