The Attack of Alligator Girl and the Zombie Kids!!!!

One day my daughter came home and announced that she had a new game to play with me.  I, of course, was ambivalent.  Cressy likes to play, she's seven, so that's a no brainer.  New games are part and parcel of life with a seven year old.

"So what's the game?" I said.

"Alligator," Cressy answers in an ominous voice (or as ominous as a 7 year old about to giggle can get.)

"How do you play it?"

"One of us is the alligator," she said.  "And the other one...runs away."

At this point I'm reminded of a game that HIM, the man I'm married to, and HIM's dad used to play when HIM was Cressy's age.  They called it, 'Bear,' and that was probably because they hadn't thought of a more vicious animal.  Papa would sit in a chair in the middle of a dark room.  HIM and HIM's older sister would be on opposite sides of the room.  The object of the game was for the siblings to trade places without getting eaten by the bear, who was played by Papa, who would growl convincingly and attempt to maul and otherwise consume unwary children who dared play the game with him.  Amongst shrieking, giggling, and other stuff, the game went down into history as the one that gave HIM nightmares about bears.  (And I have a great story about bears and my MIL that I'm not permitted to tell, so I'm clenching my teeth in frustration right now.)  Anyhoo, as soon as Cressy said, 'Alligator,' I thought of the Bear game.

And that reminds me of the last time we went to Louisiana to visit Papa and he took Cressy to see this local alligator who really, really, really likes Ritz Crackers:

The photo is taken from atop a bridge and believe me, those little beady alligator eyes were just BEGGING someone to jump in and try to wrestle with him.  (Incidentally, I'm told by HIM that this alligator is about 12 feet long and is used to people feeding him.  He swims up to the bridge and waits when he sees people come up.  And I just shuddered.  HIM just added that this particular alligator's back is broad enough to land a jumbo jet on it and I just shuddered again.)

Back to the game.  I suspected that mostly I would be the alligator and that I would be attempting to catch my daughter.  Then I wondered what the hell they were teaching her at elementary school.  (Was I letting her watch channels she shouldn't watch?  No.  Watching Disney channel.  No man eating alligators there.  Watching Nick Jr.  No man eating alligators there.  Watching Discovery Channel.  Some man eating alligators there but mostly just pumpkin chunking and guys blowing things up, which causes other future problems that I'm not going to think about right now.  Watching some Animal Planet.  Yes, some man eating alligators drifting around the water there, but she only gets to watch World's Funniest Animals and Pet Star.  I could understand it if I let her watch something like RuPaul's Drag Race or Housewives of Ho City, but hey I believe I'm digressing.)  Dang.  Where does the kid get these ideas?

Then the rules of the game, 'Alligator,' commenced.  All alligators were to chomp their teeth repeatedly, as if preparing to consume their prey.  Alligators had little stubby arms like T-Rex in the dinosaur museum.  Alligators in this game can walk on all fours but when Cressy is playing the alligator, the alligator can magically walk on two legs upright.  However, if Mommy is the alligator, Cressy may run to her bed and it is BASE, the wondrous place where all potential alligator victims are safe, safeity, safe.  (Alligators who touch BASE fall over dead instantly and sometimes combust internally.  Very ugly and messy.)  Cressy victims always get a head start while Cressy alligators get a head start.  Mommy victims are usually savagely eaten while Mommy alligators starve to death because their victims have escaped to BASE.  (I was getting the impression that Cressy alligators and Cressy victims have somewhat of a Darwinian edge.)

Then the game was on.  I was designated 'it,' which meant I was the alligator.  My prey, swiftly and with horselike giggles, eluded me by running to her bed and screaming, "BASE!"  This was followed by the nanny-nanny-doo-doo song accompanied by a butt wiggle of demeaning proportion.  (That'll teach me to dare to want to ravage my prey in a typical alligator fashion.  Oh, woe is the slow, fat, middle aged alligator.)  (And to the person who just asked about the nanny-nanny doo-doo song.  The complete lyrics are, 'Nanny, nanny doo-doo, stick your head in poo-poo.'  And I know where she got that from because I taught it to her in the purest form of  a WTFWIT? moment.)  (WTFWIT = What The Fuck Was I Thinking?)

Fortunately for me, the game got old fast.  Then it transmogrified into two alligators hanging out, talking alligator smack, putting down boy alligators, comparing alligator songs, and the like.  (And I kept forgetting to chomp appropriately and BTW, a group of alligators is called a congregation.)  The Cressy alligator finally announced she was hungry and that she was going to get some 'food' in the living room.  I remained on the bed haunted by my alligator psychosomatic inadequacies.  (Personal factoid: while there isn't a specific fear for alligators, the fear of reptiles is called herpetophobia.  I know that when I'm personally shrieking in fear while levitating off the ground when I've seen a snake anywhere near my feet, I often stop and point out that the fear of reptiles is called herpetophobia.)  While I was lambasting in my failure to be a truly vicious carnivore reptile, there was a scream from the living room followed by rapid chomping.  CHOMP!  CHOMP!  CHOMP!  Then Cressy alligator returned to the nest victorious with her prizes, imaginary human legs for lunch.  "Did you hear that?" she explained to me, proud that she had made sounds for both parts.  "That was the little girl I ate.  Here, eat a leg."

And what could I do?  I ate an imaginary leg with her.  I would have put imaginary ketchup on it but I was fresh out and the imaginary kitchen was far away from the nest.

This was followed by more talking alligator smack and putting alligator daddies down.  (Poor HIM, he gets the shit end of the stick even when HIM isn't home.)

Then Cressy asked if she could tell a scary story.  Why, yes, dear.  I love to hear scary stories.  I used to read Stephen King for breakfast.  So here was the scary story.

Once there were kids who went outside at night.

And they became zombies.  They were zombie kids.

Except they didn't want to eat brains.  They wanted to eat the chocolate eggs from the Easter Bunny.  (We're approaching Easter here, so there's some stuff obviously going around in her little head dealing with bunnies and the unfairness of chocolate dispersal.)

So the Easter Bunny had to run away and hide the chocolate eggs.  Under some stairs.  Covered up with sticks.

But the zombie kids found the Easter Bunny.  And they said, "Hey, Bunny, show us the chocolate eggs!"

And the Bunny refused to show them the eggs.

So the zombie kids ate the Easter Bunny.  (They call that Hasenpfeffer where I'm from.  All you need is some onions and a roux.)  They found the chocolate eggs and ate them too.

Then the zombie kids turned back into kids and lived happily ever after.

And it's moments like this that I completely disregard the notion that Cressy has too much OCD like her daddy and I know that stories like that come straight out of MY DNA.  Sigh.

SUPER Deodorant Power! or How Advertising Has Attained the Level of Ludicrosity

So one day while grocery shopping HIM, to whom I am married, announced he needs a new deodorant.  I was unimpressed.  I believe my actual response was, "Whateveh."  HIM went on a determined mission to find a deodorant that did not fail at six hours and counting.  HIM's words, "I can smell myself."  I can only assume that means a bad thing.  ("I do not smell like flowers and a gentle wafting summer breeze.  I smell like man sweat and man issues and maybe rancid toe cheese.  Not good.")  HIM had been using Old Spice and not because of the commercials featuring the cute guy with the great voice who magically changes from situation to situation while pumping OLD SPICE as the greatest man invention ever.  I'm going to YouTube to check out the commercial so I can be re-impressed with his promotion of a man anti-sweat item.  I'm feeling compelled to insert a link:

Yes, HIM was using Old Spice before this guy ever came along.  (What does the commercial have to do with this blog, you ask in a condescending manner.  Nothing, but I like the commercial and I learned how to add the video to the blog so I said, "WTH!")  However, Old Spice wasn't doing the job, so off HIM went in search of the new, improved DO for his BO.  HIM was serious.  HIM was intent on getting the big guns.  So HIM came back with this:

Curious as to what HIM selected to overcome his mansweat I looked at this product and immediately giggled.  I've got comments!  Lots of comments!  I'm so full of comments that I could bust!  Oh, where shall I begin?  I might tinkle because I can't decide.

Anyway, at the top.  It's new.  No, it's NEW.  No, NEW.  And more importantly, it's The Official Deodorant of the NBA.  (My deodorant is The Official Deodorant of Sarcastic People Everywhere.  Not only does it refresh, it protects when people don't laugh at your sly, yet subtly ingratiating humor.  Also it smells like fresh petunias and Bubblicious Bubble Gum, Gonzo Grape flavored.)  I know that when I'm selecting a deodorant it's terribly important that it should be The Official Deodorant of Somedamnbody because I'm too insecure to have one that simply does what it's supposed to do.  (MY idea for a deodorant: BO Blaster!  It shitcans your BO or your money back!  And you'll smell damn great!  Holy CARP!)  (I feel that I should mention that I bought diaper rash cream ONLY because it was called, 'Boudreaux's Butt Paste Diaper Rash Ointment.'  It comes in a 1 lb container, too.  But how can you go wrong with Boudreaux's Butt Paste Diaper Rash Ointment and in a 1 lb container, too?  It's all self contained in the title.  Hey, it worked and our daughter never had another bad diaper rash after that.)

So now onto the title.  Right Guard followed by Total Defense Power Gel 5.  Since I have an advanced degree in psychology and counseling, I get to say that the excessive title suggests that the person who suggested it suffers from a state of inadequacy.  TOTAL DEFENSE POWER GEL 5.  I mean, Total Defense.  Power Gel.  And let's add a 5, because it can't be Total Defense Power Gel 1 or Total Defense Power Gel 2.  No, it's TOTAL DEFENSE POWER GEL 5.  Hmm.  now let's add the 5 reasons.  1.  Blocks sweat.  (Duh, it's a deodorant.) 2. Responds fast.  (What, in a minute, an hour, what?) 3. Targets bacteria.  (What?  I thought it was supposed to target sweat.  What was I thinking?)  4.  Neutralizes odor.  (What the hell does that mean?  Does it zap it with a ray gun?)  5.  Protects 48 hours.  (This part was followed with a little asterisk that I suspect leads to a qualifier of something like, 'Only protects for 48 hours when you're in the Antarctic, sitting on your ass, with a fan blowing on you, and a case of cold Bud next to you.  For everyone else, well, who the hell knows.  And see it even says, 'Arctic Refresh' on the label.  It's a hint and a half for your ass.)  (And look there's another asterisk next to Arctic Refresh on the label, yet nowhere can I find the part where it says what the qualifier is.  Arctic Refresh * (* Arctic Refresh refers to the freshness of folks who are Aleutian Islanders, Inuits, and peoples dumb enough to live on icy locales and who really don't need deodorant because they don't really sweat there.))

So I managed to cover the front of the deodorant.  Now for the back:

No, that's not really the back of the deodorant.  That's my daughter, making happy time with a pumpkin she called Pumpy. I just wanted to see if anyone was paying attention.

Really, here's the back:

And there's the asterisk explanation for no. 5. Protects 48 hours from odor. 24 hours for wetness.  I don't even want to ponder HOW they tested for that.  (I'm sure it was disgusting.  Somewhere, someone is filing their taxes and filling in the occupation of 'underarm sniffer.'  Do we really want to go back to the part about The Official Deodorant of the NBA and how it was actually determined that it was The Official ONE?  Some poor bastard had to smell armpits, and not any old armpits, but sweaty, nasty, dripping armpits of hairy basketball players who had just played an entire game.  That's right.  I hope that guy got paid a lot because he deserved it.)

So the back is not as funny as the front with the two following exceptions.  Under the section directions, it says, and I'm quoting for comedic clarification, 'Apply to underarms only.'  And under warnings, it says 'for external use only.'  The latter is in bold for anyone who isn't paying attention.

I'll pause to allow the reader time to ponder on the implications of the statements.

Now I'll comment because...well...I can't not comment.  It would make my head explode and brains would get all over my office and the smell would be so awful that HIM would have to break out TOTAL DEFENSE POWER GEL 5 for Removal of Brain Matter - in convenient spray form.  (What?  You don't think they make that?)  Why would anyone have to put, 'Apply to underarms only,' on the back of a deodorant stick?  Because someone looked at it and said, "Goooolllleee.  Ifin this is good for the sweat under my pits, then where else could I put it?  Let me think about that."  And then they did think about it, rapidly followed by an application in the afflicted areas.

I know what popped into my mind about what area would be next on the top ten mansweat parts of the body.  So I asked HIM what would be, next to HIM's armpits, the sweatiest part on his body.  And quite naturally I got the answer that popped into my head.  I got it into my head that if I went down the street and asked random men they would probably call the police on me, but on the inside they would admit that the testicular area is next sweatiest to the underarm area.

And let it be said here and now that once upon a time some stupid person (Probably not the guy from The Stupidest Man Ever blog, but maybe his brother or his cousin or possibly his brother/cousin.  Bet you have to think about that.) said to himself: 'This stuff works so well on my underarms, let's just try it out...down there.'  And he whips his package aside and goes to town in a deodorant fashion on his genitalia.  (My mind is aghast.)  Then when the burning and itching commenced, he probably called up Right Guard and had a discussion with them.  Whereupon they were forced to put 'Apply to underarms only' on the directions.

All of which leads me to the other statement that caught my eye.  In bold.  'For external use only.'  The same man who applied it to his sweaty meat sacs decided that it smelled so darned good, that possibly it might...um...taste good too?  Or possibly this man was more sophisticated than that.  He thought, 'If I apply it to my body and it works, then maybe it will work much better if I...eat it.'  Break out the salt, buckaroos, it's deodorant for dinner.  Yippee.

After this man's stomach was pumped, he called up Right Guard and said, "Hey, you all didn't say that I couldn't eat it."  Consequently, they had to put a warning on it. 'For external use only.'  And if the random individual has to look up the meaning of the word, 'external,' then fuck it, he's too damn dumb to use deodorant anyway.

Of course, then I had to prance back to my bathroom and look at my deodorant to see what wonders it portrayed on its covers.  My Secret deodorant is powder fresh and has the same qualifiers.  So look, stupid isn't a gender related issue.

Pain in the Ass Man or How My Husband Invented a NEW IMPROVED Superhero

Even before I write the blog the first thing I have to do is apologize for ragging on HIM.  HIM is the poor bastard to whom I've been married nearly three decades.  (Sounds like a long, long, long time put that way.)  Fortunately for me, HIM has a good sense of humor and doesn't mind if I use him in my blogging.  Also fortunately for HIM, he doesn't always incite my ire.  (I sound like I'm a horrible bitch to live with.  I should let HIM write a guest blog.  It could be called, 'That Bitch I Live With and How She Rags On Me.  Poor Pitiful Me.'  Or it could be called 'O, Divorce Lawyers Come and Call Me, For I Have LOADS of Blogging Evidence of Her Incompatibility and Avid Insensitivity.'  And let me say now that I fully intend to add to that evidence in a long blog followed here.  And I will even illustrate it, for I am unmerciful.  Ha.  Call it bitchy.)  So anyway, sorry, baby.  I had to write it.  (And I have a note to write a blog on the list, and I do have a list, of ALL the things I'm not permitted to blog about.  I feel like a stand up comedian.  You know the ones who talk about their spouses, mothers, siblings, and then catch holy living hell for it.  Well, several of my significant relatives and a few friends have mentioned to me the need to restrain my sharing.  "Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, Caren, don't you have any common sense?  I don't want to read about your daughter's green poop.  And don't you dare talk about that time we visited Juarez and partied with the troop of drunken Albanian circus performers."  Good times.)

That being said I can now get into what has me in a dither.  HIM, to whom I am married.  To all newlyweds and those aspiring to be newlyweds, let it be known that you will fight once you are married, and furthermore, you will be...irritated by your significant other.  You may very well be more than irritated.  And the things that will irritate you may be numerous but they may also be minor, picayune issues that would not normally annoy a mosquito.  Allow me to give an example.

The toothpaste dispenser: giver of fluorinated goodness and the ability to maintain one's teeth until they're in their eighties OR demon-raised issue to cause instantaneous divorce and/or brain hemorrhage?  Answer: possibly both.  It is my concerted opinion that the toothpaste tube can be squeezed at any point of the tube without causing cranial damage to any user thereof.  (It CAN be squeezed in the middle with great glee and an inordinate amount of giggling.)  HIM's opinion: the toothpaste tube shall only be squeezed from the end furthest away from the opening, thereby increasing the usability factor of the contained paste.  Furthermore, as the toothpaste is dispensed in such an orderly fashion, the squeezing shall be followed by the neat and orderly rolling of the toothpaste tube so that every last millimeter of toothpaste shall be used.  (This from a man who doesn't care what the price is of the items on the list at the grocery store as long as he is able to check it off.  Try to picture the dichotomy there.  Squeezing a toothpaste tube until every last bit is used so that it is not wasted versus Doesn't care if something costs a buck more as long as it can be checked off the list.  Hmm.)

The Battle of the Toothpaste Tube OR How Our First Major Argument Almost Escalated into WWIII was my introduction into the inner psychological workings of the male who I married.  (I admit I married HIM.  No one made me say, "I do."  So if I made the error in judgement about not getting to 'know' HIM before we were married I can say it was my responsibility.)  I had, until that point, lived with mostly females.  There was my mother and sister, and then my uncle and aunt and grandmother, and my uncle made himself scarce because my aunt was the queen of that castle.  So the male mind was a complete mystery.  Pretty much anyway, unless one counts watching Starsky and Hutch or Magnum, PI, neither of which really counts.

Upon acute observation I discovered that the male mind worked in this fashion:

And now I'm forced to make two observations.  One is the above illustration is the Average Male Brain at age 20, the age at which we eloped.  Two is that the Toothpaste Wars culminated in the purchasing of a new type of toothpaste dispenser, the stand up, hardened container, which was NOT, for the good of all married kind, squeezable.  Later, after the detente of the Toothpaste Wars was broken when Him and I couldn't agree on using the same kind of toothpaste, (Minty gel for me.  Crappy paste for HIM.) we resolved the issue by buying TWO different tubes.  I could squeeze mine in any fashion that made my little itty bitty brain go berserk with joy and he could obsessively flatten his into minute particles that pleased his inner anal self.  (I'll say it again.  Minty gel for me.  Crappy paste for HIM.)  Yea, consumer freedom.  Boo, Toothpaste Wars.  (And I need, no *NEED* to quote Bart Simpson here.  "There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars Trilogy.")

Now I'm forced to go draw another brain because I've been thinking that HIM's brain isn't the same as it was all those years ago.  This one would be the Average Male Brain at 48, and I can attest that I am an expert in the matter.  I've had decades of personal observation and training.

I can hardly wait to see what it's going to look like in ten more years.  (That was sarcasm.)

So HIM has created a new persona, much like Superman created Clark Kent, or Peter Parker created Spiderman.  He is Pain in the Ass Man.  And he has special powers.  He reminded me of one right now.  The ability to piss me off completely to the point of a vein exploding out of the side of my forehead in THREE words or less.  Furthermore, I will state that HIM just asked me for the opinion of what tie to wear to work tomorrow and HIM didn't care for my opinion when it was freely rendered.  As a matter of fact the tie that I selected was disregarded on the basis that it is too thick.  (I'm trying to understand this one and I need to add that HIM literally means the material is too thick, not that the tie is too wide.  ("It doesn't tie correctly," he whined as he put it back in the closet.  "So why did you ask me for my opinion, then?" I bitched.  "I don't know," he said, wishing he could suddenly be in Outer Mongolia or on a ship in the Bering Straight.)  So what does the tie selection have to do with the thickness of the cloth with which it is made?  This is a philosophical question that will haunt me for, oh, minutes.)  You see Pain in the Ass Man has this special ability.

Pain in the Ass Man also has the skill to know instantaneously whether the toilet paper roll is rolling off the top or off the bottom, for apparently it is critical to the survival of the earth that the roll comes off the top in an orderly fashion saving millions of man lives in the process.  (My reasoning: "Does the toilet paper come off the roll?  Yes.  Does it wipe my tushie?  Yes.  Does it matter whether it's up or down?  Oh, hell no."  I suppose that make me the villain in the matter.  My ulterior plan is to sneak household to household, surreptitiously changing the direction of the toilet rolls to infuriate men all over.  Insert evil laughter here.)  Another expertise is the very weird ability to get up in the middle of the night and straighten all the sheets and blankets, even the ones lying over me, for unstraightened sheets and blankets will cause tumors and an itchy rash that will make your brain seize up.  And let us not forget the infamous ability to correctly arrange sandwich ingredients with condiments.  I shall explain.  You see, Pain in the Ass Man must have the mayo only on the cheese side of a sandwich.  Consequently, mustard must only be applied to the bread on the meat side of the sandwich.  What happens if there is no meat?  Can the mustard be side by side with the cheese whilst the mayo is on the other side?  Will the mustard NOT be applied?  I do not know.  I suspect that under those awful, unforeseeable circumstances Pain in the Ass Man's brain might short circuit and implode.  (Of course, ever since I jokingly asked him if he wanted cat food on his sandwich and he jokingly said yes and I jokingly sprinkled a handful of kibble on the sandwich and sent it to work with him, he usually checks out my sandwiches before eating them.  So if he finds one that the mustard and mayo has been misapplied, he probably calls the Hazardous Waste Team with their full body uniforms to take it away.  Did I mention that he took several bites of the cat food sandwich and wondered why it was so crunchy?  And hey, I haven't done that for twenty years.)

Anyway I have obviously digressed into idiocy.  So love you, dear.  You're a quirky bastard and I'm sure you have a list about me.  But hey, I got to blog about it first and I'm more eloquent.  Also long winded.  So there.

Oh Where For Art Thou, Whoopie?

I saw this commercial recently and feel, as I often do, COMPELLED to make some comments.  Let us first begin with Whoopi Goldberg.  What an amazing actress and entertainer.  I never watched The Color Purple, but I did see lots of her other ones like Jumpin' Jack Flash, Sister Act, and of course, Ghost, for which she got a best-supporting Oscar.  I liked her in Star Trek: TNG.  Anyone who can host the Oscars, with the exceptions of the two dimbulbs who did it last weekend, can't be all bad.  She gets the center square in Hollywood Square, and that's the prestigious one, btw.  And now she's working on The View sparring with BabaWaWa and the girls.  (I know I'm just scratching the surface because I didn't mention her talk show or her series or the many other things she's done.)  Go Whoopie.

Here comes the compulsion, I know you were waiting on tenterhooks, to make pithy comments.  So out comes this commercial.  Go ahead and watch it.  I'll wait.

Intermission whilst the common reader views the commercial in question.

So now you know.  Famous women throughout history have had a little problem.  They've been having a little *gasp* incontinence.  Shh.  Don't say that word out loud.  Someone might hear.

Oh, the hell with it.  WOMEN HAVE BEEN PEEING IN THEIR PANTIES!  According to the commercial, one out of three have this urinary issue.  That's a lot of women running around with their legs crossed and not in a good way.  (This reminds me of my trip to Spokane or How I Love to Fly in Airplanes or How a Venti Chai Tea Latte Almost Ruined My Personal Flotation Device.  See that blog for those intrigued by a great title.)

So Whoopie does this commercial.  She dresses as the famous women, looks pretty cool doing it, and pushes for these pee pads.  Or maybe pee catcher pads would be more appropriate.  Hey women out there, bet you didn't know that other women have this problem too.  And I'll bet some of you didn't know that there was a special product for it, too.  Not only do adult men get to wear diapers, but so do women who drive from Texas to Florida to murder their lover's other lover.  But now for the woman who has occasional 'splitzes' here's something for you.

Now I'm having to cross my legs together while I decide which compelling issue I want to address first.

I'll start with actors who I refer to as THOSE WHO NEED TO PAY A MORTGAGE NOTE.  Not necessarily Whoopie.  She's making a paycheck.  She's got a solid rep.  I bet she's still got money in the bank even after the recession the government said we didn't really have.  Over the years I have seen actors doing some crappy stuff to make a mortgage payment.  Notable mentions include Lee Majors doing a hearing aid commercial.  Oh, where did the 6 million dollar man go?  (Cue clinky music and slo-mo movements.)  Lee, did the money go down the potty?  Or couldn't you hear when the stocks went down?  Lately Henry Winkler has been hawking a reverse mortgage company.  This is a situation where I sincerely pray that he's getting a break on his personal reverse mortgage, for the sake of all involved.  (The Fonz, whose leather jacket is reputedly in the Smithsonian Museum, would be having a fit.)  Then I remember Cher doing some infomercials on hair care products.  And there's a whole slew of actors who have digressed into doing SERIOUSLY CRAPTACTULAR movies for the Syfy Channel.  Some of these actors really believe that any publicity is good.  (Note to actors/actresses doing regular appearances on the Syfy Channel movies, this is NOT a good place for your career.  Nuh-uh.  Go do a Broadway show, for God's sake.)

Hah.  Go back to arty films.  Take one on for free.  Do a sit-com.  Do a commercial for a cancer clinic.  Write a cheesy BOOK.  Don't do a pee catching pad commercial.  This falls under the WTFWIT? category.  Ten years from now, it'll be, "Hmm, I might have made a tactical error."  (For those trying to keep up: WTFWIT? is What The Fuck Was I Thinking?)  (And the person at the very pinnacle of the WTFWIT? catagory who is surpassing every other stupid individual who ever attempted to corner the market is Charlie Sheen.  Where's Willem Defoe when you really need him?)

So here is Whoopi's personal WTFWIT? chart of the highs and lows in her life.  I think she might be aware of them.

I think most people can follow along.

Now I shall do a comparison for Whoopi to understand.  Doing a Poise Commercial is like if Mel Gibson did a commercial for Viagra, except he does the scene from Braveheart (you know the one where he's doing a motivational speech so his men can get all geared up to do some serious killing.) and he's wearing blue paint on a significant part of his anatomy for emphasis.  (I can picture it and we all know that Mel has NOT been having a good previous twelve months.)

I love you, Whoopie.  Please don't do another pee catching pad commercial.

The Mystery of the Funky Green Poop

So when my daughter, Cressy, was about two years old I took her in for her annual physical.  Whilst we were doing our thing at the pediatrician's office my daughter did her thing in her diaper.  She took a little toddler dumpenetta, alternatively known as a gruntie or a poopie doodle.  Of course, there is my all time favorite, she made a deposit in the porcelain bank.  (Of course a diaper is a metaphorical porcelain bank.)  As the pediatrician cannot be expected to examine a toddler with a dirty diaper I took a moment (maybe two) to change her.  And voila.  Her little dirty, sinful business was bright Kelly green.

BRIGHT KELLY GREEN.  It was so green that the Irish would say, "Damn, that's green."

Then the nurse came in and saw what had occurred and she said, "So is your daughter on medication that you didn't tell me about?"

And Cressy was not on any medication that I had dolefully neglected to mention.  So the nurse developed a pinched expression on her face.  (If I had been judging it by my daughter's face, I would have guessed that the nurse was about to pinch a smelly loaf of her own or as it's known in the south, about to sink some stinky sailors in the silly sea.  Hah.  I made that up.  It's not really southern, but it should be.)  In any case the nurse continued with the 'look' on her face that silently said, 'You're a poor mother.  Your daughter has bright green poopoo and you didn't tell us something we obviously need to know as medical practitioners of the first degree.  You suck and we are royalty.'  (It really was an involved expression, you know and I think she must have practiced in front of a mirror at home to perfect it.)

"That's not normal," the nurse finally pronounced as if I would fall to my knees on the floor and wail my utter dearth of goodmotherness.  ("Oh, woe is me!  I have done Cressy wrong!  Ohhh!")

Yes, I was aware that my daughter had been having green poopsies for some time.  Since she was eating typically, drinking, not expressing any pains, and everything else was going well, I didn't really think anything about it.  (It wasn't black and the poor little dear wasn't screaming because she was horribly constipated.)  And I should mention that as a mother of a small child one QUICKLY learns that exjectamenta comes in ALL colors, consistencies, and shapes.  ("Oh, my goodness, that type is new and ever so unusual.  I should take a photo and post it on Facebook!")

But as a typical mother, I tended to bristle when a nurse cops an attitude about my level of care concerning my child.  "So what is a normal poopage?" I asked belligerently.  "I'll have to get a color chart to compare daily pooplets.  My God, what was I thinking?  My daughter has bright green turds.  It could be the end of the world as we know it!"  (No, I didn't say that to the nurse, but I was definitely thinking it.)

"Okay," I mumbled.  "I'll talk to the doctor about it." 

So the doctor comes in, does her thing (and that didn't have anything to do with her personal little brown floaties) and I talk about the BRIGHT GREEN crusty critters.

"So what is she eating and drinking?" asks the doctor.

So I tell the doctor.  Then I add, "And she really likes Grape Koolaid."

"Ah," says the doctor.  "You should give her water.  She'll get a sweet tooth."

And what does that have to do with green butt clusters?  I do not know.  Apparently my lack of education in the medical field restrains me from completely understanding the intricacies of how a sweet tooth is directly linked to the output of green carbuncles.  Plus having suffered the tweaked-nerve-in-the-neck-stare from the nurse I was not in the mood to be understanding.

The doctor was well-groomed, about five foot five inches, and looked like she weighed about one hundred pounds soaking wet.  She had real diamond studs in her ears and a rock on her finger that could have sunk the Titanic.  I wanted to ask her if her daughter's nanny let her drink Grape Koolaid or the night nanny made the unfortunate dear drink only water (Perrier, I'm sure).  All things considered I handled my temper pretty well.  I WAS NOT feeding Cressy candy bars or snacks while shopping in Walmart, as I had seen women doing.  (One kid was two years old, weighed more than two of Cressy put together and was literally stuffed in the child seat of a shopping cart.  And he had the mega-sized Snicker's bar in his sweaty pudgy hand, which he was cheerfully shoving into his mouth while his mother shopped for whatever and chatted on her cell phone.)

Grape Koolaid!  The indignities, the utter wretchedness of the drink that I had drunk as a child myself.  Oh, I was a terrible mother.  How could I have been so remiss in my parental responsibilities?  Oh, however will the psychologist that she eventually goes to deal with this shameful and despicable event in her psyche?

Anyway, the doctor and I never got back to the green chewbacca chunks because the doctor had climbed onto her high horse of moral nutritional obligation and was imparting to me the varied and multiple errors of my being.  If I continued to let my child drink something 'sweet' she would never like anything else.  If I persisted with these vile deeds with my daughter she would turn into a serial killer who cannibalized sorority girls at midnight at abandoned summer camps.  (The doctor didn't really say that but it was definitely implied.)

I slunk out of the pediatrician's office knowing that I had done Cressy a dreadful wrong.  I had given her Grape Koolaid instead of water.  Oh, the ignobility of it all.

What did I do?  I tried giving Cressy water and she didn't want it.  Basically she gave me a toddler look that said, 'Why?  Why would you torture me with this tasteless clear stuff, Mother?  Why?'  So I gave her the Grape Koolaid.  Even worse was that I drank it, too.  It wasn't bad and it was sugar free, so it wasn't like I was giving her a hundred calories in a shot.  If it was good enough for my daughter, then by God I would drink it, too.  Cressy and I toasted each other with sippy cups.  The hell with the nurse.  The hell with the doctor.  If Cressy grew up to a psychopathic murderer with tendencies to eat fried testicles from cabana boys from Tijuana then who was I to criticize her if she was truly happy?  Yea, green colon cannonballs!

Then about a week later I noticed I had bright Kelly green poopsters.  And I had to stop to think about it.  Cressy had bright green toilet twinkles.  I had bright green mudfat balls.  Was it coincidence?  I think not.

It was the bleeping Grape Koolaid!

I looked it up on the Internet.  The dye used in the Koolaid is Blue #5, and red. It turns out that when metabolized in sufficient quantity, the blue dye combines with bile, and forms a brilliant green. The red, absorbing at a different level, is safely jettisoned.  And out comes BRIGHT KELLY GREEN poopsie lalas.  (There's another couple of reasons for green whoopsies.  One is excess eating of green vegetables but that clearly wasn't the case with us.  Haha.  We didn't need no stinking green vegetables.)

I would have told the pediatrician and her pinchy faced nurse about the Grape Koolaid Effect but I decided I wanted a doctor's office where their kaka didn't smell like daffodils.  Or at least if it did look like daffodils then they didn't blame me for it.

Anyway, I'm going to go drink some Grape Koolaid.  Yea, me.

Why I Love to Fly in Airplanes or How a Venti Chai Tea Latte Almost Ruined my Personal Flotation Device

It was a Saturday and my sister called.  She said, "WHY haven't you written the story about the airplane?"  I said, "It's on my list," in my best, protesting, 'please don't hurt me' voice.  She said, "Your blog is great but you need to tell that story.  I insist."  (She might not have used those exact words, but that was the general gist.  I swear it.  And she didn't say anything about breaking my kneecaps with a rusty ball peen hammer or something about sleeping with the fishes.)

Okay then.

So I took a plane to visit my sister in Spokane, Washington.  I stopped in Chicago and changed planes.  Because the plane left at an ungodly hour, I was half asleep.  Then the lights dawned.  The sun came out from behind a cloud.  The angelic music sounded in trumpet-like fashion.  There was...a STARBUCKS.  Caffeine on the hoof.  I would have done a jig in the airport but the security people look at you funny when you do things like that.  (Imagine all the 'bomb' jokes I can't tell anymore because I go into an airport.  Also since I live close to DC, I'm pretty limited there too.  And folks wonder why I'm so taciturn when I take them to the Smithsonian.)

I ordered a Venti Chai Tea Latte.  It was good.  It was really good.  I could feel the caffeine flowing through my veins like crack through a tweaker.  I could focus on the real world once again.  Life was good again.  Plus once I got on the plane I could get more caffeine.  After all, I can't sleep on planes.  I'm afraid I'll wake up and I'll have been drooling on the shoulder of the person sitting next to me.  Then that person will tell me I was muttering things about a pool boy named Carlos whom I once met in the Bahamas.  (Not really.  I've never been to the Bahamas.)  Let's just say there are reasons that I say that I'm slightly neurotic.

So having drunk the Venti Chai Tea Latte I was in an improved mood.  I boarded the plane along with all the other cattle, found my seat, and surreptitiously surveiled my seatmate, who was a twenty-something girl with an iPod permanently attached to her ears.  (I was slightly bummed because she looked at me as if I would mother her or something equally horrible and wretched.)  She proceeded to turn on the iPod and close her eyes.  Lucky her.  She was capable of sleeping on the plane.

Then after all was said and done, the plane doors were closed and locked.  Then the stewardess proceeded to tell us the bad news.  Two quick things here.  One was that these people (airline people) deliberately closed and locked the door BEFORE telling us the bad news.  No one was going to escape.  Not me.  Not the pilot.  Not little Ms. iPod.  The second thing was that the stewardess (should I use the more politically correct flight attendant?) was about six feet tall, had a blond wig on, and wore a scarf tied around her throat.  Her shoulders were wider than the aisle and I ultimately came to the conclusion that she was a man dressed as a woman.  Her name was Helga or Olga or something -Ga.  I didn't care about the man thing but I think they chose her to deliver the bad news because no one was gonna mess with her.  (She blocked out the sun.)  Here's what Helga said: "Well, we've discovered that this plane has no potable water, which is not really a problem.  What that really means is that we're not going to have coffee or tea and we're not going to be able to run the water in the bathrooms."

I know what thought went my mind, but so did Helga and she went on, "But we CAN use the bathrooms so we don't have to worry about that."  Never mind that we wouldn't be able to wash our hands, but we could pee and go poo poo. 

I was okay. I'd had the Venti Chai Tea Latte.  I was caffeinated.  I had a book to read.  I had hand sanitizer in my purse.  It was a two and half hour flight and I thought, Well, okay then.  I can do this.

So the plane took off.  It was on time.  Most people were relatively happy although I did hear grumbling about no bleeping coffee.  I think little Ms. iPod was comatose at that point, which made me a little jealous.  Then the plane was climbing and eventually it seemed like we reached altitude.  But it was a little choppy.

At that point my bladder was reminding me of two things.  One was that it was the size of a walnut and two was that I had drank a VENTI CHAI TEA LATTE!  Right down to the bottom of the cup with great glee and even a small giggle as I threw the empty into the trash.  For those of you who don't speak Italian or Starbucks, the venti is the large size or 20 ounces.  (Venti is twenty in Italian.)  So I was belted into my narrow seat, with limited foot room, reflecting that I should have done an emergency last minute pee before I boarded the airplane.  After all, I had drank a VENTI CHAI TEA LATTE!  I was doing the seated pee pee dance.  One leg moved.  The other leg moved.  My butt wiggled.  I readjusted the seat belt.  I looked up and down the aisles.  I looked up at the red lighted seat belt sign.  I looked at Ms. iPod for moral support but she was drooling and whispering something about Carlos the pool boy.  (It seemed okay coming from her.)

About thirty minutes into the flight I was going to beg Helga the linebacker for the right to use the bathroom, for the love of God.  The VENTI CHAI TEA LATTE! had processed through my system like alcohol through a frat boy at an all night kegger on the beach.  My bladder was screaming at me.  NOW!  NOW!  NOW!  Any moment the pee was going to do a kamikaze moment on my personal flotation device, and no one was going to like that much.

Since there was a little turbulence, the pilot was obviously reluctant to turn off the seat belt sign.  Finally, at long last, I reckon Helga the linebacker must have told him that the passengers were ready to revolt.  Apparently I wasn't the only one who had drank a VENTI CHAI TEA LATTE! shortly before boarding.  I had my legs clenched together and my jaws clamped down and my hands had mangled the arm rests beyond recognition.

That was a mistake.  You see, at that moment the pilot relented and flicked off the seat belt sign.  He started to say something about turbulence and giving everyone a quick break to stand up and stretch their legs, which was an euphemism for letting us all run quickly to the bathrooms to stand in line and do the pee pee dance standing up for a change.  But because I was wound up like a yoga contortionist wishing for a miracle I couldn't stand up in time.  Before the first word was out of the pilot's mouth, there was a herd of people who went tromp-tromp-TROMP back to the economy bathroom.  If someone had tripped they would have trampled the poor bastard to death without remorse.  And simply put, I wasn't quick enough.

So I made a decision.  I would wait a few minutes and then go stand in line.  I clenched my legs and my jaws tighter together and settled down for more agony.  However, not more than thirty seconds passed and the crowd turned around with Helga yelling at the back like a cowboy expertly rounding up the herd.  "Passengers HO!" she bellowed.  (Not really, but it reads well.)  But the crowd did tromp-tromp-TROMP back up the aisle to the front.  Helga came on the speaker a moment later and said that the single bathroom in the back of the plane was BROKEN (and mysteriously it didn't have anything to do with a lack of potable water) and we would all have to use the one in the front in first class.

My bladder whimpered.

There was a line coming out of the first class section and extending past where I was sitting.  I think I was in row 7.  I recrossed my legs and waited for the real torture to begin.  Little Ms. iPod slept through all of this.  The lucky, little, perky-titted twinkie.

Eventually.  Eventually.  Eventually, the line got shorter. I managed to take my seat belt off and waddle to the front of the plane.  I would have grabbed my crotch but I was afraid someone would think I was Michael Jackson (this happened before his death) or maybe Madonna.  It was all I could do to make it into the queue with the rest of the pee pee dancing individuals who had made similar mistakes.  ("So what did you drink?"  "A VENTI CHAI TEA LATTE!, what about you?"  "It was a Mega Big Gulp from Seven/Eleven.  God help me."  "You poor sorry son of a bitch."  "I think my bladder just exploded."  "Me, too."  "Well, hey I guess that means we don't need the mini bathroom anymore."  "Hallelujah!")

So you would think that standing in line was the end of my agony.

Ha.  It wasn't.

The other flight attendant was named Kyle.  I'm trying to think of the best way to describe it.  Kyle was very happy.  He was happy to be there.  He was happy to be flying.  He was happy to be talking to the passengers.  He was HAPPY.  As a matter of fact, his name wasn't Kyle.  It was KYLE.  No, it was **KYLE**.  And I'm pretty sure he threw his hands up in the air when he said it.  "I'm **KYLE**.  Isn't everything just peachy?  Doesn't the sun glow with gloriousness?  Isn't the canned cabin air fabulous?  Aren't my tight pants tight across my toned little tushie?"  (Okay, my imagination and tendency to exaggerate just happened again.)

Upon reflection and contemplation, I now understand that Kyle had the more difficult job.  He was chatting with the passengers waiting for the single bathroom to open up and defusing bad tempers about not having potable water, not being able to clean their hands, to have only one bathroom, to not have access to any drink with caffeine in it, and having to stand in line with the first class passengers who were glancing up at us as if we would abruptly jump on them and eat them.  ("First class scum!  You die now!  We want your extra three inches of leg room and your hot towels!  We also want **KYLE** to be our steward, oops, flight attendant!  We're afraid of Helga!")

So about that time my feet were tap-tap-tapping.  My butt was swinging.  My legs are crossing and re-crossing.  I was muttering under my breath.  "Please.  Please.  Please.  Pee faster.  Pee like freaking Superman."  The first class people are staring at me and I wanted to yell at them.  ("I had a fucking VENTI CHAI TEA LATTE! right before I got on the fucking plane.  Don't you understand?")  And when I finally got to be next in line to use the bathroom **KYLE** looked at me and perkily said, "SO what DO you DO for a LIVING?"

And I think that was the moment when I had the meltdown.  Normally I would have been polite.  ("Why, Kyle, I'm a writer and live at home mommy.  Here let me show you a photo of my daughter.")  But it was too late.  I stared at **KYLE** with his bouncy, cheerful, pert attitude, and his little head tilted to one side, as he waited for me to say something like, "Why **KYLE**, I'm so HAPPY to meet YOU.  Aren't YOU perky?  I just want to PINCH your little cheeks to DEATH."  So what really happened was that I choked out, "I don't care.  I had a VENTI CHAI TEA LATTE! and I **NEED** to use the bathroom."

That's when I discovered that even in the tightest confines of a limited area that people can still back away.  Poor **KYLE**.  He was just trying to keep everyone happy.

Thankfully for all involved the bathroom door opened and I dived inside before the Air Marshall was called in.  My pants and panties were down quicker than a pair of high school kids' in the back seat of a 1964 Mustang.  And even over the roar of the plane's engines, I think that everyone heard my sigh of relief.  ("OH THANK YOU, JESUS!  OH, the LIBERATION!"  My BLADDER THANKS YOU, too!")

I slunk back to my seat and used my hand sanitizer and Ms. iPod woke up and said, "Are we there yet?"  She went to use the bathroom a few minutes later and had to jump into the lap of a man a few seats up because Helga the linebacker came plowing down the aisle, so she figured it out for herself.

Anyway, sorry **KYLE**,  I was grumpy.

The Strange Attack of the Fifty Foot Tall Mr. Chickenwings or How I Was Hit On While in Walmart

It was a lovely fall day. The leaves were gold, red, and brownish with a hint of taupe and green, and also the Dow Jones was up. Yea, stock market. While humming 'You shook me all night long' and chewing Bubbalicious gum, I was innocently minding my own fat woman business at Walmart. Yes, I went shopping at the Walmart SUPERCENTER where one can purchase SUPER food and SUPER junk from China while eying the Dunkin' Donuts conveniently located at the exit of the store. Who said capitalism was bad?

I had finished my shopping and had paid for my meager items. It was a slow shopping day and was headed out to the car when it happened. Yes, it. IT. IT. IT. (Like one of those nuclear disaster inspired monster movies that make radioactive, ginormous, purple polka-dotted spiders that like to nibble on hapless housewives. You know, IT!!!!!)

I feel obliged to mention that IT has happened before. When I was younger, skinnier, and my hair wasn't fifty percent gray. I can even (in my dotage) remember some of the best (by best, I really mean worst) lines. "Hey, baby, we should conserve body heat...together, I mean." (This cretin had just been swimming so I reckon he thought he was being original.) "So what kind of knives do you recommend for a single man?" (This while I was working in a knife store and I was sort of trapped there.) "Do you want to come see my...drawings?" (Hah. I bet he had to work hard to replace etchings with drawings.)

Yes, it refers to pick up lines. Do men memorize these things or am I that out of date? "Did it hurt when you fell out of the sky?" "Huh?" "You are an angel, after all." Hoped for response: "Tee-hee-hee, here's my number, and I'm off at 10 pm." Actual response: "Boy, did you ride on the short bus when you went to school?"

So as I've been married for 27 years, it happens less and less. (He who I am married to never used the angel line, which was a plus for him.) Anyway as I've become fatter it happens a whole lot less. Not that I'm complaining. My husband still hits on me. (And I mean in a good way.) But I don't normally expect it from strangers and when it happened at Walmart, I was taken aback. I was.

For one thing, it was an entirely new approach. For another thing, the guy hadn't been even looking at me. Usually you can tell if someone is going to let one stinker of a pick up line rip. He stares at you. Or stares at your boobs. Sometimes he's staring at some other part of your body. He might sidle up to you and make a tentative pass, veering off at the last moment like a skittish horse looking for just the right filly to hook up with. Then he'll come inching up later, as if building up his courage in case I go postal or maybe checking to see if I'm a bunnyboiler in disguise. It's pretty obvious. This was so out of the blue I didn't know how to react.

And may I mention that I would have never thought of Walmart as an ideal place to find your next hokey poky. "My, doesn't that beef tenderloin have a nice price, and may I say that your skin is luminescent in the fluorescent lights?" (That wasn't bad. I wish someone had said that to me.) Walmart doesn't even have a bar. It's got a Dunkin' Donuts which prompts all kinds of interesting lines. "Would you like to double dip your donut in my coffee, baby?" or even "Can I buy you a strawberry filled, double-glazed donut, sweet thing?" (Wink. Wink.) Or the perennial favorite: "Is that a donut in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" (Might not work man to woman, but hey if any woman, or man for that matter, out there is inspired, you go right ahead and use it. I'd love to know what happens.)

So I had made my purchases. I had the bags in my hand. I was struggling to find my keys before I went outside, and was attempting to switch my shoulder bag to my other hand while digging in my cavernous purse. I was studiously ignoring Dunkin' Donuts at my right because it was calling to me in a siren like fashion, "Hey, you. Fat woman. Yes, you. Come to me. Eat of the donut. Yes, eat of the donut." (Haha. Refer to the blog about The Stupidest Man Ever. I do, in fact, eat of the donut.)

Then it happened.

There was a man in front of me who seemed to be leaving at the same time who abruptly turned to me, proffered a plastic clam shell container of something, and said, "You want to go eat chicken wings with me?" (The plastic clam shell was chicken wings, for those who weren't paying attention.)

When telling the story to some of my mommy friends, one said, "And you didn't ask the guy if they were spicy chicken wings or not, Caren?" which was the best return line I could have ever thought of, and bears mentioning because that would have been fucking hilarious. I don't think Mr. Chickenwings (thanks to another mommy friend for that moniker, btw) would have known what to do. (Ideally he would have arched an eyebrow and said leeringly, "Spicy, baby.")

So I feel compelled, as I often do, to make note of several things. This was a tall, big man about my age, so I didn't feel like it was completely inappropriate. But he just suddenly pounced on me, as if he was frantically determined. ("Hey, you, fat woman. You're fat, right? Then you must like chicken wings. How about it, sweetie?") Did I have 'desperate' written on my forehead? Did I look like a woman in need of a chicken wing fix? How does that look? Like a junkie in need of a tweak? Since I was standing next to Dunkin' Donuts, did I look like since I'd just been there, maybe I was, therefore, ready to fill up on his chicken wings. (Insert lewd comment here. Feel free to be creative.)

I would suggest to Mr. Chickenwings that perhaps he should be waiting outside of KFC for his next victim, oops, I mean target. Then he would know for certain that the woman in question likes chicken wings. Or at least she likes chicken. Perhaps he should go after them before they go in. Just a suggestion.

So what did I say to Mr. Chickenwings? Well, I think I gave him a look like I was dumbfounded, because, well, I was, and I said, "I don't think so," and left him for the next fat woman standing next to Dunkin' Donuts.

Go figure.

The Stupidest Man Ever

Do I think that all men are stupid? No, of course not. Some are. Some aren't. Some women are. Some women aren't. But I've met the STUPIDEST MAN EVER. I can go through the rest of my life knowing that he was, in actuality, in reality, in the plainest truth, the STUPIDEST MAN EVER. No one will ever beat his record of disproportional dumbness. He was so dumb that they fired him from the M&M Factory for throwing away all the m&m's that had 'W's on them. He was so dumb he thought General Motors was in the Army. He was so dumb that he sold his car for gas money. He was so dumb he spent twenty minutes looking at the orange juice can because it said, 'Concentrate.'

Okay. Now I'll tell you what really happened and let you decide.

Once upon a time in the Dallas/Fort Worth area there was a restaurant called, 'Dino's.' Dino's served hoagies, pizza, and the basic Italian fare. We liked the hoagies. One in particular was favored by all. It was an all the meats on your basic hoagie roll with the works. They would put this mixture of vinegar, spices, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and some other stuff. Makes my mouth water thinking about it. This place was your basic dive but the hoagies (never tried anything else so I don't know) were wonderful. So we went there often, even though it was out of our way.

One day we went for our hoagies, and were waiting in line. (Lines were an often occurring liability at this restaurant because there were many other people in the area who also liked their hoagies.) There was a man in front of us. (This is the STUPIDEST MAN EVER, in case I haven't been building up to it properly, otherwise called 'foreshadowing.' He didn't have a t-shirt proclaiming his ignorance or a sign, but he should have. As a matter of fact, he should have had it tattooed on his forehead. It would have saved him and all the people he comes in contact with on a daily basis a whole lotta grief.) (As a matter of fact, the government should give out free tattoos to people like this. A tattoo program so they can skip over the parts that vex them. Yea, socialism.)

So this man, I shall call him George, ordered his food from the clerk. (Dino's has a front area that has a long bar where you order, then it is prepared for you in front of you while you wait. After ordering a hoagie, you pay for it at the end of the counter before stealing away to a booth to consume your high-fat content booty in mouth-watering gulps of joy.)

George: I'd like a number 9. Double meat. With the works.

The clerk (A moment to describe the clerk/waitress/work person. This is a tough cookie who we've dealt with every time we come in. She and her sister worked here religiously, as if they own the joint, and for all I knew they did. They didn't take crap off anyone, and I suppose it was part of the appeal.): Okee-dokee, that's a number 9, double meat with the works and do you-

George interrupted her: Except I cannot eat of the pig. (This was said in a holier than thou manner, as if he was dispersing his divine knowledge upon the ignorant clerk.)

The clerk's face kind of looked like this.
The clerk finally said in a stupefied manner, repeating the words as if she couldn't quite get it: You cannot eat of the pig.

George, in a kind of indignant fervor: My religion prohibits me. I cannot eat of the pig. There are religions like this, you know, where folks cannot eat of the pig.

The clerk: But the no. 9 is the all the meats. (The hidden message to George here went sailing over his intelligent impaired cranial area like a Blackbird headed for the Soviet Union circa the Cold War.)

George, devoutly: I know.

The clerk had this expression on her face.

Then she said slowly and carefully so that nothing would be misunderstood: So you don't want the bacon.

This would be the part where if George had had the tattoo on his forehead proclaiming his stupidity and general ignorance, then it would have been all right, for the clerk would have seen the tattoo and understood that George was, in fact, dumber than a box of rocks. She would have said: Oh, Gosh, look at that. You've got the tattoo. No problem. I'll take care of it. But poor woebegone George DID NOT have the tattoo, and he said: Oh, I want the bacon. I can have the bacon. But I cannot eat of the pig. No pork.

The clerk: And the ham? (The number 9 hoagie had ALL the meats; none were excluded. No bigotry against the protein products in that sandwich. When I said all the meats, it MEANT every last damn one of them.)

George: I can have the ham, too. But I cannot eat of the pig. No pork.

At this moment the clerk naturally looked at us, the people who were standing behind George in line. And anyone with a brain, except George of course, could see that she was trying to determine whether George was serious or not. Then once that wheel had turned, she was trying to decide whether she should clue him in.

The question that I had at that moment was of an inquisitorial and dumbfounded nature. If bacon and ham didn't come from a pig, then what animal, pray tell, did George think it came from? (Yes, you too can eat bacon from the elusive Bacondi, an animal who lives in the mountains of Appalachia and drinks from spring fed creeks and eats blessed grass from mountain meadows. Maybe it crapped out pieces of bacon already cut to frying pan size. What a great animal. Could I get one? I mean, I eat of the pig. Everyday, too.)

I am reminded of a time where I was watching the Tonight Show and Jay Leno went out on the street to ask people various questions. So he asked this cute, young blond girl where pork chops come from. Her reply, and I can only surmise that this girl is in some manner, related to George, was: From a Pork Chop Tree. (This is the same girl that if you asked her what kind of car she had, she would say: A blue one.)

Holy Carp. Where is this tree and does it come with cream of mushroom gravy? Are there subspecies of braised pork chop trees and lemon-garlic pork chop trees. Does one need a special machine to cut the chops from the tree or does one wait until the chops are ripe and fall to the ground?

But back to the original story. Was it the clerk's job to clue poor George in on his ignoble failure to understand that bacon, ham, and chitlin's all come from the same animal, that if he ate the bacon and the ham, then he was EATING of the pig?

The clerk looked at us as if seeking divine interpretation and we answered. Although not divine, my husband made a sort of oh-what-the-hell-go-ahead-and-give-it-to-the-dumbass-if-he's-too-stupid-to-know-where-ham-and-bacon-come-from-then-he-deserves-what-he-gets gesture.

So the clerk loaded up George's hoagie, DOUBLE bacon, DOUBLE ham, DOUBLE every other type of meat that went on it, with the exception of PORK (which was the only meat not originally offered, probably because it was sort of implied that since the sandwich already had bacon, ham, and Canadian Bacon, then it was INCLUDED), wrapped it up, took his money, and gave it to him. And George went out whistling, happy to have instructed a heathen about the intricacies of his religious state of being. The look on George's face was explicit. He had taken on a heretic and he had won.

And that is the story of the STUPIDEST MAN EVER. True story. Dude, I can't make up stuff like that.

The De-evolution of Auto Mechanics or How I Drove Those Silly Bastards at the Auto Place Insane

So one day I was minding my own business when my husband, He Who Shall Remain Nameless For the Remainder of This Blog, or Him, or HIM if I'm feeling particularly sassy, asked me to take his truck into an auto place to have the tires rotated. Since having tires rotated on his 1996 Ford F-150 Truck is a mandated chore on my wifely duties list, (See future upcoming blog about that, btw) I agreed to the task, thinking, 'No problem. I'll take it in. Manly men will put it up on one of those thingys that raise it up in the air (I'm hearing imaginary lewd comments everywhere). I'll hear air tools whirring and chirping. Tires will be rotated. I'll read my book. No problem.'

I made an error. How simple can I put that? I made a boo-boo. I goofed. I fell for the oldest trick in the book. HIM, Who Shall Still Remain Nameless and the individual to whom I'm married, took the agreement in stride, and THEN started with the amendments. I'm thinking that the amendments should have been ratified by each state in the USA by a 2/3rds vote because that's how thrilled I was about them. But I had already agreed to the duty and by God, I was going to follow through.

The amendments: 1. I shall drive the coveted, babied Ford to the auto place and I shall not slam the doors. (For some reason I couldn't seem to shut the doors on this vehicle without irritating HIM's sensibilities. I didn't think I was slamming the door. HIM did. HIM would have thought an infant was slamming those doors.) 2. I shall tell the auto mechanics to rotate the tires on the vaulted truck slash vehicle of the Gods, and lament them not to slam the doors (HIM didn't really tell me to tell them not to slam the doors but I'm sure it was implied.) 3. I shall tell them to rotate the wheels in the order that HIM has so designated. 4. I shall not deviate from the designation of the designated tire rotation that HIM has decreed. HIM has marked the tires so that HIM will know that it was done in the method that HIM has declared. (No, HIM didn't really mark the tires, but HIM did memorize the markings on all the tires, so he would know.) Tire no. 1, otherwise known as the left front driver's side tire, shall go to tire position no. 4, otherwise known as the right rear driver's side. Tire no. 4 shall go to tire no. 2 position, otherwise known as front right passenger's side. Tire no. 3, otherwise known as left rear driver's side, shall go to somedamn place that I can't remember and I'm not sure I want to remember, and the rest of the tires went someplace, but HIM knew. 5. I shall explain HIM's decree to the auto mechanics. 6. I shall also tell the auto mechanics that they must not use air tools to tighten the lug nuts. (For the less than mechanically savvy, this means, the auto mechanics were supposed to tighten the lug nuts by hand. Obviously some of the single mechanics would be better at this than the married ones, but I might be making a faulty assumption.) 7. I shall bring the vehicle back to HIM and present it to HIM in a condition better than when I was entrusted to this mighty task.

And the OCD t-shirt I got for HIM is under appreciated.

My second mistake was actually relating HIM's instructions to the receiving person at the auto place. Let's call him Fred. Fred was actually one of the mechanics and well aware of what went on in the store. A lot of oil changes, tire changes, tune ups, tire rotations, alignments and the like were the average fare here. So here comes the short, fat, middle aged woman with a set of Ford keys and a look of contrite dismay on her face. (For the wifely one doesn't really want issue forth HIM's directions because she knows that she is the one who is going to sound like a big, fat, braying jack ass.) But I did it.

So I told the poor bastard, Fred, what HIM wanted. And the look on Fred's face went something like this.

So Fred looked at me with this expression on his face. I don't think he was comprehending the magnitude of what I was asking. He was taking it in, but he couldn't quite get it. Or perhaps his neurons and dendrites were misfiring on account of the fact that he comprehending what I was saying but he didn't understand why I was demanding that it should be so. As I stood there waiting for Fred's poor, misbegotten, untried brain to function to its full capacity (which was a lot longer in blog time) his face kept getting longer and longer. Words came out of his mouth but they didn't finish.

"Ba-bah-ba-bah-ba-bah," Fred said.

At that moment I knew that Fred had de-evolutionized and was becoming apelike. I was certain that he was about to start jumping up and down and throwing his own feces in his utter and absolute confused state of being. I was responsible for this poor miserable bastard having a psychosomatic meltdown into primateship. (I had to look that word up in the dictionary and I do mean the BIG, I-could-kill-someone-if-I-hit-them-over-the-head dictionary.) After much oral repetition I actually got the auto place to do what I had been designated to do.

I was banned from the auto place (Or at least they put my name in permanent marker on the 'bad' book they keep in the back. I'm pretty sure.)

Oh, Those Wretched Critics

It's true. I write, therefore there will be critics. So in my other job I write novels. A little fantasy, a little paranormal stuff, a little thriller, some mysteries. Check it out. If you've got a kindle, a nook, or whatever, you can see my stuff on amazon, barnes and noble, and smashwords. Love those websites.

As a motivator I made most of my stuff free for a short time. It seems to be doing well. Lots of people are downloading. Can't do it on amazon for some reason. So there the cheap ones are 99 cents. Not a bad bargain.

However, and oh, how I love the word, 'HOWEVER,' there are the critics.

Example. I have a novella on http://www.bn.com/ called Black Moon. Here's the description: Donovan is a werejaguar sworn to fight against his enemies, the dreaded werewolf clan - the Whitelaws. Isabella is an uncommon librarian, a member of the Committee. When she faces the Whitelaws to retrieve a very dangerous book, she encounters Donovan and their lives will never be the same.

Okay. It's not War and Peace, I know. It's paranormal romance. Very popular nowadays. I think there's 83 ratings on bn and it's downloading like crazy on smashwords. Yea, free enterprise. But some of the critics, oi vey.

An example from an honest to gosh critic: 'This is a short story not a book ergo the lower rating.'

IT WAS FREE, you dope. What did you want? Stephen King long? The bible long? Then it would have rated a whole other star. Man. This Anonymous, (may I say something about people who criticize and are too AFRAID to leave their names, the weenies,) person was also slightly offended about the sexual content. Yes, Virginia, there was sex in the story. Paranormal romance. What can I say? Was it porn? Not quite.

Let me explain. A few years ago I wrote this novella, not a short story, Anonymous, btw, for Silhouette Nocturne. They were looking for novellas in the 15,000 to 25,000 word range, featuring cool beasties and the like. So I did this one. Nothing particularly original about the setting, but I really like the action in it. You begin reading and it goes well. When Silhouette didn't snap it up, probably because they're inundated by thousands of would-be romance novelists, I let it lie until I decided to offer it for free as an ebook to get people to read some of my other stuff. Yea, me.

There the real and true origin of the novella (NOVELLA, look it up in the dictionary, Anonymous) Black Moon.

Now as a response I get a lot of comments. One favorite was about my grammar, I'm quoting here verbatim to get the best effect: 'Alot grammer errors.' Wow. Misspelling and grammatically incorrect in the same sentence. What a winner. Thank God for the First Amendment, let me tell you.

Please don't get me wrong. I don't mind if someone says there's a lot of typos. As a matter of fact, that makes me want to go back and edit the hell out of it, which I'm doing to one of the books I put out because I'm getting a lot of feedback about that issue. But come on, people, if you're going to criticize, be constructive, pul-lease. (And for those Anonymous people who said my work rocked, well, this obviously doesn't apply to you complete winners.)

As for the sex scenes in the book. I'm not sure what I should have done to warn people. Maybe put a warning system on the book. Here goes the romance warning system I've developed:

G - Good for even 8 year old girls to read. Does not contain sex, allusions to sex, or potty words (or as my daughter says toilet butt words.) Does not even contain the word, 'butt.' Does not have a cover of a half naked man, or a woman, if that's the case, or a woman lying at the foot of a man looking adoringly, or pantingly, up at him. Good for school marms, uptight Christians, and all people with big repressed issues coloring their points of views.

PG - May contain closed door sex. The couple goes in. The door shuts. Whoopee is implied but definitely not described. Definitely no premarital sex or bad words. Occasionally a crap or damn might slip out. May contain kissing and sometimes kissing where the tongue is slipped, or the French method is incurred. Good for church going folks who have a handy fan and for people who slip the book under their pillows at night. (You know who you are.)

PG-13 - Sex is definitely involved. It may be closed door sex or described sex. However, the penis is often referred to as his manhood, shaft, masculinity, valor, virility, weapon, power, potency. The vagina is a sheath, cleft, treasure, warmth. The actual sexual act is described but in somewhat vague terms and the couple nearly always climaxes at the same time. Lots of kissing, some cunnilingus, occasional implied fellatio. Nipples can be sucked in books rated PG-13.

R - Sex is always present and accounted for. The couple is hot for each other. The penis is a dick, cock, rod, shaft, root, and is often as hard as a rock, hard enough to pound nails, erection, swollen with lust, etc. Things go to town in an R-rated story. They fuck. Fuck is sometimes used in context in a R-rater. They may be married, but mostly they aren't, although they do fall in love despite all kinds of wretched circumstances.

X - Everything is described explicitly. Go ahead. Just be offended ahead of time. Should be included in the title. Black Moon (A Novella that will OFFEND Anonymous). Of course, Black Moon was NOT X-rated. It was more like a blend between PG-13 and R. I never called the hero's penis anything bad and the hero was definitely considerate of the heroine's oral needs. But this is objective and I'm certain Anonymous would like to have his or her say.

Anyway, here's my advice. If you find a book that has the following euphemisms for having sex in it, then it's probably not worth reading: a piece of crumpet, poking the pork through the whiskers, baloney hop, bandicooting, banging the shithouse door in a gale, bouncy-bouncy, giving the dog a bone, parallel parking, or spearing the bearded clam. None of which I've ever used in a novel, with the exception of The Life and Death of Bayou Billy, which is supposed to be slightly sick and wrong. (Yes, The Life and Death of Bayou Billy is rated X, but it's not a romance novel, so take that, Anonymous.)

My First Time in the Hospital or How I Learned that Being Sick is Not Good for Your Mental Wellbeing or How I Killed my Grandmother's 1963 T-Bird

OK. I was 12 years old and woke up with a fever and a humongous pain in my stomach. Since it was a Saturday, my mother took me seriously. The moaning and groaning down the hallway must have disturbed her Saturday morning in some fashion. Somehow or another my grandmother and mother took me to the doctor's clinic while driving my grandmother's 1963 Thunderbird. (Sweet car. It had white leather interior and this actually figures into part of the story. Can you see it coming? Come on, take a guess.) The doctor determined that I was in fact, ill, that I wasn't faking it, hysterical, hypochondriacal, and that it was appendicitis or some damn other thing. (But the pain was on the wrong side of the abdomen.) He told Ma to take me to the hospital. I was going into the BIG house and it was going to be my first time.

On the way out of the parking lot I told my grandmother to pull over. It's possible I screamed at her to pull over while clamping a hand over my mouth while making obscene gulping noises. Imagine this I wanted her to pull over so I could barf, preferably not in her car, and for my consideration I got verbally hosed. Amazingly she did stop and I did get the door open in time to vomit all over the parking lot. (Wonder which poor bastard got to clean that up.) The problem was that since I was really sick with 104 degree temp and my body was not aware of grandmotherly mandates, while I was throwing up my body was also off loading in the other direction. Then my grandmother was yelling at me to stop. I mean, really, she was screaming at me to stop simultaneously upchucking and having massive diarrhea. (Sorry, gran, I didn't have any control. I defy any twelve year old alive to be ralphing with the force of a launching space shuttle to NOT lose control of their bowels.) Remember the white leather interior of a cherry 1963 T-Bird? (And I don't know who got to clean that up, either, because I was incarcerated in the HOSPITAL of DOOM.) I'm pretty sure that was what the sign said when I was rolled in the door in a wheelchair, smelling like puke and poop, feeling like a pile of living crap. Let me tell you I was the most miserable 12 year old girl on the face of the planet. I could still tell this story to a therapist and get the therapist, an individual with eight years of postgraduate school and twenty years of practice, to wince.

Upon arrival at the HOSPITAL (cue scary Freddy Krueger music here) I was checked in, prodded, x-rayed, tortured with an IV line, and permitted to clean up with a male nurse. (12 year old girl, remember? Having a male nurse in the room was like mortal dread mixed with rat poison. I was sick and I was embarrassed. The only thing worse was if my entire class had wandered through the hospital for a field trip while the nurse was holding the bed pan for me.)

So everyone got settled in. The doc came in and said that it was possible that my appendix was on the wrong side and they'd have to wait for x-ray results. Meanwhile I was given lots of antibiotics and left to rot in a hospital bed. Fortunately I was alone in the room. Unfortunately, I didn't want to be alone. So naturally what happened? My grandmother and mother left me. For the night. Alone. In the bleep-bleepity-bleeping-bleep-bleep-Jerry Springer-Inspired BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP HOSPITAL. Alone.......

I think this was a mistake because not only do I still hold it against them, it's 35 years later and I'm still mildly pissed off. (That was a trade-off because I believe my grandmother held my spontaneous diarrhea against me for months. I didn't ride in that T-Bird again for a long, long time.)

Then the sun went down. I've been to creepy places before but a hospital at night while you're sick and at the cusp of your imaginative abilities and psychosomatic maturation is the WORST place ever. The nurses kept coming in and taking my temp and my blood pressure and messing around with my IV. They did not let me sleep. AS IF I could have slept. These weren't the nice nurses either. They didn't go, "Oh, poor little girl. Let me get you a 7-Up." Instead they went, "Oh, you're not asleep. Don't move while I shove this thermometer down your throat. Hold still while I pressurize the blood pressure cuff so tightly that your eyes pop out of your head, kid." Demon nurses.

Luckily I got to watch TV for a while. Big treat. They got three channels. I'm going to pause to try to explain this concept to my 6 year old child. Back in the auld days of yore, we didn't have cable or DVDs or satellite dish or hundreds of channels or Disney crap up the ying-yang. We had ABC, NBC, and CBS. There was no ESPN, no FOX and no Oprah. At my house, sometimes we only got one channel, depending on how windy it was outside and how precarious the antenna was leaning. So three channels was like, whoo-hoo. And I didn't have to fight with my sister. (Of course, it's hard to argue with your sister about what to watch when you only have ONE channel, but I think we still managed.) (BTW, the remote control was also known as getting your lazy ass up and physically changing the channel by turning a knob.)

Soon the nurses gave me a look and I decided to turn the TV off and get some sleep. Sleeping in a fever induced doze is akin to hitting acid in the sixties with a horde of ravenous hippies in the Haight-Ashbury District. Shall we say that the man down the hall, who moaned throughout the night, not unlike a ghost in a haunted house, did not aid in my hapless somnorific attempts?

"OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH! Ohhhhhhh! OH! OOOOOOOOO-OOOOO-OOOHHHHH!" he went, starting after lights out.

I quivered under the too thin sheets and blankets and debated covering my head with a pillow.

"OOOOOOO-ooooyyyyy-OOOOOHHHHHHHH!" the man down the hallway groaned.

At that point he went on, intermittently for some hours. Also the nurses finally decided that I should get some rest and did not come back into my room. I would have even been grateful for the male nurse to come back. And incidentally, the nurses neglected to inform me that I could have called them in to ask WTF. The little call button thing behind my bed would have been salvation, if they had thought to inform me about it. Told you. Demon nurses from the ninth level of hell, brought up to torture and torment poor sick little children. Stephen King would have liked these nurses.

"OoooooooOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOoooooo," it went on. The man sounded like he was getting his groove on. Then the nurses got into the deal and I learned that the man's name was Bill. How do I know his name was Bill? Because the hellish nurses kept yelling it at him. "DO YOUR BUSINESS, BILL!" That's a direct quote. Silly me. Now I realize that the poor bastard was probably constipated and pissed at the nurses. If I had known I would have brought him Ex-Lax. I think my grandmother would have been grateful if I had been constipated.

The stupid nurses not only DID NOT tell me I could call them, but didn't mention that I could get up and drag my IV stand to the bathroom where I could have LOCKED THE FUCKING DOOR. Do you know why? Because they were busy yelling at poor Bill. "Do your business, Bill! Do it! Do it now!"

I would cheerfully, gleefully, happily have sent him a basket of prunes combined with raisins and garnished with little blocks of Ex-Lax, if that would have made the nurses and him shut the HELL up and stop scaring the crap out of me. (Not literally, the poor T-Bird had gotten all of that effort.)

So the next morning the doctor condescended that I probably didn't have appendicitis and I probably did have an infected ovary. (WTF was that about? Who knows?) Then he sent me home. The huge black circles under my eyes and shivering body probably were cues that I hadn't rested well, while in the HOSPITAL. (Doooo dooooo dahhhhh. Insert harpsichord music here.)

So I got a week off school and an everlasting fear of hospitals, nurses, doctors, and men named Bill. (I don't think I voted for Clinton and I know I never dated one. So there.)