Sometimes I have a contest with myself about just how unsexy I can get my CVS shopping cart to look.
This week was pretty good: Toothpaste, Lysol air freshener, (heavily discounted, already super cheap) shampoo & conditioner, a double-pack of Arm & Hammer deodorant and… Miralax. Believe it or not, I still felt compelled to find some way to indicate to the circa-27-year-old pharmacist-in-training that the constipation relief wasn’t for me.
“Is this stuff safe for kids?”
I knew full well it was — our pediatrician recommended we pick some up for our three-year-old after he suffered a (weirdly cheerful) RECTAL PROLAPSE (more on that deeply unsexy experience another time). But this dude didn’t know that.
It doesn’t help that, most of the time, I’m purchasing these sorts of items at the pharmacy counter while picking up thyroid and psych meds. In fact, it seems the lamer my shopping list gets, the more crazy my prescription pick-ups get.
Every postpartum drug store trip was off the charts. Think: laxatives, anti-gas meds, anti-hemorrhoid meds, anti-anxiety meds, antacids, GIANT super absorbency pads, lipgloss (because there needs to be something in that lineup that says I still care), anti-cold-sore meds, A SITZ BATH, and probably some cheap, boxed wine…all in the same shopping trip. If I could dig up the receipt for this exact purchase, I totally would, just to prove this really did happen.
Oh, and let’s not forget I was always shopping for these items having not showered in recent memory, and while wearing the only pair of nappy sweats that would fit over my bag-of-frozen-peas-stuffed adult diaper.
The bottom line here is that my life used to be sexy. And now it’s not. File this post under reason #87 that I drink wine.
Here’s what relaxation looked like before kids:
A lifetime ago
Here’s what it looks like now:
At least I won’t get bored
Please note the interrogation lighting.
Here’s what my nightstand looks like right now:
There’s probably room for one more beverage
Please note the conspicuous lack of really anything sexy here. No adult toys, no flowers, inexplicably no wine, and that creepy orange dinosaur again. That little jar in the back could *maybe* pass for massage oil, or maybe some holistic sort of lube… but no. It’s an unused candle. And yes, that’s an empty package of cookies. That I devoured during an epic Family Feud marathon while my husband slept — snoring and fully clothed — next to me.
I put this all out there not to be all woe is me about my horrible, unsexy life. I’m actually hugely lucky. And sometimes we can gauge just how lucky we are by how petty all of our issues seem.
James’ little orange dinosaur, following me around the house, gouging the bottom of my foot as I trip on it en route to the bathroom in the middle of the night, is a reminder of this.
Contrary to what all of our whining and assertions of exhaustion might indicate, it’s really not hard to dim the lights, slap on something that makes us feel the way we did when we were 24, turn the TV off, light a candle, maybe not pee with the door open…and, while we’re out at the drug store, pick up some of that K-Y Intense that we keep seeing commercials for during our late night Family Feud marathon…
If anything, the intimacy that comes with knowing you can send your significant other — the very same one who informed you that you did, in fact, poop while giving birth (“It was just a little one!”), despite your claims that you didn’t — to the store to pick up some Preparation-H for you, along with a 6-pack of Miller Lite, is as sexy as it gets.