Today Is the Day (even though Today happened days ago)

Miss Spoken Hearts Chardonnay. 4-Ever.

Today is the day.

Today is the day I woke up with just fifteen minutes to feed, dress and drive two kids to school.

Today is the day I wash my hair with a handful of conditioner.

Today is the day I help Whore Mouth (aka Mom) move out so that Legal (aka Daughter) can move back in.

Today is the day I dream about a time when I will live alone. A day when there won't be one fucking chicken finger/nugget/tender in my freezer and I won't ever have to walk down the cereal aisle again. A day when I won't have to say things like, "What is this brown stuff dripping on the wall," or, "Please try to piss inside the toilet, not around it or above it or behind it."

Today is the day Legal will receive notice from her bank that, although her account has been active for less than two weeks, and although her overdraft was just $10, she has accrued $105 in overdraft charges.

Today is the day I will urge Legal to call her former employer and apologize for being an idiot.

Today is the day that she will not do it.

Today is the day every single kid within a one mile radius (total exaggeration) will play inside my garage and pull out every football, remote control car, basketball hoop, soccer ball, bubble blower, frisbee, doll and hula hoop (total non-exaggeration). With the exception of Miss Perceived, no other parent will supervise. One kid will crap his pants and will require escorting back to his home. This same kid will also try to drink power steering fluid. This cycle will repeat itself tomorrow. And the day after.

(Pausing to hug myself and rock back and forth)

But today is also the day that I will wash my sheets and fall in love with my bed again.

And today is also the day I will feed my children pizza and feed myself cold Chardonnay.

(Dear Chardonnay, I love you. For reals.)

And today is also the day that the little blue pills will arrive in the mail.

(Exhale...)

Today is a beautiful day.

Note to reader: 'Today' may have happened over the course of several days but for the purpose of expressing my extreme cuckooness, I've consolidated them into one. Plus, one day simply blurs into the next so fuck it.

Suicidal Cars and My Quest for Silence

The view from up here is stunning. Where is up here, you ask? I'm perched on my cross of martyrdom, removed from my body and watching the chaos that is my life unfold below me. The pity party is in full swing.

Somebody pass the vodka.

Whore Mouth landed a job as a caretaker for those who need their colostomy bags changed and suffer from violent mood swings, angered that they can no longer recognize the faces in front of them. Unfortunately, her car committed suicide before she could begin her first actual day of employment.

Pops loaned her his car and sure enough, she inspired suicide in yet another vehicle. She hasn't actually made it to work and has once again proved that "Irish Luck" has nothing to do with four leaf clovers and more to do with potato famines and hereditary substance abuse.

Didn't I ask somebody to pass the vodka?

She won $100 on a slot machine and sent half of it to my brother. It never got there.

But maybe her luck would change because she's been trying like hell to win one of those online sweepstakes or blog giveaways and maybe a win would be like a catalyst into the world of Lucky Bastards (yeah, I'm talking to you Johnny Boy). And when she got that email with the subject line that read, "Congratulations! You Won!!" she certainly thought that she was moving out of the shadows and into the sunshine. That is until she discovered that what she actually won was some air freshener. For her car. That she no longer has.

Even from up here on my cross, I can hear her crack and splinter.

Where the fuck is that vodka??

Ahhh, Whore Mouth. This bad luck comes at a time when she is supposed to be moving out of my house and into her own place so that she can get her granddaughter out of foster care.

And Legal has also moved back home and is sleeping on my couch. This translates into a number of things:

• My phone will never, never, never stop ringing.
• My grocery bill will skyrocket yet she will complain that there is nothing to eat.
• I will gather tumbleweeds of red hair that roll around the house because she sheds like a Siberian Husky in the summer.
• I will discover a trail of discarded clothing, hair ties and hoop earrings that will lead from the garage, through the house and to the outside porch.
• My computer will be loaded with songs from a bunch of artists with the first name Lil'.
• I will not find my makeup because it will have moved into her purse.
• I will never be alone.

Seriously, what does a woman on a cross teetering on the cusp of sanity have to do to get some vodka around this place??