Enough Cookies, Already!

The reason nothing ever gets done around here is because my life is like that mouse who became famous for getting a cookie.

I sat down to write a transaction in the checkbook this morning, and discovered that I had recorded the current balance instead of a direct deposit last Friday. A mere difference of $6000. Not like that would come back to bite me in the butt.

I asked the just-risen #1 son if he had a correction pen. He gave me a Bic Wite-Out, which is a cinnamon babka to me, preferring PaperMate Liquid Paper as my go-to coverup. Of course Bic was cantankerous, flood or drought, no smooth glossing over as desired in my checkbook register.

While re-balancing, #1 asked me to make him breakfast. I offered a frozen sausage biscuit, which he could easily have microwaved himself, but which he said, after inhaling it, "Why should I do it when I can get you to do it for me?"

I returned to the scene of the checkbook debacle to fold clothes from the full laundry basket, which had been waiting patiently until finances were finagled. There I sat down and arose quickly, because I had spied something in Farmer H's recliner seat as I was plopping.

I picked up the offending matter, muttering, "What has he left in here NOW? It's not as bad as the banana peel he stuffed down the side of the chair. But I can't believe I didn't notice it when I was on the automated phone with the bank."

#1 butted in. "What? What are you talking about? I'm making my college shopping list. I can't concentrate." He came to investigate.

"THAT! Right there! That's what I'm talking about. It looks like...wait a minute! It looks like a piece of biscuit. Did you sit here while I was in the kitchen?"

"Yeah. I was hoping you would go on blaming Dad." He shoved his shopping list under my nose to see if I could think of anything he needed. Then he fetched his laptop and started showing off a new gadget he got last week that makes weird pattens from your hand movements. Which distracted me from making his college shopping list, and folding laundry.

At the bottom of the laundry basket, I had an extra single sock to keep the regular seven company. But don't worry, because when I went to throw in a load of clothes after my shower, I found its mate on the floor of my bathroom.

The shower had been planned all morning, but was put off until I brushed sweet, sweet-but-matted Juno, who was nowhere to be found on the porch. So I brushed Tank, all the while telling him, "You know, I don't really even like you, but you're the only dog I could catch, and who knew you had loose hairs down in you beagley coat." He did not hold it against me, our little tete-a-tete. That darn Ann would not come near me, so I had to trap her against the front wall of #1's room to take a few swipes. Then Juno came running across the wide expanse from the BARn, getting her no-longer-silky but dusty matted long hair soaking wet with radioactive rain. She rubbed all against my pajama legs begging for a brushing. A few swipes showed me that a wet dog is no grooming picnic.

I went to get into the shower and saw that I needed a new bar of soap. Then found the sock mate while gathering clothes for washing. I tossed in that load, meaning to put it in the dryer before going to town for my 44 oz. Diet Coke. I went back to #1's list, only to be telephonically harassed by a collection company who calls here all the time for two people who are not us. While hanging up on that recording, my cell phone rang in the kitchen. I called to The Pony to grab it, but he was too late. While he was bringing it to me, the house phone rang again with Farmer H asking about his load of gravel #1 was supposed to get. Which he got, while refusing to bring me a 44 oz. Diet Coke while he was in town.

As I checked Frig to see what was for lunch, I noticed that Farmer H had put last night's leftover vegetable beef soup in a dirty container and back into Frig. It's not that the container was dirty, dirty. It was soapy dirty. I had rinsed it out with soapy water, and left a bit in the bottom to soak out a stain. Since it looked clean even though it was sitting in the needs-to-be-washed area, Farmer H decided not to bend at the waist and grab an identical container from the corner cabinet by the sink.

I roped The Pony into going to town with me. But first I sent him out to the porch to dump the soup for the dogs. He came back complaining about being in the radioactive rain scraping it out. To which I informed him that he should have put it ON the porch, not OVER the rail, because the dogs would now go around back to eat it, while soaking up radioactive rain. He countered that he heard Farmer H yell at me last night for tossing chicken wing bones onto the porch for the dogs, rather than putting them in the dog food pans on the other side of the laundry room. Who puts chicken bones in the dog dish, I ask, assuming there are still people like me who see nothing wrong with feeding dogs chicken bones, since dogs have been eating chickens for thousands of years, and not leaving the bones behind because they fear a choking incident.

The #1 son called to ask if he could use my debit card, which I had given him to buy college supplies at The Devil's Playground, to buy fast food for lunch. I declared that I do not have a debit card so I can check 5000 transactions every month, and that he would just have to spend his own money and hope for reimbursement by the First Hillmomba Bank of Mom.

We got back from town, and I remembered that I had not put the clothes in the dryer. I washed up the waiting dishes. Then I had to make myself a tasty salad for lunch, which meant that I didn't sit down to lunch until 2:00, to which The Pony said, "You should have got something in town."

No sooner had I started making the salad than a man called to say Farmer H's new breather was in and he could pick it up by 4:30. Then he called back at 4:20, asking for Farmer H's cell phone number, because as he left the store with his breather, the directions fell out.

By then it was time to make supper, and after that I discovered about 15 gnats in the sink of the basement NASCAR bathroom, so I waged a bleach battle with them. Then I took time to blog, and #1 called to ask if he can buy himself some semi-college stuff off Amazon, and will I pay half...

Summer is supposed to be a time for teachers to relax, right?