6 Reasons I Need to Be Grounded

6. I’ve missed 2 fLiP iT fRiDaYs in a row. 1 for being on an all-day Amtrak ride from NYC to Buffalo. And 1 because I don’t remember why — I only remember the aching guilt. Guilt guilt guilt. Grounded!

5. I haven’t updated this blog in, like, forever. Lazy. Busy. Grounded!

4. I keep staying up way past my bedtime. So far past, in fact, that I’m now sleeping in the future, waiting for everyone else to catch up. Exhausted. Cranky. Grounded.

3. I was visiting my parents tonight and my Dad asked if there was anything sweet in the house, and Mom and I said no, which was a total lie considering the box of Dolci Bakery’s chocolate covered macaroons hidden beside me. And by macaroons I really mean macaroon — just the one — because I ate all the others. I was entering a Great Moral Dilemma (silently amongst myself) about whether to confess and pass over the last one, but by then, Dad was already in the kitchen digging out some cookies Mom remembered were in the freezer. There were 4. Cookies, not freezers. He offered to defrost and share 2 with me, completely oblivious to the macaroon non-admission. I would have eaten them, too, but then Mom found some more sweets. OMG I’m a horrible daughter! Ga-rounded.

2. There’s this crazy lightening storm going on at my parents’ house, the likes of which I haven’t seen since this one night in Denver where it was so intense, the midnight sky looked like daylight and Alex and I debated sleeping in the car in the garage. So what do I do? Go outside with my parents and the dog and stand in the driveway to watch. Um, what does it mean when your nose hair suddenly tingles and your mouth tastes like copper? It means you are dumb. Grounded.

And the number 1 reason I need to be grounded…

1. When I picked up my Mac laptop tonight, there was a rattling inside. Not like a light, tappy, Smart Food White Cheddar Popcorn kernel-rattling, which would be somewhat unsurprising given my propensity toward the cheesy treat as writing brainfood, but like a something-is-definitely-effed-up-in-this-piece rattling. Frantic, I opened it and booted up, but everything looked okay — no cracked screen or missing keys or buttons, and all the sounds and icons came on. Still, each time I tipped the computer, something obviously loose and foreign clunked around inside. I watched a bunch of movies last night so I thought maybe it was a loose DVD or DVD drive component, but nothing would eject (and I was certain I’d already ejected the last movie earlier today). I closed it up again, tipped and gently shook and shook and tipped and shook, and finally, out popped…. a quarter. A quarter! WTF!?! Note to self: Mac laptop is not a piggy bank. Or a slot machine. I don’t even know how it got in there or where it came from. The DVD drive isn’t even an open slot. God, the whole thing was very grilled-cheese-in-the-VCR, you know? How did I not blow myself up? How do I function? Idiot on parade. Grounded!

Devoted readers (and those whom my mother pays to pretend), will someone please volunteer to banish me to a place — a place that’s heavily padded — before I actually hurt myself?