C.L. Bevill's Blog, page 26

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

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


I should just post this in front of the garden for next spring.
Do I need to say this again?
Never, never do this.  It turns out badly.
This was one of the packets.  (There were at least ten.)  Although the pumpkin leaves attempted to take over the garden, the yard, and possibly the world, actual giant pumpkin production was limited to four.  (FOUR!)  Three of the big bad boys were targeted by insidious insects who believed that their need for pumpkin consumption was greater than our need for giant pumpkins to ooo-n-ahh over.  So we were left with this one:


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


This packet says it might grow pumpkins up to 400-500 pounds.  Hah!
I would have had to have a Miracle-Gro drip and a 24/7 guard out there
to protect from squirrels, slugs, things of unknown origin, and zombies.
(Zombies LOVE giant pumpkins.  Bet you didn't know that.)  ( I need
to go write a novella about zombies, right now.)  (I'm going to write
a zombie novella AND look up the word 'knowl' because it just
looks wrong.)
Oh, no!  I've broken out my bamboo pad!  This could be bad!


Oh, isn't it fun to cut and paste, even when you don't have
an X-acto knife?
Another tangent has just occurred.  Could be bad.


And I have burned Mellow, my sister's cat, again.  What does
this have to do with pumpkins?  Nothing, but it's funny.  Or at least
it is to me.
Here is another pumpkin that was grown in the patch.  It's an effed up pumpkin and it came from one of the non-giant pumpkin packages.  Apparently this pumpkin didn't know which way it's tail end was supposed to point so it curled up.  Doesn't this pumpkin kind of look like an alien?  (From Alien or Aliens?  Except orange?  Hmm.  Alien/pumpkin conspiracy.  Has that been done before?)


This looks really disgusting.
The cute part was that while I was
taking the picture Cressy stopped me
so she could give the pumpkin
bunny ears.  Haha.  Fooled the pumpkin.
It kind of looks like a peanut.  I think I was supposed to wait until it wasn't green anymore but insects were strolling by it and saying, "Hey, baby, you look good in orange," and "You aren't from around here, are you, honey?"

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


Oh, this is going to be bad.  Very, very bad.
So a fairy godmother came by and wanted to change the pumpkin into a neat-mosquito carriage for a girl who was going to be a princess for the evening.
But hold up.  The pumpkin didn't want to be anyone's bitch.
The pumpkin decided to get involved.  It became empowered and then got a makeover.  Later it came in third on Dancing With the Stars.  Then it wrote its memoirs.

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

That's my world.

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

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



"Why?  Why do I have to tilt my head?
Why are you bothering me?  I have to ride on
all the rides with Cressy while you just stand
around drinking lemonade.  *Whine.*"
We went to the county fair yesterday.  (You might have suspected from the pithy title.)  So naturally it rained cats and dogs.  (Wouldn't it be funny if it really rained cats and dogs?  Talk about social programs that would need to be created.)  See the rain on HIM's hat above.  That was after we took refuge in a tent and consumed of the lemonade and corn dogs.  (This is a reference to 'The Stupidest Man Ever' blog from February of 2011.  We eat of the pork.  We eat of the mystery meat in the corn dogs, too.  With big smiles on our faces, too.  Or at least everyone but Cressy.)


See.  Lemonade and corn dogs.  This is after
the rain and several hours so Cressy is
clearly pooped.  Just look at the way
she's eating the stupid corn dog.  It looks
like it has mange.  Haha.  It's a corn dog pun.
But after the consumption of fairground delicacies (Somehow we missed the cotton candy and deep fried Twinkies.  Gasp!) we were back to the enjoyment of the rides.


See.  HIM had a look on his face that said,
"Why did I agree to this?"  It also smacked
of Nancy Kerrigan, "WHHhh-yyyyy?"
(Okay, low blow to Nancy Kerrigan but I
couldn't resist.)
I had a moment of clarity here.  Here it is explained in visual effect:
Of course, I had to go back and point something out in this picture that the average viewer/blog reader might have missed.
I didn't go on the Ferris wheel with HIM and Cressy because my MIL was with us.  (But also because I negotiated who would get to go on all the rides with Cressy before we got to the fair.  Haha.  I'm smarter than HIM.)  So we stayed on the ground whilst HIM and Cressy got to see the storm up close and in a friendly fashion.  (Upon contemplation, this was probably a bad idea to allow my only child on a huge, honking piece of metal that extends several hundred feet in the air while there was a thunderstorm approaching.  And oh, yes, maybe my only husband, too.  Oh, HIM knows I love him.)  (Even Ben Franklin would be saying, "Hmm.  Key on a string to a kite versus being on a Ferris wheel that puts you as close to the action without actually being encased in a suit of armor?  Who's on the $100 bill, bee-yotch?")

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


HIM is not really sweating like a pig.  This
is rain damage, plus he sat on a ride
while it was pouring so he got the infamous
wet butt stain that people could laugh at but
won't because they're all wet, too.  (Did I mention
that I asked HIM, my MIL, and Cressy if we
should bring an umbrella and was summarily shot
down, so I retaliated by grumbling
about umbrellas for the rest of the day?  I should
have mentioned it.)  Do I need to mention
the intelligent person in the picture with the blue
umbrella?
 And again I'm forced to add artistic license to the photographs because it needs to be more than self-explanatory.  (HIM just read this and said it should be sartistic - a combination of artistic and sarcastic.  Haha.  He should be a comedian, except not.)
Then the sun came out and everything started to get steamy.  Really steamy.  There was steam coming off the asphalt.  We went to check out the Home Arts exhibits and discovered that Cressy's snickerdoodles had gotten a participation ribbon and her collage had gotten another participation ribbon.  (A participation ribbon is the green ribbon that they give out when a child under the age of 8 didn't get first, second or third place.  Don't tell Cressy.)


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


I mean, these snickerdoodles were so good, they could sing
from 'The Pirates of Penzance.'  I dare you to tell me that
these cookies weren't good enough for at least a third place.
(Artistic note: the hat was supposed to look like an old fashioned
generals hat with feathers but I think it looks like some Alpine
boy who's about to yodel for his sheep/cows/other animal that I
don't know about.)
And now I'm drawing cookie-related doodles.  (Get it?  Snickerdoodles?  Cookie doodles?  I amuse myself.  Sometimes only myself.  But still amusing.)



And Fat Woman has left the building. ( Zinged Elvis and Frankie
in the same caption.  Very sad.  My mother would have
slapped my hands.  She loved Elvis and Frankie.)
Anyway, we went to the fair.  We were rained upon.  Cressy walked away triumphantly with a pink dolphin.  Upon arriving at home everyone collapsed in a coma-like state that was similar to what zombies go through except without the consumption of brains.


She's still alive, I swear.  And the dolphin makes
squeaky noises when you squeeze one of it's
flippers.  I hate the stupid dolphin.
And thus concludes the epic journey to the county fair.  May it never happen again, until maybe next year.

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

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


And this was before she even saw Granny.
Incidentally, I had loads of editorial advice on this one.
"Mommy, you didn't draw the teeth."
"Mommy, you didn't draw the tongue."
"Mommy, look at me."  (She was demonstrating
the pose so I could capture the moment more
effectively.)
So Granny appeared.  All was well.  Hugs were exchanged.  Cressy was ecstatic.  "GRANNY IS HERE!  My heart has begun to beat again."  (Okay, me again, but implicit.)  We collected her luggage.  We went down the ramp.  I stopped at the machine to pay the parking ticket before we went out to the car.  I put my debit card away.  I put my receipt away.

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

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


There was probably a lot more arm movement involved here.  Also
cursing under my breath.  Also, people will stop and stare if you
suddenly start flinging things out of your purse in the middle
of a parking lot, even at Dulles Airport.  Surprisingly.
I sighed loudly.  Then I began to search all over again.  Pants pockets, front and back.  I searched the purse again.  I looked in the car in case it had fallen out.  Then I looked in the back of the car where the purse had briefly rested while I loaded luggage.  At this point both Cressy and Granny are looking at me with a little bit of alarm.  ("Is Mommy's face supposed to turn that color?"  "I don't know.")  My MIL offered to help me look and we looked again.  Even Cressy helped.  "Is it here, Mommy?"  "Is it there, Mommy?"  "Mommy, did you put it in your shoe?"

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

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

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

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

But I did have...THE RECEIPT.

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


You'd think I might be exaggerating here, but it ain't by much.
Then she got on the phone and started making very strange noises.  She said, "OH, NO!  OH, NO!"  Then she paused, listened and said, "OH, NO!  OH, NO!"  This went on for quite some time.  I realized belatedly that this was the only credit/cash booth in the exit lane at the airport parking lot at the time.  And there was a line building up behind us.  The guy in the SUV behind me was making faces that indicated that he was highly frustrated or constipated.  Possibly both.  Later, he began to bang his head against the steering wheel.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Hahaha.  My MIL deserves the kudos.

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

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

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

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


Bubba and the Missing Woman's
cover as envisioned by
Cressy.  Possibly this should be
called Bubba and the Terrible Tree.  Or
Bubba and the Shocking Shrub.
Maybe Bubba and the Sickening Sprout.
I wonder if she saw my earlier blog
about the tree monster movie.
Possibly I was too verbose.
Nawwwwwwww.  Not me..
Attention Bubba fans.  This isn't what is going to happen in the third Bubba novel.  This is what happens in my daughter's head.  I will explain.  At night when we tuck her in we ask her what she's going to dream about, and then she asks us what we're going to dream about.  (Lately, I've been dreaming about Bubba 3.  This is a common occurrence for me.  It'll be on my mind consistently until I've finished the 2nd draft.  Sometimes I get cool ideas from dreams, especially after I take cold medicine.  (Weird dreams.  I have a theory about cold medicine causing very strange dreams.  You ever notice that after ingesting a little NyQuil?  Hey, you know what I'm talking about.) .)  (Somewhere, some grammar Nazi is cursing me for putting parentheses within parentheses but I say oh, go for it.  It's my blog and I'll do what I wanna do. Me like bad grammar and shitty punctuation.,:;.  Hahahaha.  Also bad language.)

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

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

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

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


In Cressy's version, Willodean is apparently as dumb as a box
of hammers.  Where does she get this?  I do not know.
A giant tree has eaten Willodean.  That's why she's missing.  It's a very nasty tree.  It snuck up on her and snatched her up.  Then it swallowed her down and disappeared her.  So Bubba's looking everywhere for her.  OH, NO!

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

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


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


More commentary from the peanut gallery.  Cressy: "Mommy, why is that man
laughing so hard?"  Me: "Remember this is the story you told me?"  Cressy:
"Oh.  Well, I think that you should have another blog about an evil man
who laughs like this."  Then she demonstrates.  "Bwwwaahahahahaha."
And it's actually a really good evil laugh.  Good training.
Anyway, the evil tree goes to get Willodean.  ("Mommy, can we rename her?  I mean, like something really good?  Emerald?  Or Princess, maybe?"  These are the names of two of her favorite stuffed animals at the moment.  One is a humming bird and the other is a python.  Oh, my life.)

Hey Bubba and Willodean fans!  Don't worry!  This didn't really
hurt Willodean.  She was wearing her bullet proofed vest AND, more
importantly, Cressy said she wasn't hurt.  "Don't worry, Mommy,
Willodean wasn't really hurt by the tree monster."
 Bubba looked and looked and couldn't find poor Willodean.  The tree monster had her inside of it.  Very sad.


See.  Willodean all unharmed.  Just pissed off.  Who wouldn't want
to hang out inside of a tree monster?
And then what happened was that Willodean got very tired of being squished inside the tree monster.  She started yanking on the tree monster's roots and she tied them all into knots.  And the tree monster cried, "OH, NO!  Not my roots!"

I really like that Cressy has Willodean rescue herself.  In my version
she would have shot out its eyes and used the tree branches to roast marshmallows.
Tying the roots together made the tree monster weak and it fell over and let her go.  Bubba then found Willodean and they were happy.  (I love a happy ending.)


Cressy thinks that playing Legos together is the ultimate form of
friendship.  Should be an interesting discovery for future
boyfriends.  (Did anyone notice that Bubba and Willodean
are walking off into the sunset together?)
In conclusion:  This does not happen in Bubba and the Missing Woman.  Also, I'm not hinting, foreshadowing, or giving clues.  This happened in my daughter, Cressy's, mind.  Only.  I thought it was funny, as I usually do, and thought it needed to be remembered for posterity.  Or at least for my posterity.  However, if I can work the Lego's line into the real book, I will.  I love blogging.
And oh, yeah, I've been reminded to tell the readers that the evil scientist gave up his evil ways and found a girlfriend at the local Wal-Mart instead.  HEA and all that jazz.

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

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

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

In the annals of time, this was followed by the long extension cord.  I used to carry my phone ALL over the living room, courtesy of the long extension cord.  The cord wrapped around furniture, coffee tables, rugs, etc.  Oh, what fun.  I think I mentioned before what a useful tool this was in tormenting my cats.  (Hey, I didn't ask the cat to walk over the cord while I was holding on to the other end.)  (And it didn't really hurt the cat, just ask Mellow, my sister's cat whom I occasionally taunt.)  In any case, while the cord was long, it wasn't long enough to reach into the bathroom.  (Honestly, I probably could have purchased one that was long enough to go into the bathroom but it didn't occur to me to do so.  Probably best for all.)
See, this isn't Mellow.  But possibly Mellow, my sister's cat,
who I continue to taunt in a hilarious fashion, may appear
later in this blog.Then came the portable phone.  (For those of you born after 1990, this meant a phone that was about the size of a toaster that could be carried around without  a cord, but not a cell phone.)  I don't remember the exact year, but I remember you couldn't go very far without it fuzzing out.  And for some reason it didn't dawn on me to take the damn thing into the bathroom.  Miss Manners had saved me again.

Then some time later, HIM came to me and said that he had taken it into the bathroom while talking to his...get this...MOTHER on the phone.  While speaking to Mom, he had done his dirty, sinful business, and then, here comes the really big mistake part, he had flushed...all while still on the phone with his mother.  I'm not sure what HIM was thinking.  (This was a prime WTFWIT moment.  It's possible it was the original WTFWIT moment, but probably not.)  Perhaps HIM thought he could mask the unmistakable flushing noise while talking loudly.  There might have been a rapid cough-clear-the-throat maneuver while pressing the toilet handle.  Or perhaps there was the quick-flush-fast-and-walk-away-from-the-noise-faster method.  If you flush and run the person on the other end might not realize what you were doing.  (Maybe they won't notice IF the person you're talking to at the very moment that you flush realizes that a) they've won the lottery, b) a meteor is streaking toward their house, and c) that Mel Gibson has stopped over for coffee and an interesting chat about law enforcement officials.  IF.)
Is that my mother on the phone?
Haha.  Police fan alert.  I always
wanted to use that quote.My MIL, you see, is not deaf, and soon cottoned onto the fact that her eldest son had been talking to her while simultaneously using the john.  She was not amused.  On the contrary, she was less than amused.  I believe that it was years before she stopped asking HIM if he was in the bathroom when they talked on the telephone.  (I wouldn't have owned up to it.  I would have made something up.  It was the TV.  It was an odd atmospheric reaction caused by swamp gas and nuclear fall-out.  It was my cat barfing up a hairball.  A BIG hairball.  Yeah.  That was it.)

Well, the long and short of it is:

Don't use the portable phone while using the potty.
Sage words for the sound of mind.  It seems to be a rule.  I'm not sure if Miss Emily said it first.  It's possible that Miss Emily thought it didn't really need to be said since she started dolling out advice about etiquette in 1946.  (Remember the rotary phone that doesn't migrate into the toilet?  The chances are that it probably did not come up.)
However, portable phones opened the door.  (There's a bad pun there but I'm not going that way.)  But now that we have cell phones, well, whoopsie doodle.  A whole 'nother can of worms has just been opened up.  As a matter of fact, worms are flying everydamnwhere.

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

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

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

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