Today sucked. Literally, being cooped up in this big, empty house was sucking the life out of me. It wasn't even actually raining outside - just dribbling like broken, stingy faucets in the sky. My head ached from the artificial light of my laptop, but with the atmosphere dead and dreary as it was anyway, I might as well have kept looking up cat videos. It would keep me from looking up and addressing the humid, dark, muckiness outside.
Furiously slamming my computer closed and groaning like the unbelievably deprived teenager I was - the internet just cut out - I took an Advil. The washing machine hummed rhythmically in the laundry room. Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm... Almost like a clock, ticking away at whatever time I had left. In general, I mean. It wasn't like Mom would be home from work in an hour and I still hadn't done the dishes.
I lied down, procrastinating - I mean, contemplating - on the couch. Had I spent my entire summer Facebooking and YouTubing only to end up here, having not appreciated the endless sunshiny days I had until they were gone?
Whoa, gettin' deep up in here. Honestly, I'd RATHER procrastinate than actually have to think about things.
Instead, mostly out of guilt, I started on the Mount Rushmore of dishes. In a desperate attempt at, you know, fun, I sang the supposedly uplifting "Let it Go". The wind wasn't even howling like this swirling storm inside when I remembered how I couldn't sing.
So, I Googled "How to Sing". There we go - back to my good old, procrastinating self.
I didn't realize something was off - the hyperlinks' change from blue to orange I blew off as some fancy new page layout - until I read some results. Basically, I was told to drink a concoction of chocolate milk, coconut oil, and oregano. That was it. Oh, and apparently doing so from a roughly-rinsed shampoo bottle, while walking upstairs and wearing a top hat, offered the best results. Well, I really didn't want to do the dishes...
I don't know how this happened, but at the top of my staircase, wearing my dad's lame party accessory and holding my now empty shampoo bottle, my vocal chords just...opened up. I felt every sound, note, WORD that came out of me. Here's the thing: I don't sing in the shower, but right now I might as well have been naked, clean and Beyonce.
Beaming, I frolicked through the house, singing anything I could think of (whatever I've heard on the radio recently). Halfway through "Problem" by Ariana Grande - ooh, dat high note dough - I found myself in the kitchen, Googling "How to get Dishes Done Faster".
All this took was ketchup, mustard, whip cream, strawberry juice, rice milk, salmon pudding, and a dash of actual soap. I boiled a cup and a half of water, mixed in all ingredients in their exact order with their precise measurements. Finally, twirling a wooden spoon and taking a Selfie, I watched the brownish-blackish liquid levitate from the still boiling pan and onto the heaping pile of dishes. Then I put them away. This actually happened - I have the Selfie to prove it.
From here, I spent the next fifty-some minutes filling up my web history with How-To's, such as: "Clean the Whole House", "Clean Cell Phone", "Type Faster", "Learn a New Language", "Perform CPR", "Start a Fire Without Matches", "Put Out That Fire", "Custom Design Clothing", "Bake Cookies", "Put Out an even Bigger Fire", and "Deal With a Rainy Day".
This last one was just a bit tricky. Sure, playing the Violin, training the caterpillar, finding the champagne and using the pajamas would be simple enough - I was concerned about the bacon. I was pretty sure we were out of bacon.
Thankfully, Dad always had a hidden stash in the junk drawer. In the midst of digging for the pig fat, I also found a make-up mirror. Surely, Mom would be curious about the USB drive in my ear, gardening hose duct taped to my arm, and peanut butter painted on every corner of the house when she got home. But when I would explain how the peanut butter was meant to soak into the house overnight, both to her and in flawless German, she'd get it. If not, I'm sure Google could help me erase her mind.
Having fried the bacon, I took my supplies out on the back porch. That smell of muddy, wet earth was still unbearable, but I ignored it and focused. I placed the bacon inside the pajamas before folding them. My caterpillar sprinkled both frying oil and champagne over the PJ's while I played some Taylor Swift on a Violin - her old stuff, don't be ridiculous. Finally, I bunched up the PJ's, looked up at the ugly sky, and wiped.
Literally, I imagined I was cleaning a window or sliding-glass door. I'm not kidding - wherever my homemade rag moved, a streak of blue followed. Excess cloud even occasionally gathered at the end of my rag, oddly enough. Some thicker clouds were harder to wipe away, since they were still precipitating, but with some extra elbow grease they vanished with ease. I'd never had so much fun cleaning before - I even traced a distinct heart out of the leftover clouds in front of the sun. I was about to wipe it away when some cold hands grasped my shoulder.
"Holy - What the - Mom?"
"What is going on? How the hell are you - The sky, it's -" For a doctor, she didn't have the strongest vocabulary at times.
"Oh, I know right? See, I Googled 'How to Deal With a Rainy Day, got some bacon, champagne -"
"Is that why there's peanut butter all over the house? And a...hose attached to your arm? Is that a USB?" Wow. Parents.
I reached down for the bundle of pajamas I dropped. "Mom, everything's fine. I've just been Googling a lot."
"How? You said the internet was out."
Hang on. "I - When did I tell you that?"
"You called an hour ago, whined for ten minutes about what to do, how to do it and could I possibly make life any harder for you. I assume you got it working again?"
"But I -"
"Well, I'm glad you've been enjoying yourself." I swear, this woman could go from hot to cold in an instant. "I spent my entire break telling you how to restart it again. You hung up on me halfway through."
"I didn't call you."
"What are you saying? That the internet didn't go out, that I WASN'T worthy of being scolded due to your unhappiness?"
"Yes, the internet went out, but I literally don't REMEMBER - "
This went on for a while, especially if you include the unfair month-long grounding that went down as a result. I would, since this was the day that stunned nephrologists - dudes who studied clouds, I Googled it - everywhere. Witnesses described it as someone erasing the white board of a sky, and leaving behind a distinct heart in front of the sun. Videos and pictures went viral as a sign, aspiration, proof of God's existence. Of course, until overtime when the stupid people of the internet made memes praising lucky rather than awkward moments in everyday life (THANKS, BRO). Still, nephro- SCIENTISTS, wouldn't be able to describe what happened.
I guess I really am a procrastinator at heart.