Dear Diary

         I wave good-bye to Mrs. Felani, the other blonde soccer mom, who lives at the end of Rain Street around the corner. Everyone knows Mrs. Felani—the one who wears jeans two sizes too small and high heels two inches too tall. Every morning, she struts around the neighborhood in the same indigo tracksuit and that dreadful pageboy haircut she must have gotten from the same blind barber who cuts her husband’s hair. Whenever I see her, I tell her it looks cute. She believes me, too.

         Bless her heart.

          “Bye now!” I gush, with a smile plastered to my face. I watch her drive away in her taupe minivan loaded with screaming neighborhood children, as they head off to their weekend camping getaway out in BFE. My two kids are in the backseat, but they don’t wave back.

          “Have fun, guys! Take lots of pictures for me,” I beg, striking just the right tone—a blend of exuberant and desperate, just to fit in.

         I look dapper and delicious in my black and white ruffled polka-dot apron and my matching black oven mitt. My smile is so white, it blinds people, like the sparkly Rolex on my wrist or the Cartier jewels around my neck. This smile could easily grace the cover of Dental Weekly or Sassy Soccer Moms, or whatever other bullshit magazines are in circulation that I pretend to know about when other mothers mention them at those dreadful ladies’ luncheons.

         I keep waving and smiling until the minivan rounds the corner. Then, once it’s out of sight, I stop.

         It’s time to journal, I remind myself.

         My face hurts from smiling. I go inside and flip off the black oven mitt and toss the apron onto the kitchen counter, not caring where it lands. No kids all weekend. No more husband. Finally. Just me and the puppy.

         Where is Bentley? I wonder.

         I climb the 12 white-carpeted steps, round the corner at the top of the balcony, enter one of the spare bedrooms—the one we almost turned into a nursery before the—um—miscarriage, and I pull out my old diary from one of the boxes on the top closet shelf.

         I blow off the ring of dust on the cover and flip it open to the first blank page I see.

         Dr. Evans said I need to journal more. I need to vent my frustrations to someone—or something. A journal, he said, would be just lovely.

         I pull out my black pen with the faux feather tip, and I write:

Dear Diary,

         Today is the first time I’ve written in years. Anyway, Dr. E says I need to release my emotions and learn to deal with them in healthier ways. So here I go.

         This entry is about Mrs. Dahl down the street. The lady makes me want to wring her scrawny little neck, but I’m trying to work through my anger in a more productive way, so instead of wringing her neck, I’m going to write about her. See, I’m already making progress.

         I’ll just have to keep this diary in a safe place where no one else will see it. Maybe I’ll even buy a lock and a little key for it.

         Today, I’m feeling vengeful and spiteful and I can barely contain my frustrations. I’m also sleep-deprived—6 hours last night—and have low blood sugar, too. So I need to verbally unleash right now so I don’t accidentally lash out at someone or scare my neighbors or lose friends. That kind of tirade would equal social suicide, creating the kind of mess that would inevitably backfire on me. So let’s call her, “MD”—short for Mary Dahl.

         MD is a whiny, poorly aging, morally bankrupt mess, who’s secretly broke and starving for attention. She threw a tantrum this morning because her child got rejected for the lead in the school Christmas play—probably because her child is boring and bland and untalented, but I digress. But I’ll bet her child could still play one of the reindeer? At least they don’t have to speak. That child has rocks for brains and stutters and can’t sing for shit, but of course I would never say that to her face because I’m such a dear friend.

         But MD reeks of mediocrity, and her pies taste like cardboard, and her housekeeping looks like the work of a blind madwoman, and she can’t do anything right, ever. But she somehow manages to get people to feel sorry for her—random men are always volunteering to clean her carpet and unclog her sinks and toilets—ew—and fix things in her garage. She knows how to gain the sympathy of everyone around her somehow. Everyone’s always pitying her—Oh poor Mary, this, and poor Mary that. “Poor little Mary” even knows how to get men to flirt with her—which must be out of pity because why else? I don’t understand why men flirt with her. It makes no sense because she’s really quite homely and has very little personality and no discernible talent or skills of any kind.

         What is she going to do? Bake him a pie? That would send anyone running. What does she have to offer? I don’t know. Maybe she gives good head or something. It must be something sexual because you know how men are. Otherwise, why would they bother with her?

         MD is painfully unoriginal. The most nonsensical comments fly out of her mouth, often in rapid succession, several times a day. This morning at the neighborhood watch meeting, for instance, she insisted that we need more security guards to patrol the streets at night.          Why? We already have six guards on duty around-the-clock, and let’s face it, this neighborhood goes dark by 9 p.m. The neighborhood has a security gate, and no one in this neighborhood does anything remotely exciting, unless you count the drugs that Mr. and Mrs. Lankton’s son is clearly doing. But rumor has it, he is moving out. Good riddance.

         MD not only lacks originality, but she’s mentally dull. She struggles to read even basic news stories that are written at a sixth-grade level. Rumor has it, she flunked tenth grade, but I would never tell anybody.

         But, MD is a walking cliché. She tries to advocate for these noble causes, and she volunteers at soup kitchens like everyone does.          She tries to raise money for various charities, but that’s only because she wants to feel special. And she wants to feel special because she isn’t special. All day long, I struggle not to roll my eyes when she speaks. She says the most tired things, like, “Children are our future,” and “Children look to us as their role models.” It makes me quite nauseated, really because she is so appallingly unoriginal. Everybody already knows these things. I wish someone would tell her these points are overstated. Millions of people have argued these same points millions of times before. Maybe she should stick to baking instead.

         Oh, that’s right…her baking sucks.

         Sometimes, I admit, there’s a part of me that wants to smack her upside the head or club her with one of my spiked six-inch Manolo Blahniks. But I would never…

         Sometimes, I see her half-witted posts go up on Facebook and wish someone would just beat her to a pulp and put her out of her misery so I don’t have to see these posts anymore. I read these posts and think, And your point is what? Rumor has it, she’s a closeted alcoholic, too. I even heard she slams whiskey straight out of the bottle when her husband goes to bed. But of course I would never tell a soul. That’s just the kind of friend I am. I know. I really shouldn’t be such a pushover.

         But, if I’m being honest here, some days, I wish someone would get her drunk, drive her out to some remote rural area, drug her drink, and accidentally leave her at the edge of a 3,200-foot cliff. And some days, I admit, I wouldn’t cry too hard if I heard she bought herself a bottle of Tanqueray and a bottle of pills—or even a sharp object—and finally ended her own misery. Nighty-night.

         No one would miss her.

         MD is a hypocrite, too. She pretends to be strong and intelligent and worthwhile, but deep down, she knows she’s useless and ignorant and undesirable. I mean, she must know that?

         Sure, I have my faults, too—don’t we all? But, I keep them to myself. And sometimes, yes, I do too much for people—always baking in a frenzy, attending Bible study every Sunday, picking up the neighbors’ kids from school, babysitting, and baking all of them sugar-free chocolate cookies at my house after school. I know. Sometimes, I do too much. But that’s just the kind of person I am. I probably need to be more assertive.

         But, MD does nothing but sit on her ever-growing behind, munching on Ding-Dongs and Cheetos and snickers—and somehow getting asked out on dates. Go figure. I think men feel sorry for her. I know I do.

         As a kid, she was probably teased a lot. Probably got beaten up on the playground a lot. It isn’t hard to imagine why. All you need to do is look at her and spend five minutes in a room with her, and the answer is quite evident.

         She’s a fraud, too—and deep down, she must know it. Doesn’t she?

         Some days, I feel like going that extra mile and doing the world a favor and hitting up someone on the dark web and hiring myself a little ‘help.’ I’ve heard about guys who do that sort of thing—offering their help for hire. It’s an act of public service, really. You just hire one of them, tell them what to do, and they do their best to help you out.

         Really, if I did go that route, I’d be doing her a favor. I’d be doing us all a favor.

         So, ok, if I’m really being honest here, I already went to the dark web and found a guy. He says his name is Jeremy, and he’s in.

         Apparently, he’s planning to drop by her house next Tuesday. He says he’ll keep me posted.