Invalid’s Shopping List

If I watch one more episode of Little Bill, I think my head will explode.

*Ka-BLAM!*

Oh, wait. It just did.

I’ve been accused more than once in my life of being a lazy-ass, a housewife whose skills would make June Cleaver shudder, a cook whose culinary creations approach extreme mediocrity.

Smiling as the accusations bounced off my cheap, Teflon-coated surface, I continued to ignore signs of disarray in my household.

Today, if I could, I would don a pair of pink rubber gloves and get down on my hands and knees (minds out of the gutter, please).  If I could, I would clean and clean and clean for hours. Because nothing reveals the mess in your family room like SEVEN STRAIGHT DAYS OF CONFINEMENT.

It’s been a week today since they drilled three, two-inch holes in my left knee to reveal … well, not much. I am getting around better, using only one crutch and gingerly putting weight on my bad leg. Since last week I’ve been starting at a GODAWFUL mess.

My bedroom is an obstacle course of damp towels and discarded daytime clothes. There is—and I am not kidding about this—an old diaper under my bedroom curtains. I’ve noticed it every night for the past six nights.

Before I go to sleep, I sit at the edge of my bed and apply Vaseline to my lips (again, OUT OF THE GUTTER). Each night I make note of the old diaper.

Someone has GOT to pick up that DIRTY diaper! I think.

Then the Darvocet hits my system and I black out. When I’m sitting on the bed the next day, wrapping my leg in plastic wrap, I see it again. GROSS.

Oh, yes, wrapping my leg in plastic wrap, that’s exactly what I said. Because nothing shows off a girl’s gambs like a tourniquet made of cling film.

Speaking of cling film, I am almost out. It takes quite a bit of plastic wrap to protect THIS knee. It’s quite humbling, actually, to realize that one can wrap one’s knee and thigh only three times using one 200-square-foot roll of plastic wrap.

I so need to shred.

Mr. C’s back is out (OF COURSE), in his continuing effort to out-invalid me. He is, right now, laying on the couch in our living room, on a heating pad. You heard me. HE IS LAYING DOWN. He keeps asking me when his back is going to be better.

That’s when I stand up and thrust my crutch at him in a threatening manner.

I kid you not, this guy’s record of tandem injuries and illnesses is almost spotless. I told my sister the other day that I was feeling sorry for him, after he got up with the baby at 4 a.m. (FUCKING DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME) while I slept.

“Why?” she said. “He’s only doing what YOU do every day.”

Ahem.

My mom left yesterday and so with two gimps, a 4-year-old who runs completely on refined sugar and a 7-month-old babyman who is PULLING HIMSELF UP ON STOOLS, things are getting a little Lord-of-The-Flies around here.

We need food (why, I do not know, because my mother spent $800 on groceries while she was here), and cling film. So I’m going to indulge in a little online shopping with local home delivery (one very excellent thing about Chambana).

So just what does an invalid’s grocery list look like?

Cling film

Frozen pizza

Babyfood prunes

Mylanta

Diapers

Lettuce

Cupcakes

White bread

Tater Tots

Oh, it’s getting wild over here, people. WILD.

***

In case you missed it, pop over and see why The Poo is reading under her covers these days.