And it's only Wednesday!

Listen, People, it's one of THOSE weeks. This ain't gonna be pretty.

It all started out on Monday morning. After an amazing and relaxing weekend wine tasting up North, I get into my Acura, place the key in the ignition and turn. Nothing but a few weak flashing lights and the "Goodbye" electronic message lighting up in front of my steering wheel. Not really what I want to see at about 9:30 a.m. when I had decided to snooze versus rolling into work on time. I promptly run through my roledex of Men in Brentwood who I can ring at times such as these and call up Infatuation (I'm still struggling with the "boyfriend" terminology"). Within 10 minutes, he's in my parking garage and he's jump-started my car. Problem solved.

After a full 10 hours of pretending to work, I decide to head to the grocery store. I'm hungry and I've been out of town the last three weekends and a girl needs to eat. Now, anyone knows it's absolute silliness to grocery shop when you're hungry, but I have to go. What I didn't think about is that I am also PMSing. So after I fill up my cart with bright, fresh produce--apples and zucchini and leafy greens--I find myself stopped dead in my tracks in the dairy aisle like a moose in heat. I reach over and throw cookie dough into my cart. I am like the freakin' terminator! I Need. Cookie. Dough. All the while it's a nasty game of Good Angel-Bad Angel occurring in my head. Jo, Don't do it. And: C'mon girl, it ain't so bad! I agree with the "ain't so bad" comment and move on to the wine section. Enough said.

I'm home and I promptly eat three cookie dough squares. I text Infatuation.
Me: Can you make bruschetta on Wednesday? It sounds good.
Him: Sure I can. Is that dinner or were you thinking we should do something else, too?
Me: No, dinner is going to be halibut in a white wine caper sauce. Do you like asparagus.
Him: Yes, I do like it. But do you really think we need a heavy appetizer, too?

I pause. Try to put myself in check.

Me: Are you saying that we should hold on bruschetta for the weekend? That is fine.
Him: I'm just trying to not be a fatso! :-)

I grab another cookie dough square.

Me: Okay, yup. Me too. Sounds good.

Tuesday. I wake up and I feel like a fatso. I head to work armed with cottage cheese and strawberries. Since my car battery died the day before, my audio system in my car needs to be reprogrammed and thus, I have no radio. Instead, I repeat a simple mantra in my head: Today is going to be a good day. Today is going to be a good day.

I pretend to work for several hours. Just after lunch, I swing into a conference room to interview someone for a senior management position. Wait. Let's be clear here: the senior management position my coworker and I both got passed up for. I lick my cottage-cheesy chops and can't wait to rip this interviewee a new one.

However, I find it hard to rip him a new one when I find out he has less marketing experience than myself and a masters in hotel management. I think he's a goner. But I find out one hour later that they are making him an offer.

It's at this time I get a phone call from my landlord. The one who fancies herself an artist and wears army boots and blue eye liner on her cheeks.

I'm replacing the microwave this afternoon, I just wanted to let you know. I'll be letting myself into your apartment to supervise the work.

I'm thinking: Sweet! My current ghetto-fab microwave, circa 1982, will be gone and in its place will be something shiny and new. It won't match the 20+ year old appliances in the least, but at least it won't blow up and smoke in my face.

That night, I meet a friend in WeHo for some down-home BBQ. You know the drill: creamed spinach, sweet potato mash, cole slaw and mac'n'cheese. It's PMS diet 101 and it's incredible. I return to the apartment that evening happy but feeling like a fatso. I unlock my deadbolt and then push. The door doesn't budge. I try again. Nope. Nothing. The bottom part of the door is locked and it's at this point that I remember that the locks were changed about a month ago and new keys issued. New keys that my roomie and I don't use.

"What the f..."

It's 10-something at night. I calmly buzz my landlord's apartment. Then I calmly buzz her again about 10 more times. Calmly. Nothing. I call her. Nothing.

My crazy-tired mind turns to the 6-foot high wooden fence surrounding my back patio. Could I jump it? I envision myself to be my own hero! Jumping my fence and breaking in through the kitchen window to safety and warmth. But then I recall a scene from my childhood. I'm in sixth grade and my dear old kitty cat decided to hop the wall surrounding my parents' backyard in Arizona. My heroic father jumped the wall after the cat. After passing the cat back over the wall and into my loving arms, my father could not get back over the wall himself. We passed him a stool but it was no use; my brother had to drive around to get him. Recalling that legendary tale, I shake my head. There's no way this fatso is gonna make it over a 6-foot fence in Brentwood.

I then barter with a 24-hour locksmith on the phone. He sounds like he just crossed the border and I debate whether to give him my real address, for fear of break-in or swine flu. He wants to charge me nearly $200 to let me back into my apartment and then I figure, hey, the Acura ain't so bad. But luckily it didn't come down to that. I drive one street over and I end up at my Favorite Couple's Place and figure I'll crash on the couch and deal with Jose again in the morning if I need to.

They have American Idol on and my stomach is rumbling from all of that damn BBQ and I think I'm never going to get a moment alone! Just when I am starting to silently curse creamed spinach, my phone rings and it's my Nazi-like landlord. She's home and will let me into my apartment. I suspect she's stoned.

I'm smiling to myself when I buzz her apartment just five minutes later. I'm thinking I'm so happy I could hug her. She stumbles down the stairs and those damn army boots are clinkin' and clangin'. I am still smiling until she comes close and then I nearly gasp. Without her smeared blue eye liner and overdone hairsprayed hair, she is a dark haggard angel. I back away.

Once inside my Brentwood Chateau, I'm thinking: I'll just put these two fatso days behind me. I'm thinking I'll check out my new micro and then hit the sheets. I turn into my galley kitchen and I do a double take. There is NO new microwave. It's the same old piece of shit from 1982.

Tomorrow, no more cookie dough. More cottage cheese. And I have to figure out where that new microwave went.

Goodnight.