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  • Karen And Mindy: Unplugged

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    Well, it seems I screwed up.  Nothing so bad as to warrant a beating from E K… Well, scratch that, actually. E K never really seems to need a reason to hand out beatings… But, be that as it may, I think I escaped the wrath of the Evil Redhead for this particular infraction.

    Maybe…

    You see, I entered the wrong date into the post scheduler for my most recent blog (Mindy, Hold The Mork…) and therefore it deployed a day early. Now, normally folks would think of this as a Christmas in August sort of thing. You know, early present and all, but that just isn’t how my luck runs. Nope. Not in the least. It seems Anastasia, (yes, that Anastasia) who is apparently taking EVIL lessons from E K, informed me that if this premature post-aculation meant she was going to have to wait an extra day in between blog entries that I had better write a “bonus blog” or she would complain to E K and then help her do bad things to me. Of course, we all know where that will lead, and my insurance carrier is ready to drop me as it is…

    So, as an act of self-preservation, after spending much of the day cowering in the corner with Satan, who still can’t seem to shake this morning’s Redhead Rampage, I figured I’d better make something… errr… ummm… write something up. So, since I already had notes on hand for the continuing adventures of Karen and Mindy, I figured what the hell…

    It was a Thursday. A Thursday like any other Thursday, except that Mindy had dressed down for the day and Karen was in a mood. Now, granted, Karen was always in a bit of a mood, what with wanting to shoot everyone, but she was actually a bit more surly than usual. She might have even been carrying explosives in her purse, but I wasn’t about to ask.

    The conversation had been raging on about blog entries and humorless folks for several minutes, and was now starting to wind down. I had no more finished jotting a few notes about the West county water issues than Mindy pointed at me and exclaimed, “Murv! You aren’t going to blog about that are you?”

    I shrugged. “Why not? It’s funny.”

    “You want funny?” Big K asked.

    “Sure, but I think we’ve pretty much worn out the whole gun thing,” I told her.

    She huffed then cocked her head to the side and said, “Oh yeah, well what about underwear?”

    Now I was intrigued, but by the same token I was unable to hold back my compulsion to pun.

    “Depends,”  I quipped.

    “Yeah, real funny, Murv. Don’t make me shoot you.”

    “Yeah, okay, so what about underwear? I’m wearing tighty whities.”

    “Murv!” Mindy yelped.

    “Hey, I actually used to get that question and booksigning Q&A’s.” I shrugged. “Now I just get it out of the way from the start.”

    “People really asked you that?”

    I nodded. “Yep.”

    “Shoulda shot ’em,” Karen added on cue, just as I’d expected she would.

    Mindy spoke up again, directing herself to Karen. “So, is this about that guy? You know, the one you yelled at?”

    “I yell at everyone,” Karen replied.

    “I know, I know,” Mindy agreed. “But isn’t this the story about that guy with the pink pants?”

    “Yeah,” Karen answered with a nod. “Pink pants and bright green little boy underwear.”

    I was no longer intrigued. Now I was just mildly disturbed, however I simply couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but how did you know what color his underwear was?”

    pants

    Karen’s voice was as deadpan matter-of-fact as I had ever heard. “Because he had his damn pink pants pulled down below his cheeks.”

    “Ass cheeks?”

    “Well yeah…” she answered, sarcasm heavy in her voice. “They’d look pretty damn weird up around his face cheeks, don’tcha think?”

    I held up my hands in surrender. “I was just asking.”

    Karen shook her head. “And you write books for a living? Sheesh. You been drinking West county water too?”

    I ignored the jibe and asked, “Okay, so I have to know… How did you see this? Did you follow him into the men’s room or something?”

    “No. This was in the meat department.”

    Now, there’s something I forgot to mention folks – Karen works in the meat department at a local market.

    “Rump roast then,” I said.

    “Wasn’t on sale that day.”

    “I was joking. Who’s been drinking the water now?”

    “My gun is in my purse you know.”

    “Yeah, okay.”

    “Tell Murv what you did,” Mindy interjected, trying to avoid bloodshed. She seemed far more excited about the story than Karen. But then, Mindy was definitely the excitable one. Karen just approached everything with calm detachment before pulling out a gun and killing it.

    “I went and got my knife,” she said.

    “No gun?” I asked.

    “I was at work. Can’t bring guns into work, dammit.”

    “Oh, I see.”

    “So, I got my big knife. Not the little one. The really big one. Then I went over and told him he needed to pull up his pants because the rest of the customers didn’t want his butt germs on their dinner.”

    “So did he?”

    “Nope.” She shook her head. “He gave a bunch of attitude. Told me his butt didn’t have germs, which is a crock because everybody’s butt has butt germs. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that.”

    “And you put up with him giving you attitude?”

    “Hell no. I showed him my knife.”

    “Ahhh, so then he pulled up his pants?”

    “No. Then we had a wet cleanup in that aisle.”

    I raised an eyebrow and began considering my options for escaping the table if I started feeling any more alarmed than I already was. I tried to keep my voice calm as I asked, “You killed him?”

    “Oh hell no. Didn’t have to. He peed all over himself.”

    “Ahhhhh… Okay.”

    Karen shrugged. “Yeah, it was kinda funny. Anyway, then I went and put out some more chickens.”

    “You mean like whole roasters and fryers?” I asked.

    “Yeah.”

    I took the opportunity to divert the topic toward recipes. “Since you brought up butts, have you ever made beer butt chicken?”

    chicken

    “You mean where you stick the can up the chicken’s butt? Oh yeah, love it.”

    “I just don’t know how you do that,” Mindy announced.

    “What?” Karen said, incredulity in her voice. “You just stick the can up its butt and put it on the grill. It ain’t hard. You do have beer out in West county, right?”

    “Ewww,” Mindy replied, scrunching up her face then shuddering. “I couldn’t do that. I’ve never even bought a chicken.”

    “You haven’t? Are you a vegetarian?” I asked.

    “No,” Mindy replied. “I eat chicken, I’ve just never bought one.”

    “Well what the hell do you do?” Karen asked, coming upright in her seat. “Steal ’em?”

    “No,…” Mindy began, trying desperately to explain.

    “I shoulda known,” Karen continued, talking right over the top of her. “Damn West county people. I bet you wear green underwear too…”

    More to come…

    Murv

  • You Asked For It…

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    Evil Kat says, "Come here so I can beat you..."
    Yeah… That’s usually what E K says right about the time she is stomping on my head, or slapping me around with a frying pan. It usually comes on the heels of her saying, “You’re really ASKING for it!” Next thing I know I’m on the floor, flat on my back, with her standing on my chest screaming, yeah, you guessed it, “You ASKED for it!”

    (In all honesty I probably did, but that’s not the point…)

    However, let’s get back to this asking thing, because this time “You Asked For It” isn’t all about a beatdown from The Redhead. In this case it actually pertains to a goodly number of you folks who are regular readers of Brainpan Leakage. You see, over the years I have engaged in that widely used guerrilla marketing tactic known as “branded swag”… You know, logoed / embossed apparel, coffee mugs, etc, just like you get from corporate vendors every Christmas. Yeah, that sort of stuff. Only mine is way cooler than the stuff you get from some random widget company…

    MUG FREEFELICITY

    So, anyway, throughout the years folks have been pretty excited about such things as the Miranda and Free Felicity Tee-Shirts, Coffee Mugs with various quotes from the RGI characters, and other such sundries. However, for the past year or so I haven’t been putting any of that stuff out there. Apparently this has been an issue for quite a few folks, because in recent months not only have I been receiving a major load of email asking where and/or when such items as listed above can be obtained, but there have been a ton of requests for Brainpan Leakage Swag… Most notably Evil Kat Brainpan Leakage Swag. It seems a lot of you ladies seriously identify with her and some of you men want to… well… let me just say, “Back off, dudes. She’s mine.” (Well…actually, I’m hers, but that’s just a matter of semantics… Don’t tell her I said that, okay?)…

    Besides, she will hurt you… Like blow your deductible out of the water hurt you… I mean it… We’re seriously talking you’d better have AFLAC kind of hurt you…

    Of course, if you want a Tee-Shirt with The Evil Redhead on it, I can live with that. (And, so can you because you will still be able to function in daily life without the aid of medical equipment and round the clock care.)

    MIRANDA
    PROPERTYOFEVILKAT

    But seriously… I really and truly have had a ton of requests for more Swag and especially E K Swag.

    ITTAKESAWITCH So, since many of you asked for it, I worked out a deal with On The Edge Graphics, the crew that creates the killer posters and advertising stuff for my books, and the folks responsible for some of the artwork on the early RGI Swag. Between my own limited artistic ability and their superior talent, some new Swag has been born and they have set up an official web store. Since demand doesn’t always translate into sales, this is being done through Cafepress much like I used to do it, however the markups are minimal. Basically, just enough to cover expenses AND allow a charitable donation to a wildlife / conservation organization of E Kay’s choice from a portion of the proceeds on anything bearing her signature or caricatured likeness. NOFLYZONE

    As of this writing, the store is still being set up, “stocked”, and all that jazz, however, it is officially open. More Swag is coming, and some of the old classics are going to be revamped and re-issued.

    So, there you go:

    On The Edge Graphics Cafepress Store

    …You asked for it, you got it… (Why do I feel like I should be ending that ditty with “Toy-oh-tah!”?)

    More to come…

    Murv