In Which I Take Back All the Nice Things I Said About Old People

So I'm in line at the post office the other day. I was probably six people back and the line continued to form behind me. Along one part of the wall was a rack of greeting cards. As Harley and I waited in line he took interest in the cards. Of course. He'd pick out a card, look at it and place it back exactly where it didn't belong. So I'd take the card and put it back it its spot. This had happened a good ten times. It wasn't hard. He'd take a card, I'd put it back. No biggie. He wasn't being bad. He was entertained and staying close to me so I was fine with this "game".

Then an old man and his grown daughter got in line about three people behind us. He asks the gal behind me, "is that your little boy?"

I tell him he's my little boy and, naturally, prepare myself to hear what everyone says, "oh he is so CUTE!!! Look at his darling blond hair!! Oh, those blue eyes!!! His smile!!! What a doll!!!"

No.

To my surprise the old man says, "well he's playing with all the cards! If that was my child I wouldn't let him play with that. Oh, now he's moving them. NO! NO! That's not where that one goes!! HEY!! Hey, you can't put that there!" His daughter tried to politely shush him. He tells her, "I'm just being mock-serious".

Mock-serious??? Who says that? Old Man River, that's who.

I keep giving him my best "stop talking to my child like that" smile. I don't get offended easily. I know old people have lost their filters. And their ability to control the VOLUME OF THEIR VOICE. His daughter was clearly embarrassed by her father. She had the look of "please don't get mad, he's an old geezer" on her face. But the only reason I'm mad now is because I continued to replace the cards but he doesn't know I've been doing this all along. He thinks I'm doing it now because he made a fuss about it.

By now I've moved far enough up in the line that Harley's too far away from me for my comfort. So I gather him up and set him on the counter. He tried to grab all the "change of address" forms and I told him he'd send that old man into a tailspin if I let him play with those.

So we mailed DeNae's 25th wedding anniversary gift and were on our way. It got me thinking, though. Will I be a sweet old lady or an ornery old bag? I haven't decided yet.

Today is the last day to donate your Snuggie to Kristina's oldies. But don't give one to that old man. OK, give him one but make sure it's a PINK one.

It WaS HITting Everything BUT The Fan!!!

Alright, people. This post is going to contain a lot of TMI. Seriously. A. Lot.

I LOVE TMI!!! Love it, I tell ya! I live for it! I love everything from child-birth to periods to bowel movements to **sex** (not tons of details, just generalities) to toenail fungus to...to...to...well, I love it all. And I want to hear it all. And, my friends, I tend to share it all.

Last Tuesday I got up and had my morning movement. Typically my #2 is round and pebbley (which I learned later wasn't the way it's supposed to be. But it's always been that way so I'm not going to worry about it.) and I'm able to (if need be) give a courtesy flush. This time, however, it came out in one long piece. Not allowing for the courtesy flush. Then, like I always do, I used too much TP. Tavis gets so frustrated with me because I use a ton of toity. But I can't risk having a finger break through!!! Hayden and I use waaaaay too much. Avery, on the other hand, uses like half a square which is just gross.

So I flush. And the toilet makes that sound that we all know. The sure sound that it's not going down. It fills up. Then slowly drains down. The...um...culprit, however did go down. So what I'm left with is a wad of T.P. at the bottom of the toilet with no water in it. You got the visual? A few minutes go by and I flush again. Again with the filling of the toilet.

Crap.

Again it drains slowly down while I go get the plunger. Flush again and plunge like crazy. The toilet fills up and this time it overflows! But during these couple of seconds of overflowing I think to myself, "well this sucks, but once the toilet stops filling it'll stop overflowing".

But guess what? This time the toilet doesn't stop filling. Y'know how your toilet will sometimes continue to run and you have to jiggle the handle? Well, that's fine as long as your toilet isn't clogged because it'll just drain as it fills. Yeaaaaahhh...not so much when there's a...um...thing in the pipes.

So the water keeps coming. I keep plunging. Water is filling my little half-bath.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!!!!!!"

The water flows out of the bathroom, into the hall and into the kitchen which is right next to the bathroom. It covered half the kitchen floor. (Trust me, the thought of sh*t water on my kitchen floor is nauseating.) I tried to turn off the water to the toilet but it wouldn't turn! Luckily just one week prior Tavis showed me where the main shut off valve to our water was. (Conveniently located inside the heat vent next to the front door.) So I run and turn it off.

Ran downstairs to the laundry room to grab some dirty towels to sop up the water and Oh. My. Gosh. It's running in to my basement!!! We have a 6 ft crawl space under my house and the toilet water was running in to it.

"CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!!"

Now I'm just at a loss as what the *h* to do! So I call Tav. Every husband wants to get a phone call from his frantic wife saying there's crap water all over the house. Luckily he was almost home. People, there was so much water on the floor that the towels wouldn't even touch it. Wouldn't even scratch the surface. I put three down on the bathroom floor and there was still literally 2 inches of water on the floor. Not to mention the totally soggy hall carpet and the half-inch of water on the kitchen floor.

So Tav gets home and we survey the scene. I've thrown away my hat that was on the floor. There's a bag of toilet paper in the garbage because it's soaked. Ironically, the toilet bowl cleaner pad thingies were floating around the toilet. And I've got an empty storage bin with the soaked towels in it.

"Where's the shop-vac?" I say to him.

"It's not meant to suck up THIS much water."

"THE CARPET CLEANER!!!!!"

So we got our carpet cleaner and started sucking up the water. It worked great! And came in very handy when it came time to clean the poop water out of the carpet in the hall. Although, let's be honest. Every time we walk past there, we're gonna remember. I find myself skirting around the area all the time. Even though he did a good job of steam cleaning it.

After all (most) the water was sucked up I Pine Sol-ed the hell outa that bathroom! And the kitchen! Did I mention my darling niece was on her way? Ya. Just as the mayhem was winding down, Vanessa got to my house. I went running out to greet her....."VANESSSSSSAAAAA!!!!!!! WE'RE HAVING A CRISIS!!!!!"

She called her mom to tell her she'd made it safely and started telling her what had happened. The story really could only be told first hand so I got on the phone with DeNae and told her all about it. First we laughed at how completely insane the story was and then at what our lives have become. Every crisis or trauma is....what? A BLOG POST!!!!! You know the whole time I was trying to shut off the toilet I was thinking, "I should grab a picture of this so I can blog about it". But I also thought, "pretty sure Tavis wouldn't see the great blog potential this story has and would probably be all...'get the poop water off the floor'". He's such a fun hater!!!

I have two other number 2 stories but this one is really long so I'll summarize: The next day I was changing a number 2 diaper of Harley's and took his pants off only to find number 2 all down his leg! Of course I'm not expecting to have number 2 outside the diaper so I'm not being careful and it get all over me! My leg, my hand, etc. I called Tav inside from the garage to help me with that one.

The day after that, Hayden and Harley were in the bath together (My older kids literally fight over who gets to bathe with Harley. He's just so dang CUTE in there!) and I was on the phone (a rare occasion as I really don't like to use my phone voice). Hayden starts screaming "MAMA!!!!! HARLEY POOPED IN THE TUB!!!!!"

Yep, he sure did. A lot.

Snuggly Buggly (my mom says that)

It seems the topic of old people has been on my mind a lot this week. On Wednesday my maternal grandpa would have turned 100 years old. He died at 88 1/2, so he lived a very long life. My grandma is still alive and kicking (butt) at the age of 96. Yes, she's a little slower and a lot deafer and requires constant care (which requires my mom to go tend her every other weekend) but she's sharp as a tack up there (taps side of head). She can tell you the names of all her grand kids, great-grand kids and great-great grand kids. (Yes, that's FIVE generations!!) She can tell you most of their birthdays or at least the general time they were born.

This is my grandma at my dad's funeral. No, she doesn't have a black eye. That thing's been there for as long as I can remember. I don't know what it is. DeNae, do you?

And on that same Wednesday I ate breakfast with my very good friend Kristina P. Who is doing something really, really great. She's doing a "Snuggies for Seniors" drive. If you don't know Kristina then A: you're really missing out on one of the funniest people ALIVE and B: she's kind of obsessed with the Snuggie. And by "kind of" I mean it consumes her every living, breathing thought.

Oh my heck, I did it!!! I "grabbed the button" and I put it on here! I've never done it before! YAYAYAYAYAYAY meeee!!! I don't know how to get rid of that line next to it, though. Baby steps.

So please, click on those cute little old people and do your part to keep these geezers warm! I know I will be!

After all, if we didn't have old people who else would give me a 10% tip???