Alison to Universe: enough already!

It's official: you win. I'm totally waving the white flag.

Did you ever get the feeling that something bigger than yourself was toying with you for its own amusement?

It has not been a good week in our household. Some kind of Norwalk-type virus has taken up residence at our house and the girls and I are lurching around like reanimated corpses (and looking pretty bad too) to and from the bathroom. Rae started it first. She had the amazingly good judgment to have the first phase of the virus, the projectile vomiting phase, at her dad's house last Saturday night. (Love that kid.) Sunday she was pale and tired, but OK, and I let her go to school Monday to go on her very first field trip to a pumpkin farm.

Tuesday she wasn't feeling well again, and though I took her to her caregiver, she didn't go to school. Tuesday evening, I'm trying to get a bunch of things done at once. See, we're driving 10 hours tomorrow to go to a family wedding, and I've been so busy with work and the girls and trying to have a little fun on the weekend when the girls were at their dad's that I didn't do the grocery shopping. And the girls needed haircuts. So the big plan was to pick them up from daycare, drive to Stittsville to get haircuts, eat at McD's and then groceries and home. Sounds easy, right?

It was a dark and stormy night. Seriously. By the time I had picked them up, it was raining heavily and very windy. We get into town and to one of those walk-in hair places. Leah tells the lady she wants her hair cut to her shoulders (it was 3 inches past). I said, "Are you sure you want it that short?". Leah: "yes". Leah 10 minutes later (sobbing): "I don't like my hair, it's too short". So I'm trying to comfort her and she's complaining her tummy hurts. Rachel is being pretty good.

We go to McDonalds and I'm not hungry so I get a coffee and a happy meal for the kids and though Rae is doing pretty good, Leah is picking at her food. "My tummy hurts", she says. The hardest thing about being a single mom is that sometimes you just have to bring the kids with you, even when they're sick. I said, "do you think you can hang on for a quick grocery shop? Then I'll bring you right home, I promise". So off we went. And she did hang on. Right up until we were at the checkout, and she looked at me all stricken and leaned over and deposited her dinner on the floor in the checkout aisle. Poor thing. When we got home and I put everyone to bed, I started feeling kind of off too.

Then yesterday I went for my first-ever mammogram. They called me last week to set up an appointment. "Wednesday, 10:30, General Hospital, second floor, module X", the lady said, and I very carefully wrote down in my work agenda: Wednesday, 10:30, Riverside Hospital, second floor, module X". So I'm so proud of myself for arriving nice and early at the Riverside and when I ask at the information place for the directions to Module X, the lady looks at me all pityingly and says, "Dear, that's at the General." CRAP. I race back out to the car and drive like a maniac to the General, which is only a few kilometres away, but has possibly the world's worst parking garage. It has absolutely NO signs inside telling you how to get into the hospital. I was only about 10 minutes late, so they show me into a cubicle and tell me to take off everything above the waist and put on a robe. I pick up the robe. It has 3 armholes. Three! Great, they are apparently using so much radiation that I will be a mutant when this whole procedure is over. Then I see the little sign explaining how to put the 3-armed robe on. Whew.

The procedure was uncomfortable, but not the horror story I had heard about. It was now lunchtime, so I decided to do a bit of shopping before I went back to the office. I went into the mall through the Zellers and found myself gravitating to the underwear section. Hmmmm. I need some new undies. Pretty undies. (You know, the dating thing.) Sometime, someone might be seeing me in undies, and the stretched-out white cotton 'Hanes her way' just aren't going to cut it. So I grab some pretty, lacy, sexy bras and head into the change room. I found the perfect one. Just as I'm heading out of the change room with my slightly slutty new underwear (they had matching lacy boy-cut tap pant undies) what do I hear from the store's stereo system? Bruce Springsteen wailing, "...tramps like us, baby we were born to run...".

OK Universe. You win. But stay out of my private life.