haphazard is a weird word.

But so is random. Random is a really weird word, and I've noticed that today's youngsters like to throw it around a lot, in a really random way. If you have a bad hair day, someone might call your hairdo "so random." Or maybe you said the wrong thing: "Wow, did you hear what she just said? That was so random." Or maybe someone cut in front of you in traffic while you were texting and driving: "*&$%$#@*!!! *&^%#*&!!!! SO random!! Random **&^%$#@s!" 

You know what's really random? The fact all of those randoms have applied to me, over the last 72 hours: 

1-I got a hair cut, and for some ungodly reason, told the woman: "I'd like bangs." And now I have bangs, which she did a beautiful job on, but I haven't had bangs for at least 8 years, and I suddenly remembered why I grew them out 8 years ago in the first place. That's random gone bad.

2-Recently, I became tongue-tied while making small talk and for about 5 (50?) minutes, we both stood around awkwardly wondering what to say, until finally the other person just looked at me and said, "Well, it was nice talking to you." And abruptly walked off. That's weird random.

3-I don't text and drive--it's dangerous and irresponsible and also I have an old razor phone and it takes forever to keep punching the keys to get to the letter I want and I just don't have that kind of time. But I *do* curse with random &^%$#@&s a lot while driving. I try not to do it in front of little Miss M, but occasionally someone is just such a bleeping bleeeeep bleeeeeep bleeeeeeeep, it just happens. 

I tell myself this is just a fact of Life she needs to learn early, and I take a deep breath, find "3 Little Birds" on the CD, and we commence to move onwards and upwards by singing "Don't worry! About a thing! 'Cause every little thing, gonna be all right!" That's when you take poor-behavior-role-modeling-by-an-adult random and turn it into redirecting-through-the-artistic-medium-of-song random.

Here is Miss M, whose existence on earth was random (when random is a happy surprise of a random). In this picture, she is not having a bad hair day (people under 10 rarely have these), she clearly doesn't care about making enough small talk that everyone feels at ease, and if she cusses out other drivers it's all babble cussing and so I won't be getting any frustrated phone calls from teachers at her daycare center. For now.

M, mesmerized by an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba I chose randomly from the hundreds saved to our DVR.