Just like that cute little country song says, God punishes those who sin. So why did I go into the new Sephora they built in SLO with the girls today? The girls have been behaving themselves in stores, so I thought what the heck, maybe they have that stupid deodorant I’m almost out of. Stinking won’t get you into heaven either, you know? After a series of mannequins employees greeted us, the girls tried on some obnoxiously-colored nailpolish and sampled the perfume offerings. At one point they wanted to know what was up with these posters of women wearing bucketloads of blue and purple eyeshadow. They seemed to think they had been punched in the face a lot. I think I said something like, “uh…they think it’s pretty.” (Welcome to the world of fashion and makup ads, where ugly is pretty). We moved on to the section where they had the deodorant I wanted, a section where just minutes before a mannequin employee had informed me didn’t exist. I was almost ready to go and was just patting myself on the back for parading through the whole store with my “cute little darlings” without a single incident…and…Darcy smashed one of their mirrors. I guess I should be glad it was just a mirror and not a $100 bottle of perfume. But it didn’t take long for the bad luck to kick in.

To wit:

When we were leaving an Austrailian tourist came around the corner where I was parked and clipped the door when I was bent over putting Darcy (yes, the twin that smashed the mirror!) in her car seat. Had my ass been sticking out any farther I would have gotten my wish for an ass reduction, and very quickly. Here’s the passenger-side of his rental car:

By the way, any idea why I’m driving our other car and not the minivan this week (which has sliding doors that don’t stick out into traffic)? Why, it’s at the body shop! I guess the body shop will be seeing a lot of us! I bitterly mentioned this to the tourist as we exchanged information, which probably just told him I’m a stupid Yank that fucks up cars on a regular basis.

Just kidding. That’s not ours. That’s the work of that guy that went beserk over on the 11th street last month.

Here’s the van’s situation:

I didn’t do this by the way, and I’m sure the person that did doesn’t want me to talk about it. Hmmm, I guess we’re even now.

So back to the blunder in SLO: we nervously scrawl our names and emails and a bunch of other things, and by the time we were ready to go the girls were very cranky very much in need of a nap, but I was, um, not really in a state of mind to drive home. I called my friend Susan across town to see if I couldn’t stop by and just chill for a few minutes so I could get my head together. And she was wonderful, despite my jerk-like habit of not calling when I’m in town. She provided sympathy, drinks, cold melon balls, and her lovely son even read a book to the girls on the porch. Then her husband regaled us with more detail about the time a car hit him while he was skating downtown. Which reminded me I should be glad I still have two twins and my ass.

So I’m not sure which was the bigger mistake–going into Sephora, Den of Pure Female Merchandising Evil–or smashing that mirror, but if it was the mirror then Darcy won’t be off the hook until she’s almost 11.

* The person that messed up the van who is NOT ME gave me their 9/11 rant, which I shall post shortly.