Sometimes I think I’m doing all right, that I’ve got my act at least on stage, if not together. These are generally the times I’m comparing my life to the people you see in the news who have their heads stuck in pickle jars and the like.

Other times, I embrace the fact that I’m batshit crazy and there’s simply nothing that can be done for my affliction.

Today I thought I was doing alright. I even remembered to accessorize. Of course, when I got to work things took a nosedive, but that’s par for the course. My confidence was restored later, though, when the secretary of a large corporation requested a contract that I was reasonably sure I sent over last week. Digging through email archives, I unearthed it, and sent it back to her, along with the one from our insurance agent. She wrote back, apologizing profusely, blaming a lack of coffee on her slip. I was only too glad to soothe her, saying I was just glad I wasn’t the only one who goofed and felt crazy. It’s always nice when people who seem so professional are just as nutty as the rest of us. I have discovered this is nearly everyone. By the time we had finished our little conversation, she was signing her emails “Cait” instead of her full name with initial credentials 🙂

In celebration of making it through the day, I treated myself to a “snack size” jamocha shake from Arby’s on my way home. They’re only a $1.00, despite what the menu says. Or maybe the chick felt sorry for me because I really wanted an Oreo one, but alas, they don’t serve those anymore (I bet people on the inside still make them, though. I gotta meet someone who works for Arby’s). The lady in front of me had bigger problems: she ordered something with NO CHEESE. I don’t know what. Isn’t that the strangest thing you’ve ever heard? No cheese on anything is blasphemy. Then she wanted to know if they had “meller yeller or th’ uther”.

Anyway, I had been curled up on the couch, reading, after I got my chores done. Chores in not the style they were when I was 12, chores of the maid variety. I finished the one about the woman who owed the IRS $150,000 but thought it was a good idea to live in a cabin that regularly housed copperheads (great book, no kidding. Buy it HERE ) and decided to start Slaughterhouse-Five because it expired next on my tablet. Shameless library plug to follow. DID YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU’RE A MEMBER of a library in Tennessee YOU CAN CHECK OUT BOOKS ON YOUR E-READER FROM THE PRIVACY OF YOUR COUCH while eating Oreos in a glutton-like fashion? Oh yes you can! Here’s a link for your convenience: Tennessee R.E.A.D.S. 

So, like I was saying, I had started the classic Slaughterhouse. I knew it was a bit different, but wildly popular, so I wasn’t too concerned when it dropped me smack dab in the middle of a murder in Key West. However, I will tell you that the prose felt a bit…off. Like, not deserving of the fandom this book had inspired.

I read on, because a change of character brought us to lovely Charleston.

I came across a few sentences about students using their iPods and smartphones.

I became confused, and went to Google for verification that I wasn’t losing it. I was thinking this book had been around a while. A while being 30 years or so. We didn’t have smartphones and iPods 30 years ago. We had encyclopedias and boom boxes. #socool  I find that the publication date was 1999. I take a moment to reflect. 1999 was a lot more recent than I was thinking but we still didn’t have the technology this book spoke of. I decided to shrug it off to it being the Kindle edition and maybe the publishers decided to make it more modern by incorporating a few changes. I furrowed my brow, then I remembered what I pay for skincare and quickly resumed my normal expression. I read a few more sentences, lost interest, and decided I better start on dinner.

I came back to my Kindle a few minutes later after prepping the chicken and waiting on the oven to preheat. Just kidding. Who preheats? I was just checking to see if you were still paying attention. On my screen was a new book I pre-ordered a month or so ago. I’m not kidding about that. I really do pre-order, but don’t preheat. It showed that I had completed 3%. That was weird. The book, Beyond the Garden, was the second book in a series that I haven’t read the first installment of. How did I get 3% in? Maybe it’s really short and took me to the beginning of the text, skipping over all the title pages and dedications and here I was. Whatevs. I opened SH5.

“All this happened, more or less.”

Uhhh….so that was the opening line. And turns out I hadn’t read it. The murder in Key West was from the Magnolia book. So that explained a lot.

I guess tomorrow I’ll get the large shake on the side of a dozen doughnuts. That is, if I make it through.

And all this really did happen.