I Guarantee My Summer Break Sucks Worse Than Yours – A guest post by Ma Ingalls

Ah, summertime!  Three months of sun, sand and surf.  A hiatus from the rigorous school year schedules as we relax and recharge.  Unless, of course you’re this girl.  Then it’s just another day in hell.

A typical summer morning involves me waking up to four little girls and a disgusting beast of a man in my one room shanty.  And I’m not using that word in a melodramatic, guttersnipe sort of way.  It’s a legit, straight up shanty.  I can see wild animals trying to get inside to eat us through the gaps in the boards.  And because we’re only one small step up from sleeping in a tree, summertime means it’s hot as fuck in here.  I have one dress and it smells like smoldering balls.  I can’t escape myself.  All six of us share bath water and guess who’s last to step in that nasty ass shit.

I can’t even.

And one room… well… let’s just say that *somebody* is going to need therapy when they realize what they’ve born witness to all these nights *points at kids*.

Speaking of, being as they can’t really venture far from the shanty because of the wild animals and getting lost in the wilderness and such, and we live in BFE so play dates are out of the question, my kids are up my ass.  I don’t have time to mess with them because I have to MAKE CLOTHES and my stove keeps throwing fireballs across the room and dinner takes me about a week and a half.  There are only so many ways you can serve up beans and rabbit when your only options for flavoring are lard, amiright?

Anyhoo, all this means I have to get creative when it comes to entertaining my kids.  The other day I almost lost it so I just grabbed the first thing I saw – a pig bladder.  A PIG BLADDER!  I thought they would be all “GROSS!” but they batted it around for like an hour so I could get back to cooking my lard beans in peace.  LMAO!

Oh, and get this – fucking Mary went blind.  Though she’s such a straight up little bitch I wouldn’t be surprised if she was faking the whole thing to get out of sweeping the dirt floor then dusting everything in the shanty in what I promise you is the ultimate of vicious cycles.  Tomorrow morning I’m totally not stamping out the stove fire balls and see if I can call her bluff.  Blind, my ass.

You know what’s awesome?  Not walking ten miles when I want a bottle of wine.  Also tampons.  And wiping.

I don’t know about you, but some days I just want to lock myself in the outhouse to have a moment of peace.  But they find me.  They always find me.  I can’t escape their whiney little voices.

“Ma!  The baby is getting attacked by a badger!”

“Ma!  The grasshoppers are eating all our crops!”

“Ma!  Mary’s bliiiinnddd!”

And where is Pa for all this? Don’t even get me started.  I am like 99% sure he’s bipolar.  “Sure!  It sounds like a great idea so sell everything we own and go on a two month road trip.  In a wagon.  With four kids to the middle of the untamed prairie, where, if we don’t get eaten by wolves, we’ll be welcomed by a few hundred Indians with open hatchets.”

What a dick move.  My God… make a decision on where you want to live and quit dragging us all over tarnation.  But what can I say?  Legally I just have to smile and go with the flow.

God, I wish I could vote.

No, like you, I just keep powering through each summer day knowing that winter is right around the corner.  Which, now that I think about it, may be the only thing worse than summer.

Okay, gotta fly – the house is on fire again.

Ingalls – OUT!