Literally Losing It

Here’s an interesting grammar tidbit I learned today:

The definition of the word literally has changed. Historically, literally meant “actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy:” or “used to emphasize the truth and accuracy of a statement or description.”

But now, because so many people have used it incorrectly for so long, the dictionary has added a new definition: “used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being actually true.”

Which means when I say it literally never rains it pours, it’s now unclear if I’m actually being literal or figurative. Which is actually kind of lucky because, in this narrow instance, I'm being both.

Figuratively speaking, I have a lot of rain in my life right now. Skin cancer, moving to a new house, getting the old house ready to put on the market…call me a drama queen but it’s a lot to deal with! Adding kidney stones to that mix is, in my humble opinion, a metaphorical “pouring” of epic proportions.

Particularly since the latest attack came as we were LITERALLY moving. After I got off work Saturday, Opie and I loaded up the car with  boxes and headed over to the new house. Then, when we were about a mile away, I got hit with a pain that was FIGURATIVELY like a small animal had somehow materialized in my guts and was earnestly attempting to eat its way out.

Good times.

Especially for Opie because as soon as we got to the house, I LITERALLY stumbled to the bedroom, shoved a couple pillows together (we hadn't moved the bed yet) and collapsed on the floor...though not before carefully positioning myself near enough the door that I could see what he was carrying in in order to yell encouraging suggestions to him.

This situation was not noticeably enhanced by the fact that the boxes I’d packed and intended to carry were not organized in an Opie-approved fashion. By which I mean, my boxes not only didn’t clearly identify contents but generally also only had things like “upstairs” or “downstairs” written on them

“Where does this go?” Opie would demand.

“It says upstairs,” I’d snap back.

And he’d be all “Where upstairs? Guest room? Office? Exercise room?”

“JUST TAKE IT UPSTAIRS!” I’d shout then. “I’ll figure it out later—UNLESS I FREAKING DIE RIGHT HERE ON THE FLOOR!”

It’s somewhat miraculous his head didn’t pop right off. (Figuratively sneaking of course).

But, speaking literally again, this is when the whole it never rains it pours thing came back into play. Because this was when the gentle rain turned into a torrential downpour. A “The Heavens Opened And We Should Think About Building An Ark” kind of downpour.  Which in its own right would have made moving difficult but was made significantly worse when the tornado sirens went off.

Take a moment and try to picture this moment of marital bliss…I’m lying on the floor, contemplating death, checking weather updates on my phone because we didn’t have television or computers set up yet, screaming at Opie to take shelter, and he is resolutely marching in and out of the house with boxes in his arms, muttering under his breath…no doubt speculating on how boring his life was before I popped into it.

“Twitter says they’re evacuating hospital rooms!” I yelled as he stomped back into the garage. “The weather channel says we need to get to a safe room or a basement!”

(Except, of course, we don’t have a basement. Our storm readiness plan is prayer.)

“Do not go back in that garage!” I yelled as he stomped back by. “I am not emotionally equipped to see you buried in tornado rubble!”

“You’re the one who keeps saying buying this house was fate, that it was meant to be,” he retorted. “If it’s meant to be, it’s not going to be hit by a tornado.”

And even though I really hate it when he uses my own words against me, I guess he was right because both houses survived the storm with no trouble.

So, even though it literally and figuratively is pouring all over us again right now, things are going pretty well. I had the last of my stitches out this morning and the doc thinks the scars are “coming along nicely.” And the kidney stones suck but they could be worse…like when my brother got them ON HIS HONEYMOON while he and his wife were CAMPING ON A VOLCANO.

Fair warning, though, the news is predicting earth-shattering storms tonight with the high possibility of tornadoes so there's a pretty good chance that I will spend hours and hours sharing hysterical weather alerts and screaming at Opie to take shelter.

And I mean that literally!

Lucky and Wise?

I have long said that Opie is a lucky man (and he never disagrees so it must be true!) but today we had a little test to determine if he is also a wise man.

Did he pass?

You be the judge...here is the email I sent him this afternoon:

So I just basically tore a big chunk of my nail off while out in the yard.

This is not my usual "A-Little-Crack-That-Stings-But-I'll-Get-Over-It-In-A-Second" type injury.  This is a "We-Might-Need-Therapy-For-Bubba-Because-I-Was-Screaming-Out-Loud-Can't-Believe- How-Bad-It-Hurts, Blood-Actually-Ran-Down-My-Hand" type injury.

It is important to note that I have bandaged it all up and I am fine.

It is also important to note that a wise man would not waste his time inquiring about the logistics of this injury. He should just assume that it occurred in an heroic life or death struggle with miscreants,  thieves, and/or terrorists--many of whom have been known to lurk in the Sapulpa area.

A wise man also wouldn't waste his time trying to figure out and share ways to avoid this type of injury in the future. He should instead assume it was unavoidable---unless he thinks miscreants, thieves, and terrorists should just be allowed to wreak their mayhem willy-nilly.

A wise man would be better served spending his afternoon trying to decide if he should bring home wine or chocolate--OR BOTH--as a panacea for his wife's pain.

Are you a wise man, Opie Yates? ARE YOU?!

And he walked in with this:

Yep, he's wise...and I'm feeling pretty lucky myself (injured finger notwithstanding!)

Contest?

Opie and I are having a little contest this morning that I like to call: “Who’s having a worse morning?”

It started like any other day.  We got up, he started to get ready for work and I fed the dogs and took them outside. With the fabulous new fence (more on that later), I could just let them out on their own but there are places that a really industrious 7 pound dog could wriggle under so I always go with them.

So, the two of them shot through the dog door and as I headed for the human door, I stepped on something soft and squishy. Soft, squishy and hard to see because I hadn’t turned on the porch light and the sun wasn’t all the way up.

And, no, it wasn’t dog doo…it was worse.

“Oh, gross,” I thought, leaning down and peering at the mat. “One of those rotten dogs dragged a huge earthworm in here last night.”

Except when I got my face right there next to it, I realized it was way too big to be an earthworm, even a really big nightcrawler type of earthworm.  And it was coiled up.

Coiled up like a snake.

A SNAKE!

At which point I was torn…run inside and get Opie or run outside, screaming for Opie, while keeping the dogs off the porch. I actually even did this weird cartoon-ish hopping back and forth, saying “Snake!” over and over again, while my body and mind struggled with the decision.

In the end, I elected to go inside and get Opie…largely because he was in the shower and probably wouldn’t hear me screaming from outside.

He did, however, hear me shouting from the living room and came running downstairs as soon as he had thrown on some underwear.

“It’s a snake,” he agreed. “It’s just a little one.”

“It’s probably a baby,” I agreed. “A baby snake and the mama is probably lurking right outside the dog door, waiting to pounce when we least expect it!  We might need to move.”

He shook his head and started wrapping it up in the welcome mat. 

“Where are you going with that?” I demanded as he headed for the door. “Don’t even think about throwing that snake in the backyard where I’ll have to think about it hiding in the garden all day.”

But I also didn’t want him to kill it because I don’t like killing things…even evil vermin, until it's had a chance to contemplate its behavior and change its porch-lurking ways. “You have to take it somewhere else,” I said.

“I’m in my underwear,” he pointed out.

I didn’t exactly say “underwear shmunderwear!” but I thought it and I stared at him in horror until he sighed, carried the mat-wrapped snake off the porch, snuck out the gate between our house and the neighbors, tiptoed to the front and flung the snake far, far away.

Ever have that moment when you realize that you might not HAVE annoying neighbors, but you ARE the annoying neighbors?

In any case, the snake is gone (for now!) and I am planning to follow my friend Kelly’s advice and stomp whenever I’m in the yard today to scare other snakes away.

But we are still left with a debate…Opie maintains that being ripped from the shower and forced to wander around outside in his underwear makes his morning worse.  But I STEPPED ON A SNAKE. A small snake, yes.  But a SNAKE.

I totally win, right?

Emails To Opie

In case anyone is wondering how my day's going...and why Opie considers himself the luckiest man in the world, here's a copy of the email I sent him this morning after calling AAA to jump start my Miata.

The car has been started.

"Wow," you might be saying to yourself, "that took a lot longer than usual."

You're right, it did....it has been one of the most frustrating days of my life.

Here's what happened:

The guy got here 20 mins or so after I called. I went out, got in the car, and only then realized I had the wrong key.

"Half a second!" I yelled and dashed back in the house.

And then spent a frantic ten minutes running around the house, trying to remember every curse word I've ever heard, as I threw things around in a desperate search for the correct key.

A desperate yet futile search.

I will not give you the full details of the tantrum that accompanied this key catastrophe but it's possible that Bubba will be spending the rest of the day under the bed.

So, the guy had to leave for his next appointment, I had to take Sassy to the groomers...and lo and behold, when I got home, the key was right on the coffee table.

We might need a security system because I think it's fairly obvious that someone broke in, hid the key, waited for me to leave, and then put the key back in order to mess with me

So I called AAA back, explained the situation and they agreed to send the guy back. I asked them how many times I could call with the same problem in the same day before they flagged my account but the operator didn't think I was funny AT ALL.

"We're always happy to help," she said in all seriousness.

In any case, please note that I  am only sharing this story to prevent the epic meltdown that would occur should you happen to ask "How did it go with AAA?" tonight.

Please also note that you might be feeling inspired to say something like "this is why I always tell you to put your keys in a specific place" or "There might be a lesson in this."

This would be an unwise choice of conversation starters.

EXTREMELY UNWISE!!!!

These situations are not remedied with advice, no matter how well-meaning. These are situations best remedied with vodka and Girl Scout cookies.

Heading out to get a new battery in a few minutes. However, if anything else goes wrong with the battery or car or ANYTHING, it's entirely possible that the next time you see me, it will be on the 6:00 news underneath the tag line "Local woman goes on murderous rampage."

Love you!

Some of you might think "Well, at least your day couldn't get any worse." You, however, would be wrong.  This was only ROUND ONE of the car drama and the first email of the day....stay tuned!


**UPDATE** To read Round Two of the most frustrating day ever, click here.

Intruder Alert

So if the whole etiquette book thing doesn't work out, I might have to write a different book called "Why Opie Is The Luckiest Man Alive."

And the first entry in that book might focus on the conversation we had this morning.

It all started when Opie asked why on earth I had woken him up at four am.

"Because I heard some crazy loud noise that woke me up and I wanted you to get up and help me investigate. But you didn't because, apparently, you don't care if we are murdered in our beds."

And then I waited for an apology.

"You didn't even wake me up until you got back in bed," he said (and he didn’t sound apologetic AT ALL). "And you said you'd already looked around and hadn't seen anything. Plus I didn't hear anything.  And I'm pretty sure you didn't hear anything unless, maybe it was the cat. But I think you were dreaming. And now I'm exhausted because I can't get back to sleep when you wake me up in the middle of the night."

And then he waited for an apology.

But I didn't apologize because:

A. I knew it hadn't been the cat because when I woke up, the cat was under the blankets, dead asleep across my ankles, completely cutting off my blood supply and thus causing me to nearly kill myself when I got out of bed and tried to hobble around on two numb feet.

B. I was secretly fine with him lying awake in an alert manner when there was any possibility of an intruder lurking around, waiting to kill us in our beds.

"Besides," he continued. "The dogs didn't even wake up. Don't you think if there had been a sound or an intruder, they would have gone crazy?"

Which just goes to show you that he doesn't watch enough crime television.

I mean, he hadn't even considered the possibility that some deranged lunatic had been watching our house for weeks, getting to know our schedule and feeding the dogs treats in the yard when our backs were turned--all in a nefarious attempt to get their trust and sneak into our house with reckless abandon.

It’s almost embarrassing how naïve he is.

But I didn’t point this out to him because I didn’t want him to feel bad. Plus I was very busy searching the house to see if I could find the source of the alarming noise during the light of day.

You know what I found?

Nothing.

A big fat nothing that could have made enough noise to wake me in the middle of the night.

At which point, it was clear that there were only 2 possible possibilities.

(It is interesting to note that Opie’s suggested possibilities were “You were dreaming” and “You’re crazy.” and he was barred from further commentary).

In any case, as I said, only 2 possible possibilities:

1. Someone snuck into the house, knocked something down, heard me get up, picked up whatever they dropped in a panic, put it back to lull us into a sense of false security, and is clearly planning to break into the house tonight.

 2. The house, as I have suspected for some time, is haunted.

So if we're still alive at this time next week we might have to call an exorcist.  And that's why Opie is clearly the luckiest man alive.  Because I am aware of any and all dangers lurking in the house and will stop at nothing to keep him safe.