Background:  I went to a lovely surprise 75th birthday party for Paul’s work partner the other night.  Once we all talked a little in the vestibule, we headed into the private dining room for our dinner.   After a good 40 minutes of toasts and reminiscing about the good old days I really, really had to go to the restroom.  I mean, really, I had been waiting through all their speeches and I finally decided it would be OK to get up and go.  Well, the waiter/party planner stopped me on my way to double check Paul’s food allergies (nice that he didn’t want to send him into anaphylactic shock, since as usual I left his epi pens at home, the good little wife that I am).  In the one minute I spoke with the guy these two ladies from the main dining room snuck past us and walked into the bathroom.  I was on their heals and tried to enter with them, realizing at that point that the bathroom was a private bathroom.  So the two ladies went in and I was left in the hall to wait.  

Wait I did, indeed.

Ten minutes after they went in I was still waiting.  I heard one flush and then I heard endless talking, and talking and talking.  I got pretty frustrated and decided I needed to flag down the waiter/party planner and see if there is some other place I could go, I mean I was dying, I had to pee so bad.  

Finally, the door opened, I thought “oh thank God”, but only one girl came out. The other girl locked the door and stayed in.  I was shocked.  At that point I accosted the next waiter coming out of our private room and said “I need to find another bathroom this lady is just not coming out, I do not know what’s going on in there but I need to find another one”, to which I heard vaguely through the door, “I’m applying my make up”.  All I could think was yeah right, your make up.  Who applies make up when they’ve already been in the bathroom for 10 minutes knowing there was someone waiting outside?  Why didn’t she apply the freaking make up when her friend was peeing?  I think it was more like drugs, but whatever.

I was quickly escorted through the entire restaurant to the front where there was a ladies room with multiple stalls.  I’m still wondering why they just didn’t bring me there to begin with (although I guess they had no idea two freaks would be in there forever).  I took care of business and then on my return to the private dining room I made sure to tell the waiter/party planner guy that I’m pretty sure those two ladies were doing drugs in there and that I couldn’t believe how long I had to wait.  Which apparently prompted him to inform the entire staff of the restaurant that they were no long allowed to send anyone to the private bath in the back! 

Ha, anyway, what a night.  I swear I just have never made anyone wait when I know they are out there.  I am one of those bathroom goers that tries to take care of business and get out so the poor ladies waiting don’t need to wait too long.  I wish everyone thought that way!

Background:  I recently took two flights to Mexico.  One was with my children and one was not.  My children have flown several times and from the first time they began flying I laid down the law about what was and was not acceptable while flying.  When flying with children here are the important rules:

1. absolutely no kicking the seat in front of you, EVER.  no pushing against it either. 

I have no intention of fighting with some poor soul on a plane over this.

2. when the seatbelt sign is on, your seat belt is on, NO EXCEPTIONS, ever.

pottying is technically the only exception, of course.

3. No screaming or general misbehaving, EVER. 

strict consequences for this one.  once I told them if they misbehaved they would sit by the edge of the pool while everyone else swam for 30 minutes when we reached our destination.  Worked like a charm.

On our second flight to mexico, we had 3 year old twins in front of us.  They were terrible and dare I say bratty.  The mom had absolutely no control over them.  The didn’t listen. They constantly screamed, refused their seatbelt, even though the flight attendant came by several times to do the seatbelt parenting the parents couldn’t handle, and they constantly stood in their seats looking over at us (that was actually kinda cute, but if they were my kids I wouldn’t find that behavior so cute).  Those parents needed to lay down the the airplane law, seriously.

On a flight I was on several years ago some woman was applying nail polish.  Is that the rudest thing ever?  I was shocked that the woman thought the confines of the airplane was the best place for toxic smelling nail polish.  I think someone put a stop to that whole business because the smell only lasted 15 or so minutes, it’s that or I just shut it out.

Finally, peanuts.  Sometimes I seriously wonder how they could still give out peanuts on a plane or sell them in the airport.  There are so many people with severe peanut allergies these days that the mere opening of a bag of peanuts into the recirculated air on an airplane could send those spores a-flyin’ and send some poor unsuspecting soul into anaphylactic shock.  Do people not realize that having an anaphylactic reaction on board means IMMEDIATE landing?  It has the potential of a major delay.  Why doesn’t everyone know this?  Even with 2 epi pens (and those severe reaction people probably travel with 4 epi pens, which is 2 more than normal) the person with a reaction would need medical attention soon, landing is mandatory.  

We need to somehow give people sense and teach them to fly with manners.  Flying is like cattle herding with slightly better conditions, no?

Background:  This year is my first year in nearly 10 years that I have 6 hours to myself every weekday.  6 hours used to seem like kind of a lot of time.  Now I don’t think so.  

If you want to work out during your 6 hours, you basically waste 2 hours doing it, sometimes more if you actually want to shower and look nice (I never do that, I just hang in my work out clothes all day long).

If you have to shop, well that wastes at least 5 of your 6 hours because shopping takes forever, especially if you have to go to more than one store and you don’t live all that close.

If you have a dog that you must walk, because he’s little and the coyotes will eat him up if you leave him in the yard alone, 2 hours minimum (you have to stop and get coffee or tea with your walking buddies at the local java hole, no?).

Planning and preparing the first few steps of dinner takes at least an hour as well.  However if you have to look your recipe up online you’re in for 3, because well you know, you’ll have to check your email, your blog responders, your facebook, myspace and golly only knows what else while you are searching for the perfect family dinner for the night (and jeez, if you don’t have all the ingredients you’ll have to run out to the grocery store too, that could take some time).

There’s the standard house picking up that must also happen, the dishes from breakfast, the dishes from preparing nights meals, making sure the beds are made (to your standards) and picking up your little people’s clothes off the floor (why oh why can’t that stuff just magically appear in the laundry room??).  That alone takes 1.5 hours at least.

If you have laundry to do you’ll be working on that for at least 2 hours and you know that has the potential for being much longer.

If you walk or drive your little people to school that could take and additional 30 minutes to an hour a day.  It all depends on parking, walking, local java visits with friends, you name it it can affect the amount of time it cuts into.

If you have any sort of workmen coming to the house you are in for 1 hour minimum.

There are many other factors that can cut into your day including but not limited to:

doctors appointments for yourself and your little people

friend lunches

yard work

house work (you know real cleaning of the homestead)

reading

anything fun and out of the ordinary

tennis

paddle

swimming

running

walking

unexpected visits from friends (or expected ones for that matter)

phone calls

sick little people

sewing or other craft projects

volunteering in the little peoples school or anywhere else

etc,etc,etc.

Somedays, when my darling man walks through the door and says, so what did you do today and I say what I did, it sounds like nothing.  How on earth could the entire 6 hours have slipped by?  The answer is that 6 hours is not nearly as much time as anyone thinks, is it?