BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Here’s the deal… I don’t lie so good.*

Well, let me qualify that… You see I don’t lie so good in person. I lie great on paper. Do it all the time. Hell, I’ve got 9 complete volumes of almost 100% pure fabrication available in bookstores with a 10^th on the way later this year. So, like I said, it’s the whole in person lying thing that doesn’t work out well for me.

And, I guess that’s why I simply could not believe I was getting away with it.

“Getting away with what?” you ask.

We’ll get to that in a bit… First I should warn you that we need to chase a random chicken or two in order set the table… Of course, you already knew that would happen, didn’t you?

Here’s the deal – I’ve given this whole lying thing a lot of thought. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was brought up to be truthful, and that’s exactly the kind of value system I am trying to instill in my offspring. But, after ruminating long and hard on the subject, I’ve concluded that there are two sub-classes of lie that are ethically permissible under particularly defined circumstances.

The first is kind of obvious – we all know that there is that occasional, proverbial “white lie” that gets told, even by the most honest person. Sometimes it’s a minor twist of words, and other times it could merely be a lie of omission – for example, kind of like when I didn’t tell E K she had forgotten to put the tuna in the tuna helper – (Young And In Lust… I mean, Love… 01/11/2009). Know what I mean? I “kinda lied” for the express purpose of saving her embarrassment. It was one of those untruths you have to use every now and then to simply avoid hurting someone’s feelings, and by default they come under the heading of tact. Therefore, if used properly they can be forgiven. Yeah… Basically “tact lies” are like “free lies”. No dogma or anything such as that attached, because it usually affects more good than harm. That’s what makes it a “white lie”. Of course, they are only sans dogma if you follow the rules.

Granted, even “tact lies” sometimes backfire, or even glance harmlessly off the target and fall by the wayside. If you let them spin out of control, however, they could detonate in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you never know who might get hurt, so you have to be careful. For instance, there are times when you might well be better off to just bite the bullet and tell Aunt Bernice that her “Famous Candied Turnip Upside Down Pickle Relish Tart” really isn’t a family favorite and you wish she’d stop serving it to you, especially since it sent everyone to the hospital emergency ward the last go around. But, you should always keep in mind that these are judgment calls. If you aren’t going to suffer any ill effects from said foodstuff, and you don’t want to make Aunt Bernice cry or anything such as that, it might be prudent to invoke the “tact lie”. There are times when you just need to say, “This is delicious,” choke it down and smile, then feed the remainder to the family pet while Auntie is out of the room.

But, this first classification really isn’t the issue here… Read on…

The second class of permissible deception is, of course, lies told in the commission of a practical joke. Now, I’m not talking about practical jokes like the kind the underwear model from “That 70’s Show” does on TV. I personally find those to be completely ridiculous. Therefore, it is important to remember that these lies are bound by even stricter regulations than “tact lies.” You see, with the “practical joke deception lie” the fun needs to be harmless. Yes, by its very nature said fun is going to be at the expense of someone else, however you need to be absolutely positive that they will be willing to pay that price. What I mean is, you simply have to be cognizant of whether or not the dupe / mark / “victim” is going to find the joke funny, or be hurt physically or emotionally. If either of the latter is going to be the case, then the fun isn’t really harmless, is it?

Now, the exception to this is a state of agitation we will call “momentarily miffed”. Generally, this is okay, in my book at least, primarily because my definition of the phrase is, “a split second of prime annoyance that immediately turns into laughter because the situation is just so damned funny.”

So, unless I have missed my guess, I think you’ve probably figured out by now that what I was amazed to be “getting away with” was a “practical joke deception lie”. If you haven’t picked up on that, start back at the beginning and read very slowly. If it still doesn’t dawn on you, simply drop me a line and I’ll send E K over to explain it. Note that if you choose the latter option you should be absolutely certain that your health insurance premiums are up to date, as E K can be somewhat intense with her explanations, especially if she thinks you are merely being stubborn or not paying attention.

So, now that we’ve fricasseed that chicken, let’s run over to the other side of the yard and chase that Rhode Island Red over there. Trust me, I’ll eventually get back around to the bucket of extra crispy I sat out on the table at the beginning. I always do…

I need to take this opportunity to point out that I’m not an actor.

First off, I don’t have the looks. But mostly, I simply don’t have the talent. It’s just one of those things. You either have it or you don’t. Once upon a time I actually did have it, but then I lost it at a very early age, somewhere along Purchase Parkway in Kentucky, but that’s not even a chicken, that’s an opossum, so we’ll follow it a different time.

Back to that acting thing – when I was in high school I was actually a member of the Drama Club. Mrs. Osthoff, our faculty advisor, was terrific. She made the whole process fun for everyone involved, no matter what the level of talent, and strived to make each student feel important. But, whenever time rolled around for us to do a school play, I was always the groomsman and never the groom. What I mean is, I was customarily tagged to be the “student director” instead of onstage talent. As far as any type of onstage part, if I was especially lucky I would be cast as the “only, and I mean only if everyone else is sick or dead, last resort understudy” for the least significant and smallest role in the play. Yeah… The likelihood of me seeing costume and makeup was actually less than me being able to get a date with a cheerleader. (Although, I did eventually marry one – okay E K likes to point out that she wasn’t a cheerleader, she was on the drill team – close enough in my book, so maybe the above wasn’t the best analogy…)

But, I digress…

Like I said, Mrs. Osthoff was good for making everyone feel important, so she painted a vivid picture of the necessity for a student director, and in doing so shored up my self-esteem. Still, I wasn’t exactly stupid. I also took it as a fine piece of anecdotal evidence that served to tell me I was never going to be hitchhiking to Hollywood and making a name for myself – at least, not on the silver screen.

However, as with many other rules, this one had an exception. In my case, it was radio. You see, as I’ve mentioned before our school had a student run radio station. Of course, the transmitter was low power so on a clear day if you had a high end stereo system, a kite attached to it by 1000 feet of 16 gauge braided copper wire, an entire 75 yard role of aluminum foil that was crumpled into a Buckminster Fullerine type of configuration and tied to the kite’s tail, then held your head cocked to the left with your tongue sticking out “just so,” you could actually tune in KRSH-FM to catch a program or two. But, this would only work while standing on top of the Chuck-A-Burger, which was positioned diagonally across the street from the school.

Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Truth is we had relatively solid broadcast range of about 1 mile, give or take. After that it started getting a bit dicey and a good FM antenna was definitely a must. But, I suppose I should move on. What I’m driving at is the fact that one of the things the drama club did in addition to the annual stage play was the re-creation of old “Shadow” radio plays. Yeah, “who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, yadda yadda…” That “shadow”. The funny thing is, whenever we would record a radio play, I seemed to suddenly come into my own.

What I mean by that is, I would be cast in a major role. In fact, I was always cast as the villain of the particular episode we were taping. I can still remember the first role I had – I was an aspiring mystery writer turned burgeoning, sociopathic, paranoid-schizophrenic almost serial killer.

Hm… That kind of explains some stuff, doesn’t it?

Still, what this illustrated was that I did in fact have some minor sort of acting props. Just not if you could actually see me. Of course, as years wore on and I learned more and more about body language and the like, so I suspect I’d be a bit better at it now than I was back then. Not that I have any intention of trying, mind you. I’m definitely still not an actor, especially in close quarters.

You see, I have been told that no matter what the timbre of my voice, the posture with which I stand, or the gestures I make – or even, don’t make – my eyes give me away. I’m not entirely sure what it is about my eyes that betray the fact that I am spinning a yarn or hiding a truth. I suppose it could be that they are brown, and the old adage says that having brown eyes means you are full of sh*t.  Who knows?

All I can say is that I was told this by a girlfriend way back when, so I took it to heart. Back before E K and I got together, I had a tendency to wear sunglasses – or at the very least, tinted lenses – constantly. This annoyed her because it made it hard for her to “read me”… But, back then, since I was worshiping her from afar, I didn’t want to risk her catching on to the fact that I had fallen for her.

Okay… Now that the table is set, is everyone ready for that bucket of extra crispy?

Good… So, I’m sure you are wondering just exactly what it is I was lying about.

Why, Tupperware, of course…

More to come…

Murv

… To be continued in – But, It Was Right Here…

* Yes, I know “so good” should be “very well.” Don’t make me repeat my disclaimer, because if you do I’m gonna send E K after you.

This is likely to be my final blog post. The end of an era, the sad and pitiful end to Brainpan Leakage and anything that has passed for humor in it over the last several years. I’m sure my loyal readers are now asking, “Why would you stop blogging, especially after going through all of the trouble of moving B L over here to WordPress and all that jazz?”

Well, it’s simple. Within a 24 hour period following the “deployment” of this particular post, I will probably be dead. Corpsified. X’s on the eyes. Pushin’ up daisies. Stiff as a board. Croaked. No longer among the living… Well, you get the picture. Just insert your preferred euphemism and sally forth… In lieu of flowers, send booze and cigars…

Now, I am sure you are wondering why it is that I figure I will be dead. Again, there’s a simple answer to that one. E K will be killing me. How she’ll do it is anyone’s guess. Gun, knife, running over me with her car, who knows… It’s probably a safe bet that it won’t be poison, since she doesn’t cook, but I suspect the rest of the methods are up for grabs. Of course, if she suddenly offers me a sammich, then I suppose it could be death by arsenic. But, I think that would be some long odds, because it would still involve use of the kitchen and once I’m croaked she won’t have anyone to do the dishes.  Still, take it from me… Knowing her like I do, I am certain my demise will be slow and painful, for me at least. I’m sure she’ll enjoy every minute of it. In any event, if you happen to be starting a pool on this, think outside the box. Remember, she’s evil, and extremely creative. Very convincing too. I’m sure she’ll have a perfectly reasonable explanation for the investigating authorities.

Yep… I can already hear the gears meshing and smell the wood burning as you all try to figure out why E K would want to kill me… Well, I keep telling you she’s evil, but y’all just don’t listen. And besides, you don’t live with me, so obviously you aren’t privy to a good portion of what could serve as her impetus… However, in this case all of that is really a moot point. The simple truth is, she will be committing blatant spousicide, (as I said earlier, probably only after gleefully subjecting me to some extreme and prolonged spousal torture), and it will be all because of the story I am about to tell.

You see, some time back when I was bouncing blog ideas off my dear and lovely, (figuratively, folks… I didn’t actually hit her with stuff… If I’d done that I’d already be dead)… But anyway, during one such conversation E K told me she liked my blogs when they made her look good. Anything where she came out on top and I was revealed as the bumbling klutz, worshiping her from my station at her feet was all right by her. As to the rest of it, her reaction was something along the line of, “Meh.”

Not surprising. Remember, she’s heard most of these stories before, and was even present for many of them…

Of course, I immediately pointed out that any time she appeared in my blogs, she was always portrayed as the beautiful, intelligent, crafty, and yes, overly evil,  heroine. That last part, of course, is merely truth in advertising. Furthermore, I reminded her that I was always painted as the complete doofus.

She cocked her head to the side, raised an eyebrow, frowned, tapped her foot in that evil “let me explain this again you moron” sort of fashion, then said, “Kmart?“

Yeah… In case the rest of you don’t recall this grandiose f*ckup on my part, during the “Mahwage” blog series I outed The Evil One as having purchased her wedding dress from Kmart. I paid for that… Or, I thought I had…  I even have the lash marks to prove it… But, apparently there’s some interest, or hidden principal, that I missed when I made out the check…

So… The long and short of it is this… If the Kmart thing was enough to get me long term punishment, the story I am about to tell is enough to get me tortured and killed. Count on it. Truth is, I may even qualify for the full William Wallace treatment, so don’t be surprised if I am drawn, quartered, and have my individual parts buried in landfills at the four corners of the earth.

So, again I am sure you are wondering why I am going to tell this tale if I already know doing so is equivalent to signing that proverbial death warrant? Man, y’all are just full of easy questions today… Are you taking pity on me or something?

Thanks… I guess…

Well, at any rate, the answer is once again, as I said, simple… Because it’s funny. Well, it’s funny to me. And to the few folks to whom I’ve told it to in secret, (but only after having them sign off on a non-disclosure agreement). Hopefully it will be funny enough for y’all that it will make up for my untimely corpsification. I guess we’ll find out.

On that note, the story you are about to hear is true. The names have not been changed because there is no innocence to be protected. Again, in lieu of flowers, send really good scotch, bourbon, and cigars to wherever E K buries me. I don’t know if they have liquor stores and smoke shops on the other side of the veil, so I want to be prepared…

Now, on with the crime…

Umpty-jillion years back… Okay, seriously, it was more like about a decade ago… E K and I had ourselves a wedding to attend. Not ours, someone else’s. It was for some good friends we had known for quite a while and were a part of our particular circle. Therefore, while we didn’t know everyone at the reception…you never do…our core group was there to help celebrate.

Now, going to a fancy wedding and reception at a fancy hotel pretty much means you shouldn’t show up in shorts and a t-shirt. Especially since this happened in January and there was snow on the ground. But, of course, those of you who know me are well aware that I do the whole shorts and a t-shirt thing year round. But, as usual, that’s not my point. What I’m trying to say is that we got ourselves all prettied up. I did the whole button down shirt, tie, slacks, nice blazer thing. E K, naturally, did the whole eye-popping killer dress thing with heels. And, I need to point out that since this was a fancy party deal and all, she wasn’t wearing everyday go-to-work shoes. She was prancing around on a shiny pair of CFMP’s… (For those of you who may be unfamiliar with that particular acronym, it stands for “Come F*ck Me Pumps“… Yeah… Bedroom shoes.) Now, before you shake your heads and mutter, “tisk-tisk,” I am not bringing this up just because I like seeing my wife in heels. We’ve already established that I do… However, this is actually a very important part of the story… After all, this post is titled “Gimme Mai Shooz…”

So… There we are at this party. I’m looking kinda okay… You know, about as silk purse as a sow’s ear can get once it’s cleaned up… E K is, of course, looking amazing, as always. The party is raging around us. Food is served, booze is flowing, and dancing is happening.

Now, at this point I have to give you a tiny bit of background… At this juncture, E K and I had been trying to start a family. There had been miscarriages involved, along with a whole lot of stress and urgency… I mean, we weren’t getting any younger, and the bell on The Evil One’s biological alarm clock had already been hammering out a deafening cacophony for a couple of years. But, at this point in time, after repeatedly trying and failing, we had finally taken our own advice and decided it was time to simply relax. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen. Enough said. Because of this, we didn’t even have to flip a coin that evening with regard to a designated driver. I told E K that since she had been putting herself under all this stress, and had been living in her own private, self-imposed “dry county” for several months, that I would take it easy on the drink and let her do the table dancing and lampshade wearing at this particular shindig.

She was all good with that…

One more important piece of background… In our youth, E K used to drink me under the table. Once I was there she would kick me repeatedly and use me as a footrest, but that’s a different story… But seriously, this tiny little, 100 pound when soaking wet, waifish doll, could pull a Marion Ravenwood and go shot for shot of hard liquor, then still be perfectly coherent and drinking when everyone else was passed out, or laid up in the hospital being detoxified (See: Raiders of the Lost Ark, bar scene in Nepal). It was truly a sight to see. But, as I said, that was in our youth… And, we weren’t exactly youthful anymore… We weren’t as un-youthful as we are now, but you get the point. On top of that, she was out of practice… See where I’m going?

So… Yeah. The Evil One came down with a severe case of the drunks. Now, for those of you who don’t know E K, there is only one way you can tell she has even been drinking, and that is the fact that she starts talking. You see, The Evil One is generally very reserved and quiet. Probably because inside the pretty head of hers she’s hatching evil plans against the world. But seriously, she really is a quiet and reserved type of person, especially in crowds. So, when you see her out on the dance floor, giggling and bouncing off the walls, it’s a good bet she’s had a drink or two… or three… or four.

But, as I have tried to illustrate above, an attack of gregariousness is pretty much it. She doesn’t get sloppy, falling down, toilet bowl hugging drunk. I’ve never seen her go that far… Well, until that night.

However, we aren’t there yet. You see, as the evening wore on and all was good. E K was flitting about, dancing, laughing, bouncing around, and just generally having a great time. It was wonderful to see her de-stressed for a change. But, as usual, all good things must come to an end. As expected, at umpteen-thirty in the morning the party reached its inevitable conclusion and everyone parted ways to head to their respective homes, us included.

I should have known right away that the booze bottles E K had tied to her tail were drained dry the minute we started out across the parking lot. Remember, I mentioned this was during the winter and it was cold outside. My dear and lovely, who freezes to death when the temperature drops below 70, pranced right out through the cold night in her slinky dress, coat over her arm, and completely unfazed. Obviously, her anti-freeze was working just fine.

Fortunately, it was a relatively short drive home, however, this was when things started going south. Anyone who has ever done any drinking to excess knows that there are two scenarios that come into play here. One is, if you’ve been sitting at a table tossing them back, once you stand up, it’s all over but the funeral. The other is, if you’ve been moving about like a crazy person while downing the booze, once you stop moving, it’s all over but yadda yadda.

Well, obviously, E K fell into category two. Now, fortunately there was no hurlage or any such grossness, but by the time we arrived home she was doing a lot of moaning and whenever she spoke it sounded like the language our daughter used to speak when she was around 18 months old, punctuated by an occasional, and perfectly understandable, “Oh sh*t.”

Now, I’m sure you are all wondering what’s so funny about this… Well… Nothing. That’s because this isn’t the funny part. This is just the set-up. You know how it works by now…

So, anyway, we get into the house, and while the walk from driveway to living room wasn’t exactly long, E K was ready to sit down. She plopped onto the couch and moaned some more. Being the good guy I am, I pulled her shoes off and propped her up so that the sofa would only spin at something near half speed. I figured I’d be sitting up with her for a bit so I took off my tie and started to get comfortable when she mumbled, “Ahm gomma gro banoom.”

Naturally, since it sounded like she had just told me she was going to explode, I said, “What?”

“Erm gon manna berf noom,” she replied.

Unfortunately, I had left my drunken E K to English dictionary in the car, so I simply stood there and puzzled over what she was trying to tell me. For a moment I thought maybe she was saying, “I’m gonna barf soon,” but she didn’t look particularly green around the gills, so I chalked that one down as a possibility, and continued to ponder.

With an exasperated sigh that was somewhat dangerous due to the fact that it could have been ignited by even a small spark, my rag doll wife mumbled once again, “Annem gimma froom.”

With that she rocked forward and pushed herself up off the sofa. With a quick twist she started forward and her eyes suddenly expanded to the size of salad plates. Right before my eyes, she collapsed downward as if she had just tripped over a curb. I jumped forward, caught her before she hit the floor, and settled her back on the couch.

Less than a minute later, and this time with no warning, she tried getting up again. She came to her feet, teetered, stepped forward, stepped back, then fell straight down onto the couch.

I laughed. Probably not the best idea, but hey, it was funny… But, things were about to get funnier…

She stood again, teetered back to front, then pitched forward a second time. And, once again I stepped in and caught her before she did a face plant on the hardwood.

“Ammen gimma badda froom..” she insisted, pointing past me and down the hallway. Or, at least that’s where I thought she was pointing.

Putting 2 and 2 together I surmised that she wanted to go to the bathroom, so I asked her, “Do you mean you want to go to the bathroom?”

Yeah, I know, obvious question, but I was tired.

She nodded, then her eyes got big again as she mumbled something a little more decipherable. “Ohm sit!”

I was still holding her up, so I hooked my arm tighter around her waist and tried to guide her around the coffee table. We made it exactly 1 and 1/2 steps before she teetered backwards and toppled onto the couch, nearly taking me with her.

She giggled. Then she giggled harder. Then she mumbled, “Ohm sit…” again.

I said, “Okay, let’s try this again.”

As I started to pull her up she raised her eyebrows and began to babble. “Gamma sous.”

“What?” I asked.

“Ganmanna souses.”

Again, like an idiot, I asked, “What?”

“Ginnama soons,” she replied a bit more adamantly.

I shook my head. “Honey, I don’t understand what you want.”

She let out an exasperated sigh, drew in a deep breath and tried to focus on me. With what was obviously a huge amount of effort  in order to form semi coherent speech, she demanded, “Gimme Mai Shooz!”

Well, having been drunk before I know how it is. You get attached to something, important or not, and you want to make sure you know where it is at all times. Be it a bottle cap, a swizzle stick, or even your shoes.

So, I turned around and plucked the pair of stiletto heeled pumps off the coffee table and handed them to her. She rocked a bit then pitched herself forward and tried desperately to fit the left shoe onto her right foot. In this case, however, it wasn’t so much that she was trying to put a shoe on the wrong foot, she wasn’t even able to match the shoe with real foot. It seems she was seeing several, so her aim was way off.

After watching this for a half minute or so, I knelt down and took the shoes from her hands and slipped them onto her feet. After all, it seemed important to her that her feet no longer be naked.

Once I had done this she mumbled something then gave me a nudge, which I interpreted to mean, “get out of my way you idiot.”

Apparently, my translation skills were getting better. As soon as I had stood and backed away, she pushed herself up and stood perfectly without even teetering. Then, without another word she pranced off to the bathroom in a perfectly straight line, no bob nor weave save for the sexy sway that afflicts a woman in high-heeled footwear.

I suppose it’s kind of like the Sid Caesar sight gag joke about the staggering drunk guy who can suddenly walk a straight line during an earthquake. In this case, however, instead of a natural disaster, apparently some form of female fashion physics is involved. I don’t have the necessary plugin to show the equation, suffice it to say, the answer to the variable seemed to be, if you get drunk while wearing high-heels, don’t take them off until you are  either sober or passed out.

And now, I need to go finish writing my Last Will and Testament…

More to come? (I guess that really depends on how merciful The Evil One decides to be…)

Murv

PS. For readers of the Rowan Gant saga… Did you ever wonder where I got the “drunken Felicity” scene in Never Burn A Witch? Well, now you know…

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