Just A Mom

My best friend is building a house just down the road from me, even further into the sticks than I'm located. Why am I telling you this, you may wonder? Well, because to build a new house one needs to find and hire trades people who are willing to travel out to the middle of butt-fark nowhere to build said house.

Trades people would include plumbers.

I could hear angels singing once again. The wheels in my brain started turning (much like the wheel in my daughter's hamster cage) and before long I had a plan.

Donning my infamous purple shirt, I figured there was no way a plumber could ignore my chi chi's tale of woe. I was armed with charm, a pushup bra winning smile and a checkbook. What more could I need to fix my crapper?





If it worked before, surely it would work again.

Thankfully my best friend took pity on me. One look at my tub of shit was all it took to convince her to join me in my plans to kidnap her plumber.

I don't know if it was the purple shirt, my loud and proud girls or the fact I promised he could charge me what ever he wanted but soon enough I had managed to commandeer my best friend's plumber. He took one look at my boobs bath tub and went to work on my septic system.

Fric and Frac were amazed with his plumbing proficiency. Within an hour I had a drained pipe, a working toilet and a poop-free tub. In the eyes of my ten and eleven year old kids, he suddenly shot from being a mere mortal to a superstar, on par with the likes of Justin Timberlake and Spiderman.

They hung on his every word and laughed at every crappy (heh heh) joke he told. It was puppy love at it's finest. At one point it was so bad I shooed them out of the bathroom just to get them from underfoot. Yet they were firmly enthralled and refused to stray far, instead choosing to sit on the floor outside the washroom door and make googly eyes at their new hero.

Slightly unnerved and not used to being idolized for his shit removal prowess, my new plumber friend turned to me to make small talk as he wrote up a bill for an amount equivalent to Frac's future tuition costs.

(Sorry Frac. But I had to make a choice...the ability to shit in my toilet freely or your future as Beer Bong King of the Alpha Omega fraternity. It was an easy choice.)

"So do you work?" he asked while trying to avoid eye contact with my enamored children.

"No. I discovered a magical spell that does all the cooking, cleaning, accounting, driving and child rearing a parent could want, rendering me free to spend my time lounging on my couch, popping bonbons and watching soaps all day." Dumbass. I'd like to see a mom who doesn't work, cuz those are some skills I need to learn.

"Um, I meant, do you have a job outside of motherhood?" he asked while looking at me like I grew a third tit that liked flap around wildly on my chest.

"Oh. Ya. Well, I like to think I'm an internet porn star, but really I'm a blogger. I write online."

"So you're a writer. That's cool," he said as he handed me the bill that ensured my son's future as a Wal-Mart greeter.

We talked for a few more minutes as he gathered up his tools and then as quick as my tub filled with crap, he was gone, back to ensure my best friend's new house doesn't have the same problem mine did.

As I turned to get the bleach and the commercial grade rubber gloves to clean out the filthy mess my tub left for me, I noticed Fric glaring at me.

"What?" I questioned.

"Why did you tell him that?" she huffed.

"Tell him what?" I asked while wondering what bug crawled up her pre-pubescent ass.

"That you have a job. That you are a writer. You're just a mom," she informed me in a snotty tone.

Unfreakingbelievable. I went through almost ten months of hell to gestate this ingrate, endured eight hours of torture to squeeze her out and subsequently suffered eleven years of parenting so that she could stand before me and tell me I'm just. a. mom.

"Well, I realize I'm just a mom," I say as I use the finger quotations, "but I'm also a writer. What do you think I do on my blog? Post pictures of my boobs?" I asked as I eyed the disgusting mess in my tub.

"That's not real writing, Mom." She spoke to me as though I was a dimwitted moron. Kinda like her dad does when he tries to explain to me what he does for a living. Hmmm.

"Well, it's not exactly fake, darlin'." I don't know whether to be amused or annoyed at this point.

"A real writer writes books. Like Harry Potter," she explained.

"I'm working on it. I'm planning on writing an award-winning novel about a little girl who steps in it so deeply she is forced to clean the remains of sewage out of her mother's bathtub. She is permanently scarred with this wild injustice she grows up to be come a rich, over-educated super hero who saves the world from it's garbage and sewer problems. It is going to be a critic's delight. Movie producers will be knocking at my door, clamoring for the rights to turn it into this century's smash box office hit."

"Very funny, mom."

"Ya, almost as funny as you cleaning out my tub. Now get 'er done."

"You're so mean."

"Mean and wily. Now I've got to get to work on some real writing. I've got me a book to write."

"You're not going to tell anyone I had to clean up poo, are you?" she begged.

"Who would I tell?" I countered.

It's not like I'm a real writer or anything.

He he.

Payback's a bitch. Wait till she sees the picture I snapped as she was scrubbing away oblivious to her mom lurking in the doorway.

I've got me a clean tub, working toilet and blackmail material to ensure future good behaviour. All in all, I'm thinking it was a rather productive day.

For just a mom.

Losing My Shit

When I was nineteen I was the manager of a large multi-screened movie Cineplex. Before the doors were opened to the public and the staff had yet to trickle in, I would wander around the vast cavernous lobby and stroll up and down each theater and marvel that some middle aged man promoted me because I wore an insanely short skirt I was left in charge of this business. At nineteen. Somebody thought I was responsible enough to play God with the lives of the employees and trust me not to burn the place down.

Trippy. I like to think those days of micromanaging forty or more pimply faced teenagers gave me an insight and some skill into one day parenting my own little hormonal teens.

I used to marvel at the magnitude of responsibility I had somehow found weighing upon my shoulders. Then I had children and became a homeowner.

Now I'm wishing the only real responsibility I had was whether or not I remembered to order enough popcorn seed for the week.

Up until lately, I thought I had this responsibility thing down pat. The weight of twisting raising small children into productive members of society (read: Off the pole and out of the clink) never seemed a burden too heavy to bear.

Then my husband ran off to go and chase his dreams. Leaving the well-being and safety of not only his children but also his home to me, the chick who has trained her young and impressionable children to tell everyone their mom is an internet porn star.

Perhaps not the wisest choice on my husband's behalf. But I love the misguided vote of confidence he gave me.

Now I've got all the responsibility of being a grown up with out the safety net of another to catch me when I falter. Good times.

But I pride myself on being a self sufficient, independent woman. I don't need no stinking man. If I bury my car in a snow bank, I can shovel myself out. If my furnace stops working in the dead of the winter, I can call the furnace fixer people as well as the next guy.

So when I noticed that if one runs the water in my bathroom sink the toilet starts to burp and fart and overflow, I didn't panic.










All right, I panicked a little.

But then I phoned my husband only to get his facking voice mail got a grip. I could fix this. How hard could it be to unplug a toilet, I rationed. I'm the only one who uses this toilet and I know what goes down it. And the particular size of ahem, what is going down.

Easy peasy. This is why God invented the plunger. Not just so my brother could suction it to my stomach as a small child and lift me up off the ground, leaving me squealing with laughter and sporting a giant purple plunger hickey. Right?

So I rolled up my sleeves, made friends once again with a plunger and eyed my toilet.





Why have you forsaken me, my porcelain princess? Have I not worshipped on your altar and kept you clean for the past three years?

Picture me straddling my toilet and thrusting away at the plunger as though my very life depended on it, water splashing everywhere. This is what my son walked in on.

"Um, Mom? What are you doing?" he called from the safety of the bathroom door.

"Besides the obvious? Well, I thought I needed an upper body work out and the plunger looked lonely. Wanna grab some paper towels to mop up this water, please?" I responded as I continued to pump away at my blocked toilet.

(Side note: Ever notice what a disgusting sound the plunger makes? Kinda like a queef, but worse.)

"Not really," was his response. Not that I blame him. But seeing as I was indisposed at the moment, I shot him my mom look and he slunk off to do what he was asked.

Just then the clouds parted and a heavenly light from up above shined on my head, bathing me in a golden glow. With a sudden gurgle, the overflowing water receded from it's porcelain banks and flowed back into the ocean sewer line.

I couldn't believe it. I did it. I fixed my own plugged toilet. I could hear a chorus of angels singing heavenly praise from up above.





Victory! I don't need a man to plunge!

Just then Frac walked back in with the roll of toilet paper. "Victory, my sweet son. Just look what a little bit of hard work and effort can do," I crowed as I wiped the sweat off my brow.

"Um, Mom..."

"That's right, sugar. Whose your momma now?" I chuckled as I started wiping up the mess.

"Well you are, I guess. But is the water supposed to be coming up into the bathtub like that? And why is it brown?"

Suddenly that chorus of angels turns into the cackle of a thousand little sewer demons, laughing as an inch of brown water filled my bathtub and just sat there. Great. My very own cesspool. I always wanted one. In my ensuite bathroom. Meters from where I sleep. Lucky me.

"Damn it." Understatement of the year. (Granted the year is young, but wow, are we off to a fine start.)

"Want me to call Dad?" Frac offered. Apparently that snarl sound I made must have convinced him to back slowly away from me and he went to go hide in his room.

"What for? I fixed the toilet didn't I?" I called after him. "Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I can't handle a little shit in the tub, kiddo," I muttered to myself, like a crazy woman.





My luck seems to be in the crapper as of late.

But face it; there is shitty water in my tub and no signs of draining any time soon. And my husband isn't home to clean it up while I pretend to be busy in another room.

I hate being a responsible grown up.

Doesn't this give a whole new meaning to "losing my shit?"

Letter to My Dog

Listen up dog, things have got to change. Because after last night, you are lucky that I am not packing you up and dropping you off in the middle of some random farmer's field, leaving you to be some bitch or bait for the nearest coyote, wolf or fox.

Quit looking at me with those puppy dog eyes dammit. All right. So it's a blatant lie, everyone knows I would never leave you to be raped and eaten by a hungry wild critter. But keep up the shit you pulled last night and I promise you I will start buying the cheap dog food. You know the type...tastes like sawdust, makes you shit like you've never shit before.

That's right Nixon. See who wears the pants around here? And those doggie treats I keep buying for you, you know, the ones you love but give you wicked gas; gas you have no problems releasing when your ass is inches from my nose, those treats are gone.

I mean business.

You see dog, I did my time getting up at all hours to check on small children. I put in my hours feeding and changing babies. They've grown older. And, dammit, so have I. One of the perks of your babies growing older is that they sleep through the night. And piss in the pot. Not all over the damn floor.

I may call you my baby, rub your belly and stroke your fur, but it's only a term of endearment. You aren't really my baby. You're my dog. I picked your scraggly ass out of a litter and paid good coin to have you shit on my floors sit on my lap. Unless science figures out a way to squeeze a four-legged critter that is in desperate need of a nail clipping out of my old and abused uterus, you need to stop abusing your powers of the puppy dog eyes and cuteness and cut this momma a break.

Did you really need to sleep all damn day like a teenager and then pace the entire length of the house all night long? You know I'm a light sleeper. Your little claws clicking on the hardwood and tile were like Chinese water torture for me last night.

Did you really need to jump up on the bed incessantly, flop down for two seconds, thereby lulling me into a false sense of security and then jump back off the bed to resume your midnight pacing?

What ever happened to my sweet Nixon, the one who would bury his ass by my face and sleep the night by my side, snoring like a lumberjack and farting all night long? Remember that? I would squish you and shove you and curse at you and you would just burr in closer? Always with your ass in my face? Those were the good nights. How I miss them.





I love you my little nose picker. I really do. Don't make me get medieval on your ass.

Did you really need to jump up on the window and pretend to be 'Tough Dog', barking at the deer, moose, dog, cat, bear, fox, squirrel, bird, facking boogey man or whatever was on the other side of the glass and start barking like a rabid idiot?

News flash Nixon, we live in the bush. There are animals out there. They'll eat you. So shut up at night or I'll send you out there and see how big your shrunken raisin testicles really are.

Did you really need to whimper at the door, whining to be let out, not once, not twice, but three times last night? And each time I stumbled my sorry, naked, freezing ass to the door and let you out, you did NOTHING. You sat and stared at the sky. While you communed with the heavens, I sat on the couch in the complete darkness, shivering and wishing I were back in bed.

Do you have any idea how cold tile floor is in the middle of the night when you are standing in front of a door, naked, waiting to let in a damn dog? It's cold, dude. REAALLY cold.

And with all three trips you took outside to stargaze, did it not cross that pea-sized brain of yours to say, oh, go to the facking washroom? Was it really necessary to shit right beside the front door, where I almost stepped in it in the darkness? You couldn't have gone during one of the times I let you out? What the hell do you think I drug my sorry ass out of bed for in the first place?

Hint dude: It wasn't so you could howl at the moon.

I love you Nixon. I really do. Ask the Internets. They'll tell you I call you the World's Greatest Dog, Ever. Because in my eyes, you really are. You helped take all that pain and heartache I carry and make it all a little less heavy. You sit on my lap at night and snore softly and my heart grows three sizes, just like the Grinch.

I even think it's funny when you growl at Boo when he tries to move you so he can sit next to me.

But Nixon, I'm only one man's bitch and his name is Boo.

So quit with the shit at night or I'll feed you to the fishes lock you in the laundry room at night. Face it, neither of us wants that.

But mess with my beauty sleep again and I'll show you just how well this bitch wears the pants.

Update: The letter seemed to really work. Heh, heh. Last night he was as good as gold. Seems he really does know who is boss. Ya, I know. I'm delusional.