I need a new bathroom scale. That really irritates me because I just bought one. Actually I looked back in the archives and discovered I bought the current scale August 2010. How long is a scale supposed to last? I would have thought three years isn’t long enough, but then nothing is built to last these days.

Especially if you have a seal that routinely bathes in your bathroom. I hardly ever have to mop in there since every single time the boy takes a shower I have an inch of water on my floor. I have no idea what he’s doing in there. It’s outrageous.

So either the stupid scale has committed suicide because repeatedly screamed at it and called it a liar, or the Bandit

fuzzy scale might make you feel better about the whole thing

I went online to see how much this was going to set me back. Grrrrrr.

There are a lot of different models out there. Some of them seem really…excessive.

There are the $75,000 touted by America’s Biggest Loser and Weight Watchers that tell you your body fat index, your body/water index, your muscle and bone mass, the phone number for the paper boy and when the milk in your refrigerator is going to expire.

There’s the “550 pound projection scale”. Apparently, it projects your weight in giant red letters on your wall. What the hell? How demoralizing. I don’t know about you but I don’t need that bullshit burned into my retinas every morning.

Speaking of which, who the hell needs a scale that talks to them? What voice does it use? I might consider spending the money on such a thing if you could change the voices. Like maybe a Marine Sergeant for your first day on your new diet. A kindergarten teacher for those days when you don’t do very well, someone to give encouragement. A super nice grandma voice to offer you a cookie if you’re down a couple of pounds.

OOooooooh! Maybe a British accent – like Mary Poppins. Now you’re talking.

We were standing over a spot in the livingroom carpet having a discussion.

“What is that?” My Honey asked me.

I stared at it with a wrinkled nose. “Maybe soy sauce?” Don’t ask me why it would be reasonable for there to be a soy sauce stain on my living room carpet. It’s not reasonable. It’s not ok. It is, sadly, possible.

“I think it’s blood.” said the Informer, my eldest child, the girl, the one who knows everything and feels it’s her duty to share her knowledge.

“Me too,” her father corroborated.

Let me remind you as a reasonable explanation of the events of yesterday. There was a maiming of the youngest child, The Bandit, the boy, the one who causes the trouble the Informer is so delighted to share.

When I asked him to tell me again the story of how the dog knocked him into a rock and tore open his knee, he explained how he walked home from around the corner after the incident and didn’t even realize that there was a cut that was pouring down his leg. I find this plausible because he is, after all, my child and there have been more than one occasion that I didn’t even realize I was wounded until it was brought to my attention. He told how he went to the bathroom and discovered the blood. That, apparently, was when the grand freaking-out occurred. It also explains how there was blood in the living room. I was assured by a wide-eyed husband that he’d already cleaned up copious amounts of blood.

“It looked like a slaughter,” he told me. He shook his head like the survivor of a horror movie.

Still, I’ve found blood in the kitchen. I’ve got the shower curtain and the bathroom rug in the washing machine.

“Jesus, did he open a vein?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” My Honey shook his head. “It was everywhere.”

Seriously, there was three stitches. I can’t even imagine how bad it could have been. I can’t stop envisioning a scene from Carrie.

“How fast can you get home?”

I hate phone calls that start like that. I was driving my father back to my brother’s after he spent the weekend at my house. Sassy, whom I often refer to as “The Informer”, had called me about five minutes prior. Her story didn’t make sense – as they so often don’t – and I cut her off.

“Did Daddy tell you to call me or did you take it upon yourself to it?”

She made annoyed huffing sounds – something else I’m entirely used to – and hung up. I wasn’t too worried. However, when my phone rang again just a few minutes later, it was My Honey’s number, and my interest ratcheted up a bit.

“How fast can you get home?” he asked.

“Stitches?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

My brother lives way out on the edge of town and I live pretty much in the middle of it. I got home in record time.

I found my family all laying on my bed watching TV. There was a definite hole in my boy’s knee. It sorta gaped and you could see a good portion of meat in there. Ick, right?

So off to the Children’s Emergency room at the hospital down the street from us. The same hospital Sassy had her chin stitched up when she was almost 3. The Bandit was NOT excited about going. At all. He also wasn’t impressed with my fascination with the oozing and nifty gaping quality.

They got us right into a room and a nurse came along super quick and got him dosed up with lidocaine. We determined that he had on underwear which is a victory in and of itself. There was no ruling on the cleanliness of said underwear as prescribed by every mother when visiting the hospital, but we took the small victory. While we waited we passed the time playing cards. For some reason, My Honey thought it would be a great idea to teach the kids poker. So we played Five Card Stud with Winnie the Pooh mini cards Sassy had in her purse. That seems wrong, right? I told the kids what hands to play and pretty soon Daddy was down $7. This does not bode well for our trip to Laughlin next month.

When the doctor came in with the suture kit, the boy grew anxious. Understandable since he’d never been in this position before. His father and I assured him that chicks dig scars, but 8-year old boys are very shortsighted where this is concerned. He and I tried to concentrate on an iPad while the actual stitching was happening, but still there was flinching. Actually, he did pretty well, all things considered – no crying or serious fit throwing. Victory.

The things I do for blog topics.

Ava and I have decided that no matter what, we’re never going to be happy.

On one side, we complain nearly non-stop about the lack of customer service these days. We despise how no one seems to care whether you use their services or not. The clerks are all surly and the managers don’t give a damn.

Today we went to a national craft store to return some shadow box picture frames. One of them was sans packaging as Ava had already tried to stuff her shadowy things inside it and they wouldn’t fit. We anticipated trouble. We’re getting very good with trouble. In fact, our attitude has arrived to the point where we sorta relish the confrontation.

That wasn’t happening.

We didn’t even know what to do with ourselves when we received three apologies from three separate people. Absurdly, we found their obsequiousness annoying. I actually had to walk away and let Ava deal with them.

“Oh, ma’am. We’re so very, very sorry this didn’t work out.” The manager said while the original clerk was licking Ava’s shoes. “We dearly hope you will continue to patronize our store.”

Why? Was there a flogging that was going to come with the refund? The whole thing was so over the top. It was nauseating. We really just wanted them to sneer at us and throw money in our direction.

Are we really that bitchy? Sadly, I feel that we are.

Once again, it’s like he’s spying on the Bright house.