Dear Sir:

An Open Letter to the Chainsaw-Wielding Homicidal Maniac at the Haunted Trail,

You’ve just leaped unexpectedly from behind a hay bale, revving your chainsaw motor like a monster truck engine and dripping blood like a soaker hose. And admittedly, I was startled enough to swallow the last half of my fun-sized Snicker bar without chewing.

But I’ve raised two boys to adulthood and have played the “Close Your Eyes and Hold Out Your Hands” game so many times I’m never really surprised by anything. Over the years children have jumped out from behind closed doors, hidden under piles of laundry, and shadowed me down the hall on my midnight trips to the bathroom just for the chance to scream “Boo” and test my bladder control.

I have two kids with cars of their own; one of them, Speed Racer, could make you drop your weapon and go all white around your bloody eye sockets just by offering to chauffer you to the corner for milk. He learned to drive on Crazy Taxi.

My Labrador is the only one in the house who can open the childproof top on the aspirin bottle, and my cat could star in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” if he hadn’t already stalked and eaten the cuckoo. I’ve had a stray ferret follow me home, and a there’s a spider the color of hungry who likes to stop by for a bite when the weather gets cold.

So, I’m sorry if the sight of you didn’t send me into a screaming frenzy, frantically searching for another way out. I’m trying to decide how your mother is going to get those rusty bloodstains out of your best jeans and whether you asked your dad for permission to wear that shirt before you cut the bottom off in the trendy ragged design.

And if you run at me again like you’re gonna give me a permanent bad hair day, let me tell you one thing. The only tidbit I remember from my Senior Women’s Self Defense class is how to stop an attacker from taking my virtue, my purse, or my shopping bags from Discount Day at the mall. So if you’re not wearing an athletic supporter, the only thing you have to protect yourself with is that impotent chainsaw.

But don’t worry. Speed Racer will be glad to take you to the hospital. Be sure to buckle up and keep your bloody hands and feet inside the vehicle until it comes to a screeching halt. And take notes.

You’ll get some great ideas for next year’s Haunted Trail.

GPS or Busted

Asking our GPS for a destination is sort of like writing a letter to Santa. You express your heartfelt wishes and desires and hope that you’ve been good enough to get results. My GPS makes me address it as if it were the deity in charge of merge lanes and yield signs. Forget about Rest Areas. You’re better off packing an empty coffee can and a Do Not Disturb sign.

The Captain of our compact Conestoga fired up all four cylinders at the same time recently and to celebrate, we decided to take an actual trip.

Me: Oh great GPS, would you direct us to the path that leads to the beach?

GPS: No.

Me: Please? I won’t ask for anything else. Ever.

GPS: What have you done to deserve this trip? I get no respect. You even put my batteries in upside down.

Me: Sorry. But I didn’t put hair remover in the Captain’s shampoo for April Fool’s Day this time, and I didn’t mention the ferret in the dishwasher.

Captain: There’s a ferret in the dishwasher?

GPS: There WAS a ferret in the dishwasher.

Kid One: You found my ferret!

Me: The point is, I’ve been good. Please tell me how to get to the beach.

GPS: Did you pack a towel?

Me: Yes.

GPS: And clean underwear?

Me. I can buy new ones when I get there.

GPS: Read the fine print. It’s against my Code of Ethics to take you anywhere without clean underwear.

Me: Fine. (I leave the car and return shortly, having taken a precautionary pit stop.) Now will you tell me?

GPS: You left the overnight bag in the guest bath.

Me: I also flushed the house key by accident.

GPS: Did you jiggle the handle?

Me: Yes. Can’t I just buy underwear when I get there?

GPS: Oh sure, and I guess you’re going to parade around all day in that thing you call a swimsuit. Did you pack a cover up?

Captain: You’re not taking underwear?

Kids One and Two: You’re going to wear a BATHING SUIT? We’re not going.

GPS: Don’t talk to your mother that way. That’s my job.

Captain: You’re not taking underwear?

Me: I have to take that bathing suit. It’s the only one I have.

GPS: That might have been a bathing suit in 1975. Today it is a rubber band with sand in the crotch.

Me: Fine, I’ll look for a new one when we get to the beach.

Kid One: Can we take the ferret?

GPS: That ferret won’t be going anywhere, kiddo. Not after a spin through the potscrubber cycle.

Kid One: MOM!

Me: The vet says he’s going to be just fine, honey. He said he’d never seen anybody give CPR to a ferret before.

GPS: CPR? That was more like LOL. That ferret looked like a sprinkler hose.

Kid One: MOM!

Me: He’s kidding. The vet will have him all patched up in no time. Let’s just hit the road, shall we?

Captain: You’re not taking underwear? Are we staying in the same room as the kids?

GPS: And what about that ratty bathing suit? It looks like a freeway-bound retread just before it leaves the tire.

Me: You take that back!

Captain: Sorry. I just thought separate rooms would be better.

Kid One: Can we go by the vet’s office on the way out of town?

Me: No, honey, we don’t have time.

Captain: How much time does it take to get a room?

GPS: I sure wouldn’t stay in a room with a woman in a ragged bathing suit and no underwear.

Me: He just needs a little extra care.

Captain: That’s what I’m saying.

Me: Not you. The ferret.

Kid One: How much?

Captain: That’s what I want to know.

GPS: That’s it. Find your own way to the beach. I quit!

Me: Fine! I’m giving these new batteries to the iPod.

And that’s how we ended up staying home during vacation time this year. Although we did download a vacation planner and mapping application, and bought new underwear for everyone in the family online. We also got a new GPS.

One that’s guaranteed not to talk back.

Extreme Halloween

Join me and the other Halloweeners over at An Army of Ermas. I have a new post up. It involves ferrets. And underwear.

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!