Tasers , Everybody Needs Good Tasers.

Ahhh, Friday afternoon. A time to come home from work, relax, and look forward to 2 days off..............
WRONG!
Well, today, at least, I was wrong. (only for a little while, I'm not usually wrong for very long) 

Although this particular Friday afternoon seemed to be a regular one as I arrived home, it rapidly shifted to a WTFriday afternoon.

While relaxing outside in the shade of the backyard patio, I noticed about 3 people approaching the fence from the house behind mine. When I say I could see "people", I mean the tops of their heads, because that's all I could see given my seated position, the slope of the yards, and the height & structure of the fence. So really, there could've been 3 tallish people and 100 persons of miniature stature for all I know.

Anyway...... a woman poked her nose over the top of the fence and called out "hullo?" to me. After replying "Hi", I approached the fence.

She began to tell me a strange little tale, that I found hard to process at first, and, frankly am still struggling with.

From my worn out, heat-exhausted, Friday afternoon brain, this is what I can recall....

"hullo......I'm real sorry about my nephew trying to break in to your house, he was locked out and couldn't get in, but he is my nephew and sorry if he was breaking in, but your husband yelled out "WHAT ARE YOU UP TO!?" and yeah ....sorry."

Now you can see where the WTF element comes into it.

Naturally, me being...well...me, I just kind of nodded and said "umm, oook, thanks." , which, now that I have had time to reflect, adds another drop of WTF. " Thanks" ????? What??? Thanks for telling me? Thanks that your nephew tried to break in but didn't succeed?? Thanks for moving in and introducing yourself to me this way? Come on Rach....learn to communicate!!

 " ...but he was locked out...." Of course he was! It's not his house!

So anyway, that was that. I walked calmly back inside, locked the door behind me, then proceeded to run madly around the entire house checking all windows & doors, all ok. Then I started on all the valuable stuff...computers, tv's, game consoles, my chocolate stash! Nothing looked as though it had been through an attempted break-in.

Then I started thinking...."...your husband yelled...".....another splash of WTF. Where was this mysterious new husband? An even better question, was he hot? In my confusion of the conversation with The Neighbours, I'd forgotten to get a description of my new man. Dammit!

Another thought then presented itself. Be glad you didn't disclose the true nature of your relationship status, Rachel.....because if they think there is a man living here, and obviously home during the day, then maybe this 'nephew' & his associates will leave you alone. It also occurred to me maybe they were fishing for information about who lives here, just for future reference, so hopefully I didn't give anything away. ( suddenly I can hear a voice in my head calling me Captain Paranoid - you know who you are! :-P )

So there you have it. I didn't call the police, because really, what could I tell them?....." um hi, some weirdos have moved in behind me and have apologised for an attempted break-in of which I can see no signs....yes I live in Morayfield" *click* "hullo, hullo???.........."

Just Do It!

"How do you do it?"... " I don't know how you do it!"

I have heard this many times, and almost as many times, I have never really stopped to think about it. The couple of times I have stopped to think about it, I have never really come up with an awe-inspiring answer.

How do I do what? I guess from what I can figure, generally, people are asking how I 'cope' with being a solo parent with 3 children, 2 of which have been diagnosed with ASD, 1 of those being quite 'low-functioning'. No wait, I REALLY REALLY hate that term! How about we say 'high-maintenance'.....but like Kath Day-Knight says " yes I'm high-maintenance, but I think ya gotta be!"

I'm 99% not offended when people ask me 'how I cope', although one time I was extremely offended and almost used B's headbutting tactic on this STUPID woman living in her own self-proclaimed-perfect bubble, who said to me " how do you put up with That?" as she gestured towards B. But you know the type....straight to A Current Affair with her pending assault charge against the 'out-of-control, tattooed single mother, living the high life on Centrelink benefits, letting her 3 sons run wild through the streets and terrorising honest upper middle-class tax-paying citizens, while she sits at home watching Oprah'. So a headbutt was soooooo not worth it.

How DO I do it? I wish I could give an answer like giving away a secret ingredient in a family recipe, or an answer that will later be published in a best-selling book. But I cannot. I'm still not really sure why people ask me anyway. I don't think it's anything amazingly difficult, my life. It certainly can have it's moments, but I don't think what I deal with is anywhere near the serious stuff some people have to go through. I'm sure everyone has the same feelings and stages in their life, just through a different set of circumstances, and with different characters. Challenges don't seem to discriminate. I see myself as a mother who wants the best for her children. I think it's quite normal...and maybe it is, or maybe it isn't. But who sets the parameters for what's normal? And damned if I'm going to be told that I'm not normal by some mustached freak with a handful of degrees and acronyms after their name, who listens to Justin Beiber, probably likes females 30 years his junior & has waitors fired if his finger bowl doesn't have a slice of lemon from fruit hand-picked by naked Balinese maidens, while he is on the phone to his cross-dressing Ecstacy dealer.


All I can say is I just do it. ......I know....what an anti-climax!