Because It is My Life and Because I Suck

...okay, well, I wrote the title and then I wrote the post, and now I'm thinking the two don't exactly mesh; however I'm going to keep the title anyway because a) I just like it and b) I'm a really, really lazy person...not that one should EVER admit that to ANYONE...

Several years ago, I took a road trip to California with two friends of mine, "Bill" and "Bob." It was the brilliant idea of "Bill" to scout out a watering hole everyday to swim in.

One day, we stopped at a beautiful swimming place, which also happened to be the local town's water reservoir. It was a smoking hot day, and we wasted no time getting on our bathing suits and into the water. After a while, a large black dog came and joined us. He padded in, sat down in about nine inches of water and then turned and stared at us with the most mournful I AM HOT expression I have ever seen in my life.

We watched him for a while, pretty amused, and then naturally the wisecracks started, and someone joked about how he was probably peeing in the local town's water supply. I should have just laughed (ha ha ha!) and changed the subject, but no, dumb old me had to go and open my big mouth.

"Oh, come on!" I said gaily, because, after all, I was with friends, and friends can supposedly be honest with each other, "Let's face it, ALL of us have peed in the water at some point during this trip!"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"Actually," said Bob finally, "I HAVEN'T peed in the water. Not even once."

"No," admitted Bill slowly, "I haven't either."

Arghghh. Total humiliation. You'd think I'd learn from incidents like this, but no, I am a fool and do this sort of thing all the time.

For instance.

Last month at my local thrift store I stumbled upon a, um, Best of Styx CD that I just couldn't resist snapping up. Hey, it was only a dollar, STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!!! After our visit to the thrift store we went to the park where we ran into a friend of High Intensity's who was there with her mom. She's a pretty nice mom, and at least as old as me so I had no reservations showing her my new purchase. I'm very naive in my own way, I guess. I knew it was crap, but it was guilty pleasure crap, right? I always assume people understand the difference.

Obviously not. "Ew," she said when she saw it, wrinkling up her nose as if she was smelling a dead pig. "Why would you buy that?"

I could have still saved myself. I could have said, "Oh, it's for my mom!" or, "Baby Fangs likes destroying CDs and it was only a buck!" But no, I'm an idiot. "Oh, come on!" I said, nudging her and giving a little conspiratorial wink, "'fess up you coward! Everyone likes the songs Babe and Come Sail Away deep down secretly! Right?"

"No. No they don't," said the other mother, smoothing down her tight Ramones t-shirt over her perky little boobies and giving me a look of terrible pity.

Hrrmmphh. So I guess I humiliated myself again. Obviously the secret to life is to keep absolutely tight-lipped about anything, and I mean ANYTHING that might make you look less than perfect in this world, and I really need to learn to do that. If my dishwasher is on the blink and the dishes don't ever get done until the weekend, I mustn't laugh and tell my co-worker that every Friday I put my week's worth of dishes in the bathtub to soak overnight before washing them. This will garner strange looks! If my dinner the night before consisted of a can of chick peas mixed with ketchup (unheated), for God sakes, I shouldn't tell the in-laws!! They'll think I'm crazy! And whatever I do, I must never, ever admit to anyone that I like to yodel loudly while in the shower! That's one thing I could never, EVER live down!

I've thought for a while now, though, that where I really need to learn to just bury the truth and start lying a lot is in the area of my crappy parenting skills. Whenever I get down and dirty with other mothers and we start into the hard core confessions about what terrible, negligent, irresponsible moms we are, I've found that, more often than not, when it's my turn in the confessional booth, my own disclosures are always rewarded with a stunned, embarrassed silence, followed by a rather quavery "Oh....my...."

In other words, they may suck, but I really suck.

Yet my stories are so innocent. When I shared pictures of my kids frolicking naked on a kitchen floor covered with cinnamon, they were like, "ugh, why did you let them do that?" When I broke down and confessed that I once gave Baby Fangs my brand-new lipstick to play with and destroy they were appalled. And yet it had bought me ten minutes of peace! I mean, she would not leave me alone that day! I was desperate! What was their problem?

One good thing about all this crappy stuff that has happened lately is that, corny and cliche as it may be, it certainly has given me a lot of perspective. When your life is sort of falling apart at the seams, and your basement smells like a rotting sewer pit and the government informs you that you owe them $780, little things like the world thinking you're a big crazy bad mom with crappy taste in music and a weird penchant for peeing in lakes, well, you just don't give a damn about it. And I'll be honest: that's a lovely feeling.

Yesterday, while still convalescing, I managed to get myself together enough to take the kids to the park. While I sat limply on the grass, High Intensity played on the play structure and Baby Fangs plunked herself down in the sand and began snacking. Several ants disappeared between her sweet tender rosebud lips and were not seen again. I couldn't stop her. I just couldn't. Frankly, I wasn't sure how I was going to get the energy to drag myself back home; keeping a very willful baby in check was totally out of the question.

Of course, other people were around to remind me of my negligence.

"Your little baby is eating sand!" a little old lady told me.

The Old Me would have scrambled to put on a Good Mom Act, yanked Fangs away from where she was sitting having fun and kept her miserably on my knee for the rest of the visit. But the New Me Whose Head is Wrapped up in Other Things didn't care.

"Hmmphh," was all I said, "and you'd think she'd be all full after that large colony of ants she just consumed!"

Misery, it would seem, can set you free.