that's what you get for wakin' up in the suburbs*

*Did I say wakin' up? I mean waking up would presume I've slept and I'm still sleeping for hell wherein the word sleep should be a verb, but instead it's something akin to the jackass 11th grade boy who mocked you relentlessly when you were a somewhat freakishly overdeveloped 9th grade girl who would've preferred the earth open up and swallow her whole when it was time for gym class and your uniform tshirt was grossly tight rather than endure his taunts and tirades while you kept one eye on the clock and the other on the other side of the volleyball net so as not to be smacked in the kisser when the smudged white orb came sailing over after being helped along by an overly aggressive boy from your homeroom who used to eat crayon shavings in first grade but now apparently has a mission in life to be remembered for being a tool.

(or the short version - still not sleeping at all)

Thank you for all your suggestions and sympathies to my post earlier this week about my insomnia. Short of the suggestion to start having an evening libation, I've been following most of the suggestions to the letter (except I like to read before bed because typically, I'd fall asleep and wake up in the morning with the book over my face, but lately, not so much). I even take an over-the-counter sleep aid, which I've started to look forward to a bit like Pavlov's dog. To save a bit of money, I bought some generic version of Tylenol PM called Sleep II, which is apparently the a sequel (the Electric Boogaloo) of Sleep (also? sigh...I'm so tired it took me forever to think of the word sequel. Instead, I thought of things like follow up, that which comes after the first, next thing, thing that often isn't as good as the first, should have just left it alone after the first one, and what's it called?). That's to say Sleep II is like the bastardization of Teen Wolf starring Michael J. Fox in which Jason Bateman is now failing to lull me into slumber through the likes of Teen Wolf Too, but the manufacturer knows I'm going to buy it because I loved the first version so much the second one has to be good too, right?

Answer - no.

Also - thank you, Betsey Booms, for making me constantly think of Teen Wolf!

Anyway, I cried a lot when I read some of your comments, as well as the emails some of you sent me, too. Cried, you say? Yes. Because I am just that tired. And because you're all so nice. Perhaps if we hugged, I'd be lulled into the false sense that someone was rocking me to sleep and I'd quickly drift away while my chin dug deeper and deeper into your shoulder, but because you felt sorry for me, you'd stand there, unmoving, even though you might have to use the bathroom or damn, your favorite show is over and the remote control is all the way across the room, or your nose started to itch, because you felt sorry for me and wanted me to get as much sleep as possible. You people are good people!

So...are you still with me? Have you really read these first rambling paragraphs? Then you'll realize THIS is part of the reason I can't sleep! My mind never seems to shut down and spends the wee evening hours as a springboard of inane thought. To share, and to perhaps exorcise some of the demons in my head, I thought I'd share a sampling of what goes on in my mind in the midnight hour:

• Does anyone ever use an entire bottle of fingernail polish? Ever? I've got bottles that are older than my children.
• Ack!! Why am I in bed with my father-in-law!! Oh, it's just my Tool Man, who, after shaving off the goatee that's been a staple of his face for so long, looks scarily like his dad now. I hope he picks up these subliminal messages I've been sending him as I whisper in his ear as he sleeps to grow the facial hair back. I'll even welcome the full beard should he want it back.
• Why was that weird old dude wearing sunglasses and sitting in the corner of the Dairy Queen, suspiciously not eating any treats (tip - the Tagalong Blizzard? Meh.) staring at me the entire time I was trying to eat my hamburger and french fries?
• Did it make me paranoid? Yes. So paranoid, in fact, that here would be a perfect opportunity to insert a Jonas Brothers video of their song of the same name!
• Joe. Joe. Joe. Joe. I feel sorry for Kevin. Joe. Joe. Joe
• Goddamn you, Nickelback!. I do not want to like you. Get the hell out of my head!
• If the Ed Hardy clothing line ever releases a shirt that reads Team Kate in their tattoo-inspired design, I promise you I'll go out and buy one for every damn day of the week. She may be a bitch, but when you've been married to a complete douche like Jon Gosselin for 10 years, who's out parading a 22 year old girl around the south of France on a yacht (he's on a boat!) and calling what is clearly his girlfriend his stylist (which would infer one has style, but him? clearly not)(nor does he have class) then I think there's a pretty defined reason why Kate kept his manhood in a jar on top of the fridge.
• Speaking of that douche Jon Gosselin, is it just me, or is he another set of hair plugs (sorry that first batch doesn't seem to have done much for you, bub) and a bad straw cowboy hat away from morphing into Bret Michaels. Douche. That one's for Jon Gosselin again. Although Bret Michaels? Yeah, you're kind of close.
• Speaking of douche some more, is it just me or does there seem to be a rampant, wildfire-like use of the word douche and douche bag on television these days? I should note that using that word makes me cringe. It doesn't delight me in the way the word conundrum does, but it seems to be all over TV these days. I don't even watch that much TV, but it's uttered on nearly every program I tune into. I'm expecting Jim Bob Duggar to fire off a rant filled with bleeped out expletives and douche this and douche bag that any day now on 18 Kids and Counting.
• If he did, I, of course, would be even more delighted in that than I was when Josh Duggar crowned his wife Anna a master swallower (which HELL YES! I just googled that line to see if there was a video clip of it out there yet and the post I wrote wherein I proclaimed that line to be a perfect gift bestowed upon the universe much like that of the birth of the Christ child - except I didn't go quite that far - comes in JUST AFTER Josh and Anna Duggar's official website!!! As the Duggars might say, God is, indeed, good. By the way, that same post was where I posted photos of myself from my junior prom, so if you haven't seen those, or you wish to see why that douche (see!? EVERYWHERE!) 11th grade boy mad fun of me, here's your chance. You know what else is good in addition to my blog standings there? Take a look below:
  
  
  
  

Oh, Internet, you are so, so good to me! I love you, sweet collection of wires and pulleys! I don't know what the cat is all about, but apparently it's playing them out (is this some fad I'm unaware of as I fail to sleep?), but if that's the case, I should let it play me out of this post because it's far, far too long now and my son has a play date coming over in an hour and I'm still in my pajamas, which is funny because why do I wear pajamas if I don't sleep, and I'm laughing, laughing, laughing at the irony, but you're probably not because I'm the one who's exhausted and you? You're probably just exhausted of me. I completely understand.

p.s. - I just realized someone googling any of the Duggars may now get this post and believe my rampant use of the words douche and douche bag (shudder) relates to them. I assure you that will never be the case. At least as long as Michelle Duggar and her girls never buy any Ed Hardy tshirts at their local thrift stores.

so tired that i couldn't even sleep

So here's the thing. I'm tired. Actually, tired tapped me on the shoulder early this morning, I think it may have been somewhere around 2:29 a.m., maybe even later (it was so very much later), and told me I was being far too polite referring to how I feel as simply 'being tired.' I remember thinking "Well, then, I'm very, very tired," when I turned back toward the clock on the nightstand and saw the numbers 3, 4, and 5 lined up in a row (as in a.m., as in who the hell should be awake at 3:45 a.m.?). I also remember thinking, "Well, that's clever and a rather welcome change of pace from the usual 2:22 a.m., or 3:33 a.m., I've grown quite used to."

I'm tired.

Strike that. Strike that and all the verys I could place in front of it to qualify it.

I'm exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and probably spiritually. If you go to church and get stuck sitting in the front row like I did this week, which you hate because, well, you just do, can you blame the bright lights for the water coming out of your eyes? I mean, that's also what I do when I realize my eyes are leaking while I'm sitting at a traffic light, so same rules apply, right?

I honestly can't recall a night when I've gone to bed and didn't lay there waiting to see what symmetry the time had for me the next time I glanced at the clock. There's a name for that, I believe, a name for when you wake up (if you've been asleep, that is) at the very same time every night to find the clock reading 2:22 a.m., or 3:33 a.m., but I can't think of what it's called. Maybe it's called a coincidence. Or maybe it has something to do with the body's circadian rhythms, but I think you have to be asleep in order to dance to that beat. I'd google it, but I'm too tired to think of the right words to phrase the question. Somehow I don't think "You know, that thing where the numbers are all the same, right?" would net me the solution. That or I'd uncover some sort of doomsday theory, and I've already got too much of that kind of thing going on in my head.

Of course, I could take a nap. A few minutes to refresh myself. Fifteen minutes here and there. But I don't because I've convinced myself I'll fall asleep for hours and ruin whatever hope I have for rest that evening. Naps, it would seem, have become a less a refreshing way to recharge and are now something more like a prelude to hibernation.

I'm exhausted. I also think if you looked at me, if you read here and there, if you dropped me notes on Facebook and told me how you missed me and thought we should get together and "Hey, isn't it time we had a talk?" you'd conclude there's a reasonable explanation for why it is I can't sleep. Or not. Whatever it is, it's gone on so long now that I'm probably growing accustom to it.

I hate that I'm accustom to this.

I hate that I'm writing something that seems like a steaming pile of woe is me.

I hate that I can't sleep.

(I love that I'm getting so many damn books read, though. Need a recommendation? I'm your girl.)

There's really no gist (but there quite likely is) to this post other than some lame attempt on my part to release some of the words that bounce around my cranium like a hyped up preschool playgroup at an inflatable funland. Those damn words are loud in there, and they're one-sided and, to be honest, they're also sort of pissed.

I have to try to go to bed now. The thought of that shouldn't stress me out, right? Make me antsy? That's definitely not going to be the suspiciously cute boy who crosses the gymnasium floor and asks me to dance and tells me his name is Sleep while we spin along to those circadian rhythms, no?

I am very, very exhausted.

i remember when you couldn't wait to love me, used to hate to leave me

A typical night at a typical bookstore:

She - "You know, I've been going to a lot of movies lately and when I've been to them, I've been seeing a lot of previews for movies that are going to be coming out soon, and I figure I'd like to read the books first, so, tell me, where would I find those books?"

Me - "..........." (I believe I actually look just like that when I'm waiting for a customer to fill in big, obvious blocks of missing information. My eyes morph into feathery quotation marks and my mouth is a series of dots)

She - blink, blink.

Me - "Well, since we broke up last month, you've not been calling me to go to movies with you. Because you didn't want to go out with me anymore, I don't know what you've been seeing. I thought when we ended things, we'd at least try to still be friends. Maybe still get together for a movie. Maybe split a dessert somewhere afterward."

She - "Um..."

Me - (pointing to the good natured man with her) "I suppose you've been going to movies with this guy, haven't you?"

She - blink, blink.

Me - "I miss you."

I swear I have the customer service skills of an angel (though the lady searching for MC. Hammer's greatest hits CD last year may recall it differently)(though I was being fantastically nice and cute during that encounter)(you know what? just go read that post because it is MUCH better than this one is turning out to be), and in the end, I sold her copies of The Time Traveler's Wife (have had this book forever, but never read it), Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously (read this and very much enjoyed it), and I Love You Beth Cooper (love this book, but fear the mess the movie could be). This, friends, is what's called up selling. I like to call it selling the hell out of my night. My managers probably like to call it earning my place on the schedule.

She - "Thanks for all your help!"

Me - "No problem at all! Hope you enjoy them! Oh, and, um, you know...call me."

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Can I just put this out there? If you're out shopping somewhere and realize suddenly that you have a pressing need to pass gas, and it's so urgent you just have to drop it right then and there, STAY IN THE AISLE AND OWN IT! The last two nights I have been leading customers to different areas of the store and found myself both times struck down by a smooth criminal. Other times I've fallen into the post mortem, had customers wander that way and then pause, thinking the offense had been committed by my hands, which leaves me aghast and wanting to clear my name through the unclear air. Stay in the aisle and own it, dammit it, or I will totally call you on it as I see you slinking around on the other side of the book shelves (I'm talking to you, Guy I Saw Peering Over The Top Of Reference Books Yet Who Refused To Make Eye Contact With Me While I Declared 'Jeeeeesus' At The Ass Of Your Undoing).

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

So should I go see Rick Springfield when he's here in town tonight? "Haven't you seen him enough already?" you ask. Well, sort of. I mean, sure, if you consider two times enough. But the thing is, the Jonas Brothers were less than two hours away from me Tuesday night and I'm convinced my Tool Man kept the boys away from home an additional night this week so they wouldn't be here to see me all twitchy and bitchy because he didn't get tickets for me, which would have been ideal gifts for the birthday and/or Mother's Day he completely blew off (not that I'm bitter)(I TOTALLY AM, btw). Rick Springfield is my original Joe Jonas (and at 59, he's entirely age appropriate), so I'm tempted to bite the bullet. I need a human touch because I think I'm this close to giving Tool Man a human punch (Sally had a hard time holding back). Actually, I just wanted a reason to link that video again.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

I should have just shut up after the first portion of this post. You know what? Honestly, just go read the previous posts I linked to in here. They're much better. OK, maybe 'much' is a bit much. I think I really need to go see a movie.

guess who's back, back again. fadkog's back, tell a friend

In the immortal words of the poet David Lee Roth, I heard you missed me! I'm back!

At least I hope most of you missed me. I'm not so sure about a couple of you who apparently used my absence to sneak away from subscribing to my blog. I know, I know. It's not you, it's me, yada, yada, yada. Was it that time I mentioned my kick ass rack that did it for you? Or maybe it was when I alluded to Tool Man offing me to collect my life insurance policy? Suffice to say, Tool Man didn't off me at all last week, my rack is still intact, and, oh yes, I missed you all like the desert misses the rain.

You're probably wondering how I had so much time to miss you all during my marvelous brokecation (Which, wow, let me just say time really does fly when you're having fun! Science? Cross that theory off your list!). Well, let me give you a little tip. When you and your beloved are discussing vacations and you then subsequently put in your time off request at work, make sure your beloved is aware that he (or she, but in this case he) is ALSO supposed to request time off. Both of you being free and unconstrained by this thing called life over the same period of days is really going to make your vacation a heck of a lot more conducive to things like family bonding if, in fact, family bonding is on the list of sights you want to check out (after you've shot down things like explore caves and visit the world's most boring museum on the list of suggested activities).

Because let's just say I found out last Monday morning that my Tool Man didn't ask for time off last week after all and for a moment or twenty, in my mind, I was totally pawing through our files of important papers to see just how much life insurance we took out on him last year and starting to watch reruns of CSI:It's Everywhere to determine if there's such a thing as the perfect crime. Alas, rest assured, I discovered the answers to my questions were (1) probably not enough and (2) apparently not. It's a good thing I'm not much into nature because seriously, for a couple of days, I wasn't a happy camper!

So onto the next thing on your list, which is wondering what I did all last week with my fantastic boys while we enjoyed our brokecation. The following is just a sampling of the fun we had:

• Enjoyed a delightful picnic and visited the zoo.
• Considered beginning adoption proceedings for the neighbor boy whose at my house constantly.
• Took the boys swimming most days. My favorite day was the one when a lady sat near me and pulled out her bible, bible study materials, bowed silently in a moment of prayer, then answered her cell phone and proceeded to scream obscenities to the person calling her. Amen.
• The preceding priceless moment was topped, however, the following day when, as I was leaving the library, I bore witness to a man standing under a shade tree across the street who had stripped down to a jock strap, and, because it seemed so shockingly urban for such a thing to be occurring in the suburbs, I did a circle around the block to be sure my weary eyes hadn't deceived me. Answer? No, they had not. Jock. Strap.
• Did craft projects with the boys. What can you do with a few empty Pringles cans, some cat litter, pipe cleaners, and paint? More than you could ever imagine!
• Read three books. One was good, one was just another collection of the same old thing packaged in a pretty cover, and one was god awful.
• Learned that Kevin Jonas got engaged. You'll be pleased to know I handled this news without rending of garments, gnashing of teeth, or pulling of hair. Much the same way I did when, back in the days when I wasn't a cougar and it seemed far more logical for me to be all agog about a boy band, I learned Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran was to marry a woman from near where I live. Kevin feels like the default Jonas. Would I have wept had I learned it was Joe who got engaged? I'll never say. Suffice to say, however, when Simon LeBon married, I was a wreck, so I think you know the answer.
• Had a dream I had sex with Jon Gosselin, and I wish I was kidding, but alas, no, I'm not. Apparently, in my dream life, I find Ed Hardy wear and mid-life crisis ear piercings totally sexy, and also, while Jon may deny to the tabloids that he has ever used the word "babe" in his life, suffice to say that, in my dreams, he says it way too much. I also just shuddered (again) sharing this part of my life with you.

It was a busy week, and we were able to fit Tool Man into the action over the weekend when he was finally free, when we did decidedly 'boy things' like spent SIX HOURS AT AN ARCADE, which would have been tolerable had a trio of high school boys not taken the damn Dance Dance Revolution game hostage the entire time, busting their sweet dance moves while taking turns videotaping themselves for their MySpace pages and pretending I wasn't standing there wanting (nay - NEEDING!) to dance because let me repeat - we spent SIX HOURS AT AN ARCADE.

So now it's Monday and that means I'm back to the taxing task of my stressful work life. Four hours a night, three nights a week?! Don't ask me how I do it! It also means my Tool Man is on vacation for a few days, and that whole thing about crawling through caves? About an hour ago, he and the boys left to travel across the state to do just that. They'll also stay overnight in a hotel and enjoy a few more adventures tomorrow before making their way home. Fueled with a cocktail of powdered sugar donuts (which will later be infused with a variety of Lunchables, beef jerky, licorice, nuclear orange peanut butter crackers, salted nut rolls, and juice boxes)(because nothing gives you stamina for hiking and exploring in Iowa's armpit-like weather like unnatural food products), my youngest son sped around the house this morning looking for his sneakers and yelling about how ENSHOESIASTIC he was for the adventure.

I just realized that maybe there was something scarily prophetic about my 'Sex With Jon Gosselin' dream (can't wait for the Google searches that land here because of that) as Tool Man and I totally just pulled a Jon and Kate this week and will be living separate lives. Except, how exciting, I'll be doing his laundry while he's away! I'll bet Kate washed her hands of that task the first moment Jon came home drunk (allegedly) and excited at getting a young girl to smile at him. I would've the first time he showed me those Ed Hardy jeans, but whatever.

Anyway, this post is all over the place. Probably because I'm exhausted from the lack of sleep I got last night dwelling on how I have to stay alive through tonight while alone in the house, something I've only done twice before in all the time we've lived here, and I'm not so sure that second time wasn't just because an intruder or Bigfoot just took pity on me as I huddled up in bed with the covers up over my head and a bathroom light blazing in the hallway. I'd also find it acceptable to blame it on my head compensating for the utter (and yet surprisingly delightful) silence around here. Silence I must now go break up by turning on the washing machine. Assuming I survive this night, I'll be around to catch up with you as soon as possible. Let us never be away from each other this long ever again!

vacation all i ever wanted it, vacation had to stay at home

Usually at this point in the summer, you're forced to read posts about my exciting journeys to the depths of Missouri, and by 'forced' I mean 'entranced,' because, as you can tell by my previous post, I'm filled with wonderful tales of whimsy, delight, and now obvious desperation, that you WANT to read things here. To FORCE you to read about my exotic travels to the Show Me (A Good Time, Dammit) state would mean linking them all here, and to be honest, I'm just too lazy. If you are one who hasn't read any of what I will one day publish as Misery (not to be confused by the book of the same name by one-time horror master Stephen King), just type Missouri into that little 'search this blog' box.

By the way, no offense Missouri. As I've said before, you are home to many of my friends, my alma mater, and the burial place of my virginity. You and I are solid, my friendly neighbor to the south.

Seriously, after all that chit chat up there, I should have just linked all the previous posts...

Anyway, this year, when the topic of driving hours and hours with my Mom and sons to my sister's home near St. Louis came up, I put my foot down and said, "Meh." In case you didn't pause to search out my tales of travel woe (and I know you people, so don't lie to me and say you did), my sister's idea of a great Chamber of Commerce trip to St. Louis means visiting Target multiple times a day. Every day. It used to mean 'that was so much fun I wanna ride it again and again!' adventures to Wal Mart, but since her town got a spankin' new Super Target (moment of reverence for the Great Red Bullseye), our adventures happen sooner, with just a stroll down the street.

In case you're wondering if there's anything special at a St. Louis-area Super Target that can not be found at any Iowa-based Target, super or not, the answer is no. Well, except for that one time I found those Hershey's 100 Calorie Snack Packs with the little Reece's Pieces in them, and my Mom was all, "Do you really think you need that candy?" and I was all, "IT'S TECHNICALLY NOT CANDY!! IT'S A 100 CALORIE SNACK PACK!! GET OFF MY BACK, WOMAN!!!" right there in the snack food aisle. Then I might have cried and ate all six bags that came in the box, thus defeating the point of 100 Calorie Snack Packs in less than five minutes and not, as you might imagine, showing my Mom who is the boss of me now. What. Ever.

Anyway, back to the point I was trying to make when I said "Meh." After I said that, I added, "If going there means doing nothing but going to Target every day, I think I'll just stay home and save that extra penny in sales tax I'd spend there (because you know as well as I it's impossible to leave a Target empty handed) and apply it to our family vacation fund."

So that's what Tool Man and I are presently doing. We figure we have enough saved up now to walk across our yard. Based on the number of rabbits presently feasting in the area, we'll tell the boys it's a safari, and if we're lucky, a feral cat will wander over from the new development area down the street. I guess this is what people mean when they say they are taking a staycation. I'm renaming it a "This Is What It's Like To Be Brokecation." Look kids! There's the neighbor's dog barking at the fence! It's just like going to the zoo, only all the animals are actually awake! Yippee!

Actually, my Tool Man and I are so rarely in the same place at the same time with these kids we made when we were in the same places at the same time that we're having a difficult time coming up with ideas of things to do as a family. Yesterday, he suggested we drive several hours from here and explore some type of caves, and I stared at him blankly, then asked if there would be bugs there, or perhaps Lost Boys, which, that part I'd be OK with, but not the bugs, so basically, he fell under the immediate impression that didn't excite me, and then I saw him scratch "go swimming at your aunt and uncle's pond" from the list, which shouldn't have been there in the first place because when I married him, I told him I don't put this body into anything where other things live. It's like he doesn't even know me, but that's a blog post for another day and this one is getting out of hand already.

This planning something fun for us all to do is like work, which it shouldn't be because work is work and our work doesn't net us enough for anything but a brokecation. Later today, I may break out the photos of the times Tool Man and I enjoyed trips to Disney, both Land AND World, and guilt the children when they ask where the photos with them in the Mickey Mouse ears are and I respond with, "This was before you came along! Back when Mom and Dad were carefree and financially solvent." Or I'll take them mini golfing. Either way, the point I'm trying to make here is I'm taking a little family break this week and I'm going to try to not be around these crazy Internets much. Maybe I'll get inspired and try to dig up some old posts that were hardly read. Or maybe I'll still be mini golfing. And if a few weeks go by and you've still not seen me around, please, I beg you, contact my local authorities and ask them to search every Iowa cave masquerading as a tourist destination, because there's a pretty good chance Tool Man's going to lure me to one anyway and he may try to hide my body there. That life insurance policy we took out on my last July will likely fund a pretty fantastic family vacation.

p.s. - Missouri, in case you're reading, fear not. I already feel guilty, so look for me around Labor Day.

could you describe the ruckus, sir?*

Why my sons are not destined to ever have careers in law enforcement, spy rings, or as leaders of any sort of heist activity (which sucks because I enjoy saying the word heist):

If, for whatever reason, one leaves the room they were just jointly in, within seconds, the other will come out of the trance of play and inevitably ask me, "Hey! Where's INSERT ONE OF THE BOYS' NAME HERE!?"

Contrary to what you might believe, our house is not a mansion, and inevitably, the other boy (aka - The Missing) is often no further than the next room, typically within plain sight. More often than not, they are also causing some sort of commotion in the form of gas emission or tripping, thus leaving behind a trail of clues so vast their disappearance can hardly be described as a cold case. Yet I hear "Hey! Where's THAT OTHER KID WHO LIVES HERE?!" 5 trillion times a day AND I AM NOT EXAGGERATING!!

Occasionally, my oldest, in an attempt to either move up the law enforcement ranks or prepare for a future on the game show circuit, will respond to his own query with, "Let me guess. He's in the bathroom!"

Did the sound of bathroom activities going on less than 20 feet from where you're sitting tip you off, Colonel Mustard? Or was it when Professor Plum panicked and yelled out, "It was me in the bathroom with the two-ply! And by the way, I'm done and I wiped a little!"

(OMG...as I'm writing this, my sons literally just passed by each other like phantoms, my youngest coming down the stairs and my oldest having just walked by the stairs to the front door, easily spottable to the other, and yet my youngest just bounded into the family room where I'm sitting and said, "I'm guessing That Big One You Loved First is in the basement?" And so another day of CSI: The Suburbs begins. But OMG!)(to the kid's credit, the basement door IS ajar, so I suppose I can understand why he's pencil that down in his flowchart of clues).

Why my sons are actually quite well suited for a career in law enforcement, spy rings, but still not as leaders of any sort of heist activity because I just realized that pulling off a heist is akin to committing a crime and that's not what I wanted for them when I held them in my arms as tiny babies and dreamed big things for them one day:

I just realized that, despite my random snarky responses and "Are you serious? Are you kidding me with this?" queries when they ask where the other has vanished to, I INSTANTLY cave and point out where the culprit has skulked off to even when sometimes pointing that out means doing nothing more than responding, "He's sitting right beside you!"

Do you see it? They are fantastic investigators! They get potential witnesses such as myself to cave instantly! I don't even make them work for it! Why,I'd have been kicked out of the Scooby Gang instantly because I'd have thwarted the whole fantastic musical number/chase scene with those intrepid teenage investigators and pesky villains like the Creeper and 10,000 Volt Ghost. I should have realized this already, of course, based on the number of times they've come barreling from miles away into the house screaming "We want ice cream, too!" when they've heard me quietly crack the freezer open for the carton of tin roof sundae I thought I'd hidden from them. I'd have enjoyed a delicious bowl of fudge revel and crunchy peanuts if it weren't for those damn pesky kids!

Huh. I guess the point of this post is a far cry more pointless than it originally was going to be, so good job, me! At any rate, I get to use a fantastic quote from The Breakfast Club (which, if you Google to see if you have it correctly, as I did even though I don't know why because I quote from that movie on the daily, so forgive me, Judd Nelson, for dishonoring you so, you'll be humored to know that Backpacking Dad comes up as the second entry in the search but now your goal is to unseat him there. Or perhaps that's just me. What would I be doing if I weren't out making myself a better citizen?

* My thanks to Backpacking Dad for pointing out my original use of The Breakfast Club quote was slightly wrong. Alas, this allowed him to retain his number two Google position and I came in as a neo maxi zoom dweebie in the fifth spot. The world is an imperfect place...

(of course, this is only if you Google 'can you describe the ruckus, sir?' thus, I'm declaring this a draw because I cannot compete with a man with a Leonardo DiCaprio goatee)(even though I have a crazy awesome rack)

tom petty gets 75% of the credit for this father's day

So I've got a confession to make. I planned to let Father's Day cruise right on by around here. Because - and here's where I break some of your hearts - I can be a real bitch. I dwelled on letting it go unrecognized for days (weeks...it was totally weeks) with the sense of "Ha! I'll just show you!" swirling around in my brain, letting it bump into all the other stuff that's up there, primarily "Hmmm...I wonder if we have any ice cream left" and "Why are we watching this, why are we watching this, why are we watching this....I wonder if we have any ice cream left."

"Why you gotta be such a little bitch?" you're probably wondering, and if so, I'd like us both to take a step back now and rethink this label now that I've slapped it on myself. Because listen, I'm not perfect, but I'm certainly not a bitch, either. At least not a total one. However, I do have a tendency to be a wee bit petty. Eh, who am I kidding? I can sometimes be so petty that if I bumped into Tom Petty, he'd be all, "Listen, when I sang 'I won't back down,' I was talking about me, not you, lady. Take a deep breath and let it go already!" and depending on my mood, I'd probably be all, "Damn the torpedoes! It's Tom Petty!" or "Eh, screw you, Tom Petty. Don't come around here no more!"

So why was I so petty? My family totally blew off Mother's Day. COMPLETELY!! Maybe to some of you, that's not a big deal. It's just a day. Every day is Mother's Day, yada, yada, yada. Well...no. Not in my mind. Especially not in my mind that was also littered with thoughts about how they'd also blew off my birthday last fall. I KNOW! Believe me, there was no Samantha Baker and Jake Ryan meet cute atop the table at the end of either of those days. At the end of which I mentioned the lack of a spoken greeting or even a greeting card hurt my feelings.

Though I think the exact words I said were "This sucks so, so much..." And then I thought of exacting my petty revenge. Ignore it all? Feasible. Oh, but what about going passive aggressive? Totally over the top? Is it too late to hire skywriters? What kind of permits do I need to get lined up for a big top circus in the backyard? Buy him new underwear?

So yes, while I laid in bed until after 10 a.m., on Father's Day (oh, yes, I totally slept in!)(only because my Tool Man has been working the last several Sundays, including Father's Day, because triple overtime is a lusty, insatiable mistress, my friends), I twirled the ends of my sinister fake villain mustache, tapped my fingertips together in evil pondering, and perhaps cackled maniacally while thinking how I was going to play the day super cool.

Then I rolled over, closed my eyes, and prepared to dream a little bit more. Except it felt like I wasn't alone...and when I opened my eyes, I saw Tom Petty standing there next to my bed, and forget Bigfoot, people, because Tom Petty next to your bed is creepy. Then he spoke.

"Good love is hard to find...good love is hard to find..." he said.

"What's your point, Tom Petty?" I asked.

"You got lucky, babe..." he said.

"Listen, before you go any further, I found him!" I countered.

But by then, Tom's point was made loud and clear. So while rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I asked if he wouldn't mind sticking around to bust out with Here Comes My Girl for Tool Man when he got home as a special dedication, but when I opened my eyes, Tom Petty was gone and there stood my little boy, smiling and armed with a few key brownie making ingredients.

I (free fell...heh...) out of bed, got pretty for the day (and the dad around here), and over the next few hours, the boys and I baked brownies, planned a meal fit for a king, decked the couch out for a king's nap, and wrapped the gifts we'd purchased earlier in the week for my Tool Man. Their dad.

Because yes, Tom Petty or not, I'd totally caved earlier in the week on the whole passive aggressive approach to Father's Day. And not just because there weren't any greeting cards trumpeting "Now you know how it feels..." I did it because Tool Man is a damn awesome dad. That or he's a shark and the boys are tiny pilot fish who swarm around him. Or he's the sun his sons orbit around. Either way, it's not necessarily about me, it's about him. And I love that shiny shark, dammit.

But I did get him new underwear. Because what I've been folding every week is holier than the pope. And now that I've shared that with the world, I think I at least deserve a gift certificate for a couple cheap manicures next Mother's Day.

...and somewhere, Tom Petty's muttering "Yer so bad..."