Our car window. Our Honda Accord is almost ten years old, and it is starting to show signs of wear, most notably the fact that the driver’s side window is broken. Whenever I need to roll down the window and talk to someone on the street, I instinctively push the button to make the window go down before realizing that I now drive a hooptie and am one step away from having a car whose door handle is an old piece of rope. If you think it easy communicating with a parking lot attendant through a tiny crack in an open door it’s not. It’s embarrassing, and makes me mad. Sure, I could spend the small fortune it would take to fix the stupid thing, but if I did, the terrorists would win. Surely.
Pretend baseball. Everyone’s kid does something all the time that at first is kinda cute, but then starts to annoy you to the point where you wish you never stopped contracepting. For us, that is now pretend baseball. About thirty times a day, Malcolm asks who we are rooting for, and then names two teams (the most popular being the Floridelphia Marlins and the Cinfernatti Reds.) He then proceeds to run around the house pretending he is playing and then invariably tells you that the team you were “rooting” for lost by some large margin (last night the Giants lost to the Dodgers 130 to 0 and I am still pissed about it.) Eventually, he suckers you into playing catch and then actually playing the game itself, where you have to be the catcher, the umpire, and all of the other team. About the time you realize you are doing most of the work, you tell Malcolm you don’t want to play anymore, which leads him to start whining and forces you to look into a full time nanny.
The stuff in our house. Our house is in a state of disarray which leads guests to the conclusion that we are about to be featured on an episode of Cops. There are piles of shit everywhere and I fear there may be small rodents lurking about in them. I would get rid of the piles except for the fact that I have no idea where to put anything. So, most of the stuff in our house eventually makes its way to our office, which has the same role as the dead pile on a farm. Every year or so, I clean the office and promise that it will never get that bad, making Amy roll her eyes before turning her head at the rustling from the pile of papers in the corner. Most of the time, she utters, “Damn Varmints!”, and I am not sure if she is referring to the rodents or me.

I can't even see my feet anymore!
My boobs. I have the boobs of a perky high school freshman and if I don’t make any changes soon, I will one day be the prom queen. (I should also be quite upset at my muffin top of a belly that allows entire knit sweaters to lurk in my belly button instead of mere clumps of lint, but I can’t get past looking at my rack in the mirror. Yowza!) There are some people who “work out” by going to a place called a “gym,” but those are the kind of people who having working car windows, love playing with their kid, and don’t live in mortal fear of the accumulated stuff in their house. I am not that kind of person, but one day I hope to be. Until then, when you see me constantly moving so that you never get a profile shot of my “Heavage,” you’ll know why.
What’s annoying you?


Some might be comforted by such a smell, but to me it served as a reminder that I am a lazy homeowner. Over the summer, we left our bedroom windows open all the time. While open, our neighbor’s night blooming jasmine plant started growing towards our bedroom. When we finally tried closing the window, the plant got stuck. The plant is now trapped on the inside of the window, sealed between the window and the screen. It has become part of our bedroom. It wouldn’t be so bad, except that since the plant blooms at night when the weather is warm, it has mistaken our warm bedroom for a nice summer night and floods the room with its jasmine scent. Nice smell for some, but I can’t get it out of my head that we have plants overgrowing our room. I am also somewhat afraid that it is going to try and kill us while we sleep.

