How HIM Ruined My Entire Weekend OR How HIM Should Not Be Allowed to Shop at Costco OR How HIM Might Be in the Doghouse

I was going to write about more pumpkin madness.  I even have a cool new pumpkin story with funky pumpkin illustrations.  The creative juices were flowing.

I did not get to write about pumpkins and their weirdly shaped posteriors that have emerged from my garden.

"NO!" You scream.  "How could this have happened?"  I will explain in an amusing and probably caustic manner.  (My MIL recently visited.  When I asked if she read my blog, she said, "I read the one about your neighbor.  It was caustic."  I wasn't sure if I should be a) alarmed, b) insulted, c) complimented, or d) concerned that she would disown me.  It turned out that she liked the caustic.  Well, my neighbors did piss me off.  Anyway, I like caustic and since I can't blog about my MIL, I have to go with HIM, he who made the grievous error of fucking around with my writing time.)

So once upon a time HIM went to Costco.  It was a seemingly benign day.  Low cloudiness.  Low humidity.  The radio was playing, 'Outside' by Staind.  Nearby fluffy sheep were being herded by Little Bo Peep.  (Wait.  The last part was just me.  That was probably a NyQuil induced dream.  Man, I have weird dreams.)

Here is what happened.  I swear.  HIM went by the computer section in Costco and all was lost forever.  (I could say an evil wizard cast a spell on HIM, but that isn't true.  He started making noises at the electronics section and well, you could say that people started to stare.  I just grabbed Cressy and walked away, pretending I didn't know him.  As I hurried off, the clerk said loudly, "Sir, drool is not good for electrical equipment!")

I swear this is what HIM looks like when faced with new and appealing
computer gadgetry or needing a caffeine fix.  Either one.

This is the route that I should have taken to get to the back of the store INSTEAD of going directly by the computer section.

The road that was NOT traveled.

But I was not wise and this is what actually happened.

It was a pretty short trip through Costco.  Or at least it was for
some of us.

Therefore, the new laptop was purchased.  Words were spoken.  They went something like, "I'll update your computer, transfer all the files, and copy over all the music and pictures and badabing, badaboom.  It'll be done in a few hours."  Wink.  Wink.  "Trust me, baby."

Day One: Once the computer was registered and all the bells and whistles had ceased their noise, the transfer of the files began.  The little window on the new computer said, "8 hours, 10 minutes remaining."  It also said, "You may not use this computer."  Also I could not use my old computer because it had the same message on it.  (If I touched either one, apparently sparks would shoot out of my butt and I would instantly combust into a pile of gelatinous goo, or something equally distasteful.)

I was computerless.  It felt like someone had chopped off one of my legs.  One day when the electricity goes out, I'm going to be completely screwed.  Also when we have the Apocalypse, I'm going to die from computer/android/whatsit withdrawal.

Thirty minutes later and the computer said still said, "8 hours, 10 minutes remaining."  I knew my life was over.

Eons later, or actually it was the next morning, it was done with that.  Then the loading of email configuration and software and transferal of licences began.  HIM took a break to take Cressy, our daughter, to Spy Kids 4, which apparently was the best movie ever, according to Cressy.  (It had smell-o-vision.  These little cards with numbers on them.  When the number popped up on the screen, you scratched and sniffed.  One of the numbers was vomit.  And people complain about my writing.  Hmm.  I wonder if I could incorporate scratch and sniff into my next Bubba book.  There could be eau de redneck and dogly sweat no. 5.  Hmm.  Hmmm?  Hmmmmmmm.)  So I basically had to lump it in a mass of discontented, frustration whilst HIM and Cressy gorged on popcorn and smelled strange stuff at the theater.

Day Two: More transgressions occurred against me in the form of preventing me from blogging.  Thoughts of pumpkin stories were quickly disappearing from my head.  Instead a new blog was forming itself in my mind.  It was a blog about people who can't say no to new computers and gadgets.  It was a blog about wasting my time.  It was going to be caustic.  (It was going to be a whole level of causticity.  Look I made up a new word.  It was going to be an erupting MOUNTAIN of caustic displeasure with the computer situation.)

Things didn't improve when I sat behind HIM, saying, "Now what's wrong?" when he grunted at the new laptop.  It didn't help that the laptop kept trying to turn itself off and load new software updates without being prompted.  Then it would stay that way for an hour while I made other noises.  (Sighing deeply, tapping my fingers on the table, wistfully saying, "I wish I could work on my blog.")

This is NOT a prescribed manner to ensure a long and happy
marriage.

Day Three: I woke up and discovered that the laptop was on my desk and benignly appeared to be approachable.  When I turned it on it said this:

Apparently, HIM had stayed up late and fixed 97.5% of the issues.  But I'm sure I'll find the others very quickly.

This morning HIM is texting me with smug, know-it-all messages indicating that he knows that he's managed to slip out of this particular noose with technical ease.  But then he hasn't read the blog, yet.

And thusly, the blogging has been good.

The Attack of the GIANT Monster Pumpkins OR What to Do When Your Garden Doesn't Produce (Get it?)

Recently I ranted about pumpkins in my garden.  (See 'Various Sundry Stuff That I Feel Compelled...' of July 2011).  Long story short: Never allow your spouse and child to pick the seed packets for your undersized garden.

I should just post this in front of the garden for next spring.
Do I need to say this again?
Never, never do this.  It turns out badly.

This was one of the packets.  (There were at least ten.)  Although the pumpkin leaves attempted to take over the garden, the yard, and possibly the world, actual giant pumpkin production was limited to four.  (FOUR!)  Three of the big bad boys were targeted by insidious insects who believed that their need for pumpkin consumption was greater than our need for giant pumpkins to ooo-n-ahh over.  So we were left with this one:

I don't believe this pumpkin correlates well with the
pumpkin that is pictured on the seed packet.  (Upon close
inspection of the packet, it's my belief that that the child
in the picture is probably the shortest child alive and/or
something might have been photoshopped.  Just
my opinion.)  And in case anyone is being
silly, the pumpkin is the orange one in the above picture.

I've been studying the giant pumpkin seed packet and I think it's faulty advertising.  In fact, I think the advertising may be deliberately misleading.

This packet says it might grow pumpkins up to 400-500 pounds.  Hah!
I would have had to have a Miracle-Gro drip and a 24/7 guard out there
to protect from squirrels, slugs, things of unknown origin, and zombies.
(Zombies LOVE giant pumpkins.  Bet you didn't know that.)  ( I need
to go write a novella about zombies, right now.)  (I'm going to write
a zombie novella AND look up the word 'knowl' because it just
looks wrong.)

Oh, no!  I've broken out my bamboo pad!  This could be bad!

Oh, isn't it fun to cut and paste, even when you don't have
an X-acto knife?

Another tangent has just occurred.  Could be bad.

And I have burned Mellow, my sister's cat, again.  What does
this have to do with pumpkins?  Nothing, but it's funny.  Or at least
it is to me.

Here is another pumpkin that was grown in the patch.  It's an effed up pumpkin and it came from one of the non-giant pumpkin packages.  Apparently this pumpkin didn't know which way it's tail end was supposed to point so it curled up.  Doesn't this pumpkin kind of look like an alien?  (From Alien or Aliens?  Except orange?  Hmm.  Alien/pumpkin conspiracy.  Has that been done before?)

This looks really disgusting.
The cute part was that while I was
taking the picture Cressy stopped me
so she could give the pumpkin
bunny ears.  Haha.  Fooled the pumpkin.

It kind of looks like a peanut.  I think I was supposed to wait until it wasn't green anymore but insects were strolling by it and saying, "Hey, baby, you look good in orange," and "You aren't from around here, are you, honey?"

This train of thought makes me want to tell a pumpkin related story.  So here goes.  Once upon a time there was a sad and lonely pumpkin with a weird butt.

Oh, this is going to be bad.  Very, very bad.

So a fairy godmother came by and wanted to change the pumpkin into a neat-mosquito carriage for a girl who was going to be a princess for the evening.

But hold up.  The pumpkin didn't want to be anyone's bitch.

The pumpkin decided to get involved.  It became empowered and then got a makeover.  Later it came in third on Dancing With the Stars.  Then it wrote its memoirs.

The End.

See.  Even pumpkins with weird butts get a happily-ever-after.

That's my world.

Going to the County Fair During a Thunderstorm OR How Lightning Could Be Bad For Your Health While On a Ferris Wheel

Warning!!!!!  Could be more silliness involved.  I might be jumping from subject to subject in an undetectable manner.  Look, flying boogers!

"Why?  Why do I have to tilt my head?
Why are you bothering me?  I have to ride on
all the rides with Cressy while you just stand
around drinking lemonade.  *Whine.*"

We went to the county fair yesterday.  (You might have suspected from the pithy title.)  So naturally it rained cats and dogs.  (Wouldn't it be funny if it really rained cats and dogs?  Talk about social programs that would need to be created.)  See the rain on HIM's hat above.  That was after we took refuge in a tent and consumed of the lemonade and corn dogs.  (This is a reference to 'The Stupidest Man Ever' blog from February of 2011.  We eat of the pork.  We eat of the mystery meat in the corn dogs, too.  With big smiles on our faces, too.  Or at least everyone but Cressy.)

See.  Lemonade and corn dogs.  This is after
the rain and several hours so Cressy is
clearly pooped.  Just look at the way
she's eating the stupid corn dog.  It looks
like it has mange.  Haha.  It's a corn dog pun.

But after the consumption of fairground delicacies (Somehow we missed the cotton candy and deep fried Twinkies.  Gasp!) we were back to the enjoyment of the rides.

See.  HIM had a look on his face that said,
"Why did I agree to this?"  It also smacked
of Nancy Kerrigan, "WHHhh-yyyyy?"
(Okay, low blow to Nancy Kerrigan but I
couldn't resist.)

I had a moment of clarity here.  Here it is explained in visual effect:

Of course, I had to go back and point something out in this picture that the average viewer/blog reader might have missed.

I didn't go on the Ferris wheel with HIM and Cressy because my MIL was with us.  (But also because I negotiated who would get to go on all the rides with Cressy before we got to the fair.  Haha.  I'm smarter than HIM.)  So we stayed on the ground whilst HIM and Cressy got to see the storm up close and in a friendly fashion.  (Upon contemplation, this was probably a bad idea to allow my only child on a huge, honking piece of metal that extends several hundred feet in the air while there was a thunderstorm approaching.  And oh, yes, maybe my only husband, too.  Oh, HIM knows I love him.)  (Even Ben Franklin would be saying, "Hmm.  Key on a string to a kite versus being on a Ferris wheel that puts you as close to the action without actually being encased in a suit of armor?  Who's on the $100 bill, bee-yotch?")

Cressy and HIM on the purple Ferris Wheel.
It really was purple.
Hey, I was on the ground.  This was funny to me.
Do you think that the fair has insurance?  Hmm.

We did take refuge next to a concession stand, the employees of which glared at us for using their cover without purchasing the $6 lemonade or the $4 bag of premade, multicolored cotton candy.  (We ignored them.)  And in the long run, here's what everyone looked like, very soaking, sopping wet.  (It turns out that rides are almost as much fun with streaming rain coming down as without.  More screaming ensued.  I think it was the good kind of screaming versus the bad kind that says, 'EEEEKKKK!  THERE'S A SERIAL KILLER ABOUT TO KILL ME WITH A CHAINSAW!  EEEEKKKK!!!!!')

HIM is not really sweating like a pig.  This
is rain damage, plus he sat on a ride
while it was pouring so he got the infamous
wet butt stain that people could laugh at but
won't because they're all wet, too.  (Did I mention
that I asked HIM, my MIL, and Cressy if we
should bring an umbrella and was summarily shot
down, so I retaliated by grumbling
about umbrellas for the rest of the day?  I should
have mentioned it.)  Do I need to mention
the intelligent person in the picture with the blue
umbrella?

 And again I'm forced to add artistic license to the photographs because it needs to be more than self-explanatory.  (HIM just read this and said it should be sartistic - a combination of artistic and sarcastic.  Haha.  He should be a comedian, except not.)

Then the sun came out and everything started to get steamy.  Really steamy.  There was steam coming off the asphalt.  We went to check out the Home Arts exhibits and discovered that Cressy's snickerdoodles had gotten a participation ribbon and her collage had gotten another participation ribbon.  (A participation ribbon is the green ribbon that they give out when a child under the age of 8 didn't get first, second or third place.  Don't tell Cressy.)

Cressy slaved over these snickerdoodles
and they were woefully under appreciated
by the judges at the fair.  As a matter of fact, these
snickerdoodles were doodlicious.
Yes, I know I made up a word, but it was necessary.
Anyway, we don't need no stinking ribbons.
These were damn good cookies.

But here comes a cookie related tangent.

I mean, these snickerdoodles were so good, they could sing
from 'The Pirates of Penzance.'  I dare you to tell me that
these cookies weren't good enough for at least a third place.
(Artistic note: the hat was supposed to look like an old fashioned
generals hat with feathers but I think it looks like some Alpine
boy who's about to yodel for his sheep/cows/other animal that I
don't know about.)

And now I'm drawing cookie-related doodles.  (Get it?  Snickerdoodles?  Cookie doodles?  I amuse myself.  Sometimes only myself.  But still amusing.)


And Fat Woman has left the building. ( Zinged Elvis and Frankie
in the same caption.  Very sad.  My mother would have
slapped my hands.  She loved Elvis and Frankie.)

Anyway, we went to the fair.  We were rained upon.  Cressy walked away triumphantly with a pink dolphin.  Upon arriving at home everyone collapsed in a coma-like state that was similar to what zombies go through except without the consumption of brains.

She's still alive, I swear.  And the dolphin makes
squeaky noises when you squeeze one of it's
flippers.  I hate the stupid dolphin.

And thus concludes the epic journey to the county fair.  May it never happen again, until maybe next year.

On Losing a Parking Ticket at the Airport OR Don't Do It! Don't Do It! Don't Do It!

It went like this.  I was tasked to pick up the mother-in-law at the airport.  This was not a problem.  HIM was unexpectedly going out of town on business.  Despite my willingness to tease my MIL, I love her and my daughter, Cressy, was ready for, "GRANNY!!!!!"  And oh, yes, she was ready for, "GRANNY, NOW!!!!!!!"  Furthermore, at the airport, she was all, "WHERE IS GRANNY?  WHY ISN'T SHE HERE YET?  WHY HAVEN'T YOU PRODUCED GRANNY OUT OF YOUR BUTT?"  (Okay, the last part was me again, but this was definitely implied.)

And this was before she even saw Granny.
Incidentally, I had loads of editorial advice on this one.
"Mommy, you didn't draw the teeth."
"Mommy, you didn't draw the tongue."
"Mommy, look at me."  (She was demonstrating
the pose so I could capture the moment more
effectively.)

So Granny appeared.  All was well.  Hugs were exchanged.  Cressy was ecstatic.  "GRANNY IS HERE!  My heart has begun to beat again."  (Okay, me again, but implicit.)  We collected her luggage.  We went down the ramp.  I stopped at the machine to pay the parking ticket before we went out to the car.  I put my debit card away.  I put my receipt away.

Then my parking stub mysteriously vanished.  It fell into the black hole where odd socks, warranties, Blackberry's and good intentions go.  It was so gone that I think it packed a suitcase and got an airplane ticket.  It was gone-diddly-one.

Seriously, on the 100 feet from the machine that took my debit card to the Ford Exploder in the parking lot, the stupid, bleeping parking stub went AWOL.  I loaded up the car with grannies, kids, luggage and purse.  Then I started to dig.  I looked in my pants pockets.  I looked in my purse.  I looked in my pants pockets again.  Granny offered me money, but that was going to be a problem since I didn't have the parking ticket.  I looked in the purse again.  I started taking things out of the purse.  I looked in my wallet.  There was the debit card that I had just used.  There was the receipt that I had just gotten to pay the stupid $4 fee that Dulles charges to grace their doorstep.  (They work under the 'captive audience' stratagem.  If they have to go to the airport to pick up someone or drop off someone, they WILL be charged to park for more than two minutes.  The revenue.  Oy, the revenue.)

There was probably a lot more arm movement involved here.  Also
cursing under my breath.  Also, people will stop and stare if you
suddenly start flinging things out of your purse in the middle
of a parking lot, even at Dulles Airport.  Surprisingly.

I sighed loudly.  Then I began to search all over again.  Pants pockets, front and back.  I searched the purse again.  I looked in the car in case it had fallen out.  Then I looked in the back of the car where the purse had briefly rested while I loaded luggage.  At this point both Cressy and Granny are looking at me with a little bit of alarm.  ("Is Mommy's face supposed to turn that color?"  "I don't know.")  My MIL offered to help me look and we looked again.  Even Cressy helped.  "Is it here, Mommy?"  "Is it there, Mommy?"  "Mommy, did you put it in your shoe?"

Finally.  Finally.  Finally.  I found what I thought was the ticket in the side pocket of the purse.  Cheered, we climbed in, buckled up, and drove up to the exit gate where I would insert the ticket into the machine, and there we would be released from the enforced imprisonment of the airport parking lot.

I put the ticket in the machine.  The machine spit the ticket back out.  It said, 'Not registered.'  I put the ticket back in.  The machine spit the ticket back out.  It said, 'Not registered.'  I shoved the ticket back into the machine with several colorful, four-lettered descriptions of the machine's point of origins.  The machine spit the ticket back out, without colorful epithets.  It said, 'Not registered.'

I stared at the machine and thought about sledge hammers and other methods of subjugation.  Then I looked around and saw that the next booth over was manned by an actual person.  I backed up and got into that lane without killing us, the car, or any other cars.

Then I explained to the clerk what happened.  Here was the rub.  I hadn't really found the right ticket.  I had found some other ticket for something that looked similar.  The original parking stub was still AWOL.

But I did have...THE RECEIPT.

The receipt had the times on it that I had entered and exited.  It had the parking stub's number on it.  It had the receipt that I had paid for the time already on it.  As I explained to the clerk, her expression looked a little odd.  After she said sullenly, "I'll have to see your credit card," I realized that she was working as the credit/cash lane girl for a very good reason.  As long as people were handing her tickets, paying her with cash or a credit/debit card, she was in her element.  But I had driven up and done something wrongity-wrong.  I didn't have the ticket and I was asking for something difficult.  I think the poor clerk began to short circuit.  Very slowly, she ascertained that the debit card number matched the one on the receipt.  In fact, she used her index finger to point at each number.

You'd think I might be exaggerating here, but it ain't by much.

Then she got on the phone and started making very strange noises.  She said, "OH, NO!  OH, NO!"  Then she paused, listened and said, "OH, NO!  OH, NO!"  This went on for quite some time.  I realized belatedly that this was the only credit/cash booth in the exit lane at the airport parking lot at the time.  And there was a line building up behind us.  The guy in the SUV behind me was making faces that indicated that he was highly frustrated or constipated.  Possibly both.  Later, he began to bang his head against the steering wheel.

The girl in the booth kept crying, "OH, NO!  OH, NO!"

I looked at my MIL and said, "We're going to have to stay at the airport forever."

She said, "I'll make a run for it.  You stay and sacrifice yourself."  (No, I didn't say that and she didn't say it, but it was definitely implied.)

The girl in the booth said, "OH, NO!"  Then abruptly she cried, "OH, GOOD!"  If I hadn't been able to see her entire body, I would have thought something funny was going on in the booth.  (I wish I could do the audio on the, "OH, GOOD!" because it was that suggestive.)  She looked at me and then slowly began to click buttons on her keyboard.

Then she was distracted by another clerk who had stuck her head in to give her some official envelope and they discussed something official for a very long, official thirty seconds.  I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw that the man in the SUV behind me was tying a noose to his rear-view mirror.  (No, he wasn't but he was thinking about it.)

I don't really know what the man behind me in the SUV was thinking,
but it wasn't good for me.

I began to wonder if I could ram the gate without having the police department following me home.  Also ramming gates and being in a police chase is not the preferred method to pick up your MIL at the airport for a long, leisurely granny visit.  (Unless I really wanted a quiet stay in jail and possible post-incarceration interviews about the extended police chase.)

I thought the clerk was going to start crying, "OH, NO!" again when she suddenly opened the gate and handed me a receipt.  She looked at me as if shooing me along and said, "It's a copy of the receipt."  At the top it says, 'LOST TICKET.'  So what the eff was all the fuss about?

In conclusion, today when I took my MIL and daughter to the county fairground to enter some artwork and cookies, my MIL was watching me very carefully.  I had the receipt tickets in my hand for the cookies and the art work and I said, "What?"  My MIL said very cannily, "I'm watching what you do with the tickets this time."

Hahaha.  My MIL deserves the kudos.

And for the sake of argument, the parking stub remains missing in action.

The Real Bubba 3 OR How I Let My Daughter Tell Bubba's Story OR This Isn't Really What I'm Going to Write But It's Still Damn Funny!

Spoiler alert: After writing this, it dawned on me that some of you might not have read both of my Bubba books.  *Gasp*  (Bubba and the Dead Woman and Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas.  Shame on you.)  If you haven't read the second one, then the following blog contains a little spoiler about the plot in that.  Don't read this.  Go buy the second Bubba book, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, and read it.  Then come back and read this blog.  There.  Long-winded, but jeez, it had to be said.  (And what the hell were you thinking not reading both Bubba books?)

Well, I think the title of the blog could be a little longer.  (Let me cogitate about that.  I might be able to add some more words.)  Hell, I might as well go for the Bulwer-Lytton award.  (It was a dark and stormy night when Bubba fell on his butt, chewing bubble gum, whilst singing, 'Over the rainbow,' in his best Judy Garland imitation, and said, "Oh, fiddlysticks, I've lost the rhythm.")  (For those of you who need to understand what the Bulwer-Lytton Contest is, go here.)

Bubba and the Missing Woman's
cover as envisioned by
Cressy.  Possibly this should be
called Bubba and the Terrible Tree.  Or
Bubba and the Shocking Shrub.
Maybe Bubba and the Sickening Sprout.
I wonder if she saw my earlier blog
about the tree monster movie.
Possibly I was too verbose.
Nawwwwwwww.  Not me..

Attention Bubba fans.  This isn't what is going to happen in the third Bubba novel.  This is what happens in my daughter's head.  I will explain.  At night when we tuck her in we ask her what she's going to dream about, and then she asks us what we're going to dream about.  (Lately, I've been dreaming about Bubba 3.  This is a common occurrence for me.  It'll be on my mind consistently until I've finished the 2nd draft.  Sometimes I get cool ideas from dreams, especially after I take cold medicine.  (Weird dreams.  I have a theory about cold medicine causing very strange dreams.  You ever notice that after ingesting a little NyQuil?  Hey, you know what I'm talking about.) .)  (Somewhere, some grammar Nazi is cursing me for putting parentheses within parentheses but I say oh, go for it.  It's my blog and I'll do what I wanna do. Me like bad grammar and shitty punctuation.,:;.  Hahahaha.  Also bad language.)

Back to my daughter.  One night I asked Cressy, my daughter, what she was going to dream about.  "Oh, a giant dragon who flies down and plays with me.  He's not a bad dragon.  He's a good dragon.  No, he's a she.  She's purple.  And she sparkles.  Also she likes ice cream.  And she eats the nasty boy who told me I couldn't dive off the diving board at the pool with my goggles on."  (We had an issue with someone at our pool.)  (In any case, it goes along this vein for quite some time.  Sometimes it becomes almost like a novel and I'm certain that this child was NOT exchanged for another child at the hospital nursery.  No changelings in my house, by God.)  "Hey, Mommy, are you asleep?  What are you going to dream about?"

So I tell her that I'm working out in my head what happens to Bubba, my character from my novels.  He's got a girlfriend and she's missing and he has to find her.  Like many plots, I have to create devices and think of situations that will be entertaining and mysterious.  Not that I used those exact words to Cressy.  She's seven, as I've said repeatedly.  Mysterious to her is yelling boo around the corner when she's already giggled loudly and given her position away.  Mysterious to her is disappearing her favorite toy after I say, "Look up in the sky!"  Mysterious to her is how shrinky-dinks get smaller in the oven when they're baked.  (Okay, okay, you get the picture.)

Cressy digests that information for about thirty seconds.  Then as I'm about to tell her to sleep good and leave the room, she nails me with, "You know what, Mommy?"  My response is usually, "No, honey, I don't know what."  But she doesn't always get that I'm making a joke.  In this occurrence, she said, before I could say anything, "I know what happens to Bubba."

And away we go.  (Remember, Cressy's perspective and her story.)

In Cressy's version, Willodean is apparently as dumb as a box
of hammers.  Where does she get this?  I do not know.

A giant tree has eaten Willodean.  That's why she's missing.  It's a very nasty tree.  It snuck up on her and snatched her up.  Then it swallowed her down and disappeared her.  So Bubba's looking everywhere for her.  OH, NO!

What will happen to Willodean?  Will the tree monster keep her inside it forever?  Will Bubba never know what happened to Willodean?  ("Mommy, I think her name should be Jennifer or Charlotte.  Those are prettier names than Willodean.")

So Bubba is hunting for Willodean.  And there's an evil scientist who wants to have Willodean for his...girlfriend.  So he made a tree monster.  (I think Cressy's telling too much back story here, but she's only 7 so we have to give her credit for creativity.)

You know, I had waaaaay too much editorial advice on this one.
HIM and Cressy were lurking behind my shoulder giving
sage recommendations and guidance.

"Go," the mad, evil, nutty-as-a-fruitcake, missing-a-beer-from-his-six-pack, silly scientist had said to his tree monster.  "Get the cute girl and eat her up, so that she will be my girlfriend."  (I wonder if Cressy thinks this is how all boys get girlfriends.  Mental note: mention how Daddy and Mommy...dated.)  Then the evil guy laughs an evil laugh in an evil manner.  (Can you tell that the writer in me is elaborating on Cressy's original story?  I can't help it.)

More commentary from the peanut gallery.  Cressy: "Mommy, why is that man
laughing so hard?"  Me: "Remember this is the story you told me?"  Cressy:
"Oh.  Well, I think that you should have another blog about an evil man
who laughs like this."  Then she demonstrates.  "Bwwwaahahahahaha."
And it's actually a really good evil laugh.  Good training.

Anyway, the evil tree goes to get Willodean.  ("Mommy, can we rename her?  I mean, like something really good?  Emerald?  Or Princess, maybe?"  These are the names of two of her favorite stuffed animals at the moment.  One is a humming bird and the other is a python.  Oh, my life.)

Hey Bubba and Willodean fans!  Don't worry!  This didn't really
hurt Willodean.  She was wearing her bullet proofed vest AND, more
importantly, Cressy said she wasn't hurt.  "Don't worry, Mommy,
Willodean wasn't really hurt by the tree monster."

 Bubba looked and looked and couldn't find poor Willodean.  The tree monster had her inside of it.  Very sad.

See.  Willodean all unharmed.  Just pissed off.  Who wouldn't want
to hang out inside of a tree monster?

And then what happened was that Willodean got very tired of being squished inside the tree monster.  She started yanking on the tree monster's roots and she tied them all into knots.  And the tree monster cried, "OH, NO!  Not my roots!"

I really like that Cressy has Willodean rescue herself.  In my version
she would have shot out its eyes and used the tree branches to roast marshmallows.

Tying the roots together made the tree monster weak and it fell over and let her go.  Bubba then found Willodean and they were happy.  (I love a happy ending.)

Cressy thinks that playing Legos together is the ultimate form of
friendship.  Should be an interesting discovery for future
boyfriends.  (Did anyone notice that Bubba and Willodean
are walking off into the sunset together?)

In conclusion:  This does not happen in Bubba and the Missing Woman.  Also, I'm not hinting, foreshadowing, or giving clues.  This happened in my daughter, Cressy's, mind.  Only.  I thought it was funny, as I usually do, and thought it needed to be remembered for posterity.  Or at least for my posterity.  However, if I can work the Lego's line into the real book, I will.  I love blogging.

And oh, yeah, I've been reminded to tell the readers that the evil scientist gave up his evil ways and found a girlfriend at the local Wal-Mart instead.  HEA and all that jazz.

The Evolution of Phone Use in the Potty OR Should You? Could You? Would You? OR How Dr. Seuss Colored My Whole Life

When I was a child we had a plain black phone with a rotary dial on it that you would connect to other people.  (Well, it wasn't a fire and a blanket, anyway.)  (It was a party line, which to you technogeeks means that five other people got to share the same telephone line.  Oh, horrors.)


Anybody remember the scene from the move, In & Out,
where the supermodel was trying to figure out how
to use a rotary phone?  I love Kevin Kline.

My daughter will probably ask me, "What the heck is that, Mommy?"  Occasionally, I see one of these phones when I go antiquing.  Next time I might have to buy one to clarify.  I hate to say it, but here it is, "This is what it was like in the auld days, whippersnapper."  The point to this introduction was that this phone was pretty much locked in place and it wasn't going anywhere, much less into the bathroom.  (The only way it would do that is if you ripped it from the wall and threw it into the bathroom.  Hmm.  I bet you're wondering if Fat Woman ever did that.  Maybe.)

In the annals of time, this was followed by the long extension cord.  I used to carry my phone ALL over the living room, courtesy of the long extension cord.  The cord wrapped around furniture, coffee tables, rugs, etc.  Oh, what fun.  I think I mentioned before what a useful tool this was in tormenting my cats.  (Hey, I didn't ask the cat to walk over the cord while I was holding on to the other end.)  (And it didn't really hurt the cat, just ask Mellow, my sister's cat whom I occasionally taunt.)  In any case, while the cord was long, it wasn't long enough to reach into the bathroom.  (Honestly, I probably could have purchased one that was long enough to go into the bathroom but it didn't occur to me to do so.  Probably best for all.)

See, this isn't Mellow.  But possibly Mellow, my sister's cat,
who I continue to taunt in a hilarious fashion, may appear
later in this blog.

Then came the portable phone.  (For those of you born after 1990, this meant a phone that was about the size of a toaster that could be carried around without  a cord, but not a cell phone.)  I don't remember the exact year, but I remember you couldn't go very far without it fuzzing out.  And for some reason it didn't dawn on me to take the damn thing into the bathroom.  Miss Manners had saved me again.

Then some time later, HIM came to me and said that he had taken it into the bathroom while talking to his...get this...MOTHER on the phone.  While speaking to Mom, he had done his dirty, sinful business, and then, here comes the really big mistake part, he had flushed...all while still on the phone with his mother.  I'm not sure what HIM was thinking.  (This was a prime WTFWIT moment.  It's possible it was the original WTFWIT moment, but probably not.)  Perhaps HIM thought he could mask the unmistakable flushing noise while talking loudly.  There might have been a rapid cough-clear-the-throat maneuver while pressing the toilet handle.  Or perhaps there was the quick-flush-fast-and-walk-away-from-the-noise-faster method.  If you flush and run the person on the other end might not realize what you were doing.  (Maybe they won't notice IF the person you're talking to at the very moment that you flush realizes that a) they've won the lottery, b) a meteor is streaking toward their house, and c) that Mel Gibson has stopped over for coffee and an interesting chat about law enforcement officials.  IF.)

Is that my mother on the phone?
Haha.  Police fan alert.  I always
wanted to use that quote.

My MIL, you see, is not deaf, and soon cottoned onto the fact that her eldest son had been talking to her while simultaneously using the john.  She was not amused.  On the contrary, she was less than amused.  I believe that it was years before she stopped asking HIM if he was in the bathroom when they talked on the telephone.  (I wouldn't have owned up to it.  I would have made something up.  It was the TV.  It was an odd atmospheric reaction caused by swamp gas and nuclear fall-out.  It was my cat barfing up a hairball.  A BIG hairball.  Yeah.  That was it.)

Well, the long and short of it is:

Don't use the portable phone while using the potty.

Sage words for the sound of mind.  It seems to be a rule.  I'm not sure if Miss Emily said it first.  It's possible that Miss Emily thought it didn't really need to be said since she started dolling out advice about etiquette in 1946.  (Remember the rotary phone that doesn't migrate into the toilet?  The chances are that it probably did not come up.)

However, portable phones opened the door.  (There's a bad pun there but I'm not going that way.)  But now that we have cell phones, well, whoopsie doodle.  A whole 'nother can of worms has just been opened up.  As a matter of fact, worms are flying everydamnwhere.

Case in point.  I was in the bathroom of Target.  I was minding my own bathroom related business.  While occupado, a woman, I assume it was a woman since it was the girl's bathroom, came into the facility while still speaking on her cell phone.  It was only she and I in the bathroom.  She picked the stall farthest away from mine and proceeded to go peepee (I can hear it and it wasn't like I had a Navy Seal device hooked up to the stall's walls.) while still holding a discussion with Deedee.

Yes, she called the woman, 'Deedee.'  She couldn't stop to tell Deedee that, "I'm peepeeing in the potty at Target, Deedee.  Can I call you back?"  No, she just carried on her conversation.

One must understand that the woman had to know that I was in the bathroom, too.  She walked past my closed door.  It wasn't like I was hiding under the sink in the corner wearing urban camouflage.

It did not matter.  Cell Phone Mama said chirpily, "Deedee, I was just looking at this bracelet.  It had silver plating on it and silver plating turns my skin green.  So I can't buy anything with silver plating.  But it was a nice bracelet.  So I had to ask the clerk if they had the bracelet in something that wasn't silver plated, but that woman looked at me as though I had lost my mind.  So I put it back and got a necklace.  Then I couldn't find matching earrings."  I had pretty much dozed off at that point.  Deedee probably had, too.

I think Target actually has red stalls.  But now I'm going to
have to go shopping there just to check to see if I was
right.  (I went and checked.  SILVER!  Yikes!  They
should have been red.)

Was this conversation important enough to carry into the bathroom at Target and continue it while peeing?  NO, OF COURSE IT WASN'T!!  But Cell Phone Mama persevered.  Let it never be said that Cell Phone Mama gave up on her cell phone call while talking to Deedee.  (I salute you, Deedee, whoever you are and despite the fact that you voluntarily signed up to listen to Cell Phone Mama.)

"So then I went into Petsmart to get some of that gourmet dog food that Fifi likes so much and they had shrimp flavored but not lamb flavored.  Fifi throws up if I give her shrimp flavored food," Cell Phone Mama went on blithely.  "And ohmigod, you don't want to clean up after Fifi when she throws up.  I don't know how a dog that small can barf so much."

I began to pray that I would win the lottery, that a meteor would crash into the store, and that Mel Gibson would stop into the bathroom to discuss problems with local law enforcement officials.  Hell, I would have welcomed a hissing Mellow by that time.  I considered putting my fingers in my ears but it didn't help.  (I needed elephant fingers like my dentist.  Haha.  I love blogging.)

Cell Phone Mama went on, "My boyfriend says he likes shrimp but it doesn't make him throw up.  I think he's better than the last one.  Vito wouldn't pay for dinner half of the time.  I mean, why should I pay for dinner?  He makes more money than I do, so he should pay for dinner.  I mean, you know, jeez."

I don't think Deedee got to talk much.  It's entirely likely that Deedee was a mute whose only friend was Cell Phone Mama.

The continuing conversation while I tried to urge my digestion system to HURRY THE HELL UP AND FINISH! went like this, "So, my boss said I took too long of a lunch but there was this dress I had to try on and I think it made my butt look big.  Wait, I took a picture with my phone and I'll send it to you."  I was briefly thankful here because I thought she would shut up while she sent the picture but apparently she has the kind of phone that enables her to do several things at once, including TALK!  "There, I sent it.  It's not a good angle.  And what color would you call that dress?  Eggplant?  I think it's purple.  But oh, my God, do I need to lay off the potato chips at night or I need to get on the treadmill more often.  I tried the diet potato chips but they made me want to throw up so I-" she giggled here "-Gave them to Fifi.  She liked them better than the shrimp flavored dogfood.  I tried that dogfood, too.  You know, I eat everything I give the dog.  If it's good enough for my dog, then it's good enough for me.  I wonder if I would lose weight if I just ate dogfood."

Does anyone think that I really wanted to listen to this conversation?  (Let me make this perfectly clear to the person reading this who just asked, 'Why did you stay, then?'  I had no choice, due to forces of internal nature.  I was stuck there.)  I was amazed that Cell Phone Mama was so long-winded and that the battery on her phone lasted as long as it did.

Finally.  Finally.  Finally.  I finished and as I stood up, Cell Phone Mama said, "Where am I?"  Apparently, Deedee had finally spoken and it was to ask Cell Phone Mama where she was currently chatting her ass off at.  Good question.

I waited for a moment.  Why not tell Deedee that she was taking a big dumpenetta in Target's bathroom?  Would she fess up to chatting and taking a little crap-a-doodle-doo?  I mean, here was the moment of truth.  Cell Mama considered for a moment and said, "I'm at Target in the food court."

So I flushed the toilet.  Then I flushed it again for good measure.  Life is good sometimes.

In conclusion, here's the new rule:

Don't use the cell phone while in the potty.

Then HIM came in and read over my shoulder and added, "Unless you use the mute button."  I wonder what HIM's been doing when I've been calling.  Hmm.

Attention Bubba FANS! Or How I Wrote a Short Scene About Bubba to Entice You!

There's a scene from Bubba and the Missing Woman on my website, http://www.clbevill.com/, in the Other section.  Spoiler Alert!  If you haven't read Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, the scene has got a spoiler in it, so don't read it!  But for the rest of you die hard fans, it's not just funny, it's HI-LAIR-EE-US!

PART II - Mini-Vacation OR How We Came, We Saw, We Were Sarcastic!

If I had written this trip all in one blog, it would have been almost a book, so two parts.  Hey, twice the anticipation.  Upon my last, daring, spine-tingling blog, the reader was left with many searing questions:

What did they do with the $20 bill?

Did they hand it to the concierge?

Did they keep it and spend it on diamonds and other booty?

Did they tell anyone at all?

Will the maids squeal?

Will the pool keeper tell his wife?

Will Fat Woman stop asking inane questions?

Why did she put these questions in the center and make them purple?

Okay, you.  YOU, the one reading this blog for the first time.  Yes, I mean, you.  I see that confused look on your face and your hand on the mouse about to click away to obscurity and porn sites.  Go read the blog before this one.  'Trip, Trip, Tripping Down to the Beach, etc.'  I'll wait.  (Oh, yes, don't forget to share how funny you thought this was on Twitter and Facebook.)

I'll summarize for those of you who did read the blog and don't remember much of it because of whatever reason.  (Alcoholic over-consumption, alien abduction, addiction to the truTV Channel, whatever.)  Us.  Beach.  Hotel.  GPS hosing me over again.  $20 bill in jacuzzi.  Silliness.  There it is.

The most important question: Did we keep the possibly tainted $20 bill?  Well, I wanted to give it to the homeless people who had been languishing on the bench underneath the pool's balcony for most of the three days that we were at the hotel.  (It's a luck thing.  Spread the love.  It's good for your karma.)  But HIM wanted to put it in his wallet and contaminate the other hapless currency there.  (I can totally picture one $20 saying to the other, "So where have YOU been?")  So I'll get back to that.

This is the sunset from the ferry.  This
is probably the best picture I took on
this trip.  I love my Android.  I'd probably
shrivel up and die without it.

We rode the ferry across the river and went to Joe's Crab Shack.  Why?  They have an indoor playground there.  Those of you with children of an age will instantaneously understand.  They also had a giant plastic shark that loomed over our heads.  While staring at its plasticine toothiness, I was mentally planning my lawsuit for when it fell on HIM's head and crushed HIM into little HIM pancakes.  (Him said it should be himcakes instead of HIM pancakes.)  (HIM had picked the table and thus got to sit under the giant, looming, plastic shark in a particularly precarious position.)  Then Cressy pointed at it and hilarity ensued.  (Hilarity often ensues in my blogs.  As a matter of fact, it should be in the title of the blog.  'The Hilariously Ensuant Confessions of a Fat Woman.'  Now I'm going to have to look in my BIG dictionary to see if I made up a word.)

"Hey, there's a giant, plastic shark
looming over Daddy's head!  I will
pummel it!"

Well, Cressy is of a pummeling type age, you know.

"I have my grrr-face on, Mommy.  I have
waxed the shark's tushie and saved Daddy.
All is well again.  Let's eat.  But first
I have to go play in the play area."

Now wouldn't it have been funny if the giant, plastic shark HAD fallen on HIM's head?  I'm sure (almost sure) that it doesn't weigh that much.  And hey, think of the publicity.  It wouldn't make the Darwin Awards (unless I could have gotten HIM to swing on the shark first, which would have also been rip-snorting but would have involved way too many margaritas) but it would have been funny.  (Think of the headlines: Man NOT Eaten by Great White Shark; Man Crushed by Great White Shark.  Killer, yeah?)

All were happy after eating at Joe's
and NOT having a shark crush
their little weenie brains.  (Did I mention
that HIM was, oh I have to say it,
crabby on this trip?  Doesn't he
look crabby?)  (HIM came in and read
this and said that he wasn't crabby
at that particular point in time.  So maybe
he was constipated.  Whateveh.)

After eating our guts out, we returned to the hotel for more hilarity.  It was really hilarious when the hotel's bleeeeeeeeeep, bleeeeeeep, bleeepity Internet wouldn't let me log onto Facebook so I could post inanity.  But I did take a picture of the elevator's number pad just because I was bored.

Wow, this is truly fascinating.  Whatever
will Fat Woman think of next?  I can
hardly restrain my sarcasm, er, I mean
excitement.  (Incidentally, people will look
at you strangely when you take pictures of
food in the supermarket and also elevator
panels.)

I demanded caffeine the next morning when we were due to leave.  But we went downstairs to the concierge lounge where they give out freebies to members of their 'platinum' club.  (HIM goes on lots of business trips and knows how to milk a teat.  I mean, he really knows how to simultaneously yank and squeeze.  No offense to cows.)

I couldn't help myself.

So we ate in there and Cressy discovered that they had triple chocolate chunk muffins.  Life was good again!  Then we went home.

On the trip home, I was stuck behind what I think is the only Canadian Ford truck driver from that country.  (Or maybe he bought it from the truck plant there.  Hey, it's made in America, right?) 

Obviously, this is NOT a Ford truck from Canada.
But I really couldn't help it.
Someone stop me before it's too late.

So here's a picture of the Canadian driver of the Ford Truck who couldn't go above 50 MPH in a 70 MPH zone.  IN THE FAST LANE.  On the freeway!  With twenty million people trailing behind him, yelling things out their windows. 

Yes, that's a Burger King crown on my dash.
I do have a 7 year old, you know.  And this
guy REALLY is from Canada.  It said, 'Je ma
somethingorother' on his plates, so there.
Does it look like I'm tailgating here?
I might have been.
You know, it occurs to me that
people driving cars shouldn't
take pictures with their
Androids while driving.  Haha.
HIM took it.

In conclusion, what happened to the nasty $20 bill?  Well, I believe the Ninja Vampire Zombies returned and I duked it out with them using my mystical Fat Woman powers.  Finally, I told them that they could take the icky bill if they wouldn't bite me and turn me to the dark side.  They were sadly dismayed but went along with it.

I thought about adding a ninja vampire zombie but I couldn't
think of how to draw it correctly, or more importantly, funnily.
Did anyone notice that this cow is missing her left front leg?
This isn't really a three legged cow; I accidentally erased it
with my autosketch program.  Whoops.  Maybe I should
send the $20 to the cow.