grass and dew at sunrise

grass and dew at sunrise
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

This morning was one of those hellacious mornings in which young M misses the school bus and I hit my head on the cabinet of Satan in my kitchen. If I actually owned the house I live in I would rip that fucking thing off the wall and kill it with fire, but alas, I do not and so I have to live with the constant presence of the dark lord, in the shape of a hideous cabinet that was clearly designed to sit on the floor yet some brilliant mind hung up overhead so that the elaborate bottom molding that should be on the floor is actually at exactly forehead level. And pointy. By the time I move out of this house I should have a nice permanent dent in the corner of my skull, matching the one that's now in Theo's metal dog dish, which I flung at the corner cabinet after hitting my head in order to punish it properly. The cabinet only chuckled grimly but the dog dish sustained a big dent and the dogs, who had been waiting for breakfast, went and hid under my bed while young M cowered under his covers. I have noticed that both my dogs (probably my children too) are well trained in that if I come in the front door and shriek Jesus Christ Almighty Goddamnit they turn tail instantly and go hide way under my bed and won't come out for some time. They're not as stupid as they look.

Finally, only 40 or so minutes late, we got into the car and young M said, "Oh, hey, we're not even late. Look, it's 8:15."
"No it isn't," I said, "That clock is an hour slow and ten minutes fast. It's actually 9:05."
"What?" said young M, "What do you mean an hour slow and ten minutes fast? Who thinks like that?"
"It's easier," I said, "Than subtracting 50 minutes."

And it is, I swear, and I should know, because I live like this for half a year, every year, and have since I got this car ten years ago because I just can't be bothered to find the car book. I know that if I found the book (which is almost certainly under one of the front seats) I could change the time and it would be humiliatingly easy, like it would take forty seconds or so to do the blindingly obvious steps to change the time but I cannot do it without the book and so, in the name of laziness, I just add an hour and subtract ten minutes to the time and pretend that it's the easiest way to go. Being lazy is seriously hard work sometimes.