water runs dry

i can feel my blood pressure finally leveling off, my heart rate slowing down...even though the beverage i am currently drinking is technically a stimulant. i am in my happy place now, but i had to escape a deadly war zone and drive twenty minutes to get here...

i was already in a bitter mood when i walked into my front door this afternoon. it wasn’t the fact that i had worked eight hours but that i had received my first paycheck at the end of those eight hours and, well, enough said. someone forgot to add that extra zero. i rushed by my parents without saying hello and headed upstairs to change into sweats. then i went into the bathroom to “wash the day off,” or splash cool water on my face, something that never gave me the same satisfaction as it does now that i am a working girl. let me ask you this: have you ever positioned your head low in the bathroom sink, turned on the faucet, closed your eyes, and outstretched the palm of your hands only to realize a second later that no water is coming out? well, it’s a disconcerting feeling. “no water!?” i yelled in frustration. my mom had done it again: arranged for the water to be shut off in our townhouse before we actually were moved out of the house. i walked downstairs, royally pissed off, to face mom and dad. a war was erupting in our kitchen as my parents exchanged insults and excuses. i tried the best i could to silence out the crackling of bomb shells but that proved too difficult a task for me. besides, there was just so much to be upset about: no water, no television, no internet, and my mom had just finished off the last of the frozen peas. i guess now is a good time to also mention that our dryer is broken, so our upstairs resembles the alleyways in chinatown, san francisco. i took shelter in the corner of the kitchen and began to eat chocolate chip after chocolate chip (something i now realize i do when i am either stressed, dying of boredom, or apparently talking to my friend from home because i did that yesterday and polished off half a bag). anyways, at one point i told my dad to shut up, for which he quickly responded, “you tell me to shut up and you can move out”. talk about a weapon of mass destruction. i guess this is what it has come down to? i thought only live-in couples said this to one another...

well, after polishing off my lunch, i packed up my things and got the hell out of there. i’ve learned that sometimes the best thing to do is leave a family warzone, not stay and contribute to it. i don’t plan on returning until well after dark. when the dust has settled. and the water is turned back on.