Sweet and Sour

Maybe it's timing, maybe it's my age, but I am a GRUMP today (and yesterday, too. and maybe even the day before that...). Thank heavens there are sweet things in my life (see most recent post from dear, darling, thoughtful, thankgodforjustabouteverythingexceptthatyearshewas15, daughter) because otherwise I'd rival Maxine for attitude.

Yesterday was an election day. My DH and I actually do NOT speak of whether or not we voted. It is the biggest secret ever - why? BECAUSE WE WANT THE OTHER ONE TO FORGET!! If we both vote, we pretty much always cancel each others' votes out. So it's 7 pm-ish when I vote, polls close at 8. I sign in and think "Yay - he hasn't signed yet, so he's probably forgotten". I do this sneakily when I know he's busily occupied elsewhere. There is no, "Bye, honey, I'm going to go vote." in this house.

Feeling smart and maybe even a little cocky, I exercise my right to tell our guv where to shove...well that's another story, or rhyme, maybe. Maybe even a country song... Anyway, I stick that little ballot into this tricky little machine that looks a hell of a lot like a scanner to me and beat it out of there like a bat out of hell. No thank you, I do NOT want a sticker saying "I voted" because that just might REMIND a certain someone that it is an election day and I. DO. NOT. WANT. TO. DO. THAT.

Later that evening, we've picked up a couple of pizzas to share at K's hockey playoffs and are lamenting the lack of parking places at the community center parking lot because, Hello, this is a polling place!, and I asked if he voted (knowing there is NO way on this earth he'll miss the hockey game to go run off and vote). But the answer is Yes. AAAAARRRGH! And I was SO CAREFUL! I told him I did, too. But he already knew, because of course, he has to sign in right below me.... I knew I should have kept my maiden name.

So we cancelled each others' votes out again. But the beauty is our dear guv got told where to shove it anyway. phew. Take that, you vote canceller, you!

Back to the grumpy stuff -

1. Why does every piece of clothing in the house HAVE to be freshly laundered and ready to wear EVERY DAY??? I think if you have enough clothes for a week, then you should only need to run the washer/dryer combo once a week. Daily laundering, besides being on the obsessive/compulsive side of normal, is a waste of water, soap and ecological resources. Weekly or even semi-weekly laundry - sensible, I think.

2. If you want to teach your child to do something, what SHOULDN'T you do? That which you want them to learn, right? Well, I've been on a campaign for a couple of months to get the teenager to learn that it takes just about 20 seconds to make a bed, and that he CAN, in fact, launder his own clothes in a satisfactory way. Two very good skills for a college bound kid to have. Sounds good, except that the bed frequently gets made in the teenager's absence (which is quite convenient if you're the kid), or if said teen has taken only 10 seconds on it and it looks a little shifty, sometime in the minute or two after child leaves for school, the bed transforms itself and looks amazingly nice. And strangely, the laundry basket for same teen is almost always mysteriously empty! Not that he doesn't contribute to the dirty laundry in this house because, oh my GOD the amount of laundry a teenager can produce is mind boggling - but these things fall into category of grump#1, where all dirty clothes MUST BE LAUNDERED IMMEDIATELY AND AVAILABLE TO WEAR AGAIN THE NEXT MINUTE BECAUSE I JUST DON'T KNOW WHY. I *swear* to you, we all have plenty of clean underwear.

3. The barking dog CANNOT get the hang of this move back to Standard Time. Why in the world do we have to monkey around with our clocks anyway? Off the subject... It's been a week or so now, and dog wakes up every morning between 5:30 and 6 and barks.
Dog: BARK! 5 second wait.
Dog: BARK! 5 second wait.
Dog: BARK! BARK! BARK!
Me: "SNICKERS, SHUT UP!"
5 minutes of quiet (just enough to get that dozing going)
Dog: BARK! 5 second wait.
Me: "That *&^^%# dog - I'm gonna kill her."
DH: "Go ahead. I won't tell anyone."
Dog: BARK! BARK!
Me: "SNICKERS, ***SHUT UP***! (can you tell I keep yelling louder - thereby waking not only me, but everyone in the house up)
Dog: BARK!
and I get up, mutter a lot, and go let the stupid animals outside. Meanwhile, I play a game or two of solitaire so that getting up so frikken early isn't a total loss.

I used to like dogs. I'm looking for someone to rescue a couple of beagles right now.

See - I'm grumpy. Leave me alone.