Mommy Brain Monday

I did some catching up on my blog reading over the weekend. I mean in between the five loads of laundry, the grocery shopping, the dishes, the sweeping and driving, and all those other things Valentine’s day is for. Or is that Mother’s Day?

Anyhoo, I found this unfortunate posting from Mom-101 that made me weep with compassion and understanding. For a nanosecond. Then I laughed. Hard. I feel for her. Not only is she doing these insane things, she’s telling us about them. Because now we will know we are not alone.

So in that spirit, here is my worst, most embarrassing mommy-brain story ever. Top it. I triple dog dare you.

I was pregnant with my third child, and was home one day puttering and multitasking as always with my two-year-old. I had a few things going on, I guess you could say, and was going back and forth between my kitchen upstairs (don’t ask) and the living room downstairs.

At one point, I began another trek up the stairs, and I smelled smoke. It had an odd odor, vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Maybe electrical? When I rounded the corner into the kitchen, the smoke was so thick I couldn’t see. I panicked, of course, thinking it was some toxic thing burning and my baby would be born with cancer if I didn’t get out of there RIGHTNOWQUICK. So I grabbed cell phone and child, not necessarily in that order, but possibly, and ran outside to call 911.

I stood outside with my neighbor and her kids while the firemen slogged in and out of my house. Finally, one of them comes over to me and says, “Well, it looks like you left something burning on the stove.”

Then he mumbled something like, “Happens all the time,” and sort of sheepishly looked at the ground. Hmmmm.

Then I remembered. The wax. As in, the remove-gross-hair-that-should-not-be-there-from-one’s-face wax. When my DIY microwave stuff gets really low, it won’t melt in the micro anymore, so I put it in a little pot of water on the stove. And evidently, forget about it.

Since it had obviously burned all the water off to the extent that the container caught fire, I figured my secret was safe, right?

After they finished figuring out how to plug a grounded fan plug into a 100 year old electrical system that only has three outlets located inconveniently where one would never need them (the answer is: you don’t), they packed up and left, with my front door propped open wide.

As I trudged upstairs to check the damage, I looked at my home through the firemen’s eyes, and prayed they wouldn’t call social services. I’m not the world’s best housekeeper. As I neared the stove, I peered into the little pot, still sitting warmly on the burner. There, crusted and plasticized forever into the bottom was the evidence of my shame.

The label, with the words plainly visible for the story-telling benefit of all the future Lynchburg firefighters:

BRAZILLIAN BIKINI WAX.

Next time, I’ll just let the sucker burn.