So here’s what happened. One night around 9:00 PM my entire house started to smell like we had set fire to 25 tires. The smell of burnt rubber was more overwhelming than the smell of nail polish in one of those cheap nail salons that has no ventilation and doesn’t clean their cuticle cutters.  Something similar had happened once before, just not as strong, and it turned out to be one of the motors in the air conditioning.  So we turned off the air conditioning in the house which was a problem because it was summer in central Florida and it’s so hot everyone’s lightheaded and a has pitt stains. Between the unbearable heat and the pungent smell that seemed to get worse even after we turned off the air conditioning, we had to get the hell out of our house and go to a hotel.

By the time we got out it was about 10 PM and the local hotel had no rooms, so we had to go to one 25 minutes away.  But first we had to wake my daughter out of a dead sleep. Now if someone wakes me out of a dead sleep before it’s time to get up, I will cut them.  I’m not one of those people that can fall asleep in like 30 seconds. I hate those people as much as I hate people who always look like they showered.  Anyway, we got to the hotel and went right to the front desk.  The guy gave us our room key and we headed up to the 11th floor. My husband was carrying Lily as he opened the room, we’re about to walk in when suddenly we hear a man’s voice scream so loudly the guy at the front desk probably heard, ‘What the fuck?!?!  What the fuck?!’  He must have said it like 4-5 times, with the volume increasing each time.  Now, it was totally dark in the room, I’m assuming the guy who was already was occupying this room was sleeping.  But whatever he was doing (or whoever he was doing) it was in the privacy of what he thought was his own room, and we had just busted in. Now this scared the shit out of me, and of course my daughter who is still asking me about the ‘scary dinosaur’ that yelled at her from that dark room.  My luck that ‘scary dinosaur’ will rear its prehistoric head and land her in therapy one day.  Now in case you’re assuming that the screaming guy is the douchebag of the day, he is not.  I would’ve reacted the same way, but probably would’ve also thrown a bedside lamp at the door, or something equally violent.  But I’ll tell you who IS the douchebag, the guy at the front desk who gave us the key to a room that was already being occupied by the ‘scary dinosaur.’ Now let me tell you something about my husband, he is a caring, extremely generous person, and in general pretty even tempered, as long as you don’t really piss him off.  If you do, he will fuck you up, verbally.  He’s Jewish, and from a young age Jewish boys usually arm themselves with fighting words in order to avoid physical fighting.  This is usually a result of the NJM (Neurotic Jewish Mother, myself being one of them) who often won’t even let their sons play football, let alone condone fighting, even in self defense. (It’s no coincidence that lots of Jews play tennis and golf). The wrath of an NJM would be 10 times worse than that any middle school bully. We went back to the front desk, my daughter was still really freaked out which upset us both so my husband let the verbal violence fly. Within 2 minutes we had a manager personally escorting us to a new room, but this time it was a large suite. Verbal violence victory for sure. However, the night in general was a loss since my daughter was up most of the night wondering what had just happened. One day when she’s actually old enough to hear word fuck, I will tell her the story of this particular douchebag of the day.

This is not the first time my rage stems from a household appliance. Maybe they sense my aversion to domestic tasks and therefore taunt me even more, I don’t know. But what I do know, there was one night my dishwasher put me over the edge.

Since moving to Orlando, we’ve lived in 2 rental houses. In the first house my nemesis was the refrigerator. It was huge and the door was incredibly hard to open. It was almost as if it was stuck, but it wasn’t. I’d have to put my whole body weight into opening it. The effort I had to put forth often resulted in a grunt reminiscent of Serena Williams hitting a backhand winner, only I was just trying to get some hummus. As if that wasn’t annoying enough, once you closed the door, it wouldn’t let you open it again right away. It would sort of lock for like 5 seconds or so before you could open it again. It was as if it was saying, go away you fat fuck, gain some willpower and lose some of your big ass. That meant if I forgot to get something out of the fridge (which happened all the time) I’d have to wait to open the door and get it which was infuriating. I remember one time, it had been a long, stressful day, and I was just trying to make dinner for my cranky, crying kid. The fridge locked me out, and just as I was yelling, “C’mon you asshole!” my husband walked in. Clearly taken aback, he asked who I was talking to, when I told him the refrigerator I believe there was a brief moment where he considered having me committed. There’s no question throughout the year we lived there I called that refrigerator many names, one favorite being “you useless, crappy cold box of misery!” Committed? No. More therapy? Perhaps.

I spent so much time on the fridge, I’ll keep the dishwasher story brief. Basically, when my dishwasher is done with its cycle it beeps 3 times, very loudly. That’s all fine and good, but it beeps 3 times very loudly I’d say every 2 minutes or so until someone opens the door. Here’s the news, I get that it’s done, you don’t need to beat me over the head with all the beeping, and I’ll unload the damn spoons when I’m good and ready. What set me over the edge the other night was that I ran the dishwasher and then went to bed, just as I find myself dozing off I hear those loud fucking beeps. And then about 2 minutes later I hear them again. And then again. There are only 3 things that will get my out of bed at an undesirable time, if my daughter needs me, if there’s a fire, or if someone were to bring me hot bagel straight out of the oven from H&H bagels on the upper west side of NYC. Come to think of it, I could eat the bagel in bed, so we’re back down to my kid and a fire. Anyway, the fact that I had to wake up, go downstairs to open the damn door of the dishwasher was preposterous. To the person behind the dishwasher technology…WTF??? You are the douchebag of the day.

Before you start reading, make sure you’ve taken a close look at the accompanying visual. And I’m not talking about the fact that the actual visual is on it’s side. That’s only because I’m a technological moron and I don’t know how to make it right side up. Lean your head sideways and you’ll see what I guess you’d call an enormous potted plant in my backyard. Given it’s positional likeness to a certain tower in Pisa, my husband and I named it the Leaning Plant of Orlando. Now here’s the deal, this plant has been leaning this way for quite some time now, exactly how long I couldn’t tell you. I noticed it a few weeks prior, but there’s a solid chance it had been like that for a while before I noticed. My mom once came over to an apartment I was living at in NYC, and immediately said, Hope, haven’t you noticed that half your ceiling in the kitchen is cracking, probably from a leak above you? The truth is no, I hadn’t noticed, and my reasoning was, why while in the kitchen would I ever look up? If something doesn’t affect my everyday life I pay very little attention to it, and I’m not a neat freak where everything has to look perfect. It’s quite the opposite, frankly I’m a hot mess. If neat freaks are type A, I’m innately type Z, but having a kid I’ve tried to up myself to like a solid M with the ultimate goal being like an, I or J.

So when I first took notice of this leaning plant, I showed Adam, who like me, is hovering around a Type N or O, and didn’t think much of it either. It also helps that we were renting the house so didn’t take much pride or satisfaction in the landscaping in general. However, the owner did pay for the landscapers to come on a regular basis to keep everything in check. So when we noticed a week or 2 went by, clearly the landscapers had come and the plant was still leaning, we thought it was perhaps a bit odd. I know what you’re thinking, why didn’t myself or Adam just push the damn plant upright? It’s a fair question. I could say, there are better things I could be doing with the 30-45 seconds it would probably take, but that would clearly be a bunch of bullshit. The honest answer is, we just didn’t, and then it almost became a thing, like how many times would these landscapers come and not push it up themselves. Something of a stand-off, like in the old wild west, who’s gonna pull their gun first and shoot. Sure one could result in death while the other a more aesthetically pleasing visual, but you get the analogy.

The stand-off continued for weeks on end, and the leaning plant of Orlando continued to lean. It even started to look as if it was leaning on a more severe angle which is when Adam and I took bets on when it would actually fall over. It didn’t. At that point we just appreciated it for what it was. It’s like sometimes you learn to appreciate something a little off or wonky about someone. Like if they have one eye that’s bigger than the other, it becomes endearing and what makes them, them. My nose used to be a little wonky, but when I was 19 I got a nose job. So there goes that theory. Well, it’s endearing on some people. Anyway, at the end of the day, the landscaper’s job is to make the grounds look their best. I don’t think wonky was what they were going for, I think it was just laziness. So landscape dudes, you are the douchebags of the day.

Today’s Douchebag is a functional inanimate object that has become dysfunctional. And it really pisses me off. I have a relatively expensive washing machine that is less than a year old. Only a few short months after we purchased it, something seemed to go awry. Suddenly, in the middle of a wash cycle, the whole machine would start to shake very aggressively and make this insanely loud noise. The first time it happened I was so freaked out, I thought the machine was going to explode. It looked and sounded like Al Roker (pre gastric bypass surgery) was in my washing machine being tossed around as if he was a fitted sheet. Clearly rotund Al Roker was not in my washing machine, and a few towels, t-shirts, and underwear should not cause so much drama.  Side note, big props to Al for losing all that weight, but is it me or did a lot of his jolly persona melt away with his cellulite? Skinny Al seems much more snarky. Like now when he says it’s going to rain for 3 days straight it’s really depressing.  Big Al somehow made rain fun. Maybe he’s just really hungry.

Anyway, I ended up calling a repair man and after doing a full exam of the machine, he told me there was nothing wrong with it. He suggested that if I’m washing towels, jeans, or anything on the ‘heavy’ side, each load should consist of even numbers, like 4 towels, but not 5. 2 pairs of jeans, not 3. He said the uneven numbers can throw off the balance of the machine.  HUH????  When I was growing up my mother had a washing machine that had been through 5 presidential terms, and I’m pretty sure the only thing she was counting were the amount of days until me and my pain in the ass sister went off to sleep away camp. (I love my sister dearly but she was a real nightmare during her ‘grunge’ phase.  And somehow she smelled like wet dog. And we didn’t have a dog).

As if the noise wasn’t enough, one day I started to notice that the ‘clean’ clothes coming out of the washing machine didn’t smell fresh and clean, they smelled stale and musty.  It was like a mix of old people and boys locker room. Specifically pubescent boys. It was gross.  This time I called a different repair man because I was suspect of the whole even number theory the other guy gave me. It’s always good to get a second opinion, whether it’s herpes or household appliances. The second repair man came, still couldn’t give me an answer for the volcanic tendencies of my washer, and as far as the smell, that was also a disappointment. I won’t bore you with his reasoning, but the best he could do was, it’s Florida, there’s lots of moisture, something about putting a light bulb in the machine to heat it up and kill germs (what??) and run a cycle with Clorox.  I said I would try the Clorox but he warned me that it might not completely take away the smell. Great, now I’m going to have to walk around smelling like a cross between Betty White and Justin Bieber. FML. I had no idea what that meant either, but one of my younger, hipper friends said it stands for ‘Fuck My Life’.  Acronyms generally irk me, but this one has its place. For the record, while I don’t want to necessarily smell like Betty White, I do love her and Golden Girls is everything. Bea Arthur was my spirit animal.

Anyway, washing machine, your foul play and foul smell make you the douchebag of the day.

I’m going to have to do things a little different today. Yes, I’m still going to present a rant filled with plenty of inner rage and expletives, but I’m going to have to rename the title, douchebag of the day. Why? It’s my daughter. So just for today’s purposes, let’s call her, the “silly goose of the day.” God, it sounds so ridiculous coming from me. I’d be the world’s worst kindergarten teacher.

I know potty training is a different experience for everyone. For Lily, once she finally decided she was ready, going “pee pee” went relatively smoothly. Pooping however was a different story. She just wouldn’t do it. I tried the sticker rewards, M&M rewards, hell, I was ready to offer up a Barbie dream house at one point. Nothing was working. My sister told me to stay home one whole day and not to put a pull-up on her, she’ll be forced to eventually go. So I did, and here’s what happened. We were playing on the back patio, I went inside to get something, and when I came back there was a pile of poop sitting there right next to the play doh ice cream maker. Sadly we don’t have any brown play doh or a dog so I immediately knew what it was. It’s a touchy subject, so I calmly asked, Lily, why did you go poop on the ground? Her answer was simple, she said, I didn’t have a pull-up on. My sister asked, didn’t she feel weird that she just pooped on the floor? My friend asked if she cares that all her girlfriends wear cute princess underwear and she doesn’t. You know that expression, zero fucks given? That’s my daughter. I love her confidence, but it’s work. My mother-n-law always said to me, don’t worry, nobody walks down the aisle in a diaper. Although, growing up a neighbor of mine got remarried at 87, and she gave birth to 6 kids, my guess is there was some sort of absorbent undergarment involved.

One day, out of the blue, Lily decided it was time, she pooped in the potty and the rest is history. A few days later she was on the potty, and when she poops she likes to either read a book, or sometimes she’ll bring one of her princesses with her. Anyway, she did her business and I heard her flush. A minute or so later I came over to see how she was doing only to find that the toilet water was cascading out of the bowl, flooding my floor. My husband was out town which was fine because with stuff like that he’s as useless as a tree branch. I futzed around a bit and finally got the water to stop. The damage was done though, with all the toilet water on the floor, if for some reason Lily were to regress and poop on the floor it would’ve been oddly appropriate.

I tried plunging with no success. Shit gets real when you gotta start plunging a clogged toilet. Literally. My friend gave me the name of a plumbing service, the earliest they could come was the next day. So that was fun. The guy finally came and got right to work. 10 minutes went by and there was an inordinate amount of noise coming from the bathroom. I was concerned, but then he came out and said he had fixed it, but his guess was that there was a foreign item down there, and judging from the surroundings he guessed it was a toy. I told him his hunch was probably correct. If Rapuzel thought being locked in that tower was bad, that bitch was in for quite a wake up call. I love my kid more than anything in the world, but you put toys down the toilet, you’re gonna be the “silly goose of the day.” Don’t worry, next time we’re back to douchebags.