Sleepless in Florida

Last Friday, we took our niece on her first "sleep-over" vacation to Florida. She slept. I didn't.

Friday night, feeling a bit homesick, she decided she really, really needed to crawl into bed with Tim and myself. No problem. It was one of those extra large, California King-sized beds. There are mansions with less square footage than this thing. In fact, you need to send out a search party to see if anyone else is even in the bed with you. Which is why I'm still trying to figure out how one little seven year old could make it feel like I was trying to sleep on a postage stamp.

About two hours after we fell asleep, I had that dream. You know, the one where you are falling? Except it wasn't a dream. Her highness had somehow maneuvered me right to the edge of the mattress where I was precariously hanging on for dear life.

Rappelling the twelve feet down to the floor (oh, did I mention that the actual double-thick mattress is on top of a platform bed that you need a pole-vault and a good, strong tailwind to get up on?) I debated leaving her there and taking the middle position, but I was afraid she would continue to roll in that direction and I really didn't want to have to explain to her parents why their child looked like flat Stanley when I returned her.

I very gingerly leaned over and nudged her toward the middle. She hunkered down and snored louder. So much for plan A. I gently put one hand under her shoulder and one under her legs and rolled her over. She rolled right back. And took my pillow. There went plan B. On to plan C: I outweighed her by about six tons, and was going to have to use that to my advantage.

Clambering up onto the one-inch mattress border that she had so generously left for me, all the while wishing I had taken mountain climbing in PE instead of pistol, I simultaneously rolled her and slid in and over as far as I could. Victory! I could now lay claim to a full six inches of mattress real estate. I was ecstatic.

The only downside was that I had to stay on my back and brace myself against the bed frame so that she couldn't reclaim her space. Oh yeah. That was comfortable. Suddenly, the webbed lounge chairs out at the pool were beginning to look like a little bit of heaven.

By some miracle though, I was finally able to fall asleep again only to be woken up an hour or so later by a bad dream--hers. Yep. Nothing gets your heart pounding faster than being pulled out of a sound sleep by someone yelling in your ear, "I didn't do it!" while thrashing around like a really big, really annoyed fish in a very small net. If they ever need a back-up for the paddles on the crash cart at the local ER, I've got just the thing.

After we soothed her and got our heart rates down to two hundred beats per minute, I settled down again to find I had lost half of the space I had fought so valiantly for. Oh well. Sheer exhaustion allowed me to drift off to sleep (you have to pick your battles, I guess), but like clockwork, I awoke from yet a third dream (this one was mine. Score: me=2, my niece=1). In this one, I was Gretel and the witch had successfully coaxed me into climbing in the oven to check if it was on.

I awoke to find a fifty pound plus human heating pad pressed up against my back. Goody. Just what I needed. Something to ward off the cold, Florida night. Oh, and I was once again reduced to hanging off the edge of "our" side.

Resolving myself to the situation up top, I picked myself up out of the puddle of sweat I was lying in and slid down to give the bottom of the bed a try. I might have to deal with feet in my face, but the ceiling fan was positioned directly above the bottom of the bed, so the trade-off was worth it. Or so I thought.

Turns out those ceiling fans actually work. Who knew? Now, instead of roasting to death, I was freezing to death, and guess who was rolled up in the sheet, snug as a bug in a rug?

I decided I wasn't meant to sleep. Oh well, there was always Saturday night. Except that her loose tooth fell out and she was so excited by the prospect of the tooth fairy visiting that she didn't want to go to sleep on Saturday.

Somehow, Tim managed to sucker me into tooth fairy duty by claiming he had nothing smaller than a twenty. If I had known that would be the price of just one nights sleep, I would have let him wear the dress and wings and added another twenty of my own (actually, if there really had been a dress and wings, I would have been willing to chip in two twenties.).

10 pm rolled around, but there was no sign of the sandman. 11 pm came and went. Not one grain of sand in our lovely little niece's eyes, but the sandman sure had knocked Tim over the head with one of his larger bags. At this point, I was considering either spiking a Shirley Temple with Valium for our niece, or a large coffee with No-Doze for me.

By 11:30, she no longer seemed quite so lovely, and I was contemplating just handing her a fifty and telling her to put the tooth under her pillow when she got home and the fairy would match it.

Finally, when I checked somewhere near midnight, her head was down. Moving with a stealth that would put 007 to shame, I crept over to where she lay sleeping, reaching ever so cautiously for her pillow and...her head popped up like a jack-in-the-box.

"What're you doing?" she demanded suspiciously.

"Er. Um. Jut checking to make sure you put the tooth under your pillow. Wouldn't want the tooth fairy to have to pass by. And speaking of the tooth fairy, you know she won't come as long as you are awake." Smooth. Nice save. I patted myself on the back as I crept away.

At 12:30, I slipped back again, sure that she just had to be asleep. Personally, at that point, I could have slept hanging on the side of the bed. Heck, I could have slept dangling on a single thread, suspended over shark infested waters.

Once more, I reached for her pillow, and, just as my hand closed around the tooth...her eyes popped open. "What're you doing?" she demanded again.

Uh oh. I had used up my one and only excuse and my sleep deprived brain wasn't coming up with anything else.

"Er. Um. Uh. Hmm. Something, something, just checking," I mumbled desperately. "Gotta go."

Propping my eyelids open and swearing to myself that the next time, Time was so wearing the dress and wings, I didn't care what it cost, I waited another half hour.

This time, I whispered her name first. Then, I bumped the bed. Finally, I jiggled her pillow. She was, at last, asleep. Fighting not to collapse in a heap next to her, tooth in hand, I made the exchange and stumbled off to catch a few winks myself.

The next morning, she was up and at 'em, calling her parents to tell them that the tooth fairy had found her even in Florida. "But," I overheard her say, "it was the strangest thing. Annie was just obsessed with my pillow!"

Taking it to the Next Level

What is it with exercise people and their obsession with taking things to the next level? Recently, my trainer bumped things up to the "next level" for about the tenth time. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out what was so wrong with the first level.

Was it not enough for her that I regularly collapsed on the floor in a heap after each and every set of fifteen reps, gasping for air like a fish out of water? Wasn't she happy that I couldn't climb the stairs for a week after each session without the aid of at least three people, a lever and a pulley? Didn't she feel job satisfaction when such physically demanding tasks as, oh, it don't know, blinking and breathing became painful enough to make me seriously contemplate not?

What gave her the idea I was ready for the next level? How exactly did that thought process go?

Okay, three sets of fifteen didn't literally kill her, so let's go for five sets of twenty. Hmmm. Still able to hang on to consciousness by a thread, so let's kick it up to the next level and do eight sets of one hundred. Holding one thousand pound weights. In each hand. And to rest in between each set, she can drop it down a level and do ten sets of twenty other exercises from the I'd-rather-be-getting-a-root-canal-without-Novocain list.

I used to dread the mornings she showed up with a device called a Bosu, that I'm sure they invented during the Spanish Inquisition (basically, it is one of those big exercise balls cut in half and mounted on a plastic frame).

Like the ground wasn't hurtling toward my face fast enough with a regular, old-fashioned push-up, I now had the added challenge of trying to balance on a round, springy object without crash-landing my way to a nose reconstruction.

"Go deeper," she would urge. "Keep those hips up."

Yeah, like either one of those things were actually possible. Well, on second thought, maybe the deeper was possible, as long as I didn't have to push back up, but somehow I got the impression that wasn't what she meant.

Before I could fully recover from the upper body work though (in other words, three days bed rest), we would move on to the legs.

"Okay, you're going to do squats with one leg on the Bosu, then jump over it, landing in a squat with the other leg on the Bosu."

I'm going to do what???!!! Evidently, she had mistaken me for a frog. I barely have enough strength and coordination to manage a normal squat on solid ground, let alone squatting, hopping, and changing legs.

If I'd had so much as an ounce of strength left after the ten sets of twenty (or was it twenty sets of ten? I don't know because I lost count somewhere around two), I would have seriously considered finding an ice pick and creating a new exercise for my biceps involving the Bosu and a sharp, downward movement, then kicked it to the curb with my powerful glutes.

I tried in vain to convince my trainer that just because I no longer felt like blacking out or throwing up half-way through our sessions didn't mean I was ready for this next level. I was happy where I was, really. I didn't need to ever again wear a bathing suit that didn't have a stomach panel and skirt. And who needed sleeveless tops anyway? Air conditioning had been invented so that we would be comfortable wearing long-sleeve shirts in ninety-five degree temperatures.

She didn't buy it, and we moved on to the dreaded "next level".

I have now gone from being a frog to a kangaroo, hopping madly back and forth across my backyard, leaping and springing into the air, like I'm trying out for either the NBA or Olympic pole-vaulting team (without the pole).

"Higher," she tells me. "4001, 4002..."

Half the time she doesn't even count out loud anymore though because I think she's afraid if I hear that I'm only on ten and I have to get to 8000, I might do something drastic like hop over to the neighbor's yard and seek sanctuary.

Lunges off a Bosu? That's for sissies. The four-foot high steps down to the patio are a much better place to really work the quads. And hey, we've gone waaaay beyond using those wimpy stairs in the house for step-ups too. Now the eight-foot wall out back is just right for that treat. Oh, and let's add a karate kick and a lunge for good measure, while doing presses with two thousand pound weights, blindfolded and backwards.

I'm beginning to get nostalgic for the good old days when she would hand me a two pound weight and worry that I was going to give myself a concussion trying to lift it with both hands over my head.

The worst part though about this next level stuff is that nowadays if I survive the full hour (and it is pretty much touch and go), I can't even reward myself with coffee and chocolate. I head for the nearest bottle of water and have to debate whether I want to drink it or just pour it over my head. It's at least an hour before I can even contemplate the thought of anything else, and by then, I start to wonder if it's worth it (for the record, chocolate is always worth it, but still, I wonder). And I can't get rid of the nagging worry in the back of my mind. What if, gulp, when I get to the next level, I can't face a candy bar or cookie until, heaven forbid, noon?

Maybe, if I try really hard, I can come up with a way to avoid the next level before I get there.

Happy Anniversary

In honor of its tenth anniversary next month, Blogger has invited people to write about the role blogging plays in their life. Apparently, some people use their blogs to help them find a job, keep in touch with family and friends, form support groups and even showcase their talents.

Not me. I keep a blog because this month is my twenty-second wedding anniversary, and, after twenty-two years of listening to me ramble on about the latest disaster to befall me, Tim has finally managed, with much diligent practice, to tune me out. I'm convinced that when I talk, it's like the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons. All he hears is, "wah-wah, wah wah. "

I would share my woes with my friends, but, well, then I would have no friends, so in the end, keeping a blog is cheaper than therapy.

I guess I can't blame Tim too much though, because I do seem to have more than my share of issues with cable companies, phone companies, computers (okay, technology in general), planes, trains, automobiles and, oh yeah, inanimate objects.

The first few years we were married, Tim was very sympathetic to whatever my latest plight was. For example, when my new car developed a personality of its own, sort of like Stephen King's Christine, he was there for me.

As I rode down the street, Christine Jr. would decide she didn't feel like listening to rock, and change the channel to, say, rap or maybe talk radio, never anything I would even remotely, under pain of death, be interested in.

I would try changing it back. Christine Jr. ignored my request. I tried changing it to something else, anything else, before I had to either slit my wrists or become Vanilla Ice's number one fan. Christine Jr. decided to go with a solid, "no way". Finally, in total frustration, I would turn the radio off completely. Or not. Use of the button depended on whether or not Christine Jr. was finished with getting me to appreciate the finer points of the latest Milli Vanilli song.

As if that wasn't enough, Christine Jr. also taunted me by randomly locking and unlocking the doors. Bad neighborhood? Unlock! (he he he) Stopping to get gas? Oooooh, too bad for you. Lock! Hey, just so you know, you can push those buttons all day. Nobody tells me what to do!

Naturally, when I took her into the shop, there wasn't a thing wrong with her. Oh no, I was the crazy one. Tim took my side though against Christine Jr., and helped me exorcise her (okay, so we traded her in...and I could only hope it was some smug, know-it-all mechanic who somehow got saddled with her).

As the years have passed though, Tim has come to accept situations such as this to be the norm, sort of like Darrin accepted Samantha, Major Nelson, Jeannie, or Ricky did Lucy; you know, calm, cool and collected.

Latest case in point was a few weeks ago on the train to NYC.

Tim had forgotten his ipod, so I insisted on getting a splitter and second set of earbuds so we could share mine. As we settled into our seats, Tim opened his newspaper and began reading. I began setting up base camp.

First: shelter. Knowing from past experience that Amtrak has somehow gotten the idea that they are transporting sides of beef as opposed to people in the cars, I came prepared with a jacket and a pashmina, which I proceeded to wrap myself in, mummy-like.

Second: food. The only thing worse than airline food is train food. Reheated, microwaved chicken. Rubber ball. Enough said. So, I pulled down my tray table and foraged in my Mary Poppins-like bag for my stash of cookies, pretzels, honey-roasted almonds and bagel. That should be just about enough for a few hours. About this time, they came through offering beverages, so I took a coffee and added it to the growing pile.

Third: necessities of life. I rooted out my copy of the latest People magazine, blackberry, hand sanitizer, reading glasses, tic-tacs, ipod, and kindle. Now I was ready to enjoy the ride.

Over Tim's objections that he had plenty to occupy him (please, he only had a few measly newspapers and his blackberry, the equivalent of going on a week's vacation with only a toothbrush and single change of underwear), I began setting up the ipod. And that is when the curse struck.

Somehow, through no fault of my own, the cords and wires had become inextricably tangled into one giant mess. Patiently, I worked at the knots, snaking an earbud through here and a prong under there. I threaded, tugged and pulled for a good ten minutes. Tim just rolled his eyes and hid behind his paper as though that would make him invisible.

After another fruitless few minutes (seriously, how do neatly coiled cords become so entangled? Are there little purse gnomes that get their jollies out of stuff like this?) I decided I needed to get a fresh perspective and tried to recline my seat a bit (yeah, more room was going to magically untangle the cords--I remember learning that my first year of high school physics).

I pressed the button and pushed back, and...nothing. I used two thumbs to press the button...still nothing. I used four fingers and a forearm...and still nothing. I tried just the middle finger which I knew wouldn't work, but it made me feel better, and flung myself back against the seat like a battering ram...once again, nothing.

Finally, Tim could ignore it no longer, and with a muttered oath, he stood up, leaned across the seat and tried to muscle the seat down. It moved a whole quarter of an inch...and so did my coffee, right onto my lap.

You see...disaster. And that is why I keep a blog.

The Case of the Mysterious Yellow Flags

They cropped up overnight. Literally. One day they weren't there, and the next...there they were, little yellow flags stuck all over our lawn, indicating the gas lines from the street into our house and lamp post.

I had no idea they were even there until Tim called the other day on his way to work, asking me if I knew anything about them.

Perplexed, I rushed to the window, and sure enough, there they were, along with spray-painted yellow lines that had not been there the day before. Actually, they had not been there the evening before when Tim got home from work. So, sometime overnight, our lawn had mysteriously sprouted these nasty yellow indicators.

Uh oh. This could not be good. I looked to see if the infestation had spread to any of the other yards on the block, but we were the only one. Great, and I had garden people coming to plant some flowers within the next couple of days. Why, oh why, were they picking on us? And, more importantly, who was behind this dastardly deed?

Whoever it was knew they were not going to receive a warm welcome, as evidenced by the fact that they had snuck about in the dead of night, too cowardly to show their faces in the light of day.

Worried about how much of our front yard we were going to lose (Hey, it may not be much more than an intricate network of weeds, but they're our weeds), I decided to investigate.

Digging in my files for our last bill, I looked to see if there had been some sort of notification that I missed warning they were going to make my life a misery for the foreseeable future. But there was not so much as a word from those spineless jellyfish known as the gas company.

Okay, so I would have to broaden my search. I got onto the website, looking for news of any upcoming projects planned for our neighborhood. Once again though, I came up empty. So. They wanted to play it that way? Fine. Two could play that game, and I am not without resources.

Everybody knows that any detective worth his salt always has a snitch. Didn't Starsky and Hutch have Huggy Bear? Well, I have not one, but two neighbors who make Huggy Bear look like a mere cub. I knew that if anybody had the 411 on the yellow flags, it would be one of them. I would have been willing to bet that when the craven sneaks had slipped in during the dead of night to carry out their nefarious scheme, at least one of the two had seen and possibility interrogated the perpetrators.

After all, they were the best at ferreting out details. I'm pretty sure Ian Fleming used them for a role model when he created his 007 character, and I'm almost positive Woodward and Bernstein used them to conduct some covert operations on the whole Watergate scandal.

So, over the course of the next day or two, I struck up casual conversations with my sources and worked the yellow flags into the conversation. Shockingly, I came up dry. Even they, as good as they are, knew nothing about the flags.

Reeling from the shock of the two of them coming up empty (Had the world stopped spinning on its axis? Were pigs suddenly flying?) I began to consider other possibilities such as Martians, Leprechauns or Fairies. Surely this had to be the work of supernatural beings if my two neighbors hadn't seen or heard a thing.

Maybe, instead of indicating gaslines, the stripes and flags were really marking a landing strip for an otherworldly invasion. Hey, this could be the new Area 51. I wondered if I should look into a line of ET shirts and coffee mugs. I could make a fortune!

Or maybe these were the new, updated version of crop circles. New technology is constantly making things smaller. If personal computers no longer fill an entire room, maybe the little green men decided their mysterious markings no longer needed to fill an entire field. Yeah. I could be onto something here.

Before I could fully explore my new theories though, the mystery resolved itself.

Tim had been urging me to call the gas company directly and ask them what was going on, but, subscribing to his motto that it is better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, I put the call off until after the gardening people put in my spring flowers (so I'm a little behind this year. That's okay, we'll celebrate Christmas in February to make up for it).

When the plant people arrived, I called their attention to the flags, explaining that I had no idea why they were there. The woman just laughed and told me she knew why they were there, because she was the one to call and tell the gas company they were going to be digging around in our yard.

Mystery solved. And yet, that left me with a new mystery altogether, which was this: exactly how deep did they need to dig to plant a few petunias?

Food Rules

I am not the most adventurous of eaters. Growing up, I took PB&J or bologna sandwiches to school for lunch, and the bill of fare at home was most likely a roasted chicken or meatloaf. Every once in a while, my mother would get "creative" and make chicken smothered in cream of mushroom soup in the crockpot or some kind of casserole topped with crushed potato chips. Where was Bobby Flay when we needed him?

When I would be invited out to dinner with a friend of mine whose mother served such exotic things as chicken consomme or fillet mignon, I would be told to eat whatever I was given or order whatever my friend ordered. Apparently, my parents lived in fear that I would throw caution to the wind, and order the thirty pound lobster stuffed with caviar. Meanwhile, I was anxiously scanning the menu for fried chicken in a basket and praying I could telepathically transmit this wish to my friend.

Although I've gotten better as I've gotten older, and consomme no longer scares me, there are still things that contain a huge "ick factor" and I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Tim, despite his claims to the contrary, also has food rules. We can't help it. We both grew up in a town where meat is cooked until it's grey, veggies until they are limp and potatoes were the side dish. Sadly though, most of Tim's rules involve vegetables. Different rules, same deep, scarring, psychological issues.

And that is how, last Friday night, Tim and I ended up haggling over the seven-item antipasto platter we had decided to split for dinner.

We had stumbled upon a great little place near Lincoln Center, and had only about a half hour to wolf something down before the show there (South Pacific) started. The antipasto bar seemed like the perfect solution, and with over thirty million items to choose from, surely we could agree on a mere seven. Not really.

I suggested eggplant Parmesan, he shuddered and countered with squid.

You mean the tentacle things with the suction cups still attached? Ick. I don't think so. Rule number one of my food rules clearly states: No food that looks like it did when it was alive. If it can wave at me from the plate, I don't eat it. Try again.

He pointed to a shellfish platter.

Um. Nooooo. That violates at least four food rules. In my experience, most seafood is either waving, staring or actively fighting you. If you need special "tools" to dismember your meal, or worse yet, if you simply ingest the entire animal, lock, stock and feet, it's pretty much a no-go for me, and he knows this.

But two can play the "I know you won't eat this, but I'm going to stupidly suggest it anyway" game. I pointed to the roasted asparagus.

He eyed the seafood longingly, but wisely held his tongue.

I briefly considered the snow peas, but didn't have the heart to even point in their direction.

After a series of negotiations that would have made Winston Churchill proud, we each selected one item just for us and compromised on the remaining five (and by compromise, I mean I mostly got to choose).

Of course, the food rules had to be strictly adhered to . For example, rule number two: no raw food (we both have that rule). I don't care how trendy it is or how cute and artsy they make it look, it is still basically bait. I can't look at sushi without thinking of the scene in Jaws when Roy Scheider is throwing bucketsfull of chum over the side of the boat to attract the shark. I may be odd, but really nothing about that scene made me hungry.

A few years ago, someone sent us a complementary appetizer: ahi tuna tartare. Dismayed, we both poked at it to see if we could revive it enough to swim back off the plate under its own steam and relieve us of the pressure to choke some of it down. When the CPR failed, we tried the age-old trick of moving it around the plate and trying to hide it under the seaweed accompaniment (double ick--chum and ocean weeds).

And then there is rule number five: No food that has absolutely, positively no taste by itself, like tofu, especially when I could be ordering chocolate cake instead. I might just as well drench my wicker porch set in balsamic vinegar. The taste would be the same and I know it would have better texture.

Conversely, there is rule number eight: Nothing too spicy. Hot flashes and hot food are not a good combo. I generally like to avoid ending my meal with a trip to the emergency room to treat dehydration.

Tim has avoided certain spices since two episodes years ago. One involved half a teaspoon of curry in an entire pan of chicken divan that I made before we set out on a four-hour car trip. The trip actually took three and a half hours, but that was only because we went ninety miles an hour between rest stops and didn't come to a complete stop before Tim was off and running. Had I known the effect, I would have bought stock in Charmin.

The second was when Tim, mistaking the deadly kim-chee for a harmless pig in a blanket, took a big 'ole bite...and then his head exploded. The other people in the restaurant loved the show, but not one of them volunteered the helpful info that he should be eating bread or rice to put out the fire instead of shoving the fire hose down his throat.

Despite all the rules though, we did manage to end up with enough to eat, and were both happy as clams (which I wouldn't eat since it violates rules three, four and six -- no whole animals and nothing slimy or chewier than a piece of bazooka).

Do Not Disturb

Tim and I decided we needed to escape the crowds and craziness that is the fourth of July in the nations capital, so we hopped a train and headed for the quite solitude...of New York City!

We arrived Friday afternoon, and after a quick bite and a leisurely stroll around (of course, leisurely in NYC means you do a four minute mile or risk getting mowed down and left for road kill on Fifth Avenue), we went back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner.

Wanting to ensure privacy (we learned our lesson in Paris) we hung out the "Do Not Disturb" sign, then locked and chained the only door into the room (we also thought briefly about hiring a bouncer, but decided to keep that option in reserve for the time being).

After a quick shower and change of clothes, I slipped the sign off the door and we started to head out. Halfway out the door though, Tim realized he had forgotten something, so we popped back to get it.

No sooner had the door shut, then there was a knock. "Housekeeping"

Wow. That was fast. What, were they staking out the room, just waiting for the sign to disappear before they jumped in there? Now that is one dedicated staff (or people with too much time on their hands).

"Five minutes," I requested, as Tim and I shuddered in remembrance of our last weekend trip. Maybe a bouncer wasn't such a bad idea after all. Later that night though, when we returned to the room, we decided to risk it and just go with the sign and the double-locked door again. We're crazy like that.

The next morning, still wallowing in the unaccustomed privacy of our room, I turned on the shower and..no water. I turned if off and tried again. Still no water. I felt the panic rising, clawing its way up to the surface. This was not good.

As those close to me know, a shower is near and dear to my heart. Compared to me being denied my morning shower, Anthony Perkins in Psycho looked like a kindly, lovable hotelier mere offering to help Janet Leigh get at that hard to reach spot on her back.

I shouted for Tim, who rushed in hoping to avoid the meltdown he knew from experience was barely being held in check. Like a knight in shining armour (or a man grasping at the last straw), he battled the recalcitrant shower handle. He turned, he twisted, he even shouted and cussed, but the shower stubbornly refused to yield. Finally, he had to admit defeat and call the front desk.

In anticipation of the maintenance guy they promised to send up, I removed the "Do Not Disturb" sign from the door. No sooner had I closed it, then there was a knock. My heart beat faster with pure, unadulterated joy at the speed with which the maintenance guy had responded to our plea for help. With the sign still dangling from my fingers, I pulled open the door.

"Housekeeping," the woman standing there chirped.

Seriously? Did these people camp out in the room next door, just waiting for us to leave? I've seen cats pounce on mice with less speed and determination than the housekeeping staff at that hotel.

"Can you come back later?" I asked, "Our shower is broken, and they are sending someone up to fix it." Why I felt compelled to explain the situation to this woman, I don't know. It isn't like she cared why we were still in the room, she just knew she was going to have to keep our room under surveillance a while longer.

No sooner had I closed the door on her then there was another knock. This time, behind door number one: the maintenance guy! Who suspiciously had only a screw driver. Did he not know he was here on the most important job of his career? Had it not been impressed upon him how vital this shower was? He should have shown up with the Craftsman deluxe tool cabinet, and all he brought was a screwdriver?

But, it seemed he was a miracle worker after all, and after five minutes in the bathroom, I heard the glorious sound of running water. All was right with my world again, and nobody was going to have to die.

I ushered him out the door with many thanks, then once again hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, and headed into the bathroom where I gleefully turned the shower handle. And no water came out.

The vein in my left temple started to throb. Was this some sort of cruel joke? Did they want me to go all Godzilla on them and raze their hotel? Because I could do it.

Once again, Tim rushed in in response to my distress call and monkeyed around with the handle. And once again, I found myself removing the "Do Not Disturb" sign from the door while he called the front desk and suggested that they send the maintenance guy back up to actually fix the problem this time.

Within minutes, there was a knock on the door. I steeled myself to answer the door calmly, but if it was the housekeeping staff again, I couldn't be responsible for my actions. Thankfully , for them, it was the maintenance guy.

Before I could even open my mouth, he produced two faucet parts explaining how he was sure one or the other of them would fix the problem. So, if he knew he hadn't really fixed the problem the first time, why had he said he did and left? I resisted the urge to flush him and his parts down the toilet.

In short order, he was back out in the room though, admitting that it was a third part he needed, which he didn't have, so he would have to go get it. Okay, that was it, now his death was going to be slow and painful.

Tim held me back while he escaped to get the part. But before he returned, there was to be one final visit from housekeeping, because they hadn't pushed me far enough yet. What was it with those people? Were we the only guests in the hotel, or did we just look exceptionally sloppy? I believe Tim handled that one, since he didn't trust me to be around people at that point.

The third time proved to be the charm, and I did get my shower, but not before I put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign one last time...and double locked the door...and made Tim stand guard.

...Again

It's true. Machines hate me. Near as I can figure, there must be some sort of networking site they are all hooked into that allows them to trade info on me and figure out how to make my life more difficult.

The latest machine to join forces with all the other evil machines in my life is the self-checkout counter at Home Depot.

The other day, I ran in to pick up three items. Three lousy little items. Naturally, they only had two check-out lanes open, both of which had lines that extended into the next state. Par for the course.

Why they even put in more than two or three lanes, I'll never know, because that's all that are ever open. Do they really think that taunting people who are holding hammers, saws and other assorted lethal tools with closed lanes is the smart thing to do?

Miraculously, the self-checkout lane seemed to be moving at a turtle's pace instead of a snail's, so I got in that line. Faster than you can recite volumes one to six of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I was at one of the machines swiping my first item. Beep. Into the bag it went. Second item. Beep. Also, into the bag. Third item. Beep. Onto the counter it went since the box was too big to bag.

And there is where the big 'ole fly landed smack in the ointment. The payment machine registered the item, but the large screen did not and the voice kept telling me to place the item back on the scanner.

Great. Dueling machines. Now they were no longer content to come after me one at a time. They were tag-teaming me.

I looked around for help from a store employee that did not have a computer chip running them. Several minutes of frantically waving my arms as though I were guiding a 747 in for a landing on aisle four finally attracted the attention of an employee who came over to see what the fuss was about.

"You didn't scan the last item," she explained patiently.

I pointed to the machine which indicated I had. She pointed to the checkout screen which said I hadn't.

Again, I pointed to the machine which said I had. Hey lady, just so you know, I can do this for quite a while before my arm gets tired. But something about the way I was baring my teeth at her must have made her rethink the whole competition thing, and she took out a passkey, scanned it, pushed some buttons, and indicated I should try...again.

There. That was all I wanted. Now was that so hard? I may not have said the words aloud, but she knew what I was thinking.

As she tried to make good on her escape, I scanned the item again, and...once again, it showed up on the payment screen, but not on the checkout screen. Boy, good thing I got help, otherwise I might be here all day. This time, I was less subtle in my request for help. I believe they heard me over in the next county.

Passkey in hand, the same woman came back...again, and repeated the totally useless steps she had already executed and...surprise! They didn't work...again.

Hey, maybe we should repeat the pointing exercises all over again too. They didn't work the first time, but, who knows, maybe twice is the charm.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that the self-checkout line now rivaled the line for Space Mountain at Disneyland, and, added bonus, it was all men who were thinking, "Dumb woman. She should have stayed in aisle two where she belongs and leave the technical stuff to the guys."

As they sighed and shifted from one foot to another, I did my best to place the blame where it belonged...on the demon machine.

"What's that?" I bellowed. "It's broken...again?"

Something about the way they rolled their eyes told me they weren't buying it.

"Swipe your card," the woman advised me, clearly at a loss for what to do next.

I knew in my heart of hearts that it wouldn't work, but I humored her anyway and swiped my card.

No reaction from the monster machine, so she swiped her card...again. This time, I actually think I heard satanic laughter coming from the machine.

"It's frozen," she deduced when nothing changed...again.

No. Really? I never would have guessed by the way the screens haven't changed in the last...hmmm...let's see...hour! Now for the million dollar question. Can you unfreeze it or not? She surrendered without even trying to swipe her card again and advised me to try another line.

Another quick glance at the line of men waiting for the self-checkout machines told me to not even suggest just moving to another machine. I think I saw a few of them fashioning nooses and fingering axe blades as though warning me what would happen if I even looked like I was contemplating such a move.

Shooting the devilish machine one last malevolent look, I headed for another line. I was so over the whole self-checkout thing...again.

As if someone knew I was skating on the edge, they suddenly opened another lane and I quickly got into it since it was the shortest one and only wrapped around the building six or seven times.

When I finally got there though, I had to hold my breath that things would go smoothly since I would have to deal with the same woman that hadn't been able to help me with the self-checkout ...again!