Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 154

Mar 07, 2023

You guys,

I don’t even like wreaths, except at Christmas.

In fact, after we took down all our Christmas decorations, we left hanging our front door Christmas wreath with the red ball ornaments and LED white lights. Because I had nothing else to put on our front door and IDGAF.

Then my neighbor across the street let me know she had people over in February and “everyone was asking why the neighbors across the street still had a Christmas wreath up.”

Really?? THAT’S what you guys are talking about? Is what I thought. What came out of my mouth was,

“It’s a Valentine’s wreath!”

Because clearly I did give a fuck what the neighbors thought.

But I don’t even like wreaths! Every two months, I see my neighbor replace her front door wreath with a new one. How many wreaths can you possibly need throughout the year? And where do you store them all?

Let me tell you how many wreaths we have. Three. The aforementioned Christmas wreath, a Thanksgiving wreath with little orange pumpkins and green leaves, and a Spring wreath with yellow and pink flowers.

That’s two too many wreaths. The problem is we need something on our front door from January-November because it’s all glass and you can see directly into our house without something hanging there. I don’t need people seeing me in my pajamas at 6pm, or creeping up the stairs with a bowl of ice cream after the kids are asleep.

What we need is a sign. But it has to be a cool sign. None of this “Welcome” crap. Or worse, our last name in cursive, wooden letters. We considered “Aloha” but it felt like we were trying too hard.

I have only found one sign I like. It’s a Halloween sign that says, “Boo.” I’m not a fan of scary Halloween but I love cute and adorable Halloween. Unfortunately, a Halloween sign can only hang for six weeks, tops.

I mean, really, don’t you just want to eat this sign up??

So when January turned into February and our Christmas wreath was still hanging on the door, I decided it was a Valentine's wreath and my neighbors could suck it.

Then my neighbor told me about this place called Kirkland’s. “They have so many wreaths, and they’re cheap!”

I nodded my head vigorously. “I’ll have to check that out!”

What was I doing??! I don’t even like wreaths!!

The Bug Got Us

A stomach bug crawled its way through our house this week.

It started with Layla Tuesday, then me Thursday, then George Friday, and just when we thought Sam was in the clear, he was puking Sunday night.

No one was safe. Not even George’s Moon Pal, Echo.

Sam had it worse than all of us. Not only because he spent the longest time with his head in the toilet (scratch that — with his head above the toilet, because Sam refuses to touch a toilet with his hands even when he’s sicker than sick, while I will lay my head on the toilet seat in between heaves), but because of the anxiety he felt from Tuesday to Sunday, just waiting for it to strike.

All weekend long I said, “You’re gonna get it. You’re definitely gonna get it.” But by Sunday evening I was like, “OMG, I think you’re good! I can’t believe you didn’t get it! This is awesome!”

By 9pm he wasn’t sure if he was feeling sick or if he was having a panic attack.

Apparently, I “jinxed it.”