Baby wipes: $2.19; Roto-Rooter service call $413; The shame in having your asswipes fished out of a pipe by a stranger: Priceless

Who knew a few seemingly innocuous Target-brand baby wipes would end up costing almost as much as a Schecter Stiletto bass guitar?

While it's true that the package warns "do not flush", I thought that was another tree-hugger scare tactic like "global warming". Apparently they really mean do not flush. At least if you live in a house that was built during the hey-day of outhouses.

George, the kind Ghanaian service technician also informed us that "flushable" personal cleansing cloths and tampons are also sewer no-no's. Guess that means my hygiene will have to become as primitive as our plumbing. Lord knows I hate emptying the bathroom garbage can more than once a week.

I also have vowed to never again let a chicken set foot in my oven. Roasted poultry be damned after the crap (literally) I had to contend with to get a hot meal on the table for my family this evening.

Originally I had planned to have my significant other, Kevin pick up one of those delicious grocery store rotisserie chickens on his way home this evening. This was before the turds hanging out on our basement floor became a serious issue.

After work I called Roto-Rooter and they said they'd be out within an hour or so. I did not want to venture into the basement with a potentially creepy man to show him where human excrement was bubbling up from the foundation, so I told Kevin I would get a chicken to roast in hopes that he would get home quickly.

Things started out like a 1955 copy of Better Homes and Gardens. After treating the clucker to a nice bath, I gently fisted her with a palm full of salt and stuffed her cavity with a halved onion for moisture. I lovingly rubbed olive oil and seasons into her supple, plucked flesh and deposited her in the oven for a little r&r before the big show.

Now I've roasted a couple of chickens before and I've never had the entire first floor of my house fill up with smoke thirty minutes into the production. It's 85 degrees and humid outside, we don't have central air and our oven hood does not ventilate to anywhere. I wander around for ten minutes thinking I need a fresh pair of contact lenses before I realize that my three year old daughter is going to develop a smoker's cough from Tuesday night dinner if I don't do something quickly. We start opening windows to stave off asphyxiating before the first course.

Apparently the piece of wood propping open the dining room window decided to stop working. While frantically fanning smoke and boiling green beans I heard the window slam shut. Upon investigation, I see that the piece of wood has become wedged between the window frame and the sill. After dinner I ask Kevin to fix it. He tries opening it and CRACK. Broken glass and an indignant toddler asking "Why did you do that?"

Summary:
If the sewer wouldn't have backed up, I wouldn't have roasted the chicken. If I wouldn't have roasted the chicken, I wouldn't have opened the window. If I wouldn't have opened the window, the glass would still be intact. Ergo, no more roasted chickens in this household.

None of this stuff is a big deal and I'm not terribly upset by any of it. The plumbing issue was resolved, the chicken was edible and tomorrow morning I'll take the window frame to get repaired. It's just money and time, our most precious commodities these days. On a night like tonight you just have to laugh. And drink. I recommend Guinness.

Last time we had an evening like this it involved a dying refrigerator, bats and a six-foot tall drunk Mexican. But that's another story.

Namaste, Ann O

The evolution of a thought

I hate being told I need to relax. Mostly because it's true and also because I don't know how. My hair falls out in clumps because I can't seem to stop the internal buzz that tells me to off myself when I burn a roast (actually never burned a roast but it seems dramatic enough). If my life had a voice over, it would speak entirely in superlatives.

My life is actually wonderful. I have an amazing little girl who never ceases to make me proud; she's whip-smart and beautiful. My significant other is also pretty great. He's patient, generous and extremely hard-working. I couldn't ask for a better partner or daughter. These two bear the brunt of my impatience and ever-changing mood. I want to be strong and reliable for them both. I know that no one is perfect all of the time and I know that I am too hard on my self most of the time. All I can do is keep trying. And I will.

I wonder if humanity's greatest problem is a frontal lobe that evolved beyond the rest of the brain's capacity to reconcile our emotions, desires and behavior.

I do know this: We are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Humans are but a fart in time. Our purpose is simple; breed and adapt. When our species can no longer do so, we will go the way of the dodos and something else will take our place at the top of the food chain. It's that simple.

I don't believe there is a master plan or that we were created by anything other than a series of wise selections and fortunate circumstance over a long period of time. However, I am grateful that I get to enjoy the many delights that Homo sapiens sapiens has given the world: art, music, filet mignon, literature, technology, domesticated cats.

Some people look to a God or formal religion for comfort and purpose. They try to order the world and carve out a place within it using a supernatural force. I find greater solace in science. It's incredible that We Are because of two million years of beneficial slow changes. It seems almost insulting to deny the miracle of our true creation with a few paragraphs in a work of fiction that has outlived it's usefulness as a history book.

Ann O

as for now

Two things:

• Everything is expensive and I just recently noticed
• I don't want to blog or Flickr until something besides myself is the subject

Work in progress.

Annie O

I need to learn my place.

The importance of being self-important

Originally uploaded by Annie Ominous

Happy Easter from Neurotic Mess, Inc.

Thoughts from that day where a certain group of people wear green and get tossed

Better late than never, yes?

I was going to start this post with a big ol' Minnie Pearl "howdeee!" to the month of March when it occurred to me that the tempestuous third month is two-thirds gone. Where did the time go?

The Day of the Potato Eaters has passed. I survived another year of bagpipers and intoxicated Irish-Americans slurring in brutalized brogue. KT has been playing bass for Jon Conover and they played a great show at Kelly's in Sandwich to the delight of its drunk denizens.

St. Patrick's Day is always a freak show if one chooses to venture out for the evening. That Guy was there. You know the one: non-threatening yet moderately douchy in appearance with a haircut last seen on Jared Leto circa 1993. That Guy had a creepy "is he drunk or maybe a bit touched" aura about him. He seemed pleasant enough but didn't quite grasp the concept of personal space as he kept inching closer to me on the banquette I had the misfortune of sharing with him. He asked me no less than four times if I attended his grade-school (no...) and then peppered me with a slew of unrelated, yet mildly personal questions that crescendoed into a long discussion of an Aurora teenager that was shot to death almost 15 years ago. All I could do was smile, nod, frown and say, "Yeah, that awful." Though the place was stocked with inebriated weirdos and misguided micks, it was a good time.

KT ran into this nice, half-crocked married couple whom he knew when he played in another band. They were elated to see him and told him that earlier in the day they had been singing some of his songs. Suddenly they started belting out their rendition of a song he wrote fifteen years ago. KT appeared to be simultaneously flattered and terrified while I was highly amused and more than a little proud. While it's great to see that people care about things he created, I am looking forward to him getting out more of the stuff he has been working on the last few years and what is going to happen next.

There's more to say, but I'll save it for later.

Annie O

Ode to a Sheep on a Mid-Winter's Day

Smiling Sheep
Originally uploaded by Annie Ominous

I don't really have much to say at the moment, but I hate that nothing has moved on this page in quite sometime. So I leave you with the picture of what appears to be a rather contented sheep.

And technically this is not an ode. I suppose if I were so inclined and wanted to explore my poetic side I could ruminate (aren't I clever) on the gentle dignity that is (are?) sheep.

I wish there were separate words to differentiate between sheep and sheep. Drives me batty.

To all the sheep, deer and fish in the world suffering an identity crises, I'm here for you and I understand.

Ann O