My sister gave Rob a waffle maker for Christmas, after hearing him gush about how he was once at a Courtyard Marriott and they made him a waffle at the complimentary breakfast buffet right before his very eyes and it was just the most amazing thing that had ever happened to him in his whole entire life.

I’ve never seen the guy so excited about an appliance, except maybe when he opened the Roomba we got for our wedding.

Rob had to go out of town on an intellectual property emergency over his birthday, but he was home for the weekend, a few days later. I decided to give him a birthday do-over on Saturday morning, so I woke up early to make him coffee, bacon, and, yes, a birthday waffle.

Sadly, trophy wives do not come programmed to use specialty kitchen appliances, so although the waffle iron itself came with several recipes for waffle batter, I thought nothing of instead using the fancy Williams-Sonoma pancake mix I had on hand (sitting in the cabinet for months while I instead went out to innumerable breakfasts).

However. Pancake mix is apparently incompatible with waffle makers. Do regular people really know these things without first encountering this disaster?

Rob woke up to the smell of bacon cooking in the microwave (where all the fat and other inherent values are absorbed into paper towels), took one look at this mess, and proclaimed:

“Good thing I had a birthday waffle at the hotel this weekend.”

It is not a good idea to move one month before you get married.

It is not a good idea to forget that you don’t own a swimsuit until exactly one week before you leave for your wedding in Hawaii.

It is a good idea to start using Crest White Strips seven days before your wedding. I’m three hours in, and already my teeth are so sensitive that even the thought of eating makes them hurt. Which is of some consolation when you are trying on swimsuits in a department store dressing room and wondering why you haven’t felt inspired to start dieting until RIGHT NOW.

It is not a good idea to take even one day off from writing thank-you notes for the multitude of gifts from your registry that arrive on your doorstep each day.

If you would like to single-handedly destroy the environment, I would recommend registering at Williams-Sonoma. The amount of boxes, wrapping paper, and bubble wrap used for each shipment is staggering. The sheer volume of packing peanuts alone is enough to endanger at least three species. More often than not, a huge box will yield the tiniest item, but you have to actually break a sweat to get to it. It’s like those Russian nesting dolls. Seriously:

Today’s delivery, weighing 13.3 pounds and measuring 19 by 19 by 18 inches

was full of mostly packing peanuts

and a big white box (which was wrapped, but I forgot to take a picture first)

Inside the big white box were three smaller boxes (and some more packing peanuts)

And inside THOSE boxes was a lot of bubble wrap.

And nestled inside the bubble wrap there were four salad plates, four bread plates, and four pasta bowls.

Elapsed time: 23 minutes, most of which was spent trying to corral the packing peanuts, which go flying in every direction, which makes the dog want to eat them even more.

The big picture:

And just when I’m starting to get half a mind to call Williams-Sonoma and complain about their packaging materials, I spot a notice printed on one of the boxes:

Now there is just no way in hell I’m making a special trip for all these flipping packing peanuts. Rob already complains that I have two garbage cans in the house (one for garbage, one for recycling) and that I want him to help me load up the car with the absurd amount of cardboard boxes we have accumulated between moving and getting married so I can take them to the recycling facility, because Chicago STILL DOESN’T RECYCLE.

So yeah. That’s what I’ve been up to for the past month. Unpacking boxes.

We’re getting married in TEN DAYS!

Rob just read this and said, “I think I got the wet feet.”