Good morning. I’m the wife on a prestigious television drama. I’m taking a moment to stare contemplatively out the window while holding my coffee mug with two hands.
There’s so much to do today. Jean from the Garden Association, where I volunteer as treasurer, has been asking about receipts for the new community garden. Honestly, I have a lot more important things on my plate, like reminding my daughter to bring her flute for band practice, bringing my son to his orthodontist appointment, or telling notorious drug lord El Asesino to go suck it.
I really need to focus some energy on my marriage right now. My husband and I are in counseling and trying to repair our relationship. Things are better now that I know he’s not having an affair — he’s just the right-hand man for a giant Mexican drug cartel. Now we can work on the real problems in our marriage, like how I think he should insist El Asesino give him a 50/50 cut and treat him as an equal partner, or how I think he should kidnap El Asesino’s nephew to show the cartel he WILL NOT be jerked around, or how he thinks I have control issues.
On top of that, the housework is piling up. Every time I mop the kitchen floors, the kids come running through with their muddy shoes. And trying to convince my husband to unload the dishwasher is torturous, almost as bad as last week when a couple of henchmen waterboarded me in my own basement. Plus, all of the laundry — I have a basket full of socks to sort, and about $2 million I need to scrub clean by Saturday, or else El Asesino will kill our family dog.
Great, now Jean is texting me about those receipts. She says I need to hand them over by Friday, or else. OR ELSE? Does she think she can scare me? Me, the one who dethroned Sandra as book club president? Me, the one who met El Asesino face to face and told him under no uncertain terms that he can get fucked?
I don’t even want to think about the Girl Scout cookie sale. The girls in my daughter’s troop are all hustling to sell the most cookies and win a trip to Space Camp. Meanwhile, I’m over here trying not to make it too obvious that we’re using the cookies as a front for distributing cocaine. I still need to think of some explanation for how my daughter sold ten thousand boxes of Thanks-A-Lots.
All I want is some me-time — to sit in my dimly lit kitchen with a glass of wine, staring, unblinking, into the void, or to finish reading my book club pick, Where’d You Go, Bernadette? What’s the point of usurping the book club if I don’t even get to read the book I chose? That would be like if El Asesino’s guys murder the entire Los Del Rio cartel like I suggested, but then he doesn’t take over the territory because he’s too busy cleaning his oven.
Well, I’d better get those receipts together for Jean — hopefully she doesn’t notice we spent $2 million on mums for the community garden. I’ll swing by her house to drop them off before I make the call to put a hit on El Asesino so I can finally take over his role as drug kingpin. I’m just doing what any middle-aged white woman would do upon finding out her husband is involved with a Mexican drug cartel: doubling the fuck down.