How to Survive Kamikaze Dogs and ATM Skimming

Most Fridays are days like any other. My children run around behaving as though they were raised with a pack of wolves, I yell at the kids not to yell at each other (which, for the record, is the best ineffective parenting tip I could ever share with y'all) and my husband does whatever it is he does when he's not at home.

He keeps trying to explain what he does for a living and I keep tuning him out. It's a vicious cycle.

(It's not like I'm not interested in what he does everyday. It's just that he suddenly stops speaking English when he's explaining his job and starts speaking Charlie Brown. Everything I hear sounds like Wah Wah Wah and the skies start to darken and images of a naked Clive Owen pop into my head unbidden. It's a sickness I have and should never be construed for lack of interest. I'm very interested in my husband's paycheck career. I swear.)

However, this past Friday was special. It was the grand daddy of all Fridays. It was the Friday the Universe had been saving for just that time when you think life is going really well and you are ridiculously happy so it decides you need a kick in the pants to wipe that smug joyful look off your face.

First a dog tried to blow up my house and then a pack of faceless zombies robbed me blind. Not to mention, my husband brought home pizza but forgot to get extra cheese on it. Which basically meant it tasted like I was eating bread with ketchup and green peppers on it.

This is what happens when you tattoo "One joy scatters a hundred griefs" on your arm. The Universe pulls out all the stops to see if it's true.

For the record, all the joy in the world can't ever make a soggy arse pizza with hardly any cheese on it taste good. I'm just sayin'.

Luckily for me, I was born with a fair sized schnauz and while esthetically speaking my nose isn't much to look at, it works fairly well. Which is what saved my house, my family and the neighbour's moron dog from being sent to the next life in small pieces after what surely would have been an epic explosion.

However, if you ever notice a dog the size and colour of a feral polar bear tearing through your garbage on your front lawn, happily munching on your son's crappy nappies, don't do what I did. Which is chase it off with a big stick while threatening to make him into a rug. Because said dog will remember that moment you interrupted his five star dining experience and when he gets into a fight with a coyote and is bleeding to death, he will seek a final revenge.

He'll crawl under your basement-less house to lick his wounds as he slowly bleeds to death. It's as though he were flipping me off and giving me the finger. If he had fingers. Except, because the dog has a brain the size of a pea, he won't realize he doesn't quite fit under your crawl space and will end up ripping off your gas line. Thereby gassing himself as he slowly bleeds out under your house as you happily play Brain Buddies on Facebook.

The dog survived and lives to dumpster dive at my house again, the gas line has been fixed and I learned a valuable lesson. I'm not sure what it was, but I know I learned it. Still, Friday was not done crapping on us. I just didn't know it.

It wasn't until Sunday that I found out a gang of faceless zombies robbed me blind. Oh, ignorance really can be bliss sometimes. I was on my way into the city to purchase lunch supplies for when the kids returned to school. (That sound you hear? It's the sounds of angels singing Hallelujah! Hallelujah!)

I never carry cash with me simply because it tends to fall out of my pockets. I have the same problem with cell phones, keys, wallets and drivers licenses. Anything I stuff in my pocket I can kiss goodbye. My pockets are like the Bermuda Triangle. Once entered, you'll never see it again.

Because of this, I tend to use my debit card for all purchases. Which I keep on a chain around my neck. Well, not really, but now that I've thought of it, I might totally try that. Anyways, there I stood at the till, trying to pay for my apple sauce and wet wipes and my card kept getting declined.

Now I'm no stranger to that moment of shame when you have to look into the cashier's eyes and explain you have insufficient funds in your account. It wasn't too long ago my husband and I struggled to keep the roof over our heads and food in our children's mouth. But thanks to my husband's hard work and my penchant for selling my soul online, we make a tidy living right now. And I knew darn well there was money in our account.

Afterall, I hadn't left the house in days so I hadn't had a chance to blow all my husband's profit on Cheetos and batteries just yet. Yet there I was, red faced and penniless at the check out counter. Luckily for me, my sister saved my bacon and my pride and paid for my purchases.

The moment I got into the car I called my husband to yell at him for blowing all our dough on pay-per-view porn in my absence.

"What are you talking about? I just got paid. You know that. There is money in the account. It was likely just a card glitch. Go to the bank and make a withdrawal at the ATM machine," my husband wisely advised.

So off to our bank I went. And still I remained penniless as the ATM machine scolded me for exceeding my maximum daily usage amount.

As I cussed out the machine and the Universe in general, it dawned on me to phone the number on the bank card to get to the bottom of this little problem.

Turns out, according to Tiffany, the voice of reason and an employee of the bank, my card had been hotcarded. Thanks to that faceless gang of criminal zombies who skimmed from my account, unbeknownst to me.

I was a victim of identity theft and fraud. To the tune of almost four thousand dollars. My crew of zombie frauds was hard up for cash apparently.

The date of the theft? Friday. As a dog was engaging in suicide warfare on my house and me, a pack of hoodlums were robbing me blind.

Just when I thought the Universe was done with me and Friday was behind me, it crept up and bit me on the arse.

Luckily for my husband and I, the bank is being gracious about the theft and the money will be replaced. And once again, I learned a valuable lesson. Only this time, I know what that lesson is. Protect yourself. From kamikaze dogs and faceless crooks. Because you never know when either is going to attack.

So the Universe won this round. This week, when Friday rolls around, I'm not even going to get out of bed.

For more information on atm skimming and how to protect yourself, you should read this. Then read this.

You're on your own though for gas happy dogs. I can't find any credible source of information for that type of trouble.

Back To School Sighs

I'm dreading next week. All of my children will be in school, all day, every day, leaving me home alone with the dogs as I wait for the sounds of the school bus to return them home.

Five days a week, I'll be by myself, having no one to boss around or cuddle with during the day. I'm going to have to wash my own dishes.

I'd be more upset about this, but I'm oddly excited to see Jumbster enter grade school.

Since Bug never made it to elementary school this is big stuff for me. I get to relive all the grade school glory of field trips, Christmas concerts and recess all over again.

There is nothing quite like sitting through a grade school pageant to make one realize they should have used birth control all those years ago how precious children really are.

My children (well, two out of three as Jumby's oblivious to his new fate and only interested in blowing bubbles in the dog's water dish) are ridiculously excited to get back into the daily grind of bouncing around the back of a rickety old yellow school bus and terrorizing under-paid public school teachers alongside their feral friends.

I'm trying not to take this personally. I keep telling myself it's because they miss their friends that they want to hurry back to school and not because they are tired of being my personal servants. I mean, what child doesn't live for catering to the every whim and desire of their mother? Doesn't every child enjoy manual labour? It's not like they haven't been rewarded. I clearly remember letting them have the loose change they found in the dryer as they were doing my laundry a few weeks back.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and I'm going to have to learn how to drag my own arse off the couch to get food if I don't want to starve to death. That soda won't pour itself into it's own cup after all.

Still, in a bid to show my children that I'm not at all bitter about the prospect of having to make my own lunch and let the dogs out, all by myself, I decided it was probably time to take them shopping to for appropriate supplies.

Okay, so it was more like the kids nagged me to death about getting off my duff and fulfilling my parental responsibilities by buying them binders and crap until I about lost my darned mind to the incessant whining and broke down and took them shopping, but I like the way I write it better. Reality is a drag. It's much sparklier up here inside my head.

School shopping. It's worse than going Christmas shopping on December 24 at the local Toys R Us. It's a mad house where ever you go. These parents with their lists, fighting for the last 99 cent calculator on special. It's all elbows and angry looks. I know, because I'm generally the one scowling and tossing the elbows. I can't figure out why my children anticipate it with such glee.

(Here's where I block out the mental memories of rolling around in new packages of paper and pens as a small child myself. I refuse to acknowledge the geekery I submitted to as a kid.)

I suppose I wouldn't mind shopping for basic school supplies if my children actually used what I bought them instead of lending, losing or forgetting half of what I just paid an arm and a leg for only months ago. I've quickly come to realize that the reason the lists the schools give parents is so large is because you aren't buying for just your children, you are supplying half the kids in your child's class. Except no one ever  seems to lends your child anything, thus reducing your cost expenditures.

I'm bitter and cheap. It's a charming combination.

Just when I put the last pack of loose leaf paper in our cart and headed for the never ending check out line, my children reminded me we weren't done.

"What do you mean we aren't finished? I've got everything on the list. In triplicate!" I huffed as I pushed the cart whose front wheel refused to moved. (Because the shopping excursion is never complete without grabbing the faulty buggy.)

"We need clothes! Shoes! A new lunch kit!" They cried in tandem as Jumby bounced back and forth in his wheel chair, delighted by the chaos surrounding him.

"You have all of those things! I bought them last year!" I moaned.

"Um, Mom? We've grown," my son, who is now nose to nose with me, reminded me.

Darn them children and their good health. I did a quick mental stock of the clothes I've seen on the children recently and mental images of jeans with holes in them, pants that no longer reach the tops of ankles and shirts so tight that only a cracked out stripper would want to wear flooded into my head.

"Well craptastic."

So new clothing was a necessity, one which I vaguely remembered putting off, telling myself I'd buy when school rolled around. Well that bus is here now, honking it's horn and I could no longer avoid it.

If I was a normal person, one who enjoyed leaving my house and going shopping, I'm sure I wouldn't have this problem. My children wouldn't need an entire new wardrobe because I'd have bought for them around the calendar. But as it was, my children looked like ragamuffins whose parents were too poor to properly attire them.

There is nothing quite like tugging three children, one who happily gnaws on his wheelchair and tries to head bunt every display case he sees, clothing shopping. A week before school starts. Alongside every other frazzled mother in the province.

I probably should have just stabbed myself in the eye with a shoe horn, it would have been more pleasurable.

First there was the shoe fight. Frac refuses to wear anything other than sneakers. White sneakers. The thought of a loafer or anything made out of leather in the shape of a dress shoe apparently is the equivalent of asking him to disrobe and streak naked through his gymnasium. "Only losers wear loafers, Mooooom!" he whined as I thrust yet another pair of very nice, expensive  yet unacceptable looking shoes in his direction.

Eventually, I broke down and just bought the kid sneakers. Again. But only after threatening to not buy any shoes for him at all and make him go to school wearing only cardboard duct taped to his socks.

He was unfazed by this threat, as he knows I'd rather die than see my child wear anything but a loafer.

Fric was slightly easier to shod. Other than having to wrestle one Lucite stripper heel from her after another and having to explain why three inch heels are neither appropriate or practical for daily use, she was game for almost anything. She's a shoe whore like her mother. Praise Allah.

As for Jumby? Well, he was just happy to have a new shoe to stick in his mouth and chew on. He was totally my favourite child at that moment.

Then came the clothing battle. My son wants to dress like a homeless man in baggy clothes while my daughter is intent on dressing in such a fashion to show off her curves and give her father a heart attack.

I just kept checking the price tags attached to everything and muttering how it would just be easier and far more creative to send them to school in bejeweled garbage bags. We'd be trend setters. And they'd always be prepared for rain. My children would just ignore my murmured rants and carry on examining what ever was the most expensive piece of clothing they could find.

But by far and away the hardest part of the day, (besides the actual moment of realizing I'd completely broken my budget and I'd have to send them scavenging for food for the next week in order to pay for everything) was realizing how much my children have grown up. How little time I actually have left with them to take them shopping. There is a finite amount of times I can yell "Booby Holders!" while waving a bra in the underwear section just to watch my children's faces go flame red and die from parental-induced mortification.

Pretty soon Fric and Frac won't want to shop with me, and I won't have any jurisdiction of what they wear. They're well on their way to independence.

I don't know which bums me out more. The fact I just blew a small fortune on shoes and clothes that they'll outgrow in mere months; the thought of all the school supplies my children will have lost before the month of September even ends or the fact there will soon come a time I'm going to have to do my own manual labour instead of schlepping it on my kids and calling it 'chores'.

That's a milestone I'm just not ready to face.

Crap. I'm far too lazy for my children to be in such a hurry to grow up.

Slobber Puss

Sometimes, when life gets hard, the skies are so smoky the sun can't shine through, your water pump breaks leaving you without clean running water, people continue to throw around the R word because they think it's funny or socially acceptable and health problems plague your small family members, all one needs is a good snuggle to remember the joy their life is seeped in.

As the tattoo on my arm reminds me, "One joy scatters a hundred griefs."

Or, less eloquently, one kid's slobber can cure a thousand blues.

Sometimes, I need the reminder. And a tissue.