I’ll Take One Glitter-Rainbow Pipecleaner-Clothespin, Please.

Every morning when I open my eyes, I usually say a similar prayer.  “Dear God, please help me make the right decisions today and let me be happy…and if I can’t be happy, please give me the strength to fake it.”  This morning for some reason (I don’t know if it is the 80 hour weeks I’m pulling at work, the significant amount of stress I’m under, or the fact that I’m trying to cut Swedish Fish out of my diet), I prayed, “Dear God, please help me make the right decisions today and let me be happy…and if you have some time in the near future to use your power for fun, please grant me a hall pass.”  I don’t have any religious evidence to support the idea that this actually happens, but I’m pretty sure He rolled his eyes at that request.

I remember in elementary school when I had to go to the bathroom, I had to raise my hand and ask for a “hall pass.”  I never really understood that concept.  It was like if I was found in the hall without it, I was some 6-year-old refugee who had fought my way through recess to reach freedom or crawled my way through nap time to escape the evil clutches of the kindergarten teacher while she accidently dozed off for a second.  I wasn’t a big fan of the hall pass.  It was inevitably some obnoxious crafty object that the teacher concocted using a clothespin, rainbow pipe cleaners, and glitter.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a big fan of glitter, but as a kid I just thought it would have been a whole lot easier to give me a sign that said, “I have to poo.”

In my adult life, my friends refer to the “hall pass” as an escape from their committed relationships.  I’m told that by having a “hall pass”, it somehow erases the fact your partner was hooking up with a coworker when he/she was supposed to be home having dinner and watching the kids play Little League.  Preparing for our upcoming nuptials, Manfriend and I know there will be no hall passes.  You either have the full time committed relationship or you have your clothes set on fire.

The kind of hall pass I’d like is in the kind that I could give to the little angel that sits on my right shoulder and encourages me to say the right things even if I don’t really want to at the time.  That…chick…needs…a….break!   I can’t even tell you the struggle she has on a daily basis with that hot mess sitting on the left shoulder.  If only I could just have one day to respond with what I’m thinking in my head, without any consequences…

Situation:  (Text message with picture of my pregnant friend) “Look at my ever growing belly.  Only two more months to go!”

My response:  “Awwww…miracle of life….so exciting!”

What I’m thinking:  “Please don’t send me any more pictures of your stomach.  When I see it the only thing I can think about is that you have some creature swimming around in your body fluids, eating your nutrients and it causes you to have gas all the time.  Don’t think for one second I didn’t know it was you who farted on the metro.  When I keep seeing how big that baby is getting I just keep thinking about how much pain you’re going to be in in two months and quite frankly it makes me uncomfortable.  Oh, and please please please don’t give me a framed copy of that naked picture of you where you are covering your private parts with your hands and your baby’s daddy is kissing your stomach. Yuck.  I didn’t even want to see that of Jessica Simpson on the cover of that magazine when I was standing in line at the grocery store to buy Cheerios.  Double Yuck.”

Situation:  (Colleague entering the second hour of a speech during a business meeting.)  “Does anyone have any comments or suggestions?”

My response:  “You did a great job.  I can tell you put a lot of hard work into this project.

What I’m thinking:  “Shut the @#$# up.”

Situation:  (Running into a classmate from college.)  “So anyway, like I was saying, my husband is a trust fund baby and he just can’t spend enough money on me.  Our three children are amazing.  We already started a fund for them to go to Harvard.  The nanny takes such good care of them.  I’m working, even though I don’t have to, and I know it is only a matter of time before I’m CEO of the company and I just started last week.”

My response:  “I’m so happy for you.  I always knew you’d go far.”

What I’m thinking:  “Shut the @#$$ up.”

Situation:  (Email from a mutual friend.)  “Heidi, she had to delete you as a friend on Facebook because she noticed that you wrote ‘Happy Birthday’ on a guy’s wall that she went on one date with ten years ago.  She really thinks you’re a bad friend.”

My response:  “It really is too bad that she feels that way.”

What I’m thinking:  “Wait?  We were friends on Facebook?  My stomach is growling.  I need a snack.”

Situation: (While I’m in the middle of getting out an important document.)  “Heidi, do you know which metro stations would be the quickest way for me to get to where I need to be?  Are there any restaurants nearby?  What about parking?  Do you know if there’s parking?”

My response:  “Give me a minute.  Let me see what I can find out for you.”

What I’m thinking:  “http://www.google.com.  Dumbass.”

Future situation in the next five minutes:  (Loaded inbox of hate mail) “Heidi, I was very offended reading your blog.”

My response:  “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I think I was a little manic this morning.”

What I’m thinking:  Delete.  I need coffee.

So I’m probably not going to get a hall pass anytime soon.  Most days it is easy to say the right things.  For those days that aren’t so easy, I guess we’ll just have to fake it.

Love,

Heidi

xoxo