When nap time goes really, really wrong.

It was a peaceful Saturday afternoon at 154 Hidden Court.

Cj had just gone down for a nap - thankfully - Zj and I were in the kitchen.

I was making some of my near-famous potato salad and playing pretend with zj at the same time.  Zj was Batman, and I was Catwoman, which means he was jumping and screaming all around me and I just had to look bored and meow occasionally.  It's no problem really, I do that all the time anyway.

We were going on about our business, playing and cooking, cooking and playing, until zj stops dead still, looking toward the living room, and whispered "Uh, Mama."

There are few things that will get my attention quicker than zj a) being still and b) being quiet.

At that very moment, cj rounded the corner of the breakfast bar, and he was covered... I mean COVERED in blood.  It was in his hair.  It was all over his face.  It was on his hands.  Covered.

He looked like something out of a bad horror movie, except instead of red-tinted corn syrup, the blood was real.

He looked like someone had slaughtered a goat all over him, where goat = cj.

I grabbed him and sat him on the kitchen counter, and immediately began to wipe the blood off to find the source.

He wasn't particularly upset, or even crying, so I immediately suspected shock due to blood loss.

My mind was going a hundred miles an hour.

Ok, should I call 911 or just put him in the car and drive him to the ER? I should call RJ to meet us there... but that can wait.  Oh dear lord where is all this blood coming from?  Maybe a scalp wound? Those bleed a lot.  Nope.  Maybe inside his mouth?  Maybe he bit his tongue in half?  Nope. Ok, when I find the source, what do you do for bleeding? Pressure? Ice? Tourniquet? Vodka? Maybe for me.  Oh Jesus why did I spend the entire time in my Safety and First Aid class in college flirting with RJ instead of paying attention?  Ok, It's not on his face or head that I can see.  Let me check for puncture wounds on his body...  

And on, and on, and on.

I finally worked my way all around his body, down his legs and back up to his arms.  On his right thumb, I finally found the source of all the blood.

It was a scratch, very shallow, about a quarter inch square.

Yeah.  That was all.

One measly little scratch that didn't even need stitches.

However, it was right in the crease of his thumb, so every time he moved his hand, it bled a little.  

One Incredible Hulk band-aid later, all was right with the world again.

I didn't see anything in his room that he could have possibly scratched it on, so I chalked it up to a crazy fluke, put him back in bed to finish his nap, and went toward the master bathroom to wash my hands... and I saw this:

I died a little.

Then I threw up in my mouth.

Then I decided that nap time has officially been cancelled.  

Forever.

Broken.

Hi, I'm mj, and it's been 22 days since my last run.

"Hi, Mj!"

A little over a year ago, I started running for the first time in my life, and my treadmill immediately tried to kill me.

It's ok, I eventually tamed that sucker, and took up running with a passion that I can only attribute to severe insanity coupled with fierce competitiveness.

I started running in actual races and to be quite honest, I've never been quite so addicted to anything in my life, and for someone who has a slightly addictive personality anyway, that's saying quite a lot.

So in keeping with my somewhat crazy outlook, I signed up for another half marathon for the fall, and decided that I was going to go all out with my training.

The slightly less than three hour finish in my last half marathon just wasn't good enough, so I upped my mileage, worked on my speed, and pretty much otherwise rocked the running shoes every chance I got.

My stamina was excellent.

My speed improved and I was consistently shaving over two minutes per mile off my previous time, even in long runs.

Until... one day, on a short easy run, I started feeling some pain in my right lower leg.

Now, let me start by saying that I have a ridiculously high tolerance for pain.  I'm not sure why, but every medical professional who has ever done anything supposedly painful to me has remarked on it.  I'm always just confused that it was supposed to hurt, and how can it be over if it didn't?  Anyway, I shrugged it off, finished my run, and ignored it for the next couple days, until it was time to run again.

And... I couldn't.

I. Could. Not. Run. At. All.

The pain was too intense.

So I tool a couple more days off, did the whole ice plus Tylenol thing, and got right back on the treadmill to "catch up" on the running I had missed over the past few days.

And... I still couldn't.

So I did what any reasonable, stubborn, pigheaded gal would do - I ignored it some more.

Until a week had passed, and it STILL hurt.

Then I got serious.  I started Googling it.

Google is my doctor of choice, you know, and I learned a lot about running injuries and how to prevent them, but not so much was available on how to CURE them.

My self-diagnosis is that it's a pulled or torn ligament.

Probably.

So I iced it, took some Tylenol, and mostly ignored it some more.

And still, nada.

So now I'm more than three weeks into a period of no running.  I'm grumpy.  I'm emotional. I'm broken.

I would have never predicted that not being able to run would affect me so much.

But I've made the decision to wait till it's completely healed before I try again.

Because I have to get better soon.

I've got some races to run.

Dreamsicle Cake.

I've been known to pour liquor onto and into pretty much every cake I bake, and although this recipe would be easily modified to include a little something... special, like Absolut Mandarin - yum, last weekend I was cooking for some people, and one of them is pregnant.

Damn pregnant people and their "no alcohol" rules.

Anyway, I asked Preggo if there was anything she currently hated and/or craved, and the only thing she said she had been craving was oranges.

I could have bought a big bag of oranges and been done with it, but somehow that didn't seem like much of a dessert.

I remember eating a cake something like this one at some point - maybe a potluck at work? - but I don't remember it being as good as this one was.

I give this amalgamation of about 47 recipes I read on the internet two thumbs way up.


WHAT YOU NEED:
1 box of orange cake mix - Duncan Hines makes it, but it's kinda hard to find.  You could also use a yellow or white cake mix, but if you do, I'd use orange juice instead of the water called for, so it tastes orangey-like.
Oil, eggs and water according to the cake mix directions
1 package instant orange Jell-o
2 packages instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup super hot water
1 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 8 oz. container of Cool Whip, thawed

WHAT YOU DO:
Use a 9x13 or thereabouts sheet cake pan, and prepare and bake the cake according to the directions on the box, adding one box of the vanilla pudding mix to the batter before you start mixing.

After the cake is cooked but is still warm, use a skewer, or toothpick, or chopstick, or something long and skinny and pointy to poke holes all across the cake.  You can make some of the holes deep and some shallow.  You can make a few or a lot.  It's your cake, after all.  It's a great way to practice your stabbing so the next time you get mad at somebody, you're ready.  There are so few good practical stabbing exercises available...

Next, mix one cup extra hot water with the orange Jello, and slowly pour over the top of the cake.  Make sure you get some into all those little holes you just stabbed into your cake.

Now let it cool completely.

After it's cool, mix by hand one cup cold milk, the second package vanilla pudding, the vanilla extract and the orange juice.  After it's mixed, fold in the Cool Whip and spread on the cake.

Cool it in the fridge for a couple hours before serving it, and it is definitely best served cold.  It will keep in your fridge for several days, not that it will last that long.

We MUST get out more.

So a few weeks ago, zj started school, and that has left cj home with me all day.  Every day.

He's in love with it.

Some days, we do this:

Other days, we do this:

And sometimes, just for fun, we do this:

Oh, and a few times a day when I have to put him down to do something like, oh, say, GO PEE, we do this:

All this newfound togetherness, coupled with the fact that he no longer naps has driven me bat-shit crazy been a bit challenging.

I decided the right course of action would be to take him out into the world occasionally to socialize.   With other people.  Besides me and my lap, where he would happily sit for 14 hours a day if I would let him.

Last week, we went to story time at Barnes & Noble, and he liked it.  Mainly, I think, because he got to sit on my lap the whole time, but still, at least the scenery was different.

This week, I thought we'd repeat the story time experience, and double up with a trip to the kids' play area at the local mall.

We got to the mall early, and were the only people in the play area.  I know playing alone is totally not the point, but I was still relieved.  I like to stake and claim my territory early whenever possible.  

Cj immediately took to this castle/bridge deal, calling it a doghouse.  He crawled around yelling "I A PUPPY!  WOOF! WOOF!" and playing in his doghouse until other kids started to arrive.  At this point, he retreated inside the doghouse, growling and barking if any other kids came near.  

This was cute for about a minute, until I realized he was pretty serious about defending his turf.  Also, the other busybody moms went from smiling at "the cute little puppy" to muttering among themselves.  I caught a few words like "strange" "anti-social" and "feral" before scooping my growling puppy up, slapping his shoes on him and booking it out of the play area.  

"I think we'll find somewhere else to go." 

Cj licked my face and wagged his tail in hearty agreement.

Our next stop was story time at the bookstore.

Since we had done so well there the week before, I wasn't too worried.

Until we sat down among the other story time participants and he began to climb up my person like a spider monkey.  If a spider was the wailing, screeching sort.  Who yelled "Help MomMom!  Help MomMom!" repeatedly and made snot bubbles with his nose.

Story time: exit left.

So home we came, where we spent the afternoon curled up on the bed watching True Blood re-runs on HBO on Demand and eating Ruffles.  

It's ok, though.  I made it a fun learning experience.

Can you say "vampire," baby?

"Bampire."

Investments.

When RJ and I first got married, we were poor.

Dirt poor.

Like, I worked at Wendy's 25 hours a week, we lived over a grocery store and stole our cable, we shared our one and only toothbrush, we only had one car, and we mostly ate the $5 pizzas you could find on special around campus poor.

Ok, I made up that toothbrush part.  But still, damn poor.

Luckily for us, RJ's mom's family came through with wedding gifts in the form of cash.

It may have been a total of $3000 or so, which seems like a lot now, but then, we were pretty sure we were rich.  Seriously, that would have covered all our living expenses for at least six months.

Being young and incredibly stupid somewhat fiscally irresponsible, we spent that money in our heads a million times.   We finally narrowed it down to two options.  We were either going to buy some cheap-ass inexpensive pressed wood bookcases, or we were going to use some of the money to invest in a small start-up company that we both had an interest in... called Amazon.

See, I loved books, and RJ was a technology geek, and this was going to be a revolutionary meeting of both our passions.

I remember we had enough to buy around 100 shares.

Guess which one we decided on?

Yeah, since I'm not blogging from my summer home in the Hamptons or wherever, you guessed right if you said: Cheap-ass bookcases.

They lasted through one move, then fell to pieces and had to be broken apart with a hammer and shoved into about a million trash bags so the garbage company would haul them away without charging us an "oversized item" fee.

I started to do the math one time to figure out how much our little 100 shares of stock would have been worth today if we had purchased them then, and somewhere around a quarter million dollars, I stabbed myself in the eye and drank a pint of gin straight out of the freezer.

Whatever.

Being independently wealthy has lots of pitfalls, too, I guess.  Like, ya know, the maid is always in your way when you're trying to lounge around, and sometimes the cook forgets that you prefer your  eggs scrambled instead of fried and you have to send them back.  Sigh.

Anyway, there have been a ton of things over the years that I probably should have invested in but did not.  Like AA batteries.  Pretty much every toy in this house requires somewhere between four and six AA batteries.  And since my kids leave every toy in the house in the "on" position most of the time,  I have to replace the batteries in every toy every time someone wants to play with it.

"Mama!  Can you put batteries in this?"

Seriously, kid?  Go make a mud pie or something.

Mama's just going to be online spending her imaginary money.  Again.

The Me Box

So, I may have mentioned a time or a dozen that zj started kindergarten last week.

This has rocked my world in all the usual ways - what's up with this 7:30 bus pick-up, by the way?  This is totally eating into my running time.

One of the most surprising things, though, has been the workload he brings home and I have to complete most nights.

A recent assignment was for him to create and bring to school a "Me Box" which would contain things that were representative of his likes, interests, family, etc.  He would then stand in front of the class - with the microphone - and give a presentation about all the things in his box.

What. The. Hell?

He's five.

I'm pretty sure my first "in front of the class with the microphone presentation" came some time in high school, plus I stayed home sick that day so I wouldn't have to do it.  Then I faked laryngitis the rest of the year to get out of it.

But that's just me.

When zj brought home the paper explaining it, my super-competetive spirit kicked in.  We could do a Powerpoint!  And give out prizes!  And have a backdrop!  And require class participation!  Maybe make up a rhyme!  We were going to win the Me Box!

When I shared all my somewhat insane ideas with zj, he said "Mama, that's not what the other kids are doing."

Fine, be mediocre then.

Zj and I finally came to an agreement, and the Me Box was created.

When I asked him what kinds of things he wanted to put in it, immediately gathered up 4,796 of his favorite toys.

We pared it down a little, and this is what he ended up taking:

• His race bib from this 5k he ran over the summer.
• Some small dinosaur figures that he described in excruciating detail, using words like "predator" and "carnivorous" and using descriptions like "teeth as big as bananas."  Whatever.  He could be a girl and they could be Polly Pockets.  That sounds about a million times worse to me.
• A shark-tooth necklace to commemorate our family beach vacation.  He told everybody that his Daddy found it in a real live shark.  Actually we got it  in an overpriced tourist shop for $1.  The kid can sure can tell a good tale, though.  Wonder where he gets that?
• A superhero figure to commemorate each of the movies we saw this summer: Thor, X-Men, Green Lantern and Captain America. 

When he got off the bus the day of his presentation, I immediately began to bombard him with rapid questions asked how his presentation went.

Zj:   "It went fine.  Hey, we had PIZZA for lunch.  AGAIN!"
Mj:  "Hey, let's talk about your Me Box.  What did the kids say?"
Zj:  "Nothing really.  Hey, some kid knows how to blow a BUBBLE INSIDE ANOTHER BUBBLE!  Well, he said he did, but I haven't seen him do it, because we can't have gum at school, you know."
Mj:  "What did your teacher say about your Me Box?"
Zj:  "I don't really remember.  Hey, we got to have recess outside ON THE GRASS today!  But not on the swings.  Swings are tomorrow.  We have to take turns with the other classes, you know."
Mj:  "OH FOR GOODNESS SAKE TELL ME HOW YOUR ME BOX PRESENTATION WENT!!!!  DID WE WIN?????"
Zj:  "Huh?"
Mj:  "Never mind."

So apparently living vicariously through zj in all his brilliance isn't going to be an option.

Maybe I'll just make my own Me Box.

It will be red.  It will have a bottle of Oliver Soft Red Wine, a 6-pack of Blue Moon, my Nook, and my iPhone in it.

Hmmmmm.

Actually, I just described my purse.

Damn, that was easy.

See, I AM good at this.

What we learned this week.

Zj started kindergarten and has just finished up his first full week.

We all survived it, but it's definitely been a learning process.

Who knew kindergarten would be so hard?


WHAT ZJ LEARNED:

• The Pledge of Allegiance
• How to spell "red" and "happy"
• That Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and it has a red spot on it
• That if you talk too much during lunch time you won't have a chance to eat
• That if you talk too much during class your teacher will fuss at you
• That the president lives in the White House
• That one little kid on your bus kicked another little kid in the nuts last year and now they're not friends
• That some poisonous animals have poisonous hairs on their butts
• That schoolwork - including writing your letters and numbers - can be fun
• That Mama wasn't lying when she said "please" and "thank you" are important
• That getting up at 6:30 every morning is hard

WHAT MJ LEARNED:

• That getting a 5 year old up at 6:30 every morning is hard
• That it is possible to obsess over kindergarten homework
• That sometimes your control freak, competitive nature can rear it's head when you least expect it  - see kindergarten homework
• That I'm gonna take over the PTO next year.  Just you wait.
• That the week your big kid starts school, your toddler will stop napping and learn to climb out of the baby bed. 
• That even though the days often seem long, the years are flying by
• That it will simply not be possible to keep all the worksheets, coloring pages, and art projects that come home.  Even though I want to.
• That the 5 minutes you leave your two year old alone with crayons without big brother there to tattletale moderate are NOT WORTH IT.
• That the 5 minutes you leave your two year alone with crayons, your internet will not work.  Guaranteed.

WHAT CJ LEARNED:

• That having Mama all to yourself is pretty cool.
• That if you don't nap, you have more time with Mama.
• That if Mama's busy trying to do something like, say, eat, and you scream loud enough, she will pick you up eventually
• That you can now appropriate your brother's toys for long stretches without consequences

Here's to a fabulous week two!

The second best peanut butter pie I've ever eaten.

I used to work with a guy named Bargain Jack.

Actually, his name was just Jack, but he worked in the bargain section, and there was already a Jack, and bookstore people are weird, so just go with it, ok?

Bargain Jack was a retired English teacher, and everybody knows that bookstores will take any retired English teachers on staff, immediately and forever, no questions asked.

He and I used to occasionally spend our breaks in the break room diagramming complicated sentences.

It's been a long time since I've had that much fun.

Bargain Jack had a pronounced Southern accent, loved his Harley and his Corvette beyond reason, and called his wife "Mama."  Every time he spoke about her.  Every. Single. Time.

Mama's cooking was nothing short of legendary.  Every time we had a potluck at work, Bargain Jack would bring in the most delightful creations, and nary a crumb would be left.

Once he showed up with a peanut butter pie that was the single best thing I have ever put in my mouth.  It's also possible that after eating a piece, I took the rest of the pie into my office and hid it under a stack of schedules.

I got the recipe and tired and tried and tried to recreate it, but I could never come close.

I suspect "Mama" had a secret ingredient, like magic pixie dust, or  maybe crack.

In any event, no peanut butter pie I've tried since has ever come close.

But this one is a pretty good second place.

WHAT YOU NEED:

1 pre-prepared chocolate pie crust.  I have heard crazy tales of crushing cookies and whatnot to make your own, and if you're so inclined, I applaud you.  But I just bought one right off the shelf and saved about 6 hours of my life that I would never have gotten back.

Filling:

1 brick of cream cheese

1 cup of creamy peanut butter.  Choosy moms choose Jif.  I'm not judging if you use another kind, but everyone knows Jif is superior.

3 tablespoons sugar

Half of a small tub of Cool Whip.  I highly recommend you eat the other half with a spoon as you stand at the kitchen counter whipping up your pie.  Baking is hard work and you need all the energy you can get.

Topping:

2 oz. semi-sweet baking chocolate (or a handful of chocolate chips - just in in case you need a backup plan because your kid ate all the baking chocolate.  With the foil wrappers on. True story.)

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

WHAT YOU DO:

Unwrap the pie crust.  Whew.  Aren't you glad that's done?  

Put the cream cheese, peanut butter, and sugar in a bowl and blend it with a mixer on low to medium until speed until it's fully blended.  

Find a little boy who loves peanut butter more than he loves his Mama, and give him the beaters to lick.  

There are so few great non-raw-egg-beater-licking opportunities, don't you think?

Fold in the Cool Whip until it's incorporated, then spoon it into the pie crust, smoothing out the top.

Put the whipping cream and chocolate in a small bowl and heat it in the microwave, stirring it every 15-20 seconds or so to keep it from scorching.  Once the chocolate is completely melted and mixed into the cream, let it sit to cool for a few minutes, then pour it over the top of the pie.   It should be thin and easy to spread out at this point. 

Put the pie in the fridge uncovered for an hour or two to let the chocolate set.

Eat it with a shovel.

I'm such a bad blogger.

It's true.

I'm a terrible blogger.

I don't go to cool blog conferences.

I don't have a connected circle of blogs that I am a part of, and active in.

I seldom participate in link-ups.

I don't post on a regular schedule.

I almost never remember to promote my blog on any social media site, which is ok, considering I almost never remember to seek out followers on said sites.

Some weeks - or months - I'll be inspired and post nearly every day.

Other times, weeks will pass without a solid post.

I have good ideas for posts them immediately forget them.

Truthfully, I'd love to do all these things, but since blogging is something that I just do, just for me, it usually... ok, always takes a back seat to laundry and dinner and kissing boo-boos and playing outside and...

You get the picture.

So yeah, I'm a bad blogger.

Oh, and I never, ever, ever remember to check my stat counter.

Except occasionally.

A couple months ago Angie at the Jammie Girl posted an amusing look at what search terms brought people to her blog.

I thought "I should do that!" then immediately forgot all about it.

Till today.

 So today, in no particular order, I'm listing some of my favorites.  Keep in mind, these are the actual terms that some poor unsuspecting soul typed into Google or wherever hoping to get real information.

Instead they got me.

1. Pictures of a funny retail clerk:  Hmmm.  Do you think they meant "funny-looking?"  Or just funny?  Either way, I'm sure these folks were sorely disappointed.  Because I almost never post pictures of myself.  Well, except this one time.  Ok, maybe they weren't so disappointed after all.

2. Stubby toes: Ok, maybe I have overshared a little about the state of my feet, especially after a certain pair of unnamed shoes *cough* Brooks *cough* tortured me for 13 miles or so, but come on.  Stubby?  Really? That's just mean.

3. What to wear at amusement parks: Variations of this are among my top search results.  However, after many people spent time looking at this post, I'm sure amusement park ticket sales were way down.  Call me, Disneyworld.  Maybe we can work out a little... agreement.


4. Baby with hairy toes: Really, my first question here is why in the Hell would anyone want to look for that anyway?  My second question, of course, is why would that bring someone to my blog?

5. Smell my feet, or I'll step on you: This doesn't even make any sense.  I think I need a drink.

6. Little bastard kid: Hey, I was married when my kids were born! Stop being so judgey.

7. Zombie feet how to make them: Run 13 miles in poorly fitting shoes.  See?  This blog is totally informational.

At this point, I just stopped looking.

And I'm seriously considering just deleting Statcounter altogether.

But if I do that, whatever will I have to blog about?

Stupid circle of life and all that.

So this happened today...

I'm going to be over here curled up in a ball, crying and drinking wine all day.  Can somebody please make sure I'm sober enough to get him off the bus by 3:10?

Remind me next year...

Every year around this time, I go insane and have a yard sale.

Every year, I forget how much work it is, and I also forget how much I hate people coming to my house to paw through my clothes and things only to decide that they aren't good enough to buy, or that perhaps the $.25 is just too expensive for a shirt was my very favorite and used to fit just right and made my boobs look good, but good-good, not trashy-good, and made me feel pretty, but now I can't wear it because I lost 40 pounds and the v-neck hits somewhere JUST north of my belly button.

It's a selective amnesia, really, kinda like when you have a baby and forget the pain and humiliation that accompany a hospital stay with your lady parts hanging out for God and the orderlies and everybody to see and that you spent the next six weeks sitting on your couch in your pajamas eating dark chocolate and crying, only to do the exact same thing three years later except the second time is so much more fun because now you have a preschooler to take care of who keeps asking you for shit like, ya know, lunch every day.

So anyway, last week the selective amnesia kicked in, and I decided to have a yard sale to rid my house of the piles of clothes that are too big for me, the piles of clothes that are too small for cj, the random toys that nobody here plays with and as much of RJ's shit as I could sneak out of the house when he wasn't looking.

Day one prep.  Good times.

You may remember that last year when I held a yard sale, I thwarted a potential shoplifter and held a class reunion in my driveway.  Actually, you probably don't remember that, because I surely didn't, thus leading to my decision to do this again.

This year was a bit more laid-back, though, if by laid-back you mean dead.  It was 110 degrees, plus  lucky for me the local road crew decided that day would be the best day OF THE ENTIRE YEAR to block the entrance to my subdivision, thereby preventing anyone from actually getting to my house.  Perfect conditions all around.

I did have a few customers though.

My favorite was the Fed-Ex man who was at my house to drop off a package.

As he walked up, my package in hand, his eyes started darting crazily toward all RJ's electronic stuff, most of which I could not even identify.  His gaze settled on a set of computer speakers - at least that's what I think they were - and stayed there as we completed our delivery transaction.

He started talking to me about the speakers, his voice rising in his excitement.

At least, that's what I think he was talking about.  He apparently only knew enough English to say "sign here" and "thank you have a nice day."  Everything else he said was in a language I do not speak, but from his expression, body language and eyes that were glazed over at the thought of owning a new electronic thing, I determined that he was interested in buying the speakers.

I said "Ten dollars.  It's a bargain."

He stopped talking and looked at me blankly.

So I said it louder.  That almost always works when there's a language barrier. "TEN DOLLARS."

He got it.  He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and handed me... a credit card.

Um... ok?  Where do you think I'm gonna swipe this, big guy?  My ass?


I said "Cash only.  CASH ONLY!  MONEY!  DOLLARS!  NO CREDIT!" over and over to no avail.  Finally I walked over to my money box and pulled out a stack of ones that I shook at him like he was already halfway up a pole.

Understanding dawned, and he shoved his credit card into his pocket and ran back to his truck.  He was back in a flash, and proudly presented me with a five dollar bill and a giant handful of pennies.  As he stood there grinning, I shoved the money into my box, handed him the speakers, and waited.  And waited.  He continued to stand there, smiling at me, just waiting.  Maybe he needed a receipt.  Whatever.

Finally, I broke every one of my own rules about personal space, strangers, and good customer service.  I put my hands on his arm, gently tugged him around, and gave him a push in the general direction of his truck.

It worked, and he drove off, honking his horn happily.

At the end of of my two day ordeal, I had gotten rid of lots of junk, made a few hundred bucks, gotten a sunburn, and dropped everything that was left at Goodwill where I was presented with a giant tax write-off.

Totally. Not. Worth it.

So again, I'm begging you.

When I start talking in vague terms next year about "having a yard sale to get rid of some stuff" just remind me about the Fed-Ex guy.

That should be enough.