Well, today, Mother was downstairs in the laundry room, and she takes a look in her storage closet and finds that the shovel and rake that she brought from the house, which were in pristine condition, were replaced by some beaten-up old crap. So she goes to ask BatshitCrazies if they know where her stuff is. And BatshitCrazywoman -- who, might I add, was about to be evicted from the building because a) they're batshit crazy and b) they have trouble keeping up with the rent much of the time -- tells Mother she's going to call her attorney on her, and goes into the next room with the phone. Mother then begs them not to call the attorney and leaves, instead calling me all hysterical.

Now see, I may piss and moan about Mother, but threaten her or anyone I love? You're going to deal with me, and as anyone who's ever had the misfortune of getting on the ass end of my ire will tell you, I don't stop until there's the proverbial bodycount. And today, I was hot.

So I march my big ol' hacked-off ass down to the police department to get the law on my side, but halfway through that, Mother calls and says she needs to go to take some pants to the cleaners; I leave my business card and tell them to call. While we were out, a squad or two shows up at Mother's crib and talks to the BatshitCrazies, who embellished the story a bit, of course. Long story short, the cops couldn't do anything because it was a civil dispute, which I figured, so they told them to stay away from Mother and filed an informational report. But being the total bullies they are, I'd bet my life that the BatshitCrazies weren't expecting the cops to show up. And if they think that's going to be the end of it, I dare them to say something to Mother. Anything. Even fucking "Hi."

It gets better: While I'm on the phone with the cop, I looked down at my desk, and I notice a white powder on the lower drawer that wasn't the consistency of either powdered sugar or salt. Now, I don't do no coke or tweak, but Cousin Nancy has friends who do, and she's stayed with me the past couple weekends.

You can kinda see where this is going, right!?!?

The first thing I did was taste the powder like a big dumbass; it tasted bitter and kinda vaguely had a smell, but nothing I could distinguish. So next, I called Nancy and asked her if she knew what it was, and she said that she might've been eating Pixie sticks while playing solitaire on the computer, but otherwise, she didn't know. Didn't sound like she was lying to me, but still ... So, after talking to Greta and Tara about what I should do, I call a former boyfriend who had the hardest hard-on I think I've ever encountered friend of mine who happens to be a County Mountie, and tell him that I have a strange powder in my office and that while I was confident it wasn't anthrax, I wasn't confident that it wasn't some sort of dope that I don't want in my crib. He asked me if I tasted it and called me a dumbass when I told him I did, and then he asked me if I were either really lightheaded (coke) or really horny (tweak), to which I was like maybe kinda lightheaded, but I'd also taken my Ritalin today with a giant cup of coffee. (Didn't tell him that part, but yeah, shut-up. Nothing wrong with adult ADHD. I'm not a freak.) He said as soon as his daughter got off the bus, he'd be over with a field test kit.

And as I started cleaning the litterbox so he and his kids wouldn't be freaked out by the smell, it dawned on me that the powder? Was carpet deodorizer, because remember, Nancy did a huge cleaning initiative the last time she was here, and the powder sitting at the bottom of the litterbox was the same consistency as that of the powder on my desk. And, I'm happy to say, the field test confirmed my suspicions; at the very least, it wasn't coke, and I'm not hella horny, so I'm guessing it ain't tweak.

What I'm not happy about is the fact that I jumped to the conclusion that Nancy brought crap into my house in the first place. I mean, the past couple weekends, she's been an absolute doll -- going with me to assignments and learning stuff -- and yet here I was ready to narc her out. How parents walk the fine line of trusting and letting their children go, I'll never get it.
Oh, whatEVER.

Keep 'em coming, yo.
Oh, whatEVER.

You may not be the life of the party, but people generally find you a fun-loving font of interesting stories, jokes, and wit. With just a little more work, you could easily become the most interesting person you know!

See why my job's so cool sometimes?
Oh, whatEVER.

So today, Nancy and I took Mother to pick up her new glasses, which look very much like her old glasses, except not as old-lady looking (by that I mean shiny). But see, I picked out the old ones, too -- a fact Mother threw up to me at least 150 times during the course of the afternoon -- but you know how you do choose something and then decide you can do better the next time? Yeah, it was like that: I THOUGHT I was going to like the glasses last year when she got them, but then when she got them, I didn't like them as much. So this year, I chose something else. (And actually, I did choose something completely different from what she had at first, but her bifocals wouldn't fit into them.)

Now, that may sound like it has nothing to do with Shrub and world politics, but here's my point: There's no question that mistakes have been made during this war business -- and are you really going to argue that there haven't? I mean, seriously -- yet Shrub and his crew are all "Stay the course, blah blah blah," and all that other happy horseshit. Now, I don't know about y'all, but when I mistake, I choose a different course of action (at least, I do most of the time), and I don't trust someone who can't or won't do the same. I don't want someone who a) can't admit that they're wrong or b) if they can't admit it, at least change their actions. I mean, fuckin' ask Dr. Phil, man, or Maya Angelou: You did what you did when you knew what you knew; when you knew better, you did better. It's real simple.

Two other words come to mind: Patriot. Act.
Oh, whatEVER.