My underwear flying through your backyard and other short stories

Dear Friends,
This time I am not writing from prison, nor am I writing from my new house. I am not even writing from my old house. I am writing 2 bedrooms away from Mrs. J.  That is right. I write to you this evening……… from my mother-in-law’s.

Never a good ending to any story, I know. Let’s start from the beginning….

So we’re packing up the rest of our stuff into the truck at about 11pm last night, the dogs are sitting one on top of the other in a space barely big enough for the cat, and we’re squealing away in the moonlight with the neighbors peeping from their bedroom windows, similar to how our next door neighbors did last year a few days after we saw a “Get the hell outta here, you slime buckets” notice on their door. (So this is what that must have felt like.)  :)

Actually, we do pay our bills and sold our home honestly and goodly to some poor schmucks.  The squealing tires were only because the cat was having a heart attack due to (1) some beotch moved her kitty condo the day before and she still can’t find the flippin’ thing, (2) car rides make her want to sink her back claws into somebody’s skin, and (3) I was howling louder than she was and digging my own claws into Mr. J, the driver.

Wait, this is not the beginning. I can’t really remember what happened within the last 30 days that effected this situation.  I vaguely remember a phone call from our relator two days after the place went on the market saying the schmucks wanted to buy it. I think I may have been the only person ever in this situation to be red-in-the-face stomping-my-feet livid upon receipt of that phone call.

We just spent the past 3 weeks working our tail bones off until the wee hours into the morning staging this sucker and I was looking forward to relaxing while total strangers tracked in mud, let flys in, and scared the cat shitless for the next 60 days. What did she mean we had 30 days to go find somewhere else to put all our crap?  Couldn’t she add a clause saying that everything in the house (plus husband and one dog??? too much?) was just going to have to go with it? “Tell them to take their offer at our asking price and shove it! Changed my mind! I’m tired!”

So fastfoward 30 days and add up our home which was supposed to be closed on last week so we moved out all our crap yet somehow we still own the damn thing, our new dream home which we don’t get to close on until the end of October, two whiny dogs (one with a belly ache because she recently ate a plastic fork in protest) (one who whines just to whine), a PO’ed cat, a very cranky husband, and multiply that by an even crankier baby and…

BAM! Somehow we all ended up on my mother-in-law’s front porch begging her to let us in.  (Okay it was more like handing over the baby and the rest of us sneaking in as quietly as we could so she wouldn’t notice. Imagine how difficult it is to type this without her hearing me… she still doesn’t know the rest of us are here!)

In-between poking fun of Mr. J, a 30-year-old man who just moved back in with HIS MOM (BAHAHAHAHA) I’ve been trying my best to pick up after the small zoo we invaded Mrs. J’s personal space with. (To include the 30-year-old who just moved back in with HIS MOM!!!!!!)

I was standing at the sink this afternoon washing some dishes, daydreaming about our new home, and I glance through the window only to see my son’s PJs hanging in …. the backyard??  What the….!?!? I pull back the curtain and to my alarm, I see three clotheslines filled with Junior’s socks, pants, blankets… everything but the kitchen sink and the whiny dogs (too bad).

I start to panic.

What is wrong with the dryer??

I rush to find my husband to tell him he needs to fix his mother’s dryer immediately. Visions of my undergarments hanging from these clotheslines flash before my eyes. I envision a semi truck speeding down the road her lot backs up to and my things going flying from the clothespins through the yard, the dogs jumping and catching them like frisbees, and the construction workers next door having a few beers and laughs as I run frantically after the dogs for my underwear.

What am I going to do? I frantically realize I can no longer wear a bra and underwear because if I wear them, I’ll have to wash them, and if I have to wash them, they’ll have to go on the clothesline…. I start sweating and feeling like I’m about to pass out.

I find Mr. J who, somewhat alarmed at the sight of me, asks what is wrong. In my anxiety-induced daze I somehow manage to tell him he needs to fix the dryer.  He stares at me for a moment and laughs.  ”That’s just how mom likes to dry her clothes, there’s nothing wrong with it. You can use the dryer.”

Oh thank god. I can use the dryer.

My blood pressure returns to normal and I stop seeing spots and hearing a ringing in my ears.  I return to washing the dishes. I notice a pair of tiny blue underwear with airplanes on them. Either my mother-in-law is really happy her baby boy has returned home to live with her…

(the 30-year-old man who has moved back in with HIS MOM!!!!!)

…or she’s secretly trying to potty train Junior……

Oh boy, this is going to be a wild month. My underwear flying around her backyard may be the least of my worries….

All Things Unlearned chronicles my journey in unlearning everything I already thought I knew through my experiences as a wife, a mother, and an American through funny, overly-opinionated, witty, sometimes offensive, and yet always entertaining banter. Come be amused.