My Worlds Collided

Since Josh is a Cubs fan and I am a Cards fan, we had to draw up some guiding principals to live by to maintain order in our house. They are simple but critical:

1. When the Cards play the Cubs, we watch it quietly without smirking and/or trash talking. We gloat silently in our heads, except the one time Josh lost control and covered me with a Cubs W flag while I was asleep.

2. Our children will be raised as Rangers fans. They will not own a single Cards or Cubs item of clothing.* Neither of us is allowed to try to convince the children to join our side.

These guidelines have worked out pretty well. We are united when we root for the Rangers, and it's nice to agree on a team for once.

When I first moved to Texas, I couldn't imagine my life in a non-baseball town. The Rangers weren't very good and attendance at games was low. I missed the atmosphere of baseball in St. Louis. I was shocked when we could go to opening day here without any trouble getting tickets. Now that they're good, we have to try to get opening day tickets via a lottery (never works out). I even consider myself a bigger Rangers fan than most who call themselves a Rangers fan these days, because we went to games when they stunk and the stands were empty.

But now, we are going through some trying times in our marriage since my worlds collided and the Cardinals are playing the Rangers in the World Series. I thought it was my dream World Series, and that I couldn't lose. I thought I would be happy no matter who won. I thought I could be neutral. But I guess you just can't reprogram someone after all those years as a fan, because I want the Cards to win. Bad.

Supriya, Josh and I had so much fun at game three. Two of us more fun than one of us. We saw Dirk throw out the first pitch, and Ronnie Dunn sing the national anthem.

Pujols hit his historic three home runs. Supriya and I were so excited, but my excitement was tempered slightly by Josh's creepy silent rage. It summed up Josh's night when, on the way to the car, he stepped in poop.

He perked right up at game four when the Rangers won, though. We saw Dubya throw out the first pitch, missing Nolan by quite a bit. The best part of my night was Zooey Deschanel singing the National Anthem. We stuck to the sidewalks this time, to avoid "the path to dookie," as Josh called it.

I can't wear the hoodie I wore to game four ever again on game day. I wore it once to Wrigley for Cards/Cubs, then to game four of the World Series when the Cards lost. It is out of the game day rotation now.

*I reserve the right to wear whatever I want when I'm pregnant, though, to include those shirts that say "Future Cards Fan" and have an arrow pointing to your tum.

No intro.

I've reached the conclusion that there will be no introduction. 


I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that typically it's appropriate to kick off a blog by telling you who I am or what I'm going to talk about. And I agree with you. Because I am a RULE. FOLLOWER. But writing the beginning seems daunting right now, since tonight, there was a lizard incident, mixed in with a hooty hoot incident, followed by a trash incident. And that's what I'd rather tell you about because I am traumatized.


Like most days, there I was, minding my own business. Josh has class tonight from 6 to 10 p.m. Yes, that sounds horrifying after getting up at 4:45 a.m. and working all day. But it is not as horrifying as my night, so quit trying to steal my thunder.


I ran about 5 billion errands, and was just about drop-dead tired when I made it home, put away all of the groceries, and started to get organized for tomorrow. Tuesday is trash day. I am not the trash lady in this house, but being the trophy wife that I am, I decided I would put out the trash for Josh since prior to my night unraveling, he was the one who was worse off. I was able to avoid dry heaving, even though the trash was rank after a week in our 105+ degree weather, because I was telling myself what an amazing wife I am, and it distracted me. Pleased with my efforts on what would clearly be a strong point on my application for wife of the year, I went about my night. 


When I came home from the grocery store earlier, I noticed that someone had left a note on our door. I opened the door to grab it and throw it away, and that is when all hell broke lose. A hideous Dallas lizard seized the moment to attack me, and I am pretty sure in his mad dash into our house he touched my foot. Our cat, Major Tom, who is always ready always there like the National Guard, realized our safety zone had been compromised, and selflessly threw himself between me and the lizard while I screamed so loud that frankly, I am offended the neighbors did not come check on me. 


These lizards are fast, and Major Tom had him cornered on one of our chair legs, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something twitching on the floor. It was the freaking lizard's tail, all possessed and spasming there on the floor. 


I'm not going to argue with you over whether this was a lizard, gecko, chameleon, or any other equally disgusting creature, because I don't care what it was, but Dallas has an infestation. I am going to have nightmares forever because of Google Images, but I think this is an accurate portrayal of this beast: 

While I was screaming, Major Tom was calm and collected, like his combat training has no doubt prepared him to be in emergency situations like these. After about five minutes of me wondering what on earth I was going to do for two hours until Josh got home to get rid of this thing, Tom had bludgeoned it, and went about restoring order to our house. He went about this by attempting to eat the lizard. Since I didn't know if it was a poisonous kamikaze lizard, I realized it was my time to step up and return Major Tom's life-saving gesture by now saving his life. 


Let's pause here for me to tell you that my family calls those cardboard cores that are inside toilet paper and paper towel rolls hooty hoots. This is a term that has been in the family for decades, based on the sophisticated observation that you can yell through them, "hooty hoot." I'm not going to get into the specifics of why I had an industrial sized hooty hoot in my home, but it was probably a 5 1/2 foot hooty hoot.


When I was sure the lizard was dead and not faking it, I took the hooty hoot and so gently scooped the lizard up, ever fearful that it would come to life and run up the hooty hoot and onto my arm. In a moment of panic, I threw the entire 5 1/2 foot hooty hoot, complete with dead lizard, out onto our front porch and slammed the door. Meanwhile, as my back was turned, Major Tom devoured the lizard tail. The Maj. is alive and kicking so far, 2.5 hours later, so maybe lizard tail is a delicacy and not full of poison.


At about this moment, I realized that I threw away a Home Depot bag with four tiny screws in it. Dropping numerous f-bombs, I trudged outside in the dark, since none of our outdoor lights are working, and wheeled the stanky trash can into our garage so I could see to dig through it. I still had the lizard heebie jeebies and I KNEW a lizard had to be in our trash. After removing several feet of trash, one false alarm where I thought a lizard was on my foot, and having trash juice run down my arm, I returned to the house triumphant, with screws.


When Josh got home, I informed him that we had a 5 1/2 foot hooty hoot and dead lizard on our porch. He opened the door to throw it away, and THREE MORE LIZARDS RUSHED US. Josh killed two and lost one, which Major Tom later located in our coat closet. I'm about ready to go to a hotel for the night.


I won't pull a Mark McGwire and refuse to talk about the past or explain this blog title. I promise periodic flashbacks to the beginning. But I can't leave out the ridiculous things that happen on a daily basis. This was clearly a night worth documenting.