Instead of writing a long entry as I usually do, this week, I am giving
you three shorter entires. Which have nothing to do with each
other. It's not like a part one and a part two and a part three. No. I
am not that clever. It's basically three ideas I had, none of which
were long enough to develop into an entire, freestanding essay,
but which were still funny. To me. And you, too, maybe. And if
not? Well, there's always C-SPAN. That's funny!
The Essays are as follows:
1. Things I Have Wanted To Say This Week But Have Very
Wisely Kept My Mouth Shut. This essay had so much promise!
All the things you want to say in a week, but don't, because of
decorum and manners and not wanting to get fired or cut out of the
will. But as it turns out, I don't Very Wisely Keep My Mouth Shut
very often, so this was all I could come up with. Possibly a better
essay would have been, "Things I Really Shouldn't Have Fucking
Said This Week, Because Hoo Boy, Am I In Some Trouble Now."
2. What's Grosser than Gross? I wrote this little gem a WHILE
ago. Like, pre-website while ago. But I never posted it, because
it's little, and also, you know. Pointless. But then I saw Sarah's
wonderful essay on bodily functions, and read about her
conversation with a friend regarding "skid marks" on thong
underwear (I wonder who that was?) and I realized that, for this little
essay, the time has come. Go on out there, little buddy! Make
momma proud, you and all your grossness.
3. My Dad. Lawyer, Hero, Handyman, Thing-Breaker. Okay,
this happened this weekend, and was so damned funny that I had
to write it up. But as funny as it was, it also wasn't all that...long.
So it gets tossed in here with the mini-essays, though it should
possibly be filed under "Things I Really Shouldn't Have Fucking
Said This Week, Because Hoo Boy, Am I In Some Trouble Now" for
its potential to get me drop-kicked out of the will. See the risks I
take for y'all? Risky ones.
And here we go.
Essay One
Things I Have Wanted To Say This Week
But Have Very Wisely Kept My Mouth Shut.
1. It doesn’t matter how many times you say it. When you
pronounce “pottery” as “pootery”, you don’t sound cultured. You
sound dumb. And I am just going to keep laughing, because do
you realize that you keep saying “poot”?
2. You know what would be so great? IF YOU SHUT UP. How
long can you talk?! HOW LONG CAN YOU POSSIBLY STAND
THERE AND TALK?
3. No I will NOT have a nice day. And frankly, I hope you don’t
have a nice day, either. Bitch.
4. You think you’re so smart? Well, I know all of the words to
not one, but two Enrique Iglesias songs. So there.
5. Sure, a lot of people get rashes that look like that.
Prostitutes, they’re called.
6. Is that ME that smells like that? Or is it you? It’s me, isn’t
it? God, I’m so sorry! Or... wait. Actually, I think it’s you. Yeah,
that’s definitely you. Ew. Don’t you ever shower?
7. It just occurred to me that I haven’t showered in three days.
8. Honey, another way of saying what I just said would be, “If
you do not take me to see Rent when it comes to Atlanta, I will eat
your eyes." Such is my unbridled love for that musical.
9. In my dream last night, I kissed a chicken. A real chicken!
On the lips. Which, in my dream, the chicken...had. Lips, I mean.
The chicken had lips. Is something wrong with me?
10. Did someone do that to your hair...on purpose? I mean,
were you a willing participant in...that?
11. If you look at my chest one more time, I will poke your eyes
out with a safety pin, and don’t think I won’t. I don’t even have any
boobs! What are you STARING at?
12. I think it would be a super good idea to have floral-scented
White-out! And floral-scented glue! Pretty much, anything that
people sniff to get high should smell like Grandma.
13. Is it Grandma that smells like that? Or is it me?
Essay Two
What's Grosser Than Gross?
I was going to write an entry about how I was all pissed at El Dukay
for his failure to call me at a reasonable hour last night (2 a.m. is
not a reasonable hour), but he just called, and as it turns out, he
was too busy speeyaking all over a frat house bathroom to operate
a telephone. Five double vodka and red bulls in two hours? Not a
good idea, people. Not a good idea. Oh, and then a gin and tonic
chaser! Nice.
He was kind enough to provide some of the more intimate details of
his Porcelain party, which I am far too ladylike to share here. But I
will mention that this particular party involved partially digested
buffalo wings, mozzarella sticks, and an order of marinara sauce.
Lovely. Because when you throw up, you want the results to
resemble road kill as much as is humanly possible, is my
experience.
I am thankful that Dukay did not call me in mid-speeyak, because
honestly, is there anything worse than the phone hurl? You’re all
innocent and unknowing, like, “Hello?” and in response, you get,
“Hey, I–shit...HUARRRLGHHHHH [splatter, splatter, wet sound,
splatter, sniff, cough, spit, sniff]. Hello?”
Don’t bother talking to me at this point. Really. I have hung up on
you, and am already running, screaming, to the bathroom where I
will spend the next hour reciting the serenity prayer while
obsessively sterilizing my ears using rubbing alcohol and a blue
rubber bulb. And also, I now hate you. Forever.
Actually, now that I think about it (which I usually don’t), I pretty
much despise all bathroom-located conversation. I have placed a
moratorium on the “telethrone” calls. It’s one thing if you’re talking
to someone while they’re peeing, and you hear a distant, twinkly
little “patterpatterpatter.” I can live with that. I will probably laugh at
that, because I am four. But it is another thing entirely to be
talking to someone, experience a pause in the conversation, and
then hear a telltale, watery “PLOP!” coming over your receiver.
Now, y'all. Gross. I know we all do it. I know it’s all natural and all
that. But COME ON. Don’t poo at me! It makes me all creepy
crawly. It makes me feel like we have some sort of weird, intimate
connection that I don’t really want. And weirdest of all, it makes me
smell things. I swear, I hear that plop, and all of a sudden, I’m
sniffing the air. You can be taking a dump in France, but I will be
thoroughly convinced that I am getting a whiff of your stank right
here in the my den. And if you do produce a "plop" in mid
conversation, don’t just go on talking like nothing has happened.
Something happened, fool, and it involved YOUR damn ass and
MY poor, virgin ears, and it WASN’T nice, so apologize to me. And
besides, didn’t you know it was coming? Didn’t you have a...a
sense? Couldn’t you have started talking a few seconds before
dropping that bomb? Or hit the mute button on your phone?
ANYTHING?! What, did you WANT me to hear that? Do you
expect me to say, “Damn, child! That was a big one!” Cause I’m
not gonna say that. Ever. I like to keep my bowel functions and
concurrent observations to myself, THANK YOU.
And also–hmm. Wait. I seem to have deviated from the topic.
Which was...um...how once I was mad. But now I’m not mad. And,
well... that’s not much of a topic, is it?
Well, shit.
Essay Three
My Dad. Lawyer, Hero, Handyman, Thing-Breaker.
I adore my father. ADORE him. He is funny, he's smart, he's kind,
and he's good at everything, and maybe he will stop reading now
and will let me stay in the will. Hi, Daddy!
Anyway. For the last few months, my car has been very, very
angry with me. It has been sputtery. It has been getting all
overheated. The windows have spontaneously decided to stop
working forever. It has all been very sad.
In defense of my car (who we will, for no reason whatsoever and
certainly not because that is the name my mother GAVE the car,
refer to said car as "Beeper," and DEFINITELY not because that
was also, coincidentally, the name of an imaginary friend I totally
DID NOT have when I was four), Beeper is twelve years old. I got
this car for a Christmas present when I was fifteen. It's a little white
Mercedes, onto which I have put about 150,000 miles. I have
wrecked this car. I have destroyed nine mailboxes by using this car
as a battering ram (by ACCIDENT, DAD, I SWEAR.) I have driven
this car to Mardi Gras, and once through a corn field in Indiana
(which was also an accident. I was supposed to be in Ohio, which,
as it turns out, is a completely different state from Indiana, but got
very, very lost. Shut up.) This car has been through a lot.
So when it started sputtering, I tried being soothing. I bought it
new, expensive gas. I got all new tires (okay, so generally, tires
have nothing to do with engines. But new shoes always make me
feel better. Doesn't Beeper deserve the same?). But nothing was
working. I realized I would have to go to the mechanic, which is the
same as saying, "I will soon be paying someone an amount that is
more than this car is worth, plus also is more than I actually have,
which means me and the dogs will be surviving on Ramen noodles
for the next three weeks."
I told my Dad about this. (Remember how this essay is about my
dad? Hi. I have returned to the point.) And he said he'd take a
look at the car. And I chuckled to myself. Ah, Dad. Looking at the
car. This should accomplish absolutely nothing at all.
Now, my Dad is strangely gifted. He may be some sort of spy.
Because supposedly, the man is a lawyer. And supposedly, he has
always been a lawyer. He has never been a mechanic, or an
electrician, or a plumber. And yet he possesses an innate ability to
do mechanic, electric, and plumb type things. We don't...we don't
understand where this came from. But when something needs to
be installed, or fixed, or tweaked, nine times out of ten, he knows
how to do this. Spooky!
But it's that one time out of ten that things go spectacularly wrong.
Like when he fixed the plumbing in my guest bathroom! Ah, good
times. I had just had all the floors replaced, and all the kitchen and
den painted. And then Dad fixed a leaky toilet upstairs. And then
we all left the house for three days.
Three days later, I went by to make sure the heat was on; it was
supposed to get down to freezing that night, and I didn't want my
pipes to burst. Such a good homeowner! So responsible! So I
went inside, checked the thermostat in the front hall (which was on)
and turned to leave. That's when I heard this:
Drip.
Drip.
Curious, I went into the den and flipped on the lights. Apparently,
the following had happened:
1. The guest bathroom toilet upstairs had a small, undetected
leak, that Dad had not seen when he fixed the other leak
three days prior.
2. Dad had turned the water back on. The small leak somehow
became a big leak.
3. The big leak filled the bathroom with water.
4. Water seeped down from the bathroom and filled the ceiling
below.
5. The ceiling below split open.
6. All of the water in the world came pouring out all in my den
and kitchen and all over MY NEW FLOORS.
Ha. Ha.
My ceiling had a gaping, ten-foot-long, three-foot-wide split. Pieces
of drywall and insulation were floating all over the den. And the
floors? All ruined. They'd buckled up and gotten waterlogged. I
had to call an emergency service company to come and pump out
all the water and set up fans and dehumidifiers.
And I cried. Oh, I cried like a little girl. And my poor dad felt awful,
even though it really wasn't his fault (he had gone in to fix a leak!
He had fixed a leak! It was another leak! ANOTHER LEAK!). At
least, it was totally not his fault until the insurance company gave
me a check for an amount that was five figures big. Then it was
ALL his fault. And he made me buy him dinner to thank him for his
mad plumbing skillz.
So anyway. That is a sort of history about how things sometimes
go wrong when Dad starts a-fixin' them. But again, nine times out
of ten? Awesome. No problems. New light fixtures are installed in
minutes. New cabinets are wired for electricity and hung in an
hour. Doors are fixed. Fences are put up. Pipes are installed. It
rocks. It's also free. Free!
But I was skeptical when Dad offered to fix the car. I've seen him fix
many house things, but I'd never seen him fix a car before. I mean,
the man can change your lights, or your windshield wipers. But the
only time I've seen him do anything under the hood was when he's
stood there, shaking his head with a grim expression, and said
something like, "Yeah. Uh, the, uh. Crabor...Carborat...engine
thing. Looks...broken." Meanwhile, flames are shooting out the
exhaust pipe. Looks broken to me, too.
No, I kid. But I really didn't know if Dad knew enough about cars to
handle a sputtering. So when he went out to the driveway, armed
with his little tool bag and a rag, I figured nothing would really get
fixed. He'd jiggle some stuff. That would be about all.
So imagine my shock and surprise some minutes later, when he
called me out and announced that he had fixed it! He'd FIXED!
The CAR! Amazing! And I was so excited, and proud, and thankful
to this wonderful man who had just saved me eleventy thousand
dollars in repair bills. And as he smugly closed the hood of the car,
proud of himself and feeling manly, he gave Beeper's little
Mercedes emblem a quick polish with his sleeve.
And it broke off in his hand
Three in One!
"Nice flag," said the newspaper stand on the right. Then he
called her "Fatty!" That's not very nice, Newspaper Stand!
Special love box!
The following people are the
coolest. For varying reasons.
My AB don't mess around,
because she loves me so, and
this I know fo sho.
Coleen knows what's cooler
than cool--ICE COLD!
Allison don't want to meet your
DADdy.
Hannah Beth just wants you in
her CADdy.
Amy don't want to meet your
MOMma.
And Miss Sarah B. is shaking it
like a polaroid picture RIGHT
NOW.
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Y'all! Don't you want to join my shiny
new Notify? Why not? Is it because
you like making me cry?