How to Be a Melanie

For any of you out there who are terribly jealous of my awesome life and often lay awake at night wondering how you can have a life exactly like mine, I'm here to tell you how you can be me in 23 Easy Steps.

1. Wake up confused about what day it is. Think back to what you watched on TV the night before. Was it 'House'? Then today is Tuesday. Was it 'Grey's Anatomy'? Then today is Friday, and last night you had a dream about Hot Redhead Doctor with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome Who is For Some Reason Still Attached to That Horse-Faced Bitch. Was it 'Ghost Whisperer'? Then today is Saturday, and you're a fucking loser because you stayed at home on a Friday night watching 'Ghost Whisperer,' you jackass. You probably ate popcorn made soggy by your loser tears, loser.

2. Put on coffee before you walk dog so you will have coffee when you get back from walking dog.

3. Walk dog, after finally remembering that you sleep in your underwear and need to put pants on before you go outside. (At least twice a week, you will almost not remember that in time.)

4. Put on coffee, since you didn't frigging remember to do it before walking dog.

5. Have shower, since you can't have coffee yet because you are a moron. Brush teeth in shower so you don't end up with toothpaste-crust on face, because heaven FORBID you just wipe your face off when you're done. Attempt to shave legs in shower. Fall over because shower is slippery. Resort to sitting under shower head while shaving legs using $10.00 bottle of conditioner because you keep forgetting to buy $2.00 bottle of shaving cream.

6. Go downstairs for coffee. Suffer embarrassment of neighbour seeing you through open window while you are wearing towel tucked into cleavage. Wish you had better-looking man-neighbour so the embarrassment would be worth it.

7. Go back upstairs. Immediately go back downstairs because you forgot to feed dog, so dog is trying to trip you into the wall. (Dog does not understand that if you are dead, YOU CANNOT EVER FEED HER AGAIN.)

8. Open closet. Try to figure out why anyone needs that many black shirts. Open dresser drawer. Try to figure out why anyone needs that many pairs of jeans. Open underwear drawer. Immediately regret not doing laundry the day before. Select jeans and black shirt. Hope that you don't end up in a car accident today, because the doctor at the emergency room will think you're a total dork for not wearing underwear.

9. Apply make-up. To BOTH EYES. Leaving the house twice in one lifetime looking like the guy from Clockwork Orange who rapes people is enough. Yes -- twice. Shut up.

10. Where is your iPod?

11. Get on bus without iPod. Spend entire ride listening to the people on the bus. Contemplate jumping from emergency exit, screaming "I'm doing this because of youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu............SPLAT."

12. Arrive at work. Enter building and see something weird because there is a TV station where you work, and sometimes there are weird things on TV. Like mermaids. And bagpipers who start playing as soon as you walk in on the one day in a month that you wore a plaid skirt. And also once a pony. The pony crapped on the sidewalk.

13. Work.

14. Finish work.

15. Walk an entire hour to get home because you can't comprehend riding the bus again without your iPod and having to listen to those 'people.'

16. Arrive at home. Reach into purse to get house keys. Pull iPod out of purse. Punch door.

17. Walk dog, after dog finishes climbing up your leg because SHE HASN'T SEEN YOU IN EIGHT HOURS AND EVEN THOUGH YOU COME HOME EVERYDAY MAYBE THIS WOULD BE THE ONE DAY THAT YOU DIDN'T AND WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE WITHOUT YOU AND I HAVE TO PEE AND I'M HUNGRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

18. Go to kitchen-like room that is really just a counter with a sink drilled into it and a fridge that for some reason clicks. Get out everything you need to make delicious pasta and toast and salad.

19. Eat cereal for dinner.

20. Watch TV. Remember what you watched, because you will need to know what it was when you wake up tomorrow and can't remember what day it is.

21. Go to bed. Stare at ceiling doing math in your head for some stupid reason. Why??? You hate math. You suck at math. All the math you are doing right now that is keeping you from sleeping is incorrect. You would fail high school using that math. Stop thinking about math. Start thinking about whether there might be a spider somewhere in your room. There probably is. It's probably really close to you right now. You should try to find it. Nah -- if it wants to kill you, it's going to kill you. You'll be sleeping - you'll never know what happened. Spend next 20 minutes trying to figure out what kind of IDIOT would stick that many glow-in-the-dark stickers to a ceiling. And why are half of them painted over? And why are some of them fish and some of them are astronauts? Those things don't go together. That doesn't make any sense.

22. Fall asleep and have a dream about Spider Astronauts who go to space but space has fish for some reason.

23. Go to step 1. Repeat until you die.

~~~