Lifting My Dainty Vagina

Poor little step stool.

I purchased it so I don’t fall and die putting up Christmas lights on the low-hung gutters on my house.

Sadly, it is now lifting my dainty vagina in my cold dark kitchen at 3 AM so I can pee in the sink.

[Which sucks. Because now I have to wash the dishes all the time. Right?]

Anyway, it only has two steps. Therein lies its beauty.

Step 1 is where I leave my dignity.

Step 2 is where my cat starts meowing like a loon.

Because even when I am perched on the ledge of my kitchen sink peeing, I must pick her up so she can sit on my lap.

Meowmeowmeow.

MeeeeeeeeeeeeeOW!

[Seriously, dude? I mean what the fuck. Can’t you see I’m two steps away from falling to a pathetic death? And death is not in the plan. Not yet.]

I had a perfect plan. They are all perfect. Until they’re not.

The Purge Plan.

It required all urination and No. 2 occur between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM [which also means I would arrive to work on time. And y’all know that ain’t right possible?]

But I was only capable of leaving the full complement of No. 2 at work.

[Because even my body knows – work is shit’s headquarters.]

My handyman said gutting and re-doing my only bathroom would take 7 days. I could do anything for 7 days.

The purge plan. Yoga. Other stuff I can’t remember. Right?

[Hell, no! I have no discipline. And I almost killed myself in yoga. And I am lazy. And I have an asymptomatic fibroid sitting on my bladder that is the size of grapefruit. And it has it’s own purge plan.]

I made it through one night without peeing. And it was hell.

On the second day [without a toilet], my handyman told me this delightful story about some lunatic renting a porta potty.

“It’s great,” he said, in his adorable Polish accent, “You can carry it around.”

[Carry it around?! Where? To the mall. The supermarket. How about to the morgue? So when I kill myself, I will already be there.]

He is so sweet though… I do adore him.

But let’s just say – he and I have different ideas of what “great” is. My idea of great is Starbucks giving me free syrup in my coffee.

Not using the hands attached to my body – to rent a pot that someone prior to me has done  No. 1 and 2 in – and then, using the hands still attached to my body to return it.

Why is that even a thing?! No. Just no.

My neighbor, Bob, said I could use his bathroom. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Five people live in his house.

Here is some ass math.

5 people + 1 toilet = 5 asses on 1 toilet.

And comingling with 5 other tushies without a formal Polygamist marriage seems wrong.

Gotta love Bob though…

Since he was laid off in February, he’s been seriously bored – and chatty. We’re like BFFs now [if only he’d braid my hair and paint my nails? Sigh.]

I felt awful about the layoff thing…

So I offered him a job doing spring clean up in my yard where I usually pay about $1500 for leaf removal and laying mulch.

[Note to self: The next time you buy a house instead of a condo like you should with ten billion trees and dig up 1/3 of the grass to plant a 2,900 square foot garden TO GET RID OF THE GRASS – I will fucking shoot you.]

“Just give me an estimate,” I said. “And we can get going on this.”

And for weeks, he toiled in my yard.

Carefully removing leaves from every nook and cranny. That meticulous clean-up took about 40 hours. Then, he had a mountain of mulch delivered.

And for weeks, he toiled.

Evenly placing mulch in each garden bed. And that took another 60 hours.

My garden has never looked this good. So precise. So very precise. [Like damn dude.]

And what price did Bob quote for this gardening masterpiece?

$150. That’s it. And no. That is not good.

Not for back-breaking work. I did this clean-up task for 6 years because I was too cheap to hire anyone.

So I know.

The idea was to help him. Or at least have a mutually beneficial exchange. Not to get (basically) free labor. [I only believe in children working for free and/or being sweet and bookish and silent.]

Bob is nice. And nice is great. I like “nice” and kittens and cotton candy. But this seems unethical. And I have a problem with that.

And he won’t take my money. I keep asking. He keeps saying things like: “As long as you’re happy.”

[Fucker.]

Who says things like that?! Focus, dude.

It makes me happy not to dick over people that I like. It makes me happy when people earn a fair wage for doing dumb jobs.

Call me old-fashioned.

Eureka!

I know!

I will write 2 checks. One for the $150 he requested. And one for a few hundred more. It’s still not enough money, but I get to not feel like a douchebag.

One day, I fold the checks in half and shove them into his hand before I leave for my dumb job.

Finally.

My plan is working. [Insert evil laugh here.]

Updated bathroom. Check.

Garden clean-up done. Check.

Bob cashed both checks. Double check! [See? Folding paper always confuses the masses. So there.]

Honestly, the less I have to do or have in this house – the more I like it. So I continue to purge crap like Vivienne [I love that crazy-beautiful-pole dancing-decluttering-mother of 2’s blog. Stay fabulous, Miss.].

Half of my stuff is gone. The other day I was talking on the phone and I heard an echo ring through the living room.

Yes, my house is that empty.

I have kept only the essentials. And now, I don’t feel the need to sell this house for $5 on Craig’s List anymore. 

As long as I can pay people to do shit everything. There is no endless stress.

Getting rid of things also gets rid of the stress.

And let’s be real.

I’m never moving away from anyone who says magical incantations like “As long as you’re happy” and will drop everything to help me.

Duh.

I might pee in my kitchen sink when there is no toilet – but I am not stupid.

But I do need to move the last remnant of my cluttered house to the curb for trash day.

A big cat-hair covered couch.

I asked Bob.

Who was watching TV with his family when I tapped on their door. [Oh, there’s that damn puppy again! Nobody loves me more than Puppy…]

Lick. Lick. Bark! Lick.

[Simmer down, furball.]

Bob and his wife agree to help me before I finish my sentence.

Hm…

Something in my gut tells me to turn the couch over and cut open the bottom.

So I jet back to my living room like my feet are on fire.

I slash the bottom of my couch open.

And holy O-Ru-J [Oprah, RuPaul, Judge Judy] and all things fabulous!

My ginormous purple vibrator falls out. I lost it about the same time Bob lost his job [because bad things happen in pairs.]

Welcome home, my sweet sweet friend.

Literally seconds after the vibrator homecoming, Bob and 5 [FIVE?!] teenage boys came to remove the couch. Bob’s 2 sons and 3 other walking hormones.

Question: How is it even possible to summon 5 teens in 5 seconds?

But my couch is huge. And the front door has a stair case right in front of it. So removing it is intricate.

“Let’s use a sledgehammer,” one teen boy says – a little too happy.

The delegates of the testosterone convention in my living room confer for 10 minutes about how – complete couch annihilation – is imperative to remove it. Apparently, breaking shit is part of the teen-boy thought process.

[Can I just say I love my vagina?]

Finally, sanity prevails [and by that, I mean Bob], and they lift the furry couch over the bannister, back it up the stairs in order to twist it out the door at an angle.

[God, that was exhausting to watch.]

“Thanks, man. You rock,” I say to my neighbor as I watch the boys toss the couch pillows like footballs by the curb.

“No problem.”

Then, he tells me how he got the job of his dreams from answering a little ad in the newspaper.

[Right. What the hell is a newspaper? Wait. Let me Google this…]

“Dude, that is amazing,” I said. And I am just so happy. He didn’t settle. He got the job he wanted, even though everyone told him 55 is too old to start over, to get a job.

As he is walking out, he grabs my hand.

[Right. So this is weird. Um…]

And he shoves something crumpled into it and just walks out.

It’s the money from the second check I gave him. Almost all of it.

[Fuck!]

He foiled my plan to give him shit by giving me back my shit.

“I don’t need this!,” I call after him like a nutter, “No, really!”  But he ignores me like my cats do – and disappears into his house next door.

Dammit.

I had a perfect plan.

I mean they are all perfect.

Until they’re not.