Shit Happens – Melbourne Seasons Give Me Tourette’s.

I absolutely love living in Melbourne.  Unlike the Northern States, we still get to light a fire in Winter, see the beautiful array of fallen leaves in Autumn, watch the birth of new growth in Spring and get a real Summer… but I don’t really cope with the extremes!

I am happy when winter arrives.  I like to be able to rug up, to sit in front of a crackling fire with a glass of wine, to lay in bed on the weekends and hear the sound of rain on the roof whilst I’m snuggled up inside.  I love soups and crusty bread and comfort food.  I love sitting near the window with a book, a blanket around my shoulders, my hands clutching a hot cup of tea.  The trees are bare and the sky is a beautiful hue of grey and it all makes me happy to be alive.  I don’t mind that it spits on me when I go on my daily walk, I welcome the change of season. 
Moisture and my hair are not a good mix so drizzling rain and fog is starting to piss me off.   I have just spent an hour tediously straightening my hair so it looks smooth and glossy but just the trip from the house to the garage completely fucks my whole do over.  Even with an umbrella, the wind whips up and blows the rain under the brolly, turning the umbrella inside out so I not only get rained on but flapped half to death by the umbrella as I try in vain to turn the fucker back the right way, almost losing an eye on a broken spoke.  By the time I get into the car I’m screaming expletives, punching the steering wheel and calling Mother Nature a surly bitch.  I fucking HATE the rain! 
Fog flies right under the radar and I don’t even notice how moist the air is until reach the car, congratulating myself on getting to the car with my locks unaffected only to look into the mirror and note a pubic mass of frizz that now frames my face. I grit my teeth so hard they make a gnashing sound and I squeeze the steering wheel screaming “Son of a BITCH” on top of my lungs.  I have hail belting my face on my afternoon walk and I cannot escape the icy wind, which keeps blowing my cap off.  A car goes zooming past and drives through a giant puddle which sprays muddy water over me in a wave of filth.  By the time I make it home, my t-shirt is wet and plastered to my skin, my hair hangs dripping  about my face and my mouth is tight and pinched like a cats arse.  I am sick of winter, winter is pissing me off.  I’m sick of being hunched up and cold.  I’m sick of the sound of rain on the roof.  I don’t want to wear bulky coats and tights and multiple layers anymore.  If one more person regales me with tales of their fucking trip to the ski fields I am going to kick them in the throat!  The cat rises from the comfort of the duct she has been draped over and stands and the door.  She needs to go out to pee but she doesn’t want to get her paws wet and she hates the rain.  She tentatively places a paw outside the door; her ears twitch and she starts to back up, back inside the door indecisively.  I help her make the decision with the nudge of my foot against her backside.  She looks back at me and regards me with glacial loathing, flicking water off a back paw.   She is sick of winter too.  I am counting down the days until spring arrives and I’m so fucking over winter that I cannot even think of Mother Nature without clenching my fists.  I wonder as I sit on the heating duct, which is blowing hot air up my arse, if I’ll ever feel completely warm again.

Spring turns up and I feel relief.  It’s only three months until summer arrives.  I feel buoyed by the thought of long lazy days and the sound of crickets in the evenings.  The first two weeks of spring yields a higher rainfall than the entire winter season.  The garden is finally green again, all the plants and trees are sporting new buds and I want to feel happy but I’m so sick of a house full of drying washing and having water constantly flick up my calves as I pick you way through the puddles in the constant unrelenting fucking RAIN.  Then, amazingly, we are blessed with two days of 24°C and I could almost skip I’m so happy.  I am beaming my full volume mega-watt smile; finally the rain has stopped.  The next day we are punished with torrential rain that pours down at the EXACT moment I step out of the car.  Don’t mind the umbrella; I’ve just ruined a beautiful pair of heels as water rushes down the path over my ankles.  Now I’ve not only got wet shoes and legs but the downpour and resulting river it created in suburbia has put sand and dirt in my shoes making them rub painfully and it’s all just FUCKED UP!.  Mother Nature has elevated from a surly bitch to a Bi-polar whore and she’s off her medication.  I return home to see that the water rushing down my street has been too much and running too fast to go down the storm water drains so it has, instead, run down my sloping block taking with it my garden beds and top soil, which it has deposited in front of my garage doors.  Fucking MARVELLOUS.  Mother Nature needs to be impaled on a sharp instrument.  I have given up the moisture fight and wear my hair every day in a frizzy pony.  Someone at the office asks what the hell’s going on with my hair.  I fight the urge to comment on his thinning pate and mention instead my battle with moisture.  I am completely aware that I look like a native Fijian but choose to shelve my frustration.  I’m so over it, my ire has been reduced to a seething hot mess bubbling below the surface.
Two weeks after the deluge I am still cleaning up the carnage left by the freak storm but Mother Nature has found her medication and she is beaming beautiful sunshine down on me.  I feel a little forgiving towards her and venture out into the garden to note the snails and aphids are feasting on the new growth on my plants and the weeds have sprouted with steroid-esque fury.  I spray chemicals all over my garden and hope for the death of the pests.  

Summer finally arrives on the back of another week of rain.  I have embraced my Afro.  The temperature climbs steadily over the first weeks, cheering me inside as I plan Christmas and our Annual Holiday to the Alpine region in Victoria.  I pray for great weather for the big day and the following two weeks when we’re holidaying in Bright.  Mother Nature delivers in spades; our friendship rekindles and I hug myself, loving the Australian summer as I sit in an icy river with my family and friends, sipping a glass of Chardonnay.  The birds are singing, the sun is warm on my back and I am completely relaxed and happy.  The two week break has done wonders for my equilibrium and life balance.
The weather starts hotting up and now it’s actually getting a little uncomfortable; I no longer have a river to dive into when I overheat.  I return from the holiday to find my carefully cared for garden is burnt to a crisp and every plant is nearly dead.  This is despite having my father turn up every few days to spend a couple of hours watering it.  This occurs every year but it never gets easy to witness.   I want to throw a tantrum but it’s too hot so I conserve my energy.  I ponder on how extreme Mother Nature’s mood swings are.  I go and get the garden hose to give the poor plants a little drink but the water that pours out all over my feet is hot enough to boil pasta and I’ve scolded the top of my foot with liquid fire.  I have to run the hose for a good five minutes until the cool water comes out and pours onto my scolded foot.  I note that it has burned my foot exactly where my thongs sit and it’s going to hurt like a bitch for a good week.  I stand in the garden pouring life into it for hours as clouds of mosquitoes and midges surround me.  The cicadas are deafening and make my head ache with their pulsing cacophony.  I return to the house which feels about 150°C inside.  I switch on the air conditioner to make the house habitable.  The angry buzz and thwack of a blowfly bouncing off the picture window makes me want to splatter it, but I don’t have the energy.  I am sick of sweeping up clumps of cat fur from the furniture and floor as the cat tries to rid herself of the insulation hugging her tiny body.  She is vomiting fur balls almost daily and I am tired of cleaning it up.  I give her fish oil hoping it will help with the digestion of the said balls…she vomits it back up with the fur so I am faced with a slimy fishy fur ball on my floor.  Fuck!
It’s been hot for six weeks now and I’m starting to get a rash under my breasts and I’m not sleeping because it’s so fucking hot and the bastard snoring beside me is giving off the kind of heat that could roast a fucking leg of lamb and I’m so tired and frustrated there is going to be a ‘psycho’ moment with a knife in this bedroom if I don’t get the fuck out.  I get up and stomp to the living room and star fish on the couch with the air conditioner pointed at my crotch and wait for my core temperature to drop.
The hot weather turns into a heatwave of over 40°C for seven days straight and I start to get REALLY intolerant.  I am inventing swear words because the current ones in my vocabulary are not filthy enough to describe my ire.  The cat walks three paces and drops like a sack of shit to the floor.  She is too hot to meow and only manages a soft “Meh”.  She looks at me with those big exhausted eyes, imploring me to shoot her, NOW.  I squat to pat her and she gives me a death stare and flicks her tail.  She has heat induced Tourette’s too and is swearing at me with every flick of her tail.  I risk being clawed to death as I scoop her up and deposit her down stairs on the cool tiles of the bathroom.  She flops on the tiles and closes her eyes.  I am her angel.
The heatwave is so hot and goes on for so long that half of the air conditioning systems in Melbourne have given up and died.  This happens in the office and instead of 40°C; the unit is blowing hot air so it feels more like 67°C.  I sit at my desk with my hair frizzed from the steam my hot head is creating and it’s stuck to my neck and back.  My whole body is shiny in a gleam of sweat and I have rivulets of it running between my breasts, down my back, over my stomach and onto my knickers, which are wet from sweating.  I am sick of the sour smell of sweat on my body and I shower obsessively but cannot feel completely clean.  I sit boiling in the office thinking “fuck it’s hot” but I am too hot to actually utter the words.  I am drinking water constantly but cannot quench my thirst.  I forget to put the car in the garage and almost completely remove all of the skin on the back of my legs when I sit on the hot leather seats, which sear my poor legs and leave the car smelling like roasted pork.  The steering wheel is so hot I can barely grip it as I sit in the car, waiting for the air conditioner to take the temperature below 70°C.  I want to scream but I’m so tired from lack of sleep that I just sit there; the epitome of patience.
It gets too much in the hot office and the boss comes out of his office, his face shiny with sweat and his hair plastered to his head.  He states matter-of-factly that it’s too hot he’s going home to hop into the pool and that I should go home too.  In my head, I think “Oh lucky you” but it’s too hot and I am tipped over the edge as I glare at him and yell “It’s so fucking hot!  You can’t imagine what it’s like to have boobs in heat like this.  It’s fucking KILLING me!”  His eyes bulge slightly and he says solemnly, “Nope, can’t imagine what that’s like”.  I realise that I am having a Tourette’s moment but I cannot stop my rant “I’ve got sweat running down between my tits and I can’t cool off”.  His mouth is a grim line as he stands there, uncomfortable in my rant.  The anger saps what little energy I have left and I fight the urge to cry like a child.  I apologise for my outburst and tell him I have to go home too.  Jesus, where did that come from?  I am mortified by my outburst and worry that I have finally become completely unhinged.

Autumn arrives and brings with her another heatwave which makes me think Mother Nature is a psychopath and she is enjoying fucking with us.  We are puppets and she has a sinister smile of her face as she pulls our strings.  I am so completely over the heat that I find myself praying for a snowstorm.  I’m sick of salads and drinking litres of water.  I’m sick of hearing the hum of the air conditioner, sick of the sticky flies and the sound of the fucking cricket on the God damned television, sick of the burnt leaves and the smell of sun-baked earth.  My garden is a portrait painted in six different shades of shit and I take stock of the death toll as I carefully read the garden beds.  My speech is peppered with expletives and intolerance is an understatement. 

Easter arrives and with the snap of her fingers, Mother Nature is bored with her puppets.  She plunges us into the chilled air and the icy winds that are the prequel to our Winter.  I am grateful for the respite but I think she is a little harsh and wonder if she is looking for a place to hide her medication.  During the cooler weather I watch the leaves change colour and flutter to the ground to paint the exquisite portrait of Melbourne in Autumn.  Order has been restored to my world, which gently turns on its axis and the Tourette’s beast is quiet.  I imagine Mother Nature sitting in a wing chair knitting a scarf.  She is back on her medication.
We are two months into Autumn and I am sick of the leaves.  I wish they would all just plunge to the ground in a single muted rustle and let me sweep them up once and for all.  Every time I open the door they blow inside and scatter all over the floor.  I am constantly removing leaves that have become skewered to my heels.  The garden is covered in a thick carpet of wet mulch that stinks of damp and possum piss.  I can’t see my garden for the piles of leaves and the car floor is covered in them.  They stick under my windscreen wipers and smear possum shit all over my fucking windscreen.  The wind is relentless and blows my carefully swept leaf piles back over the path again.  Autumn is giving me the SHITS.  Mother Nature is sitting up with smile playing about her lips.  She is a fucking bitch!  I start counting the days until Winter arrives and the trees are all bare and the fucking leaves have stopped falling and I can finally stop sweeping and raking.

(Sigh) Doona Moolands

That SHITS Me!

Putting Fuel in the Car
Is there a more wasteful way to spend your time than standing beside your car looking like you’re holding a giant metal phallic bowser-dick?  You stand there as the longest minutes of your life tick by while you watch your hard earned dollars pour into your car in the form of fuel, to be used to take you to and from work, to earn your money so that you can put it back into your car?  This vicious circle shits me!  For a start, it should be instantaneous!  I don’t have time to wait for this annoyingly slow process and you know, when the sensor realises that the tank is almost full, it should stop BEFORE it splashes all over my hand and forearm or worse still, my suit jacket.  I don’t want to walk around smelling like I just did the horizontal tango on the floor of an auto repair shop!  It STINKS! 
Why is it that every time I want to check the air pressure in my tyres, some old fart car enthusiast has parked his pitiful old Jalopy in the allocated space; walking around it at the speed of a snail checking the tires (which look a lot like mountain bike tires) with his stupid dark burgundy beret strategically placed on his bald dome and his scarf carefully knotted at his elderly, creased throat?  Does he know he looks like a knob?  You’re not James Bond mate, you’re a tool and you’re wasting my time.  Piss off! 
When I go inside to pay, the attendant should be advised that I DON’T want to buy a fucking chocolate bar or pack of gum – I’ve just spent a cool $100 on fuel!  Wipe the bored expression off your face, be polite, speedy and efficient and let me get the fuck out of there.  Refuelling my car SHITS me! 

Bad Drivers, Slow Walkers & Sudden Stoppers
Bad drivers – this includes anyone with a blue-rinse or bowling hat driving at tortoise pace irrespective of the speed limit, gripping the steering wheel like it’s a life line, going around parked cars and changing lanes willy nilly without indicating their intentions to other road users; generally driving about like it’s still 1918! 
Blue collar Tradesmen who drive like they’ve got a flea up their arse, zooming right up to your bumper or darting between cars in the various lanes shit me.  They hurl verbal abuse and gesticulate their ire at anyone doing the speed limit or having the audacity to turn into a side street and generally behave like pugnacious ratbags.  Even though they dart about amongst the traffic like crazy angry ants, trying to get to the front of the pack so they can break the speed of sound getting home in time to crack a tinny or two before dinner, they still end up next to me at each set of lights so their road rage is all for naught.
Stupid wives (some possibly mail order)  who take fifteen minutes to perform a thirty-six point turn in their rich husband’s Mercedes Benz in a crowded underground car park, creating a long line of frustrated people waiting patiently for the stupid bitch to back the car in, only to tap the back wall with the bumper, shit me.  These women need to be slapped across the face with a prickly pear cactus.  You CANNOT drive so fuck off and take public transport.  Pain in my arse! 
Last but my no means least, let’s not forget those people who drive a roller skate sized car but park to the side of the car space, right up against my car door so I need a can opener to get back into my car and nearly rip my tits off in the process or just about tear myself a giant multifunctional orifice on the gear stick as I clamber over from the passenger side.  I usually cannot get into my car or drive away without a mini tantrum followed by a terse note under the wiper on this useless prick’s windscreen…and a prayer that there is a giant huntsman spider sitting silently… waiting under his driver’s side sun visor.  Fucker!

Slow walkers & Stoppers - this is a shared annoyance in my house.  Miss Marvellous, aka TheFandomAddict, did a whole YouTube rant on the subject – my favourite of her videos because I FEEL her frustration. 
If you’re walking in front of me, then walk and walk briskly.  Don’t meander along, changing direction or wandering about all over the path like a stoned and confused cow.  If you’re a slow walker, keep to the left because you’re going to get lost in my vapour trail as I power past you.  I have to get from A to B and if you’re in my way, I’m either going to go around you or yell loudly “EXCUSE ME” in your earhole, which is the politest way I know how to say “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!” 
Do not EVER just stop.  I don’t care if a scorpion has just stung your eyeball – if you need to take a minute, move off the path!  If you suddenly come to a halt whilst walking in front of me, you’re either going to get a smeared lipstick mark on your back, a Liverpool Kiss on the back of your head, footprints up the back of your legs or a combination of all three.  Amazingly, people with a cane or walking frame already understand these rules and don’t pose a problem; it’s the non-invalids who shit me the most, shuffling along oblivious to everyone around them.  STOP IT! Look around you, arsehole – IT’S A SHARED PATH!  Now move on and don’t shit me! 

Growing a Tail/Taking a Dump
What a wasteful and annoying use of my time taking a shit is.  There are so many other things I could be doing with my time that laying a length of cable.  There is no pleasure to be derived from this annoying necessity.  I cannot fathom how people (mostly men, in my experience) will seek out a newspaper or some other reading paraphernalia for this performance.  Why are you taking your time and looking like you are about to enjoy the experience?  It’s a shit – you’re ridding your body of rubbish.  You don’t announce loudly to your audience that you’re off to the ‘throne’, smack the newspaper on your hand and wink at us all, strutting off to the abode like you’re taking your place on a coveted gilded chair.  Why are you reading for half an hour with your arse hanging over a giant hole waiting for the crap to exit?  This behaviour is surely going to wave a huge ‘welcome’ sign at your guts to give up on fighting gravity and just slide on out ‘pink sock’ fashion.  What you should do is wait until the turtle pokes his head out, run like the clappers and then do the ‘drop and burn’ and get the fuck out of there.  It’s not a pleasurable experience!  SHITTING SHITS ME!

Dentists
 I hate you all.  You get all pissy with me for not visiting you in between the torture sessions and slowly declare the date of our last visit with your eyebrows arched in a condescending and accusational tone.  Well why do you think that is?  Could it possibly be because you look across at your assistant and tsk tsk at the view inside my mouth (which I take more care of than any other part of my body)?  Could it be because you use percussion drills and jack hammers on my teeth and ram your suction hose down my throat with total disregard for my gag reflex?  One of these days I’m going to throw up all over you… right after I’ve eaten a pizza with the lot!  The words ‘root canal’ do not conjure up images of happy sex in a gondola in Venice, these words give me the night sweats.  And why do I ALWAYS need a fucking crown?  I should be royalty by now for all the royal shit you’ve installed in my mouth.  When am I entitled to the throne, arsehole?  You charge like we’re all rolling in cash and just because some arsehole couldn’t pay you up front, I have to sign a legal document that promises I’ll pay for the pain you inflict.  You cause nothing but pain and leave me with nothing but pocket lint when I leave.  There has never been a time when I have paid you to look inside my mouth and then heard you say “hey, all looks good here, I’ll see you in six months”. I’d probably die of shock anyway because you ALWAYS find something on my check-ups.  That’s why I wait until my mouth is throbbing and I’m in that space where if someone held a gun to my head I’d beg them to pull the trigger, before I visit you, almost screaming at you to ‘rip the fucker out’.  And how many times do I need to remind you about my reaction to the adrenalin in the anaesthetic you use?  Every fucking time I sit there shaking like a half frozen Chihuahua; my pulse jumping about and my heart slamming against my ribs and watch your face register your error.  You’re an arsehole, read my file!  I hate you and all of your ilk!  I’d rather back up to a proctologist and let him finger my arsehole than pay you a visit.  YOU SHIT ME!

Smart-cars
I don’t care that these cars are fuel efficient and easy to park… they are fucking UGLY sorn-off pieces of SHIT! They’re touted as very safe but when your car is the size of a house brick, a single rear-ender would have this shit-mobile stuck right up under the wheel hub of an average sized vehicle (and probably cause severe spinal damage to the driver and single passenger, who had BETTER be thin or they’ll get STUCK in it like a frigging SARDINE).  Worse still, a truck would just drive over the stupid little pft pft piece of crap, thinking it had hit a bump in the road.  I HATE them.  I know my reaction to this hideous toy-like exhibit daring to call itself a car is irrational but I don’t care, I HATE THEM.  If you own one…you probably wear Jesus sandals with socks.  I THINK YOU’RE VERY FUCKING WEIRD!

Rant over!

Doona

Shit Happens At The Office - Wardrobe Malfunction

Any working mother will tell you that we’re always rushing.  Trying to fit so many things into every minute of every day…running around with a broom stuck up your arse so you can sweep the floor whilst you run; a sponge in your hand wiping fingerprints off the walls.  It’s crazy how busy our house gets.  You know that something has got to give and usually, for me, it’s my appearance. 

I hastily apply my makeup and often poke myself in the eye with the mascara wand so when I panic scrunch my eye, I get a giant black star circling it and then the whole freaking lot gets washed away in a flood of tears and I end up going to work looking like I’ve got pink eye (conjunctivitis); my eyeliner is rushed and appears thick and nowhere near the line of my eye so it appears that I’ve channelled Alice Cooper; my hair frequently has had a hissy fit and stands out on end in a pubic mass rioting all over my head like a bad 80s perm.  Of late, it’s been my clothing, although this is not a new phenomenon. There have been times when I’ve hastily dressed and neglected to ensure both breasts were inside my tank top (it’s ok, they were encased in a bra) and turned up to the office with one of the puppies running around the front yard.  I’ve dressed in the dark and rocked up in one dark brown heel and one black heel, both of completely different designs.  I called it  ‘mixing it up’… it was actually just ‘fucking it up’ but my colleagues went with it.  I’ve had a shirt that I had inadvertently worn inside out but somehow managed to completely button up (that’s a skill in itself); I’ve also buttoned shirts incorrectly so part of my breast and belly were on display with the mismatched buttoning (gifted?).  I’ve worn a pair of earrings to the office then flipped out when I discovered one was missing… then discovered that I had actually threaded two earrings through one hole.  What a tool!

At the moment my wardrobe is in desperate need of an update and overhaul but I absolutely LOATHE clothes shopping because every time I find something I like, I try it on and find it was designed for a stick insect with no tits or arse or it hugs my backside and thighs so tightly that I look like I’m trying out for a Nicky Minaj music video (I’m sure I could make his Anaconda want some of my buns, hon). Department store lighting and mirrors make me look like a fucking toad!  I stand in front of the mirror and think “yep, that fits beautifully” then I look to the left and right and catch sight of my arse and scream!  Where the fuck did all of that come from?  I hang the goddamned things back onto the coat hangers and storm out of the store with a view to make carbohydrates my enemy and start counting calories.  Then I drink half a bottle of wine with dinner, which I have devoured like a starving animal.

About six months ago I started walking about 9kms a day and have recently lost a few kilos as a result.  All of my skirts are now too big and too long and hang on my hips in a stupid way that doesn’t make me look slimmer but like a complete dork (perhaps I should get some fur-lined clogs to complete the look).  I keep putting off shopping but my wardrobe is sending me distress signals that are becoming embarrassing.

Shit happens to me extraordinarily often and as a result I take precautions.  I once witnessed a female colleague fall backwards over a chair at a morning tea and as her skirt flew up we all saw her reforestation project fluffing around knickers before her ankles ended up behind her ears and we  saw her big white knickers wedged halfway up her hail damaged arse.  I vowed then and there that shit like that is NEVER going to happen to me – so I wear bike shorts under my skirts.  Well thank fuck I do! 

Just last week as I was walking from the photocopier back to my desk, the zipper on my skirt gave with a dramatic ‘pop’ and with the waist being so loose, there was nothing to hold it up so it shimmied down my legs to pool around my ankles.  I was the only person in the office at the time, however, there were about ten people having a discussion outside the glass office door and many of them saw it.  I was standing there in very short bike shorts and high heeled knee length boots – like a pole dancer without a pole.  There was a six second brain fart where I stood there in shocked horror looking back at them before the lightening synapse sparked the appropriate reaction.  I tried to run behind the reception desk to hide my state of undress but tripped over the fallen skirt and executed an amazing impersonation of a baby giraffe learning to walk.  Yanking the skirt up, I opened the desk drawer and searched for a bulldog clip to hold the whole mess together.

The boss returned later and asked what was with the bulldog clip.  Not a fashion statement!  I relayed the events – he was grateful he’d been absent.  I threw the offending item of betrayal into the bin the moment I returned home.  The following day I called the boss to ask when he was coming back into the office as I had some documents for him to sign and he sheepishly admitted that he was on his way home.  He’d torn the arse out of his suit pants when he climbed into the car after his most recent appointment.  This made me laugh - Shit Happened to him too – transference?

Then, just this morning as I was exiting the car in the underground car park at the office, I stepped out of the car and my heel caught in the car floor mat.  I stumbled forward and in an attempt to break my fall and stop my teeth from smashing on the concrete floor (and because this panic action was more like thrusting my legs into the vertical splits than a delicate leap), I tore the split in the back of my skirt all the way up to the zip (which was only ten centimetres below the top of my arse).  Thankful for the bike shorts, I took the stairs in lieu of the mirrored elevator (I didn’t need an audience for my humiliation, looking at ‘all that arse’).  Immediately upon entering the office, I grabbed the stapler from the Reception desk, walked briskly to the bathroom and stapled that shit right back up again.  So here I sit as I write this, in a skirt that has been stapled all the way up, the sharp ends a constant reminder that no matter where or when, shit just keeps happening to me.