May 20 2008
I’m on the lam
I don’t really know what that means, other than contextually. I don’t know the origin, and therefore the adage makes no sense to me. Nonetheless, I am on the lam.
I’m not hiding out from you good, fine people. Oh, no. Never. It might feel that way because, where the hell have I been? Well, I’ll tell you… that four letter word that I avoid at all costs, the W word? Yes, working. Me, the Queen of Slackitude.
I’ve been so busy that I finally pulled my nose out of my laptop and noticed my house was falling apart around me. The children, suffer the little children, had toes poking out from too-small hand-me-down shoes that originally came from the thrift store. OK, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration.
I wouldn’t exaggerate about the laundry backlog though. {shudder} It was bad. It had its own zip code and was demanding I add its name onto the title of the house. I think, had I not defeated it with Tide, it might have sued me for ALL-imony. (Haha, get it? Dumb joke using the name of a popular brand of laundry detergent. OK, never-mind.)
Well, none of it was at all acceptable at all so I did what I do best. I hired out. I hired a cleaning woman to help with the laundry as well as the accumulation of filth in this house. I hired a new nanny. I hired a butler. OK, I didn’t really hire a butler, but I thought about it. (How cool would it be to say “My butler recommends Old English polish.” or something snooty like that??) I hired someone to paint my garage door and my front shutters. I hired someone to service my husband sexually. (OK, I didn’t do that one either, but it did cross my mind…)
I’m pretty sure the monthly expenditure for all this now surpasses my income. But, hey, my house is clean, right? What are credit cards for anyway?
All of this was working out so well for me, making the phone calls, barking orders and having people service my needs, I got carried away. I’m ashamed to admit it, but here goes.
I called the lawn people.
Well, I wouldn’t have called the lawn people if the landscaping people wouldn’t have told me too. I mean, they suspected GRUB WORMS. I don’t exactly know what grub worms are, but they sound gross enough that I’m certain I don’t want them eating my grass roots.
The landscape guy was almost like a television ER doctor or something. I like to imagine him looking like Dr. Kovac (whether he did or not, and, duh, he didn’t) ”I’ll need a CBC and a chem-panel, STAT. SOMEONE GET ME THE PADDLES, IT’S CRASHING!”
Fucking grub worms.
Well, only because Landscaper Kovac recommended it, I called to get bids on lawn service. I called all the usual suspects, Scott’s Lawn Care, Evergreen Lawns, and Chem Lawn.
A bit of a tangent, but - come on - Chem Lawn? Sheesh, you’d think they could come up with a better name. “Oh, goodie, chemicals! Let me have them spray them on my grass where my children and pets play! Bring ‘em on!” I wonder… if they started making Popsicles would they call them Red Dye #7? What if they took up making household cleaners… can you imagine: Poison Spring Clean and Deadly Summer Breeze. I think they need to fire their marketing people.
Anyway, I called them all, even the poisonous chemically one. I called them for quotes on my grub worms. “I need aeration, STAT. Somebody get me a kit, I have to intubate!”
Naive little me, I thought that each of them would come by during the day while I was at work and look at my lawn (which currently resembles the lawn one would have seen had they watched the brilliant TV series Malcolm in the Middle) and mail me a quote. And then I, as a strategic sourcing professional, would compare the quotes and choose the lowest one (because strategic sourcing is analogous with “cheap ass”).
Is that how it happened? Nooooooooo….
They all want to TALK to me. All of them. And they have the most relentless phone people ever. They all call me daily, sometimes hourly. These calls all go to my answering machine because I don’t want to speak with them and they don’t want to leave me a nice little paper quote.
I can’t answer my phone anymore, because I’m on the lam, and my husband might just leave me if these phone calls Do. Not. Stop.
I know I should talk to them, answer the phone and scream “STOP THE MADNESS.” but I can’t bring myself to do that. I let them all go to the machine.
Up until now, collectively, they have called twelve million, six hundred and eighty nine thousand, three hundred and eighteen times. It’s THAT bad.
It’s getting really old. And seriously, I should talk to them because, dude, I have grub worms. How embarrassing. Do you think the neighbors are all pointing and laughing at me? But I believe it has become a battle of wills. They are over there having strategy meetings, Chem Lawn colluding with Ever Green and Scott’s, all of them devising ways to break my will. Me digging my heels in and saying “You shall not prevail.” I can out-stubborn the best of them.
I’m quite sure the next step is them showing up at my house in person, pounding on my front door (which? will be painted all shiny black tomorrow!)
They’ll never find me - I’ll hide behind the tall weeds and live on grub worms.
If only I had a butler…
WordPress database error: [Can't open file: 'wp_comments.MYI' (errno: 144)]
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_ID = '479' AND comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY comment_date
