Jeez, it’s countdown to Halloween.  I’ve got to go out and find candy that I won’t eat before the kids start ringing my doorbell.  It didn’t help that Godiva sent three — yes, three! — catalogs in one day.  I think my mail carrier screwed up.  Either that or she caught a good look at my ass and figured it would take that many catalogs to see me through until the next mailing.

I wish they’d make candy that would stick to your dental work.   I’ve discovered it’s not worth chewing gum if you have dental work.  It’s like trying to get candle wax off your favorite blouse.  If the health professionals really wanted to fight obesity they would make everything fattening stick to your dental work. 

I just had a thought.  I don’t like black licorice.  There might be hope for me yet!

I’m a sensitive person.  I think there should be handicap parking for the disabled, even if every time I go to Walmart there are 47 open slots for handicap parking, but I have to park six blocks away.  We obviously don’t have enough handicapped people in our town.

But get this.  I went to the grocery store last night and, not only do they have handicap parking, they have special parking for pregnant women! 

The first thing that leaps to mind is, what if the woman is only a couple of months pregnant and not showing?  Is she going to have to take an EPT to prove she deserves to park there?  And how come they didn’t offer special parking back when I was pregnant?  Where were these coveted parking slots when my baby was two weeks overdue and pressing on a nerve so that I had to drag my right leg? 

And, hey, since perks are being handed out to pregnant women, how about a special parking place for women going through menopause?  Or women who haven’t done anything nice for themselves in almost four years because they are sending their kid to engineering college?  Or single mothers who are trying to run a household and manage a career?

Come to think of it, there will never be enough special parking places to accommodate the women who deserve them.

Sometimes the craziest things happen to me…

To begin with, my male Dachshund, Rambo, has a crush on me. I know what you’re thinking. Oh, boy, Charlotte has gone right over the edge. Maybe so, but that’s not the point.

The first time I noticed a problem was years ago. Every time I left the house he would go bonkers. He would turn over all the trash cans, steal my favorite soap from the bathtub and hide it, pull all my magazines off the coffee table and chew them up. Nothing was sacred. He became Hell Hound.

Now, you’re going to find this part hard to believe, but I swear it’s the truth.

One night I arrived home and found my bedroom in shambles. My comforter, sheets, and bedskirt were ripped to shreads! I immediately thought some crazed maniac had done it, and I raced out of my house. Next door, I saw a man standing in the shadows unloading the back of his SUV, and I assumed it was my new neighbor. So I asked him if he had seen anyone enter my house while I was gone, and I explained the situation, even though he was still standing in the shadows, and I couldn’t get a good look at him. He became very concerned, told me to hold on while he went for his gun. Gun?

In the meantime, I called my girlfriend and told her I thought somebody had broken into my house, and she said, “I’m on my way!”

This is where it gets really strange. My new neighbor raced inside my back door, gun in hand, wearing only his boxer shorts. I swear this is true. He apologized, told me he’d needed something out of the back of his SUV and decided to sneak out real quick to get it. However, he was more concerned that the possible bad guy might still be in my house than he was being in his underwear. So he made me stay downstairs while he checked my condo out.

Did I mention this guy was drop dead gorgeous!

Once he came downstairs and assured me all was well, we introduced ourselves. And I started thinking, I’ll bet Rambo went into a hissy fit because I was gone so long, and HE destroyed my bedroom.

In the meantime, I’m standing in the den of my condo with a half-naked hunk holding a gun. And I’m beginning to think Rambo did me a favor. I suddenly remembered my girlfriend was on her way over. I knew if she walked in and saw a strange man in his underwear holding a gun she would freak out so I asked my neighbor, Sean, if he would please put the gun away, even as I wondered WHERE he could actually put it. Well, he tucked it in the front of his boxers with the barrel pointing you-know-where. About that time, my girlfriend, Susie, squealed into the parking lot. She threw open the back door, and there stood Sean and me.

Most people would probably have gone into sheer panic, but not Susie. She looked from Sean to me — well, mostly at Sean — and she just shook her head and said, “I know there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

To make a long story short, I had to have Rambo neutered immediately because the vet said that Rambo thought of me as his girlfriend. Which was pretty embarrassing to me because I allowed Rambo in the bathroom when I showered. I mean, who would have thunk it, right? Rambo was also put on medication for separation anxiety, which was kind of sad because once he stopped destroying my place I had no reason to invite Sean to my bedroom. Not without appearing to be the worst kind of slut.

Here’s the thing: Stuff like this happens to me all the time. I could tell you tales, and I probably will because I have a big mouth, but here is my question: Does anyone out there have weird stuff like this happen to them on a regular basis?

Again, I ask you. Is it me?

Charlotte

Friday started out as a pretty good day.  I went to my local pharmacy to pick up my mood stabilizing medication.  I like to keep this medication on hand in case I run out of chocolate in the middle of the night, and my seratonin level drops below my uterus and I turn into Satan’s daughter.

So there I was feeling darn good about life…  Then I noticed the damn Halloween decorations.  Not to mention racks of costumes ranging from Glenda, the Good Witch to Britney Spears’ black bikini outfit she wore on stage — in a size 18.  From there my mood went south.

Halloween in my neighborhood is like a broom ride to hell and back.  Everybody within a 50 mile radius shows up, and I have to buy enough candy to feed Rhode Island.  The reason for this is because I live in a big neighborhood, the houses are close together, and the streets are well lit. 

Nevertheless, I think it’s tacky to show up in somebody else’s neighborhood and expect them to give you candy.  Isn’t that like crashing a party?  I think parents should be forced to show their driver’s license at the door, and prove they live here before just assuming I can feed the gazillion or so kids who already live in my neighorhood PLUS the ones that don’t. 

But that’s not even the worst of it!  Half the parents show up with bags of their own!  Excuse me?  If these ADULTS expect me to feed their kids AND fill their bags as well, they need to have a damn good reason.  Like maybe they have a sick kid at home who couldn’t go trick-or-treating.  And I’d really like to see a photo of that sick child, along with a doctor’s written statement.

Okay, so I grit my teeth and just go along with it.  Finally, around 9 p.m., it starts slowing down.  UNTIL, that is, the teenagers show up with bags.  We’re talking grocery sacks.  Hello?  Why aren’t these kids out working and buying their own candy?

Here’s what I’m going to do this year.  I’m going to get a board and measure off three or four feet.  (Sort of like they do at the fair on certain rides.)  And I’m going to attach a sign to it that reads, “You have to be shorter than this line in order to get candy at my house.”

So, I ask you, is it me? 

Charlotte

Welcome to our ongoing therapy sessions.  As promised, I am addressing various ways to prevent meltdown.  Meltdown is a result of too much stress.  I don’t know about you, but if my anxiety level were any higher they’d have to slap lights on it to warn low-flying aircraft.

So that you don’t feel bad, just let me say it’s not your fault.  This world is full of bad people who will go to any length to screw you.  Most of them are your relatives.  Odds are you had sex with one of the major offenders just last night.  I’m not blaming you for that.  Unless you are on high doses of psychiatrict medication like me, you are still going to have sexual urges. 

When these people start working on your last nerve, here are some things you can do.  Choose from any or all on the list.

1.  Walk away.  Like my last husband said before I threw him out, “You don’t play in the same sandbox with bad people.”  So my advice to you is to get in your car and drive away.  I would recommend you go to the nearest Godiva store and order their 24 piece dark chocolate truffles.  They’re small enough so that you can eat the entire box in one sitting.

2.  Close your eyes.   Think about the guy you almost married because odds are he would have made you happier than the jerk you’re presently living with.  You may even want to look up your old flame.  There’s always the chance that he’s married as well, but that’s something the two of you will have to work out.  I suggest renting a room first, just to make certain the attraction is still there before breaking up two families.  If it doesn’t work out I’d recommend buying Godiva’s 36 piece Gold Ballotin Collection.

3.  Seek solitude.  Quiet time will offer you the opportunity to figure out how to get even with the people who really piss you off the most.  I suggest you keep a box of Godiva’s 24 piece White Chocolate collection on hand for this sort of thing.  Solitude without chocolate sucks.

4.  Take deep calming breaths and count to ten.  You don’t want to act in anger because this usually leads to prison time.  You might snack on Godiva’s nut and caramel collection while you’re trying to regroup.

5.  Be one with nature.  I don’t really like nature all that much because it often comes with flies, gnats, or mosquitos.  But the 12 piece Hazelnut Praline Biscuit collection from Godiva will take your mind off annoying insects.

6.  Listen to music.  I always recommend going to a bar, but try to stick with the classy ones that serve expensive wine or champagne because if you happen to have any Godiva chocolate covered strawberries with you, the two go very nicely together.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  You can tolerate almost anything, including blood relatives, as long as you have good chocolate on hand.

Welcome to Group Therapy, the place for those who are hanging by a thread. (Ignore the woman in the corner staring off into space. I think she’s taking too many meds.) Grab a cup of coffee and a donut and join us. If you have Multiple Personality Disorder, you are still only allowed one donut.

This is also the place where you can share exciting new things happening in your lives or bitch and moan about the not-so-good stuff.

I am going through a fun and exciting time in my life. After co-authoring the Full House series with Janet Evanovich; in other words learning from the best of the best when it comes to series writing, I started one of my own! I call it the “Crazy” series. It’s about a female psychologist and her wacko family, friends, and patients. It’s irreverent, politically incorrect, but great fun!

I got the idea to write the series after spending years in therapy due to my dysfunctional family. (Is there any other kind, you ask.) Then, in 2002, I married a clinical psychologist, which pretty much guaranteed that I’d be in analysis the rest of my life. The thing about being married to a psychologist is they’re always analyzing people. It’s what they do. My husband found out early on that I had an alternate personality, and her name was Bitch Woman.

I have a question for you: Have you ever been in a room filled with people and wondered why you were the only one on a mood stabilizer? Let me be the first to break the news: there are no normal people out there.

In the first book of my series titled, “What Looks Like Crazy,” Dr. Kate Holly would love to have some normalcy in her life. But it just ain’t happening. She’s separated from the love of her life because he’s a firefighter, recently injured, and Kate’s father was a firefighter who lost his life in the line of duty. To make matters worse, Kate’s mother and aunt are identical twins, two plus-sized women who still dress alike despite being in their 50’s.

They’re also junk dealers, known to all as the Junk Sisters. Kate grew up in a home straight out of “Sandford and Son,” and her earliest memories are of being lowered into a Dumpster by her mother and aunt to retrieve a broken table lamp. These oddball women skirt about Atlanta in a six ton Navistar CLT pickup truck, plucking junk from the side of the road. Kate’s best friend and receptionist, Mona, is determined to catapult Kate to fame so she can have her own TV show like Dr. Phil, and since Mona is a rich widow and uses her own money, there’s little Kate can do about it. Mona hires pilots to fly banners over the city of Atlanta displaying Kate’s phone number. Then there’s Kate’s ex-boyfriend, a psychiatrist who sends her his most desperate patients for talk therapy; in return Kate is expected to describe to him in lurid detail the panties she’s wearing.

If this sounds crazy, it’s nothing compared to the patients that come into Kate’s office!

I hope all of you will look for “What Looks Like Crazy” when it hits the shelves on February 26.

At this time, I’m working on the second book of the series, tentatively titled “Nutcase”, and it promises to be just as fun.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll visit the site and join in. There will be contests and games and lots of prizes.

Next time we meet, I’m going to offer a solution for those who are, like me, nearing meltdown. Until then, remember: there is almost no problem that good chocolate can’t solve.