Extenuating Circumstances



I now officially have a free pass to commit a homicide.

There isn’t a jury in the country who would convict me, either.

Allow me to present the evidence.

EXHIBIT A:

See yesterday’s post. ‘Nuff said.


EXHIBIT B:

Work has been extraordinarily, unbelievably, insanely, and stressfully busy. Yesterday was crazy. Everything that crossed my desk needed to be done five minutes ago. At one point, my boss handed me a dictation device and waited for me to finish typing it out.

By waiting, I mean he came into my office, stood behind my chair with crossed arms, and silently watched me type the words as I listened to them with my headphones.

Then, to make life even a little more interesting, he started proofreading/correcting as I typed. Not only did I have his voice piped into my ears through the headphones, I had him behind me revising and correcting what he had just said. It reminded me eerily of the multitasking I needed to employ during my time as a 911 dispatcher, and I frantically toggled back and forth between the dictation device and the Word document, pausing it as necessary.

After three or four times of flipping back and forth, The Boss asked in an annoyed voice, “What is that thing you keep flipping to while you’re in the middle of trying to get this out for me?”

“It’s the dictation device, Mr Boss.”

“Well, what are you doing with it? This is a top priority project we’re trying to get out.”

“Well, Mr. Boss, when you talk I can’t hear what you’re saying over the sound of your other voice my ear, so I have to pause it.”

“Oh.” Pause. “Well, I guess you can continue to do it, then.”

GEEE. Thanks.

EXHIBIT C:

Later that day my boss came into my office again.

“Log onto University A’s website and see what their nearby hotel accomodations are.”

So I did.

“What are you doing, Becky?”

“I’m going to University A’s website, like you said.”

“Why would you be doing that?”

“Ummm… Because you just told me to?”

“Use your brain, girl! Why would I want you to go there? You should know that I am thinking about a future trip in which I will be near University B, and you should have ignored what I told you and have automatically gone to that website. Think, Becky!”


EXHIBIT D:

After a few minutes of staring over my shoulder (I hate that), watching me peruse the accommodations near University B, my boss gave an exaggerated shiver and glanced over at the thermostat in my office.

“Aren’t you cold in here? It’s freezing.”

“No, I’m actually kind of warm. It’s because I’m pre–” I intended to say it was because I was pregnant, but Mr. Boss cut me off.

“Oh, yes. That’s right. It’s because you have the extra body fat.”

“Yes, Mr. Boss. It’s because of my extra body fat.” (I think he missed my sarcastic tone.)

EXHIBIT E:

After weeks of frantic studying and late-night cramming sessions, The Bean’s finals are almost over. This past week has been especially brutal, and I’ve encouraged him to stay late nights at the university library while I watched the DragonMonkey and took care of all aspects of everyday life in order to give him the extra time he needs to pull A’s in all his classes. At only a month to my due date and with my own 12 hour working days, this is no small sacrifice on my behalf.

To say that we’re both a little exhausted is a bit of an understatement.

Yesterday The Bean received some bad news.

He forgot to put his name on his the scantron for his Accounting final.

Despite the fact that the professor “knows” which grade is his (The Bean had the highest “A” in the class going into the exam and one of the six unnamed tests scored a 98%”) the only option (aside from failing him for a no-show) is to give him the grade of the lowest-scoring unnamed final.

The lowest score is a 48%.

EXHIBIT F (aka The Straw That Broke the Becky’s Back):

The Bean is in an understandably grumpy mood.

I am trying to be accommodating of that fact, and have been trying to do little things to make him feel better.

This morning when he woke up, I leaned over and gave him a kiss.

“Hey, Bean, don’t forget – when I did all your laundry last night, I separated your socks from mine and matched them up. They’re in your sock drawer.”

This may not sound like much, but it is.

I hate laundry.

I truly, truly hate laundry.

I hate socks worst of all. Pairing and matching socks is the bane of my existence. On more than one occasion I’ve been known to just wad all of our socks together in a gigantic lump, cramming them into an overfull drawer. I mean, they’re SOCKS. They’re pieces of cotton that go over stinky, sweaty feet, and then you shove them into stinky, sweaty shoes. As long as you have two of them and they’re relatively the same color, I consider them a pair.

The Bean knows this, so I figured my extra efforts might put him in a good mood.

He yawned deeply, stretched, and then grunted out, “Did you pair them according to overall sock age?”

I stopped. “Huh?”

“When you paired them, did you pair them according to their respective ages and levels of wear and tear?”

I paused, waiting for the punchline.

The Bean looked at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“Wait… are you being serious, Bean?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s just sometimes you will pair them, but you’ll disregard the age of the socks and pair a worn gold-toed black sock with a newer gold-toed black sock, and they don’t really go together…..”

He trailed off as he saw the look in my eyes.

See what I mean? Any murders I decide to engage in today are completely justifiable.

Sexy Dreams



Last night I had some crazy dreams.

No, no, it wasn’t my usual fare of burning orphans,rabid bears savaging my face off, or decaying skeleton husbands come to poke me with branch arms.

Uh-uh. Nope.

Last night I had some crazy GOOD dreams.

Yeah, that’s right.

I had me some Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow dreams, and in the steamiest sense possible.

The Bean and I were obviously the main stars… and let me tell you, we were some sexy, sexy lead characters.

The Bean was about 6’3” and had tanned, chiseled abs.

I was about 5’11” and appeared to be composed entirely of toned, tanned legs and perky boobs. My stomach was completely flat, my waist impossibly narrow, my heiny was firm and shapely, and there wasn’t an inch of chub ANYWHERE on my body.

I’m telling you – Angelina Jolie would have looked at me and felt insecure. I was that hot.

To make matters even better – this was a dream. We didn’t get out of breath. We never had an awkward moment. It was just Hollywood-style, embarrassment-free , good steamy loving all night long. In fact, I’m pretty sure that some of the stuff The Bean and I did in this dream wasn’t even anatomically possible.

Who cares? They’re my dreams, and they were MMmm, Mmmm, GrrrrEAT!

The problem was is that I woke up.

To make matters worse, I woke up quite suddenly— suddenly enough that my body was awash in sensation, the heat of the dream spilling over into real life.

It was still dark outside, probably some time before five in the morning.

I lay there for a moment, waiting for things to cool down enough that I could drift back to sleep.

That’s when it occurred to me – why should I bother waiting? Why not just wake up The Bean and convince him to reenact some of my oh-so-luscious dream? There are worse ways to start off a Tuesday morning, after all.

I figured I could start off with one of the moves I’d just dreamed… I would crawl over to him, catlike, stalking across the bed. He’d be asleep, but even he wouldn’t be able to miss the way the moonlight caught my toned body…. The heat and promise evident in my sleek movements would cause him to wake…. I’d lower myself over his prone form, and my hands would slide slowly up his bare back, nails digging in slightly as I turned him over beneath me.

MMMMmmm.

He’d probably make some kind of deep, appreciative noise and pull me down to him. Our lips would meet, and his hands would slide down the curve of my waist, tightening slowly on my…..

MMMMmmm!

With a sleepy, secretive smile, I prepared to roll over.

I say I prepared to roll over, because that’s when it hit me.

Oh.

Yeah.

I’m not Angelina Jolie.

I’m Becky.

And I’m 497 months pregnant.

Frustrated at the sudden reminder of reality, I lay there for a moment, trying to get my bearings. Maybe I should just go to sleep?

Nah.

Still willing to give it a go, I scrabbled at the body pillow beside me, trying to find some kind of purchase to give me enough momentum to heave my vast stomach up over to the other side.

I failed.

I tried again.

I failed again, this time even going so far as to let out a totally unsexy moan in my attempt to change positions.

HRRRRNNNGGGH!” I grunted.

Mmmmmmmm.” The Bean made an irritated noise in his sleep.

HRRRRRNNNGHHH!” I grunted again, flailing on my back like a horse rolling in the dirt.

Mmmmmmmmmm,” The Bean sounded even more irritable at my noisy intrusion, and flopped over onto his back, mouth agape. He began to snore lightly.

I completed the flip onto my other side, propping myself up on an elbow as I stared moodily down at the slack face of my sleeping husband.

This was not how this was supposed to go.

I considered leaning down to kiss him, then smacked my lips a couple of times. Ew. Morning breath.

The Bean gave a deep, heavy snore.

I sniffed deeply, then wrinkled my nose. EWWW. Morning breath from both of us.

I stared down at him for another timeless moment, wondering if it was even worth it at this point.

The Bean farted.

“GROSS,” I whispered angrily, throwing back the covers to avoid being marinated by fart-scent.

MMMMMMM!” The Bean made an even angrier sound, reaching down with a sleepy hand to find the covers I’d just thrown off of him. He yanked them up over his shoulders, and flopped over onto his side.

Not to be outdone, I gave an impressively deep burp (thanks, Squidgelet, for the acid reflux) and then lowered myself down carefully onto my own pillows.

Oh well. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could go back to sleep and find my way back into the same dream.