On Fatheads and Fathood

It started out a nice, family-oriented conference weekend...until, that is, I microwaved some Cream of Wheat at around 6 PM yesterday evening for what was supposed to be my random, fill-my-belly dinner.

But I digress.

A few weeks ago, we got new neighbors. They're really nice people, of course...except when they're screaming the eff word at their 4 year-old son so they can be heard over their hard rock music at 11 o'clock at night shortly before they put him down to bed in the bedroom directly behind our bedroom wall in the room he shares with his gothic skinhead mustacheoed "uncle" who has been living with them since a few days after they moved in.

Aaaaaaaaah, apartment living.

So, guess who brought their cockroaches along with them, which cockroaches quickly migrated under our companion back patio wall into our kitchen? Yup, that would be the fatheads. In fact, I remember the day: my son screamed like a girl from out on the back patio while riding his trike, and as I opened my mouth to ask him (sternly) please not to scream like that (because, of course, shrieking like a girl is a much better way to be heard than just to yell "Mom!"), he followed up his scream with "Mom, there's a big bug by my bike!!!" It was a roach. I thought nothing further of it once the roach was dead...until we came back from AZ to face the infestation.

Yes, it's the infestation that ruined my microwaved Cream of Wheat dinner. As it nuked on the turntable deep in the microwave, my husband wrapped his arms around me and kissed me tenderly, and I leaned my head upon his shoulder to hug him for a moment more when...there, on top of the microwave, in the back corner, scurried not one but three nasty cockroaches...plus a baby cockroach.

Jason went berserk. Who could blame him? He faced infestations of all types on his mission, one of which was a cockroach infestation. (Admittedly, THOSE were Salvadoran cockroaches, averaging the size of his open palm and occasionally growing as large as his whole hand, but having your average American roaches in his adult home is to him every bit as repulsive.) So he went into action, stripping the cabinets and drawers of all their contents, cleaning everything to within an inch of its life, squashing three roaches where they stood, and spraying roach spray on every viable area...basically anywhere that doesn't regularly come into contact with food was fair game.

Before you worry about the health of our children, however, I whisked them away to my folks' house, where my simple dinner of Cream of Wheat rapidly became three chicken flautas with guacamole for dipping, courtesy of my parents' most recent trip to Costco.

Which, of course, leads me to fathood. Why is it that when I step on the scale in the morning and it reads five pounds more than usual, I'm sure that scale must be right and I am, indeed, a cow? (When it reads 10 or 15 pounds heavy, I shrug and figure it must not be reading right, but 5? 6? 7? 8 pounds? I'm a COW.) However, when the scale reads five pounds less than I believe it ought, I...(smash!)...GET...(BAM!)...REALLY...(whump!)...FRUSTRATED...(bash!)...with that STUPID...(SLAM!)...scale...(blam!)...TEASING ME!!!!! (THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP...sproing!)

Oops. Guess I got a little carried away.

After all, I ate three flautas WITH guacamole LAST NIGHT, and today I weigh half a pound LESS than I did yesterday morning! (stupidstinkingcoldheartedscalegrumblegrumblegrumble.) Heaven forbid that might actually be correct, right? Because when it comes to us girls and our weight, we never lose, only get fatter and fatter and fatter until we're officially part and parcel to the Fathood.

Not that half a pound is that big a deal. Which is my point. I freak out all over the scale for its inaccuracy when I think what I'm really doing is taking out my anger at my next door neighbors and my need, at 10:47 PM on a Sunday night, to ask them to turn down their shoot-'em-up movie after my husband has spent 3 hours killing their cockroaches in our apartment. It's not my scale's fault that my kitchen is infested...or that I chose to eat flautas at 7 PM...or that, even after eating flautas (and guacamole) at 7 PM, I weigh half a pound less today than I did yesterday.

It's the neighbors' fault. Mm-hm. Their fault that when we finally move from this place, we're going to have to comb our own belongings with a fine-toothed comb to make certain WE don't bring THEIR roaches to OUR new home.

And now for a plea: GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Report on Julie's visit after I scour our desk for cockroaches! Hold tight!