Believe it or not, this is the second day of a two-week vacation. February was, in no uncertain terms, a roundhouse kick to the sternum, and a bit of free-and-easy time would come in pretty welcomethanks. Except no one told our sitter, Bridget, who is off sunning herself on the deck of a cruise ship and drinking my goddamn margaritas. She has become a woman of leisure, shuffleboarding her 24-year-old cares away. And I have become her, placing TwoBert on a toilet every 45 minutes to avoid another incident wherein the boy craps his underpants while astride my shoulders.
You can talk about how you might react if a neck-pooping ever were to happen to you, but I can tell you that you can never really be fully prepared for it. I can save you the details of that slow, expanding warmth, because you can surely conjure them for yourselves, but I'm not afraid to admit I'm a little traumatized. And I wonder if I'm making a wee bit too big a deal about "suggesting" that TwoBert go take a seat on the can, because he hasn't pooped in two days. (Even though he still eats everything in sight--not unlike, say, a cruise patron.) I'm slowly working my way out of my PNPSD and trying not to think that he's a powderkeg just waiting to blow, but DAMMIT HE'S A POWDER KEG JUST WAITING TO BLOW. He is the MacGuffin, the bomb under the protagonist's chair. Except the protagonist knows about it and has to keep his cool, for the sake of a sweet-cheeked little two-year-old whose trusting smile could fell an icecap.
And yes, despite the fortnight of borrowed time, five greasy men arrived in my lobby yesterday to dismantle our elevator, which is now lying in several hulking pieces in our courtyard. Thus, Life in the Walk-Up has begun, for what we have been assured will be 12 short weeks. I have had two days of lugging groceries, laundry, strollers, and boycrap up four flights of stairs, and I'm pretty sure that by the time Bridget gets back I will be Jean-Claude Van Dad.
After which all this becomes her problem. So drink up, dear Bridget. Your uppance is coming.
