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  • Mindy, Hold The Mork…

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    alligator Some of you have been asking how the “Coffee Talk” blog went over with my “College Girlfriends.” Well, I have to say, it seems that it went over well. Mindy shall be remaining Mindy, unless we slip and call her Muffy, which could possibly happen. I mean after all, the last day of classes she did haul off and show up wearing an alligator embellished polo shirt and packing a shopping bag from Whole Foods Market. However, the bag and its contents are fodder for a different blog. The point I am trying to make here is that we don’t have to call her Miffy (yet). She actually got a good laugh out of the “Coffee Talk” entry, as did Karen.

    In fact, the two of them found it even more amusing than I had imagined they would… As in Laugh Out Loud funny… To the point of calling friends, relatives, and even writing to their congressmen to tell them they should read it.

    Some of them did, and I now have a senator calling for an investigation of me. Something to do with “illegally purveying satire to the humor challenged.” I’m not quite sure how that is going to pan out, but I’m not really allowed to talk about it at the moment. All I can say is that my attorneys, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe are on the case.

    dchowe At any rate, much to my delight, because of a single entry on Brainpan Leakage, my college girlfriends effectively provided me with even more blog fodder…

    Mindy topped the stairs, plodded across the mezzanine, then plopped down in her chair at the C4K “Coffee Talk” table. As she leaned back and slid down in the seat she let out an exasperated sigh.

    Karen looked over at me, then at Mindy. “So, did you get a gun yet?”

    “No,” Mindy replied, brushing off the gun reference as old hat.

    “West county people,” Karen grumbled, shaking her head.

    I picked up my cell phone from the table and checked the time. Mindy was actually running a bit late. We’d expected her a good ten minutes ago. Not only that, she didn’t look to be her usual Mindyish self. By that I mean, no polo, no sweater tied around her neck, no pearls, no Star-Make-A-Bucks… Nada… As a matter of fact, she was wearing a baggy t-shirt, her hair was pulled back into a short tail and the rest was covered with a baseball cap. I  studied the uncharacteristic look for a moment, then laid the cell phone back onto the table and nodded toward my newly arrived girlfriend.

    “Casual Thursday?” I asked.

    She sighed again. “You just wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”

    I expressed an appropriate modicum of concern. “Anything wrong?”

    “Can’t be much,” Karen grunted. “She’s sittin’ in her chair.”

    “But look at her…” I replied. “I mean, slum city here…”

    “Hey!” Mindy objected.

    Karen gave her head a dismissive shake. “Finally dressing normal for a change. Besides, she still doesn’t have a gun. If it was real trouble she’d have a gun.”

    Mindy tapped her fingers hard on the table. “Hey! I’m right here you two. I can hear you, you know.”

    I turned my attention back to our disheveled cohort. “Yeah, okay, so what gives? Why the bad day?”

    She breathed heavily. “Well, you know that blog you wrote?”

    “Yeah,” I said with a nod, a bit of concern now creasing my forehead. “I thought you liked it?”

    “Oh, I did,” she told me with a typical, animated Mindy nod.

    “She still shoulda shot that idiot who was using the expired milk,” Karen mumbled.

    “So what’s the problem?” I asked Mindy, leaving Karen to complain to herself.

    “Well, I told several of my friends they should read your blog.”

    “Okay…” I said, waiting for the other shoe.

    “So, two of them emailed me about it,” she explained.

    “How many did you tell?”

    “Everyone in my email address book.”

    I raised an eyebrow. “Roughly how many is that? I’m assuming more than two?”

    “Not many,” she told me with a shake of her head. “Only three thousand four hundred and twelve people.”

    “I see.” I shrugged. “But only two responded, so that’s your issue?”

    “I’m still waiting on the others. The issue is what they said.”

    “Okay, so did the two that wrote back to you hate it or something?”

    “If they did, just shoot ’em,” Karen offered.

    burn notice “You know, Karen,  everyone who reads my blog thinks you’re that killer woman on Burn Notice,” I said, glancing over at Big K.

    “You mean the hottie with the gun?” she asked.

    “I dunno,” I replied. “I’ve never seen it myself.”

    Karen nodded and grinned. “I saw a commercial. Yeah. I can be her. I’m good with that.”

    “Can we get back to my problem?” Mindy appealed.

    “Yeah, yeah,” I said with a nod. “You’re right. So what’s the deal? Whaddid they say?”

    “That’s just it. Not much. One of them said, ‘ewwww, what did corporate say?‘ And the other one just said, ‘what did corporate say?‘.”

    “No ewwww on the second one?” I asked.

    “That’s not my point.”

    “Did you…” Karen started.

    Mindy cut her off, “No Karen, I didn’t shoot them.”

    “You should have.”

    I shrugged again. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”

    “These are funny people,” she replied. “They both have a great sense of humor. But all they focused on was wanting to know what the Star-Make-A-Buck’s Corporate Office said.”

    “Are you sure they’re actually funny?” I asked. “Sometimes it’s easy to mistake an attack of gas for a smile you know. They could just be digesting some serious roughage or something.”

    “I was pretty sure they were funny,” Mindy told me with a shrug. “But now I just don’t know. I think maybe they just didn’t get the joke.”

    “What is it with you West county people?” Karen asked. “Not getting jokes that even a three year old can understand. Is something in the water out there affecting your brains?”

    “Karen!” Mindy admonished.

    “Hey, I’m just sayin’,” Karen replied with a shrug. “So… You want me to shoot ’em for you?”

    I still don’t know if Mindy has heard back from any more of her friends, and I haven’t seen any news reports featuring Karen barricaded in her chair with a gun, so I’m pretty sure things are okay. Still, I hope Mindy remembers to let me know if she does hear any more from her funny friends.

    I suppose it all depends on that West county water.

    More to come…

    Murv

  • E K And The Evil Canned Goods…

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    So here’s the thing… Our kid has an addiction. It’s pretty severe, and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it.  No amount of threatening to take her Nintendo DS away, or confining her to her room has any effect whatsoever. We’ve considered therapy, but it seems our insurance won’t cover it. Yes… It’s that horrible addiction.

    Our child is a fruitaholic.

    Canned FruitNow, in order to feed the child’s habit, I am forced to make frequent trips to the local supermarket. You see, she goes through fresh fruit faster than it can… well… become not fresh.

    Bunch of bananas? Gone. Bag of apples? Gone. Bag of oranges? Gone… And right on down the line. In fact, up until recently the only thing of a fruit orientation I have been able to bring home that didn’t immediately disappear is grapefruit. As it happens, I love grapefruit. Problem is, now the kid does too. My only saving grace at this point is she likes it supremed (meaning, the bitter, tough, membrane removed,) just like I do, but she hasn’t quite figured out how to accomplish that just yet. Of course, that just means I get stuck doing it for her…

    But, let’s not get too far off track. This is, after all, a story about E K.

    You see, since the offspring goes through fruit faster than a bad case of blight, we tend to keep canned fruit around as well. Of course, being the health conscious folks we are, we go for the no sugar added, packed in natural juices sort of canned fruit. It still isn’t as good as fresh fruit, but it’s a damn sight better than all that heavy syrup or aspartame.

    And so, this brings us around to E K.

    It had only been about 24 hours since my “Day Of Retribution” for the “Gimme Mai Shooz” blog entry. I was now using a walker to hold myself up in my three-fourths body cast, while dragging an IV stand around with me, and having my dressings changed hourly.  Obviously, I wasn’t moving very fast. Unfortunately, the offspring was experiencing one of her sudden needs for fruit, and the little monkey had already consumed all of the fresh produce in the house. (On a side note, I wish I had her metabolism. I drink a cup of black coffee and put on 3 pounds. She eats a bag of oranges and it’s all good. *sigh* )

    But, I digress again…

    The kid needed some fruit and though we were all out of fresh, we had some canned stuff in the cabinet. Since my nurse, Brunhilda, had already left for the day, I had no one to help me situate all the tubes and wires from the life support equipment attached to my walker, so I was moving exceptionally slow. In an uncharacteristic fit of pity, E K told me she would take care of it, and then darted off to the kitchen.

    Well, you know how E K is in the kitchen. I’ve told you all before… So, suffice it to say, I just continued shuffling my way through the house in that direction. Something in the back of my head told me that it was the right thing to do.

    Since turtles were lumbering past me like little green, hardtop Porche 911’s , it took me a while to get to the doorway. I wasn’t really surprised when I scooted around the corner to find E K  struggling with a can of fruit. The same can of fruit she had been struggling with for several minutes, and the can was apparently winning.

    “What’s the hold up?” I asked. “The offspring is in there eating the Ficus.”

    E K shot me one of those looks that was a mix of, “help me, it’s not my fault, shut up, damn you, my hero, help me, if you say anything I’ll kick that walker right out from under you and dance on your head!, help me dammit!, go away dammit! Gaaahahhhhahahhhh!!!“.

    Yeah, I know… That’s an awful lot to get from a single glance, but she can be pretty damned expressive when she wants to be. I think it’s the red hair and the blue eyes that do it.

    I didn’t say anything, lest I end up back in the hospital. I simply shuffled over to the island and watched as she went back to struggling with a can of sliced pears and a manual can opener. After several more languid moments of The Evil One attempting to massacre the top of the tin receptacle she let out a frustrated sigh, plonked the can opener down on the counter, then slid the can over to me. She stuttered, “I… well… I did…” Then she pointed at the can and let out another exasperated huff.Can Opener

    I looked at the can.

    Then I looked at her.

    Then I looked at the can.

    Then I looked at her.

    She stared at me with the whole, “Don’t make me kill you” expression on her face. Then, just to be certain I understood, she said, “Don’t make me kill you.”

    Balancing myself with the walker, I reached out, picked up the can, then slipped my finger through the pull tab on top and peeled the lid open. Yeah… You read that correctly. E K was trying to open a pull tab can with a can opener. In her defense it had been a long day, and she had a lot of things going on that were keeping her a bit distracted in the brainpan. Still… it was a pull tab can and she was gouging the living hell out of it with a can opener. There was humor there. Bizarre, laugh out loud humor.

    But, I knew better. I didn’t laugh out loud. No, I was good. For a few seconds anyway. You see, as I sat the can back on counter I looked at her and said, “You know, this is blog material, right?”

    She smirked, then began filling a bowl for the offspring. That was an imperative since the child was about to eat all of our house plants. As she spooned sliced pears into a dish she mumbled, “That’s just mean.”

    “Yeah,” I acknowledged. “Maybe… But you have to admit, it’s funny.”

    “No, it’s just mean,” she replied, then added, “But nowhere near as mean as I’m going to be if you blog about this…”

    I have Brunhilda’s number on speed dial, and the medical supply place is going to leave the life support equipment here on sort of a semi-permanent rental basis, just in case.

    I wonder if they have free Wi-Fi at the hospital?

    More to come…

    Murv