When Kangaroos Fly

Every once in a while my youngest daughter comes up with something only a natural blond could say. She did not disappoint the other day, when she announced that she thought birds were mammals. At least she's pretty.

She was able to have quite an intelligent conversation with her uncle the shrink about psychological theories so maybe I shouldn't worry so much about her quaint moments of sheer ignorance. These days I worry about everything though. My precious stash of anxiety pills has been so alarmingly depleted I've taken to biting the halves in half. A quarter dose is better than nothing, and certainly preferable to calling some long abandoned overpriced psychiatrist for a refill. It's definitely not worth the risk of having him glance up from his prescription pad while he scribbles hieroglyphics at one hundred dollars a minute to notice that I am virtually foaming at the mouth, certifiably insane. I prefer to pass on the cuckoo's nest; just give me those damn yellow pills.

After all, I have a lot to do. Bills to pay, repetitive forms to fill out for my divorce attorneys, hire a handyman. My house is falling apart at the seams. Really. Yesterday, one of the gutters hung precariously over the front window until it finally became detached and landed on the circular drive, within inches of the car I had just spent lots of money to repair. There's much to be thankful for, though. I will be able to clean my gutter without a ladder. It missed the car. And there's no rain in the forecast. 

I am willing myself to believe that only good things will start to happen. My house will not start to disintegrate piece by piece. I will pay the bills and fill out the forms and the divorce from hell will be over soon. Maybe my daughter was not even entirely wrong about her classification of birds. I racked my brain to come up with an example of a mammalian species. "Kangaroos are mammals," I announced, and I was met with a stunned silence. "Well, they're marsupials, but aren't those mammals?" Still, stunned silence from my daughter and her friend. It's been a couple of days, and I still can't, for the life of me, figure out why I thought a kangaroo was a bird. At least it was good for my daughter; the torch for dumbest comment of the day was passed to me. 

Well, it helps keep me sane if I believe anything is possible. So why not? Kangaroos can certainly become airborne. I can, at least today, clean my gutter without a ladder. And even the most bitter divorces come to an end. Will I stop needing my little yellow pills one day? Of course. When kangaroos fly. And mark my words, they will.