Really?

Oy, Oy, Oy, Oy, Oy!

My morning started normally enough.

After I fed the dog, fed the outdoor birds and fed the indoor bird, I loaded the indoor bird onto her perch and took my breakfast to the couch where I happily ate my scrambled eggs and drank my coffee as I watched my morning talk shows.

I pulled out my laptop and started checking my mail.  Jolene camped out next to me on the couch to wait for lunch time.  So far it was a nice relaxed morning.

2 hours later I had to pee.  This meant I had to get up off the couch and go upstairs.  It was the perfect opportunity to turn everything off and get ready to go grocery shopping.

I closed my laptop, gathered my dishes and got up.  Jolene knew it was time to go and jumped off the couch to wait for me.  First I had to get the bird so she could go back into her cage, which can be a challenge, but we had a routine that made it easy. 

I grabbed a sunflower seed and asked her to come to momma.  Thankfully, she came without me having to coerce her with more seeds.  Sometimes she decides she needs a little more time and I have to be patient with her.  There's no hurrying a bird, especially a temperamental bird like mine.  Once she was on my arm I grabbed my dishes and turned off the lights and three of us went upstairs to the kitchen.

Boy, I really had to pee - but first I had to put the dishes in the sink.  Then I took the bird to the front door - this was part of our routine.  As she waited patiently on my shoulder I attached the suction cup perch on the glass of the door and tried to lure her onto it with a couple of sunflower seeds, but she wanted to show her appreciation first and cuddle with my cheek.  I tried not to dance the "full bladder" dance, pretended to appreciate her appreciation because I wanted to encourage her attempts at being nice to me, and after a couple of trying minutes (trying my patience, trying my bladder) I was able to get her off my shoulder and safely on the perch.  Then I opened the door a couple of inches to get the mail out of the mailbox that was right outside on the wall. Once I retrieved the mail I closed and locked the door against any accidental openings and letting the bird out of the house.  Even with clipped wings my bird can fly.

We did this so that I could have some time to take her dish of prepared fruit and veggies out of the fridge and put it in her cage.  If I did it before she went back to her cage she wouldn't get territorial and try to bite me.  So after I sorted the mail I went into the kitchen to get her dish.

Now, I was fighting the clock.  If I went to the bathroom first it would take too long; the bird would get antsy and fly to the top of her cage before I was ready, and it would be tricky getting her in it.  I could wait until she went in to eat, then close the door, but in my mind that was another battle I didn't have time to deal with and couldn't wait for her.  So I concentrated on holding my water and went straight to the fridge and got the dish out.

While I was there, I took out the food for the dog.  The plan was I'd put the bird food in the cage, get the bird safely inside, go to the bathroom and then feed the dog.

Well.

I put the bird's dish in her cage and went to the front door.  Good, she was being patient with me today.  I lured her back to my arm with another sunflower seed, then noticed there was an almond shell on the floor.  As I decided it was there because Jolene left it there, I bent down to pick it up.  I couldn't risk Jolene trying to swallow it.  I reached for it just as Jolene showed up - we raced to see who'd get it first.  I did.

Suddenly my hand was covered with ants.  Crap!

I instinctively dropped the almond.  Jolene instinctively grabbed it.  The bird instinctively hung on for dear life as I grappled with the dog to get the stupid almond shell out of her mouth.

OMG, my bladder will explode any second now.

I'm yelling at the dog and secretly hoping the bird will stay calm and not bite my ear. She did this last week and my ear is still healing.  Luckily Jolene was tickled by the ants and dropped the stupid almond.  I grabbed it, raced to the back door for some weird reason, and threw it out the door.  While the door was open I shook off some of the ants.  Miraculously the bird stayed on my shoulder.

I tried to stay calm for my bladder's sake.  I grabbed yet another sunflower seed and lured the bird onto her perch on the inside of the cage door, then slowly shut the door on her.  There were still a few ants crawling up my arm.  I squashed them as fast as I could.  Whew!  The bird was tucked away, the ants on my arm were dead.

But before I could head upstairs to the bathroom I had to contend with the rest of the ants,  so I went back to the kitchen, grabbed a can of bug spray, ran to the front door, picked up the rug in front of the door and threw it outside, ants and all; I could see little ant bodies flying everywhere.  Then I sprayed the heck out of the floor and the door jam.

Once I could tell that the ants were all dead, I considered going outside to see how they got in in the first place.

But I REALLY HAD TO PEE!

So I decided it could wait and finally headed for the bathroom.

But now I found that every move I made increased the risk of my peeing my pants.  So I slowly headed for the stairs.  Very slowly.  I took a step, paused to relax my bladder, took a step, paused to relax my bladder, took a step and hoped no one was standing outside my front door watching me, then paused again to calm my bladder.

Miraculously I made it upstairs to the bathroom with dry pants, but:  now I have a knot in the sash that's holding my shorts up. 

I struggled and struggled, and long story shortened:  I did not wet myself.

I'm too old for this stuff.

(P.S.  I never did find the ant trail into my house, Jolene got fed, and I did get to the grocery store, where I forgot to buy half of the groceries I went to the store for in the first place but I did bring home stuff I found that looked good.)