I have this strategy I employ when I’m really in a hurry; I let my son play with inappropriate toys.  (Bad mommy, BAD!)  See, if he’s having one of those particularly clingy moments (which luckily doesn’t involve so much of the clingy but the need to be within the same three feet of me) and, say, I’m trying to get dressed / put on makeup / dry my hair I’ll let him dig through the bathroom cupboards or unroll the toilet paper roll into a pile on the floor or play with my feminine pads.  It keeps him happy, lets him stay in my vicinity (and theoretically in sight), and let’s me get ready somewhat peacefully. 

Recently that strategy bit me in the butt.

One of his favorite things to do in the bathroom is dig through my makeup drawer.  And who can blame a kid, right?  All that cool packaging and bright colors.  Little boxes, and bottles, and cool pencil things all shiny-like and pretty, perfect for little hands.  He was quite entertained and I could get ready for a luncheon with girlfriends I hadn’t seen in months.  I was going out, baby!  All by myself (I mean, sans kid) and I was going to hang with other chicks and we were going to do chicky things and eat good food in peace and wear nice clothes with no little hands smearing stuff on them.

So you can see I was a little distracted. Distracted enough not to see Chance manage to wrestle my expensive face powder out of it’s wrapper.  Nor to see him make his way to the toilet (where I had idiotically left the lid up).  It was the slight motion out of the corner of my eye and the PLOP that got my attention.

AARGH!!!

In a split second I had plunged my (nicely moisturized and perfumed ready-to-go-out) arm in and fished it out.  And then I had another decision.  Do I throw away the expensive makeup that just fell in the john?  (Well, you say, why are you still buying expensive makeup anyway?  What are you, one of those narcissistic moms?  Expensive because at almost 35 I am still occasionally breaking out and, yes, the expensive shit really does make a difference.)  OR do I just wipe off the powder (it didn’t look like it absorbed any water) and pretend it didn’t fall in the toilet?  Maybe figure out a way to disinfect it later after my lunch? 

Guess which decision I went with?  And then, because I was still distracted and now in a hurry, I forgot to set aside that particular powder for later disinfection and instead it got mixed up with my other packages of powder.  (What?  You don’t buy makeup in bulk?)  I no longer know which one got dumped in the crapper. 

I could very well be wearing toilet powder at this very minute.  Is that a metaphor, or what?

(Strangely enough, I haven’t had a breakout since that incident.)      

             – the weirdgirl