2111 Words and Declaring War on Preschoolers - a Parable

For reasons I'm not going to go into, it's been a rollercoaster of a week. Like any lady, I have my own personal arsenal of coping mechanisms, including but not limited to ice cream, sauna-like showers, extra-strenuous cardio workouts, and perhaps most effective, Jane Austen adaptation movies.

Friday morning I was up at 4:15 with the baby.  I finally got her back down an hour later, which happens to be my workout time.  I stumbled downstairs and, half-blind from weary eyes, managed to get myself a cup of coffee.  If I had to do cardio at this hour in my frigid basement, I wanted Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters to keep me company.
 I got on hands and knees to sort through our disaster of a DVD cabinet.  I slung Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Diego, Shalom Sesame, and Superhero Squad to the side, along with Mansfield Park, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility.  In other words, every other Jane Austen adaptation I own.  But no Pride and Prejudice.  I looked under couch cushions, behind furniture, in toyboxes.  You guys, Pride and Prejudice was NOWHERE.  A memory flashed into my head of my middle kid slinging DVDs over his shoulders and cackling madly.  (A dramatized memory, but still.)  I knew I had seen the movie there sometime in the last three weeks.
Somehow, my children had known I wanted to watch that movie. And they had snatched and stashed it in anticipation.
I clutched Mansfield Park with white knuckles and roused my computer.  I went to Amazon, ordered a new copy, paid through the nose for next-day shipping, and tweeted this:


Then I vowed to charge each of the boys two trips out for ice cream each, and went downstairs to do my cardio, stewing all the while.
This morning, I headed back to Amazon to track shipment of my DVD.  It was then that I saw on the order page, plain as day, that when I ordered the DVD I also bought the right to stream the movie for 30 days afterward.  See where it says "Buy this DVD and watch it instantly?"  In big letters?  Plain as day?  Yeah.

Had I known that, I would have skipped the cardio and spent the hour at my desk grinning like a fool and watching Lizzie and Mr. Darcy screaming at each other in the rain.  (Oh, young love!)

Instead, because I was blinded by my own rage, I had to wait till after shul today to sit and watch.  The good news is that Naptime lasted for three glorious hours and it was just me, Scrivener, and the movie.


And, because I know you were wondering, I watched the second-to-last scene two three four times.  I'm not ashamed.


("Surely you must know, it was all for you."
I know, Mr. Darcy.  I know.

"You have bewitched me, body and soul."
Oh, Mr. Darcy, you have no idea.

Whew!  Is it hot in here?)

Anyway.  Here's the report.

Words Written Today: 2111
Total Words: 47060
Listening to:  Dario Marianelli and Kiera Knightly.  Decadent.
Obsessed with: "In Ohio on Some Steps".  Still homesick.  (Thanks, Elle.)