Übermilf

ReBlog: SOCIAL ZYMURGY: THE CULTURE OF BEER: We Three Kings

2009-12-17T09:20:00.000-06:00

I am busy in a tizzy. Please read Doc's Christmas tale in lieu of my usual crap.

SOCIAL ZYMURGY: THE CULTURE OF BEER: We Three Kings

This totally sucks. You probably shouldn't bother reading it.

2009-12-15T08:37:00.004-06:00

My Friday Flash Fiction is a bit abbreviated due to the fact I am moving on Friday and better have my ass in gear. Which it is most definitely not. In gear, that is. So, I just re-used an idea and slapped something together. The picture has very little to do with the story; I just liked it.

Starter sentence in blue, as usual.

"As the rumble receded westward, a fine layer of dust settled on the tall stack of vintage condom boxes." The people inside the decrepit 7-11 scrambled for the exits. They streamed out of the doors, if 2 customers and one store clerk can be considered a stream, at record speed.

It turns out they escaped just in time, as the Ghost of Christmas Disappointed reconsidered and decided that a 7-11 was, in fact, worthy of destruction. They screamed as the giant velvet foot crushed the building in which they had been standing moments before. Their relief and gratitude to be left alive caused the Ghost to shrink slightly, but then he expanded again when the skater punk mourned the loss of his beloved Slurpee machine.

Despite regaining his momentary loss in stature, the Ghost vowed not to be so sloppy in the future. Gratitude was one of the few things that could destroy him.

And Now, For Something Completely Self-Indulgent

2009-12-14T10:38:00.001-06:00

Just because it makes me happy.

A Virus! A Deadly Story Virus!

2009-12-12T08:40:00.007-06:00

Splotchy started it. Cormac continued it and tagged me. Here's my contribution.

Splotchy's initial paragraph is first, Cormac's comes next separated by three asterisks, and mine comes after his, separated by the second set of asterisks.

The story:

The mall was crowded. There were happy people, angry people, people in a hurry, even a few people sleeping on benches. To the security guard, they were a blur of coats, hats and scarves. He was just beginning his second eight hour shift. He yawned, leaning against a pillar in the food court, the aftertaste of terrible mall cookies lingering on his tongue. His eyes abruptly snapped open with the loud sound of glass shattering behind him.

***

The glass landed on the main concourse floor and the strung Christmas lights around the mall made the floor glitter like a field of glittering gems. Out of Hot Topic came a huge tasseled-shod foot and the glass cracked like ice under the foot's immense weight. Above that antiquated shoe was a massive muscular leg, clad in green tights.

The elder Mrs. Hajba knows what this creature is and she screams out its name, yet no one understands her. Mostly because everyone else is too busy screaming, but also because the only person would understand, her daughter Anastasia, is across the mall at T.G. McFunster's...trying to find husband number four, lest her, and her mother be deported.

This being that apparently is unknown to America, stands some sixteen feet tall in bright green and red clothing that would be more suitable to the Renaissance. The brute is muscular and misshapen, with veins that bulge and throb at a preternaturally speed. Its skin is bright white, and its teeth silver and black like tinsel. The eyes of the beast have no pupils or irises to speak of. They could best be described as giant red, opaque Christmas ball ornaments.

Mrs. Hajba summons every brain cell that American TV soaps haven't manged to destroy yet and she yells at the security guard, "It's Ghost of Kreestmass Disappoint-ted!"

***

The towering figure grew larger and more robust whenever a fresh wail of despair rose from the crowd. With their purchasing power diminished as each mighty footstep destroyed yet another retail outlet, the people were beside themselves in grief and misery. The creature fed on it and grew larger and more resplendent as he crushed the materialistic hopes and dreams of everyone present.

After every last boutique, kiosk and anchor store had been reduced to rubble, the monster turned his attention to the town outside the mall. By now deafening strains of Andy Williams singing "It's the hap-piest feeling of aaaaalllll" and Lena Horne's bastardized version of "Jingle Bells" and countless vapid holiday screechings by Celine Dion and Mariah Carey were being broadcast through the curled-up toes of the monster's immense velvet slippers.

His glittering grin expanded as he smashed the BMW dealership. He became incandescent when he demolished the upscale cigar lounge. When he took out a strip mall containing both a Whole Foods and a Costco, he grew at such an exponential rate that his red stocking capped-head was no longer visible from ground level. Still, he moved on.

Until he came to the town's hospital.

He shrank a little when he heard the Girl Scout troop singing to the senior citizens at the assisted-living facility located on the grounds of the hospital. His grin disappeared when a woman handed a plate of homemade cookies and brownies to the emergency crew who had shown up to help her when her car spun out on the ice and crashed into a pillar.

But he knew he was doomed when he felt a woman getting wheeled into an elevator on the fourth floor, her newborn infant in her arms. She was heading to the sixth floor, where her grandmother lay in recovery from colon cancer surgery.

He plummeted down when the women laid eyes on one another and wept, each grateful for the gift of life. As the new mother gently laid her infant in her grandmother's arms, the tiniest wail of defeat could be heard from the crack in the sidewalk outside, if you were close enough to hear it. But he was not dead yet. Oh, no.

I tag Todd, Nick, Darth Roker, CTK and Dr. Zaius. And anyone else who read this.

Pierogi Post -- Just Under the Wire

2009-12-09T22:20:00.002-06:00

I am trying to get my grandma's pierogi recipe back. I vow to make them for Christmas.

I have officially blogged today.

Fa-La-La-La Flash Fiction

2009-12-08T08:40:00.002-06:00

As usual, found here, starter sentence in blue:

"She was always threatening to punch someone in the face, but this time she meant it." If she could only lift her hand, ball it up into a fist, and apply the punitive force necessary to convey just how enraged she was... but she couldn't.

She lay there, trapped in unspeakable torment, unable to give voice to the soul wracked in agony that lay inside her broken, useless body. How long had she been here, she wondered. She assumed she was in the hospital, from the medicinal, chemical smells and cold, clinical light that filtered through her bandages. She could see... oh, yes, she could see... but that was more curse than blessing at this point...

Her head was held upright, facing forward, in a locked position. Her limbs, which were outside of her limited line of vision, were immovable. But she could wiggle her fingers and toes... she was not paralyzed. Her physical pain was felt in temporary bursts, then eradicated by a soothing drip into her veins. No, her misery was not physical in nature. Her very mind and spirit were being excoriated...

How did she wind up in such a state? The last thing she remembered was ... the dentist. She was going to the dentist! It was icy... she must've had an accident. Why the karmic punishment? Did she kill someone? Is that why she was being punished by all the imps and demons of hell? Wait... she could hear them talking... no, her car skidded and smashed into the guardrail... no one else injured...

Why, Lord, why? Why then am I made to suffer so? Please, make it stop. I'll do anything, anything if you take away the terror, the horror...

She emitted a low moan through her wired-shut jaw. The people in the room snapped to attention. "She's awake!" one unknown voice triumphantly announced.

"I think she wants something," added a concerned, tender onlooker. Could this be my savior, I thought? The one who brings an end to my suffering?

"She's looking at the TV," noted a familiar voice. Joe! My husband! He was there, in the room? I was at once relieved and outraged, that he would have allowed this situation. Perhaps he was too dismayed at my condition to realize... "I think she wants us to turn it up," he concluded.

Of all the times for him to be clueless, unaware of my deepest held convictions. Joe, Joe, how could you do this to me? I tried to scream, but all that came out was the thinnest of squeaks. "Yeah," he said, proud of himself. "She wants us to be quiet so she can watch the movie!"

Someday, I will be well again. I will go through painful yet effective sessions of physical therapy. I will come back stronger than ever, with one goal in mind: I will strangle my husband WITH MY BARE HANDS.

All voices in the room fell silent as the most dreaded words known to mankind came floating out of the television, carried upon the breath of Satan himself: "We now return to the 36-hour FaLaLaLa Lifetime movie marathon!"

Screw You, White-Lights-Only Snobs! Kiss My Colorful Ass!

2009-12-07T09:45:00.002-06:00

That's right, you heard me.

Now, I'm not a complete hardliner. If you just prefer white lights, but have a live-and-let-live philosophy, but can ENJOY all sorts of lights, then you're cool with me.

I'm talking about the Judgy McJudgypantses out there who are so eager to develop a caste system based on Christmas lights. I put out colored lights ON PURPOSE just to PISS THEM OFF. And I make sure some of them blink, too.

Although the white is pretty, too. Except the new LED white ones; those have a bluish tinge. They're like powdered skim milk, a little too weak and watery and unnatural.

But I will defend to the death people who want to put out giant colored bulbs, bubble lights, and any and all manner of novelty lights in the pursuit of happiness. This is America, not Stick-Up-Your-Assland!

In other news, I do not live in a neighborhood with a homeowner's association. Duh. I'm not writing this from jail, am I?

I almost forgot to post today!

2009-12-06T17:50:00.000-06:00

Please enjoy drunky Sandra Lee's Christmas Tree:

Video Magic

2009-12-05T10:09:00.000-06:00

Finally! Something Christmas-Related to Excite Me.

2009-12-04T08:25:00.002-06:00

No, it's not this.

Instead, I am making progress on a personal quest of mine, and that quest is to find this one Mac Davis Christmas special I remember seeing when I was little. I have been trying to find it since 2000 or so, when early attempts ended with unclicked links to nude Mac Davis pictures.

Every year I've tried unsuccessfully, instead finding things like this, and we all know how I feel about David Soul. The last David Soul Christmas story I remember is this one.

But this year -- THIS YEAR -- is different. I actually discovered the correct name and year of the special I had in mind. I still can't find any actual video of it, and that paltry description does nothing to capture how deliciously terrifying that episode was.

If Mac Davis is the prophet and visionary I've always thought him to be, in 2010 thought police will arrest you for remembering Christmas. Christmas has been replaced by "Commerce Day," when you top your tree with a glittering dollar sign. Mac Davis's character suddenly had a flash from his childhood, where he remembered something about a Nativity scene or some other religious artifact, and these silver-clad stormtroopers burst into his house and threw his whole family in jail! Why are all policemen in the future wearing aluminum foil suits?

Anyways, the "Christmas is too commercialized" theme is done to death, but I really liked the whole police state violence aspect from this show. If anyone knows how I could get a copy of it, I'd be very grateful.

It's Only Day Three and I'm Already Sick of Talking about Christmas

2009-12-03T08:17:00.003-06:00

I'm just having a difficult time lately getting pissed off about things. I don't care anymore. Outside of the Gap commercial, I mean. Is that bad or good? I'm not even interested in going off on Cuntzilla and this totally insane tea party she's having on Sunday. I regret that I will miss her homemade marshmallows this year, as I am down to my last couple of weeks living out of state.

I am not excited at all about anything, although I did momentarily almost enjoy my hot bath last night. Does this mean I'm depressed? If so, why? Is this just a brain chemical thing? I thought they fixed that with my thyroid medicine?

In conclusion, I don't really care about anything, even the History Channel's latest "Nostradamus" nonsense claiming the Egyptian Book of the Dead corroborates 2012 as Earth's swan song. Their refrains of "some people claim" and cut-ins to crazy half-baked "authors" did cause some brief stirrings on my bullshit detector, but even that didn't rouse me from my stupor.

I guess I'll make meatloaf for dinner tonight.

The Gap is Stupid and Annoying and Christmas Makes It Worse

2009-12-02T08:07:00.002-06:00

I'm not a historian or a religious scholar so let me just repeat two things I've read/heard that make sense to me:

* Early Christians decided to celebrate the feast day for Christ's Birth (that's right; no one ever claimed it was his ACTUAL birthday until fairly recently. Apparently morons can't wrap their tiny brains around a symbolic celebration, only a "birthday") around the winter solstice because they could party at the same time as every one else (in the Roman Empire) without standing out and getting their heads chopped off/fed to the lions/heads chopped off then fed to the lions;

* When the Roman Empire turned Christian, they adopted many of the pagan celebrations and just assigned them Christian justifications so people didn't have to give up the fun stuff.

Because the earliest mentions of December 25 as the feast day precede Rome's acceptance of Christianity, it's probably some combination of 1 and 2. Or maybe some other stuff. Like I said, I'm not a historian. But all this discussion is only secondary to my primary point, and that is The Gap is so vapid and useless they don't even know how irrelevant they are and I want to puke in one of their blue drawstring bags and mail it to the president of the company with a note attached that says, "You are so stupid you make me vomit."

Because of this commercial (and this one, but that's more about the horrifying little spoiled rotten snots in the video. If that's what the Übergirls have as future sorority sisters, I better start training them in armed combat now.):

Here's why the early Christians were smarter than The Gap (I'm using them as an example here of Corporate America, because Commerce is in the midst of taking over Christianity (other major religions to follow) and adapting it to ITS message. That is a post for another day.) The Christians took the pagan stuff and gave another set of meaning to the symbols and practices in place. Commerce wants us to keep up these rituals because it feeds its gaping maw of insatiable greed, but isn't offering us any real reason to do it other than... fun? But soon enough, they will become empty gestures and die out, because materialism is ultimately unsatisfying.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you can't "86 the rules" without replacing them with something. Well, you can, but it's not going to work very well.

Don't Blame Christmas on Religion

2009-12-01T07:51:00.003-06:00

Of all the misery-inducing, stomach-churning, ear-splitting nonsense that assails us at this time of year, none of it is actually driven by religion.

Think about who lies to you and tells you this is "the most wonderful time of the year." Is it the Bible? Or ultra-conservative sweaterphile Andy Williams? Who insists this is the "best time of the year," your local preacher/priest/rabbi or fascist corporate sell-out Burl Ives? (Later, I will discuss how Rankin Bass's holiday classic "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", featuring Mr. Ives, is a right-wing propaganda piece. I got that lecture every year from my dad.)

Instead of promising you perfection, leading you to crash and burn when nothing meets your artificially-raised expectations, religion tells you that in all likelihood your life will include some bossy Caesar-type forcing you to fill out paperwork in an inconvenient place at an inconvenient time, and when you show up, the hotel will have lost your reservation and you'll be screwed. Just because you might win one once in a while despite the odds doesn't mean all the crap flung your way disappears.

To explore the myths of the holiday season, I am making up my own nablopomo theme this month called "My Love-Hate Relationship with Christmas." And Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Because we can't forget to include the forced celebrations of other cultures that nearly escaped without their marketing segments being exploited.

News of No Interest or Use to Others

2009-11-27T12:28:00.005-06:00

Every year, I get a nutcracker or nutcrackers for Christmas. I have almost all of the ballet characters themselves, plus some others. They all have the year painted on the bottom, and most of them come from Target.

I have already decided upon this year's. To commemorate our stay in Austin.

I will also be purchasing Austin-themed ornaments for the tree.

That is all. I apologize for this useless and boring post.

Me, Me, Wonderful Me. Don't You Want to Read about Me? I Thought So.

2009-11-23T07:14:00.002-06:00

As evidenced by the utter crap that has appeared on this blog, I obviously don't care WHAT you want to read, so I'm going to write about me today.

I have gained valuable insights about myself since living in Austin and returning home (however briefly.) For instance, it's entirely possible that I am part Hobbit. And it's not just my hairy toes.

I am a sentimental, nostalgic homebody who enjoys the occasional adventure but longs to return to my cozy nest. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think that my way of looking at things or living is the BEST, it's just the way I am happiest.

I am eternally grateful for the explorers, adventurers and scientists out there. Somebody needs to forge those new paths and develop those new ideas. I am glad people like that do it happily and lovingly, not begrudgingly or forced self-sacrifice.

But when those people need a little rest and a comfy cushion and a cup of tea and a piece of apple pie, they can come to my house and regale me with their tales of conquest. I, myself, prefer to keep the home fires burning.

In short, I am thrilled to be in my own humble abode back in Downers Grove. It's not that there's anything WRONG with Austin; it's a lovely city with its own wonderful traditions and culture. But those are THEIR traditions and culture. And they're great. I don't feel any ownership for them, however.

I have my reasons for loving my home town.

My Body Hates Me.

2009-11-19T09:03:00.004-06:00

I will be getting too personal in the post but I will not be getting disgusting. This isn't about grossing anyone out with descriptions of my bodily functions. This is a self-pitying diatribe with some vitriol not aimed at anyone in particular thrown in for flavoring.

My period was supposed to start last week. It kinda did. I had the headache, and the nausea and cramping, but it gave one weak BLURT and then stopped. The last time(s) it did that I was pregnant.

So, despite the fact that Dilf has already had TWO vasectomies, I sent him to Walgreens to buy me a test to see if he a.) has some sort of super-healing vas deferens, like Claire on "Heroes" if she was a nearly 40 year old man; and/or b.) was going to have to start looking for a bigger house once we get back to Chicago, which by the way will be after February 6 unless something major changes. Actually, for those who need things spelled out for them, it was a pregnancy test. It was negative.

Despite the lack of babies inside me (I was assuming it was twins), the rickety old machinery inside me never did crank into production.

Until today. It's starting. And do you know why? DO YOU??!! Because my body hates me, and wants me to suffer as much as possible. I hear evil laughing echoing from down there. Because...

TOMORROW WE EMBARK ON AN 18-HOUR CAR TRIP BACK TO CHICAGO. For Thanksgiving.

That's right. Why have a period in the comfort and safety of your own home with a sanitary and readily available bathroom handy, when you can be stuffed into a car seat and be subject to truck-stop restrooms instead? Why have nice things like chamomile tea and a warm compress when you can have ... no nice things? No nice things at all... cramped, with cramps... probably forced to endure hour after hour of "This American Life" on CD because Oklahoma only broadcasts Evangelical preachers and music by guys with "Travis" somewhere in their names.

Also, my body must hate Dilf. Because is it not unpleasant enough to endure an 18-hour car trip with me on a good day? Must he suffer, too? (Yes. But part of that is brought on by his own weird obsession with "This American Life.")

I feel like ripping out my ovaries with my bare hands. And if I meet the asshole who thought it was a good idea to write, "Have a happy period!" on my sanitary napkin wrapper (in both English AND French, by the way), I will stuff those ovaries down his throat until he chokes.

What's Wrong? I'll Tell YOU What's Wrong...

2009-11-18T08:29:00.005-06:00

If you Google Image "What's wrong with America?" you'll get images like this, this, and, for some reason, this.

But for my money, not that I spent any, I vote this story as a prime example of how we've gone from this:

to this:

in about a generation or so.

I don't care what political or economic system you pick, it breaks down under the weight of cheaters and schemers and selfish jerks who game the system. Like this woman.

People are driven by compassion and the desire to help others, until they get ripped off by someone taking advantage of their better nature. Like this woman.

Human relationships should be the stuff of love, understanding, empathy, shouldering good times and bad, sharing laughs and sorrows -- unless they are reduced to a crude commodity. Like that woman did. (He'd stay for the chance to touch some big boobies...)

This woman has singlehandedly demonstrated how to take down the basic building blocks of society through her ridiculously selfish and short-sighted actions.

That's pretty impressive, actually.

Flash Fiction Friday

2009-11-17T07:55:00.003-06:00

I am cheating just a little with my Flash Fiction Friday this week. It contains elements of actual events. Is that okay? Cormac? JJ? Anyone? As usual, starter sentence in blue.

"The old camera had been in a box for decades, the pictures never developed, and now with the prints in his hand his blood ran cold from looking at the images that came from it."

He was staring at the image of a woman he had seen just days before... and she looked EXACTLY the SAME. Same frizzy bleached hair. Same crazed look in her eyes. Same drawn-on eyebrows. Only her clothing had changed; she had traded the trampy 1960's era mini skirt and go-go boots from the picture for tight jeans and a mini-shirt. But it was her, all right. How could he ever forget?

But what was her photo doing inside Grandpa's camera?

Grandpa wasn't around to ask. He had died in the 1960's. Well, that's when he disappeared, anyways. Did that lunatic-fringe drunk woman he met the other night have anything to do with it?

That evening he had met up with some friends from high school at an Austin, Texas rooftop bar. They were laughing about old times and new ideas when she sashayed past them with a brawny, mulleted man who was way too young for the likes of her. She was odd from the very beginning, with the monkeys hanging off one of her two large handbags, and her obviously inebriated state. But she got odder.

When Brawny stepped away to get a drink or use the men's room, she surveyed her fellow bar patrons, then stood up in the aisle between the tables. She stood painfully close to him, HIM of all people, and started to do calisthenics. Calisthenics, in the middle of the bar. She bent at the waist so her abdomen was nearly touching her face, its flesh taut, but not supple and luscious like a University of Texas cheerleader. Instead, it was dry and papery, like one of Ed Gein's lampshades. He sat absolutely still, suppressing a shudder and keeping his eyes straight ahead at all costs while his friends laughed.

When she failed to get a reaction out of him with her sexy moves, she sat back down and proceeded to take pill bottle after pill bottle out of her purse. The non-monkey purse. By that time, Brawny had returned.

More people sat down, and she got up and flitted from table to table, before returning to her seat to rifle through several wallets filled to bursting with untold numbers of credit cards. Finally, she and Brawny left.

The waitress came over and apologized to him and his friends, saying the drunk woman had unfairly monopolized her time, and had given her numerous credit cards that all were declined, and then accused her of stealing one of them. They all had a good laugh over the silly woman. The waitress left, and he and his friends resumed their earlier conversation.

Until she returned. Sans Brawny. This time, after sitting down heavily and noisily in the seat at the adjoining table, she jumped back up and began spinning a tale about how Brawny was supposed to be her knight in shining armor, but had left her instead. And the bar had lost her ATM card, so she had no way to get back to the airport. So could he please, please give her a ride to the airport?

Luckily, his friends rescued him this time and they extricated themselves from the crazy drunk woman. He thought that he had seen the last of the woman. But now this photo...

The day after he found his grandfather's old camera sitting in a box and had the photos developed, he was enjoying the newspaper with his morning coffee. The police had found an unidentified man's remains. It was difficult to determine exactly how long the corpse had been in the dumpster behind the Iron Cactus bar and restaurant, since it was mummified and drained of all its fluids. Atop the skeletal remains was a glorious mane of brown hair. Mullet-style.

__________________________________________________________

(This is hastily written and probably crappy. I wrote it in 20 minutes so I can go meet some friends for coffee. I apologize.)

While I Think Important Thoughts...

2009-11-14T12:44:00.001-06:00

Please contemplate upon this picture:

Bad Music Thursday: Shut Your Stupid Mouth, Diana Ross!

2009-11-12T08:49:00.002-06:00

You wanna know what's worse than a bad song from the 70's? When someone takes a bad song from the 70's and puts it to a techno beat:

Here's why I hate this song: it's about a stupid woman romanticizing the fact that she's being used for sex by some jackass.

Look, if someone wants to have a one-night stand or get involved in some mutual "sex-only" relationship, that's up to her (or him). But then don't pretend it's something more! If you want something more, don't let Mister "too cheap to spend a few bucks on a hooker" come over and take advantage of you. Or, if you're just looking for a flesh-and-blood alternative to your vibrator and you're using him just as much as he's using you, then be happy with that and don't subject the world to your delusional sappy "love" song.

Either way, shut your stupid mouth Diana Ross!

Flash Fiction Friday

2009-11-09T08:44:00.003-06:00

Friday Flash Fiction, as it is now erroneously termed, has switched things up this week. Instead of an opening sentence, we were given four words we needed to include in the story. They are in blue.

"You understand, of course, why I must appear in disguise," said the woman from behind her rubber mask.

Actually, I understood nothing about this situation, but sometimes it was better to not to ask a crazy person anything. I just stood behind the counter, waiting for the insanity to spill forth. I didn't have to wait long.

"I need to know I can trust you," she said, conspiratorially, looking over her shoulder and to the left and to the right, to make sure no one was listening. At 1:30 a.m. in the Kinkos on Broadway, that meant the one college student sitting at the PC with his earbuds in and his iPod cranked up. I think Crazy Lady was safe. For now!

"If they knew I was here, revealing all their lies, it would be the end of me. AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR?" she hissed between clenched teeth, grabbing my apron to pull my face closer to hers. Or, rather, the fake rubber one. "I don't have much time," she continued, slightly more calmly, yet no less unbalanced. "I need you to make 500 copies of this." She handed me a piece of paper.

It was blank.

I looked up at her. "You can't see it, can you?" She said, pityingly. "Only the Chosen Ones can read it. But we will spare you innocent bystanders when the time comes."

"Thank you. You're very kind," I replied. "Do you want this on white or colored paper?"

I couldn't see her face, but from the tone of her voice, she must've been looking at me like I was a brain-damaged cocker spaniel. "Dear," she said, patiently. "Do you think that message would show up on colored paper?"

I retreated to the storeroom, where I opened a fresh ream of white paper, put her sheet into an "originals" folder, waited a few minutes, and returned to the counter. I handed her the stack and cheerily announced, "All finished!"

She looked at the crisp white bundle, then at me. She pointed a manicured claw and me and spat, "You are one of THEM! You are trying to TRICK ME!" She backed away from me, shaking. She was seriously unglued.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to trick you. I ... just thought..."

"That I am crazy? That there is nothing on the paper?" she finished. "I assure you, young man, the future of the human race could very well depend upon you doing as I ask."

"Let's compromise," I said. I'll run this paper through the copier, but I'm only going to charge you for a ream of paper. It would soothe my conscience."

She nodded, so I took the papers back from her. "Uh, which side is...?" She pointed to the side facing me, to indicate where the message appeared. I dutifully performed my service, and handed everything back. This time, she was visibly relaxed.

She paid, of course, in cash.

As soon as she left, the college student jumped up from his seat and ran after her. Dismayed, I raced after them. I found the "student" on top of the masked lady, snarling at her in an unknown language and choking her in an alley. I pick up a metal garbage can lid and smacked him across the back of his head as hard as I could. He fell off and released his grip, but dashed away carrying as many papers as he could from the scene. Only about half of her order lay scattered about the alley, some in puddles of dank water.

"Are you all right? I asked her, panting. I helped her up, and began collecting whatever papers I could find. "Do you want me to make some more copies for you?"

"Yes," she croaked out from her damaged windpipe. "You have achieved redemption!" she announced, with a triumphant gleam in her eye.

Just then, we heard the explosion. I didn't need to look; I knew it was my store. The Kinkos had gone kablooey. But even before the blast had taken my livelihood, I knew that I was now part of something much bigger.

The Beauty Parlor and Shoe Shopping Can Wait! It's Lady Day on AMC!

2009-11-06T10:17:00.004-06:00

Blue Gal alerted me to a disconcerting film lineup on American Movie Classics: The Prince of Tides followed by Bridges of Madison County.

If you don't understand why that is nauseating, I can't explain it to you. If you understand, I don't have to.

Barf.

Moxie Blogged

2009-11-05T12:12:00.002-06:00

I don't feel like it, but she does. She wrote about Halloween.

Temporarily Out of Order. Please Check Back Later.

2009-11-03T08:43:00.001-06:00

Halloween Wrap-Up*

2009-11-02T07:40:00.003-06:00

*not you, you stinkin' mummies.

When you live in a neighborhood where someone owns a margarita machine and every Halloween involves a block party, "things" happen. And by "things," I mean I get tipsy. So tipsy that I believe I drank beer from a CAN. Of course, I've been drunker on Halloween, but anyways...

Überdilf, the girls, the dog and I stumbled home around 10:30 p.m. with the remains of my spiderweb 7-layer dip, 1/5 a bag of Fritos Scoops, our soft-sided cooler (empty), and the happiest hot-dog-and-potato-chip-laden dog in the world. We scrape off our Halloween makeup, put on our jammies and fall into bed. We all fall asleep immediately, including the comatose dog who accompanied the trick-or-treaters leash free and, as I mentioned before, consumed every bit of food that dropped from the drooping paper plates of drunken Halloween revelers.

That explains why she didn't bark when the doorbell rang at 12:30 a.m. (old time. New time: 11:30 p.m.) I was briefly roused from my fog, but thought I was hearing things, because Captain Food Coma the Wonder Dog didn't bark.

At 4:20 a.m. (3:20 new time), I swear I heard a mans voice calling, "Hello. Hello. Hello." from the foyer. Our foyer has a certain echo to it. I sat up. Again, the dog said nothing. I really WAS imagining it this time, but it was a great time to get a tall drink of water and some Tylenol, so I did. As I was about to climb back into bed, the doorbell rang. I KNEW it was for real this time. And the dog finally barked.

Dilf even woke up, which is really saying something, considering he could sleep through an atom bomb WITHOUT tequila being involved. We both went to the door, Dilf opened it and there was A., the ten-year-old girl from two doors down. Crying. She was locked out of her house ALL NIGHT. No one was home. We quickly let her in, put her in the guest bedroom, I rubbed her back and comforted her for a little while, then we went back downstairs (oh, the master bedroom is on the main floor in this house) to bed.

It seems she was supposed to spend the night at a friend's house and her mom took this opportunity to stay out all night. A. tried to call her mom using a neighbor's phone, but when mom saw an unfamiliar number, she didn't pick up. I don't know why A. left the friend's house (she said she was "tired" and wanted to go home.) I don't know why the mom didn't check her messages. I don't know anything other than the fact a 10 year old girl was left outside on her porch on a cold night and I WISH I would've answered the door the first time.