Locked Out and Loaded

Dear Lock People,

I can see why you are very proud of your product. I, too, would aspire to make the very best lock ever to nestle in throwaway packaging if I were in your place. Keeping things safe and secure is your business.

However, I am writing because I sense a flaw in your vision. Although it is essential for the very best of products to lock, I find it can be just as important for such an item to unlock, thereby instilling a sense of calm in the person standing outside the door with several bags of groceries, who wants to come in out of the rain and deposit the bags on the kitchen counter just inside the door.

From my vantage point on the steps I can see:

1. The kitchen counter, bare of grocery bags.

2. Two large dogs and a small salami-shaped dog, who sense my presence outside the door.

3. The garbage can in the act of performing a one and a half gainer, which is due to the fact that the dogs are very excited that I am outside the door. Labradors express great joy by flinging coffee grounds throughout the house in a sort of native doggie dance of abandon.

Looking down, I can also see that the gourmet ice cream, double chocolate Moose Tracks, that I bought as a reward for cleaning out the refrigerator and starting on a new exercise regime has begun to melt and is, even now, performing a kind of scientific experiment with the bottom of the paper bag.

I now regret choosing paper instead of plastic in an attempt to throw myself in with the ecologically-minded set who have actually already abandoned paper for recyclable bags made from reconstituted shower caps.

I also regret my new exercise regime, which consists of one sit-up, performed with the aid of two inquisitive Labradors striving to certify my identity as I became one with the dust bunnies and a small, insistent splinter on the floor. Because I accomplished the sit-up and passed the canine equivalent of a TSA patdown, I now have semi-soft Moose nuggets in my shoe.

In case you have questions of user error in mind, I have already checked the key in my hand to ascertain that it does not fit:

My car
My husband’s car
My diary

I am also pleased to announce that I discovered that the reason the door wouldn’t open when I pressed the button marked “unlock” on my key fob is that the unlock button only works on the doors to the car, which is presently flashing its lights and honking its horn in a psychotic attempt to alert passersby to the fact that I'm locked out of my house with overloaded bags of food, free for those who don't mind jacking a gallon of warm milk and six thawed Lean Cuisine dinners featuring limp pasta from a hysterical woman who resembles your mother on the day you decided to move back home.

In typical fashion all this serves to accomplish is to draw the attention of the cat, who skitters toward the door and finds, to her delight, the puddle of Moose Tracks that is oozing down my leg.

So just now I am trying to shake the cat off my leg, juggle the groceries, coerce the dogs to turn the deadbolt, and ram the key far enough into the lock to solve all our problems. If I had an extra limb, I would use it to do a Google Earth search on my iPhone to find your exact location.

And do you know what I’m thinking, Lock People? I’m thinking that if I had your Quality Control guy right here in front on me, I would whittle a key out of whichever part of him was most likely to conform to the crooked little slot that is barring me from tracking melted Moose Tracks, wet kitty, and a squishy thing stuck in the treads of my hiking boots into the kitchen and through the coffee grounds and orange peels to get to my dancing dogs.

Do you know what else I’m thinking? I’m thinking that the packaging for this handy doorknob/lock combination, which the Captain tossed nonchalantly in the garbage a year ago when he was installing this product, said “Lifetime Guarantee.” And I’m wishing I had read the fine print then to see which mayfly’s lifetime you used as a basis for this guarantee, because that's exactly how long yours is going to be once we meet to assign blame.

But for now, I am going to kick the door with my shoe until my son, who is downstairs engrossed in perfecting his score on the Let’s Sweat section of Just Dance, feels the vibration and experiences the tsunami it starts in the toilet in the guest bathroom.

When he finally opens the door, I am going to call you on the telephone and invite you over for ice cream.

And coffee grounds.

And you know what? You may keep this invitation to use at any time.

It has a lifetime guarantee.

Dog Days

While I chased word count, Son One, The Zombie Slayer, whiled away his time decapitating The Undead.

“I killed another one,” he announced in the same tone of voice Howard Cosell would say, “another knockout for Mohammed Ali.”

He gestured smugly toward the TV. “I cut his head off and he can’t see me. Now he’s wandering around the swamp attacking cattails.”

I left a participle dangling while I paused. You can kill the undead? I realize we’ve made great strides in modern medicine, but this seemed a bit farfetched, even with insurance.

I paused in my frenzied attack on the keyboard and peered at the television screen. Zombies were meandering about their virtual world, fencing with random inanimate objects. “Why don’t you finish him off?”

Meanwhile the headless nonhuman took a futile swing at some nearby foliage. A battle ensued during which the zombie filled the air with random slashes from a deadly blade before tripping over a strand of swamp grass.

“I can’t do it. He’s just too cute.”

This from the kid who teased me unmercifully when I cried at the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials. He also remained unmoved when the uncles took out the barn—and themselves—in the movie Secondhand Lions. But let a herd of headless zombies thrash about in the tall grass and his heart turns to mush.

I shrugged and returned to my composition. Everybody has a purpose. Mine is writing essays about unsuspecting family members. His is cleansing the world of the undead.

About that time the dog entered the room, circumnavigated the video game area like Magellan on a world tour, heaved a sigh, and collapsed on the floor at my feet. If he were a teenager he would have rolled his eyes and sighed, “There’s nothing to do in this house.”

I cleared my throat. “Back in the real world, the dog wishes someone would take him on a walk.”

Son One paused in the midst of mayhem. “I’d do it Mom, but I’m at a critical point. I must turn people into chickens.”

I saved my document and retrieved the big Lab’s leash from a hook near the door. “C’mon fella,” I said as he pulled himself up like the Kraken rising from the ocean floor.

About that time I heard frantic barking and saw a virtual dog run up to greet my son’s character onscreen. He was cute enough, but didn't have near the tail action that comes with a real life Labrador.

“You can play with a fake dog, but you can’t take your lifelong companion on a romp?”

“There’s a big difference, Mom.” Son One paused as he decapitated another zombie. This one doesn’t chew up my shoes if I forget to take him outside.

“Maybe not. But this one can leave surprises you can’t get off with a power blaster.”

Son One pushed a button and the screen went blank. He met the dog at the door and they disappeared down the driveway together. If the boy were canine, his tail would be wagging, too.

It just goes to show that you can always improve yourself with a little Lab work.

Happy Birthday, Ry.

Stick With It

I’m at that penultimate point in my life when I send out engraved announcements saluting my accomplishment if I should happen to recall where I parked my car at the mall. It also a major victory when I manage to push the little red pill through the blister pack, figure out how to coax coffee from the automatic drip pot, or get up from the floor without requiring the assistance of two kitchen chairs, a large dog, and an emergency responder team.

One of my greatest triumphs is singlehandedly locating my remaining pair of eyeglasses, a clever piece of accessory-type tomfoolery that hides in the laundry basket, behind the sugar canister, or on top of my head. They are trifocals, a fancy optical term that means I can’t read the newspaper through three lenses just as well as I can’t read through one. The only things I really need them for is to convince the nice policeman that I’m wearing my corrective lenses just like the troubled lady in my drivers license picture, and to locate the yellow adhesive notes that I’ve planted around the house like daisies to tell me what I’m supposed to do and when I’m supposed to do it.

My house looks like a butter factory exploded with all those little yellow pats of color stuck everywhere. At the office, I keep a row of notes affixed to my computer monitor to help me remember to accomplish important tasks (Becky, lunch, 11:45) as well as trivial ones (Boss meeting with District Superintendent,10:30).

Once, a younger, self-assured man who still stands up very straight without making noises reminiscent of a movie theatre corn popping system in action, informed me that post-it notes were no substitute for a more organized planning system. I agree.

And if I could afford a butler who would stand smartly at the door and drop my keys in my hand before I got to the car, fill my travel mug with whatever liquid I’ve been warming in the microwave all morning, and remind me which direction I should turn out of the driveway to get to the bank, I would dwell in a special kind of Nirvana.

Perhaps one day when I’m digging in the garden I will unearth a treasure trove of forgotten doubloons that I could use to acquire such a man. Until then, a sticky note on the front door will have to do the trick.

As for the know-it-all who thought my post-its were past due? I’m looking forward to the day when he has to explain to his employer that he missed the important meeting because he transposed the dates in his daily planner and confused his proctology exam with his performance appraisal.

Now that's a happy ending.

Keyboard Quandary

There are days when everything in my life zips along like waxed skis on new snow. Then there are the days I search aimlessley for my gifts and talents like a doggie dumpster-diving for a lost ham bone.

“Accounts Payable?”
“Trial Balance?”
“Bank Reconciliation?”

None of these terms were on my final exams in English Poets or American Contemporary Literature when I graduated from college. I really didn’t see the use to indulge in them now. Except I was deeply interested in getting paid.

I attended a small Southern university and graduated happily with a degree in English and a cunning little sticker on the corner of my diploma that represented a prestigious honor society whose admiration I welcomed, but whose meetings I never attended. These accomplishments, along with the fact that I knew somebody that knew somebody, and that God mixes miracles and humor like Michaelangelo mixes paints, got me a job as secretary-in-charge-of-everything at a local church. Excited by the opportunity to serve as editor-in-chief (a colorful term meaning entire staff) of the church newsletter and to support my grocery addiction, I accepted the job offer without further exploring the job description.

This zeal for employment accounted for my present distress. Seated at a one-horse computer, I desperately searched my remaining little gray cells for some clue that would translate the foreign language my instructor was speaking into something easier to understand, like Gullah or Swahili.

Motivated by greed laced with liberal splashes of panic and terror, my hand went from adding machine to keyboard as I computed the totals of the numbers he read out to me and then entered them into the database. Back and forth went fingers more accustomed to creating exhilirating expository essays concerning Yoknapatawpha County. Adding machine to keyboard. Keyboard to adding machine. I indulged in the prayer of the selfish. “Please God, at least don’t let me look stupid.”

Suddenly, in a turn of events that provided definitive proof of instantaneous answer to prayer, the computer malfunctioned. None of the numbers I typed showed on the computer screen. I pounded on the keypad. The computer had rebelled! I was free from electronic oppression!

“The computer won’t take this information.” I turned in the chair to see what miracle my mentor would supply. “It won’t accept the numbers.”

“I think,” he said slowly, moving my hand from adding machine to computer, “it will work out better if you’ll use the computer’s keyboard.”

I learned my lesson. Be careful what you ask for. God is the ultimate practical joker.