Hey! Me again. It’s been a minute, or… who can even count that high? So much has happened since I last updated. The biggest reveal? My uterus (that freaking bitch!) turned on me and went all cancerous. Had her ripped right outta there. See if she tries that again. Not likely. But good news is, I didn’t die! In fact, I lived to write more books… switched agents (love you, Cathie Hedrick Armstrong!) Got a new giant puppy (who gets more giant by the day.) Got a massive two-book pre-empt deal (yay freaking me!) And had some minor incidents along the way. One of these days, I’ll write them all down and share, but in the meantime, I decided to slink back in here, beg everyone’s forgiveness for going dark for so long, and delight you with my latest catastrophe. Because what would my blog even be without an epic catastrophe every so often? I doubt it would even exist. And this one? Oh, man. It’s a doozy. And I’ve had some doozies over the years, haven’t I? Bikini waxes gone wrong. Failed pole dancing attempts. Eating an entire bag of sugar free chocolates at the movies. Slipping in the pig pen… and somehow, I survived them all. I guess I’ll live through this one too, embarrassing as it is. But I may as well get a few laughs out of it first, right?
I mean, shit happens!
So bright and early last Wednesday morning, I rolled out of bed to discover fall had well and truly arrived. And much to my delight, since we hadn’t fired up the furnace yet, there was a crisp chill to the mid-October air. A fresh thrill having nothing whatsoever to do with the temperature ran through me at the thought of digging out my favorite sweaters from the deep recesses of my closet, swapping out my summer blankets for the cozy down-filled variety, and cracking open the box of hot chocolate I’d picked up on a whim and saved for just such an occasion. With visions of carved pumpkins and apple cider dancing through my brain, I slipped on my fluffy robe and shoved my feet into my Sherpa slippers before letting the dogs out to explore. While they barked at every nut-scavenging squirrel in the forest, I took my morning prescription medicine, slapped a Starbucks Toasted Graham K-cup into the Keurig, and grabbed the last piece of lemon pound cake before someone else got to it.
I checked my email while sipping my coffee and picking at the pound cake, then I made a few passes on a long-overdue project I’d been putting off. But master-class procrastinator that I am, I decided there was something far more pressing that required my immediate attention. So I grabbed a fresh towel from the dryer, unboxed the brand new bottle of rosemary-mint shower gel that had come via FedEx only the day before, and marched back to my room to take a long hot shower.
No sooner had I turned on the taps than my tummy gurgled. And much like my friendly neighborhood Spider-man, my senses were tingling—in a not so good sort of way. The gurgling made way for more unpleasant rumblings, and it became all too clear what was about to happen. My medicine, combined with an abundance of coffee and pound cake, had caused a chain reaction leading to an internal meltdown of epic proportions. But since I’d lost my gallbladder in an unfortunate stone incident some years before, this was nothing new for me. All too quickly, the rumblings took an angry turn, and without a moment to spare, I fled to the toilet, where I spent several minutes violently expelling my soul.
In a perfect world, our story would end right here. But mine is not a perfect world. Mine is a world wherein my husband and I routinely play Charmin roulette—first one to the empty roll loses. And it was my turn to pull the trigger.
For the first time in I can’t remember how long, he’d bested me in battle. But unlike the countless times I’d beaten him—the times he’d fired his weapon and was forced to accept defeat—there was no one waiting in the wings to claim victory. No one brandishing a spare roll and a smug smile. No one to release me from the prison of my own making, leaving me woefully stranded.
After a moment of blind panic, I tore through the scattered remains of empty tissue rolls in the trash basket, picking at every last stitch of tissue clinging to the cardboard bones, while muttering, “Oh sweet Jesus, why is this happening to me?”
Okay, let’s be honest. What I actually muttered was a colorful string of obscenities worthy of a pissed-off longshoreman or a dozen drunken pirates, words certain to scandalize the most delicate of sensibilities. But no matter how satisfying, swearing wasn’t going to save me, not when the closest roll of toilet paper was all the way on the other side of my house—at least eighty feet away, according to the floor plan I’d memorized during construction. And my husband’s office is in the basement—that same eighty feet plus an entire story below me—so I was all alone. Unless I counted the dogs, which I didn’t. They’d sooner steal that roll of toilet paper than deliver it to me.
Adding insult to injury, I’d left my phone charging by the bed, so there would be no asking Siri to send reinforcements. My fate was solely in my hands. And what’s a girl to do when faced with such a precarious predicament?
Why improvise, of course!
With all four showerheads engaged and the hot water calling my name, I abandoned the toilet and hopped straight into the shower.
Determined to wash the shame from my skin, I pumped a handful of mint shower gel into my palm and proceeded to lather the fuck up. Going from head to toe, I worked the bubbles into every crack and crevasse until I felt the sensation of an icy cold waterfall or an arctic glacier or whatever that peppermint candy bar promises. There wasn’t a single spot on my body that wasn’t covered in thick minty foam, making my skin tingle in the best kind of way. And the more I tingled, the cleaner I felt. Hell, I was so clean, I could almost taste it.
Then the water sputtered as if a tiny burst of air had gotten caught in the line. An odd occurrence, perhaps, but since the well and the tankless hot water heater had been installed less than two years ago, I wasn’t worried. Until it coughed again. And that time, it didn’t immediately recover. In fact, the pressure dropped until water barely dripped from all four showerheads.
Panic set in, and I snatched the handheld showerhead from the bracket and shook it like it owed me money. It sure as hell owed me water. But the damn thing didn’t so much as squeal in outrage. It continued to drip for a few fleeting seconds before the last droplet disappeared down the drain.
I stood there in the middle of my cavernous shower, stunned into silence as I gaped at the brushed brass fixtures, willing them back to life. What else was I supposed to do when my entire body was covered in soap? Several minutes passed, and a zing of anxiety raced down my spine, almost immediately followed by another and yet another. But it wasn’t fear lighting my skin on fire. It was that damned shower gel. The same gel that I’d worked so deep into my epidermis had apparently set off a chemical reaction that threatened to burn clear through to the other side. And the longer the corrosive foam sat on my skin, the worse it stung, until the sharp bite reminded me of a third-degree sunburn that had settled deep into places the sun didn’t shine.
Or like I’d shoved a fucking York Peppermint Pattie up my ass.
Desperate for some relief, I grabbed a wet washcloth from the bench in the corner, held it directly over my backside, and wrung the life out of it in hopes the cool water would bring some relief.
It didn’t.
Several excruciating minutes later, the water came back. I switched to cold for a solid five-minute rinse that did very little to cool the sting.
I fear it will take days for my backside to recover. But it’ll take a lot longer to heal my wounded pride. At least until the next embarrassing catastrophe hits, anyway.
Until next time, I’ll be stacking the deck and stashing a few rolls within reach!
