I am 100% behind National Coming Out Day on October 11th, but the Coming Out Day that happened the past Saturday? Noooooooo! If you are lucky enough to live somewhere that has, thus far, avoided the stink bug invasion, you are SO LUCKY. Saturday was their Coming Out Day, and by that I mean OMG THERE ARE SO MANY STINK BUGS.
I suppose they emerged because the weather was mild. I know they were looking to upgrade their hiding places for the winter as they were creeping and crawling all over ever surface the eye could see. When we pulled into the parking lot at the car dealership, you would have thought it was partly cloudy outside. But, no, there were just THAT many stink bugs flying around. There were fat ones and skinny ones and big ones and small ones and evil ones and eviler ones and the point is, THERE WERE THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF THEM. FLYING. CRAWLING. IN MY SPACE.
(Before you start thinking you need to bust through your computer and take away my CAPS LOCK key, no REALLY, it looked like like the world was ending. At one point, I literally counted 116 of them crawling on one window of the dealership.) (Yes, I'm a dork who randomly counts things.)(All the time.)
The stink bug apocalypse made the whole car buying experience a whole special level of suck. I mean, it would have been suck no matter what, but when you have to spend every single second of car buying torture darting your eyes to and fro to make sure there isn't a stink bug trying to crawl into your ear, EVERYTHING is harder.
Our salesman was one of those jerks who likes to play games.
The stink bugs were trying to fly into my ears.
It was hot. (This is coming from she-who-is-always-cold, btw.)
A certain 4-year old was in no mood to sit around and wait for three hours.
All of that came together to create a perfect storm of stress. Problem Numero Uno was the salesman who apparently had a stash of hard liquor and a really good movie around back because he wouldn't stay at his desk for even two seconds. Each time he would return, his listening skills would be crappier than they were five minutes prior. I could have used every ounce of my energy just trying to get him to quit being a pain in the butt. However, there was the matter of the stink bugs.
The stink bugs were crawling on the windows, both inside and out. They were creeping all up on down the doors, often going on kamikaze dives for the indoors if anyone so much as bumped the door. They kept falling from the ceiling, sometimes landing on the desk. I swear, they were all staring at me and my pretty ears.
Alexis is normally good for a solid hour if I give her my phone to play games on. Not Saturday, though. She made it about fifteen minutes before she decided sitting around was entirely too boring and that she needed to start using my nerves as a trampoline. *bounce* *bounce* *bounce*
I have no idea how the nerves didn't snap. I kept pleading with the salesman to hurry up before the ticking time bomb disguised as a little girl took out the entire tri-state area, but he was clearly not paying any attention to anything. He would be all, "She's being so good!" before he'd go run off to hide again.
She was only being good if you managed to not make eye contact with her. At first I thought it was a good thing and that it would make everyone hurry up, but not so much. They still moved slower than molasses, when they weren't hiding.
But then I figured out how to handle at least one of my problems. I couldn't vaporize the stink bugs with a stare. I couldn't smack the salesman upside the head. I could, however, tell the kid that if she didn't chill out, the stink bugs were going to start trying to get in her ears.
I WIN.
Dear Future Alexis,
You can just go ahead and send me the therapy bills. We're good.
Love,
The Momma Who Just Wanted to Get the Heck Out of There With a Brain Cell Intact