1) Wrangle a situation where you’re staying overnight with your boyfriend’s grandparents, whom you’ve met only once or twice before.

2) Drink what could plausibly be considered too much vodka at your boyfriend’s brother’s wedding reception.

3) Wake up from a dead sleep at 8:30am screaming profanity.

Seriously? I *never* talk in my sleep – much less scream at the top of my lungs – but sure enough there was B!’s hand over my mouth, and sure enough there was that memory of the dream, and sure enough there was his grandfather shouting from the next room over, probably thinking someone was having a heart attack. I’d been a teenager fighting with her mother, and we all know how THAT can get (don’t we?), so it wasn’t surprising that what I howled, with all the force and hatred I could muster, was: “MOM! WHAT THE **FUCK**??!!”

Yes. Out loud. Out very loud, at 8:30am, in my boyfriend’s grandparents’ ranch-level house. It was a sheepish E$ indeed who emerged from the bedroom moments later, wiping last night’s makeup out from underneath her eyes, and a very confused Grandpa who blinked back a smile at her stammered apology. Let’s just say it was an awkward silence.