The gerbil story and other rantings

When I was about 7 or 8, I had gerbils. Anyway, my first gerbil was a girl named Princess Leia. My best friend's mom somehow pawned my friend's gerbils on us because they were a boy and a girl and were having babies like CRAZY. I think they were Popeye and Olive Oyl, but I'm not 100% sure on that. So...my mom told me you could never EVER get the 2 female gerbils together in the same cage. She failed to mention the reason why was that they would KILL EACH OTHER. I guess she assumed I would know that, but I was a very naive 7/8 yr old who still loved unicorns and rainbows and was convinced the Tooth Fairy was real and entered our home through the garage for some reason.

One day my mom was busy doing something, not watching me obviously, and since she told me this gerbil rule I was dying of curiosity as to why in the world you couldn't get these 2 girl gerbils together. I decided she had only said I couldn't put them in the same cage....she had said nothing about holding them at the same time. I decided I was going to get each girl gerbil, holding one in each hand and slowly move them toward each other -- in hindsight, this was definitely not one of my smartest ideas.

So I got them both, one in each hand and sat down on the couch and slowly brought my hands closer and closer together. Everything seemed find and then at about 8-10 inches apart, Princess Leia goes berserk and rares up and tries to stab her giant front teeth into Olive Oyl, but her aim was slightly off and instead she sunk her teeth into my middle finger. It hurt like HELL and it bled all over the place. I was too scared to tell my mom because she would kill me, but I was afraid to even look at my finger to see if it was still attached. Eventually cleaning my finger myself trumped telling my mother about my stupidity. But I still bear the scar today almost 24 years later.

So why am I telling this story? Because my two children are apparently the equivalent of 2 female gerbils. They could not get along at all today. They could not be in the same room today without one trying to kill the other. All day long they fought and fought and fought. And Mr E is apparently going through a let's throw things across the room phase. Today was one of those parent conference days where there is no school and you go meet the teacher. Do you remember having those as a kid? I sure as heck don't. And we went to McDonald's after the conference for breakfast and the stupid playground was closed with just pissed us all off. I wished we had a bathtub that was large enough to accommodate someone over the age of 4 as I seriously needed to lock the bathroom door and have one of those Calgon moments (do they still have those commercials?). Apparently when you get your official mother card it states in fine print that you no longer can use the bathroom alone and all children and dogs in the household must be standing within 6 inches of the toilet while you are sitting on it.

And then today at swimming lessons at the Y, some clerk put my kid in the Tues/Thurs class instead of the Mon/Wed class last week when I signed up again. And blah, blah, blah, the clerk today couldn't change him without authorization because the other kid in the Tues/Thurs class would have to be canceled since 1 kid doesn't make a class. And wouldn't you know, the guy with the authorization was at a meeting somewhere across town at another Y. Sheesh!! I'm sorry that kid has a problem, but MY problem is you stupid people put my kid in the wrong class (for the 2nd time, this same idiot clerk did this in February too... I'm vowing to not allow that guy to ever sign us up for any program again). I told the guy I wanted the same Mon/Wed class at least 10 times last week when we signed up. We have been in the Mon/Wed class for 3 months now. Hello?? So the little girl clerk told me today they would "let" my son take the lesson, but that I will have to get a call from the director guy to authorize it so we can come back on Wednesday. Uh huh? Excuse me? I'm not the one who messed this crap up. And my child is in preschool on Tues/Thur, so we can't do that class...so either way that other kid in the Tues/Thurs class is getting a cancellation.