Momnesia

Twenty stupid things I have done just this week

I know there are lots of people who feel depressed over the holidays. I used to feel depressed, but now I just walk around with a big cloud of resentment hanging over me. Who are these people who have the time to make homemade wreaths and tie perfect bows in big, fat wire ribbons? You could poke out an eye with that stuff! How can you bear to climb up a ladder to put up Christmas lights? You know you're in the air, right? Like, not touching the ground?

In short, I detest being surrounded by people who somehow have the time to not only set up Christmas lights in their lawn, but also whip up some code to program the lights and set the display to music. I'm mad that my family has insisted on perpetuating the Santa Claus myth for the children in our family. I'm sure they're very appreciative of a fictional magic elf-man who uses slave labor to deliver toys to all the Christian kids on the planet in one night, traveling faster than the speed of light and possibly time. But fictional elf-man didn't slave over a hot computer screen to purchase that Wii last year, Emerson. Mommy did. And I want gratitude! Santa can bite it!

I am the Grinch in Whoville.

Do I express these thoughts? Well, yes. On my blog. But I try to keep my grousing to a minimum around living, breathing people. I went to our office white elephant gift exchange - and I brought an awesome gift that I found for only $7 at Walgreens!

I feel like I've gotten slightly off the subject here. To sum up, I resent the pressures to create the perfect holiday. And if you, also, resent those pressures and find yourself falling short of a A Very Macy's Christmas, you are not alone. To make you feel better, here is a list of stupid crap I have done in the last week.

Twenty stupid things I have done just this week:

• Set my breakfast on fire in my toaster oven.
• Glued my pants to the floor while doing Christmas crafts with Emerson.
• Put my tights on so twisted that I think I cut off the circulation to my lady parts.
• Run my head into a wall while demonstrating for comic effect how someone else ran their face into the same wall.
• Taken a series of event photos and forgotten to fix the settings on the camera so that out of 100+ shots only five were usable.
• Given almost all of my Christmas gift ideas for Emerson to other people so that now I'm out of gift ideas for Emerson (who is related to a LOT of generous people, apparently).
• Somehow, despite my intentional increase of social media activity in the last few weeks, actually lost points on Klout.
• Forgotten to pack Emerson's ballet shoes in her bag, leading to a meltdown of epic proportions that required me to leave work early to get her to ballet class.
• Reinjured the wound on my chopped foot.
• Baked a whole chicken and then completely forgot about it on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. Four dollars, trashed.
• Broke a universal remote simply by dropping it on the couch.
• Decided I knew better than a recipe and burned about three pounds of chocolate in the oven. Five dollars, torched.
• Decided I was good enough to trim my bangs with nail scissors. I'll let you imagine the awesome it added to my already oh-so-fashionable exterior. Twenty-five dollars to fix it, slashed.
• Wore plastic shoes to work. My mommy gave them to me, and they're comfortable as heck. I love them.
• Forgot to pack Emmie's lunch one day. I don't know where my brain was. Luckily, she had some money in her meal account. But still... hello, in there!
• Took a picture of my sleeping child, showed her said picture, and utterly freaked her out. "Dats creepy, mama! Don't do dat!" Now, every morning, she checks my phone to see if I've been "checking on her." Sigh...
• Refused to buy an Elf on the Shelf, because I think it's stupid. Commence angry comments. I've already lived through one barrage of them. Come at me, bro!
• Was defeated by the Post Office, once again, regarding international shipping. Thousands of people ship gifts - and sometimes drugs, weapons, and other illegal items - every day through the mail, but I can't get a box of Little Debbie zebra cakes past the glorified cashier to send to a friend in Germany. And why does she even like zebra cakes so much? They're made of sugar, wax and dish sponges! Is this what passes for food in the world's greatest nation?
• Turned in my desk chair, where I'd been sitting in a relaxed position while I wrote, and accidentally mostly-flashed my supervisor. I was obviously not raised right.
• Ate someone else's chocolate. In my defense, it was sitting in the "everyone's food" spot on the counter. And, if you leave chocolate unattended around here, it will get eaten by someone. So, really, it's not my fault at all, right? Right?!

So, this holiday season, know that whatever is going on in your life to stress you out, you can give thanks that you're not a complete incompetent like me. Happy holidays!