Why I'm Currently Barricaded Under My Bed with Guns and Ammo

I’m staying in bed today. Nothing good can happen. This week has been a comedy of errors, minus the comedy.

Here’s the scene: It’s Monday, 11:30 at night. I’m still in my workout shorts and tee shirt, cleaning the apartment before I shower. The dogs are outside and I’m mentally timing them because it’s freezing and I don’t want them to get too cold out there. I’m completely alone; Rob’s in Vegas until Tuesday.

I do a trash-dash to the front of the building, not bothering to throw on shoes because I’ll be only on the stoop, and only for a second, and it doesn’t seem worth the trouble to stuff my feet into my Chucks. I get to the porch and perform a move where one foot kicks back to heave the security door open behind me while I launch the garbage bag forward, arms extended, all while balanced on one foot in the middle.

You know the kind of move. It’s one of those things you do a hundred times, and every time, you get to feel like some sort of ninja doing “efficiency kung-fu”. (I know I’m not alone here, people. ‘Fess up!)

Anyway, the bag lands exactly where I want it to with a perfect, satisfying arc-and-thump, but my foot hits the building, not the door, and blam! just like that, I’m locked out. Cold, no shoes, in shorts, dogs outside. Ninja my ass.

Sensible things first: I bug the neighbors. After a few rings someone crackles through the speaker with a grumpy, “Who’s there?” and I say, “Sorry, it’s Amber, I’m locked out.” Then silence. I don’t know if they didn’t hear me or were asleep or just misunderstood and thought I was a random punk or I got the Spanish speaking neighbors who didn’t understand, but no one came down and I didn’t hear from them again.

I twist the door handle over and over, but I know it would take a crowbar (or, you know, a key) to get it open. So I cry. A lot. And while I’m wailing in the front, the dogs start barking to be let in in the back, and my poor legs turned this weird, red pre-frost bite color. There are bars on the windows, and the apartment is in the middle of a block of row houses, so breaking in or running around to the back isn’t an option.

Eventually I figure out how to get in, but I actually can’t tell you how because I totally broke the law doing it. But everyone was fine.

Tuesday I broke an expensive plate and cut my foot on the one shard that I missed while cleaning. I had to pull it out myself because Rob wasn’t home yet, and it was brutal.

Wednesday was the worst. You know how there are two types of pregnancy tests? One kind gives you two lines if it’s positive and one if it’s negative. Another gives you three lines if it’s positive and two if it’s negative. Confusing, right? You just had to re-read that twice, right?

So… I’m late. Like, “Noah was on that old boat less time than this” late. And I’m grumpy because being late makes my normally in-check hormones start to crackle and fizz and go haywire. The day after Rob comes home I pee on this stupid stick and holy god above I get two lines. So I’m shaking, no, I’m vibrating, and I walk into the living room waving it over my head, and I’m all “Dude, DUUUUUUDE!”

It took us a few minutes to figure out I had the “three for positive” kind. (I’m blaming the lateness on the flu a few weeks back and airheadedness on cuh-razy hormones.)

You can send your condolences to my poor husband, who is still recovering from shock. I’ll be hiding out in my room until next week.