SPIDER EARS

Some days never go right, no matter how much you try to force them that way. You wake up in the morning and stub your toe, and that tends to be how the rest of your day goes from that point forward. You go to make breakfast, and you're out of eggs. So, you settle for a dry piece of toast. Without butter, because your darling husband left it on the stove and even worse, he left on the stove hood light all night. So all of your butter is now melted into the nooks and crannies of your stove grill. So, you get out the cleaning supplies and clean up the mess. You even remember to put butter and eggs on your grocery shopping list hanging on the fridge. Feeling accomplished for one brief, shining moment of your day, you decide to get ready for work.

You turn on the shower and realize that there's brown stuff coming out of your shower head. It looks like some kind of disgusting flecks of rust in your water science experiment. Which you now need to clean up. So you get the cleaning supplies and clean the tub even though you can't even clean up yourself. You do the best you can with a gallon of emergency water you have in your fridge from when your darling husband went through his "we should have it on hand" phase. Then add "One gallon emergency water" onto the shopping list cause it was kind of a good idea after all. At least you remembered to pick up the dry-cleaning last night, you think to yourself, as you go to get dressed for work.

By the time you get to your bedroom to get dressed, you realize that you picked up the dry cleaning alright. In your darling husband's car, not your car. His car which is now at his job. You pick the least wrinkly suit from your closet, and feeling unclean and unkempt prepare yourself for work. Only, you realize that the only shoes that go with the least wrinkly suit you own just broke their strap two nights ago when you were trying to please your darling husband by wearing that ugly brown dress that he loves and you hate and it was the only shoes that go with that ugly brown dress, too. So, you shore yourself up and change into your secondbest suit that is the second least most wrinkly, but at least it goes with black shoes and you have plenty of those without stupid broken straps.

So you finally manage to get to the point where you're able to hop into the car, realizing only then that you've left the keys to your car in the stupid dang house. So you go back into the house, and start searching for the car keys. At this point, you're running around like a madwoman who needs to avenge something. A quick perusal of all of the rooms shows no car keys anywhere to be found. You stop to breathe for a moment. You force yourself to calm down a little. They HAVE to be here somewhere! Once you spot them on the little table by the door where they always are, you forcefully grab them as you storm out of the front door.

One tiny little moment of sanity forces you to check to make sure you have the car keys AND the stupid house keys and to make sure the idiotic house is locked. Cause you seriously do not want to have to go back into that stupid house right now. It will just piss you off if you do. As a matter of fact, you're already kind of pissed off. So you decide to stalk to the car to make yourself feel better. Feeling yourself stalk to the car, you realize how silly you're being. In your head, you're already laughing at yourself. But it doesn't quite make it to your lips this time. Nope, not today.

Cause apparently the neighbor's dog was in your yard again. And he left a nice little surprise for you that has attached itself to your black shoes that go with everything. And you are starting to think maybe you should go back in the stupid house again to clean off the stupid mess that the stupid idiotic neighbor dog left for you. You take one look at that stupid front door, and shudder ever so slightly. There is no way you are going back in there. You will never get out alive. In times of great stress, you sometimes come up with good ideas. So you pop the car trunk, and notice those car wipes that your darling husband gave you three months ago during his car maintenance phase.

You do the best you can with what you've got, and very quickly run the now sullied wipes to the garbage can. You're finally in your car again. You breathe, simply breathe, for a couple minutes because you know days like this are what Lamaze classes are actually for. Good, that's better. In-in-in, puff-puff-puff. You are finally in control of your facilities again, and actually can, and do laugh. Okay, so it's a short litte "at least I'm trying" puff of a laugh, but it will have to do because you know you're already at least ten minutes late to work. So you throw on your seatbelt, and back out of your driveway v.e.r.y. c.a.r.e.f.u.l.l.y. so nothing else goes wrong.

And you somehow manage to wing the garbage can, ever so slightly. Just enough to knock it the hell over, of course! Back to Lamaze breathing, you eventually laugh it off and tell yourself that your darling husband might as well have something to do today to make up for you having to clean melted butter out of the stupid stove. It's just too much for you right now, he can get it. Without incident, you get halfway to work before getting behind a school bus. The slowest school bus on the planet. The one that makes the most stops in the world, too. You can do nothing but stop everytime that stupid stop thing pops up and make sure to be cautious of the rowdy children talking to their friends IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET! Okay, okay...they're just kids, it's not their fault. You usually leave for work on a schedule that avoids the busses...which is a LOT earlier than you left today.

Of course when you finally do get to work, the first words out of your bosses mouth are "You're eighteen minutes late, Missy!". Well, isn't he cheerful about it? Like you don't know or something. Like you can't tell time or something. You try to shake off the dreadful day and put yourself into work mode by saying "I know. Sorry bout that. I got behind the school bus from hell!" in an equally cheery voice. Apparently, this satisfies the boss because he gets right down to business and tells you to re-write the entire proposal that you slaved over last week, because the customer changed their mind on wallpaper colors. You resign yourself to your fate, and get to work.

Which is actually somewhat relaxing for once. You're a few hours into your proposal when the alarms go off in the building. You are incredibly tempted to ignore it, but you got written up for it that one time when you were so engrossed in that proposal that it didn't even register. So, with a sigh and a look of annoyance...you get up and go see what's going on. And what's going on is a bomb threat, and lord will you be glad when this stupid day is over. At least you get to go home early. You are seriously tempted to crawl into a hole and stay there once you do get home. And at least you'll have a few hours to yourself for once, and heck you'll even pick up the trash cans for your darling husband since it's such a little thing, after all.

The sun is shining and the traffic is almost non-existant this time of day. You figure it's really going to be a lovely ride home since you aren't speeding anywhere and don't have anywhere to get to. Boy oh boy, you definitely are going to pick up that trash for your darling husband. He's really not a bad guy, and maybe he'd like to relax a little tonight, too. You're feeling so good for a moment that you almost automatically turn in at the sign for the yard sale. Okay, so it's Wednesday, that's a little peculiar but you haven't gone to a yard-sale in years. It would be really nice to stop by and stretch your legs and see what kind of stuff they've got. It'd be nice to see how they live. Be careful what you wish for.

Hey, wait! What? Where did that thought come from? Must be all the stress from today. I just really need to relax. I've got a couple hours to kill, might as well enjoy it.

**Still transcribing rest of StoryLine***