I sat down over the weekend and jotted down a list of ideas and topics that I have wanted to write about for a while now. Deep thought posts on subjects like breastfeeding past a year (your chest will never be the same), why it’s okay to want to stay home with your kids (until they start cutting the back molars and then you will be glad to escape to the office), and fond memories of my grandmother’s purse and the candy contained within (mmm…linty cherry lifesavers). As you can plainly see, no such posts have been written. Not even any stuck in the writing purgatory of waiting to be edited and further tweaked.

Amazing what a week of a 13 month old cutting teeth will do to your resolve to write more often and on better subjects. Plus, the husband is out of town again, so its just me and Owen and after a long afternoon of playing “You want this? No? Okay, maybe this is what you want? Nope again? Hungry? No? What? What? What is it?!!!!”, I tend to be a bit fried mentally by 9:30pm and all I can think is how nice it would be to just melt into the couch. Not the most conducive lead-up to a well written post.

So instead, I share with you tidbits from the workplace. That, and more evidence that my heart truly is made from something bearing a striking resemblance to a lump of coal.

There are some very ecclectic personalities where I work. A few are quirky in a fun, “plaid with polka dots really is a good look for you”, sort of way. Others are more quirky in the “You’re heavily medicated for that, right?” vein.

One of these that falls into the second category works on the same floor as I do. They have a thing for leaving cute little ‘reminder’ notes all over the place, like on the copier, above the communal fax, etc. Normally, the notes fly right under my radar and I don’t give them anything more than a fleeting glance. That is until I went into the bathroom and after shutting the stall door and getting primed for what one does in a bathroom, I looked up and saw a note taped to the backside of the door. A note that instructed me, and any other users of that particular stall to, “…make sure EVERYTHING flushes!”. As soon as I finished up, I peeked behind the door in the other stall and sure enough–another matching sign. It was the third sign, placed on the paper towel dispenser, reminding me that “…washing your hands cuts down on germs!”, that just blew all the circuits in my brain. I realize that not everybody flushes and that even some people don’t wash their hands after they go to the bathroom, but really, cutesy reminder notes are not the answer.

I came back to my office and was discussing my ‘finds’ with another co-worker and we agreed that all the signs were most likely the handiwork of our floor’s resident quirky employee. Inspiration struck me and I shared with my co-worker the cutesy addendum I wanted to print out and tape below the other two “…make sure EVERYTHING flushes!” signs–”One flush is all you’re getting out of me”, I’d put and then the kicker, “P.S: I touched everything in this stall after I was finished and before I washed my hands. Love, Me”.

It took nearly all my self-restraint for the rest of the afternoon, but I am grudgingly proud to say that I didn’t follow through on adding my comments to the signs. I may be a meany, but I didn’t want to be responsible for completely pushing someone else over the edge…yet.

The signs must have bugged someone else far more mature than my witty-jr. high humor-possessing self as all three had completely disappeared the next day.

I’m one of those people who hate change. I don’t just dislike change, I loathe, with a large bold capital ‘L’, change. Unfortunately, change can sometimes just pop up out of nowhere which results in a potentially nasty little surprise. When this sudden change happens, it tends to completely fry all the circuits in my brain resulting in my immediately digging my heels in as hard and as fast as I can. Maybe it’s a safety mechanism–you know, by digging said heels in it would theoretically slow things down and give me an opportunity to evaluate said nasty surprise and form a logical and rational plan to deal with it? Notice how I said ‘theoretically’ in that last sentence? That’s because most of the time, while digging in my heels with all my might, I don’t take the moment to just take a deep breath and rationally formulate a response. I dig my heels in and take a quick trip on the irrationality express.

Take this afternoon for example–my husband and I were hurrying to get him ready to leave town, again, for his job when my husband brought up some things that he had been thinking about regarding switching some things around work-wise. I will admit that his timing wasn’t the greatest, but it wasn’t like he flat out told me, “This is what’s going to happen”. He was the rational one, simply wanting to put some thoughts that he’d been having out there to see what I as the other half of our partnership thought about his thoughts. However, because these thoughts would mean changes, some pretty massive and seemingly impossible and not-workable at first glance kind of changes, I reacted badly. I didn’t yell or get angry but I immediately blurted out sentences involving the words ‘can’t’ ‘won’t’ ‘not’ and ‘unable’. It wasn’t a fight, but when he left, things were sad between us. It’s bad enough that he’ll be away for a week, but his having to leave on an unhappy note makes it worse.

Now that I’ve had a few hours to calm down and process what he was trying to communicate, I see that my immediate responses should have involved the words ‘maybe’, ‘investigate’, ‘possibility’, ‘more’ and ‘faith’. Unfortunately I won’t be able to talk to him until tomorrow night, so I’m hoping that will give me even more time to continue rationally and logically analyzing the situation which will result in my being able to communicate my thoughts in a more grown-up way.

You would think that in almost 31 years of living, I would have figured out that taking a breath and stepping back for a moment when things catch me off guard is the better way to react.

I used to think that I was relatively well mannered. Sure, I might accidentally pass gas or show some inappropriate bra strap while out and about the masses, but usually I can keep it together long enough to act decent and civilized while around people who don’t know me/aren’t related to me/wouldn’t find it endearing to find out first hand that I can burp more loudly than my husband.

However, I think that my recent absence from the world at large has had some negative repercussions on the delicate mannered persona I work so hard to present to the world.

Behold the evidence:

Disturbing Event #1
Place: My living room, Friday night
People in attendence: my husband, my sister in law, Owen and myself
What happened: My sister and law were talking on the couch, while my husband entertained the boy in a chair across the room. Mid-conversation (and granted, it was in my living room and we were discussing how baby farts were neither baby-size in smell nor as endearing as they sound when the baby in question hasn’t pooped for 3 or more days, but still) I felt an itch of a rather…southern personal nature. I then proceeded to just stand up and scratched that itch. Internet, I was appalled mid-scratch when it occured to me exactly what I was doing and in front of whom I was doing it. Oh the shame. This is what happens when you don’t leave your house often enough to interact with other people don’t have to like you just because they’re married to you. Luckily my sister in law either didn’t see what I did or is just nice enough to pretend to hide her disgust at being related through marriage to someone like myself. Luckily my husband didn’t see either, otherwise I would never hear the end of it.

Disturbing Event #2
Place : Church chapel, Sunday Morning Services
People in attendence : only my entire congregation, which is about 200 people
What happened : Right after the opening Hymn, Owen started to get restless in his carseat, so I reached down to get him out and sat him on my lap. As I did this, I had a sudden quick whiff that made me think someone needed a diaper change. It wasn’t so strong though that I was completely sure. When this happens at home, I usually just pick Owen up and sniff at the source of the stench to confirm my suspicions of the need for a diaper change just to make sure he’s not faking me out (hello, my name is Trena and I’m a smeller of butts). Internet, I had him standing up on my lap with my hands under his little armpits thisclose to lifting him up for the sniff test. In.The.Church. In.Front.Of.My.Entire.Congregation. Luckily, the few brain cells that I have left at this point, kicked in and tripped the warning bells in my mind before I actually followed through and I didn’t follow through. I count this more as a near-miss, rather than an all out event, only because I managed to catch myself at the last minute. Which is a good thing, since we are still relatively new in our Congregation and I would like to eventually make friends and to not forever be known as the smeller of small butts.

Internet, I need to stage an intervention for myself. I’ve just become too comfortable with not having to put on a good front for others.