(Or, Random Snippets Out Of Which No Sane Person Would Try To Assemble Something.)

I am not sleeping well. The good news is that half of what happens when I’m sleep-deprived is RILLY RILLY RILLY hilarious (see previous post for reference; Robotic Monkey + No Sleep = hilarity). The bad news is that the other half of what happens is SO IMPORTANT and EARTH SHATTERING and possibly SO MEANINGFUL that in my quest to decipher the impact of said events on my terribly serious existence, I often end up quite melancholy. On account of the far-reaching, dire implications of things like… being out of sandwich bags.

Yes. You understand.

Wait… you don’t understand? Okay, that’s not a problem. Just, um, go about your business for the next 24 hours, taking care to sleep a maximum of 3 hours out of those 24. Then come back.

That’ll work.

* * * * *

So I was at work today, and I happened to put my hand into the front pocket of my skirt. Maybe I was looking for a tissue. I don’t remember. Anyway, I felt a scrap of paper in there, so I pulled it out.

We get Chinese food for lunch once a week. About a month ago, I got a fortune that really struck me. I remember declaring at the lunch table (like the complete dork that I am), “I’m saving this one!” Apparently, I was wearing this same skirt, and shoved the fortune in my pocket.

Fast forward to this afternoon. As I drew the fortune out of my pocket, I noted that it had the soft and weathered crinkliness that could only mean the skirt (and the fortune) had been through the wash. Still, the rectangle was crisply folded right in the center, and I marvelled that it had survived, rather than morphing into a tiny spitball in the corner of my pocket. This must really be one I was meant to save, I thought.

So I unfolded it, eager to remember why I’d wanted to keep it in the first place.

It was blank. The paper was intact, but all of the ink had washed out.

* * * * *

Winter around here lasts about 15 months out of the year. I swear. During a soothing jaunt to Target to case the clearance this winter, I found some ant baits at half off. I stood at the end cap for a full five minutes, debating.

Me: Wow, these are cheap!
Also Me: Ant traps? It’s January. Back away.
Me Again: There is no such thing as an ant trap that won’t get used. Every penny counts. Buy them.
Still Me: I dunno. Do they expire?
Me, Becoming Progressively More Uncomfortable Conversing With Myself Over Insecticide: Oh. My. God. Shut the hell up and buy them already.

Thank goodness I bought them, because I saved… ummm… a dollar or two. I think. And tonight, I killed my first ant of the season. It was in the upstairs bathroom, and I don’t know where it came from, and I’m sure it wasn’t alone, and so NATURALLY I wanted to go set out the ant traps RIGHT AWAY before the rest of the ant army came to take over my home.

I can’t find the traps I bought. And I’ll be dammed if I’ll buy more, when there are PERFECTLY GOOD ant traps SOMEWHERE around here.

* * * * *

Once upon a time, I went to school for eleventy thousand gazillion years. And then I was so old, I died. Wait. No. Then I got a job! And the job was good. And I had a 401k. And then I left that job and took another one. And I rolled my 401k from the first job into the 401k at the second job. And at the second job, they kept paying me more money, so I kept putting more into my 401k, and the economy was great, and it was exactly like being really rich in Monopoly.

Unfortunately, before I could purchase a hotel to put on Boardwalk, I “retired” to do things like extract Cheerios from my daughter’s sinuses. No matter! There was lots of money in that 401k! Money that was growing! And it’s not like I’m ever going to need that money, anyway, because I plan to die peacefully of a coronary in my sleep after Chickadee pierces her tongue in about seven more years.

Anyway.

Statements kept coming, and the money kept growing, and all was lovely. Then two things happened around the same time:
1) We moved.
2) The second company was swallowed by a Very Big Company.

End result: my 401k disappeared into the ether. *POOF* gone. Now, periodically I thought about this, and thought perhaps I should do something about it, like, say, FIND it, but then something always got in the way. Like, needing to swab vomit out of someone’s ear with a Q-tip. Or breaking up the ice dams on the roof. Or checking my husband into the psych ward at the hospital. You know how it is.

Now I have a new job and a new 401k, so I set about tracking down my old one, both so that I could again perform the Sacred Ritual Of the Rolling In and so that I would not have to listen to certain people lecture me about how not knowing the whereabouts of my money is irresponsible. Four phone calls and a week later, I received my first 401k statement in five years.

And I have… well, you don’t need actual figures. My 401k went AWOL for five years, and during that time, no money was contributed, and the stock market crashed. I was all set to discover that I didn’t have enough left to buy Baltic Avenue.

Turns out that I have just a little less than I had five years ago. Proof positive that I understand nothing about investing.

* * * * *

The light in the kids’ bathroom is better than anywhere else in the house. My children are at that age where they require supervision but very little actual help while they bathe.

So naturally, I stand at the mirror and pluck my eyebrows and scan for other random facial hairs when they’re in the shower.

(Note to my beloved: I am absolutely lying. No hair grows anywhere on my body that it shouldn’t. Smooches!)

(Note to my father: Not that anyone is seeing any part of my body, ever. Except in heavy clothing.)

(Note to self: Going. To. Hell.)

I am a multitasker. I stand there, and peer at myself in the mirror, and attack rogue hairs, and maintain a running examination as I do so.

“Did you wash your hair?”
“Ready for soap?”
“Did you wash your neck?”
“Your ears?”
“The bottoms of your feet?”

It’s not a bad system. Except that tonight, as I was quizzing Monkey, this happened:

Me: Did you wash under your scrotum?
[Side note: no mamby-pamby cutesy body part names in my house, buster.]
Chickadee: *from the hallway* His SOAKEM?
Me: SCROTUM. Go put your jammies on and mind your own business, Chickie.
Him: *from the shower* Scrotum! SCROTUM SCROTUM SCROTUM! What’s my scrotum?
Me: You know what your scrotum is. It’s where your testicles are.
Chickadee: TESTINALS???
Me: STOP. EAVESDROPPING.
Him: Oh yeah! Now I remember. My scrotum is where I keep my corn.

It’s where he… uhhhhh… CORN?

If anyone finds my left eyeball, could you return it to me, please? I accidentally poked it out with the tweezers.

I suspect it landed near the ant baits.