Taming the beast; or, My stress level is more obnoxious than that incessant Twilight display at Barnes and Noble.

I'm fairly confident that I would have made an excellent 19th century woman. You know – corsets, big billowy dresses, gentlemen callers, fainting couches. Aside from the outhouses, winter salted-meat diet, and the marketing of Lysol as a feminine hygiene product, I think I would have fared pretty well.

See, these fragile females were almost expected to be constantly nervous. Granted, the treatments for their varied mental ailments were somewhat sketchy – rest cures, sleep cures, bizzare-o drugs (for anyone who hasn't read “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – please do so immediately. It's deliciously harrowing).

I have no idea how I became such a freak. Maybe it was my early childhood fear of bugs in the garage. Or the adult level of paranoia I achieved after my accident-prone sister fell 25 feet from a pine tree in our backyard. (She would go on to walk the length of rusted boxcar roofs, sled down ice-covered, rock-strewn hills and whitewater raft; I finally had to cut the sisterly apron strings).

As an adult, my heart goes into goofy rhythms thinking about my husband backpacking for a week in the Oregon wilderness. (What if he breaks his leg? What if he gets sick? What if a ten-ton grizzly bear EATS him?).

Although I'd rather not consider myself as helpless as the blushing 19th century belles, being alone and in charge of the the house for two weeks presents new problems. I mean, huge problems. Specifically, holy-crap-there's-a-bat-in-the-house-and-it's-three-A.M. problems. I also get to make the shaky decision of putting $600 on our recently paid-off credit card for an aptly named “bat exclusion” to be performed by. . .well, let's just call him the BatMan. (In all fairness, the BatMan did regal Melissa and I with valiant tales of exotic pest removal, smoking cigarettes with us on my porch on a random Tuesday night).

I'm breathing. I'm trying some of that meditation recommended by my batty Pilates instructor. I'm glancing suspiciously at that bottle of leftover Prozac. I'm figuring, I can get through all this, the random ridiculousness of life, without smelling salts and a mahogany chaise lounge.

Thankfully, the BatMan is coming today. And yes, Bonnie Tyler, I am indeed holding out for a hero.