Ring of Fire

Through a series of strange and ridiculous circumstances at my place of employment, I ended up hiding in a pile of palmettos (long, ridiculous story that isn’t as unprofessional as it sounds … I guess. Let’s just say I got pulled into a covert meeting outside and someone drove by and … OH GOD, IT IS JUST RIDICULOUS) And if hiding in the BUSHES as a grown woman isn’t absurd enough, the clandestine meeting quickly turned dangerous when I — and hey, a quick interjection here to say that you know how I love the hyperbole? THERE IS NONE HERE — I ended up plucking, one by one, a pack of biting fire ants from my butt. Yes, you read that right. During my brief stay in the bushes, I felt a familiar prickling sensation INSIDE MY UNDERWEAR and each time I reached my hand back there to figure out what the Christ was going on, I removed a fire ant and realized I was seated directly into a mound of them. And … and one or two of them reached the front, and that’s all I have to say about that, except that it hurts less than you’d think it does, but OH DOES IT ITCH, though the ones that sneaked into my ballet flats managed to leave quite a searing mark.

Honestly, I wish I were making that up. I had ants — an entire mound of BITING ANTS — in my underwear, and when … when I took my pants off later, at least five crushed carcasses came FROM MY UNDERWEAR. And we won’t talk about the horrible moment I had removing them — again, FROM MY UNDERWEAR — in front of my coworker as they snacked on my tender white rear end flesh.

Thank you, I would like to die now, please. I … I don’t know why I think talking about it will make it better, because it won’t. I have a fire ant bite on my girly bits and at least thirty on my … backside. And it’s too horrible for me to sit on, and when I told Adam, he all but screeched, “I CANNOT HEAR THIS. IT IS TOO AWFUL.” And when I — for reasons unknown — tried to show him, he wasn’t having it.

But you get to hear ALL ABOUT IT, because you can’t tell me to stop. I will, however, spare you from an illustrative photograph of my devoured backside. Be glad you don’t live with me, for I’d be dropping my pants right now seeking sympathy.

Other than being paid to get gnawed on, my day was somewhere in the range of super-stressful as I worked myself into a wild frenzy, realizing that — sorry — we have actual MOVERS SHOWING UP HERE to take us away to ANOTHER STATE. I realize I should have known this — I mean, I TOLD you about it — but the reality hadn’t set in until I packed up more than half the kitchen and emptied the refrigerator entirely. Nothing says “moving!” like tossing months-old bottles of Kikkoman realizing that you probably won’t get around to making that stir-fry before you leave.

Honestly, I don’t know why I’m trying to focus on anything other than the fire ant mound, because half of you have stopped reading by now because again: FIRE ANT MOUND PLUS ASS CHEEKS AND GIRLY BITS = NOT GOOD.

I’d also like to point out that we spent most of the evening under a tornado warning and for one harrowing moment, watched the news announce, “If you live in XX area, we have seen tornadoes touch down, so you might want to be alert and prepare to take action!” Oh, and there was HAIL.

I don’t need to tell you, of course, that XX area was my house. However, mercifully, the storm has passed, and the warning lifted. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t shit myself and come running inside like a little girl when my neighbor opened his garage door while I was trying to get Sunny to finally go poop after a long night cooped up to keep her bowels covered. And honestly, all I could think was that things were going a little too well and of COURSE the tornado was going to come and rip our house down, OF COURSE.

I don’t think that’s a healthy line of thinking, and I’m pretty sure most therapists wouldn’t approve. It’s hardly what I learned in CBT, after all.

But while we’re admitting things, I’ll tell you that I am excited, but I am also very scared. But what scares me isn’t that I’m scared, it’s that I’m very clearly most afraid of being without a career the way I’m accustomed to having one. I mean, sure, I’m sure I can if I want to, and of course, yes, I’m scared of not making friends and trying to have kids and not being able to, and all KINDS of big, scary things, but it’s easier to be afraid of not having a career — a career is controllable, which is why I like it. Come to think of it, this might be a very good thing. A scary, but very good thing.

But I’m still pretty darn terrified of everything I just said and then some.

And again, most of you just read blah blah blah FIRE ANTS IN PANTS, blah. But really, that’s kind of how I feel too.

FIRE. ANTS. IN. UNDERPANTS.

AND CLEARLY I CANNOT TURN OFF THE CAPS.

Happy Wednesday! (Do you know that I wrote “happy Thursday” before I realized that it is only Wednesday? Goddamn, what a crushing disappointment. Then again, I need every damn day I can get.)

*Hello! I’m Johnny Cash. I love that song. Don’t make fun of me.

30 comments February 12th, 2008