Of garbage disposals, cigarette butts, and boy scouts...

Okay, so yes, the music does have significance and yes, the photograph above does too. I was going to photograph other areas of the house to demonstrate the effect my thesis has had on my housekeeping abilities for the last six months. And while it's true that I haven't a shred of dignity left, I did think that a shot of my bathroom, complete with overflowing trashcans, toothpaste encrusted mirrors, hairsprayed counters, and the outside wrapper from a feminine hygiene product static-electricitied to the wall, might be more than my gentle readers could take.

So instead, the photograph is what my "office" looks like today. You will be MOST happy to know that all ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE pages of my thesis have been successfully printed twelve times and they are resting comfortably at Fayette Printing (except for the last thirteen maps and photographs that I will take to Howard tomorrow morning to be likewise printed and shuffled into the appropriate piles). I thought that inserting thirteen images into thirteen pages of a Word document wouldn't take long--figured I could whip that up in an hour or two last night. They're just pictures. No text. Just pictures with a small caption underneath. Silly me. Five hours later, the maps and photographs look lovely but no matter what I do, the page numbers are on the wrong side and each of the thirteen pages is labeled 107. Odd, isn't it, that after all those weeks of excrutiating writing and revising and revising and writing, all that stands between me and my diploma is a simple Microsoft Word function that refuses to cooperate. Go figure.

But it got me thinking. This is the kind of stress that tends to unhinge me. Not that I'm not already slightly unbalanced--it doesn't take much to drive me over the edge. But this kind of stress makes me do things that most college-educated people stopped doing when they were about 6 years old. An example or two to illustrate:

Some years ago, the following events all happened within just a few days of each other when I was experiencing unusually high stress levels. We had been in Georgia for a few years and things weren't going well professionally or financially for Randy and I and several of our children were beginning to sprout into teenagers and....well, if you've ever had, been, or known a teenager, you'll understand.

I was cleaning the kitchen one day and the garbage disposal jammed. Lost in thought, and being the good Navy wife I am, I fixed it myself, as I usually did. Reaching my hand in to remove the offending object, I quite deliberately turned the disposal back on while my hand was still stuck down the sink, holding the blades. Fortunately, we had a crap kitchen with a crap garbage disposal so my hand emerged with all five fingers reasonably intact.

It scared the snot out of me, but it apparently wasn't enough to force my brain to re-engage because just a day or two later, I drove to the gas station to fill up my vehicle. I went inside the station to pay for my gas and came back out to get in my white truck. When I opened the door, I noticed that there was blue carpeting where the red had been and that the floorboards were covered with cigarette butts. I actually GOT INTO THE TRUCK, wondering how my carpet had changed color and how those cigarette butts got there since I have never smoked in my life, when finally it dawned on me. This isn't my white truck. Not only was it NOT my white truck, I had not driven my white truck to the gas station--I had driven our BLUE station wagon to the gas station. Which means that from the time I placed the gas nozzle back in its cradle, walked 20 feet to the store, paid for my gas, and walked out, I had completely forgotten which vehicle I drove to the gas station in, in the first place. I am not making this up.

Finally, just a day or two later, I returned home from work one day very, very tired. I was wearing one of my favorite outfits that day, black skirt, sweater, and tights. I was a size 8 then (see picture below) and looked pretty decent in my black skirt, sweater, and tights. Anyway, when I got inside, I started to undress to get in my sweatpants and noticed that a truck had pulled up to the house. I remembered then that I had promised to help Benjamin's scout leader, Kevin Mackey, take the entire scout troup on a nature walk at the local elementary school. Well, I thought, I'm just too tired to do this today and I'm sure Kevin will understand. So I walked out of the house, up the driveway to the street, and stood there at the truck full of all those pre-teen boy scouts. It wasn't until I leaned my arms on the open window of the cab and looked down at my feet that it dawned on me that I didn't have a skirt on anymore. I had my sweater on, my tights, and a nice, black, lacy slip. No skirt. I looked at Kevin and said (brilliant deduction, here) "Kevin, I don't have a skirt on." To which he replied, "Well, I wasn't going to say anything..."

SO--on Tuesday, when this whole miserable ordeal is hopefully and finally over, wish me luck. I would really hate to show up at work without my pants or wearing my bra outside my shirt....