GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY INSPECTION STICKER, MOTHHHHHERFUCKKKKKAH!

Note: title inspired by this Darkness song, to which Junket introduced me with her usual head-banging hyperbole: "Ooooh, MAN, this song rocks! It rocks so hard! You wouldn't BELIEVE the rocking this song does!"

As is usually the case, she was absolutely correct. It is impossible to listen to "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" without tapping your feet, banging your head and looking around to see if Justin Hawkins' ultrasonic screech has managed to drive any nearby poodles to permanent yippy insanity.

---

I haven't cried all week.

That's saying something, considering the unholy ration of crap which I've been dealt over the past seven days.

Credit card information? Stolen. Car? Defiled, ravaged, possibly destroyed. Bathroom sink of my marital home? Still harbors the toothbrush of the Other Woman - whom, I hasten to add, did NOT help select and install the fucking thing. Screw my husband all you want, but for the love of god, don't dis a sistah's remodeling job with your adulterous Oral-B.

Y'know what, though? I'm... happy. Remarkably so. This is the first time in nearly a decade that I haven't been subject to the will and whim of a live-in male, and quel surprise, it's fabulous.

I'm taking J.Q. for long walks around the city, buying overpriced, malformed local produce at various farmer's markets (what can I say? I have a weakness for phallic fruit; I feel sorry that everyone else will do a double-take and then purchase a less-abjectly sexual specimen. Not me! I'll give you a good home, Mr. Bartlett. No, not THAT one, you sick bastards).

I'm decking out the Bachelorette Pad, and it's hilariously girly... We're talking scented candles, shoji screens, a refrigerator full of Buffalo-fu (new favorite lazy single-person recipe: shred one block extra-firm tofu, toss with equal parts bleu cheese dressing and Frank's Red Hot... which adds flavor AND sorely needed yang) and a personal-sized water cooler full of pink lemonade Crystal Lite. I might as well dub it Metformin Mansion, because anyone who enters its IKEA-bedecked confines may very well spontaneously ovulate.

I feel brighter, sexier, freer and more confident than I ever have. I don't want a damned person telling me they're "sorry" when they hear my tale of infidelity/weeping/therapy/separation... this may very well be the hackneyed Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.

Without further ado: Surely, Next Week Will Be Better:

---

The time: Saturday evening.

The place: The Bachelorette Pad.

The event: Deedle-dee-dee doo-doodle-doo-doo! (That'd be the ubiquitous Cingular ring... as opposed to "Don't Fear the Reaper" [Deedle-DOO-DOO, DOO-DOO-DOO, DOO-DOO-DOO!] or, even BETTER, the BREAK of "D.F.T.R." [DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE -MWOOOOOOW! MWWWOW! MWOOOW!, etc.])

Jul: "Hello?"

Woman on the other line: "Hi, this is BigAss CreditCardCo's Early Warning Department... we were just wondering if you were having problems using your card lately?

Jul: "Um, no... why?"

Woman: "So you didn't use it to... let's see... try to spend $1,738 at Famous-Designer's online store?"

Jul: [to self... does my purchase history indicate that I'd ever purchase a Famous-Designer product in my LIFE? Oooh, yes... and AFTERWARDS, let's ring up some Manolo Freaking Blahniks, cream-based cocktails and self-help books with titles like "Chisel His Reluctant Heart Free From the Cold, Cold Confines of His Chest Cavity in Thirty Days or Less!"] "I can assure you, that was NOT me."

Woman: "Oh! I see!"

[Ten fairly terrifying minutes later...]

Woman: "Okay, we'll send you a new card by overnight mail, and we'll begin investigating the unauthorized use of your old card."

Me: "Um, I'm not going to be liable for ten pairs of itty-bitty pointy shoes, am I?"

Woman: "No, you're not responsible for any unauthorized charges."

Me: "Because I'm a size 10, and - hello?"

---

The time: Sunday evening.

The place: two blocks from the Bachelorette Pad, the section of town in which the average type of house has begun to shift from "charming Trinity lovingly restored with $30,000 worth of Corian, including the toilet seat" to "burned-out husk harboring belligerent vagrants".

The event: Jul, cradling J.Q. in arms: "Wow, mommy was lucky to find that parking spot last night, huh, buddy? And there's mommy's car right over there! Um... say... didn't it used to have... um... more windows than that?"

Now, I've not always been the best at keeping my car strictly (or even minimally) legal. Several weeks earlier, tired of being pulled over more often than a member of Wu-Tang, I'd finally bitten the bullet and gotten the DecrepiCivic inspected.

I will give you ONE GUESS as to the only item taken... or "scraped off via razorblade", as it were.

I parked the car in the same spot the next evening (on the grounds that, hey, what's the worst they can do - STEAL it?). The vandals returned, this time taking a stepladder and a 12-pack of Jones Green Apple Diet Soda. This leads me to believe that my car was violated by a roving pack of sorority sisters. They apparently CONSIDERED taking my tent and sleeping bag, had second thoughts (possibly concerning the fact that the woods are YUCKY and full of BUGS; better to drink purloined diet soda and, shit, I don't know, stand two feet higher than one usually does?) and left them sitting behind the car. I considered hanging up a sign which read "STEAL ALL YOU WANT, BUT TAKE ALL YOU STEAL!"

---

The time: 6:00 this morning.

The place: Crap Highway, NJ, frequent guest star on local shows such as "MASSIVE MULTI-CAR PILE-UP MONDAY" and "OVERTURNED LIQUID NITROGEN TRUCK - CARS FROZEN TO ROAD NORTHBOUND, EXPLODING VIOLENTLY SOUTHBOUND. EXPECT DELAYS".

The event:

Jul: "LEMME GO OOOOOOOOOOOOOON, LIKE I'D BLISTER IN THE SUN! LEMME GO OOOOOOOOOON... hey, why am I slowing down? What's with all these lights? Cut it out! STOP LIGHTING UP!"

[Jul and J.Q. coast gently to a stop on the shoulder]

Jul: "Well, shit. I'm sure this is IN NO WAY related to that weird rattle which I've been ignoring for weeks."

The Jul/Caer/Junket Bond of Sisterhood is more close-knit than the finest sheet in the swankiest hotel (sounds like good fodder for a rap battle, huh?: "Call me the philatelist, what with all the ladies I MOUNT / 'cause I'm SMOOTH and I'm SOFT, with the highest THREAD-COUNT!"); within minutes, Caer and her van had come to my rescue. While waiting, J.Q. and I stood on an embankment and shot the breeze.

J.Q. : "Cah! Cah! Cah cah cah cah!"
Jul : "Yep, that's a car. You tend to see a lot of them when you're broken down by the side of the highway."
J.Q. : "HA HA HA!" [yanks frantically at Jul's shirt]
Jul : "Dude, this is neither the time NOR the place. C'mon, cut it out. Well... okay. Just a sip, though."