SNAKE!!!!!!

Some of you know about my issues (i.e., phobia) where spiders are concerned. My husband gets a kick out of my panicky flights from rooms where dust bunnies posing as spiders have been spotted, but tends to simultaneously and conveniently forget about his own little problem regarding another creature, namely, his irrational and all-encompassing fear of snakes. He doesn’t call it fear. He refuses to acknowledge it as fear. He prefers to simply say he hates snakes. I know better. I don’t hate spiders. I’m scared to death of the friggin things and it has nothing to do with hate. I’m just scared shitless of ‘em. What my husband doesn’t know that I know is that I know the big secret, that secret being that you don’t scream like a little bitch when you are confronted with something you hate. You scream like a girl when you are confronted with something that scares the everlovin pants offa ya. So I’ll tell you the story of how I first realized that he didn’t actually hate snakes, but instead hated how badly they scared him. I got permission to tell it too but I’ll admit, I didn’t run this past him for editorial comments before publishing it so he’ll have to live with that little oversight and the resulting embarrassment.

Many years ago, back in the days when we were childless, if you don’t count the fact that having a husband should almost always count as having a child, I was relaxing in our family room, reading a book that didn’t have illustrations, and enjoying the early evening solitude, when I heard the garage door fly open and a voice I didn’t at first recognize scream “SNAAAAAKE!!!!! SNAKE IN THE GARAGE!!!!!”. I sat there a second and wondered if that had, in fact, been my husband, and debated as to whether or not I was supposed to actually do anything, and before the decision of “screw it” had fully formed in my head, the shriek of “SNAKE” came again, followed by “GET THE HELL OUT HERE AND DO SOMETHING!!!”. So much for the book, peace, quiet or solitude, and out the door I padded in my jammies and stocking feet.

There he stood, white faced and trembling on the opposite side of the garage and, being the kind, ever thoughtful, understanding and sympathetic wife that I am, I barked “WHAT?” He whispered, “There’s a snake in here.” “Where? Where is the snake?” said I. He pointed an unsteady finger at the big red toolbox tower immediately to my left, the same toolbox he bought one Christmas and tried to pass off as my gift and guess how long that idea lasted, so I got down on my hands and knees to take a peek under it. He immediately wailed “DON’T put your face down there, it’s gonna BITE you!” Ignoring him, I grabbed a flashlight and kept looking around and just as I was about to tell him that he was on crack and there was no snake under there, I saw it. I saw the beastie, the demon, the horror that had caused him to completely crack and abandon all pretense of control.

It was horrible! It was terrifying and beyond imagination. Oh, for the love of God, it was an 8 inch long baby garter snake, curled up in the corner and scared out of it’s head-of-a-pin sized mind. It wasn’t a snake. It was a glorified worm with eyes.

I snatched a pair of work gloves, hit the garage door button and as I reached under the toolbox to retrieve little Anaconda, Jr., my husband went bolting out into the yard in case I missed it and it tried to swallow him whole for having ratted him out. I grabbed Jr. and hauled him out from under the tool box and, to his credit, he did take a few jabs at my fingers with his itty bitty teeny tiny itsy bitsy widdle teeth. I shuffled to the yard and heard my husband say “Are ya gonna KILL it?” NO. I’m not gonna kill it. I’m gonna toss it down to the edge of the yard so it can go on home or where ever it is that giant man eating snakes go, and against his most strenuous protests, I got a firm grip on Jr.’s tail and underhanded him toward the end of the yard.

Or, better put, I TRIED to.

Because as I released him, he took another bite at my glove.

This time his teeth caught.

And rather than fly off into the night, he flew straight up into the air about 20 feet and landed right on my husband’s head.

And that is the night I realized beyond the shadow of a doubt that he didn’t hate snakes.

Both the snake and my husband made full recoveries.

If Everyone Shared . . .

Taking a break from the usual nonsense that spews from my fingers, and presuming that there is anybody out there who reads this other than close friends, I'd like to take a minute to direct your attention to something that is near and dear to my heart.

Every year, I join hands with a special group of women to choose and then assist a family in crisis so that we might ease their burden somewhat through the holiday season. This year we've chosen a young boy and his mother. This little guy is only 7 years old and has been dealing with the loss of his father not much more than two years ago. He and his mom have been struggling along on their own.

He was just diagnosed with Leukemia.

If you have a moment, if you have a little something to spare, please consider helping this boy and his Mom. For more information, please visit www.davidsangels.org, our website for spreading the word about David and raising funds for his family.

Thank you for taking the time to read this plea for your help. Thank you for considering a contribution, and, if you made a contribution, thank you even more for performing such a kindness.

One Flush. One Flush Only Please.

Should you ever find yourself in the unfortunate situation of arguing with someone over whether or not it is possible for an 8 year old girl to completely stop up a toilet without utilizing the assistance of huge wads of toilet paper, merely through her own “doing”, and should they argue to you that it is NOT possible, not without using at least a couple of fist-fulls of TP, you have my express and explicit permission to thwap them over the head and bugle “HAA!!!! WROOONG!!!!” right in their shocked and suddenly-wishing-they-were-some-place-any-place-else faces.

Cause I now have proof that they are so very very wrong. If you need proof, come see. Apparently, I live with elephant girl.

I was running late again this morning and was freaking out a little because my blow dryer was barely whispering at my hair, much less blowing at it, it was one of those mornings where Ringlet needed both breakfast before we left and lunch packed for later and none of that had been done and I hadn’t been anywhere near my make-up and it was only 15 minutes before we had to run out the door to get her to school on time and I was already wondering how the hell I was gonna pull that off, when I heard the words “Mom!!! The toilet is plugged up!.”

OK. Good enough. You only have to trot in there, grab the toilet un-plugger-upper-thingie, work it loose and get going. 20 seconds. Tops. I came bolting from my room, button hooked into the hall bathroom and suddenly went skidding through the water that was standing about half an inch deep all over the bathroom floor. I had my arms out, I was sideways and it looked like I was hangin’ ten across the bathroom. The only thing that stopped me from plowing into the wall was the now soaking wet bath mat. I went splishing out of the bathroom, down the hall, snagged 3 bath towels and crawled my way back up the hall, soaking up the stream that was now running down the hall and proceeded to frantically mop up the water that appeared to be everyfrigginwhere. When I was convinced I had it all, I addressed the toilet head on, broke a sweat with that plunger thingie, shut one eye, reached for the shut off value with one hand, and flushed with the other. All good. All gone.

Looked at my watch, yelped at Ringlet to get on her shoes and get down stairs and get her stuff together already, snatched up what I needed and followed her down, doing that half-slide, half-run thing down the carpeted steps. I had my purse in one hand, bottle of water in the other, when I heard “Mom. There’s water dripping in here.”

WHERE!?!?

In here. In the living room. And yes. There was. A steady **drip drip drip** coming from the A/C hole/vent/thing in the ceiling. Snagged cereal bowl. Set it under the drip. Snagged Ringlet and OUT the door we went with my make-up bag now tucked firmly under one arm as well.

In the car, UP with the garage door, no need to look behind car - it’s still too warm for a snow blower, and careened out of the garage, down the driveway, and into the street where I turned to her and said “Hon, just how many times DID you flush that potty after it didn’t work on the first flush?”

Three. Three flushes after the first flush and even my math-challenged bud, Lisa, can figure out, no matter what color she uses to divide, that that’s a lot of water.

Yes, I told Mr. Moosenuts. No, I don’t wanna go home.

New Rule: No Poopin’ in My House in the Mornin’ No More.

Corndog Anyone?

You guys have some idea how often I visit truck stops. I've talked about the joy of finding yourself in a South of the Border truckstop after midnight, searching for directions because someone doesn't trust his state of the art satellite navigational device. When you travel in a motor home, truck stops are a required short little spin through hell. You can't just yank that land yacht into any little mom and pop gas station and hope to ever get back out again, so we tend to frequent truck stops when we travel because we know we have room to maneuver, the fuel tends to be cheaper there and you can't buy entertainment like you find at a Route 95 South truckstop for any price. And if you get lucky, sometimes they have a Burger King.

But there's another price to pay for everything that's good.

I was standing in the check out line, my "Bubba" radar on full alert, having given the clerk my credit card, and was waiting for the fuel pump to for the love of God STOP already, when a little fella with a shock of greasy black hair, big fat belly, and the most impish expression you ever saw on his face, came sidling up to me. He grinned. I cringed. He looked at the clerk, grinned a little wider, scooched over a little more my way, and said (get ready, here it comes):

"Gimme one of them there corndogs to go and hey little lady, you wanna come join me while I burp this thing up for an hour or two?"

I stopped cold.

I looked down at him.

He grinned back.

I thought, possibly out loud, but I'm not sure, "Jesus Christ on a cracker."

Then my traitorous lip twitched.

And I friggin cracked up.

Then we proceeded to get into an argument over whether "I'm the Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" was performed by Donna Summer.

I won.

Last Call, Asshole

I have this great friend. Her name is Julie, but for reasons I won't get into, I refer to her as Flipper. She recently started a part time job bartending at her local American Legion. Because she has the same warped sense of humor as me, and in large part due to her scathing wit that she likes to claim is "in direct proportion to her bra size" and to which I replied, "Thank God mine's not because you can't friggin buy wit", I decided to ask, and she graciously agreed, that we post some of her better . . . encounters . . . . behind the bar here on the blog.

So whenever you see an entry with this title, you'll know that Flipper has had another busy week.

Names have been changed to protect the drunk as I can pretty much guarantee you that innocence has no place here.

AAAAAAAAAND, she's OFF!

Take it Flipper.

Things I Learned on my First Night Bartending:

“Hey honey, shake those up for me so I can hit the jackpot” - doesn’t necessarily mean they’re talking about pull-tab lottery tickets.

Bengals vs. Packers on Monday Night Football means some guy thinks he can say to me I’ll bet I can “Pack” your “Kitty”, but it also means I can reply, "honey I’ve coughed up hair balls bigger than you…".

Last call normally means one more drink and ya gotta go – not that you can be my last call of the night.

Things They Learned on my First Night Bartending:

If you’re gonna tell me your name is Donnie, don’t come in wearing a shirt with the name "Troy" scrawled across it, 'cause: a) I’ll assume you can’t read or b) ask you if you grabbed your boyfriend’s shirt off the floor instead of your own.

When I ask what you want, don’t think asking for my number will result in you receiving the number you’re looking for – what he got was one number that I happened to show him using my middle finger.

Just cause I’m new to you doesn’t mean I’m new…these boys have no idea who they’re dealing with…


Thus endeth the first installation of the Flipper Chronicals.

Red Rover, Red Rover

Happy Fourth of July to one and all and I hope your celebrations were safe, enjoyable and somewhat legal. I, for one, spent my fourth with several other families and their multitudes of children. It was safe and enjoyable, and tragically legal, but it was also frantic and loud and distracting and I now remember why I only have one child.

After four days of camping together (in air conditioned, multi-televisioned motor homes with microwaves, refrigerators and running water do you think I’m insane no way I’m leaving my house to go sleep in the dirt), somebody (me) had the bright idea that at the conclusion of the camping trip, the 4th of July, they should all come over to my house in order to clean out the refrigerators in our motor homes and get rid of the left overs. By this time, the kids, ranging in ages from 2 to 9, had just about had enough of each other, were exhausted, and my daughter in particular, went into solitary mode and wanted nothing to do with anyone. She's her mother's guts sometimes. But eventually, we cleaned up dinner, grabbed some chairs and blankets and headed the few blocks down to the park to get a good spot for the fireworks.

My town, while growing and much larger than I ever imagined it would be, still, on occasion, has that home-town gomery, Mayberry feel to it, and Independence Day is one of those days where everybody comes out, spends the day at the park playing games, throwing Frisbees, listening to the bands and standing in line for home made ice cream. In the evening, everybody settles in with their coolers and picnic baskets on blankets for the fireworks and we got there in plenty of time to grab up some prime real estate close enough to see, but still some distance from the bulk of the crowd. It was still light and the kids were getting restless, so the five of them old enough to do so started a game of tag that eventually developed into the black hole that most children's games become and attracted other children from all around us. Growing bored with that, the self-designated social coordinator known as my kid organized a game of Red Rover. Remember that game? Where the kids divide into two teams, lock arms and dare someone from the other team to get up a big enough head of steam to break through a set of locked arms? Yeah, that game. It would have been just an ordinary kid's game had it stayed a kid's game, which it didn't, and that’s where it got funny as hell.

Most of the families around us were watching the game since most of their kids were involved in it and just as it was getting a little boring, I heard a male voice behind me announce "OK, you've had enough time to warm up. Let's do this thing." Yup. One of the men from our group was strutting across the grass, leading the other two (one of whom was my husband) into the Red Rover fray.

Did I tell you about Doc? No? Lemme tell you about our friend Doc. He is the father of three, a law enforcement officer, completely wonderful, and a totally terrifying sight to behold. He is about 6' 10" inches tall, unabashedly bald, and completely enormous. He was wearing the biggest white T-shirt you ever saw and by God he was gonna play Red Rover with a bunch of little humans that looked like scampering puppies next to him.

They all lined up. They locked arms. Big, little, little, little, friggin HUGE, little, little and I heard a young voice, full of impish glee, bellow "RED ROVER RED ROVER WE DARE DOC TO COME OVER!!!!" My kid really needs to learn her limitations.

And the earth shook and here came Doc. It looked like a snow covered mountain had gone into motion and was slowly picking up speed as it rolled across the grass. Every single adult head turned. Those who had been relaxing suddenly were sitting up. Every little young arm tensed around the other young arm firmly in it's grip and little knees bent to improve balance and heads dipped and here came Doc. Every single kid in that line screamed with fear, excitement and glee but nobody let go. They hung on for dear life and here came Doc. All of him. And God bless than big bear of a man's soul, because as he hit the line of children, he threw up his hands in a mock display of hitting the wall, staggered back, tipped to one side, tipped to the other and, arms flailing, collapsed under the weight of 10 small children attempting to tackle him anywhere above his knees.

As they fell into a pile, the kids from the other side decided that it was more fun being on the other team and THEY piled on and eventually Doc clambered to his feet with about half a dozen children hanging off him like the world's filthiest animated Christmas tree ornaments and the entire section of the park watching this display burst into cheering appreciation. Not a few mothers breathed a hugh sigh of relief at the sight of their child having landed on TOP of the pile as opposed to UNDER the pile.

Doc stood tall, took a bow, shook off the flock of kids, grabbed a couple of hands, turned and rumbled "Red Rover, Red Rover, I DARE (insert my 5’8” tall husband’s name right friggin here) to come over."

I thanked God our wills were in place, the insurance was paid, and then turned to see the first explosion of color as it lit up the night sky.

Happy Independence Day.

Sleeping with a Greyhound 101

1. If you don't have to, don't do it in the first friggin' place.
2. Sneak quietly up stairs, avoiding creaky one.
3. Slip quietly into bed. Avoid rustling sheets at all costs. Buy flannel.
4. Turn off light and get comfy.
5. Close eyes.
6. Swallow own tongue when cold wet needlenose goes up your butt.
7. Tell hound to go lay down in his own bed.
8. Repeat.
9. Repeat louder.
10. Shift quickly to avoid greyhound claws.
11. Tell hound to get the HELL down!!!
12. Move legs left to accommodate circling greyhound.
13. Try moving them to the right.
14. Keep one leg left and one leg right.
15. Call Denise Austin to tell her about the straddle split you've mastered.
16. Big sigh and close eyes.
17. Ignore shooting pains in legs.
18. Deep breath. Wait. Bad idea.
19. Wave hands to dissipate green greyhound fart induced cloud.
20. Decide shooting pains running up legs aren't getting better.
21. Sit up, reach down, wrap arms around hound and haul 350 pounds of pretend-sleep dog up and out of the circle of agony he has created and in which he's chosen to sleep.
22. Situate greyhound next to you with his head on your arm. Wrap arms around hound.
23. Ask husband where the hell he thinks HE's going.
24. Close eyes
25. Deep cleansing brea . . . (God yer dumb)
26. Relax
27. Try to move completely numb fingers on right hand.
28. Realize that awake-hound-head weighs about 5 pounds and sleeping-hound-head weighs about 50.
29. Wipe spit off face placed there by snoring, flapping greyhound lips.
30. Look at ceiling.
31. Look at clock.
32. Look at ceiling again.
33. Deep sigh. Yer gettin' used to the funk by now.
34. Wrap arm that still works tightly around hound.
35. Give hound big fat kissero right between the eyes.
36. Remember to bring vodka to bed with you next time.

My Spider, George

I dunno if I’ve told you how I feel about spiders. If not, I’ll do it now. I hate spiders. I loathe spiders. I respect them, but I respect them in the same way I respect a psychotic madman wielding a hypodermic needle full of Ebola or some such shit. I’m also scared to friggin death of them. It all goes back to my childhood (don’t you hate it when people say that? You might as well crack a beer and pull up a chair when you hear those words. Those words, and the words “to make a long story short . . .”)

I was a kid, just a little kid, and I was sacked out on the floor of my living room, watching TV. It was evening and the TV was black and white if that gives you any idea of how long ago this occurred, and the comforting sounds of some stupid-ass show were filling the room when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was small. But it was there. Any of you live out in the country? Any of you recall those wolfy looking spiders? The ones with the boxy hairy bodies and the legs about four fucking feet long? Yeah. Those. Slowly I turned, bit by bit, inch by inch and there he stood, just outside the edge of the shadow cast by the sofa. Slowly he turned, bit by bit, inch by inch (talk about an I Love Lucy rip-off) and after a slight pause, he SHOT across the room straight at me.

I shit you not, I came up off that floor as though my ass had become an ejection seat and OUT of the room I went, screaming the entire way.

Later in life, as I stood in line at the pet store to purchase food for my snake (yes I said snake), one of the employees was cleaning out an aquarium looking thingy next to me. Thank God it was winter and I was wearing a heavy coat, because the tarantula housed inside that aquarium looking thingy made a break for it. Did you know tarantulas can jump like a million feet and that when they do, they will ALWAYS land on the arm of somebody who will immediately feel all the air rush out of their lungs and be unable to scream for help while they watch the Volvo sized spider slowly climb up their arm? Well they do. And it did. I ain’t been right since.

At this point in my life you would have think I’d have gotten over the worst of it and, to be honest, I’ve come a long way. I can stomp on em now if I’m wearing heavy shoes and long pants. Used to be I wouldn’t even do that fear that they would dodge my foot, jump on my pants and climb up the inside on my leg. I still won’t stomp em if I’m wearing shorts. Sandals are out too. Just can’t do it.

So imagine me last night, on my back deck, cleaning up after a father's day cookout. I looked up and saw what appeared to be a spider leap from a bush to the hanging plant right beside me. I froze and the words "WOULD SOMEBODY FOR GOD’S SAKE COME OVER HERE AND KILL THIS GODDAMNED THING ALREADY" were almost out of my mouth when I saw Mr. Spider then fly back in the opposite direction. I still don’t know why, but I shut my mouth and got a little closer. And I watched. Back and forth, back and forth, and then up and down and across he went, the busiest and most intense little furry monster I’d ever seen. Eventually, he hopped into the center of the shape he'd formed and began to circle around and around in an ever widening pattern. He was building his web and it was fascinating.

I'd never had an encounter with a spider web short of ripping them down with a broom with a very long handle, or running into one with my face as I walked through bushes and trees and erupted into ear piercing screams, so I watched him for as long as it took him to construct his web.

And NO I did NOT wait until he was finished and then bash him and his web all to shit and back. I let him live. I actually let a visible spider live and reside on my property with full knowledge of his evil little presence, and this morning when I went out to water the flowers on that deck, I edged over to see if he and his web were still there. They were and he was sleepin'. So I killed a fly and chucked it in.

I will name him George.
I will not hug him and I will not pet him.
But I will call him George.

And provided he stays the hell out of my house, I’ll keep on chucking flies in there.

How Many Women Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?

Again.

Only me.

Went to my Mom's to help her figure out the remote control for her new TV set, her first new set in like a hunnert years or something, but if your mother is like my mother, then you know that it's never just one thing. There's always another task just quietly lurking around the corner. It's never just a simple task. Oh, it SEEMS like a simple thing when they ask, but in the end, it takes an hour instead of five minutes and in my case, usually involves the risk of bodily injury.

So as I sat there fiddling with the remote control, I told myself "wait for it" and eventually it came.

"Could you change a lightbulb for me in my bedroom closet and you might want to take that stool with you and let me get the flashlight cause it's dark in there."

***sigh****

Snagged the stool and trotted up the stairs with a fresh light bulb in my paw. Felt my way into the depths of her walk-in closet, let my eyes adjust to the gloom and climbed up the stool. Reached up and after a couple of rounds of "righty tighty, lefty loosey", loosened those aggravating little screws that hold the globey thing over the light bulb and gently pulled down the globe . . . and heard an ominous rattling sound inside Mr. Globe.

Peeked inside, squinted and said "shit."

Looked up. Squinted at the now lightbulbless fixture. Peeked inside globe again. Said that word again. Looked at my mother and said, "The light bulb fell out of the socket." She said "Well, that's handy here's the new one." I said "No, you don't understand. The screwey part that you put into the actual socket in the ceiling, you know, the metal thingy (sorry to get so technical) is still IN the socket thing and the light bulb fell OUT all by itself and I can't get the screwey metal thing out of the socket thing."

My mom said the same thing I'd said.

Down to the basement we went, flashlight in hand.

Next thing you know, there I am, standing in front of the fuse box. Me. With the electrical knowledge of a two year old, standing there in the webby darkness with my spider phobia firmly in command of my brain, getting ready to start flipping switches to turn off the correct breakers so I can go mess around with a piece of metal stuck in an electrical socket.

Eff me runnin.

Handed Mom the flashlight, reached in and flipped switches until the light in the basement went out, at which point Mom said "let me check upstairs" and went trotting out, leaving me standing in a pitch black room with questionable webby things all around my head . I quite calmly screamed at her to kindly get the hell back here.

Eventually, we got the right lights turned off (i.e., every stinkin' light in the house) and I grabbed a potato because I'd heard you could use a potato to address situations such as this, but, sadly, learned that there must be broken glass for the potato to get a grip and of all times for me to have the rotten luck of not having broken glass.

Clambered back up on the stool and peered at the problem. There was absolutely no way that thing was coming out of there short of utilizing drastic measures. Asked my mother for some tweezers. She inquired, "WHAT?!" I said, "tweezers, I need some tweezers." You have thought I asked her to go stick a fork in the toaster. I told her to just get 'em and I closed my eyes, held my breath, and braced myself as I gripped the edge of the metal part that used to be part of the light bulb with the tweezers and started twisting it out.

I'll have you know, there is a fresh light bulb in that socket, I don't have flash burns anywhere, I did most assuredly NOT give myself a bad home perm, and I didn't even fall off the stool.

Yes, I turned the breakers back on but I shoulda made HER go back into that spider warren and do it herself, but I wuv my mummy no matter what messed up project she ropes me into.

Next time, I'm taking my husband with me.

Anti-Camel Humps a/k/a The Gap Loves Me Now

Let me preface this by directing you to another story (if you haven't already read it) and letting you in on a little age old lie of mine.

First, if you haven't read "camel humps" you can't appreciate the glory of this experience (yes, I'm exaggerating) and as for the lie, let's just say that I haven't shopped at the Gap in, oh, I guess it's been about 4 years - ever since I started dumping the massive quantities of fat that had found its way to my ass and everywhere else. Why? Because (here it comes) "their clothes run too small to fit adult women." Get up. It's not that funny you hookers. Actually, it's more pathetic than it is funny.

On this particular day, the Hubby wanted some of those "destroyed" jeans (and trust me, he looked beyond good in those things cuz they wuz snug in all the right places and they wuz ripped up and . . . OK. Stopping now.) So I thought why let him have all the fun but then remembered where we were.

The Gap. ((insert overly dramatic B rated movie music here and throw in a few good **gasps!** for good measure while yer at it.)

First thought in my head - "Well SHIT, I can't shop HERE! **sniff sniff**" And then the demon in me decided to live a little dangerously, told myself I was at the lowest weight of my adult life, grabbed the youngin' and headed for the "girl" section.

Doodle: What size do you need Mom?

Me: Screw it . . . um . . . whoops . . . . um Mommy wants a 10 (figuring I'd need at least either a 14 or a two man tent in that place).

Doodle: OK. Here.

Me: What does the tag say? (cause you gotta be careful that she ain't lookin' at the price instead of the size but of course nothing costs $10 in the jeans section at the Gap so I suppose I was relatively safe but it seemed like a reasonably good stalling tactic at the time.)

Doodle: (Squinting) Um . . Size 10, Long and Lean, Low Rise. Here. Go put 'em on.

Me: Oh fuckfuckfuck. They were fulla holes n junk and they had a zipper like mebbe 2 inches long if that and all I could think was "camel humps".

So, while the hubby was otherwise occupied with his own jeans issues, I hustled into the dressing room, stood there a second, crossed myself as only an ignorant non-Catholic can, and hauled them up and stopped. Twisted around and looked. Nope. Nothing camel back there. Buttoned 'em. !!!!! Zipped 'em. !!!!!!!! Stood there and puzzled it out a bit. Strolled out to a husband who's eyes went the size of fifty cent pieces. Frowned cause I was confused at his reaction thinking "Oh there is no WAY I missed the camel humps, oh shit where are the camel humps, and spun around a few time like a dog chasing it's own tail. Walked over to the dreaded 3 way mirror and paused again. Took a deeeeep breath and turned. Turned so you could see your backside full on and I shit you not I squealed.

Dear Man who Might Be Reading this: OK. I know you don't get it cause y'all suck in yer gut and turn sideways to see what you look like in the mirror but for your information, we women have yet to figure out how to suck in our ass and most us avoid a clear and unobstructed view of our ass like the rest of you avoid lunch with Paris Hilton or a dentist who's novocaine supplier just cut him off.

Continuing . . . .

Cause my big, honking, 45 year old butt was flat out gone. Oh trust me, there was a butt there, but just a butt. Not a BUTT.

I danced.

I jigged.

I did that little run in place with yer arms pumping while you giggle thing.

I jumped up and down and I slipped in my socky feet and decided I'd pushed the celebration quite far enough thank you.

AND I BOUGHT TWO, COUNT 'EM, TWO DAMNED PAIRS - one ripped up and ankle length and another dark blue, long to wear with boots pair and I did NOT fucking care WHAT they cost cause I repeat: I DID NOT HAVE CAMEL HUMPS AND THEY FIT AND THEY WUZ SIZE 10 AND I WAS IN THE GOD DAMNED GAP!!!!! ((breathe)) I'm a very very happy person this morning so you'll have to excuse me.

Fall Down Go Boom

There's a certain kind of thought process that occurs when one faces the reality of being back up on a pair of roller skates after twenty fiv . . . . one hell of a long time. That thought process could correctly be named "ridiculous sense of false confidence", or the "It's Like Riding a Bike" disease. Cause trust me. Getting back up on slick-as-shit-through-a-goose roller skates after any length of time is the folly of fools or old people who think they're still in some kind of decent shape. Or people like me who think that once ya got it, ya always got it. What I got was hardly attractive.

Daughter invited to friend's birthday party at a roller rink that we had to drive over 45 minutes just to find. Once there, we were asked if the "adults" would like to skate as well. ??? Well, SHIT yeah!!! Of course, at this point, the good natured ribbing and poking between husband and wife, the ribbing that usually starts out with "Watch me kick your ass" begins. The only thing that kicked my ass was the floor.

Skate counter: Young man with knowing smile on his face asks if we would like regular skates or "blades". Blank stare from me. Light bulb blinks on and I blurt "regular skates for God's sake." Subtle, huh? Now me, coming from the era when men's skates were always black and women's skates were always grey, pretending to be white, pinched the puke green skates that were handed to me between my fingers and confidently trotted over to the seating area to don said skates. My husband, having measurably more good sense than me, took his fire engine red ones in hand and schlumped despondently over to sit next to me and spend the next couple of minutes cussing mildly under his breath. Not me. I was perky! I was anticipating the air blowing through my hair as I glided effortlessly around the rink as in days of old. Old. Are you hearing me? Old is the operative word throughout here. OLD.

And stupid.

And the thought proess started:

"OK. Get up. Stand up. Quit bein' a weinie, people are watching you so stand the hell up. OK. Up. Put your arms down. It's carpet and anybody can stay upright ***whoops*** on carpet. Shuffle step, pause. Shuffle step, pause. Grab rail. Look for opening on the floor ok ok ok ok GO no wait. Wait. Wait for it. OK GO!!!! Oh Christ! OK. Don't move your feet yet. Glide. Shit. Put yer arms up! Balance balance. OK. okokokokokokokok. Move the right foot a little. Move the left foot a little and gliiiiiide. Arms up, arms down, wave arms. Circle arms. SHIT! OK. Got it. Fuck. A corner. How the hell do you turn these things. Move right foot move right foot move right foot damdamdamdam move right foot move right foot. Wheeeewww! OK. Push off with right. Push off with left. HEY! I'm getting it bac . . . . JESUS kid! . . . . OK. Dam. Another corner. OK. Around again. Around around around. Good good good. OK. Let's pick up a little speed, shall we? (let's have a lobotomy, shall we?) Good so far. Feelin' a little air there. OK. Arms down. Swing arms gently and push off push off, corner. OK Corner and aroooooound the corner and head back toward your friends. They're right up there standing at the rail and watching you in awe, admiring how quickly it all came back to you . . . . fuck. Kid. Tiny kid coming my way. Gotta stop. STOP! How the hell do you STOP. Toe thingy. Big rubber toe thingy on front. OK. Balance on left and drag rubber thingy with right. Shit. He's coming too damned fast. Slow down MORE.

Toe thingy catches. Hard. Hard enough to cause other foot to tilt forward that THAT rubber toe thingy catches and my entire weight comes crashing down on to my right knee. All of it. And of course there's that little thing we like to call momentum that continues to carry me forward, skidding across a hard rubber rink on my knee, arms out, right leg trailing gracefully behind me. Came to a stop in this lovely position directly in front of my now cheering and clapping friends.

I missed the kid.

And we rolled up my pants leg, the knee of which was surprisingly undamaged as I thought I might have BURNED the friggin thing right off my knee, to find a gorgeous red and purple floor burn covering the entire surface of my knee.

"That doesn't hurt" and off I went, made a few more circles, actually DID get some of the old rhythm back, got cocky, fell on my ass, nobody saw me, got back up again. And when the call for CAKE! went up, I hustled my bleeding and broken ass off the floor.

But. I missed the kid.

A Few Random Thoughts

OK. This one isn't exactly funny. If you were expecting funny, keep going.

It's been a rough month, and even though God and I have had a few conversations over the sheer size of the sledge hammer he used to get my husband and me to open our eyes, I have to trust that he knows his hammers. And during the course of the bludgeoning, I have learned this about us and suspect it can apply to everyone. Except for one person, and that bitch knows who she is. Ooops. That one just kinda slipped out. Continuing:

1. If he loved the sound of your voice telling him you loved him 20 years ago, he still loves it today.

2. If the touch of your hand comforted him 20 years ago, it comforts him even more now that he's older.

3. There are women out there who will call you friend, look you in the eye and smile as they reach behind you to steal your world. Learn to recognize them.

4. It's seldom all his fault. It really DOES take two.

5. It's seldom all your fault. Because it really DOES take two.

6. You love your kids. They love you. Now get a sitter and go out with your man and take him to a place lit only by candles. Or the bowling alley. Depends on your guy.

7. Praise him.

8. Tell him you love him. Mean it. Do it regularly. Don't roll your eyes when you do it.

9. Talk to him. Don't yell or whine. Sit down, take his hand and TALK to him. If you don't know how to do that, learn. You're an intelligent woman. Learn one of the most important lessons of your life - communication.

10. If you're a guy reading this, flip all these gender tags around accordingly because this applies to you guys too. All of it.

11. Just as you want to know that those pants don't make you look fat, he wants to know that you still find him attractive. If you want to be told that you're still hot, still desirable, so does he. So tell him. Pat that butt and tell him. MORE than once every month or so.

12. Continue to be on the look-out for the thieving bitches. Carry roach spray for when you see 'em. **hint** You can usually find them schlepping around overpriced retail clothing establishments who have decided that high price tags makes clothing that would otherwise be considered crap worth buying, yanking down minimum wage, wearing a plastic name tag, and trying not to look as though she's so old that the rest of the kids working there could easily be her children, which of course, she is. So sorry. I'm doing it again.

13. Repeat steps 1 through 12. Buy more roach spray.

It was a Cold and Windy Day

And on cold and windy days, I don't do my hair. It's a waste of time. Completely. So instead of washing, gooing, drying, brushing, gooing and styling, I yank that crap back into a big old ugly clip and call it good.

What makes that hair-fixing-up thing totally pointless is that the building where I am imprisoned for . . . . um . . . . the building where I gleefully and cheerfully scamper to work Monday through Friday, sits on the corner of a street that, in an earlier life, was a wind tunnel testing ground for NASA. I shit you not, on a day when there isn't even a breath of air anywhere else, on my street, you can't wear a wrap around skirt unless you have your bail money for that indecency rap that's sure to follow stuck somewhere out of the wind. It was that kind of day. And it was cold. AND it was raining. And I couldn't con anybody else to deliver a few documents for me, not even with my bail money. So I went.

Going was OK. The wind was at my back and my umbrella was shielding me from the worst of it from behind. But it's like that "what goes up" theory. At some point, you gotta turn around come back, no matter how many bars you pass on your way. You gotta come back. It's a law or something. So I came back.

I dunno about your town, but in mine we have the holdovers from an earlier era evident on our sidewalks. Bug ugly drainage grates and those metal cellar door looking things that are flush to the sidewalk that some establishments still use for their deliveries. Those bitches are slippery. And it's raining. And the wind is blowing. And they don't call me a dancing moose for nuthin. I tip over for lesser reasons than this.

As I came trudging up the street into the wind, I kept tucking my umbrella down lower and lower to my face to keep my eyelashes from blowing off (my real ones - I ain't kidding about that wind) and I was almost there, baby, I was mere yards from the front door when my shoe hit one of those slippery metal cellar door things and --- WHHOOOOPS! -- and I felt myself going down. But I am woman, hear me roar, and I caught myself. I stood there for a second to gather up my thoughts and round up my dignity and as I went to carefully step away, I attempted to lift my umbrella a little. And couldn't. And I yanked again and it HURT so naturally I yanked harder and hollered a little. Little metal rods inside umbrella were now entangled firmly in the ugly hair clip. So what does any rational person do when they're stuck inside an umbrella? You spin damnit, you spin. So I spun, and I yanked and I realized I hadn't quite moved off the cellar door, so I slipped and I spun again and I reached up there to try to loosen up the stupid thing and naturally my hand hit the button that releases the umbrella, which promptly collapsed over my head and around my shoulders. So there I stood. Feet spread like Bambi on the ice, soaked to the bone, hands dangling at my side with a catastrophically ugly umbrella collapsed down around my shoulders. And what did I hear?

I heard the voices of my pals as they passed me by, giggling madly, saying "Hey G, gimme yer hand" and like a bumbershoot challenged child, I allowed myself to be lead off the street, to the elevator and shuttled back off to my dark, sheltered cell where I'm kept for reasons which should be painfully obvious by now.

Took me half an hour to get that friggin thing off my head.

Real Men Don't Ask for Directions

For those of you who have spent any significant time around a man, be it your brother, your boyfriend, husband or father, newborn male child in diapers, you know all about a man’s obsession with gadgetry. It doesn’t seem to matter if he really needs, wants or even understands how to use it: a gadget he doesn’t possess is an abomination to his sensibilities, regardless of it’s obscure and totally useless purpose. A man without his gadgets is like a woman without her tweezers: You really don’t need either of them to survive, but nobody’s happy without ‘em either, ya know?

My hubby once got a new gadget, just in time for our sojourn to the Outer Banks for Thanksgiving. In his eyes, it was perfect. It was glorious. It was made just for him. It was also something one of his buddies had that he didn’t have, which made it that much more necessary. It was a Garmin Street Pilot III GPS system for the motor home. Yes, folks, a device that tells you where you’re going and how to get there via satellite tracking. Even talks to ya. I’m thinking at this point: Cool. No more arguments about which exit to take, no more barfing in the car from trying to read a map with a flashlight at night, and best of all, no pulling in to half deserted service stations in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere at midnight to ask for directions resulting from our being lost due to a “short-cut” somebody told him about and telling ME to ask for directions, which invariably led to my having conversations with some marginally inbred fella named Bubba that always start out something like “Well howdee thar little lady, just what kin I do fer a cute little thang like you this late at night {{{sluuurp}}? You alone?”

Maybe this could be a good thing, just maybe. Probably not, but maybe.

Needless to say, the day the UPS guy pulled up in front of our house with this surprisingly small box, there was the hubby, hopping from foot to foot doing his version of the peepee dance. Naïve, yes, but I’m still figuring that we just pop this baby out of the box, pop it into the motor home and say “show me the right road”. No no no no no. This thing comes with SOFTWARE, people, and cables and all kinds of nifty instructions, none of which hubby knows how to do. After peering at all the parts, poking at all the buttons, he very ceremoniously turned to me, handed it all over and said “Here. Make it work. I’ll get you the laptop.” At least an hour later I hand it back, after which he promptly disappears into the motor home for the next two hours to play. I sit back and wait, knowing eventually I’ll hear the words “how does this thing work?”

Eventually the day comes when we’re heading out on the road for our first big trip with the new toy and expectations are high. We pull out of our driveway and it tells us to turn right. REALLY!!! God, it knows where we are!!!! It then gives us rights and lefts and exits and all kinds of interesting information and it makes nifty little beeps, whistles, and the voice politely tell us our turn is in 200 feet and I’m thinking that maybe this was a fabulous idea after all. This trip is gonna be a breeze! No stress, no confusion, piece of cake. We are now members of the 21st century, we are techno-wizards, we are Mr. and Mrs. Buck Freakin’ Rogers baby!!!!! Those of you who are laughing at me right now, go right ahead. Chuckle at my expense. Those of you who are NOT laughing yet have not spent enough time on the road with a man to understand what is obviously coming.

All went well until his beloved toy gave an instruction he didn’t agree with. That’s right, he wanted to ARGUE with the instructions given by the state of the art Garmin Street Pilot III GPS system. He said “That’s not the way we’re supposed to go”. I said, but honey, that’s what it says right here on the fully readable, color screen and that’s what the nice lady said.” He said, but it’s not right.” I said “define right”. He said “my way”. I said “Oh God”. So instead of consulting and trusting his state of the art toy, he starts calling his buddies on his cell phone to ask them which way they went when the drove to the Outer Banks because “this just don’t look right, man”. He would get other directions, go that way and then I’d have to re-program the trusty ol’ Garmin to tell me where I was and how to get where I was going based on the turn he had just made, contrary to the Garmin’s instructions in the FIRST PLACE. Is there a sick irony hidden in there somewhere, or was it just really really late at night?

In other words: He loves his Garmin Street Pilot III. He paid a lot of money for it, he thinks it’s cool and he’ll listen to it – as long as it’s telling him what he wants to hear. And I know just how his beloved Street Pilot feels, because he’s been ignoring my directions for 16 years now.

How to Walk More than One Greyhound

1. Gather up doggy coats.
2. Quietly gather leashes so they can't hear you gathering leashes.
3. Pick self up off floor after having been mowed down by greyhounds who heard you gathering leashes.
4. Get dogs off coats.
5. Put coats on dogs.
6. Take off coats and put big coat on big dog, etc.
7. Snap on leashes.
8. Try to open door.
9. Try again.
10. Smack face on edge of door as dogs pull you through before it's actually open.
11. Hit garage door opener with hand not currently pressed to rapidly swelling face.
12. Smack face on garage door that isn't actually up yet as dogs rocket out garage.
13. Stagger into driveway.
14. Yell to nosey neighbor that, no damnit it, you haven't been into the vodka . . . yet.
15. Off we go.
16. Switch leashes to line up with dog.
17. Switch.
18. Switch.
19. Switch.
20. Switch.
21. Screw it.
22. Try to trot.
23. Examine bleeding knee and decide that's a really stupid idea.
24. Stop so doggy can smell bush.
25. Stop so doggy can smell grass.
26. Stop so doggy can smell birdpoop on sidewalk.
27. Stop so doggy can smell things that aren't even freaking THERE.
28. See squirrel a split second too late to save rotator cuff.
29. Get completely spun around while one dog goes one way, and the other dog goes in the opposite direction.
30. Walk walk walk.
31. See dog about to take crap in rilly rilly mean neighbor's yard.
32. Stop dog and make him crab walk to other side of sidewalk and poop there.
33. Put hand in pocket to find you have no poop bags.
34. Stare at kleenex and seriously consider it.
35. Decide kleenex is about as good an idea as the trotting nonsense.
36. Stoop down, make rustly picky uppy motions and "pretend".
37. After reaching half way point of walk, turn around so you can see lazy ass dogs as you drag them along.
38. Call, cajole, make promises you have no intention of keeping.
39. Give up.
40. Creep along as we smell more invisible stuff.
41. Jump over leash as it tangles around your legs.
42. Look around to see who saw you go down.
43. Spy your house.
44. Race for house. Hell with that trotting shit.
45. Open garage door.
46. Smack entire upper body on garage door as dogs shoot under.
47. Thank God the door to house opens in the OTHER direction on the way back in.
48. Cut loose demons from hell.
49. NOW open vodka.

Race ya!!!

You can't share your life with a bunch of greyhounds and not, at some point, have some pretty good stories. Sometimes they're touching. Sometimes they're hysterical, but sometimes the magic of these creatures will leave you breathless. This story is from a time last year when I only had two of them. They were still getting used to each other, and it was the first time I ever saw them actually interact in the manner to which they were born. It still gives me goosebumples.

Moses is my big male, and Lilo is our little female. Before that night, I honestly believed that I had seen Moses run. Really run. Then I watched the tapes of his races and wondered if I had, in fact, actually seen the boy at full bore. Somehow I doubted it. On this particular night, we took Lilo, who was brand spanky new to our house and dealing with a bunch of issues of her own, most of which caused her to pee on the floor and eat tables, with us to the ball field for our weekly play date. Lilo, having been off the track for a much shorter time than Moses, was ready to roll and as soon as I let them off lead, she started trotting with Moses down the first base line all the way to the outfield fence. The further along the baseline they went, the more they were messing with each other, bumping, pushing, egging each other on like a couple of kids. It was so obvious what was happening that it was funny: They were trying to psych each other out on the way to the starting line. It was amazing. It got a lot more amazing real soon.

Those two got to the outfield fence and suddenly, Lilo zigged left and was off and running like she’d been shot out of a cannon. In the blink of an eye, Moses was off as well. It’s one thing to see them break from a dead stop to a flat out sprint on tape. It’s another thing entirely to see it happen right before your very eyes. 0 to 45 in under 6 strides has a way of humbling you. And yes, that's 0 to 45 mph. Being much smaller and lighter, Lilo quickly got about 9 lengths out on him in no time flat, but if you watched Moses, you could see an incredible thing happening. You could see him literally flitting through the gears: peeling rubber off the start, getting his bearings, and then snap shifting into higher gears, effortlessly, one after the other. And he was catching her. Stride by stride he was catching her. When Lilo felt him coming on, she snapped it into a higher gear, and back and forth it went until mere seconds later, Moses was with her and I was on my ass because my legs had simply turned to noodles.

They messed around like this for about 15 minutes or so (or until Moses keeled over and gave up and all the doggy “come ON is that all you got” in the world couldn’t convince him to do more than trot). I’ve never seen two happier dogs in all my life. Smiles lighting up their faces, ears pinned back and doggy lips and tongues flapping everywhere. Once Moses quit, Lilo started messing with my little girl, letting her run away from her and get about ¾ of the way across the ball field, and then blazing off to catch her at the fence. All you could hear in the dead silence of the early evening was Lilo’s pounding paws and my little girl’s giggling. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I really saw my hounds do what they were born to do: cut the air like a hot knife. Put Animal Planet to shame.

Doggie Dump

I'm one of those idiot people who shares her home with a pile of critters. It's interesting to note that the first dog, a stupid Shi-Tzu named Rags, was the bright idea of both my husband and me. The second dog, a giraffe/holstein cow posing as a greyhound, whose name is Moses, was entirely my idea and entirely against my husband's will. Nevertheless, within 24 hours someone was smitten and shortly thereafter, he marched his ass straight up to Philadelphia to bring home HIS dog, a little female my daughter named, in completely original fashion, Lilo. Finally, he said "I'd like a brindle" and about six months later, Dominic came home to live with us. For the mathematically challenged, that's one retarded fluff ball and three leggy, lazy, farting greyhounds. As an aside, I think it's interesting to note that somewhere along the line, they have all become MY dogs. Don't get me started.

Even though Rags was first, he's hardly alpha, but fortunately for him, Moses ignores him and Lilo wrestles with him and has become his best friend. Dominic was a different story. Dominic had lived out his previous three years with a miserable, overbearing chiuaua . . . chiwowa . . . cheewowwa . . . . overgrown sewer rat. When he saw Rags for the first time, you could his expression just dropped as if he were thinking "Crap. Another one." And for the first several days, things around here were a wee bit tense, with Dom growling and snapping every time Rags came within five feet of him.

But things settled down after about a week and I started to drop my guard. Came the afternoon of the big dump. I'll explain. Rags is under the impression that taking a shit is cause for celebrating with wild abandon, usually at top speed and in a circular pattern. He'll squat down, hunch all up, crap like a large rabbit and come straight for the house, fly through the back door and begin racing around the entire house like someone blew bees up his ass. When he's feeling particularly proud of himself, he'll jump onto Lilo and they'll celebrate together for a little while. On this particular day, he was in rare form and took off around the coffee table, made circles around Lilo, and in general was moving so damned fast his back end tried to pass his front end and he was rolling, baby, he was the KING and he was about to make one hell of a huge mistake and he just FLEW through the house and like the world's furriest rocket, he launched himself . . . . straight into Dominic.

Oh. My. God. Y'all. You could see it on his face, the look in his eyes, the sudden horror, the abrupt realization of what he'd just done and if a dog could have come to a screeching halt in mid-air, that's just what he would have done, and if he could have screamed, you would have heard the words "AWWWWW SHIT! WRONG DOG!!!!!!!" ringing in the afternoon air. Dominic, to his credit, simply stood there, rolled up his lips to show shockingly big teeth, and let asshole just bounce right off him. Which is something Rags does a lot, considering this is a dog who had to go flying up the motor home stairs and rebound off the screen door three times before it occurred to him that there was some sort of barrier blocking his progress.

Although the post-shit celebrations have abated not one iota, he has most certainly grown slightly more cautious about his route. A day with no dog blood is a GOOD day.

Twofer on the Sauna Belt

I'm dialing right now. I'm spending $80 for an ugly blue plastic hot belt thingy cause I get a second one for half price. I'm gonna drop five inches off my waist by doing nuthin. I'm gonna sit on my butt watching Days of Our Lives and feel the inches just melt off. I'm gonna "sweat off excess calories" doing nothing because exercise does the same thing, but it's messy and takes a LOT of effort and who wants that? I'm gonna look just like those models and gym rats on the TV and I ain't never even gonna get outta my barcalounger. Except to hose it off from all the sweat. And apparently I can never drink water again for the rest of my life or all that weight I lost on the couch will come screamin right back. I can do THAT! I think we need to actually START a website with a name my buddy created, www.Iamaflockingmoron.com, where we can stick all the profoundly stupid gimmicky snake oil garbage products that people are conned into buying every single morning on these friggin horrid infomercials. I would personally like to model the Velform Sauna Belt while slumped on my couch, eating chicken wings and throwing the bones at the TV screen with a six pack of Bud at my side. Cans. That is all.

The Lady in the Purple Minivan

It's the kind of Friday I dread most of all. It's the Friday where my work mate and pal, Rosie, who normally stops top pick up doughnuts for the office on Fridays, takes a Friday off and when she comes skulking down the hall looking for some unsuspecting fool to do the infamous doughnut run for her, it seems that everybody else got the head's up and rapidly beat feet to the toilet. Everybody but me and so there I usually sit, a completely stationary and clueless target. Therefore, I had to schlep my way into Dunkin Donuts this morning with the Ringlett (my youngin) in tow so she could get a special treat before school. I hate doing this. The people behind the counter never seem to understand why a full grown woman would come in, refuse to take her eyes off her own feet and in a barely audible manner, mutter out the side of her mouth "OrderforRosieandonedoublechocolateonthesideplease". Cause if I look up at the doughnuts, I'm just flat out screwed and will end up ordering 2 or 3 for myself and scarf 'em before I ever hit the door of my office. Anyway.

You might ask, and rightly so, just what the hell all that has to do with a woman in a purple mini-van, and I'd tell you absolutely nothing except for the fact that it DOES tell you how we ended up where we ended up in the first place and confirms the fact that I tend to babble and make stories much longer than they need be. So we're in the car and we're tooling to her school and she's happily beside me trying to eat a double chocolate doughnut without making a mess because her distracted mother forgot the napkins ,and I happen to look over while we're stopped at a red light and see some wild haired woman in a purple minivan idling next to the passenger side of my car, staring intently INTO my car and of course me being me, I stare back. She meets my eyes, which are covered by my trusty sunglasses, doesn't even flinch and smiles. I tentatively smile back, smack the lock button, make sure I have a clear shot at the emergency button on the OnStar panel, and look forward and carefully, without moving my mouth, say "Doodle, what is that woman looking at" and around a yap full of chocolate, she says "wudwumn?" and now I've drawn her attention to crazy lady, so of course, being 8, she sits there and chews and stares. When I look back, there she is, scribbling on a pad of paper and looking at one of us, danged if I can tell who, and this just continues and yes it's a very long light with all those different little arrows and shit, and finally, I've had about enough of this and I slip my glasses down on my nose, lean forward and give her the look. If you're a mother, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's the look that says "OK lady just whatthefuck are you doing?" She smiles at me (??), holds up the scribble pad and shows me a sketch of my daughter's eyes. Lindsey hollers "Hey daasme!" (cause she's managed to cram a full 1/4 of the doughnut into her yap) and damned if it isn't. A beautiful little sketch of a child's eyes. Clearly my child's eyes. And I grinned. And she grinned. And Ringlett smiled and waved. And the light turned green.

"Your Daughter Called"

Recently, my mother had a run-in with breast cancer. She was understandably scared and nervous and after a whole shitload of tests, she was told that she could call the doctor's office the following Monday afternoon for her results. So she did but first she managed to screw herself into a tight little ball of nerves. She asked for her test results and was casually told that they hadn't come in. Call tomorrow.

I think she would have gladly reached through the phone and strangled someone.

So the very next day, she called again. And was told they weren't there. Call back later in the afternoon. And I think she actually DID try to worm her fingers through the little holes in the phone to poke the bitch in the eye.

So she waited as long as she could stand it and called again. And was told that she couldn't HAVE the results over the phone and would have to see the doctor. On Friday. Five days away. And what else would my Mom do in such a situation other than call me. Her Viper Bitch From Hell daughter. I said four words. "Who Is Your Doctor?" I picked up the phone and roared through them like shit through a goose about stringing along a 70 something year old lady who was scared to death only to scare her even worse by then refusing to even talk to her and making her wait ANOTHER 5 days for some answers. Made it clear that the doctor would be making a phone call that day or I'd be showing up in their office the next day, primed to embarrass not only myself, but them as well.

I think I skeered someone.

The doctor called my mother that very evening from his home. Giggling madly, my mother relayed the entire conversation to me immediately thereafter.

The doctor said "your daughter called". He said that the tumor is cancerous. And "by the way, your daughter called". And they don't like to call people with this kind of news because one time he told a lady her results over the phone and she fainted flat out on the floor. But "your daughter called, so . . . We will have to go in and do a lumpectomy and you'll have to have some radiation, but no chemo. Did I mention your daughter called? And nobody's ever died of this particular type of cancer and it's an in and out procedure so we wanted to tell you that because your daughter called."

As it turns out, I fell in love with the old critter the second I met him and I made nice with the poor receptionist and everything turned out just dandy, just like he said it would.

Did I mention that I called the doctor's office?

Gonna Git Me a Boober Job

Ya know, you go along, all dumb and happy and shit. Your I-quit-smoking weight gain is almost all gone and your pants are getting loser like they should be. You figure it's time to finally bite the bullet and buy yourself a new bra that fits. It's been a long time. Go get some new ones. Live a little. So you do. And you haul that 36C that always used to fit you into the dressing room, put it on and wonder how fast you'd get busted if you used all the unused room in the cups to shoplift throughout the other stores for the rest of the afternoon. I could have spent about two hours in fucking Ikea and not run out of room. You are baffled. You pick up the old one you took off and yup, it's the right size. But obviously, it's NOT the right size. Smaller cup size. B cup. Check. Rats. Put it on. OK. That works. Buy two. DAMN.

Now, let's just say you're sitting at your desk at work the very next day, about an hour into your day, and you look down to scratch sumthin and notice something doesn't look right. In fact, something looks decidedly, well, wrong. So you poke the wrongness with your finger and the wrongness that turns out to be the cup of your spanky new bra just sorta . . . . caves in at the top. Nothing there. Empty. Well, genius, it's empty because the sweat socks filled with sand that YOU call hooters have done gone and settled in down at the bottom of the cup and the only way to get them back up is to reach in there and HAUL them back up, or bend over and do that shoulder shake-em-back-where-they-belong move which, of course, will either get you fired or asked out to dinner if you're caught mid shake.

***sigh**

That's it. I'm asking Santa for some boobies for Christmas. Nothing huge. Nothing terribly gaudy or gravity defying. Just something that stays where it belongs. The shame.

The Not So Subtle Man

Hidey. Me again.

All I did was try to get a simple hair cut and I swear that's all. I did not head out that afternoon with the intention of doing anything other than getting an inch or two lopped off. My itinerary most definitely did not include a line item such as "1. Scare the shit out of a total stranger."

Now, I dunno about you, but the days when I'm scheduled to head up to the salon for my haircut are glorious cause I don't wash my hair that day and I don't do nuthin to it at all and junk and I just haul it back into a pony tail and suck it up until my appointment. In short I'm just flat out HOT. So I went whole hog and didn't put on any make up either, figuring it would just get washed off and messed up anyway. Me and my justifications for being a lazy hog.

Got my hair cut. Loved my hair cut. I'd better love my hair cut considering what I just paid for. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't walk away with a coupon for sexual favors after spending that kind of money on a friggin hair cut. Digressing again. So sorry. Anyway. I'm just bopping back down the street to go back to my office and I see a painter up ahead on a ladder, painting the metal awning that hangs out over the sidewalk from one of the shops that clutter the entire downtown area. He's listening to the radio. The Stones. "It's Only Rock n Roll" and he's singing a little. Looks up and sees me coming just as the chorus hits and sings "I like it!". I thought "Oh Christ, and me with PMS". I get a closer and he gets a little louder with "I like it!!" I get underneath the awning and he's now at shouting volume with "I SAID I LIKE IT!" and I'm picking up the pace cause I KNOW my limits, and damned near in the clear when leans down toward me, precariously balanced on his little metal ladder and literally bellows down at me "CAN'T YA SEE THIS OL BOY'S BEEN LONELY" and I couldn't stand it anymore and whirled around and screamed "WOULD YOU PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP?"

The ol' boy slid a full two rungs down that ladder before he finally regained his balance and caught himself. I gotta find myself a 12 step program or somethin'.

Bathroom Escapades: Lock the Door Please

My God here we go again. Me and my friggin bathroom issues. Once again, I waited a little too long and ended up with a potential dribbly crisis on my hands and ended up doing that shuffle/run for the potty before it became far far too late and I raced down the hall, button hooked around the filing cabinet, thanked God I had on comfy slides instead of ankle breaking heels and roared into the ladies room, made a bee line for the BIG stall, hit the stall door full speed with a perfect straight arm and as did so, what sight should meet my poor, abused eyes but a lady of about 80 or so, perched on the toilet, EVERYthing down around her ankles, and getting ready to . . . well . . . you know . . . clean up. She hadn’t shut and latched the stall door. It was hanging open several inches when I came blazing in, in far too big a hurry to tap politely and whisper "Anybody there?" I shrieked, skidded a little, spun on my heel, and ran for it, apologizing and babbling the entire time. Dodged into the next stall where I plopped down on the can and put my face in my hands. Then she forfuckssake wants to start a conversation with me. I’m so mortified I can’t even speak and she wants to talk about the time she went into the men’s room by mistake and thought that they had changed over the toilets into “them there funny lookin’ things on the wall that the men use.”

I would very very much like to just start this WHOLE day over please. Oh my eyes. Oh my heart. Oh my God.

Boys are Stupid #1

It seems that very little has changed since I was a kid. Boys were stupid then and boys are apparently still very stupid. The youngin's in the third grade and discovering rapidly that boys do things that can't be explained, wouldn't make sense if it could be explained and frankly, probably shouldn't be explained lest it lose all it's questionable charm. If a boy likes a girl, he picks on her and hits her. That confounds her as well it should. I resisted informing her that in the third grade, it's annoying but later in life it's a jail cell and a roomie named Bubba and some interesting night time activity. But other than that slight omission, I most certainly wasn't going to lie to my little girl.

You see, some of the boys in her class are apparently just discovering that if they talk about boobies and pretend that they have boobies, they can embarrass the girls who, at this point in their lives, couldn't care less about boobies. The boys use pencils to pretend they HAVE boobies and they use high voices telling people to LOOK at their boobies and she is at the point where she considers them all to be pointless wastes of good oxygen and far be it for me to inform her otherwise. Sadly, again refusing to mislead her with a lie, I explained to her that with other than a few exceptions, boys don't change much as they get older. Boys, no matter what the age, will always do things girls don't like, appreciate or understand and girls will almost always simply sigh deeply and go along for the ride, resigned to the knowledge that boys are just plain flat out damned stupid.

She thought about it and said "all boys except Daddy, right?"

At which point I lied.

Is THAT the dead guy?

Old family friend kicked off and I ended up in a situation where I had no choice but to take my 7 year old daughter with to the viewing at a local funeral home. I mean, I hate those damned things anyway. She and I had this big question and answer/explanation session before going. She was cool. She had it all together. I told her that we wouldn't have to go right up to the casket. To say she seemed disappointed is the understatement of the day:

Me: Honey, we won't go right up to him or anything.
Her: NO! I want to. I've never SEEN a dead guy before.
Me: **muttering** F me.

We got home after work and school, she dressed herself all up in a cute little dress and off we went with Grandma in tow. She always comes with to things like this just to hear what’s gonna come out my kid’s mouth. Fruit didn’t fall far from the tree there. Got there and were talking to all the old friends we'd known for years and she was behaving like a perfectly polite little kid and I should have known something was up right then and there, but off and into the funeral home we went. Got in line.

Her: Why are we standing in line.
Me: We're waiting our turn to pay our respects.
Her: This costs money?
Me: No hon. Paying your respects means telling his family that your sorry he's gone and saying goodbye.
Her: <> oh okaaaaay. That doesn’t make sense.
Me: Yes. I know. Don’t ask.

As we progressed through the line, we eventually turned the corner into the main room where the family and the casket were located. Lindsey freezes in place, her eyes flew open wide and I don't think she blinked or breathed until I kicked her.
Me: **half hissing/half whispering** Honey, try not to stare.
Her: **still not blinking** At what?
Me: Mr. . . . oh hell, the dead guy. Don’t stare at the dead guy.
Huh? What? Oh. OK Um . . . .Mom?
Me: yes
Her: **pointing and whispering** Is that the dead guy?
Me: **whispering** Jeez, Linds, who do you think it is?
Her: **giggling** I thought so.

And the staring and subtle ankle thwapping continued until we reached the widow. Lindsey was polite and friendly and said she was sorry he was dead and all. The widow showed her the little cow, the mini green tractor and other agricultural type stuff hooked to the funeral flowers (he was a farmer) and up to the casket we went. She took it all in, we looked at the other flowers and out the door we went.

As we exited the funeral home onto the porch, Lindsey looked around, looked at me and said:

Her: Is that IT?
Me: Yup
Her: Yer kidding.
Me: Nope.
Her: You mean I got all dressed up for that?

Christ

Loaded her into the car and asked her if she had any questions or concerns and she said yes.

Her: He didn't look like I expected him to look.
Me: Honey, how did you expect him to look? You didn't even know him.
Her: He was all dressed up. He wasn’t even all gooey or anything.
Me: brief explanation about undertaking and presenting and that gooey thing.
Her: But he was wearing glasses.
Me: Uh huh.
Her: Why was he wearing glasses?

You see it coming, don't you. I didn't.

Me: Because he wore glasses in life.
Her: But MOM. He's DEAD. He can't SEE even WITH his glasses.

I floored it and got the hell out of there. My mother saw fit to cackle out loud half the way home until I threatened to stand the car up on two wheels if she didn't just pipe the hell down.

Everybody Loves a Wedding

Once upon a time, one of my sicko friends who probably doesn't want to be named (Beth) with nothing better to do on the company dime than go web-surfing, found this ridiculous website dedicated to the wedding announcement and plans of some stuck-up, high-end bitch who was seen posing with the ugliest polkie-dot hat you ever clapped an eye on. The narrative was nauseating, self-absorbed and the constant name dropping was leaving a mark on my retinas. As I continued to read, it occurred to me that friends of mine were getting hitched pretty soon and DAMN they didn't have ANYthing like this to give to their friends!! How in the hell were they supposed to impress the crap out of people and shame them into buying really expensive wedding presents if they didn't have a complete dialogue of their entire courtship!!!

WE CAN'T HAVE THAT!!!!

So I done one up fer 'em. Goes sumthin like this.

Names have been changed to protect the people from whom I forgot to get permission to do this in the first place.

The Engagement of Olive and Popeye

FROM A BOTCHED GENETIC EXPERIMENT……TO A LIFETIME OF LUUUUV….

Imagine the scene…..a crowded trailer park eviction auction, the handsome, successful attorney/sometime tattoo artist/grave digger/child porn editor glances up and peers through the dust. He picks up his beer can in his burned and peeling hand (the one without the mysterious open sore). He’s just arrived home from a squirrel hunting trip in Arkansas. As he struggles to see through the constantly swirling dirt, his eyes rivet upon what a stunning blonde. He is entranced by this woman, who is not only beautiful, but carries an aura that just seems to magnetically draw flies and stray un-neutered dogs. He cannot stop staring at her. She is busy screaming at her bowling team captain on her cell phone. She is tall, and more than a little scary, with finely chiseled teeth and fuzzy hair, long hair, tumbling around her clammy shoulders. Almost as if he has called her name she looks up. Their eyes meet. They exchange a leer……….Sounds like a movie? No, not quite. This is exactly how Popeye, our hero, met his ex-carnival side-show, dental hygienist, attorney fee-ooon-say, Olive. Little did either know the true identities of their own parents, much less that this chance encounter would lead to a whirlwind romance, relocation to a double-wide, and eventually a proposal of marriage neither of them expected and over which their families were just frantic.

Olive and Popeye began a long distance love affair. With Olive living in a shack on a far away mountain, and Popeye being on work release from a federal prison, not to mention completely homeless, they used their mutual passion for road kill, skee-ball, line dancing and beer bongs to court each other in the most bizarre ways imaginable. However, it soon became obvious that nights of drunken carousing and home made gopher pot pie were just not enough, and Olive soon took the brave step of seducing Popeye's parole officer so that he could relocate to a "differ'ent mountain", start a questionable law practice representing other low life criminals, so they could spend more time together.

Popeye proposed to Olive this past Spring, and the wedding is planned for September. The wedding will take place in the poolroom of the local Elks Club at the top of yet another mountain, next door to the nearly condemned, but newly painted, row home on the south end of town not quite out of the local airport flight path, which the lovely couple will call their first home. The dress is designed by our bride-to-be and it's just dumb freakin luck that just enough feed sacks were lying around to finish this monstros . . . foamy creation. The reception will be hosted at the bar who is lucky enough to not have a dress code or picky enough to check ID. Olive and Popeye feel very fortunate that they have friends who are brave enough to attend this function without having to be paid to do so, and include some of the most influential and highly sought after models of post-office photo galleries on the guest list. We are anticipating a glittering, whiskey laden affair and HELL it wouldn't be a PARTY without a couple of secret surprises and pop police raids!

In the tradition of these two adventurers, the couple will honeymoon with a visit to the World's Biggest Ball of String, and an attempt at placing their names in the Guiness Book of World Records for most frightening breeding potential.

Popeye enjoys coon huntin’, clothing made from sheets with little pointy hoods, waving that old Rebel flag, films with questionable artistic value and is an excellent harmonica player, beer chugger, arm farter and an all around dandy catch that any little lady’d be damned proud of.

Olive has many credits to her name, few of which are acceptable in mixed company.

We know they'll be very happy together.

Camel Humps

If ever there were a poster child for embarrassing moments in the ladies bathroom, I would most certainly have to at least be presented with honorable mention, a shiny medal and a reasonably noticeable chest upon which to pin it. Today, a lovely lady here at my office came to me, grocery bag in hand, and said "Here's a pair of low rise Ralph Lauren jeans I can't wear. If you can wear them, you can have them." COOL! I peeked at the tag when there weren't no one a lookin', spied the size "13/14" and smugly took off for the ladies room, practicing my "Oh I'm SO very sorry, but they're a few sizes too big, such a shame, but thank you for thinking of me" speech. Got to the ladies, looked again at the tag and realized that they weren't just a size 13/14. They were a size 13/14 JUNIORS. Oh so effing WHAT? How much difference can THAT possibly make? Size is size, right? Jesus, I'm stupid. Off went the shoes and off came my pants and let the wild rumpus begin.

**ahem**

"Ladies and gentlemen, reporting to you LIVE from the ladies restroom and yes, we're in the BIG stall and the fun is about to start and do we have . . . yes we do, yes yes here we go. She shakes out the jeans with a practiced **snap** and we have the . . . the right foot is in, the right foot IS in and she wiggles the pants up and lessee here . . . . she standing on her right foot, gets her balance, WHOA! tips over, and she rebalances and . . . and . . . yes the left foot, the LEFT foot IS in. And she pauses. And she breaths and she PULLS them up and we're at the calves!! We're at the knees!!! We're at the thighs, we're AT the thighs, and we're still at the thighs and we're pausing, ladies and gentlemen. Time out. Regrouping. Obviously thinking out her strategy and . . .OKOKOKOK time IN and she gets two fists-full of denim, one on each side and, OK. Oh my GOD folks, we've seen this before but never quite like what we're witnessing today. It's the pulling, jumping, spinning jean jerk maneuver. And they're UP. Yes indeed, they're UP and THAT's the half.

Get your hotdogs, your beer and your nachos and come scooting right on back because for your halftime viewing pleasure we present Aaron Neville and Aretha Franklin beating Mic Jaggar bloody with his own microphone stand. Back in a few."

*thwap thwap thwap*

(Insert theme song from Jeopardy here)

"OK folks, we ARE back and what have we here. We have our star player positioned with her knees and ankles pressed together hard enough to leave bruises and permanent dents and, apparently, the reason behind every vein in her face bulging prominently is that she's managed to get the button hole side within touching distance of the actual button and . . . .and . . . THEY'RE CLOSED YES OH MY GOD THEY'RE CLOSED!!!!! **zip*** Ladies and gentlemen success. They ARE on and she's leaving the stall to show her friends, who are brushing themselves off after having landed on the floor several times, proving yet again that you cannot laugh, pee your pants and stand erect simultaneously. Lovely. Just lovely. Look at her spin, look at her pose. Stare at her longingly in all her glory! Look at her just GLOW! Look at the attractive camel humps midway down her back. CAMEL HUMPS? Wait. Those aren't camel humps. What the hell ARE those things!!!??!! Oh my. Oh. Those two bulbous growths protruding from her lower back are her ass cheeks which clearly were shoved up and OUT of the jeans in order to actually pull them up and close them. Oh My. We need some assistance here!!! The friends are DOWN, I repeat WE HAVE PEOPLE DOWN HERE!!! MOVE IT MOVE IT!!! MEDIC!!! Oh My. Um. . . "

And there you have it. 45 year old women CAN wear jeans from the junior department. It ain't pretty. But it CAN be done.

Welcome and howdy!

Well looky here! I did it. Frankly, it's going to take a miracle for me not to screw this up but you crazy people asked for it and God knows I live to do as I'm told. For those of you who aren't technically one of the aforementioned crazy people, here's the poop behind this blog and my God that didn't sound good at all. Anyway . . . .

A while back, let's say August of 2002, I took a look in the mirror and said to myself, out loud mind you, "who the fuck is that fat person and what is she doing in my house?" I did that turn-around-really-really-fast-and-look thing. Nope. Nobody there. Whipped back around and noticed that the fat person was wearing my clothes. Had my eyes. My hair. Wearing the same appalled expression on her face. Oh go on and guess! Go on. I'll wait. . . . . YES! Yes, it was me. Big, fat, miserable, lumbering me who used to be an athlete, body builder and all around skinny kind of person had become . . . This. One thought ran through my head, that thought being "nope nope nope nope nope!"

Fast forward a few days. After quietly asking around to all the other formerly fat folks I knew, I wound up at weightwatchers.com, forked over some cash, signed up and got about the business of getting this nonsense under control. I entered my starting weight and if you think I'm telling you THAT, you can just bend over and . . . and . . . well, you know what you can do. Doesn't matter anyway. I started posting to the support boards there and shortly thereafter found myself doing what I always seem to do, that being sharing every sordid and embarrassing moment of my life and believe me, there are plenty. I wanted to name this blog, "Life at the Eye of the Shit Happens Hurricane" but that seemed a little wordy. Moosenuts. Yeah, that works. I dance like a moose and since I have an impressionable eight year old child with a memory like an elephant, most of my favorite expletives have turned into "shi . . . nuts." Moosenuts. Digressing again. A thousand pardons.

Anyway, as time went by and the number of stories grew and grew, people started telling me that I needed to start saving them, publishing them in some fashion and that I owed them underwear, keyboards and monitors that had been soiled by their distinct lack of control over their own bodily functions. Now that I've forgotten most of what I've told, I decided it was time to act on their suggestions. Nobody ever accused me of being organized.

So here we are. Moosenuts. At times, names have been changed to protect the unfortunate souls who have been unlucky enough to have been sucked up into the storm, usually completely against their will. I would like to thank the following for their contributions and perhaps unwilling participation: Onstar, ladies bathrooms everywhere, the VBFH and my mother for not selling me to the gypsies when she had the chance.

Welcome.