One of Many Rabbit Holes

I can't tell you how many times my mind has wandered down a path like this ...

We have a small number of cockroaches living in our building. I say small because I don't see them every day. But I do see one ... let's say at least once a week. Anyway. Every now and then, I think of doing something that I immediately worry will get the cockroaches riled up.

Today, I considered punching the wall to release some pent-up frustration. My computer was slammed and I couldn't do anything - including shut down busy applications. My baby was crying and I couldn't figure out the problem (changed the diaper, fed him, handed him toys, bounced him on my knee, he kept crying). I applied for a job and got a form letter email response saying I had to apply at the company's website rather than via email. I found the job on monster (it was posted yesterday), which only had an email address. I went to the company's website and the job wasn't listed. Did they fill it in fewer than 24 hours? Did they just not post it yet to the website? Were they really overwhelmed with applicants for a part time powerpoint specialist? All these things happened on top of each other, in the last hour of my Friday ... when I was trying to get out the door to buy cookies for a party we're attending tomorrow.

Just as I was reaching the limit of my capacity to deal in a sane manner, my boyfriend calls. He wanted to go out for drinks with a buddy tonight, but changed his mind because my mommy's helper cancelled for this morning. The last time he came home at 4am on a Friday night, we had a pretty unhappy weekend for mommy (that would be me). I don't begrudge him going out, but it essentially means I am caring for the little one from 10pm Thursday straight through to noon on Saturday. I know there are women in the world who are sole providers for their babies and they have to work this shit out too. I don't mean to say my situation is any worse than the next woman's. I'm just saying.

Anyway, he calls right as I'm starting to melt down and tells me he's blamed his inability to go out for drinks on my mother. I ask what this has to do with her (after all, she lives 3,000 miles away), and he says, "Nothing except that it's funny." Now, it's possible that I would see humor in that decision in the best of circumstances, but in my current state there's no way. I'm still having a hard time processing it. I just don't get it at all. So, I kind of mutter something. He asks if I'm ok, and I keep muttering, trying to sound like I'm fine but obviously not doing fine and he sighs, "ok, I'll be home as soon as I can" in this tone of voice that makes my skin crawl. I know he's thinking about the last time he went out when I had a mini-breakdown and I assume he feels like he has to come home every Friday night for the rest of his life to make sure I stay away from the knife drawer or something. I could do a whole post on this, but for now I'll leave it at that.

So, I felt like releasing some tension. I considered punching the wall. Then I worried that I might punch a hole in the wall (I once kicked a hole in my bedroom wall as a teenager - I couldn't find my keys and I was late for work). If I punched a hole in the wall, cockroaches might have easier access to our apartment. All of a sudden, my mind is filled with the image of hundreds, nay, thousands of cockroaches literally pouring into our apartment while I stand by screaming, the dog barks, and the baby cries. Then ... just to fuck with my head a little more, I imagine a huge cockroach eye as big as the hole, peering out at me.

Now I don't know that cockroaches even have eyes, but if they do, I'm fairly certain they aren't located on the top of their head so that they could look at me through a hole in the wall. Plus ... has anyone ever seen a cockroach big enough that its eye could be 4 inches in diameter? I mean I've heard of 4 inch long cockroaches, but surely one with a 4 inch eye would have to be something like two feet long, right? Does that exist somewhere? God, if it does, I DON'T want to know.

Anyway, the giant cockroach eye is peering out at me through the hole I just created. I don't know what happened to all the regular cockroaches that just poured into the apartment - maybe they've run away, maybe they're all over the floor, maybe I've just moved on to the next nightmare scenario and they vanished. This big-ass cockroach now manages to kind of slither through the hole into my apartment and it's freakin' huge. I'm thinking how can I kill this thing? I can't just spray it, so in my fantasy, I begin beating the giant cockroach with my great grandmother's floor lamp. Now there's a good use for a family heirloom. How it got into the hallway where this gnarly fantasy is going down, I'll never know, but it's the best instrument my mind could come up with on short notice.

I'm proud of my creativity and my active imagination. But sometimes ... sometimes I wish it was easier to turn off.