Off The Top of My Head

Today while I was in the shower, I heard a noise, which with bathroom acoustics being what they are, I took either for sixteen cats purring in the bathroom or Seal Team Six landing a squadron of helicopters on the roof.

Having dealt closely with cats before, I was hoping for a Seal Team Meet and Greet, when I realized the sound was coming from what I call the Captain’s “Public Appearance Basket.” This is the caddy that holds his assorted shavers and is as organized as Arnold Palmer's golf bag.

Why is it that men need a separate electric device to groom each individual body part? Give me a plastic Bic disposable and I can be Barbie-doll smooth in ten minutes. I’ve shaved my legs in a moving car, with one leg in the bathroom sink, and flamingo-style in a wading pool surrounded by toddlers who were probably compromising water purity the entire time.

The Captain has an electric razor with more whirling blades than the Marquis de Sade’s torture chamber, a streamlined razor-type thingy to handle smaller land masses such as peninsulas and the ever-popular soul patch area, and a tiny precision shaver that I’m pretty sure is for his belly button.

Why one man, even one who is covered in fur from stem to stern, needs more grooming tools than a prizewinning Poodle is beyond me. Luckily he keeps his winter coat, because if we had to plug in a device to shave that chest, it would short out every television on the block and have Black Ops fans pounding our door with video game controllers.

In the old days, before the kids were teenagers, the Captain had something we called “hair” which he styled with with an intricate device known to adults as a "comb." Now he has “ears” which are to a shaved head what pebbles are to a sand garden.

He has a shaver that is the grooming equivalent of a Zamboni that I use to prepare his head for public viewing. After the bloodletting incident of ’09, we developed a plan called “Good God, What Have You Done!” and he handles the delicate ear area with a tiny weedeater designed especially for the purpose.

At least in my new role as “ The Barber of Severe,” I’m learning a whole new approach to language. To me, “Buzz Off” means “Keep Out of My Airspace.” To the Captain, it’s just another haircut.

This Little Light of Mine

Today, with the lofty idea that as a secretary I should successfully complete office-type stuff at least occasionally, I dabbled in Accounts Payable, Receipt Filing, and Computer-Assisted Suicide. Maybe it was homicide. I just know that by the time I was through dealing with the electric company’s website, I had decided that the Patron Saint of web design is Dr. Kevorkian.

I wanted to report a burned out light in the parking lot. How hard can it be?

Insert picture of black cloud here.

I typed in the electric company’s website. I did the same thing a month or so ago, reported the problem and got an immediate call saying they would fix the problem. Since that time, the company has hired a professional to give their website a whole new look. It’s the look of a strongbox that no safecracker can open. If there is a real person left in that company, they’re hiding like white shoes in winter.

I pulled my keyboard closer to initiate negotiations, and made false promises that I’d read and understood the terms of agreement, the use and care instructions, and the U. S. Constitution. In actuality I’m a little sketchy on the Constitution although I’m fairly certain Prohibition has been repealed, and also that I have the right to stand in line for three hours to vote for somebody I don’t really like.

Computer: For your convenience we have redesigned our website for ease of use.

(What I know now: The term “For your convenience” is code for “Snooki will give makeup tips to the Ladies Bible Class before you will find a real person to help you.”)

Computer: Enter password.

Me: Last time I didn’t need a password.

Computer: (Monotonously) Enter password.

Me: Okay, but I’m making it up.

Computer: If you forgot your password press here. If you forgot your user name press here.

Me: (Typing furiously.) I have a name for you.

Computer: Invalid user name.

Me: (In boldface type.) How about this one?

Computer: If you forgot your. . .

Me: Shut up!

Computer: . . .password, press. . .

Me: (Pressing the big black button and watching the screen go black.) Bazinga!

The light just dawned. I'm going to be in the dark for a long time.

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.

Take a Letter

G Whiz.

That’s the word from the World Scrabble Championships in Warsaw where a player accused of hiding a tile with the letter G was on the edge of exposure. His opponent demanded he be taken to the bathroom and strip searched.

I’ve flirted with the dark side before. The side where rules are suggestions and the difference between theft and borrowing is the time it takes to consume the last chocolate chip cookie before somebody notices.

But the day I send somebody in for the TSA treatment over a missing consonant, may Vanna White herself hang up her last slinky evening gown and retire in protest. Maybe the Scrabble folks should take a tip from ole Vanna and keep their letters out in the open where there’s no place to hide. And if somebody wants to buy a vowel, the prize money can cover it.

Somehow a strip search over one G seems a little extreme. Sometimes I can’t remember whole words, and there are times when the name of my oldest child slips off the radar of my mind. One consonant isn’t going to jumpstart the memory banks all alone. These days I can’t sign a check without a hint.

Then I found out the prize for the winner of the World Championship is £12,700. I’m told there are places where people strip for a lot less than what amounts to $20,000, give or take a G String. So if 99% of the population is shucking their clothes for a heap less than that one winner gets, maybe it’s time to Occupy Game Night.

Until then, keep your shirt on.

A Watched Dog

My husband cut off three fingers and gave his arms a close shave one day while mowing the grass.

“See, I told you we needed a riding lawn mower.”

Our lawn is the size of a golf ball dimple.

“What we need,” I muttered, reattaching his fingers with Gorilla Glue, “is a yard man smart enough to keep his hands out of the whirling blades of the lawn mower. Doesn’t the term ‘moving parts’ mean anything to you?”

“All I know is that it’s a good thing I was wearing my lucky hat.”

There’s always something to be thankful for.

“We could have lost Bo’s squeaky ball for good.”

Bo is the Labrador. He’s the closest thing the Captain has to a disciple. He sprawled in the grass and whiled away the time waiting for the bleeding to let up by chewing an old rag. If one man can double the time it takes to do a single chore, a man and his dog can create a time vortex that modern science can’t explain.

I can replace the dog’s squeaky ball for ninety-nine cents at the pet store. Human fingers, on the other hand, go for quite a bit more. And you can’t find them in the express lane at the Piggly Wiggly.

I don’t know what it is that make men think they’re invincible. About the time in their lives that they need to check in with headquarters to make sure their prostate isn’t the size of an orbiting planet, they’re hanging from the eaves looking for blockages in the drainage system. His own pipes are exploding from four decades of chili cheeseburgers, and the man is swinging from the roof like a chimpanzee.

Call me crazy, but this time I’m tempting fate and sending him out to finish the job.

Let’s hope he doesn’t find out what Bo did to his lucky hat.

Fascinating Facts

While taking a summer break from blogging, I picked up a few new followers, which tells me something, although I'd rather not think about it. Instead, I'll credit the talent of Lisa Allen for giving folks a tidbit or two to tune in for. Thanks Lisa!

In retribution, I mean thanks, to the new folks, I decided to force you to, er TREAT you to, some tidbits about moi. (As Miss Piggy, no relation, would say.) I decided to call them "Fascinating Facts" because "Facts That Put Us To Sleep" just doesn't have that mysterious quality that draws in new readers. So set your alarm and read on.

Fascinating facts:

1. I share a birthday with Abraham Lincoln. My kids think we’re twins. (Abe and Amy. It fits, right?) I told them our mother could only tell us apart because Abe parts his hat on the opposite side from me. And wears his beard is shorter.

2. I’m not good with crafts. My niece gave me a glue gun for Christmas and I glued the bag closed before I could get the gun out. Now I’m required by law to keep the ammunition in a separate location.

4. I like to drive red cars. It’s a mother of two’s way of telling the world there’s more to me than apple juice and gym socks.

5. I like to wear blue jeans everywhere. It’s the white trash version of The Little Black Dress. Reeboks are my pumps. I have a matching wrap. It’s made by Levi Strauss.

6. If my mother weren’t already gone, she would dig her own grave with a grapefruit spoon if she heard me say white trash.

7. I drink Mountain Dew for the taste. That’s like saying I read Playboy for the articles. It’s really all about the rush.

8. I wish I could play the piano. I’d like to hit the ivories at high speed with Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and leave steam rising from the keys once before I die.

9. I was inside a church that caught on fire. No one was hurt, but to this day, I can’t roast marshmallows without singing Nearer My God to Thee.

10. My kids think they know everything because they can program the TV, the computer, and the cell phone. But they don’t know that I named the dog the primary beneficiary on my life insurance policy or that he’s in charge of their trust fund.

11. My husband, the Captain of our Love Boat, secretly thinks that I’m bossy, that I like to do everything my own way, and that I’m adverse to change. I think adverse means the opposite of reverse and is one of the gifts and graces mentioned in the Bible.

12. I’ve been married twice. So far.

The Ghost of the White Masque

Some things are too scary to talk about. At those times a scream will do. Join me over at An Army of Ermas to see what's worse than peeking in to the teenager's room.