Days when I feel like a steaming shit-pile

So I am tempted to say that it started with discovering that the cooler I was about to pack, had not been unpacked since last week when we used it, thus the freezer packs that I needed to be frozen RIGHT NOW were sitting in a thin layer of moisture at the bottom of the cooler and the blue goo inside flowed freely from side to side. Fuck. There goes the tuna salad and cracker idea I had as a way to invent a meal out of the only ingredients in the kitchen. I grab a couple of tangerines and "borrow" all the cash the kids have in their banks because we are clearly going to have to eat somewhere on our break--a measly $10.00.

We are leaving for our homeschoolers Club Day--a day at the beach and that is no day for skimping on snacks and cold liquids. I am tired and my irritation mounts with every moment coming at me. I move past the cooler issue and continue boiling the eggs that I was going to use for tuna salad and decide that they, along with a half of a pear and a half of an apple each, can be breakfast instead. I ask my daughter to clean the table before breakfast because it was not cleaned the night before and she asks me for Windex.

We have a wooden table.

"Windex? What the *uck do you need Windex for?"
"To clean the table."

And because I have now lost my sanity in the vast emptiness of the kitchen and have traded personalities with a psycho living in the corners of my mind, I ask on what planet we use glass cleaner on a wood table?

She replies that this is what Jen had her use yesterday.

Now two people will die.

I go outside to where Jen is trying to break up a fight between a bike rack and her trunk to inquire if she had, indeed, instructed our daughter to clean the WOOD table with glass cleaner.

Affirmative.

I yell expletives and begin a tirade to the effect of chemicals in glass cleaner and the finish on the wood table, slam the door and yell that I cannot handle being the only one in the house with common sense--sense, mind you, that is clearly on display for the duration of this tantrum, which lasts well into our car ride to the beach.

I am at the sink washing dishes, periodically shouting how many minutes we have before we MUST leave the house as the kids eat their pieced-together breakfast in the den. I continue to mumble about glass cleaner, wood furniture and the stress of being the sole possessor of sense in this house.

I storm from one end of the house to the next, with only a moderate sense of how ridiculous I appear, throwing our beach stuff together in the empty cooler-with-no-purpose-so-now-it's-a-bag bag. I pack the sunscreen, already anticipating the feel of the greasy-meets-beach-sand grit coating on top of my skin like I would anticipate the feel of a steaming shit-pile squishing between my toes.

I shower and order the kids to pack the car. I hate myself and my voice as I hear it but this does not register with me in any way, doesn't calm my bellowing at all.

We drive in silence. Not a word. I am so disgusted with myself there are no words.

I pull into my parking space in the beachfront lot. I look out on all the faces. Last week, their smiles warmed and welcomed me. Today, their smiles irritate and mock my sullen mood. I take a deep breath, vow to fake my way through this tortured day and walk on over.

I manage a few smiles, I admire the waters of the ocean, sink in the calming sand, adore my children as they play, but all in all, I'm crawling through this day and anticipating my pajamas and a nap on the sofa at home.

Lunchtime comes and I am reminded why I suck so bad today. All the prepared, smiling mothers skip over to their cars and pull their giant coolers out, clearly free of last week's leftovers, and packed with full lunches and drinks for their families.

I am such a shit pile.

Not only do they have food for their children, they have boogie boards and other such water toys.

Even better.

I look at my own precious children, so much deserving another mother at this moment and I just want to float away in the ocean, to exchange myself for someone else, one of those other better prepared mothers. I ask if we can just go. They are all for it, they are hungry and hot.

I fake a few more smiles to the moms who cannot help but be so perfect. I throw a couple more hugs around and we are off. A few errands and I pull into a Chick-Fil-A for our "lunch"--mother of the year, man. For the next few miles, my children eat lunch out of their laps--fried waffle shaped potatoes.

More sickening? They are thanking me. To these unsuspecting children with a dung heap for a mom, this is a treat. The perspective issue is really at work here.

I stuff my own face and don't even brush away the crumbs littering my shirt and lap--why bother? They are indicative of the negligence shadowing my every move, action and word today.

Home. Finally. I can hide within the walls that comfort me when I suck. I get a refreshing power nap speckled with little voices interrupting me every few minutes and then I rise. Ready for more.

Later that evening, following a trip to the grocery store where I wrote a check that I knew would not clear until at least the next afternoon--hours after our direct deposit hits the account, I ask my daughter to wipe the table down. She jokingly says she will not use Windex and we all have a good laugh--mommy's back.

Then she says:
"This morning Jen and I realized that it was not Windex that I used to clean the table. It was Simple Green but we weren't going to say anything just in case that was worse."