Part 2: Seriously, call Stephen Hawking
This is part 2 in the Strange World of Clever Chick. Odd things have been happening to me for weeks now, and I had to document it, or lose what’s left of my sanity.
We have a very sad peach tree in the back yard. The previous owners, who we all know are morons, planted the thing at a 45 degree angle, so that it’s leaning across the only pathway in and out of the back yard. It is also surrounded by tons of massive trees, so it never gets enough sun. We live in Texas, so it never gets enough water, but neither does anything else. The first year we lived in the house, there were a series of hail storms that knocked every baby peach off the tree. The second year, squirrels at them all. This year however, we have Flapjack.
He chases squirrels like he’s in doggy heaven. It doesn’t matter if they’re in the trees, or on top of the fence, or in the yard. He races after each one as though he will really catch it. When they get into the peach tree, he can reach them because there’s a bench next to it, so I had high hopes of harvesting my own fruit this year. The peaches had a guardian. I have even been watering that crooked, ungrateful wretch every night. I went out there on Thursday to water. The peaches were about the size of a 50 cent piece, and starting to turn peach! I went out there on Friday. No need to water. They had all vanished overnight.
Last night, Tinkerbell, our Siamese cat, inexplicably started attacking the Chrsitmas lights that hang over our bed. They’ve been up for over a year, and she’s never taken any notice of them. She has brain damage from being hit by a car years ago, so I just picked her up, and carried her away from the lights, hoping she’d forget they were there. Hubby and I were laying in bed reading, and petting Flapjack. He likes to lay in bed between us for a little while before he goes to sleep on the floor. He suddenly perked up, and I realized he was looking very intently at something to the left of my head. I looked to see what was so fascinating. A roach.
I think I teleported. The next thing I knew I was standing on top of the ottoman, shrieking. Hubby already had a shoe in hand. Somehow he’d gotten the roach onto the floor, and was attempting to destroy it, but those things are crafty. After much shrieking, running, jumping, and more shrieking on my part, Hubby destroyed and flushed the beast. Woe ye who piss off my Husband, for that shalt be thoroughly vanquished with a flip flop. I, of course, was super-paranoid the rest of the night. I had to sleep with my hair in a braid, because I would flip out every time I saw one of my dark brown locks from the corner of my eye. We all know I do not deal well with roaches. I hope this teaches you all to pay attention to your animals. They don’t just predict hurricanes, and notify us of children in wells.
Another tiny weird thing happened the other day. I was in the shower, and I was washing my very long, heavy hair. A section of it dropped, hitting me on the shoulder. It felt like someone laid their hand on me, and it was freaky as hell!!
Some of you know that we’ve been attempting to have our upstairs bathroom remodeled for months now. There was a long-term leak (again left by the previous home owners, those fantastic human beings), which caused a ton of sheet rock to be damaged, so we have to have the entire tub, and tile surround area removed and replaced. All of this was supposed to be completed in April, but everything has been delayed repeatedly because we ordered our bathtub from Austin Plumbing Supply (link is to the Yelp page because their website has been shut down).
They were constantly putting us off, saying there were delays, or just not responding to emails or calls at all. After a few weeks of this, I looked them up on yelp, and they have only terrible reviews. They have an average of 1 out of 5 stars, so that should tell you something. Sometimes, I’m just not as clever as I try to be. I should have researched them before making a major purchase, but hopefully all of you lovely little minions can learn from my mistake. We finally got the tub and one of the parts delivered to the house, with the promise that the other part would be arriving in a couple weeks.
After even more back-and-forth, I got an email from my contractor this morning. They are closed. Went bankrupt. I think it’s kind of funny. I mean they deserve it, but they either owe me a part, or $75. I’ve already called my bank to dispute the charges since they didn’t deliver the product, so in a way this isn’t my problem any more. It’s nice to not worry about that horrible company anymore (at least for now), but we’re still no closer to being able to shower upstairs.
To top EVERYTHING off, my high school reunion is THIS FRIDAY (as I’m writing this. As you’re reading this, it was yesterday)!! That’s right it’s my ten year five year reunion (yes, I’m uh..(carry the 4)…23! Really!!) on Friday. I’ve been dieting, and I’ve lost about 10 pounds in the past 3 weeks, but it’s getting hard to be good. I went to Wendy’s yesterday. I still hang out with lots of my friends from high school, so I don’t think I’m nervous, but I keep having crazy dreams, like I’m supposed to get married but forgot to plan the wedding, or I’m supposed to be in medical school, but I never went to any classes, or I got a job but forgot to finish college, so now I have to finish it on the side without my boss finding out. All these crazy things keep happening, which are small, but they’re big enough to keep my slightly off-balance. Add bad sleep to that equation, and you get one crazy Clever Chick. Everyone, please wish me luck, and don’t let me have any carbs until Saturday.
I just don’t know
For some reason, I had a really bad night last night. No bad events occurred, I was just not performing to my usual standard, and bizarre events ensued.
First of all, my dishwasher has been pissing me off. Things are not coming out clean, even though it has plenty of that blue special liquid stuff in there. Also, the top water jet sprayer thing broke off, and I can’t afford to get it fixed. Our old dishwasher didn’t even have one on the ceiling, so I’m not too worried about it, and that happened about 2 months ago.
I decided the dirty dishes were due to the machine itself being dirty. I sprayed down the inside with vinegar, then, since we were out of dish washing detergent, I decided to use anti-bacterial soap. I swear I have done this in the past and it worked, but this time I completely filled both cups on the dispenser. I turned it on and went on my merry way.
Awhile later, Hubby went into the kitchen, and this is the next thing I heard:
Hubby: “OH NO!! OH NO!!” (sounding genuinely alarmed)
Me: “What? What is it?” (mildly alarmed)
Hubby: “What did you do?!”
Me, now fairly alarmed: “What did I do?” (picturing I left the burner on, and set something on fire, or melted plastic all over my stove top, I run into the kitchen)
Hubby: (points to soap bubbles spewing from dishwasher, covering about 1/4 of the kitchen floor, laughing heartily)
Me: “Oh, I thought I set something on fire”
Hubby: “No, you set it on WATER!”
He thought this was endlessly hilarious, and is super-proud of his pun.
The second thing that happened last night was also pretty thoughtless of me, but Hubby should have been on top of the situation as well. I made a big pot of turkey soup last night for dinner, and Hubby wanted some chips to go with it. We didn’t have any chips, so I tore up some tortillas, put them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven. I have done this many times before, including to make crunchy tortilla strips to put on top of soup.
For some reason, both I and Hubby (Mr. I NEED A SNACK) forgot they were in the oven for about 20 minutes. I finally smelled them, and raced into the kitchen screeching, “HOW COULD YOU FORGET ABOUT THE TORTILLAS??” They were golden brown, and probably waaayy too crunchy, but of course, Hubby ate them anyway.
The third thing wasn’t a big deal, but it just put the cherry on top of my retardation sundae. I was moving clothes from the washer to the dryer, and forgot the downy ball was in there. This happens a lot, but usually I catch it when I turn on the dryer and a horrific thumping ensues. This time I heard and acknowledged the thumping, even thinking to myself, “Huh, I wonder what that thumping is? Oh well”, before wandering back to the living room. Ten minutes later the thumping hadn’t stopped on its own, and it finally dawned on me that something must be wrong. I opened the dryer and dug around, then finally, FINALLY thought “Oh, it must be the downy ball!”
My thought processes were running about 10x slower than usual, for no apparent reason. It was at this point I threw up my hands and said no more chores for the evening. I proceeded to sit on the couch, watch Parks and Recreation on Netflix, and eat cake. Thank God I didn’t try anything challenging, like cleaning the oven. Who knows what kind of mayhem could have ensued?
