Secrets, Lies, and Frozen Pizza

Yesterday, I lied to my husband.

But let me backtrack a bit.

Yesterday SUCKED ASS. The day began with my annual poking-and-prodding appointment at the OB/GYN, and went downhill from there. There was a slight reprieve while I went to the gym for about an hour and a half, like putting the bad karma in suspended animation for a while (hmm...an interesting mental image...), though the gym was not entirely without its annoyances, such as the two young women working with a (male) personal trainer on free weights and balance balls. The two girls would periodically scream with exaggerated laughter, which is irritating even when your iPod is loudly blasting "Jesus Built My Hotrod" in an attempt to drown them out.

But overall, the gym was okay. Then, my plan was to take some long-overdue recycling to the NexCycle recycling trailer that's parked in one of the shopping center parking lots. I'd spent several minutes earlier that morning sorting the plastic, glass, and cans and putting them into separate bags and toting them all out to the car. So when I pull up to the recycling trailer, the dude is sitting in his car and says he's just going to lunch and will be back in 45 minutes. This annoyed me. Who takes lunch at 1:30? (Besides me, of course, since I'd just gone to the gym.) Needless to say, I had other things to do and wasn't going to rearrange my schedule just so I could be at the recycling guy's beck and call.

So then I made a brief stop at the grocery store before heading home to eat and shower. That's when the cycle of deceit began. I had purchased a Stouffer's French Bread Pizza as a mid-afternoon lunch/snack and proceeded to put it in the toaster oven. I took a shower, put on fresh clothes, and emerged just in time for the pizza to be done. I cut the pizza into easy-to-handle segments and brought the plate out to the TV tray I had set up in the living room. Then, inches from the tray, I somehow managed to drop the plate. (I drop things a lot. I often break them, too, but not this time, since there was carpet.) Predictably, the pizza landed mostly face-down on the carpet, smearing tomato sauce on a) the couch cover which I just washed last weekend and b) the clean pants I just put on. Pretty impressive, considering this is not a very large amount of pizza we're talking about.

After screaming loudly for several minutes, I cleaned up the pizza and sauce and threw the couch cover into the washing machine (AGAIN). Then I went into the new addition where I'd last seen the Dustbuster, so I could vacuum up the snowfall of crumbs which had also accompanied the pizza disaster. But, lo and behold, when I tried to vacuum up the crumbs, the Dustbuster made that sad little descending whine that means it's running out of juice since apparently nobody bothered to recharge it in recent memory.

So I put it back on the charger, screamed again, and then proceeded to crawl into bed and take a nap. But--and here's the lie--I washed, dried, and replaced the couch cover before Rob even got home, and the Dustbuster was charged up enough to vacuum the crumbs by early evening. There's no need for him ever to know I had an embarrassing pizza accident. It's just too mortifying to even think of telling him. And I won't hear the end of it, just like the time I dropped a full cup of coffee in the hallway and it splashed everywhere so thoroughly that we were finding coffee droplet stains months later. That happened years ago and it still comes up in conversation.

Anyway, now I'm about to do a thorough vacuuming of the living room with the giant Rainbow unit, so nobody will ever know. SHHHHH.