Oh, dear. Where to begin.

Friday night the kitchen sink clogged up. Apparently you are not supposed to pour bacon grease down the drain every day for six months. Where’s that in the manual? Huh? I swear, nobody tells me anything.

I left all the dishes stacked up and went to bed, because what else was I supposed to do? The Diva had a sleepover buddy whose mother is Martha Damn Stewart of the South, except she’s cool and not a felon, but nonetheless the child seemed TRAUMATIZED the next morning by piles of catsup-laden plates strewn about the kitchen. And further traumatized by the lack of food in the house.

So I ran to the Winn-Dixie to buy Drano and waffles. I love Florida, where you can go to the Winn-Dixie at 8 am and buy Drano and waffles and nobody blinks. “Drano and waffles,” I said to the guy in line behind me.

“Uh-huh,” he replied. Totally simpatico.

Hot Firefighter Husband, who cooks bacon all the time at the fire station and never explained the rules to me, poured in the Drano. In my vast clogging experience, Drano never works, and this instance was no exception. But we all had busy schedules. I had a boxing class to teach, and Husband had to teach a heart-starting class and earn some money to pay the upcoming plumbing bill.

That afternoon, Husband put his minimum unclogging skills to work, and used a couple of snaking instruments borrowed from a neighbor. Zero unclogging occurred.

We called the plumber, and this super nice guy showed up full of vim and vigor and confidence. “NO PROBLEM,” he said.

Four hours later, he called for backup. The backup guy breezed in all big and sweaty and with a longer snake, if you know what I mean. He glanced at the neighbor’s borrowed plumbing tools and chuckled. “No offense, ma’am,” he drawled. “But that there ain’t gonna do you no good. We call that a mule dick.” Well. It’s true that mule dicks aren’t good for much.

In Hour 5, the kitchen gurgled and swallowed. The children were asleep by then, and Husband’s birthday was over. OH! DID I FORGET TO MENTION IT WAS HUSBAND’S BIRTHDAY?

I kindly offered to celebrate his birthday Sunday instead, because I’m benevolent sometimes. So Sunday, when he asked if he could go watch football with his friends at a bar, I said, SURE! As soon as I get back from bringing Buddy the Wonder Dog to service dog boot camp. OH! DID I FORGET TO MENTION I WAS SENDING BUDDY THE WONDER DOG AWAY FOR 10 DAYS? I’ll update you on that later this week.

The Pterodactyl had concerns about my decision to enroll Buddy in boot camp. “HE’S NOT GOING,” he screamed, between four and five thousand times. Finally, I told him we could stop and buy him and his dog matching fuzzy toys so they could think about each other, and maybe even go to Target to relieve the intense drama of canine separation. So we got that done and brought Buddy to camp.

Later, while Husband was out drinking, I spent the afternoon making a Thunder Cake from scratch. Do you know about thunder cakes, based on the children’s book by Patricia Polacco? I don’t feel like recounting the story for you, except to say that the secret cake ingredient is tomato puree, which is so gross but totally works. I had to make it even scratchier than from scratch, because it needed to be gluten-free and dairy-free. I used every single bowl in the house and five different types of flour.

WORTH IT. This cake is the chocolate bomb. CRAZY DELICIOUS! I was so damn proud of myself. But by the time Husband got home, I was nearly insane from letting the children shove their grimy fingers into each bowl and crack eggs everywhere and rub grease on each other help, and finally lost my marbles and screamed, “If anybody screams one more time, I am going to lose my fucking mind!”

This made Husband all whack worried, so he kicked me out of the house with a little glass of wine. The Pterodactyl was furious at me for yelling, and for sending away his dog, so he started torturing the cake, which Husband let him do because “It’s my birthday cake and I don’t care.”

And that made me all, “WHAT!”

Him: What?

Me: WHAT!

HIM: It’s my cake.

Me: OH MY GOD. IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU!

Him: Yes. Yes, today, it’s all about me.

Me: OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. I WORKED SO HARD ON THAT CAKE. HOW COULD YOU LET HIM DO THAT?

Him: You need to calm down.

Me: WHAT! WHAT? NO! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Husband didn’t understand that I had sifted and mixed and tasted and floured that cake with love and devotion, and letting the boy destroy it was like splattering paint on a picture. So I took to bed like an old-fashioned lady feeling verklempt, and cried myself to sleep. Husband ate his birthday dinner alone.

I woke up this morning hoping for a bright fresh start, but now the laundry room and the bathrooms on one side of the house are clogged, and this morning’s plumber had to leave after five minutes because he was having stomach issues and didn’t want to mess up my non-working toilet, but he’s coming back, which makes me feel sort of ill.

Also, I just really miss my damn dog.