It's a barely noticeable twi...tch.

Let's say I haven't really come up for air from toddler lockdown in about 374629947726652 days, give or take. So maybe I'm a little jumpy. Maybe I'm a little, y'know, darty. Bless her tiny little highly developed motor skills and her beautiful giggle and the way she painted the bathroom floor with lotion. It's not those things that get to me. I swear it isn't. I can deal with all of that. It's just that... It's time for me to get out of the house for something other than to run away and get groceries, laughing and honking as I drive alllll alone, all caught up in the frenzied sense of freedom... Maybe even saying some swear words.

You know when going out to the bank feels like a luxurious, guilty pleasure and you are rapt with the temptation to do something that might juuust cause the bank line to get longer? You know, like maybe run around and throw everyone's money and things into one big pile so that they will have to sort it all out because you like chatting with the other adults in the line up and you've only been around a two year old for 8 days straight? And you've been trying to make dinners that everyone doesn't hate and you've been figuring out grade 6 math and you've been reading the same book 923749283742938472442 times and the only show you've seen on TV is the same episode of Diego and Medabots and the Sonic-the-Hedgehog song is stuck in your head and your kids' principal is a self-inflated version of the geico lizard, and you've been getting glasses of water, combing hair, peeling your contact lenses off the floor, hoping that they'll rehydrate... or finding out what the first Dinosaur/Pop Star/President of the universe EVER was because someone is curious, checking teeth, reassuring people that they DO have lots of friends, answering quizzes about Miley Cyrus and the most fun you ever had when you were 6 in the olden days, finding lost library books, potty training, finding family activities to do that won't cost thousands of dollars, avoiding people's wonderful vacation pictures on facebook because WaaaaaaaaaaAAhhhhhh! No fair!....... These bank people are your new best friends. "Oh elderly brown pants man, you are SO funny, and you have such a sailor mouth! We should hang out more often. Do you like anything? Me too! Crazy, it's like I'm looking in a mirror! I like your cane! *yank* *fling* here, I'll help you walk. We're pals" or, "Oh hello stern woman in uniform, is that a club? *yank* *fling*...". and so on until you explain to them what you're doing. Then the ones with kids get it and say, "oOOOooooohhhhhhh" because they've been there, you see? They KNOW the dark place you're in.

"Oh honey, what took so long? Was there a big line up? Why are you hunched over in that druid robe? Are your frothing? Did you just throw a cat at the paper boy? Do you think maybe we should go on a date?"

What's that I hear over the buzzing? Did someone say... A DATE? A DATE! YES! A DATE!!!!!

And the heavens open up as God shines his golden flashlight down upon your life and the sea of blackness and bathroom lotion parts wide open; and little birdies tweet and twitter under the blue sky, the neighborhood houses begin to dance like in that Donald Duck Mexico film dealie. You drop your filthy crazy person robes to reveal that you are wearing a beautiful red spanish dress and you're all ready to run and frolic and shimmy through a field, or drink a martini several martinis at a SMALL table or go to a bookstore and not have to go to the kid section to play trains AT ALL! OH YOU FOOL PARENTS, stuck playing trains in the kid section like I'm not. I'm looking at only boring adult books about finances and the history of whatever.

Oh glorious air! Oh glorious, silent air!!

And then you miss the little beggars, buy them each a book and go home.