I don’t love fast food.  I will eat it occasionally as the convenience of it arises, but I don’t seek it out.  Don’t mistake this renouncement of fast food as choosing a healthy lifestyle, good grief no.  I would just prefer to cram my gullet with food that I bought myself from a grocery store, and may have a little more luck in being able to control the cleanliness or what have you of the food that is going into my mouth.  Let’s call it a “germ” thing. 

With that said, I was forced to eat at Burger King yesterday.  If it had been up to me, I think I would have picked something else but the kids that I watch were insisting on Burger King.  

Warning:  This quick post is about to turn into a long story.

Let me clarify.  I watch a couple of kids for a few hours a day.  The mom is a teacher and the dad is a postal worker.  For the most part I pick the kids up from school in the afternoon and watch them (feed them a snack, get them started on their homework, prevent them from killing each other) until one of their parents get home.  The kids last day of school was Wednesday, the mom still had to go into work on Thursday, so she asked me if I would be able to watch the kids all day.  I, of course, said sure.  I say of “of course” because they pay generously, very very generously.

Since the kids weren’t in school anymore, and therefore were not getting recess I thought it might be nice to take them to a park to burn off some pent up energy and then take them out for lunch.  We spent half an hour at the park before the boy (who just turned eight) started having a hissy fit.  I spent another ten minutes trying to convince the girl (going on ten) that she did not actually hate her brother and that he was not going to ruin the whole day for us.  I got them to agree on a place to go for lunch, they chose Burger King.  The reason they chose Burger King was because it has “a really cool play land” and toys from the new Hulk movie.  Ok fine, who am I to argue?

We got to Burger Hell right in time for the lunch rush.  Woo hoo!  The kids wanted the Kids Meals (of course).  The boy then had another hissy fit, right in the middle of the Burger Hell because the toy in his meal was a “girl” toy (it was Betty Ross from the new Hulk movie).  I tried to get another toy, but alas they were out of everything else (yeah sure).  The kids ate their lunch without incident and then went off to play.  At which point I was able to eat my meal. 

The first bite into my burger produced a pickle, something I had asked not to be put on my Jr. Whopper.  I hate pickles, so I took the top of the bun off and removed the pickles (see, I’m not that picky, I’ll still eat it after I remove the pickles myself).  I replaced the bun and took my second bite, which yielded a hair.  A very long, and definitely not one of mine, hair.  I’m pretty sure I ordered my burger without hair too. 

The children, perhaps sensing my distress, decided that the playland was too full (there was a rather rambunctious group there) and wanted to go home and swim.  Thank the merciful heavens.  I decided that there was no point in really complaining about my meal since I would never be going back there anyway and I’m pretty sure that there was nothing they could have offered me to get me to come back.  Have no fear though, I did call the Burger King once I got the kids back to the house and into the pool, to complain about the hair in my food.  I did want them to be aware of the situation just because it is incredibly disgusting, and they tried to offer me a voucher for a free meal.  I did my best not to laugh at them.

The boy was still complaining about his “girl” toy when we got to the house and I did my best to insist to him that he wouldn’t even remember this crappy toy an hour from that moment because he has way cooler stuff and besides, they are going to Disney World next week.  He said no, he didn’t and that next week was like 80 days away.  I once again did my best not to laugh.  Needless to say, an hour later he forgot that we had been at Burger King and his sister inherited a back up Betty Ross. 

I on the other hand, am still having nightmares about the hair in my burger.  It was just soooo long.  *Shudders*

It has been one of those days folks (is it too soon in the week to say that it’s been one of those weeks?).  If it could go wrong, it kind of went wrong, or at least didn’t go the way that I had planned for it to go in my head.

6:30 am- I had to pee so that meant I had to get out of bed.  I’m going to be 30, that seems a little too old to willingly wet the bed.  I got up and while I was shuffling my way to the bathroom, trying not to open my eyes so that maybe I could go back to bed for a little longer (I’m a morning person, but I do try to fight it for my husbands sake), my cat tries to kill me.  By try to kill me I mean that she got under my feet every step I took.  This cat surfing led me to have to turn on the bathroom light so that I could see where the furball was so that I wouldn’t trip and kill myself.

6:35 am- The light went on and my brain said “Oh ok, we’re up now!  Great!”  I continued the cat surfing into the kitchen to make the coffee.  I then proceed to the living room to read my various emails and read my morning funnies.

7:45 am- I finally remembered that I had made coffee.

It should be noted in here that with my husbands job change he is working nights right now, and will be working nights once he is working on his own which will be in about a week and a half.  This sucks for me because I am a morning person, but I feel obligated to wait for him to get home before I go to bed.  This therefore is throwing off my 10:30 pm bed time.  It should also be noted that he does not expect any of this from me.

8:30 am- Watch my husband, who has just woken up, attempt to set up his new Blackberry for work.  Considering that he is technologicaly handicapped, this makes for a good time for me.  I love that I got my giggle so early in the morning. 

9:00 am- Having had enough of laughing at my husband I decide that it is time to go take a shower and get ready for my day.  Maybe I should have waited another half hour to let the second cup of coffee kick in because it was as if I had never taken a shower before.

• I decided to wash my hair with conditioner.  I couldn’t figure out what the issue was and why there was no lather today when there had been lather yesterday.  WTF!  I realized my mistake when I finally opened my eyes and looked at the bottle I had put down. 
• When I did grab and use the shampoo I did something that I haven’t done in years, I got shampoo in my eyes.  Plural.  I thought I was going to die, and if not die than definately go blind.
• Didn’t die or go blind, but cut the hell out of my ankle trying to shave.  I say ankle because after the first leg I gave up.  I then proceeded to cut the hell out of my armpits.
• I must have had a thing for the conditioner because I attempted to wash myself with it.  Again I wondered why I felt so silky smooth but had absolutely no lather.

10:00 am- After attempting to recover from the shower ordeal I took an hour off from the rest of what I usually do in the morning to stop the various bleedings.  When I did finally decide to go and put on my make up and dry my hair, it was almost as bad as the shower.  Almost.

• Stabbed myself in my still stinging eyes with my mascara. 
• Got my hair all tangled up in my brush while drying my hair.

Yeah, I was a little bit special ed this morning.

I managed to get dressed without incident.  Miracles will happen I guess.  After having such luck putting on clothes I figured it would be best to stay out of trouble and sat back down and vegged/spaced out until…

1:00 pm- I basically babysit 5 days a week, and in about a week I will be unemployed for the summer.  I pick the kids up from school because their dad is a postal worker and their mom is a kindergarten teacher.  I will be out of a job for 3 months because mom will be home.  Anyway, I went to pick the kids up and I almost got hit by some asshat in a Dodge Ram pickup truck who apparently didn’t see the bright red car right in front of him.

1:15 pm- Sitting in front of the school I had the windows rolled down even though it was humid as hell, but I didn’t want to leave the car running while I was waiting because of how much gas costs.  I overheard a conversation between two neighbors.  The one guy was pissed and I mean PISSED because the other guy was planting flowers that didn’t “go with the color theme” in the pissed guy’s yard.  I mean the one guy was really pissed, like I thought I would have to call the cops pissed. 

1:45 pm- I pick up the boy (the girl has band on Wednesday’s and dad will pick her up on his way home) and we make our way home.  I’m pulling up in front of the house and he tells me that he forgot his “homework.”  So, we turn around and go back to the school and make our way inside.  The classroom is locked.  He starts to cry about how mad his mom will be.  I go to the office to get them to unlock the classroom, and (thankfully) they do without too much question.  Yeah, his “homework” was a coloring sheet that was given to the class for fun.  I thougt it was weird since it is basically the last full week of class.  Why would they (2nd grade) get homework now?

2:05 pm- Dad gets home.  We BS for a couple minutes and I head on my way.  I have a wedding to go to at the end of the month and no longer have shoes to go with the one dress that I have and like.  Despite the day that I have had I decide to go to Kohl’s because they are having a sale. 

2:45 pm- Got stuck in traffic.  It took me half an hour to get 3 miles.  I did finally manage to get to Kohl’s and I made my way right to the shoe section.  I knew what I was looking for, sort of.  I did find something, and pretty much right away.  They were also on sale so they came home with me. 

(I’m going to be a girl for a minute:  The dress is a sort of aqua blue/turquoise, white/off white and light grey.  It’s a handkerchief hem and comes down to about the mid calf/knee area.  These are the shoes:

3:30 pm- Decide that I have wreaked enough havoc on the outside world and head home.  I decide to have breakfast for dinner (no husband to cook for) and make scrambled eggs and toast.  I proceed to burn the hell out of the toast and dry the hell out of the eggs. 

5:30 pm- Decide I am going to blog about my day up to this point and pray that death does not follow the instant I have pushed the Publish button.  Then again, I may get up to go to the bathroom and have to continue my cat surfing.  Surely she won’t continue to try to kill me.  Right?

It’s days like this that I really miss smoking.

I’m not going to go on and on about being sick.  It isn’t worth it, and I know people who are having much bigger health problems than my (and excuse the gross-ness) phlegm fest.

I was so sick last week though, that I could do nothing other than take a shower in the morning and proceed to lay down on the couch the rest of the day.  Being home for an entire week when the weather outside is nice, well it’s like a form of torture.  It’s funny though that the week that I’m sick is the same week the kids attached to the balcony across from mine, are home from school for Spring Break.

I should probably have titled this entry Balconies part 2. 

So, these kids were home and I was home.  They spent a lot of time out on the balcony because heaven forbid one of the parents take their kids to the park that is less than a block away from here.  There is our apartment complex, the parking lot and then next to the parking lot is a small baseball field (good for running around in) and then the park next to that field.  I’m not a parent yet, so I have no idea what these parents were spending their day doing, I do know that the dad works most days.  But, I do know for a fact that at least one parent was home with the kids at all times. 

Anyway, back to the kids on the balcony.  The kids finally noticed that their Power Ranger was strapped to our balcony railing.  They (insert evil laugh here) spent the entire week trying to get either my or my husbands attention so that they could get the prisoner back. 

Just so everyone knows, I was having none of it.  The mom, to her credit, kept trying to tell them to stop throwing stuff over here then.  I loved that she did that.  Did it stop them though?  No.  Will I have more prisoners to string up by the time this next Halloween comes?  I’m sure I will.  Will they ever get the toys back?  A resounding hell no!

One day a week my husband works late so I go over to my girlfriends house to have dinner with her and her family.  This is sort of my extended family because I have known the couple for about 15 years.  I went to visit her in the hospital the day her son was born, and so on.

Their son is turning two this February, so he’s pretty much got this whole toddler speak and thought process going on.  You can just see it working in his head when he looks at you. 

The adults are sitting at the table still eating dinner, and he’s roaming free because he was done.  Anyone with a toddler knows that it’s just easier to let them be free then to even attempt to keep them in their seat while you continue to eat.  So, he’s roaming free and just yelling “Ma!”  Kari (the mom) being the good mother she is, keeps replying “What?!”  But he just keeps calling for her.  Finally he comes into the dining room/kitchen and once again yells “Ma!”  She looks right at him and says “What?” 

(This is where it gets funny, I hope.)

At her reply, without hesitation, he says “Uh…” and looks away, sort of like he suddenly forgot what it was that he wanted from her.  He even held up a finger as if to say “Hold on, it’ll come back to me.” 

Toddlers, natures tiny comedians.