Ferret-ocity

*One more in the Halloween Blog Carnival. Because I can.*

I read in the paper that a man tried to filch a ferret by carrying the creature out of the store concealed in his pants. From what I know about ferrets, that’s going out of the safety zone for a Halloween costume. Without too much bother, it could give a whole new meaning to the term “rip off.”

I’ll go all out in a race for the last macadamia nut cookie, especially if it’s generously decorated with white chocolate chips, but there are some forms of art I'd rather not suffer for. And while I’m a fan of creative Halloween costuming, I haven’t reached (or passed) the point in my life when I’m willing to take one in the naughty bits for the top prize at the party.

Forget your Freddie Krugers and your numerical Saw catalogue of characters. (This outfit was brought to you by the numbers 1-6, your local hardware store, and Roger Ebert with a big thumbs down.) What could be scarier that a man dancing up to your doorstep with a frightened ferret fighting for a breath of fresh air stuffed down one leg of your Halloween zombie pants?

Call me crazy, but a costume that could result in a row of itching stitches across your butterfly tattoo is going beyond the call of duty for Halloween. Some things aren’t worth going through for a fun size Snicker bar.

And while chances are good for winning a prize in the local costume contest, you have to consider the possibly that your pants could explode at an inconvenient time and attack the judges on a crazed candy rampage. Seems like any loot this guy gets, he’d have to stuff down his right leg to appease the beast within.

I think I’ll stick with the costume I have. I’m fifty years old and sport a body designed by Ben & Jerry. Shovel me into a pair of hip huggers and a belly shirt and I’ll send ferret boy running back to the pet store for reinforcements.

And Michael Jackson thought he had a Thriller night!

Snack Attack

Due to recent sugar attacks around the country, it is important to familiarize yourself with safety tips designed to protect you and any sugary snack in your possession. The next strike could happen anywhere and at any time of day, although a remarkable amount of activity takes place during the American Idol audition shows. Amazingly, unidentified sources claim that more than 50% of attacks happen in your own home. I personally discovered this through a traumatic incident involving my recliner couch.

One night as I reclined lazily on the couch taking in a rousing game of Wheel of Fortune and making a sport of guessing what sort of fashion abomination Vanna would exploit that particular evening, I casually tore a tiny corner from a snack-size candy bar. Immediately, three starving dogs, two ravenous teenagers, and a fluffy kitten on the Atkins diet took up strategic positions around the den, blocking all exits and creating an impassable moat made of drool. I can’t be sure because of the size involved, but I think the kitten was wearing a SWAT team uniform.

Ordinarily I am not a violent person, but I would not hesitate to de-kidney anyone who tried to steal my Almond Joy. Still, I couldn’t believe snack-theft could happen to me. Don’t wait until you’re a victim. Follow my tips and hang on to your Twinkie when times get tough.

1. Find an easily defensible location for snacking. The bathroom may appear to be safe, but chocolate-deprived bandits may well charge the door, forcing you to flush the goods. Instead, pick a low-traffic location such as the laundry room. The predator’s natural fear of enforced sock-cuffing or towel-folding will provide natural protection.

2. Should a family member or other assailant approach you for a bite of your Kit Kat bar, do not give it to him. Distract him by throwing the wrapper over his head. While he is checking the paper for melted chocolate and toffee bits, escape over the couch. Run in a zig zag pattern to avoid tripping over the dog who is undoubtedly lingering in the area and will begin a lateral defense in an attempt to snag free-falling crumbs.

3. Try not to eat in a populated, well-lit area, such as the kitchen where, more than likely, stray family members, assorted door-to-door salesmen, and a nice selection of neighbor’s kids are hanging onto the refrigerator door staring balefully into the freezer chanting “Klondike Bar. Klondike Bar.”

4. Women have a tendency to sit in their recliners and open a Snickers bar while they chat on the phone or balance their checkbook. Never do this. Distraction is the open window of opportunity for a chocolate thief. Trudge into the dining room mumbling random comments about polishing the silver. As soon as the door swings shut, pop that candy bar into your mouth like it was a chocolate covered Chiclet.

5. Sometimes, even with proper precautions, your territory may be breached by the enemy. If the predator has a weapon, please be cautious. A baby with a wet diaper should be taken seriously. Take time to tuck the candy bar into your underwear drawer in order to avoid a stressful situation at the changing table. In some instances, chocolate has been known to serve as an unwitting player in a game of biological warfare.

Even after all of these precautions it may, in some instances, be easier to share. Unless it involves Girl Scout cookies. Then it’s every man for himself.

Especially if he’s a girl.

Nonny Nonny NaNo

My husband is participating in NaNoWriMo, an acronym that translates into human speak as National Novel Writing Month. Participants pledge to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month. That’s sort of like condensing the time it takes to have a baby from nine months to four weeks, with a minute or two at the end for hard labor or editing.

He confessed he'd signed up using the tone of voice he ususally reserves for admitting that he ate the last of the Halloween candy while I'll digging under the couch cushions for a Snickers wrapper that still has a smudge of chocolate left.

“I’m doing NaNo”

“Isn’t that something kids say to taunt their friends?”

He's hunched in front of his computer like a cat in a rainstorm. Scattered notebooks and assorted pens and markers cover his desk. My husband has a serious attachment to office supplies, but I can’t really blame him. I have feelings for fountain pens and sticky notes that verge on obsessive. He peers at me around a mound of wadded papers. “Not Nonny Nonny. It’s Nano.”

“That sounds like an old Irish drinking song. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“You’re not listening,” Bill begins to buff his head rapidly with one hand, a gesture that indicates one more well-timed remark will turn him into a spitting mess. Let's watch the fun.

“It’s NaNoWriMo.”

“Is that some sort of mystical religion?”

“No it’s. . .” He’s sputtering.

“Don’t let Madonna know. You’ll be wearing matching bracelets in no time.”

It’s cruel, I know, but the man was so tense, he couldn’t cross his arms without shooting the wax from his ears. There’s a certain amount of nerve involved in agreeing to write the Great American Novel in less time than it takes to pronounce the name of the author of War and Peace.

If you think Halloween is scary, you should try living with someone who's trying to write a novel in a month. Screaming banshees and headless horsemen are nothing compared to a man poised at the line of scrimmage who realizes his plot is still on the bench.

If he spends as much time writing in November as he did jotting down plot points last month, he’ll have a long enough novel to divide into a trilogy, two screenplays, and a set of leatherbound reference books.

According to the rules, bylaws, and official list of stuff to do, he could outline til the consonants come home, but he couldn’t write a word of the novel until the clock ticked us into November. Last night he was so full of metaphors, he couldn’t sneeze without blowing adjectives all over the monitor. I expect before the month is up, we’ll have to call Vanna to buy back some vowels.

In the meantime, I have to find something to occupy my time to head off my obsessive interest in this project. Perhaps I’m just remarkably intuitive, but it strikes me that somewhere around the 372nd time I inquire about his progress, he just might bounce his Webster’s off the part of me that makes the best target.

So for the next month you can find me working jigsaw puzzles and slinking nonchalantly back and forth past his desk trying to steal a peek at the computer screen.

And you can find him buffing his head.

A Bang and a Whimper

Because I didn’t have any armed artillery rounds to juggle, I decided to spend Sunday afternoon cleaning the boys’ room, a happy little corner of the world I like to call The Wasteland.

The guys were going to clean it out soon anyway, I’m sure. Back at the turn of the century I told Son Two, the Procrastinator, to straighten up his room if he wanted to have friends over to play pin the tail on the Pac Man. At the time, he was in fifth grade. He’ll graduate from college in the next few years, but I’m holding fast to my rule. So I know they were gonna take care of it sooner or later, but after the rusty nail incident I thought it was in the best interests of everybody to give them a hand.

I learned a lot of things this afternoon. First, I learned that juggling armed artillery rounds is easier than forcing jewelry on J-Lo compared to shoveling a decade’s worth of trading cards and sludge-filled Yoo Hoo bottles from the shag under the box springs in The Wasteland. The landscape around Chernobyl smacks of a trip down the yellow brick road compared to the terrain under those twin beds. (Flying monkeys excluded.)

Next, I learned that while the kids took my advice over the years, they applied a more literal translation of "save for the future" than I intended. Anyone who has ever spent three hours chiseling two dimes and a souvenir penny from a petrified Play Doh statue that has welded itself to a bookshelf with time and liberal applications of dust can feel my pain. I found enough change to pay off our church’s building debt and add a multi-sports complex out back, but I was afraid to touch any of it without notifying the Environmental Protection Agency. Both Obama and McCain say we need change. I’ve got it if they dare to come after it. But I'd advise they load up on oxygen masks, Kevlar gloves, and antiseptic wipes. A load of odor-eaters wouldn't hurt.

The third thing I learned is that a stray Cracker Jack will maintain its original form and composition no matter how much time passes or how many natural disasters come along to cover it with cat hair and dust bunnies. A Cracker Jack must be the basic building block upon which all other things are made. That and Easter Peeps. Which I found hibernating in someone's underwear drawer.

All the experience I earned today will stand me in good stead should I choose a new career as a hazardous waste transporter. But the most important thing I brought out of the Seventh Level of the Dirty Place was this: when an old woman slips on a decayed Snickers bar, careens off a peg-legged rocking chair, and lands with all of her the considerable heft on an ancient whoopee cushion that’s been repaired with duct tape and left to ripen for seven years, that cushion will still whoopee with gusto.

The sound will echo around the room like she’s been juggling live artillery rounds and dropped one. And as the previously empty space fills up with all the folks that neglected to help with the terrible task, she should drop the rest.

Key Issue

This afternoon as I fished hysterically in my purse for my stupid car keys that were hiding from me on purpose, I had an idea.

For me, having an idea is a bit like giving birth to a ten pound porcupine. It’s a tedious process, fraught with peril, but quite sharp in the end. What I need is a Global Positioning System that can tell me where in my Super Organizer Bag to find my car keys.

That way I won’t be late for the school pick-up line while I thrash around unsuccessfully in my purse for twenty minutes sifting through stale M&M’s and used Kleenx before attempting to unlock my door with a Number Two pencil and a Twinkie wrapper.

The GPS KeyFinder is sure to be a moneymaker if properly engineered, using language that normal people who don’t factor pi for a hobby can understand. None of this “proceed north past the checkbook for 6 centimeters, turn east at the lipstick, circumnavigate the compact” sort of thing.

My basic concept of direction is this: North is up, South is down, East is left, and West is right. My WWII Navy Dad cringes whenever people ask me for directions. He says if I were in charge of Japanese navigations, Pearl Harbor would have remained untouched. But those elves at the North Pole would still be rebuilding reindeer pens.

I need basic directions. “Plunge hand into the middle compartment with the zipper that’s jammed with the soccer sock. Bypass the garage door opener and orange TicTac, turn left at the chewed cinnamon gum wrapped in foil, continue for the length of the nail file, then shake purse twice firmly. Keys are affixed to the melted Snickers bar by hardened caramel.

I’m not even going to charge the GPS people for this millionaire-making idea. A simple thank you and the knowledge that mommies everywhere will make it to school pick-up on time will be my reward. That and some pizza coupons. And a car with keyless entry.

Now, if I could only find my cell phone, I’d call and tell them. I know it’s here somewhere in my purse. . .