major meltdown

I try to avoid saying things I will later regret, but this one got away from me (though, as yet, I do not regret it). I am 8 months/32 weeks/32+centimeters pregnant, and thus far I have asked Mr. R. for very little in terms of additional support, either emotionally or with household chores. I worked an 8-hour day on Saturday and stopped at the dog food store afterwards because my dog is sick with some unknown ailment that causes him to look absolutely pathetic and clearly feel miserable so I have decided to try him on a holistic, human-grade food called Candidae. When I arrived at home, Mr. R and two of our cars were missing (no note, no phone call), the dogs needed to go out as well as be fed and the diabetic cat was roaming about the house in need of an injection. In and of themselves, not the stuff of major meltdowns, but I could feel the pressure building. Add to this a sink full of dirty dishes (yeah, we DO own a dishwasher. It's right next to the sink for maximum loading convenience.) that I discovered while dialing Mr. R's cell to ask," WTF and WTF are you?"
It rolled into voice mail. Now, this simply does not happen. Mr. R. is great about picking up his calls and keeping his phone charged and on his person. So, I left a message, kinda snotty but overall respectful. And waited for him to call me back.
I fed the dogs, dosed the cat, gathered up a load of clothes for washing, and left another message in Mr. R's voice mail. Kinda respectful but overall snotty, this time I reminded him that I was 8 months pregnant and his being unavailable (I was referring to his cordial phone greeting which states, "I am unavailable to take your call at this time, yada yada") to me at this time was not an option, so pick up your effing voice mail and call me back, you inconsiderate, selfish man.
Cordless phone and laundry in hand, I went downstairs and there discovered a bunch of blood on the washing machine. Creepy, to say the least. What happened? Cat cut his paw? Mr. R. cut his hand and forget to clean up? Chainsaw-killer hiding behind my furnace? Pondering these scenarios, I started filling the washer which I could do with the one hand I had available whereas cleaning up the blood would require the use of both, and as the water was rising and I was about to add the clothes to free up my hand to clean up the blood, I noticed a little dead mouse behind the suds. And completely lost my composure.
My next call to Mr. R. wasn't even close to respectful, but it was the one he finally picked up. He's not used to me crying, and I don't think he's ever seen/heard me in the hysterical state I was in at that moment, and he caught the full brunt of my anger and self-pity. And, unlike most of our other tiffs, this time I was inconsolable. I heard his words, his empty explanantions, and then assailed each one, beating my fists against the washer, BANG!BANG!BANG!.
Determined to handle the situation myself (what choice, really?), I needed to remove the mouse from the machine, but with each failed attempt, my despair closed, and as my body shook with big, gigantic sobs, I wondered how it could possibly be that a bloody, wet, bludgeoned mouse could be so cute, still?
Surveying my laundry room, in a post-insanity fugue, I could only laugh at a memory that came unbidden of a friend who had once told me a story of how she lost her mind in her own laundry room, right there among the piles of never-ending whites and oppressive darks, and then I thought of a poem I had read by a poet we both admire, and so I will print it here in hopes that she finds it, like I did, before the insanity finds her again.

the shoelace, by charles bukowski
a woman, a
tire that's flat, a
disease, a
desire; fears in front of you,
fears that hold still
you can study them
like pieces on a chessboard . . .
it's not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he's ready for, or
murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood . . .
no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse . . .
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left . . .
the dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can kill quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver's license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
constipation
speeding tickets
rickets or crickets or mice or termites or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink's stopped up, the landlord's drunk,
the president doesn't care and the governor's
crazy.
lightswitch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
Sears Roebuck;
and the phone bill's up and the market's
down
and the tiolet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it's
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there's always crabs and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they're
your friends;
there's always that and worse;
leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avacados
and purple
liverwurst.

or making it
as a waitress at Norm's on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a carwash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady's purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of
80.

suddenly
2 red lights in your rearview mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and China and Russia and America, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
pot, except maybe one to piss in and
the other one around your
gut.

with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.

so be careful
when you
bend over.