Lucy's Pants

                My daughter, Lucy, is a bad sleeper. She always has been. The first night we had her home from the hospital she stayed up all night long screaming (and proving that she would give us a run for our money). For the first three months of her life, she wouldn’t sleep unless I held her. Putting her down to nap has always been like some form of cruel torture and can take hours if you’re successful at all. I often plan our entire day around tricking her into taking a nap (though I am not always successful). I have spent many nights cramming myself into her toddler bed with her to coax her to sleep. She gets up at least once in the night to come say hi. Most mornings she gets up around 4:30 and I have to fight her to stay in bed until 6 (a time I feel is acceptable to get up for the day). When we put Lucy to bed at night, she almost always gets back out at least once (usually several times), and since she learned how to use the doorknobs her lack of cooperation at bedtime has only increased. It’s never long after we tuck her in and retreat to our room exhausted and relieved for some adult time that we hear the pitter patter of her sweet little feet growing louder and louder. We look in the doorway to see her triumphant little grin beaming up at us as if to say, “Ha HA!”

(Lucy sleeping on me at 2 1/2 weeks.)

She is quite a mischievous little lady most nights (and in general). For example, one night in January, I came in from my evening walk forty five minutes after I put her in bed and heard her moving around. I opened the door to complete darkness. I thought, “Wow, Jude took her nightlight away as a form of punishment. That’s kind of harsh.” I told Lucy to get back in bed please and shut the door, feeling it was best to keep a united front with my husband, but when I asked him about it, he said he didn’t even know she was up. Assuming the nightlight had burnt out I went back in to see what was up. I switched on the light and lo, there was my daughter on the floor next to the power outlet trying to shove the nightlight back into it. (This is the part where I lost about five years of my life from sheer panic. Lucy on the other hand was absolutely delighted to have gained some attention. The nightlight had to be relocated to an outlet behind her bed. The room is much darker now, but fortunately Lucy doesn’t mind.)

                As you may imagine, these little events can become very frustrating at times. I go out most evenings for a walk as soon as I put Lucy in bed and part of the reason is because we have found Lucy will accept defeat and go to bed faster if I’m not in the house. If I go to intercept her as she makes her great escapes, she almost always attempts another within a few minutes. If Jude goes to put her back to bed and says I’ve gone out for a walk, she cries a bit sometimes, but ultimately doesn’t get out of bed anymore. (She doesn’t come out of her room at least. I have been finding her sleeping in places other than her bed a lot lately.)  As frustrating as this can be to deal with night after night, it’s usually easy to make light of it because, let’s be honest, this kid is hilarious and adorable. Some of the stuff I walk in on her doing in the dark can be really charming and she always treats it like a big joke.

                I came back from my evening walk a few nights ago and was getting ready to hop in the shower when I heard Lucy’s door opening. Surprised that she was still up (it was forty five minutes after I had put her into bed), I went in to put her back into bed. I put my arms around her to lift her up and felt that she didn’t have a shirt on. Assuming she was naked again (seriously, I can’t keep her in clothes right now) and wondering here her pajamas were, I flipped on the light to discover, BAM, she was wearing a pair of pants! Lucy had taken off her pajamas, put them away in the laundry basket, opened her dresser, picked out a pair of pants she liked, and shut the dresser drawer all in almost total darkness.

                Proudly, Lucy announced, “Mommy, I pants!”

                “Super good job, Lucy,” I told her, laughing. “Let’s put our jamjam’s back on and get in bed now.”

                As I tried to wrangle her out of her pants and into her pajamas, she started wailing out, “Pants! Pants! Pants!”

                I was not about to rain on her parade if she was that proud of her pants. We made a deal that she could keep the pants if I could add a pull-up and she had to pick out a shirt to wear. I opened her shirt drawer and she carefully selected a sparkly red sweater. She was so proud of her self-selected outfit it was hard to be stern with her. I couldn’t help myself; I had to take her picture!

                It’s moments like that that help us not to mind her terrible sleeping habits so much. It was a little harder not to mind when she got up at 5:15 the next morning demanding Pooh Bear and cereal, but we all do our best.

Get Your Hands Out of My Baby Garden

                “Well, we don’t like to cut during delivery if we can help it. We prefer you to tear naturally because it heals better,” Dr. Reason said to me as she squirted cold goo onto my massive stomach. I was four days past my due date. The last thing I wanted to review was the possibility of an episiotomy.

                “I’m about to give birth! Don’t tell me that!” I thought to myself. Outwardly, I nodded along grimly. Everyone had been so sure I was going to have this baby early yet here we were. When Dr. Reason offered to schedule an induction for Friday, I was all for it. I had had enough of being pregnant. It had been a considerably smooth ride, but in the last five or six weeks I blew up to a ridiculously uncomfortable size (I was sure I was going to pop), my hips were so loose that every time I walked, my whole pelvic area would be in an agonizing free-swing, and it took hours for me to fall asleep between my continuous full-body aches and my constant need to pee. I made my peace with the idea of being induced quickly; I didn’t care how it happened anymore, I just wanted this kid to get out of my body. I had spent the past several weeks shoveling spicy foods into my mouth, driving down the bumpiest back roads I could find for hours, and screaming, “THIS IS YOUR EVICTION NOTICE! GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OOOOUUUUTTTT!!!!” at my stomach before collapsing back into my bed to weep over Disney movies.

                Thursday morning, I woke up around 4 a.m. feeling a little strange. I had only just fallen asleep two hours before so I decided I didn’t care what the-fuck-ever I was feeling and went back to sleep. I woke up again at noon and hopped into the shower. Lucy was a very active fetus from about fourteen weeks on, especially when I played music, she heard her Daddy’s voice, or I got into water, so I was really concerned when she didn’t move at all during my shower. I was already so late (okay, six days late) and now she wasn’t moving? I called the hospital who told me to drink a small coke, have a little healthy snack, and lie on my right side. If she didn’t move at least seven times within the hour, they wanted me to come in. She had moved eight times when they called back to check on me.

                “Okay, well, you’re probably starting to go into labor then,” the perky nurse told me.

                “Okay, when should I come in?” I asked.

                “Not for a while,” she said. “If you come too soon, we’ll just have to send you home.”

                “Great,” I thought, aggressively flipping through the TV channels. If I had to get my hopes up that I was about to go into labor just to be disappointed one more time, I thought I might lose it. Since February, people had been saying things like, “Oh!! You’re nesting! Any day now!” or, “Look how much you’ve dropped! She’ll be here any day now!” or worse, “She’ll come when she’s ready.” Every time someone said that to me, I felt like screaming, “BITCH, WHAT ABOUT WHEN I’M READY?”

                At three p.m., my parents were getting ready to go pick my sister up from the Norfolk airport. She was coming home from spending a week in France with her high school class. She was probably the only person who was happy I hadn’t had the baby ye, because she really wanted to be home for that (obviously). My mom wasn’t so sure she should go because she was worried I was in labor and would need her.

                “Just go, Mom,” I said. “It’s not like the airport is that far away. If I do, you’ll have plenty of time to get back here before I give birth. If I do go into labor, I can call Nan, Auntie, Dana, Sarah…There are tons of people who can come help me until you get back.”

                My mom was just about to step out the door at three thirty when she decided to stay. By four thirty, I was definitely in labor, and it was starting to hurt. Mom put dinner in the oven because she wanted me to eat before I left for the hospital. I called Jude, who was four hours away at college to tell him he should prepare to leave. At five thirty, I was pacing the house in agony during each contraction and shoveling shepherd’s pie down my throat between them. By six o’clock, I was really hurting.

                “Mom,” I said, “When do you plan on taking me to the hospital?”

                “I’m not sure, Sarah,” she replied, “but you can let me know if you want to go.”

                I tried to hold on as long as I could. I didn’t want to get down there just to be sent away, but I was feeling the pain big time. At six thirty, I very politely said, “Mom, if you don’t take me to the hospital now, I don’t know if I am going to be able to get in the car.” I called Jude to tell him to get his ass in the car and step on it because if he wasn’t there for me when I gave birth to HIS child, I would cut his face off. We set off on the longest forty minute car ride of my life. (I have never known there to be so many bumps in a highway before.)

                When we arrived at the hospital, a couple of nurses practically threw me into a wheel chair and literally ran me to the elevator. On the ride up, one of them (all too calmly) said, “Sorry for the rush. We had a woman give birth in the elevator two days ago.”

                “WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT TO ME RIGHT NOW,” I thought, my eyes widening to the size of the fucking moon before squinting back up in pain.

                The nurses forced me to hold still mid-contraction to take my weight and height. I shot daggers at them with my mind. I had a lovely nurse named Nancy who very patiently hooked me up to a million stupid medical devices to monitor our vitals throughout labor. Honestly, I’m glad the hospital was looking out for us, but in that moment I was so angry that I wouldn’t be allowed to walk around anymore that I think my hair was standing on end.

                During your pregnancy, you are told to prepare a “birth plan” and to share it with your doctor in the weeks leading up to your due date. Your birth plan should include anything you strongly do or do not want going on in your delivery room. For example, most hospitals have a limit to how many people may be in the room during your delivery. I invited Jude (duh), my mother, and Jude’s mom, Dana. (Dana is such a loving person and is so invested in all of her children, I just felt like she would want to be there. Later she shared with me that she was really touched that I had invited her. I was happy to hear that. I was also happy because she spent about a year telling anyone who would listen what an amazing job I had done. Praise? Why, yes, I will take it!) We were living in our hometown, an area with only one hospital readily available with very limited options. Things like tub births were pretty much out the window for us, but I did really want to have a natural birth with no drugs. Well, I wanted that until I hit hard labor. When Nancy came in to check on me not long after I had nearly ripped her head off for confining me to the bed, I screamed, “GIVE ME THE DRUGS, NANCY! I CAN’T DO THIS!” Bless Nancy’s dear heart for I was the most hellish patient and she treated me with nothing but kindness and understanding. She quickly pumped some kind of sweet, sweet drug into my IV; it worked like a charm! For an hour, I was super high. I whistled and sang along to the songs on my labor playlist and chattered dreamily with my mom and future mother-in-law. Nancy came back in to check on me with Dr. Reason and I gasped.

                “Oh, Nancy,” I crooned. “I am soooo sorry I was being such a turd to you when I got here. Like, WOW! I am in soooo much pain!”

                “It’s okay,” Nancy said, smiling brightly. “I understand!”

                Honestly, you will never have so many hands in your vagina as you do when you are pregnant. So many times Dr. Reason came in to see how I was “coming along”. I was very glad she was on call that night because she was my favorite doctor and if someone had to continuously investigate my vagina’s progress, I was glad it was her (and not the doctor known for his MASSIVE hands). The pain medicine lasted for a solid hour before it started to ware off. Fast. It wasn’t long until I was screaming through my contractions again, and they were coming back with a vengeance. Nancy gave me more, but the second time it wasn’t working. When Jude arrived, I was howling through a big contraction. It probably wasn’t a super great feeling for him to have to witness that right off the bat, but hey, that’s childbirth.

                While I was pregnant, I had watched several videos of people getting epidurals and I really did NOT want to do that! They snake some little wire up your spine? No thanks. Then I actually went into labor, my second round of pain meds failed me, and my entire world view of epidurals changed. Suddenly, getting an epidural sounded better than the second coming. I had already told Nancy that I did NOT want an epidural in no uncertain terms and I was embarrassed to admit my mistake. Luckily, Nancy was a genius, and not long after Jude arrived she asked if I had changed my mind. My response was something along the line of, “OBVIOUSLY!” If I have another baby, I am jumping straight into the epidural party because it takes forever to get it done. First they have to draw blood, test the blood to make sure you’re safe to have one, then the doctor has to check to make sure you aren’t too dilated, and then you have to wait for the stupid anesthesiologist to get there! It took well over an hour for everything to be in order. Honestly, it felt like maybe twenty minutes to me because time was one big blur of agony at that point. Dr. Reason gave me to okay at only 4 ½ centimeters, and thus began the terrible process of getting an epidural. I was in so much pain between the contractions and the invasion of my spinal area that I was trembling through the whole procedure. Jude was allowed to stay in the room; I glanced up at him once and his face was long with horror and disgust and had turned a faded shade of green. I decided maybe I shouldn’t look at him again until the process was over. Halfway through, the anesthesiologist made a wrong move and hit a nerve, sending my right leg into uncontrollable spasms. I remember thinking maybe the whole idea of having babies was just plain stupid, but not too much longer after, the drugs started kicking in and I chilled out.

                When they finished inserting the epidural, Dr. Reason checked on my baby garden’s progress. “Eight centimeters,” she announced.

                I shouted, “WHAT? What happened to five, six, and seven? I’m not ready for this!”

                Dr. Reason kind of laughed me off like the fact I was about to have a baby was no big deal. I did realize it was ironic that I was telling her to make it stop after all of the weeks I had spent telling her to make it happen faster, but I really wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the humor of it. After about an hour of being able to relax a little, I had Nancy turn the medicine from the epidural off at 9 ½ centimeters so I would be able to feel what I was doing. At that point, my water had never broken, so Nancy had me hang my butt off the bed, stuck what looked like a long crocheting needle into my vagina, and popped my water. (Whoooooosh!) Then in preparation for pushing, Nancy gave me a catheter. Even being super numb from the epidural, it was not a pleasant sensation. For a week after having my daughter, I had a UTI so bad from the catheter that I cried every time I knew I had to go to the bathroom. No joke.

                When it was time to push, Dr. Reason reached her hands into my vagina and kind of massaged the baby’s head into a better position to exit my body (at last!). I am proud to say that after only thirty minutes of pushing, no bowl movements, and no episiotomy, my daughter with her head full of hair landed in my beloved Dr. Reason’s arms without crying. For a few moments, I was freaking out because I was convinced she must be dead since she wasn’t crying. When they put her onto my chest, I was so relieved. At least, I was relieved until she started crying.

(Welcome to the world, Lucy Byrd!)

(I am always seeing new mom’s posting beautiful photos of themselves with their freshly popped newborn. In their photos, they usually have on some make-up, their hair is often in a cute braid or little pony tails, and they over all don’t look like they’ve just run a death-marathon the way I do in the first photo my mom snapped of me with Lucy. I would like to know the secrets of these glamorous beautiful mothers. Please share your strength with me if I ever am crazy enough to grow another child!)

                Tomorrow is Lucy’s third birthday and I couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s really awesome, so beautiful, so strong and resilient, so smart, and SUPER funny! I would definitely do it all again for her even though sometimes she wipes boogers on my clothes. I can’t wait to embarrass you with that gem!

How Do These Kids Keep Getting Inside of my Mom??

(Myself, Christopher, and Susannah, Winter of 2012. Beauts.)

         I was six when my mom and dad asked me to come into the kitchen for a quick talk. I couldn't figure out what I was about to get in trouble for this time. Racking my brains to remember what I thought I had gotten away with but was surely about to be busted for, I dragged my feet slowly to the kitchen table. My parents were both sitting with their traditional stone faces of secrecy, refusing to give me any kind of hint to what terrible punishment was in store for me. If only I could read their minds. (I probably don't ever want to read their minds actually.) I stood before them on guard, ready to flee at any moment (as if I could escape being grounded). I was not expecting what came next.

         If there was any kind of preamble to this, I don't remember it. (I don’t think I was really listening.) All I recall is my mother saying, "Sarah, we're having another baby."

        I stood still for a second waiting for a, “GOTCHA!” Alas, it never came, so I laughed and said, "Good one, Mom! Okay, see ya." I quickly began a retreat, but was called back by my father.

         "Sarah Catherine, we're serious. Mom is pregnant. You're going to have another sister or a brother," he said in a serious voice (unusual for him at the time).

         I was three when my sister, Susannah, was born. I don't remember being told Mom was pregnant (probably because I was two), but I sure remember the day Susannah was born. Mom decided we would go down to North Carolina to stay with my Aunt Melissa, Uncle Chris, and cousins, Alex and Dylan, for New Years. My grandmother also came down with us, but Dad had to stay home for work. Mom wasn't due to have Susannah for two more weeks, so she was probably hoping to squeeze one more little trip in before she potentially had two of me, her dramatic, needy, attention-hungry first born. How she and Dad decided having more kids after me was a good idea, I will never understand.

         On New Year’s Eve, Mom and I were sharing a bed. I was feeling pretty clingy as we prepared for the new baby. Something I saw on TV had totally freaked me out before bed and I had a vivid nightmare that my mother and beloved unborn baby sister were abducted by aliens. I woke early in the morning to find that I was alone in the bed; MOM WAS ACTUALLY GONE. Panic ensued. I searched the house for her in the dark, quietly weeping. Eventually, my Uncle Chris found me. When I wailed out to him that my mom had been abducted by aliens, he gave me one of those pity laughs adults give kids when they're distressed over ridiculous things and told me no, Mom had just gone into labor, and was at the hospital.

         I was overcome with joy! At last my baby sister, future best friend, and playmate of my dreams was coming out of Mommy's tummy! I had been waiting for this day for what felt like my entire life (and honestly it was a good chunk of it at that young age). I was loaded into the car with my family and whisked to the hospital to meet my angelic sister.

         Rewind to my Mom's experience during this time. Mom went into labor right around the time we went to bed. While I drifted off to sleep, Mom was trying to convince herself there was no way these were contractions she was feeling. After I fell soundly asleep, she got up and paced around the house for a while until, five hours after labor started, she could ignore it no longer. She woke my grandmother up and said, "Mama, I'm in labor!"

         Mom boarded an ambulance in the wee hours of the morning in Duck, North Carolina. It was a dark and foggy morning and somehow the ambulance got lost in the fog. My mother ended up at a hospital in Chesapeake, Virginia an hour and a half away from her starting point. She swears that by the time they got there, she was holding the baby in trying not to give birth in the ambulance. Mom got off the ambulance at 8:32 and four minutes later, Susannah was born.

         ENTER SARAH! The party got started when I walked in of course. How little I knew of siblings then, so fresh faced and young, so excited. I was thrilled to see my mother safe and not in the clammy hands of aliens, and even better, holding my precious new partner in crime. I was desperate to hold her and also to get attention from mom. (I needed to establish my dominance with that kid ASAP.) Hesitantly, Mom allowed me to get on the bed and placed Susannah tenderly in my arms. Some of you may not believe what happened next, but I swear it is true. Peaceful, newborn Susannah opened her eyes to me and I beamed down at her. She took me in for a moment, then, just for a second, flashed me the snarkiest smirk I have ever seen, opened her trap, and started screaming bloody murder.

        That pretty much sums up the first several years of our lives together. If I had something she wanted, she would scream at me until I gave it to her. If I was getting too much attention for her liking, she would scream it all away from me. She did not turn out to be the obedient, Sarah-worshiping angel I had anticipated, and it would be many years before we became close. (We actually are best friends now.)

        Given my prior experience with babies being born, I was naturally skeptical of another coming into my life. I fought back tears of horror as my parents insisted it was true that Mom was pregnant and stared at me completely dumbfounded at my insistence they must be joking. After a few days, the idea of it was starting to settle down into my mind garden. I began praying for a baby brother thinking maybe a boy would be the obedient servant I had hoped for. I also started to wonder how the heck these kids kept getting into my mom's stomach and encroaching on my turf. I started asking a lot of questions, very specific questions, questions my mother could not just ignore.

         Unable to escape my curiosity, my mom went to my elementary school guidance counselor to borrow some illustrated books to aid her presentation on how babies were made. One Saturday afternoon, she called me back into the kitchen. She bravely read through a book that explained sex on a child's level complete with pictures of blank faced women on their backs as blank faced men lay on top of them under pea green blankets, detailed diagrams of uteri, sperm and eggs, fetuses growing through different stages of a pregnancy, and a very unrealistic illustration of a woman giving birth (no one is that calm looking at such an event). At the end of the book I stood in utter disgust, wearing my parent’s traditional stone face until my mother could take the suspense no longer.

         "Well?"

          I looked her dead in the eye and harrumphed, saying, "I must have been asleep when y'all were doing THAT."

         I left my baffled mother to make a phone call to my friend Naia so that I could tell them the scandalous details of how our moms and dads were putting their "peepee places together”. I distinctly recall taking a vow: "I am never doing THAT!" Dream on, little Sarah.

         In spite of the disgusting way he was conceived, I was ecstatic when my Mom went into labor. I remember seeing her and Dad off at the front door that December all full of pep and excitement (much more than my Mom which I didn't understand at the time. I figured it out after I had given birth to my own kid, let me tell you. Talk about a double edged sword.) My poor grandmother and Auntie were left with the unpleasant job of watching my sister and me. I can't really remember what Susannah was up to, but knowing what a good kid she was, she was probably just quietly playing with her dollies. I was absolutely bouncing off the walls.

         By 9 o'clock that night, Christopher had been born. My exhausted sounding mother's voice came over the phone to me to deliver the words I was dying to hear: "Sarah, you have a baby brother." I hurled the phone into my grandmother's stomach (Sorry, Nan), let out a victory cry, and ran through the house screaming in triumph for several minutes. It must have been hell trying to put me to bed that night.

         The next morning, Susannah and I were taken to see Christopher and Mom at the hospital before school. Christopher was seriously the most beautiful newborn baby I have ever seen. His chubby white face was home to the biggest, rosiest cheeks, the shiniest pink lips, and the roundest, bluest eyes and was topped off with a thick tuft of pure white hair. He was basically the Snow White of boys with inverted hair color. I was allowed to pass out blue "It's a Boy!" lollipops to my classmates and FYI they were super delicious. It was pretty much an awesome day.

         There you have the stories of my siblings (at least my side of it). They both grew into two really kick ass individuals. I have watched my sister grow from a little girl throwing her arms into the air and screaming, "SUPER ZANNAH!" as she tackled my gigantic father to the ground, to a graceful young woman flawlessly dancing as the Sugar Plum Fairy in her final Nutcracker before graduating high school, to a plucky dame of a woman who won't let anyone hold her back as she pursues a life that's good. I have watched as my brother has gone from a beautiful little boy saying "frucks" instead of "trucks", to a lady slaying middle schooler with girls falling all over him, to a surprisingly mature young man working hard at his first job and desperately trying to score his own car. (He ended up inheriting my old Subaru recently. I am thrilled that it went to him.) We have fought, we have cried, we have screamed, we have invaded each other's privacy, and we have taught each other forgiveness. That's the beauty of having a sibling; to have one is to have a lifelong friend that you can always count on even after you tell their really embarrassing penis stories.

(Myself, Christopher, and Susannah. Summer of 2000.)

Arachnophobia: Shower Edition

                I am seriously terrified of spiders; scream and flee the premise, jump off your lawnmower, run shrieking in the other direction, terrified! My first scary spider memory is from the day I learned about black widows; it still sends chills down my spine! I am not sure how young I was, but I was with my mom in my god-mother, D.W.’s kitchen. She has this amazing tall, old barber’s chair that I have always loved to sit in. D.W. held an old jar up to me to show me the small, brown spider, curling up in death, within and told me about its’ poisonous mate. I still feel the same terror coursing through my body from that sunny afternoon every time I see a spider. I have had nightmares, jumped off of moving vehicles, cried, thrown up, almost crashed my car more times that I will willingly admit to, you name it! Those little monsters scare the shit out of me!

                In the fall of 2016, my daughter and I lived with my grandmother while we waited for our Canadian visas to be processed. Nanny is a wonderful woman with the spirit of a selfless child, the wit of a confident woman’s mid-twenties, and the wisdom of Albus Dumbledore. Accepting of all, indubiously hilarious, undeniably kind (and have I mentioned she’s a boss-ass-liberal?), she began asking me not to use the word “hate”. She always says, “There’s enough of that out in the universe already, and we shouldn’t be adding anymore.” She makes a solid point. This extended to my treatment of spiders. “Next time don’t kill it,” I was scolded as I wrung my hands in terror after smushing a spider with a napkin, “come and get me. I will put it out!” Nanny, if you’re reading this, I tried to let them live, really I did! They just won’t stay away.

                A couple of weeks ago, I was sweeping out the bathroom and saw a tiny, nearly translucent spider crawling away from the pile. Trying to take my wise grandmother’s advice, I waited until it was clear of the sweeping area before I continued. When my husband came home that night, I proudly told him of my feat (because he is always making fun of me for being scared about little things). Jude laughed at me, saying, “Sarah, it was probably poisonous! The smaller ones are the most poisonous!”

                “No way,” I retorted. “What about tarantulas? Or those giant camel spiders? Or the female black widows?”

                Jude laughed coolly and walked away, calling back, “Whatever you say, Sarah.” That bastard always knows how to get me real good.

I tried to tell myself he was just kidding, but the thought haunted me for days! As I played happily with my daughter, I felt the sudden clasp of panic around my neck, imagining the spider quietly biting my child in the night; getting dressed in the mornings, I suddenly worried the spider would be on my hairbrush giving it a thorough search; when a loose hair fell on my chest, I clawed frantically at my skin for a moment. All in all, I was really freaking out about this dumb conversation. A few nights later, I was getting ready to step into the shower when I saw, crawling along the baseboard of the tub, that spider. I totally freaked out! I wanted to go get Jude to crush it for me, but suspected he would tell me to get over it. (Marriage means nothing, girls!) As I tried to determine what to do, I thought back to the spring of 2016 and the great Jumper Spider Panic. As I had tried to identify that spider (it was found twice in my laundry room), some research suggested I could test if a spider was possibly venomous by poking at it with something; if it attacked it, I should run for the hills. I poked at the spider with the pen from my bathroom guest book, shaking with fear, and wouldn’t you know it? That freak of nature attacked my pen (sort of). J’accuse! I crushed it with some toilet paper.

                Tonight, as I showered, I was busting a sweet move and flipped my hair too excitedly leaving a long line of water dripping from the ceiling. (Oops.) I have done this enough before that I know it needs to be cleaned up quickly. As I finished up drying the ceiling with a hand towel, I saw it: ANOTHER OF THOSE SPIDERS!!! I knew there was only one reason it would be there: IT’S COME TO HAVE IT’S REVENGE FOR IT’S FALLEN COMRADE!!! I jumped out of the shower in a panic, balled up some toilet paper, and hesitantly went back for the beast. I have a bad habit of missing things and them falling down (often onto me), but I did my best. After pressing firmly for several seconds, I pulled back the tissue to reveal…nothing? OH SHIT! CODE DANGER! I shot out of the shower again, grabbing my glasses to see where the little devil was hiding. Turns out his little body just fell down onto the side of the tub, but damn, it scared me. Now I am living in fear, certain at any moment, more of them will come for me. If I die of poison, Jude really is innocent…maybe.

College Parts Two and Three

Part Two: Roommate

         Three days later, the peace in room 609 was really deteriorating. I could not stand Darla and I'm confident the feeling was mutual. Darla had refused to sleep in our room or be in it with me for long since I had come home super stoned. My friend and future roommate Amanda was also living in a pretty hostile environment down in 209 with her roommate, Paige. Paige was pretty difficult and strange. She had an anger management problem, had grown up a few towns over and never left a fifty mile radius from her home, wore only cowboy boots (even in the shower), and was a math major. Seriously, she loved math which is possibly a super power. We thought that if we could just get Paige to switch rooms with me, maybe everyone could be happy (or Darla and Paige could torture each other but at least we would be rid of them). We went to the student mediator who we will call Mr. D (because I forgot his name -Sorry dude). You couldn't switch rooms without trying mediation at least once or getting his permission.

         Mr. D was a great guy; He was very kind and understanding, super patient, and had a good read on people. Seriously, there was no bull shitting this guy. Amanda and I went to him the same morning Paige had threatened to beat her up and had thrown a text book at her and pitched our idea to him. After a moment's reflection, Mr. D said to me, "What's your name again?" I repeated it and he said, “Yeah, I have a meeting with you and Darla later today already so I guess we just need to set one up for Amanda and Paige." JAW DROP. Darla had set up a mediation meeting for us and not told me so I would look like a big steaming turd by not showing up! (That was low, Darla. Yeah, I hope you're reading this because I'm talking to YOU, GIRL!) I was pretty shocked, and I've never had much of a poker face so it seemed like he had picked up on that when he asked, "She didn't tell you?" He probably figured it out because he was so good at reading people, but it might have been the way my mouth fell open and all the stuttering as I tried to find appropriate words.

         So it was that I returned to Mr. D's office that afternoon full of jittery nerves and feelings of approaching doom. When I arrived Darla was already chatting Mr. D up. She always acted pretty entitled; her mom had also attended VI for photography back in the day so obviously that made Darla some kind of legacy. I sat next to her and Mr. D stated that we were having a meeting to see if we could work out our problems or find a solution that worked for us. I took the opportunity to say my piece; I explained I had found a room I would move to if Darla was okay with Paige becoming her new roommate. I told her I knew 609 was important to her because it had been her mom's room before and I was happy to be the one to leave. I said my problem was just that we kept very different schedules and that wasn't working for me, that it was clear it wasn't working for her, and that I felt it would be best if we didn't live together so resentments didn't build up. I saw no reason to attack Darla even if I did think she was a total buttface.

         Darla took a different approach. For twenty minutes, she personally attacked me. She told Mr. D a lot of personal information about my break up on the first day and what an inconvenience it had been for her, complained about my every personality trait she could think of, ratted me out for smoking pot (which I should add she had said was no problem when we first met), and bookended the terrible hate-fest by telling me she was scared I was going to rape her because of the one hug I had given her the night I got super stoned with Jimmy. (She also took the liberty to share all of this with the rest of the school.) For twenty minutes I held my tongue if only to keep from crying. Mr. D proclaimed that indeed, we would be allowed to swap rooms as soon as he had spoken to Paige and Amanda. I waited for Darla to leave before I wept all over Mr. D, practically begging him to believe me that those terrible things she had said were not a reflection on my character and I would never, never rape someone or intentionally make them feel unsafe around me. Luckily for me, Mr. D was a good judge of character, kindly told me he knew, comforted me by saying he could see I was having a rough time, and allowed me to compose myself before I left his office.

         There was a happy ending because within a week, Amanda and I were roommates (and what an adventure it was!) Before we became roommates, Amanda and I would have "window dates". We would stick our heads out of our dorm room windows and shout up and down the building to each other while drinking juice boxes. One memorable night in the midst of our window date, Amanda shouted up, "YOU LOOK LIKE BATMAN LOOKING DOWN ON GOTHAM CITY!" The nickname stuck. Amanada became my Robin, my blue Ford Focus became known as The Batmobile, our room was The Batcave, and we had a few enemies: The Joker (a creepy old guy with a crush on me who sometimes bought us alcohol), The Riddler (our upstairs neighbor who often had loud but fast sex in the middle of the day [the riddle was how someone kept having sex with him]), and Two Face (a dramatic, back-stabbing girl in our friend group). People around campus actually called us Batman and Robin probably 60% of the time and IT WAS AWESOME.

(Amanda and me prowling the halls of our dorm as our own versions of Batman and Robin)

        We had a great time living together. We would have Lord of the Rings marathons that involved drinking games, we discovered the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall together (after seeing it, we often greeted each other with the famous “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”), we went with each other to get piercings and tattoos (and even hung out with our piercer, Scotty, pretty often). We found a strip club the next city over called Fuzzy Holes (we did not go in), went to drive through movies, and had many rounds of hide and go seek tag with our friends in the local (and huge) Wal-Mart.

(Me, Kaitlyn, and Amanda on a Wal-Mart adventure)

         One of the best things about living with Amanda was that she is a huge animal lover. She had a huge aquarium and was super serious about taking care of her beautiful fish. Although fish were the only pets we were allowed to have, Amanda decided she was getting more pets. She had the best pet rat that has ever been, a grey and white guy named Trevor, and convinced me to get the best hamster ever, a tiny grey Russian dwarf hamster I dubbed Cherokee Jack (as a tribute to Creed Bratton from the US version of The Office). They lived mostly in the hoods or pockets of our sweatshirts and were our awesome buddies. We even dog-sat two dogs for a full weekend without getting caught.

Here are some other great things about Amanda:

·Always decorated for holidays

·Respected my sleeping time

·We had the same friends and never left each other out

·Called me "Dragon Lady" in the morning

·Tolerated my rebellious tendencies

·Didn't care if I made a mess

·Tumbled with me (as in Tumblr, not gymnastics)

·Got drunk on strawberry vodka with me a lot

·Brought me food when I was sick on the toilet

(Amanda, Kaitlyn/The Spirit of Christmas, and Gopher decorating the hall outside of the Batcave for Christmas)

As you can see, Amanda was the best roommate of all time. Living with her was a dream; it was so great I knew even then that these were "the good old days.”

Part Three: Goodbye

         There was one really huge difference between Amanda and me: Amanda was a hardworking and serious student who knew how to balance her time between work and play and never skipped class or half-assed an assignment. I, on the other hand, was unmotivated, uninspired, and uninterested. After the first semester, I was on academic probation. In the second semester, I stopped going to classes most of the time in order to work more hours as a server at Red Lobster ( which I obviously preferred to school work).

          By the time midterms rolled around, my really great voice teacher let me know my grades were so bad that if I didn't drop out, I'd be kicked out and probably never get into another college. A week later, I packed up my car, gave Amanda one final hug, and made the 8 hour drive home with Cherokee Jack in my cup holder. Although I did not succeed at being a student (although if anyone thought I would in that stage of my life they were kidding themselves), my parents did accomplish something by sending me away: I got my first real taste of freedom and would never stop craving it again. I gained a lot of experience even if I wasn't yet able to put it to practical use and I learned so much about myself. Being at VI was a life changing experience for me; I have never regretted that time of my life (however misguided I may have been back then.)

(“I am a flaming ball of faaaaaaaaaaart!” –Amanda Wiehrs)

This essay is dedicated to my college roommate, Amanda Wiehrs; you changed my life with your love and true friendship. Thank you, I love you, you're the greatest roommate of all time.

College Part One: The Lung

(Snuggling in the student lounge with my roommate, Amanda. September 2011)

Part One: The Lung

       My first stab at college was short lived. In an effort to push me from the nest, my parents forced me to attend a tiny college a mile from the Virginia/Tennessee boarder called Virginia Intermont, which later closed due to immense debt. Originally an all-girl's, Baptist-based private college (that was smaller than my high school) tucked away in the south-western corner of the Virginian mountains, it was naturally an excellent choice for me, an outspoken, rebellious, bisexual liberal. It was my best option since I was offered a talent scholarship that covered almost half the tuition and because I had been too afraid to apply anywhere else (they were desperate for students so I knew I would be accepted). Luckily for me, my high school friend Ashley (who I fondly called Gopher) was also attending VI so I wasn’t totally alone right away.

         Upon arrival I met my first roommate, Darla who looked, dressed, and even had the haircut of a giant toddler. She was a sophomore photography student who claimed to have a severe peanut allergy and I'm pretty sure hated my guts upon first sight. (I say "claimed" because I'm pretty sure she just didn't like the smell and/or wanted to get me out of the room more often.) There's no nice way to say this: Rooming with Darla sucked. She stayed up all night, slept all day, made me leave the room to prepare my pb&j's, wouldn't share her mini-fridge, and spread some pretty nasty rumors about me (more on that later). I also met a basketball player who lived down the hall from me and pursued me relentlessly and aggressively (until I moved to a new floor) named Rhonda, two soccer players who roomed together (one was nice and one showed me his penis upon meeting him), my roommate-to-be Amanda, fellow theatre major Angelique (who is 100% fabulous), and my soon-to-be friend Kaitlyn on my first day.

         The big upside to living with Darla was that she introduced me to Jimmy, a huge teddy bear of a dude. Over my summer before college, I had become interested in marijuana. I had tried to smoke a few times without having any real success. Enter Jimmy. On my first night at VI, my girlfriend cheated on me and dumped me. Darla, out of the tiny ventricle of goodness in her heart, introduced me to Jimmy to get high.

         Maybe a week later, Jimmy and I sat in the parking lot of my dorm building in his car to smoke. After some small talk, Jimmy whipped out a 2 liter soda bottle with the end cut off and a plastic shopping bag attached to it and said, "Have you ever used a lung?" I had definitely implied I was a more experienced smoker than I actually was, and I did not want to lose face so I told Jimmy no I hadn't, but I was sure I could handle it. I'm pretty sure he knew I was full of shit and wanted to see how far I was going to take this. If you've never smoked from a lung, here's how it works: first you ignite your weed with the cap on the bottle and the bag pushed in. Then you slowly pull the bag out to fill both the bottle and length of the bag with smoke. Finally, you take off the cap, and slowly breathe in the smoke while pushing the bag in. It's pretty intense plus we were hot boxing. Jimmy was an experienced smoker and (I think) getting a kick out of my refusal to admit defeat. We ended up hitting the lung seven times each, and, man, I was beyond lit. Hopefully, I at least impressed Jimmy with my perseverance because I didn't have any kind of intelligence going for me in that moment.

         After what felt like an hour but was probably only ten minutes of chatting, a panicked thought occurred to me: This guy is huge. I am beyond impaired. He could do anything to me he wanted and I would be powerless to stop him. No one knows where I am except Darla who would surely not give a damn if I never came back. I played it cool (visibly freaked out) and asked Jimmy to take me back to my dorm to which he pointed out we were in the parking lot of the building. The problem was it was on a hill and to get to the door from there I would have to climb a small set of steps (and I was confident I couldn't). As any lady of class would, I made up a really lame (and very transparent) excuse to get him to drive all the way around campus and up to the door to drop me off. As I exited his car, I breathed a sigh of relief that I had escaped whatever terrible things I later realized he would never have done to me anyway. That ended as I approached the door and realized I had to somehow fit my tiny key into that tiny lock to get inside, would then have to pass the building's R.A, just to get my key into yet another tiny lock. Eventually after an unknown amount of time struggling with the key, some kind person came along and let me in. I lived on the sixth floor and didn't think I could make the stairs, so I took the elevator that, of course, opened in front of my R.A.'s more-often-than-not open door, but luckily she wasn't there. As I faced my final obstacle, unlocking my own door, I felt I was home free until I heard from the opening elevator the sound of Rhonda's drawling voice.

         Let's back up for a second. Earlier that week, as I was returning to my room from a shower in only a towel, Rhonda had followed me to my room begging me to take my towel off for her, have sex with her, and finally let her see "just one boob". When I had unlocked my door she had forced her way into my room ahead of me and it had taken a lot of pleading to get her out. Then, when I tried to shut the door, she had tried to force it open and then stood outside begging me to let her in for a full ten minutes. (Fun fact: later that year she got in trouble for trying to take advantage of a sleeping drunk girl after a party.) Now back to the story of the lung!

         As I heard Rhonda approaching from the elevator around the corner, time seemed to move in slow motion. I watched each desperate stab of my key missing the lock, felt my heart pounding with fear that I would not escape her in time, heard her words in slow motion, and each footfall echoed in my ears like terrible screams. Finally, my key went into the lock; SUCCESS!! As I slow-mo flew into the room and Rhonda turned the corner, I heard her call out, "Heeeeeeyyyy, Sssaaaaaarrraaaaahhhhhh," and I slammed the door shut in her face! After about five minutes of her knocking and saying "I know you're there. I saw you go in," as I hid in my closet (high-dea), I was able to come out. I ate every single thing I had in my dorm, binge-watched Friends, hugged Darla when she came in, and passed out.



(Part 2 to be released on Wednesday!)

Sex Store

                When I moved to Vancouver, I noticed immediately that there was a sex store a few blocks away from my house. Naturally, I was dying to go in there. It’s called Roxy’s and has many advertisements outside with messages such as, “We sell 50 Shades of Grey merchandise,” and, “Your sexual health is our passion,” accompanied with images of oiled up babes with super toned muscles. For weeks, I excitedly imagined the kinds of amazing items I would find inside that would magically bring a whole new level of sensations to my sex life. I giggled on the phone with my friends, telling them surely I would find a time to go shop there soon. I nagged at Jude to give me ideas of what kinds of taboo toys he would find most appealing. I had several opportunities to go in, but always found a reason not to. (To be fair, I never feel very sexy as I am lugging home a week’s worth of groceries twenty blocks in a backpack, muttering curses to the Fancy People driving their beautiful cars.)

                After weeks of talking a lot of talk, I decided it was time to start walking before I lost all credibility. I chose the perfect time to go: when my sister was visiting. It was Susannah’s first time in Vancouver so I used my superior knowledge of directions (and the help of alcohol) to trick her into walking right by Roxy’s before I announced we were going in. I dragged her (unwillingly) towards Roxy’s full of confidence and sporting a strong buzz. As we grew closer to the door, my big head was getting bigger by the second. All my traditionally short-sighted inner voice could think was, “I’m doing this! I am so proud of me! I am so cool! I am going to buy some naughty stuff, and those sex-store workers are going to be so impressed by my confidence and sexual awareness!” I practically skipped the last few feet to the door, imagining isles of dimly lighted toys and gear that would blow my mind.

                As soon as we opened the door, the sharp sting of reality popped my self-involved confidence bubble and it deflated in seconds flat. The store was not at all what I had imagined. It was a completely opened space; everything was hung on the walls (not in isles) so the only employee and any other customers could see every single thing I might be looking at. The blue-toned lighting made me feel immediately nauseous and dizzy. My fantasy of being the confident, naughty sex kitten shriveled up and died at the sight of the small, open room. I could practically see Sexy Sarah collapse in the center of the room, reaching out for help, pathetically whimpering as she wilted away into dust and disappeared with the passing breeze…and all that bitch left behind for me to work with was Shy Sarah. The customer at the register and the cashier immediately looked over at Susannah and me when the door opened. I felt like all the spot lights in the world were following my every move as I darted over to the closest wall of dildos muttering a feeble hello to the sex-people. I wished dearly I could just bang my head against the wall, but all the walls were covered in sex paraphernalia (NOOOO!). I wanted to turn every corner of my body in on itself until I was just a little fuzzy lump on the floor, wheezing in horror. At least then the sex-people might take pity on me instead of noticing how much of a wuss I was suddenly becoming.

                The customer left almost immediately and Susannah and I were left alone with the cashier in the very quiet shop. A sea of panic roared in my ears; I was sure I couldn’t be the only one hearing it. I prayed my heavy breathing wouldn’t be mistaken for sexual pleasure as I quickly (too quickly) darted past countless dildos, vibrators, and pretty much nothing else until I reached the farthest wall. I lingered there, knowing I had to buy something to save what little bit of pride I had left. I stood staring at a few decks of sex-card-games, a handful of butt plugs, and vibrators that connected to your mp3 player via Bluetooth as Susannah DISCRETELY (as if) laughed at me.

                “Okay,” I thought, “just find the cheapest thing near you and get the hell out of here.” My eyes darted around the wall in front of me looking for something in the ten dollar range, but the only things I saw were in the thirty dollars or above range (and there was no way I was forking over that kind of money for something I was buying out of humiliation). Finally I saw a tag for $15, immediately reached out, and started tugging on the package. To my horror, it did not budge as I registered that every single item in the store was locked onto the walls and I would have to get the sex-cashier to actually come pull anything I wanted to purchase off the wall. It was too late to leave without buying something; I was balls deep in shame and obviously trying to pick something up. I hung my head, took a deep breath, and glanced over my shoulder at the sex-cashier. “SHIT! He is staring RIGHT AT ME!” I thought whipping my head around to look in sheer horror at my sister who was barely suppressing laughter.

                “Could you please help me with this, sir?” I managed to warble out. It wasn’t until he was walking toward us, keys in hand, that I realized the item I was pointing at was a butt plug. “WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST BUY A VIBRATOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON?” Shy Sarah shrieked in my mind, eyes rolling in her imaginary head. “BECAUSE THEY’RE LIKE A MILLION DOLLARS YOU FREAK!” Normal Sarah retaliated.

The War of the Sarah’s came to an abrupt halt as the sex-cashier said, “It’s kind of small, don’t you think?”

Not knowing how to even begin to respond to that kind of judgment on my butt, I stammered out, “Thank you.” On the inside, I wondered if this could possibly get any worse as my body betrayed me, flushing my every pigment in a shade of crimson defeat. I numbly followed him to the register and stood quietly as he rang up my tiny butt plug. I finally was getting a good look at him (because he wasn’t staring at me for once), and I suddenly realized he looked exactly like Mike Meyers except Asian, and I somehow felt even more uncomfortable. It was like Austin Powers was selling me a butt plug and laughing at me for choosing the smallest size. (Bitch, it’s the cheapest one!)

Desperate to make some kind of a small recovery, I glanced frantically around the room for something to start a conversation with. Apparently, the owners of Roxy’s spent a lot more money on stocking their shelves and outdoor advertising than on making the rest of the store look nice, because there was pretty much nothing else going on in there except for a photo of a man that said, “WANTED: MAGAZINE THIEF.” As I swiped my debit card and tapped in my pin number, I said (super smoothly), “I hope you catch your magazine thief.”

“What?” Asian Austin Powers said.  As I started drawing myself a soaker-tub full of shame and regret to wallow in in my mind, he said, “Oh, right. Yeah, that guy has been to every single one of our stores except for this one.”

“Great,” I thought, “there are more of these stores in the city I’ll have to avoid.”

“I guess it’s only a matter of time before he shows up here, then,” Susannah said.

I gave her a wide eyed look that I hoped said, “Bitch, don’t you dare try to keep this conversation going! I will leave you in here!”

“Yeah, I hope I catch him,” Asian Austin Powers said.

“Well, good luck! Bye!” I yelled over my shoulder, dragging Susannah and my tiny butt plug out behind me.

A few days later, I passed Asian Austin Powers in the street and he gave me a curious look as I darted down a side street to avoid him. We might have to move away if this becomes a regular occurrence or I will probably melt the sidewalk with the sheer heat of my blushing face. I guess the lesson I have learned is that I should start shopping for naughty nifty’s on the internet since I clearly don’t have the disposition to do it in person.

Bandits of the Night

          At the end of October 2016 Lucy, Jude, and I moved from Virginia to a nicely done basement apartment in Burnaby, BC.  Thankfully the apartment was furnished because my parents could not drive our things out to us for another month. There were still a few basic things usually needed in every day family life that weren't in the apartment already and one of those things was a trash can. We also did not have access to an outdoor trash can until the night before trash day each week. We were living in the suburbs without a car and constantly dragging a stroller through the snow, so we weren't able to get trash cans until my mom came to visit with all of our stuff at the end of November. Not wanting our house to stink of garbage all the time, we piled small trash bags in a corner by our front door. It was our best available solution at the time, but came with a few problems: it always smelled really bad when you were trying to unlock the door, earth worms would always be piled up in our doorway, and it drew to us the bandits of the night (A.K.A. raccoons).

          As adorable as the two raccoons who frequented the buffet de Smith were, the trash strewn across our walkway each morning was less so. As much as I disliked cleaning up the trash, I was very fond of the raccoons. First I met Jerry, the outgoing ringleader, who came most often. I later learned of the second raccoon, who I dubbed Rodger, Jerry's life partner, but it is Jerry who I got to know the most.

          Every couple of nights, I would catch Jerry red-handed busting into my trash bags. I would shoo him away to a nearby bush he liked to hide in, stand in my doorway, and wait for his inevitable return. He would poke his little head around the corner, see me glaring at him, and give me a look of baffled innocence. He was so charming, that I started to feel guilty for trying to keep him away from his source of food. As a fellow lover of eating, I understood the pain of being kept away from your dinner. His big round eyes looked so sweet and hungry that I quickly caved. I didn't want Jerry trashing my stoop anymore, so I started leaving him scraps just beneath his bush when I saw him around. (I should add that I didn't tell Jude knowing he would disapprove.)

          One night, I saw Jerry outside poking around in the trash, opened the door to shoo him, and went back to grab him so food. I thought he must have run into his bush so I left the food there. When I came back around the corner, however, Jerry was half way down the steps going for the trash again.

         "Jerry!" I hissed in surprise. Jerry was surprised, too. He was so surprised in fact, that he took off straight through my open door and into my living room. Half of me panicked that Jude would hear our commotion and bust me for befriending "a wild animal" and half of me was running through a fantasy of Jerry becoming my pet. I started to go inside after Jerry to try to chase him out before Jude became aware of the situation as Jerry looked around bewildered, turning a few circles on my welcome mat before taking off past me up the stairs. I was semi-disappointed, but kind of relieved that Jude hadn't busted me for unintentionally letting a raccoon in the house.

          About a week later, we finally got an outdoor trash can. I started leaving more food out for Jerry and Rodger. It had just snowed and one night the bread I left out for them froze before they found it. Unfortunately for me, Jude did find it as he left for work the next morning. That night we had an interesting discussion.

Jude: Sarah, I found some bread outside by the bush this morning.

Me: What did you do with it?

Jude: It was frozen. Did you put it there?

Me: Maybe.

Jude: Are you feeding the raccoons?

Me: Their names are Jerry and Rodger, Jude.

Jude: Saraaaaaah! Why?

Me: I feel so guilty, Jude! They're so accustomed to getting their meals here, and now we're locking it all up in a can! They need to eat, too, you know!

Jude: Saraaaah! You're going to get us kicked out of our home if you keep doing this! Mr. Lou was just telling me they're having a problem with raccoons!

Me: We won't get kicked out! They're not even going into Lou's part of the yard! He'll never know!

Jude: Sarah! They're wild animals!

Me: That's racist! Or...species-ist! Raccoons need to eat just as much as we do. And they're so sweet!

Jude: No they're not! They could have rabies and Jerry ran right by me the other day. It scared the crap out of me! And they are plenty fat; they're getting plenty of food somewhere.

Me: They do not have rabies, Jude!

Jude: They could! How would you know?

Me: I saw a rabid raccoon up close when I was a kid! They are not rabid! And if they were, they'd come out in the day time, not the night time!

Jude: Saraaaah! You don't known what kinds of diseases they could have! Plus they could be vicious!

Me: They are not vicious. Jerry has excellent manners! He was such a gentleman when he got in the house!

Jude: WHEN HE WHAT?

Me: It's no big deal, Jude!

Jude: HE GOT IN THE HOUSE? WHEN??

Me: A couple of weeks ago!

Jude: Where was I!?

Me: In your office!

Jude: WHAT??

Me: I thought he went into the bush, so I followed him to give him some food, but when I came back he was on the steps and he ran inside.

Jude: What? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FEEDING THEM?

Me: It doesn't matter! He realized he was in our house and politely excused himself right away. I think he even said he was so sorry for intruding in raccoon language probably.

Jude: Saraaaaah! No more feeding the raccoons!

Me: They have names, Jude.

Jude: Fine! No more feeding Jerry and Rodger!

Me: Ugh! Fine!

Jude: Promise me!

Me: Fiiiiine, Jude!

Jude: Sat it! Say you promise you won't feed them anymore!

Me: You don't trust me?

Jude: SAY IT!

Me: I said fine!

          This is the point where I started pretending to be asleep to avoid saying I promised. I actually did stop feeding them because Jude did make a good point that we are renters and could get evicted, but it's really fun to leave him in suspense sometimes.

Update:

        It has been only two days since I wrote this, but things have taken an unexpected turn. Jerry and Rodger are on my donezo list. I got a package later than usual yesterday. Our mail is left on the front step of my landlord's house and we live in the back so we don't always know it's there. The package was a Christmas gift from my childhood friend, Alexus, containing a gift for my daughter, cookies, chocolate, and hot chocolate packets for Jude and me. THOSE ROTTEN NIGHT MONSTERS RIPPED INTO IT AND ATE MY COOKIES!!!!!!!!!! (They missed the chocolate though, so who's the real winner here, COONS?)