Not another Mother’s Day post…

This is not another Mother’s Day post. Which should probably go without saying as it’s no longer technically Mother’s Day, but I’ve never shied away from pointing out the obvious.  I wanted to write a Mother’s Day post yesterday.  I sat with my ideas, which were brilliant and witty in my head, for a while.  I typed, erased, typed again – but my words either landed on the cringe-worthy side of glib or the “I’m not a shrink but I play one on TV” side of analytical.  Worst of all they didn’t sound like me and failed to convey my complicated feelings about a day that used to be as simple as construction paper, finger paints, and flowers (usually dandelions unceremoniously yanked from the yard and presented with the care and grace of a 4-year old).

So rather than write, I did what any emotionally conflicted grown woman would do – tackled home improvement.  My shower door has been broken for a week and I’ve been tripping over the complicated-looking (read:  has more than 2 moving parts) window covering contraption sitting on my bedroom floor since February.  An emotionally convoluted Sunday evening seemed like as good a time as any to wrestle with plate-glass and power tools (says the woman with a scar on her face from an uncooperative Ikea drawer incident and almost built herself into an outdoor couch thing).  I won’t even get into the time my bff & I decided that midnight was prime time to replace a toilet seat and 2 bottles of wine was the perfect prep for the task (helpful hint: toilet seats are much easier to remove than install, particularly when you see two of them).

I’ll spare you the details and expletives that accompanied these seemingly simple (to people who don’t regularly find ways to hurt themselves while sitting still) endeavors.  But an hour later I’d successfully used a hack-saw, interpreted the vague, wordless instructions accompanying the window coverings, and operated a drill without drawing blood.  I even re-hung my shower door, which would have been an elementary task but for right angles and the evolutionary limitation of only having two arms.  After some wedging, wrangling, and praying that a large sheet glass is designed to “give” just a enough for me to get thestupidfuckingtinyscrewdriverintheredamnit I was pretty convinced I’m (very) distantly related to Bob Vila.  To the best of my knowledge, 12 hours later the damn door is still hanging!  Which means I can shower this morning – YOU’RE WELCOME, people with whom I work.  This was all for you.

The point of all of this (other than to brag about my obvious skills) is to say thanks Mom…for showing me that there’s no reason women can’t be just as handy as men (or handier…sorry Dad), and for never letting on that “go outside and ride your bike” was really mom code for “go play in traffic”.  Happy Not Actually Mother’s Day But Every Day Is Mother’s Day.  Otherwise known as Monday.