To me, the great unknown is the emotional equivalent to having bamboo shoots hammered up my fingernails. Put another way, sitting in limbo is the poop raining down upon my happy parade, making all the clowns cry and the tuba player wishing the opening of his instrument wasn't quite so basket-like. It's my nemesis, and I've had to spend a lot of time with it the last couple of days. Spawnling's ECG was yesterday morning. We were to sit in the waiting room and the nurse was to come out after speaking with the technician to tell us how the little gremlin's heart is doing. Problem? The nurse was busy, so they sent us home to wait for her phone call. Do you have any idea how long it takes for medical professionals to get around to calling people back? I suspect we may have answers by the time Spawnling starts collecting a pension. And yes, I was one of those moms and called to let them know we were still waiting on answers. Guess what? That was about as effective as Sarah Palin teaching a sex ed class.

2.  THE SIX-DAY WEEKEND

Who do I strangle at the school board for deciding to lump three PD days together and stick them before the already long Thanksgiving weekend? Now I get to listen to the cheery sounds of my children trying to kill each other for the equivalent of three back-to-back weekends. School board genius, I haven't even recovered from summer vacation yet. The twitches have stopped but the nightmares still come in droves. What were you thinking? Do you hate stay-at-home-parents? Do you envy our bonbon-eating, Ellen-watching, pyjama-wearing ways? Why must you do this? The exhaustion is already setting in after only a single day of uncooperative, un-sharing, unbridled chaos. When the turkey's tryptophan kicks in on Monday I'll probably lapse into a coma. How on earth am I supposed to experience an "a-ha moment" with Oprah in a coma?!

3. THE CLUELESS MARKETER

A) Are you serious? This is a different woman altogether.

B) There's this neat program called Photoshop that lets you edit things like skin tone. If you used it, maybe you could convince us that Miss Pasty Whitey Universe 2010 up top is the same person as Fake-Boob SprayTan below.

C) Apparently when you get skinny, you start buying bikinis with flashy stripper tassels. Good to know. I'll start saving up.

D) Oh, and another thing? Ms. Before isn't fat. She's PREGNANT. Did you also know girls have vaginas? That's where the babies come out. I'm concerned that you couldn't recognize an obvious sign of human reproduction. But take heart, my internet marketer virgin: you might still be able to have sex one day if you pay someone.

E) Your Easy Rule for losing weight? I tried it three times and it didn't work. Well, I mean, I lost weight when the baby came out (of my vagina, incidentally) but apparently sitting with your colicky baby and eating a bag of Oreos while sobbing uncontrollably doesn't make you look like a supermodel. Go figure.