Oh, it’s Krazy, all right

So today I had to drive to the Grand Hyatt Hotel, just past the airport. It was to purchase a gift for my daughter’s upcoming birthday. And since you may already know that I am the Queen of Craigslist, this was a craigslist exchange. The lady meeting me was a professional. She said, “You’ll know me by my blue shirt and grey pants. And I have my hair pulled back.” I replied, “OK, great. You’ll know me because I’ll have 4 feral children with me that do not belong in a Hyatt lobby.”

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

They were wild all right.

None of this is at all important to the story, except to say that I was kinda grumpy with the kids after that. It is in these moments that you wonder where you’ve gone wrong. Actually, I know where I’ve gone wrong. I just don’t know how to make it right. But we’ll get there.

So part of the purchase from today included a case for my son’s ds. This was just a bonus. But there was a piece torn on it. So after nearly wrecking Wendy’s (more grumpiness from me), we walked over to CVS to buy some superglue. This is where the story takes a macabre turn. I opted to buy Krazy Glue, instead of the standard super glue. I don’t know why. it seems like I would have intentionally avoided it over the “k” thing alone. I am very against cutsie misspellings in brand names. Even Krispy Kreme drives me nuts. But the product stands on its own in that particular case.

I was so confident in my gluing skills that I did not read the instructions, prepare a surface, or have any type of back-up plan in place. I just jumped willy nilly into gluing. Before I even realized I had successfully opened the tube, it was oozing everywhere.  My thumb was now glued to my index finger on my left hand. On my right hand, my index finger and my thumb became bonded to the tube of glue, which was still oozing.

I realized immediately that I was in trouble. I think I began making weird wheezing sounds and even the heads of the children playing Wii turned to see what was up.

“Ohhh, nooooo,” I said, with Mama’s Boy watching intently. I immediately pulled on my left thumb and managed to free up that hand. Then I focused on the right hand and managed to free my thumb. The index finger was done, though. There was no going back on that one.  I was now attached rather permanently to the tube. I at least managed to stop the eruption of fresh glue.

Krazy, I tell you.

At this point, I went to the instructions. The instructions I needed were listed under a bold section called: WARNING:

“Avoid contact with skin and eyes. If eye or mouth contact occurs, hold eyelid or mouth open and rince thoroughly but gently with water for only 15 minutes and GET MEDICAL ATTENTION. (Heavens to BETSY! I cannot IMAGINE getting the stuff near my eyes.) If skin bonding occurs (ok, I’m listening now), soak in acetone-based nail polish remover or warm soapy water and carefully peel or roll skin apart (do not pull).”

So, I fixed myself a nice large bowl of warm, soapy water and poured a bottle of nail polish remover into it, for good measure. Then I sat down to wait. And soak. This was at 2:56 p.m. Actually, I really didn’t have time for these shenanigans today. At 3:06, I pulled out the finger to work on it.

Still stuck. Back in the bowl.

Snuggle Monkey needed some assistance in the bathroom. She just had to go it alone today.

And at 3:15, I finally rolled and peeled my skin free. It was red and irritated and still covered with a gluey film. But at least I was free of the tube.

So what does that K stand for? Killer glue substance. Kranky lady kould have read the instructions and didn’t. Kall the doctor immediately, something horrible is klinging to me. Krud.

Speaking of Kranky, in the middle of all my grumbling about how I wish the kids could just put on their best Grand Hyatt faces and sit like angels, Mama’s Boy piped up from the back of the van.

“Mama, I wrote today’s entry in my journal. Can I read it to you?”

Sure, boy. Shoot.

“So far this day is pretty bad. We just can’t act perfect. But luckily, I am going to a sleepover to turn things around. Hopefully it will go well.”

Wow. Now if that doesn’t bring things into krazy klear perspective, nothing will.

We did turn things around.  In more ways than one.