I’m living a mother’s dream this week. My children are off at summer camp; my husband off at work. That means I am not spending my day folding laundry and listening to the angry screeches of two children argue over whether the sky is blue and I’m not spending my nights avoiding “back rubs” and listening to my husband whine over how hard (snicker) done by he is.

It’s just me, my facking birds and my crippled dog.

And man am I bored. The novelty wore off somewhere around the 29th hour. I now find myself wandering around my empty house looking for something to do.

Oh look! There’s a dirty sock under the bed in the back corner! Sweet! That’ll kill a minute while I fish it out…

I’m so bored I even locked my sweet, surgically repaired dog into a small room with the birds. Just to hear the feathers flap.

That plan backfired horribly. I failed to take into account the fact my dog is stoned on pain meds from having his leg sliced open, cracked in half and bolted back together again. Abe and Lester flapped all around Nixon, even pecked at him a few times and my dopey dog just sat there with a stupid look on his face.

So much for drama.

So I’m doing what I promised myself I would never do. Yard work. It’s either that or start running through the fields stark naked hoping for some action. With my luck someone would shoot me. I figure it’s safer to keep my clothes on and pull some weeds.

So far I’ve blown a lawn tractor tire, lost a wratchet, cracked the pool pump (I’m in big trouble for that one), broke a lawn chair (with my healthy ass) and fucked up the whippersnipper so badly even God himself, couldn’t save it.

I ought to pat myself on the back for a job well done. I am so efficient.

(In my defense, the lawn tractor is an ancient piece of shit, begging to be replaced; my husband has over a hundred wratchets so the loss of one isn’t a huge deal; the pool pump…well…I have no freaking idea what happened…it wasn’t me, snicker; the lawn chair was ripped to begin with (I SWEAR!!!) and the whippersnipper? Well, if my husband had fixed it properly in the first place, I never would have had to fiddle with it. So it’s technically Boo’s fault.)

It was right about when the whippersnipper blew up that I had to reevaluate my plan for yard work. I could continue on my path of destruction thereby endangering myself and costing my husband an arm and a leg to replace everything I touched broke, or I could go and pull some weeds.

Weeding is cheaper so I toddled down to my garden shack shed to look for some gardening tools when I heard a loud buzzing sound. In the corner of my shed was a rather large hornet’s nest.

As I stood stalk still, I eyed this bomb and thought two thoughts to myself.

A.) Shit. Back up slowly, close the door and go get a beer. Don’t be a hero. What’s a few weeds anyways?

B.) I think I saw a full can of Raid! in my utility room. Who needs a man to kill a few bees?

Yes, I admit, I have rocks for brains. Thanks for pointing this out.

As I walked up to my house to get the can of poison, I was picturing all the accolades that would pour in when the world found out that I was mighty; I smote a few hornets without fear, without man.

With can in hand, delusions of grandeur and a crippled dog in tow, I returned to the scene of the battle field, ready for war. I carefully read the instuctions written on the side of the can, wiped the sweat from my brow (it was HOT, I wasn’t nervous…sheesh) and steeled myself for combat.

As I reached up on my tippy toes and pointed the can of poison at the hive, I thought, sheesh, how easy is this? Who needs a man? I am woman, hear me ROAR!

And roaring there was…as twenty or so hornets buzzed angrily around my head, very pissed that I was messing with their crib. My crippled dog sat there looking at me like I was the dumbest yokel on the planet.

I did what any good woman would do. I ran screaming out of the shed, dropped my can of Raid!, and hi-tailed it towards the house which suddenly seemed impossibly far away.

As I slammed my door shut, and shook my head to make sure no hornets lodged in my hair, I looked out the window to see if I had a trail of angry little insects ready to swarm my abode.

No.

What I did have was my crippled, limping, broken legged pup hobbling his way towards safety, probably muttering curses and placing a pox on my head for leaving him to face the danger alone.

Ya. That’s right. I abandoned my precious Nixon and fed him to a pack of wolves with wings, while I jumped ship and ran for safety. I am officially the worst doggy momma ever. As I scooped him up when he finally stumbled to the door, I noticed his nose was stung. Damn me.

I blame this on Boo. If he were around, I would have remembered to grab my baby as I fled for the hills.

I’m sure of it.