BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Part 9 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: Clink! Clank! Oh, Murv!

Apparently, I perform well under pressure, even when it comes to mathematics…

Yes… The ring was exactly, and I do mean exactly, where my advanced calculations had said it would be. I didn’t even have to get dirty looking for it. I simply stood on an upturned 5 gallon bucket, removed two screws from a vent cover on the duct work, and there it was, winking at me in the dim light as if to say, “Whee! That was fun, let’s do it again!“

Needless to say, I ignored the ring’s request, replaced the vent cover, and returned upstairs. I also made it a point to show my mother-in-law the ring so that she would know the crisis had been averted, and more importantly, that I was not nearly as big an idiot as she imagined me to be. To this day I’m not really sure she was convinced…

Oh, and before I go any further I need to address a couple of things…

First, my apologies to Z Z Top for snagging one of their song titles for this blog entry. But, I think you’ll see why I did it if you keep reading…

Second, if you look closely at the picture above and on the right, you will notice that E K appears to have a grin on her face… In fact, it is something almost resembling a laugh. Well, that’s because it is. A laugh, I mean. Although you can’t see my face in this photo, rest assured, I was desperately trying to stifle a guffaw myself. It seems our rings were in a mood that evening. Not only had E Kay’s wedding band taken an unscheduled excursion through the HVAC duct work, we  even had ourselves another “ring mishap” right smack in the middle of the ceremony. Scott, (visible on the right), had handed me E Kay’s ring. Erin (remember Erin?) had handed E K my ring. Both of us, at his behest, had handed the respective rings to E Kay’s father, (the guy in front of us performing the ceremony), so that he could bless them… When he handed them back to us,  each at separate times as the ceremony called for, somehow I ended up with my own ring to slide onto Kat’s finger. Well, my ring being larger, obviously, this wasn’t that much of an issue. However, as the logical progression continued, moments later E K ended up with her own ring to place  on my finger and we tried desperately to make a surreptitious swap without letting on, but ended up getting tickled…

But, let’s step a few minutes back in time… (Yeah, don’t you wish you could do that for real? Me too.)

So, here we are, instantly back in the recent past… Well, it was recent past then… Now it is… Well, you know what I mean…

At this point I have recovered the fugitive wedding ring and I am feeling fairly proud of myself over such a grand accomplishment. However, since the clock didn’t stop during the mini crisis, we are at T minus 15 at this point… E K is still in the bedroom making herself too gorgeous for words, or as has been my personal contention for years, desperately trying to pry open the window that had been painted shut by the previous owners in order to make her escape. She maintains that my theory simply is not true, but when we went to replace that window during our continued  remodel several months later, I found claw-like fingernail gouges in the woodwork that looked suspiciously like they had been made by a human being with petite little feminine hands. From all appearances they seemed to have been made while she was attempting to dig her way through the wall.

With evidence like that, you tell me… What would you think?

But yeah, I digress…

We were coming up on zero-hour and fast. People had been arriving for several minutes, and our tiny house was now full, and even overflowing onto the front porch. In fact, it became obvious that there was a bit of an exodus occurring right before my eyes. It was at this particular point when I realized that I had started to sweat more than just a little. At first I thought it was simply because I was the groom and it was my job to sweat profusely immediately prior to the ceremony, however it was soon brought to my attention that everyone else was sweating too. Given that they weren’t standing in my shoes, there had to be something else going on…

You see, as I outlined in the earlier installment, “Mahwage: The Wedding Suit,” not only had the 2008 startup of the Large Hadron Collider screwed with the fabric of time and space, effectively f*cking up clocks on 10/31/87, apparently it had also temporarily shifted the entire planet on its axis, returning us from the beautiful fall weather we had been experiencing, (since, after all, it was autumn), to something more closely resembling mid-summer.

Yes, what I am saying is that  it was unseasonably warm… Way, way unseasonably warm. And when combined with all those bodies milling about in an enclosed area, as well as a half dozen medium-sized cans of Sterno flaming away beneath chafing dishes, along with a couple of crock pots set on high… well, it was just plain sweltering in the house. Not a problem.  Easy to fix. I would just turn on the A C…

… Uh-huh… Yeah… Problem…

And said problem is yet another reason why we paid way too much for our “fixer upper”. I slid the switch on the thermostat, and the A C clicked on. It then proceeded to make a groaning noise, followed by a clank, punctuated by a sputter, underlined by a screech, and then  when it was fully satisfied with itself, the damn thing settled in to a loud, not quite right sounding whirr. All well and fine, except that whirring was pretty much all it was good for at that point. Uh-huh… The compressor was all but shot, and the coil was hot on its heels… And, while that pun wasn’t intended, it is entirely accurate… The A C was blowing hot air…

But, even though the air flowing from the vents felt more like the product of the furnace than the A C, at least now it was moving…  Sorta… Well, a little bit…

So, in a last ditch effort to adjust the comfort level, we ran around the house and pried open every window we could so as to assist in the circulation. There were still more people coming for the reception following the ceremony proper, so heat exchanging was definitely going to be an issue. This process took a little elbow grease, because remember, the previous owners had been very good about painting the windows shut for us. While that thought was awfully kind of them, I was less than excited about it right then…

But, let’s move on to those stockings…

I make absolutely no secret of the fact that I am not a “boob man”. This is probably one of the reasons Erin, (remember Erin? By the way, is anyone sensing an “Erin” theme here yet?) Anyway, this is probably why Erin and her most bodacious and prominent chest didn’t enrapture me as it had done for the other red-blooded males back at ComputerTrend. I mean, nothing against breasts… They’re nice… Even fun to play with now and again… (No, I never played with Erin’s… Sheesh, you people…) But, to put it very simply they aren’t the physical feature that first attracts my attention when it comes to the appreciation of the female form… (As you can see, I am desperately trying to apply some political correctness to this part of my rambling, and failing miserably in the process, so I’m afraid I’ll just have to abandon the attempt…) The long and short of it is this… I’m a leg man. Nothing titillates, (yeah, odd word choice, considering), me more than a woman’s legs. I’m all about the whole stocking-encased, silky thigh, back of the knee, shapely calf, well-turned ankle appendage ending in a stiletto heeled pump…

Uhm… Excuse me just a moment…

…Okay, I’m back now…

What? I was getting more coffee… Jeez… First Erin, now this… Y’all are worse than me… Give me a break.

Okay, so let’s get back to the story… So, yeah, everyone has their turn-on’s, and shapely female legs are mine. So, my lovely bride, both knowing this fact and being in possession of a fantastic pair of legs, (yes, hers, not someone else’s), had picked out a pair of sexy, white, back-seamed stockings to go with her dress and high heels. Trust me… I was not complaining about this fact at all…

Now… I have to divert from the storyline once more in order to pass along a bit of pertinent information. E K was, at that time in her life, habitually late for everything. She still is, but to nowhere near the degree she was back then… Remember the part in an earlier installment about us annoying one another? Well, there’s one for you… As it happens, I’m habitually early. See the rub? I am pointing this out because much time has passed with all that A C mucking about and window opening handjive.

Therefore, much to my chagrin, we have now arrived at T plus 20 or so… Yeah, the mission profile has been altered and I didn’t get the memo.

And so, the tableau is set up thusly… E K is still in the bedroom. I am standing in the middle of the living room with all of our friends and family, doing the only thing I can think to do, which is shrugging my shoulders and shaking my head. My sister has already made a trip or two back to the bedroom to check on E K and has assured me that she is neither sick, nor has she escaped.

We continue to stand and/or sit, as the case may be, around the living room and stare at one another. Every now and then I would shrug once more and smile nervously. By now my best man, Scott, has punched me in the arm enough times that I am convinced I will be needing to head to the emergency room for an X-ray and cast once the ceremony is over… Got all that? Good, because here goes…

Finally, we heard the bedroom door click and swing open. A hush fell, almost like it would in an actual chapel. It must be something to do with “Bride Radar” or some such, you got me, all I know is it got real quiet, real fast… Anyway, from my vantage point I can see down the hallway and slowly, but surely, an absolute vision comes into view. E K was beyond stunning and my breath literally caught in my chest. However, since I realize full well that during this series I have gone on and on and on about how gorgeous  my wife is, in my eyes at the very least, I’ll try to refrain from doing so for a minute or two.

E K smiled and began walking toward me. I smiled back at her, and as she stepped into the living room her heels clacked across the hardwood floor, sharp and obvious in the hush that still gripped those in attendance. She glanced around at everyone and said in a shy voice, “Sorry… I guess we’re ready now.” I stepped quickly to the “altar,” (as seen in the first picture up top, the “altar” was the yet unfinished window at the South end of the living room.)

My plan, of course, was to wait for my lovely bride to make her complete entrance and allow her to be the center of attention for a moment, just like it is supposed to happen at a wedding. She picked up on the cue and ventured farther into the room as she walked slowly toward me.

I continued smiling at her, but noticed that her own smile was quickly fading. In fact, her eyes had grown wide and her face had begun to twist into a look of surprise, fear, consternation, concern, calculating thought, and about twelve other similar expressions… And, these bizarre looks were being displayed all at once. Without missing a single, dainty step, as if perfectly choreographed, she turned smoothly on her heel and continued her march in the complete opposite direction, making a sharp right turn into the hallway from whence she had come, as she called over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”

A pair of seconds later we heard the bedroom door open, and then quickly shut. We all looked around the room at one another, totally dumbfounded. This was the last thing anyone had expected, and it once again had me wondering if E K was trying to claw her way out the back window in a bid to seek freedom. Of course, customarily the groom is the one to get cold feet, but since we had already been setting a precedent throughout our entire relationship for re-enacting scenes from movies that hadn’t even been made yet, there was always the chance that this incident was going to be plucked from our lives and inserted into Runaway Bride.

For a moment, I considered sending my sister back to the bedroom with a bottle of scotch  and a tumbler. My hope was that a shot or two would bolster my maybe-soon-to-be-wife’s courage, but before I could set that plan into motion, Kathy reappeared, her smile now beaming as she once again muttered a quick “sorry about that,” and made her way through the assemblage to stand by my side.

It wasn’t until we were preparing for bed later that evening… Yes, later that evening… Not night, not the next morning, that evening… Trust me, we’ll get to the “why” in relation to that in just a bit. Anyway, it wasn’t until then that I found out what that whole little back and forth dance was all about. And, I only found out because my bride suddenly announced to me that she had lost all feeling in her legs…

You see, it’s like this… While me not having a suit was a major screw up…  I readily admit that… It seems I wasn’t the only one who was misfiring in the grey matter department. E K… Yes, E K, had screwed up too. When she purchased the stockings to go with her dress, she had thought she picked up a pair of thigh-highs, when in fact she had picked up stockings. As in stockings that require a garter belt. A garter belt which was still packed away in a box in the basement, because we had only just moved in and were woefully behind in unpacking due to the remodeling activities. So, even if she had asked me to retrieve the lacy accoutrement for her, I probably wouldn’t have been able to actually locate it amidst the boxes until sometime during the spring of 1994, which obviously would have been just a tad bit late. She knew this… Remember, like I said before, she’s a smart cookie…

So, in a MacGyverish gambit, she had attempted to make the sheer fabric stay in place with a bit of  cellophane tape… Unfortunately, by the time she made it less than a half dozen steps into the living room, the stockings began to fall, hence the sudden horrified look upon her face.

But, why had she lost the feeling in her legs? Well, here’s the thing… Her own personal lightning fast calculations in the face of an impending crisis had led her to the only solution available within the confines of the bedroom, and time allotted upon her hasty retreat… For the entire evening she had been holding up her stockings with heavy duty rubber bands wrapped around her thighs… Now, that’s what I call commitment to a cause, for you see, I happen to know my bride had other actual thigh high stockings in the bedroom. I know this because she used to buy Leggs stockings mail-order by the dozen. Now, I doubt if she had any that were white, although she may have. I don’t actually make a habit of inventorying my wife’s undergarments.  That would just be… Well… Weird… Harmless, but weird… Anyway,  my point here is that I’m willing to bet there were some in “nude,” or some other hosiery shade that would have worked just fine with her dress.

But of course, that’s my E K for you… Once she sets her mind to something you best stay out of her way, because she is going to see it through come hell, high water… Or even sagging stockings…

But, as I said, this little tidbit of information came to my attention much later in the evening… I’m afraid this story isn’t over quite yet…

More to come…

Murv

… NEXT: Mahwage: Trick Or Treat!

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

… NEXT: Mahwage: Clink! Clank! Oh, Murv!