"I'll take 'GAHHH!' for $500, Alex"

It's a given... I was born to go through life with my pants falling down, my skirt tucked into the back of my panty hose, a booger hanging out of my nose and spinach stuck between my teeth.  I already know this.  (EVERYbody knows this.  Seriously.)  I'm positive that it's my Destiny (Density?) to die in some horrible, butt-related accident that will make people shoot coffee through their noses and pee their pants laughing while they read my obituary.  ("Haaahahahahaaaa!  She tripped while walking into the bathroom and fell face first into the toilet and DROWNED!!!  HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!  I totally saw her going that way!" or  "A piece of Sky Lab came crashing down to earth and impaled her in the ass!!  Oh my GOD!  BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!  If it was going to fall on any one and land in their ass, it would be Dani.")  


Part of it (okay, most of it) is Karma (Dear Chunky Girl in High School Who Fell Down While Crossing The Street In Front Of The Really Awesome Car I Was Riding In With My Boyfriend, I'm so, so, so sorry that I laughed myself stupid because you bounced when you hit the ground.  Trust me, I've paid for that snorting guffaw a thousand times over.  Six years ago I was crossing the street to my car while carrying an armload of stuff and totally ate concrete in front of a freaking van full of high school kids and at least 23 preschool parents coming to pick up their children.  I skinned up my knees, shredded my elbows, peed my pants, and had to limp to the middle of the street to pick up one of my shoes, the entire time seeing the headlines in the paper:  Fat Girl Bites The Dust, Carload of Teens Choke To Death While Laughing.  All 95,000 times I've fallen on my face and bounced on my ass in public, I think of you.  Love, Dani).  


I also suffer from a complete lack of awareness of my surroundings.  


For example:


This morning.


I'm in my kitchen.  I'm dumping ingredients for chili into the crockpot.  I'm belting out "Feel like makin' loooove..."  I'm including all the background music and drum beats ("ba da daaa, ba da daaa FEEL LIKE MAKIN' LOOOVE! BA DA DAAA, BA DA DAAA...").  I'm doing a shimmy here, a shake there, having myself a grand old time, when Maisy puts her paws up on the window sill and starts woofing.  Hmmm, I thought, peeking out the window.


And what to my wondering eyes should appear but a group of teen-agers, standing outside on the sidewalk, staring up at my apartment with THE LOOK on their faces.  You know THE LOOK... It's the one that says, "Oh my GOD, like, how EMBARRASSING, I would totally DIE if that was my MOM, like, what a FREAK! What is she SINGING, like some OLDIE?  Oh my God, oh my God!  Hee hee hee hee hee!" without even needing to say one word.  There they stood, those horrible little teeny boppers, smirking away, looking at eachother...


I wanted to dump boiling water on their heads.


Instead, I shushed the dog and slunk around my kitchen quietly, pretending it wasn't me who was making all that godawful noise.  (I may or may not have said, "Who is singing that terrible song?  My goodness, it sounds like it's right here in this apartment!  But it's not...")


Five minutes later I had forgotten all about it (because my brain is so full of other stuff that there's no extra room for remembering things from moment to moment... it has NOTHING TO DO with the fact that I'm kind of shallow and flaky) and was in my bedroom making my bed, once again belting out, "FEEL LIKE MAKIN' LOOOOVE!" when I happened to see, out of the corner of my eye, Trailer Trash Barbie sitting outside on her lawn chair smoking a cigarette and staring at my apartment.




Dear Karma,


I get it.  I've gotten wayyyy to much enjoyment out of other people's embarrassing moments.  I've pointed and laughed with the best of them, clutching my sides, crossing my legs so I won't pee from my side-splitting amusement.  You are not the bitch; I am.  Noted.  Now BACK OFF.


(Also?  I'm really, really, reallyyyyy sorry for the time I totally came unglued at the grocery store when the stock boy crashed and burned into the eggs.  I grabbed my kids and tried to get out of there ASAP but I only made it to the next aisle before I laughed myself into a coughing, choking, pants wetting asthma attack.  I'm pretty sure I made up for it when I fell off the curb at Papa Murphy's and landed face first on the pavement in my pizza.)


Love,


Dani