OMG, what will you wear to the apocalypse?

A brief missive on the state of things

I nearly ran over myself this morning on my way to the YMCA. After slugging a cup of coffee and wiggling into my gym clothes, I got in my minivan, started the engine, clocked the frosted over windshield and thought ‘Eh, that’s not too bad, it’ll defrost quickly once I get going’ then shifted into reverse and began backing down the driveway.

A couple feet into backing out, after the wipers took their first goosebump-inducing scrape across the thickly iced windshield, I realized I should probably get rid of the ice with the small scraper I keep tucked under the driver’s seat. I put my foot on the brake, reached for the scraper, opened my door and hopped out of the van.

Instant vertigo as the van continued moving and I gaped in stupid confusion. What was happening?

Seconds lasted hours as I realized holy-fuck-I-left-the-van-in-reverse-I-need-to-chase-it-down-jump-in-and-hit-the-brakes.

Y’all, I grabbed the scraper, opened my door and got out of the van while it was reversing.

Like?

I can’t even fathom the brain deadness. Yes, it was 5:15 in the morning and yes, I’m backstroking though dangerous, riptide-riddled perimenopausal waters but still. This latest Monica maneuver takes the cake. You have to reeeally work at being this dumb. It’s like one of those Zen Koans! It takes hard perimenopausal work to achieve this level of empty-headedness. So sayeth the Buddha.

Within the seconds that lasted hours I had time to envision various tragic outcomes while contemplating jumping back in the car and worrying I wouldn’t get my foot on the break properly and what if I hit the gas in my panic and Oh my fucking god Monica move your ass and stop the minivan from rocketing backwards into the road!

I galumphed idiotically alongside the van - which was really moving now as it was in reverse and not the slow roll of neutral - and leapt gracelessly in the still gaping driver’s door.

Luckily, my adrenaline-pumped legs did what they were supposed to do and I stomped the brake, shifted the gear into a body-jerking park that nearly caused my forehead to kiss the steering wheel then heaved a shaky sigh of relief before berating myself out loud.

Holy shit, MONICA. You absolute dumbass!!!

The situation warranted a few moments of personal stunned silence amid the wider quiet beneath the early morning stars as I contemplated the breathtaking idiocy to which I had just leveled.

I was embarrassed in front of myself.

While this morning’s fuckery was surprising in the moment, in the grand scheme of my life it is extremely unsurprising and pretty much the way I envision my hopefully eventual but probably imminent untimely death.

It will be some spectacularly stupid, embarrassing shit like burning down the house after forgetting about the eggs hard-boiling on the stove, running over myself with my own minivan or dropping my iPhone on my face while laying in bed in just such a way that the blow instantly kills me. Million-to-one odds, type shit.

I will, of course, be discovered dead in bed to the soundtrack of bisexual threesome porn, probably starring Wolf Hudson, “King of Bi Porn.” If this does happen, Cory, lead with that in my obituary. I’m nothing if not an entertainer.

Beloved mother, partner, daughter, sister and friend died last week after she dropped her iPhone on her face while she searched for just the right bisexual threesome video to get the job done, resulting in an orbital bone shard arrowing directly through her temporal lobe into the hypothalamus, which is (ironically!) the part of the brain responsible for arousal.

Speaking of my bed, I woke up at some point in the devil’s hour early last Thursday and became increasingly aware of something perched delicately on my bottom lip.

As my mind swam to the surface of consciousness I gasped and inhaled the object into my mouth and, as I jerked awake, heard horrifying crunches reverberate through my skull.

I sat up choking and spitting shards into my palm and slowly realized I was chewing the veneer from my front tooth. Teeth falling out of mushy, rotten gums is a regular feature within the rotation of my worst nightmares just behind using the bathroom in front of a crowd and here it was, playing out in real life.

The veneer, which had easily chomped through several delicious Granny Smith apples in days previous had somehow sneakily absconded from a decade of togetherness with tooth number 8, coming to rest on my lip, dangling there like a cool-guy cigarette for who knows how long until I nearly aspirated it upon waking then inadvertently chewed it to pieces in fear.

Cap’n Crunch ain’t got nothing on veneer breakfast.

I have an appointment to get new veneers next week. In the meantime, I get to Zoom with co-workers and strangers several times a day and otherwise go about my life with a low-key snaggletooth situation.

Cory keeps trying to tell me he digs my temporary snaggleteeth, that it reminds him of sexy European women with screwy, natural teeth like Vanessa Paradis but he is not to be trusted in scenarios that involve telling me whether I look good, an outfit is complimentary to my figure or what he thinks about the bangs I once cut myself on a whim after binging New Girl starring the effervescent, super bang-able Zooey Deschanel.

An admirable, instinctive survival mechanism kicks in and Cory intuitively defaults to strictly positive responses to these types of queries. I can’t blame him not wanting to brave my reaction to a truthful response to a haircut/outfit/teeth interrogation. Long story short; he is not to be trusted in these scenarios and I am no Vanessa Paradis.

I am trying to view my missing veneer as a wonderful opportunity to subvert the beauty industrial complex as outlined last time we all met up here to discuss life chez Monica and it’s kind of working?

My messed up teeth are weirdly inspiring a tough, don’t-fuck-with-me attitude in a similar vein as when I buzzed my hair. If I manage to not run over myself when the apocalypse finally comes, I will probably go veneerless with a buzz.

Omg, what will you wear to the apocalypse?

Day 196