Wanted: Serendipity

Dude.

I can't get no synchronicity.

At home, with six personalities sharing three bathrooms and about 2600 sq. feet, things can sometimes get tense. I find myself shrewish these days because three of the four children who are capable of doing a few domestic chores, just don't. They have better things to do like sleep and eat and stare at a computer screen until their eyes bleed.

Me: Did you make your bed?

Child: No.
Me: Why not?

Child: No answer, followed by rapid blinking, as if I had just asked for the exact diameter of George Bush's sphincter, which of course, only Condoleeza Rice would know.

I come home from work most days to a mess in the kitchen. The children are conscientious about putting THEIR cereal bowl in the dishwasher but God forbid they tuck away the box of cereal or the loaf of bread. And don't even THINK about them cleaning up someone else's coffee mug.

"Not MY dish", they say.

"I wash your underwear," I think to myself.

The bathrooms are another story. A few weeks ago, I told the manchild that he would have to clean his bathroom because there was a distinctive scent hovering near the base of the toilet.

"Not my pee," was his reply. It was all I could do not to beat him where he stood. Instead, I got a grip and said,

"Really? Well I don't have a DNA kit stored under the sink to test my theory but since the distance between you and the toilet bowl is about three feet, I'm pretty sure we could locate a few droplets that were once hosted by your bladder." Sheesh.

It's a work in progress, for sure.

The job has also been a challenge lately. My biggest projects have either ground to a standstill or they are mired in bureaucratic caca. Every day, the president walks into my office with a hopeful look on his face and I proceed to blow his budgetary expectations to kingdom come. My eye twitch is back along with an unexpected bonus: anxiety nightmares.

When I was in university, I used to have a recurring dream where I was unable to find the professor's office to drop off a group project worth most of that semester's grade. The team was counting on me to get it in on time and I would wander through the campus asking people for directions. The trouble was, nobody spoke English so I would stand in front of them gesticulating a whacked version of charades and they would just stare at me with passive, blank looks on their faces. I'd often wake up chewing on my heart and gasping for air. Awful.

Lately, my dreams have matured. A few nights ago, I had a doozy. I walked out of a pale yellow with white trim Cape Cod house. My mum was inside. I hadn't seen her or spoken to her but I knew she was there. I walked down the front porch steps and out onto the sidewalk which was lined with massive elm trees. It was summer. I could hear the crickets.

I was walking towards the quaint downtown area to shop for party supplies for our rehearsal dinner but soon into the journey, I had the creepy feeling that I was being watched. Suddenly, three men appeared out of nowhere and advanced towards me. I knew that I was in trouble because they all looked like Big Pussy but when I opened up my mouth to scream, it was full of bubble gum and I couldn't muster a peep. I reached into my mouth and began to pull frantically as gob after gob of gum came stretching out. When I realized that I wasn't going to be able to yell, I turned and ran. Except for some reason, I had put five inch stilettos on and it felt like I was running on stilts. I didn't have time to take them off and I was terrified to turn around. I could smell the cologne of one of the men behind me.

I reached the porch and sprinted up it and into the house. My mum was on the phone. I tried to tell her to get off and call the police but the gum issue prevented me from uttering a word. The men entered the house and I remember looking at her, ashamed that I had put her at risk. Her eyes got wide and she stuck a vacuum in my open mouth and sucked out the remaining gum.

(I know how convenient it is that she would just happen to have a vacuum at hand but what can I say? I'm a sitcom watcher where everything is tidied up in 22 minutes. Must bleed over)

ANYWAY, I turned and faced the three men. By this time, I was LETHAL in a way that only a carb-deprived, premenstrual, stressed to the max woman could be. Big Pussy guy had a huge rock in his hand and instinctively, I knew that it had my name on it, which infuriated me further. I marched up to him and hissed through clenched teeth that he was a bully.

"I bet you killed your wife, didn't you?"

"Naw. She's a hag all right but it'll be YOU that sleeps with the fishes," he replied. TOTAL CLICHE!

And apparently, that's when I woke Dallas up talking or screaming or something else. Now I know that you'll be tempted to analyze this but psychologically, it's nothing compared to the weirdness of a dream I had last week where Morgan Freeman was my mentor. I like Morgan. He's a nice man.

So, I'm grateful that today is Friday. My children are with their dad this weekend. My Harley is calling out to me and there might be a few golf balls in my future. Do you remember Romper Room? Well, I see pedicure and manicure and bubble bath and driving range and shopping and.......