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Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two:

This is the second post this week that I'm linking back to that Hyperbole and a Half post for the context that makes sense out of mine.  The first one is here.

While reading that post Monday afternoon I comforted myself with the thought that at least it has never been quite so bad for me that I've ever found myself sprawled on the kitchen floor making puddles with my eyes ala Alice in Wonderland.  Nor had I ever cracked up over something so innocuous as a desiccated kernel of corn.  Tho I half envied Allie that particular pity party interuptus.

Twice since Monday I've wanted to tell my sister to 'let me find my own kernel of corn' as she keeps coaching me on my affect even demonstrating what it should look like--big smiles, happy dance, say WOW, look at the pretty flowers and let the happy happen...

Seriously not helping.  Only makes me feel more inadequate not to mention irritated followed by guilty followed by shame.  Followed by more puddle pieces dripping off my chin.

Then today my sister had errands out of town leaving me on duty with Mom and responsible for lunch and dinner. Something I was pleased to be able to do.  It's a chance to lift some of the burden and demonstrate some of my developing autonomy which my counselor Monday was delighted to hear I'd begun craving.

So then.  I set out to make toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.  Easy peasey.

Uh huh.

I turned the griddle in the middle of the stove on medium and the burner on the front left on medium under the pan of soup and went to the fridge to get the brick of cheese out of the cheese drawer.  And promptly pulled the cheese drawer off its tracks.  It would not slide back in nor slide on out.  As I fussed with it I knocked items on the shelf below it onto the floor.  Primarily the boxes of new batteries.  Open boxes to make it easier to grab batteries.  Which of course makes it easier to spill them all over the floor.

Couldn't worry about the batteries though until I could get the fridge door shut.  But several minutes of tugging, jiggling, pushing and spluttering got me nowhere and I soon noticed steam rising off the pan of soup.  If my nephew hadn't been at school I might have started yelling for him to come help me but there was nothing for it but  to let go of the cheese drawer hoping it would not break off under its own weight and walk away from the open fridge to turn the burner down to low.

Then I got down on the floor in front of the fridge so I could see the tracks the drawer was supposed to be set in and see if anything was snagged in them.  That wasn't it.  So several more minutes of tapping and rapping and slapping and wriggling commenced.  Until my arms felt like melted cheese and words I can't speak and shouldn't think in my mother's house clogged my throat and I felt my face start to slide off and my lips wad up and the puddle piddle start and I thought, Seriously?  I'm going to do THIS now?  Now?  On the kitchen floor?

Of course I am.  Why wouldn't I be doing the very thing I'd been congratulating myself on never having done just forty hours ago.

Please!  I said.  Not a prayer exactly.  But it seemed to work like one because suddenly the drawer just came loose and I fell backwards nearly into that full out laying on the kitchen floor thing that I'd been so proud to have never stooped to before.   But at least the surprise had frozen my face and stopped the eye juice in its tracks.

I soon had the drawer back in place and the fridge door closed but as I put my hand to the floor to lever myself up it landed on a battery reminding me I had to gather them up before one of them tripped me or Mom and so I crawled on hands and knees after them and as I started to put my face on the floor to look under the fridge for any strays I realized that some Trickster Puppetmaster was still yanking my strings to make me play out the whole scenario from Hyperbole and a Half's kitchen floor episode.

Just before my cheek touched the floor I stopped because I there was no point after all.  If anything was under there--batteries, dust bunnies, shriveled peas, cat toys--I would never see them as even with a megawatt flashlight I'd never be able to get the narrow funnel of my visual field at the right level or angle.

But my mind's eye has no visual impairment whatsoever and it caught a glimpse as if from above of my chubby butt pointing up and flabby gut hanging down and my hair on the floor like a dustmop.

The look of someone caught in the act of a bizarre genuflecting to some clown deity.

And the voice in my headcheese spoke clearly saying Now would be the perfect time for the nephew to arrive home from school.

Oh no you don't I said scrambling to my feet as tho suddenly reinvested with my own 18 year old muscles and  and energy.  That's not funny.

Headcheese: Ah but it is a bit.  And you know it.  And I saw that smile you know.  You can't hide it from me by keeping it locked on the inside.

Me: Oh go suck on a battery.