BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Someone is about to get a serious head stomping from The Evil Redhead, and for a change it’s not me.

Were I the impending “stompee” I’d be pretty concerned, because I’m willing to bet hard cash that no safe word known to man or E K will make her stop until she’s completely satisfied her blood lust.

But, allow me to back up just a second and explain…

You see, while her supreme evilness is perfectly willing to hand out a sound beating at the drop of a hat, there are certain times when she’s not just willing, she’s flat out chomping at the bit to hurt someone. Whenever this occurs it’s not just some random someone either. She usually has a target in mind. In point of fact, the target is always he who angered her to the point of the bloodlust in the first place. (I should point out that I said “he” because it always seems to be a male who pushes her over the edge.)

So, there we were the other day, getting ready to head out to the grocery store. It just so happened that it was a Friday. The O-spring was off from school due to teacher conferences so E K took one of her closely guarded and carefully doled out vacation days in order to spend time with family – that being the O-spring and me.

She had no more stuck her key into the ignition of the Evil Mobile than her cell phone began to chirp. She pulled it from her belt, perused the screen, then her face twisted into a perplexed mask. She flipped open the device and placed it against her ear.

“This is Kat,” she said.

After a brief pause she replied, “Oh, Hi Customer X, how are you?”

She listened for a moment and exchanged a few more pleasantries before getting down to business.

Now, I need to point out to you that E K takes her job as a Field Service Engineer very seriously. Her accounts and pet clients are extremely important to her and she is probably one of the most conscientious technicians out there, not to mention one of the best in the whole country, period. So, if anyone does anything to screw up one of her accounts, she turns into a redheaded Terminatrix.

I’ll be back… Faster pussycat, kill, kill! Hasta la vista, asshole… Yeah, the whole nine yards… Further proof that one should never piss off the E K unless a death wish is involved.

So, back to the story…

I watched her face as she listened to the customer on the other end of the line. With each passing second her expression became more and more drawn with a mix of incredulity and anger.

Finally she yelped, “He WHAT?”

Before I knew it she was snapping her fingers in front of my face and pointing to what she calls her “tin can” – a metal clipboard with a storage compartment for service tickets and the like.

Of course, not wanting to get beaten to death myself on this particular afternoon, I scrambled to hand it to her. She flipped it open, dug around, then provided the customer on the other end of the line with a phone number, all while apologizing profusely for someone else’s massive screwup. When all was done and she had bid the customer farewell, she sat in the driver’s seat with a frown on her face and fiery glare in her ice blue eyes.

Taking my life into my own hands I asked in a near whisper, “Something wrong?”

“When you pack my lunch on Monday morning,” she instructed with a hot grumble in her voice. “Make sure you also pack my black stiletto pumps – the really sharp ones. Also, a pair of vise grips, a baseball bat, a gag, a roll of duct tape, and a propane torch. Is that understood, lackey?”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied. “Mind if I ask why?”

Her anger seemed to be turning into a cold rage and I could see in her eyes that she was plotting someone’s demise.

My wife replied in a cold, even tone. “Apparently going-to-wish-he-were-dead-coworker gave one of my pet accounts a number for XYZ Printer Tech Support.”

“That’s a problem?” I asked sheepishly.

She growled. “It is when the number he gave them turns out to be a Phone Sex Service!“

All I could think of to say was, “Oh.”

She sat in silence for another minute, then started the Evil Mobile and backed out of the driveway. We were halfway to our intended destination when the Redhead turned to me and asked, “Lackey! Do you happen to know where the closest farm supply store is around here?”

“I think so, why?”

“Because I’ve decided the vise grips aren’t going to be quite enough for what I have planned. I’m going to need a sheep castrator too.”

Yep… Someone is gonna be havin’ a realllllly bad day, and it ain’t me… Just to make things easier for her, I think I’ll pack her stun gun too. And an extra roll of duct tape, just in case.

Oh, and if you are looking for a tech job, you might want to check the want ads the next day. E K is probably going to need a new co-worker…

A note of caution though – Make sure you don’t screw up, because she not only bought a sheep castrator at the farm supply, she also picked up the biggest damn cattle prod I’ve ever seen, and an entire case of batteries…

More to come…

Murv

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?”

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?”

“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