Easily Annoyed & Aggravated

I really hate to pawn my moods off on hormones. I'm an adult. I should be able to control my urges to maim, spindle, and mutilate during various stages of the month. I don't use PMS as an excuse. It may very well be a reason I wish to rip your head off and stuff it into one of your orifices, but I don't use it as an excuse for my behavior.

(Then again, more times than not, I'm more easily annoyed than easily amused. It's part of my charm. I tend to gravitate towards people who have the same no-nonsense/anti-bullcrap approach to life. Either you "get" me or you don't.)

Who knows whether it's estrogen levels or the fact I'm overwhelmed and stressed out with this graduation stuff going on that is causing my angsty aggravation. The bottom line is keep your hands and feet inside the ride lest you lose an appendage. Do not feed the wild animal. Tread lightly. You get the idea.

Yesterday, I found myself on a cleaning roll. It doesn't happen often. It doesn't happen nearly enough. I cleaned the utility room, the oldest's sty, err bedroom, and almost had the kitchen complete (short of cleaning the fridge and mopping the floor).

With graduation this weekend, oldest child decides he has forgotten a few people he'd like to invite to his open house. I had the worst time imaginable designing and then printing these invitations. I stopped when I ran out of ink in the old printer. Yes, the old printer because the new one decided to profess a perpetual paper jam. It's a long, gruelling story ending with me staying up till 1 a.m. and threatening to make lawn art out of either printer. Or really anybody who got in my way.

So, I'm cleaning and annoyed that he suddenly wants me to do something else. I should be used to this. I am a mom, after all. Get me, take me, make me...it's my life.

The ink cartridge printed it's last print, so I sent the child on a mission to get me an ink cartridge refill kit. I proceeded to continue cleaning the cabinet fronts. About this time, my husband came home.

"Where's the child?" he yelled out to me as soon as he came in the door. I was three rooms away. I heard him. I opted not to yell back. I cannot stand being called out to from another room. Get up off your sweet caboose and speak to me in normal tones. Though, I should be used to it by now.

"Hello?" he called out as he neared the kitchen. I don't know if he thought I'd made good on that running off to join the circus threat, but he was still using an outside voice.

"Not talking to me?" he asked.

Ugh. Of course, I was talking to him. I just wasn't yelling to him. He expressed the need for some fix-a-flat, got a hold of the kid, and went to change his clothes.

He entered the edge of the kitchen again in his work shirt, a pair of shorts, and his black, cotton socks. I stress cotton because if they'd been those nylon sort of dress socks, I'd probably be committed somewhere right now.

He just stood there. Looking at me. He put his hands in his pocket. I waited for him to say something as I scrubbed what might have been gorilla glue from a cabinet handle.

"I wouldn't come in here sock-footed," I told him, my contempt growing because he was wearing shorts and black socks. I know it was no fault of his own. He's not a fashion-conscious sort. He really doesn't know any better. He didn't set off to annoy me.

He turned around, acting as though I'd banished him to some far away land. I merely wanted him to know the floor was wet in the areas I'd been scrubbing, and wet socks send him into orbit.

I warmed up some lasagna for him, brought him his plate, and returned to finish scrubbing.

The phone rang various times. The child was asking questions about refill kits and cartridges. Twice, my husband asked, "Who was that?"

He full well knew the child was on a mission. I wasn't talking to some random stranger about HP 57 refill kits and replacement cartridges. It wasn't a poll asking what kind of printer I owned, yet he asked who it was.

Now, this isn't abnormal behavior from that man of mine who I love so much. In fact, it's typical. Most of the time, I'm able to overlook it.

Next, he asked how long the child was going to be gone. Well, let's see. Walmart is a good 20 minute drive. The child sometimes isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to electronic devices. Add the stop at the automotive store, and he was going to be gone at least one hour - if not longer.

"I'm going to have a full flat tire. If I knew he was going to be so long, I would have gone myself," my husband told me in a tone that suggested since I gave birth to the boy, it was likely somehow my doing that he wasn't home with the tire remedy.

I'd like to say my mood has improved today, but I'd be lying. My fingers are various shades of blue, red and yellow, and those colors they make when mixed. I was reminded three times in one hour that one kid has a hair cut appt. at 1:30. The phone has rang no less than ten times since 10 a.m.

"What's going on?" my husband asked, suggesting something was wrong and we were going to play 20 questions.

"Going on with what?"

"I don't know, just wondered what was going on," he said.

"Oh, nothing a little Midol, a vacation, or a fifth of something couldn't take care of," I told him.