Lorca Damon's Blog, page 10

I Used to Own a Tree

Once upon a time, I had a tree. I can’t say that I luuuuuved the tree, but it was nice and green and really looked cool in front of my house. Now I own a feng shui collection of sticks planted in my front yard. I look like I’m protesting something, only I forgot to tell people what. THIS, my dear friends, is what we in the South refer to as “crepe murder,” a process in which some hapless man doing yard work comes along and gets frustrated with removing every delicate limb of last season’s growth off a crepe myrtle tree, and just hacks it.

You’re probably already thinking, “Gosh, Lorca, it’s like all you ever do is complain about something your husband did around the house.” HA! Shut up! My husband didn’t do this! So there!

Sorry, that was harsh. I got another look at my tree picture and took it out on you.

No, my husband didn’t do this. Last weekend, a man literally pulled up in our driveway, revved up a chainsaw, and cut my tree off and took the limbs away in the back of the truck. No, we did not call the police and report an arborcide. We just waved. We know him, he’s elderly, he’s crazy, and it kind of keeps me awake at night that he’s still allowed to drive a car. But he was holding a chain saw and there was no way in hell I was gonna say something to him about my tree. It’s just a tree. This picture would have looked very different if he had decide to lop my legs off.

And This Is Why I Love You, Internet People

Really. You’re the best. Sadly, even though all of you agree with me about my home repair crisis, my husband doesn’t think you’re special at all and he refuses to uninstall the new microwave oven and take it back to the store to get one with green LED numbers instead of blue ones. He’s a hater, y’all.

Some of you felt that I should just not use the appliance, which would be my first go-to plan, except I can’t really swear that I ever used it much in the first place. I didn’t say I don’t like USING the microwave, I said I didn’t like SEEING the microwave.

But then, when I began having car trouble because I found out that my new Toyota is a drug addict, once again it was Internet People to the rescue who insisted that my husband take this seriously and foot the bill for an in-patient treatment option. Again, he declined. I’m telling you, he just doesn’t care like we do.

The latest problem in my household that all of you Internet People will completely understand but that my poo-poo-head husband thinks is stupid if Pinterest. See? All I had to do was say, “Pinterest,” and you sat up straighter in your chair hoping to see cat memes and nasty e-cards. My husband doesn’t see it as productive work, and gripes a lot about me pinning things like awesome recipes that I don’t ever plan to cook even if I didn’t have an ugly, mismatched microwave.

Basically, it’s taught me that some people are just jerks who can’t be trusted to go out on a limb for vehicles with drug problems or cats with their heads stuck in Kleenex boxes. But I have all of you, and that makes up for it.

My Car Is On Drugs

Despite having been told many, many times not to call him with car questions because he doesn’t know anything about cars, I called my husband with a car question.

ME: I was driving and I didn’t do anything, but now there’s a warning light on.

HIM: I’ve told you not to call me about cars. I don’t know anything about cars. We have THREE road-side assistance memberships, call one of them.

ME: Why do we have three?

HIM: Because I sign up and pay the annual fee, and then you do crazy stuff to your car and we wear out our welcome with the roadside assistance people.

ME: Well, the car still works and it’s not making any noises. It just has this light.

HIM: (sigh) What does it say?

ME: AUTO LSD. It says my car is high.

HIM: (silence)

ME: I’m not making this up.

HIM: Your car isn’t high.

ME: How do you know? You just said you didn’t know anything about cars, and when I tell you that my car is very clearly confessing to an LSD addiction, you just blow it off like it’s no big deal. This car is CRYING OUT FOR HELP and you. don’t. care.

HIM: Did you ask yourself how your car would have gotten LSD?

ME: You know where I work. That part of town is lousy with drug dealers. Someone could have laced the gas at the gas station I use.

HIM: (silence)

ME: I told you I wasn’t making this up. Now I think it’s hallucinating. The GPS screen is playing some drugged-out version of that movie The Wall.

HIM: That would be the backup camera.

ME: If it’s the backup camera, shouldn’t the images be in reverse?

HIM: Only if you’re driving backwards.

ME: But I’m not. So it’s all just a hallucination. This car is strung out and needs professional help.

HIM: Please don’t call the roadside assistance people. I can’t afford a fourth membership.

I Am NOT Anal Retentive, I’m Just A Bitch

First of all, thanks for waiting around for me to remember that I have a blog and write something new on it. I didn’t actually forget to write a post, I just didn’t care enough to write a post. Last week’s whirlwind trip to NY for work was a confusing blur of rubber galoshes and Irish bars. With work thrown in just to keep it real.

I got home from NY very brain-fried and tired, only to discover that my husband had done THIS to our kitchen while I was gone.

Yeah. Stare at it for a while and let it break your heart, too. What? You don’t see the problem? Keep looking.

HE CHANGED THE MICROWAVE AND BOUGHT ONE WITH BLUE NUMBERS INSTEAD OF GREEN ONES! NOW THE NUMBERS DON’T MATCH! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT???

(UNRELATED NOTE: I learned over the weekend that those three little question marks in a row are called an “interrobang.” Well, it’s only three question marks if you’re an angry 13-year-old girl. In grownup land, it’s actually just one question mark followed by one exclamation point. But isn’t interrobang the greatest word? It’s going to be the name of my new band, if I ever start a band or learn to play an instrument.)

But oh my gosh he changed the microwave! Yes, ours had broken, per my last post about blue flames bouncing around inside of it whenever I turned it on, but he bought mismatched LED displays! Does the man know nothing about aesthetics or about what’s it’s like to live with a crazy person? Despite my gratitude at the great difficulty he went to in order to install that behemoth of an appliance (we’re going to ignore the pillow that he suspiciously set on fire during the installation process…even though it was my pillow), I simply cannot use mismatched appliances. Since I would never dream of asking him to undo all that work and take that very heavy thing back to the store, I’m going to need him to either buy a new stove to match it, or stop eating since I won’t be cooking with either of the mismatched appliances.

Is It Supposed to Be Blue?

Seriously. I want to know what you thought this post was going to be about when you decided to click on it. You sicko.

I’m actually and very innocently referring to the blue flame that shoots out of my microwave oven every time I try to use it. Everything I cook acts like I’ve wrapped it in tinfoil and dipped it in lead before placing it in that magical light-up box.

Unfortunately, the microwave makes up the bulk of my cooking ability, so it’s been pretty lean at the old Lorca house. It was too late to order a pizza when I discovered you cannot actually cook a microwave dinner on the stove top, no matter how well you think you insulated it. That foil on a Hungry Man dinner blows up like a Jiffy Pop, leaving you with a very interesting beef stew-like concoction. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t a beef-flavored Hungry Man.

The real kicker is that the microwave is the latest item on a quickly falling apart list of things that are going wrong with our house. I didn’t mind too much when the washing machine got plugged up because it really just seemed like the excuse I’ve been looking for to stop doing laundry altogether and just buy new clothes each week. That was a win-win, all around. Once the washing machine was fixed and put back into place, the dryer went. I swear I had nothing to do with that one, but the anti-laundry shopping spree did seem like the only solution. Again.

After both of those appliances were finally put back in order, the light bulb in the fridge went out. Now stop it, I know you’re thinking that I could probably just handle that one on my own, but actually I can’t. Our fridge has two light bulbs, so it’s still very scary to open the fridge and see it only half lit up in a hazy, flickering, I’m-gonna-get-you-the-killer-is-right-behind-you kind of way. Plus, I would have to move all of the very frightening out-of-date foods out of the way to get to the light bulb, and then I would be forced to acknowledge what happens to hummus that’s been allowed to ferment and I’m just not strong enough for that.

While it is tempting to think my house is possessed and I should probably just move, I think the more likely culprit is my house is just old and I should probably move. I wonder if the new owners will let me leave the hummus behind.

 

WTF? It’s the Weekend.

Sure, it’s Saturday, so I was going to be as lazy as humanly possible with this post. I was just going to repost a bunch of pictures I found on the internet and call it a day. Only since I’m such a giver, I got really sucked into researching this topic and had to have professional help to get me back out of the dark hole I had plunged into.

It has long been one of the mysteries of the Universe that people find my blog by mistake after searching for horse stuff on Google. No one knows why. I never write about horses. In fact, I’ve written exactly ONE horse post ever, and even that one was only in response to the crazy numbers of people who search for horses, only to be blindly led by metadata to my website. But the horsieness goes on, thanks to the SEO mysteries of online search capabilities.

So today, here is another gift for all of my raging horse fans out there. A SECOND post about horses, complete with pictures I took off the internet because I wanted to be lazy.

Photo Number One: People who want to see this photo are welcome to come to my blog any time. It’s just funny. Not the picture itself, oh no. The fact that someone bought all that stuff and thought to himself, “You know what would be AWESOME? If I could get the HORSE to wear it!” Think it through…someone patiently bribed that horse to stand still for this. Probably with horse-crack.

Photo Number Two: This photo is for the people that I’m actually afraid are searching for horses and coming to my blog. Yes, the secret data that website owners have access to shows me exactly what people type on Google when they end up here. It would scar for you life. As does this picture. Yup, that is an S&M costume for people who like to dress up as horses and then have sex. Presumably with other people, but possibly with other horses, although I have to say I don’t think that outfit is going to fool anyone, human or horse. This costume is actually quite famous. I saw it on Law & Order:SVU.

Photo Number Three: Still with the possibility that this is a famous horses photo, only this guy was on Dateline NBC with Chris Hansen. You know he dresses that horse up in a pink tarp to lure small children into his molester van.

Photo Number Four: This last one just makes me sad. For the horse. It even looks humiliated, like it took this gig to pay the bills while he was a struggling actor and now it surfaces from time to time thanks to paparazzi who blackmail him.

There you go, Universe. I have now provided you with all the justification you need to type “latex horsey sex” into your search engine and come to my blog. I would love to say that you’re the weirdo in this relationship, but I do write about manatees with rabies and Olympic curling and phone sex credit card operators. You’ll fit right in.

If the cops ever find this on my computer, I’m going to jail.

I Can’t Decide Whose Olympic Team I’m Going to Join

Yeah, even I couldn’t finish that title without laughing and having to wipe the spit off my computer screen. I, my friends, am no athlete, not even now that overprotective mothers have somehow gotten their children’s schools to declare cup stacking to be a sport.

Once upon a time it might have been possible. I do know that there was a time in my life in which I sort of resembled a boney and lithe Russian gymnast. But then I turned four and no longer fit the bill. There was also a brief period in which my developing skeleton helped me at least look like an Olympic swimmer, but sadly, I quickly left Brazilian or Italian team swimmer behind and went straight to East German swim team member. Men’s team, women’s team…makes no difference.

Luckily, the years I spent living in Europe gave me the chance to spend a lot of time skiing, so there were a few years in which I looked like a downhill skier. Unluckily, I never said I got GOOD at downhill skiing, so I’m going to have to imagine that I looked like a member of the Olympic ski team from a country that is situated on the equator AND has no mountains. Those people don’t ski a lot, and therefore I could probably hang with them on the slopes.

Now that I don’t have a lot of time to train (I mean, work out, and by that I really just mean walk briskly), I’m starting to resemble a power lifter. Again, men’s team, women’s team…eh. I’m fighting with every ounce of strength I don’t have. I’m willing to settle for looking like most women pro bowlers I’ve seen. At least those ladies can still rock a pair of shorts. But I bet those cup stackers have some ripped biceps.

Now That He’s Gonna Live, I Kinda Want to Kill Him

Shock and surprise: men are stupid babies when they’re sick. They wine, they sniffle, they insist no one has ever been as sick as they are right now. It doesn’t matter in the least that YOU were this sick with the EXACT SAME THING a week ago, there’s no way your bout with the crud was as deadly as theirs.

At my mom’s insistence, I went to the doctor last week to find out that the thing that was making me sound like a three-pack-a-day smoker who had developed tuberculosis and bubonic plague was actual just a viral crud. Didn’t even get a shot of antibiotics.

But when my husband came down with it and I talked him out of driving all the way to Atlanta to check himself into the CDC, he discovered something different: it was just a viral crud. Wait, that’s not different at all. That’s exactly what I found out. He called me from the pharmacy where he was waiting for his prescriptions, and it didn’t matter that I could describe his medications AND the doctor’s neck tie, even though I hadn’t been within twenty miles of the clinic at the time.

ME: “Lemme guess, he checked your blood work and said it was viral, then gave you four prescriptions.”

HIM: “Yeah, but these aren’t the same four prescriptions you got.”

ME: “You got Alleve, Zyrtec, some steroids, and a coughing pill.”

HIM: “No! So there, smarty pants.” (Only it sounded like “Tho-there, sthmarty pahts,” because he’s stuffed up.)

ME: “Those are the every day names for them. They have different druggie names. And you also got a shot.”

HIM: “Ha! You’re wrong! I got TWO shots!”

ME: “It was the same shot, dufus! You just got two doses, one in each hip!”

HIM: silence

ME: “Right?”

HIM: “When I get home with my steroids, I’m gonna roid rage on you.”

ME: “Good luck, buddy, I’ve been on my steroids for a week. I will fold you like a cheap road map.”

HIM: “I want ice cream.”

ME: “Then you might want to buy some while you’re at the store.”

My First-Ever Product to Review

If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, and I mean, even a day or two, you would understand why there aren’t more advertisers beating down the door of my email inbox, offering me products to sample and review. Perhaps it was my blog post about my Aunt Gertie being a ho that turns Madison Avenue off, or maybe the one about manatees catching STDs. The post where I let readers vote on whether or not that thing growing on my face was cancer or Mitt Romney got a lot of traffic, but probably not a lot of confidence from the marketing people.

So it was really weird when the people at Vick’s offered me a new-fangled thermometer to try. The only tie-ins I can think of are my very recent post about being so sick I pee when I cough, or a much older post about not being able to remember which of our family’s thermometers is the rectal one, and just having to play thermometer roulette when illness strikes.

The best part about their offer of a free Star Trek-style thermometer is it arrived only days into my illness, so it really was perfect timing. Well played, Vicks.

Thought Number One: I couldn’t get the package open. I have no idea why they childproofed it, unless it’s just standard company policy for anything made by Vicks. My 12-year-old had to help me, and even then, she had to stab it with a knife over and over. Or maybe she was just enjoying the stabby motions. She is my kid, after all.

Thought Number Two: It looks like a vibrator. A purse-sized model. I didn’t know Vicks made those.

Thought Number Three: Nope, still looks like a vibrator.

Thought Number Four: Why are there three “on” buttons? Oh wait, only this one is the “on” button. This other one is the “make it work” button. I still don’t know what the third one is for.

Thought Number Five: Do we have any Cheetos?

Thought Number Six: “I AM testing the new product, thank you very much! Don’t you have homework to be doing???”

Thought Number Seven: Okay, let’s try this baby out.

I lined up the family to be my hapless guinea pigs. I stuck this thing behind each squirming, uncooperative child’s ear and pressed the button. Like I said, it’s all very Star Trekky. It looks like how the bad guy alien sneaks up on people in the Turbo Lift and injects them with a poison that is so instantaneous the victim drops to the floor immediately, giving the bad guy alien enough time to stash the body in one of the wall panels before the Lift doors open.

I am sad to say that no one in my household is a solid 98.6 degrees, including my 95-degree youngest child and the 99-degree dog. I was a solid 97, with some decimal thrown in. The thermometer doesn’t seem to have an off switch, so it sat there staring at me for a few more minutes. Now if only vibrators didn’t have an off switch, that’s a product I could get behind.

Look me in the face and tell me that doesn’t look like a mini vibrator.

My Illness Level Has Gone to DefCon Pee-When-I-Cough

There’s this birth control pill that makes you only have four periods a year. You’re welcome. I think it’s intended for women who are just so freaking busy that they can’t be bothered with bodily functions. These are probably the same people who take DriUp tablets so they don’t have to urinate as often, too. Here’s the catch with this God-doesn’t-know-what-He’s-doing-with-our-plumbing-so-we’re-gonna-change-things-up-a-bit pill: it makes you have four periods a year, but it’s the same amount of blood. Read the fine print. So instead of having one period a month, you have three periods all at the same time, once per fiscal quarter. You basically sit in a kiddie pool for a week of your life, four times a year, wallowing in your own filth.

That’s what it’s like when I get sick. Well, without the kiddie pool. But still going with the wallowing in filth, especially since I can’t remember how long it’s been since I brushed my teeth and I might have been wearing this same shirt for three days now.

I never get sick. Ever. My immune system is so good, I could lick shopping carts in the Walmart parking lot and nothing would happen to me. So when I do get sick, it’s probably from bubonic plague or some disease that’s been wiped out in every country on Earth except for three small ones where you still buy your bride after checking her teeth.

But now, it’s happened. I have my tri-annual illness, and this time it’s really trying to kill me. I have self-medicated with hot tea and with whiskey, (not always at the same time, but sometimes) and I invested in a menthol vapor thing for my bedroom. I cough up stuff, I sneeze out stuff, and now, thanks to lack of exercise and the birth of two children, I pee stuff when I cough. I’m just going to go ahead and sit in the kiddie pool and ride this one out.