BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

So there I was, just minding my own business. (Those of you who know me are already aware that I do that quite a bit... But, then, you are also well aware that I have a tendency to entertain myself a lot too…)

Seriously. I really was minding my own business. I wouldn’t lie about something like that…

In fact, as I recall it was around 4:45 PM and I was fixing dinner. You see, if I don’t have dinner on the table at precisely 5:30 PM when E K arrives home, well then she does horrible and terrible things to me, then sells tapes of it on the internet. But, that’s another blog, and probably really isn’t one that would be age appropriate for the younger readers. (Oh, and I’m just kidding about the tapes on the internet part. Really… I am… It was a joke…)

You know… Come to think of it, none of my blogs are really age appropriate are they? No matter what the age…

Hmm…

Be that as it may, I’ve already started so there really isn’t much I can do.  Once I begin a story I have to tell it to its conclusion or my medulla oblongata seizes up… And, as you well know if your medulla oblongata freezes up on you things can get a bit messy since it controls all those autonomic functions and such.

So anyway… There I was, minding my own business and fixing dinner, while at the same time keeping an eye on the clock and an ear out for the sound of a car in the driveway. Why? So that I would be sure to meet E K at the door with her Tall Vodka-Tonic of course. (The E K Vodka-Tonic: Five ice cubes, 1/8 of a fresh lime – squeezed over said cubes – followed by three fingers of Premium to Average Vodka, [whatever we have at the time] – straight from the freezer – And topped with Vess tonic to fill the glass within 1/4 inch of the rim. Never shaken. NEVER… Stirred only, and it must only be stirred 3 1/2 revolutions counter-clockwise with a red plastic chopstick. She’s very specific about her drinks… Or else… Well, you know…)

So… I was fixing dinner, keeping an eye on the clock, listening for a car, and preparing to slice a fresh lime just at the last moment so that it wouldn’t have too much time to oxidize and all that jazz… Like I said in the beginning, just minding my own business, and that’s when it happened.

“What happened?” you ask… I’m glad you did. If you hadn’t I might have seen another “chicken” as one of my readers says, and we’d be off down a different trail yet again… (I love that whole “chicken” reference, by the way…)

So, anyway, what happened is that the phone rang.

I realize this probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to some of you, but you see, I despise the telephone. It is there for emergencies and that’s pretty much it in my opinion. But, E K insists that we have one so we do. Hey, what can I do about it? I’m just the chef / bartender / waiter / doormat guy…

Well, since you can never be exactly sure what you might end up dealing with on the phone I put the paring knife aside and abandoned the citrus surgery for the moment, then went over to the clamoring device. The caller I D box hanging on the wall beside it read, “NOT AVAILABLE”…

Uh-huh. Yeah… Right.

It’s been my personal experience that if the number is “NOT AVAILABLE” the person at the other end is most likely a telemarketer and they have the Caller I D blocked. However, I have to admit that isn’t always the case… In something like .01% of the unavailable number type calls there’s been a malfunction of sorts and the ID box simply cannot decipher the signal. When that happens you have no idea who is at the other end. It could be a telemarketer as one would suspect… It could be Ed McMahon calling to tell you that you’ve won some kind of sweepstakes… It could be your Great Aunt Gertrude wanting to hit you up to bail her out jail after she got into a brawl at no limit Bingo… Or, it could even be E K. And, well, you don’t ignore The E K when she calls, if you know what I’m saying… I mean, after all, she could be feeling magnanimous and might be calling to let me know she’s running early, in which case I would need to hop to making that drink right away. Or, maybe that she’s running late, in which case I’d need to adjust my timing on that drink so that the ice wouldn’t be too melty… If her drink is watered down, well… You know. Last time I let that happen I was in the hospital for a week…

Therefore, all of the above was rushing through my brain as I stared at the caller I D. As you can imagine, having that much to think about all at once hurt quite a bit. But, truth be told it really didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that I needed to answer the damn thing just to be sure.

So, I did.

“Hello?” I said as I put the handset up against my ear.

The phone went click… Click… Then I heard a female voice say, “Good evening, Mister Kat?“

“Ummm, no,” I replied. “Mister Sellars.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I was trying to reach Miz Evil Kat.”

“This is her husband, can I help you?”

“Oh, good evening sir. Is your name on her [insert fancy department store name here] charge account?”

“Nope. I can’t say that it is.”

“Then I would really need to speak with her.”

“Well, I’m afraid she’s not here right now,” I replied.

At this point I really had to give this young lady an E for effort, because  this is when most telemarketers just hang up in my ear. Instead, she persevered with, “No problem. Is there a particular time that would be good to reach your wife?”

Now, I need to give you some background. You see, E K is no bigger a fan of talking on the phone than I am, which is one of the reasons I find it so perplexing that she insist we have one of the silly things. But, be that as it may, I knew damn well she wasn’t going to want to speak to this young lady about Ginseng Tea, Credit Protection that guarantees you absolutely nothing other than you have to pay for it monthly, or even a special VIP invite to  the Flying Polish Grandmothers for Pagan Babies Day sale. By the same token,  however, I certainly understood that the poor little gal on the other end of the talkie-talkie thingy was just doing her job, so I couldn’t find it in my heart to be overtly rude to her. I mean, after all, it’s not like she called during dinner, or during an episode of N C I S or something else equally unforgivable…

Still, y’all know how I am. I certainly couldn’t pass up an opportunity to entertain myself…

“Well, I’m not exactly sure,” I said cryptically, paused for effect, then added, “You see, she’s out of the country right now.”

This bubbly young telemarketer had to be new on the job because she was just too damned cheerful for her own good. Upon hearing my reply she exclaimed, “Oh, how nice! Is she on vacation?”

“Nope,” I replied. “It’s work related. At least, I think it is.”

She fell silent for a second. Now I really had her curiosity piqued, “Uhm… Uh… You think it is?” she finally ventured.

“Yeah,” I replied with an audible shrug in my voice. “She really isn’t allowed to tell me anything about what she’s doing until after the fact. And sometimes not even then. It all just depends on how classified it is.”

“Classified?” she repeated, her voice brimming over with confusion.

“Well yeah, it’s all kind of hush hush you know,” I said, lining up the sights so I could move in for the kill. “For instance, sometimes it’s just something simple like stealing sensitive documents from a hostile country and  bringing them back to the United States, and other times it’s a little more involved… Like assassinating some whacked out dictator who’s trying to get his hands on a nuclear missile or something… I never really know what she’s been up to until she turns up back here at home.”

“I’m sorry…” she said, her voice taking on an incredulous tone. “I thought I just heard you say, assassinate?”

“You did,” I answered in earnest. “Killing people is her specialty. In fact, I once saw her  take out 11 really bad ass guys in a biker bar with nothing but her high heels, a piece of chewing gum, and a used cocktail napkin – and she did it all by herself… No help at all… Took her less than a minute… Of course, I had to buy her a new pair of shoes afterward because she couldn’t get the blood stains out of the leather… But, I’m here to tell you it was just plain amazing to watch. She’s like the female MacGyver of assassination or something. Around the office they just call her MacBitchver. The funny thing is, she actually does carry a Swiss Army Knife in her purse. Is that ironic or what?”

A stunned silence filled the earpiece. The only thing that surprised me about it was that the young woman hadn’t yet hung up in my ear.

Since I still had an audience, I continued. “Oh, please don’t misunderstand. She doesn’t just go around killing people without permission. She’s a deep cover operative for the N S A and it’s her job. She actually has a license to kill and a permit to torture. It even has her picture on it so she can use it as a government issued I D in the security line at the airport, which is kinda cool because they rush her right through and all. Of course, ever since nine-eleven they’ve kept her pretty busy doing… Well… You know… Whatever needs to be done to keep the country safe, if you get my meaning.”

I could still hear the young woman breathing at the other end of the phone, but a quick glance at the clock told me it was getting close to time for me to pull the vodka out of the freezer in preparation for the Femme Fatale in question’s arrival.

In a bid to wrap things up I added, “But, you know, if I happen to hear from her in between ops or something, I’ll be glad to let her know you called…”

“Uhm,” the girl finally said. “So, you don’t know when she’s going to be back in the country?”

Obviously, I had a live one on the other end and I had to stifle a laugh. Adopting as serious a tone as I could manage I replied, “Nope… I really never know until she just shows up here at home. But as long as I haven’t received one of those letters telling me she’s been disavowed and all that jazz,  I just make sure I don’t give away any of her stuff and we’re all good.”

I’m fairly certain we’ve never had another call from that particular outfit… If we eventually do, I’ll be sure to let double naught E Kay loose on them.  I’ll just make sure I have a drink waiting for her when she gets back from her secret mission… Of course, after she’s had to go all Jack (Jacquelyn?) Bauer on folks, she usually wants a Cranberry Martini instead of the old standby Vodka-Tonic…

…But she absolutely insists that those be shaken, not stirred…

More to come…

Murv

(… PS. In case you didn’t notice the scrolling info on the embedded player, and you are wracking your brain trying to place the origin of the Secret Agent Evil Kat Theme Song, it’s the main title music from The Girl From U.N.C.L.E*… [Composed by the late Jerry Goldsmith and arranged by Dave Grusin]… Of course, if you’re an old fart like me, you probably already knew that. Or knew it, forgot it, and needed a memory jog. Either way, there you have it.)

* U.N.C.L.E. – United Network Command for Law and Enforcement

(Yeah… I’m a geek. Wanna make something of it? Just remember, I’ll tell E K and you really don’t want me to have to take her shoe shopping again… )

Part 7 of 12

Continued From: Mahwage: Mobile Bachelor Party…

… Morning arrived way too damn early that particular October 31st. I mean, I know morning pretty much always arrives early, which is part of its job description as “morning” after all. But on that one Saturday in 1987, I am firmly convinced that it arrived several hours ahead of  its regular schedule. Hangover aside, I’m telling you, someone was screwing with the fabric of time, probably just to f*ck with me personally…

You just watch… Some physicist will eventually figure out that when they first switched on that new Large Hadron Collider, a minuscule temporal ripple shot backward through the space-time continuum and completely f*cked up the clocks on October 31st, 1987. Mark my words, it’ll come out someday…

For the record, I really believe this. Well… Not really… But you have to admit it sounds good…

But, let’s move on…

Yeah, I was hung over. I was hung over like nobody’s business. In fact, I have not been that hung over again since that day, nor do I believe I was ever that hung over prior to that day. I was H U N G O V E R with a capital everything… Shoot me now. End my misery. Oh toilet bowl, you are my only friend… Whatever God is up there listening to me, I promise I’ll never do it again… Yeah. That hung over.

And E K had absolutely no sympathy for me whatsoever… The Bitch!

Now I suddenly knew what all those people at ComputerTrend were talking about. My bride-to-be was just plain heartless…

Okay, again, not really. And I’m just joking about the “bitch” thing… Really…  I am. Just don’t tell her I said it, okay? Good… Now, the truth is, looking back on the situation I can certainly understand her lack of sympathy… And,  in reality I could even understand it back then too, even as I hugged the porcelain and told it all about my friend Ralph… I mean,  after all, I had done it to myself… But, of course, that didn’t make me whine any less…

And then to make matters worse, (as if they weren’t bad enough already), there were these things called Belly Bombers churning around in my gut… We will just skip any details surrounding my ingesting of those evil little burgers, (which, to this day, I still ingest), or more accurately my inevitable expulsion thereof… Suffice it to say, the throne room was my kingdom for quite some time that morning, and much air freshener was sprayed from flowery painted aerosol cans…

Once I managed to get myself cleaned up and my eyeballs moved back to the proper side of my face, (although they still weren’t actually working properly, and kind of had the whole overused teabag sort of feeling for the rest of the day,) I set about helping the lovely, though miffed, E K set things up for the evening. Of course, one of my duties was cooking, so I managed to stay out of her way some of the time by doing just that. I had prepared the sauce for the veal parmigiana a couple of days ahead of time, the ham was already cooked, and my soon-to-be mother-in-law was handling the apple-rice curry, so most of the prep work had been done…  It really just came down to a bit of frying, heating, assembling, and arranging in the chafing dishes.

Sometime around early afternoon, E K was going through her mental checklist to make sure we hadn’t missed anything too important in the grand scheme of the evening. As she rattled things off, I answered check, yo, yeah, or whatever response was warranted for each thing. Eventually she came to an item for which I had no answer, therefore I remained silent…

After  a handful of heartbeats, assuming I had not heard her, she asked again, “Your suit?”

And again, I remained silent…

Assuming I had gone temporarily deaf, my soon-to-be-wife raised her voice and queried once more, “Murv? What about your suit?”

Finally, after a bit more awkward silence, I cleared my throat, hemmed and hawed, then replied, “Uhm… I have sport coats. I don’t have a suit.”

At this juncture E K was looking at me like I was a puppy who had just left a big piddle puddle on the carpet for the 37 thousandth time. I wasn’t quite sure what she was going to rub my nose in, but I could clearly see that it was coming.

“You don’t have a suit?” she asked.

“Uhm… No,” I replied.

“We’re getting married in a few hours. What were you planning to wear?”

“Uhm… I dunno.”

I knew that was the wrong answer. Hell, most of the time even I won’t accept it as a valid answer unless I really and truly believe the “answerer” doesn’t actually know, in which case I generally don’t even bother to ask in the first place.  E K didn’t want to accept it either, but by this point she knew that her soon-to-be-husband was pretty much a hopeless case, at least in his present condition.

“Okay, come on,” she announced in a huff as she snatched up her keys and purse, then all but took me by the hand and led me out the door.

Now, at this point in the story, I have a question for all of you… Were any of you folks aware that unless you spend right around enough to buy a compact car, it is impossible to purchase a suit and have it altered the same day? You were? Well, it came as a shock to me. I figured what with all those sewing machines and stuff they could at least do a nip here and a tuck there… You know, just enough to make it presentable for the evening.

Well obviously, such services were nowhere within our budget. And, what with me having Basset Hound legs and Barney Rubble arms, the suits we found on the rack were definitely going to need a bit of a touch up. We finally found something on sale, at a decent price, that E K approved after doing the reverse Pretty Woman scenario with me. (Once again, it is my contention that the scriptwriters had to have been in St. Louis and witnessed the Dillard’s shopping spree, because we did this long before the movie…)

But, since I’m not going to get any royalties, I suppose I should move on… But, you know, I’m just sayin’… Yeah, okay… I know… Digressing again… Back to the story…

So, with new suit in hand, even though the pant legs  and arms of the jacket were 49 feet long, we raced back home. The wedding was scheduled to take place right there in our living room at 6 PM.  At this point, we were only a scant few hours from achieving critical mass… But, while I now had something to wear, my new fancy duds were pretty much going to make me look like Tom Hanks, (still not speaking to him, by the way,) from the end of Big. (given that said movie didn’t hit the screen until 1988,  this is yet another flick that obviously stole a scenario from my life… Damn, I should be wealthy off the residuals by this point…)

Back to the story again…

Anyhow, in my way of thinking, there was no real reason to worry about my oversized Sunday go to meetin’ suit. Why? Because E K happens to be an A1 seamstress, and I knew it. In fact, she used to make all her own clothes and had even considered making her wedding dress, had there been enough time between all the rehabbing, cleaning, running around, working, cooking, etc… (obviously there wasn’t… enough time, that is… hence the whole Kmart® dress thing… but like I said, she was flat out gorgeous anyway, off the rack  Kmart® togs or not…)

But, as we well know, my way of thinking isn’t always on the same page as the rest of the world’s, and in particular, E K’s… You see, I don’t sew. I mean, I can darn a sock, but when I once tried to really, really sew something clothing wise with actual sleeves and such, it pretty much came out as a misshapen pile of fabric with random threads hanging all over it. Therefore, it hadn’t occurred to me that there was no time to actually hem the pants, tack up the jacket’s sleeves, etc.

Of course, my dear E K knew this, and simply patted me on the head with a sad look of pity in her eyes. Still, we had a wedding on the near horizon, so she continued on undaunted without threading a single needle. She went to the toolbox, pulled out a roll of double stick tape, warmed up the iron so she could make a few creases, and there you go… Taped and tailored… Just like downtown.

And, you know what? That suit was still hemmed and altered with double stick tape when I finally gave it away to Goodwill, and it looked just fine. (Yeah, I finally gave it away, very recently, in fact. Yes, there was some sentimental attachment there, but it was no longer in style and I would never fit into it again, no matter what. I can only lose just so much weight…)

So… there we were. I had a suit, E K had a dress, the food was just about done, and we even had some fancy luminaries E K had made to line the sidewalk and porch. All systems were go, people would be arriving soon, and the clock was ticking as it counted down to the climactic zero-hour…

You know, I wonder if those wingnuts over at “24” stole that one from me too…

More to come…

Murv

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