wet leaf danger, mariah carey, and the power of red lipstick.
When I got up this morning, the first thing I had to do was put another loonie in the coin dryer downstairs.
Now, unlike most people, I’m somewhat coordinated first thing in the morning, primarily because I have the nanny/camp director/former-dorm-prankster ability to be truly awake as soon as I’m awake.
Klutziness sets in mere moments later, but for that first half hour or so? AWESOME.
So I crept out of the dark house in my pajamas to steal around to the door in back. I wasn’t wearing any shoes and all the timer lights were off, but I am comfortable with that particular journey, given my divine love for all things laundry. But as I felt for the correct key on my way down the barely-lit steps… well, it was then that I saw it.
It.
This semi-shiny, oddly-shaped lump.
At the bottom of the stairs.
Where my feet were due to arrive in mere seconds.
Now, in my mind, this lump immediately became a rat, which I blame solely on my roommate.
How can I blame a rat on my roommate, you ask?
Well, I’m not blaming the rat on her, per se, but rather this odd fear I’ve developed of potentially rat-related things because of her OVERWHELMING FEAR of even the THOUGHT of rats. If there COULD be a rat nearby, the area must be avoided. If a rat has TOUCHED it, you must not touch it. If you SEE a rat, you must go immediately in the other direction.
I mean, whoa.
Granted, it’s not like I ever ENJOYED rats or CRAVED time with them, but now I am inordinately spooked by rattus norvegicus.
And at that moment, I was about to step on one. In bare feet.
Then it happened.
Some sort of weird Matrix-like power overtook my physical bearing, and I leapt over the rat in slow motion. Well, it might not have been actual slow motion, but there I was, legs cycling like someone shot from a cannon, arms waving like someone trying to hail a cab, hair flowing behind me like someone from a shampoo ad.
Then I smacked into the door.
But I had cleared the rat.
I quickly unlocked the door while rubbing my (break number five?) nose and turned the light on. Then I wheeled around to see what, in fact, the rat would do now.
At this point, I realized it was a giant lump of wet leaves.
Like the other giant lumps of wet leaves that are currently lying all over Vancouver, as generated by big trees and big winds and big rains.
I got my laundry at this point, and was able to avoid feeling ridiculous, because who would know I’d mistaken leaves for a rat?
Ahem.
By the time I left the house, my nose felt better and I was over the rat shock, so I popped in my ear buds and put on some Christmas music for my stroll down the hill to the bus. Now, I don’t want to hear a WORD about how you think it’s too early to be listening to Christmas music, because I’m not making YOU do it, I’m doing it to MYSELF.
If and when I come to your home, duct-tape you to your radiator, and put on the Boston Pops in July, THEN you can complain all you like. Well, you can mumble something, because I will have gagged you with the tape, as well.
But back to me.
The first song that came on was Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You”.
Now, let me make two things really clear here:
1. I was not raised on modern “pop” Christmas music. Jazz, yes. Classical, yes. Old standards, yes. Carols, yes. However, my family had no Boney M or ABBA Christmas. We DID have the Muppet Christmas with John Denver, but somehow that was less “pop” than just “frog and pig”.
2. I don’t listen to much Mariah Carey. I mean, damn, the girl can sing. Even if you don’t like thirty vocal runs in every song you listen to, and you don’t buy into the giant boobs-big voice correlation (Dolly Parton! Aretha Franklin!), you gotta admit she’s got some chops. But no, I don’t have a lot of her stuff, even if she was just fine pre-Glitter era. I find it’s just a little… whoa.
But this song — THIS SONG — is a bit of a masterpiece of fun and jolly and if you sing along with it, you can easily convince yourself you are able to hit notes you’ve never been able to hit.
And really… all I want for Christmas IS you. So.
I was dancing on down to my stop when I saw the bus approaching at a mighty speed. A mighty speed that exceeded my own mighty speed, and was destined to leave me busless.
So I ran.
Which is fine. I can run. In fact, I used to do it all the time. Mostly away from bees.
But what I should have remembered was:
a) Klutziness had set back in
b) I was wearing slippy boots
c) WET LEAVES EVERYWHERE! Not rat-shaped ones, but giant lumps of leafy gook coating the streets nonetheless
As soon as I picked up momentum, I hit a leaf lump and it was ON.
Or I was ON… err… on my way down the hill much faster than I intended, without making steps of any kind. I was coasting. Magically.
Levitating, really.
And let me tell you, flying through the air while listening to Mariah Carey sing? It’s kind of like being an angel.
I must have been a real angel, too, because God spared me. I landed on the sidewalk without injury and was able to catch the bus.
Once I got on the bus, there were no seats, so I shuffled to the back to hang on for dear life. It was at that moment that I remembered I wasn’t wearing any lipgloss of any kind. So I did what many other women do every single day.
No, not that.
I tried to apply makeup while doing something else at the same time. Usually something far more important than putting on makeup.
But what can I tell you? I hadn’t had any coffee yet, and I’d faced the trauma of avoiding a leaf rat AND a leaf tragedy. So I wasn’t in my right mind.
With one hand, I pulled out my hand mirror and whatever tube of lip colour ended up in my fingers first. It turned out to be red lipstick, which made me smile, because red is the colour of Christmas and Starbucks cups and vixen-esque women. Yes!
But have you ever tried to apply lipstick and hold a mirror in the same hand? Yeah. If you can do that, cool for you, but I can’t. So I put the mirror in my other hand, and looped that arm around the pole to steady myself. Then I began to put on the happy, happy red.
It was precisely at that moment that the driver chose to do a donut or jump a bus full of schoolchildren or something else incredibly jarring, because I ended up sticking said lipstick in my eye. Right in my eye. Squoosh. Into my eye.
I think it happened quickly enough that no one saw, but I’m likely kidding myself and everyone is talking over their water coolers right now about how I caught the “red eye” this morning to work.
But can I tell you? It did make me see things differently. And there’s all sorts of jokes I could tell here about “seeing red”, but that’s not what I mean.
What I learned was that OUCH. @#$!%! LIPSTICK IN EYE IS BAD! #@$!%!
Then I got myself a triple venti nonfat Gingerbread Latte.
And all is fine now.
Morning!
