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Are You There, God? It’s Me, Monday

Three early-morning observations and adventures that tell me the calendar isn’t lying about the day of the week today:

1) When you crawl out of bed in the morning, and your third step lands with a *SQUISH*, it could mean many things. Rain from an open window, perhaps. A leaky roof. A faulty air conditioner.

When you own a dog, and your third step in the morning lands with a *SQUISH*, it could also mean many things. Many rather more unpleasant things. At that point, you can only hope it means that you’re standing in something that came out of the mutt’s front end, as opposed to one of the alternatives.

For the record, it did. So it could have been worse. Still, soggy kibble squishing between your toes is about as ‘small’ as a small comfort gets.

B) There’s nothing in the world that can send a shudder down your spine, and smack you with a pit-of-the-stomach empty feeling of being helpless and isolated and utterly alone, quite like noticing the toilet dispenser is empty, after it’s too late.

“The shower curtain? Too unsanitary. The toilet brush? Too scritchy. The dog?”

It happened to me, this morning. Just after cleaning regurgi-chow off my toes, and just before my shower. I sat there, naked and paperless for a while, pondering my options. The nearest toilet paper was thirty feet and three rooms away, so I looked for something more convenient. The shower curtain? Too unsanitary. The toilet brush? Too scritchy. The dog? A possibility — because poetic justice is simply delicious — but I figured the wife would track the evidence back to me eventually.

So, I made a run — a duck-walking, tight-clenched run, to be sure — for the paper. And to be sure this indecent iniquity wouldn’t recur any time soon, I brought back all the paper I could find. Seventeen rolls of fluffy tissue are now stuffed under the sink, in the medicine cabinet, behind the toilet, beside the trash can, on the towel rack, and wrapped around the shower head. Basically, everywhere except actually on the toilet paper holder beside the toilet. What sort of self-respecting husband would put one there?

iii) I’m in charge of the weekend laundry in the house. How that came to pass — what devilish contract my wife had me sign, or which unspeakable embarrassment I’m making up for — I don’t remember. What I do know is that laundry is a pain in the ass, so it’s best to do as little as possible, and to serve the need for fresh clothes as close as humanly possible.

So, for instance, we’ll often use our last clean towels on Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon, I’ll wash a load of towels, dry them, and fold plenty enough — read: two — for all of our Monday towelling-off needs. By Wednesday or Thursday, I might even get around to folding the rest. I go the extra mile like that.

Sometimes, I’ll cut things even closer. I’ve been known to dry my only clean jeans overnight, trusting that they’ll be fresh and fluffy in the morning when I need them. Retrieving them involves a walk to the basement in my boxers and sock feel, but that’s a small price to pay for getting things done at the last minute.

A somewhat larger price to pay, however, would involve also drying my last clean pairs of underwear in that same load overnight, particularly if I didn’t realize until the morning that all of my clean boxers are in the basement. I took stock of the situation upon emerging from the shower, standing clean and squeaky in front of my open undies drawer this morning. Finally lumping two and two together, I did what any guy would do in that situation.

I bolted, naked and streaking, down two flights of stairs to find my underpants.

Unfortunately, I did this just as the mailman was delivering the day’s junk mail to our front door. Our front door with the rather large window, through which I couild see the shock and queasy horror on his face. Given that he’s the one who’s supposed to be ‘delivering’ the ‘packages’ each morning, I’m not sure we’ll ever get our mail again. ‘Snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night’ is one thing, but ‘an impromptu peepshow of some doofus’ junk’ is not part of the Mailman’s Credo, so far as I know. Maybe that’s in another verse.

Of course, I kept on running, scrambling down the staircase and out of sight down the basement steps. When I finally fished a pair of boxers out of the dryer, they were cold, clammy, and possibly still damp. Hardly the ideal spot to store my privates for the day. Having little choice, I put them on anyway, finished dressing, and finally, mercifully made it out of the house.

Let’s recap — that’s a footful of dog barf, a bare-assed TP fiasco, a naked scamper into the cellar, one mailman traumatized, and a gonad-shrivelling pair of underwear. All before even making it to the office.

So, how’s your Monday going?