I am Michelle D. Carter

I wake up this morning to the reality that I’m not as young as I used to be. My body just doesn’t respond well to my weekend warrior activities. My body is aching from staining the fence yesterday. It hurts to move my shoulder and wrist, not to mention the blister on my thumb. I’m almost 2/3 done with the job. Next time, I’m going to figure out how to spray it.

I’m lying in bed, knowing that getting up is going to be painful, and reviewing the list of things I need to do today. I usually go to the gym in the morning. However, the house is trashed because I was outside and the kids were inside. There are balloons covering the dining room, art projects thrown about the house and dirty dishes and laundry to wash. I conveniently talk myself out of going to they gym.

I get dressed and slowly limp downstairs. DAMN IT DOG!! There, lying in the middle of the living room, are two piles of dog poop. To add insult to injury, they were not the easy-to-pick-up variety. They were loose.

I called Tim at work. “Did you see what your dog left for you?”

 ”Yes, I did.”

“Why did you leave it for me to pick up?”

“I wasn’t in the mood to pick it up.”

“Like I am!”

I gather my tools – plastic bags, plastic gloves, paper towels and carpet cleaner. I make it through the first pile, on to the next. I’m not certain if it was the fragrance or texture, but I was getting extremely close to my limit of doing this job and keeping my stomach contents. Come on, get it together, you have to finish this without puking. A few more dry heaves and I get around to getting it cleaned up.

Don’t think you’ve gotten away with this, my sweet hubby! I don’t care that you have to work all day. Go ahead and ignore the mess “your” dog made. I’ll spend the day thinking of ways to take my vengeance. Maybe I’ll put the bag of crap in his car so it’s nice and ripe for him when he goes to work tomorrow.

I didn’t say that I’m stronger (or the better person) every day.