Murphy is a swell guy. Those who've been reading for quite some time can remember Murphy from various incidents in my life.

Well he was on vacation and decided to visit me for a few days.

I have no electricity in my room, since Monday night. I had assumed the storm had knocked down the electricity in the whole house, but surprise surprise, I woke up and heard my fridge running...

::cocks eyebrow::

Why is the fridge running if there is no power??

Ha! There is no power in your room only Mary. Oh, and in the laundry where the water heater happens to be.

So no electricity, no A/C and no hot running water.

Not to mention the flooding in my living room do to the extreme raining we've had.

And when I say flooding, I'm talking about a pool in my living room.

A nice little wading pool, in case you feel hot in the evening.

Happiness and Joy people.
Happiness and Joy.

During some portion of the night I managed to scream out of despair. Dramatics have always been my best.

True, unfortunately was on the other end of the line when I did the screaming.

Sorry kiddo. But sometimes it's necessary.
And sometimes Men don't understand.

Sometimes I wish I had a husband who could take care of the electricity, the flooding, the car and the water heater, so I could just sit back and take care of the Kid.

But alas, that is not happening.
frankly, I don't know if I want it to happen.

I just don't think there is any man out there up to the challenge.

Anyone except Ty Pennington and Bob Vila...and Bob the Builder...

If ya fellows are reading...drop a girl a line...will ya?

We interrupt my scheduled 'rebooting' to inform you that Murphy is back...

With a vengeance...

How else would you explain that I woke up late...almost busted my ass down the stairs...got rained on as I dropped some stuff at daycare...

And then at Miss C's school, I had to go fish for my wallet that happened to fall into the stream of water, God know what kind of water, flowing down the stream down the street...

I had to haul ass in order for that sucker not to go down any open drainages...

to no avail..I couldn't avoid having all my money completely drenched and having the cashier where I pumping my gas (yeah..I also had no gas), give me a dirty look as I was handing him a very very wet Jefferson....

I have posted a reward for the capture of Murphy...dead preferably...
please contact me if you have information on this subject.

Well he's not too far away. He's never too far away. He's there hovering over my life, making sure that today when I went to get a fan, I picked out the box that had a missing part, realizing this when I got home, hence, making an extra trip to get it returned, and hearing a lady in the line say the following when I explained the missing part issue to the cashier:

"See, that's what ya' get when you don't check the boxes"

My take:
I put an imaginary gun to my head and pulled the trigger, with sound effects and everything! I think she saw me, cuz I immediately heard her trap shut up.

*****
Second thought of the day:
If it ain't about ya', mind ya own God damned business!

There was drama, comedy, adventure, thriller, NO Romance, but all the makings of a perfect Low-Budget Indie Flick.

Long ass car ride: check
Parents driving you off a wall: check
Toddler raising hell: check
Murphy's Presence: U bet ya' ass!

So this is how Empress and I, spent our 15 year anniversary.

10:00am

Empress rolls up. We pack our shit and our on our way. Empress, Miss C, Dad and Me. One big happy fucking family.

Empress decides that before we hit the road, we should stop for a lil' breakfast at the drive thru of BK. After Empress calls the Drive Thru lady "Elizabeth", when her name was something else (Yeah, you called her Elizabeth, Dad and I both heard you). Miss C wanted french fries. Ok. So we get her french fries. Miss C wanted Tenders. So, now we're screwed.

No tenders.

So she whines a lil' cause she wants tenders. But gets over it. Then she falls in love with E's Palm Pilot. After screaming and begging and whining we give her the Palm Pilot. Jot ya' lil' heart out!

This is when things begin to get bad.

A Toddler with a Palm Pilot are signs that things are gonna get really bad, really soon.

So now she wants the change we have for the tollbooths. We give her the change. Lord knows we don't want to upset her on a three hour car trip.

She drops the Palm Pilot jotting pen. We have to pull over, search for the Godforsaken pen, hand it to her. Keep driving. Miss C starts getting obnoxious. Whining, asking for stuff, hopping 'round the car..blah blah. Miss C's mommy starts losing her patience. I threaten her several times. Several times, until I lose my patience and try to discipline her.

Bad. Bad. Bad. Idea.

The Wrath of C was unleashed.

"BWUAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

All the way home.

Well not home, but all the way till our destination, which might I add, we weren't even halfway there yet.

She cried, she screamed. We pulled over, we switched seats. I went to the rear. She kept on crying. She tried to bite me. She tried to jump over the seats. She was the long lost tropical cousin of Damien.

Empress being the sport that she was, was trying to keep her cool and concentrate on the road.

But aha!
Right before our next tollbooth, we tried to take 2 quarters out of the change Miss C had asked for before.

Bad Idea # 2.

"MY MONEY!! MY MONEY!!"

We gave her back her money, but it was too late. The guy at the tollbooth looked at us, as if we were kidnapping this child and taking her abroad to be sacrificed to the Gods.

Quarters started flying. Miss C was so pissed she started throwing the quarters we had given her.

::sigh::

Nothing we did, would make her stop. Not even my crack-ass antics.
"GRANDMAAAAAAAA...GRANDMA!!!" while pointing in the opposite direction. As if she were saying: You fucking shitheads, we live thataway.

By this time, we were lost. Empress didn't see the exit. I do not fucking blame her. I was surprised she didn't ram us into a security barrier. By this time, Miss C was in the front seat with my Dad. She was still crying but the tone had lowered a bit. And then:

"Chooooowooooo!!"

We get pulled over by a cop.
We quickly try to scram Miss C to the back, but she begins crying again. We think we are getting pulled over for this, which by the way, let me add, I am against toddlers in the front seat, but his was a fucking emergency for our sanity. I'm getting ready to pull out Miss C's ID's and tell him our situation, when cop guy tells us we were speeding. You'd actually think we'd be driving at 10 m.p.h. in this situa'?

Fuck.
He then asked if we were planning on keeping Miss C in the front seat, which was not allowed. We then explained our situation, the almost 60 minute crying fest we had just undergone, and he gave us this oh-shit-u-poor-folks-are-so-screwed-but-i-already-wrote-the-ticket look. He wished us good luck and a safe ride.

Not forgetting to hit us up with the $140.00 ticket.
Ouch.

Still with me?

Ok. I'll let you guys catch your breath and I'll be back with part Deux.