Maximum Squirrel Overload

It’s Monday, ya’ll, which means another full week OF DREAD.  I like to be prepared, so I started my dreading early – Sunday night – when my anxiety reached top notch and I had to decide how to calm it down.  Oh, sure, there are lots of ways, but you have to be able to GET to those ways in order for it to work.  For instance:

Round round get around I get around ooooh get around oooooh I get around I get arouuuuunnd all over town I’m a real cool squirrel blah blah blah blah blahhhhh!

Music!

Music can be calming.  But once you reach Maximum Squirrel Overload, you are kind of past that.  No kind of music, saying you were calm enough to find a music player, is going to make you feel better.  There are a few types of music.  Sad music: bad idea cause you are already anxious and probably depressed about being anxious and sad songs won’t help.  Happy music: bad idea too because what business do people have being happy when you are freaked out?  Then there’s rap music most of which I think is best classified as Angry music because there is much talk of popping caps in posteriors.  Popping a cap might help with anxiety, but the jail time afterward would not, so don’t try it.  Also, what are your chances of being able to find the gun?

No, the dog won’t work as a substitute.

Exercise!

I love when people say to work out your anxiety or depression with exercise.  Look, people, I have no idea where any of my sweatpants are, and if I did, they would be dirty. Then I would have to wash them.  And dry them.  And put them on.  That’s way too much work when your mind is going 1,000 miles an hour.  You are already getting a mental workout, and trying to add physical to it can be too much.  I guess the best way to describe it would be to expect someone to solve 500 quadratic equations, cure Cancer, and write a symphony, then tell them they had to do this all on the treadmill or elliptical.  Now yes, if you manage to get to a gym before you reach Squirrel Overload, you have a chance of physically beating that anxiety back, but if it comes on suddenly, it’s just way too late.

I can turn this exercise bike into a real one with the power of anxiety! Vroom!

Hot, soothing beverage!

This is usually my best bet, except this time I could not make the cocoa because even though I had cocoa packets, I did not have milk.  Well, I had milk, two half gallons, but they had both expired. Saying I was able to force myself to pour the milk (which might come up in chunks which milk should never do) down the drain without barfing, I couldn’t because there were already dishes in the sink.  So first I would have to put the dishes in the dishwasher.  Except the dishwasher is full so then you have to put the dishes up except that they didn’t all come clean, so they have to go back in the sink.  No one wants milk curds on top of that.  So forget it.  Finally I drove to McDonald’s for some, but they “broke” the machine.  I would break it too if I worked there, but still.  I had to drive yet another place before I finally got my cocoa.  Then I remembered I hadn’t taken some of my pills, so I swallowed them with cocoa only to swallow them wrong and get heartburn.  Once I had finished taking care of the heartburn, I managed to go to bed.  That, my friends, is way too darn much work.

Look I just want some calming cocoa in my gun mug!

Humor!

The last thing I feel when under Squirrel Overload is funny although I probably act rather amusing and or terrifying (it’s such a fine line) when under the influence.  This morning I was not as sparkified, just dreadish, and telling myself that I just had to go to work for a little while even though I wanted to stay home.  So I drove my Things to school and somehow the conversation diverted to dead dogs because – are you really surprised with us?  Anyway, we discussed Where the Red Fern Grows which is a classic children’s book because it involves two dead dogs AND a dead child (for more on the dead dog topic see my post on dead dogs in literature.  It’s a real romp.) And the Things, who were both forced to read this book, reminded me that the bully in the book was killed and I was like oh when he was mauled to death and they said no, an ax fell on him.  Which is such a great image there.  And I was like, dang, that author had some sort of personal vendetta against dogs and boys named Billy.  And Thing Two said, “Mom, it was just an AXident.”  Get it?  Well, we did, and we laughed, because we have problems.  But not as many as the author of Where the Red Fern Grows.

Okay, guys, time to die!

So the dread is still there, but at least I made it to work.  And when I think of that horrible pun about an ax falling on a kid, I smile.  I guess when you are on Squirrel Overload, it helps to have a couple of Things handy.  I’m willing to rent them out.

Alice