UPDATE: No one was reading this post, which is intolerably rude. Therefore, I made the executive decision to add Lonnie's ass to my post in a cheap attempt to get your attention.

See? It worked!

However, Lonnie's ass crashed Maude. So, it has taken me 20 minutes to reboot and re-add Lonnie's ass to this post. Lonnie's ass is a Maude crasher. Now my children are hungry, the dishes are undone and I'd also like to blame Lonnie's ass for my unfinished novel and hunger in China. Shame on you and your splendiferous ass, Lonnie. Shame.

Here's the original post. Not that anyone CARES.

Dear Open Salon –

Please excuse me from writing today.

I have been without The Man for the last three days. Supplies are dwindling. The baby has begun looking out the window and calling passing strangers, “Daddy.”

It is late afternoon here in Florida and 86 degrees. The air conditioner filter is not allowing air to pass through. I have no filters and I don't know how to get the door thingy off. I am losing faith in the usefulness of my home’s division of labor practices.

The refrigerator is full to bursting because I do not know how to cook only for myself and the two toddlers. There are three days worth of leftovers which could feed a small army.

I consider myself to be a rather strong and resourceful woman, but the amount of time and effort I spent yesterday trying to figure out how to get the printer back on the network would make a grown man cry, scream and throw a boot across the room. (That’s how the cabinet got dented, by the way.)

The older children wisely decamped to their father’s home to avoid just this situation. I encouraged this because I could not conceive of a situation which would make me willing to  get all the children, ages 11, 10, 3 and 20 months, up at 6 a.m. and drive them to the bus stop if I was only going to be relieved of two of them. I have my limits.

Last night, I had a bad dream about The Man and text messaged him at 3 a.m., completely convinced that he had been robbed and beaten by a gang of thugs. He is in Sandy, Utah, which makes that scenario highly unlikely. I convinced myself that the text message I received in return was a cheap attempt by the Mormon Assault and Battery Squad to throw me off the trail of my beloved husband’s assailants.

It does not seem a far-flung scenario to me that the M.A.B.S. would mistake my husband and his boss for two gay men obstreperously flaunting their desire to marry each other rather than two businessmen trying to get their buffet on at the Residence Inn.

Stranger things have happened.

Obviously, sleeping was not an option after such an episode. So, I spent a tense half hour hitting the “F5” key repeatedly while viewing the OS homepage.

This gave me some comfort knowing I was not the only one awake at that ungodly hour. By the way, HI RANDY!!!

Just after lunch, which I seriously considered delivering with a highly pressurized hose and funnel system, the worst finally happened.

I had to take out the trash.

Now, I am not opposed to hard work. Hell, I cook, clean and do laundry for seven people. But, what the hell do I have a husband, four children and an economic refugee housemate for if no one is around when the garbage needs taken out? It's the principle of the thing.

Let’s make a deal, I’ll change the diapers, I’ll clean the toilets, I’ll scrape the dried-up, splattered barbeque sauce off the ceiling fan with my fingernails, but someone else has to take out the trash.

The Man returns this evening on a 9 p.m. flight. I don’t know if that’s in Eastern Time or Mountain Time. I sprang ahead, I fell back and now I’m just going to watch the four days worth of Rachel Maddow I have on the DVR until he finally gets home.

If I have calculated in error because he must cross the International Date Line, I’ll sleep on the couch.

I refuse to go to bed alone again. 

Single parents should receive full governmental benefits and a million bucks a year. It's hazard pay and only fair.

So, in short, those are the reasons I’m not going to write anything today. I need a break, a shower and a drink. I’m circling the wagons, but the bandits are closing in. Now it’s just a race against time.

Love,

Jodi