Sorry, but I’m not a bodybuilder

I am in a MOOD.

I was in a very chipper mood this morning, even though it was snowing and gusty and freezing. Part of this chipper-ness had to do with the fact that my husband is now at home and I am not the sole responsible adult around here, and part of the chipper-ness had to do with the fact that I can now breathe through my nose without sounding like I am a cocaine addict. Which is a win, as far as I can tell. But oh! That chipper mood has evaporated like a bucketful of tears left out on a hot, dry day. Not that I remember what hot, dry days feel like since it’s snowing and my dog rolled in the snow and is now soggy and filling the house with wet-dog odour.

My sour mood could have something to do with the fact that I just spent the last ninety minutes photocopying, cutting, and sorting papers for various school events and fundraisers. NINETY MINUTES. I started to lose the will to live after the first half hour. Sorting 1200 little pieces of paper into classrooms is really, really dull. At least I got to use the large-armed paper cutter, which spiced things up a little. For this I have a Master’s degree.

I am pleased my cold is nearly gone, and if I had to guess, I would say that yesterday’s Vitamin C overdose may have helped. I get sick so rarely that when I do I get hurt feelings about it; like my immune system has let me down. How could you do this to me, immunity? I give you everything you ask for. Some of this emotion may have to do with the minor high I get from cold medication. Some of that stuff, I wonder if it should be legal. Or perhaps I shouldn’t take it and then drink six cups of coffee, I don’t know. In any case, I actually slept (passed out?) yesterday morning. I walked the dog, came home, and climbed into bed.  This is so unusual I seem to have to make a note of it. 

I realized that the amount of supplements I now consume is bordering on the insane.  It started off normally, with a daily multivitamin, and now it’s just crazy.  So yesterday, with this cold, I realized that I had taken a LOT of additional vitamins, and I was eating those lozenges that are fortified with Vitamin C, so I thought I should actually read the package, lest I somehow overdose myself. The package informed me that I should limit my lozenge intake to no more than thirty a day. Thirty! Two things: a) if I am consuming thirty lozenges a day, I have larger issues than Vitamin C overdoses, and b) how much Vitamin C could possibly be in one of those lozenges if the daily maximum is thirty? I felt a little bit disappointed in the lozenge manufacturers; like how those sugar-ific “fruit” snacks say “contains real fruit!”, but the reality is that the fruit content is the equivalent of a grain of sand on a vast beach.

As a rule, I never answer the door during the day, or in the evening if I’m home alone.  I have a fear of being murdered.  I realize that might sound extreme, but something like that did actually happen not long ago.  A woman answered her door one evening, and a crazed man killed her!  In front of her children!  This is something I would like to avoid.  And so I never answer the door, unless I know for certain it isn’t some mur-diddly-urdler.  There is no downside to this, really, because mostly the only people that ring my doorbell are door-to-door salespeople, politicians, and occasionally my neighbour, looking for Beeps.  So I’m really not missing much.  However, yesterday I had to answer the door TWICE, which, along with my drippy cocaine-addict noise, was putting me in a bad mood.  First, the water-meter-reader rang my doorbell to complain that the city had not installed the kind of water-meter that can be easily read via, I don’t know, satellite, from the back alley.  The water-meter-reader, apparently, has to come INTO MY YARD to read my water-meter, which is completely inconvenient for him and ruins his day.  What I am supposed to do about this state of affairs, I am unsure.  I guess that my ownership of a bloodthirsty squirrel-bird-possibly-Beeps-killer of a dog is noted in my file and hence my wrong kind of water-meter is a danger to society, or at least to the water-meter-reader.  Keep in mind that while listening to this man, I had the boys home for lunch, the dog was frantically barking at the appearance of an unknown person at the door, and I was high on Advil Cold and Sinus.  And I had just woken up from my morning nap.  JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO, BUDDY.  Do I need to call someone?  Stop with the long explanation already.  I do not understand your water-meter language.

Because of my excessive vitamin supplement consumption, I order all my vitamins online.  It’s way cheaper that way, and generally the box arrives the very next day.  This leads me to the second reason I had to answer the door: I could see the Canada Post man standing there.  I very reasonably thought he was unlikely to be a murderer – and he wasn’t, I’m still here to tell this tale, never fear – but you never know.  We are all, I think, familiar with the term going postal.  But in any case, the Canada Post man was very nice and I opened my giant box of online-ordered supplements.  Inside was a piece of paper informing me that my gigantic order qualified me for a free gift.  The free gift consisted of the following items:

– a cheap plastic water bottle
– a lidded cup that is apparently intended for vigourous on-the-go mixing of various bodybuilding protein shakes
– an orange-scented car air freshener in the shape of Popeye
– a “performance pill” box, also emblazoned with an image of Popeye
– a Popeye-themed lanyard
– a Popeye key chain
– a sample of a high-dose protein shake
– something called anabolic energy muscular endurance muscle fiber activation workout fuel (two servings!  Blue raspberry flavour!)
– a sample of something that promises to get me “beyond ripped” and is a subcutaneous fat-incinerator
– an enormous t-shirt with a maple leaf on it

What a generous free gift!  What to do with this?  I feel completely deflated, environmentally.  Also I am puzzled; my order was Women’s Multivitamins, Vitamin D, and Women 50+ Calcium supplements.  My order does not match this free gift.  However, if any of you want to start a new bodybuilding regimen, let me know.  I have some things for you.