Weekends around here are just jam-packed nowadays, usually with good things. One thing that happened was both good and bad all at once: I quit my job already. It was kicking my ass, and I automatically got a nasty cold that my companion brought home that I probably would have shaken off otherwise. I didn’t quit because it was kicking my ass though, I quit it because it turned my tiny family upside down and shook them vigorously, poor things. My companion spent most of the day when I was gone trying to shovel food and a bottle into an extremely angry Strudel piehole, and when he wasn’t unsuccessfully feeding her, she was screaming or passed out. Then, as an added bonus, she woke up every hour of the night each day I worked, probably to see if I was still there or if I had abandoned her again. Worst. Mama. Evah.

So now I am back to full-time boob ranching and hauswoofery, barefoot and sarcastic. I am sorry that our experiment failed, because I really wanted to take the sole financial burden off my companion. In a year he went from bachelor royale stylee (“I sleeps on me futon and goes camping when I please, yarr”) to having a little baby and a babymomma and a stepdaughter. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel: my companion got a call from Giant County Library System and they want to train him as a sub. He gets up to nineteen hours a week! And no benefits! DOPE! Thanks guys! However, this tiny little bone that he has been thrown should help a lot, because it’s the only thing cooking right now. After being trapped with a baby banshee, he is EXCITED about the OPPORTUNITIES working a part-time second job will afford. Mainly, keeping his hearing and sanity.

Also, we just booted another financial burden. I sent the final payment off to my lawyer this weekend. Peace out, camel-humping dickbag!

On Saturday we went downtown to bonk around and look at things. My companion was holding Strudel in the sling so I could poke and fondle things at will.

“Hmm, lookit these,” I said, pointing to a pack of fancy-schmancy fine-mesh underwear. Long-time readers may remember that I am a member of the thong–converted. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t bought any underwear in a year, and I still am at least fifteen pregnancy pounds out from cramming myself back into my old thongs. And the larger bikini underwear I bought to get me though pregnancy now sags attractively in the rear. HOTT!

“Those are nice,” said my companion. He says this about almost any underwear, which is something I like about him. He has some trauma from a few years ago involving teal underwear with chartreuse piping or some such nonsense, so he only draws the line at that color combo.

I pulled a pack off the rack and walked on to another part of the store.

“EXTRA LARGE?” my companion said as he trailed behind me. “YOU’RE WEARING EXTRA LARGE NOW?”

I spun around and leaned in toward him. “Jesus!” I hissed. “Why don’t you say that a little louder?”

“Sorry,” he said, sotto voce and slightly mortified, “but you told me you were a large.” He finished this somewhat accusingly.

“Well, I was,” I said, “before I had Strudel. And I will get back there someday. I did the first time.”

The funny thing is that he knows I look a little different now, and I have kept him apprised of the weird changes that happen post-pregnancy. But I guess in some ways I look just like myself because he looked so shocked that I was buying a larger size.

I guess the fact that he embarrassed me in the middle of the busy store is payback in a way. Last winter, we were riding the bus together to different places and he got off first. As he was getting off I reminded him, loudly, across the bus, that he was out of Preparation H and he should stop by Bartell’s and get some more. I saw him close his eyes and shake his head as he stood by the bus’s back door. “Why am I with this woman?” the look said.

So, Saturday, in the middle of the crowded department store, he unwittingly exacts his revenge. Well played, my friend. Well played.

In Other News

Did you people know that it is a super bad idea to attempt to wash a disposable diaper? With your regular clothes? And if you do this, as you take the laundry out of the wash, weird little pebbles, like soft sand, will explode out and fall all over your feet and the floor. Because modern diapers are filled with weird absorbent gel.

You might ask yourself how a dirty diaper came to be in the washer the first place. I suspect I can trace the problem back to the hamper as an open receptacle in the dark, sometime around two in the morning. Good lord. Well, now we know what happens, people.