My Monday:

*Woke at 4:30 a.m. to the sounds of Chloe and Hannah surreptitiously switching the television off. In my half-awake state, I clamored to the stairs, half-thinking if was going to be a scene from The Amityville Horror and half-wondering if I was dreaming. I tripped over Joshua’s pimped out Nerf semi-automatic, nearly toppled over, but recovered in time to see the two of them, standing at the bottom of the steps like the twins in The Shining, both holding a clean diaper and both announcing rather assertively, “Mommy. I poopy.”

*Visited Three Bears to pick up dinner items. Forgot to buy cat food. Swore under my breath as I turned the truck around in pursuit of said forgotten food. Swore under my breath at Bosley (our Saint Bernard) for his not-so-clandestine visits to the cat food bowl in the dead of night, leaving it empty and covered in dried up slobber each and every morning. Swore under my breath for forgetting, yet again, to put the damn cat food dish on the counter before stumbling to bed last night. Swore under my breath. Again. Because this is the third bag of cat food, at $15 a bag, we’ve purchased this month. Swore again (this time out loud, and colorful) when I was re-entering my car because I whacked my left knee cap on the corner of the door as I was stepping in. How in the hell did I even have enough spring in my step, after that sleepless night, to get my knee that high to begin with? And how the hell is it that you can buy a mocha from the stupid Three Bears mocha machine that tastes like straight hot water?

*As I’m leaving the store, I get a phone call from my husband. Apparently, my credit score has been deduced. By a lot. And we’re about to close on this forever-long house refi. It began when we were on our way to Fairbanks the first time to close, and we received an unpleasant phone call from our closing agent–the underwriters from Hell wanted a water test. Nice. Coulda told us that four hours ago. So fast-forward. Water test complete, ready to close. And now for the 1-2 punch! Because I, in my busy, lazy, tired-as-usual manner of existence, neglected to pay ONE $25 MEDICAL BILL. Which wound up in collections. Which wound up causing us more delays. Now that I’ve payed it, I have to get a letter drafted and sent to the mortgate company that says, “Yeah dude, she’s good.” Only, I can’t get that letter emailed to me, because first my check has to clear. And my check has to clear because, apparently, when you reach my level of dumb-assedness, you’re not allowed to just pay with a debit card via telephone. Nope. And getting that letter emailed? Impossible, says Mark at Cornerstone Credit Agency. It violates their discolsure policy. So. I have to monitor my checking account, call when account activity indicates my check is cleared, wait for Mark to call and confirm that I’m not full of shit, wait for the Letter of Freedom From Stupid-Assedness to arrive, then fax it to our mortgage guy on the east coast. He then sends it to his boss, who contacts the credit reporting agency, who then removes it from my credit report and FINALLY. FINALLY. Raises my credit score again. Then, if we’re not already expired on our locked-in interest rate, we go to close. That’s assuming we don’t have a major earthquake resulting in fires, floods, a new breed of bacteria that turns everyone into zombies, who then invade my house and turn us all into man-eaters. Because seriously, it’s about the only thing left that could possibly go wrong.

And you know, I can’t even get mad at Mark for refusing my pleas. I can’t even be pissed at him for ignoring my attempts to be cute, acting curt and generally treating me like I’m a stupid head. Because, really, why would anyone neglect to pay a $25 medical bill for three months? Why??? It’s a phenomena. And God bless my wonderful husband, who, even in my fault of grandeur, hugs me and tells me not to sweat it. And when I’m PMSing, and practically frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog, and demanding a Reese’s Crunch bar–he spends an hour searching for the only case of Reese’s Crunch bars left in the entire town of Tok. And buys it. Doesn’t say a word about how it cost $9, less than half the cost of my $25 medical bill.

So the lessons to be learned here: Waking up at 4:30 to the sounds of Caillou can be invoke nightmarish visions. Don’t let your kids leave Nerf guns on the stairs. Don’t drink Three Bears mocha. I have a sick, sick sense of procrastination when it comes to small medical bills. You can’t blame all the bad shit that happens on Monday on the Monday Curse. Some of it is bound to be a direct result of your own stupidity. You are all now envious of my chocolate stash, and my husband; who I owe some serious lovin’.