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.

Trip, Trip, Tripping Down to the Beach OR On Entertaining Your Only Child on Your Mini-Vacation OR Entertaining Yourself on Your Mini-Vacation - Part I

We went to the beach.  HIM had business.  (HIM gets to go very interesting places like Hawaii and Italy and Monterrey, CA, so I suppose I should be suspicious.  But that takes too much effort.)  We tagged along.  On the three hour trip to the beach locale, all went well until the last hour, whereupon Cressy, our 7 year old daughter began to tell knock-knock jokes.  Then some more knock-knock jokes.  Then some more knock-knock jokes.  (I can clearly remember the first time Cressy told a joke.  She came home from pre-school and she was so excited.  "Mom," she said animatedly.  "I heard a joke today."  I was like, "Okay."  She was all atwitter.  (That's a fancy word for ants in her pants.)  She couldn't wait to tell the joke.  It was going to be the best joke in the solar system, no the universe.  She was going to tell me the funniest joke ever.  She looked at me seriously, trying to keep her face straight, and she said, "Why...did the chicken cross the road?"  I believe I had to bite my lip in response.  "Why," I said neutrally, "did the chicken cross the road?"  And then Cressy blasted out the answer, as if the reason was the most important thing she had ever said, "TOGETTOTHEOTHERSIDE!!"  Then she cracked up, and laughed until she turned blue.  Mothers will understand that we have two responses.  We can laugh uproariously and pretend that this is the funniest thing ever spoken.  Or we can say politely, "Haha, I've heard it before."  But I didn't want to ruin her joke, so I laughed.  I wish I'd gotten the joke on digital so I could show it to her first prom date.)

But back to the trip, Cressy would say, "Knock-knock."  I would say, "Who's there?  Please let it be peace and quiet."  Cressy would say, "Huh?  No, it's a watermelon, Mommy.  What joke were you thinking of, dumbass?"  (No, wait, that last part was just me.)  I think my brain shut down about thirty miles from our destination.  It seems to be a blur.  Either that or I was able to spike my iced tea with something alcoholic.

ANYWAY!  We arrived and immediately sucked up the fancy, schmancy hotel room.  (They had a robe in the closet with a monogram.  The robe had the monogram, not the closet.  But maybe the closet should have had a monogram.)  Cressy looked in every drawer and fingered all the towels and said, "Look, Mommy, little soaps."  Apparently, she did not know that soap came in miniature form.  We admired the view of the port from the 17th floor window.  I admired the view from about five feet away from the window as I seem to be somewhat bothered by looking straight down out of a tall, tall, tall, tall window.  (The glass does not seem strong enough to hold back a Fat Woman, if you ask me and let's just say, I'm going to err on the side of the safety of the Fat Woman.)

So we threw HIM out the door at his place of business and went to the beach.  We had a beach blanket, a beach umbrella, sun block, and all the accouterments.  We were ready for sun and surf.

I made the mistake of using the GPS again.  (You would think that based on the last time I used it I would have known better.)  It was supposed to be about 28 miles to the beach.  It got to be about 40 miles before I said, "This is getting ridiculous."  I saw some water on the GPS and headed off the beaten track to find it.  Hallelujah.  We found the ocean.  It was bigger than a breadbox and wet.  I.e., it had to be the ocean.  Also there were signs that said, 'Ocean this way.'  I took them at their word.  Fortunately we found a park that was right on the beach.  And since it was a Wednesday morning, it was pretty empty.  Yea!

After toting everything out to the beach, we set up.  (It wasn't exactly an equatable arrangement.  I think one of us might have been carrying more than the other.)

I looked at my cell phone map and discovered that we had managed to get to the ocean, but it was about thirty miles away from where we were supposed to be going.  (Damn, #$%^@!! GPS.)  But hey, it might get us back to the hotel.  In any case, we enjoyed the beach and I only got mildly fried...on my forehead.  Hey, I put the super duper sunblock on, but it was less than effective when I was sweating from carrying everything.

Our little angel.  Does she look like she
toted 50 pounds of beach crap from
the car?  No, she does not.  I'm getting
a burro for the beach next time.

There was sand castle making, body surfing, sea gull chasing, and much sand-in-the-pants-having-despite-the-fact-that-my-butt-never-actually-made-contact-with-the-beach.  Oh, the memories.  After dragging everything back to the car we went to get lunch, shower all the sand off, and pick up HIM from work.  Magically, the GPS worked on the reverse trip.  (Especially when I didn't make assumptions about it's directions.)

HIM and Cressy enjoying the pool.  I was
recuperating from too much sand and surf.

Cressy, apparently not having enough of water, wanted to go to the hotel pool.  (Can you believe this is an indoor pool on the third floor of the hotel.  I'm never staying in the second floor of this place.)

They also have a hot tub, which I'm now going to talk about.  (I guess it's not really a hot tub, but more like a spa/jacuzzi thing.)  Why?  Because HIM and Cressy were going back and forth from the pool to the hot tub.  (The hot tub was hot and also it had bubbles.  Nuff said.)  And HIM discovered a $20 bill inside the hot tub.  Here's a picture of the hot tub/spa/whatever you want to call it.


The site of the $20 discovery.

Personally, when HIM related the story about the discovery of the $20 bill, I went kind of like, "Eww," because I can't imagine why a $20 bill would be floating around

a hot tub, with a solitary exception that makes me want to go wash my hands with antibacterial soap.  Then it made me want to demand that HIM and Cressy go wash their entire bodies off with

antibacterial soap and possibly bleach too.  This is a nice hotel but come on.  How many reasons are there to have a $20 dollar bill in the hotel's spa/jacuzzi thing?  I mean, eww to the triple 'E,' uwww.

EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!

(Just for emphasis.)

Well, hey, let's examine the possibilities.  A man was in the jacuzzi minding his own business when suddenly nuns from Central America came by collecting for dyslectic lepers with lazy eyes.  So he whipped out...his wallet.  Right.  Wallet.  Then he gave the nun some cash and one twenty accidentally dropped into the jacuzzi.

There ya go.  A perfectly respectable explanation that doesn't involve anything dirty.

The twenty.  It looks well used,
doesn't it?

Okay.  Another one.  Someone was innocently playing...poker while enjoying the luxurious comfort of bubbles from the hotel's jacuzzi.  The person suddenly filled an inside straight, king high, and the pot was up to $250 and thirty-three cents.  He leaped up in ecstatic joy and bills and coins went flying everywhere.  Everyone valiantly collected his winnings but one $20 got caught in the whirlpool's suction and stayed there until HIM came along and found it.  (Hmm.  I wonder what other things the hotel's pool cleaning staff finds in the jacuzzi.  Cure to cancer, map coordinates to the nearest inhabited planet out of our solar system, a rare twenty dollar, Confederate gold piece.  The possibilities are endless.)

Okay, I've got to give it another shot.  There was a lovely young couple innocently minding their puritanical business whilst bathing in the jacuzzi.  (They had very prudish bathing attire on and might have been quoting from the bible at the time.)  Suddenly, ninja vampire zombies popped into the room.  They said, "We want your wife for lurid reasons!"  The man said, "Never!"  He leaped from the jacuzzi and turned on the bubbles to high.  The ninja vampire zombies screamed, "NOT the bubbles!  Anything but the bubbles!"  The man laughed cynically and said, "We'll take your money, too."  The ninja vampire zombies threw their money at the couple and fled in terror.  And one of the twenties got left behind.  (Perfectly innocently but very cheesy and silly.)

See how this hotel decorated their hallways?
Strange things HAVE to happen in
any hotel that uses these kinds of rugs
in their hallways.

And this is where I have gone from merely plainly silly to controversially silly.  So tune in at the same Bat time on the same Bat Channel for PART II - How Fat Woman Conquered the Ninja Vampire Zombies and Became Their Queen.  Or maybe something like that.

Rats! No, Really, RATS! OR How I Will Always Hold it Against Our Pest Control Guy!

One day I looked out into our backyard and there in the bird feeder was a little rodent.  It wasn't a big rodent, but it didn't exactly look like a mouse.  So I took a picture of it.  I emailed it to my relatives and my husband and then got this response from my brother-in-law: "You've got a rat feeder, not a bird feeder."  (Right hand to God, I had never seen a rat before that moment.)

This isn't the actual picture of the rat in the bird feeder.
You can tell because that's actually the ground and
not a bird feeder.  Also, upon reflection, it looks like
it's tail is bigger than I recall the rat's being.  But
this is for reference.  Plus later I might add captions for
hilarity's sake.

Our neighbor, the police officer, related this rat-related story: "I knocked over the pile of wood that was at the back fence since before I moved in and a shitload of rats exploded out and went in all directions."  Apparently, some of the directions that the rats took were in our house's direction.  It was a directional decision of immense import.

Therefore I called our pest control guy.  His name was Brent.  Brent said, "Don't worry.  Rats will never go into a house where there are cats."  We had two cats at the time.  Our two dumbass Siamese cats who would have looked at a rat and said, "How do you use a can opener on it?" or possibly, "Does it taste like tuna?"  But back to Brent's statement of immortal proportion.  This bears repeating.  This is very important to me because I remembered it verbatim:

"Don't worry.  Rats will never go into a house where there are cats."

This is not true.  Brent was wrong.  Not only was he wrong.  But he was horribly, awfully, craptacularly wrong.  Rats WILL go into a house where there are cats.  They WILL laugh their little ratty asses off at the cats.  They WILL laugh their little ratty asses off at you, too, for listening to the pest control guy's asinine words.

So the rats came into our attic, via a path that I do not know about.  We would be sitting around and hear a little clangity clang clang and I would look up.  Then I would look around and the two dumbass cats would be sitting on the floor nearby, looking up at the ceiling.  (Their conversation: Booboo: "What the hell was that?"  Buggy: "I don't know but it's in the ceiling."  Booboo: "Should we do anything about it?"  Buggy: "Is it something we can eat?"  Booboo: "I don't want to miss my nap."  Buggy: "The hell with it, let's both go take a nap.")  That particular house didn't have much of an attic but it was enough of an attic for the wayward rats.  There was a ventilation system in the attic made out of aluminum and the rats used the duct work it like their own personal superhighway.  Whoo-hoo.

Accordingly, I called Brent again, who reneged on his previous statement.  I believe he pretended that he had never said it.  (Although he had, in fact, said it, and said it in such a manner, that I will remember it in perpetuity.  I'm repeating it because I want to make certain that no one who reads this blog ever forgets it.  "Rats will never go into a house where there are cats."  As a matter of fact, when I called Brent on the aforementioned statement, his response was, "Well, they didn't go into your house, they went into your attic."  In Brent's world, apparently an individuals attic is NOT part of your house.  Silly me.  It also made me want to respond thusly, "Well, do you know how many pest control services there are in the greater metropolitan area who do know that rats WILL go into a house with cats in it?" but I restrained myself.)

Another conversation ensued.  There was something in the attic.  I did not see it but it clattered about on the aluminum ducts like reindeer on the roof at Christmas.  (I think they were having a party up there and I wasn't invited.  The little pipsqueaks.)  Brent said, "It's probably not rats.  It's probably squirrels."  (You see, if it was squirrels and not rats, then he would be right.  And I would be wrong.)  His solution: he clambered into the minuscule attic access door and spread fox urine around the attic.  He said, "This will scare the squirrels away because they don't like foxes."  Or apparently fox pee.  (I know the next time I have a conversation with a squirrel I will be sure and ask it how it feels about fox pee.  Just for future clarification, you understand.)

I should have said something then, but I went with it.  (I should have asked how rats feel about fox pee, but I didn't think of it...then.)

A few weeks went by.  There was regular continuance of clangity clang clang down the aluminum superhighway.  There was clunkity clunk clunk down the vent.  There was scratch, scratch, scratch.  There was no obvious effect of the fox's urine on the johnny-come-lately occupants of our attic.  The cats were all like, "Yo, distributor of food, there's something in the attic."  I was like, "Yes, I know."

Then I started having dreams about rats chewing their way through the ceiling above my bed and kamikazing me in the middle of the night.  (This is sort of like the bug on the ceiling blog but bigger and rattier.  I might have seen something on the History Channel about the black plague.)  So I called our handy dandy pest control guy again.

We had another conversation.  It was illuminating.  Brent said he could put poison in the attic and it would kill the rats, but...but...but...decomposing rat bodies in the middle of summer have a certain eau de stinky.  (Fox pee smell = okay but musky.  Rotting rodent corpses = yucky.)

But Brent had another solution.  He would put a trap in the attic.  It was a sticky trap on a board.  The animals would stick to the board and be trapped.  He could capture them and then humanely dispose of them later.  (I totally respect rats' rights to life, but I would respect them more if they chose not to live in my attic.)  He put the board just beside the attic access and went on his merry, no-flipping-rats-where-a-cats-live-delusional way.

Incidentally, that was the night that HIM was away on business.  I set the security alarm and went to bed.  (This was pre-Cressy.)  About midnight, the alarm went off.  Sirens blared.  Lights blinked.  Every neighbor on the cul-de-saq came out to see who was being murdered.  Although I didn't pee in my nighties, I did hear a massive thumping and caterwauling from the front of the house.  The phone rang.  It was the security company.  They said, "We show that your front door alarm has been tripped.  Are you all right?"  I said, "I'm all right, but I hear noises."  They said, "We've called the police."  I said, "Great.  They can deal with the noises."  I bravely cowered in the bedroom, waiting for rescue.  It's my personal belief that my stalwart pets had fled to outer Mongolia for the duration of the event.

Fearlessly, I peeked around the hallway door and saw that the front door was not only NOT broken in, but it was closed and locked.  The sirens continued to blare.  I told the security company, "The front door is not broken in.  In fact, it's still locked and closed."  They said, "But your alarm shows that the front door has been breached."  I walked closer holding the portable phone like a club.  There was still a massive thumping and screeching sound.  But the front door was well and firmly closed, locked, and secured.  The sound wasn't coming from the front door but from the closet next to the front door.  And it wasn't inside the closet, it was inside the attic access door in the ceiling inside the closet.

You see, it was the RATS WHO WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO COME INSIDE A HOUSE WITH CATS ALREADY IN IT!  (I think you might have suspected already.)

A rat had found the sticky board, become trapped on it, and was battling valiantly to free itself.  (YES, it was a rat.  Not a @#$%!! squirrel.  Bleep, bleeping, bleepity pest control guy.)  Consequently, it had banged the board around so much that it had disconnected the alarm wires to the front door, causing, voila, the alarm to go off.

After turning the alarm off, giving the security company the password, and apologizing profusely to all of the neighbors, including the police officer from next door with the original wood pile rat-a-ganza, I was able to return to the scene of the crime.

The cats cautiously stuck their heads out of the bedroom door.  (Their conversation: Booboo: "Is it safe?"  Buggy: "I'm not going out there.  She's got a butcher knife."  Booboo: "I think I'll throw up on the floor right here."  Buggy: "Great.  I'm going to shred her favorite sweater."  Booboo: "Let's roll.  Ralph!")

And I have slammed my sister's cat, Mellow, once again.
Boo-yah!  Skidoosh!

The rat, who had struggled so gallantly and courageously, had escaped his tacky snare of doom.  I'm pretty sure he was really, really, really pissed off.

When I Die...OR Let's Have a PARTY!

I'm not sure why I was thinking about it.  Well, heck, death happens.  I hope not for awhile.  (HIM, the man to whom I'm married, doesn't like me to bring it up.  But, hon, let's face the facts, folks do die.)  Poopoo happens.  We pay taxes.  Death happens.  How can I not compare the twain?  (Do I need to look up the word, 'twain'?  But I'm not going to do it.)

So my sister wants the Viking funeral pyre on the longboat.  (She doesn't know it, but she's going to get it, if I have anything to do with it.  I may have to spend the rest of the funeral in jail, but I'm going to launch that boat with her on it and it's going to be weenie roasting time.)  (You do realize that I'm speaking of the point in time AFTER she dies, and hopefully a long, long time from now of natural causes or possibly in an exciting manner that will have her hailed in the annals of time as the woman who did...that, that thing that everyone will remember FOREVER.  Either way.)

Fat Woman at a Viking Funeral.  It's possible
that I should be throwing the torch from
OUTSIDE of the boat.  Oh, but hey, I might as well
have the Viking Funeral AND the death defying stunt
at the same time.  It'll be fun.  I think my health
insurance covers third degree burns.

Of course, thinking about Viking funerals made me google it.  And OMG, there seems to be a significant number of people who are engrossed in the idea.  Apparently, most states don't think fondly of having a Viking funeral in their arenas.  The squawk is that Minnesota will allow it but I'm thinking that's not really an official statement of fact.  It's my opinion that the land of 10,000 lakes doesn't really want 10,000 burning corpses floating atop 10,000 flaming viking longboats in their 10,000 lakes.  (Minnesota: the Land of Cremating Corpses in Viking Longboats.  If you've got to go, go big!  This is a little long for their license plate motto, but I say WTH?)  (And here I am, picking on poor Minnesota.  It's just something I read on the Internet and I'm finding a hard time documenting it.  Furthermore, I'm loathe to call up the government in Minnesota and ask them.  "Excuse me, but I'm an obscure writer who wants to know if you allow Viking funerals in your state?  Hey, why did they hang up?"  I'd end up with a visit from my local law enforcement official about my funky-ass phone calls to Minnesota.  Jesse Ventura, call me!  I have to know if Minnesota is pro or con on Viking funerals.)

However, I did find this link: Crestone End of Life Project.  I quote, "Crestone End of Life Project operates one of the only legal, open-air cremation sites in the state of Colorado."  There ya go.  It's not a Viking longboat, but it's open air.  And it looks like Stonehenge.  (Except for the white plastic chair on the side and I'm pretty sure I would be wearing a particulate safety mask with ventilator.  "Gee, I liked George a lot, but I don't want pieces of flaming, cremated George in my lungs."  But that's just me.)

These people don't seem to be crying and wailing much.
Is it just me or maybe they didn't really like
the person who's getting the torch treatment?  Possibly
they're unhappy that the cremation didn't
come with pre-sharpened sticks and marshmallows.

You see, even in this economy, someone had a light bulb appear above their head, and said brightly, "Folks want their corpses burned up.  We should start a business.  What state is loose enough with regulations to let us rip?"  (Hey, Minnesota missed the boat!  Bad pun!  Bad pun!  Bad pun!  This is what my family calls a groaner, and that's not in a good way.)

And look, even long-in-the-tooth actors want the Viking funeral.  Jeff Conaway, who costarred in Grease, way back when, did a little time on Taxi, and then meandered through godawful 'b' movies and half-rated television series until he died earlier this year.  Well, very recently and very creepily he had an interview and said he wanted a Viking funeral.  Jeff Conaway on the Viking Funeral.  This is really weird because he died shortly after that.  (Complications of pneumonia and stuff.  Not because he incinerated himself in a wooden vessel whilst floating on a local body of water.  Hey, who wants to start an urban legend?  Like Mikie from the television commercial eating Pop Rocks and drinking cola at the same time?  Or like Walt Disney being cryogenetically frozen?  I remember my 7th grade teacher was adamant about Walt.  And she had a college degree, allegedly.)  Reputedly Jeff was cremated but in a non-Viking funeral manner.  Too bad.  If a Hollywood star can't get it, then who can?

When I die...I want a party.

No, a party!

No, A PARTY!!!!

I want a wake, except I'm not, nor have I ever been, Irish.  I want people to come and get a shot of an alcoholic drink they've never had before.  I want people to try exotic drinks.  I want everyone to play a song with kazoos.  I want everyone to sing and dance and get rowdy.  I want the police to be called at least three times.  I want to reserve a cab driver for the night to drive people to their homes and hotels because they can't even find their keys much less drive anywhere.  I want exotic food served.  And possibly Chippendale's dancers to perform.  (Hmm.  I can see that I'm going to have to put a little money aside for this event.  Possibly I can use Cressy's college fund.  Nahhh.)

Let's be clear here.  1).  I shall be cremated.  No embalming.  No fancy casket.  Get the cheap one.  Then burn me up.  Don't burn up the good jewelry.  I want to wear full make-up.  I want purple sparkly nail polish on my toes.  I want platinum hair and all poofy.  I want a little beauty mark like Madonna has.  Make the mortician put a smile on my face even if he has to use toothpicks, super glue, and titanium staples.  Hell, put a bottle of Amaretto in there for the heck of it.  Then go ahead and cremate me.

2).  The cremains (I didn't make up that word.  It means cremated remains.  I think I heard it on Six Feet Under.) shall be interred in a large jar.  (Not a glass one.)  Oh, what the snoogybot, I included some examples:

I'm thinking the one that needs the least amount of maintenance.
I mean I want my cremains to look good, but I don't want a lot
of fuss.  Hey, I might know.

3.)  Party guests have to affect a new, silly name for the duration of the evening.  I have examples.  (Your gangsta name: Combine your favorite ice cream flavor with your favorite cookie.  I'm Minty Chocolate Chip Brownie Deluxe.  Word.  Your soap opera name: Combine your middle name with the city you were born in.  That would be Lee Baltimore.  Sounds completely soapy.  Your superhero name.  Combine "The" with your second favorite color and your favorite drink.  And OMG, it's The Purple Singapore Sling.  That's just wrongity wrong.  (I'm going to have to remember that one.)  Or finally, there's  your prostitute name.  Combine the name of your first pet with the name of the first street you remember living on.  Not a number.  That would be Popi Date.  Hahaha.  It's so twisted.)

4.)  Party guests must wear a pirate ensemble.  Also acceptable, viking ensembles, vampire ensembles, and steampunk ensembles.  No Richard Nixons or fluffy animals allowed unless it is clearly represented as a zombie Tricky Dick or a zombie animal.  All zombies welcome.

Well, they won't have Nixon to kick around...so to speak.

5.)  Weird drinks will be served.  All guests are required to imbibe one drink that they have never drank before.  Gorilla snot is made from Baileys and cream sherry.  It's completely grossbuckets.  A TKO is tequila, Kahlua, and ouzo, which pretty much makes my stomach turn over right here and now.  A Freddy Fudpucker is tequila, orange juice and Galliano.  Goosebumps is vodka, blueberry schnapps, and peach schnapps.  I'm getting a hangover writing about this.  Plus I found some funky beers:

Fire in the Hole Chili Beer.  Gahh!

Does this taste better with pizza?

6.)  No crying will be allowed.  Just happy thoughts.  I'm generally a pretty happy person and I'd be much happier knowing that people would toast my memory and then giggle about that weird thing I did in the 80s.  (I always meant to take that VW Jetta hubcap back.  Sorry to the VW Jetta owner in Frankfurt, Germany!  We had way too much to drink and strange thoughts went through our brains.)

7.)  The police shall be called no less than three times by neighbors living three blocks away.  Otherwise, they would have been invited.  Then the police shall be invited to the party.  This shall be followed by the inviting of the fire department, the VFW, and the entire cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, if they're still alive and able to party.

8.) At the break of dawn, multicolored kazoos will be issued to the guests and AC/DC's 'Back in Black' shall be kazooed with gusto and flair.  (I really like AC/DC.  It's better than taps and who wants to hear 'Wind Beneath My Wings'...again?)

9.)  All those who are still conscious can be escorted home via taxi.  Everyone else will be recorded via Android and their drunken, unconscious, probably-posed-in-a-silly-fashion pictures posted on my website for posterity.

That's a party. 

In conclusion.  I want to die and then have a party.  Maybe I should have a party and then die.  That would work too. (Cressy may attend as a zombie but she can't drink unless she's twenty-one years old and every man there previously agrees not to hit on her.  I can be a mother from beyond the grave, or in my case, beyond the mantle.)

Hmm. What the Bleep Shall I Write About Today? OR On Taking My Only Child Shopping

Oh, the topics.  Oh, the things that have happened that I feel compelled to discuss.  Oh, the fact that I feel compelled to use the word 'compelled' over and over and over again.  Compelllllllllllllllled.

Usually what I want to write about is what happened recently.  So recently someone (my daughter, Cressy, age 7) wanted to spend her allowance at...(dah-dah-dahhhhhhh) Build-A-Bear.  For those of you without children, this is a place where a child picks out a plush animal skin (plush animal = not real) and then proceeds to stuff it, and then dress in it in appropriate accouterments.  Then one hands over their entire savings to the clerk in exchange for the privilege of taking one of these genuine Taiwanese beauties home.  (Bet most of you don't know what movie I stole that from.  HIM doesn't count.)  (Hahaha.  HIM couldn't remember what movie it came from.  I love being a movie buff.)

And furthermore, for those of you without children, one can have parties here.  One can have funness and delight overwhelming here.  It spooges with the essence of funnocity.  (I may be making up words galore here.  Me and George W. Bush.  We're simpactico.  He liked to presideniate.  I like to wordiate.  Yeah.)  One prances into Build-A-Bear and begins giggling immediately.  (It's their atmosphere, I believe, or possibly a strange gas that they pump into the air there.  Not really their gas.  That might have been the broccoli I ate earlier.)

So Build-A-Bear before I veer drastically off course again.  Cressy picked out a ice cream themed bear.  (Big surprise.)  If you're a really savvy parent you can get the child to buy a cheaper bear and then skip the whole ensemble thing to save on money.  But most parents won't walk out of Build-A-Bear without paying a minimum of $45 on up.  (I'm just saying, if you haven't been there before, you're going to spend a little money.  I know.)

Wow. Fat Woman slammed Build-A-Bear. Does this mean I
will never shop there again? No, it doesn't mean that. For
we have purchased one of their bears and there is an unspoken
agreement that I will purchases compliments and stuff
from them until I die or until the bear mysteriously
vanishes in a tragic exploding peanut butter jar
accident. (It happens.)

Okay, the ice cream bear cost $22.  Okay then.  Then she wanted sound effects to go into the paw.  This is a little dohickey that costs $5.  It says things like, "I luv you," and "You're my best friend," and "Can you spend more money on me?" (Okay, it doesn't say the last thing, but it should have.)  A clerk approached with happiness and effervescence overflowing (I don't mean this is a good thing but the clerks are learning about Asskissing 101 in a way that probably will behoove them later in life.  They could be President.)

The bear becomes stuffed through a fun looking machine that spews stuffing around inside it and is visible through a glass window.  There's a nozzle attachment on this machine that would make a proctologist nervous.  Before the bear is stitched up, the clerk has my daughter put in a little heart.  But not before a little ritual about bringing the heart to life is performed.  It involved rubbing the heart and dancing around and the sacrifice of a chicken who frankly appeared as if she wanted to be laying eggs somewhere instead.  (Okay, exaggerating again, but it sure seemed like it at the time.)  And ta-dah, the bear had been constructed.

The ideal toy for your 7 year old child.

Here's where the clerks earned her brownie points.  (Not from me, that was sure.)  "Be sure and 'wash' off the bear in the back," she said and pointed to the 'Fluffing' area.  One must go to the fluffing area by passing through the accessory area.  The accessories are located at eye level to my daughter, who is eying them with no little regard.  Rather, she's checking out the ensembles with the eye of a woman who has just been given the golden key to the city.  She has hit the mother-lode.  There is more bling, glamer, and 'it' stuff there than on the Las Vegas strip at sunset.

"Look, Mommy, Hello Kitty shirts," Cressy announced.  Certainly, there they are, all in convenient bear size for the plush thing you've just committed yourself to buying.  Hello Kitty tank tops.  Hello Kitty sequined dresses.  Hello Kitty slutty leather skirts.  And let us not forget the Hello Kitty line of shoes.  There are peep toes, closed toes, stilettos, and twinkly ones.  (Hello Kitty dresses much better than I do.  But then I don't have to cut off one of my toes to fit into the shoes that look good, either.)

The bear doesn't really say this, but it's implied.

"Look, Mommy, wedding dresses," Cressy cooed.  Yessirreebob, there are wedding dresses for the bears.  There are little tuxedos for the boy bears with teensy weensy bow ties.  You can have a Build-A-Bear wedding if you're so inclined and have the black American Express Card.  In fact, if I Google it, I bet I'll find that somewhere, someone has gotten married at Build-A-Bear with a stupid bear as the maid of honor and another bear as the best man.  (Hold on, I'll be right back.  Oh, my goodness gracious, I found the cutest Build-A-Bear wedding ever.  The bears got married as officiated by two girls who obviously get into their toys.  This is so cute that you may need insulin afterwards.  Don't say I didn't warn ya!)

"Look, Mommy, military bears," Cressy shouts.  Her Daddy and Mommy were in the military so this calls to Cressy's roots.  As a matter of fact, she's got a long line of military on Mommy's side of the family but I'm digressing.  There are Army outfits, Marine outfits, Navy, Coast Guard, and indeterminable outfits.  They have camouflage outfits.  They have matching boots.  They've got backpacks and other things I don't even know the name of.  (They didn't have little Build-A-Bear weaponry, but I guess they must have thought that was going too far.  M-16s dripping with bling = tacky.)

I swear I heard the bear say this, or maybe that was just me
thinking it.  Maybe.

"Look, Mommy, lots of other bear clothes," Cressy bellows, in case I'm not paying attention.  Well, yes, I'm paying attention and apparently, I'm paying for a helluva lot more than attention if I'm not careful.  And yes, you can even buy panties for your bear, unless you have an odd compulsion to have your bear go commando.

It's possible that I'm going overboard with this, but I don't
really care.

So quickly, I point her toward the area where we input all our details into a computer so Cressy's bear can have a 'birth certificate.'  Also we can enter all of our information onto the computer so they can sell our information to ANYONE with a checkbook and also send us stuff about Build-A-Bear until the throbbing vein in my forehead explodes.  (And hey, do I need to mention that we haven't even made it to the register area yet?)

You cannot say you didn't laugh at this.  This was funny.

Anyway, Cressy got the bear.  I think I have a few pennies left in the jar in my closet.  Oh, well.

Enter the Chicken Woman OR Sometimes When I Shop I Run Intro Strange People OR OMG Calm Down, I Won't Freak Out If You Don't Know the Answer

Warning: No Chicken Women, cats, chickens, X-Acto knife blades, or illustrators were harmed in the making of this blog, but their ears might be burning.

Recently I went to Lowe's to find X-Acto knife blades.  If you do not know what a X-Acto knife is, do NOT fret.  I shall explain.  (Because it might be funny and I love to amuse myself.  Also because it might be really funny.)  These are little knives with handles about the size of pencils (the handles are the size of pencils, not the knives.)  They are used for arts and crafty stuff.  Once upon a time when Fat Woman was in the US Army (I was) and I was an illustrator (They did have those - 81E was the MOS, and that's Military Operating Speciality or something close to those initials.) (OKAY, I've been corrected.  MOS stands for Military Occupational Speciality.  Sheesh.  It's been decades since I was in the Army; I'm entitled to be forgetful.)

We had to do bomb checking and trimming rose bushes
because we were pretty much the bottom of the heap
and the job was considered so not-important that
we were kind of surplus. It was okay. I got pretty
good at trimming rose bushes. Too bad, I never
learned what a bomb was supposed to look like.
But if I had my X-Acto knife, I could have
cut & pasted the holy living hell out of it.

So I was like, a glorified graphic artist, except we did a lot of cutting and pasting.  There was no graphics program on a computer.  There wasn't anything computerized.  There was something called a Compugraphic 7500 (5500?  6500?  2 1/2?  Seriously, what kind of herbal remedy is it that helps with memory?  What was I saying?)  This machine made letters on paper.  You had to change the type faces by physically changing the typeface within the machine itself.  And, what I remember the most, you had to cut and paste a BUNCH!  (I'm getting to the point.  Stick with me.  Look, puns.  Point.  Stick.)  Well, the X-Acto knife was an illustrator's best buddy.  (Ask any 81 Echo from the seventies and eighties.  Well, find one first.  Then ask them.)  I might even have slept with mine.  (Might have slept with the X-Acto knife, NOT all the 81 Echoes.  Potty brain.)

We kept X-Acto knives by the dozens.  I believe we even hoarded the little bastards from each other.  Here's a picture:

Jeez, this is fuzzy.

Here's another picture that you don't have to cross your eyes at and then fill in the blanks (That's kind of like voting.):

There ya go.  Fond memories.  I could use that sucker
just like the guy at Benihana's.  (I sliced the crap out
of my hand once when I slipped, but it was only once.  See, I learned
from my mistake.)

You may be asking yourself, 'Why is Fat Woman showing me pictures of knives?'  I'm getting to it.  I've got an art project going on and I needed a sharp blade to do some precision slicing.  (It's a collage.  Lots of fun with Mod Podge and clippings galore.  Hey, I've got a 7 year old, it's summer time, and we can do collages or we can watch Spongebob until our brains internally combust in a way that involves brains leaking messily out of the ears.  What would you do?  And yes, only I get to wield the X-Acto knife blade with handle.)

Anyway, I went to Lowes to find more X-Acto knife blades.  I figure Lowe's has got stuff like that.  It's also got other stuff I needed at the time, so I combined a trip.  Plus Cressy likes to climb on the riding lawn mowers.  (She has a secret dream of riding one of those bad boys up and down the aisles and making people jump into the bags of grass fertilizers to avoid being mowed down like vacuous animals on an isolated road while she laughs like a deranged maniac.  Yee-haw!  Wait, maybe that's me.)

So I went to the proper locale in the store to find the smaller hand tools and I looked about.  Cressy was helpful.  Her: "Does it look like that?" Me: "No."  Her: "Does it have a green package?" Me: "No."  Her: "Does it light up and twirl?" Me: "No."  Her: "Is it bigger than a bread box?"  Me: "No, if you're quiet for the next five minutes, I'll take you to Dairy Queen for ice cream."  Her, innocently: "I didn't say anything, Mommy."

I couldn't find it.  There were box cutters.  Lots of box cutters.  In every size, shape, and variety.  (Clearly, they didn't get the 9/11 memo.)  There was refills for box cutters.  Lots and lots of refills for box cutters.  So I looked in the other aisles and I couldn't find them.  There was a convenient Lowe's clerk standing on one side restocking a shelf.  I asked her.

This was my mistake.  Somewhere an alarm should have gone off.  MISTAKE!  MISTAKE!  MISTAKE!  You know, kind of like Robbie the Robot flailing about and yelling, "Danger, Will Robinson!"
She was a fifty something old woman in the standard Lowe's smock, restocking a shelf, and studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone.  I should have read between the lines.  I did not.  Instead, I asked, "Do you happen to know where you keep X-Acto knife blades?"  I wasn't rude.  I wasn't demanding.  I was matter-of-fact.  She had the smock on.  It had the logo on it.  She had a name tag that I didn't read.  She worked there.  It was an undeniable fact.  Technically speaking, there was nothing wrong with asking her for a little help.

However, she looked at me and made fluttering motions with her hands.  Then she made a squawking noise that sounded like a chicken who has just been poked in the ass with something sharp.  (I won't explain how I know that particular noise but it has to do with growing up in rural Oregon and not having much to do in the summer.  See, collages = good.  Kids running around chasing chickens = bad.)

It was like Siamese twins separated at birth.  Really.



I swear to Colonel Sanders that she made a squawking sound.  May he come back from the grave and ban me from KFC forever if I'm lying.  (I really, really, really like KFC, so this would be a bad thing for me.  As God is my witness, I shall never be banned from a KFC.  Or as Will Rogers would have said, if he had been a middle aged, sarcastic Fat Woman, "I never met a KFC I didn't like.")

What does this have to do with Chicken Woman?  Not a lot, but
since I was thinking about it, I feel compelled to say
that Will Rogers NEVER met my neighbor.  I like
this joke because first, you have to know who
Will Rogers was ( a famous humorist/entertainer from
the early 20th century) and second, you have to
know that he's infamous for saying the above statement.
Also I'm pretty sure he didn't meet Charles Manson,
Sarah Palin, and Kenneth Lay.  But I'm digressing rapidly.

Then Chicken Woman began to bounce up and down in position.  Her head began to jerk out and back in.  Those hands kept twitching spasmodically.  Finally, she gathered herself and said, "What's a X-Acto knife blade?"

"It's just a little blade that you use-" and before I could finish Chicken Woman hopped down the aisle and pointed out the blades that one would use for a saw.  (Like the kind of saws used on a tree or in a horror movie.  Either one.  I'm pretty sure that Chicken Woman never saw that movie.  She would have plotzed.)

"That's not what I mean," I said slowly, starting to comprehend that Chicken Woman wasn't all there.  She took me to the location where they keep the axe blades.  She was following a trend here.  If there was a blade, possibly what I wanted was located near it.  If she showed me all of the blades, then possibly I would leave her alone.

Will Rogers never met MELLOW!
Okay, veering off the subject, but if I left Mellow out
she might get her feelings hurt.  (Mellow is my sister's cat and
the object of recent taunting.  I might be beating a dead horse.
But WTH?)

"It's a little knife that has a blade on the end of it," I said.  She squawked and fluttered over to the section where they keep the band saw blades.

"The handle is about the shape of a pencil," I added and she fluttered and pecked her way back to the box cutters.  (If only I'd had seeds and corn to throw to her.)

"It's not really there," I said.  "Do you know if you have..."  I trailed off because I think she realized that she wasn't going to be able to answer my question and her body began to shudder nervously.  Her hands palpitated up and down.  She said, "I don't know if I...maybe if I can...possibly it's in..." and I persued her quivering shape up and down the rows in the tool section.  At one point in time she looked at me as though I was about to explode.

I was being very polite.  I don't normally get rude with people who are genuinely trying to help.  But Chicken Woman got more and more flustered.  She didn't know what I wanted and she didn't know how to help me and she didn't have a check sheet of what to do if this was ever the case.  She stared at me, made little cluck-cluck-cluck noises and convulsively trembled.  I swear I glanced over my shoulder because I thought I would see someone standing there with a large sign that was directed at her, 'If you don't answer this customer's question correctly, you will be blown up by a bomb!'  But there was only Cressy there, thinking about Dairy Queen and ice cream.  (I don't think my 7 year old daughter could be mistaken for an explosive device.  Maybe when she's thirteen.)

Consider this as the background of the entire Chicken Woman event.

And would you believe this only made it worse.  At this point in time, I was just going to let it go because clearly I was upsetting this woman.  I really didn't want to upset her.  She didn't have the answer and I figured out that she didn't have the answer.  It wasn't a big deal.  I was going to say something like, "Well, I guess you don't have it.  I'll just go to Michael's or A.C. Moore's for it," but Chicken Woman squawked again and yelled spastically, "IT'S IN THE PAINT SECTION!"  Then she sprinted/hopped for that section not bothering to see if I was following her.

Well, I felt kind of bad for her, so I went along.  After all, she was giving it the old college try, or at least, some kind of try.  Cressy didn't care one way or the other.  Her little brain was dancing with thoughts of ice cream.  Voila, in the paint section there were NOT X-Acto knife blades.  There were these little mini-box cutter type knives.  (Apparently, they had fled from the larger box cutter society in the tool section to form their own society in the paint section.)

As trembling, shaking, knee-knocking Chicken Women was absconding back into the familiar territory of tool world, I said, "Do you know where a large metal ruler can be found?" before I could help myself.  I got that there, but only after a great deal of confusion about what 'a large metal ruler' really meant.  But I never got the stupid X-Acto knife blades.  I went home and used a box cutter.  Thffppt.

In conclusion, I don't have to make stuff up for blogs.  Nope. Nee nop ba nopity nopus.  No.  Why?  Because Chicken Woman is alive and well and working at Lowe's.